WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday, appearing to reignite his long-standing feud with the countrys intelligence agencies by belittling their assessments on Islamic State, North Korea and Iran.

In a series of posts, Trump claimed responsibility for key improvements while calling out his intelligence chiefs for being extremely passive and naive.

When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks, he wrote, using an acronym for the terror group. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.

When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

North Korea relationship is best it has ever been, he wrote of his efforts to engage with Pyongyang. Decent chance of Denuclearization...

....Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

And on Iran, he wrote intelligence officials, are wrong!

Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school! the president added.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

?A differing threat assessment

Trumps tweet-storm came just one day after his director of national intelligence, along with the directors of five other key intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI and NSA, delivered their annual Worldwide Threat Assessment to U.S. lawmakers.

In contrast to Trumps tweets, and other previous public statements, the picture painted by the intelligence chiefs was grim, warning the United States was facing a toxic mix of threats and is in danger of seeing its global influence wane as key adversaries, like Russia and China, position themselves to fill the resulting void.

US Intel Chiefs Warn Washington Risks Losing Friends, Influence U.S. intelligence chiefs are sounding alarms about an ever more perilous future for the United States, one in which the country is in danger of seeing its influence wane, its allies waiver and key adversaries team up to erode norms that once kept the country safe and the world more stable.Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, along with the leaders of five other top intelligence agencies, delivered the grim assessment Tuesday, unveiling their annual worldwide threats report for lawmakers on the U.S. intelligence chiefs are sounding alarms about an ever more perilous future for the United States, one in which the country is in danger of seeing its influence wane, its allies waiver and key adversaries team up to erode norms that once kept the country safe and the world more stable.Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, along with the leaders of five other top intelligence agencies, delivered the grim assessment Tuesday, unveiling their annual worldwide threats report for lawmakers on the

Their public, unclassified assessments on Islamic State, North Korea and Iran also stood in stark contrast to the presidents past assertions, for example from December, when Trump said, We have won against ISIS.  We have beaten them and we have beaten them badly.

FILE - Director of National Intelligence Daniel Co FILE - Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019. FILE - Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers Tuesday, while acknowledging the terror groups self-declared caliphate had been reduced to a few small villages in Syria, which would likely be liberated in a matter of weeks.

ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States, he warned. This terrorism threat is going to continue for some time.

On North Korea, Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel reiterated long-standing concerns that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite being willing to talk with the United States, is not truly ready to give up its nuclear ambitions.

FILE - CIA Director Gina Haspel testifies before t FILE - CIA Director Gina Haspel testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019. FILE - CIA Director Gina Haspel testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

Its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival, Coats said of Pyongyang.

The regime is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States, Haspel added.

As for Iran, the differences between the intelligence agencies and the president appeared to be less glaring.

The intelligence officials told lawmakers that the 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran is working, at least for now, even though Trump withdrew from the deal while re-imposing sanctions.

But they agreed with Trump regarding the larger threat.

Iran maintains the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, Coats told lawmakers. Tehran continues to sponsor terrorism.

These actions underscore our concerns for a long-term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk of conflict escalation, he added, noting Iranian-backed militants would continue to threaten U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere.

Reaction to Trump's tweets

The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency declined comment when asked about the presidents tweets Wednesday.

But the public critiques drew a quick response from some U.S. lawmakers and former intelligence officials.

The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, tweeted in response. People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter.

The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality. People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter. https://t.co/BfRlqcM6rd  Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) January 30, 2019

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer released a letter he wrote to Coats saying he cannot allow the Presidents ill-advised and unwarranted comments to stand, and that Coats, Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray should insist on meeting with Trump to educate him about the facts and raw intelligence behind the threat assessment.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, an outspoken critic whose security clearance was revoked last August also took Trump to task, calling the presidents tweets an indication of the extent of your intellectual bankruptcy, writing that Americans need to understand the danger you pose to our national security.

Trump Revokes Ex-CIA Directors Security Clearance The security clearance of a former Central Intelligence Agency director was revoked Wednesday by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said in a statement that John Brennan has been sowing division and chaos about his administration.The clearances of other former officials also are under review, including those of former U.S. The security clearance of a former Central Intelligence Agency director was revoked Wednesday by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said in a statement that John Brennan has been sowing division and chaos about his administration.The clearances of other former officials also are under review, including those of former U.S.

And former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told VOA the presidents tweets were sophomoric.

He should actually read the written assessment, said Clapper. I guess hes reacting to the media focus on the disparities between what the IC (Intelligence Community) assessed and what his gut tells him, so, of course he had to push back.

'Not that big' a deal

Yet other former officials described the commotion over the president's tweets as overblown.

"This is not that big a thing," said Steve Bucci, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation who previously served as an assistant to former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Frankly, I see both sides kind of doing what they get paid to do," he told VOA. "The intel community is supposed to be the factual analyzers and the president picks the policies he wants to follow.

"They clearly have failed to convince him that their position is correct. And now everybody is going nuts because he's not treating what the intelligence community says as holy writ," Bucci said.

Bucci also said it would be a mistake to view Trump's tweets as an indictment of his intel chiefs as opposed to messages meant for Iran and North Korea.

"He's trying to move both countries in directions that are beneficial to U.S. interests," he said. "He's not shutting down the intel community."

Not personal

For many former intelligence officials, that Trump took aim at U.S. intelligence agencies on Twitter, was no surprise.

President Trumps antipathy toward the intelligence community is well known and stems chiefly from the communitys willingness to be publicly candid, near the beginning of Trumps presidency, about Russian interference in the 2016 election, Paul Pillar, a veteran CIA officer now with the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, told VOA in an email.

Trumps critical tweets about the new worldwide threat statement, however, probably have less to do with general antipathy than with how the statement includes inconvenient truths that clash with incorrect assertions by the administration.

Larry Pfeiffer, a 32-year veteran of the U.S. intelligence community with stints as senior director of the White House Situation Room and chief of staff to former CIA Director Michael Hayden, said such tension, in and of itself, is not unusual.

I cant think of a president of the United States or a policymaker who didnt like what the intelligence community had to say, Pfeiffer said, adding intelligence officials have long seen it as their job to tell truth to power.

But Pfeiffer cautioned that even if Trumps responses are merely about politics, it could still take a toll.

It can publicly affect morale  when the ultimate customer has this kind of attitude, he said. Hes publicly criticized the intelligence community more than hes criticized [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.

The question for me is, at what point do these intelligence chiefs quit, said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA who once ran the agencys Russia operations.

It is one thing for the president to have differing views, he said. It is another thing altogether to openly attack or belittle the IC.
SEOUL - South Koreas initial attempt at countermeasures to end the countrys current fine dust problem failed this week. Officials had sought to create artificial rain to address the current heavy air pollution many in Seoul blame on neighboring China. Its an issue becoming more and more critical for residents.

Kim Byung-gon, a Professor at Gangneung-Wonju National University Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences told VOA that while fine dust particles from China are part of the problem, it isnt the only thing causing South Koreas bad air.

Fine dust occurs when pollutants emitted from China and internal (South Korean) pollutants stay in the air, said Kim, who also noted that the exact cause of Seouls pollution problem has yet to be fully identified.

Dong Jong-in, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of Seoul, said that while domestic factors do affect the overall particulate matter in the air, fine dust that has flowed from the outside [the country] in the upper air stream is the key factor.

As a result of continued concern by residents about the on-going increase in bad air quality days, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has announced that resolving the countrys fine dust problem will be one of the policy tasks his administration will undertake.

Choking on air

For three consecutive days in mid-January, the South Korean government issued alerts to citizens, warning of high levels of micro-dust in the air and urging them to stay inside, or if they had to be outside, to wear masks and keep exposure to a minimum.

During these days, thick, fine dust blanketed most of the country. The pollution was not only visible to the naked eye, but could be felt in the back of ones throat according to one resident who spoke to South Koreas Yonhap News.

"The air is so murky and my throat hurts that I even feel depressed. It's as if there is a really thick fog, the individual said.

Dong Jong-in said the air over the Korean peninsula had been quite dusty for some time. South Korean authorities had monitored overall dust levels and saw some improvement between 2012 and 2013, but since then and the inclusion of PM2.5 particles (ultrafine dust particles that are considered hazardous) in 2015 there has been a marked increase in pollution levels.

As coal fuel use increases in China, patterns of ultrafine dust rise when west-winds blow. In the past, this was only a problem in winter, but the dusty season has widened to the late autumn and spring, said Dong.

This is a concern, said Kim Byung-gon, because there are risks that come with increased exposure. [World Health Organization] studies have indicated that it (ultrafine dust) acts as a primary carcinogen.

Dong added that the fine dust affects not only the respiratory system, but also blood vessels, heart, is implicated with brain disease, and dementia it will also harm children and pregnant women.

Resolving the problem

Last week, a plane flew into the airspace west of Seoul carrying silver iodide, a chemical that helps water droplets form in clouds. Authorities say it released 24 bursts of the chemical above clouds in hopes of inducing rain.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said the initial results were disappointing.

While the KMA did detect a weak, misty rain for several minutes, "there was no observation of significant precipitation.

"Aside from its success or failure, the test was an opportunity to accumulate the necessary technology for faster commercialization of cloud seeding," the KMA added.

The agency is expected to release a full report next month and to carry out 14 more tests this year in hopes of perfecting the technology by 2024.

Kim Byung-gon said the governments plan does have some merit, since several countries around the globe employ such tactics.

However, Artificial rainfall itself is difficult, Kim said, a sufficient amount of rain should be falling to wash away the dust I do not think it will be easy.

He added that utilizing cleaner fuel, reducing automobile emission pollutants, and addressing factory pollutants must also be part of any solution to the problem at hand.

Lee Ju-Hyun contributed to this report.
If Twitter is the town square for journalists, some are ready to step away.

That's happening this week at the online news site Insider  by order of the boss. Reporters have been told to take a week off from tweeting at work and to keep TweetDeck off their computer screens. The idea of disengaging is to kick away a crutch for the journalists and escape from the echo chamber, said Julie Zeveloff West, Insider's editor-in-chief for the U.S.

Addiction to always-rolling Twitter feeds and the temptation to join in has led to soul-searching in newsrooms. Some of it is inspired by the reaction to the Jan. 19 demonstration in Washington involving students from a Covington, Kentucky, high school, which gained traction as a story primarily because of social media outrage only to become more complicated as different details and perspectives emerged.

Planning for Insider's ban predated the Covington story, West said.

She often walks through her newsrooms to find reporters staring at TweetDeck. Her goal is to encourage reporters to find news in other ways, by picking up the telephone or meeting sources. An editor will make sure no news is being missed.

Twitter "isn't the place where most people find us," she said. "Reporters place this outsized importance on it."

The Washington Post's David Von Drehle called Twitter the "crystal meth of newsrooms." He dates his moment of disillusionment to the Republican national convention in 2012. In the section reserved for reporters, he noticed many watching TweetDeck feeds instead of listening to speeches from the podium or stepping away to talk to delegates.

"Twitter offers an endless stream of faux events," Von Drehle wrote in a column this past weekend. "Fleeting sensations, momentary outrages, ersatz insights and provocative distortions. 'News' nuggets roll by like the chocolates on Lucy's conveyer belt."

Since Twitter is irresistible to journalists who have the smart-aleck gene  probably the majority  a newsroom quip or instant observation is now writ large.

Knee-jerk reactions

The Covington story uniquely played to Twitter's faults. Early video that depicted Covington student Nick Sandmann staring down Native American activist Nathan Phillips spread rapidly across social media and many people rushed to offer their takes. An event that may have otherwise gone unnoticed instantly became a story by virtue of its existence online.

A student from Covington Catholic High School stan FILE - A student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019, in this still image from video. FILE - A student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019, in this still image from video.

Yet when a wider picture emerged of what happened, in some respects quite literally from the view of a wider camera lens, a story that seemed black and white became gray. Some of the early opinions became embarrassing and were quietly deleted. But since there's no such thing as a quiet deletion when people are watching online, the incident became fodder for another outbreak of partisan warfare.

The episode led Farhad Manjoo, a columnist for The New York Times, to declare Twitter "the world's most damaging social network."

In a column, he said he plans to stifle the urge to quickly type his opinion on every news event and suggested others follow his lead. Between mistakes and overly provocative opinions, too much can go wrong for journalists on Twitter, he said in an interview.

"In order to be good on Twitter, you have to be authentic," he said. "But authenticity is also dangerous. It leads people to make assumptions about you. It can go bad in different ways."

'Overboard on Twitter'

Perhaps it's inevitable at a time that Twitter needs to be constantly monitored because it is one of the president of the United States' favorite forms of communications, but Manjoo said too often reporters spend more time in the virtual world than the real one.

"The way the media works now, we've just gone overboard on Twitter," he said.

Days after Covington, some news outlets proved his point by writing stories about NBC Today show host Savannah Guthrie's interview with Sandmann that were nothing but collections of Twitter comments about how she did. Some tweeters thought Guthrie was too hard on him. Some thought she was too soft. Simply by nature of the forum, few who thought it was just right bothered posting.

Media experts wary of Twitter quitters said a distinction between the platform and how people use it should not be lost.

"I really don't think it's so hard to avoid commenting on a moving story when the facts are not clear," said Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor.

Leaving Twitter means cutting off a valuable news source since many newsmakers use the venue to make announcements, he said. It's also an equalizer in giving access to a virtual town square to people who might otherwise be overlooked, said news consultant Jeff Jarvis.

"Journalists should be looking for every possible means to listen better to the public," Jarvis said. "If you cut yourself off, it's ridiculous."

New approach

Some have done that, or tried. Manjoo's colleague at the Times, White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, wrote last July about how she was stepping back from Twitter after nearly nine years and 187,000 tweets.

"The viciousness, toxic partisan anger, intellectual dishonesty, motive-questioning and sexism are at all-time highs, with no end in sight," she wrote. "It is a place where people who are unquestionably upset about any number of things go to feed their anger, where the underbelly of free speech is at its most bilious. Twitter is now an anger video game for many users."

Haberman predicted she would eventually re-engage with Twitter but in a different way. She's back; she tweeted five times and retweeted links six times by 10 a.m. Tuesday. She's up to 194,000 tweets and has a following of more than a million people. She declined a request for an interview about how the experience changed her.

Kelly Evans was an early Twitter user at The Wall Street Journal and then at CNBC, where she's a news anchor. She found it a valuable place to get ideas, and to connect with readers, viewers and fellow journalists.

But she realized in the summer of 2016 that it was taking up too much of her personal time with little contribution to her professional life. She publicly signed off and has kept to her pledge for the most part. She says now she doesn't regret it.

Evans admits she may have missed some story tips, but questions the reliability of much that is on Twitter.

"I feel more healthy and I feel like I'm able to do my job better," she said.
PENTAGON - This month, a new man took the reins (at least temporarily) at the Pentagon. But who is Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, and how might he interact with the commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump? Here are five fast facts about the Defense Department head:

1. Shanahan was the deputy under Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

He has certainly been exposed over the past year and a half to policy issues, so he's not coming in cold to them. Its not as if he's walking in having never been on the inside."  Todd Rosenblum, former assistant secretary of defense

2. Unlike Mattis, who served more than 40 years in the military before taking the Pentagons top civilian post, Shanahan spent more than 30 years in private industry working for the Boeing aircraft manufacturing company.

PROFILE: America's New Defense Secretary

Critics have raised concern about his lack of military experience and about the potential bias toward his old company, which wins many Pentagon contracts to build military technologies.

3. Shanahan's foreign policy positions are relatively unknown.

In Mattiss resignation letter last year, he wrote that Trump had the right to a defense secretary more aligned with his interests. However, it's not clear whether Shanahan fits that bill.

What little bit we know of Mr. Shanahan, in terms of his national security and foreign policy beliefs, they were really mirrored, if not were formed in some way, by the beliefs of Secretary Mattis. So, if that's the case, you're ultimately getting a much less experienced version of Mattis."  Bishop Garrison of the Truman National Security Project

4. Shanahan has so far appeared eager to please Trump.

In a cabinet meeting at the White House on Jan. 2, the acting defense secretary agreed with Trump on the issue of border security, saying, "The threat is real. The risks are real. We need to control our borders."

Also, when Trump visited the Pentagon to roll out the new missile defense strategy on Jan.17, Shanahan enthusiastically reinforced the president's plan.

Mr. President, we are ready for this task. This is the department of get stuff done."  Patrick Shanahan

5. Shanahan says he wants to keep the Pentagon out of politics, which could pit the defense secretary against the wishes of his commander-in-chief.

"It's been a longstanding responsibility of the Department... to not politicize the military. And why that is so important is that we recruit from all parts of the United States. I mean, this an all-volunteer force. ... We work to keep this a nonpolitical environment and stay focused on our job of defending the country," Shanahan told reporters Tuesday.
The indictment of President Donald Trumps longtime ally Roger Stone has raised new questions about just what special counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered during his 20-month investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

One question is whether the indictment gets Muellers prosecutors any closer to the heart of the investigation: determining whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The intelligence community concluded after the election that Russian government operatives furnished the activist group WikiLeaks with reams of private emails purloined from Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in 2016. But Mueller has yet to prove that Stone or any other Trump campaign associates served as conduits or facilitators in the theft and dissemination of the damaging emails.

Another question raised by the Stone indictment is whether the charges against the presidential confidant represent a real breakthrough in the investigation or just another case of Trump allies getting caught lying to investigators or members of Congress

To Trump allies, Stones indictment on charges of lying to Congress and other "procedural" offenses epitomizes an investigation gone amok, a politically motivated witch hunt to ensnare otherwise innocent associates of the president.

People gather to show support and protest former c People gather to show support and protest former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, after he departed federal court in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019. People gather to show support and protest former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, after he departed federal court in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.

To his critics, the charges show how the Trump campaign used Stone as a witting conduit to WikiLeaks as the anti-secrecy website dumped tens of thousands of embarrassing emails and other documents aimed at hurting Clintons electoral prospects.

Stone, a (former U.S. President) Richard Nixon hero worshipper and an informal adviser to Trump for the past 40 years, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in federal court to seven criminal counts.

On its surface, the indictment does not allege any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Instead, it accuses Stone of making false statements, obstruction of a legal proceeding and witness tampering  charges that are related mostly to Stones congressional testimony in 2017 about his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.

In his brief appearance before a federal judge in Washington, D.C., Stone said little. But since his pre-dawn arrest in Florida last Friday, the self-described "dirty trickster" has spoken in several TV interviews, insisting he did nothing illegal or out of the ordinary for a gung-ho political operative.

"That's what I engaged in. It's called politics and they haven't criminalized it, at least not yet," Stone said Sunday on ABC News.

"All I did was take publicly available information and try to hype it to get it as much attention as possible, because I had a tip, the information was politically significant and that it would come in October," Stone said.

Stone caused a stir during the campaign by hyping the WikiLeaks email dumps and insinuating advance knowledge of their release.

The indictment against him alleges that Stone maintained much closer than previously-known ties with the Trump campaign even after he left it in mid-2015. Through much of 2016, according to the indictment, Stone remained in regular contact with senior Trump campaign officials as they sought to learn about the WikiLeaks email releases.

After the website published an initial batch of Democratic emails, a senior Trump campaign official  believed to be either former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates  was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information WikiLeaks had about the Clinton campaign, according to the indictment.

In October 2016, just before WikiLeaks published emails hacked from the account of Clintons campaign chairman, Stone received an email from a high ranking Trump campaign official  identified in press accounts as ousted Trump strategist Steve Bannon  asking about the status of future releases by WikiLeaks.

Stone replied that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had a serious security concern but that the site would release a load every week going forward.

Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace Law School in New York who closely follows the Mueller investigation, said the indictment paints Stone as a "conduit" between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks.

Former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump Former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, is surrounded by protesters and supporters with signs and flags of Russia, and media, as he arrives at federal court in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019. Former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, is surrounded by protesters and supporters with signs and flags of Russia, and media, as he arrives at federal court in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.

?It gets the investigation closer to the inner workings of the Trump campaign and the Trump campaigns connections with Russia, Gershman said.

Trump has denied any advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks email dumps. Stone has said he never discussed them with Trump during or after the campaign.

While the indictment doesn't charge any conspiracy between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks or Russia, that charge may come later, Gershman said. How much later is only a guess. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Monday that the special counsel investigation was "close to being completed."

This is a preliminary charge that will become much more significant later on, Gershman said.

Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor now a law professor at George Washington University, said the special counsel would have charged Stone with conspiracy had he thought Stone's contacts with WikiLeaks were illegal.

I think the fact that the special counsel didnt charge that conspiracy might be a bit of a sign that maybe the evidence of a broader criminal conspiracy isn't there, at least not yet, Eliason said.

Stones actions may have been "deplorable" but not illegal, he said.

You can call that colluding, working together, sharing information but there is not necessarily an underlying crime involved there, Eliason said.

Paul Rosenzweig, another former federal prosecutor, said there appears to be more to the indictment than meets the eye.

I think there are some hints here of more information about interactions with the Russians that do continue to build a case for illegal coordination between trump camp and Russia, Rosenzweig, now a senior fellow at the R Street in Washington, said.
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must agree on a road map to denuclearization at their second summit to avoid the vague agreement that came out of their initial meeting, experts said.

After months of stalled negotiations that began when North Korea abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in November, the White House announced earlier in January that a second summit between Trump and Kim will take place by the end of February. Sources have told VOA Korea on background that the summit will take place in Vietnam.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yon Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, walk from a photo opportunity at the The Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief, walk from a photo opportunity at the The Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019.

The announcement of the second summit came after Gen. Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's chief negotiator on nuclear talks, visited the White House Jan. 18 and delivered a letter from Kim to Trump, who sent a response back to Kim.

Officials from the United States, North Korea and South Korea met in Sweden over the weekend of Jan. 19 to prepare for the summit, the first working-level talks since the impasse.

Experts said the second summit needs to result in a more significant and specific outcome on denuclearization than what came out of the first meeting between Trump and Kim.

The first summit held in Singapore in June was widely criticized for vague results, particularly the lack of a meaningful agreement on denuclearization of North Korea

Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's former senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration said, "There needs to be a much more substantial statement than the one that occurred at the first summit."

Christopher Hill, a chief negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said, "I think they need to look for some specificity on what North Korea is prepared to do."

U.S. White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass D U.S. White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Gary Samore is seen talking with Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim (not in picture) during a meeting in Brasilia, Aug. 7, 2009. U.S. White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Gary Samore is seen talking with Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim (not in picture) during a meeting in Brasilia, Aug. 7, 2009.

Gary Samore, White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction in the Obama administration, is wary, however, that there is not enough time to draw up a comprehensive denuclearization deal by the time of the second summit. Agreements are usually drawn up at working-level meetings before leaders meet.

"There is not enough time to negotiate such a complex arrangement, and the U.S. and (North Korea) are too far apart on too many fundamental issues," said Samore. "Trump and Kim could agree at the summit on a process of negotiations, such as U.S.-North Korea negotiations on denuclearization and bilateral relations."

Shortly after Washington announced the second summit, concerns emerged in South Korea's capital city of Seoul that Trump might agree only to a possible North Korean offer to dismantle and transfer its ICBM off its territory to reduce North Korean capability to target the U.S. with ICBMs carrying nuclear weapons.

Bruce Klingner, former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said Trump should not commit to "an ICBM-only' agreement."

But Samore thinks it is possible that Trump might agree to such a proposal by Kim as "'down payment' for complete denuclearization." He added, "The question is how much sanctions relief Trump is willing to offer in exchange for such a partial step."

Concerns about a possible U.S. troop withdrawal have also been spreading in South Korea and Japan as a possible concession Trump might make to secure an agreement on denuclearization at the summit.

The concerns increased when the U.S. and South Korea failed to reach a Special Measures Agreement (SMA) to fund U.S. troops in South Korea and to draw up cost-sharing plans with Seoul after the agreement expired on Dec. 31.

"It would be very unfortunate if this early in the process there was a discussion of the withdrawal of American forces from South Korea," said Wilder. "I do not believe that should be on the table at this point. It's far too premature. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is not stable enough yet, in my view, to make that decision."

Hill does not think Trump would agree to the withdrawal, but if he does, he said, "It would create a huge problem in the U.S. I think that is worrisome."

Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses, said although the withdrawal will be "an unforced error on our part that would wreck the alliance and create a potential crisis," the possibility that "Trump might put a troop drawdown on the table" cannot be discounted.

North Korea's state media KCNA said last week that Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over the results of talks between the two countries while speaking highly of Trump, and ordered preparations for the summit.

In an interview with The Washington Times published on Friday, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said North Korea needs to make "a significant sign of a strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons" in order for Trump to take the sanctions off.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testif Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2019. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2019.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed doubts about North Korea's willingness to give up its nuclear weapons in his testimony at a Senate hearing Tuesday on global security threats.

"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
BOGOTA - More than 1,300 Colombians were forced to flee their homes in January alone to escape fighting between armed factions despite a peace deal signed two years ago, aid groups said on Tuesday.

Thousands of fighters from Colombia's largest guerrilla group - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - have demobilized as part of the deal with the government, and the group has now become a political party.

But people continue to be uprooted in parts of Colombia because of armed groups and criminal gangs taking advantage of the power vacuum left behind by the FARC, according to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Lucrative drug trafficking and illegal mining areas abandoned by the FARC have become the focus of fighting between Colombia's smaller ELN rebel group, powerful crime gangs and FARC dissidents who refused to lay down arms.

Christian Visnes, NRC's Colombia country director, said fighting between new armed groups, along with clashes between state security forces and ELN rebels, caused people to leave.

"If you go into some of the regions that are most affected, you will see that insecurity and displacement is on the rise ... you have mostly illegal armed groups fighting for control of specific territories," Visnes said.

Fighting is concentrated in remote rural areas, including Colombia's northern border with Venezuela, and along its impoverished Pacific coast, Visnes said.

"If you travel the Pacific coast and go from village to village, you don't see any change following the peace deal," he said. "The only change you see is a fragmentation of armed groups .. and there are new groups. And people are completely frightened."

About 145,000 Colombians were freshly displaced last year, according to U.N. and government estimates.

"Since the signing of the peace agreement .. the number is still above 100,000 newly displaced people per year which is too much," said Jozef Merkx, head of the UNHCR in Colombia.

"We are worried about this," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

'Crises' Converge

Thousands of displaced Colombians seeking safety and shelter in their own country are being forced together with the more than one million Venezuelans who have fled their homeland to escape an escalating political crisis and economic meltdown.

In the Colombian border city of Cucuta and troubled northeast Catatumbo region, Colombia's internally displaced people and Venezuelan migrants and refugees can be seen begging for food alongside each other at traffic lights.

"In certain areas, it's quite obvious. Places like Catatumbo where we are working has seen new displacements (of Colombians) but also the arrival of Venezuelans coming to the same area," Merkx said.

"In some places the two crises, if you could call it like this, converge," he said, adding that UNHCR needs to scale-up its humanitarian response in Colombia to help Venezuelans.

A Venezuelan woman holds a girl at a health post f FILE - A Venezuelan woman holds a girl at a health post for migrants in Cucuta, along Colombia's border with Venezuela, July 16, 2018. FILE - A Venezuelan woman holds a girl at a health post for migrants in Cucuta, along Colombia's border with Venezuela, July 16, 2018.

Colombia's schools and hospitals are struggling to cope with the rising demand both from its internally displaced population and Venezuelan migrants in parts of the country, including Colombia's Guajira region, which borders Venezuela, and Cucuta.

"Clearly the flow is overwhelming. The flow of Venezuelans and Colombians who lived in Venezuela, paired with more armed conflict, are completely overwhelming the services of the region," Visnes said. "And the combination of the two is quite dangerous because it clearly can lead to xenophobia and racism."

Isolated attacks and hate speech against Venezuelan migrants have been reported in Colombia and in other neighboring countries, like Ecuador and Brazil, where hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have settled.

Earlier this week, Eduardo Stein, a top joint UNHCR-U.N. migration agency (IOM) official for Venezuelan refugees and migrants, warned, "although isolated and unrepresentative, these acts of hatred, intolerance and xenophobia are extremely worrying."

Venezuelan citizens hold up their identification c FILE - Venezuelan citizens hold up their identification cards for inspection by the Colombian immigration police, in Cucuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela, Feb. 22, 2018. FILE - Venezuelan citizens hold up their identification cards for inspection by the Colombian immigration police, in Cucuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela, Feb. 22, 2018.

With more than 600,000 Venezuelans holding permits allowing them to work in Colombia, more needs to be done to help migrants get formal jobs.

"We also want to insist a lot in the need to work on social and economic integration," Merkx said. "We should try to make access to the labor market more effective and see how we can support that because that's very important for the self-reliance of Venezuelans in Colombia."
PARIS - With the U.S. troop pullout from Syria, the French government has suggested it may soon repatriate French jihadists held in the Middle Eastern nation. But the idea is deeply divisive at home.

Speaking Tuesday to the French parliament, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said if any French jihadists were expelled from Syria, the government would know who they were and where they were located  and they would be arrested and tried the minute they set foot in France.

The government has not officially confirmed media reports that as many as 130 French jihadists now held in Syria may be coming home soon. France was among Europe's top exporters of jihadists to Syria and Iraq. Many of the hundreds of French who fought with Islamic State and other extremist groups died in battle. Some returned, including several behind the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks.

But officials on Wednesday estimated that 250 French jihadists were still fighting in Syria, according to news reports, and dozens are held in the north by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Until now, France has done little to bring them home. But the void left by departing U.S. troops has raised concern about their fate.

Some French politicians are adamantly opposed to the fighters' return. Conservative lawmaker Guillaume Peltier told RMC radio that those who burned their French passports, committed war crimes and possibly committed crimes against humanity had no place in France.

But another leading conservative, Christian Estrosi, feared that groups now holding French radicals might be dissolved and that there was a risk of the fighters going free.

Experts warn that returning fighters and other radicals already here may present ticking time bombs  including those now in French prisons, some of whom may be released in just a few years.
Two people are dead after a grenade attack on a mosque in the southern Philippines Wednesday, the second deadly attack on a religious site in the region after a landmark referendum approving an autonomous Muslim region.

Police say four other people were killed in the early morning bombing in Zamboanga City, which was denounced as "inhumane" by the local Ulama Council.

Authorities say they do not believe it was in retaliation for Sunday's twin bombings of a Catholic cathedral on Jolo island that left 21 people dead. The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the Jolo attack, but local authorities believe it was carried out by the militant Abu Sayyaf group. The group, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, has carried out hundreds of bombing attacks, kidnappings and beheadings in the region for decades.

The successful January 21 referendum grants the Muslim-dominated southern Philippines autonomy in the predominantly Catholic nation. The referendum establishing the new Bangsomora region was the result of negotiations between the government and Muslim separatists who have carried out a bloody decades-long rebellion.

The referendum was rejected by voters in Sulu province, which is home to Abu Sayyaf and other hardline Islamic factions; despite the rejection, Sulu will still be part of the new entity.
Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan on Tuesday would not rule out sending U.S. military forces to Colombia or the region in connection with the ongoing political upheaval in Venezuela.



Shanahan told reporters that he hasn't spoken to national security adviser John Bolton about sending troops to Colombia. But he said he wouldn't comment when asked if he had other conversations about such a deployment plan or if he could rule it out.



Bolton had "5,000 troops to Colombia" written on a notepad he held during a news conference Monday announcing new sanctions on Venezuela. The White House, when asked about the note, later said in an email that "as the President has said, all options are on the table."

National security adviser John Bolton listens duri National security adviser John Bolton listens during a press briefing at the White House, Jan. 28, 2019, in Washington. National security adviser John Bolton listens during a press briefing at the White House, Jan. 28, 2019, in Washington.

President Donald Trump is backing Venezuelan congress leader Juan Guaido, who has proclaimed himself interim president in the opposition's confrontation with President Nicolas Maduro. Colombia, which shares a 1,370-mile (2,200-kilometer) border with Venezuela, is also backing Guaido.



Shanahan noted the steps that the State Department and Treasury have taken, which includes new sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company.



"We're monitoring the situation very carefully and we're watching and we're working very much in real time," Shanahan said. "The interagency led by the National Security Council and ambassador Bolton created a number of options. We support them with their policy development, and, as the situation in Venezuela evolves, we're there to give them advice and counsel and support."



Asked directly about Bolton's note, Shanahan joked, "I didn't bring a notepad today."



Colombia Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes said Monday that his government does not know the "importance and reason" for Bolton's note.
HEBRON, WEST BANK - Palestinians in Hebron accused Israel on Tuesday of trying to rid the flashpoint city of witnesses to its actions in the occupied West Bank by ejecting a foreign observer force that helps safeguard residents.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he will not renew the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), accusing the observers of unspecified anti-Israel activity.

Norway, which has headed the multi-country observer mission for the past 22 years, said "the one-sided Israeli decision can mean that the implementation of an important part of the Oslo accords is discontinued."

"The situation in Hebron is unstable and characterized by conflict," Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said in a statement to Reuters, adding that the end of the observer mission was therefore "worrying."

Hebron

?Hebron, a Palestinian city of 200,000 people, is home to a community of around 1,000 Israeli settlers who are heavily guarded by a large Israeli military presence.

The TIPH was set up after a Jewish settler killed 29 Palestinians at a Hebron shrine holy to both Muslims and Jews in 1994. The city has also seen stabbing and shooting attacks against settlers and Israeli soldiers by Palestinians.

Since Israel partially withdrew from Hebron in 1998 under interim peace deals with the self-rule Palestinian Authority, the TIPH has monitored "breaches of the agreements (and) violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law," the force's website says.

"The settlers' attacks will increase," said Aref Jaber, a Palestinian resident of Hebron. TIPH's presence was particularly helpful to schoolchildren, he added, because they patrol the city "in the morning and the afternoon, when they go to and return from school."

U.N. reaction

The United Nations said it regretted Israel's decision.

"While the TIPH is not a United Nations body its role in contributing positively to defusing tensions in such a sensitive area has been widely recognized," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

A member of the Temporary International Presence i A member of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) gestures as she walks in the old city of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jan. 29, 2019. A member of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) gestures as she walks in the old city of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jan. 29, 2019.

TIPH draws staff from Norway, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. The TIPH website says it has 64 international staff in the city. An Israeli official said its mandate ends on Jan. 31.

"[It] is our window to the world. They can show the Israeli occupation's ugly face  which is definitely annoying to the Israelis," said Bader Daour, a ceramics merchant in Hebron's old city.

'Atmosphere of conflict'

Settler leaders welcomed news of the force's upcoming departure. They have accused the TIPH of harassing settlers and agitating against them.

Yishai Fleisher, a spokesman for the Hebron Jewish community, said the TIPH observers "created an atmosphere of conflict, not a congenial atmosphere of peace."

Jews and Palestinians, he said, have inhabited the city for centuries: "We know each other and I'm sure we'll find a way to get along without Norwegian help," Fleisher said.

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said in November that the TIPH were pro-Palestinian, "ignore Palestinian terrorism and harm IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers by documenting their daily security activity."

Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. Most world powers consider Israel's settlements in the West Bank, territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war, to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing biblical, historical and political ties to the land.

"[The Israelis] don't want there to be witnesses to their crimes, or any other crime they commit against the Palestinians anywhere, and especially in Hebron," said the city's mayor of Tayseer Abu Sinaneh.
LONDON - For the first time, scientists have linked climate change to the mass migration flows that followed the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East a few years ago.

According to scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, water shortages and droughts contributed to the Arab Spring conflicts, particularly in Syria, which remains mired in a civil war.

A Syrian migrant carries a baby as he walks toward FILE - A Syrian migrant carries a baby as he walks towards the Greece border on a road near Edirne, Turkey, Sept. 15, 2015. FILE - A Syrian migrant carries a baby as he walks towards the Greece border on a road near Edirne, Turkey, Sept. 15, 2015.

People started not being able to produce agricultural production, and that was the start of migration from the rural areas to urban areas, which were already quite crowded. And the resources in the urban areas were also scarce. So with that kind of tension, fighting for limited resources, and on top is the ethnic polarization in Syria. So, its sort of all that combination, said Raya Muttarak, of the University of East Anglia in Britain. She co-authored a report on the subject.

The researchers used United Nations data on asylum applications and conflict-related deaths. They combined this with data on drought and rainfall, plus other variables like population size and measures of democracy and ethnic diversity. All the figures were combined in a mathematical model.

So, lets look at how climate affects the probability of conflict. And once we estimate that we use the number that we got from that to estimate the next step. So, the countries that experience conflict from climate variation  are they likely to send out the refugee flows or not? explained Muttarak.

She said that climate change would not cause conflict and subsequent asylum-seeking flows everywhere.

The effect of climate on migration, through conflict, is quite specific to certain time periods and to certain countries. So, climate-induced conflict, its a bit more likely in a country with a medium level of democracy.

The results of this study are specific to the western Asia region. However, researchers say they hope the study will contribute to the global debate on how migration flows will be affected by increasingly severe climate change.
Even in the densely packed Soviet-era apartment blocks at the edge of this faded Siberian industrial hub, little redheaded Masha always seemed to stand out.

"She was quite an unusual kid to some extent  physically quite tall in comparison with her peers, and she was in fact much more physically developed," says her father, Valeriy Butin, a retired 55-year-old manufacturing engineer.

"Since childhood she had the strongly marked characteristics of a leader," he says. "She enjoyed giving commands, organizing her peers, her brother and her sister. She has always tried to carry herself as a leader. That was just natural for her."

Soft-spoken with a patient disposition, Valeriy is also unfailingly polite. Even upon declining initial interview requests, he would nonetheless thank us for asking and apologize for needing time to consider.

Meeting me and a videographer at the cafe beside our hotel, he seems oblivious to patrons who appear to recognize him immediately, even if they don't dare say so.

Having agreed to the interview, he waits for us out in the car where, through the cafe window, he seems adrift in an aimless stare, his thoughts likely turning to a Virginia jail cell where his daughter, Maria Valeriyevna Butina, has been held in solitary confinement since U.S. officials brought espionage-related charges against her in July.

Despite a December plea bargain, Valeriy, just like his friends and family, still can't square the foreign media depiction of a confessed foreign agent with his precocious daughter who, until weeks of incarceration, mailed home report cards and research papers  cherished tokens of the myriad academic accomplishments the family has scrapbooked since primary school.

"She was always gifted with a good memory and inquisitive mind, a willingness to research and really grasp something new," he says, his vocal pitch beginning to tremble. "I have no doubt it was  it is natural for her."

The world that shaped Masha

Touching down on the chemically treated asphalt at Barnaul International Airport in southwestern Siberia, the pilot halts the plane at the end of the runway and pivots the nose onto a massive five-centimeter-thick expanse of plow-scarred ice and snowpack.

Descending the airstairs to board a bus idling in the deep freeze of early dawn, passengers trudge through the glare of a single floodlight as four policemen in matching black Ushankas look on in silence, the only sound an engine and the rhythmic crunching of snow under boots.

Nestled between the northern borders of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, Barnaul lies 228 kilometers due south of Novosibirsk, the Stalin-era gateway to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago." Like nearly all of its centrally planned neighboring municipalities, the city, which is the administrative seat of the Altai Krai region, immediately evokes memories of its Soviet past. Once known for manufacturing tanks, ammunition and tractors, Barnaul  also like its neighbors  has long since seen most of those jobs disappear.

At left, the tenement building where Maria Butina At left, the tenement building where Maria Butina lived till age 18 in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (P. Cobus/VOA). At left, the tenement building where Maria Butina lived till age 18 in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (P. Cobus/VOA).

A half-hour from the airport in a flat grid of city blocks where Maria Butina spent her first 20 years, camouflage-clad hunters tote bagged rifles alongside morning commuters with briefcases. For many youth, it's the kind of place where one aspires to nothing more than one day residing anyplace else.

"The official statistics brought me into a state of dismay," Butina wrote of regional brain drain in a 2008 essay for a local paper. "Last year the number of people leaving the region was 9,383 more than those who came to my native Altai."

As an 18-year-old college junior, she was already a Rotary Club member who had recently been elected to a civic organization comprising "prominent citizens and representatives of national and regional NGOs" that aimed to be a conduit between voters and lawmakers.

"When first elected, I wondered if it would be possible to transform the region into a place with lifelong professional prospects for my peers," Butina wrote. "Now I'm pretty confident [that] if someone doesn't 'rejuvenate' the regional elite, programs will neither succeed nor stop the young from leaving."

Fledgling political aspirations

Adjacent to the Krai Administration building in Barnaul's Soviets Square, the School of Real Politics (SRP) was architecturally designed to contrast with the stodgy edifice beside it that, until just years ago, still hosted regional legislative sessions.

"Maria came to the Real Politics faculty in 2005, where she instantly showed herself as an active leader," said Konstantin Emeshin, SRP's founder and, as Valeriy tells it, the personal mentor who perhaps more than any other individual has shaped his daughter's worldview.

Although not formally affiliated with Altai State University, where Butina was concurrently enrolled, Emeshins faculty, as he calls it, is a government-subsidized, politically independent private organization that trains aspiring politicians and lobbyists. Emeshin also said the similarly named "Real Politics School in Ivanovo, which is backed by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party, has no relation to his Barnaul-based organization.

The concept behind SRP, he said, is that "'real policy' doesn't come from the TV set."

"Television channels as a rule broadcast information as well as propaganda, whereas real politics is always made by [actual] deputies, officials."

In "real politics," he said, students are immersed in day-to-day parliamentary life, in government life, communicating directly with officials, even at the highest levels.

After her first year, Butina's SRP peers elected her school coordinator, a coveted position in which the chosen student reports on legislation and wrangles VIPs for on-site events.

Smitten by her boundless energy and networking savvy, Emeshin nominated her for the prestigious Seliger forum for young leaders. The annual lakeside gathering  once dubbed "Russia's nationalist summer camp" and sometimes attended by President Vladimir Putin  invites participants to give presentations of their work.

Having solicited the sponsorship of local businessmen, Butina would be expected to champion a regional cause.

At the time, Emeshin said, short-barrel arms legalization was strongly supported by Altai regional Governor Alexander Bogdanovich Karlin.

Roots of the Gun Rights Cause

In Russia, private citizens can be licensed to own long-barreled shotguns, stun guns and gas pistols, but handguns and assault rifles are banned for the broader public.

Like a handful of provincial Russian politicians, Karlin had long framed pistol ownership as a civilian rights issue, but in his economically struggling region it meant more than that: Altai Krai is also home to one of the only small-arms bullet manufacturers in Russia.

"Barnaul Ammunition lives up to its slogan," says "Barnaul Ammunition lives up to its slogan," says a billboard outside the Barnaul Cartridge Plant. "We are asked if we have cheap ammo. No, we have quality ammunition at affordable prices." (Courtesy: Barnaul Cartridge Plant, JSC) "Barnaul Ammunition lives up to its slogan," says a billboard outside the Barnaul Cartridge Plant. "We are asked if we have cheap ammo. No, we have quality ammunition at affordable prices." (Courtesy: Barnaul Cartridge Plant, JSC)

For the daughter of an avid hunter, a personal history of proximity to firearms suddenly dovetailed with a politically practical, intensely local cause. At Seliger, Butina connected with politically like-minded activists and expanded the pistol rights debate to the federal level, hosting roundtables throughout the country.

"It was no secret that Senator [Aleksandr] Torshin," long an avid gun rights supporter, "was now in touch with Maria."

"She knew everybody: [Alexei] Kudrin, [Andrey] Nechayev, she was at the top of public activities of Russia," said Emeshin, referring to a close Putin ally and a former economic minister respectively.

'It's great when your morning starts like this,' 'Its great when your morning starts like this,' Tweets then-Senator Aleksandr Torshin of his personal aide, Maria Butina, from a hotel lobby on March 18, 2015. 'Its great when your morning starts like this,' Tweets then-Senator Aleksandr Torshin of his personal aide, Maria Butina, from a hotel lobby on March 18, 2015.

?Emeshin then encouraged Butina to pursue graduate work abroad, telling her in a 2014 Facebook message, "having mastered real politics at the city, regional and federal level, you should certainly master it at the international level."

For personal friends, Butina's skyrocketing career came as no surprise.



"At the time, she seemed to be quite the young idealist, a person who awakes with an idea of changing the world," said Lev Sekerzhinsky, a Barnaul-based photographer who was close to Butina before she departed for Moscow. "But unlike most people, she woke up not just with an idea but with some real energy  just a willful determination to implement all the plans to do something good.

"Every day she had to be doing something," he recalled. "I've never met anyone else like her in all my life."

Asked whether she could have turned that energy against the interests of a foreign nation, he was unconvinced.

"I've read trial documents saying she was doing or planning things against the United States, but I'm pretty confident she wanted to improve ties," he said. "It's quite a pity if she violated some laws on the way."

Accused Russian agent Maria Butina pleads guilty t In this courtroom sketch, accused Russian agent Maria Butina pleads guilty to a single conspiracy charge in a deal with prosecutors and admitted to working with a top Russian official to infiltrate a powerful gun-rights group and influence U.S. policy toward Moscow. In this courtroom sketch, accused Russian agent Maria Butina pleads guilty to a single conspiracy charge in a deal with prosecutors and admitted to working with a top Russian official to infiltrate a powerful gun-rights group and influence U.S. policy toward Moscow.

?Personal Ambition, Political Enterprise

On December 13, Butina pleaded guilty to conspiracy, engaging in unofficial diplomacy and lobbying after building relationships in American conservative circles  including the National Rifle Association  not unlike what she did on behalf of Altai officials at Seliger. She also admitted to working at the behest of her ex-employer, former Senator Torshin, to create back-channel communications between NRA contacts and Russian officials.

"She was playing a role familiar to professional intelligence officersusing her natural network of contacts to spot, meet, and assess potential targets for the Russian espionage apparatus," writes Atlantic Monthly contributor John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine service and a Brookings Institution authority on espionage.

Describing modern Russia as "the world's first intelligence state" and Putin's actions as "those of a superpowered spy chief," any Russian national living abroad  especially politically connected former State Duma aides such as Butina  can be tapped to act informally as the "overt face of covert operations."

Ambitious young professionals who wish to maintain career options at home, said longtime Russian affairs reporter Danila Galperovich, often have little choice but to accommodate the intelligence inquiries, which, for many, inevitably blur boundaries between networking, lobbying and espionage.

"Can they be approached at any time? Yeah, absolutely, the same way, if we're perfectly honest, a congressional aide in Washington can be approached by the CIA," said Mark Galeotti, a globally renowned expert on Russian intelligence.

"But is there any evidence of her being a spy in the sense of someone who actually works for the Russian intelligence apparatus? For me, the answer is absolutely not," he said. "I think what this all simply reflects is the way modern Russia works."

Russian Spies Hide in Plain Sight In the pre-Internet era, spies faced more challenges than now when trying to infiltrate Western political circles in order to gather information, identify potential recruits, enlist the assistance of sympathizers and mount active operations, like meddling in a foreign countrys election.Now they have the benefit of Facebook and LinkedIn and other social-media networking sites to expand their contacts, say former and current U.S. In the pre-Internet era, spies faced more challenges than now when trying to infiltrate Western political circles in order to gather information, identify potential recruits, enlist the assistance of sympathizers and mount active operations, like meddling in a foreign countrys election.Now they have the benefit of Facebook and LinkedIn and other social-media networking sites to expand their contacts, say former and current U.S.

As Galeotti tells it, Russia's president sets broad policy directives, "and then all these scurrying little entrepreneurs will use whatever leverage or interest they themselves have  and it may be totally different if you're an ambassador compared to if you're a journalist compared to if you're whatever else"  to further those Kremlin interests.



"If they fail? Well, the Kremlin's no worse off; it can deny anything and it hasn't spent a penny," he said. "But if they succeed, then sometimes the Kremlin will actually reach in and, in effect, takeover an operation, or simply reward them for a job well done."

Calling Butina "ambitious in a perfectly normal way," Galeotti also said her long history of advocating gun rights made the NRA a logical place to network, and "because of the extent to which the NRA and the Republican Party are incestuously intertwined, you can't really network in one without the other."



The best way to detect the presence of formal intelligence directives, he added, is by identifying a given suspect's behavioral anomalies.

"Look at friendships pursued that, otherwise, just don't seem to make sense or seem to fit a pattern," he said. "Quite frankly, if one looks at what Butina was doing, it all seems pretty consistent with someone who's just trying to see where she can get, see what she can do."

Former Senator Torshin, who declined multiple phone and email requests for interview, has long operated in this gray area between personal ambition and political favor.

"If you operate in Russia, you know this," said Galeotti. "Everyone is constantly looking for what kind of blat, what kind of connections, what kind of leverage they can find. That's just the nature of this environment."

But Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major who worked in the Washington office of the Soviet First Chief Directorate, the intelligence organization responsible for foreign operations, said the NRA has been a target of Soviet infiltration since at least the 1980s.



"She is certainly an 'agent' [of the Russian government], whether an active duty one or just an 'agent of influence' I don't know," said Shvets, who defected to the West in the early 1990s. "But after the Anna Chapman story, I wouldn't be surprised by anything."



American prosecutors in June said Butina possessed materials indicating direct communication with a Russian intelligence service, although the final affidavit cites none.

Road into the neighborhood outside Barnaul, where Road into the neighborhood outside Barnaul, where Valeriy and Irina Butin moved after their children had left for university, Jan. 11, 2019 (P. Cobus/VOA). Road into the neighborhood outside Barnaul, where Valeriy and Irina Butin moved after their children had left for university, Jan. 11, 2019 (P. Cobus/VOA).

?American parallels

Driving to the Butin family home, Valeriy's gray late-model Nissan SUV shoots down a snowy stretch of canopied coniferous byway about 32 kilometers west of Barnaul. I tell him that I can see why Solzhenitsyn chose voluntary exile in the U.S. state of Vermont, that the surrounding pines could pass for a postcard from Stowe.

"I've heard it's lovely," he said. "But we've got more bears."

Does the lifelong hunter advocate the pistol legalization his daughter championed?

"I'm not as political as my daughter is," he said after hesitating, like it's the first time he's been asked. "But I think it's important that one should at least have the right, if only for personal protection.

Valeriy Butin, Maria Butina's father, Barnaul, sou Valeriy Butin, Maria Butina's father, in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana /VOA). Valeriy Butin, Maria Butina's father, in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana /VOA).

"Look at this guy in Kerch," he said, referring to an October shooting at a polytechnic college in Russian-occupied Crimea that claimed 20 victims.

"This young man bought a gun absolutely legally and goes on a rampage, but nobody could do anything because of gun restrictions. What if just one other person there had had a gun?

"To me legalization just means you can have an opportunity to protect yourself against these insane people, and they're everywhere," he said. "Yeah, they're here  and in America, too."

Long-awaited homecoming

As the road crests, we bear left down a snow-rutted unpaved access lane leading into a sprawling warren of scattered structures that betray a range of income levels. Some homes are new, some are old or restored, and a handful were abandoned mid-construction, the skeletal rebar-and-cement casualties of Russia's chronic boom-and-bust economic cycles.

Scrapbook entry: Family scrapbook entry: To our dear and beloved granddaughter Masha on her Birthday for good memory from her grandmother and grandfather  The Shapovalovs. Be healthy and happy for the joy of your closest relatives," outside Barnaul, Russia, January 11, Family scrapbook entry: To our dear and beloved granddaughter Masha on her Birthday for good memory from her grandmother and grandfather  The Shapovalovs. Be healthy and happy for the joy of your closest relatives," outside Barnaul, Russia, January 11,

Entering the Butin family drive, an automated steel gate slides open, revealing a low-slung structure all but buried in snow. On setting foot in the entryway, Maria's younger sister, Marina, crosses the house to greet us and insists on taking our coats.

"You're from Washington," she sighs in almost unaccented English. "Such a cool city."

Placing an arm around a sprightly older woman who emerges from the kitchen, Marina introduces her grandmother.

"This is the American?" she asks Marina, who nods.

"Welcome," says the elderly woman, offering a hand and holding tight with a lengthy penetrating stare. "I'll put on tea."

Arrayed on a table are family albums that chronicle the achievements of each Butin child. The photos and clippings show just how much academic engagement and school-based events were an organizing principle in the Butin household, which, until their youngest child left for university, had been located within a half-block of a primary school.

Maria Butina's sister, Marina, in Barnaul, southwe Maria Butina's sister, Marina, in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana /VOA). Maria Butina's sister, Marina, in Barnual, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana /VOA).

At only 24, Maria's younger sister holds multiple degrees from one of Russia's elite polytechnic universities in St. Petersburg, where she has since joined an electronics manufacturing firm.

Like both of her parents, she is an engineer, and like both of her parents, she learned of Maria's incarceration via news reports.

"I was in the car, going to work and I didn't know what had happened," says Marina, who had spoken with her older sister at least once weekly until the arrest.



"I was confused when I heard her name and just pulled over and fell silent," she recalls. "I thought it was fake news, and then I thought maybe after two days everything would be okay, that this was all a big misunderstanding."

Since learning of his daughter's incarceration on television that same morning, Valeriy says his first impressions of the accusations are unchanged.

"I can only imagine it must have been Maria's legal ignorance about the details of these [lobbying] laws, that her absolutely friendly activities resulted in such an accusation," he says, insisting that his daughter was fond of the United States and wanted to see relations improved. "Maria couldn't possibly wish any harm to the country where she was studying, that she treats with great respect."

Maria's mother, Irina, says her daughter often spoke of participating "in some global decisions undertaken for (her) country and to be a public figure."

Irina Butin, Barnaul, southwestern Siberia, Jan. 1 Irina Butin, Barnaul, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana/VOA). Irina Butin, Barnaul, Russia, January 11, 2019 (R. Marquina-Montanana/VOA).

"Masha did these things without any deliberate intentions," she says. "I am confident that any illegal activity resulted from her legal ignorance, her young years, her drive, persistence, and of course some naivete."

Mended bilateral ties

Although the U.S. indictment refutes that opinion, the family remains hopeful not only that their daughter will be deported immediately after her next hearing, but that U.S.-Russian ties can be salvaged.

Accused Russian Spy in US Pleads Guilty An accused Russian spy held by the United States on charges of infiltrating Republican Party circles to provide Moscow with information pleaded guilty in a court hearing Thursday. Maria Butina has been held since her arrest in July. The 30-year-old Butina had pleaded not guilty to allegations that she acted illegally as an unregistered agent of the Russian government, using a Russian group she called Right to Bear Arms to build ties to the most powerful U.S. An accused Russian spy held by the United States on charges of infiltrating Republican Party circles to provide Moscow with information pleaded guilty in a court hearing Thursday. Maria Butina has been held since her arrest in July. The 30-year-old Butina had pleaded not guilty to allegations that she acted illegally as an unregistered agent of the Russian government, using a Russian group she called Right to Bear Arms to build ties to the most powerful U.S.

"Our two countries are simply obliged to exist peacefully, at a minimum," says Valeriy, adding that he's personally optimistic they can achieve "absolutely friendly, good relations."

Characteristically polite, Valeriy asks us to convey a message to his daughter's lawyers, that he's "grateful for their diligence and impartiality."

Our questions about whether Russian officials have been adequately supportive draws an exhale of mild exasperation. Although their story has been amplified via state-media news interviews, he says, the family remains financially dependent upon crowdfunding to deal with more than $500,000 in legal fees.

Asked what he would say directly to President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials, Valeriy appears to have tears welling in his eyes.

"It is difficult to consider what one could say to the U.S. president, as well as to the Secretary of State," he says. "But if something will depend on them, I would ask them to release her as soon as possible."

Regardless of whether the upcoming court ruling can secure Maria's release  let alone help mend U.S.-Russian ties  her younger sister sees some good resulting from the incarceration.

"I want her to stand firm and know that, despite the conditions of solitary confinement, the large distance separating us, she is actually the one keeping us all in the right mind set," she says. "She reminds us that everything will be tackled, that everything will be okay, that truth and justice will prevail."

"These are the basics we laid from childhood," says Irina, calling their family bond the "thread" to which her daughter holds tight in a Virginia jail.

Even for professor Emeshin, the weighty darkness of a naive, high-energy extrovert stuck in solitary confinement may yet have one silver lining.

"She is unusually talented, an incredibly clever girl, you can't deny that," he said earlier that day. "That's why she chose the path of public life, why she took charge of the school's information center, joined our public chamber and quickly leaped to federal-level work."

For better or worse, he said, she's found herself in the high-profile international role she always sought.

"Quite a complicated one, yes, but still a real experience," he said. "She's now well-known and, like any decent and honest person from this country, she'll come to occupy a worthy spot in Russia's political sphere."
SKOPJE - Macedonia's parliament has rejected a diaspora group's request for a second referendum on a deal to rename the country North Macedonia in exchange for NATO and potentially European Union membership.



Lawmakers voted 49-9 on Wednesday against the request from the World Macedonian Congress. The 120-seat parliament's remaining lawmakers were absent. Greek Lawmakers Ratify Landmark Deal With Macedonia Greek lawmakers have ratified a deal with Macedonia, ending a nearly three-decade-long dispute between the neighbors in which the Balkan country will be renamed North Macedonia. Greece's parliament narrowly passed the agreement, 153-146, on Friday. The deal normalizes relations between the two countries and paves the way for Macedonia to join NATO and the European Union. U.S. Greek lawmakers have ratified a deal with Macedonia, ending a nearly three-decade-long dispute between the neighbors in which the Balkan country will be renamed North Macedonia. Greece's parliament narrowly passed the agreement, 153-146, on Friday. The deal normalizes relations between the two countries and paves the way for Macedonia to join NATO and the European Union. U.S.

The bid had secured preliminary approval by a parliamentary committee. But parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi said Macedonian law prevents a second referendum on the same issue to be held within two years of voters having had their say.



The diaspora group challenged the relevance of a September referendum that showed overwhelming support for the name deal, but had low voter turnout.



The agreement ends a decades-long dispute with Greece over the Macedonia name. It has been ratified in both countries.
Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley on Wednesday called on the Trump administration to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico before Congress begins considering legislation to implement the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.

The three countries on Nov. 30 signed the pact replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which governs more than $1.2 trillion in trade. The agreement must be approved by the U.S. Congress and Canadian and Mexican legislators before becoming law.

"Unfortunately, our producers are unlikely to realize the market access promises of USMCA while the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico remain," Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. His committee is in charge of shepherding the pact to approval in the Senate.

U.S. farmers  hardest hit by President Donald Trump's trade wars with China, a key buyer of American agricultural products, as well as Mexico and Canada  have long complained that with tariffs remaining in place, they will not be able to benefit fully from the new trade deal.

"Before Congress considers legislation to implement USMCA, the administration should lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from our top two trading partners and secure the elimination of retaliatory tariffs that stand to wipe out gains our farmers have made over the past 2 decades," Grassley said.

Trump had vowed to revamp NAFTA during his 2016 presidential campaign. At times during the USMCA negotiations, he threatened to tear up NAFTA and withdraw the United States from the pact completely, which would have left trade among the three neighbors in disarray.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2017 said that exiting NAFTA without a new deal could devastate American agriculture, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and "be an economic, political and national security disaster."

Grassley, a powerful senator from farming state of Iowa, said U.S. farmers, under pressure because of tariffs imposed by Mexico and Canada, as well as China, needed relief fast.

"We'll be working all hands on deck to get the job done. But we need the administration to help us pave the way," he added.
LONDON - Actor John Malkovich will take the starring role in a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet about a disgraced Hollywood studio head, a story he said was written partly in reaction to the scandal engulfing film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking to BBC Radio on Tuesday, Malkovich described "Bitter Wheat," which opens in London in the summer, as "a black farce about a very badly behaved movie mogul," who he said was "not particularly" Weinstein. The producer will go on trial in New York in May on charges of sexually assaulting two women.

"It's a great deal about that business and a great deal about how people in that business, in positions say as studio heads have behaved really for more or less a century now. So many of them were so notoriously badly behaved," he said.

"The idea...maybe started as reaction to all the news that came out last year, in particular about Harvey Weinstein but actually about many many people, some of whom were also higher ups in various studios. I think David kind of took the idea from there and went with it."

More than 70 women, mainly young actresses and others working in film, have accused Weinstein, 66, of sexual misconduct, including assault, dating back decades.

Film producer Harvey Weinstein sits during his hea FILE - Film producer Harvey Weinstein sits during his hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, Oct. 11, 2018. FILE - Film producer Harvey Weinstein sits during his hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, Oct. 11, 2018.

Weinstein, who pleaded not guilty after his arrest last May, has denied all the accusations, saying any sexual encounters were consensual.

The scandal helped kick off the #MeToo movement, in which dozens of powerful men in Hollywood and beyond have been accused of sexual misconduct.

"Of course it might upset people who've experienced the kind of treatment that the play contains and shows and describes and that we watch but what can I do about that?" Malkovich said.

"I am sure a lot of people will laugh and a lot of people will be upset and a lot of people may not like it. Personally I think it's a terrific piece of writing."

Malkovich, most recently seen on screens in Netflix thriller "Bird Box" and on British television as legendary detective Hercule Poirot in "The ABC Murders", said he met Weinstein when making 1998 drama "Rounders" but "didn't really have any connection with him".

In "Bitter Wheat", the 65-year-old actor will play Barney Fein, described in a press release as "a bloated monster- a studio head, who, like his predecessor, the minotaur, devours the young he has lured to his cave.

"His fall from power to shame is a mythic journey which has been compared to 'The Odyssey' by people who claim to have read that book."

Mamet, known for plays such as "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "Glengarry Glen Ross," has written about sexual misconduct before, namely in "Oleanna" about a female student and her professor.
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus warm welcome to Lithuanias prime minister marks his latest embrace of an eastern European leader who has offered strong political support while promoting a distorted image of the Holocaust.

Lithuania is among a slew of former communist nations swept up in a wave of World War II-era revisionism that seeks to diminish their culpability in the Holocaust while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews. In Israel, established in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, many say Netanyahu is cynically betraying the victims memory.

Lithuania, for instance, has been a leading force behind creating a joint memorial day for all victims of totalitarianism, blurring the distinction between the crimes of the Nazis and the communists who fought them.

It also has pushed for legislation to prohibit the sale of books that distort Lithuanian history by citing the rampant, documented collaboration of the local population with Nazis. Most recently it has resisted calls to remove the various plaques commemorating anti-Soviet fighter Jonas Noreika, despite recent revelations by his own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, that he was a fierce anti-Semite who had a role in the murder of thousands of Jews.

Nearly all of Lithuanias 200,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

When Netanyahu, who has Lithuanian roots, visited Vilnius last year, he praised Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis for taking great steps to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and for fighting modern-day anti-Semitism.

Its unforgivable. Netanyahu is giving them a green light, said Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Its like praising the Ku Klux Klan for improving racial relations in the South.

We have to say the truth. We owe it to the victims, he added.

In a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday, Skvernelis said Lithuania has been learning the lessons of the past and was improving the life of the Jewish community and restoring historical sites.

At Tuesdays meeting, Netanyahu treaded cautiously. He referred to the tragedies of the past but steered clear of any criticism of modern Lithuania, praising the spirit of friendship and a bridge from the past to a future.

Skvernelis visit comes a week after Netanyahu similarly rolled out the red carpet for President Petro Porochenko of Ukraine, whose parliament just designated the birthday of Ukrainian wartime collaborator Stepan Bandera a national holiday. A regional legislature declared 2019 the year of Stepan Bandera.

Banderas forces fought alongside the Nazis and were implicated in the murder of thousands of Jews. As Porochenko was visiting Israel, another memorial was being erected in Kiev for Symon Petliura, whose troops are linked to pogroms that killed as many as 50,000 Jews after World War I.

Netanyahus outreach in eastern Europe is part of his larger strategy of forging alliances to counter the criticism Israel faces in the United Nations and other international forums over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Critics consider it a deal with the devil. They say Netanyahu  who often invokes the Holocaust when inveighing against archrival Iran  turns a blind eye when it comes to like-minded allies.

Its a specific maneuver that legitimizes anti-Semitism and borders on Holocaust denial, said Tamar Zandberg, leader of the dovish Meretz party.

The prime ministers office did not respond to a request for comment.

Under communist rule, the Holocaust was not seriously dealt with and, upon independence, the newfound eastern and central European nations sought to canonize nationalist icons who resisted the Soviets, while largely ignoring their crimes alongside the Nazis. Domestic academics who have challenged the false narrative have been shamed, and external criticism has often been met with new anti-Semitic outbursts.

For countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, the warm embrace of the Israeli leader provides a strong defense against accusation of anti-Semitism while also strengthening ties with a close U.S. ally.

Netanyahu has also formed a close alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has lavished praise on Miklos Horthy, Hungarys World War II-era ruler, who introduced anti-Semitic laws and collaborated with the Nazis. Orban has also employed anti-Semitic tropes against the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros and backed a state-funded museum that experts say plays down the role of Hungarian collaborators.

Netanyahu also struck a deal with Polish leaders over their countrys controversial Holocaust speech law, which would have criminalized blaming the Polish nation for crimes committed against Jews during World War II.

Israeli Holocaust historians slammed the agreement, which seemed to accept a Polish narrative that they were only victims of the Nazis. Scholars say anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in pre-war Poland and Poles might have either killed or helped Germans kill up to 200,000 Jews.

Still, Netanyahu has invited Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki  who last year equated Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust to supposed Jewish perpetrators  to Israel in February for a summit with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a Holocaust survivor, called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting, saying one prime minister has published anti-Semitic content and another passed a law desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims.

In an annual report Sunday, Israels Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said 2018 saw a record number of worldwide anti-Semitic attacks, with most carried out by neo-Nazis in Europe and white supremacists.

But at his Cabinet meeting later in the day, Netanyahu singled out Islamic anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the extreme left, which includes anti-Zionism.

Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which hosts all visiting foreign dignitaries, has been thrust into the controversy.

While it says it will never disqualify anyone wishing to visit, Yad Vashem insists it will forcefully address any denial or distortion. Yad Vashem said the Lithuanian leader received a comprehensive explanation of the Holocaust, including details about the murder of Jews of Lithuania by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators.
Iran has detained one of its Baha'i citizens and released another as part of a long-running crackdown on members of the religious minority in the Islamic republic.

Iran's Human Rights Activist News Agency published a report saying intelligence agents detained Farzad Rouhani Manshadi, a Baha'i man living in the central city of Yazd, on Monday while he was taking his child to school. It said the agents also searched Manshadi's home and seized some of his belongings. HRANA attributed the information to a source close to Manshadi's family.

An Iranian Baha'i community member sent a message to VOA Persian on Monday confirming that Manshadi had been detained.

The same source also told VOA Persian that Neda Shabani, a female Baha'i resident of the northern city of Karaj, was released on bail Monday after authorities detained her in Karaj on Nov. 28.

The source said Shabani had been charged with disseminating propaganda against the state and disrupting national security. HRANA also reported that Shabani had been released on bail.

The Iranian Baha'i source provided a photo, verified by VOA Persian, of a smiling Shabani embracing her husband outside of a prison after her release.

Iran considers its Baha'is to be heretics with no religion. Rights groups say authorities routinely arrest members of Iran's estimated 300,000-strong Baha'i minority for expressing or practicing their beliefs.

A Jan. 24 report by London-based rights group Amnesty International said Iran continued a "systematic persecution" of Baha'is last year. It cited the Baha'i International Community organization as saying Iran "arbitrarily" detained at least 95 Baha'is in 2018.

Iran has repeatedly charged detained Baha'is with national security-related offenses without disclosing evidence.
Miles (km) downstream from where a dam owned by miner Vale SA burst on Friday, killing hundreds, a small indigenous village in Brazil faces doubts about its very existence as the river at the center of life here runs dark with mining waste.

For members of the Pataxo-Hahahae tribe living at the end of a sinuous dirt road, fish from the Paraopeba River are the principal source of food. Villagers bathe and wash their clothes in its waters.

But after a tailings dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine burst upstream, burying communities and turning the river's once-clear waters a muddy brown, the 80 or so residents of the Pataxo-Hahahae village of Nao Xoha say they are unsure if they will be forced to uproot their families.

While there were no Pataxo-Hahahae among the 65 confirmed dead or 279 disappeared, the disaster, they fear, could be the end of their way of life.

"On Thursday, I was here washing my clothes, bathing with my children, and now I can't even touch the river," said Sot de Ionara Pataxo Hahahae, holding back tears. "Our hearts are so sad knowing that nothing can be done."

The Pataxo-Hahahae's plight comes as Brazil's current government, which took office earlier in January, has signaled it wants to cut mining regulations and shrink protections currently afforded to indigenous communities. For critics, the dam burst reveals the danger of both policies.

An Indigenous man from the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae tribe An Indigenous man from the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae tribe looks at Paraopeba river, after a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA collapsed, in Sao Joaquim de Bicas near Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 25, 2019. An Indigenous man from the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae tribe looks at Paraopeba river, after a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale SA collapsed, in Sao Joaquim de Bicas near Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 25, 2019.

Brazil's indigenous affairs agency Funai said it is committed to helping Nao Xoha, by ensuring potable water among other measures.

But in the wake of the disaster, trust in the authorities here is low.

"You think some mining company is worried about this? Do you think some mayor is worried about this area?" asked Sot de Aigoho Pataxo Hahahae. "They only love money - and mining."
MEXICO CITY - Authorities discovered a tunnel Tuesday beneath an industrial building in Mexico City that fuel thieves dug to tap gasoline and diesel pipelines.



Mexico discovers thousands of such taps each year, but seldom are they found connected to tunnels or located in such heavily populated areas.



The tunnel was several yards long and deep, and had timber framing to prevent collapse. The tunnel accessed four pipelines that carried fuel to a nearby tank farm. All had illegal taps drilled into them, with hoses that led out to a large parking area.



Such large-scale tapping operations presumably fill whole tanker trucks or industrial vehicles. The state-owned oil company, Pemex, has found some gas being sold through licensed stations had apparently been stolen.

Military personnel watch as flames engulf an area FILE - Military personnel watch as flames engulf an area after a ruptured fuel pipeline exploded, in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, near the Tula refinery of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Jan. 18, 2019. FILE - Military personnel watch as flames engulf an area after a ruptured fuel pipeline exploded, in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, near the Tula refinery of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Jan. 18, 2019.

Such illegal taps frequently leak and catch fire, as one did Jan. 18 in Hidalgo state, north of Mexico City. That fire occurred as residents were gathering spilled fuel. The death toll in that fire now stands at 119; 60 percent of the injured have died.



At total of 30 people remain hospitalized, with 10 still in very critical condition.



Adding to the woes at Pemex, the Fitch ratings agency lowered the company's credit rating one step to "AA," with a negative outlook. The downgrade was attributed to negative cash flow and the fact that its heavy debt load makes the company essentially insolvent, though government-backed.
Across Europe, citizens are on their feet  and on the internet in unprecedented grassroots uprisings to demand more government action in fighting climate change. This past week alone saw tens of thousands of Europeans joining protests in countries across the continent. That includes France, where many say President Emmanuel Macron is nowhere near realizing his crusade to "make the planet great again." Lisa Bryant has more for VOA from Paris.
ROME - After spending close to two weeks at sea because no country would allow them to disembark, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said 47 migrants on the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 finally would come off that vessel. Europe had been arguing over the fate of the migrants and Italy agreed to let them disembark only after a half-dozen countries came forward to take them in.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ended the latest migrant standoff on Wednesday, announcing the 47 migrants would soon disembark. The migrants had been stuck on the vessel since their rescue off the coast of Libya January 19.

The Sea-Watch 3 rescue vessel has been moored off southern Sicily since Friday.

Italy PM Says 5 Nations Offer Help to End Migrant Boat Stand-off Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday five countries had come forward with offers to help end the stand-off over a rescue boat moored off Sicily with 47 migrants on board.The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago but Italy, which has closed its ports to charity ships, has refused to allow them ashore to request asylum."I want to thank the friendly countries that have in the last few hours said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday five countries had come forward with offers to help end the stand-off over a rescue boat moored off Sicily with 47 migrants on board.The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago but Italy, which has closed its ports to charity ships, has refused to allow them ashore to request asylum."I want to thank the friendly countries that have in the last few hours said

Europe has been struggling with how to deal with the migrants respective arrivals since Italys populist government, which came to power last March, announced it would close its ports to humanitarian vessels.

It was the second time in a month the Sea-Watch 3 had been stranded at sea with rescued migrants and no safe port that would allow it to dock.

Speaking in Milan on Wednesday, Prime Minister Conte said Luxembourg came forward as the latest country to answer Italy's request for assistance.

The prime minister added that Luxembourg joined Germany, France, Portugal, Romania and Malta in agreeing to take some of the migrants from the Sea-Watch 3 ship operated by a German aid group. The migrants are expected to disembark in the coming hours.

30 Bodies of Migrants Found After Boats Capsize off Djibouti Thirty bodies have been found after some 130 migrants went missing off Djibouti when two boats capsized in rough waters, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday.Sixteen survivors were recovered, and the tiny East African nations coast guard continued a search and rescue operation after Tuesdays accident, the U.N. said in a statement. Thirty bodies have been found after some 130 migrants went missing off Djibouti when two boats capsized in rough waters, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday.Sixteen survivors were recovered, and the tiny East African nations coast guard continued a search and rescue operation after Tuesdays accident, the U.N. said in a statement.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, Mission accomplished! Once again thanks to the commitment of the Italian government and the determination of our Interior Ministry, Europe has been forced to intervene and take on its responsibilities. Salvini added, On the basis of the documentation gathered, an investigation should be opened to shed light on the conduct of the NGO.

Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Germany has agreed to accept some of the migrants, declaring it is clear a common and lasting solution is needed in Europe to the issue.



The U.N. refugee agency says on average, six people a day lost their lives attempting to reach Europe by way of the Mediterranean last year.
LONDON - From Sweden to southern Spain, and the Netherlands to Hungary, populist forces have gained seats in recent elections and they now see a chance at power in Brussels itself.

Europe is gearing up for EU parliament elections in May, a vote where the balance of power could shift decisively.

FILE - Flemish right-wing party President Filip De FILE - Flemish right-wing party President Filip Dewinter attends a protest against Marrakesh Migration Pact in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 16, 2018. FILE - Flemish right-wing party President Filip Dewinter attends a protest against Marrakesh Migration Pact in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 16, 2018.

The campaigns are getting under way amid the fevered atmosphere of street protests in France and many other EU states, alongside growing brinkmanship in the negotiations on Britain's imminent withdrawal from the bloc.

The 751 members of the European Parliament (or MEPs) are directly elected every five years, and they form the legislative body of the bloc which has the power to pass EU laws and approve the appointment of EU commissioners.

Populist forces, backed by the power of street protests, look set to make the coming vote unlike any other in the bloc's history, according to analyst Michael Cottakis of the London School of Economics. He is also director of the '89 Initiative,' which seeks to engage younger generations in European decision-making.

"It's an opportunity to hit the pinata when the establishment presents it to you and get your policy opinions across," Cottakis told VOA. "Generally we've seen that the European elections have been a sort of locus in which angry, disaffected citizens essentially voice their concerns - the height of a delayed populist political backlash against a long period of economic hardship."

In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen is seeking to align her National Rally party with the yellow vest protesters.

Coordinated May assault

FILE - Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini ge FILE - Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini gestures as he attends a news conference in Rome, Italy, Jan. 14, 2019. FILE - Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini gestures as he attends a news conference in Rome, Italy, Jan. 14, 2019.

Across Europe, populist forces are attempting a coordinated assault on the May elections. Italy's far-right interior minister recently weighed in on the French protests, posting a video on social media in which he said he hoped "that the French can free themselves from a terrible president, and the opportunity will come on May 26."

The minister, Matteo Salvini, is trying to form alliances with governments in Hungary and Poland. Their common foe is immigration  but there are major contradictions, says analyst Luigi Scazzieri of the Center for European Reform.

"With Italy wanting other countries to take migrants but Hungary, for example, having absolutely no intention of doing so. So the real question is, will they be able to work together to form an effective group?'"

That's unlikely, says Michael Cottakis, citing other significant policy differences among Europe's populist governments.

"Italy is a member of the eurozone, Poland is not. And then in terms of foreign policy, very importantly, Poland is a great believer in the NATO alliance, terrified of Russia, greatly mistrusting of Vladimir Putin; whereas Salvini has openly expressed support."

Street fights back

A man holds an EU flag as he takes part in a prote A man holds an EU flag as he takes part in a protest against a proposed new labor law, billed as the "slave law", in Budapest, Hungary, Jan. 19, 2019. A man holds an EU flag as he takes part in a protest against a proposed new labor law, billed as the "slave law", in Budapest, Hungary, Jan. 19, 2019.

Political battle lines are being drawn, colors nailed to the mast. Several hundred self-styled red scarf' protesters staged counter-demonstrations in Paris Sunday, waving EU flags and voicing support for pro-EU President Emmanuel Macron of France.

In Hungary, the EU flag has been at the forefront of growing anti-government demonstrations. In Germany meanwhile, the Green party has overtaken the far right Alternative for Germany' party in the polls.

Populists are fast discovering they do not have a monopoly on the street. The real test of strength will come at the ballot box on May 26, a vote that could change the balance of power in Europe.
British and European Union negotiators expressed different views Wednesday on the state of Britain's exit from the EU after British lawmakers gave Prime Minister Theresa May what she called a "mandate" to seek changes to the country's withdrawal agreement.

A series of votes in the British parliament Tuesday resulted in May's party getting approval for its plan to seek "alternative arrangements" to the Irish border provision of the current Brexit deal.

British Brexit minister Stephen Barclay told BBC radio in an interview Wednesday that those changes would be the subject of negotiations in the coming days.

But on the EU side, chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said the bloc's position "is very clear."

"The only point I want to make is to confirm that the EU institutions remain united and we stand by the agreement we have negotiated with the [United Kingdom]," Barnier told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

He said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker would address the issue later in the day.

Britain's House of Commons rejected May's Brexit plans two weeks ago, primarily because of the Irish border provision, known as the backstop, which would be in place until Britain and the EU could negotiate a new post-Brexit trade deal.

Anti-Brexit demonstrators react after the results Anti-Brexit demonstrators react after the results of the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal were announced in Parliament square in London, Jan. 15, 2019. Anti-Brexit demonstrators react after the results of the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal were announced in Parliament square in London, Jan. 15, 2019.

The backstop would keep Britain in a customs union with the EU in order to keep a free flow of goods between Ireland  an EU member  and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

Backstop opponents who still support the idea of Brexit say it means Britain would still be subjected to EU rules, which is the reason they want Britain to leave the EU in the first place.

Without an agreement in place, Britain faces a "no-deal" Brexit departure.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told a congressional panel in Washington Tuesday such an outcome "would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weaken the [United Kingdom] and Europe."

Business leaders are worried that a no-deal Brexit would lead to economic chaos.

British opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said he believes the British government would have to delay its Brexit departure for three months to allow for more negotiations.

European Parliament Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said Wednesday it is not in anyone's interest to prolong the process.
European Union leaders have ruled out British Prime Minister Theresa May's attempt to renegotiate the terms of Britain's exit from the bloc in March.

The British parliament Tuesday approved May's request to the EU to re-work the Irish border provision of the current Brexit deal.

European Council President Donald Tusk speaks duri FILE - European Council President Donald Tusk speaks during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 14, 2018. FILE - European Council President Donald Tusk speaks during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 14, 2018.

But the spokesman for European Council President Donald Tusk immediately ruled out any re-negotiation.

"The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union," the spokesman said. "We continue to urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to the next steps as soon as possible."

FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Jan. 15, 2019. FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Jan. 15, 2019.

Britain's House of Commons rejected May's Brexit plans two weeks ago, primarily because of the Irish border provision, known as the backstop.

The backstop would keep Britain in a customs union with the EU in order to keep a free flow of goods between Ireland  an EU member  and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

Backstop opponents who still support the idea of Brexit say it means Britain would still be subjected to EU rules, which is the reason they want Britain to leave the EU in the first place.

Without an agreement in place, Britain faces a "no-deal" Brexit departure.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testif Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told a congressional panel in Washington Tuesday that such an outcome "would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weaken the [United Kingdom] and Europe."

Business leaders are worried that a no-deal Brexit would lead to economic chaos.

FILE - British Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn ta FILE - British Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn talks to journalists outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Sept. 27, 2018. FILE - British Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn talks to journalists outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Sept. 27, 2018.

British opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said he believes the British government would have to delay its Brexit departure for three months to allow for more negotiations.

The pact defeated two weeks ago took British and EU negotiators 18 months to reach. Since then, May has pledged to go forward with the agreement and seek some changes to earn the necessary support.

May's Conservative Party is now supporting what it calls "alternative arrangements" to overcome the concerns about tying Britain's policies to EU rules.

What is not certain is whether those changes would be enough to win over a majority of parliament. There also is the question of whether the European Union would agree to alter the agreement, something its leaders have repeatedly said throughout the debate in Britain they have no intention of doing.
Thousands of Ethiopian-Israelis are protesting in Tel Aviv against alleged police brutality after an officer killed an Ethiopian man two weeks ago.

Demonstrators blocked a major highway in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and paraded through major avenues of the city protesting what they consider to be systemic police mistreatment of the minority group. They carried signs saying police are killing Beita Yisrael, a Hebrew term for the Ethiopian Jewish community.

People march as they protest against Israeli polic People march as they protest against Israeli police and demand the appointment of an investigating judge to probe the killing of Yehuda Biadga, a mentally ill Ethiopian-Israeli, by Israeli police, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. People march as they protest against Israeli police and demand the appointment of an investigating judge to probe the killing of Yehuda Biadga, a mentally ill Ethiopian-Israeli, by Israeli police, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019.

Earlier this month, a policeman shot dead 24-year-old Yehuda Biadga, a mentally distressed man wielding a knife, in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam. Israels Justice Ministry is investigating the incident.

Biadgas family accused police of excessive force, and protest organizers called the incident the straw that broke the camels back after years of perceived discrimination by Israeli authorities.
A cast member on the hit television show "Empire" alleged he was physically attacked by men in Chicago who shouted racial and homophobic slurs, police said Tuesday (January 29).

The police did not release the actor's name but a statement from Fox, which airs "Empire," identified him as Jussie Smollett, 36. Authorities said they are investigating the alleged attack as a hate crime. Smollett is black and openly gay.



According to a police statement, the actor was walking near the Chicago River downtown around 2 a.m. Tuesday when he was approached by two men who shouted at him, struck him in the face and poured an "unknown substance" on him before one of them wrapped a rope around his neck.



Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that when officers first came in contact with Smollett, he still had a rope around his neck. While being interviewed by detectives, Guglielmi said Smollett told them that the attackers yelled he was in "MAGA country," an apparent reference to the Trump campaign's "Make America Great Again" slogan that some critics of the president have decried as racist and discriminatory.



The police spokesman added that the two men were wearing masks. Investigators have not found any surveillance video or witnesses from which they can put together a description of the offenders, he said.



Smollett was able to take himself to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was last reported in good condition.

Guglielmi also said the FBI is investigating a threatening letter targeting Smollett that was sent to the Fox studio in Chicago last week.



Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton called the alleged attack "outrageous and despicable." He also said that if the alleged assailants really were shouting slogans related to President Trump, the president should publicly say "if his brand does not represent these kind of alleged attacks." Sharpton added "his silence is deafening."
CAIRO - Egypt has rounded up at least six activists in the last couple of days in a wave of arrests coinciding with the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, a rights lawyer said Wednesday.

Authorities have waged a sweeping crackdown on dissent in recent years, reversing freedoms won in the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Security is especially tight around the anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising and public commemorations of it are largely banned.

Negad Borai, the lawyer, said that among those arrested in the past two days is Yehia Hussein Abdel Hady, the former spokesman of the Civil Democratic Movement. The coalition of secular and left-leaning political parties had called for a boycott of Egypts presidential election last year.

Egypt Arrests 54 Suspected of Planning Violence on Uprising Anniversary Egyptian security forces have arrested 54 people, including suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood, for planning to hold protests and commit violence on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, the interior ministry said on Tuesday. Egyptian security forces have arrested 54 people, including suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood, for planning to hold protests and commit violence on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

The other five activists were arrested on Monday after they attended a ceremony commemorating the uprising, Borai said.

The five were members of the Karama, or Dignity, party founded by opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi, the only candidate who ran against President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in the 2014 presidential election.

The whereabouts of the six activists are still unknown, Borai said. A spokesman for Egypts Interior Ministry, which oversees police, did not respond to phone calls and messages seeking comment.

It is not clear if the activists are among 54 people who authorities said Tuesday were detained for plotting to foment chaos on the anniversary of the uprising.

The Interior Ministry said those individuals, most of them alleged members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, were arrested over the past weeks in different locations.

Macron Presses Egypt on Human Rights During Visit French President Emmanuel Macron said he encouraged respect for human rights when he met Monday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is seen as a key ally in the fight against Islamic extremists but has led an unprecedented crackdown on dissent. Macron, heading a large delegation on a three-day trip to the Arab world's most populous country, said ahead of the talks that he wanted to "pursue a truthful dialogue on topics of public freedoms and human rights"  something he has raised French President Emmanuel Macron said he encouraged respect for human rights when he met Monday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is seen as a key ally in the fight against Islamic extremists but has led an unprecedented crackdown on dissent. Macron, heading a large delegation on a three-day trip to the Arab world's most populous country, said ahead of the talks that he wanted to "pursue a truthful dialogue on topics of public freedoms and human rights"  something he has raised

The Muslim Brotherhood won a series of elections after the 2011 uprising. Mohamed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood member, was Egypt's first freely elected president in 2012 but was overthrown by the military the following year amid mass protests against his rule.

Authorities have since branded the group a terrorist organization and have arrested thousands of its members, sentencing many of its top leaders, including Morsi, to life sentences or death.

The latest arrests came just two days after French President Emmanuel Macron urged respect for human rights in a meeting with el-Sissi during a state visit to Cairo.

El-Sissi, who led the overthrow of Morsi in 2013, was elected president the following year. He won re-election last year after all serious potential rivals were arrested or pressured into withdrawing from the race.

In recent years authorities have banned all unauthorized protests, blocked hundreds of websites and silenced nearly all independent media.

The government has said such measures are needed to restore stability and combat an insurgency in the northern Sinai Peninsula that has gained strength since 2013.
CARACAS - The unusual arrival of a Russian passenger plane in Caracas has set social media abuzz with rumors about its mission after the Kremlin pledged to support its ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against a U.S.-backed effort to drive him from office.

The Boeing 777, with space for some 400 passengers and belonging to Russia's Nordwind Airlines, was parked by a private corner of the airport after flying direct from Moscow, according to flight tracking data and Reuters photos.

The same plane flew from Moscow to Caracas on Dec. 3, the data showed, coinciding with when Maduro traveled to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Neither Nordwind nor the Venezuelan government immediately responded to a request to comment on why the jet had flown to Caracas.

Venezuelan social media was alive with theories - that it had brought mercenaries, was there to escort Maduro into exile, or was loading up with gold. None of those theories was based on solid evidence, but the feverish speculation was a testament to the atmosphere of uncertainty in the country as Maduro comes under unprecedented international pressure to step down.

Reuters reported last week that private military contractors who carry out secret missions for Russia had flown into Venezuela to beef up Maduro's security in the face of mass opposition protests last week, according to people close to them.

The plane normally flies between Russia and Southeast Asia and is not recorded to have flown to Caracas before, according to publicly-available flight data. Neither Nordwind nor other commercial airlines offer direct Moscow-Caracas flights.

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported the plane flew with two crews and no passengers.

Maduro claims he is facing a Washington-backed coup attempt led by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who last week proclaimed himself president and was recognized by the United States as the legitimate head-of-state.

Russia has accused U.S. President Donald Trump's administration of trying to usurp power in Venezuela and warned against any military intervention. The Kremlin on Tuesday condemned new U.S. sanctions against Venezuela's vital oil sector as illegal interference in the OPEC member's affairs.
As the U.S. makes headway in its direct talks with the Taliban, a sense of nervousness and betrayal has kicked in, with many government officials and ordinary Afghans fearing the country may return to the chaos it experienced following the Soviet Union's withdrawal in the late 1980s.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has been holding discussions with the Afghan Taliban, Afghan government officials, and local and regional stakeholders in recent weeks to seek a negotiated settlement for America's longest war in Afghanistan.

Officials told VOA Saturday that a draft pact had been reached between the U.S. and the Taliban.

iei i eie iieeii ii e FILE - U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, speaks during a roundtable discussion with Afghan media at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 28, 2019. FILE - U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, speaks during a roundtable discussion with Afghan media at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 28, 2019.

The draft reportedly requires U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan within 18 months of the agreement being signed in exchange for the Taliban pledging not to allow the Afghan territory to serve as a base for terrorism.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Monday said he welcomes efforts toward reaching peace but insisted that they be carefully deliberated.

"We insist on deliberations because we are fully aware of the experience of Dr. Najibullah's government. We all know how he was betrayed. The U.N. promised him that peace would prevail after his departure from power but unfortunately, what ensued was a catastrophe," Ghani said in a joint Pashto and Dari statement to the nation following the news the tentative deal between the U.S and Taliban.

Najibullah was the Soviet-installed president of Afghanistan from September 1986 to April 1992. He took refuge in the United Nations headquarters until he was executed by the Taliban on Sept. 26, 1996.

Tanks manned by Taliban fighters and decorated wit FILE - Tanks manned by Taliban fighters and decorated with flowers are shown in front of the the presidential palace in Kabul, Sept. 27, 1996. The Islamic rebels executed President Najibullah the day before. FILE - Tanks manned by Taliban fighters and decorated with flowers are shown in front of the the presidential palace in Kabul, Sept. 27, 1996. The Islamic rebels executed President Najibullah the day before.

"As a responsible and elected leader of 35 million Afghans, I am fully aware of the dynamics in the region and the world and can recognize the possible risks and threats after a peace deal," Ghani added.

'Shortcut'

An Afghan official with knowledge of the recent developments within the Afghan government told VOA on condition of anonymity that the Afghan government feels anxious about the speed of the talks and the possibility that the U.S may hastily settle for a quick fix.

"We are concerned that the special representative [Khalilzad] may opt for a convenient shortcut and contract us out to Pakistan, something that happened following the end of the Cold War," the official said.

Amrullah Saleh, a former minister of interior and a running mate for President Ghani, took to social media to express his opposition to a deal with the Taliban which would not be owned by the Afghan government.

Afg is economically poor yet a very proud nation. It has been paying a very heavy price for its pride. Here the core belief is that only a strong pluralistic central state can manifest & project the image & power of the people. A non state solution is a problem added not solved.  Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) January 27, 2019

?Key to peace

Talking to different media outlets Monday in Kabul, Khalilzad made an effort to calm the paranoia and reiterated the U.S. commitment to long-term stability in Afghanistan.

"We are working together to get to a comprehensive cease-fire. We are working with the Afghan government, with international partners to find implementing mechanisms to reach these goals," he said.

"The key for finding the solutions for Afghan problems is at the hands of Afghans now," Khalilzad added.

Khalilzad rejected reports that the U.S and Taliban have agreed on the establishment of an interim government, a proposition that reportedly rattled many Afghans, including senior government officials.

Briefed President @ashrafghani last night on the progress we%27ve made. Peace is America%27s highest priority in #Afghanistan, a goal we believe all Afghans share. pic.twitter.com/vwrxfnhIWd  U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) January 28, 2019

?Election challenges?

Afghan presidential elections were to be held in April of this year, but in late December the country's election commission announced that due to some technical glitches witnessed in the country's parliamentary elections in October and the need to be better prepared, elections would be delayed for three months.

Some experts charge that the delay had a lot to do with the ongoing peace talks.

Jason Campbell, a policy researcher at the U.S.-based Rand Corporation, charges that getting the Afghan sides closer to bilateral talks without infringing on the sovereignty of the Afghan government has always been a challenge for the U.S.

"What makes this more complicated is the looming presidential election that will have a large, contentious field of candidates vying for support. Such an environment will likely both pressure candidates, to include especially President Ghani, to demonstrate authority and resolve and enhance the Taliban's reluctance to engage a government that may not be in power in a few months," Campbell said.

"Considering this, it is difficult to envision any substantial breakthroughs in a genuine peace process in the next few months," he added.

"President Ghani should either make peace [with Taliban] or hold presidential elections. Both cannot be achieved at the same time," Waheed Muzhda, a Kabul-based analyst, told VOA.

Achievements

There are also concerns that a peace deal may come at the expense of losing the hard-earned achievements of the past 17 years.

Sima Samar, chair of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, told VOA the Afghan ownership of the talks is key to preserving those gains.

"We advocate for extended participation of the Afghan people, especially women and [war] victims in the peace process because if we ignore the victims' rights, access to justice and human rights, we won't have a lasting peace," Samar said.

'Tired of war'

Mubina Sai Khairandish, a female activist in northern Balkh province, said continued war has made people tired.

"The people of Afghanistan are supporting the peace process because they are tired of war. However, they are concerned that the government of Afghanistan is excluded from peace talks," she said.

"Concerns also include women rights, freedom of speech, human rights, constitution rights and other democratic achievements," she added.

Asif Popalzai, a Kabul-based businessman, told VOA that peace and preserving the achievements should go hand in hand.

"We support Mr. Khalilzad's peace process only if we don't lose the achievements we have had during the past 17 years," he said. "No one in Afghanistan wants a government similar to that of Taliban regime, even if it brings peace."
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Thailands newly appointed army chief Apirat Kongsompong visited Cambodia this week to discuss border security issues and expanding military ties.

Apirat, an upstart figure of Thailands royalist-military establishment after his appointment as army chief in September, arrived on Tuesday and met with his Cambodian counterpart, Cambodian army commander Hun Manet, as well as Defense Minister Tea Banh.

Banh said on Wednesday that the Apirat held technical discussions with Cambodian officials on the issues of border security and military ties between Cambodia and Thailand.

Its normal that we meet and discuss a number of issues, in which we made mutual assurances to strengthen the existing good cooperation with a more consensus-based and sweetened military arrangement along the border, Banh told VOA Khmer in a phone call on Wednesday.

The visit took place as Thailand is gearing up for much-awaited first post-coup election in March, and after reports that Cambodia issued former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra with a diplomatic passport.

The Cambodian government denied that the fugitive politician was issued a Cambodian passport, but later called for a national review of foreigners holding diplomatic passports, which are often issued to government advisers.

Banh said the area around the Preah Vihear temple, where both countries engaged in armed clashes between 2008 and 2011, remained at peace.

Theres no problem out there. The thing is that both sides understand each other better and we now have no problem. We can talk to each other more effectively. now do not have a problem any longer.

Coming from the influential Kings Guard army division, Apirat has been seen as an upstart figure among Thailands ruling establishment since his appointment as the nations infantry commander in September.

Besides assuming command of the army, Apirat is also a member of the Crown Property Bureau  a body overseeing the Thai royal fortune, estimated at least $30 billion  and the secretary-general of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the junta governing Thailand since the 2014 coup.

Thailand will hold a much-awaited election on March 24 in a return to the civilian rule that critics have seen as aimed at empowering the NCPOs roles in the post-election political sphere.

Apirat caused uproar recently by suggesting he may lead a coup if a return to civilian rule would create chaos in the country.

Paul Chambers, a defense analyst with Thailands Naresuan University, said the visit by Apirat would help to ensure the Thai militarys relations with Hun Sen government, deter a reincarnation of Phnom Penhs alliance with opposition forces, and embed bilateral defense ties.

Whichever party wins the election in March will continue to maintain positive relations with Cambodia, he said.

However, if a pro-Thaksin [Shinawatra] party wins the election, it may happen that anti-Thaksin Thais or Thai military elements will accuse the new pro-Thaksin government of getting too close to Hun Sen. Such accusations would simply be political rhetoric designed to sway Thai public opinion against a pro-Thaksin government.

Banh also expressed his belief that the election in Thailand would not disrupt bilateral ties with Cambodia.

We encourage a smooth election [in Thailand], hoping that no problems and no clashes will take place in the process, he said.
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The energy industry is now looking to the private sector as a financial, source in order to develop, according to the World Bank Photo: shutterstock.com

In 2018, the Vietnamese renewable power sector fared well, with solar and wind ventures being registered and starting construction. This was helped along by a big push in incentives via government policy in a bid to spur development in one of the most promising sectors, which remains largely untapped.

According to the latest report of state-owned Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), 332 solar projects registered to the power master plan with capital of 22,300 megawatts (MW), in which 121 projects have been approved with 6,000MW before June 2019. Meanwhile wind projects had been approved with 4,000MW registered.

The developments in both wind and solar power show Vietnams efforts to meet the targets set in the Revised Power Development Master Plan VII to produce 10.7 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, as well as reflect positively the recent government policy for renewable energy, said Tran Viet Anh, director of EVNs Strategy Department at the Vietnam Power Summit 2019 last week.

The big incentives include Decision No.11/2017/QD-TTg on encouraging the development of solar power projects that set feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) for solar projects at 9.35 US cents; Decision No.39/2018/QD-TTg to revise mechanisms supporting the development of wind power projects; and Resolution No.115/NQ-CP, extending the application of an FiT of 9.35 US cents for solar power projects in the south-central province of Ninh Thuan by a year.

Renewable energy investment professional Andrew Affleck said, Vietnam is in the midst of a solar rush, and is now watching the wind rush start. He added the Vietnamese wind market did not take off after the government first released incentives for projects in 2011 because many ventures had been postponed as regulated prices were below production costs.

How many of these registered projects will come back to life remains a question as currently, power projects are facing bottlenecks, especially in power purchase agreements (PPAs) playing an important role by providing the basic framework for investment within the sector. Meanwhile, the countrys electricity demand is expected to see an increase of more than 10 per cent per annum in the coming years due to the rising population and accelerating economic growth.

Southern Vietnam, the countrys largest economic hub which includes Ho Chi Minh City, faces a particularly critical situation with the current imbalance between the existing supply and the increasing demand for electricity. There is therefore an urgent need for the development of power generation infrastructure in the region.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Dang Hoang An stressed at a recent forum that Vietnam has and will continue paying due heed to these measures in the future to achieve its targets of energy security and sustainable development.

In the revised Power Master Plan VII, Vietnam is poised to require $148 billion worth of investment in generation and distribution capacity through to 2030, as the country needs to boost its installed capacity to 61 gigawatts (GW), 97GW, and 127.7GW by 2020, 2025, and 2030, respectively.

Among the necessary measures, first it should attract investment from the private sector into the energy sector. The question remains how the private sector can take a more integral part in power sector financing? Previously, only state-owned companies such as EVN, PetroVietnam or Vinacomin made investments into the power sector, said An.

Getting the deals done

New financial sources, particularly from the private sector, will help Vietnam further develop its energy industry, according to a new World Bank report on maximising finance for Vietnams energy development.

Tran Tuan Phong, a senior partner at law firm Vilaf who has experience in negotiating PPA projects in Vietnam, said that financial arrangement is not an easy task for power projects that require a huge capital and that have environmental concerns. Looking back on the progress from the release of bidding documents of BOT Nghi Son 2, it took 10 years for the thermal power project to complete all procedures to reach financial closure.

In renewable energy, despite high FiT and investment incentives, only a few projects have made it to construction stage and are in operation so far. Meanwhile, the majority of renewable energy projects in Vietnam are still at the pre-investment stage due to many issues arising from approval, financing, and PPA to implementation. Renewable energy developers have encountered many challenges in getting projects to the operations phase, including the questionable bankability of the PPA, the lack of credit rating of the off-taker, and the operational risks that the project faces.

Lack of comprehensive information is one of the greatest challenges for investors and developers to manoeuvre renewable opportunities. Even though information about projects in Vietnam has been floating around the market, there is no clear information on the number of projects, development status, and other factors, creating confusion and uncertainty for investors, developers, and other stakeholders.

The project developer is responsible for grid connection costs and risks. However, the PPA does not factor in project capacity, distance from existing transmission lines, and higher costs of installing transmission lines over longer distances, noted the Vietnam Business Forums (VBF) Energy Sub-Working Group.

The VBF previously said that quality and sources of data for renewable energy sub-sectors have to improve to ensure clarity for investors about available locations, infrastructure capabilities, and governmental targets. As the renewable energy sector picks up the pace in the coming decade, the government should continue to focus on developing human resources capabilities.

The VBF went on to say that supporting industries play a crucial role in development and quicker adoption of renewable energy technologies. The government should promote domestic companies through capital subsidy and incentives, such as tax breaks and preferential loans. A competitive supporting industry would help in reducing the tariff and investment costs for renewable projects, which are cost-intensive.
Dao Minh Tu, Deputy Governor State Bank of Vietnam

To ensure the effective implementation of the National Assemblys Resolution No.42/2017/QH14 and prime ministerial Decision No.1058/QD-TTg on tackling bad debts of local credit institutions, under our proposals to the government, the local courts shall be urged to accelerate procedures dealing with bad debts. We will also join hands with the Peoples Supreme Procuracy and the ministries of Public Security and Justice to facilitate the process of returning collaterals being held as material evidences for criminal cases after related procedures are completed.

The ministries, sectors, and relevant units and organisations will be required to scale up efforts to accelerate the streamlining and restructuring of business, laying down the premises for credit institutions to bolster efficiency in tackling bad debts. The General Department of Civil Judgment Execution under the Ministry of Justice needs to shortly introduce mechanisms and policies and guide the units working on judgment execution at all levels to ensure the effective implementation of the measures set in Resolution 42.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment needs to soon enact regulations on ways to deal with collaterals of half-finished real estate projects, while the provincial and municipal peoples committees must guide their relevant units to be consistent in executing the tasks set in Resolution 42, and taking measures to ensure effective implementation, particularly regarding the seizure of collaterals.

We also plan to seek the prime ministers approval to assign the Ministry of Finance and relevant competent bodies to team up with the Ministry of Planning and Investment in addressing legal bottlenecks and seeking permission to use the state budget or other state capital sources to boost state commercial lenders charter capital, as well as removing the legal hurdles related to state capital support sources to enable commercial banks and the Bank for Social Policy to vigorously implement diverse priority credit programmes, pivotal projects, and social welfare programmes in order to successfully realise government-assigned tasks and targets.

Vietnamese banks have ambitious plans to roll out in the year ahead

Nirukt Sapru

CEO, Vietnam and ASEAN, and Southeast Asia Cluster Markets, Standard Chartered Bank Ltd.

There are five key topics I would like to highlight for the coming year to allow the banking sector to best support the continued growth of the economy.

First, good conduct and transparency in the banking sector should continue to be a focus to improve the business landscape and contribute to fair competition and an inclusive economy. We highly appreciate that the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has stipulated the requirements of the Code of Conduct in the internal control systems of banks in Circular 13. We continue to support the SBVs focus on conduct in the banking sector.

Second, digitisation and cybersecurity will continue to be of the utmost importance. In the spirit of digitisation and paperless targets, we suggest that the government allow payment automation by connecting with e-channels and simplified supporting documentation requirements.

Third, the non-bank financial sector should be appropriately regulated, particularly in the provision of consumer credit, where control over capital and liquidity requirements, as well as collection practices is important.

Fourth, consumer mortgage lending should be treated separately from lending to builders and developers in the real estate sector. Consumer mortgage lending using proper credit controls, such as appropriate loan-to-value ratios, helps the Vietnamese people develop home ownership and build household wealth. It is separate and distinct from higher-risk lending to builders and developers.

Fifth and finally, Basel II implementation will continue to improve governance standards in the market. As part of this process, banks should be assigned with ratings and credit growth limits based on their capital, liquidity ratios, and strategy that the governor has already highlighted.

Trinh Ngoc Khanh Chairman, Agribank

The charter capital hike is our repeated proposal, but we would like to stress it again due to its necessity. In fact, to avoid impinging on the capital safety regulation when lending out to feed production needs in the winter-spring crop season, last December we raised VND4 trillion ($174 million) worth in long-term bonds to enrich capital sources, a remarkable part of which came from Agribank employees.

Another issue is that Agribank expects that under government guidance, the relevant localities could soon complete their land use plans, paving the way for us to accelerate the pace of equitisation.

Finally, the government needs to consider revising and supplementing Decree No.96/2014/CN-CP dated October 17, 2014 presenting administrative sanctions in the monetary and banking fields, and the Ministry of Finance needs to review Circular No.12/2018/TT-BTC dated January 31, 2018 on financial supervision and assessment of state capital investment efficiency at credit institutions, making it suitable with current development practices of banks in general and large-scale banks in particular.

Le Duc Tho Chairman, VietinBank

To quickly and radically tackle bad debts and associated collaterals, besides the implemented measures, VietinBank has a proposal to the government that the central bank needs to push up efforts for the establishment of an effective debt trading market through presenting more concrete guiding documents compared to those set in Resolution 42.

Besides, to boost the efficiency of debts collection and the mortgaged asset treatment process, more effective co-operation between ministries, the peoples committees in provinces and municipalities, and the media is essential.

We propose the debts of businesses whose debts were sold to Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) and have feasible business plans be classified as Group 1 debts that are accessible to further loans, helping them to continue production and business activities, from there having the capacity for debt repayment.

The government needs to continue its work on business restructuring, equitisation, and state capital divestment at state-owned enterprises. To facilitate the process, VietinBank will work closely with the Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises, and would-be-equitised enterprises during the restructuring and divestment process, helping them to select strategic partners and consultancy units, while in the meantime facilitating them to improve production and investment efficiency.

Phan Duc Tu Chairman, BIDV

First, the government, ministries, sectors, and the central bank need to ensure the seamless management of policies, developing the state market as a long-term capital raising channel for the economy, sharing and reducing the pressure for long-term capital sources in the banking sector.

Second, as the capital adequacy ratio of state commercial banks is generally low, the government, the Ministry of Finance, and the SBV need to take measures to help banks raise charter capital. In the case of BIDV, we want the conditions applicable to the foreign strategic investor to soon be addressed, enabling us to be able to finalise transactions.

Third, the SBV shall join efforts with ministries and sectors to soon submit the governments amendments to the governmental decree on administrative sanctions in banking.

Fourth, as banking is a specific field, it is important to standardise the skills and provide certificates to human resources, particularly those working in operation and risk control and customer service.
Woona Brothers' food delivery application Baedal Minjok

We have already researched the Vietnamese market and are now looking for partners to invest in the country. We will definitely be present in Vietnam in 2019, said Seyoon Oh, vice chairman of Woona Brothers, at the startup event Vakance 2018 in last November.

Woona Brothers has just been listed among the worlds unicorn companies after receiving $320 million investment from big funds like the US Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Singapores GIC in last December, increasing the companys value to $1 billion.

If entering Vietnam, Woona Brother is expected to be a serious competitor to GrabFood and Now.vn, which dominate the $33 million food delivery market after Lalamove left.

Despite high demand in urban areas, the local food delivery market is not a fertile ground for many firms because of low profit rates. A representative of a firm running in the segment stated that in favourable conditions, profit growth could reach 10-12 per cent. Food delivery requires preservation, swift delivery, and separate storage space from other kinds of goods like clothes.

As a result, in a fierce battlefield, it is unavoidable for weak players to keep dropping out. Before Lalamove, the market also saw the retirement of Foodpanda which decided to sell itself to local food delivery company Vietnammm.

Food delivery is seen as a hot segment in Vietnam with market value of $33 million, which is forecast to increase to $38 million in 2020, according to market research company Euromonitor. With the good prospects of the local market, competition is unavoidable. Furthermore, more and more players are expected to enter the market, heating up competition even further.
The Commission for the Management of State Capital in Enterprises will give a new push to SOE equitisation

Unlike the beginning of previous years when the government often underscored strong messages about improving the local business climate, the onset of 2019 in particular sees a big focus on strong action in accelerating the equitisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The actions include a large-scale meeting organised by the government and the Steering Committee on Enterprise Renovation and Development, and the prime ministers hallmark Directive 01/CT-TTg on boosting SOE restructuring, equitisation, and divestment.

The government wants equitisation to be sped up qualitatively. Those that intentionally delay this will be sanctioned, said Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue at the meeting in Hanoi. All processes must be conducted transparently.

Hue, who is also head of the steering committee, said that in 2018 the process remained slower than the initial plan, affecting the countrys efforts to lure in more capital.

Last year, 53 SOEs failed to be equitised, and 129 enterprises were not divested as planned.

Snails pace

One of the reasons behind the governments strong moves is to attract more capital from non-state sources. However, accelerating such equitisation also demonstrates Vietnams strong international commitments to create a level playing field for all businesses in the country under free trade agreements (FTAs), including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Specifically, Vietnam committed that it would complete its plan to cut state ownership in many SOEs after the CPTPP takes effect. On January 14, 2018, the CPTPP came into force in the country.

In late 2016, the government set a target of reducing the number of wholly SOEs to 103 in 2020 from 583 in 2016.

Under the prime ministers Document No.991/2017/TTg-DMDN on approving the list of SOEs that must complete their equitisation during 2017-2020, the number of SOEs that have to be equitised was 44 in 2017, 64 in 2018, 18 in 2019, and one in 2020. However, reality showed that the total number of equitised SOEs in 2017 was 69.

According to the Ministry of Finances Agency for Corporate Finance, in the 2011-2016 period, 570 SOEs were equitised, with the total value of VND797 trillion ($34.65 billion), including VND214 trillion ($9.3 billion) being state capital.

However, by late 2018, Vietnam had about 494 SOEs. Last year, the pace of SOE equitisation remained at a snails pace, with only 32 SOEs equitised and valued at over VND43.235 trillion ($1.88 billion), including VND24.78 trillion ($1.07 billion) worth of state capital. Meanwhile, the total number of SOEs needing to be completely equitised in 2018 was 85.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment estimated that the number of SOEs needing to be equitised this year is 54, which will include 50 managed by Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. These two localities failed to conduct any equitisation in 2018.

In 2018, Ho Chi Minh City was scheduled to equitise 39 SOEs, or 44 per cent of the total number of units in the city. However, in last October the city asked the government for permission to delay equitisation and divestments scheduled for 2018 until 2020.

Also last year, Hanoi also had to equitise 14 SOEs, or 16 per cent of its total. However, the city has also asked the government for more time for consideration.

A number of individual SOEs have also asked for delays, including MobiFone and Vietnam Paper. Last April, VTV Cable, one of Vietnams leading cable television companies, canceled its initial public offering (IPO) after only one bidder registered for the auction. Many other businesses, such as Petrolimex and construction materials producer Viglacera, also slowed down the sales of state-owned stakes.

The Steering Committee on Enterprise Renovation and Development reported that enterprises with 100 per cent state-owned charter capital are operating in 11 sectors of the economy. It is expected that by 2020, there will be only about 150 wholly state-owned enterprises, which include lottery companies, utilities, PetroVietnam, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), and Viettel.

By late 2017, total equity at SOEs totalled at VND1.37 quadrillion ($59.6 billion), up 4 per cent against 2016. Their total assets were valued at over VND3 quadrillion ($130.4 billion), equal to 53.2 per cent of the total GDP of 2018, and up 3 per cent against 2016.

Thus, according to experts, if the speed of equitisation continues at a slow pace in 2019, it seems probable that Vietnam will not be able to meet regulations related to SOEs prescribed in the CPTPP.

According to the World Bank, the CPTPP is expected to stimulate and accelerate domestic reforms in many areas, such as competition, services, customs, e-commerce, the environment, government procurement, intellectual property, labour standards, legal issues, market access for goods, rules of origin, non-tariff measures, and trade remedies. Moreover, delivering commitments under the CPTPP will contribute to promoting transparency and support the creation of modern institutions in Vietnam.

CPTPP commitments

Under the CPTPP, all SOEs of member states have to operate equally under market mechanisms. Furthermore, they are banned from conducting anticompetitive practices, while having to make all their operational information transparent.

Specifically, under the deals Chapter 17, each member state shall ensure that each of its designated monopolies does not use its position to engage in, either directly or indirectly, including through its dealings with its parent, subsidiaries or other entities, the party or the designated monopoly owns, anticompetitive practices in a non-monopolised market in its territory that negatively affect trade or investment between the parties.

Also under this chapter, all SOEs of CPTPP member states have to ensure transparency in operation and information provision. Additionally, each party shall provide to the other parties or otherwise make publicly available on an official website a list of its SOEs no later than six months after the date of entry into force of the CPTPP for that party, and thereafter shall update the list annually. However, this regulation shall not apply until five years from the date of entry into force of this agreement for Vietnam.

Notably, on the written request of another party, a party shall promptly provide many types of information concerning an SOE or a government monopoly, provided that the request includes an explanation of how the activities of the entity may be affecting trade or investment between the parties.

Actions

More than two weeks ago, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc promulgated Directive 01/CT-TTg on boosting SOE restructuring, equitisation, and divestment as a prime priority for the government to implement in 2019. The move, coming amid SOEs slow-paced equitisation as one of the economys biggest obstructions, was aimed to facilitate more private investment as part of the countrys commitments in FTAs.

The government has also established the Commission for the Management of State Capital in Enterprises, which will directly controls 19 SOEs including Vietnam Airlines, MobiFone, EVN, and others. The governments intention is to be more effective in its control of state capital and to place control in the hands of the commission. Ownership is separated from the operations of companies with state capital.

Spurred by the discovery of significant losses and illegal or inept management of state capital, the commission is the latest attempt by the government to rein in SOEs and to make them more responsive to the governments objectives, Sesto Vecchi, managing partner of US law firm Russin & Vecchi, told VIR.
Retailers gallopping over to e-commerce

The boom of e-commerce

In 2018 retailers seem to have had a successful year with great revenue figures. For instance, FPT Retail, the owner of FPT Shop and F.Studio by FPT, maintained e-commerce revenue growth with 21 per cent in 2018. Previously, this firm reached e-commerce revenue of VND2 trillion ($87 million) by the end of 2017, up 45 per cent more than 2016.

Nguyen Bach Diep, FPT Retails general director, said that e-commerce will contribute a significant proportion to the total revenue of the company, with VND2.43 trillion ($1.6 million) in 2018, up more than VND400 billion ($17.39 million) since 2017.

FPT Retail also posted a total revenue of VND15.29 trillion ($664.78 million) on its website, up 16 per cent against 2017, while after-tax profit reached VND348 billion ($15.1 million), up 20 per cent compared to 2017. This retailer also opened 60 retail outlets during the last year, bringing the total number of shops to 533.

Online purchasing has become the trend and enterprises who do not invest enough to ride the waves will be left behind. FPT Retail's statistics show that its website received more than 360 million visitors, an increase of 41.6 per cent compared to 2017, including 1.78 million direct interactions.

Sunhouse Group JSC in the household goods segment also invested early in e-commerce. In 2015, Sunhouse launched its website sanhangtot.com. By owning over 60,000 retail outlets, Sunhouse reports 150-200 per cent growth in e-commerce revenueper year.

Nguyen Thi Mai Phuong, Sunhouses director of e-commerce, claimed that even this high growth is below Sunhouses expectations. In the upcoming time, the corporation will step up investment in its online platform to reach the revenue goal of VND5 trillion ($217.39 million) in 2020.

Savills latest report showed that Vietnamese consumers are changing their behaviour in 2017-2018 compared to the previous two years. One of the main reasons is the appearance of online shopping.

Numerous other supermarkets have been deploying online sales. For example, VinMart can now be accessed from Adayroi.com (Vingroups e-commerce platform), while Co.opmart developed its own private website. Others like AEON, Lotte Mart, and 7-Eleven have all created smartphone apps.

Earlier, in 2016, Nguyen Kim Trading JSC, one of the leading electronics retailers and whose 49 per cent stake is held by Thai conglomerate Central Group, acquired Zalora.vn, an e-commerce fashion platform. However, the company seems rather sluggish in its application of the O2O model in its retail chain.

E-commerce in Vietnam has just begun its very first steps. However, this market is highlighted for its potential, and its fast growth will strongly impact the retail industry.

$10 billion market

Vietnams population is over 97 million, with the majority being young. Therefore, the Vietnamese market is one of the worlds most attractive retail scenes.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the growth of e-commerce in Vietnam was 25 per cent in 2018 and may maintain the same speed through to 2022. In the next few years, the market is expected to reach $10 billion.

This market potential has attracted many foreign funds and corporation to invest in domestic e-commerce website and enterprises.

Last October, Auchan Retail Vietnam, one of the leading retailers in Europe, and Lazada Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic co-operation with regard to the launch of their O2O model. Accordingly, customers could visit Auchans online store on Lazada.vn featuring thousands of high-quality authenticated goods and hundreds of private label products.

The Chinese technology giant, Alibaba also seems to foresee strong growth in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, particularly in Vietnam, as it entered Vietnam in 2016.

Even Amazon has decided to enter the country.

According to Vietnam Report, Vietnam is the brightest retail market in Asia with the total value of $120 billion in 2017, which is forecast to reach $160 billion in 2020. This shows the upbeat prospects of e-commerce as well.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham) together with the Vietnam Internet Association (VIA), and the Vietnam E-Commerce Association (VECOM) held a seminar with the theme unlocking the full potential of Vietnams digital economy in November 2018.

In this seminar, Adam Sitkoff, AmChams executive director, said, The strong development of Internet and technology are expected to create a support platform for the digital economy to rapidly grow and contribute to the Vietnamese economy in the coming time.

Along with prompting the development of Internet and technology, e-commerce is becoming an important factor in Vietnam. Enterprises who can capture and exploit this new retail trend will be the winners of the future.
The Owner of Diep Bach Duong Real Estate, Duong Thi Bach Diep

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Public Security, business woman Duong Thi Bach Diep, director of Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Co., Ltd., was prosecuted for "fraudulent appropriation of property."

In addition, former deputy chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Thanh Tai and three other officials were also prosecuted for "offences against regulations on the management and use of State-owned property that lead to losses or wastefulness."

Duong Thi Bach Diep became known in the real estate sector by receiving many "golden" land plots in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City. In particular, she became the first person to own the super-luxury Rolls Royce Phantom in Vietnam, with the unique license plate of 77L-7777.

Over the last ten years, Diep was rarely mentioned. Due to her age, she has been gradually withdrawing from real estate projects, which were originally public land. Authorities now begin to look into claims that some of these dealings were not in accordance with the law.

As part of the investigation, the authorities are looking into the exchange of public land related to the Ho Chi Minh City Music Centre (under the management of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports), which Diep allegedly obtained through illegal means, causing serious losses to the state coffers. Some of the other defendants were proved to have drawn personal benefit from this transaction.

Duong Thi Bach Diep (1948) was born in Binh Dinh, grew up in Haiphong, and moved to the southern provinces to start her career and then became a real estate tycoon. Diep used to be the legal representative of four real estate companies, but only two of them are still in operation, including Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Company Limited (Hai Ba Trung, ward 6, District 3) and Nam Nam Phuong Company Limited (Le Van Huu Street, Ben Nghe ward, District 1).

Duong Thi Bach Diep was famous in the real estate sector for owning a lot of "golden" land plots, such as 31 Le Duan Street, a 3,100sq.m conference centre and hotel project on 179Bis Hai Ba Trung Street, District 3, and the five-star Senla

Boutique Hotel, among others. Some of them have been seized.

Additionally, the companies of this business woman also owe around 67,000 taels of gold to Agribank which they are unable to repay.
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (second from right) attended the World Economic Forums annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he called for global businesses to invest in Vietnam, VNA

Over the past few years, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB Inbev), one of the worlds largest brewers, has been looking to engage more in Vietnams beer and beverage sector. It is now seeking a stake in Habeco, a domestic giant which is widely coveted by foreign investors with the state holding an 81.79 per cent stake.

Last week, AB Inbevs CEO Carlos Brito met with the prime minister in the run up to the forum in Davos, to talk about the groups future business plans, particularly regarding the groups desire to purchase a stake in Habeco.

Currently the brewer has two state-of-the-art facilities located in the southern province of Binh Duong and has Southeast Asian headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City. At its Vietnam-based breweries, the group brews international brands such as Budweiser and Becks as well as local brands such as Zorok.

AB InBev was one of many global groups meeting with PM Phuc during his attendance at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019 (WEF) on January 22-25. All parties mentioned their surprise at the nations strong development, and will continue investment in the country. Many see potential emerging from increasing levels of consumption and a growing number of free trade agreements (FTAs).

The WEF acts as a rendezvous for thousands of global groups, such as Apple, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Adidas, Carlsberg, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Samsung, LG, ExxonMobil, and Ford.

PM Phuc told the multinational corporations (MNCs) that the Vietnamese government is stepping up efforts to restructure the economy with a focus on sustainable development, and to improve the business and investment environment in favour of the business community.

At a reception for Apple CEO Tim Cook, the PM expressed his support for the establishment of an Apple data centre in the nation. He hoped the group will continue to invest in the country over the long-term.

At a meeting with Magesvaran Suranjan, president of Procter & Gamble, PM Phuc hailed the groups operation in Vietnam and suggested it continue expanding business in the country.

During a reception for Carlsbergs president and CEO Ceest Hart, the PM stressed that Carlsberg and others have made significant contributions to the equitisation process of the beverage industry in Vietnam. Carlsberg currently holds 17.34 per cent of Habeco and has expressed an interest in raising the stake.

Speaking to Facebooks vice president of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg, PM Phuc asked for co-operation to develop the countrys IT sector. An area of particular need is in assisting startups and small- and medium-sized enterprises in accessing information and developing their business via social media. Regarding recent cases involving the spread of false information, the PM also asked Facebook to follow Vietnamese regulations in full, and improve its management as well as services to domestic customers.

In the health sector, the PM spoke with executive vice president of Sanofis External Affairs Kathleen Tregoning. PM Phuc praised the MNCs projects, which have contributed to protect and improve health in Vietnam. He asked that Sanofi continue transferring medicine production technologies, vaccines, and biological medicinal products while improving product quality and reducing medicine prices to make them accessible for all citizens in the country.

Grasping opportunities

Most notably at the forum, for the first time, the WEF organised an exclusive session focusing on Vietnam, aiming to promote its image and business climate. Brge Brende, president and member of the WEFs Managing Board, told PM Phuc that the country is becoming a magnet for global investments thanks to its improved business climate.

With a growth rate of 7.08 per cent last year, among the highest in the world, the country has become a reliable investment destination for all investors. We will continue our economic reforms, as the success of investors is also our success, PM Phuc stressed. The Vietnamese government is boosting the development of an e-government and a digital economy, and this will create more investment opportunities.

Currently the Vietnamese government is drafting a national strategy on Industry 4.0, which will focus on creating favourable conditions for businesses to boost their output and creativity, and for the government to develop a digital economy.

Industry 4.0 will offer opportunities for the country to realise its dream on becoming a strong and prosperous nation, PM Phuc said. We have a market large enough for the development of fresh ideas. I hope that the WEF, businesses, and investors have strong confidence in our efforts.

The Vietnamese government stands ready to welcome new technologies, and will continue developing its Internet infrastructure, 5G networks, Big Data, and AI, he continued.

Cementing co-operation

During PM Phucs attendance at the WEF, a co-operation agreement was inked on developing an Industry 4.0 centre in Vietnam. It would be located domestically and directly connect with similar WEF centres in the US and in the EU. This co-operation means that the country will be considered by the WEF as a focal point for Industry 4.0 policy in the region. This would see Vietnam take the lead in developing relevant policies and be used for piloting new technologies, as well as applying public-private partnership models to create modern breakthrough products.

During the WEF on ASEAN 2018 organised last September in Hanoi, one idea shared involved a need for the country to invest in education, training, and application of technologies in a bid to become a digital economy.

If you want to visualise everything in the 21st century, you require these technologies, which means adequate research and development resources. There must be investment in students, universities, and technology, Brende said.

PM Phuc stressed that all enterprises such as AB Inbev, Apple, Ariston, Procter & Gamble, and Siemens will have great opportunities to apply their digital technologies via Vietnams more favourable policies.

Truong Gia Binh, chairman of Vietnams leading IT group, FPT Corporation, said that the group, along with thousands of other Vietnamese companies, are looking to have a bigger stake in the global playing field. One of the key things is that we need a spirit of renovation and to think big, he said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and leaders of ministries, authorities attended the exhibition

The exhibition titled Cultural heritage: Kon Tums Ngoc Linh ginseng  Jungle Treasure was officially opened on January 20 at Hanois National History Museum. The event was attended by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, and leaders of several ministries and local authorities.

At the exhibition, the Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed the belief that the quality of Ngoc Linh ginsengs products are completely able to compete with South Korean ginseng, Japanese ginseng. Therefore, promoting the countrys ginseng abroad is a necessary mission of the provinces authority and local government.

This is the first time that Hanoi residents get the opportunity to enjoy more than 200 images and materials of Ngoc Linh ginseng  Kon Tums rare medicine.

In addition, the event is also an action to materialise the prime ministers directions on Kon Tum provinces socioeconomic development. According to the prime minister, enhancing promotion activities for Ngoc Linh ginseng is one of Kon Tums most important missions to boost the provinces socioeconomic development.

Accordingly, to broaden the global appeal of Ngoc Linh ginseng, the local government needs an appropriate strategy, including luring in startups, boosting communications, and research and development (R&D) to highlight the unique values of Ngoc Linh ginseng.

In addition to promotional activities, the preservation of the ginseng plant is also important. For a long time now, the ginseng trees at Ngoc Linh mountain (Kon Tum, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Gia Lai) have been over-exploited. Meanwhile, growing ginseng is an arduous and difficult process that takes a long time. Therefore, preserving Ngoc Linh ginseng is extremely urgent.
Vaibhav Saxena

The Cybersecurity Department of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) reported that 35 of the total 2,769 websites/web portals placed under the control of state authorities have been attacked, had their contents modified, and control seized during the first six months of 2018.

Accordingly, the Vietnamese government has promulgated the Law on Cybersecurity for the protection of national security and public order in the cyberspace to fill a gaping hole in the countrys legal framework, covering cyberattacks and the security of citizens online data.

Implementation of the law

This law strictly prohibits conduct that uses IT and electronic media as a means to breach the laws on national security, social order, and public safety, as well as other illegal acts comprising of cyberattacks, cybercrime, and crimes committed using an online platform, for example distorting historical information, insulting/defaming national heroes, public figures, and religions or violating the laws of Vietnam, among others.

The infringement of information classified as belonging to information systems that are crucial to the national security and governed under exclusive regulations is also on the list of banned acts. Depending on the level and seriousness of the breach of the law, punitive actions shall be taken accordingly, including disciplinary procedures, penalties for administrative offences, and criminal prosecutions.

General implementation methods include examinations, inspections, and auditing information systems by the authorised parties (mainly being the MPS and information system administrators) to discover signs of cyberattacks, cyberterrorism, and other breaches of the law.

The MPS shall have utmost authoritative power among relevant actors to exercise the state administration of the Law on Cybersecurity, to conduct investigations and inspections where necessary, and to deal with violations of the provisions under the Law on Cybersecurity, together with the Ministry of Defense and a number of other authorities.

Notwithstanding the specified division of information and preventive measures, the law currently lacks criteria to determine if any particular information is indeed untruthful, subversive, or opposed to the state.

Due to the lack of specific statutory authority to deal with such matters, the existing framework is interpreted to empower the MPS to inspect in case of any unusual cyber act.

The Law on Cybersecurity provides for far-reaching scope of targets, defined as enterprises providing services on telecommunication networks, internet, value-added services in the cyberspace. It may be understood that so-called service providers only consists of those operating and providing services on the basis of personal information/service users relations using telecommunication networks, for instance social network and web companies like Facebook and Google, which may be obliged to comply with this new law.

Enterprises collecting information directly from their clients and using solely telecommunication networks as a channel to trade products (for example internet banking) are not supposed to be among the governed subjects. However, crucial provisions and difficulties during exact interpretation ensue that the provisions of law may be taken as related and may be applied jointly.

The law requests that information systems other than those crucial for national security be subject to inspection and supervision as well. Two scenarios are provided: (a) When there is a breach of the law on cybersecurity infringing national security or materially affecting social order and safety; (b) When there is a request from the information system administrator.

Information system administrator is defined as an agency, organisation or individual competent to directly manage an information system. While it should be interpreted to mean the person in charge of managing the information system, for example the CEO of the company that is in-charge, this provision still creates ambiguity as the MPS is somehow considered to be the body overseeing all information systems.

The law also stipulates that enterprises must authenticate information when a user registers a digital account, provide user information to the Cybersecurity Task Force if so requested in writing to assist any investigation.

Similarly, upon request by the Cybersecurity Task Force or by a competent authority under the Ministry of Information and Communications, enterprises must stop the sharing of or delete information with content in breach of the law and cease the supply of services to those who uploaded/posted such information.

Enterprises must also save/maintain system logs in order to support the investigation and deal with breaches of the Law on Cybersecurity within a specified period to be stipulated by the government.

Domestic and foreign service providers doing business in telecom networks, Internet services, and other value added services in the cyberspace in Vietnam (cyberspace service providers) carrying out activities in relation to collecting, using, analysing, and processing data classified as personal information, data about service users relationships, and data generated by the service users in Vietnam must store such data in Vietnam for a specified period to be stipulated by the government.

Practical issues

Promulgation and enforcement of the law is a complicated process and requires several aspects to be considered during drafting to ensure its rightful applicability. At present, a number of challenges may be identified.

First of all, it is a requirement to keep system logs in Vietnam as well as retain data in the country. It shall be hard for multinational companies that belong to the service providers group, they operate across many countries and store client and transaction data in data centres located in only few countries. In case these companies must store data exclusively in Vietnam, this will incur tremendous costs and changes to the otherwise normal operations.

Also, transferring data across borders is crucial to the financial service industry to: (i) provide core products and services to customers, (ii) manage risks on a holistic basis across affiliates and borders, and (iii) comply with the financial regulatory requirements in various jurisdictions, including KYC and AML regulations. The prevention of data transfer (to keep information within Vietnam only) is likely to hamper the business of said enterprises.

Additionally, enterprises are obliged to provide user data to the authorities when requested. This, in turn, obviously causes service providers to lose customers and profit as consumers will more likely opt out of using such services in fear of having their personal information scrutinised and collected or used for other purposes.

Enterprises, especially startups and small- and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) will apparently suffer from more cost burdens and changes to facilities in order to abide by the law, in particular to set up a physical office in Vietnam just to do business in the country.

These issues would have unfavourable impacts and also erect barriers to the negotiation and the adoption of multilateral trade agreements that promote trade liberalisation and minimise technical barriers to trade. With regards to imposing data localisation and local presence requirements, the Law on Cybersecurity seems to deflect from Vietnams commitments under the Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and it stands a possibility to be questioned by the World Trade Organization.

On one hand, the promulgation of the law may affect some interests that the country members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) benefit from and may result in difficulties for international companies depending on the free flow of data across borders.

It could be seen that to facilitate digital trade, the CPTPP encourages its members to promote paperless trading between businesses and the government, such as customs forms being put in electronic format, as well as providing for electronic authentication and signatures for commercial transactions.

However, Vietnams restrictions on data storage and data flow shall lead to numerous obstacles with regards to data localisation and the cross-border transfer of data.

On the other hand, it may increase the challenges to the ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

As we are currently waiting for further guidance for the enforcement and execution of this law, the addressed problems pose significant concerns and insecurities to all targets of the law, but implementation of this law is yet to be witnessed to clarify the intent for such a policy.
Song Than II wastewater treatment plant officially opened on January 26

The wastewater treatment plant has a treatment capacity of 10,000-18,000 cubic metres per day. This is the first plant in Vietnam to process industrial water into clean water by the use of microorganisms.

Addressing the ceremony, Huynh Uy Dung, chairman of Hang Huu Huynh, said that the firm plans to spend 30 per cent of its profit for charity activities and 10 per cent on environmental science research on wastewater, waste, and emissions.

In 2018-2021, Hang Huu Huynh will invest around VND10 trillion ($434.8 million) to build 100 wastewater treatment plants in environmental pollution hotspots nationwide.

Dung stated that in the past, industrial parks have made an important contribution to the economic growth of the country, attracting foreign investment, and creating jobs to the locals. However, the development of industrial parks has brought many shortcomings and challenges such as environmental pollution concerning the public.

Water resources are at an alarming rate. Thousands of industrial production units are discharging either untreated or substandard treated wastewater into the environment. This has gradually polluted clean water sources, bringing heavy impact on public health and social security.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam now has 615 industrial clusters, only five per cent of which have centralised wastewater treatment systems, and about 300 industrial parks discharging more than 2 million cu.m of wastewater a day. However, only 60 per cent of discharged wastewater is treated through centralised wastewater treatment plants and up to 70 per cent is not thoroughly treated. Such wastewater is then discharged directly into ponds, lakes, and rivers.

The launch of Song Than II wastewater treatment plant is expected to improve the treatment of industrial wastewater, waste discharge, and pollution concentration in Vietnam. The treated wastewater will meet the standards set by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Health.
Antonio Castellano

The future for renewables in Asia looks quite bright. Developing countries lead the way in terms of adding to renewable energy capacity. What are the current opportunities for Vietnam to attract investment in this sector?

The future could be quite bright, but I think at the moment it is lagging behind the market in Asia. That is why we released a whitepaper exploring an alternative pathway for Vietnams energy future, that evaluates how Vietnam could meet the growing energy demand at the lowest cost, with the best opportunities for capital formation, the least impact on public budgets, and with the least risk.

So for opportunities in Vietnam to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in renewables, there is growing demand and need for huge capacity, and the power sector will become a major area to attract FDI in Vietnam. Meanwhile, financiers are interested in this sector, but we require transparency and feasibility. Vietnams current power plan requires investment of roughly $150 billion by 2030 in additional generation assets and grid infrastructure.

Our reviews of data and interviews with industry experts suggest that, even without factoring in externals, renewables have become the cheapest form of new power generation in the country on a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE). The trend is fuelled by Vietnams remarkable natural endowments of solar and wind power combined with a significant drop in capital costs of solar and wind over the past five years (75 per cent decrease in solar costs and a 30 per cent fall in the cost of wind), which has made the LCOE for new renewables cheaper than traditional thermal generation.

Turning the economy green can boost growth, but what are the challenges ahead in order to do this, and what lessons can Vietnam learn?

Achieving a green economy means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies.

There is no silver bullet that will solve Vietnams energy challenges. The ability to meet rapidly growing demand while keeping costs low will depend on the creation of financial and regulatory infrastructure that makes the market attractive to capable developers. In addition, planners should explore demand-side reduction and load-control measures, imports through interconnection with China and Laos, and opportunities to make natural gas a more important part of the energy mix.

To make a market for renewables that is attractive enough to encourage developers to build projects to meet electricity needs, the government could consider steps including power purchase agreements (PPAs), transparency, upgrading transmissions, and a mix power mast plan.

As current PPAs come as a take it or leave it option, it pushes more risks for developers. PPA is a key factor in opening the door to capital investment at the level needed to build a mature renewables industry in Vietnam

Building a cheaper, cleaner and more secure energy future for Vietnam will not happen overnight. Other markets further along in development of renewable power greatly benefitted from the support of the government. Without exception, governments played a critical role in jump-starting the market, generally through legislation or a public commitment. In addition, governments often help to accelerate investment through strong incentives and a well-planned, transparent project-approval process.

How does Industry 4.0 help to create value for renewable energy?

The technology is opening a number of opportunities. Renewables, distributed generation, and smart grids demand new capabilities and are triggering new business models and regulatory frameworks. Data collection and exchange are growing exponentially, creating digital threats but also valuable opportunities.

The utility of the future will be a fully digital system. This means todays utilities face a digital transformation of their business. This can begin with quick moves to improve efficiency and expand customer base.

Alongside this, startups are pushing the boundaries of innovation across all elements of Industry 4.0, therefore it is important how to incorporate work with them to unlock renewable energy potential.
In today's interconnected world, companies are creating databases of customers left and right, creating a growing threat of identity theft

Several days ago, Pham Thi Tuyet Mai (Hanoi, 1985) caused a huge stir by sharing on her Facebook account that she was arrested at Frances Charles De Gaulle Airport on last December 18 on suspicion of drug trafficking in Belgium.

Accordingly, the offences in Belgium took place between October 2010 and May 2011, when Mai was actually not in Europe. At the French police station, Mai even provided related documents to prove her innocence. In addition, she also provided documents to prove that she had been working for a Vietnamese firm between May 2010 and May 2012, making it highly unlikely that she was in Belgium at the time.

At the first trial, Mais lawyer pointed out that this is a typical case of identity theft, which means that someone stole Mais personal data to commit an offence. Mais case is a warning call about identity theft which is becoming a growing threat in the digital era.

Global threat

Technology improvements are making people citizens of a global village, where it is far easier to access peoples data. For instance, people provide a host of personal information, including full name, email address, date of birth, phone number, and others to register on Facebook. As a result, Facebook now holds an astounding database of personal data of people across the globe.

Similarly, a large number of websites require users to make accounts to use their services in Vietnam. Breaking into a single one of these databases could result in customers identity stolen.

Furthermore, when people go abroad on holidays, hotels also scan their passports. In addition, clinical records in hospitals and personal data stored in companies also pose huge risks. In conclusion, the more places people provide their personal data to, the greater the risks of a data leak and having their identity stolen.

In last March, Facebook was caught up in a huge scandal for mining data from 50 million user profiles for Cambridge Analytica without express approval from users. This data handling was not only widely irresponsible, but in straight contrast to Facebooks data security obligations. Additionally, it widened unauthorised and unsupervised access to the personal information of affected customers.

According to statistics published by LifeLock  a US-based identity theft protection company, there were 1,000 instances of data leak in England in 2016. Other statistics published by The Harris Poll (a US-based market research company) stated that about 7 million people fell victim to data theft in England in 2017.

What do criminals steal personal data for?

Criminals, to cover their traces, often steal personal data via hacking into websites or social networks to commit offences. The offences include financial scams, tax evasion, e-fraud, and phone scams, among others.

More seriously, criminals can use someone elses identity to illegally enter a country, engage in smuggling, deal in drugs, and commit other offences  and it may take the victims their entire lifetime to prove their innocence.

In case someones identity was used for drug trafficking, he or she would be arrested and placed in temporary detention or put to trial until they can prove their innocence.

Preventing identity theft

At present, there are no ways to completely prevent identity theft because criminals arsenal is changing very fast, taking advantage in security holes created by the breakneck speed of technology development. However, to get rid of the risks, www.usa.gov pointed out the following steps to protect you from identity theft:
After enduring a challenging 2018, many pharmaceuticals have been rolling out ambitious plans to develop high-tech facilities in 2019, Photo: Le Toan

After reviewing business performance for 2018, Vu Thi Thuan, chairwoman of Vietnams second largest publicly-traded drug maker Traphaco (TRA), along with other leaders, are working on solutions to stand firm in the new year and beyond.

TRA suffered a fall in results due to stiffening competition in the now-lucrative industry. The group is estimated to fetch consolidated revenues of VND1.8 trillion ($78.3 million), meeting just 75 per cent of the yearly target, and down 4 per cent on-year, a source from TRA told VIR.

The drug makers consolidated after-tax profit is estimated at VND157 billion ($6.83 million), fulfilling just 51 per cent of the whole-year target, and equal to just over 65 per cent of the 2017 figure.

Company representatives blamed the fall on the depreciation of a new factory and a rise in material imports. At present, State Capital Investment Corporation, Magbi Fund Ltd., and Super Delta Pte., Ltd. are TRAs largest shareholders with respective stakes of 35.67, 24.99, and 15.12 per cent.

The previous year was also not a rosy one for other Vietnamese pharmaceutical giants. The biggest publicly-traded drug maker, Hau Giang Pharmaceutical JSC (DHG), had to give up the profitable distribution business to serve the lift of foreign ownership limit.

DHG, which has Japanese pharmaceutical firm Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings as a major shareholder with 32 per cent stake, made consolidated net revenues of VND3.88 trillion ($168.7 million), down 4.43 per cent on-year, while consolidated after-tax profit rose slightly by 1.43 per cent on-year to VND651.6 billion ($28.33 million).

Doan Dinh Duy Khuong, acting CEO of DHG, blamed the slight fall for a halt in distribution of MSD and Eugica products to serve the lifting of the foreign ownership limit.

Boasting better performance, Vietnams third largest domestic drug maker Domesco (DMC) made slight increases in profit and revenue, yet 2018 remained a difficult year for them.

DMC obtained net revenues of VND1.385 trillion ($60.2 million) in 2018, slightly up from VND1.34 trillion ($58.2 million) in 2017, while its after-tax profit ascended by 9.7 per cent on-year to VND227.85 billion ($9.9 million). DMC now has Abbott Laboratories as a major foreign shareholder with 51.7 per cent.

These are poor results in comparison with 2017, when TRA, and DMC saw double-digit growth and thus set more ambitious targets for 2018. However, the situation changed due to mounting competition from international rivals, and increases in drug imports and material input prices.

While domestic players faced a challenging year, multinational corporations (MNCs) were said to enjoy fruition. More newcomers are seeking opportunities in Vietnam, while others are expanding operations in the country.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health (MoH), the countrys drug imports increased 8.8 per cent on-year in 2018 to $3.7 billion, reflecting growing local demands. Taken together, the number of foreign imported pharmaceuticals granted with marketing authorisation rose from 771 in 2016 to 758 in the 11 months of 2018.

Development trend in focus

Last year, the domestic giants focused on research and development (R&D), giving top priority to the research of new drugs and investment in production assemblies, in order to increase competitiveness.

According to a recent survey by Report Vietnam, 83 per cent of those surveyed ranked the research of new drugs as the most important strategy for 2018.

The trend will enable pharma businesses to venture further into the profitable segment of ethical or prescription drugs (ETC), which is currently dominated by multinational corporations, to cash in on the favourable conditions created in the Law on Pharmacy 2016, an analyst at BIDV Securities told VIR.

Moves by the top four domestic drug makers in 2018 have reinforced the trend.

At TRA, 2018 marked an important and successful year with the creation of new products. R&D is considered as the decisive factor for future development, accounting for 3 per cent of its export revenues annually, regardless of the total investment capital of VND500 billion ($21.7 million) in the new smart factory.

With this focus, TRA ambitiously aims to make consolidated revenues of VND2.16 trillion ($93.9 million) and consolidated after-tax profit of VND228 billion ($9.91 million) in 2019.

DHG has big future plans for production. Specifically, it is concentrating on developing a biological product segment, especially products made from herbs and supplements. It will also expand the distribution of products to MNCs, while co-operating with them in production.

DHG hopes to maintain average growth of 15 per cent in its net revenue annually, to $300 million by 2020. In this way, it aims to become Vietnams biggest generic drug maker, accounting for 10 per cent of the market share of locally-made drugs.

In similar moves, the countrys fourth largest drug maker Imexpharm (IMP) is focusing on two new factories to make new products. The first is the Binh Duong high-tech pharmaceutical plant, costing VND370 billion ($16.9 million), and second is the Vinh Loc high-tech antibiotic plant, costing VND180 billion ($7.8 million).

In addition to R&D, the second priority for industry giants has been the expansion of the over-the-counter channel, with nearly 67 per cent saying they had plans for the strategy. Now OTC is being eaten up by the ETC segment, driven by the new regulation on nationwide health insurance roadmap implementation. Last year, domestic pharmaceutical companies also focused on exports, with 47 per cent of the surveyors making the trend.

Industry insiders said that the targets might be challenging as MNCs also expand local production to reap the incentives from the countrys policies from domestically-produced pharmaceuticals, and to benefit from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

According to a VIR source, US-headquartered MSD Group is co-operating with several drugs factories in Vietnam. It has developed a production plant in the country for high-quality innovative drug products through contracts on processing, which has been approved by the MoH.

Meanwhile, B.Braun, Germanys largest pharmaceuticals and medical equipment producer, has made several investments into Vietnam in the past. It plans to fund further in the future, with a vision past 2020. It will also increase its workforce in the country to meet increased demands.

Taken together, innovative life sciences are also under the microscope among MNCs, and are forecast to continue in the months to come amid growing local demand.

According to Nicolas Audier, co-chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham), the country has attracted new European companies before the EVFTA is ratified to prepare for these new opportunities. The same is true across several sectors and industries. Vietnams middle-class consumers are a magnet for European companies, and we know that there is strong and growing demand here for European products and services, from our world-leading cars to our cutting-edge medical devices and our innovative service sectors, he said.

Currently, EuroChams Pharma Group has 25 members of the international research-based pharmaceutical industry, including Novartis Pharma Services AG, and Zuellig Pharma Vietnam.

In 2018, the local retail pharma market became more packed due to an influx of big guns such as Vingroup, Mobile World, FPT Retail, Digiworld, and Nguyen Kim.

New legislation moves

After posting achievements in administrative reform last year when it cut over 72 per cent of business conditions and 72 per cent of administrative procedures, the MoH has recently made some positive regulatory changes. In the first two weeks of 2019, the MoH announced two new decrees, amending and supplementing previous regulations in the sector.

In particular, the new Decree No.155/2018/ND-CP amends regulations on pharmaceuticals and cosmetics business conditions in the controversial Decree No.54/2017/ND-CP on guiding the implementation of the Law on Pharmacy 2016. The important highlights of the new decree include the cut in procedures of pharmaceuticals imports, clinical records of proposed imported drugs, and drug registration.

Following this, Decree No.169/2018/ND-CP governing the management of medical equipment alters regulations in Decree No.36/2016/ND-CP towards cutting some regulations in line with the recently-released Resolution No.01/NQ-CP on socioeconomic development solutions for 2019.

Decree 169 amends the classification of medical equipment, and regulations related to equipment containing narcotic and precursor substances. It also affects supplementation of cases allowed to adjust information in announcement dossiers, and of cases rapidly receiving circulation registration numbers. Now questions are being raised on whether domestic and foreign rivals will make any new movements in the pharmaceutical market amid the enforcement of the CPTPP, and when the EVFTA takes effect.

The market in Vietnam has been on an optimistic growth track, with the turnover of the domestic market in 2017 estimated at $5.2 billion, according to data from Business Monitor International. This is up about 10 per cent on-year and is expected to continue double-digit growth over the next five years.

Vietnams drug spending per capita rose 10.6 per cent on-year to about $53.5 in 2018, and is forecast to rise further in the near future, according to the MoH.
E-wallets try to gain a proper foothold in Vietnam by running extensive promotion programmes

In 2018, the e-wallet market failed to produce a long-awaited breakthrough, with no single contender emerging to dominance, despite the parade of promotions.

According to the statistics of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), as of November 2018, 26 non-bank institutions have been licensed to provide intermediary payment services, 20 of which offered e-wallets, including well-known names like MoMo, Bankplus, Vi Viet, VTC Pay, WePay, Vimo, Ngan Luong, and Payoo.

Heavy investments

A discount of 50 per cent on the first payment, a VND20,000 ($0.87) combo for a couple of cinema tickets, popcorn, and drinks, as well as a gift of VND300,000 ($13) on the e-wallets of new customers are all attractive offers that e-wallet providers came up with to bring customers over to their platforms.

Besides, e-wallets have a promotion button on their website menus that allow customers to browse and enjoy incentives more easily.

Being one of the first e-wallets in the market, Momo E-Wallet, which is owned by M-Services JSC, is one of the players spending the most money on this playground.

Last November, Momo E-Wallet launched the biggest promotion of the year to welcome its 10 millionth customer. Customers who have never connected MoMo e-wallets to their bank accounts can pay only one Vietnamese dong for one of 10 packages valued at VND1 million ($43.47) each.

Along with the war in prices, e-wallet providers also compete with each other in transaction time. Notably, Zalo Pay promises that payments go through in only two seconds.

Many think that foreign investors keep pouring money into local e-wallet providers, just to run promotion programmes. Most companies have received more foreign investment. For instance, South Koreas UTC Investment holds a 65 per cent stake in VNPT Epay, NTT Data holds 64 per cent in Payoo, Hong Kongs Champion Crest holds 51 per cent of Amigo Technologies JSC, Thailands True Money owns 90 per cent of 1Pay, and MOL Accessportal holds 50 per cent of Ngan Luong.

Last July, investment fund Fenox Venture Capital from the US Silicon Valley confirmed pouring capital into domestic e-wallet application OnOnPay, but the value of the deal has not been disclosed. The US fund also stated that this is its first investment in Vietnam. OnOnPays current investor Capii Venture also joined the call for investment.

In the same month, Vietnam Payment Solution JSC (VNPay) and UnionPay International signed an official agreement to co-operate on QR code payment. VNPays representative said that co-operation with UnionPay is a large step towards international payments.

In March 2016, MoMo mobilised $28 million from Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE). At the end of 2017, foreign investors held only 44 per cent of MoMos charter capital. However, as of November 2018, this ratio increased to 64 per cent with some new names like Ganymede Holdings B.V and E-Mobile VN Investments I.

In January 2019, MoMos Series C fundraising round was led by an affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm and the largest private equity investor in Vietnam. The new funding equipped the company with enormous resources to significantly expand MoMos footprint and realise its ambition to develop millions of payments points across the country.

Nguyen Hoa Binh, founder cum chairman for NextTech Group of Technopreneurs, a group of companies pioneering into the emerging digitised commerce industry across Southeast Asia, told VIR that generally, except for promotion programmes, e-wallet providers have yet to prove the advantages of this payment method against bank cards and cash.

A segment still overlooked

Home to more than 96 million people, Vietnam is on the cusp of a mobile payment revolution, fuelled by an amalgam of factors, including a high smartphone penetration rate and the governments vision of a cashless society.

The countrys population is young  70 per cent are under the age of 35  and tech-savvy, excited about a digital society. In first-tier cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, consumers are increasingly becoming receptive to the idea of a digital society and lifestyle, thanks to the growth of e-commerce and mobile payment services.

However, in reality, the usage of e-wallets has yet to be commensurate with its potential. It is easy to see that almost all e-wallet users maintain their accounts to pay utilities, internet bills, and especially top-up their phones. A number of people use e-wallets to receive the gift for opening the account, then just keep waiting for new promotions.

In addition, according to a report published in November 2018 by Vietnamese online market research firm Q&Me, cash-on-delivery (COD) payment is still the favourite among Vietnamese people when they buy products on e-commerce platforms.

Notably, 80 per cent of the interviewed 1,050 people (between 18-35 year olds) said that they prefer COD to other payment methods. Only 8 per cent like to use their credit cards, and e-wallet got a meagre 6 per cent, only slightly more than bank transfers (5 per cent).

The reason behind the limited use of e-wallets is that numerous people do not yet feel safe using such services as they do not trust the Internet. Besides, usage depends on habits and pervasiveness: cash is accepted everywhere, while digital payments are not.

The underlying reason of the limited use of e-wallets is that they are still an intermediary payment stage: you need to have money on a bank account. Thus, credit card payments are clearly more convenient and safer, while people also have to pay a fee for using their e-wallets, Binh said.

It remains a question why both foreign and local companies continue to burn money to develop e-wallet payments, despite all the difficulties they are facing.

Binhs answer to the conundrum is: Both foreign and local players expect that they will achieve success similar to Alibabas AliPay and Tencents WeChat Pay in China. However, the problem is that Vietnam has yet to build a homogeneous, nationwide e-wallet ecosystem. Currently, different stores use different payment apps, making it impossible for consumers to use one app at any store. In other words, in Vietnam, the infrastructure for mobile payments is not yet in place.

Meanwhile, in China, the mobile payment market is dominated by two apps, WeChat Pay and AliPay, which are used widely, from fancy restaurants and high-end designer boutiques down to street vendors, taxi drivers, and even panhandlers. Besides, paying by phone became popular in China partly because credit cards never gained the popularity they see elsewhere in the world.

Finally, e-payment is quite a promising sector, but it seems to burn a great deal of money to lure in new clients and launch promotion campaigns to keep up with competition.

This e-wallet race is similar to the war of attrition in e-commerce, after which the market will gradually clean up, leaving only big names, Binh said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook meeting Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at VEF 2019. Photo: VNA

Three years ago, Apple made local and international headlines by its plan to invest $1 billion in a data centre in either India or Vietnam to reduce dependence on third parties like Amazon or Microsoft. At the time, India won out from the two.

Now Apple has returned with another investment plan, this time to build a data centre of a similar magnitude in Vietnam.

This would be Apples second project in Vietnam after it invested VND15 billion ($652,200) to establish Apple Vietnam LLC in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2015. Through this company, Apple can directly sell products in Vietnam as well as provide technology, warranty, and consulting services.

Compared to other tech giants in the world like Samsung, LG or Microsoft, Apples move to enhance presence in Vietnam comes a beat late.

Samsung has invested more than $11.2 billion in Vietnam, with two billion-dollar electronics and electronic components manufacturing complexes in Thai Nguyen and Bac Ninh.

The Korean tech giant also runs a research and development (R&D) facility in Hanoi with about 1,450 Vietnamese engineers to support and develop applications and software for Samsung smartphones.

Meanwhile, LG Electronics has also invested in a $1.5 billion complex in Haiphong. Microsoft shifted its mobile phone manufacturing from China, Hungary, and Mexico to Bac Ninh, Vietnam since 2014.

Vietnam is fortifying its position as huge markets like China, the US, and India bring less and less revenue from iPhone sales.

Although iPhone is priced much higher in Vietnam than the income and of the majority of consumers, iPhone sales in Vietnam are still impressive.

According to the statistics of Counterpoint Research (Counterpoint Technology Market Research) from the second quarter of 2017 to 2018, Apple retained five per cent in the Vietnamese smartphone market.

We expect to set an all-time record in revenue in key markets including the US, Canada, and Mexico, as well as Western European countries like German and Italy, and in Asia-Pacific regions like Korea and Vietnam, Tim Cook was cited as saying by newswire Vietnamplus.
Amazon and Alibaba to compete in Vietnam e-commerces ring, source: Pinterest

Amazon begun its foray into Vietnam by striking up a partnership with Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (VIETRADE) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade to support Vietnamese businesses to boost exports via Amazons marketplaces.

Vietnam is the second fastest growing market in Southeast Asia (just behind Indonesia), according to a report by Google and Temasek, and already features Alibaba.

The Vietnamese e-commerce sector is worth about $2.8 billion, with an annual growth rate of 87 per cent.

Simon Baptist, global chief economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, pointed out: Vietnam has a young population proficient in technology who are making it a habit to buy goods online, with their rising income. In addition, Vietnam is trying to promote the non-cash economy with the goal of having 50 per cent of urban households use electronic payments for daily transactions by 2020, according to newswire in plo.vn.

Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the region and is expected to increase by 18 million middle-class households in 2017-2030, more than 30 per cent of whom will be living in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

However, before Amazon, Vietnam welcomed the Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group. In June 2017, this technology giant invested $1 billion in Lazada, increasing its holding to 83 per cent from 51 per cent and take its total outlay on the company so far to more than $2 billion.

Not long after that, Alibaba announced in March 2018 that it would invest an additional $2 billion in Lazada, two years after it acquired a controlling stake in the Singapore-headquartered e-commerce site.

According to Lazada, this firm has 155,000 sellers and serves about 560 million people in the region with more than 300 million products such as electronics, household items, and clothes among others.

Meanwhile, Alibabas main rival Tencent also penetrated the Vietnamese market and expanded its e-commerce and online payment services with the introduction of Shopee and Airpay.

Another popular name receiving investment from both domestic (VNG) and international (JD.com from China and STIC from Korea) enterprises is Tiki.

The only name which is wholly-owned by a Vietnamese corporation is Adayroi of Vingroup.

An interesting fact is that by the end of 2018, according to iprice.vn, Shopee and Tiki passed Lazada to rank first and second among the country's top 50 e-commerce players based on their average quarterly traffic, mobile application ranking, social media followers, and number of staff.

The newest entry, Amazon, is a leading company in the field of e-commerce, accounting for nearly 45 per cent in the US.

According to statistics from Website Builder Expert, Amazon is the most powerful cross-border e-commerce empire, covering 58 countries with 13 Amazon platforms for 13 regions, and having 1.2 billion visitors a year.

Alibaba ranks second in the globe, covering 15 countries, its activities focus on China and Southeast Asia, with 1.07 billion visitors.

Although Amazon has just dipped its toe in Vietnam, with its available financial resources, logistics, and technology, the Vietnamese market could very well be heading towards mirroring the global situation, with Amazon and Alibaba arm-wrestling while the rest look on.

To conquer the Vietnamese e-commerce market, each player has their own strategy. Last September, Amazon Global Selling Southeast Asia announced doubling efforts to support Vietnamese sellers, including the launch of the global selling website in Vietnamese and Amazon's official Vietnamese Facebook page to enable more Vietnamese sellers to easily access information, materials, and support to start selling on Amazon.

The race between Amazon and Alibaba in the Vietnamese e-commerce market will be dramatic and the winner remains a mystery for now, but what is certain is that consumers and vendors will see immense benefits. Imagine that someday Vietnam will have many items delivered by unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and consumers will receive products in only a few hours of placing the order.
More open policies will improve the long-term outlook for airlines, Photo: Le Toan

The Vietnamese arm of Japans Mitsubishi is now preparing to join the Long Thanh International Airport project, located in the southern province of Dong Nai. Mitsubishi and other foreign businesses who are interested in the project are now waiting for the countrys more open policies to emerge, in order to join future projects.

The Long Thanh airport plans will be developed under the public-private partnership format. Accordingly, we have established an alliance with Taisei Corporation and Narita International Airport Corporation for this project, said Tetsu Funayama, president and general director of Mitsubishi Corporation Vietnam.

Raising foreign ownership

A source from the Ministry of Transport (MoT) told VIR that the MoT is amending the Vietnamese governments Decree No.92/2016/ND-CP governing conditional business lines in the civil aviation sector, with a view to cutting a number of business conditions and making positive changes to facilitate investment activities.

Despite concerns and different ideas, the foreign ownership limit (FOL) in foreign-invested aviation businesses might be raised from the current 30 per cent limit. The increase will be considered carefully in parallel with the FOL in other transport segments, the source said.

Under the latest discussions relating to the amendments, FOL is considered to be raised to a maximum of 49 per cent. Both foreign-invested aviation businesses and Vietnamese legal entities will be subject to this adjustment.

This is seen as a positive step in the aviation sector, compared to the current Article 8(3) of Decree 92, which stipulates that the maximum FOL in foreign-invested aviation businesses is just 30 per cent, while the threshold in Vietnamese firms with outside financing is capped at 40 per cent.

What is more, the charter capital distinction between international and domestic air carriage is now also considered to be removed, and the number of foreign representatives in a Vietnamese airlines board of directors may increase.

Industry insiders said that the significant amendments are expected to add attraction to the sector, thus creating opportunities for overseas investors.

Raising the FOL will make investment in Vietnamese airlines more attractive, as long as they also have the ability to manage operations to a degree in which they are satisfied, said Thomas J. Treutler, managing director of Vietnams branch of Tilleke & Gibbins Consultants Ltd.

The elite airlines that enter into joint ventures in Vietnam will want to maintain their standards and seek to protect their brand. To do that, they will likely want operational control over many aspects of the local airline, he added.

Doors opening

Now, new opportunities are available for foreign businesses in the aviation sector. The additional divestment will be made by the local market giants Vietnam Airports Corporation (ACV) and the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines (VNA).

Accordingly, ACV, the operator of 22 airports across the country, have sold off 20 per cent of its shares in 2018 and a further 10.4 per cent in 2019, while VNA, which has a market share of around 40 per cent, will sell 35.16 per cent of its shares this year.

The country is attracting private investment in certain parts of key national aviation projects, namely Long Thanh International Airport and the expansion of Tan Son Nhat International Airport. In particular, for Long Thanh, private investors might be allowed to join in terminals and hangars related to service areas.

At present, only road projects face difficulties related to the governments revenue guarantee due to risks from new ventures to be developed in the future, while investors in other specialised transport segments such as aviation, railway, and seaports do not, therefore private investors can develop projects without the revenue guarantee because of low risks, Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The told VIR.

Thus far, the country has adjusted its aviation development planning for 2020, with a vision toward 2030, in which a network of modern airports will be developed. It also aims to call on private investment to develop logistics service centres at Noi Bai, Danang, and Tan Son Nhat international airports by 2020, and others like Chu Lai and Long Thanh by 2030.

The aviation sector has for years been struggling to attract sufficient foreign direct investment as aviation infrastructure funding has been mainly sourced from the state budget or official development assistance funds.

Although the wave of expected overseas investment in this sector might not break soon, the recent moves showed the MoTs strong determination to facilitate business activities and bring more opportunities to investors from overseas, thus laying out hopes for a brighter and more profitable future.

With a contribution of $6 billion annually to the countrys GDP and double-digit growth, the aviation market is expected to see some mergers and acquisitions taking place in the near future, driven by state stake divestments among the most influential corporations in the sector, especially by ACV and VNA.

Foreign investors often target large-scale businesses, or those in the same business field. VNA and ACV are good examples of past targets, said another senior official at the MoT.

Back in 2016, stake sales by VNA and ACV were among the hottest in the aviation industry, as multinational corporations lined up to take part.

Aeroport de Paris, which manages 37 airports all over the world, outbid many powerful rivals, including Singapores Changi Airports International and Japanese investors Taisei and JATCO, to become ACVs strategic foreign investor, while VNA too gained a valuable partner in ANA Holdings. It is possible that ANA, Japans largest airline, is very keen on the opportunity to increase its holding in VNA from its current 8.8 per cent share.

The International Air Transport Association forecast that Vietnam will be one of the worlds fastest growing aviation markets and the fastest in Southeast Asia with a projected average growth of nearly 14 per cent in the next five years, reaching 150 million passengers by 2035.

Impressive figures

According to statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, Vietnamese airports handled an estimated 106 million passengers in 2018, up 12.9 per cent on-year, while cargo volume is estimated at 1.5 million tonnes, up 7.7 per cent on-year. Of which, Vietnamese airlines handled over 50 million passengers and nearly 400,000 tonnes of cargo, up 14 and 26 per cent on-year, respectively.

As of the end 2018, the Vietnamese aviation market had involvement of 68 foreign airlines and four Vietnamese ones, namely VNA, Vietjet, Jetstar Pacific Airlines, and VASCO, with VNA and Vietjet dominating the market.

VNA posted higher-than-expected business results last year, when its total consolidated revenues reached an estimated VND102 trillion ($4.43 billion). Its consolidated pre-tax profit was estimated at nearly VND2.8 trillion ($121.74 million), surpassing the whole-year target by 15 per cent. The carriers financial indexes have much improved, with the operating profit margin reaching 4.38 per cent and the debt-to-equity ratio falling below 3x. Its fleet continued to be increase and upgrade in 2018.

The year was also a rosy one for Vietjet, with total revenues hitting VND52.4 trillion ($2.28 billion), up 24 per cent on-year, and total pre-tax profit touching VND5.83 trillion ($253.5 million). Its debt-to-equity ratio is at 0.04x, while return on equity is 37.6 per cent and the price-to-earnings ratio is at an attractive rate of 11.5.

Competition in the Vietnamese aviation market is expected to stiffen this year with more newcomers. Bamboo Airways, a new budget airline, made its maiden flight on January 16, focusing on exploring niche markets, including direct flights from international and domestic airports to newly-emerged tourism destinations.

Also in January, Van Don International Airport officially went into operation in the northern province of Quang Ninh, bringing high hopes for domestically private-run and foreign investors like Mitsubishi Corporation to join future ventures.


Ruth Furman, principal at ImageWords Communications, will discuss self-promotion for businesses next month in the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) of Southern Nevadas 2019 speaker series.

Furman will deliver Sharing the Love through Self-Expression: Simple Tips for Shameless Self-Promotion, from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Feb. 13 at the Associated Builders & Contractors Nevada office, 5070 Arville St., Suite 4 in Las Vegas.

Furman, who has three decades in the marketing and communications business, will work to help business owners overcome one of their biggest challenges  celebrating their wins and maximizing their results.

Her session will focus on finding the best way to toot your own horn.

Many business owners I know seem to feel shy or uncomfortable sharing news and wins, Furman says. But deliberate self-promotion and brand layering lead to amazing results. Im also a huge fan of authenticity. Its OK to be real.

In this interactive workshop, speakers will share inspiring case studies on seizing opportunities to shine, promoting business wins inexpensively and mastering the magic of brand layering.

Attendees will leave the conversation with tips they can implement immediately and strategies to keep them relevant.

The event is free for NAWBO Southern Nevada members, and $20 plus tax ($2.85) for nonmembers.

Breakfast will be catered by Divine Events.
In the catechesis portion of his weekly General Audience, Pope Francis thanks God and all those who helped make World Youth Day in Panama a success.

By Devin Watkins

Fresh from his Apostolic Journey to Panama, Pope Francis relived World Youth Day with the pilgrims present at the Wednesday General Audience.

One of the things that really struck him during the trip, the Pope said, was how parents lifted their children in the air when the Popemobile passed by.

The pride of that family are its children. Children are security for the future, he said.

Pope Francis said there was much dignity in the act of parents holding their children aloft, and that it speaks volumes about the demographic winter that we are living in Europe! The demographic winter  without children  is difficult, right?, he said.

Listen to our report

Symphony of faces for Panama

Pope Francis said his whole journey to Panama was permeated by the joyful presence of young people. He called it a celebration for them and for Panama, and even for the whole of Central America, which is marked by many dramatic moments and needs hope, peace, and justice.

The Pope said WYD was a great symphony of faces and languages.

To see all the flags joined together, waving in the hands of young people overjoyed to meet one another, was a prophetic sign, one that runs contrary to the current, sad tendency of conflictual nationalisms that raise walls and close themselves to universality and the encounter of peoples.

Marian Way of the Cross



Pope Francis said WYD Panama carried a strong Marian aspect, which was apparent in the Via Crucis.

Let me tell you a secret: I really enjoy doing the Way of the Cross, because it means following Jesus with Mary.

Pulling a small Via Crucis out of his pocket, the Pope said he always one so he can pray it when he has time.

The Holy Father encouraged everyone to pray the Way of the Cross, because it means following Jesus with Mary along the path of the Cross, where he gave his life for us, for our redemption. In the Via Crucis we learn love that it patient, silent, and concrete.

Youth are now of the world

Pope Francis then reflected on the importance of young people for society. He said their gifts are not reserved only for tomorrow. Young people, he said, are the today for tomorrow. They are not in the meantime, but are the today, the now, of the Church and the world.

The Pope said he also appealed to adults to properly educate and form young people, so that they can find work and a place in society.
Cardinal Charles Bo says people must resist Chinese attempts to restart $3.8m Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy River.

By Robin Gomes

Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar is vehemently opposing the China-backed Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy River saying it is the death sentence to the people of Myanmar.

In a January 28 press release, the Archbishop of Yangon appealed to all stakeholders to stop the project saying the controversial dam is an "environmental disaster" that will deprive millions of farmers of their livelihood in a nation where 80 per cent of the population depends on agriculture.

Livelihood at stake

"The grim prospect of millions of farmers losing their livelihood, the abuse of sacred sites along the rivers, the death and destruction of the precious flora and fauna of our dear nation, are becoming a nightmarish reality," he said.

In an earlier message on the occasion of Christmas 2017, Cardinal Bo had spoken against the project, urging the people of Kachin state to protest against the $3.8 billion dam , a massive hydroelectric power development project, 90 per cent of whose electricity is expected to go to China.

By 2010, the dam's construction had caused the relocation of at least 3,000 people. The military-backed government of President Thein Sein suspended construction in September 2011, but China has vigorously called for the resumption of the project.

Pawning mother to greedy superpower

Faced with the sad prospect of losing our mother Irrawaddy, through Myitstone dam, to the greed of a superpower, every Myanmar citizen pleads with all people of good will to come to the support of the poor of Myanmar, the cardinal wrote in the release message entitled, Stop Trafficking Our Mother Irrawaddy.

Regarding Irrawaddy more than a river, the cardinal said she is a sacred mother whose history is intertwined with that of the nation and its people; it is a commodity that cannot be bartered. She is our hope, she is our destiny.

Concerns over the resumption of the Myitstone dam grew after a December visit by Ambassador Hong Liang of China to Kachin where he met with political parties and social organizations. Two weeks later, the Chinese embassy released a statement saying the local Kachin community were not against the project but some outside individuals and social organizations were objecting.

Three Kachin political parties quickly refuted the Chinese claim.

Cardinal Bo decried the big and powerful countries who want everything from the nation. For decades, they abused its strategic position to threaten Myanmar. They commodified our girls and women through human trafficking in the northern states of Myanmar," he alleged.

The outspoken cardinal compared those who support restarting the dam project to sons and daughters who commodify their parents for monetary gain. "History will never forgive those who sell our mother Irrawaddy," he warned and hoped that the countrys leaders will resist all efforts to destroy our nations destiny and dignity.

Please find below the full text of Card. Bos press release:

Stop Trafficking Our Mother Irrawaddy

We the people of Myanmar, with tears in our eyes, our hearts shaken by fear and sorrow, knock at the doors of our rulers and the international community. Faced with the sad prospect of losing our mother Irrawaddy, through Myitstone dam, to the greed of a superpower, every Myanmar citizen pleads with all people of good will to come to the support of the poor of Myanmar.

Irrawaddy is not a river to us, she is not a commodity to be bartered. She is the sacred mother of every Myanmar people. Her history is intertwined with the history of Myanmar. Like the jewel around the neck of our nation, Irrawaddy traverses through the whole nation crossing thousands of miles. She is witness to our sorrows, joys and wounded history. She is our hope, she is our destiny.

For a nation of agriculture, where 80 per cent of the people lives by farming, Irrawaddy is an unfailing accompanier in their livelihood. Her Majesty, her dancing down the mountains, her mystic meandering through the soul of the nation, her generosity to the poor farmers, make Irrawaddy the nations' sacred identity. For thousands of sacred sites along the banks of Irrawaddy, this river is the most sacred symbol of our nation.

This sacred mother is now open for trade. Big and powerful countries need everything from this nation. For decades, they abused its strategic position for threatening Myanmar. They commodified our girls and women through human trafficking in the northern states of Myanmar. The same sad fate now falls on our Mother Irrawaddy.

The recent events in the country have further, unfortunately, increased the leverage of certain countries over our nation. Threats and blackmail are used with impunity.

This is the moment of heart-wrenching tragedy.

Myitstone dam is the death sentence to the people of Myanmar. The grim prospect of millions of farmers losing their livelihood, the abuse of sacred sites along the rivers, the death and destruction of the precious flora and fauna of our dear nation, is becoming a nightmarish reality. This dam is an environmental disaster. Myitstone dam is a toxic cognac for chronic war. Peace will fade in the horizon. A bleak future awaits the people of Myanmar. We do not deserve this.

For the peaceful future, Myitstone dam must be stopped. The former President U Thein Sein took the courageous step of stopping the dam work. We believe all those inside Myanmar will support the move to abrogate any treaty that abuses Mother Irrawaddy. Those who support the restarting Myitstone dam are like sons and daughter who commodify their parents for monetary gains. History will never forgive those who sell our mother Irrawaddy.

On behalf of all the people of Myanmar, especially the poor farmers, we earnestly request all stakeholders to stop their attempts to abuse our mother Irrawaddy. We earnestly request the people of Myanmar to join hands in protecting the dignity of our mother Irrawaddy. We are hopeful that our leaders will resist all efforts to destroy our nations destiny and dignity.
Malis Catholic Bishops say that they will soon issue a pastoral letter to mark the end of the 130th anniversary of the evangelisation of the country

Tiziana Campisi & English Africa Service - Vatican City

According to the Catholic Bishops of Mali, the pastoral letter will have a social character, it will be addressed to the faithful of Mali and to all Malians of good will. The letter will invite them to a spirit of conversion for the rebirth of a new nation. With the Bishops' message, the country will conclude celebrations for the 130th anniversary of the evangelisation of Mali. The Bishops have been meeting recently in a Plenary session of the Episcopal conference held in Bamako.

During the Plenary, the Bishops also took time to examine universal trends towards secularisation at the expense of religion. They further discussed the socio-political situation of the country including the now withdrawn government plan for a controversial sex education programme meant adolescents.

Bishops' concerns for Dogon-Peul ethnic groups

Highlighting some of the matters discussed, Archbishop Jonas Dembele, of Kayes who is also and President of the Episcopal Conference expressed concern about the exploitation of the Dogon-Peul peoples and the bloody conflicts in the region. Lastly, the Bishops, he said, recalled with gratitude, the recent visit of the Holy Sees Cardinal- Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin for the 130th anniversary of the evangelisation of the country.
Submitted PhotoThe annual W.G. Nunn Elementary School spelling bee was held recently in the school media center. The top three W.G. Nunn scholars will compete in the district spelling bee Feb. 1 at the Valdosta City Schools Performing Arts Center. Traycianna Denson, fifth grade, won first place; Lauren Bloom, fifth grade, won second place; fourth-grader Jaleiah Loveday, third place, school officials said. Charlene Rickman is the W.G. Nunn spelling bee coordinator.
Submitted PhotoParents and students gathered in the Sallas Mahone Elementary School media center as fourth- and fifth-grade classroom winners competed for the SME Spelling Bee title. Winners will go on to the district level competition. Nandini Thanki won first place; Braeden Lampkin, second place; Christan Wright, third place.
(@rukhshanmir)

Two UN peacekeepers died and several were wounded on Friday in central Mali after their vehicle hit a mine, the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said in a statement

Bamako, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jan, 2019 ) :Two UN peacekeepers died and several were wounded on Friday in central Mali after their vehicle hit a mine, the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said in a statement.

"This morning at around 0600, a vehicle in a MINUSMA logistics convoy hit a mine near Douentza, Mopti region," the statement said, without giving the nationality of those involved.
Following media reports that a Polish slaughter house was processing meat from sick cows, Croatia's chief veterinary inspector, Gordan Jerbic, on Tuesday said that Croatia did not import meat from that abattoir and that there was no need for domestic consumers to fear

ZAGREB, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jan, 2019 ) :Following media reports that a Polish slaughter house was processing meat from sick cows, Croatia 's chief veterinary inspector, Gordan Jerbic, on Tuesday said that Croatia did not import meat from that abattoir and that there was no need for domestic consumers to fear.

"An inspection of the documents attached to each animal shipment imported into Croatia established that Croatia did not import meat from that abattoir," Jerbic told reporters after media outlets released secretly taken footage of exceptionally sick cows that were being smuggled into the Polish abattoir and processed without hardly any veterinary inspection at all.

Jerbic added that more than 14,000 official inspections were conducted last year of live animals and of animal products, with more than 4,500 samples of imported fresh meat being taken.

About 700 objections were lodged regarding breaches related to the hygiene of products of animal origin and equipment in meat processing plants and 17 criminal charges were filed at relevant courts.

Jerbic underscored that inspections are conducted "from farm to the table," each stage being checked from slaughter, packaging and transport to the end user.

Asked about meat from the Polish abattoir, Jerbic said that an investigation was still underway.

"We sent a query to the relevant Polish authority but haven't received a reply as to where that meat ended up. However, following an inspection of the documentation, there is no need to fear that that meat ended up in Croatia," Jerbic underscored.

He confirmed that Croatia does import a certain quantity of meat from Poland, mostly fresh beef.
(@FahadShabbir)

Belarus and Pakistan have agreed to launch a joint commemorative stamp to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries, which will be celebrated on February 3

MINSK, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jan, 2019 ) : Belarus and Pakistan have agreed to launch a joint commemorative stamp to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries, which will be celebrated on February 3.

Belarusian Ambassador to Pakistan Andrei Yermolovich met with Chairman, Director General of Pakistan Post Dr. Naseer Ahmed Khan, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Embassy in Pakistan.

The parties examined the status of implementation of the memorandum of cooperation in postal service between the Communications and Informatization Ministry of Belarus and the Ministry of Communications of Pakistan (signed during an official visit of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in October 2016).

The parties agreed to launch a joint commemorative stamp to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Belarus and Pakistan. The first-day-of-issue ceremony will be held during one of the highest-level visits scheduled for this year.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 30th Jan, 2019) The National Centre of Meteorology, NCM, has warned sea-goers in the offshore Sea of Oman that fresh westerly to northwesterly winds with a 42 km/h speed will be affecting the waters.

In a statement today, the Centre said that wave heights will be between 4 to 6 feet until 8 pm today.
Slovakia's finance minister called for cooperation with South Korea in a wide-range of areas such as hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and infrastructure, the government here said Tuesday

SEJONG, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jan, 2019 ) :Slovakia's finance minister called for cooperation with South Korea in a wide-range of areas such as hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and infrastructure, the government here said Tuesday.

Peter Kazimir made the comments in a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Hong Nam-ki at the government complex building in central Seoul, calling Asia's fourth-largest economy a very important country for Slovakia, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Hong asked Kazimir to provide support to South Korean firms operating in Slovakia as he expressed hope for deepening economic cooperation between the two partners.

"The two sides deeply share the view of expanding economic cooperation in various areas," the ministry said of the meeting.

Earlier this month, South Korea said it will increase the number of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles to about 80,000 units by 2022 as part of a broader effort to give a boost to the "hydrogen economy." South Korea views the hydrogen economy as a new growth engine for its economy, which has relied heavily on semiconductors for decades.

Global carmakers have been racing to go eco-friendly amid tightened regulations on emissions of greenhouse gases, which scientists say are to blame for global warming.

A hydrogen fuel cell electric car emits only water vapor as it converts stored hydrogen into electricity to turn the drive motor.
Milledgeville, GA (31061)

Today

Showers and a possible thunderstorm during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 72F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Showers and a possible thunderstorm during the evening will give way to partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 72F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic we have maintained that Gov. Chris Sununu handled the emergency superbly. That is why New Hampshire weathered the crisis well relative to most other states. It is also why the voters overwhelmingly returned the young governor to office last November.
Mark Buchfuhrer finally got his wish when his daughter decided to go to medical school and become a doctor, but that wasnt the end of the story.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP)  A retired 53-year-old highway patrol trooper was sentenced to a year of probation for lying to the FBI during an investigation into illegal gambling in Wichita.



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Michael Frederiksen, of Derby, was convicted in May of making false statements to FBI investigators. Testing during the trial indicated that in 2014 Frederiksen was filmed participating in an illegal cash poker game while he was still a trooper.

Prosecutors say during an interview by FBI agents investigating illegal gambling in Wichita, Frederiksen made false statements and downplayed his involvement in illegal poker and his relationship with the poker games operator.

An FBI affidavit in the case says investigators began looking into an illegal gambling business with ties to public corruption in Wichita in November 2011.
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Venezuelan social media was alive with theories  that it had brought mercenaries, was there to escort Maduro into exile, or was loading up with gold.

The unusual arrival of a Russian passenger plane in Caracas has set social media abuzz with rumors about its mission after the Kremlin pledged to support its ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against a U.S.-backed effort to drive him from office.

The Boeing 777, with space for some 400 passengers and belonging to Russia's Nordwind Airlines, was parked by a private corner of the airport after flying direct from Moscow, according to flight tracking data and Reuters photos.

It was the first time it had made the route, the data showed.

Read alsoRussia vows to support Maduro, criticizes U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan oil company  media

Neither Nordwind nor the Venezuelan government immediately responded to a request to comment on why the jet had flown to Caracas.

Venezuelan social media was alive with theories  that it had brought mercenaries, was there to escort Maduro into exile, or was loading up with gold. None of those theories was based on solid evidence, but the feverish speculation was a testament to the atmosphere of uncertainty in the country as Maduro comes under unprecedented international pressure to step down.

Reuters reported last week that private military contractors who carry out secret missions for Russia had flown into Venezuela to beef up Maduro's security in the face of mass opposition protests last week, according to people close to them.

The plane normally flies between Russia and Southeast Asia and is not recorded to have flown to Caracas before, according to publicly-available flight data. Neither Nordwind nor other commercial airlines offer direct Moscow-Caracas flights.

Read alsoRussia's large passenger jet without passengers on board departs to Venezuela

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported the plane flew with two crews and no passengers.

Maduro claims he is facing a Washington-backed coup attempt led by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who last week proclaimed himself president and was recognized by the United States as the legitimate head-of-state.

Russia has accused U.S. President Donald Trump's administration of trying to usurp power in Venezuela and warned against any military intervention. The Kremlin on Tuesday condemned new U.S. sanctions against Venezuela's vital oil sector as illegal interference in the OPEC member's affairs.
Ukrainian forces suppressed enemy fire using weapons that are not banned by Minsk agreements.

From day-start to 18:00 on Wednesday, Jan 30, Russian occupation forces in eastern Ukraine's Donbas fired three times at the positions of the Ukrainian troops, according to the Joint Forces' press center.

The militants employed weapons proscribed by the Minsk agreements.

"In the action area of the Pivnich [North] Tactical Grouping, mercenaries fired at positions of the Ukrainian military near the village of Kriakivka using 82mm mortars, and near the Vilniy settlement  using automatic grenade launchers and small arms," reads the JFO HQ report.

Read alsoUkrainian military prevent enemy ambush attack in Donbas, seize weapons (Photo)

In the zone of responsibility of the Skhid [East] Tactical Grouping, militants fired at the positions of our defenders from grenade launchers in the area of Pavlopil, the report says.

The JFO press center says Ukrainian troops sustained no casualties as a result of the unlawful shelling by Russian occupation forces.

Joint Forces suppressed enemy fire using weapons that are not banned by Minsk agreements, the report adds.

"The situation in the zone of the Joint Forces Operation remains under control of the Ukrainian military," the JFO press service says.
Petrenko informed the German side about the security situation.

Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defense for European Integration, Lieutenant-General Anatoly Petrenko has informed his German counterparts that Russia has been building up offensive forces near the Ukrainian border and deploying missile systems in temporarily occupied Crimea.

Read alsoUkrainian military prevent enemy ambush attack in Donbas, seize weapons (Photo)

"The head of a Ukrainian delegation has given a detailed answer to a questions from German delegates, in particular, about the situation in Donbas and the Azov-Black Sea region, which is seeing the build-up of offensive groups near Ukraine's state border and the militarization of the Crimean peninsula, including the deployment of missile systems. This poses a threat to Eastern European countries," the ministry's press service quoted Petrenko as saying during his visit to Germany.

In Germany, the Ukrainian delegation met with Director for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany Michael Siebert and Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Minister of Defence of Germany Thomas Silberhorn.

Petrenko briefed the German side on the situation related to the security policy around Ukraine, the status of defense reform, main achievements and priorities of cooperation with Germany, NATO and the EU in the short term.

In addition, Petrenko informed about the act of open military aggression of the Russian Federation near the Kerch Strait and the introduction of martial law in certain regions in Ukraine and its results.
The Ukrainian servicemen have been nominated for an award for the successful combat operation.

The Ukrainian military spotted and prevented an enemy ambush attack during a reconnaissance operation near the town of Dokuchaievsk in Donetsk region on January 29, 2019.

Read alsoCo-founder of "DPR" terrorist organization denied "DPR citizenship"  journalist

"Thanks to skillful actions of a reconnaissance group, enemy troops were neutralized and the weapons left by the enemy were seized. Our recon troops' trophies are the following: a 120mm 9K111 Fagot anti-tank missile system, an RPG-18 anti-tank rocket launcher, and a 12.7mm NSV (Utyos) heavy machine gun," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation wrote on Facebook on January 30.

The Ukrainian servicemen have been nominated for an award for the successful combat operation.




[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press.]

As the crisis in Venezuela lurches from bad to worse, the chaos unleashed by the countrys slow collapse is threatening to undermine the stability of the entire area. Nicolas Maduro has once again accused the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos of preparing a series of "incidents" aimed at creating "an armed conflict" between the two neighbouring countries. Santos did not recognize Maduro's re-election on May 20, questioning the fairness of the recent Venezuelan presidential vote. Uncle Sam is not going to watch from the sidelines: the US consider Venezuela and Colombia as their backyard, and the Ronald Regan Strike Group is ready to enter the action, with its load of F35A Lighting Fighters and B-1B Bombers. Meanwhile, Russian media outlets are reporting that the Kremlin is planning to establish a forward outpost on the Venezuelan island of La Orchila in the Caribbean Sea and base nuclear-capable Tu-160 Blackjack bombers there. The makings for a perfect storm are all set: is the new Cold War turning hot in South America? If you want to know more about The King of t Border background, click on the above image to download the new Command Live Issue 10,he a four pages PDF about this present-day situation The King of the Border is the new Command Live DLC for Command MANO, the award-winning modern warfare simulation. The setting is the South American northern coast, and the situation is breathtakingly similar to what we read these days on newspapers. The DLC let you take command of the US forces in the area or, on the contrary, to lead the Russian faction supporting Venezuela.
There were no Ukrainian army casualties.

Russian-led forces mounted eight attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in the past 24 hours.

Read alsoUkraine's deputy minister for occupied areas comments on new Donbas settlement plan

"No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported in the past day. According to intelligence reports, four invaders were killed and another six were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on January 30, 2019.

What is more, the Ukrainian troops destroyed a KAMAZ military truck with weapons and equipment belonging to the enemy.

During the period under review, the Russian occupation forces opened fire from grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns, and small arms at the Ukrainian positions near the town of Avdiyivka, and the villages of Bohdanivka, Hnutove, Luhanske, and Novomykhailivka.

The enemy also employed 82mm mortars and heavy machine guns to attack the Ukrainian positions near the villages of Krymske, Katerynivka, and Vilniy.

In addition, the Ukrainian military spotted and eliminated an enemy ambush during a reconnaissance operation near the town of Dokuchaievsk. They seized a 120mm 9K111 Fagot anti-tank missile system, an RPG-18 anti-tank rocket launcher, and a 12.7mm NSV (Utyos) heavy machine gun.

"Since Wednesday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked Ukrainian positions yet," the report said.
The date of the preparatory court hearing is still unknown since the panel of judges has a period of five days to decide on it.

A criminal case on charges against Ukrainian Member of Parliament, ex-pilot, former prisoner of the Kremlin Nadiia Savchenko and head of the Ukrainian "Officer Corps" center for the exchange of prisoners of war Volodymyr Ruban, who are charged with an attempted coup, has been transferred to Donetsk region's Sloviansk city district court.

Read alsoSavchenko kept in individual cell  press secretary

The court said this happened on Tuesday, January 29. The panel of judges was determined by the automatic distribution of cases. The case will be considered under the chairmanship of judge Serhiy Pronin.

The date of the preparatory court hearing is still unknown since the panel of judges has a period of five days to decide on it.

As UNIAN reported, the Verkhovna Rada on March 22, 2018 green-lighted the arrest of MP Nadiia Savchenko, a former Ukrainian pilot released from a Russian prison as part of a prisoner-of-war exchange. Ukraine's prosecutors charged Savchenko with plotting a coup and an act of terror in Ukraine, following an elaborate sting operation by SBU Security Service agents, who initially targeted former hostage swap negotiator Volodymyr Ruban.

The latter is believed to have conspired with Savchenko. She is suspected of committing crimes under Part 1 of Article 109 (actions aimed at the forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional order or seizure of state power); Part 1 of Article 14 (preparations for a crime), Part 2 of Article 28 (committing a crime by a group of persons, a group of persons by prior agreement, an organized group or a criminal organization), Article 112 (an attempted attack on the life of a public figure), Part 3 of Article 258 (an act of terror); Part 1 of Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist group or organization), and Part 1 of Article 263 (illegal possession of weapons, ammunition or explosives) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
MFA Ukraine has expressed strong protest to Russia over the fact.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry says Russia has denied a Ukrainian consul's an opportunity to visit the illegally detained political prisoner, Pavlo Hryb.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly protests against the receipt on January 29 of the refusal of the Russian side to grant the Ukrainian consul permission to visit the illegally convicted citizen of Ukraine Pavlo Hryb," the ministry's statement reads.

"The Ministry regards such a step a gross violation by Russia of its international obligations, in particular, provisions of Article 13 of the Consular Convention between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, which provides for the right of consular officials of Ukraine to visit Ukrainian citizens in detention facilities across Russia," the Ukrainian diplomats note.

The statement adds that such actions by the Russian side are seen as a "deliberate intention to hide the actual health condition of Pavlo Hryb."

Read alsoU.S. diplomats "deeply concerned" by reports on health condition of Ukrainian political prisoner held in Russia

The diplomats "demand immediate access of Ukrainian consular officials to Pavlo Hryb, as well as an urgent and comprehensive medical examination of the Ukrainian in a specialized medical facility."

As UNIAN reported earlier, Pavlo Hryb is being tried in Russia on trumped-up "terrorist" charges as investigators claim he instructed an accomplice to set off an explosive device at a Russian schoolyard.

He was just 19 when he was abducted by the FSB from Belarus on August 24, 2017, after going there to meet who he thought was a young woman he had chatted with online, and fallen in love with.

On January 18, 2019, the now 20-year-old told a Russian court that he believes the person he met in Belarus, who is the prosecutions key witness, to be an FSB set up, and not the young woman he originally corresponded with.

He also gave disturbing details of the violence he was subjected to following his abduction to force a confession from him, according to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
They call on Russia to provide appropriate medical care to the Ukrainian and release all Ukrainian political prisoners.

The United States Embassy in Ukraine has expressed concern over the reports on the health condition of Pavlo Hryb, a Ukrainian national illegally held by Russia as a political prisoner.

"We are deeply concerned by recent reports about the health of Ukrainian #PavloHryb. Russia must provide appropriate medical care to the Ukrainians it unjustly detains and should release all Ukrainian political prisoners immediately," the Embassy's press service wrote on Twitter.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Pavlo Hryb, a 20-year-old Ukrainian national illegally held by Russian authorities on trumped-up "terrorism" charges after he was lured to Belarus to be abducted by the Russian FSB, is on the verge of life and death, as reported by the Verkhovna Rada's human rights envoy Liudmyla Denisova.

Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Hryb, held Russian dungeons, is on the verge of life and death! The 20-year-old political prisoner needs urgent heart surgery because his state of health is supercritical, Denisova wrote on Facebook.
At the same time, Ukraine is preparing "preemptive measures".

Former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lt Gen (Reserve) Ihor Romanenko has told UNIAN that Kyiv is within the range of defeat of nuclear-capable missiles loaded on Russia's Iskander launchers deployed closer to the border with Ukraine.

He noted that Russia had deployed three new divisions along the Ukraine border.

"These are new divisions, reinforced with new armored vehicles and hi-end weaponry. They are directed specifically [to be used] against Ukraine," the military expert said. In addition, Romanenko noted that more than 700 Russian tanks have been deployed in the occupied part of Donbas.

Read alsoUN peacekeeping mission in Donbas could cost up to $1.5 bln  Ukrainian Army General

The Russian Federation has added 300 tanks, which they pulled to Ukraine's eastern borders. Also, they brought closer the Iskander division so that Kyiv fell under their range of defeat, he said.

According to Romanenko, Ukraine, in turn, is testing cruise missiles and missile systems.

"We are working to ensure that their range covers Moscow and St. Petersburg. There's already a project out there, and it's in progress as we're working on it. This is a preemptive measure," the general added.
Donbas would require a 5,000 to 20,000-strong force.

Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lt. Gen. (Reserve) Ihor Romanenko, has told UNIAN the deployment of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine's Donbas could cost up to $1.5 billion.

Romanenko noted that the decision to deploy the force has to be approved by the UN Security Council, where the Russian Federation has veto power.

Even if this happens, it will take time for a UN technical mission to come in," the military expert said, adding that the experts would then have to consider the exact amount of funds required for concrete purposes.

According to Romanenko, Donbas would need a 5,000 to 20,000-strong peacekeeping force, that's according to preliminary estimates.

Read alsoLet's talk after "DPR", "LPR disappear  Klimkin on Sajdik Plan for Donbas

The provisional cost is up to $1.5 billion. This is a very big sum for the UN, the general added.

He noted that the force would have to include military, policing, and administrative components.

Relevant proposals are on the table; they are being discussed, said Romanenko.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on September 26, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stated that Ukraine, the United States, Germany, and France had long prepared a joint draft resolution of the UN Security Council on the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Donbas. According to the top diplomat, the resolution will be submitted for consideration by the UN Security Council.
In total, 22 swap petitions have been handed over to the Russian side.

The Russians that are convicted in Ukraine for participating in the war in Donbas are asking that they be swapped for Ukrainian prisoners kept in Russia and have written letters with relevant requests to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published three such letters from the Russian servicemen who are now serving their sentences in Ukrainian prisons.

"I, Sergey G. Yegorov, <...> born in Sverdlovsk Oblast, the Russian Federation <...> was captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine at night on April 14, 2017 <...> I am charged with being a shooter of the Armed Forces of the 'DPR' [' Donetsk People's Republic'], a member of the 5th SMRB [separate motor rifle battalion] of the 1st company of the 2nd platoon of the 2nd unit. I am indeed a volunteer; I arrived to fulfill my patriotic duty," one of the letters says.

Read alsoRussia will seek return of chief of RIA Novosti's Kyiv office through international channels

All the three detainees said in their letters that during their term in prison their health had deteriorated, as there was no necessary medical assistance.

All these letters end with the same request. "Based on the abovementioned, I ask you, Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], to help, assist in resolving the issue of my extradition to the Russian Federation or organize and implement a possible swap of hostages and prisoners of war who are Russian citizens for political prisoners, captured citizens of Ukraine who are in Russian prisons," the letters say. "Please take all necessary measures to bring us, citizens of the Russian Federation, who are in prisons of Ukraine, back home."

In total, such petitions to the President of Russia were submitted by twenty-one male citizens and one female citizen of the Russian Federation who are now in prison colonies and pretrial detention centers of Ukraine on charges of participation in the war in Donbas.

The Russian newspaper says that the letters were written back in August 2018 and immediately handed over to the Russian side through diplomatic channels, but no reaction followed.

"Russia has not responded to the petitions, no one has got interested in the future of their fellow men  neither consuls have visited them, nor parcels or letters have been sent to them. Nobody has contacted their relatives. Russia continues playing the they-are-not-there game at all levels," Novaya Gazeta said.

According to the newspaper, Ukraine has contacted Russia 13 times, proposing an exchange of Russian citizens for Ukrainians jailed in Russia.

The latest attempt was made the other day, when Deputy Speaker of Ukraine's Parliament Iryna Gerashchenko listed their names at a PACE meeting, adding: "Take yours, give ours back!"
Peskov insists there is no war between Ukraine and Russia.

The Kremlin has reacted to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's statement about the possibility of "cold" peace with Russia.

"There is no war between Ukraine and Russia. There is civil war in Ukraine and there are developments in Ukraine that were triggered by the authorities in Kyiv and that resulted in the formation of those two republics in the country's southeast region," Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists, answering a request from an UNIAN correspondent in Russia to comment the Ukrainian president's words.

Read alsoUkraine to apply for EU membership in 2024  Poroshenko

According to Peskov, such developments lead to escalation along the contact line in Donbas and there are consequences for the socio-economic situation in the two "republics" associated with "Kyiv's policy of alienating these two republics from Ukraine."

"That is what is de facto and many other events that were the result of a coup that took place in Kyiv. There is no war between Ukraine and Russia, these are two neighboring countries, these are two fraternal peoples, but at the same time, we cannot to give a positive assessment of what I have just said," Peskov said.

He said there are events that cannot be assessed at all.

"These are discriminatory measures against our companies, this is an encroachment on the property of our companies, which is nothing but an encroachment on the property of foreign investors, there is an encroachment on our media, an encroachment on freedom of the press, an encroachment on the lives and safety of our journalists... Of course, most of all we would like not to have all these negative manifestations, so that our bilateral relations are free from such ugly manifestations," Peskov added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine needs peace with Russia even if it is "cold."

"Of course, we need peace with Russia. Cold yet peace. People are tired of war. Russian propaganda and its liars in Ukraine tirelessly play with this painful emotion," he said.

"Peace is the complete restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the undeniable recognition by Moscow of our right to walk our own path. Even if this path is the path away from Moscow," Poroshenko said.
Desperate Journeys: Spain now main route to Europe for refugees and migrants (Zahra Mackaoui, producer / Bela Szandelszky, camera-editor)

Refugees and migrants attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea lost their lives at an alarming rate in 2018, as cuts in search and rescue operations reinforced its position as the worlds deadliest sea crossing. The latest Desperate Journeys report, released today by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, says six lives were lost on average every day.

An estimated 2,275 died or went missing crossing the Mediterranean in 2018, despite a major drop in the number of arrivals reaching European shores. In total, 139,300 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe, the lowest number in five years.

Saving lives at sea is not a choice, nor a matter of politics, but an age-old obligation, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. We can put an end to these tragedies by having the courage and vision to look beyond the next boat, and adopt a long-term approach based on regional cooperation, that places human life and dignity at its core.

The report describes how shifts in policy by some European States saw numerous incidents where large numbers of people were left stranded at sea for days on end, waiting for permission to dock. NGO boats and their crews faced growing restrictions on their search and rescue operations. On routes from Libya to Europe, one person died at sea for every 14 who arrived in Europe  a sharp rise on 2017 levels. Thousands more were returned to Libya where they faced appalling conditions inside detention centres.

For many, setting foot in Europe was the final stop of a nightmarish journey on which they had faced torture, rape and sexual assault, and the threat of being kidnapped and held for ransom. States must take urgent action to dismantle smuggling networks and bring perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

See also: French village sets an example of how to welcome refugees

However, new seeds of hope did emerge in some places. Despite political deadlock on progressing with a regional approach to sea rescue and disembarkation, as called for by UNHCR and IOM last June, several States committed to relocating people rescued on the central Mediterranean  a potential foundation for a predictable and lasting solution. Thousands of resettlement places were also pledged by States for evacuating refugees out of Libya.

The report also reveals significant changes in the routes being used by refugees and migrants. For the first time in recent years, Spain became the primary entry point to Europe as around 6,800 arrived by land (through the enclaves in Ceuta and Melilla) and a further 58,600 people successfully crossed over the perilous Western Mediterranean. As a result, the death toll for the western Mediterranean nearly quadrupled from 202 in 2017 to 777. Some 23,400 refugees and migrants arrived in Italy in 2018, a fivefold decrease compared to the previous year. Greece received a similar number of sea arrivals, some 32,500 compared to 30,000 in 2017, but saw a near threefold increase in the number of people arriving via its land border with Turkey.

Elsewhere in Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded some 24,000 arrivals as refugees and migrants transited through the Western Balkans. Cyprus received several boats carrying Syrian refugees from Lebanon while the UK witnessed small numbers crossing from France towards the end of the year.

Journalists can find the full report and the related multimedia assets on the media page here.

For more information on this topic, please check this page.
THQ Nordic AB has distanced itself from comments made by its subsidiary THQ Nordic GmbH, and has backed Deep Silver's decision to launch Metro Exodus as a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store.

At first glance that's a confusing sentence, so take a deep breath and hold on to your hat, because we're about to venture down the THQ rabbit hole. Ready? Here goes.

THQ Nordic GmbH is the owner of Deep Silver and its parent company Koch Media, the latter of which still holds the rights to the Metro franchise, and yesterday suggested it wasn't enamored with the company's decision to pull Metro Exodus from Steam in favor of the Epic Store.

"We do not want to categorically exclude the possibility of timed exclusives for any of our games in the future," wrote THQ Nordic GmbH on Twitter, "but speaking in the here and now, we definitely want to have the players choose the platform of their liking and make our portfolio available to as many outlets as possible."

Now, THQ Nordic GmbH's own parent company, THQ Nordic AB, has distanced itself from those comments, and said it fully supports Koch Media's decision as well as the autonomy of its various subsidiaries.

"I believe its in the groups, and ultimately the consumers, best interest that business decisions are made close to the market and this is the groups consistent business model," said THQ Nordic AB chief exec Lars Wingefors.

"I firmly believe that Deep Silver and Koch Media have carefully considered the advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and risks in their decision to go solely with Epic Games Store. The decision has my full support."

Wingefors has also realized the shortcomings of having two different business entities sharing the THQ Nordic name, and now plans to change the name of THQ Nordic AB to better reflect its status as the group's parent company.

THQ Nordic GmbH, the operating entity based in Vienna (and the one that tweeted yesterday) will keep its current moniker.
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January 29, 2019

Long-time educator and community advocate Dr. Pamela Saulsberry of the University of Louisiana Monroe attended the first meeting of the Empowering Families to Live Well Council on January 25 in the Governor's Press Room at the Louisiana State Capitol. Special guest was Gov. John Bel Edwards, who addressed the council at its inaugural meeting.

Saulsberry, Ph.D., LCSW-BACS, is Director of the ULM School of Behavioral & Social Sciences, Professor and Social Work Program Coordinator. Saulsberry was nominated to the council by Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Eric Pani based on a recommendation from College of Business and Social Sciences Dean Ron Berry.



The nomination was officially submitted to Ellen Palmintier, Assistant Executive Counsel, Director of Boards and Commissions, by Dr. James B. Henderson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Louisiana System.



In a statement by Saulsberry, she said, "I am excited to have this opportunity to make an impact on the issue of poverty and its impact on families in the state of Louisiana. Because poverty is one of the greatest barriers to the human well-being, especially the family system, a coordinated and well-managed State plan developed to address this issue is of paramount importance. To be part of this Council's effort to develop such a plan is extremely thrilling to me and directly linked to my life's work. I look forward to doing the work we are charged to do."



According to information from the state, "This council has been charged with the duty to create a state strategic plan that will benefit and empower struggling families throughout Louisiana in getting out of poverty."



Following the governor's charge to the council, Saulsberry and her fellow council members considered the state of poverty in Louisiana, discussed pathways to solutions, took public comment and made plans for the next meeting.



Each year, Saulsberry is the organizer of the MLK Day of Service on Martin Luther King Day. This year, Saulsberry was selected to receive the Unity Award, which was presented to her at the City of Monroe 40th Annual Birthday Salute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 10. The award recognized Saulsberry for her work with her students and within the community.
The third Airbus military helicopter has arrived in Ukraine and is intended for the needs of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the Center for Transport Strategies (CTS) has reported.

The third Airbus Helicopter H225 Super Puma has arrived in Ukraine. It will be used by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the report says.

The helicopter made a technical stop at Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport, during which it was photographed. The helicopter will be used by a special aviation unit of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

On July 14, 2018, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry and France's Airbus Helicopters signed an agreement on the purchase of 55 helicopters. In December 2018, Ukraine received two helicopters under the contract with the French company Airbus Helicopters.
Foreign Ministers of Denmark and the Czech Republic, Anders Samuelsen and Tomas Petricek, called on Russia to immediately release all 24 captured Ukrainian sailors, according to a report posted on the Ukrainian Foreign Ministrys website.

Following the trip to Mariupol, the foreign ministers of Denmark and the Czech Republic expressed unwavering and firm support for Ukraines independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, condemned Russia's actions and called for the immediate release of 24 Ukrainian prisoners of war. It was stressed that if Moscow refuses to take relevant steps, the European Union will introduce new sanctions against Russia. They also called on the Russian Federation to ensure the freedom of navigation in the Black and Azov Seas, as well as in the Kerch Strait," reads the report.

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine added that the issues of possible introduction of new restrictive measures against Russia and an increase in assistance to the Ukrainian Azov Sea region will be discussed at the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on February 18, 2019.
The ambassadors of the Group of Seven (G7) identified the key reforms in Ukraine that they will support during the French Presidency of the G7.

"The G7 Ambassadors Support Group recognizes the reform progress that has been made in Ukraine since 2015, and will continue its efforts to make further progress. It has identified the key reforms it will support in 2019 during the French Presidency of the G7," the ambassadors group informed on Twitter.

The key reforms, in particular, includes the creation of an anti-corruption court, the reform of the Prosecutor General's Office, the implementation of the Law On National Security of Ukraine, the modernization of the Security Service of Ukraine, decentralization, and education reform.

As known, the G7 Ambassadors Support Group for Ukraine was established as a result of the G7 Summit which took place in June 2015 in Elmau, Germany, to ensure progress in the process of economic reforms in Ukraine by providing coordinated pieces of advice and assistance to the Ukrainian authorities.

In 2018, Canada held the G7 Presidency.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko met with Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas Yevhen Marchuk, BelTA has reported.

President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko met with Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on resolving the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions Yevhen Marchuk on January 29, the report says.

Among other things the meeting focused on various aspects of the Ukrainian-Belarusian relations, enhancement of the trade and economic cooperation. Lukashenko noted that the bilateral trade reached its peak of USD 8 billion a few years ago. This was the best figure. Now we have about USD 5.5 billion. Of course, it is not our level. We can increase our bilateral trade, and this is our goal, the president said.

In turn, Marchuk conveyed greetings to the Belarusian leader from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

I saw him [Poroshenko] yesterday. He asked me to tell you that he is satisfied with the progress in the Ukrainian-Belarusian cooperation, especially after the forum of regions and other things. The bilateral commission is working like a charm, he said.

The sides also mentioned the plans to complete the demarcation of the common border in 2019.
The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Denmark and the Czech Republic have visited the Hnutove entry and exit checkpoint in Donetsk region, the main directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Donetsk region has reported.

"On January 29, Foreign Ministers Pavlo Klimkin of Ukraine, Anders Samuelsen of Denmark and Tomas Petricek of the Czech Republic visited the Hnutove entry and exit checkpoint as part a working visit to Mariupol. The ministers visited a mobile checkpoint, as well as an assistance point of the main directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Donetsk region," the statement reads.

The ministers got acquainted with the conditions created at the assistance point for citizens crossing the Hnutove checkpoint. Employees of the main directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Donetsk region are on duty at the checkpoint around the clock. If necessary, they provide the necessary assistance to citizens, as well as carry out informative and explanatory work on the rules of conduct during emergency situations or when detecting explosive items.
The Foreign and Caricom Affairs Ministry says at no time has Prime Minister Dr. Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley "ever disparaged the vaccine programme in Guyana nor has he ever implied that the vaccines in use in Guyana are defective or unsafe."
One neednt be a hidebound traditionalist to appreciate the value of our national civic ceremonies, those uplifting occasions when Americans pause even briefly to be reminded of our shared citizenship and our fortune to live in a government subject to the peoples consent. The wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns on Memorial Day; public naturalization proceedings, when we welcome new Americans into the national family; state funerals such as those last year for Sen. John McCain and former President George H.W. Bush; the peaceful transition of authority at a presidential inaugural, which not even the occasional subpar speech can fatally depreciate.

A fractured country needs, if anything, more such moments for reflection on common bonds and mutual obligations. Events that dignify, unify and signify our membership in this special polity, and all the reasons we should be grateful for it, faults and all. Mark me down as a big fan of them.
Lisa has been a consistent and faithful representative for the people of Oklahoma, from her time serving in the Oklahoma Legislature to her role today in the Chickasaw Nation Legislature, Stitt said in a news release. She will bring her hard-work ethic and wealth of experience to the table in order to serve as an adviser to my administration and help foster strong partnerships between our tribal governments and the state of Oklahoma.
OKLAHOMA CITY  University of Oklahoma officials denied Wednesday that a former deans computer was confiscated in retaliation for her criticism of the OU administration.

Professor Suzette Grillot said in social media posts Tuesday night that the universitys provost and general counsel seized her office computer, saying, This is how they try to keep people silent.

Grillot had demanded OU President James Galloglys resignation at a public event a week earlier. Gallogly recently dismissed Grillot as dean of international studies shortly after he took over the presidency, but she remains on the faculty.

On Wednesday, university officials said the computer was taken by a technician in order to transfer files to Grillots replacement, Jill Irvine.

Contacted Wednesday afternoon, Grillot said the universitys explanation didnt make sense.
U.S. national security adviser John Bolton issued a warning to the Maduro government earlier in the day urging them not to harm Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress who has been recognized by the Trump administration and two dozen other nations as Venezuelas rightful president.

Pentagon wont rule out sending troops to Colombia

WASHINGTON  Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan on Tuesday would not rule out sending U.S. military forces to Colombia or the region in connection with the ongoing political upheaval in Venezuela.

Shanahan told reporters that he hasnt spoken to national security adviser John Bolton about sending troops to Colombia. But he said he wouldnt comment when asked if he had other conversations about such a deployment plan or if he could rule it out.

Bolton had 5,000 troops to Colombia written on a notepad he held during a news conference Monday announcing new sanctions on Venezuela. The White House, when asked about the note, later said in an email that as the President has said, all options are on the table.

Sheriff: Suspect confesses to killing 5 with dads gun
OKLAHOMA CITY  The Senate Republican Caucus on Tuesday announced it was backing a measure that could help those who have trouble paying court fines and fees.

The caucus unveiled its legislative agenda, which included criminal justice reform.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, said senators want to reduce the court systems reliance on fees and fines to fund it.

The state should raise the amount of money taken from the states General Revenue Fund to pay for court operations, he said.

He said he envisioned a two-year effort to get the change done. He said it will cost an additional $80 million a year from the General Revenue Fund.

We have got to do something in criminal justice reform, Thompson said. It is not working the way it is.

Those involved with the justice system have complained that the fees and fines pose a barrier in a number of areas. Failure to pay could lead to jail time.

Jari Askins, administrative director of the courts, said 84 percent of the district courts budget is based on fees and fines. She said judicial leaders are open to suggested changes.
I met individuals that steered me in the right way, he told the Tulsa World. So I realize that Im very fortunate to have had the success Ive had, and now, its a great opportunity for me to go back and say, You too can orient yourself, figure out what you want, and then, through hard work and planning and persistence, achieve whats important to you.

Lockhart emphasized that message in a packed auditorium at Will Rogers College High and Junior High School as he guided students on a mission to the International Space Station from start to finish. The presentation featured footage from his trips to the artificial satellite while aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

He also answered questions from curious teens who were more than happy to take advantage of someone who experienced firsthand what theyve only read about in books and online.

How do astronauts tell time in space? They use a clock that starts ticking immediately upon launch.

Can you see the Great Wall of China? No, its way too small.

How will humans survive months of living in microgravity on Mars? No idea. Traveling to the red planet is the easy part, Lockhart said. Staying alive after you get there is the real challenge.
High on his list of priorities is reworking and simplifying the funding formula used to distribute state aid to the states more than 500 school districts. His Senate Bill 362 is a product of two years of task force work involving school administrators, state officials and lawmakers.

The current formula has three basic components: foundation aid, salary incentive aid and transportation aid. SB 362 combines the first two and makes several changes to elements of the formula.

For example, by changing bilingual to English learner in a section of law, Stanislawski hopes to concentrate more money on students most in need of assistance with language. The theory is that students who are truly bilingual dont really need help, while those with little or no understanding of English need more than theyre now getting.

Also on the agenda is greater financial and academic accountability for virtual charter schools, an attempt to move some ad valorem revenue from dependent districts to the independent districts they feed into, and an effective ban on four-day school weeks.

And Stanislawski has twin bills that would force small, low-performing districts to combine and allow large, low-performing districts to divide.
Parsons said he then tried to perform a self-assessment of his wounds because he didnt want to die in a parking lot.

After showing jurors a photograph of Parsons leg wound taken at a hospital, Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Litchfield asked Parsons to describe what caused a large bruise that was around the bullet wound in his thigh.

Parsons credited a military challenge coin that he was carrying in his right pants pocket with causing the bruise when it deflected the bullet, redirecting it through the fleshy part of his thigh rather than a bone.

While testifying about the coins effect on the bullet, Parsons paused several times while shaking his head slowly. After wiping his eyes and holding up one finger a few times, Parsons said, It was Gods hand.

After testifying and as he was leaving the courtroom, Parsons stared at Chatman when he was directly across from him. Chatman, who was seated at the defense table, appeared to not notice Parsons at first and then looked up and returned the stare.

During closing arguments, federal public defender William Widell said the obstruction of justice charge was not intended to be used in a case like this.
Visitors to the Tulsa Arts District were treated to a lunchtime surprise  a re-creation of Beatles history.

On Jan. 30, 1969, the Beatles, along with keyboardist Billy Preston, staged an unannounced show atop a rooftop in London. It was the Beatles final public performance.

On the 50th anniversary, local group the Nowhere Men braved cold weather to celebrate the occasion with a free, unannounced concert at noon Wednesday atop a roof of a building at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Archer Street.

More than 30 people stood at an intersection when the group launched the set with the song Get Back. Others who walked through the area stopped to take in the free show. Some asked questions about the nature of the event and got an explanation from those who were in the know.

The Nowhere Men roster: Al Pagano, Matt Miner, Garrett Weindorf, Chris Wylie and Dave Broome.

Were just five friends who wanted to do something memorable to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles last live performance, Wylie said before the show. Hopefully, some of the patrons of the Tulsa Arts District find it memorable, too.
Wichita State University has announced the names of students who were on the WSU deans honor roll for fall 2018.

Mason OBrien of Owasso was among more than 3,000 students named to the list at the Wichita, Kansas-based school.

To be included on the deans honor roll, a student must be enrolled full time (at least 12 credit hours) and earn at least a 3.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale.

WSU enrolls over 15,000 students and offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in seven undergraduate colleges.
With the robotic janitor, a Walmart employee will guide it over its route once to store it in its memory, and after that, getting the robot to go to work each day is just a matter of pushing a button.

Walmart is not the only retailer deploying robotic janitors nationally. The Giant Good Store chain on the East Coast is introducing 500 robotic janitors into 172 stores. That chain is already calling its robots Marty and has programmed them to detect and clean spills as well as execute their daily routine.

The 920-pound, self-driving robot, officially called Auto-C, relies on sensors to detect people and aisles.

Scott Meacham, president of i2E Inc., a nonprofit that assists Oklahoma startups, sees more robots coming.

I would suspect youre going to see robotics applied to our core industries in the state, such as in energy and aviation. You already are seeing miniaturized robotics in health care, Meacham said.

He pointed out that research centers at Oklahoma State University and oil field services firm Baker Hughes are making strides in the field of robotics here in Oklahoma.

Research institutes have well-developed programs, said Meacham. It stimulates younger people in using their imaginations.

Robot janitors are not the only technology being tested by Walmart in Oklahoma. Shelf-scanners that can check inventory will be tested in eight Oklahoma stores, while robotic truck unloaders will be tested in 16 Oklahoma stores.

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A downtown Tulsa hotel that has been closed since a mid-November fire will reopen Friday, a spokeswoman said.

The Hyatt Regency Tulsa will begin receiving guests at 11 a.m., said Lana Baugh, a spokeswoman for the hotel.

A few minor updates in the public areas of the facility will be completed at a later date, she said.

The Daily Grill, inside the Hyatt Regency, also will reopen Friday, according to the restaurants website, and another tenant  Ihloff Salon and Day Spa  will reopen Monday, a company representative said.

Topeca Coffee in the Hyatt will make an announcement on when it will reopen in a week or so, a spokesman said.

About 400 people, including hotel guests and staff members, were evacuated Nov. 16 from the hotel, 100 E. Second St., because of a fire that started at the top of a staircase near an escalator, according to the Tulsa Fire Department.
Planning your next trip could get a whole lot cheaper.

Frontier Airlines is offering free plane tickets for children 14 years old or younger this year  but several conditions apply.

Kids Fly Free is part of the airline's Discount Den club, which costs $59.99 to join, and one child under 15 can fly for no charge for every adult Discount Den fare purchased, according to the airline's website.

Kids Fly Free is only available on certain flights. Tickets have to be purchased at flyfrontier.com and cannot be combined with other offers or promo codes.

Dates of the program, which are subject to change, include:

February: 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27

March: 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27

April: 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30

May: 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 29

June: 1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26

July: 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30
(BPT) - Thinking about selling or trading in your old ride? It can be hard to say goodbye but consider this: used cars are currently in high demand and your pre-loved pal could be worth more than you think. As you prepare to sell your car, there are a few easy steps to follow to ensure your
HELB loans Kenya state agency (Higher Education Loans Board - HELB) is an organization that grants loans, bursaries and scholarships for training at public institutions, which are recognized by the Ministry of Education of Kenya. Thanks to HELB loans, all Kenyan citizens can pursue their dreams by getting an academic degree and embarking on a successful career.

Image: facebook.com, @thehighereducationloansboardpage

Source: UGC

HELB was founded in 1995 according to an Act of Parliament. However, the history of loans for Kenyans, began long before the foundation of HELB, back to 1952. The colonial government used to give loans to successful students under the control of the Higher Education Loans Fund. The loans were mostly given to study in the foreign universities, mostly in Great Britain, United States, former USSR, India and South Africa.

How HELB loans work

HELB gives financial support to applicants who are going to take postgraduate or undergraduate studies. The aid is disbursed in the form of loans, bursaries or scholarships and must be repaid immediately after completion of one's studies or at any other time which is stipulated in the HELB terms for a particular product (i.e. loan type).

The primary purpose of HELB students loans is to help needy students whose parents cannot afford expensive education. The loans are not intended for wealthy families and for students with no financial difficulties.

Eligibility - who can apply?

So, who qualifies to receive a HELB loan in Kenya? Previously, only the government-sponsored students that secured admission through the Joint Admissions Board were eligible for the loan. Nowadays, even self-sponsored students and those pursuing diploma courses in technical institutions are eligible to apply.

HELB products

Higher Education Loans Board offers the following services and products to Kenyan citizens:

Loans

HELB grants loans to diploma and undergraduate students as follows;

Diploma students loans (Technical, Vocational, Education and Training)

Can be obtained by individuals who pursue diploma courses in institutions recognized by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and are registered with KUCCPS.

Undergraduate Students loans

Direct Entry Students (DES): Secondary school leavers who are planning to enter all sorts of universities within the states of East Africa either through the Kenya University Placement Board Services or as self-sponsored students. Loan interest is 4%p.a. Loans are available from Kshs 37,000 to Kshs 60,000.00 per year. Loan repayment is required after completion of undergraduate studies. HELB first-time applicants need to apply through HELB student portal

Secondary school leavers who are planning to enter all sorts of universities within the states of East Africa either through the Kenya University Placement Board Services or as self-sponsored students. Loan interest is 4%p.a. Loans are available from Kshs 37,000 to Kshs 60,000.00 per year. Loan repayment is required after completion of undergraduate studies. HELB first-time applicants need to apply through HELB student portal Continuing Education Students (CES): Employed students who want to enhance their academic qualifications by obtaining a degree. Loan interest is 12%p.a. Loans are available from Kshs. 50,000 to Kshs 100,000. Loans processing fee is Kshs 2,000. Loan repayment is required immediately after disbursement (remitted to the educational institution as tuition fees). HELB application forms for continuing students are available online on the official website.

Employed students who want to enhance their academic qualifications by obtaining a degree. Loan interest is 12%p.a. Loans are available from Kshs. 50,000 to Kshs 100,000. Loans processing fee is Kshs 2,000. Loan repayment is required immediately after disbursement (remitted to the educational institution as tuition fees). HELB application forms for continuing students are available online on the official website. Postgraduate Students: Students undertaking Masters or PhD programmes who would like to finance their studies. The maximum loan sum is Kshs 200,000.00 per year. The loans processing fee is Kshs 2,000 and the loan interest is 12% p.a.

Bursaries

Undergraduate bursaries are awarded to undergraduate students who require financial support to study government-sponsored programs. In addition, HELB awards loans to undergraduate students in Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVET institutions) who require financial support.

Scholarships

HELB awards partial scholarships to Masters and PhD applicants basing on their academic merit. The loans processing fee is Kshs 3,000 which is paid upon submission of the form.

HELB partnership programs

HELB has entered into a partnership with different institutions to sponsor students to achieve their academic goals. HELB partnership programs include:

Training Revolving Fund (TRF): Partnership between HELB and the Ministry of Devolution and Planning. Loans (minimum of Kshs 30,000.00 or a maximum of Kshs 500,000.00) are available for civil servants who want to enhance their academic qualifications by taking Masters or PhD programmes or short technical and professional courses. The loan interest is 4%.

Partnership between HELB and the Ministry of Devolution and Planning. Loans (minimum of Kshs 30,000.00 or a maximum of Kshs 500,000.00) are available for civil servants who want to enhance their academic qualifications by taking Masters or PhD programmes or short technical and professional courses. The loan interest is 4%. Afya Elimu Fund: Partnership between HELB and USAid funded HRH. Afya Elimu loan is given to medical students taking Diploma or Certificate courses at the authorized educational establishments such as Kenya Medical Training College. The Afya Elimu loan application form is available on the HELB student portal.

Partnership between HELB and USAid funded HRH. Afya Elimu loan is given to medical students taking Diploma or Certificate courses at the authorized educational establishments such as Kenya Medical Training College. The Afya Elimu loan application form is available on the HELB student portal. HELB Universities Partnership: Financial aid for needy but talented students who want to take academic programmes on a self-sponsored basis. HELB grants the maximum sum to such students and the university takes care of the balance through the financial aid office.

Financial aid for needy but talented students who want to take academic programmes on a self-sponsored basis. HELB grants the maximum sum to such students and the university takes care of the balance through the financial aid office. Visa Oshwal Scholarship: Awarded to 20 direct entry university students each year. The scholarship covers all tuition fees for undergraduate degree programmes. The maximum scholarship amount is Kshs. 100,000 on an annual basis.

HELB online portal guide

Image: facebook.com, @Thehighereducationloansboard

Source: UGC

Here is a quick guide on how to use the HELB online portal.

HELB registration

In order to apply for a HELB loan, it is necessary to register on the HELB portal first. Follow these steps for successful HELB account creation:

Open a web browser (Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera etc) Visit the HELB loan portal Select Register and type in the necessary information (First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, ID Number, Valid Email Address, Password) Click on Sign Up and get an activation link to your email address Access your personal email address and click on the HELB portal activation link. After you are logged into the portal, log in to your personal account. Fill in your personal and residence details and click Save You are ready to apply for the loan, bursary or scholarship

HELB loan application requirements

HELB applicants need to have the following documents and information in order to apply for a loan:

A copy of your national ID card: The ID is used to identify you as an applicant. It is also required when creating a new account on the portal.

The ID is used to identify you as an applicant. It is also required when creating a new account on the portal. Valid bank account: HELB will credit your bank account before the beginning of each semester. Applicants are advised to open an account with one of the following banks: National Bank of Kenya, Kenya Commercial Bank, Cooperative Bank of Kenya, Kenya Post Office Savings Bank (Postbank), Equity Bank.

HELB will credit your bank account before the beginning of each semester. Applicants are advised to open an account with one of the following banks: National Bank of Kenya, Kenya Commercial Bank, Cooperative Bank of Kenya, Kenya Post Office Savings Bank (Postbank), Equity Bank. Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) pin: Used by HELB board to track its borrowers.

Used by HELB board to track its borrowers. Your parent (s)/ guardian particulars : Name, marital status, level of education, source of income, employee details, current payslip and employee No. (if employed).

: Name, marital status, level of education, source of income, employee details, current payslip and employee No. (if employed). Your parents death certificate (for orphans)

(for orphans) Letter of admission to the educational institution (or its copy).

(or its copy). Copies of two guarantors Identification Cards

Three coloured passport size photographs

HELB loan application

Once you have completed your HELB registration, log in to the HELB portal to begin the application process. There you will find different application forms as follows;

HELB application forms for non-salaried applicants

Undergraduate First Time Applicants

Undergraduate Second and Subsequent

Undergrad Loan Review/Appeals

Constituency Loan Application Forms Embu

Constituency Loan Application Forms Tinderet

Constituency Loan Application Forms Naivasha

Constituency Loan Application Forms Igembe

Constituency Loan Application Forms Karachuonyo

Constituency Loan Application Forms Awendo

TVET for Tertiary Institutions

TVET for Tertiary Institutions Second and Subsequent

Afya Elimu Fund (AEF) Subsequent Loan Application

First Time and Subsequent Afya Elimu Fund Pre-Service

Visa Oshwal Scholarship

HELB application forms for salaried applicants

Alternative Loans for Undergraduate, Salaried Applicants

KRA Staff Loan Application Form

Alternative Loans for Postgraduate, Salaried Applicants

Postgraduate Scholarship

Training Revolving Fund (TRF) for Civil Servants

How do you apply for HELB loan?

Image: facebook.com, @Thehighereducationloansboard

Source: UGC

Visit the official website Once you have logged into the student portal, select the needed application form and fill in all the required fields. Download and print two copies of the filled-in application. Ensure the form is properly filled, signed and stamped by the relevant authorities and guarantors. Sign the application form, and attach all the required documents. You will find the full list of the documents on the last page of the application form. One copy of your properly filled in application form with the documents should be sent to one of the HELB head offices at HELB Student Centre on Mezzanine One [M1], Anniversary Towers, University Way, Nairobi. You can also deliver it to the Huduma Centre that is close to you. The second copy should be kept safely at home.

Loan repayment guide

So, when do I start repaying my HELB loan? All the beneficiaries of the loan are required to begin repaying the loan one year after completing their studies.

HELB loan repayment options

The following are some of the options you can use to repay your loan:

HELB bank payment

When repaying the loan, use either crossed cheque, Bankers draft, direct transfer, standing order, EFT or cash deposit to any of the following banks:

Co-operative Bank, University Way A/C No. 011-2906 122 2800,

Equity Bank A/C No. 055-029 357 3408

Barclays Bank, Barclays Plaza A/C No. 077-501 8216,

Standard Chartered Bank, Koinange Street A/C No. 010 801 826 4700

Citibank, Nairobi branch A/C No. 300 040 012

National Bank of Kenya Harambee Avenue A/C No.010 016 039 1100

Kenya Commercial Bank, University Way A/C No. 1103 266 314 (You can use the KCB account number to pay your loan via Wave and World Remit if you are in the diaspora).

Payment of HELB loan via M-Pesa

Image: facebook.com, @Thehighereducationloansboard

Source: UGC

To repay the loan via MPESA, follow this procedure:

Choose the paybill option

Type in 200800 (HELB mpesa paybill number)

Use your national ID number as your account number

Enter the amount and M-Pesa PIN number

Confirm the transaction

You will instantly receive a confirmation via SMS.

The transaction reflects in your statement immediately.

READ ALSO: 200800 helb paybill number - MPESA to HELB

HELB loan calculator

You can calculate your instalments with the help of the loan calculator which can be found on the HELB official website.

HELB loan disbursement status

In order to check HELB loan status, you will need to visit the HELB student portal. Once you log in, you will be able to get the necessary information.

Enquiries

For any other kind of inquiries, please visit the enquiries section on the portal. You will be asked to fill in all the fields, and give truthful information about yourself. In the "Your Message" field, type the question you would like to ask.

HELB clearance

Once the loan is fully repaid, you should get clearance from HELB. Loan repayment confirmation is performed by means of issuance of the HELB clearance certificate. It can be obtained by filling in the Loan Recovery Inquiry form and e-mailing it to certificate@helb.co.ke (do not forget to give your ID number). It is important to note that the loan repayment status can only be confirmed by HELB. The employer cannot confirm your HELB loan status!

HELB contacts and location

HELB Physical Address: University Way, Anniversary Towers, 18th Floor.

University Way, Anniversary Towers, 18th Floor. Postal Address: P.O. Box 69489  00400, NAIROBI, Kenya.

P.O. Box 69489  00400, NAIROBI, Kenya. Telephone : +254 711 052 000; 020 2278000.

: +254 711 052 000; 020 2278000. HELB portal: portal.helb.co.ke

portal.helb.co.ke General HELB loan repayment queries: recovery@helb.co.ke

recovery@helb.co.ke Remittance (for employers): remittance@helb.co.ke

remittance@helb.co.ke Start payment: billing@helb.co.ke

billing@helb.co.ke HELB Statement queries: statements@helb.co.ke

statements@helb.co.ke Request for HELB clearance: certificate@helb.co.ke

certificate@helb.co.ke Request HELB refund: refund@helb.co.ke

refund@helb.co.ke Alternative HELB loans queries: alternative@helb.co.ke

FAQs about HELB loans Kenya

Here are answers to some of the frequently asked questions about HELB.

How frequently will HELB send loan statements?

Checking your loan statement allows you to keep track of the payments that you make to the HELB collection account. You can check your loan statement anytime on the portal. If you need any further clarification on the loan statement, you should send an email to statements@helb.co.ke

Is it possible to make repayments from abroad?

Did you know that you can repay your HELB loan instantly from the US and Canada? You can make your payment to the HELB revolving account via Credit card or Direct Transfer to HELB account number 300 040 012, Citibank Nairobi. Use the Swift code CITIKENA.

What happens if I don't repay the loan?

Beneficiaries are expected to start repaying the loan one year after they complete their studies. If you fail to do so, you will be penalized (min Ksh 5000 for each month). If you have not secured a job within one year after the completion of studies, you should visit the head office and report this.

Can I repay my loan in one instalment?

Yes, you can repay your loan in one single instalment instead of monthly instalments. HELB will not charge extra fees for early repayment.

What are ledger fees?

Ledger fees are charged to maintain your HELB account. The amount of ledger fees charged is Kshs 1,000 per year. The longer you take to repay your loan, the higher the ledger fees.

What happens once I repay my loan in full?

HELB will issue a clearance certificate if you have repaid the loan in full. All that you need to do is visit the HELB portal and submit your request for clearance.

How can HELB know my whereabouts?

HELB has no mechanisms of knowing the whereabouts of beneficiaries. You must report your place of residence to HELB within one year after you complete your studies or face a penalty.

What should I do in case of overpayment?

If you have overpaid your loan, there is no need to panic because HELB will refund the overpayment. You need to report the overpayment via the email refund@helb.co.ke. HELB reserves a maximum of one month to handle your refund request.

Can interest be discarded for Muslims?

No, HELB does not waive interest for Muslims. In order to receive a HELB loan, you must agree to all terms and conditions. In future, there are plans underway to introduce Shariah Compliant Products.

Now you have the HELB loans Kenya news and application guide for the year at hand. If you have any queries or are new on the HELB platform, consult this guide for all the information that you need on HELB registration, application, repayment, and clearance.

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!

Source: Tuko
The Town of Oro Valley hopes that some of the concepts developed in the Main Streets program will apply to the Oro Valley Marketplace.
Tucson, AZ (85741)

Today

Plentiful sunshine. Very hot. High 111F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low near 80F. SW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph.
AT THE recent annual Energy Conference, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley finally acknowledged the need for energy transition and for the greater inclusion of renewables in our local energy mix.

Five and a half years late! And this country simply accepted this utterly scandalous irresponsibility. Dont we realise the enormity of his error?
This is a long overdue letter of thanks to the Public Health Department of the Division of Health, Wellness and Family Development of the THA.

We, the residents of Calder Hall Trace, Scarborough, have long enjoyed excellent service from the sanitation workers who operate in our neighbourhood.
Three Opposition MPs are calling on the Government and the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to have a heart and stop disconnecting the water supply of errant customers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein yesterday wrote to WASAs executive director Lennox Sealey urging him to suspend the drive and display humanity as people are suffering and strapped for cash in the pandemic given the lockdowns.
Not a single resident in Florida lives more than 20 miles from an impaired waterway, said John Cassani, Calusa Waterkeeper, at the first Florida Water Policy Summit last Monday.

Organized around the idea that clean water is a basic human right, the event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day featured six speakers from local conservation groups who spoke about actionable water policy that can improve Floridas impaired waters.

And Florida has a lot of impaired waters -currently 12 million acres under Best Management Action Plans, or BMAPs, which are 15-year restoration plans required by the federal government when a waterbody is not meeting quality standards.

The Federal Clean Water Act requires each state to compile a list of waterbodies that arent up to snuff.

Then, the Department of Environmental Protection conducts watershed assessments.

Any waterbody that doesnt meet standards for pollution is scheduled for a Total Maximum Daily Load, which is a limit for the amount of a particular pollutant that a waterbody can handle.

The state of Florida currently has 416 TMDLs, with 80 waterbodies on a waiting list to receive one, according to Maria Carrozzo, senior environmental policy specialist at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

The next step after establishing a TMDL is writing up a BMAP to restore the waters.

How did we get to the point where almost a third of our state is under water -quality restoration plans? said Carrozzo.

The answers to her question are long and complicated.

A combination of harmful agricultural run-off, insufficient urban stormwater treatment, and fertilizer use have mixed up a cocktail of toxic water.

Under Florida water law, farmers can sign a notice of intent to implement best management practices essentially promising to comply with water quality standards.

This grants a presumption of compliance, regardless of whether theyre actually meeting standards or not.

Carrozzo said doing away with that presumption of compliance, updating stormwater run-off standards to remove more nutrients, and strengthening local fertilizer ordinances can all help improve water quality.

And then theres Lake Okeechobee.

The Army Corps of Engineers created the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule in 2008, and it was intended as an interim measure until repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dam were completed.

Those repairs still arent done.

The Corps expects them to be finished in 2022, but they have said they will not change the LORS until the dam is completed.

According to Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director of the Center for Biological Diversity, the LORS didnt consider cyanobacteria and red tide, claiming it was unlikely that discharges from the lake caused harmful algal blooms, and didnt analyze them any further.

But discharges from the lake do cause problems.

Rae Ann Wessell, natural resource policy director at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, refers to the issue of balancing the lakes flow levels as The Goldilocks Condition.

Propelled by gravity, Lake Okeechobees discharges travel across 75 miles of freshwater river and estuary and three lock and dam systems to reach the Gulf of Mexico.

Too much flow from the lake washes valuable fish and oyster nurseries out into the Gulf, decimating the ecosystem.

Too little flow chokes these habitats with salt.

When we dont get enough flow into the system through the western lock, the water that is fed by tidal action from the Gulf up the river brings much more salinity than some of these habitats can tolerate, Wessell said.

Habitats like tapegrass, which provide a home for crab, fish, and oysters that filter feed and clean water naturally, are destroyed.

Not only do we lose the tapegrass, we also lose 100 percent of the oyster reef that is downstream, and those are filtering water for free. 50 gallons a day for a single oyster is a huge contribution to our water quality, she said.

In 2001, the South Florida Water Management District set a minimum flow level of 300 cubic feet per second.

Scientists realized this failed to account for inflows to the estuary coming downstream from Telegraph Creek and Orange River, so they adjusted the number to 450, Wessell said.

Thats important, because it shows up in the LORS, and every habitat analysis for every state and federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan project as a habitat metric. So if youre meeting 450 cubic feet per second for the Caloosahatchee, it says youre goldenand we know thats just not true, she said.

A more ideal number is closer to 800, all the way up to 1000 cubic feet per second, according to Wessell.

The SWFMD recently set the flow level to 400 cubic feet per second, and the city of Sanibel gathered three other neighboring municipalities to challenge that rule in administrative court, asking for more flows.

That case is still awaiting a ruling.

Were doing oyster restoration and tapegrass restoration, trying to keep ahead of the damage, but its not accounted for in the Districts analysis. They say the tape grass is doing fine, but thats because we keep going in and planting it, Wessell said.

With all of this in mind, Lopez said its important for citizens to ask the Corps to address the regulations schedule as soon as possible, and to finish repairs to the dam by June 2020.

It can be done by then, and we need to demand it, Lopez said.

Wessell reminded everyone that its not just Lake Okeechobee to blame for all our problems, because the watershed the discharges flow through to reach the gulf is almost two Lake Okeechobees in size.

There are many times when we are getting no discharges from the lake, and were having harmful flows just from that estuary and river watershed. So keep in mind that when we talk about where the problems start, and where the solutions lie, its important to recognize that its all of us, we all contribute to it, she said.

One researcher shared some hope at the summit.

Dr. William Mitsch, director of the Everglades Research Park at Florida Gulf Coast University, is working on a project he calls wetlaculture.

Its a plan to restore wetlands that can build up nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus over several years, and then flip the use of the lands to agriculture, using those natural nutrients instead of adding fertilizer.

Mitsch called manufactured fertilizer the opiate we have on our landscape.

Weve just got to get off of it, he said.

Mitsch partnered with the University of Notre Dame to create an economic plan that shows how farmers could actually make money in wetlaculture by utilizing government programs that pay to remove nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from wetlands.

His team has created three different test sites for this project, two in Ohio and one in Naples, that have shown promising water quality results.

Florida would need to install 94,000 acres of these treatment wetlands in the Everglades Agricultural Area to ensure clean water in the Everglades, he said, but it could be a sustainable answer to excess fertilizer use.

Daniel Andrews, cofounder of Captains for Clean Water, is encouraged by Governor DeSantis recent water policy order and his request that all SFWMD board members resign.

The fact that we have a governors office thats cooperative is a good thing, he said.

The most important thing you can do is take an hour out of your day, call everybody up, and let them know this issue is not resolved. Weve set a stake in the ground that enough is enough and were not going to take it anymore.
IT was a Christmas Eve-like atmosphere in supermarkets yesterday as people rushed out to stock up on supplies for the Labour Day and Fathers Day weekend during which curfew hours have been extended.

During today which marks the Labour Day holiday and Fathers Day which is tomorrow, people are only permitted to be outdoors between the hours of 5.01 a.m. to 10.01 a.m.

The curfew in effect on these days is 10.02 a.m. to 5 a.m. the following day.

Even though there was a plea by Supermarket Association president Rajiv Diptee not to crowd the supermarkets yesterday, he said most of his member stores described the last-minute rush like Christmas Eve.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has come under fire from Guyana for his comments on the Russian Sputnik Covid-19 vaccine.

Guyanas adviser to the Health Ministry Dr Leslie Ramsammy as well as The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) issued statements chiding Rowley for insulting the people of Guyana.
CONSPIRACY theorists with too much time on their hands were the ones who created an issue over the arrival of 80 vials of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine that came to the country last week for use by officials at the National Security Ministry.

So said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday at the Covid-19 media conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns.
A valuable coastal community in Florida could disappear without help from the state.

But Florida Fish and Wildlifes Boating Advisory Board has gathered working waterfront representatives from across Florida to make sure that doesnt happen.

On Wednesday mornings, Joanne Semmer leads a group of visitors through a hidden world on San Carlos Island.

Conducted through the Ostego Bay Marine Foundation, her tours of the working waterfront have been an attraction for tourists and curious locals alike for years.

They weave through the docks, net shops, and processing facilities tucked away at the end of Shrimp Boat Lane while Semmer explains the ins-and-outs of the industry, which has been a cornerstone of the island community since pink gold shrimp were discovered in the 1950s.

The most recent economic analysis done on the waterfront estimated that the industry and all of its related businesses generate 100 million dollars per year, Semmer said.

Were the only federal channel between Key West and Tampa thats deep enough to accommodate these big fishing vessels.

But shes worried that the commercial waterfront property could be bought up by developers and the channel delisted.

Its happened to another deep water channel before, in nearby Boca Grande.

They used to have huge docks in there, and they brought fuel tankers in there and big ships that take out phosphate. There was a railroad that ended there. The railroads gone, all the docks are gone, all the tanks are gone, and now its all condos, she said.

The economic idea of highest and best use is a significant threat for these waterfront properties, as municipalities looking for a large tax base see opportunities to capitalize in other ways.

This often results in high taxes that businesses cant afford to pay, and new commercial projects that move in to replace old fishery buildings.

Next to Salty Sams, where that big restaurant is, that used to be Island Packing, that was a huge docking facility. Village Seafood at one time was the second largest shrimp fleet in the United States, and it got bought out by Key West Express, Semmer said.

We need more help to keep it from being converted to other uses.

Realizing these threats, the Boating Advisory Board under Florida Fish and Wildlife has formed a committee to address the challenges that working waterfronts across the state are facing.

Semmer has joined three other representatives from Floridas four traditional working waterfronts on the 14-member committee, which met for the first time this month.

Working waterfronts are addressed in state law under the Stan Mayfield Working Waterfronts Partnership, which says that the Department of Economic Opportunity should provide them with technical assistance and support.

The law also provides 2.5 percent of Florida Forever funds to this program, and a two-year competitive grant cycle.

But Semmer said after the recession in 2008, there hasnt been much money in the budget to administer this program.

This new committee will investigate what can be done to help preserve working waterfronts, and make recommendations to the DEO.

A lot of high taxes put the working waterfronts out of business, said Semmer.

Because of San Carlos Islands proximity to Estero island, she said, high taxes based on highest and best use, rather than current use, threaten working waterfront businesses.

Under a reduced tax incentive effective Jan 2010, property owners can apply for a special assessment and receive tax relief.

Currently, Lee is one of seven counties that provide this tax relief, with 48 parcels receiving 15 percent savings, according to a report from the Florida Department of Revenue.

Many property owners are unaware of this program, Semmer said.

In addition to taxes, these businesses also have to pay high submerged land leases.

Possible recommendations the committee could make to the DEO include changing the funding cycle for grants, which is currently only available every two years, and raising the number of grants funded.

We are still working, we are a viable working waterfront. We have our designation from the state. After the recession, there wasnt a lot of money to administer the program, but were trying to step it up again, said Semmer.

In the meantime, Ostego Bays weekly tours continue, in hopes that the public will see value in the working waterfront community that Semmer and the advisory committee are trying to preserve.

Scott Dary, a local resident of Cape Coral, attended a tour with his wife on a recent Wednesday morning.

He said he often drives through the channel on his own boat with his friends and sees the shrimp fleet.

We show people because its cool, and now we know more about it, he said.

Tours go from the Ostego Bay Marine Science Center every Wednesday morning through season, weather permitting, and cost $20 per adult and $10 for children over 6.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Peshawar, January 30

A transgender was killed and another critically injured when unidentified armed men riding a motorbike open fired at their vehicle in northwest Pakistan, police said on Wednesday.

The incident occurred in Jattak Ismail Khel area of restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday night when three transgenders from Peshawar were returning after attending a wedding ceremony.

On their way back the assailants fired at their vehicle, killing one and injuring another, police said.

The deceased transgender was identified as Jahangir while the injured as Mushtaq. The injured transgender was shifted to hospital for treatment, police said.

Police cordoned off the area and had started search for the assailants, it added.

Attacks on transgenders in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have seen an increase in the last one year.

In March 2018, gunmen shot dead a transgender woman and her friend while they were in a rickshaw.

Similarly, in August another transgender was shot dead by unidentified assailants who dumped her body in a sack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Beijing, January 30

A county in China's Qinghai province, which is adjacent to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, has banned Tibetan children from attending informal classes at local monasteries, Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday.

The ban, officially published last month, "violates a long list of basic rights, from education to cultural life", said HRW China Director, Sophie Richardson.

"Preventing Tibetan children from contact with monks and monasteries will only fuel Tibetan fears that China aims increasingly to restrict Tibetan culture and religion," she was quoted as saying by Efe news.

According to the report, the informal classes taught by monks have become popular in the areas inhabited by Tibetans during school holidays, especially to teach their language, which is used less and less in many public schools.

Nangchen County authorities banned these classes in December 2018, considering them illegal and describing them as "ideological infiltration among the young", "dangerous"' and "harmful".

The county authorities also called on local officials managing monasteries to "understand the harmful nature of monasteries running open schools" and prevent them from doing so and expelling monks organising such sessions.

According to HRW, such bans were not applied outside Tibet and it believed that the regime suspected monks were using these classes to instill Tibetan religious or nationalist ideas among children.

"Treating voluntary study classes during the holidays and family visits to temples as 'dangerous' reflects Beijing's hostility towards Tibetans' rights. That's the real threat to Tibetans and China's other religious minorities," said the HRW China Director.

HRW said that China had ratified international conventions guaranteeing freedom of belief and included this right in its own Constitution. The country had also promised not to deny ethnic, linguistic or religious minority children the right to use their own language and practice their religion.

"But in practice, authorities limit worship to what they define as 'normal' religious activities, which it says are legal only if carried out by certain state-sanctioned congregations and institutions," the non-governmental organisation said in a statement.

"In regions with populations that overwhelmingly practice a particular faith, such as Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang or Buddhists in Tibet, restrictions are far more intrusive," it added.

IANS
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, January 30

President Donald Trump is dismissingand potentially bolstering sales ofa new tell-all book by a former White House aide, calling it made-up stories and fiction.

Cliff Sims book, Team of Vipers is the latest in a series of insider accounts by journalists and former Trump staffers who paint an unflattering picture of life in the West Wing.

In it, Sims, the former director of White House message strategy, engages in score-settling with former internal rivals, fingers other administration officials as leakers and casts the President as disloyal to his staff.

Trump, in a tweet on Tuesday, dismissed Sims as a low-level staffer who had written yet another boring book based on made-up stories and fiction.

He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer, said Trump, who claimed Sims had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Indeed, Michael Glassner, chief operating officer of Trumps re-election campaign, tweeted that the campaign was preparing to sue Sims for violating the agreement. Trump and his associates have a habit of announcing legal action and not following through.

Sims responded with his own tweet that included photographs of him at the White Houseincluding speaking with the President and in the Oval Office, along with a personal message from Trump scrawled on the front page of the New York Times.

Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House is out on Wednesday, written by the most famous gofer in the world! Enjoy! Sims wrote.

Sims book was officially released on Tuesday, the same day as another behind-the-scenes account of Trumps team by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, an informal Trump adviser and longtime friend.

The book, titled Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics, paints a sympathetic picture of a president who has been ill-served by what Christie describes as a revolving door of deeply flawed individuals, amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons, who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia.

Christie, who challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but endorsed Trump after dropping out, oversaw Trumps transition team until he was fired shortly after the November election, allegedly at the urging of Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser.

Christie, during his tenure as a federal prosecutor, sent Kushners father--businessman Charles Kushner to prison after winning his conviction on tax evasion and other crimes.

In his account, Christie paints unflattering portraits of a number of former Trump aides, including Kushner and former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, whom he describes as a fraud, a nobody, and a liar. He also rails against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, panning him as a walking car crash and train wreck from beginning to end. AP
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Islamabad, January 29

Pakistan's Supreme Court today rejected a review petition against its decision to acquit Christian woman Asia Bibi who was on death row for eight years on charges of blasphemy, in a major setback to hardline Islamists who had demanded her execution.

Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four who is now in protective custody, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement.

The Supreme Courts decision in October to overturn her conviction sparked nationwide violent protests and death threats from hardline Islamist groups. The protests subsided when the government allowed the protesters to file a review petition against Bibi's acquittal.

A three-member Bench, headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, today dismissed the review petition filed by local prayer leader Qari Muhammad Salaam as the plea failed to point out any flaw in the verdict of the court that acquitted Bibi.

During the hearing, Salaam's lawyer said the matter of Bibi's acquittal was a matter concerning the Muslim clergy and religious scholars should also be called to present their point of view.

How is this matter of religion? the Chief Justice asked. Has the verdict not been given on merit? The verdict was given on the basis of testimonies. Does Islam say that one should be punished even if they are found not guilty? he asked.

Tell us where we failed to take into account testimony or where we misread the testimonies, Justice Khosa asked. An FIR lodged five days after an incident is suspect, said Justice Khosa, referring to report lodged in the case and which formed the basis for Bibis prosecution.

He said testimonies also differed in their account regarding the size and the place of the crowd which had gathered following the blasphemy accusation.

The lawyer countered that late registration of an FIR does not necessarily mean ill intention. Should we then hand an accused on the basis of such testimonies, questioned the Chief Justice.  PTI

How blasphemy case gained prominence

Bibis case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistans Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws

A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistans religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad

The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence

What was she accused of
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Washington, January 29

There is a strong possibility of communal violence in India if the ruling BJP stresses Hindu nationalist themes ahead of the General Election in May, Americas top spymaster told US lawmakers on Tuesday.

The comment on Indias upcoming General Election is part of the US intelligence communitys assessment of worldwide threats in 2019 and was presented in a written document to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence.

The 2019 elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Indian PM Narendra Modis BJP stresses Hindu nationalist themes, Coats said. BJP policies during Modis first term have deepened communal tension in some BJP-governed states and Hindu nationalist leaders might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters, he said in his written statement.

He also warns of a strained India-Pakistan relationship at least till May.  PTI
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

BOSTON: Using public opinion surveys to vet the authenticity of political stories may be an effective strategy to combat the menace of fake news and other kinds of online misinformation, an MIT study has found.

False news stories have proliferated online in recent years, and social media sites such as Facebook have received sharp criticism for giving them visibility.

Facebook also faced pushback for a January 2018 plan to let readers rate the quality of online news sources.

However, the study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US suggests such a crowdsourcing approach could work well, if implemented correctly.

What we found is that, while there are real disagreements among Democrats and Republicans concerning mainstream news outlets, basically everybodyDemocrats, Republicans, and professional fact-checkersagree that the fake and hyperpartisan sites are not to be trusted, said David Rand, an MIT scholar.

Using a pair of public-opinion surveys to evaluate of 60 US news sources, the researchers found that Democrats trusted mainstream media outlets more than Republicans dowith the exception of Fox News, which Republicans trusted far more than Democrats did.

However, when it comes to lesser-known sites peddling false information, as well as hyperpartisan political websites, both Democrats and Republicans show a similar disregard for such sources.

If the goal is to remove really bad content, this actually seems quite promising, Rand says.

To perform the study, the researchers conducted two online surveys that had roughly 1,000 participants each. In each case, respondents were asked to rate their trust in 60 news outlets, about a third of which were high-profile, mainstream sources.

The second surveys participants had demographic characteristics resembling that of the US as a whole.

The survey also measured the general audiences evaluations against a set of judgements by professional fact-checkers, to see whether the larger audiences judgments were similar to the opinions of experienced researchers.

Respondents generally distrusted the more marginal websites, there was significant agreement among the general audience and the professional fact-checkers.

That means the crowdsourcing approach could work especially well in marginalising false news storiesfor instance by building audience judgments into an algorithm ranking stories by quality.

Crowdsourcing would probably be less effective, however, if a social media site were trying to build a consensus about the very best news sources and stories.

However, researchers said that the method would indeed build bias into the system, because people are more skeptical of news sources they have less familiarity withand there is likely good reason why most people are not acquainted with many sites that run fake or hyperpartisan news. PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, January 29

Financial irregularities have surfaced in the implementation of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) in Moga city.

The district administration allegedly diverted funds meant for the Moga Municipal Corporation (MC) to the Public Works Department (PWD) without following the guidelines and instructions issued by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

As per the guidelines, the AMRUT project has to be carried out by the Urban Local Bodies at the city level. In case the local bodies do not have adequate capacity to handle projects, the state government may recommend in its state annual action plan (SAAP), upon a resolution passed by the local body, the execution of the projects by other agencies of the state government or the Centre. Such arrangements should necessarily be executed by way of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) among the state government, the specialised state agency and the municipality concerned.

In the case of Moga, neither a resolution was passed by the General House of the MC nor was it recommended in the SAAP by the government. Besides, a tripartite MoU was also not signed.

Consequently, even after two years of the execution of at least 50 urban development works, the PWD has failed to complete the works.

Funds to the tune of Rs 20 crore had been received by the district administration during the past few years under the erstwhile Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) for the release to the Moga MC and other urban local bodies, but a portion of these funds were not released to the Moga MC and instead diverted to the Public Works Department.

A total of seven tenders of at least 50 development works pertaining to interlocking tiles, construction of roads, laying of sewerage, development of old grain market in Moga city were issued for Rs 518.26 lakh to the private contractors.

The execution of these works began on December 30, 2016, but these have not been completed so far.

SAD councillor Gurminderjit Singh Bablu has asked the state government to hold a departmental inquiry into the irregularity of releasing funds arbitrarily by the district administration to the Public Works Department and the non-completion of the works by the executing agency. The government must take legal action, he said.

Navdeep Singh Sangha, spokesman for AAP, has urged the Union Government to hand over the investigation in the case to the CBI.
editorial@tribune.com

Chandigarh, January 29

For a change, all political parties in Punjab today left their differences aside to plead a common case for the state.

Representatives of eight political parties, who met a 17-member delegation of the 15th Finance Commission, headed by NK Singh, pleaded that the state should be given a special package to lift its sagging economy.

State Congress president Sunil Jakhar and MLAs Kuljit Nagra and Aman Vij; AAP MLA Aman Arora; Akali Dal MLA Parminder Singh Dhindsa and party senior vice-president Daljit Cheema; besides senior BJP leader Dr Subash Sharma, convener of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Manjeet Singh, Member, Executive Committee, AITC, Roshan Lal Goel and BSP, Punjab zone incharge, Pal Singh Rattu and BSP district president Mohali Harnek Singh, Punjab State Communist Party of India (CPI) secretary Bant Singh Brar, CPI national councillor Dr Joginder Singh Dayal, CPM secretary, Punjab, Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon, Raghunath Singh and Nationalist Congress Party president Swarn Singh, senior vice-president Gurinder Singh  spoke in unison for a special package for the state.

The representatives of political parties demanded that the devolution of Central taxes should be 50 per cent (instead of 42 per cent); Centrally sponsored schemes should be curtailed and states given the choice to decide what schemes they want for their respective states; special assistance for controlling stubble-burning and special assistance to manage Punjabs imminent groundwater crisis because of depleting ground water level.

The commission chairman was given a guard of honour at the Mohali International airport, where he was received by state Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal.

The commission comprises Dr Anoop Singh (member), Dr Ashok Lahiri (member), Dr Ramesh Chand (member) and Arvind Mehta (secretary).

During the meeting with the panel, Panchayati Raj Institutions representatives sought financial aid for facelift of villages and overall development of rural areas of the state.  TNS
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, January 29

Senior SAD leader Dyal Singh Kolianwali, who is presently in judicial custody at the Nabha jail in a disproportionate assets case registered by the state Vigilance Bureau, is reportedly unwell for the last few days. He has even sought permission from the court to undergo a surgery.

Sources in the vigilance informed today that Kolianwali was suffering from piles. He has sought permission from the court for his treatment at a private hospital. He is suffering from piles. Before his arrest too, he was suffering from this problem, which has now again developed, said sources.

Kolianwali, a sitting SGPC member, who remained on several positions in the SAD-BJP government, had surrendered at a Mohali court on December 14.

As per the FIR, Kolianwalis expenditure was 71 per cent higher than his income from 2009 to 2014. He has shown total income of Rs 2.39 crore, however, he allegedly spent Rs 4.1 crore on movable and immovable properties, the FIR said.

Meanwhile, speaking over the phone, Parminder Singh, Kolianwalis son, said, My father is suffering from piles, some problem in prostate and a cyst in his back. He has to undergo surgery, thus we have sought permission from the court for his treatment. In the past too, he has undergone treatment for prostate from a private hospital in Ludhiana.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

The Congress government will present its Budget for 2019-20 on February 18. In a Cabinet meeting today, the Council of Ministers decided to call the Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha from February 12 to February 21. The recommendations will be sent to the Punjab Governor for his consent to convene the session.

The session will commence with the Governors Address at 11 am on February 12, followed by obituary references at 2 pm the same day. Non-official business would be transacted on February 13. Motion of thanks on the Governors address will be moved on February 15, followed by discussions on the same, which will continue through the day.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for 2017-18 (civil, commercial), financial accounts of the state government and appropriation accounts for 2017-18 would be presented in the House on February 18 at 2 pm.

Supplementary demands for grants for 2018-19, appropriation Bill on supplementary demands for grants for 2018-19, and Budget estimates for 2019-20 would be presented on February 18.

General discussion on the Budget estimates would resume at 2 pm on February 20. Non-official business would be conducted at 10 am on February 21, followed by discussion and voting on demands regarding Budget estimates.
 ,         24 -   25 -     ,     21,         ...
editorial@tribune.com

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

A DGP-rank officer had allegedly tried to influence the police probe in the Jassi honour killing case and tried to get two top contract killers released, it has been revealed for the first time in the case.

The officer has never been questioned even as the probe team had prepared a dossier in 2000 about the officers proximity with the killers. The investigation was not followed, allegedly due to pressure.

The Tribune has a copy of the file in which the investigating officers had informed the seniors about the role of the officer. The file contains a report on questioning of Anil Sharma, a property dealer, who had allegedly headed the gang of contract killers. The second accused, Sub-Inspector Joginder Singh, was also close to the officer. Both of are convicts in the case.

Inspector General Jatinder Aulakh, who headed the probe team when he was Sangrur SSP, confirmed that the officer had tried to influence the case. Aulakh, however, maintained that no evidence of his involvement in the murder was established.

The officer asked me to release Anil Sharma and Joginder Singh, but I did not do so. I got two adverse ACRs because of that, said Aulakh.

Another officer privy to the matter shared the report with The Tribune and hoped that investigation be carried now as the alleged main conspirators  Jassis mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Badesha  are being questioned by the Punjab Police for the first time since the murder. The file containing the dossier said Sharma carried out some property deals of the said officer.

Malerkotla: Both accused in the Jassi murder case, who were recently extradited from Canada, were today sent to judicial custody for 14 days. They will be lodged in Sangrur Central Jail.

The Amargarh police claimed that the accused, Malkiat Kaur (70), Jassis mother, and Surjit Singh Badesha (75), uncle, didnt cooperate fully. The police had sought the extension of their remand for two days.

The police wanted more information about their banks accounts, but the court turned down our plea and sent the accused to judicial custody, said Ashwani Chaudhary, counsel for complainant Sukhwinder Singh Mithu, husband of deceased Jassi.

Chaudhary has been fighting the legal battle for Mithu since the registration of FIR in 2000. I have been supporting Mithu financially also. He has suffered a lot and we will take the case to its logical end, he claimed.

Palwinder Cheema, DSP Ahemadgarh, said: Though the accused cooperated largely, they did not share information about their bank accounts used to transfer money used in crime.
editorial@tribune.com

Our Correspondent

Ferozepur, January 29

In a political drama that unfolded in Thatha Singh Wala village in Zira subdivision on Tuesday, Congress MLA Kulbir Singh got a dope test camp organised near the venue where SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal was addressing his party workers.

The MLA had earlier challenged Sukhbir to undergo a dope test along with him. Today, he set up a stage waiting for Sukhbir. However, the latter avoided getting involved in the matter. Later, Kulbir himself went ahead and took the dope test, the report of which came out to be negative.

On Monday, Kulbir had approached the Health Minister and urged him to organise a dope test camp at this venue, following which the health authorities deputed a five-member team for the same.

While talking to mediapersons, Kulbir said he would wait for another month for Sukhbir to undergo a dope test after which he will start a tour of all 117 Assembly constituencies to start a signature camp exhorting him to do the same and prove his credentials as a Baptised Sikh. I have proven myself by undergoing the test. If Sukhbir is clean and does not consume drugs, why is he running away from the test? he questioned.

Apprehending a clash between Congress and Akali workers, over a thousand security personnel were deployed in the area. The police force also prevented Congress workers carrying black flags from reaching Sukhbirs cavalcade.
gspannu7@gmail.com

Surat, January 30

In an apparent dig at the Gandhi-Nehru family, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said those who made the country tremble and turned it into a jail are now making rounds of courts.

Speaking at a youth conclave here, he said no one had thought that a chaiwalla would challenge them.

You are aware that they are out on bail, right? Those from their darbaars (their courtiers) are making rounds of courts. I am confident, I have the blessings of the 125 crore people, no matter how many rounds of courts (they make), one day they would have to go. Those who have looted the country will have to return it, he said.

Virtually launching a campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said his government brought about a change replacing disappointment with hope.

You have seen four generations, whose name would make the country tremble. Such was their power they turned the country into a jail. No one had thought a chaiwalla would challenge them, he said.

Terrorists attacked Mumbai on 26/11. What happened after that? During our governments tenure, Uri (terror) attack took place. What happened after it? This (contrasting reactions) is the change, Modi said.

He credited voters for ensuring that this change came about in 2014.

Your vote is the reason behind this change. It kept me busy for five years. Your one vote inspires me to do something for the country and as the time passed the hope replaced disappointment, he added.

Hitting out at the previous governments, Modi said the 10-year rule of the Congress-led coalition was marred by corruption, which had eaten into the system like termites and listed cases such as alleged coal scam and 2G spectrum.

And you know up to where the G goes, he said, attacking the Gandhis in a veiled manner.

When the NDA government came to power, Indian economy was at the 10th position in the world, now it is ranked 6th, the prime minister said.

That day is not far when our economy will be ranked fifth, he added.

Culprits in rape cases are now hanged quickly after a speedy trial, he asserted.

He said his government is countering the Oppositions negativity with positivity.  PTI
gspannu7@gmail.com

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 30

Communal divisions have deepened in some BJP-ruled states since the Narendra Modi government came to power and communal tensions are likely to flare up as India gears up for the General Election, according to a US Intelligence report.

The assessment was shared by Daniel R Coats, Director of National Intelligence with the US Senate.

Coats was presenting the United States Intelligence Communitys 2019 assessment of threats to US national security.

Parliamentary elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stresses Hindu nationalist themes. The BJP policies during Modis first term have deepened communal tensions in some BJP-governed states and Hindu nationalist state leaders might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters, says the report on page 35 in its assessment of the South Asian situation.

Increasing communal clashes could alienate Indian Muslims and allow Islamist terrorist groups in India to expand their influence, it cautions.

The report includes Pakistans recalcitrance in dealing with militant groups along with Taliban offensive as Afghanistan prepares for presidential polls as top challenges to South Asian security.

Militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, including against US interests.

Islamabads narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperationusing some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistanalmost certainly will frustrate US counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban.

It also underlines that India-Pakistan tensions will sour and remain volatile adding to regional instability.

The cross-border firing in Kashmir and Indian Governments political manoeuvring with elections in mind will keep any improvement in bilateral ties at bay, it said.

We judge that cross-border terrorism, firing across the Line of Control (LoC), divisive national elections in India, and Islamabads perception of its position with the United States relative to India will contribute to strained India-Pakistan relations at least through May 2019, the deadline for the Indian election, and probably beyond, it says.

The 42 page report further adds, Despite limited confidence-building measuressuch as both countries recommitting in May 2018 to the 2003 cease-fire along the disputed Kashmir bordercontinued terrorist attacks and cross-border firing in Kashmir have hardened each countrys position and reduced their political will to seek rapprochement. Political manoeuvring resulting from the Indian national elections probably will further constrain near-term opportunities for improving ties.

On page 10, the report cautions escalated nuclear risks in the region because of India and Pakistan.

The continued growth and development of Pakistan and Indias nuclear weapons programmes increase the risk of a nuclear security incident in South Asia, and the new types of nuclear weapons will introduce new risks for escalation dynamics and security in the region.

While the BJP government has been claiming improvement in ties with China and better personal chemistry and understanding between Modi and Xi Jinping post the informal summit in Wuhan , according to the US report, the risk of unintentional escalation between the two Asian economies stands elevated.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an informal summit in April 2018 to defuse tension and normalise relations, but they did not address border issues. Misperceptions of military movements or construction might result in tensions escalating into armed conflict, it says.

Overall the report cites Russia, China, Iran, Syria and North Korea and cyber espionage and attacks as the major security threats for US. China and Russia is more aligned than at any point since the mid 1950s says the report.
uttara@tribuneindia.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 29

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of using his courtesy visit to him for petty political gains on Wednesday, a day after the latter visited the ailing ex-defence minister during his Goa visit.

Gandhi claimed after his visit that Parrikar told him he was not involved in the new Rafale deala statement that has BJP leaders, including Parrikar, accusing him of politicising the visit.

Parrikar said in a statement on Wednesday. In my five minutes meeting with Rahul Gandhi there was no mention of Rafale deal.

He also wrote to Gandhi expressing his disappointment in him, sources said.

I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything related to it.

In a letter to Gandhi, Parrikar asked the Congress chief to put out the truth and not to use his visit to an ailing person to "feed political opportunism", BJP sources said.

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Mr Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," the Congress leader told a booth-level party workers meeting here.

Meanwhile, BJP chief Amit Shah called Rahul Gandhi "insensitive", accusing him of lying in the name of a person fighting disease.

"Dear Rahul Gandhi, you showed how insensitive you are, by lying in the name of a person fighting a disease. The people of India are disgusted by your reckless behaviour. In his trademark style, manohar parrikar ji sets the record straight," Shah said in a tweet.

Sold IAF to Ambani

Gandhi meanwhile kept up his attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modis government over the Rafale jet deal, claiming on Wednesday that the prime minister had "sold" the Indian Air Force and "stole" opportunities of the youth by giving away Rs 30,000 crore to his "friend" and businessman Anil Ambani.

The government and Ambani have both strongly denied any wrongdoing in the Rafale deal.

Addressing the concluding session of the Youth Congress nationwide public outreach campaign 'Yuva Kranti Yatra', Gandhi said no one will be able to suppress the truth about the "Rafale scam" and it will come out finally.

"The entire country knows that Mr Modi stole opportunities of the youth to give Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani. No one can suppress the truth about Rafale, it will come out itself," he said.

"You have sold the Indian Air Force," he alleged, targeting Modi over the Rafale deal.

He said the prime minister spoke for one and a half hours in Parliament but when asked questions on Rafale, he could not look in the eye and kept looking elsewhere.

"The prime minister is trying to hide the truth," Gandhi also alleged.

"You (Modi) cannot sleep in the night. When you sleep, you see the picture of Anil Ambani, you see the picture of Rafale jet, you see the picture of IAF martyrs... this is happening due to the Congress and youth Congress workers who have shown you the truth. The entire country knows that you have played with the future of the youth," he alleged. Modi has to face the public in 2019," he said.

Attacking Modi, he said, "The prime minister has worked on dividing the country, burnt the Northeast, Kashmir, made people fight in Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala".

"2014 taught us a lesson that we should not be arrogant and have humility... We did that and now the atmosphere is changing," he said.

According to Gandhi, the Congress has taken a historic step and decided on giving people right to minimum income. "All poor people will get benefit directly into their accounts and there will be no middlemen." He also said the Congress is "not against industrialists but against crony capitalists like Modi's friends", he said.

Meanwhile BJP president Amit Shah called Rahul Gandhi "insensitive".

He said in his tweet: Dear Rahul Gandhi, you showed how insensitive you are, by lying in the name of a person fighting a disease. The people of India are disgusted by your reckless behaviour. In his trademark style, manohar parrikar ji sets the record straight.

'Disturbed'

Rahul Gandhi wrote back to Parrikar later on Wednesday that he hadn't shared details of their conversation, only what was already in the public domain.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, January 30

The nation remembered Mahatma Gandhi on his 71st death anniversary on Wednesday with President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the country in paying homage to the Father of the Nation.

Kovind, Modi and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu paid floral tributes at Gandhis memorial at Rajghat here.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were among others who paid homage to the Father of the Nation at Rajghat, where an inter-religion prayer was held.

Mahatma Gandhis favourite bhajan Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram was also played at Rajghat.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh also paid tributes to the Mahatma at his memorial.

Remembering the Mahatma on his death anniversary, Modi tweeted, ...Remembering Bapu on his Punya Tithi. We reiterate our commitment to follow the path shown by him and abide by the values he stood for.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1948.

The Prime Minister also paid tributes to all those who laid down their lives for the country.

We salute all the martyrs who laid down their lives for India. The country remains eternally grateful to them for their service and sacrifice, he said.

Several Union ministers and senior leaders paid tributes to the Father of the Nation. PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

New Delhi, January 30

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed former Finance Minister P Chidambarams son Karti Chidambaram to travel abroad after depositing Rs 10 crore with its registry but asked him to cooperate with the probe in the INX Media and Aircel Maxis cases, saying dont play around with the law.

The apex court asked Karti to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for questioning in connection with the INX Media and Aircel Maxis cases.

You go wherever you want to go, between February 10 and 26, but you must cooperate with the investigation, a Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

Please tell your clients that he will have to cooperate. You have not cooperated. We wanted to say a lot of things. We are not saying them right now, the Bench said.

The top court had on Monday asked the ED to specify the date on which it wants to interrogate Karti.

Besides asking Karti to deposit Rs 10 crore with the Secretary-General of the Supreme Court, the bench also asked him to file an undertaking that he would return and cooperate with the investigation.

Karti has sought permission to travel abroad from February 10 to 26 and again from March 23 to 31.

The bench was hearing Kartis plea seeking permission to travel to France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom for the next few months for international tennis tournaments organised by a company called Totus Tennis Ltd having its registered office in the UK.

The plea, which also said that Karti is associated with tennis as a former player, current administrator and entrepreneur, is being opposed by the ED.

The court had on Monday said that it will ensure that he appears before the agency and also goes for his tennis assignment, adding that No tennis for him if he evades.

The apex court had earlier refused urgent hearing on the plea of Karti saying, Who is Karti? Karti Chidambaram, you are saying? Let him stay where he is. We have more important matters to decide.

On September 18 last year, it had allowed Karti to travel to the UK from September 20-30.

Karti is facing criminal cases which are being investigated by the ED and the CBI.

One of the cases relates to the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving foreign funds of Rs 305 crore when his father was the finance minister.

The ED had said that Karti, who is also facing proceedings in cases like Aircel-Maxis and money laundering matters, has been blatantly misusing the liberty granted by court in allowing him to travel abroad and has been using the same to protract the investigation in the case. PTI
rajivbhatia82@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 30

India on Wednesday lodged a protest against a telephone call reportedly initiated by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi with Mirawaiz Umar Farooq of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale summoned Pakistani High Commissioner in Delhi Sohail Mahmood at 10.30 pm to convey Indias condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert Indias unity.

This was an attempt to violate Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity by none other than the Pakistan foreign minister said Gokhale in his protest note.

The foreign secretary conveyed that this deplorable act has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistans own standards.

The Pakistan foreign ministers actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour, said a formal Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement.

The foreign secretary underscored that by this action Pakistan has confirmed yet again that it officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities.

It has exposed to the entire international community Pakistans duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other, added the statement.

Earlier today, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq at Hurriyat office had asked for talks involving India and Pakistan and the Kashmiris.

Kashmir dispute is a reality & so is the fact that all three parties have to be involved in its lasting resolution. No amount of denial can change either. GOI has to move beyond status quo &reach out to both Pakistans offer of talks &to Kashmiris plight, he wrote on Twitter.

Officials said that the envoy was categorically informed by the foreign secretary that India expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions and that persistence of such behaviour by its government would have implications.

India reiterated that its principled position remains the same that is entire state of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India.

In his meeting, Foreign Secretary re-emphasised that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matter related to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Hardoi (UP), January 30

A government school teacher has been killed by some unidentified persons in Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi district, police said on Wednesday.

Sushil Gupta, 40, was shot dead by unidentified persons in the Pihani area here when he was returning home from his school on Tuesday, they said.

The deceased was a teacher at a junior high school in Nipania village, police said, adding they are trying to ascertain the motive behind the murder.

No arrests have been made so far in this connection. PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 29

Even as its most difficult partner Shiv Sena has been showing signs of a thaw, the ruling BJPs ally troubles appear to be far from over.

Another key partner with whom it recently sealed the Bihar deal, Janata Dal (United), is on a warpath over the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, and has accused the BJP of ignoring allies.

While the senior BJP leadership asserted the government was committed to push the contentious legislation in the budget session of Parliament, sources in JD(U) claimed the move would come at the cost of the alliance.

The Bill is already facing stiff opposition from several organisations in the North-East. Asom Gana Parishad has already walked out of the NDA to protest the proposed law seeking to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of stay in India even if they did not possess any document.

Regional allies such as the JD(U), said to be feeling uneasy following the Centres sudden push to the Ram temple issue, have reiterated opposition to the citizenship Bill. JD(U) leader KC Tyagi indicated that their six MPs would vote against the Bill in the Rajya Sabhait has already been cleared by the Lok Sabha. Without JD(U) support, the BJP might not be able to get it cleared in the Rajya Sabha provided the Congress does not walk out, as it did in the Lok Sabha.

Sources in the BJP claimed regional parties were only posturing due to political compulsions, and that as had been the case with the Sena, the differences with the JD(U), too, would be resolved well ahead of the General Election. The BJP has offered Sena half of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, two more than that in 2014, and the latter is demanding the same seat-sharing formula for the state Assembly polls too. Besides, the Thackeray party is learnt to be staking claim to the Chief Ministers post irrespective of the seats it won. Alongside, it wants the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls to be held simultaneously, something Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is not keen upon.

The Lok Janshakti Party, another ally that too was sulking till recently over the distribution of seats, and the JD(U) are opposed to the government bringing in an ordinance to facilitate the building of the Ram temple, an issue towards which the BJP has been working vigorously of late.

Where the partners want
The Egyptian Ministry of Interior says that police forces have arrested 54 members of the terrorist-designated Muslim Brotherhood group for plotting attacks in Egypt in coordination with the Brotherhoods leadership abroad.

The ministry said that intelligence revealed that the leaders of the outlawed group abroad were plotting to sow chaos in the country in January and February to coincide with the anniversary of the 25 January revolution.

The suspects plotted to sabotage public roads and terrorise citizens with the aim of disrupting public peace and harming the country's national interests, according to the ministry.

The MB leadership abroad formed a group on the internet which included members of the Muslin Brotherhood and anti-state elements inside the country under the name "O Allah, Revolution," holding a number of meetings abroad to plan the execution of their terrorist plot, the statement added.

The ministry said that the suspects were found in possession of cash and materials used in riots to block roads and set fires.

The ministry said that it is working to identify and arrest the remaining members of the group, which is led by Yasser El-Omda, a fugitive Brotherhood leader currently residing in Turkey.

Short link:


gspannu7@gmail.com

Mumbai, January 30

Divorce proceedings in a marriage solemnised as per the Hindu rites and registered in India cannot be initiated in foreign courts, the Bombay High Court has ruled.

Justice RD Dhanuka on Tuesday allowed a petition filed by a woman seeking a stay on the divorce proceedings initiated by her estranged husband, an Indian who is a domicile of the UK, before a family court at Manchester in the UK.

The couple got married in December 2012 in Mumbai as per the Hindu rites and registered the marriage in January 2013 before the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation.

Soon after their marriage, the man returned to the UK and the woman joined him there in July 2013.

She claimed in her petition that since then she was harassed by him and was also asked to leave his home and go back to India.

The woman returned to India in November 2013 and since then till June 2014, the woman and her family members tried to reconcile issues between the couple.

In June 2014, the woman received a legal notice informing her that her husband has initiated divorce proceedings against her in a family court in the UK.

The woman then approached the high court challenging the proceedings initiated in the UK on the ground that since they got married as per the Hindu rites, their case should be heard and decided as per the Hindu Marriage Act in a court in India.

The mans lawyer opposed the plea and said since the man was a domicile of the UK, the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act do not apply to him.

The high court in its order noted that both the parties were Hindus and their marriage was registered at the Mira Bhayandar civic body.

Admittedly in this case, the marriage was solemnised in Mumbai and thus merely because the defendant (man) is having a domicile of the UK whether by birth or by choice or otherwise would be of no significance and would not divest the jurisdiction of the court provided under Section 19 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for the purpose of filing the proceedings under the provisions of the said Act, Justice Dhanuka said.

The court noted that the man has sought relief before the UK court under the provisions of the English Personal Law, which does not apply to either the man or the woman as they got married under the Hindu Marriage Act.

The court further noted that the man has not paid any maintenance to the woman and has thus created such a situation that the woman is unable to defend the divorce proceedings initiated in the UK.

Justice Dhanuka observed that the man, in his petition before the UK court, sought divorce on the ground that the marriage has broken down irretrievably and also on the ground that the woman has alleged to have behaved in such a way that he cannot reasonably be expected to live with her.

Under the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, no decree of divorce can be granted on the ground that marriage has been broken down irretrievably, Justice Dhanuka said.  PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, January 30

Former defence minister George Fernandes will be cremated on Thursday and the ashes will be buried in a Christian cemetery on Friday.

Giving this information, Leila Kabir, wife of Fernandes, who died here on Tuesday, said a memorial prayer service would be held at their Panchsheel Park residence on Thursday morning before the cremation at the Lodhi electric crematorium at 3 pm.

The ashes will be buried at the Christian cemetery on Prithviraj Road on Friday morning.

The last journey to the crematorium will be in an Army vehicle and conducted by the Army in honour of the former defence minister. It will begin from his residence at 11 am. IANS
editorial@tribune.com

Dehradun, January 29

Snowfall is not revelry all the time in the hills. It can be your nightmare too.

For the four persons from Delhi, who got virtually trapped in a Chakrata hotel in Dehradun district following heavy snowfall last week, the ordeal is far from over.

As the authorities pressed snow-cutters and JCB machines on Tuesday to remove the loads of snow that had lashed the area since last week, top police officials said they were putting in their best efforts to bring these tourists safely from Lokhandi Hotel in the Chakrata hills. Most of the area is covered with 4-5 feet of snow.

When these tourists posted the video on the social media, their plight was palpable. We are trapped here. We appeal to the authorities and the CM to provide us help. There is a shortage of food and water in this hotel. There is no electricity also, the trapped woman said on the social media.

Anup Nayal, the local SHO, said he was hopeful that these four tourists, which included one woman and three men, would be rescued soon. IANS
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 30

After the government announced the Bharat Ratna for Pranab Mukherjee on the eve of the 70th Republic Day, the Congress hailed the honour for one of its own.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi articulated the partys response to the development by tweeting his congratulations.

Congratulations to Pranab Da on being awarded the Bharat Ratna! The Congress Party takes great pride in the fact that the immense contribution to public service & nation building of one of our own, has been recognised & honoured, Gandhi wrote, opening the doors for other Congress leaders to laud the award.

But the political messaging behind the move wasnt lost on the Congress which has had its share of troubles with Mukherjee.

Party insiders called the decision of the BJP government to confer the Bharat Ratna on a Congress stalwart a clever political move ahead of the general election.

Though Rahul welcomed the award, history is testimony to the distrust Mukherjee and the Congress Party have shared in the past.

Most recently, the Congress was stunned when Mukherjee accepted the RSS invitation to address the Sanghs valedictory event in Nagpur last year. In his speech, Mukherjee described RSS founder KB Hedgewar as the great son of Mother India, riling the Congress whose entire political narrative is anti-RSS.

Congress leaders then took heart from the fact that Mukherjee used the occasion at RSS headquarters to hammer Indias pluralism.

But privately all Congress persons were uncomfortable with Mukherjees visit to Nagpur, and the latters daughter, a Delhi Congress leader, even asked her father to reconsider the decision.

While reacting to the latest move, opposition JDS and AAP have concluded that the honour came because the ex-President went to Nagpur.

The Congress leaders silently admitted to the far-reaching message the BJP governments decision to fete a Congress man would send.

The government has placed Pranab Mukherjee in the league of Nehrus and Gandhis alongside Bharat Ratnas from the dynasty--late PMs Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, a Congress senior said.

Mukherjees relationship with the Congress, especially its former chief Sonia Gandhi, has been a matter of intrigue and debate.

The most vivid comment on the relationship came from former prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2017 when he said during Mukherjees book launch, Pranab Mukherjee was my senior and better qualified for the job. He had his reasons to be upset when Soniaji chose me to be PM in 2004. But he knows I had no choice in the matter.

Even before Mukherjee was chosen to be the UPAs presidential nominee in 2012, Sonia was known to have been reluctant to spare her trouble shooter minister from the government with Mukherjee carrying the hurt of denial of due in his heart. Mukherjee speaks of this in his recent book.

After the decision to nominate him for the presidential poll of 2012 was finally taken, Sonia remarked at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee in June that year, I will miss his tantrums.

The meeting had been called to bid Mukherjee farewell from the Congress and approve his nomination for the election to the office of President.

Earlier, when late PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984, Mukherjee famously boarded a special Kolkata-New Delhi flight hoping to be anointed the PM being the seniormost in the Congress.

But the late PMs pilot son Rajiv Gandhi was also on the flight.

Rajiv upstaged Mukherjee to become the next PM. Mukherjee wasnt inducted in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet triggering his brief exit from the Congress which saw him float the Rashtriya Congress Party.

Mukherjee returned to the Congress in 1987 and was made the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Raipur, January 30

Three men were killed and another was injured when their car fell into a roadside ditch in Chhattigarhs upcoming capital city of Atal Nagar, police said on Wednesday.

The mishap took place on Tuesday night near Sendh dam after the car driver lost control over the wheel, a local police official told PTI.

Police suspect that the four men were in an inebriated state at the time of the accident as liquor bottles were found in the car, he said.

As per preliminary information, the four men, who were working at a hotel being set up in Atal Nagar, had gone on an outing on Tuesday night, the official said.

At a curve near the dam, the car driver failed to negotiate the turn. As a result, the speeding vehicle skidded off the road and fell into the ditch, leading to the death of three men on the spot, he said.

The deceased were identified as Ravi Kumar Tiwari (22), a native of Jharkhand; Omer Alam (25), hailing from Kolkata; and Manal Kosariya (24), a resident of Mowa town in Raipur, he said.

The injured man was admitted to a local hospital, he said, adding that a case was registered in connection with the incident. PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Noida, January 30

In a major operation, a police inspector and three journalists were arrested here on charges of bribery and extortion, officials said Wednesday.

Manoj Kumar Pant, SHO of Sector 20 police station, and journalists Sushil Pandit, Udit Goyal and Raman Thakur were arrested on Tuesday, SSP Vaibhav Krishna said.

He said the four were caught red-handed while taking the bribe or extortion money of Rs 8 lakh at the Sector 20 police station.

They were extorting money from a call centre owner in the name of removing the latters name from an FIR registered in November 2018, Krishna said.

A Mercedes car had been seized from the possession of one of the journalists, which the SSP said, prima facie seemed to be related to some criminal activity.

A .32-bore pistol was seized from another journalist, he said.

A total of Rs 8 lakh has been seized and all four have been arrested, the district police chief said.

Meanwhile, Additional SHO of Sector 20 police station, Jaiveer Singh, had been suspended for his alleged involvement in the case, the officer added. PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, January 30

Militant groups supported by Pakistan, which uses some terror outfits as policy tools, will continue to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, according to Americas top spymaster.

Remarks by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats came as he and heads of other top American intelligence agencies appeared on Tuesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on their worldwide threat assessment.

Coats said Pakistans narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperation--using some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistan--almost certainly would frustrate US counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban.

Militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, including against US interests, Coats told the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Prominent among them included CIA Director Gina Haspel, who has just returned from a trip to India; FBI Director Christopher Wray and Defence Intelligence Agency Director Robert Ashley.

The comment on South Asia is part of US intelligence communitys assessment of worldwide threats in 2019 and was presented in the form of a written document to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Coats.

Coats said the challenges facing South Asian states would grow in 2019 because of Afghanistans presidential election in mid-July and the Talibans large-scale attacks, Pakistans recalcitrance in dealing with militant groups, and Indian elections that risked communal violence.

We assess that neither the Afghan Government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year if coalition support remains at current levels, he said.

Afghan forces generally have secured cities and other government strongholds, but the Taliban has increased large-scale attacks, and Afghan security suffers from a large number of forces being tied down in defensive missions, mobility shortfalls, and a lack of reliable forces to hold recaptured territory, Coats said. PTI
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 29

KK Seth, Chairman, FICO, and S Gurmeet Singh Kular, FICO president, have opposed the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiation.

The FICO office-bearers said the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was a free trade agreement being negotiated involving 16 countries  10 countries (Brunei Asean, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and their six free trade agreement (FTA) partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea). The RCEP negotiations have entered a critical stage having completed five years, which was aptly captured by the 2nd RCEP Leaders Summit Communique held on 14 November, 2018, in Singapore, acknowledging a substantial progress in the negotiations.

The negotiations are moving forward on requests and offers based on goods, services and investment. In the goods negotiations, tariff modalities are highly complex where member countries would need to eliminate or reduce customs duty on a significant number of their tariff lines aimed at reducing tariff barriers for facilitating greater intra-regional trade through evolving value and supply chain linkages. The offers in goods would cover sectors ranging from agriculture to industrial products, including raw materials, intermediates and finished products.

Seth and Kular said there was a 30 per cent import duty on Chinese products being sold in India. Our indigenous products still stands nowhere when compared to the Chinese products in terms of costing, even after 30 per cent import duty is imposed on Chinese products. In case the import duty is reduced or removed, the Indian bicycle industry will be wiped off, there wont be any chance of survival for the industry in India, they said.

The FICO demanded that Dr Ram Upendra Das, Professor and Head, Centre for Regional Trade (CRT) to condemn the negotiations so that the Indian industry could survive. It is notable that the Department of Commerce, Government of India, has entrusted the Centre for Regional Trade (CRT) to undertake an independent assessment of Indias approach in the RCEP negotiations through stakeholder consultations across the country on tariff modalities.

A delegation of the FICO will meet the Industry & Commerce Minister to save the Indian industry. If the RECP is applied, the Indian market would be overpowered by China.

Our indigenous products still stands nowhere when compared to the Chinese products in terms of costing, even after 30 per cent import duty is imposed on Chinese products. In case the import duty is reduced or removed, the Indian bicycle industry will be wiped off. FICO members
shalender@tribune.com

Delhi Crime, a seven-part series written and directed by award winning Indo-Canadian filmmaker Richie Mehta, will be available on Netflix from March 22, 2019. The series is based on the horrific 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case and follows the investigation by the Delhi Police. The police-procedural thriller will premiere worldwide at the Sundance Film Festival on January 29 in the Indie Episodic category.

The making of Delhi Crime has been a personally transformative journey... speaking to every individual involved, retracing the paths that the police took during the course of the investigation, and hearing of the determination that it took for the case to be closed, despite severe limitations, Mehta said in a statement. He hopes he has been able to provide context, catharsis and open once again a difficult conversation that must be had about the forces that enabled this brutality.

The cast includes Shefali Shah, Adil Hussain, Denzil Smith, Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang and Yashaswini Dayama.  IANS
shalender@tribune.com

Mona

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 30

The reel queen of Jhansi is in the thick of another battle  with that of the original captain of the magnum opus Manikarnika, Krish (Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi).

The issue is not just between the two anymore, but the titans in the industry are now taking sides. While Krish has accused the fierce actress for stealing credit, Kanganas sister Rangoli has spoken on her behalf, challenging him to prove otherwise.

Apurva Asrani, who shares writing credit for Simran with Kangana, also levelled the allegations on how she started deleting other actors lines on set and made it about her.

Sonu speak

Manikarnika got mired in this controversy when actor Sonu Sood, who shot for the role of warrior Sadashiv, chose to walk out of the project midway. He says, I signed the film with an exceptional director Krish, for whose work I have immense respect. When midway, another actor wanted to rewrite the film and take over direction, rather than being part of this awkwardness I chose to walk out.

According to Sonu, the film was 90 per cent shot when he called quits. How about the charges that flew at that time that he was not comfortable working under a woman director? Thats making a complete mockery of the situation. I have worked with woman director Farah Khan and the next film she does, I am on it. In fact, the strongest inspirations in my life are my mother and sister, I am not happy when the woman card is played.

Flip side

On the other hand Kangana, the show stealer is labelled as the best co-star and director by Ankita Lokhande, who played the role of Jhalkari Bai in the same movie. Thank you Kangana for always being there for me and taking this film a notch higher, Ankita posted on her Instagram thank you note!

Kangana cant harm me in any way

A period film of this scale and somebody who shot for 30 days, and claiming that she shot 70 per cent of the film, is a lie; this is humanly not possible. Those 30 days were done because Sonu Sood was replaced; had this not been the case, reshoot wasnt needed. I have talent; I would do films with more grandeur and dont think picking a fight with Kangana will harm me anyway, I consider myself a seasoned director. Manikarnika is my ninth film, second after Gabbar Is Back in Hindi; as long as I have a great script, I would be directing a film. I didnt want it to become a habit with Kangana or anyone else; it was a scary plot played here. She has to be taught a lesson. She cant take the credit away like that. If I give her a walkover without talking, it would become a norm in the industry. I am happy I spoke out; I dont want to make it a confrontational narrative, dont want to respond each time someone speaks about it, but this is my part of story and I want it to be heard.  Krish

Bad precedent

I do feel vindicated after Krish came out with his story. Though Im sad it has come at the expense of his pain. I just want to reiterate, this is not about credits alone. This is about the high-handed and systematic abuse coming from big stars, who trample on the dreams of writers-directors to take over their work and label it as theirs. It has crushed my spirit as it crushed Krishs and director Ketan Mehta before us. This is an unhealthy trend and must be stopped before it sets a precedent.  Apurva Asrani

BATTING FOR KANGANA

Rangoli Chandel? @Rangoli_A

I have spoken to Kangana and on her behalf I am officially declaring Kangana shot 70 percent of the film ( drama and action) with her primary DOP Kiran Deohans , 2nd DOP Sachin K Krishn and took 100 % final calls on edit with Rameshwar who Krish never met in his life ..@DirKrish

Prasoon Joshi @prasoonjoshi_

Kangana hasnt only given an outstanding performance, shes also elevated the film to another level thru her Direction n commitment. Let not any controversy take that away from her. Its been a tough journey n am all fr celebrating everyones contribution. Heres 2team #Manikarnika

Not for her

Pooja Bhatt @PoojaB1972

This is so wrong... on every level... this is not the industry I was born to and not the industry I wish to inherit. Eventually it is credit we work for... money comes & money goes... the first rule of filmmaking is to acknowledge peoples contribution.

Bejoy Nambiar @nambiarbejoy

This is just heartbreaking to watch ! No one should have to go through something like this. After #Simran & @Apurvasranis episode this is the 2nd time someone is calling her out. EARN your credit & GIVE credit where its due #KanganaRanaut
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Srinagar, January 30

The Peoples Conference, led by separatist-turned-mainstream politician Sajad Gani Lone, has adopted apple as its party symbol in Jammu and Kashmir.

Apple will be the symbol of JKPC. A symbol of economic power, Lone took to Twitter to announce it on Tuesday night.

The former Jammu and Kashmir minister thanked party leader and former MLA Mohammad Abbas Wani for suggesting apple as the party symbol.

My thanks to Mr Abbas Wani ex MLA Gulmarg. He conceptualised Apple as our party symbol. His idea that our symbol should signify economic power, Lone added.

The Peoples Conference had won two Assembly seats in the 2014 Jammu and Kashmir polls. The party has grown since November last year as several disgruntled leaders from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the National Conference (NC) and other parties joined it.

Lone is pitching his party as a regional alternative to the PDP and the NC. PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Jammu, January 30

A massive search operation is being conducted along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmirs Samba district for the second day on Wednesday ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the state on February 3.

The Army, police and other security forces continued the search operation in Basantar river area in Ramgarh sector besides other border hamlets, officials said.

The operation was launched following reports of suspected movement in border areas of Ramgarh sector, they said.

A suspicious movement was noticed post Monday midnight by alert Army troops in Samba sector, an Army officer said.

Modi will visit Jammu and Kashmir on February 3 to lay the foundation stone of a host of projects, including the AIIMS project at Vijaypur area of Samba district. PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 29

Weeks after resigning from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Shah Faesal is on the radar of militants after the Hizbul Mujahideen called the 2010 IAS topper fodder of India and asked people to boycott polls.

Incidentally, on the day the Hizb asked people not to get misled by Faesals entry into politics, the Jammu and Kashmir Police enhanced the security to the former IAS officer.

India is trying to show that people are with them. Now India has hatched a nefarious plan to make elections successful and they have made Shah Faesal fodder, a Hizb poster in Urdu that surfaced on social media (WhattsApp) read.

The poster appealed to the people to boycott the polls.

Our appeal to the people is to boycott polls because it is the design of the enemy. If you vote for Shah Faesal, India will say entire Kashmir is with us. Please do not be misled by Shah Faesal, it added.

A senior police officer said they were verifying the authenticity of the poster.

Another police officer said the poster had said what the stated position of militant outfits is over Faesal.

Meanwhile, the former IAS officer could not be reached for his comments.

Faesal, hailing from a remote area of Kupwara district in North Kashmir had topped the IAS examination in 2010, had resigned from the services early this month and announced his decision to join politics. Though there were earlier indications that he would be joining the National Conference, on January 11 he set at rest the speculation, saying he was not going to join any existing political party.

He has launched a mass contact programme, meeting all stakeholders, mainly youths, before taking any decision to contest the Parliament elections. He would be visiting all districts of the state before taking any decision in accordance with the wishes of people.

Verifying the authenticity of the poster: Police
editorial@tribune.com

ir Karim Tantray

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 29

The Army and Special Operations Group of the J&K Police on Tuesday launched search operations in Samba district after suspicious movement of some armed men was observed in the Ramgarh sector.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold a rally in the Vijaypur area of Samba district on February 3.

The suspicious movement was observed around 1.15 am in the Basanter river area of Ramgarh sector after which the Army cordoned off the area.

Some suspicious movement was observed in the area after midnight and cordon was put in place. We started the search operations around 6.30 am. These will continue till late in the evening, said Lt Col Devender Anand, defence spokesperson.

Sources told The Tribune that three to five armed people were seen around 1.15 am in the Pulpur area around the Basanter river of Ramgarh sector, after which an alert was sounded in the entire area.

The Jammu-Pathankot national highway and all important security establishments on the route were put on high alert.

The search operations will continue till the agencies sanitise the entire area and ensure nobody is around, said a senior police officer, who was part of the search operation.

Security agencies also sanitised the area where PM Modi will address the public rally. The site is a few kilometres away from the Basanter river and falls in the same district. Security forces have been kept on high alertand have been deployed around the rally site to ensure no anti-social element comes close to the area.

Sources said after sanitising the general area of Ramgarh sector, searches were confined to the Basanter river bed area, which has remained a traditional infiltration route of militants from across the International Border.

Meanwhile, security forces installed posts in and around the winter capital to keep a vigil on the movement of people. Additional forces have been deployed at sensitive places to ensure the safety of the common masses.

High alert sounded
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 29

The former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who was under treatment for the swine flu and chest congestion at the Indira Gandhi Medical College and hospital, was discharged from the hospital here today.

The IGMC team of doctors, who supervised his treatment, said that the former Chief Minister was okay after treatment. Hence, he was discharged. He has been prescribed a treatment for five days, the sources said.

Virbhadra Singh was admitted to the IGMC three days ago after he had complained of chest congestion and fever. He had tested positive for the H1N1 infection yesterday, showed speedier recovery, the doctors revealed.

Though IGMCs medical superintendent could not be contacted, IGMCs principal Dr Ravi Sharma confirmed that the former Chief Minister was discharged today.
editorial@tribune.com

Ashok Raina

Resentment continues to prevail among students and faculty of the CUHP for the delay in laying the foundation stone of the university. They feel let down by the consecutive governments in pushing the issue on the back burner leaving the students and faculty both in the lurch. The CUHP established in 2010 is still without a permanent campus and infrastructure.

Weeklong workshop concluded

A weeklong workshop on In silico approach for modeling new material: Methodology and applications organised by the Department of Physics and Astronomical Science in the CUHP was held recently. As many as 40 researchers from different institutions of India participated and were exposed to theoretical and practical overview of modern techniques for modeling new materials through the lecture and hands-on-sessions. Prof Sushil Auluck from Delhi highlighted the importance of such workshops to produce quality research. He shared his 40-year experience and revolution of computer technology during this period. Prof PK Ahluwalia said two-way approach of the theory and hands on sessions made such workshops much more fruitful. Participants were introduced to recent computational techniques of designing new materials, which were helpful in understanding and designing new materials.Dr Rajendra Adhikari, from Kathmandu University, shared his experience with supercomputing facility set up in Nepal and offered free user accounts to the participants. Dr Jagdish Kumar said invention of new materials had crucial role in modern technical and digital revolution. He shared his talk on crystalline materials and role of such materials in technology. A hands-on session was organised thereafter by Dr Ashok Kumar from the CU, Punjab. Prof Ahluwalia talked about finer details of the technique of density functional theory (DFT) for study of materials. Prof BC Chauhan said the participants were also taught many free open source software (FOSS), which incorporated the DFT formalism to study different types of materials.

Prof Sastri awarded

Dr OSKS Sastri, Professor, Department of Physics, CUHP, has been awarded the Teaching innovator Award 2016 in higher education for his innovation in the area of technology adoption in teaching by the MHRD, Government Of India under Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching. The award carried a cash prize of Rs 75,000, a silver medal and a citation.

Lecture on issues related to J&K

A lecture on issues related to Jammu & Kashmir and the UN was organised on January 16, on the CUHP campus under Samrat Lalitaditya Vyakhyanmala. Ranjan Chauhan, Senior Research Fellow, J&K Studies Centre, New Delhi, delivered a lecture and enlightened the audience that in the past 70 years, J & K had not only witnessed territorial loss but also cultural loss. He said the identity of J&K was restricted only to Kashmir valley and the cultural pluralism had receded to a great extent. The cultures of Gilgit, Baltistan, Leh & Jammu are out of agenda and discussion of media and intelligentsia is only about Kashmir, he said. The three important resolutions of UN were - Infiltrators from Pakistan in PoK would be withdrawn out of PoK, territory of India occupied by Pakistan would be returned to India and the will of the people would be ascertained. The first two resolutions were not implemented by Pakistan, thus the third resolution of the UN naturally became irrelevant. He suggested that Article 370 and sectarian conflict were not important but to discuss and dream about Gilgit and Baltistan as a territory of India was important, Rajan Chauhan suggested.

Admission to UG & PG courses

The process of admission to various UG & PG courses 2019-20 in the CUHP will begin in the first week of March, 2019 with advertisements in leading newspapers of India and through AIR radio stations of HP. Vice-Chancellor Prof KC Agnihotri said forms could be filled online through the website of the university (www. cuhimachal.ac.in) after the admission notification. The all-India entrance tests are likely to be held in the second and third week of April, 2019. The prospective students are advised to visit the website on a regular basis from March 1, 2019 onwards for e-prospectus and other latest updates.

Hindi books, certificates given

To promote and incentivise Hindi in academics and official work in the CUHP, Hindi books and certificates were distributed to winners of various competitions organised during the Hindi Saptah 2018 on January 25. Members of the Rajbhasha Karyanvayan Samiti, observers and judges of the competitions were also honoured and presented books. Prof IV Malhan, presided over the function and Prof AK Mahajan, Dean and Dr Sanjiv Sharma, CoE and other faculty members and students attended the function.
editorial@tribune.com

Una, January 29

Rural Development and Animal Husbandry Minister Virender Kanwar on Tuesday said the state government was mooting a de-worming project for all milch cattle in the state. Addressing a public gathering at Thana Khas village of Kutlehar, he said the project, estimated to cost Rs 30 crore, would enable free de-worming of animals, twice a year, adding that this would not only keep the animals healthy, but also boost milk production.

Kanwar said a cow sanctuary, Gokul Gram, would be set up in Thanakalan panchayat of Kutlehar to provide shelter to stray animals. Speaking at Thanakhas village, he said 60 per cent cows and 40 per cent other stray cattle would be given shelter here, adding that micro enterprises utilising cow dung and cow urine for value addition will be promoted here.

The minister said the state government had set a target of smoke-fee Himachal Pradesh by May 2019, under which all households would be provided LPG connections. He said in an effort to supplement Prime Minister Ujjwala Yojana initiated by the Union Government, the state government had launched the Mukhyamantri Grihini Yojana to provide LPG connections to one lakh families. He distributed 300 LPG connections in Momaniar panchayat.

MP Anurag Thakur said a mobile health service would be made functional at Momaniar panchayat from February 10 under the Saansad Mobile Swaasthya Sewa initiated by him in Hamirpur. He said the mobile van, equipped with a doctor, pharmacist, nurse and a lab technician had facilities for 40 diagnostic tests.  OC
editorial@tribune.com

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 29

The Education Department has cautioned 14 colleges that non-accreditation can deprive the institutions of Central grants by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Rashtriya Uchhattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).

The NAAC accreditation is mandatory after passing out of two batches or six years of inception. It reflects the grading of an institution and is the pre-requisite for all Central grants.

Some institutions are not taking steps on the pretext that they dont have permanent affiliation but it is not required for the NAAC accreditation. A certificate of affiliation from Himachal Pradesh University is sufficient for applying for the NAAC accreditation, Director, Higher Education, Amarjeet K Sharma said in a letter to the erring colleges. He directed the colleges to take strenuous efforts in this regard.

There are 138 government colleges, including seven Sanskrit colleges, in the state and 58 colleges were opened during the previous government tenure.

At present, 33 colleges have got the accreditation and 48 colleges and five Sanskrit colleges are due for accreditation but 14 colleges have not taken any concrete step for it.

The cases of 35 colleges are under process at various stages, 31 colleges have sent the Letter of Intent and the same has been accepted in five cases. Further, a self-study report is under process in three cases.

The colleges, which failed to take steps for accreditation, included Government College, Seraj, Indora, Salooni, Bharmaur, Kukumseri, Thural, Tissa, Shahpur, Anni, Haripurdhar, Dharampur (Mandi), Pangi, Jaisinghpur and Haripur Guler.

The accreditation and grading enable the institution to know its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities through an informed review process, identify internal areas of planning and resource allocation, provide reliable information on quality of education offered and facilitates inter and intra-institutional interaction.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 29

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Haryana Government to furnish its reply by February 4 on the increasing level of pollution in the Yamuna.

In case the reply was found to be unsatisfactory, Haryana would appoint a high-level committee to look into the issue. The court made these observations while hearing a plea of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on rising ammonia levels in the river.

The court issued notice to Manohar Lal Khattar government, directing it to file an explanation on the issues raised by the Delhi Government. The Principal Secretary of Haryana was told to file an affidavit bearing his signatures.

The court had taken a strong view of the matter in view of the fact that it affected the drinking water supply in Delhi. The petition was filed after the quality of raw water again deteriorated at the Wazirabad pond since January 25.

A reply by Haryana has to be given to the DJB by February 4 and the matter is listed for hearing in court the next day, said the Delhi Government. The DJB counsel told the court that the discharge of industrial waste and high level of pollutants into the Yamuna in Haryana was a perpetual problem, causing suffering to residents of the national capital.

The present ammonia level in the Yamuna was 02.2 parts per million, due to which 30 per cent water production had been curtailed at the water plants in Wazirabad, Chandrawal and Okhla and rationalisation of drinking water done at other plants.

This was due to the discharge of industrial waste and high level of pollutants into the Yamuna in Haryana, according to the Delhi Government.

Polluting the river
Shambhu Shrivastava

Shambhu Shrivastava

Former general secretary, Samata Party

THE best tribute to George Fernandes would be to acknowledge the fact that nobody, just nobody ever treated him as a Christian. He was always regarded as a front-ranking leader of post-Independence India. He was a true embodiment of the idea of India. This fact assumes great meaning in these times where a persons religious and caste identity has become a badge of honour.

George was a lifelong rebel. His family sent him to a Christian seminary for training as a priest, but he rebelled and was expelled from the institution. In no time, he became a socialist and moved to Bombay. Not many people know that in his early years in Bombay, he slept on the pavement. But he persisted and became a great trade union and socialist leader and a Member of Parliament from, of all places, South Mumbai.

I worked closely with George for about 10 years as general secretary and spokesperson of the Samata Party. I had the good fortune to learn a lot from him, both as a person and as a political leader. Politics is about people, he often said. I travelled with him to the remotest parts of India. It was obvious during the travels that he was the most connected person in every part of the country. He did not bother about luxuries. Once during a tour of Mizoram, we survived for several days on rice, boiled beans and bananas. When we stayed in guest houses or at some party workers place, people from all parties and all walks of life came to meet him.

He exhorted the youth to shun complacency and confront the establishment that was denying them their due. Gussa karo, was his mantra. If you are not angry with the system, you wont be able to change it, he argued.

A true Gandhian, George lived a very simple life. He used to wash his own clothes till his early seventies, before ill-health enfeebled him. In any case, he had a meagre wardrobe. He held on to his Fiat car for well over two decades, even when he served as the Defence Minister. His house was an open place where anybody could walk in or out. He spoke many languages fluently and this helped him connect with people across India.

A bitter opponent of the Emergency, he was arrested in the Baroda dynamite case in 1976 and lodged in Delhis Tihar jail. In 1977, he was handpicked by Jayaprakash Narayan to contest from Muzaffarpur (Bihar), which had sent socialists such as Ashok Mehta to Parliament. George fought the electoral battle from behind bars and won by a huge margin.

George was not only a fiery orator, but also a dedicated votary of human rights and democracy across the globe. His support to the cause of Tibetan independence worried China, especially during his tenure as the Defence Minister. When the US declared war on Iraq in 2003, India came under intense pressure to join the conflict. The Cabinet Committee on Security was divided on whether India should send troops to Iraq. George told me that he could not openly condemn the war as he was part of the government, but he gave me a free hand to articulate his concerns.

Today, when George is no more, we must recall a particular quality which I saw from very close quarters, that of a coalition builder. If the Vajpayee government lasted smoothly for six years as a successful coalition, it was largely due to his tireless efforts and Ataljis flexibility and generosity.

The first crisis hit the Vajpayee government in August 1998, reaching a point where AIADMK looked set to withdraw support to the government before August 15. I recall George travelling to Chennai to meet Jayalalithaa and returning on the night of August 14, having warded off the crisis. Hence, Atalji hoisted the national flag atop the Red Fort as a full-fledged Prime Minister and not as a caretaker one.

George had a great personal equation with many leaders, including M Karunanidhi, Parkash Singh Badal, NT Rama Rao, Mulayam Singh Yadav and hold your breath, several Congress leaders. Left leaders will be surprised to know that he was a regular reader of New Age and Peoples Democracy.

He was against the politics of untouchability. He freely interacted with RSS leaders, but also asked me once to draft a strong statement advising the RSS to confine itself to cultural and social activities. He believed in dialogue and full freedom of expression. He took up many causes which were otherwise considered lost.

Memories are flooding me. It is impossible to write more today. Goodbye, George. Heaven is no more safe from rebellion!
Pravin Sawhney

Pravin Sawhney

Strategic affairs expert

The 800-km Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) archipelago, comprising 572 islands of which 37 are inhabited, was recently in news. With visits by the PM, Defence Minister and the Navy Chief; Rs 5,650 crore promised over 10 years for military plans; and the commissioning of the Naval Air Station, Shibpur in north Andaman as INS Kohassa, with promise to extend the 3,000-ft airstrip to 10,000 ft for dual-use: combat and heavy-airlift, and commercial aircraft, the Indian media declared that the maritime outpost (which overlooks the Malacca Strait) would act as Indias pivot (military fulcrum) to counter Chinas strategic moves in the Indian Ocean Region.

China was not impressed. The only time the Chinese media had closely watched and commented was on the November 2017 five-day Defence of Andaman and Nicobar Islands Exercise (DANX), conceptualised, planned and executed by the 2001-raised and Port Blair-headquartered tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC). DANX saw fighter operations, amphibious landings, and Special Forces operations. However, three notable issues of the impressive joint operations were: most assets were pooled in from different commands; it was a rehearsed performance with no operational surprises; and importantly, it was defensive, meant to protect the island chain.

Moreover, the ANC lacks capability to defend A&N. It is tasked to defend the A&N chain, and to watch the Indian Ocean North, 10 and six degree channels. With growing Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) capabilities and maritime footprints, the A&N  in the absence of desired infrastructure, assets and command profile  is Indias maritime Achilles heel.

With naval reinforcements on the mainland being 1,200 km away, there is enough scope for PLAN to do the 1999 Kargil-type operation or worse; especially when China is in talks with Thailand to build the Kra canal as part of its One Road (maritime silk route), which would open into the Andaman sea, 600 km from Port Blair. Given this, four serious limitations would place A&N into perspective.

One, A&N lacks connectivity and effective communications, made worse by the fact that a naval flotilla at 12-knot speed takes four days to cover a distance from Deglipur/Shibpur in north Andaman to Port Blair. In March 2011, BSNL, which was awarded to lay 2,164-km submarine cables (optical fibre cable connecting mainland with nine A&N islands), bid further and a Chinese company, as the lowest bidder, won the contract. The whole project has since been frozen. While offshore patrol vessels (the biggest ships held by ANC) can plug their master radar into the dedicated naval satellite Rukmini for voice, data and video communications, they remain vulnerable to Chinas cyber challenge to outer space. Since all space-based assets depend on Electro Magnetic Spectrum (EMS) as the sole medium of transport, and as satellite EMS frequency cannot be changed after launch, satellite remains susceptible to cyber attacks.

Two, the total power supply within A&N is by diesel generators, with no transmission cables coming from the mainland. In Port Blair (most populated city), these generators are in clusters and hence a lucrative target. Pakistans Shaheen 3 missile has a 2,750-km range, meant to cover A&N. What if a PLAN cruise missile or Shaheen 3 were to target the diesel cluster to plunge Port Blair into darkness? Nothing less than a unit of the Russian S-400 air defence system would plug this vulnerability.

Three, Port Blair lacks a civilian and defence equipment maintenance ecosystem. All civilian building material comes by ships. It is not unusual for cargo ships to wait up to two days outside the harbour before they find space to squeeze in. Similarly, without a credible defence ecosystem, permanent placement of specialised naval assets like submarines and destroyers with large drafts needed for offensive action is not doable.

And, importantly, the ANC profile is skewed and unassertive. It is under the dysfunctional Chiefs of Staff Committee (comprising three chiefs), and reports to the chief of the Integrated Defence Headquarters for its management and budgetary needs. In 2016, when the Modi government elevated the ANC to a strategic-level command, it had indicated that the Commander-in-Chief, A&N (CICAN), post would be held permanently by the Navy (at present, it is by rotation within the three services). This never came in writing.

Either way it does not matter. Until the ANC is not owned and led by the Navy and placed under the National Security Adviser, the services would remain unwilling to part with their assets and resources.

The Navy had in 2000 proposed the formation of the Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC) at A&N. This would have changed the mission, mindset and concomitant capability and capacity building. From the defence mission of the FORTRAN (Fortress Andaman and Nicobar was formed in the sixties), it would have changed to deterrence (with in-built offensive capabilities) for FENC to safeguard Indias strategic interests in Southeast Asia. Ironically, when the ANC was created in 2001, the first CINCAN, Vice-Admiral Arun Prakash, had formulated an offensive vision statement which remained on paper.

The then government had refused to see the naval HQ vision. The reason given was that FENC would scare friendly littoral neighbours. Given the heavy commercial traffic through the Malacca Strait, FENC would be viewed as an alliance between India and the US. Now, with China knocking at the ANC door, the government did not consider it wise to do much beyond announcing the ANC as a strategic command.
editorial@tribune.com

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

On the lines of the primary health care, the UT Administration is also considering handing over some government schools to top private school managements on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Sources said the proposal would be discussed at a meeting of the Administrators Advisory Council, scheduled for February 14.

The sources said a few school buildings were available for being run through pubic or private managements on the PPP mode. The views of the council had been sought on the issue.

Manoj Parida, UT Adviser, confirmed that the Administration was mulling over the ambitious project. He said Chandigarh was the first union territory where such a project was being considered for implementation. The policy would be prepared after holding discussions with all concerned.

He said the move was aimed at improving the quality of education in government schools. The sources said in the first phase, a few schools in rural and peripheral areas would be put up to be run on the PPP mode on a pilot basis. The objective of the scheme was to provide students access to quality school education at the primary level through these schools. The private entity could be a trust or a society already running schools. While the ownership of the building would remain with the Administration, the management would have to arrange the supporting infrastructure.

The initial period of contract for such provision for quality education would be 10 years or more for each school, extendable through mutual agreement. The Ministry of Human Resource Development is also promoting the PPP mode for schools.

There are 114 government schools in the Chandigarh. Of these, 30-35 are on the periphery or in rural areas. Work on seven schools buildings would be completed soon.

The plan

Sources said in the first phase, a few schools in rural/peripheral areas would be put up to be run on the PPP mode on a pilot basis. The objective of the scheme was to provide students access to quality school education at the primary level through these schools. The private entity could be a trust or a society already running schools. While the ownership of the building would remain with the Administration, the management would have to arrange the supporting infrastructure.

The aim of the Administration is to provide the best education to children in the city. We will discuss the issue at a meeting of the Administrators Advisory Council. There will be a level-playing field for all schools and the Administration will ensure that schools on the PPP mode follow all norms of the government. The fee will be affordable.  Manoj Parida, UT Adviser

What they say

It is a good idea to provide better education to children in the city, especially in rural areas. We welcome the concept. However, the Administration should frame the policy after a discussion. Besides, full authority should be given to run the schools and there should not be any interference on issues. The Administration should also provide the running cost on a par with the expenditure which it incurs per student in its schools.  HS Mamik, president, Independent Schools Association

Its a good idea to moot public-private partnership in education to create greater access to quality education and to reach larger population groups. Most importantly to ensure education is linked to building capacities that endure livelihoods and jobs and make young people responsible citizens. The public sector cannot do it alone in a country as big and diverse as India.  Atul Khanna, director, Strawberry Fields School

Though the concept and the intention of the Administration is good, it must discuss the issue with all stakeholders before finalising the policy. The Administration should invite top functionaries of private schools for the meeting of the Advisory Council for a discussion. Gurpreet Singh Bakshi, administrator, St Kabir School

It is a proposal worth implementing. This will bridge the gap between the government set-up and educationists in the private sector. Private managements supported by government machinery is a great idea. With the infrastructure cost being borne by the government, quality education will come at a lower cost.  Sanjay Sardana, director, Manav Mangal Group of Schools
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

The Chandigarh international airport will be functional for round-the-clock flying operations by March 31, the Central Government told the Punjab and Haryana High Court today.

As a petition filed in public interest for making the airport fully functional came up for resumed hearing before a Division Bench of the High Court, the Centre submitted that the entire work related to night operations at the Chandigarh international airport was expected to be over by March-end.

Appearing before the Bench of Chief Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Arun Palli, Assistant Solicitor-General of India Chetan Mittal added that a substantial amount of work for making the airport fully operational round the clock had been completed. He added that issues related to delay in payments of the agencies involved in the work at the airport would also be resolved expeditiously.

The Bench, during the course of the hearing, was also told that the Chandigarh international airport was already receiving offers from some airlines willing to start Chandigarh-Delhi flights till 11.45 pm and at 6 am. Giving details, Mittal added that the airlines had shown interest in late-night and early-morning flights after the airport decided to extend the parking facility at the Chandigarh airport. The Bench was further told that the Chandigarh Administration had already initiated the process to acquire 0.6 acre for installing the category-III instrument-landing system at the local airport.

The High Court has already been told that several new flights from Chandigarh to Delhi, Mumbai and the Middle East were on the cards. The flights to Mumbai would further connect to international destinations such as London, Manchester, Paris and Amsterdam.

A report by amicus curiae or the friend of the court ML Sarin, based on a high-powered meeting, had stated that the instrument-landing system CAT I would mean availability of 9,000 ft of runway length.

Sarin had submitted that he was told during the meeting that the work of further extending the runway was going on in full swing and would be available by the end of February 2019. Sarin added that he was told that everything was going in accordance with the schedule submitted before the High Court.
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Washington, January 29

The US has charged Chinese telecom giant Huawei with a series of crimes, including stealing trade secrets, a move that can escalate hostilities between the worlds biggest economic powers and complicate efforts to negotiate an end to their bruising trade war.

The charges were unveiled ahead of crucial trade talks between American and Chinese officials on January 30 and 31. The charges are likely to raise tensions between China and the US.  PTI

The allegations

One indictment accuses Huawei of trying to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile, and of promising bonuses to employees who collected confidential information on competitors

A second indictment claims the company worked to skirt US sanctions on Iran

The US Justice Department has also charged Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou with financial fraud

Chinas trade negotiator in US for talks

Beijing: Chinas top trade negotiator arrived in Washington as the worlds top two economies prepare for high-stakes trade talks on January 30-31, Chinese state media said on Tuesday. The delegation led by vice premier Liu He, including head of the central bank, arrived on Monday. AFP
amansharma@tribunemail.com

New Delhi/Mumbai, January 30

In a major embarrassment for ICICI Bank, an independent enquiry has indicted former CEO Chanda Kochhar for violating various regulations, and the lender has decided to stop all unpaid retirement benefits and also recover bonuses paid to her since 2009.

Kochhar, meanwhile, said she is "disappointed, hurt and shocked" by ICICI Bank decision to treat her resignation as a "termination for cause" after an independent probe indicted her.

The leading private sector lender, which had given a clean chit to Kochhar in the Videocon loan matter, will also treat her resignation as 'Termination for Cause'.

The latest development comes days after the CBI filed an FIR naming Kochhar and others in the alleged quid pro quo in extending Rs 3,250-crore loan to Videocon Group.

An independent enquiry panel led by Justice (retd) B N Srikrishna observed that Kochhar violated bank policies and other rules and regulations.

Based on the findings of the panel, the ICICI Bank board has advised to take "further actions as may be warranted in the matter".

Meanwhile, ICICI Bank CEO Sandeep Bakhshi said in analyst call that the bank has put out a statement about Kochhar, and the lender's role now is limited to cooperating with regulatory agencies.

In March 2018, the board of ICICI Bank had given a clean chit to Kochhar and had said there was no question of favouritism, nepotism or conflict of interest on her part in granting loans to Videocon Industries or any other company.

The board, following the receipt of the enquiry report, on Wednesday decided to treat "the separation of Kochhar from the bank as a 'Termination for Cause' under the bank's internal policies, schemes and the Code of Conduct, with all attendant consequences".

These, the statement said, include revocation of all her existing and future entitlements such as any unpaid amounts, unpaid bonuses or increments, unvested and vested and unexercised stock options, and medical benefits.

The board has also asked the bank to take steps for "clawback of all bonuses paid from April 2009 until March 2018, and to take such further actions as may be warranted in the matter".

Kochhar became the CEO and managing director of the country's leading private sector lender in May 2009 and left the bank in October 2018.

A high profile banker, Kochhar was bestowed with Padma Bhushan in 2011.

The report found that "Kochhar was in violation of the ICICI Bank Code of Conduct, its framework for dealing with conflict of interest and fiduciary duties, and in terms of applicable Indian laws, rules and regulations."

The Srikrishna committee report concluded that there was lack of diligence with respect to annual disclosures as required by the bank in terms of its internal policies and violation of Code of Conduct and applicable Indian laws.

There were allegations of involvement of Kochhar and her family members in a loan provided to Videocon group on a quid pro quo basis.

It was alleged that Videocon Group pumped money into NuPower Renewables, a firm owned by Deepak Kochhar, husband of Chanda Kochhar.

The allegation of conflict of interest was levelled by whistleblower Arvind Gupta.

Later, in March, another unnamed whistleblower complained against the bank and its top management, including Kochhar, alleging a deliberate delay in recognising impairment in 31 loan accounts between 2008 and 2016 to save on provisioning costs.

These allegations led to probes by multiple agencies, including the CBI, ED and SFIO, and also questioning of the Kochhar family members.

From a performance perspective, when she took over ICICI Bank was the second largest in the system and the largest among its private sector peers. But at the end of her stint at the bank, it was reduced to a distant No 3 in the system and the second largest private sector lender after HDFC Bank by a wide margin.

Hurt and shocked: Kochhar

Kochhar, the first woman CEO of a bank in the country, also said she served the ICICI group for 34 long years "with all my dedication and hard work" and the bank's latest decision has caused her "immense hurt and pain".

"I am utterly disappointed, hurt and shocked by the decision," Kochhar, who was on leave from June and finally resigned early October, said in a statement this evening.

She was quick to add that none of the credit decisions at the bank are unilateral and the bank has established processes and systems which involve a committee-based collective decision-making.

"The organisational design and the structure obviate the possibility of conflict of interest," she claimed.

"I have pursued my career as an independent professional with utmost honesty, dignity and integrity. I continue to have faith and belief in my conduct as a professional and I am certain that truth will ultimately prevail," she said.  PTI
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

New Delhi, January 29

Walmart Incs online retailer Flipkart has told the Indian government the company faces the risk of significant customer disruption if the implementation of new curbs for e-commerce is not delayed by six months, a source told Reuters.

New foreign investment restrictions will, from February 1, bar e-commerce companies from selling products from firms in which they have an equity interest and also ban them from reaching deals with sellers to only sell on one platform.

In a letter to the Industries Department earlier this month, Flipkart chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said the rules required the company to assess all elements of its business operations, according to a person privy to the communication.

Redesigning numerous elements of our technology systems to ensure that we can validate and evidence our compliance, in such a compressed period of time, has caused us to divert significant resources, Krishnamurthy wrote in the letter. The new curbs were only announced on December 26.

He also said the regulations could cause significant customer disruption if the deadline for compliance wasnt extended. He asked for a six-month delay.

The contents of Flipkarts letter have not been previously reported. Flipkart declined to comment.

Indian officials have said the government is unlikely to change the policys implementation date. The Industries Department declined to comment.

The policy move has jolted Walmart, which last year invested $16 billion in Flipkart in its biggest ever deal, and Amazon, which has committed $5.5 billion in India investments.

Industry sources have said the new policy would raise compliance costs and force Amazon and Flipkart to review their business arrangements in the country.  Reuters

New guidelines
Gerald Kirkham, 88, of Terre Haute, passed away Friday, June 18, 2021 in Terre Haute Regional Hospital. Gerald was born in New Goshen on June 9, 1933 to Cecil Kirkham and Fay Lake Kirkham. He was a member of the Lutheran Church and member of the American Legion in Sellersburg, IN. He was an 
Johnstown, PA (15901)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
(L-R) Zoe Brookes, co-founder of Trenton Circus Squad, departs famous teen group in March while Tom von Oehsen transitions to executive director. Bradd Marquis Jackson continues as director of operations.
Irwin Stoolmacher is the President of the Stoolmacher Consulting Group, a fundraising and strategic planning consulting firm that works with nonprofit agencies that serve the truly needy among us.
Shaheed Brown listens to testimony during one of his murder trials that ended in a hung jury.
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They are planning an electric car platform that they can build faster and cheaper. But will we ever trust them again?

Two years ago, Volkswagen revealed its plans for electric cars with its Modular Electrification Toolkit (MEB). They said, "The MEB is being specifically developed to make the manufacture of electric vehicles more efficient  and potentially less expensive  in the long term. The MEB will allow Volkswagen to produce electric vehicles with a more systematic focus and to cater to increasing demand for electric vehicles."

Now Patrick McGee of the Financial Times describes the MEB as Volkswagen's plan to kill off Tesla, as the company invests 30 billion euros over the next five years in an attempt to build a new electric platform for a range of different cars.

This platform is the heart and soul of everything Volkswagen is doing in the future for passenger cars, said Johannes Buchmann, manager at FEV Consulting, an advisory group that focuses on cars. Its not just a design principle, a template for their new cars. It has an impact on the whole organisation, supply chain and manufacturing quality  pretty much everything.

 Volkswagen/ The MEB Principle

The low-voltage battery installed at the front will supply power to the vehicle electronic system and lights, among other things. Batteries installed in the vehicle floor distribute the axle load uniformly. Rear-wheel drive offers advantages when it comes to the MEB. An all-wheel version has been factored into the concept. Electric drive, digitalization, autonomous driving: The MEB will consider all of todays major issues. The traction battery will be installed between the axles. Visually, it resembles a bar of chocolate. Wheels on the corners of the vehicle create space for batteries of different sizes.

They are actually building a "skateboard chassis" that could then be adapted for different kinds of vehicles; Derek showed us a bus version of what might go on top. VW plans to sell it to other car manufacturers; McGee notes that what's under the hood isn't as important to buyers as it used to be.

"..in the emerging era of electric, internet-connected cars, batteries are expected to be commodified  the way they are for mobile phones  with the motorist likely to be more interested in a cars electronic and infotainment features than its horsepower.

 Volkswagen

They are not kidding around with the scale of this investment either, planning eight factories on three continents by 2022 and selling as many as 3 million electric cars by 2025. They also want to build them faster and cheaper than Tesla.

The goal is to reduce this further to just 10 hours within a few years. That would enable VW to launch a low-end electric model as early as 2023, costing just 18,000  one-third of the 55,000 starting price for a Tesla Model 3 in Germany today.

Writing in Jalopnik, David Tracy describes the MEB in detail. It has a radiator up front to provide liquid cooling for the batteries, and a lot of stuff up front where Tesla has a "frunk", including a possible heat pump for HVAC. It's rear wheel drive, which provides better handling than front wheel drive, and it makes sense when the weight of the car is in the batteries in the middle.

 Volkswagen

Is it the Tesla Killer?

Tracy writes:

VW has clearly taken quite a bit out of the latters [Tesla's] book with the flat skateboard-like battery, rear-wheel drive setup, and the mostly steel design. But while Tesla is relatively new at large scale manufacturing and learning as it goes, VW is a manufacturing powerhouse with clever platform-sharing skills, enormous volumes, and a diverse supply chain, so it will be interesting to see just how affordable the company can make EVs.

It will also be interesting to see if all the people like me who were so angry over Dieselgate would ever buy another one of their products; I drove nothing but Beetles and Rabbits and Jettas for years, but it would take a lot to get me back into a VW. But this looks very interesting.
The 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released on 29 January 2019 by Transparency International, reveals that the continued failure of most countries to significantly control corruption is contributing to a crisis of democracy around the world.

With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe  often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies  we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens rights, said Patricia Moreira, Managing Director of Transparency International. Corruption chips away at democracy to produce a vicious cycle, where corruption undermines democratic institutions and, in turn, weak institutions are less able to control corruption.

The 2018 CPI draws on 13 surveys and expert assessments to measure public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, giving each a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

CPI highlights

More than two-thirds of countries score below 50, with an average score of only 43. Since 2012, only 20 countries have significantly improved their scores, including Estonia and Cote DIvoire, and 16 have significantly declined, including, Australia, Chile and Malta.

Denmark and New Zealand top the Index with 88 and 87 points, respectively. Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria are at the bottom of the index, with 10, 13 and 13 points, respectively. The highest scoring region is Western Europe and the European Union, with an average score of 66, while the lowest scoring regions are Sub-Saharan Africa (average score 32) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (average score 35).

Our research makes a clear link between having a healthy democracy and successfully fighting public sector corruption, said Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International. Corruption is much more likely to flourish where democratic foundations are weak and, as we have seen in many countries, where undemocratic and populist politicians can use it to their advantage.

To make real progress against corruption and strengthen democracy around the world, Transparency International calls on all governments to:

strengthen the institutions responsible for maintaining checks and balances over political power, and ensure their ability to operate without intimidation;

close the implementation gap between anti-corruption legislation, practice and enforcement;

support civil society organisations which enhance political engagement and public oversight over government spending, particularly at the local level;

support a free and independent media, and ensure the safety of journalists and their ability to work without intimidation or harassment.

Sub-Saharan Africa: A continuous struggle in fighting corruption across the region

This years Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) presents a largely gloomy picture for Africa  only eight of 49 countries score more than 43 out of 100 on the index. Despite commitments from African leaders in declaring 2018 as the African Year of Anti-Corruption, this has yet to translate into concrete progress.

Seychelles scores 66 out of 100, to put it at the top of the region. Seychelles is followed by Botswana and Cabo Verde, with scores of 61 and 57 respectively.

At the very bottom of the index for the seventh year in a row, Somalia scores 10 points, followed by South Sudan (13) to round out the lowest scores in the region.

With an average score of just 32, Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest scoring region on the index, followed closely by Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with an average score of 35.

Corruption and a crisis of democracy

Sub-Saharan Africa remains a region of stark political and socio-economic contrasts and many longstanding challenges. While a large number of countries have adopted democratic principles of governance, several are still governed by authoritarian and semi-authoritarian leaders. Autocratic regimes, civil strife, weak institutions and unresponsive political systems continue to undermine anti-corruption efforts.

Countries like Seychelles and Botswana, which score higher on the CPI than other countries in the region, have a few attributes in common. Both have relatively well-functioning democratic and governance systems, which help contribute to their scores. However, these countries are the exception rather than the norm in a region where most democratic principles are at risk and corruption is high.

Improvers

Notwithstanding Sub-Saharan Africas overall poor performance, there are a few countries that push back against corruption, and with notable progress.

Two countries  Cote dIvoire and Senegal  are, for the second year in a row, among the significant improvers on the CPI. In the last six years, Cote dIvoire moved from 27 points in 2013 to 35 points in 2018, while Senegal moved from 36 points in 2012 to 45 points in 2018. These gains may be attributed to the positive consequences of legal, policy and institutional reforms undertaken in both countries as well as political will in the fight against corruption demonstrated by their respective leaders.

With a score of 37, Gambia improved seven points since last year, while Seychelles improved six points, with a score of 66. Eritrea also gained four points, scoring 24 in 2018. In Gambia and Eritrea, political commitment combined with laws, institutions and implementation help with controlling corruption.

Decliners

In the last few years, several countries experienced sharp declines in their CPI scores, including Burundi, Congo, Mozambique, Liberia and Ghana.

In the last seven years, Mozambique dropped 8 points, moving from 31 in 2012 to 23 in 2018. An increase in abductions and attacks on political analysts and investigative journalists creates a culture of fear, which is detrimental to fighting corruption.

Home to one of Africas biggest corruption scandals, Mozambique recently faced indictments of several of its former government officials by US officials. Former finance minister and Credit Suisse banker, Manuel Chang, is charged with concealing more than US$2 billion dollars of hidden loans and bribes.

Many low performing countries have several commonalties, including few political rights, limited press freedoms and a weak rule of law. In these countries, laws often go unenforced and institutions are poorly resourced with little ability to handle corruption complaints. In addition, internal conflict and unstable governance structures contribute to high rates of corruption.

Countries to watch

Angola, Nigeria, Botswana, South Africa and Kenya are all important countries to watch, given some promising political developments. The real test will be whether these new administrations will follow through on their anti-corruption commitments moving forward.

With a score of 27, Nigeria remained unchanged on the CPI since 2017. Corruption was one of the biggest topics leading up to the 2015 election and it is expected to remain high on the agenda as the country prepares for this years presidential election taking place in February.

Nigerias Buhari administration took a number of positive steps in the past three years, including the establishment of a presidential advisory committee against corruption, the improvement of the anti-corruption legal and policy framework in areas like public procurement and asset declaration, and the development of a national anti-corruption strategy, among others. However, these efforts have clearly not yielded the desired results. At least, not yet.

With a score of 19, Angola increased four points since 2015. President Joao Lourenco has been championing reforms and tackling corruption since he took office in 2017, firing over 60 government officials, including Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of his predecessor, Eduardo Dos Santos. Recently, the former presidents son, Jose Filomeno dos Santos, was charged with making a fraudulent US$500 million transaction from Angola's sovereign wealth fund. However, the problem of corruption in Angolan goes far beyond the dos Santos family. It is very important that the current leadership shows consistency in the fight against corruption in Angola.

With a score of 43, South Africa remains unchanged on the CPI since 2017. Under President Ramaphosa, the administration has taken additional steps to address anti-corruption on a national level, including through the work of the Anti-Corruption Inter-Ministerial Committee. Although the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) has been in place for years, the current government continues to build momentum for the strategy by soliciting public input.

In addition, citizen engagement on social media and various commissions of inquiry into corruption abuses are positive steps in South Africa. The first commission of inquiry, the Zondo Commission, focuses on state capture, while the second focuses on tax administration and governance of the South African Revenue Service (SARS). Given that previous commissions of inquiry produced few results, the jury is still out on whether the new administration will yield more positive change.

Another example of recent anti-corruption efforts in South Africa is the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report on corruption in the Gauteng Department of Health. While the report never saw the light of day under previous administrations, under President Ramaphosa it exposed several high profile individuals, including members of the ruling party.

In both Kenya and South Africa, citizen engagement in the fight against corruption is crucial. For example, social media has played a big role in driving public conversation around corruption. The rise of mobile technology means ordinary citizens in many countries now have instant access to information, and an ability to voice their opinions in a way that previous generations did not.

In addition to improved access to information, which is critical to the fight against corruption, government officials in Kenya and South Africa are also reaching to social media to engage with the public. Corruption Watch, our chapter in South Africa, has seen a rise in the number of people reporting corruption on Facebook and WhatsApp. However, it remains to be seen whether social media and other new technologies will spur those in power into action.

Recommendations
Triumph inducted two models into the Triumph Factory Custom (TFC) line and takes what were already iconic bikes into legend. The TFC offerings for 2019 are the Thruxton and the Rocket III with 750 numbered editions of each model in new custom designs.

Triumph Rocket III TFC Concept

Not only can you score a Triumph that looks like no other stock machine to come out of England to date, but it rocks the largest production engine with a massive 2,500 cc displacement.

The Rocket III family has been around since 98 in one form or another, but 2019 is destined to see a new Rocket that carries its three-cylinder attitude in a slightly different direction. Traditionally, the Rocket models have more or less fallen into the power-cruiser subgenre with a decidedly American-cruiser flavor. Much of this look is due to the beefy front end with exposed headlights, the fullness of the fenders and the bits of chrome bling, and of course, the power component lies within the longitudinal triple-bore lump. We do love us a big engine, no doubt. The new Rocket TFC Concept takes a decidedly abrupt turn into sport-cruiser territory, and if you think that sounds like a fine distinction, I assure you, it may as well be like comparing chalk to cheese.

Up front, the beefy forks and tripletree remain, as do the symmetrical twin headlights, but a flyscreen up top and bobbed fender down below clearly make a connection to the sport sector, as does the radiator shroud that now extends all the way down to a new chin fairing to give it a scoop-cowl similar to the straight-up sportbikes.

The American-style subframe area goes away entirely in favor of a sporty, clipped tail that would look right at home parked next to one of Ducatis sexy, sport-cruiser-tastic Diavel models. Throw in the single-side swingarm, fat rear rubber and hugger/plateholder and its plain to see from whence the sport component springs. Carbon fiber, chrome and hand-painted gold accents complete the bling to set it even further apart from the run-of-the-mill Rockets.

To top it off, the factory adds to the exclusivity by limiting the production to a mere 750 units worldwide. Not only can you score a Triumph that looks like no other stock machine to come out of England to date, but it rocks the largest production engine as well with a massive 2,500 cc displacement that could swallow the plants in a small car or truck. Who knows, maybe well see that lump in some of Triumphs more humble models soon. Now theres a pleasant thought.

Triumph Thruxton TFC Concept Far from all-show-and-no-go, the Thruxton TFC is lighter weight and has more power than its race-tastic sibling the Thruxton R.

The Triumph Factory Custom treatment adorns the Thruxton as well with a special cafe racer setup featuring both the classic bullet fairing up front and tail fairing out back with ample hand-finished touches and carbon-fiber bits here and there. Far from all-show-and-no-go, the Bonneville mill churns out 106 horsepower, and thats 10 ponies more than its race-tastic sibling the Thruxton R, and 22 pounds lighter. Like the Rocket TFC, the Thruxton will be limited to a total of 750 units for an element of exclusivity that is difficult to put an actual value on.

Triumph TFC Concept Price

Price will reflect the ultra-premium natures of these bikes, but still within reach of the serious biker.

Im sure the stickers on both machines will reflect the ultra-premium natures of these bikes, but while the factory plans on leaving us in suspense over the Rocket until May 1st, 2019, we already know the top-shelf Thruxton TFC will start at $21,500, more than half again more than the Thruxton 1200.

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Further Reading

Triumph Rocket III

Read our review of the Triumph Rocket III.

Triumph Thruxton 1200 / 1200 R

See our review of the Triumph Thruxton 1200 / 1200 R.

Ducati Diavel 1260 / 1260 S

See our review of the Ducati Diavel 1260 / 1260 S.

Triumph Motorcycles

Read more Triumph news.
FCA Looking to "Wow" Chicago with A Pair of Special Edition Minivans

They may not be as popular as they used to be, but minivans are still cool!
After Greitens scuttled it, Missouri lawmakers trying to restore tax credit program JEFFERSON CITY * More than a year after former Gov. Eric Greitens torpedoed state funding for low-income housing tax credits, Missouri lawmakers are taking steps to resuscitate the program. The sponsor, Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, tried a similar approach last year with an unsuccessful measure that would have capped state funds at about $90 million.

The status quo threatens to make a bipartisan comeback following the downfall of a reformer who was mostly sacrificed by his own party and not George Soros. Real life aftermath, more "affordable housing" coming to a nearby suburban enclave . . . Checkit:
OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) -- Police are investigating after multiple gunshots fired in Overland Park struck and injured a man late Tuesday evening. Officers were called just before midnight to a report of a gunshot victim laying in the street near West 79th and Farley streets.
Missouri's GOP senator wants to work with Ocasio-Cortez on tackling tech giants Missouri's new conservative U.S. senator, Josh Hawley, said Tuesday that he's willing to work with Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on a probe into the power and policies of big technology companies like Google and Facebook.

The Golden Boy noob politico earns just a bit more media face time on Fox News with a shameless ask of a far more important, provocative and captivating politico who has inspired far more headlines and interest than he can currently muster from flyover country . . . Read more:
Life Lesson: Here's How To Avoid An Uncomfortable Conversation With Hobos At The Kansas City Public Library

How digital books play into the evolution of libraries GLADSTONE, Mo. - For the first time users of the Mid-Continent Public Library system downloaded more than 2 million digital items in one year. That number places the Kansas City-area library in the top ten across the United States for most digital checkouts from libraries using the OverDrive platform.

Golden Ghetto Gets Around

JOCO transit riders can summon small van ride with an app. | The Kansas City Star Johnson County's transit program is launching a pilot project that will allow passengers to summon a ride on a small van, rather than relying on large buses. It officially starts Feb. 1.

Northland Fights For Fair Share!!!

Housing Committee Argues over Northland Representation The Kansas City Housing Committee met Wednesday, Jan. 23 to discuss various agenda items. While several ordinances were listed, the committee focused attention on ordinance 190013, which helps determine a budget for the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG). Guadalupe Center of Kansas City came forward to give testimony in hope of being funded by the CDBG.

Office Cash Inside The Loop

TPG Lends $60M for Downtown Kansas City Office Tower Acquisition TPG Real Estate Finance Trust has provided $60.2 million to Somera Road to finance the acquisition of 30-story office tower in Kansas City, Mo.'s financial district, according to HFF, which arranged the debt. The floating-rate bridge debt helped facilitate Somera's off-market acquisition of Kansas City's City Center Square building, a 657,070-square-foot office tower at 1100 Main Street.

Frosty Goodness

Belfonte employees in Kansas City explain working in -35 degrees indoors every day The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the Midwest at risk for hypothermia and frostbite to occur in minutes during the final days of

Kansas City Survivor Story

JoCo moms form friendship after children's suicide KANSAS CITY, Mo. - After experiencing pain most parents can't imagine, three moms in Johnson County have formed a unique friendship. Suicide rates among U.S. teens have been on a steady rise for the last several years, and the climb is only getting steeper.

Focus On Fake Gronk?!?!

Kansas City Chiefs: Tight end needs to be point of emphasis this offseason The Kansas City Chiefs certainly struck gold when they drafted Travis Kelce in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He's gone for over 1,000 yards the last three seasons and continues to get better and better at his position. Behind Kelce on the depth chart, however, is next to nothing and that's a problem for the Chiefs.

The cosmetics industry is aand here's a closer look at one of it's leading ladies . . .Closer to home, we polish up these news links for a morning run:is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
Kansas City Hobo Sanctuary Struggles

Homeless look to escape dangerous cold at Kansas City Rescue Mission The homeless lined up early Tuesday afternoon outside the Kansas City Rescue Mission to get out of the dangerous cold.

NextGen Hobo Life Lesson

South Kansas City School Districts Will Try To Find 'Dignified Housing' For Homeless Students Center and Hickman Mills school districts in south Kansas City are launching a new initiative to help stabilize homeless students and their families. "The beauty of launching at the same time is we share so many families," said Stacy King, the director of family and student services for the Center School District.

Kansas City Hobo Camp Check-In

Volunteers hand out supplies to homeless amid bitter cold KANSAS CITY, Mo. - As wind chills dip into the negatives, volunteers around the Kansas City metro are encouraging homeless people to seek shelter, or at least accept supplies to stay warm. After posting needs on social media earlier this week, volunteer Sheila Gresham was able to gather $700 in donations.

A municipal fact check is in order amid so much feigned concern: Kansas City hates the homeless.A few quick examples . . .However, in this cold, knowing that any extended amount of time on the street will end in death. Here's a roundup of local efforts to ease the suffering of local hobos until the weather warms up:Developing . . .
An entry at the Eurasian Economic Comission (EEC) shows that ASRock could be preparing up to nine AMD motherboards based on the upcoming X570 chipset.

AMD will roll out its third-generation Ryzen desktop processors in the third quarter of this year. The Ryzen 3000-series chips will be base on the Zen 2 processor microarchitecture. They will be fabricated by TSMC with the 7nm manufacturing process and support PCIe 4.0, which has a throughput of 16 GT/s. In order to exploit the new interface, AMD will launch the X570 chipset alongside the aforementioned processors. The latest news is that ASMedia will most likely continue to produce AMD's chipsets for the chipmaker.

ASRock is keen to jump on AMD's Ryzen 3000-series bandwagon, and who wouldn't? At CES 2019, AMD pitched an early pre-production Ryzen 3000-series chip with eight cores and 16 threads against the Intel Core i9-9900K in the Cinebench R15 benchmark. The results were mesmerizing as it appeared that AMD has completely caught up to Intel in multi-core performance. The Ryzen part put up a score of 2,057 points to out-edge the Core i9-9900K's 2,040 score.

The Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer will reportedly offer nine motherboard with different characteristics across the brand's vast product lines. The ASRock X570 Taichi would probably be the flagship model like in the past. Other high-end offerings would include the ASRock X570 Extreme4 and X570 Pro models. ASRock also has a few models planned for the gaming market, such as the X570 Phantom Gaming X, 6, and 4.

ASRock X570 Taichi

ASRock X570 Extreme4

ASRock X570 Pro4

ASRock X570 Pro4 R2.0

ASRock X570M Pro4

ASRock X570M Pro4 R2.0

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 6

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4

ASRock launched two B450 Steel Legend motherboards a couple of days ago. The ECC listing also reveals a few more unannounced models, such as the B450M Solid Titan, B450 Solid Titan, B450 Solid Steel, and B450M Solid Steel. The Steel Legend product line appears to focus on the AMD's budget-oriented chipset. Therefore, it wouldn't be a shock if ASRock pumped out a few AMD B550 models in the future.
Editors' Note: This article was originally published when the Meizu Zero was first previewed, and is now updated with pre-order information.

This is the Meizu Zero, the worlds first phone that is completely seamless. And if you've got $1,299 lying around, you can now pre-order one.

A week after taking the wraps off its buttonless, portless phone, Meizu started taking orders for it on the Indiegogo crowd-funding site, where the phone commands a $1,299 asking price.

While offering the phone through a crowd-funding campaign instead of a more traditional retail channel adds the whiff of a marketing ploy, you can understand what interests people abut the Meizu Zero.There are no power or volume buttons. There is no USB-C port. No stereo jack. No speaker grilles.

In fact, except for two tiny microphone holes on the bottom of the phone and the cameras on the back, this is a perfectly clean slab made of glass and glossy black ceramic that sandwiches the electronics and a 5.99-inch OLED display with in-display fingerprint reader and a camera sensor on the very top. The screen has a very thin forehead to accommodate the selfie camera and a symmetric chin.

To achieve this feat, the phone relies on wireless technology for everything.

The Zero features 18W wireless charging, which beats the current record holder: 15W by Huawei.

The power and volume buttons have been replaced by touch controls on the phones sides that give haptic feedback. Like in the iPhone 7 and 8, users will feel like there are physical buttons to push when in fact there are none.

Theres no SIM tray either. This phone only supports e-SIM, like the Apple Watch Series 4. The iPhone XS also supports e-SIM, but it gives you the option of using regular SIMs because many carriers dont support the e-SIM tech yet.

The speakers (and their grilles) have been replaced by a piezo-electric sound system that turns the entire screen into a vibrating surface capable of making sound. Forbes Ben Sin says that the company claims the technology is greatly improved from the first version of this tech used in the Xiaomi Mi Mix.

And headphone audio uses Bluetooth, of course.

Meizu's Zero phone beat Vivo by one day. Unveiled shortly after the Zero was announced, Vivos Apex 2019 also proposes a similar design in which everything is screen and body, with no seams or holes whatsoever. Aside from a theoretical better protection against water and dust, and the wow aesthetic factor, its not clear why this is happening now  with e-SIM limited support and the limitations of wireless power, it may be too early.

But it is cool that these manufacturers are pushing the envelope, forcing us into the future.

We will see how all these phones really feel and look at the Mobile World Congress next month, in Barcelona, Spain.

Credit: Meizu
Update April 29: Check out our reviews of the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus and find out how you can pre-order the Galaxy S10 5G.



After months of leaks and a big Feb. 20 launch event, the Galaxy S10 has finally landed in stores. Make that three Galaxy S10 phones. Here's how they stack up.

In addition to the 6.1-inch Galaxy S10 and 6.4-inch Galaxy S10 Plus, Samsung is selling an entry-level model, the 5.8-inch Galaxy s10e. We've now tested all three phones, and you can read our reviews of the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus. We can even tell you which phone is best for which users and how this year's Galaxy S10 differs from the S9.

But if you just want a quick rundown of the specs for Samsung's new phone lineup, this is the place to be. Here's a rundown of the specs for the Galaxy S10, S10 Plus and S10e. We've also added the Galaxy S10 5G to our comparison table, now that Samsung's 5G-ready phone is about to ship.

Galaxy S10 Tech Specs

Model

Galaxy S10e Galaxy S10

Galaxy S10 Plus

Galaxy S10 5G

Starting Price

$749 $899

$999

$1,299

Screen Size (Resolution)

5.8-inch Flat AMOLED (2160 x 1080) 6.1-inch Edge AMOLED (3040 x 1440)

6.4-inch Edge AMOLED (3040 x 1440) 6.7-inch Edge AMOLED (3040 x 1440)

CPU

Snapdragon 855 Snapdragon 855

Snapdragon 855 Snapdragon 855

RAM

6GB/8GB 8GB

8GB/12GB

8GB

Storage

128GB/256GB 128GB, 512GB

128GB, 512GB/1TB

256GB/512GB

MicroSD?

Yes (Up to 512GB) Yes (Up to 512GB)

Yes (Up to 512GB) No

Rear Camera

16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 12-MP dual-pixel wide (f/1.5, f/2.4) 16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 12-MP dual-pixel wide (f/1.5, f/2.4), 12-MP telephoto (f/2.4) 16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 12-MP dual-pixel wide (f/1.5, f/2.4), 12-MP telephoto (f/2.4) 16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 12-MP dual-pixel wide (f/1.5, f/2.4), 12-MP telephoto (f/2.4);

hQVGA 3D depth sensor Front Camera

10-MP dual pixel (f/1.9) 10-MP dual pixel (f/1.9)

10-MP dual pixel (f/1.9), 8-MP depth-sensing (f/2.2)

10-MP dual pixel (f/1.9), hQVGA 3D depth sensor Fingerprint Sensor

Side-mounted sensor In-display ultrasonic

In-display ultrasonic In-display ultrasonic Battery

3,100 mAh 3,400 mAh

4,100 mAh

4,500 mAh

Battery Life (Hrs:Mins)

9:41

10:19

12:35

Not yet tested

Size

5.6 x 2.75 x 0.3 inches 5.9 x 2.77 x 0.3 inches 6.2 x 2.91 x 0.3 inches 6.4 x 3.04 x 0.3 inches

Weight

5.3 ounces 5.5 ounces

6.17 ounces

6.98 ounces

Colors

Flamingo Pink, Prism Black, Prism White, Prism Blue, Prism Green, Canary Yellow Flamingo Pink, Prism Black, Prism White, Prism Blue, Prism Green

Flamingo Pink, Prism Black, Prism White, Prism Blue, Prism Green, Ceramic White, Ceramic Black Majestic Black, Crown Silver



What are the biggest differences between the Galaxy S10 models?

At first glance, it's pretty apparent where the new S10 models differ: They're all different sizes. The S10 Plus is the biggest of the bunch at 6.2 x 2.91 x 0.3 inches, while the S10e is a relatively compact 5.6 x 2.75 x 0.3 inches. The S10 fits right between them at 5.9 x 2.77 x 0.3 inches.

The sizes of the models vary to house the different sized screens. But those differences go beyond size  the S10e only offers Full HD+ resolution compared to the wide quad HD+ resolutions on the S10 and S10 Plus displays. Additionally, the S10e's panel is flat instead of curved like the other two models.

Samsung made those concessions to get a lower price tag for the Galaxy S10e, which starts at $749. The S10e also foregoes the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor that lives under the display on the $899 S10 and $999 S10 Plus; instead, the S10e's fingerprint reader can be found on the power button on the side of the phone.

MORE: Samsung Galaxy S10 Cameras: What You Need To Know

The S10e sacrifices one other feature that you'll find on the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus  a third rear camera. A 12-megapixel telephoto lens joins the 12-MP main shooter and 16-MP ultrawide lens on the S10 and S10 Plus. The S10e skips the telephoto lens for a dual camera setup.

There's one camera difference between the S10 and S10 Plus. The larger of Samsung's new phones adds a second front camera, with an 8-MP depth-sensing lens joining the 10-MP dual-pixel selfie cam found on the other models.

Finally, all three S10 models offer different battery sizes. The S10e's power pack is the smallest at 3,100 mAh, though that's larger than the battery found on last year's Galaxy S9. The S10 and S10+ offer 3,400 mAh and 4,100 mAh batteries, respectively. The S10 Plus makes good use of that battery, lasting 12.5 hours on our battery test  that places it among the longest-lasting phones we've tested. The S10e's battery life was more than 10 minutes below the average for smartphones, while the Galaxy S10 beat the average with a time of 10 hours, 19 minutes.

What features are the same on the Galaxy S10 models?

Regardless of which S10 you get, you'll see Samsung's Infinity O display on these new phones. That's a new screen design that house the front camera in a punch-hole cut into the display. The hole is wider on the S10 Plus to accommodate that phone's cameras.

All three phones run on the same Snapdragon 855 processor, though you'll get 8GB of memory on the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus base models. (The S10e has 6GB of RAM, though another version lets you upgrade to 8GB.) Storage starts at 128GB on all models, though the S10 Plus has more options for capacity, scaling up to an almost unbelievable 1TB model. Regardless of which model you get, expect the best performance yet from an Android phone based on our S10 benchmarks.

The three S10 models all ship with Android 9 Pie, with Samsung's new OneUI interface debuting on these phones.

MORE: Best Galaxy S10 Deals Right Now

You have similar color choices on the phones, too, with all three models coming in Prism Black, Prism White and Prism Blue. (Shoppers outside the U.S. can opt for Prism Green.) The S10e offers additional colors like Flamingo Pink and Canary Yellow. (That latter option isn't available to U.S. users) The S10+ features Ceramic Black and Ceramic White models, but only if you pay up for the 512GB and 1TB versions of that phone.

While there are differences in display size and resolution, the three new Samsung phones all use the company's Dynamic AMOLED panel, which reduces blue light which can strain your eyes while also supporting dynamic tone mapping for a wider range of colors.

What about the Galaxy S10 5G?

There's one other model in the Galaxy S10 family, and it's quite a bit different from the three S10 devices that have been shipping since March. The Galaxy S10 5G includes a 5G modem, meaning it can connect to faster 5G networks wherever those are available. (It's not in many places right now.) The S10 5G is an exclusive to Verizon, which is taking pre-orders on the phone in advance of its May 16 launch; other carriers will offer the 5G later later.

Besides 5G connectivity, the S10 5G sports the largest screen of any S10 at 6.7 inches, and it adds a 3D depth sensor to the triple camera setup you'd find on the back of the S10 Plus. There's no way to add on storage on the S10 5G, and it comes in more limited colors than the other models with only Majestic Black and Crown Silver options available at Verizon.

Credits: Tom's Guide
Samsung typically has big battery plans for whatever flagship phone it's rolling out, and the Galaxy S10 should be no different when it debuts next month. Just how big those battery plans are is becoming clearer a few weeks before the S10's expected Feb. 20 debut.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Nashville Chatter this week spotted regulatory filings in Brazil that reveal the size of the batteries for the three Galaxy S10 models expected to be unveiled in February. Those certificates, issued by Brazilian telecom agency Anatel, list phones with batteries that are 3,000 mAh, 3,300 mAh and 4,000 mAh.

MORE: Galaxy S10 and S10+ Full Specs: Here's What to Expect

Samsung is widely expected to release a trio of models when it launches the S10  a Galaxy S10 Lite will reportedly join the S10 and S10+ in this year's lineup. And Nashville Chatter reports that the info posted on Anatel corresponds to the model numbers for the three phones, with the S10 Lite getting the smaller 3,000 mAh battery, and the 4,000 mAh power pack showing up in the S10+.





(Image credit: Nashville Chatter)

Those battery sizes don't match what previous rumors have had to say about Samsung's power plans for the S10 lineup. While other sources have agreed that the the S10+ is likely to have a 4,000 mAh battery, the S10 Lite and S10 had been rumored to get 3,100 mAh and 3,500 mAh power packs, respectively.

The Nashville Chatter report could carry more weight as it's citing information from a regulatory agency as opposed to leaks. And a 3,300 mAh battery in the Galaxy S10 would still be an upgrade from the 3,000 mAh battery Samsung included with the Galaxy S9. The S9+ offered a 3,500 mAh power pack, so a 4,000 mAh battery in the S10+ would also be a step up.



Battery size won't be the only notable thing about the Galaxy S10's power management features. Previous rumors about the phone suggest that Samsung's next flagship will support 25W charging, which should power up the handset much faster than the current 15W charging allows.

Nashville Chatter's report only covers three of the rumored Galaxy S10 models. Samsung is reportedly also developing a range-topping version of the S10 that would offer 5G connectivity, among other high-end features. That model could be in line for a 5,000 mAh battery, though that rumor is again based on leaks and not regulatory filings.

The fact that the range-topping model is MIA from the regulatory filings just spotted by Nashville Chatter would be in line with the rumor that Samsung is going to release its 5G phone later in the first half of 2019. We'll know for sure what's going on come Feb. 20 at Samsung's next unpacked event.
For a company that just saw revenue from its most important business segment nose-dive by $9 billion dollars during its most important quarter, Apple looked to strike an optimistic note about its outlook when announcing its holiday quarter earnings today (Jan. 29).

But is Apple falling victim to its own famed reality distortion field?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Certainly, iPhone sales for the three months ended Dec. 29, 2019 look as grim as when Apple warned that phone sales had slowed down earlier this month. Apple reported just under $52 billion in revenue from its iPhone business, a 15 percent drop from the year-ago quarter. With iPhones accounting for more than 60 percent of Apple's business, it's easy to understand how Apple's overall sales were down 5 percent from last year to $84.3 billion.

MORE: iPhone 11 Rumors - Release Date, Leaks, Specs and More

Despite all that, CEO Tim Cook looked to put the best possible spin on Apple's results, noting the company saw record highs in revenue for its Mac and wearables business. iPad revenue was up 17 percent for the quarter, the best rate for its tablets in six years. And revenue from services  an increasing area of focus for Apple  topped $10.8 billion during the holiday quarter, a 19 percent gain from last year.

"We are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business, and we have an exciting pipeline with announcements coming later this year," Cook told Wall Street analysts during a conference call today. "Were not taking our foot off the gas."

Reasons for the iPhone slump

Those iPhone sales numbers are going to stick out, though, particularly since Apple stopped breaking out unit sales. And Cook outlined the reasons why Apple's phone sales took a big hit during the quarter.

Currency exchange rates were a big culprit, particularly with Apple's China business. According to Cook, the strength of the U.S. dollar made Apple's phones more expensive, hurting sales in emerging markets.

Apple was also stung by reduced subsidies from carriers that offset the cost of upgrading to a new iPhone in many markets. In Japan, for example, less than half the iPhones Apple sold during the quarter were subsidized by carriers, Cook said, compared to three-quarters of iPhones sold a year ago. Subsidies were also less than they have been in the past, according to Apple, further depressing sales.

MORE: iPhone XS vs iPhone XS Max vs iPhone XR

Even in the U.S., where carrier subsidies for phones have been non-existent for several years, that's having an impact on iPhone upgrades, Cook said. "If you're a customer whose last purchase was an iPhone 6s, you have paid $199," he said. "Now, in an unbundled world, it's much more than that."

Apple also confirmed that its battery replacement program that let people pay $29 to upgrade their existing iPhone's battery also hurt sales. Instead of upgrading to a new iPhone during the quarter, current iPhone users opted for a less expensive battery replacement that would let them hold onto their older iPhone longer.

There's some good news in that for Apple, Cook pointed out. The company's active installed base ended 2018 at an all-time high, with 1.4 billion devices. That's up 100 million devices from where Apple started the year. And all those active users are spending money on things like Apple Pay, iTunes, the App Store and elsewhere, boosting Apple's service revenue.

"We're very happy not only with the growth but the breadth of our services revenue," Cook said.

But that optimistic outlook can only take Apple so far. In guidance for the current March quarter, Apple told analysts to expect $55 billion to $59 billion in revenue. That would be a drop-off from the $61.1 billion of revenue Apple reported for its March 2018 quarter.

How Apple reacts

Apple can take some comfort that other business segments are picking up some of the slack from the iPhone sales slump. But smartphones remain the engine driving Apple's business at the moment, and the company's going to have to find ways to turn that segment around.

Don't expect Apple to lay the blame on lackluster upgrades, at least not publicly. Despite lower than expected sales of the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, Cook hailed those 2018 phones as "by far the best iPhones we've ever shipped."

MORE: iPhone 11 Will Kill Lightning for USB-C

Instead, Apple seemed to hint that it's going to get creative with how customers can pay for their phones. As iPhone sales failed to reach Apple's expectations during the holidays, the company turned to trade-in programs aimed at helping reduce the upfront cost of the iPhone. From the way Cook spoke during today's call, that sounds like a program will keep in place going froward.

Cook also said that Apple has made moves aimed at making it easier to buy your iPhone in installments. It plans to roll out those efforts to more countries.

While Apple no longer breaks out iPhone sales figures, chief financial officer Luca Maestri told analysts during the call that the iPhone XR was the most popular of Apple's iPhones during the quarter, followed by the iPhone XS Max. While Apple didn't comment on how that might impact its future iPhone strategy, those results might suggest there's a demand for both lower-priced iPhones as well as models with bigger screens that deliver more features.
Everton quoted 35m for Batshuayi

| Wednesday, 30 January 2019



According to The Guardian, the Blues would have to shell out 35m to land Batshuayi with a loan deal off the table unless Kurt Zouma is the one signed in a permanent deal. Premier League rules forbid a club from loaning more than one player from a rival team.

Batshuayi has been on loan at Valencia this season but was due to be sent back to London halfway through his spell with the Liga outfit.

A loan move to Monaco looked close to completion earlier this month but it fell through leaving the Belgian in limbo unless he can secure a move elsewhere.

Everton officials are on record as saying that there would be no incoming signings this month without outgoing player sales. Midfielder Idrissa Gueye is the subject of a bid from Paris St Germain but the Blues are said to be holding out for 35m for the Senegal international.

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[January 30, 2019] UQM TECHNOLOGIES INVESTOR ALERT by the Former Attorney General of Louisiana: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Investigates Adequacy of Price and Process in Proposed Sale of UQM Technologies, Inc. - UQM

Former Attorney General of Louisiana Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq. and the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") are investigating the proposed sale of UQM Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UQM) ("UQM") to Danfoss Power Solutions (US) Company. Under the terms of the proposed transaction, shareholders of UQM will receive only $1.71 for each share of UQM that they own. KSF is seeking to determine whether this consideration and the process that led to it are adequate, or whether the consideration undervalues the Company. If you believe that this transaction undervalues the Company and/or if you would like to discuss your legal rights regarding the proposed sale, you may, without obligation orcost to you, e-mail or call KSF Managing Partner Lewis S. Kahn (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com) toll free at any time at 855-768-1857, or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-uqm/ to learn more.



To learn more about KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General, visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005874/en/

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[January 30, 2019]

CGI reports director election results

Stock Market Symbols

GIB.A (TSX)

GIB (NYSE)

www.cgi.com/en/newsroom

MONTREAL, Jan. 30, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB) held its Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. in the Oval Room of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

All 14 directors proposed for election at the meeting were elected on a vote by show of hands. The proxies received by CGI for the election of directors were as follows:











Votes for Votes withheld

% % Alain Bouchard 99.61% 0.39% Paule Dore 97.87% 2.13% Richard B. Evans 99.70% 0.30% Julie Godin 97.04% 2.96% Serge Godin 96.42% 3.58% Timothy J. Hearn 99.42% 0.58% Andre Imbeau 97.24% 2.76% Gilles Labbe 99.67% 0.33% Michael B. Pedersen 99.74% 0.26% Alison Reed 99.83% 0.17% Michael E. Roach 97.12% 2.88% George D. Schindler 99.27% 0.73% Kathy N. Waller 99.37% 0.63% Joakim Westh 99.60% 0.40%



About CGI

Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. With approximately 74,000 professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from IT and business consulting to systems integration, outsourcing services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. With annual revenue of C$11.5 billion, CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Learn more at cgi.com.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cgi-reports-director-election-results-300787130.html

SOURCE CGI Group Inc.
[January 30, 2019] United Natural Foods, Inc. Files Lawsuit Against Goldman Sachs and Related Parties

United Natural Foods, Inc. (NYSE: UNFI) ("UNFI" or the "Company"), North America's premier food wholesaler delivering the widest variety of products to a diverse and expansive customer base, today filed a multi-count lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries ("Goldman Sachs" or the "Bank") to recover damages and recoup what UNFI believes are the Bank's ill-gotten gains stemming from its improper conduct during the period in which it advised UNFI on the $2.9 billion acquisition of SUPERVALU INC ("SUPERVALU"). Named defendants in UNFI's complaint include Goldman Sachs and its principal executive overseeing the SUPERVALU transaction engagement, as well as Bank of America, N.A. ("Bank of America") and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. UNFI filed similar claims separately against U.S. Bank for its collusive action, led by Goldman Sachs, in these matters. UNFI's complaint clearly lays out how Goldman Sachs used its market power and influence to exploit the Company as part of a concerted effort to maximize the Bank's profits. UNFI entrusted Goldman Sachs to provide a full range of transaction advisory services and to arrange a multi-billion-dollar loan (the "Term Loan") for the acquisition of SUPERVALU. While positioning itself as UNFI's trusted advisor on the one hand and its counter-party lender on the other, Goldman Sachs consolidated its command over all aspects of the transaction in order to extract millions in unjustifiable interest, fees, and other damages suffered by the Company and its shareholders. "We feel we have an obligation to hold Goldman Sachs and others accountable for the ways in which they materially harmed UNFI and its shareholders in arranging the financing and managing related activities for our acquisition of SUPERVALU," said Steve Spinner, UNFI's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. "We expected our extremely well-paid transaction advisors to provide ethical counsel and unbiased support around this landmark acquisition-not leverage their positions to pursue larger profits for themselves and other clients at our expense and ongoing damage. UNFI is completely committed to the SUPERVALU combination and firmly believes in its many benefits and synergies, as we have repeatedly exhibited, but we are also determined to pursue our claims against the defendants for their unlawful acts surrounding the deal." Jill Sutton, UNFI's Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel added: "We believe a eview of the case's details and facts shows that when the defendants had to choose between UNFI's best interests and their own profits, they opted to put their financial motives first. They sought to do this while blatantly breaching their agreements and, on information and belief, manipulating UNFI's lending group in the process, which came to maintain interests that diverge from our interests. Rather than respect its contractual obligations and the law, we believe Goldman Sachs played by its own set of rules both when dealing with us and CDS market participants, for its own benefit."



UNFI's complaint breaks the Defendants' misconduct into four main counts: Misappropriating $40.5 Million

UNFI asserts that the Defendants are liable for breach of contract for egregiously misappropriating $40.5 million in Term Loan-related Marketing Period Fees that Goldman Sachs withheld from the funding it was obligated to provide and paid itself despite not being entitled to do so. Without legal justification and any formal communication or invoicing, Goldman Sachs directed (and both Bank of America and U.S. Bank sanctioned) the withholding of the money from the Term Loan it committed to provide UNFI at the deal's closing. Yet the plain terms of the parties' contract make clear that the Defendants had no basis to seek this extra fee because they had a full opportunity to market the Term Loan at issue. Misappropriating $11.4 Million

UNFI asserts that the Defendants are liable for breach of contract for withholding $11.4 million in Advisory Fees from the Company's Term Loan. Goldman Sachs withheld these fees from the Term Loan-over UNFI's objection-despite no contractual authority to do so and without regard for the fact that the Bank was already in breach of its contract for its mishandling of financing structure fees. Two million of the $11.4 million seized by Goldman Sachs was a blatant misappropriation because the Bank had previously discounted its fees by that amount, but withheld these funds as well. Dealing with UNFI in Bad Faith and Unfairly in Excess of an Additional $140 Million

UNFI asserts that the Defendants breached their duty to act in good faith when they forced the Company to increase the cost of financing, damaging UNFI by $140 Million (present value). The Defendants were focused on maximizing their own profits, while failing to make good faith efforts to syndicate the Term Loan prior to the closing of the SUPERVALU acquisition. UNFI's complaint includes additional examples of how the Defendants breached their duties. Committing Fraud Against UNFI and Manipulating the $470 Million Market for SUPERVALU CDS with Sizable Damages at Trial Estimated

UNFI asserts that the Defendants made material misrepresentations and omissions of fact to induce the Company to accept their demand that SUPERVALU be added as a co-borrower on the Term Loan. They told UNFI that the impact would be minimal. But the truth is that the effect of adding SUPERVALU as a co-borrower caused significant harm to UNFI because-unbeknownst to the Company but well-known to Goldman Sachs-the change was part of an unlawful quid pro quo between the Bank and credit default swap (CDS) holders to solidify their participation in the Term Loan. The co-borrower adjustment spurred an artificial and significant spike in the value of CDS protection contracts held by the Bank's hedge fund clients. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP and Coburn & Greenbaum PLLC are representing UNFI as external legal counsel.

About United Natural Foods UNFI is North America's premier food wholesaler delivering the widest variety of products to customer locations throughout North America including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, ecommerce retailers, and food service customers. By providing this deeper 'full-store' selection and compelling brands for every aisle, UNFI is uniquely positioned to deliver great food, more choices, and fresh thinking to customers everywhere. Combined with SUPERVALU, UNFI is the largest publicly-traded grocery distributor in America with expected annual sales of over $21 billion. To learn more about how UNFI is Moving Food Forward, visit www.unfi.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005868/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Wind energy operations & maintenance leaders convene in Toronto to collaborate on advancements in operations, with a focus on health and safety

Wind energy operations and maintenance leaders recognized for outstanding achievement and made-in-Canada solutions with CanWEA's 2019 O&M Awards TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 /CNW/ - Canada's largest annual wind energy operations and maintenance (O&M) event wrapped up today, showcasing rapid improvements in O&M and the presence of a strong culture of health and safety in the wind energy industry. More than 260 wind energy professionals from across Canada and the U.S. attended the two-day Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) O&M Summit, held January 29 and 30 at the Hilton Mississauga. Summit attendees were presented with new ideas from entrepreneurs, exposed to new products and services, and invited to participate in a health and safety committee meeting. Delegates also participated in a "research huddle" to explore the details of current research findings. Among the many industry advancements highlighted at the event were: a comprehensive review of icing detectors and forecasting technology, essential for cold-climate operations;

the unveiling of a new small crane in a shipping container that can lift a rotor into place on a wind turbine;

an analysis of the O&M market in North America going forward; and

going forward; and highly-interactive sessions between speakers and participants on subjects such as protecting bats, the implications of new cannabis legislation, and the latest developments in health and safety. At today's 2019 O&M Awards Breakfast, the winners of the CanWEA awards for excellence in health and safety and innovation were announced. TECHEOL inc. was presented the O&M Outstanding Achievement Award, while Vestas Canadian Wind Technology was presented the Health and Safety Excellence Award. Other companies recognized as finalists for the awards were Capstone Infrastructure (Outstanding Achievement) and Kruger Energy Port Alma LP & Chatham LP (Health and Safety). The O&M Summit also featured 25 wind energy exhibitors showcasing their products and services in the largest-ever exhibit space for the annual O&M event. Quotes "As Canada's wind energy industry continues to expand, and the significance of O&M in the industry's success and evolution increases, there are many benefits to convening more than 260 industry leaders to connect and discuss operational issues and improvements, xamine innovative tools and techniques, and continue the promotion of health and safety excellence. These owners, operators, manufacturers and service providers are key contributors to wind energy's status as the most economical option for new non-emitting electricity generation in Canada."





"Canada's wind energy industry has created over 58,000 person-years of employment in construction and operations, bringing green jobs to nearly 300 communities. The wind power sector has been the largest source of new electricity generation in Canada for over a decade, and our Vision for the industry calls for continued steady growth as Canadians turn to clean and low-cost power to meet an increasing need for a flexible, reliable and carbon-free electricity grid. As the penetration of variable generation sources like wind energy on the grid increases, there is a critical role for a thriving and innovative operations and maintenance sector to help ensure the efficient delivery of the full range of products and services non-emitting resources can provide to ensure the reliability of the grid both solely and in partnership with other technologies like solar, hydro or storage."

- Robert Hornung, President, Canadian Wind Energy Association

"Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is delighted to be the title sponsor of this year's CanWEA O&M Summit. Like CanWEA, Siemens Gamesa sees safety and performance optimization as integral to the industry as our installed base grows. As a global technology leader, SGRE provides our customers with leading edge performance and production enhancements to help them achieve the lowest cost of energy. We make real what matters  clean energy for generations to come."

- David Hickey, Head of Country Canada, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy "IHS Markit was so delighted that CanWEA invited us to speak at the Wind Energy O&M conference. The benefit of having so many decision-makers in one room is clear, and will only become more valuable as O&M garners more of the energy spotlight. The networking was top-notch. We look forward to coming again next year!"

- Rafael McDonald, Director, North American Renewable Power Background Learn more about the nominees and winners of the two CanWEA Awards presented at this year's O&M Summit: Finalists revealed for the CanWEA wind energy operations and maintenance awards

Learn more about CanWEA's suite of six annual Awards that recognize wind energy leaders making outstanding contributions to Canada's wind energy industry.

wind energy industry. Download the newly-released Best Practices in Wind Power Facility Electrical Safety guide, which contains a range of resources for wind farm owners, operators, equipment manufacturers, and service providers that address this important topic from a Canadian perspective. It is an example of the tools and materials developed by CanWEA to benefit the operations and maintenance of Canada's wind energy industry.

wind energy industry. CanWEA's Wind Energy Grid Services Primer provides insights about advancements in variable generation integration, the key capabilities of wind power generation facilities when it comes to grid services, and market considerations to encourage continued success.

CanWEA's O&M Summit is part of a broader CanWEA Operations and Maintenance Program that allows the wind energy industry to collaborate on areas such as benchmarking data, health and safety best practices, improved networking, innovation and research, and information sharing on critical issues such as wildlife and the environment.

Canada had 6,596 wind turbines totaling 12,816 megawatts of installed capacity operating as of December 2018 , with growth spurred by a 69 per cent decrease in wind energy costs since 2009 (Lazard 12.0), and costs forecast to continue decreasing over the coming years.

had 6,596 wind turbines totaling 12,816 megawatts of installed capacity operating as of , with growth spurred by a 69 per cent decrease in wind energy costs since 2009 (Lazard 12.0), and costs forecast to continue decreasing over the coming years. CanWEA's Wind Energy Vision for Canada describes the expanding role for wind energy in a Canadian electricity grid being transformed to power a low-carbon future. Learn more about wind energy's competitive price, social and economic contributions, and the policy recommendations that Canada can take to capitalize on its massive renewable and non-emitting resource base. About the Canadian Wind Energy Association

CanWEA is the voice of Canada's wind energy industry, actively promoting the responsible and sustainable growth of wind energy. A national non-profit association, CanWEA serves as Canada's leading source of credible information about wind energy and its social, economic and environmental benefits. Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Learn more at canwea.ca. SOURCE Canadian Wind Energy Association

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[January 30, 2019] Visa Inc. Fiscal First Quarter 2019 Financial Results

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced its fiscal first quarter 2019 financial results through an earnings release that will be furnished with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8-K and will be available on its Investor Relations website at http://investor.visa.com/sec-filings/default.aspx. Visa will host a live audio webcast at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) to discuss these financial results. The webcast and all related materials can also be accessed through Visa's Investor Relations website at http://investor.visa.com/financial-information/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx.



About Visa Inc. Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world's leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company's relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa.html, https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog.html and @VisaNews.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005803/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Advicent debuts new NaviPlan interface and retirement planning tool at T3 Advisor Conference

Angela Pecoraro, Chief Executive Officer for industry-leading financial planning technology provider Advicent, demonstrated an entirely new user interface for NaviPlan as well as a new retirement assessment tool powered by NaviPlan during the 2019 T3 Advisor Conference. These two major releases-both scheduled for 2019-support a long-term vision for greater configurability provided to those leveraging the NaviPlan platform. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005480/en/ The new NaviPlan user interface (Graphic: Business Wire) Targeted for a Q2 release, NaviPlan will receive a top-to-bottom modernization of its user interface. This overhaul will foster greater ease of use among advisors without sacrificing the robust planning functionality on which NaviPlan users rely. "Our goal with this user interface revamp was to far exceed the visual expectations of the modern-day advisor," Advicent Chief Technology Officer John Heinen stated ahead of T3 Advisor Conference. "The new path forward for our NaviPlan user interface will provide advisors with greater confidence in client conversations and enable them to convey comprehensive planning strategies with the utmost clarity." In the interest of satisfying market demands for greater planning configurability, Advicent also unveiled a new retirement planning experience for NaviPlan - the first of many streamlined planning workflows that the software provider will be bringing to market. Driven by the industry-leading NaviPlan calculation engine, this new retirement eature will enable advisors to begin retirement conversations with minimal initial fact-finding.



"As the most comprehensive planning software available, we realized that a necessary step toward greater configurability was to begin with delivering a simplified tool to market that empowers greater planning adoption across numerous lines of a firm's business," Heinen said. "We cannot wait to share more details on how we will expand upon this foundation throughout 2019 and beyond." CEO Pecoraro outlined a sea change currently underway across the financial planning industry - a new era that she believes will be defined as the Third Wave of Financial Planning.

In the CEO's Wednesday session at T3, "Embrace the Third Wave of Financial Planning," Pecoraro reflected on the evolutionary advancements to financial planning methodology over the past several decades and how NaviPlan, the flagship planning software for Advicent, will uniquely equip advisors to accommodate a diverse range of demographic and planning strategies. "Both financial planning as a service and financial planning software continue to saturate every segment of our industry," Pecoraro said. "We know that numerous firms are still leveraging multiple pieces of software to satisfy multiple planning strategies. We will advance our core planning functionality to accommodate a range of strategies tailored for a range of client demographics." According to Pecoraro, this Third Wave is defined by three attributes: a greater synthesis between the cash flow and goals-based models that defined the prior two waves of planning; increased adoption of planning software that provides greater autonomy and configurability to advisors in regards to how they plan; and a proliferation of planning experiences that manifest themselves across numerous digital touchpoints without sacrificing plan comprehension. "Planning technology won't advance by sacrificing comprehensiveness," Pecoraro said. "It will evolve by reimagining how firms obtain and engage with the data required to develop comprehensive plans." About Advicent Advicent is the financial planning technology provider of choice for over 140,000 financial professionals across over 3,000 firms worldwide, including four of the top five custodians, 15 of the top 25 broker-dealers, seven of the top 10 North American banks, and seven of the top 10 North American insurance firms. Our decades of experience empower Advicent to create scalable financial planning software; compliance workflow management solutions; fully branded client experiences through industry-leading APIs; and superior cash flow and goal-based calculations. Advicent products are designed to satisfy the needs of every investor and are used in firms of all sizes. Through our innovative product capabilities and dedicated services, we are able to help thousands of financial professionals and their clients understand and impact their financial future. To learn more, visit advicent.com or email marketing@advicent.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005480/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Unum teams up with Fidelity Investments to offer first-of-its-kind Student Debt Relief Program

Unum (NYSE:UNM) is offering a new benefit to help its employees tackle student debt. Starting next year, U.S. employees can transfer carry-over paid time off (PTO) into a payment against student debt through the Student Debt Relief Program, managed by financial services provider Fidelity Investments. Click to tweet. "Many people face the challenge of balancing student debt with planning for their financial futures," said Carl Gagnon, assistant vice president of Global Financial Wellbeing and Retirement Programs at Unum. "This first-of-its-kind Student Debt Relief Program, along with a range of other financial benefits and resources, provides Unum employees more tools to reduce financial stress and improve overall wellbeing." Student debt now tops an estimated $1.5 trillion in the U.S. Monthly student loan payments can leave employees struggling to contribute to other important savings goals and benefits, such as 401(k) retirement accounts. This innovative solution gives U.S. employees a choice to use their benefits in ways that work best for them. The option is available to any U.S. employee who has student debt, including parents who have taken out educational loans for their children. "We applaud Unum for working to offer their employees a new way to get a handle on student debt," said Ashwini Srikantiah, vice president, Student Debt Program at Fidelity Investments. "Finding creative solutions for people to tackle this challenging issue is one way many companies are partnering with Fidelity to provide more help when it comes to their employees' finanial wellness. It's great to see Unum take the lead as an innovator."



Beginning in their first year at Unum, full-time employees receive 28 days of paid time off, including holidays and personal days, with additional PTO available over time. Each year, employees can carry over up to five days (40 hours) of unused paid time. In January 2020, those who are interested in the Student Debt Relief Program will be able to transfer up to 40 hours of carry-over PTO into a payment against student debt. For more information about Unum benefits and other industry information, visit Unum's newsroom.

About Unum Unum Group (www.unum.com) is a leading provider of financial protection benefits in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its businesses are Unum US, Colonial Life, Unum UK, and Unum Poland. Unum's portfolio includes disability, life, accident and critical illness, dental and vision coverage, which help protect millions of working people and their families in the event of an illness or injury. Unum also provides stop-loss coverage to help self-insured employers protect against unanticipated medical costs. The company reported revenues of $11.3 billion in 2017 and provided nearly $7 billion in benefits. For more information, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. About Fidelity Fidelity's mission is to inspire better futures and deliver better outcomes for the customers and businesses we serve. With assets under administration of $7.1 trillion, including managed assets of $2.5 trillion as of November 30, 2018, we focus on meeting the unique needs of a diverse set of customers: helping more than 28 million people invest their own life savings, 23,000 businesses manage employee benefit programs, as well as providing more than 13,000 financial advisory firms with investment and technology solutions to invest their own clients' money. Privately held for 70 years, Fidelity employs more than 40,000 associates who are focused on the long-term success of our customers. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit https://www.fidelity.com/about. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005642/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Dates for April 2019 QME Competency Exam Announced

The California Department of Workers' Compensation (DWC) has announced that April 13, 2019 will be the date of the next QME Competency Exam. QMEs are doctors certified by the DWC who examine injured workers in order to determine contested medical issues in a Workers' Compensation claim. QMEs play a vital role in the Workers' Compensation system to aid in the adjudication of claims as well as to reduce fraud, waste and abuse. The DWC is seeking physicians who are licensed to practice medicine in California to become QMEs. With the growing demand outpacing physician supply, now is the ideal time for physicians interested in med-legal work to consider taking the upcoming exam and become a QME. Although most provider specialties are eligible to become QMEs, based on current data, the following physician specialties are in highest demand: Dermatology, Pain Medicine, Otolaryngology (ENT), Gastroenterology (GI), Orthopedic Surgery, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and Psychiatry. The deadline to register for the April 2019 exam is February 28, 2019. <> For those physicians considering a career as a med-legal expert, California Medical Evaluators offers a unique QME Starter Program that is specifically designed for newly appointed QMEs. The program offers knowledge, education and mentorship to help guide physicians. Our QME expert team will be with you every step of the way to help you launch a successful QME practice.



As part of the QME Starter Program, California Medical Evaluators provides a comprehensive suite of QME practice management services to let physicians be physicians and not have to worry about the administrative complexities of managing a QME practice. Those physicians interested in applying to become a QME in California, please visit CalMedEval.com to learn more.

About California Medical Evaluators California Medical Evaluators (CME) is a leading provider of Med-Legal Practice Management services to physicians who perform Qualified Medical Examinations (QMEs), Independent Medical Examinations (IMEs) and medical expert witness engagements. CME's broad network of qualified physician experts perform over 5,000 medical-legal examinations annually. Founded in 2010 by QME physicians, CME has become a leader in QME practice management, while also providing IME services, fitness for duty evaluations, and disability evaluations for the legal and insurance industries. More information about CME can be found at CalMedEval.com or by calling (888)-853-7944. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005036/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Global Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Toys Market Will Grow at a CAGR of 5% During 2019-2023| Technavio

Technavio has announced the release of their research report on the global science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) toys market for the forecast period 2019-2023. This STEM toys market analysis report segments the market by distribution channel (offline channels and online channels) and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, South America, and North America). This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005577/en/ Technavio has released a new market research report on the global science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) toys market for the period 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Global STEM toys market size will grow at a CAGR of nearly 5%. Al-powered STEM toys are gaining popularity, particularly among working parents, as these toys act as learning companions for children and offer customizability for a range of lessons in core STEM disciplines and coding. Vendors can design smart STEM toys that can hold intelligent conversations with children owing to the advent of cloud-based artificial intelligence software platforms. The growth of collaborative environment in educational institutions The shift in learning approaches in educational institutions from traditional exam-based education to context-oriented approach is contributing to the STEM toys market growth. The teachers and students can link core concepts such as critical thinking, statistics, creativity, and argumentation with game-based learning and practical examples by adopting STEM toys in classrooms. This helps the students to sync their education and learning activities with industry-specific and job-oriented learning, which is promoting student participation in STEM subjects. Request for a FREE sample and get selected illustrations, table of contents, list of exhibits, and example pages from this report.



"Most of the market's growth will come from APAC during the forecast period. The market in this region is growing due to the shift from rote learning to context-oriented, example-based learning approaches in countries such as Japan, China, and India. The education sector in the region will witness significant infrastructural and technical developments during the forecast period as this it comprises of emerging economies such as China, India and South East Asian countries, which will boost the growth of the STEM market," says an analyst at Technavio. Over the last few years, global growth in e-commerce retail for STEM toys has been witnessed due to the penetration of Internet-enabled mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets in countries such as the US, China, and India. Many manufacturers and retailers of STEM toys have expanded their distribution channels from traditional toy stores and retail outlets to online platforms. The advent of online sales and e-commerce will allow customers to compare product features and prices and help them in making informed purchase decisions.

View a snapshot of the report for a more detailed overview of the market and the segmentation covered in this report This STEM industry research report provides an in-depth analysis of the major drivers, upcoming trends, and challenges that will impact market growth over the forecast period. The report analyzes the competitive landscape and offers details on several STEM products manufacturers including - Hasbro

Learning Resources

LEGO Group

Mattel

Spin Master Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition

Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison

Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base includes enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. Please contact our media team at media@technavio.com for more information View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005577/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Simplus Closes $20 Million in Financing to Fuel Continued Growth

Simplus, a leader in Salesforce Quote-to-Cash, has successfully closed $20 million to further increase capacity across its product and service offerings, as well as acquire companies with complementary solutions valuable to customers. Silicon Valley Bank will provide an additional $6.5 million in debt financing. The round, designed to further ongoing expansion, was led by Kensington - SV Global Innovations LP (KSV) and joined by Savano Capital Partners. Existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Cross Creek Advisors, EPIC Ventures, University Growth Fund, Simplus CFO Paul Fletcher and G2 (News - Alert) Crowd CEO Godard Abel, also participated in the round. KSV was drawn to Simplus because of its strong management team and performance along with its unique combination of high customer satisfaction and award-winning culture. "Simplus enjoys high customer satisfaction and loyalty while maintaining a long history of exceptional performance and growth," said Dan Gay, principal of KSV. "When you couple that with its coveted status as a Platinum Salesforce Partner and remarkable culture, we see a winning combination. Our new partnership will enable Simplus to attract additional talent and further develop its unique approach to delivering for customers and winning in the marketplace." High customer satisfaction is evident in the hundreds of five-star Salesforce AppExchange reviews, and Simplus currently ranks as one of the top solutions for Salesforce customers. Numerous awards, such as Entrepreneur Magazine's Top Company Culture, the Lotus Culture award, and USA Today's Best Places to Work attest to Simplus' mantra: "Culture is our No. 1 metric." Simplus chose KSV to lead the Series C funding round because of its expertise in global markets, merger and acquisition transactions and high-quality parterships with companies in growth-stage businesses.



"With additional capital in hand, we aim to accelerate growth into new geographies, industries and products," said Ryan Westwood, CEO of Simplus. "We have completed six acquisitions of complementary firms in the last two years. As we look forward, we see acquisitions and future financing as playing a key role in strengthening our competitive positioning and international presence." Simplus and KSV will focus its partnership on bringing Simplus' expertise as the leader in Salesforce quote-to-cash to the global community and expanding its offerings to include products and services that enhance the quote-to-cash process.

"Salesforce is a proven platform to serve customers, and Simplus has emerged as the leader in Quote-to-Cash innovation. Because of this, we have enjoyed a steady inflow of experienced professionals attracted to the success and culture of Simplus driving remarkable organic growth. In joining Simplus, they see enhanced career opportunity and enjoy an award-winning culture," Westwood said. "We are grateful for our remarkable team located in the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Australia and throughout the world, as well as our strong partnership with Salesforce. We look forward to helping customers across the globe digitally transform their enterprises and realize the strategic benefits from doing so." Simplus is currently one of the largest CPQ (configure, price, quote) global technology service providers, with more than 150 certified consultants and offices in the United States, Canada, Australia and the Philippines. Simplus has emerged as a strong leader in Salesforce quote-to-cash innovation, introducing intellectual property such as the first CPQ-focused manufacturing accelerator for Salesforce in Fall 2018. Simplus was ranked as the No. 1 fastest growing consulting firm in 2018 by Consulting Magazine and a "leader" among 285 Salesforce consulting providers on the G2 Crowd Grid. For more information about Simplus' services or the Series C funding round, please contact (949) 813-0182 or email amyc@simplus.com. Salesforce CPQ is among the trademarks of Salesforce.com (News - Alert) , Inc. About Simplus Simplus provides enterprise-wide digital transformation across the entire Salesforce ecosystem through advisory, implementation, change management, custom configuration and managed services. As a Platinum Salesforce Partner, we use leading cloud solutions to help companies achieve a strategic vision, improve performance and increase value to stakeholders. With more than 2,000 projects and a customer satisfaction rating in the top 1 percent of all Salesforce partners, Simplus helps companies improve, innovate and grow. For more information about Simplus, please visit www.simplus.com. Salesforce Ventures Salesforce Ventures is the fastest growing top five enterprise software company and the No. 1 CRM provider globally. Salesforce Ventures-the company's corporate investment group-invests in the next generation of enterprise technology that extends the power of the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, helping companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world's largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce's innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage Salesforce's expertise in corporate philanthropy by joining Pledge 1 percent to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce Ventures has invested in more than 280 enterprise cloud startups in 18 different countries since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005169/en/

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[January 30, 2019] City University of New York team wins first GfK NextGen Hackathon Competition

Drawing on data from GfK and other sources, a team of three undergraduates from the College of Staten Island's School of Business has won the inaugural GfK NextGen (News - Alert) Data Science Hackathon Competition. The College is part of the City University of New York (CUNY). GfK challenged students to develop strategic recommendations for a hypothetical AI-based smart speaker just entering the market. Each team had 5 minutes to present its findings and another 5 to field questions from a panel of judges - GfK clients acting as mentors to the students, as well as GfK's own data science experts. Participants were assessed on a variety of criteria, focusing both on data skills and business intelligence. The winning CUNY team - which takes home a $5,000 cash award - delivered a strong combination of specific recommendations, clear data support, and presentation skills. The CUNY- CSI (News - Alert) team re



Kevin Ferger - Marketing & Business Management double major (Class of 2019)

Nicholas Pepitone - Economics, with Business concentration and Marketing minor (Class of 2019)

Kenneth De Young - Information Systems & Informatics (News - Alert) , with Design & Digital Media minor (Class of 2019) Runner-up reports came from Point Park University and California State University, Northridge; these presentations also showed a strong understanding of and focus on data analysis. For 2019, GfK North America reimagined its annual NextGen Competition - which previously focused on traditional research methods - as a 10-day hackathon, in which students mined raw data sets for relevant insights and then converted them into business guidance. The change reflects a radical transformation in market research, in which data integration and predictive analysis now play dramatically larger roles.

In previous years, teams from Aurora University, Chatham University, Loyola University (Chicago), Purdue University (News - Alert) (Calumet), and Roosevelt University won top GfK NextGen honors, in competitions focused on traditional market research methods - but still employing data science and analysis. About GfK GfK connects data and science. Innovative research solutions provide answers for key business questions around consumers, markets, brands and media - now and in the future. As a research and analytics partner, GfK promises its clients all over the world "Growth from Knowledge". For more information, please visit www.gfk.com or follow GfK on Twitter (News - Alert) : https://twitter.com/GfK. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005457/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Winged Keel Expands into Mid-Atlantic with Acquisition of BCG Companies

Winged Keel Group ("Winged Keel") today announced the opening of its Washington, D.C. and Richmond, VA offices, which will be led by Principal Jeri L. Turley. Joining Jeri will be Eric Hieber who will have the title of Director at Winged Keel. Vernon Holleman, III will be a Marketer. The new offices follow the addition of a Boston office in 2018, and a San Francisco office in 2016. Winged Keel is headquartered in New York City. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005445/en/ Jeri Turley, Principal, Winged Keel Group (Photo: Business Wire) BCG Companies Founder Jim Belk stated, "After exploring many options for BCG, it was clear that Winged Keel and its robust platform was the absolute best succession plan for me and BCG so that we can continue to live up to the long-term promises we have made to our clients. I could not be more excited for the BCG Team and our clients." Jeri Turley joins Winged Keel after serving as President and Principal of BCG Companies n Richmond, VA, and BCG Holleman in Chevy Chase, MD, working closely with high-net-worth clients and their advisors through the wealth transfer process and providing succession planning for public and privately held companies. Jeri serves on the Board of Directors of M Financial Holdings, Inc. and is the acting Secretary-Treasurer on the Executive Committee for the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU).



Eric Hieber joins Winged Keel after serving as a Principal of BCG Companies in Richmond, VA, where he oversaw the case design team and worked closely with clients and advisors to customize solutions in the wealth transfer, estate planning, and business continuity planning markets. He is an active member of AALU and serves as President of the Estate Planning Council of Richmond, VA. Winged Keel Principal Alexander Tuff said, "It is a great pleasure, and honor, to welcome the BCG Team. The organization and management team are highly respected leaders in the life insurance industry. Their significant experience, community connections, and industry expertise-supported by a shared culture and mission-fuels our strategic objective of covering our key clients, family offices, and centers of influence with the brightest and most respected professionals in the industry."

Jeri Turley added, "We are incredibly excited to be joining Winged Keel, a truly independent and entrepreneurial-minded company. I have known and respected the Winged Keel team for my entire career, and it is undoubtedly the strongest and best-in-class platform in our industry for servicing the ultra-affluent market. We look forward to bringing the full suite of resources and expertise to our clients." About Winged Keel Group

Winged Keel Group is an independent life insurance brokerage firm that creates and implements tax-efficient, multi-generational wealth accumulation and wealth transfer strategies for ultra-high net worth families. With offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, and new presence in the Mid-Atlantic region, the firm specializes in the structuring and administration of large blocks of Traditional Life Insurance and large portfolios of Private Placement Life Insurance and Annuities. For more information on Winged Keel Group, please visit www.wingedkeel.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005445/en/

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[January 30, 2019] VHA Turns to Wolters Kluwer to Harmonize Veterans' Healthcare Nationwide

Wolters Kluwer, Health, a leading global provider of trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions, today announced the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), a part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has added UpToDate Advanced to its range of solutions from Wolters Kluwer. "Reducing variations in care is essential to continually improve clinical outcomes, strengthen patient safety and increase patient satisfaction," said Diana Nole, CEO at Wolters Kluwer, Health. "We are proud to support the VHA's mission by helping to streamline workflows and harmonize clinical decision making across care teams." The VHA is the largest healthcare system in the United States with more than 306,000 full-time clinicians and support staff who care for nine million veterans each year at 172 medical centers and more than one thousand outpatient clinics. With the expansion of the relationship into a national agreement, all VHA clinicians can now use UpToDate Advanced. With interactive UpToDate Pathways decision making algorithms, clinicians can arrive at the best decisions for their patients in view of contemporary medical knowledge, clinical experience and patient-specific factors. UpToDate Pathways will aid the VHA to target over 60 common medical conditions associated with unwanted clinical variability. UpToDate Advanced's Lab Interpretation will assist subscribers in reducing unnecessary medical tests, preventing missed diagnoses, and identifying adverse patient outcomes. Supporting the VHA's multidisciplinary approach to care known as "Patient Aligned Care Teams" (PACT), UpToDate Advanced joins several resources from Wolters Kluwer currently leveraged by the VHA across the continuum of care: Lexicomp  Onlin for Dentistry

Onlin for Dentistry Ovid medical research platform including Lippincott Journals (Total Access Collection including over 300 medical and nursing journals), Ovid MEDLINE, clinical resources and ebooks



41,000 physician residents

23,000 medical students

27,000 nurse trainees

27,000 other associated health disciplines Going to HIMSS19?

Visit the Wolters Kluwer booth (#1759) to learn about our Health solutions.

See UpToDate Advanced live at the HIMSS19 VA Kiosk

To see a demonstration of UpToDate Advanced embedded in an EHR environment, please visit the Department of Veterans Affairs kiosk at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase (booth #9100). To learn more about UpToDate Advanced, visit: https://www.uptodate.com/home/uptodate-advanced-providers?utm_source=press-release&utm_medium=press-release&utm_campaign=himss19. About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX:WKL) is a global provider of professional information, software solutions, and services for physicians, nurses, accountants, lawyers, tax specialists, and finance, audit, compliance, and regulatory sectors. The company provides expert solutions-a combination of deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services-that help professionals navigate change, solve complex problems, and deliver impact in their respective fields. Headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, Wolters Kluwer holds market-leading positions in 40 countries globally, represents customers across 180 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide. In 2017, it reported annual revenues of 4.4 billion. Wolters Kluwer is a leading global provider of trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students with advanced clinical decision support, learning and research and clinical intelligence. For more information about our solutions, visit http://healthclarity.wolterskluwer.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert) @WKHealth. For more information, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005149/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Qumu Named a Contender in 2019 Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing

Qumu, the leading provider of best-in-class video technology for the enterprise, has been named by Aragon Research as a Contender in the 2019 Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing. This Aragon Research Globe covers 20 web and video conferencing vendors, and places each into one of four segments-Leader, Contender, Innovator or Specialist-based on dimensions of analysis which include performance, global reach, and strategy-related criteria. Other companies covered in this Research Globe include Cisco, Microsoft, Zoom, Google and Adobe (News - Alert) . Although Qumu has been named a Leader five different times in the Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video, 2019 marks Qumu's first overall appearance in the Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing. "Our company has put significant effort into extending our enterprise video platform beyond simple content management and webcasting," said Vern Hanzlik, President and CEO of Qumu. "Our inclusion as a contender in the web and video conferencing space proves our business model, which is delivering an end-to-end enterprise video technology solution with a single intelligent platform, and also extends our total addressable market." As part of the 2019 Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing1, Aragon analysts independently evaluated 20 web and video conferencing firms against a wide variety of criteria including Product Capability, Customer Experience, Global Reach, Market Awareness, Product Strategy, Management Team, Viability, Pricing, R&D Efforts and others. Customer references were also provided by each covered vendor, from every region where the vendor does business.



"There's been a notable convergence of markets between web conferencing and enterprise video," noted Jim Lundy, CEO and Lead Analyst for Aragon Research. "Providers like Qumu are uniting fragmented technologies, such as webcasting and content management, under one platform. We see the demand from buyers to use less applications and instead use integrated platforms across industries." Parties interested in learning more about the 2019 Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing may download the full 36-page report from the Qumu website, or call Qumu directly at (612) 638-9050 for a complimentary copy.

About Qumu Corporation Qumu is the leading provider of best-in-class tools to create, manage, secure, distribute and measure the success of live and on-demand video for the enterprise. Backed by the most trusted and experienced team in the industry, the Qumu platform enables global organizations to drive employee engagement, increase access to video, and modernize the workplace by providing a more efficient and effective way to share knowledge. Aragon Research Disclaimer Aragon Research does not endorse vendors, or their products or services that are referenced in its research publications, and does not advise users to select those vendors that are rated the highest. Aragon Research publications consist of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Aragon Research provides its research publications and the information contained in them "AS IS," without warranty of any kind. 1 Aragon Research "Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing, 2019" by Jim Lundy, January 2019. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005429/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Mobile-Security Pioneer Guardsquare, Riding the Digital Transformation Wave, Announces $29 Million Investment from Battery Ventures

Guardsquare, a fast-growing and market-leading security company focused on protecting complex mobile applications run by rapidly transforming enterprises across industries, announced a $29 million investment from Battery Ventures. It is the global company's first round of institutional financing. As part of the transaction, Battery General Partner Dharmesh Thakker and Battery Principal Paul Morrissey will join Guardsquare's board. The company-whose technology is already embedded in more than quarter of Android (News - Alert) apps on the market today-will leverage the partnership with Battery to more aggressively invest in sales, marketing, R&D and customer-success efforts. "We are extremely happy to welcome Battery as a shareholder," Jurgen Ingels, a Guardsquare board member and early investor in the company stated. "This enables us to put a turbo on further growth. It is also a great endorsement of the Belgian tech scene." Guardsquare's technology addresses a growing problem for enterprises rapidly undergoing digital transformation in industries ranging from finance to insurance and healthcare: As they innovate rapidly and deploy more complex applications on increasingly powerful mobile devices, they often struggle to make these applications-which run outside their corporate firewalls--secure. Indeed, for many organizations scrambling to keep up with new technology trends and an increasingly mobile-centric customer base, security is almost an afterthought, even though mobile apps are particularly vulnerable to reverse engineering and hacking. Research firm Gartner (News - Alert) estimates that by 2020, 30% of enterprises will use "application shielding" technology, like Guardsquare's, to protect at least one of their critical mobile, IoT or JavaScript applications from such threats. That's up from five percent today. "As companies deploy rich applications quickly-including apps tied to new, Internet-enabled devices-the attack surface for hackers and other bad actors is increasin, making cybersecurity an increasingly complex problem," said Heidi Rakels, co-founder and president of Guardsquare. "Our products are being used by the world's biggest banks, IT providers and credit-card companies to protect their brands-and their bottom lines-against such malicious threats."



Added Guardsquare CEO Roel Caers: "In an increasingly mobile-centric world, our products are becoming more and more essential to global brands of all stripes." Rakels co-founded Guardsquare with Eric Lafortune to develop and market advanced security products to complement its original ProGuard product, an open-source project that focused on optimizing the performance of Java and Android applications. It is now used by an estimated 25% of all Android apps. Building on ProGuard's open-source success, Guardsquare designed and built a full-featured security product for Android applications called DexGuard, as well as one for iOS applications, iXGuard.

In November, Guardsquare won Deloitte's (News - Alert) Technology Fast 50 Award as the fastest-growing technology company based in Belgium. The company currently serves more than 650 customers in over 70 countries. "Mobile technology, Internet-enabled sensors and other mega technology trends are transforming the cybersecurity landscape, and there is growing recognition that endpoint security-securing your actual mobile apps on the devices were people are using them-is increasingly critical for organizations," said Battery's Thakker. "We were also impressed with how Guardsquare has developed a compelling business model from a viral and successful open-source project, something we are seeing more and more with open-source companies in a variety of sectors. The company's growth is extremely impressive, and we are honored to partner with Roel, Heidi and Eric to take Guardsquare's business to the next level." Last year, Thakker and his team at Battery published the Battery Open-Source Software Index, or BOSS, which ranked 40 top open-source technology projects based on their popularity, user activity, jobs impact and traction in the open-source community. About Guardsquare Guardsquare is the global reference in mobile application protection. The company develops premium software for the protection of mobile applications against reverse engineering and hacking. Their products are used across the world in a broad range of industries, from financial services, e-commerce and the public sector to telecommunication, gaming and media. Guardsquare is based in Leuven (Belgium) and San Francisco. Read more on www.guardsquare.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005415/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Portcullis Group, One of The Largest Asian Independent Wealth Managers, Selects CyGlass to Beef Up Its Cyber Defense Portfolio

LITTLETON, Mass. and SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CyGlass, a SaaS Al-driven network-centric dark threat detection solution, and Oyster Security, the cybersecurity arm of Portcullis Group, a leading independent wealth management house, are proud to announce that the Portcullis Group has deployed the CyGlass solution globally to further strengthen its cyber defenses and protect sensitive customer data and digital assets. Cyber risk is one of the biggest challenges facing financial firms today, with CyGlass's Al-driven solution, Oyster Security can now leverage on this unified Al-driven platform to deepen its capabilities in advanced network protection and strengthen its security posture across enterprise networks in 8 jurisdictions globally. In recent years, more than 50% of breaches were a result of "advanced cyber threats". The failure of existing security technologies to be able to provide visibility in your network against unknown attacks and rogue assets, which continues to depend on security analysts sifting through an overwhelming volume of logs and alerts, has resulted in 70% of "advanced threats" going undetected. Relying on signatures or rule-based security products is ineffective, leaving organizations more exposed and inundating the Security Operations Center (SOC) with false positives and no way to identify and block the threat. "Portcullis Group have over the years, invested significantly in cybersecurity to protect our network as well as digital assets and we have been constantly looking out for innovative solutions to address our technology risk management challenges. CyGlass's Al-based platform allow our security team to leverage on machine learning and smart automation to have enhanced visibility, real-time insights and actionable intelligence to better manage our network security," said Vincent Ang, Director of Oyster Security. "CyGlass provides affordable SaaS solution for network anomaly detection. The threat actors cannot hide in the network and where traditional security tools serve a valuable purpose, they are not built to track and identify unusual behavior within the network. Our easy to deploy solution contains a dashboard that can be used by security analysts, management and even the board of directors to visualize the state of the network and the progress to identify and remediate the attacks on the business," said Ed Jackowiak, CEO of CyGlass Inc. Company network architectures are especially vulnerable as traditional security products struggle to protect them effectively from advanced network threats. Networks are at risk of being breached unless security responses are automated by comprehensively applying Al with self-learning technologies. Companies today are already leveraging Al to provide enhanced visibility, improved productivity and greater precision in defending their networks and assets from cyber attacks. The key to CyGlass's effective cybersecurity Al solution lies in focusing on the most critical threats. To survive the modern, sophisticated attacker, companies need Al to create actionable intelligence. Only then will organizations be able to keep their critical IT assets and networks secure. ABOUT CYGLASS CyGlass is a network behavior anomaly detection solution, which uses artificial intelligence to surface and prioritize unknown threats within your network. Regardless of whether on-premise, in your virtualized environment, or your cloud, CyGlass provides visibility and understanding of your network behavior as well as the behavior of your critical assets. Based on unsupervised and supervised machine learning, CyGlass uniquely leverages a layered algorithmic approach to analyze network traffic and build an illustrated story of how a threat has emerged over time. "SmartAlerts" are prioritized by confidence levels and threat scores to save your security operations critical time in mitigating a surfaced threat. Learn more at www.cyglass.com ABOUT PORTCULLIS GROUP AND OYSTER SECURITY The Portcullis Group is one of the largest independent trust, fund and family office service providers in Asia. With a rich history of servicing clients for more than 30 years, we have a wide range of professional expertise and experience essential to running a large wealth management office successfully. Our international network gives us the reach and ability to provide a multitude of services in a variety of regulated jurisdictions, bringing advantages in terms of cost, convenience and efficiency. We offer trustee, foundation, fund administration services and corporate services to high net worth individuals, family offices, philanthropists, private banks, investment managers and advisers through our team of lawyers, accountants, fiduciaries as well as trust, company and fund administrators. Oyster Security Pte Ltd was established in 2014 by Mr. David Chong. As part of the Portcullis Group, it was set up to support the cybersecurity governance for the Group companies. Oyster Security seeks to provide the complete spectrum of cybersecurity knowledge and consultancy services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), family offices, private clients and high net worth individuals.

Please Visit www.portcullis.co







Ed Jackowiak Vincent Ang CyGlass Inc. Oyster Security Pte. Ltd 1.978.665.0280 +65.64960496 208538@email4pr.com 208538@email4pr.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/portcullis-group-one-of-the-largest-asian-independent-wealth-managers-selects-cyglass-to-beef-up-its-cyber-defense-portfolio-300786353.html SOURCE CyGlass

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[January 30, 2019] MSCI and Tadawul Tradeable Index Goes Live

MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI), a leading provider of indexes and portfolio construction and risk management tools and services for global investors, and the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), the largest stock exchange in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region in terms of market capitalization and turnover, announced today the launch of the MSCI Tadawul 30 Index, a tradeable index. The MSCI Tadawul 30 Index initially comprises the 30 largest securities listed on Saudi Arabian Equity Market, based on free float market capitalization and screened for liquidity and international investability. The index will be rebalanced four times a year, and the number of securities may vary within a range of 25-35 securities to reflect changes in the underlying market. Individual securities are capped at a maximum 15 percent weighting in the Index. The index will provide investors with a useful benchmark of the largest liquid companies in Saudi Arabia and serve as the basis for development of an index futures contract listed on Tadawul and can be licensed for other index linked financial instruments, including mutual funds, derivatives and exchange-traded products. Plans for the tradeable index were announced by MSCI and Tadawul in September 2018. MSCI announced the classification of Saudi Arabia to an Emerging Market in its annual global market classification review in June 2018, citing the country's capital markets reforms and the opening of the Saudi Arabia equity market to a broader pool of investors. Saudi Arabia will enter the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in two phases this year, with the first phase set to coincide with MSCI's May 2019 Semi-Annual Index Review in June. Robert Ansari, Head of the Middle East at MSCI, comments, "We have seen increasing demand by institutional investors for tradeable indexes that can serve as the basis for liquid instruments to access equity markets globally. The MSCI Tadawul 30 Index has been designed with tradeability, investability and capping criteria to be able to serve as the basis for index futures and other financial products including derivatives and exchange-traded products." Khalid Al Hussan, Chief Executive Officer of Tadawul, adds, "Today's launch of the MSCI Tadawul 30 Index is a significant step forward in facilitating the creation of a derivatives market for Saudi Arabia and advancement of the Vision 2030 Financial Sector Development Program. With additional derivatives launches in the pipeline, including the introduction of an associated exchange-traded index futures contract, we expect to make significant strides this year in further enhancing market efficiency and creating new opportunities for investors to diversify risk and broaden exposure to the Saudi market, which continues to be the largest and most liquid in the region." About MSCI For more than 40 years, MSCI's research-based indexes and analytics have helped the world's leading investors build and manage better portfolios. Clients rely on our offerings for deeper insights into the drivers of performance and risk in their portfolios, broad asset class coverage and innovative research. Our line of products and services includes indexes, analytical models, data, real estate benchmarks and ESG research. MSCI serves 99 of the top 100 largest money managers, according to the most recent P&I ranking. For more information, visit us at www.msci.com. About Tadawul The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) is the sole entity authorized in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to act as the kingdom's securities exchange (the Exchange), listing and trading in securities. With a market capitalization of $496 billion, the Saudi stock market is the 24th largest stock market among 68 members of the World Federation of Exchanges and is the dominant market in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) comprising 49 percent of total GCC market capitalization and 80 percent of value traded. For more information, please visit www.tadawul.com.sa.



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[January 30, 2019] dynaCERT Announces First Annual International Sales Conference

TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- dynaCERT Inc. (TSX VENTURE: DYA) (OTCQB: DYFSF) (FRA: DMJ) ("dynaCERT" or the "Company") is pleased to welcome our 40+ dealers, and special speakers invited from around the world, to our first International Sales Conference. This event is part of our commitment to expand our role, globally, in the war against NOx and Greenhouse Gas Emissions with our made-in-Ontario Carbon Emission Reduction Technology. This sales conference is being held in Toronto from January 31, 2019 to February 1, 2019. As a planned annual event, dynaCERT will bring together our marketing and sales professionals from around the world, where dealers and management will share and participate in Salesperson Success Stories, Team Building, Competitive Analysis, Product Training, Sales Skills Development. DynaCERTs HydraGEN product is gaining global recognition with our certified product where it has been verified to improve fuel economy while reducing harmful toxins in emissions including NOx up to 88%, CO up to 50%, THC up to 50% and Particulate Matter in the excess of 65%. Included, this year, is special guest speaker, Mr. Michael W. Mayer, M.Sc., Dipl.Ing (FH), who is the senior engineer from TUV-SUD that had overseen testing in Germany related to the Homologation by KBA (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, the German Federal Office for Motor Vehicles). As explained in our press release dated September 24, 2018, Mr. Mayer states, There does not exist any equipment such as the HydraGEN Technology in the European market. dynaCERTs HG1 is a revolutionary product coming into the European market at a time where this is urgently needed to help achieve current Paris Accord commitments and the very strict future European CO2 requirements. Mr. David Imhof, owner-operator of Three Peaks Crane in Red Deer, Alberta, another special guest speaker at dynaCERTs International Sales Conference, will deliver a presentation on his positive experience with the HydraGENa Technology and dynaCERTs after-sales service and support. Enrico Schlaepfer, Vice President of Global Sales of dynaCERT, states: Our first International Sales Meeting in Toronto is a milestone for the company and we look forward to welcoming our dealers from around the world. This meeting will equip our dealers with the latest information on our HydraGEN technologydevelopments and the unique selling points for different market segments. I appreciate the dedication and excellence of our dealers.



About dynaCERT Inc.

dynaCERT Inc. manufactures, distributes, and installs Carbon Emission Reduction Technology for use with internal combustion engines. As part of the growing global hydrogen economy, our patent-pending technology creates hydrogen and oxygen on-demand through electrolysis and supplies these through the air intake to enhance combustion, resulting in lower carbon emissions and greater fuel efficiency. Our technology is designed for use with all types and sizes of diesel engines used in on-road vehicles, reefer trailers, off-road construction, power generation, mining and forestry equipment, marine vessels and railroad locomotives. Website: www.dynaCERT.com READER ADVISORY

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to the potential expansion into new markets, industries and segments, such as diesel- powered use of any the dynaCERT products and sales. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance of achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: uncertainty as to whether our strategies and business plans will yield the expected benefits; availability and cost of capital; the ability to identify and develop and achieve commercial success for new products and technologies; the level of expenditures necessary to maintain and improve the quality of products and services; changes in technology and changes in laws and regulations; the uncertainty of the emerging hydrogen economy; including the hydrogen economy moving at a pace not anticipated; our ability to secure and maintain strategic relationships and distribution agreements; and the other risk factors disclosed under our profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the release. On Behalf of the Board

Murray James Payne, CEO

For more information, please contact: Jim Payne, CEO & President

dynaCERT Inc.

#101  501 Alliance Avenue

Toronto, Ontario M6N 2J1

(416) 766-9691 x 2

jpayne@dynaCERT.com Investor Relations

dynaCERT Inc.

Nancy Massicotte

(416) 766-9691 x 1

ir@ dynaCERT .com

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[January 30, 2019] Anaqua Launches AQX to Transform IP into Business Success

Anaqua, the leading provider of innovation and intellectual property management solutions, today announced AQX, a leading-edge software platform that enables corporations to align their IP portfolio strategy with their business objectives and provides law firms powerful new automation and business development tools. Built on modern, fast technologies in conjunction with Anaqua's customers, the new software offers many benefits including a simplified user interface, data-rich analytics and business intelligence tools, and end-to-end financial management capabilities. With AQX, users can leverage unique analytics and collaboration capabilities to develop IP assets that directly support their business objectives. The integration of public and private data analytics enables IP executives to easily track their organizations' level of innovation, evaluate the strength of their portfolio, monitor the competitive landscape, and identify opportunities to leverage their IP to transform the business. Organizations can also measure and manage financial performance through the product's Financial Management system, which provides IP matter management, budgeting, cost tracking, accruals, invoicing, and e-billing tools to optimize legal spend. The AQX platform allows law firms to mitigate risk, reduce cost and drive growth through unique analytics and differentiated offering. "Intellectual Property management has become a business function," said Vincent Brault, Senior Vice President of Product and Innovation at Anaqua. "Anaqua clients believe that IP is the business and they align their IP organization to power innovation, Freedom to Operate and brand protection. With AQX, we are addressing the unmet needs of IP and business executives by providing a software platform that gives corporations a competitive edge and helps law firms differentiate themselves and achieve business success." Commenting on the AQX platform, Eyal Iffergan, President of leading industry analysts Hyperion Research, said: "Corporate IP Operations are in the midst of transformative change characterized by both organic and material integration with the business units IP ops serves. With the release of AQX, Anaqua is seeding the heart of the IP Business Management ecosystem with a juggernaut of capabilities specifically designed to catalyze transformation and support core business strategies." Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua, added: "AQX is not just another release, but a significant step to connecting the IP team to the rest of the business and allows each client to make the system their own. It is a next-generation platform that empowers organizations with the tools they need to best impact their business. In large part, due to collaboating with our clients, we are transforming IP into Business Success together."



Key Features of AQX include: Financial Management - Manage how and where IP teams spend money across the business. Users can collect, analyze, and report costs for use in budgeting, accrual forecasting, and monitoring costs for spend optimization. Budgeting - Create and manage annual budgets based on the type of IP, region, division, etc. for managers and business units. Create budgets using a familiar spreadsheet format and track against the actual amount spent. This feature includes multiple levels of security to select editing or viewing permissions for different users. Accruals - Anticipate upcoming expenses on a monthly or quarterly basis. Compare accruals to actual spent for estimate accuracy. This capability is best for unknown and ongoing costs such as work performed for infringement cases. Improved Cost Tracking - Improved templates for anticipating costs based on tasks and events. Invoicing - Detailed information on bills received allowing users to make informed decisions, reviewing specific matters, line items, accruals, and payments per invoice. Invoice Upload - Improved UI with easy to use drag-and-drop invoice upload. Leverage custom invoice templates to pull specific data and configure business rules for accepting or rejecting invoices. Fully support LEDES 98B, 98BI, and XML 2.1 E-Billing - Accept invoices and track payment of bills through integration with accounts payable systems. Payment Tracking - Track payment submissions and currency type to an external AP system. Currency - Track currency rate of invoice submission and at time of payment. Authorization - Leverage authorization chain workflow allowing multiple individuals to review an invoice. Dashboard Reports - Visualize and report financial data for analysis.

- Manage how and where IP teams spend money across the business. Users can collect, analyze, and report costs for use in budgeting, accrual forecasting, and monitoring costs for spend optimization. Portfolio Insight - Integrate comprehensive internal business intelligence and KPIs with process automation and documents in a single efficient, intelligent environment for more informed decisions. Tighter integration with AcclaimIP delivers unique actionable intelligence to decision-makers and executives with 360 analytics and metrics in a smart platform.

- Integrate comprehensive internal business intelligence and KPIs with process automation and documents in a single efficient, intelligent environment for more informed decisions. Tighter integration with AcclaimIP delivers unique actionable intelligence to decision-makers and executives with 360 analytics and metrics in a smart platform. New Home Page & UI/UX - Experience the ease of a modern, fast UX with simplified navigation and customized card concept home page.

- Experience the ease of a modern, fast UX with simplified navigation and customized card concept home page. Find - Quick search capability with new "Any Number" field, ability to search a specific subset of fields across modules and search tasks with module data.

- Quick search capability with new "Any Number" field, ability to search a specific subset of fields across modules and search tasks with module data. Bulk Uploads - Efficiently load significantly higher volumes of Patent, Trademark, and Invoice records. Users can create custom template files or upload external files. Full error identification on single upload.

- Efficiently load significantly higher volumes of Patent, Trademark, and Invoice records. Users can create custom template files or upload external files. Full error identification on single upload. Registry Updates - Significant performance improvements with support for Design Applications and ability to create Registry records in bulk from search results.

- Significant performance improvements with support for Design Applications and ability to create Registry records in bulk from search results. Private PAIR - Enhanced support for downloading Private PAIR documents based upon the USPTO's updated secure access methodology.

- Enhanced support for downloading Private PAIR documents based upon the USPTO's updated secure access methodology. Financial System Integration - Two-way integration allowing AQX to create matters in a finance system while also supporting data flow from a finance system into AQX. SimpleLegal, a modern legal operations system, is the first integration supported on the AQX platform.

- Two-way integration allowing AQX to create matters in a finance system while also supporting data flow from a finance system into AQX. SimpleLegal, a modern legal operations system, is the first integration supported on the AQX platform. Enhanced Innovation Portal (Beta) - Simplify the invention submission process enabling inventors to submit ideas more easily. Powered by ideaPoint, Anaqua inventors can now begin to create an AQX invention record in a configurable streamlined UI. About Anaqua

Anaqua is a premium provider of integrated, end-to-end innovation and intellectual property (IP) management solutions, serving 50% of the top 25 U.S. patent filers, 50% of the top 25 global brands, and a growing number of the most prestigious, forward-looking law firms. The company's global operations are headquartered in Boston, with offices across Europe and Asia. Anaqua's IP platform is used by nearly one million IP executives, attorneys, paralegals, administrators, and innovators globally. Its solution suite merges best practice workflows with big data analytics and tech-enabled services to create one intelligent environment designed to inform IP strategy, enable IP decision-making, and streamline IP operations. Anaqua was founded in 2004 to commercialize software developed by corporate IP practitioners from Ford (News - Alert) and British American Tobacco, addressing a market need for IP enterprise software. The Company later acquired SGA2 (founded in 1994) to complement its core IP management software with patent annuity and trademark renewal payment services. Since late 2015, Anaqua has accelerated execution of its global growth strategy to acquire and integrate talent, expertise, technology, and data via five acquisitions, including ideaPoint, AcclaimIP, and Lecorpio. For additional information, please visit Anaqua.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005391/en/

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[January 30, 2019] CUTX Finishes Strong in 2018

2018 was a transformative year for Credit Union of Texas (CUTX): The credit union expanded with a new store in Wylie, embarked on a digital transformation, including new technology to better serve growing membership, and implemented a company community engagement strategy. The CUTX Wylie store, the credit union's 12th location, serves the Northeast region of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and is part of a larger growth strategy, which includes relocating corporate headquarters to Allen and opening an additional store in McKinney this year. New stores in Allen and Frisco will soon follow. "Providing convenient locations where members live and work is a top priority," said CUTX President and CEO Eric Pointer. "As we look at our future growth, Allen is the perfect location for our new headquarters as it puts us in the center of our expanded footprint." Today, CUTX has more than 140,000 members and has embarked on a digital strategy to transform the process of banking through all member-facing channels. A new Symitar core solution, along with a CRM solution from Salesforce, are the begnning of the strategic initiative to further enhance the member and employee experience.



"Our goal is to have a 360-degree view of our members - all in one place - so that as our employees are interacting with members, they are able to see real time data, including member searches on our site and the channels to which they are responding," Pointer said. "This allows us to offer the most relevant financial solutions, not canned next-best product offerings. We want to provide a personalized experience for each member." Giving back to surrounding communities has always been a top priority for CUTX. This year, the credit union established a community engagement strategy that encompasses strengthening the communities they serve by promoting education and supporting first responders and veterans in their service areas.

CUTX was awarded a 2018 Best Practices Award for Improved Hiring Processes. The credit union implemented a multifaceted approach for hiring, including a new style of interviewing candidates. This saved CUTX thousands of dollars and reduced time spent finding the most qualified candidates. Pointer noted, "Every CUTX employee plays a vital role in our growth and accomplishments. Our culture is based on the mantra 'People before Profit.' This includes putting members first and treating employees well. Caring, Understanding, Teaching and eXceeding member expectations are our guiding principles, and in 2019 we will be even more attuned to these values." About CUTX For almost 90 years, Credit Union of Texas has been providing financial services to members throughout North Texas. Delivering on its vision to deliver an unexpected experience, CUTX has grown to over $1.4 billion in assets and now serves more than 140,000 members through its 12 store locations. Membership is open to anyone who lives, works or attends higher education in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and surrounding areas. For more information about CUTX, visit www.cutx.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005042/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Infobip Enables WhatsApp Business for Raiffeisenbank Customers

LONDON, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Infobip, a global communication platform for businesses, has enabled Raiffeisenbank in Russia to communicate with its customers over WhatsApp. Infobip's enablement of WhatsApp Business allows enterprises in over 180 countries to communicate branded, rich content to its customers over WhatsApp, the chat app trusted and used by 1.6 billion people worldwide. Raiffeisenbank, a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International AG, serving more than 2.5 million customers in Russia, will start using WhatsApp Business. WhatsApp is the most used chat app in Russia where 59 percent of all smartphone users communicate over WhatsApp on a daily basis. "Our main goal is to make financial services easy and convenient for our clients in any channel of choice. We believe that WhatsApp becomes a great addition to chat in our mobile app Raiffeisen-Online, which is very popular among our clients," said Maria Magdeeva, Head of Remote Customers Interaction Department at Raiffeisenbank. A financial institution ca utilize WhatsApp Business for a wide range of customer-centric messages and inquiries including transaction alerts, payment reminders, and account information.



"We are excited to provide WhatsApp Business for Raiffeisenbank. Today's banking is all about providing personalized dialogue over the channel the customers prefer. Increased personalization has multiple and valuable business advantages for banks, where Infobip enabling WhatsApp can truly help scaling Raifessenbank's communications, grow brand loyalty, and fuel engagement in the increasingly competitive consumer banking landscape," said Silvio Kutic CEO of Infobip. To learn more about how banks can enhance their customer experience using an omnichannel communication strategy, please download the Better Banking Better through Better Communications eBook here.

About Infobip Infobip powers enterprises to deliver messages across any channel, any device, at any time and anywhere worldwide. Infobip's technology creates seamless mobile interactions between businesses and people as well as simplifying the integration of almost all communication capabilities. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to include 60 offices on six continents offering an in-house developed messaging platform with the capacity to reach over six billion mobile devices in 190+ countries connected to over 800 telecom networks. The company serves and partners with leading mobile operators, messaging apps, banks, social networks, tech companies, and aggregators. Contact: Tina Loncaric

Global Public Relations Director

Infobip

Tel: +385-99-4699-343

Email: tina.loncaric@infobip.com

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[January 30, 2019] PM Narendra Modi Inaugurates Surat Municipal Corporation Solar Plant Developed by Waaree Energies

SURAT, India, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The solar plants will power three water distribution plants and 18 Municipal Schools in the city The Honourable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, today inaugurated a number of Solar Power Plants in Surat, with a collective capacity of 1 MW, by Waaree Energies, the preferred sustainability partner to Indian corporates. The Solar power plants are located at various locations in the city, which include three water distribution plants and 18 municipal schools, and cumulatively account for 1 MW of energy generation. With the latest addition of the plants, the Surat Municipal Corporation has become the first Municipal Corporation in the country which is not dependent on any electricity company for water distribution. The electricity generated through the solar power plants will be used for the city's water works, water distribution centre, and water treatment plant. This propels Waaree Energies as a partner to the smart city of Surat in its journey towards achieving its energy demands through renewable energy. (Photo: htps://mma.prnewswire.com/media/815477/Waaree_Energies.jpg )





Waaree Energies is the Turnkey Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) partner for the project, besides also extending its acclaimed maintenance and operation services for 10 years. The plants are expected to generate close to 1.20 Mega Units, which will result in an electricity cost saving of around INR 6 Lakhs per month. The power plants are located across Magob Water Distribution Station, Simada Water Treatment Plant, and Udhna Water Distribution Station. With this transition to solar power, the plant at Udhna is witness to a reduction of 29% on its existing electricity consumption, while Simada has seen a reduction of 21%, and Magob of 23%. Being India's largest Solar PV manufacturer, Waaree Energies has also contributed 2,925 Waaree Poly crystalline solar modules to the power plants. The project design was approved by TERI and was completed in record 50 days by Waaree, across all 18 sites.

Commenting on the occasion, Sunil Rathi, Director, Waaree Energies, said, "We are extremely honoured to have partnered with the Surat Municipal Corporation for the solar power projects. We were drawn to this project as Surat has been a frontrunner in the transition to renewable resources for energy generation, and is fast becoming a sustainable model smart city. This has helped the Government save approximately INR 6 Lakh per month. As such, we are very confident that projects like these will help bring about the transformation of the solar energy sector, and also generate the necessitated awareness among people." About Waaree Energies Waaree Energies Ltd. is the flagship company of Waaree Group, and has the country's largest Solar PV Module manufacturing capacity of 1.5 GW. In addition, it is one of leading players in India in EPC services, project development, rooftop solutions, solar water pumps, and as an Independent Power Producer. Waaree has its presence in over 250+ locations nationally and 68 countries globally. Media Contact:

Parmpreet Kaur

operations@communicateindia.com

+91-9870390819

Communicate India





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[January 30, 2019] Ideal Option Hires Chief Executive Officer

Ideal Option, a leading provider of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) and behavioral counseling services for individuals suffering from Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), announced today the hiring of Tim Kilgallon as Chief Executive Officer. Kilgallon, brings more than 30 years of senior executive experience, primarily within the health and wellness industry. Kilgallon's successful track record includes serving as CEO of Free & Clear and building the company into the nation's largest provider of tobacco cessation programs and services to employers, health plans and state governments (now Alere Wellbeing, an Optum Subsidiary). As a serial entrepreneur, seasoned executive and experienced board member, Kilgallon has consistently sought opportunities that improve health and wellness utilizing tools to drive behavior change. He received a BS from Boston College and JD from Washington and Lee University School of Law. Tim Kilgallon said, "I am thrilled to join the Ideal Option team and help further its mission of providing exceptional treatment programs for those suffering from OUD. The opportunity to join a team of passionate people dedicated to addressing the number one public health crisis in our country is tremendously exciting. Ideal Option represents a great platform with its commitment to evidence-based treatment and its ability to serve both rural and urban communities." Jeff Allgaier, President and Founder of Ideal Option added, "We are extremely pleased to welcome Tim to the Ideal Option team. Not only is Tm an extremely talented executive, but his life-long commitment to health and wellness and improving the lives of patients as well as society made him a perfect fit for Ideal Option."



Kilgallon also brings with him several talented individuals that will serve in senior management roles in multiple key functional areas. In September 2018, Ideal Option received a growth investment from Varsity Healthcare Partners to expand Ideal Option's commitment of increasing affordable and evidence-based treatment access to communities impacted by the national opioid epidemic.

About Ideal Option Headquartered in Kennewick, Washington, Ideal Option has delivered personalized medicine to over 20,000 patients through a network of 60 urban and rural office-based opioid treatment ("OBOT") clinics across 10 states. Ideal Option emphasizes individualized treatment programs for patients consisting of MAT and behavioral counseling services to drive superior outcomes. The Company extensively utilizes telemedicine technology to reach secondary and tertiary markets where access to treatment is limited or non-existent. Ideal Option and its team of over 90 medical providers are dedicated to delivering excellent patient care with integrity and empathy. For more information please visit: www.idealoption.net. About Varsity Healthcare Partners Varsity Healthcare Partners (VHP) is a lower middle-market private equity investment firm focused on partnering with founders, entrepreneurs and management teams to build leading healthcare services companies. VHP has been successful in developing and executing a tailored value-creation plan, in partnership with the leadership of each company, that typically emphasizes an appropriate investment in infrastructure followed by an aggressive organic and acquisition growth strategy. VHP draws upon its extensive healthcare industry experience and relationships, as well as its hands-on partnership approach, to effectively drive growth and maximize value. For more information please visit: www.varsityhealthcarepartners.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005163/en/

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[January 30, 2019] Further Notice From KinerjaPay Corp. Regarding Its New Investment

NEW YORK, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- KinerjaPay Corp., a Delaware corporation (OTCQB: KPAY), a digital payment and e-commerce platform, ("KinerjaPay" or the "Company") announced today that the Company has filed a Form 8-K report with SEC updating the disclosure in the Company's Form 8-K filed with the SEC on January 8, 2019. The Company reported on the January 8, 2019 Form 8-K its acceptance of a subscription from a major Indonesian investor, the Wahana Group, for $200 million for newly authorized shares of Series F and Series G Convertible Preferred Stock, convertible at $1.80 per share, subject to a 9.99% blocker. The Company further reported that it expected to close the Wahana investment within 10 days. However, due to the complexity of the United States Federal Bank Regulations, the Company is still in the process of establishing a new Business Bank Account to accommodate an investment of this size, which requires U.S. Banks to not only apply enhanced "Know Your Customer" rules but also "Proof of Funds Source" rules. Over the past two weeks, the Company's Executive Officers have met with several major Banks in New York to open one or more Business Bank Accounts for KinerjaPay, a public reporting company with the SEC, to facilitate the acceptance of the $200 million investment. Since the adoption of the Patriot Act, and for sound reasons, U.S. Banking Regulations require significant additional Due Diligence as a prerequisite before opening a new Business Bank Account with a deposit of this size, with a greater degree of background checks, which we now understand may take up to 14 additional business days or more. To date, the Company's Executive Officers have provided the several U.S. Banks with all documents believed to be necessary, including the Proof of Funds from our investor from a major world-wide bank funds from London, as proof of the investor's ability to fund this investment in our securities. The Company CFO, Mr. Windy Johan, commented about the current status of opening the new Bank Account(s) stating: "Because of the size of this new investment from an Indonesian investor, we have been engaged in providing several U.S. Banks in confirming that the investment funds were from bona fide sources and Proof of Funds from a major international bank with headquarters in London and world-wide. The Due Diligence process resulted in the delay from our original estimate of 10 days. We believe that we are well-along with satisfyingthe Due Diligence required to establish one or more new banking relationships to accept the SWIFT transfer from our investor for $200 million."



Mr. Edwin W. Ng, the Company's CEO & Chairman, also commented that, "We are in the process of opening Business Bank Accounts to accommodate the $200 million international investment." Mr. Ng further commented that, "We want all of our investors and the public markets to understand that the Company is following proper U.S. banking procedures in order to maintain our compliance in all aspects with U.S. Federal Banking Regulations." When asked to comment about the ongoing process of funding its investment into KinerjaPay, a representative from Wahana Group, Mr. Rio Chandranegara, commented, "We remain confident and committed to subscription arrangement with and our belief in the potential of KinerjaPay. We understood that KinerjaPay's Executive Officers are expediting our investment by providing the U.S. Banks with all supporting documents in order to accommodate our investment as quick as possible, and we are here to fully-support KinerjaPay until it is done."

The Company expects to conclude the investment from Wahana Group and receive the committed funding within the next 14 to 30 business days. About KinerjaPay KinerjaPay enables consumers to "Pay, Play and Buy" through its secure web portal and mobile applications. Based in Indonesia, the Company provides easy and convenient payment solution while shopping online at its marketplace platform. With its current omni-channel platform, users can perform various payment services such as credit card bill payment, utility, phone bill, healthcare insurance and direct transfer to anyone at their convenience. KinerjaPay is also planning to launch other eCommerce verticals such as travel market, delivery services, and online gaming in the near future. The Company's services are available through its mobile applications and on its website at www.kinerjapay.com. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements, about KPAY's expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding, among other things, its product development efforts, business, financial condition, results of operations, strategies or prospects. In addition, from time to time, KPAY or its representatives have made or may make forward-looking statements, orally or in writing. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "plan," "may," "should" or "anticipate" or their negatives or other variations of these words or other comparable words or by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. These forward-looking statements may be included in, but are not limited to, various filings made by KPAY with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press releases or oral statements made by or with the approval of one of KPAY's authorized executive officers. Forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results as of the date they are made. Because forward looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause KPAY's actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause KPAY 's actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors summarized in KPAY 's filings with the SEC. In addition, KPAY operates in an industry sector where securities values are highly volatile and may be influenced by economic and other factors beyond its control. KPAY does not undertake any obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please see the risk factors associated with an investment in our securities which are included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the SEC on April 20, 2018 and most recently in our Registration Statement on Form S-1/A filed with the SEC on December 21, 2018, pursuant to which we are offering 300,000 Shares of 11% Series C Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Stock at $25.00 Per Share. For more information, please visit our website http://www.kinerjapay.co. There you will find access to all of our past press releases and SEC filings regarding the activities discussed in this letter. Media Contact:

KinerjaPay Corp.

Email: info@kinerjapay.co

+62-21-2918-1336 SOURCE KinerjaPay Corp.

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[January 30, 2019] Everstream to Invest $300 Million Throughout Midwest

CLEVELAND, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Everstream has announced plans to expand the footprint of its fiber network through greenfield builds throughout the Midwest. Upon completion, Everstream will have invested $300 million and added nearly 6,000 route miles to its current 10,000-plus-mile fiber network. Everstream, a super-regional network service provider bringing fiber-based Ethernet, internet and data center solutions to businesses throughout the Midwest, plans to build dense metro fiber networks in 12 markets. Specifically: Columbus, Ohio , Dayton, Ohio , and Northeast Ohio

, , and Northeast Ohio Fort Wayne, Indiana , and Indianapolis, Indiana

, and Lexington, Kentucky , and Louisville, Kentucky

, and Michigan

St. Louis, Missouri

Green Bay, Wisconsin , Madison, Wisconsin , and Milwaukee, Wisconsin The move comes approximately four months after AMP Capital, a global investment manager headquartered in Australia, purchased Everstream, giving the company an infusion of capital for acquisitions, greenfield network builds, and organic network growth and development.



"Everstream remains committed to expanding in contiguous markets while making certain that we maintain the level of service and experience that our customers demand," said Everstream President and CEO Brett Lindsey. "By proactively building and expanding the footprint of our fiber network, we have the opportunity to both increase the density of our existing fiber routes and increase the availability of our Business Fiber Network to customers." The phased builds will begin construction in the first quarter of 2019. The expected completion date for the final build is the second quarter of 2020.

About Everstream

Everstream is a super-regional network service provider bringing fiber-based Ethernet, internet and data center solutions to businesses throughout the Midwest. We focus on delivering best-in-class network solutions while providing an unrivaled commitment to customer service. With more than 10,000 miles of fiber across five states and comprehensive data center connectivity at 100 Gigabit speed, we provide the fastest network in our service areas. Everstream's network is capable of accommodating converged internet, voice and data services at speeds up to 100 Gbps. For more information, visit everstream.net. Contact:

Suzanne Scarpino

O: 216-302-2615

sscarpino@everstream.net View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/everstream-to-invest-300-million-throughout-midwest-300786148.html SOURCE Everstream

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[January 30, 2019] Maxar Technologies' SSL Terminates its Participation in DARPA's Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites Program

PALO ALTO, CA, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - SSL, a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR), and a leading provider of innovative satellites and spacecraft systems, today announced it has exercised its right to terminate participation in the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program, a public-private partnership with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), citing a need to focus its resources on ensuring optimal returns when weighed against other capital priorities, such as WorldView Legion. SSL remains unwavering in its commitment to its customers on all existing contracts. SSL has notified DARPA that it has decided to discontinue its participation in RSGS, an option available at this time under the terms of the Other Transaction Agreement between SSL and DARPA. This decision is consistent with Maxar's commitment to disciplined prioritization of capital. Maxar remains confident in the potential of the on-orbit servicing market and the value of public private partnerships. SSL will also be terminating its associated contract with Space Infrastructure Services LLC, which SSL was awarded in June 2017 to develop a servicing spacecraft vehicle for the RSGS program. Signed in 2017, the Other Transaction Agreement called for DARPA to develop the dexterous robotic payload and provide a government-funded launch. SSL was responsible for funding the development of the spacecraft bus and integrating the resulting robotic servicing spacecraft with the launch vehicle, as well as providing operations staff over the full mission duration. "While disappointed that we are unable to find an economically viable path to support RSGS and meet our return criteria, we are dedicated to partnering with the U.S. government to realize the full potential of in-space robotic servicing of spacecraft, as well as assembly and manufacturing in space," said Richard White, President of SSL Government Systems. "At Maxar, we are uniquely positioned to leverage technology and expertise from across our businesses to accelerate innovation for the new space economy. We are proud of our leadership in space robotics, including our pioneering work in NASA's Restore-L mission to refuel LANDSAT-7, and we will continue to pursue leading-edge opportunities." About SSL

SSL, based in Palo Alto, California, is a leading provider of advanced spacecraft systems, with broad expertise to support commercial and government satellite operators and innovative space missions. The company designs and maufactures spacecraft for services such as direct-to-home television, video content distribution, broadband internet, mobile communications, in-orbit servicing, space exploration, and Earth observation. As a Silicon Valley innovator for 60 years, SSL's advanced product line includes state-of-the-art small satellites, and sophisticated robotics and autonomous solutions for remote operations. SSL is a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR). For more information, visit www.sslmda.com.



About Maxar Technologies

As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar Technologies is at the nexus of the new space economy, developing and sustaining the infrastructure and delivering the information, services, systems that unlock the promise of space for commercial and government markets. As a trusted partner, Maxar Technologies provides vertically integrated capabilities and expertise including satellites, Earth imagery, robotics, geospatial data and analytics to help customers anticipate and address their most complex mission-critical challenges with confidence. With more than 6,100 employees in over 30 global locations, the Maxar Technologies portfolio of commercial space brands includes MDA, SSL, DigitalGlobe and Radiant Solutions. Every day, billions of people rely on Maxar to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that Build a Better World. Maxar trades on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information, visit www.maxar.com. Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements and other information included in this release constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. Statements including words such as "may", "will", "could", "should", "would", "plan", "potential", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and other words, terms and phrases of similar meaning are often intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, expectations, projections, goals, forecasts, assumptions, risks and uncertainties, as well as other statements referring to or including forward-looking information included in this presentation.

Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this presentation. As a result, although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. The risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the risk factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov, under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. All such forward-looking statements are based upon data available as of the date of this presentation or other specified date and speak only as of such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this presentation as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities legislation. Investor Relations Contact:

Jason Gursky

Maxar VP Investor Relations

1-303-684-2207

jason.gursky@maxar.com Media Contact:

Turner Brinton

Maxar Media Relations

1-303-684-4545

turner.brinton@maxar.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maxar-technologies-ssl-terminates-its-participation-in-darpas-robotic-servicing-of-geosynchronous-satellites-program-300786378.html SOURCE Maxar Technologies Ltd.

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[January 30, 2019] Uranus Announces to Construct World Largest Developer Community

SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On the 25th January 2019, the Uranus team completed its four nations meetup tour in Singapore, Tokyo, Japan, Seoul, South Korea and Moscow, Russia. The Chief Executive - James Jiang, CTO-Halley Han and CMO-Kevin Wang of Uranus attended all meetups. They discussed Uranus's core competencies, market development plans, project progress, planning and test network. They most importantly announced to establish the biggest local developer communities in Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea as well as Russia. Uranus is a ubiquitous sharing platform that aims to be the Airbnb and Uber for computing resources, enabling computing-power services beyond the conventional public clouds. This can simply be utilized via the Uranus platform where people are able to use their computer hardware, mobile devices and so on, to simply contribute computing power to other users within the network. In doing so, they can earn tokens as on-platform rewards for rendering services. The platform token will be referred to as Uranus token according to the platform's headof marketing. At the same time, the computing power users can build their own website and application on this network and have their own blogs, VPN, online shopping malls, etc.



In order to construct the computing sharing realm, Uranus focuses on building up a large ecosystem including a high number of contributors, users, as well as application developers. Their community members will be able to earn money by contributing computing power and utilize the network and computing power with only a few tokens paid. As an open source project, Uranus is also working with local open source communities to promote their open source development. "We will build our own international developer community, and our goal for the four nations meetup tour is to lay a solid foundation for that," quoted Mr. Halley Han.

The Uranus team has made significant progress in development of the MVP test net which was released on the 5 November 2018, and invited some community volunteers to conduct a small-scale tests. In the near future, the test net is expected to launch online when the computing power transactions between contributors, users and application developers will be realized. At the end of the third quarter of 2019, the main net will be online to achieve the entire computing power ecosystem. The progression of Uranus is of great significance, which not only signifies the recognition of Uranus amongst its astounding community but also shows a positive outlook towards its universal goal of success in all fronts. Uranus looks to enhance its community network, facilitate and to support the future technology development. Uranus has recently opened its public token sale on the 29 January 2019 and due to be completed by 8 February 2019, which aims to raise USD $1 million for the project. Official Website Link: https://www.uranus.io

Official Telegram Group: https://t.me/Uraners

Official GitHub:https://github.com/Uraners SOURCE Uranus

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[January 30, 2019] XSEED Education Acquires EdTech Analytics Startup Report Bee

BENGALURU, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The acquisition aims to offer an integrated learning and assessment platform to K12 schools Singapore based XSEED Education Pte, a leading K-12 education company, announced an agreement to acquire Report Bee, an Indian education technology startup focused assessment analytics and reporting in K12 schools for an undisclosed valuation. Ananthraman Mani, founder of Report Bee along with co-founders Bala Ganesh S. and Anjan T. will join XSEED as key members of the XSEED technology product team. This acquisition reflects XSEED's strategy to augment the scale and impact of its successful school learning program. By integrating Report Bee's assessment platform and suite of products, XSEED seeks to make it easier for schools to make real-time assessments, provide personalized student feedback, and analyze data to diagnose teaching gaps. Report Bee has been used by close to 1000 schools. XSEED reaches a million children in 8 countries. Commenting on the acquisition, Ashish Rajpal, founder and CEO of XSEED said, "This is an important step towards becoming a complete education technology company. Report Bee brings on board capabilities in analytics, reporting, personalized assessment, and product design that compliment the XSEED Method, products, and philosophy. We are excited to welcome on board the talented and enthusiastic ReportBee team." He further added, "While there is a lot of noise around the world about the potential EdTech, there are very few stories about actual improvement of learning inside the classroom. XSEED is one of them."



Speaking about what attracted Report Bee to XSEED, Ananth Raman Mani, founder of Report Bee commented, "What made us bet on Report Bee's future with XSEED is the opportunity to make a truthful impact in the school education space. Report Bee's technology and analytics expertise compliments XSEED product and mission. The market is now ripe for many more disruptions and we believe we can move faster together." About XSEED Education

XSEED is among the few companies in K-12 school education who have demonstrated innovation, scale, impact, and commercial success. Founded by Ashish Rajpal, a Harvard alumni who quit an international corporate career to pursue his vision for children, XSEED is quietly disrupting Asia's school education markets with its pioneering XSEED Method based program that emphasizes 21st-century skills over rote-memorization. Headquartered in Singapore with development centers in Delhi and Bangalore, XSEED reaches a million children in 8 countries. The company has built a world-class bench of top business and academic talent that includes alumni of top institutes including Harvard, IITs, and IIMs. XSEED has built a profitable business model and raised two rounds of growth capital from Lighthouse Funds and Verlinvest. MIT's Legatum Center and WISE (the World Innovation Summit for Education), have featured XSEED and its founder Ashish Rajpal as case-studies of breakthrough innovation in improving elementary education. About Report Bee Report Bee is an emerging education technology company based in Chennai that provides a cloud-based software solution that allows schools to intelligently assess, report and analyse the performance of individual students, classes and teachers. Founded in 2010 by a group of technology entrepreneurs, Ananthraman Mani, Bala Ganesh S. and Anjan T., Report Bee has been part of the "Deloitte Fast 50" fastest growing EdTech firms in India and Asia and awarded by Bett Asia as a top 3 EdTech Innovator. Report Bee has previous secured a round of investment from IEIF [India Education Innovation Fund] wholly backed by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. Medi a Contact:

Upasana Sarkar

upasana@the-practice.net

+91-8587076270

The PRactice





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Zestful, a Denver, CO-based company enabling employers to offer customizable employee perk programs, launched with $1.1m in funding.

Backers in the round included Bessemer Venture Partners, Day One Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, and Shrug Capital.

Founded by Mat Vogels, Zestful provides companies with a platform to create perks and rewards programs for their employees. Companies can customize which specific products or categories an employee can spend their benefit dollars on.

The Zestful Perk Card looks and works just like a regular debit card but only allows purchases of products approved in the Zestful Catalog, and only up to balance given by the company (e.g. $100 a month).

Currently, the catalog includes hundreds of services like Spotify, Netflix, Uber, Coursera, Airbnb, gym memberships, meal delivery kits, and Southwest Airlines. It includes categories like fitness/health, food/drink, education, events, experiences, and companies can also add services and products to their catalog that employees request. Employees can also donate any leftover monthly allowance to charity.

Employers can get started at $5 per employee per month, and theres no commitment required.

The company is an alumnus of the Winter 2017 class of Y Combinator.

FinSMEs

30/01/2019
[January 30, 2019] Juniper Research: VR Headset Shipments to Exceed 21M in 2019 Globally, as Next Generation Consoles Drive Growth

A new study from Juniper Research forecasts that VR (Virtual Reality) headset shipments will reach 54 million by 2023, up from an estimated 21 million this year. This is a growth of 160%, as demand increases following an underwhelming year for VR in 2018. The research found that Sony PlayStation VR will drive console-based VR to become the fastest growing market over the next 4 years, in comparison to the smartphone and PC-based sectors. However, Google (News - Alert) will remain the leading VR headset vendor, accounting for 27% of global shipments by 2023. Sony will account for nearly 18% of total VR headset shipments by 2023, as sales are forecast to exceed 9 million units. For more insights on the VR market landscape, download our free whitepaper: The Roadmap for Future VR Success.



Console-based VR Hardware Revenues to Grow 480% over Next 4 Years The new research, Virtual Reality Headsets: Vendor Analysis & Market Strategies 2019-2023 found that next-generation consoles, anticipated to be announced in 2019, will renew faltering mainstream interest in the technology on games consoles. By 2023, Juniper anticipates that over 37 million games consoles will be using VR, representing 19% of consoles. It recommended that future headset releases align with mid-cycle console updates to enable bundling of consoles and headsets into a single offering.

Research author Sam Barker added: "We expect Microsoft (News - Alert) to announce VR support for its next generation consoles to provide competition for Sony in the VR space. By 2023, these players will offer the most comprehensive suite of VR content and capabilities". Development Costs to Deter AAA-rated VR Console Game Development Juniper forecast that next-generation consoles would also become integral to the future development of VR content. However, it claimed that premium games publishers will remain wary of the significant investment required for AAA-rated VR development, given the initial low user base and the difficulty in securing a return on investment on VR games. By 2023, Juniper anticipates that console-based VR will generate the highest average annual content revenue of all VR platforms; at $15 per user per annum. Juniper Research (News - Alert) provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector; providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005267/en/

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[January 30, 2019] StartmeupHK Festival informs, entertains and spotlights Hong Kong as perfect location for innovative start-ups

HONG KONG, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hong Kong's annual StartmeupHK Festival, organised by Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), ended last Friday (January 25) with the venue packed right to the last minute after a week of events loaded with surprises, insights and thoroughly entertaining speakers. Guests throughout the festival had shared wisdom and discussed their experience in entrepreneurship, funding, creativity, communication, growing a business, and more, along with the pain, the setbacks and the struggle for success. The week drew well over 17 000 delegates and more than 300 speakers, presenters, panellists and performers to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. A feature of the StartmeupHK Festival is that it brings together multiple sectors within the technology and start-up community not just from Hong Kong, but from around the world, to exchange ideas and do business. This is supported by a carefully curated programme of events with an eclectic mix of content and speakers. The events this year comprised the Healthtech O2O Summit, the TECH[LIFE]STYLE Conference, Retail's Cutting Edge, Jumpstarter, the Connected Cities Conference, the AI & Education Conference and the Startup Impact Summit. While the events focused on different aspects of technology and start-ups, the link between them was an emphasis on new trends, fresh thinking and cutting-edge innovation. "The level of attendance, the quality of the speakers and the tremendous feedback on the week that we've had reflect on Hong Kong as a perfect location for doing business and a truly welcoming one too," the Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK, Mr Stephen Phillips, said. At the Healthtech O2O Summit, the Under Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Chui Tak-yi, talked about moving ahead with a large-scale genomic sequencing project. The Senior Vice President of the Market Development Division at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), Mr Michael Chan, said the new rules that have been in effect since last April to make it easier for biotech and healthtech companies to list have helped HKEX to be the world's leading exchange for the sixth time in 10 years. Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK Mr Charles Ng opened the TECH[LIFE]STYLE Conference with news that Hong Kong has overtaken New York as the city with the most high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) -- 149 000 HNWIs worth US$769 billion -- which is important as an indicator of the amount of capital available for investment in start-ups. AI and facial recognition technology drew a lot of attention throughout the week. Co-founder of SenseTime Mr Xu Bing, whose company is a leader in AI and one of Hong Kong's unicorns, said, "Inthe past three years, we've seen around 500 million people using this process to identify themselves when opening a bank account, transferring money and for proving identity."



Speaking at Retail's Cutting Edge, Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK Dr Jimmy Chiang talked about the region's demographics. "There's a lot more that retailers can do to service the growing Muslim market," he said. "The current Muslim market population is 1.6 billion, nearly a quarter of the world's total population, of which 60 per cent live in Asia. That number will reach 2.2 billion by 2030." The Connected Cities Conference saw the release of KPMG's new and wide-ranging the Connected Cities Report. Keynote speaker the Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Dr David Chung, said the Government aims to double its contribution to research and development investment to 1.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

One of the highlights of the week was the two-day Jumpstarter, hosted by the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund. Guest of honour the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, reiterated the Government's commitment to research and development, infrastructure and talent, investment funding and the ecosystem for start-ups. In a keynote, the Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba Group and Director of the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, Mr Joe Tsai, emphasised that innovation must be bottom-up  companies don't innovate, it's the people that innovate. He stressed the importance of mission, vision and values: "these are the three most important things to think about as you start your business". The Jumpstarter competition was won by ASA Innovation & Technology, a Hong Kong-based maker of the Airluna air-purifier lamp. Described as a "lamp that breathes", Airluna uses nanotechnology to eliminate pollutants at a microscopic scale. The week wrapped up with a double-header on Friday: the AI & Education Conference and the Startup Impact Summit. The key message from the AI & Education Forum was that AI can help us become better humans. At the Startup Impact Summit, the Head of Strategy at WeLab, Ms Jessica Lam, said she appreciated Hong Kong's regulatory system because "it's clear about what you can do and what you can't do". Co-founder and CEO at Prenetics Mr Danny Yeung told the audience how 80 to 90 per cent of cancer and cardiovascular diseases can be prevented. Commenting on the week, the Head of StartmeupHK at InvestHK, Ms Jayne Chan, said, "We brought back some of the most popular events from previous StartmeupHK Festivals, and added some new features, such as Jumpstarter and the Startup Impact Summit. The response was tremendous and we had fantastic speakers and lots of variety, with the hosts of each event doing a great job." For further details, please go to the website (www.startmeup.hk/festival-2019/). PR Newswire is the Supporting Organisation of StartmeupHK Festival 2019. Photo captions (from left to right, then up to down) Photo 1

Stephen Phillips, Director-General of Investment Promotion, InvestHK, delivered welcome remarks at StartmeupHK Festival Healthtech O2O Summit on 21 Jan 2019. Photo 2

Charles Ng, Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK, delivered a speech at the StartmeupHK Festival Tech[LIFE]style Conference on 22 January 2019. Photo 3

Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, GBM, GBS, JP, Chief Secretary for Administration, Hong Kong SAR, reiterated the government's support for the startup community in Hong Kong at JUMPSTARTER on 24 January 2019 during StartmeupHK Festival. Photo 4

The JUMPSTARTER competition was won by ASA Innovation. The result was announced on 24 January 2019 during the StartmeupHK Festival. Photo 5

Xu Bing, Co-founder of SenseTime gave a presentation on 'How AI creates smarter living' at the StartmeupHK Festival Tech[LIFE]style Conference on 22 January 2019. SenseTime is one of Hong Kong's unicorns. Photo 6

"Around the World in 30 min: Connecting Global Ecosystems" session at the StartmeupHK Festival Startup Impact Summit on 25 January 2019. About Invest Hong Kong InvestHK is the department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government responsible for attracting foreign direct investment and supporting overseas and Mainland businesses to set up or expand in Hong Kong. It provides free advice and customised services for overseas and Mainland companies. For more information, please visit www.investhk.gov.hk. Enquiry : hkg.investhk@fleishman.com Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190130/2360695-1 SOURCE Invest Hong Kong

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[January 29, 2019] ChainBLX: digital.davos, Brave New World or Virtual New World?

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- digital.davos 2019 just completed its very informative week in Davos with top-notch guest speakers and panelists including names like Tim Draper, who pointed at various opportunities in AI investment and spoke about a global shift to digitalization, proudly showing his new virtual citizenship (passport) he recently received, thus advocating for similar points as did Vit Jedlicka (President of Liberland) during digital.davos. Vit, who founded his own country, is working on recognition from other countries worldwide. Both are also very positive regarding their outlook of the performance of cryptocurrencies which, like always, was controversially discussed during various sessions. A general sense of relief amongst the audience was sensed because the recent hype of blockchain is over. The general opinion that it's now the time for professionals to do the work was shared by the majority. Many parallels were made to the 2000 bubble burst of the dot.com era and a general positive feeling about the industry was shared amongst the audience, with perhaps more realistic assumptions for the upcoming future. This new emphasis on real-world solutions was not only perceived throughout the audience, but also evident on panels; for example, the panel on use cases of private blockchains, which included John Calian (SVP & Head of T Mobile Labs-Deutsche Telekom AG), Brian Behlendorf (Exec. Dir. Hyperledger), Oliver Krause (Founder Untitled Inc., Advantum Partners), Andrew Kolodyuk (Adventure Capita and founder of Divan.tv) and moderated by Karl Seelig (ChainBLX and inventor of the RingBack tone replacement). During this panel, John spoke about blockchain and its potential for an inter-telecom billing mechanism and the problem of standardization between telecoms (most telecom experts remember the old days when there were difficulties standardizingtelecoms, starting with Signal Protocol 7 and Camel). All in all, it is difficult to convince multiple players to use the same technology and methodology. This is probably why all of the panelists discussed solutions, which were based on Hyperledger.



Wladimir Klitschko spoke about the internal drive needed to achieve success. He interestingly promoted another view of globalism other than that shared by Draper and Jedlicka; a view of localism. According to him, various cities will gain more importance than the countries in which they are located. IOTA foundation charmed us with its panel about social impact and a world where everyone will be able to own their personal data, represented by Dominik Schiener (Founder and Co-Chairman of IOTA). A vision was also shared by Samantha Zirikin (CEO and Founder of Point 93) who is more focused on the retail side about permission-based access to personal data.

Mike Butcher (Editor At Large at TechCrunch) moderated a panel with Arun Kant (CEO Leonie) and Steven Papermaster (CEO Nano) about the next Ueber moment in healthcare, where the need of sharing information amongst physicians was shown to increase the effectiveness of treating patients with similar symptoms by combining AI and blockchain technology. A combination of this with AI technology took us to outer space by Joe Landon, who spoke about the newly developed Mars probes, an AI navigation-based system and the advantages of AI in space travel. Prime Minister Gaston Browne (Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda) joined a migration panel together with Henri Partners, which provides migration services to the top one percent of the migrants. Congressman Jason Hsu (Taiwan) updated the Davos community that he continues to push blockchain friendly regulations in Taiwan and about his vision to advocate for cryptocurrencies and need for self-regulations in the market. Also, multiple people from the media and press went to the stage discussing fake news. It was recognized by most that fake news attacks will be a problem in the future and some expressed the fear that the combination of such attacks with the utilization of AI will create a problem that may result in many serious conflicts in the world. Others added that the decline of ethically reporting is due to the fact that news is more or less making money through click advertisement and audience viewership, thus forcing reporters to be inclined to go off-topic in order to catch some additional clicks instead of factual reporting. At the conclusion of the event, ChainBLX presented its bounty-based self-accreditation service for white papers and news for blockchain-related topics, a project which was more than in touch with the overall theme of digital.davos 2019. digital.davos 2019 was recently founded by Doug Stromback who asked Karl Seelig, founder of ChainBLX, to curate this year's program, making, therefore, digital.davos a truly high-quality, content-driven and most sought-after venue in Davos. Press Contact

Karl@chainblx.com

Tel 310 990 0001 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chainblx-digitaldavos-brave-new-world-or-virtual-new-world-300785750.html SOURCE ChainBLX

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[January 29, 2019] SNAP SHAREHOLDER ALERT by Former Louisiana Attorney General: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Reminds Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Snap Inc. - SNAP

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until January 31, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), if they purchased the Company's shares between March 2, 2017, and August 10, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period") or traceable to its March 2, 2017 Initial Public Offering. This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. What You May Do If you purchased shares of Snap and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-snap/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by January 31, 2019.



About the Lawsuit Snap and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On August 10, 2017, Snap disclosed disappointing Q2 results including ongoing lower-than-expected growth in daily active users ("DAU"), a key user engagement metric. During the earnings conference call, the Company admitted to using "growth hacking" or sending push notifications to users to stoke their access levels, and hence boost user metrics. On this news, the price of Snap's shares plummeted $1.94 per share, or approximately 14%. The case is In Re Snap Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 2:17-cv-03679. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190129005999/en/

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[January 29, 2019] Chinese outbound tourists use mobile payment more than cash for the first time

SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese outbound tourists have brought China's mobile payment industry to foreign markets. According to a recent Nielsen report, 2018 Trends for Mobile Payment in Chinese Outbound Tourism, 32 percent of transactions by surveyed Chinese tourists were handled using mobile payment, surpassing the percent paid with cash for the first time. Nearly 70 percent of Chinese tourists paid with their mobile phones while abroad. Given these mobile payment trends, Inspiry Smart Box, a self-service QR-code payment terminal produced by Chinese firm Inspiry, recently further enhanced its global deployment in more than 20 countries and regions including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as well as in several European countries and North America, providing a convenient payment experience for Chinese shoppers while promoting the development of the local retail sector. Several factors encourage Chinese tourists to use mobile payment abroad, with the most important being that they have already become accustomed to this fast ad convenient payment method in their home country. To cite an example, the payment process with Inspiry Smart Box, one of the most popular terminals in China, is very simple: shoppers scan the QR-code generated on their mobile phones over the Inspiry Smart Box at the cashier's station to complete the payment quickly and conveniently. With a near instant response, the payment terminal eliminates the time wasted by having to make change as is the case for most cash transactions. The terminal also comes equipped with a keyboard and voice system. This allows Chinese tourists to make payments abroad in a way with which they are already familiar.



Merchants around the world have gradually recognized the importance of mobile payment for Chinese tourists and are witnessing benefits from better understanding of Chinese tourists' habits and preference. Among the merchants surveyed at popular tourist areas in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand that adopted Alipay, nearly 60% saw growth in foot traffic and revenue. Many merchants surveyed said that mobile payment is a safe, reliable and effective payment method that resonates with Chinese shoppers. Of the merchants that adopted Alipay, 71% said they would recommend the mobile payment platform to peers. The white paper cited one case where a Malaysian merchant said, "Our store is located in an area frequented by Chinese tourists and they are our main customers. If we didn't have mobile payment as an option, we would lose a lot of customers."

Inspiry International COO Gao Zilong said, "The outbound travel craze among Chinese tourists offers an important opportunity to expand mobile payment globally, while mobile payment outside of our home market has a broad space for development." Inspiry plans to bring China's mobile payment experience and technology to global markets, while, as necessary, adjusting the approach in each market according to the policies put in place by local governments. The effort is expected to help drive the rapid development of the mobile payment industry worldwide. SOURCE Beijing Inspiry Technology Co., Ltd.

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[January 29, 2019] Ducon Provides a Business Update

Ducon Infratechnologies Limited (BSE: 534674, NSE: DUCON), an emerging technology company providing solutions in the Industrial, infrastructure & digital space to multiple business segments across varied industries provides an update on its business activities. The Company indicated that in its Infrastructure business segment, it is diligently working with customers in securing projects in its legacy businesses of material handling systems and electrification systems and is seeing a normal amount of activity in its business. The Company also continues to submit new bids and revise previously submitted proposals for its Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) systems required for power plants and industrial boilers. The Company is hopeful that some of these bids will soon materialize in firm orders. However, the industry per se has not witnessed too many orders being placed and hence the build up with respect to orders in this segment continues to be poor. In its digital & Information technology (IT) business segment the Company is selectively focusing on areas in online ecommerce in India and abroad. The Company's IT business segment currently only deals with network & hardware solutions, marketing initiatives, distribution, volume procurement and end to end technical support. The proposed move to services and platforms in the IT business is expected to see the Company gain traction in this segment by the end of he next fiscal.



The Company remains cautiously optimistic that the current scenario in the FGD space should definitely see improvement and even an order or two can provide a huge fillip to the revenue and profitability. Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Aron Govil, the Managing Director said, "We remain committed to building a Company that would bring technological expertise and experience in areas of industrial, infrastructure and digital space."

He also added, "I am aware that the performance at the bourses in the recent past has not been particularly pleasant from a shareholder perspective but as a promoter holding over 70% of the Company's outstanding shares, investors should realize that it is in my best interest to ensure that we create lasting value for the shareholders and I want everyone to know that we are putting our best efforts to make that happen." About Ducon Infratechnologies Limited Ducon Infratechnologies Limited (BSE: 534674, NSE: DUCON) is an emerging technology company based in India for providing solutions in the Industrial, infrastructure & digital space to multiple business segments across varied industries. In the digital space, Ducon offers distribution services to its clients related to marketing initiatives, distribution, volume procurement and end to end technical support. On the infrastructure sector, it intends to offer complete solutions including execution of turnkey projects in rural electrification, environmental control & material handling areas across India and neighboring regions. The Company is led by a team of young and dynamic professionals with technical, marketing and sales know-how and has an objective to become a leading solution provider in the digital and infrastructure business sectors. Disclaimer: Certain statements in this document that are not historical facts are forward looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties like government actions, local, political or economic developments, technological risks, and many other factors. that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the relevant forward-looking statements. The Company will not be in any way responsible for any action taken based on such statements and undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190129005954/en/

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[January 29, 2019] KKR Consortium Completes LCY Transaction

LCY Chemical Corp. ("LCY" or the "Company") and global investment firm KKR today announced the completion of the previously announced share exchange and purchase transaction under which the KKR-led consortium has acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of LCY, for TWD 56 per share in cash, adjusted to include a TWD 2.90 per share dividend (rounded to the nearest TWD 0.01) (ex-dividend offer price is TWD 53.10 per share), representing a total market capitalization of approximately TWD 47.8 billion (USD 1.56 billion). This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190129005982/en/ As a result of the completion of the share exchange and purchase, LCY becomes a private company and was delisted from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. TH Hong, Chairman of LCY, said, "We are thrilled to embark on the next stage of LCY's growth by welcoming KKR as a long-term partner. KKR has a demonstrated track record of supporting the growth and success of companies globally and we want to leverage their expertise to accelerate our strategy and enable us to better anticipate and meet the evolving needs of our customers in Taiwan and worldwide." Paul Yang, Member and Head of KKR Greater China, added "LCY is a truly differentiated, high-performing company in the field of petrochemicals, with a strong team that is dedicated to quality and innovation. We are excited to support LCY as a constructive partner to enhance the Company's strategy and competitive strength by investing in its people and facilities in Taiwan and overseas."



LCY will maintain its corporate headquarters in Taipei, its existing global distribution and sales networks and its production plants in Taiwan, mainland China and the United States. KKR made its investment from its Asian Fund III. ****

About LCY Chemical Corp. Founded in 1965, LCY CHEMICAL CORP aims at improving the quality of life and has been in petrochemical business for more than 50 years. Product portfolios include methanol, solvents, electronic-grade chemicals, rubbers and performance plastics. For more details, visit LCY CHEMICAL CORP. website: http://www.lcygroup.com/lcy/en/. About KKR KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate and credit, with strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns for its fund investors by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and driving growth and value creation with KKR portfolio companies. KKR invests its own capital alongside the capital it manages for fund investors and provides financing solutions and investment opportunities through its capital markets business. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter (News - Alert) @KKR_Co. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190129005982/en/

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[January 29, 2019] Digital Realty Expands Singapore Connected Campus With New 50 MW Facility

Digital Realty's third facility in Singapore highlights continuing market penetration and strong secular demand SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), a leading global provider of data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions, announced today the acquisition of land on a long-term ground lease to develop Digital Loyang II (SIN12) data centre in Singapore, the company's third facility in the high-growth market. The acquired land parcel totals 12,800 square metres and is adjacent to Digital Realty's second Singapore facility  Digital Loyang I (SIN11), located at Loyang Drive on the east side of Singapore. The new Digital Loyang II (SIN12) Singapore data centre is expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2020, marking a significant expansion and further development of the Digital Realty Loyang connected campus. Trusted foundation to power current and future customers' digital ambitions

The new data centre in Loyang Drive will be located less than 25 kilometres from Singapore's central business district and will provide up to 50 megawatts (MW) of critical power capacity to regional and global customers. The multi-story facility will offer a total footprint of 34,000 square metres and will ultimately broaden opportunities for more international companies to expand their core digital assets into the key Singapore market. Both the existing SIN11 and planned SIN12 facilities are strategically located close to the Changi North Cable landing station, a key sub-sea internet landing station for the region. Digital Realty already enjoys a relationship with Singapore Internet Exchange (SGIX) to provide local peering at Digital Realty's Singapore data centre facilities in Jurong West (SIN10) and Loyang East (SIN11). Customers in both facilities benefit from this relationship through greater and more cost-effective connectivity options. These peering points on both ends of the island enhance the overall resiliency of the peering solution ecosystem in Singapore. "Digital transformation is set to contribute US$10 billion to Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2021," said Mark Smith, Managing Director APAC for Digital Realty. "With leading global technology companies increasingly looking to expand their digital footprint in Singapore, there is a significant opportunity for leading infrastructure providers like Digital Realty to provide the trusted foundation for the nation's technology landscape. Our customers are constantly investing in digital services to transform their businesses, and we remain committed to supporting them through these transformations." "By leveraging Digital Realty's global ecosystem, SIN12 customers will have access to a carrier-neutral operating environment, consisting of a world-class range of telco providers, service providers and business partners. The increased speed and connectivity of the global Digital Realty platform aims to provide low latency and highly reliable uptime for our customers," added Mr. Smith. Reinforcing Singapore as a key global interconnected hub

Data centres represent the backbone of the IT sector and remain crucial to achieving Singapore's ambition to become a fully digital economy and support the rapid digital transformation of Southeast Asia. Singapore's connectivity to major markets in the region, strong network infrastructure, conducive business environment and political stability are among of the top reasons international and local operators continue to seek data centre growth in the region. "We are excited to expand our platform in Singapore and to continue building upon our relationships and ecosystem in this core financial and colocation hub," said Digital Realty Chief Executive Officer A. William Stein. "With the addition of SIN12 to our Loyang connected camps, customers will soon have new ways to connect, extend their reach and find new business opportunities through our global data centre platform. Singapore has traditionally been a key hub for our global footprint, and given its robust existing infrastructure and strong support for digital transformation, it remains a leading destination for customers from around the world," added Mr. Stein.



The construction and management of a data centre will also provide a wide array of job opportunities from development to the ongoing operations of the future facility. As economic magnets, data centres have often been able to create significant opportunities and returns on investment for their customers, owners and countries in which they operate. Prioritizing a sustainable digital ecosystem

Sustainability is a critical feature of the design and construction of the new SIN12 data centre. Digital Realty expects to pursue BCA Green Mark certification for the new facility, demonstrating the company's commitment to industry-leading sustainable design standards and building upon the established track record of its award-winning Digital Jurong West (SIN10) and Digital Loyang I (SIN11) facilities. The new facility is expected to use indirect evaporative cooling to reduce power usage effectiveness (PUE) to between 1.2 to 1.3, with the goal of achieving the most competitive PUE for a commercial data centre in Singapore. Efficient cooling system design and controls aim to minimize evaporation losses, which will improve water-use efficiency to well below the average rating for data centres in Singapore. These sustainable design features are expected to generate significant benefits such as reduced pollution, noise attenuation and an increase in overall space optimization, all of which can be critical factors when developing on the island city-state.

Digital Realty remains one of the world's largest owners, developers and operators of data centres. Digital Realty is a leader in the design, construction and operation of highly reliable data centre facilities around the world. The company achieved five nines of uptime for the 11th consecutive year during 2018, surpassing 1.45 billion of operating minutes across nearly 200 data centres worldwide. The new Singapore data centre will adopt "Secure by Design" principles, offering its customers a highly secure location, one that is ready to meet the increasing demand for reliable and secure infrastructure. Digital's experienced global design and construction team, quality control process, exceptional operational global standards and unparalleled access to funding makes it one of the most secure, trusted and leading critical infrastructure providers in the world. About Digital Realty

Digital Realty supports the data centre, colocation and interconnection strategies of more than 2,300 firms across its secure, network-rich portfolio of data centres located throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Digital Realty's clients include domestic and international companies of all sizes, ranging from cloud and information technology services, communications and social networking to financial services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and consumer products. For more information about data centre solutions from Digital Realty, visit www.digitalrealty.asia, follow us on Twitter at @digitalapac and visit our industry insights at https://www.digitalrealty.com/insights/blog. For Additional Information

Andrew P. Power

Chief Financial Officer

Digital Realty

(415) 738-6500 Media Inquiries

Omer M. Wilson

Senior Director of Marketing

Asia Pacific

Digital Realty

owilson@digitalrealty.com

+65 6505 3951 Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially, including statements related to: our purchase of land plots and associated construction, expected timing and benefits of a new Digital Loyang II (SIN12) data centre in Singapore. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, the following: reduced demand for data centers or decreases in information technology spending; decreased rental rates, increased operating costs or increased vacancy rates; increased competition or available supply of data center space; the suitability of our data centers and data center infrastructure, delays or disruptions in connectivity or availability of power, or failures or breaches of our physical and information security infrastructure or services; our dependence upon significant customers, bankruptcy or insolvency of a major customer or a significant number of smaller customers, or defaults on or non-renewal of leases by customers; breaches of our obligations or restrictions under our contracts with our customers; our inability to successfully develop and lease new properties and development space, and delays or unexpected costs in development of properties; the impact of current global and local economic, credit and market conditions; our inability to retain data center space that we lease or sublease from third parties; difficulty acquiring or operating properties in foreign jurisdictions; our failure to realize the intended benefits from, or disruptions to our plans and operations or unknown or contingent liabilities related to, our recent acquisitions; our failure to successfully integrate and operate acquired or developed properties or businesses; difficulties in identifying properties to acquire and completing acquisitions; risks related to joint venture investments, including as a result of our lack of control of such investments; risks associated with using debt to fund our business activities, including re-financing and interest rate risks, our failure to repay debt when due, adverse changes in our credit ratings or our breach of covenants or other terms contained in our loan facilities and agreements; our failure to obtain necessary debt and equity financing, and our dependence on external sources of capital; financial market fluctuations and changes in foreign currency exchange rates; adverse economic or real estate developments in our industry or the industry sectors that we sell to, including risks relating to decreasing real estate valuations and impairment charges and goodwill and other intangible asset impairment charges; our inability to manage our growth effectively; losses in excess of our insurance coverage; environmental liabilities and risks related to natural disasters; our inability to comply with rules and regulations applicable to our company; our failure to maintain our status as a REIT for federal income tax purposes; our operating partnership's failure to qualify as a partnership for federal income tax purposes; restrictions on our ability to engage in certain business activities; and changes in local, state, federal and international laws and regulations, including related to taxation, real estate and zoning laws, and increases in real property tax rates. For a further list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports and other filings by the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2018, June 30, 2018 and September 30, 2018. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. SOURCE Digital Realty

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[January 29, 2019] WomenCorporateDirectors Asia-Pacific Institute Convenes Global Board Leaders February 21-22 in Tokyo

Shiseido CEO Masahiko Uotani, Goldman Sachs Japan Vice Chair Kathy Matsui to Deliver Keynotes TOKYO, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Asia-Pacific region is hit with escalating trade tensions, aging workforces, increasingly costly natural disasters, and growing volatility, boards of companies operating in the region are having tough conversations about what will be required to survive these disruptions. Leading companies through these game-changing market, technology, and structural changes is the focus of the WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Asia-Pacific Institute, to be held February 21-22, 2019, at the Westin Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. WCD is the largest organization of women corporate board members globally and its Japan chapter is one of WCD's most active, with more than 100 members. "Companies across Asia are having to adapt to the realities of consumer demand and tight labor markets," says Susan C. Keating, CEO of WCD. "We are seeing digital innovation, automation, and other high tech leapfrogging advances. At the Institute, directors will hear how companies are reworking business models and what role company boards can play in these discussions. Additionally, as venture capital investment in Asia hit record levels in 2018, with a large percentage of this going to the technology sector, we will explore what role women can play in VC in the region." The CEO of global personal care and cosmetics company Shiseido, Masahiko Uotani, will deliver the keynote address at the Institute on February 22. At the pre-Institute dinner at the International House, attendees will hear remarks from WCD member Kathy Matsui, Vice Chair and chief Japan strategist for Goldman Sachs, who has helped push for more women in senior leadership roles in Japan. Directors and business leaders from around the world will attend the Institute, which is being hosted by the WCD Japan chapter, chaired by Yukari Inoue, Izumi Kobayashi, and Satsuki Miyahara. Additional Institute sessions are listed below. Institute theme: "Resilient Leadership for a Disruptive Era" Panel 1: Almost Human  The Age of Applied Intelligence Jennifer C. Chen ( Japan ), Partner, Intellectual Property, Vinson & Elkins

( ), Partner, Intellectual Property, Vinson & Elkins Frederique Covington ( Singapore ), Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing & Cross Border, Asia Pacific , VISA; WCD Member

( ), Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing & Cross Border, , VISA; WCD Member Baigalmaa Tsagaan ( Mongolia ), Presidium Member of Citizen's Representative Meeting of Capital, Head of Japanese National Institute of Technology in Mongolia

( ), Presidium Member of Citizen's Representative Meeting of Capital, Head of Japanese National Institute of Technology in Nancy Calderon ( United States ), Global Lead Partner, KPMG LLP; Director, Global Delivery Center, Ltd., KPMG India; Director, WCD Foundation; Co-author of Women on Board



Panel 2: Adapting Technology for Aging Labor Markets Peta Latimer ( Singapore ), CEO, Mercer Singapore

( ), CEO, Mercer Singapore Ikuko Ebihara ( Japan ), President, Johnson & Johnson KK Vision Care Company; WCD Member

( ), President, Johnson & Johnson KK Vision Care Company; WCD Member Jean Moe (Korea), CEO, Dames; former CEO of Danone Corp.; former Outside Board Member of Met Life Insurance Company; WCD Member Panel 3: Investing in the Future  Venture Capital and the Role for Women

Soo Boon Koh ( Singapore ), Founder and Managing Partner, iGlobe Partners; WCD Member

( ), Founder and Managing Partner, iGlobe Partners; WCD Member Theo Schwabacher ( United States ), Executive Director, Morgan Stanley; WCD Chapter Chair and Advisory Board Member

( ), Executive Director, Morgan Stanley; WCD Chapter Chair and Advisory Board Member Hyunjoo Je (Korea), CEO, Yellowdog (Impact Venture Capital)

(Korea), CEO, Yellowdog (Impact Venture Capital) Yumiko Murakami ( Japan ), Head of the OECD Tokyo Centre; former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs; WCD Member Keynote: Blurred Lines  Corporations and Communities in Asia Ruth Shapiro ( Hong Kong ), Founder and Chief Executive at The Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society Panel 4: Creating and Leading a Resilient Business Model Chris LaVictoire Mahai ( United States ), President, Aveus, a division of Medecision; Director, Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund; WCD Member

( ), President, Aveus, a division of Medecision; Director, Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund; WCD Member Susan Eick ( Canada ), CEO, The Refinery; WCD Member

( ), CEO, The Refinery; WCD Member Cristina Finocchi Mahne ( Italy ) Professor of Economics of Banking and Industrial Groups, University of Rome La Sapienza; Outside Director, Natuzzi; Non-Executive and Independent Director, Trevi Group and Gruppo Banco di Desio e della Brianza; Director, Inwit and Seat Pagine Gialle; WCD Chapter Chair

( ) Professor of Economics of Banking and Industrial Groups, University of Rome La Sapienza; Outside Director, Natuzzi; Non-Executive and Independent Director, and Gruppo Banco di Desio e della Brianza; Director, Inwit and Seat Pagine Gialle; WCD Chapter Chair Nobuyuki Tsuji ( Japan ), Consultant, Spencer Stuart For more information about WCD, please contact Suzanne Oaks Brownstein or Trang Mar of Temin and Company at 212-588-8788 or news@teminandco.com. Media: Select sessions of the Asia-Pacific Institute on February 22 only will be open to qualified media. To apply for media credentials, please contact Temin and Company. For female directors of publicly traded companies or large private companies interested in attending the Institute, please contact Chelsea Labzda of WomenCorporateDirectors at chelsea@womencorporatedirectors.org. About WomenCorporateDirectors Education and Development Foundation, Inc. The WomenCorporateDirectors Education and Development Foundation, Inc. (WCD) is the only global membership organization and community of women corporate directors. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, WCD has 80 chapters around the world. The aggregate market capitalization of public companies on whose boards WCD members serve is over $8 trillion. In addition, WCD members serve on numerous boards of large private and family-run companies globally. For more information visit www.womencorporatedirectors.org or follow us on Twitter @WomenCorpDirs, #WCDboards. Upcoming WCD events: WCD Asia Pacific Institute: February 21-22, 2019, Tokyo, Japan

"Resilient Leadership for a Disruptive Era" WCD Global Institute: May 19-22, 2019: Silicon Valley, California

"Harnessing the Transformative Power of Technology" Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/456527/WomenCorporateDirectors_Logo.jpg SOURCE WomenCorporateDirectors Education and Development Foundation, Inc.

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[January 29, 2019] Platinum Analytics Unveils Trading Platform in Singapore

SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Platinum Analytics, a FinTech start-up, aims to provide financial institutions with a next-generation FX liquidity platform. The platform will offer a variety of services and tools such as early-warning indicators, risk mitigation, trade optimization in order to reduce transaction costs, and alternative data analytics via artificial intelligence. Platinum Analytics is supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) through the Financial Sector Development Fund to set up an Electronic Trading Platform in Singapore as part of MAS' plan to make Singapore a global FX price discovery and liquidity centre. Singapore continues to be at the forefront of the FinTech space and has been a leading regional hub for FX trading. Kelvin Zheng, Platinum Analytics CEO, has said, "Singapore is at the vanguard of the next digital transformation in the FX and commodities markets. It is currently the 3rd largest FX market in the world. Hving Singapore as our operational center is a key factor to the success of our platform and our company."



In the last quarter of 2018, Platinum Analytics has announced it has officially launched its platform in Singapore and is already in progress to onboard its first batch of trial clients. Platinum Analytics currently supports SGD (Singapore Dollar), CNH (Offshore Renminbi), and the usual G7 currencies on its platform. Platinum Analytics is expanding its coverage to instruments beyond FX and moving towards commercializing an SAAS (Software as a Service) based AI Platform, with a focus on analyzing alternative data. What differentiates Platinum Analytics from other foreign exchange trading platforms that its matching engine is entirely hosted and operated in Singapore. Kelvin Zheng, CEO, has stated that "Having our infrastructure and technology based in Singapore allows us to leverage on Singapore's strong, trusted and robust infrastructure to connect to to all major markets in Asia in a low latency manner."

From the technology side, Platinum Analytics prides itself in using revolutionary AI technology to supplement its liquidity offerings. Qihong Bao, Platinum Analytics CTO, remarked, "With the rise of AI, we want to revolutionize trading. Our technology can help our users decrease market risk, liquidity risk, and slippage in the FX market. Currently, this technology is being used by a bank in Singapore." Platinum Analytics holds the unique position of bridging the markets between China and the rest of Asia. As such, it is poised to service both onshore Chinese banks and banks in Southeast Asia, and to help them connect with each other more efficiently. Future plans for Platinum Analytics include expanding both geographically and technologically, to better serve a growing market. SOURCE Platinum Analytics

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Thoma Bravo, LLC, a private equity investment firm, closed its latest flagship fund, at $12.6 billion.

Thoma Bravo Fund XIII received support from the firms diverse network of investors, including sovereign wealth funds, public pension funds, multinational corporations, insurance companies, fund-of-funds, endowments, foundations and family offices.

The fund will invest in enterprise software companies that have experienced management teams, loyal customers and strong product offerings,

Thoma Bravo is a private equity firm targeting control equity investments in software and technology enabled services to support their growth, their path to become leaders and consolidators in their industry, and creation of value for all its shareholders. The firm works in close partnership with a companys management to implement its own operating best practices, invest in revenue growth initiatives and make strategic acquisitions to rapidly improve the companys revenue, earnings and margins and increase equity value. Investments typically take the form of leveraged buyouts, take-private transactions and carve-outs of corporate divisions or operating units.

Thoma Bravo invests principally in the United States, but considers opportunities globally as well.

Since 2003, the firm has completed over 200 software and technology acquisitions (over 60 platform companies and over 140 add-ons) with an aggregate value of about $57 billion.

The fund comes after an active year for Thoma Bravo, which included 12 investments and the close of a $2.4 billion mid-market focused fund, Discover II.

The firm has offices in Chicago and San Francisco.

Its investment team includes:

 Seth Boro, Managing Partner

 Orlando Bravo, Managing Partner

 Scott Crabill, Managing Partner

 Lee M. Mitchell, Managing Partner

 Holden Spaht, Managing Partner

 Carl D. Thoma, Managing Partner

 A.J. Rohde, Partner

 Robert (Tre) Sayle, Partner

 Jack Le Roy, Partner

 Hudson Smith, Partner

 Chip Virnig, Partner

FinSMEs

30/01/2019
Our times are becoming more and more informal. In our workplaces we see fewer ties and more denim. Three-piece suits cherished by our bankers are getting more casual and the waistcoat has lost its aura and its seriousness. We address each other in a more informal way and we simplify our grammar. Times may be difficult and the world no less violent, but it is nevertheless more accessible, has a less stilted style that is certainly more practical. Some might even say that good manners are being lost, but I think it is more that they are transforming and adapting.

Some might also say that its a natural evolution, or a cycle that will see formal style come back in a few years. They might have a point. And to convince ourselves we simply have to look at the bizarre history of an item of clothing that has become the very epitome of formalism, his majesty the smoking jacket.

This jacket was born in England in the clubs where men liked to smoke cigars. These places were informal and relaxed and people wanted to dress in a way that allowed them to take advantage of this lighter atmosphere (at least compared with the references of 19th century England). So this very special type of garment was born in London. But was it really destined to become the symbol of evenings with the ambassador? Certainly not!

At the start it was a jacket that was closer to a dressing gown, but much shorter, with a satin lining, crease-proof (thanks to a mixture of wool and mohair), designed to protect the fabric from cigar ash, but also to avoid the smell of smoke permeating ones other clothes. It was looser fitting than classic jackets and thus had a much more casual style and function. Nothing could ever have suggested that this broad, supple and unconventional smokers jacket would ever become the global uniform of fashionable dinners and major events.

The rupture in style came, as is so often the case, from the USA. To show off his originality, a billionaire attended an evening organized by the New York Tuxedo Club wearing the famous indoor black jacket. This scandalous attitude  forsaking the traditional suit  was a big success and changed the destiny of our casual jacket. And it gave the dinner jacket its American name: the tuxedo.

Little by little, the simple jacket gained popularity and was matched with trousers of the same colour but decorated with a silk band on the seam. Over the years, the outfit has seen several evolutions, but nevertheless retained its main principles.

So thats the history of the tuxedo. It started from a casual circle to become reserved for black tie events. As soon as the evening is finished, it is put back in the wardrobe or returned to the hire shop.

Only the cinema has given it a little breath of fresh air and adventure.

Some might see here a reference to a Jackie Chan (a big watch collector) film The Tuxedo and others might think of Mr Bond, James Bond. It is our favourite spy who brought the tuxedo into popular culture and made it fashionable with his diving, explosions and seduction. This crease-proof, indestructible and stain-resistant (including blood) garmet has become the armour of our gallant knight James.

But you might well ask what the link with watches and watchmaking is? There are several. First of all, there is the tuxedo as a formal item of clothing. My initial remark on the disappearance of formality can also apply to watchmaking.

For a number of years, sporty and casual watches can be found everywhere. They seem to have relegated dress watches to annals of history. Chronographs, divers watches, pilots watches all now top the sales charts and their predecessors top the auction lists. If your watch is small and discreet, it has little chance of doing well in society.

Another rule of etiquette gives the dress watch a further stab in the back, because it is, in fact, forbidden to wear a watch to evening functions. It is considered the height of impoliteness. Why? Because if you look at your watch during a cocktail party its to check the time. And if you have nothing better to do than that, then it means youre bored. And if youre bored and you show it, you are being impolite. So no watch!

This appears to be an insurmountable challenge. How can we talk about a watch in reference to an item of clothing, when the very context forbids wearing a watch? How can we continue to talk about style when we have just found out that wearing a Rolex Submariner or an Omega Seamaster makes you a bounder, Mr Bond?

But nothing is impossible for a willing heart, which is why I have decided today to talk about a magnificent watch, which  as you will soon see  is perfect for those who cannot attend a black-tie evening with nothing on their wrist.

Altiplano Skeleton 38mm  Piaget

So here is the Piaget Altiplano Skeleton 38mm.

Why Piaget?

Piaget is today a symbol of luxury and refinement, but its story starts in a farm in the Swiss Jura. A young watchmaker called Georges-Edouard Piaget started to produce components for the nascent Swiss watch industry there. His aim was to meet extreme quality standards, giving him access to the most prestigious brands. As was often the case, the production of components later migrated to that of complete watches.

In 1943 Piaget thus became a genuine brand and soon after opened up a factory that was commensurate with its ambitions. But to keep ahead of the competition, the brand needed a point of differentiation, which Piaget soon provided by deciding to focus its expertise on ultra-thin movements.

Piaget thus became a refined brand with in-house movements whose small size allowed for some original creations. At a time when many brands had dressy watches in their collections, Piaget made them its speciality and built up its credibility around its capacity to combine technology with refinement.

Continuing on the same path, Piaget launched its first jewellery collections in the 1960s and developed its expertise in the artistic crafts to enrich its watches and make them even more subtle. It was adored by Hollywood stars, but also respected for its incomparable expertise and continued to grow in watchmaking and jewellery. It even crossed over to sports, but not just any sport: Polo, the most elitist sport that there is!

Piaget is therefore the ideal brand to match with a dinner jacket and evening cocktail parties. So lets take a closer look at this discreet Altiplano, which has all thats needed to seduce fans of princely balls.

The Piaget Altiplano Skeleton: what time isnt it?

As mentioned, it is of course impolite to wear a watch with a dinner jacket. Because the very idea of a watch is to show the time. But to avoid annoying our hosts, yet continue to show off our love for beautiful objects, why not wear a watch that goes far beyond a simple time indicator?

Altiplano Skeleton 38mm in white gold  Piaget

In fact, why not wear a watch that pushes its main function into the background?

The Piaget Altiplano is the perfect watch for red carpets and high-society events: it is discreet, ultra-thin, skeletonized, with hands that make it hard to read the time.

Lets not beat about the bush: the Piaget Altiplano is a work of art.

1200S movement  Piaget

Its open-worked movement is the thinnest in the world (2.4mm), it is self-winding and uses all the brands expertise. It is not only technically exceptional, it is also beautiful. Movements often appear a little lost inside the case, but this 38mm diameter watch is an exception. The movement fills the entire space and its architecture is fantastic. Since all its components are visible, they have to meet the ultimate standards of both quality and aesthetics. The Piaget Altiplano is a an objet dart that makes you forget its usefulness in favour of its beauty.

Of course, with such a movement the watch can only be thin. Very thin.

 Piaget

At just 5.34mm in thickness, it is one of the thinnest watches currently on the market. So it can easily slip under a shirt cuff and is by no means showy. My preferred model is the one in white gold, but the watch is also available in rose gold or set with diamonds. But be careful! Too much is the enemy of the good and you need to keep in mind the rule black tie no watch. So lets be discreet!

Altiplano Skeleton 38mm set with diamonds  Piaget

The discreet black alligator leather strap and slender pin buckle are the perfect match for the somber dinner jacket. Water resistance is limited to 3 ATM, which is more than enough to cope with champagne fountains.

The Piaget Altiplano Skeleton has what it takes to get attention. It shows itself but remains guarded. It deserves the attention of its wearer and should not just be reserved for high-society events. By switching the strap for gold leather you could even give it a more casual look, which might even match with denim!

Altiplano Skeleton 38mm in rose gold  Piaget

Just as art should not remain imprisoned in museums, the Piaget Altiplano Skeleton should be allowed to escape from cocktail parties and discover the big wide world.

What does the devils advocate think?

The devil does not like evening parties where people have fun. So you can imagine what he thinks about the Altiplano!

On a more serious note, the main complaint you could make about the Piaget Altiplano Skeleton is its elitist side. And Im not just talking about its price.

A skeletonized watch is a special kind of watch that needs to be understood and respected for what it is  and what it isnt. If you are looking for an everyday watch that is simple and practical, then this Piaget is probably not ideal.

Many people might turn to more simple models in white or rose gold. The choice might be for a two-hand model or the small seconds with date.

Another thing that bothers me  a little  is the size and position of the Piaget logo. The Altiplano is a watch that speaks for itself. It has little competition, if any, and Piaget should be confident enough in the strength of its design to make the logo more discreet.

How to wear the Piaget Altiplano Skeleton in evening attire?

Of course, this mini style guide for the Piaget Altiplano is going to take us into dinner jacket territory. You can find all shapes and sizes and wearing a tuxedo can sometimes be a risky affair. One piece of advice: keep it simple!

The black dinner jacket is the reference, either in single or double-breasted design. But the devil is in the details, so it should always be worn with a white shirt with double cuffs and cufflinks, always with a black bowtie and always with black shoes.

I prefer a shawl collar, which gives the jacket a more original look (even if this is the style of the original smoking jacket). For the shirt, the turndown collar is  in my opinion  the best choice. The cufflinks should be either classic (Cartier or Louis Vuitton) or in phase with our horological theme (for example with the Milus watch movement cufflinks).

The trousers are probably the most difficult item, because they have no belt loops. So watch out for your paunch or any bunching. Its this type of thing that can make renting difficult. Its also the trousers that can mean a dinner jacket does not survive well over the years.

A number of brands offer quality dinner jackets. Depending on your budget you could go for models from Suit Supply or Ralph Lauren Purple Label, for example the Gregory model.

You can afford to be a little more creative with the shoes.

I love the models by Matthew Cookson. They have velours cotton slippers with stitching that can be personalized. But such is the choice offered by Matthew Cookson that you will no doubt find something you like without resorting to customization.

Pirates, barbed wire, skeletons, or even a little devil that would delight our devils advocate. The brand that mixes derision and sophistication stops at nothing. So go for it! Its the only touch of originality allowed with your tuxedo!

Then you just need to add a flower in your buttonhole and youre ready to play Gatsby.

Enjoy your evening!
[January 30, 2019] Mbixions, First SD-WAN Provider in Malaysia, Working with Businesses and Government Agencies for Greater Cost Savings, Security

PETALING JAYA, Malaysia, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Malaysian Internet Services Provider, Mbixions, is helping businesses across the country and the Southeast Asia region reduce their operating costs, especially across branch operations through next generation networking technologies. Solutions work with any broadband of 4G services provider

First SD-WAN provider in Malaysia , accredited by global leader VMMare The first Malaysian company to be accredited as a SD-WAN (Software Defined Networking in a Wide Area Network) Managed Services Partner for United States based global leader VMware's VeloCloud NSX SD-WAN solution, Mbixions has been commissioned by ten local multinational corporations and small and medium sized enterprises to show SDWAN Proof of Concepts (PoC) as part of potential roll out plans in the near future. "Traditionally, setting up services across dispersed branches nationwide or across the region is very time, cost and labour intensive, creating obstacles that prohibit organisations from serving the stakeholders' needs well. With Mbixions SDWAN, subscribers now have the cost efficiency, control, flexibility and visibility to move from being a reactive organisation to a proactive one," said Terence Tan, MBIXIONS Sdn Bhd's Chief Executive Officer. Two of these PoC's have been successfully completed and are now being prepared for the deployment stage in the oming months. Additionally, 5 state governments and local councils have also asked for demonstrations. Due to the high rate of requests since the launch of these services in December 2018, Mbixions has fast tracked building its service partnerships in Europe, South East Asia, and Australia to ensure that local companies and Government agencies are supported in those markets as well.



These developments are in line with global trends as global research firm Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, approximately 30% of enterprises will deploy SD-WAN technology in their branches as compared to only 1% in 2015. Mbixion's custom SDWAN solution provides governments and enterprises the ease and flexibility to smoothly migrate from existing legacy networks, or to co-exist with current solutions and make the network agile whilst transforming inexpensive ordinary broadband or 4G/LTE into highly secure and intelligent enterprise-grade WAN connectivity.

Key advantages of the solution include: Cost Reduction

Mbixions SDWAN gives subscribers the ability to mix and match network links for optimal cost efficiency.



Branch Agility

SD-WAN NSX SDWAN APIs enable integration into various management and reporting systems, eliminating geographic boundaries.



Network Security

Mbixions SDWAN covers all bases by unifying secure connectivity and providing end-to-end encryption across the entire network .



Mbixions SDWAN covers all bases by unifying secure connectivity and providing end-to-end encryption across the entire network Simplifying Branch Networking

Mbixions SDWAN simplifies deployment of new branches for businesses through it's own automated Mbixions 24/7 Network Operation Center.



Application Performance Optimisation

Mbixions SDWAN provides centralised control and visibility across a multitude of WAN links and service providers. Mbixions is keen to connect with CTOs, IT Department Managers or Network Administrators and provide a free demonstration of their solution in a live environment. Those attending these sessions will be able to see firsthand as to how this product can be a great asset to a company's IT infrastructure. To learn more about how MBIXIONS can help your business reduce it's network costs, head to http://www.mbixions.com or email sales@mbixions.com. About MBIXIONS Mbixions provides communication-based infrastructure and has progressively grown into a fully-fledged Telecommunication Service Provider having acquired NFP, NSP and ASP licenses. Mbixions SDWAN generates a lot of interest from subscribers with geographically dispersed offices in Europe and Asia. SOURCE Mbixions

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January 30, 2019





Two Huawei (News - Alert) employees landed in hot water at the beginning of January 2019 for a Twitter blunder made on behalf of the tech giant. Apparently, this little mishap occurred due to the employees having to switch to iPhone (News - Alert) after their VPN let them down. But what is a VPN and how did it lead to Huaweis marketing fail? Lets explore the details.







The New Years tweet was supposed to be another generic company brand message, but it ended up gaining traction for the wrong reason. A Sent from iPhone stamp was displayed clearly at the bottom of the tweet. It didnt take the Twitterati long to start mocking the company for their conflicting brand message.

This isnt the first Sent from iPhone gaffe Huawei had to face either. In 2018, a similar thing happened when a celebrity Gal Gadot sent a promotional tweet for the company from her iPhone. She explained the situation, and it was soon forgotten. But unfortunately, things didnt fare as well for the two Huawei employees.

No reason was given for why the employees VPN failed them in their time of need. However, it does add insult to injury when considering that the two employees just tried to salvage their situation with the iPhone.

For those not in the know, read on to find out more about VPNs and why one was necessary here in the first place.

What Is a VPN and Why Did the Huawei Employees Need One?

A VPN is a secure network service that people can subscribe to. This service tries to afford something that most people who use the internet today lack: privacy. In essence, a VPN allows people to surf the web anonymously and keeps all of their data secure from any curious interlopers.

How does it work?

Virtual Private Networks use encryption software that runs on a server or multiple servers that hide a users data and IP address. Even from their ISP and government.

A VPN service can be run on any device, and the user will then choose a server somewhere in the world to connect to. All of their traffic is then sent to the VPN server where its encrypted with security software that protects their data. This server then also acts as a placeholder of sorts for their actual IP address. Essentially hiding their real IP with a virtual one. They can then start browsing without fear of their data being leaked or their ISP blocking or throttling them.

This is important to know because, in the case of the Huawei employees, using a VPN was essential. China currently has some strict geo-blocking and internet censorship regulations, which block Twitter (News - Alert) as well. So the Huawei employees needed to use a VPN to get around those blocks.

As for why their VPN let them down, we may never know. There are many reasons why a VPN could stop working. Its also likely that the server IP they were using was discovered by their ISP (which happens often in China) and it was subsequently blocked.

So here are some things we can learn from this situation that could have helped those two Huawei employees.

3 Lessons We Learned From the Huawei Marketing Mishap

1. If using a VPN is important, have a backup:

In some countries, like China, its essential to have a VPN handy to get anything done. Especially in a case like this one where one needs access to social media. People in China know what a VPN is and how it works. And that the countrys ISPs are constantly prowling for VPN IPs to block. Its therefore essential to have a backup ready.

There are many VPN services out there to choose from, and they offer great features at affordable prices.

2. Try switching between different servers when using a VPN:

VPN services usually have hundreds or even thousands of servers to choose from, and some are constantly rolling new IP addresses. If one isnt working then its time to switch to another. It may take some time to find one that works, but the chances of all of them being blocked are slim to none.

3. Use a browser when tweeting instead of the app:

This whole issue could have been avoided had the employees simply used a browser instead of the Twitter app. Because the browser version did away with the device stamps, but the app still displays them.

In the end, this was an expensive lesson for Huawei and their employees, but luckily we can learn from it, too.
Farmington, WV (26555)

Today

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Midwest Growth Partners, a West Des Moines, Iowa-based private equity fund, raised $113.5m for its second fund.

Midwest Growth Partners II LP was raised by 26 investors  both returning from the first fund and new ones. It will bring total private capital managed by the firm to more than $154m.

Led by John Mickelson, Managing Partner, Midwest Growth Partners specializes in the rural marketplace and invests in or acquires established, profitable companies.

This second fund will follow a similar strategy to the previous fund, which is focused on succession-planning buyouts and/or growth capital investments in established companies with annual revenue of more than $4MM focusing on food & agriculture, manufacturing, distribution and business service segments.

The new vehicle has received a license from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to operate as a Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC).

FinSMEs

30/01/2019
A man accused of making methamphetamine is one of the people State Police say they are targeting as part of their Warrant Wednesday initiative aimed at taking fugitives off the street.

Brody S. Thayer, 47,is wanted by State Police drug investigators in the Southern Tier on allegations he failed to return to court after he was charged with the unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine. His arrest was the work of the troopers' Community Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Thayer is not the only alleged methamphetamine makers troopers are searching for .

Earl Jimerson, 53, is wanted by State Police in Wayland on a warrant that accuses him of meth manufacturing. The Steuben County man may be traveling in the company of a woman, troopers said.

Erick Grigoroff, 28, is wanted by State Police in Cortlandt on assault and weapons charges. Troopers said Grigoroff is wanted in town of Cortlandt Court on allegations he attacked several people with a knife.

Toopers said Grigoroff is believed to be armed and dangerous. He was last known to be living in Peekskill.

Jesse A. Young, 36, is wanted by State Police in Alexandria Bay on a warrant that accuses him of harassment. Young is accused of pushing an employee at a local business.

Zachary L. Taylor, 31, is wanted by State Police in Schodack on a charge of grand larceny and issuing a bad check. Troopers said he is wanted in Sand Lake for failing to return over $2,000 worth of rented equipment.

Troopers said Taylor is wanted in Ballston Spa on a charge of issuing a bad check and he's wanted in Troy on a grand larceny charge.

Daniel O. McKoy, 34, is wanted by State Police in Wurtsboro, Sullivan County on a weapons possession charge that accuses him of fleeing authorities after accepting a plea bargain in his case. Troopers said McKoy was previously a fugitive but was returned to New York after he was found in California.

McKoy pleaded guilty to a weapons charge after he returned to New York but did not come back to court for his sentencing. Troopers said McKoy has ties to California and is known to use the alias "Lawrence Outlaw" and "Luis Garcia-Lopez." Troopers say he should be considered violent.

Robert P. Renzullo, 41, is wanted by State Police in East Meadow on a driving while intoxicated charge that accuses him of failing to appear in Nassau County First District Court after his arrest on Dec. 12, 2012.

Daniel T. Chambers, 54, is wanted by State Police in Buffalo on a warrant for allegedly driving drunk on Nov. 30, 2017. Chambers was arrested after troopers found him driving on the Thruway.
ALBANY  High school graduation rates in New York state inched up in 2018 and they have risen noticeably over the last several years. But the state has also opened new avenues for students to graduate, even if they dont take or pass the traditional high school Regents exams.

Well use this data to target where improvements are needed, state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said during a phone conference on Wednesday during which she released the latest statistics. Overall, graduation rates in June 2018 were 80.4 percent, up a mere 0.2 percentage point from the year prior. The newest numbers look at the 2014 cohort, which is the freshman class that entered in 2014 and graduated in June 2018 after four years.

Wednesdays statistics barely changed from the prior year but graduation rates have risen more than 9 percentage points over the past decade.

During that time, however, the state Board of Regents has put in place a number of options including career and technical degrees as well as courses and tests in the arts that lead to diplomas. There is also a superintendent's determination in which a school superintendent can grant a degree to a student with disabilities even if he or she scores below 55 on Regents exams. Almost 1,000 students received that in 2018.

Elia said she believed the alternates were rigorous and stringent, and in some classes include college level exams like Advanced Placement tests, which can be taken instead of Regents exams and can count can count toward college credits. They are earning credits that they will use later when they get into college or community college, she said.

Still, racial, ethnic and even gender gaps persist.

Elia stressed that the Board of Regents and Education Department are continuing to look at how to improve graduation rates among minorities including African Americans and Hispanics, which still lag behind their white counterparts.

While the graduation rate among white students was 88.9 percent statewide, it was 70.1 percent for black students and 69.2 percent for Hispanics. However, both groups reduced the gap with white students  by 4.7 percentage points for blacks and 3.8 percentage points for Hispanics  since 2011.

There was also a slightly widening gender gap with females graduating at 84.5 percent compared to 76.5 percent for males. For females that marked a 0.4 percentage point increase over last year, while the graduation rate for males was flat.

Overall, Elia said, there were an additional 3,500 students in the 2014 cohort over the prior year, for a total of 210,602.

While the total school-age population in New York has been declining, it has jumped in some areas including urban centers where numerous immigrants have settled. Some of those young immigrants are English language learners.

English language learners graduated at 29 percent, but that number increased sharply to 40 percent if they take six rather than four years to graduate.

They had to learn English as they took the course work, said Elia.

Overall, the gap in the Capital Region between largely white middle class schools in suburban areas and cities with more minority and impoverished students, remained fairly stark.

The Voorheesville district, for example, had a 98 percent graduation rate while the Albany district's rate was 65 percent. That was up, however, from the prior year at 62 percent, which is the district's fifth year of increases.

One way that Albany High has increased graduation rates is through use of a Data Dashboard which gives teachers and support staff real-time information on students, Albany Superintendent Kaweeda Adams said.

The program, for instance, can quickly alert teachers and administrators if a student has had a lot of absences, which might trigger a call or home visit by a home-school coordinator. It enhances communication, said Adams, and help students stay on track. They know what they need to do in order to reach the goal of graduation, she said.

rkarlin@timesunion.com  518-454-5758  @RickKarlinTU
TROY  A month after he was arrested on misdemeanor drug charges, the son of a major Rensselaer County Republican political operative received a provisional appointment to a county job in the Department of Social Services.

The 22-year-old Richard Crists situation drew attention after District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly successfully filed a motion to convince a judge to appoint a special prosecutor to avoid the inference and appearance of impropriety in the prosecution of this case.

Crists father is Richard Crist, spokesman for County Executive Steve McLaughlin and director of county operations. The 50-year-old Crist also is Schodack Republican chairman and is an important force in county GOP political circles.

As county spokesman Crist said Tuesday his son has an entry level job as a clerk with a salary of $26,867 in the county Department of Social Services since the beginning of the year. Crist said the appointment is provisional pending the holding of the civil service test for the job.

The younger Crist was charged Nov. 27 by Rensselaer city police with misdemeanor seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and driving while ability impaired by drugs. Peter Blanchfield was named special prosecutor for the case.

Im sure theres a lot more family members employed that you know about, said County Legislator Carole Weaver, D-Troy, a former Troy Democratic chairwoman.

Provisional appointments of the politically connected occur. During former County Executive Kathleen Jiminos administration, former Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjians wife, Francesca, received a provisional appointment in the county Health Department pending the civil service exam.

In general, civil service rules were passed to exempt jobs that were meant to be non-political from political patronage hiring. However, there were always exemptions for political appointments, most of which were at the pleasure of an elected or higher political appointee, said Michael Malbin, professor of political science at University at Albanys Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.

Patronage is not always universally accepted among voters.

Theres two types of voters with patronage  those that are against it or those that dont think about it, said East Greenbush Supervisor Jack Conway.

Conway, an enrolled Democrat, was elected on the non-partisan East Greenbush First ticket in 2015 with a pledge to end patronage appointments in East Greenbush. Conway said Republican and Democratic administrations had made patronage appointments the bane of the countys most populous town.

It was the number one issue. What we did was cause the end of patronage in East Greenbush, Conway said.

The towns ethics code was rewritten to forbid the families of elected officials being appointed to town positions and to outlaw political committee members from serving on town commissions. Conway said the planning board and zoning board of appeals routinely had committee members appointed to paid positions.

Its not unusual to find Republican committee members and chairs of the municipal committees holding appointed positions in Rensselaer County government. And Democrats and Republicans count on party stalwarts to fill positions in the county Board of Elections where campaigns are assisted and the opposition is watched. Its a common occurrence in other counties.

The same thing is true in Washington. People who worked on Trumps campaigns wanted jobs, said Richard Barrett, an Albany Democrat and appointee during the height of the Democratic machines operations under Chairman Daniel OConnell and later Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd.

To the victors belong the spoils. Thats what keeps political parties going, said Barrett, who is familiar with party politics and campaigns.
ALBANY  Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo hit back at the Catholic Church on Tuesday, blaming its lobbying arm for opposing the abortion protections enacted last week and also the Child Victims Act, which passed the Legislature on Monday.

"To the Catholic Church, I am, I am sorry about the situation," Cuomo said earlier this week. "I'm not sorry about my position."

The New York State Catholic Conference spent millions of dollars in the last decade to garner legislative opposition to the Child Victims Act, a bill that will extend the statute of limitations for those accused of childhood sexual abuse.

The conference withdrew its opposition to the bill last week, after it was clear that it would pass the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature on Monday.

Catholic leaders say they dropped their opposition because the bill language had been adjusted to ensure that public institutions would be subject to the law. They acknowledged that their position on the issue had evolved in the last year.

Cuomo, at an unrelated press conference Tuesday, disputed that claim, reading quotes from the Catholic leaders from a year ago, in which they indicated their opposition to the very same bill language.

Some conservative Catholic bishops outside New York, as well as some local groups, have called for the governor to be ex-communicated for his support of the abortion bill, which is considered a grave sin.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, called the Reproductive Health Act, which codifies federal abortion protections in New York state, "ghoulish, gruesome, and grisly" in a Fox News interview on Monday. But Dolan said ex-communication or other disciplinary measures against the governor would not be "an appropriate response."

"That's a pastoral issue that I think one has to talk to him about. And I think proper people have," Dolan said.

Cuomo, at Monday's press conference touting the Child Victims Act, said his deceased father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, had similar disputes with Catholic leaders during his time in office.

"My father dealt with the same issues on choice more than anything else. His point, which was irrefutable, is that his job is to interpret and make laws in civil society," Cuomo said. "We don't legislate religious beliefs."

It's not the first time the younger Cuomo has faced backlash from conservative Catholics.

He noted that the Catholic church reacted similarly to his push for marriage equality in 2011, which he said made New York a national leader on the issue.

"That's an ongoing situation ... On the Child Victims Act, I am holding the line with what Pope Francis said on this issue. I understand that the church bureaucracy has an issue. It could be financial ramifications, it could be embarrassment, but I don't believe denial works," Cuomo said.

Dennis Poust, spokesman of the Catholic Conference, said that Cuomo picked a fight with Catholics in the state when he singled out the church in reference to the Child Victims Act in his executive budget address.

"He chose to do it in a way that focuses on the Catholic church and I think offense was taken," Poust said. "I'm not looking to extend a fight that we didn't start. We get to criticize him over abortion just like he gets to promote the abortion bill."
ALBANY  Attacking a member of the media in New York could soon carry the same penalties as violence against New York City sanitation workers, registered nurses, school crossing guards and other protected professions.

The proposal from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which was unveiled in his state budget earlier this month, would make it a felony offense to attack a journalist on the job with the intent to do harm.

In the governor's State of the State briefing book, he blamed the administration of President Donald J. Trump for inspiring "hatred of the media among the public."

"Unfortunately, the rhetoric and public discourse has dissolved into violence and attempted attacks on journalists, news outlets, and members of the press," reads the briefing book. " ... The men and women working in journalism should feel safe performing the duties of their jobs."

A review by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented 53 cases in the United States of physical attacks against journalists in 2017, and 35 cases in 2018. Recent attacks on employees of news outlets include a congressional candidate body-slamming a reporter in 2017 and a mass shooting last summer at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., that cost the lives of five employees. Earlier this month a California reporter was attacked during a live broadcast.

Alexandra Ellerbeck, North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said her organization hasn't seen evidence that increasing penalties would decrease attacks on journalists.

"Overall, in the context of the United States, I don't think we've seen a huge demand for it," Ellerbeck said.

She also noted that it can be a challenge to define who is a journalist, as anyone can exercise their First Amendment rights and commit acts of journalism. The governor's proposal simply identifies "journalist" as a protected class.

But while the Committee to Project Journalists hasn't done a detailed analysis of the plan, Ellerbeck said, "I think it's very exciting that he wants to take a stand for press freedom."

The Associated Press, which has more than a dozen reporters working in New York, is not taking a position on the proposal.

"The AP generally favors measures to strengthen the safety and protection of journalists and to allow them wider access to information, but as a news organization the AP rarely takes positions on any specific legislation," said AP Vice President and Editor-at-Large for Standards John Daniszewski.

New York News Publishers Association, which advocates on behalf of newspapers in the state, is supporting the stricter penalties, noting the increasing risk of physical violence for journalists.

"We appreciate Gov. Cuomo's recognition of the heightened danger to journalists in today's environment, and support his proposal to punish those who would silence their voices," said NYNPA President Diane Kennedy. "Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of American democracy, and journalists should be able to carry out their mission free of the fear of intimidation."

But Rochester Democrat & Chronicle columnist David Andreatta wrote in a piece last week that while the proposal's sentiment is appreciated, "this reporter will take a pass."

"There's no end to the number of jobs that prompt visceral reactions from some segment of society. Why not debt collectors, defense attorneys, parking enforcement officers and artists? Are we to upgrade misdemeanor assault to a felony for all of them?," Andreatta said.

It's not clear if any media outlets or news associations requested the proposal. The governor's office did not respond to an inquiry on the topic.

David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87
ALBANY  Advocates pushed for broad criminal justice reforms at the Capitol on Tuesday as the Senate and Assembly held a joint budget hearing on public protection.

With Democrats controlling both houses of the Legislature, criminal justice reformers are optimistic that the legislative session underway will bring sweeping change to the state's criminal justice system.

A group of lawmakers and activists pushing for parole reform held a protest on the Million Dollar Staircase at the Capitol, pushing for an overhaul of the state's parole system and arguing that more elderly inmates should be eligible for early release.

They also called on the Legislature to ensure parole release is based on rehabilitation and individuals' current risk to public safety and to support a fully staffed parole board.

National leaders and state lawmakers lent their voices to the protest.

"For far too long, our state's Parole Board has not been fulfilling its duty and has left thousands of New Yorkers stranded behind bars because they lack the willpower or manpower to adequately assess cases," said Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat.

New Yorkers United for Justice, a diverse coalition of community groups, has kicked off a separate campaign focused on bail reform, speedy trials, better pre-trial discovery and prompt access to legal counsel for defendants.

Khalil A. Cumberbatch, a formerly incarcerated activist who heads up the coalition, delivered testimony at the budget hearing calling for urgent passage of "long-overdue" reforms to New York's criminal justice system.

He used his own story to illustrate how criminal records follow a person long after they have paid their debt to society.

Cumberbatch said programs at Greenhaven Correctional Facility enabled him to grow and develop as a person and he left prison a college graduate.

"One week before receiving my master's degree, I was picked up and detained by immigration for another five and a half months," he said.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo intervened and offered him executive clemency in December 2014.

"No one's life path should be stopped because of a past conviction," Cumberbatch said.

With the state on the verge of legalizing marijuana, activists also hope to see expungement for marijuana-related convictions and increased action on clemencies.

In 2017, New York became one of the last states in the nation to "raise the age" of criminal responsibility to 18 years of age. By the end of the year, 16- and 17-year-olds will not be housed with adult prisoners and will be offered opportunities for rehabilitative services.

Around the country, state's are passing sweeping criminal justice legislation. Federally, Congress passed the most significant criminal justice reform bill in decades last month. The bipartisan First Step Bill allows judges more discretion in sentencing a defendant, provides post-prison rehabilitation and enables prisoners to be housed closer to home.
Climb Credit, a NYC-based fintech company that provides financing for students to affordably learn career skills, raised an additional $50m in lending capital.

Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group provided the financing.

The company intends to use the new capital to expand access to education for more students.

Launched in 2014 and led by Angela Ceresnie, CEO, Climb Credit provides schools with the opportunity to offer affordable financial aid to all students. The company partners with programs and schools ranging from IT, coding and data science to healthcare, welding, and heavy machine operations.

To date, the company has originated nearly $100 million worth of loans, funded the education of nearly 10,000 students and partnered with over 100 schools in career paths.

FinSMEs

30/01/2019
Saratoga Chowderfest returns

The 21st annual Chowderfest in Saratoga Springs will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday throughout downtown. More than 80 restaurants and businesses will be offering chowders. Visitors pay $1 for chowder samples and may vote for their favorites. Info and participants are discoversaratoga.org.

Mill on Round Lake bringing back ice bar for 3 weekends

The Mill on Round Lake will unveil a 30-foot ice bar and ice sculpture shuffleboard and corn hole at 5 p.m. Friday for its fourth winter. There will be a dedicated spot at the ice bar for ice luge martini orders. See the full ice bar drinks menu at myfavoritetaverns.com. Fire pits in the outdoor area will be available to keep customers warm in the frosty surroundings. (There is also a fireplace indoors.)

The ice bar will be open from 5 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Saturdays for three weekends, through Feb. 16. Special early opening at 11 a.m. this Saturday only in connection with Saratoga Springs' annual Chowderfest.

The pub is at 2121 Route 9.

Winners named for Schenectady Soup Stroll

Thousands of people took part in the fourth annual Schenectady Soup Stroll last weekend. People's choice prizes were awarded based on voting by attendees who had sampled at least 10 entries, and judges' awards were decided by Yelp Albany Elite members. Here are the winners. Call individual restaurants to determine whether they will be serving the winning recipes.

People's choice:

1. 151 Bar & Restaurant, Maryland Crab Chowder

2. 20 North Broadway Tavern, Roasted Poblano Corn Chowder

3. Johnny's Restaurant, Italian Nacho Soup

Judges' awards:

1. Mad Jack Brewing Co. @ The Van Dyck, Pale Potato Pancake Soup Infused w/Mad Jack Pale Ale

2. Aperitivo Bistro, Chicken Parmigiano Soup

3. Ruggiero's Pizza, Deli & Catering @ Jay St. Pub, Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

Judges' honorable mentions:

 Most Creative: Hunter's on Jay, Caramel Maple Butternut Bisque

 Most Unexpected: The DillyBean, Stand Out In The Kraut Soup

 Best International: Tara Kitchen, Haleem Porridge

 Taste of Home: Hell's Grill @ Tattoo Blues, Chicken & Dumpling Soup

Healing Meals expands fare, hours, opens storefront

The Healing Meals, which for almost two years has provided prepared meals for pickup or delivery, has opened a storefront at 113 Everett Road in Albany. The storefront is part of The Chef's Kitchen Space, a health department-inspected commercial kitchen available for rent to independent chefs and food purveyors.

The Healing Meals storefront offers grab-and-go meals, soups and desserts from noon to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday. Fare will reflect each week's rotating menu of one breakfast dish and three lunch/dinner options that are available for pickup or, for a fee, home delivery.

For details, call 518-469-5871 or visit the website, thehealingmeals.com.

Mediterranean cooking class slated in Ballston Spa

Diane Whitten, a food and nutrition educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension Saratoga County, will offer a hands-on cooking class on preparing a Mediterranean-style meal from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, at the extension office, 50 West High St., Ballston Spa. Meal to follow cooking session.

Admission is $10, and kids over age 10 may participate for $5 if accompanied by an adult.

Registration is required; call 518-885-8995.

Compiled by Steve Barnes. Items to be considered for publication must be submitted to sbarnes@timesunion.c-om. Visit his blog, blog.timesunion.com/-tablehopping.
People are rarely shown eating on "The Bachelor." Throughout the history of the show, women have perched in picturesque settings with muscly, vacant-eyed dudes and untouched plates of food. But Monday night was different.

For the show's fourth episode, production moved to Singapore, giving the group of mostly white, mostly blonde women some "Crazy Rich Asians"-esque fantasy dates. It was noted earlier in the episode that it was bachelor Colton Underwood's first time leaving the country.

Colton took the women on a group date to the markets, where they shopped and participated, squeamishly, in leech therapy. Then it was time to eat.

Singapore is known for its night markets, a must-see on every tourist itinerary; there are numerous tours devoted to the best street food and drinks in the city. So it was inevitable that they would be a stop on this episode. The women sat down at a long table, and the food came out.

"You guys hungry?" said Colton. "What is this? Bullfrog?"

"They say frogs taste like chicken," said one of the women.

And off they went, rehashing some of the ugliest American stereotypes about Asian food. The entire segment was designed to make the women try street food that is considered perfectly normal in Asia but "disgusting" to Western palates - perpetuating nasty stereotypes that food from Asian countries is dirty and unsophisticated.

"Pig's feet - ewwwww!" said one woman, as they all talked over one another. "Wait, will I die?" asked another.

The show has never been known for its diversity. Only one woman of color, Rachel Lindsay, has ever been the Bachelorette, and a major plotline on her season was a contestant's racist tweets. Two women of mixed Asian heritage have won previous seasons of "The Bachelor." But in the show's 23 seasons, most of the suitors and winners have been white.

But even for "The Bachelor," last night's episode felt especially disrespectful, especially considering that the travel segments of the show are usually flattering to their host country, given the freebies and sponsorships the show receives. The contestants were openly mocking food that - it was immediately obvious - they did not even attempt to understand.

This is not just a problem on "The Bachelor." Chef David Chang has previously called out "hidden racism in how people perceive not just Chinese food, but basically anything that's different from mainstream America" - including how people demonize monosodium glutamate, or MSG, in Asian cooking but seem unaffected by that same ingredient in Doritos. Filipino Americans grow up with "hiya," or shame, about the smells and taste of their famous dishes, which include duck embryos and pig's blood. In 2017, Bon Appetit got in hot water for saying that matcha and turmeric, often used in Asian cooking, "taste like dirt."

Writing for The Washington Post, Ruth Tam described what happened when a white high school friend said her home smelled of "Chinese Grossness": "The comment clung to me like the smell in my home. . . . The lengths to which immigrant families have gone to hide the way we feed ourselves break my heart."

A few women tried some bites for the camera but then expected to be praised for their bravery.

"I just ate a fish eye for him!" bragged Hannah B., a former beauty queen who is at the center of much of this season's drama so far. She made a retching noise.

Then Colton gave a toast: "To weird food, and to you," he addressed the women.

After the show somehow managed to sensitively handle a contestant's revelation that she had been drugged and raped in college - the episode returned to the market in the post-credits segment, which is usually reserved for silly bloopers. Instead, it was the women once again describing their experience with the food. And it was even worse.

"Pig intestines, ewww," said Hannah G. "It wasn't as bad as I thought, but we'll see how I feel in an hour."

The show then turned to the contestant Onyeka. "My stomach doesn't feel good," she said. She walked over to a trash can, and vomited.
New York

At lunchtime on a recent afternoon, the chain steakhouse Del Frisco's at Rockefeller Center bustles with midtown office workers shouting at one another over the blare of Fleetwood Mac.

For Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly, the generic environment triggers specific memories.

During their six seasons at "Saturday Night Live," the pair often came here Monday afternoons to brainstorm for the week's episode. But more often than not, Schneider says, they'd "have three margaritas and go home," meaning they'd have to write all Tuesday night to be ready for Wednesday's traditional table read.

Their method may not have been efficient, but it seems to have worked. The writers, now 35 years old, revitalized "SNL" with a millennial perspective and sketches that often played to the strengths of the show's female ensemble. In 2016, they became the youngest head writers in "SNL" history, guiding the show through its highly rated, Emmy-winning 42nd season  aka the one during which Donald Trump won the election.

Nearly two years after leaving the safety of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, they're returning to television as the co-creators and executive producers of "The Other Two," a comedy about the flailing adult siblings of a 13-year-old YouTube star.

The series, which premiered Thursday on Comedy Central, may not be as overtly topical as "Saturday Night Live," but as a fast-paced, biting satire of social-media celebrity, which offers both an unexpectedly poignant look at a family in mourning and a radically straightforward depiction of gay life, it is equally likely to get people talking.

"The secret sauce of 'The Other Two' is that it doesn't just lean in one direction," says Comedy Central President Kent Alterman. "It is not only hilarious, it has searing social and cultural commentary that's incisive about the world we're living in. But equally important it has so much heart."

The series revolves around Cary (Drew Tarver), a New York waiter and frustrated actor stuck auditioning for parts such as "Man at Party Who Smells Fart," and his sister, Brooke (Helene Yorke), a dancer turned leasing agent who's taken to squatting in a vacant luxury apartment. Cary, who is gay, is caught in a self-destructive hook-up cycle with his (supposedly) straight roommate, while Brooke has just ended a relationship with her sweet but dumb boyfriend.

Adrift and closing in on 30, the siblings are forced to reckon with their insecurities when their adolescent brother Chase (Case Walker) becomes an overnight sensation thanks to a homemade music video, "I Wanna Marry U at Recess," which goes viral. Much to their chagrin, their recently widowed mother, Pat (Molly Shannon), goes through an identity crisis of her own, transforming into an overly eager Momager.

The contrast between Chase's almost accidental fame and Cary and Brooke's desperate struggle for meaning "really made us laugh," Kelly says. And while it's normal to still be figuring out the world in your late 20s, "when your little brother is hitting it right out of the gate, that makes you spiral, you know?"

The central dynamic between Drew and Brooke is informed by Kelly and Schneider's easy friendship, which formed when they were newbies at "SNL" in 2011.

Starting at "SNL" "can be a very solitary experience," Schneider says, lifting a gooey forkful of macaroni and cheese. "It's honestly like wandering the halls just to see if anyone's office is open, and peeking in and being like, 'Hey, strangers, does anyone want to write a sketch with me?'"

"We were just sort of like, 'Oh, yeah, I'm totally alone. Are you fully alone?'" Kelly recalls. Schneider continues the riff: "'Is it 4 a.m. and no one's talking to you?'"

They soon discovered a shared comedic sensibility, a love of "taking tiny specific things and blowing them up," as Schneider puts it.

The slow process of developing a narrative series has been quite a change from the weekly grind of "SNL," but they've enjoyed stepping away from political comedy.

They're often asked whether they miss skewering Trump, but the answer is a "hard no," Kelly says. "We liked writing political jokes for a set amount of time, but it isn't necessarily why either of us got into comedy."

And even though no one ever mentions you-know-who, "The Other Two" still feels relevant, particularly in its candid depiction of Cary's sex life, which is groundbreaking yet never feels like it's played for think-piece-generating shock value.

"It's matter of fact on the screen because it's matter of fact in the writers' room and in our lives too," says Kelly, who also directed four episodes of "The Other Two," including the pilot. "We're not making a big point out of it."

"The Other Two" also offers an acerbic take on fame in an era in which social media has supplanted pop culture. Kelly and Schneider liked to play a game with Walker, the 15-year-old who plays Chase, where they'd name people they considered very famous  say, Steve Carell  only to elicit blank stares. (And vice versa.)

"The people who are famous to Case are not the people who are famous to us," Kelly says, "and it shows in the way he talks, acts, sings."

They found Walker  where else?  on social media; his songs were popular on the site musical.ly and he has more than 400,000 Instagram followers. Schneider says that when Walker auditioned for "The Other Two," "He was already like, 'Yeah, it's been, a crazy journey. I've been doing this, like, eight months.'"

"So we laughed," Kelly says, "and were like, 'That's going in the show for sure.'"
"A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas" uses art to make a political and social construct. It wants to question and upend the usual, entrenched ideas we might have of "Latin America." The many videos here, as well as some photographs and other artworks, highlight the representation of the underrepresented: indigenous populations, migrants, ordinary people of all kinds and Latino pop culture outside of the stereotypes pushed by Hollywood and television.

My first impression of the show was, "Power to you." And not just because of the dada tragedy of the border wall or the deeper travesty of stranded political refugees. I just happen to agree that our view of the Americas is skewed, crippled and false.

But a glance around the Nott Memorial Mandeville gallery made me reread the title and say, "Good luck with that." It can't be done in one show, not even with almost 20 artists, each with a distinctive point of view. It can't be done in 10 shows. On the other hand, at least here we have one necessary attempt.

There are some pointed successes, like Carlos Motta's pile of dozens of folded newsprint images of black handprints, dripping as if bloody, with the title, "Brief History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America since 1946." He need say no more.

Two large photographs by Martine Gutierrez show women doing quasi-fashion poses in Mayan garb. This is part of an impressive larger project called Indigenous Woman that takes on stereotypic assumptions about what the artist calls "cis, white, Western standards of beauty and raises questions about inclusivity, appropriation, and consumerism."

I wish there was more work from these artists to better understand their voices and visions. But this is a themed curator's show, and it is curator Pilar Tompkins Rivas' grappling with "continued questions of colonialism and postcolonialism" that dominates. If the theme is inspired and timely, the work sometimes resonates with the theme but doesn't hold up on its own, at least not without better context.

It is also daunting to imagine watching the many half-hour video works here. I donned the various headphones for as long as I could, staring at big screens and wall-mounted iPads, and the experience was incomplete and fractured. You need to pick and choose.

Two works, for me, stood out. First was a series of performances from the Mexican collective E.D.E.L.O. addressing problems of migrants and indigenous people. Second was Carolina Caycedo's diptych (two-channel) video, one of several works the artist has made about the damming of rivers by corporate and government powers and the effects on the people who live there. The imagery is elegant, deceptively pretty, and you slowly soak up the magnitude of this clash between the powerless and those with power.

The aesthetic nature of other videos is up for grabs. Eamon Ore-Giron's two-channel work about the displacement of a mining town to a new village built by a Chinese corporation strikes home, but it's a tedious half hour comparing the earthy beauty with a trash-strewn modernity. Other videos mostly want to show aspects of "ordinary life" in honest ways.

There is a lot here in this broad, diverse protest against hegemony. Yes, there are inevitable gapseven the lumping of all Latino cultures, and all indigenous ones, into broad categories like "Latino" and "indigenous" can be misleading. One universal truth, though, is that all of themall of uswere once colonized. Getting out from under the yoke of those colonizers is an ongoing necessity that "A Decolonial Atlas" attacks head on.

William Jaeger is a frequent contributor to the Times Union
PITTSFIELD, Mass.  A veteran museum executive and former teacher has been selected to lead the Berkshire Museum during the next phase of its redevelopment following the controversial sale of dozens of artworks from its collections last year.

Jeff Rodgers, currently the provost and chief operating officer of South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Fla., has been chosen as the next executive director of the Berkshire Museum. He is due to start April 1. Rodgers succeeds David Ellis, a Massachusetts-based museum consultant, who has been interim executive director since the museum's last full-time leader, Van Shields, retired at the end of June following a seven-year tenure.

"The museum creates experiences that spark new thinking and new connections bridging art and history and the natural world," Rodgers said in a statement accompanying the announcement of his hiring. He continued, "Over the past few months I've met with leaders from across the community and came away buoyed by the spirit of cooperation in our conversations."

Rodgers was the unanimous selection after a four-month search led by the museum's board of trustees, according to the announcement.

"Jeff brings a track record of innovative leadership and creative thinking that will, true to our unchanging mission, take the museum into a secure and successful future," said Elizabeth McGraw, president of the Board of Trustees, a statement included with the announcement. "Jeff shares our commitment to finding new and meaningful ways to connect art, science and history for people of all ages across our community and this region."

Rodgers has been in his current positions at the South Florida Museum for about two years, according to his resume. Prior to that he was the museum's director of education and planetarium director for more than a decade. He has also been executive director of the Children's Science Center in Cape Coral, Fla., held multiple positions at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan and was a teacher and education consultant in New York City for eight years.

Rodgers takes over following a year in which, after a bitter public battle and court fight, the Berkshire Museum won permission, under and agreement with the Massachusetts attorney general that was approved by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, to sell up to 40 works as part of an effort to raise $55 million. The money will fund what the museum is calling a "reinvention plan" that was said to be necessary to ensure its survival. The project's outline says the museum will spend $20 million to create "an exciting new interdisciplinary museum" and put the remainder in an endowment to fund the new mission.

Although it was allowed to deaccession up to 40 works, a total of 22 were sold, raising $53.25 million, in two rounds of sales through the auction house Sotheby's and private deals. Among those sold was one by beloved Berkshires artist Norman Rockwell, called "Blacksmith Boy," which went for its low estimate of $7 million.

Separately, it was announced that the other Rockwell put up for sale, the highly valued "Shuffleton's Barbershop," had been bought for an undisclosed sum by the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by movie director George Lucas and set to open in Los Angeles in 2022. The Lucas Museum has agreed to loan "Shuffleton's Barbershop" to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge until sometime in 2020, with the possibility of also loaning it to other museums in Massachusetts before it goes on view at the completed Lucas museum.
Saratoga Springs

When the New York Racing Association announced Monday it had ended contract talks with hospitality provider Centerplate, it didn't say who might take its place at the three race courses NYRA operates.

But one Capital Region caterer "would love" to get the business.

Mazzone Hospitality has been adding major accounts, from GlobalFoundries to Albany's new Capital Center, and has made it clear it wants to grow further.

"We would like it. We would pursue it," said Matt Mazzone, chief financial officer of the Clifton Park-based company. Mazzone Hospitality is now part of the Compass Group, the world's largest food provider, so it likely would have the resources to meet NYRA's needs.

Sports Business Daily reported last March that Centerplate, a unit of Sodexo, had lost a number of major league stadium accounts over a five-year period to Levy, another unit of Compass.

Levy, like Mazzone, started as a family-owned deli and restaurant business in Chicago, where it operates Spiagga, Paddlefish and a number of other restaurants.

Mazzone said Levy, which it has worked with previously, would likely take the lead in any deal with NYRA. But Mazzone could see a role for his company as well.

NYRA officials couldn't be reached Tuesday for comment on what it plans, and Mazzone said he wasn't aware of any request for proposals by NYRA.

"We've made it known to them that we're interested," he added.

NYRA has upgraded its food and beverage offerings at Saratoga Race Course in the past few years, and last year opened The Stretch, a casual space with tables, sofas and other seating, food delivered trackside, and a bar area with unobstructed views of the top of the stretch, the final turn before the finish line.

This year, it will unveil the 1863 Club, at the other end of the historic grandstand and clubhouse, a three-story building with luxury boxes, space for group events and a banquet area.

It's not clear whether NYRA might seek to manage the food services itself, or find another operator to replace Centerplate. The current contract will end in April.
After February benefits were paid out to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients earlier this month because of the federal government shutdown, many Capital Region families could go more than 40 days before receiving their next SNAP payment - potentially weeks longer than the usual 28 to 31-day payment cycles.

President Donald Trump last week temporarily reopened the government after a 35 day shutdown, allowing for a three-week period of congressional debate over border security.

If a compromise is reached and the government permanently reopens before Feb. 15, SNAP recipients in New York will receive their benefits sometime between March 1 and March 14, said Sherry Tomasky, public affairs director for the anti-hunger advocacy group Hunger Solutions New York.

The shutdown "created a situation where households are going to have to wait perhaps as many as 20 days longer on average than they normally would for SNAP benefits," Tomasky said. "That makes it very difficult for families who are stretching their grocery budget as it is to make sure that those funds last that long."

But state agencies have received little directive from their federal counterparts as to what will happen to the food-assistance program should a compromise not be reached  a possibility that could become increasingly likely as Republicans and Democrats hold their ground in a debate over border wall funding.

"When SNAP benefits were issued early, recipients were encouraged to budget them accordingly as they needed to last throughout February," said Justin Mason, a spokesman for the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which disburses SNAP funds.

"We are still awaiting guidance from the federal government regarding the March SNAP benefits, so given this uncertainty, we continue to urge all New Yorkers who depend on this critical program to carefully budget themselves."

In December of last year, over 80,000 people throughout the Capital Region's four main counties received SNAP benefits, totaling roughly $10 million in federal assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to the OTDA. More than 2.7 million New Yorkers statewide make use of the food assistance program at a cost of $374 million monthly.

That amount would likely be difficult for the state government to pick up should federal SNAP funds not arrive for the month of March, Tomasky said.

And while Tomasky described it as more of a "remote" possibility that a congressional compromise will not be reached and SNAP funding will dry up, she said that the lengthy wait before the next SNAP disbursement will create hardship for families, regardless of the political outcome.

"That's absolutely certain to happen," she said.

That is likely to put pressure on local food pantries to meet the need at the end of February.

"On average, SNAP benefits, they last a family three out of four weeks in the month," Natasha Pernicka, executive director for the Food Pantries for the Capital District, said earlier this month. "That last week is when families turn to food pantries to help."

"If families and individuals don't have access to SNAP," Pernicka said, "that's going to be a major hardship for the individuals and families, and at that point, food pantries would definitely need to come together."

But for Tomasky, the shutdown and its side effects were "created unnecessarily," and will have lingering effects to New Yorkers' food security.

"It's really important that our federally elected officials recognize the long-term impacts from this shutdown," she said. "By the end of February, the shutdown could potentially be a distant memory to many, but it will still have many real impacts."
NASD board president Shae Ashe, far left and seen here with NASD Superintendent Christopher Dormer and Secretary Kathy DiMaio, is seeking to unseat Daylin Leach in the next Democratic primary for State Senate, 17th District.
The 2018 Small Business Person of the Year, Angelo R. Perryman, President, Perryman Building and Construction Services, is pictured at the awards ceremony with his daughter Angelina Perryman, the firms Vice President of Administration.
Thomasville, GA (31792)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
This article was written for Fethiye Times by Steve Parsley

Around 50 people gathered at Fethiyes Kose Kahve off Kaya Caddesi on Thursday evening to witness the launch of a new initiative which aims to encourage a more green approach to both purchasing habits and lifestyle choices across the Mugla region.

The Aware Co.

The Aware Co. is the brainchild of textile designer and screen printer Leyla Temiz, 35, already established in the Fethiye area as a screen printer at Ottostop Design in Yanklar.

However, her own determination to reduce waste by using more off-cuts in her own work was to prove the catalyst for a broader project which snowballed to become Aware Co. in a matter of weeks.

Minimal waste products

After discussing her ideas with friends and contacts, a small team has been busy since the beginning of January assembling a range of minimal-waste products  including items made from beeswax, natural soaps, oils, tote bags and reusable bread bags  while Leylas own branding ideas were to lead to the formation of The Aware Co.

The enthusiasm and momentum has been incredible, said Layla. Even my accountant contributed by putting me in touch with a few people he thought shared the same principles. The whole thing has happened so quickly.

The Fethiye launch on Thursday evening was followed by another in Kalkan yesterday (January 29) and Leyla has indicated her wish to take The Aware Co. message to the tea rooms, bakeries and schools in as many villages as possible throughout 2019.

Addressing those gathered at the Fethiye launch, she added: We have three main aims, the first of which is to give local makers who share a similar ethos a platform from which to promote their crafts.

Secondly, we want to source and design minimal-waste products considering sustainability of production and our carbon footprint and, lastly, we want to encourage community feedback by holding regular drop-in meetings to develop even more innovative projects.

More information about The Aware Co. is available on the groups Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/theawareco/ A separate website is also in development.

Turkeys green initiatives

The project is launched at a time when Turkeys own government has announced a number of green initiatives which it hopes will enhance the countrys performance on environmental issues.

Supermarkets are now obliged to sell plastic carrier bags for a minimal fee rather than giving them away while this month also saw the Environment and Urbanisation Minister Murat Kurum confirm a deposit for all plastic drink bottles will be introduced in 2023.

Turkeys First Lady, Emine Erdogan has also breathed new life into a push for more awareness with her Zero Waste initiative, which celebrated its first year at a special conference in November.

The Aware Co. will operate on a not-for-profit basis, meaning after business costs are covered, money will be spent on community projects to further enhance awareness across the Mugla region.

Pop-Up shopping

The Aware Co. will be holding a Pop-Up session at Kose Kahve this Saturday between 13:00-17:00. Go along, see the products and learn more about the mission to make Fethiye more aware.


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China is at the forefront of efforts to revolutionize digital mobile cross-border payment systems. Already, traders on the 21st century digital silk road are sending payments from Hong Kong to the Philippines and Pakistan, among other places, in mere seconds using blockchain-based, cross-border, mobile digital wallets from Chinese tech giants, including Ant Financials Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.s WeChat Pay.

And Alibaba intends to further expand its global cross-border blockchain mobile digital wallet remittance services via nine partnerships.

Chinas silent emergence as a leading global force in several areas of the digital economy stems from its large state-owned banks partnerships with prominent Chinese technology companies. For example, in e-commerce, China accounts for more than 40 percent of the value of worldwide e-commerce transactions through its internet companies  Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.

As Chinese consumers switched to using e-commerce, these transactions were paid with mobile payment methods, pushing China ahead as a major global force in mobile payments at a rate significantly faster than the rest of the world.

As a result, mobile payments in China have grown into a $17 trillion market dominated by Chinas two biggest tech giants  Ant Financial (formerly known as Alipay), an affiliate of Alibaba and Tencent Holdings which owns WeChat Pay. These two companies collectively have 1.5 billion active mobile payment users.

Ninety-two percent of people in Chinas top cities said that they use Ant or WeChat Pay as their primary payment method, which they are able to use overseas while shopping in 110 countries and districts as well. These Chinese tech giants, which are among the worlds most valuable, are likely to lead in the global blockchain cross-border mobile payment race. Because, despite the crypto ban, the Chinese government is encouraging the commercialization of the blockchain at a large scale via local investment firms, technology conglomerates, and government agencies which are undertaking various digital infrastructural and research and development initiatives.

For example, Alibaba and the Peoples Bank of China are worlds first and fifth lead in blockchain technology development patent applications. While a patent application doesnt necessarily lead to a viable product or use case, it provides the owner an advantage by setting barriers for latecomers and signals that an industry-wide ecosystem is emerging.

Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has initiated digital infrastructural projects with the cooperation from Chinas three major telecommunications network operators and Chinas largest financial services firms to work towards developing a centralized blockchain-based mobile payment system that offers greater transparency and more detailed oversight over cross-border transactions. The countrys technology leaders, Huawei the worlds and Chinas largest telecom company and ZTE, are among many other Chinese telecom companies to publicly align with blockchain technology so far.

Chinas new mobile blockchain based payment system is a money-laundering concern for American law enforcement agencies. In a report issued at the end of last year, the DEA said in the last eight years, there has been a steady decline in the amount of cash seized throughout the United States, and this could mean that more discreet techniques of moving illicit cash were being employed using Chinas digital silk road.

____

Selva Ozelli, Esq., CPA, pictured above, is an international tax attorney and CPA who frequently writes about tax, legal and accounting issues for Tax Notes and the OECD.
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Tifton, GA (31794)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
Repetition is to be avoided in most walks of life. But where the offshore world is concerned, it appears to be the fulcrum around which the ill-informed are led by the unknowing. In this instance, it is the European Unions turn to go on the offensive, with the bloc effectively threatening sanctions and retribution against the overseas territories, including my adopted home and professional base, the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

In December 2017 the EU published an initial blacklist of 17 countries which EU finance ministers claimed had refused to co-operate with its crackdown on so-called tax havens, and then a series of other nations  including the BVI  which were put on a greylist.

Blacklisted jurisdictions could face reputational damage and stricter controls on their financial transactions with the EU, while those which were on the grey list could be moved to the blacklist if they if they did not meet certain commitments.

These EU bully-boy tactics have recently forced the BVI to pass The Economic Substance (Companies and Limited Partnerships) Act, 2018, which came into force on New Years Day. It was pushed through by our government here in order to meet the EUs deadline to adhere to its brutal demands (or else risk being blacklisted). The EU had previously placed the BVI and other Overseas Territories on its greylist, supposedly due to concerns regarding their compliance regimes.

The new Act effectively requires offshore financial services companies registered in the British Virgin Islands to physically set up office spaces in the territory, if they are to continue doing business with/through the BVI. Penalties to be hurled at financial services providers who do not comply with requirements of the BVIs new Economic Substance Act will come in the form of fines which, in the most extreme of circumstances, could near a quarter million dollars.

Ive plied my professional trade as a lawyer specializing in the investigation of international fraud and cross-border asset recovery for over 30 years. So when it comes to the world of offshore companies and trusts, I have something hopefully useful to say here.

Ever since the Panama Papers broke (April 2016) and more latterly the Paradise Papers mass data leaks (November 2017), offshore service providers have found themselves under the cosh. NGOs such as Transparency International, Global Witness and Ethical Alliance have led the way, exerting pressure on governments to make changes that they believe will frustrate those who would abuse the offshore industry for their illicit purposes. The NGOs in question have an admirable objective, but their thinking remains flawed.

During the 1980s and 90s, offshore services were run akin to something from the Wild West  with an absence of sheriffs  and many Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) of offshore companies were indeed dressed in black. But times have changed. The islands ability to regulate improved substantially and those governments who were working with them were pushing against an open door.

In the years that I have been involved in this business, I have seen massive changes: the majority for the better. Many of these changes were already in place prior to the Panama Papers hitting the headlines nearly three years ago and many of the scandals highlighted by the Panama Papers emanated from those historical Wild West days.

We are now in a world dominated by knee-jerk reactions and disproportionate responses. The situation is complicated further because the ordinary taxpayer often sees the rich as tax dodgers, and regards offshore companies as centers of darkness. There are moral and ethical questions surrounding the issue of individuals and companies paying taxes commensurate to their earnings and profitability. But the equation here isnt that simple.

In fact, there is an old saying relevant here: we need to be careful what we wish for. This applies to EU governments too. They are meddling with an offshore eco-system that could blow up in their faces. The EU has taken to threatening to blacklist offshore jurisdictions that do not require locally incorporated companies to venue the economic substance of their operations in their place of tax residence (a companys tax residence is typically where it is controlled).

With the probable exception of holding companies (a massive exception), some companies registered in the British Virgin Islands are now required to physically set up office space and employ people in the island territory if they are tax resident here, and if they wish to continue doing business via the BVI.

Local reporting courtesy of The BVI Beacon newspaper and its correspondent, Conor King Devitt, highlights one of the issues:

A VI-incorporated company, for example, may be considered tax resident in Japan if it is headquartered in Tokyo. Such a company would not be subject to the territorys new [economic] substance requirements.

The highly informative article continues:

The exact [economic] substance requirements differ for different types of economic activity, but, overall, the legislation requires such companies to demonstrate that their core income-generating activities happen on the territorys shores. A company responsible for an intellectual property business developing patents, for example, would need to show evidence that their research and development happens in the VI. A shipping business would need to demonstrate that it manages crew and maintains ships within the territory.

Companies would also have to demonstrate that there are an adequate number of suitably qualified employees in relation to that activity who are physically present in the VI; demonstrate adequate expenditure in the VI; and show evidence of appropriate physical offices for their economic activity. Companies that fail to satisfy such requirements can incur fines and eventually be stricken off the Corporate Register.

Given the limitations of the territorys size, population and infrastructure, industry stakeholders have noted that the physical substance mandates are likely to discourage many types of businesses from incorporating new VI entities or renewing existing ones.

Initial penalties for non-compliance include fines ranging from a minimum of $5,000 to $50,000. The final penalty will be decided by the International Tax Authority (ITA) established under the BVIs Ministry of Finance.

Fortunately, there does appear to be some common sense evident, at least where the estimated 400,000 BVI holding companies are concerned. Under the new law, such companies only have to show that they have adequate employees and premises to manage their equitable interests or shares. However, what might be considered adequate is not yet known at this time. If the EU stipulates a number of employees per company, this could devastate the islands offshore service industry.

The EU seemingly fails to appreciate that the business of the majority of BVI companies is to act as passive holding companies for share capital in subsidiary undertakings domiciled and operating elsewhere. The economic substance of a holding company does not involve employing many people or producing widgets or services. It is to act as an aggregator of capital to go on risk through investments through subsidiaries or holdings in the capital of other companies all over the world.

If we look at the new statute, it includes as a part of the definition of economic substance the idea that a BVI holding company can be in compliance with the Act (as maintaining adequate economic substance inside the BVI) without actually requiring an influx of employees or economic activity being onshored onto Tortola. Holding companies fall into an exception to what an analyst may consider to be adequate economic activity to show economic substance to being venued in the BVI. This test of adequacy of economic substance will, it seems, be ultimately decreed by the overlords in the EU. What is it that the grey suits in Brussels consider acceptable and not a source of unattractive tax avoidance? Who knows?

The EUs blacklisting threat against smaller countries or territories for not adhering to its unclear standards in the area of tax avoidance is undemocratic and brutal. It also reveals a misunderstanding of what BVI companies do in large measure.

BVI companies form an integral part of the worlds economic plumbing, which in turn has stimulated the movement of surplus capital from rich nations to go on risk in developing nations  thereby pulling many people out of poverty tax efficiently. This has been one of the most positive benefits of globalization. Many of the NGO campaigners remain unaware of this role the BVI can, and does play, along with her sister service providers elsewhere in the Caribbean and the Channel Islands.

The EU is seemingly unwittingly threatening to destroy the plumbing of globalization over its own political ineptitude, in order to get its internal tax policy equalized and to negate tax competition in the internal EU market (for example, comparing Irish corporate tax rates with those in France) or outside the EU. The EU threat is more to do with political expediency. It is unjust and wrong-headed for the EU to blame small Caribbean Islands for their own tax mess.

Contrary to the EUs and the NGOs assertions, according to the International Investment website, reporting on research carried out by economists commissioned by the BVI government at Capital Economics, the territory has become more of a domicile of choice for corporate clients looking to achieve an efficient cross-border structuring than for stashing private wealth.

The International Investment article added:

The research found that assets held on the island on behalf of offshore companies currently total around $1.5 trillion, more than twice what had been estimated to be there seven years ago. It also found that more than 140 listed companies in London, New York, Hong Kong and elsewhere use BVI business companies to manage their cross-border activities.

Capital Economics report, said by BVI Finance to be the first of its kind, estimated that:

More than $15 billion of tax revenues are generated annually for governments around the world, via investment mediated by the BVI and the resulting economic activity. The UK ($3.9 billion), the EU excluding UK ($4.2 billion) and China and Hong Kong ($2.1 billion) are the largest beneficiaries of this tax generation.

The Capital Economics researchers concluded:

The BVI is not, some supposed tax haven, as it has no banking secrecy rules, and compares well against many other jurisdictions on international standards for transparency, tax information exchange, anti-money laundering, and measures to combat the financing of terrorism. What is more, the BVI is tax neutral and is not a center for corporate profit shifting, it adds. Just because a company is incorporated in BVI does not stop it being liable for full taxation in other jurisdictions.

In other words, serious economic research would indicate that the BVI is not some form of hell on earth, presided over by Beelzebub. It is in fact the most important offshore service provider for the worlds corporate investors and risk takers. I was delighted when the Panama Papers highlighted criminal tax evasion and money laundering scams. I was less pleased when I realized that common sense and reality was totally lost in the ensuing maelstrom. What part of the fact, that this was historical wrongdoing, didnt the lobbyists and campaigners grasp?

The use of blacklists to try to extort policy results in small foreign sovereign states is an open form of economic warfare and hostility  and a direct assault on the sovereignty of democratically elected local government. It is a horribly blunt instrument which is pregnant with unintended consequences.

With thanks to Tony McClements, Senior Investigator at Martin Kenney & Co, for his assistance with this post.

____

Martin Kenney, pictured above, is Managing Partner of Martin Kenney & Co., Solicitors, a specialist investigative and asset recovery practice based in the BVI, focused on multi-jurisdictional fraud and grand corruption cases www.martinkenney.com | @MKSolicitors. In 2014 he was the recipient of the ACFEs highest honor: the Cressey Award for life-time achievement in the detection and deterrence of fraud. He was selected as one of the Top Thought Leaders of the Legal Profession in 2018 and 2019 by Whos Who Legal International and as the number one offshore lawyer for asset recovery in 2017 and 2018.
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View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Deloitte has been fined 409,000 for failing to uncover a massive corruption scandal at Malaysias sovereign wealth fund 1MDB

Beancounter Deloitte has been fined 409,000 for failing to uncover a massive corruption scandal at Malaysias sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.

The accountant has been penalised by Malaysian authorities because it allegedly did not report financial irregularities in companies linked to 1MDB, while working as their auditor.

Deloitte was accused of serious breaches of law for its part in the scandal, which allegedly saw top politicians and officials pocket 3.4billion.

It piles fresh pressure on the auditor at a time when the accounting industry is under heavy scrutiny and its biggest players are battling against calls to break them up.

Deloitte is already caught up in a host of scandals. It worked for Carillion in the run-up to the outsourcing titans collapse a year ago but failed to flag up problems.

And it is facing regulatory probes over its work for contractor Mitie Group and building materials supplier SIG.
Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was loudly heckled yesterday during an interview in Trump-hating New York

Starbucks boss Howard Schultz's presidential ambitions, as many predicted, are endangering the coffee company's brand.

He was loudly heckled yesterday during an interview in Trump-hating New York when an audience member called him an 'egotistical a*****' whose candidature would only help the Donald get re-elected.

Jargon-spouting Schultz enjoys a 3billion fortune but is said to be guarded with his hard-earned pennies.

Associates who receive one of his personal Starbucks gift cards are often disappointed when they discover it's for a measly $5.

For an undisclosed fee, HSBC has hired naff electronic composer Jean-Michel Jarre to craft its new 'sound identity'.

The resulting track, Together We Thrive, is an unsettling collection of bleeps and blobs guaranteed to irritate telephone customers while they wait on hold.

Thrice-married Jean-Michel, 70, enthuses: 'When HSBC first contacted me about the project I was very intrigued. I realised this was more than just a bank.' Isn't it heartening to know that artistes of Monsieur Jarre's integrity still exist out there?

Sotheby's is auctioning a spectacular wine collection, which it values at 20million, belonging to an anonymous collector.

Among the 16,889 bottles for sale are 250 lots of the much-prized burgundy, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, plus customary first-growth clarets such as Lafite, Haut Brion, etc.

The auction takes place in March over in Hong Kong where there's a thirst among the Chinese elite for top-notch reds. They reckon that it brings good luck, and who are we to argue?

Speaking of boozing, hit-and-miss venture capitalist Jon Moulton bemoans the abstemious nature of the City nowadays.

He tells Financial News: 'I think it's somewhat less fun, to be honest. Nothing beat the old two-hour lunch with four different wines.

Now if you go out for lunch with an investment bank, you get 50 minutes and an undersized piece of meat and some water.' Quite so. Perhaps that's why Moulton prefers to base himself in tax-friendly Guernsey.

From the BBC's always-instructive business website yesterday, a headline: 'Do I have to go to work in the snow?'
Apple's encouraging results came just weeks after boss Tim Cook warned of subdued demand for the iPhone

Shares in Apple rose last night after the US tech giant raked in more than analysts were expecting.

Profits came in at 15.2billion in the last three months of 2018, slightly higher than the 15.16billion which Wall Street had predicted, while revenue hit 64.5billion compared to expectations of 64.3billion.

Sales of the iPhone fell slightly short, however, as the handset only pulled in 39.8billion for Apple over the period. Forecasts had suggested sales of the smartphones would reach 40.3billion.

Investors, who had been cautious ahead of the results, welcomed the announcement.

Shares in New York rose almost 4 per cent in the minutes following the results, to $160.80.

The iPhone maker also revealed it had 188billion of cash at hand  up 3 per cent on the previous quarter.

Last night was the first time Apple has released results under a new structure, announced in November.

It revealed the profitability of its services branch, which includes Apple Care, Apple Pay and the App Store, for the first time.

Revenue in this vital arm slightly beat analysts expectations, pulling in 8.34billion as opposed to 8.32billion.

However Apple declined to reveal how many iPhones it had actually sold.

The results came just weeks after boss Tim Cook warned of subdued demand for the iPhone, fuelling fears over the health of the global economy.

In a letter to shareholders at the beginning of January, the 58-year-old cut the companys sales forecast for the first time since 2002.

He blamed an economic slowdown in China, where Apple sells many of its products.

In last nights results, Apple revealed its revenue from China had slipped 27 per cent from a year ago to 10billion.

Apple Profits came in at 15.2bn in the last three months of 2018, slightly higher than the 15.16bn Wall Street predicted. Revenue hit 64.5bn compared to expectations of 64.3bn

Apple also pointed to weaker than expected demand for the iPhone in developed countries as fewer customers than anticipated chose to upgrade to new handsets.

The price of the newest model, the iPhone XS, starts at 999 but it has been criticised for being too similar to previous versions.

Shares in the company fell 10 per cent after the letter was published.

Apple became the worlds first trillion-dollar company in August when its shares closed at a then-record of $207.

But the shares have fallen sharply since then and the firm was last night valued at $733bn, or 557bn.

Subdued demand for the iPhone has taken its toll on a host of other companies, from chip-makers that supply Apple to stores that sell its products such as Dixons Carphone.

Taiwan Semiconductor, which is the sole supplier of a certain type of chip used in iPhones, warned investors this month that it was forecasting its sharpest quarterly fall in revenue in a decade.

The announcement sent ripples across the tech sector, as investors inferred the poor results meant demand for high-end smartphones was slipping.

But concerns about demand for iPhones worldwide did not stop Cook collecting his biggest bonus ever. He trousered 12.3million in 2018, including a 2.4million salary and a 9.4million bonus.

It was a 22 per cent pay rise for a year that saw Apple post record revenue and profit.

He also picked up 280,000 shares as part of stock awards, worth around 33million yesterday, taking his total haul over 45million.

It was the second year running he received a major pay raise. In 2017 he received 10million while in 2016 he made 6.8million.

As iPhone sales are slowing, the California-based company is relying on its services branch to pull in more cash.

But analysts at UBS said Apple needed to address the negative attitude that some companies are beginning to develop towards its App store, where customers can buy games and other applications to run on their devices.

Netflix, for example, began to pressure Apple to cut its fees last year.

Other companies such as games creator Epic, music service Spotify and dating app owner Match Group could begin to do the same, UBS said.
A Barclays executive, at the centre of a fraud trial, allegedly begged senior bank boss Rich Ricci (pictured) for a bonus

A Barclays executive begged senior bank boss Rich Ricci for a bonus hours after shareholders signed off the investment deal at the heart of a major fraud trial, a court heard.

Roger Jenkins, 63, is on trial with three other executives, accused of secretly funnelling a 322million commission fee to Qatari investors to sweeten a deal.

The former investment banking chief said his role as negotiator had 'saved our a**** and jobs', Southwark Crown Court heard.

A draft agreement of March 2009, showed Jenkins was to be paid 25million as a 'special award' for his role.

The prosecution has claimed that the four men on trial committed the alleged fraud to keep their jobs and large pay packets.

On Monday it was revealed the quartet  plus another executive Chris Lucas, who is too unwell to stand trial received close to 100million in salaries and bonuses between 2007-08.

Jenkins was in line to receive 64.5million of that and, the court heard, had even asked about his 2008 bonus before the deal was put to shareholders in a 'crucial' vote.

In November 2008 he had told Ricci  then a Barclays Capital executive  that John Varley, former group chief executive, and Bob Diamond, former Barclays Capital chief executive, should lobby the bank's remuneration committee.

Writing to Ricci after the shareholder vote, Jenkins said: 'So the vote goes through. This capital did the trick.

'Why can't Varley and Diamond go to remco [the remuneration committee] and say we need to make a special payment for this endeavour now?

No one else at the organisation did this. Did it four times this year to save our a**** and jobs. Guys, you know the sell!'

Prosecutor Ed Brown had previously told the jury: 'You may think that some of these men were highly motivated to keep their jobs.'

The background was the 2008 banking crisis that saw scores of companies go under, it was said.

Barclays was at risk of being forced to accept a bailout from the Government, which could have cost the bank its independence and put a cap on executive pay.

Senior staff were under 'extreme pressure' to boost the balance sheet, which allowed the Qatari investors to drive a hard deal, the court heard.

But to avoid other investors, including Abu Dhabi, asking for additional fees, a 322million sweetener was disguised as an 'Advisory Services Agreement', prosecutors claimed.

Former chief executive John Varley, 62, Jenkins, Tom Kalaris, 63, and Richard Boath, 60 all deny fraud by false representation. Neither Diamond nor Ricci is on trial. The trial continues.
LVMH owns brands including Louis Vuitton and Givenchy as worn by actress Charlize Theron (pictured)

French luxury goods group LVMH clocked up record sales amid soaring demand for champagne and couture clothing.

The Parisian firm, which owns brands including Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Moet and Hennessey, posted an 11 per cent jump in sales to 40.7billion last year, a record high.

Profits rose by 21 per cent to 8.7billion.

Louis Vuitton handbags and shoes performed particularly well, with wine and spirits also enjoying strong growth.

Demand for whisky in China boosted sales of Scottish single malts Glenmorangie and Ardbeg.

And Christian Dior Couture, bought for almost 10billion in 2017, had 'an excellent first full year'.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive, said: 'LVMH had another record year, both in terms of revenue and results.

'The desirability of our brands, the creativity and quality of our products, the unique experience offered to our customers, and the talent and the commitment of our teams are the group's strengths and have once again made the difference.'
I have not received a gas bill from my supplier EDF Energy since September 20, 2017.

Each time I call, it refuses to accept my meter reading or to send anyone to check it.

I have had many standard letters  sometimes two per day  which confirm that my monthly direct debit is 54. I don't know what else I can do.

S. S., Plymouth, Devon.

EDF is not only refusing to accept one reader's meter reading but also refusing to send someone round to check it for themselves

Your letter reveals the influence that mysterious groups known as gas transporters can have on our bills when we move supplier.

Gas transporters are the companies that actually own the pipes and move the gas around; there is the National Grid, plus six independents.

When you joined EDF in July 2017, you provided a reading, which the gas transporter rejected. It asked EDF to start with a lower reading, which would have led to a bigger EDF bill for you, but a smaller one from your previous company.

You disputed this and EDF raised the issue with your previous supplier, which agreed your readings were correct.

Unfortunately, EDF did not follow the right process, which meant that you did not receive a correct start reading until September 18, 2017. Meanwhile, in error, it raised a second dispute that led to your gas contract being locked, preventing any further bills from being issued.

You called many times, but the problem was not identified.

Exasperated, you moved to a new supplier on August 13, 2018  but, once again, the gas transporter put its oar in. It invented a higher meter reading that would again have resulted in a larger EDF bill for you.

Both suppliers were prepared to accept your reading, but the gas transporter rejected it because it fell outside of its 'automated tolerances'.

After I intervened, the transfer reading was finally agreed and your new supplier sent you a bill. The firm also called to apologise and, even better, paid you 200  made up of a refund of your final bill of 159.09 and a goodwill gesture of 40.91.

In addition, you've been offered a personal call with its customer services director.

An EDF spokesman says: 'After reviewing the account, we could see a number of errors were made on both joining and leaving EDF Energy. We have written to Mrs S to apologise.'

Incidentally, on both of my most recent energy supply moves, my readings, backed up by pictures, were initially rejected, forcing me to insist that they were used.

Automated guesswork from a third party's computer being given priority over customer readings is yet another absurdity foisted on us by the energy industry and its regulators.

I advise anyone swapping suppliers to take a photo of their reading as they write it down.

Straight to the point I have let out rooms on Airbnb for the past four years. Before Christmas, a guest caused thousands of pounds of damage. He flooded my bathroom, cracked the tiles and ruined my furniture, towels and bedding. I have tried to claim back the cost from Airbnb under its Host Guarantee, but it will not pay. It has also closed my account. L. Y., by email. When I contacted Airbnb, it agreed that it had made an error and offered to pay 2,160 to cover the damage. However, following an incident with another guest, it will not reactivate your account. You say the guest overstayed without paying and was offensive, but Airbnb says you also used offensive language, which it does not tolerate, so you have been removed from the platform. *** I received an email purporting to be from taxi firm Uber, telling me someone had tried to access my account from a phone in Fulham, London. It told me to reset my password and gave a link. I'm worried it is a scam, but what if someone did try to break into my account? F. M., by email. Your instinct was right. Uber says it can detect no fraudulent attempt to access your account. It adds that if this did happen, a message would be sent to your account and you'd be emailed to say that a message was waiting. To be sure, Uber has asked you to change your password. *** We took out AA breakdown cover last year. The advert promised a 30 M&S voucher, but we never received one. Can you help? B. L., by email. The AA says it tried to email and post the vouchers to you. After I got in touch, it reissued them and you have now received them.

We were due to fly with Thomas Cook from Gatwick to Rhodes at 9am on September 4, but did not take off until 7pm.

The airline admitted liability and agreed compensation of 400 per person. However, this was in the form of vouchers, with the incentive of an extra 400 if we accepted.

We decided to decline, as we did not want to restrict future travel plans. I informed the firm of this but, having received no acknowledgement, wrote again a month later. Once again, I received no reply.

R. S., Oxfordshire.

I was a little confused by Thomas Cook's response, as it referred to you ticking the wrong box online. Yet you had sent physical letters, both when making your complaint and when rejecting the offer of vouchers.

Thomas Cook apologised and said your letter was held up in a backlog, which is why you did not hear back immediately. The refund has now been processed, giving you 1,600 (around 1,400) for the four passengers.

A Thomas Cook spokeswoman says: 'We are sorry that Mr S experienced a delay. Following an initial misunderstanding, his cash compensation payment has now been processed.'

***

In late August, I paid Plusnet for a year's line rental upfront. It acknowledged the payment, but later kept asking for it, with threats to cease connection.

I have written and called (always waiting 30 to 40 minutes)  but nothing ever happens.

J. L., Kendal, Cumbria.

I've had problems with Plusnet for the past year. My bills have been consistently wrong and, when I informed it I was leaving, it continued to take payments.

I have written to the chief executive for an explanation of how much I owe and why the bills have been so erratic.

C. C., Devon.

Two letters about Plusnet billing and one explanation  a 'system upgrade'. Not much of an upgrade if it can't get the bills right.

A spokesperson says: 'We sincerely apologise to customers affected. We know this is not the experience we pride ourselves on. In September, we moved to a new billing system and, unfortunately, this caused issues for a small percentage of our customers.

'All customers impacted have been contacted and we'd like to reassure everyone we're working hard to fix the final few issues.'

September? But both of you experienced issues before then. I have pressed for more details  to no avail. However, I am pleased to say Plusnet has been in touch with you to resolve the issues and provide goodwill gestures.
As DIY investors it's vital to do plenty of research  so it's not surprising many of you have asked me how to find the best information on investment funds.

I use three main sources.

First, there are the fund platforms  where we buy and hold investments.

Many have lists of recommended funds. City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has published research that found overall recommended funds outperform non-recommended ones by 0.6 per cent a year.

City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has published research that found overall recommended funds outperform non-recommended ones by 0.6 per cent a year

So, if you invested 10,000 for 20 years and it grew by 6 per cent you would have 32,071, but at 6.6 per cent you would have 35,904.

The FCA adds that investors choosing funds not affiliated to the platform seem 'well-served'.

Secondly, the fund managers' websites allow you to take a good look at what a fund holds, its objectives and who runs it.

But my favourite source is ratings website Morningstar where you can usually find independent comment and analysis alongside long-term performance figures.

Of course, those who have a long and happy relationship with an independent financial adviser can more or less put their feet up and leave them to act.

But many of us prefer to make our own investment decisions.

FCA figures from last year suggested platforms interacting with customers directly were administering 189 billion in funds.

That same report  the Investment Platforms Market Study  said about 17 per cent of us rely on the platforms' recommended fund lists. Another 17 per cent simply choose their ready-made portfolios.

Where I look for fund recommendations

I'm not keen on ready-made portfolios. Tick certain boxes and you're shunted down a route which may not suit you at all.

The FCA has warned that it can be 'difficult for consumers to understand what model portfolios' objectives are and whether they match consumers' risk appetite and tolerance'.

If, like me, you'd rather choose your own funds then those platforms' recommendations can whittle down the world of more than 2,000 to less than 100.

Some recommend in-house funds. They may be decent  but take extra caution. Fidelity has too many of its own for my taste.

Fund recommendations I regularly consider are Bestinvest, which has just updated its list of 83, AJ Bell, with 88, Hargreaves Lansdown with its trimmed-down list of 63 and Fidelity Personal Investing with 50.

Like Hargreaves, Bestinvest has concentrated on a smaller number of funds in which it says it has the highest conviction.

Closer analysis of these lists reveals how little agreement there is. In the end these recommendations come down to the judgment of a small group of people embedded in the investment business.

They'll have looked at performance and hopefully met the managers and analysed the assets held by each recommended fund.

But no matter how much data they have and how many interviews they have, there will in the end be an element of subjectivity  just as there will be in your final decision.

On ratings website Morningstar where you can usually find independent comment and analysis alongside long-term performance figures

Which funds make more than one list?

Say you're looking for a decent UK fund, you'll find Lindsell Train UK Equity listed by three platforms but missing from AJ Bell Youinvest's list.

Jo Hambro UK Dynamic makes three lists but not Hargreaves Lansdown's.

Want some income?

Then in the UK Equity Income sector Threadneedle UK Equity Income is popular  with everyone except Fidelity.

Investing worldwide, there's even less agreement. AJ Bell has 15 suggestions and Hargreaves six, but they only agree on one fund: Newton Global Income.

Get This is Money's free guide to investing How to be a successful investor is This is Money's easy to understand and jargon-free guide to investing. It is written to help new investors and those who already invest find the best ways to grow their wealth. You can download it here or by clicking on the button above.

Lindsell Train's Global Equity fund, which has delivered excellent returns is nowhere to be seen on some platforms' lists neither is Fundsmith Equity, another private investors' favourite.

Some platforms take a tack on the model portfolio approach. Charles Stanley carries a selection of Foundation portfolios based on 60 to 70 funds giving a choice of income, growth or income and growth, then asking whether you're cautious, balanced or adventurous.

You might not want to follow the whole portfolio but you do get a list of funds to investigate.

And it helpfully shows how your assets will be split by sector and region if you follow their choices.

Alliance Trust Savings shows the top 20 funds bought by its investors in the past month. You may regard this as a 'Don't buy' list, depending on your attitude.

Some guidance from Jason Hollands of Bestinvest: 'Before selecting investments, I would urge investors to review their existing portfolios to identify how much exposure they have to different asset classes and markets and if this is the right mix given their goals and risk level.

'Even an originally well-planned portfolio will drift over time, so a cautious portfolio can become a much more riskier one over time, unless reviewed periodically.'

And don't forget it's your money and by choosing your own investments you are taking the risk. These fund lists are ideas not advice.

t.hazell@dailymail.co.uk
Buying out the contracts of incoming chief executives and offering them over-generous bonus packages is never a good idea.

Santander executive chairman Ana Botin has been hugely embarrassed by the on-off decision to employ former UBS boss Andrea Orcel, backing away from the contract when it was revealed the cost would be up to 50million (43.5million).

The chief executive of Royal Mail, Rico Back, finds himself in a similar place.

He is on to a hiding to nothing having been granted a 5.8million buyout of his contract from the Royal Mail's parcels delivery service Global Logistics Systems (GLS) and an annual pay package worth up to 2.7million.

Royal Mail boss Rico Back, was granted a 5.8m buyout of his contract from the Royal Mail's parcels delivery service Global Logistics Systems and an annual salary worth up to 2.7m

Back earned a reputation among employees, investors and the wider public as 'Mr Greedy' long before the Royal Mail's income fell off a cliff.

It has lowered its target for operational profits twice in quick succession and that was before what it calls 'transformational costs' take a big bite.

The chief executive cannot be blamed personally for the collapse in the letters posted, with earnings expected to plunge by 8 per cent in the current financial year.

But he can take responsibility for not seeing it coming given the decline in letter-writing and restrictions on direct marketing. Royal Mail shares are now below the flotation price after a 13.3 per cent fall yesterday.

That hurts investors, the posties who were given up to 10 per cent of the initial public offering and, most importantly, the Government.

It was initially kicked for selling Royal Mail too cheaply and awarding easy profits to the hedge funds and the sovereign wealth funds offered 'first dibs' by the investment bankers.

Now it has created an open goal for Labour which if it came to power could renationalise on the cheap.

The big opportunity for Back is online parcel delivery.

In the first nine months, revenues from GLS were up 13 per cent. But how capable Royal Mail is of defending a competitive space is uncertain.

One of its biggest customers, Amazon, has been building its own logistics, and with its deep pockets and ability to engage in price wars that is a big threat.

Moreover, many rival delivery services look to have the edge on Royal Mail/GLS in real-time tracking systems.

So what can Back do? One painful choice is to squeeze labour costs. But the optics would be terrible. The idea of multi-millionaire Swiss resident Back coming on heavy with the postal unions is anathema.

An ineffectual Royal Mail board created a rod for the whole postal service when it overpaid for Back's services.

As a company which operates in a public space, its letterhead is forever blotted.

Rotting fruit

A No Deal Brexit would be unhelpful for Britain's supermarkets, which claim that a just-in-time approach could seriously disrupt fresh food supplies. Out-of-season lettuce and tomatoes are cited.

But as anyone who visits the fresh food counters in the Co-operative, M&S, Lidl and Waitrose would testify, the fruit and veg counters are a United Nations of produce.

Some 84 per cent of avocados come from Peru, South Africa, Chile, Israel and Spain in that order.

Most arrive by air freight or ship and don't trundle through the Chunnel to Dover. Bananas come from Latin America, oranges from South Africa and Israel.

Indeed, 67 per cent of the fruit and vegetables imported into the UK come from South Africa, Chile and Spain, the only EU nation.

It cannot be beyond the wit of M&S or Waitrose to fly in their out-of-season tomatoes from Spain if they were really worried about them rotting at channel ports.

M&S is expert at this in the opposite direction. It keeps the 10m people of Hong Kong and the New Territories stocked up with fresh foods flown by chartered jumbo jets from Britain.

If this densely populated region can be fed and watered from a long-distance flight away, bringing in lettuces by air from southern Spain should be easy-peasy.

Open Mike

Mike Ashley loves brands. So it makes perfect sense that he is making a play for Sofa.com. By so doing he would protect concessions in House of Fraser stores.

Similarly, if he were successful in buying Patisserie Valerie he could reopen the upmarket cafes in 17 Debenhams stores and perhaps persuade Debs' management about opening more.

Intriguing!
EMILY ST. LAWRENCE, Chariho girls lacrosse, senior: St. Lawrence scored the 100th goal of her career in a 16-1 win against Lincoln. St. Lawrence finished her career with 104 goals, eight short of the school record. The team did not play last season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

JOSH MOONEY, Stonington track & field, sophomore: Mooney scored in three events at the State Open meet. Mooney was second in the 110 hurdles, fourth in the javelin and fifth in the 300 hurdles. He scored all 17 of Stoningtons points.

ALEX STOEHR, Westerly softball, freshman: Stoehr hit three triples and a double in a doubleheader sweep of Barrington. For the week, she was 7 for 13 with four doubles, two triples and three RBIs. Stoehr is hitting .333 for the season.

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\R Kota (R'than), Jan 30 (PTI) A 59-year-old Nepalese citizen died after the car he was travelling in rammed into a truck in Rajasthan's Kota district, police said Wednesday.

The deceased, Maan Kumar Thapa, was a resident of Gulmi district in Nepal and worked as a security incharge at a cement factory in Modak town of Kota, the police said.

The incident occurred on National Highway 52 near Kamalpura village on Tuesday night when Thapa, along with his son and daughter-in-law, was returning home from Kota town after a medical check-up, said Modak police station incharge Nand Singh.

The driver of the car has sustained injuries and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. However, Thapa's son and daughter-in-law were unscathed, the officer said.

Initial inquiry revealed that the sudden slamming of breaks by the truck driver led to the accident. A case of negligent driving has been registered against the driver, who escaped from the spot along with the truck, the officer said.

The officer said the driver would be nabbed soon as the truck number was noted.

The body was handed over to the family after post-mortem, he added. PTI CORR MAZ

HMB
Rosenberg, TX (77471)

Today

Variable clouds with thunderstorms, especially this morning. High around 90F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early with scattered thunderstorms developing late. Low 78F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Wayanad(Ker), Jan 29 (PTI) A local Congress leader here has been booked for allegedly raping a minor tribal girl for nearly a year, police said Wednesday.

A case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Section 376 (rape) and under the SC/ST Act after the girl's parents complained that their daughter had been allegedly raped for a year by O M George, former general secretary of Wayanad DCC, who had threatened and blackmailed her several times.

George is absconding, police said.

Acting swiftly, the Kerala PCC President, Mulapally Ramachandran, announced the suspension of George Wednesday.

Pending inquiry, George has been suspended. The party will not protect any accused, Ramachandran said.

The 17-year old girl's parents were working at George's house and she used to accompany them on some days.

The incident came to light a week ago after the girl's parents heard George threatening their daughter on phone. She also attempted to commit suicide by cutting her veins, the girl's father told television channels.

The parents approached the Child Line and a case was registered under POCSO Act.

The girl's statement has been recorded, police said, adding she had been exploited since February last year.

Wayanad DCC President, I C Balakrishnan, said the party has asked for a report from block and mandal presidents regarding the incident.

The girl's parents also alleged a local Congress leader had tried to put pressure on them to withdraw the case and offered money. PTI UD SS DV

DV
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the response of the Delhi government and three private hospitals here on a plea seeking directions to frame binding critical care guidelines for Delhi government-run and private hospitals.

The court also asked five doctors of the three private hospitals to file their replies to the petition filed by a woman, whose mother had died of cardiac arrest due to alleged medical negligence.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru listed the matter for further hearing on April 23.

The Delhi government, which was asked by the court to file its response to the petition earlier also, was granted more time to submit its reply.

The court was hearing the plea filed by the woman, a neuroscientist in the US, who has prayed for directions to provide basic and advanced critical life support cardiopulmonary resuscitation training to all the doctors and nurses under the Delhi government's jurisdiction.

The court had earlier stressed the dire need for proper critical care training to paramedics.

The woman, in her petition filed through advocate Jai Dehadrai, has highlighted the "criminal neglect" suffered by her mother "at the hands of two hospitals and five doctors, who blatantly refused to admit or treat her while she laid helplessly dying in her car".

The victim had died on February 9, 2017 after she was refused entry into two private hospitals in east Delhi.

Dehadrai had said the woman was not seeking any compensation from the hospitals but wanted directions for framing guidelines for hospitals.

The plea has also sought a direction to the Delhi government and the Directorate General of Health Services to permanently shut down the two hospitals and cancel the medical licence and permission granted to them, alleging that they were "nothing more than death traps".

It has also sought cancellation of licences and degrees of the five doctors, who were allegedly directly responsible for causing the death of the victim by denying her treatment.

"Direct the Government of NCT of Delhi and the Directorate General of Health Services to draft binding medical guidelines for all private and government hospitals in Delhi to ensure admission of dying/critical patients brought in an emergency situation and specifically, the victims of cardiac arrest.

"Set up a commission of inquiry under the stewardship of a retired high court judge to investigate and ascertain the quality of emergency healthcare facilities provided in the National Capital Region of Delhi," the plea says.

It adds that when the woman was taken to the first hospital, the doctor there, who had an MBBS degree, neither attended to the emergency situation nor provided any treatment and refused her admission.

The doctor had also asked the attendant to take the victim to another hospital, the plea says. PTI SKV HMP RC
\R New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale Wednesday summoned Pakistan envoy Sohail Mahmood and categorically told him that Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's telephonic conversation with separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was a "brazen attempt" to subvert Indias unity and violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Ministry of External Affairs, in a late evening statement, said the Pakistan High Commissioner was "cautioned" that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have "implications".

The Pakistan Foreign Office on Tuesday said Qureshi spoke with the Hurriyat leader and with him efforts of Pakistan government to highlight the Kashmir issue.

"The High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned by the Foreign Secretary tonight in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference," the MEA said.

It said Gokhale conveyed to the Pakistani envoy that the "deplorable act" has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistans own standards and that Qureshi's actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of Indias condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert Indias unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister," the MEA said.

In the strongly-worded statement, it further said Gokhale underscored that the action has confirmed yet again that Pakistan officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities.

"It has exposed to the entire international community Pakistans duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other," the MEA said.

"The Pakistan High Commissioner was categorically informed by the Foreign Secretary that the Government of India expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions. He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," it added.

The MEA asserted that the entire Jammu and Kashmir "has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India and that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matters related to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, has been made clear again to the High Commissioner of Pakistan."

The Pakistan Foreign office said Tuesday that Qureshi, during his conversation with Farooq, also mentioned the June 2018 report issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a report of the UK Parliament. PTI MPB GVS
\R New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) In a major boost to agencies probing high-profile corruption cases, a Dubai-based businessman wanted in the VVIP choppers case and a corporate aviation lobbyist are being deported to India, officials said on Wednesday.

They said in the first case, Rajeev Shamsher Bahadur Saxena, was picked up by Dubai authorities early Wednesday in connection with the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers money laundering case.

He is expected to be handed over to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing his role under money laundering charges.

Saxena, who is also an accountant, is being deported by Dubai authorities on the basis of a non-bailable warrant issued by a court on the request of the ED, they said.

A co-accused and alleged middleman in this case, British national Christian James Michel was recently extradited from Dubai to India (in December last year). He is currently in judicial custody.

Saxena's lawyers alleged that no extradition proceedings were started against him in the UAE and he was not allowed to access his family or lawyers while being sent to India.

It is also understood that corporate aviation lobbyist Deepak Talwar, wanted by the ED and the CBI in a case of misusing over Rs 90 crore taken through the foreign funding route as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR), is also being deported along with Rajeev Saxena from Dubai.

Talwar has been charged with criminal conspiracy, forgery and under various sections of the FCRA for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore worth of foreign funds meant for ambulances and other articles received by his NGO from Europe's leading missile manufacturing company. His role in some aviation deals during the UPA government's regime is under scanner.

Talwar has been booked by the ED and the CBI in criminal cases of corruption, even as the Income Tax Department has charged him with tax evasion.

The ED had summoned Rajeev Saxena, a resident of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, multiple times in the case and had arrested his wife Shivani Saxena from the Chennai airport in July, 2017. She is now out on bail.

The ED had alleged that Rajeev Saxena, his wife and their two Dubai-based firms -- Ms UHY Saxena, Dubai and Ms Matrix Holdings -- routed "the proceeds of crime and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares among others".

The ED had said that its probe found that "Agusta Westland International Ltd, UK paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks through Gordian Services Sarl, Tunisia and IDS Sarl, Tunisia.

"These companies further siphoned off the said money/ proceeds of crime in the name of consultancy contracts to Interstellar Technologies Ltd, Mauritius, and others which were further transferred to UHY Saxena, Dubai and Matrix Holdings Ltd. Dubai and others," the ED had charged.

The ED had said Rajeev Saxena is "beneficial owner" of Interstellar Technologies Ltd and both his companies received proceeds of crime in their respective Dubai bank accounts from this firm.

It had said the couple have remitted/ transferred a "huge amount of money" through their Dubai-based companies to various other accounts.

The ED had named Rajeev Saxena in its charge sheet filed in this case and had got issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal. PTI NES/ACB SKL GVS
(Eds: Updating, adding Parrikar's comments)

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "sold" the Indian Air Force to benefit a businessman in the Rafale contract, and asserted that the truth about the multi-billion dollar deal was coming out from within the government despite attempts to hide it.

Gandhi's fresh round of attack on the Rafale issue comes a day after he met Goa Chief Minister and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar and ahead of the Parliament's budget session, starting Thursday.

Addressing a Youth Congress event here, Gandhi hit out at the Modi government over the issue of alleged corruption in the fighter jet deal and said voices bringing out the truth were coming out from within the dispensation and no one can silence them.

"I understand that you (Modi) cannot sleep in the night, I know that when you sleep, you see Anil Ambani's photo, you see the photo of Rafale aircraft, you see the photo of IAF martyrs," Gandhi said.

"This is happening due to the Congress that has shown you the truth. The entire country knows that you have sold the Indian Air Force," the Congress chief said in his over half-an-hour speech laced with barbs at Modi on multiple issues such as Rafale, crony capitalism, farm loan waiver, and jobs among others.

Gandhi said he met Parrikar on Wednesday.

"Parrikar ji had himself said that while changing the deal, the prime minister did not ask the defence minister," he said, without making it clear whether he was referring to Wednesday's meeting or earlier reported remarks by Parrikar.

The Goa Chief Minister has categorically denied discussing Rafale issue with Gandhi in the meeting on Wednesday.

"Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me," Parrikar asserted while attacking Gandhi for using his courtesy visit to him for "petty political gains".

Gandhi alleged that Modi snatched away employment from the youth of Karnataka and Odisha because he wanted to ensure that his "friend" Anil Ambani makes a profit of Rs 30,000 crore.

The government as well as Ambani have strongly denied any wrongdoing in the fighter jet agreement with France.

Gandhi alleged that the "56-inch PM" spoke in Parliament for long, but when asked questions on the Rafale deal, could not look him in the eye and kept looking elsewhere.

He also alleged that former CBI chief Alok Verma was removed to stop the truth in the Rafale deal from coming out.

Talking about Verma's ouster, he said: "Just after 1-2 hours of the Supreme Court verdict, I got a call from Kharge ji who said 'Rahul ji the CBI committee has been called within an hour and Narendra Modi ji wants that discussions take place so that the CBI chief is removed'."

The truth is coming out slowly and one by one evidence is coming to the fore, Gandhi claimed, alleging that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said the agreement was secret, but Dassault and Anil Ambani's firm had given the price in their annual reports.

"Long negotiations were carried out on the deal, but Narendra Modi junked all negotiations to help Anil Ambani. Now, Narendra Modi is trying to hide the truth," the Congress chief alleged.

"Parrikar ji says in a Cabinet meeting that I have Rafale deal file, no one can remove me from Goa. His minister talks to a journalist on phone, the whole of India has heard the tape. Another truth is coming out from the CBI. So, Narendra Modi ji asks Amit Shah to silence him, remove him at 1:30 in the night," Gandhi said, referring to Verma's removal.

The Congress president also made a sharp attack on the government over the farm loan waiver issue and accused the prime minister of having waived Rs 3.5 lakh crore loans of 15 of his "friends".

"I asked the CMs of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan to waive farmers' loans within 10 days. Congress governments did it in 2 days," Gandhi said.

"Why didn't you call Anil Ambani to your office and asked him to return the Rs 45,000 crore loan. We are asking for justice," he said at yatra's concluding session 'Inquilab'.

Alluding to media reports stating that loan waivers to farmers will "spoil their habit", Gandhi asked whether Anil Ambani, fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya and diamantaire Nirav Modi's habits have been spoiled or not.

"If you are spoiling their habits, we will spoil the farmers' habits," Gandhi said.

Attacking Modi over the Swachh Bharat mission, Gandhi said the PM asks farmers, youth and poor people to pick up brooms, but does not ask people like Ambani to do so.

He also said the Congress will not be on the back foot and will instead play on the front foot in the Lok Sabha polls. "Modi has to face the public," he said.

"The prime minister has worked on dividing the country, burnt the Northeast, Kashmir, made people fight in Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala," Gandhi said.

"2014 taught us a lesson that we should not be arrogant and have humility... We did that and the atmosphere is changed," he said, adding that 2-3 BJP MPs in Lok Sabha met him and expressed their desire that they want to switch to the Congress camp.

The Congress has taken a historic step and decided on giving people right to minimum income. "All poor people will get benefit directly into their accounts and there will be no middlemen," he said.

Gandhi said the country needs a new vision and Congress will provide it. He mocked Modi for his plans for generating employment, saying instead of creating jobs, the PM talked about "pakodas" and generating gas from gutters. PTI ASK SKC PYK

PYK
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) The Congress on Wednesday demanded an independent time-bound probe into allegations of irregularities by non-banking finance company DHFL in the name of slum development and rehabilitation in Maharashtra.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi asked why the RBI, SEBI and the Finance Ministry are not initiating investigation into the alleged "scam" involving "siphoning of Rs 31,000 crore".

She also alleged that the government continues to "pressurise" the RBI to lend more money to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) by absolving transparency and accountability. She also claimed that donation records of BJP do not share the PAN details of such companies as mandated by the Election Commission.

"The Congress demands an independent investigation of the charges that have been revealed through this expose and an explanation to the country as to how such a huge financial scam has been once again ignored by the Ministry of Finance," she told reporters, referring to the 'sting' by a website .

While there was no immediate comment available from the BJP, the Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) in a statement has said, "This mischievous misadventure by Cobrapost appears to have been done with a mala fide intent to cause damage to the goodwill and reputation of DHFL and resulting in erosion in shareholder value."

Chaturvedi alleged that the BJP was "gifted" Rs 20 crore by the promoters of DHFL and they got a "return gift worth Rs 31,000 crore".

"Why is it that the donation records of the BJP do not share the PAN details of these companies as mandated by the Election Commission of India

"Why is it that the government of India continues to pressurize the RBI to lend money to NBFCs by totally absolving transparency and accountability from these NBFCs," she also asked.

"It raises serious questions about the Bhartiya Janta Party and Shri Narender Modis commitment towards zero tolerance to corruption....

"DHFL has routed Rs 31,000 crore of public funds through dozens of shell companies, for personal gains, information of which is easily available on public platforms and government websites," she alleged.

She alleged that the NBFCs have a mind-boggling banking exposure of over Rs 97,000 crores to 32 Indian public and private banks.

"The main partners of DHFL formed dozens of shell companies to execute this 'well planned scam and divided these companies into groups, some of which were registered under the same address with the same group of directors," the Congress spokesperson alleged.

"In the name of 'slum development and slum rehabilitation in Maharashtra, 45 of these so called shell companies were given loans worth a total of Rs 14,282 crore without any security and ignoring necessary investigations, hence leading to creating private wealth in India and abroad," she alleged.

"However, the icing on the cake is the donation of about Rs 20 crores given by the promoters to Bharatiya Janta Party through these shell companies," she claimed.

"According to the law, before any donation, a company must be in the state of profit in three financial years, which has been violated as none of these companies was in a position to give legal donations," she alleged.

Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha had also on Tuesday demanded a probe into the alleged diversion of loans by DHFL that the company raised from state-owned banks including SBI and Bank of Baroda, a charge the NBFC termed as mischievous. PTI SKC RT
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Days ahead of the Union budget, the Congress Wednesday said the government should not bring the full fledged budget in the name of interim budget, as its tenure is till May.

Representing the Congress in the all-party meeting called by Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Congress leader in the House, Kharge said the government should restrict itself to vote-on-account.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, the Congress leader said he has demanded that there should be discussion on the Rafale deal and farmers issues during the budget session, which is starting on Thursday.

"I said in the meeting that the government should not bring full-fledged budget in the name of interim budget. It cannot do this as the tenure of this government is till May. The BJP-led government should bring only vote-on-account," he said.

On Rafale, Kharge alleged that there is a scam in the fighter jet deal and said the prime minister should face the opposition in the house on this issue.

"For sure, there is a scam in the Rafale fighter jet deal and why the prime minister is running away from the debate, he should sit in Parliament and answer the questions on this deal," Kharge said, adding that new revelations have emerged about the defence deal in english dailies.

He further said the Congress will also question the government for withholding the employment data of NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation).

TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said unemployment and farmers' distress must be given priority.

Bandyopadhyay also alleged that BJP government is using CBI against Bengal and said the federal structure of the country is being ruined. PTI JTR JTR SOM

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Srinagar, Jan 30 (PTI) At least three persons were injured on Wednesday in a grenade attack by militants on a police station in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Militants lobbed the grenade at the local police station at Damhal Hanjipora in Kulgam district, a police official said.

He said the grenade exploded by the roadside, resulting in injuries to three civilians.

The injured have been rushed to a local hospital.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a hunt for the attackers, he added. PTI MIJ

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New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Amid stiff opposition in Assam against the citizenship bill, a Congress delegation from the state on Wednesday met Rahul Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha, sources said.

The delegation, comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia, party in-charge Harish Rawat besides others apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and people's strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The team requested Rahul to ensure that the Congress does not walk out of the debate on the bill in the Upper House and make sure that it is defeated with the help of like- minded parties, the sources said.

Terming the bill as "flawed", the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8. The Budget Session of Parliament will begin on Thursday.

The Congress president assured the delegation that he would give necessary instructions in this regard, the sources said.

The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill.

Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi government's decision to get Parliament's approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition... India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests. PTI ACB ZMN
\R New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) The government is expected to make a host of populist announcements in the Budget session of Parliament starting Thursday during which the Opposition is likely to corner it on a range of issues, including the contentious Rafale fighter jet deal and alleged agrarian distress.

The session, which will end on February 13 and will be last one of the present government, will begin with an address by President Ram Nath Kovind to a joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal will present the interim budget on Friday and the government may announce a number of welfare measures aimed at various sections of society, as the ruling BJP-National Democratic Alliance readies itself for the general election, likely in April-May.

The government will make efforts to pass contentious bills on citizenship and triple talaq, even as stiff opposition to these proposed legislations has denied them the parliamentary approval so far. Some BJP allies like the JD(U) have also expressed their reservations to these bills.

The government is keen on the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to grant persecuted minorities- including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians - from a few neighbouring countries Indian citizenship.

The triple talaq bill proposes jail term for Muslim men for practising instant divorce.

The Representation of the People Act (Amendment) Bill 2017, which will allow NRIs to cast their vote in Indian polls through proxies, and the National Medical Council are also on the government's agenda.

These key bills are struck in the Rajya Sabha where the government lacks numbers.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill is stuck in the Rajya Sabha amid the Opposition demanding that the government drop Bangladesh from the list of nations from where the refugees would be eligible to apply for citizenship. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha during the Winter session. The Opposition in the Rajya Sabha has demanded that the Bill be sent to a select committee.

The government's plea in the Supreme Court to return superfluous land around the disputed site in Ayodhya, where the BJP wants the Ram temple built, is also expected to generate heat in Parliament.

The Opposition is also set to vehemently oppose any populist announcement by the government on the ground that it has no "right" to do so as its term is ending in a few months. PTI KR NAB GVS
Sterling, VA (20165)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 71F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
(Eds: Adding details from complainant's statement)

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Vivek Doval Wednesday alleged before a Delhi court that 'The Caravan' magazine and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh ran a "malicious campaign" to target his father and NSA Ajit Doval by branding his family as "anti-national".

Vivek made the allegation in his statement recorded before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal in the criminal defamation complaint filed by him against the magazine and Ramesh.

"My family was referred as D-companies whereas we all know that in our country, the D-company refers to Dawood Ibrahim, who figures in the most wanted list. Question was thus raised on me and my family, specially on my father, who has dedicated his life for the service of this country, also fighting against Dawood. The article branded me and my family as anti-nationals...

"I was a soft target but in fact it was my family, specially my father, who was the target of the malicious campaign," Vivek told the court.

The comparison of Doval family with D-companies created an impression that we were doing anti-national and illegal activities which is the most preposterous charge, he said.

Vivek completed recording of his statement in the complaint and the court has now posted the matter for further hearing on February 11, when it is likely to record the testimonies of other two witnesses cited by the complainant.

The Caravan in its January 16 online write-up titled 'The D Companies' alleged that Vivek Doval, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modis government demonetised all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".

According to the complaint, Ramesh held a press conference on January 17, reiterating the "baseless and unfounded facts" as narrated in the article.

"The Caravan articles and Ramesh's press conference have been pieced by bringing in random facts, misfacts, misleading inferences to create an impression that illegal activities have been undertaken by the Doval family, including money laundering, round tripping of capital, knowing of demonetisation in advance which has tarnished my and my family image," Vivek further told the court.

He said that his family's image was further tarnished as the article and the press conference "invited comments from public terming me as 'Chota Doval', putting me in line with 'Chota Rajan' and 'Chota Shakil', who are hardened terrorists."

Vivek said the defamatory articles and press conference have tarnished his image as a professional globally and that it will be hard or impossible to recover from this setback, adding that his father had no connection with his or his brother's business.

With regard to Ramesh, the complaint said the press conference addressed by him went "beyond the mere narration in the article" and that he was already geared and armed to launch an attack, "merely waiting for the publication of the article", which could then provide a "smokescreen to the otherwise targeted and deliberate attack on the reputation of the complainant and his family".

The complaint said the article has been used as a political tool to "foster in unscrupulous hands" to "seek vendetta and wreak vengeance".

It also said that the very act of setting up and launching of a hedge fund, whether in the Cayman Islands or any other place in the world, is not by itself an illegal and unlawful act.

"However, the same, even without explicitly so stating, has been portrayed in a manner that leads to the very setting up and launching of the hedge fund being perceived as an unlawful act," it added.

The complaint alleged that "a web of conjectures and surmises has been devised by selective and careful nitpicking of random facts in respect of the complainant, his brother and his father  the facts being completely unrelated to one another  and presenting them in a manner that hints at deep rooted conspiracies between the family members, in carrying out laundering of black money, by rerouting of funds into India through the Cayman Islands, in the post-demonetization era". PTI UK SJK GSN UK GSN

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Kanpur, Jan 30 (PTI) In a dig at the proposed 'mahagathbandhan' of the opposition parties for not disclosing its prime ministerial candidate, BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday said there will a new prime minister everyday of the week if the grand alliance comes to power.

"The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is...if the '(maha)gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sundays will be holidays," Shah said addressing a meeting of BJP's booth-level workers here ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added.

"The BJP has four Bs -- 'badhta Bharat' and 'banta Bharat'. Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs -- 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," Shah said, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic politics.

"..their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government..only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he asserted.

The BJP president exhorted the workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in the parliamentary polls.

"It is also important for the country that BJP wins these elections..the win should be such that it shakes the opposition parties," Shah said.

He also lashed out at the Congress and said none of the party's leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.

"I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that BJP is committed to ensure that a grand temple is made at the Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said.

"The Congress government had acquired 42 acres of land of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas...Nyas has asked that it be returned...we hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said. PTI SAB DIV

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Apart from Chulbul, his brother Makkhi, Rajjo will also be part of animated version
Birbhum (WB), Jan 30 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday dared the Prime Minister to prove the BJP's charge that she had got money from selling her paintings to chit fund owners, as she launched a no-holds-barred attack on the rival party accusing it making false allegations to make "Begalis fight Bengalis".

"Half-educated leaders from Delhi" without having any knowledge about the culture and customs of West Bengal were levelling allegations against her government, Banerjee alleged, hitting back at the BJP a day after its chief Amit Shah at a public meeting in East Midnapore district targeted her government's functioning.

Shah had alleged Banerjee's paintings were bought by tainted chit fund owners for crores of rupees.

Banerjee on Wednesday said that the BJP leaders have no courtesy and her party has issued defamation notice over their "baseless" allegations.

Vowing to continue her fight, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said she has never bowed to anybody's threats. She alleged the BJP is trying to run parallel governments in states not ruled by it and said that she will happy to see the BJP-led central government "expire politically".

"Modi Babu (Prime Minister Narendra Modi). I can challenge you to prove that I have taken a single penny (using my paintings) in my account.

"You (BJP leaders) talk like a barbarian and have no minimum courtesy. Our party has sent a notice to him yesterday. If needed we will file a defamation suit against him (Amit Shah)," Banerjee said addressing a public distribution programme of the state government here,

A TMC minister had Tuesday issued a defamation notice to Shah for his paintings allegations against Banerjee.

"Look at their audacity. How can they state this allegation? I have fought in my entire life since my younger days. I have never bowed down in front of anybody. I am not scared against any form of threat," Banerjee fumed.

She also hit out at BJP leaders for claiming that her government has copied central government schemes and challenged them to prove it.

"Some half-educated leaders from (New) Delhi are spreading such lies. They are claiming that we have copied the central government schemes. I challenge them to prove that or bid good bye to politics. We started Kanyashree in 2013 while their (the Centre's) most-hyped Beti Bachao scheme was set up in 2015," she said.

Comparing the two schemes, she said that the state government has spent Rs 7000 crores for the Kanyashree since its inception "while the Centre has a budget of Rs 100 crores allotting only 3 paisa for each girl".

"You pay like you are paying alms. I do not pay alms," she said.

Kanyashree Prakalpa is a conditional cash transfer scheme with the aim of improving the status and well being of the girl child in West Bengal by incentivizing schooling of all teenage girls and delaying their marriages until the age of 18.

Refuting Shah's allegations that Durga pujas and Saraswati pujas could not be held in West Bengal, Banerjee said such rumours were spread only to make "Bengalis fight Bengalis" and challenged the BJP to prove its claims.

"They are alleging that Durga pujas and Saraswati pujas are not held here. Thousands of Durga pujas are held across the state and every school organises Saraswati pujas. How dare they make such false allegations? I challenge them to prove it or leave politics. If you can, then I will leave politics," she said.

The West Bengal Chief Minister again alleged that central agencies like the CBI were being used to threaten opposition leaders.

"We have agencies like the CID, Economic offences unit or the STF. Have you taken any action against those of your party who are linked to child trafficking case or in the LPG dealership scam. Do not think we will be sitting quiet. I have specific documents (in such cases)," she said.

"They are sending IT notice to Durga puja organisers in West Bengal. Can you send such notices to Ganesh puja committees in Mumbai? You are targeting (West) Bengal? What about puja committees in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra," Banerjee said lashing out at BJP-led government at the Centre.

She accused the BJP of trying to destroy the federal structure of the country.

"You (the BJP-led central government) are trying to run a parallel government in all the states which are governed by opposition parties only to destroy the federal set up of the nation. Even Naveen Patnaik (Odisha CM) alleged a few days ago," she said.

Claiming that the BJP would not get a single seat in the upcoming general elections in West Bengal, she said, "Your (BJP-led central government) expiry date has been declared. Please expire politically. We will be very happy to see."

West Bengal has a total of 42 Lok Sabha seats. BJP president Amit Shah has given a target to state unit to win 23 of them. The TMC had won 34 seats in the 2014 general elections . PTI SCH SNS RT
\R Guwahati, Jan 30 (PTI) In protest over the citizenship bill, the families of those who died fighting for the cause of the Assam Movement decided on Wednesday to return the mementos conferred by the state government.

The Swahid Parial Samannayrakhi Parishad (SPSP), an organisation of the families of Assam Agitation, gathered at the 'Saheed Niyas' here -- the headquarters of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) that had spearheaded the movement -- to stage a protest against the contentious bill.

Holding the mementos given by the Assam government to 855 people posthumously, their families decided to return the plaques in protest against the Centre's move to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

The bill seeks to provide citizenship after six years of residence in India to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014, even if they do not possess any document.

"The citizenship bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha. It's a matter of utter shame for all of us. If the bill becomes an act, the sacrifices made by over 800 martyrs of Assam Agitation would become meaningless," SPSP president Rajen Deka told reporters.

"Their sacrifices will bear no meaning if Hindu Bangladeshis entering Assam after 1971 are given citizenship in India. These mementos were once the prized possessions for us, but now these are meaningless," Deka rued.

The families of those who died for the cause of the Assam Movement will return the memento to the respective district deputy commissioners, Deka added, without mentioning on which date they will be returned.

The families were honoured with Rs 5 lakh and a memento each by the BJP-led Sarbananda Sonowal government on December 10, 2016, at a programme here.

The Assam Movement movement started in 1979 against illegal immigrants in the state. The six-year agitation concluded with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, which stated that all those who came from Bangladesh after March 24, 1971, have to be deported irrespective of their religion.

Fearing threat to the existence of the indigenous people, their language, culture and heritage, protests broke out across the Northeast after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced in Silchar, Assam, on January 4 that the citizenship bill would be passed as soon as possible in the Parliament.

"The sacrifices made by the sons and daughters of this land will become meaningless if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed (and) giving citizenship to Bangladeshis, against whose illegal presence in Assam they had given up their life 40 years ago," said a family member.

"These mementos given by the Assam government were once the treasured possessions for us as they were in recognition of our children, parents' and spouses' sacrifice. But now, after the citizenship bill, these are meaningless for us," a person said pointing at the plaque.

"We will return these mementos to the Assam government through the Kamrup (Metropolitan) district deputy commissioner here," another member added. PTI ESB SNS

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\R Kolkata, Jan 30 (PTI) Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb claimed on Wednesday that the citizenship bill had not put the BJP on the back foot in the Northeast.

Deb accused some organisations "with no support base" of portraying the Northeast as a troubled region for personal gains.

"The claims that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has caused trouble in the region and has put the BJP on the back foot is completely false and baseless. Had this been the truth, the BJP would not have won autonomous council elections in Assam," the saffron party leader said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 19 of the 28 seats in the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, where elections were held on January 19 amid protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

"The victory in the election means people are with us," the chief minister said.

The bill seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014, after six years of residence in the country.

The bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, has triggered protests across the region.

Asked about political and social outfits protesting against the bill, Deb said, "The organisations that don't have any base in the region want to portray the northeastern states as a disturbed territory. But we will not allow it to happen."

To a query whether he would implement the bill in Tripura, Deb said, "The state of Tripura is a part of India and we are part of the federal structure. This bill is applicable to all the states of the country."

Asked about BJP allies in the Northeast objecting to the bill, the chief minister declined any comment, saying every political party had its own policy and agenda.

The BJP will win more than 20 out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region and over 300 seats across the country to form the next government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi again, he asserted. PTI PNT NN

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London, Jan 30 (PTI) British MPs on Tuesday voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit by 318 to 310 votes but backed British Prime Minister Theresa Mays bid to change the withdrawal agreement already struck with the European Union (EU).

Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the EU, which won the support of MPs by eight votes, undermining the government's argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the EU without an agreement.

However, the vote is not legally binding - meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date of March 29.

Soon after, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek "alternative arrangements" to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit.

May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an "emphatic message" of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

"We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the Houses views, May said in a statement after the vote.

Earlier, the Commons had voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour Party MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes.

If passed, the amendment would have secured time for MPs to vote on a draft bill that sought to hand Parliament the power to request an extension of the Brexit negotiations if Theresa May failed to secure backing of her Brexit plans by February 26.

The votes came as part of changes sought to the British PMs current proposals before she seeks a re-negotiation of an agreement with the EU, which she will hope is more acceptable to a deeply divided UK Parliament.

The House of Commons on Tuesday also rejected a bid by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labour's Brexit plans.

Corbyn's call for more time to be given for MPs to consider alternatives to the Brexit deal was the first in a series of amendments being put to the vote on Tuesday evening.

Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29 and there is a scramble to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to all sides before that deadline to avoid a chaotic no-deal crashout of the UK from the economic bloc.

Different Brexit factions have tabled amendments to Theresa May's exit plan, which she was forced to bring back to the Commons on Tuesday after MPs had overwhelmingly rejected her Brexit deal earlier this month. PTI AK RCJ
Brussels, Jan 30 (AFP) The Brexit withdrawal deal between Britain and the other 27 EU members is "not open for renegotiation", a spokesman for EU leader Donald Tusk said Tuesday.

Tusk, whose European Council represents EU leaders, had spoken with them after Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May demanded changes to the accord following a vote in parliament.

"We continue to urge the UK Government to clarify its intentions with respect to the next steps as soon as possible," the spokesman said. (AFP) RCJ
Islamabad, Jan 30 (PTI) Christian woman Aasia Bibi, who was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court in a blasphemy case, has the right to travel anywhere inside the country or abroad, the Foreign Office said on Wednesday.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel threw out a petition seeking to review the apex court's decision to acquit 47-year-old Bibi on Tuesday.

Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said that Bibi can travel inside Pakistan or make a foreign visit as she has been cleared from all charges from the highest court of the law, Geo TV reported.

Bibi is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday.

"Based on merit, this review petition is dismissed," Chief Justice Khosa told a hearing at the apex court, which overturned Asia Bibi's death sentence for blasphemy last year.

Bibi may leave Pakistan shortly as there are threats to her life. Her two daughter had already shifted to Canada. She has been in protective custody and the government has refused to disclose her whereabouts. PTI ZH

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New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 2000 hours:



FGN15 US-SOUTH ASIA-NUKE

Growth of Pak, India's nuke programmes increases risk of security incident in South Asia: Coats

Washington: The continued growth of the atomic weapon programmes of Pakistan and India increases the risk of a "nuclear security incident" in South Asia, America's top spymaster has warned. By Lalit K Jha



FGN29 CHINA-INDIA-AIIB

AIIB to provide local currency financing in India, Pakistan

Beijing: China-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which India is the second largest shareholder, plans to launch local currency financing in India and some other Asian nations later this year to reduce cross-border investment risks caused by exchange-rate fluctuations. By K J M Varma



FGN27 UK-3RDLD BREXIT

UK MPs reject 'no deal' Brexit, send PM May back to Brussels to renegotiate divorce deal with EU

London/Brussels: British MPs have voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit, but backed embattled Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to renegotiate the divorce agreement already struck with the EU, setting up a new showdown with the powerful bloc which ruled out any more concessions. By Aditi Khanna.



FGN19 UNSC-REFORMS-LD INDIA

Member states should seek new ways to engage on UNSC reform process: India

United Nations: Frustrated by the slow pace of the UN Security Council's reform process, India has called on the member states to seek new ways to engage to achieve credible progress on the issue by building on the past negotiations and not supplanting the past. By Yoshita Singh



FGN21 CHINA-NPT

China harps on NPT as P5 members meet to discuss nuclear non-proliferation

Beijing: China, which has been opposing Indias entry into the (NSG), on Wednesday said that there should be no double standards in enforcing the NPT, as five permanent members of the UN Security Council began two-day meeting here to discuss issues related to nuclear disarmament.By K J M Varma



FGN22 ISRAEL-NETANYAHU-INDIA

Israeli PM Netanyahu to visit India on Feb 11

Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to India on February 11 on a day-long visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his second visit to New Delhi in just over a year. By Harinder Mishra



FGN25 PAK-ARRESTS

Aasia Bibi case: Over 90 members of hardline groups arrested in Pak's Punjab

Lahore: Over 90 members of hardline religious parities have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan's Punjab province for holding demonstrations against the Supreme Court's decision to reject a review plea against the acquittal of Christian woman Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case. By M Zulqernain



FGN16 US-PAK-MILITANTS

Pak supported militant groups will continue attacks in India, Af: US spymaster

Washington: Militant groups supported by Pakistan, which uses some terror outfits as "policy tools", will continue to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, according to America's top spymaster. By Lalit K Jha



FGN23 EU-BREXIT-LD NEGOTIATOR

Brexit envoy insists EU united as UK's May seeks concessions

Brussels: Top European Union Brexit officials insisted Wednesday that the EU's divorce agreement with Britain cannot be renegotiated as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to seek fresh concessions from the bloc just weeks before her country is set to leave. (AP)



FGN14 VENEZUELA-LD MADURO

Maduro 'ready to negotiate' with opposition, calls for early parliamentary polls: RIA

Moscow: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.(AFP)



FGN17 VENEZUELA-GUAIDO-EU-SANCTIONS

Venezuela's Guaido urges 'more sanctions' from EU: German media

Berlin: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called on the European Union Wednesday to level "more sanctions" against President Nicolas Maduro's government, in an interview with German daily Bild.



FGN28 TRUMP-NKOREA

Trump pushes back on intelligence assessment of North Korea

Washington: President Donald Trump is lashing out after top US national security officials told Congress that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal as promised.(AP)

RUP

RUP
Birthdays

Richard Heller of Portsmouth will mark his 90th birthday on Aug. 19. His family is planning a card shower in his honor. Cards will reach him if sent to PO Box 92, Portsmouth IA 51565. His family 
Photo courtesy to 58pic.com

The upcoming Spring Festival is supposed to be the costliest annual holiday for Chinese, in which red packets make up the main reason, casting a shadow on the festival togetherness for Chinas young generations.

Giving red packets to kids and seniors is supposed to be a unique tradition for Chinese people to express blessings. However, according to a report jointly released by Tencent Finance and Weidu, red packets is becoming an unavoidable burden for most post-85s and 90s.

A total of 37% of the interviewees estimate that festival spending will be over 10,000 yuan (around $1,484). In addition, nearly half of those interviewees, or 41.5%, said that festival spending will exceed their half-year income. And some 10% said that they will need to borrow money from friends to prepare red packets.

An average increase of 10% of household spending every Spring Festival statistically demonstrates Chinas post-90 generations festival anxiety, data from Ministry of Commerce noted.

Other activities like weddings and gifts are also biting up young peoples yearly savings.

The face culture in China  the sensitive consciousness of hierarchy and reputation among social groups  has long been criticized by young generations, as the social stigma of festival overspending does nothing but add financial burdens on them. More are now calling for a more rational giving of red packets and festival spending in order to make the festival less stressing in terms of personal finances.
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours:



FGN15 US-SOUTH ASIA-NUKE

Growth of Pak, India's nuke programmes increases risk of security incident in South Asia: Coats

Washington: The continued growth of the atomic weapon programmes of Pakistan and India increases the risk of a "nuclear security incident" in South Asia, America's top spymaster has warned. By Lalit K Jha



FGN19 UNSC-REFORMS-LD INDIA

Member states should seek new ways to engage on UNSC reform process: India

United Nations: Frustrated by the slow pace of the UN Security Council's reform process, India has called on the member states to seek new ways to engage to achieve credible progress on the issue by building on the past negotiations and not supplanting the past. By Yoshita Singh



FGN21 CHINA-NPT

China harps on NPT as P5 members meet to discuss nuclear non-proliferation

Beijing: China, which has been opposing Indias entry into the (NSG), on Wednesday said that there should be no double standards in enforcing the NPT, as five permanent members of the UN Security Council began two-day meeting here to discuss issues related to nuclear disarmament.By K J M Varma



FGN22 ISRAEL-NETANYAHU-INDIA

Israeli PM Netanyahu to visit India on Feb 11

Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to India on February 11 on a day-long visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his second visit to New Delhi in just over a year. By Harinder Mishra



FGN25 PAK-ARRESTS

Aasia Bibi case: Over 90 members of hardline groups arrested in Pak's Punjab

Lahore: Over 90 members of hardline religious parities have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan's Punjab province for holding demonstrations against the Supreme Court's decision to reject a review plea against the acquittal of Christian woman Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case. By M Zulqernain



FGN16 US-PAK-MILITANTS

Pak supported militant groups will continue attacks in India, Af: US spymaster

Washington: Militant groups supported by Pakistan, which uses some terror outfits as "policy tools", will continue to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, according to America's top spymaster. By Lalit K Jha



FGN9 UK-2NDLD BREXIT

UK MPs reject 'no deal' Brexit, send Theresa May back to renegotiate divorce agreement with EU

London: British MPs have voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit, but backed Prime Minister Theresa Mays bid to renegotiate the divorce agreement already struck with the EU, setting up a new showdown with the 28-member bloc after it ruled out any change. By Aditi Khanna



FGN23 EU-BREXIT-LD NEGOTIATOR

Brexit envoy insists EU united as UK's May seeks concessions

Brussels: Top European Union Brexit officials insisted Wednesday that the EU's divorce agreement with Britain cannot be renegotiated as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to seek fresh concessions from the bloc just weeks before her country is set to leave. (AP)



FGN14 VENEZUELA-LD MADURO

Maduro 'ready to negotiate' with opposition, calls for early parliamentary polls: RIA

Moscow: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.(AFP)



FGN17 VENEZUELA-GUAIDO-EU-SANCTIONS

Venezuela's Guaido urges 'more sanctions' from EU: German media

Berlin: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called on the European Union Wednesday to level "more sanctions" against President Nicolas Maduro's government, in an interview with German daily Bild. (AFP)

RUP
Moscow, Jan 30 (AFP) Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he would support early parliamentary elections in his crisis-hit country, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.

"It would be very good to conduct parliamentary elections at an earlier stage, it would be a good form of political discussion," Maduro told the Russian state news agency in an interview in Caracas. (AFP) RUP

RUP
Caracas, Jan 30 (AP) Venezuela's Supreme Court barred opposition leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country Tuesday, a move certain to heighten tensions as the man challenging President Nicolas Maduro's claim to the presidency presses forward with establishing a transitional government and the US warned of "serious consequences" if he is harmed.

The government-stacked high court announced the order just hours after chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that he was opening a criminal investigation into Guaido's anti-government activities and requested that restrictions be placed on his movements abroad.

The court also approved Saab's request that all of Guaido's financial assets be frozen.

US national security adviser John Bolton issued a warning to the Maduro government earlier in the day urging them not to harm Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress who has been recognized by the Trump administration and two dozen other nations as Venezuela's rightful president.

"Let me reiterate.

There will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," Bolton said on Twitter.

The Supreme Court's order comes as tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela reach a new high, with Maduro accusing the Trump administration of staging a coup against his presidency and Guaido seeking to consolidate an interim government under his own leadership.

Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest, and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation may signal that Maduro's socialist government is moving to take a more punitive approach.

Speaking earlier outside the National Assembly, Guaido said he is aware of personal risks, but added, "Venezuela is set on change, and the world is clearly conscious of what's happening."

"I don't underestimate the threat of persecution at the moment, but here we are," he added.

The US has emerged as Guaido's most powerful ally, announcing on Tuesday that it was giving him control of Venezuela's US bank accounts. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that Guaido has the authority to take control of any Venezuelan government accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S.-insured banks.

Pompeo said the certification would "help Venezuela's legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people." Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Guaido during a huge opposition rally in Caracas declared that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Maduro's "dictatorship."

Guido is calling for nationwide walkouts Wednesday afternoon and another round of mass protests Saturday as he seeks to ramp up pressure on Maduro. But Maduro has so far shown no signs that he is looking to cede the presidency.

Maduro went on state television Tuesday to announce that he was beefing up the nation's defense by expanding Venezuela's civilian armed militia to 2 million members. The reserve force was created by the late Hugo Chavez to train civilians to assist the armed forces and defend the socialist revolution from attacks.

"Once more we'll come out victorious," said Maduro, who wore a green cap and shirt before rows of troops. "We are on the right side of history." On Monday, the US hit Venezuela's state-owned oil company with potentially devastating economic sanctions that could cost the already distressed nation billions in revenue.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told Russian state news agencies that "there will probably be problems" for Venezuela in paying its debts. AP

NSA

NSA
Mumbai, Jan 30 (PTI) Shreyas Talpade says while there is time before the "Golmaal" franchise returns with its fifth installment, Rohit Shetty has cracked the story idea and scripting is underway for the multistarrer comedy.

The "Golmaal" gang  Shreyas, Arshad Warsi, Kunal Kemmu and Tusshar Kapoor  made an appearance in Rohit's last directorial, "Simmba".

When asked about the status of the next film, Shreyas told PTI, "Right now I think Rohit is still working on the script. It will still be sometime before we come with the fifth part considering the kind of response part four got.

"It was very overwhelming. The stakes are higher for 'Golmaal 5'. Rohit will take his time as right now he is busy with 'Sooryavanshi'."

Ajay Devgn also stars in the "Golmaal" series.

The actor, however, said he is aware that an idea has been zeroed in on for "Golmaal 5" and the team might go ahead with it by 2021.

"He was telling us the other day that he has cracked some story. Once he is done with the proper scripting, he will take a call. We are planning roughly for next year. If not, then 2021 should be it," he said.

Shreyas made his debut in 2005 with critically-acclaimed "Iqbal" and went on to work in films like "Dor", "Om Shanti Om" and the "Golmaal" series.

The actor says he does not let work dictate his happiness.

"My happiness and life can't depend on the success or failure of my films. My work is separate from my life and success and failure is a part of it which will keep happening. You have to learn to face everything and wait for your chance again," he said.

"Your time is going to come. What you do in the waiting period is really important. It defines your personality and character," he added.

Shreyas has currently returned to the small screen with Sony SAB's new show "My Name Ijj Lakhan", which chronicles the story of a rogue who vows to become the man his father always hoped he would be.

The actor says doing television was "exhaustive" but he is content the way the show turned out to be.

"You are making a limited series with 26 episodes but the efforts are as much as it would be when you are making films. You have to work it out, there will be limited resources. But it's worth it because we are trying to do something new on TV." PTI JUR RDS

RDS
(Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PR Newswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.)

NEW DELHI, January 30, 2019/PRNewswire/ --

Just 10 days to go till the Grand Opening of Kirti Mandir, the first-of-its-kind in the whole world



In just 10 days, on 10th February, 2019, the world will see the grand opening of the wondrous Kirti Mandir BROADCAST LIVE on Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat channel on YouTube . Kirti Mandir, is the first temple of its kind in the whole world, showcasing a very special sculpture that has never been seen anywhere else, in any temple. The sister temple of the breath-taking, gorgeous Prem Mandir in Vrindavan and the charming Bhakti Mandir, this temple is sure to turn heads as it stands on a vast land of untouched India in Barsana.







(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/815392/KirtiMandirBarsana.jpg )



The height of the magnificent temple is 111 feet from the ground up with a foundation depth of 18 feet. The internal pillars are made from pure Emerald Peri Granite and there are a total of 24 pillars within and outside of the main temple. No cement or steel has been used to build this temple. The temple has been built like this to stand the ravages of time and weather, making it one of the strongest temples in the world. For a first glimpse of the temple, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm7m8CJXOFw



Dancers and bands from many parts of India will be represented during the grand opening ceremony where thousands of people from all over India and the World are expected to attend. Special 'Ras-Leelas' will also be performing LIVE, showcasing Hindu and Indian culture in a unique manner. Almost every traditional musical instrument of India will be played during the event.



Officiating at the event are the Presidents, Dr. Vishakha Tripathi Ji, Dr. Shyama Tripathi Ji and Dr. Krishna Tripathi Ji, of Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, a charitable and spiritual organization that has helped over 4.2 million impoverished lives through its hospitals, poor-relief fund and all-girls school in Kunda. In honour of the opening of this grand Temple, the organization has pledged to help 50,000 impoverished individuals and have so far reached 45,000 of them. A further 15,000 underprivileged individuals will be given important necessities on 11th February, 2019, the day of the Public Opening of this temple, going beyond the pledged number and reaching many more lives. Watch a special video in the documentary, 'The Plight of the Widows of Vrindavan' on https://www.youtube.com/user/JKPIndia/videos.



The full schedule of the LIVE BROADCAST can be found at http://www.facebook.com/JKPKirtiMandir.



About Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat



Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat is a non-profit, charitable, educational and spiritual organization, dedicated to increasing spiritual awareness and helping those in need in society as a whole. More information can be found at: http://www.jkp.org.in.



Source: Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat PWR

PWR
(Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PR Newswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.)

MUMBAI, January 29, 2019/PRNewswire/ --

Vakrangee Limited (VL), has announced that it has appointed the Blue Dart veteran Mr. Anil Khanna as its new Managing Director & Group CEO effective January 25, 2019. Prior to Vakrangee he was the Managing Director of Blue Dart Express Limited since 2007. Mr. Dinesh Nandwana, the founder promoter has been elevated to the role of Executive Chairman and remains fully committed and would continue to play an active role in the Business strategy and operations.



Commenting on the same, Mr. Dinesh Nandwana, Founder Promoter & Executive Chairman: said, "We are delighted to welcome Mr. Anil Khanna to the Vakrangee leadership team and family. With over four decades of proven business track record, Mr. Anil Khanna has the right combination of wealth of knowledge, leadership and business acumen to propel our company to new heights of growth and aspiration. We are confident that he will play a key role in the continued growth at Vakrangee."



He added, "We have been adding senior leadership team members over the last 12-18 months and we believe, we now have the right management team in place to take our company to the next orbit of growth and enhance our corporate governance standards while protecting our values and ethics at all times."



Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Anil Khanna, Managing Director & Group CEO of Vakrangee Ltd. said, "I am excited to join Vakrangee, a company that has built an overwhelming reputation for being the pioneer for the last mile reach presence through an asset-light franchisee-based business model in the country and delivering superior services to its clients. Despite the outstanding successes achieved thus far, I strongly believe that Vakrangee's best years lie ahead. I am looking forward to sharing my experiences and tapping into my deep knowledge to continue to drive and accelerate Vakrangee growth. With growing business and a vibrant team, it will be my endeavor to steer Vakrangee to scale new heights. I am honored and glad at this opportunity to oversee and contribute to the growth of this company."



Please see below the brief profile of Mr. Anil Khanna, Managing Director & Group CEO of Vakrangee Limited.



Mr. Anil Khanna has joined Vakrangee as Managing Director & Group CEO w.e.f. 25th January 2019. Prior to Vakrangee he has been at the position of Managing Director of Blue Dart Express Limited with effect from 21st February 2007.



He has 40 years of experience in various industries and has been with Blue Dart since 1992 and he moved to the position of Managing Director since 2007.



Under his leadership and guidance, Blue Dart was able to broaden its strategic focus from being an air express company to a full-fledged logistics organization offering a wide range of products and services, as well as Industry-specific solutions in air and ground express segments. He was also responsible for developing business potential, driving strong revenue growths and enhancing service quality. He has proven his capabilities in leading his team to achieve exceptional business results.



In his tenure as the Managing Director at Blue Dart, he has been awarded various leadership awards, amongst others these include:-



'Outstanding Entrepreneur Award' by the Asia-Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards

'CEO with HR Orientation Award' by Global HR Excellence Awards at the World HRD Congress Meet

'Glory of India Award' by the Institute of Economic Studies

'Responsible Business Leader' by the Responsible Business Awards

'CEO of the Year' by CMO Asia Awards for Excellence in Branding & Marketing

'CEO of the Year' by the National Quality Excellence Awards

'Exemplary CEO of the Year' by the Global HR Excellence Awards

He was also ranked as one of India's Best CEOs by Business Today

He is a graduate from St Stephen's College, Delhi and holds an MBA degree in Marketing and Finance from UBS, Chandigarh.



About Vakrangee Limited (BSE: 511431) (NSE: VAKRANGEE)



Incorporated in 1990, Vakrangee is the unique technology driven company focused on building India's largest network of last-mile retail outlets to deliver real-time banking & Financial Services, ATM, insurance, e-governance, e-commerce and logistics services to the unserved rural, semi-urban and urban markets. The Assisted Digital Convenience stores are called as "Vakrangee Kendra" which acts as the "One-stop shop" for availing various services and products. Vakrangee has been at the forefront in financial inclusion space in India. It has signed "Common BC" and "National BC" agreements with various public sector banks for offering real-time banking to unserved and underserved rurban population. Banking at "Vakrangee Kendra" outlets is a unique experience with disruptive technology like APS, e-KYC, inter-operability and real-time transactions. In addition to banking "Vakrangee Kendra" outlets also provide insurance products, e-governance services and ecommerce products.



Source: Vakrangee Limited PWR

PWR
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Union Minister Piyush Goyal will donate the 2018 Carnot Prize money of USD 25,000 (around Rs 18 lakh), which he received on Wednesday, to the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to institute an award for organisations working with children with special needs and the ones maximising use of solar energy.

"I dedicate the Carnot Prize to the lakhs of Indians engaged in the energy and mining sector and the visionary guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for transforming us from an energy-short nation to a power-surplus nation," Goyal said, after the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design formally presented the fourth annual Carnot Prize to him, in recognition of his contribution to the energy sector as Power Minister.

Goyal had previously been unable to accept the award in the USA, due to the Amritsar train tragedy in October last year.

International Solar Alliance (ISA) is a multilateral organisation with an objective to support massive deployment of solar energy in its member countries.

As part of its efforts to recognise exemplary efforts by organisations in India, the ISA is instituting the Diwakar Solar Award (Divyang Akshay-urja Puraskar).

"The Diwakar award will recognise every year an outstanding organisation that has been working for special children and maximising the use of solar energy. The union minister of railways and coal has decided that the award money received by him as part of the 2018 Carnot Prize be given to the ISA to institute the Diwakar Award.

"The award money will be utilised to create a perpetual corpus and the interest income received on the corpus be used for providing the award annually," a statement from the ministry said.

The Carnot Prize is the Kleinman Centers annual recognition of distinguished contributions to energy policy through scholarship or practice. The most prestigious award in the energy sector, Carnot Prize is named after French physicist Nicolas Sadi Carnot who recognised that the power of the steam engine would "produce a great revolution" in human development.

"We aim to see that India leads the world in tackling the menace of carbon emissions and climate change. The huge contribution that India is making in this regard is testament to Indian culture and ethos.

"To support PM Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission, we have conceptualised solar installations in the large tracts of land the Railways has throughout the country, leading to considerably lower emissions as well as increased revenues," Goyal said, while receiving the award from Dr Faith Birol, Executive Director International Energy Agency.

He also said that the Railways has embarked on the world's most ambitious electrification programme, where in the next four or five years the entire grid will be 100 per cent electrified. PTI ASG ASG IND

IND
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) The Defence Ministry and the state-run Goa Shipyard have inked a pact for construction of two missile frigates for the Indian Navy at a cost of around Rs 14,000 crore, officials said.

The two Talvar-class warships will be constructed by the PSU in cooperation with Russia's state-run defence major Rosoboronexport.

"The ships would carry highly sophisticated and state-of-art weapon systems and sensors," said a senior defence ministry official.

India has already sealed a separate agreement with Russia for the project.

The first ship is scheduled to be handed over to the Navy by June 2026, while the second one will be delivered in December that year.

The ships are being constructed as part of the government's efforts to enhance operational capabilities of the Indian Navy.

The government has already approved induction of 56 new ships and six submarines to augment Indian navy's strength.

The 56 new ships will be in addition to 32 ships and submarines, which are presently under construction in Indian shipyards. PTI MPB RT
New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) An independent enquiry initiated by ICICI Bank has indicted its former CEO Chanda Kochhar of violation of bank's code of conduct.

The enquiry report submitted by Justice (Retd) B N Srikrishna Wednesday concluded that there was lack of diligence with respect to annual disclosures and violation of code of conduct, on her part.

The board of the bank based on the report has decided to treat her resignation as Termination for Cause under the bank's internal policies. PTI DP ANZ MKJ
Mumbai, Jan 30 (PTI) Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty Wednesday ended flat as cautious investors refrained from taking any bets ahead of January derivatives expiry, US Fed policy outcome and upcoming Union Budget.

The BSE Sensex ended marginally lower by 1.25 points and the NSE Nifty closed with a negligible loss of 0.4 point.

Heavyweights ICICI Bank and Tata Steel -- both rising over 5 per cent -- saved the day for the Sensex. Also, mixed trading pattern in global shares as US-China trade talks kicked off earlier in the day made domestic investors even more cautious.

After opening over 200 points higher, the 30-share Sensex swung 359 points to finally settle 1.25 points lower at 35,591.25.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty ended 0.40 points down at 10,651.80.

Sectorally, metal and banking stocks rallied the most, while FMCG and realty stocks came under selling pressure.

Broader indices, however, outperformed benchmark indices with BSE Smallcap index jumping 0.78 per cent and BSE Midcap index rising 0.22 per cent.

On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net of Rs 354.36 crore Tuesday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 81.27 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.

Global investor sentiment was mixed as American and Chinese negotiators started two days of high-level talks aimed at settling a six-month trade war that has weakened both sides, shaken financial markets and clouded the outlook for the global economy, experts said.

Domestic investors turned cautious ahead of futures and options expiry of January series contracts and the upcoming interim budget, to be held on Friday.

Market is also awaiting the outcome of the US Federal Reserve's meeting later in the day, they added.

Among the Sensex pack, ICICI Bank was the top gainer, rallying 6.05 per cent, ahead of its quarterly earning scheduled for release later in the day.

Shares of Tata Steel soared 5.14 per cent after S&P Global Ratings said the company's plan to sell majority stake in its Southeast Asia business will help the company reduce debt by about 3 per cent without impacting its business position.

Axis Bank shares also jumped 4.56 per cent after the third largest private sector lender Axis Bank reported a 131 per cent surge in net income for the December quarter.

Other gainers include HCL Tech, Bajaj Finance, SBI, L&T, Coal India and Vedanta, gaining up to 2.82 per cent.

On the other hand, Bajaj Auto, Kotak Bank, HDFC, Yes Bank, Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, ITC, RIL, HDFC Bank, HUL, ONGC and Sun Pharma were the top losers, shedding up to 2.65 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.40 per cent and Korea's Kospi surged 1.05 per cent; while Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.07 per cent and Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.52 per cent.

In the eurozone, Frankfurt's DAX slipped 0.21 per cent, while Paris CAC 40 rose 0.53 per cent in late morning deals. While, London's FTSE jumped 0.94 per cent.

The Indian rupee, meanwhile, depreciated marginally against US dollar at 71.15.

The benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.16 per cent to USD 61.30 per barrel. PTI ANS

MKJ
"Saraayi beda shikshana beku" (We want no liquor, but education), shouted the women, as they passed through the heart of Bengaluru in a long procession.

Nearly 4,000 women entered the state capital on Wednesday, after walking for 11 days, covering 210km. The women from 19 districts from north Karnataka launched the "padayatra" from Chitradurga on January 19, demanding a total ban on production, sale and consumption of liquor in the state.

Alcoholism has shattered their homes, stolen childhoods, pushed the rural households into poverty and suffering, said the women.

The protesters who converged at Malleswaram grounds, eagerly set out on the Bengaluru streets, bringing the city's traffic to a grinding halt. But their plans to picket the Vidhana Soudha were thwarted after the police stopped them near Freedom Park and barricaded the street leading to the secretariat.

Even after waiting for five hours, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy refused to meet the protesters, and instead sent two envoysCooperation Minister Bandeppa Kashempur, followed by a senior officer from the CMO. The deadlock continues as the representatives of protesters, who finally agreed to meet the chief minister at Vidhana Soudha, came back empty handed, without any assurance.

The women are in no mood to back out this time and want a written assurance for a total ban. The demand for total prohibition in the state is not new.

"We will not vote for any party in the Lok Sabha polls. Two years back too, we held a 71-day protest in Raichur. But the government did not take us seriously, " said Mokshamma from Bagalkot.

It has been an arduous journey for these women, who have survived on sparse meals, taken shelter in open grounds, braving the hot sun during the day and chilly winter nights. They have had to forego their daily wages too.

Women from across Karnataka have walked into Bengaluru to demand prohibition on alcohol in the state. Scenes from the Sheshadri Road near Vidhana Soudha | Bhanu Prakash Chandra

"It is a question of our lives and future of our children. We are ready to sacrifice our life if need be," said Eeramma, a widow.

"Of my eight sons, only two don't drink. The sons get drunk and beat me. Nobody can question them," cried the octogenarian.

Along the protest march, the women have forced shut many attack shops, tried to enlighten the women and reprimand the arrack shop owners. In one such meeting, the women came across Ambika (20), a battered wife and rescued her from her abusive drunkard husband at Dobbespet. "I am an orphan and my neighbours got me married to a drunkard. Many girls like me are suffering due to alcoholic husbands. Women lose husbands and young sons to alcohol. I have decided to dedicate the rest of my life for this cause," Ambika said.

Umakka (58), has come all the way from Sogi village in Ballari. "My husband passed away seven years back due to drinking problem. I took care of my five daughters and a son by working as a daily wager. Now, my son-in-law and one of my grandsons are drunkards. My 16-year-old grandson became an alcoholic after we sent him to a hostel in Hospet. I want the government to save the poor people like us by banning liquor," she said.

Raghavendra, member of Grameena Koolikarmikara Sanghatane in Raichur, said his organisation launched the liquor prohibition movement after some women approached them seeking help to reform their drunkard husbands. "Every village has a licensed liquor shop which also sells illegally in small grocery stores, too. Earlier, there were cheap pouches but now they sell expensive whisky and beer, too. The men end up spending their entire day's earning. The women are running the households by working as daily wagers. They work under NREGA. But their earnings are also taken away by their husbands or grown up sons who are chronic alcoholics," he said, adding that children are running the arrack shops.

Geeta Maruti Patil (60) from Belagavi lost her husband and elder son to alcohol. She lives with her younger son, who is a daily wager.

"Children in my village, as young as 12 years, get addicted to alcohol and they stop going to school. Women have to work as daily wagers as the men in the household get addicted and spend all their earnings on alcohol," Geeta lamented.

Women from across Karnataka have walked into Bengaluru to demand prohibition on alcohol in the state. Scenes from the Sheshadri Road near Vidhana Soudha | Bhanu Prakash Chandra

Poonam (30) has joined the movement after she lost her younger sister Rekha and her nephew Chetan (3) to alcohol. "My sister's husband is a drunkard and he used to beat her. One day he killed her and his own son and dumped their body in a well. The culprit escaped punishment. I want the government to save women from this cruelty and domestic violence," said Poonam, who hails from Khanapur in Belagavi.

January 30 was the day Mahatma Gandhi was martyred. The women say it is the right time to remind the government that prohibition is the only way to save the rural poor. The movement has garnered support from Bengaluru activists, intellectuals and artistes, too.

"The government cannot shirk its responsibilities. Parties that will make prohibition part of their manifesto will get our votes. Does the government need this liquor money to run the state," asked Prasanna Heggodu.

Said anti-corruption activist Ravi Krishna Reddy, "When places like Bidar and Gujarat have prohibition, why not Karnataka? Our state's budget outlay is Rs 2.20 lakh crore and the excise revenue is Rs 17,000 crore which is less than 10 per cent. Can't the government forego this money? If the government wants to ban liquor, they can start phasing it out from today. Drinking is a menace and serious social problem. The government should tap other sources of revenue than destroy the life and livelihood of the poor."

Actor Arundhati Nag cited the example of Bihar. "In the last two years, law and order situation in Bihar has improved. Prohibition has reduced crime and women feel safer, too."
On January 28, Tamil Nadu BJP president Tamilisai Soundararajan, in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the dais, read out the names of 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, which the BJP would win in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, leaving the saffron cadres ecstatic. Her statement came minutes after Modi shared stage with the AIADMK leaders to lay the foundation stone for the AIIMS at Madurai. But two days after the BJP expressed confidence of making an impressive show in the state by making a poll alliance, the ruling AIADMK camp doesnt seem to be looking at the national party as a formidable partner.

The AIADMK on Wednesday invited applications from its party members who are willing to contest in all the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry. The application forms for the same will be available in the party office, said a statement jointly issued by party coordinator O. Panneerselvam and joint coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami. The filled applications can be submitted in the party office from February 4 to 10 by paying Rs 25,000, it said. The announcement has come days after the AIADMK seniors were on the horns of a big dilemma over the BJPs push for an alliance in the state for the Lok Sabha polls.

It is a fact that the AIADMK, under former chief minister Jayalalithaa, had always been ahead when it comes to blowing the poll bugle. However, the recent developments in the party and the emerging fissures among its senior leaders make it clear that the Dravidian major wants to send a message to the political parties that are trying to woo it ahead of the general elections. Reacting to RSS ideologue S. Gurumurthys comments on the BJP allying with the AIADMK, Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai said: It is not our duty to nurture the BJP in Tamil Nadu. We will not carry any other party on our back for it to gain foothold in the state. However, the AIADMK distanced itself from his comments saying they are his own.

The AIADMK disowning Tambidurais comments is an indication of the widening fissures within the party over getting into an alliance with the BJP. Sources say that there is a huge resentment among the AIADMK seniors and district secretaries over the party aligning with the BJP. They feel the AIADMK will lose its core vote bank if it goes with the BJP.

Meanwhile, senior AIADMK leader V. Maithreyan, who once stood by O. Panneerselvam when he revolted against the party, in a Facebook post, expressed his anguish for not being taken on board in any of the committees appointed by the party high command. The AIADMK on January 23 constituted a five-member committee to hold talks on seat sharing with alliance partners, an election manifesto preparation committee and an election campaign coordination committee.

Even though forming such committees was common under Jayalalithaa, party insiders feel this is an indication towards the party cadres that the high command is not for an alliance with the BJP. The situation has changed now. The political situation is not the same as it was under our Amma. This is to send a message to the party workers that we have still not decided on any alliance, a senior AIADMK leader told THE WEEK.
The Protection Assistant is responsible forconducting a range of protection activities, including information provisionand regular participatory protection assessments of potential and selectedbeneficiaries. S/he will ensure quality protection outcomes by advocating forcommunity actions around PSNs and participating in larger community protectioncomponents. The Protection Assistant works closely with other team members andreports to the Humanitarian Team Leader.
Save the Children isthe worlds leading independent organization for children and has programpresence in over 120 countries in the world and has been implementing programsfor over 90 years. Save the Children envisions a Uganda in which every childattains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. Ourmission is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, andto achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives. We strive to createimpact for children by delivering our Programmes through partnerships, by beinginnovative, by acting as the voice for and of children, and by achievingresults at scale.
Communication forHealthy Communities (CHC) is a five- year program implemented through acooperative agreement between the United States Agency for International DevelopmentUSAID/Uganda) and FHI 360. The project is designed to support the Government ofUganda and partners to design and implement quality health communicationinterventions to contribute to reduction in HIV Infections, total fertility,maternal & child mortality, malnutrition, malaria & tuberculosis. CHCworks with Ministry of Health and partners to rollout a nationwide OBULAMUintegrated health communication platform through: Mass media; outdoor media;social and digital media; and, inter personal communication (IPC).
The Environment and Energy Officer willprimarily ensure the implementation of all Energy and Environment interventionsin the areas of operation. He/she is responsible for roll-out andimplementation of project activities and facilitate quality impact-focusinterventions. He/she will be responsible for the development, ongoing support,continuing development, and daily technical backstopping of all Energy andEnvironment activities under DCA in Yumbe. He/she will also work closely withall team members, partners, counterparts and stakeholders in ensuring projectoutputs are of the highest quality and that expected results are achieved in atimely and efficient manner.
Timothy Seth Bryant Pennington was born on January 30, 1988 in Corbin, Ky. He departed this life on June 3, 2021 to be with his Lord and Savior, whom he accepted as a young boy at his church, West Corbin Baptist. Seth was assured of his salvation and knew where he would spend his eternity. S
Another day, another innocent person is destroyed by the social media mob for an innocuous expression of free speech. The apostles of diversity police our speech and aggressively enforce a speech code according to politically correct liberal dogmas.

First it was Congressman Steve King (R-IA), who was wrongly ostracized by his colleagues for wondering when the term Western Civilization became offensive. A week later it was 15-year-old Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School, who was confronted at the March for Life by a tribal elder banging a drum.

Next in the hot seat was the president of the University of Notre Dame, Father John I. Jenkins. He kowtowed to the Native American Student Association by agreeing to cover up 12 large murals that depict Christopher Columbuss arrival in the New World.

The latest victim of self-appointed guardians of diversity was the 78-year-old liberal journalist Tom Brokaw, the longtime NBC anchor. Brokaw, an icon of television news, is also known for chronicling the greatest generation of Americans who won World War II and came home to build the greatest country in the world.

In a rare appearance Sunday on Meet the Press, Brokaw commented that Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. They ought not to be just codified in their communities, but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English.

The response to Brokaws good advice was fast and furious, to borrow a phrase from the Mexican gun-running operation approved by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. That improper operation, which was politically motivated to justify gun control, instead resulted in the 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Aura Bogado, who is described as an investigative immigration reporter at Reveal, said Brokaw was arguing classic white supremacist talking points in a deeply racist rant on national television. Julio Ricardo Varela, the founder of LatinoRebels.com, said It really was a punch in the gut to a lot of people.

It was not only factually incorrect, it was also xenophobia in action, Varela added in his criticism of Brokaw. Liberal commentator Maria Cardona called Brokaw a little out of touch.

Cardona also insisted, unpersuasively, that Latinos absolutely assimilate. If that were really true, Latinos would be speaking English, but many of them arent.

Brokaws fellow commentator on Meet the Press, PBS NewsHours Yamiche Alcindor, said: We need to adjust what we think of as America. The idea that Americans can only speak English, as if Spanish and other languages wasnt always part of America, is in some ways troubling.

People who cannot speak, understand, read and write English will never be able to advance socially, economically or politically in our country. Its not true that Spanish and other languages were always part of America, given that none of the Founding Fathers spoke or wrote in Spanish.

Within a few hours the liberal Brokaw went on an apology tour on Twitter, tweeting that he is truly sorry for his remarks, which he said were offensive to many. I never intended to disparage any segment of our rich, diverse society which defines who we are, Brokaw continued.

Brokaw even apologized to fellow panelist Yamiche Alcindor, saying shes a wonderful colleague and an important voice, despite the fact that Alcindors views were directly contradictory to Brokaws. Like many Hispanic activists and lobbyists, Alcindor rejected the whole idea of assimilation.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera took a different tack, claiming that Hispanics are actually assimilating at a rate thats faster than any other ethnic group in our history. But the official numbers from the Census Bureau show otherwise.

The American Community Survey enables the Census Bureau to track the number of households who self-report that they speak a language other than English at home. The fraction of U.S. households answering yes to that question has risen steadily over the last three decades, reaching 22 percent in 2017 (the last year numbers are available), which is double the 11 percent in 1980.

Most of the non-English speaking households are concentrated in a few areas close to our southern border, plus a few of our largest northern cities. In 39 U.S. counties, a majority of residents report that they speak a language other than English at home.

Many of those who speak another language at home claim they also speak English well or very well, but further studies have shown that is not the case. Nearly half were found to speak English at a level below basic, also known as functional illiteracy.

Spanish is presumed to be the common language south of the border, but among the people who arrived most recently, many did not speak or understand Spanish. They spoke only indigenous languages such as Qeqchi, which meant that U.S. officials were required to find translators to provide medical care.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016).
ALTON  Three people have been charged in the 2016 death of an 11-year-old boy, disabled by a previous battery, after authorities say he was left unattended in a bathtub.

Charged Monday were Vanda D. Gates-Ross, 53; Triston T. Boyd, 26; and Elegria J. Smith, 26, all of the same address in the 600 block of Wonderland Drive, Cottage Hills, accused of leaving the child unattended knowing that (the child) to be severely physically disabled and non-verbal from traumatic injuries sustained as an infant and said acts were the proximate cause of death of (the victim.)
John Badman | The Telegraph

ALTON  The regions resident spring prognosticator, Murray the Groundhog, will forecast the spring tourism season during a Groundhog Day Celebration from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2 at the Alton Visitor Center, 200 Piasa St., Alton. The public is invited to attend.

TreeHouse Wildlife Centers permanent resident groundhog, Murray, will make his fourth annual Groundhog Day forecast with the help of area mayors and residents. This is the first day-long celebration of Groundhog Day. Itchy Brothers Chainsaw Art will also be on hand providing a free chainsaw carving demonstration. Hot coffee and cookies will be available.
Update: BC NDP holds on to power. Read more here.

NANAIMO, B.C.As the province awaits news about the fate of its precarious government Wednesday night, the man who sparked the byelection in Nanaimo says he made the decision because the city needed him.

Leonard Krog, the former NDP MLA, said his city was in turmoil and he had to run for mayor to help end the reality TV that was Nanaimo City Council  even if it meant risking a seat badly needed by the fragile minority NDP government to hold power.

Frankly, people of all stripes wanted me to run. I did not resign my seat in the Legislature until I was elected mayor, said Krog, who won 74 per cent of the civic vote. If the good people of Nanaimo had not wanted me to be mayor, they could have chosen a different candidate.

His departure means that, going into the current byelection, the official opposition BC Liberals now have more seats than the NDP. So its purely thanks to an agreement with the three-seat Green Party of B.C. that the NDP is able to govern at all.

Krog did not directly address the damage his decision could cause the current government but said he informed the premier when he made the decision to run. At the premiers request, Krog said, he committed to stay on until after the fall session, adding he went without a salary from Sept. 22 until he resigned his seat effective Nov. 30.

And according to the NDP candidate, Malcolmson, Krog directly recruited her and convinced her to abandon what was considered a safe federal seat with the promise that she could make a bigger impact as part of the provincial government.

Read more:

Nanaimo votes in pivotal byelection over taxes, housing that puts B.C. rule at stake

High stakes Nanaimo byelection a reminder of NDP minoritys fragility

On the ground in Nanaimo, locals quietly brace for a pivotal byelection

The premier and Leonard Krog both compellingly argued that the most effective way for me to bring change for our community was to be part of the NDP government and be able to implement those changes right now, Malcolmson told StarMetro in a phone interview.

In the 2017 provincial election, Krog won with a 14-point lead over his BC Liberal challenger. But in 2013, that gap was as narrow as 10 points.

This byelections candidates are new to provincial politics: local Nanaimo businessman Tony Harris for the Liberals, former Nanaimo-area MP Sheila Malcolmson with the NDP, Michele Ney for the Greens and B.C. Conservative Justin Greenwood.

Of course theres a lot of people interested, on all sides, with the outcome, the BC Liberals Harris told StarMetro in an interview Wednesday, just before he went for a pre-results haircut with his son. Really, now were waiting for the chips to fall. I feel proud of the team and their hard work.

But if Harris wins the seat, his opponent Malcolmson countered, Nanaimo would return to 16 years of government cutting services to people, suggesting the alternative path is to carry on the work that the Horgan NDP government has done in just a year and a half.

The stakes are so high, she admitted.

On the one hand, Krog said, the city is thrilled with the piercing attention the byelection has brought, as the new council is anxious to attract investment and jobs to Nanaimo. But on the other hand, Krog said, the byelection could be seen as a big distraction from the necessary work at city hall.

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Discontent City organizer Amber McGrath told StarMetro on Tuesday that Krog was initially seen as a relief from what she called a rogue city council. But after taking power, McGrath said, she questioned Krogs attitude and policies toward the disbanded homeless camp  of which some residents have been placed in 170 units of provincially funded modular housing.

Krog emphasized that housing is, in fact, a provincial responsibility. However, he said the speed at which the process occurred, in response to the court order to disband the tent city, has meant things did not go smoothly the way one had hoped or expected.

It has created a lot of issues in the neighbourhood, and people are quite rightly upset by it, he said. We are the targets for people who have complaints and concerns, but that we dont control.

Krogs party has held the seat for nearly five decades except one term in 2001.

They were not taking this for granted, said University of Victoria political scientist Michael Prince. This is a high-stakes byelection and the parties needed to get their people out.

The 2017 provincial election saw the BC Liberals try but fail to hold onto minority power, after the Greens signed a deal to back the NDP for four years.

But ultimately it was former BC Liberal premier Christy Clarks resignation, and her caucus-mate Darryl Plecas being booted from their party for becoming Speaker, that gave the NDP a bit of breathing room, said University of B.C. political scientist Max Cameron.

What was remarkable was the very, very close split (in 2017) that on the face of it created an unusually fragile situation.

Whether the current NDP minority government stands or falls appears to make little difference to many people StarMetro talked to on Nanaimos streets this week. They said local issues are top of mind, such as affordable housing, a new hospital, child care and bringing jobs to the region.

Overshadowing the entire byelection campaign were allegations of Liberal-era officers of the Legislature inappropriately spending taxpayer money on personal items and trips. The party, meanwhile, spent the byelection campaign attacking the NDPs new housing speculation tax, which they called unfair to homeowners.

These two issues (spending scandal and tax) both came out in the middle of byelection, Prince said. Its a little unusual.

Often byelections have lower turnout, but we also know that in more recent elections, more and more people are taking advantage of advance voting days and have made up their minds. These are rank-and-file party faithful being mobilized  whether about speculation tax or the spending scandal.

But as some in the pro-NDP camp took to the offensive with last-minute anonymous flyers attacking the BC Liberals on money laundering, the Legislature scandal and housing speculation, Harris said he wants to look towards the future.

We need to be careful not to play politics with the peoples house, he told StarMetro. The reality is the allegations are serious, and I support (Liberal Leader) Andrew Wilkinsons call for complete transparency  These are the types of things that, if true, I certainly wouldnt tolerate.

What people can count on is that I will bring my strong moral and ethical compass to whatever it is that I do.

Read more about:
NANAIMO, B.C.On the eve of a byelection that could drastically alter the balance of power in B.C.s provincial legislature, nearly everyone in Nanaimo has an opinion about the vote.

But not one that they want to put their name on.

I have to walk these streets, explained one older man, drinking coffee with his friend at 8 a.m. on Tuesday on the citys Harbourfront Walkway. Sometimes I have to talk to these people.

He is referring to residents of the recently disbanded DisconTent City, a homeless protest encampment that is a galvanizing issue in the byelection.

Whether the current NDP minority government will stand or fall made little difference to many people StarMetro talked to on Tuesday.

They say local issues are top of mind, hot topics like affordable housing, a new hospital, child care and bringing jobs to the region.

Read more:

High stakes Nanaimo byelection a reminder of NDP minoritys fragility

Nanaimo provincial byelection hopefuls make their case at candidates forum as advance polls begin

B.C. byelection in NDP territory tests minority governments strength

But its the fallout from last years contentious tent city  where roughly 400 people set up camp near the downtown core  that may dictate how this election will go, and it seems to have thoroughly divided the Vancouver Island city of nearly 91,000 people.

The tent city took root after Nanaimo city council failed to agree upon how to spend a $7-million grant for supportive housing in March. After the tents were set up, the city started a protracted process to figure out how to evict them. Then the province stepped in and provided 170 units of modular housing on two different properties, and started to move people in beginning Nov. 30.

The tent city caused waves in the picturesque seaside town, with residents complaining about discarded needles, unsightly tents, and what they said was an increase in crime. Now they are riled because their property taxes have increased, and some of that money is being used to pay for city services for the tent city residents living in the modular homes.

Shelley Roy Noel, 40, was born and raised in Nanaimo. The daycare operator runs her small business out of her home. She said thefts were through the roof in houses near the tent encampment before it was disbanded, and thats when animosity against its residents, some of whom have addiction issues and mental health issues, really begin to rise.

Our taxes went up a ridiculous amount. People are angry because they keep giving (paying for city services to support the camp) with no real plan, said Noel, referring to the lack of information about long-term housing solutions.

Meanwhile, Amber McGrath, 40, who helped organize the tent city, said it was established to protest Nanaimo city councils lack of action on supports and solutions for the increasingly desperate homeless population.

She believes many Nanaimo residents would prefer to ignore the problem, adding that members and allies of the homeless camp faced threats of violence. One day she found a note on her front gate that read, I know where you live.

People in Nanaimo dont like poor people, said McGrath, who describes herself as punk rock mom and an organizer. And they definitely dont like addicts either.

At one of the modular housing sites on Labieux Road, residents came and went freely through an open gate. But when a reporter and photographer tried to speak with residents about the byelection and the issues they wanted to see addressed, a security guard asked them to leave.

Jamie Gripich, a spokesperson for Pacifica Housing, a charity that manages the modular home sites for the province, said later Tuesday afternoon that staff at the site are focused on the basics right now.

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You can understand were being very careful with security at that site, he said. We are barely 60 days in and people are still getting settled. We need to make sure people have a safe and secure place to call home.

Nanaimo has been an NDP stronghold since 1972, with the exception of one term in 2001 when the Liberals swept the province. It is known as a working-class city built on natural resources like the fisheries, forestry and mining.

Its demographics paint a picture of an older, homogenous population, with one in 10 identifying as a visible minority in the last Census of 2016, compared to three in 10 province-wide. The exception is the Indigenous population, which represents 7.3 per cent of the citys residents compared with 5.9 per cent across B.C. The city sits on Snuneymuxw First Nations traditional territories.

Its median household income  $61,094  falls 13 per cent below the rest of the province, according to the 2016 Census. Meanwhile, 23 per cent of Nanaimos nearly 16,000 children are from low-income families, significantly higher than B.C. as a whole at 18 per cent.

Statistics Canada shows Nanaimos population skews older than the rest of the province, in both median age, and the proportion of people over the age of 65, with more than 20,000 seniors.

Wednesdays provincial byelection is crucial. If the BC Liberals win, they would be tied for votes with the Green Party-backed NDP minority government, with only the Speaker  a former Liberal-turned-independent  to break a deadlock. If just one person resigned or was sick before a confidence vote, the entire government could fall.

That means all major parties are pumping resources into the campaign to replace long-time NDP MLA Leonard Krog, who became Nanaimos mayor Oct. 20 after easily winning three-quarters of the ballots and prompting the byelection when he resigned.

All candidates are new to provincial politics: local Nanaimo businessman Tony Harris for the Liberals, former Nanaimo-area MP Sheila Malcolmson with the NDP, Michele Ney for the Greens, and Progressive Conservative Justin Greenwood.

When pressed on how she was going to vote, Noel, the daycare operator, didnt seem to favour the Liberals or the NDP.

Its two sides of the debate and there is no one in the middle, Noel explained. People feel super betrayed (by both parties).

Noel explained that the Harris family is so intertwined with Nanaimo, even recalling the big Canadian flag that used to hang from Harriss fathers car dealership when she was a child.

Still she insisted the BC Liberals are in too much hot water following allegations that Liberal-era officers of the Legislature inappropriately spent public money on personal items and trips.

But she wasnt favouring the NDP either, arguing their policies hold people in the same position and keep the cycle going. The BC Liberals, meanwhile, have spent the byelection attacking the NDPs new housing and health taxes, which they call unfair and harmful.

Nanaimo is one of the most beautiful places on earth, Noel said. Everyone looks down on us, and people have no idea because they drive right through.

Read more about:
VANCOUVERFormer ambassador John McCallums break from Ottawas official messaging suggests Beijing was employing strategies from a well-honed playbook designed to sway ambassadors into representing state-friendly perspectives, say experts in foreign affairs.

While not illegal or necessarily sinister, the practice of gaming envoys and businessmen by playing to their egos with the illusion of special access is a tried-and-true method to subtly draw foreigners into alignment with the political aims of the Communist Party of China, said James Palmer, editor of Foreign Policy Magazine.

China has a habit of singling out individuals ... for its own influence campaigns, Palmer said in an interview.

Palmer lived in China for 15 years, during which time he worked as a journalist and historian.

They attempt to basically woo them, and they have a very good playbook for wooing them  And its not even about ideological or financial compromise, its about playing psychologically to these guys.

The Star was unable to reach McCallum by phone or email for comment, and his public-facing social-media accounts do not accept direct messages. It is unclear whether McCallum, as a former federal official, received the Stars requests through government channels.

Read more:

U.S. unveils 23 criminal charges against Chinas Huawei as Ottawa fights to free two Canadians detained by Beijing in retaliation

Whats at stake for Trudeau, Canada and Huawei

China repeats demand for Huawei executives release as Ottawa seeks replacement for McCallum

McCallums former federal communications staffer referred The Star back to Global Affairs Canada, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

McCallum was dismissed from his post for suggesting, among other things, it would be great for Canada if the U.S. drops its request to extradite Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Meng, who is currently on bail in Vancouver, appeared in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday following a formal extradition request from the United States the day before.

The U.S. government announced nearly two dozen criminal charges against Huawei Technologies on Monday, accusing the company of technology theft, bank fraud, obstruction of justice and money laundering. Allegations of bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracies to commit bank and wire fraud were levelled against Meng personally for statements provided to one of Huaweis major banking partners about the companys operations in Iran.

McCallum had initially been forced to walk back comments that Mengs legal counsel had good reason to argue the charges against her were politically motivated. The message was a stark break from the line previously held by Canadian officials, who almost unanimously stood by the legal process as legitimate and independent.

He announced his resignation on Saturday after repeating the comments a second time, following his initial retraction, to The Star.

Missives in the Global Times and China Daily  news organizations with ties to the Chinese state  depicting McCallums exit as confirmation of the illegitimacy of Canadas legal process are a further indication the former ambassador was viewed as an ally by Beijing, said Palmer.

They clearly saw McCallum as an asset, as somebody who they very successfully wooed through this program, said Palmer, who worked for Global Times for seven years.

Jorge Guajardo, who served for six years as Mexicos ambassador to the Peoples Republic of China, agrees. The same strategies described by Palmer, he said, were used against him during his time in Beijing.

Guajardo emphasized he doesnt know McCallum or have any special window into his motivations in this case. But when he first heard McCallums comments, Guajardo reports having immediately recognized the earmarks of a campaign of influence by Beijing.

Having been there, (I thought), I know why hes saying those things, he said. Because they game you, in a sense.

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Whereas newly posted foreign ambassadors in Western countries are typically put in touch with government officials of all stripes, when a foreign ambassador first arrives in Beijing, they are given zero access, said Guajardo.

Then slowly, over time, ambassadors are told particular, high-ranking Communist Party officials wish to meet with them because theyre special and obviously have a unique understanding of the nuance and delicacy of the partys position, he said.

And they keep playing up this idea that youre special (by granting the same access) any ambassador would get in any other capital, Guajardo said in an interview.

The mind-game of cultivating an envoy as a special friend to China who believes he has singular access to  and understanding of  the countrys political inner-workings is key to ensuring the diplomat will become an ally in Beijings efforts to see its interests taken up abroad, he said. And this relationship becomes especially useful during periods of dispute between China and an ambassadors home country.

This is typical Chinese playbook: to convince the ambassador from a foreign country that his country is not acting correctly, and that of course he understands that theyre not acting correctly, and, Im telling you as a friend because I like you and I dont meet any other ambassadors, he said. And they start getting into your head that way.

McCallum was the first elected official appointed as a head of mission to China  a post that dates back to the establishment of a Canadian embassy in Beijing in 1971. Previous to his appointment in 2017, McCallum was a Liberal member of Parliament for over a decade-and-a-half, serving as a federal minister under three different prime ministers.

Without commenting on McCallums situation specifically, former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney confirmed Guajardos account.

China is amazingly successful at convincing people, including seasoned diplomats, that the most important thing in the world is maintaining good relations with China, Mulroney said in an email. By this they generally mean not commenting or otherwise reacting to something egregious that China has done.

They persuade people by playing to their vanity, making them believe that their unique understanding of China is evidenced by their ability to keep things calm and untroubled. They do this because it works  for China.

Mulroneys analysis echoes Guajardos summary of the underlying issue: that Beijing views foreign diplomats as outgoing communication channels, rather than resources to develop an understanding of foreign countries.

What the world lacks, Guajardo recounts being told by officials in Beijing, is a nuanced understanding of China. And developing that understanding for the world is what Communist Party officials believe the work of a foreign ambassador should be, he said.

Every diplomat wants to contribute to better relations between capitals, he said. And no one wants to pick a fight with foreign officials. But operating as a conduit for messaging from a foreign capital is antithetical to the purpose of ambassadorial work, he said.

You want to have the Chinese ambassador to Mexico explaining China to the Mexicans, and you want the Mexican ambassador to Beijing explaining China to the Mexicans? Who is supposed to explain Mexico to China? he said.

They are so invested in explaining themselves to the outside world that they have no energy left to understand the outside world ... and they dont care.

With files from Michael Mui and Tonda MacCharles

Read more about:
Premier Doug Ford promises full-day kindergarten will be offered for the next school year.

But beyond that, its future will be determined after consultations have wrapped up, Ford told reporters Wednesday morning in Toronto.

Were consulting with our education partners, Ford said. But I can tell you that theres going to be all-day kindergarten next year, and well sit down and youll hear from us in the future.

The premier also said we look forward to coming up with a solution thats better than the system that we have right now.

On Tuesday, Education Minister Lisa Thompson also would not commit long-term to the program, which began almost a decade ago at a cost of $1.5 billion a year, saying consultations are under way with teacher and support staff unions as well as trustee associations on full-day, class sizes and hiring rules.

Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, said he is not aware of any group that would advocate for the end of full-day kindergarten, and believes there would be a whole coalition of people opposed to any move to either negatively alter the program or eliminate it.

And if the government is doing it simply to save money, thats short-term thinking, said Bischof, whose union represents some early childhood educators. You can look at full-day kindergarten as an expense, but its really not. Its an investment.

Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, called full-day kindergarten an invaluable program that has been shown to have academic and social benefits for children both in the short- and long-term.

Its so concerning that this government is looking at reducing a deficit at the expense of students and their well-being.

Have your say

NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles, a former Toronto school board trustee, said she is already getting calls from panicked parents ... no parent should have to worry that their kids will miss out on the advantages of full-day kindergarten.

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A ministry consultation document asks about full-day kindergarten and its staffing model, which is a full-time teacher and full-time early childhood educator with an average class size of 26. It costs about $1.5 billion a year.

On Wednesday, Ford

also said hes concerned that half our Grade 6 students have failed math. Thats staggering and said while teachers do a great job with our students they need instruction in math at university.

The most recent provincial standardized testing results show 49 per cent of Grade 6 students met the standard in numeracy  but the standard the EQAO has set is a level 3 or 4, which roughly translates to a B or better.

Read more about:
Former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion now says she is too busy to work as a special adviser on housing to Premier Doug Ford.

Hours after Ford assured reporters that McCallion  who had been given the patronage post worth up to $150,000 a year on Jan. 18  would work for free, the 97-year-old said she was taking a pass.

Unfortunately, due to my extensive commitments, I am unable to accommodate the extensive time required for such an appointment at this point in time, she said Wednesday.

As a result, I will not be accepting the formal appointment and the per diem that goes along with it.

McCallion, who presided over Mississauga from 1978 until 2014, added she is a phone call away if Ford ever needs any advice.

In a statement, the premier said it is a sign of her true character that she didnt feel comfortable accepting this appointment given the time and energy it would have required.

But earlier in the day, Ford had said shes going to be a great asset at no cost.

I saw her over the weekend  man, what a dynamo. She said: Doug, I sit on eight boards. I will help you any way I can, but Im not taking a salary, he said, marvelling that McCallion turns 98 on Feb. 14.

The governing Progressive Conservatives have taken much heat from political opponents and on talk-radio shows for hiring McCallion as a high-priced adviser on housing supply in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

However, on another patronage post dogging the government, Ford pointedly refused to say whether he would be bound by the recommendation of integrity commission J. David Wake, who is probing the Nov. 29 hiring of Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner as Ontario Provincial Police commissioner.

The appointment of Taverner, 72, a long-time family friend of the premier, remains in limbo as Wake investigates a complaint from the opposition NDP that there was political meddling in the unusual hiring.

Asked if he would abide by the integrity commissioners findings should Wake conclude there was political interference, Ford did not answer directly.

The integrity commissioners going to go through that. I have a great deal of respect for him. Ill be sitting down and listening to what he has to say ... I think hes doing a great job, by the way, he said.

Ford dismissed concerns raised about the Taverner appointment by policing experts and critics, who fear having the premiers chum as head of the OPP would undermine the independence of the countrys second-largest police force.

I travel across the province. The only people who talk about it is the media, the premier said.

NDP MPP Sandy Shaw (Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas) disputed that, saying people are concerned because its clear that Doug Ford is scheming to make himself untouchable by any police force that could investigate an abuse of power.

Without a truly independent OPP commissioner, Ontarians simply have no recourse, said Shaw, adding only the government of the day could call in the Mounties to investigate a transgression if the OPP is deemed to have a conflict.

We cant trust a close Ford ally to investigate his government and we certainly cant trust his government to invite the RCMP to conduct any future investigation.

In his first news conference since Dec. 18, the premier also said its no sweat off anyones back that buck-a-beer  which he promised during last springs election campaign and announced with fanfare in August  is fading.

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The lone remaining $1-a-bottle participant, Cool Beer Brewing of Etobicoke, is scaling back its cheap suds promotion to long weekends for the rest of the year, as the Toronto Star first reported Tuesday.

Two other brewers did brief promotions after the government lowered the minimum price for beer to $1 for a standard bottle or can of beer that is below 5.6 per cent alcohol by volume.

The buck-a-beer was a challenge. We got rid of a regulation, a couple of companies took us up on it, added Ford, who pointed out he himself does not drink.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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OTTAWAThe Liberals pointman on housing admits Justin Trudeaus claim the government has helped 1 million Canadians find an affordable place to live stems from figures that were inflated to rhetorical advantage.

Adam Vaughan, a Liberal MP from Toronto who serves as parliamentary secretary to the social development minister, said Tuesday that $5.7 billion spent on affordable housing since 2016 has actually impacted less than 1 million specific addresses  not individuals  and that some units were counted more than once to reach that tally.

Our funding program has reached 1 million housing units, with a combination of construction dollars, repair dollars and rent subsidies, Vaughan said.

I mean, obviously weve double counted to rhetorical advantage, but thats how much money is in the system. Thats why its $5.7 billion. Weve done a hell of a lot of stuff.

Vaughan was explaining statements the prime minister made in the House of Commons this week, in response to criticism from the NDP that the Liberal governments housing plan doesnt build new units fast enough.

On Monday during question period, Trudeau said in French that federal spending has helped more than 1 million Canadians find affordable housing. He repeated the claim Tuesday, when he said: we have already helped more than almost one million Canadians access homes.

Read more:

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Those statements sparked criticism from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who accused the prime minister of misleading Canadians by exaggerating the impact of his governments housing spending. In an interview with the Star, Singh said Trudeaus statements imply affordable housing has been given to 1 million additional Canadians, when government-issued figures from the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) paint a different picture.

What (Trudeau) claimed is just so far from the truth its not even in the realm of whats actually happening, said Singh.

His numbers are just not real. Theyre wrong.

The CMHC figures were published in November to outline the impact of $5.7 billion in federal housing spending since the Liberals first budget in 2016. They say less than 15,000 new affordable housing units have been or will be built with that money, while 156,526 units were slated for repairs.

The CMHC also states 776,233 families or individuals benefited from a more affordable place to live a reference to people who receive subsidies to help pay for their housing, Vaughan explained.

However, Vaughan said the government doesnt actually know how many individuals are affected by this spending, because it doesnt have statistics for how many people live in each unit constructed, repaired, or targeted with a subsidy.

Instead, the CMHC says almost 1 million Canadian families have received housing support  a claim Vaughan said is based on specific addresses receiving money. But he said the tally includes some addresses more than once if they receive money for repairs and also for a rent subsidy, Vaughan said.

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It constitutes support to a million different households, though some of them are double-counted, he said.

A government official said on background Tuesday night that a small minority of unitsroughly 22,000 of almost 1 millionwere counted more than once.

Housing policy experts, meanwhile, have reacted to the CMHCs statistics with confusion. David Hulchanski, a professor at the University of Toronto, called the figures opaque and confusing and said by email that its still not clear how many more Canadians are receiving help for housing than before the Liberal government came to power.

Asked for a more accurate tally of units affected by the federal spending since 2016, a spokesperson for Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos repeated the CMHC figure that 982,099 families or well over a million Canadians have a place to call home.

Jeff Morrison, executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Associaiton, said much of the government spending since 2016 is from the renewal of so-called operating agreements to maintain subsidized housing that has been available for years. The Liberal governments signature National Housing Strategy  a plan to reduce homelessness and expand affordable housing through a combination of federal and provincial spending that amounts to $40 billion over 10 years  only started last year, Morrison said, and hasnt yet led to a significant number of new units.

Most of this is just stuff they were already doing, he said.

Vaughan acknowledged this, but said its important to maintain subsidies and spending for repairs, and that money available for affordable housing would have plummeted if the Liberals did not renew this spending.

We have restored those operating agreements and, in doing so, protected affordability for a huge swath of Canadians, he said.

Singh, however, accused the Liberals of neglecting the immediate needs of people who cant afford to buy a home or have trouble paying the rent. In recent weeks, Singh has repeatedly underscored the crisis in affordable housing, while New Democrats have attacked the Liberal housing plan in the House of Commons.

The party also contends it is a prime concern in Burnaby South, where Singh is competing for his first-ever federal seat in a byelection set for Feb. 25. Earlier this month, Singh pledged an NDP government would build 500,000 new affordable housing units built over the next decade. This would be done by removing federal sales tax on new buildings that include affordable units, send subsidies to people who spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, and double the existing tax credit for first-time homebuyers to $1,500.

The party says the tax credit boost would cost $120 million per year, while the sales tax incentive could cost roughly $125 million, depending on pickup in the private sector.

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Emporia, KS (66801)

Today

Sunshine and a few afternoon clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 100F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with showers and a few thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 62F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Andrew Scheer is in a fighting mood these days, hitting out at Justin Trudeau on everything from taxes to pipelines, refugees, China and more.

As the Conservative leader sees it, the prime minister and his governing Liberals are bad, bad, bad  on all the important issues facing Canada.

Trudeaus carbon tax plan is a disaster, the battling Scheer told a crowd of mainly Tory loyalists at a meeting recently at the Armenian Community Centre in North York.

If Justin Trudeau is re-elected, your taxes will go up, the fired-up Scheer said last weekend at the close of a three-day meeting in Ottawa with MPs and nominated candidates for the Oct. 21 federal election.

Indeed, with the election less than nine months away, Scheer has ratcheted up his attacks on Trudeau.

But what would Scheer do differently?

Its a legitimate question that voters and journalists need to start asking. Thats because Conservatives are beginning to smell possible victory in the fall election, with recent polls showing them virtually tied with the Liberals.

However, Scheer, his spokespersons, and his senior MPs, are standing largely unchallenged on the sidelines while they nitpick any and every Liberal initiative without saying what they would do differently.

Carbon tax? Very bad, according to Scheer and friends. Its not an environmental plan, but a simple cash grab, they insist. At the same time Scheer refuses to say what his alternative plan is for dealing with climate change, promising for months only that its coming soon and will reward individual choices.

Free trade deal? Very bad, says Scheer, adding he could have gotten more concessions from U.S. President Donald Trump. Of course, he doesnt say how he would have done that. Would he have refused to sign the deal that Trudeau signed? He doesnt say.

Immigration? Scheer contends Trudeau has been far too lenient in letting border-crossing asylum seekers to stay in Canada. The Tory leader told the North York crowd he would end the problem of illegal border crossings in the first place. What would he do? Build a wall? Again, we dont know because Scheer wont say.

Taxes and runaway spending? Both a mess, Scheer claims, adding the Liberals have no plan to ever, ever, ever balance the budget. But how will the Tories deal with taxes and the budget? Well, taxes and the deficit will be lower, but Scheers not telling how he will do that.

Relations with China? Mishandled, says Scheer, adding Trudeau is too soft on the Chinese government. Hes even accused Trudeau of engaging in a policy of appeasement. Again, though, no details, except to say he would be tougher. But would Scheer have ignored the U.S. request to arrest Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou?

Relations with Saudi Arabia? Mishandled, says the Tory leader. What would Scheer have done differently? Would he have soft-pedalled criticism of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Who knows?

East and west pipelines? Trudeau has botched the file, Scheer says. So would Scheer have just forged ahead with the pipelines over the objections of the courts, various First Nations communities and the governments of B.C. and Quebec? He wont say.

When Scheer occasionally does take a stand, its often a bad or controversial one. A good example is his pledge to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel if he wins the election. Its a promise that reverses the Conservatives decades-old position on Jerusalem. Former Tory prime minister Joe Clark had to make an embarrassing flip-flop in 1979 after sparking a political firestorm when he pledged to move our embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Political strategists will tell you its foolish to unveil a partys policy platform until much closer to election day. Almost without exception they advise political leaders to say Wait for our platform. All these questions will be answered then.

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So when will Scheer unveil his platform? Next September just before the election? Why not now? Why must voters have to wait on the Conservative timetable?

Its time Scheer stopped dismissing these voters with flimsy answers like, were still working on it. Its time to unveil his plans for Canada.

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Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday asking for a hate crimes investigation into the attack on actor Jussie Smollett.

Smollett, who is Black and openly gay, was assaulted in Chicago early Tuesday in what police have called a possible racially charged assault and battery.

This is a hate crime plain and simple and I will not stand by while evil acts are inflicted on any citizen, especially not in my hometown, Rush said in the letter.

Rush said he was disturbed by reports that the two attackers allegedly wrapped a noose around Smolletts neck, an act Rush described as an attempted lynching that harkens back to some of the darkest days in our history.

Last year, Rush introduced legislation that would make lynching a federal crime. The measure was co-sponsored by nearly three-dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus. At the time, Rush said the legislation was necessary given the resurgence of white nationalism as evidenced by recent events such as the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Read More:

Police: No footage yet of alleged attack on Empire actor

Empire cast member alleges homophobic attack in Chicago

Empire actor Jussie Smollett assaulted in Chicago in potential hate crime

While many may argue that lynching has been relegated to history, you only need to look at the events in Charlottesville last year to be reminded that the racist and hateful sentiments that spurred these abhorrent crimes are still prevalent in todays American society, he said at the time.

On Wednesday, Rush renewed his call for Congress to take up his legislation, which he said would ensure perpetrators receive an enhanced sentence under hate crimes statutes.

Smollett, 35, was walking on a Chicago street about 2 a.m. local time Tuesday when two unknown offenders approached him and gained his attention by yelling out racial and homophobic slurs towards him, the Chicago Police Department said in a statement.

The offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim, the statement said. At some point during the incident, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around the victims neck.

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Smollett told detectives his attackers said something to the effect of this is MAGA country,  an apparent reference to President Donald Trumps Make America Great Again campaign slogan, during the assault.

The FBI has not responded to a request for comment.
A month after President Donald Trump said hed pull U.S. forces from Syria, a critical global security question is unanswered: What to do with hundreds of Daesh (also known as ISIS) fighters and their families  including Europeans and Americans  held by Kurdish forces in makeshift prisons?

U.S. officials estimate there are 800 prisoners who need to be dealt with at a series of Kurdish-run prisons and holding facilities across northern Syria. Ilham Ahmed, a senior official with a Kurdish group that fought Daesh alongside the U.S., says the number of family members of captured fighters may top 4,000.

One thing is clear, Ahmed says: No one wants to take them.

As Trump tries to meet a campaign pledge by getting America out of intractable Mideast wars, the prisoners have become a stumbling block  one reason the administration has been walking back the presidents December promise of a quick withdrawal.

There was concern that the Kurds, facing the bigger threat of a Turkish attack after their erstwhile U.S. allies leave, may be unable or unwilling to hold the prisoners. That risked allowing hardened Daesh fighters to return to their home countries, or resume the fight in Syria, where the self-proclaimed Daesh caliphate has been reduced to a couple of villages.

This is a serious issue thats got to be addressed quickly, said Seth Jones, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, when asked about the Daesh prisoners.

Read More:

A timeline of the US involvement in Syrias conflict

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Trump says Turkey should easily be able to mop up Daesh in Syria

Theres debate over whether the Kurds would really let prisoners go, or are using them as leverage. Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa research at Eurasia Group, said the threat to free them is likely just a political tool.

Americas key local allies in the Daesh fight, the Kurds, were shocked and dismayed by Trumps pullout plan  and even more so when he invited their enemy Turkey to send troops into Syria to fill the gap. The perceived betrayal has spurred Kurdish leaders to start talks on reunifying their territories under the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad. So one potential fate for the jihadi captives is that they end up in Assads jails.

There are other possibilities. The U.S. preference would be for the countries that the Daesh fighters originally came from to take responsibility for them, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But most foreign governments are reluctant to do so. Some fear the returning jihadis could radicalize their cellmates. Housing them separately could strain resources and legal systems. And theres the question of what to do with their wives and children.

Among the hundreds of imprisoned Daesh fighters in Kurdish custody, Ahmed said, there are 10 U.S. citizens, and that the U.S. isnt asking for any of them back. The White House declined to provide an update on U.S. plans when asked by Bloomberg.

Russia in December resumed a suspended program to repatriate children of Daesh fighters whose mothers are in prison and reunite them with other family members. Frances Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that its preparing for the potential return of Daesh fighters, after BFM TV reported that 130 French citizens could be returned from Syria. A Belgian court also ruled in favour of repatriation, though the government may appeal.

Most of the captives and relatives are in limbo. Nawaf Khalil, a former Kurdish official in Syria and now head of the Center for Kurdish Studies in Germany, estimates that there are 950 Daesh prisoners of four dozen nationalities. He says Kurdish authorities have brought up this issues with the captives governments, but frankly, they dont want to deal with this headache.

Western officials are floating a range of options for the prisoners. They could stay where they are, with some additional aid for their Kurdish captors; or get sent to their home countries, or to third-parties willing to jail them. The U.S. is considering the transfer of some of the most hardened fighters to the American military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the alleged perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks are still held.

The situation is more clear-cut in Iraq, says Nadim Houry, Paris-based head of the counterterrorism program at Human Rights Watch, whos been to three camps in northern Syria where foreign women and children are held. He wasnt allowed to visit the men.

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There are concerns about human rights or fair trials when Iraqi authorities prosecute jihadis, but no question they have jurisdiction, Houry says. Syria is a different story, a legal vacuum thats not sustainable, and one to which European officials dont have clear answers. They just wish the problem would go away.

One alternative is to establish an international court that would put Daesh fighters on trial before returning them to their home countries. The court could help determine which prisoners are the highest risk, and who could be let go.

Elena Suponina, a Middle East expert in Moscow, says that may ultimately be necessary, because Daesh is transnational and the prisoners hail from many countries. But its difficult to implement now because Syria has not stabilized yet, she says. Among the actors whod have to co-operate in such a plan, the disagreements are still too great.

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LAUREL HILL, N.C. - Authorities in North Carolina have accused six children ages 12 and 13 of discussing a Columbine-style attack on their middle school on social media.

WRAL in Raleigh reports the Scotland County Sheriffs Office said the students, who were removed from the school, face felony charges of communicating a threat of mass violence on school property. Capt. Jessica Sadovnikov says the discussion was such that investigators considered it serious.

The sheriffs office says two Carver Middle School students alerted staff members that they thought the students would carry out the threat on Jan. 25.

Parents criticized law enforcement and school officials at a meeting Tuesday for not being told about the threat sooner. The sheriffs office said Wednesday that at no time did it tell school leaders not to release information.

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Information from: WRAL-TV, http://www.wral.com
WASHINGTON - The White House plan for peeling off Democrats to support President Donald Trumps demands for billions in border wall money ran into a particularly stubborn obstacle: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers flip phone.

Schumer had already been talking with his colleagues for months, anticipating Trumps fight long before the shutdown battle began. Soon after the midterm elections in early November, the New Yorker started doing what he does best, talking to his senators.

One by one, he dialed them on his vintage flip phone to gauge support for spending money on the wall with Mexico. He made a beeline for them across the Senate floor. He cornered them in the Senate gym. Most Democrats told him they were against it.

That unity buoyed Democrats during the just-concluded shutdown saga and is now girding them for the next round, with a second federal closure threatened by the White House.

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seized the starring role against Trumps border wall, Schumer played no small part by helping shore up his side of the Capitol and bolstering Pelosis position.

Its a strategy the Democrats will rely on as the next shutdown deadline, Feb. 15, nears, and as Senate Democrats use their minority status as leverage to align with Pelosis House majority on various fronts.

If anything, our unity is stronger today than it was, Schumer said Tuesday.

It was his most high-profile role since taking on the leaders position in 2017.

During Trumps first two years, Senate Democrats held together to vote against the Republican tax plan, resulting in a partisan measure that has failed to gain widespread popular appeal. Democrats also denied Republicans the votes needed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, after dissent from the GOP ranks left Republicans without enough support.

Schumer has been praised, but also criticized, for not forcing his senators to fall in line the way past leaders have done. Liberals railed against him for failing to stop Brett Kavanaugh from being confirmed to the Supreme Court, even though only one Democrat voted for Trumps nominee.

Schumer is proving to be a different kind of leader, nudging his caucus to hold together on big fights, but also cutting senators loose to vote as they wish at other times.

Last year, Schumer looked the other way as several Democrats supported a Republican banking bill that reversed some Democratic changes put in place after the Great Recession. This month, as soon as the shutdown ended, Schumer lifted the blockade on a GOP foreign policy bill supporting Israel that divided Democrats; their votes allowed it to easily advance.

Schumer is showing the strength that Senate Democrats can assert in the chamber where 60 votes are usually needed to advance legislation to support or thwart Trumps agenda.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., a member of the leadership team, said Schumer has an uncanny way to be able to listen to the various views and end up with a position that eventually everybody can feel OK with.

Days after the Nov. 6 election when Democrats suffered defeats in the Senate, Schumer started dialing up Democrats about the border wall. Four colleagues from states where Trump is popular lost their elections. But without much prodding, senators were lining up against giving Trump the money he wanted, according to a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Senators had approved a border security package and saw no reason to spend more. Plus, Democrats had just won the House, strengthening their hand. By the time the White House thought about flipping Democrats, it was too late.

Its old the minds and hearts thing, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Schumer, he said, knows the minds and hearts of his colleagues.

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Even in Virginia, where Sen. Tim Kaine represents thousands of federal workers who would eventually go without pay during the record 35-day shutdown, Democrats held firm.

The issue that the president chose to battle on, he just picked an issue where every Democrat is completely unified, Kaine said. Our caucus just welded together.

In the end, just one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted for the wall money. The White House didnt even bother trying to call another potential Democratic vote, Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama.

Emboldened by their newfound leverage, Democrats are now looking at areas where they can unite against some policies and perhaps win some GOP support on issues such as prescription drug prices, administration oversight or protecting special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The night before a pivotal White House meeting in December, when the shutdown was a possibility but not yet reality, Schumer and Pelosi discussed strategy. They couldnt have imagined what would come next.

With the television cameras rolling the next day at the White House, Trump said in an exchange with Schumer that he would take the mantle and own the shutdown. Schumer can be seen trying to hold back a smile.

A short while later Schumer arrived back at the Capitol for a private lunch with Democratic senators. They, too, were stunned.

The shutdown would drag for more than a month, but for Senate Democrats the new Congress was just beginning.

It reinforced a lot of our steadfastness and resolve, said Blumenthal, and trust in our values and in the American people to see through Trumps bullying and bluster.

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Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AP_Politics and https://twitter.com/lisamascaro
San Francisco lawmakers avoided having to bend the citys sanctuary city policy after federal authorities backed off their demands for the law to be relaxed if they wanted help extraditing a rape suspect from Canada.

Mohamed Ben Azaza, 39, was arraigned Wednesday in San Francisco on charges including rape by use of drugs, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious person. He pleaded not guilty.

Homeland Security officials said last week that they would not extradite Azaza unless San Francisco relaxed its sanctuary city policy, which limits communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials.

Azaza, who is from Tunisia, was sought on suspicion of raping an unconscious woman he drove from Daly City to San Francisco in 2017 while working as a rideshare driver.

San Franciscos sanctuary city exemption applies only to people who have convictions. Azaza has no violent felony convictions. His attorney, Robert Beles, provided The Associated Press a copy of Azazas valid green card, which allowed him to live and work in the United States at the time of the alleged rape.

The district attorneys office had sought approval from the Board of Supervisors to communicate with federal immigration officials if Azaza posted bail, was acquitted or if the district attorney couldnt find probable cause to continue the prosecution, as requested by Homeland Security.

But at a meeting Tuesday, Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee told colleagues that the district attorneys office confirmed that this ordinance is no longer needed and asked us to table the item, the San Francisco Chronicle reported .

Beles said his client was on his way to San Francisco to face the charges when he was detained in July in Montreal, where he remained in jail until his extradition.

He was not fighting extradition. He got caught in a political crossfire and was stuck in a Canadian jail for months, Beles told the AP.

Were looking into see if we can make a motion to either release Mohamed or somehow dismiss the case because his return to the U.S. was inhibited by the federal government, he added.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Critics had argued that the Trump administration was trying to weaken sanctuary laws that advocates say are designed to make people living in the country illegally more likely to co-operate with local police without fear of deportation.

They said carving out an exception  even just for the single case  would be a bad precedent.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen had called the legislation only a technical clarification and not an exception when she and two colleagues on the rules committee voted for the proposal last week and sent it to the full board.

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But on Tuesday, Ronen said she would push back against future federal demands.

We will not play games with you, Mr. Trump, any more. And do not bring these ordinances to us any more, D.A., Ronen said. I will refuse to consider a resolution like this ever again.
BRUNSWICK, Ohio - Sen. Sherrod Brown on Wednesday kicked off his tour of states that cast pivotal early votes in the 2020 presidential primary by accusing Republican President Donald Trump of phoney populism that disrespects minorities, workers and families while benefiting billionaires.

The Ohio Democrat launched his dignity of work tour at a warehouse south of Cleveland. He and his wife, journalist Connie Schultz, head next to Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

The 66-year-old senator and former representative told the crowd of several hundred that Democrats cant let extremists at statehouses and in Washington claim populist credentials if they dont support policies that benefit middle-class Americans.

When work has dignity, we honour the pensions people earned, Brown said. When work has dignity, everyone can afford health care, education and housing. They have power over their schedules and the economic security to start a family, pay for daycare and college, take time off to care for themselves or their families when theyre sick, and save for retirement.

Steve Norris, 38, a software developer from Lakewood, said he would love to see better benefits and wages for workers his age, something Brown said he would fight for.

You talk to some of the older people, and it would be great to get some of the deals they had, he said.

Christopher Mobley, 18, said the College Democrats at the University of Akron, of which hes a part, are excited to support Brown because hes someone thats not going to take anything from Trump.

Brown accused Trump of betraying workers, claiming the president has not lifted a finger to help threatened workers at General Motors Lordstown plant.

Donald Trump has used his phoney populism to divide Americans and to demonize immigrants. He uses phoney populism to distract from the fact that hes used the White House to enrich billionaires like himself, Brown said. Because real populism is not racist; real populism is not anti-Semitic; real populists dont engage in hate speech and dont rip babies from families at the border.

The fight for the populist label is no small thing to Brown, who will argue in the four other states that his decisive re-election in November showed the power a progressive message can have in a state that Trump won by double digits. Supporters at the event recalled fighting for workers and families for decades.

Sherrod is the one candidate whos like an old-school Democrat, that hasnt forgotten where the Democratic Party started, said Teamster Fred Crow, 57, of Maple Heights. Sherrods the one guy thats been with us from the beginning.

Many working-class supporters in attendance said they felt betrayed or duped by Trump, who won Ohio decisively in 2016 with the support of many blue-collar workers who switched parties to give him their vote.

He hornswoggled us, said Albert Stapleton, 73, a retired Teamster and 2016 Trump voter from Brunswick. He went 180 (degrees) out on everything that he campaigned on.

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Crow said: Mr. Trump is the drunk at the end of the bar. Hes going to tell you what you want to hear.

Rather than disappearing after the rally, Brown and Schultz remained for nearly an hour mingling and taking photos with backers.
NEWARK, N.J. - A New Jersey man has been ordered to stand trial in April in the murders of three women and the attempted murder of a fourth.

NJ.com reports that an Essex County judge denied a defence motion Wednesday to split the case against 22-year-old Khalil Wheeler-Weaver into separate trials.

Prosecutors allege that he killed 20-year-old Sarah Butler, 33-year-old Joanne Brown and 19-year-old Robin West in 2016. They also accuse him of trying to kill another woman that year.

Wheeler-Weaver has pleaded not guilty.

The defence argued that it would be prejudicial for jurors to hear evidence from all four crimes before deciding on any one count. But the judge ruled a single trial would allow prosecutors to establish a common scheme or motive for the killings.

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Information from: NJ.com, http://www.nj.com
SILVER SPRING, Md. - The NAACP can pursue its legal claim that the U.S. Census Bureau has insufficient funds to properly conduct the 2020 Census, risking a massive undercount of blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities, a federal judge has ruled.

Government attorneys urged U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm in Maryland to throw out the claims in the civil rights groups lawsuit against the Census Bureau. But the judge refused Tuesday, ruling the NAACP may be able to demonstrate the 2020 Census isnt adequately funded.

Grimm said the NAACPs claim is strengthened by a prediction that current census funding will run out by April, if not sooner  a year before the census.

While (the NAACPs) other claims could be addressed through post-census litigation, census funding obviously cannot be increased after the fact, he wrote. Moreover, the federal government shutdown (recently) ended through a continuing resolution that only allows the Bureau to continue with already-funded operations for three weeks, but adds no additional funding beyond that already appropriated.

The NACCPs lawsuit also challenged the methods and means of conducting the next census. The judge dismissed those claims but said the group can try to revive them later.

The NAACP claims poor planning for the nations first-ever digital census will exacerbate undercounts and leave it vulnerable to cyberattack.

It is imperative that the Census Bureau take steps immediately to minimize the undercount in communities of colour and immigrant communities, especially given the likely impact of the underfunded census, NAACP general counsel Brad Berry said in a statement.

Government lawyers argue that the NAACPs concerns about census preparations are premature and based on nothing more than conjecture.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco declined to comment on the judges order.

Grimm held a hearing Jan. 14 to hear arguments on the governments request for him to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge acknowledged in Tuesdays decision that he cant order Congress to adequately fund the census. But he said he can rule that Congress and President Donald Trump have failed to agree upon and finalize legislation to provide the funding actually needed to conduct the census in 2020.

As for the exact contours of any declaratory relief this court might grant following an evidentiary hearing or trial, it is enough to say that some form of declaratory relief is likely to redress a proven shortfall in funding for the 2020 census, and it is unnecessary to predict exactly what it would be at this preliminary stage of the case, the judge wrote.

Prince Georges County, a predominantly black county in the Maryland suburbs of Washington joined the NAACP in suing the Census Bureau, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Trump last March. The NAACP didnt contest the dismissal of its claims against Trump.

The NAACPs suit says failing to fully count blacks has been a persistent problem, with a 2.1 per cent net undercount of blacks in the 2010 census. But the group claims the Census Bureau has never been so ill-prepared.

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The Census Bureau operated without a permanent director for months before the Senate voted earlier this month to confirm Trumps pick for the position. The NAACPs lawsuit says a hiring freeze has limited the bureaus ability to fill other staff vacancies. The suit also says the bureau cancelled important field tests last year in Puerto Rico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington state.

Government lawyers argue the NAACP concerns about undercounting leading to lost federal funding and lost legislative seats are future harms that cant occur before the 2020 census has been conducted.
NEWARK, N.J. - Federal authorities say an inert grenade was found in a passengers luggage at Newark Liberty International Airport right outside New York City.

Transportation Security Administration officials said officers found the grenade Wednesday in the bag of a passenger heading to Phoenix.

Officials said the grenade was real but had been rendered incapable of exploding. The man told them that he was on his way to military training.

Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told the North Jersey Record that the man wasnt charged and was allowed to board the flight  without the grenade, which was confiscated.
Washington, MO (63090)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. Hot. High 93F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
ATLANTA - A push for Georgia to become the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which supporters say would usher it across the constitutional threshold for ratification, has gained steam with the backing of some prominent Republicans.

But the idea has long languished in the GOP-controlled legislature and some Republicans remain opposed, making the proposals prospects unclear.

Democratic state Sen. Nan Orrock of Atlanta and Republican state Sen. Renee Unterman of Buford are leading backers of a push to ratify the ERA. Supporters say that after years of disappointment, current efforts are showing promise because of newfound support among some Republicans and male lawmakers, spurred by the #MeToo movement and the 2018 midterm elections which saw so many women participate and run.

This is the broadest collection of signatures that weve achieved, and it has so much to do with what is going on around the land, Orrock said at a news conference Wednesday.

But whether that support  which currently counts seven Republican signers in the Senate, five of them male  will grow enough to pass both chambers is a lingering question.

Approved by Congress in 1972, the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender.

But 38 states must ratify it first. Thirty-seven already have, including Nevada and Illinois, which ratified the ERA within the last two years.

The quest to find  and be  state number 38 has touched off a push by activists and celebrities to revive the ERA in statehouses across the country.

Even if its ratified, though, court battles would likely ensue over a long-passed 1982 deadline set by Congress.

An effort to ratify the ERA in Virginia that had bipartisan backing stalled last week after a Republican-controlled committee in the House of Delegates voted down the gender-equality measure.

In Georgia, the proposals have gained some preliminary support from prominent Republicans in the form of co-signers. In addition to Unterman, state Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of Marietta, the only other Republican woman in the Georgia Senate, is a co-signer. So are five of their male Republican colleagues: Sen. John Albers of Roswell, Sen. Chuck Hufstetler of Rome, Sen. Matt Brass of Newnan, Sen. Brandon Beach of Alpharetta and Sen. P.K. Martin of Lawrenceville.

Many of the GOP supporters are from areas near metro Atlanta, where changing demographics have led to a more competitive political landscape that increasingly favours Democrats.

Martin expressed his support for the amendment in an interview.

I think it is important  where we are right now, what we are going through in our country  that we make sure womens rights are protected, Martin said. But he was also cautious about its prospects of moving forward.

What I think dropping the resolution does is allow us to go through the process to fully vet this, say, Have we done everything we can do?, and to see where the support is, Martin said.

Hufstetler and Beach both declined to comment, saying they were late for meetings.

Democratic State Sen. Donzella James of Atlanta said that she has worked on the issue for over a decade and was happy that it might finally move forward with some bipartisan support. She said she had tried to introduce the legislation more times than I can remember.

But now is the time. Its the year of the woman, and now is the time, James said. We now have a lot of progressive men in both parties who see that we are not just trying to push women forward, but are trying to find some balance.

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Unterman said that, despite the momentum, she had heard some pushback from male Republican colleagues.

Their questions are about whether Congress is going to approve this ... is it going to hold up in D.C ... has the time period expired.

Well let me tell you something I know from being a state senator. I dont depend on Washington D.C., Unterman said. We have our own autonomy as a state.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska - A 20-year-old Fairbanks man who shot and killed a woman in 2016 has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Fairbanks television station KTVF reports Lewis Tyshawn Harvin pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder as part of a plea arrangement.

Prosecutors say Harvin in 2016 fired into a crowd of people at a party near the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

A bullet struck 19-year-old Janet Barragan in the neck. She was transported to Anchorage in critical condition and later died from the injuries.

Harvin was originally charged with first and second degree murder. He was scheduled to begin trial a few weeks ago but reached a plea deal.

Harvin admitted that he had attempted to shoot another person at the party.

Harvin apologized to Barragans family at sentencing.

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Information from: KTVF-TV, http://www.webcenter11.com
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Searchers in Alaska found airplane debris Wednesday during a search for a medical airplane that went missing with three people aboard, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.

Searchers could not immediately confirm the debris found Wednesday is of the missing King Air 200 plane operated by operated by Guardian Flight, Chief Petty Officer Charly Hengen said. The debris was found in the water near the south tip of Admiralty Island about 22 miles (35 kilometres) west of the tiny southeast Alaska village of Kake.

The search is continuing for the missing plane, despite the discovery of debris, Hengen said.

The King Air 200 twin-engine plane took off from Anchorage on Tuesday and was expected to land in Kake at 6:19 p.m. to pick up a patient, but it never arrived, the Coast Guard said.

Guardian Flight released the names of those onboard in a statement Wednesday evening: pilot Patrick Coyle, 63, flight nurse Stacie Rae Morse, 30, and flight paramedic Margaret Langston Allen, 43. All were based in Juneau, according to the statement.

Federal accident investigators on Wednesday were reviewing radar flight information received from the plane, but no clues to what happened to the plane were immediately found in the search of data showing the planes flight pattern, said Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska.

We dont even know for sure that we have an accident, he said.

The Coast Guard said no electronic locating transmitter signal has been activated from the missing plane.

When the plane failed to arrive in Kake, residents in a dozen boats went out Tuesday night to search, and some went back out Wednesday, City Administrator Rudy Bean said.

Its just a sad situation, he said.

The search by boats, ferries and aircraft was focused on an area of sea about 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Kake, Hengen said. Were just diligently still continuing the search and hope that we find the overdue aircraft and individuals, she said.

Guardian Flights other Alaska aircraft were grounded during the search, company spokesman Jim Gregory said.

The Utah-based company initially grounded all of its 85 aircraft across the U.S. as a show of respect for the missing. It gradually re-started operations with aircraft based outside of Alaska.

That really gave our employees time to reflect on whats happened to the missing crewmembers and to pray, Gregory said.

Light rain, 7 mph (11 kph) winds and 10-mile (16-kilometre) visibility were reported in the area around the time the plane was due in Kake, Hengen said.

The Kake clinic did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking information about the patient who was supposed to be picked up by the plane.

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This version corrects the last name of the Guardian Flight spokesman, Gregory not Jordan. It also corrects that Hengen is a woman, not a man.

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Follow Rachel DOro at https://twitter.com/rdoro
NEW YORK - Ryan Knoll thought social media sites like Facebook would be the best places to advertise his brand-new home cleaning service. Then he had an epiphany.

Put yourself in the customers shoes. How would that customer go about trying to find the business? says Knoll, whose company, Tidy Casa, is based in Phoenix.

Ryan tried marketing on several social media sites, but eventually realized people needing cleaning services would head first for review websites like Yelp, Thumbtack and Angies List.

While small business owners who started their companies the past few years have achieved great success by marketing on social media, some find that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter arent an automatic go-tos. Instead, owners turn to more specialized websites like review services, and even low-tech methods like networking and cold-calling. Many, like Knoll, go through a period of trial and error before finding an advertising method that works.

Knoll also assumed at first that he should try to get Tidy Casas website to rank high in Google directory results; owners can accomplish that using specific keywords that customers are likely to search for. But he realized it would take months and thousands of dollars to get the response he wanted. Then Knoll noticed review websites showing up when he searched for cleaning service Phoenix.

Knoll is taking a different approach with his mens hair product, Simple Hair. Hes working toward selling on Amazon.com because thats where many consumers search for personal care products.

An owners choice of advertising channels depends on their target customers, says Ramon Ray, a small business consultant who often speaks publicly about marketing.

Its ultra-important to clearly understand who you are selling to, Ray says. Armed with that information, an owner can decide if social media is best or if they should try methods like email marketing, sending brochures through the mail or making networking calls, Ray says.

Simon Trask has had four companies including an advertising agency, two online stores and a consulting business. With his background in advertising, Ive seen hundreds of companies and theyre all case by case unique, depending on what products they sell and what kind of companies they are, Trask says.

Trask has found that for his e-commerce sites, knife seller Uppercut Tactical and Rita Maries Chicken Coops, buying ads on Google have worked well; his customers are likely to do an online search for his products rather than seek them out through social media. Trask, who lives in Denton, Texas, has also started using podcasts to help market his chicken coops, which come in a variety of styles and sizes. He sees podcasts as a way to build public awareness about the coops  podcasts are likely to work in the long term by entertaining and informing people rather than prompting immediate visits to his website.

But Trask is taking a different tack with his consulting business, which is still in its formative stages. Hes not advertising it; hes talking about it through networking and letting other business owners know hes available.

When Robyn Lanci began marketing her public relations firm nearly three years ago, she found success from cold-calling, phoning business owners who are complete strangers and pitching her company to them. Cold-calling can be frustrating because owners get more rejections than interest, but Lanci was able to sign up clients for Owl PR in her first two months because she researched the businesses before calling to improve her chances of success. Similarly, when she emailed prospects, she crafted subject lines that were personal.

Since then, Lanci, who is based in Lindenhurst, New York, has found more success from networking groups and casual, friendly conversations with business owners she encounters. Talking rather than pitching has been her best approach.

When I stopped selling myself hard, the business came easier, Lanci says.

Speaking or taking part in panels at conferences and other events has helped Spencer Smith get clients for his social media marketing firm, AmpliPhi. Smith estimates that hes given 200 speeches in the past few years.

When youre on stage, those in the audience assume youre an expert in your field. After all, youve already been vetted by someone  a conference organizer  whos involved with an association or group they trust, says Smith, whos based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Smith finds that LinkedIn, the social media channel where business people connect, helps because hes able to prospect for new customers there, and hes also able to post articles and other content that will appeal to his target client.

Still, social media channels like Facebook and Instagram are appealing to many small businesses, especially those that sell to consumers, because of their reach and low cost. Social media marketing can be free if companies use the basics, like Facebook pages and Instagram accounts without ads. And advertising, depending on how many people a company wants to reach, can be relatively inexpensive, in the hundreds of dollars per month.

Cost was one reason why Gabriella Jacobsen decided to market her environmentally friendly grocery bags on sites including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Jacobsen, who calls social media cheap and accessible, says Instagram alone prompts 70 per cent of the visits to her website, www.greenupward.com .

One of the most valuable aspects of social media for Jacobsen is the fact she can get feedback  marketing information  on her products from the comments people post.

It helps me with making better business decisions going forward, she says.

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For more small business news, insights and inspiration, sign up for our free weekly newsletter here: http://discover.ap.org/ssb

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Follow Joyce Rosenberg at www.twitter.com/JoyceMRosenberg . Her work can be found here: https://apnews.com
HEBER, Ariz. - Authorities say theyre investigating the deaths of several horses in eastern Arizona.

The Navajo County Sheriffs Office says it has received reports in the past three weeks of a total of seven dead horses near Heber.

Chief Deputy Randy Moffitt says its unclear how they died. He says many of them had been decomposing and other animals fed on them.

He says the horses were within a five-mile radius of each other in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

Moffitt says his office has no reports of branded horses that are missing, leading authorities to believe the dead horses were wild.

Forest officials are leading the investigation.

Marc Thomas with the agencys Southwestern Region said Wednesday that, historically, poor health, predation and motor vehicles have led to horse deaths in the area.
WASHINGTONThey think pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan would be a debacle. They think North Korea cannot be trusted. They think the Daesh is still a threat to America. They think Russia is bad and NATO is good.

The trouble is their president does not agree.

More than two years into his administration, the disconnect between U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republican establishment on foreign policy has rarely been as stark. In recent days, the presidents own advisers and allies have been pushing back, challenging his view of the world and his prescription for its problems.

The growing discontent among Republican national security hawks was most evident on Tuesday when Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader and perhaps Trumps most important partner in Congress, effectively rebuked the president by introducing a measure denouncing a precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

The senators repudiation came on the same day that Trumps own intelligence chiefs gave Congress a radically different assessment of international threats facing the United States from the presidents own. They warned about fresh Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, predicted that North Korea would never agree to give up its nuclear weapons and made clear that the Daesh is still plotting attacks around the world. They made no mention of Trumps top security priority of building a wall along the southwestern border.

Nearly two weeks ago, more than two-thirds of House Republicans voted to overturn the Trump administrations move to ease sanctions on Russian companies linked to a prominent oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska. And last week even more House Republicans voted to bar Trump from withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as he privately suggested to aides several times last year.

Read more:

Trump and Ocasio-Cortez disagree on everything but the power

Roger Stone wanted WikiLeaks dump to distract from Access Hollywood tape, Mueller witness says

Mueller probe is close to being completed, acting Attorney General says

Perhaps as we now pivot to the presidential elections, the Republicans may finally be thinking, well, maybe we ought to recalibrate a little here and understand there are real risks and we have to provide a check and balance on the commander in chief in whatever ways we can, said Wendy Sherman, an undersecretary of state under President Barack Obama.

Many traditional Republicans have been uneasy about Trumps foreign policy since the beginning and from time to time have pushed back, most notably in 2017 when Congress nearly unanimously passed sanctions on Russia over the presidents objections. But the rupture of recent days comes amid disgruntlement over the 35-day partial government shutdown that ultimately failed to achieve Trumps goal of extracting money for his border wall.

Weve had a couple of rapid-fire shocks to the system, said Eric S. Edelman, undersecretary of defence under President George W. Bush now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

In addition to the shutdown, he cited Trumps abruptly announced decision to pull U.S. forces from Syria, resulting in the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and quickly followed by the president vowing to withdraw half of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Theres no dearth of evidence of the disconnect between the president and Republican orthodoxy, said Edelman, a long-standing critic of Trump. But Edelman noted that the disagreement has been rooted in Congress. As you look at the Republican Party in the electorate, I think its lining up a little more with the president because I think hes shifting Republican voters more on things like trade and Russia, maybe on Syria and Afghanistan.

Indeed, many of Trumps supporters have cheered his more protectionist stance on trade and the tariff wars with China as well as U.S. allies. Likewise, many Trump supporters have grown weary of overseas military ventures that never seem to end and therefore applaud his moves to bring home U.S. troops. Polls have even detected a shift in Republican views on Russia, which throughout the Cold War was a unifying force in the party.

In Republican circles in Washington, however, the unease coincides with a critical juncture in Trumps foreign policy. His pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan come as trade talks with China head toward a climactic deadline and Trump prepares to get together next month with North Koreas leader, Kim Jong Un, for their second summit meeting after an initial encounter in Singapore last year.

Olivia Enos, a policy scholar on Asia at the Heritage Foundation, said doubts had grown about Trumps negotiations with North Korea to eliminate its nuclear program.

Many initially welcomed the presidents pursuit of diplomacy in North Korea, she said. But after Singapore, many questioned whether North Korea was sincere in coming to the negotiating table. Since that time, North Korea has continued to play hard to get, calling its sincerity to denuclearize into further question.

Some analysts said it was the way Trump makes his decisions as much as the decisions themselves that rattle the foreign policy establishment. Announcing the Syria pullout by Twitter without preparing the allies or framing the public explanations left even some of the presidents strongest supporters in Washington unnerved.

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I dont think Leader McConnell or anyone else wants to take the wheel from the president or even give him rudder direction, said Frederic C. Hof, a former State Department official who worked on Syria and is now diplomat in residence at Bard College. They want to be sure hes at the helm and he knows he has a crew. They want real deliberation to take place on these tough issues. They want the president to be part of it.

The administration has yet to even agree with itself on the state of affairs in Syria. At first, Trump declared the Daesh defeated, then said it was not but could be finished off by others.

Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting defence secretary who took over for Mattis, predicted on Tuesday that the terrorist group would lose its final stronghold in Syria by next month. Ninety-nine-point-five per cent plus of the Daesh-controlled territory has been returned to the Syrians, he said. Within a couple of weeks, itll be 100 per cent.

McConnell seemed less than convinced. In a speech introducing his measure on Tuesday, he took on Trumps approach to the Middle East. Simply put, while it is tempting to retreat to the comfort and security of our shores, there is still a great deal of work to be done, he said. And we do know that left untended, these conflicts will reverberate in our own cities.

While not mentioning Trump by name, McConnell directly rebutted the presidents argument about the limits of U.S. responsibility for patrolling the globe. We are not the worlds police man, the senator said. But we are the leader of the free world. And it is incumbent upon the United States to lead.

The White House declined to comment on Tuesday.

McConnell attached the amendment to a bill intended to extend aid to Israel and offer protections to state and local governments that refuse to do business with companies that boycott Israel. The Senate advanced the main bill on Tuesday on a 76-22 vote, with all the negative votes coming from Democrats.

About a half-dozen announced or possible Democratic presidential candidates voted against the bill, defying their party leaders, who favoured it; just one of the potential candidates, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, voted for it.

McConnells decision to offer his measure on Syria and Afghanistan, which has no binding force, was notable in part because he has sought to avoid open rifts with the president. Unlike current or former Republican senators like Jeff Flake of Arizona or Mitt Romney of Utah, McConnell rarely speaks out against Trump, preferring to keep focused on mutual priorities like judicial appointments.

But from time to time, he has made a point of staking out the more traditional Republican position. Look, Sen. McConnell has a different world view than the president does, said Antonia Ferrier, a former adviser. Hes a national security hawk who believes American strength in the world is critical.

Its pretty clear, she added, he wanted to send a message to both our enemies and our allies with this amendment that many in America continue to view Daesh and Al Qaeda as a threat in Syria and Afghanistan.

And pretty clearly a message to the White House as well.

Read more about:
SAN DIEGO - The Trump administration on Tuesday quietly launched an effort to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts, despite clear reservations and conflicting messages from the Mexican government.

The U.S. returned one asylum seeker to Mexico  a Honduran man  on the first day of what would be one of the most dramatic changes to the U.S. immigration system of Donald Trumps presidency, if the policy survives an anticipated legal challenge. Carlos Gomez, 55, arrived in Tijuana around midday and asked authorities for a ride to a migrant shelter.

Mexican officials sent mixed signals on the crucial point of whether Mexico would impose limits on accepting families. Tonatiuh Guillen, commissioner of Mexicos National Immigration Institute, said Mexico would only accept people 18 to 60 years old, which rules out families with young children.

But Roberto Velasco, spokesman for Mexicos foreign relations secretary, said Friday that families would be considered case by case. And a Mexican official with direct knowledge of the process said Mexico requested that families be excluded from the policy but that the U.S. declined to make any commitment, conceding only to start with single adults. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations were not public.

The launch is limited to San Diegos San Ysidro border crossing, the nations busiest, though Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan wrote in a memo released Tuesday that it is expected to expand to other crossings in the near future. Adding to a sense of confusion, Guillen said Mexico will only allow it at the one crossing that connects San Diego and Tijuana.

Katie Waldman, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, insisted families will be included. A sharp increase in Central American families seeking asylum in the U.S. led to the Trump administrations dramatic move, and limiting families would diminish the impact.

It will be expanded across the entire Southwest border, and it will apply to family groups, Waldman said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was in San Diego on Tuesday to observe the launch but had no public appearances. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said in a news release that the program began Tuesday.

Mexicos foreign relations secretary said Friday that the U.S. would start with 20 people a day. Two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations were not public said shortly before the launch that the policy would start with about 100 people a week in a trial period of up to 90 days in San Diego.

The launch followed months of delicate talks between the U.S. and Mexico and marked a change to the U.S. asylum system that both the administration and asylum experts said was unprecedented.

Velasco, writing Monday in an opinion article in The Washington Post, outlined Mexicos doubts and said there are several technical-level questions ... that our two governments need to address to guarantee an adequate implementation of this unilateral policy. Mexico has repeatedly said the U.S. is acting alone, but it has pledged to issue temporary visas to the asylum seekers, with permission to seek work authorization.

The operational complexity of receiving asylum seekers from the United States opens the door to new potential drawbacks, Velasco wrote. Mexico will keep raising these concerns to the United States, to adequately manage the situation while guaranteeing the orderly functioning of our border.

On Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a memo to employees that asylum officers would interview migrants to determine if they are more likely than not to be persecuted or tortured in Mexico while waiting for hearings in the U.S. If they are not, they will be returned to Mexico.

Asylum seekers will not be allowed to have attorneys at that initial screening held at border crossings given the limited capacity and resources, drawing swift criticism from immigration attorneys.

With this policy, the Trump administration is purposefully keeping Central Americans in unsafe conditions without access to counsel and evidence in an effort to send them straight back to the hands of their persecutors, Dree Collopy, an immigration lawyer and asylum expert in Washington, wrote in an email. She regards the practice as illegal and contrary to U.S. obligations under domestic and international law.

Due largely to a court-imposed 20-day limit on detaining children, families are typically released in the U.S. with a notice to appear in immigration court. With a backlog of more than 800,000 cases, it can take years to settle cases, giving rise to what the administration calls catch and release.

Nielsen said last week that the migrant protection protocols being introduced in San Diego are a methodical commonsense approach to what she calls a humanitarian and security crisis on the Mexican border.

For far too long, our immigration system has been exploited by smugglers, traffickers and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States, she said.

Children travelling alone and Mexican asylum seekers will be exempt from the program, as will criminals, people with a history of violence and those with physical or mental health issues, according to guidelines issued Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection.

Customs and Border Protection said asylum seekers would be given a sheet with information on the process and a list of free or low-cost legal service providers. U.S. authorities will provide transportation between the border and the courtroom.

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Guillen said Mexicos temporary visas would last for a maximum of 120 days. The Mexican official said U.S. asylum judges are expected to render final decisions within 90 days.

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Associated Press writer Maria Verza in Mexico City and AP photographer Gregory Bull in Tijuana, Mexico, contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti explained his decision to sit out the 2020 presidential contest in simple terms  the city, he said, is where I want to be.

The challenges in front of him were obvious.

Already overshadowed by the White House run of his fellow California Democrat, Sen. Kamala Harris, the low-key mayor in his second term would have faced a long list of obstacles that would come with trying to manage a city of 4 million while mounting a national campaign in states where he is virtually unknown.

The Democratic field is growing crowded with bigger names, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, with more expected to enter the race. Garcetti would have contended with an ominous historical barrier  no mayor has ever won a major partys presidential nomination. And he would have needed to explain why he should be in the White House with L.A.s downtown streets lined by homeless encampments and freeway traffic often at a standstill.

Only recently, he had suspended his consideration of a 2020 bid during a teachers strike, a sign of the diversions that would come with trying to be a mayor-candidate.

Talking with reporters Tuesday at City Hall, Garcetti waved off the suggestion that Harris presence in the race had discouraged his interest in challenging President Donald Trump. As a candidate, he would have been competing with Harris for donors in Hollywood, organized labour and business, while fighting for votes in their shared home state, where the primary is planned for early March 2020 alongside a gaggle of Southern states.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, center, greets with supporters at a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019, in Los Angeles. Garcetti will not seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, slightly winnowing a field that is still likely to be large and unwieldy for a party desperate to oust President Donald Trump.





After ending months of speculation about his political future, he said he was proud of Harris but that her candidacy had no influence on his decision. You have to listen to your own heart, he added.

The timing of Garcettis announcement came as something of a surprise. The 47-year-old mayor sounded like a presidential candidate as recently as last week, using a national conference of his fellow mayors to criticize Trump in a speech delivered blocks from the White House. He lamented a divide between Washington and the rest of us.

But on Tuesday, Garcetti said Los Angeles is where I want to be and this is a place where we have so much exciting work to finish.

I kind of believe that whenever possible, you should finish the job that you set out to do, he added.

Garcetti raised his national profile in 2018 by campaigning and raising money for Democratic candidates and state parties around the country. His $2.5 million-plus in party fundraising included $100,000 each for the state parties in each of the first four presidential nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. He made stops in several of those states and other longtime battlegrounds like Ohio, where he frequently talked about the citys transit-building boom

Even bowing out, Garcetti could remain a key figure for the party, eventually being a surrogate for the nominee or perhaps a vice-presidential running mate. He could also position himself for a Cabinet post  particularly secretary of transportation or housing and urban development  should a Democrat ultimately prevail.

Garcetti defended mayors as good presidential candidates, saying their experience as chief executives squared well with the job in the White House. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg still is weighing a run, and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is also mentioned as a potential candidate, though he has not made the recent moves of someone positioning himself for a run.

Asked about whether he would pledge to complete his term at City Hall, Garcetti was noncommittal. He also steered around a question about whether hed be interested in becoming vice-president, quipping that he had a better job at City Hall.

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Who knows what the future is, he said, adding later, Life is long.

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Barrow reported from Atlanta. Follow Barrow and Blood on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP and https://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP
WASHINGTON - Three senior House Democrats have demanded Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin turn over documents that would show how his department decided to lift financial sanctions on three companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Reps. Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Eliot Engel told Mnuchin in a letter Tuesday they want a broad array of material that may range from secret intelligence reporting to other records such as meeting minutes and agendas, emails and texts, and calendar invitations.

The letter comes two days after Treasury announced the sanctions were being lifted on the grounds that Derapaskas direct and indirect shareholding stake in the three companies had been reduced to the point that he no longer has control over them. The lifting of the sanctions was opposed by members of both parties on Capitol Hill over concerns that the Trump administration was not being tough enough on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies, including Deripaska.

Schiff chairs the Intelligence Committee, Waters leads the Financial Services Committee and Engel runs the Foreign Affairs Committee.

They wrote that under the terms of Deripaskas removal, his ownership stake, as well as benefits afforded to his associates, family members, and related entities, appears designed to allow him to retain significant influence, if not de facto control, over the companies.

The three Democrats noted Deripaskas ties to Paul Manafort, President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, who was convicted of eight financial crimes as part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

At one point, Mr. Manafort owed Mr. Deripaska close to $20 million and may have leveraged his position as campaign chairman to attempt to negotiate that debt in exchange for providing briefings to Deripaska related to the campaign, according to the lawmakers.

The companies released from the financial sanctions were the Russian aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal, EN+ Group and the Russian power company JSC EuroSibEnergo. EN+ Group is a holding company that owns nearly 50 per cent of Rusal. Deripaska will remain blacklisted as part of sanctions announced last April that targeted tycoons with close ties to the Kremlin.

Treasurys announcement followed a failed attempt by Congress earlier this month to block the sanctions removal. Despite coming up short, the votes demonstrated the breadth of concern on Capitol Hill over Treasurys decision, with many Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the sanctions deal.

The votes in the House and Senate represented a crack in the solid GOP backing Trump has enjoyed in his first two years as president, signalling that congressional Republicans are willing to split with the White House on national security matters.
LAKELAND, Fla. - Authorities say a Florida deputy shot and killed a K-9 that attacked him while he was feeding the dog.

The Ledger reports that the attack and shooting occurred Monday night.

The Polk County Sheriffs Office says the K-9 deputy had been feeding the dog, Recon, for about a week while the dogs normal handler was out of town. The deputy says Recon clamped down on his hand, and the dog wouldnt release him, forcing him to shoot the dog.

Officials say the deputy suffered a serious injury and underwent surgery on his hand.

Recon had been with the department for three years, and officials say theyre not sure what prompted the attack. They say its common for K-9 deputies to take care of each others dogs when they are away from home.

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Information from: The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.), http://www.theledger.com
Emma Coronel Aispuro, who has become a controversial central character in the trial of her husband, the notorious cartel boss known as El Chapo, in New York, Jan. 18. Coronel has dismissed the courtroom characterizations of her husband, Joaquin Guzman Loera. 'I dont know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as,' she said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Anchorage police have released the name of a woman killed Monday morning in a rollover crash on Anchorages south side.

Police say the driver was 34-year-old Julie Attina.

Police say Attina was driving north in the centre lane of Minnesota Drive when she lost control of the pickup.

The truck crossed to the median, hit a snow berm and flipped.

Attina was not wearing a seat belt. Police say she became pinned underneath the truck and died at the scene.

Police say hazardous conditions from snow and ice on the road were factors in the crash.
ISTANBUL - A Turkish citizen who worked as a translator for the U.S. Consulate in Adana was convicted on terror charges Wednesday but will be freed from prison, Turkeys official news agency reported.

A court in southeastern Mardin province convicted Hamza Ulucay of knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terror organization without membership in the group, Anadolu news agency said. Ulucay had denied the allegations and requested an acquittal while appearing in court through a video hookup.

The court in southeastern Mardin province sentenced Ulucay to 4 1/2 years in prison, but released him with credit for the nearly two years he spent in pre-trial detention.

Ulucay was arrested in February 2017 for alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is considered a terror group by Turkey and its NATO allies. Authorities alleged he attempted to provoke people on behalf of the Kurdish militants.

The top American diplomat in Ankara, Charge dAffaires Jeffrey M. Hovenier, attended Wednesdays court hearing along with other U.S. officials.

Two other U.S. government employees were arrested and are under investigation in Turkey. Mete Canturk worked for the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul and Metin Topuz for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Topuz was indicted on charges of espionage and attempting to overthrow the government. He is accused of links to a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who the Turkish government blames for a 2016 coup attempt. His arrest in October led the U.S. and Turkish governments to suspend bilateral visa services for more than two months.

The detention of an American pastor who had lived and worked in Turkey for two decades provoked Washingtons ire. To pressure Ankara to release Andrew Brunson last year, U.S. President Donald Trump sanctioned two Turkish officials and increased tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, leading to a nosedive of the Turkish lira.

Brunson was convicted in October 2017 for terror links but allowed to leave the country after spending nearly two years in detention.

Serkan Golge, a NASA scientist with U.S.-Turkish citizenship, also has been jailed in Turkey.
JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus warm welcome to Lithuanias prime minister marks his latest embrace of an eastern European leader who has offered strong political support while promoting a distorted image of the Holocaust.

Lithuania is among a slew of former communist nations swept up in a wave of World War II-era revisionism that seeks to diminish their culpability in the Holocaust while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews. In Israel, established in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, many say Netanyahu is cynically betraying the victims memory.

Lithuania, for instance, has been a leading force behind creating a joint memorial day for all victims of totalitarianism, blurring the distinction between the crimes of the Nazis and the communists who fought them.

It also has pushed for legislation to prohibit the sale of books that distort Lithuanian history by citing the rampant, documented collaboration of the local population with Nazis. Most recently it has resisted calls to remove the various plaques commemorating anti-Soviet fighter Jonas Noreika, despite recent revelations by his own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, that he was a fierce anti-Semite who had a role in the murder of thousands of Jews.

Nearly all of Lithuanias 200,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

When Netanyahu, who has Lithuanian roots, visited Vilnius last year, he praised Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis for taking great steps to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and for fighting modern-day anti-Semitism.

Its unforgivable. Netanyahu is giving them a green light, said Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Its like praising the Ku Klux Klan for improving racial relations in the South.

We have to say the truth. We owe it to the victims, he added.

In a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday, Skvernelis said Lithuania has been learning the lessons of the past and was improving the life of the Jewish community and restoring historical sites.

At Tuesdays meeting, Netanyahu treaded cautiously. He referred to the tragedies of the past but steered clear of any criticism of modern Lithuania, praising the spirit of friendship and a bridge from the past to a future.

Skvernelis visit comes a week after Netanyahu similarly rolled out the red carpet for President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, whose parliament just designated the birthday of Ukrainian wartime collaborator Stepan Bandera a national holiday. A regional legislature declared 2019 the year of Stepan Bandera.

Banderas forces fought alongside the Nazis and were implicated in the murder of thousands of Jews. As Poroshenko was visiting Israel, another memorial was being erected in Kyiv for Symon Petliura, whose troops are linked to pogroms that killed as many as 50,000 Jews after World War I.

Netanyahus outreach in eastern Europe is part of his larger strategy of forging alliances to counter the criticism Israel faces in the United Nations and other international forums over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Critics consider it a deal with the devil. They say Netanyahu  who often invokes the Holocaust when inveighing against archrival Iran  turns a blind eye when it comes to like-minded allies.

Its a specific manoeuvr that legitimizes anti-Semitism and borders on Holocaust denial, said Tamar Zandberg, leader of the dovish Meretz party.

The prime ministers office did not respond to a request for comment.

Under communist rule, the Holocaust was not seriously dealt with and, upon independence, the newfound eastern and central European nations sought to canonize nationalist icons who resisted the Soviets, while largely ignoring their crimes alongside the Nazis. Domestic academics who have challenged the false narrative have been shamed, and external criticism has often been met with new anti-Semitic outbursts.

For countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, the warm embrace of the Israeli leader provides a strong defence against accusation of anti-Semitism while also strengthening ties with a close U.S. ally.

Netanyahu has also formed a close alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has lavished praise on Miklos Horthy, Hungarys World War II-era ruler, who introduced anti-Semitic laws and collaborated with the Nazis. Orban has also employed anti-Semitic tropes against the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros and backed a state-funded museum that experts say plays down the role of Hungarian collaborators.

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Netanyahu also struck a deal with Polish leaders over their countrys controversial Holocaust speech law, which would have criminalized blaming the Polish nation for crimes committed against Jews during World War II.

Israeli Holocaust historians slammed the agreement, which seemed to accept a Polish narrative that they were only victims of the Nazis. Scholars say anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in pre-war Poland and Poles might have either killed or helped Germans kill up to 200,000 Jews.

Still, Netanyahu has invited Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki  who last year equated Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust to supposed Jewish perpetrators  to Israel in February for a summit with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a Holocaust survivor, called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting, saying one prime minister has published anti-Semitic content and another passed a law desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims.

In an annual report Sunday, Israels Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said 2018 saw a record number of worldwide anti-Semitic attacks, with most carried out by neo-Nazis in Europe and white supremacists.

But at his Cabinet meeting later in the day, Netanyahu singled out Islamic anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the extreme left, which includes anti-Zionism.

Israels Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which hosts all visiting foreign dignitaries, has been thrust into the controversy.

While it says it will never disqualify anyone wishing to visit, Yad Vashem insists it will forcefully address any denial or distortion. Yad Vashem said the Lithuanian leader received a comprehensive explanation of the Holocaust, including details about the murder of Jews of Lithuania by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the surname of Ukraines president to Poroshenko, not Porochenko.

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Follow Heller at www.twitter.com/aronhellerap
JERUSALEM - Thousands of Ethiopian-Israelis are protesting in Tel Aviv against alleged police brutality after an officer killed an Ethiopian man two weeks ago.

Demonstrators blocked a major highway in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and paraded through major avenues of the city protesting what they consider to be systemic police mistreatment of the minority group. They carried signs saying police are killing Beita Yisrael, a Hebrew term for the Ethiopian Jewish community.

Earlier this month, a policeman shot dead 24-year-old Yehuda Biadga, a mentally distressed man wielding a knife, in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam. Israels Justice Ministry is investigating the incident.

Biadgas family accused police of excessive force, and protest organizers called the incident the straw that broke the camels back after years of perceived discrimination by Israeli authorities.
ROME - The Latest on migration in Europe (all times local):

1:55 p.m.

The Czech Republics prime minister has pledged his countrys full support for Fayez Serraj, the prime minister of the U.N.-backed Libyan government in the capital, Tripoli.

Andrej Babis said Wednesday the Czech Republic has paid 8.75 million euros ($10 million), its share of the 35 million euros ($40 million) it pledged together with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to help stop illegal migration from Libya.

Serraj said he also discussed with his Czech counterpart the possible co-operation of security and spy services. He said Libya needs technology and arms to be able to better guard its borders, and also needs help to improve the situation in the official refugee centres.

There are some 20,000 people in those centres, a tiny fraction of the 800,000 migrants who are currently in Libya, Serraj said after meeting Babis.

Libya has emerged as a major conduit for African migrants hoping to reach Europe. It is split between rival governments in the east and west, each one backed by militias, tribes and political factions.

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1:15 p.m.

The U.N.s top refugee official says six people died on average every day trying to cross the Mediterranean last year and that the death rate in perilous sea crossings is rising.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that the figure should make all Europeans reflect very deeply.

Grandi said the fact that this continent with all its power, money, technology, means, allows people to die in the Mediterranean at the rate of six per day is quite dramatic.

A new report from the U.N. refugee agency says that while the number of people crossing the sea in search of sanctuary and better lives in Europe dropped, the death rate doubled over a year.

Migrants are increasingly trying to enter Europe via Spain and the report says the death toll in that area almost quadrupled from 202 in 2017 to 777 last year.

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12:45 p.m.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte says 47 migrants kept at sea for over a week as Europe squabbled over their fate will disembark in the coming hours after a half-dozen countries came forward to take them in.

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Conte said Wednesday that Luxembourg had joined Germany, France, Portugal, Romania and Malta in agreeing to take some migrants from the Sea-Watch 3 ship operated by a German aid group.

The migrants were rescued Jan. 19 off the coast of Libya and have been off Sicily since Friday, drawing the ire of the U.N. and sparking an emergency appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Italys populist government has refused to allow humanitarian ships to dock in a bid to dissuade them from conducting rescues and to force other countries to share the burden.
STOCKHOLM - A man accused of stealing 65 million kronor ($7.2 million) worth of royal treasure, including a jeweled crown, from a cathedral where they were on display, went on trial Wednesday in Sweden.

Prosecutor Reena Devgun said the 22-year-old Swedish national committed a serious offence because it was planned and the stolen objects were cultural and historically unique and irreplaceable.

The man, arrested on Sept. 12, is believed to have stolen the artifacts, dating back to 1611 and made for royal funerals, from the Strangnas Cathedral, with another person. A second man has been detained but not charged.

The items, which have not been recovered, were stolen July 31 from an alarmed display after the thieves smashed the glass.

The defendant has not been publicly identified. No date for a verdict was announced.

The stolen artifacts are so-called funeral regalia, which are placed inside or on top of a coffin to symbolize a deceased royals identity and social ranking.

While some funeral regalia are kept in the cathedrals of Strangnas, Uppsala and Vasteras, Swedens crown jewels are in vaults under the Royal Castle in Stockholm.
BERLIN - German authorities arrested three Iraqi refugees on Wednesday on allegations they were planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack, and searched properties in three states in connection with their investigation.

Federal prosecutors said Shahin F. and Hersh F., both 23, and Rauf S., 36, were taken into custody in an early morning raid by a police SWAT team in the area of Dithmarschen, near the border with Denmark.

The suspects, who had refugee status in Germany, had been under surveillance for some time by a task force of around 200 investigators, said Holger Muench, the head of Germanys federal police.

The case shows that the threat of Islamic terrorism is still present, Muench told reporters.

It wasnt immediately clear when the suspects came to Germany.

More than 1 million asylum-seekers entered Germany in 2015-16, most from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The involvement of several asylum-seekers in extremist attacks or plots has helped boost support for the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party.

Searches were carried out at other residences in northern and southwestern Germany of people linked to the three main suspects but not currently to the bomb plot.

The two younger men are suspected of preparing a bomb attack and violating weapons laws, and the older one is alleged to have aided them. Their last names werent given in line with German privacy laws.

The men appear to have been in the early stages of planning, said Frauke Koehler, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutors Office.

We believe that Shahin F. and Hersh F. were firmly committed to carrying out an attack, she told reporters. But (...) according to our information the concrete target and timing of the attack werent determined yet.

Prosecutors allege the two men decided in late 2018 to carry out an attack motivated by Islamic extremism in Germany. There are indications that they sympathized with Islamic State, but Koehler said there was no evidence so far the men were members of, or directed by, the group.

In December, Shahin F. downloaded various instructions on how to build a bomb, and ordered a detonator from a contact person in Britain, prosecutors said. Its delivery, however, was stopped by British law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, the two carried out tests using around 250 grams (almost 9 ounces) of gunpowder extracted from New Years fireworks, and asked Rauf S. to procure a firearm, prosecutors said.

He is alleged to have contacted Walid Khaled Y.Y., also an Iraqi, who offered them a Russian semi-automatic Makarov 9mm pistol, prosecutors said. But the seller wanted at least 1,200 euros ($1,370) for the weapon, which was considered too expensive so it wasnt purchased.

Y.Y.s home in the Schwerin area was searched as part of Wednesdays operation, and he is being investigated for alleged weapons and drug violations, prosecutors in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania told The Associated Press.

In preparation for the possibility of using a vehicle in the attack, Shahin F. started taking driving lessons, federal prosecutors said. All three will appear before federal judges late Wednesday to decide whether they should be kept in custody while the investigation continues.

Koehler said authorities received a tip about the alleged plot in late 2018 from Germanys domestic intelligence service, but didnt say how the agency started tracking the suspects.

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In the only mass-casualty Islamic extremist attack in Germany, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck in 2016 and drove it into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and wounding dozens. IS later claimed responsibility.

Since that attack, Muench said police had foiled seven planned attacks.
PARIS - French police say a gunman has opened fire on passers-by on Corsica island on Wednesday, killing one and wounding six people.

The suspect also shot at police officers in the Corsican city of Bastia before holing up in a nearby apartment.

Police said there is no indication his actions were terror-related. According to local media, the suspect is a man in his 60s and was known to police because he had trouble with his neighbours in the past.

Police said an officer was among the people injured.

The Haute Corse prefecture said a security perimeter has been set up around the building where the suspect is holed up.
ISLAMABAD - The Taliban said Wednesday they are not seeking a monopoly on power in a future administration in Afghanistan but are looking for ways to co-exist with Afghan institutions  the most conciliatory statement to date from the militants.

The Taliban, who now control almost half the country and carry out near-daily attacks mainly targeting Afghan security forces, issued the statement amid intensified U.S.-led talks to resolve the long-running Afghanistan war. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad reported this week that there had been agreements in principle toward a framework for peace with the Taliban.

The statement Wednesday by Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen appears aimed at easing fears among those worried about any agreement that includes the Taliban. Its unusually conciliatory tone also could offer Khalilzad greater leverage as he seeks to rally Afghanistans leadership behind his peace efforts.

In an exclusive audio message to The Associated Press, Shaheen asserted that the Taliban want to live alongside their countrymen in an inclusive Afghan world.

After the end of the occupation, Afghans should forget their past and tolerate one another and start life like brothers. After the withdrawal, we are not seeking a monopoly on power, said Shaheen, who is based in Qatar, where the Taliban have a political office.

Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, has been pressing the Kabul government to cobble together a strong negotiation team, but divisions within the countrys so-called Unity Government and criticism from warlords-turned-politicians seeking greater involvement, have hampered progress.

Khalilzad has urged President Ashraf Ghani to put together a team that has wide representation in order to ensure that what he calls a framework for the future would include rights for women, the rule of law and press freedom.

The Taliban have so far refused to negotiate directly with the Kabul government, which the insurgents often refer to as puppets of the United States. Khalilzad has been pressing the Taliban into direct talks while focusing his discussions with the group on ensuring Afghanistan does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists.

Shaheen said another round of talks with the U.S. envoy is planned for Feb. 25 in Doha.

Prior to that meeting he said the U.S. and the Taliban will establish joint technical teams to work out details of a future U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as ways of preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a haven for terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

Khalilzad, who held talks with the Taliban for six days last week in Qatar, said during a visit to Kabul on Monday that much more remains to be done but that there has been significant progress toward an agreement with the insurgents.

In turn, Ghani assured Afghans that no deals would be made without the Kabul governments full participation.

Khalilzad, who was appointed last September, has stepped up efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistans protracted war that will allow an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces and bring to an end Americas longest military engagement that has already cost Washington about $1 trillion.

President Donald Trump has also expressed frustration with the U.S. continued involvement in Afghanistan, lending a greater urgency to an early settlement.

Atta-ul Rahman Salim, deputy head of the Afghan High Peace Council which comprises top Afghan clerics and other prominent figures, said the only way to peace is through direct talks with the government.

If the Taliban really want to join the peace process, the best and easy way to start is with direct peace talks with the Afghan government, he said, adding that there is a big difference between what you say and what you do.

Despite the Taliban insurgents refusal to negotiate with Kabul, Shaheens message appeared directed at a wide array of stakeholders in Afghanistan  possibly even Ghanis government  who could work together to hasten a U.S. troop pullout.

Withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan is a shared responsibility, said Shaheen, adding that the Taliban did not want a return to the anarchy of the early 1990s when mujahedeen  who had fought the Russians for 10 years until their withdrawal in 1989  turned their guns on each other, killing tens of thousands of civilians and destroying large swathes of the capital.

Many of those same mujahedeen-turned-warlords are now powerbrokers in Kabul, having returned to power after the collapse of the Taliban. Shaheen appeared to be addressing them as well as those who fear internecine fighting following the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in November 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and ousted the Taliban, who had harboured al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban had ruled Afghanistan since 1996, imposing a harsh form of Islamic law that denied women work and girls education.

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They have since said that both work and school would be available to women and girls in an Afghanistan administration that includes the Taliban.

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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - A grenade was thrown into a mosque in the southern Philippines where Muslim teachers were sleeping early Wednesday morning, killing two of them and injuring four, authorities said.

It was the second explosion at a religious site in the south this week, though authorities didnt see it as retaliation for the bombings of a Roman Catholic cathedral in nearly Jolo during Sunday Mass that killed 21 people.

Regional police Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Luis D. Licup said investigators are trying to determine the motive and identity of the suspect in the grenade attack at the mosque in Zamboanga city. The victims were from Basilan and nearby provinces at the mosque to teach Islam to children.

Military Col. Leonel M. Nicolas emphasized the grenade blast was not a retaliatory act and was still under investigation. Licup said a personal grudge was among the possible motives.

The Ulama Council of Zamboanga Peninsula condemned the attack as an inhumane act and called for people to be calm yet vigilant.

President Rodrigo Dutertes office described the mosque attack as a taunt to the government and said the successive attacks on different places of worship showed the ruthlessness of terrorists.

The peace process for the southern region would not be stalled by such obstacles, presidential spokesman Salvador S. Panelo said. The movement to change the face of Mindanao and the oppressive conditions affecting its people shall move forward despite these acts of terrorism, the statement said.

The official military and police toll for the catherdral attack was raised to 21 dead with about 100 wounded. One of the dead is still unidentified.

The Islamic State group claimed two suicide bombers carried out the cathedral attack, one who detonated an explosive belt inside the building and the other near the entrance. Philippine authorities have named as their main suspect a commander of a local Abu Sayyaf faction that has pledged allegiance to IS.

Duterte said Tuesday that an unidentified militant couple detonated the two bombs, and Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said at least one was a suicide bomber.

Duterte visited the bombed cathedral on Monday and ordered government forces to destroy the Abu Sayyaf. The group has carried out years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in the southern Philippines. It has an estimated 300 to 400 members, mostly in Sulu where it is holding several foreign and Filipino kidnap victims.

Earlier this month, minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that is opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that are not part of any peace process.

Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, and Duterte has extended martial law in the entire southern third of the country to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents, but bombings and other attacks have continued.
BEIJING - China has banned the wife of a Taiwanese human rights activist jailed in China from visiting him for three months due to alleged improper behaviour, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

Lee Ching-yu made false statements and interfered with prison operations during and after a visit last month with her husband Lee Ming-che, the spokesman for the Cabinets Taiwan Affairs Office, Ma Xiaoguang, said at a regularly scheduled news conference.

Lees husband, Lee Ming-che, is serving a five-year prison sentence at Chishan prison in the central province of Hunan after being convicted by a Chinese court in November 2017 on charges of subverting state power.

A college program director, Lee Ming-che was found guilty of subversion for holding online political lectures and helping the families of jailed dissidents in China, to which he had travelled often. He disappeared into the custody of the security services shortly after entering China in March 2017, when hed planned to meet with a friend.

Lees arrest was viewed as a sign that Chinas ruling Communist Party is seeking to extend its intolerance to criticism even outside its borders. The party allows no challenges to its authority and claims sovereignty over Taiwan, a freewheeling democracy with personal and political freedoms largely unknown on the mainland.

Beijing vows to use military force to gain control over Taiwan and has raised pressure on the islands government since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party advocates for Taiwans formal independence.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
CARACAS, Venezuela - The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local):

7:50 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pence is going to Miami on Friday to meet with people who have fled Venezuela, as the Trump administration continues to challenge Nicolas Maduros claim to the presidency.

A White House official says Pence will be talking with community leaders, political prisoners and former elected officials who have fled the South American country due to political persecution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the visit ahead of its formal announcement.

The Trump administration has recognized Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress, as Venezuelas rightful president.

Trump spoke with Guaido on Wednesday. The president tweeted that he congratulated Guaido on his historic assumption of the presidency and reinforced strong United States support for Venezuelas fight to regain its democracy.

 Jill Colvin in Washington

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6:30 p.m.

The governments of Mexico and Uruguay are calling for an international conference of neutral countries to jump start a dialogue between Venezuelans.

The conference is to be held Feb. 7 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, and Mexico said Wednesday that it expects at least 10 countries and international organizations to participate.

Mexico and Uruguay have refused to withdraw recognition from the embattled Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro. The U.S., Canada and many Latin American nations have recognized opposition leader Juan Guiado, who declared himself Venezuelas interim president last week.

A statement from Uruguay and Mexico says that the purpose of the conference will be to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country.

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5:50 p.m.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators says they will urge European countries to recognize Venezuelan congress leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of the South American country.

Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and he told reporters Wednesday that the Venezuelan oppositions new envoy in Washington asked us to urge our European allies, which we have done and will continue to do.

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland was the only Democrat in the group of five senators who met with opposition envoy Carlos Vecchio to express bipartisan support for Guaido, who has declared himself Venezuelas interim president in a challenge to Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The European Unions foreign policy chief has said that if Maduro doesnt announce a new presidential election in the next days, the 28-nation bloc will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the countrys leadership.

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4:35 p.m.

Colombia is barring over 200 people identified as having close ties to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from entering the neighbouring Andean nation.

Migration director Christian Kruger said Wednesday the measure is part of a larger response by the regional bloc known as the Lima Group.

Representatives from a dozen nations in the Americas that comprise the Lima Group are recognizing Juan Guaido as interim president, with the exception of Mexico.

Kruger said those on the no-entry list are being barred because of their close relationship and support for the regime of Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuelan Ronald Ramirez became the first person denied entry Wednesday after landing in the Colombian city of Barranquilla on a charter plane.

Kruger said that Ramirez was recently named by Maduro to lead a Venezuelan manufacturing business that operates in Colombia.

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4 p.m.

The Trump administrations special envoy for Venezuela says there are deep splits in the countrys military that should make embattled President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters very nervous.

Elliott Abrams says the vast majority of Venezuelan soldiers are unhappy with Maduro and the state of the country. Abrams says Maduro may have the backing of the top brass but the rank-and-file are restive.

Abrams told reporters at the State Department on Wednesday that the administration would continue to ramp up pressure to push Maduro to step down and would expand its support for opposition leader Juan Guaido.

The administration last week recognized Guiado as the countrys legitimate leader and has since hit Venezuela with severe sanctions. It has also turned over control of government bank accounts in the U.S. to Guaido.

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3:10 p.m.

Opposition protesters in Venezuela have wrapped up a walkout urging President Nicolas Maduro to step down by singing their countrys national anthem.

The two-hour walkout in cities around Venezuela drew thousands to the streets.

Protester Maria Kley said she was demonstrating because, We want a free Venezuela.

Others like Dr. Hugo Rosillo said they wanted to see an end to the medical shortages that prevent physicians like him from treating curable illnesses.

He said the childrens hospital where he works has turned into a storeroom for cadavers.

Like last weeks demonstration, the walkout drew a cross section of Venezuelan society, from nurses and businessmen to students and construction workers.

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2:45 p.m.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido says Venezuelans took to the streets in more than 5,000 spots across the country to demand their freedom from President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido made a surprise appearance Wednesday before a cheering crowd at the Central University of Venezuela in the capital of Caracas.

He had called for people to stage a peaceful demonstration by stepping out of their homes and workplaces for two hours.

A week earlier he asserted that the constitution gave him presidential powers because Maduros re-election was a sham.

Guaido says hes not losing any sleep over a Supreme Court order banning him from leaving the country.

He also says his goal is for masses fleeing Venezuelas crisis to return home and reclaim their nation.

Opposition leaders are calling for another protest on Saturday.

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12:45 p.m.

Venezuelans are exiting their homes and workplaces in a walkout organized by the opposition to demand that President Nicolas Maduro leave power.

People began gathering on streets in the capital city of Caracas around noon, waving flags and chanting phrases like, Free elections!

Drivers are honking their horns in support of the protesters.

The demonstration comes one week after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president before thousands of supporters, contending that he is the nations rightful leader because Maduros reelection was a sham.

Guaido is the 35-year-old president of the National Assembly, the only branch of Venezuelas government controlled by the opposition.

Maduro is refusing to step down and accusing the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and imposing punishing oil sanctions.

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11:45 a.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump has stressed to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido his strong support for the nations fight to regain its democracy.

Trump and Guaido spoke on Wednesday. The White House says Guaido thanked Trump for committing the U.S. to freedom and prosperity in Venezuela and the region. The leaders also agreed to regular communication in support of Venezuelas path back to stability and to rebuild strained relations between both countries.

Large protests are planned across Venezuela on Wednesday to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Guaido declared himself Venezuelas rightful leader last week and said the nation is set on change.

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10:50 a.m.

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has turned to the power of prayer as opposition leaders backed by the United States amp up pressure for his ouster.

Maduro on Wednesday participated in a Christian prayer session with dozens of evangelical supporters.

In the session aired on state TV, Maduro lowered his eyes and raised his right hand in prayer.

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He asked all powerful God to bless Venezuela and lead it to a peaceful future.

A minister leading the service says millions of evangelicals are praying around the clock for the South American nation.

The socialist president has been challenged by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who claims that hes Venezuelas rightful leader.

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9:45 a.m.

Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro is huddling with his military ahead of planned anti-government protests.

In scenes broadcast on state TV, Maduro could be seen walking around the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas early Wednesday with top commanders and dozens of troops.

Do you love you homeland? Will you defend the constitution? Will you defend your commander in

chief? Maduro asked the troops, who responded with loud shouts of Yes, commander in chief!

Since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president last week with the support of the U.S. and other nations, Maduro has appeared almost daily on state TV with his military, projecting an image of invincibility even as international pressure against him builds.

Supporters of Guaido are planning a nationwide walkout Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on Maduro.

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9:35 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is pressing his case directly to the American people, asking for their help preventing a Vietnam in Latin America.

In a 45-second video shot late Tuesday from the presidential palace and addressed to the American people Maduro said that the Trump administration is behind an attempt to overthrow him in a coup.

He said the U.S. is looking to get its hands on Venezuelas abundant oil reserves, replicating U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Libya.

But he said hes confident that hes on the right side of history and pleaded with regular Americans to keep U.S. troops out of the country.

___

8:15 a.m.

The wife of a rebel military officer who President Nicolas Maduro has accused of plotting his overthrow says he has been arrested after sneaking back into Venezuela amid the countrys upheaval.

Sorbay Pailla said she last heard from her husband, retired National Guard Col. Oswaldo Garcia Palomo, on Sunday after he entered the country clandestinely from Colombia. She said contacts within the DGCIM military intelligence unit told her that he was arrested in the western state of Barinas.

The Associated Press was unable to confirm the arrest and the government has yet to comment. But Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, condemned late Tuesday what he called the kidnapping of Garcia Palomo.

Garcia Palomo has been an outspoken critic of Maduro who has been open for months about his intent to amass a military force in exile to remove Maduro.

___

This version corrects the spelling of the officers name to Garcia Palomo.

___

7:40 a.m.

U.S. President Donald Trump is telling Americans to not go to Venezuela, where theres major political turmoil.

Trump tweeted Wednesday theres a Massive protest expected today. He says, Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts. Guaido declared himself Venezuelas rightful leader a week ago and says the nation is set on change.

Maduros embattled socialist administration has barred Guaido from leaving the country while hes investigated for anti-government activities.

The U.S. and many other nations back Guaido. Trump has imposed sanctions that could starve Venezuela of billions of dollars in oil revenue.

Trump tweets: Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court.

___

3 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he is willing to negotiate with the countrys opposition.

Maduros remarks in an interview with Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday came amid a dire political crisis in Venezuela. Opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president last week and has urged citizens to challenge Maduro with walkouts on Wednesday.

Maduro told RIA Novosti that he is willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future. Maduro said the talks could be held with mediation of other countries.

Russia is one of the staunchest supporters of Maduro and has offered to mediate.

___

2 a.m.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to ratchet up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts Wednesday, just a day after the embattled socialist administration barred Guaido from leaving the country while he is investigated.

The man challenging Maduros claim to the presidency is urging Venezuelans to step outside their homes and workplaces for two hours beginning at noon in the first mass mobilization since he declared himself the nations rightful leader a week ago during another round of big protests.

The surge in political manoeuvring has seen two dozen nations, including the United States and several big Latin American countries, backed Guaido, and the Trump administration has imposed sanctions that could starve the already distressed nation of billions in oil revenue.

But Maduro is holding firm.
MEXICO CITYThe population of monarch butterflies wintering in central Mexico is up 144 per cent over last year, experts said Wednesday.

The data presented by Andrew Rhodes, Mexicos national commissioner for protected natural areas, was cheered but scientists quickly warned that it does not mean the butterflies that migrate from Canada and the United States are out of danger.

This winter, researchers found the butterflies occupying 14.95 acres (6.05 hectares) of pine and fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan and Mexico states. Thats an increase from 6.12 acres (2.48 hectares) a year ago.

They arrive in such numbers that their population is measured by how much surface area they cover.

This years is the biggest measurement since the 2006-2007 period, Rhodes said. A low of just 1.66 acres (0.67 hectares) was recorded in 2013-2014.

Jorge Rickards, director of World Wildlife Fund in Mexico which participates in the monitoring, cautioned that the butterflies like other insects see their annual populations rise and fall and the monarchs have had a declining trend. This years number was positive, but there is no guarantee it will continue.

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The first monarchs crossed into Mexico more than a week later than usual on Oct. 20 owing to rain and cold along the Texas-Mexico border, Rhodes said.

Once in Mexican territory, the butterflies occupied an area that gives us a lot of hope for the future, Rhodes said.

Scientists said the approximately 15-acres (6 hectares) coverage should be seen as a minimum for the viability of the migrating monarchs in the future.

Ryan Norris, an ecology professor from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada said it would be dangerous to think the improved coverage in their wintering grounds meant the butterflies were out of the woods.

It buys us time, but thats the best it does, said Norris, who was in Mexico City for scientific meetings about monarchs.

Norris saw little connection between this years increase and the concerted conservation efforts along the butterflies migration route, especially in Mexico where the government, with the help of local communities, has nearly eliminated illegal logging inside the butterflies protected area west of Mexico City.

It was a Goldilocks year this year, he said. Not too hot, not too cold, it was perfect.

Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch and an ecology professor at the University of Kansas, who runs a monarch tagging program, echoed that caution.

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Its not going to be replicated next year, not even close, Taylor said.

Above average temperatures in Texas next year will cause problems for the monarch production, Taylor said. Last spring, cold temperatures north of Texas kept the butterflies there to lay their eggs, but when its warmer they wander farther north too soon and the population does not grow as well, he said.

Loss of habitat, especially the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs, pesticide and herbicide use, as well climate change will continue to pose threats to the species.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed tremendous progress in destroying Daesh and denuclearizing North Korea, a day after U.S. intelligence chiefs offered congressional testimony at odds with his rosy assessments on multiple global threats.

In his tweets, Trump wrote that when he became president, Daesh was out of control in Syria & running rampant.

Since then, tremendous progress made, especially over last five weeks, the president wrote. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, officials warned that Daesh was capable of attacking the United States and painted a picture of a still-formidable terrorist organization. Trump previously declared the group defeated and has said he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as a result.

Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats noted that the terrorist group has suffered significant leadership and territorial losses. But it still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, he said, and maintains eight branches, has more than a dozen networks and attracts thousands of supporters around the world.

Coats was on a panel of top Trump administration intelligence officials who appeared before the Senate panel Tuesday to share assessments on an array of national security challenges. Others included CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

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In his tweets, Trump also sought to defend progress on North Korea ahead of a planned second summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

During Tuesdays hearing, Coats said that North Korea was unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, which the countrys leaders consider critical to the regimes survival.

North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S., Trump wrote Wednesday. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization.

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story, Trump added, noting that he was looking forward to the summit with Kim.

Though exuberant in his claims of progress, Trumps assessment on North Korea was tempered compared to his initial claims after the first summit in June.

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In tweets upon returning from that meeting, Trump declared Americas biggest and most dangerous problem all but resolved. The deal he struck with Kim, he said, meant there was no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea, and everybody can now feel much safer.

The first summit ended with a vague agreement that contained few concrete goals and deadlines.

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Voting-rights advocates asked a federal judge to stop Texas from improperly purging voter rolls after state election officials questioned the citizenship of 95,000 registered voters.

The states local elections will be held May 4. Candidate filing for the elections opened Jan. 16 and early voting starts on April 22.

Texass claim that 58,000 of the suspect individuals voted illegally in at least one election set off a political firestorm over the weekend with groups questioning the accuracy of the claim. It was further fanned by U.S. President Donald Trump, who trumpeted that the stats proved rampant voter fraud in the U.S.

The report, released Jan. 25, was based on data in which people identified themselves as non-citizens when they obtained drivers licenses or ID cards at some point during the past 23 years.

Calling the voter purge campaign an election-related witch hunt, Luis Roberto Vera Jr., national general counsel of the League of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, said Texas is trying to intimidate minority voters and fuel partisan distrust of local registration rolls.

Texass non-citizen voter data ignores the fact that tens of thousands of immigrants become naturalized citizens and vote legally after the date they applied for Texas drivers licenses or ID cards, Vera said in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in San Antonio. But since Texas refuses to release the underlying data, even to local election registrars, no one can verify the states claims or cross-check the rosters of naturalized citizens against Texas Department of Public Safety records.

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Texas is using DPS data that goes back nearly a quarter-century and matching it against current voter registration data, Vera said in the complaint. And by keeping the underlying data secret, state election officials can publicly state whatever they wished without fear of contradiction on any specifics.

It is designed to pressure local officials, forced to operate in the dark as far as the data is concerned yet threatened with attacks for not acting according to the wishes of the secretary of state and attorney general, into setting in motion coercive efforts to force voters on the match list to prove they are validly registered to vote  while the broad swath of voters are left alone and undisturbed, Vera said.

Texas officials have admitted some of the names in the report may have been included in error because people became citizens later, Dallas News reported. The paper said state officials asked several county election offices to hold off demanding proof of citizenship from people on the list.

Almost 53,000 Texans became naturalized citizens in 2014, according to LULACs complaint, which notes that the number of applications for naturalization have shot up 87 per cent nationwide since Trump took office.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, referred to election crimes in public statements about the non-citizen voter data and vowed to prosecute offenders. As a result, Vera said, some Latino voters who are properly and legally registered have contacted local election officials and asked to have their names taken off voting rolls.

Critics claim Texass Republican leadership is trying to score political points by sensationalizing the data to make it appear that voter fraud  which is statistically nonexistent in Texas  is a widespread problem. Even if all 58,000 suspected non-citizen voters were proven to have illegally cast Texas ballots in 2018, theyd comprise less than 1 per cent of the more than 8.3 million people who voted for governor last year.

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In the past month, Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the drug lord known as El Chapo, has become a controversial central character in her husbands trial.

A witness named her as a co-conspirator in his infamous maximum-security prison break in 2015. Transcripts of text messages between the husband and wife showed him asking her to stash his weapons ahead of a raid. The morning one of El Chapos mistresses took the stand, Ms. Coronel and her husband wore matching maroon velvet suit jackets in what appeared to be a show of solidarity.

Over the course of Joaquin Guzman Loeras three-month trial, witnesses for the prosecution have described a grim life for the women in and around the cartel who are often expected to balance a role that walks the line between lover and accomplice. Most fail, usually wanting to be too much of one, and not enough of the other. They often end up behind bars or in hiding.

But Ms. Coronel, the most prominent female presence in a trial of almost exclusively male players, has emerged as the exception.

Over 10 weeks, prosecutors have called 56 witnesses who have portrayed her husband as a vengeful drug trafficker, a bloodthirsty killer and an habitual philanderer. Ms. Coronel has appeared in court almost every day, a stone-faced fixture in her reserved seat in the second row.

As a result of trial testimony, her husband is almost certainly going to prison for the rest of his life. But Ms. Coronel, who has enjoyed the spoils of a drug empire that prosecutors have estimated allowed the kingpin to bank $14 billion (U.S.) over the course of his 30-year reign, dismissed the courtroom characterizations of her husband.

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I dont know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as, Ms. Coronel told The New York Times in one of several interviews conducted in Spanish. But rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one that I married.

Most would balk at Ms. Coronels admiration for her husband, one of the most notorious drug lords in Latin American who, according to one witness, was powerful enough to pay off a former Mexican president.

The case has been so strong  in the last week a witness detailed how Mr. Guzman had a man buried alive  that El Chapos own legal team only mustered a 30-minute defence on Tuesday after the prosecution rested its case.

Married couples cannot be compelled to testify against each other, but recent trial developments have left many wondering how Ms. Coronel has managed to avoid criminal charges.

Prosecutors declined to answer questions about why she is not in legal peril, and Ms. Coronel also has refused to comment on the court proceedings. But the testimony, if true, only compounds the good-wifenarrative.

Now more than ever, she is linked to her husband.

If you hear Emma Coronel and you know who Emma Coronel is, then youre going to think: El Chapo, said Miguel Angel Vega, a reporter for the news site RioDoce, based in Culiacan.

Ms. Coronel, 29, became El Chapos wife as a teenager in 2007 and a mother while in her early 20s. Her husband  more than twice her age and married multiple times  has been either incarcerated or on the run for their entire married life.

The trial has led Ms. Coronel to split her time between two countries; the couples 7-year-old twin daughters are in school in Mexico. She said she stays in touch with them through group messaging.

I have had to be separated from my daughters to accompany him now that I am the only person in his family that can be here in New York with him, Ms. Coronel said.

Since Mr. Guzmans extradition in January 2017, their twins, Emali and Maria Joaquina, have been able to see their father during court appearances and through closely supervised visits to jail.

He always was a father very present to the attention of our daughters, she said of her husband. She described the girls as the adoration of their father and he is the adoration of them.

The twins are the only approved visitors who can currently see him at the undisclosed location where he is being held. (Ms. Coronel has not once been allowed to visit or speak with him, even by phone.)

I dont consider myself a single mother, Ms. Coronel said. More so, a mother who in this moment doesnt have the support of her husband, but trusts that the family will be well.

Still, she acknowledged, Obviously, our life changed.

Ms. Coronel met Mr. Guzman at a ranch in Durango, Mexico, when she was 17. Mr. Guzman, then in his late 40s and well-established at the top of the Sinaloa cartel, had been on the run some six years after making a daring escape from prison in a laundry cart in 2001.

Although 32 years separate them in age, from that first day a lovely friendship started between the couple, Ms. Coronel told The Times. With the passing of months we became girlfriend and boyfriend, she recalled. And when I turned 18 years old, we married in a very simple ceremony with family and only close friends.

Ms. Coronel, who rarely gives interviews, insisted she leads a normal life. Born in California, she grew up in the northwestern Mexican state of Durango, neighbouring Mr. Guzmans own Sinaloa. Both states make up part of the Golden Triangle of marijuana production. Still, the version of her life story she shared excluded any mention of drugs  even though court testimony has suggested that her father worked for the Sinaloa cartel.

Instead, she briefly mentioned a very tranquil, simple childhood, within a loving, unified family, adding that she grew up with two brothers and a sister whom I love. Stories about her in Mexico have said that she won a beauty pageant as a teenager, but most details about her personal life remain a mystery.

Mr. Vega, who also co-hosts a Vice podcast about El Chapo, said he believes the couples love story is genuine.

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Can you imagine a 17-year-old who just happens to win a beauty pageant contest and then this powerful man tries to conquer her heart? he said. I believe that she was seduced by that power, by that name. Just the name.

That romance has now brought her to New York City, where during the time of her husbands imprisonment she has attended a Yankees game, walked through Central Park and often dines at a favourite sky-view sushi spot in Brooklyn.

On a recent day, Ms. Coronel walked out of a hotel lobby in Brooklyn, bundled against 40-degree weather in a black, fur-trimmed puff jacket, alongside two female friends  an attorney and her real estate agent. She looked around for a black Camry that would take her into Manhattan for a photo shoot.

The city is not new to her, she said. She has seen tourist attractions, like the Empire State Building, on other visits.

When asked about her night life in the city, Ms. Coronel replied, I prefer to sleep. The trial, she said, has been exhausting.

Once inside the car, there was a general rejoicing that it was finally Friday  a day off from the trial to sleep in.

Ms. Coronel had been central to the drama that unfolded in court before the defence rested its case.

Prosecutors shared the couples text messages from 2012, which showed her preparing for a potential raid at the home where she was staying that February.

Any weapons there, love? Do you have a gun? Mr. Guzman asked in one exchange.

I have one of yours. That you gave me, she responded.

He instructed her to hide it in a clavo, or hidden compartment, in the home.

Last week, Damaso Lopez Nunez, 52, a former prison director turned high-ranking cartel member, testified that Ms. Coronel helped orchestrate her husbands 2015 prison escape.

Over the course of four months in early 2015, Mr. Lopez said Ms. Coronel met with him and Mr. Guzmans sons to carry out Mr. Guzmans jailhouse directives: purchase a plot of land and bodega close to the prison; secure weapons, an armoured pickup truck and a GPS wristwatch to pinpoint his exact cell co-ordinates; and dig a tunnel stretching from the prison to the bodega.

In July 2015, Mr. Guzman shimmied down a hole dug under his shower, mounted a pulley-run cycle and rode it the length of the nearly mile-long tunnel. One of Ms. Coronels brothers was waiting for him at the bodega with an A.T.V., which they rode to an airstrip in San Juan, according to testimony. From there, Mr. Guzman flew home to the mountains of Sinaloa.

Ms. Coronel declined to comment when asked about Mr. Lopezs allegations that she had helped her husband escape.

Throughout the trial, Ms. Coronel has betrayed little emotion  even on the day when one of Mr. Guzmans mistresses sobbed on the stand.

Ms. Coronels outward composure has faltered only once, the lone day she brought her daughters to court in December. On that day, the prosecution rolled in a cart filled with AK-47s and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. When she saw the weapons, Ms. Coronel flew out of the courtroom, escorting her daughters into a hallway filled with United States marshals.

Without singling out any incident, Ms. Coronel has noted her dislike for what has happened in court. It has been demasiado, too much, she said. I hate drama.

One day after court, Mr. Guzman scanned the gallery. His wife smiled, leaning across the bench. They did not, could not, speak to one another. A flank of marshals escorted him out of the room, and she turned solemn.

This situation that we are forging through right now is difficult and heavy, she said. However, I have faith and I am convinced that God puts us only through obstacles that we can overcome, and I trust that it will be how it is.

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The trial of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman Loera will soon go to the jury after 11 weeks of testimony in a heavily guarded courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Guzman faces life in prison if convicted of charges that include international drug trafficking, drug conspiracy and illegal use of firearms. His defence argues the allegations are fabricated.

The jury at the trial heard bombshells, tales of how Guzman dashed naked through an underground tunnel to escape authorities, bribed top Mexican government and military officials and personally tortured and assassinated enemies in fits of rage.

It also heard several mentions of Canada during the testimony of the 57 witnesses called to the stand and in the dozens of intercepted phone calls and text messages introduced as evidence  evidence that included mentions of how a real estate agent from the Upper Beaches is lucky to be alive after he was allegedly targeted for murder.

Closing arguments are expected to wrap up Thursday.

Here are nine Canadian ties that have emerged from the drug lords trial:

A Toronto man was targeted for murder

Upper Beaches resident Stephen Tello, nicknamed Catboy, was targeted for murder and Canadian Hells Angels were considered for the job, prosecution witness Hildebrando Alexander Cifuentes Villa told the New York trial.

Cifuentes, who goes by the name of Alex, is co-operating with authorities in hopes of a reduced sentence.

Cifuentes, who told the New York trial he was Guzmans right-hand man and lived with him in Sinaloa for two years, said that he tried to lure Tello down to Mexico from Canada so he could kill him.

Tello, a former real estate agent, was suspected by Guzman of stealing the product or the profit of the drug sale in Canada, according to Cifuentes.

When Tello balked at the invitation, Cifuentes testified he considered hiring Canadian bikers to do the job inside Canada, saying he had some appointments pending with the Hells Angels, and it was likely that I would do that through them.

Tello, who is also still alive, was convicted in a related Canadian case. That investigation, called Project Harrington, began in Nova Scotia in 2015 and targeted several of Guzmans Canadian associates. Tello began serving a 15-year prison term in 2018.

Read more:

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Several of that mans associates were murdered

Former GTA resident Jahanbakhsh Meshkati had just moved to B.C. when he was shot to death in what police called a targeted attack in August 2014 in White Rock, B.C. after he had mistakenly introduced Tello to undercover RCMP officers in Project Harrington.

Meshkatis fate was not a part of Guzmans New York trial but came up in the related Project Harrington investigation.

In January 2015, Cuong Andy Hoang, Tellos financier, was murdered on a suburban Calgary street. Hoang had convictions from 2000 and 1998 for drug trafficking.

Another man, Philipos Kollaros, was gunned down last November inside Cafe Cubano, a restaurant in Montreals Little Italy. Kollaros entered a guilty plea in the Harrington operation/

Kollaros met in Toronto with Gary Christopher Meister of Nova Scotia and an undercover agent in Toronto to conspire in the drug deals.

Meister was given an eight-year sentence for his role in the case.

Another Toronto man is fighting extradition in Curacao

Former Toronto resident Mykhaylo Koretskyy, alias Russian Mike or Cobra, also figures into the drama.

Koretskyy has been in custody in Curacao since he flew there from Toronto on Jan. 3, 2018.

Koretskyy wasnt a topic in the Guzman trial, but hes wanted on another warrant with the alleged cartel boss and Cifuentes for suspected cocaine importation in the Southern District of New York

Koretskyy, a dual Ukrainian-Canadian citizen, is wanted by Canadian authorities on an RCMP warrant for trafficking in a substance and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

El Chapos reach extended to Northern Ontario

Project Harrington shows the scope and path of Guzmans Canadian drug dealing. Toronto resident Tello was referenced in both the Canadian and American cases as a link to the Mexican cocaine supplier.

Project Harrington targeted oxycodone and cocaine trafficking from Southern Ontario to Northwestern Ontario, including some First Nations communities.

Project Harrington was aided by a number of international agencies and hived off into probes of eight conspiracies to bring cocaine to the east coast of Canada from Antigua, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and the U.S.

Here in Canada, it involved the RCMP, Toronto Police Service, Peel Regional and Waterloo Regional Police, Thunder Bay Police Service, Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service and Anishinabek Police Service.

Go ask Alex

During four days of testimony, Cifuentes  a Colombian citizen who described himself at the trial as Guzmans secretary, his right-hand man, and his left-hand man  told court he made trips to Canada between 2007 and 2013, using bogus identities, credit cards and bank accounts.

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Cifuentes testified he lived for two years with Guzman in the mountains of the Sinaloa region of Mexico and said he began working for Guzman in Canada in 2008 because he had a friend who was Colombian-Canadian and he had clients there. He also said he maintained a separate smartphone for dealing with the Canadians.

Cifuentes testified that drugs were sent to Canada in trailers, also by helicopter, and over the Pacific Ocean to Vancouver.

He also said he had a business relationship dealing cocaine, heroin and crystal meth with a Montreal mobster he referred to as Tony Suzuki.

Cifuentes also referred to another contact in the Canadian operation, whom he called Proceso.

He testified the cartel discussed locating some ranches on the U.S. side and on the Canadian side in an area thats isolated with nothing nearby.

Cifuentes said he had a plan to fuse cocaine into plastic cubes that he would ship to Canada with the help of twin brothers who were both in the Mafia.

The Canadian market was lucrative for El Chapo

Cifuentes testified the cartel made dozens of millions from the Canadian operation.

According to Guzmans 2016 indictment, the U.S. sought to seize more than $14 billion (U.S.) in proceeds and illicit profits from decades of narcotics sales in the U.S. and Canada.

The cartels secret Canadian servers

Cristian Rodriguez testified he was just 21 when he assumed one of the most sensitive IT jobs in the world  the in-house computer geek for the Sinaloa cartel.

Rodriguez, now 32, said he set up four internet servers based somewhere in Canada  the exact location has not be revealed  that allowed Guzman to control hit men, organize global drug shipments and direct corrupt cops.

Then Rodriguez became a dedo  a snitch.

The IT specialist, working for U.S. investigators, tricked Guzman into moving the servers to the Netherlands, where American authorities thought they would have more luck getting warrants to tap into his encrypted messaging system.

El Chapos lover and her alleged Canada scheme

Those warrants uncovered text conversations that revealed a Canadian connection with one of Guzmans lovers, Agustina Cabanillas, who was called Fiera, Spanish for Wild Beast, in court exhibits.

According to intercepted text messages presented in court, she planned to bring drugs into Canada through a chemical fertilizer business she was setting up in Germany and a citrus firm in Ecuador.

El Chapo pushed for his associates to use BlackBerry phones

Guzman liked his Canadian-made BlackBerry smartphones, and pushed his cartel associates to go just black.

Rodriguez testified that he installed software on the phones so that Guzman could spy on roughly 100 members of his organization and family.

That included tapping into their histories and locations. In some cases, Rodriguez said, he doctored cellphones so Guzman could activate microphones and eavesdrop on his associates.

Not everyone liked it, including Cabanillas, who rightly suspected he was using the smartphones to track her.

I dont trust these BlackBerries, the ones he gives me over here, because the bastard can locate me, Cabanillas texted a friend.
City council has approved developing an estimated 3,700 affordable homes across 11 city properties without rent controls and starting at rents that critics say arent really affordable in the midst of an ongoing housing crisis.

In a 22 to 4 vote Wednesday, council signed off on Mayor John Torys new Housing Now initiative that will provide public land and other financial incentives to developers or not-for-profits in exchange for a guaranteed percentage of units that would be set at more affordable rents than those climbing across the city.

Ahead of the vote, Tory urged councillors to resist making changes to the plan brought forward by staff after he promised during the 2018 election campaign to build 40,000 new affordable housing units in 12 years.

Adding requirements and restrictions on a program aimed to spur private and non-profit developers to build affordable housing, in a city that desperately needs it, could result in nobody actually bidding for the sites, the mayor warned.

If you have a Christmas tree thats standing up and you put too many ornaments on it, its going to fall over, eventually, Tory said.

Please dont wreck this (program) or ruin it or diminish its chances of success in advance by layering too many things, on it that throw out of whack the balance of profit incentives and public good the citys affordable housing office believes will make Housing Now successful.

Have your say

Responding to other concerns on the floor of council, Tory proposed city staff be requested  but not mandated  to give extra weight to bids that include: more affordable units; deeper levels of affordability, ownership or operation of affordable units by non-profits; measures or commitments to tenant protections including rent controls; inclusion of supportive housing for people with mental health or addiction issues; and affordable housing for artists. That motion passed with a majority of council support.

Others on council said Torontos housing crisis is so urgent they cant allow sites across the city  many currently parking lots  to be developed with only one-third of units deemed affordable and the remainder split between market rent and condo units.

We need to be bold, Councillor Mike Layton told council Wednesday morning, ... for those struggling to find housing, those struggling to pay for the housing that theyre in, those underhoused trying to find appropriate sized housing for their families.

By relying too heavily on profit-driven, private sector we are abdicating our responsibility (as) a government to actually take action.

The city definition of an affordable unit is one that is at or below average market rent  a metric provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation based on all currently occupied units. That calculation includes rents for units that have been off the market for several years as well as recently rented units, meaning the average is lower than what is currently available. If a unit is vacated, landlords can raise rents to whatever they want.

In 2019, average market rent for a one-bedroom apartment recorded by CMHC is $1,270. For a two-bedroom unit it is $1,492 and for a three-bedroom it is $1,664.

The Housing Now plan proposed by the citys affordable housing office would create a bidding process with the aim of creating units with almost one-third rented at below-market rates, from $549 to $1,372 per month depending on the size of unit. Another one-third would be average market rent and the rest would likely be sold as condos.

Layton proposed changes to that plan, including mandating that half of the estimated 10,187 new units that could be built on the sites be 80 per cent of average market rent or better, and of those one-fifth be deeply affordable, with rents only 40 per cent of the average for that type of unit.

He noted typical rents around some of the lots to be sold are already at or below 80 per cent of the average market rent, raising the question why the city would be offering incentives  valued at $280 million total for the 11 properties  to private developers.

His motion failed 7 to 19.

At the end of last year, Premier Doug Fords provincial government eliminated rent control rules for all new rental units, meaning those built under the Housing Now initiative wont be protected.

Councillor Josh Matlow requested all units built under the Housing Now plan be subject to city-imposed rent controls, meaning landlords would not be allowed to raise rents higher that provincial guidelines each year.

That motion lost in a 12 to 14 vote. Though the mayor supported Matlows request, only one other member of Torys hand-picked executive, Councillor Gary Crawford, supported it.

The future of those sites and what gets built there is now in the hands of city staff. A second motion from Matlow for staff to report back before approving the land transactions also failed.

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Councillor Ana Bailao, Torys affordable housing advocate, said the Housing Now initiative is just one piece in the citys overall housing strategy, which is due for a 10-year reboot.

It will help deliver the much needed affordable housing that we need in our city, she said, noting the city is making progress despite a lack of support from the provincial and federal governments. We want a mixture of income, we want a mixture of tenure. Thats how we build good, integrated communities.

Only about one out of every 100 Toronto rentals was vacant last fall, CMHC says, while average rents were almost 25 per cent above the national average. Homeless shelters in Toronto, meanwhile, are consistently at or near capacity, with advocates decrying conditions and urging council to declare a state of emergency.

That request was again on the council floor Wednesday afternoon.

David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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The mayor of Niagara Falls, N.Y., thinks the recent GO Train extension to his towns Ontario counterpart didnt go far enough, saying he wants the commuter trains to cross the border.

It may end up just a dream, but Mayor Paul Dyster told a U.S. news outlet he thinks a cross-border line would transform his town into a bedroom community for people working in Toronto.

The border crossing station on the rail line between Toronto and New York City, the two most vibrant metropolitan areas anywhere in the world. Thats a really good place to be, he told WKBW Buffalo earlier this week.

Dyster said the arrival of GO Transit would have an impact on his areas real estate market and possibly attract more investors. The border town has a population of just over 48,000 people, and housing options are significantly more affordable than Toronto  various realtors in and around that town have listings of multiple-bedroom houses selling for under $100,000.

Metrolinx recently stretched its Lakeshore West line into Niagara Falls, Ont., for commuters on weekdays, with stops in Hamilton and St. Catharines.

That trip takes more than two hours, but Dyster, who did not immediately return calls from the Star for comment, told WKBW his plan would allow travellers to connect between his town and Toronto in just 90 minutes.

In response to Dysters comments, Metrolinx said there are currently no plans to extend their services into New York state.

There are specific restrictions when a train leaves Ontario, or any province in Canada, that require a different set of inspection criteria and standards in order to legally enter the United States, the provincial agency said in a statement, noting theyre preoccupied with integrating transit to Ontarians in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Once in Canada, we hope our American visitors to Ontarios Niagara Region will take advantage of our rail service from Niagara to downtown Toronto.

Urban designer Ken Greenberg described Dysters plan as unrealistic, especially given how contentious the issue of border-crossing has become.

The Niagara Peninsula is an amazing place with a growing population and potential for more economic opportunities, and Dyster is simply trying to take advantage of that for the benefit of his own city, Greenberg said.

A direct train line would certainly bring more people in and out of that town, he said.

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However, Metrolinx already has enough on its plate and should instead focus on improving its services on this side of the border and help people explore the region without being dependent on a car, he said.

I think the Niagara Region on the Canadian side could benefit enormously from improved and frequent train service. Driving on the QEW is a nightmare, he said.

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The Toronto police investigation into serial killer Bruce McArthur is now fair game to be included in an ongoing examination of the forces handling of missing persons cases, according to the former judge heading the review.

Just twenty-four hours after McArthur pleaded guilty in the deaths of eight men with ties to the Gay Village, former Ontario Court of Appeal judge Gloria Epstein penned a letter Wednesday to the Toronto police board that commissioned the review, asking for greater latitude to scrutinize how police investigated McArthur specifically.

Due to considerations around McArthurs fair trial rights, Epsteins ongoing independent review  examining how the Toronto force investigates missing persons  had to give a wide berth to disappearances involving McArthur, unable to touch specific cases once the killer came onto police radar, for example, or examine how he came to be identified as a person of interest.

Obviously circumstances have changed, Mark Sandler, the lawyer for Epsteins missing persons review, said in an interview Wednesday. It is our view that removing the restriction would enable a more thorough and comprehensive investigation.

The cancellation of McArthurs criminal trial has now fast-tracked opportunities to examine how police handled the disappearances of the killers victims, which span a seven-year period beginning in 2010. And it has renewed calls for accountability, which some say can only come from a provincially commissioned public inquiry.

In my view Bruce McArthur should have been caught a lot sooner, said Douglas Elliott, a civil litigation lawyer who was among the group of LGBTQ advocates to first push for a public inquiry after McArthurs arrest.

A public inquiry could look at the whole big picture of how do we organize our society, our institutions in a way that we are able to detect serial killers as quickly as possible  It would be a tragedy of epic proportions if this happened again in Ontario.

Although he fully supports Epsteins ongoing review, Elliott  who has worked on public inquiries including the examination of the deadly Elliot Lake mall collapse  said Wednesday that there are inherent limitations on her ability to get to the bottom of things, even with an expanded mandate.

A public inquiry comes with powers to subpoena witnesses and documents, a larger budget, a broader scope and a higher profile, the latter increasing the likelihood recommendations would be acted upon, Elliott said.

Rather than launching an inquiry in addition to Epsteins review, Elliott suggested that she instead be tapped to lead a public inquiry, and continue the work shes begun with greater powers and a provincial mandate.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Mayor John Tory agreed Epsteins review may not be enough.

I think there might be a need for a broader inquiry that really delves much more deeply into everything that happened here, particularly as it affected the LGBTQ community and the victims in this case, Tory said.

A spokesperson for Ontarios Ministry of the Attorney General said in an email Wednesday that any considerations about a public inquiry, or other potential review mechanisms, will come at the completion of McArthurs sentencing proceedings, scheduled to begin next week.

But Ontario premier Doug Ford didnt close the door on a public inquiry, even after saying he wanted to support our police rather than always attacking them.

Yes, could we correct things within the police? One hundred per cent we can correct things. They know it. Ive talked to the chief about it. And theyre going to do everything they can but we wont rule out any further investigations, he told reporters.

Terence Kernaghan, the Ontario NDPs LGBTQ Issues critic said measures must be taken to ensure that a murderer like McArthur is not allowed to take lives again, particularly within marginalized groups.

If that takes a public inquiry then we shouldnt hesitate to call one, Kernaghan said in a statement to the Star.

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McArthur, 67, has admitted to killing: Andrew Kinsman, 49; Selim Esen, 44; Majeed Kayhan, 58; Soroush Mahmudi, 50; Dean Lisowick, 47; Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam, 40, Abdulbasir Faizi, 42, and Kirushnakumar Kanagaratnam, 37. Many of his victims had ties to the Gay Village and were of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent.

Scheduled to be completed in early 2020, Epsteins independent review was commissioned unanimously by the Toronto police board last year in the wake of criticism surrounding McArthurs arrest and questions about why the serial killer had not been arrested sooner after a succession of men went missing from Torontos Gay Village.

In an address to the board last summer, Epstein said her review would examine whether Toronto police handling of missing persons investigations could have been tainted by systemic bias or discrimination and whether the policies and procedures in place adequately protect against implicit or explicit bias or discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community or marginalized groups.

If an amendment is granted and the scope of Epsteins review is widened to include the McArthur probe, Epstein could likely report on a broader set of facts, including police documents that might otherwise not have been available due to the McArthurs fair-trial rights restrictions.

In a statement, Toronto police board chair Andy Pringle said the board will consider Epsteins request at a future meeting, and is already in the process of considering what options are now available to more broadly examine the important issues related to missing persons investigations.

That includes engaging with Ontarios Ministry of the Attorney General to explore whether (it) is intending to examine these matters.

Asked outside court Tuesday if there should be a public inquiry in the case, Toronto police Det. David Dickinson, who led the McArthur investigation, referenced Epsteins ongoing review but welcomed further examination if its deemed warranted.

I think that if there were mistakes made or lessons learned, absolutely, we should learn from them, he said.

Ferhat Cinar, brother to Selim Esen, McArthurs seventh victim, has previously expressed the need for a public inquiry. Cinar, who listened to Tuesdays plea from his home in London, England, has said victims families and the broader community are angry that the mens disappearances werent taken seriously sooner.

One cannot help but ask why? Cinar said in a statement sent to the Star late last year, following a funeral for his brother in Toronto.

Was it to do with their sexual identity of being gay? An independent public inquiry is certainly needed to get into the bottom of this and finding out who was responsible.

With files from Rob Ferguson
GATINEAU, QUE.Quebec Agriculture Minister Andre Lamontagne is defending a decision to fire a whistle-blowing bureaucrat who went to the media with concerns about pesticide use.

While the province has legislation protecting whistleblowers, Lamontagne says there are other factors that led to the dismissal of department agronomist Louis Robert.

Radio-Canada reported last year that Robert, a seed expert, had spoken out against private-sector interference in a public study on pesticide use. Last Thursday, Robert was fired for transmitting a confidential document to a reporter and contravening secrecy obligations.

Quebecs whistleblower law protects employees who disclose information within their department. But disclosure to the public is protected only if the employee believes there is a serious risk to health, safety or the environment.

Lamontagne told reporters outside the Coalition Avenir Quebec caucus meeting that he was briefed on the matter after being named minister last fall.

Its my decision, so Im very comfortable with my decision, he said. He remained vague about the reasons for the firing but suggested there were other factors at play. Lamontagne said Robert has indicated he will challenge his dismissal.

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OTTAWA  A housing crisis in a northern Ontario First Nation is the tip of a deep, systemic problem in communities across the country that requires the response of a task force, the federal NDP said Wednesday.

Senior government officials were to meet on Wednesday with community leaders in Cat Lake First Nation, several hundred kilometres north of Thunder Bay, to discuss a state of emergency the nation proclaimed earlier this month due to profoundly poor conditions of housing.

A community declaration listed mould, structural issues and a lack of funds for routine maintenance as the causes of health problems including invasive bacterial diseases and lung infections.

Mould in Cat Lake constitutes a national shame, Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus said Wednesday as he joined his colleagues Georgina Jolibois, Romeo Saganash and Niki Ashton to say mould in on-reserve housing is an invisible crisis that the federal government has known about at least since an auditor generals report in 2003.

A task force needs to examine the extent of mould in Indigenous communities across the country, the MPs said.

We are demanding a new commitment on the eve of the first budget with the Treasury Board minister (Jane Philpott) that we understand understands this file, so we want to see that commitment right around the corner, Ashton said. First Nations deserve it and they demand it.

Philpott was until recently the countrys minister of Indigenous services. Her successor, Seamus ORegan, sent a statement pointing out that the Liberal government has funded construction or renovation of 14,000 housing units on reserves since 2015 and has conducted two comprehensive inspections at Cat Lake to assess the state of their housing.

During question period on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is committed to working with Cat Lake on its housing challenges.

We are developing both an interim and a long-term plan of action but we are, unlike what the member is saying, making significant progress in the community, Trudeau said, adding that an advisory about unsafe drinking water had been lifted there in December after being in place for 12 years.

We know theres lots more to do and thats why we are continuing to address the community issues in partnership.

He also later referred to budget commitments to spend $600 million three years to support First Nations housing on reserves as part of a decade-long housing strategy.

Angus replied with disdain for Trudeaus responses and said the prime minister is patting himself on the back as people live in squalid conditions in frigid temperatures.

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MOOSE JAW, SASK.A New Brunswick brewery has donated $25,000 to the cause of making a beloved Saskatchewan moose statue the tallest in the world once again.

Trevor Grant, with Moosehead Breweries, says it felt like a no-brainer for the company to help get Moose Jaws Mac the Moose back on top.

Mac held the title of worlds tallest moose statue for decades at almost 10 metres high.

But Norway recently erected a silver moose that edges out Mac by 30 centimetres.

Grant says a moose has been has been a part of the brewerys brand since 1933.

A $50,000 GoFundMe campaign has been launched to fund Macs renovation and $12,000 had been raised before the Moosehead donation Wednesday morning.

Weve never been one to back down from a fight and we do recognize that same resilience and sort of fighting spirit in Mac the Moose, Grant said Wednesday.

Read More:

Moose over, Norway. Saskatchewan has plans to get Mac the Moose back on top

Moose Jaws Mac the Moose again makes claim to being tallest in the world

City of Moose Jaw locks antlers with Norway: You don't mess with Mac the Moose'

Giving Mac bigger antlers is the most likely solution to make him taller. Adding an RCMP Stetson or stilettos are other potential modifications.

Mac weighs 9,000 kilograms and has been welcoming visitors from his perch along the Trans-Canada Highway since 1984. He won an award in 2013 for being Moose Jaws best celebrity.

Jacki LHeureux-Mason, Tourism Moose Jaws executive director, said Mac is starting to show his age in some spots.

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So in some ways the timing on this couldnt have been better, LHeureux-Mason said.

The moose battle has garnered international attention including being featured on late-night U.S. television.
The transfer of up to six wolves from a northern Ontario island where they were starving to the U.S. is getting underway following a weeks-long delay caused by the federal government shutdown south of the border.

The small pack, including the alpha male and female, will be moved from Michipicoten Island to Isle Royale National Park, on the U.S. side of Lake Superior, where American officials hope the wolves will help keep the moose population in check.

We need to get these wolves off the island, otherwise theyll die, said Aaron Bumstead, director of lands and economic development with Michipicoten First Nation who is co-ordinating the move with the provinces Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Last year, the province and the First Nation used several helicopters to move a total of 15 caribou  a threatened species in Ontario  off Michipicoten Island. Nine of the animals were transferred to the Slate Islands, and the other six to Caribou Island.

They were the last remaining caribou from a once-thriving herd on Michipicoten Island that started with just eight caribou in 1982 and grew to more than 700 by 2013, when four wolves reached the island after making the 15-kilometre trek across an ice bridge that formed on the lake.

There they found a bounty of caribou to feast on. But as the small pack grew to more than a dozen wolves in the following years, their food source  the caribou  all but disappeared. Now the wolves themselves are in danger, said Bumstead.

Weve been asking (the ministry) for a plan to remove the wolves from the island since last year, Bumstead said. And there still is no plan to remove the ones that dont get moved to Isle Royale.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Natural Resources said she wouldnt comment on the wolves transfer until the animals were captured and transferred to the U.S.

Bumstead said efforts to capture the wolves on Michipicoten Island were unsuccessful Wednesday. The two wolves they saw wouldnt come out from under cover, he said, so theyll try again Thursday.

American officials and researchers with Isle Royale are anxious to receive the Canadian wolves because it will help save the parks current pack, which dwindled this fall to just a nonbreeding father-daughter pair.

The move was slated to occur in early January, but that was shelved because of the U.S. federal government shutdown, said Isle Royale National Park superintendent Phyllis Green.

The Canadian wolves are robust, large and definitely know how to hunt ungulates since they took that caribou herd down to nothing, Green said.

There is an overabundance of moose on Isle Royale, and without enough wolves to keep their population in check their numbers will continue to grow, said Rolf Peterson, a research professor at Michigan Technological University who has been studying the wolves and moose on the island for the past 48 years.

His research  the worlds longest running predator-prey study  was also threatened by the U.S. government shutdown. On Friday, just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily ended the government shutdown, the Isle Royale National Park had secured funding from a non-profit organization to go ahead with its part in the wolves transfer from Canada. The funding also allowed it to open the park to researchers to continue the predator-prey study.

The shutdown jeopardized the integrity of the data and of the entire study itself, said Peterson, who plans to return to the park as soon as the Canadian wolves are moved.

These large-bodied Canadian wolves are incredibly important, he said. They can help save both the wolf pack and the balsam fir.

The moose on the island, with a population of about 1,600, have decimated the balsam fir trees on the island.

Twenty-two years ago, a lone wolf, likely from Canada, made its way on an ice bridge onto Isle Royale, Peterson said, and was a wildly successful mate with offspring in every pack and eventually his genes made their way into every single younger generation wolf on the island.

Then the kill rate of moose by wolves reached a level we hadnt ever seen before in 50 years. They were killing 20 per cent of the moose every year, which had implications for the forest, Peterson said.

We saw forest regeneration we had never seen before.

But that wolf, dubbed the Old Grey Guy, Green said, was so successful that inbreeding became very severe. Eventually the wolf population crashed and bottomed out at two, which is when the park decided it needed outside help. Four wolves were brought in from Minnesota in the fall, but one died of pneumonia a month later.

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Green said they knew about the issues facing the wolves on Michipicoten Island and Michigans governor at the time, Rick Snyder, reached out to Ontario Premier Doug Ford to ask for an infusion of Canadian wolves.

Ford agreed.

Lets hope everything goes well with the move, Bumstead said.

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It is official. The Federal Court has approved a multimillion-dollar class-action settlement that will see Ottawa pay EI sickness benefits to as many as 2,000 new parents  mostly mothers  who were seriously ill during parental leave, but denied the additional money.

Justice Catherine Kanes decision late Wednesday ends a six-year battle waged by Calgary mother Jennifer McCrea on behalf of about 2,000 others who will receive an average of almost $4,000 each.

McCrea, who was awarded an additional $10,000 as an honorarium for her efforts as class plaintiff, was very relieved that it is over.

It has been quite a long journey, she told the Star. So many times I wanted to quit  But I am grateful that I had the strength to fight  many women didnt have it in them to fight.

Ottawa settled with McCrea last August and the deal was confirmed in September, subject to court approval.

Wednesdays ruling paves the way for the federal government, which has records on EI sickness claimants, to mail notices of the decision to parents eligible for payment and invite them to reapply for the sick benefits they are owed. The estates of those who have died will also be able to claim the money.

Read more:

Ottawa settles EI sickness class action with new moms

Editorial | Ottawa must settle lawsuit with sick moms

Mothers denied sickness benefits urge Liberal government to end legal battle

The settlement, which covers parents who were denied the benefit between March 2002 and March 2013, is estimated to be worth between $8.5 million and $11 million, depending on the number of class members who apply for the money.

McCrea, 42, developed breast cancer in 2011 while on maternity leave with her youngest son, Logan, but was denied additional EI sickness benefits.

She is owed $7,515, the maximum 15-week benefit at the time.

Under the terms of the settlement, only parents who were sick during the parental leave portion of their combined maternity/parental leave period and were denied additional EI sickness benefits are eligible for compensation.

In her ruling, Kane said the settlement is fair and reasonable and that the honorarium for McCrea is warranted given her significant contribution to this litigation and settlement.

Kane noted the benefits would likely have been of more help to the women when they were ill. But she said the settlement was nevertheless  a very good result.

They will receive their benefits, albeit years later, and they will have witnessed both a change in the legislation to benefit others like them and improvements in the manner that information is shared by Service Canada about such benefits, she added.

McCreas lawyer Stephen Moreau was thrilled by the ruling.

Im glad to know this very long chapter has been closed, he said.

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Moreau, who has been battling Ottawa on the issue for almost nine years, was particularly pleased class members will receive 100 per cent of the EI benefit they are owed.

Moreau and his law firm, Cavalluzzo LLP were awarded about $2.5 million to cover legal costs.

The court action stems from a 2002 change to EI legislation that extended sickness benefits to working parents who become ill during pregnancy or while on maternity and parental leave.

It meant new mothers, such as McCrea, could take up to 15 weeks of sickness benefits to recuperate and then resume their parental benefits.

But EI officials didnt interpret the changes that way; they argued that since an ill woman on parental leave wasnt available for work, she wasnt eligible for EI sickness benefits.

It wasnt until Toronto mother Natalya Rougas successfully appealed her case in 2011 that the federal government took notice.

Moreau, who represented Rougas in her successful claim, launched the class action in 2012 on behalf of McCrea after the Calgary mother read about the case online in the Star.

Stephen Harpers Conservative government eventually changed the law in 2013 to ensure new mothers with serious illnesses are not denied EI sickness benefits. And it quietly paid about 350 women who had their applications denied in 2012 and 2013.

But it refused to pay McCrea and others who were denied sickness benefits between 2002 and 2013.

McCrea said she was grateful to the Liberal government for living up to its 2015 election promise to settle the case, albeit not as quickly as we had hoped.

She also thanked the Star for keeping the case in the public eye.

You were there when (others) couldnt care less and that made all the difference.

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OTTAWAMore than 100 community and environment groups in the Philippines are making a plea to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take out Canadas trash.

Under the banner EcoWaste Coalition, the groups wrote a letter to Trudeau on Wednesday asking him to make good on a promise he made when he visited Manila in November 2017 to finally address more than two million kilograms of Canadian household and electronic waste rotting in two Filipino ports for nearly six years.

In 2013 and 2014, a total of 103 shipping containers from Canada labelled as plastics arrived in the Philippines for recycling, but Filipino customs inspectors determined the containers were actually filled with debris from Canadian trash bins.

Filipino inspectors uncovered mounds of adult diapers, soiled papers, electronic equipment and assorted household waste in the bins, none of which could be recycled.

The garbage has sat in limbo ever since.

The scandal has dragged on for five years without resolution, despite promises from the Canadian government to address the problem, including public statements made by yourself as prime minister, wrote Aileen Lucero, co-ordinator for the EcoWaste Coalition.

Read more:

Opinion | Ricardo: Not farms or factories: Most of Canadas food waste is coming from us

Theres usually a good reason when garbage goes uncollected

As the zero-waste movement picks up, meet the Calgarians aiming to keep leftovers out of landfills

She noted that South Korea took back more than 50 containers of garbage after they were mistakenly shipped to the Philippines last year and Canadas refusal to do the same has not gone unnoticed.

The stark contrast between South Koreas actions and Canadas indifference to its dumped waste has captured public attention and stoked anger at what is viewed as both disrespectful and illegal conduct by Canada, she said in the letter.

When Filipino officials first approached the federal government about the garbage in March 2014, Canadas response was to try to get the Philippines to agree to dispose of it there.

In November 2015, Trudeau visited Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders summit just weeks after he became prime minister. He said he was aware of the problem, but that Canada had no legal authority to force the company who shipped the containers to take them back.

In June 2016, a Filipino judge ordered the bins sent back to Canada and said his country was not the worlds trash bin.

Trudeau returned to Manila in November 2017 for a summit of southeast Asian countries, and said then he felt Canada was working very hard on a solution and that it was theoretically possible for Canada to take back the trash.

A year after that, a working group of Filipino and Canadian officials met for the first time in Manila but nothing has yet come of that meeting.

Guillaume Berube, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, said Canada is aware of the 2016 court decision and all the issues are being examined by the working group.

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We are committed to working collaboratively to ensure the material is processed in an environmentally responsible way, he said.

Canada is a signatory to the Basel Convention, which requires developed countries to only ship hazardous waste to the developing world with the consent of the importing country. Lucero said Canada likes to say it fully complies with the convention, but these shipments contravene the international agreement.

Lucero also says Canada is one of two dozen countries that have refused to endorse an amendment to the convention that would bar shipments of hazardous waste altogether.

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OTTAWA  The Defence Department wasnt trying to hide any information when its staff used terms other than Vice-Admiral Mark Normans name in internal communications, Canadas top military officer testified in Normans criminal case Wednesday.

But, Gen. Jonathan Vance conceded, the department could have done a better job of looking for documents that identified Norman only by acronyms and other labels when answering legal requests for documents about the vice-admirals case.

Norman, who was head of the navy and Vances No. 2 until he was suspended two years ago, is facing a charge of breach of trust in connection with the alleged leak of cabinet secrets around a $700-million shipbuilding contract.

He has denied any wrongdoing and his defence team has accused the Trudeau government of playing political games with him, singling Norman out for sharing private information when others were leaking as well.

Normans politically charged trial is scheduled to run through this falls federal election campaign; this phase of the case, a multiday pretrial hearing, is about determining what evidence is relevant and what sensitive materials the government has to disclose to Normans defence lawyers.

On Tuesday, Normans legal team produced a number of pseudonyms and other identifiers used within the government to refer to his position following testimony last month that department officials intentionally avoided using his name in emails and other correspondence.

Read More:

Accused admiral eager to get back to serving Canadians

Defence chief Vance slated to testify this month in Vice-Admiral Norman case

Armed forces avoided using Normans name, left no record trail, according to witness

Normans lawyers have asked for access to thousands of government records they say will exonerate their client. Theyve argued that the use of code names at the Defence Department is part of a pattern by the government to prevent, or least delay, the release of key documents that will ensure their client receives a fair trial.

His lawyers listed several code names officials at the department have used to refer to him  including The Boss, MN3, C34 and The Kraken.

Vance, chief of the defence staff, said the use of other terms to refer to military personnel is common in internal communications and documents.

Those acronyms are not intended to avoid anything, Vance said in response to a question from Normans lawyer, Marie Henein. In fact, it would be in my mind foolish to use the acronyms that weve seen as a code word because theyre so common.

Kraken, for instance, is meant to be a play on the word for a mythical gigantic squid that comes from Normans title as commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, or CRCN.

On the other hand, Vance said, if there is a sinister effort by some to use something completely unassociated with the normal vernacular to try and bury communications, well, that would be very serious.

How is anyone supposed to know how you refer to them? Henein asked Vance, referring to people with Normans job title and position.

Vance replied it would be on us to ensure that searches directed at the department are interpreted to capture the various ways that Normans position and title might come up. He added that this task is not managed by the Armed Forces, but by the civilian department.

He also told the court that he provided additional search terms for Norman to the Justice Department late last week.

Following his appearance, Vance told reporters outside the Ottawa courthouse that he wants to ensure the military plays an effective, correct role when it comes to the production of documents for Normans case.

And if theres anybody out there who is in any way trying to thwart that, then well certainly try to get to the bottom of it because he deserves a full and fair defence, Vance said.

This has been a difficult and painful process for all of us, including Vice-Admiral Norman. None of this makes anyone in uniform happy.

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During his testimony, Vance also said hed spoken to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Normans suspension and met in person to inform other senior figures in the government, including Trudeaus top aides Katie Telford and Gerald Butts, exchanges that the Conservatives seized on in question period on Parliament Hill.

So far we have heard that documents have been withheld from (Norman), access-to-information requests have been deliberately sabotaged so as not to turn up any documents, weve learned today about private dinners and conversations and little meetings that happened with the prime minister and his inner circle that, not surprisingly, no notes or documentation to go along with them, said deputy Tory leader Lisa Raitt, and accused Trudeau of having prejudged Normans case before hed even been charged with anything.

I, of course, have regular interactions with the chief of defence staff, Trudeau replied. In this instance, the chief notified me of steps being taken regarding this individual. The notion that any politician was involved in those decisions is completely false and I wont comment further as the matter is before the courts.

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Quebec City will honour the victims of the deadly 2017 mosque shooting with a memorial park to be built near the site where six worshippers were gunned down.

Mayor Regis Labeaume made the announcement Tuesday on the second anniversary of the mass shooting. Labeaume said the tragic event left families and an entire community in mourning, and the memorial will ensure the victims are not forgotten.

This artistic creation invites dialogue and friendship, on one side of the street and on the other, Labeaume said. The concept inspires respect and harmony between diverse communities.

The centrepiece of the park will be a monument created by Quebec artist Luce Pelletier called Vivre Ensemble (Live Together). She said she chose to place a tree in the middle to represent the cycle of life and the resilient force of nature. The park is slated to be inaugurated on Jan. 29 2020.

Boufeldja Benabdallah, president of the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, was present with widows and children of the victims at the unveiling of a scale model. Violence can and must be converted into friendship, kindness and recognition, Benabdallah said. That is the meaning of this memorial.

The mosque shooting claimed the lives of six men: Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42, Abdelkrim Hassane, 41, Khaled Belkacemi, 60, Aboubaker Thabti, 44, Azzeddine Soufiane, 57, and Ibrahima Barry, 39.

Read more:

Crown says Quebec City mosque shooter should get 150-year prison term, the longest in Canadian history

Quebec City mosque head urges ban on assault weapons in gun control legislation

You killed six of my brothers: Head of Quebec City mosque takes stand at shooters sentencing hearing

Alexandre Bissonnette pleaded guilty to the killings last year and is to be sentenced Feb. 8 on six counts of first-degree murder. If the judge orders that the six life sentences be serviced consecutively, Bissonnette would not be eligible for parole for 150 years.

In Ottawa, the Canadian Muslim Forum and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, called on the federal government to declare Jan. 29 a national day to combat Islamophobia. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said the federal government is still in discussions to identify a suitable way to commemorate the tragedy.

We will arrive at a solution that reflects a consensus, because these are questions that require a consensus to go forward, he told reporters.

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EDMONTONGhost kitchens are heading west.

Rishi Mittal manages 13 restaurants run out of a single kitchen in downtown Edmonton, where his unnamed numbered company serves up a wide variety of dining options for mostly online customers.

Ghost kitchens like his, also called virtual kitchens, operate multiple food-delivery businesses from a location that may or may not serve any walk-in customers.

We have a breakfast menu, we have a Greek menu, we have an Arabic menu, we have a snack menu, things geared toward wings and perogies, and whatnot, Mittal said.

Mittal operates out of a Jasper Avenue storefront under the name Nikos Greek Grill to serve the walk-in public, while the expansive online menu allows his staff to tailor meals to just about anyone looking to order in.

Multitasking is crucial to running a virtual kitchen, and his has a row of tablets set up tracking online orders.

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Theyve popped up in the U.S. and U.K. Now, ghost kitchens emerge in the Canadian food delivery scene

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Skip The Dishes courier takes company to court, argues drivers deserve benefits, vacation pay

Mittal said he has the only virtual kitchen in Edmonton, and it only opened last month.

Not having to leave your home, convenience, I think, is the main (benefit), and being able to get variety as opposed to just sticking to one kind of cuisine, Mittal said.

Ghost kitchens started popping up in the United States and the United Kingdom several years ago, but have just started moving across Canada.

Calgary got its first one two weeks ago, according to George Kottas, the president and CEO of Dekotas Group, which owns the Calgary restaurant as well as Mittals.

Kottas popularized ghost kitchens in Canada when he launched several in Toronto, after a serendipitous moment when he forgot to set times for when he would accept Uber Eats orders at his breakfast eatery Bite Me Grill.

He kept receiving orders long after the restaurant closed, and decided he would cash in on this discovery by staffing the restaurant at night to fill the orders.

Now he collaborates with Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes, which give him data on demand for specific kinds of foods in different neighbourhoods, and he looks for cuisine voids in the cities the apps serve.

Weve created over 30 menus. So when we go into new markets, we see whats on the platforms and whats missing and we fill that void, he said.

Kottas started expanding across Canada last February and now has almost 30 ghost kitchens across the country, with at least two opening every week.

He said about 15 will open next month alone, and he has begun an even more rapid expansion into the U.S.

Skip the Dishes co-founder Jeff Adamson said ghost kitchens  or delivery-only kitchens, as he calls them  exemplify the innovation and creativity of Canadian restaurant owners who are facing increasing overhead and labour costs and are seeking new ways to lower costs and boost revenues.

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He said delivery-only kitchens have an added consumer advantage for takeout because they dont have the distraction of dine-in business to focus on.

Focus is so important, and the fact that they can just focus on delivery means that theyre going to be executing better, theyre going to be checking all the items before they go out the door, and that means the customer experience is going to be better as well, Adamson said.

He expects the demand for ghost kitchens to keep rising, particularly in high-density areas with large populations, as the dining preferences of busy customers shift.

University of Alberta business professor Kyle Murray said ghost kitchens are ripe for the rise with the growing popularity of food delivery apps.

Theyre essentially just doing what we always tell people in business schools to do, which is focus on a particular customer need, he said. So rather than trying to serve two segments out of one location, theyre focused on just those delivery services. So it kind of makes sense how it has popped up this way.

Murray said restaurants that stand to benefit most from the delivery app boom are those with limited seating, which can reach far more customers now. Pizza delivery businesses, once one of the few takeout options available, are likely to take the biggest hit.

Murray said many traditional dine-in restaurants are essentially running two kitchens now, with one serving takeout customers and the other serving customers in the restaurant.

A rise in ghost kitchens could also lead to fewer sit-down restaurants, which could change the distribution of jobs, with fewer servers and more delivery drivers.

Murray said the sheer selection of food available for delivery is likely the driving force behind the popularity of takeout, but he doesnt see ghost kitchens decimating the traditional restaurant industry.

Its hard to imagine instead of going out for dinner with friends, you have a bunch of friends over to your house for the same occasion and just order, he said. There may be some of that, but I think a big part of what restaurants offer is the atmosphere, not just the food.

Raj Mall, who owns Rajdoot restaurant in Calgary, said hes been thinking about moving into the ghost-kitchen business.

At his restaurant, hes seen delivery orders go up by about 40 per cent in the last two years, while dining has declined by 15 to 20 per cent.

I think its a fantastic idea, especially if all you do is online deliveries, Mall said. You dont need as much walk-in traffic, you pay probably next to nothing in rent because you get it in industrial areas. Its very cost-effective and you can still target a lot of the same areas.

With files from Kashmala Fida and Tara Deschamps

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Canada will remove up to half its diplomats from Havana after another employee showed signs of contracting a mysterious illness.

The new case of unusual health symptoms brings the total number of Canadian embassy staff members and their family affected to 14, the foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. U.S. diplomats in Cuba have also developed a similar illness and reduced their staff in the country.

We have had close co-operation with the Cuban authorities since the health concerns of our employees posted in Havana first surfaced in the spring of 2017, the department said.

The symptoms include dizziness, headaches and trouble concentrating. There is no evidence that other Canadians travelling to Cuba are at risk, the government said.

Canada will continue to have an embassy in Havana, Cuba, headed by an ambassador, the department said. Full consular services will be available to Canadians in Cuba. However, some other programs may be adjusted in the coming weeks.

The decision means as many as eight people will be removed, according to a Canadian government official briefing reporters Wednesday on condition they not be named.

Canada is Cubas third largest trade partner, with about $934 million in merchandise goods exchanged in 2017. The figures, compiled by Statistics Canada, dont include money spent by Canadians who vacation on the island.
China is home to most extensive expressways and high-speed rail in the world

(Photo/Chinanews.com)

By the end of 2017, the total mileage of Chinas expressways reached 136,500 kilometers, covering 97 percent of Chinese cities with a population of more than 200,000.

Rural roads surpassed 4 million kilometers, covering almost all towns and administrative villages across the country.

By the end of 2017, the total mileage of roads in China had exceeded 4.77 million kilometers, an average year-on-year growth of 4.4 percent. The concentration of road per 100 square kilometers rose to 49.72 kilometers. About 832,500 bridges with a total length of 52 million meters were also built.

The density of Chinas railway network is also increasing. The length of railway in service reached 131,000 km in 2018, up from 51,700 km in 1978. The mileage of high-speed railway reached 29,000 km, 30 percent more than the combined high-speed railway mileage in other countries.

In 2018, Chinese railways registered a passenger volume of 3.37 billion and a cargo volume of 4.02 billion tonnes. Freight transportation experienced explosive growth after China-Europe trains started to run in 2011. In 2018, China sent a record number of 6,300 cargo trains to Europe, 72 percent more than it did during the previous year.

By the end of 2018, the country had 235 airports, of which 37 had a handling capacity of 10 million passengers, while ten airports had a handling capacity of 30 million passengers. The number of domestic flights reached 3,420 by the end of 2018.

By the end of last year, China had 786 international flight routes, 105 of which were between China and Belt and Road countries.
MONTREAL - With a growing number of consumers moving away from shopping malls to online shopping, the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec is accelerating its shift in industrial real estate by getting hold of U.S. firm IDI Logistics for nearly $4.7 billion.

The amount was put forward at the end of November by the pension fund managers real estate subsidiary, Ivanhoe Cambridge, as part of its transaction with Brookfield Asset Management. The amount paid was not disclosed, but various sources have confirmed the price.

Due to the size of the transaction, the institution recruited an ally and announced Wednesday an equal partnership in the venture with Oxford Properties Group, the real estate subsidiary of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) for its first foray into the United States.

Each party will contribute about $2.4 billion.

This is certainly the most strategic investment weve made in logistics resulting from our shift a few years ago, Ivanhoe executive vice-president industrial North America Mario Morroni told The Canadian Press.

Ivanhoe Cambridge decided to solicit a partner because of the volatility of markets and the uncertain economic context, he added.

It had become quite clear that at a time when markets seemed extremely nervous, that our preferred choice was to buy the business and immediately find a partner, he said.

With the growing popularity of e-commerce, retailers and other giants like Amazon are turning to industrial buildings and logistics centres to store merchandise for shipping.

It is in this context that Ivanhoe Cambridge began to change its direction over two years ago. Since then, its investments in this sector have reached $9 billion, including the IDI Logistics transaction.

Based in Atlanta, IDI Logistics operates a portfolio of 111 assets from six offices and owns land generally near major centres that represent a potential for about 1.3 million square metre of space.

IDI Logisticss clients include giants like Amazon, Wayfair, Costco and Walmart, Morroni said.

To get the same quality of assets while having such a good management team in place (...) it would have taken us easily from five to 10 years to build such a platform, he said.

Logistics assets are coveted by managers on both sides of the border. In Canada, the industrial vacancy rate reached a new low of 2.8 per cent at the end of 2018, according to recent data from Avison Young.

According to Ivanhoe Cambridge, most of IDI Logistics properties are only seven or eight years old, making them better suited to the needs of online commerce. Morroni explained that the goal is often to have buildings of a certain height in order to store a maximum of items inside.

With this addition, industrial real estate accounts for 10 to 11 per cent of Ivanhoe Cambridges portfolio. It hopes to raise that to 20 per cent in about four years, he said.

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Ivanhoe Cambridge has reduced its ownership of Canadian shopping centres to 28 from 48 in 2009, according to its website. As of June 30, its assets were valued at $60 billion.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly identified the venture partner as Oxford Real Estate Group.
Canada has until March 1 to assess a U.S. request to extradite the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co. in a case thats sparked an unprecedented diplomatic dispute as Washington broadens its attack on the Chinese technology giant.

Meng Wanzhou appeared in British Columbia Supreme Court Tuesday where Justice William Ehrcke granted her request to change one of the sureties backing her bail. He also agreed to push back Mengs next Vancouver court appearance by a month to March 6 to account for the 30-day window that Canada has to review the U.S. request and decide whether to proceed to extradition hearings.

The developments come in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the worlds two largest economies after U.S. prosecutors in Washington and New York unsealed two indictments against Huawei on Monday.

Huawei and its U.S. affiliate were ordered to appear in a federal court in Seattle on Feb. 28 to face charges that they engaged in a scheme to steal trade secrets of T-Mobile US Inc.

The Brooklyn case alleges that Huawei, two affiliated companies and CFO Meng engaged in bank and wire fraud as well as conspiracy in connection with business in Iran. Meng, 46, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities and later released on $10 million ($7.5 million U.S.) bail.

The Seattle case entails a 10-count indictment that alleges the company conspired to engage in a concerted effort to steal a mobile phone testing robot T-Mobile created called Tappy. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez.

Read more:

Trudeau is considering naming a special envoy to China as deadline looms in Meng extradition case

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou scheduled for new March court date in extradition case

U.S. unveils 23 criminal charges against Chinas Huawei as Ottawa fights to free two Canadians detained by Beijing in retaliation

The indictments intensify the spotlight on Huawei, which has come to symbolize Chinas economic rise and challenge to the U.S.s status as the worlds top superpower. In particular, the decision to prosecute Meng -- daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei -- has riled Beijing and increased concerns around the globe of a new Cold War.

Meng, currently under house arrest in Vancouver, will have several opportunities to appeal. The final decision on extradition will be up to Canadas Justice Minister David Lametti.

Extradition cases can take a long time in part because of defences that review someones rights, Lametti told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday. He said he would only have a role in Mengs extradition at the end: if a judge orders her removal, its up to him to decide whether to hand her over.

I only will have to make a decision at the end of the process, he said.

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When Mengs defence lawyer asked Ehrcke if he would also be assigned to the extradition proceedings, the judge said he didnt know.

"I think that remains somewhat open depending on scheduling, he said. I have no idea whether were looking at months or years. And maybe you have a better idea than I do, but at this point thats completely unknown to me."

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Staff reports

Watertown Public Opinion

WASHINGTON  Margaret Thatchers description of herself as a conviction politician alarmed some Britons but delighted others because her convictions were incompatible with the flaccid centrist consensus that had produced their nations 1970s stagnation. In 1979, voters rolled the dice, sending her to Downing Street. In Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrats have their Thatcher, if they dare.

When elected leader of Britains Conservatives, Thatcher, disgusted by a colleagues rhetorical mush about a glorious middle way, slammed onto a table Friedrich Hayeks tome The Constitution of Liberty and exclaimed, This is what we believe! Today, with a forthrightness perhaps more bracing than prudent, Warren advocates a radical agenda that is approximately Thatcherism  capitalism invigorated  inverted. Furthermore, Warren bristles with a progressives version of Thatchers pugnacity that caused one of her Conservative colleagues to say that she cant look at a British institution without hitting it with her handbag.

Warren is too busy inveighing against corruption to define it precisely, but she probably means what economists call rent-seeking, which in the context of politics means bending government power for private advantage, either by conferring advantages on oneself or imposing disadvantages on competitors. Although Warrens inveighing is virtuous, her program would substantially exacerbate the problem by deepening governments involvement in the allocation of wealth and opportunity.

She was a registered Republican from 1991 to 1996 because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. Today, she favors big structural change. Her Accountable Capitalism Act would produce the semi-nationalization of large corporations, with federal charters requiring (among other things) 40 percent of their directors to be elected by employees. Such accountable-to-government (not to markets) corporations must have a material positive impact on society ... when taken as a whole. This gaseous metric will be defined and applied by government. Such federalization of corporate law would inevitably be the thin end of an enormous wedge of government control, crowding out market signals. As would her Climate Risk Disclosure Act. And her American Housing and Economic Mobility Act. And her Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act (government-run production of generic drugs).

What law professor Richard Epstein calls Warrens surreptitious socialism would, he says, likely lead to the largest flight of capital from the United States in history. Foreign investors  domestic ones, too  will not want to put wealth in corporations subservient to the political agendas of government. And the agendas of various stakeholders deemed to have rights comparable to those of shareholders who actually own corporations, and to whom corporate directors have the fiduciary duty to maximize their shares value.

Warren exemplifies progressivisms sentimental belief in disinterested government that, unlike human beings (except government employees), has motives as pure as the driven snow. She should read his 2003 essay What Is Public Choice Theory?, wherein economist James M. Buchanan, a Nobel laureate, used economic reasoning  determining how incentives influence behavior  to demystify politics. He argued that politicians and bureaucrats seek to maximize power the way many people in the private sector maximize monetary profits.

She leavens her sentimentality with nostalgia: When I was a kid, a minimum-wage job in America would support a family of three. It would pay a mortgage, keep the utilities on and put food on the table. Well. The Adam Smith Institutes Tim Worstall suggests some pertinent arithmetic: When Warren was 10 in 1959, the federal hourly minimum wage ($1, which would be $8.55 in 2018 dollars) for 2,000 hours (40 hours a week for 50 weeks) would provide $2,000 a year, below the poverty threshold ($2,324) for a family of three.

Wielding one of the presidents favorite adjectives (rigged), Warren says that todays government works for those at the top. Indeed. Sprawling, complex, opaque, redistributionist government usually does: It redistributes wealth upward to those  the confident, affluent, articulate, well-lawyered  who can manipulate its pulleys and levers. By multiplying those devices, Warren would, inadvertently but inevitably, make government even more regressive.

Although Warren is criticized as divisive, serious politics should divide the polity by tugging its public arguments up from the superstitions and fetishes of identity politics, to the realm of ideas. Columnist Murray Kempton said that the similarity between American politics and professional wrestling is the absence of honest emotion. Not the way Warren goes about it. She is a clenched-fist candidate, boiling with indignation and bristling with proposals, including some that are punitive toward disfavored Americans. Most progressives feel this way, but most voters might prefer someone who will lower the political temperature by lowering the stakes of politics.

George Wills email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
USA TODAY

Watertown Public Opinion

An unprecedented field of candidates is gathering for the Democratic presidential nomination, which reflects a group varying in diversity.

Hillary walked so they could run

By Carl Golden

Convinced that President Donald Trump is seriously vulnerable, upwards of two dozen people have either announced candidacies or are seriously contemplating a run at the 2020 nomination. Among that field are five Democratic women  four sitting U.S. senators and a member of the House.

Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York are committed to running, while Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is in the "I'm thinking about it" stage. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is an announced candidate.

The challenge for these female candidates is to stand out from the crowd, draw attention, and mount a credible campaign to persuade the donor class to view each as a compelling candidate with a legitimate chance of winning. Their success rests also on where the national Democratic Party finally settles on the ideological spectrum.

Talker:Political correctness culture has gone too far, but blackface is never OK

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The party has been driven further to the left by a vocal band of newcomers in the House who believe that militant progressivism represents the path to victory  Medicare for All, free college education, government-guaranteed employment, abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, increased taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, etc.

While such an agenda will most assuredly draw a sharp contrast with the Trump presidency, it is by no means certain it will capture the imagination of the nation. The socialism upon which it rests has long been anathema to Americans, a rejection of the traditional values of individual freedom, personal responsibility and self-initiative.

The primary contests and candidates' debates will reveal how far left the party will tilt and whether the American people can be convinced that such an ideological shift represents progress rather than a threat.

The unfavorable view of Trump held by a significant majority of the country could well assist Democrats in their message of change  even radical change. Democrats will bank on discontent with an administration riven by chaos and headed by a president who often seems to have slipped his moorings to reality.

Abrupt, contradictory shifts in policy, combined with a temperamental chief executive waging running combat with the news media in the midst of an ongoing investigation of his campaign, all work to Democrats' benefit in 2020.

It would, however, be a serious strategic error to rely heavily on antipathy toward Trump as the core of the campaign  a lesson learned the hard way by Hillary Clinton. Underestimating Trump, as the Clinton campaign discovered, is risky.

As the first woman to secure a major party presidential nomination, Clinton opened the path for women to compete on an equal footing with their male counterparts. It was no small achievement and will forever be viewed as a seminal moment in American politics, her subsequent badly flawed campaign and loss to Trump notwithstanding.

Any doubts about whether the country is prepared to accept a woman as president have been put to rest. Clinton, after all, won the popular vote rather handily. Intellect, insight and ability have replaced gender as the defining elements in choosing a president.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University. This column first appeared in The Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press.

What others are saying

Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times: "Plenty of women understood intuitively that a misogynist backlash helped Donald Trump win his Electoral College victory. It's why they poured into the streets the day after he was inaugurated, and why theyve led the resistance ever since. It's why there's a record gender divide in voting patterns and a record number of Democratic women in the new Congress. And it's why it's both thrilling and slightly terrifying that the Democratic presidential field is going to have at least three strong, viable female contenders."

Lara M. Brown, The Hill: "What's worse than the implicit patriarchal views of the presidency that often underlie the decisions of the two major political parties is that the three women who have been on presidential tickets also have been blamed for the losses. As I explained in late December 2014, when imploring Hillary Clinton not to run for president, the historical 'fundamentals' were not on the side of the Democrats in 1984 or the Republicans in 2008. ... In short, if ever there were a time for a woman to win the Democratic nomination and oust an embattled incumbent president, 2020 looks to be about as good as this type of nomination and election can get."

Cal Thomas, Tribune Content Agency: "The major media have gone gaga over the number of women newly elected to Congress and those announcing their run for the White House in 2020, with more female candidates likely to follow suit. But media bias  one of many  is revealed in their focus on mostly liberal women with barely a mention, if they are mentioned at all, of women who are conservative. ... Why do major media outlets trumpet the causes of women, gays, African-Americans, Hispanics and other groups who are liberal? Why do the ideas of conservative women never seem to receive that same level of attention? If you have to ask the question, you haven't been paying attention."

What our readers are saying

The first thing the Democrats have to do is figure out which minority group will get the highest priority. That fight should be fun to watch!

 Jim Reid

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar  this is what America looks like. The Democratic Party represents the expanding and diversified America. The Republican Party represents the shrinking white male America. Republicans simply cannot behave honorably or properly represent the United States in the 21st century; they could barely do it in the 20th. It truly is time for the inaptly named Grand Old Party to fold its tent.

 Jeanne Nelson

If the candidate pool gets too large, that will mean President Donald Trump will win again for sure. Democrats have to wise up.

 Marie Reddy

One way to stand out among the large pool of candidates bidding for the presidency in 2020 is to have a clean past. Also, they shouldn't waste their time bashing their opponents, and actually have a plan to solve the important issues.

 Irene Whiteman

To join the conversations about topics on USA TODAY or provide feedback to this newsletter, email jrivera@usatoday.com, comment on Facebook, or use #tellusatoday on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The women of 2020 can focus on agenda, not just being the novelty candidate: Today's talker
Cary Spivak

Watertown Public Opinion

MILWAUKEE- Career criminal William J. Gallagher came to Milwaukee last year with a single goal in mind: get sentenced to one of the Wisconsin prisons he had heard great things about while doing time on the East Coast.

Six months after finishing a 20-year prison stint in New Jersey for attempted homicide, Gallagher in October hopped on an Amtrak train to Chicago, took another train to Milwaukee and went to the downtown Chase Bank "with the sole motivation of going to prison," Charles Roozen, Gallagher's public defender, said during a hearing in December.

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At that hearing, the ex-con and Vietnam War veteran pleaded guilty to attempted robbery of a financial institution. Gallagher, 68, had heard that health care in Wisconsin prisons was superior to other institutions and better than the care offered through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I've never heard anyone rob a bank so they can get to prison so they could get health care," James Griffin, the assistant district attorney prosecuting Gallagher, said at the plea hearing. "It's a sad comment on the situation of health care in America. ... That a guy's got to rob a bank to get health care is unfortunate, to say the least."

During his robbery attempt, Gallagher made it clear that his plan was to get caught. After informing a teller at the Chase Bank on East Wisconsin Avenue that his name was Bill, Gallagher demanded cash in the form of $100 bills and said he had a bomb, according to a criminal complaint against him.

Then, the robbery took a turn for the weird. Gallagher asked the teller to "please call the police," the complaint states. The bewildered teller responded, "Bill, are you serious?" She initially said she didn't want to call the cops, though she complied with the request. Gallagher sat down until the police arrived and arrested him, the complaint says.

Why would a native of New York's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood who has a rap sheet dating back to the 1970s travel to Milwaukee to get arrested for bank robbery?

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"About 48 years ago, I'm sitting with a 72-year-old con," Gallagher said during the plea hearing, according to a transcript of the hearing. "And he had been in just about every prison in the country and he did two bids in Wisconsin. And he said it was the best food, commissary, this, that everything."

Gallagher, who asked for a 10-year sentence, told Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Hansher that he recently talked to fellow inmates at the House of Correction, where he is being held, and learned the old con "was one hundred percent right."

"You ever seen the movie 'Shawshank Redemption?' " Hansher asked, referring to the 1994 prison movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. In the movie, James Whitmore played Brooks Hatlen, a longtime inmate and prison librarian, who committed suicide after his release because he couldn't cut it on the outside.

"That's me. The librarian guy," Gallagher told Hansher. "Institutionalized, couldn't adjust, everything fell apart, he hung himself. I'm not hanging myself but, you know, that's it."

Gallagher said that in July, VA doctors in Brooklyn "took cancer out of my back" and found three lymph nodes in his stomach and a nodule on his lung.

"Things were going pretty good and then everything just fell apart," Gallagher said.

'I've never heard of anything like that'

Experts in dealing with criminals and prison issues on a daily basis were dumbfounded when told of Gallagher's efforts to get back into a Wisconsin prison.

"I've never heard of anything like that," said David Liners, state director of WISDOM, a prison reform group. "There's an issue with people getting institutionalized because the one thing you learn about living in prison is living in prison. Nobody teaches you what to do when you get out."

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Even Baron Walker, who spent nearly 23 years behind bars and whose case was featured in the 2016 documentary "Milwaukee 53206," said Gallagher's situation was unique. Walker was released last year when a judge modified his 60-year sentence on bank robbery charges to time served.

Walker said he had heard of cases where it appeared that longtime prisoners committed crimes in the hope of being sent back to prison.

"I havent spoken to anybody who said they actually did it intentionally to get caught," Walker said.

Release can be scary

Walker said it can be scary for a longtime inmate to be released.

"There is no realistic help given (in prison) to help a person reintegrate into society," Walker said. "You learn about surviving prison and thats it. ...You're told in so many words to forget about the outside."

Walker said when he was released he was ignorant of how to use many of today's basics, such as the internet and smartphones.

Today, he's doing fine on the outside, he said, largely because he has a family support system helping him along.

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Walker, who said he has discussed the prison system with members of Gov. Tony Evers transition team, said prisoners did not praise the Wisconsin system as being superior to others.

The only plus to doing time in Wisconsin is there is less violence and gang activity compared to other prisons. "You dont find people dying," Walker said. He said he never had a violent encounter while behind bars.

Griffin, the prosecutor said during the December hearing, that Gallagher will likely be disappointed if he expects to receive top-notch health care in prison here.

"Our health care at our prisons is (as) lousy as everywhere else," Griffin told Hansher.

'I'm not crazy, your honor'

But Gallagher said it wasn't just the health care motivating him. He said he doesn't want to be a burden to his children. And, he added, he misses the predictable rhythms of prison life.

"I'm not crazy, your honor," Gallagher told Hansher. "I'm 68. I just got out. Every day I'm looking at my watch. Oh, they're in the yard now. ... Instead of leaving, trying to lead a life out here, I'm thinking about what's going on where I just left."

Over Gallagher's objections, Hansher did not order him to prison. Rather, the judge ordered that a presentence investigation be conducted, and scheduled a sentencing hearing for Feb. 13.

Gallagher's plea for prison time puts Roozen, his lawyer, in a difficult position. While attorneys generally seek less time, or try to beat the rap for clients, they must also abide by their client's wishes.

"This is the complete opposite role that I'm used to  or want to  be in," Roozen said.

Contributing: John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Follow Cary Spivak on Twitter: @cspivak

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Real life 'Shawshank Redemption': Ex-con robs Milwaukee bank, hoping to be sent back to prison
Stephen Lee

Pierre Capital Journal

PIERRE  Andrew Bunch, 29, who appeared in state court in Pierre on Monday, Jan. 28, on drug charges, has been linked by law enforcement to a group that included Nathan Thoe, the man from around Pierre shot to death by federal agents on Jan. 13 at a rest area on Interstate 90 in South Dakota.

Bunch was arrested Thursday morning, Jan. 24, in Pierre on an outstanding warrant, according to Police Capt. Bryan Walz.

A small baggie containing a powdery residue was found on his person and field-tested positive for a controlled substance, according to the arrest report provided by Walz.

Bunch also showed evidence of ingesting an illegal drug and of having paraphernalia on him to ingest it, according to Walz.

On Monday, Bunch appeared in court via interactive TV from the Hughes County Jail on a Class 5 felony charge of using an illegal drug, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and on two misdemeanor counts related to marijuana.

State Magistrate Judge Leo Disburg ordered Bunch held with no bond and hes slated to be arraigned on the charges on Feb. 19.

The outstanding warrant Bunch was stopped on is linked to his Dec. 15 arrest in Pierre which led to more than a dozen drug-related charges.

On Jan. 8, he was indicted by a grand jury charging him with six counts, including a Class 4 felony charge of dealing meth which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of one year.

He also is charged with two Class 5 felony counts of possessing and ingesting meth, with a top sentence of five years on each if convicted; and two Class 1 misdemeanors.

Bunch was released in late December on bond conditions including daily testing for drug and alcohol use; by early January, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

In late December, a law enforcement source in southwest Minnesota in a statement of probable cause said a deputy in Fort Pierre said Bunch was part of a group including Thoe and three others who had stolen items and had been dealing drugs. The stolen goods turned up in a Minnesota residence.

A Stanley County deputy in Fort Pierre told the Minnesota law officer to use caution when dealing with them due to their past history of assaults, possession of firearms, (and the) use, possession and distribution of methamphetamine, according to a state court document from Minnesota obtained by the Capital Journal.

FBI spokesman Kevin Smith said in a news release that during an attempted arrest of Thoe on Jan. 13 by officers from more than one federal agency at the rest area near White Lake between Chamberlain and Mitchell, Thoe was shot and killed.

Thoe had been living in the Pierre area for several months, Smith said.

No other information about Thoe or the alleged links to Fort Pierre and Minnesota crimes has been released by the FBI because of the ongoing investigation, Smith said.

The FBI said Thoe, 34, was from Hortonville, Wisconsin, southwest of Green Bay.

Thoes family laid his ashes to rest this past weekend in a service at a Lutheran church. His mother took his body from FBI custody after an autopsy in Sioux Falls.

I think they used excessive force, she said about seeing her sons body with several bullet wounds.
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

Thunderstorms this evening giving way to periods of light rain late. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening giving way to periods of light rain late. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Phuket pollution woes blanked at Asean marine environment confab

PHUKET: Wichan Simachaya, the Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, was in Phuket yesterday (Jan 29) to preside over the meeting the 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong.

tourismpatongpollutionmarineenvironmentnatural-resources

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 30 January 2019, 12:29PM

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

The 20th ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment (AWGCME) was held at the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: PR Dept

On hand to welcome the delegation were Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana along with Pralong Damrongthai, the Director-General of Pollution Control Department.

Leading the meeting was AWGCME Chair Crisanta Rodriquez, Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of the Philippines.

In front of the regions most important figures in combating pollution in the oceans, Governor Phakaphong said, Preserving and caring for the environment along with promoting tourism is to maintain the beauty of natural resources to be sustainable.

Governor Phakaphong also explained to the international consortium, Phuket has launched a 3R project (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) in order to separate waste. This helps to reduce waste from various areas in Phuket.

Moreover, Phuket has launched a coral reef conservation and marine life project to raise peoples awareness of preserving of coral reefs and marine life, he added.

The project is following the initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, he said.

Governor Phakaphong was also proud to point out that Phuket had received two awards under the ASEAN Sustainable Award (ASTA) project.

The ASEAN Sustainable Award (ASTA) is the recognition of ASEAN best sustainable rural or urban tourism products proposed and implemented by public and private stakeholders who have decided to join forces for the benefit of their destination, explains the Asean Tourism website. (See here.)

At the ASEAN Sustainable Tourism Awards presented at the Asean Tourism Forum held in Chiang Mai last year (ATF 2018), the Phuket Natural Experience was one of the eight winners in the Urban Sustainable Products category. (See here.)

Previously, in 2017, The City of Phuket was awarded the Asean Environmentally Sustainable Cities (ESC) 3rd Certificate of Recognition Awards in the small city category for its clean water. (See here.)

The rewards show that Phuket has beautiful resources and nature which is worthy to be a final destination for Thai tourists and foreign tourists, Governor Phakaphong said.

Pollution Control Department Director-General Pralong Damrongthai added, According to studies on marine waste problems in Thailand, 80% of marine waste comes from land. The garbage from marine activities is only 20%. So, waste management from the source is important.

In the past three years, the government has given priority to his issue by focusing on managing 30 million tons of residual waste and 27 million tons of new waste per year, he said.

We have to reduce waste at the source and recycle more waste, Mr Pralong added.

The meeting yesterday will help to achieve results in reducing the problem of marine waste at the regional and global levels, said a report by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department of Thailand.

This includes the preparation of action plans and contact (persons and agencies) of each country that can participate in the management of marine waste problems, said the report.

Not mentioned yesterday was that just a few kilometres further down the Patong Beach last week the beach water in Patong experienced a seaweed bloom, while untreated wastewater continues to flow into Patong Bay at the southern end of the beach. (See here, here, here and here.)

Also not mentioned was that Phukets sole solid waste disposal facility was running out of room at its landfills while waiting for years for the funds to expand the facilitys incinerator capacity. (See here.)
Lithuanian woman saved from jump at Phuket airport

PHUKET: A Lithuanian woman was safely recovered from the ledge of the flyover ramp leading to the departures drop-off point at Phuket International Airport today (Jan 30).

tourismpolice

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Wednesday 30 January 2019, 06:46PM

The woman was safely brought down from the ledge. Photo: Phuket airport staff

Fearful that the woman would jump, a local female tour guide and a luggage delivery driver intervened, and safely brought the woman down from the ledge.

The woman was seen standing on the ledge of the ramp, which stands about three-storeys high, at about 2:20pm.

Seeing the woman in distress local tour guide Amonrat Aunkai approached her and started talking to her as a distraction.

While Ms Amonrat was talking away from the woman, luggage delivery driver Apichat Intharaksa ran up from behind and pulled the woman down to safety.

Right now, the woman is safe and with a medical team at the airport, Capt Eakkachai Siri of the Phuket Tourist Police told The Phuket News late this afternoon.

The woman was confirmed as a Lithuanian national*, age 21.

The woman explained that she had missed her departure flight SU275 at 11:55am, Capt Eakkachai explained.

Flight SU275 is a scheduled Aeroflot flight from Phuket to Moscow.

The woman contacted her airline to change her ticket, but they refused to change it because they said her ticket was bought low cost, Capt Eakkachai said.

The airline asked her to book new flight, but she couldnt afford it. She does not have money enough. This caused her to become overwhelmed with stress, he added.

Tourist Police and Tourist Assistance Center are continuing to provide assistance, said a statement from the management at Phuket International Airport.

The woman is suffering from depression and undergoing treatment, and she has been having problems with her boyfriend as well, the statement said.

Also, the airport management commended the actions by Ms Amonrat and Mr Apichat in bringing the Lituanian woman down to safety.

Phuket Airport will contact both of them to express our gratitude for their actions, the statement said.

*The Phuket News has confirmed the woman's name and nationality by a copy of her passport, but is withholding her name due to senstivity to her predicament.
HM The King steps in with support for boy, 7, savaged by dogs

PHUKET: His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun will cover all medical costs for D-Max, the 7-year-old boy savaged by stray dogs on Sunday, and has ordered for him to be cared for by royal command, Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana announced today (Jan 30).

animalshealth

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 30 January 2019, 08:35PM

An aggressive dog, shot with a tranquiliser dart, is taken nito care by DLD officials at Tha Chatchai yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

An aggressive dog is shot with a tranquiliser dart at Tha Chatchai yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

A DLD official eyes a dog to be caught at Tha Chatchai yesterday (Jan 29). Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

The royal order was issued on Monday (Jan 28), Governor Phakaphong said during another visit to provide support forYuenyong "D Max" Chairab and to check on the boys recovery progress.

D Max was attacked by four stray dogs on the north side of the bridges off the island, in Phang Nga Province, at about 10am while he was collecting shells with his brother and a friend. (See story here.)

The attack left D Max with gruesome injuries, explained Dr Chalermpong Sukontapol, Director of Vachira Phuket Hospital, where D Max is receiving medical care.

D Max had over 100 wounds on his arms, legs, head and ears, Dr Chalermpong said.

The boys left ear was nearly ripped from his head.

While D Max was being transferred from Takua Thung Hospital (in Phang Nga) to Vachira Hospital (in Phuket Town), he was in shock due to blood loss, Dr Chalermpong explained.

When he arrived at Vachira Hospital, D Max was taken into the intensive-care unit (ICU) for blood transfusions, to receive medications and for surgery, he said.

His wounds were contaminated by mud, soil and sand, so it took many hours to clean the wounds and to have the required surgery performed, he added.

Dr Chalermpong noted that D Maxs condition was already improving on Monday(Jan 28).

He could breathe on his own, and he could start to eat soft foods on his own, he said.

By Tuesday (yesterday), he had improved further and was able to help himself more, and the wounds that had been treated, especially the ear, were healing well, he added.

Today, we will bring D Max to the operating room again to examine the wounds closely. We are still watch for infection and providing him with full medication to prevent bacteria and other complications that may cause an infection in the blood, Dr Chalermpong added.

Meanwhile, the Phuket office of the Department of Livestock Development (DLD) along with staffers from the Soi Dog Foundation yesterday went to the village at Tha Chatchai on the south side of the bridges off Phuket to inspect the stray dogs there.

We are starting here because this is the area closest to where D Max was attacked, Phuket DLD Acting Chief Manat Thepparat told The Phuket News.

The areas inspected included around Tha Chatchai Temple, the Tha Chatchai Police Station and the areas under the Thao Thepkrasattri Bridge (leading off Phuket) and under the Thao Srisoonthorn Bridge (leading onto the island).

During the inspection we found dogs all over the place. Most of them were strays. Some dogs allowed us to catch them and vaccinate them, but some dogs ran away. In total 24 dogs were vaccinated, Mr Manat said.

We found three aggressive dogs, which we shot with tranquiliser darts, but two of the dogs ran off and we could not find where they went before they asleep, he added.

We took the one aggressive dog that we caught, which will be sterilised and vaccinated for rabies. This dog will be taken to the Phuket Stray Dog Shelter in Thalang, which currently holds around 700 dogs, he said.

There are too many dogs at this shelter, Mr Manat added,

DLD officers will continue to look for the two aggressive dogs that eluded capture, he noted.

Mr Manat urged people to report any aggressive dogs in their area by calling the DLD.

If you see any dog acting aggressively or want a dog vaccinated for rabies, please call us at 076-216934 and give us the details of where to find the dog, Mr Manat said.

Then we can come and vaccinate them, or remove them, he added.
Govt names May 6 as holiday

THAILAND: The government has announced May 6, the final day of His Majesty the Kings three-day coronation, as a special national holiday.

politicsculture

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 30 January 2019, 08:47AM

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn arrives on Saturday (Jan 26) at Government House to chair a meeting overseeing arrangements for His Majesty the Kings coronation. On hand to welcome the princess were Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and other key government figures. (Photo courtesy Government House)

That is the day the King will receive foreign diplomats and greet his people, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday (Jan 29).

A day off for both state and private sectors will ensure all events go smoothly, he said.

The King will pay respects to deities on May 2, followed by a ritual to carry phra suphannabap, a golden sheet with his name inscribed, to a palace on May 3.

The coronation will take place on the morning of May 4, a Saturday, before the King performs a liap phranakhon ceremony, a short trip arranged in a traditional procession in parts of Bangkok, the following day.

Though the most important events are held in this period, preparations for the ceremony will begin from early April and a post-coronation ceremony is also scheduled in May, Gen Prayut said.

The prime minister himself will preside over a ritual to have monks bless water collected from 108 sacred sources across the country, to be held between April 18 and 19 at Wat Suthat Thepphawararam in the capital.

Read original story here.
Activists back cops in child helmet row

BANGKOK: Road safety activists dished out free helmets for children Tuesday following social media debate over whether a police officer was right to charge a father whose three-year-old daughter failed to wear a helmet while on his motorcycle.

transportaccidentsculturepoliceSafety

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 30 January 2019, 09:05AM

Children without helmets are a common sight, especially on the morning trips to school. There are plenty of people who excuse or support it. Photo: Bangkok Post

Tairjing Siripanich, secretary-general of the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation, led a group of road accident victims to Bang Khun Non police to give moral support to officers who have faced criticism for insisting small children must wear helmets. They also donated some helmets for the officers to give away to children in the area.

Dr Tairjing said people falsely believe that small children do not have to wear helmets, but children die every day in motorcycle accidents while not wearing helmets.

Superintendent Samrerng Amphanthong said the police were just doing their job. According to the law, only monks and priests are exempt from wearing helmets.

Last week, Thais engaged in fierce debate online after seeing a video clip posted by Pornpipat Jaisai of his argument with a police officer.

He later apologised and said he never knew children must wear helmets and thought the officers were persecuting him.

Wittaya Chadbanchachai, director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre and Khon Kaen Hospital Trauma and Critical Care Centre, said 2,500 Thais aged under 15 die every year from motorcycle accidents.

Meanwhile, Programme Director of Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) Kelly Larson said last week she had seen progress in efforts to reduce deaths and injuries from road accidents, largely due to more people wearing helmets.

We follow these campaigns with the help of Royal Thai Police in toughening enforcement on traffic law, and we really do see results, she said, referring to figures from Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit, which shows the percentage of motorcyclists wearing helmets in Bangkok has increased from 56% in July 2015 to 65% in June 2018.

Read full story here.
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Josie Queary (left) and Erin Moran, members of the Lawrence Tech team, accept second place at the ASHRAE Winter Conference and Expo.
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U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 25, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Eric Thayer
President Donald Trump announces a deal to temporarily reopen the government, Friday, Jan. 25, from the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.
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Two-thirds of the continental United States will be a frozen ice box Tuesday, as the so-called polar vortex of frigid arctic air spins across the U.S. Midwest, clips the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley and pushes on into New England.

And the sub-zero cold and bitter winds will stick around for a couple of days, possibly bringing dozens of record lows with a life-threatening freeze before dissipating by the weekend, the National Weather Service reported (NWS).

The polar vortex is a mass of freezing air that normally spins around the North Pole, but has slipped southward and swirled into the United States, forecasters said.

The hardest-hit area will be the Midwest, where wind chill could bring temperatures as low as -50 F (-46 Celsius) in the Chicago area by Tuesday evening, the NWS reported. One-to-two feet of snow was forecast in Wisconsin, and six inches in Illinois.

Even Alabama and Mississippi could see snow, the service added.

"This arctic air dumps out of Canada and will affect us for days," said Richard Bann, a forecaster with the NWS's Weather Prediction Center in College Park Maryland.

"We'll even get some snow this afternoon in the (Washington) D.C. area," he said. "And because it's so cold, there won't be much of a warm-up Wednesday. You'll have to wait for the weekend, before you see any higher temperatures."

Blizzard conditions were predicted across parts of the western Ohio Valley and snow was expected through Wednesday from the Great Lakes region into New England.

States of emergency have been declared from Wisconsin and Michigan, down to Alabama and Mississippi.

Read also: New study shows ties between climate change and suicide risk

In Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker said wind chill could drive temperatures to -55 degrees Fahrenheit in northern parts of the state on Tuesday evening, a level that can cause frostbite in a matter of minutes.

"This is a potentially historic winter storm that will bring extreme cold to our state and all Illinoisans must prepare," Pritzker said in a written statement released by his office.

Parts of north and central Georgia are expecting about 2 inches of snow or more in the coming days, along with freezing rain and ice-slicked highways. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp shut down government offices in 35 counties Tuesday, and schools across swaths of the state are also closed.

Air traffic in the region is affected, with more than 1,200 flights canceled and as many delayed, the flight tracking site FlightAware.com reported early Tuesday.

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc said it would waive flight change fees for passengers affected by the winter weather in Chicago, Detroit and areas of the Upper Midwest. (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Maria Caspani and Gina Cherelus in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Baggage fees recently announced by low-cost Indonesian carriers such as Lion Air and Citilink would potentially significantly lower the performance of the tourism sector, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said on Wednesday.

"[The fees] will definitely decrease tourism, as simple as that; [it's called] price elasticity -- the high price will lower the demand; it's a definite thing," said Arief in Jakarta as quoted by Antara.

Arief said he was disappointed that low-cost carriers would start charging baggage fees as they directly affected the tourism sector.

"The decline [caused by the policy] has been quite drastic. [Flights] from Riau, for example, had dropped by 40 percent. [Such an impact] should be understood."

Arief proposed that the fees be charged more carefully.

Read also: Minister mulls demanding that airlines take back new baggage rules

"I propose that if [the fee] is to be increased by a certain percentage, it shouldn't be [implemented] hastily because of elasticity."

The decreasing number of passengers, he said, would also affect the airlines directly and they "would face the risk of lower demand".

The cost of air transportation reportedly makes up 30 to 40 percent of an individual's total travel spending.

If the cost of flights increases, the minister said, travelers "will potentially cancel their trips".

However Arief said that he would not revise the target for tourist arrivals this year despite the aforementioned challenge. "I do not dare to correct the target."

Rules for baggage services are included in the Transportation Ministerial Regulation No. 185/2015 on economy class passenger service standards for scheduled domestic commercial air transportation. According to article 22C, low-cost carriers are allowed to apply baggage fees.

Citilink, for instance, announced it would start charging baggage fees of Rp 9,000 (less than US$1) to Rp 35,000 per kilogram on Feb. 8. (kes)
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has expressed his opposition to the East Nusa Tenggara administrations plan to temporarily close Komodo National Park to boost the population of the vulnerable giant lizard species, calling it "irrelevant".

Closing Komodo National Park is irrelevant, Arief said on Tuesday at the Soesilo Soedarman hall of the Sapta Pesona building in Central Jakarta, as quoted by tempo.co.

Arief said that the planned closure would cause trouble for travel agencies, stressing that securing travel packages to the park was more important.

He added that his opinion was in line with that of Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who he claimed had also referred to the planned closure as "irrelevant".

East Nusa Tenggara Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat recently announced a plan to close the popular Komodo National Park for a year, to increase the population of Komodo dragons and deer, the lizards' natural prey animal. Viktor said the measure was necessary to protect the habitat of the vulnerable species.

Read also: Komodo Park temporary shutdown plan meets resistance

According to Arief, the Environment and Forestry Ministry would be holding a meeting to discuss "the Komodo National Park polemic".

There is already an invitation [to the meeting] from the Environment and Forestry Ministry, he said. (mut)
An Australian university is testing new materials designed to lessen the impact of shark bites, researchers said yesterday, in a project aimed at reducing fatalities and easing the nerves of swimmers.

Researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide have received government funding to test a new neoprene  a synthetic rubber commonly used in wetsuits  against the force of a bite from several species, including the great white shark.

The new material aims to reduce cuts and punctures from a shark attack, thus lessening blood loss for victims.

Read also: Seven ways to prepare for your first surfing experience

We are cognisant that it will not prevent all injuries as it will not prevent fractures or crushing injuries, associate professor Charlie Huveneers told AFP.

However, most shark-bite fatalities are due to blood loss, and the ability to reduce such blood loss along with rapid emergency responses will hopefully decrease fatalities and injuries due to shark bites.
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Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 20:37 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0c6006 1 Politics #Elections,elections,politicians,vlog,vloggers,#vlog,social-media,#politics,2019-elections,legislative-candidates,#2019PresidentialElection,Indonesian-politics,Tsamara-Amany Free

Hi guys, 22-year-old legislative candidate Tsamara Amany says in the opening to the latest video on her Instagram account. I get a lot of questions through direct messages or comments on my photos but sometimes I dont have enough time to answer them. Now, those of you who have questions, go ahead and write them below and Ill answer the 10 best questions in my next vlog.

Tsamara, an executive in the newcomer Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), is only one out of over 900 legislative candidates aged 21 to 35 who are set to compete for seats at the House of Representatives in the upcoming general election.

With their tech savvy and awareness of trends, these young politicos seem poised to grasp the apparent holy grail of Indonesian politics: the millennial vote.

Voters aged 17 to 35 make up nearly half of the total electorate, and parties and politicians have accordingly set their sights on this demographic.

But questions remain as to whether they are aiming for the right target.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has often appealed to the younger crowd by donning casual clothing and sneakers and attending music festivals, while campaign team members have sought to portray Jokowis 75-year-old running mate and Muslim cleric Maruf Amin as a millennial at heart.

Meanwhile, Gerindra Party chairman and former general Prabowo Subianto has been striving to project a more laid-back public persona to attract young voters, with his campaign team trumpeting the merits of the New Prabowo. Running mate Sandiaga Uno, on the other hand, needs no help in that department, with multiple polls showing that young people are drawn to his image as a successful businessman.

Indonesian media expert at the Australian National University (ANU), Ross Tapsell, however, believes that the prevailing wisdom about millennial voters betrays a blinkered view.

The usual depiction of a millennial is someone who is inner city, using Go-Food, on Instagram, active about politics in social media. In fact thats really only a small proportion of what a lot of people aged between 17 and 35 are actually doing in this election, he said.

Tapsell cited 2018 research from the ANU that found that fewer than 10 percent of millennials living in Greater Jakarta had a university degree and that two-thirds of millennial-aged women in metropolitan regions were stay-at-home mothers.

Indonesia often depicts millennials as middle- or upper-income and they ignore the poorer millennials, he said at an event about millennial voters held by the Australian Embassy in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

Tsamara, who was also present at the event, acknowledged Tapsells point and said this was one of the reasons why she did not rely solely on social media to campaign.

She said that besides campaigning through vlogs and tweets, she had also gone door-to-door in over 100 locations in her district and also held regular face-to-face discussions targeted at millennials with nonpolitical themes such as the digital economy and the movie industry.

I think social media is just a tool for us to be able to engage millennials in offline settings, she said. The offline meetings also allow me to interact with people of different political persuasions that I might not be able to reach out to on social media.

Despite his own prolific vlogging, Faldo Maldini, the 28-year-old deputy secretary-general of the National Mandate Party (PAN), said that he did not differentiate between millennial voters and those of other generations.

I also know that there is no such thing as a social media electoral district, he said. But social media can help amplify things.

Faldo, who is running for a House seat in West Javas fifth electoral district, said that he, too, placed a lot of focus on door-to-door campaigning and had made 280 visits to his district in the past few months.

Social media does help us save on budgeting as we dont need to spend as much on billboards and pamphlets, he said. Ive also gotten a lot of support from people outside my district who want to help.

Despite the young politicians apparent awareness of the nuances of the millennial vote, Tapsell said that political parties as a whole seemed to be less clear on who they were targeting.

Its lazy to talk about a group of people as being one voting bloc," he said. I think political parties talk about millennials without thinking much about what that means. (ipa)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) South Tangerang  Wed, January 30, 2019 12:24 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0a2d63 1 City environment,South-Tangerang,mayor,tree-planting,tree,environmental-issues,environmentalist Free

In an attempt to promote environmentalism, South Tangerang Mayor Airin Rachmi Diany has recommended reviving the "one couple, one tree" program for all future brides and grooms.

The program, which the mayor said was initiated in 2012-2013, calls for each soon-to-be married couples to plant a tree at their house.

We have done this [the program] before. We hope [all] future brides and grooms will plant one tree, she said on Tuesday, as quoted by tempo.co. Now [the program] is not running anymore, she said.

Airin said that she would cooperate with the South Tangerang Religious Affairs Office to revive the program.

She expressed the hope that each couple planning to wed would willingly participate in the program.

The head of the South Tangerang Religious Affairs Office, Abdul Rojak, said he supported the program.

I strongly agree with the Mayor's recommendation, he said. (sau/iwa)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 19:02 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0bd9c4 1 City urban-development,inequality,jusuf-kalla,anies-baswedan Free

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has acknowledged that there is disparity between the capitals downtown areas and suburbia.

The disparity pointed out by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who said the main thoroughfare Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta, looked like Singapore, as opposed to areas in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, that looked like Bangladesh.

It isnt criticism, its fact, he told reporters at City Hall on Monday.

Anies said it reflected how the administration had long been unable to properly arrange spatial planning the city.

The fact is that we havent implemented spatial planning with serious effort, with clear targets. The result is inequality, he said.

Jakarta's spatial planning does not take into account the potential impacts, such as disparities, he added.

The governor mentioned as examples Thamrin City and Grand Indonesia shopping mall in Central Jakarta, which were once settlement areas.

He also pointed out that apartment construction in Jakarta required a plot of land measuring at least 4,000 square meters, which prompted developers to build them in strategic areas.

If the requirement was lowered, he said, apartment buildings could be built everywhere, either for people in the lower-middle or upper-middle income bracket.

Earlier in the day, the Vice President and the governor observed the citys aerial view together. The Vice President said there seemed to be a gap between the citys urban and suburban areas.

In Jakarta, if we are on Jl. Thamrin, it is as though we are in Singapore. But if we are behind [Jl. Thamrin], Tanjung Priok is like Bangladesh, Kalla said on Monday as quoted by tempo.co. (sau)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 10:21 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09dbc8 1 City Python,West-Jakarta,rainy-season Free

The peak of the rainy season has come with its surprises. Pythons have reportedly appeared, carried by floodwaters to residential areas.

A West Jakarta water management worker found a python inside a water channel in the Citra 5 housing complex in Kalideres, West Jakarta, on Tuesday at 8 a.m.

I was busy cutting grass when suddenly a python came out and almost bit my face, he said, kompas.com reported

The 4-meter, 8-kilogram python appeared when Amsir and his fellow workers were cleaning up the channel area.

When the python made a move, Amsir had no choice but to parry it with a sickle in his hand. The sickle injured the python.

We caught the snake and put it in a sack, he added.

Previously on Jan. 27, a python also made a surprise appearance in a housing complex in Kaliabang, Bekasi, West Java. The python, which was purportedly carried there by floodwaters, bit homeowner Maman, who was trying to catch it. (vla)






2019 Alltech survey estimates world feed production at 1.103 billion tonnes

The recently released 2019 Alltech Global Feed Survey estimates that international feed tonnage has increased by a strong 3% to 1.103 billion tonnes of feed produced in 2018, exceeding one billion tonnes for the third consecutive year.

The eighth edition of the annual survey includes data from 144 countries and nearly 30,000 feed mills. The feed industry has seen 14.6 percent growth over the past five years, equating to an average of 2.76% per annum. As the population grows, so does the middle class, which is well reflected in an increase in overall protein consumption.



The top eight countries are China, followed by the US, Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, Spain and Turkey. Together, they produce 55% of the world's feed production and contain 59% of the world's feed mills, and they can be viewed as an indicator of the trends in agriculture. Predominant growth came from the layer, broiler and dairy feed sectors.



"Alltech works together with feed mills, industry and government entities around the world to compile data and insights to provide an assessment of feed production each year," said Dr. Mark Lyons, president and CEO of Alltech. "We are proud to present the eighth annual Alltech Global Feed Survey and share the results publicly to demonstrate the importance of the animal feed industry as we strive to provide for a planet of plenty."



The feed survey assesses compound feed production and prices through information collected by Alltech's global sales team and in partnership with local feed associations in the last quarter of 2018. It is an estimate and is intended to serve as an information resource for policymakers, decision-makers and industry stakeholders.



Regional results from 2019 Alltech Global Feed Survey



Asia-Pacific: The region is home to several of the top 10 feed-producing countries, including China, India and Japan, and accounted for more than 36 percent of the world's feed tonnage. China maintained status as the top feed-producing country in the world with 187.89 million tonnes, with 10 million tonnes more than the US. Increased production for Asia-Pacific came from India with 13% due to growth in dairy, layer and broiler feeds. Other countries that demonstrated higher growth variance included Pakistan, Myanmar and Laos. Southeast Asia's feed production represented over 20% of the Asia-Pacific region's feed production, with Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand contributing to 93% of Southeast Asia's feed production.



Europe: The region saw an overall growth of about 4% over last year, making it the second-fastest-growing region in the survey, resulting from feed production increases in layer (7%), broiler (5%), aquaculture (5%), dairy (4%) and pig (3%). Beef was the only primary protein species to decline, though it was less than 1%.



Much of the region's growth can be attributed to smaller countries, such as Turkmenistan, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which all saw increases in overall production estimates of 20% or more. Additionally, larger-producing countries like Russia, Spain and Turkey saw strong increases in feed production estimates, which added to the overall production growth.



North America: North America saw steady growth of 2% over last year due to an increase in major species, with beef and broilers leading the growth at 3% each. The US remained the second-largest feed-producing country globally, behind China. Feed prices in North America are the lowest globally across all species, and with the availability of land, water and other resources, the region is expected to remain a primary contributor to feed production.



Latin America: As a region, Latin America was relatively stagnant this year. Brazil remained the leader in feed production for the region and third overall globally. Brazil, Mexico and Argentina continue to produce the majority of feed in Latin America, with 76% of regional feed production. Brazil stayed flat, while Mexico and Argentina saw growth of 1% and 4%, respectively. Colombia's feed production grew by approximately 8%, primarily due to an increase in pork and egg production. Several countries saw a decline in feed production, such as Venezuela (-27%), El Salvador (-16%) and Chile (-8%).



Africa: The region continued strong growth with a 5% increase in overall feed production. No country in the region saw a decline. Morocco demonstrated strong growth across dairy, beef, layers, broilers and turkeys. The areas that declined for feed production were equine (-4%) and pets (-14%). These two areas represent a very small proportion of Africa's overall production, so the impact is very minimal. Most of the major animal production species in ruminant and poultry contributed to the overall growth of the region



Notable species results from 2019 Alltech Global Feed Survey



In the poultry industry, major growth areas for layer feed included Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. In Europe, Poland and Uzbekistan, each saw growth of around 200,000 tonnes. Latin America had increases in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Mexico. In the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea, India and Indonesia all saw growth of several hundred tonnes. North America experienced overall growth of 2%, in which both the US and Canada saw increased production. Africa saw a small decrease in layer production due to declines in both Egypt and Seychelles.



Globally, broiler production increased by approximately 3% in 2018. There was growth in all regions, except for Latin America, in which a very small decline was observed. Africa showed 9% growth, demonstrating an overall trend that as populations grow and become wealthier, interest in protein - particularly in palatable chicken - does as well.



Pig feed production saw an increase of nearly 1% in 2018. The primary producing region for pig feed is Asia-Pacific, but this was also the only region that saw a decline in pig feed production as Mongolia, Vietnam, China, New Zealand and Japan experienced decreases. From a tonnage standpoint, Europe saw the largest growth at approximately 2.2 million tonnes. Russia and Spain accounted for the majority, while Finland, Denmark, France and Poland also contributed. Latin America saw the greatest growth in pig feed as a percentage at 5%, with the largest growth seen in Mexico and Argentina.



Global dairy feed production saw growth in North American, Europe and Africa, while Latin America remained flat. Europe, a global leader in dairy production, grew on average by approximately 4%. The largest increase was in Turkey with 10%, while Ireland, Russia and the UK also contributed to the region's growth. Africa's growth was primarily due to a significant increase in both Morocco and Nigeria.



North America has always led beef feed production and continues to do so with an increase of 3% in 2018. Europe saw a small decline at barely 1% and remained in second place. Latin America saw strong growth of approximately 8%, with Mexico and Argentina as the primary contributors. As a result, the Latin American region has taken third place in beef feed production, moving ahead of the Asia-Pacific region. China and Australia both saw growth in the Asia-Pacific region but could not offset the overall decline in countries such as Bangladesh, Mongolia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Pakistan.



Overall, aquaculture feeds showed growth of 4% over last year. This was primarily attributed to strong increases in the Asia-Pacific and European regions. The traditional Asia-Pacific leaders in aquaculture, Vietnam, India and Indonesia, combined for an additional 1.58 million tonnes of feed in the region. China, the region's leader, also saw an increase of 1% over last year. The primary European leaders either experienced strong growth or remained relatively flat. Those that did grow included Norway and Turkey, both at 7%, and Spain at a substantial 31%. The other regions remained relatively flat or saw only a 1% increase or decrease in feed production, demonstrating the continuity of the industry as a whole.



To access more data and insights from the 2019 Alltech Global Feed Survey, including the results booklet, an interactive global map and a pre-recorded video presentation of the results by Dr. Mark Lyons, visit alltechfeedsurvey.com.



- Alltech
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 15:04 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0ab4bd 4 Business woods,certification,Environment-and-Forestry-Ministry Free

The Environment and Forestry Ministry is planning to issue 1,000 wood legality certificates this year to support the revival of the countrys wood industry.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar stressed that the revival of the wood industry should be supported by an adequate supply of high-quality raw materials and quality product designs.

She said the supply chain of the raw materials should be simplified to ensure that prices are competitive in the global market.

Upstream industry should work together [with downstream industry]," Siti said as quoted by kontan.co.id on Tuesday.

"There should be synergy in managing resources. We should also have adequate knowledge and information, particularly information about the market."

The minister expressed appreciation for business players who were committed to using legal types of wood, saying it was important because it allowed end-products to penetrate the international market.

Siti said the wood industrys commitment to using legal raw materials was recognized by the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For the first time in the last 15 years, the UN and the FAO recognize that Indonesian forests are managed well and they also recognized that the deforestation rate is declining, she said when launching an event on the national wood industry in Kendal regency, Central Java, recently. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 17:08 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0b5e3d 4 Business baggage-fee,cancellation,Budi-Karya-Sumadi Free

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said on Wednesday that the ministry was considering to "cancel" a more restrictive baggage policy introduced recently by several low-cost carriers for passengers.

Since Jan. 22, Lion Air and its subsidiary Wings Air no longer include a baggage allowance of 20 kilograms or 10 kg per passenger, respectively, with every ticket purchased. Each passenger is now allowed to bring one piece of cabin baggage weighing a maximum of 7 kg and with dimensions not exceeding 40 x 30 x 20 centimeters.

Checked baggage is subject to additional fees.

Citilink, a subsidiary of flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, has announced a plan to introduce a similar policy next month.

We will assure that the [financial] burden for [passengers] is lighter. There are several ways, starting from canceling the policy to providing discounts, Budi said in Jakarta on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

He said the ministry had listened to complaints from airline customers who claimed they were overcharged by airlines.

The point is that everything is based on the law. We will deregulate the law if people are suddenly overburdened, he said, adding that he would meet with stakeholders to discuss the issue and would make a decision within three or four days.

House of Representatives Commission V, which oversees transportation, had called on the government to delay the implementation of airlines policy to charge baggage fees.

Commission V deputy chairman Sigit Susiantomo said the government needed to study the matter to consider the affordability of airfares and the sustainability of airline business operations. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 11:16 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09ff25 1 City dengue,dengue-fever,fogging,mosquito,South-Jakarta,jumantik Free

Many owners of big and luxurious houses in South Jakarta refused to allow workers to spray insecticide with fogging machines, Mayor Marullah Matali has said, although the municipality has recorded a spike of dengue fever cases.

[Some] residents do not allow workers to enter their houses, Marullah told kompas.com on Tuesday.

He said he had instructed the mosquito larvae controllers to encourage the home owners to check crucial spots by themselves to eradicate mosquitoes.

[Residents] have to fill in a form stating that spots on their properties that may be larvae nest have been checked, he added.

According to the Jakarta Health Agency, South Jakarta recorded the highest number of dengue fever cases in the capital, with the district of Jagakarsa accounting for most incidents. As of Sunday, there were 231 cases in the municipality, compared to 169 cases in East Jakarta and 153 in West Jakarta.

Marullah said he had communicated with the Jakarta Food Security, Marine and Agriculture Agency to distribute certain plants to residents believed to be able to repel mosquitoes, such as lavender and zodia. (fac)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 14:53 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0a9b7d 1 Politics fiction,Rocky,blasphemy,lecturer,RockyGerung Free

The Jakarta Police will question philosophy lecturer and government critic Rocky Gerung on Thursday over a remark he made last year, in which he referred to holy books as works of fiction.

Rocky, who once taught philosophy at the University of Indonesia, made a case during a TV talk show last year that fiksi (fiction), particularly in political parlance, was now considered a pejorative term in Indonesia, while it was in fact an important tool for stimulating the imagination.

If I use the notion that fiction activates the imagination, then holy books are [works of] fiction, because they are not yet conclusive [...]. The function of fiction is to activate the imagination, to encourage us to be more imaginative. And now that word is being slain by politicians, he said.

His remark has sparked controversy among a public that was still reeling from controversy surrounding former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who was accused of and later convicted of blasphemy for a remark about a Quranic verse.

In colloquial Indonesian, the word fiksi rarely refers to literature or the power of storytelling and is often associated with lies and deceit. His critics argued that likening holy books to fiction was, therefore, blasphemous.

Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono confirmed on Wednesday that Rocky had been summonsed for questioning.

[This is] an invitation for clarification over a report made by Jack Boyd, Argo told The Jakarta Post. He was referring to Jack Boyd Lapian, secretary-general of the Cyber Indonesia community organization, which reported Rocky for blasphemy last year.

Democratic Party deputy secretary-general Rachland Nashidik claimed that Jack was a hard-line supporter of President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

Rocky, once known as a philosopher and public intellectual, is now considered one of the staunchest critics of the Jokowi administration.

Should police charge Rocky with blasphemy, he would add to the list of antigovernment figures facing a similar fate to Ahok, who completed his jail sentence last week.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Semarang  Wed, January 30 2019

The administration of Central Java is deliberating a draft bylaw aimed at protecting local fishermen by providing access to technology and financial assistance to increase catches.



Without elaborating on the details of the draft, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo said the bylaw would cover aspects that would empower fishermen to improve their livelihoods.



We must improve the lives of fishermen. They should not just go out to sea to hunt fish. We must ensure that they can catch fish [efficiently], he said in Semarang, Central Java, on Monday.



Ganjar said fishermen running small-scale operations needed to be equipped with the right technology and additional skills, including in marketing, to boost their productivity and eventually their income.



Central Java is home to some 53,000 fishermen, most of whom work with little capital. A fisherman req...
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 08:02 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09250c 4 Business fishery-products,Indonesia,Japan,import-duties Free

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti is calling on the Japanese government to remove import tariffs from Indonesian fishery products.

Susi made the request when meeting with Japanese businesspeople at the ministry in Jakarta on Tuesday.

She said Indonesian fishery products faced 7 percent import tariffs to enter the Japanese market, even though Japan was not levying any tariffs on Vietnamese or Thai fishery products.

It is not only for Indonesian business players, but it is also for Japanese companies, Susi said as quoted by kompas.com, adding that the quality of Indonesias fishery products were much better than those of the two countries she mentioned.

She added that the quality of Indonesias tuna was much better because Indonesia has a larger maritime territory than either Thailand or Vietnam.

Susi believed the removal of tariffs from Indonesian fish products would help improve the business climate in the fishery sector both in Japan and Indonesia and also open more investment opportunities for Japanese companies in Indonesia.

However, Susi said she was not offering anything in exchange for Japan removing the tariffs, except the potential for investment in Indonesia. The point is that the free tariff would open more business opportunities both in Indonesia and in Japan, she said.

The meeting between officials of the ministry and Japanese businesspeople, who are part of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), was held to discuss business opportunities in the fishery sector.

This forum was held to develop business potentials for both Indonesian and Japanese business communities, Susi said. (bbn)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 16:24 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0b1f51 1 Politics 212-Alumni,rally,Prabowo-Subianto-Sandiaga-Uno,2019-presidential-election,#2019PresidentialElection Free

The Press Council has declared that the controversial tabloid Indonesia Barokah and all of its contents are not journalistic products and told those who felt hurt by it to not use the Press Law for any lawsuits.

The council made the statement on Tuesday after it reviewed the tabloid and its contents.

The council has decided that Indonesia Barokah does not meet the requirements to be a press company as stipulated by the 1999 Press Law, Press Council regulations and the journalism code of ethics, said Press Council chairman Yosep Adi Prasetyo.

The Press Council was responding to a complaint filed by the Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno presidential campaign that claimed the contents of the tabloid discredited the pair and demanded the council punish the publisher.

Indonesia Barokah has been distributed at mosques and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) in dozens of cities and regencies in the country for more than two weeks. The front page of the tabloid featured an article questioning the motives behind December's 212 Alumni Rally, a gathering of conservative Muslims held to commemorate a string of sectarian rallies that targeted former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

The council also said it had tried to find the address listed in the tabloid and invited the tabloids owner through email to visit the councils office, but received no response.
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Linkedin Dan Martin (Agence France-Presse) Shanghai, China  Wed, January 30, 2019 11:33 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0a0fc7 2 Business #China,#USA,US,charge,Huawei Free

Fraud, obstruction of justice and cloak-and-dagger trade theft -- a US rap sheet alleging systematic skullduggery by Chinese telecom giant Huawei has deepened the company's problems just as it sought to win back global trust.

The US Justice Department this week unveiled a raft of charges against Huawei which could see its Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou extradited to the United States and threaten its business worldwide.

Meng's father -- 74-year-old Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei -- had spearheaded a rare recent charm offensive by the famously secretive company to salvage its reputation amid mounting espionage concerns.

But that may be an uphill climb following the US allegations of brazen criminality at Huawei's highest levels.

In a case centring on Meng, Huawei is charged with violating US and UN prohibitions on trading with Iran.

A separate case details a sustained effort to steal technology from US telecom operator T-Mobile, plus the damaging allegation that Huawei rewarded staff for stealing competitors' technology secrets.

None of the charges deal with deeper US concerns that Huawei's cheap equipment -- used in telecommunications infrastructure across the globe -- is a Trojan horse for potential Chinese state spying and sabotage.

Gathering clouds

But the Justice Department's move strengthens Washington's leverage in isolating the company, said Paul Triolo, a global tech-policy expert with Eurasia Group.

"The effort seems designed to make the case to allies... that while there is no smoking gun on cybersecurity, there are a host of other business practice, cultural, and legal issues clouding the company's future," he said.

The main case levels 13 charges against Huawei Technologies, Meng -- who faces an extradition hearing in Canada on March 6 -- and two affiliates over Iran sanctions violations.

The broader allegations in the case, filed in federal court in New York, were already known.

But the charges detail efforts by Huawei and its subsidiaries to trick financial institutions into sanctions-busting activity.

They say Meng "repeatedly lied" to bankers and that Huawei obstructed justice by destroying evidence and putting witnesses beyond the reach of US law enforcement.

Huawei strenuously denies wrongdoing and Beijing has said the allegations are politically motivated.

The charges stand in stark contrast to a narrative pushed by Huawei in recent weeks -- perhaps in anticipation of the US revelations.

Speaking to foreign reporters, the normally reclusive Ren portrayed Huawei as an unselfish global force for good in comments larded with flattery for President Donald Trump and US tech leaders like Apple.

"We stand strongly against any behaviour that violates laws and regulations," Ren said on January 16, touting a "very sound" compliance system and tough discipline for violators.

But the New York charges reveal that Ren, whose background as a former Chinese army engineer has long raised red flags in Washington, was questioned by the FBI years ago, during which he repeatedly lied to US investigators about the nature of the Iran business.

Trade secrets

A separate case in Washington state cites internal emails and other evidence detailing a 2012-13 effort to steal the technology specs of a phone-testing device developed by T-Mobile, then a partner in Huawei's ultimately failed push to enter the US market.

Huawei staff repeatedly and surreptitiously took photos inside a T-Mobile facility and one staffer even stole a key part for the device, the charge sheet says.

The company later concocted an "internal report" designed to cover up the theft and blame rogue staff.

Perhaps the most damning allegation is that Huawei set up a system of bonuses for technology stolen from rivals.

"You are being encouraged and could possibly earn a monetary award for collecting confidential information regarding our competitors and sending it back to (Huawei China)," an internal staff email is quoted saying.

Triolo said there is a "clear threat now hanging over the company", possibly including fines, executive travel bans, and being officially branded a threat to US national security -- which could have devastating worldwide repercussions on its business.

"Carriers around the world will need to at least consider how to protect their investments and supply chains. This is the nub of the issue," said Triolo.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Bekasi  Wed, January 30 2019

A 3.5-meter python made a surprise appearance at the Graha Prima Sentosa housing complex in Kaliabang, Bekasi, West Java, after being carried there by floodwaters on Sunday. The snake bit a homeowner who was trying to catch it.



The homeowner, Maman, 35, first noticed the snake in his kitchen on Sunday morning as surrounding floodwaters were receding after heavy rainfall in the area.



With help from neighbors, it took Maman five minutes to capture the snake, but not before it bit him on his right arm.



My husband caught the snake barehanded. He was helped by my father-in-law, Pak Minas, and Pak Rosyid. We panicked when we discovered a big snake in our house, Wati, Mamans wife, told kompas.com on Monday.



The snake, which they put into a cat cage, will be sold to raise money for Mamans medical treatment.



The wound is 1 centimeter ...
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Linkedin Stefanno Reinard Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30 2019

Poor supervision and law enforcement in the treatment of former coal mines have been blamed for scores of landslides, including several fatal ones.

Last month, East Kalimantan Governor Isran Noor triggered public outrage for rejecting claims that a landslide in Kutai Kartanegara regency had been caused by nearby mining activities.

The governor stated that the landslide, which damaged roads and houses in the regency, had nothing to do with the mining operation, despite the fact that it occurred only a few hundred meters from the damaged area.

The distance [between the mining area and the impacted road and houses] is long; it's not because of mining activities. The distance is about 200 m, he said two days after the incident.

One week later, an investigation of the incident found that the governor...
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Linkedin Aman Rochman (The Jakarta Post) Malang  Wed, January 30, 2019 11:05 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09e9c6 1 National deer,dogs,conservation,Malang Free

A population of spotted deer in the Coban Jahe conservation area is under threat following a series of attacks by dogs that were suspected to have been trained by poachers.

The East Java Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA East Java) said the trained dogs were behind the killings of 12 spotted deer in cages in the conservation area in Pandansari Lor subdistrict, Malang, East Java, on Jan. 21.

BKSDA East Java head Nandang Prihadi said most of the deer were bitten by dogs while only a small number were bitten by either wild cats or leopards.

According to Nandang, the conclusions were drawn based on a joint investigation conducted at the site on Sunday by a team involving personnel from BKSDA East Java, Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park (TNBTS), state-owned forestry company Perhutani and NGO Pro Fauna.

At a 50-square-meter cage in the conservation area, the team found paw prints. It also found indications of dog bites on the necks of the killed deer.

We actually thought that it was a leopard or black panther that killed the deer [...], said Nandang, adding that the deer conservation area was located mere kilometers from TNBTS, the habitat of the endangered carnivores.

However, he said it was found that dogs killed the deer. The dogs belonged to poachers living on the outskirts of the forest, he said, alleging that, when they were not hunting, the dogs were often released in the conservation area, hence the attacks.

Pro Fauna Indonesia chairman Rosek Nursahid said that people living around the forest also owned some of the dogs and accompanied them while working in the fields that border the forest. The dogs are also used to protect local residents plants from other animals such as monkeys, porcupines and langurs.

The dogs, which are trained hunting dogs, are sometimes rented by poachers from outside their villages.

According to our observations, twice a month, illegal poachers enter the TNBTS area and the surrounding forests, taking with them five trained dogs each to poach, Rosek said.

He added that when the dogs can no longer can be controlled, they are tied up and left in the forest but at any time have the ability to release themselves. Once released, they find other abandoned dogs then form a group.

In groups, they hunt according to how they were trained by their former masters. Livestock such as goats are often found dead as a result of attacks by dogs from surrounding villages.

The dogs only intend to paralyze  not eat  their prey, just like they have been trained.

This, according to Rosek, is dangerous for locals because the dogs could spread rabies. But its in the local administrations domain to deal with the dogs and look into why a joint task force is needed to hunt down the dogs, he said.

Separately, TNBTS tiger research team member Agung Siswoyo said the national park was the habitat of leopards and black panthers.

He said that when leopards go hunting, they only track down one or two animals as prey. They never hunt dozens at once, he said.

Nandang added that the agency had placed goats in a cage at the Coban Jahe deer conservation site as trap bait for illegal poachers.

For deer conservation, he said the conservation site would bring in deer from other deer-breeding facilities.

But we are to monitor the situation first to make sure that the conservation area is safe from the dogs, said Nandang, adding that his agency would coordinate with the local administration to deal with the trained dogs.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 16:44 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0b2c2f 1 City tuition,punishment,school,Depok,bogor Free

The Depok administration in West Java has pledged to provide financial aid to a Bogor elementary school student who was allegedly forced to do 100 push-ups as a punishment for unpaid tuition.

Depok secretary Hardiono said the administration would pay off the Bina Mujtama Integrated Islamic Elementary School students unpaid school fees, which was 10 months in arrears.

Depok mayor [Mohammad Idris] will pay off the school fees and has recommended that the student be moved to a school in Depok, Hardiono said on Tuesday after visiting the students house in Depok, as reported by kompas.com. The Bina Mujtama school is located in Bogor.

The student's parents reportedly failed to pay her school fees because of financial constraints. She conceded to being punished by the school principal, who she claimed made her do 100 push-ups to force her parents to come to the school and pay the tuition.

The student was reportedly traumatized from the incident and had refused to step out of her house and socialize.

To help her recover from her trauma, Hardiono said, the administration would work together with the Child Protection and Society and Family Empowerment Agency (DPAPMK) to assist the student.

Bina Mujtama claimed that the student was only asked to do 10 push-ups.

The school said it had called her parents several times, as they had consistently failed to show up to school. (ars)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu  Wed, January 30, 2019 15:31 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0ac4a0 1 National Palu-Earthquake-Tsunami,BNPB,fatalities,evacuate,shelters,soil-liquefaction Free

Central Sulawesi Governor Longki Djanggola on Wednesday revealed the result of the administrations final count of victims in recent deadly disasters in the province, noting that the powerful earthquake and subsequent tsunami and soil liquefaction last September had claimed 4,340 lives.

According to the governor, the final count was specified in a gubernatorial decree on earthquakes, tsunami and liquefaction victims in September 2018 and in a letter forwarded to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) for the disbursement of financial assistance for survivors.

Almost half of the fatalities, namely 2,141, occurred in Palu, which was most affected by the earthquakes and tsunami, while 289 people died in Sigi regency, 212 in Donggala regency and 15 in Parigi Moutong regency. As many as 667 people have been declared missing, while another 1,016 bodies were unidentifiable.

The last count is 4,340, he told The Jakarta Post.

The decree also establishes the final damage count, unveiling that 17,293 buildings were mildly damaged, another 12,717 buildings sustained medium damage, 9,181 severe damage and 3,673 were declared gone. The damaged buildings were registered in different locations affected by the earthquake.

The Central Sulawesi administration had proposed to the Social Affairs Ministry to disburse financial assistance to the victims next of kin, who are supposed to receive Rp 15 million (US$1,062) per person. The administration also proposed to the BNPB to provide cash assistance to the owners of damaged houses. Those whose damaged houses were located in the red zone, or the disaster-prone area, are entitled to temporary and permanent housing and will be given financial assistance for the first 60 days of staying in the temporary housing.

Meanwhile, each owner of a severely damage house will get Rp 50 million and assistance for the first 60 days of staying in temporary housing. Owners of houses with medium and mild damage will get Rp 25 million and Rp 10 million, respectively.

Some of the survivors of the disasters still live in shelters.

Andi Kharisma, a survivor from Balaroa, which was badly affected by soil liquefaction, revealed different problems in the shelters, including uneven distribution of supplies and a lack of clean water, which triggered conflict among survivors and volunteers.

One time, evacuees suspected that [supplies] had been deliberately kept inside a warehouse, so they barged in and unloaded the logistics themselves, she said, pointing out that evacuees had not received material support in the past two months.

Dedy Askary, the chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Central Sulawesi, criticized the provincial administration for poor post-disaster management, saying the province deserved a bad rapport for its slow response to the disasters.

He mentioned the ongoing emergency status in the province as an indication of the administrations slow and poor response.

Survivors had to stay even longer in shelters when they were supposed to move to temporary housing, he said.

The province declared the emergency status from Oct. 13 to Oct. 26, 2018, and introduced the so-called transitional period from emergency to rehabilitation and reconstruction from Oct. 26 to Dec. 25, 2018.

The administration has announced plans to have all evacuees move into the temporary housing during the transitional period but failed to meet the target, Dedi said.

The Public Works and Housing Ministry reported in January that the ministry had only completed 217 of 699 temporary housing units. Each unit comprises 12 12-square-meter rooms.

We have handed over the 217 units to the Central Sulawesi administration, Minister Basuki Hadimuljo said in a statement. (swd)
Bogor Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto has insisted that the Cap Go Meh celebration in Bogor will still take place, despite resistance from the Bogor Muslim Forum (FMB).

Cap Go Meh marks the 15th and final day of the traditional two-week celebration of Chinese New Year, called Imlek in Indonesia.

Bima said Cap Go Meh, which was celebrated as part of the Bogor Street Festival, was one of the most important events on the West Java city's tourism calendar.

We think it is important to inform the public of the Bogor administrations stance on this. It is an important point of togetherness and diversity, Bima said on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

He said that the Bogor Street Festival was an important event that celebrated the city's cultural diversity. He added that the festival had always drawn the attendance of national figures, and that they did not experience a decline in their adherence to the Muslim faith from attending the festival.

Do you think [former West Java governor] Ahmad Heryawan lost his Muslim faith after attending the festival each year? Do you think the President's faith disappeared when he attended a festival on Indonesia's cultural diversity?" said Bima. "The Bogor Street Festival has also been attended by the tourism minister, the religious affairs minister, and many other important figures.

The Bogor Muslim Forum recently distributed a circular saying that it rejected all events the Bogor administration held to mark Chinese New Year and Cap Go Meh this year. The circular also calls on the Bogor administration to "stop ordering" Muslim civil servants to attend or to support the Cap Go Meh celebration.

The Bogor chapter of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) responded by calling upon members of the public not to heed the FMB's call, and instead called for tolerance among the city's Muslims. (gis)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 13:46 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0a663e 1 City forgery,Fraud,Bekasi,employees Free

Four employees reportedly siphoned Rp 314 million (US$22,000) from the finance loan company they worked for in Bekasi, West Java, doctoring the ownership documents of stolen vehicles that they used as collateral.

Bekasi Police chief Comr. Parjana said that the four employees, all in their 20s, purchased the vehicle ownership documents (BPKB) of stolen vehicles on Facebook. They applied for loans by using the BPKBs as collateral and forging the owner's identity [using their own names], Parjana said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com.

The police did not release the names of the four employees or their company.

The perpetrators could easily borrow the money for their personal use, as they managed loans at the company. Parjana said the four had committed the loan fraud over three months and split the money equally.

To cover up their fraud, they paid the installments [on the loan] once in a while, so that the company would think it was just a regular transaction, he added.

The company's management began smelling something fishy about some loan accounts and eventually discovered that 35 fictional customers had taken out loans.

The fraud incurred Rp 314 million in losses for the company.

The Bekasi Police arrested the four employees, and confiscated 35 loan applications as well as 35 doctored BPKBs.

The four employees have been charged under Articles 378 and 373 of the Criminal Code, which carry maximum punishments of respectively four years and five years in prison. (vla)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom  Wed, January 30, 2019 10:40 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09e163 2 World #Israel,#humanrights,Amnesty-International,accuse,Airbnb,Booking-com,profit,Israeli,settlement Free

Digital tourism giants Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor are profiting from "war crimes" by offering services in Israeli settlements, rights group Amnesty International said in a report published Wednesday.

The British-based NGO's "Destination: Occupation" study called on the companies to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.

"They are doing so despite knowing that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal," said the report.

"In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law."

The rights group accused the firms of "normalizing" settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"To boost bookings, many listings in settlements boast of their proximity to areas of natural beauty in the occupied territories, such as the Dead Sea, nature reserves and the desert," it added.

"By listing and promoting these natural features and nature-based activities and attractions the digital companies are increasing the attractiveness of the listings, securing greater numbers of tourists and ultimately benefiting financially from the illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources."

Amnesty launched a campaign in 2017 calling on governments to prevent businesses based in their countries from operating in settlements.

"Governments worldwide must take action to regulate companies or activities over which they have control," urged the report.
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 09:11 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b096ca0 1 Politics Prabowo-Subianto,Prabowo-Sandiaga,Jokowi,2019-elections,Women,vote,KPU,NU,#2019PresidentialElection Free

As voting day draws near, the presidential candidates, incumbent Joko Jokowi Widodo and challenger Prabowo Subianto, have stepped up their campaigns to lure women voters, a coveted demographic group for the 2019 elections.

Women voters make up a little more than half of the total electorate according to data from the General Elections Commission (KPU). Of the total 192.8 million eligible voters listed, 96.5 million are female while the remaining 96.2 are male. Apart from the large number, female voters, specifically middle-aged women, are also deemed important because of their influence over their environment, analysts say.

Ever since the campaign period kicked off in September, different women's groups have expressed support for either Jokowi or Prabowo.

The most recent expression of support was made during a gathering of more than 100,000 members of Muslimat, the women's wing of the nation's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which was also attended by the President on Sunday in Jakarta.

Among the high-profile women who attended the event was Yenny Wahid, the daughter of former president and NU leader Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, who publicly stated: "I am a [member] of Muslimat and I personally support Jokowi."

Muslimat chairwoman Khofifah Indar Parawansa, a former minister in Jokowi's Cabinet and a politician of the National Awakening Party (PKB), a member of Jokowi's coalition, also expressed support for Jokowi.

"It is safe to say that Jokowi has secured more support from women with deep-rooted traditional networks in society compared to his rival Prabowo," said Arie Sujito, political analyst from the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM).

"These [women] have been active for quite a long time in organizations that have a stronger traditional base in the grassroots," Arie said. "[Muslimat] itself has a great influence because it addresses both womens and religious issues."

Khofifah, who led the Muslimat members in a declaration against hoaxes and hate speech during Sunday's gathering, is also the governor-elect of East Java, a traditional base of NU.

In September, Yenny officially announced the support of Gus Dur's family for Jokowi and his running mate Ma'ruf Amin, who was formerly NUs supreme leader, in the 2019 elections.

NU Online, the organization's official news site, claimed Muslimat NU has about 32 million members across the country and abroad. A 2017 study by the Alvara Research Center estimated that about 79.04 million people were affiliated with the NU in the Muslim-majority country.

Jokowi and Khofifah stopped briefly and smiled when asked on Sunday whether Muslimat would officially back the incumbent against Prabowo, while Yenny gave a vague answer: "There are many members affiliated to NU and Muslimat feels [closer] to Pak Jokowi."

One the other hand, the well-known female supporters of Prabowo and Sandiaga Unos camp are groups whose members identify themselves as housewives and who focus on protesting against the rising prices of staple food and basic needs under Jokowi's administration.

Among the groups are the Housewives Party in Support of Prabowo-Sandiaga (PEPES), the Militant Housewives Force (BEM) and the Voluptuous Housewives Who Fight for Prabowo-Sandi (ESPAS).

The camp has also accommodated the groups by launching the Housewives Partys website, which was to serve as a platform for female supporters, in November.

Prabowo said during the first presidential debate that the most militant supporters of his ticket are the groups of housewives across the country. We open opportunities as wide as possible for housewives to make moves.

Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) political analyst Siti Zuhro said that the so-called housewives movement was heterogeneous in nature and it served as a uniting force for housewives who are in charge of managing the basic needs of their households.

The women felt that Prabowo and Sandiaga understood their concerns over rising prices and were probably charmed by Sandiagas much talked-about appearance, Siti said.

"We can't say that [the housewives groups] are more dominant, but Prabowo and Sandiagas campaign for lowering prices of staple food and basic needs has gained traction among those who identify themselves as housewives, Siti said.

Arie, however, said the presidential candidates must realize that Indonesian women were also divided by social class and the areas in which they lived.

The key to win their hearts was to be able to choose the right issues for each targeted segment. Other issues such as education for children, reproductive health, family protection and equality in the workforce, for example, are among the important issues for women in the middle- to higher-income classes," he said.
When Emily Blunt won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, it was a joyful moment for Indonesian jewelry designer Eri Dwi Suciaji, the man behind her stunning waterfall earrings.

Hollywoods star-studded awards season is always a gold mine for fashion lovers who get to see the biggest names in the film industry come out in the latest designs crafted by the biggest names in the fashion industry.

Clothing and jewelry from prominent designers and designer houses such as Dior and Oscar de la Renta are a common sight on the red carpet. Lately, Indonesian designers have been in the mix, with many of them being discovered by the stylists to the stars.

Most recently, it was Indonesian designer Eri Dwi Suciaji who was in the spotlight.

Under the Forevermark brand, Eris 11.73 carat diamond waterfall earrings in 18 carat white gold was worn by actress Emily Blunt at the recent SAG Awards, where she won the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in innovative horror film A Quiet Place.

The earrings were personally handpicked by Blunts stylist Jessica Paster from a selection of Forevermark jewelry from Indonesia.

The earrings were paired with a custom crystal-embroidered pink Michael Kors gown and a silver Jimmy Choo clutch. Blunt also wore another jewelry piece from Forevermark, the Force of Nature  a 3.48 carat diamond ring designed by Louise Kriek of South Africa.

Brand manager of Forevermark Indonesia Devi Chayadi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday the earrings, priced at around Rp 900 million ($63,712), were a custom one-off design for the red carpet event, though they were not told who would wear the jewelry.

Thats actually the surprise factor. After Forevermark expanded to Indonesia in April last year, many opportunities have been provided by parent company De Beers Group and Forevermark, with their various markets participating in these kind of events, Devi said.

She said Forevermark Indonesia and branches in other countries were invited by Forevermark USA in October last year to contribute to their operations by sending out a curated collection of jewelry to be showcased to the stylists of US celebrities.

The invitation, she said, was an opportunity to shine at star-studded events.

The time frame was really short. We received the invitation in October and we had to send out the collection by December, Devi said.

She said the design team started their design development from scratch as they had never taken part in a red carpet event.

Normally, product development for such earrings ranges from three to six months, but they sped up the process to meet the deadline.

Out of 32 submitted designs, 16 final jewelry pieces, ranging from necklaces to bangles, were selected to be produced and delivered to Los Angeles.

At that time, Emily Blunts stylist Jessica Paster was looking for jewelry to match the gown to be used at the event. According to Jessica, she found a couple of interesting pieces for the look, one of which was Eris design, Devi said.

Another piece from the collection, a necklace, was worn by actress Sandra Oh to a Golden Globes after-party. It was paired with a tuxedo-like jumpsuit and black and white sneakers.

As the 16 jewelry pieces are still in the United States, Devi said they would be shown to other celebrity stylists for the upcoming Academy Awards, giving the Indonesian company another chance at having its pieces grace a major event.

After the Oscars, the jewelry will be brought home and put on display. We believe the designs are masterpieces in their own right, she said. (ste)
Musicians have this week been denouncing forthcoming House of Representatives legislation intended to control the music industry.

A number of musicians met on Monday with members of the Houses Commission X, which deal with education, youth affairs, sports, tourism, art and culture, and some took to social media on Tuesday to express their opposition to the draft of the bill on music, which they call ridiculous and unnecessary, saying it would shackle the musicians freedom of expression.

Among the musicians who met with House members was Glenn Fredly, who told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Wednesday that the discussion was held to respond to the questionable provisions of the music bill.

We found several points that strayed from the focus of managing the music industry in a comprehensive manner, he said. Essentially, the members welcomed our input. Although the bill is still a draft, we as musicians think it should represent the quality of the law. The law will come with binding effects and it is a serious matter.

Glenn, who was with Andien, Yuni Shara, Cholil Mahmud from Efek Rumah Kaca band and Tompi, among others, for the meeting with House members added that the music industry is already regulated by the Copyright Law.

There should be further discussions to avoid overlap in these laws, he said.

Glenn said the legislators would need more input and insights for drafting the bill.

There should be a comprehensive discussion with those involved in the industry, those who will be impacted by the bill should the House of Representatives pass it into law.

Among the provisions in the draft many musicians consider ridiculous is Article 5, which says: In creating, everyone is prohibited from [] bringing negative influences from foreign cultures or demeaning a human beings dignity.

Also, Article 50 states that anyone who is found bringing negative influences from foreign cultures and/or demeaning a human beings dignity, as stated in Article 5, could be convicted with imprisonment or fine.

Read also: What politicians don't talk about when they talk about music

I find that the draft bill on music to be unnecessary, tweeted Arian13, vocalist of rock band Seringai. Issues of the music industry, copyright and trade are already regulated in the laws; lets improve those. The draft bill also includes many catchall articles that could curb creativity. There is no such law found in any other country because it is not necessary.

RUU Permusikan buat gue gak perlu. masalah industri musik, hak cipta, perdagangan, & lainnya kan sudah ada UU-nya juga, disempurnakanlah. apalagi dalam RUU Permusikan banyak pasal2 karet yang mengekang kreativitas. di negara2 lain gak ada UU sejenis, karena memang gak perlu.   (@aparatmati) January 30, 2019

Likewise, Wendi Putranto, a music industry observer and the author of Music Biz: Smart Manual to Know the Music Business, said he saw no need for the proposed music law, as the same articles can be found in the Copyright Law, the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law and the Cultural Advancement Law, among others.

Instead of making new laws that will overlap and shackle the musicians freedom of expression, law enforcement in the industry is the most significant thing. Its the industry itself that needs to be regulated, he said in a text interview with the Post.

Farid Amriansyah, a hardcore punk musician based in Palembang, South Sumatra, noted how the bill wants to bar any negative foreign element.

Music is supposed to be universal and I think stating our opinions should not be controlled by a law, he said in a phone interview with the Post. The language of law can be interpreted in many different ways and it would potentially harm certain musicians who have protest songs.

The catchall article was particularly troublesome for Farid, who said that a song could have 1,000 different meanings in the minds of 1,000 different people.

Its a matter of interpretation and it cannot be reduced to black and white, he said. For me, creating music is an absolute freedom as a human being. When it is controlled, where does that leave us as musicians? All this time the government has been absent and when it finally shows its face, its trying to teach us how to make art?

Glenn said the musicians would follow up on Mondays meeting with discussions beginning in mid-February with members of the House.

Two of the most fundamental things in Indonesias music ecosystem, management and protection, have been largely abandoned, he said. Responses from musicians and the public are very important to put a spotlight on the draft legislation and we hope the executive would build a better ecosystem.

According to kompas.com, the bill has been listed in the 2018 national priority legislation program (Prolegnas) since September 2017.

Legislator Anang Hermansyah from House Commission X could not be reached for a comment. (wng)
In a first for Japan, the city of Chiba held a ceremony Tuesday to issue certificates recognizing the partnerships of sexual minority and common-law couples.

"I wish you happiness in becoming better partners," Mayor Toshihito Kumagai said at a ceremony involving six couples.

According to the city located to Tokyo's east, the system of recognition introduced for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples as well as mixed-gender common-law couples is the first of its kind in Japan.

To receive the official certificate, applicant couples need only meet a set of requirements, including that both are at least 20 years old, not already married, and either live or plan to live in the city.

The introduction of the system follows a series of decisions by other Japanese municipalities, including the Tokyo wards of Shibuya and Setagaya, and the cities of Sapporo, Fukuoka and Osaka, to start recognizing LGBT partnerships.

Ryuta Yanase, 56, who took part in the ceremony, welcomed Chiba's new program, saying it would make it easier for same-sex couples to visit their partners at city hospitals when they are in serious condition.

"I hope this will lead to a reduction in restrictions," Yanase said.

Read also: Fukuoka city to recognize LGBT couples from April

Same-sex marriages are illegal in Japan and couples say they face discrimination, such as the inability to inherit property from their partner without a will or to benefit from income tax deductions for spouses.

Chiba's certificate program does not confer special legal status on recipients but once recognized as partners they will be able to enjoy various services provided by the city, such as being eligible to apply for public housing as a couple.
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Linkedin Annisa Ridzkynoor Beta and Taberez Ahmed Neyazi (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Wed, January 30, 2019 16:03 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b0ae573 3 Opinion Twitter,#2019PresidentialElection,tweets,Jokowi,Prabowo-Subianto,Joko-Widodo,social-media,2019-presidential-election Free

Twitter has emerged as an important platform to understand the position of political leaders on various social, political and economic issues. President Joko Jokowi Widodo and his challenger Prabowo Subianto are active on Twitter for expressing their positions on many national issues, while also using the platform to convey congratulatory messages.

By analyzing their 1,400 tweets in over one year, we try to unravel their characteristics and how they have tried to present themselves to the public and their constituents. The analysis was done using data science tool Tidyverse package in R.

The analysis was done using data science tool Tidyverse package in R. (Taberez Ahmed/File)

An analysis of tweets of both Jokowi and Prabowo reveal many interesting patterns. The incumbent Jokowi focuses a lot on achievements, development and include congratulatory messages. We can see it from the use of the words atlet (athlete), medali (medals), emas (gold), and games which were used to expressed to celebrate the achievements during the 2018 Asian Games. The word bandara (airport) suggests a similar pattern. Jokowis administration has made huge investments in the development of countrys infrastructure. Multiple projects have been launched including toll roads and new airports in various islands. His supporters like to recall his campaign slogan during the 2014 presidential election: kerja, kerja, kerja (work, work, work). His cabinet is also called Kabinet Kerja or the Working Cabinet.

In contrast, Prabowos word choices are comparatively formal and politically oriented. The most used word, bung [brother], refers to the egalitarian way of calling men including male political leaders and intellectuals, commonly used during the anti-colonial struggle, and the title is usually attached to the first president Sukarnos nickname, Bung Karno. Prabowo himself has visibly attempted to emulate Bung Karno such as in his dress style, to gain the support of potential voters. The word kader (cadre) suggests that he tweets a lot about his political party Gerindra and the cadres. The use of the word sahabat (friend) suggests a certain level of friendliness in Prabowos tweets to his followers. However, this word is rather formal especially for young speakers of Indonesian.

Prabowos use of the word mandat (mandate) suggests that he sees himself as a leader focusing on fulfilling the mandate likely to lead the country. This may be linked with the use of the word asing (foreign). For years now Prabowo has been vocal against what he calls foreign influences to boost his nationalist image. The imaginary threat of anything foreign has often been used by populist leaders globally including Prabowo.

This graph shows the comparison of the frequency of word use in Jokowi and Prabowo tweets. The analysis was done using data science tool Tidyverse package in R. (Taberez Ahmed/File)

This graph shows the comparison of the frequency of word use in Jokowi and Prabowo tweets. Like the previous graph, Prabowos tweets reveal his focus more on formal and political terms such as bung, saudara (brothers), bangsa (nation) and partai (party). Jokowi, however, does not use such words. This signifies how Prabowo frames himself as a strong nationalist leader, while Jokowi  perhaps avoiding the formal and political terms  paints himself as approachable and non-formal. Jokowi rather focuses on achievements and development  as reflected in his frequent mention of ekonomi (economy), pembangunan (development), industri (industry), piala (trophy), and games. Gempa (earthquake) and korban (victim) are also in Jokowis tweets but it is not visible in Prabowos. The latter words refer to the series of natural disasters and the Lion Air JT610 plane crash last year.

This graph shows the difference between retweeted words of Jokowi and Prabowo. The analysis was done using data science tool Tidyverse package in R. (Taberez Ahmed/File)

A most interesting pattern is the difference between retweeted words of Jokowi and Prabowo. Prabowos most retweeted tweets contain the word Islam. This is consistent with Prabowos focus on his populist appeal and gaining Islamist groups support throughout the years. In 2018, particularly, Prabowo and his team were very close with Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Islamists 212 rallies. Words such as korban (victim), bantuan (aid or help), and bencana (disaster) also reveal his followers interest in more sympathetic expressions by Prabowo.

Although Jokowi also makes use of his connections with Islamic groups, as he chose chairman of Indonesian Ulema Council Maruf Amin as his running mate, Jokowis most retweeted words also focus on achievement, such as emas (gold) and medali (medal), likely related to the 2018 Asian Games. The analysis of tweets certainly reveals very different characteristics of both these leaders. While Jokowi has found a match to counter Prabowos populist appeal among conservative Muslims through the choice of Maruf and seems to have an upper hand at the moment, the campaign is going to intensify in the coming days and Prabowo is more likely to sharpen his populist rhetoric.

***

Annisa Ridzkynoor Beta is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Taberez Ahmed Neyazi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Aulina Adamy (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 10:08 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b09b89a 3 Opinion vote,Indonesia,2019-presidential-election,#2019PresidentialElection,politics Free

The political climate in the country is heating up with the presidential election only three months away. As in other democracies, voters here are torn between two popular candidates, which in Indonesias case are the incumbent Joko Jokowi Widodo and Prabowo Subianto.



Statistics show that decided supporters of President Jokowi and Prabowo make up the most of the voters, who number about 190 million. Naturally, in elections there is a third group, the members of which for certain reasons decide to abstain from voting. In Indonesia, this group is called golput, short for golongan putih (white group). It is a group that does not stand with any political party color.



The golput are different from people whose votes are invalid or spoiled on purpose. In the latter case people still turn up to polling stations to cast their votes, but decide to spoil their ballots. They may share the reasons of thegolput, but take a different approach.



While invalid votes still contribute to voter turnout, poll abstention adversely impacts the voter turnout, hence the legitimacy of an election. A low voter turnout can lead to distrust in election results and therefore in the elected government. Every democracy has a different threshold, but ideally voter turnout should not be lower than 50 percent.



Not all democracies or quasi-democracies acknowledge their citizens right to not vote. Thailand, for example, bans poll abstention. Any citizen who is found to give an election a miss is blacklisted from employment in government posts.



In Cambodia, voting is not compulsory but in the countrys last election the incumbent government sought every path to avoid a low voter turnout in the wake of the oppositions campaign for abstention.



Both Thailand and Cambodia are moving toward dictatorship. Thailand is led by yet another military junta while in Cambodia the incumbent president has been dubbed one of the longest dictators in power following last years election.



The United States is a democracy with a low voter turnout. Only 56 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election that Donald Trump won. Many say the high rate of poll abstention helped Trump assume power, which is not completely right because the turnout rate has been consistently low over the past several decades.



Learning from the US (and Brazil too), many in Indonesia have called for participation in the April general elections to prevent the bad candidate from getting elected. Hence they advise people to vote for the lesser evil. But what if there is no good candidate according to voters standards? Should they have to choose a candidate even if they do not like or agree with either of their views?



Recently, the media have reported a rise in the number of golput, which is said would make a bad impact on Jokowis bid for reelection. In the 2014 election voters participated enthusiastically and that resulted in Jokowis victory over Prabowo, who had to deal with a checkered past linked to human rights violations.



This time around, many have deemed that Jokowi has made no difference. Like Prabowo, Jokowi is seen as not promoting human rights.



During his four years in tenure, people who insulted him or his family have been jailed, so have those who fought for their land; many say he failed to keep his promise to deliver justice to the families of victims of state-sponsored abuse in the late 1990s and let the police, prosecutors and other groups seize and burn books and suppress academic freedom and the rights of marginalized groups.



Poll abstention rates in Indonesian elections have been on the rise in the last 15 years, from 23 percent in the 2004 presidential election to 29 percent in 2009 and 30 percent in 2014.



Democracy is based on  even defined by  political participation of citizens. The right to vote for democratic representation, without discrimination, is rightly seen as a fundamental civil freedom.



Political scientist Lisa Hill said in 2015 that she believes the alleged right not to vote cannot be formally recognized because it cannot be universalized. Doing so would undermine the form of government for which it exists: democracy, a collective benefit. There should be no formal legal or moral recognition of the right not to vote. Many citizens in voluntary-voting settings would continue to abstain from voting as it suits them, but their abstention would not  and should not  constitute the exercise of any particular right, she says.



Similarly, if individuals have rights not to vote, it would be unjust to force them to do so, even if it improved democracy. Nonetheless, if there was such a right, this would be an important  perhaps decisive  objection to compulsory voting, scholar Ben Saunders insisted in 2018.



High turnout would be meaningless if the number of spoiled ballots is also high because of political motives if voters just dont have anyone to choose. Likewise, a candidate who wins because voters are forced to choose him or her would lack legitimacy.



At the end of the day, no one, not even the state, should force people to choose their leaders. Even the worst election system cannot compel peoples choices inside the ballot box, but there is no need to formalize the right not to vote either. A conceptual agreement is that the right not to vote is always part of, or inferred by, the right to vote.

***

The writer is a lecturer at the University of Muhammadiyah Aceh. She served as international observer and electoral analyst for the Asian Network for Free Elections Foundation.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 08:47 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b093e39 1 Editorial gross-split-scheme,oil-industry,oil-exploration,energy-and-mineral-resources-ministry,investment,Archandra-Tahar,#Editorial Free

Its encouraging to learn that two years after its introduction, the gross-split scheme for oil and gas mining contracts, which was initially met with lukewarm reception from companies, has been used in 37 oil concessions. The latest report by reputable energy research institute Wood Mackenzie cites slightly higher interest in the scheme, pointing out that most expiring oil contracts have been extended under the gross-split scheme and negotiations have been much smoother and faster.



Energy and Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Arcandra Tahar has said that oil companies were increasingly looking at the scheme in a more positive light than standard production-sharing contracts, because the former guaranteed fiscal certainty and used more clear-cut parameters for the terms and conditions of revenue sharing between the contractor and the government. The base split for oil is 57 to 43 percent for the state and the contractor, respectively, and for gas 52:48. These advantages make negotiations much simpler and more efficient.



The gross-split scheme, made compulsory for new contracts and contract extensions in 2017, removes the controversial cost-recovery mechanism used in traditional production-sharing contracts, which have often caused disputes between oil contractors and the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas), as well the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), over the classification of recoverable costs.



The gross-split scheme replaces the cost recovery mechanism with a gross-split model that applies a variable percentage production share on a field-by-field basis, with the split adjusted by reference to the characteristics of the specific field and the revenue generated from the fields production.



Yet more encouraging is Arcandras pronouncement that the government was also considering more improvements in the scheme, including lower rates for land and building tax (now about 0.5 percent) on oil blocks already in production, to make investment in oil explorations more attractive.



This shows that the government is always responding to oil companies grievances and suggestions. Continuous improvement would make the hydrocarbon sector more attractive to investors. As a net oil importer that imports almost 60 percent of its daily need of 1.6 million barrels, Indonesia badly needs to attract more investment in highly risky oil exploration. Providing certainty, stability and a favorable regulatory environment will encourage future exploration and development investment.



Moreover, as exploration and production activities are moving to more remote and challenging deep-water locations that are much more expensive to develop, additional incentives are needed. Despite the development of renewable energy, the oil and gas industry will continue to be of strategic national importance in providing energy security and government revenue. Oil imports have been the main driver of the trade and current account deficits, the main source of downward pressures on the rupiah.
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Linkedin Kornelius Purba (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, January 30, 2019 09:08 872 ab327006fac3d4a4e8af45a51b095ce9 1 Opinion #commentary,duterte,Philippines,president,terrorism,church-attack,bombing Free

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is most likely the only leader in Southeast Asia who has proudly called himself a murderer and his bloody track record reportedly played a major role in winning the presidential election in June 2016. He boasted that he would eradicate massive corruption and Muslim rebellions in the southern Philippines during his six-year term through violence and other means.



Former Indonesian president Soeharto ordered the killing of thousands of alleged gangsters in the 1980s but he only acknowledged that the instruction came from him several years later in his autobiography. Cambodia witnessed a horrific genocide some decades ago, but the leaders responsible for it refused to make an honest confession like Duterte.



In the 1970s, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was responsible for killing nearly 2 million Cambodians, or about 25 percent of the population, because he and other party leaders, like Khieu Sampan, believed that genocide was the only way to build a new Cambodia.



With his honesty, is Duterte a real gentleman with his blatant claims?



He claimed he had killed, with his own hands, several criminals during his nearly two-decade tenure as the mayor of Davao in the southern Philippines. Since 2016, tens of thousands of alleged drug traffickers have reportedly been killed by security forces and the police. Duterte bullied those who protested these bloody acts, including Pope Francis who is revered in the Catholic-majority nation.



In Davao, I used to do it personally. Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why cant you, AFP quoted him as saying a few months after his election victory. And Id go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also.



The bombing of a Catholic cathedral in Jolo, Sulu province, on Sunday again proves that Dutertes convictions are totally wrong and that his ruthless approach, including extra-judicial killings, are ineffective in eliminating the five-decade armed rebellion in restive Mindanao.



The terrorist attack killed 20 churchgoers and military personnel, and wounded over 100. The Catholic church has been a target of terrorist attacks in the past, but Sundays blast is the deadliest. Abu Sayaff is the main suspect, although the Islamic State (IS) group quickly claimed responsibility.



Sundays attack occurred just six days after a referendum granted self-rule to the predominantly Muslim region in Mindanao. The rebels and government hoped that autonomy for the Bangsamoro would end the five-decade armed conflict and keep the independence aspirations of the Muslim minority in check.



I am reminded of a quote from the Bible that suggests Dutertes pride as a self-proclaimed murderer will not last long. Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.



Duterte dared Muslim rebels and jihadists to counter military operations in Marawi last December. Earlier in May, he ordered a massive military campaign and after five months declared, I am the government. Do not impose conditions on me. Im the one wholl make orders.



In October, Duterte claimed a military victory in Marawi. But as long as the root cause of the problem is not solved, violence and terror will continue to haunt the country.



For the sake of his nation, which he will lead until 2022, Duterte should not hesitate to learn from Indonesia despite all our shortcomings. Indonesia achieved significant progress in the war against terrorism especially after the terror attacks in Bali on Oct. 12, 2002.



To fight terrorism, the government has used various methods because it has learned that a security approach alone will exacerbate the problems. Indonesia also has had long experience in dealing with rebellious provinces such as Aceh. Papua still has a level of armed rebellion, but the government no longer just depends on a military approach like Soehartos regime.



Indonesia played an important role in the truce between Manila and the Moro National Liberation Front under Nur Misuari in 1996. The truce collapsed because, among other reasons, it was much easier for Nur Misuari to fight the central government than to deliver his promises to the people.



Indonesia is not really an ideal example, as resistance continues in Papua despite the governments generous economic incentives. It is also true that the government has been unable to protect the constitutional rights of minorities. Churches and non-Muslim congregations have often become easy targets for those claiming to be devout Muslims. But Indonesia can still share its many experiences with others.



Does Duterte not want to be remembered by his nation and neighbors as a statesman with bold policies and actions to protect his country, as well as to improve citizens prosperity?



So far, it seems he wishes to be remembered as a president who does not hesitate to kill people whom he describes as the enemy of his government. If so, then he is a butcher much like the terrorists in the southern Philippines.
ST. LOUIS  Rich McClure, chair of the board of directors for United Way of Greater St. Louis, announced Wednesday that Michelle Tucker has been selected as the organizations next president and CEO, effective April 2.

The appointment was made through a unanimous decision by the Board of Directors. Tucker currently serves as president and CEO of Epworth Children and Family Services. She succeeds Orvin Kimbrough, who recently left to become CEO of Midwest BankCentre after 12 years of service to United Way with nearly six years as president and CEO.

There was a tremendous amount of interest in this position, from both local and national candidates. Michelles experience as a senior corporate executive, her deep knowledge of the needs of our region as a corporate funder, and her experience as CEO of a large United Way agency make her exactly the right choice to be our CEO, said McClure. Michelles passion and vision for creating a better St. Louis region align seamlessly with United Ways mission of helping people. We are confident in Michelles ability to lead United Way in serving our region as the organization leans into new strategic and transformative initiatives on the cusp of our centennial anniversary.

Tucker joined Epworth in 2017 as the agencys first female and African-American CEO in its 154-year history. There, she oversees a staff of nearly 200 employees and programming that serves more than 10,000 youth and families annually. Prior to Epworth, Tucker led a nearly 20-year career in banking, including her role as senior vice president at Bank of America where she was responsible for strategic oversight of the companys multi-million-dollar local grant-making and community impact benefitting area non-profits. She had significant national operating roles with the bank as well.

She has worked with many local community organizations and nonprofits in a variety of advisory and support roles, including serving on the University of Missouri St. Louiss Lifelong Learning Advisory Council and as a committee member of the Greater St. Louis Financial Education Collaborative. Tucker currently serves as a member of the board of directors for Christian Hospital, Downtown STL, Inc., Missouri Coalition of Childrens Agencies and Nine Network Community Advisory, and she previously served on the boards of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis and FOCUS St. Louis, where she also was past vice president. She credits her extensive work with these organizations over the past decade as the catalyst for her move into nonprofit leadership.

Its a rare occasion when passion, purpose and profession come together in this way, and I am incredibly excited to step forward to continue driving increased impacts and outcomes for those in need, said Tucker. I believe transformational times require transformational actions and when United Way calls, you answer.

Tucker has been actively engaged with United Way over 20 years as a member of its community investment committee and Womens Leadership Giving Society. She also previously held voluntary leadership positions as a cabinet member of United Ways Charmaine Chapman  African American Leadership Giving Society, campaign chair of the Chapman de Tocqueville Society and co-chair of the 20th anniversary Charmaine Chapman Society Gala.

Michelles strong understanding of the issues facing our communities, experience as a funder and CEO, commitment to the region she grew up in and her familiarity with United Way as a key volunteer were important factors in the search committees final decision in naming her CEO, said McClure.

During her tenure, Michelle and the leadership team she assembled quickly improved impacts on our clients by elevating Epworths focus on quality programs, process efficiencies, organizational culture, talent recruitment and strategic collaborations, said Bryan LeMoine, board chair of Epworth Children and Family Services. We at Epworth congratulate Michelle, United Way, its member agencies and the St. Louis community, all of whom will benefit from Michelles leadership in the future.

Originally from East St. Louis, Tucker holds a bachelors degree in English from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a masters degree in business from Webster University.
SPRINGFIELD  After 16 years in the Illinois General Assembly, former state Sen. John Sullivan is settling into his new role in state government, that of acting director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker tapped Sullivan to head the states agriculture agency, succeeding the former director, Raymond Poe. Sullivan also served on the transition team with a group of other officials focusing on agriculture and rural development.

Speaking to reporters during a news conference at the agencys headquarters Monday, Sullivan said his experience on the transition team taught him about the diversity of agricultural interests in the state.

When I talk about the diversity, we had folks representing urban ag, we had folks obviously from all the different commodity groups, we had rural development folks, we had economic development folks, Sullivan said. And everybody, when we made our introductions, we laid out what our goals were for the group, everybody put their own issues aside and tried to move forward with a plan that we can present to the governor that would improve agriculture and we expanded it to not only include agriculture but rural development.

Sullivan, a Rushville Democrat who represented the 47th Senate District from 2003 to 2017, is no stranger to the agriculture community in Illinois. He and his family have operated a family farm in west-central Illinois, and he has been involved in a family-owned auction and real estate business.

Now as he prepares to lead a state agency charged with regulating and promoting the states agriculture industry, Sullivan said three major issues have already risen to the surface.

Id say number one, broadband out in the rural areas of the state was just an issue that came up over and over and over again, Sullivan said. I can speak to that from our own home and family location as well as our own business. Trying to get high-speed Internet is very frustrating out in the rural areas of the state, and it is absolutely a hindrance to trying to do business.

Other areas, hemp was certainly on everybodys radar, Sullivan continued, referring to the states recent action to legalize the production of industrial hemp. I certainly feel like theres going to be a lot of opportunities there.

Id say the third area would be ag education, he continued. We had a lot of folks from the education field that were on our panel. Certainly, offering programs in-person or online, and that gets back to the high-speed Internet.

Sullivan also responded to questions about the overall state of agricultural production today, both in Illinois and nationally, especially in light of new trade tensions between the United States and China.

We spent literally decades and decades building those trade relationships with China and other countries, and to have, so to speak, the rug pulled out from under us with regard to trade, Sullivan said. Were going to have to turn around and redevelop and rebuild the trust with those other countries and those organizations.

Sullivan also said the recently passed federal Farm Bill should provide producers with a degree of regulatory certainty for the next few years, allowing them to make planting and investment decisions. But he said all that could change if there is another partial shutdown of the federal government like the month-long shutdown that just ended last week.

During that shutdown, he said, state agriculture officials were forced to step in and fill the void of federal workers to make sure health and safety inspections were still being conducted at slaughterhouses and meat processing plants.

In the big picture, if theres another shutdown, we actually had some discussions (Monday) morning about coming up with some ways that we can make sure it does not impact farmers and producers here in the state, Sullivan said.

The states agriculture industry also stands to be affected by Gov. Pritzkers vow to put a renewed focus on environmental protection and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Illinois.

Last week, the department put on a program with producers around the state that were trying to reduce soil erosion, Sullivan said. Were trying to reduce nutrient runoff, trying to conserve resources. I think thats a small step that we as a department can take.

Last week, Pritzker announced that his administration was joining the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan group of states that have vowed individually to pursue the goals of greenhouse gas reductions outlined in the 2016 international pact known as the Paris Agreement, despite President Donald Trumps announced plan to pull out of that agreement.

And while Pritzkers comments at the time focused mainly on carbon emissions from the states power plants, Sullivan acknowledged Monday that the states livestock industry, also another major source of greenhouse gas emissions, could be asked to take part in the effort.

I think were obviously open to looking at that as well, he said. I cant really speak to it specifically at the moment, but yeah, absolutely well take a look at it.

During his news conference, Pritzker dropped in with a surprise announcement of an $800,000 contribution to the state fair with money raised from his inaugural ball earlier this month. The money is expected to be used to help fund a backlog of deferred maintenance projects at the fairgrounds.

Sullivan also acknowledged that the Department of Agriculture faces a number of challenges, most notably its lack of staffing. Due to recent budget and staffing cuts, he said the agency is down to about 300 to 325 employees from its previous headcount of about 600.

Sullivan will continue to lead the agriculture agency in an acting capacity pending his confirmation by the Illinois Senate.
COLUMBIA  Economic and business development was the theme of the day Wednesday at 11 South as local business and community leaders gathered to learn how a new partnership can help fuel growth in the region.

The Fueling Growth event, hosted by Monroe County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) in partnership with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) and the University of Illinois Extension, was designed to launch a new United States Department of Agriculture grant-funded program in Monroe County and nearby Dupo and to help raise awareness about services available.

The Monroe County Economic Development Corporation was formed to promote economic development in the region by helping businesses stay and grow, supporting initiatives that enhance the areas competitiveness, and leading efforts to attract new investment and new companies to the region, MCEDC Vice Chair Joe Hardin said. By tapping into the resources and expertise of SIUE to help businesses, entrepreneurs and our communities grow, the Fueling Growth program gives us another tool in our toolbox belt to target our agriculture, food and beverage companies with key assistance.

Congressman Mike Bost joined the event by video from the nations capital to applaud the program, which was funded by the USDA Non-Land Grant College of Agriculture Capacity-Building grants program.

Monroe County and the surrounding areas represent a shining example of how Illinois agricultural abundance can translate into economic opportunity and community development, with a vibrant small business community driven largely by food, beverage, and agricultural-based companies including microbreweries, distilleries, restaurants, and of course, a strong agriculture and agribusiness sector, Bost said. I look forward to seeing the fruits of this project in the coming years, in the form of new jobs and economic opportunity, a larger, stronger and more diverse workforce entering food and agriculture careers, and enhanced agriculture education at all levels, from middle and high schools to undergraduate and masters students.

Pamela Jacobs, county extension director for the University of Illinois Extension Madison-Monroe-St. Clair Unit, emphasized that the project impacts would extend into middle and high school classroom across the region.

The University of Illinois Extension appreciates USDAs recognition of this program, which establishes exciting new partnerships that will benefit our region as a whole, said Jacobs. Bringing additional agriculture education into the classroom helps raise students awareness of the many career opportunities that exist and increases their understanding of some of the biggest issues of our time. This project brings SIUE, EDC and the U of I Extension together to ensure a more highly-skilled and prepared workforce for jobs in agriculture and ag-related industries across Monroe, St. Clair and Madison counties by connecting young students to agriculture issues and experiences in a meaningful, exciting way.

Robert Dixon, Ph.D., encouraged business owners and entrepreneurs to think outside of the box about the types of projects that could help move their business or idea forward.

One of this projects strengths is in bringing together interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students to tackle real-world projects, Dixon said. By putting scientists side-by-side with communicators and business professionals, our clients benefit from multiple perspectives being applied to their project while our students benefit from working with the clients and their peers.

Brad Eastman, founder and CEO of Beastman Tea, reinforced the benefits of working with the teams from SIUE during a video he recorded while serving on guard duty. Eastman, a brain cancer survivor who launched Beastman Tea out his desire for a healthy, hydrating and tasty beverage while undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, was also the programs first client.

I would say to any other business considering working with SIUE on this USDA program, sign up quickly because the list is going to become long and Ill be you there will be a waiting list really soon, Eastman said. This team is talented, they are creative, and they know their subject matter. If a business is looking to start off at the ground level and really get some fundamental knowledge from a scientific perspective, partnering is the way to go.

To submit a project idea or learn more about the E3 Fueling Growth program, contact the Monroe County Economic Development Corporation at ekoch@mciledc.com.
The worlds first AI cat shelter for stray cats. (Photo: Baidu)

Wan Xi, a computer engineer at Chinas largest search engine Baidu and a cat lover, has built the worlds first AI cat shelter for stray cats. Besides providing them with a warm home with abundant food and water, the shelter is able to identify 174 kinds of cats and spot common cat diseases with AI technology.

With intelligent temperature and humidity control, as well as a ventilation system, the AI cat shelter provides a comfortable place for stray cats, providing fresh air and a constant temperature of 27 degrees Celsius, the ideal temperature for cats. Abundant cat food and water is provided at the shelter and volunteers constantly refill the bowls.

As an animal lover, Wan, with the help of animal protection volunteers, collected data to learn about stray cats. He discovered that many stray cats on average live no more than two years due to lack of treatment for common diseases.

At first, I just wanted to provide them with a warm place in winter with food and water that is not frozen, Wan said, who designed the cat shelter.

Now, the AI cat shelter is able to identify 174 different kinds of cats with the help of a smart camera and can even automatically allow them access to the shelter.

Furthermore, using Baidus no-code EasyDL tool, the shelter is capable of spotting common diseases and conditions in cats, such as gingivostomatitis, feline herpesvirus (FHV), and skin problems. It can also tell whether a cat has been sterilized. This data is sent to nearby volunteers who can provide better help to these cats in need.

An estimated 40,000 cats live on the streets in China. Despite care and help provided by cat lovers and volunteers, they still face challenges such as lack of food and water and unpleasant weather, especially in winter, as their data has found that only four stray cats out of ten manage to survive a cold winter.
COLLINSVILLE  Illinois State Police District 11 Capt. Timothy Tyler has announced District 11 yearly enforcement figures and activity for 2018.

Illinois State Police District 11 Troopers issued 19,063 total citations and 19,944 written warnings during 2018. Speed violations accounted for 6,969 of those citations. Troopers issued 3,021 occupant restraint citations and 522 citations were issued for distracted driving violations.

Troopers investigated 3,813 traffic crashes and assisted 5,483 motorists. Troopers inspected 7,007 commercial vehicles with 190 drivers and/or vehicles being placed out of service. There were 288 arrests for driving under the influence.

District 11, which encompasses Bond, Clinton, Madison, Monroe and St. Clair counties, had 43 traffic fatalities in 2018.
EDWARDSVILLE  Madison County officials are expected to meet in the near future to discuss ongoing litigation over the prior administrations refusal to allow Veterans Assistance Comission Chairman Brad Lavite into the Administration Building following an episode of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon recently handed down a ruling that the county must pay the balance of a portion of Lavites unpaid legal fees, approximately $45,000.

County Administrator Doug Hulme said they needed to meet with attorneys and County Board members, and that the issue would have to go through at least the Finance Committee before coming to the full board for action.

The decision was filed Jan. 2.

The cases stem from Lavite being banned from the Madison County Administration Building in March 2015 because of a post-traumatic stress breakdown. Although he had been cleared to return to work by a psychiatrist with the St. Louis Veterans Administration Medical Center, a child psychologist with the county disagreed, prompting former Chairman Alan Dunstans administration to ban Lavite from the building over safety concerns.

The initial lawsuits in the case were filed by Lavite against the county, Dunstan, then-County Administrator Joe Parente, and Sheriff John Lakin in July 2016.

Allowing Lavite back into the building was one of the first official acts by then-newly elected Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler.

The latest ruling deals primarily with fees for Lavites attorney, Thomas W. Burkart.

Various county officials had argued that there were insufficient funds in the VACs budget to pay the full amount of the original invoice, $60,365.92; and that invoices submitted by Burkart had too many redactions. Burkart argued that the redactions were necessary because additional information would violate attorney-client privilege.

A second invoice submitted covering the original fees and new fees, totaling $96,021.80 was filed in November 2016.

Since then, legal issues over the matter have been moving between state and federal courts. The state case has gone to the Fifth Appellate Court three times.

Appellate Judge Judy Cates, who wrote the opinion, noted that both parties had very different interpretations of the original appellate opinion, saying the plaintiff (Lavite) has attempted to stretch the decision and mandate.while the Board has attempted to contract it.

The parsing of the opinion was a disservice to the trial court, and frankly, has not served either side well, the opinion stated.

It was also noted that the larger issue was the Madison County Board and the VAC are grappling over the amount of control and oversight the county has over VAC operations and expenditures

Cates wrote that the VAC has control over its expenses, and it is the responsibility of the County to pay them.

Cates said the undisputed facts were that as VAC superintendent, Lavite had the authority to review and approve the invoices, that there were sufficient funds available in the 2016 budget to pay the original invoice, and that if that created a budget deficit the VAC could have requested a supplemental appropriation from the County Board.

Hulme said Wednesday county officials do not have a timetable on making a decision on how to proceed.

Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447.
LR7, a call for a constitutional convention for the purpose of amending the U.S. Constitution, is scheduled for a Feb. 1 hearing. They say its not a constitutional convention, but according to Blacks Law Dictionary, A duly constituted assembly of Delegates or representatives of the people of a state or nation for the purpose of framing, revising or amending its constitution is a constitutional convention.

In March 2014, Robert Kelly, general counsel for Convention of States, said such a call for the Article V convention will open all sections of the Constitution, including Article V. LR7 is not a limited call.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said  there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention  than the Continental Congress could control the convention in Philadelphia, to put a muzzle on a Constitutional Convention. Once it meets, it will do whatever the majority wants to do. I would not favor it.

In 2014, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said: I certainly would not want a constitutional convention. Whoa! Who knows what would come out of it?
Often, vaping is sold as a healthy alternative to smoking. That claim is misleading. While smoke isnt inhaled while vaping, e-cigarettes do contain nicotine, a highly addictive chemical.

So in reality, the switch from smoking to vaping is just trading one addictive product for another. And neither is healthy.

Just as alarming to most health experts is the rapid rate at which young people are becoming hooked on e-cigarettes. Most of this is blamed on e-cigarette companies, particularly Juul, whose advertising and flavors seem pointed at young people.

To address this, state Sen. Dan Quick of Grand Island has introduced a bill (LB149) in the Legislature to add restrictions on vaping, mainly to protect young people. Quick introduced the bill after being presented research by Lisa Albers, a member of the Grand Island school board.

Quicks bill would raise the minimum age to buy and use vaping products from 18 to 21. In addition, it requires those selling vaping products to be licensed and adds vaping to the list of prohibited items under the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act.
In the film, Jelkin said mental health in a school setting is unique and, oftentimes, students come with a host of problems, whether they have experienced trauma, peer frustration, anxiety or depression.

As an educational institution, our No. 1 goal is to obviously educate them but we have to have them ready to learn. And in some cases all of those other issues are standing in the way of the education, he said.

Dupue said in the film that some students are unable to sit in a math class and learn formulas when they have been through traumas or have a metal health issue.

For a lot of those at-risk kids, we are the one constant where they can go where people are going to care for them and people are going to ask them how their day was and they are going to get a hot meal and they are going to learn a thing or two, he said.

And even more so, he said, when schools identify that they are worried about a student for whatever reason, schools can address those reasons through different services.

Millard Public Schools put systems in place to meet challenges families bring to the district, Jelkin said. One of those systems is a partnership with Project Harmony to have a direct-line referral source for students to get immediate mental health assistance.
Dyersville, IA (52040)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 77F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
He added the old bus is a 2004 model and was used as an extra bus. Giltner has three regular route buses, plus the extra one to use as needed.

The old bus wasnt getting a ton of use, but it was old and had a lot of miles, Lenz said. Now, we were able to shift our buses down so our spare bus now is newer, has less miles and is hopefully more dependable moving forward.

Heartland Community Schools received a $40,619 rebate. Maintenance/Transportation Supervisor Matt Quiring said the district just got the new one (bus).

The rebate covers the cost of half of a bus, Quiring said. So that is $40,000 that can be used for kids now rather than being all put toward the bus.

He said the new bus is fairly similar to the old one but has a low-emission engine and is more fuel-efficient. He added he hopes the latter will help Heartland save on its fuel costs.

Other area school districts that received rebates from NDEQ are Anselmo-Merna Public School ($42,000), Hampton Public School ($42,000) and Ravenna Public Schools ($42,000).
NORWALK  Investigators found no connection between two fires that occurred within an hour of one another at Calf Pasture Beach in early January, though one of the incidents is still being investigated as a criminal act.

According to an incident report released Wednesday, fire marshals have determined that the first fire, which destroyed a city-owned storage shed next to the Calf Pasture skate park, was started deliberately by three unidentified individuals.

Video footage from the scene showed three arriving in a white Jeep and starting a fire in a trash bin alongside the shed, the report said.

With a high level of certainty that fire is concluded to have been set deliberately with the intent to cause a fire to occur in an area where the fire should not be, the report read.

Fire Marshal Broderick Sawyer said the department is still reviewing footage from the beach and surrounding areas with the help of police Detective Bureau in the hopes of identifying the three people. If caught, the suspected arsonists could face misdemeanor charges for reckless burning, Sawyer said.

Its been a long time, probably a few years, since anyone has been charged with that, he said.

A parallel investigation also ruled out any foul play in a second fire that happened nearby on a boat at Cove Marina.

Though the cause of the second fire is officially classified as undetermined, according to the report, investigators believe it was the result of a mechanical failure. Fire marshals and a private insurance investigator both concluded that an unknown failure of the boats sewage pump led to the second blaze, the circumstances of which police and fire officials both called suspicious at the time.
WESTPORT  While the Board of Education moves forward with a plan to keep towns sixth graders in the elementary schools next year, it has also staffed a task force to assess the viability of returning to the currently defunct Coleytown Middle School next fall.

The reason for the CMS task force is that while weve looked at the long-term plans for CMS, thereve been a number of people saying it might be possible to reoccupy Coley for the next academic year, Board of Education Chair Mark Mathias said.

After the BOE closed Coleytown in September due to concerns about ongoing issues with mold, the board hired Mount Kisco based KG+D Architects to investigate what it would take to remediate the building. In November, KG+D presented the BOE with solutions for Coleytown, with estimated costs ranging from $25 million to $70 million.

KG+Ds was a long-term perspective. We did not ask them about whether there were some interim solutions that may get Coleytown back, even on a partial basis. Not only had townspeople said there might be another option, we also had professionals who said there might be other options, Mathias said of the BOEs rationale for forming a CMS task force.

The task force has seven members appointed by the BOE, all of whom are residents and many of whom currently serve on the towns Maintenance Study Committee.

These people are all engineers, architects, and people that know a lot about buildings, Mathias said, adding the task force will present to the BOE in January on its findings about the possibility of reopening Coleytown in the fall.

On Wednesday, the task force met for the first time and elected Vanessa Valadares to chair the group. Valadares works as a project engineer for the city of Norwalk, according to her Linkedin profile.

At the same time, elementary school parents parents, notably from Long Lots Elementary School, have spoken out at BOE meetings with concerns the school will be overcrowded when the sixth graders remain on the elementary school campuses later this year.

The BOE is preparing open bidding for a company to add two to three portable classrooms to each elementary school, and all schools will meet fire safety capacities for each building and district maximums for class sizes, Mathias said.

The Board of Education will next meet on Jan. 14.
WESTPORT  Parents condemned the Board of Educations alleged slow progress on a plan to restore Coleytown Middle School following the presentation of a new report that says students may not return to the school until January 2020 at the earliest.

The time for more and new committees and reports, its over. This is an emergency and it has to be treated as an emergency, Westporter Brett Parker said at the Jan. 28 Board of Education meeting.

The report, completed jointly by the engineering firms Kohler Ronan, LLC and Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. is the third the BOE commissioned since Coleytown closed in September due to mold issues.

Elevated indoor humidity levels at Coletown can be, largely attributed to operational characteristics of the buildings existing HVAC systems as well as leaking and permeability of the building envelope, the report said, confirming the previous two reports conclusions that the building could not be reopened by next fall.

The report provided a high-level overview of fixes needed to reoccupy Coleytown, but the board would need many more details in order to make a decision, BOE member Jeannie Smith said.

BOE Chair Mark Mathias said its difficult to move-forward on decisions about how to repair Coleytown given the still vague information about the condition of the school.

Im having some challenges figuring those things out given the ambiguity and the decisions that have yet to be made and the initiatives that have yet to be started, Mathias said, adding the board cannot predict an end date for the Coleytown restoration project until it begins.

The end date depends on when you start, and we havent really even started yet. So we have to start, weve got to do all the things, and decide what we want to do, and then we have to end, Mathias said.

The BOE may make decisions on where to house students, but the town ultimately owns the Coleytown building, and First Selectman Jim Marpe said his focus is aimed at the reoccupation and rehabilitation of the school.

Marpe proposed the formation of a Coleytown Middle School building committee that would be made up of a small group of residents. A separate Coleytown Middle School task force is currently working to assess the viability of returning to the school next fall and is set to present its findings at the Feb. 4 education board meeting.

Building committees have been formed in the past to oversee large-scale projects in town, Marpe said. Later, the BOE unanimously voted to set up such a committee for Coleytown.

Several residents agreed with Marpes focus on rehabilitating Coleytown as soon as possible, and expressed concern about the BOEs lack of a long-term plan for the school.

We have to start doing some action, not sitting around here procrastinating. I believe that we have to get construction going soon. We can replace windows. We can build Coleytown back, Representative Town Meeting member Jimmy Izzo said.

Portables cost too high

Discussion reopened about the boards plan to house all of the sixth-grade students in the elementary schools next year as well, after chief financial officer Elio Longo initially provided an estimated $2.7 million cost for place 13 portable classrooms for the next two years.

At the boards Jan. 22 meeting , however, a consultant provided a $3.6 million estimated cost to lease the portables for five years, which was much higher than the board expected when it voted on the on the K-6 plan in December.

Many parents once again called on the board to rethink the K-6 plan, given the new estimated costs. They asked the BOE to instead choose the other option considered: house all of the towns middle school students at Bedford Middle School, as the district has done this year.

Parents also cited concern the BOE will be unable to implement the portables before the next school year, given the tight timeline for the RTM and Board of Finance to approve the cost to qualify for state reimbursement. The approvals would need to be in place by Feb. 8 in order to meet reimbursement eligibility.

Other parents said the BOE needs to move forward with the K-6 plan and secure the portables lest they run out of time.

How is this going to work, and if it doesnt work, whats going to happen? Ive come to the strong conclusion that this administration, and sadly this board, is not able to execute on K-6 with the timetable and the costs too high, said resident Robert Harrington, who originally supported the K-6 plan but has since shifted his views.

BOE member Vik Muktavaram reiterated the need to reconsider the boards decision in light of the substantial cost-differential between the K-6 plan and the option to keep all of the middle schoolers at Bedford next year.

The board said it will keep the option open to house middle school students at Bedford next year and continue the discussion after the task force report is completed.

After midnight, the BOE voted to recommend the finance board and RTM appropriate up to $4 million for the purchase or rental of modular classrooms, regardless of the final plan, in order to meet the states deadline.

The board is scheduled to meet next on Feb. 4.

svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1
Douglas, WY (82633)

Today

Gusty winds developing. A mix of clouds and sun giving way to cloudy skies with periods of rain this afternoon. High near 70F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy and damp with rain early...then becoming partly cloudy. Low 48F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
As Connecticut lawmakers tackle the 2019 legislative session over the next five months, legislators are pushing an array of firearm bills that highlight issues regarding gun safety, rights and reforms.

Connecticut has more firearm laws than almost every other state, according to an inventory by Boston University researchers. Many of those laws emerged in response to the Sandy Hook School shootings in 2012, and have been touted as some of the nations strongest restrictions on guns.

Democrats will likely use their majority in both legislative chambers to help shepherd a number of additional gun-control bills backed by advocates.

On the campaign trail, Gov. Ned Lamont said he would ensure Connecticut remains a leader in combatting gun violence through legislation. The governor has also expressed support for banning 3D-printed guns, and so-called ghost guns, which are firearms parts used to make untraceable weapons.

Here are some of the most significant gun bills lawmakers have introduced in the General Assembly in 2019:

Gun safety measures

Among Democratic proposals for further restrictions are measures to ban 3D-printed guns and ghost guns, and require those openly carrying a firearm to show their gun permit to law enforcement officers if requested.

Theres absolutely no reason why we as a society should have 3D-printed or ghost guns  these are loopholes in the definition of firearms, said state Sen. Alex Bergstein of Greenwich.

Recent efforts to restrict 3D-printed guns and ghost guns have failed, but in May the legislature passed a bill later signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy that bans the sale and ownership of bump stocks, a rapid-fire rifle accessory.

Bergstein, who has introduced iterations of all of those bills, said although lawmakers can pass legislation on a state level, the problem wont be eliminated until Congress acts.

State Sen. Will Haskell, the 22-year-old Democrat who unseated Republican incumbent Toni Boucher, said local students and high schoolers who volunteered on his campaign told him common sense gun violence prevention was their most salient concern.

Among his own proposals regarding ghost guns and firearm permit holders, is another that would limit the number of guns someone can purchase to one per month.

Haskell said if Connecticut passes that legislation, it would be following the lead of California, New Jersey and Maryland and heeding to important public safety concerns regarding bulk purchases of firearms.

Gun-rights measures

Having lost seats in both chambers and their chairmen posts on legislative committees, minority Republicans will have an uphill battle in trying to move a range of legislation aimed at bolstering gun rights.

Those measures include prohibiting the governor or municipalities from restricting possession of firearms or ammunition during a state of emergency, allowing the transfer of an assault weapon or large-capacity magazine between two people who already legally possess either one, and allowing an individual with an out-of-state license or firearms permit to buy ammunition.

State Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, said his measure to allow the transfer of assault weapons and large capacity magazines would not be adding any new weapons or magazines into the state, it would not be adding any new owners.

The Republican lawmaker said Democrats attempts at requiring those openly carrying a firearm to show their gun permit to law enforcement officers would not survive court scrutiny. Dubitsky said law enforcement officials cannot stop someone and ask to see their permit without first being reasonably suspicious a crime has been committed.
After Connecticut enacted a new law this year preventing employers from asking job applicants about past compensation, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro reintroduced legislation in Congress that would make that a federal law, too.

Under the Paycheck Fairness Act co-sponsored by DeLauro, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., employers would be required to prove that any pay gaps between men and women in similar positions are for job-related reasons.

The bill would also provide funding for workshops to help women learn how to better negotiate salaries and other benefits.

Earlier studies have determined that women make, on average, 80 cents for each dollar earned by their male professional counterparts. One study published last year by the Institute for Womens Policy Research suggested the gap is far wider. IWPR said that based on current trends, women will not catch up to men in average pay until 2059.

DeLauro and Murray reintroduced their bill a day after the 10-year anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which allowed women to challenge pay discrimination regardless of how far back any initial disparities had occurred.

A new law signed by former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy last year prohibits employers from requesting salary histories, on the premise that the information could be used as a tool to limit compensation and maintain pay gaps between men and women. Ned Lamont, who has since become governor, submitted written comments in support of the bill, citing his own experiences running a business.

Annually, women who are employed full-time in Connecticut lose a combined total of $15 billion to the wage gap, Lamont stated last March. Paying workers fairly is also important to the culture of a company. When someone is treated unfairly that impacts morale across the workplace and reduces productivity.

The Connecticut law took effect this month, with employers allowed to ask about the structure of a job applicants past compensation  for instance, whether they were paid on a commission basis or received stock options  and does not prohibit job applicants from divulging their pay histories during an interview.

In the current session of the General Assembly, state Sens. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and Martin Looney, D-New Haven, are co-sponsoring with 15 other legislators a bill designed to ensure all employees receive fair and equal pay for equal work, with further details not provided immediately.

Separately, state Sen. Alex Bergstein, D-Greenwich, has introduced a proposed Act Establishing Womens Economic Equality that would create an audit mechanism for employers to prove they are in compliance with equal pay between men and women.

Bergsteins bill would also establish a $15 minimum wage in Connecticut  a threshold Lamont has stated he wants as well  with other elements, including requiring all businesses to have their employees trained annually in sexual harassment prevention, and mandating that women occupy 30 percent of seats on boards of director.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Purdue Pharma is one of the most scrutinized and litigated companies in the U.S.

The Stamford-based firms top-selling drug, the opioid pill OxyContin, is intended to treat chronic, non-cancer pain. But the company has faced mounting controversy since the medication went on the market in 1996, as a national epidemic of opioid abuse has plagued the country.

Why have so many lawsuits been filed against Purdue?

The complaints filed in courts across the country stem from local and state governments campaigns to hold accountable pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue that make prescription opioids.

In 2017, about 49,000 people in the U.S. died of opioid overdoses, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The toll represented a four-fold increase over the number of opioid deaths in 2002.

In 2017, 1,038 people died of drug overdoses in Connecticut  more than double the total in 2013 according to the state Chief Medical Examiners Office. Nearly half of the 2017 deaths involved heroin.

The toll correlates with escalating use of opioids such as OxyContin, which comprises the majority of Purdues estimated annual sales of about $3 billion. Many who first become addicted to doctor-prescribed painkillers eventually turn to the streets, where they can find illegal opioids such as heroin that are cheap and easy to buy.

Opioid prescriptions in the U.S. peaked in 2010 and then dropped each year through 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the 2015 rate ran at about three times the 1999 level.

What is Purdue alleged to have done wrong?

The lawsuits generally share the same allegations: They accuse Purdue of years of deceptive and dishonest marketing that misrepresented the benefits and risks of pain treatment with its opioids, namely OxyContin.

In court documents, the complaints put much of the blame on company executives, and increasingly, on members of the Sackler family who own the privately held Purdue and hold most of its board seats.

The Sacklers and other executives directed thousands of visits by sales representatives to doctors, encouraging inappropriate levels of opioid prescribing, according to lawsuits filed by Connecticuts and Massachusetts attorneys general. Connecticut claims Purdues aggressive marketing campaign misled doctors and downplayed the risks of addiction to the companys drugs. The Purdue sales force allegedly tried to get more patients on higher doses, for longer periods, and treated doctors who prescribed the drugs in large amounts to meals, gifts and cash.

Purdue has uniformly denied the allegations.

Who has sued?

Several hundred local and county governments and the attorneys general of 35 states have sued the company in the past few years.

Connecticut filed its complaint last month, under then-Attorney General George Jepsen. Massachusetts sued last June, followed a couple of months of later by New York state.

Other states that have taken legal action in the past year include Florida, Indiana, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona and Oregon.

Many of the countrys largest cities  including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago  have also filed complaints.

In Connecticut, more than 20 cities and towns have sued.

Earlier this month, a state Superior Court judge dismissed about 20 of those complaints, including those of Bridgeport, New Britain, New Haven and Waterbury. Those cities might appeal the decision.

Danbury and Norwalk are pursuing similar claims in a separate group of cases.

The city of Stamford has not sued, although officials in Mayor David Martins office have said that they have not ruled out litigation against the company.

What is at risk for Purdue?

The lawsuits allegations have severely damaged the companys reputation and credibility.

Evidence against the firm continues to grow. On Monday, a state judge in Massachusetts ruled that the full version of that states complaint must be released. Earlier this month, hundreds of pages of documents in that case were released.

Spurred by the litigation, protests organized and attended by grassroots advocates  many with family or friends who have died from opioid addiction  were held last summer outside Purdues downtown headquarters.

In what was likely a response to the litigation, the company last year stopped marketing its opioids to medical professionals and disbanded its sales force.

Those changes led to the layoffs of several hundred employees.

As awareness and outrage over the opioid crisis have grown, Purdue has also seen its sales decline.

OxyContin sales totaled $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data from health care analytics company Symphony Health Solutions. Competition from generic drugs has contributed to the decrease.

How might the lawsuits be resolved?

To help manage the proliferation of lawsuits, a Cleveland-based federal judge, Dan Polster, is overseeing approximately 1,700 complaints filed by municipal and county governments in a process known as Multidistrict Litigation.

A comprehensive settlement  which would probably be reached through the MDL proceedings  could take several more months, even years, to finalize.

Estimates vary for the size of a potential agreement but the total could surpass the approximately $250 billion that the tobacco industry agreed to pay in 1998 to settle a torrent of lawsuits.

In Purdues largest-ever payout through the courts, the company and three former executives incurred about $635 million in penalties tied to a 2007 guilty plea to misbranding OxyContin to mislead and defraud physicians and patients.

What else should I read to understand this story?

Tong vows to keep taking fight to Purdue Pharma

Purdue Pharma opioid protests

Connecticut lawsuit intensifies scrutiny of Purdue Pharma owners

Connecticut lawsuit highlights pressure on Purdue Pharma

Purdue Pharma grapples with growing protests

Judge dismisses local CT lawsuits against Purdue Pharmax

Congressional committee investigates Purdue Pharma

Purdue Pharma sued by Virginia

Purdue Pharma sued by New York state

Giant heroin spoon sculpture returned to artist who placed it at Purdue Pharma

Beleaguered Purdue Pharma makes leadership changes

Purdue Pharma considered expanding into 'attractive' anti-addiction market

Tong vows to keep taking fight to Purdue Pharma

Purdue Pharma spoon-sculpture protest reprised in R.I.

Purdue Pharma lawsuits from CT, Mass.: Similar, but still separate

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma seeks dismissal of Massachusetts lawsuit

Testimony: Sackler embraced plan to conceal OxyContin's strength from doctors

Bankruptcy speculation clouds embattled Purdue Pharma

Who is covering this story?

The Stamford Advocates business reporter, Paul Schott can be reached at (203) 964-2236, by email at pschott@scni.com or on Twitter at @paulschott.

Questions? Comments?

Contact Paul or Advocate Managing Editor Tom Mellana (203) 964-2258 or thomas.mellana@scni.com.
After damage to the culverts caused by flooding from Hurricane Michael forced Rocky Mount officials to close School Board Dec. 27, the road has reopened.

Rocky Mount Public Works, Police and Community Development and our contractors and engineers have worked hard over the past month to reopen this important link for our school and bus traffic, said Rocky Mount assistant town manager Matthew Hankins. The work we have done is not just a short-term fix, but one that addresses the frequent flooding issues near the rail trestle.

Hurricane Michael flooded a stump into the culvert pipe, causing water to back up and erode the road base around the pipe and making the road unsafe for any vehicle traffic.

Public Works and Community Development staff presented ideas to engineering partners to fix not just the pipes but also the long-term flooding problem. One issue hampering repairs is shallow utilities located between bedrock and the asphalt, limiting potential solutions.

The staff removed an old culvert which once served as an entrance to Mod-U-Kraft, removed the damaged culvert crossing the road, armored the flood channel, put in roadside concrete barriers and installed two culverts in place of the road culvert, more than doubling the capacity to carry floodwaters under the road.
Never mind Sesame Street  by age 3, Cheyenne Grantham was begging to play the fiddle. She was already learning to read music and playing piano with her grandmother. Mom and Dad put off the fiddle lessons as long as they could, but gave in and started her at age 4.

Fast forward five years, and these days, the young Franklin County musician is jamming with bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs. A church connection led to Skaggs inviting Cheyenne to join him and Kentucky Thunder on stage at Harvester Performance Center Jan.10.

I told Cheyenne that we were going to see if we can get an opportunity for you to play in front of your own hometown, explained Cheyennes mom Kady Grantham. She was tickled by that.

They played Bill Monroes Jerusalem Ridge.

Cheyenne met Skaggs at the International Bluegrass Music Association World of Bluegrass Festival in Raleigh, N.C., last September when he stopped by the youth jam to play. Shes listened to his music forever, Kady said.

Though shes a huge Skaggs fan, to her, it was just getting up on stage and jamming. Thats her favorite thing to do, Kady continued. When she goes on stage, its just like breathing for her.
The next remedy is you can certainly appeal to the next court level, or I guess you can get a delegate or senator to pick it up and make a law, Church said.

Church said he did not understand why asking for the documentation, which all parents who register their children in public schools must provide, was so controversial.

We have a lot of issues out there, he said. I dont know that this is one that causes any real damage or harm for anyone.

Church said the division has always asked for this information from parents who wish to home-school, and only adopted the policy in 2017 after someone questioned whether the school board had the authority to seek such information.

The superintendent said he felt this issue should be decided by the courts, and noted that the local court had no problem with Franklin Countys policy. But if Heads bill becomes law, Church said the division obviously will comply.

Head did not respond to requests for comment.
From left to right: Candice Crocker, 33, Elwyn Crocker, 49, and Kim Wright, 50, were arrested and charged with concealing the death of another and cruelty to children in the first degree after two children were found buried in the backyard of their Effingham County, Georgia home on Dec. 20, 2018. All three, and two others, were charged with murder on Jan. 28, 2019. (Effingham County Sheriff's Office)

Walmart Santa Who Police Say Buried His Kids in Backyard Charged With Murder

A former Walmart Santa, whose children were found buried in his backyard, has been charged with murder.

Elwyn Crocker Sr. and three others were arrested in December 2018 after his son, Elwyn Crocker Jr., and his daughter, Mary Crocker, were found dead and buried in the backyard of the family home in Effingham County.

Crocker Sr., 49, was previously charged with child cruelty and concealing a death while charges were also filed against Candice Crocker, his 33-year-old wife, her 50-year-old mother, Kim Wright, Wrights boyfriend, Roy Anthony Prater, and Crockers brother, 31-year-old Tim Wright.

Now, all five have been charged with felony murder, the Effingham County Sheriffs Office said on Jan. 28. The suspects, who are all in jail, were served with murder warrants, reported WTGS.

The official cause of death for both Crocker Jr. and Mary Crocker hasnt been released by the medical examiner as of yet.

Drugs may have played a role in the deaths as Wright was charged with three drug-related charges and Prater, 55, was charged with three drug-related charges.

David Exley, the coroner of Effingham County, told the Savannah Morning News recently that an anthropologist in Georgia who works with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is handling the case and that a report on the cause of death could take another two or three months.

Neighbors said that the body of Mary Crocker, 14, was dug up on Dec. 20 before officers found Elwyn Jr., who was 14 when he vanished two years before his sister was last seen in October 2018.

I was there when they pulled Mary out of the ground. It pretty much made me heartsick, Kristy Cook, one neighbor, told the outlet. She said that her daughter, Abigail, used to play with Mary and a third child, James, who was not killed, but that Elwyn Jr. seemed to always be doing chores.

One day, she remembered, her daughter noticed that the boy seemed to have disappeared

One day my daughter noticed JR wasnt doing yard work. Mary even told my daughter he had moved to South Carolina with his mother, she said.

Exley said that the bodies were in two separate locations in the backyard. One was buried four feet deep while the other was buried six feet deep.

Its Horrible

Law enforcement officials were visibly distraught after discovering the bodies as they struggled to understand how the children could have been killed.

Ive been doing this 41 years, and a while ago I almost broke down in tears, Jimmy McDuffie, Effingham County sheriff, said during a press conference after the bodies were found, reported Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Its that bad. I cannot understand how you do children like this. Its horrible.

According to the outlet, Elwyn Sr. worked as a Santa Claus at Walmart shortly before his arrest.

McDuffie said that there were a number of concerned neighbors and urged people who had concerns about anyone in their community to give law enforcement a call.

If we can just encourage those folks to give us a call, he said, it could lead us to maybe not having this conclusion.

Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Gena Sullivan added, The biggest question some of us are asking is, how did the little boy go missing for two years and nobody identified that?

From NTD News
Utility Bankruptcy Could Be Costly to Wildfire Victims

SAN FRANCISCOFaced with potentially ruinous lawsuits over Californias recent wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 29, in a move that could lead to higher bills for customers of the nations biggest utility and reduce the size of any payouts fire victims receive.

The Chapter 11 filing allows PG&E to continue operating while it puts its books in order. But it was seen as a possible glimpse of the financial toll that could lie ahead because of global warming, which scientists say is leading to fiercer, more destructive blazes and longer fire seasons.

The bankruptcy could also jeopardize Californias ambitious program to switch entirely to renewable energy sources.

PG&E cited hundreds of lawsuits from victims of fires in 2017 and 2018 and tens of billions of dollars in potential liabilities when it announced earlier this month that it planned to file for bankruptcy.

The blazes include the nations deadliest wildfire in a centurythe one in November that killed at least 86 people and destroyed 15,000 homes in Paradise and surrounding communities. The cause is under investigation, but suspicion fell on PG&E after it reported power line problems nearby around the time the fire broke out.

Last week, however, state investigators determined that the companys equipment was not to blame for a 2017 fire that killed 22 people in Northern California wine country.

The bankruptcy filing immediately puts the wildfire lawsuits on hold and consolidates them in bankruptcy court, where legal experts say victims will probably receive less money.

In a bankruptcy proceeding, the victims have little chance of getting punitive damages or taking their claims to a jury. They will also have to stand in line behind PG&Es secured creditors, such as banks, when a judge decides who gets paid and how much.

My administration will continue working to ensure that Californians have access to safe, reliable and affordable service, that victims and employees are treated fairly, and that California continues to make forward progress on our climate change goals, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

Legal experts say the bankruptcy will probably take years to resolve and result in higher rates for customers of PG&E, which provides natural gas and electricity to 16 million people in Northern and Central California.

PG&E would not speculate about the effect on customers bills, noting that the state Public Utilities Commission sets rates. It said the bankruptcy filing would not affect electricity or gas service and would allow for an orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of wildfire claims.

PG&E also filed for bankruptcy in 2001 during an electricity crisis marked by rolling blackouts and the manipulation of the energy market. It emerged from bankruptcy three years later but obtained billions in higher payments from ratepayers.

California has set a goal of getting 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources such as wind, solar and hydropower by 2045. To achieve that, utilities must switch to buying power from renewable sources.

PG&E made agreements in 2017 to buy electricity from solar farms. But because of its bankruptcy, some experts have questioned its ability to pay what it agreed to, or to make the investments in grid upgrades and batteries necessary to bring more renewable energy online.

PG&Es bankruptcy is going to make it a lot more costly for California to meet its environmental goals, and could make it more challenging just to get the infrastructure built to help cut emissions and increase renewable energy, said Travis Miller, an investment strategist at Morningstar Inc.

Consumer activist Erin Brockovich, who took on PG&E in the 1990s, had urged California lawmakers not to let the utility go into bankruptcy because it could mean less money for wildfire victims.

PG&E faced additional pressure not to seek bankruptcy after investigators said a private electrical system, not utility equipment, caused the 2017 wine country blaze that destroyed more than 5,600 buildings in Sonoma and Napa counties. Newsoms office estimated that more than half of the roughly $30 billion in potential wildfire damages that PG&E said it was facing was from that fire.

While the investigators finding reduced PG&Es potential liability, it wasnt enough to reassure investors. Its stock is down 70 percent from about a year ago.

By Sudhin Thanawala And Cathy Bussewitz
Neo Hobbs, 16, was in a coma after getting bullied at school, family members said. (Neo Hobbs/GoFundMe)

Utah Teenager in Coma After Getting Bullied at School

A Utah teenager is in a coma after getting bullied at school, his family said.

Neo Hobbs, 16, has been in Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake City for a week-and-a-half after an altercation at school that his mother, Sandra Davidson, believes is linked to bullying.

Neo woke up after about a week in a coma but still cant talk or move.

Davidson said that just before the incident, he was complaining about being bullied at Elko High School in Nevada.

This boy was saying stuff about him, and I told Neo, Just ignore it. He says, I am, mom. The best I can,' Davidson told Fox 6.

Davidson told her son that he should tell school officials about the bullying but he declined. She offered to tell them herself but he asked her not to do that.

Then, on Jan. 17, she got a call that her son had been rushed to the hospital in Elko and, after a CAT scan showed bleeding on his brain, he was flown to Utah for brain surgery.

Officials havent told her much, only that he was hit.

It shifted his brain. Made it bleed and bruised really, really bad. He has to have a lot of physical therapy, she said. He has to learn how to walk, talk, brush his teeth, feed himself. He has to learn all that over again.

Teen hospitalized with fractured skull was bullied at school, mom says https://t.co/4IN2XxMqSr pic.twitter.com/rx1FL78IS7  WTVR CBS 6 Richmond (@CBS6) January 30, 2019

The Elko Police Department is involved in the probe into what happened but didnt comment on the case.

Neos uncle started a fundraiser for the teen on gofundme.

My nephew Neo was punched in the face today at school knocked him unconscious he fell back hit his head and had a brain bleed and is having brain surgery, wrote Andy Andersen.

They live in Elko, NV and was airlifted to Salt Lake City, UT. Looking for help with travel expenses for his mother Sandi. Thanks in advance.

The fundraiser had garnered $3,100 at the time of this publication.

My prayers and thoughts are with you. Hopefully, the person who did this will be brought to justice, wrote one person who donated.

This breaks my heart. Sending much love and prayers, said another.

Im so sorry for all the pain and suffering you and your family are going through. I will keep you and your son in my prayers, added another.

Bullying

According to Stop Bullying, a government group, 28 percent of students in the United States have experienced bullying while 70 percent of youth have seen bullying at school. Some 30 percent of respondents admitted to bullying in surveys, the group said. In one study, about 49 percent of students in grades 4 through 12 reported being bullied by other students at school at least once during the previous month.

The most common types of bullying are verbal and social. Physical bullying happens less often. Cyberbullying happens the least frequently, the group stated. Most bullying takes place in school, outside on school grounds, and on the school bus. Bullying also happens wherever kids gather in the community. And of course, cyberbullying occurs on cell phones and online.

The relationship between bullying and suicide is complex, according to Stop Bullying.

While the vast majority of young people who are bullied dont commit or attempt suicide, Stop Bullying said, research indicates that persistent bullying can lead to or worsen feelings of isolation, rejection, exclusion, and despair, as well as depression and anxiety, which can contribute to suicidal behavior.

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US Urges China to Release Jailed Human Rights Lawyer

WASHINGTONThe Trump administration is calling on China to immediately release a jailed human rights lawyer who was convicted of subverting state power.

The State Department says in a statement it is deeply concerned by the 4-year prison sentence handed down to Wang Quanzhang. It says he had been held for 3 years in pre-trial detention, often incommunicado and deprived of a lawyer of his choice.

The department says it was troubled by his treatment and is urging Chinese authorities to reunite him with his family. Wang was arrested in a 2015 crackdown on legal advocates, an incident often referred to as 709.

The statement comes as relations between the U.S. and China grow rockier over trade and criminal charges brought against Chinese tech company Huawei.

Defending Falun Gong

Wang offered legal aid to Falun Gong practitioners and other victims of repression by the Chinese regime, including petitioners whose land had been seized by developers, prisoners abused in labor camps, and those mistreated by the police.

Falun Gong is a Chinese spiritual discipline practiced by tens of millions of people who do meditation and follow traditional moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In June 1999, then-Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin ordered Falun Gong banned; mass arrests followed the next month.

Wang had taken an interest in what was happening to Falun Gong since the beginning of the persecution, when he was still in law school, according to the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG). In the 2000s, along with lawyers such as the renowned Gao Zhisheng, Wang was one of the first to represent Falun Gong practitioners in court.

Due to the highly political nature of the persecution, defending Falun Gong carried inherently greater risks than those associated with ordinary rights cases. Wang Quanzhang, Gao Zhisheng, and other human rights lawyers who represented Falun Gong practitioners have themselves been harassed, imprisoned, and tortured.

Epoch Times staff member Leo Timm contributed to this report.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats testifies at a hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in Congress in Washington on Jan. 29, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

US Spy Chiefs Warn About Chinas Growing Threat to Security

China poses a serious and growing threat to the United States, particularly in the field of technology, U.S. intelligence leaders told a Senate hearing Jan. 29.

Chinese pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and U.S. personnel data remains a significant threat to the United States government and the private sector, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified at the Senate Intelligence Committees annual hearing on worldwide threats. The directors of the CIA, FBI, and other top intelligence officials also testified.

In a hearing focused on technologically advanced security threats, intelligence officials described aspects of the Chinese regimes multifaceted plan to surpass the United States as the worlds superpower, including through intellectual property theft, military expansion, and gaining global influence through investment programs under its Belt and Road Initiative.

The warning comes just a day after the Justice Department unsealed two sets of indictments against Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co. The first case accuses the company, as well as Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. The second alleges Huawei stole trade secrets from U.S. mobile carrier T-Mobile.

The hearing also covered threats posed by Russia, North Korea, and Iran, and interference in U.S. elections.

Technology Theft

Echoing previous comments made by officials and lawmakers, FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke of the seriousness of the Chinese regimes threat to U.S. national security.

The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive, and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of, Wray said.

Coats said the communist regimes actions reflected a long-term strategy to achieve global superiority.

Frankly, while we were sleeping in the last decade and a half, China had a remarkable rise in capabilities, that are stunning, Coats said.

A lot of that was achieved  by stealing information from our companies, by inserting Chinese [workers]  in our labs, [and] bringing back  stolen properties.

Coats said intelligence officials have been working with the business community, meeting with corporate executives to discuss espionage threats posed by China.

The United States, Coats said, also has warned its allies about the risks of doing business with China, and these allies are now questioning their dealings with the communist country.

[Our allies are] now finding their product has been duplicated by the Chinese and sold at half the price because they didnt have to spend as much money on research development, he said.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) referred to the actions of Chinese state-owned chipmaker Fujian Jinhua, which is accused of stealing trade secrets from U.S. semiconductor company Micron, relating to the production of memory storage devices.

In November last year, the Commerce Department blocked U.S. exports to the Chinese chipmaker. Around the same time, U.S. prosecutors indicted Jinhua, and its business partner, Taiwans United Microelectronics Corp., and three individuals for conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, economic espionage, and related crimes.

Chinese Companies Beholden to Chinese Communist Party

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the committee, said corporate espionage is sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Especially concerning have been the efforts of big Chinese tech companies which are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party to acquire sensitive technology, replicate it, and undermine the market share of U.S. firms with the help of the Chinese state.

Wray said Americans and U.S. allies are just now starting to understand how the communist regime operates.

The lines between the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, are blurred, if not totally erased, Wray said. The lines between the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned enterprises, the same. The line between the Chinese government and ostensibly private companies [the same].

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) referred specifically to Huawei, saying the company had a choice of either being a global telecommunications company or an agent of the CCP.

They cant be both, King said. And right now, theyre trying to be both.
Gary Verstegen clears a sidewalk in Little Chute, Wisconsin during the polar vortex on Jan. 28, 2019. (William Glasheen/The Post-Crescent via AP)

US Postal Service Suspends Service in Metro Detroit, Michigan Over Cold

Other states see canceled service

The U.S. Postal Service said Jan. 30 it has suspended mail delivery in metro Detroit and in other parts of Michigan amid subzero temperatures and wind chills.

USPS stopped deliveries in cities with the zip codes starting with 486 through 469, 72 through 475, 478, and 479. Deliveries were suspended in the metro Detroit areas of 480 through 485 and 492, according to the Detroit Free Press.

A wind chill warning was issued by the National Weather Service, saying temperatures will get to 45 degrees below zero in some places.

Meanwhile, the USPS said it canceled service in parts of Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois (including parts of Chicago), Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, western Pennsylvania, the Dakotas, and Nebraska, CBS News reported.

The so-called polar vortex, or displaced cold air from the arctic circle, has spread to the lower 48 states, mainly hitting the Midwest. Illinois, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and western New York are being affected by the weather phenomenon.

In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, breaking the days previous record low set in 1966. Snowplows were idled overnight in southwestern Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to minus 29 degrees. And the temperature in Fargo, North Dakota, was 31 degrees below zero, according to The Associated Press.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, elderly, and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.

People dont want to be out there right now, said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

Wind chills on Wednesday morning plunged into the 50s below zero in central Illinois, Chicago, and Milwaukee, reported The Weather Channel.

He may be dressed like an astronaut, but for good reason. It was the coldest balloon launch in 23 years. The temperature was -29.5. #BoldNorth pic.twitter.com/K4oK86Ynjd  NWS Twin Cities (@NWSTwinCities) January 30, 2019

And wind chills in the 60s below zero were recorded in North Dakota, northeast Iowa, and Minnesota.

The heart of this cold is hitting us now. A lot of records are going to fall, Brian Hurley, with the NWSs Weather Prediction Center in Maryland, told Reuters.

I about just got caught in a giant wreck; cars are into other pickups, theres people hurt. I gotta let you go. Jason Coffelt, a local in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said on social media, describing a large weather-triggered crash.

About 2,000 flights were canceled Wednesday, mainly around the Chicago area, Reuters reported.

Train operator Amtrak said it canceled all trains in and out of Chicago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
US Launches Plan for Asylum Seekers to Wait in Mexico

SAN DIEGOThe Trump administration on Jan. 29, launched an effort to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts.

The effort, called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), is an attempt to rein in meritless asylum claims and stop thousands of illegal immigrants from being released into the country, never to be seen again.

The United States returned one Honduran asylum seeker to Mexico under the new policy. Carlos Gomez, 55, arrived in Tijuana around midday and asked authorities for a ride to a migrant shelter.

Mexican officials sent mixed signals on the crucial point of whether Mexico would impose limits on accepting families. Tonatiuh Guillen, the commissioner of Mexicos National Immigration Institute, said Mexico would only accept people 18 to 60 years old, which rules out families with young children.

But Roberto Velasco, spokesman for Mexicos foreign relations secretary, said Friday, Jan. 25, that families would be considered case by case.

The launch is limited to San Diegos San Ysidro border crossing, the nations busiest, though Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan wrote in a memo released Tuesday that it is expected to expand to other crossings in the near future. Adding to a sense of confusion, Guillen said Mexico will only allow it at the one crossing that connects San Diego and Tijuana.

Katie Waldman, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, insisted families will be included. A sharp increase in Central American families seeking asylum in the United States led to the Trump administrations decision, and limiting families would diminish the impact.

It will be expanded across the entire Southwest border, and it will apply to family groups, Waldman said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was in San Diego on Tuesday to observe the launch but had no public appearances. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said in a news release that the program began Tuesday.

Mexicos foreign relations secretary said Friday that the United States would start with 20 people a day. Two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations were not public, said shortly before the launch that the policy would start with about 100 people a week in a trial period of up to 90 days in San Diego.

The launch followed months of delicate talks between the United States and Mexico and marked a change to the U.S. asylum system that both the administration and asylum experts said was unprecedented.

On Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a memo to employees that asylum officers would interview migrants to determine if they are more likely than not to be persecuted or tortured in Mexico while waiting for hearings in the United States. If they are not, they will be returned to Mexico.

Asylum seekers will not be allowed to have attorneys at that initial screening held at border crossings given the limited capacity and resources, drawing swift criticism from immigration attorneys.

With this policy, the Trump administration is purposefully keeping Central Americans in unsafe conditions without access to counsel and evidence in an effort to send them straight back to the hands of their persecutors, Dree Collopy, an immigration lawyer in Washington, wrote in an email.

Due largely to a court-imposed 20-day limit on detaining children, families are typically released in the United States with a notice to appear in illegal immigration court. With a backlog of more than 800,000 cases, it can take years to settle cases.

Nielsen said last week that the migrant protection protocols being introduced in San Diego are a methodical commonsense approach to a humanitarian and security crisis on the Mexican border.

For far too long, our immigration system has been exploited by smugglers, traffickers and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States, she said.

Children traveling alone and Mexican asylum seekers will be exempt from the program, as will criminals, people with a history of violence, and those with physical or mental health issues, according to guidelines issued Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection.

Customs and Border Protection said asylum seekers would be given a sheet with information on the process and a list of free or low-cost legal service providers. U.S. authorities will provide transportation between the border and the courtroom.

Guillen said Mexicos temporary visas would last for a maximum of 120 days. The Mexican official said U.S. asylum judges are expected to render final decisions within 90 days.

By Elliot Spagat
Ilham Tohti pauses before a classroom lecture in Beijing on June 12, 2010. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Jan. 30 by two U.S. congressmen. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

US Congressmen Nominate Jailed Uyghur Economist for Nobel Peace Prize

Two U.S. congressmen have nominated an imprisoned Chinese citizen for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ilham Tohti, an ethnic Uyghur who is an economist, writer, and professor, worked to encourage harmony and understanding between ethnic Han Chinese and Uyghur Muslims in China, according to a letter from the lawmakers.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) nominated Tohti for the prize on Jan. 30. Both Smith and Rubio have served as chairs for the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Smith and Rubio worked together in writing a letter for Tohtis nomination. A bipartisan and bicameral group of lawmakers signed the letter.

Ilham Tohti deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, not a prison sentence, Smith said. He devoted his life to fostering peaceful relations between ethnic communities in China and for this he was jailed, tortured, and his family threatened and financially ruined.

Smith described the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) actions in the Xinjiang region as repugnant, as the CCP destroys the Uyghur culture and its Muslim religion. He also condemned the CCP for attempting to assimilate over a million Uyghurs through political reeducation camps.

While the Chinese government has needlessly created division and despair, Ilham Tohti tried to promote peaceful reconciliation and tolerance; for this he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, Smith said. His work was important and should be recognized now more than ever.

Rubio also criticized the CCP for the internment of millions of Uyghurs. This nomination could not be more timely as the Chinese government and Communist Party continue to perpetrate gross human rights violations, said Rubio.

Tohti was unjustly sentenced to life in prison for separatism, by a court in Xinjiang in September 2014, according to the letter to addressed to the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Professor Tohtis courageous work embodied precisely the kind of insight and guidance on interethnic problems that should be embraced by Chinese officials who have, instead, chosen to silence Professor Tohti, said the letter.

Tohti and Xinjiang

Before his arrest, Tohti worked at the Minzu University of China in Beijing. His commentary was regarded as reasonable, though critical of the CCPs policies toward Xinjiang and the Uyghurs.

Tohti was accused of having committed crimes against the peoples democratic dictatorship regime and the socialist system. The charges included ethnic disharmony and ethnic chaos, the definitions of which are determined by Party ideology, rather than law.

Despite the charge of separatism, Tohti opposed Xinjiang independence and advocated for open dialogue to resolve tensions between the ethnic Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Tohti previously ran a website, wrote essays, and gave interviews to Western media about CCP policies in Xinjiang. Security forces then brought him back to Xinjiang, where he received a life sentence.

Since 2014, the CCP has stepped up pressure on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, culminating in its campaign, beginning last year, of arresting citizens en masse and placing them in internment camps. The CCP justified its treatment of Uyghurs as counterterrorism efforts.

Official news also had started criticizing Uyghur customs, including dress, facial hair, and religious schooling. More Han Chinese have migrated to the region, and some officials even introduced benefits for marrying Uyghurs.

In light of the human rights violations, the United Nations is preparing to inspect the Xinjiang reeducation camps. Officials in Xinjiang are attempting to quickly cover up their actions, by forcing prisoners to sign confidentiality agreements and shipping prisoners to other regions, according to an earlier Epoch Times report.
(L) The Chinese Delegation, including Vice Premier Liu He (L) and Governor of the People's Bank of China Yi Gang (2nd L) looks on during US-China Trade Talks in Washington, DC, on Jan. 30, 2019. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images) (R) Trump Administration officials sit down with Chinese vice ministers and senior officials for negotiations in the Diplomatic Room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building January 30, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

US-China Trade Talks Kick Off

China promises changes to foreign-investment law hours before the two-day negotiations start

WASHINGTONHigh-stakes trade talks between the United States and China started Jan. 30 in Washington in a bid to resolve differences and reach an agreement before the March deadline.

The U.S. and Chinese officials met at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building located next to the White House, opening two days of high-level talks. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leads the American delegation, while the Chinese team is headed by Vice Premier Liu He. President Donald Trump will also meet with Liu on Jan 31.

As part of the truce deal between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in early December last year, China agreed to deliver structural changes that Washington has been demanding for years. Both sides agreed to start talks on reforms with respect to forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, and opening the Chinese market to U.S. services and agriculture.

In an effort to ease negotiations in Washington, Beijing announced that it would pass a new foreign-investment law to end forced technology transfers and other restrictions imposed by the state. The announcement came hours before the start of the two days of talks. State-run Xinhua news agency reported that the National Peoples Congress would vote on the new investment law when it holds its first annual session on March 5.

Once adopted, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures (or contractual joint ventures) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises, stated the Xinhua report.

The report also said that the law could help attract more foreign investment to China, protect foreign investors legal rights and interests, and provide a favorable business environment.

The draft legislation, which was first reviewed by the NPCs Standing Committee in December 2018, is said to ban compulsory technology transfer, guarantee equal treatment of foreign companies, and protect foreign companies intellectual property rights.

According to critics, however, some of the details of the draft law are vague and hence, Beijings move wont play a significant role in the negotiations.

The Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) expedited its review of the foreign investment law, which was intended to serve as a bargaining chip for trade negotiations, according to Xie Tian, a professor at the University of South Carolina.

The most crucial issue is that no matter what the CCP does, the international community does not believe it, he told NTD, a media partner of The Epoch Times.

Delivering Structural Reforms

China uses various tactics to gain economic advantage, such as forcing foreign investors to form joint ventures with local partners and hand over their most sensitive technologies. The regime also pressures foreign firms to relocate their production, and research and development facilities in exchange for market access.

Trump took a tough stance with China last year to end Beijings decades-long protectionist and trade-distorting practices, by imposing tariffs and investment restrictions. Beijing, in response, retaliated with tariffs against U.S. products.

To stop an escalating trade war, both sides declared a 90-day halt on tariffs on Dec. 1, 2018, at the end of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina.

As part of the deal, Trump agreed to postpone the planned increase in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. If both sides fail to reach an agreement by March 1, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will be raised to 25 percent from 10 percent.

It will be difficult for both sides to a strike a timely deal that addresses the most difficult structural issues, according to Marie Kasperek, deputy director of global business and economics program at Atlantic Council. However, she expects a partial agreement will be sufficient to avoid an escalation of the crisis for the short term.

By March 1, China may commit to opening its market significantly to U.S. products, especially in the agricultural sector and delivering foreign investment reform that ends forced technology transfer, she said.

If there is a deal, it will be mostly focusing on economic wins for the United States and an agreement to commit to further dialogue, she added.

According to Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, catching up on the reform and opening agenda for Beijing may take time. However, China can make some meaningful progress immediately to break the ice, he wrote in a report.

These immediate changes would build goodwill and serve as a starting point for structural reforms to be implemented over years to come on a feasible schedule, he said.
Trump Criticizes Intelligence Chiefs on Iran Assessment: They Are Wrong!

President Donald Trump criticized U.S. intelligence officials for not giving enough weight to the threat posed by Iran.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran, Trump said in a Jan. 30 tweet. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond.

The comment came after the heads of major intelligence agencies testified about global national-security threats before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 29.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats mentioned Iran in his opening statement as part of the big fourChina, Russia, North Korea, and Iranall of which pose unique threats to the United States and our partners.

He listed a number of Irans belligerent activities, including support for terrorism and various militants in the Middle East as well as its cyber warfare, missile, and nuclear programs.

But in voicing the intelligence communitys concerns for a long term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk of conflict escalations, he concluded by characterizing the threat posed by Iran as not particularly immediate.

Trumps Perspective

Trump considers Iran a more urgent threat and has reimposed sanctions on the regime after withdrawing in May from the Iran nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that was signed in 2015 by the Obama administration and Iran, China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany. The deal aimed to delay Irans capacity to build a nuclear weapon until 2026, in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trumps sanctions, especially those hitting banks and oil exports, have torpedoed Irans economy this year, although Trump allowed Iranian oil importers to wean themselves off the supply gradually.

Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict, Trump said. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge.

Tehran went ahead with an attempt to launch a satellite into orbit on Jan. 15, despite warnings from the United States, which considered the launch an oblique way for Iran to advance its ballistic-missile program, which uses much of the same technology. While the launch failed, the regime plans more.

There [sic] economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back, Trump said. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

Intentions in Question

CIA Director Gina Haspel testified that Iran is still technically in compliance with the nuclear deal, but the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to the JCPOA as they seek to pressure the Europeans to come through with the investment and trade benefits that Iran hoped to gain from the deal.

Yet, increasingly, it appears the Islamic regime negotiated the deal in bad faith, to begin with.

In April last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented what he said were Iranian documents obtained by Israeli intelligence that proved Iran had been developing nuclear weapons before the 2015 dealdefying the regimes claims the nuclear program didnt aim for arms.

The documents  show beyond any doubt that the Iranian regime was not telling the truth, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in response to the revelation.

However, it seems the regime lied even more.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to disable its heavy water reactor near Arak, a critical component in potential production of weapons-grade plutonium. The deal was that Iranians would extract the reactor core and fill it with concrete. The reactor tubing was blocked by cement in the presence of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, Iranian human-rights advocate Hassan Mahmoudi said.

But Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Irans atomic agency, said on Jan. 22 that the regime secretly procured another set of tubing that only Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei knew about.

As for the tubes we had, the tubes through which the fuel passes, we had bought similar tubes before, but I couldnt declare them at the time. Only one person in Iran knew this, Salehi told the IRIB state television in an interview.

Only the highest authority of the regime was aware of this and no one else.  His Holiness had said that you should be careful with these people, they are not trustworthy and do not keep their promises. Well, we had to work smart, and not burn the bridges behind us. We also had to build a bridge that would allow us to move faster if we had to resume our nuclear activities.

Salehi acknowledged the spare tubing was concealed from the inspectors.

It was a tube two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long.  We had purchased the same quantity of similar tubes. We were told to butcher them with cement, so we poured cement into these tubes  but we didnt say we had other tubes, he explained. We will use them now.

Pathway to Nuke

Restarting the Arak reactor would aid Iran in potentially producing weapons-grade plutonium.

While the JCPOA only allows Iran to keep a small batch of enriched uranium, it does permit the country to keep 130 tons of heavy waterplenty to launch a heavy water reactor for turning non-enriched uranium into plutonium.

And of non-enriched uranium, Iran appears to hold a substantial amounts. As part of the deal, Iran traded some nine tons of its enriched uranium for 154 tons of non-enriched uranium from Russia.

Just before President Obama left office, Iran was to receive another 130 tons of non-enriched uranium from Russia in exchange for 44 tons of heavy water that, if kept, would have made Iran in breach of the JCPOA. The move was approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to [the JCPOA], The Associated Press learned, referring to two diplomats who requested anonymity.
Venezuela's Charge d'Affaires Carlos Alfredo Vecchio speaks to the press following a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence at the White House in Washington, on Jan. 29, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Top Venezuelan Diplomat Calls for More International Pressure, Seeks Orderly Transition of Government

Venezuelas newly appointed diplomat to the United States called for the support of the international community in ending Nicolas Maduros dictatorship and to assist the country in an orderly transition of power, during a discussion with international diplomats on Jan. 30.

Carlos Vecchio was appointed charge daffaires by Guaido, with Washingtons blessing, on Jan. 25, not long after Guaido declared himself interim president. Maduro has since refused to step down as leader, raising concerns about how Venezuela will transition to democracy.

Just a day ago, Vecchio met with Vice President Mike Pence for an hour at the White House. He told reporters outside that he thanked Pence and the Trump administration for recognizing Guaido as interim president and for supporting our fight to restore democracy in Venezuela amid the countrys ongoing political crisis.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on the phone to reiterate his support for Venezuelas fight to regain its democracy.

Trump and Guaido agreed to maintain regular communication to support Venezuelas path back to stability as the interim leader noted the importance of the recent mass protests across Venezuela, according to the White House. Socialist policies introduced by Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have crippled Venezuelas economy and driven millions out.

They agreed to maintain regular communication  and to rebuild the bilateral relationship between the United States and Venezuela, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a readout.

Speaking at the discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council, an American think tank on international affairs, Vecchio insisted on an orderly transition of government so that the country can ease the suffering of our people.

We dont want more conflict, he said. We are not willing to participate in any dialogue of the type that Maduro is interested in. The only thing we will accept is our agenda on how do we negotiate his exit? And thats where the pressure has to be brought to bear.

The top Venezuelan diplomat explained how three types of pressure now need to be exerted in Venezuela: internal pressure from the people in the streets, pressure from the National Assemblythe only legitimate democratic institutionand international pressure.

The support of the international community is so important, Vecchio said. The national assembly is a true asset and it can pressure for the removal of the dictatorship but can also lend stability to a transitional government and be able to address the humanitarian crisis in our country.  This is where the international community can help us.

The dream of freedom is so great that we wont stop until we reach our goal, Vecchio said, adding that Guaido and other deputies of the National Assembly are taking great risks in order to achieve democracy.

International pressure against Maduro has continued to grow. Israel and Australia on Jan. 27 joined a growing list of countries pledging their support for Guaido, including Canada and almost every Latin American country. Maduro, who has ruled the country since 2013 and is now in his second term as president, is alleged to have won re-election through illegitimate means.

Despite the mounting pressure, Maduro still has the support of the Venezuelan armed forces, even as Guaido is offering amnesty to soldiers who join his side. The embattled dictator said on Jan. 30 that he is ready to negotiate with his opposition, as Guaido has continued to call for his resignation in mass protests in the streets.

Finally, the Berlin Wall is falling in Latin America and this will open the doors to a new process where many things will have to be redefined. There will be a new ideological prism through which we will see the economy and human rights, said Julio Borges, the representative of the interim government of Venezuela to the Lima Group and former president of Venezuelas National Assembly.

But Borges warned that Maduro is still in place, despite weakening military support.

I dont want you to think that the military are fully supporting Maduro now, he said. Lets be clearwithout exaggerating, 99.9 percent of the military do not support Maduro. But we understand if they do not react; its because they have been hamstrung by a system that doesnt allow them to operate as they will.

We have to be laser-focused and put an end to that very fragile support of the military.

Meanwhile, David OSullivan, the European Unions ambassador to the United States, said on behalf of the EU that the bloc fully supports the efforts of the National Assembly and Guaido.
File photo of the Apple app store. Some apps come pre-installed on smartphones and cannot be controlled or uninstalled. The rest must compete via app stores such as those of Google and Apple. (ParampreetChanana/pixabay.com)

Telecom and Tech Giant Conflict of Interest and Competition Violations: Part 1

Commentary

Data-driven technology providers such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft control the operating system (OS) market for smartphones, tablet PCs, voice-automated products, connected products, and PCs.

They also employ aggressive surveillance and data-mining business practices that enable each OS developer and their affiliates (e.g. Amazon, Facebook, Baidu, etc.) to indiscriminately monitor, track, and data-mine the smartphone, tablet PC, and connected technology user for financial gain.

To put this in perspective, this type of access to smartphone users is no different than if AT&T sold access to home and office phone and PC users to multinational companies.

The OS is the conduit to the smartphone, tablet PC, and technology product user, which means that Google, Apple, and Microsoft have a huge advantage over any existing or future competitor.

If OS developers are the conduit to the product user, then the telecom provider (e.g., AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile) is the conduit to the telecommunications subscriber (paying customer) and any other authorized device users, such as spouses, employees, or kids.

Together, OS developers and telecom providers control access to the product user, making companies such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Apple, Google, and Microsoft the most powerful companies in the world.

Collectively, these companies have monetized their customers, which means these companies are exploiting their customers for financial gain, at the expense of the customers civil liberties, privacy, cyber security, and safety.

The exploitation takes place when each telecom provider and OS developer acquires personal and professional telecommunications and data from the product users device to exploit for financial gain without compensating the user for the use of the telecom-related information.

Telecom providers are exposing their users to data-driven technology providers, who employ predatory and harmful surveillance and data-mining business practices that I believe are illegal, according to existing consumer laws.

There is a clear conflict of interest between the OS developers and their affiliates, and telecom providers regarding the negative impact on the product users privacy and security as a result of the predatory surveillance and data-mining business practices.

Aside from privacy and cyber security concerns, there are also potential violations of existing law associated with antitrust and unfair business competition that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and lawmakers need to address.

One of the main concerns centers on the fact that companies such as Alphabet Inc. (Google)which, since 2001, has been involved with more than 200 mergers and acquisitionscompete in many industries worldwide, yet are allowed to indiscriminately surveil and data-mine U.S. telecom product users, giving Google and its affiliates a huge advantage over their competitors.

This advantage is enabled through the provision of pre-installed surveillance and data-mining technology in the form of apps, widgets, and other intrusive content that the product owner cant uninstall or, in many cases, control.

Due to this uncontrollable pre-installed technology, OS developers such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft are enabled to sell access to their product users, as well as telecom product users, to their affiliates, such as Amazon, Facebook, and Baidu.

No Escape From Google

Many people frankly dont want anything to do with Google or Googles predatory surveillance and data-mining business practices, but these people are finding it increasingly impossible to escape Google, because of what I believe are antitrust violations, coupled with unfair business competition practices.

The reason has to do with deals that Google is cutting with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who manufacture smartphones, tablet PCs, connected products, PCs, automobiles, and even home appliances, such as refrigerators.

Aside from telecom products, OEMs who manufacture everyday electronics such as appliances, speakers, radios, headphones, and other common electronic products are making deals with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon in order for their products to be connected to the internet by way of the products OS or a voice-automated assistant, such as Alexa.

OEMs are putting Google, Apple, and Microsoft OS-, app-, and voice-driven cameras and microphones into all electronics these days, ensuring that the OS companies and their affiliates such as Amazon can indiscriminately monitor, track, and data-mine the product user for financial gain, whether the user wants to participate or not.

Due to exclusive deals cut with OEMs, no person will be able to escape companies that employ predatory surveillance and data-mining business practices.

CNBC wrote an article based on this fact, in relation to CES 2019, titled, Amazon and Google Are Going to Be in Every Aspect of Your Life Whether You Want Them or Not. The article corroborates the clear antitrust and unfair business competition practices discussed here.

The monopoly, with regard to controlling telecom products, electronics, and connected technology by the OS developers, is negatively affecting civil liberties, personal privacy, cyber security, safety, business competition, and innovation, and needs to be addressed by all government agencies and lawmakers.

Unfair Competition

Many companies that rely on brick-and-mortar retail locations are at a disadvantage because of the ability to order products and services over the internet from dominant online marketers such as Amazon; this is okay because its a sign of business evolution.

However, many brick-and-mortar and smaller retailers are financially unable to buy access to smartphone, tablet PC, and connected-technology users in the same way that Facebook and Amazon have the ability to buy access to telecom subscribers and Google, Apple, and Microsoft OS users.

Companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft imply that they dont sell the product users identifiable personal and professional information that each company collects from product users. However, these companies dont publicly disclose that they sell access to their users to their affiliates and/or companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and even Baidu, a nation-state company from China that is a Google content developer, as I discussed in a previous article.

This means that any existing or new company seeking to market to smartphone, tablet PC, and connected technology users has to go through the telecom providers plus Google, Apple, and Microsoft, who demand billions from companies that want access to their users.

As previously mentioned, companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft sell access to their product users through the use of uncontrollable pre-installed apps, widgets, and other intrusive content.

Established and new businesses that wish to compete within the online marketplace can only gain access by creating third-party apps that are distributed with millions of other apps through Google, Apple, and Microsofts online app stores, putting these businesses at a huge disadvantage to pre-installed apps.

There is a clear competitive advantage awarded to companies that develop the uncontrollable pre-installed content that supports mainstream products such as smartphones, compared with companies that have to develop third-party content distributed via app stores, which stifles competition and innovation.

Pre-installed content is forced onto the product owner, versus apps that have to be purchased and/or downloaded from sources such as app stores. Smartphone owners have no choice about which apps are pre-installed. Additionally, the smartphone owner is given no control over uninstalling the unwanted apps.

A recent Bloomberg article pointed out that Samsung smartphone users cant uninstall the Facebook app, which is a clear example of why companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon hold a huge advantage over rivals or new companies that are forced to distribute their apps via app stores.

As a result of deals between telecom providers, OEMs, and OS developers, consumers are being forced to use addictive, intrusive, harmful, and exploitive apps developed by the tech giants.

Consequently, smartphones, tablet PCs, TVs, voice-automated products, connected products, connected automobiles, and PCs are no longer private, secure, or safe products to use, due to the predatory and harmful surveillance and data-mining business practices employed by the OS and app developers.

Companies such as Apple will sell access to their users to competitors such as Google, which Fortune and Business Insider reported in 2018. These types of relationships enable only a few companies to control the online marketplace.

With the exception of Walmart, most other established or new companies that are trying to compete within the digital marketplace are being crushed because of Google, Apple, and Microsofts control over smartphone, tablet PC, and technology product users.

The key to fair competition within the online marketplace of the future will be the ability for established and new companies to gain fair access to smartphone, tablet PC, and technology product users in general.

As long as telecom providers and Google, Apple, and Microsoft control access to their users, by way of uncontrollable pre-installed surveillance and data-mining technology, these OS developers and their affiliates will dominate the online marketplace, virtually unchallenged by way of violations of antitrust law and unfair business competition.

In part 2 of this series, Ill address privacy and cyber security threats, plus the fact that the FCC, FTC, state attorneys general, DOJ, and lawmakers arent addressing antitrust and fair business competition, and arent enforcing existing consumer and antitrust laws.

Rex M. Lee is a privacy and data security consultant and Blackops Partners senior analyst and researcher. Visit him at MySmartPrivacy.com

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Suspect Confesses to Killing 5 With Dads Gun

A young man from Louisiana has confessed to killing his parents, his girlfriend, and two of her family members who had taken him in after he was kicked out of his house, authorities said Jan. 29.

Dakota Theriot, 21, told authorities he used a gun he stole from his father, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said at a news conference. He said while Theriot was cooperating and had provided authorities with a lot of information about how the killings unfolded, they still havent determined exactly why the killings happened.

We dont really know what the motive is. We just know what he did, Ard said.

Authorities have said Theriot shot and killed three people  Summer Ernest, 20, his girlfriend; and Ernests brother and father  in Livingston Parish, then drove her fathers pickup truck to Ascension Parish, where he shot his parents. He then drove to his grandmothers house in Warsaw, Virginia, where he was arrested on the morning of Jan. 27, Ard and Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

 Summer Ernest  201876

Theriot is due in court on Feb. 1 in Virginia for an extradition hearing and will eventually be sent back to Louisiana to face multiple murder charges. Detectives from Louisiana went to Virginia and questioned him, the sheriffs said.

In addition to Summer Ernest, the victims have been identified as Billy Ernest, 43; Tanner Ernest, 17; and Theriots parents, Keith Theriot and Elizabeth Theriot, both 50.

 Billy Ernest  2017224

Summer Ernest and Dakota Theriot had only been dating for a couple of weeks, and he was living with her family for about the same amount of time after his parents kicked him out, Ard said.

The sheriff said that just a short time before the shootings, Theriot tagged along with Billy Ernest as he drove his wife to work early on the morning of Jan. 26.

Summer Ernest and her father and brother were each shot once in the head, Ard said. Autopsies on Theriots parents were to be done Tuesday, Webre said.

Keith Theriot survived the shooting long enough to call 911, and when deputies arrived he told them just before he died that his son had shot him, the authorities said.

Two children were in the Ernest home in Livingston Parish  a 7-year-old and a 1-year-old  Ard said. They went to a neighbors house and the neighbor called law enforcement.

Theriots grandmother had checked into a hotel on the night of Jan. 26 in Virginia, fearing he might show up there, Richmond County Sheriff Stephan B. Smith said in a phone interview. The woman asked authorities to check her house on the morning of Jan. 27 to ensure it was safe before she returned.

While deputies were there, Smith said, Theriot drove up with a firearm pointed out the window of a pickup. A sheriffs statement said deputies sought cover and challenged Theriot, who then dropped the gun and was arrested without incident. Smith said the pickup Theriot drove apparently was the one taken in Louisiana.

Authorities have said Theriot had some run-ins with law enforcement previously in other parishes but described those as misdemeanor-type incidents that did not include violence.

But people who lived with Keith and Elizabeth Theriot said their son had struggled with drugs over the years and had violent outbursts, and the relationship between him and Summer Ernest had raised red flags with her family and friends.

If Theriot doesnt fight extradition, he could be back in Louisiana by Feb. 1 or Feb. 3, said Webre, who added that he would not oppose the death penalty if prosecutors asked for it.

We know what happened here, Webre said. He killed five people. So, this is a monster.
Investors talk in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a securities company in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China, on December 3, 2018. Standard & Poors wholly-owned Chinese subsidiary has been approved to offer credit rating services in China. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

S&P Becomes First Foreign Credit-Rating Firm to Enter China Market

Standard & Poors Chinese subsidiary has been approved by Chinese authorities to offer credit-rating services in the country, making it the first wholly owned foreign credit rating firm to enter the Chinese market.

Previously, foreign firms were only allowed to enter joint ventures and couldnt hold more than 49 percent of shares.

S&P, Moodys, and Fitch Group are the biggest credit-rating companies in the global market.

The latter two set up Chinese subsidiaries in 2018, but are waiting for approval from Chinas central bank, the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC), and China National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII), an industry organization that reports to the PBOC.

The PBOC announced Jan. 28 that it registered S&P China as a credit-rating company. On the same day, the NAFMII announced the approval of S&P Chinas registration application.

According to state-run newspaper Beijing Daily, the registered capital of S&P China is $18 million. Its operations will cover credit ratings, evaluations of financial standing, credit investigations, and other analytics.

The timing of S&Ps approval appears to coincide with ongoing trade negotiations between U.S. and Chinese delegates in Washington this weekseeming like a goodwill gesture.

In a PBOC statement about the approval, the bank didnt mention the U.S.-China trade talks, but said that having an international credit rating agency can benefit international investors to purchase more diversified yuan currency assets, improve the service quality of Chinese credit rating agencies, as well as foster the standardized and healthy growth of the China financial market.

PBOC added that it supports more international credit rating agencies to enter the China marketleading some industry observers to believe it would eventually approve Moodys and Fitch.

Currently, S&P and Fitch rank Chinas sovereign bonds as A+, which is considered stable. Moodys ranks it A1, which is equivalent to A+. For comparison, U.S. sovereign bonds have been ranked AAA by Fitch and Moodys, and AA+ by S&P. More letters and plus signs are considered better rankings.

China has hundreds of credit rating agencies, but China observers have long criticized them for being untrustworthy. They generally rank Chinas sovereign bonds AAAthe best ratingand most Chinese companies AA.

The state-run Xinhua reported in July 2013 that 12.48 percent of Chinas listed companies were ranked AAA by Chinese credit rating agencies. For comparison, Moodys only ranks 0.25 percent of American companies AAA. Japan Credit Rating Agency ranks 2.22 percent of Japanese companies AAA.

In September 2018, state-run China Business Daily reported that Chinese energy company Shanghai Huaxin had not paid back its loans and interestsowing as much as 8.849 billion yuan ($1.32 billion) since May 2018. Shanghai Huaxin was ranked AAA in 2017 by two of Chinas biggest credit rating agencies, China Lianhe Credit Rating Co. and China Chengxin Credit Rating Group.

Back in Aug. 2018, Dagong Global, a top Chinese credit rating agency, was ordered by Chinas securities regulator to stop its operations for one year in order to rectify its wrongdoing. Dagong Global is the only Chinese credit rating agency that has received licenses from European Securities and Markets Authority and Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.

China Securities Regulatory Commission found that Dagong Global supplied consultation services and credit ratings to listed companies on the Shenzhen and Shanghai exchanges at the same timemeaning Dagong Global helped the companies to achieve a higher rank.

Pan Helin, a famed Chinese economist, published an Aug. 2018 article in Beijing News noting that this type of practice is normal in China, because a company will discontinue services with a credit rating agency if the rating is not to their liking.

According to a PBOC working report published in May 2017, on average, for the same company, the rank given by a foreign credit rating agency is six to seven levels lower than the rank given by a Chinese credit rating agency.

Caijing recently obtained S&P Chinas registration document, in which the company claimed, We believe that the scope, dimension, and diversity of Chinas capital market require a specific evaluating standard and a localized rating method. The statement alluded to a different set of standards for rating Chinas market.
An instructor shows a holster at a gun concealed carry permit class put on by "USA Firearms Training" in Provo, Utah, on Dec. 19, 2015. (George Frey/Getty Images)

South Dakota Lawmakers Pass Bill to Allow Concealed Carry Handguns Without Permits

South Dakota residents will be allowed to carry concealed handguns without a permit under a bill passed by the state legislature that is now awaiting the Governors approval or veto.

If Governor Kristi Noem signs the bill, South Dakota will become the 14th state to allow residents to carry firearms without a specific permitsometimes called constitutional carry.

The S. Dakota House passed the bill by 47-23 in the Republican-dominated chamber on Jan. 29. Noem has until Jan. 6 to decide whether or not to veto the bill.

The Governor said that she supports permit-less concealed carry, reported Rapid City, but that she will review and discuss it with law enforcement before she signs it into law.

The governor has repeatedly voiced her support of constitutional carry and looks forward to reviewing the bill when it arrives at her desk, a spokesperson for the governors office, Kristin Wileman, told Rapid City.

If she vetos it, the bill will return to the House, where a two-thirds majority can override the veto, casting it into law. The previous voting outcome provided exactly the bare minimum required to inch the bill over that two-thirds threshold.

The 70-strong chamber consists of 59 Republicans and just 11 Democrats.

It is a misdemeanor to carry a concealed pistol or to have one concealed in a vehicle without a permit under current South Dakota law, although openly carrying a firearm is allowed.

The bill was put forward by Rep. Lee Qualm.

Not Trying to Create the Wild West

The bills co-sponsor, Senate President Pro Tempore Brock Greenfield, said people are being asked to lease back their constitutionally protected right to bear firearms under the current system.

Were not trying to create a situation in which South Dakota is the Wild West, Greenfield said, according to AP. Were simply trying to create a situation in which we recognize that the Second Amendment is paramount and will not be infringed.

Other supporters of the bill say current laws mean that merely slipping on a coat and accidentally covering a gun could land them with a misdemeanor charge, and that the permit process impedes upon Second Amendment rights.

The much-debated Second Amendment states: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The South Dakota Sheriffs Association testified that they dont oppose permit-less concealed carry, according to The Argus Leader, but would rather it apply to only South Dakota residents.

The 13 states that currently allow permit-less concealed carry are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Technically, Connecticut requires a concealed carry permit, according to the NRA, but since it generally grants them to all law-abiding citizens it is sometimes included on the list.

There were roughly 107,000 pistol permits in South Dakota in November, according to the Secretary of States office, AP reported.
Sentence Delayed for Man Whose Newlywed Wife Vanished at Sea

MIAMIA family dispute delayed sentencing on Jan. 29, for a man whose newlywed wife vanished at sea as the couple sailed a catamaran off the Bahamas.

U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said he needs more information about visitation rights and creation of a trust fund for the couples young child. Sentencing was reset for May 28.

Man charged with killing newlywed wife who vanished at sea  https://t.co/iEzJ58rKuY pic.twitter.com/ZZ3tuAWPmI  priyagill (@powerdesignz) 20 februari 2018

Bennett, 41, faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the May 2017 disappearance of Isabella Hellmann, his wife of three months.

A mining engineer with British and Australian citizenship, Bennett told the FBI and British journalists that he and Hellmann, a South Florida real estate agent, left their infant daughter, Emelia, with Hellmanns family in Florida, and took their 37-foot catamaran, Surf Into Summer, for a Caribbean cruise.

As they passed the Bahamas on the return to Florida, Bennett sent out an emergency radio signal. Three hours passed before the Coast Guard found him on a life raft, not far from the sinking catamaran. He told rescuers he had left Hellmann on deck as he retired for the night to their cabin, that he was jolted awake when their craft hit something, and that Hellmann was gone when he went outside.

The family of a woman presumed to have drowned at sea is telling a judge an 8-year sentence for her husbands involuntary manslaughter guilty plea is not enough. They want Lewis Bennett to go to trial, even if it means hes not convicted in the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann. pic.twitter.com/Cts7uXLwFH  HLN (@HLNTV) 29 januari 2019

A sworn document signed by Bennett and filed in court says that he could not recall whether he called out for his wife. He did not deploy any flares and did not search for Hellmann in the water with either the catamaran or an attached dinghy.

The FBI later said an inspection showed the boat had deliberately scuttled: Holes had been made from the inside of both hulls.

Investigators also foundwith Bennett on the life raft$100,000 worth of coins, stolen from a yacht he had worked aboard in 2016. Bennett later pleaded guilty to the coin theft charge and received a seven-month prison sentence. The coins were returned to their owner.

Bennett was originally charged with second-degree murder but made a deal with prosecutors for the lesser manslaughter charge. Moreno said at the hearing that murder would have been difficult to prove, with nobody and no witnesses.

Man charged with killing newlywed wife who vanished at sea https://t.co/L8mOBA9pMk pic.twitter.com/tDyICge0qV  Donald Eke (@DonaldRex) February 20, 2018

Some of Hellmanns family members said in court Tuesday they felt Bennett was getting away with deliberately killing his wife.

Hes not paying enough for what he did, said one of her sisters, Dayana Hellmann Rodriguez. I know he did something to my sister.

In a brief statement, Bennett apologized for Hellmans death and said is sole purpose now is playing a role in the life of their daughter, 2-year-old Emelia.

Losing my soulmate is the greatest loss Ive ever endured, Bennett said of Hellmann.

Sentence delayed for man whose newlywed wife vanished at sea https://t.co/XFRnw7HGMP pic.twitter.com/TB8uCaoP6W  CTV News (@CTVNews) 30 januari 2019

Emelia now lives with Bennetts parents in Edinburgh, Scotland. Much of Tuesdays hearings focused on making arrangements for the Rodriguez family to have more contact with the girl.

Another factor in the sentencing delay was making sure the sale of the couples home in Delray Beach, Floridaestimated at about $160,000would go to benefit the girl, along with more than $22,000 in cash seized when Bennett was arrested.

The judge said he would postpone sentencing until all those arrangements were made.

Id rather have the cash as opposed to a promise to pay, Moreno said. I will be better informed about when the restitution will be made.

By Curt Anderson
In this July 4, 2018, file photo, Ella Whistler serves as a grand marshal as she rides with her family in the Fourth of July Parade in Noblesville, Ind. (Jenna Watson/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)

School Shooters Parents Deny Responsibility in Response to Lawsuit From Victims Family

The parents of a 13-year-old who opened fire in an Indiana school in May 2018 responded to a lawsuit filed by a victims family by claiming the shooting was unforeseeable.

Ella Whistler and her parents, Cory and Julia Whistler, filed a civil lawsuit against the parents of the boy on Nov. 19, about six months after she was shot seven times in her science classroom in Noblesville West Middle School.

The family said that Ellas injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the boys parents not acting despite their sons obsession with firearms and violence, reported the Indianapolis Star. The boy admitted in court that he obtained the guns from his house and testimony revealed the boys dad, who owned the weapons and kept them in a gun safe in the basement, took his son shooting and taught him about how to operate the guns.

The 13-year-old shooter knew precisely where the key to the gun safe was located and his parents should have taken reasonable steps to prevent [his] access to their firearms, ammunition and other weapons and steps to more closely monitor [his] behavior, including his internet and other computer use, the Whistlers said in the lawsuit.

[The parents] knew or should have known that [the boy] had unusual and potentially violent propensities, the Whistlers complaint added.

That [he] had a disconcerting attraction to and obsession with firearms and violence; that [he] suffered from mental and psychological disorders; that (he) took pleasure in violence in others and lacked empathy; and that [he] had the capacity to commit violent acts.

The parents of the Noblesville West Middle School shooter have responded to the lawsuit filed by Ella Whistler and her parents. https://t.co/9GqGD5k4AZ  Emma Kate Fittes (@IndyEmmaKate) January 30, 2019

Shooters Parents Respond

In their response, the parents of the boy said that they didnt have any personal responsibility for their sons actions saying it was caused by him and Noblesville Schools, reported WTHR.

The parents asked that if the court orders them to pay the Whistlers any damages, the money should be offset by the amount the victims family has already received from insurance, donations, and other places.

The fate of the shooter still isnt known. He was sentenced to stay in a juvenile detention facility until his 18th birthday or until the Department of Correction considers him rehabilitated, but his parents have requested a trial by jury.

The filing came after the boys mother said during the juvenile court hearing in November that neither she nor her husband had any clue regarding their sons planned attack.

It never crossed my mind that he was potentially the person doing the shooting, she told the judge, reported the IndyStar.

According to experts cited by the outlet, the parents likely wont face criminal charges but the civil suit could level them with legal consequences.

Indiana Society of Chicago president Scott Bove presents first ever 2018 Hoosier Hero award to Noblesville teacher Jason Seaman. pic.twitter.com/HDy7TtHb7A  Dollyne Sherman (@shedop) December 2, 2018

The honorary captain at todays #GBvsCHI game was Jason Seaman who is a teacher at Noblesville West Middle School whose bravery & quick action prevented an armed shooter from causing a possible tragedy this past May. pic.twitter.com/wOpq1GI09N  Chicago Bears (@BearsOutreach) December 16, 2018

Hero Teacher Awarded

Jason Seaman, a science teacher at the high school who was credited with stopping the shooter from doing more damage, was honored in December with the Sagamore of the Wabash award by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The award is the states highest civilian honor.

Jason has been a person of high integrity his whole lifealways putting others before himself, teaching his students to live lives of good character while always seeking to make his community a better place, Holcomb said, reported RTV6.

He certainly demonstrated that yet again last May and inspired us all. Quite simply, Jason makes me proud to be a Hoosier.

Also in December, Seaman was made an honorary captain for the Chicago Bears for a game against the Green Bay Packers.

From NTD News
The Yutu-2 moon rover on the far side of the moon, in a picture taken by the Chang'e-4 lunar probe, released on Jan. 11, 2019. (CNSA via CNS/AFP/Getty Images)

Relearning the Dangers of Space Cooperation With China

Commentary

Former Obama administration NASA Director Maj. Gen. (ret.) Charles F. Bolden, in a Jan. 14 interview in China Daily, called for Congress to repeal the 2011 Wolf Amendment requiring bilateral space cooperation with China to have congressional approval.

Furthermore, Bolden called for Chinese astronauts to be integrated into the International Space Station (ISS) program to help China avoid some of the mistakes encountered with the ISS as it proceeds with assembling its own space station.

In essence, Bolden advocated reviving the early Obama administrations agenda to begin active space cooperation with China.

Early in 2009, then-White House science adviser John Holdren opined that U.S. astronauts could ride Chinese spaceships to the ISS after the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle. Then, during his first visit to China, President Barack Obama took the first step toward such cooperation. A Nov. 17, 2009, joint statement noted that the United States and China looked forward to starting a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration, based on the principles of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit.

But by October 2010, when Bolden made his first visit to China as NASA director, Republican congressional opposition to cooperation with China in space was being led by now-retired Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who was then chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.

Wolfs policies were continued by his successor, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas). In 2011, Congress passed restrictions that forbade NASA from using funds for bilateral U.S.China space cooperation. But in 2013, Wolf clarified that his legislation didnt bar multilateral cooperation, such as meetings at international conferences.

For Wolf, a leading congressional critic of communist China, it was clear that Chinas space program was controlled by its Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led dictatorship. Wolf saw China as a military threat to the United States that armed other dictatorships like Iran and North Korea.

In a May 2011 testimony before the congressionally mandated U.S.China Economic and Security Review Commission, Wolf stated that China was, [one] of the worlds worst human rights abusers [that did not] deserve to be rewarded with greater cooperation with the U.S.  The U.S. has no business cooperating with the PLA to help develop its space program.

While Wolf retired in 2015, to the reported cheers of some supporters of space cooperation with China, his concerns remain even more valid today.

Military Threat

In late 2015, China created a Space Force, subordinate to its new Strategic Support Force (SSF), to control all Chinese military and non-military space activities.

A recent U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) report noted that China has now deployed multiple units of ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles, having demonstrated a successful ASAT interception in January 2007. The report also noted that China is working on space weapons that will be stationed in low Earth orbit, where most U.S. satellites reside.

For example, China likely will use its new three- to six-man space station, expected to be launched by 2022, to carry out military missions. With insights gained from espionage against Russia in the late 1990s, Chinas space station uses large detachable mission-oriented modules, similar to the Russian Energia Corporations MIR space station design.

The military advantage of this design is that the PLA can build specialized mission modules for surveillance, anti-satellite, or Earth-bombing operations, similar to Soviet military plans for MIR.

In his China Daily interview, Bolden appeared to suggest that the United States could cooperate with China on its space station. But sending U.S. astronauts to a Chinese space station on U.S. spacecraft, or allowing Chinese spacecraft to dock with the ISS, would constitute an open door for Chinese espionage against U.S. space technology. The PLA would be the ultimate beneficiary of insights into U.S. space designs, materials, and procedures.

Such cooperation would also constitute a cruel irony considering that, in 2008, China very likely practiced a military interception of the ISS. On Sept. 27, 2008, in a possible simulated attack interception exercise, Chinas Shenzhou-7 spacecraft passed within the 28-mile box around the ISS, just after it had launched a small microsatellite.

But what is galling is that, following this incident, neither officials from the George W. Bush nor the Barack Obama administrations offered any public reaction, much less any explanation for Chinas actions, which could have threatened the one American and two Russians who were aboard the ISS.

Preventing Dominance

As the PLA has consistently sought civil-military dual-use benefits from its control of Chinas manned and unmanned space programs, it can be expected that the PLA will also derive dual-use benefits from Chinas activities on the moon.

By controlling the Earth-Moon System, its likely that CCP leaders harbor ambitions to deny access to any emerging space economy, or a new era of economic growth on Earth stimulated by economic activity on the moon and Mars. This would be consistent with Chinas strengthening domestic dictatorship and its ambitions to dominate economic, political, and military power on Earth.

By denying the legitimacy for Chinas space program that would be conferred by full U.S. cooperation, the Wolf Amendment constitutes an enduring U.S. moral sanction against China, signaling that free people still oppose the CCPs pursuit of dictatorship and hegemony on Earth and in space.

The intent of the Wolf Amendment should be sustained until China reveals and verifiably dismantles its military-space program elements that threaten democracies. Doing so will continue Rep. Wolfs legacy by seeking to ensure that space cooperation with China doesnt increase the ability of the PLAs Space Force to threaten Americas security and future prosperity.

Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, and author of Chinas Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Bloodstains and debris seen on the floor after a grenade attack on a mosque in Zamboanga, Philippines, Jan. 30, 2019, in this still image taken from a video from social media. (Zamboanga Quick Response System/via Reuters)

Philippines Urges Calm After Grenade Attack Kills 2

Philippine authorities called for calm on Jan. 30 after a grenade attack on a mosque in a mainly Christian southern province killed two people, just three days after a devastating church bombing shook the restive Mindanao region.

A grenade was thrown into a mosque during the night in Zamboanga, killing two people and wounding four others, prompting condemnation and calls for cool heads and unity in the community where Christians and Muslims have long lived in peaceful coexistence.

The grenade incident came a few hours after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on television an attack on a church that killed 21 people on Jolo island may have involved a suicide bomber.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Jan. 30 said the second of two explosions in the church was probably a suicide bombing but said it was not clear if ISIS was really behind it the attack as they had claimed online. The identity of the martyr has not been revealed.

Read More 27 Dead, 77 injured After Twin Bombings in Southern Philippines

ISIS claimed responsibility of the attack on Jan. 28. The military believes it was the work of the Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyaf, which embedded itself in the Philippines and pledged allegiance to ISIS. They are also known as ISIS-Philippines Province and are blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization because of years of bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings.

Lorenzana told reporters forensic tests would be carried out to try to establish if the suspected bomber was a foreigner.

If confirmed, it would be the second known case of a suicide attack in the Philippines in recent years, following a bomb in a van last July on neighboring Basilan island, which killed 11 people and was claimed by ISIS.

Lorenzana said there was no connection between the church bombs and the mosque attack, echoing remarks by a local task force commander that it was not a retaliatory act.

Cowardice and Obscenity

Zamboangas Ulama Council called it devilish, irrational, and inhumane, while the regional governor condemned the church and mosque incidents and said an attack during prayers was the highest form of cowardice and obscenity.

We must stand united against the terrorists who would divide us and, thus, destroy all that we are working to build and establish in our communities, governor Mujiv Hataman said on his Facebook page.

Muslims are a minority in the predominantly Catholic Philippines and represent about a quarter of the population of the Mindanao region, where communal violence is rare.

The attacks follow a peaceful Jan. 21 referendum that overwhelmingly approved a peace agreement, the Bangsamoro Organic Law, between the government and millions of Filipino Muslims living in the predominantly Muslim parts of Mindanaoan agreement that has the potential to end decades of separatist struggle.

Duterte on Jan. 28 ordered the military to destroy the notoriously brutal Abu Sayyaf, which is comprised of numerous cells with different agendas, some radical, others criminal.

He said he would not accept their surrender, adding the only way to fight them is to become evil also.

The military has since identified several suspects and carried out an air strike on Jolo on Jan. 29 on an undisclosed target.

The bombings, and ISISs claim of involvement, reveals how the foreign-aligned group is disrupting Southeast Asia and the risk of foreign fighters gravitating to Mindanao to capitalize on porous borders, jungles, and the abundance of weapons and jobless, unschooled youth.

Martial law has been in place in Mindanao since a pro-ISIS alliance overran Marawi City in 2017, in what was the Philippines most intense battle since World War Two.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
In this file image, beds are prepared in the intensive care unit of a hospital ship on Jan. 15, 2010, in Baltimore, Md. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

NY Woman Who Pulled Life Support of Brain-Dead Stranger Sues Hospital Over Name Mix-Up

A New York woman is suing the hospital where she kept vigil over her brain-dead brother before she switched off his life support, only to be told two weeks later that she had pulled the plug on a stranger, and her brother was still alive.

Shirell Powell is now suing the Bronx hospital over the mix-up, according to court documents, saying she and other relatives were put through more than a month of unnecessary trauma and grief.

The mix-up at St. Barnabas Hospital was due to two very similar names.

When Freddy Clarence Williams was admitted to the hospital in mid-July, unconscious with brain damage following a drug overdose, hospital staff found what they thought were records of previous treatments, according to the lawsuit. But they had unknowingly unearthed records of a different Fred: Powells brother, Frederick Williams.

They contacted Powell and informed her that her brother was in the hospital.

It was only as the family prepared to lay her brother to rest, a month later, that the mix up was revealed.

Powell is now suing the hospital, in a lawsuit filed on Jan. 18, for mixing up the names. The lawsuit alleges that the mixup resulted in  severe emotional harm and injuries caused by a month of grieving and the trauma of switching the life support off.

The hospital first contacted Powell on July 15, and informed her that her brother was unconscious and going through tests. On July 17 they informed her that he was brain dead.

According to the lawsuit, Powell spent the next two weeks by his bedside, and on July 29 authorized doctors to withdraw life support.
Wang Quanzhang with his wife, Li Wenzu, and their son. Wang Quanzhang, a human rights lawyer, has been detained in China without trial since August 2015. (Courtesy of Li Wenzu)

Sentenced Rights Lawyer Was Among First to Stand Up for Falun Gong

Wang Quanzhang travelled to the ends of China, representing those whose faith was banned by the Communist Party

One day in December 2014, police in the the northeastern Chinese community of Jiansanjiang were on high alert. Checkpoints manned by officers wielding submachine guns blocked the snow-covered roads. Standing in subzero temperatures, they stopped passing vehicles to examine them and their passengers.

At Jiansanjiang, where one man and three women were on trial, among the eight lawyers who braved the harsh northeast Chinese winter and police barricades to represent them on Dec. 17 was Wang Quanzhang.

The four defendants were being charged for their faith in Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual practice banned by the communist authoritiesand one of Chinas longest and most brutal cases of religious persecution.

The lawyers had their minivan impounded at one checkpoint, and were refused service by a bus driver who was following instructions from the police. Wang and his colleagues took taxis and pressed on towards the court; despite a late arrival, they were able to offer their clients a formidable defense.

Wang, 42, hails from northern Chinas Shandong Province, and is famous for his unyielding and indiscriminate defense of Chinas most disenfranchised groups.

This year, on Jan. 28, he was sentenced to over four years imprisonment following a secret trial held in the city of Tianjin, to the protests of the Chinese rights community and his wife Li Wenzu. Three years earlier, Wang was apprehended in the July 2015 mass arrests of Chinese rights lawyers, an incident often referred to as 709.

Wang Quanzhang was detained in 2015 and sentenced on Jan. 28, 2019. (photo from Wangs family)

Defending Falun Gong

The elaborate efforts of the police in Jiansanjiang to prevent Wang Quanzhang and the other lawyers from defending their four Falun Gong clients the previous December were part of one episode in a much larger campaign by the Chinese Communist Party that began in 1999.

Falun Gong is a Chinese spiritual discipline practiced by tens of millions of people who do meditation and follow traditional moral teachings based in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In June 1999, then-Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin ordered Falun Gong banned; mass arrests followed the next month.

Wang had taken an interest in what was happening to Falun Gong since the beginning of the persecution, when he was still in law school, according to the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG). In the 2000s, along with lawyers such as the renowned Gao Zhisheng, Wang was one of the first to represent Falun Gong practitioners in court.

Police detain a Falun Gong demonstrator in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 2000. (AP Photo/Chien-min Chung)

Wang offered legal aid to Falun Gong practitioners and other victims of repression by the Chinese regime, including petitioners whose land had been seized by developers, prisoners abused in labor camps, and those mistreated by the police.

With the anti-Falun Gong campaign being directed from the executive organs of the CCP, Falun Gong practitioners were not only physically abused and murdered for their faith, but also demonized as dangerous cultists in state propaganda. A staged self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square in January 2001in which several purported Falun Gong practitioners set themselves on firefostered a social atmosphere of hatred and derision against the practice and its adherents.

Due to the highly political nature of the persecution, defending Falun Gong carried inherently greater risks than those associated with ordinary rights cases. Wang Quanzhang, Gao Zhisheng, and other human rights lawyers who represented Falun Gong practitioners have themselves been harassed, imprisoned, and tortured.

Grace Geng, the daughter of one of Chinas most prominent human rights lawyers Gao Zhisheng, presents a book authored by her father at a news conference in Hong Kong, Tuesday, June 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Law Versus Regime

Prior to his detention, Wang took up Falun Gong cases around the country, from Heilongjiang on the Sino-Russian border in the northeast, to Xinjiang, the Muslim autonomous region that comprises much of northwestern China.

His activities made him a target of the Party authorities. In 2008, Wang had his home ransacked and his possessions seized by agents of the Ministry of State Security. In 2013, he was given a 10-day detention in Jiangsu Province, eastern China, for severely disrupting order in court while representing a Falun Gong case. A joint protest by 100 fellow lawyers led to his release after three days in custody, according to the CHRLCG.

In March 2014, while working to support other lawyers in the Jiansanjiang case in Heilongjiang, Wang was beaten by the police and forced to sign guarantee documents. In June 2015, Wang entered court in Liaocheng, Shandong Province, to defend a group of Falun Gong practitioners there, but he was beaten and injured by seven bailiffs, who also tore his clothing. His defenses were repeatedly interrupted by the prosecution, as reported by Minghui.org, a website documenting the repression of Falun Gong.

The next month, Wang was detained in the 709 roundup of Chinese human rights lawyers. He was charged with subversion of state power in 2017.

Li Wenzu, wife of detained Chinese rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, is followed by reporters and friends as she walks away from a Supreme Peoples Court complaints office in Beijing, China, April 4, 2018. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj)

The persecution meted out to Wang and other lawyers, not to mention their clients, highlights the structural conflicts between the rule of law in China and the political supremacy of the Communist Party.

Despite the repeated insistence of Chinese leaders that the country must be run according to law, the severity of human rights abuses and religious persecution have only increased in the last two decades. The tightening restrictions come as the Party attempts to shore up its political power and socialist ideology amidst economic downturn, social unrest, and intense behind-the-scenes factional struggle within the regime itself.

Li Wenzu, Wang Quanzhangs wife, has spoken out repeatedly to protest the authorities treatment of her husband. Last April, she attempted to leave her home in Beijing to join other dissidents in a march on Tianjin, where Wang is incarcerated, but plainclothes police stopped her, as she reported in comments translated by human rights website China Change.

If you dare to come out, well kill you, do you not believe it? an officer threatened Li Wenzu and her son.

I believe it, I very much believe it, because youre all hooligans and scoundrels, I know that youre capable of anything, Li responded.
Mom of Abused Kentucky Baby Pushes to Keep Violent Ex Behind Bars: Report

A woman whose son was violently shaken and left him with permanent injuries said she is trying to keep her ex-boyfriend behind bars.

Bobby Rushing of Kentucky was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2018 for the shaking of 8-month-old Wyatt Hill, causing brain injuries, seizures, and blindness, 14News reported at the time.

They tell us hell never walk, hell never talk, hell never play, he has two siblings that he cant play with, its hard, Wyatts Grandmother Libby Smith said of the incident.

He was holding Wyatt out and my first thought was his neck was broke. He had no head control, was limp feeling and was doing some very strange breathing.  Nancy Grace  2019129

Now, Shelby Hill, Wyatts mother, told CrimeOnline on Jan. 29 that I wasnt in the shower but for 5 minutes when Bobby Rushing came in the door and said something is wrong with Wyatt and that he had dropped him.

He was holding Wyatt out and my first thought was his neck was broke. He had no head control, was limp feeling and was doing some very strange breathing, she explained of the September 2016 incident that eventually got Rushing sentenced.

Shelby said she rushed her son to the hospital, and doctors told her that Wyatt was injured by non-accidental trauma, the report said.

Wyatt was in the court room as the judge handed down the sentence >> https://buff.ly/2GMz7gt  14 NEWS  201842

Shelby added that its a miracle her boy is alive today because doctors told her he would likely never recover.

When Rushing was sentenced, Wyatt was in the courtroom.

It was a terrible, terrible accident. And, I really do, from my heart, wish the best for that child, I wouldnt hurt nobodys child, your Honor, Bobby Rushing said before he went to prison, 14News reported.

Thats what he said since day 1. He said its been an accident. But the medical evidence proves otherwise. Thats why he took the plea deal, Wyatts parents said.

But Shelby told CrimeOnline that the shaking left the boy with his head between his shoulder blades. Rushing initially pleaded not guilty and blamed Shelby, saying she shook the boy, but those allegations were disproved.

Shelby said that she and her family are trying to keep him behind bars, and Wyatts grandmother started a petition via Change.org in an attempt to convince the parole board that Rushing shouldnt be released early.

Wyatt cant walk or talk and is in a wheelchair. He cant play and run with his siblings. He is visually impaired and has a feeding tube. He has several health issues and development delays all caused from Bobby rushing shaking him, Shelby said.

"He's defying the odds every day. Compared to what they told us." It has been a rocky last few months for the Hill family. Wyatt's been to the hospital three different times with seizures.  14 NEWS  2017312

One of The Nations Most Serious Concerns

According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (pdf), around 3.5 million children in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment report to authorities.

Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote. About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated, and the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect.

That amounts to 9.1 victims per 1,000 children. Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children, the report said. About three-fourths of the cases were neglect, and about 18 percent were physical abuse.

Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment, the HHS said.

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is available at 1-800-422-4453 or at Childhelp.org.
Migrants Stranded Aboard Rescue Ship Allowed to Enter Italy

MILANItalian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said 47 migrants who have been blocked at sea off Sicily for 11 days on a rescue ship will be allowed to come ashore on Jan. 30, ending the latest migrant standoff.

In a few hours, they will begin to disembark, Conte told reporters in Milan. The migrants have been on the vessel since they were rescued off the Libyan coast.

Italys populist government, which took office last year, has closed its ports to humanitarian vessels in a bid to force European Union partners to take a share of those rescued in the Mediterranean.

The Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3, which is run by a German humanitarian group, had been moored off the coast of Sicily as it waited for a safe port. Some 13 minors are among those on board and the long wait has taken a toll, Sea Watch said on Jan. 30.

Some people have stopped eating, shrunk into themselves, others have become emotionally unstable, Frank Dorner, the ships doctor, said in a statement.

Five European countries agreed to accept some of the migrants, Conte said Jan. 29, identifying Germany, France, Portugal, Malta, and Romania. On Jan. 30, he said Luxembourg and Italy would also welcome some of them.

The leaders of the two parties in the coalition government had pressed the Netherlands, France, and Germany to accept the migrants this week. The Netherlands refused, saying the EU must draft a plan that automatically redistributes migrants saved at sea.

Its the second time in a month that the Sea-Watch 3 has been stranded at sea with rescued migrants and no safe port.

The previous standoff ended after 19 days with the migrants allowed ashore in Malta and an agreement among eight EU countries, including Italy, to subsequently take them in.

By Lisa Di Giuseppe
The future of the School of Universal Learning (SOUL) Charter School is in the hands of the San Diego County Board of Education, as board members meet Feb. 6 to consider SOULs request to renew its charter.

Because SOUL chose to operate within the boundaries of the San Dieguito Union High School District, SOUL first approached SDUHSD in 2016 for authorization which was denied.

SOUL then petitioned the county for a five-year authorization in early 2017. The county denied five years but gave the school two years. SOUL is now asking for a three-year extension.

In her presentation to the county board Jan. 9, SOUL Executive Director Marisa Fogelman said, One might have thought given the two-year limited charter term awarded, we wouldnt have much to show for ourselves.

However, in only 14 months, the school has had considerable accomplishments, she said.

English department head Corey MacGorman said students are given the NWEA MAP exam three times a year, and the results show outstanding academic growth.

MAP, which stands for Measures of Academic Progress, is an online assessment aligned to Common Core state standards.

Fogelman said a highly anticipated WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) accreditation is expected in February.

Students with disabilities who didnt feel traditional schools met their needs are also being successfully served, she said.

Enrollment has increased by 167 percent, she said, opening in 2017 with 36 students and in 2018 with 96. The school began serving two grades and has now expanded to grades 7-10, with the intention of adding 11th grade and 12th grade in the next two years.

Wendy Kaveney, SOULs Director of Operations, told the board that SOULs conservative estimate for enrollment growth is 50 percent each year, growing from 110 currently to 165 for 2019-2020.

Of those 165 students, about 66 percent will come from the San Dieguito district and the remainder from other districts.

Adequate funding has also been addressed, Fogelman told the county board, saying, Parents have taken great ownership and raised $85,000 in two months. Combined with additional funding, she said the school has enough money to ensure a year in reserves.

She said strategic partnerships have been secured that enhance our curriculum and have made SOUL a place where students feel empowered to fail and learn from the experience.

Because the founders recognize the need for students entering the work force to develop strong collaboration, communication, teamwork and critical thinking skills, project-based learning is integrated into all areas of academics, which include English and language arts, history, science, math and electives.

Project-based learning is a primary feature of the SOUL curriculum, and all academic learning is consistent with California state standards.

In addition, Fogelman said SOUL offers a strong focus on social and emotional intelligence and described her schools mission for students as a place where they learn to know who they are, discover their passions and purpose, and thrive holistically.

The schools program includes educating the whole child: mentally, socially, emotionally, physically and personally.

At the school, a poster features the five stages of focus: holistic, academic, entrepreneurship, conscious and intentional (culture), and family and connection.

Grace, a 10th-grade SOUL student, said, The culture at SOUL is my favorite part. It makes us all feel like a family.

Testimonials

SOUL parent Julie Anderson, whose daughter attended SOUL last year and this year, intends to enroll her again next year.

They have provided everything they have promised me at that first parent meeting, and more, she said.

Anderson, who lives in south Carlsbad in the San Dieguito district, said families should have options for public education.

Another SOUL parent, Patti Riley, said SOUL is not simply an alternative for those who feel traditional schools dont work, and that any student can benefit.

Its very innovative, she said. Its a great vision and a great idea whose time has come.

She said her daughter has flourished from both the integrated social and emotional learning (SEL) component, as well as project-based learning which she called the new frontier.

The embedded SEL program is aligned with current research for success in college, the work force and life, by recognizing the linkage between SEL and cognitive and academic development, Riley said in an email.

Project-based learning at SOUL allows them to work on much more relevant topics, she said, noting that her daughter is digging a lot deeper than she would at one of the local high schools.

San Diego Workforce Partnership CEO Peter Callstrom, Rileys husband, spoke at the county board meeting, saying, Of course San Dieguito has an excellent reputation, but we needed a different option.

He said he and his wife have been committed to finding the right fit for our daughter, and SOUL has been that fit. At SOUL [daughter] has thrived not just academically but in confidence, great personal responsibility, emotional growth, and anxiety management. This is the result of the passion of the directors and teachers whose mission is to educate the whole child.

Riley and Callstrom, who live in Carmel Valley, said their daughter will continue at SOUL next year.

Other speakers

An overflow crowd at the Jan. 9 county school board meeting heard from a number of speakers, one of whom was 10th-grade SOUL student Grace who said she felt alienated at her previous school, and now I know it was because of lack of connection, of closed mindsets.

The whole-child program at SOUL known as Integra has created a judgment-free safe space and ensures that everyone is able to speak about how they really feel and what is going on in their lives, Grace said. Integra has taught me to understand my feelings and actions.

I have been able to bring these lessons outside of school and help my family and friends through difficult times, she said.

Grace said she was beyond grateful for SOUL and Integra. I wish more people had this opportunity.

Eighth-grade student Ella said SOUL has given her back her love of learning. She said the project-based learning at SOUL is not only teaching us important academics, but teamwork and problem-solving skills as well as perseverance and grit.

In her words, its teaching how to handle setbacks and keep moving forward.

Most of the projects at SOUL are self-directed which is an essential skill to have in life, Ella said.

Ive never been to a school where everyone was so connected, said Keegan, a SOUL eighth-grader. Im a better person and feel like Im being prepared for an amazing future by being a part of SOUL.

Natalie Suzi, a teacher at SOUL who works on the entrepreneur program, said the program creates a space for students to think big, to visualize their dreams and to learn the practical lessons they need to learn.

She said students are taught how to find lessons in their mistakes and get back up again.

At SOUL we teach what it looks like to really be an entrepreneur, she said.

California Charter Schools Associations Michelle Anderson, Regional Manager for Orange County and San Diego, told the board that CCSA advocates for charter schools when they show promise, and for closure when they dont.

About SOUL, she said, Im here in support of their renewal; we believe in what they are doing.

Other speakers included more parents who spoke about the positive changes they have seen in their children since enrolling at SOUL. No one spoke against the renewal.

Facilities challenge

SDUHSD Supt. Robert Haley at the county meeting said San Dieguito is interested to see what the county board will do  and because SOUL has requested facilities from the district under Proposition 39, that adds to our interest.

Under state legislation, Proposition 39 allows charter schools to request facilities from the school district in which they operate  in this case San Dieguito  with rent at fair market value.

The district initially denied access to facilities for 2019-2020 based on the districts methodology for calculating SOULs enrollment numbers.

SOUL needed the district to confirm at least 80 in-district students intent on enrolling next year; San Dieguito came up with 76.8.

The district has been criticized for the methods used to project accurate enrollment.

Haley defended his approach and said hes not for the school or against it  hes only following the law under Prop. 39.

Fogelman asked the district to reconsider in a lengthy eight-page letter.

They have until Feb. 1 to make an offer, she said. SOUL is currently housed at the Boys & Girls Club in Solana Beach which is too small to accommodate SOULs anticipated enrollment for next year.

Fogelman was confident the district was taking all the facts into consideration and would handle the process fairly.

In an interview after the Jan. 9 meeting, Haley said, I listened carefully to her presentation. I thought it was passionate, I thought it was reasonable. I get her point of view.

When asked if he was against the renewal of the charter, he said, No, why would I be against it?

The interactions Ive had with Marisa have been very reasonable, he added.

Vote for renewal

A Dec. 23, 2018 article in this newspaper detailed a new focus in the San Dieguito district on social and emotional learning, quoting a district spokesperson saying the goal is to infuse social-emotional learning into students everyday activities and build a strong sense of community, a sense of purpose and sense of belonging.

This has been SOULs focus since its inception, when founders early on recognized the need for teens to feel more connected with their emotions and those of others, increase self-awareness and self-worth and empathy, relate to others in nonjudgmental ways, and appreciate their own unique talents and that of their peers.

In the short 14 months that SOUL has been in operation, the school has met all benchmarks for success: enrollment numbers, funding, academic success through its project-based learning approach and an expected WASC accreditation, and holistically through the schools heavy focus on social and emotional learning.

Given all this evidence and the passion of the speakers at the Jan. 9 meeting, its hard to imagine a denial of the schools petition for another three years.

The San Diego County Board of Education will decide SOULs fate at its Feb. 6 meeting. If the county grants SOUL an additional three years, the schools next hurdle will be access to adequate facilities under Prop. 39.

Charter schools are public schools that operate on per-pupil funding from the state and are less constrained than traditional public schools but still must conform to Common Core state standards and meet yearly measurements for improvement.

For more information, see: https://soulcharterschool.org/

Opinion columnist and Sr. Education Writer Marsha Sutton can be reached at suttonmarsha@gmail.com
In this photo provided by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, authorities survey the scene of wreckage where a medical helicopter crashed in a remote wooded area in Brown Township, Ohio, on its way to pick up a patient, Jan. 29, 2019. (Ohio State Highway Patrol via AP)

Medical Helicopter Crashes in Remote Woods, Killing 3

A medical helicopter crashed Jan. 29 in a remote wooded area on its way to pick up a patient, killing all three crew members, authorities said.

Survival Flight medical transportation reported around 7:20 a.m. local time on Jan. 29 losing communication with a helicopter flying from the Mount Carmel Hospital in Grove City to pick up a patient from a hospital in Pomeroy, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.

Authorities located wreckage nearly three hours later in rugged terrain near the community of Zaleski, about 75 miles southeast of Columbus.

The helicopter broke apart in a remote area connected only by logging trails, said Highway Patrol Lt. Robert Sellers. Other state and local authorities helped at the crash site in Vinton County.

All three crew members were from Ohio: pilot Jennifer Topper, 34, of Sunbury and flight nurses Bradley Haynes, 48, of London and Rachel Cunningham, 33, of Galloway.

This is heartbreaking, especially when you have fellow first responders who are flying a mercy mission to help somebody else out, Sellers told reporters.

There had been no reports of anyone else injured in the crash, Sellers said.

The helicopter was a Bell 407, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will have investigators at the scene, he said.

Andrew Arthurs, a Survival Flight vice president, said in a statement he was deeply saddened to share the news of a heartbreaking event.

Michael Wilkins, president of Mount Carmel East, said in statement: Our prayers are with the families of the crew members and Survival Flight team as we grieve this devastating loss.

California Couple and Dogs Rescued After Two-Week Mountain Ordeal

Members of the Special Enforcement Bureau tactical squad and sheriffs deputies rescued two California campers and their dogs, trapped by snow for two weeks in the mountains near Los Angeles.

SEB normally specializes in high-risk tactical operations involving hostage situations or aerial assault, but on Jan. 23, the unit used a helicopter to rescue the stranded couple and their two dogs.

Tactical medics of the units Emergency Services Detail took part in the rescue operation.

Campers just rescued after snowed in their vehicle for 14 days, Alamo Mountain,n/w of Castaic, wrote SEB in a tweet.

Campers just rescued after snowed in their vehicle for 14 days, Alamo Mountain,n/w of Castaic. #LASD Air Rescue 5 inserted SEB Tactical Medics to rescue campers, who had run out of food & water. A man, a woman & their two dogs were hoisted out & flown to safety. @SCVSHERIFF pic.twitter.com/XoMMpGALQz  SEB (@SEBLASD) January 23, 2019

According to Fox11, the couple and their dogs were on a camping trip on the north side of Alamo Mountain near Frazier Mountain Park, about 75 miles north of Los Angeles, when they became stranded when their truck got stuck in snow. The couple was not named in the report.

I think they were thinking the snow was going to melt a little quicker than it did and thats why they were waiting it out, Charles Miranda, a paramedic with the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department, told FOX11.

Tom Ozimek contributed to this article
The McLean Police Department posted photographs of officers appearing to arrest Disney character "Elsa" from the film Frozen, as an apparent playful way of marking the bitter polar vortex cold snap. (McLean Police Department)

McLean Police Fight Polar Vortex by Arresting Elsa from Disneys Frozen

An Illinois police department has taken an unconventional step in its battle with the polar vortexby announcing that a Disney film character had been placed under arrest.

The McLean Police Department said on Jan. 29 that officers had placed Elsathe Queen of Arendelle from the Disney movie Frozenunder arrest for allegations of sending a brutal spate of brutally cold temperatures to the Midwest.

The Facebook account of the McLean Police Department shared images of the apparent arrest, writing: Due to the EXTREME COLD weather, all criminal activity and acts of stupidity and foolishness has been cancelled. Even Elsa has been placed under arrest with NO BOND until further notice.

In one of the images, a visibly annoyed Elsa appeared to be pouting, while the arresting officer held up a pair of pink handcuffs.

ATTENTION: Due to the EXTREME COLD weather, all criminal activity and acts of stupidity and foolishness has been  McLean Police Department  2019129

The account punctuated the post with a polite sign-off, thanking the public for their attention and understanding to this matter.

The post drew a flurry of remarks, including from one commenter, who pointed out that the photographs posted by the account appeared to be the same as those taken years earlier by another police department and now recycled.

Considering those pictures were taken in South Carolina 4 years agoJeeze, even the police are stealing credit for someone elses work, commented Jillian Byrd.

Huffington Post featured the entire set of Elsa arrest photos when the news outlet reported on a tongue-in-cheek police-involved photo shoot back in 2015.

Police in Hanahan, South Carolina, arrested Elsa from Disneys Frozen, earlier this week, on suspicion of bringing an unusually frigid cold snap to the area, wrote Huff Posts Ryan Grenoble in an article titled South Carolina Police Arrest Elsa The Snow Queen, Solve Cold Case.

The photographs of Elsas arrest were attributed to Tammy Sakalas, of Sakalas Photography, and Glass Slipper Productions, an events company in Hanahan that arranges for princesses to visit birthday parties and childrens hospitals.

Jillian Byrd Im so glad you pointed that out! Those were taken here in Charleston by the Hanahan Police Department, replied another commenter, while someone else still wrote: Funny is funny. Someone always has to be the accuracy police 

But while the McLean Police Department chose to have fun with some polar vortex make-believe, the real-world impact of the bitter cold snap is no joke.

At Least Six Dead

The polar vortex cold snap affecting primarily the Midwest and the northern United States has already been blamed for at least six deaths.

A 55-year-old Milwaukee man was found frozen to death in a detached garage near a snow shovel.

Officials said that the body of Charley Lampley had likely been outside overnight and noted that the garage door was open.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiners Office said that Lampley collapsed after shoveling snow and died, reported Fox 6. The death was ruled natural and nothing in the case was suspicious, the office added.

In Iowa, an 82-year-old man was killed by the bitter cold on Jan. 29.

Jamie Harwood, the Peoria County coroner, told the Peoria Journal Star that the man was found outside his house mid-afternoon after an apparent fall.

In Libertyville, Illinois, a 75-year-old man who was clearing snow was struck and killed by a village snowplow on Monday around 10 a.m., the Libertyville Fire Department said, according to reports.

The pedestrian who was struck and killed by a snow plow Monday in Libertyville has been identified as a 75-year-old resident, the Lake County Coroner's office announced. https://t.co/vpJlwMdQ3q  Suburban News (@chitribsuburbs) January 29, 2019

A couple in Indiana was killed when the vehicle they were driving spun sideways after hitting ice and was hit by an SUV traveling in the opposite direction.

Ethan Kiser, 22, was a police officer in Ligonier. His wife Shawna Kiser, 21, was also killed, reported WANE.

It happened Monday on a rural Noble County road. https://t.co/YdyBIEfYCu  WTHR.com (@WTHRcom) January 30, 2019

Another accident on icy roads also left a 9-year-old Nebraska boy dead.

The deaths came as temperatures in the Midwest fell to as low as -75 degrees Fahrenheit and prompted authorities to warn people to stay indoors until Thursday if possible.

People can get frostbite on exposed skin in just minutes due to the dangerously cold wind chills and were advised to cover all skin surfaces if they decide to go outside.

A Wind Chill Warning means the combination of very cold air and the wind will create dangerously low wind chill values. Frostbite can occur quickly and even hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken, the National Weather Service stated in one alert.

The Midwest will be the worst hit, and Chicago is forecast to see a high of -12 degrees and a low of around -22 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday. Other cities like Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis (which could see a low of -30), and Des Moines will endure similar, frigid conditions.
Mayhew, Liberty, and the Resistance to Tyranny

Commentary

A sermon preached on Jan. 30, 1750, led to the American Revolution. The Rev. Jonathan Mayhew changed minds in Boston, and eventually America, about the morality of resistance to tyranny.

When Mayhew took the pulpit, he knew what the British government wanted him to do: tell the congregation of their duty to submit to the government. Jan. 30 was the anniversary of the 1649 execution of Great Britains King Charles I, who had claimed a divine right to near-absolute rule and considered himself above the law. After he started the British Civil Wars, he was overthrown; he was executed when caught scheming to regain power by force.

A century later, in 1750, King George II didnt want his subjects to think about resistance to illegitimate government. On the Jan. 30 anniversaries, the government church (the Church of England) venerated Charless supposed martyrdom. The governments ministers propounded the duty of submission to government.

Mayhew, however, was a Congregationalist. Descendants of the American Puritans, the Congregationalists had split from the Church of England after failing to reform it from within.

The Church of England was run from the top down, by archbishops appointed by the king. Congregationalists were the opposite, as each congregation hired and fired its own minister. Local churches were autonomous, subject to no collective governance.

The members of the Bostons Old West Church could hire whom they pleased, and they chose a recent Harvard graduate, Mayhew, who was a theological liberal.

Mayhew took Congregational principles to their logical conclusions, arguing in his 1748 Seven Sermons that everyone has the right and duty to make personal judgments in matters of religion and conscience.

On Jan. 30, 1750, he delivered a liberal blockbuster, A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. Like other important sermons, it was reprinted and circulated throughout America. It became the most famous sermon preached in pre-Revolutionary America, according to historian Bernard Bailyn. Indeed, the American Revolution itself was the sermons fulfillment and application, he said.

John Adams called the sermon his personal catechism of revolution. Adams remembered, It was read by everybody; celebrated by friends, and abused by enemies.  It spread a universal alarm against the authority of Parliament.

Disobedience

As Mayhew explained, God had created hierarchies, and people were expected, under ordinary circumstances, to obey government, just as children were expected to obey their parentsfor their own good. Conversely, if a father lost his mind and tried to slit his childrens throats, the children shouldnt obey him. A tyrannical government was like a father trying to murder his children and must be disobeyed.

In Mayhews view, God was eminently rational and ruled according to natural law: God himself does not govern in an absolute arbitrary and despotic manner. The Power of this almighty King is limited by lawby the eternal laws of truth, wisdom, and equity, and the everlasting tables of right reason.

Because God was no arbitrary tyrant, no human tyranny could comport with Gods eternal laws. Therefore, disobedience is not only lawful but glorious against rulers who enjoin things that are inconsistent with the demands of God.

Discourses Concerning Unlimited Submission presented a popularly accessible version of 17th-century English philosopher John Lockes analysis of Pauls Epistle to the Romans: the Christian duty to submit to governments that govern justly creates a correlative duty to resist and overthrow governments that are tyrannical, because unjust government is the antithesis of true Christian government.

Some Christian authoritarians warned that a Christian who resisted tyranny would be damned. To the contrary, announced Mayhew, a people must make use of the means which God has put into their power, for mutual and self-defense. And it would be highly criminal in them, not to make use of this means. It would be stupid tameness, and unaccountable folly. It would be more rational to suppose that they that did not resist, than that they who did, would receive to themselves damnation.

In sum, to resist a just government was rebellion against God. To resist tyranny was self-defense, which was required by God, because tyranny was Satans government.

Kingdom of Liberty

Mayhews sermon drew from Protestants and Catholics, especially the 1705 sermon of Church of England Bishop Benjamin Hoadly. Challenging the authorities of the time, Bishop Hoadly argued for the right of individual self-defense, and extrapolated from that a national right of self-defense against a tyrant.

Mayhew brought the inspiration forward. In the 1760s, he was a leading critic of British attempts to control Americaespecially the Stamp Act.

Mayhews last great sermon was preached in celebration of the 1766 repeal of the Stamp Act. He warned that Americans must oppose the first encroachments on liberty, because after a while, it will be too late. He reminded his congregation of Jesus parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a man that soweth good seed, but while he slept, his enemy cometh, and soweth tares among the wheat. (Matthew 13: 2425). Because the man had slept, it was impossible to uproot the tares without also uprooting the wheat.

To Mayhew, it was obvious that the kingdom of heaven was a kingdom of liberty. He recalled that in his youth, he had studied great advocates of liberty such as Demosthenes, Cicero, John Milton, and John Locke. Mayhews father had taught him the love of liberty with a chaste and virtuous passion. At age 46, Mayhew was proud to say that he was unable to relinquish the fair object of my youthful affections, liberty; whose charms, instead of decaying with time in my eyes, have daily captivated me more and more.

Mayhew had grieved at the promulgation of the Stamp Act, when liberty seemed about to take her final departure from America, and to leave that ugly hag slavery, the deformed child of Satan, in her room.

Now, Mayhew rejoiced at her speedy return, with new smiles on her face, with augmented beauty and splendor. Once more then, Hail! Celestial maid, the daughter of God, and, excepting his Son, the first-born of heaven! Liberty was the delight of the wise, good and brave; the protectress of innocence from wrongs and oppression, the patroness of learning, arts, eloquence, virtue, rational loyalty, religion!

Mayhews scripturally informed view of history was optimistic. Although the Stamp Act had been dreadful, God often bringeth good out of evil, just as Josephs enslavement in Egypt had led to his rescue of his family. American liberties were like an oak tree that grows stronger roots and broader branches after being buffeted by storms and tempests.

And who knows, he said, our liberties being thus established, but that on some future occasion, when the kingdoms of the earth are moved, and roughly dashed one against another  we, or our posterity may even have the great felicity and honor to save much people alive and keep Britain herself from ruin.

Mayhew was prophetic. In 1941, when Hitler bestrode Europe like a colossus, the United States entered World War II. In Churchills words, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

David Kopel is an associate policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington. His most recent book is The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Perspective.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Gary Verstegen clears a sidewalk in Little Chute, Wisconsin during the polar vortex on Jan. 28, 2019. (William Glasheen/The Post-Crescent via AP)

Man Found Frozen to Death as Polar Vortex Kills at Least 6

A 55-year-old man was found frozen to death as the polar vortex causing extremely low temperatures across the United States left at least six people dead.

Charley Lampleys body was found frozen in a detached garage in Milwaukee near a snow shovel.

Officials said that Lampley had likely been outside overnight and noted that the garage door was open.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiners Office said that Lampley collapsed after shoveling snow and died, reported Fox 6. The death was ruled natural and nothing in the case was suspicious, the office added.

The death came amid the polar vortex, which caused temperatures in the Midwest as low as -75 degrees Fahrenheit and prompted authorities to warn people to stay indoors until Thursday if possible.

People can get frostbite on exposed skin in just minutes due to the dangerously cold wind chills and were advised to cover all skin surfaces if they decide to go outside.

A Wind Chill Warning means the combination of very cold air and the wind will create dangerously low wind chill values. Frostbite can occur quickly and even hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken, the National Weather Service stated in one alert.

In Iowa, an 82-year-old man was killed by the bitter cold on Jan. 29.

Jamie Harwood, the Peoria County coroner, told the Peoria Journal Star that the man was found outside his house mid-afternoon after an apparent fall.

The man was dropped off at his car in Velde Ford and then drove himself to his house earlier in the day but he fell when trying to get into his house, Harwood said.

The body was found several hours later by a neighbor, who called 911. But the man was pronounced dead and his cause of death was believed to be cold exposure.

Other Deaths

At least four other deaths took place on Monday and Tuesday.

In Libertyville, a 75-year-old man who was clearing snow was struck and killed by a village snowplow on Monday around 10 a.m., the Libertyville Fire Department said.

A preliminary autopsy determined that he died of multiple traumatic injuries caused by being struck by a vehicle, the coroners office said.

Investigators spent several hours at the scene trying to figure out how the snowplow driver didnt see the man, reported WLS.

The pedestrian who was struck and killed by a snow plow Monday in Libertyville has been identified as a 75-year-old resident, the Lake County Coroners office announced. https://t.co/vpJlwMdQ3q  Suburban News (@chitribsuburbs) January 29, 2019

The driver was placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.

If youre out in a cul de sac the plow comes and it piles it up here, Alan Vail, an area resident, told the broadcaster. Actually have to go out in the street to get your snow blower to hit this curb here.

A couple in Indiana was killed when the vehicle they were driving spun sideways after hitting ice and was hit by an SUV traveling in the opposite direction.

It happened Monday on a rural Noble County road. https://t.co/YdyBIEfYCu  WTHR.com (@WTHRcom) January 30, 2019

Ethan Kiser, 22, was a police officer in Ligonier. His wife Shawna Kiser, 21, was also killed, reported WANE.

Another accident on icy roads left a 9-year-old Nebraska boy dead.

Authorities told the Newton Daily News that the vehicle the boy was riding in slid off the slick roadway and rolled onto its side near the town of Walnut on Sunday around 10:30 p.m. The boy, Joshua Tavares of Grand Island, was pronounced dead at the scene.

From NTD News
An undated photo of Animals Australia Director of Strategy Lyn White in Melbourne, Australia. (Courtesy of Animals Australia)

Live Export Workers Commissioned to Film Cruel Images for Animals Australia

A well-known animal protection organisation in Australia appears to have hired live export workers to film deliberate acts of animal cruelty, a series of leaked emails have revealed.

A whistleblower who wishes to remain anonymous has presented a series of email exchanges between himself and Animals Australia Director of Strategy Lyn White (pictured), showing the charity organisation had contact with multiple live export workers who were paid up to US$2000 (A$2780) in exchange for providing images and videos with guidelines to be met.

One of the live export workers claims he was still paid after telling Animals Australia he was only motivated by money, and decided to expose Animals Australia after he successfully negotiated for more money because payments had been much lower than expectations.

Emails leaked to News Limited show the organisation clearly made payments to live export workers, despite denying allegations it did earlier.

First of all he didnt have any idea that it is curality (sic) against cattles, the whistleblower told White on May 28, 2018. When I told him and showed [Pakistani whistleblower] Fazal [Ullah]s video then he came to know that it is curality (sic) of animals. Both the money and taking care of sheeps (sic) motivating him.

Ullah supplied footage for 60 Minutes to expose the live export industry.

In a separate email exchange on March 16 the whistleblower complained to White about being paid too little.

I send you around 80 images/videos. If we select 40 of them only its around [US]$2000 (A$2780). You paid only $500, the whistleblower said.

White replied on June 12 that she had already transferred US$2000 (A$2780) to the whistleblowers account. The amount is a huge windfall for Pakistani live export workers who are usually paid about US$350 (A$486.49) a month.

There are also concerns White has been actively recruiting live export workers to supply images and videos. She told the whistleblower on May 25, 2018 he had made her day by encouraging co-workers aboard the ships to supply footage and photos.

Animals Australia defends its actions, saying the evidence has led to the Australian government setting-up a dedicated hotline for reporting animal cruelty in the live export trade.

As the defacto watchdog of the live trade for over a decadea role the recent Moss Review confirmedour procedures continue to be completely open to the regulator or any other authority for scrutiny, CEO Glenys Oogjes told News Limited.

According to Australias Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, state and territory governments are responsible for enforcing animal production and welfare laws.

The states and territories set and enforce animal welfare standards through administration of state legislation for animal welfare or the prevention of animal cruelty, the departments website said.

At present Australias livestock industries have a set of voluntary guidelines, for people responsible for the welfare and husbandry of a range of livestock animals, called the Model Codes of Practice for the Welfare of Animals.

Work is now underway to update the model codes and convert them into Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines, the department website said. Animal welfare standards endorsed by all state and territory primary industry ministers will be implemented in state and territory legislation.

In May 2018 Australias federal government introduced new rules to penalise any exporter that contravenes new welfare standards. Under the changes, a director of a company could face 10 years prison or A$2.1 million fine if welfare standards are not met.

The government, which relies on the support on rural voters, categorically rejected a ban on live exports as it would cause too much damage to the countrys agricultural sector, according to federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud.

Littleproud said the government instead reduced the number of sheep a vessel can carry during the summer months by 28 percent, with independent observers aboard to ensure welfare standards are met.

The policy came in response to public anger over footage showing 2,400 sheep dying from heat stress on a vessel bound for the Middle East in 2017.

The footage was disgraceful but what you dont need to do is predicate your decisions on emotions and without facts, this was one exporter, one incident, Littleproud said. By putting independent observers on all boats, it will eradicate this type of behaviour going forward.

It is unclear whether any of 2017 footage came from live export workers who Animals Australia had contracted.

Australia is one of the worlds largest exporters of livestock, with an industry estimated to be worth A$1.3 billion. While the bulk of Australias meat exports are processed, markets such as the Middle East and Indonesia prefer to buy live animals.
Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Withhold Pay From Congress, President During Shutdowns

A group of House lawmakers has introduced a bill that would withhold pay from members of Congress, the president, and vice president during a government shutdown.

Congressman Jared Golden (D-Maine) was joined by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) in introducing the Solidarity in Salary Act of 2019 (pdf) on Jan. 29. The intention of the bill is to prevent and limit the duration of future shutdowns and ensure that lawmakers feel the harm they cause federal employees when they fail to fund the government, according to a statement.

Federal workers dont get paid during a govt shutdown. Neither should Congress. Its just common sense. Im introducing the bipartisan Solidarity in Salary Act today with @RepDanCrenshaw and @RepMaxRose to withhold pay from Congress, @POTUS, & @vp during a shutdown. pic.twitter.com/Cjb5xcIAPy  Congressman Jared Golden (@RepGolden) January 29, 2019

About 800,000 federal employees did not receive their pay during the most recent partial government shutdownnearly 380,000 federal employees were furloughed and 420,000 worked without pay during the shutdown. Many federal government agencies halted some of their activities or faced a jump in employees calling in sick, which prompted concerns in several areas like travel and food safety.

The partial government shutdown ended after President Donald Trump signed a short-term spending bill on Jan. 25, to temporarily reopen the government. This ended the longest furlough in history that began Dec. 22, as a result of a standoff between the White House and Democratic leaders over funding for a border wall.

Trump praised the federal employees and their families as incredible patriots and amazing. The White House promised federal workers that they would be paid as soon as possible.

Federal workers dont get paid during a government shutdown. Neither should politicians. Thats just common sense, Golden said in a statement.

Under the bill, the daily pay of members of Congress, the president, and vice president would be placed in escrow for each day the government is closed and will only be released after the government is reopened.

Federal employees should never have to carry the burden caused by a dysfunctional government; thats why Im proud to cosponsor this legislation, Crenshaw said. During the partial government shutdown, Crenshaw asked the Chief Administrative Officer to withhold his pay until the government reopened. Many social media users praised him for this move.

I cannot in good conscience get paid while federal employees financial futures hang in the balance because of this partial government shutdown. Ive asked the Chief Administrative Officer to withhold my pay until we have come to an agreement to adequately fund border security. pic.twitter.com/2g37vAAtx2  Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) January 10, 2019

I cannot in good conscience get paid while federal employees financial futures hang in the balance because of this partial government shutdown, the former Navy SEAL wrote in a tweet on Jan. 10.

The federal government partially shut down on Dec. 22, after Congress failed to come to an agreement about funding.

The president is asking for $5.7 billion in funding for a border walla promise he made during his election campaignto be included in a comprehensive border security package requested by experts from the Department of Homeland Security. The package will fund more border patrol agents, immigration judges, and scanning equipment at ports of entry.

Democratic leaders in Congress refused to negotiate to fund for a border wall while the government was closed, calling it expensive and ineffective. Trumps move to reopen the government is a temporary concession that returns the spotlight to House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The federal government has three weeks until Feb. 15, for them to negotiate long-term funding for border security.

Epoch Times Reporter Emel Akan contributed to this report
Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif) speaks to her supporters during her presidential campaign launch rally in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, California on January 27, 2019. (Mason Trinca/Getty Images)

Kamala Harriss Medicare for All Advocacy Is Early Skirmish in Democrats 2020 War

News Analysis

Sen. Kamala Harris impressed political observers by attracting an estimated 20,000 people in Oakland, California, on Jan. 27 when she announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The first-term senator from California ignited a small firestorm on Jan. 28, however, during a CNN town hall at Drake University in Iowa, by saying she wants universal Medicare coverage now and an end to all private health insurance.

Well, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care and you dont have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require, Harris told CNNs Jake Tapper during the town hall, when he asked if private insurance would be eliminated.

Who of us has not had that situation where youve got to wait for approval and the doctor says Well, I dont know if your insurance company will cover it, she continued.

Lets eliminate all that, lets move on, Harris declared.

The uproar against Harris erupted almost as soon as she spoke, with the Republican National Committee tweeting that she wants to eliminate private insurance even if you like your plan.

Perennial potential candidate Michael Bloomberg, who has re-registered as a Democrat, also chimed in, saying Harris plan would bankrupt us for a very long time.

And former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz, who is talking up an independent run for the White House in 2020, called Harris comment not American, and asked, Whats next? What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?

Backing Off?

The barrage of criticism prompted Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams to tell CNN on Jan. 29, Medicare-for-all is the plan that she believes will solve the problem and get all Americans covered. Period.

Sams noted, she has co-sponsored other pieces of legislation that she sees as a path to getting us there, but this is the plan she is running on.

Harris has co-sponsored three Senate bills that provide much less aggressive extensions of Medicare coverage but none that do away entirely with private insurance.

Conservative news sites seized on Samss comment, claiming it showed Harris retreating from her original proposal. Breitbart, for example, said she walked back her call  less than 24 hours after she made her inflammatory remarks.

Zac Petkanas, a Democratic campaign strategist who was director of response for the Hillary for America presidential campaign in 2016, rejected suggestions that Harris was walking back anything.

This is a fake scandal, the suggestion that shes backing off, Petkanas told The Epoch Times on Jan. 30. Its completely manufactured by those who have an interest in protecting private insurance companies.

Harris has been pretty consistent on the Medicare for All issue, Petkanas said, calling the attacks the beginning of a season in politics where people are going to be trying to find any way to tear down Democratic nominees. We saw it in 2016 and its starting in January 2019.

Billionaire attacks on populist proposals, like Harris on expanding Medicare to all citizens and those of other Democratic contenders, should be considered in-kind contributions to those campaigns, Petkanas said, chuckling.

Polls

Harris backers found some comfort Wednesday buried deep in the latest Politico/Morning Consult survey where 57 percent of the respondents who identified themselves as Democrats said they would back a presidential candidate supporting Medicare for All.

The survey interviewed 1,997 people Jan. 25-27, with a 2 percent margin of error.

Democratic campaign strategist Jim Manley told The Epoch Times, however, that poll after poll in months past has shown that once people get into specifics, support can drop by 12 points or more.

Manley said Democrats should spend more time debating the specifics of health care policy and less time criticizing each other.

Private health care providers arent standing still, as momentum grows among Democrats for the Medicare for All proposal.

One health care industry group, called the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future, has launched a five-figure digital ad campaign arguing that Medicare for all would cause massive disruption, higher taxes, lower quality care, and less choice for patients, according to the Washington Examiner.

Potential Rifts

The back-and-forth over Medicare is not the only issue where potential rifts may be appearing in the already crowded field of Democratic White House aspirants.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who announced her bid on the last day of 2018, has staked out new ground for Democrats by proposing a wealth tax on household assets instead of individual income.

Warrens plan would assess a 2 percent levy on households with at least $50 million in net worth, and households with a net worth of $1 billion or more would pay 3 percent.

Only one-half of the top 1 percent of U.S. households have at least $50 million in net worth, according to DQYDJ.com, but Warren claims her proposal would generate as much $2.75 trillion in new revenues for the federal government over 10 years.

Bloomberg dismissed Warrens proposal as socialist, telling a New Hampshire audience Jan. 29 its called Venezuela.

Although not yet an officially announced candidate for the White House in 2020, Bloomberg has been making appearances in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Similarly, Schultz told NPR that Warrens proposal is ridiculous.

Warren responded to the criticism, telling the Associated Press that Schultz is another billionaire who thinks that billionaires shouldnt pay more in taxes.

The Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 3, 2020, and the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary will take place on Feb. 11, 2020.

For those counting, there are 369 days until the Iowa meetings.
Sen. Kamala Harris speaks to reporters after announcing her candidacy for President of the United States, at Howard University in Washington on Jan. 21, 2019. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

Kamala Harris Backs Massive Government Expansion Into Health Care, Energy

Democratic presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) expressed support for Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal plans that would massively expand government spending and intervention in the energy sector, and would allow the government to wholly take over health care. The plans are estimated to cost tens of trillions of dollars.

Harris backed the plans during a CNN town hall on Jan. 28.

Health Care

An audience member asked: What is your solution to ensure that people have access to quality health care at an affordable price, and does that solution involve cutting insurance companies as we know them out of the equation?

I believe the solutionand I actually feel very strongly about thisis that we need to have Medicare-for-all, Harris replied. Thats just the bottom line.

She said that health care should be understood to be a right and that having a system that makes a difference in terms of who receives what based on your income is unconscionable.

In contrast to Constitutional rights, which are ensured by putting restrains on the government, quality health care, as it is now, requires a large industryworth nearly $3.7 trillion in 2018in which people participate voluntarily and expect compensation.

Medicare-for-all has been estimated to cost over $32 trillion and would require more than doubling federal income and corporate tax revenues.

Harriss plan, as she has acknowledged, would eliminate the health insurance industry as we know it.

Green Welfare

Harris also has said that she supports the Green New Deala plan advocated by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has just entered Congress and is backed by Americas largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America.

Ocasio-Cortez proposed forming a House committee that would draft bills to put a Green New Deal in place. The plan not only advocates universal health care, but also transitioning to all-renewable energy sources; overhauling all real estate, infrastructure, and industry to consume less energy and generate less carbon dioxide; federal job guarantees; and guaranteed minimum income programsall government-funded and within a decade.

Who Pays?

The proposal acknowledges that the cost of such a program would be astronomical.

Even if all the billionaires and companies came together, and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient, the proposal states.

To pay for the plan, the Federal Reserve can extend credit,  new public banks can be created  to extend credit, and a combination of various taxation tools (including taxes on carbon and other emissions, and progressive wealth taxes) can be employed, the document states. In addition to traditional debt tools, there is also a space for the government to take an equity role in projects.

However a government decides to fund such a program, it would ultimately be taxpayers footing the billeither to repay the credit or to cover the losses if the proposed state-run megaprojects run into trouble, as they historically have (pdf).

The federal government already owes nearly $22 trillion and is projected to be increasingly squeezed by interest payments. In 2018, it paid $325 billion in interest and that number will reach $460 billion in 2020surpassing Medicaid spendingand $724 billion in 2025surpassing defense spendingaccording to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.

Ocasio-Cortez proposes taxing income above $10 million at 70 percent, which would theoretically raise $720 billion over 10 years, The Washington Post reported. But people would likely change their behavior accordingly to avoid taxes using a plethora of tricks, such as switching salary for stocks, moving overseas, or finding ways to pass on their income to spouses and children.

For those making over $10 million, wages and salaries already comprise only 15 percent of their income, CNBC reported in 2015.

Eliminating tax shelters, in turn, would crack down on abusers but also penalize those using such measures for legitimate purposes.

Welfare for Votes

Critics of programs like the Green New Deal sometimes call it a vote-buying scheme.

The bottom 60 percent of American earners pay only about 13 percent of federal taxes, including Medicare and Social Security, while they collect about 33 percent of all after-tax income, which includes welfare and benefits, according to Tax Policy Center data from 2015.

This large-scale redistribution scheme creates an incentive for the majority of Americans to back government-funded programs, since they are largely not going to be the ones paying for them.

Promises of welfare benefits, dependent on massive government spending, have been a hallmark of Democratic Party policy for over a hundred years, according to conservative documentary producer Dinesh DSouza.

The whole arrangement works kind of like this: A and B make a deal to rob C, DSouza said in his April 30 speech at Texas State University. C is the taxpayer. And so the idea is, You vote for me, Ill get into power and loot the treasury.

Update: The article has been updated with a more accurate characterization of Constitutional rights and state-run megaprojects.
Jake Thomas Patterson, who has been jailed on kidnapping and homicide charges in the October 2018 killing of a Wisconsin couple and abduction of their teen daughter, Jayme Closs. Closs was found alive in Gordon, Wisconsin on Jan. 10, 2019. (Barron County Sheriff's Department via AP)

Jayme Closs Kidnapping Suspects Cellphone Examined by Investigators

The cellphone of the 21-year-old man who admitted to police that he kidnapped 13-year-old Jayme Closs after killing her parents is being examined by investigators.

Jake Patterson held Jayme in his familys Gordon, Wisconsin cabin for 88 days until she escaped on Jan. 10, police said.

New documents filed in Barron County show that authorities examined call logs, photographs, and video footage stored on Pattersons cellphone, reported WQOW.

The search warrant documents dont detail what exactly authorities found on the phone but authorities wrote that the evidence gleaned from the device could help determine the chronological context of Pattersons crimes.

Police said that Patterson confessed shortly after being abducted on the same day that Jayme sought help from neighbors. Jayme vanished from her home on Oct. 15, 2018. Law enforcement officers responding to a 911 call found her parents shot dead.

A widespread search turned up little until the girl fled from the cabin and found a neighbor walking her dog. She was ushered into another neighbors house, where she was guarded as officers rushed to the rural area.

Pattersons phone was found in the front seat of the red Ford Taurus that he was driving when he was arrested. The car was taped up and taken to a secure garage and the phone was found when an FBI evidence team searched it the next day, reported KSTP.

The documents said authorities were looking for a contact list, a log of incoming and outgoing calls and the dates and times of those calls, texts or other messages and social media communications, the broadcaster reported.

They were also seeking emails that were sent to or from the cellphone, evidence that would tell them where the phone was during their months-long investigation, and any pictures or videos on the device.

Patterson, who has been charged with two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping, is due in court next on Feb. 6.

Former AG Addresses Case

Former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who left office at the beginning of the year, opened up about the case following Jaymes escape.

Schimel, who headed the state Department of Justices involvement in the case, said that investigators believed throughout that the girl was alive despite months going by without evidence of where she was.

He said that not finding a body within a few days provided optimism for investigators, who thought that she was being held.

Well when she didnt turn up somewhere in a matter of a couple days, then we had great hope, Schimel told CBS 58.

Since the suspect killed Jaymes parents, it would make sense to hold onto the teen unless she was killed soon after being abducted.

While the notion that she was kidnapped provided hope, investigators also felt an urgency to find her.

We believed somebody was holding her, which is not good, Schimel said. We knew that meant this was a very difficult life for her but alive is a very good thing.

He said that many child predators arent on the radar of law enforcement. Patterson had no previous criminal history.

And Schimel said that he hopes that the teenager can heal after what she went through, noting that she made it through months of hardship.

People with that kind of strength of character, we can be hopeful that they can find some degree of healing, he said.

From NTD News
Iowa Mom Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison Over Babys Starvation Death

A 25-year-old Iowa woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison last week after her malnourished son died after weighing less than his birth weight.

Angel Poole, of Birmingham, Iowa, was sentenced on Jan. 25 after pleading guilty to child endangerment resulting in serious injury, reported KCCI.

Prosecutors lowered the charge in exchange for her plea.

A Southeast Iowa mother convicted of starving her infant son to death received a ten year prison sentence Friday.  Ashley Hoak  KTVO  2019125

Officials said that paramedics were sent to Pooles apartment in July 2016 after she called 911 to say her son, Judah Wessels, was having difficulty breathing.

The boy was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital about an hour later, KCCI reported.

Judah, who was two months old, weighed about 5 pounds at the time of death, and an autopsy showed he died of starvation and dehydration.

She'd pleaded guilty to child endangerment resulting in serious injury. Prosecutors had lowered the charge in exchange.  KCCI  2019130

KTVO reported that the child weighed 7 pounds and was healthy when he was delivered in May 2016.

She was originally charged with a Class B felony, which carries a 25-year prison sentence, but ultimately, she received a Class C felony, which has a 10-year prison term, KTVO reported.

The autopsy showed the child was markedly malnourished, the Daily Mail reported.

So, so tragic. RIP little Judah  Daily Mail  2019130

A picture posted on Facebook by Judahs father showed the baby on the floor appearing malnourished before his death.

In October 2018, Poole made a post on Facebook, making reference to baby loss awareness month, adding she was remembering my babies, according to the Mail.

The publication reported that she tried to blame the loss of her child on a brain injury, saying the charges should be dropped.

The new prosecutor in my case may have found exculpatory evidence while speaking to the Dr. that examined Judahs brain, he notified my lawyer of it a few days ago, she wrote on social media.

So now we just have to get the pathologist into depositions. I think this is all finally coming to an end. Please continue to pray for me, she added.

Ed Wixom, her boyfriend, appeared to back up her claims, saying that all of that stupid [expletive] they are trying to charge you with she be dropped everyone knows that your a good mother and the ones that are talking [expletive] and saying that your not a good mother is someone that has some other Vendetta, the Mail reported.

Other details about her case are not clear.

One of The Nations Most Serious Concerns

According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (pdf), around 3.5 million children in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment report to authorities.

Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote. About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated, and the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect.

That amounts to 9.1 victims per 1,000 children. Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children, the report said. About three-fourths of the cases were neglect, and about 18 percent were physical abuse.

Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment, the HHS said.

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is available at 1-800-422-4453 or at Childhelp.org.
Years before she was helping to make decisions for Scripps Health as chair of the board, Jan Caldwell responded to high-profile, tragic assignments with the FBI.

Jan Caldwell Courtesy

The Carmel Valley woman  who started with the FBI in 1974 as a clerk before retiring in 2006 as a special agent  took part in a variety of major investigations as part of the critical incident deployment team, including the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon; the downing of Trans World Airlines flight 800 off the coast of New York; the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; and the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

She recalled first hearing about the attack on the Pentagon, following the striking of the World Trade Center, and deploying her team.

"As soon as the flights were able to take off, our team from the West Coast and some from the East Coast met up at the Pentagon and worked as we could," she said. "My main job at the bureau for that time period was working with the media. Of course, I was in the command post and saw the leads that were coming in and the volume in which the calls and information flow was going. The thing that struck me the most was actually seeing the Pentagon and seeing the damage and all the other ancillary senses you have  the smell of it, the multi-dimensional aspect of it. It was a profound moment in my career."

Of course, a job like that had an effect on one's emotions and mental well-being. Caldwell said one of the first lessons taught by the FBI is for the agents to take care of themselves.

Caldwell, who has a master's degree in organizational management and a bachelor's degree in clinical abnormal psychology, considered the training at the bureau as "exceptional."

"The people who ran the unit at the time at headquarters always made sure that when we went to a scene that we left intact and that we didn't go home traumatized by what we saw or smelled or anything else," she said.

She remembered one instance vividly when the scene particularly shook her. While responding to the downing of Trans World Airlines flight 800, her team worked to identify belongings that divers would pull out from the sunken aircraft, which another team worked to reassemble.

One of those items was a child's teddy bear.

"It just got to me," Caldwell recalled. "It was one of those moments where you had to take yourself off the line and talk to somebody then come back and do your job. I think that's important, and it's important in healthcare, too, that you're not a robot. You should feel, to a degree, so you can show compassion and empathy but be professional enough to go back and complete the job, too."

Caldwell, who has worked in media and community relations with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department since 2006, was asked to join the Scripps board in 2011.

She believes the skills she learned in her 45 years in law enforcement have helped her analyze objectively, evaluate situations and listen to others.

However, despite those traits, she recalled some hesitation when being asked to join the Scripps board.

"With a nod to the 'Wizard of Oz,' I wasn't sure if I really wanted to see the man behind the curtain," she said. I had always been so pleased with Scripps' commitment to care, and I didn't know if I wanted to see the intricacies of how it got there. My concerns were quickly swayed. I saw how decisions at the very highest levels were made with the patients in mind. Patient-centric is a term I hear at every meeting. ... I knew more than ever that I chose Scripps wisely as my healthcare provider."

Caldwell, who officially took on her new role as chair in mid-January, also knows how Scripps treats their patients first-hand. The institution treated her breast cancer 16 years ago.

Now, the treatments have gotten even better, Caldwell said.

In 2018, Scripps launched the Scripps MD Anderson Cancer Center, which brings together the physicians of Scripps Health and the MD Anderson Cancer Center, a globally recognized leader in cancer care.

The partnership brings multi-disciplinary care teams that are sub-specialized by cancer types, cancer nurse navigators for newly diagnosed patients and adoption of MD Anderson's treatment protocols, which are among the most advanced in the world.
Howell Emanuel Donaldson III has been arrested for four counts of premeditated murder for a series killings in Tampa, Florida. (Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office)

Im Struggling to Stand: Accused Seminole Heights Killer Complains About Bad Health in Jail

An accused serial murderer dubbed the Seminole Heights Killer used the occasion of a pre-trial court hearing to complain to the judge that his time behind bars has been bad for his health.

Since Ive gotten in jail, for the last 14 months Ive become physically ill. I do sincerely need some help, pleaded Howell Trae Donaldson III, speaking to a Florida courtroom on Jan. 29.

The accused, who faces charges of killing four people in Seminole Heights, Fla., spoke in a Tampa court for about 5 minutes, according to Fox13, and presented the judge with a list of grievances in three areas.

First, Donaldson told the judge he wants to attend every hearing in his case. The news outlet cited the defendants attorneys as saying that there are over 300 witnesses that need to be interviewed during their clients trial. The judge confirmed Donaldsons right to be present at all of the hearings that are part of his murder trial, according to ABC Action News.

Second, he asked for transcripts of every hearing he has missed. The judge denied Donaldsons request in this regard.

Third, he asked to see a doctor outside of jail, and complained about his poor health, saying that some unfortunate things have happened to him while incarcerated.

Donaldson did not elaborate on what misfortune had befallen him behind bars, but he did say he has been having trouble standing. Im an ex-college athlete and its hard for me to stand right now, Donaldson said, adding Im 26-years-old I shouldnt be feeling like Im 96-years-old.

The suspect clarified he was not referring to any mental issues he may have experienced in connection with his incarceration, but physical ailments.

Ive had just some unfortunate things happen to me since Ive been in there, Ive become ill, physically ill, its not so much more mental, because you did send out a psychiatrist and psych team to evaluate me and they granted me competence as far as my mental state, Im just asking for you to just get me some help, professional help he said during the routine court hearing, according to ABC Action News.

The judge did not approve Donaldsons request to see a doctor outside of jail. Instead, he ordered prison medical staff to evaluate Donaldson and report the findings to defense attorneys.

I feel like if Im in there much longer that my heart and body wont be able to last under what Ive been enduring, Donaldson also told the judge, according to WTSP news.

Families of Victims Speak Out

A family member of Donaldsons alleged fourth victim, Ronnie Felton, told WTSP reporters that she was disappointed that when Donaldson spoke in court, he didnt use the opportunity to express remorse.

He just personally didnt give a damn about nothing, said Tina Felton, adding, I thought, well, maybe hell say he did it. Or, Im sorry. Or something.

Casimar Naiboa, whose son, Anthony, was Donaldsons third alleged victim, was cited by WTSP as saying that court officials told him what Donaldson asked for when he addressed the court Tuesday.

This guys talking about feeling bad in jail after what he did, said Naiboa, according to the outlet. Anthonys no longer with us. Were the ones going through this.

Naiboa added that in his view, Donaldson was a psychopath.

I hope they dont do nothing for him, said Robert Hoffa, whose niece, Monica Hoffa, was Donaldsons second alleged victim.

Who cares if he was a college athlete? asked Hoffa, according to WTSP. You were a college athlete before you became a murderer.

Four Counts of Premeditated Murder

Donaldson is accused in four murders that terrorized the Seminole Heights community in October 2017. Prosecutors say he gunned down four innocent people during a six-week period.

He faces four counts of premeditated murder in the killings of Benjamin Edward Mitchell, Monica Caridad Hoffa, Anthony Naiboa, and Ronald Felton, according to Tampa police chief Brian Dugan, reported WTSP.

Donaldson was arrested in November 2017 after a McDonalds employee said Donaldson handed a gun to a manager.

Dugan told CBS News: When I think I found out there was a gun, and when we looked at his description, it was a little more than what we really had. It just felt right. I kinda had a feeling that we were going to get a break.

All the killings happened close to each other and werent robberies, police said, sparking fears they could have been carried out by a serial killer.

Donaldsons next hearing is scheduled for April 23, 2019.
In this March 29, 2018, file photo, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents frisk a suspected MS-13 gang member and Honduran immigrant after arresting him at his home in Brentwood, New York. (John Moore/Getty Images)

ICE Arrests Dozens of Illegal Immigrants, Some With Sex Crime Convictions, in NY

Federal immigration agents arrested more than 100 illegal aliens in New York City and the surrounding environs in an operation that netted some felons who had prior convictions for crimes including child sex crimes.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 118 people for violating U.S. immigration laws across five days starting on Jan. 14, the agency announced on Jan. 29.

Of those arrested, more than 107 were convicted criminals or had criminal charges pending and more than 55 had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States or had been previously removed from the United States and returned illegally, according to the agency.

Several illegal aliens who were arrested had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges, and assault.

The success of this operation is a direct result of the full commitment of the dedicated men and women of ICE, said Thomas Decker, field office director for the agencys Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York, in a statement.

In spite of the significant obstacles that ICE faces due to the dangerous policies created by local jurisdictions, which hinders the cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement, ICE will continue to devote the full efforts of our agency to protecting citizens and enforcing federal immigration law despite challenges being pursued by politically motivated individuals, he added.

Among those arrested was a 44-year-old Ecuadorian national and registered sex offender who was convicted of attempted sexual abuse of two female victims under the age of 8.

Another was identified as a 23-year-old Dominican Republic national who has a pending charge of rape in the 3rd degree, allegedly perpetrated against a child under the age of 17.

And another was a 30-year-old Guatemalan national who was previously deported but illegally re-entered the United States. He has convictions of harassment and public lewdness.

Rising Obstruction

Amid rising obstruction of federal immigration enforcement, the agency said that more than 35 of those arrested had been released from local law enforcement despite ICE placing detainers on them on suspicion that they would require deportation due to being illegal aliens.

When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders onto the streets, it undermines ICEs ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission, ICE stated.

In years past, most of these individuals would have been turned over to ICE by local authorities upon their release from jail based on ICE detainers. Now that many sanctuary cities, including New York City, do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat, it stated.

Many lawmakers and politicians in New York City and New York state, are increasingly moving further left politically, have criticized ICE in recent years. In April 2018, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a cease and desist letter to the agency, claiming that its operations target[ed] immigrants and jeopardize[d] public safety.

Cuomo also signed an executive order prohibiting state agencies and officers from inquiring about an individuals immigration status unless required by law or necessary to determine eligibility for a benefit or service or disclosing information to federal immigration authorities for the purpose of civil enforcement. It also prohibited law enforcement officers from asking about immigration status unless theyre investigating illegal criminal activity.

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been a vocal advocate of ICE, attributing his administrations success in battling the notorious MS-13 gang to the agencys officers.

We love you, we support you, we will always have your back. And I think you know that, Trump told a crowd of around 150 law enforcement officers, lawmakers, and their families in June.

Everyone here today understands a vital truth: American is a land of opportunity because we are a nation of laws.  For America to be a strong nation, we must have strong borders.

From NTD News
The U.S. Capitol Building Dome is seen before the sun rises in Washington, on Dec. 18, 2018. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

House Committee Vote to Keep So Help You God in Oath After Outcry

A House committee voted to keep the words so help you God in an oath witnesses are required to take before providing testimony, after an attempt to remove the phrase sparked objections with some Republicans.

The Democrat-controlled House Committee on Natural Resources proposed to remove the reference to God from the committees oath, according to a draft of committee rules that was first reported by Fox News. The draft (pdf) shows the words so help you God in red brackets, meaning that the words would have been eliminated. The Democrats also planned to add the words under penalty of law to the oath instead.

If the rules had passed, the oath would have read as follows: Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

But on Jan. 30, committee aides told Fox News that the house committee voted to keep so help you God in the oath. The committee has oversight of national parks and federal conservation and species protection programs. It is headed by Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva (D-AZ).

JUST IN: The House Natural Resources Committee votes to keep so help you God in oath before testifying to committee, after a draft would have eliminated it. Chairman @RepRaulGrijalva says draft was a mistake. pic.twitter.com/4TeemMuqP0  Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) January 30, 2019

After the news of the plan to remove the phrase came out, a top Republican congresswoman characterized the edits to the oath as indicative of a hard left shift for the Democratic Party.

It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told the news station.

They really have become the party of Karl Marx.

Nods to Cultural Marxism

Democrats have previously thought to strike references to God from key party documents. In 2012, an uproar ensued on the floor of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) when party leaders sought to restore a reference to God to the party platform. The reversal came about after criticism from Republicans about the reference being removed.

The views on restoring the reference to God were far from uniform with a group of delegates yelling no as the convention chairman called for a vote. The chair had to call for the vote three times before concluding that they ayes had it.

A number of Democrats openly ran as socialists during the 2018 midterms. While most lost, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won a congressional race in New York.

The drft of the committee rules features other nods to cultural Marxism. The words his or her are replaced throughout the proposed rules with their and all of the references to chairman are replaced with chair.

An offshoot of Marxism, cultural Marxism focuses on culture instead of economics. The ideology is steeped in atheism and purports that there is no such thing as race and gender. Cultural Marxisms central goal is to destroy traditional culture, with a specific focus on family values, faith, and love for ones country.

In an exclusive series by The Epoch Times, cultural Marxism is exposed as a form of communism used to infiltrate the West. The reporting specifically shows how the campaign to remove references to God traces back to communist ideology.

Epoch Times reporter Ivan Penchoukov contributed to this report
Good Samaritan Shoots Robber Dead at Family Dollar Store: Police

An armed robber was shot dead at a Family Dollar store in Georgia on Jan. 29, police officers said.

The robber burst inside the store in DeKalb County and tried demanding money

At least three customers were inside in addition to two employees.

One of the customers was armed and shot the robber dead.

The customer was shopping near the register when he noticed the robber trying to hold up the store, and took action.

While the store was getting robbed, a Good Samaritan intervened, DeKalb County Police Sgt. Lynn Schuler told WTSP. He shot the suspect several times.

He didnt do anything wrong. He stopped a robbery in progress and did what he had to do, Schuler added to Fox 5.

Police officials said that the customer, who was not publicly identified, would not be charged. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene. The thief also wasnt identified.

People who shop at the Family Dollar said that theyre grateful to the man for being brave enough to intervene.

Police: Good Samaritan shoots, kills robber at Family Dollar: https://t.co/N8rNeYNwd4 pic.twitter.com/WoPkfGeJZ8  FOX 32 News (@fox32news) January 29, 2019

[The robber] was pointing a handgun at the face of the cashier and demanded money. I could understand why people here would call him a hero, said Sgt. Schuler.

Police said that the clerk who was targeted by the armed robber and who was in the process of giving the thief money when the robber was shot was badly shaken by what happened.

She was also appreciative of the customer who intervened.

Shes upset. Shes dealing with corporate right now but shes fine, Schuler told WSB-TV.

Customer shoots, kills robbery suspect at Family Dollar, police say. @tomreganWSB has details, coming up on Channel 2 Action News  https://t.co/ft4su06peT pic.twitter.com/B8kusYHlsM  WSB-TV (@wsbtv) January 29, 2019

Texas Homeowner Shoots 5 Would-Be Robbers

Five men tried breaking into a house in Texas just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 20 but were shot by the homeowner.

Three of the men were shot dead, with one of the deceased being left in front of the house.

One wounded man fled on foot while the other three left in a vehicle. The car crashed into a pole and a man was later found dead inside. Another occupant fled on foot after the crash and later died.

The two suspects who survived were taken to a hospital.

A neighbor told KPRC that a shootout happened after two men with large guns entered the house and the others pulled up and prepared to go inside.

Police officers described several dozen shell casings in and around the house as they began their investigation.

Another neighbor told KHOU that he was on his porch with his baby when he saw the two men show up with large rifles. The neighbor went inside his house to take cover.

He said that the homeowner is known in the neighborhood as Flaco.

A group of women who were crying showed up near the house where the shooting happened and said they are related to the men who were shot. They declined to provide further details.

Officials told KTRK that the homeowner shot the men in self-defense using a fully-loaded AK-47, an assault rifle.

The 20-year-old homeowner said that the men, wearing ski masks, approached his house and busted inside, demanding cash, forcing him to defend himself.

A witness said that he saw two men in front of the home lying on the ground. I heard around five or six gunshots. Im pretty sure there were more before that, he said.

From NTD News
An asylum seeker is confronted by an RCMP officer as he crosses the border into Canada from the United States on Aug. 21, 2017 near Champlain, N.Y. The federal Liberals plan to spend an extra $114.7 million to help pay for temporary housing for asylum seekers. (The Canadian Press/Paul Chiasson)

Feds to Offer $114M to Provinces, Cities for Asylum Seeker Housing

OTTAWAThe federal Liberals plan to spend an extra $114.7 million to help pay for temporary housing for asylum seekersa sum Ontarios government criticized as being hundreds of millions short of what is needed.

The influx of irregular migrants has increased pressure on provinces to provide shelter and social services. Cities too have felt the crunch with the mayors of Canadas largest cities on Monday calling for more federal housing money they say is badly needed.

A spokeswoman for Border Security Minister Bill Blair said the extra spendingreferenced among $2.5 billion in new spending plans tabled late Monday by the governmentis an acknowledgment that irregular border crossers have had a significant impact in places like Toronto and Montreal.

The money is on top of $50 million the Trudeau government offered to Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba last summer to help with temporary housing costs for asylum seekers.

The majority of the money, $100 million, will flow to provinces, with the remaining $14.7 million earmarked for temporary housing provided by the federal government.

Breakdown of Funds Not Yet Determined

No breakdown has yet been offered on exactly how much each province or municipality will receive as part of this planned new spending, nor about how decisions will be made on what eligible costs will be covered.

Marie-Emmanuelle Cadieux, Blairs press secretary, said cost-sharing agreements will be developed with provinces and cities to help with immediate housing pressures let local officials make decisions because they are best-placed to manage pressures felt across their cities.

However, the new spending falls far short of what the Ontario and Quebec governments say they have spent on irregular migrants, $200 million and $300 million respectively.

On Tuesday, Ontario Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod tweeted Tuesday that the new spending is a full $400 million less than the request from us (Ontario) and Quebec combined.

MacLeod was not made available for an interview. Her office said the minister provided a cost breakdown in August, and the legislature has asked the provincial auditor general to review Ontarios asylum seeker costs to ensure transparency.

In July, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen called his provincial counterparts hardline stance on border crossers dangerous and not Canadian. MacLeod, whose provincial department oversees immigration, called Hussens comments divisive rhetoric and walked away from participating in an ad hoc intergovernmental task force on irregular migration.

The Liberals have blamed the frosty relationship with Ontario Premier Doug Fords government to explain why some cities didnt get money to help defray housing costs. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said Monday that housing irregular migrants cost his city $5.7 million in 2017, but said federal compensation only flowed to Toronto, which received $11 million last year.

However ambitious and willing we are to assist cities like Ottawa, we need the partnership of the government of Ontario, and that complicates our relationships with cities across Ontario, Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters Monday.

In response, the federal government accused the Ontario government of not playing ball in funding negotiations.

The rest of the $2.5 billion in new money in Mondays spending plans include $323.2 million for demand-driven services to veterans; $313.9 million for international military missions; $163.5 million to write off unrecoverable Canada student loans; $159 million for arctic and offshore patrol ships and $149.7 million to fund the governments feminist international-assistance agenda.
Father Arrested After Forcing Children to Do Push-Ups for 30 Mins as Punishment

A Kentucky father has been arrested for forcing his children to do push-ups for half an hour straight, according to a local report, leaving one of them with rug burns.

James Kidwell is currently listed as detained at Rockcastle County detention center, charged with first-degree criminal abuse of a child under 12.

According to a police report cited by WKYT, Kidwell subjected two children to various abusive acts between Jan. 24 and 28, as a form of punishment.

He is accused of forcing his 11-year-old and 13-year-old children to do push-ups for 30 minutes straight.

One of the children got rug burns from doing the push-ups, according to WKYT.

One of the children had a bruise on his chest where he had allegedly been punched by Kidwell, and one had a sore in his mouth from being forced to eat soap.

Another punishment was standing two steps away from a wall and leaning into it with their foreheads, according to the police report.

According to the Rockcastle County jail records, Kidwell is 40 years old, weighs 320 pounds and stands 5 feet 6 inches tall. His bond was set at $10,000.

Kidwells arrest prompted intense discussion on social media, with most people critical of his actions.

Its Discipline

A few push ups as punishment is one thing, wrote one person on Facebook. I love my children dearly but require 10 jumping Jacks sometimes as punishment. But. the rug burn, bruises from being punched in the chest, and sores from soap being in their mouths disgusting!

Another wrote: I dont agree with him punching the child, but come on people!! Making the kids workout as punishment isnt that bad. He could be beating them or starving them or leaving them out in the cold. Its discipline.

Police say the push-ups were just one of many punishments. Officers say one child had a bruise on his chest from where the suspect punched him.  WKYT  2019129

Last year a Kentucky woman, already on probation, was jailed for 20 years after forcing her 14-year-old daughter to drink alcohol.

Miranda Polston caught her daughter drinking alcohol on Mar. 10, 2018, reported WKYT, and decided punish her by forcing her to drink alcohol to the point of extreme intoxication to get her sick.

The incident was captured on video, which shows the teen being held in a chair so she wouldnt fall over, while she was offered more alcohol.

Investigators say the teen daughter fell face first onto the floor in a video of the incident. The mother was on probation at the time of the arrest.  WKYT  2018612

Polston pleaded not guilty. When she was found guilty, her probation was revoked and she was given a 20-year sentence.

Child Abuse in the United States

According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (pdf), approximately 3.5 million children nationwide in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment reports to authorities.

Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote in the introduction.

About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated; the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect, or 9.1 victims per 1,000 children.

Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children of the same age in the national population.

About three-quarters of the cases were neglect while about 18 percent were physical abuse. Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment.

Of the perpetrators of the abuse, more than four-fifths were between the ages of 18 and 44 and more than half were women.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a national ceremony to pay tribute to the victims of terrorism, in Paris, on Sept. 19, 2018. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)

Egypt Arrests 54 Suspected of Planning Violence on Uprising Anniversary

CAIROEgyptian security forces have arrested 54 people, including suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood, for planning to hold protests and commit violence on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, the Interior Ministry said on Jan. 29.

The ministry said in a statement that the group was directed by a Muslim Brotherhood leader based in Turkey and that money and sabotage equipment had been found in its possession.

The announcement came after security forces detained the former spokesman of an opposition alliance, the Civil Democratic Movement, in a pre-dawn raid, according to his lawyer and a member of the alliance.

The movement is a grouping of left-wing and liberal parties, including the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and the Bread and Freedom Party.

The raid also came as French President Emmanuel Macron concluded a three-day state visit to Egypt, during which he highlighted concerns over human rights in the country in talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sisi, who ousted President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 and was elected president the following year, has overseen a sweeping crackdown on Islamist as well as liberal opposition.

The Brotherhood came to power in Egypts first modern free election in 2012, a year after long-serving autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled in the popular uprising. But the movement is now banned, and thousands of its supporters and much of its leadership have been jailed.

Officials link the Brotherhood to an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula and have repeatedly blamed it for attacks. The Brotherhood denies any connection to militants and says its political aims are peaceful.

Information has become available  that escaped leaders of the (Muslim Brotherhood) were implementing a plot to create a state of chaos in the country during the months of January and February, to coincide with the anniversary of the 25 January revolution, the Interior Ministry statement said.

It identified the Brotherhood figure behind the planned attacks as Yasser al-Omda and said he had set up an organization called Allahuma Thawra. Members of the group were planning to cut roads, disrupt traffic, and try to spread chaos and terrify citizens, it added.

The statement did not identify any of those arrested, but said legal measures were being taken against them in coordination with the state security prosecutor.

The Civil Democratic Movement former spokesman, Yahya Hussein Abdel Hadi, was detained in the early hours of Jan. 29 in a raid, said Khaled Dawoud, a member of the alliance. Negad al-Borai, an activist and lawyer for Abdel Hadi, also confirmed his arrest.

Abdel Hadi had been questioned in November on accusations of insulting the president, disturbing the public peace and publishing false news on Facebook, before being released on a bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($570), Dawoud said.

Dawoud said it was unclear if the arrest was linked to the detention of several other opposition figures who the movement said were detained on Jan. 27 after they celebrated the Jan. 25 anniversary of the uprising.

The interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By Mahmoud Mourad
Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? 7 Cell Phone Safety Tips To Protect Your Health

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Joyce Wallace, accountant from Gettysburg, MD, at the 45th Annual March for Life rally in Washington on Jan. 19, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Do Black Lives Matter to Progressives?

Commentary

Do black lives matter to progressives? The most obvious answer is No. The lives of marginalized populations have never mattered to progressives.

A hint about how progressive elites think and operate is found in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs 2009 interview with The New York Times.

When asked about the Roe v. Wade ruling and the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal dollars for abortion, Ginsburg casually said: Frankly, I had thought that, at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth, and particularly growth in populations that we dont want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.

This Ginsburg quote about Roe v. Wade was as startling as her recommendation that the age of consent for children having sex with adults should be lowered to 12. Ginsburgs attitude toward undesirables brings to mind the proclamation of the governing pigs in Animal Farm: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Feminists Have Duped Black Women

Black women stood and celebrated with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he recently signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. Black women are the last people who should celebrate abortion as a positive option for women. Blacks are 14 percent of the U.S. population, and black women are getting 37 percent of the abortions.

Of the 61 million abortions that have taken place since 1973 (when Roe became the law of the land), an estimated 19 million have been black. In some cities such as New York, there are more black babies aborted than born alive.

In August last year, the abortion industry in Dallas made national headlines with a billboard encouraging black women to abort their unborn babies. The billboard appeared in the city where legalized abortion got its start. Thats where Norma McCorveythe Jane Roe in Roe v. Wadewon her 1970 case before a three-judge panel; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the matter after both sides appealed aspects of the ruling. McCorvey, who eventually became a Christian and renounced abortion before her death, never got an abortion.

The Dallas billboard, located at Interstate 35 East and Illinois Ave. in Oak Cliff, touted what was supposed to be an empowering message for black women. It shows three attractive, young black women with bright smiles. They greet passing motorists with the message: Black women take care of their families by taking care of themselves first. ABORTION IS SELF-CARE.

This selfish enticement to take care of yourself by aborting your unborn baby wasnt sponsored by a white-supremacist group. Funding, however, could have come from any number of progressive sources.

The sponsoring organization is The Afiya Center, which purports to stand for reproductive rights and womens health. A description on its website reads: The Afiya Center programming is centered around the experiences of black women and are designed to strategically address harmful reproductive health and abortion policies.

Reproductive rights is a euphemism for abortion. Afiyas billboard listed the hashtag #TrustBlackWomen. The association with black women was clearly an effort to neutralize criticism that a white-run organization such as Planned Parenthood would have inevitably gotten.

White progressives who want to reduce the black population can funnel dollars into the coffers of any number of willing black politicians and black community leaders. The black community is for sale to the highest bidder.

Planned Parenthoods founder, Margaret Sanger, was a well-known eugenicist who believed society would be better off if certain populations were stripped of their reproductive rights.

Sanger said: Birth control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocksthose human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.

Although progressives and conservatives have doctored Sangers racist quote, her meaning is quite clear and echoed in other places.

Sanger deceptively used black people to mislead other black people about her organizations genocidal intentions. Thats the same strategy as progressives use today.

In a widely quoted letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, a pioneer in eugenics and sterilization of women, Sanger wrote, We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

Sanger lived long enough to see one of historys greatest black leaders receive the Margaret Sanger Award. On May 5, 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. was given the award for his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity. Kings acceptance speech was reprinted by Planned Parenthood to advertise its services and praise Sanger.

Lets face it: Black lives do not matter to brainwashed black liberals, congressional Black Caucus members, and other progressives. If black lives mattered, progressives would be fighting to reduce the black abortion rate. Clinics wouldnt be so prominent in minority communities and, instead of demonizing police, the elites would be condemning the black-on-black murder rate.

Dr. Carol M. Swain is a former tenured professor at Vanderbilt and Princeton universities. Her Be The People News blog and podcast empower individuals to think independently, understand their responsibility, and make a difference in the world.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Members of the House are sworn-in during the beginning of the 116th Congress at the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 3, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Democrats Plan to Remove So Help Me God From Oath at House Committee

Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources plan to remove a reference to God from an oath, which witnesses are required to take before providing testimony, according to a draft of committee rules obtained.

The draft (pdf) shows the words so help you God in red brackets, indicating that the words will be removed if the draft rules are approved. Instead, the Democrats plan to add the words under penalty of law to the oath.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the proposed oath states.

A top Republican congresswoman characterized the edits to the oath as indicative of a hard left shift for the Democratic Party.

It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told Fox News.

They really have become the party of Karl Marx, she said.

Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva is the chairman of the committee. The full committee is expected to vote on the new rules this week.

Democrats have previously thought to strike references to God from key Party documents. In 2012, an uproar ensued on the floor of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) when party leaders sought to restore a reference to God to the Party platform. The reversal came about after criticism from Republicans about the reference being removed.

The views on restoring the reference to God were far from uniform with a group of delegates yelling No as the convention chairman called for a vote. The chair had to call for the vote three times before concluding that the Ayes had it.

A number of Democrats openly ran as socialists during the 2018 midterms. While most lost, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won a congressional race in New York.

The drft of the committee rules features other nods to cultural Marxism. The words his or her are replaced throughout the proposed rules with their and all of the references to chairman are replaced with chair.

An offshoot of Marxism, cultural Marxism focuses on culture instead of economics. The ideology is steeped in atheism and purports that there is no such thing as race and gender. Cultural Marxisms central goal is to destroy traditional culture, with a specific focus on family values, faith, and love for ones country.

In an exclusive series by The Epoch Times, cultural Marxism is exposed as a form of communism used to infiltrate the West. The reporting specifically shows how the campaign to remove references to God traces back to communist ideology.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, recipient of the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom during the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's ceremony in his honor, at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 28, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Crusading Hong Kong Cardinal Receives US Award for Pro-Religious Freedom, Anti-Chinese Communist, Activism

WASHINGTONHonoring years of campaigning against Chinese Communist repression of religious freedom, the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation presented Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun with a prestigious award for his heroic activism.

The bishop emeritus of Hong Kong received the foundations highest honor, the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, at a Capitol Hill ceremony Jan. 28.

The medal is bestowed annually on those individuals and institutions that have demonstrated a life-long commitment to freedom and democracy and opposition to communism and all other forms of tyranny, according to the foundation, an educational and human-rights nonprofit organization. The late pope, Saint John Paul II, whose bold stand against world communism helped to topple the Soviet Union, was a past recipient of the medal.

Marion Smith, the foundations executive director, said Zen has given voice to those denied religious liberty and has opposed the collusion of the Vatican and Chinese Communist Party on the matter of ecclesiastical appointments.

Hong Kong Autonomy

The 87-year-old cleric said he was worried about the future of Hong Kong because the autonomy that Beijing promised to protect is slipping away.

Although true Marxism no longer exists in mainland China, the atheist persecutor dictatorship remains, and is cracking down on religion throughout the country, including in Hong Kong, whose preexisting rights and freedoms Beijing vowed to respect for at least 50 years in 1997, when the United Kingdom ceded the territory to China.

Of the promised high degree of autonomy, very little remains, Zen said. We are soon to become just one of the cities in China.

I want to remember many of those heroes who are suffering at this moment in China or Hong Kong for voicing their claim for respect of their dignity, for freedom, and for democracythose well-known and those anonymous heroes.

Religious Repression

Beijing seeks to subordinate all churches to Communist Party control and employs officials whose job is to oversee those religious institutions. The Chinese regime openly interferes in the affairs of that nations estimated 12 million Catholics and has arrested and persecuted church officials. Zen has been a leading critic of this policy.

In the fall, the Vatican and the ruling Communist Party reportedly signed a provisional deal allowing Beijing to effectively appoint a limited number of bishops, a move that has been criticized by that nations Christians, who warn that it will only encourage more officially-sanctioned religious repression.

In September last year, Zen described the pact as a complete surrender by the Vatican, as well as an incredible betrayal of the Catholic faith.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the co-chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in December 2018 that Chinas Communist Party is now engaged in the most comprehensive attempt to manipulate and controlor destroyreligious communities since Chairman Mao Zedong made the eradication of religion a goal of his disastrous Cultural Revolution half a century ago.

Zen told reporters Jan. 28 that hes wary of the agreement, which suggests the Catholic Church in Hong Kong will need a blessing from Beijing to name bishops. This suggests Hong Kongs one country, two systems principle is about to disappear, he said.

I hope the Vatican will stand their ground and appoint a bishop who can truly lead our diocese and protect our religious life.

Zen said he is praying for Pope Francis, whom he met with at the Vatican earlier this month, to do the right thing. The Holy See hasnt answered his letters, in which he objected to the pact about appointing bishops, he said.

Theyre making their own judgment on matters that I disagree with, he said. We Catholics are praying for [the pope]. With Gods blessings, we pray he wont make mistakes.

Tremendous Leader

In an interview with The Epoch Times at the awards ceremony, Rep. Smith explained why the cardinal deserved to be honored.

Cardinal Zen, for years, even before he became the bishop of Hong Kong, has been a tremendous leader for all faiths believing that religious freedom is a fundamentally recognized human right, which China has agreed to. He has spoken out on behalf of everyone, not just Catholics, and I think that makes a difference. We are all in this together.

The repression that has been unleashed  has crushed so many peoples lives, not just through murder and through torture and long jail sentences, but their hopes and aspirations are thwarted because of this dictatorship.

I think Cardinal Zen inspires all of us, people inside of China, as well as outside, to do more on behalf of religious freedom.

A representative of the Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) spiritual practice, which Zen has defended, said the cardinal deserves the award.

Cardinal Zen is known to be a very righteous and outspoken figure in Hong Kong, said Kan Hung-cheung of the Hong Kong Association of Falun Dafa.

Kan recalled how Zen spoke up when the Chinese regime began its persecution of Falun Gong in mainland China in 1999. The regimes propaganda initially had an effect on Hong Kongs population, and Falun Gong practitioners faced a hostile environment. Nonetheless, Zen defended them.

When [the Chinese Communist Party] started the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, the then-Bishop Zen came up to defend the universal values of truthfulness-compassion-forbearance [the core principles of Falun Gong] and the freedom of religion of Falun Gong, and strongly objected to and criticized the Hong Kong government on the intended suppression.

Zen has helped to ameliorate the repression suffered by Falun Gong practitioners. We very much appreciate his support of us in so many years, Kan said.

Zen said that receiving the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom will give his fellow Chinese Catholics hope.

Zen was asked by The Epoch Times if his receipt of the award would have an impact on religious freedom in China and Hong Kong.

Sure, Zen replied, because I got everybody to promise to pray for us and I hope you get informed and always be concerned. Thats important for us, because we need the support of everyone.
Chinas Huawei Excluded from Czech Tax Tender After Security Warning

PRAGUEChinas Huawei has been excluded from a Czech tender to build a tax portal after the countrys cyber watchdog warned of possible security threats posed by the telecoms supplier, documents showed on Jan. 30.

Huawei faces international scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese regime and allegations that Beijing could use Huaweis technology for spying, which the company denies.

The U.S. Justice Department has charged Huawei with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and with stealing robotic technology from T-Mobile US Inc.

The Czech Finance Ministry amended a tender for a new tax portal for filing returns, documentation on online registries showed.

The ministry said the tender could not allow producers that are subject to a current warning by the NUKIB, referring to the Czech cybersecurity agency.

The agency in December warned network operators and other key institutions against using software or hardware made by Huawei or Chinas ZTE, saying they may pose a security threat.

A warning from (NUKIB) is by law binding for the Financial Administration and we are obligated to carry it out, a spokesman for the Finance Ministrys General Financial Directorate said.

The tender is valued at 500 million crowns ($22 million) according to the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily newspaper which first reported Huaweis exclusion.

A NUKIB warning does not constitute an outright ban but requires 160 public and private operators of critical infrastructure to conduct an analysis of risks and act accordingly.

Huawei had been seen as a favorite in the tax portal tender. A local Huawei representative could not immediately comment.

Huaweis products have so far not been banned or excluded from planned upgrades of Czech mobile networks to next-generation 5G technology.

The company has already started testing some networks with Vodafone and testing MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) technology with T-Mobile.

Last November Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding on testing 5G solutions with investment group PPF.

PPF controls Czech and Slovak operator O2 Czech Republic, Czech network provider CETIN and last year bought Telenors mobile operations in Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro and Serbia.

Huawei has been publicly backed by Czech President Milos Zeman, who has long promoted close cooperation with China, while Prime Minister Andrej Babis has called for a debate on cybersecurity at the European Union level.

($1 = 22.5380 Czech crowns)

By Jason Hovet & Robert Muller
Chinas EMP Weapons Pose Grave Threat to America, Newly Declassified Report Shows

Commentary

China is building specialized nuclear warheads so potent that a single one may be enough to devastate America with its enhanced electromagnetic pulse (EMP), according to a report the Department of Defense (DoD) recently declassified.

The report, Nuclear EMP Attack Scenarios and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare, was written by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry for a congressionally mandated commission investigating the threat from EMPs to the United States.

The report warns that future wars may look entirely different than past wars due to peoples increasing reliance on technology. China, alongside Russia, Iran, and North Korea, have recognized Americas extreme reliance on electricity, electronics, and technology, and subsequently adapted their military plans to target this dependence.

Detonation of a single generic nuclear bomb between 30-400 kilometers above earth will create an EMP that propagates outward towards earth with a radius of between 600 and 2,200 kilometers. The effects of an EMP would be catastrophic and could plunge a nation into indefinite darkness. There would be widespread destruction of computers, nuclear power plants, satellites, phones, refrigerators, transformers, and more.

The EMP commission estimates a full 90 percent of the American population could die within a year of an EMP attack.

The threat posed by EMP is widely recognized at this point. For instance, in 2018 alone, both the Department of Homeland Security and a group of experts from inside the normally reticent DoD, released reports recognizing the need for urgent action, respectively titled the Strategy for Protecting and Preparing the Homeland Against Threats of Electromagnetic Pulse and Geomagnetic Disturbances, and the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force Report.

The newly declassified report is startling because it goes beyond just acknowledging the theoretical threat posed by an EMP attack. It provides alarming and concrete details on how EMP attack is actually core to the planning of various nations adversarial to America.

Chinese leaders consider the EMP attack to be a revolution in military affairs, referring to this change with such names as Sixth Generation Warfare, Non-Contact Warfare, or Electronic Warfare.

Iranian, North Korean, and Russian military doctrines closely mimic China on these points.

For instance, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) published a paper asserting that an EMP attack could be considered the Pearl Harbor Incident of the 21st century and that the United States is more vulnerable to attacks [from EMP] than any other country in the world.

Another Chinese paper explained that an EMP attack could be used to destroy, an enemys telephone network, fuel pipelines, electric grid, transportation control system, and much more.

One PLA textbook explains that EMP attacks can destroy a nations computer networks which mean a country will slip into a state of paralysis and the lives of its people will ground to a halt.

In addition to traditional nuclear bombs which can generate a devastating EMP attack, China has also developed Super-EMP warheads. These are nuclear bombs that are specialized to result in a greater EMP, of up to 200 kilovolts per meter.

Americas DoD has taken limited steps to harden some of its weapons and communications systems from an EMP strike. Americas military, however, is highly dependent on civilian infrastructure to function, which the DoD has not addressed, and foreign military planners have explicitly recognized this fact.

The limited steps the DoD has taken to address the threat from EMP has not addressed the newly developed Super-EMP warheads.

Even Americas nuclear deterrent faces a direct threat from the Super-EMP weapons. In Congressional testimony in 2008, then-Congressman Roscoe Bartlett commented, I also understand that we arent certain we could launch, through a series of robust EMP laydowns, that we could launch our intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The EMP Commission Chairman responded, We designed both the missiles and their bases and the strategic communications systems during the Cold War to be able to survive and operate through EMP fields on the order of 50 kilovolts per meter, which was our concern at the time, before we realized that weapons could be designed that had larger EMP fields.

Its unclear what would happen to Americas nuclear submarines if America were hit by an EMP attack.

It is common American perception that the use of a nuclear weapon is simply unthinkable. But this newly declassified report undermines such a view. China doesnt consider a nuclear EMP strike to carry the same taboo that a traditional nuclear strike does. They view it as more related to cyber warfare and far more acceptable. Their reasoning is based on the idea that when a nuclear warhead is detonated at a high elevation for EMP effects then people wouldnt die from the nuclear fireball or fallout.

A nuclear EMP attack poses another serious problem for Americas nuclear deterrent. For Americas nuclear arsenal to function as a deterrent, Americas government must be able to quickly and reliably determine who an attack came from.

However, in the event of an EMP, much of Americas technological equipment used to make such an assessment could be put out of operation. Further, a bomb detonated hundreds of kilometers high may leave minimum physical traces for analysis.

The report presents numerous scenarios where a global war breaks out and is won with use of an EMP.

The EMP Commission was staffed with men of unmatched expertise. It was headed by Chairman Dr. William Graham who holds a PhD in electrical engineering and was the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology under President Reagan. The Commission further included a retired General, a former CIA Director, and among its other subject matter experts is Dr. Pry who holds two PhDs, a certificate in nuclear weapons design from Los Alamos, and ten years as an intelligence officer at the CIA.

Members of Trumps national security team have read the EMP Commissions work and are taking steps to mitigate some of the risks warned about. So far, however, progress has been limited, especially in the face of bureaucratic resistance from various holdovers from previous administrations.

Daniel Ashman is an analyst from the suburbs of Massachusetts. He is the author of the book Russian Agents: The Clintons Attack Against America. His website is AshmanReport.com and he can be found on Twitter @dashman76.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A driver uses a phone while behind the wheel of a car in New York City on April 30, 2016. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Cell Phone Use While Driving Increases After California Tightens Law: Survey

California has more drivers using cell phones while behind the wheel in 2018 than 2017, a survey released on Jan. 28 indicates.

The observational study was conducted last August and September by the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) and California State University, Fresno. Observers recorded the use of cell phone at 204 intersections across 17 counties in California.

The result shows that 4.52 percent of drivers were observed picking up and using their cell phones in comparison to 3.58 percent in 2017, according to a news release from OTS.

Our goal is to end distracted driving, and theres still work to be done, OTS Director Rhonda Craft said. This observational survey gives us an idea on where we stand getting drivers attention away from their phones and where we still have work to do.

Although the increase in cell phone use caused some concern among officials, the numbers in 2018 actually dropped from 7.6 percent in 2016.

In 2017, California started banning any hand-held use of cell phones while driving, with drivers only allowed to use their phone with a single touch, like a swipe or a tap, to activate or deactivate a function. The phones also need to be mounted on the dashboard, windshield or center console.

Violations of the law can result in a $20 fine for the first offense and $50 for a second. However, the actual fine for the first offense could add up to $150 and over $250 for the second time when assessments are included.

In addition, the survey revealed several other key findings, including:
Calls for Police Weapon Bans Following Injuries During Yellow Vest Protests

France is considering banning police from using weapons like rubber bullet launchers and sting-ball grenades, following serious injuries during yellow vest protests.

Several protesters are alleged to have lost eyes and had limbs mutilated after being hit by the explosive weapons.

Sting-ball grenades contain TNT explosives and can eject small rubber balls and teargas to inflict pain and deafen targets. France is the only European country that uses them.

Despite most protesters being peaceful, French armed police have become a prominent sight, dressed in black riot gear and launching teargas in an attempt to quell potential violence.

In recent weeks, they have come under increasing pressure not to use excessive force, with images of bloodied protesters circulating widely on social media.

On Jan. 26, prominent yellow vest protester Jerome Rodrigues was hit by a projectile launched by the police, sustaining a serious eye injury that his lawyer says has left him disabled for life.

Following the incident, interior minister Christophe Castaner announced there would be an internal investigation to discover what had happened.

Castaner also said riot police would be required to wear body cameras if they intend to use projectiles, but that they needed to act proportionately.

I have complete confidence in our security forces, but its true that at the moment, for example, the great majority of our police forces have had to suspend their training, he told Reuters.

There have been 1,900 people injured since the start of the protests in November, according to Castaner, adding that 1,200 police officers had also been injured. He did not specify the nature of the injuries.

No Reaction From Government

The French Human Rights League and the CGT trade union have requested a ban on the specialized rubber bullet launchers used by police during the protests, warning they are dangerous.

Paris-based lawyer Ainoha Pascual is representing a man who had part of his hand torn off, and another who has been partially deafened.

She said the use of weapons like these was a very real problem.

In the 1980s, if one person was hit in the eye at a demonstration there would be a huge reaction, yet now there is no reaction from government, she told the Guardian.

Lawyer Philippe De Veuille said the weapons used by police, although non-lethal, can cause very serious injuries.

There is a whole question of law enforcement methods that needs to be reviewed, he told Reuters.

According to a survey published on Jan. 18, over half of French people oppose the use of rubber bullets.

The injuries arent limited to protesterspassersby have also been struck by stray projectiles.

One 80-year-old woman in Marseille died last month after being hit by a police teargas canister, while a passerby in Paris was hit by a rubber bullet.
Australian Defence Minister Urges China To Adhere to International Law

Pyne says artificial islands have not increased regional confidence, they have increased regional anxiety

Australian Defence Minister Christopher Pyne has called on China to act responsibly and respect the rights of all states in the South China Sea.

Speaking to military leaders at the Fullerton Forum in Singapore on Jan. 28, Pyne said that the Chinese leadership needs to rethink its might is right approach and show willingness to adhere to international law.

We are not interested in containing China, but we are interested in engaging and encouraging China to exercise its power in ways that increase regional trust and confidence, Pyne said.

The building and militarisation of artificial features in the South China Sea, for instance, has not increased regional confidence in Chinas strategic intentions.

Instead, it has increased anxiety.

Open Access and Trade in the Indo-Pacific

The importance of free and open access in the Indo-Pacific region will allow countries to prosper, Pyne said, and allow open markets to facilitate the free flow of trade, capital, technology, and ideas.

He added that negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, for instance, will support prosperity and help protect the interests of all states in the region.

Referring to China, Pyne said that the regions economic potential could fall short if countries withdraw behind walls and withdraw from mechanisms designed to make us stronger.

We must welcome competitionnot fear itby holding ourselves, and others, to the rules that extend equal opportunity to all.

Pyne added that the alliance between Australia and the United States will be strengthened, which will ensure that rules and standards are maintained in the region.

We value its importance and presence in establishing and promoting the norms and principles that have underpinned the regions security and prosperity. ASEAN, too, is a vital partnership for us, and central to the Indo-Pacific.

Australia is also prepared to play its part in defending the rule of law by conducting multilateral activities in the South China Sea, to demonstrate that they are international waters, Pyne said.

Valuable discussions with my Singaporean counterpart Dr Ng Eng Hen, a great partner in the region.  #auspol #ausdef pic.twitter.com/oHo4QYTYIe  Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) January 28, 2019

Pyne told Fairfax Media on Oct. 3, 2018, that Australia will be upfront with China about their activities in the South China Sea.

We maintain the right under international law to navigate through the South China Sea and we do so on a routine basis.

As the exhortation goes, to those that much is given, much is expected; similarly for nation states, for those with great power comes great responsibility, and so I call on China to act with great responsibility in the South China Sea.

Regional Defence

The Morrison government has increased Australias total defence spending from 1.9 percent to 2 percent of the national gross domestic product in the 2020-21 period.

This will show the world Australia is not an international bludger, Pyne told Fairfax. The capability build-up is a critical factor in being a serious country in terms of defence and foreign affairs.

Since the publication of the Defence White Paper in 2016, actions have been taken to ensure the protection of Australias sovereignty.

A deal to build of 12 new submarines, for example, was finalised by the government on Dec. 13, 2018.

The new fleet of submarines will replace the current Collins-Class submarines that are scheduled to leave service in the 2030s. The deal, which is worth A$50 billion ($36 billion), will be the largest defence procurement program in Australias history, according to the Department of Defence.

The Navy chief, Vice Admiral Michael Noonan, said the Attack class will provide Australia with a regionally superior submarine.

The Attack class will meet the Navys capability needs and help protect our security and prosperity for decades to come, said Vice Admiral Noonan.

According to the Defence White Paper (pdf), maintaining Australias technological edge and capability superiority over potential adversaries is essential to protecting Australias sovereignty.

The modernisation of regional forces, where countries can operate at a greater range and with more precision, will be one of many defence challenges facing Australia over the next 20 years, it said.

The growth in the capability of Chinas military forces is the most significant example of regional military modernisation.

Instability in our immediate region could have strategic consequences for Australia, the report read.

In a press release, Defence Minister Pyne said that the governments commitment to building a strong naval shipbuilding capability will also benefit the Australian economy, providing thousands of jobs.

The Coalition Governments $90 billion continuous shipbuilding program will drive jobs growth for decades into the future, she said.

Additional reporting by Epoch Times reporter Richard Szabo.
At the Core of Spygate Scandal Is FBIs Reliance on Intel From Political Operatives

Commentary

Its well known by now that political propagandists Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS had the best of both worlds at their fingertips, thanks to accommodating officials inside the federal government.

They were simultaneously getting the Trump campaign targeted by the FBI and the news media by shopping the exact same evidence to both. Steele was even being paid by the FBI for providing them with his tall tales. That is, until they were forced to cut ties with him shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

We now know, however, that it wasnt just the political operatives at Fusion GPS playing the double-dealing game of giving fake allegations about the Trump campaigns supposed Russian ties to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI, while offering the same wrong information to the news media.

As former FBI general counsel James Baker told members of Congress during his testimony before the House Oversight Committee last October, there was yet another political operative who was also playing the strategic leaking game against the Trump campaign during the 2016 election and afterward.

Baker revealed to the committee how the FBI started an investigation into supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and a bank in Russia, Alfa Bank, using information it was given by Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Perkins Coie is a name we have become quite familiar with. Its the same law firm used by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to hide their payments to Fusion GPS for the creation of the Steele dossier.

Epoch Times contributor Jeff Carlson first broke the news from the Baker transcript with the story Transcripts of Former Top FBI Lawyer Detail Pervasive Abnormalities in Trump Probe. That explosive expose was soon followed by another article, Baker Testimony Reveals Perkins Coie Lawyer Provided FBI With Information on Alfa Bank Allegations.

Pervasive abnormalities is a very polite way of describing what happened here. A single lawyer approached the FBI with documents that claimed servers at the Trump Tower in New York City were in surreptitious communication with servers at the Alfa Bank in Russia. Sussmann isnt an intelligence agent and the documents he handed off to Baker arent from an intelligence source. Hes 100 percent a political operative passing along to the FBI the work of other political operatives.

As Carlson writes in his article:

Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann, whose firm had been retained by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, provided information to Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBIs application for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

Perkins Coie also was the law firm that had hired Fusion GPSon behalf of the DNC and the Clinton campaignwhich, in turn, hired former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele to produce the dossier that has become known as the Steele dossier.

Not only was Sussmann shopping this information to the FBIjust like the Fusion GPS boysbut he was also giving the same information to the New York Times and possibly other media as well, as Carlson notes in his article:

During the second day of Bakers testimony, he said that during a subsequent follow-up conversation, he understood that Sussmann was also talking to the media, noting that Sussmann had told him some elements of the press had this information as well and were going to publish something about it.

In either the second or third conversation, Baker came to understand The New York Times was also in possession of Sussmanns information. As would become clear later, other members of the media also had this same information.

As Ive stressed repeatedly in recent columns, in no way whatsoever can a real intelligence agent or asset be selling or shopping real intelligence evidence to the news media, and they most certainly cant be doing this when the FBI has launched an investigation based on that same evidence.

If we had an FBI functioning according to correct protocols during the Obama administration, it should have raised huge red flags that the evidence was coming from people directly affiliated with one campaign in the 2016 election who were making accusations directed at the other campaign.

The FBI should have treated these documents and Sussmanns story with extreme skepticism. They should have especially reconsidered using Sussmanns evidence once he got caught shopping it to news outlets.

But Bakers testimony reveals thats not what happened. Instead, the FBI eagerly launched an investigation based on Sussmans documents, an investigation that ended up finding that the allegation of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Alfa Bank wasnt true.

Once again, a political operative is able to hand off work created by political propagandists to sell a narrative that certain FBI officials were only too eager to believe and act upon. This is a repeat of the Steele dossier fiasco.

Just how many times was the FBI goaded into launching investigations that came straight from political operatives in the employ of their well-paying political clients?

The Hills crack investigative reporter, John Solomon, recently wrote a scathing column summarizing all of this, how the DOJ and the FBI were saturated by political operatives working for Hillary Clinton and the DNC making eager overtures to hand over supposedly damning evidence that proved Trump was in deep with the Russian government.

The biggest reason that both the DOJ and the FBI are embroiled in this massive Spygate scandal is precisely because they repeatedly tried to pass off political operatives and propagandists in the employ of political clients as being reliable, verified intelligence sources in order to launch investigations of Trump and his associates.

This massive violation of DOJ rules and protocols is precisely how we got this Spygate scandal. They cant hide it at this point, and it will all come out. When Inspector General Michael Horowitzs next report is made public, I believe he will exhaustively lay out exactly how former officials such as James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok subverted the rules in order to abuse their offices and pursue their own political vendettas.

Brian Cates is a political pundit and writer based in southern Texas and the author of Nobody Asked For My Opinion  But Here It Is Anyway! He can be reached on Twitter at @drawandstrike

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Arrests in Brazil Dam Disaster, Dead Fish Wash up Downstream

BRUMADINHO, BrazilAuthorities arrested five people Tuesday in connection with the collapse of a Brazilian mine dam, while the death toll rose to at least 84 and the carcasses of fish floated along the banks of a river downstream that an indigenous community depends on for food and water.

The dam that held back iron ore waste, owned and operated by big mining company Vale SA, collapsed on Jan. 25, burying a company cafeteria and other Vale buildings and inundating part of the small southeastern city of Brumadinho.

Grieving relatives buried some of the victims in Brumadinho and rescue teams continued a delicate search through swaths of muck for more victims or survivors.

Lt. Flavio Godinho of the Minas Gerais state civil defense agency said Tuesday evening that the number of confirmed dead had risen to 84 from 65. He said the number of missing stood at 276.

The dead fish and trash were seen by a reporting team for The Associated Press about 18 kilometers (11 miles) downstream from the dam along the banks of the Paraopeba River.

The Pataxo Indians living alongside the river who use it to fish, bathe and gather water for the plants they cultivate as food were told by Brazilian environmental officials that they should no longer do so, said Hayo, the village chief who goes by one name.

We used the river to take baths, to fish, to water our plants and now we cant do any of that, said Hayo, wearing a large feathered headdress and a red and black-beaded necklace. We cant even water our plants because they say it damages the soil.

Two agents with the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the countrys environmental enforcement agency, took water samples and talked with tribe members but said they were not authorized to speak about their findings.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Tuesday, the agency said it asked Vale to remove the dead fish, which are having an impact on the indigenous population.

The statement gave no details about the water tests and did not say whether tribal members had been told the water was unhealthy.

The signs of possible ecological consequences came as the arrests of company workers with links to the dam were made in Sao Paulo and in the state of Minas Gerais.

Three of the arrested worked for Vale, the company said, adding that it was cooperating with investigating authorities.

A German company that has inspected the dam said two of its employees were arrested. The Munich-based TUEV Sued company declined to specify whether the arrested staff were from its German headquarters or its Brazilian branch.

In ordering the arrests, Minas Gerais state judge Perla Saliba Brito wrote that the disaster could have been avoided.

Its not believable that dams of such magnitude, run by one of the largest mining companies in the world, would break suddenly without any indication of vulnerability, the judge wrote in the decision, according to news portal UOL.

Authorities said the five will be detained for 30 days while officials investigate possible criminal responsibility.

At a cemetery in Brumadinho, 15 freshly dug graves awaited the remains of some of those killed.

Wailing in grief at the cemetery was the wife of Edgar Carvalho Santos, one of the mining companys workers whose body has been found.

He did not deserve this, he did not deserve it! she sobbed.

Friends and family members prevented reporters from approaching the woman.

One woman told Santos wife that this was not a tragedy, its a crime. It was a sign of the growing anger directed at Vale over the disaster.

Vale is the worlds largest producer of iron ore, which is the raw ingredient for steel.

The company is one of Brazils largest businesses and a key employer in Brumadinho, but many residents have complained that a siren which should have gone off to warn people to evacuate never sounded Friday.

Military police Col. Evandro Borges told reporters that most of the people missing were Vale employees.

Many employees were eating lunch when the dam collapsed, burying a cafeteria and other company buildings.

The companys American depository shares on the New York Stock Exchange were up 3 percent Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, to $11.54 each, after falling nearly 18 percent on Monday.

By Marcelo Silva De Sousa and Peter Prengaman
32-Year Veteran Houston Police Officer Shot for the Third Time

A 32-year veteran of the Houston police force, who has been shot twice in the past, received the third battle wound of his career on Jan. 28 during a drug raid in Houston, Texas, according to police at a media briefing.

As the breacher, the unnamed veteran officer opened the suspects door, clearing the way for his fellow officers. When they fellone by one, greeted by a revolverthe veteran, possessed by courage, entered the house to save his comrades and took a bullet in the neck.

The 54-year-old narcotics officer is in stable condition and currently recovering alongside four other Houston City Police Department officers in Memorial Hermann Hospital. The city of Houston is praying for the officers who attempted to keep the community safe by serving a warrant an alleged drug house.

The police chief nearly broke his firm disposition at the Jan. 29 press conference, as he shared the contents of a note that the wounded veteran passed on to his officers:

I had to get in there, because I knew my guys were down, said Police Chief Art Acevedo, reading the note.

No names were released for any of the officers during the briefing. But ages, health conditions, and brief descriptions of their enforcement history were disclosed for four of the five officers: one 10-year veteran, 33; a 27-year veteran, 50; and a 25-year veteran, 50.

According to Chief of Trauma Surgery Michelle K. McNutt, two officers were confirmed to have surgery, and three are expected to be discharged on Jan. 29 or later this week.

The family of the last officer requested that no information be given of his condition, but the chief asked for the citys prayers on their behalf. All other officers are in stable condition.

Incident in Houston

Acevedo described the bravery of his officers as he retold the incident, as well as the risks they took in entering through the narrow doorway of the home.

When the first officer from the squad of nine entered the house, a pit bull lunged at the 10-year veteran who neutralized it with his shotgun. He was then shot in the shoulder with a revolver by suspect Dennis Tuttle, 59. The officer fell on a couch, after which the second suspect, Rhogena Nicholas, 58, went for his shotgun and took fire from the other officers.

Unfortunately, when youre going through a door, thats really a fatal funnel  our officers dont have a choice; theyve got to enter that fatal funnel, said Acevedo. The tactical advantage really is in the hands of the suspect.

A gun match between the officers and Nicholas followed. Although the chief couldnt release the breachers name, he commended the African-American officers tremendous courage, rushing into danger for the sake of his team. After the home was secured, the suspects were pronounced dead.

Marijuana and what could either be cocaine or heroin was found, along with two 12-gauge shotguns, one 20-gauge shotgun, a 22 caliber rifle, and one Remington 700 rifle. Pictures of the suspects were disclosed at the media briefing.

The Oxs Virtue

Sometimes the master learns from the student, and this was one of those cases. Acevedo honored the 54-year-old undercover officer, who he called The Ox, for his heroic actions many times in his speech, and he said that he plans to rub on him, in hopes of gaining some of his courage.

I think God had to give him that big body to be able to contain his courage; because the mans got some tremendous courage.

The chief made it clear throughout the briefing: He takes pride in leading his officersHoustons heroes.
Maggie Long, 17, was burned alive on Dec. 1, 2017, at her Bailey, Colorado home officials said in an update on Jan. 28, 2019. (Maggie Long Task Force)

17-Year-Old Was Set on Fire and Burned Alive: Police

A 17-year-old was purposefully set on fire and burned alive, police officials in Colorado announced on Jan. 28.

The Park County Sheriffs Office gave an update in the investigation that started after Maggie Long was found dead in December 2017, revealing that three suspects spent a significant amount of time inside Longs house.

The suspects have still not been found, Sheriff Tom McGraw said, reported KDVR.

We believe this was a targeted crime and that there are at least three suspects still at large, McGraw said during the press conference. Maggie was purposely set on fire and burned alive.

Investigators have processed hundreds of tips and ruled out more than 100 people, he added. The sheriff said that the suspects are believed to have targeted Longs house but didnt necessarily target Long herself.

Officials said the reward for information leading to an arrest has been increased to $50,000 while a new website has been created so that people can leave anonymous tips.

Somebody knows what happened, said McGraw. Every tip will be addressed.

Longs Death

Long was killed on Dec. 1, 2017, at her house in Bailey in Park County.

A fire was extinguished by firefighters and Longs remains were discovered. Officials ruled her death a homicide.

Investigative efforts at the scene revealed a physical altercation took place between Maggie and her assailants before the fire started. Law enforcement believes the intent of the fire was to conceal actions of these assailants, such as the physical altercation and subsequent robbery, law enforcement officials stated on the new Maggie Long Taskforce website.

Some information came early in the investigation from witnesses. One saw two vehicles leaving the area on the day of the murder. Another saw a white van leaving the area. And at least one spotted a male at the residence and was able to give information that led to a sketch. Other clues led to a sketch of a second suspect being created.

Friends and family members said that law enforcement officials revealing information about the case was a welcome change.

The silent treatment the past year-and-a-half hasnt done anything. Its time to break that and get it open. This is the kind of thing that will do it, Mike Quaintance, a friend of the Long family, told CBS 4.

Breaking this thing open and opening it up to community input. You never know where something might come out of a crack in the wall.

The new Park County Sheriff is taking questions about the Maggie Long murder. People want to know if the suspects could still be in Colorado. Lots of questions about the sketches & new info released yesterday. pic.twitter.com/CDPQ3W1rgp  Liz Gelardi (@LizGelardi) January 30, 2019

I think the community really needed to hear this case be alive and to hear what information we had and to hear there was actually action being taken and to move it forward again, added John Vandoren, a neighbor of the Long family, to CBS.

Vandoren said the details of Longs death were hard to hear but said they might help.

That was horrifying for a lot of us in the community that had never heard that before, but I trust that it was revealed for a good reason and it will generate leads and interest, said Vandoren.

From NTD News
Swarthmore, PA (19081)

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McDonald's are making a big change to their happy meals and we're all for it.

Earlier today, they announced that instead of toys, they'll be handing out over 800,000 copies of Roald Dahl's classic books including The BFG, Wonderful Willy Wonka, and more with their Happy Meals.

Speaking of the change, director of marketing at McDonald's New Zealand, Jo Mitchell said:

The Happy Meal Readers programme is all about helping parents to get their children to enjoy reading,

The Roald Dahl characters are ones that many parents will have enjoyed growing up, and it's great to play a part in introducing them to a new generation.



The books will be given out over the next six weeks, with a new book every week so if you've got a favourite story in mind, here's when you'll be able to get it with your next Happy Meal:
Netflix's documentary Fyre: the Greatest Party that Never Happened follows the story of a luxury music festival that failed spectacularly despite having massive names promoting it on social media.

It's a great, interesting (if not stressful) doco. But what's on everyone's lips is a particular confession made by Andy King, a producer of Fyre Festival.

During the documentary, he recalled a moment when festival organiser Billy McFarland tried to cooperate with him about unpaid fees when the Bahamian customs detained the water supply.

According to King, McFarland told him: "Youre our wonderful gay leader and we need you to go down [to customs]. Will you suck dick to fix this water problem?"

Fortunately he didn't have to go that far to save the festival (that thb couldn't be saved anyway), but King's story has turned into a viral meme on Twitter.
Following the screening, Houston Holocaust Museum CEO Kelly J. Zuniga took to the stage and answered a few questions from those in the audience. Some seemed interested in getting involved in Holocaust history preservation and education. Zuniga told they crowd they are lucky to live in Texas, where grants are presented to her museum and other such organizations. Texas is one of only eight states that requires education on the Holocaust in schools' history class curriculums, she said.

"Our job is to educate others," she said, then making note of her museum in Houston and its affiliated programs. "We go to schools, churches; it's a numbers game and an institutional game. We are very fortunate because here in Texas we have a Holocaust and genocide commission funded by the state."

One person wanted to know how the current youngest generation, likely the last one to interact with living Holocaust survivors, can preserve the memory and lessons of the Holocaust for future generations. Zuniga noted this is a struggle for historians, but in the past decade so much more information has been uncovered about World War II and its atrocities, and the stories of the people who lived it are now being recorded and digitized for lasting preservation.
As police in College Station are investigating a recent surge in vehicle burglaries, authorities have issued a public request to local business owners urging caution in selling gift cards.

The release from CSPD's Community Enhancement Unit requests business employees ask for identification when processing a gift card sale with a credit or debit card. The release notes that some criminals will purchase large quantities of gift cards totalling as much as $2,500 to $5,000.

CSPD spokesperson Lt. Craig Anderson said thieves will sometimes use stolen credit cards or debit cards (stolen from vehicle burglaries) and make purchases, especially of gift cards.

"Many times we do not get good suspect information, so we are reaching out to merchants to assist us in collecting identification from people who purchase a large quantity of gift cards," Anderson wrote in an email. "That way, if the card is reported stolen, we will have some suspect information to assist us with our investigation."

Any College Station business owner or personnel who processes a suspicious transaction is asked to call CSPD at 979-764-3600.
Media contact: Blair Fannin, 979-845-2259, b-fannin@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION  Dr. Tim Herrman, state chemist and professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, and academia representatives from Kenya recently conducted a workshop with dignitaries from Meru County, Kenya to collaborate in developing a plan to manage aflatoxin.

The workshop included assembly members, executives of agriculture and public health agencies and private sector representatives.

Texas shares a common problem involving aflatoxin risk management to protect animal, human and market health, Herrman said. This collaboration is looking for the best methods to mitigate risk and improve overall food safety and health.

Aflatoxin is a toxic fungal metabolite classified as a Group I carcinogen and occurs naturally in corn and other food staples, Herrman said.

Our people are facing easy deaths, said Paul Mworia Bagiine, chairman of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Committee, County Assembly of Meru. I am glad and grateful that this project has taken place and that the people of Meru County are not going to die anymore from the poison in their food.

The University of Nairobi in collaboration with Texas A&M has been doing some research work since 2016 in Meru, said Francis Mulaa, professor and director, intellectual property management office at the University of Nairobi. Mulaa was representing the Deputy Vice Chancellor of research, production and extension, professor Madara Ogot.

The county officials heard of the project from a partner from the Cereal Growers Association, Mulaa said. The county wants to hear about the findings of research we have carried out so far (aflatoxin status) and to use these findings to apply to an aflatoxin management bill.

Mulaa said the Meru County government is interested in adapting drafted legislation that the University of Nairobi and Texas A&M team facilitated with all relevant stakeholders including public, private sector representatives, national government bodies, consumers, producers and processors. The workshop builds on a series of high-level policy sessions and action research across all phases of the market sector in Kenya.

A contingent of Kenya parliament members met in 2017 at Texas A&M in College Station to discuss developing plans to manage aflatoxin (http://bit.ly/2WpREnR ).

The most recent workshop was an outgrowth of a collaborative research project between Dr. Sheila Okoth, associate professor of botany at the University of Nairobi, and Herrman, also of Texas A&M AgriLife Research. The Centre for Biotechnology and Bioinformatics on the University of Nairobi Chiromo campus, directed by Dr. George Obiero, serves as the host platform for this collaborative effort.

At the close of the workshop, government and industry leaders developed a roadmap to manage aflatoxin risk in Meru County.

Other stories about Texas A&M AgriLife Research efforts to manage aflatoxin risk in eastern and southern Africa involving the Aflatoxin Proficiency Testing and Control in Africa program are available at: http://apteca.tamu.edu/.

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Naval Group Wins the Call for Tenders for the Maintenance of the Ten French Mine Hunters (CMT)

(Source: Naval Group; issued Jan 24, 2019)

(Unofficial translation by Defense-Aerospace.com)

The French Navy operates a fleet of ten Eridan-class composite-hulled minehunters, developed jointly with Belgium and the Netherlands in the 1980s, and they will now be maintained by Naval Group, which was awarded a five-year contract in December. (NG photo)

The Naval Group Services Department was awarded by the French Navy at the end of December 2018 the 5-year maintenance and service contract called "CMT 19".



As part of the tripartite mine hunter program (CMT), jointly conducted by Belgium, the Netherlands and France, Naval Group built ten of these minehunters for France in the 1980s.



This new contract covers all the technical stops to be carried out on ten French CMTs, seven of them home-ported in Brest and three in Toulon, for a total of eight 8 major technical stops and 34 intermediate technical stops. All technical stops will be carried out at the Brest and Toulon naval bases.



The contract also provides for several developments during technical shutdowns: electric factories, air fridges, PAP self-propelled underwater drones (supplied by ECA Robotics), refurbishment of diesel fuel bunkers etc.



Finally, it will also include the retirement from active service, in a few years time, of two of these vessels: FS Orion in Toulon and FS Cassiopee in Brest.



Maintenance at the core of Naval Group innovations



Naval Group accompanies its customers to ensure the availability of ships throughout their life cycle.



With its ability to sustain (or maintain operational condition, MCO) complex military vessels, in France for its Navy or for other naval customers, Naval Group innovates and is generalizing I-maintenance.



Thanks to the implementation of this "smart" maintenance (IMS) approach aboard ships, predictive maintenance activities will allow a continuous optimization of support services. Data is structured and stored and provides a history of in-service facility monitoring, before being subjected to powerful algorithmic systems highlighting anomalies and monitoring points.



The FREMM Aquitaine is the first to have benefited from this new approach in November 2018 in Brest.



-ends-


Oneonta, NY (13820)

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Towanda, PA (18848)

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Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

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Vive la rat-volucion! Photo: Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection

By now, its readily apparent that we as humans have done a terrible job taking care of the planet. And because it seems no one wants to cop to a solution to help reverse the effects of climate change before 2030, perhaps its time to let another species take the wheel. I nominate rats, not because I think theyll do a good job, but because Im terrified of them and they seem restless.

Though the Year of the Rat isnt until 2020, the mammalian equivalent of a cockroach is already having quite the year. First, the Trump Administration reportedly decided to come for Scabby the Rat, the inflatable ratzilla that is the de facto mascot of picket lines everywhere. Then, an onslaught of white rats descended upon the Italian village of Gattolino, which means little cat. (These animals are villains with a sense of humor, and I respect it.)

According to The Guardian, the village located in the northeastern city of Cesena, Italy, is being overrun:

Locals have nicknamed the newcomers crazy white rats because of their strange behavior. They have reportedly been jumping in front of cars and killing each other. One firefighter told a local paper: Ive never seen anything like it before.

Mayor Paolo Lucci told local reporters that the rats likely came from a pigeon-breeding enclosure that had been shut down. It is very likely that the rats have run out of food from inside the enclosures and once the food was finished they came out to find more in the countryside, he said. As a result, theyve been running into the road and committing rodenticide in the open. Bold!

This isnt the first time Italy has had more than a little rodent problem; officials estimate there are twice as many rats as people in Rome, and in 2018, the mayor of Gerre de Caprioli suggested that the town tackle its coypu infestation by eating them.

The ratss American counterparts are also wising up to the revolt. On Wednesday, a rat trapped in the ceiling of Philadelphias Wells Fargo Center interrupted a post-game press conference featuring 76ers player Joel Embiid.

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Photo: Katherine Wolkoff c/o Benrubi Gallery

In her New York exhibition The Critical Zone, artist Katherine Wolkoff confronts viewers with climate changes assault on nature and its beauty. Traveling through the western United States, she took breathtaking photos of earths critical zone: the area from treetops to water underground which is increasingly devastated by climate change every day. Wolkoff forces us to see those changes through a dreamy black-and-white lens, dramatizing what were losing: Icebergs are melting in plain sight, wildfires have decimated forests, invasive species are destroying ecosystems, and hurricanes are churning up black sand, which liters beaches with oil. With this show at Benrubi Gallery in Chelsea, Wolkoff inspires environmental action.

Its a bit of a pivot in my work from very specific typologies of the natural world to a much larger investigation of how our landscape is changing  the realities of climate change, the Anthropocene, and the specific moment were living in, she said. Its a completely subjective point of view about the landscape. Its not fact-based, like documentary photography is with climate change. Its really personal, and its my point of view. My Dad was an environmentalist, and my mom was a science teacher, so I grew up very much in that world.

See a selection of photos from the exhibition below. The Critical Zone will be on view at Benrubi Gallery through March 2.

Photo: Katherine Wolkoff c/o Benrubi Gallery

Photo: Katherine Wolkoff c/o Benrubi Gallery

Photo: Katherine Wolkoff c/o Benrubi Gallery

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The 2019 Honda Clarity Electric and 2019 Honda Insight were both named by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to its "Greenest Vehicles of 2019" list. The list includes the top 12 environmentally-friendly vehicle models available to American consumers in 2019. ACEEE also included the Insight plus the 2019 Civic Hatchback with CVT in their "Greener Choices 2019" list, which features widely available fuel-efficient gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles with an automatic transmission. More information about the ACEEE 2019 lists can be found at https://aceee.org/press/2019/01/evs-sweep-greenest-list-auto.

About Honda

Honda offers a full line of reliable, fuel-efficient and fun-to-drive vehicles with advanced safety technologies sold through over 1,000 independent U.S. Honda dealers. The Honda includes the Fit, Civic, Insight, Accord and Clarity series passenger cars, along with the HR-V, CR-V and Pilot sport utility vehicles, the Ridgeline pickup and the Odyssey lineup minivan.

Honda has been producing automobiles in America for more than 35 years and currently operates 19 major manufacturing facilities in North America. In 2017, more than 90 percent of all Honda brand vehicles sold in the U.S. were made in North America, using domestic and globally sourced parts.

Honda's Commitment to the Environment

Based on its vision of "Blue Skies for our Children," Honda is working to advance technologies that address society's environmental and energy concerns. The company intends for electrified vehicles to comprise two-thirds of its global automobile sales by 2030. In North America, the Honda Electrification Initiative will see Honda's electrified powertrain technologies applied to an expanding portfolio of cars and light trucks in the years ahead. Honda's electrified vehicle lineup today includes the Clarity series of vehicles, featuring fuel cell, battery electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains, along with the new Accord Hybrid and Honda Insight.

Honda is working to reduce the environmental impact of its products throughout their life cycle, including reducing waste, emissions and further improving the energy efficiency of producing, distributing and selling Honda and Acura products in North America. This includes a 93 percent reduction in waste sent to landfills from Honda plants in North America.

Through its "green purchasing" and "green dealer" initiatives, the company also is working to promote more environmentally responsible business practices with its more than 650 original equipment suppliers and 1,300 retail dealer partners.
German Military Lacks Equipment and Recruits, Says Damning Report

(Source: Deutsche Welle German radio; posted Jan 29, 2019)

The German Bundeswehr is still underequipped, understaffed and overly bureaucratic, a new parliamentary report has revealed. Opposition politicians also say it is ignoring its problem with far-right extremism.German soldiers sometimes have to rely on civilian helicopters to transport them around in Afghanistan, while vital equipment such as body armor has to be borrowed, according to the parliament's new Bundeswehr report presented to the government on Tuesday.The annual study also detailed a rise in reports of sexual harassment and some instances of far-right extremism among soldiers."I'd like to report: It's spring, everything will be new. But the truth is: It's still winter," the report's author, Bundestag military commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels, said as he presented the document at a press conference in Berlin.The biggest problem that Bundeswehr soldiers complained about was the lack of equipment, despite repeated government promises, dating back to a 2014 NATO summit, of a change in direction.This is particularly true of heavy equipment: Bartels found that often less than 50 percent of the Bundeswehr's tanks, ships and aircraft were available at any one time, either for training or operational purposes. That counts as an unsurprising development, considering the barrage of poor press the German military has been facing."Spare parts are still missing; maintenance in industry is dragging; the training programs are suffering," Social Democrat Bartels said. "An absolute must is the acceleration of procurement."The problem, he added, was not necessarily a lack of money  he noted with approval that Germany's defense budget has risen by 5 billion to 43.2 billion ($49.3 billion) this year  but the "bureaucracy monster" that the army has become. "Too much work is being done twice or against other work," he said. "Too much work time is being wasted on poor structures. And not every expensive digitalization project is always a help."German military experts could only agree. "Despite efforts made by the current administration, observing significant progress remains difficult," Sebastian Schulte, chief editor of German defense and security publication griephan, told DW.In response to the report, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen insisted the army was moving in the right direction. "We must take the long view and move forward strongly," she said in a statement, before adding that the army was modernizing rapidly.Another worry for the Defense Ministry is the stagnation of its post-conscription recruitment drive, which began after Germany scrapped compulsory military service in 2011. Though the Bundeswehr is expanding overall (the report found a net gain of 4,000 professional soldiers), most of these were won by extending existing contracts. In other words, the German military is aging.The government has promised 198,500 active personnel by 2025, up from the current 181,000, but the number of new recruits dropped from 23,000 in 2017 to 20,000 last year.The report also detailed the German army's struggles to fill key specialist positions, a shortage of skilled labor that is reflected across the country's job market. Germany's highest-ranking soldier, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn, admitted on Tuesday that there were "rather large gaps" in the military's IT departments, medical staff, personnel management and logistics.But Zorn insisted that this was "no reason to panic, either because of the figures or the quality of the applicants," he told the newspaper network RND.The German military is also facing crises elsewhere: The number of reports of sexual harassment in the military, or reports "on suspicion of crimes against sexual self-determination" as the report put it, rose to 288 in 2018, up from 235 the year before.Bartels put this down to more awareness of the issue, thanks to what he called the "Me Too debate," as well as the widely reported incidents at the Pfullendorf military base in southern Germany in 2017, where female soldiers were made to pole dance at a private party and recruits were subject to "sadistic sexual practices" and bizarre hazing rituals."More than before, the Bundeswehr should work towards creating a climate that allows no room for sexually-motivated misbehavior," Bartels said in the report.But the commissioner failed to address reports of far-right networks within the German military, following the high-profile story of a far-right prepper scene around the soldier Andre S, aka Hannibal.Bartels insisted that such investigations were beyond his remit. "We must assume that the military is always in danger of getting people who shouldn't be there," he said, before insisting that the Bundeswehr was being "alert and consistent" in its pursuit of extremism. The number of far-right incidents, as reported by the military intelligence service MAD, fell from 343 in 2017 to 270 last year."There can be no doubt that with the increase of far-right political positions and parties across the whole of Europe, there are people who think like this to be found in the country's military," said Schulte. "However, it is important to note that those people who make it in the Bundeswehr are operating in isolation and not openly. That is because they do not align with nor represent the core values of the Bundeswehr."But that was not the interpretation of the Bundestag's opposition parties. "The existence of far-right extremist networks is being denied and presented as a series of isolated cases," said socialist Left party spokesperson Christine Buchholz in a statement. "It's disappointing that Mr. Bartels is participating in the downplaying of the problem of far-right activity in the Bundeswehr."(ends)
The 11th Panchen Lama Erdeni Choskyi Gyalpo preside over the religious ceremony to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of the 10th Panchen Lama at the Xihuang Monastery in Beijing, on January 28, 2019.

On January 28, a religious ceremony to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of the 10th Panchen Lama was held in Beijing. At 9 oclock in the morning, three separate commemorative activities were held at the Guangji Temple, the Yonghegong Lamasery, and the Xihuang Monastery.

At the site of the commemoration, the atmosphere was solemn. Religious disciples and representatives followed traditional rituals, chanted scriptures, and prayed in earnest.

Photo shows the religious ceremony to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of the 10th Panchen Lama at the Xihuang Monastery in Beijing, on January 28, 2019.

In January 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama traveled to the Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region, in order to preside over a consecration ceremony for a memorial stupa for the fifth to ninth Panchen Lamas. On January 28, he died of a heart attack due to overwork at the age of 51.

The 10th Panchen Lama was a great patriot, a famous state activist, a loyal friend of the Communist Party of China, and an outstanding leader of Tibetan Buddhism in China.

Source: Tibet.cn
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Thumbnail Through the Maritime RobotX Challenge, next-generation engineers learn how Velodyne lidar 3D perception empowers autonomous vessels. (Photo: Business Wire

Through the Maritime RobotX Challenge, next-generation engineers learn how Velodyne lidar 3D perception empowers autonomous vessels. (Photo: Business Wire Full Size Small Preview Thumbnail

Velodynes Puck and Ultra Puck (shown here) lidar sensors were the key perception components enabling the vessels to operate autonomously at the Maritime RobotX Challenge. (Photo: Business Wire) Full Size Small Preview Thumbnail

At the Maritime RobotX Challenge, Velodyne Lidar contributed mentorship and lidar sensors to 15 university teams competing in an autonomous maritime competition. (Photo: Business Wire) Full Size Small Preview Thumbnail

At the Maritime RobotX Challenge, teams built their vessels from the ground up and equipped them with propulsion, sensor, and control systems, including Velodyne lidar sensors. Full Size Small Preview Thumbnail



SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the 2018 Maritime RobotX Challenge, Velodyne Lidar, Inc. contributed mentorship and lidar sensors to 15 university teams competing in an autonomous maritime competition. Held in Honolulu, Hawaii in December 2018, RobotX brought together teams from universities in the United States, Australia, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Participating teams built their vessels from the ground up, equipping them with propulsion, sensor, and control systems. Velodynes Puck and Ultra Puck lidar sensors were the key perception components enabling the vessels to operate autonomously.

During the competition, the teams autonomous boats demonstrated navigation and control, obstacle avoidance, location and sequence, identification and docking, detection and delivery, underwater recovery, and situational awareness. Each team created a website, technical design paper, presentation, and video to showcase their work.

National University of Singapore was awarded the competitions top prize, while Australias Queensland University of Technology finished second, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, based in Daytona Beach, Fla., placed third.

Through the Maritime RobotX Challenge, next-generation engineers learn how lidar 3D perception empowers autonomous vessels, said Mike Jellen, President and Chief Commercial Officer, Velodyne Lidar. It is a privilege to work with these remarkable students as they reinvent maritime technology.

RobotX is an international, university-level competition designed to broaden student exposure to autonomous vehicle (AV) and robotic technologies in the maritime environment. The event was organized by RoboNation, a non-profit organization that seeks to empower students to use Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) to learn about the wider world. Velodyne is a RoboNation sponsor.

This competition encourages student interest in autonomous robotic systems operating in the maritime domain, with an emphasis on the science and engineering of cooperative autonomy, said Daryl Davidson, Executive Director, RoboNation. Velodynes involvement in this event allows the students to gain experience with a state-of-the-art lidar and gives the company the opportunity to network with the top students in the world learning about autonomy. This is the technology that leading research and commercial organizations are using to bring exciting autonomous innovations to market today.

About Velodyne Lidar

Velodyne provides the smartest, most powerful lidar solutions for autonomy and driver assistance. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in San Jose, Calif., Velodyne is known worldwide for its portfolio of breakthrough lidar sensor technologies. In 2005, Velodynes Founder and CEO, David Hall, invented real-time surround view lidar systems, revolutionizing perception and autonomy for automotive, new mobility, mapping, robotics, and security. Velodynes high-performance product line includes a broad range of sensing solutions, including the cost-effective Puck, the versatile Ultra Puck, the perfect for L4-L5 autonomy Alpha Puck, the ADAS-optimized Velarray, and the groundbreaking software for driver assistance, Vella.

About RoboNation, Inc.

RoboNation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a pathway of hands-on educational experiences that empower students to find innovative solutions to global challenges. We envision a world where technology unites people to learn, share, and create. www.robonation.org

Contacts

David Cumpston

Landis Communications for Velodyne Lidar, Inc.

(415) 902-4461

velodyne@landispr.com
Caracas: The unusual arrival of a Russian passenger plane in Caracas has set social media abuzz with rumours about its mission after the Kremlin pledged to support its ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against a US-backed effort to drive him from office.

A Boeing 777X Credit:Boeing

The Boeing 777, with space for some 400 passengers and belonging to Russia's Nordwind Airlines, was parked by a private corner of the airport after flying direct from Moscow, according to flight tracking data and Reuters photos.

It was the first time it had made the route, the data showed.

Neither Nordwind nor the Venezuelan government immediately responded to a request to comment on why the jet had flown to Caracas.
New York: US President Donald Trump has hit out at the country's most senior intelligence officials, saying they are "extremely passive and naive" on the dangers of Iran and suggesting they should go back to school.

The Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats appeared alongside CIA director Gina Haspel and FBI director Christopher Wray before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, local time, to present an annual assessment on global threats to American interests.

FBI director Christopher Wray, CIA director Gina Haspel and National Intelligence director Dan Coats testified before the Senate. Credit:Bloomberg

The 42-page Worldwide Threat Assessment found that Iran was not undertaking the key activities necessary to develop a nuclear weapon, and that the country is in compliance with a 2015 anti-nuclear deal it struck with the Obama administration.

Trump withdrew from the deal last year, saying it was "defective at its core".
New York: Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was someone who decided "who lives and who dies," a prosecutor said in closing arguments in the accused Mexican drug kingpin's trial in the United States.

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, right, is escorted by soldiers and marines to a waiting helicopter in Mexico City in 2016. Credit:AP

"The government does not have to prove that he was the boss, or the only boss, or even one of the top bosses," Assistant US Attorney Andrea Goldbarg told jurors, though she hastened to add that Guzman was "one of the top bosses, without a doubt."

Guzman's lawyers have claimed the cartel's real leader is Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who remains at large, and that their client was framed by Zambada.

Standing in front of a table piled with trial evidence including assault rifles and bricks of cocaine, Goldbarg took a calm, no-nonsense approach as she walked the jury in federal court in Brooklyn through the charges against Guzman one by one.
London: There seems little chance that Theresa May can deliver the new version of Brexit she just promised.

But she did promise it. At least it gives her something to do, other than twiddle her thumbs as the country hurtles towards the utter mess of a no-deal Brexit.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May. Credit:AP

Her Brexit strategy seems to be if you dont ask you dont get, even when she has already asked, many times, and didnt get.

May is walking a fine line between admirable persistence and insane optimism.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ruled out replacing the retiring Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion with Tony Abbott ahead of the next election.

Senator Scullion's decision to walk away from politics at the upcoming poll prompted a push from some conservative MPs for Mr Abbott - the special envoy on Indigenous affairs - to take his place in a minor cabinet reshuffle.

During a campaign stop with marginal seat holders in Brisbane on Wednesday, Mr Morrison was asked whether he was contemplating that change and replied, "No".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison campaigning in Brisbane on Wednesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"I won't be making any changes to my team before the election and I've got a great pool of talent to draw from in a re-elected Morrison government, including a few people standing here with me who demonstrate that talent."
Australias international peers say its emissions reduction efforts have become derailed and rising carbon pollution levels are bucking the trend set by other rich nations, in a withering assessment of the Morrison government's climate and energy policies months out from the federal election.

The report card by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development adds to a chorus of authoritative bodies challenging Coalition claims that Australia will easily meet the Paris climate targets, and follows a string of record-high summer temperatures that have raised public concern over climate change.

Scientists have linked heatwaves and bushfires to climate change. Credit:Glenn Campbell

However Environment Minister Melissa Price sought to play down the report's findings and said her government had "the right mix of policies in place to meet our [climate] targets".

The OECD is a group of 36 democratic nations with market economies that work to promote economic growth and sustainable development.
The father of a 23-year-old man found guilty of drug trafficking at Rainbow Serpent says he has absolute disdain for music festivals that "provide too much opportunity" for drug activity and has told a court of his battle to keep his son safe.

Seven people faced Ballarat Magistrates Court on Tuesday on drug charges related to the festival in Lexton over the weekend. At least three of those caught trafficking were aged between 19-23.

Edithvale man Kurtis Smith, 23, was sentenced to three months jail and a 24-month community corrections order for trafficking ketamine and ecstasy at the festival.

His father told the court events like Rainbow Serpent "provide too much opportunity" for drug activity, and every time theres a death at a music festival due to drugs, he sends his son the news article.

"His social use has always been a thorn in our side," the mans father said.
How do we remember him? Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp with Pellegrini's cafe co-owner Nino Pangrazio. Credit:Simon Schluter

Melbourne City Council says it could be too difficult to change the name of a city lane to honour late Pellegrinis Cafe co-owner Sisto Malaspina.

While not ruling it out, lord mayor Sally Capp said the council and the state government were exploring other ways to commemorate Mr Malaspina than renaming Crossley Street, which adjoins Pellegrinis.

Soon after Mr Malaspina was stabbed to death while walking on Bourke Street on November 9, members of the public called for the lane to be called Sisto Lane, or Sistos Way.

Cr Capp said the renaming process "can actually take a very long time, and involves all sorts of hurdles and costs.
Melbourne Airport has backed down in its battle against a hire car driver who refused to pay a string of fines, in a court stoush that casts doubts over thousands of other penalty notices.

The case has prompted calls for tougher regulation of the airport - a corporation with extraordinary powers to set parking fees and impose fines that carry the full weight of criminal law.

Melbourne Airport took Tony Sheridan to court in 2016 after the hire car driver refused to pay four fines for illegally parking in a permit area.

Hire car driver Tony Sheridan has taken on Melbourne Airport over parking fines - and won. Credit:Justin McManus

Mr Sheridan, who was formerly the head of the Victorian Hire Car Association, was fined in 2015 for refusing to display a special parking permit which is required in the area designated for licensed hire car drivers.
The Stantons stocked their smart-looking timber library (materials and paint cost less than $100) with books they'd either "bought cheaply at school fetes or from books donated by friends". While Katherine rates creating the library as "a cheap and fun school holiday boredom buster", she does warn of one unexpected consequence. "We can't leave home  the kids keep peeking out of the curtains waiting to see who our first customer will be," she says. Tim's tip: Make sure your library is waterproof  there's nothing worse than a pile of soggy books. More: For inspiration, check out other designs and find the street libraries closest to you by clicking here. Be sure to register your library on websites like this so others can find yours too!

Playground Crawl Lachlan Bush gets to grips with a steering wheel at the Cotter Avenue Playground. Credit:Tabitha Webb Every kid has their favourite playground, so why not organise a group of friends to visit your preferred playgrounds, all in the one day? An adventure to castles, pods, forts, and tree houses, all without leaving Canberra. Bring it on! What you'll need: Depends how far you want to go. If you don't want to jump in your car or catch a bus, then plan a walk, ride or scooter to a playground in your own suburb. For an even bigger adventure, map out a trip to the ACT's biggest and most adventurous playgrounds. Where: If Mum and Dad are coffee drinkers, there are a number of hang-outs like Tulips Cafe in Pialligo (8 Beltana Road) where you can enjoy a cuppa while keeping a close eye on the kids in a fenced playground. Meanwhile, out in the 'burbs, in the north it's hard to beat the extravaganza that is the one-year-old Moncrieff Adventure Park (got to love that tower slide and the big wheel where you can run inside like a hamster!), as well as Fadden Pines in the south which boasts plenty of shade and free barbeques.

Suitable for: Ages 4-10. Tim's tip: Take an esky stocked with snacks and lots of cold water. It is summer, so don't forget the sunscreen. The Yowie clan sometimes take our water guns too. Great fun! Testimonial: "We love heading to the playground at Cotter Avenue," report Justin and Mindy Bush of Bruce, who have two boys aged under five. "My parents took me there as a child and now it's my turn to take my kids there," explains Justin, adding "it's now a multi-generational thing". If it's hot, the Bush family sometimes jumps in the river for an after-play dip. "It's a fun and free day out," Mindy says. More: For more information on playgrounds in the ACT, click here.

Treasure hunt Geocaching can be fun for the whole family. Credit:Tim the Yowie Man It's not that long ago that going on a treasure hunt involved hiding a few toys in your backyard, giving the kids some clues (poor ones if you wanted to distract them for a long time!) and sending them off on a wild goose chase. But with the widespread adoption of GPS technology, treasure hunts are now high-tech. One of the more fashionable amongst families is geocaching, in which online clues will lead you to a hidden object, usually a small cylinder containing swappable and trackable items. What you'll need: Access to the geocaching website and at least one person in your group with basic navigation skills. Where: Caches are hidden all over our city, suburban and bush landscapes. There are over 3 million registered caches worldwide, including more than 3500 in the ACT  enough for a lifetime of school holiday outings!

Suitable for: Ages 5 and up. Tim's tip: Many Canberrans geocache - if you ask around your friendship groups you'll probably discover a closet cacher, or two. Ask them to show you the ropes. Testimonial: Susan Mitchell-Roberts of Richardson has been taking her kids Charlotte, 14, and Camden, 12, geocaching since they were born. "Four years ago they both started their own geocaching accounts, so now they get to log all their finds themselves," she says. Charlotte, whose geocaching name is charli_bear, especially likes geocaching because "you get to go to lots of new places, including many that you wouldn't normally get to see". The Richardson family are such keen cachers that they even have a geocache hidden out the front of their home. Sean Roberts, Susan's husband, reports it's a relatively easy one to find - "it's particularly popular with families in Canberra".

More: Lots of helpful information is available at the Geocaching website. Build a bush cubby Tims daughters inspect a kangaroo bone found behind the Pialligo Red Forest Fort. Credit:Tim the Yowie Man Do you remember when you were a kid you would make hideouts with whatever you could get your hands on? After a long hiatus, bush cubbies have made a comeback in recent years - and in some states there are now even cubby-building workshops. Really!

However, nothing beats a little bit of creativity, even if it does fall down after an hour  Playing at a temporary bush cubby at the National Arboretum. Credit:Tim the Yowie Man What you'll need: Use fallen branches and sticks to create either a temporary teepee or lean-to shelter. Base your cubby around an existing natural feature such as a boulder and you'll need less materials - and more importantly, less-refined engineering skills. Where: If you don't have a backyard, there are several spots in the bush, including pine forests around Canberra, where modern-day Huckleberry Finns have created cubbies of all sorts. Check out the National Arboretum (near the Himalayan Cedars or Cork Oak Forest) or the Pialligo Red Wood Forest for some nifty designs. Suitable for: Ages 5 and up.

Tim's tip: Take care not to remove rocks (many critters live under them) or to disturb sensitive environmental areas, particularly in our nature reserves where rare native plants may be growing. A temporary bush cubby. Credit:Tim the Yowie Man Testimonial: It is generally accepted that kids who play in the natural world more fall sick less often than those kids who restrict themselves to the indoor space. According to Nature Play Qld, "regular exposure to the outside world boosts one's immune system. As a result, a kid is able to combat illness better." Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the National Arboretum reports "it's always positive to see children experiencing outdoor play with natural materials", but warns that management keeps a close eye on the cubbies as they come and go, taking into account both "safety for visitors" and "the amount of combustible material they contain during bushfire season". More: For more ideas when it comes to kids experiencing, loving and looking after nature, check out the Kids in Nature website.

Platypus spotting Point Hut Crossing in Gordon is a recommended spot to search for a platypus at dusk. Credit:Tim the Yowie Man They are one of our most-admired native critters, but how many people have actually seen a platypus in the wild? What you'll need: The ability to keep quiet (yes I know, not easy with some littlies) and be observant. Look out for the tell-tale platypus V shape rippling in the water. Where: On the north side try Sullivans Creek, where it enters Lake Burley Griffin, or the Jerrabomberra Creek, near the footbridge and bird hide accessed via Newcastle St in the Causeway. On the south side try Point Hut Crossing or the Tidbinbilla wetlands (but you'll have to pay an entry fee).

It takes patience to spot a platypus, but when one surfaces it's more than worth it. While I'm not wanting to spark any cross-border rivalry, the Queanbeyan River (yes, shopping trolleys 'n all) is arguably the best place to spot a platypus in our region. On my last four field trips there I've seen at least one of the shy monotremes swimming along the stretch of river between the CBD and the suspension pedestrian bridge (accessed via Isabella Street). Suitable for: Any age, but be vigilant with non-swimmers near water. Tim's tip: If you can wake the kids up with the birds, try to go at dawn (dusk is also good) as that's when platypuses are most active. Testimonial: When Waterwatch regional facilitator Woo O'Reilly takes her young kids to spot platypuses, she doesn't always head to the same haunts. "Just because an area isn't known for platypus doesn't mean they're not there," she recommends.
His back against the wall of a police interrogation room on July 21, 2016, Tyrance Chancellor recalled the scene hours earlier when his 15-year-old nephew shot a man to death inside a New Orleans East apartment.

Chancellor said he was smoking a cigar outside when the other two got into a scuffle. He rushed in to calm things down, to no avail.

Teenager Jaquin Thomas, who would later commit suicide inside the Orleans Justice Center, shot Hasahn Shawl dead.

Everybody was just shocked, Chancellor said in a videotaped interview. I was trying to calm everybody down.

On Tuesday, the 36-year-old self-proclaimed peacemaker, a cross tattooed between his eyes, found his back up against the wall again.

Prosecutors were offering Chancellor one last chance at a plea deal that would see him sentenced to 15 or 20 years in prison in connection with the killing of Shawl, 24.

Tearful family members huddled with him in an apparent effort to get him to take the deal.

Everyone thats talking to you has your best interests in mind. No one is trying to deceive you, said Criminal District Court Judge Karen Herman.

But Chancellor, a small-time businessman from Chalmette, wouldnt budge. He decided to go to trial on second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and other charges, for which he faces a life sentence if convicted as charged.

After his decision, Assistant District Attorneys Angad Ghai and Hillary Khoury laid out a sordid back story behind the killing of Shawl.

His death was emblazoned in the citys consciousness when the alleged shooter, Thomas, committed suicide three months later by hanging himself in the youth tier of the New Orleans jail. That led to public hearings before the New Orleans City Council about the treatment of juvenile detainees.

Everyone involved in the case seems to agree that it was Thomas, not Chancellor, who shot Shawl. But under Louisiana law, the distinction will not matter if prosecutors can prove that the pair jointly intended to commit a felony before the shooting.

Prosecutors allege that about 2 a.m. on July 21, Chancellor and Thomas forced their way into the apartment of Starkesha Lee, where she was hosting Shawl and her friend Asia Thomas.

Chancellor had been in kind of a casual sex relationship with her, Lee said. Jaquin Thomas had also been having sex with the older Asia Thomas, who was 20 or 21 at the time.

Lee said she had been doing Shawls hair earlier in the night before smoking marijuana with him and having sex with him.

She had also been multitasking with Chancellor on her phone, sending messages to say that she was in LaPlace instead of her apartment in the East.

I got a text saying I was on some ho stuff at about 12 a.m., she said of her correspondence with Chancellor. But the pebbles didnt start until about 2 something.

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Chancellor and Jaquin Thomas were outside, throwing pebbles and acorns at her window from the courtyard, she said.

Then the door burst open. Lee said Chancellor came in with Thomas, who had a gun in his hand.

There was a scuffle among Shawl, Chancellor and Jaquin Thomas in a second-floor hallway, the women said.

Lee said she ran downstairs. Asia Thomas said she ran into a bedroom with Lees children. Both of them heard a gunshot.

Why you shot the man? Why you shot the man? Lee heard Chancellor ask his nephew.

Thomas said she had to carry Lees two young children over Shawls body to outside and safety.

Afterward, said Thomas, Tyrance went up to me, he was handing me a gun, and I told him no, I wasnt doing that, and I wasnt going to help come up with an alibi, because they got kids involved.

Both women claimed that Chancellor was with Jaquin Thomas when he broke down the door to the apartment.

Yet defense attorneys Joe Rome and Dante Butler sought to question whether the door was really forced open.

On cross-examination, Lee acknowledged that her childrens father had earlier broken in the door during a fit of rage.

"You said the wind could blow your door open," Rome said.

Meanwhile, Rome wondered aloud whether the women had been motivated by something other than good citizenship to testify.

With an age difference of more than four years between them, under Louisiana law Asia Thomas would have been committing felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile by having sex with Jaquin Thomas.

Rome asked Lee whether prosecutors had promised not to prosecute her for hosting Asia and Jaquin Thomas in her apartment on previous occasions. She said no.

The lead homicide detective on the case, Tindell Murdock, acknowledged he did not report that potential crime anywhere other than his homicide report.

Why was she given special treatment? Rome asked about Lee.

I didnt give her special treatment, Murdock replied. Before I reported it, Mr. Thomas hung himself, he committed suicide, and I, at that point, just didnt think about it.
Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday in the federal trial of former narcotics agent Chad Scott, capping a day of testimony that careened from violent tales of the Houston drug trade to decade-old government memos criticizing the way Scott handled confidential informants.

After the prosecution rested, defense attorneys moved to have the charges dismissed. U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo rejected that motion, meaning that when court reconvenes on Wednesday, Scott's team will begin to put on their case.

Scott faces seven counts, including obstruction of justice, perjury and falsification of government records. The three obstruction counts carry 10-year maximum sentences, though under federal sentencing guidelines it is unlikely that Scott would get anything near that.

Through the first six days of the trial, prosecutors Timothy Duree and Charles Miracle sought to weave together technical testimony including cell phone data and Drug Enforcement Administration policy provisions with insider perspectives on how kilos of cocaine and heroin are smuggled out of Houston into Louisiana and farther east.

They also brought in two members of the DEA task force that Scott led. Both men, former Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office deputies, have pleaded guilty to federal charges and agreed to testify against their former colleague.

The overall picture they have tried to present is of an agent who cared nothing for the rules and would do anything he could to get what he wanted, whether that was a nice truck for himself or the conviction of a drug dealer.

On Tuesday, Edwin Martinez, a convicted drug trafficker from Houston, detailed for the jury how, as a middleman, he moved cocaine and heroin through his north Houston auto repair shop. Martinez's testimony, continued from Monday, included no reference to a plea agreement he had with prosecutors that offered him a six-year sentence instead of the life term he previously faced.

That deal, prosecutors said Tuesday before the jury was brought in, was offered to Martinez before he was expected to testify against Scott, and included references to the wide-ranging investigation into Scott's task force. Milazzo suggested to the attorneys that the information contained within it could be prejudicial to both sides, and warned them away from using it. She also instructed Martinez not to bring it up.

During his testimony, Martinez detailed how he pistol-whipped a former associate who lost three kilos of heroin, and how he put a gun in the face of another who lost some drugs. An associate asked Martinez if he wanted the first man killed, but Martinez said he decided against it.

"You carried the power of life and death in your drug dealing days, did you not?" asked Stephen Garcia, one of Scott's attorneys.

"Yes, I did," Martinez said.

Martinez also explained how his supplier would bring drugs in through the garage door and wait with his car while Martinez took the drugs up to an office, where he would meet with the buyer and count the money. Once the buyer left, the supplier would get his money. It was crucial, Martinez stressed, to keep the two separate so that they didn't decide to cut him out of the transactions altogether.

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That last part is critical to the government's case because the perjury and obstruction counts against Scott hinge on the government's claim that Martinez's supplier, Jorge Perralta, and his customer, Frederick Brown, never met. Prosecutors contend that Scott persuaded Brown to lie at Perralta's trial and say he had seen him at drug transactions. Scott is also accused of perjuring himself by saying under oath that Brown volunteered that he knew Perralta.

Earlier in Scott's trial, Brown admitted that he lied at Scott's behest in hopes that Scott would help him get a shorter sentence. Perralta, who was convicted but went free when the government began to investigate Scott's task force, testified that he never saw Brown. Martinez backed that up, saying repeatedly that he would never let the two get together.

After Martinez finished on the stand, the government turned to Martinez's lawyer, Christopher Edwards, who said that Martinez told him Scott also persuaded him to lie. Martinez, Edwards testified, looked up to Scott as a protector, "a big brother" who could get his probable life sentence reduced to a much shorter term.

The government also called Robert Baggs, a former DEA supervisor who in 2004 wrote memos in which he admonished Scott for improper handling of potential confidential informants.

Under cross-examination, however, Baggs also said that Scott was "perhaps the most prolific agent" the New Orleans Field Division of the DEA had.

"He had a lot of informants; his informants would have informants," Baggs said. Scott consistently made more cases than all but a few other agents, Baggs said.

The government's final witness was Richard "Chip" Hardgrave, an FBI agent who served as the lead investigator in the case. Hardgrave testified that he had examined the forms that Scott is alleged to have falsified. Those forms refer to a truck Scott was given by Brown in Houston, but on the forms, Scott said he got it from Brown in Metairie.

Hardgrave testified that the investigation of the task force began with Louisiana State Police, who eventually asked the FBI to take it over. It involved several agencies, including prosecutors from Washington, D.C.; DEA Office of Professional Responsibility investigators from Florida; and Department of Justice Office of Inspector General investigators from Houston.

"There were a lot of moving parts, logistics and paperwork," he said.

The defense's case will likely try to build on the points they have attempted to make during cross-examinations. In those, they have questioned the credibility of key witnesses, repeatedly noting their inconsistent statements, criminal histories or drug abuse. They will likely try to portray Scott as an agent who may have cut corners but who also did more than most to put drug traffickers in jail.
On Jan. 22, 1973, a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court ruling changed America forever. Roe v. Wade is a landmark decision on the issue of the constitutionality of laws that restricted abortion. Every year since the decision, thousands have gathered in Washington to protest the decision with the March for Life.

This march has become an important way for anti-abortion supporters to unite and to continue fighting for women who are reluctant about keeping their unborn children.

This year, I attended the March for Life with St. Pauls. We traveled 20 hours to Washington with the rest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans students on 10 charter buses.

The north shore group departed from St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Slidell at 7 p.m. Jan. 15. We arrived in Washington for dinner and a welcome rally with music and guest speakers. The next day, we traveled to the Warner Theater for the Geaux Forth 2019 Louisiana Right to Life Rally, where we heard speeches and were given statistics on abortion: the numbers by state and region, how many are performed per day, and the different procedures.

Jan. 17 was a day for sightseeing, where we walked to the White House and took pictures and went to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We also experienced an extremely rare opportunity for Southerners: We played in snow! After dinner, we visited the EagleBank Arena on George Masons campus for the Life is Very Good Rally, where there were speakers, music and an Eucharistic adoration.

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The following day was the march. After morning Mass celebrated by Archbishop Aymond at Blessed Sacrament Church in Arlington, Virginia, we joined thousands of other youth protesters at the march. The New Orleans group stuck together, chanting and holding up anti-abortion posters.

Arriving at the Supreme Court Building, we looked back down the hill, where there was a daunting sea of pro-abortion rights advocates. We then said a decade of the Rosary in front of the Supreme Court Building for all those contemplating or affected by abortion.

After the march, we walked to Union Station for shopping and dinner. The next morning, we visited the World War II Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Afterward, we went to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The church was amazing: The dozens of side chapels and the nave (the main part of the church where the congregation sits) combine to create one of the most elaborate churches on the planet.

In the underground portion, down each hallway seemed to be a small chapel, each dedicated to a different title for Mary. We moved on to the St. John Paul II National Shrine and celebrated Mass before loading onto the buses for the journey home.
The Jefferson Parish public school system has named its district winners in the Louisiana Department of Educations principal of the year competition. Now eligible to become the 2020 Louisiana top principal are Terrah Averette-Harrison, of St. Ville Elementary School, Christina Conforto, of Marrero Middle School, and Vanessa Brown-Lewis, of West Jefferson High School

Averette-Harrison has been principal of St. Ville Elementary for four years, since the school reopened during summer 2015. She was hired that June and had only 25 days to hire more than 40 teachers and staff, as well as get the school ready to welcome more than 500 students for the first day.

Under her leadership, the schools performance score has grown every year. St. Ville Elementary has been recognized for Top Growth and Top Gains by the Louisiana Department of Education.

Conforto has been the principal of Marrero Middle for seven years. Conforto and her team work to provide the best education for any child that enrolls at this diverse school.

For some students, that means taking advantage of the schools advanced academic offerings. For others, it means enrolling in the extra support periods for math or reading.

Not only has Conforto made her mark on the school by moving its students forward, she also works to create leadership opportunities for her staff. Many of her former teachers and administrators are now leading schools of their own or serving on the leadership team at Marrero Middle.

Brown-Lewis has been the principal of West Jefferson High for six years. She urges her teachers to seek opportunities outside the classroom that will expose more students to real-world experiences.

Under her leadership, the school has formed partnerships with numerous organizations that have exposed students to money management, the arts, STEM careers and college tours. Shes also been instrumental in building a sense a pride in what it means to be a West Jefferson High Buccaneer.
Denver-based Stonebridge Companies has acquired the 280-room Embassy Suites by Hilton New Orleans Convention Center hotel on Julia Street, the company said Wednesday.

Stonebridge bought the property in partnership with an affiliate of Walton Street Capital LLC. It is the first property Stonebridge owns in New Orleans.

The price was not disclosed, and it's not clear when the sale occurred. The hotel is located near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Stonebridge, a privately-owned hotel operator, owns 60 hotels throughout the U.S., including two other Embassy Suites properties. Walton Street Capital is a private equity real estate investment firm based in Chicago.
The New Orleans region added 12,900 jobs in December compared with the year before, the biggest increase in employment among Louisiana's nine metro areas.

Seven of Louisiana's nine metro areas added jobs over the year in December. Overall, the state has gained 19,100 jobs since December 2017, bringing the total number of nonfarm jobs in Louisiana to just over 2 million, according to figures released Tuesday by the Louisiana Workforce Commission. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted. This is the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year employment increases for the state.

The Crescent City's nonfarm employment rose to 591,600 in December. The hospital sector added 2,400 jobs; so did leisure and hospitality. Construction added 2,200 jobs; transportation, warehousing and utilities, 1,800; and manufacturing, 1,300. Retail trade jobs fell by 800 jobs, while state government lost 500.

The New Orleans unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, rose to 3.9 percent in December from 3.7 percent last year. That's better than the state unemployment rate of 4.5 percent during December, which was 4.2 percent a year ago.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in November, down from 3.9 percent a year ago.

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BATON ROUGE: The Baton Rouge region added 4,500 jobs in December, boosting the capital region's nonfarm employment rose to 412,800 jobs in December. Baton Rouge gained 6,200 construction jobs over the year and 1,100 education and health service jobs. It lost 2,300 leisure and hospitality jobs and 900 retail trade jobs.

The area's unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, was 3.9 percent, up from 3.5 percent in December 2017.

LAFAYETTE: The Acadiana region increased 2,000 jobs from December 2017 to 203,300. Mining and logging, which includes the oil and gas sector, dropped by 400 jobs. The region added 1,600 service-providing jobs, while manufacturing added 600 jobs in the goods-producing sector. The unemployment rate was up slightly to 4.3 percent from 4.2 percent a year earlier.

OTHER METRO AREAS: Lake Charles added 3,500 jobs over the year to 120,300. It was the 90th consecutive month of over-the-year job gains and the biggest percentage increase of any metro area in the state. Hammond added 900 jobs to 47,900; Monroe, 700 jobs to 79,800; and Alexandria, 100 jobs to 62,600. Houma-Thibodaux was down 1,000 jobs to 85,100, while Shreveport-Bossier City lost 200 jobs, falling to 179,500.
ExxonMobils Angela Zeringue explains the benefits to be derived from the polyolefin plant expansion relating to ExxonMobil's multi-million dollar industrial Tax Exemption Program request during an East Baton Rouge Parish School Board meeting.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., center, gets his picture taken with John Beck, left, by Thomas Pearce, right, before Kennedy spoke at a luncheon hosted by the Rotary Club of Greater Ascension at Lamar Dixon Expo Center, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Beck and Pearce are members of the Donaldsonville Rotary Club.
John Bel Edwards opponents should probably hope that January is the cruelest month and things will get better in the election by October.

The incumbent governor is a Democrat in a Republican state. The virtues  and sometimes the pitfalls  of seeking reelection have been on display as Edwards formally announced his candidacy via an online video release.

Typically in politics, this is a way to avoid pesky questions from reporters and others, but the governor can hardly be blamed in that regard. At one time, a fly around the states major media markets over a couple of days was standard practice. Today, the use of digital platforms for such announcements is ubiquitous.

And the governor does not appear to be hiding from questions: He answered them for an hour at the Press Club of Baton Rouge and then kept a steady pace of appearances around the state, particularly where he can underline economic development wins for the state.

These included the big DXC Technologies location on Poydras Street in vote-rich New Orleans. Its better to be an incumbent with a growing economy. Just ask former Gov. Bobby Jindal, who similarly plugged every new plant or other business victory, sometimes several times, before his 2011 reelection victory.

The governors fluency in the discussions of government is an asset but can also be a political liability, too. He sometimes verges on the wonkish, offhandedly referring once to the teacher pay raises he wants  a big populist issue  as going directly to school employees through Level 3 of the MFP.

Say what?

The MFP, which might as well be called the Mysterious Funding Process, is one of the abiding mysteries in the State Capitol. Officially known as the Minimum Foundation Program, it's the state-local funding formula for schools  and incredibly complex. Who knew there was a Level 3? Well, there apparently is, and Edwards casual references to these and other programs suggest difficulties for his challengers. Edwards is a formidable debater, and government is the subject about which he knows a great deal after two terms in the state House and four years as governor.

So far, there are two challengers, Baton Rouge businessman Eddie Rispone and North Louisiana member of Congress Ralph Abraham. Both are relatively little-known around the state and have a hill to climb in terms of name recognition. Abraham drew some criticism when The Advocate reported that he had quietly backed away from his much-publicized first-term pledge not to take his pay, but to give it to good causes.

Abraham apparently does donate generously, but by changing his position without sufficient care for appearances  he was still taking credit for the original pledge on his website  a clumsiness about politics was suggested to the Republican donors he is courting to fund his campaign.

When Rispone and Abraham do raise their profiles, though, they will have to have something relevant to say. Maybe talk-radio slogans will work for a while, but some coherent argument about what the challengers want to do in office will then be needed. Edwards sophisticated arguments about government agencies and programs will have to be countered with something other than platitudes.

All this doesnt mean John Bel Edwards is in high cotton, as they might say in Abrahams Mississippi Delta district. But it does suggest that he had a good January  and that his Republican opposition has not yet grappled effectively with its challenges.

Email Lanny Keller at lkeller@theadvocate.com.
Flying drones toward hurricanes to gather better scientific data is just one idea under consideration as LSU researchers team up with their colleagues around the Gulf to better understand tropical storms.

The Hurricane Resilience Research Institute  or HuRRI  was formed through a collaboration among LSU, the University of Miami, Texas Tech, the University of Texas-Tyler, the University of Houston and the University of Florida.

Three of LSU's engineering professors  Navid Jafari, Hongliang Zhang and Chao Sun  have secured grants to contribute to the endeavor, the university wrote in a news release.

Jafari wants to gather better data on flooding, but it's difficult and often unsafe for scientists to place sensors in the path of a hurricane while a storm is bearing down. He's studying how to fly unmanned drones capable of launching sensors that penetrate and anchor themselves into the ground to measure data in real time.

Zhang is also interested in flooding, but rather than getting up-to-the-second readings, he wants to look to the past, connecting how previous rain events have contributed to subsequent flooding.

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"Specifically, we want to look at how rainfall interacts with water bodies. Even with less precipitation, if a water body is already full, you can have larger flooding," Zhang said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Sun wants to protect the electrical grid so phones keep working and more lights stay on once a storm hits  especially in places like hospitals. He's designing a device that can attach to towers. When winds cause the tower to sway, the equipment is designed to counteract the movement to make it more resistant to falling over or snapping.

"Were going to combine the hurricane wind and storm surge effect in our model, he said in a statement.

"During reconnaissance in Corpus Christi [Texas] after Hurricane Harvey, we saw that the foundation  the ground, the soil  became too soft from flooding and rain to support the towers. We need to incorporate that in our model. And based on the results, well be able to take measures to protect the power systems."
Keith Theriot locked the front door of his Norco home the night of June 10, 2017, desperately attempting to keep his son outside.

Dakota Theriot had been angry. Hed been holding full conversations with himself, as if he were two people at once, records show. He had recently threatened to burn the house down with the family inside, and now, while Keith waited on the phone with 911, the 20-year-old had succeeded in kicking the door in.

Keith Theriot told the dispatch operator he was grabbing his gun for protection.

Just 1 years later, law officers say, Dakota Theriot went on another rampage Saturday, stealing his father's gun and using it to kill his parents, his girlfriend and two of her family members. No one is saying why.

Records from the St. Charles Parish Sheriffs Office, spanning the last three years, show he had a troubled history dotted with police interaction long before deputies in Virginia took him into custody Sunday. He had a series of short-term stays for mental evaluations but none for the long term.

Louisiana sheriff says 'a monster,' Dakota Theriot, admits killing 5 with stolen gun Alleged mass murderer Dakota Theriot has admitted to killing five people near Walker and Gonzales during the weekend and has admitted shooting

When St. Charles deputies responded to the 2017 incident at the Norco home, they found Dakota Theriot standing in the front yard of the home. Nobody had been injured, records say.

He was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car bound for the St. Charles Hospital emergency room. The deputies noted in their report that Theriot continued having conversations with himself during the ride, and the doctor on duty ordered an emergency mental health committal.

Theriot has a diagnosed mental health disorder called "substance-induced mood swings," according to what his now-deceased father had told police. Self-medicating with drugs and alcohol turned the 21-year-old violent.

The father told authorities at the time he was trying to have his son placed into a long-term mental health treatment facility, but had been unsuccessful.

Some of the documents surrounding the familys life in St. Charles Parish show a turbulent relationship between father and son, one in which Keith Theriot would kick Dakota out of the house, side with the boys ex-wife in arguments and fight with him.

But, it also shows one of effort, one where the parents seemingly continued to allow their son re-entry to their home despite his misgivings. A St. Charles Parish lawyer, who for a short period of time represented Dakota Theriot in a court case but did not want to be named out of concern for the family's feelings after a tragedy, said Tuesday that Keith Theriot was at every one of his sons court dates to support his son.

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In one instance, in May 2017, deputies were searching for a suspect they believed might be at the Theriot familys home in Norco. They arrived to a cloud of what seemed to be marijuana smoke, and detained all inside  including Keith, Dakota and Elizabeth Theriot, the boy's mother.

A search of the home produced a scale, a pipe, marijuana and a sawed-off shotgun, a series of items father and son split responsibility for.

The elder said he used marijuana for a medical issue, through a prescription hed obtained in California. He said a friend gave him the gun with a barrel that was too short to be legal, but that he intended to modify it, according to records.

Law enforcement arrested Dakota on a count of possessing drug paraphernalia and Keith on the same count, plus a marijuana possession count.

That same month, Theriots ex-wife called 911 because she was bringing an extremely intoxicated Dakota Theriot to Norco from LaPlace, but he jumped out of the vehicle multiple times saying he wanted to die, reports say.

He again was taken to the emergency room for a psychological evaluation.

A week later, police would be back to the same address, this time to reports Dakota Theriot was threatening to burn the house down after having been released from Seaside Treatment Facility in Baton Rouge the day before.

Dakota Theriot appeared to be hearing voices and was incoherent while his parents attempted to talk to him, the report states. Dakota Theriot stated to his parents he was going to set the house on fire with everyone inside. These statements prompted Keith Theriot to call 911.

Dakota Theriot again went to the emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.

The Theriot family carries a history of schizophrenia, Keith Theriot reportedly told authorities at that time, but the son had not been diagnosed with that condition.

Sheriffs office reports are not clear as to how long Theriot stayed in mental health facilities when police transported him each time.

At a joint press conference Tuesday, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard and Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre called Theriot a "monster" and said he confessed to the murders of his parents and girlfriends family. They haven't said anything further about his demeanor or statements made about the killings.

He is currently in custody in Virginia, where he was captured, and is expected to be extradited to Louisiana perhaps by this weekend.
The Baton Rouge Police Department's longstanding manpower shortage has worsened over the past several months. And a recent decision to further postpone the next academy for new officers means the issue will persist into 2019, though department leaders are optimistic their ongoing efforts will soon translate into a larger police force.

Officials had planned to hold two basic training academies in 2018  for new recruits with no prior law enforcement experience  but only one ended up happening. It started in January 2018 and ended in June when 29 graduates joined the force.

Department administrators have said resignations and retirements throughout the year have left them in dire need for another influx of manpower.

But the second academy slotted for 2018 was pushed back to January 2019, then delayed again until March so the staff in charge of teaching recruits can first complete some training of their own: a "procedural justice" program that focuses on more effective ways of interacting with the public. The aim is to build more trust between police and the community.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said the program, which is being held this week in two California cities, is worth the delay because it presents an opportunity to "make sure everyone who works in the academy understands where we're going as an agency."

Paul has emphasized the importance of professionalism and transparency within the department since taking office last January.

Department leaders say they hope to hold two academies this year to make up for the schedule change. They're also devoting more resources to recruiting.

Staffing numbers

The Baton Rouge police force is currently more than 10 percent smaller than it should be. The department receives an allotment of 698 officers but only 625 of those positions are filled, leaving 73 vacancies  a notable increase over previous years.

Staffing numbers also show that recent efforts to recruit and train more officers haven't been able to overcome retirements and resignations. Last year saw 34 officers join the department while 51 either retired or resigned, leaving the agency with a net loss of 17 officers.

The agency started 2018 with 63 vacancies, which had grown from 39 at the beginning of 2017, according to staffing numbers recorded on Jan. 1 of each year. The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office has also run into similar staffing problems in recent years.

Law enforcement administrators have long complained of manpower shortages that have persisted over the past several years, becoming especially problematic as homicides and other violent crime rose to historic levels across the parish in 2017.

+2 Amidst spike in homicides, Baton Rouge law enforcement agencies short on officers At the end of July, as homicides in the parish continued to surge far ahead of last year's pace and the number of domestic violence killings 

+2 More BR law officers resigning, retiring in recent years; could risk, scrutiny be cause? Growing numbers of police officers and sheriff's deputies in Baton Rouge have been voluntarily leaving the force in recent years, departures t

Although the second academy that had been planned for 2018 never happened, the department did host training for incoming officers who had already earned their Peace Officer's Standards and Training certification and had some past law enforcement experience.

Deputy Police Chief Jonny Dunnam said recruiting those experienced members benefits the force.

He also said the 2019 budget includes funding for two academies this year  one for 35 officers and another for 25. The first is now scheduled to start in March and will last 22 weeks.

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Procedural justice

The chief's decision to send academy staff to procedural justice training means the force will maintain its current manpower deficit for a few more months.

The department's 10 academy staff members traveled to California over the weekend to participate in the training, which is funded through a Collective Healing grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The grant was awarded to help Baton Rouge recover from the events of summer 2016: the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling and subsequent ambush on law enforcement that killed three officers and wounded three others.

+4 At a north Baton Rouge church, teens get a lesson in law enforcement and collective healing It was just a skit, but the message was meant to prevent what could be deadly consequences in real life.

Dunnam said procedural justice focuses on making sure officers are treating people with respect during their interactions with suspects, for example explaining their actions and avoiding outward displays of judgment or bias.

"People respond better when they're treated respectfully," Dunnam said. "Then the public has a perception that the department is legitimate and if they perceive you that way, when you show up at a scene, they're more likely to comply."

Dunnam said outfitting all officers with body cameras has also encouraged more peaceful and respectful encounters with the public because both sides are aware their actions are being recorded. He credits that mutual respect with contributing to a significant decrease in officers' use of force during 2018.

Myron Daniels, the department's head of internal affairs, said use of force reports dropped almost 20 percent from 2017 to 2018.

First class of community police ambassadors graduate from training, look ahead to work awaiting them A group of some 20 people graduated Tuesday night in the first class of Baton Rouge community police ambassadors aimed at bridging the gap bet

Attracting more officers

Now entering his second year as chief, Paul is taking steps to boost the department's recruitment efforts, which have been hampered in part by the lower pay for Baton Rouge police when compared to their counterparts.

Department leaders say they hope to finally obtain a long overdue pay raise for officers, especially higher starting salary, which remains about 30 percent below other agencies of similar size and jurisdiction, according to the preliminary results of an ongoing pay study.

Baton Rouge police officers currently make $33,968 once they've graduated from academy and have spent six months on the job. Their counterparts at the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office are paid starting salaries of $38,153, while Louisiana State Police make $49,448 a year after completing field officer training. Entry level New Orleans police officers make $46,900 a year.

Improvements on the recruitment front could help the department meet the terms of a federal consent decree imposed in 1980 to make law enforcement agencies more diverse through oversight of their hiring and promotion practices. Baton Rouge is one of the last Louisiana cities still struggling to meet those requirements.
Among those at the inaugural meeting of the Louisiana Industrial Hemp Alliance are, front row from left, Curtis L. Willis, Joyce James and Bobby R. Phills, chancellor and dean of the Southern University Land-Grant Campus. Behind them are Joe Lavigne, LIHA Chair Arthur Walker, Odis Hill, Winston L. Brumfield, Versa O. Clark, Andra Johnson and C. Reuben Walker.
Neel Bhatt, a UW assistant professor of otolaryngology, specializes in treating patients with voice problems. Through his work, he began to realize people did not like the sound of their own voices. With the transition to school over Zoom, many students can relate to the discomfort of hearin
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Three months after Bishop Michael Duca pledged to release a list of local Roman Catholic clergy who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, the people of Baton Rouge will find out Thursday which allegations of abuse in his diocese have previously been shielded from the public.

Duca is expected to release the list at noon Thursday, when he has scheduled a news conference.

+22 These 15 former priests might be on list of Baton Rouge clergy accused of sexual abuse A Baton Rouge bishop who sexually abused young men while he threatened to excommunicate Catholics who disobeyed church doctrine.

Catholic dioceses nationwide have been under pressure to name names since a Pennsylvania grand jury last August revealed that more than 300 predator priests had abused 1,000 victims. The report set off a new wave of scandal and devastation in a clergy sex abuse crisis that has plagued the Catholic Church worldwide.

The news from Pennsylvania came about the same time as Duca's installation as bishop of Baton Rouge, and he and other bishops across Louisiana promised to release a full accounting of abuse allegations.

"It is hard to publish this list for all to see, but real renewal and healing cannot take place until we acknowledge the truth of our past," Duca wrote in a letter read at each Mass in the diocese last weekend. "Yet even though in this moment we are rightly brought low, I have not lost hope."

In advance of the list being released, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the list would be "self-serving and incomplete" unless it includes photos of clerics, their work histories, names of religious order clerics, names of non-priest clerics accused of abuse and names of clerics who sexually abused adult parishioners as well.

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"Everyone should ask themselves  and church officials should be explaining  'How do bishops and hundreds of church staff justify keeping the names of dozens of possibly dangerous priests secret for years and years?' " said David Clohessy, the former national director of SNAP.

The Diocese of Baton Rouge will be the third in the state to release a list of credible sexual abuse allegations against clergy. The Archdiocese of New Orleans' list released in late 2018 included 57 clergy members, while the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux this year named 14 priests.

In Baton Rouge, at least 15 past priests stand accused of sexually abusing more than 60 victims, according to a review by The Advocate that examined lawsuits and public allegations and included more than a dozen interviews. The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge also reported in 2004 that 23 priests who had served in the diocese  10 diocesan priests and 13 from religious orders  had been accused of sexual abuse. The diocese did not name them at the time.

Some of the names expected on the Diocese of Baton Rouge list will have previously appeared on the Archdiocese of New Orleans list and a list that the Jesuit order released late last year of credibly accused priests. Eight priests on the New Orleans list had ties to Baton Rouge; the Diocese of Baton Rouge was carved out from the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1961. Two priests on the Jesuits' list had also served in the Diocese of Baton Rouge.
An Abbeville-based industrial cleaning and robotics company secured a 36,000-square-foot facility in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, Texas, that company officials say will help improve both the relationship with the companies they serve and their presence in the region.

Ecoserv, along with its sister company, Ecorobotics, specialize in environmentally friendly industrial cleaning for chemical plants and refineries. According to Kenny DesOrmeaux, president and CEO of Ecoserv, the move for a company in the refinery and chemical business would allow them to better communicate and serve their customers.

"A move to Deer Park, Texas, in the refinery and chemicals business for us would be similar to a move to Port Forchon, Louisiana, for an oil-related company," he said. "Like Port Fourchon is to the oilfield, Deer Park the epicenter of the most populated industrial region on the globe. Our presence in those communities is imperative to facilitate our response to our customers."

According to DesOrmeaux, nearly 70 percent of the company's target customers are in the Beaumont-to Freeport, Texas area. Yet he stressed that the company will keep a presence in Abbeville as Ecoserv and Ecorobotics will use it as their base for equipment fabrication, training and future research and development.

"It is our intention to continue the growth of our operation centers in strategic industrial locations across the U.S. and abroad," he said. "Abbeville is and has always been our home location and will provide technology, equipment and support for all future operations centers."

Ecoserv expanded last year into making specialized robots through Ecorobotics. The remote-piloted robots can do the work of an entire crew in a fraction of the time without risking the health and safety of human workers, who are becoming harder to find. They are planning to have the new facility up and running by the end of March.
Ada, OK (74820)

Today

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.
Great news for those who find that their 256 GB phone still doesn't have enough storage: Samsung just announced a chip that's 1 TB large.

The South Korean Electronics company will begin offering the world's first 1 TB embedded Universal Flash Storage, or eUFS, solution for phone manufacturers. Mass production is already scheduled, in fact.

What this means is that sooner or later, there could be smartphones that offer 1 Tb of storage right off the bat, using just a single flash memory chip.

Notebook-Like Experiences

In a statement, Samsung said expanding a phone's internal storage is crucial since sooner or later, people are going to be using their smartphones as full-fledged computers.

"The 1TB eUFS is expected to play a critical role in bringing more notebook-like user experience to the next generation of mobile devices," said Cheol Choi, Samsung's Memory Sales & Marketing executive VP.

Supply Chain

The company also assured manufacturers that it will be able to accommodate orders for its new chip despite the fast-growing mobile market.

"Samsung is committed to assuring the most reliable supply chain and adequate production quantities to support the timely launches of upcoming flagship smartphones in accelerating growth of the global mobile market."

The chip itself is similar in size to Samsung's previous 512 GB unit and has read speeds of up to 1,000 MB per second. That's 10 times faster than the speed of typical microSD cards, according to Samsung. The company says it has achieved such a feat by combining 16 stacked layers of its most advanced 512-gigabit V-NAND flash memory and a newly developed proprietary controller.

For those unable to imagine just how big 1 TB is, Samsung offers some perspective: With 1 TB, a user will be able to store 260 4K UHD videos that are 10 minutes long. By contrast, a smartphone with 64 GB of storage can only 13 videos of the same size.

1 TB Phones

1 TB smartphones are technically already possible. In fact, Samsung last year promoted the Galaxy Note 9 as being "1 TB ready," but that's only if the user inserts a 512 GB microSD card into the 512 GB model. As such, the phone doesn't actually offer 1 TB out of the box. Samsung's new chip, on the other hand, will let manufacturers stack this much storage without inserting cards whatsoever.

It's not clear whether Samsung will use its new chip to release a 1 TB phone in the future. The notion doesn't seem far-fetched, especially that there are rumors suggesting the upcoming Galaxy S10 lineup will have a premium model that has 1 TB of storage. Time, of course, will tell. Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S10 later this February.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The rising global temperature has caused glaciers to melt in the Canadian Arctic, exposing an ancient landscape that has never been seen in 40,000 years.

A team of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder went to the Baffin Island, west of Greenland to study the effects of global warming on the Arctic. They collected samples of plants preserved from ancient landscapes and have now been exposed due to the rapidly melting glaciers.

The plants can give researchers a peek into the history of the location, determine the last time that summers were as warm in the past century as they are today, and when the ice that covered the landscape had advanced.

Ancient Landscape Exposed By Melting Glacier

Baffin is the world's fifth largest island. It is dominated with fjords separated by plateaus. According to the researchers, these plateaus act like ancient ice storage where moss and lichens have been frozen and preserved for millennia.

However, in recent decades, the island has experienced significant warming, which is melting its glaciers and ice caps.

"The Arctic is currently warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe, so naturally, glaciers and ice caps are going to react faster," explained Simon Pendleton, a doctoral researcher and the lead author of the study.

Pendleton and his team took it as an opportunity to study the ancient landscape that has long been buried under ice. In August, they went to Baffin Island to collect 48 plant samples from 30 different ice caps. They used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the plants and how long they have been covered in ice.

The team also sampled quartz from each site to establish the age and history of the landscape. Upon analysis, the researchers found that samples collected from all locations have been covered in ice in the past 40,000 years.

Warmest Century

The study also found that Baffin Island is currently experiencing its warmest century in 115,000 years. More alarmingly, the region might be ice-free in a few centuries, the researchers warned.

"Unlike biology, which has spent the past three billion years developing schemes to avoid being impacted by climate change, glaciers have no strategy for survival," said Gifford Miller, a professor of geological sciences and a senior author of the study. "They're well behaved, responding directly to summer temperature. If summers warm, they immediately recede; if summers cool, they advance. This makes them one of the most reliable proxies for changes in summer temperature."

Pendleton added that normally, ice in high elevation would hold on longer. However, because of the magnitude of heating, ice is melting everywhere at the same rate.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Curiosity rover's mission at Vera Rubin Ridge had ended but before it left, it managed to take a quick selfie to remember it by.

A Selfie From Mars

The 6-year-old explorer was commanded to snap 57 images using its robotic arm to generate a fresh selfie. Behind it is a dusty horizon, a leftover of a recent local storm.

According to a press release by NASA, Curiosity has been exploring the Vera Rubin Ridge since September 2017. During the time, it has drilled and collected 19 samples from the location.

The photo was taken from a drill site called "Rock Hall." In the photo, a little drill hole can be seen on the lower left of the rover from where it has collected its final samples from the ridge.

Vera Rubin Ridge, named after the astronomer who discovered dark matter, is rich with an iron-oxide mineral, hematite, which forms under wet conditions. Scientists believe that hematite can unlock information about ancient environments. A highlight from its time in the location is the discovery of organic molecules that dates back to at least 3 billion years.

Also visible in the selfie is the wheel damage that the U.S. space agency has been monitoring for years. In its most recent routine checkup, the team behind the mission found that the cracks and holes on the rover's wheels seem to be getting worse.

However, they believe that the wheels will last for the life of the mission. A software update was sent to adjust the speed of the rover and reduce pressure to minimize further damage.

Off To A New Adventure

According to NASA, Curiosity will next head to the clay region of Mount Sharp. Scientists hope to examine clay minerals found in a trough just south of the ridge, which might uncover clues about ancient lakes that once existed in the area.

The rover, which landed in 2012 in the Gale Crater, is meant to answer the question: did life ever exist on Mars? Its mission was initially meant to last for two years but six years later, Curiosity is still exploring the red planet. So far, it has clocked in around 11 miles and climbed 1,000 feet above its landing site.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology are no longer recommending the use of the blood-thinning drug warfarin for the treatment of atrial fibrillation.

On Monday, Jan. 28, a new guideline was issued to encourage doctors not to prescribe the drug except to a select subset of patients with atrial fibrillation. Instead, the guideline advises the use of novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs), which have been developed and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past decade.

NOACs Over Warfarin

Warfarin, better known by the brand name Coumadin, is still generally safe to use. The new guideline is still stressing the importance of anticoagulants for patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation.

However, experts want to encourage the use of novel oral anticoagulants such as dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban. Novel oral anticoagulants are better at preventing stroke and have fewer, more manageable side effects compared to warfarin.

"In 2014, we recommend the use of warfarin and NOACs, but we didn't prioritize one over the other," said Craig January, a cardiologist at University of Wisconsin and the lead author of the 2014 and 2019 guidelines. "We are now saying that in some patients, NOACs are better than warfarin."

Safer And Easier To Manage

Warfarin was first developed as a rat poison but since 1954, it has been used to reduce the risk of blood clotting. Although it is often referred to as a blood thinner, it does not actually thin the blood. The drug blocks the formation of vitamin K-dependent clotting factors, reducing the possibility of clotting.

Those who use the drug are regularly monitored via blood tests to avoid the risk of clotting or excessive bleeding. The frequency of blood tests rise as people age, some being required to get their blood drawn once a week.

The new forms of anticoagulants no longer require the same level of monitoring. Patients who take novel oral anticoagulants only have to get their kidney and liver function test once a year.

Because of the lack of research, however, patients who have mechanical heart valves and moderate to severe mitral stenosis are told to continue taking warfarin.

What Is Atrial Fibrillation?

In the United States, 2.7 to 6.1 million people have some form of atrial fibrillation, the most common type of heart arrhythmia. People who have the condition experience irregular beating of the upper chamber of the heart.

Symptoms of atrial fibrillation include heart palpitations, lightheadedness, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and chest pain. The condition is most common in people 65 years old and above.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The big picture: Capcom has a hit on its hands with the remake of Resident Evil 2. Even more exciting is word of free DLC that'll tell the stories of three people in Raccoon City that didn't escape the zombie apocalypse. What other experiences could Capcom have in store for gamers in the Resident Evil universe?

Capcoms remake of Resident Evil 2 is off to a great start and the outlook from here on out is only going to get better.

Since launching on January 25, Capcom has shipped more than three million units globally across PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Thats impressive considering the original 1998 release only achieved cumulative sales of 4.96 million units.

The 1-Shot" demo, meanwhile, racked up more than 4.7 million downloads. It launched on January 11 and will only be available through tomorrow, January 31.

Capcom said cumulative sales for the Resident Evil franchise have now passed 88 million units.

The Ghost Survivors is coming as a free update to #RE2 starting February 15th!



Explore what if stories of three unfortunate souls who never made it out of Raccoon City: The gunshop owner, the mayor's daughter, the soldier.



 No Time to Mourn

 Runaway

 Forgotten Soldier pic.twitter.com/nH4dSX4GlV  Resident Evil (@RE_Games) January 28, 2019



Looking ahead, the Resident Evil 2 remake is getting its first batch of free DLC next month. Ghost Survivors will explore what if stories of three unfortunate individuals  the gun shop owner, the mayors daughter and the soldier  that never made it out of Raccoon City. The first experience is due out on February 15.

As for other remakes, producer Tsuyoshi Kanda told The Hollywood Reporter that all of their efforts and focus are on resident Evil 2 at the moment.
Cybersecurity: Most tech enthusiasts have probably heard of white-hat hackers. In short, it is a term used to describe those who use their affinity with hacking for good. They dig into software and website code to discover and disclose potential exploits to the public, or those who maintain said software.

Most large companies recognize the value these hackers offer to the tech industry, and have set up lucrative "bug bounty" programs to reward them for their efforts depending on the severity of any disclosed bugs.

Traditionally, the process of bug-hunting is something that is mostly handled by human beings. After all, nothing can beat a real person's attention to detail - right? Not quite, according to a new report from IEEE Spectrum.

Written by security researcher David Brumley, the report describes the rise of what might be one of the worlds' most impressive automated white-hat hacking machines. Called Mayhem, the machine is a water-cooled computing behemoth that can detect, exploit, and fix software weaknesses automatically, and at speeds that no human being can match.

So, how does Mayhem work? The gist is that it combines two long-standing approaches to software analysis to perform its duties, known as "fuzzing" and "symbolic execution."

In the words of Brumley himself:

Symbolic execution builds an equation to represent all the logic in a programfor example, x + 5 = 7and then solve the equation. Contrast this strategy with another method of software analysis known as fuzzing, in which you feed random permutations of data into a program to crash it, after which you can determine the vulnerabilities that were at fault and how they might be exploited in a more deliberate attack. Fuzzing keeps putting in random data until a particular string of data makes the equation true, finally determining that x =2.

Put into even simpler terms, fuzzing involves "making intelligent guesses at lightning speed," and symbolic execution is like "asking a mathematician to try to formally figure out what inputs may exploit [a] program."

During internal tests, Mayhem managed to find a whopping 14,000 unique vulnerabilities when set loose on every program in popular Linux distribution Debian; 250 of which were completely new.

Mayhem's team of creators, which is comprised of Brumley and several researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, decided to enter the device into a hacking contest led by DARPA back in 2015. Throughout the competition, contestants' machines earned points based on how many vulnerabilities they managed to find, exploit, and patch.

The contest was split into two phases: a qualifying round, and a finalist event known as the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC).

ForAllSecure's (the name of Brumley's team) Mayhem managed to score twice as many points as the next best-ranked semifinalist in the qualifying round, and at the CGC itself, the machine once again prevailed against its six competitors - but it wasn't the victory itself that was impressive.

Rather, it was how Mayhem won that astonished spectators. A mere 40 rounds into the CGC, Mayhem crashed, devastating the ForAllSecure team. However, at the end of the contest, it was revealed that their sadness was for nought - Mayhem still managed to win, despite not being functional for the remaining 55 rounds of the CGC.

Though we'll never know how far Mayhem could have gone if it hadn't crashed, it is probably safe to say the machine would have far surpassed the scores of its competitors.

According to Brumley, the machine's capabilities are currently being sold to "early adopters" such as the US government, as well as various tech and aerospace companies.

However, given the risks associated with giving Mayhem free reign over such important industries, the machine is still working alongside human security experts - for now. In the future, Brumley believes machines alone will handle the world's cybersecurity.

Image courtesy DARPA, Sean McCabe, & Chelsea Mastilak via IEEE Spectrum
Samsung has always been known for rolling out Android updates to their customers slower than many of their competitors. Indeed, despite Android's latest version -- Pie -- launching way back in August, as Android Police notes, Samsung is only just now pushing the update out to its US users.

And when we say "users," we mean a very small fraction of users - Xfinity Mobile customers, in particular. If you use any other carrier with your Samsung device, you're still going to have to wait a couple more weeks to get your hands on Pie.

For the unaware, Android's latest update shifts its focus towards artificial intelligence, enabling users' phones to learn from their habits and adapt to their needs more efficiently than before.

To name one example, "Adaptive Brightness" uses your previous usage habits to automatically tweak your phone's brightness at opportune times to conserve battery.

Android Pie also features a brand-new app navigation system, which resembles what you might see in Apple's latest iOS updates. Instead of using hardware or software buttons to shift between active apps, Android Pie users can simple swipe up from the bottom to see all open software.

Specific features aside, we should note that only the past couple of Samsung device generations will be receiving the latest Android update. Galaxy Note 9, S9, and S9+ users will receive Pie over the next few days, while Note 8, S8, and S8+ owners will get it sometime in February or March.

Samsung's latest update, dubbed G960USQU3CSAB, will also include Samsung's refreshed "One UI" Android skin; which includes a few unique features of its own.


A Brand's Guide to Digital Shelf Analytics | eBook

What can you do to improve your digital commerce game? The first rule of the digital shelf is to make sure your products can be found. Some might say its mission impossible. Unless, of course, you use digital shelf analytics (DSA). Get the eBook Today!

Apple on Monday suspended its Group FaceTime application following reports that a bug in the software allowed callers to eavesdrop on the people they were calling.

The flaw let a person making a FaceTime call listen through the phone of the person called before the call was accepted or rejected.

It also allowed access to the front-facing camera in an iPhone, both 9 to 5 Mac and BuzzFeed reported.

After making a FaceTime call from an iPhone X to an iPhone 8, a user could hear audio from the iPhone 8 before any action was taken on the call, BuzzFeed explained.

Then, when the volume down button was pressed, video streaming from the front-facing camera could be seen on the iPhone X, even though the call on the iPhone 8 hadn't been acted upon.

A user could activate video functionality from a called phone by pressing the power button from the lock screen, 9 to 5 Mac reported.

The eavesdropping bug didn't seem to work on phones in "Do Not Disturb" mode, BuzzFeed noted.

Serious Issue

Although Apple acted quickly once news of the bug went viral, the flaw is a grave one.

"The bug is serious, but thankfully Apple was in a position to mitigate it by forcing the feature to be inoperable on their server-side end," said Will Strafach, president of the Sudo Security Group, an iOS security company in Greenwich, Connecticut.

"I don't see a long-term impact, since Apple has now disabled the functionality and is quickly pushing an update," he told TechNewsWorld, "but I am sure this will be joked about for some time, similar to the 'goto fail' bug a few years ago."

What makes the bug so serious is that it allows any user to be spied on without their knowledge, said Mike Murray, chief security officer for Lookout, a San Francisco maker of mobile security products.

"All software has bugs and every company makes mistakes. What impacts a company's reputation in the long term is their ability to respond to these issues," he told TechNewsWorld.

"Apple has already published an initial mitigation and rumors have a patch being released in short order," Murray continued. "This is what should be expected from a company that takes user privacy and security seriously."

Sky Not Falling

Not everyone is wringing their hands over the "fly on the wall" bug.

"According to the rest of the world, the sky is falling right now," observed Tyler Reguly, manager of security R&D at Portland, Oregon-based Tripwire, a cybersecurity threat detection and prevention company.

"This FaceTime bug is the most critical defect we've ever encountered if social media is to be believed. I'm not sure I buy into that," he told TechNewsWorld.

"Is this bug a really stupid mistake and evidence that maybe Apple doesn't put as much thought into features as they should? Definitely," Reguly continued.

"As a colleague put it, 'How do you design a communication protocol such that it allowed communication before the connection is established?" he wondered.

"There is no doubt that Apple has some egg on their face over this one," Reguly said. "The simple fact is that stupid bugs exist everywhere because code is written by people, and people make mistakes and bad choices. It would be nice if we lived in an infallible society, but we don't."

Twitterverse Speaks

The FaceTime bug became a source of levity on Twitter.

"I am not responsible for #FaceTime's bug. Although, I do intend to take full advantage of it," wrote @immortalhuey.

Another user imagined what the bug could do for family relations. "I love this #facetime bug," wrote @Pornhub. "Imma call you and spy on you while you ignore me....MOM."

@Taylorownsme13 added this tongue-in-cheek comment to the bug feed: "So are you telling me that my friends will hear me talk about how much I hate them and how their calls annoy me before I answer and be a fake bitch?"

Other denizens of the twittersphere, though, had more serious thoughts about Apple's snafu.

"So everyone freaks out over this #FaceTime bug that basically let's anyone turn your phone into a listening device, BUT nobody gives a fuck that the Government does this to almost ALL 'smart' devices as a matter of course," declared @Socal_crypto.

"Never wanted iPhone. After this never will," added @theBeganovich.

Delayed Reaction?

Twitter is also where questions about Apple's responsiveness to bug reports have been raised.

"It has been alleged that this bug was reported days ago," Sudo's Strafach explained.

"My hope is that this will be a teachable moment on how their bug report triage processes can be improved in order to get reports to the right people more quickly," he said.

"I believe this bug serves as a reminder that mobile phones may be powerful tools these days, but they are created by humans who can make mistakes sometimes," Strafach added. "I think a lot of people already understand that, but incidents such as this bug serve as a visceral reminder which can be easily understood."

Pocket Protection

While access to Group FaceTime has been suspended, Lookout's Murray still recommends disabling the application until Apple provides a more permanent fix to the problem.

"More important than this single issue is to remember that the phone in our pocket is a powerful computer with access to all of your private life, and it should be protected like it," he cautioned.

"Many mobile malware families have the ability to listen in through the microphone, just like this Apple bug," Murray added. "A vulnerability like this reminds us how easily phones can be used to steal personal information. The malware authors and nation-state attackers already know that."

The FaceTime bug illustrates that even the most diligent companies can falter from time to time, noted George Gerchow, CSO of Redwood City, California-based Sumo Logic, an analytics company focusing on security, operations and business information.

"Even though Apple has gone through great strides to protect their users' information," he told TechNewsWorld, "this latest bug is yet another reinforcement that privacy continues to remain a major concern, regardless of your company's size or security and privacy investments."

John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.


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Kotagiri Overnighter - Part 2



Bangalore - Kotagiri



The Bangalore group consisted of Bhp-ians Goandude, r_nairtvm, Snehal_Sekhar, Roomy and myself riding on the Friday with Added_Flavor joining us on Saturday. It was unanimously decided beforehand that we would take Kanakapura Road to get to Mysore-Ooty bypass and the rendezvous (RV) point was set at Kanakapura-NICE toll at 7am. Everyone except myself stayed far away from the RV point and had to leave an hour or so early to get to the RV point. I decided to take it easy as I was just 15mins away. Isnt it the case with any group ride that someone always comes in late, citing reasons like I got stuck in traffic, I woke up late etc.? Hence, I rode at a leisurely pace as I wanted to make it on dot, but I did manage to reach the RV point a good 10mins early. To my utter surprise, everyone was present already and waiting for me for a good 10mins! Clearly, all of us were super excited to ride to Kotagiri, wasting no further time, we got on the saddle and headed towards Mysore.



Contrary to the suggestions, Kanakapura Road was a bliss to ride on with occasional bad/broken patches in between. Being a Friday, the traffic was less and in no time, we had reached the Mysore-Ooty bypass, where we took a stop to fuel up. My bikes OE battery is 6yrs old now and I was praying to god that it would last this trip but voila, after fueling up, the bike refused to start. Roomy came to my rescue, he helped me push start the bike (Roomy went on to become my official push-start mechanic for another 3-4 occasions during the trip with Neil pitching in one time. The sight of an RE owner pushing a Kawasaki was quite hilarious). The rest of the ride till Bandipur was uneventful and joyful considering the sparse traffic and good weather for company.



Goandude and I were connected on the Sena and were chatting away for most of the ride. We entered Bandipur when Goandude tells me that hes got severe cramps and we must stop. I got worried, despite being a brilliant rider for his age, cramp attacks have always been his Achilles heel. My immediate reaction was to find a safe spot for the group to stop. I found one, stopped my bike (well, almost) and the very next moment had a slow speed spill! The bike was on the ground and I was standing besides it, wondering what had happened! There was loose gravel and pebbles on the side of the road, the front lost grip and I had to let go off the bike. A handful of cars passing by offered to help me out, but I was perfectly alright and politely asked them to carry on. In no time, my mates arrived and helped me get the bike up. My worst fears were before me and I was hoping that the damage was minimal. Thankfully, there was no damage, not even a scratch on the bike as the frame slider had taken all the brunt. Heaving a sigh of relief, I went to check on Goandude and it was encouraging to hear that he was feeling a lot better as well.





Me giving a thumbs up after checking the bike. Roomy's CBR on the scene as he was the first to arrive.



So, all being well, we proceeded towards Ooty, taking the 36 hairpins which was very entertaining for most of us except for one hairpin bend where there was a huge pothole right in the middle of the turn, which gave all of us the shrills! The lunch break was at the famous Hyderabadi Biriyani House where Neil joined us. After the sumptuous meal, we proceeded towards the stay and retired for the day.



Some random pictures -









The two elderly gentlemen were very interested in the Harley and were having an animated conversation with Snehal.



























Kotagiri  Bangalore



Time passed very soon, the fun trip was sadly coming towards its end and as with every great story, the climax had to have some drama.



Before the start of the trip, it was decided that the Bangalore group would return through Kotagiri-Mettupalayam-Sathy-Mettur-Thoppur-Krishnagiri-Bangalore route on the account that Kotagiri-Thoppur would be a nice 2 lane highway and from then on, it would be a fast 4 lane to Bangalore. On the D-day, it was put across that Kotagiri-Mettupalayam-Avinashi-Erode-Dharmapuri-Bangalore would be a better option since it was a 4-lane all the way and we could do higher speeds. But the downside was that it would be a dry, boring highway ride. It was then suggested that we do the same route as our onward journey except for Kanakapura Road as returning via Mysore Road and connecting to Tumkur Road via Maddur was better. The delay in breakfast was not helping matters, but most of the group agreed to the last option of returning via Mysore Road. Snehal_Sekhar decided to take the Erode route as it best suited his riding style and would be comfortable for the Baron as well.



With the routes sorted, the two groups left Kotagiri, promising to return soon. We encountered some traffic on the return leg but with good progress, managed to reach Mysore Road where we stopped for lunch. There was one last twist to be unfolded! At lunch, couple of us decided that we should return to Bangalore via Mysore Road itself and not take a detour in Maddur as that would add unnecessary distance. Again, the majority wasnt happy, after much debates and deliberations, the group stuck with each other for the sake of returning together. After wading through the famous Mysore Road traffic on a Sunday, we finally reached the Mysore-NICE junction where we bid goodbyes to each other and returned home.



Except for this anticlimax (It might sound a bit harsh but honestly, it wasnt all that bad. Im sure the group will agree that no matter how patient you are, Bangalore traffic does bring out the worst in us.) the overnighter was nothing short of amazing. It was a much needed shot in the arm to recuperate from our mundane, boring city life (ok, not Added_Flavor as he was fresh from his Bhutan ride!). I dont have anything valuable or exciting to add to Neil saars awesome epilogue, he has very nicely captured all our emotions. Until the next overnighter then, adios. After reading unk9jas awesome Bhutan travelogue, I was motivated enough to pen down our very own Kotagiri overnighter and I did volunteer as well (as has been pointed out)! But who was I kidding, when you have someone like neil.jericho in the group, it is but obvious that Neil saar (our version of Sir) does the write up and boy oh boy, what an amazing job he has done! It is hardly surprising though because Neil saar has always been good with words. Since he rode from Cochin to Kotagiri and wasnt part of the Bangalore leg, hes entrusted me to write our experience riding to Kotagiri and I hope to do at least half a good job. So here goes.The Bangalore group consisted of Bhp-ians Goandude, r_nairtvm, Snehal_Sekhar, Roomy and myself riding on the Friday with Added_Flavor joining us on Saturday. It was unanimously decided beforehand that we would take Kanakapura Road to get to Mysore-Ooty bypass and the rendezvous (RV) point was set at Kanakapura-NICE toll at 7am. Everyone except myself stayed far away from the RV point and had to leave an hour or so early to get to the RV point. I decided to take it easy as I was just 15mins away. Isnt it the case with any group ride that someone always comes in late, citing reasons like I got stuck in traffic, I woke up late etc.? Hence, I rode at a leisurely pace as I wanted to make it on dot, but I did manage to reach the RV point a good 10mins early. To my utter surprise, everyone was present already and waiting for me for a good 10mins! Clearly, all of us were super excited to ride to Kotagiri, wasting no further time, we got on the saddle and headed towards Mysore.Contrary to the suggestions, Kanakapura Road was a bliss to ride on with occasional bad/broken patches in between. Being a Friday, the traffic was less and in no time, we had reached the Mysore-Ooty bypass, where we took a stop to fuel up. My bikes OE battery is 6yrs old now and I was praying to god that it would last this trip but voila, after fueling up, the bike refused to start. Roomy came to my rescue, he helped me push start the bike (Roomy went on to become my official push-start mechanic for another 3-4 occasions during the trip with Neil pitching in one time. The sight of an RE owner pushing a Kawasaki was quite hilarious). The rest of the ride till Bandipur was uneventful and joyful considering the sparse traffic and good weather for company.Goandude and I were connected on the Sena and were chatting away for most of the ride. We entered Bandipur when Goandude tells me that hes got severe cramps and we must stop. I got worried, despite being a brilliant rider for his age, cramp attacks have always been his Achilles heel. My immediate reaction was to find a safe spot for the group to stop. I found one, stopped my bike (well, almost) and the very next moment had a slow speed spill! The bike was on the ground and I was standing besides it, wondering what had happened! There was loose gravel and pebbles on the side of the road, the front lost grip and I had to let go off the bike. A handful of cars passing by offered to help me out, but I was perfectly alright and politely asked them to carry on. In no time, my mates arrived and helped me get the bike up. My worst fears were before me and I was hoping that the damage was minimal. Thankfully, there was no damage, not even a scratch on the bike as the frame slider had taken all the brunt. Heaving a sigh of relief, I went to check on Goandude and it was encouraging to hear that he was feeling a lot better as well.So, all being well, we proceeded towards Ooty, taking the 36 hairpins which was very entertaining for most of us except for one hairpin bend where there was a huge pothole right in the middle of the turn, which gave all of us the shrills! The lunch break was at the famous Hyderabadi Biriyani House where Neil joined us. After the sumptuous meal, we proceeded towards the stay and retired for the day.Some random pictures -Time passed very soon, the fun trip was sadly coming towards its end and as with every great story, the climax had to have some drama.Before the start of the trip, it was decided that the Bangalore group would return through Kotagiri-Mettupalayam-Sathy-Mettur-Thoppur-Krishnagiri-Bangalore route on the account that Kotagiri-Thoppur would be a nice 2 lane highway and from then on, it would be a fast 4 lane to Bangalore. On the D-day, it was put across that Kotagiri-Mettupalayam-Avinashi-Erode-Dharmapuri-Bangalore would be a better option since it was a 4-lane all the way and we could do higher speeds. But the downside was that it would be a dry, boring highway ride. It was then suggested that we do the same route as our onward journey except for Kanakapura Road as returning via Mysore Road and connecting to Tumkur Road via Maddur was better. The delay in breakfast was not helping matters, but most of the group agreed to the last option of returning via Mysore Road. Snehal_Sekhar decided to take the Erode route as it best suited his riding style and would be comfortable for the Baron as well.With the routes sorted, the two groups left Kotagiri, promising to return soon. We encountered some traffic on the return leg but with good progress, managed to reach Mysore Road where we stopped for lunch. There was one last twist to be unfolded! At lunch, couple of us decided that we should return to Bangalore via Mysore Road itself and not take a detour in Maddur as that would add unnecessary distance. Again, the majority wasnt happy, after much debates and deliberations, the group stuck with each other for the sake of returning together. After wading through the famous Mysore Road traffic on a Sunday, we finally reached the Mysore-NICE junction where we bid goodbyes to each other and returned home.Except for this anticlimax (It might sound a bit harsh but honestly, it wasnt all that bad. Im sure the group will agree that no matter how patient you are, Bangalore traffic does bring out the worst in us.) the overnighter was nothing short of amazing. It was a much needed shot in the arm to recuperate from our mundane, boring city life (ok, not Added_Flavor as he was fresh from his Bhutan ride!). I dont have anything valuable or exciting to add to Neil saars awesome epilogue, he has very nicely captured all our emotions. Until the next overnighter then, adios. Last edited by Porschefire : 29th January 2019 at 07:28 .
Florida Department of Health reported 10,629 new COVID-19 cases statewide during the week of June 11-17, bringing the cumulative total since March 2020 to 2,310,881. Forty-three more people died, upping the death toll to 37,555.
Tahlequah, OK (74464)

Today

Mostly clear skies this evening. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Mostly clear skies this evening. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest, forcing widespread closure of schools, offices and prompting the U.S. Postal Service to take the rare step of suspending mail delivery to a wide swath of the region because of the cold.

Many normal activities shut down and residents huddled inside as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years. The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing.

Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to encourage the homeless to come off the streets in Chicago, where the forecast for Wednesday night called for temperatures as low as minus 21 degrees (negative 29 degrees Celsius), with wind chills to minus 40 (negative 40 degrees Celsius).

Major Chicago attractions including the Lincoln Park Zoo, Art Institute and Field Museum weren't opening Wednesday. Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

A wind chill of minus 25 (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming "overloaded," Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

"People don't want to be out there right now," said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

Detroit's outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 12 (negative 24 degrees Celsius), with wind chills dropping to minus 35 (negative 37 degrees Celsius).

At least four deaths were linked to the weather system Tuesday, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

A popular saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat ..." will stop the mail from being delivered. But extreme cold will on Wednesday.

The U.S. Postal Service said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of several Midwest states including North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

Hawaii native Charles Henry, 54, was staying at a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota, and said he was grateful to have a place to stay out of the cold.

"That wind chill out there is not even a joke," he said. "I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside."

Chicago was turning five buses into makeshift warming centers moving around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold.

"We're bringing the warming shelters to them, so they can stay near all of their stuff and still warm up," said Cristina Villarreal, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Family and Support Services.

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that "you're going to freeze or lose a limb," said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Hundreds of public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes Tuesday or planned to do so Wednesday.

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. The extreme cold was "a scary situation," because much of the housing is of poor quality, said Chris Fairbanks, energy assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

But it wasn't stopping one of America's most formidable endurance tests, however  the three-day Arrowhead 135 was going on as scheduled in northeastern Minnesota. Competitors can cover the race route by bicycle, cross-country skis or just running.

The cold is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole.A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase. That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.
MEXICO, N.Y. -- All tractor-trailers and commercial buses will be banned on Interstate 81 from Oswego County to the Canadian border this afternoon, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Due to hazardous weather conditions, the state issued the ban for I-81 from Route 104 in Mexico to the Canadian border beginning at noon.

Tractor-trailers and buses are also banned on the New York State Thruway from Rochester at Exit 46 to the Pennsylvania state line. The ban on the Thruway began at 8 p.m. Tuesday, according to the New York State Thruway Authority.

State police will be enforcing the ban by ticketing those that break the ban, the Thruway Authority said.

The area is expected to get heavy lake effect snow today.
ALBANY  The state Joint Commission on Public Ethics is suddenly undergoing some changes as a contentious vote looms on whether to investigate a former top aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Two newly appointed JCOPE members who had previously served as commissioners attended Tuesday's monthly meeting of the panel.

The former longtime chairman of JCOPE, Daniel Horwitz, who had a reputation as a staunch Cuomo loyalist, had left the commission in November 2016. But he has been reappointed by the governor to fill a vacant, rank-and-file commissioner's position.

Horwitz is a prominent attorney who had represented convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, and is also a commissioner on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The other new appointment is Gary Lavine, an attorney, who recently had not been reappointed by Cuomo  and was replaced in January instead by Bill Fisher.

Instead, Lavine has been reappointed to JCOPE by the state Senate Republicans  an intriguing move politically. The Senate GOP is now in the legislative minority and the opposition party to Cuomo, a Democrat, who had initially appointed Lavine to the panel.

Lavine was not re-appointed to JCOPE earlier this year by Cuomo, and had declined to answer questions after he left about how he may have voted on the Percoco matter.

JCOPE has 14 commissioners, six of whom are appointed by the governor.

By filing a recent appeal, JCOPE avoided  at least for now  taking a vote that had been ordered by a state Supreme Court justice in a ruling on a petition that challenged whether the panel needs to investigate Percoco's possible violation of the state Public Officer's Law. Initially, that vote had been expected to take place on Tuesday.

JCOPE had already avoided a 30-day, court-ordered deadline to take the vote in mid-January  by arguing that JCOPE might not be able to organize a meeting of its commissioners until Tuesday, which was its regularly scheduled meeting.

In a statement to the Times Union, state GOP chairman Ed Cox, one of the people who petitioned a court to force JCOPE's vote, said he believes the ethics panel's recently filed appeal is an indication that JCOPE was not acting in good faith when it asked to delay the vote until Tuesday.

"The ethics commission was, at best, unethical," Cox said. "At worst, they lied."

Cox and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Cuomo's 2018 opponent for governor, filed the lawsuit forcing JCOPE to vote on the Percoco matter. In December, state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McGrath had ruled in their favor, although not entirely. From the ruling, it's unclear if McGrath will require JCOPE to disclose the result of the vote to Cox and Molinaro.

During Percoco's corruption trial last year, a number of witnesses  including JCOPE Executive Director Seth Agata, Cuomo's former counsel  testified that Percoco had regularly used an office in Cuomo's government headquarters in Manhattan while managing Cuomo 's 2014 re-election campaign. Percoco's phone records, reviewed by the Times Union, also show he regularly used the government phone to make calls at a time when he was working for the campaign.

Cox and Molinaro also have asked JCOPE to investigate whether Cuomo and others knew of Percocos alleged illegal activities.

-- By Chris Bragg, Times Union, Albany
Graduation rates increased slightly across New York state in 2018  from 80.2 percent to 80.4 percent, according to records released today by the NYS Education Department.

The rate decreased slightly in the Syracuse City School District from 60.5 to 58.3 percent.

In the box below, search 2018 graduation rates at high schools across New York.

Compare 2016 and 2017 graduation rates.
Syracuse.com has updated its search of the latest residential and commercial real estate sales in Onondaga, Oswego, Cayuga and Madison counties.

Search all sales over the last three years

This weeks update includes five new Speedway stores in Cayuga County:

2 White Bridge Road, Fleming sold for $1.4 million.

1518 Clark Street Road, Aurelius, sold for $2.2 million.

1695 State Route 38, Moravia, sold for $1.3 million.

160 State St., Auburn, sold for $1.2 million.

3475 State Route 370, Cato, sold for $941,000.

Speedway has announced plans to buy 78 Express Mart stores in Upstate New York. The Ohio-based company is the nations second-largest company-owned and -operated convenience store chain.

Readers can search properties by place, price, school district or the names of the buyers and sellers for the last 3 years.

The records come from the New York State Office of Real Property Tax Services.

If you have a news tip about a sale, contact Michelle Breidenbach at mbreidenbach@syracuse.com.
SOLVAY, N.Y. -- Derek Baichi will fight you if youve got something bad to say about Solvay. Hell box you, or come after you in the parking lot. Hed die for the village of Solvay, he says, and hed kill if he had to.

Hes not serious. Or maybe he is. Its hard to tell where bravado begins or ends with Baichi, the brash, passionate, polarizing mayor of Solvay who refuses to bow to political correctness.

I dont have to kiss anyones a**, Baichi said in a recent interview at his office at village hall. Thats what I love about me: I dont need anything from anybody. You cant buy me. You cant control me. I aint afraid of anyone I fear no man. Want to box me? Ill box anyone right now. Want to come at me? Ill come after you in the parking lot.

Baichi, 38, is the youngest elected official in Solvay, which is home to about 6,300 people. He took office last year after defeating former mayor Ron Benedetti in 2017 by 116 votes. Hes one of just three Republicans on the board.

Hes a lifelong Solvay resident who says he ran for mayor to expose 20 years of political bull****." He was tired of everyone he grew up with moving out of the village and wants to once again make Solvay a community where people choose to live.

To that end, he spent most of his first year in office at war with his village board -- a group Baichi says was more cozy with his predecessor. His message to them is simple: Ill run the village how I want, which includes saying what I want, to whom I want. If you dont like it, too bad.

In meetings and on social media, he calls village trustees good old boys and has-beens. Cronies and clowns. Lame and uneducated. He says elected officials in Solvay and the Town of Geddes are only pursuing their own self-interest, while he works for the people.

He likens himself to Howard Stern, the shock jock with a penchant for pushing the boundaries of decency. He dismissed any stylistic comparison to Donald Trump, though he said he respects the hell out of our president.

His outlandish style has won him fanatic support from some locals, who tag along to board meetings and cheer him on. But hes found no common ground with the village board, which has stalled his efforts to dole out raises to certain village employees and blocked many of his mayoral appointments. Trustees appear exhausted and outraged by his quick-tongued insults and outbursts during public meetings.

One trustee, John Cregg, said Baichi is unwilling or unable to work with anybody and is driving the village crazy.

There is no working relationship, Cregg said. You cant trust him... Hes just abrasive. Its his way or the highway.

In an interview last week, Baichi said his only ally is his deputy mayor. The other five trustees are sourpusses who have had no success in their lives.

The sad reality of these guys is ... theyre cowards, he said, followed by a common refrain: And you can quote me on that."

Baichi claims his taunts are justified and that, behind the scenes, the trustees are nasty and sow rumors about him. They have refused or ignored his entreaties for peace, he said. His mother, he said, overheard a trustee at the grocery store calling Baichi a homosexual. He isnt -- he has a girlfriend and a cat, Jasper.

So if throwing insults at his colleagues seems disrespectful, he doesnt care. He feels theyre out to destroy him and to ruin Solvay. Vote me out if you dont like me, he says often.

At the end of the day, I can look my girlfriend in the eye, my parents in the eye, my friends in the eye and know Im doing a good job, he said. And if the rest of those guys dont like me, f*** 'em.

Baichi has developed a habit of recording frequent Facebook Live videos -- unscripted messages that are a roller coaster of unbridled optimism about the village and bombastic slams against the shadow government he says runs Solvay. He starts each with an exuberant welcome a la Robin Williams: Gooooooooddddddd moooorrrnninnggggg, Village of Solvayyyyyyyy! He announces photo contests, shouts out residents and shares news about events, like the Solvay Summer Festival he renewed last year.

In addition to those videos, hes begun live-streaming village board meetings. Its an effort, he said, to show the people what hes up against and expose his foes. Hes one of the only local mayors who brings a gavel to meetings, and he bangs it often, usually while quieting an opponent.

Hes developed nicknames for a handful of the trustees. He calls one Little Man." Another he calls Mr. Florida. Thats a reference to Dan Bellotti, a trustee who spends winter months in Florida and attends meetings via Skype. Baichi thinks thats nonsense, and that Bellotti shouldnt represent the village if hes not there.

For the record, I think this sucks, Baichi said while a staffer tried to adjust the Skype volume on a computer during a recent meeting. He later shouted at Bellotti, If you want to debate this, get your a** back from Florida!

Bellotti did not return a message seeking comment for this story.

In his day job, Baichi is an insurance adjuster for Kemper Insurance. He plays in a band called Heyday that does gigs at local bars and events. He said hes found lots of success in the stock market and described himself as a self-made man who doesnt need the mayors job or its income. He said he donates half of his mayoral salary to charity.

He doesnt like most politicians. They tend to dress the same, he said: Blue suit, brown shoes, pin on the lapel. He wears skinny jeans and Timberland boots and hes proud of it. On his desk at village hall is a winter hat with the word FLIRT written in glittery lettering.

I wear this at meetings just to piss people off," he said. Just to be different.

Correction: A previous version of this story said Baichi was the only Republican on the board. There are two other Republicans. The story has been corrected.
WASHNGTON  U.S. Rep. John Katko plans to hold four town hall meetings across Central New York in February to encourage a community discussion about the future of Interstate 81 in Syracuse.

Katko, R-Camillus, is among a handful of public officials who declined to take a position on any of the proposals that involve demolishing the existing 1.4-mile stretch of elevated highway through the heart of Syracuse.

The third-term congressman said he will seek federal funding for the I-81 replacement plan that receives support from the community.

The first of the four town hall meetings will be 6 p.m. Monday (Feb. 4) in Auburn. The public meeting will be in the Community Room at Cayuga Community College, 197 Franklin St.

The discussion will be moderated by Steve Lynch, Cayuga Countys director of planning and economic development.

The second meeting will be 10 a.m. Feb. 9 (a Saturday) at DeWitt Town Hall, 5400 Butternut Drive, DeWitt. Town Councilor Kerry Mannion will serve as moderator.

Katko also plans to hold Interstate 81 town hall meetings in Syracuse and Salina later in February. The dates have not been determined.

In 2017, Katko was among six members of Congress from Upstate New York who urged Gov. Andrew Cuomo not to rule out the option of replacing the I-81 viaduct with a tunnel, simply based on the estimated cost of $4 billion or more.

The state is considering three general options for replacing the aging highway  a new viaduct, a street-level community grid and a tunnel. A study due early this year could recommend one of the options.

Katko said he wants to give Central New Yorkers a chance to offer their opinions before the state makes its final decision.

Our community has a once-in-a-generation decision before us as we look to the future of Interstate 81, Katko said.

He invited representatives from the state Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration to attend the four public meetings. The federal government has typically provided up to 90 percent of the funding for such interstate highway projects.

Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Gov. Andrew Cuomo took at least $16.7 million in campaign contributions from limited liability companies before the state stopped them from abusing a loophole in campaign finance laws, according to a Syracuse.com analysis of campaign records.

Cuomo advocated for the new law and signed it last week. But while it lasted, he was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the loophole.

Cuomo, a Democrat, blamed previous failed attempts to close it on the Republican-led Senate, saying in a New York Times story, It is tantamount to political suicide for the Republican Party in this state because they believe it ends corporate money, and only union money would come into the system, which would help the Democrats.

Before last weeks change in the law, limited liability companies were treated like individuals. They could give up to $65,100 to a single statewide candidate in a four-year election cycle (up to a total of $150,000 per calendar year to all candidates and committees.)

The new law treats LLCs like other businesses. That means they are limited to a total $5,000 per year to all candidates and committees.

To make the situation even more wild, there is no limit to the number of limited liability companies a company can use to make donations. And their partners are difficult to track. The new law requires the donor to reveal the names of people with interests in the LLC.

Businesses create limited liability companies to protect the partners' personal assets from debt, lawsuits or other liabilities.

Glenwood Management is the most egregious example in recent years. Its a New York City real estate company at the center of the corruption cases against former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

An analysis by the good government group Common Cause found the company had given nearly $13 million to candidates and committees through at least 50 related limited liability companies.

The biggest abuser of the LLC loophole in Central New York was Cor Development, the real estate company whose partners were sentenced to federal jail time on corruption charges. Cor was the only bidder on a state project to build a $15 million film hub and a $90 million manufacturing facility in DeWitt. Prosecutors said the bid was tailored for Cor.

Cor-related limited liability companies contributed $152,500 to Cuomos campaign in addition to individual donations. The checks came in big amounts - $25,000 or $60,000 - enough to draw attention from prosecutors as they laid out a criminal case.

In the box below, search all LLC donations to Cuomos campaigns. Enter part of a name or search all LLCs in a town or state. Or just hit search to see all LLC donors ranked highest to lowest.
Ryan Crocker is a diplomat in residence at Princeton University and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.

By Ryan Crocker | The Washington Post

January 2002. I arrive in Kabul, Afghanistan, to reopen the U.S. Embassy. Destruction is everywhere. Kabul airport is closed, its runways cratered and littered with destroyed aircraft. The drive south from the military base at Bagram is through a wasteland. Nothing grows. No structures stand. In the city itself, entire blocks have been reduced to rubble, recalling images of Berlin in 1945.

More than two decades of almost constant war left a terrible legacy. The damage was not only to the physical infrastructure. The Afghan people had suffered enormously through the civil war that began in the late 1970s and the tyranny of the Taliban that followed. None had suffered more than Afghan women and girls.

After the U.S. invasion in October 2001 ousted the Taliban for harboring the al-Qaida planners of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the human toll from the Taliban rule is why the United States' initial assistance efforts focused on people rather than things.

I remember taking our first congressional visitor, Joe Biden, D-Del., who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to visit a girls school that we had helped to open. A first-grade class that Biden visited had students from 6 to 12. The older girls had reached school age when the Taliban was in power, so they had been denied an education. They weren't embarrassed now to be in a class with children half their age - they were just happy to be learning.

At the end of Taliban rule, about 900,000 children were in school, all of them boys. When I left Afghanistan as ambassador in 2012, there were 8 million students, 40 percent of them girls.

We also encouraged Afghan women to play their rightful roles in business, in the Legislature, elsewhere in government and in the military, and they did. The implicit message was that if you step forward, we've got your back. It was a time when American interests and American values were in harmony. I hosted receptions to recognize Afghan women of courage. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development, we funded efforts to establish shelters for women fleeing spousal or other familial abuse - a reminder that in Afghanistan's male-dominated society, it wasn't only the Taliban who threatened women's safety.

Now, the United States is negotiating directly with the Taliban. A framework agreement was announced on Monday calling for a cease-fire that could lead to the full withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Taliban would commit to not harboring terrorist organizations that could threaten U.S. security. In other words, the Taliban promised no 9/11 replay.

The framework was reached without the involvement of the Afghan government. The Taliban has said all along that it refuses to negotiate with the government, which it considers to be the illegitimate puppet of the U.S. occupation. By acceding to this Taliban demand, we have ourselves delegitimized the government we claim to support.

This current process bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War. Then, as now, it was clear that we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender. The Taliban will offer any number of commitments, knowing that when we are gone and the Taliban is back, we will have no means of enforcing any of them.

It does not have to go like this. The United States could announce that talks won't proceed beyond the framework, to matters of substance, without the full inclusion of the Afghan government. Right now, the inclusion of the Afghans is only theoretical. We could also note that unless some other solution is found, U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan as long as the current government wants them, protecting the United States' national security interests and defending core values, such as women's rights, that we have fostered there since 2001.

President Barack Obama proved in Iraq that America cannot end a war by withdrawing its forces - the battle space is simply left to our adversaries. In Afghanistan, President Donald Trump has a choice. He can follow Obama's example and leave the country to the Taliban, or he can make clear that the United States has interests, values and allies, and will stand behind them.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- A former bartender at the historic Marriott Syracuse Downtown alleges in a lawsuit that the hotel effectively stole tips by adding a mandatory service fee to customer bills and not giving the money to banquet workers.

Michael Russiffilli, who worked at the hotel as a banquet server and bartender from May 2016 to June 2017, alleges in the lawsuit that the hotel listed the fee as a service charge on menus and bills for all food and beverages served at weddings, corporate events and other events, creating the impression that the charge was a gratuity for service workers.

But the hotel did not distribute any of the fees collected to banquet servers, bartenders or captains, instead claiming it was an administration fee, not a gratuity, according to the lawsuit.

Further, defendants had a policy that failed to clearly identify that the mandatory charge was not a gratuity or tip, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, state labor law requires that a charge for the administration of a banquet or other special events be clearly identified as such and customers shall be notified that the charge is not a gratuity or tip."

The lawsuit demands restitution, plus interest and attorney fees, for unpaid wages and pay for the more than 40 current and former hourly banquet service workers it says were victimized by the hotels practice. It also seeks an injunction barring the hotel from continuing the practice.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, was filed Jan. 17 in state Supreme Court in Onondaga County against Crescent Hotels & Resorts, which manages the hotel for Marriott, and Crescents founder, president and CEO, Michael George.

Russiffilli is being represented by the Rochester law firm of Thomas & Solomon.

Todd Plouffe, the hotels general manager, said Wednesday he was aware a lawsuit has been filed but has not yet seen it. He said the company would be investigating the matter but could not comment further at this time.

Jessica Lukasiewicz, an attorney with the law firm representing Russiffilli, said banquet customers often will not tip servers when they see a service charge included in their bill.

Most people would think thats a tip, she said.

She said the firm does not yet know how much money the hotel collected as a service charge, but that settlements of similar lawsuits filed by the firm in western New York have exceeded $1 million. They include a $2.2 million settlement with the Rochester Convention Center Management Corp., a $1.8 million settlement with the Radisson Rochester Downtown and a $775,000 settlement with the Niagara Falls Conference Center.

Service workers at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown joined a union, UNITEHERE Local 150 AFL-CIO, in 2017. The unions first contract with the hotel took effect in February 2018.

Under the contract, the hourly wage for banquet service workers was lowered from $13.25 an hour to $7.50 an hour, but the hotel is now required to share a portion of the service charge with the employees, said union President Ann Marie Taliercio. Of the 22 percent service charge, the workers' share started out last year at half, or 11 percent, and will rise to 13.5 percent in July, she said. The hotel keeps the rest.

Before the contract was signed, the hotel kept all the service charge but considered the higher hourly wage to compensate the employees for the lack of tips, Taliercio said.

She said the union negotiated the change because it believes the workers are better off being paid a lower hourly wage but receiving gratuities in addition. The contract requires the hotel to show the union steward the bills that banquet customers pay, so the union now knows exactly how much workers are owed from the service charge, she said.

Its very common for restaurants and banquet facilities not to give the gratuity to the help, and nobody reports them," she said.

Lukasiewicz said the union contract does not free the hotel from its obligations under the law.

It all depends on whether the employer discloses in the event documents that they are keeping part of it, she said. A union contract does not change an employers obligation under the New York Labor Law.

The historic hotel opened as the Hotel Syracuse in 1924 and closed in 2004. Hotel developer Ed Riley acquired it in 2014 and reopened it in August 2016 as a full-service Marriott following an $82 million renovation. Neither Riley nor Marriott are named in the lawsuit.
Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse man maintained his innocence at sentencing today following a trial in which a judge allowed disputed gang testimony at the last minute.

Cyrell Haygood was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison by state Supreme Court Justice Gordon Cuffy for the shooting death of George Booker Jr. in June 2017 on East Kennedy Street. Prosecutor Joseph Coolican said the execution-style murder involved two strangers from warring gangs.

But Haygoods lawyer, Ed Klein, has long disputed his clients gang involvement. Without that, there appeared to be no connection between Haygood and Booker.

Both sides agreed that Haygood had facets of a normal life. Hed graduated Corcoran High School and was seeking a job. He had been hired by Sears at the time of the shooting, Klein said.

Klein argued the murder didnt make any sense, given Haygoods other life choices. In contrast, Coolican said the murder showed how even someone given opportunities such as Haygood couldnt escape the gang culture on the South Side.

For his part, Haygood said simply hed reserve his rights when asked if he had anything to say at sentencing.

Cyrell Haygood

The most noteworthy part of the case came in how gang testimony was allowed at trial. Cuffy, the judge, had been unwilling to commit to allowing such testimony before the trial began.

Prosecution witnesses spent hours detailing knowledge of the gang wars and a timeline showing Haygoods apparent ties to the gang Furman Fast Cash. The victim, Booker, had previously told police he was a member of the rival 1500 gang. The gangs' territories met at Onondaga Creek.

But Klein had argued that there was nothing more prejudicial in a gun-related murder than calling the accused shooter a gang member. He disputed Haygoods ties to a gang.

Cuffy still hadnt made up his mind by the time trial started in late October. That left assistant prosecutor Jordan McNamara telling the jury at the start he couldnt predict how the trial would turn out.

But during trial, prosecutors called a witness whose only apparent purpose was to link Haygood to a gang. When that witness took the stand, the judge allowed the gang testimony. It was the first time the jury had heard anything about gangs.

The trial quickly turned into a referendum on whether Haygood was, in fact, in a gang.

Its either a gang hit, and Cyrell did it, or it was something else, Klein told the jury during closing arguments.

Perhaps the most convincing gang testimony came from a prosecution gang expert. Investigator Tim Galanaugh testified that Haygoods iPhone account password ended in the numbers" 636.

Those three numbers, albeit out of order, refer to the placement of letters in the alphabet: two "F"s and a C, or Furman Fast Cash, Galanaugh testified.

The gang testimony -- in addition to other evidence -- convinced the jury, which found Haygood guilty in about two hours.

The courtroom was packed for todays sentencing, but no one spoke on behalf of Booker. Klein vowed to appeal.

Cuffy noted information submitted on behalf of Haygood. It was a compelling report, the judge said. Nevertheless, George Booker is dead.

With that, he sent Haygood to prison for 25 years to life.
PREBLE, N.Y. -- A man accused of driving drunk the wrong way on Interstate 81 in Preble has been identified.

Mackenzie Gustave, 39, of Chittenango, is accused of driving his Dodge pickup truck into another car in a head-on collision in Preble in December, according to New York State Police. Police at the time did not release the mans name; they released the name this week after inquiries from Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard.

Officers responded to a crash on Interstate 81 at 4:17 a.m. on Dec. 1, police said. Gustaves 2012 Dodge Ram hit a 2013 Nissan Rogue being driven by a 28-year-old Binghamton man, ,who was taken by ambulance to Upstate University Hospital for pelvic pain, police said.

Gustave was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, reckless driving and DWI. Hes also accused of driving without insurance, no headlights and a suspended registration, police said.
Foxconn is reconsidering its plans for a $10 billion manufacturing plant in Wisconsin, according to a new report.

Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou, tells Reuters that the Taiwanese company is scaling back its original proposal for a 20-million square foot campus and slowing its hiring process after originally promising 13,000 new U.S. jobs. Foxconn may even abandon plans altogether to make advanced liquid crystal display (LCD) panels as it now intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers.

Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple Inc., initially said it would employ 5,200 people by the end of 2020 but a company source told Reuters that its now likely to be closer to just 1,000 workers. Its unclear if or when the full 13,000 workers would be hired.

The Wisconsin project, the largest economic developing in the states history, was touted by President Donald Trump in a White House announcement in 2017. Trump campaigned on boosting U.S. manufacturing and jobs, and called the project a direct result of his election win.

If I didnt get elected, he definitely would not be spending $10 billion, Trump said of Gou. We are going to have some very, very magnificent decades.

The project was initially supposed to create 3,000 jobs and hire 13,000 over time. But according to Bloomberg, Foxconn already lost some tax incentives last year after falling well short of its hiring goals.

Given global economic conditions and the trade tensions between China and the U.S., we have to be responsible to our employees and customers, and its impossible that we can always stay committed to our original plan without any change, Woo said. There is no scrapping of our plans. We are upholding our commitment to Wisconsin.

However, Woo cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high. We cant compete, he told Reuters.

As a result, Foxconn is reportedly pursuing a technology hub in Wisconsin that would largely consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations, and production of specialized tech products for industrial, healthcare, and professional applications.

In Wisconsin were not building a factory. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment, Woo told Reuters.
Classes run Feb. 14-May 9, and meet at various locations in order to highlight the locations where the groups will be doing service hours. The Holston Rivers Chapter first class begins at 6 p.m. at the Southwest Virginia Higher Ed Center in Abingdon. Other class locations will include Hungry Mother State Park, Emory & Henry College, Buller Fish Hatchery, Steel Creek Park, Sugar Hollow Park and Natural Tunnel State Park.

Since we are beginning on Feb. 14, our motto is show your love for nature, put your heart into it, said Hoel. Its a great opportunity to meet knowledgeable people, ask questions and learn things, walk with naturalists, ask questions and hear stories. Everybody in this group is amazing in sharing their knowledge.

Hoel likes to tell the story of Charlie Sturgill, who took the class in his 70s. A volunteer in many capacities for many years, Sturgill told her he took the program because he wanted to learn more about nature. She said he told her about growing up in Saltville and the ongoing myth that the hellbender salamander ate all the fish in the river and the only way to kill it was to nail it to a tree. She said he recalled years of traveling along the river and seeing hellbenders nailed to trees.
This meeting about the trailhead will hopefully be an incentive for the community to become more active about the Salt Trail and to reassure the public that we are working to continue this project as best as we possibly can, she said. Im extremely happy to see progress on something that was started and got stalled for a while. We havent given up on it, and we really are hoping to see this through.

Following the meeting, members of CDAC returned to campus in Blacksburg, where they will make changes to the plans based on the conversations. A return visit is planned for February to unveil the final design to the public, after which it will be up to the town to take the next steps to begin the project.

When that happens, we can start approaching contractors for bids to see exactly what the costs will be. We may not be able to complete the entire project within the first budget year, but we can break it into phases as we go along, said Lloyd.

Were always looking for people who want to donate either their money or their time.

Designs presented at last weeks meeting can be viewed at the Glade Spring Town Hall. Learn the date of the next public meeting by following the Facebook page for the Town of Glade Spring, Virginia.

Carolyn R. Wilson is a freelance writer in Glade Spring, Virginia. Contact her at news@washconews.com.
ABINGDON, Va.  A federal judge on Tuesday said its disturbing that surveillance camera video believed to show a Taser incident at Bristols Cabelas store  which resulted in a lawsuit  is missing, and he speculated that someone at the company may have deep-sixed it.

A $700,000 federal lawsuit was filed by Chris Blevins Jr. against the Bristol Cabelas store and two officers, Wendy Brewer and Patricia Eller, with the Bristol Virginia Police Department. The officers were off duty and working security at the store on Black Friday 2017, when Blevins was stunned by Brewer after being falsely accused of shoplifting at Cabelas.

The lawsuit contends that he was falsely imprisoned and excessive force was used. It also accuses the officers of defamation and violation of his constitutional rights.

Attorneys for all involved gathered on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Abingdon to argue before Judge James P. Jones on a number of motions, including requests for summary judgment, which would have settled the case without a trial. The lawsuit is set for a jury trial on March 4.

While Jones did not immediately rule on the motions, he did express concern about the missing video from a surveillance camera outside the store. Jones said he suspects that someone at Cabelas deep-sixed the video.
BRISTOL, Va.  Backers of the proposed Virginia Business College hope to receive preliminary state approval in March.

Last June, U.S. Magis International, the Chinese-based owners of the former Virginia Intermont College campus in Bristol, applied with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to establish and operate a private business college. On Friday, college President Randall Blevins said the council is expected to review the plan at its March 18 meeting.

We still dont have the provisional acceptance, but were supposed to get that on March 18, Blevins said. Were hoping everything will come together. They [council] dont have any issues with our paperwork, its just a process.

Council spokeswoman Laura Osberger confirmed it is expected to appear on the agenda.

The Virginia Business College application requires additional information. The goal is to place it on the March 18-19 Council agenda for provisional certification, assuming all of the application requirements have been met by that time, Osberger wrote in an email to reporters.

The proposed schools intent to operate document filed with the council outlines how it would operate as a not-for-profit corporation.

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Virginia residents will notice a newly redesigned sticker when they go for their annual vehicle inspections.

The new design was rolled out Jan. 1 by the Virginia State Police Safety Division. The changes included reducing the height of the sticker from 2.75 inches to 2 inches and from 4 inches in length to 3 inches, according to a news release from VSP. The month of expiration has been enlarged for better visibility.

The change in size is in response to the feedback State Police received from Virginians following the stickers relocation to the bottom left corner of the windshield in 2018, said Capt. R.C. Maxey Jr., VSP safety division commander, in the release. We heard from a number of motorists who had difficulty seeing around the sticker, so we worked to reduce its size to slightly smaller than the average credit card.

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In addition, the expiration year is now permanently affixed to the right side of the sticker, according to the release. The only insert will be the month of expiration. The change in size and design does not apply to motorcycle or trailer safety inspection stickers.

Vehicle rejection stickers will remain unchanged. Security features have been changed to prevent and discourage removal, tampering and counterfeiting, the release states.
The referendums on casino gaming are going to go ahead of regardless of what the results of any study are going to be, and it makes no sense to me for us to make a very significant policy decision and have a study that is just eyewash, Norment said.
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Taking place in five destinations  St. Moritz, Kitzbuhel, Ortisei and Selva in the Dolomites, Baqueira and Andorra in the Pyrenees  these winter events offer Maserati enthusiasts the chance to participate in a range of exhilarating test drives and displays

This year they are also able to sample the dynamic qualities of the renewed MY19 range, billed as the most complete and sophisticated ever, with its new gear lever, high-tech new contents and driver assistance systems, including IVC (Integrated Vehicle Control) now offered as standard across the range.

Maserati guests and St. Moritz visitors faced sub-zero temperatures on the frozen lake, but were rewarded with an action-packed weekend which included a snow-driving experience and adrenaline-fuelled high goal polo matches.

Maseratis presence in the Polo Village was one of the highlights of the weekend, thanks to the presentation of the new limited edition Maserati Levante Vulcano, produced in just 150 units for the European and Asian markets.

The full Maserati MY19 model range was also available to test drive on demanding mountain routes, in total safety thanks to the experience of professional drivers from the Maserati Master Driving Academy.

St. Moritz residents and visitors will continue to enjoy Maseratis presence thanks to the brands flagship showroom located in central Via Maestra which is open all year round.

Visitors to the showroom can immerse themselves in the world of Maserati and get to know its products and experience first-hand the craftsmanship of the Italian luxury car brand.
Bertha "Bert" Mueller sets chocolate balls to cool after dipping the fondant in warm chocolate. She makes her Mueller's Fine Chocolates twice a year, for Christmas and for Valentines Day.

LINCOLN  NET's newest television documentary "Nebraska: The Chocolate Life" is a decadent journey about the sweets we love. It premieres on NET, Nebraska's PBS & NPR Stations, at 8 p.m. CT on Friday, Feb. 8.

For most of its history, chocolate was consumed as a bitter beverage, but with the addition of cane sugar, it became a celebrated confection. "Nebraska: The Chocolate Life" traces the history of chocolate, follows its journey from pod to package and takes viewers across the state to meet passionate chefs and creative craftsmen who put their signature stamp on this ancient treat.

The documentary visits chocolate makers and chocolate lovers in several communities in Nebraska, and Kansas City, Mo.

In Sidney, viewers meet a chocolate making duo offering their signature sweets just twice a year  on Valentine's Day and Christmas. At Mueller's Fine Chocolates, fondant made by Bertha Mueller and her daughter Pam Uhl, comes in as many as 60 different flavors. For just the cost of postage, the company mails its chocolates to fans in the U.S. and around the world.

Bertha "Bert" Mueller has been making chocolates for years. It started as a family event and developed from there. She was taught the recipes and continues making the candies. At first, the chocolates were made as gifts. By now, it is known as Mueller's Fine Chocolates, produced twice a year.

The making of chocolates evolved from just something she did for her family to gifts for friends and neighbors, then to a home craft business about 12 years ago when her husband died. She started making and selling chocolates then.

The recipe, which includes specific heating and cooling stages, was given to her by her cousin about 30 years ago. The recipe is shared with her immediate family, including her daughter Pam. It is often a mother-daughter project.

She said they usually make 30 batches, 90 balls and the fudge. She added there are at least 60 different flavors.

In Greenwood, Kevin Baker started Baker's Candies in 1986, and it is now a family-run operation. In 2017, the company produced as much as 400,000 pounds of chocolate, resulting in at least 30 million of its famous meltaway candies.

At the Mill Coffee and Tea in Lincoln, Shinya Takahashi, associate professor of nutrition and health science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, sells Nama Choco chocolates he prepares in a special kitchen in his mother-in-law's basement. The Japanese treats are a way for Takahashi to bring a taste of home to family and friends in Nebraska, especially for the Valentine's Day holiday.

Also in Lincoln, explore the city's fascinating chocolate history with historian Ed Zimmer and longtime Russell Stover employee Margaret Lehl. The two share stories about the former Russell Stover factory in the Haymarket.

At Christopher Elbow Chocolates in Kansas City, Mo., viewers can see hand-painted and airbrushed chocolates that often take days to make. Now a premiere chocolatier who creates bonbons and truffles, Christopher Elbow has a degree in restaurant and business management from UNL. During several short segments of the documentary, he discusses the ancient history of chocolate and shares the basics of growing, producing and storing it.

Susie Robison of Tekamah started her love affair with chocolate as a single mother making and selling candles with her kids. Today, she's expanded her business to include a floral shop, boutique, restaurant, bakery and Serendipity Chocolates. Robison describes how she makes all of her chocolates with real cream, real butter and "real love."

Cup of Coa is a luxury hot chocolate, made with all natural ingredients. It's produced in Nebraska and hand-packed in Kearney at Barista's Daily Grind. Business owner Jasmin McGinnis explains that she keeps the recipe for the tasty hot chocolate mix under wraps, while her non-coffee drinking customers appreciate it being on the menu.

Melissa Stephens of Omaha explains how she went from making handmade chocolate cherries to pay for her doctorate degree to having her store, The Cordial Cherry, garnering attention from Oprah Winfrey and NBC's "Today Show." Stephens has designed more than 200 cordials, including her favorite, the snowman.

In addition to stories about chocolate concoctions across the state, "Nebraska: The Chocolate Life" explores how chocolate brings people together. In Columbus, chocolate inspired author Deb Burma wrote the women's Bible study "Living a Chocolate Life," and developed a themed event, using recipes and chocolate as a way to "break down walls."

On radio Thursday, Feb. 7 and Friday, Feb. 8, NET will explore more about the decadent story of chocolate, plus offer gifts to share with those you care about, including cordial cherries, flowers, DVDs of "Nebraska: The Chocolate Life" and tickets to a sweet chocolate tasting event on Saturday, April 27, at Course Restaurant on the Lincoln campus of Southeast Community College.

"Nebraska: The Chocolate Life" repeats at 3 p.m. CT on Saturday, Feb. 9 and 6:30 p.m. CT on Sunday, Feb. 10 on NET.
Pictured from left are Siona Kshirsagar and Aadhay Krishna. Krishna won the Cheyenne County Spelling Bee Thursday and Kshirsagar finished second. Krishna is invited to participate in the State Spelling Bee in Omaha.

Twenty-nine spellers and nearly as many rounds were needed for Cheyenne County schools to decide the two best spellers Thursday.

West Elementary School again played host for the Cheyenne County Spelling Bee. Contestants represented Potter-Dix, Leyton, Sidney Middle School and West and North Elementary Schools. After 26 rounds of spelling, the top academic was decided.

Words varied from the simple to the abstract and complicated. Some of the words were complicated because the phonetics, the sound of the words, were misleading the spelling. For example, is the correct spelling con, conn, cahn or kahn? The decision effectively decided first place. The final word sounded simple, but sounds and spellings don't always match. However, he is an experienced speller, having competed last year as well.

This year's winner, Aadhav Krishna of West Elementary, rose one position from 2018. Last year he took second place to Meghana Nakkati of Sidney Middle School. Krishna took first place with Sidney Middle School seventh grader Siona Kshirsagar coming in second.

The winning word this year was mole. It is not the spot on your arm, or the animal that digs in the field. It is a dark sauce known in Mexican dishes that can vary from sweet to spicy.

Krishna will be representing Cheyenne County at the Nebraska State Spelling in Omaha. Event organizers are expecting nearly 80 students to compete in the Omaha World-Herald Midwest Spelling Bee. The Midwest Spelling Bee is expected to be held in March. No date has been announced yet.

The students earn the right to compete in the Omaha World-Herald Midwest Spelling Bee by winning their county or district bees. The winner of the Omaha World-Herald Midwest Spelling Bee receives an all-expenses-paid trip to compete against champion spellers nationwide in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
Click the image above to watch the video

In todays weather forecast we are expecting a fine day apart from morning and evening cloud. Also light winds.

Its a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 25 and an overnight low of 18 degrees. Humidity is 91 per cent.

Low tide is at 10.10am and high tide at 4.10pm (Tay St). Theres a sea swell of 0.5m and sea temperature is 21 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 8.26pm.

If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 8.30 and 10.30am.

On this day in NZ history in 1921 New Zealand's first regular airmail service began. Piloted by Captain Euan Dickson, the first flight of the Canterbury Aviation Companys new airmail service left Christchurch at 8am, carrying several hundred letters to Ashburton and Timaru into the teeth of a south-westerly gale.

On this day in world history in 1606 Guy Fawkes was hanged for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up Parliament.

In 1835 a man with two pistols misfired at President Andrew Jackson at the White House. In 1865 the US House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

In 1943 the Battle of Stalingrad ended as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army surrendered to the victorious Red Army forces.

Today is the birthday of Benjamin Hooks, civil rights leader. Born in 1925, he once said The most enduring contributions made to civilization have not been made by brawn, they have been made by brain.

To get involved in activities around the Bay of Plenty, please check out our Whats on page.

Have a great day!
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By killing the resolution in committee, the vast majority of the Houses GOP delegates wont have to cast a floor vote. That benefits those up for re-election in moderate districts: If they voted yes on the Equal Rights Amendment, they would be going against party leadership. But if they voted no, that vote could be used against them in this years campaigns.
Spectators check out the Star Wars-themed house decoration Oct. 13, 2017, during the annual Walkaround, which is part of Oklahoma State Universitys homecoming festivities. OSU's Kappa Sigma chapter has decided to not participate in the house decorating for the 2019-20 school year.
by Austin Bay January 29, 2019

During a Jan. 28 White House press briefing addressing U.S. economic sanctions imposed on Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro's regime, reporters noticed national security adviser John Bolton idly clasping at his side a notepad containing the handwritten phrase: "5,000 troops to Colombia."

Reuters reported it was "not clear if disclosure of the notes was intentional, and there was no indication that such a military option would be used any time soon."

Bolton, regarded as a Washington interventionist, didn't threaten American military action anywhere much less demand intervention in South America.

In fact, the briefing's central subject was the application of what many commentators would call "soft power" options for dealing with Venezuela's mess.

The options included economic sanctions to penalize and pressure Maduro and his thugs and coordinated diplomatic action by the U.S., its allies and other nations who support Venezuelan freedom. One of the coordinated actions is stripping Maduro of personal political legitimacy. With every passing day, more nations express their support for freedom by declaring Maduro's regime illegitimate and formally recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president and legitimate head of state.

The brief phrase jotted on Bolton's yellow pad, however, riveted international attention.

Which is precisely what it was supposed to do. Perhaps a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case eyewitness press accounts and camera video of paper shuffling, nonchalant paper clutching and four words on a tablet were a quiet, succinct and plausibly deniable form of saber-rattling.

The White House intentionally avoided bombastic war rhetoric. However, later on Jan. 28, another White House spokesman did remind reporters, "As the president has said, all options are on the table."

Yet the soft shoe military subtlety has a role in this coordinated foreign policy operation that is on-going and is far from resolved.

Venezuela's opposition is vulnerable to physical attack and violent repressions. Maduro, like his mentor, deceased dictator Hugo Chavez, runs a brutal, kleptocratic socialist regime that uses starvation and violence to maintain control. If Maduro's thugs start shooting en masse, the opposition has few "guns on the ground."

Military action anywhere is a last resort; however, as part of a power cocktail of diplomacy, information and economic operations, it as an absolutely important element and Maduro's case a necessary reminder.

Maduro, his henchmen and his international supporters need to know the military element of American and allied national power exists, is potent and could be brought to bear.

The Pentagon (and other U.S. agencies) use the acronym DIME as verbal coin for the four basic elements of national power: diplomatic, information, military and economic.

As I point out in "Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century" (Bombardier Books, 2018), DIME has expanded to DIMEFILCH, with FILCH meaning: financial, intelligence, legal (law enforcement), cultural and humanitarian capabilities."

Chuckle at the acronym, but also pay attention. The Trump administration's Venezuela effort employs diplomacy, information, military, economic, financial, intelligence, legal and humanitarian capabilities. Cultural? Maybe, maybe not.

An example of humanitarian power was the fall 2018 deployment of a U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort to a Colombian port near a refugee camp housing several thousand Venezuelans. President Donald Trump personally mentioned the ship's mission and said, "We're going to take care of Venezuela." Yes, it's a military vessel, but a hospital ship, not a warship.

No hospital can cure Venezuela's critical illnesses: criminal governance, corruption, regime violence and socialist economics. Instead, diplomacy and economics should take precedence: the diplomatic battle for government legitimacy -- Guiado or Maduro? -- and the economic battle for control of Venezuelan oil revenues and financial resources.
South Korea is making a comeback in shipbuilding, an industry is led until 2012 when it was overtaken by China. But in 2018 South Korean firms surpassed China in new orders. This was mainly because South Korean shipbuilders are seen as leaders in the construction of more complex transports, in particular, LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) vessels, which transport refrigerated (enough to turn natural gas to a more compact liquid) natural gas. Demand for LNG ships is driven by the growing output of natural gas in the United States and Canada (as a result of improved extraction methods, mainly fracking). The North American natural gas market is saturated and American and Canadian producers can afford to lower prices enough to export via LNG carriers. Europe is eager for LNG because the current major supplier (via pipeline) is Russia and Russia is seen more of a danger than a reliable economic partner. Another form of unique ship construction that South Korea has excelled at is off-shore oil exploration and drilling vessels and structures. The offshore platforms are built in shipyards and are mobile (via towing at slow speeds from one work site to another).

China continues to lead the global shipbuilding industry overall because of their lower prices and gradual improvements in quality. Chinese prices are not as low as they used to be because a growing labor shortage has driven wages up. Long term China can learn to compete on quality but that is not something that can be achieved quickly (like cutting prices.) When it comes to moving LNG or offshore drilling for oil, buyers tend to go with the most reliable shipbuilders, even if it costs a bit more. Moreover, Chinese shipyards have some unique financing and management problems that may get a lot worse.

In 2012 South Korea lost its decade long battle with China to retain its lead in shipbuilding. Because of a five year depression in the world market for shipping, South Korean ship exports fell 30 percent in 2012, to $37.8 billion. China, helped by government subsidies, saw ship exports fall only 10.3 percent, leaving China with $39.2 billion in export sales. The Chinese government has also been giving its shipbuilders lots of new orders for warships, which made its yards more profitable and better able to beat South Korea on price. The Chinese government also provides its shipbuilders with more loans, allowing the builders to offer better credit terms to customers. South Korea was still ahead of China in total orders for ships but that lead was being lost as well as in 2011 South Korea had 35 percent of these orders versus 33.3 percent for China.

China has been helping its shipyards since the late 1990s, and that has enabled Chinese shipbuilders to gradually catch up to South Korea and Japan. In 2009, sooner than anyone expected, that China surpassed South Korea as the world's largest shipbuilder in terms of tonnage. In late 2009, Chinese yards had orders for 54.96 million CGT of ships, compared to 53.63 million CGT for South Korea. Thus China had 34.7 percent of the world market. In 2000, South Korea took the lead from Japan by having the largest share of the world shipbuilding market.

The terms used to measure commercial ship size can be confusing but they serve a purpose. CGT stands for Compensated Gross Tons. This is a new standard for measuring shipyard effort. Gross tons has long been used as a measure of the volume within a ship. CGT expands on this by adding adjustments for the complexity of the ship design. Thus a chemical tanker would end up with a value four times that of a container ship. China is producing far more ships, in terms of tonnage of steel and internal volume, than South Korea, mainly because a much larger portion of Chinese ships are simpler designs. South Korea has, over the years, pioneered the design and construction of more complex ships (chemical and LNG carriers).

Note that deadweight tons measure the actual weight of everything carried in the ship, including supplies, miscellaneous equipment, fuel, and even crew, expressed in long (metric) tons. As a rule for every 1,500 deadweight tons, a cargo ship could carry about 1,775 measurement tons. Warship tonnage is measured differently, in terms of "displacement tons." Each cubic meter (35 cubic feet) of sea water displaced by the vessel is a "displacement ton." As that volume of seawater actually weighs approximately one long ton, displacement gives a rough indication of the actual weight of the vessel.

China has invested a lot of money and effort into expanding its merchant shipbuilding industry, as a way to improve its warship building capability. In 2006 China produced about a quarter of the world's merchant shipping, while South Korea was in first place, producing about a third. It was then believed that China would take first place in the next 5-10 years.

The big thing holding China back in the warship building area has been the shortage of skilled personnel. By encouraging merchant shipbuilding, the government creates experienced shipbuilders for the more complex task of building warships. In most cases, merchant ships are larger than warships and much less complex. For example, a common type of merchant ship is the VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) of 300,000 deadweight tons (DWT). This is the largest size tanker that can use the Straits of Malacca to carry oil from the Persian Gulf to East Asia. These ships haul over two million barrels (about 290,000 tons) of oil per trip. These ships are larger than the biggest American aircraft carriers (like the Nimitz class that are 110,000 tons displacement and nearly 354 meters/1,100 feet long).

The major difference between merchant vessels and warships is what equipment they have. Merchant ships are quite basic and plain. A 300,000 DWT VLCC is about the same size as a Nimitz class carrier but costs much less to build ($130 million for the VLCC versus over $4 billion for the carrier). Actually, it costs more to run a carrier for one year than the VLCC costs to build. Part of that has to do with crew size, with the carrier having a hundred sailors for everyone needed to run the VLCC. A VLCC is highly automated and the crew size in under fifty sailors and officers.

By building all those merchant vessels China has acquired the ability to build the basic warship hull. Where it has big problems is in creating the complex electronics, mechanical systems, and weapons needed to make a warship work. China is making progress there as well, but not nearly as much as it has in the shipbuilding area.

China grabbed the lead in market share for commercial shipping partly because it became more difficult for South Korean builders to expand. There were more restrictions on land use in South Korea, in addition to higher labor costs. South Korean builders, seeing that they could not match the expansion of Chinese shipyards, expended more effort on building more complex, and expensive, ships. Japan was following a similar path when it lost the lead to South Korea a decade before China grabbed it. China also gained more market share by offering generous loan terms to foreign buyers of Chinese ships and cheap loans for their own shipbuilders.
Hamptons new distracted driving ordinance wont be on the books officially until July, but members of the local NAACP chapter already say it could be a potential issue. Passed Jan. 9 without discussion, the Hampton City Council revisited its new ordinance last week to provide clarity as to what it would mean for drivers.
Flat earth, 9/11 inside job, and the Kennedy assassination cover-up. These are just some of the conspiracy theories that YouTube will baby proof going forward, hiding such content from users as if they were not cognitively thinking adults capable of making rational decisions.

This month, disgraced Buzzfeed performed yet another astonishing feat of shoddy, agenda-driven journalism by reporting that it took just nine mouse clicks on YouTube to go from a PBS report on the 116th Congress to a video entitled A Day in the Life of an Arizona Rancher, produced by a Washington immigration reform group known as The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

The video that so enraged Buzzfeed details the story of Richard Humphries, an Arizona resident and former narcotics officer living just miles from the US-Mexico border. Humphries, increasingly concerned with the number of illegals traversing his 75-acre ranch, built a watchtower on his sprawling property to help him and federal border agents track illegal aliens. Considering the extremist nature of the content, is it any surprise that the CIS was branded in 2016 a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a group itself that has been portrayed as touting a leftist agenda, yet is quietly partnering with YouTube to flag hate content?

The Buzzfeed article took exception with many other right-wing videos that had the audacity to rear their racist heads in YouTubes auto-select function. One of those channels is called PragerU, which hosts popular liberal bugbears, including Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, James Damore and Charlie Kirk. The channel, which filed a lawsuit to stop Google and YouTube from illegally censoring its educational videos and discriminating against its right to freedom of speech, operates on the principle of providing knowledge and clarity on lifes biggest and most interesting topics ranging from history and economics to science and happiness.

Sounds pretty radical, yes? Well, only if you happen to be situated on the left of the political spectrum, as the overwhelming bulk of the IT undoubtedly is. Then yes, all that free right-wing speech may seem radical and worth tweaking the almighty algorithm to ensure they never see the light of day. Never mind that the original YouTube algorithm was built on a market-driven principle where the most popular videos shot to the top in the feeds, a phenomenon that presented a direct threat to the mainstream media message. Given the Lefts hot embrace of Cultural Marxist principles, it shouldnt come as any surprise that Silicon Valley shuns the free market when it works against its own interests.

Now YouTube, obeying the Buzzfeed dog whistle, has pledged to turn the screws even more on conspiratorial (i.e. right-wing) creators by taking a closer look at how the Up Next videos that autoplay after each video ends can lead viewers astray into the dense field of conspiracy-theory, pockmarked as it is with rabbit holes of various sizes and shapes.

Google announced it will begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful wayssuch as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.

Although Google said the changes will not affect whether a video is available on YouTube, judging by the personal experience of several popular YouTube commentators, for example, Mark Dice, the new algorithm is so effective that even when the exact title of one of his controversial videos is entered into the channels search field it will not yield the correct result.

The New York Times reported on this latest crackdown against social media creators by saying YouTube and other communication platforms have faced rising criticism for failing to police the content that creators share.

That is an extremely disconcerting comment when it is considered that we are not talking about hate speech, but rather ideas that have not been awarded the stamp of approval by both the government and the mainstream media. Yet it is the media  the hallowed Fourth Estate  that was originally designed to keep government in check on behalf of the people. The mainstream media, due to its incestuous relationship with Corporate America has failed dramatically on that score. Now we find the two agencies closely aligned in not only promulgating a particular narrative on every major story that surfaces, but cracking down on those alternative voices that would dare suggest a different version of events.

The number of YouTube commentators that have been purged from the video platform is simply staggering, and reveals the true nature of American democracy, which is more concerned with fortifying the status quo than bothering itself with truth and justice.

Tragically, the American Founding Fathers, when they were setting down the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which has been in force since December 15, 1791, could not have foreseen the development of two major obstacles that would greatly offset their freedom-loving legislation.

The first is the advancement of powerful private corporations, which fly under the radar of the First Amendment. This would have tremendous implications on free speech since corporations, which have largely cornered the market on all communications, are free to establish their own rules with regards to what they want their customers to see and hear. They are powerful enough to tell their customers if you dont like our policies, you dont have to use our services, while knowing full well that there are not many alternative options. And since the major IT companies all tend to hold neo-Liberal political views, it is their vision of the world that is being pushed to the forefront.

Meanwhile, and this leads us to the second obstacle to free speech, an increasing number of voices from the political right are being smeared and silenced on the pretext of promoting conspiracy theories. It should be kept in mind that no police detective worth his or her salt would stop following a particular lead in a case for fear of being branded a conspiracy theorist. Indeed, the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes would not have been able to solve a single crime had he been accused of being a conspiracy theorist by his colleagues, many of whom could not follow his subtle train of thought.

In closing, allow me to just reproduce, for those who have forgotten its essence, the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When will corporations be forced to live up to the law of the land, especially considering they have in many cases become an actual arm of the government?
The dark cloud hanging over the Russian media right now has for the first time in many years shifted away from the Donbass/Ukraine all the way to the other side of the nation as Russian and Japanese diplomats work to finally end WWII. Yes, although it is very hard to believe, a formal end to the war between these two great nations has never been made. But the question is why?. Why after 70 some years is it now time to negotiate? And is this really Japan acting in its own self interest or is this formally occupied nation wheeling and dealing for Washingtons interests?

The key factor in the negotiations as portrayed by the media are the southern Kuril Islands, which the Japanese acquired from an agreement with the Russian Empire in 1855. The Soviet Union however took the islands back near the end of WWII. The fate of the islands today and the lack of any sort of formal end to the conflict between Japan and the Soviet Union is very much linked to the last months of the largest war in human history.

Although it is often unmentioned in the West, the Soviet Union as part of its allied obligations pulled its forces east after the German capitulation and was able to utterly crush all Japanese forces in Manchuria within 11 days. The Red Army also managed to liberate the entire southern half of the massive Sakhalin Island in roughly two weeks.

After its capitulation and subsequent US occupation Japan was no longer really any sort of actor on the international stage. The power in Tokyo immediately became American at the moment of their surrender. This means that the actual negotiations would in reality be between the occupying US standing behind a weakening provisional government and the Soviet Union.

As part of some sort of official surrender the losing side usually has to sacrifice territory wealth, etc. in order to close the deal. Countries that lose wars, lose territory; Turkey, Austro-Hungary and Germany after WWI and Russia after it dropped out of said war are good examples.

So how could the US, who lost a lot of men and machine to take Japan, who had the atomic advantage, somehow sign a deal with the Communists that would give away a good chunk of the spoils of war? The US couldnt do this and so Japan didnt make any formal end to the war with Russia. Thus, nothing could be given to the Soviets for their victory.

Japan now is in exactly the same status as a non-actor as it was the day it surrendered to the United States. The nation is still under the bureaucratic yoke of the General MacArthur written/supervised constitution and is occupied by the United States with 50,000+ American soldiers on the small nation.

However, slowly over time, Japan has been trying to restore its sovereignty especially militarily. They have returned their marine corps for the first time since WWII (albeit in small numbers). They have also used amphibious vehicles on foreign soil for the first time since their big loss in the big war. This is important to note because like aircraft carriers, amphibious landing craft are for use on offense only. Japan is bound by its constitution to have only a small Defense Force. Strategically speaking you dont need to make an amphibious assault on your own territory nor they detour enemy forces from attacking. There have also been numerous protests against US military bases being in Japan. So although Japan is exactly the same now as it was in 1946 on paper (roughly) the reality of the sovereignty of the nation is a much more grey picture. Recently Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Japan must stop trying to include the US in peace talks with Moscow and must abandon its territorial claims if its to make any progress. If he was speaking literally this implies that Japan is actually a sovereign but weak actor trying to use the United States for an advantage. However, as we have discussed, despite the progress towards sovereignty Japan has made it may just be easier for Russia to negotiate directly with Washington regarding Japan without the Tokyo middlemen because any agreement made with Japan is one made also with the US.

As stated above the key focus of the negotiations for the Japanese side are the southern Kuril Islands which they feel are under illegal occupation by Russia. But one thing that is ignored by the media is that Japan has retained most of its pre-WWII territory. But for some reason the Japanese seem really only concerned with the Kuril Islands.

Palau and the Yap Islands were under the control of the Japanese since 1914. These islands were taken from tribal locals, much in the same way that the Russians and Japanese absorbed Sakhalin and the Kurils from tribal peoples. However, Japan for some reason does not seemed concerned with bringing Palau and the Yap Islands back home.

It looks like occupied Japan is specifically targeting only the former territory that is controlled by their occupiers boogeyman. Palau and the Yap Islands would only really matter if they were controlled by Russia. This selective outrage is further evidence to the weakness of Tokyo as a sovereign actor. The objective is anti-Russian not pro-Japanese.

NOTE: The author has nothing against Japan trying to rise up and restore its culture and former glory. Nor is this anything personal against the Japanese themselves. The Japanese should not feel shame for their occupied status but instead the need to have it removed.
Cardiovascular screenings

Cardiovascular screenings will be offered from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Feb. 4, at Memorial Hospital, Medical Office Center -Two, Suite 100, 4600 Memorial Dr., in Belleville.

This comprehensive heart and vascular screening is designed to raise awareness about your individual potential risk for stroke, abnormal heartbeat, heart disease and aneurysm.

The cost for this screening is $100 (a $1,000 value) and includes a Cardiac Risk Assessment, Carotid Artery exam, Abdominal Aorta exam, Peripheral Artery Disease test and Atrial Fibrillation exam. Fasting is recommended.

Advance registration is required. To schedule your screening, call Memorials Communications and Marketing Dept. at 618-257-5649. For more information, visit mymemorialnetwork.com/events.

Memorial Hospital East Blood Drive

The American Red Cross will host a blood drive from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 5, in Memorial Hospital  East Community Room, 2nd Floor, 1404 Cross St., in Shiloh.

Please note you must be 16 years of age or older to donate; feeling healthy and well the day of the blood drive; and a photo ID is required. Lunch is provided to all donors.
Something seems very wrong in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Of course, conflicts between police and some communities they serve have been endemic around the country for years. But what St. Louis has seen lately is of a different dimension:

 An officer is killed playing a Russian roulette-like game in another officers home.

 Officers text each other in giddy eagerness to beat up protesters.

 The circuit attorneys office so doubts the integrity of 28 officers that it places them on a blacklist.

 A bar argument involving two St. Louis officers and a patron escalates into a parking lot shootout.

These cases go beyond questions about police conduct on the job. They suggest an internal culture of immature recklessness, both on-duty and off. The city shouldnt wait for the next tragedy to look into whats happening in the department.
Yes, it is a sign  that Stone has created another circus. He was caricatured by Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. Others go silent when indicted; Stone went on CNN, ABC and Fox News (both Hannity and Tucker Carlson) to tout his website and his next book (Woodward and Bernstein: The Godfathers of Fake News) and to raise $2 million for his legal defense (so what if his lawyers arent certified to practice in Washington?).

Sure, the 66-year-old is facing up to 45 years behind bars. But now everybody gets to see his natty outfits. His pocket squares! His felt homburg!

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, he told reporters after his arrest.

In this sense, Stones clown act of the past few days  simultaneously self-promoting and self-defeating  has been the Trump presidency in microcosm. Like his outrageous friend and adviser, Trump loves attention, even the bad kind.
Supervalu had 38 Farm Fresh locations before it sold off most of the stores and closed the remainder in May. After the sale, the pharmacies either closed or were re-opened by the new buyers. The settlement does not involve the independent grocers who bought a few Farm Fresh stores and kept the name.
For their part, it was refreshing to see the agency heads conjure the courage to speak the truth, regardless of whether their professional assessments ran counter to the President's. And, rather than needing a remedial lesson in foreign affairs -- as the President proclaimed -- they are the ones who schooled Trump on how the world really works.

Their fortitude, despite the risk of presidential criticism, should assure all Americans that these independent agencies, many who were appointed by Trump -- including DNI Coats, FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel -- will not be bullied into shaping their views of the world to fit the political whims of a politician. We've been down that road before.

Indeed, since the Iraq War debacle, which was marked by accusations that the intelligence community was pressured by the White House on the issue of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program, these national security agencies have undergone wholesale change in the manner in which they assess global threats.
Two states experiencing a measles outbreak, Washington and Oregon, allow parents to opt out of vaccines simply because they want to.

And while they hate to say "I told you so," pediatricians, well, told them so.

"I've been saying now for the last couple of years [that] it's only a matter of time before we see a horrific measles outbreak in the Pacific Northwest," said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

All states require immunizations for children to attend school. Forty-seven states -- all but California, Mississippi and West Virginia -- allow parents to opt out of vaccines if they have religious beliefs against immunizations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Among those 47 states, 18 states also allow parents to opt out of vaccines if they have personal, moral or philosophical beliefs against immunizations.

Oregon and Washington are among these states that allow for personal belief exemptions. The other 16 are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Vermont.
"Don't help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire a**hole," a protester yelled at a Schultz book event in New York City Monday night. "Go back to getting ratio-ed on Twitter. Go back to Davos with the other billionaire elites who think they know how to run the world. That's not what democracy is."

This heckler suggests a few dynamics at play that will shape Schultz's political fortunes.

People either really love or really hate Trump. It's not that the middle is silent, it's just not really there.

While the share of people who call themselves independents is at an all-time high, the partisanship among those independents is also at an all-time high. Independents lean toward one party or the other, and while they have some negative feelings toward the party they lean toward, they really hate the opposing party, according to one Pew poll.

Speaking of hate ... the class of people who isn't exactly beloved? Billionaires! Yes, Trump is a billionaire, but he ran as a cultural conservative, "blue-collar" billionaire, who guaranteed no cuts to Medicare or Social Security. He ran as the "King of Debt" ... as a Republican.
No changes were made to Stone's bail, which had been set last Friday after his arrest at $250,000 and his travel is limited to Florida, New York, Virginia and Washington, DC.

Before the arraignment began, Stone repeatedly perused the gallery, surveying the pews filled with reporters and members of the public. During the hearing, he focused on the proceedings but did occasionally glance back at the room, which was mostly full.

Stone's next appearance in court will be Friday before District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is handling several of the major Mueller cases, including the guilty plea of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Stone has already appeared in federal court once in Florida, following his early morning arrest at his Fort Lauderdale home. A swarm of armed FBI agents had surprised him at 6 a.m. Friday because of a fear he might flee or destroy evidence.
Former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said Tuesday that he takes the former secretary of state at her word that she does not intend to run for president in 2020.

"I take her at her word," Podesta told CNN's Erin Burnett on "Erin Burnett OutFront."

"She's not running for president -- we've got a lot of great candidates out there right now, and I think the Democratic primary is going to be a spirited one with a lot of great ideas coming forward."

"I think she would have been a great president but that's in the past and she said she's not running," he added.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny reported Sunday that Clinton is telling people she's not closing the doors to the idea of a 2020 campaign.

"I'm told by three people that as recently as this week, she was telling people that, look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying, 'Look, I'm not closing the doors to this,'" Zeleny said.

He added that another friend of Clinton's told him, "it would surprise me greatly if she actually did it."
"It's about the health and safety of the mother and it's always been the point where the conservatives wave the flag, they want to roll back Roe v. Wade -- this is not gray here it's black and white," said Cuomo.

The bill was first introduced in 2006 but was blocked for consideration by the Republican-controlled state Senate. With Democrats now in the majority, the bill passed the legislature Tuesday night and was signed into law.

Advocates cheer the new law

State Assembly member Deborah Glick praised the signing by Cuomo.

"After years of fighting for the passage of this essential protection for women, our moment has finally arrived. The New York State Assembly has kept the torch lit for years, and we are extremely excited to be able to pass the torch to a Senate dedicated to the respect of women and the protection of their basic right to make healthcare decisions. I am grateful for the governor's support," she said.

Other advocates cheered the new law as well.
The most important reason to challenge the conventional wisdom about Schultz is because his potential outside run could encourage the major parties to address important issues in more inclusive ways, whether he runs as an independent or makes a surprise move into the Democratic or Republican fields.

When Americans have confronted similar divisions in the past, consensus has come from outside the traditional parties. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower -- three of the most popular presidents in American history -- were not products of the traditional party institutions but outsiders who rallied diverse voters. Each was popular for achievements in war or business. Each had condemned the conventional leaders, institutions, beliefs and candidates of his time.

Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," rose to prominence in the early 19th century for commanding American forces at the Battle of New Orleans and then leading white settlers who forced the violent removal of Indians from contested territories. Jackson promised to help poor immigrants, urban workers and frontier families. He offered a vision of a more inclusive country (still excluding Indians and slaves), and he was an authentic advocate untainted by partisan compromises. Jackson won election to the presidency twice as a Democrat, but he did not succumb to the party as much as re-made it in his image. (Although Donald Trump sometimes claims to have done the same for the Republican Party, he has radically narrowed, not widened, his party's appeal.)
"Look, the President's made clear that we support Christians, that we support the Kurds," Sanders said, adding the President has "made that clear to Turkey."

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to "devastate" Turkey's economy if it attacked the Kurds in Syria -- a stark threat toward an ally in the region that has partnered with the US in the fight against ISIS. Turkey views some Kurdish groups in the region as terrorist organizations and Kurds make up the majority of US-allied fighters operating in Syria in the civil war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"The idea that the President is just stepping away and ignoring any potential problem doesn't understand the fundamental decision that he's made," Sanders said.

When asked why there aren't daily White House briefings and how the White House gets its message out without them, Sanders said, "The President himself engages with the media more than any president has in history. He's the most accessible, and I think the White House in general is the most accessible, when it comes to the media."

"There's certainly no desire by our team and certainly by the President to withhold information," Sanders said.
Linda Caldwell is the former executive director of the Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association. She has served on numerous regional, state, and national boards for organizations that focus on history, preservation, community arts, and rural economic development. She can be reached at lindacaldwell@bellsouth.net
This polar vortex, though, has a body count. At least five people have already died, a number that will surely go up. Frostbite can hit in minutes. Cities are scrambling to add beds to homeless shelters, but this is applying a Band-Aid to a deep wound. The time to attack homeless vulnerability to frigid weather was during the summer, to build trust and infrastructure, or just to get people into their homes. It's three times cheaper to give housing to the homeless than to leave them on the street. In other words, doing the morally right thing aligns with the fiscally prudent move. How often does that happen?
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that President Donald Trump "blew it" when he shut down the government with "no plan on how to reopen it."

Christie made the comments Tuesday night during an interview with CBS's Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show."

"Where do you think the wheels came off during the shutdown?" Colbert asked of the partial government shutdown that ended last week after lasting for 35 days.

"The President blew it," Christie replied.

"When?" Colbert asked.

"When he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it," Christie said. "Listen, he -- and I said this to him -- listen, 'If you're going to do this, you better have an exit plan. Because sometimes in politics, things don't go the way you expect. And so, if it doesn't go well in the first couple of days, you've got to have a way to get it back open.'"

Christie, a longtime ally of the President, said he met with the President in the White House last month before the shutdown began and told him he should make sure something is gained from a potential shutdown.
Emergency shelters in the city open when the temperature falls below 20 degrees or below 25 degrees with precipitation. The Winter Outreach coalition of local church groups, city departments, nonprofit organizations and volunteers shuttle homeless St. Louisans to those shelters.

City officials have encouraged anyone needing shelter to meet at the warming buses stationed at 13th and Market streets, between 5 and 7 p.m. From there, the homeless will be taken to shelter.

About 15 people participating in the sit-in at City Hall Wednesday afternoon argued that those buses and the citys warming centers wouldnt be enough, because they were available to the homeless for only a limited window of time, and not later in the night.

Thank you for opening one pickup location in the entire city of St. Louis! shouted Ben Rosensweig, one of the protesters gathered in the City Hall rotunda. That the homeless had to get themselves to, in this weather!

Krewson said in a statement that police, EMS, city staff and volunteers patrolled through the night, searching the city for anyone needing shelter.

Still, Gross said, the city depends too heavily on volunteers and churches that cant afford to take in so many people when the temperature drops.
The Stenger-backed port authority filed the lawsuit in November, asking the court to decide which board is valid. The dispute has gridlocked important port business, including the award of grants, consideration of easement requests, and the purchase and sale of real estate, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit named the monolithic St. Louis County as the defendant. The countys response, written by County Counselor Peter J. Krane, didnt take issue with which board was legitimate but said the county intends to rely on the Charter of St. Louis County. Then seven members of the port authority appointed by the County Council sued to intervene to ensure that their interests are adequately protected.

In her chambers on Wednesday, Sherry agreed to let the councils port appointees intervene as individual board members.

Post-Dispatch reporters have been shut out of St. Louis County courtrooms before . In 2016, Judge Ellen Levy Siwak held closed proceedings on a motels challenge to the revocation of its business license by the city of Sunset Hills.
How are we going to institute this and enforce it when we dont have the capacity? May asked.

Other groups sounding warning bells about the proposal included the Missouri Heart Association, the Missouri Catholic Conference, Catholic Charities of St. Louis and the St. Louis chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women.

Jessica Hoey, director of external affairs for the Missouri Community Action Network, said, We should not tie work to access to food and nutrition.

Schupp was angry that Sater and Koenig allowed less than 30 minutes for testimony by various groups that opposed the measure.

The lone person to speak in favor of the proposal was James Harris, a political consultant close to Gov. Mike Parson who represents the Florida-based Opportunity Solutions Project, which is an arm of the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability.

The foundation has been prodding states to enact work requirements.

It helps lift people out of poverty, Harris told members of the Senate Seniors, Families and Children Committee.
James Bennett, Greitens' lawyer, told CNN on Friday that the governor "has not been contacted at any time by the FBI, and we are not aware of any interest by the FBI in this personal matter that took place years ago."
The auditor will now prepare a fiscal note and summary, estimating the impact on state and local budgets. The secretary of state will propose ballot wording.

The attorney general will then review the fiscal note, the ballot summary and the submitted petition.

Eventually, if all parties agree, the secretary of state will certify the official ballot and fiscal note summaries, and post them online again, after which Better Together can begin collecting signatures.

All of this could happen by March 21.

But Pieper, the Better Together attorney, said opponents then have 10 days to file suit against the measure in Cole County Circuit Court. Those suits must, by law, be wrapped up within 180 days.

If lawsuits change the ballot wording, all signatures gathered before that point would be invalid.

Pieper said Better Together will likely wait until about Oct. 1 to start collecting signatures.

Were just going to assume somebody will challenge something, he said.
Those arrestees whose cases were taken under advisement were often arrested, released and arrested again if their case was prosecuted, or arrested and released only to never hear about the outcome of their case, the report says.

Prosecutors are also refusing cases with insufficient evidence or those that would result in low-levels charges, such as the possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana, that do not pose a threat to public safety and therefore do not warrant a criminal case.

Gardners office has screened more than 600 people for diversion programs, and 88 percent of those accepted have graduated or are on the way, the report says.

The report says the issuance of a summons instead of an arrest warrant has historically been underused, but Gardner has been increasing the practice as a bail reform measure. Summonses were issued on 56 percent of misdemeanors in 2018, the report says.

Bail reform is one of Gardners top priorities, the report says, and St. Louis prosecutors will issue summonses whenever possible on misdemeanors and select felonies to signal that many more people can and should remain in the community after an arrest, so they can keep their jobs, care for their families and help in their criminal case defense.
JEFFERSON CITY  The chief justice of Missouris highest court announced on Wednesday plans to restrict courts from charging defendants bail as a condition of their release before trial.

Current rules allow courts to charge amounts that can be out of reach, leaving the accused to wait in jail for their trial. Over the past year, the Supreme Court has surveyed judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law professors and court officials in order to come up with common sense modifications, Chief Justice Zel Fischer said. In his annual State of the Judiciary address, Fischer said too many people who were arrested couldnt afford bail for even low-level offenses.

Though presumed innocent, they lose their jobs, cannot support their families and are more likely to reoffend, he said.

The new rules, set to take effect July 1, not only limit how long a defendant can be detained without a hearing but add further provisions that limit a courts ability to order payments in the first place.

Fischer announced that courts would now start with the presumption that they will not charge fees and can implement costs only if necessary. The amount charged should not exceed what is needed to ensure safety or the defendants appearance.
CLAYTON  Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of a man accused of murdering a St. Louis County police officer in October 2016.

A pool of about 150 potential jurors were called for the case. Jurors were screened in groups of 14 on Wednesday about what they had seen or read about the high-profile shooting, and any reasons they could not serve as jurors.

Attorneys hope to narrow the pool to 60 by Thursday for further questioning and aim to have a jury picked by Friday.

Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.

Trenton Forster, 20, of the 9500 block of Sequoia Court in unincorporated St. Louis County, is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the fatal shooting on Oct. 6, 2016, of Officer Blake Snyder, 33, of Edwardsville.
Joe Holleman Joe Holleman is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Joe Holleman Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

The St. Louis Press Club has released the list of honorees for its annual awards bash.

This year, eight journalists and one marketing executive will be honored  longtime and much-loved retired meteorologist Dave Murray.

Murray, who retired in July, started in St. Louis in 1976 on KSD (now KSDK). In 1983, Murray left to join "Good Morning America." Six years later, he came back to town and began a 29-year stint as chief meteorologist at KTVI (Channel 2).

Speaking of retired television people, another honoree will be Spencer Koch, who retired in October after serving for 23 years as president and general manager of KTVI and KPLR (Channel 11).

Two radio veterans, Carol Daniel and Ron Elz of KMOX (1120 AM) will be honored, as will two newspaper folks, classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller of the Post-Dispatch and Robert A. Cohn, editor emeritus of the St. Louis Jewish Light.

Dan Farrell, the Cardinals' senior vice president for marketing and sales, also is in line for honors. The lifetime achievement award will go to CBS television news correspondent Barry Petersen.

The gala date is May 1; more information will come soon.

Your weekly capsule of local news, life advice, trivia and humor from Post-Dispatch columnist Joe Holleman. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
ST. LOUIS  Heavy rain swelled the creeks on Jan. 30, 1982, then the rain turned to snow. With only 4 inches of snow forecast, the worry was flooding. Lightning illuminated the snowfall as most people went to bed that Saturday night.

They awoke next morning to a winter wonderland unseen here in 70 years. Lambert Field recorded 13.9 inches of snow, but the airport was on the low slope of the storm's worst.

Follow-up National Weather Service reports put the totals for most of the city, southwest St. Louis County and Jefferson County at 18 inches or more. Madison County had 17 inches, St. Clair County 15. The Greenville, Ill., area was buried under 2 feet. Fifty miles to the north and south of the Gateway Arch, accumulations were light.

The Jan. 30-31 storm was the third-heaviest snowfall ever recorded here, beaten only by 20.4 inches on March 30-31, 1890, and 15.5 inches on Feb. 20, 1912.

Hundreds of motorists abandoned vehicles on highways and streets. Buses and heavy trucks got stuck in traffic lanes. Police nabbed a burglar by following his footsteps. At 9 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 31, Edwardsville firefighters David Carnaghi and Capt. Dennis Henson helped to deliver Sharon Miller's 9-pound son in the back of their ambulance, stuck on Interstate 55.
St. Louis Lambert International Airport handled 15.6 million passengers last year, its biggest total in 15 years and a 5.9 percent increase over 2017.

We feel very, very good about the year that we had, Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said in delivering a year-end report Tuesday.

She added that Lambert has had 40 consecutive months of passenger growth.

Continued growth in connecting flights was one reason for the upsurge, she said. The number of connecting passengers jumped 18 percent over 2017, to nearly 1.8 million.

Most of the growth in connecting activity was on Lamberts dominant carrier, Southwest Airlines. Southwest has added almost a dozen nonstop markets to its Lambert lineup in the last three years.

However, the airports passenger totals are still far below the years when it was a major hub for the old Trans World Airlines. At its peak in 2000, Lambert logged 30.5 million overall passengers, many of them connecting.

Hamm-Niebruegge also said the number of available airplane seats at Lambert grew 4 percent last year, to 19.5 million.

That means we saw more airplanes out of here, we saw larger airplanes out of here, she said.
Drugmakers often retain doctors to speak at events with other clinicians about the benefits of their drugs, and defense lawyers argue the events were legal compensation for the doctors' educational work.

Yet Brown said Madison's events, held at a Chicago restaurant Kapoor owned, were attended by his friends instead of clinicians.

"The idea was these weren't really meant to be educational programs but were meant to be rewards to physicians," Brown said.

After one dinner in mid-2012, Brown said she, Lee and Madison went to a club, where she witnessed Lee "sitting on his lap, kind of bouncing around."

"He had his hands sort of inappropriately all over her chest," Brown said.

Brown testified that at the time, Madison ran a "notorious" medical practice, which in a 2012 email shown to jurors she described as a "shady pill mill."

Prosecutors say Insys paid Madison at least $70,800 in speaker fees.

Asked on cross-examination by Lee's attorney, Peter Horstmann, if Madison "appeared to be taking advantage of Ms. Lee," Brown said yes.

Madison was convicted in November of unrelated charges that he defrauded insurers into paying for unperformed chiropractic procedures. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

A message from David Nicklaus Want to stay smart about what's happening in St. Louis? Make a modest investment in a Post-Dispatch subscription and I'll tell you how developments around the world affect local businesses big and small. Intro subscription rate: Just $1 for 6 months
The Southern Illinoisan, the daily newspaper of Carbondale, Ill., will be printed at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch plant in Maryland Heights, beginning with the Tuesday, Feb. 12, edition, Southern Illinois Publisher Craig Rogers announced in a news release on Tuesday.

Both newspapers are owned by Lee Enterprises.

"The decision to move our printing was extremely difficult," Rogers said. "Maintaining our aging printing equipment or replacing it was cost prohibitive. Printing at the Post-Dispatch allows us to continue our mission as an advocate for positive change in the communities that we serve."

The Southern Illinois News Guild, a union representing newsroom employees at the paper, criticized the decision, saying it would move daily print deadlines earlier.

Carbondale is about 120 miles southeast of Maryland Heights.

A message from David Nicklaus Want to stay smart about what's happening in St. Louis? Make a modest investment in a Post-Dispatch subscription and I'll tell you how developments around the world affect local businesses big and small. Intro subscription rate: Just $1 for 6 months
Romania is facing a flu epidemic, as the flu activity has continued for the third straight epidemic week, Health Minister Sorina Pintea said on Wednesday, adding that the circulation of the influenza virus will be intense in February too.

Read also: FinMin Teodorovici: 'Budget draft final version to be unveiled Wednesday'

"Yes, the epidemic has been acknowledged, as there has been the third epidemic week. The flu activity is country-wide, although at different intensities. Fortunately, this flu disease is caused by a strain with mild to moderate severity symptoms. The strain is included in the vaccine acquired by the Ministry of Health and in Romania's vaccine stocks. (...) Experts estimate that intense virus circulation will continue in February too," the Minister said at a press conference.

Sorina Pintea explained that the Health Ministry's goal is to reduce the number of severe cases and deaths from influenza.

According to the Minister, an additional 30,000 doses of vaccine have been ordered for the population at risk, which will be distributed starting Thursday to the local public healthcare directorates that have applied for the vaccines.

"A set of additional recommendations have also been issued: the effective limitation of visitor access to all health care facilities has been required, especially in the units at risk, the urgent restocking with necessary antiviral medication for the treatment of acute respiratory infections, ordering antiviral therapy immediately after hospitalization for all patients who display the influenza specific clinical picture, prophylactic antiviral treatment for the contacts of hospitalised patients, the urgent vaccination of the still unvaccinated medical personnel, resupplying the protective equipment and proper use thereof, urgent restocking with antiseptics and disinfectants for ensuring the rigorous hygiene of hands and surfaces. Today, the National Public Health Inspectorate will provide health care facilities with a reminder of the procedures for dealing with contacts, outbreaks and severe flu cases," the Minister said.

AGERPRES .
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If there was any doubt that influencer culture had an ugly side you need only watch one of two decent docs now streaming on Netflix (Fyre) and Hulu (Fyre Fraud).

By now, most know at least something about the infamous Fyre Festival. For me, it was that not-even-cafeteria standard cheese sandwich that quickly turned into a viral meme when the first concert go-ers landed in the Bahamas for the experience of a lifetime. And, the experience of a lifetime it certainly was as soon as everyone realized they had been duped. Mission: Escape the Island and get back home to Instagram!

One of the most interesting aspects I find about something the scam that was Fyre is that of what I consider to be the unreliable narrator. Its a device often used in film to throw off the viewer. Rosemarys Baby (1968). Fight Club (1999). Mulholland Drive (2001). Black Swan (2010). Those are just a few films that call into question the mindset of the protagonist. Are they really seeing what theyre seeing? Is their world overrun by conspiracy? Or is it all a dream?

I know its an unusual way to approach these documentaries. However, the fraud ringmaster Billy McFarland (found guilty, serving 6 years) seemed like the prototypical entrepreneur. He was gregarious, likeable, fun to be around. And, most importantly as we learned, was the consummate salesman. It didnt help, of course, that he fudged the financials to trick investors into throwing more money at the doomed venture, even as it was evident, in most cases I believe, that the rest of the Fyre team was unwittingly in over their heads and blissfully unaware of the impending doom. Yet McFarland was perhaps like that defiant militant leader in Iraq who claimed all was well as Rome burned around him. His followers did what they always did and followed. At least until it was too late.

So in a sense McFarland is a bit like an unreliable narrator. He sees the world the way he sees it  which is with a corrupt lens. Right or wrong are (apparently) irrelevant. Those around him likely assume hes playing on the same moral ground and shares the same ethical boundaries, after all this team is like an extended family (and I feel most badly for the developers that created the Fyre app for booking talent, a multi-year effort that became collateral damage).

When narcissism meets reality on a remote island in the Bahamas

Though Im not any sort of expert on the matter, it would seem to me that we entrust those around us as reliable narrators. Our parents, family and closest friends we likely assume what we see is what we get, that all share our own DNA of goodness. Naive, maybe. But I believe its partly this trust factor that sends us down dark holes sometimes as the idea of escalating commitment forces us to do things we didnt ever expect to at the outset.

I can only imagine the shock that his team felt when the rug was pulled out. Theres a scene when McFarland calls an all-hands to apologize for the Fyre failure (but theres v2!). And some of the most surreal moments follow next when rapper Ja Rule implores those smart people on the call to do something, to fix the wrongs the wrongs he was the seminal poster boy for creating.

McFarland takes most of it on the chin, and in the Hulu version outright admits, its on me. No doubt many of his closest lieutenants were complicit, if even partially. Who knows?

Millennial Music Fest Survivor: Lord of the Flies vs. Instagram Influencers

I suspect it would be possible to show a wee bit of sympathy for McFarland  after all he did swing for the fences, and worked incredibly hard to achieve a bold, ridiculous vision  if it werent for the fact that he immediately started a new scam after posting bail. Time will tell if prison in this case will reform and enable him to use his talents for good or simply embolden and give him more time to plan his next swindle. You always hope for redemption (and remorse), a comeback story never gets old.

ALSO SEE: How to Prevent Another Fyre Festival

Maybe a key takeaway with Fyre is that the influencer culture  that idea of aspiring to the most affluent and most perfect lifestyle, while hawking just about any product or service along the way without regard for its worth or legitimacy  has if not created, at least accelerated an environment where capturing the most perfect Instagram is worth more than hard work, decency, and even transparency. Which is an odd thing to say given the Millennial generation is supposedly largely centered around authenticity and honesty.

My thesis is that, at least in their eyes, major social media platforms  Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others  were mostly funded by evil old venture guys on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. The next mission for Millennials: to break free and create their own ways of interacting online that dont rely purely on vanity metrics. Then again, whos to really blame, the messengers or the messaging channels?
As bad as the decline at some newspapers and news outlets already is, things might get exponentially worse soon.

A New York hedge fund with a reputation for ruthlessly gutting newspaper newsrooms is attempting to do a hostile corporate takeover of the Gannett Corporation. It would take control of USA Today and about 100 other newspapers. Six of those newspapers are in New York state.

To borrow a term from the TV program The Daily Show, it would be a Democalypse for local news coverage in those communities if Alden Global Capital takes over.

The hedge fund has shown no interest in journalism since it started purchasing newspapers in 2009. Instead, it squeezes the life out of them with brutal news staff layoffs and draconian budget cuts in order to bolster profits at the expense of news product quality.

Its no wonder the hedge fund has been dubbed by journalists to be vulture capitalists. New Yorkers will not be served well if this corporate takeover goes through.

Michael Fitzgerald has worked at six newspapers as a writer and editor, as well as a correspondent for two news services. Email him at Michael.Fitzgeraldfltcolumnist@gmail.com, or visit his website at michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com.
Sen. Groenes state aid for K-12 reform, LB 695

What would it do: Replace the current state formula for distributing state aid to school (TEEOSA, the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act) to deliver more state aid to more schools. Right now, 162 of the states 244 school districts get no so-called equalization aid. The proposal would address that by providing every student in the state about $3,500 in foundation aid, Groene estimated. Among the changes would be eliminating an averaging adjustment that generally benefits larger schools. School budget increases could not exceed the consumer price index. The current property tax credit program would help fund the changes, though Groene said that eliminating some sales tax exemptions, like those on junk food, could also help. Weve got to have a shift (in taxes), we need relief now, the senator said, insisting that it cant be done any other way.
A man convicted of a 1997 murder in Omaha has escaped from the state prison system.

Anthony Gafford, 40, walked away from his work-release program Saturday in Lincoln, according to information that the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services provided the Lincoln Police Department.

Gafford was sent to prison for killing 16-year-old Jacque Holbert in 1997. This month, Holberts grown son, 21-year-old Jacque S. Jack Holbert IV, was shot and killed while sleeping in a home near 38th and Burdette Streets.

Lincoln Police Capt. Todd Kocian said the department was notified that Gafford left the Community Corrections Center-Lincoln at 6 a.m. Saturday to report to work and never returned.

The Community Corrections Centers are the least restrictive facilities in the prison system, and people confined there are able to work and study in the community.

Gafford was 19 when he was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Jacque Holbert. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison and was due to be released Dec. 11, 2022, according to state prison records. His next parole hearing was scheduled for April.

A representative of the Corrections Department couldnt be reached for comment.
Researchers collected samples from hedgehogs in the two Minnesota patients' homes and identified the strain of salmonella that was making people sick. It's still unclear if all or some of the pet hedgehogs came from "a common supplier," the CDC said.

Symptoms of a salmonella infection include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps lasting four to seven days. In rare cases, a salmonella infection can lead to death  a dire enough risk that the CDC gently suggested certain households "might consider a different pet."

However, for those who could never part with little "Spike," "Sonic" or "S," the agency has recommended avoiding certain direct contact with their hedgehogs: That is, not nuzzling them or propping them up to your face for the perfect Instagram photo.

"Don't kiss or snuggle hedgehogs, because this can spread Salmonella germs to your face and mouth and make you sick," the CDC warned. "Don't let hedgehogs roam freely in areas where food is prepared or stored, such as kitchens."

If you do touch a hedgehog or clean its supplies, wash your hands immediately afterward. And don't clean your hedgehog's cage or toys in the same place you prepare human food.

This may be a tall order for a new crop of hedgehog owners eager to cuddle with their new pets. Hedgehogs are legal pets in most of the United States  but remain banned in California, Georgia, Hawaii, New York City, Pennsylvania and the nation's capital, according to the Hedgehog Welfare Society.

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LINCOLN  National Plan for Vacation Day, celebrated on the last Tuesday of January, is a great opportunity to plan a getaway at a Nebraska state park.

Hosted by the U.S. Travel Association, National Plan for Vacation Day encourages Americans to look ahead and make vacation plans at the start of the year. Whether youre looking for some old-fashioned adventure or simply a beautiful place you can enjoy with family, Nebraskas state park areas offer something for you.

Spread over 76 locations, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission properties combine unspoiled beauty with a wide range of outdoor recreation opportunities and lodging options. In southeast Nebraska, visitors can enjoy brand-new park features including a treetop adventure course, glamping cabins and a floating playground, which were constructed as part of the Venture Parks initiative.

Those interested in hiking, biking, horseback riding and snowmobiling can find hundreds of miles of trails at a Nebraska state park or recreation area. Kayakers and tubers also enjoy a network of river trails with gently flowing waters.

For history buffs, families and anyone interested in Nebraska history, Nebraskas state historical parks offer hours of fascination and learning.

Start planning your state park getaway at OutdoorNebraska.org. A park permit is required for each vehicle entering a park.

Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form
Seven Panhandle businesses were cited recently as the Nebraska State Patrol conducted alcohol compliance checks as part of the Panhandle Prevention Coalitions comprehensive plan to prevent underage drinking.

Officers with the assistance of youth ages 17- 20, completed forty-three checks including convenience stores, restaurants, grocery stores, and liquor stores throughout Deuel, Box Butte, Morrill, and Cheyenne County, according to a press release from the Panhandle Prevention Coalition.

Seven of the businesses allegedly sold alcohol to minors and appropriate action was taken: Trading Post  1121 N St., Bridgeport; Sonnys Super Foods  310 Main St., Bridgeport; Fat Dogs Sidney  3070 Silverberg Drive, Sidney; The Post  1020 Old Post Road, Sidney; Alta Convenience #6232  440 East Illinois St., Sidney; Pump & Pantry 981 Second St., Chappell; Guss Bar  721 Box Butte Ave., Hemingford.

In Nebraska, providing alcohol to minor is a Class I misdemeanor. Adults who provide alcohol to minors can spend up to a year in jail, receive a $1,000 fine or both.

In the press release, the coalition commended the 36 businesses that did not sell alcohol to minors in Bayard, Bridgeport, Sidney, Chappell, Alliance and Hemingford.
SCOTTSBLUFF  A redevelopment tool currently available only in the metro Omaha area could be extended to help all the states municipalities that face housing shortages.

LB 424, a bill to change the parameters of the Nebraska Municipal Land Bank Act, was introduced by District 35 State Sen. Dan Quick and referred to the Urban Affairs Committee.

The proposed legislation would allow municipalities to create land banks as one of the tools that can be utilized by municipalities to facilitate the return of vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties to productive use.

Land banks are deemed as public corporations that acquire vacant, abandoned and/or dilapidated properties for redevelopment. Theyre overseen by a board of directors whose voting members are residents of the municipality that created the land bank.

Jeff Kelley, executive director of Panhandle Area Development District, said all of the states eight development districts are in favor of land bank legislation.

Land banks would be a good thing in rural Nebraska, not just Omaha, he said. A lot of communities dont have funds to rehabilitate abandoned and substandard housing or take over vacant lots.
Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is 
T he internet is often regarded as this big, uncontrollable thing: a place of abuse and hate speech. Yet, it can make life more convenient; helping you to connect with friends and family and providing opportunities to learn something new.

How can we balance all these different aspects of the internet and make it work for us? This is something the tech think-tank Doteveryone is trying to do.

Founded by entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox of lastminute.com fame in her Dimbleby Lecture in 2015, Doteveryone wants to make tech responsible, whether thats by regulating the internet or educating the public in digital literacy.

Ahead of the organisations Responsible Technology event on January 31, we spoke to Doteveryones CEO Rachel Coldicutt about its mission and the future of the internet.

The mission of Doteveryone: internet for everyone

When Doteveryone first started, people would ask Rachel Coldicutt and Lane Fox if the organisation was really necessary. People would say, are you crazy? The internet is amazing, everyone thinks it is incredible, Coldicutt tells the Standard.

However, after the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal last March, a lot of those sentiments switched. Suddenly, everything changed and we became incredibly relevant, really quickly.

Coldicutt, like Lane Fox, was one of the early pioneers of the internet. She began her career as a lexicographer, working on dictionaries and encyclopaedias as they started to turn into CD-ROMS (remember those?) in the very early days of web publishing. She moved around different internet projects, working as the online teen editor at the BBC in the early noughties, taking the Royal Opera House online, and running a creative agency with a friend.

She says she enjoyed the creative, almost entrepreneurial aspects of the work that she was doing at the time but it also demonstrated some of the more uncontrollable parts of the online world. During her stint as the BBC teens editor, Coldicutt says they had around 100,000 teenage girls talking to each other on the internet every day in a way that hadn't been possible before. We were early enough to be doing lots of things that no one had worked out whether it was a good idea or not yet.

Rachel Coldicutt, CEO of Doteveryone / Doteveryone

This work was vital in informing the types of things Doteveryone looks at. After Lane Fox unveiled her plan for the organisation, Coldicutt got in touch to work with her on it. It was a bit of a risk, she says.

But the premise of Doteveryone, that the openness and democratising ability of the internet hadnt really paid off and instead instilled some major power imbalances, was a mission that Coldicutt believed in and felt she had to take on.

Societys immune system to tech

At last years Wired 25 conference, Amazons founder Jeff Bezos said: Technologies always are two-sided. There are ways they can be misused. I feel that society develops an immune response eventually to the bad uses of new technology.

Coldicutt says that one way to think about Doteveryone is that it wants to create this immune system for society. It does this in a number of ways. It aims to help businesses be more responsible, the UK government to be better at engaging with tech and creating tech policies, as well as strengthening societys interactions with tech through education.

As a think tank, Doteveryone receives support from a range of partners including the UK Parliament, Omidyar Network, Accenture, Google.org and The Wellcome Trust. Its small team of 13, based at Somerset House, work on research, create pilots and with partners to turn the research into action.

A piece of research released last year centred around public attitudes to tech. The study found that 50 per cent of people in the UK think technology is very good for them or people like them, but only 12 per cent think it is good for society as a whole.

On the one hand, that's because they're aware that their communities are changing, they can see changes to the high street, that kind of thing, explains Coldicutt. But this was also a part of the creeping unease and discomfort that people were starting to have about their data."

In particular, Doteveryone is looking at how to regulate the internet and what that could like in the future. One element of this could be a consumer group specifically focused on the internet, where people could take their concerns about something which happened online.

Another idea focuses on regulatory bodies. Coldicutt says there are 96 regulatory bodies in the UK who are all dealing with the effects of data and tech, even if they dont always realise it. Cambridge Analytica certainly made this obvious.

When Cambridge Analytica came out, everyone I know who works in advertising said obviously, thats how targeted ads work. But people in electoral fairness didnt know, she explains.

We want to give training to those regulatory bodies to help them understand tech better.

What is the future of the internet?

The organisation also does a lot of forecasting, looking at where tech is going to have an impact next. For instance, its looking at the future of social care and how it will be affected by automation. Instead of the doom and gloom around automation, Doteveryone is looking at the positive effects it could have.

Can we look at automating as an opportunity for fairness and changing the status of certain things?, asks Coldicutt. Theres a huge amount of literature coming out of the big consulting companies which is about the future that they think is going to happen. Thats a future that belongs to the corporate sector, theyre not talking about the real lives that everybody lives.

A major topic on Doteveryones agenda is education and helping the public to understand things such as data and social media, particularly how data is the price people pay when they want to get a cheaper cab ride or use a social platform.

The emblem of all this is we interviewed someone last year who got punched in the face by her Uber driver but who carried on taking Ubers because they're really handy. In a way, that is all of us, she says.

Doteveryone will be discussing all this and more at its Responsible Technology conference taking place later this week. Speakers include Lane Fox, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon of Stemettes and Jeremy White, the secretary of state at DCMS, who will be discussing the importance of making tech work better for everyone.

Coldicutt says Doteveryone tries to work at the speed of the internet in order to keep up with the latest innovations, and the problems that arise from it.

It is wearing and it is a big challenge but I come into work every day and there is more evidence of a harm that technology is creating, she says. The thing thats great here is were working with lots of different people. Yesterday we had 20 frontline carers here, this afternoon Im going to the Mayor of Londons office.
I f theres one thing thats kept this January from being entirely miserable, its Netflix.

From the scandalous Fyre Festival documentary that got everyone talking, to the brilliant Sex Education, the streaming site is enjoying a stellar start to the New Year.

And just when you thought you couldnt find any more excuses to get out of attending social events, Netflix is about to drop it's latest binge-worthy offering: Russian Doll.

Heres everything you need to know about the streaming giant's latest release:

What's Russian Doll about?

New show: Russian Doll drops on February 1 / Netflix

Russian Doll centres on game developer Nadia who, as luck would have it, keeps dying on her 36th birthday.

As she revisits the same birthday party over and over, the series follows her experiments as she tries to get through the evening without dying which, as youll find out, is easier said than done.

Who stars in it?

Leading Lady: Orange Is The New Black actress Natasha Lyonne plays Nadia in new Netflix show, Russian Doll / Getty

Taking centre stage as Nadia is Natasha Lyonne of Orange Is The New Black fame.

As well as starring in the leading role, Lyonne is also the co-creator of the show, alongside Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, who make up the all-female team of writers and directors.

Speaking about the idea behind the show, Lyonne told Broadly: Amy Poehler and I created a show based on my life for NBC called Old Soul. When it didnt get picked up, I started thinking about a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of party where you take home each different person from the party.

You know? Take them home for the night. I would still end up feeling hollow at the end of it, somehow. Id still be stuck with myself. This idea that we are starving to death with limitless choices but we are still stuck with own broken selves until we resolve what it is to have a meaningful life. What does any of it mean?

Other famous faces include Chloe Sevigny, Dascha Polanco (also from Orange Is The New Black), Elizabeth Ashley, Charlie Barnett and Brendan Sexton III.

Best female-led shows to watch on Netflix - in pictures 1 /10 Best female-led shows to watch on Netflix - in pictures Happy Valley BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall GLOW Erica Parise/Netflix The Sinner Peter Kramer/USA Network Grace And Frankie Netflix Call the Midwife BBC/Neal Street Productions/Nicky Johnston Jessica Jones Myles Aronowitz/Netflix Homeland Netflix Orange is the New Black Netflix Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Netflix Miranda Miranda Hart NEtflix

When is Russian Doll released on Netflix?
D ancing On Ice professional Matt Evers has admitted that he doesnt think Gemma Collins' fall was caused by her blacking out.

I didnt fall, I passed out. I was just going and then, next thing, on the ground. It was so weird. I dont think I tripped, I think I blacked out, Collins told The Sun.

But, speaking on This Morning, Evers  who stepped in front of his fallen partner to stop her sliding into the barrier  told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that he believes her tumble was a result of hitting the achievement zone.

Fall: Matt Evers isn't convinced his partner Gemma Collins 'blacked out' (Matt Frost/ITV/Rex) / Rex Features

He said: In the high level of sport, its called the achievement zone and sometimes when youre in the middle of a performance you have no idea whats going on and then muscle memory takes over. Thats why we train the celebs so hard so they dont really have to think about the performance.

I think what she experienced wasnt a moment of black out per se, but she probably just cant remember what happened because it happened so fast and she was in such an incredible performance mode.

Gemma Collins falling on the ice Live on Dancing on Ice ITV

The American skater then explained that he had been able to get out on the ice with Collins on Tuesday for a session with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and was about to start rehearsals with her again.

Schofield, who also hosts the Sunday night skating show, said he wasnt convinced Collins had fainted because she had her arms out and her eyes were open

In her first interview since the slip, Collins claimed that she had been wired up to machines shortly before she stepped out onto the ice after being left with chest pains because of low blood pressure.

Gemma Collins - In pictures 1 /31 Gemma Collins - In pictures PA Gemma Collins on Instagram @gemmacollins1 Gemma Collins on'Celebs Go Dating' Channel 4 Gemma Collins on 'The Only Way is Essex' ITV Gemma Collins on 'I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!' in 2014 ITV/Rex Gemma Collins on'Celebs Go Dating' Channel 4 Gemma Collins on'Celebs Go Dating' Channel 4 Gemma Collins on 'I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!' in 2014 Rex Features Nominated: Gemma Collins and Danniella Westbrook are up for Tuesday's eviction along with Stephanie Davis Channel 5 Gemma Collins appearing on Celebrity Big Brother Channel 5 Gemma Collins arriving at the ITV Gala 2017 held at the London Palladium Getty Images Gemma Collins makes US TV on Wendy Williams after her Radio 1 Teen 2017 Awards fall Gemma Collins is helped by Amber Davies, Jamie Jewitt and Marcel Somerville as she falls on stage during the BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards 2017 at Wembley Arena Getty Images Gemma Collins makes fun of her Radio 1 Teen 2017 Awards fall on Instagram @gemmacollins1 Gemma Collins attending BBC Radio 1's Teen Awards 2017 PA Gemma Collins attending the European premiere of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets at Cineworld in Leicester Square in 2017 PA Gemma Collins appearing on Celebrity Big Brother Channel 5 Gemma Collins.in 'Sugar Free' ITV Gemma Collins on 'I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!' in 2014 ITV Gemma Collins on 'The Only Way is Essex' ITV Getty Images Exciting: the GC teased new plans for a trip to Los Angeles Getty Images 'Standing on ice': Gemma Collins was mocked by viewers ITV Rex Features ames Argent with Gemma Collins PA Channel 4 @gemmacollins1 @gemmacollins1 @gemmacollins1 @gemmacollins1 @gemmacollins1

An ITV spokesperson said in a statement: The safety and welfare of our contestants is of primary concern to us and no one performs on the ice without medical clearance.

The star shared a snap of herself sitting up on a hospital gurney vowing nothing will stop her.

She captioned the shot: Be back Sunday guys dont worry. Nothing is going to stop me. Your support is overwhelming and keeping me going #nopainnogain @dancingonice physio is going well and will be ok.
J onathan Ross has shared a heartfelt tribute to his mother Martha, who has passed away aged 79.

The TV presenter confirmed the sad news in an emotional post on his Twitter account this morning.

Sharing a photo of the late actress, he wrote: Today, my Family and I will gather to say goodbye to our Mum, Grandma, Great-Grandma, Martha.

A wonderful, loving, glamorous, thoughtful, vivacious woman.

Always smiling. Always happy. Always putting us first. We were so lucky to have her. We love you Mum.

The actress had background roles in BBC shows Grange Hill and EastEnders, though she left the soap in 2006 after disclosing plot details to her son Paul, who then shared the storyline on his LBC radio show.

Rosss famous friends were quick to send their condolences to the host. Marthas EastEnders co-star Shane Richie leading the tributes with happy memories from their time together on the show.

What a lady, what a b***** great lady, he wrote. I remember how nervous I was on my very 1st day on Albert sq back in 2002 and she just held my hand she had a heart bigger than any fictional market thank you Martha.

Loose Womens Andrea McLean added: Im so sad to hear this Jonathan. Sending the Ross Clan hugs from the Mclean Clan.

Actor Sanjeev Bhaskar tweeted: Sending love and strength to you and the family Jonathan.
C elebrities have rallied around Empire star Jussie Smollett after he was attacked in what police suspect was a hate crime.

The 35-year-old actor, who is black and came out as gay in 2015, was approached by two men in downtown Chicago at about 2am yesterday, police said.

He was struck in the face before having an unknown chemical substance poured over him and a rope wrapped around his neck, according to investigators.

The suspects shouted racial and homophobic slurs during the attack, police said. No arrests have been made.

Police also confirmed Smollett told them his attackers made reference to MAGA - Make America Great Again - which was Donald Trumps slogan during the 2016 US presidential campaign.

Smollett has starred on Foxs musical drama Empire since 2015. He plays Jamal, the gay son of a music mogul.

Jussie Smollett was struck in the face before having an unknown chemical substance poured over him and a rope wrapped around his neck / REUTERS

Smollett took himself to Chicagos Northwestern Hospital and is in good condition, police said.

Following the attack, Ariana Grande was among the celebrities to offer support.

Grande said the incident left her sick to my stomach and sent, all of the healing energy / love i possibly can and hoping for change.

Grande added: What can we do ? tell me & im there.

Actress Olivia Munn wrote on Twitter the attack was, why we have to have zero tolerance against homophobia and racism. Jussies life matters.

Alyssa Milano said she was struggling to put her feelings into a neat & tidy tweet, adding, Living together on the planet shouldnt be this difficult.

Michael B Jordan wrote on Instagram: Stand with my brother jussiesmollett sending you light and love. Be strong We got you.

Queer Eye host Jonathan Van Ness said queer people are attacked every single day, adding: We have not come as far as we think.

US president Trump is yet to comment, despite pressure to do so. Earlier Empire creator Lee Daniels reacted to the attack and said America is better than that.
A 22-year-old mother has died after falling down stairs at a New York subway station while holding her one-year-old daughter.

Malaysia Goodson fell down the stairs at a Manhattan station at around 8pm on Monday, police said.

When police arrived she was unconscious. She was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Her daughter, Rhylee, was not seriously injured.

Police said it is unknown whether the child was in a pram during the fall, as initially reported by authorities.

"I wish I could have helped her," Ms Goodson's 23-year-old brother, Shawn Goodson, told The New York Times.

He said his sister, who lived in from Stamford, Connecticut, was a protective, caring mother.

It was not immediately clear whether Ms Goodson had a medical issue that caused her death or whether she died from the fall. The city's medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which also is investigating, called Ms Goodson's death "a heartbreaking tragedy".

Only about a quarter of New York City's 472 subway stations have lifts and the lifts that do exist are often out of service.

MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said the 7th Avenue B-D-E station where Ms Goodson fell does have escalators.

Parents are generally advised not to use escalators with pram, however.
U S President Donald Trump today hit out at his intelligence chiefs branding them "passive" and "naive" in their assessment of the threat posed by Iran.

"Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school," Mr Trump tweeted.

The response came after US intelligence agencies said that Iran's nuclear threat has lessened.

And they told Congress that North Korea remained unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Mr Trump tweeted: "The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but...."

He added: "....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

National intelligence director Dan Coats and other intelligence chiefs presented the Worldwide Threat Assessment report to the Senate on Tuesday.

They said that Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the US and other Western nations.

In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat.

In May 2018, Mr Trump withdrew the US from that accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.

Mr Coats also said intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will eliminate his nuclear weapons.

But the president insisted on Wednesday on Twitter that the relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been with the US."

He pointed to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some US service members' remains and the release of Americans once detained there as signs of progress.
A mericans have been urged to stay indoors as a great swathe of the United States is gripped by a deep freeze with record-breaking temperatures falling lower than Antarctica.

Residents across the Midwest and into Eastern states have been warned of bitterly cold conditions as wind chill temperatures could plunge as low as -51C (-60F) in parts, according to forecasters.

An extreme blast of Arctic air, caused by a spinning pool of cold air known as a polar vortex, has already seen temperatures drop below -40C (-40F).

Weather officials in Iowa have urged people to "avoid taking deep breaths, and to minimise talking" if they go outside.

A commuter walks through Chicago in sub-zero temperatures / Getty Images

At least five deaths relating to cold weather were reported across several states, local media reports said.

A state of emergency has been declared in the Midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois as well as in the southern states of Alabama and Mississippi.

Schools in Chicago were closed on Wednesday and Thursday while police warned of the risk of accidents on roads.

The US Postal Service has halted deliveries from parts of the Dakotas through to Ohio.

Officials throughout the Midwest are taking extraordinary measures to protect the homeless and other vulnerable people from the bitter cold, including turning some city buses into mobile warming shelters in Chicago.

Temperatures in parts of the Northern Plains and Great Lakes plunged to as low -41C (-42F) in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and -31F in Fargo, North Dakota, according to the National Weather Service.

A woman in Minneapolis goes for a ski run with her dog / EPA

Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the service, said the some of the coldest wind chills were recorded in International Falls, Minnesota, at -48C(-55F).

This is significantly lower than an expected low of -33C (-28F) with wind chill in Antarctica.

Mr Orrison told Reuters: "Really today is going to be the absolute coldest across the Northern Plains and across the Midwest... stretching down into the Ohio Valley as well.

Steam rises from Chicago and Lake Michigan / EPA

"Moving forward here, we are going to see a decent amount of this cold air move through the East Coast."

The bitter cold is being carried by the polar vortex, a stream of air that spins around the stratosphere over the North Pole, but whose current has been disrupted and is now pushing south.

At least five deaths relating to cold weather were reported since Saturday in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, local media reports said.

More than 2,000 flights were cancelled early on Wednesday, largely out of Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway international airports, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.

Train service Amtrak said it would cancel all trains in and out of Chicago on Wednesday.

Most federal government offices in Washington DC opened three hours late on Wednesday due to the severe weather already impacting the area.
E mbattled President Nicolas Maduro has signalled he is willing to negotiate with his opposition rival as millions of Venezuelans were urged to take part in mass walkouts today in protest at his regime.

The apparent concession was made in an interview with a Russian news agency as Juan Guaido, the man claiming the presidency, called on supporters to take to the streets for a two-hour show of resistance this afternoon.

The demonstration, expected to be the biggest since the current crisis began, ratchets up the pressure on the Maduro government just hours after Venezuelas supreme court barred Mr Guaido from leaving the country.

Mr Maduro, left, has rebuffed demands from the international community, including Britain, for his resignation. The Trump administration has also imposed sanctions that could starve the stricken country of billions in oil revenue.

But in an interview with the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency this morning, the socialist president said he is willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future.

He said the talks could be held with the mediation of other countries, but his choice of go-between could further infuriate his critics, particularly the US. Russia is one of Mr Maduros staunchest allies and has offered its services. Mr Maduro, 56, also mentioned Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and the Vatican.

He added: There are several governments, organisations globally, which are demonstrating their sincere concern about what is happening in Venezuela, they have called for a dialogue.

Mr Maduro also accused Donald Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia. He claimed he was aware of orders from the US president for the Colombian government and the local mafia to kill him.

It is not the first time he has made such a claim. In August he accused the Colombian government of trying to assassinate him with an exploding drone, and later claimed the White House had a hand in the alleged plot. He has offered no evidence to support the allegations.

Before Mr Maduros apparent peace move, he seemed to be adopting a hard line by launching an investigation that could yet lead to Mr Guaidos arrest.

Venezuela is set on change, said Mr Guaido, who heads the countrys opposition-controlled congress and is leading the protests against Mr Maduros disputed win in elections that were allegedly rigged against his opponents.
A gunman has opened fire on a crowd in Corsica killing one and injuring at least six others.

The suspect shot at police officers in the Corsican city of Bastia before locking himself inside a nearby apartment, according to reports.

Police have surrounded the building.

Three women and two men including a police officer are among those injured, France 3 reported.

French police said there is no indication the suspect's actions were terror-related.

According to local media, the suspect is a man in his 60s and was known to police because he had trouble with his neighbours in the past.

Police confirmed an officer was among the people injured.
A 30-year-old orca has died at SeaWorlds Orlando park in Florida after a short illness.

The company said the female orca, known as Kayla, died on January 28 after becoming sick two days earlier.

SeaWorld said in a statement a post-mortem in the next several weeks would reveal the cause of death.

Although animal care specialists and veterinarians devoted around the clock attention to Kayla, she did not survive, the company said.

Kayla began showing signs of discomfort on Saturday, and veterinarians began treating her based on what they found from a physical exam.

SeaWorld said it would phase out its orca breeding program and shows after the release of the documentary Blackfish. / Stig Nygaard

Park officials say her condition worsened on Sunday and she was given around-the-clock care until her death.

According to WTSP, Kayla was the first killer whale born in captivity at SeaWorld in San Antonio, Texas, in 1988, and was the second-oldest orca born in captivity.

Kaylas calf, Halyn, died when she was just three years old.

The news of Kaylas death has saddened the park but angered animal rights groups, who argue the animals have a far shorter life expectancy when kept in captivity.

The US government estimates that female orcas typically live around 50 years but can live to be as old as 80 or 90 in the wild.

Dr. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute, told the Orlando Sentinel that Kayla died very young for an orca.

Thats like literally being a 30-year-old woman. Dying at 30 is not normal, she said.

SeaWorld stopped its Orca breeding program in 2016 amidst intense pressure from animals rights activists, shareholders and corporations following the release of the documentary Blackfish in 2013.

The film documented the life of Tilikum, who was taken from the wild as a calf and transferred between SeaWorld's parks, later killing its trainer during a performance in Orlando in 2010. The whale died in 2017 at 33-years-old.

Animal Rights group PETA has hit out at the company over Kaylas death.

In a tweet it said: Kayla was forced to move around the country from park to park & heartbreakingly lost babies over the years.
M arks & Spencer has come under fire for a fake biryani flavoured wrap.

The vegan wrap, which costs 2.80 and is part of the chain's Plant Kitchen range, is made out of sweet potato, spiced basmati rice, buckwheat and roasted pepper.

But, there has been backlash since it hit shelves, including from a top chef and an Indian restaurant, who have accused the chain of cultural appropriation.

Maunika Gowardhan, author of the cookbook, Indian Kitchen, posted a photo of the biryani wrap alongside the caption: Thanks but I like my biryani with rice in a bowl not a wrap. Seriously M&S!?

She added: Just to put it in perspective, in India firstly there is no such thing as a veg biryani.

"Most places will serve mutton or chicken or even fish. Its wrong on many levels when people will assume this is what a biryani looks like! Biryani needs rice, isnt stuffed in bread and doesnt include lettuce.

She told The Times that while she loved the Plant Kitchen range, she was confused by the new wrap, adding: I have never seen a biryani wrapped in a bread.

A biryani is a labour-intensive method of cooking. You layer everything.

"Theres saffron, theres cardamom, some regions have rosewater, garam masala. This is a complete misrepresentation of what the dish is. the Mumbai-born chef told the paper.

All you are doing is using the name, not the dish. Biryani is not a flavour, biryani is a dish. To narrow it down to something that is wrapped in a pack with lettuce and sweet potato . . . it is ill-informed.

Darjeeling Express, a restaurant in Soho set up by Asma Khan with an all-female team of chefs, tweeted: This is so wrong at SO many levels  who are you paying to design your wraps @marksandspencer? You seriously need to rethink your exotic wrap selection. That is not biryani  you do not appropriate names from a cuisine without even bothering to do any research on that dish.

But, others have come to the wraps defence, calling on those who criticise the meal to loosen up.

Cher Vivek Singh, whose flagship restaurant is the Cinnamon Club in London, told The Times: There must be dozens if not hundreds of vegetarian versions of the dish in the sub-continent. I dont think there is a holy grail of what a biryani should be. Having cooked professionally for 25 years, I think a vegetarian biryani is just as authentic as anything else.

He added: I dont have a very rigid view of what authenticity is. I have spent a good part of my cooking life trying to challenge perceptions and push boundaries. I dont think even my food is authentic!

In a statement, an M&S spokesman said: M&S is famous for its food innovation and our developers use a fusion of different flavours and ingredients to create an exciting range of products to appeal to customers tastes.
T wo men who served years behind bars before their convictions were overturned have lost their fight for compensation at the UKs highest court.

Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon took their legal battle to the Supreme Court following defeats at the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

At a hearing in May last year their legal teams said the UK was free to make its own decisions  as long as they did not interfere with the presumption of innocence.

But, by a majority of five to two, seven Supreme Court justices dismissed their appeals this morning.

Sam Hallam speaks after losing his fight for compensation / PA

Mr Hallam, from east London, served more than seven years after he was sentenced to life following his conviction at the Old Bailey in 2005 for the murder of a trainee chef.

Mr Nealon was given a life sentence after his trial at Hereford crown court and served 17 years in jail, 10 more than the seven-year minimum term, after persistently saying he was innocent.
A glowing Duchess of Sussex visited the National Theatre today for the first time since succeeding the Queen as its patron.

Meghan, who is heavily pregnant, was going back to her acting roots as she learned about the work of the institution and met staff and apprentices working behind the scenes.

The duchess has an affinity with the National Theatre after spending a decade working as an actress in television, where she was best known for her role in the hit US legal drama series Suits, playing paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane.

She also has a theatre background having studied theatre and international relations at Northwestern University, Illinois, and volunteered at a performing arts after-school programme for children in underprivileged school districts in Los Angeles.

Meghan Markle visits National Theatre for first time as patron

Meghan is a strong believer in using the arts to bring people from different backgrounds and communities together - and her views chime with the National Theatre's ethos of producing world class theatre with the aim of being as inclusive, diverse and national as possible.

During her visit, the duchess was joining a workshop with members of the Pericles company, which was the National Theatre's first Public Acts production in 2018.

The play was performed by a company of over 200 people of all ages.

The duchess, who is heavily pregnant, watched a performance by the Edith Neville Primary School during her visit to the National Theatre. / Twitter / Kensington Palace

One of the performers, Blessing, 13, met the duchess, and said her experience in performing in the play allowed her to discover more about what she could do and gain more confidence.

She also watched a performance inspired by War Horse by school children from Edith Neville Primary School in Camden, which was created to mark the centenary of Armistice Day.

The 2017-18 season saw the National Theatre stage 19 productions at the South Bank, 10 across the UK, three in the West End and six internationally.

The Duchess of Sussex meets current and former National Theatre apprentices  the NT launched its apprenticeship and trainee programme in 2011, which combines studying for formal qualifications alongside practical training. (Twitter / Kensington Palace) / Kensington Palace

Its UK-wide learning and participation programme supports young people's creative education through performance and writing programmes like Connections, New Views and Let's Play.

The National Theatre extends its reach through digital programmes including NT Live, which broadcasts some of the best of British theatre to over 2,500 venues in 65 countries, and the free streaming service On Demand In Schools, used by nearly 60% of UK state secondary schools.
M anchester was plagued by major travel disruption on Wednesday morning with snowfall shutting its airport and jamming roads with traffic.

Luckily, however, one commuter had an ingenious idea to avoid the commotion.

As masses of vehicles struggled during morning rush hour in the Didsbury area of the city, one man calmly passed by the stationary traffic on a pair of skis.

The man, dressed head to toe in thick protective clothing, looked more suited to a holiday in the Alps than the north-west of England.

A man on a pair of skis bypasses traffic in Didsbury, Manchester, on Wednesday morning / Gabrielle Sanderson

But no one was doubting his technique as he breezed through the traffic jam.

Weather Forecast for Wednesday, January 30th

And for those stuck in the cold while waiting for delayed public transport, he at least brightened their morning.

Gabrielle Sanderson told the Standard: People were held up at the bus stop so there was quite a lot of people laughing and amused by his innovative thinking.
I f every European Union national walked out of London overnight, the city would be decimated by dawn. They make up more than a 10th of the citys population, according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, although the number may have dropped since the referendum.

The common waking nightmare is that they wont have a choice about leaving. The drawn out issue of settled status  the right of EU citizens to remain in the UK  should have begun to be resolved last Monday. The Home Office launched an app to offer some certainty to EU citizens about their post-Brexit future in the United Kingdom. But it lefty many applicants confused  the app only worked on Android phones, precluding those with iPhones or older models from using it. The Home Office have subsequently stressed that this was a public test phase, with a full rollout due by 30 March 2019. Once the system is fully open, there should be further routes available to have identity documents checked, including a postal route and more than 50 locations where applicants can have their chip checked.

Disorientation has been endemic. Until a recent government U-turn, applicants were going to have to pay 65 a head to apply for settled status.

Its all added up to three years of stress, distress and alienation for citizens from the EUs other 27 member states who live and work in the capital. We asked them, does London still feel like home?



Austria

Sigrid Kramer, 39, petrophysicist

Sigrid Kramer (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Ive heard comments about my accent, women saying: Theres another one of them, when I was with my twins in a playground. They were old enough to know better. I havent applied for settled status yet but I got permanent residency a few years ago, so itll just be an exchange for me, when it eventually becomes necessary. We are an iPhone family so the fact that its all Android-only is holding me back at the moment.

Belgium

Therese Coen, 31, rights director at a literary agency

Therese Coen (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Brexit has instilled a small but deeply rooted belief that many in Britain ultimately dont want people like me in their country. We obviously have no idea of how Brexit will pan out, but given the rather xenophobic sentiments that were stirred by the referendum in 2016, I wouldnt be surprised if such expressions returned.

Bulgaria

Hristina Jones, 30, secondary school teacher

Hristina Jones (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Ive already left the country  earlier this year my partner and I moved to Galicia in sunny Spain, but we had been planning to do that for a while. My British partner and I got a civil partnership before we left so that we can get back into the country just in case things go wayward. Thats Brexit  helping people get married.

Croatia

Fr Ljubomir Simunovic, 48, chaplain

Fr Ljubomir Simunovic, (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

The Brexit vote was perceived as a kind of a new challenge for our community, which naturally opened some concerns. As a lighthouse of hope for all of our Croatian members we believe that British society will remain completely inclusive, as it has been up to now.

Czech Republic

Ema Janackova, 26, design and art marketing and communications

Ema Janackova (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Settled status should have been finalised and properly communicated directly to EU citizens many months ago to prevent spreading panic. I havent applied yet as I thought it might change. Sometimes Im hesitant to speak Czech in public or speak with my slightly stronger accent. My boyfriend is openly pro-Brexit. He is a journalist so he is actually quite vocal about it. But all it shows is that even two people with different opinions can find a dialogue in shared values and principles. I think they should appoint us two to lead the Brexit negotiations!

Cyprus

Songur Cambaz, 46, small business distributor

Songur Cambaz (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

As a Turkish Cypriot I have experienced a hard border back home. I have been living in the UK over 25 years and I am considering applying for Cypriot passports for my children to give them a chance for free movement in their education, or in their future life if they choose to. Brexit issues have been discussed on the TV program I do weekly, Kanal-T Cypriot, aired from London.

Denmark

Ann Bille Simonsen, 35, broadcast editor

Ann Bille Simonsen (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Sadly, I fear that London wont be the same after Brexit, especially if we end up with a hard Brexit. I have the option to pick up and go back to a country which on many levels will give me a better living standard than here. Lots of Londoners wont have that luxury.

Estonia

Kadri Sihv, 30, MBA student

Kadri Sihv (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

I now feel less at home than I did before the vote. Ive studied and worked in the UK for longer than I have in Estonia. Despite this, and being married to a Brit, I am still not eligible to apply for residency, because I havent been here for five continuous years (I studied here for four years, went back to Estonia for three years and have been here for the past three years). So Im worried that if I left London at any time after March 29, then wanted to return a couple of years down the line, I wont be allowed to stay or able to get another job.

Finland

Riita Valijarv, 39, university lecturer

Riita Valijarv (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Brexit is stressful and embarrassing for Britain. It all seems chaotic. Some of my EU friends have applied for British citizenship, others have left the UK. I have close ties not only with Finland but also with Sweden. Im worried about roaming charges, pensions, the cost of transferring money between countries, and taxation.

France

Antoine Cousseau, 26, student

Antoine Cousseau (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Last week they finally told us there wouldnt be a fee for the settlement scheme and that an app had been launched by the Home Office to facilitate the process. I set about signing up immediately but I dont own an Android phone. This is unfairly excluding thousands of people. My other option is to go to one of the 13 centres in the UK where I can fill in my application, however, this comes at a cost of 13 and again, not everyone can get to these places easily. I find the whole process shocking.

Germany

Jascha Haenig, 27, investor relations

Jascha Haenig (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Ive lived here for 10 years. But because of a years break in Germany around four-and-a-half years ago I only qualify for pre-settled status. I was planning to wait a few months until I qualify to be settled but the way things are shaping up Im going to start sooner. I get asked are you going to stay? all the time by friends. Its become an annoying question, but not knowing about my status here is frustrating.

On referendum day I worked at a company where 90 per cent were EU nationals. I came in one morning and people were crying, wondering how the hell this had happened. It was a sombre mood. I dont have any intention of going anywhere, and it would be a slap in the face if after 10 years contributing significantly to the economy I was asked to leave.

Greece

Kostis Kentras, 39, product manager

Kostis Kentras (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Most of the foreigners who work in the UK have loans back in their own country, so the constant currency changes are killing us. The currency drops and then the value of our work contracts drop and the result is the inability to pay our bills back home. I hate to think what would happen if the UKs economy went the same way as Greeces when the banks collapsed. You couldnt transfer money or even take it out of the ATM and it took a long time for the natural rhythm to come back to the country.

Hungary

Andreas Arany-Toth, 40, consultant

Andreas Arany-Toth (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

I fell in love with the English language when I was six. My father was a diplomat and we moved to Vienna when I was child, where I learned the language. All the songs I listened to were English songs  The Bangles, Eternal Flame. Budapest was a cold, grey environment in the Nineties. As soon as Hungary joined the EU I applied for a job as an easyJet sales agent in London. Its where I wanted to be. Now its different. After 15 years, suddenly Im a number, just an immigration stat to lower. I went on the Pro-EU march in October just to feel like Im not alone in all this.

Italy

Tomas Scarciello, 37, food and beverage manager

Tomas Scarciello (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

As an Italian living in London for more than a decade I find Brexit shambolic. Its out of character  England is usually focused on planning and acting carefully. I am curious to see what happens next and hopeful that there will be a second vote, or at least clarity.

Ireland

Muireach Shankey, 30, publican

Muireach Shankey (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

You hear all political viewpoints and persuasions across the bar, and every now and then you get some anti-European sentiment, to which I always point out that Im a European myself. Invariably the response will be something along the lines of: Mate youre Irish, youre different. When you correct them and say youre exactly the same as anyone else from the EU and proud of it they tend to laugh it off. Its only when you clarify how many of their pints were poured by the various other Europeans behind the bar that you can almost see them think.

Netherlands

Kimberly van Tongeren, 25, software saleswoman

Kimberly van Tongeren (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

If anything, Brexit has reminded me I dont have to hang around in the UK for too long  I still have plenty of the world left to explore.

Malta

Nicole Farrugia, AGE, growth marketing

Nicole Farrugia (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Its a confusing time and the countrys leadership isnt instilling any confidence in the process, especially following last weeks vote, so well just have to wait and see.

Latvia

Sintija Lavrinovica, 27, airline cabin steward

Sintija Lavrinovica (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

I have built my life in the UK, studying, working, paying tax. I gained a residence permit and citizenship this year, but it wasnt an easy  or cheap  process. When my family visits me in the UK theyll need visas. In my current job I feel that it will be harder for the company to sustain a profit. The weak pound is a problem, daily.

Lithuania

Robert Grigas, 53, carpenter

Robert Grigas (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Brexit hasnt made much difference yet. My family are all here in the UK  Ive been here for 21 years. Its just politics and theres nothing we can do about it. I think they should call a second referendum because a lot of people have changed their minds  you can see in the news, many companies are leaving the UK. For now, Im just keeping working.

Luxembourg

Patrick Ludde, 48, hair stylist

Patrick Ludde (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Brexit affected me badly and made me really anxious  initially it felt like a slap in the face. After 25 years of living here the UK has become my home where I work, pay my taxes and where I have settled. Since the referendum Ive lost a sense of belonging. My initial reaction after the referendum was that I wanted to leave this country. But where would I go to? Ive built my life and my business here for the last 25 years. Im married to a British citizen. Nowhere else feels more like home.

Poland

Dorota Staniak, 36, cafe owner

Dorota Staniak (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

I wish it could be March 29 tomorrow so I could know whats going on. I stopped reading the newspapers or watching the news. Every few months its something new but it doesnt change anything. Its confusing. I get most of my stock from abroad but its mostly things that you cant stockpile, like avocados. I have one British customer who thinks we should all just leave the country, but Im just hoping itll be fine. My children are 12 and 10 and for them Brexit is closing the door a bit: if they want to study abroad it might be more difficult.

Portugal

Ana Santos, 30, user researcher in e-commerce

Ana Santos (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

The biggest impact Brexit has had on me is the uncertainty of where it leaves me. The UK and especially London is a place Ive always naturally felt as being open and welcoming. It now forces me to consider whether this is where I want to be in the future, and will I be happy here? The worst thing is the uncertainty and doubt it creates inside you.

Romania

Costel Sandu, 29, videographer

Costel Sandu (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

When I came to the UK I worked at Pret with people from all over. A lot of them went back to their countries because they didnt like the environment. Theres this misconception of people coming here to take our jobs, but were the people who sustain everything, doing stuff that you dont want to. Brexit impacts those type of jobs because they wont get as many people willing to do that.

Slovakia

Maria Rehakova, 23, musician

Maria Rehakova (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

I married an Englishman 18 months ago, so if Brexit happens Im on the safe side. Its sad though: free movement between Europe and the UK is one of the biggest advantages for my generation. Thats how I came to England, I got a place at the Guildhall School of Music in 2014. If there hadnt been that opportunity then Id have never come here and met my husband, or advanced in my career. Being able to work abroad is important for musicians.

Slovenia

Bojana Selinsek, 30, clinical trials manager

Bojana Selinsek (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Brexit is partially affecting my future at the moment as I am moving back to Slovenia. I was on a fixed-term contract which hasnt been extended. In this uncertain time when nobody knows what will happen I think the employers as well as the employees are opting for the safest option for them. For me this was moving back to the Continent.

Spain

Nacho del Campo, 41, executive chef

Nacho del Campo (ES local feed ) / ES local feed

Over the many years Ive worked as a chef Ive learned that one of the first things people cut down on when there are economic troubles is reducing the number of times they eat out. It will become harder to staff restaurants as right now, we are mainly Europeans working in them.

Sweden

Charlotte Agren, 32, founder of LondonSwedes.com

Charlotte Agren (ES local feed ) / ES local feed
L ondon Ambulance Service is set to hold talks with the military to line up support for frontline crews in the event of Brexit sparking political unrest.

The countrys biggest ambulance service is also considering how to safeguard supplies of fuel and stockpile spare tyres for ambulances  and how to reduce fuel consumption if supplies are rationed.

LAS chiefs yesterday formally added Brexit to its risk register as a red alert and held discussions in private about the financial implications of leaving the EU.

A report to the LAS board warned there was a risk that it may not be prepared for potential disruption following Brexit, which could harm patient care and the trusts finances.

LAS is the only ambulance service in the UK that does not have its own fuel pumps. It has been told by the Government that it is a priority service and crews would be able to jump the queue at filling stations.

An LAS report said: Discussions with the military should be undertaken to establish support if required in the event of political unrest.

The service recorded the busiest month in its history last month, treating more than 101,000 patients face-to-face while achieving the seven-minute NHS response time for the most serious incidents.

Last year the Standard revealed that the delivery of new ambulances, built by Mercedes in Germany and finished off in Ireland, was being accelerated to ensure they were not stuck on the wrong side of the border after Brexit.

Unlike most London hospital trusts, which have a large number of EU staff who they fear may leave after March 29, LAS only had 169 EU nationals in its workforce of around 5,700. Instead nearly 25 per cent of LAS paramedics are Australian and recruiters will return to the country next month hoping to recruit 250 more.

The LAS is less exposed to drugs shortages than hospitals because its ambulances carry only limited supplies. It has been told that three months worth of medical equipment, such as wound dressings and syringes, will held on UK soil by suppliers. LAS chief executive Garrett Emmerson told the Standard that it was working through scenarios as a matter of good practice. Its pretty standard emergency response planning that we would do, he said. This included ensuring that staff who drove to work had access to fuel.
B osses in despair were ramping up no-deal crisis plans today as the Government kept Britain lashed to a course of crashing out of the EU in eight weeks time.

They believe the Commons votes last night increased the likelihood of a chaotic departure from the European Union on March 29 and the pound fell as key results came through.

Business chiefs took a gloomy view of the parliamentary showdown.

I dont think there will be a single business this morning who is stopping or halting their no-deal planning as a result of what happened yesterday, and I fear they may even be accelerating it, said the CBIs Carolyn Fairbairn.

May vows to renegotiate Brexit agreement with EU after Commons vote

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing Northern Ireland, added: Our firms are actually partly in despair, and really confused about whats going on. Theres been a number of commitments given to Northern Ireland to protect our community here, and to protect the Good Friday Agreement, and the events of last night, effectively an attempt to rip the backstop, which has been intricately negotiated over 18 months, from the deal, really sends them into a bit of a tizzy.

Brexit: Leave and Remain supporters gather in London on 29 January 1 /25 Brexit: Leave and Remain supporters gather in London on 29 January Pro-EU and pro-Brexit protestors discuss the vote and ongoing political processes as they demonstrate near to the Houses of Parliament Getty Images A man holds a 'Stop Brexit' sign aboard a campaign bus travelling down Whitehall in Westminster, London PA Pro-Brexit demonstrators chant slogans outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Anti-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters A leave supporter vapes electronic cigarette in front of a group of remain supporters AP Pro-Brexit protestors dressed as suffragettes demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Images An anti-brexit supporter holds banners in London AP Pro and anti Brexit protestors discuss the vote and ongoing political processes as they demonstrate near to the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters hold banners in London AP A campaigner dressed as Charlie Chaplin walks by the Houses of Parliament PA A leave supporter holds banners at the parliament gates AP Pro-Brexit, left and anti-Brexit protesters hold banners in London AP Pro-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters A leave supporter holds banners in front of remain supporters during demonstrations in London AP Police officers stand near Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit posters outside the Houses of Parliament, in Westminster, London Reuters Leave supporters hold placards in front of remain supporters during demonstrations in London, AP A pro-Brexit protestor sets fire to a roll of toilet paper decorated with the EU flag as she demonstrates near the Houses of Parliament Getty Images A pro-Brexit protestor sets fire to a roll of toilet paper decorated with the EU flag as she demonstrates near the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Leave supporters hold placards as they take part in demonstrations near the parliament in Londo AP Leave and remain supporters hold placards as they take part in demonstrations near the parliament in London AP Pro-Brexit activists hold placards and wave flags as they demonstrate opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AFP/Getty Images A remain supporter, left and a leave supporter, center, discuss during demonstrations in London AP Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Getty Images v Reuters Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate on a double decker bus outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Getty Images

Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of business group London First, urged the Government to stop the clock and delay Brexit rather than crash the country out of Europe.
J eremy Corbyn has said he told Theresa May "don't bring no deal back to Parliament" as they finally met to discuss Brexit this afternoon.

The Labour leader agreed to meet the Prime Minister to speak about her Brexit plan and the Irish backstop following Tuesday's votes.

Speaking after the meeting on Wednesday, Mr Corbyn said Mrs May had understood the points that we were making and said his last words to the Prime Minister were "do not bring no deal back to Parliament".

He said they discussed issues surrounding the problems of the backstop which she is going to talk to the EU about, with a Labour spokesman saying the meeting had been serious and engaged.

I pointed out that this would be the first time in British history we had entered into a treaty arrangement with anybody else in which there was no right to leave because it would be a decision that could only be made by the other side, Mr Corbyn told the BBC.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Prime Minister had "listened" to his points on Brexit / PA

Asked whether he has a serious problem with the backstop, he added: I have a problem where we go into an agreement which is one-sided. I want an agreement which is mutual.

The Labour position is that we want a comprehensive customs union with the European Union with a say in how those trade arrangements are made."

Theresa May wrote on Twitter after the meeting: "I was pleased to meet Jeremy Corbyn and discuss how we ensure Britain leaves the EU on 29 March.

"I stressed to him the importance of the UK being able to do our own trade deals, and emphasised that the only way to avoid No Deal is to vote for a deal."

The meeting came after the pair had clashed at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.

Following the meeting, Mr Corbyn said he is "suspicious" that Mrs May is trying to "run down the clock" on Brexit.

Theresa May during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday / AFP/Getty Images

In the Commons, Mr Corbyn demanded to know which of her red lines Mrs May was prepared to compromise on in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

"It really is time that the Prime Minister acknowledged she has got to move on from the red lines she put down in the first place," he said.

But the PM told Mr Corbyn he had opposed "every move by this Government to get a deal" and "he is the one risking no deal".

In dramatic scenes on Tuesday night, MPs voted by a margin of 317 to 301 to back a plan - the "Brady amendment" - which requires the PM to replace the Agreement's controversial backstop with "alternative arrangements" to keep the Irish border open after Brexit.

European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted on Wednesday what he said was a message to the Prime Minister after last nights debate and votes in the Commons.

He said: The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation. Yesterday, we found out what the UK doesnt want. But we still dont know what the UK does want.

Mr Tusks comments mirrored a statement made by Jean-Claude Juncker, who said Mrs Mays Brexit deal remains the best and only deal possible and warned there will be no renegotiation.

Speaking to the European Parliament on Wednesday, the President of the European Commission said: The Withdrawal Agreement remains the best and only deal possible. The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

The Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated, he added.

EC president Jean-Claude Juncker said the Brexit deal will not be renegotiated / EPA

Mr Juncker told MEPs that the backstop represented a "safety net" for the Irish border, adding: "No safety net can ever truly be safe if it can just be removed at any time."

He said he sometimes had the impression that some on the UK side hoped that 26 EU states "will abandon the backstop - and so Ireland - at the last minute".

But he insisted: "This is not a game and neither is it a simple bilateral issue. It goes to the heart of what being a member of the EU means. Ireland's border is Europe's border and it is our Union's priority."

Irish premier Leo Varadkar also spoke to the Prime Minister by phone to discuss the outcome of the Commons vote on Tuesday.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar / PA

In a statement, the Irish government said: "The Taoiseach set out once again the unchanged Irish and EU position on the Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop, noting that the latest developments had reinforced the need for a backstop which is legally robust and workable in practice.

"The Prime Minister indicated that further consultations are taking place in London.
E U leaders today called on Theresa May to unveil a proper plan to replace the Irish backstop after she and her Brexit Secretary both failed to explain exactly what she wants.

There was exasperation when she refused to say what option she favours when challenged by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Ministers Questions.

Frans Timmermans, deputy head of the bloc, pleaded with the UK to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible as Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney accused Britain of wishful thinking and said: We wont do it.

Mrs May told the Commons this afternoon: Last night the House voted to set a clear direction on where the House can agree a deal and that is about dealing with the issue of the backstop.

Jeremy Corbyn challenged Theresa May to explain her Brexit plans / PA

"As I said yesterday, there are a number of proposals to how that could be done. She listed several possibilities including a new Plan C, an exit mechanism, a time limit or a trusted trader scheme.

But Mr Corbyn quipped to laughter: None of that was very clear to me, I dont know about anybody else!

The clash followed Mrs May claiming a mandate for new talks after winning a Commons vote that her deal could go through if the backstop is replaced. And MPs also voted to reject a no-deal Brexit. In other developments today:

The European Commission stepped up no-deal preparations because of what Mr Timmermans called an increasing risk of the UK crashing out on March 29.

Jeremy Corbyn was preparing to enter cross-party talks for the first time, with a demand that Mrs May softens her red lines and backs a customs union. Their talks will take place away from No 10 to avoid shots of the Labour leader at the famous front door.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the bloc would not change its commitment to the backstop. The position of the European Union is very clear, he told reporters.

European Council president Donald Tusk, who last night ruled out any re-negotiation, revealed he will be speaking by phone tonight with Mrs May later today. He is likely to ask her if she has a plan that he could float to other leaders.

Portugal said a renegotiation was only possible if Britain delays Brexit, shifts its red lines and presents clear alternatives to the backstop before the EU would listen and give our position.

A senior Downing Street source played down the EUs apparent refusal to budge, saying: The EU response is entirely as expected.

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney accused Britain of wishful thinking / PA

But Mr Coveney said Brexit negotiators had already spent two years looking at alternatives to the backstop without success.

We have tested them and we have found that they do not stand up to scrutiny, and now we have a British prime minister advocating again for the same things that were tested, he told RTE as a chorus was growing among EU leaders for Mrs May and her ministers to come up with a specific proposal that could meet her promise to return to the Commons in two weeks with a revised withdrawal deal.

Interviewed by Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4s Today, Mr Barclay was asked what was meant by alternative arrangements to the backstop, which is the phrase used in the motion passed by MPs.

Mr Barclay would only offer a vague commitment that the Government will be exploring issues such as a time limit, new technology and an escape clause. This will be the nature of the negotiation with the EU in coming days, he told Today.

A senior Downing Street source played down the EUs apparent refusal to change the backstop, saying: The EU response is entirely as expected. He said Mrs May had set out three possible ways to address the backstop in the Commons.

The said the political declaration already referred to the use of technology but did not elaborate. He referred to the new Brexit proposals backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Remain campaigner Nicky Morgan but avoided getting into the technicalities of it.

Mr Robinson again asked what were the alternative arrangements. I was just coming on to that, said Mr Barclay before changing the subject back to the Commons voting. Mr Robinson pleaded: Let me ask you again, Mr Barclay: what is the alternative to the backstop? The minister replied: Thats what we are exploring in terms of the use of technology, looking at things like the time limit.

Asked if Mrs May did not have an alternative, he pointed out that the European Commission has recently suggested that border checks could be carried out away from the Irish border. Theres a common ground in terms of a desire to address this, he insisted.

Mr Robinson asked a fifth time: So you dont have this morning an alternative to the backstop? Mr Barclay said: Theres a number of options, theres issues in terms of having time limits, theres issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology. This will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union. Labour MP Ian Murray said the Governments wish list amounted to alternative unicorns.

Senior German politician Norbert Rottgen said on Newsnight that the Commons votes appeared to be an exercise in party management.

Terry Reintke, a German MEP, posted a tweet of a unicorn with the mocking caption: Hi there, my name is alternative arrangement.

Former trade minister Greg Hands tweeted a warning, in German, to Brussels: If you reject this you are risking a hard Brexit.

But a chorus was growing among other EU leaders for Mrs May and her ministers to come up with a specific proposal that could meet her promise to return to the Commons in two weeks with a revised withdrawal deal.
T heresa May has battled through a series of votes in the House of Commons and is preparing a desperate attempt to renegotiate her Brexit deal.

It comes after MPs backed proposals to replace the controversial Irish backstop in the Prime Minister's withdrawal deal on Tuesday night.

But Mrs Mays hopes have already suffered a blow after European Council president Donald Tusk rebuffed any planned changes to the withdrawal agreement struck at the end of last year.

Here's a look at what could happen next in the Brexit saga.

MP's vote on Brexit plans: Which amendments passed?

Will the PM go to Brussels?

Mrs May vowed to seek "legally binding" changes to the withdrawal agreement with the European Union, but gave no firm date for returning to Brussels to reopen negotiations.

The Prime Minister told MPs on Tuesday night that while there was "limited appetite" to amend the deal, the House of Commons had "made it clear what it needs to approve a withdrawal agreement".

Will the EU make any concessions?

Key figures in Brussels roundly rejected the PM's suggestion, as Donald Tusk insisted that the Withdrawal Agreement struck last November was not open for renegotiation.

European Council president Donald Tusk says the withdrawl agreement cannot be renegotiated / AFP/Getty Images

Meanwhile, the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said there was "no majority to re-open or dilute" the agreement.

What about the Labour Party?

Jeremy Corbyn, who boycotted cross-party talks after the Commons rejected the Withdrawal Agreement by a record 230 votes on January 15, said that he was now ready to meet the Prime Minister to discuss a "sensible Brexit solution that works for the whole country".

He called on Mrs May to "face the reality that no-deal is not an option".

Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons on Tuesday / PA

Could Brexit be delayed?

This option became less likely after MPs rejected two proposals to delay Brexit by extending the two-year Article 50 negotiation process if Mrs May was unable to secure an acceptable agreement by February 26.

What sort of Brexit is now likely?

It still remains unclear. The EU would have to significantly change their stance on reopening the Withdrawal Agreement if legally-binding changes are to be made on the Irish backstop.

Key Brexit moments of 2018: in pictures 1 /23 Key Brexit moments of 2018: in pictures Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Chequers in July PA The Cabinet thrashed out a Brexit blue print PA The away day meeting PA Boris Johnson leaves Carlton House Terrace in Westminster after he resigned as Foreign Secretary PA David Davis pictured after quitting the government, resigning his post as Brexit Secretary AFP/Getty Images New role: Jeremy Hunt was appointed as Foreign Secretary in July Getty Images Dominic Raab took over the role of Brexit Secretary in July AP/Matt Dunham Exotic spresm: Liberal Democrats Leader Sir Vince Cable following his speech at the party conference PA More than half a million protesters descended on London for the People's Vote March in October Sky News Demonstrators called for a People's Vote on Brexit during a march in Liverpool earlier this year Getty Images Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, presented the red Budget Box as he revealed the government's financial plans in October Getty Images It was the last Budget before Brexit AFP/Getty Images Mr McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn listen as Chancellor Philip Hammond delivers his Budget statement AFP/Getty Images New Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay after Dominic Raab quit the post in November Getty Images Esther McVey also resigned as Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Keir Starmer opened the debate on a motion to hold the Government in contempt of Parliament on December 4 AFP/Getty Images Sir Graham Brady (centre), chairman of the 1922 Committee, announces that Theresa May has survived a confidence vote on December 12 PA Theresa May in Downing Street after winning the confidence vote Jeremy Selwyn The Prime Minister confronts Jean-Claude Juncker at an EU summit in December 'You called me nebulous' Philip Sime/Twitter Jeremy Corbyn was accused of mouthing the words "stupid woman" during the last PMQs of the year Jeremy Corbyn responds in the Commons amid the row PA Jeremy Corbyn denied reports he muttered the words "stupid woman" AFP/Getty Images

But while the UK and EU remain at loggerheads over the issue, one of Mrs May's key negotiating weapons was ripped from her hands by MPs when they voted on Tuesday evening to block a no-deal.
J ean-Claude Juncker has said Theresa Mays Brexit deal remains the best and only deal possible and warned that there will be no renegotiations of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Speaking to the European Parliament on Wednesday, Mr Juncker said: The Withdrawal Agreement remains the best and only deal possible. The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

The Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated, he added.

The president of the European Commission delivered the stark warning to the Prime Minister after EU leaders called on Mrs May to unveil a proper plan to replace the Irish backstop.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says the current Brexit deal is the "only deal possible" / REUTERS

Mr Juncker told MEPs that the backstop represented a "safety net" for the Irish border, adding: "No safety net can ever truly be safe if it can just be removed at any time."

He said he sometimes had the impression that some on the UK side hoped that 26 EU states "will abandon the backstop - and so Ireland - at the last minute".

But he insisted: "This is not a game and neither is it a simple bilateral issue. It goes to the heart of what being a member of the EU means. Ireland's border is Europe's border and it is our Union's priority."

His comments came as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn met Mrs May to discuss the Withdrawal Agreement, with a Downing Street spokesman saying the talks would be a chance to find a way forward on Brexit.

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn afterwards characterised the tone of his meeting as "serious and engaged" and said the pair agreed to meet again.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn / PA

The spokesman said ahead of the meeting that the party has no confidence the Prime Minister can achieve the kind of changes she has promised Parliament to win it over to her deal.

"We have no confidence that what she's talking about can be achieved in negotiations with the European Union, let alone in the next couple of weeks," the spokesman said on Wednesday.

"Whereas clearly the kind of alternative plan that we have put forward for a sensible negotiated deal ... could win support both in the parliament and in negotiations with the EU."

Earlier, the Cabinet minister for Brexit, Stephen Barclay, ducked five times giving a direct answer when asked in a radio interview to say what alternative arrangements over the backstop amounted to

Frans Timmermans, deputy head of the bloc, pleaded with the UK to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible as Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney accused Britain of wishful thinking and said: We wont do it.

Mrs May told the Commons this afternoon: Last night the House voted to set a clear direction on where the House can agree a deal and that is about dealing with the issue of the backstop.

"As I said yesterday, there are a number of proposals to how that could be done. She listed several possibilities including a new Plan C, an exit mechanism, a time limit or a trusted trader scheme.

Theresa May speaking at PMQs / AFP/Getty Images

But Mr Corbyn quipped to laughter: None of that was very clear to me, I dont know about anybody else!

The clash followed Mrs May claiming a mandate for new talks after winning a Commons vote that her deal could go through if the backstop is replaced. And MPs also voted to reject a no-deal Brexit

Responding immediately after the Brady amendment vote, European Council president Donald Tusk also ruled out any re-negotiation.
Ministry demands extradition order withdrawal, fair treatment for firms

Beijing strongly protested Washington's extradition request of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and demanded "objective" treatment for Chinese enterprises.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Tuesday that China is dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the United States' extradition demand and its disregarding Beijing's stern representations.

"We call on the US side to immediately withdraw the arrest warrant for Meng Wanzhou as well as the official extradition request," Geng said at a daily news conference.

He also urged Canada to take China's position seriously, release Meng immediately and ensure that her lawful and legitimate rights and interests are protected. Ottawa should not risk endangering itself for other's gains, he added.

The US Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Monday against Huawei and its several subsidiaries, as well as Meng herself, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated US sanctions. Canada's Justice Department confirmed later that officials had received a formal extradition request from the US, Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, Geng warned Washington in a statement to stop its campaign against Chinese enterprises, including Huawei.

"China calls on the US to treat Chinese companies in an objective and fair manner," Geng said in the statement, adding that the country will firmly defend the legitimate interests of Chinese enterprises.

"For some time, the US has been using its power to tarnish and crack down on specific Chinese enterprises in an attempt to strangle their lawful and legitimate operations. Those acts were motivated by strong political intentions and manipulation," he said.

Huawei has denied committing any of the violations cited in the US charges. The Chinese telecommunications giant said in a statement on Tuesday that it tried to discuss the investigation with US prosecutors following the arrest of Meng in Vancouver, but that request was rejected.

The company noted the allegations in the trade secrets charges were already the subject of a US civil lawsuit that was settled.

Huawei added it is "not aware of any wrongdoing by Meng and believes the US courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion."

Meng was detained in Vancouver at the request of the US on Dec 1 in connection with alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran. She faces an extradition hearing on Wednesday.

On Friday, Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum was asked to resign due to his comment on the extradition of Meng. He said it would be "great for Canada" if the US drops its extradition request against Meng.

Zhou Fangyin, a foreign policy researcher at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, said Meng's case is obviously not a legal case, but politically motivated.

Meng's case is neither related to the national security of Canada, nor is it related to its economic interests, Zhou said. The attitude of the Canadian government reveals how severely this matter is politicized, he added.
T heresa Mays vow to change the backstop suffered a setback today when Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay failed five times to explain precisely what she is asking the EU to agree.

In a live radio interview, the Cabinet minister avoided giving a direct answer when challenged to say what the alternative arrangements amounted to.

Mr Barclay would only offer a vague commitment that the Government will be exploring issues such as a time limit, new technology and an escape clause. This will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union in coming days, he told Radio 4s Today programme.

But a chorus was growing among other EU leaders for Mrs May and her ministers to come up with a specific proposal that could meet her promise to return to the Commons in two weeks with a revised withdrawal deal.

Fresh talks: Europes Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt and chief negotiator Michel Barnier at a steering group meeting in Brussels today / AP

Dear British friends, just a simple question. What do you want? asked Germanys Europe minister Michael Roth.

In key developments in the wake of last nights Commons votes, which saw MPs both vote to change the backstop and to reject a no-deal Brexit:

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will demand that the Prime Minister takes no deal off the table and backs a customs union when he finally goes into 10 Downing Street for the cross-party talks this afternoon, having previously kept his distance.

EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the bloc would not change. The position of the European Union is very clear, he said. It has been expressed yesterday by President Tusk, and President Juncker will make a statement to the Parliament this afternoon, he told reporters in Brussels.

European Council president Donald Tusk, who last night ruled out any renegotiation, revealed he will be speaking by phone with Mrs May later today. He is likely to ask her if she has a plan that he could float to other leaders.

Portugal said a renegotiation was only possible if Britain delays Brexit, shifts its red lines and presents clear alternatives to the backstop before the EU would listen and give our position.

A senior Downing Street source played down the EUs apparent refusal to change the backstop, saying: The EU response is entirely as expected. He said Mrs May had set out three possible ways to address the backstop in the Commons.

Interviewed by Nick Robinson on the Today programme, Mr Barclay was asked what was meant by alternative arrangements to the backstop, the phrase used in the motion passed by MPs that Mrs May hailed as a mandate to renegotiate. The Cabinet minister said the political declaration already referred to the use of technology but did not elaborate. He referred to the new Brexit proposals backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Remain campaigner Nicky Morgan but avoided getting into the technicalities of it.

Mr Robinson again asked what were the alternative arrangements. I was just coming on to that, said Mr Barclay before changing the subject back to the Commons voting. Mr Robinson pleaded: Let me ask you again, Mr Barclay: what is the alternative to the backstop? The minister replied: Thats what we are exploring in terms of the use of technology, looking at things like the time limit.

Asked if Mrs May did not have an alternative, he pointed out that the European Commission has recently suggested that border checks could be carried out away from the Irish border. Theres a common ground in terms of a desire to address this, he insisted.

Mr Robinson asked a fifth time: So you dont have this morning an alternative to the backstop?

Mr Barclay said: Theres a number of options, theres issues in terms of having time limits, theres issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology. This will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union. Labour MP Ian Murray said the Governments wish list amounted to alternative unicorns.

Senior German politician Norbert Rottgen said on Newsnight that the Commons votes appeared to be an exercise in party management.

Terry Reintke, a German MEP, posted a tweet of a unicorn with the mocking caption: Hi there, my name is alternative arrangement. Former trade minister Greg Hands tweeted a warning, in German, to Brussels: If you reject this you are risking a hard Brexit.
S adiq Khan was today told by the Government to up his game over housing in the latest row about the shortfall of new homes for the capital.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire told a conference it was disappointing that the number of additional new homes in the capital fell by 20 per cent last year with 21 boroughs showing a dip in their annual supply.

At a summit in the City organised by business group London First and attended by more than 150 property industry executives, he said: London is critical to the UK meeting its housing need, so I ask the Mayor to politely up his game, and focus on delivery with the powers he does have  but isnt using.

The Government is playing its part. Were putting billions into housing and infrastructure  at least 44 billion of financial support over five years.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire told a conference it was disappointing that the number of additional new homes in the capital fell by 20 per cent last year with 21 boroughs showing a dip in their annual supply / Luca Micheli/Unsplash

Were reforming planning to provide greater certainty and clarity for developers and communities, and have empowered Homes England, our new national housing agency, to take a more strategic and assertive approach to increasing supply around and outside London. Weve also removed the government cap on how much councils can borrow to build more and are investing 2 billion of long-term funding to help housing associations deliver.

It is the latest in a series of clashes between Mr Brokenshire and the Mayor over the blame for Londons housing crisis. Last year Mr Khan accused the minister of hypocrisy by blocking or threatening to block several residential schemes in the capital.

London First released the findings of a survey by YouGov showing that almost four in 10 Londoners have considered leaving the capital because of housing costs. London First chief executive Jasmine Whitbread told the conference: Young people  and increasingly middle-aged and older people too  are tearing their hair out over the cost of housing in the capital and many are seriously considering a future away from the city.

We need more money from the Government; the Mayor to bring forward more land for development; and for the industry to find smarter ways of building to speed up housing delivery. If this London flight continues it will endanger the one thing that above all else makes the city the worlds capital  its mix of people.

James Murray, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, said: This is a desperate attempt at political distraction by the Secretary of State who has a track record of blocking plans for new homes, including those at social rent levels, which Sadiq has given the go-ahead to.

Under Sadiq, City Hall started building more social and affordable homes last year than ever before  including more social homes than the rest of England and Wales combined.
A teenager left with cerebral palsy after suffering a serious brain injury at birth has been awarded more than 8 million in damages 17 years on.

The incident, which took place in 2002, occurred after staff at King George Hospital in Goodmayes, east London, failed to properly monitor the mothers Type 1 diabetes during pregnancy.

The mother then developed a potentially life-threatening condition, known as diabetic ketoacidosis, as her body started to run out of insulin.

After she was diagnosed there was another delay in providing appropriate treatment which affected the oxygen supply to her baby and led to brain injury, the hospital said.

The girl, who cannot be named but is referred to as ABC in legal documents, requires a lifetime of specialist care and is unlikely ever to be able to work.

The High Court awarded her 8.2 million to pay for specialist physiotherapy, accommodation and support. Her mother said: I have such a mixture of emotions. My daughters injury would not have happened if I had received competent care.

There is sadness but also relief that because of this settlement she will have some financial security and I have the security of knowing she will be properly looked after throughout her life.

The money will be paid to the girl by Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, the organisation that runs the hospital, and which admitted liability.

She will receive a 4.1 million lump sum and the rest will be paid in annual instalments, according to the settlement reached last Thursday.

The familys solicitor, Anne Kavanagh of Irwin Mitchell, said: This is a tragic case because the injury suffered was avoidable.

The settlement marks the end of a very long process for both ABC and her mother. It is now important that the Hospital Trust learns lessons from this case to improve patient care.

Kathryn Halford OBE, the trusts chief nurse, said: We apologise to this woman and her family.

We fell short of the high standards we set ourselves. We have made significant improvements since.

Kathryn Halford OBE, the trusts chief nurse, said: We would like to sincerely apologise again to this young woman and her family. We fell short of the high standards we set ourselves.
T hree men have been charged with the murder of doorman who was guarding a party on New Year's Day.

Tudor Simionov, 33, was working outside the private event at Fountain House in Park Lane in the capital's West End when he was attacked on January 1 at around 5.30am.

Scotland Yard said Haroon Akram, 25, was arrested on Monday and charged on Tuesday with murder, four counts of grievous bodily harm and one count of violent disorder.

Adham Khalil, 20, and Adham Elshalakany, 23, were arrested and charged on Tuesday with the same offences.

All three men have been remanded in custody.
C riminals should not have to disclose all previous offences to their employers if the convictions are irrelevant to their likelihood of breaking the law in future, Britains highest court ruled today.

The Supreme Court said the existing system under which job applicants are required to make a blanket disclosure of any crimes breached their human rights because it covered offences such as carrying children in a car without a seatbelt, or stealing a sandwich, as well as far more serious crimes.

It said the current rules were perverse and incapable of indicating a propensity to offend in future. The court said that the Government should instead create new rules to make it clear when past offences should have to be revealed.

The judges  who were deciding appeals by the Government defending the existing rules  also ruled it was wrong for reprimands and warnings given to juveniles to have to be revealed to future employers. This was because the purpose of such warnings, which are not criminal convictions, was to avoid the stigma of youthful actions blighting someones future life.

The rulings mean ministers will now have to adjust the criminal records disclosure regime to ensure it achieves what the court said was its legitimate purpose, of showing whether a job applicant is suitable for the employment they seek.

The result is likely to be that although the majority of offenders, particularly those who have committed serious crimes, will still have to declare offences and have them disclosed by the Governments Vetting and Barring Service, those who have committed multiple minor offences might not have to disclose them all. Todays ruling centres on the multiple offender rule which says if a person has committed more than one crime all their offending throughout their life must be disclosed.
A teenager stabbed to death in the street went out on his bike and never came home, his devastated family said today.

Nedim Bilgin, 17, was knifed in the chest in a clash with at least two other teenagers a few hundred yards from his home in Islington.

Witnesses claimed he had refused to hand over his bicycle before he was attacked with a weapon described as a Rambo knife.

The boy tried to stagger into a nearby shop to seek help but collapsed in a pool of blood outside a cafe in Caledonian Road.

Bystanders and medics battled desperately to save him before he was pronounced dead at the scene at about 7pm last night.

Police and forensic officers in Caledonian Road / NIGEL HOWARD 

The boy is the eighth person and the second teenager to be murdered on Londons streets this year.

Today the victims parents described him as their wonderful boy who had gone out on his bike never to return.

At the family home, his father Nusret told the Standard: He was a wonderful boy we are devastated. He went out on his bike and never came home.

Police and forensic officers after a fatal stabbing / NIGEL HOWARD A

We dont know whether they were stealing his bike or what. Thats what someone said. We were told a car pulled up and they stabbed him. We have no idea why. He was just minding his own business. He was a good boy.

His mother Remziye said: We are devastated. This violence must stop.

Detectives are understood to be investigating the possibility that the teenager was targeted and tried to flee his attackers before he was fatally stabbed.

Grief: Nedim Bilgins mother Remziye, second from right, at the police cordon with supporters / Jeremy Selwyn

Police arrested two boys aged 16 and 17 on suspicion of murder near the scene last night and later swooped on another 18-year-old at a house nearby.

Ben Lynch, an 18-year-old lifeguard, told how he desperately tried to save the teenagers life as he lay bleeding on the pavement.

He said: I was at a bar across the road and heard a bunch of people screaming and someone saying call 999.

Police at the scene of a fatal stabbing / NIGEL HOWARD 

I sprinted across the road to see what happened and I saw blood all over the pavement and this boy bleeding out. I ripped my jacket and my blazer off. I lifted up his shirt and was given a jumper and started pressing down.

About six minutes later the ambulance came and I tried giving him CPR.

Mr Lynch added: I heard people say he was stabbed with a big Rambo knife. I did as much as I could to help him.

One witness said: I heard that he was coming out of Ladbrokes and two teenagers tried to rob him from his bike. He resisted and they stabbed him. His father was here earlier. He was shouting, my son, my son.

It happened just 350 yards from where 15-year-old schoolboy Alan Cartwright was stabbed to death as he cycled along the road in February 2015.

Friends last night paid tribute to Nedim, who is believed to have been a pupil at St Mary Magdalene Academy in Liverpool Road.

Michelle Ley, 51, said: Nedim was a polite, happy boy. What happened was a complete shock.

He was a friend of my sons and he would always say hello - he was very well mannered.

Louis Gashi, owner of Harveys off licence in Caledonian Road, said: He tried to come in here but he died outside. He had been stabbed through the heart.

Friends described the teenager as caring and funny and one said: People think nowadays that because he was young he was a hoodlum, but he wasnt. 

Local councillor Paul Convery said the area had been beset by low level violence involving rival gangs for months, though he did not know if the victim was personally involved.

He said: Essentially the trouble is part of a long running conflict between two groups of young men. We have had woundings and cases of boys being chased down the street by groups with knives.

He added that several people had called police about three aggressive young men hanging around in the area before the attack last night but the police had not responded.

A witness to the third arrest said: They held him in handcuffs waiting for sniffer dogs to locate where the knife had been ditched.

He stood there and looked like he just received a parking ticket. No remorse and not a care in the world.

Stephen Griffith, project director at the Copenhagen Youth Project, said Nedim had been going to the club for around three years.

He said: He was liked by his peers, was popular and a good character. Its a situation where when this type of thing happened it shakes everyone. The youth community will feel it.

He liked computers and gaming. He was a popular young man, and he was getting by in school.

Hell be remembered as a very lively chap, a very funny and likeable guy. That joking, funny side of him will be missed  thats what we saw a lot of.

The teenager is have been a pupil at St Mary Magdalene Academy in Liverpool Road.

A spokesman for St Mary Magdalene Academy said: "The Academy, along with the Islington family of schools, were very saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life of another young person in our Borough. Nedim began his education with us in 2013, but left in year 10 to complete his education in an in Enfield school. Our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time."

Islington Police issued an appeal to trace Nedim Bilgin on Christmas Eve saying he had been missing from home since December 14.

Police issued a Section 60 order in Islington last night to give officers extra stop and search powers amid fears there could be tit-for tat stabbings.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Wrigley, who is leading the inquiry, said: This fatal knife attack took place just before 7pm in an area when lots of people would have been passing through the area on foot and in cars.

We have had reports of people seen running around and on pedal bikes near Caledonian Road junction with Tilloch Street, before and just after 7pm.
A conman who poses as an auctioneer to talk wealthy pensioners into handing over valuables worth hundreds of thousands of pounds is being hunted by police.

At least a dozen people have fallen victim to the scam carried out by the well-dressed, charming man who convinces them to have antiques, jewellery and furniture taken away for professional valuation.

The man then disappears, and some of the property has later emerged for sale online.

He is said to have posted business cards through letterboxes in affluent areas of London and the South-East to arrange home visits.

Police are investigating 12 allegations in Westminster, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea, Acton, Hammersmith and Fulham, Essex and West Sussex made between July 2016 and October last year.

One alleged victim claimed she was tricked into handing over more than 100,000 worth of possessions including artworks and furniture after requesting a valuation ahead of downsizing last June.

Maria OConnor, 68, told the Standard how the conman took four transit vans full of her familys belongings away to be valued, and then repeatedly brushed her off when she contacted him asking for an inventory.

The former restaurateur later saw some of her goods, including three distinctive Philippe Starck gun-shaped table lamps worth around 1,500 each, for sale on eBay.

I didnt question anything because he comes across as so charming and believable, she said. I have lost at least 100,000 of my familys things. It is not just the value but the sentimentality, it is just shocking.

He needs to be stopped from targeting other people.

Sheila Newsum, 80, from Chelsea, says she was taken in by the conman after he left a business card at her home claiming he could value items for possible sale  but has received nothing since the visit in June.

The grandmother of four says the man took around 12,000 worth of silverware, valuable porcelain, designer handbags, crystal, jewellery and vintage wines, including two bottles of 1982 Chateauneuf-du-Pape thought to be worth hundreds of pounds each.

I thought it was fortuitous receiving his card when I was interested in clearing out, but now I feel like such a fool, said the former businesswoman.

A police spokeswoman said a man aged 58 who had been arrested in Chelsea on suspicion of fraud and theft in September last year was arrested again this month.
A gang member wearing a scary clown mask in a stolen BMW is facing jail after pointing a sawn-off shotgun at officers during a police chase in east London.

Lekan Akinsoji, 21, and three other young men were pursued by officers during a ride out to target rivals in east London, the Old Bailey heard on Wednesday.

One suspect was caught on camera waving a gun out of the window as they drove at up to 60mph through narrow residential streets and over speed bumps.

Officers - including one who described the white mask as reminiscent of the Hollywood film Heat - opened fire, believing their lives were in danger, jurors were told.

In dramatic dashcam footage played in court, an officer could be heard shouting "Gun. Gun. They've got a gun. They are pointing a long-barrelled weapon at us."

The chase ended when the BMW was driven the wrong way down a one-way street in Leytonstone.

Akinsoji, said to be linked to the Woodgrange or E7 gang from Forest Gate, emerged from the car wearing the clown mask, and all four gang members were wearing gloves and had their faces either partially or fully covered, the court heard.

Afterwards, police seized an arsenal of weapons, including an axe and a "zombie" knife.

Police seized weapons including an axe after the police chase / Met Police

A loaded shotgun was found in the car, while cartridges were discovered on the ground nearby. Forensic testing showed it had not been fired on the night of July 26 last year.

Akinsoji was on trial alongside Nathaniel Lewis, 23, Darnell Joseph-Newill, 21, and Troy Ifill, 22, who were also said to be associated with east London gangs, who had formed an alliance under the name "Northside Newham".

Prosecutor Anthony Orchard QC told the jury that their plan when they embarked on their "ride out" was to cause really serious injury or death to a "presumed member of the opposing gang".

He said the arsenal of weapons found in the stolen car suggested "their obvious intention that night".

Found guilty: Ifill, Joseph-Newill, Lewis and Lekan / Met Police

Mr Orchard told jurors: "The police driver, understandably, thought the lives of himself and his colleagues were in danger.

"Having assessed the situation, and as he drove, the police driver fired four shots through the front windscreen of his police vehicle in the direction of the gunman.

"He had been trained to shoot like this. In fact, the shots missed."

Akinsoji, from Dagenham, east London; Joseph-Newill, from Stratford, east London; Lewis, from Forest Gate, east London; and Ifill, who is also from Stratford, denied the charges against them.

A zombie knife was seized by police / Met Police

The jury took a day and a half to find them all guilty of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.

Akinsoji was cleared of attempting to use a firearm to resist arrest.

The court heard that a fifth man, the driver, sprinted away from the BMW and was not arrested.
T he popular Malaysian dish known as Nasi lemak is being celebrated with a Google Doodle.

In Malaysia, the rich fragrant and spicy dish is usually eaten for breakfast and translates to mean rich rice, referring to the coconut milk included in the recipe.

Heres everything you need to know about Nasi lemak:

What's in Nasi lemak?

Nasi lemak is served on a plate at the Nasi Lemak Tanglin stall in Kuala Lumpur. (Getty ) / Getty

The main component of a Nasi lemak is rice cooked in coconut milk (santan) which is then flavoured with pandan leaf and galangal root.

A variety of components can then be added to the rice, including anchovies, crispy peanuts, hard-boiled egg, sliced cucumber and sambal (hot sauce) or a dash of tamarind juice, with an optional piece of fried chicken or beef rendang on the side.

To serve, the Nasi lemak is placed in a banana leaf to keep it warm.

The popular dish - consisting of coconut rice and other ingredients - is eaten all year round in Malaysia / Google

Why is it being celebrated with a Google Doodle?

Nasi lemak is considered Malaysias national dish due to its huge cultural significance in the south-east Asian country.

The delicacy is thought to have originated on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and was intended to be a hearty morning meal for farmers.

There is also a well-known legend that attempts to cement the dishs origins. So the story goes, Seri, the daughter of a widow named Mak Kuntum accidentally tipped coconut into the rice pot.

When her mother returned home and saw the rice, she asked Apa kau masak ni, Seri? (What did you cook, Seri) to which Seri answered, Nasi le! Mak! (Rice, mother!)
If you didnt get a chance to see Christian Diors landmark exhibition in Paris, never fear - another one is coming to the V&A this February. Based on the original Parisian showing, the upcoming London exhibit is called Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams and has been revised by curator Oriole Cullen - bringing Christian Diors obsession with Britain to the forefront with a brand new section.

With eleven different chapters to explore, fans of the brand will be able to see iconic pieces up close: including Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress and Diors legendary Bar Suit. As well as exploring the brands origins and the life of the man who started it all, the exhibit will also take fans through Diors various modern chapters and the artistic directors who followed him.

Getty Images

The exhibit is the V&As second largest fashion exhibit ever - currently in first place is the 2015 Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty show which ran for 21 weeks and sold a groundbreaking 480,000 tickets.

As for what you can expect from Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams? Curator Oriole Cullen shared her insights into six of the upcoming shows biggest looks.

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Christian Dior Bar Suit, from the Spring/Summer 1947 'Corolle' Haute Couture Line

(Laziz Hamani / V&A) / V&A

Cullen said, In 1947, Christian Dior revolutionised fashion with his New Look. Offering a radical alternative to the boxy, masculine style of womens fashion after the Second World War, Diors designs caused a sensation, and revolutionised the female silhouette.

Sneak peek at V&A's Christian Dior: Designer Of Dreams Exhibition

Crafted from shantung silk, crepe wool and taffeta, the Dior Bar suit has become one of the brands most iconic pieces. This one in particular is very special as it dates back to Christian Diors very first haute couture collection in 1947, named the Corolle collection.

Cullen continued, The Bar suit has become the emblem of Diors New Look style. In 1960, Cecil Beaton helped the V&A acquire this original ensemble from the House of Dior. In pristine condition, and with a 19-inch waist, it is a quintessential example of the exaggerated upside-down corolla silhouette with which Dior conquered the fashion world.

Princess Margaret's 21st Birthday Dress, 1951

(V&A / Cecil Beaton) / V&A / Cecil Beaton

Before Meghan Markle formed a close bond with French fashion house Givenchy, Princess Margaret was enamoured with Christian Dior.

Dior and the royals relationship began back in 1949, when Princess Margaret visited him at his atelier and they formed a strong bond. The following year, Dior put on a private fashion show for the Queen, Princess Margaret, Princess Marina the Duchess of Kent and Princess Olga of Greece.

Dior designed this dress for Princess Margarets 21st birthday, and she was photographed by Cecil Beaton in it for her official birthday portrait, Cullen explained. The princess remained a client of the House of Dior for many years.

Princess Margaret with Christian Dior, 1954 / Getty Images

According to the Telegraph, Princess Margaret called it her "favourite dress of all" and Cullen also revealed that the dress was on loan from the Museum of London. She also explained, "To see it up close is very interesting as it has straw embroidery on it, which I think is not necessarily what youd expect to see decorating a royal."

She added, "This dress is one of the highlights from the exhibitions Dior in Britain section, charting Christian Diors fascination with British culture."

Dior's relationship with British royalty didn't stop there, as according to Country and Townhouse Dior also staged fashion shows in stately homes such as Blenheim Palace.

Christian Dior Fete Joyeuse Evening Dress, Spring/Summer 1955 Haute Couture 'A' Line

(Laziz Hamani / V&A) / V&A

Dating back to 1955, this dress made a public appearance when socialite and later author Emma Tennant was presented to society in it. Cullen explained, Emma Tennant wore this silk organza dress when she was presented as a debutante at the royal court in June 27, 1955. Referred to as coming out this archaic tradition was a method of introducing young girls into society and formed part of a six-month season beginning in May with parties and social events, such as Queen Charlottes Ball.

According to the V&A, the silk organza is stiffened with nylon net and features a boned bodice. Tennant went into further detail in her memoirs as she called it almost indestructible, being built with whalebones and further strengthened with what appeared to be a beige baize stiffened with wire.

Cullen added that the dress was particularly unusual due to its bright red hue. She said, Tennants choice of a red strapless dress was unusually sophisticated for a debutante at the time when white and pastel colours were deemed the suitable choice for young girls.

The dress later featured as part of Diors Spring/Summer collection in 1955, which the designer named his A collection. The unusual name stemmed from the fact that he felt the letter perfectly illustrated the silhouette the brand was aiming for, which the V&A described as featuring narrow shoulders, loosely defined waists and flared skirts.

Christian Dior by John Galliano Gown, Autumn/Winter 2004 Haute Couture

(V&A / Laziz Hamani / Dior Heritage Collection) / V&A / Laziz Hamani

After Christian Dior passed away in 1957, the houses creative spirit passed hands many times with the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Bohan carrying its torch for a little while. On the 60th anniversary of the house, John Galliano stepped into the role and breathed electricity into the brands sophisticated DNA. Cullen described Gallianos talent for fantastical story-telling through garments inspired by the places hed travelled to and said that his shows were full of spectacle and drama. However, Galliano still found space to pay homage to Diors long history.

From his first collection, Galliano delved into the history of the House, Cullen said, referencing garments and key figures from Diors life, including his muse Mitzah Bricard, model Alla Ilchun and his mother, Madeleine Dior.

John Galliano at the Christian Dior SS 2007 Haute Couture show / Getty Images

He also delved further into the history of this particular dress which is from one of his later shows: Galliano's Autumn/Winter 2004 presentation. Cullen explained, It is inspired by 1950s pin-up girls and the 19th century Austrian Empress Elisabeth known as Sisi, and is accessorised with an orb, sceptre and dramatic crown of Swarovski crystals.

Christian Dior by Raf Simons, Autumn/Winter 2012 Haute Couture

(V&A / Laziz Haman / Dior Heritage Collection) / V&A / Laziz Haman

In 2012, Belgian designer Raf Simons took the reins of the French house to much fanfare and a now legendary floral extravaganza for his debut Christian Dior show. In distinct contrast to Galliano, his style was more minimalist and marked a very different chapter for the house. According to Cullen, Simons pushed the technical skills of the ateliers to the extreme and his first Dior collection became the subject of the 2014 documentary Dior and I.

Cullen said, Known as a master of minimalism, Simons maintained a focus on cut and line with touches of the romanticism and femininity favoured by Christian Dior. Simons continually referenced the codes of the House alongside an abstract, architectural approach.

Getty Images

One such way Simons remixed Diors classic silhouettes was through this bold red recreation of the Bar Suit figure above. Cullen said, For his first haute couture collection, [Simons] reinterpreted the New Look silhouette, injecting a streamlined modernity that reflected the practicalities of clothing for the contemporary woman. Describing the Bar suit as one of the ultimate, iconic Dior looks, Simons took direct inspiration from the impeccably tailored nipped-in waists and full skirts of Diors New Look.

Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri, Eventail de vos hasards Dress, Spring/Summer 2018 Haute Couture

(V&A / Laziz Haman / Dior Heritage Collection) / V&A

Taking us into the modern day, this pastel tulle gown by Diors current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri is evidence the brand remains at the forefront of haute couture. According to Cullen and the V&A, this pleated masterpiece is actually a riff on a humble piece of Diors history: a fan handed out to fashion show attendees in the 50s.

Cullen said, The current creative director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri, created this magnificent final look for the Shanghai presentation of her Spring/Summer 2018 haute couture collection."

Getty Images

"The dress references a promotional fan given out during Dior fashion shows throughout the 1950s, now in the V&As collection," she continued.

The V&A shared a glimpse of the fan on Instagram, which has browned around the edges but still appears to be in fantastic condition. If you look closely, the text on Chiuri's dress appears to mimic the typography on the fan.

Cullen elaborated, Chiuri has translated the pleated paper fan leaf into cascades of pleated tulle and embroidered the skirt with Diors signature, underlining the enduring legacy of the Houses founder.

Dior Dinner - In pictures 1 /16 Dior Dinner - In pictures Jenna Coleman attends a gala dinner celebrating the opening of the "Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams" exhibition at The V&A in London Dave Benett Gemma Arterton Dave Benett Eva Herzigova Dave Benett Olga Kurylenko Dave Benett Noomi Rapace Dave Benett Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Yasmin Le Bon and Amber Le Bon Dave Benett Felicity Jones Dave Benett Edward Enninful, Stephanie Phair and Roland Mouret Dave Benett Olga Kurylenko and Ben Cura Dave Benett Edward Enninful Dave Benett Hannah Arterton Dave Benett Felicity Jones and Charles Guard Dave Benett Eddie Redmayne and Tristram Hunt Dave Benett Bianca Jagger Dave Benett Hannah Arterton and Gemma Arterton Dave Benett

When will the Christian Dior exhibit open?

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is set to open on Saturday, 2 February 2019.

How much do tickets to the Christian Dior exhibit cost?

Tickets for the V&A exhibition cost between 20-24 and can be booked online now.

Tickets for Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams at the V&A can now be booked online and the exhibit will open on February 2, 2019.
T he first pictures of Adrian Lester in the UK premiere of Cost of Living at the Hampstead Theatre have been released.

He is co-starring in Martyna Majoks Pulitzer Prize-winning play alongside US Paralympian Katy Sullivan, as an unemployed trucker caring for his disabled wife.

The cast is completed by Jack Hunter, playing a wealthy academic with cerebral palsy who hires a new carer, Emily Barber.

Lester, who returns to the stage after a three year absence, told the Standard that the drama is a brilliant story about love and loneliness and trying to make connections.

There is a lot to get right but it is just a fantastic piece. I knew nothing about it, my agent sent it to me and said this is for Hampstead, a place Ive never works, and I started reading it and I got hooked.

He was last seen on the London stage in Red Velvet in 2016, and three years previously won acclaim for his Othello at the National Theatre.

Edward Hall directs the play, with design by Michael Pavelka, lighting by Matt Haskins, sound by Paul Groothuis and compositions by Simon Slater.

Sullivan returns to her role, after Cost of Living won the Pulitzer for its run off-Broadway in 2017.

Cost of Living runs at the Hampstead Theatre from January 31-March 9, hampsteadtheatre.com
L ondon theatre is set for a series of dazzling star turns throughout 2019, including a return to stage for Tom Hiddleston.

The Night Manager star will appear in a production of Harold Pinters Betrayal, rounding off the Pinter at the Pinter series which has celebrated the short plays of the Nobel Prize-winning British playwright for the last six months.

If youre keen to see Hiddleston tread the boards, heres everything you need to know, including how to buy tickets.

What is Pinters play Betrayal about?

Betrayal, first staged in 1978, is considered by many to be Pinters masterpiece. Told in reverse chronological order, its a claustrophobic three-hander about an extramarital affair. Widely known to have been inspired by the playwrights own affair with broadcaster Joan Bakewell, it centres on married couple Robert and Emma, and their friend Jerry - who Emma is involved in a seven-year affair with (and is also married - complicated, we know).

Who does Tom Hiddleston play in Betrayal?

Hiddleston will play Robert, a successful publisher who is married to Emma (played by Zawe Ashton ). Charlie Cox will play Jerry. The production will be directed by Jamie Lloyd, who has previously put on a number of Pinter productions, including The Homecoming (he got to know the playwright personally when starting out as a young director).

What else has Tom Hiddleston been in?

Hiddleston last appeared on stage as Hamlet in a production at RADA , directed by Kenneth Branagh - but only 3,000 people got to see it. It was three-week run to raise money for new facilities at the drama school, and tickets were allocated by ballot. Prior to that, he won an Evening Standard Theatre Award in 2014 for his performance in Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse, where has appeared in several different productions.

On the big screen, hes known for his role as Loki in the Avengers films, as well as High-Rise, The Deep Blue Sea and War Horse. His notable TV roles include The Night Manager, Wallander and The Hollow Crown.

Which London theatre is Betrayal playing in and how long will it run?

Betrayal is at the Harold Pinter Theatre and will run for 12 weeks from March 5 to June 1.

How to get tickets for Betrayal

Tickets for Betrayal are available from GO London. Make sure you only purchase tickets from trusted sources: all ticket holders will be required to show photo ID when they collect tickets, and any bought and then resold wont be valid.
Eastern Electrics (August 3-4)

A stacked line-up of DJs, ranging from the selectors who have been doing this for decades to those who are on course to be the next big things. David Rodigan was among the star names in 2018.

Getty Images for STUDIOCANAL
P eter Jackson has been confirmed to direct a new film about The Beatles, based on never-released footage of the Let It Be sessions.

The movie will focus on 55 hours of footage of the Let It Be recordings at Abbey Road Studios between January 2 and January 31 1969.

The band broke up soon after the recordings, with the group releasing the album 18 months later in 1970.

The Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings filmmaker is set to helm the new project in collaboration with Apple Corps Ltd and WingNut Films Ltd.

Jackson said: The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be the ultimate fly on the wall experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about.

Its like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.

The Beatles' legendary rooftop gig: In pictures 1 /4 The Beatles' legendary rooftop gig: In pictures Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images

Jackson will be restoring the footage with the team at Park Road Post of Wellington, New Zealand, who assisted the director on recent documentary They Shall Not Grow Old.

The new Beatles film has yet to receive a title or release date, with further details expected over the coming months.
F orget expensive dates and romantic getaways  the only way to really celebrate with your loved one is curling up with a good movie.

Whether you're staying cosy indoors, or stepping out to the pictures, films have long been perfect date night fare. Plus, there's popcorn.

Not all romantic films age well  gender politics shift too swiftly for that  but below are our pick of the classic films that still have a thoroughly romantic pull.

If you're determined to get out, perhaps before or after a film, read our round-up of London's most romantic restaurants and bars.

Notting Hill

The most romantic films of all time

1999s Notting Hill is one of the classic British romcoms: Richard Curtiss screenplay is sparky and soppy in equal measure and Hugh Grant delivers one of his best performances. In it, he picks up where he left off in Four Weddings and a Funeral, all stutters and twiddling with his glasses. Julia Roberts is cast perfectly, while Emma Chambers charmed as Grant's giggling, manic sister.

13 Going on 30

13 Going on 30 trailer

Jennifer Garner delivers a bright performance alongside a pre-Hulk Mark Ruffalo in this 2004 favourite. It's a classic body-swap comedy setup, with the pair playing childhood sweethearts who reconnect after Garners character is transported into the body of a 30-year-old woman. Its fun, sweet and a little silly  just the thing if you're getting tipsy on the fizz.

Romeo & Juliet

Romeo and Juliet 1996 trailer

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the titular star-crossed lovers in Baz Luhrmanns stunning Shakespear adaptation. Its an unforgettable tale, and even if the ending isnt exactly cheery, its story of young love is as powerful and enduring as ever.

Titanic

Titanic film trailer

If in doubt, stick with DiCaprio. Even for those who've seen Titanic over and over, the touching romance between Kate Winslet's Rose and DiCaprio's Jack is always worth revisiting  their scene together dancing to the Irish jigs fizzles as they dance grasping hands, eyes locked, lost in each other. The raft is a problem, though.

Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing trailer

The late, great Patrick Swayze stars as charismatic dance instructor Johnny Castle in the unforgettable Dirty Dancing. Jennifer Grey also delivers a top performance as 17-year-old dancer Baby, who falls head over heels against all the odds in this 1987 classic. Tipsily trying the famous lift is probably best avoided. 

The Notebook

The Notebook film trailer

Get the tissues out for this one. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams The Notebook is a weepy but uplifting romcom, which has been one of the go-to romantic films for couples everywhere since its release in 2004. The film is hardly subtle when it tugs at viewers heartstrings, but it remains one of the most epic cinematic love stories of recent times.

Carol

Carol trailer

Critically-lauded romantic drama Carol stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as two women who conduct a forbidden love affair in 1950s New York. Beautifully and beguiling adapted from Patricia Highsmith romance novel, it was even once voted the best LGBTQ+ film of all time at the BFI Flare festival.

Me Before You

Me Before You trailer

Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin star together in this touching film, which explores the central relationship between a carer and a man left paralysed by a motorcycle accident. Its a moving watch, in which the pair learn to enjoy life and find love in difficult circumstances.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn - Trailer

Saoirse Ronan plays a young Irish woman who finds love after moving to New York in this romantic drama from 2015. After her strict mother puts pressure on her to return to Ireland and settle down, she must make a choice between what is expected of her and what her heart longs for.

My Best Friends Wedding

My Best Friend's Wedding trailer

Julia Roberts proved herself as queen of the 90s romcom with My Best Friends Wedding. The film, also starring Cameron Diazm and Michael ONeal, may have a questionable premise  Roberts is trying to win over an old love, in front of his fiancee  but it is a pleasingly unvarnished look at how complicated love can be. The real star, though, is Rupert Everett; his turn is worth a watch alone.

When Harry Met Sally

When Harry met Sally trailer
S trap on a pair of beer goggles and hold tight onto a prosecco float: Dry Januarys finish line is within sight. Whether youve been off the sauce entirely, mostly off the sauce (weekends dont count, right?) or drinking like its still December, the end of the years most boring month is undeniably a cause for celebration.

Moreover, the capital hasnt been resting: while you were at home a raft of buzzy new bars have been waiting for your patronage. So raise a toast to February, and start a bar crawl.

Start with the new Ladies and Gentlemen bar in Camden. The first one, a subterranean cocktail den built into an old public lavatory in Kentish Town, has a menu of seriously strong spirits, and lock-ins that are the stuff of legend.

The new outpost opened in Camden Road a fortnight ago, also in an old loo, complete with original Victorian flooring, ironwork railway tracks  and the same, superlative cocktails.

Homeboy opened up in Essex Road in the tail end of December, when you were too busy drinking DIY mulled wine to notice. Head to this Irish cocktail bar for Guinness on draft and a cocktail menu including the intriguing Champagne Paloma: a tequila-grapefruit tall one, topped with a glug of champagne.

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Drink me: A Brigadoon cocktail from Heads and Tails

Immerse yourself in the Lost Lagoon, the latest extravaganza from madcap magicians Bompas & Parr, who have constructed the worlds biggest under-ground boating lake below West 12 shopping centre in Shepherds Bush.

It is an unlikely setting but worth a visit: it has its own weather system, a vast pirate vessel and a bar created in association with Hackneys Scout, the zero-waste venue dealing in imaginative foraged cocktails. It opens at the end of the week, and runs until April.

Spiritland has a fresh site in the Royal Festival Hall, an 180-seat venue presenting a menu of dangerous cocktails to SE1: the Killer Joe  quince, malt, lemon, bitters and ginger ale  will leave you reeling (in the right way). Meanwhile, Heads and Tails in West Hampstead is set over two storeys.

Heads is the airy bar dealing in aperitivos, and Tails, the subterranean drinking den dealing in  you guessed it  whisky cocktails. If you want to return in a blaze of glory, make a beeline for Croque Monsieur, which opened in Camden in late December: tables are made from repurposed church pews, with an absinthe fountain on each table.

The special cocktail is a Death in the Afternoon, a decadent combination of absinthe and champagne reputedly invented by Ernest Hemingway.

February fix: The Ottoman Old Fashioned from the Mekan Bar

Provisioners at The Dixon, the new boutique hotel in Tower Bridge, is situated inside a refashioned courtroom, replete with an impressive marble bar. Try a Short (a Calvados sour with lemon, vanilla and orange bitters) .

Or head to Jack Speak in the new Lincoln Plaza hotel for steeling gin cocktails. The new Mekan bar at Ruya London, which opened at the tail end of last year, is mixing up Old Fashioneds and Turkish Coladas.

And looking ahead, stellar bartender Ryan Chetiyawardana is set to re-open Dandelyan  voted the worlds best bar at the 2018 Worlds 50 Best Bars Awards  as Lyaness inside the Mondrian hotel in late March.

Charge your glasses  its finally time to have fun again.

The best bars in London 1 /48 The best bars in London Scarfes Bar at Rosewood London 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN, rosewoodhotels.com/london

The Rosewood is doubly wonderful for drinkers, as theyve two fine spots. In the modern Dining Room, sit at the gin bar, which outstocks anywhere else in London, with more than 400 gins and 27 tonics. Trying to choose is impossible, but what a lovely impossibility to have. The bar staff clearly had one hell of a tasting session as they know the list perfectly. Across the way is Scarfes Bar, a brilliant, brilliant bar gladly shaken free from all the stuffiness usually found in hotel bars. The drinks are stunning, theyve often live music, it gets wonderfully busy and crackles with laughter. Go a little later and its busier, people drink more, everything is better. Bar Americain 20 Sherwood St, W1F 7ED, brasseriezedel.com

As the name suggests, this is a classic American bar, and done near perfectly. One can become very fond of Bar Americain and very quickly: passing through Piccadilly Circus, it acts as a magnet  a quick negroni becomes a temptation impossible to resist. Its a very beautiful place, calling to mind grand Parisian hotels of the 20s and 30s, bottles winking from the bar, staff floating through with their finery and litres of charm. Youre here to drink the classics: theyve a killer Clover Club and a straight-down-the-line Manhattan. But ask: the bartenders know their stuff and bring their A-game to any challenge  tell them what you like, and theyll bring you something new. They often have specials on, as well. Top marks for the attentive staff, bringing plenty of water and bowl after bowl of popcorn  both essential after a few here. Oriole Smithfield Markets, E Poultry Ave, EC1A 9LH, oriolebar.com

The team behind Nightjar took their winning formula, gave it a bit of a shake up and created Oriole. Theyve live music throughout the week  from Wednesday to Saturday, theres a charge per person, so watch out for that  which gives any night here a bit of zip. This is a strictly seated spot, so be sure to book: once inside, its a whirlwind tour of the world, with fine details from across the globe, both in the styling and the drinks and so much cheaper than booking a holiday. Drinks are excellent, whether youre into New Orleans style classics or something from the depths of Asia: explore the menu (split into Old World, New World and The Orient) and expect something unusual and faintly brilliant, with a touch of the Tiki. Put it this way: Oriole is ideal whether you prefer drinking from a crystal tumbler, a teacup or, er, a silver crocodile. Piano Works 113-117 Farringdon Road, Farringdon EC1R 3BX, pianoworks.bar

Full credit to this fun Farringdon spot: theyve worked hard to make the place better and better since opening, which is pretty good going for what was already a decent spot to begin with. The Piano Works sounds like a quiet jazz bar but instead is a hell-raising house of sound, splendidly raucous, where a house band take requests and belt out your favourite songs. The more you get involved, the more fun it is, and the place heats up the later it gets. Wine starts at 16, house cocktails are 8, but they've tons of terrific deals during the week  including cocktails for a fiver (!!) Drink lots, dance lots and leave in the early hours with someone you shouldnt do. Thats what we did. Hawksmoor, Spitalfields 157A Commercial St, E1 6BJ, thehawksmoor.com

Its hardly surprising the bar snacks are a highlight here  have the oxcheek nuggets with a side of chips, then call the waiter over to order them over again  given how good the steak upstairs is. The drinks and setting, though, match them pound for pound. The old tube tiles on the walls, the beautiful parquet floor, the copper tops and silvery black ceiling make the large space a place to settle in for the night no matter your seat, while the cocktails come with oodles of thought in each one: the new menu has homemade bitters, shrubs and syrups, and its bloody obvious everyone behind the bar is more than a little nerdy about building drinks. Shaky Petes Ginger Brew is the classic, so have it, but follow up with the Shadow Boxer, a mix of scotch, sherry and Fernet-Branca. Odd, oddly delicious. Its also a cracking place to sit for a bottle of wine. Andrew Edmunds 46 Lexington St, W1F 0LP, andrewedmunds.com

Perhaps better than its ever been, Andrew Edmunds recently won The Good Drinking prize in our Restaurant Awards, and for good reason. Its a small spot, cramped to the point that coming here on a first date feels like youre being very forward indeed , with the best tables upstairs and not much to look at  just settle for being distracted by someone beautiful. The food, French-ish/English-ish, is fine, but its the wine that's extraordinary. And youre here for wine: forget cocktails, they have. What a list, and so quietly marked up that youre getting a steal with almost every bottle  indeed, the more expensive the better the deal. Having been going 30 years, those who knew old Soho say its one of the last bastion of such things. Drink too much gorgeous wine and come back often. The Connaught Bar Connaught, Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, the-connaught.co.uk

A bar for the impossibly beautiful, a bar of high heels and glimmering lights, of perfume and leather. Aside from oddly thumping music, the Connaught is wonderfully detached from the world  a place of its own, cosy and winter warm when it needs to be, light and summer when desired. The drinks, naturally pricey, are well put together and while classic in tone, come with crackles of theatre: washes in perfume bottles, branches as garnishes, smoke, the lot. Still, the martini trolley is what theyre famed for, so its only right to indulge. Afterward, head to the Champagne Room: sadly the law stops it being the cigar haven it once was, but it's still gorgeous: romantic and charming with its fireplace, dramatic with its glass ceiling and sculpture swan diving. Treat yourself to the Ruinart blanc de blanc. Damned good olives, too. Milk & Honey 61 Poland St, W1F 7NU, mlkhny.com

You know a bar is good when local bartenders love it, and Milk & Honey has long been a Soho favourite for those in the know. Hidden in plain sight this terrific bar has been doing its thing for just shy of 15 years. The talent hasnt diminished, and neither has the care put into the drinks. Cocktails are strong and proper and happily, they're updating the list soon to freshen things up. At around 10 a drink, M&H is also a bargain for central London, and the quality outstrips the price. It functions as a members bar, but non-members can book up until 11pm  though going earlier in the week means youre more likely to score a table. Milk & Honey is civilised, without the crushing formality. Next door is the Blind Pig, another top 'hidden' spot. Mark's Bar HIX Soho, 66- 70 Brewer St, W1F 9UP, hixrestaurants.co.uk

The bad: you might not get in. If its busy, they dont squeeze people into this basement, so either be there early, or bamboozle them with charm, or dazzle them with your brilliant wit. Were kidding: just take someone hot. The good: pretty much everything else. Naturally, the bar snacks are distractingly tasty, but the drinks list is excellent, and unusual too, with a few historical recipes brought back to life. Attention to detail is everything here, so if youre not sharing one of the big old Chesterfields, head to the bar and sit and watch  theres something about it thats like seeing a cardmaster turn tricks. And have a Hix Fix, just to say you have. The Beaufort bar and the American Bar at The Savoy The Savoy, Strand, WC2R 0EU, fairmont.com

Glitz, glamour and lots of gold: both Savoy bars are wonderfully opulent. The world-famous American bar, recently revamped, is still up there as one of the best bars on our humble planet. The bartenders bible, Harry Craddocks The Savoy Cocktail Book, was written here, and the cocktails served today remain as finely tuned as they ever were. Whereas as other bars try to recreate the glamour of such places, The Savoy neednt pretend: everything is genuine. The palatial Beaufort is absurdly romantic, and drinks are extravagantly presented: it works for the most special of special occasions, and theres something undeniably grand about sipping away in the same place Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway all did. If youre planning a few drinks, either be rich or take someone rich  seriously. Artesian 1C Portland Pl, W1B 1JA, artesian-bar.co.uk

Artesian won its accolades for its team, Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale, who ran the place for eight years and earned its reputation as the best bar in the world. Theyve sadly departed, but have left the place in capable hands, and the feel is much the same as it ever was, which is chic, glamorous, and not taking itself too seriously. While the beautiful and the rich rub shoulders, the bartenders are mixing up excellent but often slightly silly drinks  but its their mischievousness that makes them so winning. Seriously impressive. Les Compagnie Des Vins Surnaturels 8-10 Neal's Yard, WC2H 9DP, cvssevendials.com

Call it CVS and your night becomes considerably easier to pronounce. Sat in Neils Yard, it is one of Londons finest wine bars. Thoroughly French, of course: New World wines barely get a sideways glance, while even Italys finest is only begrudgingly given a little space on the considerable menu. This doesn't mean there is a lack of choice  to the contrary, it is almost overwhelming, though they have a short by-the-glass list, and the charming staff are both well informed and passionate about what to have. In the summer, sit outdoors, in the winter, cosy up by the bar. Wherever you are, try the mystery wine; if you guess it, youll win a bottle. Have food  small plates made to share, and terrifically good  and drink plenty, so the bill doesnt hit as hard. The Shrub & Shutter 336 Coldharbour Ln, SW9 8QH, theshrubandshutter.com

This Brixton bar felt new in the area, taking a little of east London and bringing it down south. Theyve a pleasingly patchwork approach to decor: there are jars and bottles and shakers everywhere, which gives the place a kitchen feel. The cocktails, lovely to drink on their own, are made better with the food, which is designed to match what youre drinking. The pairings initially sound a little gimmicky  crayfish with vodka, venison on the side of The Deerhunter (an old fashioned, basically)  but they work, so drop that sceptical streak for a moment. It gets busy, so book up, get in early, and stay late. Theyve a license until 3am, so itd be rude not to. Sky Pod at the Sky Garden 1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF, skygarden.london

The truth of it is, you come for the view, but good God it's a great view, and 360-degrees at that. Up 35 floors, if you can think of a London icon, you can probably see it. When the weather's good, get outside for some fresh air. With completely free entry and minimal security fuss, its worth making a reservation, though if youre ok to queue, theyll have you in. Cocktails arent torturously expensive, at around 11.50, and are very enjoyable  the cognac-chocolate-caramel-port mix that is Black and Gold is particularly good so it doesn't feel like they're relying on the sights.

Theres a sense of special occasion, and all the more so with live music on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. Theyre hoping for jazz on Wednesdays, too. If youre tempted to eat, Fenchurch and the Darwin Brasserie are well worth trying  Fenchurch is particularly good for veggies. The Gilbert Scott St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Rd, NW1 2AR, thegilbertscott.co.uk

Given the golden hue here, where luxury hangs in the air like perfume, its remarkable that wine starts at as little as 5 a glass. Wine is its strong point, and likeable head sommelier Joris Beijn is a man worth knowing: he is passionate about his list, knowledgeable and accommodating. The bar is flexible, in that it is by turns ideal for a date, or a catch up with old friends, or a pre/post dinner drinks. The room is a stunner: high painted ceilings, dramatic red walls, great big bells as art, marble bar top and crystal glasses catching the light. Cocktails come in at around 14, and err on the light side: lots of gin and floral concoctions. The restaurant, next door, isnt to be missed, either, just be prepared to get an Uber home: invariably, youll stretch and tease out the evening to stay just a little longer. Gerry's Club 52 Dean Street, W1D 5BJ, gerrysclub.com

A word of warning: this is technically a member's club, but you'll probably be fine if you flirt enough  and don't ask for Gerry, he's long since passed. Michael looks after this place now. We've only been once  very late, very drunk and with very good friends. Most old-school Soho drinking dens are dead, but this hub of actors and writers is what remains of 'Old Soho'. If you're boring, steer clear: it is a place to drink wine and beer and tell stories, to laugh uproariously and to give yourself a monumental hangover in a faintly discreet way. 68 and Boston 4-5 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4DD, 68andboston.com

Boston, the bar upstairs, looks like glamorous train carriage from the golden age of cocktails but plays it a little bit safe. Wine bar 68, downstairs, is the real gem, with a wonderful way of pricing: every bottle on the list is 20, so choose what you like, not what you can afford. Better yet, if you don't fancy a bottle, they're served by the carafe (14) or glass (5.50). Wines are well picked and Denise Medrano, wine blogger and lover found behind the bar, is always working to update the list  so go back to try something new. Youll probably end up getting drunk here: the pull of another bottle at just 20 is monumentally hard to resist, but hey, thats what Soho is for. If you fancy drinking something more upscale, ask  theyve a few hidden wines kept hidden away for those in the know. Thats you, now. The Pink Chihuahua at El Camion 25-27 Brewer St, W1F 0RR, elcamion.co.uk

Forget house infusions and drinks that take half an hour to make: sometimes a good night needs tequila and dancing. The Pink Chihuahua is built for it: theyre providing the tequila  more than 300 different types of it, in fact  youre there to drink it down and dance it up. Theyve all sorts of twists on Margaritas and Daiquiris, and, given youre downstairs from Mexican restaurant El Camion, plenty of bar food to indulge in too. Lots of fun, and if youre feeling more in the mood just to sit back and sip something slowly, ask about their choice of Mezcal. There's real talent here, but fun too. The Gibson 44 Old St, EC1V 9AQ, thegibsonbar.london

Given the dearth of decent cocktails in Farringdon, the tiny Gibson is a God-send. Its a parlour pitched somewhere between Edwardian and Art Deco, and drinks arent simply poured here, theyre tended to, built, thought about, adored. All unsurprising, really, given the team learnt their trade at the likes of Nightjar and The Connaught.

This place is doing more creatively to push bartending forward than any bar that's opened up in a while, so ask the team for recommendations and youll be presented with something magic. Youll need to ask, actually, as the menu is a novel and theres the risk of wasting the evening reading instead of drinking, and that simply wouldnt do at all. Peg+Patriot Patriot Square, E2 9NF, talentedmrfox.com

The Talented Mr Fox, Matt Whiley, offers is a nice blend of things here: while the menu takes a sophisticated trip around London, with each cocktail a column of flavour, some managing chameleonic taste all within the space of a sip, the actual bar is surprisingly spare and understated. The effect is such that while drinks are upmarket, one doesnt feel obliged to sit demurely to enjoy them. Relax, have a few  you might want to, as the serves arent huge. It should be said that these cocktails are among Londons most interesting, rather than Londons best: they are talking points, oddities, they put flavours together in a way that isnt available elsewhere. If youre big on trying new things, different experiences, seeing what a cocktail can do, come, its a must. If its just something reliably delicious you fancy, elsewhere may be better. Worship Street Whistling Shop 63 Worship St, EC2A 2DU, whistlingshop.com

One presumes the staff here have night vision, otherwise its a complete and utter mystery how they see customers, let alone their ingredients. Still, they must do, for the output is pretty much excellent through and through at this dark spot. Its Victorian-inspired, which sounds tired and not a little tacky, but the gang from Purl have done it properly. Drinks are busy  lots of fusions, blends, gasses and pressure and all sorts  so its appropriate they come out of a lab. Still, all this engineering seems to be worth it, as the drinks slip down easily, the alcohol often hidden away. Make sure to take a seat in the Dram Shop, and pop in to the Gin Closet too, which operates as an honesty bar. Kansas Smitty's 63-65 Broadway Market, E8 4PH, kansassmittys.com

Below bar Off Broadway  a long way off, its Mexican  sits this glorious den of jazz and juleps. It is a speakeasy for 2016: that is to say, it has none of the contrived mannerisms of bars which proclaim to be speakeasies, it just happens to actually be one: youll need to knock to get in, the music raves loud and hot, and the place is so crowded strangers become family after a drink or two. The house band, for which the place is named, have envy-inducing talent, and the bar has fairly recently overhauled its drinks list, and the results are good. Youll be absorbed by the music, and stay afterwards to ride the buzz of the crowd. GONG 52, Shangri-La Hotel, the Shard, SE1 9QU, .gong-shangri-la.com

Gong is in the Shard, so youre there for the view alone. View it certainly does: at 52 floors up, its by far Londons highest spot to drink: consequently, sipping on a martini, one feels a little like a Bond villain pondering all thats below. Its not a huge bar, but that somewhat adds to the sense of exclusivity. Prices are, naturally, sky high: expect to pay at least 18. The drinks have plenty about them to compete with the view: presentation is everything. Theyve not skipped on the spirits making the mix, either: expect the likes of Zacapa 23 rum (heavenly stuff), Talisker scotch and Tanqueray 10 for the gin. All top drawer stuff. If this all sounds a bit intimidating, bear in mind they operate a no reservations policy, so youve as good a chance of getting in as anyone else. Mr Fogg's Salon 58 St Martin's Lane, Theatreland, WC2N 4EA, mr-foggs.com

Downstairs is a pretty decent pub, busy from theatreland. Upstairs, the salon is quieter, but only a little. The walls are a glittering ballgown of 19th century curiosities, unsubtle nonsense winking away. Head to a chaise longues with a couple of friends or a date and take in something from each one of the five acts which split the menu. Drinks seem to smell especially good here, rich, relying heavily on the likes of rum, cognac and sherry. Gin lovers need not despair: theyve a room with 300 different types next door. Come elegantly dressed. Bar Termini 7 Old Compton St, W1D 5JE, bar-termini.com

Do Bar Termini right and youll love it: do it wrong, and you may be underwhelmed. Tony Conigliaro, cocktail chap par excellence, and coffee maestro Marco Arrigo have built a revolving-door of a place: dont come here to linger. Expect a night of cocktails and youll leave disappointed: instead, love it in the day for the 1 espressos, and swing by in the evening for a negroni (6). Theyre small, but some of the best in the capital. One swishes in and out here, and that way, it adds a touch of Italian glamour to any evening. Trisha's (New Evaristo Club) 57 Greek St, Soho, W1D 3DX



Drinks dont make a bar, and thank goodness, as the stuff served at Trishas  named for its owner  is uniformly pretty awful: red and white wine youd consider an insult if a friend served it at supper, prosecco wildly overpriced, terrible spirits ecetera ecetera. At more than 70, the club is Sohos oldest, and while nobody who goes there can ever remember anything changing  its often quite hard to recall much about Trishas in crystal detail, as it happens  nothing needs to. The bad wine and expensive mixers and paint stripper spirits are all part of the point: its a glorious drinking den, and marvellous, marvellous fun. There are characters here: the last time we were in, we sat being scared witless by an old East End gangster who said hes known the Krays. Tremendous. Long may this place live. The Fumoir Claridge's, 49 Brook St, W1K 4HR, claridges.co.uk

The Fumoir will confuse you, as youll be torn between shouting about it and keeping it all to yourself. This plush purple and leather spot, deco decadence with a touch of welcome pomp, is hidden away behind a secret door at Claridges. Tiny and glitzy enough to feel like a Hollywood dressing room from the Golden Age, its little surprise the likes of Christina Hendricks adore it. For such a small place, they squeeze an awful lot in: plenty of wines, classic cocktails given a stern shake up, buckets of gin, a lovely choice of armagnac and a magnificent scotch list, gleaming with rarities. 69 Colebrooke Row 69 Colebrooke Row, N1 8AA, 69colebrookerow.com

Once known as the bar with no name, henceforth they shall be called the bar with Bernards watch, as there is no other explanation for the speed with which their finely mixed cocktails arrive. Another bar from Tony Conigliaro, its earned its reputation for turning out hit after hit: the drinks list is endlessly tempting. The piano is a nice touch; that is gets played a much nicer one, and make sure to order the Prairie Oyster  fun to drink, and one even for those who cant eat seafood. Bear in mind its a small spot, so youre close to your neighbours, and if you dont like strong drinks where the booze kicks, this wont be for you. Happiness Forgets 8-9 Hoxton Square, N1 6NU, happinessforgets.com

Dont expect frills and fuss or the rest of it here: Happiness Forgets is cocktail bar distilled down to its very essence, and done very well  their tag High End Cocktails/Low End Rent sums it up best. The bartenders are all top drawer, and their creations impeccable. Unsurprisingly, this Hoxton space has its regulars, so the crowd is always good. Tables can be booked, but half are always kept for walk-ins: try your luck, its worth it. Dry Martini by Javier de las Muelas Melia White House Hotel, Albany Street, NW1 3UP, melia.com

Come to this one to brag: Dry Martini is known as Barcelonas best cocktail bar, and has been rated the fifth best bar in the world by the Worlds 50 Best Bars panel. Renowned bartender Javier de las Muelas has bought over his concept to us lucky Londoners, and with it, finely mixed and classic cocktails. No prizes for guessing that the Dry Martini is the house special  if you dont think you like them, heres a place to change your mind. With more than 80 gins on the list, you could easily lose a week here. Gordon's 47 Villiers St, WC2N 6NE, gordonswinebar.com

Gordons seems to get more and more crowded with each passing day, but perhaps rightly so: the beloved Embankment institution is made for knocking back bottles of wine in. Eat a few cold bites and chat into a long, unwinding evening. The wine list is good enough, but youre really here for the atmosphere: in summer, the terrace, buzzing, in winter, the caves indoors, crammed with noise, spilt wine, and joy. Social bar at City Social 25 Old Broad St, EC2N 1HQ, citysociallondon.com

Youd think youre at City Social, up 24 stories of Tower 42, to eat, but if you stop in the bar, theres a good chance you wont make it to your table. The drinks come as something of a surprise: theyre so much better than one expects from a restaurant bar, inventive, put together carefully but not staidly, retaining a sense of fun. And, crucially, damned tasty. Its a dark room, and full of city types, but perfect for a few late night cocktails soaking up the view, which is really quite wonderful. Bloody pricey, but thats part of it. Ladies and Gentlemen 2 Highgate Rd, NW5 1NR, twitter.com

William Borrells bolthole transcends its gimmick (which, if you hadnt guessed, is that its a converted public loo), with the help of some very handy bartenders, and its house-brewed gin, Highwayman, of which twelve bottles a day get distilled. Ladies & Gents manages well as a place for a quiet drink, or better yet, a place to quietly get roaringly drunk. Convenient indeed. The drinks are strong, very interesting, and theres plenty of odd sods on the wall to keep your conversation up. It maintains a veneer of being somewhere faintly upmarket, but youll probably end up reading from one of the books scattered around or trying to dance to the live music. Perfect for a date that gets out of hand. Bull In A China Shop 196 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6LG, bullinachinashop.london

Truth it, youll need to catch this place on a good night, as weve been in often enough to know it has its good nights and its meh nights. But when the place is on, its really cooking, and easily one of the best bars in town. The cocktail list is short, but thought through, and care is taken in even the small things: they even make sure the water glasses are chilled. The chamomile and charcoal Old-Fashioned is a must, and any whisky lovers should get chatting to the bar staff, as theyve bottles which arent available anywhere else in the capital. Sager + Wilde Arch, 250 Paradise Row, E2 9LE, sagerandwilde.com

Wine lovers rejoice, wine bores look elsewhere. Sager + Wilde admirably keep things unpretentious: the exposed brickwork sets the tone: theyre keeping things low key. The specials list changes regularly, and always with interesting choices introduced. Some of the wines are exclusive to this place, so youre all but guaranteed to try something new. Have a SHE + T (sherry with tonic, delicious), and absolutely do not leave without having the grilled cheese sandwich. 7 Tales at Sosharu 64 Turnmill St, EC1M 5RR, sosharulondon.com

Underneath Jason Athertons Sosharu is this sexy, seedy Japanese drinking den, where youll find the hazy, debauched glamour of Tokyo after dark. Unlike so many bars underneath restaurants, 7 Tales doesnt feel like a holding pen, and drinks are precision made, with flavours leaning beyond the usual  think rice-washed gin, sake, infusions of sesame, snacks like tempura. Bar snacks are an irresistible must. Callooh Callay 65 Rivington St, EC2A 3AY, calloohcallaybar.com

Eccentric doesnt seem to quite cover it: enter the surreal world of Callooh Callay through an old Victorian wardrobe, catch sight of a throne and order punch out of a gramophone from a menu thats more of a sticker book. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but the bartenders really know their stuff, so for all the quirks, drinks are fundamentally pretty excellent. On the weekends, its a party bar, and DJs spin music to match: youre here for a good time. Any detectives in your gang will find there are two extra rooms in Callooh Callay to explore  theyre hidden away, too, naturally. If youre good, you might even get an invite upstairs to the Jub Jub Room, where the 10-long cocktail list changes every three weeks. Fans should also head to their new offering in Angel, Little Bat. Dukes Bar Dukes Hotel, 35 St James's Pl, SW1A 1NY, dukeshotel.com

Dukes is known for one reason: martinis. The St Jamess hotel was a favourite haunt of James Bond author and (very) keen drinker, Ian Fleming, who supposedly came up with the shaken, not stirred line here. Their martinis are exceptionally strong, and very large: theres a reason they wont serve you more than two. But look, break the mould: theyre a classic hotel bar, they serve a fine range of classic cocktails. Theres also a cognac and cigar garden, if youre so inclined. NOLA 1st Floor, 68 Rivington Street, EC2A 3AY, nola-london.com

It would be too easy to miss this place, so do your homework and saunter in: its must more attractive than sweatily asking anyone if theyve seen the place. Drawing inspiration from the home of proper cocktails, New Orleans, the bar loves traditional drinks, builds them properly and serves them in a den of music and laughter. Unlike some places specialising in old school serves, NOLA is a place for fun: sure, it seems to say, you could have a quiet drink  but why would you want to? Theres a cracking cigar terrace too, small enough that everyone talks before heading back in for one hell of a Vieux Carre. Call Me Mr Lucky 11 Southwark St, SE1 1RQ, twitter.com

All the hidden bars at the Breakfast Clubs around the capital are popular, with perhaps The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town being the best known. Call Me Mr Lucky, on Southwark Street, happens to be our favourite. Once youve flirted with the staff  ask to get lucky  youre taken through the restaurants kitchens to a lively bar decorated like some twisted take on a kids party. Have a go on the wheel of fortune, where youll really want to get lucky, and win a free shot, and then work your way through the cocktail list. Like any good-time bar worth its salt, this place is big on tequila, and the drinks are light-hearted fun, but  here we go getting lucky again  along with the quirks comes quality. By the of the evening, before youre porured back onto the street, youll swear tequila is your new favourite drink, and youll be singing the party hits they play all the way home. K Bar at The Kensington 109 - 113 Queen's Gate, SW7 5LP, townhousekensington.com

K bar feels majestic  and there is no other word for it  because drinking here is a little like being in the captains quarters of the Titanic, albeit without the sinking feeling. There is glamour here: a kind of place to be seduced in. Cocktails wise, bar manager Ben Manchester is the man to ask for, but theres a fine list to choose from. It avoids stuffiness, and just needs to be packed out to really get cooking. Nightjar 129 City Rd, EC1V 1JB, barnightjar.com

Nightjar has fame which means writing about it is redundant: people think it marvellously good, and theyve live music most of the week. Its seating only and worth booking: just be sure not to cancel, or theyll charge a steep 10 per person. They do the speakeasy theme, but well enough that it isnt too tired yet, and have plenty of old school style on the list. Pick up a pack of cards from the bar on your way out. Reverend J W Simpson 32 Goodge St, W1T 2QJ, revjwsimpson.com

Bourne and Hollingsworth run this rather lovely little bar, downstairs from a small doorway on Goodge St. Service is friendly and speedy, it's comfortable, and drinks more than hold their own  there's both obscure traditional mixes and modern serves made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Luckily, with good drinks come good people, and it's a loud, happy place. Albertine 1 Wood Ln, W12 7DP, albertinewinebar.co.uk

Albertine hasnt changed much since the day East Enders was commissioned there. A wine bar through and through, youll struggle to get anything else (though there are a couple of ales on the menu.) Its a place with spirit, which draws a regular, devoted crowd. They sell everything they serve, and its well worth splashing out: the mark-up gets less and less as the bottles get more expensive, meaning you can get an absolute bargain at the top end of the list. Its also the kind of wine bar you go to to overindulge. First Aid Box 119 Dulwich Rd, SE24 0NG, firstaidbox2015.com

This place really is worth travelling to Herne Hill to, which must be saying something. The team behind Shrub & Shutter have thickly laid on the pharmacy theme here, with cure-all drinks. Its not an idea which sounds like it should work, and yet, how much better life would be if they were one of the emergency services. Expect saline drips, syringes, and the likes of plastic lungs  their take on thirst aid  but rest assured, flavours arent medicinal in the slightest. At 8 - 10 a drink, its reasonable for London, and wonderful to see a bar really trying something new. Bravo. Media Wisdom Photography - Giles Christopher Nam Long Le Shaker 159 Old Brompton Rd, SW5 0LJ, namlong.co.uk

It gained fame for its celebrity fans, which include Mick Jagger and Prince Harry, but Nam Long has held on longer than most A-list haunts: its been going 30 years, and recently was given an overhaul. Its quite possibly the most Chelsea place imaginable  there are literally MIC cast members floating about  and its a go-to spot to drink far too much and party. The upstairs area is bright, airy, and well looked after by the excellent bartenders, while downstairs  "the Opium Den"  is as it sounds (though there was no opium available when we asked... ) The drinks upstairs were made with more care, but downstairs is more intimate, opulent, and better for a small groups. Some of those Chelsea types who go really are the very worst, and the drinks are outrageously expensive, but hey, its a laugh. The Vault at Milroy's 3 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4NX, shop.milroys.co.uk

A bar through a bookcase: were sold. Better yet, its underneath one of Sohos finest whisky shops  with stiff competition from The Vintage House  so if youre taken with something downstairs, buy it on your way out. Its a simple little bar and the service is decidedly so-so, but its usually pretty busy, they play good music and have an excellent range of spirits. The menu is changed regularly, but its a good place to cram into with friends or on a date. You mightnt spend the entire night here, but for a couple of drinks on the way somewhere, or on the way back, it fits the bill perfectly. Bounce 241 Old St, EC1V 9EY, bouncepingpong.com

There are two Bounce bars, one on Old Street and one on Holborn. The Old Street spot is a little more fun, graffiti adorning the walls,the Holborn spot somewhat more upmarket. Still, they both deserve a mention, and for the simple reason theyre damned good fun. Drinks here are good, with a decent spirit selection at both (and a huge number of gins in Farringdon) and a respectable selection of beers. Food is fine, simple. Still, you come to play ping pong. Theyve tables everywhere. Theres little to fault with Bounce: its a laugh, and sometimes thats all somewhere needs to be.

Tips for mindful retoxing

Rosamund Dean

If youve managed to make it drink-free through January then, by now, youre either smugly feeling like the peak version of yourself, or limping to the end of the month, hand grasping blindly for the first drink of February 1.

Either way, I salute you. The trick now is avoiding sliding into Wet February with a binge to make your recovered liver wince. Moderations not easy. I spent my twenties at the bottom of a glass of white and only cut back when I realised my skin, waistline, energy and anxiety levels needed it. Now I think about alcohol as I do about cake: a treat to enjoy, but not every day; certainly not five slices in one go. Here are four ways to ease out of Dry January in a way your body will thank you for...

1. Change your mindset. Moderate drinking is not about deprivation, its about freedom. Focus on the benefits of drinking less: everything from more cash in your pocket to a reduced risk of cancer.

2. Have more alcohol-free days. As a glass-of-wine-with-every-dinner kind of girl, this was the hardest lesson for me, but its vital as after one or two drinks your decisionmaking and self-control are not firing on all cylinders.

3. Explore high-end soft drinks: non-alcoholic spirits like Ceders or Seedlip, No 1 Rosemary Water, Shrb Prohibition soda, beer from Nirvana Brewery or Big Drop Brewing Co.

4. Ask: Will I look back on this drink with joy or regret? Fizz with to celebrate a friends promotion is joyful. The third cheap, tepid wine at a work do, not so much.

The good news is, once youre drinking less it only takes one or two drinks to make you feel nicely squiffy. Cheap date, anyone?
T here are several spring delights around the corner when it comes to London's art scene.

Among them, the next resident of Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth will be unveiled, while exhibitions feature bright young things and old masters alike.

Ready to hit the galleries? These are the standout shows more than worthy of a visit this March.

Andy Warhol

Tate.  2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London

Andy Warhols immediately recognisable prints defined a generation and changed the course of modern art. A major retrospective at Tate Modern is set to be one of the biggest events in the art calendar, with all his biggest works  from Marilyn Monroe screen prints to Campbells Soup Cans  going on display. A large proportion of the exhibition will be dedicated to his portraits of trans women and drag queens from the Ladies and Gentlemen series.

Tate Modern, March 16-September 6; tate.org.uk

Aubrey Beardsley

(Tate) /  Tate

Beardsley was just 25 when he died in 1898, but accomplished more than many of his artist peers did in a lifetime, with equal helpings of admiration and scandal. Tates show features his original ink drawings in the largest exhibition of its kind for 50 years, and the first exhibition of his work at the gallery since 1923. His work will sit alongside key inspirations, including Japanese scrolls and watercolours by Edward Burne-Jones and Gustave Moreau.

March 4-May 25, Tate Britain; tate.org.uk

Cecil Beatons Bright Young Things

The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's

Soak up the glamour at this stylish show, where High Society meets the avant-garde. The National Portrait Gallery shows Cecil Beatons portraits of the so-called Bright Young Things of the 1920s and 1930s and charts the photographer's journey from suburban schoolboy to socialite star. In addition to his own works, paintings by his friends and contemporaries will be on show, including Rex Whistler and Henry Lamb.

National Portrait Gallery, March 12-June 7; npg.org.uk

Titian: Love, Desire, Death

Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust

Six Titian masterpieces reunite for the first time in 300 years at the National Gallery. This exhibition focuses on these mythological paintings created by Titian in the 1550s and 1560s for Philip II of Spain, when the Venetian master artist was at the height of his creative powers.

National Gallery, March 16-June 14; nationalgallery.org.uk

Among the Trees

Mr. Xi Tao

Whether or not there will be real trees in the new Hayward Gallery exhibition, we do know it will include work by artists from Tacita Dean to Peter Doig exploring our relationship with woods and forests. From sculpture and painting to installation and photography, it will chart how they have kept us alive and helped to shape human civilisation.

Hayward Gallery, March 4-17; southbankcentre.co.uk

Gauguin and the Impressionists

 Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Works by Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas are among 60 of Denmark's Ordrupgaard Collection on display at the Royal Academy at the end of this month  and, of course, Gauguin. Many of these works havent been seen in the UK before, on loan from the treasure trove of Impressionist art just outside Copenhagen.

Royal Academy, March 29-June 14; royalacademy.org.uk

Heather Phillipson's Fourth Plinth: The End

A small scale model of The End / Getty Images

The next artwork to adorn the Fourth Plinth will be unveiled this month. Heather Phillipson's The End features a large dollop of cream with a fly and a drone on-top. Passers-by will be able to connect via wifi to the drone, to check out its 24-hour view of Trafalgar Square. Someone's always watching.

From March 26, Trafalgar Square

Last chance to see

Dorothea Tanning: Worlds in Collision

The indefatigably creative Dorothea Tanning had a well-deserved retrospective at Tate Modern last year, so were glad that the Tanning love continues. This latest exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery will feature rarely seen work from the artists later career in the 1980s, much of it being shown in the UK for the first time.

Closes March 21, Alison Jacques Gallery; alisonjacquesgallery.com

The Clash: London Calling

Pennie Smith

The Clashs album London Calling will celebrate 40 years since its release this December and forms the inspiration behind this exhibition. Joe Strummers notebook, Topper Headons drumsticks and the bass guitar Paul Simonon smashed onstage go on display at the Museum of London among 100 items from the bands archive.

Closes March 20, Museum of London, museumoflondon.org.uk

Dora Maar

 ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2019

Often spoken of in reference to her relationship with Picasso, Dora Maar was herself an influential figure in 20th century art and activism. This is the biggest retrospective ever held in the UK of the photographer, painter and poet. Read our review here
M ore than 100 years ago, the first women in the UK were given the right to vote. But it was a hard struggle to get the government to pay attention.

We spoke to the Museum of London to find out more about the suffragettes, where they protested, and how their actions shaped history.

Who were the Suffragettes?

Suffragette was the nickname given to members of the militant organisation the Womens Social and Political Union.

Who was Emmeline Pankhurst?

Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the Suffragettes, a group she founded with her daughters, Sylvia and Christabel.

When did the Suffragettes start and when did women get the vote?

The group formed in 1903 after splitting from the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). While it started with more traditional forms of campaigning, such as marches and letters, its members soon began heckling politicians, smashing windows and committing arson to keep on the political agenda.

Princess Sophia Duleep Singh selling 'The Suffragette' newspaper outside Hampton Court in April 1913. / Museum of London

Many members were imprisoned, but their fight did not stop there. Hundreds went on hunger-strike, and endured force-feeding.

After years of demonstrating, some women were finally given the vote in 1918 when the Representation of the People Act was passed in Parliament.

How did the Suffragettes protest in Westminster?

In 1905 the Suffragettes began their militant campaigning when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney were arrested at a Liberal Party meeting at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. They put the Liberal Party on the spot; would it enfranchise women? They were ignored and thrown out. They were later arrested for obstruction and spitting at a police officer. The campaign slogans Deeds, not words and votes for women were adopted.

Between 1905 and 1914 around 1,000 suffragettes were sent to prisons such as Holloway Prison in London as a result of their militant activities.

These included a mass rally in Hyde Park in 1908 and between 300,000 and 500,000 activists attended. To get the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquiths attention, they smashed windows in Downing Street using stones with messages and pleas tied to them. Some protestors even chained themselves to railings.

In 1909 many Suffragettes went on hunger strike to protest against their conditions in prison. In response, they were held down and force-fed.

A silver hunger strike medal presented to Emmeline Pankhurst / Museum of London

After the Conciliation Bill of 1910, which would give women the vote, succeeds in the commons, the suffragettes are hopeful, but when Asquith did not carry it through, protests began again, including the infamous Black Friday where many women are injured at the hands of the police.

Again, in 1912 The Parliamentary Franchise (Women) Bill was introduced and narrowly defeated resulting in mass-window smashing.

In 1913, a ruling by the Speaker destroys hopes of an amendment to include womens suffrage in the Reform Bill, resulting in more militant bomb and arson campaigns  although these are targeted at empty buildings. Suffragettes continued hunger strikes in prison resulting in the passing of the Cat and Mouse Act where they are temporarily released then rearrested to prevent them dying in police custody.

Where can I visit famous Suffragette sites in London?

For the centenary last year Historic England published a list of key sites of Suffragette protest and sabotage. Some key places in London are:

Westminster Abbey  Between 1913 and 1914 Suffragettes would attend services in groups and quietly interrupt by chanting God Save Mrs Pankurst and praying for other suffragette prisoners. One woman chained herself to a chair when the Archbishop of Canterbury was preaching, resulting in her being carried out of the Abbey still tied to the chair!

Brompton Cemetery  Here you can find Emmeline Pankhursts tomb, designed by the sculptor Julian Phelps Allan. It is now Grade II listed.

Bow Street Court  Because most of the offences the Suffragettes committed were low-level, they were tried in the Magistrates courts, and many took place at Bow Street. In 1908 Christabel Pankhurst conducted her own defence here, becoming the first qualified woman to cross-examine witnesses in a court, at a time when women were not allowed to practice law, but prisoners could defend themselves.

Caxton Hall, Westminster  This was chosen as the venue for the Suffragettes first large meeting in the city in February 1906. A year later, they held their first Womens Parliament here to emphasise the exclusion of women from all aspects of the Westminster Parliament. The events here were symbolic gatherings made to coincide with the key events in Westminster such as the state opening of Parliament and Suffragettes from all over the country attended. After the meetings, members would march to the House of Commons to deliver their resolutions.

1 Pembroke Cottages, Kensington  The headquarters of the Suffrage Atelier where artists produced suffrage propaganda such as banners between 1909 and 1911.

St Stephen's Hall, Houses of Parliament  This was the location for a number of protests by the Suffragettes as it represented the Parliamentary system the women wished to access. In 1909 four women entered the lobby to speak to their MPs, and chained themselves to the statues of Walpole, Lord Somers, Lord Selden and Lord Falkland. In the same year, Suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop, accompanied by Victor Duval of the Mens Political Union stencilled a passage from the Bill of Rights on the wall. And in 1911, Emily Davidson (famous for her fatal protest at the Derby in 1913) hid in a broom cupboard in the building on the night of the census. It was deeply symbolic, because it meant she had a presence in Parliament though the electoral process.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square  Hosted the first Suffragette-themed play Votes for Women! in 1907 and attended by the Pankhursts.

Where can I find out more?

The Museum of Londons Votes for Women exhibition runs until March 10. On display are iconic objects including Emmeline Pankhursts hunger strike medal, as well as a newly commissioned film that focusses on the contemporary relevance of the militant campaign that continues to divide opinion.

Museum of London

Daily entry to the exhibition is free, but some talks and workshops are an extra cost. All public areas are fully wheelchair accessible.

How can I get to the Museum of London?

The nearest tube stations are St Pauls (Central line  5 minute walk) Barbican (Circle and Hammersmith and City lines  5 minute walk) and Moorgate (Northern, Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines - 7 minute walk).

The bus routes 4, 56, 76, 100 and 172 all stop near to the museum
Anyone blessed in the bust department will know that when it comes to bra shopping having DD+ boobs doesn't always feel like a blessing.

Despite the fact that the average bra size in the UK is now a 36DD (up from a 34B in the 60s) the majority of high street stores still only stock bras in sizes 32A to a 36D.

So often if they do go up to a cup bigger than DD the design suddenly changes into some hideous thick-strapped lacy straight jacket affair.

If youre a 28F or a 40G. do not panic. Ive compiled (and personally tested) a list of some amazing brands, from high street to high end, who make lingerie thats supportive but still sexy.

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No spilling cups, no ill-fitting straps, just lovely bras that look even lovelier.

Affordable

Boux Avenue

Boux Avenue

Launched in April 2011, Boux Avenue makes gorgeous sexy lingerie, swimwear, nightwear and activewear thats epically affordable. Stocking a vast array of own-brand undies that range from everyday t-shirt bras to Valentine s Day power sets, this site is a one stop shop for girls that want to look hella fabulous for sub-20.

They also have 30 stores across the UK manned by fitting staff that have all been trained under a City & Guilds-accredited programme, and fitting rooms that come equipped with three different light settings to emulate day, dusk and night  so you can get a good feel of how that saucy set will really look at all hours.

Sizes: 28A  40G

Price: DD+ bras, 18 - 36

Wolf & Whistle

(Wolf & Whistle) / Wolf & Whistle

Looking for a mega sassy set of undies for Valentine's that comes in under the 50 mark? Look no further than Wolf & Whistle. After growing in popularity when they created exclusive lingerie and swimwear for ASOS.com, the brand launched its own lingerie line in 2017, featuring delicate lace, cut-out detailing, and rich jewel tones.

Sizes: 32B - 36F

Price: everything is under 35.

Figleaves

Figleaves

Launched back in 1998, Figleaves is one of the original internet fashion businesses. Unlike most high street underwear stores at the time, which offered a limited size range of 32-36, A-C cups, Figleaves launched with 150 sizes and today stock over 200. From flat chest to full bust, petite to plus size, there really is something for everyone.

They stock a large selection of brands (everyone from Calvin Klein to Wonderbra), but its well worth filtering on their own-brand styles, which are sexy, beautifully made and even more appealingly priced.

Sizes: 28C- 52D

Price: Figleaves own-brand bras, 15- 30.

Bluebella

Bluebella

Founded in 2005 by Emily Bendell, this fashion-led, affordable lingerie and loungewear brand delivers sensuality on a budget. Its won Drapers Lingerie Brand of the year for the past two years - testament to its well-constructed, thoroughly modern designs. Stocked in John Lewis and on ASOS and Figleaves.

Sizes: 30DD  38G

Price: bras start at 32.

Mid-Price

Chantelle

Chantelle

With 140 years of experience behind it, Chantelle is a brand well versed in the construction of beautiful bras. If you like a natural shape, super soft fabrications and good support, this brand is well worth the extra spend. The designs are super sexy and yet comfortable and hard-wearing enough to wear day in, day out.

Sizes: 30B  40G

Price: bras, 45- 72

Beija

Beija

Independent lingerie and swimwear brand Beija London was founded by sisters Abbie Miranda and Mazie Fisher in 2016. With family roots in the lingerie business, the pair set out to create a lingerie brand that caters to all shapes and sizes. Featuring feminine, modern classics with a minimum-fuss aesthetic, the collection is proof that whether you are an A or a G, lingerie doesnt have to be dictated by your cup size.

Sizes: 30E- 36G

Price: bras, 55- 65

Luxury

Empreinte

Empreinte

Founded in 1946, Parisian brand Empreinte is known for making fine French lingerie to suit fuller busted women. The company mantra - fit your bra to your body rather than your body to the bra - is brought to life in the beautiful fitting rooms of its first UK store on South Molton Street in Mayfair, where the in-store fitting experience is second to none. The bras come in a good range of shapes, from plunge through to full cup and support, and each feel as couture-like as the next.

Looking for something extra special? The store also offers a complimentary bra customisation service where you can monogram your lingerie set well, you wouldnt want anyone stealing it now, would you?

Sizes: C to G

Price: bras, 68 - 85

Rigby & Peller

If you're looking for something a little fancy, but you want a choice of brands and styles, Rigby & Peller is a good place to start. They stock a curation of beautiful lingerie, loungewear and swimwear from several luxury brands. Definitely not the place to buy a t-shirt bra, but perfect if you're looking to splurge on something glamorous.

Sizes: A-J cup
Z imbabwes President Emmerson Mnangagwa has crossed the Rubicon. When he came to power in November 2017 after the coup that deposed Robert Mugabe many hoped that, despite his authoritarian past, he would chart a new course. His lofty rhetoric persuaded many people he was committed to respecting Zimbabwes constitution. He claimed to have changed and said he was now as soft as wool.

Many were taken in. A year ago I expressed the hope he would be a Gorbachev rather than a Milosevic. Sadly the events of the past six months, particularly the past two weeks, have shown that if anything Mnangagwa is a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Before the horrors of the past fortnight it was still vaguely possible to believe that the breaches of the constitution were not his doing. Some have argued Mnangagwa has been unable to deal with hostile elements within his own administration. However, the deployment of troops, their use of live ammunition, and the arbitrary beating and rape of civilians have finally debunked these sentiments.

In terms of Zimbabwes constitution only Mnangagwa has the power to deploy troops and to determine their operational use. Although he has claimed to be concerned about reports of widespread abuse he has done nothing to return the troops to their barracks. Indeed, there appears to be a calculated plan to subdue the entire urban population of Zimbabwe which voted against Mnangagwa in the 2018 elections.

The systematic persecution of civilians by the military is a crime against humanity in terms of the Treaty of Rome. The offences committed in Zimbabwe in the past fortnight are being directed by the same leaders who were responsible for the Gukurahundi massacres of the Eighties, 2005s Operation Murambatsvina, the wholesale abduction and murder of Movement for Democratic Change activists in 2008, and the killing of civilians by troops in Harare on August 1 last year.

The Mnangagwa regime believes it can act with impunity because its leaders have never been held to account. The world, particularly Zimbabwes neighbours, has a responsibility to condemn these crimes and to bring them to the attention of the UN Security Council. While China and Russia will probably veto any resolution, raising the issue in the UN will send a powerful signal to the regime.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has a particular responsibility, for only South Africa can exert meaningful leverage against Harare. History has shown that when South Africa acts to protect human rights, Zimbabwean leaders have to change course. The situation is now dire and urgent action is needed.
T he point about zombies is that, though dead, they keep moving: twitching, groaning, lurching forward. This is precisely what Theresa May has done, yet again, giving her necrotic Brexit deal a chance to stumble on by  in effect  voting against it.

No less deluded was the behaviour in the Commons last night of those MPs who know full well that the Prime Ministers strategy for departure from the EU spells commercial, social and cultural disaster for the UK.

Yes, they were prepared to vote for Caroline Spelmans non-binding amendment opposing a no-deal outcome. But they shied away from Yvette Coopers proposal to translate that sentiment into action: this would have committed the Government to postponing Brexit if it could not seal a deal, a plan that was much too specific, detailed and practical for our dithering parliamentarians.

Their toothless morality was matched only by the specious unity declared on behalf of the Conservative Party after the passage of Sir Graham Bradys amendment. Yes, only eight Tory Remainers voted against this plan to send the PM back to Brussels, demanding a backstop-free withdrawal agreement.

But this new-found solidarity within Conservative ranks  a mere fortnight after May suffered the greatest defeat in modern parliamentary history  is wholly illusory. It has been achieved by stripping out the most contentious element in the PMs 585-page deal  the backstop mechanism that would keep the UK in the EU customs union until the issue of the Irish border was resolved  but calling only for alternative arrangements.

Matthew d'Ancona

This is rather like a cardiologist who, learning that his dying patient is refusing a heart transplant, offers to investigate homeopathic remedies. It marks the difference between constructive ambiguity  necessary to most complex agreements  and outright magical thinking.

Yet the language of Sir Grahams amendment is woolly for good reason: UK and EU negotiators have been struggling for more than two years to find an acceptable formula that would prevent a hard border. Their proposal for the backstop was not vexatious: it was the best they could do.

The notion that the PM and Brussels can now rustle up a new plan acceptable to all before she returns to the Commons on February 13 is as silly as it is arrogant. No sooner had the Brady amendment been passed than the EU announced categorically that there would be no renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement. How blithely do Brexiteers continue to insist that this is all par for the course, and that such diplomacy always goes to the wire.

The flaw in their argument is that we have long since passed the wire  which, for our 27 soon-to-be-former EU partners, was reached at the December summit.

No less confidently do the hardliners proclaim that as-yet-unspecified technology will do the job of the backstop with none of the constitutional pain. This attitude to scientific innovation is almost as bad as Luddism. It reduces the fate of nations to faith in a Fitbit. And it does not address the objection that  at present  all forms of transactional technology require some form of infrastructure and human presence to oversee their operation.

How often at a supermarket self-service checkout have you had to summon a staff member to enter a code because there is an unexpected item in the bagging area? Now multiply the problem by a thousand.

"There are still decent MPs who want to avert disaster but they have nothing like a critical mass"

Of course, the EU would prefer an orderly exit rather than the horror show of no deal. But Mays admission yesterday that there is only a limited appetite for a fresh round of horse-trading was a serious understatement. The idea that negotiators in Brussels and heads of government in 27 capitals are chewing their fingernails, hoping anxiously that Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Democratic Unionist Party approve of what they come up with, is as ludicrous as sounds.

The elephant in the room does not cease to be a problem if you simply rename it the pachyderm in the parlour. It is no accident that the backstop has become the seemingly intractable sticking point. The disagreement over the fate of the Irish border is not a pesky detail or an exercise in logic-chopping by supposedly-obstructive bureaucrats.

It is a specific issue that has, deservedly, become symbolic of a general pre-dicament. How do you enact Brexit without causing great damage? How do you implement the 2016 referendum without imperilling the Good Friday Agreement? It is shameful that seven Labour MPs should have endorsed Bradys nonsensical road map.

Understand, too, that the hardline Brexiteers in the European Research Group see the Brady agreement as a stepping-stone to the blueprint set out by Kit Malthouse, the housing minister. Though the Malthouse agreement was not among last nights amendments, it was the essential backdrop. According to this plan, failure to agree an alternative to the backstop would trigger preparation for a so-called managed no-deal.

It is a mystery to me that Tory Remainers and soft Brexiteers such as Nicky Morgan, Stephen Hammond and Robert Buckland should countenance such a possibility. But they have.

This, unfortunately, marks a sharp retreat by those fighting for a sane outcome to this crisis. The vote for Spelmans amendment against no deal was no more than virtue-signalling. The only call for a Peoples Vote under consideration last night was part of Jeremy Corbyns proposal, rejected along party lines. There are still decent MPs who want to avert disaster but they have nothing like a critical mass.
I like to see myself as a sunny soul. I have a slightly naive belief that everyone can find a way to get on. I believe the children are our future  teach them well and let them lead the way I have friends old and new from across the political and social divide and even a few who live south of the river.

The morning after the EU referendum in 2016 I felt calm and even oddly positive, even though I voted Remain. I tweeted a photo of London in the dazzling morning sunshine with the cheery caption A new dawn, in so many ways I told my hysterical Remainer friends to calm down.

I promised them that everything would be OK, that perhaps this could even be an opportunity to change Britain for the better, that there was no way our politicians would be stupid enough to plunge this great country into some weapons-grade crisis and that we could all come together as one nation eventually and hug it out.

Well, I regret to declare that I was completely wrong. Two-and-a-half years later we are in a bigger mess than anyone could have imagined. We face a political, constitutional and looming economic crisis. But the greatest tragedy is how divided we still are. We dont just have differing views on dry technical concepts or phrases which no one really understands, such as the customs union, the Irish backstop or regulatory alignment (which sounds like a Hoxton osteopath), we have big, raging rows on social media or in real life which reveal fundamental differences about how we see life.

And you cant just dismiss them or shake them off after a Twitter spat or an explosive screaming match on a television panel. They go to the heart of who you are, your vision of society and your core values  and its hard to compromise on those things. Ive had major run-ins on LBC and CNN this week with Brexiteers, and as much I want to be friends with everyone, I cannot change my beliefs. I think its wicked to create a man-made economic shock.

"Brexit didnt cause all these divisions but it drew them out  and we cant just paper over the cracks"

We are better for having people from all over the world living here in the UK. And I think its a thoroughly good thing to strive for greater equality and opportunity. But I also understand that as many people hold the exact equal and opposite view to me and think that all this Leftie nonsense has sent this country to rack and ruin. And thats their right (even though theyre wrong, obviously). But how do you reconcile those views? Im not sure you can. We need to be honest about it. Brexit didnt cause all these divisions but it drew them out and we cant just paper over the cracks.

We may well end up with some second-rate deal to patch up the political crisis but these deep, profound social contradictions which have been unleashed will sadly mean there will be a no-heal Brexit for the foreseeable future.

The new America awaits its Founding Daughters

I pride myself on being unfashionably late, so months after literally the entire world gushed over Hamilton , I finally took my seat in the theatre on Monday night. I liked it but I had questions. There. Said it. Dont @ me.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Getty Images

Sure, the set, songs, performers and production are all incredible. I loved the diversity and whooped away at all the right messages about immigration  but it was still a tale about a man in politics who found fame, fortune and power, and couldnt keep it in his pants.

Plus ca change. But its a fascinating hidden story of a key figure in Americas fight for independence. A Founding Father  father being the operative word.

It got me thinking about American politics today.

While I despair of Trump, I look ahead to what may emerge from the wreckage after he departs and it could be this exciting new era which will need Founding Mothers, Daughters and Sisters.

We saw from the mid-terms that a number of brilliant women, many of colour, are stepping up, getting elected and running to be the Democratic presidential candidate, including Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand.

But the one to watch is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the firebrand young Congresswoman from New York. Shes our modern feminist Hamilton  from a humble background, cocky, brave, smart and talks too much. And shes not throwing away her shot.
Today two Cabinet ministers are attending the conference and giving it their backing  the Health Secretary Matt Hancock and the International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt.

The battle against Aids has been one of the great successes of our times  but its not been won yet.

There has been huge progress in treatment and education but thats not enough to stop 1.8 million people around the world becoming newly-infected with HIV each year.

Whether its London or African capitals such as Maputo in Mozambique, people are suffering. Around the world it is still the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age. And the key point is: this doesnt have to happen.

Thats why todays conference is focusing on the UNs clear 90-90-90 targets. That means at least 90 per cent of people with HIV should know of their status, that 90 per cent are being treated and 90 per cent have successfully suppressed the virus.

Our campaign has focused on Delhi, Nairobi, Kiev and Atlanta, as well as Maputo and London  and so far only London has achieved that important goal.

Sir Elton Johns support is valuable. Weve come so far in this journey and we have the medical tools we need to help every single person at risk of, or living with, HIV to live a normal life, he says today.

So is the support of Evening Standard readers, who have backed our campaign, and the Government and taxpayers who have helped, including a promise to double every pound donated through UK Aid Match.

By identifying the challenge, working out how to meet it and bringing people together the world will win this battle.

Our readers can be proud to have played a part.

AIDSfree Campaign 2018: Highlights

We can beat knife crime

The story is familiar  and depressing. Early yesterday evening, in busy Caledonian Road, near Kings Cross, a 17-year-old boy was stabbed and died of his injuries.

Nedim Bilgin went out on his bike and never came back, his family say. Three teenage suspects were arrested soon after.

His death adds to the bitter total of injuries and deaths caused by knife crime in London. The numbers are at near-record levels, with more than 40 blade offences carried out every day.

This week a poll carried out by the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime showed that 26 per cent of those surveyed knew someone who has carried a knife, and 23 per cent knew someone in a gang.

This has got to stop. Yes, the police have a difficult job. And there are some small signs of progress.

But its not tolerable to see so many young people live in fear and suffer as Nedim Bilgin did yesterday. We need to see the authorities work together, and the Mayor to meet his promise to make knife crime a priority.

Other cities have done it. London can too.

Londons EU citizens

Today the Evening Standard tells the stories of 27 Londoners from the other 27 EU nations as they wait to find out where the Brexit chaos will lead.

They are worried about what might come next, hurt that the country in which they made their home seems to be rejecting them, and frustrated by the requirement to register for settled status, a system that if it works at all requires them to have an Android smartphone and not any other.
N etwork Rail on Wednesday awarded 5 billion of contracts to engineering giants to look after Britains railways for the next decade.

The firm, which owns and manages the UKs rail infrastructure, said the winning bidders will deliver anything needed to make the rail system work, including tracks, overhead lines and signalling.

In the South, comprising the South-East, Anglia, Wales, Wessex and Western routes, Network Rail has renewed the partnership between US firm AECOM and Frances Colas Rail.

In Scotland, the rail arm of FTSE 250 firm Babcock, Arup and Arcadis, which is advising on the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium, will do the work which at present is done by Babcock and Ameysersa.

A preferred bidder for the London North-West and London North-East routes has yet to be announced.

The new 10-year contracts will start from August. Steve Featherstone, Network Rails director for track, said the deals will ensure a stable foundation for the delivery of core railway infrastructure for the next decade.

Network Rail, which operates 20,000 miles of tracks, last year sold its 1.5 billion commercial property portfolio, including more than 4000 railway arches, to property investors Blackstone and Telereal Trillium.
I t is difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for referendums. They are the very antithesis of our representative democracy whereby we choose between competing manifestos, elect MPs accordingly and then trust them to use their judgment to carry out their mandate.

Referendums undermine that principle. Worse, they present voters with a binary choice but then encourage them to exercise that choice based on a kaleidoscope of beliefs, prejudices and motives which may have little or nothing to do with the question on the ballot paper. So it was that David Cameron misguidedly offered us a referendum on Europe, which he thought he could not lose, purely in order to appease his Eurosceptic rebels and keep the Tory tribe intact.

He got the wrong result and the stark consequences are there for everyone to see. A bitterly divided country, where Brexiteers and Remainers alike believe they are no longer being listened to. And a parliamentary system broken almost beyond repair: conflicted party loyalties, a deadlocked House of Commons, democracy in stasis. Last nights Commons votes did nothing to change that fundamentally.

Perverse as it sounds, the only way out of this may well be another referendum. Admittedly, a Peoples Vote is supported most enthusiastically by those who voted Remain. But dont forget one of the first politicians to espouse the idea of a second referendum was Nigel Farage. Perhaps he realised belatedly that the vision he promised the nation in 2016 was a fantasy Brexit.

A Peoples Vote is the only obvious way out of the impasse Parliament finds itself in. It would also allow us to decide whether to leave or remain with the benefit of a vastly improved understanding of the pros and cons of EU membership. And crucially, it would head off the catastrophic prospect which continues to hang in the air of a no-deal Brexit and the untold damage that could do to jobs, trade, investment and living standards. Empty supermarket shelves and higher food prices in the short term and, in the long term, a 165 billion reduction in the output of the UK economy.

Theresa May still wishes to keep a no- deal on the table as if it were a bargaining lever. But threatening to jump off a cliff unless your demands are met is not a negotiating tactic, it is national suicide.

A growing number of companies from Airbus and Sony to Jaguar Land Rover and now Sainsburys and M&S are warning of the dire consequences of leaving without a deal, either by accident or design. But business also needs to articulate what it would like to see happen instead. Only a handful of small trade associations have voiced support for a Peoples Vote. Where are the big battalions: the CBI, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, the EEF, the Federation of Small Businesses?

As Theresa May heads to Brussels in search of something she almost certainly will not get  a legal binding change removing the Irish backstop from the withdrawal treaty  they should be telling her to stop trying to reconcile the impossible and focus instead on the art of the possible.

The danger of the UK crashing out of Europe without a deal remains very real. The first step towards preventing this must be to postpone Article 50. But Brussels will only grant such a delay if the UK can produce a plan for what happens next. In the absence of cross-party agreement on how we might exit, the obvious plan is a second referendum. Preferably with a voting age lowered to 16.

It is impossible to know the outcome. Some who voted Leave in June 2016 will no doubt change their minds having peered into the abyss. But equal numbers of Remainers could vote to leave in protest at the way the UK has been treated since by the EU.

Any Peoples Vote would need to be deliverable and decisive. This could be achieved by making it mandatory and structured to produce a clear majority. One solution might be to offer voters a choice between Remain, Soft Brexit and Hard Brexit and ask them to nominate their first and second preferences. The least popular choice would then be discarded and the second preferences of those who voted for that option distributed between the remaining two.

It may or may not resolve the thorny issue of the Irish border. But it would receive proper billing, along with many other considerations lost in the fog of myth and countermyth in 2016.
D elegates at the AIDSfree Cities Forum were entertained at a special gala reception in the House of Lords where the Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler, told them global solutions must be found to the Aids epidemic.

The former health secretary, who launched the first national HIV/Aids awareness campaign in the Eighties, hosted the gathering last night of representatives from London, Atlanta, Maputo, Delhi, Nairobi and Kiev.

He said: Still we lose each year around the globe almost a million people, and another almost two million contract HIV.

That is the scandal of what is taking place around the world.

It is a global problem, and it will be global solutions that we need. Congratulations to the Evening Standard, The Independent and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

This is precisely the kind of conference that we should be having in this country.

Among those present were Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who dubbed the Standards AIDSfree appeal, which ends this week, a generational campaign and praised its impact.

Dr Yolanda Manuel, a public health specialist working in Maputo, Mozambique, on HIV prevention, said: I am very excited to be here because it is a great opportunity for us to exchange experiences from these fast-track cities.

It would be good to have some new creative ideas we can implement back home.

Abhina Aher, a trans activist and associate director of Alliance India, below, said being in London for the reception and conference was inspirational.

Abhina Aher (Nigel Howard) / NIGEL HOWARD A

She added: It feels like we have a voice now.

Anne Aslett, CEO of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, said of the Standard campaign: What has been wonderful to see is that Londoners have responded to these stories, and now it is to take those stories, the things we have told people, and take action.

TODO: define component type apester
G lobal leaders in the fight for an Aids-free future joined government ministers in London today as a conference organised by the Standard aiming to end the epidemic got under way.

Secretaries of State Matt Hancock and Penny Mordaunt welcomed more than 100 delegates at the AIDSfree Cities Global Forum marking the climax of our two-month campaign in partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation to battle the disease which has claimed 36 million lives.

Sir Elton today hailed the event. Im thrilled that city leaders and health ministers from around the world have come together to drive forward the global fight to end Aids, he said.

Weve come so far in this journey and we have the medical tools we need to help every single person at risk of or living with HIV to live a normal life. What we need now is collaboration across cities to have long-lasting impact and to make sure no one, wherever they may be, is left behind. Todays forum is an example of exactly that, so thank you to everyone involved.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard, said: 37 million people are living with HIV today and almost one million died of an Aids-related illness in 2017. These deaths were preventable. HIV is a treatable disease.

That is why I am pleased that world leaders in the field gathered in London for this event. I hope that it will build on the work of the Evening Standard campaign to help achieve an Aids-free future.

The forum, at The Conduit in Mayfair, follows our appeal, which launched on December 3, to drive down HIV rates in the key cities of London, Atlanta, Nairobi, Maputo, Delhi and Kiev.

Through UK Aid Match, the Government pledged to double every pound the public donated to our AIDSfree appeal. In addition, the Department of Health has committed 1.5 million to funding projects supported by the appeal.

Speaking at the forum, Health Secretary Mr Hancock detailed how the Government would work to ensure that the UK had no new cases of HIV by 2030.

Were all part of the global solution to this global challenge so Im extremely grateful to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Evening Standard for bringing us together, he said.

I feel proud that Britain has made such incredible progress on defeating Aids. But we must go further and lead by example. So today were setting a new goal: eradicating HIV transmission in England by 2030.

AIDSfree Campaign 2018: Highlights

International Development Secretary Ms Mordaunt reiterated his call, saying: While the world has made great strides in tackling HIV and Aids we need to step up our efforts. The battle is far from over, especially in poorer countries where stigma, lack of awareness and a scarcity of life-saving medicines remain.

Aids is still the biggest killer of women of reproductive age around the world, and every week about 7,000 young women are infected with HIV.

UK Aid Match means that every time the British public donate to the AIDSfree appeal, we match their donations pound for pound and their generosity goes twice as far. We passionately believe we can create an Aids-free future for the whole world. Thats the scale of our ambition.

TODO: define component type apester

The forum was focusing on the UNs 90-90-90 target, which aims to get at least 90 per cent of people with HIV knowing their status, 90 per cent of these on treatment, and 90 per cent of those on treatment to have an undetectable viral load, where the levels of virus in the blood are so low it cannot be passed on.

The forum was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.

Follow our live coverage of the forum below
To the editor,

President Donald Trumps removal of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan weakens U.S. world leadership. A better use of these troops would be to solve the repeated caravans of Honduras and El Salvador residents fleeing for their lives from their home countries asking for asylum in the United States.
Scientists are now saying they have made major progress with cancer research and could potentially be on the brink of curing it altogether.

An exploratory experiment found a treatment that can inhibit cancer cell growth in mice, and clinical trials could be completed in a timeframe that is sooner than expected, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The research comes from Israeli scientists with Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd., known as AEBi, according to the news outlet.

We believe we will offer in a years time a complete cure for cancer, said Dan Aridor, of Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd.

One of the larger caveats, however, is that the research has not yet met the scientific benchmark of publication in a peer-reviewed journal, American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Dr. Len Lichtenfeld noted.

Rapid mutations with cancers can be challenging for current treatment options, but AEBis strategy involves three or more targeting peptides and a strong toxin, the news outlet reported.

Instead of attacking receptors one at a time, we attack receptors three at a time, the companys CEO, Ilan Morad, said. Not even cancer can mutate three receptors at the same time.

So far, the company has completed its first experiment with mice. Through the study, AEBi concluded it inhibited human cancer cell growth and had no effect at all on healthy mice cells, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market, Aridor said. Our solution will be both generic and personal.

Now, AEBi is getting closer to being able to take the treatment through clinical trials, which could make it available in specific cases.
She was told her brother was dying, so Shirell Powell hurried to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx last July.

The prognosis was bad, Powell was told, she claims in a recently filed lawsuit. Her brother, Frederick Williams, was unconscious from an apparent drug overdose and had suffered severe brain damage. Doctors didn't believe he was going to make it, she said she was told.

She sat at his bedside, looking at the 40-year-old man on life support, tubes obscuring his face, and cried. Soon, she called his family in Virginia, including two teen daughters, she told the New York Post, and told them they needed to drive up to say their goodbyes. When it became clear two weeks later that he was not going to recover, the lawsuit says, Powell gave permission to St. Barnabas to withdraw life support from the man she believed was her brother.

Only there was one big problem, according to the lawsuit: He wasn't.

Instead, the lawsuit claims, it was another 40-year-old man named Freddy Clarence Williams.

Now, Powell is suing St. Barnabas Hospital and seeking unspecified damages after discovering her brother is still alive and that she signed off on the death of a stranger, according to the lawsuit filed in Bronx Supreme Court this month, which was first reported Sunday by the New York Post. The hospital had mixed up the two men with similar names, the suit claims, and the error was apparently not discovered until the city medical examiner's office performed an autopsy. The two men looked enough alike, Powell told the Post, that she simply believed his face was only swollen because of the brain damage.

"I nearly fainted because I killed somebody that I didn't even know," she told the newspaper. "I gave consent. I was like, 'Where is my brother? What is going on?' "

A spokesman for the hospital could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday, but spokesman Steven Clark told the New York Post, "We don't feel there is any merit to this claim."

As it turns out, there was good reason nobody had heard from the living Frederick Williams: He's in jail.

New York Department of Correction records show that Williams was arrested July 1, 2018, on a misdemeanor assault charge and had been jailed on Rikers Island, unbeknownst to Powell or other family members.

Powell says she received the phone call from St. Barnabas about the man she was told was her brother on July 15. Frederick Williams had been a patient there before and, according to the lawsuit, hospital records still had Powell listed as an emergency contact. The man was transferred to the hospice unit two days later, when Williams' family in Virginia came to say goodbye.

They sat in the hospital room crying, but for at least one family member, something didn't seem right.

Powell's sister "walked up into the room and said, 'That is not my brother,'" Powell told the New York Post. "I said, 'What do you mean?' "

After studying him a while and noting the swelling, she eventually felt satisfied that it was him, despite the initial hesitation, Powell said. They pulled the plug on July 29, the lawsuit says.

But after Powell requested an autopsy a couple weeks later, just as family was planning Williams' funeral, she got another startling phone call from the medical examiner's office, the lawsuit claims: This man was a different Fred Williams. Freddy, he was called, according to the lawsuit. It was not her brother.

So she went looking for him - and would eventually find him on Rikers Island. He is still incarcerated there, with a court date scheduled Thursday, court records show.

Frederick Williams told the New York Post during an interview at Rikers that he wasn't mad at his sister for pulling the plug on a man she thought was him, understanding she believed nothing else could be done.

"He was saying, 'You were going to kill me?' " she recalled to the New York paper about their exchange. "I explained to him, once you're brain dead, there is nothing to do."

Powell said she tried to obtain information about the other Williams from the medical examiner so she could send her condolences but was denied.

"I barely sleep thinking about this all the time," she said.
Paris (France), January 18, 2019 (SPS) - The participants in the 42nd Congress of the French Communist Youth Movement unanimously endorsed a motion on Western Sahara calling for support of the struggle of the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination, as provided for in international law, the resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council.



The motion strongly condemned the recent decision of the European Parliament, which includes Western Sahara in the EU-Morocco trade agreement, in violation of international law and, in particular, the ruling of the European Court of Justice of December 2016.



The Congress expessed its support for Sahrawi political prisoner Naama Asfari and his wife Claude Mangin Asfari in their fight for the respect of basic rights of all Sahrawi militants and activists detained by the Moroccan authorities and called on France to defend them. (SPS)



062/SPS/TRA
The graves of Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee after a wreath-laying ceremony that was part of NASA's Day of Remembrance on Jan. 28, 2015, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Astronaut Ed White was also killed in the tragic Apollo 1 fire.

NASA will hold its annual Day of Remembrance on Feb. 7, agency officials announced Tuesday (Jan. 29).

The Day of Remembrance honors the 17 NASA astronauts who died in the agency's three tragedies  the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the destruction of the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

These three accidents all occurred between Jan. 27 and Feb. 1 in their respective years, which is why the Day of Remembrance is held in late January or early February. This year, it was scheduled for Jan. 31, but NASA announced last week that the agency was postponing the day because of the partial government shutdown.

The shutdown is now over, after a record-setting 35 days, so NASA can start planning for this year's memorial activities.

"More information will be coming out on the time and those kind of things, but just know it's Feb. 7 at Arlington National Cemetery  a critical time for us to reflect on all the sacrifices that have been made," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday during a webcast "town hall" address to agency employees. (The main purpose of the town hall was to answer questions about how NASA will get back up to speed after the shutdown.)

Such reflections will be especially timely and important, Bridenstine added, given that SpaceX plans to launch the first mission of its Crew Dragon astronaut taxi to the International Space Station (ISS) later in February. The flight, known as Demo-1, will be uncrewed. But if everything goes well, SpaceX plans to launch astronauts to the orbiting lab in June.

Astronauts haven't launched to orbit from American soil since the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. Since then, the agency has been dependent on Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to provide crew transportation to and from the ISS.

SpaceX isn't the only company working to change this situation. NASA also signed a commercial crew contract with Boeing, which is developing a capsule called the CST-100 Starliner. That craft is currently scheduled to launch on its maiden uncrewed flight to the ISS in March and make its first crewed trip in August.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
Earth's north magnetic pole is so out of whack that scientists need to update the global magnetic-field model they released only four years ago. Could that be a sign that the magnetic pole will flip soon?

The World Magnetic Model (WMM)  the name of the updated representation of the magnetic field of Earth  is expected to be released no earlier than Jan. 30. That's about two weeks later than planned, with the delay due to the government shutdown, according to a report in Nature.

The magnetic pole is moving erratically out of the Canadian Arctic and toward Siberia so unpredictably that it took scientists by surprise. That 2015 update was supposed to remain valid until 2020, Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information, told Nature. [Earth's Colorful Atmospheric Layers Photographed from Space]

It's no news that the pole is moving; long-term records from London and Paris (kept since 1580) show that the north magnetic pole moves erratically around the rotational north pole over periods of a few hundred years or longer, Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist with the British Geological Survey who is involved in WMM updates, told Space.com in an email. He cited a 1981 study from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

But what's really catching attention is the acceleration in movement. Around the mid-1990s, the pole suddenly sped up its movements from just over 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year to 34 miles (55 kilometers) annually. As of last year, the pole careened over the international date line toward the Eastern Hemisphere.

The chief cause of the movement comes from the Earth's liquid-iron outer core, which is also called the "core field." Smaller factors also affect the movement. Those influences include magnetic minerals in the crust and upper mantle (especially for local magnetic fields) and electric currents created by seawater moving through an "ambient magnetic field," according to the 2015 report of the WMM.

"One of the reasons we can update the map is that the European Space Agency launched a set of highly accurate magnetic-field satellites in 2013," said Beggan, referring to Swarm.

"We have a superb data set from which we can make very good magnetic-field maps and update them every six to 12 months," Beggan added. "We noticed that the specification of the WMM was not being met in the high-latitude region around the pole, as the error exceeded 1 degree of grid angle on average. This triggered us to examine whether it was worth issuing a new update."

Flipping out

What's more, the core field appears to be weakening  which may be a sign that the planet's magnetic field will flip. To better understand how that would happen, here's how the core field works, according to Ronald Merrill, an emeritus professor of Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, who spoke to Space.com's sister site Live Science.

One easy way to imagine the field is to think of a bar magnet that runs through Earth's center and has a north pole and a south pole, said Merrill, who was not involved in the new WMM research. That magnet is strong, representing roughly 75 percent of the intensity of Earth's magnetic field at the surface.

Of course, a bar magnet is not a perfect representation  it's actually electric currents that generate the Earth's magnetic field  but the model makes it easier to imagine what's happening to Earth, Merrill added. Specifically, the "bar magnet" is not only moving, but also getting weaker, by roughly 7 percent every 100 years.

As for the other 25 percent of the magnetic field, Merrill said that's generated from another field, which you can picture as another moving bar magnet. Here's an interesting bit: As the central bar magnet loses intensity, this second, weaker magnetic field generates more influence on Earth's global magnetism. "And that's what's causing this field to move in the direction [of Siberia]," Merrill told Live Science.

Earth's north and south poles periodically swap locations, with the last flip happening about 780,000 years ago. (The poles also weakened temporarily and rapidly about 41,000 years ago, Beggan added, but never underwent a full flip.)) A 2018 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that Earth's magnetic field got weaker before the big changeover.

While any magnetic-field flip would still be thousands of years away, the effects could be profound on technology, if similar to todays technology. This is because the weaker magnetic field would be somewhat poorer at shielding Earth against the solar wind (the constant stream of charged particles emanating from the sun) and cosmic rays (blasts of radiation from deep space). Magnetic compasses would not be as accurate, and satellites that monitor the weather or carry telecommunications signals could be disrupted, said Monika Korte, head of GFZ Potsdam's working group on geomagnetic field evolution in Germany.

"Regarding increased radiation, that would go along with decreased shielding, [but] it seems that the atmosphere would still provide sufficient shielding at Earth's surface that humans and animals would not be significantly affected," she told Space.com in an email.

"However, all the effects we currently only see during strong solar/geomagnetic storms would likely increase and occur ... during moderate solar activity," she added. "This includes satellite outages or damage to satellites, increased radiation doses on long-distance aircraft and the ISS [International Space Station], [and] distortions of telecommunication and GPS signals."

Ongoing monitoring of the Earth's geomagnetic field (which includes the pole) will continue after the WMM release, principally through the European Space Agency Swarm mission, Korte said. But she noted that measuring the north magnetic pole's position is a challenge. That's because the pole is located in a remote area and the measurement of Earth's magnetic field is influenced by all magnetic-field sources  including the magnetic fields found in Earth's atmosphere (the ionosphere and magnetosphere).

"It will depend on the future magnetic field change, which we cannot predict, if another update to the model out of the usual schedule might be required," she added.

The next update to the WMM after this year's is expected early in 2020, Beggan said. You can read more about the WMM here.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
Today, only the Russians regularly bring people to space. By the end of 2019, several private U.S. companies could join them  including Blue Origin, which announced its intentions last week.

Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, said that its human-rated rocket is in Texas in "the barn," the nickname for the vertical processing facility where technicians are readying the rocket for spaceflight.

Along with SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner  both of which may have human test flights this year to the International Space Station  the new Blue Origin rocket could soon offer another spaceflight option for astronauts. [Launch Photos! Blue Origin's New Shepard Soars on NS-10]

Blue Origin's third New Shepard rocket (right), the first built to carry people, is in the company's West Texas hangar for a potential crewed flight in 2019. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

The human-rated rocket stands about 60 feet (18 meters) tall and is designed to carry six passengers in a spacecraft, according to Blue Origin's website. It is designed to accelerate to three times the speed of sound (at Mach 3), pop passengers into suborbital space, then return to Earth under parachutes to land gently in the West Texas desert.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket flew its 10th uncrewed test flight last Wednesday (Jan. 23), reaching another milestone on the company's road to possible human spaceflight by the end of the year, said Ariane Cornell, the company's director of astronaut and orbital sales. She showed a brief video of the journey the rocket took from Blue Origin headquarters in Kent, Washington, in early January to the processing facility in Texas onboard a 100-foot (30.5 m) truck-trailer combination.

"We are going to have rockets that are dedicated to payloads, like the one over my shoulder here, as well as rockets like the one that's in 'the barn' that is going to be flying people to space," she said during the launch broadcast. "[It's] so exciting to think that human spaceflight is just around the corner [for us]. We're aiming for the end of this year, by the end of this year, but as we have said before, we are not in a rush. We want to take our time. We want to do this right."

Blue Origin officials have disclosed timelines before, such as promising a human launch within a year of December 2017 and pledging in October 2016 to fly humans by the end of 2017. This time, Cornell said, a spaceflight doesn't feel too far away. "I think about when I was a little girl, wanting to be an astronaut. It felt like it was somewhat out of grasp, but literally, I can touch the rocket that is going to be taking people to space and  fingers crossed  maybe me one day as well."

Beyond SpaceX, Boeing and now Blue Origin, even more companies are eager to take part in human spaceflight. Britain's Virgin Galactic is a long-time front-runner; in December, the company's SpaceShipTwo breached the boundary of space, by one definition, during a test flight. Virgin hasn't announced when it plans to send tourists aloft, but that might be close.

Since 2011, most people flying to space have used the Russian Soyuz rocket and Soyuz spacecraft (the two vehicles share the same name). NASA's space shuttle program retired that year, and the U.S. agency has been working with commercial crew providers to one day provide alternative vehicles ever since.

China's National Space Administration sent its first taikonaut into space in 2003. While the agency has not sent any taikonauts into space lately, the country has flown three human missions since 2012 alone; in those missions, crew docked spacecraft with single-module space stations. The most recent taikonauts to head to space, Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng, flew for a month in 2017, and their mission included a stay on the Tiangong-2 space station.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks at an agencywide town hall meeting on Jan. 29, 2019, four days after the longest government shutdown in history came to an end and furloughed employees could return to work.

Just days after returning to work from five weeks of furlough, NASA employees convened for a town hall meeting with the agency's administrator Jim Bridenstine today (Jan. 29) to discuss the implications of the longest government shutdown in history.

"NASA is now open, and we're very thankful for that," Bridenstine told a room full of NASA employees at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "I know how trying the last month has been ... it has been tough. I want to say thank you for your patience and for your commitment to this agency," he said.

While NASA is still recovering from the impacts of the government shutdown  and dreading the possibility of the government shutting down again on Feb. 15  Bridenstine was optimistic about the future, telling the town hall attendees, "2019 is a big year ... we have some amazing things coming up that are critically important, not just to this agency but to this country." [The Most Exciting Space Events to Watch in 2019]

When the partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22, almost 95 percent of NASA employees were furloughed and sent home from work without pay, not knowing when they would be able to return. With only a handful of essential personnel running the agency  many of whom were working without pay  NASA still managed to make it through some historic achievements during that down time.

Space never shuts down

On Dec. 31, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft entered orbit around the asteroid Bennu, making the distant space rock the smallest object ever orbited by a spacecraft. Bridenstine lauded the orbital-insertion maneuver as "extremely successful." Just a few hours later, NASA's New Horizons mission flew by the Kuiper Belt object MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule), which then became the most distant object a spacecraft has ever visited. The flyby "captured the imagination of the entire country and in fact the entire world," Bridenstine said.

Although the agency was essentially closed for business, NASA was able to communicate important details about these missions to the public (and to its absent employees) because, thankfully, the people in charge of those communication systems were prepaid contractors, Bridenstine said. The NASA administrator said he personally made sure that those live events and webcasts would continue despite the shutdown. "Flying by Ultima Thule isn't a once in a lifetime opportunity, but a once in humanity opportunity," he said. "Let them do their job."

Contractors that were still legally allowed to work for NASA during the government shutdown may or may not end up receiving pay, Bridenstine said. Because not all contracts are equal and can have different types of provisions, NASA has to handle each contract on a case-by-case basis, NASA's deputy associate administrator Melanie Saunders said during the town hall, adding that "getting civil servants paid is a very high priority."

What's next for NASA

Now that the government is open for business again  at least for now  NASA employees are back at their desks, labs and test facilities, working to make 2019 a successful year, despite being off to a rough start.

At the end of today's town hall meeting, Bridenstine presented an epic new video showing all the exciting missions NASA is working toward this year, like the maiden flight of its new Space Launch System megarocket and the first test flights of the Crew Dragon.

NASA scientists can look forward to the first data and images from the recently launched Parker Solar Probe as well as the InSight Mars lander. Meanwhile, engineers are developing some groundbreaking technology, like quieter supersonic planes; a new space-based GPS navigation system that uses pulsars; and the infrastructure needed to stream live HD videos from the moon to people on Earth.

"NASA is essential and critical, not just for those of us who work here, but for people across the country and the globe," Bridenstine said, adding that the work NASA does "affects everybody's lives."

If Congress does not agree on a new spending bill before the temporary government-funding continuing resolution expires on Feb. 15, NASA will have to put almost all of its work on hold again, along with roughly 800,000 furloughed federal employees nationwide.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
Dark energy is apparently even more mysterious than astronomers had thought.

Scientists first proposed the existence of this invisible force two decades ago, to explain the surprising discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating. (Surprising and incredibly important; the find netted three researchers the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011.)

The most-used astrophysical model of the universe's structure and evolution regards dark energy as a constant. Indeed, many astronomers believe it to be the cosmological constant, which Einstein posited in 1917 as part of his theory of general relativity. [The History & Structure of the Universe in Pictures]

But a new study of enormous, superbright black holes known as quasars suggests that dark energy could be miscast as the cosmological constant, or any kind of constant; the force may have varied since the universe's birth 13.8 billion years ago, research team members said.

"We observed quasars back to just a billion years after the Big Bang, and found that the universe's expansion rate up to the present day was faster than we expected," study lead author Guido Risaliti, of the University of Florence in Italy, said in a statement. "This could mean dark energy is getting stronger as the cosmos grows older."

Artist's illustration of quasars, along with observations of two of these superbright objects by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (insets). (Image credit: G.Risaliti & E.Lusso/Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Florence)

Quasars are fast-growing supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies. Quasars' incredible luminosity  they're the brightest objects in the universe  originates in the disks of material that swirl around the black holes. These fast-spinning disks generate huge amounts of ultraviolet (UV) light, some of which slams into electrons in nearby clouds of hot gas. Such interactions can ramp up the UV radiation to X-ray levels, producing a powerful glow across multiple wavelengths of high-energy light.

The correlation between these two types of light can reveal the distance to a quasar, Risaliti and co-author Elisabetta Lusso, of Durham University in England, determined. In the new study, the duo examined this relationship for nearly 1,600 quasars. They used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft to observe the quasars' X-ray light, and the ground-based Sloan Digital Sky Survey to analyze the objects' UV output.

Risaliti and Lusso found many of the quasars to be incredibly distant. The most far-flung one, for example, was blasting out huge amounts of light into the cosmos just 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.

Previous work on the universe's expansion rate  including the landmark late-1990s studies that introduced the concept of dark energy  have generally relied on observations of supernova explosions as "standard candles." Researchers determined the distances to these objects, whose intrinsic brightness is known, and figured out how fast they're moving relative to Earth by analyzing how much their light is "redshifted" (stretched to longer wavelengths).

Supernovas, while dramatic and powerful, are much less luminous than quasars and therefore cannot be observed from as far away. So, the new study gives researchers another standard candle, which can be used to assess the universe's expansion across a broader stretch of time.

But Risaliti and Lusso looked at some supernova measurements as well.

"Since this is a new technique, we took extra steps to show that this method gives us reliable results," Lusso said in the same statement. "We showed that results from our technique match up with those from supernova measurements over the last 9 billion years, giving us confidence that our results are reliable at even earlier times."

The Chandra X-ray Observatory in space captured this X-ray image of the object PSS 0955+5940 to determine the spin rate of a black hole in the quest to understand dark energy. (Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Florence/G.Risaliti & E.Lusso)

The new results are consistent with some earlier observations of relatively nearby supernovas. That previous work found an apparently accelerated expansion rate, compared to that of the early universe (as derived from measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the ancient light left over from the Big Bang).

"Some scientists suggested that new physics might be needed to explain this discrepancy, including the possibility that dark energy is growing in strength," Risaliti said. "Our new results agree with this suggestion."

The new study was published online Monday (Jan. 28) in the journal Nature Astronomy. You can read it for free at the online preprint site arXiv.org.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate) is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 72F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 72F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Lincoln, NE (68508)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 90F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Clear early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 61F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph.
Margaret Fosmoe

South Bend Tribune

The coldest air temperature ever recorded in South Bend was on Jan. 20, 1943, when the city reached a low of 22 degrees.

Mercury Hits Lowest Level in 46 Years. More Snow and Wind Coming; Schools Closed, the South Bend Tribune announced in a front-page headline that afternoon.

South Bend may break that record today or Thursday.

The 22 reading in 1943 tied an unofficial record low set here on Jan, 25, 1897. (The National Weather Service only considers temperatures recorded after Jan. 1, 1900 to be official.)

The thermometer could drop Wednesday into the low minus 20s, said Megan Dodson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in North Webster, Indiana.

The unofficial coldest high temperature in South Bend was recorded on Feb. 10, 1899, when the mercury climbed to only 8.

The temperature early this morning approximated 20 degrees below zero, but the mercury soon began to rise, and by noon had reached the summer-like altitude of eight below zero, The Tribune lyrically reported in a brief story on that days front page.

That record, too, soon may be broken. Wednesdays high temperature in the South Bend area is only expected to reach about 12, Dodson said.

The meteorologist emphasized that Michiana in the next few days will be dealing with historically low temperatures, plus winds that will make being outdoors even more dangerous.

Area residents are being urged to take precautions if they must go outside even for a brief period of time. And people across Michiana are being encouraged to stay off the roads.

Daily records are likely to fall, too.

Record low temperatures in South Bend on these dates, according to the National Weather Service:

Jan. 29: -12, set in 1899

Jan.30: -13, set in 1966

Jan. 31: -11, set in 1936

Dodson offered the following updated forecast for the rest of the week:

Wednesday night, the low temperature is expected to reach - 21. Thursdays high temperature will be about 1 degree above zero.

Friday will see a high of about 20 degrees.

And by the weekend? A thaw will set in.

The high Saturday is expected to be 38 degrees. On Sunday, the high will reach about 45 degrees and on Monday 46 degrees, Dodson said.
Ted Booker

South Bend Tribune

MISHAWAKA  The former owner of Viper Automotive, a now-closed used car dealership that operated near here, has been ordered to pay the state about $140,000 for deceptive acts, including the failure to deliver vehicle titles and to make payments for trade-ins.

Eddie Rodriguez, who lives in Bremen, was ordered on Jan. 25 by St. Joseph County Superior Court Judge Jenny Pitts Manier to pay the money to the state.

Rodriguez, who was penalized for numerous violations of state law, has also been banned from owning or operating a car dealership in Indiana.

Viper Automotive, which closed last year, operated at 13460 McKinley Highway, to the east of Mishawaka in Penn Township. The Facebook page for the dealership, which had not been taken down as of Thursday, indicates it started operating at the location in late 2015.

The court judgement was in favor of a complaint filed by the state in June 2018 against the dealership and Rodriguez.

When reached Wednesday, Rodriguez said he doesnt dispute findings in the judgement.

But he alleged a relative embezzled more than $100,000 from him in 2017, putting his business in financial jeopardy. Records, however, show the relative was charged only with resisting arrest and sentenced to probation.

County Sheriff Bill Redman said according to the December 2017 police report for the relatives arrest, the relative was suspected of theft by Rodriguez.

A detective investigated the theft allegations, Redman said, and turned the case over to the county prosecutors office for review. The prosecutors office was closed on Thursday, and spokeswoman Jessica McBrier didnt return a call seeking comment about the status of the case.

According to the Jan. 25 judgment, the dealership sold vehicles to 17 customers between Oct. 24, 2017, and Feb. 12, 2018. Those customers made down payments on vehicles, but the dealership failed to deliver titles for them within 31 days as required by state law.

Twelve of those customers never received titles. The judgment, however, requires titles to be issued by the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

The judgment also states that between Oct. 24, 2017, and Dec. 4, 2017, the dealership accepted trade-ins from three customers, but failed to make about $31,000 worth of loan payoffs for the vehicles.

Rodriguez was ordered to pay the $31,000, along with civil penalties of $110,000 for 20 violations of state law.

Betsy DeNardi, director and chief counsel for the Consumer Protection Division of the Indiana Attorney Generals office, said the result was good for consumers.

Were getting their titles and attempting to get the money to consumers for trade-in vehicles, she said, adding that the situation created hardships for people. If you dont have a title, you cant register your vehicle with the BMV. And if you drive it, youre in danger of being ticketed and pulled over.

DeNardi added that anyone who doesnt receive a title for a purchased vehicle should file a complaint with the attorney generals office.

The building that was leased by Viper Automotive, meanwhile, is being renovated by its owner, Ray Begley.

Begley, owner of Begleys Automotive Group in Elkhart, plans to open a dealership later this year at the McKinley Highway location, according to an employee with the automotive group.

Begley didnt return a call seeking comment.
Denise Linn Riedl was named as the new Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend.
The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in data creation and management. The products and services that consumers use every day  and the systems businesses, large and small, rely on  all revolve around data. The increasing frequency of high-profile data breaches and hacks should be alarming to anyone, and theres a danger data security could worsen in the coming years.

According to DataAge 2025, a report by IDC and Seagate, by 2025, almost 90% of all data created in the global datasphere will require some level of security, but less than half of it will actually be secured.

Nuanced approach to data security

Security is a circle, not a line. Every actor involved in the handling and processing of data has responsibility for ensuring its securityThe rapid proliferation of embedded systems, IoT, real-time data and AI-powered cognitive systems  as well as new legislation like the European Unions GDPR  means that data security has to be a priority for businesses like never before. With data used, stored and analysed at both the hardware and software level, we need a new and more nuanced approach to data security.

Security is a circle, not a line. Every actor involved in the handling and processing of data has responsibility for ensuring its security. What this means in practice is renewed focus on areas of hardware and software protection that have previously not been top of mind or received large amounts of investment from businesses, with security at the drive level being a prime example.

The importance of data-at-rest encryption

In a world where data is everywhere, businesses need always-on protection. Data-at-rest encryption helps to ensure that data is secure right down to the storage medium in which it is held in a number of ways. Hardware-level encryption, firmware protection for the hard drive, and instant, secure erasing technology allow devices to be retired with minimal risk of data misuse.

Data-at-rest encryption helps to ensure that data is secure right down to the storage medium in which it is held in a number of ways

A recent report from Thales Data Threat found that data-at-rest security tools can be a great way to help protect your data. However, its important to note that this must be used in conjunction with other security measures to ensure that those that fraudulently gain access to your key management system cant access your data.

Ensuring drives to be Common Criteria compliant

One straightforward test any business can do to ensure its storage is as secure as possible is to check whether the drives are Common Criteria compliantDespite the clear benefits, this kind of encryption lags behind other areas, such as network and endpoint security, in terms of the investment it currently receives. The same Thales Data Threat report found that data-at-rest security was receiving some of the lowest levels of spending increases in 2016 (44%), versus a 62% increase for network and a 56% increase for endpoint security.

One straightforward test any business can do to ensure its storage is as secure as possible is to check whether the drives are Common Criteria compliant. Common Criteria is an international standard for computer security certification, and drives that meet this standard have a foundational level of protection which users can build on.

Providing an additional layer of security

The retail industry has seen a spate of security breaches recently, with several major US brands suffering attacks over the busy Easter weekend this year. As frequent handlers of consumer card information, retailers are particularly vulnerable to attack.

Data-at-rest encryption could enhance security in these instances, providing an additional layer of security between customer records and the attacker The advanced threats retailers face can often evade security defences without detection. Such a breach could grant attackers unrestricted access to sensitive information for possibly months  some breaches are known to have been detected only after consumer payment details appeared on the dark web. These types of undetected attacks are highly dangerous for retailers, which are relatively helpless to protect consumer information once their defences have been compromised.

Data-at-rest encryption could significantly enhance security in these instances, providing an additional layer of security between customer records and the attacker which has the potential to make the stolen data valueless to cyber criminals.

Industries in need of data-at-rest encryption

Healthcare organisations, which hold highly sensitive customer and patient information, have a strong use case for data-at-rest encryption. With the widespread adoption of electronic patient health records, that data is increasingly more vulnerable to attack. Recent research from the American Medical Association and Accenture revealed that 74% of physicians are concerned over future attacks that may compromise patient records.

With the widespread adoption of electronic patient health records, that data is increasingly more vulnerable to attack

The financial sector would also benefit from further investment in data-at-rest encryption, given 78% of financial services firms globally are planning on increasing their spending on critical data, according to Thales Data Threat Report.

Its helpful to view security as a circle in which every piece of hardware and software handling the data plays its part

SMEs and enterprises are not immune to security threats either  with growing numbers of people traveling for work or working remotely, the risk of sensitive business data becoming exposed via device theft is heightened. Usernames and passwords have little use if thieves can simply remove unencrypted hard drives and copy data across.

Securing every hardware and software

Technology vendors often focus on aspects of hardware and application security that are within their control. This is understandable, but it risks proliferating a siloed approach to data security. There is no single line for data security -- rather, its helpful to view it as a circle in which every piece of hardware and software handling the data plays its part.

Theres a clear need for more industry dialogue and collaboration to ensure data security is effectively deployed and connected throughout the security circle and across the value chain.
Thelma Duncan, age 93 of Columbus, OH, formerly of Somerset, passed away on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at Kobacker House Hospice Care in Columbus. Services are pending at this time and will be announced on Thursday. Lake Cumberland Funeral Home is entrusted with the arrangements for Thelma Duncan.
President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday commended Cultural Affairs Minister Sajith Premadasa for his commitment and said he had advised him not to work round the clock but to be mindful of his health as well.

He said he was happy that the Ministry of Culture was allocated to Minister Premadasa.

Speaking at the 2018 Kalabhusana State Festival held yesterday at the Nelum Pokuna Theatre, he said he had come to know that Premadasa could not attend the function as he was indisposed and he was sorry to hear about it.

I am fully aware of the commitment made to the country and the people by Sajith. He works long hours and has little time to rest. I have advised him to go slow and not to skip his sleep, he said.

He said that he was happy to see Mrs Hema Premadasa and said that Sajith had fallen ill due to exhaustion caused by overwork.

I have observed how skilled and a humble person Sajith is and feel the absence of him at this function very much. I wish him speedy recovery, he said.

During his address President Maithripala Sirisena commended all those who strived to preserve their hereditary artistic values in the field of Art, Drama, Music and Murals.

It is noteworthy to cherish all the sacrifice and the dedication of those involved in developing our aesthetic values, he said.

In the Western countries accepted as developed nations their resources are depicted in buildings put up with cement and boulders, but our country has expounded that by harnessing the ideologies and visions and bringing together the creative artists we could build a much stronger nation. The artists have contributed immensely towards achieving this goal.

The award winning artists of the day received accolades and much praise from the President, who acknowledged that the versatile artists had received awards for their knowledge, their wisdom, skills, their creativity and their capabilities.

They should be commended for all these cherished values which they have gifted to the nation. He called to mind the contribution of those great Artists of yester years and those who are now immobilized owing to age and or sickness. They should be remembered on this day offer our felicitations. Some move about in wheel chairs or with the aid of someone. They all speak about the destiny of each and everyone in this world. They had left us and the nation with a pride history of our own in the aesthetic field and for this they should be honoured, he said.
PHILIPSBURG:--- World Travel Awards was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all key sectors of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. Today, the World Travel Awards brand is recognized globally as the ultimate hallmark of industry excellence.

PHILIPSBURG:--- World Travel Awards gala ceremonies are regarded as milestone events in the industry calendar, attended by the industry's key decision makers and figureheads, as well as a key trade and consumer media. The 2019 Caribbean & North America Gala Ceremony was held on Monday, January 28, 2019, at the Sandals Montego Bay, Jamaica.

With hundreds of contenders vying for these awards, Leisure Car Rental once again emerged on top! Winning not one, not two, but THREE globally recognized prestigious awards!!! The Head Office in St. Maarten won the awards for:

-St. Maartens Leading Independent Car Rental Company.

-St. Martins Leading Car Rental Company

And the recently opened branch in Dominica took home the award for:

-Dominicas Leading Car Rental Company

Leisure Car Rental was established in 2007. Our website www.leisurecarrentalsxm.com was later launched with one main goal: Achieve and Maintain 100% Customer Satisfaction. We are delighted to have had the opportunity to bring back this level of rental car customer service to the islands of St. Maarten / St. Martin, and Dominica! We have major plans to expand operations to the rest of the Caribbean, and South America really soon!

We would like to thank Almighty God for His continued blessings! Thanks to everyone at the World Travel Awards for this amazing recognition. Special thanks to everyone who voted for us! We appreciate all of you!!!

For more info on our services, please log on to www.leisurecarrentalsxm.com
PHILIPSBURG:--- Honorable Member of Parliament Ardwell Irion has put forth a request for a study to be conducted to understand the benefits and economic impact of medical marijuana. The request, which was officially submitted on January 18, was addressed to the Social Economic Council (SER) via the President of Parliament, Ms. Sarah Wescott-Williams. The request details the MPs intention to understand and determine the economic benefits that the medical marijuana industry would have for St. Maarten.



The formal proposal requests that SER focuses on the following key areas for the study namely the effects of medical marijuana on the tourism sector, the effects of medical marijuana on crime and addiction associated with cannabis specifically, the viability of a CBD (Cannabidiol) vs Cannabis as an industry and lastly the potential economic and financial benefits of a medical CBD or Cannabis industry for the government.



The MP sighted information from recent studies conducted in Jamaica, Colorado, and California. Cannabis is legal in California for both medical and recreational use. In recent decades, the state has been at the forefront of efforts to reform cannabis laws, beginning in 1972 with Americas first ballot initiative attempting to legalize cannabis. Colorado has recently followed suit by legalizing the use and possession of cannabis. The two states are actively collecting extensive, progressive research into economic effects. Much of that information has come to affirm the medical benefits of cannabis for its consumers.



In his commitment to the research, MP Irion also seeks to explore alternative economic streams for St. Maarten. As the legalization of medical cannabis grows throughout the region, for medical, as well as recreational purposes, other countries are able to tap into a new stream of revenue. The MP has conducted research prior to the request. His findings showed that most recently, Governor Bryan of the US Virgin Islands signed a bill legalizing medical marijuana for patients suffering from a range of illnesses throughout the territory. Those in the USVI suffering from chronic pain caused by afflictions such as arthritis, severe muscle spasms and cancer treatments can now have some relief.



No laws have been proposed as yet, however, MP Irion seeks further clarification and information before more steps can be taken. He has been quoted as saying,  My own research is not enough; as an MP Im responsible for making sure that any changes to be introduced to our society will be a benefit to everyone and are introduced in a transparent and secure way. I look forward to the results of this SER study and for what it could mean for St. Maartens medical and economic future.

Click here to read request submitted to the chair of parliament.
~ Discussions to continue on Wednesday at Extraordinary Shareholders meeting on Wednesday.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- Two Managers from Royal Schipol Group (RSG) representatives of BZK, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, along with the Council of Ministers met with representatives Princess Juliana International Holding and Operational Company along with its management team on Tuesday.

The meeting which was considered as an introductory meeting also included the support staff of the Council of Ministers. The only Minister that did not attend the meeting was Minister of VROMI Miklos Giterson.

SMN News understands that the meeting will continue on Wednesday where Prime Minister Leona Romeo Marlin will make full disclosure as to what she agreed to when she negotiated with the Dutch to secure the $100M from the World Bank and European Investment Bank.

Already representatives from PJIAH and PJIAE were informed on Tuesday that unless they sign off on to the agreement the $15M bridge loan PJIAE requested will not be forthcoming even though PJIAE received $5M on Friday.

If the agreement is sealed during the meetings this week then a team of technical assistants from Royal Schipol Group (RSG) will be visiting St. Maarten as early as next week to begin a round of talks with Management of PJIAE as well as the Human Resource managers. SMN News further learned that these interviews is expected to set the tone as to how RSG will assist PJIAE in its recovery and reconstruction.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Member of Parliament Frans Richardson on Tuesday said he wants a clear answer on whether new CEO of the Princess Juliana International Airport Brian Mingo has signed over management of PJIA to Schiphol Airport of the Netherlands.

The United St. Maarten (US) party leader said it would be truly unbelievable and a sad day on St. Maarten if this turns out to be true. He said St. Maarten has always had a proud history of grooming homegrown leadership to manage its companies, case in point being Mingo himself as the new CEO of the airport.

How could we, if this is true, simply sign away the most strategic asset of our country? How does this even sit right with anybody in this country and in particular this government and the MPs that support this government, MP Richardson said. He also questioned if Mingo signed over management without the knowledge and/or support of Chief Operations Officer Michel Hyman and Chief Financial Officer Ravi Daryanani.

The MP added that more than 40 questions about the airport were submitted to the Minister and to date no answers have been provided to MPs. He said it remains unclear if the 5 million was actually received by the airport from government and if the 15 million bridge loan is tied to the 100 million financing package, which is still not enough for the reconstruction of PJIA.

MP Richardson said he also understands that the management deal is for an unspecified length of time. Once again the people of St. Maarten and their elected representatives have to be asking questions publicly rather than getting answers before huge decisions with major implications for our country are taken, Richardson said.

Why would a new, local CEO do this? Was it because he felt he wasnt up to the task and lacked the qualifications having no background in aviation? Was he persuaded by this government who simply bows down and accepts any and all conditions thrown at it by the Dutch? Why would you sign away your peoples property to an overseas entity? The answers must come and they must come right away, Richardson said.
Basseterre, St. Kitts:--- General Manager of the National Housing Corporation (NHC), Mrs. Elretha Simpson-Browne, who was forced out of her position, has completed her two-month vacation, but will not return to her post.

Mrs. Simpson-Browne has been selected to take up a civil service position within the Ministry of Sustainable Development, a portfolio held by Prime Minister, Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, who is also the Minister of the Human Resource Department.

She is to be given the post of Permanent Secretary, replacing Ms. Beverly Harris.

Last November, following a weekend of several emergency meetings by the Board of Directors of the National Housing Corporation, Mrs. Simpson-Browne was sent on a two-month vacation from Monday 12th November 2018.
Loading Instead, court documents say he stocked a life raft with provisions to ensure his own survival and purposefully sank the catamaran. A consultant's report described coin-sized holes in the fibreglass hull made from inside the boat, perhaps from a boat hook, an anchor or a bullet. When Bennett was rescued by the Coast Guard, a rescue swimmer stated that his backpack was "unusually heavy". A number of silver coins were found in his life raft, and it turned out he'd reported them stolen from a vessel on which he was a crew member in 2016. A search of Bennett's Florida apartment uncovered another 162 gold coins. Bennett pleaded guilty in a Miami court in 2017 to transporting $US38,480 ($54,000) in gold and silver coins and was sentenced to seven months in prison.

'The apology meant a lot' "We appreciate what he did," said Adriana DiFeo, one of Hellmann's sisters, who with their parents listened to Bennett's speech of regret that included a plea for mercy to the judge. "We are very happy that he did it finally after so long. ... The apology meant a lot." What the apology didn't describe was what exactly happened to Hellmann the night she vanished. And before Bennett spoke, Hellmann's sister Dayana Rodriguez expressed the family's frustration of not knowing about the final minutes of her life. The family had wanted him to go on trial, and were angry that he was allowed to negotiate a plea agreement. "I know he did something to my sister," Rodriguez told US District Court Judge Federico Moreno. Sentenced postponed

Bennett was scheduled to find out how long Moreno was going to sentence him to prison when the judge learned that there were unsettled matters in Hellmann's estate. Loading There is Hellmann's Delray Beach condo, worth about $US160,000 ($223,000), as well as $US22,910 ($32,000) in cash that authorities seized from Bennett. And before he was arrested and originally charged with murder in the second degree in Hellmann's death, Bennett had sought to have a probate judge in Palm Beach County declare his wife dead, a request that was not granted. There is usually a five-year waiting period before a Florida probate court will declare someone dead. Hellmann's body was never found, despite an extensive search by the US Coast Guard. Moreno wanted Hellmann's estate settled before he will sentence Bennett. He ordered that her condo be sold and for that money to go into a trust for the child's education.

Moreno set a May 28 hearing for the lawyers to update him on their progress and to give the Bennett and Rodriguez families time to arrange in-person visits with Emilia, now 2 and a half years old and living in the United Kingdom with Bennett's relatives. Cooperating 'for the sake of Emilia' Bennett took Emilia to England two weeks after Hellmann disappeared. He returned alone to Florida later that year for an interview over an insurance claim he submitted for the loss of his catamaran, when he was arrested in connection to the stolen coins. The Rodriguez family was frustrated that they had only been allowed to see the baby via FaceTime since she went to the UK. But during the hearing, Bennett told the judge he supports in-person visits for his daughter and Hellmann's family. After the hearing, DiFeo, Hellmann's sister, said, "We will try to cooperate ... for the sake of Emilia."
.It seems that President Maithripala Sirisena is heading for another collision course with the United National Party (UNP) as he has presented a Cabinet memorandum seeking approval to conduct the provincial council elections before May 31, this year.

The elections are already overdue for six provincial councils. By April, the Western and Southern provincial councils will stand dissolved as their terms end. The term of only the Uva Provincial Council will conclude in September. The President proposed to conduct polls on the same day for nine provincial councils before May 31, by enacting fresh legislation to revert to the old system of proportional representation.

The elections can be postponed with the citation of legal problems

The President has his own interests in getting pc elections declared first

In the event of an election, the President will be afforded the opportunity to travel around the country

There is a Gordian knot in the conduct of elections. A new law is in force providing for the conduct of polls under a new system which is a mix of the First Past the Post System and Proportional Representation. For that purpose, delimitation work has to be done carving out new electorates. The committee of delimitation has submitted a report. Yet, it has not been agreed upon, resulting in the indefinite delay of the provincial councils elections.

Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Desapriya called it a Gordian knot that can be cut by reverting to the old system of proportional representation.

The Presidents Cabinet memorandum seeks to enact such legislation by repealing the present Act that applies to the elections to the provincial council elections. The Presidents move can see the light of day only if the Cabinet of the UNP-led government proceeds with through the Local Government and Provincial Council Ministry. It can be enacted only with two-thirds approval in Parliament. As such, the UNPs cooperation becomes even more important for the passage of the proposed legislation through Parliament.

Now, the President is for conducting Provincial Council Elections before the presidential elections scheduled later this year. Also, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), operating under the de facto leadership of Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, asks for it. Nevertheless, the UNP has to act as the governing party to enact legislation to conduct the provincial council elections. In a subtle move, the President has thrown the ball at the UNPs court. It looks like an attempt to fix the UNP on the issue of provincial council elections being withheld inordinately over a legal snag.

UNP wants Presidential Elections

Obviously, this will place the UNP in a dilemma. One thing is that the UNP insists on the Presidential Elections to be conducted first. It does not desire for any other election ahead of it. The UNPs intention became apparent last Friday in Parliament when it dodged a debate on a motion calling for the provincial council elections. The UNP did it by raising the quorum issue in the House. The debate ended abruptly as there was no quorum of 20 MPs present in the Chamber of the House. UNP MP Lakshman Wijemanna brought it to the notice of the House there was no quorum to proceed with. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which moved the motion, also incurs blame for the failure to maintain quorum on that day. If there were adequate UPFA MPs present, it could have prevailed upon the UNP to declare its stance on the elections during the course of the debate. However, the UNP made use of the quorum issue to cut short the debate, and thus avoided the reply speech which was supposed to be made by the subject minister announcing the partys standpoint. It indicated the UNPs lackluster approach to take steps for the provincial council elections first.

Now, the ball is in the UNPs court. The elections can be postponed with the citation of legal problems. However, there is no moral justification for the postponement of elections. The conduct of provincial council elections does not gel with the UNPs political interests at the moment.

The President has his own interests in getting provincial council elections declared first as far as one can see. Now, he is in alliance with Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa. In the event of any election, the Presidents UPFA and Mr. Rajapaksas SLPP will be compelled to strike an electoral deal. It will enable the President to regain his waned political standing in the electorate. On the other hand, the President is ambitious to be the next presidential candidate. For that objective to be realized, an electoral understanding with Mr. Rajapaksa is sine qua non. In the event of an election, the President will be afforded the opportunity to travel around the country campaigning for the SLPP/UPFA alliance. It will serve as a great precursor for him to propel his image as a presidential candidate as the next move.

The UNP believes it is relatively weak in the Sinhala- majority provinces outside the north and the east. So, a provincial council election is less advantageous for it. Yet, at a presidential election, the UNP believes it can make up for any disadvantage in the Sinhala majority areas by getting the Tamil and Muslim votes en bloc from the north and the east. Therefore, the UNP is asking for the presidential election first.

All in all, the two sides have irreconcilable interests as far as the provincial council elections are concerned. In this manner, the President is poised to have another policy clash with the UNP unless there is compromise by one party of the other. It will be a difficult task for the UNP to dodge steps to conduct the provincial council elections. Any attempt at keeping such elections postponed will be interpreted as a way of escaping the public opinion in fear of defeat. May be, it does not want to go for the presidential elections due before December 9, this year with a defeatist posture.

Ranil, MP bonhomie

All eyes were on the wedding function of Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksas son Rohitha Rajapaksa in Weeraketiya, last week.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was virtually the chief guest at the wedding function. He appeared at the event and exchanged pleasantries with those of the Rajapaksa family. Invitations had been sent to a few of the UNP. The list of invitees from the UNP included Mr.Wickremesinghe, Ministers Ranjith Madduma Bandara, Gayantha Karunatilake, Sagala Ratnayake, Kabir Hashim, Mangala Samaraweera etc.

Most of them came by helicopter from Bandarawela where there was an event for them. Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama received the invitation on the wedding day morning, and therefore he could not make it. There was joy all around, and Mr. Wickremesinghe reportedly remarked to Mr. Rajapaksa, Here, you are having the majority, not me, The appearance of Mr. Wickremesinghe with Mr. Rajapaksa has given credence to perception that there is bonhomie between the two regardless of their political differences.

Sniffer dog for each Minister

At Tuesdays Cabinet meeting, Transport Minister Arjuna Ranatunga presented an interesting Cabinet paper-that is to seek approval to import 20 drug detection dogs to be deployed at the airport to sniff out narcotics.

In fact, the Cabinet paper had been worked out when MP Nimal Siripala de Silva was the Minister. Having looked at the paper, the President intended to crack a joke. So he said in lighter vein, Why do you import only 20 It is better to import each dog for all the Ministers,

Everyone laughed at this remark. Minister Ranatunga who presented the paper said he did not want any dog. But, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera contributed to the joke by staking a claim for a dog.
Washington: Foreign Minister Marise Payne has used a speech in Washington to urge the Trump administration to end its trade war with China, while acknowledging the US is right to complain about China's theft of intellectual property.

Payne's visit to the US capital coincides with high-stakes trade negotiations between US and Chinese officials as they seek to reach an agreement by the self-imposed deadline of March 1.

It also comes as US intelligence officials publicly called out China for seeking to undermine Western nations - including "currying favour" with Pacific Island countries.

The US has threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on US$200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods if the two nations cannot reach a deal on trade that satisfies both countries.
An NSA spokesman declined to comment on Raven. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for UAEs Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. The UAEs Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for its National Media Council did not respond to requests for comment. The UAE has said it faces a real threat from violent extremist groups and that it is cooperating with the United States on counter-terrorism efforts. Former Raven operatives say the project helped NESA break up an ISIS network within the Emirates. When an ISIS-inspired militant stabbed to death a teacher in Abu Dhabi in 2014, the operatives say, Raven spearheaded the UAE effort to assess if other attacks were imminent. Various reports have highlighted the ongoing cyber arms race in the Middle East, as the Emirates and other nations attempt to sweep up hacking weapons and personnel faster than their rivals. The Reuters investigation is the first to reveal the existence of Project Raven, providing a rare inside account of state hacking operations usually shrouded in secrecy and denials. Loading The Raven story also provides new insight into the role former American cyberspies play in foreign hacking operations. Within the US intelligence community, leaving to work as an operative for another country is seen by some as a betrayal. Theres a moral obligation if youre a former intelligence officer from becoming effectively a mercenary for a foreign government, said Bob Anderson, who served as executive assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation until 2015.

While this activity raises ethical dilemmas, US national security lawyers say the laws guiding what American intelligence contractors can do abroad are murky. Though its illegal to share classified information, there is no specific law that bars contractors from sharing more general spycraft knowhow, such as how to bait a target with a virus-laden email. The rules, however, are clear on hacking US networks or stealing the communications of Americans. It would be very illegal, said Rhea Siers, former NSA deputy assistant director for policy. The hacking of Americans was a tightly held secret even within Raven, with those operations led by Emiratis instead. Strouds account of the targeting of Americans was confirmed by four other former operatives and in emails reviewed by Reuters. The FBI is now investigating whether Ravens American staff leaked classified US surveillance techniques and if they illegally targeted American computer networks, according to former Raven employees interviewed by federal law enforcement agents. Stroud said she is cooperating with that investigation. No charges have been filed and it is possible none will emerge from the inquiry. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment. 'Purple briefing, black briefing'

Stroud is the only former Raven operative willing to be named in this story; eight others who described their experiences would do so only on condition of anonymity. She spent a decade at the NSA, first as a military service member from 2003 to 2009 and later as a contractor in the agency for the giant technology consultant Booz Allen Hamilton from 2009 to 2014. Her specialty was hunting for vulnerabilities in the computer systems of foreign governments, such as China, and analysing what data should be stolen. In 2013, her world changed. While stationed at NSA Hawaii, Stroud says, she made the fateful recommendation to bring a Dell technician already working in the building onto her team. That contractor was Edward Snowden. Hes former CIA, hes local, hes already cleared, Stroud, 37, recalled. Hes perfect! Booz and the NSA would later approve Snowdens transfer, providing him with even greater access to classified material. Lori Stroud was pushed out of the NSA for bringing on former CIA technician turned whistleblower Edward Snowden. Credit:NBC Two months after joining Strouds group, Snowden fled the United States and passed on thousands of pages of top secret program files to journalists, detailing the agencys massive data collection programs. In the maelstrom that followed, Stroud said her Booz team was vilified for unwittingly enabling the largest security breach in agency history.

Our brand was ruined, she said of her team. In the wake of the scandal, Marc Baier, a former colleague at NSA Hawaii, offered her the chance to work for a contractor in Abu Dhabi called CyberPoint. In May 2014, Stroud jumped at the opportunity and left Booz Allen. CyberPoint, a small cybersecurity contractor headquartered in Baltimore, was founded by an entrepreneur named Karl Gumtow in 2009. Its clients have included the US Department of Defense, and its UAE business has gained media attention. In an interview, Gumtow said his company was not involved in any improper actions. Stroud had already made the switch from government employee to Booz Allen contractor, essentially performing the same NSA job at higher pay. Taking a job with CyberPoint would fulfil a lifelong dream of deploying to the Middle East and doing so at a lucrative salary. Many analysts, like Stroud, were paid more than $US200,000 ($278,000) a year, and some managers received salaries and compensation above $US400,000.

She understood her new job would involve a counter-terrorism mission in cooperation with the Emiratis, a close US ally in the fight against ISIS, but little else. Baier and other Raven managers assured her the project was approved by the NSA, she said. With Baiers impressive resume, including time in an elite NSA hacking unit known as Tailored Access Operations, the pledge was convincing. Baier did not respond to multiple phone calls, text messages, emails, and messages on social media. In the highly secretive, compartmentalised world of intelligence contracting, it isnt unusual for recruiters to keep the mission and client from potential hires until they sign non-disclosure documents and go through a briefing process. When Stroud was brought into the Villa for the first time, in May 2014, Raven management gave her two separate briefings, back-to-back. In the first, known internally as the purple briefing, she said she was told Raven would pursue a purely defensive mission, protecting the government of the UAE from hackers and other threats. Right after the briefing ended, she said she was told she had just received a cover story. She then received the black briefing, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters. Raven is the offensive, operational division of NESA and will never be acknowledged to the general public, the black memo says. The NESA, or National Electronic Security Authority, was the UAEs version of the NSA.

Stroud would be part of Ravens analysis and target-development shop, tasked with helping the government profile its enemies online, hack them and collect data. Those targets were provided by the client, NESA, now called the Signals Intelligence Agency. The language and secrecy of the briefings closely mirrored her experience at the NSA, Stroud said, giving her a level of comfort. The information scooped up by Raven was feeding a security apparatus that has drawn international criticism. The Emirates, a wealthy federation of seven Arab sheikhdoms with a population of 9 million, is an ally of neighbour Saudi Arabia and rival of Iran. Like those two regional powers, the UAE has been accused of suppressing free speech, detaining dissidents and other abuses by groups such as Human Rights Watch. The UAE says it is working closely with Washington to fight extremism beyond the battlefield and is promoting efforts to counter the root causes of radical violence. Ravens targets eventually would include militants in Yemen, foreign adversaries such as Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and individuals who criticised the monarchy, said Stroud and eight other former Raven operatives. Their accounts were confirmed by hundreds of Raven program documents reviewed by Reuters.

Some days it was hard to swallow, like [when you target] a 16-year-old kid on Twitter. But... I never made it personal. Lori Stroud Under orders from the UAE government, former operatives said, Raven would monitor social media and target people who security forces felt had insulted the government. Some days it was hard to swallow, like [when you target] a 16-year-old kid on Twitter, she said. But its an intelligence mission, you are an intelligence operative. I never made it personal. The Americans identified vulnerabilities in selected targets, developed or procured software to carry out the intrusions and assisted in monitoring them, former Raven employees said. But an Emirati operative would usually press the button on an attack. This arrangement was intended to give the Americans plausible deniability about the nature of the work, said former Raven members. Targeting 'Gyro' and 'Egret'

Stroud discovered that the program took aim not just at terrorists and foreign government agencies, but also dissidents and human rights activists. The Emiratis categorised them as national security targets. Following the Arab Spring protests and the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Emirati security forces viewed human rights advocates as a major threat to national stability, records and interviews show. Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Credit:AP One of the programs key targets in 2012 was Rori Donaghy, according to former Raven operatives and program documents. Donaghy, then 25, was a British journalist and activist who authored articles critical of the countrys human rights record. In 2012, he wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian criticizing the UAE governments activist crackdown and warning that, if it continued, those in power face an uncertain future. Before 2012, the former operatives said, the nascent UAE intelligence-gathering operation largely relied on Emirati agents breaking into the homes of targets while they were away and physically placing spyware on computers. But as the Americans built up Raven, the remote hacking of Donaghy offered the contractors a tantalising win they could present to the client.

Because of sensitivity over human rights violations and press freedom in the West, the operation against a journalist-activist was a gamble. The potential risk to the UAE Government and diplomatic relations with Western powers is great if the operation can be traced back to UAE, 2012 program documents said. To get close to Donaghy, a Raven operative should attempt to ingratiate himself to the target by espousing similar beliefs, the cyber-mercenaries wrote. Donaghy would be unable to resist an overture of this nature, they believed. Posing as a single human rights activist, Raven operatives emailed Donaghy asking for his help to bring hope to those who are long suffering, the email message said. The operative convinced Donaghy to download software he claimed would make messages difficult to trace. In reality, the malware allowed the Emiratis to continuously monitor Donaghys email account and internet browsing. The surveillance against Donaghy, who was given the codename Gyro, continued under Stroud and remained a top priority for the Emirates for years, Stroud said. Donaghy eventually became aware that his email had been hacked. In 2015, after receiving another suspicious email, he contacted a security researcher at Citizen Lab, a Canadian human rights and digital privacy group, who discovered hackers had been attempting for years to breach his computer.

Before joining Project Raven, many of the operatives worked for the National Security Agency. It's headquarters in Maryland is pictured here. Credit:AP Reached by phone in London, Donaghy, now a graduate student pursuing Arab studies, expressed surprise he was considered a top national security target for five years. Donaghy confirmed he was targeted using the techniques described in the documents. Im glad my partner is sitting here as I talk on the phone because she wouldnt believe it, he said. Told the hackers were American mercenaries working for the UAE, Donaghy, a British citizen, expressed surprise and disgust. It feels like a betrayal of the alliance we have, he said. Stroud said her background as an intelligence operative made her comfortable with human rights targets as long as they werent Americans. Were working on behalf of this countrys government, and they have specific intelligence objectives which differ from the US, and understandably so, Stroud said. You live with it. Prominent Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor, given the code name Egret, was another target, former Raven operatives say. For years, Mansoor publicly criticised the countrys war in Yemen, treatment of migrant workers and detention of political opponents.

Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist from the United Arab Emirates, was placed under government surveillance. Credit:The New York Times In September 2013, Raven presented senior NESA officials with material taken from Mansoors computer, boasting of the successful collection of evidence against him. It contained screenshots of emails in which Mansoor discussed an upcoming demonstration in front of the UAEs Federal Supreme Court with family members of imprisoned dissidents. Raven told UAE security forces Mansoor had photographed a prisoner he visited in jail, against prison policy, and then attempted to destroy the evidence on his computer, said a Powerpoint presentation reviewed by Reuters. Citizen Lab published research in 2016 showing that Mansoor and Donaghy were targeted by hackers - with researchers speculating that the UAE government was the most likely culprit. Concrete evidence of who was responsible, details on the use of American operatives, and first-hand accounts from the hacking team are reported here for the first time. Mansoor was convicted in a secret trial in 2017 of damaging the countrys unity and sentenced to 10 years in jail. He is now held in solitary confinement, his health declining, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mansoors wife, Nadia, has lived in social isolation in Abu Dhabi. Neighbours are avoiding her out of fear security forces are watching. They are correct. By June 2017 Raven had tapped into her mobile device and given her the code name Purple Egret, program documents reviewed by Reuters show. To do so, Raven utilised a powerful new hacking tool called Karma, which allowed operatives to break into the iPhones of users around the world. Karma allowed Raven to obtain emails, location, text messages and photographs from iPhones simply by uploading lists of numbers into a pre-configured system, five former project employees said. Reuters had no contact with Mansoors wife. Karma was particularly potent because it did not require a target to click on any link to download malicious software. The operatives understood the hacking tool to rely on an undisclosed vulnerability in Apples iMessage text messaging software.

In 2016 and 2017, it would be used against hundreds of targets across the Middle East and Europe, including governments of Qatar, Yemen, Iran and Turkey, documents show. Raven used Karma to hack an iPhone used by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, as well as the phones of close associates and his brother. The embassy of Qatar in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Qatar's ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, pictured meeting Donald Trump in 2017, was targeted by the UAE spying operation. Credit:AP What Washington knew Former Raven operatives believed they were on the right side of the law because, they said, supervisors told them the mission was blessed by the US government. Although the NSA wasnt involved in day-to-day operations, the agency approved of and was regularly briefed on Ravens activities, they said Baier told them.

CyberPoint founder Gumtow said his company was not involved in hacking operations. We were not doing offensive operations. Period, Gumtow said in a phone interview. If someone was doing something rogue, then thats painful for me to think they would do that under our banner. Instead, he said, the company trained Emiratis to defend themselves through a program with the countrys Ministry of Interior. A review of internal Raven documents shows Gumtows description of the program as advising the Interior Ministry on cyber defense matches an unclassified cover story Raven operatives were instructed to give when asked about the project. Raven employees were told to say they worked for the Information Technology and Interoperability Office, the program document said. Providing sensitive defence technologies or services to a foreign government generally requires special licenses from the US State and Commerce Departments. Both agencies declined to comment on whether they issued such licenses to CyberPoint for its operations in the UAE. They added that human rights considerations figure into any such approvals.

But a 2014 State Department agreement with CyberPoint showed Washington understood the contractors were helping launch cyber surveillance operations for the UAE. The approval document explains CyberPoints contract is to work alongside NESA in the protection of UAE sovereignty through collection of information from communications systems inside and outside the UAE and "surveillance analysis". One section of the State Department approval states CyberPoint must receive specific approval from the NSA before giving any presentations pertaining to computer network exploitation or attack. Reuters identified dozens of such presentations Raven gave to NESA describing attacks against Donaghy, Mansoor and others. Its unclear whether the NSA approved Ravens operations against specific targets. Loading The agreement clearly forbade CyberPoint employees from targeting American citizens or companies. As part of the agreement, CyberPoint promised that its own staff and even Emirati personnel supporting the program will not be used to Exploit US Persons, (i.e. US citizens, permanent resident aliens, or US companies.) Sharing classified US information, controlled military technology, or the intelligence collection methods of US agencies was also prohibited. Gumtow declined to discuss the specifics of the agreement. To the best of my ability and to the best of my knowledge, we did everything as requested when it came to US rules and regulations, he said. And we provided a mechanism for people to come to me if they thought that something that was done was wrong.

An NSA spokesman declined to comment on Project Raven. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the agreement but said such licenses do not authorise people to engage in human rights abuses. By late 2015, some Raven operatives said their missions became more audacious. For instance, instead of being asked to hack into individual users of an Islamist internet forum, as before, the American contractors were called on to create computer viruses that would infect every person visiting a flagged site. Such wholesale collection efforts risked sweeping in the communications of American citizens, stepping over a line the operators knew well from their NSA days. US law generally forbids the NSA, CIA and other US intelligence agencies from monitoring US citizens.

Working together with managers, Stroud helped create a policy for what to do when Raven swept up personal data belonging to Americans. The former NSA employees were instructed to mark that material for deletion. Other Raven operatives would also be notified so the American victims could be removed from future collection. Loading As time went on, Stroud noticed American data flagged for removal show up again and again in Ravens NESA-controlled data stores. Still, she found the work exhilarating. It was incredible because there werent these limitations like there was at the NSA. There wasnt that bullshit red tape, she said. I feel like we did a lot of good work on counter-terrorism. DarkMatter and departures

When Raven was created in 2009, Abu Dhabi had little cyber expertise. The original idea was for Americans to develop and run the program for five to 10 years until Emirati intelligence officers were skilled enough to take over, documents show. By 2013, the American contingent at Raven numbered between a dozen and 20 members at any time, accounting for the majority of the staff. In late 2015, the power dynamic at the Villa shifted as the UAE grew more uncomfortable with a core national security program being controlled by foreigners, former staff said. Emirati defence officials told Gumtow they wanted Project Raven to be run through a domestic company, named DarkMatter. Ravens American creators were given two options: join DarkMatter or go home. At least eight operatives left Raven during this transition period. Some said they left after feeling unsettled about the vague explanations Raven managers provided when pressed on potential surveillance against other Americans. DarkMatter was founded in 2014 by Faisal al-Bannai, who also created Axiom, one of the largest sellers of mobile devices in the region. DarkMatter markets itself as an innovative developer of defensive cyber technology. A 2016 Intercept article reported the company assisted UAEs security forces in surveillance efforts and was attempting to recruit foreign cyber experts.

The Emirati company of more than 650 employees publicly acknowledges its close business relationship to the UAE government, but denies involvement in state-backed hacking efforts. Project Ravens true purpose was kept secret from most executives at DarkMatter, former operatives said. DarkMatter did not respond to requests for comment. Bannai and the companys current chief executive, Karim Sabbagh, did not respond to interview requests. A spokeswoman for the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. Under DarkMatter, Project Raven continued to operate in Abu Dhabi from the Villa, but pressure escalated for the program to become more aggressive. Before long, senior NESA officers were given more control over daily functions, former Raven operatives said, often leaving American managers out of the loop. By mid-2016, the Emirates had begun making an increasing number of sections of Raven hidden from the Americans still managing day-to-day operations. Soon, an Emirate-eyes only designation appeared for some hacking targets.

FBI questions By 2016, FBI agents began approaching DarkMatter employees re-entering the United States to ask about Project Raven, three former operatives said. The FBI wanted to know: had they been asked to spy on Americans? Did classified information on US intelligence collection techniques and technologies end up in the hands of the Emiratis? Two agents approached Stroud in 2016 at Virginias Dulles airport as she was returning to the UAE after a trip home. Stroud, afraid she might be under surveillance by the UAE herself, said she brushed off the FBI investigators. Im not telling you guys jack, she recounted. Stroud had been promoted and given even more access to internal Raven databases the previous year. A lead analyst, her job was to probe the accounts of potential Raven targets and learn what vulnerabilities could be used to penetrate their email or messaging systems.

Targets were listed in various categories, by country. Yemeni targets were in the brown category, for example. Iran was gray. Stroud said she discovered passport details of a US citizen in the spy organisation's database. One morning in mid-2017, after she finished her own list of targets, Stroud said she began working on a backlog of other assignments intended for a NESA officer. She noticed that a passport page of an American was in the system. When Stroud emailed supervisors to complain, she was told the data had been collected by mistake and would be deleted, according to an email reviewed by Reuters. Concerned, Stroud began searching a targeting request list usually limited to Ravens Emirati staff, which she was still able to access because of her role as lead analyst. She saw that security forces had sought surveillance against two other Americans. When she questioned the apparent targeting of Americans, she received a rebuke from an Emirati colleague for accessing the targeting list, the emails show. The target requests she viewed were to be processed by certain people. You are not one of them, the Emirati officer wrote.

Days later, Stroud said she came upon three more American names on the hidden targeting queue. Those names were in a category she hadnt seen before: the white category - for Americans. This time, she said, the occupations were listed: journalist. I was sick to my stomach, she said. It kind of hit me at that macro level realising there was a whole category for US persons on this program. Once more, she said she turned to manager Baier. He attempted to downplay the concern and asked her to drop the issue, she said. But he also indicated that any targeting of Americans was supposed to be done by Ravens Emirate staff, said Stroud and two other people familiar with the discussion. Strouds account of the incidents was confirmed by four other former employees and emails reviewed by Reuters.
Tel Aviv: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's toughest rival in Israel's April election, a popular ex-general, has vowed to pursue peace and clean government in swipes at the leader, but did not rule out forming a coalition with him.

In a long-awaited speech, the first since joining the campaign, former military chief Benny Gantz was careful not to directly attack Netanyahu, who is under investigation for corruption.

People walk by posters of retired Israeli military chief Benny Gantz before the official launch of his election campaign. Credit:AP

Instead, he criticised what he described as a "divisive" leadership that was detached from the people, too concerned with hanging on to power and too loose with its tongue on matters of security.

"The mere notion that in Israel a prime minister can remain in office while under indictment is ridiculous," Gantz said at a launch party timed to coincide with the evening TV news.
It feels like Im at a firefighters conference and no-one's allowed to speak about water. Bregman was speaking at the end of the Forum in a session on 'The Cost of Inequality'. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The theme of the whole WEF had been shaping a global architecture in the age of the fourth industrial revolution, a comfortable topic for high-flyers who want to publicly talk about philanthropy and corporate conscience, but privately want to know how many of their workforce they can replace with AI and robots. But this panel asked whether the wave of inequality sweeping the world was leading to a dangerous backlash, which could be exacerbated by corporate plans for the next few decades.

Loading It discussed a new Oxfam report, timed to coincide with the 2019 Davos meeting, revealing 26 billionaires had the same wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people combined, and about half the worlds population lives off less than US$6 per day. And it drew the link with growing unrest in the West: riots in France, populists in power, Brexit in Britain. Bregman said the link was clear. And the answer was to raise taxes  for the very rich. Something needs to change here, he said.

Ten years ago the WEF asked the question what must industry do to prevent a broad social backlash. The answer is very simple: just stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes. Taxes, taxes. Just two days ago there was a billionaire in here, Michael Dell and he asked a question like name me one country where a top marginal tax rate of 70 per cent has actually worked'. Im a historian. The United States. Thats where it has actually worked, in the 1950s during Republican president Eisenhower, the war veteran, the top marginal tax rate in the US was 91 per cent for people like Michael Dell. The top estate tax for people like Michael Dell was more than 70 per cent. This is not rocket science. We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes, we can invite Bono once more, but come on - weve got to be talking about taxes. Thats it, taxes taxes taxes.
Mo Shaoping, one of China's highest-profile defence lawyers, said: "We can only urge [the bureau] to reply soon, on whether it will agree for lawyers to meet him or not."

Yang Hengjun has not been given access to his lawyers. Credit:Sanghee Liu

Lawyer Shang Baojun said the application was lodged on Monday with the Beijing state security bureau and a response is usually processed within 48 hours.

Beijing: China's secretive state security agency has failed to respond to an application by human rights lawyers to access Australian blogger Yang Hengjun , who is detained in Beijing.

Mr Yang's family was last week issued a notice saying he was under investigation by the bureau for espionage.

Under Chinese law, the right to a lawyer is suspended for state security cases, and any meeting in these circumstances must be approved by police.

Mr Yang is being held in "residential surveillance at a designated place" - a form of isolated custody used to question suspects in national security, terrorism or serious bribery cases. The location is likely to be a hotel or guesthouse on the outskirts of Beijing.

Mr Yang was detained 12 days ago as he arrived at Guangzhou airport with his wife and step-daughter from New York, where they live.

He has received a consular visit from Australian embassy staff, but there is no right for family members to visit. His wife, who was previously a high-profile patriotic blogger in China under the name Yuan Xiaoliang, is understood to be staying in Shanghai.
The Department of Home Affairs did not consult with any experts on Fijian law before moving to strip terrorist Neil Prakash of Australian citizenship, a decision that triggered a spat between the Morrison government and the key Pacific neighbour.

Giving evidence before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, officials also said the government did not confirm Prakash's citizenship status with the Fijians. They said they were operating on "strong" legal advice he was a dual citizen and would not be rendered stateless, a requirement of the laws introduced in 2015.

Neil Prakash, who is also known as Abu Khalid al-Cambodi.

Since the Morrison government announced the Prakash decision, Fijian authorities have categorically stated that he is not one of their citizens.

Ian Deane, special counsel with the Australian Government Solicitor, said he had provided "strong advice" to Home Affairs that Prakash was a citizen of Fiji.
A 26-year-old woman has been flown to Perth with serious head injuries after being hit by a car in Geraldton.

Police said the woman was hit on Anderson Street in Spalding about 10.30pm by a red Ford Focus sedan, she was taken to to Geraldton Hospital before being flown to Perth for further treatment.

The 61-year old car driver stopped and is helping police with their inquiries into the crash.

Police are calling on anyone with information or who saw the Ford Focus or the woman before the crash, to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a report online.
WAtoday: Jerrie, Gena, a big congrats on the upcoming wedding. Let's start with where it all began for you two ... where and how did you meet? Jerrie: We first met at the WA Media Ball but we didnt start dating for a while after that. Michael tracked me down one night while I was gigging with my band Felix at The Paddo. I gave him a lift home and he left his phone in my car, which he claimed was an accident. When he came to pick it up the next day, my mum answered the door and invited him for dinner  and he basically never left.

Ahead of a big (mostly) Greek wedding in Northbridge this Saturday, WAtoday sat down with the pair and discovered, among other things, why Michael was forced to propose to his bride-to-be wearing another man's pants.

The pair obviously have chemistry away from the Nine News Perth set but, from the clips of them presenting together below, possess a formidable on-screen partnership too.

The impending nuptials of rising media stars Michael Genovese and Jerrie Demasi this weekend marks the first time two news presenters from the same network in Perth have tied the knot.

Smooth operator ... so how did you pop the question Gena?

Michael: Jerries family is Greek so I chose the Grand Bretagne rooftop in Athens; which as it turns out is a pretty fancy restaurant. It was a hot day, so I rocked up wearing shorts with the ring in my pocket. Id psyched myself up to do it but my plans were derailed when an insistent maitre d told me about the pants-only dress code. My choices were to either go back to our hotel and get changed, or borrow a communal pair of pants that they kept for such occasions. I chose option two, meaning I proposed to her wearing another mans pants. They were also a size too small, which made it difficult to get down on one knee. Thankfully, she said yes pretty quick.

Michael proposing to Jerrie on one knee in Greece wearing another man's pants.

Jeepers... we'll leave that one alone for now. So whos the better newsreader?

Michael: Jerrie is a natural at it, Ive had to work a lot harder. Shes much smarter and more talented than I am. I tell her she could be the Prime Minister if she could be bothered getting out of bed before 9am.

Jerrie: I am.

The wedding ceremony will be predominantly Greek, how's that all coming along?

Jerrie: Im lucky that Michaels been easygoing with this whole process; because my family is very Greek, and very demanding! Were getting married at the Greek Orthodox Church on Parker Street in Northbridge. My grandparents and my parents were both married in that church, so its a strong tradition for my family. Its a very symbolic ceremony, and at one point involves Michael wearing a crown, which he and his mates are looking forward to.

Tell us a bit about the reception this Saturday?

Jerrie: The reception will be held in the quadrangle at St Georges College in Crawley. Its outdoors so were praying for sunshine! Weve invited about 200 guests and have family and friends coming all the way from Queensland, Victoria, NSW and Kalgoorlie to celebrate.
Ambulances reached the most urgent of patients fastest in Perth last year, with Sydney trailing all other Australian capital cities.

Ambulances in Perth took less than 15 minutes to reach patients in 90 per cent of cases in 2017/2018. Credit:Sean Middleton

In the West Australian capital, ambulances reached urgent patients within 14.1 minutes in 90 per cent of cases in 2017/18.

That compared to a 20.8 minute wait for an ambulance to arrive in Sydney, the capital with the slowest response time.

Looking across entire states and territories, the ACT had the fastest response time at 14.7 minutes, according to a Productivity Commission report on government-funded health services released on Wednesday.
Tourism ministry postpones appointing of heads to key bodies at the eleventh hour following PMs intervention

Tourism Minister John Amaratunga confident of handing over appointment letters to nominees in couple of days

Industry stakeholders urge govt. to be mindful of upcoming global promotion campaign when appointing heads to key tourism bodies

By Nishel Fernando

Tourism Development, Wildlife & Christian Religious Affairs Minister John Amaratunga faced an embarrassing situation yesterday when he was compelled to postpone the appointments of new heads for key State-run tourism bodies, following the intervention of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mirror Business learns.

The nominees, who were approved by the President Maithripala Sirisenas committee, were to be given appointment letters yesterday during a special ceremony from 11.00 a.m. onwards at the Samudra Hotel, Colombo 03.



Minister Amaratunga was scheduled to hand over the appointment letters and the media were invited to cover the event.



However, without any prior notice, the reporters present at the venue were told that the event was postponed. Several nominees were also seen awaiting Amaratungas arrival to receive appointment letters.



Informed sources said Amaratunga was compelled to put off the handing over of appointment letters due to Prime Minister Wickremesinghes orders.

Wickremesinghe had apparently asked for more time to evaluate the resumes of the nominees of Amaratunga.



However, speaking to Mirror Business, Amaratunga expressed confidence that he will be able to hand over the letters of appointments to his nominees in a couple of days.



Amaratunga was expecting to hand over the letters of appointments to corporate personality Kishu Gomes as the new Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) and to Ranjit de Silva as the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA).



In addition, Kumar de Silva and Dilip de Silva were expected to be re-appointed as chairmen of Sri Lanka Convention Bureau (SLCB) and Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (SLITHM).



Meanwhile, the tourism industry expressed their displeasure over the ungainly incident.



I dont know the reason behind this (postponement). However, it reflects very badly on the industry and the government. Hence, as an industry, we are not happy with this development, The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) President Sanath Ukwatte stressed.



He noted that necessary approvals should have been secured before making appointments.



He further highlighted that the smooth functioning of the SLTPB is crucial for the tourism industry with Sri Lanka closing in towards launching the delayed three-year global promotion campaign in March.



Our biggest challenge is now to get the global promotion campaign off the ground. Hence, the post of SLTPB chairperson is an important position as far as the industry is concerned right now, he said.



The industry expressed their satisfaction over the progress made under acting Chairman of SLTPB, Janaka Sugathadasa, who has a longstanding career in public sector.



We are quite happy with the present set-up and how work is progressing right now, Ukwatte said.



However, he also noted that the industry is not objecting the appointment of Gomes as the new SLTPB Chairman.



He reiterated that the government must prioritise the global promotion campaign and should appoint a suitable person whos capable of implementing the ideas of the industry.



Informed sources said that the Tourism Development, Wildlife & Christian Religious Affairs Ministry had sent a list of nominations last week to both the Prime Ministers Office and the Presidential Secretariat.



It was not clear whether the ministry received the Prime Ministers approval to proceed with the appointments, though it wasnt legally required.
An investigation has found no evidence of a higher rate of cancer in the Bellarine Peninsula despite fears of alarming rates of the disease among former students at a secondary school on the coast.

In his report, Victoria's acting chief health officer Dr Brett Sutton said the incidence of cancer overall in any geographical areas of the Bellarine Peninsula was not higher than anywhere else in Australia.

Construction near Bellarine Secondary College's Drysdale campus (right) as part of the neighboring St Ignatius Catholic College expansion. Credit:Joe Armao

In late 2018 The Age revealed some local families in the area believed the high incidence of cancer was linked to the use of a former agricultural chemical in soil, a pesticide called dieldrin.

There have been at least 10 young adults who have died of cancer there in recent years, the majority of them attending Barwon Heads Primary School and Bellarine Secondary College.
A "drug-affected" young man who allegedly put a female paramedic in a headlock and repeatedly punched her in the face in the back of an ambulance may have just returned from Rainbow Serpent festival when the incident occurred.

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Two paramedics were called to Reynard Street in Coburg in Melbourne's north on Tuesday night after reports a man in his 20s was behaving erratically and knocking on doors in the area.

The female paramedic, aged in her early 30s, was treating the man when he became aggressive and allegedly assaulted her.

"The patient was in the back of the ambulance and apparently she said there were no cues to suggest he was aggressive," said Ambulance Employees Australia spokesman Danny Hill.
A motorcyclist has been tackled to the ground while allegedly trying to do a runner after crashing into a motorbike cop in Brisbane's north.

The Road Policing Command senior constable was on speed camera duties near a school at Geebung, near the intersection of Newman and Robinson Roads on Tuesday when he saw a motorbike that was allegedly involved in traffic-related offences in the area recently.

Police said the officer parked his motorcycle in front of the bike just before 4pm and activated his lights.

The other bike then allegedly reversed and drove into the officers bike before they both knocked to the ground.
If you are from a lower socioeconomic area, you are more likely to contract a disease and die, according to the latest health data. And the rich-poor health gap is widening.

The report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released on Thursday found there was a direct link between someones socioeconomic level, and their likelihood of developing three major chronic conditions: cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and diabetes.

A new rport from the AIHW has found a direct link between socioeconomic level and chronic disease Credit:Fairfax

It found where someone sat on the economic ladder affected their likelihood of dying from a chronic condition once it developed.

AIHW health group senior executive Lynelle Moon said the data highlighted that social factors played a crucial role in peoples personal health.
A high-profile Australian psychologist has been extradited from Queensland to NSW to face charges of historical sex offences against young boys while he was a Scout leader.

The psychologist, who once treated contestants on a reality television show and profiled notorious criminals, faced Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

The man fronted the Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday. Credit:Chris Hyde

The 75-year-old, who cannot be named, was extradited to appear in Tweed Heads Local Court on Thursday to face charges dating back to the 1960s including indecent assault and buggery against three 12-year-old boys.

NSW police allege the offences happened when the man was a Scoutmaster in Sydney.
The accused man, Mohammed Khazma, 25, had been dating the girl's mother for several weeks before the alleged attacks began, a jury was told on Tuesday.

Mohammed Khazma is escorted into a transport vehicle as he leaves the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney on Tuesday. Credit:AAP

The two-year-old girl, who cannot be named, died on December 20, 2016, after she was rushed to hospital with brain damage and her life support was switched off.

A man accused of murdering a toddler following weeks of beatings in Sydney's west has claimed the girl's mother was responsible for the attacks, as his trial opened in the NSW Supreme Court.

Crown prosecutor Philip Hogan said that, in the week leading up to the girl's death, she was hit every day, became unconscious four times including when she died, and appeared to be "groggy" and "drowsy".

Mr Khazma is accused of knocking the girl unconscious by grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into a wall, and of using the hot metal of a cigarette lighter to inflict multiple burns on her skin, some of which became infected.

The six-week trial is expected to hear from the girl's mother that Mr Khazma slapped and choked the girl, made her stand in a corner until her legs turned purple, whipped her with the cord from a phone charger, punched her and held her upside down over a bin.

Mr Khazma allegedly grabbed the girl by the shoulders and "aggressively" shook her on the afternoon of December 19, then stopped her mother from calling triple zero as the toddler gasped for air.

The girl's mother put her daughter in a car about 3pm and drove her to the home of Mr Khazma's relatives, who called emergency services. The girl died in hospital the next day.
With less than two months before the NSW election on March 23, the High Court has just torn up the rule book that will govern the political campaign.

The issue is the vexed question of political donations. NSW has led the way in many respects, responding to a series of scandals exposed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption where politicians did favours in exchange for cash.

Over the past decade, NSW has banned completely donations to political parties from property developers and put strict caps on the amounts other donors can give. It has also required more timely disclosure of donations.

Yet the High Court decision has undermined this balance by striking down laws which NSW passed last year on political spending by so-called third party campaigners, such as trade unions, business groups and religious movements. These are not donations to parties but independent campaigns where interest groups put their point of view direct to voters.

About 30 such groups have already registered for the election including trade unions, the Minerals Council, the Australian Christian Lobby and accommodation website AirBnB.
A former Australian Taxation Office deputy commissioner accused of misusing his position to help his son denied to police that he tried to influence his colleagues.

Michael Bede Cranston, 59, is charged with one count of obtaining information with the intention of dishonestly obtaining a benefit for his son Adam, and with exercising his influence in his capacity as a deputy commissioner of taxation with the intention of dishonestly obtaining a benefit.

Michael Cranston arrives at Downing Centre District Court last week. Credit:James Alcock

He has pleaded not guilty to both charges. His trial opened in the NSW District Court last week.

It is alleged Mr Cranston asked one of his subordinates, assistant commissioner Scott Burrows, to access restricted computer records relating to one of his son's business associates but misled him about the purpose of the search.
Visitors blamed for litter

The Mayor of Randwick, Alderman A.C. Molloy, said last night that "litterbugs", mainly from other suburbs, were giving Coogee Beach area a bad name. The visitors did not seem to have as much civic pride as the average resident, he said. Alderman Molloy was commenting on complaints in letters to newspapers of filthy streets and deteriorating roadways in Coogee. "I don't agree that the streets are not kept clean, "he said.

North Sydney parking scheme

North Sydney Council is considering building a multi-storey parking station above the North Sydney railway station. The Mayor of North Sydney, Alderman J. V. Bugler, said: "The site above the railway lines at North Sydney station would be ideal for a parking station. Ramps could lead directly from the parking station to the railway station. Motorists could park their cars and travel into the city by train in a few minutes.

Fair aid to Legacy

The Japanese Trade Fair at the Trocadero up to last night had earned more than 8,900 for Sydney Legacy. Fair organisers said yesterday they expected their biggest crowd today, the last day of the exhibition. The attendance up to 8 p.m. yesterday was 102,000, and Sydney businessmen had placed more than 150,000 worth of orders for Japanese goods. These included transistor radios, television sets, synthetic textiles, and cars.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A toddler's mother has told a Sydney jury of seeing her new boyfriend bite, punch, hold upside down and carry out other attacks on the two-year-old girl in the days before her death.

"He said he wanted to raise her to become a pitbull, as in a tough kid," she testified in the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Mohammed Khazma is escorted into a transport vehicle as he leaves the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Credit:AAP

The mother, who cannot be named, described times when her daughter became unconscious and broke down when she said she saw burn marks on the girl's genitals when she changed her nappy.
Abandoned children of migrant workers and the FBRs role in mending fractured families





A cold, sharp-edged knife pressed against her neck, 19 year old Chandrika* was told if she ever disclosed what happened between her and the attacker, she would certainly be killed. Chandrika, the daughter of a migrant worker from Rideegama, terrorised, repeatedly raped and abused by a neighbour while completely neglected by her father, held her secret for as long as she could. Her only solace was confiding in her aunt, living in Nuwara Eliya who, in fear of a repetition, had promptly taken away Chandrikas younger sister of 12, to live with her. Years after the attack, Chandrika still struggles to come to terms with her past.

Chandrika is no longer a child, but her agony is just one example out of thousands of families grappling with a life after maternal migration in Sri Lanka. Vulnerabilities of fractured families are only worsened when children are neglected, abandoned and in this case, left with a guardian unable to offer the love and protection of a family. Often, these families are have little to no financial support towards the care of children, resulting in complex family relationships.

The FBR in its present form is not an effective tool to contribute towards a secure, safe and nurturing environment for children

Care of children is usually taken over by the mother, or parents of the migrant woman

There is no mention of the new scheme focusing on shared responsibility in the family set up

The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) discloses the total number of departures for Foreign Employment in 2017 as 212, 162, out of which 56,057 left the island to be employed as housemaids. 7,227 of them are from Kurunegala, the district with the highest number of departures. Meanwhile a report compiled by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2017, on Sri Lankan female migrant workers, highlights that constituting over 75 per cent of the islands migrant worker numbers at its peak, the trajectory of womens migration for work has seen a sharp decline over the past five years. The total number of women migrating for work has declined from 49 per cent in 2012 to 34 per cent in 2016. Unfortunately this decline is directly associated with the SLBFEs introduction of a regulation in 2013, banning prospective women domestic workers with children under the age of five years, from migrating for work overseas, i.e the Family Background Report (FBR). The study also reveals that despite strict adherence to the FBR, women have managed to leave behind children under the age of five years and migrate, including those whose FBR had not been approved. Sub-agents or recruitment intermediaries play a central role in facilitating this process, offering both men and women secure and guaranteed avenues of leaving the country.

Complex family backgrounds

National Project Coordinator of the ILO Office for Sri Lanka, Swairee Rupasinghe notes that while there are positive impacts of parent migration, complex family situations must be assessed before making further deliberations. In situations where the mother has migrated for a specific purpose like childrens education, or building a house, women in general are known to send more remittances, more frequently, Rupasinghe notes. Many case studies and situations have shown fathers engaged in a commendable job of raising children, managing home affairs and finances where the negative impacts of absentee mothers is minimal, she adds.

However, there are indeed many situations where the guardian of the children is unable to meet educational and emotional demands of the children, especially where the other parent works on a full-time basis or works outside of the home district. In such situations children are neglected, do not receive the love and care a parent would provide and are not supervised or guided as required. This is not only when mothers have migrated, but fathers too, Rupasinghe comments.

Asked if the FBR is an effective measure to provide a secure, safe and nurturing environment for children Rupasinghe points to the many loopholes in the system of obtaining this clearance certificate, especially since the regulation only applies to women. There are many vulnerable children in families where the father has migrated and the mother remains at home or is employed elsewhere in the country. It has contributed to irregular migration of women, causing the risks and vulnerabilities of children to increase. The FBR also consumes a disproportionate amount of time for Foreign Employment Development Officers who have other responsibilities in supporting women and men at all stages of the migration cycle. Therefore the FBR in its present form is not an effective tool to contribute towards a secure, safe and nurturing environment for children, she observes.

Questioning guardianship

Fundamentally, by regulating women, and not men, the policy places the responsibility of childcare and family squarely on the womans shoulders, while completely disregarding the role of the father, and the consequences the absence of the father has, on the well-being of children. A 2017 study for the United Nations Country Team in Sri Lanka on Migrant Domestic Workers points out that the care of children was usually taken over by the mother, or parents of the migrant woman, a commonplace practice in many parts of the country.

60-year-old Bandara Menike from Rasnayakapura, whose daughter migrated in search of employment overseas, is one such grandparent, who was appointed as the guardian for two out of three grandchildren, while the other child-the son-lives with the father. Her story is one that amplifies the failures of the guardian to provide a nurturing environment for children, in the absence of parents.

Temperamental Bandara Menike* once slapped her 13-year-old granddaughter Lathika* for speaking to a neighbour she did not approve of. Lathika had refused to attend school following this incident, whereas Bandara Menika had made no effort to send her to school either. Upon returning home that evening, she found that her granddaughter was not at home. Neighbours soon informed Bandara Menike that Lathika had sought refuge at a family friend Asokas home, three miles away from her village. Due to a personal difference with Asoka, Bandara Menike refused to bring her granddaughter back home to safety. Little did she care that Asoka was a married man, who had coerced Lathika to live with him. My daughter will be furious with me, when she returns home Bandara Menike confided in the Police officers with whom she lodged a complaint only two days later. Lathika was eventually brought home by the Police officers, only after a case was filed in the Kurunegala High Court for statutory rape. While these events unfolded Lathikas younger brother, Malith* was fending for himself, attending school and coping with life without a responsible guardian.

15-year-old Radha* from Awulegama meanwhile suffered repeated physical abuse from her father, after her mother migrated. She was also repeatedly rescued by the enabling aunts until one day she was raped. The father attempted suicide, but survived. Radha having none to confide in, sought protection of Police officers for not just her, but also her baby sister.

While migrant workers sacrifice a life at home with young children, to pay for their food and education, the circumstances these families deal with are complex, unfortunate and sometimes even cataclysmic. A working paper on the effects of Mother Migration on Children commissioned by Save the Children in 2013 reveals that children left behind by their migrant mothers are more likely to suffer physical or sexual abuse, including incest. They are more likely to act as caregivers to family members in lieu of going to school and are at risk at assuming the conjugal role previously occupied by their mother.

Maternal Migration is not a trend that would end in the near future due to prospects for economic security. However judicial and child protection officers view maternal migration as the leading threat to the well-being of children. Women meanwhile continue to migrate using other channels and circumvent the FBR procedure altogether, thus raising fears of trafficking and unsafe working and living conditions overseas.

Meanwhile Foreign Employment Minister Harin Fernando this week announced plans to replace the FBR regulation, following a report compiled by a Cabinet-appointed committee, which recommended relaxing restrictions imposed by the FBR. The Minster said the committee will be looking to replace the FBR with a family background plan scheme, which would encourage seeking foreign employment through legal channels. However, there was no mention of the new scheme focusing on shared responsibility in the family set up or the involvement of any authority related to child welfare. When the heart of the FBR policy is the safety and well being of the child, has Sri Lanka evaluated the needs of these children?

*Some names and details have been changed to protect identities
A high-profile psychologist and former Scoutmaster is due to appear in court in NSW on Thursday, charged with historical sex offences.

The ABC reported Bob Montgomery had appeared as an expert on ABC radio programs, and was a guest doctor on Channel Ten's Big Brother.

Dr Bob Montgomery has been extradited to NSW. Credit:AAP

At the time of the alleged offences in the 1960s, Dr Montgomery was a Scoutmaster in Sydney at Edgecliff and Marrickville.

He was extradited from Queensland to Tweed Heads on Wednesday to face offences that police allege occurred against three 12-year-old boys who were members of his Scout group.
A 3.7 tonne concrete slab fell about 17 metres from a Braddon building site on Wednesday, crushing the toilet block of a nearby business and damaging cars.

ACT Work Safety Commissioner Greg Jones said the incident, which occured about 11.15am at the site of the Yamaroshi apartment complex under construction at 32 Mort Street, could "very easily have been fatal".

Inspectors were expected to remain on site late into Wednesday evening, as they investigate how exactly the 3.8 metre x 2.5 metre precast panel became dislodged from its temporary support.

The owner of Braddon Smash Repairs, Jeff Badcoe, said the panel had crushed the toilet block at the back of his workshop.
Sales repping Many businesses are looking at outsourcing their sales teams by offering referral programs for new customers. If picking up the phone and calling someone out of the blue doesnt sound too scary, then you can start turning a few phone calls into additional income. Get in touch with local businesses, join their referral programs, then get calling.

Sell your photos Since the advent of digital cameras, everyone has a stash of photos sitting on an old hard drive that they rarely look at. If you dont mind your photos appearing in business promotional material or websites, then you can license your photos for others to use. There are many sites that allow users to upload their photos and businesses will browse them and purchase those that match their needs. The key is to have meaningful descriptions, so your photos can be found.

Become a driver We couldnt put together a list like this without mentioning this one. The rise of ride-sharing services, such as Uber and Ola, have given many people access to additional income. The reported rates for drivers varies wildly but an accepted figure to work from is $15 to $30 an hour, or around 15 per cent commission. All you need is a moderately recent car and a drivers license.

Food delivery Another way to get into the gig economy is through food delivery sites such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo. These are especially good if you dont have a car, as you can work in a local area with a bicycle or scooter and save on petrol costs. Sell your data If you dont mind the privacy implications, or believe that privacy is already dead, then completing online surveys can be another way to earn an extra income.

Business are starving for data and by helping them to understand their customers youll be rewarded for your efforts. Become a Mystery Shopper Love to shop, then why not get paid for it? With a visit lasting from two to 10 minutes and netting $5 to $20, all you need to do is act like a regular customer and then complete a survey about your experience. Whats more, if you need to make a purchase as part of the experience, youll be reimbursed but get to keep what you buy.

Become a dog walker An oldie but a goodie, dog walking combines exercise and income. As the Australian work day gets longer, people have less time to get out and about with their pets. Thats where you come in, provide a valuable service and get paid for it. Transcribing If you can type quickly and have a good ear, then you can make a reasonable income turning other peoples dictation into text documents.

Sites like Upwork and Fiverr can help connect you with people needing to get there audio transcribed. Generally speaking, youll get paid per minute of audio, so the quicker you can type, the more youll earn per hour. Become a Virtual Assistant If youre an organised person, why not help others become that way too? A virtual assistant helps businesses with administrative tasks, such as organising travel, managing e-mails and calendars and even tasks like social media updates and report writing.
Loading Because it isn't just your phone that is causing problems. Although humans are exposed to less blue light each day than we would have received from the sun while living largely outdoor lifestyles centuries ago, our exposure is now occurring through artificial sources at unnatural times, particularly room lighting when the sun goes down. "Most Australians have a lot of blue light in their environment because of the decision to switch to more energy-efficient LEDs," Associate Professor Cain says. "That's fine for saving some money on energy, but it replaced light which had less of an effect on our internal clock. Now we have these LEDs, which are very blue-enriched, and we have them on in our houses all the way up to bed." Can blue light damage your eyes?

The short answer to this question is: yes, but probably not at the levels at which you are exposed to it. A lot of the marketing around blue light lenses is focused on screen use during the day  Bailey Nelson's website claims their filter "helps reduce eye strain and fatigue caused by screens and devices", while the Oscar Wylee blue light lens is "for those who spend their days in front of a computer screen"  and how this can supposedly lead to eye strain. However, Melbourne optometrist and Optometry Australia spokesperson Sophie Koh says more evidence is needed as to whether blue light exposure specifically causes eye strain, a notion which has come about as a result of "limited, smaller studies and anecdotal evidence". "Research is ongoing in this area and there are many other components which contribute to digital eye strain or 'computer vision syndrome'," she says. As for more serious eye problems, it is unlikely these can be caused by your smartphone habit.

Loading A 2018 report by New Zealand government science organisation Royal Society Te Aparangi found that, while retinal damage can occur following high intensity exposure to blue light, this would require a level of blue light far greater than that emanated by an LED screen. With this evidence, Koh says "at this stage... we dont need to worry about computers or phones frying our retina". "Recent research has shown that even in extreme conditions, the level of blue-light exposure from computer screens and mobile devices is less than that absorbed from natural daylight, and this is below the international safety limits," she says. Blue light glasses: are they worth the investment?

If you are worried about having sore eyes from sitting at a computer all day, Koh recommends seeking the advice of an optometrist to rule out common vision problems like uncorrected refractive errors (which can be fixed with a prescription) or dry eye. There are also other measures, such as following the 20-20-20 rule  every 20 minutes look up from your screen and at least 20 feet (six metres) into the distance for 20 seconds  or using an app like F.lux or Apple Night Shift to filter out blue light on your smartphone, which may be useful. But if you are mainly looking to improve the quality of your sleep, Associate Professor Cain says he would be "very much supportive" of someone wearing blue light filter glasses in the evenings, particularly putting the glasses on at the same time each night to encourage the body to develop a regular circadian rhythm. However, he would warn against wearing glasses with strong blue light filters during the day, as this could "potentially" impact alertness. "It's not been tested directly, but we know that blue light is alerting during the day, so exposure to lots of blue light during the day could be quite good for, not just for alerting you, but [also] giving your body a strong signal that it's day," he says.
Telstra chief executive Andy Penn says the telco is in "a good position" when it comes to the rollout of the superfast 5G technology but admits there is strong competition from rivals as they grapple with the government's ban on Chinese suppliers such as Huawei.

A day after TPG announced it was putting the brakes on its mobile network rollout because of a government ban on the use of Huawei technology, Mr Penn said Telstra's long-term approach to 5G had put the company in a good position but there was fierce competition in the area.

Telstra CEO Andy Penn says exclusive 5G phones are coming in the next six months. Credit:Ryan Stuart

"Our competitors in Australia are absolutely investing in 5G at a local level," he said.

"We've been on this journey for a long time and were in a good position. Our advantage comes from many, many years of investment."
A bitter battle is raging at high-end tailors Rhodes & Beckett between its owners and the private equity group that was supposed to be supporting it, with accusations of fraud, unpaid bills and that the company's entire website was "held to ransom".

The company, which was rescued out of administration less than two years ago, wrote to customers on Tuesday apologising for "disruptions to our ordering and delivery systems in the past few months".

Rhodes & Beckett is locked in a dispute with a backer.

Rhodes & Beckett said it suspected its website, emails, inventory and shipping system had been "sabotaged by a Singaporean company named Rockstarz, who was the previous supplier of our IT".

The high-end suit and shirt maker was in dispute with Rockstarz over "possible theft of intellectual property, theft of inventory, company funds and corporate fraud", which had been referred to police, the letter said.
A Cabinet proposal had been submitted seeking approval to direct all travel agents to sell airline tickets in US Dollars instead of Sri Lankan rupees, the Opposition said yesterday.

Opposition MP Sisira Jayakody said this move would only benefit foreign travel agents who plan tours to Sri Lanka.

This will be the death of local travel agents if they have to sell airline tickets in dollars. They will no longer be able to set a price on a ticket and organise a tour properly beforehand. The large number of Sri Lankan pilgrims visiting Bodh Gaya in India will have to muster up dollars instead of rupees to purchase tickets, he told a news briefing.

He said the move would further devalue the Sri Lankan rupee against the US Dollar. (Lahiru Pothmulla)
As consumption becomes a dominant driving force of Chinas economic growth, the countrys younger generations are becoming more troubled by over expenditure, suffering severe consequences.

Over-consumption is now a strain on Chinese society, where many youngsters are struggling to pay back the money they borrow from banks, financial organizations, and even small loan agencies.

Statistics from Rong 360, a Chinese provider of customized financing and loan services, showed that 53 percent of college students had used loan services for shopping, as expensive products, including Apple laptops, iPhones, Kindles, and cosmetics are becoming necessities on campus.

However, without the ability to pay the money back, many college students have no other choice but to sit back and watch the interest creep up.

Among those who have used loans, the group aged from 26 to 30 made up 26.6 percent. Compared with the older generations who generally value family when it comes to consumption, the young generation tends to take better care of their own interests.

Yuan Shanshan, a 26-year-old member of staff at a creative and cultural company, explained that her biggest wish is to clear her debt and start all over again. There is no way back if you consume more than you can pay for, she added.

As loan thresholds keep lowering, more young consumers are lured into excessive consumption, with many online platforms setting up debt traps.

Statistics showed that in 2013, financing for Chinas internet consumption only stood at 6 billion yuan, while the figure grew to 4.4 trillion yuan in 2017, over nine times that of the previous year.

Data from the Peoples Bank of China suggested that Chinas unpaid credit loans, overdue for more than half a year, had risen to a total of more than 88 billion yuan by the third quarter of 2018, up from 7.68 billion yuan at the end of 2010.

A report on the outlook of pensions in China showed that among those under the age of 35, 56 percent have not saved anything for retirement, and 44 percent only save an average of 1,339 yuan each month.
Niyazz/iStock(WASHINGTON) -- When asked Monday evening during a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa about how to assure Americans have access to affordable healthcare, and whether or not private insurance companies should be cut out of the system, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris gave a direct and concise answer.



"I believe the solution -- and I actually feel very strongly about this -- is that we need to have Medicare for all. That's just the bottom line," Harris said to applause from a room filled with Iowa Democrats.



When pressed on whether or not she supports a plan, like the one originally co-sponsored by another possible 2020 contender, Sen. Bernie Sanders, that would eliminate private health insurance, Harris' answer was again unequivocal.



"Who of us has not had that situation where you've got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, well, I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this," Harris said. "Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."



While CNN reported Tuesday night that Harris remains open to other solutions to the nation's healthcare woes -- that include keeping the private insurance system intact -- campaign aides sought immediately to re-iterate her support for "Medicare for all," as the best solution.



"Medicare for all is the plan that she believes will solve the problem and get all Americans covered. Period," Harris' national press secretary Ian Sams told CNN, in comments later confirmed by ABC News. "She has co-sponsored other pieces of legislation that she sees as a path to getting us there, but this is the plan she is running on."



Harris' healthcare comments have sparked a range of reaction across a Democratic Party and signal the prominent and divisive role that healthcare promises to play in a field of contenders that is just now starting to take shape more than a year out from the Iowa caucuses.



Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, a one-time Democrat whose announcement that he may seek the presidency as an independent centrist candidate has made him the target of intense scorn from many in the party, labeled Harris' call to eliminate private insurance companies "not American."



"You just played Sen. Harris as saying she wants to abolish the insurance industry. That's not correct, that's not American," Schultz said Monday in an interview on CBS This Morning, "What's next? What industry are we going to abolish next, the coffee industry?"



Lily Adams, Harris' communications director, responded to Schultz's comments on Twitter, writing, "Attacked by billionaires for fighting to make sure every American has health care. What a shock."



When asked about his support for a Medicare-for-all healthcare system, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is also considering a run for the Democratic nomination in 2020, said eliminating private insurers would "bankrupt" the country.



"I think you could never afford that. Youre talking about trillions of dollars," Bloomberg said during a visit to the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire on Tuesday, "I think you can have Medicare for all for people that are uncovered ... but to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time."



Critics of the system also point to studies that show a Medicare-for-all system would cost upwards of $32.6 trillion, while supporters point to the massive sums of money Americans already spend on healthcare under the current system.



According to data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid studies, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare costs in the United States reached $3.5 trillion in 2018 and were expected to reach $5.7 trillion by the year 2026.



But while Shultz and Bloomberg, two billionaires who trend more toward the fiscally conservative side of Democratic politics, offered criticism, an array of other top Democrats -- who have launched or are thought to be considering a 2020 bid -- have signaled strong support for Medicare for all.



Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have all backed the policy, while Sanders -- who made the issues a central theme of his 2016 presidential campaign -- calls it the "only long-term solution to America's health care crisis is a single-payer national health care program.



Former Vice President Joe Biden, who continues to be the subject of intense speculation over his 2020 plans, has not given a definitive answer on whether or not he supports a Medicare-for-all system.



According to polling done by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, public support for a Medicare-for-all system has steadily increased over the last two decades, with 56 percent of Americans expressing support for a national healthcare plan where people would get their insurance from a government plan.



However when told that the system could result in higher taxes or delays in care, support for the plan dipped significantly to just 26 percent and 37 percent, respectively.



Meanwhile, Republicans seem to see the squabble as lucrative fodder to show Americans that Democrats are out of step with voters on healthcare.



"Harriss radical plan is gaining significant traction within her party and is quickly becoming a litmus test for their liberal base," according to a news release from the National Republican Congressional Committee that went out to 52 targeted U.S. House districts the party is hoping to flip in 2020.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A Tompkinsville teen who, in October, had been sprung from jail by a controversial Kennedy family charitys mass bail-out program, committed two robberies and one burglary while he was free, prosecutors allege.

Jaeden Gandia, now 18, was arrested on Dec. 30 in connection with the latest alleged incidents, court records show.

Gandia had originally been arrested in September and accused, along with an unidentified accomplice, of mugging a 19-year-old victim on Aug. 31 opposite 10 Bennett St. in Port Richmond.

They stole a $250 Samsung Galaxy cell phone, police said then in seeking the publics help to identify two individuals wanted for questioning.

A criminal complaint alleges the defendant punched the victim in the face.

The teen is also accused of robbing another victim in West Brighton less than a week later on Sept. 6.

That theft occurred at 6:50 p.m. on the 1200 block of Castleton Avenue and was captured on surveillance videotape, said the complaint.

Give me more. Give me the rest.  If you tell anyone, I will find you and hit you, the complaint quotes the defendant as telling the victim.

Gandia, then 17, was later freed in early October on $10,000 bail posted by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation.

Starting in October, the Kennedy charity planned to pony up bail for all women and youthful offenders ages 16 and 17 housed on Rikers Island.

At the time, Kerry Kennedy, the groups president, said the Mass Bail Out Action "is an opportunity to shine a light on the injustices of our bail system not only in New York City, but across the country."

However, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, the mayor, police commission and other law enforcement officials expressed serious concerns about the project.

The program has since been disbanded, the New York Post has reported.

On Dec. 5, Justice Alexander Jeong ordered a bench warrant for Gandia when he failed to appear at a scheduled conference in state Supreme Court, St. George, in his original cases.

After his arrest later in the month, Justice Mario F. Mattei ordered the defendant held without bail.

While free on bail, Gandia and an unidentified accomplice robbed a victim at knifepoint around 11:15 p.m. on Nov. 12 on Brook Street in Tompkinsville, an indictment alleges.

Five days later on Nov. 17, the defendant and a younger boy mugged another victim at knifepoint at the S40 bus stop on Richmond Terrance and Nicholas Street, New Brighton, alleges the indictment.

That episode occurred around 5:40 p.m.

Gandia was charged with multiple counts of robbery, grand larceny and criminal weapon possession and one count of stolen-property possession.

The other boy was arrested on Jan. 7 and later pleaded guilty in Criminal Courts new Youth Part to first-degree robbery, online state court records show.

He is slated to be sentenced in March.

His name is being withheld due to his age.

Besides the robberies, a second indictment accuses Gandia of illegally entering a home on East Service Road in Travis and swiping cash.

The alleged episode occurred between 4 p.m. on Nov. 29 and 1 a.m. on Nov. 30, said the indictment.

The defendant is charged with burglary and petit larceny.

Gandia was arraigned Friday in state Supreme Court, St. George, on the latest charges and pleaded not guilty.

His next court date is March 13.

His lawyer did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones, - Nelson Mandela

When a suspect is taken into custody by a law enforcement officer or a law enforcement agency, the suspects safety and security are guaranteed under the law of the country. But often, this is not the case. We have come across several reports of suspects in custody being unmercifully beaten with some even losing their lives. The resultant backlash by the suspects relatives and the villagers has compelled the authorities to transfer or interdict the police personnel allegedly involved in the attack till the investigations are over. Often, in the course of time, the matter is forgotten or swept under the carpet and we are back to square one with little or no action known to be taken.

The latest case in point was the brutal attack unleashed on the remand inmates on November 22 last year at the Angunakolapelessa Prison, which has been described by the authorities as a super prison built at an estimated cost of Rs.4,996 million on a land extent of 56 acres. The Committee to Protect Prisoners Rights told a news conference that trouble began when the prison authorities had mercilessly beaten up a group of prisoners, who launched a protest against the conduct of the Prison Superintendent and the constant searches carried out by STF personnel, whom the protesters claimed even strip-searched their relatives who visited them.

The committee released several video clips from CCTV camera footage showing the prison authorities and the police attacking the prisoners who were on their knees with their hands raised over their heads.

It was to prevent such appalling incidents that the UN General Assembly adopted its landmark resolution 70/75 titled, United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules) on December 17, 2015 to honour the legacy of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prisons in the course of his struggle for democracy and the promotion of a culture of peace and justice.

The General Assembly also decided to extend the scope of International Nelson Mandela Day (July 18) to be also utilized to promote humane prison conditions of imprisonment, to raise awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society and to value the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance.

Meanwhile, Prisons Reforms and Justice Minister Thalatha Athukorale told a news conference recently that two committees had been appointed to inquire into the assault on the prison inmates. She claimed this to be a one-off incident and that the CCTV cameras would have alerted the authorities in case such incidents had taken place on earlier occasions. Ironically, the minister also said she hoped the investigations would reveal who had leaked the video footage and that the person involved would be punished. She must be reminded that what is important is not to shoot the messenger as it were but to carry out a proper and impartial inquiry on what was revealed and punish the guilty whoever they may be.

Against this background,officials of Sri Lankas Human Rights Commission (HRCSL) said they had visited the Prisons Complex to inquire into the attack on the inmates about a month before social media websites carried the leaked video footage causing a public outcry and uproar.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the prison staff and the police personnel are doing a difficult and thankless job, which needs them to be constantly alert, patient and understanding when handling their charges, who too may be suffering from trauma, tension and depression by the very nature of their incarceration.

Having said this, we highlight the urgent need for a cadre of well-trained prison staff who will maintain their equilibrium or equanimity even under sudden provocation or in stress situations and treat the inmates in a humane manner, because, after all, they too are human beings.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- NYPD Commissioner James ONeill promised Tuesday that investigators would take a total look at the clerical error that left a sex offender, who is a person of interest in a womans death, walking the streets.

"Its important that we do that, ONeill said after a graduation ceremony in Brooklyn, according to a report from the New York Daily News. "This is a terrible tragedy, so well be taking a look, a total look, at it.

An NYPD civilian employee and a supervisor were disciplined for wrongly closing the case of a 57-year-old woman brutally assaulted on the street in Clifton.

A civilian mistakenly labeled the job closed, and the supervisor did not catch the error, said an email Tuesday from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information regarding the Jan. 5 attack on Beatrice Kaliku. Both were disciplined.

Sources told the Advance that the alleged attacker in that case, Linden Beaton, is now considered to be a person of interest in the death of 69-year-old Johynita Jordan.

Jordans bruised corpse was found Sunday at around 12 p.m. inside a home on the 700 block of Van Duzer Street.

ONeill said both cases will continue to be reviewed.

"The investigation is not done, he said. Were taking a look at it to make sure that [the clerical error is] is true in this case and theres not more to it.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Jockey International, Inc. announced Tuesday that it will open its first New York City location at Empire Outlets, expected to open in the spring on the St. George waterfront.

The new 2,744 square-foot Jockey store will carry the companys renowned apparel, which includes undergarments, activewear, sleepwear and loungewear. Founded in 1876, Jockey started as a hosiery company crafting wool socks for lumberjacks. The family-owned company has grown into a global brand with more than 100 stores in the United States.

As a company, we could not be more excited to open our first New York City store on Staten Island at Empire Outlets, said Mark Fedyk, president and COO of Jockey. This Jockey store will be a first of its kind for the brand and was designed for an exceptional consumer experience at every turn, making it easier for him or her to find quality crafted apparel from Jockey.

Said Joseph Ferrara, principal of BFC Partners, developer of Empire Outlets: Jockey has been an industry leader for over 140 years, and we are proud to welcome them to Empire Outlets.The addition of Jockey brings us another step closer to delivering an unparalleled lineup of retailers at Empire Outlets, which will soon become the premier shopping and dining destination in the five boroughs.

Located adjacent to the St. George Ferry Terminal, Empire Outlets will feature more than 100 designer outlet retailers and a 1,250-space parking garage.

With sales in the underwear market segment expected to reach nearly $150 billion by 2021, it made perfect sense to ink this deal with Jockey, Americas foremost undergarment brand. This Jockey store will be the first of its kind in not only Staten Island, but all of New York City, said James Prendamano, CEO of Casandra Properties Inc, leasing broker of Empire Outlets.

OUTLET RETAILERS

Other retailers signed on to be part of Empire Outlets include: Nordstrom Rack, Nike, H&M, Ghirardelli Chocolate, Levis, True Religion, Cotton On, Francescas, Converse, Starbucks, U.S. Polo, Crocs, White House Black Market, Columbia Sportswear Company, Guess Factory Store, Wilsons Leather, G.H. Bass & Co., Lids, Obey Your Body, Innovation Luggage, Walgreens, Haagen Dazs and Krispy Kreme.

Restaurants set to be part of Empire Outlets' diverse group of dining options include: Mamoun's Falafel, Wasabi Steak & Sushi, Shake Shack,Mighty Quinn's Barbeque, Artichoke Basille's Pizza, Nathan's Famous and MRKTPL -- a 12,723-square-foot artisanal food hall with a 3,000-square-foot outdoor dining space.

The majority of Empire Outlets' retail and restaurant spaces are already leased.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Criminal charges were dropped Tuesday against a reputed drug dealer who remains in grave condition on a respirator nine months after he was allegedly beaten with a mallet.

Shakee Davis, 40, is still hospitalized on a ventilator, stemming from an attack on April 27 of last year, said his attorney Matthew Zuntag.

Zuntag said Davis outlook is bleak.

Its unfortunate for him and his family, said Zuntag.

Davis had been arrested in November 2017 on three felony drug-sale charges and a misdemeanor count of drug possession.

He was accused off peddling cocaine to undercover cops several times between August and October 2017.

Davis was among 11 suspects charged in the takedown of a crack-cocaine distribution network run from the South Beach Houses, said officials.

Dubbed "Stem the Tide," the seven-month probe targeted the upper hierarchy of the narcotics-distribution network within the South Beach Houses, said authorities.

During the sting, detectives netted 77 grams of crack cocaine from undercover buys within the network, which grossed about $10,000 in weekly drug sales, authorities said.

District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said some of the suspects were linked to at least three drug overdoses investigated under the Overdose Response Initiative, created in 2016 by the D.A. and police.

Under the initiative, overdose deaths on Staten Island are probed like other crimes.

Davis was free on $5,000 bond in that case, when New Dorp resident Gaetano Tagliafero, 40, attacked him in an apartment on the 100 block of Norway Avenue on April 27, 2018, said a criminal complaint.

Davis suffered "serious physical life-threatening ... and traumatic brain injuries," including skull fractures, and was put on a ventilator, the complaint said.

The complaint did not say what sparked the alleged attack.

Tagliafero, whose last name also appears as Tagliaferro in court papers, was charged with attempted murder, assault and other crimes and is being held in lieu of $1.5 million bail. His next court date is Feb. 26 in state Supreme Court, St. George.

He has denied the charges.

Due to Davis condition, Zuntag had moved to dismiss the charges against him.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed paperwork with the court in support.

Justice Alexander Jeong dismissed the charges and sealed Davis file.

We appreciate that they finally saw the reality of the situation, said Zuntag.

Assistant District Attorney Carrie Low handled the case against Davis. Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis is prosecuting Tagliafero.
UPDATE -- NYPD commissioner promises full investigation

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police do not believe there is any link between the death of a missing woman found Sunday in Stapleton and any other borough disappearances, a source told the Advance Tuesday.

Investigators found Johynita Jordan, 69, dead inside a vacant home on the 700 block of Van Duzer Street around 12 p.m., according to a statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information (DCPI).

An official cause of death has not been determined by the city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, but a source said foul play is suspected.

Sources have identified Linden Beaton, 32, as a person of interest in Jordans death. He is currently being held by police on charges in a separate incident.

Authorities charged Beaton with assault, criminal obstruction of breathing and harassment in connection to an attack on Beatrice Kaliku, 57, who was on her way to a prayer meeting.

An NYPD civilian employee and a supervisor have been disciplined for wrongly closing Kalikus case, according to the department.

A civilian mistakenly labeled the job closed, and the supervisor did not catch the error, said an email Tuesday from DCPI.

While Beaton is not a suspect in any other Staten Island cases, investigators are looking at a short time he lived in Queens after leaving prison, according to a source.

Beaton served seven years in prison after he was convicted of an attempted rape in which he choked, punched, and assaulted a woman, according to state records.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2010, and released to parole on Feb. 15, according to state records.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  It was a one-time offer, but now its gone.

A Queens man, accused of stealing merchandise from a Dongan Hills cell-phone store last month, was given a chance Tuesday to resolve his case quickly.

Plead guilty to petit larceny, a lesser charge against him, Tyreq James, 26, was told, and in exchange receive a one-year jail sentence.

James is facing felony grand larceny and other charges stemming from an alleged heist on Dec. 16 at a T-Mobile store at 298 Naughton Ave.

Prosecutors original offer had been a plea to the top count of fourth-degree grand larceny in exchange for a prison sentence of 18 months to three years.

According to a criminal complaint, the defendant snatched an iPhone and accessories valued at $1,312 before bolting.

He was arrested shortly thereafter despite trying to elude police by hopping over fences in several nearby backyards, the complaint said.

Assistant District Attorney Arda Ozdinc said the new plea offer was extended after conferring with James court-appointed lawyer, Christina Paliogiannis.

This case is as strong as it could be, Ozdinc told the court. At Ms. Paliogiannis request, I agreed to amend the offer if the defendant admitted responsibility.

He said such a plea would be in the interests of justice.

James, however, wanted no part of the deal and would not listen to Paliogiannis when she tried to explain it to him.

In fact, he insisted he wanted a new attorney.

Justice Alexander Jeong told James that, based on his criminal record, hed be inclined to sentence the defendant to the maximum if hes convicted at trial.

The maximum, depending on James conviction history, would either be 16 months to four years in prison or two to four years behind bars.

James, however, held firm, and both Ozdinc and the judge rescinded the offer.

Jeong assigned James a new lawyer, Craig Newman, although the defendant, who is being held in lieu of $75,000 bail, said he intends to hire his own attorney.

The case was adjourned to Feb. 25 in state Supreme Court, St. George.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Todays archive page is from July 15, 1957.

A two-car crash in Graniteville sends a 66-year-old woman to St. Vincents Hospital for observation.

Mary Notabartolo was riding in a car driven by Carmelo Notabartolo when the accident occurred, police reported.

Their car was traveling on Forest Avenue when it tangled with a car operated by Patsy Anarumo of Port Richmond, according to police.

If you are having trouble viewing the page below, click here to enlarge it.
Page Content





[Update: Illinois became the 11th state to approve recreational marijuana use on June 25 when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act (HB 1438) into law.]





As U.S. support for the legalization of marijuana grows and more states approve marijuana's medical and recreational use, employers must understand the relevant legal developments and how they affect the workplace.

About 62 percent of U.S. respondents to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey said marijuana use should be legal, compared to 31 percent who supported legalization in 2000.

State laws reflect the changing attitude toward weed: Thirty-three states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana use, and 10 states have approved both its medical and recreational use.





Some states permit limited use of products that contain low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the drug's psychoactive component, and some have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.

So what does this mean for employers? Here are some of the key legal concepts that may influence how employers approach their policies and practices.

Federal Law

All marijuana use is still illegal under federal law. Marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, which means that it is deemed to have no medical value and a high potential for abuse.

Activists have lobbied the federal government to reschedule marijuana, but there haven't been enough large-scale clinical trials showing that marijuana's medical value outweighs the risk to patients, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Despite marijuana's Schedule I status, former President Barack Obama's administration issued a memo in 2013 stating that federal prosecutors wouldn't target adults who were growing or using marijuana in accordance with state laws. Instead, the federal government focused its efforts on preventing marijuana sales to minors and stopping drug cartels.

Although President Donald Trump's administration rescinded the Obama-era memo, there hasn't been a ramp up in enforcement, and states continue to approve marijuana use.

In some states, courts have held that federal law pre-empts state medical marijuana laws. In other states, courts have rejected that argument. "It's still a bit of a mixed bag," noted Donald Lawless, an attorney with Barnes & Thornburg in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Medical Marijuana

Most states allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes, but the details of these laws vary. For instance, the qualifying medical conditions for which cannabis can be used differ.

Qualified patients and their caregivers generally must receive a certification from a medical practitioner and register with the state.

Registered medicinal usersor "cardholders"in some states may have job protections. In New York, for example, they are covered under the state disability nondiscrimination law. And in 2017, the Massachusetts high court held that a worker could bring suit against her employer for disability discrimination after she was fired for a positive marijuana drug test.

But state statutes with nondiscrimination provisions for medicinal use typically exclude jobs that require drug testing under federal law, Lawless said. For example, certain commercial motor vehicle operators would be excluded because the Department of Transportation requires them to pass drug and alcohol screens.

Employers never have to accommodate on-the-job use, but they may want to explore reasonable accommodations for registered medicinal users in these jurisdictions instead of having blanket policies excluding marijuana users from employment.

Some states such as California, Colorado and Ohio do not provide workplace protections for medical users, even if they are following state law and limit their use to off-duty hours. Thus, employers should carefully review the applicable statutes and case law when crafting drug-testing and substance-abuse policies.

Cannabis Oil

Some states that haven't legalized medical marijuana allow limited use of cannabis oils if they contain a low level of THC and a high level of cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive component that is said to have medicinal value. Note, however, that cannabis oils can contain varying levels of THC. Laws permitting low-THC/high-CBD products are not considered comprehensive medical marijuana programs.

Congress recently removed hemp, a variety of cannabis, that contains less than 0.3 percent THC concentration from the controlled-substances list. However, products made for human or animal consumption are still illegal under federal law unless they are approved by the FDA. Epidiolex was the first cannabis extract approved by the FDA in 2018.

Recreational Use

Ten states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana use for adults ages 21 and older. Each state strictly regulates where it can be purchased and consumed and how much can be grown at home. Importantly, no state law forces employers to accommodate recreational use.

Michigan's recreational law took effect in December 2018 and allows employers to discipline employees for violating a workplace drug policy, Lawless noted. So employers in Michigan should clearly communicate to workers if marijuana use will not be accommodated.

[SHRM members-only online discussion platform: SHRM Connect]

Decriminalization

Many states have decriminalized marijuana to some degree. The laws also vary, but they typically remove criminal penalties, such as jail time, for possession of small amounts of weed. In some states, violators just have to pay a fine, but in other states they may end up with a misdemeanor on their record.

Employers should note that many cities and states have placed substantial limits on what employers may ask job applicants about their criminal history, including restrictions on questions regarding marijuana-related charges.

Policies and Practices

As medical and nonmedical legalization spreads, it will become increasingly important that employers clarify their policies, said Alyson Martin, co-founder of Cannabis Wire, a publication about key cannabis issues.



While it may be unlawful in some jurisdictions to discriminate against workers simply because they have a medical marijuana card, employers can still require sobriety at work and treat marijuana as they would alcohol or prescription drugs, said Rob Wilson, president of Employco USA, a national employment-solutions firm based in Illinois.

But, for now, marijuana drug tests can't determine whether someone is currently under the influence the way that alcohol tests can, Lawless noted, so employers may opt to state in their policies that they will discipline employees who are displaying behaviors of intoxication and test positive for marijuana.



"Managing employee expectations is critical," he said.


Sharon, PA (16146)

Today

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low near 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low near 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
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Lee Jin-man / Associated Press

SEOUL  A South Korean woman who was forced as a girl into a brothel and sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during World War II was mourned Wednesday by hundreds of protesters who demanded reparations from Tokyo over wartime atrocities.

Kim Bok Dong had been a vocal leader at the rallies that have been held every Wednesday in Seoul for nearly 30 years. She died on Monday at a Seoul hospital where she had been receiving treatment for cancer. She was 92.
BEIRUT  It only took a few days for al Qaeda-linked militants to seize more than two dozen towns and villages in northern Syria from rival insurgents earlier this month, cementing their control over an area the size of neighboring Lebanon.

The advance by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or the Levant Liberation Committee, was the most serious blow yet to a September cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey that averted a major government offensive in Idlib province, the last main stronghold of the Syrian opposition.

It highlighted the growing threat posed by al Qaeda at a time when its rival, the Islamic State, is on the verge of defeat and the U.S. is preparing to withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria. Although HTS has formally severed ties with al Qaeda, experts say it is still closely linked to the global network founded by Osama bin Laden and could use its base in Syria to launch attacks in the West.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, says there is a real danger that the groups advance will not only worsen the humanitarian crisis for the 3 million inhabitants there, but also give (President Bashar) Assad and his allies the justification to assault the province.

Such a scenario would be as devastatingly bloody as the battle for Aleppo, he said, referring to the months of heavy fighting over Syrias largest city in 2016, which killed thousands of people and ended with government forces and their allies capturing the rebel-held east.

HTS includes large numbers of battle-hardened al Qaeda fighters, and its capture of most of rebel-held Syria could force aid agencies to withdraw, leaving tens of thousands of civilians to fend for themselves. The oppositions Free Aleppo Medical Directorate said that some 250,000 people will lose medical support after 43 facilities it runs cease operations due to a drop in aid from Western agencies after the latest HTS offensive.

The government has meanwhile stepped up its bombardment of Idlib and neighboring rebel-held areas. Pro-government media say Defense Minister Gen. Ali Ayoub and Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, who commands the elite Tiger Force, have recently visited the front lines with Idlib, raising fears of a new government offensive.

HTS now controls an area of about 3,475 square miles or about 5 percent of Syrias territory. The area is home to some 3 million people, many of whom have been displaced from other parts of the country.

Bassem Mroue is an Associated Press writer.
An unruly passenger caused an EasyJet flight from Manchester to Iceland to be diverted to Edinburgh after he reportedly assaulted a passenger, according to local media and witnesses.

A passenger on the plane told the BBC that less than an hour into the flight, "some drunk bloke" got up and started harassing other passengers.

Another witness told the the Scottish Sun the "aggressive" man was smoking an e-cigarette and was "shouting abuse at the passengers at the front of the plane."

RELATED: Flight attendant dies on Hawaiian Airlines plane rerouted to SFO

The man then allegedly assaulted a passenger, and the crew decided to make an emergency landing in Edinburgh, Scotland, according to the BBC.

After the alleged assault, the man fell asleep and didn't wake up until the plane was landing in Edinburgh.

"When he realized we were landing in Scotland to arrest him, he kicked off and smashed his phone up," a witness told the BBC. "This snapped the battery which started smoking on the aisle floor."

A witness said the man snapped the phone in half, and the remains were left smoking on the ground. Another passenger reportedly had to stop the remains from starting a fire in the cabin.

MORE TRAVEL: United, Delta, American, Amex limiting lounge access

The man was arrested in Edinburgh, and no injuries were reported.

The airline issued the following statement to British media outlets:

"We can confirm that flight EZY1805 from Manchester to Keflavik was required to divert to Edinburgh and was met by police on arrival due to a passenger behaving disruptively. Our cabin crew are trained to assess and evaluate all situations and to act quickly and appropriately to ensure that the safety of the flight and other passengers is not compromised at any time."

Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email him at eting@sfchronicle.com and follow him on Twitter

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Still riding the momentum from her campaign kickoff rally in Oakland over the weekend, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., joined CNN anchor Jake Tapper for a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday night, and the network has since said the appearance set a ratings record.

"Monday night's CNN Town Hall with Senator Kamala Harris was the most watched cable news single candidate election town hall ever," the network wrote in a Tuesday press release, citing Nielsen data on viewers ages 25 to 54, a group that is traditionally highly desirable to advertisers.

ALSO: CNN joins MSNBC in shunning White House briefing

The town hall averaged 1.96 million total viewers, up from an average of 1.12 million viewers across the network's past four town halls; an estimated 712,000 people in the 25-to-54 age range watched, according to CNN.

A 2016 Fox town hall with then-candidate Donald Trump and Sean Hannity attracted more overall viewers, but fewer in the 25-to-54 range  589,000 to the Harris town hall's 712,000, according to Nielsen estimates.

MORE: Stacey Abrams to give Democrats' response to State of the Union

At her CNN town hall, Harris endorsed several policy items that have been on many progressives' wish lists for a 2020 candidate, such as Medicare for All and a "Green New Deal," a massive government-led push to reduce fossil fuel emissions and create jobs in renewable energy.

When asked by Tapper if people would be allowed to keep their private insurance during a transition to Medicare for All, Harris appeared to favor eliminating private insurance.

"Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on," she said of insurance-related bureaucracy.

The town hall also appeared to be Harris's first explicit, public endorsement of the concept of the Green New Deal.

"I support a Green New Deal, and I will tell you why," she said. "Climate change is an existential threat to us all."

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter
Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. Hot. High 94F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight

Mostly clear. Low 77F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.

Tomorrow

Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Elizabeth City, NC (27909)

Today

Cloudy. Some light rain will fall throughout the day. High 83F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, then thunderstorms developing late. Low 73F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
A staff member works at the production line of wind power equipment in Hami, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 20, 2018. New energy power generation saw double digit growth last year in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region amid efforts to reduce coal consumption to improve the energy mix. Wind and solar power generation rose 15.2 percent and 13.6 percent to 36 billion kwh and 11.7 billion kwh respectively, according to the regional development and reform commission. It said 22.9 percent of installed wind power generating capacity and 15.5 percent of the solar power generating capacity in Xinjiang were left idle last year, respectively 6.9 percentage points and 6.1 percentage points lower than a year ago. The idle capacity was a result of higher costs, rapid capacity increases, poor grid connections and the grid's preference for more predictable coal-generated power. The lower idle capacity came as local authorities encouraged more local consumption and transmitted more to regions in the country's bustling east. Despite the efforts, the idle rates in Xinjiang were still one of the highest in the country. According to the State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co. Ltd., Xinjiang has a total installed power generating capacity of 85.5 GW, with wind and solar energy contributing 28.7 GW. To cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle air pollution, China has been trying to use more renewable energy to reduce its heavy reliance on polluting coal. (Xinhua/Zhao Ge)

URUMQI, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- New energy power generation saw double digit growth last year in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region amid efforts to reduce coal consumption to improve the energy mix.

Wind and solar power generation rose 15.2 percent and 13.6 percent to 36 billion kwh and 11.7 billion kwh respectively, according to the regional development and reform commission.

It said 22.9 percent of installed wind power generating capacity and 15.5 percent of the solar power generating capacity in Xinjiang were left idle last year, respectively 6.9 percentage points and 6.1 percentage points lower than a year ago.

The idle capacity was a result of higher costs, rapid capacity increases, poor grid connections and the grid's preference for more predictable coal-generated power.

The lower idle capacity came as local authorities encouraged more local consumption and transmitted more to regions in the country's bustling east.

Despite the efforts, the idle rates in Xinjiang were still one of the highest in the country.

According to the State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co. Ltd., Xinjiang has a total installed power generating capacity of 85.5 GW, with wind and solar energy contributing 28.7 GW.

To cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle air pollution, China has been trying to use more renewable energy to reduce its heavy reliance on polluting coal.
DUBLIN (BCN)



A candlelight vigil and walk will be held on Wednesday evening to mark the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, who vanished while walking home from a Dublin middle school in 1989.



Misheloff was 13 years old when she vanished while walking home from Wells Middle School on Jan. 30, 1989.



Family and friends of Misheloff will participate in the vigil, which begins at Wells Middle School at 6800 Penn Drive at 7 p.m. Wednesday.



They then will go a walk that follows most of Misheloff's path on the day she disappeared, starting at Wells and proceeding for 2.5 miles to Saint Raymond's Catholic Church at 11555 Shannon Ave., where an ecumenical prayer service will be held.



Misheloff's family members said that with the help of Dublin Police Services and the FBI, they continue to search for her.



The family said in a statement that Wednesday "marks 30 very long years since our precious daughter, Ilene Misheloff, was kidnapped by a stranger from the streets of Dublin."



The family said, "Please help us spread the word as far and wide as possible that we want our child back."





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A Caltrain struck and killed a person who was trespassing on the tracks in Redwood City on Wednesday morning, according to the transit agency.



The collision was reported at 10:07 a.m. on Main Street in Redwood City and involved southbound Train No. 134 traveling from San Francisco to San Jose, Caltrain spokesman Dan Lieberman said.



There were 41 people aboard the train at the time and none were reported injured, Lieberman said. More information about the person who died was not immediately available.



The death and subsequent investigation caused delays and track closures in the area for about four hours.



Caltrain officials said shortly after 2 p.m. that all tracks had reopened with trains running at maximum speeds.





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BCN18)



UNION CITY (BCN)



Union City officials said that the city's website which was down earlier Tuesday is working again though at a slower speed sometimes.



City officials said the website went down because of issues with the host server.



Workers with the company that hosts the server worked Tuesday to correct the issue.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



Hundreds of San Francisco students and teachers, as well as their supporters, held a lively rally Tuesday afternoon outside of City Hall, as they sought to secure $60 million for their public schools.



The education activists are seeking roughly one third of the city's $181 million Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund in order to raise teacher wages, making sure that the city's stock of teachers don't move to other school districts, attracted by higher wages.



The funds became available as part of a $415 million windfall the city received in November. Most of the amount is allocated to various baselines and rainy-day reserves, but roughly $181 million is available to be spent from the city's general fund on city services.



The ERAF windfall money is much needed, the activists say, as voter-approved Proposition G and Proposition C from last June's election is being contested in court, along with Proposition C from the November election.



June's Prop G would make use of a parcel tax to raise teacher salaries, while June's Prop C earmarks a commercial rent tax for childcare and education. November's Prop. C earmarks a business tax for homeless initiatives.



Referring to Prop G, Theresa Montano, vice president of the California Teachers Association, said, "The voters of San Francisco have spoken loudly, overwhelmingly, standing beside their educators to say it is time to put funding into our schools. Not $11 million, not $13 million, $60 million.



"This is about community schools. It's about recruiting and retaining quality educators, so that they can live in the city they teach in," she said.



"Although we have a lawsuit challenging these initiatives, we are fortunate to have windfall resources that will help us alleviate the damage caused by these court challenges," said Supervisor and former Board of Education member Shamann Walton. "We have an opportunity to use $185 million to support the will of the voters."



Also speaking at the rally, Supervisor Matt Haney, also a former school board member said, "It is a sad day when the families, the kids and the educators of our city have to come here to City Hall and literally go door-to-door to ask for something that is your right, that you deserve."



Although Prop G is being challenged in court on the basis that it needed a two-thirds majority to be implemented and not a simple majority, the school district already implemented the wage increase for teachers, which, according to the United Educators of San Francisco, has resulted in more teachers being recruited and retained.



Securing the $60 million for schools would help the district maintain the wage increase.



Following the outdoor rally, several education activists entered the Board of Supervisors meeting, erupting in chants and causing the meeting to take a recess.



"I want to thank the people who were just in this chamber. The passionate parents who really do care about our public schools, and I don't fault any of them for showing their passion," President of the Board of Supervisors Norman Yee said following the interruption.





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BERKELEY (BCN)



A postal carrier has been arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats for allegedly threatening a Berkeley man who complained when a package was thrown at his door, police said.



The man was inside his home in the 2600 block of Sacramento Street at about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday when he was startled by the sound of something thrown at his front door, according to police.



When the resident went to investigate, he saw that there was a package at his door, police said.



The man also noticed that the postal carrier was across the street so he walked over and asked the carrier not to throw his packages, according to police.



But the postal carrier responded by cursing and threatening the man, who ran back to his home and called 911, police said.



While the man was inside his home calling 911, the postal carrier entered the residence and started recording him with his cellphone and threatened the man by stating that he now knew who he was, according to police.



Officers located the postal carrier, who was identified as 44-year-old Lamonte Travoy Earnest of Berkeley, a block away and arrested him on suspicion of making criminal threats as well as an outstanding warrant for animal cruelty, police said.





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SUNNYVALE (BCN)



Sunnyvale will host two open house meetings in the coming weeks as the city considers changing its at-large election system to a district-based system, following a move by several neighboring cities to prevent lawsuits over minority voting rights.



Santa Clara held its first district-based election in November after losing an appeal in federal court to protect its at-large voting system for City Council elections.



The Asian Law Alliance and others argued that about 20 percent of the city's population was Asian-American, yet none had been elected to the City Council since the city was founded more than 65 years ago.



San Jose, Santa Clara, Menlo Park, Fremont, Martinez and Concord are among the Bay Area cities that have switched to district-based voting, in addition to others throughout California. The Sunnyvale City Council voted last year to consider the change and begin outreach.



"The Council wants to ensure that any changes to our council electoral system are driven by input from Sunnyvale residents," Mayor Larry Klein said in a news release.



The first meeting will be held Feb. 6 at 6 p.m. at the Sunnyvale Community Center at 550 E. Remington Drive followed by a meeting Feb. 9 at 9:30 a.m. at Columbia Middle School at 739 Morse Ave.



Translation services will be available in Mandarin, Spanish and Hindi, and refreshments will be provided at the open houses.





Copyright  2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Cut Bank, MT (59427)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. Cooler. High around 65F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low 41F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
On Monday, 19 California lawmakers sent a letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra requesting an investigation into an "unexplained 'surcharge' that has been identified in the state's gasoline prices."

The legislators - all Democrats - said they are committed to seeking the funding to help the Department of Justice investigate the surcharge and get to the bottom of the added cost. Here's what we know from the lawmakers' filings and the report issued by the California Petroleum Market Advisory Committee (PMAC):
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James Ingram, the soulful, smooth voice behind R&B hits like "Just Once" and "I Don't Have the Heart," has died at the age of 66.

Ingram's longtime friend and creative partner, Debbie Allen, confirmed the news of his passing to CNN on Tuesday.

"I have lost my dearest friend and creative partner James Ingram to the Celestial Choir," Allen wrote in a tribute on Twitter. "He will always be cherished, loved and remembered for his genius, his love of family and his humanity. I am blessed to have been so close. We will forever speak his name."

The cause of Ingram's death was not revealed.

Ingram, an Ohio native, got his start as a musician with the band Revelation Funk and later played keyboards for Ray Charles. He was nominated for 14 Grammy Awards, winning for best male R&B performance for his song "One Hundred Ways" and best R&B performance for a duo or group for "Yah Mo B There."

His duet with Patti Austin, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing," earned an Oscar nomination for best original song in 1983 for composer Michel Legrand and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Over the course of his career, Ingram also had successful collaborations with Linda Ronstadt, Quincy Jones, Barry White and Dolly Parton.

He co-wrote Michael Jackson's hit song "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" with Jones.

Ingram was also nominated in the '90s for two Oscars and two Golden Globe Awards for best original song  one for "The Day I Fall in Love" and "Look What Love Has Done."
We acknowledge the Sovereignty of the First Nations Peoples. Brexit Plan B is repeat of Plan A British Prime Minister Theresa Mays proposed European Union (EU) divorce agreement was utterly crushed by Britains Parliament last week, with members of Parliament rejecting it 432 votes to 202  the largest defeat experienced by a government in modern British political history. May returned to the House of Commons on Monday, January 21 to give a statement on her next steps for Brexit. Her Plan B was a slightly watered-down version of last weeks defeated Plan A, but did reflect movement regarding two crucial issues  fees for EU citizens in the UK, and a hard border in Ireland  while holding firm on all others. In her statement, May: Refused to rule out a no-deal EU withdrawal, saying the House of Commons must either approve an agreement or revoke Article 50, the measure that called for the UK to leave the EU.

Said a second referendum would set a difficult precedent and damage social cohesion.

Committed to ensuring that EU citizens in the UK will be able to stay and continue to access in-country benefits and services on broadly the same terms as now, in both a deal and a no-deal scenario, by waiving visa application fees.

Denied considering reopening the Good Friday Agreement in order to solve the Irish backstop issue.

Assured MPs the government would consult with them regularly as negotiations continue, ensuring their voices are heard.

Said a new motion would be brought up for a vote January 29. May closed by outlining three key changes needed, including flexibility and openness in engaging Parliament while negotiating future EU relationships, embedding the strongest possible protections on workers rights and the environment, and a commitment to no hard border in Northern Ireland. Currently May is considering putting a sunset clause to a vote in Parliament setting a time limit to the Irish border issue, in an effort to secure a divorce agreement that will both win a parliamentary majority and improve negotiations with the EU. However, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier rejected the idea saying the current deal reached with the Prime Minister was the best deal possible. Its now for the UK leaders to build this stable and political majority for a deal, he continued. We are waiting for the next steps and are ready to work again on the political declaration. The House of Commons will also be voting on several amendments proposed by MPs to the current deal, including an extension of the Article 50 timeline and more parliamentary power to block a no-deal divorce. The votes will be non-binding but will serve as a test for changes May could consider for her Brexit deal. A binding vote is not expected until February. In response, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn submitted a party amendment calling for a parliamentary vote on whether to hold a second referendum. Our amendment will allow MPs to vote on options to end this Brexit deadlock and prevent the chaos of a no-deal, Corbyn said. It is time for Labours alternative plan to take centre stage, while keeping all options on the table, including the option of a public vote. The amendment  opposed by many Labour frontbench MPs  is worded to not commit party leadership to backing a referendum if a vote did take place, and called for Mays government to vote on two options: Labours alternative Brexit plan, and whether to to hold a public vote on a deal or a proposition that is supported by a majority in the Commons. Labours alternative Brexit plan proposes the UK stay in a post-Brexit customs union with the EU and calls for a strong relationship with the single market. It is unlikely the amendment will pass. Heres a summary of the original Brexit withdrawal agreement: Citizens rights: UK citizens in the EU, and EU citizens in the UK, will keep their residency and social security rights after Brexit.

Citizens who relocate to another EU country during the transition period, including the UK, will be allowed to stay in the country after the transition.

Anyone who stays in the same EU country for five years will be able to apply for permanent residence in the UK. Transition period: The timeline for EU withdrawal begins March 20, 2019 and goes until December 31, 2020.

The UK will be required to follow all EU rules but will lose membership in its institutions.

The draft agreement lays out frame work for an extension of the timeline, but only for one to two years  2022 at the latest.

Any extension must be agreed to by both the UK and EU before July 1, 2020. Laws and legal disputes: The UK will remain under jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) during the transition period.

A joint UK-EU committee will be formed in an effort to resolve any disputes on interpretation of the agreement.

If the backstop is triggered and the UK forms a single customs territory with the EU, the ECJ will not be able to resolve disputes between the UK and EU directly. The Irish backstop: If no long-term trade deal is reached by 2020, avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and no extension to the timeline is reached, then a If the backstop is triggered and the UK forms a single customs territory with the EU, the ECJ will not be able to resolve disputes between the UK and EU directly.

Northern Ireland will have a closer customs relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK  including more alignment with rules and regulations under the EUs single market.

The UK wont be able to leave the backstop independently, it will have to be agreed on with the EU. Other provisions: Protocols on British military bases in Cyprus.

UK withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

Procedures to reach a separate agreement on access to EU fishing in UK waters  primarily Scotland, saying If the backstop is triggered and the UK forms a single customs territory with the EU, the ECJ will not be able to resolve disputes between the UK and EU directly. The issue of complete control over domestic fishing waters, along with the backstop, has led to much resentment from Scottish nationalists, further boosting the calls for Scottish independence. Other Brexit options on the table: Start over with a soft Brexit deal: It would allow Britain to remain part of the EU Blocs customs union, or single market, and is likely to receive consideration from EU leaders. Extend the exit timeline: With the March 29 Brexit deadline fast approaching, Britain could request to extend its departure timeline under Article 50  the legal provision allowing for Withdrawal from the EU  for several months, affording time to renegotiate Brexits terms. This option has recently raised concerns in the EU Parliament over how it would affect its upcoming elections. General Election: The Labour Party has made it clear it will continue to try and force an election and could attempt further no-confidence votes in the upcoming weeks. Another Referendum: The government could choose to hold another vote on Brexit, but would still require an extension of Article 50, and new legislation would have to be proposed for a referendum to happen, and to determine its rules and who would be allowed to vote. Referendum rules are set up under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act of 2000. No Deal: The UK would leave the EU March 29 as scheduled. The Bank of England has warned an exit with no deal could send Britain into its deepest recession in almost a century, and such a sudden end to trade agreements could gridlock British ports, leading to shortages of food and medicine. Form a citizens assembly: The plan would bring 500 members of the public together, facilitated by experts, that would attempt to reach a consensus on how to move forward. The non-partisan plan was proposed by Labour MPs Stella Creasy and Lisa Nandy. The citizens assembly was most recently used in Ireland during debates on the countries strict abortion laws Or, the UK could flat out revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit: A ruling by the European Court of Justice said the move would be legal and would not need agreement from the other 27 EU countries  quite an unlikely scenario as the government is still committed to Brexit. Peoples World Next article  Jallianwala Bagh massacre: Time for an apology Back to index page
As record-breaking icy temperatures descend on the Midwest, an incredible video of Chicago's rail lines flanked by flames shows the measures being taken to keep the city moving.

In aerial video taken by ABC News, fire licks the commuter rail lines; Metra, Chicago's commuter service, is running a reduced schedule Wednesday due to "extreme cold weather." Amtrak canceled all its trains in and out of the city.

MORE: Flights canceled, offices close amid frigid Midwest weather

As startling as the video is, switch heaters are commonly used in cold-weather climates. The heaters usually turn on automatically when the temperature dips or snow falls, heating up the crucial switches along the rails, which have moving components that can freeze stuck. Some switch heaters simply get warm, like a radiator, while others can be gas-fed to produce flames.

Chicago's Metra uses a custom-made gas-fed switch heating system at A-2, its busiest commuter train intersection. While dramatic, it's a whole lot nicer than what train operators used to do.

'WE'RE GETTING SOFT': Kentucky governor says America is weak for closing schools during polar vortex

"We all used to carry this stuff, I called it skunk oil," John Meyer, director of engineering for the Milwaukee District, told Metra. "We poured it in a two-gallon can, poured it out, and threw a match in it, and it'd start a fire along all the rails. We're talking in the mid-70s. Nowadays you'd get in big trouble doing that."

Many normal activities shut down and residents huddled inside as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years. The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to drop much farther south than normal.

In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold , including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

A wind chill of minus 25 can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel bombs Syria

Tensions escalated in the Middle East today after Syria threatened to bomb Tel Aviv airport in retaliation for the latest Israeli missile strikes targeting Damascus International Airport.

The Syrian government warned that it would exercise its legitimate right to self-defence following Tel Avivs latest attack, arguing that Israel has been acting with impunity in Syrian airspace for years.

Damascus said the Israeli aerial bombardments were in breach of international law and demanded an end to the almost daily aggression against Syrian territory.

Syrias permanent representative to the UN, Dr Bashar al-Jaafari demanded a condemnation of the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its daily oppressive practices against the people of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

He told those gathered in New York that air strikes against alleged Iranian targets close to Syrias busiest domestic airport were a regular occurrence with Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli armys outgoing chief of staff, admitting last week that thousands of missile attacks had been carried out in recent years.

In one of the most serious incidents, 15 Russian air force personnel were killed last September after Israeli jets used their aircraft as a cover, moving it into the path of a Syrian air defence missile.

Mr Jaafari warned that the constant Israeli attacks would not have been possible without the failure of the security council to implement its decisions for decades and without the unlimited support provided by the permanent members of the council of this rogue entity.

Israel has long been accused by Damascus of supporting terrorist organisations in Syria. Mr Jaafari said Tel Avivs sponsors, including Britain, the US and France who launched missile attacks last year following allegations of a chemical attack launched by President Bashar al-Assad on the people of Douma, have failed to act on its lawless behaviour.

He accused the policies and actions of the three imperialist countries of being in total contradiction of their responsibility to maintain international peace and security in accordance with international law.

Isnt it time now for the UN security council to stop the Israeli repeated aggressions on the Syrian Arab Republic territories?

Or is it required to draw the attention of the war-makers in this council by exercising our legitimate right to defend ourselves and respond to the Israeli aggression on Damascus International Civil Airport in the same way on Tel Aviv Airport? Mr Jaafari asked.

Morning Star
Whats wrong with privatisation?

Part 2

A dog is not an orange

(Part 1 appeared in the Guardian #1850, November 28, 2018)

There are six key consequences of privatisation, as I have defined it.

Privatisation hasnt made the provision of services cheaper or better.

Even Rod Sims, Chairman of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has been publicly critical of infrastructure privatisation in Australia. As he says, Replacing a public monopoly with a private monopoly makes society worse off. For example, as Sims observes, privatising the ports at Botany Bay, Port Kembla and Port of Melbourne relied on conditions restricting competition from other ports. The result, unsurprisingly, was big increases in port charges.

While claiming privatising freeways and bridges will mean cheaper and more efficient freeways, bridges and tunnels, handing over the building and operation of freeways to entities such as CityLink has actually come at a massive cost to taxpayers. It is costing billions of dollars more than doing it the old way, chiefly because the private companies have demanded and got hidden subsidies and major tax incentives, all at a cost of billions of dollars in foregone taxes.

Privatisation has contributed to pervasive corruption and criminality.

We have been hearing for some months now from the Haynes Royal Commission extraordinary revelations about the pervasive, almost systematic levels of corruption and criminal conduct in the deregulated banking and financial system. This was always to be expected.

When you deregulate systems like this, corruption and criminality are given a green light. When you deregulate the labour market, why be surprised to discover that vulnerable workers are either not getting paid at all or are being systematically defrauded by their employers with under-award wages.

And as economist John Quiggin reminds us, the public funding of for-profit vocational education has created a rich field for criminals to get in and defraud students and governments alike. The idea here was to open the state-funded TAFE system to competition from private providers. Nationally the HECS system was extended to for-profit providers through FEE-HELP. The effect was to give strong incentives to enrol as many students as possible, while keeping costs to a minimum. Bogus courses and colleges sprang up and aggressive salesmen enrolled students who had little or no chance of completing their courses.

This bipartisan policy began with the Brumby and Baillieu governments in Victoria and the Howard government federally. Privatisation creates a crisis of accountability that is directly connected to the crisis of democracy.

A crisis of democracy

Governments have long stopped listening to the ordinary people. Most Australians dont want it, yet governments made up of the major parties keep pushing it down our throats. As John Quiggin notes, From the viewpoint of ordinary Australians, privatisation is a policy that has consistently failed but is remorselessly pushed by the political elite. It is little surprise that voters are turning to populism in response. As the Centre for Policy Development notes in its most recent report, a great majority of Australians dont want smaller government.

What 75 percent of us want to see is a public sector embedded in more parts of Australia. They also want a federal anti-corruption commission (77 percent), a tougher code of conduct for parliamentarians (79 percent), putting citizens on parliamentary committees (68 percent), giving public agencies more independence from the government of the day (55 percent), and a constitutional convention on how we can update the Australian Constitution for the 21st century (57 percent). Another big survey carried out by the ACTU of 57,959 people conducted from September 2017 to February 2018 found:

81.4 percent say its hard to get a decent pay rise in their workplace

91 percent are worried about the loss of permanent jobs for the next generation of workers in Australia

95.6 percent agreed unions should be able to bargain with the decision-makers, whether its at enterprise, franchise, sector or industry level

83.5 percent say its extremely important to change the rules so employers cannot get away with underpaying workers

Vacuum of accountability

Secondly, and worse, privatisation has created a vacuum of accountability. When governments do bad things they can be held to account at the next election. Privatisation creates a block to accountability by passing the buck on to NGOs and private companies and thwarting a basic mechanism of democratic accountability.

Privatisation has contributed to a dramatic increase in economic inequality in Australia because governments have used the taxation system to provide hidden subsidies to wealthy people and companies in order to make it seem that privatisation operates on pure free market principles  when it cannot.

We have seen in the last few years, massive levels of public investment in wealthy individuals and business. Since the 1980s, governments have created some 200 legal tax avoidance schemes, such as negative gearing, worth $168 billion in tax welfare for the rich in 2016-17. Worse, as part of their apparent commitment to free market principles, over half of the 500 biggest companies in Australia pay no tax because they have lobbied governments to change the tax system in their favour so tax avoidance becomes legal.

Killing truth

Neo-liberalism works by playing tricks with our language. Doing this kills off truth. When truth is killed off, so is trust.

Let me explain. Ideas such as competition, customers, markets and contestability are magic words ... and misleading. Neo-liberals rely on magic words and use systematic linguistic tricks involving what philosophers call category mistakes. For example, a dog is a dog and not an orange. Calling a dog an orange is a category mistake. Neo-liberals get the categories and names wrong  deliberately.

Neo-liberals use words like customers, markets and contestability as if these words can apply to anyone and anything. A real market is something like Camberwell market or the housing market where buyers and sellers are buying and selling and negotiating. A customer typically knows what they want and how much theyll pay when they go into a Myer store. Lets be clear that when someone is injured in a car crash or is sick, even dying, we are talking about sick people needing immediate care from the best equipped doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals: they are not customers in something neo-liberals like to call a healthcare market.

A young student is a young person whose lack of experience and knowledge will hopefully be addressed by caring, engaging, thoughtful teachers paid for by the whole community who together will transform that young person unlike customers, students dont know what they want and that insight is what an education makes possible. An older person, who discovers, often slowly and in the company of friends and family that they need certain kinds of care, is not a customer. We need to start using the right words.

Flight from justice

Neo-liberalism has encouraged a flight not only from democracy but from responsibility, justice and fairness.

The language categories that neo-liberals use lead them into very odd policies. In late 2016-17 we saw the result of decades of a persistent refusal to invest in young people. Young people, most of them on remand, rioted at the Parkville YJC in response to crumbling youth justice centres, all a result of tough on crime policies as Labor governments try to appease populist tabloid media.

We have seen a similar refusal to invest in public health, especially for people with mental health and substance use issues, leading to unprecedented numbers of homeless people. Here in Victoria we have seen the ultimate obscenity: the Andrews Labor government proposes to deal with the housing crisis [i.e. too many young families unable to get into the first home buyer market] by selling off what is left of our public housing estates to private developers.

These private developers will build houses for middle-income earners to buy while expelling existing public housing tenants for the next few years with entirely fake promises that they can come back ... even as we face record numbers of people on waiting lists for public housing ... theyll now never get.

In short privatisation and the neo-liberal project has failed, yet the major parties have refused to give up on this unmitigated policy disaster.

And this is where local government now faces an historic choice and opportunity. Let me be very clear: politics always involve real choices. When the Iron Butterfly, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, said, There is No Alternative, she was either lying or ignorant.

Toxic policy

Local governments in Victoria face a political choice to acquiesce in a bad, even toxic policy, or to take a stand in support of democratic principles oriented to some simple ideas about justice, an idea about what care looks like, and how it connects to ideas about a good life. Councils are already making those choices  some badly, others well.

In late March 2018, South Gippsland Shire Council decided to withdraw from providing Home and Community Care (HACC) services and made 43 jobs redundant. HACC staff wept as council made the decision at a council meeting. The council said its decision was forced by changes in government funding. One of its councillors (Cr Don Hill) said that in the lead up to the last elections, I asked everyone I met what they liked about the Shire. The number one service was the health and community service without a doubt. Council will pay redundancy packages worth approximately $1 million (The Great Southern Star, April 4, 2018).

On April 30, 2018, the Australian Services Union (ASU) attended a Home and Community Care meeting at Indigo Shires Chiltern office. There, Indigo Shire announced that Alpine Health would be the new service provider. Staff would be made redundant on June 30, 2018 and would be able to apply for positions with Alpine Health. The ASU advised that the working conditions offered by Alpine Health would not equal the previous EBA agreement, leaving workers disadvantaged by the proposed changes.

In April 2015, Bendigo City Council voted to cease providing HACC. In May, Bendigo Council made the unanimous decision to reverse its original decision after it received a petition with 2,588 signatures, 123 phone calls and emails, 46 letters and countless calls to councillors. Mayor Peter Cox said that the Bendigo Council had agreed to implement efficiencies with the aim of the services becoming cost neutral and fully funded by contributions from the state and federal governments and client fees (Bendigo Advertiser, May 7, 2018).

Finally, in early July 2018, Moonee Valley Council decided it would continue to offer aged care services despite what it called uncertainties about future federal funding. This council provides aged care services to about 16 percent of seniors who live in Moonee Valley. Councillors voted unanimously to continue council services despite an officers report that found the introduction of the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) and national aged care reforms would change the way aged care services were funded. Councillors received a round of applause from the public gallery after rejecting a proposal to subcontract out and eventually exit the service area.

One Councillor (Nicole Marshall) said she was sick of the provision of services being reduced to a dollar figure: I dont want to be a council that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, she said. Cr Marshall argued there was evidence the privatisation of care throughout Australia was not delivering the best results for clients (Herald-Sun, 2 July 2018).

Its time ...

To recall a famous Australian political slogan: Its time. Its time for ordinary Australians to remind all governments what an ethic of care looks like when we think about our most vulnerable people. Its time for ordinary Australians to remind the political class what democracy looks like and why democratic accountability matters. We face imminent existential challenges such as climate change, new disruptive technologies, dramatic increases in social and economic inequality, the persistent threat of war and a financial system that is out of control.

We can no longer afford to stick with a policy frame based on competitive individualism, greed and free markets. It is time for a new political and policy framework that values solidarity, active citizenship, public service and a duty of care.

As Richard Denniss reminds us:

The world is full of alternatives and choices. Neo-liberalisms real power came from convincing us that we had none. We do, and making them is the democratic role of citizens  not the technocratic role of economists, nor that of any self-serving elite.

A talk given at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, September 2018 by Rob Watts, Professor of Social Policy, RMIT University.

The Beacon
MINNEAPOLIS  Entering the year-old work space ModernWell feels like coming into a comfortable spa. Clean lines give way to cozy touches like footstools covered with faux fur and a roaring fire surrounded by comfortable armchairs. Women type away on laptops at tables scattered throughout.

There is not a man in sight.
LOS ANGELES  A California panel on Wednesday recommended that Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten be paroled after serving more than four decades in prison.

After a hearing at the womens prison in Chino (San Bernardino County), commissioners of the Board of Parole Hearings found for the third time that the 69-year-old Van Houten was suitable for release.

If her case withstands a 150-day review process, it will rest in the hands of Californias new Gov. Gavin Newsom. Van Houten was recommended for parole twice previously, but then-Gov. Jerry Brown blocked her release.

Van Houten was among the followers in Mansons murderous cult who stabbed to death wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in 1969. Van Houten was 19 during the killings, which came a day after other Manson followers killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles.

Tates sister attended Wednesdays proceedings and said afterward that she vehemently disagrees with the parole recommendation.

Van Houtens lawyer, Rich Pfeiffer, said he was pleased with how the commissioners focused on making sure that she took full responsibility for her role in the killings.

He predicted that it will be much more difficult for Newsom to block parole than it was for Brown.

In his decision last year, Brown acknowledged Van Houtens youth at the time of the crime, her more than four decades of good behavior as a prisoner and her abuse at the hands of Manson. But he said she still laid too much blame on Manson for the murders.

Christopher Weber is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  Lawmakers appear increasingly nervous that Congress and the public wont see a full report when special counsel Robert Mueller is finished with his Russia probe, including what the investigation finds about President Trump.

Republicans and Democrats say they support public disclosure of Muellers findings. But its unclear exactly what documentation will be produced at the end of the probe into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russia, and how much of that the Justice Department will allow people to see. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Monday that the probe is close to being completed, the first official sign that Muellers investigation may be wrapping up.

Democrats have pressured Trumps attorney general nominee, William Barr, on the full release of Muellers final report. Lawmakers in both parties have maintained that there will have to be some sort of public resolution when the report is done  and privately hope that a report shows conclusions that are favorable to their own side.

This is the biggest issue facing our country, and the American people deserve to know Muellers findings and analysis without any filter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary panel, said Tuesday.

The top three members of House Republican leadership  Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney  said on Tuesday that they would support the public release of a report produced from the Mueller investigation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would like any report to be as fully open and transparent as possible. And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he was going to call Barr to ask him about the possibility that key information could be shielded from disclosure through Justice Department regulations and White House claims of executive privilege.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Barrs nomination next week, and Democrats have said they arent satisfied with his commitment that he would be as transparent as possible under Justice Department regulations. The nominee said at his confirmation hearing earlier this month that he envisions two reports, one that Mueller sends to him and another that he drafts for Congress.

If a full report isnt released, Democrats in the House have made it clear they will do whatever they can to get ahold of it.

Mary Clare Jalonick is an Associated Press writer.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed addressed the public Wednesday in her first State of the City address.

The address is an opportunity for Breed to lay out the city's priorities for action in 2019. She's expected to discuss issues like homelessness, housing, public safety, education and transportation  all key issue areas listed as priorities on the mayor's website.
The historic nonprofit that served as a central meeting space for the sex-positive community in San Francisco no longer has a physical home, as rising rents have forced the center to shutter, according to its co-founder.

Those just passing by the little yellow building at 1349 Mission Street may not have known what was going on the other side of the walls. Throughout the last 20 years, the Center for Sex and Culture took many forms. It was, at once, a gallery, an archive, a library, and an event space. Events like rope bondage classes, masturbate-a-thons, and a reading series that dated back to the mid-1990s were just small slivers of its eclectic calendar.

But continually climbing rent was more than the center could handle as an all-volunteer organization, co-founder Carol Queen said. The center was paying almost $10,000 per month. In two years, it was projected to jump to $14,000, Queen said.

The center was recognized as a federal nonprofit in 2001. Queen  who is also the staff sexologist at Good Vibrations  and Robert Morgan Lawrence opened its first location in 2004, at 11th and Harrison. The center had spent more than eight years at the 1349 Mission location.

Throughout the 1990s, Queen said, there was a development of a new kind of queer and kink-inflected culture that was expanding in its diversity. Various identities were coming together and appreciating each other's cultural spaces. People were learning more about their options, and organizations centered around kink education were growing.

"It was a really, really rich time throughout the 1990s," Queen said. "And the Center for Sex and Culture really holds that history as a piece of our legacy in a significant way."

One way the center kept that history alive was through its extensive and one-of-kind archive, which held an extraordinary collection of queer literature, sex-positive, trans, and leather histories. Lady Katerina, the head librarian for the Center for Sex and Culture, said the center had at least 8,000 books in the library alone.

Some pieces of the archives include original texts dating back to the 1850s, and translations of books on sexuality dating back before 400 B.C., Katerina said. Another highlight was their large selection of smut, some of which had been disguised as "medical manuals" to safely distribute in a censored world.

Luckily, those archives have all found new homes. Harvard University bought the majority of their archives and books. Other works will live on at Cornell University, the One Archives Foundation in Los Angeles, and the Carter Johnson Leather Library in Indiana, where Katerina will be moving across the country to work from.

The only pieces of the archive that will stay in San Francisco will be at the GLBT Historical Society and the San Francisco Public Library's Hormel LGBTQIA center.

The organization also hosted memorial services for people in the sexuality community, such as beloved porn actors, whose families often did not recognize  or tried to posthumously erase  that part of their lives.

In some ways, Queen said, she is relieved that the center has closed its physical space. The finances were too much to bear, and the certainty of the archives living on, albeit separated from each other, helps her sleep at night.

But grief over the loss of the physical space still stings, as it has for many other members of the center's community. It also calls to memory the host of challenges the kink community in San Francisco has faced in recent years, like Wicked Grounds, the kink and fetish-friendly cafe that barely managed to climb out of an imminent shutdown last year.

The Center's closure hit hard for Rebeccalyn "Mir" Bilodeau, Wicked Grounds' COO. Besides almost losing their space, the center joins other struggling kink organizations in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Catalyst, an erotic play space, is actively seeking a new space as its current building is slated to be torn down at the end of this year. The SF Citadel, a BDSM club, is going through a significant "change in management," Bilodeau said.

Though the challenges are not unique to the kink community, zoning issues and public acceptance makes them harder to work around, Bilodeau said. And while projects like the Bay Area Kinky Business alliance and the Leather Cultural District in SOMA are great news for the community, they don't undo another space that has disappeared, Bilodeau said.

"For many years, [the Center] has done charitable work, provided a vital historical resource, and there's truly nothing else like it in the world," Bilodeau said. "I think they're going to be looking for ways to continue doing events and education, but it's impossible to offer the historical archives without solid real estate. We've lost something enormous."

Bilodeau said knowing something like the center existed, particularly when they lived in Texas, ("Where it's a little harder to be queer and kinky") kept them going when they didn't have a lot of local support.

"Carol has probably impacted far more people than she will ever know," Bilodeau said.

"I was coming out as queer and dealing with being kinky during the Reagan administration," Bilodeau added. "Carol Queen and a few other of that cadre really opened a discussion that did not exist previously."

"No matter what happens to any particular building, I have every confidence that the work Carol and her group have started is going to have a continued impact, well beyond San Francisco and well beyond the current era," Bilodeau added. "They're game changers."

For now, there are no plans to move into another space, Queen said. She hopes to continue events and education on a pop-up basis, and for the center serve as a partner to other community organizations in San Francisco.

Read Annie Vainshtein's latest stories here. Email her at avainshtein@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@annievain
Win for airport workers

The Federal Court has stated Aerocare cannot force workers to do split shifts, knocking back the companys exploitative business model which sees workers sleep at the airports and threatens safety and security.

Aerocare took the expensive Federal Court case in order to maintain its low-cost business model after the Fair Work Commission in September 2017 ruled its split shifts were not permissible and that its rates went below the award.

This is an important win for aviation workers in the fight for quality jobs that ensure safety and security at our airports is paramount, said Transport Workers Union acting national secretary Nick McIntosh. This judgment implies that airport workers should not be used and abused by their employers, brought in for three hour shifts at a time and forced to sleep on dirty floors, behind baggage carousels. We are now calling on Aerocare to stop exploiting their workers and to pay them fair rates

The federal government must take notice of this judgment and change the rules that allowed it to happen in the first place. We have been flagging problems at this company for several years and government ministers instead of stepping to protect workers have sided with the company.

The union warns that safety and security are being compromised because of the practices of Aerocare with workers chronically fatigued and turnover rates among staff sky-high and is demanding that the Morrison government hold companies in the airport supply chain to account for labour practices, including the airports and airlines at the top which profit from companies like Aerocare.

Aerocare has been exposed over degrading conditions for workers, broken equipment, and security breaches.

Records from Sydney International Airport show 132 injuries were reported over a one-year period, among an Aerocare workforce of just 324. At Perth Airport passengers were allowed unsupervised onto a secure airside area to collect their own baggage when one Aerocare employee was made to unload an aircraft alone.

An analysis by the TWU shows Aerocare pays its workers up to $1,000 per month below the award minimum.

Aerocare workers are guaranteed just 60 hours per month, with no weekly guarantees of hours. The company has even admitted in communications to employees to paying less than the minimum rate on Christmas Day and at Easter.

In addition to high injury rates and safety and security breaches, Aerocare staff report being forced back to work while still injured. Aerocare managers accompany injured staff into doctors surgeries during appointments.

Swissport, which bought Aerocare last year and which is owned by indebted Chinese conglomerate HNA, had revenues of $4.5 billion in 2017.

Australias four major airports  Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane  reported a record-breaking over $2 billion profit according to Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions annual Airport Monitoring Report.
(CNS Photo)

China plans to launch its third Long March-5 large carrier rocket in July, said Yang Baohua, vice president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) on Tuesday.

The second Long March-5 rocket was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in the southern province of Hainan on July 2, 2017, but a malfunction happened less than six minutes after its liftoff.

Yang said at a press conference of the CASC that the cause of the failure has been found.

Analysis based on computer simulations and ground tests showed that a problem occurred in a turbine exhaust device in the engine of the first stage of the rocket, the China National Space Administration said earlier last year.

The Long March-5 rocket will be the key for China's future space missions, said Shang Zhi, director of the Department of Space under CASC.

If the third flight is successful, the fourth Long March-5 carrier rocket will be tasked to send the Chang'e-5 lunar probe to the moon to bring lunar samples back to Earth at the end of 2019, according to Yang.

In addition, a test version of the Long March-5B carrier rocket, which will serve China's manned space exploration mission, is under development, and the research and development of the core module of the country's space station have carried on as planned, said Shang.

The Long March-5B rocket, with a low-Earth orbit with a carrying capacity greater than 22 tonnes, will be used to launch the core module and experiment modules of China's space station in the future.

Joint tests and exercises will be carried out in the Wenchang Space Launch Center at the end of 2019 to make preparations for the maiden flight of the Long March-5B, which will help lay the groundwork for the construction of the space station, Shang said.
Snagging a seat for a performance of "Hamilton" is tough enough, and it can be wildly expensive even if you do actually make it to the payment screen.

But this season, when the modern take on the story of Alexander Hamilton appears at the Orpheum again, SHN is offering an alternative: Take part in the digital lottery, and you could wind up paying just $10 to see the show.
The worlds most common digital habit is not easy to break. Although four in 10 Facebook users say they have taken long breaks from it, a recent study found that the average user would have to be paid $1,000 to $2,000 to be pried away for a year.

So what happens if you actually do quit? A new study, the most comprehensive to date, offers a preview: More in-person time with friends and family. Less political knowledge, but also less partisan fever. A small bump in ones daily moods and life satisfaction. And an extra hour a day of downtime.

The study, by researchers at Stanford University and New York University, helps clarify the ceaseless debate over Facebooks influence on its users. The study was posted recently on the Social Science Research Network.

For me, Facebook is one of those compulsive things, said Aaron Kelly, 23, a college student in Wisconsin. Its really useful, but I always felt like I was wasting time on it, distracting myself from study, using it whenever I got bored.

Kelly took part in the study because it was kind of nice to have an excuse to deactivate and see what happened, he said.

The new study, a randomized trial financed principally by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, sketches out a portrait of daily use that is unlikely to satisfy either critics or supporters of the platform.

A Facebook press officer said: This is one study of many on this topic, and it should be considered that way. The companys statement quoted from the study itself, which noted that Facebook produces large benefits for its users.

The researchers  led by Hunt Allcott, an associate professor of economics at NYU, and Matthew Gentzkow, a Stanford economist  used Facebook ads to recruit participants over age 18 who spent at least 15 minutes on the platform each day; the daily average was an hour, with heavy users logging two to three hours, or more.

Nearly 3,000 users agreed and filled out extensive questionnaires, which asked about their daily routines, political views and general state of mind.

Half the users were randomly assigned to deactivate their Facebook accounts for a month, in exchange for payment. The price point for that payment was itself of great interest to the researchers: How much is a months access worth? On average, about $100, the study found, which is in line with previous analyses.

Some participants said that they had not appreciated the benefits of the platform until they had shut it down. What I missed was my connections to people, of course, but also streaming events on Facebook Live, politics especially, when you know youre watching with people interested in the same thing, said Connie Graves, 56, a professional home health aide in Texas, and a study subject.

When the month was over, the quitters and control subjects again filled out extensive surveys that assessed changes in their state of mind, political awareness and partisan passion, as well as the ebb and flow of their daily activities, since the experiment began.

For abstainers, breaking up with Facebook freed up about an hour a day, on average, and more than twice that for the heaviest users. They also reported spending more time offline, including with friends and family, or watching TV.

I would have expected more substitution from Facebook to other digital things  Twitter, Snapchat, online browsing, said Gentzkow. That didnt happen, and for me, at least, it was a surprise.

On tests of political knowledge, the abstainers scored a few points lower than they did before deactivating their accounts. The political-knowledge findings suggest that Facebook is an important source of news that people pay attention to, said David Lazer, a professor of political science and computer and information science at Northeastern University.

Scores on several measures of political polarization were mixed, although one scale, called polarization on issues, dropped for the abstainers by 5 percent to 10 percent, whereas the control group remained the same. Reduced knowledge, in short, may blunt partisanship, although this relationship is far from clear.

The most striking result from the study may be that deactivating Facebook had a positive but small effect on peoples moods and life satisfaction. The finding tempers the widely held presumption that habitual social-media use causes real psychological distress.

For instance, research has found that high levels of passive browsing on social media predict lowered moods, compared to more active engagement. But previous research could not discern whether mood problems followed heavy usage, or moody people tended to be the heaviest users. The new study supported the latter explanation.

If heavy Facebook use caused mood problems, the researchers would have expected to see the moods of heavy users improve by a greater amount relative to lightweight users. But that didnt happen, which suggested that the heavy users were moody before they were sucked deeply into Facebook.

Ethan Kross, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said that it was too early to draw hard conclusions on the psychological effects of quitting Facebook. He pointed to two recent studies that found users moods lifted when their access to social media was restricted.

After the monthlong study ended, the researchers asked the abstainers how much they would need to be paid to stay off Facebook for another month, hypothetically. This time, the price point dropped below $100.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Every Wednesday morning, SFGATE finds the biggest headlines in local (and sometimes national) beer. Check back here weekly for news, events, and information about special releases from your favorite local breweries.

Missing a beer newsletter in your inbox every other week? SFGATE is bringing it back in a whole new format. And this time, it has a new title: The Mash. If you were previously signed up for the Taploid, you will receive the new newsletter; if not, you can sign up for it here.

Ready for San Francisco Beer Week? This Friday, February 1, 2019, it finally arrives.

Beer yoga, anyone? Plan your week with Esther Mobley's event guide, or build your own plan at the San Francisco Beer Week scheduler.

Who should you look out for this year? Other than your dependable faves, keep an eye out for these five local up-and-comers at events around the Bay.

One surefire brewery making the rounds this year is Monterey's Alvarado Street Brewery. Learn a bit more about their history, their explosive growth, and their blossoming mixed-fermentation project in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Yeast of Eden.

It's true that craft beer growth nationwide is beginning to slow down, but what does that mean for Bay Area breweries? Mobley weighs in on the state of local beer in 2019.

Your writer here will be hosting a panel of womxn in the beer industry on Wednesday, February 6 at Temescal Brewing's location on 4th Street in Oakland. Come by to hear industry experts in "a spirited discussion on the state of craft beer." It's free to attend, and yes, there will be beer.

Ready for Pliny season? Here's where to get the coveted Russian River triple IPA this year, based on who's received it in the past.

In non-beer week news, two local breweries landed on RateBeer's list of best breweries in the world. Congrats to Santa Rosa's Russian River Brewing (No. 2) and Capitola's Sante Adairius Rustic Ales (No. 10) on claiming their respective titles.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.


Stock recipes are personal. A stock in many ways is a reflection of you, where youve been and where youve lived: a pot of water slowly infused over time and flavored by your life experiences.

The applications might be familiar, but the creation of a stock reflects its land, region and people. A recipe for a stock can be a highly guarded treasure, handed down in families through generations. And one might argue rightly so, because a stock is the building block to many dishes. A stock can become a clear French consomme, or it could form the base of Vietnamese pho in which noodles and thin shavings of tripe might be served. It might be used to maintain humidity and bump up the flavor in a roasted chicken or used to braise a cabbage in a pot. The applications are endless, which makes stock recipes an invaluable asset of any kitchen.

My uncle worked at a famous hotel in Bombay (Mumbai), India. He once told me about the stocks prepared by the chefs behind the closed doors of the kitchen: large pots simmering endlessly on the stoves with one or two younger chefs tasked with ensuring the stock was always ready to go. Carcasses of bones and chopped vegetables would go into these enormous pots that they would cook for hours, until the bones would break and crumble to the bottoms, allowing the marrow to escape into the water.

I find the nuances of stocks across cuisines to be quite beautiful. For example, celebrated cookbook author Andrea Nguyen (Vietnamese Food Any Day 2019, Ten Speed Press) makes her chicken pho stock with the subtle yet elegant notes of ginger, onion, cilantro sprigs, coriander seeds and cloves.

In high school, I would visit a friends house for delicious Thai food. His mother grew up in Thailand and her chicken broth was infused with a few makrut lime leaves; that citrusy component would make all the difference in the world.

My own version of chicken stock is a bit different than what you might see elsewhere. I start with olive oil (though my grandmother would use a bit of ghee or butter). I like to brown the chicken on the skin side to add a bit of complexity to the flavor. My preference is for a highly aromatic stew, so I use spices like cinnamon, green cardamom and cloves. This stock still carries a strong chicken flavor so it can make something as simple as boiled rice flavorful, or it can make a delightful broth for my alphabet noodle soup on a cold winter night.

Nik Sharmas first solo cookbook is Season (Chronicle Books). Email: food@sfchronicle.com

Recipe: My Chicken Stock

This is the stock I freeze in batches and keep on hand to add to my rice-based pilafs and biryanis, couscous, braises, roasts and my soups, stews and curries. This stock is fragrant and a bit unconventional in the way its prepared; it requires you to saute the spices to draw out their flavors in the oil.

Makes about 1 gallon

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, cut into pieces with bones and skin left on

10 black peppercorns

10 cloves

4 cardamom pods, crushed

3 bay leaves, fresh or dried

1 cinnamon stick

1 garlic head

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1 large onion, peeled and quartered

12 strands of saffron (optional)

3 large carrots, peeled and quartered

3 celery stalks, quartered

1 gallon cold water

Instructions: Heat a large stockpot or Dutch oven on medium-high heat, and once its hot add the olive oil. Sear the chicken pieces on each side for about 4 minutes to get a golden crust, and then transfer them to a plate.

Reduce heat to low. Add the peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, bay leaves and cinnamon stick and cook for 45 seconds until you start to smell their aroma. Remove most of the outer paper from the garlic head and cut it in half widthwise . Put the garlic into the stockpot, cut side down and cook for 1 minute, stirring occasionally.

Add the onion and saute for 1 minute. Add the saffron if using, and stir in the carrots and celery. Cover the stockpot with a lid and let it cook for 2 minutes. Then return to the stockpot the chicken with any liquids that might have been released. Add the water, cover with a lid and cook on a low simmer for 2 hours.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors retroactively approved an $82 million contract for the Tenderloin Housing Clinic on Tuesday  and increased it by $35 million  despite the fact that the original contract failed to go through the proper legislative approval process twice since 2014.

In 2014, the citys Human Services Agency entered a $74 million grant agreement with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which provides housing, legal and supportive services for the formerly homeless in the Tenderloin, South of Market and Mission neighborhoods. After the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing was created in 2016, it took over the agreement and a year later increased the grant amount by $7.7 million.

Such contracts require approval by the Board of Supervisors, which both the agency and the homelessness department failed to secure in 2014 and 2017. Still, on Tuesday, the department asked the board to extend the contract until June 30, 2020, and increase it to $117 million. The board approved the request 8-3, with Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen and Norman Yee dissenting.

Peskin said his no vote was more about showing that city agencies cannot get away with such carelessness, rather than a desire to deny the contract.

I cannot condone this reprehensible behavior wherein the department illegally entered into a contract without required approvals or public oversight, Peskin said.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Jeff Kositsky, director of the homelessness department, said it inherited the improper contract in 2016. When it was up for renewal and the department brought it to the board, staff realized the contract was out of compliance.

We take seriously the accountability and compliance around contracting, and will continue to work to ensure that were following all city guidelines, he said.

A representative for the Human Services Agency could not be reached Tuesday evening.

Also at Tuesdays meeting, the board unanimously voted to ban new offices from occupying the first three floors in Union Square buildings.

The ordinance, sponsored by Peskin, is an attempt to keep the historic shopping mecca from becoming overrun with desks and computers, as demand for traditional brick-and-mortar retail dwindles.

Non-retail sales and services will be prohibited on floors one through three in Union Square if it is not open to the general public. Office space will only be allowed on floors four through six if the tenant occupies less than 5,000 square feet. Offices would be allowed on floors seven and above.

Peskin also introduced legislation that would make San Francisco the first city in the country to ban city agencies from using facial recognition software, including using that technology to analyze surveillance camera footage. The proposal would also require the board to approve any new surveillance technology used by government entities  echoing similar legislation in Oakland, Davis, Berkeley and the BART system.

The board also recommended that the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control deny a liquor license application from the Museum of Ice Cream  an Instagram-friendly venue for adults and children.

The business, located at 1 Grant Ave., wants to serve alcohol between 9 a.m. and 12 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday, and 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. It applied for a Type 42 license, which allows for the sale of beer and wine on the premises.

But the board ultimately decided that such service would not serve the public convenience or necessity in San Francisco.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday that he wont run for president, a decision that could help fellow Californian Sen. Kamala Harris in the states primary next year.

Garcetti had made all the moves of a potential presidential candidate over the past year, short of publishing a memoir. He traveled to early primary states and raised tens of thousands of dollars for candidates there. And he drew raves in some quarters this month for helping to expedite the end of the Los Angeles teachers strike.

But on Tuesday, Garcetti, 47, said he realized that being mayor is what I am meant to do.

The main beneficiary could be Harris, who is now likely to be the only big-name Californian on the states primary ballot.

Since Californias primary will be held on March 3, 2020  far earlier in than in many past election cycles  it could have an outsized impact on whom the partys nominee will be.

Its always easy to be the favorite daughter when theres no favorite son, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego and author of The New Political Geography of California.

If I were Kamala, Id be giddy, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a retired professor of public policy communication at the University of Southern California. Among other things, Harris and Garcetti were hitting a lot of the same Democratic donors, she said.

Garcettis absence now opens up Southern California to all the other candidates, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

A candidate with a base of support in Southern California was a threat to all candidates, Sonenshein said. Many will now redouble their efforts in the greater L.A. area.

Garcetti said Harris well-received early start to her campaign had zero impact on his decision. Perhaps a bigger factor, said Jeffe and others: His White House campaign would have been dogged by the image of more than 50,000 homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles.

And when asked if hed be interested in the vice presidential slot, Garcetti quipped: I think Ive got a better job than that.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Some background to a disaster

In 1991 Tom Pearson spoke to local activist Pat Jackson about the destructive imposition by the government-backed cotton lobby into north-west NSW and south-west Queensland.

To put it in a nutshell, what it comes down to is only the cotton growers have the right to the water. Ive lived on the river for 26 years. You can see the river dying. And its not a pretty sight, Pat Jackson told the Guardian. Pat Jackson is a Mungindi (on the NSW-Qld border) resident. Mungindi is on the Barwon River, part of the Darling River system. Pat has been carrying out a long campaign to put a stop to the rivers pollution.

The whole of Australias river system is threatened.

After decades of abuse the land, and the river that nourishes it, is signalling yet another warning. The blue-green algae now spreading over Australias river system has set some alarm bells ringing in government offices around the country.

However, the algae is an effect - the result of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination from fertiliser. The cause runs much deeper.

If you travel through the rich black soil plains of north-west NSW to the centre of the algae bloom the most noticeable thing about the landscape is that it is almost completely cleared of bush. Sometimes only a few trees can be seen to the horizon, with this bareness emphasised by the drought.

Cotton growing is a glaring example of the connections that tie rural communities, workers and the use and abuse of the environment.

The workers, who chip weeds in between the rows of cotton, have to find places to live in Moree, 120 kilometres away. Sometimes there is rented accommodation, owned by the cotton growers. One such residence, near the now disused railway station, is a long weather-board building with a row of rooms, each with a door on either side and containing a few pieces of furniture. The workers are mostly young people, some with their families.

In Mungindi a man spoke of how he came to the town with his children about ten years before and took work cotton chipping. He had nowhere to live, so he and his children had to sleep in their car on the cotton property. They dont give a stuff about you, he said.

They dont care a stuff about the environment either.

Any alarm the townspeople may feel about the poisonous algae is tempered by anger. Since the cotton growers moved in and began buying land about a decade ago, their farming practices have polluted the river (the Barwon) and, inevitably, the wildlife.

Pat told the Guardian that the blame lay with the Water Resources departments in both NSW and Queensland. They have over-allocated irrigation licences (to farmers) and ... theyve allowed the tail waters (from irrigation) to run into the river.

Pat said that previously, whenever there were drought conditions, as the river went down, the water would gather in deep holes. So you didnt have these algae problems coming up. She said that phosphates had been going into the river for a long time, There were cases of green algae, but because of the deep holes they were isolated.

She said the main disaster for the river was through irrigation, the water resources departments over-allocation of water supply to farmers, which has kept the river level down while the irrigation washed the silt back into it, which silted up the deep holes.

However, the thousand-kilometres of river covered with the algae is only the tip of the iceberg. Fish kills  hundreds of fish dying at the one time  have been taking place in the Barwon and throughout the irrigation area for about ten years.

They were always put down to natural causes  gum leaves in the river, lack of oxygen  and every time we took a sample of the water to be analysed we were always told that the sample was no good, always our mistake.

Early in 1989 there was a big fish kill. We had delved into how to take samples properly, the right equipment and so on, and then there was this major fish kill. We got the samples, they were taken right, they were tested by government and it proved that the chemicals were in the water.

The tests revealed the chemical endosulphan, a pesticide used on cotton.

If we get a flood or some rain all it will do is wash this lot out. As soon as this lot is gone, the river will bring it up again. They must stop the causes. They must put a two-mile buffer zone along the river. There must be compulsory re-planting of the gum trees. All the irrigation water must be stopped from running into the river.

The small border town of Mungindi is one example of the consequences of years of the unfettered operations of agri-business which governments have been unwilling to take on.

The government must have a conservation program and enforce it to the letter. This would include reforestation and, as Pat Jackson suggested, a buffer zone along the rivers.

Australias water supplies are scarce enough. They must be safeguarded.
Democrats are renewing their efforts to eradicate all California Republicans from Congress, targeting two more GOP representatives for 2020.

Reps. Devin Nunes of Tulare and Duncan Hunter of Alpine (San Diego County) are on the way-too-early list of 33 Republican House members that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is looking to unseat.

Last year, when Republicans lost seven California seats and 40 across the nation, was just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, chair of the Democratic committee, said in a memo released Monday. By putting our plans in motion earlier in the cycle than ever before, we are demonstrating to Democrats across the country that the political arm of House Democrats is operating in high gear from the start.

The committees announcement at this point does little more than point out vulnerable Republicans. But as the election gets closer, Democratic challengers in those districts could get money from both the party and independent groups that lean their way.

There are plenty of reasons for California Democrats to feel confident. The 65 percent turnout in November was the highest for a midterm since 1982, and that number is likely to grow significantly for the 2020 presidential election.

In deep-blue California, more voters means more Democrats, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the nonpartisan Political Data Inc., which collects information on voting behavior for political groups across the state.

The 2018 midterm was obviously a wave (for Democrats), but it might have been a precursor of a bigger 2020 wave and not an aberration, Mitchell said. They still have room to grow.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

Then theres the Trump factor. Presidential elections typically bring out more voters than midterm contests, and with President Trump on the top of the ballot, thats not likely to be good news for the GOP in California.

A December poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 61 percent of likely voters, including 83 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of independent voters, disapproved of the job Trump was doing as president.

Polling during the last election cycle showed a big reason for the high turnout was Trump, Mitchell said. And even without Trumps name on the ticket, unhappiness with the president was a major factor in GOP losses throughout the state.

With Trump in full cry on the campaign trail, Republican candidates in California will find themselves hard-pressed to ignore the president and his policies, even if they are unpopular in the state.

And for candidates like Nunes, who has tied himself tightly to the president, their fate could depend on Trump.

But in California, Democrats could be a victim of their own success. With an overwhelming 46-7 margin in the states congressional delegation, Democrats have grabbed not only the low-hanging fruit, but also everything but that at the tip-top of the political tree.

Nunes and Hunter faced the toughest challenges in 2018, which is why they made the Democratic target list. But they both still won.

Despite massive spending by Democrats, Nunes beat Democrat Andrew Janz, 53 percent to 47 percent, in his Central Valley district, where Republicans have a 40 percent to 32 percent registration advantage.

In Southern California, Hunter barely squeezed by little-known Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who already has announced hell seek a rematch in 2020. But theres no guarantee Hunter will be the opponent.

Hunter, who along with his wife is facing trial on federal charges relating to misuse of campaign funds, is a GOP target as well. Matt Rahn, the mayor of Temecula (Riverside County), already has announced that hell challenge Hunter. The list of Republican contenders will probably grow.

The five other Republican House members in California easily won re-election in strong GOP districts and are well-positioned to withstand another Democrat onslaught next year.

That wont keep Democrats from trying, however, even as they also work to defend longtime GOP seats they won in November.

As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense, Bustos said in her memo.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
Upcoming political events in the Bay Area.

THURSDAY

Rep. Jared Huffman: North Bay Democratic congressman holds a town hall meeting. 7 p.m., Buck Institute for Research on Aging, 8001 Redwood Blvd., Novato. More information is here.

Carbon neutral: Can California go carbon neutral? A conversation with Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, and Greg Dalton of Climate One. $20 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $7 for students. 6:30 p.m. 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

FRIDAY

Rep. Ro Khanna: Fremont Democratic congressman holds a town hall meeting. Kennedy High School round room-theater, 7:30 p.m., 39999 Blacow Road, Fremont. RSVP and more information here.

Election postmortem: An assessment of the 2018 midterm elections in California. Hosted by UC Berkeleys Institute of Governmental Studies. Free. 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Sutardja Dai Hall, Banatao Auditorium, UC Berkeley. More information is here.

SUNDAY

Indivisible S.F.: General meeting. New members welcome. 1 p.m., the Womens Building, 3543 18th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

MONDAY

Jose Antonio Vargas: Journalist and activist discusses immigration reform and being undocumented in America. $6. 6:30 p.m. Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

TUESDAY

Segregation by Design: UC Merced political science Professor Jessica Trounstine discusses her book Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities. $5. 7 p.m., OMalley Hall, St. Kevins Catholic Church, 704 Cortland Ave., San Francisco. More information is here.

Government-engineered segregation: Richard Rothstein, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute and the Haas Institute at UC Berkeley, discusses his book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Free. 5 p.m., Touro University California, Lander Hall, Room B, 1557 Azuar Dr., Vallejo. More information is here.

WEDNESDAY

Robert Reich: Writer, public policy professor and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich discusses his new book, The Common Good, in a benefit for KPFA-FM. $12 advance tickets. First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. More information is here.

Chris Christie: Former GOP governor of New Jersey discusses his new book, Let Me Finish, and his relationship with President Trump. $30 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $10 for students. 6:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

Stacey Abrams campaign: Ashley Robinson, political director of Stacey Abrams campaign for Georgia governor, and Genny Castillo, director of the campaigns Latinx constituency efforts, discuss the lessons they learned and how to engage people of color in the political process. Sponsored by Democracy Labs. Free. 6:30 p.m. at Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

FEB. 7

2020 groundwork: Planning for progressive voter registration drive in advance of next years elections. 4:30-7:30 p.m., Carpenters Local Union, 647 Lindaro St., San Rafael. More information is here.

FEB. 9

Red-blue workshop: A workshop designed to bring conservatives and liberals together for a day that of structured conversations, with a focus on listening and reflecting rather than debating and persuading. Sponsored by the Better Angels Alliance of San Francisco. Free. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., 101 Lombard St., San Francisco. More information is here.

Creating a peaceful school: A conference on supporting youth. Keynote speaker is Lauren Markham, auhor and community school program manager at Oakland International High School. Sponsored by Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center. $50, $10 for students. 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 1035 Carol Lane, Lafayette. More information is here.

FEB. 11

Women, ritual and ecology in India: A discussion with Vandana Shiva, an Indian scholar, environmental activist and food sovereignty advocate, and Vijaya Nagarajan, an associate professor in the theology/religious studies department and environmental studies program at the University of San Francisco. Benefit for KPFA-FM. $12. 7:30 p.m. First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. More information is here.

FEB. 12

Criminal justice reform: Jessica Jackson, national director and co-founder of #Cut50, discusses the newly enacted federal criminal justice reform legislation. Sponsored by the American Constitution Society, Bay Area chapter. Free. 6 p.m., Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

Sisters in Crime: Panel discussion featuring suspense author JoAnn Ainsworth, Asian art scholar Nancy Tingley, scriptwriter Diana Chambers, gender studies Professor Emerita Judith Newton and noir writer Andrew MacRae. Benefit for the Sunnyvale-Cupertino chapter of the American Association of University Women. $15. 7 p.m., Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church, Soule Hall, 728 Fremont Ave., Sunnyvale. More information is here.

FEB. 13

New citizen voting: Democracy Action volunteers will register new citizens to vote following swearing-in ceremonies. Two sessions, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. More information is here.

FEB. 14

Ben Rosenfield: San Franciscos controller discusses city finances. Free. 6:30 p.m. Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

FEB. 21

Gloria Steinem: Feminist leader in conversation with Favianna Rodriguez, moderated by Lauren Schiller. $20. 7 p.m., Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco. More information is here.

FEB. 23

State Sen. Scott Wiener: San Francisco legislator holds a town hall meeting in the Richmond District. Noon, Richmond Recreation Center, 251 18th Ave., San Francisco. More information is here.

Black History Month discussion: San Francisco workers organizing against racist and sexist harassment on their jobs speak out, including Brenda Barros, SEIU 2021 chapter president; representatives of Erase Racism and Strength in Numbers, a worker-led Water Department group; and plumber Amy Gray-Schlink, with the Freedom Socialist Party. 1 p.m. lunch, 2:30 p.m. program. Door donation $3-$5, lunch donation $10. New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk St., San Francisco. More information is here.

FEB. 25

New Cold War: A discussion of the new conflicts between the United States and Russia, with Russia scholar Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation magazine. Benefit for KPFA-FM. $12. First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. More information is here.

MARCH 6

Podcast Club: Like a book club, only with podcasts. The Ballot, a group for women who want to make a political change, will release a mix of political, fun, satirical and intellectually stimulating podcasts in advance for discussion. Free. 7 p.m., Mannys, 3092 Mission St., San Francisco. More information is here.

MARCH 13

Andrew McCabe: Former FBI deputy director speaks at the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon, 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

To list an event, email Politics Editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle.com
A federal judge overseeing PG&Es criminal probation should appoint a court receiver to take over PG&Es operations. Just as an inmate loses control of decision-making while in prison, PG&E Corp. and its utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should lose the authority to make operational and financial decisions. A receiver, who could make those decisions and have the power to replace corporate board members and senior executives, would give the corporation and its subsidiary a chance to change course.

If weve learned anything over the past few years, its that we cannot trust the corporations management with the responsibility for this vital service.

Such an action will give PG&E customers what we want and need: to keep the lights on, to keep electric rates affordable and to keep California on the path to 100 percent renewable energy. The system of oversight by the California Public Utilities Commission clearly hasnt been enough to do that, and PG&Es bankruptcy strategy certainly wont.

Unlike federal bankruptcy court, where the focus is creditors, criminal court could exert enormous power over critical safety operations at PG&E. It could focus the companys attention on customers.

In a proposed order imposing new controls over PG&Es safety inspections, U.S. District Judge William Alsup attempts to do just that, citing as evidence that PG&E has violated the terms of its probation:

The falsification of thousands of inspection records of gas pipeline during the past four years and,

Findings by California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in 12 different wildfires that PG&E should be criminally prosecuted.

Violating probation is pretty serious business. Most criminals who get caught committing another crime are likely to serve the remainder of their probation behind bars. Most criminals that is unless you are a corporation like, say, PG&E. What is the best way to stop a repeat offender when you cant put a corporation in jail?

Judge Alsup would require PG&E to inspect its entire electrical grid between now and June, and to turn off power to a service area if the company cant show the lines are safe.

While theres a lot to like in the judges proposal, the final order will probably take into account the difficulty of rushing inspections of thousands of miles of poles and wires, the environmental harm of giving PG&E license to cut down trees without restraint, and the public safety threat of blackouts for people who depend on electricity for life-saving medical equipment.

The judges message to the company however is clear: Take responsibility for running your system safely in accordance with our states laws and climate goals.

And yet, something important is missing. While we may not be able to put a corporation in prison, we can deprive a corporate criminal of many privileges.

In order to protect the public, deter similar wrongs by other utilities, and aid in the rehabilitation of the offender, the court could also:

 Prohibit PG&E from making campaign contributions. Just as prisoners lose political rights, PG&E should lose the privilege of using its profits to influence elections and purchase political good will.

 Suspend PG&E from lobbying at the state Capitol. Again, like a prisoner denied the vote, PG&E, if convicted of lying to federal authorities, should not be allowed to register lobbyists. Besides, wouldnt the $9 million spent on lobbying expenses in 2018 have been better spent by inspecting more power lines?

While it may not be physically possible to jail a corporation, the tepid sanctions to date have clearly failed to get the attention of PG&Es board of directors and top management. Its high time to treat the company like the recidivist it is.

Customers are crying out for relief from the threat of PG&Es negligence and its costs, and should continue to do so. While ratepayers may not have a formal role in these legal proceedings, our interests and our safety should be at the forefront in any venue. We are the ones with the most at stake.

Mark Toney is executive director of TURN, The Utility Reform Network, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for fair rates and safe, reliable utility service in California.
Every president is entitled to a handpicked crew of intelligence advisers, the team composed to provide unvarnished advice on global trouble spots. President Trump is no different, naming top leaders to the FBI, CIA and national security agencies. Their collected advice may be flawed or doubtful, but it should be taken seriously.

In the latest case, it amounts to warnings that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons and Iran hasnt restarted similar weapons work, ended earlier by an agreement led by the United States.

Neither declaration is going down well with Trump, who denounced the assessments as passive and naive in a shin-kicking tweet. Hes furious, because his appointees arent acting like they should and chiming in with his worldview. Hes headlined his dealings with North Koreas leader as offering a decent chance of Denuclearization and is looking forward to a second meeting amid growing doubts. His intelligence team is directly contradicting this rosy view.

On Iran, the president denounced the Obama-era agreement that tied an end to nuclear weapons work with eased sanctions. He ended the deal, saying it was flawed and too weak to rein in Tehran from bomb development. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school, he suggested in another insulting tweet. Yet theres no sign, for now, that Iran is restarting weapons work, according to security officials, who included FBI head Chris Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats.

Sorry Mr. President, but Washingtons top spies, the ones you put in charge, arent buying it. Their list of disputed findings goes on. The Islamic State, which Trump has declared all but eradicated, is still a potent force in Iraq and Syria. Declaring victory is a dangerous stretch.

More generally, the intelligence report found that Russia and China were major concerns as each poured resources into technology and military budgets to counter U.S. interests. Cyberattacks, online influence efforts and data sifting are all danger points, according to the top officials.

Left out of the 2019 threat assessment, an annual document that describes security worries in broad terms, was the border wall. That barrier is constantly described by the president as a security necessity to protect the nation from drugs and crime. There was no mention of that thought in the minds of intelligence leaders.

Missing also in the list of problem areas is Venezuela, which has jumped from perennial sore spot to full-on trouble as its economy disintegrates and government fractures. The White House has moved quickly  and rightly  to shore up opposition leader Juan Guaido by imposing sanctions on oil imports, giving him control of government deposits here, and recognizing him as the countrys ruler. Its all aimed at pushing Nicolas Maduro from power after his disastrous and despotic rule.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
Michael Macor/ The Chronicle. 2004

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is officially protecting its slender fortunes by filing for bankruptcy, a legal limbo land that isnt pleasing its circle of stakeholders. While the utility plots a course forward, consumers, wildfire victims and investors are preparing for a legal battle that could run possibly for years.

The intervening steps are worth watching. The bankruptcy process has the potential to greatly change the utilitys operations and commitments. Depending on a judges rulings, PG&E could be shielded from liability payments to wildfire victims, cancel renewable energy promises vital to clean energy programs or be allowed to raise electric rates. The giant company, Californias largest private utility, might also be chopped into smaller units, a possibility that pleases some consumer groups but angers the labor union representing some 12,000 employees.
In theory, the Brew Coop could be a beer fans dream situation.

The bar, or self-pour taproom, as owner Gore Song describes it, lets you fill your own glass from any of 21 different beer taps  or a few more offering cider, kombucha, sake and wine. You can try an inch or a pint, watch whatever game is on, then try another.

Its more of a tasting experience, Song explained to a group of hesitant newcomers who arrived shortly after I did one evening. Song, who opened the Valencia Street spot this month, says he was inspired by a self-pour bar in Prague that he visited six years ago, but the model seems custom-fit for San Franciscos tight labor market today.

Heres how it works: When you enter the Brew Coop, you start a tab by exchanging cash or a credit card for a plastic payment card, then proceed to the neon lights reading BEER YOURSELF. Youre the bartender. Activate the tap by sliding your payment card into a slot above your chosen brew, then pour as much as youd like. (Prices appear when you insert the card, before you start pouring.) The card tracks every ounce you pour, spitting out a long receipt at the register before you leave.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

The setup feels unfamiliar. At most bars, you know what to do: Pull up a seat, exchange pleasantries with the barkeep, and choose a drink. If its not too crowded, you might linger over your pint and talk about your neighborhood, whats on TV, what you do for a living. Theres often music, a feeling of being somewhere cooler than your kitchen table. You might be rooting for the same team as everyone in the room, or you might give your barstool neighbor a hard time about their starting lineup.

That human exchange matters. We can drink at home, but bars invite us to be together, to drink well with others.

If were just here for the beer, then the beer better be damn good. And thats where Brew Coop doesnt live up to its promise as an innovative tasting experience.

About half of the list comes from local breweries, including HenHouses Stoked on Mosaic Pale Ale, Standard Deviants hefeweizen, Social Kitchens pilsner, and Seven Stills hazy IPA, with the rest filled in with familiar choices like Allagash White and Ballast Points Grapefruit Sculpin. The taps are arranged by general style  hoppy, lighter, malty, tart.

On my first visit, I spent $1.05 on 1.981 ounces of Johnny Utah Pale Ale from Seattles Georgetown Brewing Co., and $4.66 on 7.767 ounces of a hazy IPA from Black Hammer Brewing in San Francisco. The self-serve process draws your attention to the cost of every sip, but the prices arent really egregious for todays Valencia Street: That IPA, at 60 cents an ounce, comes out to $7.20 for a 12-ounce pour.

Song, who most recently worked as the manager and beer buyer at Soda Popinskis, will offer beer recommendations if you ask, but in general, customers take the reins here, learning what they like by tasting, not talking. Youre unlikely to stand around near the wall having a long conversation about dry hopping. Song hopes the setup will feel accessible to intimidated beginners who might not have tasted the products of many different breweries before.

But more than any other bar Ive been to in recent years, Ive found that people need a simile to wrap their heads around the Brew Coop.

One friend tried to follow the operating instructions, then exclaimed: Oh! Its like a gas station, but with beer! She sprang to the taps, her eyes widening as the ounces  and dollars  rolled up.

When I proposed this review, my editor asked if the system was something like the soda station at a McDonalds. On one hand, the Brew Coop seems to inspire a similar glee. The bars fans on Yelp crow about their suicide concoctions  mixes of every beer on the back wall in one (full) glass. Im not sure I have the patience to insert the payment card into the slot above each collection of taps more than 10 times in a row, so I havent tried it. Also: gross.

Rest assured, the tap area is significantly less sticky than your standard soda machine, though some achievement-oriented patrons do run up their tabs tasting their way through, leaving a pool of discarded beer in the drain that spans the spouts.

Brew Coop feels less like a taproom than like the basement rec room  or converted cafeteria  in a college dorm, the cement floors crammed with unadorned tables and benches. Its not a very comfortable place to watch a game, though Song installed so many flat screens that theres barely more than a foot between them. (Man, you guys need more TVs, snarked a customer who arrived shortly after I did.)

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

My fellow professional barfly Camper English of the Alcademics blog summed up the experience in a tweet as being akin to drinking beer in the TV department of Best Buy. Theyve adjusted the lighting in recent weeks, which helps, but he has a point.

On a recent Monday, there wasnt a game on the docket, but several tables of drinkers were raptly following the closed captions as former linebacker Colton Underwood practiced his tongue kiss on The Bachelor. Some watchers drank the white wine, a generic California Chardonnay; others liked Holy Craft Brewing Co.s slightly tart yuzu-tinged Japanese rice lager.

My tablemates had given up on trying different options, though, finding that theyd already sampled many of the beers on tap elsewhere.

Most drinkers these days  even those who consider themselves beginners  dont need to sample an ounce of Lagunitas IPA or Firestones 805 Blonde. Most people who have been to a bar in San Francisco have already tried Speakeasys Baby Daddy at least once. If Song would diversify, focusing more of the list on rare options and new releases not often poured elsewhere, the Brew Coop could be a destination for beer lovers  or a spot that could encourage newbies to care about beer.

Otherwise, Id just as soon fill er up somewhere else.

More Information To order: Founders Porter; Far West Cider's You've Guava Be Kidding Me. Available beers are always in flux and cost 48 cents to 84 cents per ounce. Where: The Brew Coop, 819 Valencia St., S.F. www.thebrewcoop.com When: 4-11 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Super Bowl reservations for groups can be made via the website. See More Collapse

Maggie Hoffman is the author of The One-Bottle Cocktail. Her new book, Batch Cocktails: Make-Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every Occasion, comes out in March. Email: food@sfchronicle.com
A Tunisian national accused of raping an intoxicated woman in San Francisco after picking her up while driving for Uber pleaded not guilty to two felony charges Wednesday during his arraignment.

Mohamed Ben Azaza, 39, was extradited this week to the United States from Canada following an unusual request by Department of Homeland Security officials, who asked San Francisco to make an exception to its sanctuary city policy.

But without explanation, Homeland Security backed off from its request before members of the Board of Supervisors even voted on whether to relax the city policy that limits communication between law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Homeland Security officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Azaza had a U.S. green card before he was arrested over the summer in Canada on a no-bail warrant out of San Francisco, according to court records. He was booked in San Francisco jail early Tuesday without bail on felony charges of rape by use of drugs, and rape of an unconscious person.

With assistance from an Arabic interpreter, Azaza stood quietly in San Francisco Superior Court, with his hands behind his back.

Hes innocent until hes proven guilty and well have a chance to present all the evidence that we have, and the DA will have a chance to present their evidence, Azazas privately hired defense attorney, Joseph Ryan, said after Wednesdays hearing.

The case began on Oct. 20, 2017, when the victim left a work party in Daly City after drinking several ounces of hard liquor, Assistant District Attorney Lili Nguyen wrote in a motion to detain Azaza without bail.

The womans colleagues used her phone to order an Uber to take her home to Pacifica. But around 10 a.m. the next morning, the woman woke up in a strangers bed, and her underwear and pants were pulled down to her ankles leaving her vagina and buttocks exposed, Nguyen wrote.

A man wearing red underwear was lying next to the woman and she could tell she had been raped, prosecutors said.

When the woman checked her Uber app, she discovered the man who had picked her up was the same man lying next to her, prosecutors said. She also noticed that Uber had charged her $150. The man next to her told her it was because you threw up in the back seat of my car, Nguyen said.

Earlier that morning around 6 a.m., prosecutors said the victims sister found the victims keys, purse, wallet and debit cards on the front doorstep of their home in Pacifica. She texted her sister and discovered she was at a home on Raymond Avenue in San Franciscos Visitacion Valley neighborhood, officials said.

When the sister got to the home, prosecutors said, the victim was outside and the two called 911 to report a rape. No officer was available, so they drove to Ingleside Station to report the incident.

The victim underwent a sexual assault examination at San Francisco General Hospital and investigators obtained a mans DNA profile and uploaded it to a federal database, prosecutors said.

Investigators then got a search warrant for Uber and identified Azaza as the suspected rapist. Police called him on March 7 and he denied ever having sex with a customer, adding that he was kicked off Uber when the cleaning fee was disputed, Nguyen said.

Azaza told police he drove the victim home that night, but she dropped her purse and came back to the car to ask him to take her back to San Francisco, according to court records; he continued to say that the woman asked to sleep in his car and in the morning he made her breakfast.

Police planned to meet with Azaza the next day so he could provide a DNA sample, but he never showed up, officials said. By March 21, his phone was out of service. On April 19, police obtained an arrest warrant and a DNA search warrant for Azaza, who had since moved out of his home on Raymond Avenue.

In June, the Central Warrants Bureau alerted police that Azaza had been arrested in Montreal. Authorities said Azaza was picked up after arriving from his native Tunisia, but he had lost his Tunisian passport, wallet and U.S. green card, Nguyen wrote.

Azaza is being held without bail. He is due back in San Francisco Superior Court on Feb. 8.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
The controversial police shooting of an unarmed black man nearly a year ago in Sacramento led the California Department of Justice on Tuesday to publish 49 recommendations for reforming use-of-force policies and training within the citys Police Department.

Among the proposals, the office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra urged police to establish a use-of-force review board, to require annual use-of-force training for all sworn staff and to ban problematic tactics like choke holds or shooting at moving vehicles.

At a Tuesday morning news conference in Sacramento, Becerra commended Police Chief Daniel Hahn for inviting the attorney generals office to review department protocols following the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old father of two.

This partnership can help create a police culture that demonstrates that effective policing and respectful policing go hand in hand, Becerra said.

Much of the 97-page report echoes the tone and framework of a report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice to the San Francisco Police Department following this citys own controversial police shootings, including the 2015 killing of Mario Woods. The state attorney generals office later stepped in to oversee the reforms.

Both reports recommend more regular use-of-force training, an end to officers shooting at moving vehicles and a greater commitment to de-escalation policies and protecting the sanctity of life.

The March 18, 2017, shooting of Clark sparked outrage and disruptive protests in Sacramento and beyond as details of the incident became public. Two Sacramento officers responding to reported auto break-ins followed Clark into his grandmothers backyard, where they fired 20 shots at him. The officers said they believed Clark was holding a gun, but officials found he was carrying a cell phone.

Tuesdays report did not focus on the shooting of Clark but rather offered a broad critique of the Sacramento Police Departments use-of-force policies. The state Department of Justice continues to oversee an investigation into Clarks death. A second and final leg of the agencys larger review will evaluate non-deadly use-of-force incidents, the officer discipline system and prevention of police bias, officials said.

The Sacramento Police Department is not interested in being good enough or narrowly complying with the laws and policies governing our work, Hahn said Tuesday. We continue to seek ways to be a leader in law enforcement. Thats why we invited the A.G. to examine our department from top to bottom.

The recommendations come on the heels of a wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in federal court on behalf of Clarks two sons, his parents and grandparents. The suit, which names the city of Sacramento and two officers as defendants, asks for $20 million in damages.The suit argues that Clark was racially profiled and the officers conducted an unreasonable search and seizure before using excessive force.

The suit names Terrence Mercadel and Jared Robinet as the officers who shot and killed Clark.

Prosecutors from the Sacramento County district attorneys office have not determined whether they will file criminal charges against the officers.

In a statement released Monday, prosecutors said they received further substantial investigative reports from the attorney generals investigators on Jan. 16, causing a delay in completing a review of the officers actions. The materials, officials said, come in addition to a voluminous investigative report the Sacramento Police Department provided to prosecutors on Oct. 25.

We will take whatever time is needed to ensure a fair, thorough and accurate review of this matter, officials said.

Prosecutors declined to comment further on the case, citing the pending review.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
The deadly storm this month that killed five people and brought flooding to parts of the Bay Area sparked a memory about one of the worst sets of winter downpours to hit Northern California: the storms of December 1981 and January 1982.

A trip to The Chronicles archive turned up dramatic photographs of flooding and mudslides from the early 1980s, as well as the stories of Bay Area residents whose lives were upended by Mother Nature.

The widespread flooding began six days before Christmas in 1981. A weekend storm sent the Russian River over its banks, cresting at 39 feet, the highest since 1955.

Dig deep into Chronicle Vault Like what you're reading? Subscribe to the Chronicle Vault newsletter, and get classic archive stories in your in-box twice a week. Read hundreds of historical stories, see thousands of archive photos, and sort through 153 years of classic Chronicle front pages at SFChronicle.com/vault. See More Collapse

We saved the Christmas tree and our clothes, Ellie Palin told reporter Paul Liberatore. Palin, a single mother of two kids, came home from dinner to find she had to wade into her home. This is the first time this has happened to me. I dont even know how to get mud out of a house.

But the big assault hit on Jan. 4, 1982, when a storm dumped buckets of rain around the Bay Area. Kentfield was the worst hit with 13 inches, but much of the region saw more than 6 inches in only two days.

Mudslides soon followed. One of the houses swept away by a wall of mud was the home of Don and Marianne Hopkins.

Everything we had was in our house, Marianne told The Chronicle. I think we have been destroyed financially, but we were lucky to get out alive.

A family in Pacifica was not so lucky. About 11 p.m., the hillside 400 feet above let loose with a roar, swept into a two-story house ... tore it from its foundation, Chronicle reporters Don Wegars and Michael Greig wrote.

Rescuers spent 21 hours carefully clearing away debris from the top of what was left of the house on Oddstad Boulevard.

We had to dig carefully by hand, Pacifica Fire Chief Cal Hinton told The Chronicle. We didnt want to hurt the children. When it was determined that the children had been buried under the house, a giant crane was called in.

Mudslides also cut off roads in Marin County for two days. California Highway Patrol officers set up a roadblock at the Golden Gate Bridge, turning around drivers who could not prove they lived south of Corte Madera. A mudslide at the Waldo Grade crashed onto the 101 that Monday evening, and cleanup crews had to wait until daylight. Flooding also closed the highway from Candlestick Park to Burlingame.

Marin commuters took to the ferries  which ran the largest number of boats in more than 40 years on the Wednesday after the storm.

The ferries saved me, one commuter told The Chronicles Carl Nolte. We wont hear any more talk about abandoning the ferry system after this.

Shouldnt forecasters have seen such a huge storm coming? Richard Wagoner, the chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Northern California, bristled slightly as he told science correspondent Charles Petit that wasnt the case.

If you measure all the things there are to measure, there just isnt anything unusual about this storm.

This punk storm had no business raining like that, another forecaster in the office said.

By the end of the week, the punk storm would cause 29 deaths and nearly $300 million in property damage. State officials estimated that almost 6,500 homes and 1,500 businesses had been damaged.

Steve Ringman / The Chronicle 1982

More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond.

More from Chronicle Vault

Fog City found: Photos of San Franciscos signature weather spectacle from the 1950s to 1970s.

Redwood Canyon: How one couple saved Muir Woods from becoming a reservoir.

Houseboat wars: A look at the decades-long battle in Sausalito between houseboat owners and government agencies.

The Central Valley floods: Stunning photos of the great flood of 1997.

Drying up hope: A historic drought. Crop devastation. Fallow fields. Depleted reservoirs. Severe water restrictions. Not 21st century California, but a Chronicle front page in February 1977.

From the Archive is a weekly column by Bill Van Niekerken, the library director of The Chronicle, exploring the depths of the newspapers archive. Its part of Chronicle Vault, a twice-weekly newsletter highlighting more than 150 years of San Francisco stories. It is edited by Taylor Kate Brown, The Chronicles newsletter editor. Sign up for the newsletter here, and follow Chronicle Vault on Instagram. Contact Bill at bvanniekerken@sfchronicle.com and Taylor at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com.
Editorial

The gangster moves against Venezuela

You could scour the history of US imperial crimes, from the Mexican-American War to the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, and you wouldnt find a more brazen cynical act of gangsterism than that which is now underway against Venezuela.

Not since Hitler justified blitzing Poland by claiming it had encroached on the frontier into Nazi Germany has a more blatant set of falsehoods been adduced as a pretext for conflict.

In Venezuela, it will quickly become a civil war that will most likely draw in other countries from Cuba to Colombia and Brazil with incalculable consequences  not least for the worlds oil prices: Venezuela has the worlds largest oil reserves and is a major producer  and the biggest seller to the American market.

This is not about Maduro, the former bus driver-turned-foreign minister who is now the elected president of Venezuela. It is not about Maduro because the US had been seeking to overthrow his predecessor Hugo Chavez for more than a decade before this. Even though Chavez was one of the most electorally successful politicians on the planet in a democratic process described by former US president Jimmy Carter as the best in the world, US presidents Bush, Obama and Trump routinely called him a dictator.

Before they drop the bombs, they drop the narrative and the disinformation bombardment in Venezuela has been one of the longest bombing runs in history. Massive sums of US money have been spent on media distortion, subversion, sabotage, military coups, and threats of invasion throughout the Chavez-Maduro era. The gold-toothed Venezuelan emigres who fled to Miami with their ill-gotten gains have long been effectively a coup in the making. The recruitment of neighbouring Colombia into associate membership of NATO, the propelling of Brazils fascist Bolsonaro (another NATO applicant) to power, and plans for US military bases there have all been in preparation for this day.

Although many such crimes have been committed across all continents for centuries by the US, none have constituted such gangsterism as this latest.

An almost random figure whose name was largely unknown until last week has disdained to put himself up for election as president of the republic, instead pronouncing himself to actually be the president, and has even sworn himself in! All the experts on Syria, Ukraine and Russia are scrambling to studios, practicing in the taxi on the way how to say his name.

And the international community recognises Juan Guaido. This includes US, Canada and assorted American satrapies across the world. They will likely soon be joined by the so-called democratic European Union and NATO. It is a new form, to be sure  usually the hated Latin American presidents are murdered, like Allende in Chile, or have fled or been jailed before the coup de grace is delivered.

But Trump is in a hurry.

As investigations come ever closer to the Trump syndicate, as the clock ticks towards impeachment or defeat in 2020, as the war-cell of Bolton and company screech for a victory, somewhere, anywhere, it has come to this.
PG&E Corp. shares soared $1.98 or 16.5 percent to close at $13.99 Tuesday after the company filed for Chapter 11 protection, despite the fact that common stockholders get wiped out in the vast majority of bankruptcies.

Although it sounds like madness, its not unusual to see a companys stock price go up after heading to bankruptcy court, as the filing attracts the attention of speculators, most of whom are day traders on message boards, said Jared Ellias, a law professor at UC Hastings College of the Law.

But it is unusual to see shares rise 16.5 percent and a companys market value soar to $7.3 billion as PG&Es did. This increase in stock value is (because) a lot of smart people believe that PG&E will be able to beat a lot of the wildfire claims in bankruptcy court, Ellias said. Trading volume was higher than normal Tuesday, as it has been for most of the month.

What you are seeing in PG&E stock is a transfer of shares from mom-and-pop investors and pension and mutual funds to sophisticated bankruptcy players who have done a deep analysis and come to the conclusion that PG&E will win in more of the litigation than the rest of us think now, Ellias said. There is also a group that is gamblers, day traders and hedge funds that are piggybacking off the efforts of the people doing the real work.

Normally in bankruptcies, sophisticated investors buy the companys debt, not its equity. But every few years, you have a company where smart hedge funds are convinced there is value in the stock, he said.

A recent case is General Growth Properties, a major mall operator that filed for Chapter 11 in 2009 when it was unable to refinance its short-term debt. A lot of investors thought this company is not insolvent. They thought creditors would be paid in full and they were right. The company exited bankruptcy a year and half later and provided one of the most successful outcomes for shareholders in any U.S. bankruptcy, according to a report published by New York Universitys business school.

That is by far the exception. In general, buying stock of a company reorganizing in Chapter 11 is a horrible bet, Ellias said.

Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Lynn LoPucki, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, studied a random sample of 128 large publicly held companies that filed for bankruptcy between 1980 and 2012. In 85 of those cases, common stockholders got nothing. In 24 cases they got less than $15 million combined and in 19 they got more than $15 million. The largest recovery was $625 million in W.R. Grace. (General Growth was not in the sample).

In a bankruptcy, creditors have absolute priority over stockholders, LoPucki said. No shareholder can get any money out of a bankruptcy unless creditors are paid in full or they agree to take less.

Normally companies file for bankruptcy because they are insolvent  their debts exceed their assets. But sometimes solvent companies go bankrupt for other reasons. A company wanting to get out of its leases might file because bankruptcy has a provision limiting the damages that landlords can recover when tenants breach a lease.

In its filing, PG&E said it has $71.4 billion in assets and $51.7 billion in debt, but that excludes the $30 billion in liabilities PG&E said it could face from 2017 and 2018 wildfires. The company has not reduced that estimate since the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said PG&E is not to blame for the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties.

If you take away the Tubbs Fire I have seen estimates that it may take $3 billion to $11 billion off the table, said Jacob Kilstein, an analyst with Argus Research.

Despite Tuesday's jump, PG&E is down from its high of $71.56 on Sept. 11, 2017, before the Wine Country fires broke out.

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PG&Es bankruptcy is so different than most its hard to draw any conclusions about the risk to shareholders. Its filing to protect against potential liabilities, not actual ones. And its a regulated utility, which makes comparisons to non-utility bankruptcies difficult, said Morningstar analyst Travis Miller.

Another risk is what happens if there are terrible wildfires this year.

The main bet on PG&E is that the company will pay less in claims inside bankruptcy than out.

When you are in bankruptcy, a lot of people misunderstand that, even though PG&E is solvent, they think its not solvent and might be willing to settle more quickly and settle for less, LoPucki said.

Bankruptcy may limit PGEs liability and allow them to continue as an ongoing entity, said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist with TD Ameritrade. But a lot of that is very speculative. There are going to be years of lawsuits. If you are not invested (in PG&E), go in with eyes wide open. Buying the stock now is like voluntarily running into a burning building.

If you already own PG&E, try to avoid an all-or-none mentality. If it will help you sleep at night, sell a portion of what you have.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KathPender
As it prepares for an initial public offering on Wall Street, Uber will open another office in San Francisco.

The ride-hailing company signed a lease of 42,000 square feet at 71 Stevenson St. in South of Market. It will be the companys smallest office in the city, with space for around 300 employees based on typical occupancy standards.

Uber continues to grow around the world, and were excited to continue to invest in our hometown of San Francisco with a new lease at 71 Stevenson Street, the company said.

The deal is a sign that Uber needs even more space beyond its under-construction Mission Bay headquarters. Uber has four office buildings set to open in early 2020 that total 1 million square feet. Two of the buildings are part of the Warriors Chase Center arena complex.

Uber is San Franciscos second-largest tech tenant, with 1.7 million square feet leased or owned, behind only Salesforce, according to brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

Unlike Salesforce, which has concentrated its building in a dense campus near the Transbay Transit Center, Ubers offices are spread across the city. Its current headquarters is 1455 Market St. in Mid-Market. It also has leases at 685 Market St. and 555 Market St., which is adjacent to 71 Stevenson St. A few miles south, Ubers autonomous driving division has an office at Pier 70 in a renovated historic building.

Ubers deal demonstrates that tech companies may need to spread out given the citys lack of available space, said Robert Sammons, Northwest research director at Cushman & Wakefield. San Francisco has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country and record-high office rents, upward of $80 per square foot annually.

I think they are taking it where they can get it and for the time frame they need, Sammons said. Im sure theyd prefer to consolidate, and that will likely happen once their campus in Mission Bay is completed.

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Makeup company Bare Escentuals previously had its headquarters at 71 Stevenson St., but in 2016 it moved to New York. Current tenants include financial services company Lending Club and childrens clothing company Gymboree, which filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago.

Uber has been an active real estate dealmaker around the Bay Area. It previously bought Uptown Station in Oakland, selling it after it abandoned plans for a major East Bay office. Payments processor Square  Ubers neighbor at 1455 Market St.  has now leased the entire office portion of that building. Uber also has a Palo Alto office, joining a trend of tech companies that have offices in both Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

By establishing multiple offices throughout San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, large tech firms could wade into a larger pool of potential employees, said Jesse Gundersheim, San Francisco market economist at CoStar.

Ubers San Francisco real estate 42,000 square feet at 71 Stevenson St. 114,164 square feet at 685 Market St. 131,000 square feet at Pier 70 172,838 square feet at 555 Market St. 268,080 square feet at 1455 Market St 423,000 square feet at 1515 Third St. (under construction) 580,000 square feet at Chase Center (under construction) Source: Cushman & Wakefield See More Collapse

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf
Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. If youre feeling charitable, please publicize the fact that you can get this newsletter in your inbox weekly.

Dorseys claims without foundation

Readers may remember my deep dive on Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorseys mysterious Start Small Foundation. At the time, a Square spokesman suggested that Dorsey was secretive about the charity  whose public records through 2016 show no assets or grants  because he wasnt seeking publicity.

Meaningful charitable giving does not require public recognition, the spokesman told me.

So you can picture my eyebrows rising toward the ceiling when I read a Rolling Stone interview where Dorsey spoke at some length about his foundation.

I started a foundation called Start Small Foundation, which is intending to teach people how to build businesses in places like Ferguson and stay in business, because I see a business as a fabric to an enduring community, Dorsey told the magazine. I gave most of my Square equity to this foundation.

For good measure, Dorsey also denied that he was a billionaire. (Bloomberg reports his net worth, largely in Twitter and Square stock, at more than $5 billion.)

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

As I reported, its technically true that Dorsey started various entities called Start Small, which might one day become vehicles for charitable giving. None of them have made publicly disclosed grants. And when I called around to sources working in philanthropy in Ferguson and the St. Louis area, no one had heard of Dorseys foundation.

Perhaps Dorsey intends to make grants. Last year, he even attempted to hire an executive director for his foundation, whose job involved publicizing Dorseys philanthropy. As far as I was able to learn, that recruiting effort never went anywhere.

This novel situation requires linguistic innovation: Until Dorsey offers proof of his charitable giving, we should refer to Start Small as a fauxlanthropy.

As for the claim that Dorsey gave most of his Square shares to the foundation, thats provably false, as Biz Carson wrote in Forbes. He retains most of his stake, corporate filings show.

Square did not answer questions about Dorseys foundation or his statements to Rolling Stone, and the magazine did not respond to inquiries about whether Dorseys interview had passed muster with fact-checkers.

If Dorsey wants to stay private about his giving, thats one thing. But its clear that he will talk about his putative foundation when it suits his purpose. And he has been in a position to take advantage of tax write-offs from his charitable giving. In exchange for that immediate financial benefit, the public is owed something.

How about a little transparency?

 Owen Thomas (othomas@sfchronicle.com)

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Quote of the week

I do think the price is a factor.  Apple CEO Tim Cook, replying to an analyst who asked if iPhones were too expensive in the companys first-quarter earnings call

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Coming up

PG&E, which just filed for bankruptcy, is back in court Wednesday to explain to a judge overseeing its probation why his wildfire plan wont work. Should be fun. J.D. Morris and Bob Egelko will be on the scene, and you can follow all of our PG&E coverage on sfchronicle.com/pge.

Another burning issue: Facebooks quarterly earnings, out after the market closes Wednesday. Will Ramona the Love Terriers Instagram account single-pawedly save Mark Zuckerberg? Doubtful, but you should follow her anyway: @ramonaterrier

What Im reading

The legal cannabis industry is hiring more than just dispensary workers and couriers, Melia Russell reports, leading to a Bay Area job boom. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Facebook is paying teens to install a sneaky app that tracks their online behavior and sidesteps Apples restrictions, Josh Constine reports. (TechCrunch)

Ivan Cash didnt answer his email for a month. Heres how he survived. (Fast Company)

Suzy Menkes profiles Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts for Vogues fashion-business spinoff. (Vogue Business)

Tech Chronicle is a thrice-weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle
A San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency hearing officer suggested the city consider adding Spin to its e-scooter cohort this spring but said that the citys previous rejection was fair.

The city started a 12-month pilot program in mid-October with two operators, Skip and Scoot, both based in San Francisco. They can operate a maximum of 1,250 scooters for the first six months. Ten other scooter companies that applied were spurned. Several cried foul, claiming in appeals that the city rigged its selection process to penalize them for perceived past misdeeds. Stand-up e-scooters became a sensation here early last year after several operators  Lime, Bird and Spin  burst into operation seemingly overnight, earning both fans and foes.

In the first decision on one of those appeals, MTA hearing officer James Doyle said San Francisco startup Spin failed to prove it was improperly denied a permit, although he said the pilot program could have made its intentions and its program requirements much more straightforward and transparent to applicants. He recommended that the SFMTA seriously consider including Spin in the second six months of the pilot.

His reasoning: Spin appears to be an experienced and capable operator, and ... allowing additional operators will enhance the probability of success of the powered e-scooter share program in San Francisco.

Both Spin and the city said they were pleased by the decision.

We were heartened by the Hearing Officers strong recommendation that Spin be granted a permit by the SFMTA at the six-month mark of the pilot, Spin said in a statement. Ford Motor Co. bought Spin for $100 million in November as part of its push into multiple forms of mobility and plans to invest $200 million into expanding the business.

The MTA has the discretion to double the pilot programs allotment to 2,500 e-scooters after six months, which would be April 15. The pilot program was designed to support up to five operators.

Spins claim that the process was unfair is simply not supported by the facts, said John Cote, a spokesman for city attorney Dennis Herrera. The hearing officer specifically found that there was no evidence the SFMTA showed animosity against Spin or bias in favor of any particular outcome.

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Still pending are appeals from scooter operators Jump, a subsidiary of Uber, and Lime. Those decisions are expected in February.

In addition, Lime filed a lawsuit against the city, but that will take months to proceed. In October it sought unsuccessfully to block the citys entire scooter rollout until its case could be heard.

Lyft did not file a formal appeal, but wrote to Mayor London Breed and MTA head Ed Reiskin in October asking that they review the scooter application process and consider granting more permits.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
A subtle change with major implications is coming to the H-1B visa program that could give large tech companies an edge in bringing highly skilled workers to their sprawling Silicon Valley campuses, while hurting outsourcing firms that hire entry-level workers to fill software jobs.

The Department of Homeland Security announced a rule change Wednesday that will transform the lottery that decides who gets the 85,000 H-1B visas granted to for-profit companies every year.

Previously, an initial lottery granted 20,000 visas only to those holding advanced degrees granted by U.S. institutions  masters degrees or doctorates  and then a general lottery granted 65,000 visas to all qualified applicants.

The Department of Homeland Security switched the order of these lotteries, it said in a notice of the final rule change, which will bolster the odds for highly educated foreign nationals. The change reduces the likelihood that people with just a bachelors degree will win in the general lottery, said Lisa Spiegel, an attorney at Duane Morris in San Francisco and head of the firms immigration group.

I think were going to be seeing a lot of people going back to school, Spiegel said.

The rule change is effective this year.

Francis Cissna, director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees the program, described the changes as simple and smart in a statement, adding that they advanced President Trumps goal of improving our immigration system.

Jason Finkelman, an immigration attorney based in Austin, Texas, said now employers will think differently about what candidates they put up for the H-1B visa.

Everyone wants to hire the most qualified candidate they can. But if Im an employer and I have two candidates who are equally qualified for a position, and both require me to sponsor them for a visa, Im probably going to want to file for the one with the masters degree because now, mathematically, I have a better chance of getting them picked, he said.

Smaller employers, in particular, may become more selective. Large tech companies in the Bay Area have the means to support more foreign nationals entering the lottery  and play the law of averages, Finkelman added.

The department said the rule change will result in an estimated increase of up to 16 percent in the number of H-1B visa holders with advanced degrees, or about 5,300 workers.

The program shift could hurt technology staffing companies, also known as outsourcers, who have a reputation for flooding the lottery with applications. Three Indian firms  Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro  often account for a majority of the H-1B applications, an analysis of government data shows.

The administrations attempt here to give preference to people who have exceptional qualifications is definitely a step in the right direction, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His group, which seeks to reduce overall immigration levels, still wants to see the H-1B visa program reformed by Congress, Mehlman said.

The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, a union that represents tech workers, also known as WashTech, said while it finds most of Trumps immigration policy abhorrent, the rule change to the program is long overdue.

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For whatever Trumps true motives are, it is good that the H-1B visa system is becoming more focused on ensuring that those who are awarded H-1B visas truly are highly skilled, said spokesman Rennie Sawade, who works at Microsoft.

There has been too much abuse of the system, particularly within outsourcing firms, Sawade said. WashTech has sued the Department of Homeland Security to block a visa program known as Optional Practical Training, or OPT, that helps foreign students in the country extend their stays in order to pursue work in technical fields.

President Trump hinted at the final rule change in a tweet earlier this month.

H-1B holders in the United States can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship, he wrote.

In addition to swapping the totals in the lottery categories, the department said it will postpone plans to change the way companies enter their H-1B applicants into the lottery. Currently, employers have to prepare a full petition for each applicant before theyre picked. The planned rule change would let employers register them online before the lottery and work on their cases only if applicants are selected.

The department said it will delay rolling out the electronic registration system until after it completes testing.

Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meliarobin
The number of Californians signing up for health insurance for 2019 through Covered California  the state agency created by the Affordable Care Act to sell health plans to people who dont get coverage through their employer  held steady at 1.5 million. But there was a significant drop-off in one key group that the health law has long aimed to get insured.

That group  people who are signing up for insurance for the first time  fell nearly 24 percent during the most recent open enrollment period that ended Jan. 15, compared with the same period last year, according to figures released Wednesday by Covered California. The most recent open-enrollment period was the first since the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014 that the tax penalty for not buying insurance was no longer in place because Congress repealed the requirement in late 2017.

The number of Californians who renewed their health plans for 2019 grew 7.5 percent to 1.2 million people, while the number of people newly signing up for plans dropped 23.7 percent to 296,000 people, the data showed.

It marks the steepest year-over-year decline in new enrollees in Covered Californias six-year history.

Covered California officials and health policy experts attributed the decline to the repeal of the individual mandate, which until this year required people who did not have insurance to pay a tax penalty of $695 per person or 2.5 percent of their income.

Its not completely unexpected, given at the federal level ... the rolling back of the tax penalty associated with the individual mandate, said Andy Bindman, a professor of medicine and health policy at UCSF who helped draft parts of the Affordable Care Act in a previous job. That took away one of the financial incentives that wouldve encouraged people to enroll in health insurance.

The 24 percent drop in new signups in California was more dramatic than the 16 percent drop in new signups in the 39 states that use the federal marketplace, or healthcare.gov, to sign up consumers for insurance. This is because California largely maintained its signup numbers the last few years, whereas the federal marketplace had seen steady decline over the same period.

In California, there was a noticeably smaller proportion of non-English-speaking new enrollees, particularly among residents whose preferred languages are Spanish, Mandarin or Korean. Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said those communities may have been deterred from buying insurance because of the proposed changes to the so-called public charge rule  a Trump administration proposal that could make it harder for immigrants who receive public benefits to gain permanent residency.

The data also indicate that high costs played a role in whether people bought insurance. Premiums for Covered California health plans are rising an average 8.7 percent in 2019, and the hundreds of thousands of people who earn too much to receive federal subsidies to offset the cost of monthly premiums are getting hit the hardest.

While policy experts were predicting more young healthy people would drop coverage in 2019, the figures indicate the decline is happening across all ages and ethnic groups.

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We didnt see a bigger drop-off in younger versus older people, Lee said. We saw a drop-off in every age range.

Some consumers reported frustrations with the signup and renewal process, which they found complicated and confusing. Katie Waddle, 31, was among those who signed up for a Covered California plan last year, but the process was a bureaucratic nightmare, she said. As she was applying, Waddle was told she qualified for both Medi-Cal  the joint state and federal Medicaid insurance program for the poor  and for Covered California. At one point, she was simultaneously enrolled in both, only to be enrolled in neither weeks later, after a maze of paperwork and countless calls to both agencies.

Eventually, Waddle, a graduate student at San Francisco State University, got herself on a Kaiser plan through Covered California. Waddle said she never seriously considered going without insurance.

Im a bicyclist, a pedestrian in San Francisco, she said. Its important to have health insurance.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
SACRAMENTO  As PG&E Corp. and its utility subsidiary filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday over mounting costs from the past two wildfire seasons, California lawmakers expressed frustration that controversial wildfire liability reform legislation passed last year was not enough to prevent PG&Es move and dismissed the possibility of intervening again to assist the troubled utility.

SB901, approved in the final hours of the legislative session last August to help PG&E navigate the fallout from the 2017 Wine Country fires, made it easier for the company to pass on some of the ensuing costs to customers, provided it had reasonably maintained its equipment before the blazes. Opponents dismissed the measure as a bailout.

Yet PG&E is now facing even greater potential liabilities from the Camp Fire, which ravaged Butte County last November and is not covered by the bill.

State Sen. Bill Dodd, the Napa Democrat who carried SB901, said Tuesday that it remains hard to do anything more than weve done without a complete change in PG&Es management. He noted that much of the board of directors is the same as it was in 2010, when one of the companys natural gas pipelines exploded in San Bruno, killing eight people. He called for new executive leadership that would submit to a culture of safety throughout the whole organization.

The mismanagement at PG&E has led to this, Dodd said. Nothing we were going to do was going to affect their cash position.

Fire victims and their attorneys, led by activist Erin Brockovich, appeared at the Capitol last week, where they urged lawmakers to extend the provisions of SB901 to the Camp Fire as a matter of equality.

But Assemblyman Chris Holden, who briefly floated follow-up legislation last fall, said its not going to happen.

The Pasadena Democrat, who chairs the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee, said he got no signal from PG&E over the past few weeks that there was anything the Legislature could do to get them where they needed to be to avoid bankruptcy, nor any indication from his colleagues that they were interested in helping PG&E.

I was kind of out there by myself on that one, Holden said.

The Legislatures focus will likely shift instead to issues that remain unresolved from last session, particularly whether California should change a legal principle called inverse condemnation that holds utilities liable for any damage caused by wildfires started by their equipment, even if they were not negligent in maintaining it. A commission has been formed to study the matter and will make recommendations by July 1.

Improving safety is also a priority for lawmakers, with major questions looming about land use and whether construction should be restricted in some fire-prone areas. Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Discovery Bay, announced a bill Tuesday that would require utilities to move their transmission lines out of forests and other high-risk zones or bury them underground.

Though the Legislature has no formal role in bankruptcy proceedings, Holden hopes to send a resolution to the California Public Utilities Commission expressing lawmakers priorities for an expected restructuring by PG&E, which the state regulator must approve.

Thats one way to give us a voice in that process, Holden said.

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Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, would like to go even further. He is exploring a way to give lawmakers veto power over whatever arrangement the state utilities commission signs off on for PG&E.

You cant believe a word they say, and they keep trying to fool the public and fool legislators into thinking they are something different than what they are, said Hill, who has been a fierce critic of the company since the San Bruno explosion. He slammed PG&E for asking the Legislature for help avoiding bankruptcy even as it was secretly exploring alternatives last year, such as selling off its gas holdings.

Assemblyman James Gallagher, a Yuba City Republican who represents the area burned by the Camp Fire, said he doubts that PG&E truly needs to file for bankruptcy. He believes the company is simply trying to get out of what it may owe to residents whose homes were destroyed and family members were killed.

You have to be a lot more transparent about whats going on, especially with those who are paying the bill, he said.

In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom said his administration will continue working to ensure that Californians have access to safe, reliable and affordable service, that victims and employees are treated fairly, and that California continues to make forward progress on our climate change goals."

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
San Francisco has more drug addicts than it has students enrolled in its public high schools, the city Health Departments latest estimates conclude.

There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco  thats about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School Districts 15 high schools and illustrates the scope of the problem on the citys streets.

Its also an increase of about 2,000 serious drug users since 2012, the last time a study was done.

There is an opioid epidemic in this country, and San Francisco is no exception, Deputy Director of Health Dr. Naveena Bobba said.

The problem is particularly visible in the Tenderloin, where police reported more than 600 arrests for drug dealing last year. And where 27 suspects were booked into County Jail for dealing drugs in the first 20 days of the new year.

The out-in-the-open use of drugs on city sidewalks and at the Civic Center BART Station was a huge embarrassment for the city and triggered more police patrols and crackdowns in the past year. The BART station has been cleaned up, but the problem continues in the Tenderloin.

And while the police stay busy targeting dealers  the criminal side of illegal drugs  the citys public health officials work the problem as a health crisis.

Last year there were 193 drug overdose deaths, of which 112 were from opioids.

As to why people use drugs, that is a complicated question, and there are many factors, Health Department spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said. Our focus is on saving lives and lowering the barriers to treatment.

Health workers tools include providing methadone on demand and expanding street addicts access to buprenorphine, a medication that helps people fight opioid addiction.

The department has also been handing out naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses immediately and keeps people from dying, to first responders, street health teams, homeless drop-in center workers  even library staffers, in an effort to reduce the death toll.

The anecdotal evidence seems to show those actions are having some effect.

It is notable that the number of opioid overdose deaths has remained essentially flat for the past four years, Kagan said.

And in an effort to reduce infections and disease transmission among injection drug users, the city also handed out a record 5.8 million free syringes last year  about 500,000 more than in 2017.

The drugs of choice among the homeless appear to be heroin during the day, and methamphetamine at night  to stay up, said Eileen Loughran, who heads the citys syringe access and recovery program. Loughran said on average an addict shoots up three times a day, but some people do more.

While City Hall solidly supports the free syringe program, the proliferation of needles on city sidewalks and parks was a major issue in Mayor London Breeds mayoral election last year  one she promised to clean up.

The first step was spending an extra $1.8 million last year to retrieve needles. That resulted in 500,000 more syringes being dropped off in new kiosks or picked up by special cleanup crews compared to 2017.

But even with the 300 percent increase in the needles returned to kiosks and a 100 percent increase in the needles picked up by cleanup efforts, the department handed out about 2 million more syringes than it got back.

There are places like Walgreens that have drop-off boxes for syringes that we dont have data on, Loughran said. And people may get their syringes in San Francisco and take them over to Alameda County or other places too far away for us to count.

Meanwhile, needles are still making their way into the citys parks and onto the sidewalks.

For example, attendants cleaning the restrooms at Victoria Manalo Draves Park near Folsom and Sixth streets found 123 needles in 2018. The good news is that needle count was down 27 from 150 in 2017.

Going in the other direction, the citys 311 call center received 9,659 calls complaining about needles citywide in 2018  up about a third from 2017.

Nonetheless, the Health Department says things are improving.

We are hearing from people that it looks better out there, and we are glad that these efforts are making a difference, Kagan said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phillip Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier
San Francisco Mayor London Breed opened her first State of the City address Wednesday with a stern message for the citys critics: Dont doubt the City That Knows How.

Breeds speech at the National LGBTQ Center for the Arts in the Mission District traced her efforts over the last six months to tackle the citys most persistent problems and deliver on the promises of her mayoral campaign. Her list: cleaning the streets, reducing homelessness, increasing housing supply and expanding opportunities for those struggling with San Franciscos super-high cost of living.

Those issues will remain the crux of Breeds priorities over the next six months, she said. Shes up for re-election in November.

For too long now, our city has been the subject of a drumbeat of negative media attention, national stories claiming San Francisco has lost its way, the mayor told the crowd of about 200 people. How our streets are dangerous slums, our housing unobtainable, how tech workers and locals battle for the citys soul.

While acknowledging there is some truth to those convenient narratives, Breed said,The question is: What do we do next? Hang our head  and give up? Concede our problems are too great  and the soul of our city lost? Anyone who thinks thats what we will do knows nothing about this city.

Breed also used the speech to announce the hiring of Dr. Grant Colfax as the citys next director of public health. Colfax worked as the director of HIV prevention and research at the Department of Public Health before joining the Obama administration as the director of national AIDS policy.

He knows our city and its challenges, and he is ready to get to work, Breed said.

DPH has been without a director since August, when Barbara Garcia resigned following allegations that she had directed a city contract to an organization run by her wife.

Breed also announced the creation of a new position  director of mental health reform  to better coordinate and strengthen the citys complex network of mental health services and cut ineffective programs  because clearly some things just arent working.

She also hinted at the coming fight over how to spend the citys recent $185 million windfall from excess money in a state education fund.

Breed reiterated her proposal to spend all the windfall money on homelessness, housing and behavior health. The proposal, however, will have to pass the Board of Supervisors, which has a different vision on how to spend the money.

Transcript of speech Read the mayor's speech here: bit.ly/breed-transcript The speech, point by point Significant points in Mayor London Breed 's State of the City address: Announced a new director of the Department of Public Health. Dr. Grant Colfax is a former director of HIV prevention and research at the department and worked as the director of national AIDS policy in the Obama administration. Announced a new position, director of mental health reform, to coordinate mental health care among city departments. Doubled down on spending all of the city's recent $185 million windfall from excess education funds on homelessness, housing and behavior health. Added to her plan of opening 1,000 new shelter beds by 2020, saying the city will have enough shelter beds, step-up housing units, homeless housing units and housing subsidies for 4,000 people within the next four years. Proposed a charter amendment for the November ballot to streamline approvals for affordable housing and teacher housing. Pledged support for a measure by Supervisor Aaron Peskin to charge ride-hailing companies to operate in San Francisco. Peskin attempted to place a similar measure on the ballot last year, but tabled it after reaching a deal with Uber and Lyft. Announced a request, along with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton and City Attorney Dennis Herrera , that UCSF and UC Berkeley put together an independent team to review procedures for retesting soil at the Hunters Point Shipyard project. - Trisha Thadani See More Collapse

Lets be clear. Every dollar we take away from what Ive proposed is one fewer bed. One lost home. One more person on the street, Breed said.

Shes also committed to opening 100 new mental-health stabilization beds, adding to the 50 such beds created since she took office.

Breed announced plans to put a charter amendment on the November ballot that would eliminate appeals for 100-percent affordable housing and teacher-housing developments, speeding up the construction process.

If an affordable housing or teacher housing project is proposed within zoning, then build it. And build it now. No more bureaucracy. No more costly appeals. No more not in my neighborhood.

The mayor has already pledged to create 1,000 new shelter beds for homeless people by 2020. On Wednesday, she laid out the ambitious goal of creating enough shelter beds, housing units and housing subsidies for every person who is currently unsheltered. Thats 4,000 placements for people over the next four years, she said.

And lets be clear  every part of our city, every neighborhood, must be open to being part of the solution. Much of the citys homelessness services are clustered in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.

Those districts have also been home to many of the citys dirtiest, most fetid streets. To combat that, Breed highlighted the addition of new public bathrooms, trash cans and street cleaners, and emphasized the police departments ongoing crackdown on drug dealing.

Its no secret Ive put a lot of focus on the Tenderloin and South of Market. I am committed to improving these neighborhoods, she said.

When I took the oath of office six months ago, I never pretended I could solve all our problems, Breed said. I believed we could solve them together. I believed in a government for all of us.

With every street cleaner, beat cop, homeless-outreach worker, new shelter or completed bike lane, Breed said she hoped the city would feel the difference shes working to invoke.

I hope you believe with me. That you hold your head high and take pride in our city and what we can do together.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
University of California President Janet Napolitano  and thousands across the country  delivered an unequivocal message to the Trump administration this week about sweeping changes proposed for how campuses must respond to sexual harassment and assault allegations: Theyre wrongheaded.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos overhaul of the federal Title IX law would discourage victims from reporting abuse, limit schools ability to prevent sexual misconduct and let more students get away with it, Napolitano and UCs Title IX Coordinator Suzanne Taylor wrote Monday in a 14-page letter calling the changes overly prescriptive and unworkable.

DeVos wants to narrow the definition of sexual harassment, reduce the kind of cases schools can investigate, and replace universities fact-finding investigations with court-like hearings in which advocates for students accused of sexual misconduct would cross-examine alleged victims. Testimony from anyone who isnt cross-examined would be excluded. The proposal includes other dramatic changes to the law that has banned gender discrimination in education since 1972.

The UC president is far from alone in condemning the revisions. As the 60-day public comment period ended Wednesday, some 100,000 people  averaging about 1,600 a day  have posted opinions or written in, hoping to influence DeVos to change, keep or flat-out abandon her plan.

Among them are the 23 California State University presidents and Chancellor Timothy White, who say that excluding testimony is draconian.

The Association of American Universities, representing 60 top research universities, including Stanford, criticized the plan as making it more difficult for universities to protect students who experience sexual harassment.

Campuses havent always done that well. Theyve ignored harassment and assault not only by students, but by faculty. Administrators have created barriers  intentionally or not  that make it hard to report problems. And when barriers come down, lenience for misconduct has often been the norm.

Since 2011, well before the #MeToo movement hit in 2017, a student revolt commenced across the country that continues today. Through federal complaints, state audits, press scrutiny and lawsuits, women have forced universities to better comply with Title IX by taking complaints seriously and investigating them promptly.

Under President Obama, the U.S. Department of Education issued 19 pages of guidelines to encourage this. They reinforced the preponderance of evidence standard for investigators to decide whether harassment had more likely than not occurred. They discouraged cross-examination because of the potential for trauma. And they called mediation improper because it would require alleged victims and perpetrators to somehow fix the problem together, as if asking the robber and the robbed to resolve their differences.

A subsequent Q&A clarified how campuses should help students navigate the emotional process of reporting sexual misconduct, while making it clear that due process was available to all.

DeVos rescinded both documents in 2017, earning applause from groups such as Save Our Sons, which defend accused students. At the core of her overhaul is DeVos view that the nations believe the victim movement clouds schools approach and tilts the scales unfairly toward accusers. Some students have sued for the right to cross examine their accusers.

On Nov. 29, the Trump administration proposed extensive Title IX revisions, including mandatory court-like hearings that require schools to treat complainants and respondents equally, giving each a meaningful opportunity to participate in the investigation and requiring the (school) ... to provide a predictable, consistent, impartial process for both parties.

Many critics, including UCs Napolitano, say their procedures already achieve that. UCs process does not include a hearing, but lets each party have an adviser, identify witnesses, present evidence, question the other side and appeal the outcome, Napolitano wrote.

Nearly half a century after Title IXs adoption, these rules should reflect our nations increased understanding of sexual harassment, the damage it wreaks, and how to counteract it  and our commitment to change. They do not, she wrote.

Among the proposals other key changes:

 A higher standard of evidence: Evidence of sexual misconduct would have to be clear and convincing  harder to prove than the current preponderance of evidence  unless preponderance is also used for other kinds of conduct cases.

 Narrower definition of sexual harassment: Schools could no longer find that a student was sexually harassed unless the conduct was so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies the student equal access to the education program.

 Duty to report: Students could no longer expect their campus to stop sexual harassment simply because they told a trusted employee about it. Only employees with actual knowledge of the harassment  a Title IX coordinator or official with authority to discipline  would have to respond.

 On campus only: Under Obama-era guidance, if a student alleges sexual misconduct, regardless of where the conduct occurred, the school must process the complaint. The proposal would require (schools) to dismiss a formal complaint if the conduct occurred outside its program or activity.

Title IX should be protecting survivors and holding universities accountable, yet these rules do the exact opposite, Kylie Murdock, a UC Berkeley junior and sexual assault survivor, wrote on the comment site. She pointed to the cross-examination requirement.

Ive run into my assaulter on campus three times, and each time Ive had an overwhelming anxiety attack where I couldnt breathe and started crying, Murdock wrote. If I were required to be cross-examined, the effects would most likely be tenfold. ... Nobody should be required to relive the trauma of their violent assault. This requirement will also severely curtail reporting.

A random look at responses from around the country suggests that supporters are in the minority.

One was Erick Guerrero, who said he was falsely accused of sexual harassment while a professor at the University of Southern California. He called cross-examination necessary to determine issues of credibility.

The Education Department will publish a review of the comments and identify changes in the final rules, said a spokesman for DeVos, who spoke on condition of anonymity. There is no deadline.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
Hands Off Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has warned the countrys citizens not to trust the gringo empire as tens of thousands poured onto the streets of Caracas to defend the socialist Bolivarian government from a US-led coup. Here in Australia the Morrison government has aligned itself with this US coup attempt.

The democratically elected Maduro addressed crowds after cutting all diplomatic ties with Washington following its official recognition of right-wing usurper Juan Guaidos claim to be the countrys interim president.

Guaidos illegal declaration was immediately recognised by US President Donald Trump along with the undemocratic European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the darling of liberals worldwide.

As Meduro put it: They aim to rule Venezuela from Washington. Venezuela is respected! Neither coup nor interventionism. Venezuela wants peace, wants progress.

The Communist Party of Australia stands with the people of Venezuela and their revolution and against the inevitable counter revolution and notes that at the United Nations in March last year the Australian government voted in support of the US campaign of sabotage and disruption against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The bulk of the countries represented at the gathering at the UN Human Rights Council supported a motion from the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (NAM) to condemn US actions including the imposition of sanctions.

As the NAMs motion pointed out, the sanctions disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable classes. Support from these sectors of Venezuela are solidly behind the government of Nicolas Maduro.

Despite current hardships, it is the poor of Venezuela who have been the main beneficiaries of the many programs directed towards social justice since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1998.

Of particular concern with the Australian governments support for the US blockade on Venezuela is that it prevents that government from purchasing food and medicines for the people.

The blockade also affects those working at the Venezuelan embassy as both the CBA and NAB banks are prevented by the US blockade from trading with Venezuela; a situation that makes it extremely difficult for the embassy in Canberra to operate.

It is Venezuelas very wealthy who dont experience the hardships imposed by the US, who give local support to often violent opposition. The people of Venezuela will win and their revolution will continue to deepen.

The Communist Party of Australia urges it members and supporters to do all they can to offer solidarity to the people and government of Venezue

Cuba statement

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns and energetically rejects the attempt to impose a coup detat, a puppet government at the service of the United States, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and expresses its unwavering solidarity with the government of Constitutional President Nicolas Maduro Moros.

The true objectives of actions against Venezuela are to control the vast resources of this sister nation and destroy the value of its example, as an emancipatory process defending the dignity and independence of Our America.

As President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez said: The sovereignty of our peoples is expressed today in ones attitude toward Venezuela. To support the legitimate right of the sister nation to define its own destiny is to defend the dignity of all.

Other coup attempts should not be forgotten, such as the military coup of 2002 and the 2003 oil lockout; the aggressive U.S. Executive Order describing Venezuela as an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the superpower; unilateral coercive measures; the call for a military coup against the constitutional government of Venezuela; the President of the United States threat to use a possible military option and the August 4 assassination attempt against President Maduro.

The acts of a group of countries and the shameful role of the OAS constitute a new, desperate attempt to implement an unsuccessful policy of regime change, which has not been imposed due to the unwavering resistance of the Venezuelan people and their determination to defend national sovereignty.

Havana, January 23, 2019

Communist Party USA

Statement: The already dangerous situation involving Venezuela has escalated as the legally elected president, Nicolas Maduro, has prepared to start a new term.

On January 21, a small group of Venezuelan National Guard soldiers attempted and failed to carry out a military coup. They were encouraged in this effort not only by the Venezuelan right but by reactionary leaders and governments in neighbouring countries, and by US President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and US National Security advisor John Bolton.

Then on January 23, the Trump administration announced it is recognising an obscure right-wing politician, Juan Guiado, as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Guiado, part of the fascist elements of the US supported Venezuelan opposition, illegally declared himself president, under an imaginary constitutional mandate. Guaido is the new President of the National Assembly, an illegitimate body that Venezuelas Supreme Court has ruled, since 2016, to be in contempt of court.

In response to the Trump administration actions, and very naturally, the Venezuelan government has broken off diplomatic relations with the United States. Venezuela ordered US diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours, but in another dangerous move, the US is ordering them to stay on the pretext that Maduro is not the real president. More unilateral sanctions are also being imposed by the Trump administration.

Venezuelans in their thousands have poured into the street to express their opposition to the US moves.

The Trump administrations intervention in Venezuela is a clear violation of international law, national sovereignty, and independence. The actions are consistent with their disdain for democracy in all its forms, and their trampling on constitutional and democratic rights in the US as well as internationally. The actions are reminiscent of the long history of US imperialist arrogance, overthrowing governments, invasion, gunboat diplomacy and the installation of subservient military juntas.

This policy had and has no place in relations between states. The people of the United States should be especially sensitive to this given foreign interference in our own 2016 elections and its impact on the outcome. Whats good for us is good for the Venezuelan people too.

There is a danger that this high handed, imperialist action on the part of the Trump administration will serve as a pretext for even more violent intervention by the United States and allied extreme right-wing governments in Brazil, Colombia and others in Venezuelan internal affairs.

This sharp escalation of attacks on Venezuela comes after long US campaign of destabilising the Venezuelan economy and society. Imperialism cannot tolerate, in its so-called back yard, governments that use their nations wealth, in Venezuelas case derived from its massive oil resources, to improve the lives of working people and the poor rather than deliver that wealth to fill the coffers of transnational corporations.

But resolving the challenges, crises and political differences in Venezuela is up to the Venezuelan people and their own democratic processes. It must be done free from the US and other foreign interference.

Moreover, the actions of the Trump administration risk the imposition of a military dictatorship on the Venezuelan people, with a resulting elimination of all democratic rights, and sparking a civil war that could spill over to the entire region.

Destabilizing Venezuela intending to achieving regime change and the imposition of yet another anti-worker right-wing government like those of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Ivan Duque in Colombia is not in the interests of the Venezuelan working people or those of the United States. Under both President Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has repeatedly shown its willingness to maintain friendly relations with the United States and its people, even going so far as to help poor communities in the United States by providing them with discounted heating oil.

The people of the United States need to speak out forcefully and immediately to put a stop to the Trump administrations reckless actions against Venezuela, which could easily lead to a civil war with regional and U.S. participation.

The Communist Party USA calls on all our members and friends to immediately contact their senators and representatives to demand an end to this illegal and dangerous intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation which has done nothing to harm our country or its people.
A Honduran mother in San Francisco was reunited with her 17-month-old daughter on Tuesday night after spending a month desperately pleading with federal immigration authorities for the return of her baby who was separated from her father at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The baby, Juliet, was sent to a shelter for migrant children in Texas after immigration officials took her from her father, whom they arrested Dec. 28 near Calexico. Juliets mother, Sindy Flores, told The Chronicle that the federal government kept adding requirements for the childs release, including a credit card payment of up to $4,000 to fly the girl to San Francisco with a care provider.

But on Tuesday, after The Chronicle and other news organizations inquired about the case, immigration officials notified the mother that they would immediately send Juliet to San Francisco. She arrived at San Francisco International Airport just after 10 p.m.

As the care provider who accompanied Juliet placed her in her mothers arms  Juliet began to wail loudly. Flores, 23, hugged Juliet and whisked her away from the circle of reporters and television cameras.

Im nervous. I cant describe it, Flores had said moments before the reunification, saying she planned to tell her baby how much I love her, how much Ive missed her.

Flores, who is seeking asylum, had agonized about her babys well-being.

Theyre damaging her psychologically, Flores had said before learning she would be reunited. Shes going to be dealing with the trauma of thinking we left her, that we abandoned her.

The familys plight came six months after the Trump administration said it suspended its controversial family separation policy. But in this case, immigration authorities said other factors led to the child being removed from her parents custody.

Juliets father, Kevin Ventura-Corrales, is being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, according to his attorney, Eric Fish, and government records.

The familys ordeal reveals the complexities  and the consequences  of immigrants navigating the governments labyrinth of immigration policies, which often span several states, agencies and even generations. It also shows just how daunting the process can be for families seeking asylum, particularly under an administration intent on restricting illegal immigration.

Thousands of children were separated from their parents last year under Trumps zero tolerance policy, which criminally prosecuted anyone who illegally crossed the border. Children accompanying parents or other adults on the journey were put in shelters or foster care under the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The Trump administration has said nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents. But a report this month revealed the administration may have separated thousands more children from their parents than what was initially believed.

Immigration advocates rallying on the familys behalf fear their case is an indication the administration is still applying its zero tolerance policy at the border, despite the policy ending months ago. Immigration authorities, however, said the father has a criminal record and four prior deportations  circumstances that justified separation even under the previous administrations policies.

Ventura-Corrales was charged with a serious misdemeanor in 2013, according to David Kim, assistant chief Border Patrol agent in the El Centro sector, who declined to say what the man was convicted of.

Records at the Renton Municipal Court in Washington state show that Ventura-Corrales, 27, was charged with two counts of harassment in September 2013, one of which was domestic-violence related. He was convicted on the domestic-violence charge but cleared of the second charge that same year.

Though it was a factor in his arrest, Kim said Ventura-Corrales was taken into custody for illegally re-entering the country, which is a felony.

Once a person is charged with a felony and they get rolled into the criminal process, obviously a child is not going to accompany them, he said. I think these things have to be put into perspective. Sometimes theres different ways that people can view these types of occurrences and I think context really matters.

The newest charges against Ventura-Corrales were later dropped and he was transferred into ICE custody in Arizona, Kim said.

The Administration for Children and Families, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, declined to provide specific details on Juliets case or her location but said part of its mission is to identify the most appropriate and least restrictive placement, usually with a sponsor, for each child while they await their U.S. immigration proceedings.

When people want to take an unaccompanied immigrant child out of government custody, they must complete a rigorous application and background check process  even if they are the childs parents. The Trump administration has made this process more rigorous and has worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct more thorough background checks, which led to skyrocketing numbers of children being kept in custody before the policies were relaxed slightly.

Once granted custody of the child, the sponsor is responsible for all transportation costs, including air fare for care providers or airline escorts that accompany the child.

Under no circumstances will ORR pay for the sponsors airfare, according to the agencys website.

Flores, who said her family fled gang threats in Honduras, said she and her husband split up unexpectedly during a run-in with Mexican immigration authorities in Puebla  he grabbed Juliet and she took her two older children from a previous marriage.

She looked for Ventura-Corrales at several shelters, she said. During a stop at one of these shelters, Flores was told her husband had been there a few days prior and had continued north. She crossed the border on her own with her children, ages 9 and 7. Flores petitioned for asylum at the Calexico border and was detained for a few days before being released, wearing an ankle monitor, on Jan. 2.

Shes staying with relatives in San Francisco pending her asylum case.

Flores said ICE specifically requested a credit card payment to pay for plane tickets to fly her daughter to California but said she doesnt have a credit card. Most recently, the agency requested a notarized letter signed by Ventura-Corrales in Arizona that would give them permission to release the baby to her custody, according to Fish, the fathers attorney.

I wouldnt want any of my kids to be in this position, Flores said. But for it to be my youngest, who doesnt speak and cant defend herself or tell me what they did to her or how they treated her its not the same as if it were to happen to an older child who can communicate what happened.

A GoFundMe for Flores has reached nearly $9,000.

San Francisco Chronicle Washington correspondent Tal Kopan contributed to this report.

Tatiana Sanchez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @TatianaYSanchez
The Department of Homeland Security has apparently backed away from its demand that San Francisco make an exception to its sanctuary city policy so that a Tunisia national accused of rape could be extradited from Canada.

Mohamed Ben Azaza, 39, was booked into San Francisco County Jail at 12:43 a.m. Tuesday. Hes being held without bail on four felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, sexual battery  masturbation, and rape of an unconscious person.

Azaza is accused of raping an unconscious, intoxicated woman he picked up while working as a driver for a ride-hailing company. A no-bail warrant for his arrest was issued in June, and he fled to Canada, where he was arrested, officials said.

Last week, Homeland Security said it wouldnt extradite Azaza from Canada unless San Francisco relaxed its sanctuary city policy, which sharply limits local law enforcements ability to communicate with federal immigration officials.

The district attorneys office had been seeking approval from the Board of Supervisors to communicate with federal immigration officials if Azaza posted bail, was acquitted or if the district attorney couldnt find probable cause to continue the prosecution.

The supervisors were scheduled Tuesday to consider relaxing the sanctuary policy only under those conditions  and only in Azazas case  so he could be brought to San Francisco to stand trial, but the matter no longer required their input.

The D.A.s office confirmed that this ordinance is no longer needed and asked us to table the item, board President Norman Yee told his colleagues when the item came up on the agenda.

Several supervisors expressed concern that, despite being narrowly written, the ordinance could have served to weaken the citys sanctuary policy, which is intended to ensure that immigrant communities can cooperate with law enforcement without fearing deportation.

Several supervisors were poised to begrudgingly accede to Homeland Securitys demands, but expressed obvious frustration at the district attorneys office.

We will not play games with you, Mr. Trump, any more. And do not bring these ordinances to us any more, D.A., Supervisor Hillary Ronen said. I will refuse to consider a resolution like this ever again.

Last week, Supervisor Shamann Walton was adamant that the board didnt even have to take up the issue in the first place.

We know a heinous crime was committed  but the D.A. should be ashamed of themselves for bringing something to us, which, in my opinion, is not in the jurisdiction of this body, Walton said Tuesday.

Asking us to violate our sanctuary policies is something that should never happen again. I hope we never see a request like this come up again, because a precedent like this could be irreversible.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.

Azaza is due in San Francisco Superior Court at 9 a.m. Wednesday for arraignment.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Evan Sernoffsky and Trisha Thadani contributed to this report.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @domonicfracassa
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"I can only hope - for the friendship I've had with John and for the sanctity of our city's elections - that these charges are not true," he said. "Voting is one of the most sacred processes in our democracy and I hope these charges will lead to renewed faith in our society's belief in democracy and justice."
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Kenneth Gill, age 65, husband of 47 years of Marsha Gill of Lily, Kentucky went home to be with the Lord on Saturday, June 5, 2021 at his residence. He was the father of Kenneth E. Gill, Jr., of Hamilton, Ohio and Jessica Bowman and husband Terry of London, Kentucky; the brother of Vic Gill 
If you have your driver's license in Washington, congratulations -- you have obtained the most difficult license to get in the country.

To determine which states were the most difficult to get your license, Siegfried & Jensen looked at the official driver handbook issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles in each state to look at details such as which maneuvers are featured in the road test, the score required to pass the knowledge test and any associated costs with taking the tests.

The analysis assumed each applicant was at least 18 years old and did not have any mitigating circumstances, such as veteran status or disability.

"We all know that driving laws differ from one state to another, but this study shows the true extent of how this affects drivers' abilities to obtain a license in the first place," Ned Siegfried, President of Siegfried & Jensen, said in a news release.

"There are key differences in the way individual states allow drivers access to the road, from the costs associated with the driving test and license itself, to the unique elements drivers are observed on during the road test."

RELATED: Washington is one of the worst states to drive in, and it borders the best

Washington has the most elements in its road test of all U.S., with 19 elements, and is the most expensive with a cost of $85 in Seattle (the study does note that cost will vary depending on its location). For comparison, Pennsylvania has 18 elements, but is ranked 12th because of its low $9 cost and difficulty score of just 67.

Massachusetts is the second-most difficult, as it requires a 72 percent to pass the knowledge test and costs $50.

RELATED: Connelly: Seattle occupies list of world's worst traffic cities

"What this means in practice is that passing your test on your first attempt in one state isn't necessarily as easy in another part of the country. In fact, in some places, it's significantly harder: the toughest state, Washington, has a difficulty score rating that's almost twice as high as South Dakota," Siegfried said.

To see which states are the 10 easiest and 10 most difficult to get your license, click through the slideshow above.
The victim prepared a statement that Mambrino read to the judge. The young woman described how when the abuse began, Vasquez made it seem like a game. I didnt really know that it was wrong, she wrote. I didnt know what to think or how to feel. The only thing I knew was that it hurt. It hurt physically and emotionally.
A magnificent mansion in Los Angeles once owned by boxer Muhammad Ali is taking a swing at the market for $16.9 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ali, who died in 2016 at the age of 74, lived there during his marriage to his third wife, psychologist Veronica Porche Ali. The couple bought the estate in 1979 and lived there until their divorce in 1986.

Built in 1916, the home last changed hands in 2001 for $2.5 million. If the sellers get close to the asking priceeven considering any cash theyve investedthey will walk away with a heavyweight profit.

Youll definitely feel like a champion in this glorious Hancock Park home.

Muhammad Ali's former home realtor.com

Staircase and stained-glass window realtor.com

Living room with built-in bookshelves realtor.com

Sunroom realtor.com

Parklike grounds realtor.com

Backyard with pool realtor.com

Set behind the private gates of Fremont Place, the 11,545-square-foot home sits on 1.6 acres of parklike grounds, and includes nine bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The large guesthouse contains an additional bedroom and full bath.

Designed by architect John C. Austin, known for his work on the iconic Griffith Observatory, many original details remain, including Tiffany stained-glass windows, chandeliers, and stone fireplaces. The home has also undergone renovations over the years, according to the Real Deal.

Other standout features include a skylit sunroom, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and outdoor space that includes a pool.

According to the Journal, during Alis time, many bold-faced names visited the Greatest at this residence, including Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, and Michael Jackson.

Ali, a professional athlete, activist, and superstar, is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. In 1967, he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War, citing his religious beliefs, a controversial decision in that era. Along with his conscientious objector stance, he became a voice in the civil rights movement.

Stefani Stolper of Douglas Elliman holds the listing.

The post Former L.A. Mansion of Muhammad Ali on the Market for $17M appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
With his case pending, Robinson  who lives near Albany Avenue  continued to play at the same corner, where he said he can make up to $300 in five hours from contributions. The busker said the incident broke his spirit when he was trying to lift others with music.
Former Gov. Ella T. Grasso lost a 10-month battle with cancer on Feb. 5, 1981. The Courant reported that she was "widely regarded as one of the most intelligent and hard-working politicians in Connecticut during the last half century. She also was known as one who believed in expediency and demanded loyalty. Her friends were rewarded and her enemies sent into political oblivion." (Hartford Courant archives)
If you're a theater fan, mark your calendars: there's plenty to do when it comes to stage performances in Seattle this week, from a play about an opioid crisis to a magic show.

Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions.
The State Senate voted Wednesday to move our presidential primary up to the second Tuesday in March, in a bid to make Washington count in picking 2020 Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.

The state's primary has been in May, largely ignored by candidates and not recognized by the Democratic Party.

"A new presidential primary system would allow for greater voter participation, expanding Washingtonians' access to democracy. It will provide Washington voters with an easy and effective way to participate in the nomination of the next President of the United States," said Sen. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, the bill's sponsor.

The measure passed on a largely party-line 29-18 vote, with Republican Sens. Phil Fortunato and Hans Zeiger joining Democrats in support. It now goes to the House of Representatives.

RELATED: 'Will not vote for' Trump, say 56 percent of Americans in poll

A moved-up primary might force candidates out from closed-door fundraisers in Medina and Hunts Point mansions -- the past domains of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama-- and into contact with normal voters.

The state has used long presidential caucuses, which have favored the ideological and motivated.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, swept the Democrats' 2016 caucuses, even though Clinton won the meaningless, beauty-contest primary that May. The result was a disruptive convention delegation and kooky presidential electors.

On the Republicans' Super Tuesday in 1988, 16 states voted or caucused for George H.W. Bush. The Washington caucuses went for Rev. Pat Robertson.

RELATED: Connelly: Howard Schultz sold our Sonics, now selling himself as president

The result: The Robertson-dominated Washington delegation sat far back at the New Orleans Superdome. Its hotel seemed halfway to the Texas border. The bar was empty save for reporters. The head of Bush's state campaign (and Bush friend) Della Newman sat in the stands.

The state's primary briefly mattered -- in 2000. George W. Bush won a key GOP victory over Sen. John McCain. On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore bested a last stand by ex-Sen. Bill Bradley. (Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was a prominent Bradley booster.)

But Democrats have stubbornly stuck with their caucuses. The gatherings yield names for fundraising. The party has insisted that only people declaring that they are Democrats can participate in the nominating process.

MORE FROM CONNELLY: Inslee hiring for 2020 presidential bid: He's running on climate change

The caucuses have hard-to-understand rules of proportional representation. Years ago, at the home of Seattle insurance executive David Sprague, a superior court judge and three partners in Seattle law firms adjourned to the library, trying to figure out how to apportion the precinct's three delegates.

(Sprague had wine on hand for the wait.)

Hunt has tried to make the legislation acceptable to his party.

Every voters would get a ballot in the mail. Every voter would be required to state a party preference in casting a ballot.

The March date comes a week after California, Texas, Massachusetts, Alabama and seven other states hold their primaries.

California has moved its primary up from the first Tuesday in June, in order that the nation's most populous state can exercise its clout. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, is running for the Democratic nomination.
The state Department of Ecology is unveiling a proposal that would increase water spilled over Columbia and Snake river dams, to assist downstream migration of young salmon and ultimately help endangered killer whales.

The expanded spring "fish flush" is part of Gov. Jay Inslee's bid to increase fish populations in order to boost survival of the critically endangered southern resident population of orcas off the Washington coast and in inland waters.

The killer whales are finicky eaters and exist largely on chinook salmon, which are also endangered.

"Helping more juvenile salmon survive the journey to ocean is one of many steps we want to take to protect and restore salmon: Our hope is that this will also support the recovery and sustained health of our orcas," Inslee said in a statement.

RELATED: UW Study: Ocean acidification could kill salmon sense of smell

"This is an important short-term action we can take to help inform our decisions about what will work over the long term."

The spill would apply to four Army Corps of Engineers dams on the lower Snake River, as well as four federal dams on the lower Columbia River.

Any increase in water spill at dams is likely to generate opposition, particularly from two members of Congress from Eastern Washington, U.S. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse.

They managed to get a Republican-controlled House to pass legislation in 2018 that would have reversed U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon's order for increased spill, and put in place a 2014 salmon recovery plan that has not passed muster with federal courts.

The "protection" of Snake River dams, which environmental groups want removed, has become holy grail for Republican politicians.

"The man and the fish can coexist," then-presidential candidate George W. Bush told a 2000 rally in Spokane. As president, Bush staged an event at Ice Harbor Dam near Pasco, to celebrate one year's high salmon return.

In a Tri-City Herald op-ed last year, McMorris Rodgers, Newhouse, and GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler declared: "Dams and fish can coexist." They cited figures of steadily higher survival of salmon migrating downstream on the Snake River.

"While anti-dam voices are persistent, they choose ideology over science, which would have a negative impact on you and your families," the House members argued.

The "impact" comes in reduced power sales during spring months when, as the late Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus quipped, "Californians are using their hot tubs."

The Sierra Club's point person on salmon, Bill Arthur, was lobbying for spill in Olympia on Tuesday. Spill is "essential for both salmon and Orcas," Arthur argued in a Facebook post.

The Department of Ecology is responsible for regulating levels of dissolved gases in waters below the dams.

RELATED: Researchers make plans to assess ailing orcas during government shutdown

The expanded "fish flush" would test benefits for fish passage with higher levels of oxygen and nitrogen in the water.

"As always, science is our guide and we need to balance potential benefits to juvenile salmon without too great of risk to other fish," Maia Belton, director of the Department of Ecology, said in a statement.

The Department of Ecology will hold two hearings on its proposal, which is supported by Gov. Inslee's proposed budget.

The first will be Feb. 13th at 2 p.m. at the Washington State School for the Blind in Vancouver. The second, at 6 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 19th, will be by webinar. Information can be obtained on the Department of Ecology website.
Gov. Jay Inslee is ramping up his 2020 presidential campaign and advertising for new hires.

The "Vision PAC," created to fuel Inslee's longshot bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, is staffing up and recruiting a few good people who can run a race with laser-focus on climate change.

The Governor's consultant, Newman Partners, has put up positions of Social Media Manager, Digital Director, and regional fundraisers. The job descriptions make it clear: The warming of the planet will be Inslee's issue.

The goal is to draw a "national audience" and create a "national conversation" about climate, something that nobody running for the Democratic or Republican presidential nomination has succeeded in doing.

RELATED: Gov. Inslee off to New Hampshire, state he allegedly 'abandoned' in 2018

Here is the Digital Director job description:

"This role calls for a manager, a storyteller and a digital native -- someone who is willing to work hard and manage a team to positively and authentically build an online movement ready to propel the national conversation.

"It's going to take real leadership to combat the challenge that will define our generation -- climate change."

The Digital Director, adds Newman Partners, "reports directly to the campaign manager." Inslee has not yet formally announced that he is running.

RELATED: Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee is running for President on climate: Climate hasn't caught on

The Social Media manager will be tasked with "creating high quality content that positively and authentically communicates a program message about tackling climate change to a national audience."

The Inslee PAC is also seeking "experienced fundraisers," once more with the goal of going national.

"We are hiring staff in areas around the country. Salary: Competitive," says the prospectus.

The Inslee campaign is building from the ground up. Tracy Newman of Newman Partners has managed various portfolios in the state, including relentless "Fight Back!" email blasts by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and messages from Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., that talk of heading off prospective Republican challenges.

Inslee has gone low and high over the years, quietly breaking bread with wealthy donors, but also emails hitting up small donors. The Governor has shared his artwork and turned appeals over to wife Trudi. In 2012, he relentlessly claimed poverty in what was eventually a multi-million dollar campaign.

MORE FROM CONNELLY: 'Fish flush' could be part of orca and salmon recovery

He has tripped up just once, when disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer appeared as a lead host for an Inslee fundraiser in Manhattan.

Other prospective candidates, such as ex-Vice President Joe Biden, have stashed experienced aides in foundation jobs. A "SuperPAC" to boost Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, with a goal of raising $10 million, was created earlier this month.

Climate is even central in hiring of fundraisers. The prospectus states:

"Jay Inslee has spent the last several decades fighting to reverse the effects of climate change. He believes this is the mos important issue facing our country and understands solving this crisis will transform our economy through creation of millions of new jobs across America."

Interested? Send resume and cover letter to jim@jayinslee.com.

"Women and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply."
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Having been among the first group of male students to have been permitted to enroll in a Typing I Class our senior year (1963-1964) at Wilson High School, I am reminded of the sentence given to us to type at the beginning of the class every day.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

The objectives of the lesson included mastering the location of the home row keys and not looking down at the keyboard. Unfortunately, I mastered neither in learning to type only 32 words per minute in all of the timed drills. Nevertheless, I find the substance of the above practice sentence more meaningful today than perhaps ever before.

Unfortunately, some members of the impacted groups in the shutdown experienced, for the first time, what is a daily challenge for many Americans. Having to make choices between buying groceries or gas for the car, paying for medicine or utility bills, or trying to meet other financial needs all creates stress upon parents, children and others.

Pictured in my mind are the unforgettable and innumerable Coast Guard rescue missions that were conducted in flooded communities in several states and Puerto Rico. Now these service men and women, law enforcement agencies and significant others are among the many people who need rescuing.
Milbee is a local product and graduate of Hartsville High School. He earned a double major in economics and philosophy from Clemson University. After working in the greater New York City area for three years, he joined the local Waddell & Reed financial advisory office in 2008 before taking over in January 2016. In his first two years in charge, Milbee earned his companys prestigious Presidents Council award as one of the top 12 producers nationwide in sales. He and his wife, Sarah, are the parents of three children: Emma, Olivia and Charlie. As a husband, son and father of two young daughters, Milbee is a strong advocate against domestic violence and is proud to dance on stage in front of hundreds of people if it helps a good cause.

Norment is the assistant to the president at Coker College. She also serves as an associate lecturer for the dance program, where she educates students to be versed in theory as well as technical ability. She earned her M.F.A. at Sarah Lawrence College under the direction of Sara Rudner. Norment served as the director of dance for the School of Discovery, helped initialize dance programs for children in local Head Start programs and taught creative movement classes for K-5 students in New York public schools. She previously served as artistic director of the Dancing with the Stars of Darlington County community fundraiser, was arts education coordinator for Black Creek Arts Council and was program coordinator to enhance arts education for the Pee Dee region. She has been a guest artist for Broward College, Coker College and Northwest School of the Arts. Her work was adjudicated at the American College Dance Festival in 2007, and she received a full-tuition scholarship to the Dance Professionals Workshop at the American Dance Festival in 2015. Norment currently serves on the Staff Parish Relations Committee for St. Luke United Methodist Church, and she is also the current president of the Parent Community Association for the Montessori Day Academy of Hartsville.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Kevin Pulis of the Tarr Group LLC joined ambassadors from the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday to celebrate the groups new chamber membership. A ribbon cutting was held at the chamber.

Pulis, a civil engineer who grew up in Florence and recently moved back, said he joined the chamber because he wants to be a part of the community now that he is back.

Pulis said he is eager to get back into the community and work with the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce.

I want to help it (Florence) grow and prosper, he said.

He said Florence is becoming a very impressive place, especially the downtown.

Pulis is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in civil engineering and has 14 years of experience in civil engineering. He recently joined the Tarr Group.

The Tarr Group is a national civil engineering consulting firm with offices in Portland, Oregon; Denver; Indianapolis; and Florence.

Pulis said it is a consulting firm with experience in commercial, industrial and residential services. He said the group does site work from start to finish.

To contact Pulis, call 843-633-3579.

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Associated PressPrototypes of border walls are displayed in San Diego. Among the questions still needing answers, the author says: Where would physical barriers be most effective? Whats the comparative cost of different materials, and how long would they last?
Marblehead - The family of Wesley E. Carr Jr. announces his passing on June 9, 2021, after a brief illness. Born in Lynn, MA, on November 10, 1932, he was the son of the late Wesley E Carr and Helen McGann Carr. Wes graduated from Swampscott High School with the class of 1950, and he immedia
Chandigarh, January 30: Underscoring the tight financial situation faced by the state, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday sought from the 15th Finance Commission a Special Debt Relief Package to support his governments efforts to revive fiscal health, along with a one-time package to enable payment of the entire debt of the distressed farmers of Punjab.

At a meeting of the 15th Finance Commission here, the Chief Minister noted with concern the permanent loss of revenue suffered by the state post GST implementation, whose compensation from the Centre will also end from July 1, 2022, resulting in a drastic fall in revenue in the range of Rs. 10,000-12,000 crore per annum. In view of the loss, the Chief Minister urged the Commission to recommend a graded compensation tapering formula to the Government of India for states like Punjab beyond June 30, 2022, so that they do not simply fall off the cliff.

Highlighting the special problems of the state, with its highest SC population in percentage terms, its long and thickly populated border with Pakistan, its riverine and sub-mountainous areas and flight of industry due to concessions to neighbouring states, Captain Amarinder shared his governments wish list with the Commission, underlining the need for a special package for Punjab, citing the various roadblocks to its development despite his governments numerous programmes and persistent efforts.

The Chief Minister, while submitting a formal memorandum to the Commission, pointed out that Punjab had the highest Interest Payments to Total Revenue Receipts ratio and Outstanding Debt to GSDP ratio amongst the GCS. The package, he said, could be provided under the General Debt Relief Scheme, linking it to the fiscal performance of the states as previously done by successive Finance Commissions.

15TH FINANCE COMMISSION

With a debt of Rs. 2.10 lakh crore, which his government had inherited from the erstwhile SAD-BJP regime, Punjab was a revenue deficit state, the Chief Minister noted, adding that the last Finance Commission had omitted the state from revenue deficit grant states, though it was included by the 12th Finance Commission.



Even as he listed out Punjabs strengths as a land of the brave and the food bowl of the nation, the Chief Minister said the internal security threat arising out of a hostile neighbour and threat of spillover of J&K militancy, along with the problem of drugs further made the state a fit case for a special package.

On the issue of agricultural debt relief, while his government had already announced a package of Rs. 8000 crores for over 10 lakh small & marginal farming households, there was need for a comprehensive package and assistance from the Centre, said Captain Amarinder, urging for a one-time debt waiver to help out the farming community. Further, to give relief to the farmers,

promote agriculture diversification and realize Government of Indias vision of doubling of the farm income, he requested the Commission to provide for deficiency price support in maize and cane production to the extent of Rs. 12,350 crore and Rs. 300 crore, in order to give a boost to the allied activities in the farm sector.

Referring to the Rs. 31,000 crore Food Account which the Akali government had taken over in its last days, the Chief Minister said the Government of India should take over the debt or Punjab should be given matching revenue deficit grant to offset the committed annual interest payment liability of Rs. 3240 crores.

Mooting increase in devolution to states to allow greater flexibility to use devolved funds qua relevant Centrally sponsored schemes, the Chief Minister also sought an increase in Punjabs share in devolution from 1.5% to 2%, noting that the same had been reduced from 2.45% to 1.57% in the last 40 years. He suggested addition of certain new elements within the existing parameters like SC/ST to facilitate equitable distribution of resources among the states.

15TH FINANCE COMMISSION

The Chief Minister also requested the Commission to consider the contribution of the State to the nations economy while distributing the resources amongst the states by giving a weightage of 10% to contribution by the State economy in the aggregate GSDP.

In order to encourage and incentivize sustainable development, he also proposed a weightage of 1% to Renewable Energy Source (RES) Power Generation, as a supplement to the already existing parameter of Forest Cover and redefining the composite parameter as Sustainability Index.

Expressing grave concern about the critical water situation in the state, Captain Amarinder sought a Rs. 12000 crore grant for complete water cycle management in both rural and urban areas. On its part, his government was making considerable efforts to resolve the problem and had recently signed an MoU with Israels National Water Agency Mekorot, he pointed out. A pilot project of Direct Benefit Transfer of Electricity

(DBTE) for agriculture consumers under the banner of Paani Bachao Paise Kamao scheme had been initiated with the intent of saving ground water and motivating farmers to cultivate diversified crops. The Government of Punjab had also initiated a programme to provide piped potable drinking water to every household in rural areas by December, 2019, he informed the Commission.

In line with the commitment of the State for sustainable development, he also asked the Commission to provide a financial assistance of Rs. 500 crore for river cleaning programme, and Rs. 3,682 crore for ground water improvement by river augmentation through afforestation.

Referring to the problem of drug abuse, which he said was directly attributable to the location of the State, the Chief Minister said Punjab shared its borders with Pakistan, which itself was well-connected with one of worlds largest opium-producing regions that enable narcotics to enter Punjab more easily than other parts of India. He brought to the Commissions notice that the drug epidemic in Punjab also had strong correlation with rising unemployment among the youth.

15TH FINANCE COMMISSION

Punjab has a high youth unemployment rate at 16.60% compared to the national average of 10.20% due to slowdown in agricultural productivity, lack of industrialization, mismatch between educational qualifications, etc. He requested the Commission to provide Rs. 300 crore for expansion and strengthening of OOAT clinics to rehabilitate patients of drug abuse,

Captain Amarinder further urged the Commission to provide support of Rs. 5,500 crore and Rs. 6,719 crore to its power infra and road infra, respectively, which the State had created majorly from its own resources, much ahead of the others, and was now neither getting the capital grant nor the maintenance expenditure for same under the various Central Government schemes. He also sought Rs. 100 crore for strengthening the cancer infrastructure and Rs. 505 crore for providing sewerage facilities in the villages on periphery of our towns.

The Chief Minister told the Commission that despite the financial crunch, his government was making the best of efforts to boost development and improve the quality of living on all fronts. Punjab was the second best performing large state in terms of Health as per the Health Index 2018, and had achieved 100% rural electrification way back in 1976 and every town and village stands electrified, with one of the lowest Transmission & Distribution Losses (T&D) in the country,

he noted. What is more, the state is ranked 2nd in the country in terms of road connectivity and our rail density is better than the national average. It ranked 2nd in Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) Index, on account of our excellent performance on various parameters, namely, infrastructure, service, timeliness, safety & tracking and competitive pricing.

The State led the country in abolishing the practices of affidavit in citizen services as also shunning the VIP culture by abolishing the red beacon culture, much ahead of others, the Chief Minister noted. His government had, in the last two years, signed 305 MOUs with an investment potential of Rs 42,905 crore and an employment potential of about 1 Lakh in the last 20 months, he further disclosed.

To ensure transparency and accountability, his government had also enacted the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Services (including electronic service delivery) Act in 2018 with an objective to provide citizen/ centric services to its people in digital mode in next three years.

The Chief Minister said he was saddened by the fact that the necessary development expenditure in Punjab has starved for want of funds against the backdrop of lack of adequate support from the Centre and the already stressed financial position of the State. He requested the Commission to pay special attention to the financial position of the State so that it comes out of the clutches of the vicious debt trap and work with utmost sincerity and integrity towards realizing its vision of a prosperous Punjab and prosperous India.

Finance Minister Manpreet Badal raised objections to the industrial concessions given to the neighbouring states, asserting that the central government had no right to destabilize industrial set-up in any state by offering concessions to neighbouring states.

The Finance Commission was represented by Chairman N.K. Singh, Chairman, along with members Dr. Anoop Singh, Dr. Ashok Lahiri and Dr. Ramesh Chand, as well as Arvind Mehta, Secretary to the Commission and other officers of the Commission.

The state government was represented, besides the Chief Minister, by Cabinet Ministers Brahm Mohindra, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Charanjit Singh Channi, OP Soni, and senior officers.
Agartala, Jan 30 (PTI) A tribal leader of Tripura, Rajeswar Debbarma, has resigned from the BJP for its "failure" to implement poll promises, made during 2018 Assembly election, for the development of the indigenous people of the state.

Debbarma also demanded scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill-2016 as it posed a threat to the indigenous people of Tripura. He submitted his resignation to party president of the state unit, Biplab Kumar Deb, on Tuesday.

Deb is also the Chief Minister of Tripura and is currently out of the state. "I am quite unhappy with the performance of the BJP- led NDA government in the state as it is ignoring the indigenous people of Tripura. Not a single poll pledge, the party had made before last year's Assembly election, has been implemented," Debbarma said. Debbarma, a former MLA of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), a regional tribal party, had joined the BJP before the Assembly election in Tripura last year.

"The BJP gave a clear assurance in its vision document before the last election that more power would be granted to tribal council, which would be named as 'Tipraland State Council' but the party did not look into the matter. "Recently the Union Cabinet announced its decision to upgrade the tribal council into a territorial council, which will not fulfil the aspirations of the indigenous people of the state," he said.

On the Citizenship Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8, Debbarma said "It is anti-tribal and the indigenous people would be marginalised if Hindus from Bangladesh enter the state." He also voiced his protest against police firing on Citizenship Bill protestors at Madhabbari in West Tripura district on January 8, the day the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha.

The proposed legislation seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim nationals from Bangladesh,

Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India.A Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel and six members of Twipra Student Federation (TSF), who were protesting against the Bill, were injured when police opened fire and resorted to lathicharge to disperse the gathering on January 8. The present coalition government of Tripura, led by the BJP, has "totally failed" to deliver good governance in the last ten months and lost its credibility, he said.
Panaji, Jan 30 (PTI) As many as 108 posts are lying vacant in different courts of Goa following the state government's decision in 2016 to ban fresh recruitments, law minister Nilesh Cabral admitted on Wednesday. The minister, however, claimed that non-recruitment of new staff members in various ranks had not hampered the functioning of courts in the state as workforce was deployed on a temporary basis to make up for the gaps.

Cabral said this in the state Assembly while responding to a question tabled by Congress member Philip Neri Rodrigues, who expressed concern that the shortage of staff may affect the functioning of various courts.The minister said the ban was imposed in 2016 on all recruitment processes in government departments and grant-in-aid institutions. "Now, the government has lifted the ban and it will take about six months for fresh appointments," he said.

Another Congress member Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco told the House that around 100 staff members will be retiring by December this year, creating more vacancies and crippling the functioning of courts.Lourenco said the state government should refrain from giving extensions to officials and instead, fill their posts through a proper process. Cabral then said the state will ensure that every post in the courts was filled.
Kulia (Odisha), Jan 30 (PTI) BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday dubbed the proposed "mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) of opposition parties as "helpless" and asserted that his party would retain power after the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as only Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership could thwart any misadventure by Pakistan.In a stinging attack on the Congress, he blamed the four generations of the Gandhi family for poverty still prevailing in the country.

"Four generations of Rahul baba's (Congress chief Rahul Gandhi) family were in power, but the country is still fighting against poverty. The BJP government is working for the welfare and development of the poor, tribals and Dalits," Shah told a BJP workers' meeting here in Odisha's Cuttack district. He claimed that the nation's mood was very clear to return Modi to power and appealed to the people of Odisha to be part of this by electing a large number of MPs of the saffron party from the state.

Shah hit out at the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the state, saying Odisha remained backward, despite the flow of huge funds from the Centre, because of the inefficiency and inaction on the part of the Naveen Patnaik government."The mahagathbandhan of opposition parties is devoid of a proper leadership, policies and agenda, but they claim that they can give a strong government.

The country needs a majboot (strong) government and not a majboor (helpless) government...only the BJP is capable of providing such a government," he said.Stating that more than 26 political parties were solidly backing the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Shah ridiculed the proposed opposition coalition ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

The BJP chief asserted that the prime minister was thinking about the country's security round-the-clock and working sincerely to safeguard our frontiers, which the constituents of the proposed "mahagathbandhan" were incapable of doing. When terrorists sent by Pakistan had mounted an assault in Uri, Modi took revenge within 10 days by sending soldiers to carry out surgical strikes in their territory, he said, adding, "Only Narendra Modi is capable of doing it and not the Congress."

Stating that Modi successfully elevated the image of India across the globe, Shah said when the prime minister spoke in an Indian language at the United Nations General Assembly, everyone in the country felt proud. He added that during his visits to several states, he had found that people were desperate to re-install Modi as the prime minister. "It makes the mandate of the 2019 polls very clear. The mood of the nation is clear.

Narendra Modi will form the government again with an overwhelming majority," Shah said.The BJP chief also appealed to the people of Odisha to be part of the nation's mood and send more number of MPs of the saffron party to further bolster Modi's prospects. "We need the blessings of Lord Jagannath and the people of Odisha in the upcoming election," he said.

Highlighting the achievements of the BJP-led government, Shah said more than eight crore toilets were constructed across the country, 13 crore women and infants were covered under the immunisation programme and a large number of poor were provided with houses and LPG connections since the NDA came to power in 2014. For the first time since Independence, the country saw a prime minister in Modi, who gifted the poor tribal people their due share in the earnings from mining operations, he said.

While there was no provision for mineral area development during the previous Congress rule, the BJP-led government stopped the entire money from going to industries and ensured that a major share of it was used for development of these areas, Shah said, adding that Odisha received over Rs 4,000 crore under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF). Seeking to motivate the party cadre in the state, he said the BJP was different from the other political parties.

"It is a party of workers and not leaders. Different analyses have shown that the party performs well when its workers from down below work with dedication," Shah added. Noting that Modi's vision of a new India could only be established by the hard work of the party workers, he appealed to them not to rest until the BJP governments were formed both in Odisha and at the Centre.

Shah's meeting covered four Lok Sabha segments -- Cuttack, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara. The four Lok Sabha seats include 28 Assembly segments. zThe BJP president's visit was politically significant as it came four days after Rahul Gandhi addressed a public meeting at Tomando, near Bhubaneswar, on January 25.Shah's visit is also considered important as he came to Odisha after three back-to-back visits of Modi on December 24, January 5 and 15.

The general election and the Odisha Assembly polls are expected to be held together this year.The BJP has been making serious efforts to bag a large number of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha and also to put an end to Patnaik's uninterrupted rule in the state since 2000.The saffron party had won only one Lok Sabha seat and 10 of the 147 Assembly seats in the state in the 2014 polls.
An ancient bronze tiger kettle has made its debut at China's National Museum on Tuesday, January 29, 2019, 159 years after it was plundered by the British army during its destruction of the Old Summer Palace in northwestern Beijing in 1860. The kettle dates back to the late Western Zhou Dynasty (1046771BCE).

Undated photo showing the special exhibition space at China's National Museum created to display a 2,700-year-old water kettle repatriated to China last year [Photo: National Museum of China]

China's National Cultural Heritage Commission has been credited with helping repatriate the Chinese artifact, which was set to be auctioned off in the UK early last year by the artifact's private holder. After six-months of negotiations, Chinese authorities were able to secure the return of the tri-footed water holder.

It arrived back in China in November.

In a bid to capitalize on the Spring Festival holiday, the Museum has launched a special exhibition for the kettle.

It includes details of its functionality, the patterns and inscriptions on the relic, as well as an explanation of how authorities were able to secure its return to China.

The exhibition is free for one month.

Undated photo of a tri-footed bronze tiger kettle repatriated to China last year and now on display at China's National Museum. [Photo: National Museum of China]
Jaipur, Jan 30 (PTI) Welcoming Congress president Rahul Gandhi's announcement of minimum income guarantee to poor, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot Tuesday said he has already started preparations about the scheme. Gehlot said that the country is capable of providing such a guarantee to its citizens. "This is a historic announcement. I have started preparations from today that how this scheme can be implemented,

how this should be implemented and what model should be there for the implementation," Gehlot told reporters here. He said that the governments formed by the Congress in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are fulfilling the promises made by Gandhi ahead of the state polls. "Whatever promises he made during assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we are fulfilling them, be it farm loan waiver or allowance to unemployed youths.

The announcement of minimum income by Gandhi is historic," he said. "Everything is possible if a government has willpower," he added. Gandhi Monday promised his party would ensure minimum income guarantee for every poor person if it comes to power at the Centre, echoing the 'Garibi Hatao' ('Remove Poverty') slogan coined by his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the 1971 general elections that she won.
Auction of Australian pink diamonds scheduled for 21 June  1 July A private collection of rare diamonds has recently been discovered in Brisbane, Australia. The Eleven Pink Diamonds originally sourced from the Argyle diamond mine are expected to exceed previous records when they are offered for sale in Sydney at the...

ALROSA shareholders approved H220 dividends at RUB 70.3 bn Voting by absentee ballot at their annual general meeting held on 16 June 2021, ALROSA shareholders approved dividends for the second half of 2020 at RUB 9.54 per share, which makes a total of RUB 70.3 bn.

TAGS reports strong demand and achieves record pricing across all ranges The Trans Atlantic Gem Sales (TAGS) event took place in Dubai from 9th to 16th June 2021. Following the lockdown in India, TAGS investigated the possibility of conducting a sales event in Surat. But, despite the continuation of travel restrictions...

Rio Tinto appoints Peter Cunningham as Chief Financial Officer Mining major Rio Tinto has appointed Peter Cunningham as Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect. Peter, who has been Interim Chief Financial Officer since 1 January 2021, will also join the Rio Tinto Board as an executive director at the same...
 What would it take to reverse those population declines? About 73 percent of the population declines in Buchanan and Dickenson are due to people moving out. In other counties in far Southwest, the figure is in the 60 percent range. However, even if something magically happened to the economy there and nobody moved out, the population of those counties would still decline  because deaths are exceeding births. Demographically speaking, those communities need many things all at once  a new economy and a baby boom, which also means they need a younger population. Is any of that realistic? The sad reality seems to be that the population of many rural counties will continue to decline even if there are heroic efforts to create a new economy.

 A lot of localities in this part of Virginia are seeing deaths outnumber births. Thats a symptom of an aging population and a lack of economic growth to retain young adults. Sometimes those births vs. deaths figures are masked by new people moving in, sometimes theyre not. Try this comparison: Roanoke County is much like Tazewell County in one key way. Theyve both had about 1,200 more deaths than births since the last census. The difference is that Roanoke County had a net gain of 2,507 new people moving in while Tazewell had a net loss of 1,908 moving out. Perhaps some of Roanoke Countys new residents will reproduce, but if they dont  if they are primarily retirees, for instance then its in Roanoke Countys interest to help attract a younger population that will. Roanoke County may be an affluent suburb, but demographically speaking, it has much in common with the hardest-hit parts of rural Virginia.
When deployed overseas, I could not have been successful if it was not for the assistance of my interpreters. In addition to their basic duties of translating, they helped me understand local and regional context. They provided thoughts and served as a sounding board for ideas. I can share countless stories about their commitment to promoting American values. Together, we went on endless patrols through the streets and fields of Kandahar. They risked their lives to promote American ideals despite grave risks to them and their families because they believed in our message. They believed that people are better when they are treat each other as equals, when girls have access to education and employment, and that diversity is something we should embrace. Clearly, they represent the best, and we are lucky to have them.
Since then, things have changed. At least once a week, my trips between Roanoke and Blacksburg encounter some sort of significant delay, due either to major crashes often with tragic consequences or increased congestion after some minor incident. I have learned the various alternate routes but, when a 3-6 mile slowdown occurs, unless you are strategically positioned, a timely exit from the interstate isnt always possible. Thus, meetings and opportunities are missed, guests who I am recruiting may come away with a less than warm feeling about what life would be like living here and students who we are trying to recruit can become uneasy about how they would deal with research projects and classes between campuses. Also, as we work with companies and potential investors to make the case as to why this is a great place to establish collaborations or locate, these instances can be detrimental when we are trying to make the case for the proximity of the VT campus in Blacksburg to our Roanoke operation.
The major media have gone gaga over the number of women newly elected to Congress and those announcing their run for the White House in 2020, with more female candidates likely to follow suit.

But medias bias  one of many  is revealed in their focus on mostly liberal women with barely a mention, if they are mentioned at all, of women who are conservative. Reporters, commentators and hosts on major networks, and including some cable outlets, speak of womens issues, as if all women think, or should think, alike.

Worse, they never examine whether ideas floated by liberal women are anything new or whether they have worked in the past or are working presently. Many liberal pronouncements seem to be taken at face value, with little pushback to explain how they plan to make their proposals work, especially those that have been tried and failed before (consider programs to wipe out poverty, along with increased spending to improve public education, as just two of many examples).

Another example: The presidential candidacy announcement by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). Harris has been in the Senate for only two years but already she hears Hail to the Chief playing for her? Who does she think she is, Barack Obama?
Its going to be hard for small localities to fight large interests, he said. He appealed to those of you in the body who like the little man and dont like the heavy hand of government reaching out and telling you what to do.

Its uncertain how many dry localities in Virginia have chosen to remain that way rather than go through the process of allowing mixed drink sales. Hurst said getting a referendum on the ballot can be tedious.

Hurst said no particular locality is driving this legislation, but its an issue that businesses and local officials have raised with him before. And since the bill was filed, hes heard from more local leaders who told him they are appreciative hes trying to settle this debate once and for all.

Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, said the state government is forcing a policy on local governments they have so far opted not to implement .

Its not our place in the state government to tell local governments what they have to do in this regard, Orrock said.

Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax, spoke in favor of the bill, arguing the heavy hand of government is telling a small business it cant sell liquor by the drink unless it gets an affirmative resolution.
Roanoke and Salem police are investigating reports of white supremacist flyers that appear to be similar to materials distributed recently in several places in far southwest Virginia.

A Salem resident told police on Sunday that he found a KKK recruitment flyer in his yard, city spokesman Mike Stevens said. The piece of paper was tied to a small container of bird seed to keep it from blowing away.

Stevens said police are looking into the complaint, but have not determined if the incident rises to the level of a hate crime.

Bags with Ku Klux Klan recruitment information and bird seed have also been found in the past week in Abingdon, Gate City and Weber City, the Bristol Herald Courier reported.

Roanoke police officers arrived Sunday in the 3000 block of Swarthmore Avenue Northwest to investigate similar reports. They found multiple pieces of biased propaganda literature in front of homes, according to police spokeswoman Caitlyn Cline.
You will forever be a light in our hearts, said Stirling Barfield, an assistant professor of psychology.

Sam Welch, a classmate, recalled Cannon capturing every moment she could to share on Instagram  a reminiscence that ushered in a slideshow of pictures of Cannon with friends and family as Hillsong Uniteds song Even When It Hurts (Praise Song) played.

When it ended, the crowd moved outside for a remembrance walk across campus.

Outside the vigil, Carson Keith, a junior from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said she was friends on social media with Cannon. Im here because shes one of us and I wanted to support her, Keith said.

In a way I think it has brought us closer, Keith continued. We are all much more aware of each other than we were trying to get over this tragedy together.

Meanwhile, earlier Wednesday at the church, in the vestibule, a man took out his phone so he could read along to the hymns. There were not hymnals enough.
The distillery had planned to make Henry its permanent home, but a long-term arrangement to do so fell through, Carter said.

Production was moved to a property in Ferrum owned by Prillaman, where he wouldnt have to risk moving again, knew the water quality was good and had space to expand if needed, Carter said.

They considered scrapping the tasting room, but ultimately decided not to.

We realize that there are advantages, especially in the state of Virginia, to have a distillery store, Carter said.

The search for a tasting room ultimately led them back to the Jones Building, where the special-use permit approved in 2016 is still in place.

Twin Creeks ceased operations in Henry in December. The production facility in Ferrum, which will not be open to the public, is now up and running.

But the opening of the Rocky Mount location got caught up in the government shutdown, Carter said. Shes optimistic that, with the government now reopened, they can be serving liquor in town by March. Delays at the federal level were kept in mind when setting the opening date, Carter said.

Town Manager James Ervin said he was glad Twin Creeks had followed up on its earlier interest in Rocky Mount.
A Roanoke judge chose a seven-and-a-half-year prison term Wednesday for a man convicted in the death of a friend whom he supplied with drugs.

Christopher Wesley Box was also fined $40,000 over a 2016 incident that involved fentanyl Box had purchased from a Chinese website. Box and a visitor to his Blacksburg apartment ingested the powdery substance. The visitor died a short time later.

Box, 27, who now lives in Forest, pleaded guilty in Roanoke federal court last year to distributing a mixture that contained fentanyl, the use of which resulted in the death of another. He stood at his sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon and spoke of remorse and regret as members of the dead mans family listened.

What I did was despicable, irresponsible and inexcusable, Box said.

David Harbach, an assistant U.S. attorney, agreed with Boxs assessment of his conduct. Ordering drugs from China was foolish and giving it to another person was beyond reckless, Harbach said in a court filing. What made things even worse was that a graduate of Virginia Tech with a major in biological sciences plainly should appreciate the risks of such conduct, the filing said.
The office clerk of the Bedford Moose Lodge is accused of stealing hundreds of dollars from the lodge, authorities said Tuesday.

Patsy Brown Crowder of Bedford was arrested Saturday by the Virginia State Police on five counts of grand larceny, five counts of forgery and five counts of using a forged document, according to state police spokesman Sgt. Richard Garletts.

Online court records indicate the offenses occurred in March, April, October and November 2017.

Crowder, who is listed in Bedford Lodge No. 1897s February 2018 newsletter as an office clerk, was booked in the Bedford Adult Detention Center on Saturday and released on a $5,000 bond Monday, according to online jail records.

It is unclear exactly how much money Crowder is accused of stealing from the lodge. Under state law, grand larceny is the theft of money or property valued at $500 or more.

State police declined to detail the nature of the offenses. When reached by phone Tuesday, an employee at the lodge declined to comment.

In an email, Bedford County Commonwealths Attorney Wes Nance confirmed the arrest but did not specify the nature of the charges.

Crowder is scheduled to appear in Bedford County General District Court on April 22.
The Science Museum of Western Virginia will soon showcase the atomic work of Franklin County students.

More than 30 teams from the New Tech program at the Leonard A. Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration were challenged this fall to create an interactive display of an atom using household materials.

The science museums education department narrowed the submissions to six winning models considered to have the most ingenuity and creativity.

The winners, along with their families, will be honored at a ceremony Monday. Visitors can see the models on display for the next year.

We encourage students to use their imaginations and the resources available to them, which often requires a certain level of creativity, said the museums executive director, Rachel Hopkins. This display ceremony is a way for us to positively reinforce the hard work that these students have put in by showcasing their models on the museum floor.

The New Tech program is a project-based learning academy that launched in 2017.

Engineering convention for teachers to be hosted in Roanoke
The wine is then placed into barrels, which are filled to about two-thirds full. The air is humid, and local yeast forms a waxy skin on the surface of the wine resembling a layer of flowers. The yeast, known as flor, creates a seal that protects the wine from excessive oxidation and metabolizes sugar, glycerin and oxygen, resulting in a bone dry wine with flavors of almonds and yeasty bread dough. At this point, the wine is introduced to the unique Solera system for aging. The Solera consists of rows of matte black barrels stacked on top of one another. The bottom row contains the oldest wine, the middle row less old, and the top row the youngest.

When bottling time arrives, wine is drawn from the bottom barrels, and the barrels are then topped off from the row above and then that row from the row above it and so on. Due to this fractional blending process, the wines cannot be vintage dated. Indeed, the bottom barrels could contain molecules of wine that are over 100 years old. Fino sherry displays a light straw color and aromas of nuts, grass and yeast. Bone dry, it is best served well-chilled alongside seafood dishes such as garlic shrimp, calamari and langoustines.
Milo Ventimiglia, who stars in the award-winning hit television drama "This is Us," has been named 2019 Man of the Year by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Bryce Dallas Howard, who has made her mark as an actor, producer and director, was named the groups 2019 Woman of the Year.
Ballad spokeswoman Teresa Hicks said the terms are still being negotiated but that Ballad has agreed to provide the funds necessary for Lee County to reaquire the land and building.

The timeline for reopening will be announced once a comprehensive plan is completed.

Montgomery said in a phone interview that the authority will maintain ownership of the building and lease it to Ballad.

I dont know how many rural hospitals have closed  70 or 80 or maybe more in the last few years. I believe we will be the only one that has reopened, Montgomery said.

The University of North Carolinas Cecil G. Sheps Center has tracked 95 closings since 2010. Some of the former hospitals now offer emergency or urgent care, or outpatient services.

The Lee County Hospital Authority has been working since 2013 to reopen the hospital. It first had to convince the state that there was a need for a critical access hospital in order to obtain what is called a Certificate of Public Need. The certificate was set to expire at the end of 2018, and the authority commissioners had thought that Americore would have the hospital open before then.
Contributed photo

The bridge over Brushy Fork Creek is near the Boone Trace trail, part of the storied path where Daniel Boone forged a path to America's West in 1775. Supporters of the trail and Berea officials say promotion of the trail can translate into tourism dollars.
On an airplane flight from San Francisco in 2014, Witthaus started to scribble down some ideas for simple, low-tech ways to improve school security. Soon, he enlisted the help of McCann, a carpenter, craftsman and set designer who worked as a contractor in Mathews County.

We sat down for hours and brainstormed what something like this could look like, keeping in mind that most school systems are financially challenged, Witthaus said. It had to be affordable. It had to be something that was always in place and easy to deploy.

Working from their ideas, McCann made the first model of the DropLock device, which has since evolved through several prototypes. By late 2014, Witthaus and McCann had made a demonstration video of the device that they could present to a patent attorney.

Not long after that, McCann was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He died in February 2015 at age 51.

He was truly a Renaissance guy, Witthaus said of McCann. It really set me back, because he was a good friend.

McCann survived long enough to learn that their invention was on the right path.

I talked to him two days before he passed and told him our product was patentable, Witthaus said.
It wasnt always that way. Between the 1930s and early 1970s, Kabul was known as the Paris of Central Asia. During that time, womens rights progressed steadily. Afghan women were given the right to vote in 1919  a full year before American women. They went to university and medical school and were active in civil affairs and politics. But during the Soviet occupation and the growing civil conflicts in the 1980s and 1990s, the Taliban gained power and womens freedoms were systematically abolished.

The Taliban enforced its own horrific version of Shariah law. Females were banned from school and work. They couldnt speak publicly, leave home without a male chaperone, or show any skin in public. They werent allowed to see male doctors. Since women werent permitted to become doctors, females had little to no health care. Beatings, rape, and honor killings were commonplace.

The Taliban ruled with an iron fist from 1996 until 2001, when American-led coalition forces invaded. The living conditions of Afghan women horrified the outside world. In the years following, thanks to intervention from the U.S. and numerous international agencies, women regained many rights. They are able to work, receive medical care, and go to school. They thrived despite ongoing warfare.
As the relationship between a president and the leader of the universitys academic enterprise is so critical, I believe that the next president should be free to select the provost of their choice when they arrive at UConn, Kennedy said. ... This will allow the next president to select a provost based on their own academic priorities, vision for the institution, and their specific preferences regarding the individual who fulfills this role.
WHITE, Stuart Pendergraft, was born on August 27, 1937, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and died in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, on January 19, 2019. She was a sixth generation Chapel Hillian and the daughter of Frank and Hazel Pendergraft. As a child, family and friends often remarked that she was especially aware of the natural world that surrounded her, living near the UNC campus, just up the hill from Eben Merritt's Pasture in the Westwood neighborhood. She was a gifted young artist capable of dashing off landscapes and remarkable likenesses of people, plants and animals. Supporting her teenage interest in fashion, her parents subscribed to women's fashion magazines, allowing Stuart to cut out and assemble the photographs of Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. Upon graduation from Chapel Hill High School, she attended the University of North Carolina and Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), and while studying at the School of Art at RPI met her lifelong partner and collaborator, Charles Ridgely White, whom she lost on July 27, 2018. Stuart and Charlie constructed their house and artist's studio from abandoned historic houses in Goochland County and there, built a rewarding artistic enterprise encouraged by family, friends and patrons. Stuart became an accomplished landscape and portrait artist, her work informed by her childhood connections to the natural world; rides through Chapel Hill's neighborhoods on her pony, Alice, and travels throughout the Southeast. Moving to Virginia, she enjoyed walks with Charlie in Goochland County, then a fragrant forest rolling up from the James River and travels with close friends and family in the U.S. and abroad. Whether posed in the early intact Tuckahoe Swamp, photographed during her travels to St. Croix, Russia, Australia or a Navaho pueblo, her paintings were primarily canvas collages of women, adorned in floral clothing and set against natural communities of plants and animals. They are a tangle of arms, legs, roots, limbs and leaves; her color palette was earth tones. Her paintings were methodical assemblies on canvas: a penciled pattern, under paint, the gluing of a jigsaw of drawings and photographs, and then over paint and refinement. She created plainly told yet complex stories connecting people and companion and wild animals set within natural communities. Sales that began among friends and neighbors expanded to national and international audiences, including major commissioned pieces sold through her studio in Manakin-Sabot, local and national art shows and at Richmond's Uptown Gallery, a cooperative that she helped to establish and manage. Throughout her life and work, she principally celebrated the beauty and tenacity of women; their adornment, their labors and achievements, all within a natural world under assault and blindingly beautiful. Those who knew her best understood that she loved spending time with friends and family, including her beloved cats. She adored above all else those lazy afternoons on the beautiful beaches of North and South Carolina. Stuart's humor, wit, kindness, love and smile will never be forgotten by those who knew and loved her, and her art will outlive us all to serve as colorful memories of our past. She is survived by her brother, Bill Pendergraft of Chapel Hill; sister-in-law, Jeanne Phillips; nine nieces and 12 nephews, Will Pendergraft, Emily Pendergraft, Marsha White, Michael White, Victoria White Rolley, Mark White, Brian White, Eileen Page, Edwin Behnke Jr., Kathleen Lambert, Mark Behnke, Paul Malmquist, Gregory Malmquist, Teresa Malmquist, James Malmquist, Timothy Hood, Scott Hood, Gale Hood-Bixby, Steven Hood, Margo McGee, Natalie Hood; 31 grandnieces and nephews and 15 great-nieces and nephews. A celebration of her life and work will occur this year at the Uptown Gallery, 1305 West Main Street, Richmond, Va., (804) 353-8343. Contributions in her name may be made to the Democratic Party of Virginia, P.O. Box 448, Richmond, Va. 23218. Self portrait by the artist.
Wyatt told people before the meeting he didnt know what he was going to do and hadnt decided what he was going to run for. Obviously not true, Marcus said. He should have disclosed his conflict of interest and asked for someone else to be appointed to represent Hanover.

Wyatt said he didnt even attend the meeting due to his participation in the Right to Life March in Washington, D.C.

I was appointed by the prior chair to serve on this LDC. When it was time to vote and decide on a process, I did not attend and asked someone else in the Hanover Republican Party to represent Hanover, Wyatt said. I endorse the decision of the LDC.

Marcus indicated a convention nominating process is less inclusive and requires more steps for potential voters.

By going to a convention this reduces participation because people have to find out when and where they file to be delegates from their county, attend a local meeting to get elected, then attend the convention sometime in May, he said.

Wyatt endorsed the process and said its time for new blood in the 97th, noting that Peace has served since 2006.
A Petersburg man has been arrested in connection with the shooting of another Petersburg man during an apparent dispute Jan. 19 in a residential area of Colonial Heights, police said. The victim suffered life-threatening wounds but survived.

With the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, Colonial Heights police arrested James Reid, 33, of the 500 block of South Dunlop Street in Petersburg, on charges of attempted murder, reckless handling of a firearm, use of a firearm in a felony and possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony.

Reid is accused of shooting a 40-year-old Petersburg man who was found about 11:45 p.m. with multiple gunshot wounds in the front yard of a residence in the 100 block of Carroll Avenue, which is just off the Boulevard.

It is more than likely that [the shooting stemmed from] a dispute between the two men, said Colonial Heights Capt. William Anspach. Were still trying to establish what the relationship was.

We believe [the shooting] was definitely intentional, Anspach added.

The victim, who wasnt identified, remains in serious but stable condition at VCU Medical Center, Anspach said.
No person deserves to die such an intensely brutal death, particularly and literally at the hands of his own son, Felipita Altimari told Johnson during the Jan. 17 hearing in Chesterfield Circuit Court, reading aloud a statement about how the Nov. 4, 2017, killing has upended her life. Nobody in this world loved Frank more than his father, and I remembered that as I screamed at Frank and watched him take his fathers life.

I still hear the sound of the ax pounding against Nicks head and chest as Frank asked me, Do you think hes dead yet?

Thinking she would be next, Felipita Altimari testified she was prepared to die as she cowered on her hands and knees while her stepson raised the ax again. Her only thought, as she begged for her life, was where Franks ax was going to fall on me.

But her life was spared when the former project manager for Capital One  whose father and grandfather spent much of their careers in the criminal justice system, one as a prosecutor, the other as a judge  threw the ax he had bought from Lowes earlier that evening into the trunk of his car and drove away.

Now mentally stabilized with medication, Frank Altimari apologized in a prepared statement he read to the judge.
Even though hes worked for the same outfit for almost 30 years, hes moved around so much and held so many different positions that his career has always remained fresh.

The job never gets old, said Roberts, who noted that the NRC had not been affected by the partial government shutdown because the agency had been fully funded for the fiscal year before the shutdown started. Theres always a challenge.

Roberts, who plans to return to Petersburg next summer for his 35th high school reunion, thinks back to those who helped him get where he is, and he volunteers at STEM programs for young students in the Chicago area. He said he tries to offer an option for kids who might look to celebrities or those with questionable qualities as role models.

I am a different person, I guess, he said. Someone they can see whos done something different in his life, and, hopefully, prove to be an example for them.

For students or families who read this, Roberts offered this:
1932: The Bureau of Biological Survey at the U.S. Department of Agriculture issues a statement outlining its exhaustive study of groundhogs. It says the earliest anyone had even seen a groundhog in any year was Feb. 7, and that was down in North Carolina, where it gets warm earlier. The bureau, clumsily exposing its regional biases, goes on to say that the groundhog legend is a superstition that must have originated in the Southern States.

1936: A Richmond weatherman, asked whether the groundhog saw his shadow, replies seriously, Today, skies above Richmond were completely covered by alta-strata clouds.

1936: A biology professor at the University of Toledo conducts a serious, government study of the groundhogs ability to predict weather. He concludes that the theory is preposterous because changes in the endocrine system are a controlling factor in the hibernation of a groundhog, and everyone knows endocrine systems and weather systems are unrelated.

1937: A weather bureau spokesman calls Groundhog Day a lot of sentimental twaddle.
Altria Group Inc. has eliminated 900 salaried jobs from its business operations nationwide as the Henrico County-based tobacco giant cuts expenses to help pay for its ventures into alternative products.

The job cuts have occurred since the start of the year and have affected salaried employees in the companys operations across the country, including its sales force, Altria spokesman Steve Callahan said late Friday afternoon.

Callahan could not say specifically how many of the job reductions are in the Richmond area, where Altria has its headquarters in Henrico, its Philip Morris USA cigarette manufacturing operations in South Richmond and a research center in downtown Richmond.

The cuts amount to a little more than 10 percent of Altrias approximately 8,300 employees companywide.

Altria had more than 4,300 full- and part-time employees in the Richmond region as of a year ago, according to information the company provided for the Richmond Times-Dispatchs 2018 Top Workplaces program.

Most of the job reductions will become effective by the end of February, Callahan said.
School Name Status Buckeye Central Schools No report Bucyrus City Schools No report Clear Fork Christian Preschool 2-hour delay Clear Fork Valley Local Schools 2-hour delay Colonel Crawford Schools 2-hour delay Crestline Village Schools 2-hour delay Crestview School District No report Discovery School 2-hour delay Fairway School No report Foundation Academy of Mansfield No report Galion City Schools No report Heartland Academy No report IMAC 2-hour delay Lexington Child Development Center No report Lexington Local Schools 2-hour delay Lucas Local Schools No report Madison Adult Education 2-hour delay Madison Local Schools 2-hour delay Mansfield 1st EPC Preschool No report Mansfield Christian School 2-hour delay Mansfield City Schools 2-hour delay Mansfield Seventh-Day Adventist School No report Northmor Local Schools No report Ohio Heartland Headstart 2-hour delay OSU-Mansfield/NCSC campus No report Ontario Local Schools No report Pioneer Career & Technology Center No report Plymouth-Shiloh Local Schools No report Richland School of Academic Arts 2-hour delay Richland Newhope No report Sacred Heart School - Shelby No report Shelby City Schools No report St. Joseph's School - Crestline 2-hour delay St. Joseph's School - Galion No report St. Marys School - Mansfield 2-hour delay St. Marys School - Shelby No report St. Peter's School - Mansfield 2-hour delay Sullivan Head Start No report Temple Christian School 2-hour delay Trinity Shining Lights Preschool - Shelby No report Valley View Christian Preschool No report

School closings in and around Richland and Crawford Counties can be seen here. To view closings and delays in Ashland, visit ashlandsource.com, and if interested in closings and delays in Knox County, visit knoxpages.com.
A Wind Chill Warning continues through Thursday afternoon for the entire area. Dangerously cold wind chills are expected to last for a couple days and could be life-threatening.

...Frigid Temperatures with Extremely Dangerous Wind Chills Expected Through Thursday Afternoon for all of Northern Ohio and Northwest PA...

Today: Temperatures near or below zero this morning will continue to fall throughout the day. Dangerous wind chills will continue with values staying below -25F.

Tonight: Lows well below zero and the coldest wind chills of this stretch expected. Winds remain elevated. Wind chill readings could be as cold as -25F to -35F by daybreak, which would yield frostbite in as little as 10 to 30 minutes.

Thursday: High temperatures in the single digits. Wind chills improve through the day as winds begin to diminish across the area. Wind chills go above -20F by Thursday afternoon and continue to improve overnight.

Friday: Temperatures continue to recover with high temperatures back in the teens to lower 20s by late afternoon.

This event will be similar to in duration and intensity as the January 1994 frigid outbreak.

...Wind Chill Criteria...

Wind Chill Warning: Wind chills of -25F or colder for more than a few hours with wind of 6 MPH or greater.

Wind Chill Advisory: Wind chills of -10F to -24 for more than a few hours and with wind of 6 MPH or greater.

The last time NWS Cleveland issued a Wind Chill Warning was 4 years ago, or in February 2015.

...Other Weather this week...

Lake Erie will continue to freeze up rapidly. Gales, Heavy Freezing Spray, and Low Water also also expected on the Lake.

Ice will develop on area rivers.

Lake effect snow possible in the Lake Erie snow belt, primarily in Erie County, PA through Thursday night.

The following link has NWS safety tips for winter weather: Preparing for the Cold

...Cold Temperature Climate Statistics (Not Including Wind Chill)...

Coldest Temperature on Record:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): -20F on January 19, 1994

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): -25F on February 24, 2015

Erie, PA (ERI): -18F on January 19, 1994 and February 16, 2015

Mansfield, OH (MFD): -22F on January 19, 1994 and January 10, 1985

Toledo, OH (TOL): -20F on January 20, 1984

Youngstown, OH (YNG): -22F on January 19, 1994

Coldest Max Temperature on Record:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): -5F on January 20, 1985 and February 9, 1899

Akron-Canton (CAK): -8F on January 20, 1985

Mansfield (MFD): -7F on January 20, 1985 and January 10, 1982

Erie, PA (ERI): -4F on January 19, 1994

Toledo (TOL): -9F on January 20, 1985

Youngstown (YNG): -6F on January 19, 1994

Last Date with High Temperatures Below Zero:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): -3F on January 19, 1994

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): -5F on January 19, 1994

Erie, PA (ERI): -4F on January 19, 1994

Mansfield, OH (MFD): -5F on January 19, 1994*

Toledo, OH (TOL): -1F on January 19, 1994

Youngstown, OH (YNG): -6F on January 19, 1994

*Note: Mansfield had a high of 0F on Feb. 15, 2015.

Record Low Temperatures for Jan. 30:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): -4F in 1873

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): -6F in 1965

Erie, PA (ERI): -4F in 1915

Mansfield, OH (MFD): -4F in 1934 and 1966

Toledo, OH (TOL): -5F in 1965

Youngstown, OH (YNG): -8F in 1965

Record Lowest High Temperatures for Jan. 30:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): 8F in 1977

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): 7F in 1977

Erie, PA (ERI): 8F in 1977

Mansfield, OH (MFD): 4F in 1977

Toledo, OH (TOL): 8F in 1977

Youngstown, OH (YNG): 6F in 1977

Record Low Temperatures for Jan. 31:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): -5F in 1948 and 1971

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): -5F in 1948

Erie, PA (ERI): -6F in 1899

Mansfield, OH (MFD): -5F in 1971 and 2009

Toledo, OH (TOL): -5F in 1971

Youngstown, OH (YNG): -9F in 1948

Record Lowest High Temperatures for Jan. 31:

Cleveland, OH (CLE): 5F in 1971

Akron-Canton, OH (CAK): 8F in 1971

Erie, PA (ERI): 6F in 1971

Mansfield, OH (MFD): 7F in 1971

Toledo, OH (TOL): 6F in 1971

Youngstown, OH (YNG): 5F in 1971

The following links can be bookmarked for the latest information:

Winter Chill Warning details can be found here.

The latest forecast for your location can be found by clicking on the map at www.weather.gov/cle.
Join the Kiwanis & Rotary Clubs of Mansfield as we welcome Cleveland Indians Broadcasters: Matt Underwood (TV) & Jim Rosenhaus (Radio) along with Bob Dibiasio, Sr. Vice President; Public Relations, as they give us the scoop for the coming season.

Tickets are $15 per person and are available at any Richland Bank location as well as WMAN Radio. Price includes an Italian buffet lunch and discussion with question and answer time with the Cleveland Indians Broadcasters and Bobby D'.

This event will be held Thursday, Janaury 31st, 2019 at the Mansfield Holiday Inn on Park Avenue West from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM. (Doors open at 11:00 AM)

We hope you can join us for this fun event!

All proceeds from from this event benefit the Friendly House.
High-end fashion with hefty prices is often sought in robberies: Over the past two years, two Louis Vuitton stores in the Chicago area have been hit by smash-and-grab thieves who used cars to smash into the front of the stores to get at the pricey handbags and clothes inside. In a robbery last year at the Oak Brook Louis Vuitton store, police said robbers left with more than $50,000 worth of merchandise.
MANSFIELD -- Nikki Noel and Whitney Schroeder have brought one of their dreams to life by purchasing a building for Massage Matters.

In late 2018, the Mansfield women bought the building, where they've been working for the past several years.

"I've been in this for eight years now, and Whitney and I have talked about doing something like this for probably the past three years, but we didn't want to do it unless the circumstances were absolutely right," Noel said.

When the owner of the building offered them a chance to buy the space, it felt like the stars aligned. So on Dec. 26, the two bought the former Eclipse Dental Lab, at 324 Lexington Ave.

"I jumped at the chance," Schroeder said. "It was a goal of mine to be able to do for a very long time. And it was great to do it with her. We have a great working relationship together."

Since then, she and Noel have began moving their businesses to the first floor. They had previously been located on the second floor.

Both own the building together, but work independently as certified massage therapists. Schroeder specializes in deep tissue massage, therapeutic massage, myofascial release massage and craniosacral therapy, and Noel focuses on trigger point therapy, medical massage and myofascial release massage. Schroeder moved into the Lexington Avenue location in 2012 and Noel in 2014.

"We have become really good friends over the years," Schroeder said. "There's not many people I would want to go into business with, so we really trust each other completely."

She says they have no problems communicating with one another and can sometimes predict how the other will react.

Noel and Schroeder intend to rent the upper floor of the building to other therapists. Two of the three rooms are already leased. Their own offices will be on the first floor, and are currently being remodeled.

Their vision is to offer therapeutic massage services without a spa focus.

"We definitely both have the same vision," Schroeder said.

She was born and raised in Mansfield, but resided elsewhere in Ohio before moving back to the area.

Noel is from Kentucky and moved to Mansfield as a middle school student with her family.

Both now reside in Mansfield with their families. Noel has three children and Schroeder has two.

"This is the career you have to have life balance. Because it's my own business, I'm my own boss, I make my own hours. I am home every day when my kids get off the bus," Noel said.

Further, massage is a second career for both of them. Schroeder initially studied communication, and Noel studied psychology.

"I always wanted to help people. I have a servant's heart, and this was a way to fulfill that, but also be available to my kids," Noel said.

Schroeder echoed these sediments.

"It's rocky getting going, but once you hit your year mark and get your regular customers, it's great. I do it for the same reasons," she said.
Take a look at this corner of Fourth and Diamond in 1995, and then how it looks today. If the comparison does not seem miraculous to you, then you have not seen other comparable American cities our size who lack the benefit of forward-thinking community leaders to rescue classic downtown business streetscapes.

There are corners of our town that have escaped demolition by only a very slim chance; and only through the dogged determination of those who can do so to save a core of downtown in order to seed Mansfields tomorrow.

This north side of East Fourth Street is a tremendous success story for Mansfield.
Venezuelas Supreme Court has ordered a travel ban on the opposition leader Juan Guaido and frozen his bank accounts.



Guaido is banned from leaving the country until a preliminary investigation is complete after he "caused harm to peace in the republic," court head Maikel Moreno said on January 29.



The 35-year-old opposition leader, who declared himself interim president last week, has been backed by the United States and other nations. Other countries, including Russia, support President Nicolas Maduro.



In an interview with Russias state news agency RIA Novosti, Maduro reiterated that he was ready for talks with the opposition "for the sake of peace and its future," with the participation of international mediators.



Maduro ruled out an early presidential election, saying the next one was not due until 2025, but said he would support snap parliamentary polls.



He also thanked his Russian counterpart, saying that Vladimir Putin is giving us support on all levels," according to Russia's state-run Sputnik information agency.



Washington has imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, a critical source of revenue for the economically crippled country.



Russia sharply criticized the move, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accusing Washington of "publicly setting a course for illegal regime change."



White House national security adviser John Bolton on January 29 warned of "serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido."

With reporting by AP, Reuters, the BBC, and AFP
Congressional Democrats are pushing to get documents from the U.S. Treasury Department about its decision to lift financial sanctions on companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.



Three senior Democrats in the House of Representatives sent a letter on January 29 to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking for the materials.



The lawmakers said they want a broad array of materials "regardless of classification"-- an indication they also want classified intelligence reporting.



The three were Adam Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee; Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee; and Eliot Engel, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee.



The fate of the U.S. sanctions against Deripaska's aluminum and related companies has drawn deep scrutiny in Congress for months.



A billionaire with close ties to the Kremlin, Deripaska himself has been personally sanctioned by the Treasury Department, but measures imposed on his companies earlier this year roiled global metals markets.



After what was reported to be a sustained lobbying campaign, the companies, which included Rusal and En+, succeeded in persuading the Treasury Department that Deripaska would divest some of his holdings, resolving the issue.



Congress tried but failed to block the Treasury from lifting sanctions, and on January 27 the U.S. administration formally lifted the measures.



But news reports have since documented how Deripaskas divestments may end up benefiting family members, other oligarchs, and a state-controlled Russian bank.

With reporting by AP


The U.S. State Department says its coordinator for counterterrorism is traveling to the three Scandinavian countries this week to discuss matters including Iran-backed terrorism in Europe.

The State Department announced Ambassador Nathan Sales trips to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in a January 29 statement, saying that Iran remains the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism.



In recent years the regime has directed or backed terrorist plotting in France, Denmark, The Netherlands, Albania, and elsewhere, it added.



Earlier this month, the European Union approved fresh sanctions on Irans intelligence services and two Iranian nationals, accusing them of attempting -- or carrying out -- attacks against Iranian government opponents on Danish, Dutch, and French soil.



Tehran denied the claim, saying the accusations were aimed at damaging relations between Iran and the EU.



The Dutch government this year accused Iran of likely involvement in the killings of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin in 2015 and 2017. Both were opponents of the Iranian regime.



In October, Denmark accused Irans authorities of planning to carry out attacks on its soil on Iranian exiles belonging to an Iranian opposition group, while France blamed Tehran for a foiled bombing attack that targeted a rally organized by another banned group near Paris in June.



And in December, non-EU member Albania expelled Iran's ambassador to Tirana and another diplomat, saying they were suspected of "involvement in activities that harm the country's security."



Precise reasons for the move were not given, but U.S. officials said it sent a clear message that conducting "terrorist operations in Europe" was unacceptable.



The alleged plots in Europe have strained relations between Tehran and the European Union, which has been working to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal after the United States pulled out of the accord aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.



The U.S. State Department said that Sales talks with Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian officials will also touch upon the prosecution of foreign terrorist fighters who traveled from Europe and other parts of the world to fight alongside the extremist group Islamic State in countries such as Syria and Iraq.



The United States is urging its partners to repatriate their citizens and prosecute them for the crimes they have committed, the statement said.



It said that a 2017 UN Security Council resolution requires states to combat terrorist travel, using tools including terrorist watch lists and airline reservation data.
President Donald Trump has chided U.S. intelligence heads for being "extremely passive and naive" on Iran after their Congressional testimony went against his views.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump said in a January 30 message on Twitter.

The president's tweet comes a day after intelligence chiefs told a Senate committee that the threat from Iran has subsided as Tehran was not taking steps toward making a nuclear bomb.

"Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!" he added.

The United States reinstated sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear deal, in which Tehran received international sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

U.S. intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29 that while Tehran had threatened to reverse some commitments after Trump pulled out of the deal, it was still not violating the agreement by developing nuclear weapons.

They also made other assessments that broke with statements by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections, the threat that the Islamic State militant group poses in Syria and North Korea's commitment to denuclearize.

The breaking of the deal by the United States has exacerbated Iran's economic problems, with its currency, the rial, losing around half of its value against the U.S. dollar last year.

Relations between the two countries remain tense, with both sides ratcheting up their rhetoric.

Earlier this month Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, mocked U.S. officials, calling them "first-class idiots."

Khamenei also taunted an unnamed U.S. official for predicting there would be regime change in Iran by the end of 2018.

It's not the first time Trump has opposed the view of top U.S. intelligence officials.

Trump faced widespread criticism for comments at a July 16 summit in Helsinki in which he suggested that he believed Putin's denials about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election that put him in office, contradicting conclusions by the U.S. intelligence community.
BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz authorities hope it's an offer potential corruption whistle-blowers can't refuse: a cut of the dirty money returned as a result of their efforts.



Under a law signed by President Sooronbai Jeenbekov on January 29, both police and citizens who report cases of official graft are to receive a portion of any financial damages recovered by the state.



Citizens who report corruption among the authorities in the Central Asian state will also be provided with protection, according to the law.



It calls for police who catch corrupt officials to be given 30 percent of any money returned to the state by officials convicted of corruption-related crimes.

Citizens whose reports lead to prosecution are to receive 30 percent of the amount granted to the police -- up to a maximum of 1 million soms ($14,300).



The law had been under discussion in parliament since 2016 in Kyrgyzstan, whose economic health -- like that of many former Soviet republics -- has been harmed by corruption.



Former President Almazbek Atambaev refused to sign the bill in 2017 and sent it back to parliament, saying it needed to be changed.



Atambaev backed Jeenbekov as his successor in an October 2017 presidential vote, but the two have been feuding for almost a year.

Several allies of Atambaev, including two former prime ministers, have been arrested on suspicion of corruption since Jeenbekov came to power.
A Russian ruling-party lawmaker has been arrested in parliament and charged with murder by authorities who suspect he was behind two high-profile contract killings in the North Caucasus region of Karachai-Cherkessia in 2010.

Rauf Arashukov was taken into custody at a session of the Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper chamber, on January 30 after lawmakers agreed to strip him of his immunity from prosecution. Media reports said his father, Raul Arashukov, was detained in St. Petersburg later in the day on separate charges.

The younger Arashukov, 32, was handcuffed and taken to Investigative Committee headquarters, where he was charged with murder, participation in a "criminal community," and witness-tampering, according to a committee statement.

It said he was suspected of involvement in the 2010 killings of Fral Shebzukhov, an adviser to the leader of Karachai-Cherkessia at the time, and Aslan Zhukov, the deputy chairman of a youth movement in the mostly Muslim region, the committee said. Both victims were shot; Shebzukov was also beaten with a baseball bat.

Arashukov is also suspected of pressuring a witness in the Zhukov case.

Later on January 30, a Moscow court ordered Arashukov held in pretrial detention through March 30, although his lawyers had asked the Basmanny District Court to release him on bail or put him under house arrest.

Accounts from lawmakers in Russian media suggested Arashukov's arrest played out with a measure of drama: The morning session of the Federation Council in central Moscow was abruptly closed to the media and entry to the chamber was blocked by Federal Guards Service officers.

Apparently taken by surprise, Arashukov started to walk up the steps between rows of seats in the chamber after the Investigative Committee chief read out the order stripping him of immunity, but stopped after the "icy voice" of Federation Council speaker Valentina Mativiyeno urged him to give in, RBC reported.

"He tried to walk upstairs and leave the session. I told him to sit down in his seat," Matviyenko told journalists later. She said that she told him that the rules gave him the right to comment about the matter but that he declined.

A video released by the Investigative Committee showed Arashukov, in handcuffs, being brought to its headquarters for questioning.

During questioning, Arashukov said that his Russian was not good enough and asked for a translator, Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said, adding that the request was granted.

Many Russian citizens who are not ethnic Russians are more comfortable speaking their native languages. But a fellow member of the Economic Affairs Committee in the Federation Council, Nikolai Kalashnikov, said that Arashukov's Russian was "grammatical and clean" and that he attended committee meetings regularly.

A former municipal lawmaker and district head in Karachai-Cherkessia, Arashukov became a member of the Federation Council in September 2016 and represented the executive branch of the regional government in the upper house.

The United Russia branch in Karachai-Cherkessia said on January 30 that it suspended Arashukov's membership in the party, which dominates politics nationwide and is one of President Vladimir Putin's main levers of influence.

Arashukov could face life in prison if convicted of murder.

Shebzukhov was beaten with a baseball bat and fatally shot in May 2010, and Zhukov was shot dead in March of the same year. According to the Russian news outlet RBK, at least three people suspected or convicted of involvement in the killings have claimed Arashukov was behind them, but he has denied it.

In September, relatives of both victims demonstrated outside the regional Investigative Committee building in Karachai-Cherkessia, demanding that the authorities open a criminal case into Arashukov.

Media outlets including the daily Izvestia and the Interfax news agency reported that Rauf Arashukov's father, Raul, was detained in St. Petersburg a few hours after his son's arrest.

The Investigative Committee said that Raul Arashukov, 59, was suspected of fraud and of using his official position to create a criminal group, and accused of stealing 30 million rubles ($453 million) worth of natural gas over several years. https://sledcom.ru/news/item/1294526/ It said that homes and buildings linked to the Arashukov family were searched in several cities across Russia.

Raul Arashukov is a lawmaker in Karachai-Cherkessia and has worked as an adviser to the CEO of Mezhregiongaz, an affiliate of state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, since 2011.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Current Time, Rapsi, RBC, RIA Novosti, Izvestia, Moskovsky komsomolets, TASS, and Interfax
The Washington Post is reporting that Russian officials have made a secret proposal to build North Korea a nuclear power plant in exchange for dismantling its weapons programs.



In its article published on January 29, The Washington Post cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Moscow made the offer several months ago. U.S. intelligence officials only became aware of it in late 2018.



As part of the deal, the newspaper reported, Russia would build and operate the plant and transfer waste back to Russia. That would reduce the risk that Pyongyang would use the plant to build nuclear weapons.



The White House had no immediate response to The Washington Post report.



President Donald Trump has made negotiations with North Korea a priority, but those efforts have so far yielded little.



Talks between Pyongyang and Moscow have gained new momentum recently, and a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is now planned for late February.



In testimony on January 29 before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said it was unlikely that Pyongyang would ever agree to completely denuclearize.



North Korea's leaders see having a nuclear weapons capability as "critical to regime survival, Coats said.

Based on reporting by The Washington Post


Benanti appeared in the Broadway production of Steve Martins comedy Meteor Shower, which had its world premiere at Long Wharf in 2016 with a different cast and director. Besides working steadily on Broadway, she has appeared on the TV series Nashville, Supergirl and The Detour, and regularly impersonates Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
A verdict is expected next week in the trial of a Danish member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a U.S.-based religious denomination that Russia has branded extremist and outlawed.

Final arguments were completed on January 30 in the trial of Dennis Christensen in the western city of Oryol, where he has been jailed since shortly after his arrest in May 2017, Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia said in a brief statement on its website.

Judge Aleksei Rudnyev will pronounce the verdict on February 6, it said.

The defense argued for acquittal while prosecutors have asked the court to convict Christensen, 46, of organizing the activities of an extremist group and sentence him to 6 1/2 years in prison. The maximum sentence for that crime is 10 years.

Christensen's Russian wife, Irina, told the media outside the court, "He wasn't doing anything illegal and of course he wasn't planning to."

Another supporter outside the court described Christensen as a "good person" who would go out of his way to help his neighbors.

The verdict will reportedly be the first to be issued against a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses since Russia's Supreme Court designated the group as extremist two years ago -- a decision that has been criticized by the United States, the European Union, and human rights groups.



Human Rights Watch has said that Christensen, who denies the charge, did nothing wrong and should be released. In a report last year, the watchdog accused the Russian authorities of a "sweeping campaign" of harassment and persecution against the movement.

Russian activists and Christensen, who has lived in Oryol for more than a decade, say the case against him has echoes of the era of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.



Headquartered in the U.S. state of New York, the Jehovah's Witnesses organization has long been viewed with suspicion by some governments for its members' positions on military service, voting, and government authority in general. The group says it has around 170,000 adherents in Russia.



In its 2017 ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the seizure of its property and effectively banned worshipers from the country.



More than 100 criminal cases have been opened against followers in Russia and some of its publications have been listed as banned extremist literature.



Some of the criminal case brought before the Supreme Court by prosecutors hinged on Russian-language Bible translations by the organization.



Freedom of religion is formally guaranteed in Russia but legislation sets out Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country's four traditional religions, and smaller denominations such as Baptists, Pentecostalists, Mormons, and others frequently face discrimination.

President Vladimir Putin seemed to suggest the Russian state might review the "extremist" designation when he discussed the issue at a meeting of his advisory human rights council in December.

Putin said that "Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians, too," and that it is "complete nonsense" in some cases to "label representatives of religious communities as members of destructive, even terrorist, organizations."

Putin's spokesman said at the time that the Kremlin would look into the matter, but no further announcements have been made.



Earlier in the trial, Christensen, who denied the charges, said the case evoked the Stalin era.



"I'm afraid that history is now repeating itself," Christiansen told Reuters. "I'm afraid that it's actually like Stalin has come back."

Christiansen's trial has gotten very little coverage in the Russian national media, unlike many high-profile cases involving foreigners.

With reporting by AFP
Macedonia says it is ready to accelerate accession talks to join the European Union after agreeing with Greece on a name change to end a decades-long dispute.

Speaking in Vienna on January 30 after meeting with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told reporters that Macedonia should soon be able to show "progress in the area of the rule of law and starting judicial reforms," as well as the fight against corruption and organized crime.

"We hope that by June we will have presented strong arguments to the European Council for getting a date for opening accession negotiations," Zaev said.

"We believe in European values, more so than some people in member states," Zaev added.

Greek lawmakers on January 25 narrowly approved the historic deal, which had already been ratified by Macedonia's parliament.

Under the agreement, signed last year by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Zaev, Macedonia will change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.

For almost three decades, Athens had opposed the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) joining the EU and NATO, arguing that the country's name implied territorial ambitions on Greece's own northern province of the same name.

'Firm Determination'

Kurz, who has pushed for the bloc to accept members from the former Yugoslavia, noted that the Balkans were a vital part of Europe, and therefore should be for the EU as well.

"Austria will continue to stand alongside Macedonia and other Western Balkan countries. We want to support this region. We want, first of all, this region to become a part of the European Union, because the European Union will be comprehensive in geographical terms only after all Western Balkan states will become its members," Kurz said.

"This depends on conditions that must be fulfilled and progress that must be made, but I see firm determination [from Macedonia]," Kurz added.

The European Union presidency, currently held by Romania, said after a meeting between Macedonian and Romanian diplomats in Bucharest on January 28 that it also supported Macedonia's membership bid.

Romanian European Affairs Minister George Ciamba said that he wants Macedonia to open negotiations with the bloc in June at a meeting of EU ministers.

With reporting by Reuters and APA.
The European Union has again called on Russia to immediately and unconditionally release the 24 Ukrainian Navy sailors seized along with their three naval vessels last year near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.



The message was delivered on January 30 by EU envoy to Moscow Markus Ederer to Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko, according to spokeswoman for the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini.



"The Ambassador reiterated the EUs well-known position as regards the continued illegal detention of Ukrainian servicemen by Russia, as elaborated in the Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU, as well as several public statements, including on 17 January," Maja Kocijancic said in a statement.



The Ukrainian servicemen have been held since 25 November 2018, when Russia seized three Ukrainian vessels and their crews and fired shots at them, wounding several Ukrainian sailors near the Kerch Strait.



"The European Union expects Russia to ensure unhindered and free passage through the Kerch Strait to and from the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law," the statement said, adding that Russia's use of force was "unacceptable."



"We expect Russia to immediately and unconditionally release the 24 captured Ukrainian sailors, to respect their right to legal representation and unhindered access by consular authorities, and to ensure that the injured crewmen receive appropriate medical treatment," it said.
Eight Iranian environmentalists accused of spying appeared in a Tehran court on January 30 for a closed-door trial, local media report.



Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi, a representative of one of the accused, said that he was not present in court as the state designated its own handpicked lawyers to represent the defendants, according to the state news agency IRNA.



Four of the defendants were charged last year with sowing corruption on Earth, a charge that can carry the death sentence in Iran.



Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi has claimed the activists were seeking proximity to military sites with the cover of the environmental projects and obtaining military information from them.



Three other activists are accused of espionage and the last one has been charged with "conspiracy against national security," IRNA reported.



Human Rights Watch in October called the accusations against the eight environmentalists ridiculous.



With the judiciary serving as one of the main cornerstones in Irans apparatus of repression, there is a major risk that they wont get a fair trial, the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a statement.

The environmental activists who went on trial are Taher Ghadirian, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Houman Jokar, Sam Rajabi, Sepideh Kashani, Morad Tahbaz, and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh -- all members of a local environmental group, the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation.



The 63-year-old managing director of the group, Kavous Seyed Emami, was also detained but died in prison under disputed circumstances.



The Judiciary said the Iranian-Canadian sociology professor committed suicide. The claim has been questioned by his family and acquaintances.



The Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation works to protect endangered animals and raise public awareness about the environment.

With reporting by AFP, IRNA, and Fars
A leading Iranian veterinarian has questioned a new ban on the walking and transporting of dogs in the Iranian capital, Tehran, as illogical.

"How are veterinarians supposed to treat dogs if their owners are not allowed to take them out in public or drive them in their cars?" said Payam Mohebi, a senior member of Iran's Society of Veterinarians. "How are sick dogs supposed to get to us?"

The ban on the walking of dogs in parks and other public places and of transporting them in cars is the latest move by the Islamic republic against dog ownership, which has reportedly been on the rise despite being regularly denounced by hard-liners as an imitation of decadent Western culture.

The ban was announced on January 29 by Tehran's chief of police, Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi, who said the decision was made in a meeting with representatives from Tehran's prosecutor's office.

"We have received permission from Tehran's prosecutor's office and will take measures against people walking dogs in public spaces, such as parks," Rahimi was quoted as saying in an interview with the hard-line Young Journalists Club news site, which is affiliated with Iran's state broadcaster.

He said the reason for the ban was "fear and anxiety," which he claimed dogs were creating in society. "It is forbidden to drive dogs around in cars and, if this is observed, serious police action will be taken against the car owners in question," he added.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, dog ownership has been a controversial issue in Iran, where officials say that according to Islamic teachings dogs are considered dirty.

Speaking in a telephone interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda, veterinarian Mohebi compared the measure to a long-standing ban on satellite dishes and receivers and the regular crackdowns that have failed to prevent millions of Iranians from watching "un-Islamic" and "morally damaging" foreign TV channels.

"We see that laws are being passed in parliament that are not being respected in society," he said, blaming it on the age difference between decision makers and the majority of Iran's young population and a lack of understanding of their needs. Because dog ownership is controversial in Iran, there are no official statistics, but dog owners tend to be from the middle and upper classes and live in the major cities.

"It shows that decision makers pass laws that are often not based on logic," Mohebi said, adding that such measures were doomed to failure.

"For many in Tehran having a pet is a need that must be fulfilled," he said, while stating that the ban on dog walking is a violation of the rights of dog owners and could encourage the spread of disease.

"It could force people not to take their dogs to the vet. The dog could get sick and make his owner sick. The disease could then spread to neighbors," he said.

In previous years, dog owners have received warnings, or in some cases they've had their dogs confiscated and held in dog jails.

In 2014, a group of lawmakers proposed a bill that would punish those walking their dogs in public with 74 lashes and a fine of more than $3,500.

"We're not safe and now it's the turn of our best companions," a Twitter user said in a reaction to the ban.
The United States, not the Iranian leadership, should be blamed for the countrys economic difficulties, Irans President Hassan Rohani has said.



Rohani said on January 30 that Iran was facing the biggest pressure and economic sanctions in the past 40 years, according to the presidential website.



Our problems are primarily because of pressure from America and its followers. And the dutiful government and Islamic system should not be blamed, he also said in a speech at an annual ceremony of allegiance to the late founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.



Rohani ended his address with a call for "unity," saying Khomeinis main concern was not foreign forces but domestic "discord."

Rohani made the comments as Iran prepares to mark on February 11 the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that brought the current, clerically dominated regime to power.



This years celebrations come amid growing economic hardships after the United States last year pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and imposed crippling sanctions on Irans economy.



The value of the country's currency, the rial, has fluctuated dramatically in recent months, making it difficult for many Iranians to make ends meet.



Meanwhile, workers including truck drivers, farmers, and merchants have launched sporadic protests that have occasionally led to confrontations with security forces.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
A video showing a Vietnamese police officer allegedly kicking a man on the floor of a police station has gone viral after being published on social media, calling attention to police brutality in Vietnam.

The incident occurred on Tuesday in Tuy Hoa city, Phu Yen province. When the video starts, one man is already lying on the ground and the police officer appears to attack him in the chest and head using his foot. It was uploaded to Facebook on the same day.

Another video related to the incident was posted later, featuring a woman claiming to be the victims wife, explaining the situation.

She said in the video that her husband had gone to the police station to work with police in an unrelated investigation. There he exchanged words with someone else in the process of questioning. She claims it was then that the police officer grabbed his neck before pushing him to the ground prior to when the viral video starts.

The police account of the events prior to the start of the video differs. They claim the man appeared to be drunk as he entered the police station. He then allegedly started screaming and shouting and they asked him to leave. They say he fell to the floor, continuing to scream, when the officer tried to gain control of the situation.

The wife also said that after the incident occurred, they posted the video to Facebook, after which police were sent to their house in an attempt to take her husband back to the police station, but she didnt want him to go because she was worried something could happen to him.

The next day, the police chief spoke to Vietnamese state media, saying the officer accused of beating the man was now on administrative leave, citing an impending investigation.

The chief also acknowledged the misconduct of the officer, but seemingly added fuel to the fire by suggesting the officer did not deliberately kick the alleged victim, he just lifted his leg a bit high and unintentionally made contact.

Commenters on Facebook noted previous incidents of police brutality that were allegedly explained away in similar ways, saying there was a double standard. When civilians attack the police they have to go to court, but when police attack civilians, they receive no punishment, they said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that police brutality is systemic in Vietnam, whose Ministry of Public Security has admitted that 226 suspects and inmates died in police stations and detention facilities throughout the country between October 2010 and September 2014.

In November of last year a Vietnamese delegation introduced a state-backed report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, explaining that the right not to be tortured was guaranteed by the constitution.

The report said that the country introduced three new laws between 2017 and 2018 to better implement the Convention against Torture.

The committee noted however that the constitution did not define torture nor was there a provision on the offense of torture in it.

Additional reporting and translation by Viet Ha for RFA's Vietnamese Service.
Chinese authorities in a Tibetan-populated county of Qinghai are banning monasteries from teaching language classes to young Tibetans during their holidays from school, fearing that promotion of their native language will strengthen their resistance to domination by Beijing, Tibetan sources say.



The order, issued on Dec. 25 by the ruling Chinese Communist Partys United Front Work Department and the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of Nangchen county, forbids informal classes taught by Tibetan monks or other unapproved groups, a source living in the area told RFAs Tibetan Service this week.



The Chinese government does not want to see young Tibetans being taught Tibetan language and Tibetan culture. Officials appear to fear that this will be a roadblock to realizing their goal of sinicizing Tibetan culture and identity, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



Informal Tibetan language classes or lectures on Tibetan Buddhism by monasteries or other groups are now completely banned, the source said.



The government order, a copy of which was obtained by RFA, threatens severe consequences for monasteries caught violating the ban, and urges local officials and Party cadres responsible for managing area monasteries to guard against what it calls ideological infiltration by forces disloyal to China.



Monasteries that now ignore the government ban and follow their own wishes by providing classes to Tibetan children risk placement on disapproved lists, followed by the removal of resident monks official identification as religious professionals, the document warns.



National identity, culture



Speaking to RFA, Karma Tenzina researcher on Chinas education policy at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibet Policy Institutecalled the new restrictions an attempt to separate young Tibetans from their national identity and to strengthen their loyalty to the Chinese state.



[Chinas leaders] are aware that the more Tibetan youth are immersed in their own language, culture, and religion, the more distant they will become from the Chinese government, Tenzin said.



Actually, if the government truly cared for the youth and were more responsible, they would appreciate the monasteries role in providing an education that the government itself is failing to provide, he said.



Chinese authorities have already reduced the size of Tibetan monasteries by limiting the numbers of monks who may enroll there, Tenzin said, calling the issuing of government IDs an effort to easily manage and regulate them.



Never before in Tibetan history have there been cases of Tibetan monks needing official identification to prove that they are monks, Tenzin said.



In a statement on Jan. 30, Sophie RichardsonChina director for the international rights group Human Rights Watchslammed the new ban in Nangchen, saying it violates a long list of basic rights, from education to cultural life.



Preventing Tibetan children from contact with monks and monasteries will only fuel Tibetan fears that China aims increasingly to restrict Tibetan culture and religion, Richardson said.



Restrictive policies



The new restrictions in Nangchen follow similar policy moves in other Tibetan areas of China, with Chinese authorities in Tibets Lhoka Tsethang city recently ordering Tibetan students not to enroll in workshops or other outside activities during their winter breaks from classes, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



Meanwhile, authorities in Tibets Chamdo city ordered Tibetan students and their parents in May 2018 to avoid religious gatherings and festivals during the Buddhist holy month of Saga Dawa, threatening them with unspecified punishments if they were caught ignoring the ban.



And Chinese officials in Sichuan have forced Buddhist monks aged 15 and under to leave their monasteries, placing them instead in government-run schools where they must learn to serve society, Tibetan sources say.



Authorities in Tibetan-populated areas of China have long sought to restrict the size and influence of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, traditionally a focus of Tibetan cultural and national identity, sources in the region say.



Reported by Lobsang Gelek for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Workers carry boxes of seafood on Nov. 8, 2013, as they load a Chinese transport truck at the Suchae Bong Corp seafood factory in Rajin, North Korea, inside the Rason Special Economic Zone.

North Koreans who work for Chinese companies are now receiving less in pay, as the Kim Jong Un regime is taking a larger percentage of their paychecks.

Whether working in China or in Chinese-run factories within North Korea, they can expect relatively higher wages than their countrymen, but the regime also takes a cut to fill its coffers with foreign currency.

A Chinese businessman who operates a marine product processing plant in Rason, North Korea told RFAs Korean Service, wages [at these types of plants] usually vary depending on industry, but companies can expect to pay about 400500 yuan [$60  $75] per month to the North Korean regime for each worker.

Thats about half the wage that used to be paid by the South Korean companies at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the businessman said.

The complex in Kaesong was set up in 2002, allowing South Korean companies to tap into cheaper North Korean labor, while providing foreign currency to the North Korean government. It was closed in February 2016 as a dispute over North Koreas nuclear weapons programs intensified and Pyongyang ordered all South Koreans out of the complex and seized South Korean assets there.

The way it works is that the Chinese company distributes the wages to the North Korean government, then the government redistributes it to the workers, the businessman said, describing arrangements at his plant and others like it in Rason.

The North Korean authorities used to pay 40-50 yuan [$6-$7.50] to each worker per month, but theyve drastically cut wages to 9 yuan [$1.34] to each male worker and 8 yuan [$1.19] to each female worker, said the businessman.

The authorities have been trying to justify this massive pay cut to about 20 percent of their previous pay by saying its an effort to be fair to workers in North Korean-run plants, he said.

But thats just a pathetic excuse to further exploit workers at these plants, the businessman said.

Another source living in Chinas Liaoning province said Wages for North Koreans dispatched here to China are usually about 2,000 - 2,500 yuan [$300 - $370] but the workers would only see about 400 to 500 [$60 - $75] at most.

But since late last year, theyve only been getting about 100 yuan [$15], the source said.

They tell the workers that theyre trying to be fair to those working within North Korea, but that excuse is a gimmick designed to address the imminent foreign currency shortage, the source said.

Some of the female workers that have been dispatched to North Korean restaurants here have not been paid for a long time, said the source, adding, The excuse they are given is that theyre here for a practical training session.

Its not at all surprising that the North Korean regime has senselessly cut wages this significantly, the source said.

North Korea is under a package of United Nations and unilateral sanctions by member countries that curb its ability to trade with the outside world and are designed to cut access to hard currency the Kim regime uses to fund weapons programs.

Reported by Joonho Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Dukin Han. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
The mother of a Chinese rights activist jailed for subversion has spoken out against the authorities' treatment of her family, amid growing calls for his release.



Citizen journalist and rights activist Liu Feiyue, who founded the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, was jailed for five years on Tuesday by the Suizhou Intermediate People's Court in Hubei province, which found him guilty of "incitement to subvert state power."



His mother Ding Qihua, who had never spoken to the media before her son's sentence, said she was promised by court officials and police ahead of the sentencing that he would get a suspended sentence resulting in his release if she and Liu's father agreed to undergo "ideological work."



"The court wanted us to do some ideological work," Ding said, referring to a process through which those affected by a government decision come around to the authorities' way of seeing it. "They didn't want us talking to the media."



"They said that once we'd done it, they would give him a suspended sentence," she said.



But despite the fact that the elderly couple agreed to do as they were told, Liu was still handed a five-year jail term, Ding told RFA.



"The court isn't to be trusted. They didn't keep their promise," Ding said. "They wanted us, his family, to go along with what they said, but they still handed him a heavy sentence."



"I am extremely angry about this. We are very angry," she said.



Promises often broken



Human rights attorney Ren Quanniu said it is common for judicial officials to fail to honor deals struck with defendants and their relatives ahead of trials.



"It's pretty common," Ren said. "They make all kinds of promises. Some of them will actually be kept, but there is no basis in law for such promises."



"It's just a way of preserving social stability," he said.



An overseas rights group said Liu's jailing is part of a broader crackdown by the ruling Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping on activists, human rights lawyers, and non-government organizations (NGOs).



"By imprisoning Liu, the Chinese government demonstrates its determination to take harsh and resolute measures to crush Chinese human rights advocates and NGOs," the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network, which curates reports from groups inside China, said in a statement following the sentencing.



"Criminalizing human rights NGO leaders like Liu Feiyue ... is the harshest measure that the government has taken in recent years in its war on civil society organizations promoting human rights, rule of law, and democracy," the group said.



The indictment cited Liu's writings and publication of reports of human rights abuses on the Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch website as evidence backing up the subversion charge.



Overseas funding



It listed applying for and accepting overseas funding to support the groups operations as a criminal act.



"International human rights standards protecting the right to freedom of association includes the right to 'solicit, receive, and utilize resources for the express purpose of promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms through peaceful means'," CHRD said.



Liu was also fined around U.S.$150,000 along with the jail sentence, it said.



"The fine appears to match the amount of overseas funding that prosecutors accused Liu of accepting," CHRD said.



It said the case against Liu should have been thrown out of court, because the authorities deprived him of his due process rights, including the right to a fair and public trial by an independent court and access to a lawyer.



The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in April 2018 that Liu's detention is arbitrary, and called on Beijing to release him and for the government to compensate him.



Liu is scheduled for release on Nov. 17, 2021.



Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Espinosa, who had been on the job less than six months, was gone and so was the money, federal agents reported. He left behind his backpack, coat and service weapon. Espinosas wallet was found in the backpack and the battery of his phone were found in the cargo area, agents said. But, they did not see any sign of a blood or a struggle inside the vehicle.
International rights groups, lawyers' associations and democratic parties have hit out at China's jailing of human rights attorney Wang Quanzhang, calling for his immediate acquittal and release.



Wang was handed a four-and-a-half year jail term on by the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, which found him guilty of "subversion of state power."



The verdict and sentence followed repeated delays resulting in Wang being held in pretrial detention of more than three years, with no access to a lawyer or family visits.



"We strongly condemn the conviction and sentence on lawyer Wang Quanzhang by the Court," the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG) said in a statement co-signed by 30 organizations around the world, including the Geneva Bar Association and The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.



"Since he was taken away by the police on Aug. 3, 2015, he has been denied the access to his family and family-appointed defense lawyers," the statement, which was also signed by Hong Kong democratic politicians and parties, including the Civic Party, Democratic Party and Demosisto, said.



Dozens of activists marched to the ruling Chinese Communist Party's liaison office in Hong Kong on to protest against Wang's jailing, chanting "There is no crime in defending our rights!"



Rights attorney and campaigner Albert Ho said Hong Kong activists would continue to campaign for Wang's release.



"None of these lawyers detained since , or the other people who have been locked up for something they said or expressed in a peaceful manner, should have to spend a single day in prison," Ho said.



"We have a responsibility to speak out on behalf of these oppressed people."



Concerns about mistreatment of Wang

The CHRLCG statement said there are concerns that Wang may have been subjected to torture or other mistreatment in detention.



"He has been detained incommunicado, during which he was reportedly tortured and suffered ill-treatment," it said. "We express grave concern over lawyer Wangs personal safety and health condition."



During that time, the authorities failed to provide a proper account of Wangs prolonged detention to the public, including Wangs family and family-appointed defense lawyers, the statement said.



The trial was held on Dec. 26 behind closed doors, with officials claiming that state secrets were involved in the case.



"We maintain that the Chinese government, having imposed a prolonged incommunicado detention on lawyer Wang, has seriously infringed human rights, domestic law and international treaties ... including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," the statement said.



The statement said the claim that state secrets were involved was likely an abuse of national security provisions enabling closed trials, citing the "Johannesburg Principles" as saying that potential harm done by an open trial should threaten the existence or territorial integrity of a country before it a closed trial can be justified.



The statement also hit out at the unilateral appointment by the authorities of Liu Weiguo as Wangs defense lawyer, disregarding Wangs right to hire lawyers chosen by him or his family.



The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network also hit out at Wang's jailing.



"The case against Wang is centred on his legitimate activities in exercising his human rights and defending his clients legal rights," the group said. "Authorities subjected Wang to months of enforced disappearance ... reportedly tortured him with electric shocks during interrogations, and denied him all access to lawyers of his own choice and cut off all communication with his family."



It called on the governments, the E.U., the U.N., bar associations, law firms doing business in China, and law schools with exchange programs with Chinese universities to express serious concerns about the grave injustice involved in the imprisonment of Wang Quanzhang and other human rights lawyers.



Reported by Lee Wang-yam for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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Lebanon, IN (46052)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Officials said that Fisher, who had recently turned 18, had come to the area after staying with family in Minnesota. He had secured a job for several months, but had been let go two weeks before the killings, officials said. An assistant manager at a nearby McDonalds confirmed that Fisher worked there but had been fired.
The state police sex offender registry unit notified local police on Dec. 21 that Munir was required to register as a sex offender after his conviction last year in Berkshire Magistrates Court in the UK on two counts of sexual assault on a female over 16. A UK police report says Munir approached two females who were sunbathing in a park and tried to massage them and touch their breasts, the Manchester arrest warrant affidavit says.
Leaders in towns that comprise the Region 6 school district in Goshen, Morris and Warren have a mostly negative view of a school regionalization bill, but believe that the state should do more research on small towns and their schools before moving forward with such a broad-based proposal.

State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, recently proposed SB-457, a state bill that would require school districts with fewer than 2,000 students to join other districts to regionalize populations and save money on administrative costs.

Duff said at the time that if the bill were to pass, school districts that arent cooperating with nearby towns within five years could lost their Educational Cost Sharing funding.

Fifty percent of our school districts have fewer than 2,000 students, so that gives a lot of money to bureaucracy rather than students in the classroom, Duff said at the time he proposed the bill.

Duffs proposed bill earned early support from Gov. Ned Lamont. Earlier this month, the newly elected governor said it made sense.

But Morris First Selectman Tom Weik said Wednesday that small town schools are a treasured part of communities they serve, and the idea of consolidation warrants much more research on the states part.

Ive read the proposed bill, he said. I dont know what its being driven by ... the states trying to solve a problem as they see it. But theres a reason we have smaller schools. People see them as better education for their children, and theyre willing to live here to pay the price.

Weik said the state officials involved in the bill havent given it enough thought. I think theres a lot of questions that need to be thought out, he said. Theres more we can do, working with other schools, but its not a one size fits all idea. Theyre talking about creating school districts for 2,000 students, and that means bringing more students in.

Weik said Region 6 Superintendent of Schools Chris Leone looks at every dollar.

He brought in a zero percent increase last year, and thats being done because of declining enrollment, Weik said. I give Chris Leone a lot of credit for what hes done. He seems to have a very common sense approach.

Weik was also concerned about the future of Wamogo Regional High Schools vocational agricultural center.

Its a great opportunity for students (to attend it), but if they brought another school into the district, I dont know what would happen to it, he said. I just think they need to do a little more research before proposing these bills. Its funny how people can sit up in Hartford and think up ways to spend money, without really looking at what theyre talking about.

Former Morris First Selectman Phil Birkett, who now runs Litchfields social services office, said the state should worry about its own finances before focusing on school districts.

I was on the (district) board of education back in the 80s, and we had cooperative programs between Litchfield and the district, he said. We worked together, and had that continued, wed probably be a little further along. But despite that, the state cant even run itself. Its made a mess out of everything. How can it tell municipalities what to do?

Birkett said the Region 6 district has taken good care of its facilities and remains committed to that responsibility.

I served on the facilities and building committees for 7 years with eight other people, and we all represented the towns of Region 6. We rehabbed three grammar schools, the high school and the vocational agricultural center, he said. We take care of our buildings. Weve all gotten along famously since the district was formed in 1955, and weve been very successful. Why undo that success?

Birkett also believes legislators should have a better understanding of smaller school districts before making such proposals.

Like Tom, I think these people in these ivory towers have no concept of what we do in small towns, he said. Im just plain angry at the foolishness thats exhibited in the governors office, in the legislature ... right down the line. They have no concept on how to run the state. Were entirely capable of working together, but we dont need the state ordering us what to do, when they cant function themselves. I have no faith in that, not one bit.

Warren First Selectman Craig Nelson said My reaction is that its not going anywhere, so Im not going to waste my time on it.

What people dont realize is that to push a bill like that, you have to get the support of both parties. I dont see that happening, he said.

Nelson suggested that state leaders work with towns and make suggestions, not make laws such as that proposed by Duff.

Theyd be better off saying to the towns, We would suggest you do more to work together, he said. If they want to consolidate, they can look at it. But if we did consolidate, Litchfield would be the larger district and (the Region 6 towns) would have no say at all, because the budgets are based on population.

Why waste our time? Nelson asked. Id rather see towns work with schools together

Duff said the idea of his proposed bill is to save money.

 The bill doesnt say you have to close schools or combine your district, but what it does say is that the districts have five years to comply, and if they dont, they have to tell the state school board why they cant, he said.

Litchfield First Selectman Leo Paul said he thinks the proposal deserves consideration.

Im not going to address where we stand on regionalization, because were nowhere, he said. As it relates to what the state is doing, I think its a good thing. The majority of town funding goes to education, and state funding goes to education. (A school district with) 2,000 students or less should be explored  its not the panacea for what should be done, but I think we should take a closer look at it.

Thats been my stand for a number of years, Paul said I have, on many occasions, brought up this very issue of the state considering options for school districts that might include student populations, geographic locations and proximity to other districts, as a way of proposing regionalization.

But Goshen First Selectman Robert Valentine, who has served the office for a combined 14 years, agreed with Birkett, Weik and Nelson.

When I look at that bill, with a threshold of 2,000 students, the first thing that comes to mind is, even if were considering joining Region 6 and Litchfield, we dont have enough students. So what are we talking about? Its not very well thought out. It would require more than the four towns ... it doesnt consider the grammar schools and what they are.

Valentine pointed to a proposal to consolidate the elementary schools in Norfolk and Colebrook in 2015  both are part of the Region 1 school district that also includes Salisbury, Cornwall and Falls Village  and it was turned down very soundly, he said.

Valentine said his town, along with Warren and Morris, have lost significant state funding based on the annual Educational Cost Sharing grants, which pay a percentage of money per student. We pay over $8 million in Region 6, and we get $80,000 from the state, he said. I cant say here what I think about that.

I will not support this bill, he said. Are they intending that we regionalize with Torrington? I wouldnt be in favor of that. This is an effort from the state to balance their budget. Its a proposal from people who really dont understand things from a small towns perspective. Education should be local, and less dictated by the state, not more dictated by the state.

Perhaps the biggest challenge faced by school districts such as Region 6 and Litchfield is the cost of education. In Region 6, Goshen, Morris and Warren share the annual budget based on each towns population.

The 2017-18 Region 6 budget was approved on the second attempt over the objection of Morris residents. An initial proposal from the Region 6 Board of Education, totaling $19.44 million, was rejected last May by a vote of 350-426. The vote was driven largely by Morris voters, who submitted total 419 votes, 324 of which rejected the proposal. After the spending package was reduced to $19.24 million, reflecting a 1.74 percent hike, it was approved 796-352.

In Litchfield, the proposed education budget for the 2017-18 year totaled $17.74 million, reflecting a 2.3 percent increase in spending. Voters approved it in May.

In a letter Wednesday by the legislatures Conservative Caucus, a group that describes itself as a group of legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty, members said, Forced regionalization of education is bad for Connecticut.

The caucus was reacting to SB 454, a proposed bill that would reduce the number of districts in the state from 150 to 54, based on the states probate court system. It would become effective by default even without action by the commission or approval of the legislature, the caucus wrote, calling the bill unilaterally intrusive.

The idea that the state would force local school districts into large regional districts regardless of how the residents, students, teachers and administrators feel is astonishing, said Rep. Kurt Vail, a member of the caucus.

Duff said the legislature would follow the same procedure as any other proposed bill.

We put proposed legislation in, and we hold public hearings to talk about it and debate it and hopefully come to a consensus, he said. Its 2019. We cant do things the way weve always done them.
HARWINTON  A group of 45 of Har-Bur Middle Schools Grade 8 instrumental music students have been chosen to attend the American School Band Directors Association Grade 8 Honors Band Day at Torrington Middle School on Tuesday, Feb. 5.

The festival itself is set up in a rehearsal/workshop fashion, and the performers will be placed in one of two large concert bands along with students from other area middle schools. The bands will each work with two conductors throughout the course of the day culminating in a performance for each other at the end of the four-hour event. The following students are to participate: Nicholas Atkins , Ava Beach , Thomas Benvenuto, Keara Bernetich, Kiana Bolleyer, Jesse Byrne, Quinn Cahill, Chad Cassid , Ava Danillowicz, Olivia Dell'Oso, Hunter Demitri , Kyle Galvin, Will Hoffma, Briana Hogan, Abigail Jankoski, Michael Johnson, Zachary Jones, Christina Kapros, Alan Kennedy, Amanda Kucharski, Joshua Mazar, Anthony Mazzei, Kaelyn McFadden, Jordan Michaud, Shane Murray, Gabriel Nelson, Patrick O'Regan, Adam Prespare, James Putko, Luke Reeder, Megan Rousseau, Mimi Shellito, Gabriela Sliwka, Crystal Sor, Jack Stanislaw, Teegan Sullivan, Ashlyn Surian, Catherine Tibbo, Anthony Weems, Andrew Wright, Olivia Zaharek, Gabriella Zeller and Joshua Zukowski.

NCCC offers real estate course

WINSTED  The Center for Workforce Development at Northwestern Connecticut Community College is offering Real Estate Principles and Practices, which starts Feb. 27 and runs through May 15, 2019. Classes will meet from 6:35-9:35 p.m.

This required course for real estate salesperson licensing provides clear explanation of modern real estate practices and a working knowledge of real estate in Connecticut.

Recognized by the Real Estate Consortium of Community Colleges of Connecticut and approved by the State of Connecticut Real Estate Commission, this course meets the minimum 60-hour requirement outlined by the State. Property owners, buyers, sellers, and anyone interested in pursuing real estate careers or operations will find this course beneficial and rewarding.

For more information, or to register, contact Jane Williams, Workforce Development Coordinator, at jwilliams@nwcc.edu or call 860-738-6444.

Post holding veterans benefit: Psychic medium

WINSTED  VFW Post 296 Auxiliary is holding a fundraiser for local veterans Saturday, Feb. 9 at the posts Veterans Hall, 114 Colebrook River Road, Winsted. The snow date is Feb. 10.

A group reading begins at 3 p.m. Tickets are $20 and include raffle prizes and refreshments. Seating is limited to 100 people.

To reserve tickets, call Carmelina Connole-860-307-3015, Joanne Hunt-860-309-4218, or the post at 860-379-3489. Tickets will be sold at the door if available.

Program tells The History of LGBTQ People

KENT  The Kent Memorial Library will present an overview of Americas LGBTQ History, beginning with the Two-Spirit tradition among indigenous people, to the era of marriage equality on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. at the Kent Town Hall, 41 Kent Green Boulevard, Kent. The presentation will be given by author Kevin Jennings.

Jennings is the president of the Tenement Museum in New York City. A longtime leader in the LGBT movement, in 1988 Jennings created the first high school-based Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club, leading him to found and lead the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) for 18 years. GLSEN grew the number of GSAs in the US from one in 1988 to over 6,500, with at least one in every state. Kevin has a long-standing interest in promoting awareness of LGBT history: in 1994 he was part of the founding committee for LGBT History Month, and also that year published the first book on the subject for young people (Becoming Visible). In 1997 a documentary he wrote and produced on LGBT history for young people, Out of the Past, won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary and in 2017 he was the Executive Producer for The Lavender Scare, a documentary detailing the 1950s witch hunts for LGBT federal employees. From 2012-2017, he worked as Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation, a leading international funder of LGBT human rights work. Prior to that, he served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe & Drug-Free Schools under President Obama. Kevin has published seven books and holds degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and NYU.

This event is free and open to the public. An assortment of Jennings books will be available for purchase and signing. To register or for more information call 860-927-3761; email kmlinfo@biblio.org; or go to kentmemoriallibrary.org.

Bereavement program to begin

GOSHEN  A Journey from Grief to Healing & Hope will be held on Saturdays, March 16-May 4, 9-10:30 a.m. at St Thomas of Villanova Church Route 63 North, Goshen. the group is free; pre-registration is encouraged to assure adequate amount of materials.

The program is offered by Goshen Community Care & Hospice and facilitated by Karen Jax Giarnese, RN. To register call: 860-491-HOPE (4673).

A Midwinters Night in the Village benefits library

FALLS VILLAGE  The Friends of The David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village will hold its annual winter fund raiser, A Midwinters Night in the Village, at the library on Saturday, Feb. 16, 6-8 p.m. Guests can enjoy an evening of tasty breads, hors doeuvres and chocolate with music and poetry. Wine, beer, and non-alcoholic refreshments are included in the ticket price. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and can be purchased by stopping by the library, visiting www.huntlibrary.org or by calling 860-824-7424.

The main feature of A Midwinters Night in the Village will be the librarys famous 16-ft long bread board piled high with a variety of homemade breads ranging from sweet dessert loaves to hearty savory breads, delicious hors doeuvres and chocolate treats. For entertainment, a roster of local personalities from Falls Village and beyond will perform poetry, song, and comedy focused on love with a dose of laughter thrown in for good measure.
Purdue Pharma is one of the most scrutinized and litigated companies in the U.S.

The Stamford-based firms top-selling drug, the opioid pill OxyContin, is intended to treat chronic, non-cancer pain. But the company has faced mounting controversy since the medication went on the market in 1996, as a national epidemic of opioid abuse has plagued the country.

Why have so many lawsuits been filed against Purdue?

The complaints filed in courts across the country stem from local and state governments campaigns to hold accountable pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue that make prescription opioids.

In 2017, about 49,000 people in the U.S. died of opioid overdoses, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The toll represented a four-fold increase over the number of opioid deaths in 2002.

In 2017, 1,038 people died of drug overdoses in Connecticut  more than double the total in 2013 according to the state Chief Medical Examiners Office. Nearly half of the 2017 deaths involved heroin.

The toll correlates with escalating use of opioids such as OxyContin, which comprises the majority of Purdues estimated annual sales of about $3 billion. Many who first become addicted to doctor-prescribed painkillers eventually turn to the streets, where they can find illegal opioids such as heroin that are cheap and easy to buy.

Opioid prescriptions in the U.S. peaked in 2010 and then dropped each year through 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the 2015 rate ran at about three times the 1999 level.

What is Purdue alleged to have done wrong?

The lawsuits generally share the same allegations: They accuse Purdue of years of deceptive and dishonest marketing that misrepresented the benefits and risks of pain treatment with its opioids, namely OxyContin.

In court documents, the complaints put much of the blame on company executives, and increasingly, on members of the Sackler family who own the privately held Purdue and hold most of its board seats.

The Sacklers and other executives directed thousands of visits by sales representatives to doctors, encouraging inappropriate levels of opioid prescribing, according to lawsuits filed by Connecticuts and Massachusetts attorneys general. Connecticut claims Purdues aggressive marketing campaign misled doctors and downplayed the risks of addiction to the companys drugs. The Purdue sales force allegedly tried to get more patients on higher doses, for longer periods, and treated doctors who prescribed the drugs in large amounts to meals, gifts and cash.

Purdue has uniformly denied the allegations.

Who has sued?

Several hundred local and county governments and the attorneys general of 35 states have sued the company in the past few years.

Connecticut filed its complaint last month, under then-Attorney General George Jepsen. Massachusetts sued last June, followed a couple of months of later by New York state.

Other states that have taken legal action in the past year include Florida, Indiana, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona and Oregon.

Many of the countrys largest cities  including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago  have also filed complaints.

In Connecticut, more than 20 cities and towns have sued.

Earlier this month, a state Superior Court judge dismissed about 20 of those complaints, including those of Bridgeport, New Britain, New Haven and Waterbury. Those cities might appeal the decision.

Danbury and Norwalk are pursuing similar claims in a separate group of cases.

The city of Stamford has not sued, although officials in Mayor David Martins office have said that they have not ruled out litigation against the company.

What is at risk for Purdue?

The lawsuits allegations have severely damaged the companys reputation and credibility.

Evidence against the firm continues to grow. On Monday, a state judge in Massachusetts ruled that the full version of that states complaint must be released. Earlier this month, hundreds of pages of documents in that case were released.

Spurred by the litigation, protests organized and attended by grassroots advocates  many with family or friends who have died from opioid addiction  were held last summer outside Purdues downtown headquarters.

In what was likely a response to the litigation, the company last year stopped marketing its opioids to medical professionals and disbanded its sales force.

Those changes led to the layoffs of several hundred employees.

As awareness and outrage over the opioid crisis have grown, Purdue has also seen its sales decline.

OxyContin sales totaled $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data from health care analytics company Symphony Health Solutions. Competition from generic drugs has contributed to the decrease.

How might the lawsuits be resolved?

To help manage the proliferation of lawsuits, a Cleveland-based federal judge, Dan Polster, is overseeing approximately 1,700 complaints filed by municipal and county governments in a process known as Multidistrict Litigation.

A comprehensive settlement  which would probably be reached through the MDL proceedings  could take several more months, even years, to finalize.

Estimates vary for the size of a potential agreement but the total could surpass the approximately $250 billion that the tobacco industry agreed to pay in 1998 to settle a torrent of lawsuits.

In Purdues largest-ever payout through the courts, the company and three former executives incurred about $635 million in penalties tied to a 2007 guilty plea to misbranding OxyContin to mislead and defraud physicians and patients.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott
NEW MILFORD  The school board and town council are at odds over the cost of an oil tank replacement project.

Some town council members are doubting the school boards ability to oversee capital projects with the recent request for more money  essentially doubling the cost to replace an oil tank at the school central offices.

School officials say a lot of unforeseen challenges with the tank replacements are the cause of the extra cost, while some council members say the contractor is overcharging the district.

The schools are asking for an additional $80,000 or so to the $105,000 the Town Council already allocated for the project.

We hope were getting to the end and we hope we wont need the contingency, Interim Superintendent of Schools Stephen Tracy said.

The contractor, ETT Environmental, which is also replacing oil tanks for the town, will have to come before the Town Council to answer questions before any additional money is released.

All of the tickets for the material hauled away will also have to be given to council members as soon as possible.

Were getting taken for a ride by our contractor, said Councilman Paul Szymanski. This doesnt make any sense to me.

Szymanski, who has 20 years of experience in construction, said the jackhammer in the picture of the site is not the equipment the contractor is saying the schools rented for a month.

He also said three people were not needed to complete the work, which is usually a one or two person job, and that the district was being charged five times the usual amount for some of the basic functions like removing the debris.

These numbers are absolutely absurd and ridiculous, he said.

School officials defended the costs by saying the tanks have encountered a series of problems largely due to how the tanks were originally installed.

I think thats an oversimplification of whats going on, Facilities Director Kevin Munrett told Szymanski, adding the district rented three different jack hammers throughout the project.

School officials said the tank removals have encountered a series of problems, beginning with the initial discovery in fall 2017 that the tanks would be needed to be replaced. While pulling permits to install check valves on the tanks, school officials learned that some of the tanks were never registered.

During the districts investigation, it came to light that three of the tanks would have to be replaced because of their age.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection requires fuel tanks be replaced when they hit 30 years  a deadline established by the manufacturers but enforced by the state.

While replacing the tank at Hill and Plain Elementary School, workers discovered the schools electrical transformer and switchbox were on top of the tank, causing them to just seal and abandon it in place and order a new above ground tank.

The extra work prompted the school board to spend an additional $70,000 above the already approved $92,000.

At the Lillis Building, which is where the schools central office is housed, workers discovered the old tank was installed just three inches below the asphalt, when regulations call for 18 to 24 inches of cover.

They encountered a lot of ledge and boulders as they were digging the deeper hole, causing the costs to go up. They also had to do it in a new location because they found an old sewer line.

Szymanski said the school board should have changed to a smaller tank and known from the ground radar test that the original tank wasnt deep enough and a new plan needed to be created. He said the town entrusted the school board with a lot of money and questioned the school officials ability to oversee these capital projects.

At this point, Im very concerned, he said, adding the school employee should be held responsible.

Some council members agreed there should be accountability and suggested the schools have to pay for the new costs.

Tracy said he decided to proceed with the work because he considered it was urgent since the replacement deadline was Dec. 31.

Munrett said a smaller tank would have taken another 10 weeks, which they didnt have.

If a tank is left in the ground after this deadline, the district could be charged a $10,000 fine for each tank and then a daily fine until it is removed.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345
A surplus property near Candlewood Lake will soon be back on the tax rolls in New Milford after the sale was approved at Mondays town meeting.

The 1.64 acre property at 82 Perry Drive will be sold for $20,000.

The buyers plan to build a home on the property.

Though one resident spoke against the sale during the meeting, saying it was too low for a lot in that part of town, no one voted against the sale.

The property was originally listed for $50,000 in 2017, according to the last online listing from July 2018, but was then reduced to $40,000.

Several town council members said there was no interest in the property prior to this offer because there is a slope on it that makes the land hard to develop.

Some people said that even if the selling price is low, the home will generate taxes for the town that werent there before.

This is part of the towns efforts to sell surplus properties and get them back on the tax roll.
STAMFORD  Dannel Malloy knew he was going to a surprise party Thursday night, he just didnt realize the party was for him.

Malloy became the 76th person to be awarded the Stamford Citizen of the Year honor as he walked into the kitchen of his sons home. The former governor of Connecticut and mayor of Stamford thought he was walking into a surprise party for his daughter-in-law Christina.

Instead, a shocked Malloy realized he had become the winner of the annual award.

Im totally surprised. Its very nice, he said.

Malloy said hes gone to many of the previous COTY dinners, but didnt expect to be going as a recipient for the first time.

Board of Finance member and longtime city volunteer Dudley Williams, who won the last COTY award, said Malloy was a great choice for the award this year.

I think for most of his life, hes been involved in some way in service to the city and his impact has been positive in a really transformative way, he said. I cant think of anyone more deserving.

Williams said Malloy spearheaded an economic revival for Stamford during his 14 years as mayor as well as the turnaround of the downtown.

Speaking from his sons home, Malloy said he left Connecticut in a better place than when he took over the governorship in 2011.

I think the states on a much better trajectory today than it was. Id rather be coming in as governor this January as opposed to eight Januarys ago, he said.

The former mayor said he drove by the Charter Communications building, under construction, on his way to his sons Shippan home on Thursday. He sees such partnerships as part of his legacy.

Thats a company that we brought to Connecticut, so Im very proud of it, he said.

Malloy, who recently stepped down from public office, served as the 88th governor of Connecticut, from 2011 to 2019, and was Stamfords mayor from 1995 to 2009.

Prior to becoming mayor, Malloy served on the Stamford board of finance from 1984 to 1994. A graduate of Boston College Law School, Malloy began his legal career in New York as an assistant district attorney before moving back to his hometown.

Rick Redniss, also a past COTY winner, said few, if any, have deserved the award more than Malloy.

In my opinion, no one has done more and sacrificed more time and effort on behalf of so many citizens of Stamford for so many decades than Dan Malloy, Redniss said.

Malloy joins J. Walter Kennedy, Julius M. Wilensky, and Thomas C. Mayers as the only Stamford mayors to have won the COTY award.

Sponsored by Post 142 of the Jewish War Veterans, the COTY honor has been bestowed upon Stamford citizens since 1945.

Stamfords current mayor David Martin was also effusive in his praise for Malloys work and legacy in Stamford.

Dan has demonstrated his great love for our community, both in his official duties and as an advocate for numerous organizations, Martin said. If it were not for him, we would not have the UConn dormitories, Fairfield County Hospice House, the revitalized Mill River Park, Leone Park and the faithfully restored Old Town Hall.

Malloy is the youngest of eight children, all Stamford natives. He has three sons: Dannel, Benjamin and Samuel.

After leaving the governors residence Malloy and his wife Cathy moved to Essex. He is commuting to Boston College Law School where he is serving as its fifth Rappaport Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law.

The Stamford Citizen of the Year dinner will be held this spring.
The shooting happened around 3:20 p.m. at 362 Bellevue St., which is near the Willie Ware Recreational Center. Detectives with the police major crimes division and crime scene division were sent to investigate.
Contributed photo

TORRINGTON  Five Points Annex Gallery, located at 17 Water St. in downtown Torrington, will host a small works juried exhibition open from Feb. 1 to 23, with an opening reception and announcement of the one award recipient on Friday, Feb. 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. This exhibition was juried by Brigid Kennedy. Submissions were received from artists representing 32 states and five countries: Canada, China, France, Japan and Russia. The one award will be a solo exhibition in one of Five Points Gallerys three exhibition spaces in 2020. This event is free and open to the public.

Juror of the Small works exhibition, Brigid Kennedy, has been exhibiting her sculpture and drawings nationally and internationally since the late 1970s. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Kennedy moved to Central Connecticut from New York City in 1989. She has lived and worked in South America, Europe and Canada, exhibiting unique, site-specific sculptures. As an artist/educator she has received numerous awards including an Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the Greater Hartford Arts Council, a Fulbright Scholar Lecture/Research Award to Chile, a State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts Artists Project Grant, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, and numerous National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Grants. Her work is in numerous museum and private collections.
BETHLEHEM  The 550 Gallery welcomes imogens debut exhibit, featuring the works of five New England photographers. The show, Five Perspectives opens Feb. 8 with a reception from 5:30-8 p.m. A closing party is planned for Feb. 17, 1-3 p.m. and will feature a talk about Forest Bathing by Linda Jackson. The 550 Gallery is located at 550 Main St., Bethlehem.

Each of the five photographers featured in the show will share a unique perspective with a series of prints:

Amy Grosclaude: Spectra Scape. The Spectra Scape series is a unique form of photography that captures transmitted electromagnetic radiation with wave lengths between 750-380 nanometers. Amys abstract images depict a luminous world full of color and movement.

Jim Baker: As He Sees It. Baker is a winemaker and vineyard manager of a nearby winery. After studying Forestry in Maine, volunteering for the Peace Corps in Thailand, and growing up in the Philippines, Jim has explored the world but believes that some of the most interesting images can be found in your own backyard.

Linda Jackson: Natural Wonders. As a natural health practitioner and acupuncturist, Jackson believes that being in nature refreshes and rejuvenates body, mind, and spirit. Her photographic series of Forest Bathing captures the experiences of soaking in the healing benefits of nature that inspire and revitalize all of us.

Debra Lill: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Lill blends photography with a strong illustrative quality. Her work has appeared on the covers of hundreds of bestselling books throughout the world. Debras unique style evokes a mood and conveys a sense of time and place specific to each story.

Michaela Murphy: The Shape of Water. Michaela Murphy is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and taught photography at Yale University. Michaela photographed the landscapes for the Shape of Water series with a large format Deardorff field camera. The 8 x 10 inch black & white gelatin-silver contact prints were processed in a traditional darkroom.

The 550 Gallery is located at 550 Main Street in Bethlehem. Call for gallery hours. For additional information, contact: Amy Grosclaude at 860-605-3714 or amygrosclaude@yahoo.com
After a week of missteps, Irish nerves are steadying again, unmoved by Theresa May's promise to go back to Brussels to re-negotiate the Brexit deal.

The Irish government rejected any softening of the so-called backstop, immediately after Westminster on Tuesday backed May's proposal to strip it from the divorce accord with the bloc. The backstop is designed to keep the border with Northern Ireland invisible after Britain leaves the European Union.

Hints last week the EU might give ground to rescue the talks were wobbles rather than cracks in its united front, one Dublin official said.

The gamble for Ireland, that sticking by the backstop risks derailing the entire negotiation, is underpinned by a number of forces.

First, officials say, no one in Dublin is feeling the heat from the EU so far - the bloc instantly rejected May's renegotiation plan. Second, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar could potentially end his political career if he gave in. Third, though the risks of a no-deal might be edging upwards, there's no sign of a majority in British Parliament for that outcome.

"Continued Tory Brexiteer dreams of the EU withdrawing its support from its member state Ireland still lack any foundation, especially if Dublin sticks to its pointed but pragmatic stance in the talks," said Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at Teneo Intelligence. "Instead, the eventual Westminster decision against no-deal remains likely to mean the acceptance of a version of May's deal."

Officials from across Europe, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their backing for Ireland remains resolute, despite the fact that everybody loses if Britain crashes out of the bloc without a deal. Officials maintain it will be extraordinarily difficult for May to gain significant concessions on the backstop unless she offers other solutions for the border -- and that would involve dropping her opposition to closer ties with the EU.

Solidarity from the EU has been "total," Irish Senator Neale Richmond said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday, adding that without a backstop Ireland risks "losing control" of the border question

All this has to be set against a domestic situation which means Varadkar's own fate is bound tight to the backstop.

His minority government is propped up by the biggest opposition party and so far, it has backed the prime minister's strategy. Giving ground on the backstop could trigger an election. If he were to cave in completely, it's probably game over, said one observer.

Yet the Irish are aware that pressure could emerge as the cliff edge nears.

"As the economic and political carnage of a no-deal looms closer, Ireland may come under pressure to relax its position in favor of an option that avoids such an outcome," said Dermot O'Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin. Brexit is "now a dangerous game of chicken."

The prospect of a no-deal Brexit creates pressure of its own, according to one European official. It would almost certainly mean the return of a hard frontier, and the European Commission's comments last week on the need for border infrastructure in that case spooked some people in Ireland.

Some interpreted the comments as a sign the EU was pushing for concessions, prompting Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to call Varadkar and express his regret, two people familiar with the conversation said.

While Germany has been probing for areas of potential compromise, Berlin also remains supportive, the Irish say.

For now, the Irish strategy is to keep the focus on London, betting that parliamentary maneuvers will steer Britain away from a no-deal Brexit. The House of Commons indicated a majority of lawmakers opposed a no-deal Brexit in January, and did so again on Tuesday.

The British could still pivot to a Norway-type deal, hold a second referendum or even a general election, which might neutralize the leverage of the Democratic Unionist Party, a group from Northern Ireland opposed to any differentiation with the rest of the U.K.

There's even still hope that the current deal will be passed, as it becomes apparent that no obvious alternatives are available. The deal was on life support, but it's not dead yet, according to one official before Tuesday's votes in London.

- - -

With assistance from Ian Wishart, Birgit Jennen and Charles Penty.
Sanchez recruited the teens to perform sex acts for money, according to prosecutors. He trafficked the 15-year-old in the summer of 2016, and 16-year-old in the spring of 2017. He advertised their services on backpage.com, and drove them to Hartford-area hotels to meet clients who paid them for sex, prosecutors said. He kept all of the money they earned, prosecutors said.
Photo taken on May 16, 2018 shows an automatic container dock in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. (Xinhua/Wang Peike)

BEIJING, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Tuesday started reviewing a new draft of the foreign investment law, the latest move to promote the country's opening-up initiative.

During the two-day session, members of the top legislature are scheduled to deliberate the new version of the draft law, which has been updated from the first draft submitted to the previous session last month.

Once adopted, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures (or contractual joint ventures) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

By the end of October 2018, a total of nearly 950,000 foreign-funded companies had registered in China, bringing in an accumulated investment of over 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars and performing as major driving forces in China's economic and social development.

Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, on Tuesday presided over a plenary meeting during the ongoing session, at which lawmakers were briefed on the amendments.

By explicitly formulating rules on transparency, government procurement and capital market, the new draft law has complemented the legal system concerning foreign affairs and responded to overseas concerns, said Li Yuefeng, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, during panel discussions.

BETTER PROTECTION

To better implement the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2017, the new draft further expanded the article on the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list, said Li Fei, chairman of the NPC Constitution and Law Committee, while presenting the new draft to lawmakers.

The CPC report noted that "China will not its door to the world; we will only become more and more open."

The draft is also in line with the amendment to the Constitution, which, adopted by the NPC in March 2018, stipulates that China "pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up."

Definitions of the terms are included in the article, in addition to a clause requiring the state to give national treatment to foreign investments outside the negative list.

It also stipulates that foreign-invested enterprises have equal access to favorable policies for enterprises.

In line with provisions in the Constitution, the new draft proposes that the state shall not expropriate or requisition foreign investment, except under particular circumstances and in the public interest.

If the state expropriates or requisitions foreign investment, "due legal procedures must be followed while prompt, fair and reasonable compensation should be made," it notes.

The new draft also includes regulations regarding antitrust examination on mergers and acquisitions by foreign businesses and penalties on failure to report their investment information to related authorities.

ACCELERATED LEGISLATION FOR OPENING-UP

In late December, the original draft was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for its first reading.

When introducing the draft to lawmakers, Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua said the current laws could hardly catch up with the changing requirements in building a new system of open economy.

"There is an urgent need for such a unified law to provide stronger legal protection for further expanding opening up and better using foreign investment," Fu said.

Du Liming, another lawmaker, proposed to accelerate the legislation work and put the draft to a vote at the upcoming NPC annual session in March.

After the first reading, the draft was distributed to agencies at the central and local governments, a number of institutions of higher learning and research organizations to solicit opinions.

The NPC Standing Committee also published the draft online to seek public comments until Feb. 24. Suggestions from nearly 500 users have been received so far.

Multiple commissions of the NPC also discussed with central government agencies, experts, foreign business chambers and foreign companies to hear their opinions.

All parties agreed to the enactment of the law, saying it is an important step to improve the legal system concerning foreign affairs and will help China attract more foreign investment, open wider to the world and enhance its ease of doing business, according to Li Fei.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

Ma Zheng, vice president of the China subsidiary of major agricultural commodities trader Cargill, believes the replacement of the three existing laws governing foreign investment with the unified one is of much significance.

Ma said the new law would provide foreign investors and companies, including Cargill, with a more solid guarantee of protecting their legitimate rights and interests, adding that the new law would make the country's foreign investment environment more open, fairer and more transparent.

One provision in the draft proposes to use the same contents prescribed in the Company Law and the Partnership Enterprise Law to regulate foreign investment enterprises' organizational form and structure.

With its provisions on better protecting foreign investment, the new law will encourage Cargill to invest more in China, Ma said.

Klaas Steendam, a Dutch national who has lived in northwest China's Qinghai Province for nearly 20 years, said with better policies and a sound legal system, the business environment in Qinghai will be better and more diversified.

Since setting up Amdo Craft, a company doing trade business of Qinghai's handicraft articles, in 2007, Steendam has expanded the company into one with more than 40 sales outlets, 10 of which are overseas.

Yuan Xiaohua, vice general manager of Guangqi Honda, an automobile manufacturing joint venture between Japan's Honda Motor and China's GAC Group, said the draft will remove differing treatments foreign investment companies, Chinese enterprises and joint ventures previously faced.

"The new law will help foreign investment companies and joint ventures enjoy more local preferential policies," said Yuan.
Washington State issued a State of Emergency due to a measles outbreak. Courtney Nicely, a nurse for Dr. John Fernald at Rainbow Pediatrics demonstrates the importance of vaccinating children against illnesses such as measles on her son Cooper Nicely. Dr. Fernald says vaccinating as many children as possible is the best protection to prevent an outbreak in West Virginia.(Rick Barbero/The Register-Herald)
RAINELLE [ndash] Nancy Carol O'Neal, 77, of Dawson passed away on Friday, June 18, 2021, at Stonerise Nursing home in Rainelle. Born January 15, 1944, in Hinton, she was the daughter of the late Dewey and Pauline Bennett Miller. Apart from her parents, she was preceded in death by daughters:
January 30, 2019 08:30 IST

By pegging the exact area of the Babri Masjid site at 0.313 acres, and not the original 2.77 acres, the government hopes to be in line with the court ruling in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case which mentions return of land to original claimants once the exact area needed for acquisition is determined, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.

IMAGE: Artists work on a wall graffiti on Lord Rama. Photograph: PTI Photo

Faced with seeming judicial reluctance to handle the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title case ahead of the general election due in less than 100 days on one hand, and a restive Hindu right-wing as well its own support base on the other, the Narendra Damodardas Modi government on Tuesday, January 29, moved an application before the Supreme Court seeking the transfer of the undisputed part of the land acquired in Ayodhya in 1993 to the Ram Janambhoomi Nyas.

Here's the history behind the acquired land in Ayodhya.

Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, the following month the P V Narasimha Rao government passed the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Ordinance which was subsequently converted into an Act of Parliament, under which the government acquired the 67 acre plot in Ayodhya, which included the disputed site admeasuring 2.77 acres.

The extra land around the site, which was undisputed, was acquired to facilitate ingress and egress to pilgrims whenever the court case was settled and any shrine came up at the site.

In the petition filed by Dr Ismail Faruqui challenging the validity of this law, a five judge bench of the Supreme Court in October 1994 not only upheld the Rao government's legislation but also stated that 'a mosque was not an essential part of the practice of Islam' and hence its acquisition by the government was not barred by the Constitution of India.

Importantly, it struck down the abatement of all legal suits in the Ayodhya matter, thus reviving litigation over the title deed to the disputed site.

Undeterred by this setback, the Ram Janambhoomi Nyas, which owned as much as 42 acres of undisputed land covered by the Ayodhya Act, in 1996 moved an application before the government seeking the return of its land, but it was turned down.

The Nyas then filed a suit before the Allahabad high court, but it was rejected there as well.

During the National Democratic Alliance government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad tried to whip up sentiments over the Ram mandir by performing puja at the undisputed part of the acquired land.

That effort was foiled by a cycle-rickshaw shop-owner, Mohammed Aslam Bhure, moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on any religious activity in the entire acquired land.

On March 31, 2003, the apex court granted Aslam Bhure's prayer, ruling that no part of the land can be touched till the main dispute was disposed of.

In 2010, the Allahabad high court, hearing four civil suits, ruled that the 2.77 acre disputed land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Wakf Board, Ram Lalla and the Nirmohi Akhara.

Fourteen appeals have since been filed in the Supreme Court against this judgment, which the apex court has been in the process of hearing.

The latest hearing was to have taken place on Tuesday, January 29, the day the government moved an application seeking to overturn the 2003 Aslam Bhure judgment, but it was deferred on Sunday, January 27, following the non-availability of a judge on the day.

Interestingly, the government's plea further divides the disputed area in the Ayodhya suit.

It said that of the 2.77 acres of disputed land, the Babri Masjid occupied only 0.313 acres and that this was the actual disputed site. The plea bundled the rest of the disputed site with the undisputed area of land around it, and asked the apex to release 67.390 acres of land to its original owners.

In seeking to nullify the Aslam Bhure judgment, the Centre has relied on the Supreme Court order in the Ismail Faruqui case, where it said: '...However, at a later stage when the exact area acquired, which is needed for achieving the professed purpose of acquisition, can be determined, it would not merely be permissible but also desirable that the superfluous excess area is released from acquisition and reverted to its earlier owner.'

'In case the superfluous area is not returned to its owner even after the exact area needed for the purpose is finally determined, it would be open to the owner of any such property to then challenge the superfluous acquisition being unrelated to the purpose of acquisition.'

It is in this context that the mention of 0.313 acres and not 2.77 acres as the exact area occupied by the Babri Masjid needs to be viewed. By thus determining the exact area, the government hopes to be in line with the court ruling in the 1994 case.

It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will buy into this contention. The question, of course, is when.
Last updated on: January 30, 2019 15:19 IST

PC Mohanan, who was the acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission along with member JV Meenakshi resigned on Monday, leaving behind no external members in the body.

The chairman and an external member of the National Statistical Commission have resigned, expressing disappointment over the treatment being meted out by the government.

P C Mohanan, the acting chairman, and member J V Meenakshi resigned on Monday, leaving behind no external members in the Commission. Their tenure was to end in June 2020. They cited withholding of the publication of the National Sample Survey Offices employment survey for 2017-18 and a lack of consultation with the Commission before releasing the backdated gross domestic product series last year as some of the key reasons for their resignations.

We have resigned from the NSC. Over the months, we have been feeling that we were not taken seriously and being sidelined by the government. Recent decisions of the NSC were not being implemented, Mohanan said on Tuesday.

The immediate trigger for the resignations was the delay in releasing the NSSOs first series of household survey, known as the periodic labour force survey, for 2017-18.

The members have raised certain issues regarding the functioning of the NSC (in the resignation letter). They, however, did not express any concern in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months, Chief Statistician of India Pravin Srivastava, who is also a member of the NSC, said. The ministry always values the advice of the Commission and takes action accordingly.

Sources said the NSC had approved the survey report in its meeting held on December 5 in Kolkata and it was supposed to be released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

The report was approved and should have been released immediately, but was not. I thought I should not watch silently what was happening, Mohanan added.

However, almost two months after the approval, the report hasnt been made public. Srivastava said the NSSO was supposed to come up with annual estimates on labour force, along with quarterly ones in urban areas, and the NSSO would release them after the quarterly survey results for July 2017-December 2018 are processed.

A former member pointed out that the government was uncomfortable with the findings of the NSSOs household survey. This comes even as the Labour and Employment Ministry has withheld the release of the annual household survey for 2016-17 conducted by the Labour Bureau, despite necessary approvals in place.

The issue of employment has taken centre stage as the campaign to the upcoming general elections gathers momentum. The National Democratic Alliance government has repeatedly cited lack of numbers on jobs as a bigger problem than job creation itself.

The NSC was essentially meant to bring about a sense of credibility to the data put out by the National Statistical System and if the NSC feels that it is not being permitted to carry out its functions, then it is entirely appropriate that it resigns, Pronab Sen, who was the NSCs chairman between 2013 and 2016, said.

As such, the survey reports of the NSSO need the Commissions approval and not that of the government, a former NSC member explained. This mechanism was put in place in 1960s, when a governing council was there, which was replaced by the Commission in 2006, the member said, requesting anonymity.

The government released GDP back-series through the NITI Aayog in November last year, but did not involve the NSC in the consultation process, which did not go down well with NSC members.

The government did not take the GDP back-series to the NSC. It is supposed to be the highest body in terms of statistics, pointed out another former member.

The NSC had released its report on the GDP back-series, which was disowned by the government as just another exercise.

Further, the latest Economic Census was announced by the government but was not brought to the Commission. Also, the NSC was kept out of the release of the National Policy on Official Statistics. The National Policy on Official Statistics was announced without any reference to the Commission, said a former member. Former NSC chairman R B Barman said, Since the NSC is the apex of the system, it should have enough space for being independent.

The Congress on Wednesday accused the Modi government of destroying yet another institution after two members of the National Statistical Commission resigned and said one more venerable institution has died due to the governments malicious negligence.

Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said the party mourns the death of the National Statistical Commission and will remember its valiant fight to release untainted GDP data and employment data.

His colleague Ahmed Patel said the resignations serve the governments objective to black out all data and statistics of its misgovernance, while party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi wondered if this has come in the wake of the very embarrassing jobs data and whether the NSC was being forced by the government to do more data doctoring.

One more venerable institution died on 29 January, 2019 owing to malicious negligence by the government, Chidambaram tweeted.

We mourn the death of the National Statistical Commission and remember with gratitude its valiant fight to release untainted GDP data and employment data. May the NSC rest in peace until it is re-born again, he said in another tweet.

Government must immediately release the unemployment report which it is trying to withhold. The report and the Commission which prepares such reports belong to the people of India and not to any political party. Government has no business to sit on it because the findings dont suit them, Patel tweeted.

Singhvi also said statisticians have quit the government over differences in job data in actuality and being projected by government in the election season.

Modinomics is all about ModiStats, he charged.

Another venerable institution national statistical commission victim of BJP Modi achievement of destroying institutions. Was it because jobs data very embarrassing, hence national sample survey report withheld by government as stated by resigning chairman? Or was NSC being forced by government to do more data doctoring, he said on Twitter.

-- With inputs from PTI
Source:

January 30, 2019 23:16 IST

Bharatiya Janata Party's MLA from Uttar Pradesh Surendra Singh has compared Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Ravana and his sister Priyanka Gandhi to Surpanakha, prompting angry reactions from the local Congress workers and swift disapproval from Union minister Mahesh Sharma.

The Congress workers too lodged a complaint on Wednesday with Ballia police against the MLA for making the remarks.

The Bairia MLA called Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ram, while likening the two Congress leaders to the villains in Ramayana.

"My Modi is in the role of Lord Ram and Congress president Rahul Gandhi is Ravana and his sister Priyanka Surpanakha," he said Tuesday.

"Ravana has put up his sister against my Ram, he said.

Rest assured that Lanka will be conquered," the Bharatiya Janata Party legislator said referring to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry into politics.

"By appointing Priyanka as general secretary, Rahul has already proved his incapability to fight against Modi. Now the brother and the sister will fight together, he said.

How will they face the character and uprightness of Modi? It is a matter of honour that we have a leader like him, he said.

Singh called the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi a joke.

This is a democracy. How does the sister become a general secretary? Now the brother-in-law will also come into politics, the MLA said.

He said these people are not familiar with the Indian culture, which can be looked after only by someone with a personality like that of Modi.

Singh's remarks were swiftly disapproved by Union minister Sharma, who said neither the BJP nor Prime Minister Modi supports derogatory statements against any "daughter of the country".

"The BJP is a party with discipline. If anyone, be it an MLA or someone else, makes a derogatory statement against any daughter of this country, we do not support it," Sharma told reporters on sidelines of an event in Noida.

"Neither the prime minister nor our government or our party president has ever supported such statements," he said.

Priyanka Gandhi was recently inducted into active politics by Rahul Gandhi, who appointed her the party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi falls in this region as do the Gandhi family bastions of Rae Bareli and Amethi.

The MLA claimed Modi was set to become the next prime minister as well.

Earlier, he had termed Modi a reincarnation of Lord Ram who along with party president Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would realise the dream of a Ram Rajya in the country.

Known for making controversial remarks, Singh had also said parents are responsible for the increasing cases of rape and should not let their children roam around freely.

Meanwhile, Congress workers led by Sewa Dal's Girish Kant Gandhi Wednesday lodged a complaint with Kotwali police station in Ballia against the legislator over the remarks.

He handed over a complaint to the Kotwali police station in-charge, Inspector Shashinmauli Tiwari, who said a complaint has been received and the action will be taken on it after an inquiry.
While it can be difficult to authenticate folk art of this kind, and this was by all accounts a masterful forgery that fooled a number of experts in this field, we will review our accession process and make every effort to ensure that art we acquire is what it purports to be," the museum said at the time.
January 30, 2019 09:09 IST

A blast of Arctic air from the polar vortex has brought dangerous, bone-chilling cold to a wide swath of the United States on Tuesday, stretching from the Dakotas through Maine, with snow expected as far south as Alabama and Georgia.

Arctic air and icy conditions led schools to close, flights to be cancelled and railway officials to set fires on train tracks to prevent them from cracking.

Icicles form on the walkway at North Avenue Beach of Lake Michigan in Chicago. All this is the work of a polar vortex, a low-pressure mass that normally sits near the Earth's poles moving from North Dakota to Ohio. Photograph: Pinar Istek/Reuters

A pedestrian stops to take a photo by Chicago River, as bitter cold phenomenon called the polar vortex has descended on much of the central and eastern United States, in Chicago. The Midwest is the hardest-hit region, as temperatures plunged below zero Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius). By nightfall the mercury was hovering at 0F in Chicago, 7F (minus 14C) in Detroit and minus 21f (minus 29C) in Minneapolis. Photograph: Pinar Istek/Reuters

Snowplows have been busy, and dangerous roads have caused chaos. Officials have warned Chicago residents, accustomed to chilling winters, to expect an unusually deep and dangerous freeze. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Wisconsin has declared a state of emergency, and so have Michigan and Illinois. The bitter cold has raised fears for the homeless. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

A pedestrian walks by Chicago River, as bitter cold has descended on much of the central and eastern United States, in Chicago. Photograph: Pinar Istek/Reuters

Officials have asked residents to avoid outdoors, and said that if residents need to, they must cover their mouth with a scarf or mask to warm up the air. Photograph: Pinar Istek/Reuters

The cold has been so severe that residents have been complaining of frozen eyebrows and eyelashes. Photograph: Eric Miller/Reuters
January 30, 2019 07:57 IST

Theres some amazing stuff beneath the water.

For proof, look no further than the annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition.

The Best of Show was a graceful photo of three Giant Devil Rays performing a 'ballet', which uses soft, ambient light to accentuate the movements of elegant giants, shot by Duncan Murrell.

Other exceptional images include some astonishing fish and marine life shots, rarely seen animal behaviour, innovative shooting techniques, stunning portraits, seals, ocean adventure, whales and some dramatic moments between humans and marine life.

The judges evaluated thousands of entries from 70 countries before selecting the final set of images as Ocean Art winners.

(Please click on the images for full-screen resolution)

Grey Seal Face Cold Water, First place.

Photograph: Greg Lecoeur/Ocean Art

Ancistrocheirus First place Macro

On this night, I was going holo holo (for pleasure) when I found this sharp-eared enope squid just under the surface. Most enope squids are small and thus difficult to shoot. As they mature, the difficult paralarva comes into its own. Every detail in the arms, organs, and chromatophores blasts to life in radiant colour. Such was the case with this gem of a specimen. At around 3 inches in length, it was easily the largest and prettiest sharp-eared enope squid I recall finding. I caught the guide's glance and let him show it to the nearby customers, but soon the animal fled down, so I followed where the guide couldn't. We descended past forty feet, fifty feet, sixty feet while I continued watching, studying, and shooting.

Photograph: Jeff Milisen/Ocean Art

Devil Ray Ballet Best in Show

Spinetail devil rays, (Mobula japanica) engaged in rarely observed or photographed courtship behaviour with two males pursuing one female.

Photograph: Duncan Murrell/Ocean Art

Gentle Giants First place, Wide Angle

This unique encounter happened in September 2018 in ReunionIsland (Western Indian Ocean) where the humpback whales come here to breed and give birth. The mother was resting 15 metres down, while her calf was enjoying his new human friends.

Trust: This is what came to my mind, when this close to 30 ton-animal, still hunted today by mankind, allowed me to freedive behind her and take that shot. From down there, everything seemed unreal: that huge tail centimetres away from me, the calf, my friend free diving symmetrically. I knew I would not get a shot like this one again.

Photograph: Francois Baelen/Ocean Art

Best Friends Forever Honourable mention

While looking for Marine Iguanas at FernandinaIsland in Galapagos we came across these inquisitive Galapagos Penguins. Given that they are hunted by many predators above and below the water it was surprising how close they came to us. These penguins are the only ones living north of the equator thanks to the ice cold Humboldt Current that hits the West side of Galapagos, and are therefore endemic to these Islands. Being the most endangered species of Penguin, seeing two of only 2000 breeding animals left in the world is truly special. They are one of the smallest penguins and zip fast in the water like all penguins. So catching a photo of them in murky, green water with a serious swell going on during an overcast day was not an easy task.

Photograph: Simon Lorenz/Ocean Art

Love from a Father Third place, Marine Life Behaviour

When it comes to clownfishes, we can safely say that Daddy does everything he can to make sure the next generation is safe. He takes care of the eggs by making them breathe with his fins; he removes dust, debris and dead eggs from the nest. This was a really lucky shot as I was trying a new wetlens (+20 diopter). It is pretty hard to use because its depth of field is so shallow that I had to focus manually. What a surprise it was to get this lovely behaviour and the clownfish eye in perfect focus!

Photograph: Francois Baelen/Ocean Art

Cleaning Sixth place, Marine Life Behaviour

A white-banded cleaner shrimp hopped into the mouth of a grouper to have some leftover food. While at the same time, the grouper has its mouth cleaned by the shrimp. This cleaning behaviour ensures both species mutually benefit from this symbiotic relationship. I am fascinated by this behaviour between the grouper and the shrimp. Lucky enough when a shrimp jumped just on the edge of the mouth, I got the photo that I was hoping for.

Photograph: Liang Fu/Ocean Art

Schools of Schools Second place, Mirrorless Behaviour

On the first day of the dive trip, we decided to dive the wreck of the Caribsea off of Morehead City, North Carolina. When we arrived at the site, the visibility did not appear to be the best, but we decided to dive anyway. During the descent, the water appeared darker than usual, however, the deeper we descended, to our amazement we encountered a massive bait ball just above the shipwreck. Upon further inspection, there were a multitude of sand tiger sharks entering and exiting the bait ball in a calm, peaceful manner, seemingly more curious than hungry. As I slowly and cautiously watched, I saw this large female sand tiger shark with her own bait ball entourage just approaching the massive ball. I was mesmerized by the entire scene but my brain quickly engaged enough to set up for the shot of her about to enter. She seemed completely disinterested in me and continued her journey. As I waited for just the right time, I was rewarded with this image.

Photograph: Debbie Wallace/Ocean Art

Million Hope Shipwreck Honourable Mention, Mirrorless Wide Angle

The Million Hope is the largest shipwreck of the Red Sea. It rests in Egyptian waters in the Gulf of Tiran. It is also the largest wreck I have ever visited. This ship is so huge that I did not have enough time - or enough air since this is a shallow wreck lying against the reef - to explore everything. I wanted to photograph the bow with a diver next to it. My idea was to show the sheer scale of the ship. I think that the natural light gives here a perfect atmosphere, cold like the touch of the steel. Actually when I took the shot I really felt the immensity of the size of this particular wreck. Indeed the Million Hope makes you feel very, very small.

Photograph: Fabrice Dudenhofer/Ocean Art

Smile of a Friend Second place, Novice DSLR

In my photo dreams I always had the idea of capturing a wild crocodile. But even when I have seen many in the wild, I have never been able to get in the water with one. That morning we saw this crocodile called El Nino. I was told he was nice enough to let you get close to him. He was watching us for quite some time and, when we decided to go in the water, I was nervous but excited. I approached him close to 10 feet when he started to move towards me, I got more nervous than before but he moved gently so I knew he wasn't mad. He came towards me but dived underneath, so I turned around to follow him closely. When he turned around to face me, I had the opportunity to take this picture with a big smile.

Photograph: Antonio Pastrana/Ocean Art

Curiosity Honourable mention, Portrait

My freedive parter and I were surrounded by green sea turtles feeding on algae that washed out from the rocky shoreline on Oahu's NorthShore. I turned to see this turtle swimming directly at me, which was a truly remarkable behaviour that I have never experienced before. As I set up to capture the unique encounter, the curious turtle saw her reflection and continued to slowly approach until nearly bumping my dome!

Photograph: Kyler Badten/Ocean Art

Nemo Honourable mention, Portrait

The relationship between the ocellaris clownfish that dwell among the tentacles of Ritteri sea anemones is a good example of mutualism. The territorial fish protects the anemone from anemone-eating fish, and in turn the stinging tentacles of the anemone protect the clownfish from its predators.

Photograph: Matteo Visconti/Ocean Art

Sunsplit Second place, Reefscapes

Sunset splitshots are fantastic to capture in the shallow reefs of Egypt. There are many embankments to look for a nice spot for the perfect lighting from the setting sun.

Photograph: Tobias Friedrich/Ocean Art

Eclipse Fifth place, Wide Angle

From August to November, golden rays migrate in large numbers in Costa Rican Pacific waters. No one knows the exact reason, but it can be to protection from predators or as a social/mating behaviour. I was looking for this picture for years and after several weeks searching and working with biologist specialised in rays, I spotted a good place using my drone. I did several dives in this area and waited patiently, then When they came on top of me, I was shock and forgot that I had a camera in my hands. Any effort I did for this encounter, word it! Simply magic moment.

Photograph: Edwar Herreno/Ocean Art

Hanging in Leru Honourable mention, Wide Angle

When researching a trip to the Solomon Islands, Leru Cut was a site that stuck in my photography imagination, wondering what it really looked like and how best to shoot it. The narrow opening above creates shafts of light in the cut for a short time each day. We stopped there early in the trip but it was too cloudy for sun rays. On return to port near the end of the trip we revisited the site with clear skies, and the magic happened.

As the breeze blows the trees, the shafts of light flicker in from above and the light dances around the walls, while bright sun and clear water make for a sapphire blue Suva Sea background, providing silhouette of Pato, from MV Bilikiki, as well as a school of fish and gorgonians in the entrance. Shooting an upward angle made the sun ray effect more prominent and accentuates the narrow cut.

Photograph: Steve Kopp/Ocean Art
January 30, 2019 16:07 IST

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to India on February 11 on a day-long visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his second visit to New Delhi in just over a year.

Netanyahu visited India in January 2018 while Prime Minister Modi travelled to Tel Aviv in 2017, becoming the first Indian prime minister to tour the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Netanyahu will be in India only for a day on February 11 and a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been confirmed. Other details are being worked out, informed sources.

Both the leaders spoke over the phone earlier this month when Israels National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbath visited New Delhi. Ben-Shabbat also met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

The Israeli prime minister is said to have expressed his desire to visit India again to which Modi is said to have consented, sources said.

His visit comes just ahead of the Knesset (parliament) elections on April 9.

Netanyahu, who hopes for a fourth straight electoral victory, has taken up many trip abroad recently to strengthen Israel's standing in the international community, something that his supporters have been using to project him as the only leader who can drum up support for Israel.

Israel has recently seen major diplomatic breakthroughs with Netanyahu visiting Oman, a country that doesn't have diplomatic ties with Israel, and Chad, an overwhelming Muslim country, restarting diplomatic engagement with the Jewish state.

The Israeli leader seems to be trying to convince his people that his country is not isolated in the global community and many more nations would be working with Tel Aviv, irrespective of a breakthrough on the deadlocked peace process with Palestinians.
Source:

Last updated on: January 30, 2019 14:01 IST

Empire star Jussie Smollett was attacked on Tuesday morning while leaving a restaurant in what Chicago police are calling a possible hate crime.

IMAGE: US actor Jussie Smollett is said to be in a good condition in hospital after he was attacked in a possible hate crime. Photograph: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

The 36-year-old actor was exiting a restaurant in Chicago when two men started shouting racial and homophobic slurs towards him before attacking Smollett, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

They punched him, poured an unknown chemical substance over him and one of the suspects even wrapped a rope around the actors neck.

Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime, police said in a statement to THR.

The police said the suspects were two males in black clothing. One of them was wearing a black mask.

Smollett, who was hospitalised for his injuries, told the police that the attackers yelled pro-Make America Great Again comments during the attack.

On the show, Smollett plays musician Jamal Lyon, the son of Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Cookie (Taraji P Henson). The character is gay and so is the actor in real life.

The shows team has expressed shock and anger over the attack on Smollett.

Empire co-creator Lee Daniels said the actor did not deserve what happened to him.

Its taken me a minute to come to social media about this because Jussie, you are my son. You didnt deserve, nor anyone deserves, to have a noose put around your neck; to have bleach thrown on you... you are better than that. We are better than that. America is better than that. It starts at home. We have to love each other regardless of what sexual orientation we are, Daniels said.

Co-creator Danny Strong said, Im deeply horrified and saddened by the racist and homophobic attacks against @JussieSmollett. He is a kind and profoundly talented soul whom I respect with all my heart. The terror of racism and homophobia has no place in our society, it is the most indecent way to live. Whoever did this, do not forget that you are nothing but hate-filled cowards while Jussies talent and activism will continue to shine a bright light on to the world for decades to come.

Brian Grazer, the executive producer of the show, said he was disgusted and saddened by the attack on Smollett, adding, Hate and bigotry have no place in our society.
January 30, 2019 11:12 IST

'They are saying my petition is an attack on Hindu religion.'

You pray in your home, there is no problem, but the school is a public institution run by government funds'

Kindly note the image has been posted only for representational purposes. Photograph: Ajay Verma/Reuters

Advocate Veenayak Shah has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the 'forthwith' discontinuation of Sanskrit and Hindi prayers in government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas on the ground that it was based on the Hindu religion and was being imposed on students.

It also violated Article 28(1) of the Constitution prohibiting religious instructions in State-funded schools.

Jabalpur-based Shah's petition challenged the Revised Education Code for the KV Sangathan which made attendance at the prayers compulsory. Another litigant in the matter was the Jamiat Ulema e Hind.

Started more than 50 years ago, there are today more than 1,100 KV schools across the country imparting a centralised education system.

Appearing on behalf of the government and rebutting the petition, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the prayers -- Asatoma Sadgamayu (lead us from untruth to truth), and Sahana Vavatu (may the supreme deity protect us) -- were not religious in nature, but represented universal truths.

After hearing the petition on Monday, January 28, 2019, Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran felt it raised matters of 'seminal importance' and decided to refer the questions raised in the petition to a Constitution Bench. It was then duly referred to the Chief Justice of India for listing it before a larger bench.

"In the USA, when religious prayers stopped in schools, scientific culture developed in society after which there was progress in that country. If we adopt the same scientific temper, our country too will progress," Shah tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

Why have you filed a petition in the Supreme Court that there should be no prayers in Kendriya Vidyalayas?

Prayer is a religious practice. And the Constitution of India, via Article 28, says that no religion instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds.

In this scenario I appealed in the Supreme Court stating that holding religious prayers in schools run by State funds violates Article 28 of the Indian Constitution.

In a similar instance in the United States of America, one man had petitioned that religious prayers must not be held in schools run by State funds as the USA is a secular country. And the supreme court of America agreed with that viewpoint and passed a judgment. Now this practice of prayers has been discontinued in American schools run on government funds.

What is the problem if children say slokas in Sanskrit before school begins?

I am not against Sanskrit. I am against prayers being said in any language -- be it Urdu, Bengali or any other language.

My objection is to prayers and they must not be conducted in government schools as it is run on State funds.

Now the BJP-RSS (Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) want to communalise this issue by stating that I am targeting Sanskrit prayers. But these things are being done to divert from the main issue.

Religion is a personal matter and the Constitution of India says so by stating that everyone has a right to practise his or her religion and at the same time, it also says those who do not want to practise any religion or to be an atheist, they have the right to do so.

As an atheist I have the right not to pray to any supernatural power.

You mean you have the right to be an atheist following, say, the Charvak school of thought.

Yes, that is the point. I want to follow that and the Constitution of India gives me that right.

And if a school tells me to pray, then I don't want to do it as my personal conscience does not allow me to do it.

They have made prayers compulsory in Kendra Vidyalaya schools by saying Sanskrit slokas. Making it compulsory in government schools violates the Indian Constitution.

But this Sanskrit prayer move was brought in by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government in 2012, why did you wake up now?

Government-run schools have been conducting prayers since 1950 and not from 2012. I too was astonished to learnt this fact. It is just that nobody noticed it, including me.

According to the Constitution of India we must discontinue this practice of prayers in government-run schools that are run on State funds.

Moreover, if the USA can stop prayers in schools, why can't India?

Article 51(A)(h) of the Indian Constitution speaks of scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform so we must promote these values. On the contrary we are not promoting scientific temper but taking the country back to ancient times.

In the Supreme Court, it is written 'Satyamev Jayate', truth alone triumphs, which is a part of Indian culture. Now you cannot say don't put up such ancient slokas.

On Monday, this point was raised in the Supreme Court of India, that the place where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court sits it is written 'Yato Dharma Tato Jaya (Where there is dharma there is victory)'. This is written below the Ashoka symbol. Now in reality nowhere does the Ashoka symbol say the words 'Yato Dharma Tato Jaya'.

And what are you talking of Satyamev Jayate? it has no religion connotation. It only means that truth alone triumphs.

And if something like 'Yato Dharma Tato Jaya' is written in the Supreme Court, then there should be an impartial inquiry as to whether this is against the Constitution of India.

Who gave the orders to write that in the Supreme Court of India? And should that kind of statement continue to be written?

But if you see Sanskrit prayers, they talk about peace in the world and respect for elders, etc. So what is wrong if the children are taught those prayers?

There is nothing wrong in teaching good things. I have no objection to that. But then you tell children to fold their hands and give them religious education also. This is being done to motivate children to (the Hindu) religion.

When you say such things it looks like you are against the Hindu religion.

Political parties want to colour my petition with Hindu-Muslim issues. They are saying my petition is an attack on the Hindu religion.

You pray in your home, there is no problem, but the school is a public institution run by government funds. Where am I saying that you don't pray in homes?

I said it because there are madrasas run on government money and the same holds true for Christian schools which get subsidies from the government. These schools too have Islamic and Christian prayers, but you don't object to that.

The children who go to such schools go with the permission of their parents. At this moment nobody has noticed the issue that you have asked in your question.

Now let me see what judgment comes out of my ongoing case. Only then will I follow up a case with madrasas and Christian schools.

But your fight could be never ending. Many government offices and even police stations display religious symbols.

That too is wrong. The police station is also run on government funds. The Constitution of India does not say that any government will believe in one religion, but it will have to be secular.

Take, for example, Prime Minister Narendra (Damodardas) Modi doing puja paat before a missile launch. This is wrong.

The PM of India is on official work and in a secular country these things should not be done.

We as a society should follow the scientific path as written in our Constitution. These puja acts by Modi encourage blind beliefs in our country.

Doing puja and lightning lamps is very much a part of Indian culture, so why are you associating it with religion?

You do these things at your home, no one will object to it.

Tomorrow if there is a collector who is a Muslim and he says he will offer namaz with a congregation in his office, will anyone agree to that? The answer is 'no' because the place belongs to the Government of India and not to the collector. This is what the Constitution of India says.

What will you achieve by stopping prayers in government-run schools? How will children benefit?

In the USA, when religious prayers stopped in schools, scientific culture developed in society after which there was progress in that country.

If we adopt the same scientific temper, our country too will progress.

Instead of wasting time on prayers we must spend more time on studies, that will be good for the children as they will learn new things in life.

Instead of going to other countries to buy missiles, in future we will make those things in India only.
January 30, 2019 14:30 IST

'I assume Ramachandra Guha's neglect of this aspect of Gandhi grows out of the belief that Gandhi's life had no central text,' says Rudrangshu Mukherjee, professor of history, Ashoka University.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

This review must begin with a disclosure. Ramachandra Guha is a close friend, and we have shared our intellectual interests and argued about them for over four decades.

This review will unavoidably carry signs of the friendship, but our intellectual camaraderie also emboldens me to articulate some criticism and reservations about what is a magisterial biography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

A biography, by convention, crafts a chronological narrative since the life of an individual unfolds in a linear fashion over time.

Before Guha embarks on his chronological and very detailed reconstruction of Gandhi's life in India (after he returned from South Africa), he introduces us to what he describes as the four 'callings' of Gandhi.

These, he says, were the transformation of Indian politics by making the Congress the principal vehicle to deliver India from British rule; the forging of harmonious relations between India's religious communities; the eradication of untouchability; and the impulse to develop economic and moral self-reliance among Indians.

Guha's book seeks to track Gandhi's life and arguments across these four arenas.

He reconstructs Gandhi's life in meticulous detail, based on many years of monumental and global archival work.

This enabled him to unearth aspects of Gandhi's life unavailable to earlier Gandhi scholars who have relied much too exclusively on the 100-volume Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi, Guha tells us, popped up at him in unexpected and obscure places. A biographer inevitably stalks his subject; but Gandhi seems to have followed Guha as much as the other way round.

The vast scope of his research enriches Guha's narrative in extraordinary ways.

To take two examples from the innumerable that could be cited. There are many accounts available of Gandhi's Dandi March, but Guha embellishes his account of the very well-documented event by picking out one moving detail.

The Ananda Bazar Patrika reported that at a village called Dehwan a 105-year-old woman greeted Gandhi by putting red tilak on his forehead and telling him to return only after he had won swaraj.

A simple detail reveals how common people perceived the Mahatma. The other pertains to another well-known episode of Gandhi's life -- his decision very late in his life to sleep in the same bed with his grand niece, Manu. Guha appositely calls it 'the strangest experiment'.

He illuminates his account of this with quotations from Gandhi's stenographer who vehemently objected to this attempt on Gandhi's part to test his brahmacharya. And another from a hitherto unknown letter that brings a completely new perspective to this experiment through which Gandhi wanted to demonstrate that 'men and women could so purify themselves in mind and spirit that they could share a bed without either being put to shame'.

Who else but a scholar with an obsessive interest in sources and an ethnographer's eye for detail would have unearthed and used such reports? These examples illustrate this biography's fundamentally different approach even as they suggest to us where this biography breaks new ground.

Guha's Gandhi lies in the details.

IMAGE: Mahatma Gandhi at Dandi, picking salt on the beach at the end of the salt march, April 5, 1930. Behind him is his second son Manilal. Photograph: Kind courtesy, Wikimedia Commons

Paradoxically, the great strength of Guha's book is also its principal weakness.

No serious historian can avoid looking at archives and documents, but these repositories have a lure of their own and a historian needs, at some point, to resist their weight from overwhelming his narrative.

Factual detail has to be carefully sieved, the grain of detail that serves a story removed from the chaff of detail that can take over the narrative at the cost of interpretation and meaning.

Guha's biography runs perilously close to this faultline. The details are fascinating but at times one is left wondering how well it all stacks up.

I have one other related criticism. The sources that Guha unearths and consults relate to Gandhi the activist, the politician, and to Gandhi as he related to the external world.

But was this the only facet of Gandhi?

He was above everything else a man driven by a moral vision.

His life was also a spiritual quest -- 'an experiment with truth'. This is a biography that does not investigate Gandhi's interiority.

What ideas informed his inner life?

How did they impact his actions?

We need greater access to Gandhi's inner life than Guha provides since Gandhi did not believe that there was a dividing line between his deeds and his ideas. 'My life is my message,' he said.

Guha begins his book, as I said, by noting what he called Gandhi's four callings.

Actually, those four areas of his activities were derived from even more profound callings -- the real pillars of his inner life.

He spelt them out with great clarity in many of his writings, most importantly in Hind Swaraj.

These were an unfailing commitment to a simple life, to abhaya, to ahimsa, to Hindu-Muslim unity and to truth.

He never wavered from these ideals. Guha rather underplays this because he refuses here (as well as in its predecessor) to engage with Hind Swaraj and the ideas contained in it.

This seems to me a puzzle. I assume Guha's neglect of this aspect of Gandhi grows out of the belief that Gandhi's life had no central text.

The difficulty with this view of the matter is that it runs against Gandhi himself: The Mahatma considered the ideas in Hind Swaraj to be inseparable from his life and his work.

IMAGE: Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru at the All India Congress committee meeting in Bombay. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images

In October 1945, Gandhi wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru, who was opposed to the ideas of Hind Swaraj, 'I fully stand by the kind of governance which I have described in Hind Swaraj... If I were the only one left who believed in it, I would not be sorry... I believe that if India, and through India the world, is to achieve real freedom, then sooner or later we shall have to go and live in the villages -- in huts, not in palaces... I have not the slightest doubt that but for the pair, truth and non-violence, mankind will be doomed.'

I suspect Guha chooses to neglect Gandhi's ideas and his inner life because he wants to present Gandhi as someone acceptable to our modern world.

Gandhi rejected all that embodies the modern and hence his ideas strike many -- as they did Nehru -- to be backward looking.

Guha's refusal to engage with Gandhi's ideas is matched by his decision not to engage with the views of other historians and scholars who have written on Gandhi.

This is sad since some of the best historians and scholars of India have written on Gandhi -- Ranajit Guha, Partha Chatterjee, Ashis Nandy, Sumit Sarkar, David Hardiman, Rajmohan Gandhi, Akeel Bilgrami to name the most prominent.

Instead, Guha engages with the diatribes of Arun Shourie and Arundhati Roy, and spends a couple of pages discussing the appearance of Gandhi on the cover of Time magazine.

Are these of any consequence for our understanding of Gandhi?

Where precisely is Guha's assessment of Gandhi -- as a leader, as a human being?

I am not sure there is a clear statement. The biographer's intent seems, again, to let his enormous accumulation of detail do the speaking.

A biography attempts to place the individual in the context of his times.

The sub-title of Guha's book -- 1914-1948: The Years that Changed the World' -- promises this. Yes, the world changed dramatically and radically during these years -- the two wars, the Russian Revolution and the rise of socialism, the coming of the Cold War, the end of the British Empire and so on.

But how much of these changes were affected by Gandhi and how was he in turn affected by them?

India changed over these years, but did it change in the direction that Gandhi wanted and desired?

Had he lived, would he have been able in all good faith to go back to that old woman in Dehwan to say swaraj had been won?

Such questions hover over Guha's outstanding narrative. Independent India has to live with the fact that Gandhi did not celebrate India's independence.

I must confess that my admiration for the stupendousness of Guha's achievement in relation to detail is tempered by not a little disappointment at this biography leaving me wanting a richer understanding of Gandhi's inner life and ideas.
January 30, 2019 12:54 IST

'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.

All Photographs: Rediff.com Archives IMAGE: Then defence minister George Fernandes at the World Trade Centre site in New York, March 2002.

With the passing away of the veteran Socialist leader George Fernandes, India has lost a political colossus.

George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position.

He was a political worker, an extraordinary leader, a powerful trade unionist, a parliamentarian that many would dread to face and, above all, a dissenter.

In the early 1970s, when I was a student, George was one of the most charismatic speakers, much wanted to address campus audiences. My familiarity with him started at that time and I had an opportunity to work with him both in Opposition and in government.

The 1967 Bombay South Election

George once narrated to me his story, the entire tale of the 1967 Bombay South election. That election would be an education for any student of psephology or electoral politics.

Shri S K Patil was the unquestioned leader of Mumbai, then Bombay. He was a Union minister and the Congress party's treasurer. He had won his Bombay South Lok Sabha seat several times by large margins. Nobody believed that Patil could ever be defeated till the 36-year-old president of the Bombay Taximen's Union, George Fernandes, announced that he would challenge Patil in the election.

All the Opposition parties supported George. George's first task was to make people realise that Patil was not invincible. Posters, banners, stickers on taxis, outside apartments were put up, all carrying one line 'Patil can be defeated'.

Once the campaign picked up and became the talk of the town, the media asked S K Patil for his comments on the same. Patil inappropriately replied, 'Only God can defeat me'.

Prompt came George's response campaign. The next slogan was 'God does not vote, only you do. So, only you can defeat Patil'.

The voters dislike arrogance and defeating Patil became the flavour. With the support of the Opposition and the unions, George secured a victory and entered Parliament. He quickly made a mark as a parliamentarian, a great speaker in at least seven languages. A phenomenon very rare in India.

IMAGE: George Fernandes, second from right, with his Janata Party colleagues Ramakrishna Hegde, Chandra Shekhar and Madhu Dandavate.

The JP Movement and the Railway Strike

Post Mrs Indira Gandhi sweeping to power in 1971, George became an active part of the JP Movement. Bihar had always been an important political constituency for both the Socialists and George Fernandes. He concentrated on his trade unions and became head of the railway unions.

In 1974, he called for a railway strike for the working conditions of the railwaymen. This has been one of the most tense trade union agitations ever in India. The entire country was hearing the slogan 'Rail ka chakka jaam karenge'.

The events of 1974 and those which followed culminated in the imposition of the Emergency.

The Emergency

The Emergency witnessed multiple reactions. Most institutions caved in. This included the judiciary, the media and the civil services. Only some outliers in these were the dissenters.

Many political workers got scared and preferred inactivity, some even issued statements supporting the Emergency. The bolder political Opposition workers protested and went to prisons.

George Fernandes believed in militant opposition to the Emergency. Many felt that the idea of a militant opposition to the Emergency was misconceived, but George was a man with his own mind. He believed that this was the only course. His opposition was shattered and, along with his colleagues, he was arrested and prosecuted.

George's idealism overtook political pragmatism when on 19th January, 1977, Mrs Indira Gandhi announced the holding of the general elections. All the political prisoners in Tihar Jail had a meeting.

IMAGE: George Fernandes as a Union minister in the Janata Party government, 1977.

George was in Ward 17. Some of us were in Ward 1. We all were allowed to assemble in Ward 2 for political consultations. While everybody else favoured participation and contesting of elections, George was a dissenter.

He wanted to boycott the 1977 elections. He believed that this was going to be a make-believe farcical election through which Indira Gandhi would earn legitimacy and continue her dictatorship and hence the Opposition by contesting must not give legitimacy to the elections.

Though in a hopeless minority, George stood by his position. The Janata Party was formed immediately and it decided its candidates and George was chosen to contest from Bihar. He declined to sign on the nomination papers.

It finally took Morarji Desai who came to the Tees Hazari courts (where George used to come for his trial), with a set of nomination papers, to get George to sign them so that he could contest from prison.

George eventually yielded and signed his nomination papers. The results were declared and George won the election by a huge margin.

The Janata Party formed the government with Morarjibhai as prime minister. A perpetual rebel, George's first reaction was to decline to join the Cabinet. He again misjudged the public mood.

I remember George being gheraoed by 500 political workers at New Delhi's VP House and being compelled to yield in the face of hostile slogans to join the Cabinet.

The fall of the Janata Party government was a chapter in George's life that he would like to forget. He delivered in Parliament the most eloquent defence of the government, only to quit the next day under pressure from his Socialist colleagues Raj Narain and Madhu Limaye.

George spent the rest of his next decade in Opposition championing the issues of farmers, trade unions and finally Bofors. He was one of the leading campaigners against corruption in the Rajiv Gandhi era.

His attacks on the government were perhaps the most aggressive ones. He had built a reputation as being both a master of facts and languages.

Defence Minister and the false allegations

In the NDA government, headed by Mr Vajpayee, George, as the convenor of the NDA, was one of the architects of alliance formation. Even his worst critics would not attempt to level allegations of corruption against him.

Yet twice as defence minister, once during the Tehelka tapes and second in relation to the CAG report relating to the purchase of coffins, false allegations of corruption were leveled against him.

A commission of enquiry in the Tehelka tapes issue vindicated George. The Coffingate report was an absurdity. Metallic coffins were called costlier by comparing their costs with wooden coffins. Two unequal commodities do not cost the same.

George led the most austere of lives. He washed his own clothes, cleaned his own utensils. He never owned a television till a well-wisher insisted that he needed to have one.

His books and files lay scattered on the floor in his house till some friends made arrangements to get him some ordinary book shelves.

He took up causes which nobody espoused and pursued them with all vigour. Ministers were scared of facing the wrath of his attack when he was in the Opposition.

But eventually his health took the better of him. The slowing down of his mind and various faculties could be seen towards 2003-2004. He still had full comprehension, but that aggression was lacking. I noticed this during a GOM in the last days of the Vajpayee government.

During the 2005 Bihar elections, Advaniji, on behalf of the BJP, announced Nitish Kumar would be the NDA's chief ministerial candidate.

We, in the BJP, felt that this was logical and would also help us unseat Lalu Yadav's regime. A murmur of protest came from George.

When I went to meet him, I realised, because of failing health, he had not realised the full implication of his reaction.

His parliamentary tenure in Lok Sabha ended in 2009. He needed official accommodation for some more time. Nitish Kumar graciously put him up as a candidate in a by-election for the Rajya Sabha and George entered the Upper House for the first time.

His oath taking showed his state of health. He could politically no longer contribute. He needed help and assistance at every stage.

The tiger had been tamed, but his escapades would be remembered for a long time.

George Fernandes was a parliamentarian for several terms. He was a Union minister thrice. But he will be remembered for the several agitations he lead, several positions he took and several causes he represented.

IMAGE: George Fernandes with Ram Vilas Paswan and Ajit Singh interacts with political workers in 1990.

Epilogue

George Fernandes was the last of the veteran Lohiaites. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, George's mentor, represented the anti-Nehru, anti-Congress face of Indian politics. After the 1962 general election and the China war debacle, Dr Lohia gave to this country the famous slogan 'Congress hatao desh bachao'.

This led to an anti-Congress alliance. The first step was that Dr Lohia, Acharya J B Kripalani and Deendayalji (Upadhyaya) became the joint Opposition candidates in three bye-elections to the Lok Sabha.

The then Jana Sangh President Dr Raghu Vira lost his life in a road accident while campaigning in these elections. However, in the post-Dr Lohia era, with the emergence of the BJP as the principal pole of Indian politics, many Lohiaites shed their inhibition and started doing political business with the Congress.

The Left was not far behind. They called it re-polarisation. One honorable exception was George Fernandes. He was a born Lohiaite and he died as one. His anti-Congress moorings were never compromised.

Arun Jaitley is the Union Minister Without Portfolio.
While the directorship change in the LGBT Resource Center has taken longer than most would have liked, Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander reminds us of UGA's dedication to diversity behind finding the next best leaders in the center.
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What couples are still together and which MAFS couples have split up and divorced? And where are they now?

's first twelve seasons featured 44 different couples getting married at first sight -- so which couples are still together, who has split up and divorced, and where are they all now?Each season of -- which premiered in the United States seven years ago and is based on a Danish series -- features couples (previously three couples, but four couples on Seasons 8 and 9, and five couples beginning with Season 10) being matched together by relationship experts and agree to marry when they first meet.Complete strangers become husband and wife in a matter of minutes, and the couples' lives are then documented by TV cameras over the course of the next four to eight weeks (eight weeks, in the case of 's most recent seasons).The couples typically enjoy their first night together in a hotel after exchanging vows -- with some couples deciding to consummate their marriage immediately -- and then embark on a honeymoon, move in together, and simply attempt to deal with the struggles of daily life as man and wife.At the end of the extreme marriage experiment, each couple must decide whether they'd like to stay married or get a divorce on "Decision Day."has experienced very mixed results over the years. While a significant number of couples decide to stay together and continue their new marriage at the end of their season, the real world seems to hit them hard after the cameras leave, resulting in the couple splitting up only months later.Do cast members see a different side of their spouses once cameras are gone, or do the romances naturally fizzle over time?Some couples are still together to this day and are extremely happy. Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner from Season 1, for example, have had two children.Several other couples have also had children -- including Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre Danielle Bergman and Bobby Dodd , and Deonna McNeill and Greg Okotie However, there are also relationships that ended badly. Jessica Castro from Season 2, for instance, accused Ryan De Nino of alleged death threats, and she went on to file a restraining order and lawsuit against him.Some couples have also never even made it to "Decision Day" and ended their marriage prematurely, including Season 4 couple Heather Seidel and Derek Schwartz as well as Season 6 couple Molly Duff and Jonathan Francetic Are the remaining couples now lovers, friends or enemies?! What about early season couples like Cortney Hendrix and Jason Carrion, Jaclyn Methuen and Ryan Ranellone, Vanessa Nelson and Tres Russell, Sonia Granados and Nick Pendergrast, and Lillian Vilchez and Tom Wilson?And how about more recent season couples like Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek Sheila Downs and Nate Duhon Jaclyn Schwartzberg and Ryan Buckley Dave Flaherty and Amber Martorana , and Tristan Thompson and Mia Bally Keith Dewar and Kristine Killingsworth , and AJ Vollmoeller and Stephanie Sersen Click thelink below to see photos of each couple and find out!

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/29/2019



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

couple Kalani Faagata and Asuelu Pulaa have something big to celebrate!Kalani and her husband just celebrated their son Oliver's first birthday over the weekend.Kalani posted a series of photos from her child's big day Monday on Instagram, and she and Asuelu were all smiles on a beautiful, sunny day."Happy first birthday to my Joodle-Bop," Kalani sweetly captioned her post. "Can't wait to share his birthday weekend vlog with you all!"The birthday party appeared to take place at a farm, where goats and a little red barn could be seen in the background of one photo. Oliver was also holding onto a big balloon that read, "Happy Birthday!"In addition to enjoying a family lunch, Asuelu and Oliver also dressed in matching traditional Polynesian outfits that were very colorful."Beautiful Samoa Siva perform by my nieces and my nephews," Asuelu captioned an adorable photo of the father and son. "I'm so excited."'s sixth season ended with Kalani getting married to Asuelu and the couple learning she's pregnant with their second child.Earlier this month, Kalani announced they're expecting another son, who is due in April.Kalani, a 29-year-old from Orange County, CA, met Asuelu, a 23-year-old from Samoa, when she had traveled to Samoa in July 2016 and Asuelu worked as an activities director of the resort she was staying at.The couple kept in touch and a relationship blossomed, resulting in Kalani deciding to visit Samoa again to see her love interest.During her second visit, Kalani lost her virginity and ultimately had a surprise pregnancy, which rocked and initially disappointed her entire Mormon family.Kalani and Asuelu therefore went ahead with the K-1 visa process so Asuelu could move to the United States and become a hands-on father and eventual husband.Asuelu arrived in America for the first time when Oliver was only five months old, so that means Asuelu's first trip to America was in late June or July of last year.
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Motivated by a desire to help find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean in March 2014, we proposed a way of working out where objects hit the surface of the ocean using underwater acoustic waves. Unfortunately this didnt lead to finding the plane. However, our research into these waves has moved on since we first proposed the idea in 2017, and we have now been able to identify two locations where the aeroplane could have impacted with the ocean, as well as an alternative route that the plane may have taken.

When you drop a pebble in a lake, water waves are generated from the location of the impact, while sound waves create the splashing noise you hear. Another type of wave is generated inside the water too: hydroacoustic. Similar to a sound wave, hydroacoustic waves move relatively slowly through the dense water, at 1,500 metres per second (m/s).

Similarly, when a large object, such as a meteorite or aeroplane, impacts violently at the surface of an ocean, it generates large surface waves, and a family of sound waves that come from a sudden change in pressure known as acoustic-gravity waves. These can travel thousands of kilometres through the water, carrying vital information on the source of the impact, before dissipating.

In our last study we looked at acoustic-gravity waves picked up by hydrophone (underwater microphone) stations in the Indian Ocean, to narrow down where flight MH370 may have impacted the ocean to two points. But now we have found another factor that may prove crucial for pinning down the location of the impact: sea floor elasticity (flexibility).

When acoustic-gravity waves start travelling through the the sea floor their propagation speed boosts to over 3,500 m/s, from the 1,500m/s they would have been travelling at through the water. Previous analysis considered the sea floor to be rigid, which would not allow the radiating waves to move through it. However, if the elasticity of the sea floor is taken into account then the waves will travel at this enhanced speed.

Rethinking impact

The acoustic-gravity waves that we analysed for both this and our previous study came from two hydroacoustic stations (each of which has three underwater microphones called hydrophones), which were active at the time when MH370 went missing, on March 7-8, 2014. The first, HA01, is off Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia, while the second, known as HA08s, is at Diego Garcia, which is part of the Chagos Archipelago.

Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO;  2018 Basarsoft; US Dept of State Geographer;  2018 Google. , Author provided

Previous studies have mostly looked at the signals collected by station HA01 between 00:00-02:00 UTC on March 8 2014, as well as signals that related to the last satellite data transmission from MH370 at 00:19 UTC (known as the 7th arc. However, with our new understanding of acoustic-gravity waves we decided to look at hydroacoustic data from HA01 that was recorded during a wider timeframe  between 23:00 and 04:00 (+1 UTC) on March 7 and 8  and analysed data from the further away HA08s station too.

Allowing for the effects of sea floor elasticity, the signal locations that we had previously identified using data from HA01 were now different. If the signal travels, say, at twice the speed for a given distance, it should have gone twice the originally calculated distance (without elasticity), so the impact location would be further away relative to the hydrophone station. This is shown on Figure 1 above as signal marks on the purple bearings (the direction of the signals relative to the hydrophones).

HA08s signals

Looking at HA08s, the signals were more challenging to analyse. They were distorted by noise which is believed to have been caused by a military exercise in that side of the ocean (depicted as red lines on the map above). However, although the proposed route and point of impact is distant from the 7th arc, we still recommend further studying a number of signals from HA08s. The bearings of some of these signals fall within the area where signals from the military action were picked up, so it is possible that the signals are associated with the military action. But if the signals are related to MH370, this would suggest a new possible impact location in the northern part of the Indian Ocean (as depicted in the top left of the map above).

The locations of signals found using HA08s data do come with high uncertainty but still require further detailed and careful analysis. Unfortunately, on top of the noisy recorded signals, 25 minutes of data from HA08s is missing. The signals we have analysed indicate that the there was a 25-minute shutdown that has gone unexplained by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation, which is responsible for the hydrophone stations.

In light of this research, we recommended that signals recorded at all times between 23:00 (March 7) and 04:00 (March 8) UTC, at both stations HA01 and HA08s are analysed with no exception. And that this is done independently from other sources (such as satellite data), to minimise inclusion of uncertainties related to them. These recommendations have been communicated to the MH370 Safety Investigation Team in Malaysia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and other relevant authorities with the hope that the search will be resumed to find the missing aircraft.

Usama Kadri, Lecturer of Applied Mathematics, Cardiff University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Saudi Arabia, a strategically important country, is in danger of becoming an outlaw government. The world reacted with revulsion when Saudi officials lured journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the consulate in Istanbul and then coldly murdered him. The regime has also led a coalition responsible for the worlds worst humanitarian crisis  a famine  in Yemen. Long-loyal government officials, members of the royal family, and others have been barred from leaving the country, tortured and even killed.

Lost in this parade of horrors are financial crimes that might not be as heinous but are nonetheless serious. Thousands of Saudis have had their property taken without warning. Saudi authorities have appropriated billions of dollars without so much as a court hearing. Millions of poor people around the world have been harmed as a result of such caprice.

In 2017, Prince Turki bin Abdullah , the CEO of the $4 billion King Abdullah Foundation, was arrested on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS. Abdullah is still being detained although hasnt been charged with any crime. The assets of the foundation were frozen and are currently held at the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia. Saudi philanthropist Amr Al-Dabbaghs U.K.-based Stars Foundations activities have also been frozen, as have Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudis charitable projects in Africa. In addition, members of the King Abdullah family and other prominent businessmen and royal family members have had their Saudi-based bank accounts zeroed out.

Why does this matter? The King Abdullah Foundation, the legacy of the late king, is one of the worlds major philanthropies. It has given millions of dollars for health care, low-income housing, and refugee relief. And it planned to give far more. All that has come to a screeching halt, harming many would-be beneficiaries.

I know this from personal experience. In 2016, the U.S. Patent Office issued my start-up software company, Sparo, its fifth and sixth patents, which help make it enjoyable and easy to donate to charitable causes. Sparos goal is to become a global platform that expands charitable giving, especially in the Arab world, and the King Abdullah Foundation was eager to assist.

We discussed using Sparo to help nonprofits ranging from helping the Malala Fund educate refugee Rohingya girls in Bangladesh to food banks in the U.S., including those in the Washington, D.C. area. But after Prince Turki was arrested, members of the Abdullah family couldnt make the investments they had planned.

As the worlds largest exporter of petroleum, Saudi Arabia and its stability matter to the global economy. Protecting U.S.-Saudi relations and pressuring MBS to reverse his actions are not mutually exclusive.

President Trump and members of the U.S. Congress should demand that MBS unfreeze the assets of all Saudi-based non-profits, including the King Abdullah Foundation, and allow those assets to be transferred to the U.S. for management by American-based wealth managers. Prince Turki should be freed from confinement and other royal family members under house arrest should be allowed to travel without restrictions. Saudi banks should be forced to return the money they unlawfully took from prominent business leaders and members of the royal family when they zeroed out their accounts.

These actions would help millions of needy people around the world. The day that MBS allows the King Abdullah Foundation to once again work with groups devoted to charity is the day hope will be revived for those less fortunate among us. Beneficiaries would range from people who suffer from Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease to scientists who are trying to conquer cancer. Aid will also flow to the many people who, through no fault of their own, have become refugees in a foreign land.

With some help from enlightened leaders in Washington, Sparo and other technology platforms can deliver on the promise of capitalism with a conscience. But first, now-restricted Saudi foundations must be allowed to resume their charitable partnerships.
WASHINGTON -- The handmaiden of peace is exhaustion. We are seeing that lesson in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Yemen.

Fragile peace agreements are emerging in both conflicts, thanks to skillful diplomats. There are a hundred reasons why each negotiation may fail, and in assessing Middle East conflicts, we should remember that, unfortunately, "pessimism pays," as my former Wall Street Journal colleague Karen Elliott House observed nearly 40 years ago.

But a process has started: Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy, said Monday, "We have a draft of the [peace] framework that has to be fleshed out." A senior Gulf official told a Washington gathering Monday night that because of U.N. mediation efforts, "We are at the beginning of the end in Yemen," and that the war there is now moving from a military to a political phase.

Recent diplomatic efforts are bolstered by fatigue and frustration at the existing, costly stalemates in both battlefields. The Trump administration (despite the president's own clumsy statements) has found a balance between saying (rightly) that the wars must end and (wrongly) setting a precise timetable for withdrawing U.S. military support. Ambiguity is the mother of peace deals.

Body counts can be misleading, since they don't measure the underlying will to keep fighting, but they suggest the awful human cost. President Ashraf Ghani said last week that more than 45,000 Afghan security personnel have been killed since he took office in 2014. U.S. commanders say Taliban losses are even higher. Over the past 17 years, about 1,900 American soldiers have been killed in action and more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

The Yemen war has been a special nightmare for civilians. Since the war began in 2015, more than 22 million people, or about 75 percent of the population, are now in need of humanitarian assistance, 16 million now lack drinking water and sanitation, and 15 million are "severely food insecure," according to congressional testimony Tuesday by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Growing public outrage has been a factor in curbing both conflicts. In Afghanistan, a peace movement gathered strength last year, with marchers trekking hundreds of miles to attend rallies. Last year, the Taliban said it was ready for peace talks and the Afghan government issued a peace proposal. Ghani's ceasefire during the Eid holiday in June was joined by the Taliban. In Yemen, humanitarian organizations have given voice to the millions of civilian victims there.

War has a momentum that's hard to stop, even when there's a broad yearning to end a conflict. Gen. John Nicholson, who spent much of the last decade serving in Afghanistan, said last September as he handed over command to Gen. Austin Scott Miller, "It's time for this war in Afghanistan to end" and "the time for peace is now," a view shared by Miller.

But generals don't end modern wars; diplomats do. In an interview Tuesday, Nicholson credited Khalilzad for being "the right man at the right time" to turn the broad aspiration for peace among exhausted Afghans into reality. "Relationships matter in this part of the world," he said, and Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan and has known Ghani since he was a boy, has a unique set of contacts.

Khalilzad's offer to the Taliban: Stop harboring international terrorists and America will withdraw its troops. That's the same basic deal U.S. mediators have been floating for years, but in addition to battle fatigue, there's now the added motivation of a shared enemy in the Islamic State.

Just as there's a ladder of escalation in wars, there's a ladder of de-escalation, too. In unwinding the Yemen conflict, U.N. mediator Martin Griffith began with a ceasefire agreement in the port city of Hodeidah; next, perhaps, he can open the road to the capital of Sanaa; then, maybe, a ceasefire at Sanaa airport; then an exchange of prisoners. Eventually the momentum of conflict slows, and problems begin to be solved in a "political box," as the Gulf official noted.

Democratic societies fight wars at a disadvantage. The public wants the decisive outcome of victory, but as wars grind on, and people watch the savage endgame live, they hate what they see. The wires get crossed: the putative "good guys" appear to be savage killers; the terrorizing insurgents come to seem the innocent victims.

What slows the killing machine are fatigue, popular rage at the human cost of continued fighting, and peacemaking formulas that allow each side to claim a measure of success and avoid humiliation. These are the kind of delicate but essential deals that diplomats are struggling to craft in Yemen and Afghanistan. We should all hope they succeed.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group
A variety of factors in Afghanistansome serendipitous, some the result of Trumps repeated calls for an American withdrawal from the conflicthave come together to create an opportunity for peace.
Professor Paul Krugman asked a very important question in his January 10 New York Times essay Trumps Big Libertarian Experiment; Does contaminated food smell like freedom?". In his opinion piece, Krugman maintained that the recently concluded governmental shutdown demonstrated the hypocrisy of Republicans. The Nobel Prize winning economist also defended a plethora of government programs such as the Small Business Administration, food stamps, the FDA and socialized medicine.

As a libertarian, I strongly and enthusiastically support his claim of Republican hypocrisy. With regard to most of the rest of his assertions, I respectfully disagree. Let us consider the specifics.

Mr. Krugman noted that according to Ronald Reagan government was the problem, not the solution. Yes, Ronald Reagans rhetoric was strongly libertarian. But talk, no matter how eloquent, is cheap. When he was governor of California, that states budget increased, not the other way around. Ditto for when he was president of the United States and federal spending zoomed. Krugman is absolutely correct in asserting that Republicans have echoed his rhetoric ever since, but they do not follow through. They held the Presidency and both houses of congress for the last two years, and nary was there any noticeable reduction in government expenditure. However, fair is fair: President Trump did eliminate a few onerous business regulations and lowered tax rates somewhat.

But Krugmans claim that the shutdown in effect provided some sort of natural experiment for libertarianism is wide of the mark. The idea, here, is that with government out of the picture, if the libertarians are correct, the free enterprise system will quickly ride to the rescue and take up the slack. But no. When government is giving it away for free down the street (courtesy of the long suffering taxpayer), it is difficult, just about impossible, for private firms to provide goods and services competitively. The latest shutdown lasted longer than any previous one. The strong expectation is, now that it has ended, that there will either be a compromise on the wall (a trade for the status of the DACAs), or Trump will build it as part of his claim of national emergency. A much fairer test of this big, beautiful libertarian experiment would be if there were a credible announcement that the government would end these initiatives on a permanent basis. Even better would be an announcement from Trump that he would work with Congress to establish free enterprise zones with an eye on actually experimenting with true libertarianism.

This is the entire point of free enterprise zones: government taxes, regulations, prohibitions, do not apply in a small test area, say, the size of Rhode Island, maybe located in the wilds of Alaska, Nevada or Wyoming, or in that entire state. There would be no laws there against drugs, sex between consenting adults; no welfare for anyone; the whole libertarian nine yards would be implemented. I challenge Mr. Krugman, a fair minded man, to call for exactly this sort of experiment instead of the present one he offers almost tongue in cheek, which does not at all qualify for that honorific. Ceteris was hardly paribus, during the recently ended shut down.

Krugman mentioned that SBA loans and farm subsidy checks were no longer being sent out during the partial shutdown, but he was curiously silent as to whether or not he favors these elements of crony capitalism that Republicans, but certainly not libertarians, support. The case against them is easy to make for left-liberals: They take money from all taxpayers, and direct the funds to the relatively rich. Libertarians oppose welfare programs both for the poor (they can create incentives for family break up) and for the wealthy. We all have a word for compelling some people to give money to others against their will: theft. But only libertarians employ it when the government is involved as intermediary. This opposition holds true whatever the wealth of donors and recipients. Both of these programs, farm subsidies and SBA, should be abolished in their entirety; immediately, if not sooner. Moreover, they are both elements of central planning and government picking winners (Solyndra, anyone?). Have we learned nothing from far better natural experiments than the one alluded to by Krugman: that between East and West Germany, North and South Korea?

Let us now consider the Food and Drug Administration, a shibboleth amongst so-called progressives. Why should we be forced to put all our eggs in one basket: to trust the views of but one institution for the all-important task of ensuring safety regarding these products? It is a basic premise of economics 101, to which even Mr. Krugman should adhere, that competition brings about a better result than a compulsory monopoly. That applies to all industries, certainly including the one tasked with ensuring food and drug safety.

Then there is the question of why FDA pronouncements should be compulsory. Why not, merely, advisory? How does it help the consumer to reduce options among medications? Our friends on the left side of the spectrum favor choice in the debate over abortion. Why not here, too? The FDA, along with programs such as compulsory Social Security, are profoundly incompatible with democracy, yet another favorite of this sector of the political spectrum. If people are so stupid as to require prohibitions of medicine deemed inappropriate by the FDA, not merely warnings, and cannot save for a rainy day or for their retirements, then it cannot be reasonable to give them the right to vote. On the other hand, if we entrust them with access to the ballot box, we cannot also logically think they need FDA advice, let alone prohibitions, or nanny state requirements that they save their money (put the Ponzi scheme elements of social security to one side). But even governmental advice is highly problematic. Nowhere in the Constitution is there provision made for government to function as an Ann Landers.

Then, too, brand names are a source of security for quality of food and drugs. Who is really more responsible for insuring excellence, Pfizer, Heinz and McDonalds, or the FDA? If the former fail us, they will be heavily penalized, even bankrupted. When the latter fails they keep on going, just like the Energizer Bunny. (The Army Corps of Engineers is still in charge of the Mississippi River, even though it was the failure of their levies which led to the deaths of some 1900 people in late 1920s; were a private enterprise responsible for such a horror, it would have long ago have been replaced by a different business firm).

Nor must we sweep under the rug past FDA mistakes. For example, it failed to warn pregnant women of the morning sickness medicine thalidomide, which created birth defects. That was a Type I error, approving of a negative (at least by omission). Once burned, twice shy. As a result of that horror, the FDA has been busy manufacturing all sorts of type II errors: refusing to allow people to use safe medicines. That is, not until after years and years of very expensive testing. This pushes pharmaceutical prices through the roof, and deprives needy patients for long durations of unavailability. Many unnecessary deaths can be attributed to this failure of theirs. No, the FDA is nothing to brag about. It should be terminated and ashes sowed where once it stood. Milton Friedman indeed hit the nail precisely on the head when he condemned the F.D.A.s existence as an unwarranted interference in the free market, as Krugman accurately states.

By the way, contrary to Krugman, Friedman always characterized himself as a small l libertarian, not a conservative. His intellectual and moral soldier in arms, Friedrich Hayek, wrote an essay Why I am not a conservative.

Professor Krugman opines that libertarian ideology isnt a real force within the G.O.P.; its more of a cover story for the partys actual agenda. This is only partially true. There are several libertarians now in the congress: Senator Rand Paul and Congressmen Justin Amash, Walter Jones and Thomas Massie. Dr. Ron Paul was a long time member of the latter institution. There is also the Congressional Freedom Caucus composed of many other libertarians as well as conservatives. Senator Paul is now widely discussed (not only within libertarian circles) as Donald Trumps Vice Presidential running mate for 2020, instead of Mike Pence. Yes, libertarianism sometimes serves as a fig leaf for Republicans, but, this philosophy plays a role just a little bit more vital than that.

No truer words were ever said about all this than Krugman's: In the case of the (Republican) party establishment, that agenda is about redistributing income up the scale, and in particular helping important donor interests. Republican politicians may invoke the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor  but they dont really care about free markets per se. After all, the party had little problem lining up behind Trumps embrace of tariffs  Stick it to the bums on welfare, but dont touch those farm subsidies. But this, of course, does not at all apply to libertarians.

Next consider health services, whether Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare or the single payer system of Canada and much of Europe. Basic supply and demand analysis indicates that when prices are held below equilibrium, demand exceeds supply. Every freshman economics student can tell you that this means there is a shortage. And, a shortage there is, in these systems. In Alberta, Canada, both a woman and a horse she owned had kidney stones. Her pet was treated right away (there is no veterinary socialism in that country); were it not, she would have been arrested for animal cruelty. As for her, she had to endure several long months of pain, until she was treated. That is but one sad story in this tip of the iceberg.

Why is medical care so expensive in the U.S.? It is so for two reasons. One, we have covered above: the FDA boosts prices of medical drugs. Two, even more important, the strongest labor union in the country, the American Medical Association, practices restrictions on entry, similar to what the taxi cab crony capitalists attempt to do against Lyft and Uber, and downtown hotels vis a vis Airbnb. They strictly limit the intake of medical schools and their number. They strive mightily to ensure that highly qualified foreign doctors are not allowed to practice in this country. Eliminate their unwarranted powers, and there will be no felt need for medical socialism. Relative prices of computers, television sets, and other products of the somewhat free sectors of the economy continually fall. Next, perhaps, to banking, the health industries are the most highly regulated and prices remain high, there.

Professor Krugman ends on this note: Knowing that the food youre eating is now more likely than before to be contaminated, does that potential contamination smell to you like freedom? I say, in contrast, if you want to be free of tainted food and drugs, the last thing we should rely on is the FDA. Yes, eliminate it, and allow the magic of the market as Ronald Reagan would say, to bring us security in this regard.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University officials announced that all classes for Wednesday (Jan. 30) have been canceled at the West Lafayette campus due to the expected wind chill temperatures that will be dangerous for students walking to and from classes. All university employees should report for normal campus duty at their regular time. Classes are expected to resume Thursday (Jan. 31).

Any employees who determine that their individual situation makes travel to work unsafe are reminded they can use paid or unpaid leave if they are unable to report for campus duty, however, they should contact their supervisors as soon as possible. The campus adverse weather procedures are available online here (pdf).



Those driving on area roads can monitor their county travel status by going online to http://www.in.gov/dhs/traveladvisory/.

As the area braces for sub-zero temperatures, students are encouraged to remain indoors. Carol Shelby, senior director for environmental health and public safety, offers the following advice for those who must be out:

 Make sure you have winter footwear with excellent treads to help keep your footing on ice.

 Wear several layers of warm clothing and cover exposed skin.

 Use the Purdue pedestrian tunnels and enclosed walkways.

 CityBus, which is free to everyone with a Purdue student, faculty, staff or retiree identification card, will continue to operate, with some Campus Loop service reductions possible Wednesday. People are urged to use the MyCityBus app to check the location of their bus before heading to a bus stop. Passengers may also sign up for text, email and push notifications for route-specific service interruptions and detours through the app. You can download the app here, or search for the MyCityBus app in the Google Play or Apple App Store.

Source: Carol Shelby, cshelby@purdue.edu
Last week at Winter Institute 14 in Albuquerque, N.M., five of the past presidents of the American Booksellers Association sat for a panel discussion moderated by ABA CEO Oren Teicher, focusing on where the industry is at the moment and where it is headed. The conversation echoed several others at Winter Institute, where it became clear that the ongoing collaboration between publishers and booksellers to reduce the cost of goods and streamline delivery times is central to the profitability of many booksellers.

Michael Tucker, ABA president from 2009 to 2011, and president and CEO of Books Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, with 11 stores in California, acknowledged that this key relationship is "in a better place" than it had been during the period following the settlement between the ABA and the publishers and bookstore chains for anti-trust in 2001. For several years thereafter, tensions in the industry were high. "The challenge was to open up a dialog with the publishers," said Tucker.

Gayle Shanks, co-owner of Changing Hands Bookstore with locations in Tempe and Phoenix, Ariz., concurred that the relationship and the general bookselling environment has improved, but she also offered a cautionary note: "When I have to take out a case of books to replace them with tea towels or socks so i can meet the minimum wage increase or put in new floors, that worries me." She said that young booksellers in particular are vulnerable. "They say [the economics] don't pencil out."

Becky Anderson, co-owner of Andersons Bookshops, headquartered in Naperville, Ill., and ABA president from 2011 to 2013, added that the margins for indies is just too slim, particularly compared with competitors. "Something has to change," she said. "We're not here to make the big bucks, but we want to be able to make a living."

Several times at Winter Institute Teicher and others pointed out that sales in the indie channel have been improving overall, with sale up some 5% in 2018. That said, there are still issues, particularly among the bottom third of bookstores, which are averaging a net loss of 8% per year, according to the most recent ABACUS data presented by the ABA earlier last week. One supposition is that profits are rising due to an increase in sales of non-book items and smaller footprint stores are struggling to raise profitability as a result of their inability to stock as many of these higher margin items.

Mitchell Kaplan, president of Books & Books, headquartered in Coral Gables, Fla., who held the ABA presidency from 2004 to 2006, said that the path to profits leads through community work. "We need to look at what the challenges are for small business today, whether that is rent, bad landlords, or a main street that is falling apart. We need to figure out for our communities how to sharpen what we do." He pointed to the grants the city of San Francisco recently extended to small businesses, including a handful of booksellers, as one possible model.

The Booksellers also shared anecdotes from their terms as president and highlights of author events they ever hosted. Becky Anderson's term was perhaps the most dramatic of all and included the liquidation of Borders, the period of e-book hype and the merger of the Association of Booksellers for Children with the ABA as a highlight. But it was her author events with J.K. Rowling that may be most remarkable of all. "For the first book we had 80 kids and teachers come to our store," she said. "For her next reading we had 5,000 people come, then for the next there was 50,000 and then 70,000.""

Betsy Burton, co-owner of the Kings English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah, who served as president from 2015 to 2017, said that the industry has taught her "to shut up, and instead of "charging into things," it is better to "watch and listen" first, particularly when one can avail of the knowledge of informed colleagues.

Asked for advice on opening a bookstore, Kaplan was both pithy and practical: "Make sure you buy the building," he said, adding, "You are going to make that community more valuable and you may price yourself out of it."

Finally, each bookseller was asked to name the book they were most looking forward to handselling this year.

Anderson said she was looking forward to An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz (Doubleday, March). Its an important look at the gun violence that has killed over 14,000 people in Chicago in the last 20 years, she said.

Burton credited Ruth Reichls Save Me the Plums (Random House, April) with salvaging an evenings reading one night not long ago. I had picked up two galleys that I just threw across the room, they were so bad. Then I saw Ruths book there on my pile and it saved my life.

Tucker said he couldnt pick just one title and selected all of Europa [Editions]s new nonfiction, which will be published under the new Compass imprint.

Kaplan highlighted a forthcoming book by a local writer, Campbell McGraths Nouns & Verbs (Ecco, April). He is from Miami and writes in a vernacular style that is very appealing, said Kaplan.

Finally, Shanks gave the nod to Pam Houstons Deep Creek (Norton, January), saying She opens herself up and tell you about life, nature and peoples reality."
Senators Carles Mulet Garcia and Jordi Navarrete Pla, members of the Valencian political coalition Compromis, have presented two questions and a motion in the Spanish Senate in order to ask the Spanish Government to provide the last three reports of olive oil spanish imports issued by the Customs Department. Following the debate generated by the Turkish crimes in Afrin, the Valencian Senators want to know if, as reported by different media last year, the cooperative group DCOOP and Aceites Toledo were sanctioned for selling Tunisian oil as Spanish. The senators asked the Government of Spain to explain if any other company was involved in this kind of fraud and if, specifically, some other traded illegally with Turkish olive oil. If so, Mulet and Navarrete want to know how Spain is combating these fraudulent practices and what kind of sanctions are imposed on offenders. The Government of Spain has also been asked by the Basq Senator Jon Inarritu (EH Bildu).

Compromis also demanded to be strengthened the customs police of the Mediterranean ports with enough resources and agentsin order to detect the origin of oils to be sold in Spain, and very especially, of those that have their origin in Turkey. The Valencian coalition urged the Government to adopt additional measures to protect local consumers that make it impossible to trade foreign productions that violate the European regulations.

Carles Mulet and Jordi Navarrete want to clarify if Spain, Italy or any other third-country could be involved in the fraud of imports of falsely Turkish oil stolen in Syria, while recalling that Turkey benefits from trade agreements that simplify the marketing of their products. Senators believe that European police should coordinate in order to investigate a practice that could be financing terrorism in the Middle East by using despicable practices of robbery, pillage, bribes, food manipulation and fraud.

The Primavera Europea coalition  of which Compromis also forms part also presented a motion to the European Commission for asking the authorities to implement the necessary means to know if any European company could be involved in the acquisition of Afrin stolen oil.



No tests to know the origin

On the other hand, none of the Spanish institutions that are responsible for ensuring compliance with European regulations in relation to agri-food imports have the necessary sensory and analytical evaluation technologies to determine the origin of an olive oil. What this means in practice is that only a police investigation that exceeds the powers and competences of the service that inspects imports -SOIVRE- would allow to find out if, as Publico denounced a few days ago, Turkey could have introduced or be trying to fraudulently selling a portion of the ten to fifty thousand tons of olive oil looted to the Kurds in the Syrian city of Afrin and its surroundings in order to finance the Islamist mercenaries who are used to sustain the illegal war effort in that canton.

Ask the Ministry [of Agriculture] to see if they have any carbon test to find out the origin of an oil, a SOIVRE employee tells us over the phone. Here we only practice the necessary analyzes to comply with the EU regulations, and among them, there is none to confirm their provenance in a reliable manner. And indeed, it is. Both the organoleptic tasting panels and the chemical analyzes to which, in compliance with European law, the olive oil imports are subjected, allow to find out, among other things, if any type of adulteration has occurred, if it has been mixed with other kinds of oil or if it is of a lower quality than it presumes to be, but not other variables that help to prove its origin.



Working on a test

According to Rafael Pico, director of the private entity that groups the Spanish olive oil exporting companies (ASOLIVA), it is not that the SOIVRE or the Customs department lack the means due to an inadequate endowment of resources. The problem is that there are not even scientific procedures to determine the variety of oil that goes in the bottle, much less if it is multivarietal oil. Precisely, the European Commission is working right now through the Oleum project in the development of some procedure to determine that and other issues. Maybe well have something before five or six years. 

One hundred percent of the imports that enter Spain are subject to double the tests required by European law. Both the SOIVRE and the customs offices perform organoleptic and physico-chemical tests to determine if they conform to the quality or to rule out that the oils have been adulterated. Regarding the certainty of the origin, the only guarantee is the traceability documents. Of course, if there has been some kind of falsification of credentials, the responsibility would be the Government of Turkey or the Turkish companies that took part in it, and not the Spanish companies that hypothetically could acquire without their knowledge any Syrian product with a certificate of Turkish origin, says Rafael Pico.

According to the director of Asoliva, the last report released by the Customs Department  the one corresponding to the month of October  does not list any item imported from Turkey. We will have to be alert to upcoming reports and ask Turkey to comply with the legislation.

The traceability document that Rafael Pico mentions establishes all the way traveled by the olive oil from the tree to the table, and that includes its intermediate stations. Of course, if as recognized by the Turkish Minister of Agriculture Bekir Pakdemirli, the Afrin harvest has been looted to be sold fraudulently, no official document will send the product to trees located in an area illegally occupied by force of arms or leave to see that the oil was obtained by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its Turkish allies by the looting of the Kurdish producers, subjugated and dispossessed of their possessions by the Erdogan regime.



False documents

According to information published by Publico on the 12th, the Government of Turkey is trying to introduce illegally in third countries such as Spain several thousand tons of olive oil produced with the olives plundered by their mercenaries in Afrin and other neighboring municipalities of Rojava. Part of the production could have already been sold, or about to be marketed, with false documents of attribution of origin issued with the blessings of the Turkish administration. A secret protocol released by the Kurdish agency Firat (ANF) suggests that almost a quarter of the income obtained through the commercialization of that product  some 19 million euros  would be used to pay the mercenaries of Recep Tayipp Erdogan.

Olivares de Afrin, situados en las proximidades de la zona turca de Hatay.

As a result of the publication of this information, dozens of media from all over the planet -among them, a good number of Arab newspapers- echoed the facts, providing new data that led us to confirm that, in In effect, Turkey had sold small consignments of oil obtained as war booty to countries such as Cyprus or Saudi Arabia, after raging against the civilian population. To this last country they have arrived tins of oil of Afrin of first quality, under the name of Barakat Al Ghouta, as it reveals an Yazidi media in a video interview. According to EZDINAs research, Syrian olives are transported to be milled in Turkey (see the translation of the video included in the information).

Even the Turkish producers themselves and some opposition parties are oposing to this looting. They fear that the entry into their market of that stolen production has a negative influence on their national market, by pulling the prices down. What the Executive of Erdogan tries to avoid is that part of the income provided by the green gold will end up in the hands of the Syrian Kurds, whom he treats as a subsidiary of the PKK, and whom he obsessively refers to as terrorists, although they have been the main land allies of the Americans in the fight against the Islamic State.

The information disclosed by Publico has even been confirmed by a Kemalist deputy from the Peoples Republican Party (CHP), Orhan Saribal, who stated that it is strictly true that around 50,000 tons of Syrian olive oil from Afrin have been transported to Turkey for commercialization in the domestic market and in third countries. According to this parliamentarian, Afrin oil travels crudely in sixteen and twenty kilo cans to Turkey, where it is labeled and packed. Presumably, there it could be mixed with other Turkish oils of similar quality and from the adjacent Syrian area or, eventually, it is processed in Hatay along with other olives. If so, its multivariety nature would still make it more difficult to detect the fraud, especially when it is the Turkish State itself that sponsors the scam.

According to an Afrin producer based in Spain, the type of olive tree that abounds most among the Kurds is often known as Zeiti. In fact, it is often said that it is the one that provides the most performance. Its size is variable and its appearance, similar to that of manzanilla. Of course that depends on the terrain, the climate and the specific place where it is grown. The average production of each tree ranges between one hundred and two hundred kilos, in alternate years. There are five subtypes of this variety, whose quality and production is variable. Logically, the Kurdish peasants choose the best ones according to their preferences .


We chose ZTR because we wanted to collaborate with a proven technology provider and develop an end-to-end solution thats customized and differentiated. ~ Christine Zeznick

Leading global aerial lift manufacturer, Terex AWP, driven by its Genie brand, chooses ZTR Control Systems as its industrial telematics solutions provider. In its live webcast yesterday, January 29, Terex AWP announced its new Genie Lift Connect telematics program: http://www.genielift.com/coming-soon.

We chose ZTR because we wanted to collaborate with a proven technology provider and develop an end-to-end solution thats customized and differentiated. We listened to our customers, and with the Genie Lift Connect telematics solution, were giving customers more data and actionable information, through a transparent and flexible user interface, than our competitors. ~ Christine Zeznick, Genie senior product and business development manager for telematics, Terex AWP.

Providing more than data, ZTR adds greater value for Terex AWP customers, equipment owners and end-users by capturing specific and detailed safety, diagnostic, maintenance and performance insights that go beyond location and usage.

ZTR is a global high-tech company that develops new and innovative solutions for off-road industrial equipment markets, integrating complex components into customized telematics solutions for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), rental companies and fleets of compact construction equipment. The company focuses on delivering trusted leadership, demonstrated value, proven technology and attentive service.

Paul Wilson, ZTRs director of commercial development and program management says its important to keep innovating and adding new and practical features that benefit customers. Delivering telematics innovation isnt just about the expertise required to generate effective solutions, its also about working collaboratively to recognize and solve customer challenges. Thats why ZTRs telematics solutions make sense for Genie equipment, he adds.

ZTR and Terex AWP will be exhibiting the new Genie Lift Connect program at the following shows:



The ARA Show, February 18-20, 2019 in Anaheim, California.

ZTR booth #4879

Genie booth #6541

Bauma April 8-15, 2019 in Munich Germany.

ZTR: Hall A2, Stand 134

Terex: Hall FM.711 (outside)

Learn more about what ZTR industrial telematics can do for your business.

Contact:

telematicsinfo@ztr.com

+1-952-233-4340

About ZTR

ZTR Control Systems is a proven telematics company and global leader in intelligent industrial equipment management solutions. ZTR provides innovative industrial telematics solutions to numerous industries, allowing companies to remotely monitor and manage both mobile and fixed assets. ZTR is a pioneer in the development of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies and works with over 50 industrial OEMs and many of the top rental houses in the world.

About Terex

Terex Corporation is a global manufacturer of lifting and material processing products and services delivering lifecycle solutions that maximize customer return on investment. Major Terex brands include Terex, Genie, Powerscreen and Demag. Terex solutions serve a broad range of industries, including construction, infrastructure, manufacturing, shipping, transportation, refining, energy, utilities, quarrying and mining. Terex offers financial products and services to assist in the acquisition of Terex equipment through Terex Financial Services. More information about Terex is available on its website: http://www.Terex.com, and on its LinkedIn page -- http://www.linkedin.com/company/terex and Facebook page -- http://www.facebook.com/TerexCorporation.
Gareths expertise in working with customers as they adopt new technologies as well as his ability to motivate and energize teams makes him the perfect addition to the Zonar family

Zonar, the leader in smart fleet management technology, has enhanced the senior executive team with the addition of Gareth Wade as the new Chief Revenue Officer. Wade is an award-winning business and sales leader with more than 20 years of diverse global experience helping organizations increase revenue and build successful teams and programs. Wade is joining Zonar with a focus on revenue growth through direct sales, channel and reseller programs.

This is an important time in our industry as both fleets and commercial vehicle OEMs are working to embrace and accelerate the digitization of their vehicles and businesses, said Ian McKerlich, President and CEO at Zonar. Gareths expertise in working with customers as they adopt new technologies as well as his ability to motivate and energize teams makes him the perfect addition to the Zonar family.

Wade joins Zonar as a seasoned leader of technology companies and sales teams in the UK, across Europe and North America. Most recently he served as US Director of Business Development & Strategic Alliances for GCI Communication Corp. Previously he was Chief Sales Officer at content26, Director of Channels Sales at Polycom, Inc. and Principal Revenue Growth Consultant at OneAccord Partners.

Before re-locating to the US from Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, Wade served as the founding Sales & Marketing Director of Viju, (formerly CityIS) in the UK and across Europe. Wade moved to Seattle in 2004 and as President and CEO of CityIS, Inc. he established a new subsidiary business. Wade has won many sales recognition awards, including being ranked in the top 25 Deloitte & Touche Fastest Growing UK Companies four years consecutively and Best Director in national awards sponsored by Scottish Enterprise. Wade serves as volunteer Chairman for British American Business Connections, Pacific Northwest and is a Vice President of the Seattle Saracens Rugby Club.

At Zonar, Wade will be focused on increasing revenue through designing and executing tailored sales and channel solutions, building high-performance teams, forging strategic partner ecosystems and providing executive leadership.

For more information on Zonar, please visit: http://www.zonarsystems.com
Zapproved welcomed more than 50 new customers last year ranging from Fortune 100 enterprises and federal and public agencies to leading nonprofits.

Zapproved LLC, developer of the leading litigation response platform specifically for in-house legal teams, today announced that the company has achieved significant growth milestones in 2018 that extended its leading market share among corporate legal teams in the Fortune 1000.

We continue to see a strong momentum of corporate legal departments taking more control of the ediscovery process. Zapproved welcomed more than 50 new customers last year ranging from Fortune 100 enterprises and federal and public agencies to leading nonprofits, said Monica Enand, CEO and Co-founder of Zapproved. Were extremely proud that our Z-Discovery platform is trusted by more in-house teams than any other for managing litigation response, and we expect continued robust adoption in 2019 as the importance of this critical function is elevated within their organizations.

Following are key areas of progress in 2018:

Leading Market Share in Corporate Legal

Zapproved saw strong growth in its market of in-house legal teams for its software platform that handles preservation through processing and review. The company saw its market share continue to soar with 50 new in-house legal teams joining as customers, comprised primarily of corporations but also with public agencies, nonprofits, and educational institutions. Zapproved closed 2018 with 84 customers within the Fortune 500.

Growth of Product Adoption

The companys SaaS offerings saw usage spike this past year across the product line. Zapproveds Legal Hold Pro preservation software, the industrys category leader, currently is overseeing preservation of more than 1.5 million active custodians. Digital Discovery Pro had a surge in adoption that saw data ingested in the system nearly triple as legal teams continued to move these functions in-house.

Team Expansion and Executive Leadership

Zapproveds business growth necessitated scaling up its workforce in 2018. The overall headcount grew by approximately 25 percent, all in its Portland headquarters. Furthermore, the executive team welcomed high-caliber talent throughout 2018, including Aaron Laliberte, VP of Product, Susy Dunn, Chief People Officer, Tom Pickett, CFO, and David Smith, CTO/CISO.

Leadership in the Legal Community

Zapproved continues to make progress towards its goal of elevating ediscovery practice through community development, education, and thought leadership. The seventh annual PREX Conference, the leading educational ediscovery event for in-house legal teams, hosted a record number of attendees and featured keynotes such as The Washington Posts Eugene Robinson, the Hon. Paul Grewal, Facebooks Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Litigation. The companys Corporate Ediscovery Hero Awards series celebrated the influencers and achievers of in-house ediscovery, hosting famed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and noted journalist Bob Woodward as featured speakers.

Recognition

Zapproved continued to build on its track record of recognition in 2018 with the following notable citations:



For the third year in a row, Zapproved was listed on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America

Zapproved placed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing U.S. private companies

Zapproveds flagship Legal Hold Pro software was named a top Legal Hold Solution in The National Law Journal Best of 2018 survey

The company was recognized as one of the Fastest Growing Private 100 Companies in Oregon for the fourth straight year

A survey of state-wide CEOs ranked Zapproved among Oregons Top 10 Most Admired Companies

The company placed in the top quarter of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon list by Oregon Business

After hosting the third annual Corporate Ediscovery Hero Awards on the Monday leading into Legalweek, Zapproved is exhibiting at Legaltech 2019 in New York in Booth No. 1005. Additional information on Zapproveds software products, including their Z-Discovery platform, can be found at Zapproved.com.

About Zapproved LLC

Zapproved is the developer of the Z-Discovery platform, enterprise-class software designed specifically for corporate legal teams to take control of ediscovery from the moment litigation is anticipated until the matter is resolved. Our powerful yet intuitive system equips teams to confidently reduce reliance on outside providers, dramatically lower costs, and simply build a better process. Backed by ironclad security and unrivaled customer support, our software is trusted by more corporate legal teams than any other.
The Who's Who in Ophthalmology was opened to the public today to provide an interactive, knowledge-sharing, and promotional platform to showcase leading ophthalmologists and leading practices.

Ophthalmology is the branch of medicine and surgery that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders and there are more than 23,000 ophthalmologists in the United States and more than 210,000 worldwide.

Professionals in the field of ophthalmology are often confused with optometrists and opticians so weve created a dedicated social network for ophthalmologists, their practices, and their affiliates, stated Brian Christie, CEO of Brainsy. The Whos Who in Ophthalmology will feature leading personalities and practices and give them a unique set of tools to both share knowledge and highlight their credentials and thought leadership.

Some of the leading ophthalmologists featured on the Whos Who include:

Dimitri Azar MD, MBA Senior Director of Ophthalmic Innovations, Verily Life Sciences, Distinguished Prof. & BA Field Chair/ Ophthalmology; Former Dean of Medicine Univ. of Illinois; Senior Director Verily.

Julia Haller MD, Ophthalmologist-in-Chief of Wills Eye Hospital, where she holds the William Tasman, M.D. Endowed Chair.

Bonnie Henderson MD, Clinical Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, an Internationally-recognized expert in cataract and refractive surgery, specializing in complicated anterior segment surgery.

Carol L. Shields MD, Director of the Oncology Service, Wills Eye Hospital; Professor of Ophthalmology - Thomas Jefferson University; Consultant - Childrens Hospital

Prospective patients will have access to a public directory of providers but the site will not be for patient consultations or the discussion of specific conditions as the site is for general information only and does not replace a client-patient relationship formed through in-person consultations.

Individual medical doctors invited to the platform will be peer-nominated or selected based on certifications in the field. They will have access to interactive tools including the InCall feature so they can get paid for one-on-one phone calls with peers or industry.

The Whos Who in Ophthalmology incorporates the best features that modern social media has to offer into one unified place for professionals in our field, commented Julia A. Haller, MD Ophthalmologist-in-Chief of Wills Eye Hospital and William Tasman, M.D. Endowed Chair. It will be an invaluable resource for knowledge sharing and peer mentoring.

Doctors and practices can also be featured on the SEO-enhanced site for a nominal fee. The categories of expertise in which individuals will be invited to participate in the Whos Who in Ophthalmology include: Cataract/Anterior Segment, Comprehensive Ophthalmology, Cornea/External Disease, Glaucoma, Medical Retina, Neuro-Ophthalmology/Orbit, Ocular Oncology, Ocular Pathology, Oculoplastics/Orbit, Pediatric/Strabismus, Practice Management, Refractive Surgery, Uveitis, and Vitreoretinal Surgery. Industry vendors will be listed in a marketplace directory featuring a variety of specialties.

Visit https://www.whoswhoinophthalmology.com for more information.

About Brainsy, Inc.:

Brainsy offers Software as a Service (SaaS) to power online knowledge-sharing and engagement reward networks including patented Expert Calling Network (ECN), Expert Communities Online (ECO), Whos Who and Digital Buyers Guides. Brainsy operates standalone communities and offers services to associations, professional societies, franchisors, membership organizations, corporations and crypto or token sponsors. Brainsy is a portfolio company of TomorrowVentures, an investment firm co-founded by former Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt. More information is at: http://www.brainsy.com
The precision of the price book tool we created was never-seen in the community, said Marcella P. Arthur, vice president of worldwide marketing and channel operations at TDS.

Trusted Data Solutions (TDS), the global leader in legacy data and voice management and transformation, has launched a new agile and intuitive Partner Portal to serve its growing channel partner community. The new Partner Portal includes sales enablement tools so channel partners can be more effective, efficient and responsive to their prospects.

Continuing the momentum of TrustedPartners program launch this past fall, TDS committed its partner portals evolution would continue to elevate the partner experience and ensure a competitive technological edge, while increasing revenue. Not stopping at a single iteration, the goal for the partner portal is to be as simple and intuitive as the program itself, yet groundbreaking in its ability to support a growing channel community. By breaking down the business process step by step, the TrustedPartner team mapped out an initially complex workflow and translated it into easy to navigate portal experience for the partners that would allow for quick quoting of complex projects, as well as easy to access enablement tools.

The new TrustedPartner Portal is a direct response to our goal to exceed the expectations of our growing channel community and exceed the over 20 years experience I have witnessed in building partner portals, said Marcella P. Arthur, vice president of worldwide marketing and channel operations at TDS. Managing legacy data projects and archive migrations are not always seamless and can be extremely arduous and we were determined to bring the best experience and expertise to our partners and help them see success with their customers by enabling a multifaceted partner portal that supported every aspect of the selling lifecycle.

TDS believes in leading with solution and services excellence in their portfolio of technological offerings, as well as in the tools that enable their partner community. And, in this day and age when speed is expected in all we do, adding these advanced features to the TDS TrustedPartner Portal enables a partner to respond faster with an accurate quote that may the key to winning a deal.

Combining TDS deep understanding in the legacy data industry and my experience in the channel community, we are very proud to bring together this portal to our partners, continued Arthur. The vast number of source and destination archives, type of archive, compression, currency, etc. are all considered in this pricing system. The precision of the price book tool we created was never-seen in the community.

Read more about how the partner portal came to life from Marcella Arthur, TDS Marketing Director, on her recent blog post Faster Quotes, Happier Channel, Satisfied Customers.

About Trusted Data Solutions

For more than two decades, Trusted Data Solutions (TDS), the foremost expert in legacy data management, has set the standard for compliant access, management and transformation of voice and other electronic data. Their leadership in backup tape restoration, email archive migration, and voice logging retrieval and restoration services, coupled with their recent Voice Compliance Practice advancements, makes them a one-stop-shop for organizations requiring an all-inclusive voice managed service. TDS is the preferred choice for corporations, regulated institutions, eDiscovery specialists, government agencies and law firms that require compliant data transformation. Their industry leadership is demonstrable in their commitment to advancing their services and operations to support the demands of their growing, global customers and partners.

With its North America Headquarters in New York City, and two international headquarters in the United Kingdom and Singapore, TDS maintains one of the most expansive global restoration assurance facility footprints in the market. Facilities are based in New York, New Jersey, California, Canada, England, Wales, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Millions of customer tapes are under TDS management, equating to over 500 petabytes of data, and TDS has successfully delivered over 37 thousand projects.

TDS is a wholly owned subsidiary of TDS Global Holdings which is privately held.
Top WordPress Web Design Firms

10 Best Design is excited to announce Ruckus Marketing as a top award winner in Best WordPress Web Design category for January 2019.

WordPress is the world's most popular website for building websites. Formally known as a content management system, WordPress requires absolutely zero web design, site development, or computer programming experience to craft high-quality websites. Many companies that can't afford full-fledged custom website builds opt for WordPress. Unfortunately, many websites built using WordPress are seemingly carbon copies of one another.

Businesses around the world look for contenders for the title of the Best WordPress Web Design Firm to solicit quasi-custom websites from them. These web pages have the benefit of largely appearing to be unique. Their appeal as one-of-a-kind websites helps draw more organic traffic from web users who search for related entities and offerings on the World Wide Web.

An updated list of the best WordPress-focused web design companies is published each and every month by 10 Best Design. The company thoroughly researches changes in each type of list's respective focus of business to make sure each and every publication is relevant to individuals, governments, organizations, and business entities in need of WordPress web design services.

The top three finishers on January 2019's list of WordPress website builders are common contenders on a variety of 10 Best Design's subjective rankings, indicating that businesses can widely choose any of their services and be satisfied.

Leading WordPress web design firm Ruckus Marketing regularly wins gold as a WordPress web designer. Its work has been positively reviewed by CNN, CBS, Saturday Night Live, and ABC, among others.

Blue Fountain Media netted January 2019's silver medal for its industry-leading, business-to-business marketing work. The company's staff lives by the mission of making marketing campaigns through trusted algorithms without being stiff like Siri or Alexa. For this reason, it is no surprise that Blue Fountain Media has landed on Januarys list of top WordPress web design businesses.

The bronze medal for January 2019's list goes to another premier WordPress web design agency SPINX Digital. A regular competitor for the title card of the Top WordPress Web Design Firm, SPINX Digital takes its corporate residence in Los Angeles, California. SPINX Digital is a full-service digital agency.

Created in 2012, 10 Best Design initially provided consulting services in the general field of computer programming and web design. Since 2017, 10 Best Design has branched out to regularly publish lists of the best web-based service providers for the entire world to benefit from.

For more information about this months award winners, visit http://www.10bestdesign.com.


As the provider of the precast concrete structure, we are excited to be part of the team building its next world-class facility in the heart of Northern Virginias famed Data Center Alley," said Greg Force, President and CEO of Tindall.

Tindall Corporation was recently awarded a contract to produce the precast concrete components for RagingWire Data Centers new campus expansion in Ashburn, Va., the #1 data center market in the world also known as Data Center Alley. This project for RagingWire, one of the most successful data center companies, further establishes Tindall as a key supplier to data center construction projects.

As a major global player, RagingWire is rapidly expanding its portfolio of data centers that deliver the best possible solution of power, cooling, networking and security  at a price point and rapid delivery their hyperscale cloud and large enterprise customers require, said Greg Force, President and CEO of Tindall. As the provider of the precast concrete structure, we are excited to be part of the team building its next world-class facility in the heart of Northern Virginias famed Data Center Alley.

Tindall will be working on two new data centers within RagingWires fenced, secure, 78-acre Ashburn Data Center Campus. The campus is planned for seven interconnected buildings with over 1 million square feet of space and 100+ megawatts of power. The VA4 Data Center, with 250,000 square feet of space and 32 megawatts of power, is planned for customer availability in mid-2019 joining the VA3 Data Center both located on the Ashburn Data Center Campus.

RagingWire has a legacy of excellence that spans nearly 20 years based on the highest standards for data center efficiency, economy and performance, said Kevin Dalton, RagingWire Senior Vice President of Construction and Critical Facilities Engineering and Design. We trust the engineers at Tindall to exceed our expectations on all fronts.

The Tindall Virginia Division plans to construct 516,000-square-feet of total precast for the structures flooring and roofs, including over 1,600 pieces on two levels. Tindall has partnered with Holder Construction, Corgan Architects and AG&E Structural Engenuity to complete this project.

These new Ashburn data centers will add to RagingWires extensive data center portfolio that includes three additional data centers in Ashburn, three massive data centers in Sacramento, Calif., a 42-acre campus in Dallas, Texas, a new four-story data center construction project in Silicon Valley, Calif., and a 19-acre property in Chicago for future development.

To learn more about Tindall, visit http://www.tindallcorp.com

About Tindall

Headquartered in Spartanburg, S.C., Tindall Corporation is one of the largest precast concrete manufacturers in North America. With five production facilities located throughout the Mid-Atlantic to the South-Central United States, Tindall provides engineering, manufacturing, shipping and installation solutions for precast, prestressed concrete systems and underground utility structures.

About RagingWire Data Centers

RagingWire Data Centers designs, builds, and operates mission critical data centers that deliver 100% availability, high-density power, flexible configurations, carrier neutral connectivity, and superior customer service. The company has 245MW of critical IT load spread across 2 million square feet of data center infrastructure in Ashburn, Virginia; Dallas, Texas; and Sacramento and Silicon Valley in Northern California with significant growth plans in these locations and other top North American data center markets. As part of the NTT Communications group, RagingWire is one of the largest wholesale data center providers in the world with a global network of data centers in over 20 countries and regions operated by NTT Communications under the Nexcenter brand and one of the most financially strong companies in the data center industry. For more information visit http://www.ragingwire.com.
IFFS Shanghai 2019 World Congress

The International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) and its 2019 World Congress Scientific Committee announce its 14 renowned debate speakers who will speak to various sides of research and developments related to subjects within the reproductive healthcare field. Themed "Transforming the Frontiers of Human Reproduction" the 23rd Annual World Congress will be held April 11-14, 2019 in Shanghai, China.

Debate topics include:



Freeze All

Immunotherapy for Implantation Failure

Natural Cycle IVF

Immunotherapy for Recurrent Miscarriage

Management of Mild Endometriosis

Mild Stimulation for Poor Responders

Trigger GNRH vs HCG for All

To date, the Congress has announced its speakers and the topics they will deliver, the publication of its 2019 World Congress Programme in addition to the 44 renowned Panel Speakers who will focus on delivering leading edge research across a range of current issues within the reproductive healthcare industry.

The 2019 World Congress will examine research and development on local, regional and international levels. The World Congress is specially created for any person within the fertility field and is expected to draw over 4,000 international delegates.

Visit the official IFFS website for regularly updated Congress information, including the Congress program, at iffs-reproduction.org.

About the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS)

Founded in 1951, the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) is a Non-State Actor (NSA) which promotes and develops educational initiatives in the eld of reproductive health, supporting the goals and objectives of the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as the renewed focus and prioritization WHO has given to infertility as a disease. IFFS Education Programmes are tailored to regional needs, based on extensive faculty research and communication with local Member Society representatives. The IFFS represents over 65 UN country specic fertility societies that in the aggregate encompass an estimated 50,000 physicians and reproduction medicine specialists worldwide including allied healthcare medical professionals. For more information on IFFS, its event and its membership, visit iffs-reproduction.org.

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"There is a critical need for funding performing arts in secondary schools as financial support is dwindling or being eliminated altogether. We were extremely moved by the students submission stories, so much so that we are doubling our Your Start in the Arts funding in 2019, Richard Omar, NYCDA.

The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts (NYCDA) today proudly announced the recipients of its first annual Your Start in the Arts grant awards. The New York Conservatorys grant program honors and supports secondary high school educators in drama and theater who have inspired students to follow their passion for the art of storytelling through acting.

We are thrilled to announce the recipients of The New York Conservatorys first Your Start in the Arts grant awards, said Richard Omar, president and artistic director at The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. We created the grant to honor outstanding high school teachers and drama departments making a difference for students pursuing their passion for the dramatic arts. We are grateful to be a part of enabling each school as they continue to grow and nurture their drama students and department goals.

There is a critical need for funding theater and the performing arts in secondary schools as financial support for these programs is dwindling or being eliminated altogether. Selecting the grant recipients was a very difficult process, as this need was echoed throughout the nearly one thousand submissions we received from high school students across the county. We were extremely moved and inspired by the students stories, so much so that we decided to double our grant funding in 2019, continued Omar.

The New York Conservatorys Your Start in the Arts 2018 grant winners are:



Ayden Grifton High School, Ayden, NC: The Your Start in the Arts grant will be used to support and refine the schools 2019 spring production of "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown," as well as help lay a solid foundation for future productions at Ayden Grifton.

Bayshore High School, Bayshore, NY: The school will be using the Your Start in the Arts grant invest in new stage lighting to reach their goal of replacing their faulty and outdated lighting system.

Booker T. Washington Magnet High School, Montgomery, AL: Due to a fire that destroyed a portion of the schools campus, BTW Magnet High School is currently in a temporary facility without needed performance spaces. The Your Start in the Arts grant will allow the school to purchase a software system that gives their drama productions the flexibility to move from venue to venue.

La Habra Theater Guild, La Habra, CA: Each year, the school provides an opportunity for thousands of local elementary school students to come and see their professional-quality productions during the school day. The Your Start in the Arts grant will allow for transportation and access to their shows.

Timpview High School, Provo, UT: The school will be using the grant to purchase greatly needed new lavaliers and stock costumes.

Given the tremendous response of demonstrated need from the inaugural grant program, The New York Conservatory has expanded its Your Start in the Arts award opportunities for 2019 to be awarded to ten schools. Full details about opportunities to participate will be announced in Fall of 2019. To learn more, please visit https://www.nycda.edu/your-start-in-the-arts/. Full grant and participation rules can be found here https://www.nycda.edu/start-arts-grant-contest-full-rules/.

About The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts

The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts enables students to define their unique brand as an actor by discovering who they are as a person. We practice a personalized approach to training that places acting and storytelling at the core--offering immersive, disciplined, and focused professional training programs designed to give students the tools and techniques they need for successful careers in todays industry. Our living curriculum is writing itself every day, created and shaped by NYCDAs working actor instructors and student community to deliver a dynamic learning experience. The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts is an institutionally accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Theatre. NYCDAs Associate in Occupational Studies (AOS) degree programs in Film and Television Performance, and in Musical Theater Performance are registered by the New York State Board of Regents. Learn more about NYCDA at http://www.nycda.edu.

Follow NYCDA

https://www.facebook.com/ACT.NYCDA/

https://twitter.com/NYConservatory

https://www.instagram.com/nyconservatory/

https://www.youtube.com/user/NYConDramArts

#YourStartintheArts, @NYConservatory, #NYConservatory
We believe the most important relationship is being honest with ones self. We want each person to know they have an opportunity to find purpose in their story---and each person we encounter is valuable to the growth of ourselves and of others.

The Giving Tree Treatment Center in Studio City, CA, has opened its doors providing a safe haven for those struggling with addiction and substance abuse offering a highly personalized level of care. The mindful detoxification services are customized giving people the opportunity to explore proven addiction treatment methods and progressive therapies beneficial to personal growth and recovery. The spacious family setting is instrumental in offering clients the courage to start over, and this starts from the moment they walk in the door. https://givingtreetc.com/

CEO and Owner, Sabrina Acatrinei, is a certified Alcohol Drug Counselor with over 13 years of experience in the field with a BA in Social Work. My passion for this field came at a young age when a close friend of mine overdosed. I knew then my life would be dedicated to helping others find solace in sobriety. I want people to know they are not alone and we are in this together.

The Giving Tree Treatment Center is a sub-acute detox facility that monitors and observes patients. Its program includes: Eye Movement Therapy (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eco-Therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, interventions, 12 step facilitation therapy and family behavior therapy. Wellness is an important aspect to recovery and there are many ways to participate including Reiki, yoga, daily journaling sessions, nutritional counseling, health education, outings, along with life skills to assist in relapse prevention. The on-site chef creates options for vegans, and for those who are glutton and dairy free. The Giving Tree also works with those in search of a Kosher recovery, along with couples and pregnant women seeking treatment.

There is nothing cookie cutter at The Giving Tree, noted Acatrinei. We believe the most important relationship is being honest with ones self. We want each person to know they have an opportunity to find purpose in their story---and each person we encounter is valuable to the growth of ourselves and of others.

The Giving Trees gifted team of experts includes: Max Karimbeik, Clinical Director, has a Masters in Counseling Psychology and 5000 (out of 3000) clinical internship hours which underscores his belief there is no one size fits all in therapy. Sina Meshkinpour is an experienced group facilitator with a profound ability to connect with clients, L.V.N. Sara Johnsons 20 year background in the medical field was expanded when she began working with adolescents struggling with addiction in 2010. Bruce Stark, MD and Doctor of Internal Medicine has 20 years of experience in the medical field with a belief in a holistic, compassionate approach, along with resident healer (Ginger) who studied in India, and practices Reiki, meditation, and other holistic practices.

For images, interviews, or more press information, please contact Elizabeth Johnson @ 213-713-4865 / elizabeth (at) mwebbcom (dot) com

About The Giving Tree:

The Giving Tree is the first step for those who are seeking help in breaking drug and alcohol addiction. The substance abuse detox is based on proven addiction treatment methods, including strategies and principles that encourage the quality of life. It is through The Giving Trees addiction treatment professionals and counselors that our experience and expertise with each client will help encourage trust and the values associated with the addiction recovery process. All of The Giving Tree staff is highly trained to maintain ethical boundaries and extreme confidentiality at all times.
The DEN Partners with UCI Division of Continuing Education This partnership is all about bringing top-notch blockchain and distributed ledger technology academic programs to higher education and providing corporations and students with industry-tested learning experiences that they wont find anywhere else, said Surag Sheth, the DEN

The Decentralized Education Nexus (The DEN) announced a partnership with the University of California Irvine (UCI) Division of Continuing Education today to provide formal training and certification programs for blockchain and distributed ledger technology. This partnership represents a giant step forward in The DENs mission to bridge the gap between the high corporate demand for blockchain developers and low supply within the mainstream talent pool of software developers.

This partnership is all about bringing top-notch blockchain and distributed ledger technology academic programs to higher education and providing corporations and students with industry-tested learning experiences that they wont find anywhere else, said Surag Sheth, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of The DEN.

With UCI Division of Continuing Educations support, were starting off the new year with two exciting programs  Ethereum Engineering Masterclass and Blockchain for Business Leaders.

Through a project-based approach, the Ethereum Engineering Masterclass provides existing developers with the necessary tools and knowledge they will need to develop decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain. When comparing the number of people in the world who own an iPhone to those who know how to create an app for one, one can easily understand why blockchain developers are in such a powerful position in todays job market. A report from Upwork showed that the demand for blockchain development skills has increased over 6000% through 2018. Blockchain technologies are rapidly working their way into every nook and cranny of global industry and business. With lightning-fast expansion and innovations occurring every day, ambitious developers have been presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spearhead humanitys path through the next digital revolution.

Blockchain for Business Leaders provides professionals and entrepreneurs with a critical understanding of the technologys fundamentals, use-cases, and effective implementation strategies based on live industry case-studies. According to IBM, Mass adoption isnt far behind with roughly 65 percent of banks expecting to have blockchain solutions in the next three years. Furthermore, McKinsey has identified trade finance, cross-border B2B payments, cross-border P2P payments, repurchase agreement transactions, OTC derivatives, KYC/AML management, and identity fraud as seven bona fide use cases in which blockchain can generate $80B  $110B in impact by 2021. With industry giants like Walmart, Microsoft, and Huawei all actively utilizing blockchain technology to streamline processes and improve bottom lines, future focused companies and individuals must work to understand how it will affect their industries and how they can use it to flourish.

The partnership aligns closely with UCI Division of Continuing Educations initiative to offer specialized, innovative programs designed for the working professional seeking to advance their career, build a company, or stay on the cutting edge of technological developments.

Hally Gruber, Director of Technology Programs at UCI DCE, added her view on the partnership:

Blockchain technologies are evolving quickly and a variety of career opportunities are created every day for business and software development professionals. The DENs collaboration with the UCI Division of Continuing Education provides our students with access to valuable resources and world-class training from the industry leader. This partnership creates unique learning opportunities in Southern California for developers building a blockchain project or business leaders hoping to understand how these technologies can impact their organization.

CEO Mr.Sheth added: Ultimately, this partnership will increase opportunities for workforce participation and quality employment within a rapidly growing industry.

Ethereum Engineering Masterclass launches on March 4th, 2019 on the UCI campus with Blockchain for Business Leaders launching that weekend on March 9th. Registration is open now to the public.

Follow the links below for more information, full course syllabi, and to register for upcoming programs:



For any questions, contact:

The DEN

admissions(at)theden(dot)io

(408) 6570861

About UCI Division of Continuing Education

The University of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education (DCE) provides lifelong learning opportunities to thousands of students worldwide each year  fulfilling the schools 60-year curriculum platform to connect degree programs to the world of work and achievement after graduation. The Division offers a broad range of certificate programs, specialized studies, and sequential courses to local, regional and global markets through online, on-campus and on-site delivery. A leader in the open education movement, the Division offers free Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and content through the UCI Open initiative. For more information about UCI Division of Continuing Education, visit ce.uci.edu.

About University of California, Irvine

Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 28,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. Located in one of the worlds safest and most economically vibrant communities, its Orange Countys second-largest employer, contributing $4.8 billion annually to the local economy.

About Decentralized Education Nexus

The DEN is a global workforce accelerator providing part-time & immersive in-person training programs developed in the Silicon Valley to get you the experience, tools, and training you need to launch your new career in the blockchain & distributed ledger technology industry.

By working with CEOs, CTOs, engineering leads, and developers at existing blockchain companies The DEN is able to identify and ensure a standard for blockchain education rooted in continuous industry research. The DEN is currently focused on delivering immersive programs on Ethereum and Hyperledger development along with training for business professionals interested in utilizing new technologies.

Keep up to date with The DEN on Facebook & Twitter @dennexus, and visit us at http://www.theden.io for blockchain development classes, resources, and more information about all things decentralized.
Patrick Crowley, President, The Crowley Company Our staff has kept us moving through this first hard month and will be the key to our success as the year unfolds." - Patrick Crowley, President, The Crowley Company

The Crowley Company announces that Patrick (Pat) Crowley has assumed the office of president following the passing of his brother and former co-owner and president, Christopher (Chris) Crowley this past December.

Chris and I worked side by side for nearly 30 years, says Crowley. We learned the image capture business from our Dad (Jerry Crowley), from each other, from our clients, from the employees around us and from our successes and failures, both of which were plentiful. He pauses. Moving forward without Chris will redefine us in a way we had hoped never to test, but for which we had prepared. We used to kid each other and say You be president today because it was never about the title for either of us; its always been about just loving what we do and making our Dad proud.

Crowley continues, Im supremely confident in the team that weve built, some of whom go back to the early days with Dad. Our staff has kept us moving through this first hard month and will be the key to our success as the year unfolds. I couldnt be more proud to work with a group of people such as those in our Frederick [Maryland], San Dimas [California] and Basingstoke [UK] offices.

As president, Crowley will focus on future business opportunities, corporate procedures, international relationships and employee development.

Having joined The Crowley Company in 2017 after a long career in IT sales, project management and support with Fortune 50 and 100 companies, eldest brother Kevin Crowley has been named chief operating officer. Kevin Crowleys role will shift slightly from a concentration on technology, research and development and manufacturing to include these as well as overseeing big picture day-to-day operations. Its really been a privilege to join the family business and Im grateful to have had the opportunity to work alongside Chris and Pat for the past two years. Watching them grow Dads business from the outside was one thing; participating in its future is another entirely. While neither Pat nor I can take Chris place, we will do our best to honor his loyalty, enthusiasm and passion for this company, its employees and this industry. Chris sons, Christopher Jr. (24) and Brendan (22), are also employed by the firm. Christopher maintains the inventory and sales of microfilm and scanner parts and supplies; Brendan is a field technician, offering scanner installation, maintenance and training.

Conversion Services Director Named

The company is also pleased to announce that after an extensive search, Patrick Hill has been selected as the Director of Conversion Services. In this role, Hill will head the activities of Crowley Imaging, the companys digitization services division, which provides conversion services for collections of bound materials, newspapers, archival documents, business records, microfilm, microfiche, aperture cards, photographs, slides, negatives and more. Headquartered in Frederick, Maryland, Crowley Imaging provides digitization services in-house and on-site as required. Nearly 60 imaging specialists are employed over two shifts, digitizing historic collections and business records for archival preservation, digital records management and/or online access. In operation for nearly 20 years, Crowley Imaging is one of the nations largest and most trusted conversion service bureaus.

A former director of information systems and vice president of corporate application systems, Hill brings 20 years of degrees, certifications and experience in information technology and business processes. This combination provides him with the ideal base for defining, qualifying and quantifying scanning and quality control processes and systems to result in higher efficiencies for both staff and clients.

Working at Crowley will allow me to use all of my IT, project management and business skills simultaneously in a fresh environment, says Hill. I relish learning and I enjoy teachingand I see opportunity for both in every activity. I was lured in by the intrigue of the work  Crowley has some amazing projects underway  but Ill stay because of the opportunity to make a difference alongside the high caliber project managers and imaging specialists already in place who have laid the foundation for success. Im excited to come to work each morning.

Were pleased to have Patrick on board, says Crowley. In just a few weeks hes made a significant impact and I expect that will see more of the same over the course of the year.

ABOUT THE CROWLEY COMPANY

The Crowley Company is a world-leader in digitization/preservation technologies and provides an extensive number of digital document and microfilm conversion services to the public, private and government sectors. The company manufactures, distributes and services high-speed microfiche, aperture card, book and document scanners, microfilm duplicators, film processors, micrographics equipment and 71MP cameras. Manufactured brands include Crowley, Mekel Technology and Wicks and Wilson.
Queen Letizia of Spain Combining genuine quality and outstanding value in important for consumers across the economic and social spectrum, including the aristocracy, is far from impossible.

A January 18th article on Vogue reported on Spains Queen Letizia wearing a snakeskin printed below-the-knee skirt from Zara, which currently retails for approximately $20, for a meet-and-greet at her home. The article noted that Her Majesty and even the famed English-American fashion plate and newly minted fellow royal, Meghan Markle, often opt to wear economical pieces from affordable labels such as Zara and H&M instead of ultra-premium luxury brands and bespoke wear. Online fabric wholesaler Express Knit Inc. says this trend shows that combining genuine quality and outstanding value in important for consumers across the economic and social spectrum, including the aristocracy.

Express Knit Inc. says that, as with Queen Letizia and the Duchess of Sussex, there are other factors that can influence consumers purchasing decisions when it comes to fashion other than a high-end luxury brand name. These considerations include material quality, fabric feel, and attractive prints. The supplier notes that, in order for designers and manufacturers to meet all these conditions and thus be able to produce clothing that people from all walks of life will want to buy, they need to have access to the widest selection of quality fabrics at prices that fit their production budget.

The online wholesaler offers a variety of fabrics including cotton, chiffon knits, ITY, lace, and Liverpool. In addition, Express Knit Inc. says they have a wide selection of stylish designs such as striped, plaid, polka dotted, camouflage, geometric, and current favorites like floral and animal prints. With the highest quality materials at competitive prices, the supplier says that any designer, from a budding DIY hobbyist to an established brand designer or manufacturer, has the opportunity to create a collection worthy to be worn by royalty and superstars-- yet still is financially accessible to the rest of us.

Express Knit Inc. notes that in addition to high-quality fabrics and prints, it is important for suppliers to offer exceptional customer service to designers and manufacturers. After all, without customers, a business is nothing. The wholesaler says that it values each of its customers and its team is committed to providing personal and effective service at all times. This is why, Express Knit Inc. says, it leads the way in terms of value by offering a flat rate on shipping for orders within the United States, and even better, free shipping for orders over $200.

Interested readers who would like to learn more about the selection of materials and prints available through Express Knit Inc. can visit its website at https://expressknitinc.com/ or call 213-683-1515.


Smart2Pay The Smart2Pay Mobile SDK provides a unique interface customized to scale on mobile devices powered by the popular operating systems Android and IOS. Past News Releases RSS

Smart2Pay, the company with the world's largest coverage of online alternative payment solutions, is pleased to announce the official release of its Mobile SDK, which enables in-app payments for card users as well as payers using popular Chinese payment methods Wechat and Alipay.

With this release, Merchants will be able to integrate additional payment options directly into their mobile application much more quickly. The Smart2Pay Mobile SDK provides a unique interface customized to scale on mobile devices powered by the popular operating systems Android and IOS.

Installing, configuring and using the Smart2Pay Mobile SDK is simple and easy to use, regardless of the programming language. Smart2Pay has developed the solution to work as easy and seamless for customers as well. Customers just initiate the payments from their mobile device and the SDK will handle all the work.

For more information, please visit our documentation section: Smart2Pay Mobile SDK (https://docs.smart2pay.com/category/smart2pay-mobile-sdk/). You can download our mobile SDK for Android and iOS together with demo projects from Github: Smart2Pay Android SDK (https://github.com/Smart2Pay/SDK-Android-Release) and Smart2Pay iOS SDK (https://github.com/Smart2Pay/SDK-iOS-release).

Stefan Iancu, CTO of Smart2Pay: "Mobile payments are an important part of ecommerce payments, representing a step closer to the future. Through the release of our Mobile SDK, we want to both support the development of our core products and offer our Merchants the right solutions to continue their business expansion in the world of mobile payments."

About Smart2Pay

Smart2Pay (https://smart2pay.com/index.php/en/) offers a single API for all payment services to international Merchants, covering credit card and local payment options throughout the world! By using Smart2Pay, you will be offering the preferred local method of payment to your global Customers, thus significantly boosting your sales!

About Alipay

Alipay (https://intl.alipay.com/) is a mobile payment method founded by Jack Mas Alibaba Group in 2004 and which allows users to create a digital wallet to store, top up and pay online or in store for products and services. It is one of the most popular methods of payment in China and is also available in many Asian markets, as well as in Europe, US and Canada. In September 2018, Eric Jing, CEO and Chairman at Ant Financial, stated that Alipay has more than 700 million active users.

About Wechat

Started initially as a messaging app in 2011, Wechat (https://www.wechat.com/en/) grew exponentially to incorporate social media and e-payments capabilities, now being the most used payment app for electronic purchases in China. In 2018 it surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, turning the app into a must-have for merchants seeking to sell their products in the Chinese market. Its developer is Tencent Holdings Limited, the worlds sixth largest internet company in terms of revenue.
We are delighted to award these promotions to Ryan, Jim, and Marisa, comments Rick Slayton.

Slayton Search Partners, a globally respected leader in retained executive search, is proud to announce the promotions of Ryan Prepelica, Jim Ipema, and Marisa Jungels, all effective January 2019.

Ryan Prepelica joined the Slayton team in May 2015 and has been promoted from Senior Associate to Vice President and Principal. His prior experience as a Director of Executive Search for a boutique retained executive search practice in the finance function serves him well in his expanded role. His new responsibilities include managing client relationships for senior executive level searches, specializing in recruiting senior leaders in the life, health and property-casual insurance industry as well as healthcare systems.

Jim Ipema has also been promoted from Senior Associate to Vice President and Principal. Prior to joining Slayton in December 2015, Jim gained significant experience at a prominent, international search firm, adding to his decade of executive search experience. With a focus on Retail and Consumer Goods, Jim has successfully executed over 200 executive search assignments for Fortune 500, private equity-backed and family-owned organizations. In his new role, he will develop and expand client relationships in addition to building relationships with key and upcoming executives.

Marisa Jungels has been promoted from Associate to Senior Associate after joining the Slayton team in October 2013. She has continued to build a wealth of experience and expertise in the HR sector, across functions including CHRO, Group Level HR Business Partners, Compensation & Benefits, and Talent Acquisition/Management. In her expanded role, she will support Slayton partners with searches for large publicly-traded companies and PE-owned portfolio companies.

We are delighted to award these promotions to Ryan, Jim, and Marisa, comments Rick Slayton. They have each proven their expertise and passion in their existing roles, and we look forward to great work from them going forward. Further, these promotions represent a significant growth phase for Slayton Search Partners in 2019, as we continue to expand our reach and serve our clients in an even greater capacity.

For more information about the Slayton team, visit the profiles of our Search Executives.

About Slayton Search Partners

Slayton Search Partners is a top retained executive search firm, serving some of North Americas most recognized companies. Slaytons limit-less approach to executive search has made the firm the first choice of U.S. businesses and organizations who demand the best possible search results. By focusing on a structure that balances the size needed to do the job with the size needed to deliver personal attention and service, Slayton avoids restrictions that limit traditional search firms. This helps transform the relationships with our clients into a limit-less opportunity for high-quality solutions.

Slaytons combination of highly experienced and focused search professionals, coupled with its record for attentive personal service, has made it one of the most highly-respected retained executive search firms in the country.


I am deeply grateful to Bob and Renee Parsons for their amazing partnership in our mission to serve those who have sacrificed so much on behalf of us all, said Semper Fi Fund President, CEO and Founder Karen Guenther.

The Semper Fi Fund is thrilled to announce that its year-end Double Down for Veterans fundraising campaign has raised more than $20 million  which includes a $10 million match from The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation. This marks the seventh consecutive year that the Foundation has matched donations to the Semper Fi Fund and raises the Foundations cumulative total of donations to the Fund since 2012 to $51.2 million.

Our partnership with the Semper Fi Fund is very important to me personally and I would like to congratulate everyone who made this campaign a success, said businessman and Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran Bob Parsons. The programs enabled by this funding will not only provide military families with the help they need during their loved ones healing process, they also help ensure injured veterans a successful transition back into civilian life.

The Semper Fi Fund programs that will benefit from the success of the Double Down for Veterans campaign:



Service Member and Family Support Program: A comprehensive set of interrelated areas of assistance developed to improve the lives of wounded veterans and address the unique needs of their immediate families from injury through recovery.

Transition Program: Assistance with education, apprenticeship, career development, peer support and more that delivers critical tools and skills and makes it easier for wounded service members to achieve independence and start new and productive lives.

Integrative Wellness Program: Assistance that embodies a holistic approach to improve body, mind and spirit, focusing on the long-term health of the whole person by offering helpful programs and useful information to meet the specific needs of the individual.

I am deeply grateful to Bob and Renee Parsons for their amazing partnership in our mission to serve those who have sacrificed so much on behalf of us all, said Semper Fi Fund President, CEO and Founder Karen Guenther. The positive impact that their generosity and support will have on our nations service members and their families, the lives that will be touched and improved, is immeasurable.

In July 2018, the Fund announced a new pilot program bearing the GoDaddy founders name. The LCpl Parsons Welcome Home Fund for Vietnam Veterans will care for catastrophically injured veterans from all U.S. service branches who suffered their injuries as the result of combat operations in Vietnam. The program is designed to provide transportation, housing and medical care grants to veterans living with blindness, paralysis, amputation, burns over 50 percent of their body, severe traumatic brain injury and life-threatening illness due to Agent Orange exposure.

The tremendous reaction we see from the public each year on this campaign is inspiring, said businesswoman Renee Parsons. While there are many worthwhile organizations that need support, we know that a contribution to the Semper Fi Fund is one of the best investments we can make toward helping our service members and their families.

Additional information about the Semper Fi Fund can be found at the organizations website: SemperFiFund.org.

About the Semper Fi Fund

The Semper Fi Fund provides urgently needed resources and lifetime support for combat-wounded, critically ill and catastrophically injured members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families. Case Managers from the Fund work one-on-one with service members and veterans to understand and support their individual needs right now and throughout their lifetimes. The Fund keeps its overhead extremely low in order to have the greatest impact on the lives of service members and veterans and has been awarded the highest ratings from watchdog groups: A+ from CharityWatch (one of only two veteran nonprofits to receive this rating last year), eight consecutive 4-star ratings from Charity Navigator (an achievement attained by only 3% of rated charities) and the Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar. Learn more at SemperFiFund.org.

About The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation

The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation offers support to nonprofit organizations successfully working to empower, educate, nurture and nourish people during what is often the darkest time of their lives. Founded in 2012 by philanthropists and business leaders Bob and Renee Parsons to provide hope and life-changing assistance to the countrys most vulnerable populations, The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation offers critical funding at critical times to those in need. The Foundations giving is driven by the core belief that all people  regardless of race, religion, roots, economic status, sexual orientation or gender identity  deserve access to quality healthcare, education and a safe place to call home. Follow @WeDealInHope on social media or visit TBRPF.org, to learn more about partner organizations and the important work being done in the community.

Media Contact: Brian McPherson | Brian.McPherson@semperfifund.org | 740-819-9781
Congressman Brian Mast While many of our northeastern and midwestern residents are braving the ice, cold and snow, we have Chamber of Commerce weather with sunny, blue skies and temperatures.

Construction for Seminole Bluff, Stuart, Floridas limited edition, luxury waterfront residences, is officially underway with a groundbreaking on the banks of the Saint Lucie River. Congressman Brian Mast (R-18th District) joined a host of other local dignitaries for the start of the $40 million-dollar project.

Seminole Bluff is an example of why we must protect the quality of our waterways. Our waterways are a vital part of why people visit and want to live here. The success of this project and many others are linked directly to the quality of our water, said Congressman Mast.

Seminole Bluff was honored to have our Congressman take part in our construction start, said John J. Doyle, Builder and Developer for Seminole Bluff. As Congressman Mast said, Seminole Bluff is symbolic of the positive growth and economic prosperity that can happen when everyone, from the local level to national, pulls together to preserve the quality of the historic Saint Lucie River which is a natural draw for residents wanting the Florida lifestyle in a luxurious waterfront setting, added Doyle.

Priced starting at just under one million dollars per unit, Seminole Bluff features iconic architecture by Gerard Belgrave Designs that is extremely high quality, fits the environment and is highly functional. We have captured a West Indies style of architecture that blends in with the ambiance of historic Stuart while offering a unique signature to the local waterfront, said Doyle.

The residences feature flow-through floor plans with nine-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows with breathtaking views of the City of Stuart, Roosevelt Bridge, and the fish and wildlife rich waters of the Saint Lucie River. Oversized terraces; Open Kitchens with Wood-Mode Cabinets; stone countertops; Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances; master bath with deep soaking tub; spacious walk-in closets in master bedrooms; and laundry room with full-sized washer and dryer.

Based on the contour of the Saint Lucie riverfront, residents will enjoy secure underground parking beneath Seminole Bluff, an infinity swimming pool that envelopes the river, Fitness Center overlooking the river, Club Room for residents and a dedicated Business Center. Boat slips will be available for boats 45-60 feet at the deep-water end of a 200 feeder dock directly from the Stuart Boardwalk. A paddle board launch and storage area have also been included. Seminole Bluff has spared no amenities.

Seminole Bluff features a grand Porte Cochere with stunning water features that highlight the public spaces where a curated collection of contemporary art by Stuarts renowned artist and sculptor Geoffrey Smith have been purchased and will be on display.

Residents and guests at Seminole Bluff are walking distance from some of the regions most popular dining destinations with The Gafford, The Boat House, The Black Marlin, Spritz, LouRonzos Italian Fusion and many quaint, locally owned bistros, wine bars, and family owned shops less than two minutes away.

During the Seminole Bluff groundbreaking, Stuart Mayor Becky Bruner cited the Citys charm and Chamber of Commerce weather as among the reasons many from throughout the United States are moving to Stuart, Florida.

While many of our northeastern and midwestern residents are braving the ice, cold and snow, we have Chamber of Commerce weather with sunny, blue skies and temperatures in the upper seventies. That coupled with our unique Florida lifestyle makes Stuart, Florida one of the most sought-after affordable destinations. We welcome Seminole Bluff and look forward to having its residents as our newest City of Stuart members of the community, said Mayor Bruner.

I give my sincerest thanks to the City of Stuart, our Seminole Bluff staff and the entire community for making this project become reality, concluded Doyle.

The Seminole Bluff site is located at 37 West Seminole Street in Stuart, Florida on the banks of the Saint Lucie River. For more information about Seminole Bluff, you may contact Jamie Mix at (561) 254-1896 or visit the website at http://www.SeminoleBluff.com. The Seminole Bluff Sales Office is located at One East Ocean Blvd. in Stuart, Florida and is open daily Monday  Thursday 10:00 a.m.  4:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 until 4:00 p.m.
A long-term decrease in the number of companies listed on major U.S. exchanges contributed to greater litigation risk. In 2018, the likelihood that a listed company would be targeted in a core filing was greater than in any previous year.

The pace of federal securities class actions continued at near-record levels in 2018, according to a report issued today by Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. Core filings increased for the fifth consecutive year, while a slight decrease in the number of federal filings related to mergers and acquisitions caused a minor decline from 2017s record total.

The report, Securities Class Action Filings2018 Year in Review, shows that plaintiffs filed a total of 403 securities class actions in 2018 compared to 412 in 2017. The number of core filings increased from 214 to 221the highest level since 2008, when securities class actions surged due to volatility in U.S. and global financial markets. Federal M&A filing volume was the second-highest on record, despite declining from 198 to 182.

A long-term decrease in the number of companies listed on major U.S. exchanges contributed to greater litigation risk. In 2018, the likelihood that a listed company would be targeted in a core filing was greater than in any previous year. In addition, one in about 11 S&P 500 companies (9.4 percent) was sued in 2018.

The frequency of filings involving larger companies combined with the high number of filings overall pushed market capitalization losses in dispute to more than $1 trillion. Aggregate market capitalization losses at the ends of class periods were a record-setting $330 billion.

Securities class action filings related to stock price drops reached levels not seen since the peak of the financial crisis, with the annual likelihood of such filings against exchange-listed companies at an all-time high, said Alexander Sasha Aganin, a vice president at Cornerstone Research.

Equally interesting is the pure size of individual market capitalization losses associated with the cases filed in 2018, said John Gould, a senior vice president at Cornerstone Research. Twenty-seven filings from companies in industries ranging from healthcare and technology to natural resources and broadcasting and cable TV were associated with market capitalization losses of over $10 billion.

Combined federal Section 11 and state 1933 Act claims in state courts also peaked in 2018. Section 11 claims, based on the Securities Act of 1933, are increasing in state court filings after the U.S. Supreme Courts Cyan ruling in March of last year, said Professor Joseph Grundfest, director of the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. For example, we saw no 1933 Act filings in New York in 2017. In 2018, we saw 13 of these casesall filed after the Courts ruling.

Key Trends



The number of mega Maximum Dollar Loss filings (MDL of at least $10 billion) and mega Disclosure Dollar Loss filings (DDL of at least $5 billion) increased dramatically in 2018.

Core filings against non-U.S. companies fell for the first time since 2013.

Core filings against biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and healthcare companies declined from 66 in 2017 to 56 in 2018, yet remained above historical averages.

Core filings against technology and communications sector filings increased.

Ninth Circuit core filings reached historic levels.

Plaintiffs filed nine lawsuits related to initial coin offerings or cryptocurrency in 2018, up from five in 2017. However, eight were filed in the first half of 2018 and only one in the second half, as ICO markets began to cool in 2018.

Cyan Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund

In March 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion allowing plaintiffs to assert claims under the Securities Act of 1933 (1933 Act) in state courts. Under the 1933 Act, Section 11 allows investors to pursue damages for alleged misrepresentations or omissions in securities registration statements. It is generally believed that the ruling will lead to more securities class action filings in state courts based on this claim.

About Cornerstone Research

Cornerstone Research provides economic and financial consulting and expert testimony in all phases of complex litigation and regulatory proceedings. The firm works with an extensive network of prominent faculty and industry practitioners to identify the best-qualified expert for each assignment. Cornerstone Research has earned a reputation for consistent high quality and effectiveness by delivering rigorous, state-of-the-art analysis for 30 years. The firm has 700 staff and offices in Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Washington.

See Cornerstone Researchs website for more information about the firms capabilities in economic and financial consulting and expert testimony.

http://www.cornerstone.com

Twitter: @Cornerstone_Res

About the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse

The Securities Class Action Clearinghouse (SCAC) is an authoritative source of data and analysis on the financial and economic characteristics of federal securities fraud class action litigation. The SCAC maintains a database of more than 4,000 securities class action lawsuits filed since passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The database also contains copies of complaints, briefs, filings, and other litigation-related materials filed in these cases.

securities.stanford.edu
"We are pleased to provide these scholarship opportunities to Farm Bureau women across the state."

The Florida Farm Bureau Federation is providing more than $3,000 in scholarships for women in agriculture to attend the Womens Leadership Conference, March 28-30, 2019.

Twelve $250 scholarships will be awarded to individuals to attend the conference. The priority of awards will be given to first-time attendees of the conference and women who also serve on their county Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Committees.

We are pleased to provide these scholarship opportunities to Farm Bureau women across the state, said Michele Curts, leadership programs coordinator. The Womens Leadership Conference will include lots of fun, hands-on activities, engaging educational sessions, networking and tours of local agriculture.

Themed A Time to Bloom, the Womens Leadership Conference will be held at the Orlando Marriott Lake Mary hotel. The three-day conference registration fee is a nominal $100 per attendee, plus hotel lodging.

To apply for a scholarship, visit https://www.floridafarmbureau.org/wlc2019. The scholarship application deadline is Feb. 22.

For additional information, contact your local County Farm Bureau at https://www.floridafarmbureau.org/county-farm-bureaus/.

Florida Farm Bureau, the states largest general agricultural organization, represents more than 147,000 member-families. We serve to enhance farm enterprise and improve rural communities.

# # #
TERI Campus of Life Dr. Gordon Saxe, Director Center for Integrative Nutrition, University of California, San Diego, TERI has created a model for extraordinary ( . . . ). The inclusion of high-quality nutrition is readily apparent throughout their program ( . . . ).

TERI Inc., a San Diego-based nonprofit serving adults and children with developmental and intellectual disabilities and their families, broke ground on its 20-acre Campus of Life January 19, 2019 in San Marcos, California. The master-planned community, offering hundreds of programs, will bridge the gap between individuals with special needs and the world by empowering its students through the highest standard of care, education and innovative resources.

The 111,000 sq. ft. facility will provide a wide range of services and learning opportunities including culinary training with kitchen and dining facilities for up to 600; organic agriculture with the capacity to process and distribute produce; theaters, art, music and production studios; a fitness and wellness center with aquatic center and outdoor recreation; two non-public schools; a life planning center; family support services and more.

With both compassion and these unique programs and resources for those with special needs, TERI offers an approach to care, therapy, nutrition, education and life opportunities that promises to serve as a beacon of excellence and inspiration.

Were incredibly excited to see our remarkable North San Diego County facility on its way to becoming a reality, said Cheryl Kilmer, founder of TERI Inc. The Campus together with our community of passionate professionals, will enable us to stay on the forefront of care while fostering our best practices throughout the world.

Dr. Gordon Saxe, Director Center for Integrative Nutrition, University of California, San Diego, TERI has created a model for extraordinary care that includes everything from specialized education and the creative arts to spirituality and fitness. The inclusion of high-quality nutrition is readily apparent throughout their program and clearly sets TERI apart from other organizations dedicated to helping those with special needs.

Looked to by human services groups, research, medical and educational experts, TERI is committed to sharing its model while continuing to enable, support and ensure every individual, regardless of the barriers they face, have the opportunity to live a life of fulfillment and meaning.

This is a huge undertaking and one my team has wholeheartedly embraced. When the TERI Campus of Life results in a model of exceptional care and human empowerment accepted and used throughout the world, we will have truly changed lives in a profound way, said Kilmer.

To contribute to TERI Campus of life, visit https://www.teriinc.org/donate-campus-of-life/. For more information about TERI Campus of Life or TERI Incs other programs, visit http://www.teriinc.org.

About TERI Inc.

TERI Inc., a nonprofit organization founded in 1980, is changing the way the world sees and empowers people with special needs. TERI specializes in setting quality standards for individuals of all ages with a wide range of developmental and learning disabilities and supporting their families. TERI serves more than 800 families in Southern California with more than 19 programs based at its main campus in Oceanside, California, as well as in residential homes throughout the area. The organizations more than 500 dedicated staff members provide educational, social, and vocational opportunities in a positive, supportive environment. TERI has been nationally and internationally recognized as a leader for its successful and innovative model programming and training. For more information, please visit: http://www.teriinc.org.
Litchfield (06759)

Today

Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 83F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 67F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Investing in anti-theft and safety devices will be rewarded by insurance companies, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company.

Cheapquotesautoinsurance.com has released a new blog post that presents the main devices and systems that will allow drivers to get better car insurance rates.

Installing certain modifications to their cars will allow drivers to ask for discounts and obtain better rates. Insurance companies will allow drivers to install certain devices and systems, as long as them lower the chances of being involved in accidents or having the car stolen. Drivers can install the following:

SAFETY DEVICES:



Adaptive cruise control. By utilizing sensors and radars, this safety device will monitor the traffic around the car and will try to maintain a safe distance from the car upfront by automatically braking if when the vehicles get too close.

Rear view cameras. A camera that displays a live video feed of the view from the back of a car for the driver to use when backing out or parking.

Blind spot warnings. Sensors monitor the lanes in the left and right of the car, and when they detect a vehicle is in a blind spot, they will issue a visual, or audio warning.

Airbags. Frontal airbags are mandatory since 1999. Additional types of airbags like full-front seat airbags, side airbags can lower the insurance cost.

Automatic emergency braking. Often paired with the adaptive cruise control system, this safety device will begin to automatically brake if they sense a potential collision.

ANTI-THEFT DEVICES

Satellite tracking systems. Small devices that are hidden inside the vehicle, and are capable of emitting signals in order to track their location. Past reports show that 90% of the vehicles that were stolen and had GPS tracking systems installed, were eventually recovered by the authorities.

Steering wheel lock. They are simple to install and quite effective. Place this device over the steering wheel and lock it.

Ignition kill switch. This device will disable the ignition switch and prevent the car from starting. This system is cheap and can be installed in hidden places.

Car alarm. This alarm will emit a strong beeping sound when someone tries to open the car without the right key, or they smash the cars windows.

For more car insurance info, money-saving tips and free online quotes, please visit https://cheapquotesautoinsurance.com

Cheapquotesautoinsurance.com is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc.
Registration is open for the 2019 Global SAFe Summit at europe.safesummit.com Attendees will have opportunities to build skills, exchange knowledge, network, connect with thought leaders and influencers, and see firsthand how enterprises are leveraging SAFe to continuously deliver value to their customers. Past News Releases RSS Scaled Agile Launches Lean...

Scaled Agile Selects CGI as Global...

Scaled Agile, Inc. Acquires...

Scaled Agile, Inc., provider of the worlds leading framework for enterprise agility, today announced open registration for the 2019 European SAFe Summit which takes place May 7  10 at the World Forum in The Hague, Netherlands. The four-day event will be Europes largest gathering to focus exclusively on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and its community of practice.

The second annual European SAFe Summit is a big tent event for everyone engaged with SAFepractitioners, instructors, consultants, Scaled Agile Partners, and enterprise business leaders. The event will feature two days dedicated to Partners, pre-conference workshops, and a two-day main conference. Attendees will have opportunities to build skills, exchange knowledge, network, connect with thought leaders and influencers, and see firsthand how enterprises are leveraging SAFe to continuously deliver value to their customers.

The acceleration of SAFe adoption across the globe and the success of last years event is driving the evolution and growth of this conference, said Dean Leffingwell, creator of SAFe and Chief Methodologist at Scaled Agile, Inc. This year, were excited to focus on how organizations can fully master the Five Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise to align their teams to a common vision and strategy and help them build the technical skills and work culture needed to adapt and innovate in today's unpredictable market. In addition, well have a lot of new content based on ongoing SAFe development."

The 2019 European SAFe Summit combines three key events:

May 7  8, Partner Development

Exclusively for Scaled Agile Partners, this two-day event is dedicated to building success in supporting and deploying SAFe products and services. The agenda features actionable, targeted content designed to help Partners deliver world-class customer results.

May 8, Pre-conference Workshops

The Summits pre-conference workshops provide attendees with an opportunity to take a deep dive into some of the most topical issues relating to the practice of SAFe with the people who created the Framework. Workshops will cover these subject areas:



Building Really Big Systems with SAFe

Prioritizing Portfolio Investments

SAFe for Government

DevOps and Technical Agility

Advanced SPC workshop

Partner Workshops

May 9 10, Main Conference

The two-day main conference will include industry-leading keynotes, over 20 technical sessions, Lightning Talks, and multiple networking opportunities. Attendees will be able to learn new strategies for delivering customer value more effectively, and gain insights into how some of Europes largest enterprises are leveraging SAFe to improve quality, accelerate time-to-market, and increase employee engagement. Five tracks cover:

Lean-Agile Leadership

Team and Technical Agility

DevOps and Release on Demand

Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering

Lean Portfolio Management

For attendees seeking consulting, training, or platform solutions, Scaled Agile Partners will be exhibiting during the main conference, making this the only venue in Europe where an exclusively SAFe-focused audience can engage with vendors specializing in SAFe.

Registration is open at europe.safesummit.com.

About Scaled Agile, Inc. (SAI):

Scaled Agile, Inc., is the provider of SAFe, the worlds leading framework for enterprise agility. Through learning and certification, a global partner network, and a growing community of over 400,000 trained professionals, Scaled Agile helps enterprises build better systems, increase employee engagement, and improve business outcomes. Scaled Agile is a contributing member of the Pledge 1% corporate philanthropy and community service movement. Learn about Scaled Agile and SAFe at scaledagile.com and scaledagileframework.com.

Exhibitor Contact (exhibitor space limited to Scaled Agile Partners):

Karen Lewison, Event Manager

karen.lewison(at)scaledagile(dot)com
Look your best online Since they got started ten years ago, this company has helped so many other businesses achieve a whole new level of success. Rated one go the leading online reputation firms

JW Maxx Solutions are pleased it has been a successful decade for the company who are still going stronger than ever.

JW Maxx Solutions specializes Personal Reputation Management and corporate reputation management while helping customers grow their business in some many ways.

In short, they are an online reputation firm who can get the name of different companies seen by the masses. Nowadays, without a solid reputation online, it is challenging to become successful. Based in Phoenix Arizona, JW Maxx Solutions started as a relatively small company but over the years have become much more prominent because they excel at what they do.

Some of the services offered to make customers personal online reputation better includes search engine optimization (SEO), review management, press distribution, social media management and more.

The services that have been mentioned all have their benefits, and if customers are not sure what they need, JW Maxx Solutions have many means of contact where individuals can discuss their needs and get recommendations from the professionals.

Since they got started ten years ago, this company has helped so many other businesses achieve a whole new level of success.

The internet offers many opportunities in regards to growing businesses and becoming successful, but there are essential steps necessary to get there.

Hiring an online reputation firm is sometimes necessary because it is such a lot of work to get done. The clients in question would struggle to complete it all by themselves Coming up on top of search engine results when users type in a particular keyword is vital in getting traffic to that website, and that is just a small part of what JW Maxx Solutions do.

Every step that customers take in their business, even the small ones, contribute to how successful they are going to be.

JW Maxx Solutions are a corporate online reputation firm who want to help every company become as popular as their full potential allows them. There is no doubt that online reputation needs do differ from client to client and this is what this company are specialized around. The entire team at JW Maxx Solutions are fully qualified and amazing at what they do. They are also wholly committed to bringing personalized service with every customer being happy with the service they receive. This is what has kept the company not only in business but improving over the decade they have been active. JW Maxx Solutions can make companies stand out for all the right reasons, and this is what theyve been doing since the day they started.
A fully customized ODU MINI-SNAP for the RED DSMC2 cameras

ODU, a worldwide leader in designing and manufacturing high-performance connector solutions and cable assemblies is announcing its strategic partnership with RED Digital Cinema, a leading manufacturer of professional digital cameras.

RED DSMC2 cameras are available in a variety of sensor options including high-end frame and data rates. REDs cameras require a customizable connector solution that integrates seamlessly both visually and functionally with its multitude of camera add-ons.

Our camera products are used on some of the biggest productions in the world, so we only utilize the highest-grade components that ensure reliability and performance, said Jarred Land, President of RED Digital Cinema. The connectors from ODU check all the boxes and give our mutual customers another industry alternative.

The ODU MINI-SNAP, a circular Push-Pull connector in a metal housing is available in various locking types and is fully customizable. An ODU MINI-SNAP connector, both plug and receptacle, was produced in eight variations to meet REDs requirements.

"ODU is pleased to announce our strategic partnership and great collaboration with RED Digital Cinema, said Thomas Mittermeier, CEO at ODU-USA. RED brought its unique industrial design and specific product requirements making this a welcomed opportunity to utilize ODUs wide range of available custom capabilities."

Come and see the fully customized ODU MINI-SNAP connector solution designed for the RED DSMC2 camera at the ODU Booth C12335 at the 2019 National Association of Broadcasters Show, between 6-11th of April in Las Vegas, NV.

ODU Group: Global Representation with Perfect Connections

The ODU Group is one of the worlds leading suppliers of connector systems, employing 2,300 people around the world. In addition to its company headquarters in Muhldorf am Inn (Germany), ODU also has an international distribution network and production sites in Sibiu/Romania, Camarillo/USA, Shanghai/China and Tijuana/Mexico. ODU combines all relevant areas of expertise and key technologies including design and development, machine tooling and special machine construction, injection, stamping, turning, surface technology, assembly and cable assembly. The ODU Group sells its products globally through its ten subsidiaries in Denmark, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the US, China, Japan and Korea, as well as through numerous international sales partners. ODU connectors ensure a reliable transmission of power, signals, data and media for a variety of demanding applications including medical technology, military and security, eMobility, energy, industrial electronics, and test and measurement.
Tax Accounting Firm in NYC | New York Accountant Live better during the day. Sleep better at night with top accounting firm in NYC and Washington DC. Best rated CPA Firm in NYC Miller & Company of New York finds solutions that let your wealth work for you, not against you.

After a year of unprecedented growth of nearly 25 percent, Miller & Company LLP  a top-rated NYC-based tax, accounting and financial consulting firm with offices in Queens and Manhattan  merged with top accounting firm Thomas Jenkins and Company, located in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. The merger enables Miller & Company LLP to expand its reach without sacrificing attention to current clients.

We firmly believe in growth through mergers, says Paul Miller, the principal of Miller & Company for more than two decades. When you find a like-minded team that integrates smoothly with your own values, mission, culture and style, you make it happen. We advise clients to take advantage of mergers and acquisitions to accelerate internal growth  and we proudly heed our own advice.

The merger, that took place on November 13, marks the companys first foray into the nations capital. In addition to accruing a talented team of experienced New York City CPAs and tax professionals, Paul Miller can take his specialized style of accounting for business owners to a wider audience. Also, Thomas Jenkins 30-plus years of experience in taxes and business accounting services adds another level of expertise to Mr. Millers already highly sought services.

Miller & Company LLP primarily serves an elite clientele of successful, high-end individuals and businesses that need more than just accounting and tax preparation. The Jenkins team adds integrated personal and business accounting services to their growing cadre of clients, with special attention to the changing regulatory issues that prevail in the D.C. marketplace.

Mr. Millers brand of specialized accounting mixes well with an established firm that knows the ins and outs of the countrys political and global hub. Combined, the firms can make a positive impact on growing businesses nationwide by providing exceptional advice, focus and accounting services. The merger puts a wider array of successful business owners and high-powered executives within reach.

At Miller & Company, we examine the entire life of our clients to come up with solutions that best suit the individuals business and personal goals, Paul Miller says. In the end, its about serving people. Business needs  ranging from personal investments and payroll to retirement planning and restructuring  have to serve our clients lives. We will offer the same level of expertise to clients in Washington and Maryland.

Miller & Company LLP merges Thomas Jenkins and Companys current client list, as well as the talented team of accountants currently working and living in the D.C. area. Both firms expect a smooth and positive transition.

For more information or to set up a private interview, please contact:

Paul Miller

Miller & Company LLP

18 East 48th Street, #1001

New York, NY 10017

(646) 865-1444

https://www.cpafirmnyc.com/
Today, the Better World Campaign and the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) are launching a new initiative called Act Like The World Depends On It, giving young Americans a platform to contact their elected officials about their support for the individual issues behind the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The campaign is in response to the findings from a recent poll among 17 to 35-year-olds, which found that nine in ten young Americans are willing to act on the global issues they care about. Act Like the World Depends On It harnesses their willingness to act through a platform that speaks to them and meets them where they are.

We know that young Americans are ready to take action to help achieve the Global Goals. This platform gives them a simple, yet impactful way to do so, says Peter Yeo, President of the Better World Campaign.

We have seen a surge in action on the SDGs among individuals, cities, and corporations, but we cant stop there. Its time for Congress to step up, added Yeo.

The campaign, found at http://www.fortheworld.org, currently champions issues in five key areas:



Peace & Justice

Poverty

Equality & Rights

Healthy Planet

Global Health

The bottom line is that the Global Goals cannot be achieved without the commitment of younger generations. By next year, Millennials will make up 50 percent of the U.S. workforce and Gen Z will account for one-third of the population.

Its my generation and those that follow that will be impacted most if we dont step up and act to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, said Erika Briceno Howard, Director of Communications at the Better World Campaign. We must commit to taking steps in our own lives to advance the SDGs, but we cant let Congress have a free pass.

Americans from coast-to-coast are encouraged to use the platform to directly email their Members of Congress and share the message online using the hashtag #ForTheWorld.

Campaign materials are free to use and share and can be found online.

About the Better World Campaign:

The Better World Campaign works to foster a strong relationship between the U.S. and the UN to promote core American interests and build a more secure, prosperous, and healthy world. The Better World Campaign engages policymakers, the media, and the American public alike to increase awareness of the critical role played by the UN in world affairs and the importance of constructive U.S.-UN relations. Learn more at: http://www.betterworldcampaign.org.

About UNA-USA:

The United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) is a 50-state grassroots organization dedicated to inform, inspire, and mobilize the American people to support the ideals and vital work of the United Nations. For more than 75 years, UNA-USA has worked to accomplish its mission through its national network of Chapters, youth engagement, advocacy efforts, education programs, and public events. UNA-USA is a program of the United Nations Foundation. Learn more at: http://www.unausa.org.
5StarWines  the Book from the 2018 selection features also a dedicated Wine Without Walls section. Our wish is that Wine Without Walls remains inclusive, credible, rigorous, and transparent, whilst also recognizing that this field of winemaking is as dynamic, challenging, rewarding and chameleon-like as the wines themselves. Monty Waldin, Scientific Director of Wine Without Walls.

In 2016, Veronafiere and Vinitaly established the Wine Without Walls section of the international tasting 5StarWines to promote and give recognition to producers whose work focuses entirely on natural, organic and biodynamic, and low sulfite wines. The Wine Without Walls selection takes place in Verona, Italy, contemporaneously to the 5StarWines blind tasting organized from April 3rd to 5th 2019 right before the worlds most renowned Italian wine fair, Vinitaly. The third edition of Wine Without Walls this year will introduce a revised assessment method and two brand new trophies, both features aiming at giving added value to wineries enrolling in the selection.

There is huge potential in niche products such as so-called natural wines, especially with those wine consumers interested in sustainability. The explosion of the organic and Fairtrade markets within the wine industry provide concrete evidence of continuing recent growth within food and beverage production categories. While options such as vegan or sulfite-free wines are relative new comers to this sphere, others like natural and biodynamic wines have been around for quite some time. Old or new, these sustainable approaches have one thing in common: they interfere with nature as little as possible. For a growing number of wine producers, delving into the natural approach is not just to expand their business in the market: it is an intrinsic philosophy that guides their work and is seen as a necessity for the wellbeing and continued fertility of their land. Aligning with current consumer and viticultural trends, Wine Without Walls 2019 will showcase the natural, biodynamic, and low sulfite wines coming from every corner of the world. These wines will be tasted by high-profile international judges that will evaluate them following an improved assessment method.

To begin with, Wine Without Walls will open its doors to companies producing wines with sulfite levels below 80 mg/lt. By doing that, the organizers are aiming at making the event more accessible and appealing to a larger number of producers. Monty Waldin, General Chairman of 5StarWines and Scientific Director of Wine Without Walls commented on the new sulfites limit. This year, we decided to raise slightly the permitted limit of total sulfites for the entries. Our rationale behind this change was to make Wine Without Walls slightly more inclusive but without going so far as to include in the tasting absolutely every single organic, natural or Biodynamic wine ever made. We are eager to test this new implementation to see what effect it has on the types of entries we receive. We are interested in receiving feedback and suggestions from wine producers. Our wish is that Wine Without Walls remains inclusive, credible, rigorous, and transparent, whilst also recognizing that this field of winemaking is by implication as dynamic, challenging, rewarding and chameleon-like as the wines themselves.

Another fundamental revamp of the selection will be the numerical score that individual natural wines will be awarded. From now on, the dedicated Wine Without Walls jury will rate biodynamic and organic wines using the same numerical assessment method used for the 5StarWines grand tasting. The panel of judges will assign scores to each wine presented, and the elements subject to examination include the visual, olfactory, and gustatory components of the wine. Thereafter, an average score will be tallied; this final score will be out of 100. Wines scoring 90 points out of 100 will be included in the 5StarWines  the Book guide, a promotional tool designed to help wineries gain recognition and increased market share. The improved numerical centesimal assessment makes the final score more tangible and immediate to grasp to an international public and is designed to better help wineries in the promotion of their products.

The selection process will also be enhanced by the assignment of various Wine Without Walls trophies. For the first time, along with a final score and a personalized commendation within the 5StarWines  the Book, participants will also run for the Best Winery and Best Wine Without Walls Wine trophies. The Best Wine Without Walls Winery trophy will be awarded to the producer who gets the best averaged out results. The final results are those that wineries obtain averaging the scores from at least 3 of their wines that procured awards in at least 2 different categories. The trophy for the Best Wine Without Walls Wine, however, will be instead assigned to the wine that scored the highest score during the Wine Without Walls selection.

In Wine Without Walls 2019 Veronafiere and Vinitaly aim at both overhauling the selection process and maintaining a sense of continuity with other editions. To do this, the organizers invited both past and new judges back to Verona. Biodynamic wine writer Monty Waldin will retain the scientific direction of Wine Without Walls while also taking part in the 5StarWines selection as one its General Chairmen. Master of Wine and wine maker Richard Kershaw, who also judged at Wine Without Walls last year, will be its new Panel Chairman and will oversee the work of an expert cohort of judges. Confirmed Wine Without Walls judges this year include: Gill Gordon Smith (Vinitaly International Academy Italian Wine Expert and CEO at Fall from Grace), Regine Lee MW (Head of Customer Support at Liberty Wines), and Christopher Barnes (Founder and Editor at Grape Collective). During the last edition, 24 organic and biodynamic wines made it through the final selection. At the end of the event, the panel agreed that the wines far exceeded their expectations in terms of quality, complexity, and, most importantly, value. With a combination of old and new strategies, Veronafiere and Vinitaly wishes to see the number and the quality of participants grow exponentially.

Online registrations with discounted fees are now open for Wine Without Walls 2019. Wineries interested in gaining international visibility through this tasting can avail themselves of our 10% discount on the registration fee. This is therefore, a timely opportunity for producers to enroll at a discounted price in order to have their wines evaluated by top judges from around the world. For additional information on wine enrollment, the 5StarWines team can be contacted at 5star@vinitalytour.com.

About: The grand Vinitaly 2019 will be held from April 7th to the 10th. Every year, Vinitaly counts more than 4,000 exhibitors on a 100,000+ square meter area and 130,000 visitors from over 140 different countries with more than 30,000 top international buyers. The premier event to Vinitaly, OperaWine Finest Italian Wines: 100 Great Producers, which will be held on the 6th of April, one day prior to Vinitaly will unite international wine professionals in the heart of Verona, offering them the unique opportunity to discover and taste the wines of the 100 Best Italian Producers, as selected by Wine Spectator. Since 1998 Vinitaly International travels to several countries such as Russia, China, USA and Hong Kong thanks to its strategic arm abroad, Vinitaly International. In February 2014 Vinitaly International launched an educational project, the Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) with the aim of divulging and broadcasting the excellence and diversity of Italian wine around the globe. VIA this year launched the seventh edition of its Certification Course and today counts 157 Italian Wine Ambassadors and 13 Italian Wine Experts.


If the students were willing to work this hard for a fictional family, rest assured they will become professionals that will work hard to serve their actual clients...Dr. Luke Dean, Utah Valley University. Past News Releases RSS Registration Opens for IARFC...

Updated Consumer-Oriented Financial...

More Partner Programs Offered to...

These finalists look forward to presenting their financial plans:



Rebecca Boyle, University of North Texas - Professor Dave Ragan

Drake Uplinger and Nick Urban, Central Michigan University - Professor Mark Van Voorhees

Kylee Nelson and Bailey Misbach, Utah Valley University - Dr. Luke Dean

According to Dr. Luke Dean from Utah Valley University, The case study helped create some great learning experiences and opportunities for students both in and out of the classroom, and helped students see how professionals are trying to implement the things they know towards the ultimate goal of helping a family accomplish their goals, hopes, and dreams. I was impressed with the enthusiasm the students showed for a fictional client, and the amount of hours the students put into working on the case, learning the software, and trying to figure out how to best help this fictional family. If the students were willing to work this hard for a fictional family, rest assured they will become professionals that will work hard to serve their actual clients.

The National Financial Plan Competition is organized through the IARFC for undergraduate students in a curriculum related to Financial Services and supported in part by IARFC members and corporate backers such as 2019 sponsors Money Concepts International and Money Guide Pro.

This competition gives students an exercise in real-world practices  that of analyzing a clients situation and critically thinking a course of action. In many cases, professors have used this exercise as part of their curriculum. Participants were given a fictional case study of a family and an overview of their financial picture. From that data, teams were asked to produce a financial plan with recommendations for current and future action.

I really enjoy seeing the creative plans that are entered in the competition, remarked IARFC Chairman and CEO H. Stephen Bailey, MRFC. It teaches the students to think like financial consultants. While the entries were on a basic level, they did show promise of qualified professionals for the future.

The IARFC Annual Conference on March 20-22, includes CE presentations with national speakers, awards banquet, ethics program, and exhibitors. Registration to become a judge for the competition and attend the entire conference can be found on the IARFC website.
Congress will help ensure better outcomes for all students when it reauthorizes and fully funds the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), said National School Boards Association (NSBA), Executive Director & CEO, Thomas J. Gentzel.

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) today launched an initiative to advocate for the reauthorization and full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). NSBA will highlight the critical need for the federal government to fulfill a long overdue promise to provide equal access to public education for all students and work with Congress to update this vital law.

IDEA (Public Law 94-142), passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Gerald Ford in 1975, has not been updated since 2004. The law needs to be modernized to ensure that the rights of children with disabilities are protected and to assist states and school districts so they can build upon their current efforts to provide students who need extra help the support and tools they need to receive an equitable educational opportunity.

Effectively serving students with disabilities and their families is a shared responsibility and school board members have been diligently working to do their part. Public schools have made numerous enhancements  employing new instructional approaches, intervening with students and their families earlier, retaining more special education specialists, providing a range of programs and services, and more  to help students with additional educational needs. The current law, however, fails to meet the needs of students and their families.

The federal governments contribution to serve IDEA students covers approximately 16 percent of the funding, which is well below the promised level of 40 percent. The funding gap serves as an unfunded mandate by forcing state and local governments to make up the difference. This discrepancy also impacts the amount of funding that serves students without disabilities, which is an unintended consequence of the federal governments failure to meet its obligation.

While the law needs to be reauthorized and funded fairly, state government officials and school board members have worked to make IDEA a successful investment in students with special needs. A 2018 U.S. Department of Education report documents that the percentage of students with disabilities graduating with a regular high school diploma increased by 10 percent between 2006 and 2016. This is a notable accomplishment among the more than six million students with disabilities (13.5 percent of all students) in public schools.

Students, parents and public schools face challenges to implement effective strategies to help students with differing needs succeed in school as a result of the federal governments broken promise to meet its obligation, said NSBA Executive Director and CEO, Thomas J. Gentzel. Congress will help ensure better outcomes for all students when it reauthorizes and fully funds IDEA.

It is imperative students with disabilities and their families are supported in their educational pursuits. Unfortunately, the federal government is not meeting its promise to these individuals as they strive to reach their goals, said Representative John Katko (NY-24). The federal government is leaving state and local governments to pick up too much of the tab when it comes to special education funding. In a time when students with special needs are graduating from high school at an increasing rate and experiencing educational achievement, the federal government should want to be a part of that success. I am pleased to once again advocate for full funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is the leading advocate for public education and supports equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. NSBA believes education is a civil right necessary to the dignity and freedom of the American people, and all children should have equal access to an education that maximizes his or her individual potential. The association represents state school boards associations and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. http://www.nsba.org

# # #

NSBA Contacts:

Tamara Boorstein tboorstein@nsba.org 703.838.6231

Charlotte Blane cblane@nsba.org 703.838.6735


Residency Tracking Dashboard, Monaeo Personal Edition Anupam Singhal, Co-founder of Monaeo: "When a lost audit results in paying the higher tax rate plus 20% in penalties plus legal fees, its time to embrace technology that provides the concrete proof necessary for strong audit protection and defense."

Monaeo, the premier big data and analytics company that leverages location and travel data to enable advanced tax reporting and audit defense, reports a surge in Monaeo Personal Edition subscribers. Monaeo Personal Edition empowers individuals to establish tax domicile or residency and defend against related tax audits.

President Trump's tax reforms, while reducing federal tax rates for high net worth individuals, imposed a $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions. As a result, high income individuals in high tax states like California and New York are now paying a higher combined total tax on their income. This has led to a trend of high income earners and retired individuals increasingly fleeing these high-tax states for low- or no-tax states like Florida, Wyoming, Arizona, Texas and even Puerto Rico. In 2018, California, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York saw the biggest net migration losses ever, which created significant tax revenue losses. In order to make up the lost tax revenues, state residency audits are becoming more common and auditors are aggressively targeting those who are moving out of state.

This environment has intensified the need for Monaeo Personal Edition, which saw a 32% growth in its subscriber base since 2017. Monaeo is used by people that move or retire to another state; own homes in multiple states; live and work in different states; or just travel frequently. These life events and lifestyles create red flags for government tax bodies and increase the likelihood of a residency audit. Monaeo is also used by tax advisors, who either recommend Monaeo to their clients or access clients reports through a custom Advisor Dashboard.

Already a leader in protecting users from tax audit risk, Monaeo recently launched its Tardis and Traveler product updates, which engender a new way of analyzing location data, as well as a new approach for maintaining data integrity. Now, Monaeo develops a more complete story of location and travel, chronicling a persons jurisdictional presence by hours, rather than just days, allowing users to better manage their adherence to the 183-Day Rule and more easily collate their data into a report for tax filing. This level of detail is unique to the industry and helps Monaeo customers more accurately track their travel against jurisdiction limits.

Anupam Singhal, Co-founder of Monaeo, said: State residency audits are becoming more frequent and also more intense as auditors have access to more data. Auditors examine the details of peoples lives  where they spend their birthdays; where they visit the doctor; where their dogs live. They can and do subpoena your phone and flight records. What do individuals have to protect themselves? A hand-written diary? This level of scrutiny requires that we stop rolling the dice by relying on receipts and calendars. There will be more than 3,000 residency audits this year by New York State alone. When a lost audit results in paying the higher tax rate plus 20% in penalties plus legal fees, its time to embrace technology that provides the concrete proof necessary for strong audit protection and defense.

Monaeo also has an Enterprise Edition that is being used by a fast growing number of companies to govern compliance and tax risks relating to their employees travel.

About Monaeo

Monaeo empowers individuals and enterprises with travel analytics to live and work across geographies more freely. Its technology platform analyzes and contextualizes location and travel data to enable automated residency tracking, business traveler compliance, tax optimization, and audit defense. Monaeos Personal Edition gives individuals peace of mind by enabling more confident tax residency and related claims, careful tracking of their travels and jurisdictional limits, and strong audit protection. Monaeos Enterprise Edition helps companies understand, optimize, and govern business traveler compliance and tax risks. This system integrates with other technologies, such as Concur, ADP, Workday, Oracle, and many others to help companies manage issues related to global mobility, tax and finance, and multi-jurisdictional payroll withholding. Monaeos technology has saved its customers hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours of manual recordkeeping, and to date, its analytics have been accepted in 100% of audits, helping taxpayers win every audit. http://www.monaeo.com.
Were thrilled to be partnering with Vetsdirect and jointly launching PetNurse as one more reflection of our continuing commitment to provide veterinary practices and animal health companies with the best solutions to improve efficiency and profitability, and maximize pet health care.

Celebrating 25 years of innovation and excellence, LifeLearn Animal Health proudly announces its partnership with Vetsdirect, the UKs largest veterinary telehealth provider, and the launch of PetNurse, the after-hours telehealth triage service available to veterinary practices as part LifeLearn WebDVM websites.

Were thrilled to be partnering with Vetsdirect and jointly launching PetNurse as one more reflection of our continuing commitment to provide veterinary practices and animal health companies with the best solutions to improve efficiency and profitability, and maximize pet health care, says Randy Valpy, President and CEO of LifeLearn.

PetNurse addresses the needs of todays pet owners, who often have important and even critical pet health care questions on evenings, weekends, and holidays. Without a trusted and convenient 24/7 resource to help them make pet health decisions after practices have closed, pet owners have few choices but to hazard the risks of using often-unvetted online information that can be incorrect and ineffective and may cause pets harm or travel to an emergency clinic when it may not be required. Either way, the result is reduced customer satisfaction and lost revenue for practices.

PetNurse works in partnership with veterinary practices to provide reliable after-hours support for pet owners who need instant answers to pet health concerns. So, between the practice and PetNurse, a 24/7 service is provided to pet owners without the need to recruit additional staff. Staffed by RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons)-registered veterinary nurses, who follow distinct protocols in every call based on pet symptoms, PetNurse helps pet owners avoid the risks of using unvetted online information and helps boost appointments and profitability for practices. All calls are answered using the clinics name.

One of three things happen when a pet owner uses the PetNurse service:

1. If a pet concern isnt urgent, nurses can advise pet owners to make a next-day appointment with their veterinarian or book an appointment directly with practices that have a WebDVM website. This drives further engagement with, and revenues to, the practice.

2. If a situation is urgent, nurses can advise pet owners to visit their veterinarian right away or an after-hours emergency clinic associated with their veterinarian.

3. If a pet concern is minor and can potentially be resolved by the pet owner, nurses can advise on what is required (e.g. in the case of a nail that is cut too close to the quick) and arrange follow-up discussion to ensure the concern is resolving itself.

All calls to PetNurse result in a note being sent to practices for review the next morning.

PetNurse is not a replacement to veterinarian services, says Jamie Moodie, Managing Director of Vetsdirect. PetNurse does not diagnose. PetNurse is a triage service that gives pet owners safe, appropriate, and timely assessment of pet health situations to determine urgency and veterinarian referral, and to provide clear instructions on what to do next.

Everything we do and have done since LifeLearns beginnings in 1994 has ultimately been focused on improving animal health worldwide, adds Valpy. Our partnership with Vetsdirect and the launch of PetNurse reflects this unwavering focus.

About LifeLearn Animal Health

LifeLearn, Inc. empowers animal health organizations to optimize client communications, maximize efficiency and improve profitability with the LifeLearn ECOsystem, a comprehensive suite of customizable online solutions that advance animal health and education worldwide. Founded in 1994 in Guelph, Ont., LifeLearn, Inc. helps veterinary, industry and pet service companies grow their business and improve compliance while saving valuable time with fast, easy access to the latest and most trusted animal health medical information, fully optimized for desktop and mobile devices. Celebrating 25 years of innovation and excellence, LifeLearn was named one of Canadas fastest-growing companies on the 2015, 2016 and 2017 PROFIT 500, and 2018 Growth 500.
From seed to can, blockchain collaboration between four Alberta-based companies. We encourage everyone who drinks this beer to appreciate not only the flavor, but the local story through this experience, said Kyran Flett, Canada Malting Co.

Alberta-based companies Hamill Farms, Canada Malting Co., Red Shed Malting and Last Best Brewing & Distilling have teamed up with technology provider TE-FOOD to deliver a new and engaging consumer experience.

Bock Chain  a new beer officially launching Friday February 1st at the Jasper Beer & Barley Summit in Jasper, Alberta  uses blockchain technology to trace the beer grain ingredients from field to can. Blockchain technology is being used increasingly to facilitate traceability in food ingredients, giving consumers greater visibility over where their food comes from, how its been processed and what it has been in contact with.

Its very rewarding to see the entire process, and to know whats in this beer and that it came from my Dads farm, said Matt Hamill, Owner of Red Shed Malting It was so much fun working with the people who are part of the whole supply chain.

For Bock Chain, the barley was grown and harvested at Hamill Farms in Penhold, Canada then traveled to Canada Malting in Calgary Canada for malting, then to a third-party lab for quality assurance, on to Red Shed Malting in Penhold for roasting and finally to Last Best Brewing & Distilling in Calgary for brewing and packaging.

Blockchain technology allows drinkers to trace their beer all the way back to the farm, said Phil Brian, Director of Brewing at Last Best Brewing & Distilling. With brewery supply chains becoming more complex, its fantastic to work with local farmers and see exactly where the barley in our beer comes from."

The Bock Chain can features a QR code on the label, which users scan on their phone to view details about the product and its origins. The QR code unlocks a microsite containing videos, photos, maps, data, timestamps and more to capture the journey from seed to can.

A time-lapse video shows the barley growing in the field and animated maps illustrate the journey from location to location. Each stop features photos, videos and descriptions of the processing at that site, including timestamps and analysis.

The microsite also enables consumers to share their Bock Chain experience via a social link. We encourage everyone who drinks this beer to appreciate not only the flavor, but the local story through this experience, said Kyran Flett, Canada Malting Co.

A video highlighting the project can be viewed on Canada Maltings website: http://www.canadamalting.com/

Note: Bock Chain is a lager with 5.7% alcohol by volume. The beer is being distributed throughout Alberta in cans and available at Last Best Brewing & Distilling while supplies last.

About Hamill Farms

Hamill Farms is a fourth-generation grain farm located just outside of Penhold. John and his wife Susie are proud to carry on the family tradition of growing world class malt barley in the heart of Central Alberta. They are good stewards of the land ensuring they have a sustainable farm to pass on to the upcoming generations.

About Canada Malting Co. Ltd.

Canada Malting Co. Ltd. is the leading provider of malted products and grains harvested from prime growing regions throughout Canada. We operate three malting plant locations, nine Country Elevators and distribute through three warehouses across the country. http://www.canadamalting.com

About Red Shed Malting

Red Shed Malting is a family owned business dedicated to producing premium quality, specialty malt for the craft brewer. We are committed to delivering excellent service to our customers, while providing traceability back to the local field and farmer. Our goal is to create a deeper understanding and appreciation for great beer which will promote and grow the craft beer industry. http://www.redshedmalting.ca

About Last Best Brewing & Distilling

Last Best is a brewery, distillery and restaurant in downtown Calgary at 607 11th Ave SW. We've been defining the spirit of the last best west in Alberta since 2014. https://lastbestbrewing.com/

About TE-FOOD

TE-FOOD is the most popular blockchain based farm-to-table food traceability solution. It serves over 6,000 business customers and handles 400,000 business transactions each day. TE-FOOD provides a wide range of tools for food companies to track and trace food quality and logistics data throughout the supply chain. http://www.te-food.com
A team of veteran digital artists has worked together to create La Femme 1 for Poser, a new female figure for Poser 11+ which was released Tuesday, Jan. 29, the teams at Renderosity.com and Smith Micro announced.

The new figure takes advantage of the team's collective century of design experience to make use of all the features and power found in Poser 11.

"Smith Micro and Renderosity joined forces to put together a team of amazing Poser content developers to create La Femme 1 for our dedicated community of Poser users," said Tommy Lemon, vice president of Renderosity. "The Poser community has long awaited a new, high functioning figure that works well and really utilizes all of the amazing new features of Poser 11."

Team member Denise Tyler said she thinks the digital arts community will be pleasantly surprised with La Femme for Poser.

"I had hoped with each new figure that came out for Poser and, as much as I appreciated all the work that people went into it, that 'it' factor was missing in them," she said.

La Femme was designed with the "it factor" in mind from the start.

"Shes pretty out of the box, she poses like a dream, she is very expressive, and the more she got finished, the more excited and proud I was to be a part of this project," Tyler said.

The project was supported and funded by Renderosity and Smith Micro.

After getting advanced access to the figure, Renderosity vendor Ilona agreed with Tyler's assessment.

"She has so much more in her than other characters," she said.

At first, digital artist Ilona wasn't sure she was taken with the figure, but, after playing with her for only a few hours she found the versatility in the figure.

"La Femme is absolutely beautiful to work with. What I liked most was her joints. They are smooth and natural in every pose, unlike older models that have breaks and creases that shouldnt be there," fellow digital artist Danniella Schvarcz said.

The Team behind La Femme

With the full support of Renderosity and Smith Micro, a team of veteran Renderosity vendors with more than a century of combined experience with Poser worked to build the new figure from the ground up.

La Femme 1 has been created by the following people with sponsorship from Renderosity and Smith Micro:



Gabriel "Blackhearted" Creed designed the base mesh, body morphs, and UV mapping and Shaders,

Charles "Nerd3D" Taylor created the rigging and did advanced testing,

Denise "Deecey" Tyler designed the face morphs and shaders while providing creative support and advanced testing,

Rhiannon Morrigan designed textures and shaders and did advanced testing, and

Special thanks to Stefan Werner for contributing the SSS with Refracted Eyes shader and the Renderosity testing team.

Tyler said the group worked together, chatting about ideas and squashing bugs over the past few months before passing it on to Renderosity for its thorough testing process.

"The end result? The first Poser figure in years that Ive had fun working on and working with," Tyler said.

La Femme's Features

La Femme 1 for Poser 11+ contains improvements on previous Poser figures and includes a variety of new textures, advanced facial expressions, Talk Designer compatibility and more.

"La Femme is the figure Poser 11 has been waiting for," said Charles Taylor, who was responsible for her rigging and tutorials.

The La Femme figure for Poser 11 uses a beautifully sculpted base model that gives artists what they need to create beautiful images. The advanced rigging is designed to make her easy to pose and keeps the complexities of the figure out of your way.

La Femme comes with a wide variety of morphs as well as the ability to be further sculpted with scaling and body control handles. She includes highly detailed texture maps and hybrid materials that work in both FireFly and SuperFly.

"This gives you capability and usability no other figure can offer," Taylor said.

About Renderosity

Renderosity (renderosity.com) is the premier online community for 2D and 3D digital artists, animators, game designers, production studios, photographers and writers of all skill levels and genres. Renderosity provides resources for graphic artists and animators that use the following software products: 3DS MAX, Adobe Photoshop, Bryce, Carrara, Cinema 4D, Deep Paint3D, iClone, LightWave, Maya, Poser, SOFTIMAGE XSI, Vue, Z Brush, and many others. Renderosity has been providing a wealth of free services and tools to inspire, encourage and support creative minds since 1998. Renderosity is a division of Bondware Inc., a company based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Find more about Renderosity at renderosity.com.

About Smith Micro Software, Inc.

Smith Micro develops software to simplify and enhance the mobile experience, providing solutions to some of the leading wireless service providers, device manufacturers, and enterprise businesses around the world. From optimizing wireless networks to uncovering customer experience insights, and from streamlining Wi-Fi access to ensuring family safety, our solutions enrich todays connected lifestyles while creating new opportunities to engage consumers via smartphones. Our portfolio also includes a wide range of products for creating, sharing and monetizing rich content, such as visual messaging, video streaming, and 2D/3D graphics applications. For more information, visit http://www.smithmicro.com.
The Broward County Commission officially proclaimed January 29th "Cruise Planners Day," celebrating the company's 25 years of positive impact in South Florida. South Florida is a travel mecca, especially when it comes to cruising and theres no better place to officially celebrate Cruise Planners Day and spreading our signature Cruisitude, our positive state of mind and passion for all things travel, said Michelle Fee, CEO and founder of Cruise Planners

The Broward County Commission officially proclaimed today, January 29th, Cruise Planners Day. Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, has been based in Coral Springs for 25 years and positively impacted the city and county from both a tourism and economic development aspect, employing more than 120 team members at its headquarters.

Since I founded Cruise Planners 25 years ago, Broward County has always been our home, even as we continue to support franchisees nationwide, said Michelle Fee, CEO and founder of Cruise Planners. We are rooted and invested in Coral Springs and recently moved to a new, modern workspace we completely customized to fuel further collaboration and innovation amongst our Home Office Team.

Cruise Planners community impact in Broward County continues far beyond just the location of its headquarters  consistently recognized as one of South Floridas Top Workplaces by the South Florida Business Journal  including:



Economic Impact: Cruise Planners economic impact on Broward County includes ongoing travel advisor training sessions held solely at the Broward County Convention Center with more than 800 cruise and travel agents annually as well as additional specialty training events such as the companys annual convention, being held again this year at the Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Fla.

Cruising Growth: Cruise Planners has positively contributed to Broward County and Greater Fort Lauderdales tourism engine helping bring in the more than four million cruisers sailing from Port Everglades each year.

Diversity Advocate: Cruise Planners is a member of the Greater Fort Lauderdale LGBT Chamber of Commerce, the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association and the companys executives sit on many cruise line and travel advisory boards and are strong supporters of the Greater Ft. Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureaus initiatives.

Philanthropic Involvement: Through its CP Cares charitable giving program, Cruise Planners champions local causes including the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Broward/Fort Lauderdale, raising more than $1.5 Million for the local community.

South Florida is a travel mecca, especially when it comes to cruising and theres no better place to officially celebrate Cruise Planners Day and spreading our signature Cruisitude, our positive state of mind and passion for all things travel, Fee said.

About Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative:

Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, is the nations largest home-based travel agent franchise network in the travel industry. Cruise Planners operates a network of more than 2,000 franchise owners who independently book vacation and travel experiences for their clients. Headquartered in Coral Springs, Fla. since 1994, Cruise Planners supports its network of franchise owners with innovative marketing, booking and technology tools, professional development and training with the industrys top executives. Cruise Planners and has been named the No.1 travel franchise by Entrepreneur magazine for 16 consecutive years and was also featured in Entrepreneur as one of the top 30 franchise innovators in technology. Consistently named as one of the Top Women-Owned Businesses by the South Florida Business Journal, Cruise Planners is on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, has been ranked as the #1 travel franchise by Franchise Business Review for 6 years and is recognized as one of the Top Workplaces by the Sun Sentinel.

Cruise Planners has achieved top producer status with every major cruise line including Royal Caribbean International, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line, MSC Cruises, Viking Cruises, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, as well as many land vendors such as Travel Impressions and Sandals and Beaches Resorts. As an American Express Travel Representative, Cruise Planners maintains a reputation for quality and offers exclusive American Express Travel benefits such as Pay with Points. Cruise Planners has earned the American Express Travel Representative Excellence Award since 2004, as well as numerous marketing, technology, franchise and philanthropy awards including CLIA Travel Agency Innovator Award, an International Franchise Association FranTech award for innovation, Magellan Awards from Travel Weekly and Travvy Awards from travAlliance media. Cruise Planners celebrates diversity and supports our troops as one of the Top 50 franchises for Veterans according to GI magazine, the Top Franchise Brand for Veterans according to Franchise Business Review, one of the Top 25 franchises for African-Americans by Black Enterprise magazine and a member of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. Visit our website, http://www.cruiseplanners.com, for more information or to view the complete list of awards and honors.

Stay in Touch: Media can stay up-to-date with Cruise Planners by visiting our media room or Socially Yours page for social media updates and handles. For additional information or to make reservations, vacationers should locate a travel advisor near them. For those interested in becoming a franchise owner, please visit the Cruise Planners franchise website.
"Businesses that want to continue gaining naturally targeted organic traffic need to work with qualified SEO experts to navigate the ever-evolving algorithm successfully. - DesignRush Founder & Executive Director Gabriel Shaoolian

Google updates its search engine ranking algorithm up to 600 times each year. This helps them rank brands as accurately as possible.

DesignRush.com, an agency directory and ranking site, discovered how Googles SEO algorithm has changed recently, how brands can adapt their SEO strategy, and the best SEO companies around the world who can boost website rankings effectively.

The top 3 ways Google changed its search engine rank page (SERP) algorithm include:

1. Secure Websites Are Crucial

In 2018, Chrome started classifying all sites that are not HTTPS as not secure.

About 93 percent of all websites across Google have HTTPS encryption  making the remaining websites vulnerable to ranking penalization by Google.

Google strongly prioritizes secure websites in rankings because they want platforms to be immune to hackers. This ensures that information is more reliable and fosters a better user experience that protects consumers.

Brands can follow these 3 simple steps to make their website secure:

1. Host a dedicated IP address for the website.

2. Purchase an SSL certificate, then activate it and install it.

3. Update the website so it uses the HTTPS.

Professional web developers and search engine optimization experts can help brands transfer an unsecure site to HTTPS.

2. Strong Focus On Mobile Speed

According to Google, typical mobile web pages take over 15 seconds to completely load. However, 53 percent of website visitors will leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Thus, Google announced that they were planning to place a strong emphasis on mobile site speed in 2018  and 6 months later, they delivered on this promise.

This algorithm change furthered the importance of a fast-loading website on every platform to improve rankings  likely because a quick website provides a positive user experience.

To ensure their website loads quickly on desktop and mobile devices, brands can:

1. Compress image file size.

2. Analyze and reduce server response time.

3. Minimize the number of redirects on a site.

4. Ensure web page content loads from the top down, not the bottom up.

5. And more!

3. Recent SERP Changes In 2019

Its only January, but SEO experts everywhere have already noticed some Google ranking updates for 2019.

Leading SEO experts and professional resources such as SEMRush continually track Googles SERP, or search engine rank page algorithm. On January 5, 6 and particularly on January 9, these SEO resources saw a chaotic changing in keyword difficulties and shuffling rankings  a clear signal that Google is adjusting their ranking methods.

Although Google has yet to confirm whether they updated their algorithm  and what those changes might entail, if they did  experts agree that some SEO algorithm update likely occurred.

Regardless, Google will be amending their algorithm several hundred times in 2019. And the best way for brands to stay on top of the evolving ranking qualifications and ensure they continue to rank on page one  or reach the top search listing results in the first place  is to partner with a leading search engine optimization company.

SEO is one of the most complicated forms of digital marketing because it involves so many tactics, says DesignRush Founder and Executive Director Gabriel Shaoolian. However, every modern brand needs to invest in search engine optimization. That is what will generate leads, website traffic, conversions and revenue. Businesses that want to continue gaining naturally targeted organic traffic need to work with qualified SEO experts to navigate the ever-evolving algorithm successfully.

Partnering with a professional SEO firm will give brands access to experts who have the expertise and experience to optimize a websites code and content effectively to rank highly for strategic keywords.

DesignRushs Agency Listing section showcases the top local and global SEO companies. Some of the best search engine optimization agencies include (in alphabetical order):

1. Advantix Digital

Advantix Digital was founded in 2001 as one of the nations first digital marketing agencies in Dallas. Since then, they have become a 5x Google All-Star, putting them in the top 0.5% of agencies in the US. All of their strategists are certified by Google, Facebook, Bing, HIPAA and more! Featured as one of Inc.s 5000 fastest growing companies, they offer digital branding, web design, SEO, paid media management and programmatic services, along with consulting capabilities.

Visit Advantix Digital at: https://advantixdigital.com/

2. Approach SEO  San Diego SEO Agency

Approach SEO is a 2018 Award-Winning San Diego SEO Agency located in the heart of downtown San Diego! Their specialized marketing team and in-house SEO experts are highly experienced, having helped thousands of small and multi-national businesses vastly improve their online presence. Approach SEOs main goal is to help companies increase their overall ROI and business revenue through their tested and proven SEO and online marketing campaigns!

Visit Approach SEO  San Diego Agency at: https://www.approachseo.com/

3. Boulder SEO Marketing

Boulder SEO Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency with resources and strategic partners around the globe. Their team offers affordable and top-rated online marketing services to local, national and international companies. Notably, no long-term contracts are required to work with them. They will work to prove to you month-after-month that a clients investment with them is worth every penny.

Visit Boulder SEO Marketing at: https://boulderseomarketing.com/

4. Dataflurry

Dataflurry is a leading provider of organic search engine optimization services. They work with all types of companies and organizations. However, Dataflurry places a special focus on legal clients. Dataflurry was founded in 2007 and was built on 8 years of experience promoting websites online in search engines. In fact, Dataflurrys founder was building and promoting websites before Google existed!

Visit Dataflurry at: https://www.dataflurry.com/

5. DIAP Media

DIAP Media is an internet holding company to niche and local SEO and pay-per-click (Google Ads) brands that help local small business owners with growing their website and increasing leads and sales. They offer SEO services and Google Ads management to the Automotive, Healthcare, Home Services, and Legal industries.

Visit DIAP Media at: https://diapmedia.com/

6. Explo-Media

Explo-Media is a one-stop shop for all of your web marketing needs! They provide affordable monthly SEO packages that meet almost every businesss budget. Services include monthly SEO, blogger outreach, guest post outreach services, content, marketing, copywriting, web designs, PPC and more.

Visit Explo-Media at: https://www.explo-media.com/

7. Gleaming Media

Gleaming Media is a renowned digital marketing agency in India which offers the best digital marketing services. Brands that want to start their own e-commerce business can rely on Gleaming Media to get a foothold in the market.

Visit Gleaming Media at: https://www.gleamingmedia.com/

8. Innovative Solutions Group

Innovative Solutions Group is backed by over 25 years of building successful websites and thousands of happy clients. They understand what it takes to create a not only beautiful, but more importantly, successful website and marketing solution.

Visit Innovative Solutions Group at: https://inovativhosting.com/

9. Insite Advice

Insite Advice is a St. Louis Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web design, and internet marketing agency that focuses on delivering measurable results for B2B, B2C, and eCommerce clients. Because they are conversion-focused, Insite Advice offers clients the ability to pick and choose the services they need, whether its a new website, help with SEO or PPC, or the complete St. Louis SEO consulting package.

Visit Insite Advice at: http://www.insiteadvice.com/

10. MAXBURST Inc.

MAXBURST is a top-rated NYC Website Design & Digital Marketing Agency focused on creative and results-driven solutions. Whether its to increase profits, provide support, sell products or promote your brand, their web design services can bring your company front and center.

Visit Maxburst Inc. at: https://www.maxburst.com/

11. MKG Marketing

MKG Marketing is a digital marketing agency located in the Pacific Northwest and New Orleans servicing clients all over the world. They are a SCRUM-based organization that only hires digital marketing experts in SEO, PPC, and website and campaign analytics.

Visit MKG Marketing at: https://mkgmarketinginc.com/

12. Morningdove Marketing

Morningdove Marketing is a Boise SEO agency that caters to small and medium-sized service businesses. They were founded in 2016 and have taken a keen interest specifically in helping pest control companies, since that's the industry that the owner was in before getting into digital marketing full-time. Morningdove Marketing has documented proof of clients achieving positive ROI with them.

Visit Morningdove Marketing at: https://morningdove.co/

13. MSalesLeads

MsalesLeads provides digital marketing consultants and strategists for small and mid-size businesses. They help small and mid-size businesses to go and grow their businesses online, get qualified leads and new customers, and position their brands, products, and services online. MSalesLeads has successfully executed more than 140 digital marketing projects and campaigns.

Visit MSalesLeads at: http://www.msalesleads.com/

14. PixelCutLabs

PixelCutLabs knows that clients want to confidently grow their business, to be seen as a leader in their industry, and to know they are making their company as much money as possible. In order to do that, brands need to be one of (if not the) top search result on Google. PixelCutLabs is dedicated to helping those brands rank highly for relevant search terms that will grow their business effectively.

Visit PixelCutLabs at: https://pixelcutlabs.com/

15. Promodo

Promodo is a leading international performance agency in Central & Eastern Europe that helps in-house marketing teams of medium and large eCommerce companies to deliver better results.

Visit Promodo at: https://www.promodo.com/

16. Return On Now

Return On Now Internet Marketing LLC, founded by industry veteran Tommy Landry in Austin, Texas, provides internet marketing consulting that enables brands to increase their website visibility, traffic, lead flow, and more.

Visit Return On Now at: https://returnonnow.com/

17. SEO Agency Mumbai

SEO Agency Mumbai is a boutique SEO agency based in Mumbai, India. SEO Agency Mumbai began with an idea that SEO services should be affordable to everyone in the startup and small business marketplace. They want to preserve the entrepreneurial spirit of the small business owner by supporting the local restaurant, the mom-and-pop shop, and the family medical practice with competitive SEO solutions. As a result, SEO Agency Mumbai was founded on one simple business model: to create affordable and effective SEO Services for the small business marketplace.

Visit SEO Agency Mumbai at: https://www.seoagencymumbai.com/

18. SEO ProHub

SEO ProHub is a digital marketing agency, an SEO company, an SMM agency, and a reputation management company, all in the same place. Alongside their specialization in search engine optimization services in the USA, UK, Canada and social media marketing services in the USA, SEO ProHub focuses on all digital marketing services to help businesses grow online all around the world.

Visit SEO ProHub at: https://seoprohub.com/

19. SEO Service in India

SEO Service in India specializes in innovative below the line marketing solutions, catering to business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) segments. SEO Service in India was established by direct marketing experts with over 5 years of experience in transforming businesses with actionable data-driven insights across SMEs, large corporations and MNCs.

Visit SEO Service in India at: https://seoserviceinindia.co.in/

20. SEOZA

SEOZA is a full-service SEO agency based in London, UK. They provide the full suite of SEO services, from technical SEO to link building, content marketing to Local SEO. SEOZA works with customers in the UK and helps them to raise their visibility online through eCommerce SEO and International SEO across all sectors and channels.

Visit SEOZA at: https://www.seoza.co.uk/

21. Shrewd Marketing LLC

Shrewd Marketing delivers results by managing the complete web presence of their clients, from responsive website design, content management, SEO and Internet marketing to optimizing the user experience, maximizing site traffic and improving customer satisfaction in the process.

They manage SEO, social media, digital advertising and white label Internet directories for organizations who can benefit from having a keyword search application for a database of local business listings and company profile pages.

Visit Shrewd Marketing LLC at: https://www.shrewdmktg.com/

22. Silicon Overdrive

Silicon Overdrive uses proven SEO strategies to drive quality traffic to your site -- that means more leads, which ultimately results in more sales. They offer customized SEO packages aimed at improving brand visibility online.

Visit Silicon Overdrive at: https://www.overdrive.co.za/

23. Smarter Digital Marketing

Smarter Digital Marketing focuses on growing clients online traffic and improving the visibility of their websites. Their consultants are not only fully qualified in SEO, but also Google Ads Management, Social Media Strategy and Email Marketing. They also pride themselves on having a strong design team that works on large, innovative websites every day.

Visit Smarter Digital Marketing at: https://www.smarterdigitalmarketing.co.uk/

24. South Shore Design

South Shore Design is a Manhattan-based SEO Company that specializes in Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Graphic Design, and Web Site Maintenance for all companies in all industries.

Visit South Shore Design at: https://southshoredesign.com/

25. Webology SEO, LLC

Webology SEO is a top-rated web design and search marketing agency headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama.

They focus on three key services:



WordPress Design

Paid Search

SEO

Webology SEO takes a detailed, scientific approach to lead generation that includes everything from link-building to conversion rate optimization.

Visit Webology SEO LLC at: https://webology.technology/

Brands can view the best SEO companies by pricing structure, case studies, rankings, portfolio, experience, leadership, reviews and more on DesignRush. They can use filters to compare agencies and find the best SEO firm that will help them rank well in Google search listings.

About DesignRush: DesignRush.com is B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies.

DesignRush features the top agencies around the world, including the best Digital Agencies, Logo Design, Branding, Digital Marketing, Website Design, App Development, eCommerce Web Design Companies and more.
As part of an ongoing series on bullying, Heritage Woods of South Elgin is hosting a panel discussion and viewing of Gen Silent, a documentary that follows the lives of six lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors who are forced to hide their sexuality to survive in the long-term health care system.

The viewing will begin at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7 at the community, which is located at 700 N. McLean Boulevard in South Elgin. The original Jan. 31 date was changed due to the extreme winter weather conditions in the Chicago area.

Heritage Woods senior bullying series will identify bullying behavior, and outline how to create a positive environment that welcomes people from diverse backgrounds and experiences.

This weeks documentary discussion comes as LGBT adults are faced with the dilemma of remaining true to themselves or hiding their identity as they enter long-term care facilities.

In the past, the challenges that these seniors face has not been at the forefront in the senior living industry, and that is something that Heritage Woods of South Elgin wants to change.

We are dedicated to providing supportive living and memory care communities that offer services to older adults free of discrimination and fear, said Heritage Woods Administrator Scott Cozza. We want everyone to feel welcome when they walk through our doors and decide to make our community their new home.

Panel members will include Cozza, Heritage Woods resident Nancy Poor and Britta Larson from The Center on Halsted.

A light dinner will be served during the event, which is open to the public.

There is no charge to attend.

For more information or to reserve your seat for the documentary viewing, call 847-531-8360.

Heritage Woods of South Elgin is certified to operate through the Illinois Supportive Living Program and is managed by Gardant Management Solutions, the largest provider of assisted living in Illinois.

The campus also includes White Oaks at Heritage Woods of South Elgin, an affordable memory care community, and White Oaks at Spring Street, a private-pay memory care community.

Heritage Woods features affordable assisted lifestyle apartments for adults 65 and older who need some help to maintain their independence. Personal assistance, help with medications, and a variety of convenience and support services, including meals, housekeeping and laundry, are available.

Our focus, says Rod Burkett, CEO of Gardant Management Solutions, is to provide the residents of Heritage Woods of South Elgin with the love, compassion and dignity they deserve and the help and assistance that they need.

Communities managed by Gardant include the Heritage Woods assisted living and memory care communities in Huntley and McHenry.

Gardant also operates several affordable assisted lifestyle communities in Chicago and the Heritage Woods communities in Batavia, Bolingbrook, Chicago, Gurnee, Manteno, Plainfield and Yorkville.

For more information about Gardant Management Solutions, the assisted living, senior living and memory care communities that the company operates; and the companys management, development and consulting services, visit http://www.gardant.com or call 1-877-992-1495 toll-free.
Health iPASS is redefining the patient revenue cycle by helping medical providers collect more patient payments, establish price transparency, and build patient trust/loyalty. "The most significant benefit of our relationship with HIS is the ability to maximize reimbursement levels allowing practices to realize higher collection rates for the patient responsibility portion cost of care. -- Rajesh Voddiraju, CEO, Health iPASS

Health iPASS, a burgeoning Chicago-based patient revenue cycle management healthcare IT company, today announced a new strategic partnership with Healthcare Information Services, LLC (HIS), a known industry leader specializing in revenue cycle management and consulting services with more than three decades of experience working with Orthopedic professionals.

The partnership is designed to offer an intuitive end-to-end solution specifically for Orthopedic practices providing the only complete front-to-back revenue cycle management service marrying cutting-edge technology with expert-level service to improve efficiencies and profitability of the Orthopedic revenue cycle.

Health iPASS pairs advanced technology to automate the laborious process of patient revenue cycle collection, making collecting every dollar less expensive and optimizing up-front patient payment collections to remove the burden and uncomfortable conversations of collecting patient out-of-pocket expenses from your front desk staff. HIS expertly focused approach to comprehensive revenue cycle management and billing services helps to improve coding accuracy, maximize reimbursements, and increase collections and profitability of orthopedic practices.

Founder and CEO of Health iPASS Rajesh Voddiraju commented, With over three decades of experience, HIS is a well-respected industry-leading revenue cycle management and billing services solution provider with a strong track record of increasing Orthopedic provider income by providing an expert level of service focused on each critical stage of the revenue cycle. Our partnership is a testament to the strength of our combined resources to maximize reimbursement, increase cash flow, maintain practice compliance, and boost profitability of Orthopedic medical practices. The most significant benefit of our relationship with HIS is the ability to maximize reimbursement levels allowing practices to realize higher collection rates for the patient responsibility portion cost of care.

HIS has continually invested in people, processes, and technology to provide stronger end to end Orthopedic revenue cycle management, said David Wold, Founder and CEO of HIS. Our partnership with Health iPASS is an extension of our continued evolution and we are pleased with the excellence of their patient revenue cycle solution and the dedication of their team to fundamentally improve patient payment collections in healthcare. Health iPASS has the same qualities that we seek in our commitment to excellence and this partnership fits perfectly into our mission to support the management side of Orthopedic practices so that physicians, nurses, assistants, and staff can take care of patient needs.

Visit the Health iPASS and HIS websites to find out more about their healthcare IT and revenue cycle solutions.

About Health iPASS

Health iPASS is redefining the patient revenue cycle by improving the healthcare consumer experience from appointment to payment. The solution has enabled double digit increases in operating income for providers in a true pay-for-performance approach. Health iPASS helps providers promote price transparency, build trust, and increase their operating income by simplifying the check-in process and streamlining both time-of-service and residual balance patient payments through an innovative, multi-channel software solution. Our patient friendly system supports 850+ payers, 90+ practice management systems and is payment processor-agnostic. Many providers have realized 90-95% patient net collection rates, slashed denials by over 50%, and have significantly reduced cost and time to collect.

Contact: John Trader, Director of Marketing

Phone: 410-491-5354

Email: john@healthipass.com

About Healthcare Information Services, LLC (HIS)

HIS is a physicians management organization with more than three decades of experience in orthopedics specializing in Revenue Cycle Management and consulting services for Orthopedic practices. We work exclusively with Orthopedic practices to maximize reimbursements, improve monthly cash-flow, increase compliance, and boost overall profitability.

HIS Clients typically see a 10-15% or greater increase in overall reimbursements as a result of outsourcing the management of their revenue cycle to HIS. We are dedicated to helping physicians position their practice for a more profitable future by providing industry-leading revenue cycle management and billing services specialized for Orthopedics.

Contact: Andy Salmen, Director of Business Development

Phone: 847-720-7007

Email: asalmen@healthinfoservice.com
At Engel & Volkers Honolulu, clients will receive professional guidance and a wealth of resources to track down the perfect property.

When searching for the ideal luxury property on Oahu, you need the help of a talented high-end real estate company. At Engel & Volkers Honolulu, clients will receive professional guidance and a wealth of resources to track down the perfect property. From beachfront homes to quiet lots away from the outside world, their skilled team of real estate associates has an array of exclusive listings for you and your family to review. With more than 40 years of experience, the global company has the expertise to help both homebuyers and sellers. They utilize the latest technology in the industry to narrow home searches for clients.

About Haute Residence:

Designed as a partnership-driven luxury real estate portal, Haute Residence connects its affluent readers with top real estate professionals, while offering the latest in real estate news, showcasing the worlds most extraordinary residences on the market and sharing expert advice from its knowledgeable and experienced real estate partners.

The invitation-only luxury real estate network, which partners with just one agent in every market, unites a distinguished collective of leading real estate agents and brokers and highlights the most extravagant properties in leading markets around the globe for affluent buyers, sellers, and real estate enthusiasts.

HauteResidence.com has grown to be the number one news source for million-dollar listings, high-end residential developments, celebrity real estate, and more.

Access all of this information and more by visiting: http://www.hauteresidence.com
Gensuite experienced broad growth across several aspects of the company in 2018, including its expanded user group and subscriber community, the global Gensuite team and its products & services portfolio.

2018 was nothing short of incredible for Gensuite. It was our most successful year in Gensuites entire history. These results were fueled by our absolute commitment to supporting our subscribers compliance and management systems programs, and continuously improving our solution suite to meet their evolving needs, says R Mukund, Gensuite Founder & CEO.

Among the industries that the company welcomed to its community in 2018 were Automotive, Energy, Industrial, Technology and Education. Gensuites subscriber community growth drove a 40% year over year new client growth in 2018 compared with 2017, with a remarkable 100% increase in new subscriber sales volume over the same period reflecting the number and scale of new subscriber account additions.

The General Electric Company, charter subscriber and where Gensuites foundations originated, announced several major business restructuring changes in 2018. Gensuite is honored to have the opportunity to continue to provide support for both current and former GE businesses with their digital management systems platform needs, powering their individual programs and priorities with a cloud-based, best practices-driven, single version platform.

Last year was also a year of unprecedented team growth for Gensuite. The company increased its global workforce by 57% in 2018  with a customer-focused global team approaching 400 team members that now spans 11 global offices across 8 countries with the recent addition of the Houston, TX area office. The Gensuite US and Canada team now comprises 150+ professionals with a broad range of specialties; the Company is particularly proud of the diversity in its North American team and the representation of women and multiple ethnicities in all roles, including senior leadership and executive management.

Key Gensuite product releases in 2018 included the completion of the Gensuite Application Recharge, an initiative to re-design and update all of their application modules, the release of Genny, the industrys first AI-enabled virtual assistant and the introduction of Gensuite Analytics Powered by Tableau to deliver interactive data visualization and reporting capabilities to all Gensuite subscribers  standard!

We initiated our 3-year investment plan in 2016 with a focus on the areas that meant the most to our subscribers and we are gratified to see them and the broader marketplace recognizing our results in 2018. I am proud of what our team has accomplished working together with our incredibly passionate group of user champions, said R Mukund.

2018 not only proved to be a year of growth overall for Gensuite, but it was also a year focused on giving back to the community. In 2018, the Gensuite Team made it a company-wide initiative to raise money to build a school in Malawi, Africa for buildOn, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and developing schools in underprivileged communities. Gensuite successfully raised $30,000 to build the school through various fundraisers held throughout the year. The team looks forward to building a school in August 2019!

In 2019, Gensuite plans to continue its commitment to innovation and evolution by focusing efforts on growing its subscriber community, expanding the companys global workforce and working closely with the Gensuite subscriber community to brainstorm and create solutions to the industrys toughest problems.
Choosing the right fertility doctor for you means choosing a Board-Certified reproductive endocrinologist and Castle Connolly has made it easier for you by recognizing Infertility Doctors in NY & CT. The designation reflects all of our physicians hard work, commitment and passion for this subspecialty, as well as the care we give to our patients. The entire RMA of Connecticut team is proud of them. says Robin Mangieri, CEO, RMA of Connecticut.

RMA of Connecticut, a leading fertility practice whose exceptional quality and care helps couples and individuals grow their family, has announced that five of their Board-Certified reproductive endocrinologists have been honored with the prestigious Top Doc award by Castle Connolly. Since 1991, the renowned publishing company Castle Connolly has compiled the list of Americas Top Doctors each year. Every doctor on the list is nominated by peer doctors in their specific field and assessed by a physician-led research team.

The Top Doc designation was awarded to:

Mark Leondires, MD

Spencer Richlin, MD

Josh Hurwitz, MD

Cynthia Murdock, MD

Shaun Williams, MD

Top Docs are rigorously selected from among the total population of 700,100 physicians (including the 1,269 board certified reproductive endocrinologists) in practice in the United States. Castle Connollys research methodology is designed to identify doctors who will achieve the best possible health outcomes. For a reproductive endocrinologist, that translates to successful fertility treatment cycles (IUI and IVF), resulting in pregnancies and babies. All six RMA of Connecticut physicians, including Ilana Ressler, MD, who is new to the practice, are at the top of their field and have the most up-to-date knowledge and skills in the field of Reproductive Endocrinology, the medical specialty dedicated to fertility treatment.

RMA of Connecticut is proud to receive Top Doc honors for our reproductive endocrinologists,  says Robin Mangieri, CEO, RMA of Connecticut. The designation reflects all of our physicians hard work, commitment and passion for this subspecialty, as well as the care we give to our patients. The entire RMA of Connecticut team is proud of them.

Learn more about choosing the best fertility doctor for you.

About Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut (RMA of Connecticut)

RMA of Connecticut is a leader in fertility care, specializing in a range of infertility treatments. Our assisted reproductive technologies (ART) include intrauterine insemination (IUI), in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT). RMA of Connecticut is Fairfield Countys largest fertility clinic and egg donation center. Through RMA of Connecticuts Integrated Fertility and Wellness Center, we offer nutrition counseling, individual and couples psychological counseling, acupuncture and yoga, as well as financing and support services for our patients going through infertility treatment.

Our internationally recognized Gay Parents To Be program at RMA of Connecticut specializes in LGBTQ family building. In 2017 and 2018, RMA of Connecticut was recognized as a Leader in Healthcare Equality by the Human Rights Campaign.

The RMA of Connecticut team includes lead physicians Drs. Mark P. Leondires, Spencer S. Richlin, Joshua M. Hurwitz, Cynthia M. Murdock, Shaun C. Williams, as well as fertility specialist, Dr. Ilana B. Ressler. All six physicians are Board-Certified Reproductive Endocrinologists and are members of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). Our team of doctors are named as Castle Connolly "Top Doctors" and are members of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART). RMA of Connecticuts IVF laboratory is accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and CLIA. Other accreditations include the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). RMA of Connecticut has offices in Danbury, Norwalk, Stamford, Trumbull and Poughkeepsie, New York. For more information visit http://www.RMACT.com or find us on Facebook.
Ferrari Energy, Weld County I discovered that Chris is a true gentleman who is well-versed in his business and the operational process for completing a purchase of mineral rights. He was personable, and shared information about Ferrari Energy, his own life, and exhibited a sincere interest in my own life. -Mr. Grossaint

Denver-based energy company Ferrari Energy has taken a proactive role in the industry, providing an education-based customer experience that eliminates the stress and uncertainty from the process of selling mineral rights. The companys commitment to ethical business practices and honest, old-fashioned values has set them apart in the energy industry - theyre doing more than simply purchasing mineral rights from landowners - theyre playing a pivotal role in the lives of everyday families in Americas heartland. It is their distinctive process, rooted in the goal to educate and empower landowners, that contributes to their customers success. Customers are able to surpass their financial goals and feel completely confident in the transaction process, from the first point of contact to the final closing.

Keith Joe Grossaint, a Las Vegas resident, inherited his familys mineral rights in Weld County when his father passed away in 2003. Grossaint knows theres no better investment than one that benefits your family and that is why after receiving calls from several other oil companies, the call from Chris Masone was noticeably different from the others. "It was a pleasure to help Joe and the rest of his family achieve their financial goals. With a strong educational and practical foundation, we were able to lay out a strategy that relieved the concern of his legacy while he continues to battle his medical issues. "To know myself and Ferrari Energy were able to add even a bit of relief during this trying time is the ultimate reward." Said Chris Masone, Acquisition Landman for Ferrari Energy.

Ferrari Energy Acquisition Overview

Location: Weld County, 5N, 65W

Net Mineral Acres: 44

Acquisition Capital: ~550,000

When Mr. Masone contacted me with a proposal for purchasing my mineral interests and offered a price that greatly exceeded any other offers I had received, I initially thought he was kidding. The amount was indeed sufficient to catch my eye, and we continued the conversation. I discovered that Chris is a true gentleman who is well-versed in his business and the operational process for completing a purchase of mineral rights. He was personable, and shared information about Ferrari Energy, his own life, and exhibited a sincere interest in my own life. After I indicated the sales agreement was satisfactory, Chris sent me the documentation to sign and return to the company, so the Due Diligence process could quickly be completed. Chris and I were forced to work around the pressures of the pending political election because of the possibility of impact from one of the land use issues to be voted on. He did a yeomans job taking care of me at this time (I knew he had other clients to help also), and the documentation was completed, filed, and the funds were sent to me by wire transfer earlier than expected. Chris kept me informed and frequently sent e-mail and phone messages to assure that I was aware of all aspects of what was transpiring. I would recommend anyone considering sale of mineral rights in Colorado or a surrounding state to contact Ferrari Energy and Chris Masone for a completely satisfying experience.  Joe Grossaint

Ferrari Energy is a Denver-based oil company committed to changing the way landowners sell oil and gas royalties, providing an education-based approach founded in integrity, transparency, and expertise. With nearly 5 years of experience in asset acquisition and management in Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, and Texas, Ferrari Energy brings unparalleled customer service and a customer-centered approach to the energy industry. Partnering with landowners throughout the U.S., Ferrari Energy offers a fair, honest option for transforming your property into a valuable source of life-altering compensation. If youre interested in learning more about Ferrari Energys unique process and how it can help propel you towards financial freedom, contact the company at (720) 943-8008 for more information visit http://www.ferrarienergy.com
The Medical Solutions company today announced the hiring of Kim Brendle as Billing Manager. Kim will report directly to Alexandra Stephens, who has been promoted to Director of Billing, a function that oversees all aspects of billing.

Fellow Health Partners, a growing Long Island success story, is increasing senior management again to deal with accelerated growth. The Medical Solutions company today announced the hiring of Kim Brendle as Billing Manager. Kim will report directly to Alexandra Stephens, who has been promoted to Director of Billing, a function that oversees all aspects of billing.

CEO Michael N. Brown said, Fellow Health Partners experienced significant growth during 2018, including acquisition of an established Medical Billing company in New Jersey as well as a new client partnership with Brooklyn Surgery Center in New York.

"To help maintain the very best customer service while growing fast, we searched for the right person to fill the very important role of Billing Manager. Kim fit the bill.

"She has over 25 years of experience in billing and management including: practice and revenue management; operations and development; and, even, administration, giving her an extremely rounded view of how to best serve medical providers and facilities. Her first task will be to speed the integration of our newest acquisition into Fellow Health Partners.

Kim said, Im excited to help Fellow Health Partners grow, specifically by staying ahead of revenue and payer trends, improving value-based health care, and allowing us to build even stronger relationships with our clients and their practices.

Michael Brown added, Our growth has allowed us to follow a core company principle: promote from within and hire locally, whenever possible. Thats why Im proud to announce that we have promoted area resident, Alexandra Stephens, to the position of Director of Billing.

"Our growth has made this position more important than ever, as it serves to help guarantee communication and coordination throughout a growing department, ensuring that our customers continue to get the level of service theyve come to expect.

Alexandra Stephens added, I'm looking forward to working with Kim and the rest of the team on harnessing this rapid growth for Fellow Health Partners and our clients.

Fellow Health Partners expects to continue its rapid growth by building on its superior technical and customer services for hospitals, medical practices, and ambulatory surgery centers.

ABOUT FELLOW HEALTH PARTNERS

Fellow Health Partners Inc. is a leading-edge medical business solutions company that helps healthcare professionals and institutions to improve their bottom line by applying innovative methods of streamlining the medical billing process. Supported by an active advisory board of leading doctors, Fellow Health Partners acts as an extension to any medical practice or facility by providing billing expertise, office and workflow solutions, customer service assistance, and administrative support.
The Boston Center for Facial Rejuvenation is excited to announce that its own, Sean Doherty, MD, FACS, has been named a Top Doc for 2019 by Boston Magazine. This prestigious title is presented annually to the best physicians practicing in the greater Boston area, including general practitioners, dentists, cardiologists and plastic surgeons. This is Dr. Dohertys second time to be named as Boston Magazines Top Doc.

Boston magazine has been providing a wealth of information for residents for more than 40 years. Every year, the magazine creates a special issue dedicated to the areas top physicians and wellness providers. This information tells readers where to go for the most trusted plastic surgery advice, medical care and safe, effective results.

To be named Top Doctor, physicians must first be nominated by their peers. To qualify for the final listing in the Best of Boston, each doctor receiving the most votes must be reviewed for their qualifications and performance ratings. Out of the thousands of providers in the area, only a select group will make the much-anticipated Top Doc issue.

Dr. Doherty is an award-winning surgeon, with a background in Art History. Board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Doherty has extensive reconstructive and cosmetic surgery training. Focusing on the face, breasts, and body, Dr. Doherty uses his innate understanding of anatomy to create natural-looking aesthetic enhancements. He explains, Most patients come for subtle, refined improvement on what they have. That is what I hope for them as well,. In addition, Dr. Doherty also offers a unique set of cosmetic surgery procedures tailored to the male patient, as well as a wide-variety of innovative, noninvasive procedures for both men and women.

ABOUT THE BOSTON CENTER FOR FACIAL REJUVENATION

Dr. Doherty is an associate at the Boston Center for Facial Rejuvenation, along with another of Boston Magazines Top Doctors, Leonard Miller, MD, FACS, FRCS. With an elite team of experienced nurses and aestheticians, Dr. Doherty and Dr. Miller strive to create a welcoming environment for every patient, no matter how subtle or dramatic their cosmetic desires. It is through meticulous attention to detail and highly developed skill that Dr. Doherty and Dr. Miller can consistently bring their patients satisfying and rejuvenating aesthetic results.

For more information on any of the surgical or noninvasive procedures for men and women available at the Boston Center for Facial Rejuvenation, or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Doherty, contact the Newbury Street office at 617.450.0070. For patient convenience, Dr. Doherty has two offices, in Boston and Brookline. Additional information on the Top Doctors of 2019 can be found in Boston Magazine.
Dr. Qassim Abdullah Qassims positive impact on Woolpert, our clients and the geospatial community have been amazing. From the entire Woolpert family, we congratulate Qassim on his well-deserved success and accomplishments.

Dr. Qassim Abdullah, Ph.D., CP, PLS, was honored Tuesday night with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Lifetime Achievement Award. The distinction, formerly known as the Honorary Member Award, is the highest honor the society bestows on an individual. This award recognizes Abdullahs distinguished service to ASPRS and in advancing the science and uses of remote sensing, photogrammetry and related disciplines.

Abdullah, chief scientist and senior associate at Woolpert, received the award during Geo Week in Denver. The event started Friday with the MAPPS Winter Conference and continues through Thursday with the ASPRS Annual Conference and the International Lidar Mapping Forum (ILMF) joint conference.

At the event on Monday, Abdullah conducted a workshop on, Aerial Triangulation and Data Processing for the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with Dr. Riadh Munjy of California State University, Fresno, early in the day before presenting a second workshop with Claire Kiedrowski from Cornerstone Energy Services Inc. on, Practical Approach to Using the ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data. Abdullah also hosted a panel discussion Tuesday on, National Spatial Reference System Modernization of 2022, and is slated to discuss, Advances in Lidar TechnologiesStatus of Commercial Linear Geiger and Single Photon Lidar Systems today at 11 a.m. MT.

Abdullah, the creator and principal author of the new ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data Standards, also is a member of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Standardization Collaborative, developing standards to facilitate the safe integration of drones into the U.S. National Airspace System. He also publishes a monthly Mapping Matters column in the Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (PE&RS) Journal, teaches graduate courses on geospatial subjects and has periodic blogs on the Woolpert website, including his most recent highlighting The Geospatial Trends for 2019.

Woolpert leadership lauded Abdullahs volume of groundbreaking work and his dedication to the geospatial industry.

The Woolpert family is very proud to see Qassims contributions to the photogrammetry and remote sensing community being recognized by such an esteemed organization as ASPRS, Woolpert President and CEO Scott Cattran said. This is a great honor for him and for Woolpert. Qassim exemplifies all of our core values at Woolpert, especially industry leadership. We are all very proud of you!

To become an industry leader, it takes focus on what matters each day; it takes determination and hard work, Woolpert Chief Operating Officer Kirk McClurkin said. Qassims positive impact on Woolpert, our clients and the geospatial community have been amazing. From the entire Woolpert family, we congratulate Qassim on his well-deserved success and accomplishments.

Abdullah said he is grateful to be a member of the geospatial community and thanked ASPRS for this Lifetime Achievement Award.

I am surrounded by this community of intelligent and creative friends and colleagues, who provide me with an invaluable technical and dynamic environment, Abdullah said. I am honored to be a part of this vital, thriving industry.

About Woolpert

Woolpert is the fastest growing architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm in the country, delivering value to clients in all 50 states and around the world by strategically blending innovative design and engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic research and development department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners such as Google and Esri; operates a fleet of planes, sensors and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS); and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable design. The firm, which is 95th among ENRs Top 500 Design Firms, supports a mission to help its clients progress and become more progressive. For over 100 years and with 28 offices across the U.S., Woolpert serves federal, state and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the U.S. Armed Forces. For more information, visit woolpert.com or call 937-531-1258.
The timing is ideal during the start of our third decade of operations to launch a new and even more realistic shake roofing tile plus a shake siding product. Michael Cobb President DaVinci Roofscapes

Back in 1999, after two years of working on the recipe to create durable synthetic products, DaVinci Roofing Materials, LLC was incorporated in Kansas. Now, 20 years later, DaVinci Roofscapes has risen to a leadership position in the composite roofing industry --- and is ready to take a step forward into the composite siding industry.

During the past two decades DaVinci has made numerous advancements. The first installation of DaVinci Slate was in 2002. DaVinci then introduced composite shake shingles in 2005. Now, during its 20th year anniversary, DaVinci has advanced its roofing selection to include a seventh roofing product line --- Select Shake.

The timing is ideal during the start of our third decade of operations to launch a new and even more realistic shake roofing tile plus a shake siding product, says Michael Cobb, president and chief marketing officer at DaVinci Roofscapes. Our technical advances are moving swiftly forward and we envision DaVinci continuing on this growth trajectory for many years into the future.

Relying on Composites

Whether used on the roof or for siding, composite tiles from DaVinci are engineered to stand up to extreme weather conditions. Each product has a Class A fire rating, Class 4 impact rating and resists fading, splintering, cracking, pests and high winds.

Designed for years of worry-free beauty on a home or commercial building, DaVinci products authentically replicate the look of natural slate and shake materials. Made of virgin resins, UV and thermal stabilizers plus a highly-specialized fire retardant, the composite products are crafted with the highest degree of color control and consistency in the manufacturing process.

Make Room for DaVinci

In the beginning, DaVinci operated out of a 10,000-square-foot space in Kansas. Staying true to its Made in America roots, the company expanded operations in 2006 to an 81,000-square-foot leased location. As the company grew, so did the need for more space. Less than 10 years later, in 2014, DaVinci acquired a 173,000-square-facility in Lenexa, Kansas to house their manufacturing, distribution and administration offices.

Our company has established a solid footprint of steady growth during the past 20 years, says Cobb. By focusing on fine-tuning our composite product, working with our valued customers and partners, and responding to the needs of the consumer for a durable roofing product, weve been able to make our mark in this industry.

Responsible Manufacturing

The leaders at DaVinci have been interested in far more than manufacturing superior composite roofing shingles for the past two decades. They set their environmental sights on creating their product while generating zero landfill scrap. That goal was reached in 2017.

Starting in 2012 DaVinci began reprocessing internally generated scrap. Since that time the company has recycled and reused 5,955,000 pounds of composite scrap. In 2018 alone DaVinci reprocessed 926,000 pounds of waste into starter tiles while reducing the scrap generated in the manufacturing process by an additional 2.2 percent since 2016.

Our goal is zero percentage of scrap going into a landfill, says Bryan Ward, vice president of operations at DaVinci Roofscapes. We are always looking for ways to recycle and reuse every single piece of waste in our plant.

The Many Colors of DaVinci

One of the ways DaVinci has stood out during the past two decades is by offering a wide assortment of realistic colors (plus custom colors) for its roofing tiles. The addition of color consultant Kate Smith, with Sensational Color, has allowed the company to support the one-on-one color selection needs of consumers.

You cant talk about our companys history without thinking about color, says Cobb. The realistic colors weve been able to achieve --- from deep slate grays to shades of clay and dark mountain blends --- appeal to so many people.

Weve promoted top down color on the home for many years. This thought process suggests looking at a house exterior as a unified color palette that creates distinct curb appeal for the home.

In 2018 DaVinci took its most advanced color step with the introduction of the Nature Crafted Collection. Three distinct colors --- Black Oak, Mossy Cedar and Aged Cedar --- reflect different progressive aging processes found on real shake shingles.

The DaVinci Nature Crafted Collection is our most ambitious foray into color development in our company's history, says Cobb. Our proprietary process technology enables us to recreate the natural warmth and softness of a patina previously only created by time and exposure to the elements.

The realistic Nature Crafted Collection Colors are available on several DaVinci shake product lines and the new DaVinci Hand-Split Shake Siding.

DaVinci currently offers three composite shake tile options: DaVinci Multi-Width Shake, DaVinci Single-Width Shake and Bellaforte Shake. In their slate profiles, the company offers DaVinci Multi-Width Slate, DaVinci Single-Width Slate and Bellaforte Slate. The companys newest products, DaVinci Select Shake and DaVinci Hand-Split Shake Siding, are scheduled for launch during the first quarter of 2019.

The experienced team members at DaVinci Roofscapes develop and manufacture industry-leading polymer slate and shake roofing systems with an authentic look and superior performance. DaVinci leads the industry in the greatest selection of colors, tile thickness and tile width variety. The company's reliable products have a limited lifetime warranty and are 100 percent recyclable. All DaVinci high-performing roofing products are proudly made in America where the company is a member of the National Association of Home Builders, the National Association of Roofing Contractors, the Cool Roof Rating Council and the U.S. Green Building Council. For information call 1-800-328-4624 or visit http://www.davinciroofscapes.com.
The second annual Lidar Leader Awards ceremony took place yesterday at International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF) in Denver. ILMF  in cooperation with Spatial Medias Lidar Magazine  designed this unique program to recognize excellence in five distinct categories: Outstanding Personal Achievement in Lidar, Outstanding Team Achievement in Lidar, Outstanding Enterprise Achievement, Outstanding Innovation in Lidar, and Outstanding University Achievement in Lidar.

Lisa Murray, Group Director at Diversified Communications stated of the awards, We were delighted to host the second annual Lidar Leader Awards at International LiDAR Mapping Forum. We started this awards series to recognize excellence in the industry and to highlight some of the amazing projects that were being presented on our program. The lidar community has enthusiastically embraced the process, nominating over 70 individual and teams for awards this year. In the spirit of the inaugural Geo Week co-location of ILMF, ASPRS and MAPPS, we shared the stage with ASPRS to present four of their prestigious industry awards. Kudos to all the winners. We look forward to recognizing your amazing contributions for many years to come.

Dr. A. Stewart Walker, Managing Editor at Lidar Magazine agreed. This is the second year of the Lidar Leader Awards and, during the nomination period, we hoped very much that the entries would maintain the remarkable quality that we enjoyed last year. We were not disappointed. The quality was very high indeed. We introduced two new categories this year, Outstanding Innovation in Lidar and Outstanding University Achievement in Lidar, to honor accomplishments that perhaps were not ideal fits for the three categories with which we began the awards last year. Both categories drew fine candidates and those who attended the University Lightning Round yesterday doubtless feel delighted at the talent of the next generation of lidar movers and shakers.

Winners in each category were announced at the Awards Ceremony yesterday.

Hans (Karl) Heidemann, former Physical Scientist at the USGS EROS Center, was recognized for his Outstanding Personal Achievements in the industry. Heidemann led the development of lidar standards and specifications within USGS. He was heavily involved with the National Elevation Dataset, the National Geospatial Program and the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), and authored three releases of the USGS Lidar Base Specifications (LBS). He was a co-author of the ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data and established the ASPRS standard for the number of lidar QA/QC checkpoints in vegetated and non-vegetated terrain. He is a long-standing, active member of ASPRS, serving on numerous committees, instructing in workshops and contributing to publications.

The Outstanding Team Achievement in Lidar was awarded to the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Center of Expertise (JALBTCX) Team for their efforts in acquiring airborne lidar bathymetry multiple times along the United States coastline as well as in Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. territories. Additionally, the team acquired emergency response data following natural disasters such as Katrina, Sandy, Matthew, Irma, Maria and Florence. The data is used to analyze beach and dune response to storms, assess shoreline changes and support coastal resiliency. The efforts of the JALBTCX team continue to advance airborne lidar bathymetry and coastal mapping technology to greatly benefit the mapping industry.

Winning the Outstanding Enterprise Achievement Award was Woolpert, for providing many high-level contributions to the lidar industry in service, management and development ever since lidar technology was introduced. A sample of Woolperts accomplishments include: working with USGS to acquire and process over 350,000 square miles of lidar data in support of the 3DEP program; evaluating and improving data workflow, that led the design, integration and testing of BuckEyes next-generation airborne sensor; and supporting US Army Corps of Engineers/JALBTCX bathymetric and topographic lidar acquisition.

New this year, AEye was the first to take home the Outstanding Innovation in Lidar award for the creation of the AE110 Artificial Perception System. The AE110 is a solid-state artificial perception system that takes a disruptive approach to vehicle perception. Its distributed system fuses solid-state agile lidar with a low-light HD camera, then integrates artificial intelligence to capture more intelligent information with less data. By using a distributed, software-definable system that embeds computer vision with machine and deep learning on its lidar, the AE110 puts perception engineers in control and brings intelligence to the sensor layer, which enables the type of precision and real-time perception that is critical to the rollout of safe autonomous vehicle systems.

The Outstanding University Achievement in Lidar category awarded three winners this year following the University Lightning Round took place yesterday which took place on Monday, January 28. Participants of the Lightning Round were judged on awards up for grabs in three categories, including: 1) Most commercially feasible; 2) Most innovative use of lidar; and 3) Peoples Choice. Soeren Discher and Rico Richter of Hasso Plattner Institut took home the most commercially feasible award, delivering a presentation on the value of point clouds: solutions for management, analysis and presentation. Andrea Albright of University of Houston won the most innovative use of lidar award with an impressive presentation on measuring breaking waves using lidar technology. Finally, the crowd voted on the Peoples Choice award, again awarding it to Hasso Plattner Institute. Each university gave remarkable presentations to an audience of geospatial and academia professionals alike.

ILMF and Lidar Magazine are excited to continue celebrating excellence in 2020 and for years to come and congratulate all the nominees and winners for their work in advancing lidar.

About International LiDAR Mapping Forum

International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF) is a technical conference & exhibition focused on airborne, terrestrial and underwater lidar as well as emerging remote-sensing and data collection tools and technology used for applications including Asset Management; Civil Infrastructure; Coastal Zone Mapping; Emergency Services & Disaster Response; Land and Natural Resource Management; and Urban Modeling.

ILMF is part of a network of events and media for the global geospatial market organized by Diversified Communications, a leading organizer of conferences, trade shows and online media with 15 years in the geospatial arena, including Commercial UAV Expo Americas, Commercial UAV Europe, Commercial UAV News, International LiDAR Mapping Forum, SPAR 3D Expo & Conference, SPAR3D.com, AEC Next Technology Expo + Conference and AEC Next News. For more information, visit http://www.lidarmap.org.

About LIDAR Magazine

Lidar Magazine, a Spatial Media publication, promotes the adoption of LIDAR and imaging technology. Dr. A. Stewart Walker leads an expert editorial team, bringing insights and commentary to readers via print editions, eNewsletters, webinars and more. Published 8x annually, the magazine reaches a global audience of geomatics and engineering professionals. http://www.LIDARmag.com

Loren Lachapelle, Diversified Communications

llachapelle(at)divcom(dot)com

+1-207-240-7765
Bridge To Hope: Overcoming Loss: a potent read that paves a path for readers toward a realization of hope and determination. Bridge To Hope: Overcoming Loss is the creation of published author, Brenda Lunoe, an active church member and devout follower of God.

Lunoe shares, Who doesnt want to be able to look forward to the day ahead, the week facing you, or to your future however long it may be? Do you dread the tasks facing you? We all experience lossdeath, divorce, loss of job, home, health, friend, etc. Brenda addresses these issues with Biblical support to help the reader find a way out of that pit of despair. The purpose of this book is to build a ladder or bridge so that we can leave that pit of despair and find the hope we need to truly live and not just exist. It was only through God pushing her that Brenda was able to write this book.

God does not want us to be depressed and hopeless. It is, instead, His desire that we overflow with hope, joy, and peace (check out Romans 15:13). This book reveals the tools and steps you can use to find this hope, joy, and peace. Brenda also explains why we sometimes need to endure problems and tragedies. If you want to be filled with hope, start reading.

Are you trying to navigate through your own minefield of grief and sorrow? If so, open this book so that you, too, can move forward and no longer be a slave to your sadness. The devil wants to deceive, discourage, and destroy us. This book will show you how to break those chains and be filled with joy, hope, and optimism.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Brenda Lunoes new book guides the lost into the light of Gods healing grace and shatters their imprisoned hearts with resonant perspectives that reflect a steadfast conviction in the Lord.

This book truly exudes with a resolve that mirrors a positive outlook in life that proclaims the goodness of God for all amid trying times.

View a synopsis of Bridge To Hope: Overcoming Loss on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase Bridge To Hope: Overcoming Loss at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Bridge To Hope: Overcoming Loss, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
UnVeiled Secrets to a Marriage that Lasts a Lifetime by Stan Padgett Published by Beyond Publishing, Dallas Texas The best advice he's given me over the years is found in this book. A must-read at any age or relationship status. Thank you! -- Selah Shoaf

Going #1 on Amazon in three categories within hours of launch, Beyond Publishing, CEO, Michael D. Butler says, the ebook will be available at an introductory price for a limited time and the pre-orders on the print book are off to a great start as well. http://bit.ly/UnVeiledEbook

Many marriages today dont last. In the United States, 40 to 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce, and 60 to 75 percent of second and subsequent marriages end in divorce. Padgett explains, A forever marriage is intentional. Its deliberate, planned, and worked on daily. Padgett provides readers with the tools they need to work on their marriage to ensure it is a forever marriage.

Some of the topics he addresses include:



Conversations you should have before you say I do. Padgett discusses the questions couples should ask each other about sex, money, children, and religion before they walk down the aisle.

Dont let your wedding cause your divorce. Many couples get caught in the trap of the American wedding industry and wind up spending all their money or fighting with family, starting the marriage off on the wrong foot.

Planning your marriage. Padgett teaches couples how to set goals for their marriage, health, and finances, as well as how to achieve those goals.

What happens after the honeymoon is over. Many couples have spent a whirlwind year of excitement planning a wedding, having bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, and being the center of attention. After the honeymoon, all that excitement and attention dies down, leaving many feeling like marriage is a disappointment. Padgett helps cushion the blow.

The first child changes everything. Everything changes for a couple when their first child is born. Padgett offers advice that helps couples protect their marriage and ensure it is as much of a priority as the children are.

Padgett says, I wrote Unveiled to teach couples how to avoid some of the common mistakes that lead to divorce. This book provides readers with tools they can put to work in their marriages today, to make them lasting, loving and joyful.

Stan Padgett

Stan Padgett was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and grew up in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Kentucky, and Alabama. He graduated from Auburn University at Montgomery in 1979, from Duke University School of Law in 1982, and has been a business trial lawyer in Tampa, Florida for 36 years. He and his wife Linda got engaged three months after she turned 16 (he was 17), married at 17 and 18, have been married for 42 years, have three children, lots of grandchildren, and look forward to more grandchildren and great -granddaughter.

I had a great experience working with Speaking Empire and Beyond Publishing, Ive been teaching about marriage and working with couples for more than a decade and knew I needed to get it all into a book. The process from start to finish was incredibly fast and efficient, remarked Stan.

For more information, please visit http://beyondpublishing.net/Author-Stan-Padgett

For more information about Relationship Magic Academy, please visit https://relationshipmagicacademy.com/

Follow Relationship Magic Academy on Instagram @RelationshipMagicAcademy

Like Relationship Magic Academy on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/RelationshipMagicAcademy

###

For media inquiries, or to request a review copy, please contact:

Michael Butler

michael(at)beyondpublishing.net

323.248.8996
Azunia's No Plastic Straws 365 Challenge - 20 Million fewer straws! [The "No Plastic Straws 365"] campaign has taken off through...social media...Thanks to these tight-knit groups and individuals dedication to this cause, Azunia has over 33,000 sign-ups for the challenge to date, eliminating over 20 Million* harmful plastic straws from U.S. oceans and landfills.

Azunia Tequila*, a premium, organic, estate-crafted tequila has now signed up more than 33,000 people in its rapidly expanding No Plastic Straws 365 Challenge. To meet the heavy interest, the fast-growing, organic and sustainably farmed tequila brand is adding to their initial pledge of providing a reusable, recyclable stainless-steel straw to the first thousand people who signed up by allocating hundreds of straws to future participants in the program, as randomly selected.

The average American uses 2.4 plastic straws a day, so we thought why not go after that and see if we can just do better, join together on a fun initiative and make a difference, said Azunias Managing Director Joe Giansante. So far, collectively weve pledged to eliminate 20,000,000 plastic straws from use in 2019, and counting! If placed in a line, that is enough plastic to stretch from Los Angeles to Boston, and headed back to Chicago! Small personal changes can pay big dividends when we get together, and it really fits with Azunias farm and family heritage. Our brand is one of the few tequilas on the market that is organic, sustainably farmed and uses no chemicals or additives, so why not take it a step further with this effort.

This voluntary grassroots initiative aimed at bars, restaurants, and individuals eliminating the everyday use of plastic straws, or replacing them with a reusable and recyclable straw that individuals can carry with them and use as needed. The 365 represents the number of days in the year to reinforce the idea that making a small thing like refusing the use of one straw every day for one year can collectively make a significant impact.

Initially, Azunia planned to give reusable straws to the first 500 people who accepted the No Plastic Straws 365 Challenge, then increased it to 1,000 in November of 2018 when the response was positive as demonstrated through a steady stream of sign-ups. Since then, the campaign has taken off through Word of Mouth on social media and through communities and forums of eco-conscious bloggers and their loyal followers. Thanks to these tight-knit groups and individuals dedication to this cause, Azunia has over 33,000 sign-ups for the challenge to date, eliminating over 20 Million* harmful plastic straws from U.S. oceans and landfills.

Not only has the No Plastic Straws 365 Challenge taken off beyond expectation, so has the Azunia brand, which has nearly doubled in size over the last two years. One of the main drivers is a hospitality industry application of the metal straw concept by providing straws to bars and restaurants as part of its signature cocktail program, the Azunia Organica or Organic Skinny Margarita. Made with USDA-certified Organic Azunia Blanco or Reposado tequila, Azunia Organic Agave Syrup and lime juice, the simple but refreshing and low-calorie cocktail is served in many locations, such as Tocaya Organica, with the reusable straw.

Azunia Reposado organic tequila recently won Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, an award reserved only for the Worlds Best products in the world. The 10-year old brand prides itself on being Honestly Authentic  staying true to its roots of farming the land properly, without additives, to produce the finest agave plants by a family owned farm on the slopes of Volcan de Tequila. In fact, all four of Azunias products  Blanco, Reposado, Anejo and Azunia Black, its Private Reserve Extra-Aged Anejo have won multiple gold medal awards, most notably the prestigious spirits competition in San Francisco.

For more information on the No Plastic Straws 365 Challenge: http://noplasticstraws365.com.

*Azunia Tequilas #noplasticstraws365 seeks to reduce the number of single-use plastic straws. On average, every person in the U.S. uses 620 plastic straws per year. Thats 620 fewer straws for every one person who accepts the #noplasticstraws365 challenge.

Azunia on social media:

https://www.instagram.com/azuniatequila/

https://www.facebook.com/azuniatequila

https://twitter.com/azuniatequila

About Azunia Tequila

Azunia is smooth, clean craft tequila with authentic flavor from the local terroir in every sip. It is the exclusive export of Agaveros Unidos de Amatitan and its second-generation, family-owned-and-operated Rancho Miravalle estate, which has created exceptional tequila for over 20 years. Made with 100% pure Weber Blue Agave grown in dedicated fields of the Tequila Valley, we harvest by hand and roast the organic agave in traditional clay hornos to ensure authenticity and depth of flavor. We then finish with a natural, open-air fermentation process and bottle onsite in small batches using a consistent process to deliver field-to-bottle quality. For more information, please visit https://www.azuniatequila.com. For media inquiries, contact Jenn Barber, jbarber(at)azuniatequila(dot)com, 760-331-7914.

Drink responsibly.
Top LA Web Development Company

10 Best Design is pleased to announce the winners of its Best LA Web Development Firm awards for January 2019, honoring SPINX Digital, Blue Fountain Media, and EIGHT25MEDIA as the top recipients.

For January, 10 Best Design pumped out a total of 11 candidates in the running for the unofficial title of the top LA web development company. Here are brief descriptions of the top three winners on the list.

SPINX Digital earned this month's gold medallion for the impressive work it provides for clients. Although it is a leading web design firm, SPINX Digital is home to a relatively small team of digital agency veterans who have extensive experience in technologies like WordPress, Magento, Kentico, and Progress Sitefinity. Even though SPINX Digital's experts largely specialize in crafting sites on content management systems with extremely quick turnaround times, these pros can also push out sites built solely from countless lines of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

EIGHT25MEDIA ranks second on the list of Silicon Valley's leading LA web development companies. Clutch, TIA, and top design firms have all assigned EIGHT25MEDIA with its tried-and-true in-house titles with this distinct honor. EIGHT25MEDIA earned the award by performing top-notch work for companies like C3 IOT, Machine Zone, SoftBank, and NEXTracker. The company has done business for nine consecutive years, collectively helping its many clients build up loan-free funding exceeding $500 million.

Blue Fountain Media takes the third spot in this category for the month of January. As a premier web design agency, Blue Fountain Media brings a portfolio filled from cover-to-cover with popular brands like Peterbilt, Sharp, and the New York Community Trust. The company offers some of the cheapest services in its area of operation in terms of achieving high-volume visits-per-dollar.

The quality of the list of winners for January is a direct result of the excellence that 10 Best Design infuses into its selection process. That process is backed by the dedicated team of web design, app development, and general computer programming experts who comprise 10 Best Design. Located in California's tech haven, the San Francisco Bay Area, 10 Best Design's professionals regularly went up against the most intimidating, tried-and-true digital services providers. Fortunately for the group of experts, their relentless perseverance and desire to improve helped them edge out the majority of their competitors across the greater San Francisco area.

Today, 10 Best Design provides consulting services in various programming languages, including PHP, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, Hypertext Markup Language, and Python. However, the company is best known for the monthly installments of its in-house rankings of candidates for the crown of the best web design firm in the nation.

To learn more information about 10 Best Design and this months award winners, visit http://www.10bestdesign.com.


Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

January 30, 2019: This report focuses on the global 3D Printing Technology status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the 3D Printing Technology development in United States, Europe and China.

In 2017, the global 3D Printing Technology market size was million US$ and it is expected to reach million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of during 2018-2025.

The key players covered in this study

Stratasys

Arcam AB

3D Systems

Protolabs

Download sample Copy of This Report at: https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-3d-printing-technology-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025/request-sample

Materialise

ExOne GmbH

EOS GmbH

SLM Solutions

Concept Laser

Ultimaker

Market segment by Type, the product can be split into

Metal

Polymer

Ceramics

Other

Read Complete Report With TOC @ https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-3d-printing-technology-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025

Market segment by Application, split into

Automotive

Consumer Electronics

Medical

Aerospace

Education

Other

Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers

United States

Europe

China

Japan

Southeast Asia

India

Central & South America

The study objectives of this report are:

To analyze global 3D Printing Technology status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.

To present the 3D Printing Technology development in United States, Europe and China.

To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.

To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.

In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of 3D Printing Technology are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2025

About Radiant Insights

Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions.

For More Information, Visit Radiant Insights

Contact:

Michelle Thoras

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Radiant Insights, Inc

Phone: 1-415-349-0054

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@radiantinsights.com

Blog URL: http://ictmarketforecasts.wordpress.com
Greg Haller, Mobilize Board Member, Former Verizon Executive

Mobilize Solutions is pleased to announce the addition of Greg Haller to the companys Board of Directors. The innovative Irvine based company enables wireless providers to delight users and create new revenue with a unique camera enhancement solution (SDK).

Haller is currently COO at Alorica and previously held various executive roles at Verizon. With more than 25 years of leadership experience in the wireless industry, Haller will make a valuable go-to resource as Mobilize activates with carriers and OEMs.

The company has a timely and innovative solution wireless providers will want, said Haller, I am excited to help guide them along the way.

Greg is the latest wireless executive to get behind Mobilize and joins an impressive roster of former Verizon leaders:



Marni Walden, Mobilize Board Member, former Verizon President/EVP

John Harrobin, Mobilize Investor & Advisor, former Verizon CMO

Brian Jones, Mobilize Investor & Advisor, former AirTouch (Verizon) President

Mike Benvenuti, Mobilize Investor & Advisor, former Verizon VP Marketing

Brendan Fallis, Mobilize Investor, former Verizon Region President

Nick Montes, Mobilize Advisor & Partner, former Verizon VP Marketing

To learn more and get company updates, you can follow Mobilize on LinkedIn

About Mobilize Solutions: Mobilize Solutions, formed in 2013, has developed an ad-tech platform that delivers timely and relevant content (geo-filters, AR, GIFs) within the mobile camera experience. The platform is scalable and configurable making it easy for wireless providers and app publishers to white label or embed the feature as an SDK. To learn more visit the company website at http://www.mobilize.solutions.
Advisor Armor, the leading provider of cyber/data compliance solutions in the independent financial space, announces a multi-branch cybersecurity compliance solution for Investment Advisors, Securities Professionals, Broker-Dealers, Hedge Funds, and other Independent Financial Firms.

Recent regulator warnings place elevated scrutiny upon multi-branch firms to evidence cyber/data security controls throughout the organization. Our proven (Hub and Spoke) deployment provides the toolset needed to meet these new levels of regulator expectations, shared Mark Brown, CEO and Founder of Advisor Armor.

Mr. Brown concluded, "We are unique in our profiling of home office requirements. We ensure those mandated practices are present at branch levels, while still incorporating coverage unique to the branch firm processes."

About Advisor Armor

Advisor Armor, founded in 2014 with headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the leading business and regulatory cybersecurity compliance-consulting firm for financial professionals. We deliver comprehensive, researched interpretations alongside the tools needed to build, maintain, and evidence required state/federal compliance elements. Elements include, but are not limited to, customized policies and procedures, data security training and testing, vendor due diligence, information technology audits, and managed data incident response.

Advisor Armor is endorsed by TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, Financial Services Institute, NAPFA, many Broker-Dealers, Technology Companies, and Compliance Professionals. At Advisor Armor you will meet innovative, tech-savvy professionals paired with state-of-the-art technology to anticipate your exacting needs.

Contact

Advisor Armor

Phone: 800-421-7897

E-mail: info@advisorarmor.com

Website: http://www.advisorarmor.com
The Abel Solutions team and its partners really enjoy these events. They enable us to speak directly with banking professionals and engage with them about their business challenges, which lets us better understand and respond to their needs.

Abel Solutions, Atlantas premier consulting firm helping customers achieve business excellence, today announced it will be exhibiting at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers, to be held February 10-12, 2019 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. At the event, the Abel Solutions team will participate in a live Q&A-style podcast. Attendees will also be able to see a demonstration of the BANKER|share solution.

Abel Solutions Chief Technologist Jason Bell, a visionary leader with a deep understanding of the banking communitys technology challenges, will be on hand to speak with attendees and answer their questions. Jason is a seasoned process improvement expert, and he spends most of his time in the field, working directly with the C-suite and taking them on an exploratory journey to identify pain points and other challenges that hamper operational excellence, said Abel Solutions Vice President Scott Burba. His appearance at the ABA conference gives community bank attendees the opportunity to engage with him and ask questions in a casual setting.

BANKER|share provides community banks with an affordable platform of prepackaged solutions for all departments within the bank. To achieve this, Abel Solutions experts developed a customer-tested and approved library of solutions, from which banking leadership can select to solve their business process challenges. For those desiring a solution set tailored to the banks unique requirements, the BANKER|share consulting team can work with bank leadership to develop a specialized business efficiency solution that targets that particular banks most business-critical workflows and processes.

Abel Solutions partner, Nintex, will also have a presence at the booth. Nintexs industry-leading workflow automation is a cornerstone of the BANKER|share solution. The Abel Solutions team and its partners really enjoy these events, said Burba. They enable us to speak directly with banking professionals and engage with them about their business challenges, which lets us better understand and respond to their needs.

Companies are invited to visit http://www.abelsolutions.com/bankershare to request a demonstration in advance or learn more about how BANKER|share can help their organization automate critical business processes, deliver operational excellence and boost revenue.

About Abel Solutions, LLC

For twenty-five years, Abel Solutions has focused on helping our customers develop and deploy solutions that deliver Business Excellence in terms of profitability, productivity, and competitive leadership. We believe that the most effective solutions are those that leverage and combine a customers current strengths and assets with new people, process, and technology capabilities to accomplish business goals. Our consultants have the knowledge, experience, and tools to deliver a portfolio of services including business strategy, collaboration solutions, dashboards and analytics, and managed cloud and IT services. To learn more about partnering with Abel Solutions, go to http://www.abelsolutions.com.

Abel Solutions is a member of the Georgia Bankers Association and the South Carolina Bankers Association.

About Nintex

Nintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 8,000 public and private sector clients across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating and optimizing business processes. Learn more by visiting http://www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).
Trustee Emeritus Robert Hung Ngai Ho 56, H11 has confirmed a $15 million gift to Colgate University to establish the Robert Hung Ngai Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative. Funds from the gift will also be used to renovate and expand Olin Hall, which will house the initiative.

On behalf of the entire University, President Brian W. Casey said, I wish to thank Robert Hung Ngai Ho for his transformative generosity with this gift and with his history of generosity to Colgate. His family, also very supportive of this wonderful contribution, are very special friends of the University.

The Robert Hung Ngai Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative will connect faculty in psychological and brain sciences, neuroscience, biology, philosophy, linguistics, and several language programs. The initiative is of significant scope and magnitude, with additional funding to be announced. Faculty and administrators are currently at work refining the details of the initiative, which is connected to a renovation and planned expansion of Olin Hall that is projected to be completed in the summer of 2022.

This gift is the latest expression of Hos commitment to Colgate. Gifts made in 1993 established an endowed professorship in Asian studies and a fund to support the Universitys China Study Group. In December of 2003, the Ho family provided support for a strategic plan that included the construction of the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center  with an additional gift to fund the Ho Tung Visualization Laboratory, dedicated to Robert Hos grandfather Sir Robert Ho Tung. Hos most recent contribution supported important enhancements to this laboratory.

It is my great belief that, much like the science center, the Robert Hung Ngai Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative will promote creativity across disciplines and become a point of distinction for Colgate, President Casey said. Again, I offer my profound gratitude, on behalf of the University, to Mr. Ho and his family.
The Melbourne developer Gurner has revealed the first design details for its proposed Saint Moritz project.

It is its most ambitious project to-date with a $550 million end value.

It will have 120 beachside residences along with venues anchoring the ground level.

The pricing of the residences average $3.5 million.

Gurner is currently amending the exisiting permit for 14  16 The Esplanade, St Kilda, to halve the number of apartments from 240 to 120.

 We believe the luxury end of the market has been waiting for something like this to come along," Tim Gurner said.

Fender Katsalidis is the lead architect, with Koichi Takada Architects appointed to design one of the three buildings.

The interior designer is David Hicks.

Jack Merlo has been tasked with the landscapes.

The first of the three buildings, Pacific House, is set to launch mid-year, featuring 45 residences averaging $4 million.

The $30 million penthouse that sits atop Pacific House will offer 650sqm of internal space along with a substantial 175sqm terrace with private pool, six bedrooms, a seven car private garage with direct access lift, four living rooms, in-home sauna and gym.

The double-storey penthouse will have a cascading two-storey water feature surrounded by marble-clad walls, a solid Nero Marquina bathtub with 180 degree water views, another internal pool that submerges into the rooms below - complete with transparent glass that can be viewed from the lower level - a floating fireplace and a 1000-bottle, temperature-controlled wine cellar, accessible via a sculptural spiral staircase.

Tim Gurner is confident they will achieve a Melbourne record.

We initially designed the penthouse with a floorplan of over 1,300sqm and an even bigger price-tag however the early feedback we have received from our local and international clientele was that a penthouse of this size would be too big even for them, he said.

Gurner will offer a full design customisation package included within the purchase price.

"The service will allow purchasers to work directly with David Hicks and Tim Gurner to create interior spaces that are only limited by ones imagination  bowling alleys, infra-red sauna and steam-rooms, cigar rooms, poker rooms, art galleries or perhaps even sound-proofed home offices or recording studios," said Gurner.

Literally anything is possible at Saint Moritz, he said.

The 120 private residences encompassing two, three bedroom, four, five and six bedroom offerings, comes with prices ranging from $1.4 million to $30 million-plus.

The project is currently taking registrations of interest with sales to launch in mid 2019.
Bondi Rescue star Harrison Reid is upgrading in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

He's drifting a little further toward the beach, but it's not the one he patrols on the screens.

The Christchurch born lifeguard has bought a home in Rose Bay.

He's letting go of his Bellevue Hill apartment (above and below) that he bought when he moved to Sydney four years ago from New Zealand.

Reid paid $725,000 for what was then a two bedroom Victoria Road apartment in a 1950s tightly held block of 12 on the dress circle Victoria Road.

Reid has reconfigured and renovated the apartment himself, turning into a large one bedroom apartment with fresh interiors. He renovated the kitchen and added new wooden flooring.

Raine & Horne Double Bay agents Paula Simoes and Ric Serrao are marketing the apartment with a $780,000 guide for its February 14 auction.

Reid has previously spoken of his love for living in Bellevue Hill.

"I love it around this area," he said in a recent interview with Sydney style guide Sitchu.

"It's close to my work and not far from Double Bay and the harbour beaches."

"Bondi Junction is also up the road, which means I never have to go into the city!"

Reid said the thing he loved most about where he lived was the endless local options to be able to go out for "a quick bit to eat or drink with a mate."

Reid said on his days off he likes to head to the harbour beaches for a swim to get away from the crowds.

"Since I'm around a lot of people at work down on the beach, it's nice to have some time to yourself," he said.

This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.
Brussels, Jan 31 : The Withdrawal Agreement between the European Union (EU) and Britain remains the best and only deal possible and will not be renegotiated, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, said on Wednesday.

"The European Union said so in November. We said so in December. We said so after the first meaningful vote in the Commons in January. The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday (Tuesday) do not change that," Juncker said.

Juncker and Michel Barnier, EU's Chief Negotiator on Brexit, made remarks at the European Parliament's plenary session debate on the latest state of play about Brexit, as a reaction to the vote in the British House of Commons on Tuesday night, Xinhua reported.

The vote gave British Prime Minister Theresa May a mandate to return to Brussels to call for a re-opening of negotiations, with an emphasis on changing the Brexit deal's so-called backstop concerning the border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, and Britain's Northern Ireland.

"Both sides have said loud and clear that there can be no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland. No slipping back into darker times past. I believe the Prime Minister's personal commitment on this point. But I also believe that we need a safety net that secures us against this risk. We have no incentive nor desire to use the safety net. But at the same time, no safety net can ever truly be safe if it can just be removed at any time," Juncker said.

"The backstop -- as embodied in the Withdrawal Agreement -- is the result of extremely intense negotiations held over the course of two years, by us with the UK, never against the UK. The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement and this agreement will not be renegotiated," Barnier said.
Bengaluru, Jan 31 : Stepping his barbs at Congress leaders, firebrand Union Minister from Karnataka Anantkumar Hegde on Wednesday mocked its President Rahul Gandhi as a hybrid breed, born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother.

"Rahul Gandhi's father is a Muslim and mother a Christian and son is a Brahmin. How does it happen? You will not find such a hybrid breed anywhere," said Hegde in Kannada at an event at Karwar in Uttara Kannada in the state's northwest region.

Hegde, 50, is Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and a BJP Lok Sabha member from the Uttara Kannada constituency, about 530 km from Bengaluru.

Hegde's reference to Rahul's father Rajiv Gandhi as a "Muslim" is because the latter's father was Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi from Gujarat. Rajiv's mother was Indira Gandhi.

Accusing Congress leaders of having no sense of religion, Hegde told the gathering that they continued to lie.

"Rahul knows nothing about India and there is no question of he knowing anything about religion (dharma). Look, how they lie. You cannot get such a hybrid breed in world's any laboratory but in our country's Congress laboratory," said Hegde.

Hegde's remarks that Rahul is a "Brahman" is in the backdrop of a priest at Pushkar lake in Rajasthan ahead of its state assembly elections declaring that the latter's gotra was 'Duttatreya' and he was a Kashmiri Brahmin.

Hegde has been making controversial remarks since he became minister in September 2017, with the latest being on Sunday when he said at Madikeri in the state's southwest region that "a hand that touches a Hindu girl's body should not be there".

He was also locked in a Twitter war on Monday with Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao over their respective achievements.

Responding to Hegde's tweet that he knew Rao as "a guy who ran behind a Muslim lady", the latter retorted that it was sad to see the Central minister stoop to such "low levels as to bring in personal issues".

Rao, a Congress lawmaker from Gandhinagar assembly segment in Bengaluru central, is married to Tabu, a Muslim.

Demanding sacking of Hegde from the cabinet post, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that "this man is an embarrassment to every Indian. He is unfit to be a Union Minister deserves to be sacked".
Bengaluru, Jan 31 : Tech-savvy Karnataka would offer incentives to attract huge investments in rolling out electric vehicles (EV), generate jobs and opportunities for research in the e-mobility segments, said a state minister on Wednesday.

"Karnataka offers incentives to manufacture electric vehicles in the state, which has potential to attract investments worth Rs 31,000 crore in the sunrise sector, create over 55,000 direct jobs and provide opportunities for research and development (R&D) in electric mobility," said Karnataka Industries Minister K.J. George at a summit on EVs.

As the first state in the country to have a policy to encourage use of eco-friendly electric vehicles with zero emission, George said the state government would have single-window clearances to be a preferred destination for attracting investors in the EV segment.

Taiwan-based Teco Electric Company president George Lien said his firm would work with Karnataka government to bring in technology to make EVs as it was in the business of energy optimization in India.

South Korean Wevio president Calvin Yi said his global firm was signing an agreement with the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) for setting up a joint venture and exchange technology between Indian and Korean firms.

"We would like to help India in freeing its cities from air pollution from automobiles by encouraging Korean firms like Hyundai to make 300-km charging range EVs by this year-end in India," said South Korean Ambassador Shin Bong-Kil on the occasion.

ICC Director-General Rajeev Singh said the apex trade body would work with central and state governments across the country to attract investments and generate jobs in the EV sector.

"We plan to bring a delegation of EV and charging station makers from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which have a vibrant EV manufacturing ecosystem," added Singh.

As part of the summit, IBC Expo has organised a "EV 360" exhibition where automobile major Mahindra Electric, Sun Mobility, Ather Energy, E Trio, NRD Eco Motors, Jitendra Electrical Vehicle and Ampere showcased their technology and products in EV sector.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : The opposition will seek to corner the BJP-led NDA on a range of issues including Rafale, problem of farmers and unemployment during the Budget session of Parliament beginning Thursday with the government expected to push its legislative agenda that includes the triple talaq bill and citizenship (amendment) bill.

The Congress has issued a whip to its members ahead of the session, which will be the last before the Lok Sabha elections slated for April-May. It will conclude on Feb 13.

The government will present interim budget on February 1 and it is expected to be a full budget and not a vote-on-account.

The session will begin with address by President Ram Nath Kovind to the joint sitting of the two Houses.

Apart from the vote of thanks to the President's address, the government's legislative agenda includes replacing three ordinances with bills.

These include the triple talaq Bill, companies (amendment) Bill and Medical Council (Amendment) Bill.

The government is keen to get the triple talaq Bill passed. It is also keen to get the citizenship (amendment) bill passed though almost all BJP allies in the north east are opposed to it.

Speaking to reporters after an all-party meeting convened by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said the government "should not bring full Budget in the name of interim budget and confine itself to only vote-on-account."

He said the Congress will raise the Rafale issue again bring to light new points. The party has been demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee in the Rafale deal.

"We will also raise farmers' distress, unemployment and attack on autonomous bodies such as CBI, CVC, RBI," Kharge said.

He said the Congress will also raise its apprehensions regarding electronic voting machines.

"We put forth several issues in the meeting. We said that since this is the last session, everybody should be given a chance to speak on the discussion on Presidential address."

Trinamool Congres leader in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah of "miusing CBI against Bengal."

"

"Why is Bengal being targeted? The federal structure is being ruined"," he said.

He said 50 per cent of VVPATs must be checked while using electronic votng machines in Lok Sabha elections.

In her remarks, Mahajan said that almost everyone assured her of their cooperation in smooth running of the House in what will be the last session before the general elections."

"There should be maximum discussion and maximum number of issues should be raised by the members. Parliament is meant for discussion and as parliamentarians, na'ion's interest should be priority for"us," she said.

Asked if government will bring a full budget, she said: "It is for the government to answer. But yes, such things have happened in the past." Asked about her remarks as a Speaker and as BJP MP on the Ram temple, she said: "I am still the Lok Sabha Speaker. I would be able to comment as a BJP MP after 15th (February). But as a Ram bhakt, I would say that all Ram bhakts want a Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya," she said.

The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry has also convened an all-party meeting on Thursday.
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Orthodoxy. This term derives from the Greek:  "correct" and  "opinion". Orthodox Christian marriage differs from Catholic Christian marriage for some details that derive from a faith cultivated in a different way. Love, the wedding dress, some rituals and faiths are not lacking even in this wedding function, but you will not hear the famous wedding phrase "until death you separate" and certainly you will not hear any sentence for the promise of marriage pronounced by the spouses. Find out why.

What is Orthodox Christianity?



At the beginning there was a single Catholic stock, which around the year 1000 D.C. saw the clear division between Catholic Christians and Orthodox Christians. In addition to these two other religions they were born and were born, then, from the same Christian stock. But, to date, Catholics and Orthodox have points in common and different differences remained in the worship of their religion, which naturally also influence the rite of marriage. The most concrete example: Orthodox churches allow priests and deacons to be married. Moreover, the Orthodox churches consider the Pope as Patriarch but not as head of the Church.

The meaning of orthodox marriages

Orthodox marriage is a ritual that does not want to sanction that the two spouses are united until death separates them, since their presence at the rite will mean for the present observers that the two lovers are engaged before God as a couple. And precisely because the dimension is the religious one, their commitment as husband and wife is meant to infinity, in eternity and beyond death, which can not therefore divide them.

For the Orthodox Church that first marriage is not repeatable, it is a unique opportunity, so much so that, in the event that a faithful replies, the celebrated ritual will be totally different from that of the first marriage: it will be a way to legitimize religious level this new union, but will have a very different value than the first marriage.



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British Prime Minister Theresa May (Front) attends a debate on the Brexit deal amendments in the House of Commons in London, Britain, on Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/UK Parliament/Mark Duffy)

LONDON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Just days after suffering the biggest humiliation in British political history, Prime Minister Theresa May was r than ever Tuesday to finally reaching an elusive Brexit deal.

By 317 votes to 301, MPs in the House of Commons gave their backing to May's deal which they rejected earlier this month, providing changes are made to the so-called Irish backstop border issue.

The 16 majority for her deal gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to call for a re-opening of negotiations, and indicates that the Brexit deal is likely to win the critical final vote in British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue.

The victory for May's minority government was assured after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) backed tonight's move.

Immediately after the vote was announced, May said that two weeks ago MPs rejected the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement when only 202 MPs voted in favor.

"Tonight a majority have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop.

"It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority to leave the EU with a deal," she said, to loud cheers from the Conservative benches.

Veteran MP Sir Graham Brady has been hailed as the hero of the night by including a crucial addition to May's rejected deal. It says the deal requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border.

The words were enough to win over the DUP as well as Conservative politicians strongly against a backstop over fears it could tie Britain permanently to the EU.

May said the British government can look forward to obtaining legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement with regards to the backstop, allowing no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

May and her senior advisers are not waving victory flags at the moment, with the developments in London receiving a frosty reaction in Brussels and Dublin.

May admitted that winning over Brussels will not be easy. She said: "With changes to the backstop, plus assurances on workers' rights, it is now clear there is a route to passing a deal."

May said there was limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. "But MPs have now made it clear what it wants," she said.

The Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, said in a statement issued later in Dublin: "The withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

Referring to the withdrawal agreement agreed between EU leaders and May, Varadkar said it is a carefully negotiated compromise, which balances the UK position on customs and the single market with avoiding a hard border and protecting the integrity of the EU customs union and single market.

He said Ireland will continue its preparations for all outcomes, including for a no-deal scenario.

A spokesman for Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said: "The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and the withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

The Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who earlier in the evening, lost a vote that would have avoided a no-deal outcome, said he was now prepared to meet May to discuss Brexit.

The business world reacted to May's victory in the House of Commons.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said another day had been lost while the clock is ticking. "Government and parliament are still going round in circles when businesses and the public urgently need answers," he said.

Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors said: "The prime minister clearly faces a difficult task in winning a compromise on the backstop. However, if the choice is between trying to change the deal and leaving without one, business will have to hope the EU can be flexible and consider whether any legal changes at all could further clarify that the backstop is not a permanent fixture."

May plans to discuss developments with the EU ahead of returning at a later date to the British Parliament for a meaningful date needed on a deal with Brussels.

Until now Brussels has insisted that a backstop must be part of the Brexit deal to avoid a hard border between EU member state Ireland, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : The Central government is expected to issue the Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM) for the divestment of national passenger carrier Air India's ground handling subsidiary by next week.

According to a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the PIM will be issued for the strategic disinvestment of Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL).

The purpose of PIM is to provide certain information about the company to enable the interested parties to make assessment about the proposal prior to the submission of Express of Interest (EoI) bids.

Last year in November, an inter-ministerial panel, Air India Specific Alternate Mechanism, decided to divest the government's stake in AIATSL.

The amount raised from the divestment of AIATSL will be used to retire some of the accumulated debt of Air India.

AIATSL provides ground handling service at most of the airports in India. It was operationalised in February 2013 and in 2016-17 the subsidiary earned Rs 61.66 crore as profit before tax.

The inter-ministerial panel has decided to revive the national passenger carrier through sale of land and other assets and to offload its debt to an SPV which has already been incorporated.

Prior to the current move, the government had offered to sell 76 per cent stake in Air India. However, the state-owned carrier, which has accumulated losses of over Rs 48,000 crore, failed to attract any bidder.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : AgustaWestland chopper deal co-accused Rajiv Saxena and corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar were on Wednesday extradited from United Arab Emirates (UAE) for India in another breakthrough for the government which managed successful extradition of Christian Michel James in December last year, an official said.

Sources said an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team headed by an Inspector General rank officer and senior officials of Ministry of External Affairs and other officials of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) were taking them to Delhi from Dubai in a special aircraft.

The flight carrying the accused will reach Delhi anytime, sources added.

Saxena was reportedly picked up by the UAE security authorities from his residence on Wednesday morning and extradited to India in the evening for his pivotal role in laundering the money received to pay kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland scandal.

The ED in its supplementary chargesheet had elaborated on how the bribe money paid to clinch the chopper deal was "layered" and projected as "untainted money" by creating "fictitious invoices."

In its chargesheet, the ED has mentioned how fictitious engineering contracts were created to hide the kickbacks allegedly paid by AgustaWestland to companies directly controlled by lawyer Gautam Khaitan, now under ED custody, and his associate Saxena, a co-accused in the case.

A local court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Saxena, a businessman in Dubai, after the ED informed the court that he had not joined the investigation despite repeated summons against him. Saxena's name was mentioned in a chargesheet filed against his wife, Shivani, who is out on bail now after being arrested by the ED.

Saxena was named only in the third supplementary complaint filed in July 2018. The same is also under challenge before the High Court by another accused in the case, Khaitan.

A statement of Saxena's lawyer Geeta Luthra and Prateek Yadav revealed that "there was no extradition proceedings started in the UAE" and that her client was not allowed to access his family or lawyers nor did he get his essential daily medicine.

"He (Rajiv Saxena) was on board a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai International Airport. When his lawyers asked to speak to UAE state security and demanded to understand what happened, they were told he is on the flight and can't be stopped. When they queried further, they were told "ask the Indian Government".

Besides Saxena, the agencies are also bringing alleged corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar to India as he fled to Dubai after the Indian agencies started probing his role for concealing income of more than Rs 1,000 crore as well as facilitating aviation contracts during the UPA regime.

On December 4, 2018 British national and the middleman in the AgustaWestland case, Michel, 57, was brought to India following his extradition by the UAE. He is currently under ED custody.
Surat, Jan 30 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday taunted the Nehru-Gandhi family asserting that the family which ruled for four generations was "on bail and one day they will have to go."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday taunted the Nehru-Gandhi family asserting that the family which ruled for four generations was "on bail and one day they will have to go."

Addressing a massive youth conclave, where he received a cheering applause, he said, "You know one family which has ruled for four generations, the entire country used to tremble at the mere mention of the family, they had imprisoned the country for eighteen months."

"Did anyone know that one day a tea seller would challenge them?" the Prime Minister asked, as the crowd cheered.

Answering questions at the conclave, Modi said, "You know that they are now out on bail. Their henchmen are also spending their time moving from court to court." He did not name the family.

Speaking in Hindi in Bollywood style, Modi said, "Ek din unko jaana padega, jin-hone desh ko loota hain, vho unko lautana padega."

Modi said he was happy that during the four-and-a-half years of NDA rule, the people had started feeling the change that had come about in the country.

The Prime Minister said, "During the UPA regime a sense of despair had set in that nothing worthwhile can happen in India and the people were resigned to their fate. After coming to power in 2014, the first thing that my government did was to change the attitude and bring about a new hope of development."

Referring to the Mumbai terror attack, he compared it with the attack in Uri. "The then government slept after offering condolences to the victims of the Mumbai attack, but after Uri incident, we could not sleep and then you know what happened after that."

About the Uri attack, he said: "I too felt the rush of blood which was felt by the jawans on t the Rs 5 lakh which was given to us," said Deka.

The State government on December 10, 2016 had organized a public meeting here and honoured the families of the 855 martyrs of the Assam Movement who had sacrificed their lives during the six-year-long movement. The next of kin of each of the martyrs' families was given a one time financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh, a citation and a memento.

Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi while addressing the first day of the Budget session of the State Assembly on Monday said: "The Assam Government has recently proposed to pay Rs 2 lakh each to persons who suffered from bullet injuries, other serious injuries and rape victims of the Assam Movement."
New Delhi, Jan 30 : A serial rapist from east Delhi who was allegedly involved in four cases of sexual assault on minor girls, has been arrested, Delhi Police said on Wednesday.

The accused, Manish Chaddha, 30, a resident of Shakarpur was arrested on Tuesday night. He was trying to sexually assault a minor girl, 6, on a terrace in Madhu Vihar area, but the victim resisted his attempts and raised an alarm.

"Some local residents tried to catch Manish Chaddha, but he managed to escape on a two-wheeler. The locals noted the registration number of the vehicle following which he was arrested from Madhu Vihar area," said a senior police officer.

"We have arrested Manish Chaddha from Madhu Vihar area," Additional PRO, Anil Mittal told IANS.

"During interrogation, Chaddha admitted that he was also involved in four cases of sexual assault on minor girls. The investigation is under way", he said.

"Chaddha told interrogators that he lured victims by offering chocolates, biscuits and candies and took them to isolated places on his vehicle, where he sexually assaulted them", said Mittal.

"The accused was previously involved in similar cases in east Delhi's Kalyanpuri, Ghazipur, Pandev Nagar and other areas. We are investigating these cases", he said.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : India and China discussed regional and international counter-terrorism efforts during the eighth meeting of the India-China Joint Working Group on Counter-terrorism in Beijing on January 29-30, the External Affairs Ministry said on Wednesday.

"Both sides assessed and exchanged views on regional and international counter-terrorism situation, areas of mutual concerns, including cooperation at bilateral and multilateral level," it stated.

The meeting came even as China, a member of the 1267 UN committee, continues to block India's application to ban Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : Hundreds of workers affiliated to the Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress (KKMC) held a protest here on Wednesday against the BJP government's "anti-farmer policies".

Hundreds of workers affiliated to the Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress (KKMC) held a protest here on Wednesday against the BJP government's "anti-farmer policies".

The KKMC, farmers' wing of Congress party, conducted farmer marches at several places across the country from January 25, which culminated at Kisan Ghat in the national capital on Wednesday.

Addressing the gathering, KKMC chairman and ex Member of Parliament Nana Patole said the government waived off loans to the tune of Rs 3.5 lakh crore taken by select 15 industrialists but it did not have Rs 1.5 lakh crore for farmers.

"The new Congress governments in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have waived off farm loans. We will not sit idle until the BJP government announces loan waivers for farmers across the country," he said.

"There is rural distress in the country due to the anti-farmer policies of the BJP government."

He said farmers will decide who comes to power in 2019, adding that the Congress president Rahul Gandhi would be the next Prime Minister of the country.

Patole took a dig at Central farm schemes including the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, saying these did not help farmers but led to financial losses for them.

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi on his death anniversary, he appealed to farmers to restrict to non-violent ways while protesting against the Centre.

Among the protesting farmers was Rajesh Kumar from Agra, who complained of low income due to poor crop prices.

"I invested around Rs 12-13 per kilogramme of potato I cultivated. However, the prices in the market are between Rs 4-10 per kilogramme. We are incurring huge losses. The government should provide us assistance," he said.
Bengaluru, Jan 30 : Pitching for investments in diverse sectors in the hill state, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday urged companies based in Karnataka to extend their operations to the northern region.

Pitching for investments in diverse sectors in the hill state, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday urged companies based in Karnataka to extend their operations to the northern region.

"I would like Karnataka-based companies in IT, electronics, automotive, apparel, biotech, renewable energy and manufacturing to invest in our state and avail of the various benefits offered to investors," said Thakur at a roadshow on the global investors' meet in his home state at Shimla on June 10-11.

Addressing captains of industry at an interactive session, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) ahead of the 'Rising Himachal Global Investors Meet' in June, Thakur urged the tourism industry to invest in the picturesque Himalayan state, which is rich in flora and fauna.

"Since our government came to power in December 2017, we have put effort to improve the ease of doing business, as evident from higher ranking for our state by the Union government," said Thakur.

The federal government has recently ranked Himachal top among the fast movers category in ease of doing reforms.

The Baddi-Nalagarh industrial belt has emerged as a key manufacturing hub for diverse sectors and the region is known to be Asia's largest bulk drug manufacturing area.

"The global investors' meet will highlight our hill state as a place for investment and opportunities and to realise its potentiality. Your participation in the summit and its sectoral sessions will generate ideas for the development of the state," said Thakur.

Highlighting the tourism potential in the state, the BJP chief minister said as pure air and bio-diversity were the state's biggest assets, his government would strive to make Himachal a global sustainable tourism destination in the world.

"With road, rail and air connectivity under Udan across the state, Himachal is no longer at the periphery but at the centre of a vibrant and surging economy," said Thakur.

The state government is gearing up to attract investors across sectors like logistics and warehousing, aroma, food processing, biotechnology, automobiles and electric vehicles.

Himachal Industries Minister Bikram Singh said 337 reforms were taken under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) to jump 28.37 per cent with 94.13 per cent score.

Himachal Additional Chief Secretary (Industries) Manoj Kumar said the state had 1,600 acres of land bank for industries like bulk drugs pharma park and biotechnology park in Solan, textile park in Una and industrial township in Kangra and Una.

The global investors' meet in June will showcase the state's capabilities and readiness to take on business challenges. It will guide the state to wider avenues of business possibilities by implementing technology, policies, practices and strategic investments.

The meet will focus on tourism, electronics, education, skill development, Ayurveda, manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics, power and renewable energy, agro business, pharmaceuticals and food processing.

CII Karnataka Chairman N. Muthukumar said Himachal had emerged as one of the progressive states in the country and adjudged recently the best in sustainable development goals by the United Nations.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar on Wednesday assumed charge as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff here.

Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar on Wednesday assumed charge as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff here.

An alumnus of Sainik School, Amaravathi Nagar and National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, Pune, he was commissioned into the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy in July 1982.

He has held various staff and command assignments during his long naval career spanning more than three decades. Having completed his specialisation in navigation and direction at Kochi in 1989, he served as the Navigating Officer of Indian Naval Ships (INS) Beas, Nilgiri, Ranvir and Vikrant.

His other sea tenures include Commanding Officer of INS Kulish and Ranvir, and Executive Officer onboard INS Brahmaputra.

Among his shore tenures, the important ones include head of training team (Navy) at Defence Services Staff College, Wellington; Defence Advisor at the High Commission of India in Singapore and the Chief Staff Officer (Operations) of the Western Naval Command.

He has also served as Chief of Staff (CoS) of Southern Naval Command and Flag Officer Maharashtra and Gujarat (FOMAG). In the rank of Vice Admiral, he has been the Commandant of the National Defence Academy and the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
Madrid, Jan 30 : Authorities in the United Kingdom on Wednesday said two seat cushions discovered on a beach in northern France likely came from a small aircraft that went missing over the English Channel with Cardiff City FC's newly-signed striker Emiliano Sala on board.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch said its French counterpart had on Monday discovered the debris on a beach near Surtainville, which is located on the Contentin Peninsula, directly east of the English Channel island of Guernsey, reports Efe news.

The single engine PA 46 Malibu aircraft en route from Nantes to Cardiff is thought to have come down in waters to the north of Guernsey.

"From a preliminary examination we have concluded that it is likely that the cushions are from the missing aircraft," a statement from the AIIB said.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : A total of 512 cases of Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) has been registered with no deaths reported in the national capital till Tuesday, the Delhi government said on Wednesday.

The government has directed all its hospital to make local purchases of logistics required to ensure a continuous supply of medicine, vaccine and kits.

"All government hospitals are equipped with the necessary logistics required for the management of Seasonal Influenza (H1N1)," the government said in a statement.

"Collection and compilation of confirmed swine flu cases from various reporting units and labs with complete line listing is being done at the state level. The compiled report is shared with districts for timely surveillance activities and preventive measure," the government said, adding that there had been 512 cases in Delhi so far of Seasonal Influenza till January 29.

According to the advisory issued by Delhi's Directorate General of Health Services, Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, airborne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated by the act of coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission like telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, doorbells, pens, toys) and close contact (including handshaking, hugging, kissing).

"The symptoms include fever and cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, difficulty in breathing. Other symptoms may include body aches, headache, fatigue, chills, diarrhea and vomiting and blood-stained sputum," it said.

The advisory also stated that children with mild illness but with predisposing risk factors, pregnant women, persons aged 65 years or older, patients with lung diseases, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, blood disorders, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer and HIV/AIDS, patients on long term cortisone therapy are under the high risk group.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : The Leela Hotels acquisition by various suitors has taken a turn for the worse.

JM Financial has reportedly filed a suit in the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) last Thursday against the Nair brothers Vivek Nair (Guarantor) and Dinesh Nair (Guarantor) on the basis of a legal notice issued by Khaitan and Co on November 12 last year on behalf of its client SBI Cap Trustee Company against Hotel Leelaventure (Borrower), Leela Lace Holdings Pvt Ltd (Pledgor/Guarantor), Rockfort Estate Developers Pvt Ltd (Pledgor) and Leela Lace Software Solutions Pvt Ltd (Pledgor).

IANS tried contacting Anil Bhatia, MD of JM Financial Services, for a response but he failed to revert both on voice and text. On November 5, 2018, in another similar manoeuvre T Selvi Laxman, Advocate High Court on behalf of his client SBI, had filed a legal notice against Hotel Leelaventrue and various officials including Vivek Nair CMD and his brother Dinesh Nair co CMD.

The process calls for a two-week period before NCLT accepts the JMF petition for bankruptcy proceedings. In the interregnum, it is believed that JMF will try to pressurise the Nairs to sign with Brookfield. As explained in Tuesday's story on the race for Leela by IANS, the other two suitors - Rashid Al Habtoor and Thai Group Minor International - have been asked to cough up earnest deposit money which runs into hundreds of crores. Brookfield did not face this imponderable.

After the failure of its corporate debt-restructuring plan in 2014, the Mumbai-based hospitality company transferred loans from 14 creditors to Nimesh Kampani-owned asset restructuring firm JM Financial ARC (JMARC). In September 2017, it allotted over 160 million shares worth about Rs 275 crore to JMARC on conversion of debt to equity. JMARC owns 26% in Hotel Leela Venture.

After ARC JM Financial (JMF) took over the loan portfolio, it converted 26 per cent of the debt into equity and the balance 25 per cent equity is with the public and 49 per cent with the promoters Nair family.

Brookfield Asset Management of Canada pitched for its acquisition in 2018. However, the Kampanis rejected all the bids and retained only Brookfield in the fray who conducted due diligence for the said takeover. As part of this deal, a large parcel of land in Agra designated for another Leela Hotel will go to Brookfield along with four marquee properties.
Beijing, Jan 30 (IANS) China, which has repeatedly blocked Indian's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), said on Wednesday it is opposed to double standard in enforcing the NPT as P-5 members of the UN Security Council gathered here to discuss nuclear proliferation.

Beijing opposes India's bid to enter the 48-member NSG, citing New Delhi's non-signatory status to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a prerequisite to becoming the member of the elite nuclear trade regulation watchdog.

This frustrates India as most NSG members, including the US and Russia, have supported its entry into the bloc due to its clean nuclear record. In fact, China supports its ally Pakistan's bid to be the member, citing the exception being made to New Delhi.

"It (NPT) has played an important role in all the three aspects and China is committed to all three important goals of the treaty," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said here.

"We believe that the international community should stick to multilateralism and promote progress the three pillars namely non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

"We believe we should conduct wide consultations and look for practical measures by opposing double standards in enforcing the treaty," he said in an oblique reference to India.

"We believe we should enhance its authority and effectiveness, universality and do a better job in preventing nuclear proliferation," he said.
Tunis, Jan 30 : In its first evacuations to Niger this year, the UN refugee agency has flown 130 people to Niamey from Libya, where they were held for months in detention centres in "very dire" conditions, the UN said on Tuesday.

In its first evacuations to Niger this year, the UN refugee agency has flown 130 people to Niamey from Libya, where they were held for months in detention centres in "very dire" conditions, the UN said on Tuesday.

"Those evacuated today exemplify once again the urgency of ending detention of refugees and migrants in Libya," said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean.

"Until that happens, evacuations will remain quite literally a life-line," Cochetel said.

People evacuated to Niger are hosted at UNHCR's Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niamey until they can be resettled, UNHCR said, appealing to countries to speed up their procedures to make available more place.

UNHCR said it has evacuated 3,016 people from turmoil-wracked Libya since December 2017 and has received a total 39,698 crucial places for vulnerable refugees in the 15 countries along the Central Mediterranean route in response to its call for 40,000 resettlement places.

Besides the evacuations to Niger, a total 93 refugees from Syria, Sudan and Eritrea have been flown from Tripoli to Timisoara, in western Romania, this year, with logistical help from the International Organisation for Migration, according to the UN.
New Delhi, Jan 29 (IANS) With the Centre moving Supreme Court seeking its nod for giving a part of the 67 acres of the undisputed land to Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas and other original owners, the BJP on Tuesday played another card which may give a new spin to country's political scenario ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Although the BJP maintained that the move was not politically motivated, its leader were of the view that the decision could prove to be a game changer at least in Uttar Pradesh where the SP and the BSP have forged an alliance and the Congress has played its trump card by fielding Priyanka Gandhi as in-charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh.

They feel that the move would set the party's agenda in the state which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and would also send out a message that Modi government is serious about its promises.

"Modi ji had made it clear that an ordinance to build Ram temple would arise only after the Supreme Court, which is hearing the matter, delivers its verdict. But there has been delay in the case. So the government came out with this move," a senior party official told IANS.

Another party leader said it would also ease the pressure on the government which is being continuously built by the VHP and the RSS.

"It would pacify the anger of the Hindu community, especially the sadhu-sants. You have seen the VHP has welcomed the move," he said.

The government has been under pressure from various saffron outfits which had been demanding an ordinance facilitating the temple construction. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat demanded legislation on it.

The government's move came days ahead of the VHP's Dharma Sansad in Prayagraj on the sidelines of Kumbh.

"The government was not under pressure due to the RSS or the VHP. In fact it was under pressure from the people. An image was in the making that the Modi government was no different from others and that Ram temple would remain a dream for them. To some extent, the government's move would pacify them for the time being," said a VHP leader.

Meanwhile, sources in BJP said the decision would change the public discourse in Uttar Pradesh once the top Court gives its nod to government to give the undisputed land to Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas.

"First the alliance between SP and the BSP changed the public discourse followed by appointment of Priyanka Gandhi. But today's master stroke would be above all. If the court gives its judgement alead of the polls, it could be a game changer," said a BJP source.

On the last day of the recently concluded Winter session of Parliament, the government passed the Constitution Amendment Bill to provide 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections of the general categories.

This move of the government was seen as an attempt to woo the upper caste votes whose ire the BJP faced in Assembly polls of the Hindi heartland of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

"After 10 per cent quota for upper castes, the move on Ram temple would turn things in party's favour. This would send out a good message among the core voters of the BJP who are very emotional about the temple," said a BJP leader said.

( can be contacted at brajendra.n@ians.in)
Lucknow, Jan 29 (IANS) On a day the Union government sought Supreme Court permission to hand over the "undisputed" land in Ayodhya to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, the stakeholders in the temple town reacted with cautious optimism, saying this could be the way out to the long legal tangle.

The main litigant from the Muslim side, Iqbal Ansari, said he did not have any objection to the move by the Modi government.

"The dispute is about the 2.77-acre land where the Babri mosque once stood," he said. "The land other than this is in possession of the government...there are temples on it, a graveyard, houses...we have no objection whatever is done of the land. But the matter as to where the mosque once stood will be decided by the Supreme Court," Ansari told IANS.

He charged the BJP government at the Centre with "playing politics on the issue" as the Lok Sabha elections are around the corner. He said the Union government had in 1993 acquired 67 acres of land. For the land excluding the 2.77 acres, no one had much of a problem.

Ansari has on many occasions said that he wanted an amicable, just and peaceful solution to the problem.

From the Hindu side, the chief priest of the Ram Lalla, seated in a makeshift temple on the site where Babri mosque was demolished, Acharya Satyendra Das says that while there was no problem from their side in the Union government getting back the remaining land, the Ram temple cannot be built unless the 2.77 acre title suit is settled.

Meanwhile Zafaryab Jilani, member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), has said that the apex court had ordered status quo and if the Union government does anything in contravention, he will challenge it in the Supreme Court.

Talking to IANS, the convener of Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) said that "so far an application has been moved by the Centre and the court is still to take cognisance. In case it does, we will file an objection".

"We will also challenge the government's move as the government cannot take sides on such issues. It can be an agenda of a political party, but not of a government," he said emphatically while adding that by all logical and legal standards, the application has no basis.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, meanwhile, told reporters in Prayagraj that he welcomed the move of the Central government. "I welcome the step. The undisputed land should be given to us for temple construction" he added.

Paras Gupta, a grocery show owner in the temple town, though, sounded concerned at the "growing activity" on the Ram temple issue as Lok Sabha polls draw near. He said any peaceful settlement was welcome.

"We want peace and kaam-dhandha (work) to run smoothly. The government must keep this in mind while deciding anything on the sensitive issue," he told IANS.

( can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
Contai : , Jan 29 (IANS) A Trinamool Congress party office was vandalised and several buses of BJP workers were set ablaze in a clash between activists of the two parties following the saffron party President Amit Shah's rally in West Bengal's Contai on Tuesday.

, Jan 29 (IANS) A Trinamool Congress party office was vandalised and several buses of BJP workers were set ablaze in a clash between activists of the two parties following the saffron party President Amit Shah's rally in West Bengal's Contai on Tuesday.

While BJP accused the hooligans backed by Trinamool Congress of attacking their party workers on their way back from Shah's rally, the state ruling party leaders blamed BJP supporters for the vandalism.

"When Amit Shah's rally was going on, they (Trinamool supporters) attacked our supporters. They did not even spare women activists. Two of our women activists were pushed into ponds,"

"They also threw stones at the buses ferrying BJP supporters and torched a number of vehicles. The saddest thing is the entire incident took place in front of police, but they did not take any action," BJP National Secretary Rahul Sinha said.

West Bengal Minister and Trinamool leader Subhendu Adhikari, however, refuted the charge and accused the BJP supporters of conducting "pre-planned terror".

He claimed that the offenders would have to pay a "heavy price" for their actions.

"If they came to attend the rally, why were they carrying sticks, rods and bombs? They planned to conduct vandalism. These people were once with the Left Front, now they have joined BJP. They will have to pay a price for this," Adhikari said.

"BJP workers attacked our party offices and this led to retaliation by our workers. If our party office is attacked, are we going to offer sweets?" he said.

Earlier in the day, Shah addressed a public rally in the area where he launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee government on several issues, including chit fund scams, and illegal infiltration and urged people to uproot the Trinamool Congress regime.
New Delhi, Jan 29 : Following delegation-level talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Chingiz Azamatovich Aidarbekov here on Tuesday, India and Kyrgyzstan agreed to fight terrorism and radicalisation together, besides expanding cooperation in development partnership, among other areas.

Following delegation-level talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Chingiz Azamatovich Aidarbekov here on Tuesday, India and Kyrgyzstan agreed to fight terrorism and radicalisation together, besides expanding cooperation in development partnership, among other areas.

"Acknowledging the threat posed by terrorism and radicalisation to their societies, the two ministers agreed to work together to fight the scourge of terrorism and cooperate in exchanging experience in the field of deradicalisation," the External Affairs Ministry said in statement issued after the meeting.

"Cooperation in the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was reviewed in detail."

The SCO is a Eurasian inter-governmental organisation, the creation of which was announced in 2001 in Shanghai by Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism. India, along with Pakistan, was granted full membership of the bloc in 2017.

According to the Ministry statement, the two ministers also held wide-ranging discussions on bilateral, regional and multilateral issues of mutual interest.

"Noting the close cultural and historical ties between India and Kyrgyzstan and reiterating the importance the two countries attach to their bilateral relationship, the ministers agreed to expand India-Kyrgyz cooperation in a number of areas, particularly in the field of development partnership," it stated.

Aidarbekov briefed Sushma Swaraj on Kyrgyzstan's efforts to liberalise its economy, create business friendly conditions and attract foreign investment including that from Indian companies.

"Giving an overview of new infrastructure projects in Kyrgyzstan, including in the fields of railways and hydro-electricity, Foreign Minister Aidarbekov invited India to participate in such projects," the statement said.

"Presence of more than 9,000 Indian students in various Kyrgyz educational institutions was noted in the context of the potential to enhance cooperation in the field of education by encouraging collaboration between universities of both countries."

Other areas that came up for discussion were defence cooperation, capacity building, training, IT and e-governance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, tourism, movie production and culture.

The two leaders also recalled the first-ever India-Central Asia Dialogue held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan at the level of foreign ministers earlier this month and discussed the importance of this initiative in creating a platform for region-wide cooperation which would bring benefits to all the participating countries in terms of enhanced trade and economic cooperation and connectivity.

Commercial ties between the two countries have been modest with bilateral trade heavily in India's favour.

According to figures provided by the External Affairs Ministry, the India-Kyrgyzstan bilateral trade stood at $24.98 million in 2016-17.

India's exports to Kyrgyzstan was $22.66 million, whereas Kyrgyz exports to India was $2.32 million.

As the SCO Chair this year, Aidarbekov, during the meeting, also reiterated the invitation extended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the SCO Summit to be held in Kyrgyzstan.

Aidarbekov arrived here on Sunday an a five-day visit to India.

He called on Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu and held a meeting with Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla, besides addressing an India-Kyrgyzstan Business Forum.
New Delhi, Jan 29 : To celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between India and Bhutan, an exhibition of rare thangka paintings, sculptures and photographs associated with Guru Padmasambhava, an iconic Buddhist figure, opened here on Tuesday.

To celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between India and Bhutan, an exhibition of rare thangka paintings, sculptures and photographs associated with Guru Padmasambhava, an iconic Buddhist figure, opened here on Tuesday.

The exhibition that celebrates his life and legacy, brings to visitors traditional art created in the Himalayan regions, focussing on the sage, who was born to the royal family of Uddiyana in Swat (in present-day Pakistan) in the 8th century.

Many exhibits of visual depictions of the leader's 'eight manifestations', which come from various artists in India, Bhutan and Nepal, are a testimony of the iconography that he still inspires.

Photographs of monasteries related to him -- Lo Gekar (Nepal), Taktsang (Bhutan), and Hemis (Ladakh) -- also feature in the show, including an image of his footprint on a rock in Sikkim's Chungthang.

The carefully-curated show displays rare thangkas, paintings, sculptures and photographs contributed by the ruler of Bhutan, Tsurphu Labrang, Office of H.H. Gyalwang Karmapa (Dharamshala), Palpung Sherabling Monastic seat of H.E. 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, Delhi's Tibet House, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamshala), Deb Mukharji and Tashi Lhendup.

Credited with having spread Buddha's message to the Himalayan belt -- Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet -- the Buddhist leader left his imprint in these regions as monuments, relics and folklore associated with his spiritual and religious activities.

"India and Bhutan have had a relationship at least from the 8th century, when Guru Padmasambhava travelled to Bhutan. This 50-year bubble of diplomatic relations must be seen in the larger context of these 12 centuries which bind us together," Arun Kapur, the director of one of the organisers of Centre for Escalation of Peace, told IANS.

The exhibition of rare artefacts is accompanying a two-day conference on the sage's life and legacy, often called 'Second Buddha', and brought together distinguished scholars from India, Nepal and Bhutan, who traced the contemporary relevance of his teachings and a rich, diverse tradition associated with the 8th century Rinpoche.

Calling him a 'timeless guru', President of Centre for Bhutan Studies Dasho Karma Ura highlighted the inclusive and cosmopolitan approach the revered figure had towards his disciples, who came from all racial backgrounds and ethnicities.

Conference sessions range from local contexts associated with Guru Padmasambhava, texts and commentaries, ritual practices, mandalas and iconography central to Vajrayana Buddhism.

The conference concludes Wednesday, and the exhibition on February 3.
New Delhi, Jan 29 : Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, during his visit to India in November last year, was seen showing off a tattoo on his left hand to Congress President Rahul Gandhi as he discussed with him some of the steps being taken to sanitise his platform in the country.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, during his visit to India in November last year, was seen showing off a tattoo on his left hand to Congress President Rahul Gandhi as he discussed with him some of the steps being taken to sanitise his platform in the country.

Despite the bonhomie and some great snaps during the India visit, the ground reality is that there is no India head at Twitter for a couple of months now as the country faces general election, amid the growing debate over the spread of misinformation, hate, abuse and fake news on various social media platforms, including Twitter.

After Taranjeet Singh, who was elevated as Twitter's Country Director for India in May 2017, quit the company in September last year, the micro-blogging platform which has over 30 million users in India (according to statista.com), has remained headless.

This at a time when the Indian government has formulated new IT guidelines where social media platforms have to remove within 24 hours any unlawful content that can affect the "sovereignty and integrity of India". The new rules are open for public comment till January 31.

Is the top job at Twitter India full of unforeseen challenges for traditional CEOs who are unable to work their way around the changed dynamics of social media in the digital age?

"Only native, home-grown young CEOs in their 30s-40s will work as social media heads as only they can understand the changed preferences of the young and the millennial users," Thomas George, Senior Vice President and Head-CyberMedia Research & Services Ltd. (CMR), told IANS.

In the last few months, Twitter India has seen several key exits.

Twitter's Senior Director for Business Development for the Asia Pacific region Arvinder Gujral was moved to Singapore and Anupam Dikhit, Twitter's Industry Head in India, was also transferred to Singapor, amid others.

"Social media platforms need young, dynamic home-grown leadership to handle the new-age pressures," George added.

Even as the Twitter CEO was busy meeting top leaders during his India visit, the government pulled up the social network for being "slow" in removing "objectionable content" from its platform.

Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in his meeting with two top Twitter executives - Vijaya Gadde, Global Head of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety, and Mahima Kaul, Public Policy head in India - asked them "to ensure a 24A7 mechanism for prompt disposal of requisitions of law enforcement agencies for deletion of unlawful/ objectionable content from their platform".

According to Dorsey, he came to India to find out where the gaps are.

"One of the reasons why I'm here in the first place is to understand how to do that and understand where the gaps are," Dorsey had told IANS in an interview.

"India remains a top priority market for us and we're making sure we understand how people use it here so that we can make it better," said the 42-year-old who is yet to finalise an India head.

(This story is a copyright of IANS)
Lucknow, Jan 30 : A war of words broke out between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday after Tharoor commented on a holy dip taken by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his ministerial colleagues at Kumbh in Prayagraj.

Tharoor took to Twitter to swipe at the UP BJP leaders and captioned an image of them bathing at the Sangam by saying : Ganga has to remain clean and sins are also to be washed. All here are naked. Jai Ganga Maiyya!

While many thought this was satirical, the state BJP reacted sharply to this on Wednesday with state government spokesman Siddhartha Nath Singh urging the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala to "also take a dip in the Ganga to atone for his sins".

"You are requested to take a dip as you all have done a lot of sins, maybe you can atone for them", the state's Health Minister said.
Mumbai, Jan 30 : Dewan Housing Finance Corp (DHFL) continued to witness heavy selling pressure on Wednesday, falling over 10 per cent, a day after news website Cobrapost claimed that the primary promoters of DHFL siphoned off over Rs 31,000 crore of public money.

During the afternoon session on BSE, the DHFL stock recovered somewhat and was trading 5.47 per cent lower at Rs 160.75 per share. The scrip had slumped at one point over 10 per cent to touch a low of Rs 153.50 per share.

On Tuesday, the Cobrapost website alleged that DHFL promoters routed money through dubious companies and parked it outside India to acquire assets, following which the company's scrip closed more than 8 per cent lower than its previous close.

The company on Tuesday rejected the Cobrapost allegations, calling them "mischievous misadventures" done with mala fide intent. DHFL said it had met all its obligations to its lenders by paying them back over Rs 17,000 crore in the last three months.
Dehradun, Jan 30 : After remaining trapped in heavy snowfall for more than a week, four friends from Delhi were rescued late Tuesday evening from an Uttarakhand hotel, police officials said on Wednesday.

"We have rescued the four people from a hotel in Chakrata hills after a day-long rescue operation," said Director General of Police Anil Raturi.

All four, who are friends working in a private international airline, left Chakrata for Delhi at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday.

"Thank god, we are safe. But definitely, I would love to come back to Lokhandi in Chakrata again. We are thankful to local people and hotel owners who were very helpful during our tough days," said Syed Afshan Qadri, who with her three male friends was trapped in the Lokhandi hotel in Chakrata hills for more than nine days.

Police and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel trekked more than 12 km to reach the snow-laden Lokhandi at around 6 p.m. on Tuesday and brought them back to Chakrata.

"It was a very tough exercise as we trekked miles together to reach Lokhandi by clearing snow. Even while coming back, we faced difficulty because of the darkness," said Anup Nayal, the Station House Officer (SHO) of Chakrata.

Qadri was not happy with the government's response and failed to understand why they were not rescued by a helicopter.

"In such cases, the government usually rescues trapped people with a helicopter. But we were told to come from Lokhandi on our own initially. But after the stories done by the media, the pressure was built up on the government which launched the rescue operation," said Qadri.

The four tourists faced tough time in the hotel due to acute shortage of food and water for several days. There was also no electricity in the area.

"We are thankful to the locals who gave us food and water. But this experience will not deter us to come back to Lokhandi again," she said.
New Delhi, Jan 29 : Ruling out an alliance with the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said on Tuesday that it will decide the final list of candidates for Delhi's seven Lok Sabha seats in the first week of February after reviewing the performance of those named in charge of the seats.

"The party will announce its candidates for all the seven seats in Delhi in the first week of next month," senior party leader Gopal Rai, a Minister in the Arvind Kejriwal government, told IANS.

In June last year, the AAP had appointed five Lok Sabha in-charges for the parliamentary constituencies of Delhi: Pankaj Gupta (Chandni Chowk), Dilip Kumar Pandey (North East Delhi), Raghav Chadhha (South Delhi), Atishi (East Delhi) and Guggan Singh Ranga (North West Delhi).

There was speculation that the party had left the remaining two seats for Congress so that they contest the Lok Sabha polls as allies. In October, the AAP announced its in-chage for the New Delhi and West Delhi seats.

Brijesh Goyal wa> As the sun prepared to hide behind the Raisina Hill, silhouettes of men astride horses appeared on top of the Hill. It was the Presidents Bodyguard strutting down to the Vijay Chowk flanking the Presidents limousine for Beating the Retreat ceremony.

The Vice President, the Prime Minister and other dignitaries had already arrived at the Vijay Chowk and the threes services chiefs stood in rapt attention waiting for the Supreme Commander of the Indian armed forces.

The ceremony on January 29 every year, which creates nostalgia for the times gone by, marks the culmination of the Republic Day celebrations.

This year, Indian tunes were the flavour of as many as 27 performances, with 19 tunes composed by Indian musicians from the Army, Navy, Air Force, police and Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).

The Indian tunes included 'Indian Star', 'Paharon ki Rani', 'Kumaoni Geet', 'Jai Janam Bhumi', 'Queen of Satpura', 'Marooni', 'Vijay', 'Soldier-My Valentine', 'Bhupal', 'Vijay Bharat', 'Aakash Ganga', 'Gangotri', 'Namaste India', 'Samudrika', 'Jai Bharat', 'Young India', 'Veerta Ki Misal', 'Amar Senani' and 'Bhumiputra'.

The eight Western tunes were 'Fanfare by Buglers', 'Sound Barrier', 'Emblazoned', 'Twilight', 'Alert (Post Horn Gallop)', 'Space Flight', 'Drummers Call' and 'Abide with Me'.

'Beating the Retreat' marks a centuries old military tradition, when the troops ceased fighting, sheathed their arms and withdrew from the battlefield and returned to the camps at sunset.

The present ceremony traces its origins to the early 1950s when Major Roberts of the Indian Army developed the unique ceremony of display by the massed bands.

The colourful event came to a close with the marching bands tapping their way back to the tune of 'Sare Jahan Se Achcha' amid thumping applause from the audience.

The BSF camels along with armed troopers that were stationed on the facade of the North and South Blocks made their way back to the camp.

As soon as the sun went down, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, North Block, South Block and Parliament House building were illuminated with dynamic lights that kept changing colour and brightness.
San Francisco, Jan 30 : Google has released a new interface design for the mobile version of Gmail that includes new visual implementations as well as feature additions.

As part of the new design, users will be able to quickly view attachments like photos without having to open or scroll through the entire conversation, Nikolus Ray, Product Manager, Gmail, Google wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

The new design is intended to make switching between personal and professional accounts smoother to enable users to access their emails quicker.

"Just like on Gmail web, you'll get big, red warnings to alert you when something looks phish-y," Ray said.

The update is aimed at making 'G Suite' look and act like a family of products designed in the "Google Material Theme."

"We've already updated the web experiences for Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and most recently Google Docs and Sites, and more G Suite mobile apps to follow later this year," Ray added.

Along with tweaks in the interface, in April 2018 Google added a plethora of new features on Gmail for web including the "Nudge" feature for quick message reminders, "Smart Reply" feature and a "Confidential Mode" that allows users to remove the option to forward, copy, download or print a message.

The new Gmail design for mobile is expected to reach all iOS and Android users in the coming weeks, the post noted.
New Delhi, Jan 30 : Chef Ranveer Brar feels every country has an identity stamp and India holds the fort for its flavours which is distinct and authentic hence important to be showcased.

By Nivedita Chef Ranveer Brar feels every country has an identity stamp and India holds the fort for its flavours which is distinct and authentic hence important to be showcased.

"Every country has an identity stamp and whether we like it or not our flavours are our distinct and authentic identity stamp and hence anything to do with our culture needs to be showcased because that's eventually our identity," Brar told IANS over an email when asked about emphasising on the importance of promoting local culture through food.

He was talking on the sidelines of the launch of Kellogg's India's new range of Corn Flakes -- Thandai Badam, Kesar Pista Badam and Rose Badam that have been created in consultation with Brar.

These variants are inspired by flavours that Indians have a strong cultural connect to, he said.

Talking about the memories growing up with these flavours, the popular chef said: "For me Lucknow has a lot to do with who and what I am today. Being a Punjabi also and when the medium is milk, it comes naturally to Indians in particular.

"Like I always say, Kesar Pista is a combination that has been ingrained in us as mithai. Similarly, chilled milk has been ingrained into our heads as Rose, whether its Falooda or Roohafza; and festive milk has been ingrained as Thandai, especially for most North Indians."

"For ingredients and flavours that have such a large time stamp and memories attached, it makes sense to evoke those instinctively natural flavours first," he said.

"These flavours cross all age barriers -- to the new generation they are still fascinating and to the older ones, they still evoke a sense of nostalgia -- these are flavours all of us connect with," he added.

Brar's television shows include "Breakfast Xpress", "Snack Attack" , "Homemade", "The Great Indian Rasoi" and "Thank God It's Fryday".

He was also one of the judges for Season four of "MasterChef India", based on the British competitive cooking game show, "MasterChef", alongside fellow chefs Sanjeev Kapoor and Vikas Khanna.

Talking about local cuisine that often gets affected according to the number of tourists or the western influence, he told IANS, "I think it's a natural balance that gets struck, I don't think we should force ourselves on food either way, because that's the worst thing you can do.

"So, if you are trying too hard to please non-Indians that's too bad and trying too hard to be Indian by not pleasing any non-Indian that's also bad."

"I think letting food evolve naturally, is the only way," Brar said.

And what about food being industralised on a global scale?

"With the kind of population growth that we have and the challenges that we are looking at it is only natural, we use science and technology to help us.

"At the same time, the involvement of a chef in that process is a must because there has to be some custodian of a cultural and flavour identity to guide you through the whole process," he told IANS.

(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)
Mexico City, Jan 30 : Former Mexico international defender Carlos Salcido has joined Veracruz on a free transfer as he extends his professional career to a 19th year, the Liga MX club said.

The 38-year-old signed with Veracruz until the end of the current season, having parted ways with Guadalajara last month, reports Xinhua news agency.

"After reaching an agreement with the board... (Carlos) will be reinforcing the squad to contribute his experience and leadership for the remainder of the Clausura (tournament)," Veracruz said in a statement.

Salcido, who has been capped 124 times for Mexico's national team, made 117 league appearances for Guadalajara after joining the club from Tigres UANL in 2014.

Veracruz are currently 17th in the 18-team Clausura standings with a draw and three losses to date.
Patna, Jan 30 : The Bihar government on Wednesday lifted a ban here on the sale, storage and transportation of fish from Andhra Pradesh.

Earlier in January, the government banned fish from Andhra Pradesh in Patna after laboratory tests confirmed the presence of high content of formalin, a cancer-inducing chemical used in preserving fish.

After Bihar banned the fish in Patna, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu urged his counterpart Nitish Kumar to take steps to restore the fish trade in the larger interest of farmers and all those engaged in fisheries.
Washington, Jan 30 : North Korea is unlikely to fully give up its nuclear weapons, a US telligence report has said, weeks ahead of a proposed Kim-Trump meet.

North Korea remas "unlikely to give up" its weapon stockpiles and production abilities while it tries to negotiate "partial denuclearisation steps to obta key US and ternational concessions", the Worldwide Threat Assessment report said.

Havg nuclear weapons is seen as "critical to regime survival", the BBC quoted it as sayg.

US President Donald Trump was expected to meet North Korea's Kim Jong-un the second summit between the two countries by February-end.

Trump-Kim met Sgapore June 2018, to discuss denuclearisation of the Korean pensula, but little progress has been made sce then on the issue.

The report also said Iran was not makg nuclear weapons, but that cyber threats from Cha and Russia were a growg concern, the BBC report. Both countries might be seekg to fluence the 2020 election, it said.

National telligence director Dan Coats and other telligence chiefs presented the report at the Senate on Tuesday.

What the report highlights stead is a growg threat from Cha and Russia, which are "more aligned than at any pot sce the mid-1950s".

Both countries have sophisticated "cyber espionage" capabilities, which they may try to use to fluence the 2020 US presidential election, the BBC reported.

The report also said Iran was not currently makg nuclear weapons, although it said the country's "regional ambitions and improved military capabilities" would probably threaten US terests the future.
Caracas, Jan 30 : Venezuela's Supreme Court has banned opposition leader Juan Guaido from leavg the country and frozen his bank accounts, media reports said.

The court, which is loyal to President Nicolas Maduro, quickly approved the measures on Tuesday after Attorney General Tarek William Saab asked it to take "precautionary measures" agast Guaido, the BBC reported.

The opposition leader "is prohibited from leavg the country" until a prelimary probe is completed on the "harm causede to peace the republic", Justice Maikel Moreno said.

As leader of the National Assembly, Guaido has immunity from prosecution unless subject to a rulg by the apex court.

Speakg to journalists as he arrived at the parliament, the opposition leader reportedly said the moves were "nothg new".

"I'm not dismissg the threats, the persecution at this time, but we're here, we're contug to do our jobs," he added.

The court decision comes shortly after the US said it had handed control of Venezuela's US bank accounts to Guaido, whom it now regarded as the country's legitimate president, the BBC said.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton responded to the court's move with a tweet warng of "serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido".

The ban comes amid an escalatg power struggle, after Guaido declared himself terim president last week.

He has been backed by the US and other countries. Maduro has major allies too, cludg Russia.

A group of North and South American countries has meanwhile opposed any outside military volvement, the BBC report added.

Peru's Foreign Mister Nestor Popolizio said the Lima Group -- a 14-nation body, cludg Canada, set up 2017 to fd a peaceful solution to the crisis Venezuela -- has been opposed to "military tervention".

Even as the US have stated that all options to resolve the crisis "are on the table".

Venezuela has been facg acute economic crisis and there has been an upsurge violence.

Protests have been held across the country sce Maduro began his second term on January 10. He was elected 2018 durg a controversial vote which many opposition candidates were barred from runng, or jailed.

At least 40 people are believed to have died and hundreds have been arrested sce January 21, the UN said.

Hyperflation and shortages of essentials such as food and medice have forced millions to flee the nation.
Mumbai, Jan 29 : Celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor is all set to spread the message of the importance of clean cooking with a cooking demonstration here.

Clean Cooking Alliance along with Tata Trusts and other partners will be launching Alliance's behaviour change campaign in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat on January 31 here. And he will be holding a demonstration as part of the event, read a statement.

Over the next six months, the campaign will promote the use of cleaner, more modern stoves and fuels that can improve health and protect the climate and environment.

"This has been a great opportunity for me to exercise my social responsibilities and raise awareness about the harmful health, climate, environment, and gender impacts of cooking over polluting open fires and inefficient stoves.

"As a culinary expert and renowned chef, it becomes my responsibility to inspire millions of Indians and help them in creating a healthy and sustainable environment by opting for clean cooking devices," Sanjeev said.
Shimla, Jan 29 : Congress leader and six-time former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who was diagnosed positive for swine flu, has been discharged, doctors said on Tuesday.

"Virbhadra Singh was discharged today (Tuesday) after recovering from swine flu," Janak Raj, Medical Superintendent with the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in Shimla, told reporters.

He was hospitalised on Sunday with congestion and breathing trouble. Late Monday, he was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

Forty-four people have so far tested positive for swine flu in the state.

Eighteen patients were reported in Kangra district, followed by 12 in Shimla. Nine lost their lives due to the virus, officials said.
Kochi, Jan 29 : In what's seen as the launch of the Congress-led UDF's election campaign in Kerala to the Lok Sabha polls, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed both the BJP and the CPI-M for dividing the people.

Gandhi said this to over 50,000 activists, including 25,000 women, from booth committees of his party.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has wasted five years of India's time by telling one lie after another. He said two crore jobs would be created every year but what happened was that 15 of his close business friends got a maximum income guarantee when thousands of youths got nothing," said Gandhi.

He told the gathering that the first thing a Congress-led government would do after the Lok Sabha polls would be to pass the Women's Reservation Bill.

"Like we wrote off farm loans in the three states that we just won, we will do it for the entire country. We will make up for the lapses of the Modi government by providing for low cost high quality education, improving livelihood by creating a minimum income guarantee scheme that will be credited directly to the bank account of every poor person beside improving the health and education sectors," added Gandhi.

He said that Modi had destroyed not just several institutions but also even the judiciary and had come up with a fundamentally flawed GST.

"Four Supreme Court judges went to the media to say they are unable to work. The CBI chief was reinstated by the apex court but within hours Modi transferred him out. We assure the people that we will restructure the GST which will remove all the flaws," said Gandhi.

Lashing out at the CPI-M government in Kerala, he said both the BJP and the CPI-M were one and the same and only their people have benefitted from government schemes.

"It's been months since Kerala was hit by the worst ever floods and the promises of rebuilding Kerala by the CPI-M government here has not reached anywhere. Like the BJP cadres, this Left government has done only things that have benefited its cadres.

"Both these parties created an orgy of violence. No jobs have been created for the youths here. Just like Modi, they ignored the farmers. Here also the same thing has happened and as a result Kerala has gone back," said Gandhi.

He said the Congress respects the right of women, tradition and culture of the state.

"The Congress is the only party that can keep all the people together... Just as we fought the BJP in the three states that we won, in Kerala we will fight the CPI-M. While BJP and CPI-M says they have the cadres, you (Congress workers) should not underestimate yourselves. Please do not forget that it was the Congress which fought the British while the RSS was on its knees before the British," said Gandhi to loud clapping.

"The CPI-M and BJP are convinced they have the answer for everything. But since you are humble, we can convince the people of India that we are going to beat both Modi and the CPI-M and then we will give a government that works for the people," added Gandhi.

Gandhi arrived here in the afternoon and first drove to the residence of late Congress leader M.I. Shanawaz, the Wayanad Lok Sabha member who passed away in November.

After that he drove to the venue to address the party meeting.
New Delhi: National School of Drama (NSD) Director In-charge Suresh Sharma addresses during the press conference regarding 20th Bharat Rang Mahotsav in New Delhi on Jan 29, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi: National School of Drama (NSD) Director In-charge Suresh Sharma addresses during the press conference regarding 20th Bharat Rang Mahotsav in New Delhi on Jan 29, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Jan 29 : The 20th edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav, the annual theatre festival of the National School of Drama (NSD), will bring to theatre lovers of six cities its bouquet of plays, interactive sessions and other cultural events from Friday.

The international theatre festival will kick off here on February 1, bringing a diverse range of Indian and international productions comprising 125 shows in multiple languages.

The opening play 'Karanth ke Rang', directed by Amod Bhatt, is a medley of songs composed by late B.V. Karanth, a stalwart of Kannada and Hindi theatre.

The 21-day festival will celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and four plays will be staged on the life, philosophy and principles of 'Bapu'.

Delhi will host 89 plays: 25 plays in Hindi, 16 in Bengali, 5 in Kannada, 2 in Marathi, 2 in Odia, 2 in Gujarati, 2 in Manipuri, 3 in English, 2 in Assamese, 2 in Malayalam and 1 each in Maithili, Telugu, Nepali and Sanskrit, in addition to 15 global plays.

The festival also brings eight folk performances to theatre aficionados in the city.

International productions from countries such as Bangladesh, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic, Italy, Nepal, Romania and Singapore as well as non-verbal, folk and multi-lingual performances will enthrall the audience.

"The Delhi performances will be held at Bahumukh and Chahumukh (7.30 p.m.), Open Lawn (6 p.m.) and Abhimanch (8.30 p.m.) at the NSD's Bahawalpur House campus as well as Sri Ram Centre (4 p.m.), LTG (5.30 p.m.), and Kamani (7 p.m.) auditoriums," a statement by NSD said.

Apart from the spellbinding performances and interaction with thespians and eminent personalities from the world of theatre, the festival in Delhi will also have seminars on theatre: 'Is Modern Theatre Inclusive?', 'Notion of State and Representation', 'Unrepresented Form', and 'Non-Governmental Curating and Funding Policy'.

The youth forum shows will comprise performances by dramatic societies of nearly 50 colleges in Delhi while ambience performances will bring folk dance and other traditional performing art forms.

Noting that the art of theatre is the oldest and the strongest medium that conveys human emotions, NSD director Suresh Sharma said, "NSD will arrange parallel festivals in Dibrugarh, Varanasi, Ranchi, Mysore, and Rajkot."

It will culminate on February 21. The entry is ticketed and tickets can be booked online on www.bookmyshow.com.
London, Jan 30 : The British pound dipped against major currencies as a much-anticipated amendment to postpone Brexit was rejected by the British Parliament.

The British pound dipped against major currencies as a much-anticipated amendment to postpone Brexit was rejected by the British Parliament.

The British House of Commons on Tuesday voted 321-298, with a majority of 23, against an amendment from Labor's Yvette Cooper for Brexit to be delayed by nine months if no deal is agreed by February 26.

The latest development came as British MPs voted on a series of amendments to modify Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan after it was voted down by a historic margin on January 15.

The pound fell by 0.7 per cent against the US dollar and 0.8 against euro while it was down by some 0.1 per cent against both currencies just before the parliament vote began, Xinhua news agency reported.

Out of the seven amendments, only two were passed. One is a non-binding call on the government to rule out no-deal Brexit and the other demands replacing Brexit backstop with "alternative arrangements".

The vote gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to say the Brexit deal is likely to win in the British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue. However, the EU has insisted that the Irish backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and is not open for renegotiation.

The pound has roared higher in recent weeks as investors discount the chances of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, said Luke Trevail, currency analyst at TorFX, before the vote, believing it was put to the test at the parliament vote on various amendments.

Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com, was quoted by the BBC as saying the pound's drop is "quite a comedown".

"(It) is showing how the pound remains intensely sensitive to Brexit news flow, and partially how the market had put some faith in the Remainers/soft Brexiteers forcing concessions from the government," he says.

The Backstop plan is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the Brexit deal.

It is designed to avoid border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is considered by some British especially Brexiteers to be a trap to retain Britain in a customs union with the EU and pragmatically delay their "divorce".
Mumbai, Jan 30 : The elegance of Tabu and exuberance of Karan Johar in creations by couturier Gaurav Gupta couldn't steal the thunder of poetess Navkirat Sodhi who performed while suspended on an aerial harness at the Royal Opera House, which rolled out the red carpet for the opening show of the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Summer-Resort 2019 here.

The elegance of Tabu and exuberance of Karan Johar in creations by couturier Gaurav Gupta couldn't steal the thunder of poetess Navkirat Sodhi who performed while suspended on an aerial harness at the Royal Opera House, which rolled out the red carpet for the opening show of the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Summer-Resort 2019 here.

Sodhi introduced the show with spoken prose, illustrating the designer's creative spirit as he embarks on his 15th year in the industry this year. She recited "Kill Pain With Couture" while performing mid-air in a dramatic, self-embroidered bustier worn over an elongated sheer skirt which lent more drama to the show.

The Delhi-based designer, who has made a comeback to LFW after four years, said it has been "very exciting" for him to be back in Mumbai for a show that has turned progressive and interesting.

"The poetess who was up... 20 ft above the ground, was my best friend for 20 years. It was emotional for me. Her poetry for me is the best poetry in the world... It is esoteric and so becoming," Gupta said.

His bespoke line is called Unfolding.

"It was unfolding with all the origamic structures, and then we did a lot of chikankari mixed with our techniques, and we used brocade. For me, it's an unfolding of a new chapter as I mark 15 years of my brand," Gupta added.

The audience, which included Diana Penty, Pooja Hegde, Mandira Bedi, Mohit Marwah and some other celebrities, witnessed the designer's vision of a glamorous, powerful spring 2019 through zardozi work, chikankari and handwoven brocade textiles with handcrafted, 3D flowers in organza and soft georgette, along with the sparkle of crystals.

The collection was a mix of playful dresses, pantsuits, sari gowns and evening wear.

"LFW is getting increasingly progressive every year, and becoming more interesting. Look at this magical place, and Tabu opening the show has been so beautiful for me. She is one of the most phenomenal artistes that we have in the country today, and someone who is so talented and is a timeless beauty. And as an individual, she is herself. So is Karan.

"That's why they're my perfect muses, because they are both breaking rules, living life by their own rules and setting new standards, setting new cultural definitions, and that for me is exciting. I resonate with that a lot," Gupta said after his show.

Tabu, riding high on the success of "AndhaDhun", looked ethereal in a grey off-shoulder ensemble, while Karan flaunted a red and black suit with panache. There was one thing common between them -- the happiness of walking the ramp at the iconic Royal Opera House.

LFW Summer Resort 2019 will begin from Wednesday, and will conclude on February 3.
Jerusalem, Jan 30 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Syrian affairs Alexander Lavrentiev have met in the Prime Minister's Office here.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Syrian affairs Alexander Lavrentiev have met in the Prime Minister's Office here.

The meeting on Tuesday focused on the ongoing involvement of Russia and Israel in Syria.

"Among the issues discussed were Iran and the situation in Syria," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the two discussed "strengthening the security coordination mechanism between the militaries in order to prevent friction", Xinhua reported.

Also attending the meeting were Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, and Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat.

Russia first sent forces to fight in Syria in 2015. Israel has carried out there hundreds of airstrikes over the past years, saying the attacks targeted Iranian sites in order to prevent the Islamic republic entrenching itself in Syria.

The recent meeting came in the wake of an agreement achieved earlier in January between the Israeli and Russian militaries to continue the coordination of their military actions in Syria.

Israel has become increasingly concerned over the expected withdrawal of the US forces from Syria, fearing it will expose the Jewish state to threats by Iran, which Israel considers as its biggest enemy.
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Call it a miracle: The extreme winter weather causing flight delays across the U.S. isn't keeping national medical flight charity Miracle Flights from delivering sick children to the life-changing medical care they need.

Of the 211 commercial flights the national nonprofit has coordinated since January 20, only one has had to reschedule due to weather: a family traveling home to Salt Lake City, Utah, after receiving treatment in New York earlier this week.

Otherwise, Miracle Flights reports its operations have not been impacted by the adverse weather sweeping the nation. The organization is on pace to provide more than 530 free commercial flights this month to families around the country facing medical crisesan increase of more than 22 percent from 431 flights provided in January 2018.

"As of right now, we haven't received any calls from our patients' families or the airlines reporting delays or cancellations of their flights, which is a relief," said Mark E. Brown, Miracle Flights CEO. "In most cases, our families have scheduled these appointments well in advance and have been counting the days to see the doctors who can best help their children. We're grateful none of them have had to postpone due to the weather and hope that's a trend that continues for the next several weeks."

Established in 1985, Miracle Flights is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides free commercial airline travel to critically ill children who need access to life-changing medical care not available in their local communities. To date, the charity has provided more than 122,000 flights to help patients and their families reach medical facilities around the country.

For more information, visit www.miracleflights.org.

Press Contact

Erika Koff

(702) 261-0494

[email protected]

SOURCE Miracle Flights

Related Links

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LINCOLN, R.I. and LAS VEGAS, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc. and Affinity Gaming ("Affinity") today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Twin River will acquire Affinity's subsidiary that owns Golden Gates, Golden Gulch and Mardi Gras, Affinity's three casino properties in Black Hawk, Colorado. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Golden Gates, Golden Gulch and Mardi Gras are located in close proximity to one another along a half-mile strip of casino and casino-hotel properties in the historic mining town of Black Hawk, Colorado, with a combined 36,000 square feet of gaming space featuring nearly 20 table games, approximately 700 slots and a poker parlor. The properties also offer three restaurants and 24/7 bars, and one of the only parking garages in the market, with 700 spaces.

"The acquisition of the Golden Gates, Golden Gulch and Mardi Gras casino properties is a unique opportunity to further grow and diversify our nationwide portfolio of gaming properties," said George Papanier, President and Chief Executive Officer of Twin River. "We are pleased to expand our portfolio in Colorado beyond our Arapahoe Park race track and statewide Off-Track Betting network, establishing a significant presence in the growing Black Hawk market."

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including review by the Colorado Division of Gaming and approval by the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission, and is expected to close in early 2020. Credit Suisse acted as financial advisor to Affinity Gaming.

Affinity acquired the three Black Hawk casinos in 2012. Affiliates of Z Capital Partners, the private equity management arm of Z Capital Group, closed their take-private acquisition of Affinity in 2017. The sale will allow Affinity to focus on its core portfolio in Nevada and the Midwest, which will include eight properties in three jurisdictions upon closing of the transaction.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains "forward-looking" statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than historical facts, including statements regarding the expected timing and the ability of the parties to complete the proposed transaction considering the various closing conditions. Forward-looking statements are based upon current plans, estimates and expectations that are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those indicated or anticipated by such forward-looking statements. The inclusion of such statements should not be regarded as a representation that such plans, estimates or expectations will be achieved. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such plans, estimates or expectations include, among others, (1) that one or more closing conditions to the transaction, including certain regulatory approvals, may not be satisfied or waived, on a timely basis or otherwise, including that a governmental entity may prohibit, delay or refuse to grant approval for the consummation of the proposed transaction, may require conditions, limitations or restrictions in connection with such approvals; (2) the risk that the proposed transaction may not be completed on the terms or in the time frame expected; (3) unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the proposed transaction; and (4) the occurrence of any event that could give rise to the termination of the proposed transaction. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this communication. Neither Twin River nor Affinity undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or development, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements.

About Affinity

Affinity Gaming is a diversified casino gaming company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company's casino operations consist of 11 casinos, five of which are located in Nevada, three in Colorado, two in Missouri and one in Iowa. For more information about Affinity Gaming, please visit its website: www.affinitygaming.com.

About Twin River

Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary Twin River Management Group, Inc. ("TRMG"), owns and manages two casinos in Rhode Island and one in Mississippi, as well as a Colorado horse race track that possesses 13 OTB licenses. Properties include Twin River Casino Hotel (Lincoln, RI), Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (Biloxi, MS), Tiverton Casino Hotel (Tiverton, RI) and Arapahoe Park (Aurora, CO). TRMG's expertise spans various casino markets, including regional, destination & resort environments. Its casinos range in size from 1,100 slots and 32 table games facilities to properties with 4,200 slots and 115 table games, along with hotel and resort amenities. TRMG headquarters are located at 100 Twin River Road, Lincoln, RI 02865. For more information, visit www.twinrivermanagementgroup.com.

About Z Capital Group

Z Capital is a privately held alternative asset management firm having over $2.3 billion of regulatory assets under management across complementary private equity and credit businesses. Z Capital manages both opportunistic, value-oriented private equity, and credit funds.

Z Capital's investors are some of the largest and most sophisticated global institutional investors including public and corporate pension funds, university endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, and insurance companies.

The Z Capital investment strategies and private equity portfolio companies are described at www.zcapgroup.net.

Media Contacts

Twin River

Patti Doyle

[email protected]

401-374-2553

Affinity Gaming

Jonathan Keehner / Kate Clark / Tim Ragones

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher

212-355-4449

SOURCE Twin River; Affinity Gaming
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tulsi Gabbard, 2020 Presidential candidate and Congresswoman, released an op-ed entitled Religious Bigotry is Un-American, published by Religion News Service.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California administers the House oath of office to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, during a ceremonial swearing-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, during the opening session of the 116th Congress. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Tulsi writes: "Our country was established on the basis of freedom of religion, and the Constitution states there would never be any religious test for any public office. It is a freedom enshrined in our Constitution, and that every member of Congress takes an oath to protect  a freedom that many heroes have given their lives to defend. Nothing is more important to our democracy than this freedom.

"Those who are trying to foment anti-Hindu sentiment expose the dark underbelly of religious bigotry in politics and must be called out. To advocate voting for or against someone based on their religion, race, or gender is simply un-American."

More details on Tulsi Gabbard's op-ed:

https://religionnews.com/2019/01/26/tulsi-gabbard-religious-bigotry-is-un-american/

https://youtu.be/a0NVcUkO19A

https://tulsi.to/religious-bigotry

About Rep. Tulsi Gabbard:

Tulsi Gabbard is a Democrat who was first elected to Congress in 2012 to serve the people of Hawaii. She is currently a member of the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Armed Services. She deployed twice to the Middle East and was one of the first female combat veterans ever elected to Congress. She continues to serve as a Major in the Army National Guard.

Tulsi Gabbard was Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 until she resigned in 2016 to support Bernie Sanders in his bid for President. Tulsi Gabbard announced her intention to run for President of the United States on January 11th, 2019. She does not accept campaign contributions from corporations, lobbyists or political action committees.

More Information and Updates from Tulsi Gabbard:

https://www.tulsi2020.com

https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard

https://medium.com/@TulsiGabbard

https://youtube.com/tulsigabbard

https://facebook.com/tulsigabbard

Contact: Erika Tsuji

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 (808) 861-0793

SOURCE Tulsi Gabbard
SINGAPORE, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Finexpo, Inc. announced that international expo-forum Traders Fair (Financial Event), which has been already held in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Brazil, South Africa and India, is now coming to Egypt. The Arabic world of traders will gather in Cairo at Traders Fair this spring.

The event is going to welcome more than 2,000 visitors. This is an opportunity for traders to meet with brokers from all around the world, learn about their trading platforms and gain an introduction to the best financial markets.

Traders Fair and Gala Night 2019 - Egypt

Workshops, panel discussions, live demonstrations and other interactive sessions will be provided by key industry broker experts to offer many tips for traders.

Panel discussions will cover diverse topics such as security within the trading world (Stocks, Futures, Forex), MENA market strategies, breakthrough trading products and cryptocurrency and blockchain industries in Egypt and the rest of the world itself.

This flagship networking event is primarily created for individual traders but also can be a significant benefit to large businesses and industry professionals.

Famous analysts, globally renowned brokers, talented currency market players, stock exchanges, technology suppliers, investment companies and other financial institutions and organizations are welcomed to take part.

Valuable prizes such as the latest models of gadgets and motorbikes are going to be given away during the expo.

Registration provides visitors with free access to the seminars, workshops and exhibition.

Join the main traders' event via https://egypt.tradersfair.com.

Related Links

Traders Fair & Gala Night 2019 - Thailand

Traders Fair & Gala Night 2019 - Malaysia

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-TTXC-Rfjo

SOURCE Finexpo Inc.
ADELAIDE, Australia, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mayne Pharma Group Limited (ASX: MYX) is pleased to announce the launch of TOLSURA (SUBA-itraconazole) 65mg capsule in the United States. TOLSURA is a new formulation of itraconazole indicated for the treatment of systemic fungal infections including blastomycosis (pulmonary and extrapulmonary), histoplasmosis (including chronic cavitary pulmonary disease and disseminated, non-meningeal histoplasmosis) and aspergillosis (pulmonary and extrapulmonary, in patients who are intolerant of or who are refractory to amphotericin B therapy).

The company has also completed the recruitment and training of a specialised field sales team who are now promoting the benefits of TOLSURA to infectious disease physicians.

These serious infections most commonly occur in vulnerable or immunocompromised patients, for example, those with a history of cancer, transplants (solid organ or bone marrow), HIV/AIDS, or chronic rheumatic disorders, and are often associated with high mortality rates or long-term health issues.

The Company received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for TOLSURA in December 2018.

Mayne Pharma's CEO, Mr. Scott Richards said: "We are very pleased to launch TOLSURA - a new formulation of itraconazole incorporating Mayne Pharma's proprietary SUBA-technology to improve the bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs. TOLSURA provides a new treatment option for patients and physicians fighting these life-threatening fungal infections. This launch has enabled Mayne Pharma to establish a new institutional sales team focused on hospital based infectious disease specialists. We look forward to bringing further specialty product innovations to market over the coming years with our pipeline of products under development."

Mayne Pharma directly markets more than 60 products in the US including four branded products FABIOR (tazarotene) foam, SORILUX (calcipotriene) foam, DORYX MPC (doxycycline hyclate) delayed-release tablets and TOLSURA (SUBA-itraconazole) capsules.

For further information contact:

Lisa Pendlebury +61 419 548 434, [email protected]

About Mayne Pharma

At Mayne Pharma we believe that everyone deserves medicines that are better, safe and more affordable. That's why our people are determined to create innovative products and services for our changing world.

Mayne Pharma is an ASX-listed specialty pharmaceutical company focused on applying its drug delivery expertise to commercialise branded and generic pharmaceuticals. Mayne Pharma also provides contract development and manufacturing services to more than 100 clients worldwide.

Mayne Pharma has a 30-year track record of innovation and success in developing new oral drug delivery systems and these technologies have been successfully commercialised in numerous products that have been marketed around the world.

Mayne Pharma has two product development and manufacturing facilities based in Salisbury, Australia and Greenville, USA with expertise in formulation of complex oral and topical dose forms including potent compounds, modified-release products and inherently unstable compounds.

About TOLSURA (SUBA-itraconazole) capsules

Indications and Usage

TOLSURA is an azole antifungal indicated for the treatment of the following fungal infections in immunocompromised and non-immunocompromised adult patients:

Blastomycosis, pulmonary and extrapulmonary

Histoplasmosis, including chronic cavitary pulmonary disease and disseminated, non-meningeal histoplasmosis, and

Aspergillosis, pulmonary and extrapulmonary, in patients who are intolerant of or who are refractory to amphotericin B therapy.

Limitations of Use:

TOLSURA is not indicated for the treatment of onychomycosis

TOLSURA is NOT interchangeable or substitutable with other itraconazole products

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

WARNING: CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE and DRUG INTERACTIONS

See full prescribing information for complete boxed warning.

Congestive Heart Failure

TOLSURA can cause or exacerbate congestive heart failure (CHF). When itraconazole was administered intravenously to healthy human volunteers and dogs, negative inotropic effects were seen. If signs or symptoms of congestive heart failure occur or worsen during administration of TOLSURA, reassess the benefit-risk of continuing treatment.

Drug Interactions

Co-administration of certain drugs that are metabolized by human CYP3A4 enzymes are contraindicated with TOLSURA because plasma concentrations of such drugs are increased.



Co-administration with colchicine, fesoterodine and solifenacin is contraindicated in subjects with varying degrees of renal or hepatic impairment.



Co-administration with eliglustat is contraindicated in poor or intermediate metabolizers of CYP2D6 and in subjects taking strong or moderate CYP2D6 inhibitors.



Increased plasma concentrations of some of these drugs can lead to QT prolongation and ventricular tachyarrhythmias including occurrences of torsades de pointes, a potentially fatal arrhythmia.

Contraindications

Co-administration with certain drugs that either affect metabolism of itraconazole or whose metabolism is affected by itraconazole.

Hypersensitivity to itraconazole

Warnings and Precautions

Hepatotoxicity : Serious hepatotoxicity, including liver failure and death were reported with the use of itraconazole. Discontinue treatment if signs of liver dysfunction occur

: Serious hepatotoxicity, including liver failure and death were reported with the use of itraconazole. Discontinue treatment if signs of liver dysfunction occur Cardia Dysrhythmias : Life-threatening cardiac dysrhythmias and/or sudden death have occurred in patients using certain drugs that are metabolized by human CYP450 enzymes concomitantly with oral itraconazole and/or other CYP3A4 inhibitors.

: Life-threatening cardiac dysrhythmias and/or sudden death have occurred in patients using certain drugs that are metabolized by human enzymes concomitantly with oral itraconazole and/or other CYP3A4 inhibitors. Peripheral Neuropathy : This has been reported in patients on long-term therapy with itraconazole. Monitor and promptly evaluate neurologic symptoms.

: This has been reported in patients on long-term therapy with itraconazole. Monitor and promptly evaluate neurologic symptoms. Hearing loss : Reversible or permanent has been reported in patients. Discontinue treatment if hearing loss occurs

Adverse Reactions

Most common adverse reactions (incidence  1%) are nausea, rash, vomiting, edema, headache, diarrhea, fatigue, fever, pruritus, hypertension, abnormal hepatic function, abdominal pain, dizziness, hypokalemia, anorexia, malaise, decreased libido, somnolence, albuminuria, impotence.

To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact Mayne Pharma at 1-844-825-8500 or FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or www.fda.gov/medwatch.

For more information about TOLSURA, please refer to the prescribing information available here.

SOURCE Mayne Pharma

Related Links

www.maynepharma.com


NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Good afternoon, Chairman Levine and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of Int-1345 and Int-1362. I am Matthew Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The Campaign is the largest advocacy organization in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to reducing the toll of tobacco by supporting public policies that prevent kids from starting to smoke, encourage and help smokers to quit and protect everyone from the harms of secondhand smoke.

Actions taken by the Council over the past two decades have been instrumental in reducing smoking among New York City kids and adults and have made New York City a world leader in this regard.

The two bills you are considering today, one to restrict the sale of flavored e-cigarettes and one to restrict the sale of menthol cigarettes, are critical next steps that we strongly support. Each fills an important gap. Together, these two bills will have an enormous impact on the effort to reduce the number of people who die from tobacco use, significantly reduce the number of young people who become addicted and dramatically reduce the death toll of tobacco on New York City's African-American population.

First, I'll address Chairman Levine's bill on e-cigarettes.

E-cigarette Use by Youth is Skyrocketing and Kids Are Getting Addicted

We are at a critical juncture in our nation's public health history. After making tremendous progress in reducing youth tobacco use over the past several decades, e-cigarettes, and Juul in particular, are threatening to undermine declines in overall youth tobacco use. The number of youth now using e-cigarettes is alarming and raises serious concerns that e-cigarettes could be an entryway to nicotine addiction and use of regular cigarettes.

Two recent national surveys show that youth use of electronic cigarettes has skyrocketed in the United States, reaching what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner and the U.S. Surgeon General have called "epidemic" levels.

The 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) showed that between 2017 and 2018, current e-cigarette use increased by 78 percent among high school students and by 48 percent among middle school students. In 2018, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students were e-cigarette users  an alarming increase of 1.5 million students in just one year. Similarly, the 2018 Monitoring the Future survey found that youth vaping of nicotine nearly doubled in 2018 among 12 th and 10 th graders  the single largest increase in youth use of any substance in the survey's 43-year history.

and 10 graders  Data from the New York State Department of Health's Youth Tobacco Survey also show a rapid rise in e-cigarette use among high school students; between 2014 and 2018, e-cigarette use increased 160 percent, and now 1 in 4 New York high school students use e-cigarettes.

Department of Health's Youth Tobacco Survey also show a rapid rise in e-cigarette use among high school students; between 2014 and 2018, e-cigarette use increased 160 percent, and now 1 in 4 New York high school students use e-cigarettes. Contrary to what the e-cigarette industry will tell you, as FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has said, there is mounting evidence that large numbers of youth are not just experimenting, they are becoming addicted. The same national survey found that nearly 28 percent of current high school e-cigarette users  more than 840,000 teens  used the products on at least 20 days in the past month.

has said, there is mounting evidence that large numbers of youth are not just experimenting, they are becoming addicted. The same national survey found that nearly 28 percent of current high school e-cigarette users  more than 840,000 teens  used the products on at least 20 days in the past month. Alarmingly, research shows that e-cigarette use increases the risk of smoking cigarettes. Last year, the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine released a comprehensive report that found that there was substantial evidence that e-cigarette use increases risk of ever using cigarettes among youth and young adults.

These products aren't replacing cigarettes. They are expanding the number of young people addicted to nicotine. Studies demonstrate clearly that the youth using e-cigarettes are not the kids who probably would have smoked cigarettes; they are the kids who are the least likely to smoke.

Sadly, the numbers and research are confirmed by parents and pediatricians across the country. E-cigarette use, especially Juul, has permeated schools and the daily life of hundreds of thousands of youth.

It is clear that large numbers of teen e-cigarette users are struggling with nicotine addiction and withdrawal. In November, the New York Times profiled Matt Murphy from Reading, Mass., who had his first Juul when he was 17. He described the euphoric head rush of nicotine as "love at first puff." He quickly became addicted to Juul's intense nicotine hits. He became so dependent on the Juul that he nicknamed the device his "11th finger." He is not alone. The problem is so bad that two weeks ago, FDA convened a public hearing to gather input on how to help youth addicted to the nicotine in e-cigarettes. No one is quite sure how to help these youth quit. I-1362 will prevent these kids from ever getting hooked.

Flavored E-Cigarettes Have Fueled the Popularity of These Products Among Kids

E-cigarettes didn't become popular with kids by accident. E-cigarette makers have introduced products with thousands of flavors that appeal to young people and engaged in the kind of marketing that mirrors what the cigarette industry did for decades.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of sweet-flavored e-cigarettes. As of 2017, there were more than 15,500 unique e-cigarette flavors available online.

It is flavors in e-cigarettes that are driving the epidemic. A government survey found that 81 percent of kids who have ever used tobacco products started with a flavored product. Eight in 10 youth e-cigarette users saying they used the product "because they come in flavors I like."

I urge the Council to support Chairman Levine's bill to restrict the sale of flavored e-cigarettes and that the bill be amended to include menthol flavored e-cigarettes.

Menthol Cigarettes Increase Youth Tobacco Use and Use Among African-Americans and are a Major Cause of Tobacco-Related Health Disparities

We are also here to support Councilman Cabrera's bill regarding menthol cigarettes. While e-cigarette use justifiably gets a lot of attention, no single product contributes more to the death and disease caused by tobacco use than menthol cigarettes. The scientific evidence leaves no doubt that menthol cigarettes increase the number of people, particularly kids, and especially African-American kids, who try the product, become addicted and die a premature death as a result. Passing Councilman Cabrera's bill to restrict the sales of menthol cigarettes is one of the most important things you can do to protect the health of New York City kids.

Tobacco companies have long known that menthol cigarettes reduce the harshness of their products and make them easier to use by new users, almost all of whom are under age 18. As a result, menthol cigarettes increase the number of kids who experiment with cigarettes and who become regular smokers. And young people who initiate using menthol cigarettes are more likely to become addicted daily smokers.

It is shocking but more than 50 percent of youth who smoke cigarettes start with and then use menthol cigarettes. The number is even worse among African-American youth. Over 70 percent of African-American youth smokers smoke menthol cigarettes.

Menthol Cigarettes Have a Devastating Impact on the Health of African Americans

Menthol cigarettes have had a particularly destructive impact on the African-American community. Over 80 percent of African-American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes.

Menthol cigarettes are a major reason why tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death for African Americans. Smoking kills 45,000 African Americans each year. Lung cancer kills more African Americans than any other type of cancer.

The evidence is now unequivocal. Menthol increases the intensity of addiction and makes it harder for smokers to quit. The impact is greatest for African Americans. Studies show that African-American smokers have higher levels of nicotine dependence because of their preference for menthol cigarettes. While African-American smokers are more likely than white smokers to try to quit, they are less likely than white smokers to successfully quit smoking.

In 2011, an FDA scientific advisory committee found that menthol cigarettes reduce smoking cessation, especially among African Americans, and increase the overall prevalence of smoking among African Americans. The same FDA advisory committee estimated that by 2020, 4,700 excess deaths in the African-American community will be attributable to menthol in cigarettes, and over 460,000 African Americans will have started smoking because of menthol in cigarettes.

The Tobacco Industry Targets African Americans and Youth with Menthol Cigarette Marketing

It's no accident that African Americans and youth smoke menthol at higher rates than other demographic groups. It is a direct result of a decades-long marketing campaign by the tobacco industry.

Decades of research and the tobacco industry's internal documents demonstrate that the industry employed campaigns and strategies to aggressively target African Americans. Beginning in the 1950s, the tobacco industry targeted communities with marketing for menthol cigarettes through sponsorship of community and music events, targeted magazine advertising, youthful imagery and marketing in the retail environment.

It isn't a coincidence then that while just 5 percent of African Americans smoked menthol cigarettes in the early 1950s, by 1968 the number had risen to 14 percent, and today the percentage of African Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes is over 80 percent. Make no mistake: this is a crisis that is the direct result of the conscious decisions of the major tobacco companies.

This targeting continues today: menthol cigarettes continue to be heavily advertised, widely available and priced cheaper in certain African-American communities, making them more appealing, particularly to price-sensitive youth. A wealth of research indicates that African-American neighborhoods have a disproportionate number of tobacco retailers, pervasive tobacco marketing, and in particular, more marketing of menthol products.

This is why Councilman Cabrera's bill is so important. You can do something about this. Councilman Cabrera's bill will help prevent and reduce the destructive impact caused by menthol cigarettes.

Thank you for your time.

SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoner's Pizza Joint, a millennial-focused, quick-service pizza franchise, announced today the opening of its newest corporate-owned location in Valdosta, Georgia. Located at 1211 Bay St., the new restaurant marks the brand's first drive-thru location, and will celebrate its grand opening on Saturday, February 2 from 1-3 p.m. with the help of The Panda, one of Valdosta State University's mascots, who will be handing out free slices of pizza and wings, as well as a gift card giveaway. In addition, the first 100 people will receive a free T-shirt and one grand prize winner will receive free pizza for a year.

Stoner's Pizza Joint considers itself to be a delivery-focused concept, with delivery and off-premises dining accounting for approximately 51-percent of total sales. Committed to providing customers with a best in class experience, the brand has invested its resources into developing state-of-the-art delivery and logistics software, which helps to streamline operational efficiency and provides customers with the best product, faster. The new Valdosta location has been equipped with this software and will be the prototype for future drive-thru locations. Valdosta native and foodservice industry veteran, Ashley Gilbert, will be managing the day-today operations at the new location.

"It's been a wonderful journey rebirthing the brand and insulating it with everything it needs to be the leader in this space, and the Valdosta location is no exception," said Nick Bergelt, chief concept officer of Stoner's Pizza Joint. "We're energized to bring Stoner's back to this area with our fresh, new look and customer experience, and look forward to being part of the Valdosta community once again."

Founded in 2013, Stoner's Pizza Joint was purchased by HospitalityX, a holding company with a current brand roster that includes Charbar Co., Whiskey Room, Holy Tequila! and Healthy Habit. Experienced restaurateurs and partners behind HospitalityX, Drew Ciccarelli and Nick Bergelt, developed and launched Stoner's Pizza Joint's franchising program in 2018 with the goal of growing the brand's footprint to 100 locations by 2023. Since the launch, Stoner's has continued to identify the Southeast region as a key market for expansion. The company just celebrated the grand opening of their restaurant prototype in Columbia, South Carolina and recently signed a franchise agreement in Florida to develop two new restaurants. Additionally, the company will be opening a new restaurant in Nacogdoches, Texas with franchisee the DhaMir Group, in early Q1.

Stoner's Pizza Joint Valdosta is open Sunday  Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Friday  Saturday 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. For more information, visit https://www.stonerspizzajoint.com, or call 229-219-1885.

Stoner's Pizza Joint features fresh, high quality non-GMO food prepared in-house daily with minimal production time, including proprietary recipes for the pizza dough, sauce, and cheese blend. Menu items include a simple variety of specialty pizzas, calzones, strombolis, hickory-smoked chicken wings made daily in-house, freshly prepared salads, and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Stoner's Pizza Joint is currently seeking qualified franchisees to help the brand grow nationwide in college town markets, with a focus on the Southeast region. Prospective franchisees should have a minimum net worth of $250,000. The ideal candidate is a proven multi-unit operator in the restaurant industry and has a strong knowledge of their market. Stoner's Pizza Joint's Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) reveals an estimated initial investment range of $90,000 to $206,000 for the first location, including a franchise fee of $25,000. If franchisees chose to develop multiple units, the franchise fee for three units is $65,000 and, for five units, $95,000.

To learn more about ownership opportunities with Stoner's Pizza Joint, visit https://www.stonerspizzajointfranchise.com/ or contact the Stoner's Pizza Joint Franchise Development team, at [email protected] or call 843-518-1972.

About Stoner' s Pizza Joint

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, Stoner's Pizza Joint is a millennial-focused, quick-service pizza restaurant that uses high quality, fresh ingredients. The company offers a variety of specialty pizzas, hickory-smoked wings made daily in-house, salads, strombolis, and calzones. Today, Stoner's Pizza Joint has grown to 10 locations in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. For more information about Stoner's Pizza Joint, visit www.stonerspizzajoint.com.

About HospitalityX

HospitalityX is a holding company on a mission to create, acquire, build and invest in the best hospitality brands in the world in an effort to grow them through its know-how, expertise, emerging technology and capital. Done through an innovative and playful approach, quality-focused food and beverage experiences, HospitalityX currently owns the concepts Charbar Co., Whiskey Room, Holy Tequila!, Healthy Habit and Stoner's Pizza Joint. To learn more about HospitalityX, visit https://www.hospitalityx.com/.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Shannon O'Reilly

Fish Consulting

[email protected]

954-893-9150

SOURCE Stoner's Pizza Joint

Related Links

https://www.stonerspizzajoint.com


SUGAR LAND, Texas, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) -- Most large U.S. steel producers had a good 2018, thanks to the Trump administration's invoking a 25% tariff on steel imports from most countries. Among these companies is Nucor Corporation (Charlotte, North Carolina), which has boosted planned 2019 capital spending to $1.8 billion from 2018's $1 billion.

For details, view the entire article by subscribing to Industrial Info's Premium Industry News, or browse other breaking industrial news stories at www.industrialinfo.com.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. To contact an office in your area, visit the www.industrialinfo.com "Contact Us" page.

Contact:

Brian Ford

(713) 980-9393

SOURCE Industrial Info Resources, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.industrialinfo.com


ASHBURN, Va., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SteelCloud LLC announced today that it has received a license award for its ConfigOS software to be used to automate STIG compliance and remediation for another USAF aircraft simulator program. The company's patented STIG remediation and compliance software was licensed to harden the Microsoft Windows application stacks unique to this major simulator program and to accelerate RMF accreditation and ATO deliverables.

"We are seeing an increased recognition, across the DoD, in the imperative of focusing on securing the nation's weapons systems and tactical infrastructures," said Brian Hajost, SteelCloud President and CEO. "ConfigOS addresses the challenges of implementing security automation technology in the most difficult air-gapped, classified environments. This simulator program represents just one of several weapon system security projects that we are addressing with our ConfigOS software."

The ConfigOS software was licensed, after a successful pilot, to harden endpoint infrastructure and automate RMF accreditation activities.

About ConfigOS

ConfigOS is currently implemented in classified and unclassified environments, tactical and weapon system programs, disconnected labs, and the commercial cloud. ConfigOS is client-less technology, requiring no software agents. ConfigOS scans endpoint systems and remediates hundreds of STIG controls in under 90 seconds. Automated remediation rollback as well as comprehensive compliance reporting and STIG Viewer Checklist output are provided. ConfigOS was designed to harden every CAT 1/2/3 STIG control around an application baseline in about 60 minutes - typically eliminating weeks or months from the RMF accreditation timeline. ConfigOS addresses Microsoft Windows workstation and server operating systems, SQL Server, IIS, IE, Chrome, and all of the Microsoft Office components. The same instance of ConfigOS addresses Red Hat 5/6/7, SUSE, Ubuntu, and Oracle Linux. ConfigOS content includes over 10,000 STIG and CIS controls. New functionality in Command Center includes a patent-pending capability for Active Directory GPO Conflict Resolution.

About SteelCloud

SteelCloud develops STIG and CIS compliance software for government customers and those technology providers that support the government. Our products automate policy and security remediation by reducing the complexity, effort, and expense of meeting government security mandates. SteelCloud has delivered security policy-compliant solutions to military components around the world which simplify implementation and ongoing security and mission support. SteelCloud products are easy to license through our GSA Schedule 70 contract. SteelCloud can be reached at (703) 674-5500. Additional information is available at www.steelcloud.com or by email at [email protected].

SOURCE SteelCloud LLC

Related Links

http://www.steelcloud.com


STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotlight Labs, a veteran-owned technology company, today announced the immediate availability of its SPYDR hypoxia sensor device, a fully-developed helmet insert that gathers human biometric and aircraft condition data, detects and warns pilots of their imminent incapacitation and records high fidelity flight data for post-flight analysis and improved flight outcomes. The SPYDR is United States Air Force flight proven and can be fielded immediately to prevent loss of life and improve pilot performance and training.

The SPYDR device was developed by a team of former fighter pilots and engineers at Spotlight Labs in response to increasing concern amongst pilots after several hypoxia-related crashes and fatalities. Initially intended for a commercial application, the device was developed, tested and manufactured with private, non-government research and development funds. After the grounding of the T-6 training fleet by the United States Air Force, Spotlight Labs executed destructive testing, electromagnetic interference testing and acoustic testing on the SPYDR. Spotlight Labs executed physical demonstrations in an altitude chamber, a centrifuge and a ground-based restricted oxygen breathing device. After meeting or exceeding military specification in all cases and gaining approval for flight in United States Air Force aircraft, the SPYDR was incorporated into more than 100 training flights in T-6 aircraft at two Air Force bases to demonstrate its efficacy.

"Everything in tactical aviation is instrumented  except the pilot," said Dr. Brian Bradke, a biomedical engineer, F-16 pilot and lead engineer for biometrics at Spotlight Labs. "The SPYDR instruments the operator  giving individual pilots tools for safety and performance in flight, while collecting valuable data that will fuel improved performance and increased risk mitigation for the pilot community as a whole. This device is an immediately available, fairly-priced solution to an extremely expensive problem that has long plagued our military."

The SPYDR device replaces the existing earcups in an aviation helmet, which makes its impact and presence transparent to the pilot. There is also no impact to the physical aircraft to deploy the device, nor does it contain any transmitters or receivers. The device includes three sensors and a bone conducting transducer that collects data at relevant physiological points on the neck and head. The SPYDR quantifies pilot degradation as it happens and provides a definitive warning to pilots of their condition.

The device continuously records data multiple times per second. Individual data is protected and distributed confidentially to pilots, who can assess their performance and degradation during specific phases of flight and correlated to in-flight events. Because the SPYDR also measures aircraft parameters, the pilot and the maintenance crew can draw correlations between times of degradation and improvement, as well as between physiological events to specific aircraft parameters. Aggregate data is provided to the military command structure for use in reducing risk and improving performance for future tactical flight. Device data is analyzed using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques that demonstrate increases or decreases in individual performance, workload and stress factors. This data can be incorporated to quantify spikes in risk for specific aircraft, units, mission types, geography or other flight elements.

Fully developed, the SPYDR is ready and available for deployment immediately.

About Spotlight Labs

Spotlight Labs is a veteran-owned small business founded by fighter pilots on the heels of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Created in 2005 as a training and operations company, Spotlight Labs tapped into the tremendous talent and knowledge of our nation's most elite air and ground war fighters, Spotlight Labs built a tactical training staff comprised of Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Air Force Combat Controllers and other Department of Defense special operations forces elements. In 2009, Spotlight Labs expanded into software development for the war fighter. The company has produced cutting edge software in the areas of tactical data links, airfield surveys, sensor integration, cryptology and mobile devices.

SOURCE Spotlight Labs
SEATTLE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sound West Group of companies, a leading Seattle area developer and asset manager, announced today the commencement of their opportunity zone project development called Marina Square, a three-asset class, mixed-use waterfront development, that will include multifamily, hospitality and paid parking, located near Seattle, in Bremerton, Washington. Marina Square is one of the first project-specific qualified opportunity zone projects of its kind in the country.

Marina Square will include a 125-room hotel tower by Cambria Hotel, the premier brand of the Choice Hotel Group. The Cambria Hotel Tower will feature a waterfront restaurant, bar, fitness center, market and conference center. The unique design will ensure every room includes a view of the water, marina and mountains. A separate high-end apartment tower will feature 145 urban-living apartment flats, with several community amenities, including a rooftop deck, private clubhouse, business center and lounge. Both towers will sit atop a subterranean, paid-parking garage for 382 parking stalls.

"Seattle's employment and population boom has resulted in a housing shortage as well as one of the country's most significant cost of living increases. The Bremerton area (the project location), has seen dramatic increases in population and housing demand, creating a great need for all three asset classes associated with our project," said Sound West Group Chief Executive Officer Arthur "Wes" Larson. "I was born and raised here. For me, it is particularly gratifying to deliver a significant development to the region that will not only benefit our project investors, but will focus on honoring the spirit and intentions of the Federal Opportunity Zone Initiative by helping to create jobs and opportunities, increasing local revenues and wealth, and supplying much-needed housing for the area."

Aside from the already dramatic increase in the desirability of Bremerton, additional catalysts for the city, as well as the project, is the now 28-minute commuter ferry to downtown Seattle, the proximity of the Marina Square project to the Bremerton-to-Seattle Ferry Terminal (just 500 ft.), and the U.S Navy's commitment to invest in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (located in Bremerton and steps away for the project site) as part of its $21 billion ship repair yard modernization plan.

"This is an exciting project within one of the state's designated opportunity zones," said Greg Genovese, president of Sound West Realty Capital. "The Sound West Group is taking a parking lot and transforming it into its highest, best use, while also improving the community for the long-term."

Marina Square is one of the first project-specific qualified opportunity zone projects of its kind in the country. Created as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the federal opportunity zones program is designed to incentivize investment capital into designated census tracts nationwide and is eligible for significant preferred tax treatment.

About Sound West Group

Sound West Group of companies (SWG) is a Bremerton-based full-service real estate company that was established in 2010 by its Principals Wes Larson and Mike Brown. SWG is a fully diversified real estate company that encompasses property development, asset management, commercial and residential property management, and brokerage. Driven by their core value of 'Developing Community with Vision and Integrity', SWG is committed to creating community engagement through their developments in multifamily, commercial, multi-use, medical/dental, and warehouses. SWG is a leading developer in the region with a total stabilized value of over $300 Million, and over $300 Million currently in design and development. For more information about Sound West Group and to view their portfolio, visit www.soundwestgroup.com.

Contact:

Jill Swartz Lauren Burgos Spotlight Marketing Communications Spotlight Marketing Communications 949.427.1389 949.427.1399 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Sound West Group

Related Links

http://www.soundwestgroup.com


The smart inhalers market is majorly driven by innovation, where the emphasis is on digital partnerships to offer smart inhaler products due to the increasing prevalence of respiratory disorders. Partnerships, collaborations, and agreements between pharma and digital companies play a key role in the market's supply chain. Increasing adoption of digitally-improved products across various end users is driving growth and innovation in the digital healthcare industry. Smart inhaler technology is rapidly becoming one of the most important areas of collaboration between pharma and digital health companies. A smart inhaler is now considered a part of the new-age digital technology, which is designed to improve disease management in respiratory diseases.

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The leading manufacturers of smart inhalers are focusing on collaborating with digital and software companies in order to serve the targeted population. Moreover, such collaborations also help manufacturers launch their products more conveniently as well as enhance their distribution channels. For instance, Propeller Health, a leading digital health solution provider for respiratory medicine, collaborated with Novartis AG to develop a custom add-on sensor for the Breezhaler inhaler, a smart inhaler used for COPD treatment. AstraZeneca plc formed a digital health partnership with the digital health company Adherium to manufacture smart inhalers. In September 2017, Adherium announced the FDA approval for SmartTouch, a Symbicort inhaler for AstraZeneca's Symbicort aerosol inhaler. All these factors are projected to drive the growth of the global smart inhalers market during the forecast period.

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The growth of the smart inhalers market is attributed to the increasing prevalence of asthma and COPD across the globe. According to the latest research by the company, the global smart inhalers market is expected to account for revenue over US$ 130 Mn in terms of value by the end of 2026. The smart inhalers market is expected to witness rapid growth with a CAGR pegged at 12.2% through 2026. The smart inhalers market is moderately consolidated due to the presence of leading international players.

Regional Performance of the Smart Inhalers Market

The revenue from North America smart inhalers market is expected to expand at a significant CAGR and is estimated to remain a dominant regional market for smart inhalers. This is majorly due to the rising per capita income in North America which is driving individuals to spend more on health care. This factor is expected to positively impact the growth in treatment options for respiratory disorders. Europe is also anticipated to be one of the leading regional markets for smart inhalers. India and China, along with other developing countries, have been preferable destinations for expenditure and investments. The prime driving factors in the region are rapid industrialization, infrastructural developments, and economic growth. The growth in these regions is paving way for substantial growth opportunities for smart inhaler manufacturers.

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Revenue Inhibitors in the Smart Inhalers Market

However, issues concerning the patient's data security are expected to hamper the growth of the global smart inhalers market. Smart inhalers are responsible for collecting and sharing data regarding healthcare professional usage. They have the potential to save time as well as improve safety and health, but the benefits come with significant security risks and privacy issues. The data collection and potential sharing of the information are significant concerns. The medical information of the patient could be used inappropriately, which may further lower the adoption of smart inhalers and hampers the growth of the global smart inhalers market.

Segmental Insights on the Smart Inhalers Market

The global smart inhalers market is estimated based on product type, disease indication, and distribution channel. Based on product type, the smart inhalers market has been segmented into DPI-based smart inhalers and MDI-based smart inhalers. The DPI-based smart inhalers segment is expected to hold maximum market share in the global smart inhalers market. Based on disease indication, the smart inhalers market has been segmented into asthma and COPD. In terms of revenue, COPD disease indication dominated the global smart inhalers market in 2017.

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Companies Operating in the Smart Inhalers Market

Examples of some of the key companies operating in the smart inhalers market are GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Novartis AG, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, AstraZeneca plc, Aptar Pharma (AptarGroup, Inc.), Propeller Health, H&T Presspart Manufacturing Ltd., OPKO Health, Inc., Sensirion AG, and Cohero Health, Inc.

The Global Smart Inhalers Market has been segmented as presented below:

Global Smart Inhalers Market, By Product Type

DPI-based smart inhalers

MDI-based smart inhalers

Global Smart Inhalers Market, By Disease Indication

asthma and COPD

Global Smart Inhalers Market, By Geography:

North America

Latin America

Europe

China

Japan

South East Asia & Other APAC

& Other APAC Middle East & Africa

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LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Most American workers are unaware of an important tax credit that may help them save for retirement. The Saver's Credit, also referred to as the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is available to eligible taxpayers who are saving for retirement. Unfortunately, 62 percent of workers are unaware of the credit, according to survey findings from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS).

"The Saver's Credit is available to American workers who contribute to a 401(k), 403(b) or IRA. By saving for retirement and claiming the credit, eligible taxpayers may be able to lower their federal income taxes," said Catherine Collinson, president of TCRS. "Saving for retirement can be difficult when juggling financial priorities. The Saver's Credit might just be the motivator for those not yet saving for retirement to get started."

What Is the Saver's Credit?

The Saver's Credit is a non-refundable tax credit that may be applied up to the first $2,000 of voluntary contributions an eligible worker makes to a 401(k), 403(b) or similar employer-sponsored retirement plan, or a traditional or Roth IRA. The maximum credit is $1,000 for single filers or individuals and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly.

"The Saver's Credit is a tax credit in addition to the benefit of tax-advantaged savings when contributing to a 401(k), 403(b) or IRA. Many eligible retirement savers may be confusing these two incentives because the notion of a double tax benefit seems too good to be true," said Collinson.

Who Can Claim the Saver's Credit?

The credit is available to workers ages 18 years or older who have contributed to a company-sponsored retirement plan or IRA in the past year and meet the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) requirements:

Single tax filers with an AGI of up to $31,500 in 2018 or $32,000 in 2019 are eligible;

in 2018 or in 2019 are eligible; For the head of a household, the AGI limit is $47,250 in 2018 or $48,000 in 2019; and,

in 2018 or in 2019; and, For those who are married and file a joint return, the AGI limit is $63,000 in 2018 or $64,000 in 2019.

Additionally, the filer cannot be a full-time student and cannot be claimed as a dependent on another person's tax return. For more details about eligibility, refer to this fact sheet and infographic.

Tips for claiming the Saver's Credit:

If you are using tax preparation software to prepare your tax return, including those programs offered through the IRS Free File program, use Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. If your software has an interview process, be sure to answer questions about the Saver's Credit, also referred to as the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit and/or Credit for Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions.

If you are preparing your tax return manually, complete Form 8880, Credit for Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions, to determine your exact credit rate and amount. Then transfer the amount to the designated line on Schedule 3 (Form 1040), or Form 1040NR.

If you are using a professional tax preparer, be sure to ask about the Saver's Credit.

If you receive a refund, consider directly depositing it into an IRA to further boost your retirement savings.

Another important and potentially overlooked opportunity is the IRS Free File program. Workers who are eligible to claim the Saver's Credit are also eligible to take advantage of this program that offers federal income tax preparation software for free to tax filers with an AGI of $66,000 or less. Twelve companies make their tax preparation software available through this program at www.irs.gov/FreeFile. Certain restrictions may apply.

"We encourage people to help spread awareness of the Saver's Credit by telling family, friends and colleagues. The benefit could make a meaningful impact on an individual's or family's annual budget, and may be the needed push for non-savers to get on track for retirement," said Collinson. "Those who are eligible but did not save last year can still contribute to an IRA until April 15, 2019 and may be able to claim the Saver's Credit for 2018."

TCRS has created fact sheets, infographics and newsletter articles  in English and Spanish  that are available and encouraged for public use at www.transamericacenter.org/saverscredit. More information can also be found at www.irs.gov.

About Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) is a division of Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit, private foundation. Transamerica Institute is funded by contributions from Transamerica Life Insurance Company and its affiliates and may receive funds from unaffiliated third parties. TCRS and its representative cannot give ERISA, tax, investment or legal advice. This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not construed as ERISA, tax, investment or legal advice. Interested parties must consult and rely solely upon their own independent advisors regarding their particular situation and the concepts presented here. For more information about TCRS, please refer to www.transamericacenter.org and follow TCRS on Twitter at @TCRStudies.

About the 19th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey

The 25-minute online survey was conducted within the U.S. by The Harris Poll on behalf of TCRS between October 26 and December 11, 2018 among a nationally representative sample of 5,923 full- and part-time workers including self-employed. Potential respondents were targeted based on employment status and company size. Respondents met the following criteria: U.S. residents, age 18 or older and either full- or part-time workers in for-profit companies with one (1) or more employees or self-employed. This report is based on 5,168 workers who are not self-employed. Results were statistically weighted where necessary to bring them into line with the population of U.S. residents age 18 or older, and then either employed full- or part-time in a for-profit company with one (1) or more employees, or self-employed. In addition, results adjusted for attitudinal and behavioral differences between those who are online versus those who are not, those who join online panels versus those who do not, and those who respond to surveys versus those who do not. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Contact: Laurel Hood

[email protected]

952-346-6412

SOURCE Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies

Related Links

http://www.transamericacenter.org


GAITHERSBURG, Md., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirnaomics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of RNAi therapeutics against cancer and fibrotic diseases, today announced that the management will present and conduct face-to-face meetings at the 2019 BIO CEO & Investor Conference, to be held in New York, NY on February 11-12.

Patrick Y. Lu, PhD., Founder and CEO of Sirnaomics, is scheduled to present on Monday, February 11 at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time. Dr. Lu will share an overview of the Company's differentiated RNAi technology platform that leverages proprietary polypeptide nanoparticle (PNP) drug delivery system, as well as robust clinical pipeline of RNAi therapeutics spanning oncology and anti-fibrosis indications.

About Sirnaomics, Inc.

Sirnaomics, Inc., a leading privately held biopharmaceutical company for discovery and development of RNAi therapeutics, is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, with subsidiaries in Suzhou and Guangzhou, China. The company's mission is to develop novel therapeutics to alleviate human suffering and advance patient care in areas of high unmet medical need. The guiding principles of the company are: Innovation, Global Vision with a Patient Centered focus. Members of the senior management team have a great deal of combined experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, financial, clinical and business management in both the USA and China. The company is supported by funding from institutional investors, corporate partnerships and government grants. Sirnaomics has developed a strong portfolio of intellectual property with an enriched product pipeline. The therapeutic areas of focus include oncology and anti-fibrotic therapeutics. Learn more at www.sirnaomics.com.

CONTACT:

Michael Molyneaux MD MBA

Chief Medical Officer

Sirnaomics, Inc.

[email protected]

ICR Healthcare

Investors:

Stephanie Carrington

Tel: +1 646 277 1282

Email: [email protected]

Media:

James Heins

Tel: +1 203 682 8251

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Sirnaomics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.sirnaomics.com


NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Christine Zeppos, a former dean at Brandman University, has filed a lawsuit against the university and its top two administrators after her firing in August 2018.

Zeppos was fired after she made claims of harassment. Zeppos' lawsuit against Brandman University, Chancellor Gary Brahm, and Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Chief Academics Officer Provost Charles Bullock, includes claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, retaliation, failure to prevent wrongful termination, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Zeppos was hired by Brandman University as a professor and dean in 2010. Zeppos believes that the university's decision to terminate her was due to her "vocal insistence that women at the university be afforded a harassment-free environment, as well as the same HR processes and practices afforded to our male colleagues -- particularly in higher levels."

According to Zeppos' lawsuit, Brahm and Bullock created a toxic and misogynistic workplace environment where a culture of gender-based discrimination and harassment was tolerated. Furthermore, those who spoke out against the discrimination and harassment they witnessed were retaliated against.

Carney Shegerian, the founder of Los Angeles-based employee rights law firm Shegerian & Associates, has weighed in on the lawsuit.

"The allegations of a hostile workplace where sexual harassment was commonplace and those who speak up were retaliated against is deeply disturbing," Shegerian says. "The alleged retaliation against Zeppos for speaking up is indicative of why so many victims of sexual harassment remain silent."

About Shegerian & Associates:

Shegerian & Associates has won clients over $200 million in employment-based disputes and maintains a 98% success rate. We have offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and New York.

Media Contact:

Pace Public Relations

Caroline Kropke

[email protected]

SOURCE Shegerian & Associates
NEW YORK, Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ("Goldman Sachs" or the "Company") (NYSE: GS) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and indexed under 18-cv-12084, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise acquired Goldman Sachs securities between February 28, 2014, and December 17, 2018, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants' violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Goldman Sachs securities between February 28, 2014, and December 17, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until February 19, 2019, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in New York, New York. The Company operates as an investment banking, securities, and investment management company worldwide, serving corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals.

According to 2016 data compiled by Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs has "worked on $18.8 billion of Malaysian mergers and acquisitions over the past five years, making it the top foreign adviser with a 20.5[%] market share." Goldman Sachs's business in Malaysia included, inter alia, raising funds for 1Malaysia Development Bhd. ("1MDB"), a Malaysian state-owned investment fund set up in 2009, four months after Najib Razak ("Razak") became Prime Minister of Malaysia. 1MDB was initially established to finance infrastructure and economic deals in Malaysia.

In 2012, officials from 1MDB met with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong to discuss a bond deal. Goldman Sachs subsequently raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB, earning approximately $600 million in fees.

Since early 2015, 1MDB has been the subject of international criminal and regulatory investigations for suspected fraud and money laundering after missing $11 billion in payments owed to banks and bondholders.

On June 18, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "Fund Controversy Threatens Malaysia's Leader," detailing how 1MDB indirectly funded Razak's 2013 election campaign. A probe into 1MDB subsequently followed.

On July 2, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published another article, entitled "Investigators Believe Money Flowed to Malaysian Leader Najib's Accounts Amid 1MDB Probe," reporting how Malaysian investigators traced nearly $700 million in deposits to what they believed to be Razak's personal bank accounts.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, high-level 1MDB officials and their associates misappropriated an estimated $4.5 billion from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014. Implicated in the 1MDB scandal were two former Goldman Sachs managing directors Tim Leissner ("Leissner") and Ng Chong Hwa, also known as Roger Ng ("Ng").

Leissner was Chairman of South East Asia and Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking Division in Asia Ex-Japan (i.e., Asia, excluding Japan) for Goldman Sachs. Ng was a former Goldman Sachs banker, managing director, and deputy to Leissner. Ng most recently was the head of South-East Asian sales in Goldman Sachs's fixed-income, currencies, and commodities unit.

The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Goldman Sachs participated in a fraud and money-laundering scheme in collusion with 1MDB; (ii) the foregoing conduct, when revealed, would foreseeably subject Goldman Sachs to heightened regulatory investigation and enforcement; and (iii) as a result, Goldman Sachs's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 7, 2016, Bloomberg News published an article entitled "Ex-Goldman Banker to Malaysia Fund Said Subpoenaed in U.S. Probe," reporting that the U.S. Justice Department had subpoenaed Leissner in late February in connection with a probe linked to 1MDB. Goldman Sachs has since been the subject of investigations by the U.S. Justice Department regarding the multibillion-dollar fraud and money-laundering scheme involving 1MDB, for which Goldman Sachs was the primary bond underwriter. Following this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell $3.75 per share, or 2.41%, to close at $151.60 on March 8, 2016.

On November 1, 2018, U.S. federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York ("E.D.N.Y.") unsealed indictments against Leissner and Ng related to the 1MDB probe, explicitly describing them as "agents acting within the scope of their employment on behalf of" the Company "with the intent, at least in part, to benefit" Goldman Sachs. That same day, the United States Attorney's Office for the E.D.N.Y. announced that Leissner's guilty plea was unsealed for "a two-count criminal information charging Leissner with conspiring to launder money and conspiring to violate the FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] by both paying bribes to various Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials and circumventing the internal accounting controls of the Financial Institution while he was employed by it." The U.S. Attorney's Office also stated that, "[a]ccording to court filings, Leissner has been ordered to forfeit $43,700,000 as a result of his crimes."

On November 8, 2018, a report by Bloomberg News detailed the personal involvement of Goldman Sachs's then-Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"), Lloyd Blankfein, in a meeting to establish ties with Malaysia and its new sovereign wealth fund that was referenced in the court documents unsealed the prior week. In a November 8, 2018 article entitled "Goldman's Blankfein Said to Have Attended 2009 1MDB Meeting," Bloomberg News noted that "Blankfein was the unidentified high-ranking Goldman Sachs executive referenced in U.S. court documents who attended a 2009 meeting with the former Malaysian prime minister," and that "[t]he meeting was arranged with the help of men who are now tied to the subsequent plundering of the 1MDB fund[.]"

On this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell by $9.00, or nearly 4%, closing at $222.65 on November 9, 2018.

On November 12, 2018, Malaysian government officials denounced Goldman Sachs's role in the 1MDB scandal. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stated that "[t]here is evidence that Goldman Sachs has done things that are wrong" and "[o]bviously we have been cheated through the compliance by Goldman Sachs people." Meanwhile, the country's Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said that Malaysia would seek a "full refund" of the approximately $600 million in fees that the Company earned in connection with 1MDB's $6.5 billion bond deal.

Following this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell $16.60 per share, or nearly 7.5%, to close at $206.05 on November 12, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

[email protected]

888-476-6529 ext. 9980

SOURCE Pomerantz LLP

Related Links

http://www.pomerantzlaw.com


DENVER, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- When the books close on The Salvation Army Intermountain Division's "Together Doing Even More Good" holiday campaign, charitable donations this year will be at an all-time high of nearly $600,000. That equates to over one and a half million dollars raised in the last three years during the short Thanksgiving to Christmas window. Not included in this figure is the annual match by the Colorado-based Denver Mattress Company on the first $150,000 raised  boosting the three-year total to more than $2 million.

First introduced in 2016, the "Together Doing Even More Good" campaign leveraged The Salvation Army's popular tagline to highlight the unique benefits of the Intermountain Division's matching gift program. As it has for the past 19 years, Denver Mattress augmented its financial gift by contributing strategic, creative, and paid media support to the campaign.

"The incredible response to our campaign will directly impact the lives of so many in our community," says Divisional Commander Major Mike Dickinson. "Coming together on behalf of those in need without discrimination is true to who we are as Coloradans and goes to the very heart of The Salvation Army. Importantly, the folks at Denver Mattress once again came alongside us to help do that much more."

Denver Mattress president Dan Visser adds, "We truly value our longstanding relationship with The Salvation Army and share in their anticipation of what these additional resources will mean for individuals and families in our community. It's always an honor to be part of such important work."

About The Salvation Army:

The Salvation Army, an evangelical part of the universal Christian church established in London in 1865, has been supporting those in need in His name without discrimination for more than 130 years in the United States. Nearly 25 million Americans receive assistance from The Salvation Army each year through the broadest array of social services. For more information, go to www.imsalvationarmy.org

About Denver Mattress:

Denver Mattress manufactures its mattresses in its Denver-based factory and distributes them to its own retail stores. By having a single factory, Denver Mattress is able to maintain high quality control standards and deliver a more consistent product at a lower cost than multiple factory producers. Denver Mattress, The easiest way to get the right mattress.

Visit http://www.DenverMattress.com

Contact

John Knippenberg | Furniture Row Marketing

[email protected]

SOURCE Denver Mattress

Related Links

https://denvermattress.com


VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS), (OTCQX: LDSYF), (Frankfurt: LD6, WKN: A14XHT) ("LDS" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that CSPA Group Inc.'s partnership with Rise Distribution ("Rise") is rapidly gaining momentum. Within the first week of receiving the Reveur live resin products Rise has delivered Reveur to the following new dispensaries:

Ganja Goddess - Panorama City ( Los Angeles )

( ) Exhale Med Center - West Hollywood

Bay Care Delivery - San Francisco

Bloom Room - San Francisco

Diamond Bonsai - Oakland

Los Angeles Valley Caregivers (LAVC)- Los Angeles

March and Ash - San Diego

The distribution agreement with Rise provides the Company with a direct access to Rise's extensive state-wide retail network. Since entering into the distribution agreement, both companies have been working closely on creating and implementing highly efficient sales channels that will ensure rapid product distribution. Additionally, CSPA provided detailed product training to Rise's sales and product consultants ensuring a positive customer experience.

Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.'s CEO, Brad Eckenweiler, stated, "We are extremely pleased to be expanding our product reach with Rise Distribution. Offering our Reveur live resin products in these new retail locations paves the way for the seamless introduction of our flagship product, CannaStrips. The Rise agreement brings our products to multiple locations through Rise's expansive retail network providing purchasing convenience to our customers."

CSPA Group's marketing director, Casey Fenwick, stated, "This agreement allows both companies to work to each other's strengths to benefit customers throughout California. Rise focuses on the logistics of efficiently delivering our products to their 200+ retailers enabling LDS to focus on our strength of producing innovative and affordable products at our industry leading facility."

About Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. is a technology company that licenses its technology to a state-of-the-art production and packaging facility located in Southern California. The Company's technology produces infused strips (similar to breath strips) that are not only a safer, healthier option to other forms of delivery but also superior bioavailability of cannabis constituents. Some strips will also include supplemental co-active ingredients such as nutraceuticals, vitamins and peptides. The technology provides a new way to accurately meter the dosage and assure the purity of selected product. From start to finish, the production process, based on the Company's technology, tests for quality and composition of all the ingredients used in each and every strip which results in a delivery system that is safe, consistent and effective.

Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Brad Eckenweiler

CEO & Director

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

[email protected]

Cautionary Disclaimer Statement:

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release.

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. In addition, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug under the United States Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Although Congress has prohibited the US Justice Department from spending federal funds to interfere with the implementation of state medical marijuana laws, this prohibition must be renewed each year to remain in effect. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

SOURCE Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Related Links

http://www.lifestyledeliverysystem.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Javelin Joint Venture was awarded a production contract for 2,100 F-Model (FGM-148F) missiles, following a successful and rigorous system qualification test program that included 21 successful flight tests. The contract launches the initial full-rate production agreement for the Javelin F-Model missile, replacing the Javelin FGM-148E (Block I).

The Javelin FGM-148F missile features an advanced multipurpose warhead (MPWH) as part of the man portable, fire-and-forget Javelin missile system. The MPWH incorporates the latest generation shaped charged technology to defeat present and future advanced armored threats while adding a fragmenting steel warhead case to significantly improve lethality against soft targets and light armored vehicles. The Javelin F-Model round deliveries are planned for early 2020 and will be available for international allies, with U.S. government permission.

There are also funded efforts underway to develop a higher performance Lightweight Command Launch Unit (CLU) and FGM-148G Model missile that will dramatically improve system performance while reducing weight and lowering system cost.

First deployed in 1996, Javelin is the world's most versatile and lethal one-man-portable and platform-employed anti-tank and multi-target precision weapon system. To date, more than 45,000 missiles and 12,000 CLUs have been produced. The Javelin weapon system has experienced numerous technology insertions since its initial fielding to stay ahead of advancing threats.

Javelin, which is produced by a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, has been used extensively and to great advantage in combat operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 5,000 engagements have been successfully conducted by U.S. and coalition forces. Current U.S. allies that have Javelin in inventory include France, Taiwan, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Ukraine, Georgia, Australia, Estonia, UAE and the United Kingdom. The Javelin Joint Venture is an award-winning enterprise recognized in 2015 by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for its outstanding achievements in providing operational support to warfighters with the highest level of mission success and tactical operational readiness.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin

Related Links

http://www.lockheedmartin.com


"As a trusted partner to advisors for the past 15 years, we have a number of mutual clients with Schwab, and moving to the OpenView Gateway secure API-driven platform represents a quantum leap forward for our relationship," said Robert Miller, CEO of PCR. "The integration will allow us to share data and offer UHNW and family office clients, as well as Schwab advisors, an efficiently managed total view of their investments, including automated alternative/illiquid and held-away assets. Schwab is the standard bearer for deep, real-time, secure API-driven integration."

"PCR's inclusion in the OpenView Gateway program is a natural step in the evolution of our longstanding relationship," said John Connor, Vice President in Schwab's Digital Advisor Solutions group. "We continually work to provide the most comprehensive platform possible to advisors and family office clients. Collaboration with industry leaders like PCR is critical to helping these advisors focus on building client relationships and scale their businesses."

PCR joins Schwab OpenView Gateway as the only purpose-built data aggregator on the platform, connecting thousands of data sources. PCR clients and integration partners will be able to use the solution to securely connect data and metrics from PCR's wealth aggregation platform to a multitude of other products and systems both inside and outside of Schwab's eco-system. Existing integrations combine the best of Schwab and third party capabilities and include many of the major technology tools that independent advisory firms depend on, such as CRM, portfolio management, financial planning, trading & rebalancing, and risk analysis.

About Private Client Resources (PCR)

PCR is the leading data aggregation, data privacy and data management services provider to over $300B of UHNW assets. PCR specializes in difficult to aggregate asset classes and data sources important to UHNW as well as information from custody banks and brokers. We currently serve 140+ family offices, RIAs, private & trust banks and institutional investors.

Our award winning wealth information platform aggregates statements and data feeds from over 5500 private placement funds and fund administrators, encompassing $150B in commitments, as well as marketable securities accounts from over 500 electronic sources, representing nearly $300B in assets. PCR delivers fully reconciled and normalized data, via an extensible data warehouse, and a Digital Hub with a suite of tools, APIs, and pre-packaged third party software integrations.

For more information, visit www.pcrinsights.com

About Schwab Advisor Services and Schwab Intelligent Technologies 

Schwab Advisor Services provides custody and trading, as well as technology and other support services to independent investment advisors. It includes the custody, trading and related support services of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., a registered broker-dealer and member SIPC. It also includes the technology and related products and services of Schwab Intelligent Technologies ("SIT") and Schwab Performance Technologies ("SPT"). Schwab and SIT, and SPT are affiliated as separate subsidiaries of The Charles Schwab Corporation, but their respective products and services are independent of each other.

For more information, visit http://www.schwabintelligenttechnologies.com/

Media Contacts:

Rosalia Scampoli

LJOPR

212-404-2395

[email protected]

SOURCE Private Client Resources

Related Links

www.pcrinsight.com


CSE completed its review and lifted the halt on December 7, 2018. FINRA lifted the trading halt on OTC on November 27, 2018. The SalvaRx Limited acquisition was completed on January 8, 2019.

However, because the trading halt on OTC Market lasted for over a month, FINRA now requires the Company to submit new Form 15c211 through a brokerage firm in the US. Meanwhile Portage shares continue to trade on OTC in grey market but are listed and trading normally on CSE in Canada.

We have contacted a few brokerage firms to file the required form 15c211. However, as FINRA prohibits brokerage firm to charge for providing this service, brokerage firms we contacted are reluctant to file form 15c211 without any compensation. We are continuing our efforts in seeking out a brokerage firms willing to file the required form, but it may take time.

We are also considering moving to a more recognized Exchange where our shares can trade more easily and reflect the value of our current portfolio which includes 11 drugs in discovery and development.

"The team continues its work to find the right regulatory and exchange solution for Portage" Greg Bailey MD, Chairman of Portage, said: "Immuno-oncology is such an exciting and dyanmic area. This transaction refreshes our model of licensing 10 products and trying to find 3 that read out positive in a proof of concept."

Neither CSE nor its Market Regulator (as the term is defined in the policies of CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may contain forward looking statements concerning future operations of Portage Biotech Inc. (the "Company"). All forward looking statements concerning the Company's future plans and operations, including management's assessment of the Company's expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and financial results may differ materially from any estimates and projections.

SOURCE Portage Biotech Inc.

Related Links

www.portagebiotech.com


AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nexteer Automotive is expanding its global operations with two new facilities in southern India: a new software center in Bengaluru to support growing demand for software-enabled functionality in advanced steering applications and a new production facility in Chennai to manufacture Nexteer's safety-critical Electric Power Steering (EPS) systems and driveline products.

BENGALURU SOFTWARE CENTER

To address the industry's growing need for software in safety and performance, Nexteer launched its India Software Center (ISC) this week in Bengaluru. The new facility focuses on downstream software production and validation  ensuring quality and compliance with regulations. Meanwhile, Nexteer's Global Technical Center in the US, in tandem with regional Technical Centers in Poland and China, will continue upstream software development and R&D innovation.

"Software plays an increasingly important role in the safety and performance of Nexteer's advanced steering systems," said Robin Milavec, Vice President of Global Engineering, Nexteer Automotive. "We view our software and electronic capabilities as key differentiators  especially as the market demand and steering function complexity grows with driver assist features and varying levels of automated driving. Nexteer is committed to deploying a best-in-class global team that delivers innovative solutions with speed, flexibility and seamless vehicle integration."

Currently, Nexteer's ISC employs almost 100 Nexteer software engineers with plans to grow to 200 employees by the end of 2019. These engineers work on all aspects of software and calibration projects  from architecture development through delivery.

"As part of Nexteer's global team, the ISC engineers work on the industry's leading edge  creating designs for varying levels of automated driving and cyber security," said Usha Holalkere, Engineering and Operations Director, Nexteer India Software Center.

CHENNAI PRODUCTION FACILITY

Nexteer's third manufacturing plant in India, the new Chennai facility, also celebrated its grand opening this week. The space, which covers almost 90,000 square feet, expands regional production capacity for Nexteer's EPS systems which:

Enhance driver comfort

Improve control and feel-of-the-road

Enable ADAS features, such as lane keeping, park assist, lane departure warning, traffic assist and more

Increase fuel efficiency

Reduce emissions

"The opening of Nexteer's facility in Chennai and our expanded production capacity in India are important pieces in our global strategy and represent our confidence in the growth potential of the automotive market within this region," said Tao Liu, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Operating Officer, Nexteer Automotive.

ABOUT NEXTEER

Nexteer Automotive (HK 1316), a global leader in intuitive motion control, is a multi-billion dollar global steering and driveline business delivering electric and hydraulic power steering systems, steering columns, driveline systems, as well as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving technologies for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The company has 25 manufacturing plants, three technical centers and 14 customer service centers strategically located in North and South America, Europe and Asia. The company serves more than 50 customers in every major region of the world including BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, GM, PSA Group, Toyota and VW, as well as automakers in India and China. www.nexteer.com

IMAGES:

SOURCE Nexteer Automotive

Related Links

http://www.nexteer.com


CHICAGO, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthcare's changing business environment requires CFOs to measure and monitor a broader set of initiatives and dimensions. Senior financial executives cited quality of care & clinical outcome and patient experience as dimensions of management almost as frequently (80 percent) as they did financial health (85 percent). This is just one of the striking results in Kaufman Hall's 2019 CFO Outlook: Performance Management Trends and Priorities in Healthcare. Other areas managed by more than 50 percent of respondents included operational efficiency (69 percent), strategic growth (62 percent), and employee growth/retention (52 percent).

"A key part of the role of the CFO is to understand what is occurring as circumstances change, as well as how such change affects their organizations' strategy," said Jay Spence, vice president of healthcare at Kaufman Hall. "Increasing consumer expectations, new competition, and evolving delivery and payment models challenge leaders to effectively translate sound business strategy into plans that are successfully executed to support long-term sustainability. The CFO defines strategic financial scenarios and communicates the operational and financial impact of strategies prior to and following execution. Such responsibilities are enormous."

Improving performance management

CFOs recognize the important role data and analytics, as well as other advanced technologies, play in elevating organizational performance. Yet they have many concerns in this area:

Ninety-six percent believe their organizations should be doing more to leverage financial and operational data to inform strategic decisions; at the same time, 94 percent are experiencing increasing pressure to have greater insight into how financial results impact business strategy

In terms of financial reporting challenges, 67 percent want to be able to create better dashboards and visuals, while 64 percent need an improved ability to pull data from multiple sources into a single report; additionally, fewer than one-half believe they are able to access clean, consistent, and trusted data

The result is only 7 percent are very satisfied with the performance management reporting at their organizations.

Identifying priority areas

It comes as no surprise that the top priority cited by CFOs for 2019 is identifying and managing cost-reduction initiatives. Financial realitiesrevenue and expense, consumerism, regulatory and competitive pressuresmake cost transformation an imperative for healthcare leaders.

Yet according to a previous Kaufman Hall report entitled, 2018 State of Cost Transformation in U.S. Hospitals and Health Systems: Time for Big Steps, most of the cost transformation that has occurred so far has been in traditional cost reduction areas, such as supply chain and other non-labor costs. CFOs recognize the urgency, but cite as the top impediment the lack of good data and insight into costs and where savings opportunities exist. These impediments can be addressed with reliable cost data, high-quality analytics, and best practice monitoring and reporting capabilities.

Other priorities include:

Forecasting and managing the impact of changing payment models. Only 13 percent of respondents said their organizations are very prepared to manage evolving payment and delivery models with their current financial processes and tools, down from 15 percent in the 2018 survey

Only 13 percent of respondents said their organizations are very prepared to manage evolving payment and delivery models with their current financial processes and tools, down from 15 percent in the 2018 survey Shortening the budget cycle to ensure accuracy of assumptions and in-depth analysis by finance executives. Currently, 37 percent report having a budget process that takes six or more months from initial rollout to board presentation (up from 27 percent in 2018), and 46 percent say their budget cycles do not leave ample time for value-added analysis that can inform strategic decisions. As a result, budget assumptions formed at the beginning of an elongated process are often outdated by the time budgets are finalized

The CFO report surveyed senior financial executives from more than 160 hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare organizations in September and October 2018. To download a copy, click here.

Kaufman Hall will also provide a webinar explaining the details of this report on February 28, 2019. To learn more, click here.

About Kaufman Hall

Kaufman Hall provides management consulting and software to help organizations realize sustained success amid changing market conditions. Since 1985, Kaufman Hall has been a trusted advisor to boards and executive management teams, helping them incorporate proven methods into their strategic planning and financial management processes, and quantify the financial impact of their plans and strategic decisions to consistently achieve their goals.

Kaufman Hall services use a rigorous, disciplined, and structured approach that is based on the principles of corporate finance. The breadth and integration of Kaufman Hall advisory services are unparalleled, encompassing strategy; financial and capital planning; cost transformation; treasury and capital markets management; and mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and joint ventures.

Kaufman Hall software includes the Axiom Software Suite, providing sophisticated, flexible performance management solutions that empower finance professionals to analyze results, model the future, and optimize organizational decision making. Solutions for long-range planning, budgeting and forecasting, performance reporting, capital planning, and cost accounting deliver decision support, reporting, and analytics within an integrated software platform. Kaufman Hall's Peak Software empowers healthcare organizations with clinical benchmarks, data, and analytics to provide a higher quality of care for optimized performance and improved patient outcomes.

Press Contact:

Philip Anast

Amendola Communications (for Kaufman Hall)

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 312-576-6990

SOURCE Kaufman Hall

Related Links

https://www.kaufmanhall.com


NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Neiman Marcus, the Dallas-based premier luxury retailer, and Hudson BLVD Group (HBG), a specialty beauty service platform, announced today a partnership to roll-out BLVD, a multi-brand luxury beauty destination, at select Neiman Marcus stores nationwide. BLVD will open at Neiman Marcus' Short Hills store this Friday, February 1, 2019 and at the highly anticipated Neiman Marcus Hudson Yards store in New York City in March 2019.

Neiman Marcus and BLVD will offer four personalized beauty services, providing customers with seamless access to their favorite specialty beauty brands in both Short Hills and Hudson Yards:

DREAMDRY , co-founded by Rachel Zoe and Robin Moraetes , is the premium destination for blowouts, braids and updos, with a full offering of the latest in hair styling trends and techniques.

, co-founded by and , is the premium destination for blowouts, braids and updos, with a full offering of the latest in hair styling trends and techniques. PUCKER provides premium eyelash extension services by the top artists in the field. With a focus on healthy lashes, PUCKER uses only the highest quality lashes and products.

provides premium eyelash extension services by the top artists in the field. With a focus on healthy lashes, PUCKER uses only the highest quality lashes and products. VALLEY NAILS has specialized in inspired nail art and quality services since 2006, all with toxin-free nail polish and 100 percent natural cruelty free products.

has specialized in inspired nail art and quality services since 2006, all with toxin-free nail polish and 100 percent natural cruelty free products. SPRUCE & BOND has been offering results driven beauty treatments for almost 20 years, including brow shaping and tinting, professional chemical peel treatments and hair removal services (laser hair removal and waxing treatments not offered at the Short Hills location).

"Hudson BLVD Group partnered with Neiman Marcus to provide our like-minded clients a premium beauty experience. BLVD is the new standard in beauty services and is the first of its kind," said Robin Moraetes, President, Hudson BLVD Group. "We have reinvented the traditional full-service salon model by bringing the best in beauty service brands together under one roof, and offering clients their favorite specialty beauty brands in one convenient, luxury experience."

"Neiman Marcus has been devoted to offering luxury experiences with the highest level of customer service since 1907," says Robert Hughes, Senior Vice President of Stores, Neiman Marcus. "This partnership with Hudson BLVD Group further elevates Neiman Marcus at the forefront of retail innovation through the introduction of a personalized beauty services experience that helps our customers look and feel their best."

Members of Neiman Marcus' loyalty program, InCircle, will be able to enjoy BLVD services as an added redemption option of their InCircle Perk Cards. The InCircle program's benefits include points for every dollar spent using a Neiman Marcus credit card, complimentary 2-day shipping online, complimentary gift packaging in store and online, and access to an InCircle concierge.

Additionally, the first 50 clients who purchase a BLVD Founders Card membership for an annual fee of $150 will receive 10 percent off a la carte services and retail items, a Neiman Marcus beauty bag at the time of purchase ($50 value), as well as birthday blowout, Kerastase Fusio-Dose treatment, facial peel and dreamturban (total $210 value). This offer is only applicable at the Short Hills location. An exclusive Hudson Yards Founders Card will launch when that location opens this March.

Customers can conveniently book beauty services at BLVD's Neiman Marcus Short Hills location online at www.yourbeautyblvd.com or by calling the salon at +1-973-847-2583. Appointments at Neiman Marcus Hudson Yards will be made available to customers in March 2019. Services are available seven days a week.

ABOUT NEIMAN MARCUS GROUP

Neiman Marcus Group LTD LLC is a luxury, multi-branded, omni-channel fashion retailer conducting integrated store and online operations under the Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus Last Call, Horchow, and mytheresa brand names. For more information, visit www.neimanmarcusgroup.com.



Keep up with the latest news and events happening at Neiman Marcus by becoming a fan on Facebook, following us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

ABOUT HUDSON BLVD GROUP

Hudson BLVD Group owns and operates a collection of highly curated premium beauty service brands. HBG offers discerning consumers a comprehensive suite of owned and licensed specialty beauty services via an integrated operational platform, and delivered through its unparalleled master brand, BLVD. Through BLVD, the company offers its consumers a luxury beauty destination with custom services from premium brands under one dynamic roof. Existing brand holdings include: Blvd, DreamDry, Spruce & Bond, Valley and Pucker. www.hudsonblvdgroup.com

SOURCE Neiman Marcus

Related Links

http://www.neimanmarcus.com


DENVER, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MycoTechnology has closed their Series C funding round co-led by S2G Ventures Fund II, L.P., Middleland MT Holdings, LLC, ADM Capital's Cibus Fund, and TML-Invest S.a r.l. with participation from Tysons Ventures, Bunge Ventures Limited, Continental Grain Company, Eighteen94 Capital, LLC (Kellogg's), and DNS-Hiitake LLC.

The $30 million in new investment will fuel expansion and accelerate R&D project execution. This funding round opens up an opportunity to explore different ways to meet consumer demands and bring new and novel ingredients to market. MycoTechnology will also use these additional funds for further expansion of the team in order to facilitate current and future projects.

Gary Pilnick, Kellogg's Vice Chairman said, "MycoTechnology's innovative organic technology addresses growing consumer demand for products focused on health and sustainability, and Kellogg's is excited to continue to partner with the company in a number of ways." The investment coming from noteworthy companies in the industry reveals the significant impact MycoTechnology is making in the rapidly changing food ingredient space. MycoTechnology is at the forefront of innovation with their cutting-edge mushroom fermentation platform, and big names are recognizing the potential and enthusiastically getting on board.

S2G Ventures's Sanjeev Krishnan said, "We are excited about the strategic and customer validation of this round. Myco has proven itself to be a platform and a products company. Investors in this round represent over $100 Billion in revenues and market caps. Myco's platform is proven to solve many of the food industry problems as it tries to feed the changing consumer preferences."

"Representing one of the largest privately held dairy companies in Europe, we are excited to become an investor in MycoTechnology and its two key products, ClearTaste and PureTaste. Both the reduction of added sugar in FCMG as well as alternative dairy proteins are themes that we at Mueller are monitoring quite closely. An investment into a technology that addresses both topics in an innovative and seminal matter made sense for us on various levels," said Martin Goeggelmann, head of the family office of Mr. Mueller, owner of the famous German/English dairy brand Mueller.

Alastair Cooper, Senior Investment Director at ADM Capital Cibus Fund said, "MycoTechnology's fungi fermentation platform solves a number of the biggest challenges in the food industry, including: producing a high value, complete protein alternative to animal-based products, increased sustainability, and the ability to drastically reduce sugar content in foods. MycoTechnology is driving the growth of a new and disruptive product range, and we are thrilled to co-lead this investment round and fund the next stages of development."

MycoTechnology has developed a novel organic food processing platform that transforms agricultural material into functional ingredients that address the biggest challenges in the food and beverage industry. Their flagship product, ClearTaste, is the world's first organic bitter blocker, which helps companies reduce the sugar content of their products by blocking bitterness. Their second product, PureTaste, is solving how we will feed an exponentially growing population with a sustainable, functional, and nutritional plant based protein. MycoTechnology is dedicated to increasing the availability of healthy, sustainable, and high-quality food options through mushroom fermentation. For more information visit www.mycotechcorp.com.

Contact:

Jessie Booth, Marketing Communications Specialist

[email protected]

SOURCE MycoTechnology

Related Links

http://www.mycotechcorp.com


"Christopher has an excellent and established reputation in criminal law and advocating for his clients," said Jesse Ruiz, Managing Partner of Messner Reeves Silicon Valley Office. "He is a tremendous addition to our team, and he shares Messner Reeves' commitment to providing clients with the most comprehensive representation possible."

Boscia specializes in trying criminal and civil cases to verdict. He represents, "white-collar" cases, physicians and licensed professionals and executives accused of crimes. Additional client interests include corporate victims, immigrants and post-conviction relief from consequences of prior convictions.

Among other accomplishments, Boscia drafted California legislation signed into law by Democrat and Republican governors, has frequently served as an Adjunct Professor at his alma mater, Santa Clara University School of Law, and has received positive press from trade publications for his contribution to the local community.

"We are pleased to expand our team with Chris coming on board as well as broadening the business practice areas for the firm. As our national clients require full-service attention, it is important Messner Reeves continues to expand our areas of expertise to ensure the highest quality legal representation possible," concluded Bryant "Corky" Messner, Founding Partner and CEO.

About Messner Reeves LLP

Messner Reeves LLP, a full-service national business law firm with over 100 attorneys, provides legal services from nine offices in Colorado, Nevada, California, New York, and Utah. Our clients range from Fortune 500 companies to individual entrepreneurs. We have earned a distinguished reputation for offering effective legal counsel, quick response, and the highest level of professional integrity in the following areas of practice: corporate transactions & securities, labor & employment, crisis management, litigation - including commercial, insurance, construction, criminal and professional liability, real estate, intellectual property, restaurant & hospitality, food safety, banking & financial services, healthcare, trust & estates, transportation logistics, and private client and tax services. For more information, please visit www.messner.com.

SOURCE Messner Reeves LLP

Related Links

http://www.messner.com


IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Heather Cameron joins McDermott & Bull, a premier executive search firm and trusted advisor to leading corporations and private equity groups as Director of Talent Acquisition and Operations. Heather will play a pivotal role in the firm's expansion where she will be responsible for leading internal hiring, overseeing operations, and supporting the executive search practice in Canada.

Heather Cameron, Director of Talent Acquisition & Operations

She previously led senior management and executive level engagements for Korn Ferry across North America ranging from private, early stage, and pre-IPO companies to public Fortune 100 organizations. Heather spent her early career as a Senior Accountant for KPMG where she advised private company entrepreneurs, family businesses, and high-growth organizations in Vancouver.

"Heather has deep expertise in both the public and private sectors and has managed complex client and operational issues. Her well-earned reputation for being thoughtful, strategic, nimble, and extremely knowledgeable, makes Heather the perfect person to help us build and scale this best-in-class search firm throughout Canada," says Paul Gibbons, Managing Partner of McDermott & Bull Canada.

Heather is the second key hire to join McDermott & Bull Canada who opened its first office north of the border, last September. The firm plans to expand its footprint by opening additional offices throughout the region over the next 18 to 24 months.

"Heather is going to be instrumental in helping us expand our presence as we continue to recruit and develop talented search professionals to build the best possible team. We have lofty goals for Heather and are confident that she is poised to make an immediate impact," says Rod McDermott, CEO of McDermott & Bull.

Heather is also going to steward the growth of the firm's executive network throughout Canada. The McDermott & Bull Executive Network ("EN"), currently serves thousands of working executives as well as those in transition by providing valuable resources and networking opportunities each year.

"When I met the firm's leadership, I was moved by the energy, vision, and entrepreneurial culture of the organization. The Company applies unique processes that enable the successful placement of talented executives significantly quicker than the industry average, making it a truly differentiated player in the market. I am very excited about the opportunity to play a key role in building the Canadian business under the umbrella of an established and well-respected firm," says Heather Cameron, Director of Talent Acquisitions & Operations.

About McDermott & Bull

Founded in Irvine by two entrepreneurial search consultants in 2001, McDermott & Bull now has more than 50 employees serving ten offices across the US and abroad including: Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Sun Valley, Nashville, New York, Amsterdam, Madrid and Vancouver. The Firm partners with leading companies to identify and recruit key executives for permanent and interim roles. All of the practice leaders have deep executive experience and are uniquely positioned to address the dynamic leadership demands of public and private companies across a variety of industries. McDermott & Bull's Executive Network provides valuable resources and networking opportunities for thousands of senior level executives throughout North America each year. The Firm has been recognized for its expertise, client-centric approach, efficiency, value, and responsiveness and has received industry designations from Hunt Scanlon and Forbes.

Media contact:

Samantha McDermott

949-329-8922

SOURCE McDermott & Bull

Related Links

https://mbsearch.com


CLEVELAND, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute released the agenda for its inaugural Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference (MAICON). The event, which includes more than 60 speakers, will be held at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, July 16 - 18, 2019.

MAICON features more than 40 workshops and sessions designed to help marketers understand, pilot and successfully scale artificial intelligence.

Presenters will explore the next frontier in digital marketing transformation, covering topics such as: advertising, analytics, content marketing, email marketing, ethics, robotics, sales, strategy and voice.

Featured sessions and speakers include:

Become a Marketing AI Pioneer , Paul Roetzer , Founder and CEO, Marketing AI Institute

, , Founder and CEO, Marketing Is This AI? , Karen Hao , AI Reporter, MIT Technology Review

, , AI Reporter, How AI Will Change Marketing Forever , Christopher S. Penn , Co-Founder and Chief Innovator, Trust Insights

, , Co-Founder and Chief Innovator, Trust Insights Piloting AI: The Inside Story of Grant Thornton's Path to More Intelligent Marketing , Sara Hocking , Marketing Innovation Associate Director, Grant Thornton LLP

, , Marketing Innovation Associate Director, Grant Thornton LLP Hello, Voice. , Mitch Joel , President, Six Pixels Group

, , President, Six Pixels Group Advancing Humanity and Business with Robotics , Collin Sebastian , Head of Product and Engineering, Softbank Robotics, and Kass Dawson , Head of Marketing and Communications, Softbank Robotics

, , Head of Product and Engineering, Softbank Robotics, and , Head of Marketing and Communications, Softbank Robotics How The Natori Company Uses AI to Power Audience Targeting and Media Buying , Mark Kirshner , CMO, Albert, and Ken Natori , President, The Natori Company

, , CMO, Albert, and , President, The Natori Company Augmented Intelligence: The Exponential Marketer , Nikos Acuna, Chief Visionary, Sizmek

, Nikos Acuna, Chief Visionary, Sizmek How to Be "Team Human" in the Digital Future , Douglas Rushkoff, Author, Team Human (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019)

, Douglas Rushkoff, Author, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2019) A No-Nonsense Guide to Implementing AI, Allie K. Miller , Lead Product Manager, IBM Watson

"We view MAICON 2019 as chapter 1 of the story on marketing artificial intelligence," said Paul Roetzer, Founder and CEO, Marketing AI Institute, and creator of MAICON. "Most marketers are just at the beginning stages of understanding AI and the impact it will have on their brands and careers, and we want to give them the knowledge, confidence and resources needed to create a competitive advantage."



Visit www.MAICON.ai to view the full agenda.

About Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute

PR 20/20 launched Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute (MAII) in November 2016 with a mission to make AI approachable and actionable for marketers through content, education and events, including the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference (MAICON).

SOURCE Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute

Related Links

https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com


"Receiving this F-35 at Leeuwarden Air Base later this year is going to be a huge driver for change for our Air Force and will have tremendous impact on the relevance of our Air Force as part of the coalition," said Lt. Gen. Dennis Luyt, Commander, RNLAF. "We want to be among the best air forces of the world, and the platform of F-35 allows us to do that."

Various distinguished government, military and industry guests joined Luyt in attendance at the ceremony including Lockheed Martin Chairman, President and CEO Marillyn Hewson; State Secretary, the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs Mona Keijzer; and Special Envoy F-35, the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs Maxime Verhagen.

"From the very beginning of the F-35 program, the Netherlands has been a key partner in developing, testing, improving, and maintaining this remarkable aircraft," said Hewson. "Dutch suppliers have provided high-volume production, structural-design support, and advanced technologies, and Dutch aircraft and personnel continue to support ongoing testing and operations for the worldwide F-35 fleet. As we look to the future, the Netherlands will serve as a sustainment hub in the European region for maintenance, repair, overhaul, and upgrade projects."

Following the ceremony, the aircraft is scheduled to ferry to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, where F-35A pilot training takes place. The aircraft is the first operational F-35 and the third Netherlands jet delivered to date. The first two Dutch F-35s were delivered in 2013 and are at Edwards AFB, California, supporting operational testing. The RNLAF plans to acquire 37 F-35As.

F-35 Program Economic Impact in the Netherlands

Dutch industry, including 25 suppliers to date, have benefitted from the F-35 program with contracts awarded for high technology work. As estimated by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, the F-35 program has already generated more than $1 billion USD in contracts for Netherlands industry, creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs for the Netherlands over the life of the program.

To date, more than 360 F-35s have been delivered and are now operating from 16 bases worldwide. Ten nations are flying the F-35, seven countries have F-35s operating from a base on their home soil, five services have declared Initial Operating Capability, and two services have announced their F-35s have been used in combat operations.

With stealth technology, supersonic speed, advanced sensors, weapons capacity and increased range, the F-35 is the most advanced, survivable and connected aircraft in the world. More than a fighter jet, the F-35's ability to collect, analyze and share data, is a powerful force multiplier that enhances all airborne, surface and ground-based assets in the battlespace enabling men and women in uniform to execute their mission and return home safely.

For additional information, visit our website: www.f35.com/netherlands .

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

Related Links

http://www.lockheedmartin.com


ATLANTA and PLANO, Texas, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- LexisNexis Risk Solutions has collaborated with QuadraMed, a division of Harris Healthcare, to improve patient matching for QuadraMed's Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) software and clean-up customers at over 1,200 healthcare facilities. Specifically, LexisNexis Risk Solutions will augment QuadraMed's EMPI data cleansing services by resolving unmatched patient identity or duplicate records to unique identities, utilizing LexisNexis Risk Solutions' vast referential repository of data sources in addition to information that QuadraMed derives from healthcare organizations.

QuadraMed diagnoses, treats, cures and prevents patient identity issues through a comprehensive set of software and services, including duplicate and overlap reconciliation, but its ability to confirm that two records represent the same person is dependent on the quality of patient data provided by healthcare systems. Patient data is often out-of-date due to life events such as marriage, divorce, or change of residence since the patient's last visit to the health system. LexisNexis Risk Solutions' sophisticated, proprietary linking technology and vast referential data, including records from disparate public and proprietary data sources, is used to match those records to unique individuals.

"Our alliance with QuadraMed is a great example of industry experts combining different capabilities to tackle data fragmentation and help healthcare facilities offer safer and more efficient care," said Josh Schoeller, senior vice president and General Manager of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Health Care. "Correct, complete records are fundamental for proper patient diagnosis and treatment as well as hospital reimbursement, as inaccurate patient identification can result in denied claims."

"QuadraMed is pleased to partner with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to augment data for our EMPI SmartCleanup engagements. Duplicate medical records are an issue within most healthcare systems today and can lead to fragmented care, patient and physician dissatisfaction, and billing errors," said Mike Tardif, Executive Vice President, Harris Healthcare. "By querying LexisNexis Risk Solutions for the most current demographic data when the data available to us is insufficient, we expect to greatly increase our ability to match and merge records during our cleanup engagements. This, in turn, will enable us to leave our customers with better data and will have a positive impact on patient care, patient and physician satisfaction and revenue for the organization."

An average hospital has a duplicate rate of 8-12%1. Mergers and acquisitions are contributing to the already mismatched and duplicate patient records, presenting challenges, such as patient safety in case of medical errors and extra costs for manual data verification. Clean patient data is vital for any successful healthcare IT integration, electronic health record conversion, interoperability initiative, or electronic information exchange.



For additional information about LexisNexis Risk Solutions patient linking technology, please visit the LexisNexis Risk Solutions website. To learn more about QuadraMed, visit https://www.quadramed.com.



Sources:

1 AHIMA

HIMSS 2019:

LexisNexis Risk Solutions booth #3972

Harris Healthcare booth #1849

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions

LexisNexis Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and government. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX Group (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. For more information, please visit www.risk.lexisnexis.com, and www.relx.com.

About QuadraMed

Founded in 1993, QuadraMed is a leading provider of patient identity solutions that improve the safety, quality and efficiency of patient care. Through a comprehensive set of software and services, QuadraMed can diagnose, treat, and prevent patient identity issues. Behind the Company's products and services is a staff of 475 professionals who support clients at over 1,200 healthcare facilities. For information about QuadraMed, visit www.quadramed.com.

SOURCE LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Related Links

https://risk.lexisnexis.com


Frost & Sullivan invites you to join our Transformational Health team, for the webinar "2019 Life Sciences Predictions: Decoding 5 incredible Growth Opportunities ", on Wednesday, February 6 , 2019, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern Time. Our global life sciences experts Unmesh Lal , Program Manager; and Khushbu Jain , Industry Analyst, will explore key industry trends and discuss top 5 predictions that will re-shape the industry in 2019 and why they matter. Barbara Gilmore, Americas Senior Consultant; and Fred Mao, China Executive Director will present a fireside chat with Nitin Naik , Global Vice President, to reveal the growth opportunities in the United States and Chinese markets.

For more information and to register for the webinar, please visit: http://frost.ly/32z.

"Frost & Sullivan thought leaders will detail out a clear strategy to win in the new digital era wherein precision healthcare is amplified. In this session, participants will learn the perspective of how business models will change as companies embrace new trends and disruptive technologies related to these growth opportunities," explains Naik.

Key benefits of attending this webinar:

Establish the leading factors that will influence the size and direction of the global life sciences market in 2019.

Build clarity on technology developments in the global life sciences market in 2018 that will have an impact during 2019.

Identify the business models used to commercialize and distribute novel life science solutions.

Discover the key growth opportunities and strategic imperatives for companies in 2019.

The event will also be recorded and available for on-demand viewing at http://frost.ly/1ti.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Press Contact:

Mariana Fernandez

Frost & Sullivan

+1 (210) 348 1012

[email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

https://ww2.frost.com


HOUSTON, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Landdox, the top Cloud-based land software provider, announced a new integration with ThoughtTrace, a leader in human-assisted artificial intelligence (AI) for contract analysis.

This integration enables customers to synch their Landdox accounts with ThoughtTrace's ALI platform, which can identify and extract more than 350 important provisions and obligations often buried in oil & gas lease and contract documents.

"Land teams today require perfect visibility into the needle-moving provisions lurking in their company's own oil & gas leases and contracts, such as continuous development obligations, consent requirements and Pugh clauses," said James Yockey, co-founder of Landdox. "Our integration with ThoughtTrace's ALI platform lets users turn complicated documents into easy to read reports  without having to comb through millions of pages of legalese."

Upstream and midstream companies can use this integration to send documents between their Landdox and ALI accounts, and automatically update relevant lease and contract records in their Landdox account with the structured analysis delivered by ALI Provision Insights.

"A land system is often the logical destination for many of the obligations and data elements that ALI extracts from our customers' documents," said ThoughtTrace CEO Nick Vandivere. "With this integration, Landdox has effectively created an 'Easy Button' for combining robust, dynamic artificial intelligence for Land with the sort of advanced reporting and tracking that people have come to expect from a modern land system."

To learn more about Landdox and its new ALI integration, click here to schedule a conversation.

About Landdox

Founded in 2015, Landdox builds great software and offers innovative services that empower today's land professional. The company's flagship SaaS product is a land system that combines data and document management, mapping and analytics in a customizable, easy-to-use Web app. E&Ps, non-op and mineral & royalty funds use Landdox to acquire, manage and market billions of dollars worth of leasehold and mineral rights. Learn more at www.landdox.com.

About ThoughtTrace

ThoughtTrace exists to empower people and companies to greater insight and creativity through better access to their most challenging information. We help enterprises review and validate critical information in existing contracts and legal documents. Using a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the company's SaaS platform ALI reads words, sentences, and paragraphs, just like a human does, driving better strategy, decisions, and execution. With results in minutes or hours, not weeks or months, advanced analysis and understanding is your edge. Learn more at www.thoughttrace.com.

SOURCE Landdox

Related Links

https://www.landdox.com/


KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lakeshore Park Conservancy announced today that construction of the new HGTV Overlook at Lakeshore Park will begin on February 1, 2019. Designed by Thomas Woltz and his team at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, the project features a large plaza encircled by a 500-foot tree lined esplanade, and will become a central civic gathering space for individual park users, groups, and events.

The curved esplanade flows from either side of the central plaza, structured by a 12-foot wide central concrete walkway and bordered by beds of crushed marble aggregate and native plants below the canopy of Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica) trees. This canopy will provide shade for the benches, cafe tables and chairs along the length of the esplanade.

The esplanade and the counteracting marble-walled parking bays act as bookends to the open central plaza, which will provide event space as well as unencumbered views to and from the Administration Building (now home to the City of Knoxville Parks and Recreation Department). Vertical elements within the plaza will be constructed with local Tennessee marble, including a series of walls and columns which provide a heightened sense of the center of the park, and piers which frame the views of the Tennessee River and Great Smoky Mountains.

Dee Haslam, Chair of the Lakeshore Park Conservancy Board of Directors commented: "The future of the park depends upon partnership between the public and private sectors. We are grateful to HGTV for providing funds for the overlook that will be an important part of the park for generations to come."

"Already one of the most popular areas in the Park, the HGTV Overlook will enhance the park-goer's experience with a shaded walk lined with benches, cafe tables and chairs and architectural elements that will recast this location in an entirely new and even more beautiful light," said Connor Coffey, the Executive Director of the Lakeshore Park Conservancy, which manages the park on behalf of the City of Knoxville and is building the Overlook.

The Overlook project will replace Circle Drive, the mid-level road that runs through the park. When construction begins, Circle Drive will be closed to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Hilltop Drive, the access road which leads to the rear of the Administration Building will remain open during construction. Pedestrian access will re-open upon completion of construction, currently scheduled for October 2019.

Primary funding for the HGTV Overlook project was provided by a $3 Million gift from Scripps Networks Interactive, the global media company that was purchased by Discovery, Inc. in 2018.

Contact: Connor Coffey, Executive Director, [email protected]

(646) 724-0024. Photography of the HGTV Overlook is available on request.

SOURCE Lakeshore Park Conservancy
HONG KONG, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Klook, a world leading travel activities and services booking platform, and Rail Europe, the leading distributor of European rail products representing over 50 railroads throughout Europe, are pleased to announce a game-changing global partnership. Marking an important milestone for Klook, the strategic partnership will augment the platform's rail offerings and provide travelers with all-encompassing travel in-destination services. At the same time, Rail Europe may now leverage Klook's cutting-edge mobile booking technology to connect with modern, tech-savvy travelers in more than 100 markets around the world.

Beginning in late 2018, users have enjoyed easy access to Rail Europe's convenient services through Klook's dedicated Europe Rail landing page . The comprehensive booking services include point-to-point train tickets as well as sought-after rail passes, such as Swiss Travel Pass, Eurail Pass, BritRail Pass, and German Rail Pass. Ensuring quality service and seamless online bookings globally, Klook's platforms support both e-ticket for users worldwide and physical tickets (via free mail delivery) to close to 20 markets. To better serve travelers on-the-go, Klook's newly launched point-to-point booking site, available first on its mobile web and app, supports real-time city-to-city booking for train tickets as well as seat reservations for rail passes.

"We're thrilled to partner with Rail Europe to further expand Klook's services in European destinations and develop our new rail product offering. This partnership, and the extensive services it provides to our customers, will further solidify our standing as one of the world's leading in-destination platforms with rail being a key pillar," said Eric Gnock Fah, Klook's COO and Co-Founder. "Seeing a tremendous success of Klook's rail experiences in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, we are excited to pioneer technological innovations in European rail services. These efforts reinforce our mission as a one-stop booking platform for travelers to discover and book in-destination experiences of all kinds."

"Our new partnership with Klook is a huge boon for Rail Europe," said Dau-Khoi Nguyen, President and CEO of Rail Europe SAS. "As a pioneer in the online travel and activities booking sector, Klook serves modern travelers around the world, covering over eight languages and 41 currencies. As a growing number of travelers seek more convenient, on-the-spot booking options, we believe Klook's innovative mobile services will make the beautiful train journeys of Europe more accessible than ever."

Click here to download multimedia assets.

About Klook

Founded in 2014, Klook is a world leading travel activities and services booking platform. Klook gives travelers a seamless way to discover and book popular attractions, tours, local transportation, best foods and must-eats, and unique experiences around the world on its website and award-winning app ('Best of 2015', 'Best of 2017' & 'Best of 2018' by Google Play and Apple App Store). With Klook's innovative technologies, travelers can book after arriving in their destinations and redeem the services by using QR codes or e-vouchers. Each day, Klook empowers countless travelers to indulge in their wanderlust and spontaneity through over 80,000 offerings in more than 250 destinations.

With a team of more than 1,000 across over 20 offices worldwide, Klook's services are available in eight languages, supporting 41 currencies. It has raised a total of US$300 million investment from world-renowned investors including Sequoia China, TCV, Matrix Partners, and Goldman Sachs. Get inspired by Klook at www.klook.com , the company blog or @Klook .

About Rail Europe

Rail Europe, in operation since 1932, is a European rail travel distribution company, and the dedicated source for planning and booking European train tickets, passes, and more. Owned by two shareholders, the French National Railroads (SNCF) through VSC Group, and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the company has grown to become the leading authority on European train travel worldwide, generating close to half a billion USD in annual sales. The company is headquartered in Paris, France, with offices in North and South America, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan.

SOURCE Klook

Related Links

http://www.klook.com


PITTSBURGH, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- "I hate flossing with conventional dental floss," said one of two inventors from Covina, Calif. "I thought that there had to be an easier way to achieve good oral health. This led me to create a more convenient way to floss between teeth."

They developed the FINGER FLOSS to make it easier to floss between teeth. The accessory allows the floss to be directed with the index finger. The unit eliminates the need to use traditional dental floss and other flossing aids. The invention saves time and effort, and does away with hassles and frustrations. Additionally, it is easy to use.

The original design was submitted to the Los Angeles sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 18-LAX-1066, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

SOURCE InventHelp

Related Links

http://www.inventhelp.com


GREENVILLE, N.C., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Grover Gaming, Inc. announced today that, effective February 4, 2019, Scott Henneman will be its new Vice-President of Business Development and Governmental Relations. Mr. Henneman will represent Grover Gaming in its expanding role in electronic Lottery and Charitable Gaming markets internationally.

Most recently, Mr. Henneman was Vice-President of Diamond Game a Pollard Banknote Company after previously being Vice President & General Manager of the Oasis Gaming Division of International Gamco Inc. for the past twenty-six years. Before joining International Gamco, Mr. Henneman was Director of Operations for the South Dakota Lottery and was responsible for the management of that lottery's implementation of the first Video Lottery program in the industry from 1989 to 1992. Prior to that he was Special Assistant to the Governor of The State of South Dakota, managing the legislative process for the Governor's Office and Executive Branch from 1986 to 1989. Henneman is also a Past Director and Vice President of the North American Gaming Regulators Association (NAGRA).

"Scott is a great addition to the team here at Grover Gaming. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in electronic gaming. Additionally, he knows what it's like to be a gaming regulator and is familiar with the special challenges associated with Lottery and Charitable Gaming in this country and internationally. We are very excited to have him!" said Garrett Blackwelder, President of Grover Gaming.

Henneman joins Grover Gaming, Inc. to help continue Grover's recent success and expansion in Charitable Electronic Gaming and Lottery markets in the United States and Canada. Henneman said, "I look forward to being part of the Grover Gaming team. They have the most innovative gaming products in the industry and have demonstrated that their game development and graphics generate more net earnings for charities and lotteries than competitive products." Henneman added, "I am excited to be part of Grover Gaming's growth and am confident that I can make a difference there."

Grover Gaming develops software, game content and gaming systems and is licensed in New Hampshire, Kentucky, North Dakota, Washington, Ontario Canada, and The Commonwealth of Virginia.

Grover Gaming's design and development facility is located in Greenville, North Carolina, employing over 140 talented team members including developers, artists, audio designers, programmers, and .net developers.

SOURCE Grover Gaming, Inc.
Kashif Shan was Mayor Clugston's special guest at the annual State of the City address, hosted by the Medicine Hat & District Chamber of Commerce, as well as Kiwanis International on Tuesday, January 29.

"Our PCR rich products help so many people in their daily lives, and while this partnership is crucial, I never want us to lose sight of that," Shan added. "I am more than confident that together we will be able to help so many in need."

"The fact that Folium Biosciences chose Medicine Hat as their first location in Canada is such an accomplishment for our City," says Ted Clugston, Mayor of Medicine Hat. "The scale of their operation will have a huge impact on our community  from employment to real estate to retail. We're excited to welcome them to our growing economy."

The Trade Commissioner Service at the Consulate General of Canada in Denver, Colorado also received the news with optimism for Medicine Hat's imminent economic growth and certain prosperity with such a large scale operation professionally led by the hemp industry's trailblazer.

About Folium Biosciences:

Folium Biosciences is the largest vertically-integrated producer, manufacturer, and distributor of hemp derived phytocannabinoids in the USA, if not the world. It is a B2B, bulk and wholesale supplier of hemp derived CBD 0.0% THC oil, CBD water-soluble technology, CBD 0.0% THC edibles, and CBD for animal health as certified by the state of Colorado.

This Colorado Springs headquartered company ships 0.0% THC white label, bulk and finished products to customers worldwide. It has been certified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as a producer of 0.0% THC products and has been issued Free Sale Certification.

Folium Biosciences has over 300K square feet of manufacturing space in southern Colorado which supports processing, extraction, and purification operations. Their brand new state-of-the-art facility in Medicine Hat will mirror their current operations in Colorado.

[email protected]

SOURCE Folium Biosciences

Related Links

https://foliumbiosciences.com/


Genesys orchestrates over 25 billion contact center interactions per year in the cloud and on-premises for its 11,000 customers in 120 countries. It generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and has attracted a large ecoystem of 1,200 partners worldwide. Keys to its success include continual infusion of capital into research and development to fuel innovation, along with a series of strategic acquisitions to quickly add capabilities to its portfolio. One of its most significant acquisitions, for example, was Interactive Intelligence, a key competitor and a market leader in its own right. This acquisition broadened its technology and cloud offerings to cover the entire market.

"The multi-pronged approach to growth that Genesys takes has helped it streamline the way products are acquired, implemented, and used. For instance, in 2016, it announced that Hellman & Friedman LLC, a leading private equity investment firm, acquired a substantial minority equity stake in the company. This partnership positioned Genesys as one of the most valuable private software companies in the world," said Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "In addition to its robust M&A strategy, the company has gradually built a vast and advanced portfolio that caters to customers' changing needs. It has also simplified its go-to-market and implementation strategy to drive adoption and invested in emerging technology areas to adapt to a dynamic marketplace."

The company now has three diverse offerings in its customer experience (CX) platform: PureCloud, an all-in-one cloud contact center and employee collaboration solution; PureConnect, an all-in-one multichannel customer engagement solution for both premises and (private) cloud deployments; and PureEngage, an omnichannel customer engagement suite. Its feature-rich solutions are backed by exceptional levels of support and attractive business models. For existing premise customers, the availability of subscription-based pricing as an alternative to perpetual licenses underscores the company's understanding of its customers' business needs. This pricing model provides numerous benefits to clients, including the ability to flex in capacity rather than overpay for peaks and valleys of usage.

"The company has demonstrated visionary innovation in incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) across every area of its portfolio to assist with customer service, sales, and marketing," noted Ms. Jamison. "The frequent product innovations Genesys delivers are often ahead of the curve, but introduced in a way that allow customer adoption at a pace they are comfortable with. Overall, its advanced, rapidly deployable, and risk-free solutions, along with novel pricing models and maintenance, have positioned it for further growth in a highly competitive market."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan bestows this award upon the company that demonstrates excellence in growth and customer value. Attaining loyal customers who became brand advocates allows the company to grow and achieve a market leadership position. By committing to the customer at each stage of the buying cycle and continuing to nurture the relationship, this award recognizes a company's increased market share over time.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Genesys

Genesys powers more than 25 billion of the world's best customer experiences each year. Our success comes from connecting employee and customer conversations on any channel. Every day, 11,000 companies in more than 100 countries trust our #1 customer experience platform to drive great business outcomes and create lasting relationships. Combining the best of technology and human ingenuity, we build solutions that mirror natural communication and work the way you think. Our industry-leading solutions foster true omnichannel engagement because they perform equally well across channels, on-premises and in the cloud. Experience communication as it should be: fluid, instinctive and profoundly empowering. Visit genesys.com on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and the Genesys blog .

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion .

Contact:

Bianca Torres

P: 1.210.477.8418

F: 1.210.348.1003

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

http://www.frost.com


MALVERN, Pa., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Frontline Education, a leading provider of school administration software for the K-12 education community, has launched a new solution for K-12 administrators to consolidate critical human resources processes for easy access and fast, data-driven decision making. The Human Resources Management System (HRMS) & Recruiting software puts applicant tracking, benefits administration, compensation, position management and onboarding into one digital system with configurable functionality for better insight and management.

The HRMS & Recruiting software will help districts transition from paper or finance driven-systems to a solution that was built for school district Human Resources processes. Creating these efficiencies allows more time for administrators to attract, cultivate and retain talent within the district.

"Combining these essential HR functions into one system eliminates the need for tedious and often times redundant record keeping. Streamlining the process not only creates efficiency in the moment but can also help solve problems that may arise in the future by mapping and forecasting based on data," said Elizabeth Combs, Managing Director of the Frontline Research & Learning Institute.

The comprehensive human resources management system offers robust functionality that solves for complex processes, including:

Organizational mapping empowers administrators to handle complex scenarios for each position in the district, including managing K-12 specific situations like floating or district-wide assignments.





Position management and control ties assignment details, compensation, security and level of access to data at the position level, this way designations are automatically inherited as people are hired in and out of specific jobs.





Employee self-serve portal gives access to employee information, compensation and benefits with an individual login.





Prior to initiating recruitment activities, the system facilitates conditional approval workflows that route requests to the appropriate person in the district for both the position and budget.





Applicant Tracking and proactive recruiting are built into the system providing district HR professionals with access to 1.7 million K-12 job seekers. The system grants unlimited access to advertising on www.K12JobSpot.com. In addition, the solution provides the ability to capture applicant interest at job fairs allowing candidates to begin applications on the spot.





The recruitment tool also allows HR professionals to create specific campaigns to target candidates with specialized credentials to optimize campaign results.

The comprehensive human resources management system has the ability to integrate and map data with different finance and payroll systems.

"It's all in one place and so it just absolutely allows us to make good use of taxpayer money as it relates to employees by being able to make sure that they spend the fruit of their work in doing what's right for onboarding," said Rick Rodriguez, Assistant Superintendent HR, Lubbock ISD.

About Frontline Education:

Frontline Education is the leading provider of school administration software, empowering strategic K-12 leaders with the right tools, data and insights to proactively manage human capital, business operations and special education.

Educational organizations representing over 80,000 schools and millions of educators, administrators and support personnel have partnered with Frontline Education in their efforts to develop the next generation of learners. Frontline is dedicated to driving engagement across K-12 school systems and supporting the continuous improvement of employee effectiveness and efficiency with solutions for proactive recruiting and hiring, absence and time, professional growth, student information systems, special education and interventions, payroll, benefits and financial management.

Frontline Education corporate headquarters are in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with offices in Andover, Massachusetts; Rockville Centre, New York; and Austin, TX.

Learn more at www.FrontlineEducation.com



SOURCE Frontline Education

Related Links

https://www.frontlineeducation.com


WASHINGTON and SINGAPORE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Founded by blockchain industry veteran, Kevin Batteh, Jenga Advisors LLC is a Washington, D.C. based regulatory strategy firm specifically focused on advising blockchain companies with respect to regulatory compliant token projects and secondary market listings on global trading platforms. Jenga Advisors was established through a strategic partnership between Kevin Batteh and Jenga Business Consulting Group of Singapore ("Jenga BCG"), a leading blockchain advisory firm.

"In order to be a successful, decentralized application, the underlying token that drives the application must be widely distributed. In many instances, the best way to achieve wide distribution is through a listing on a trading platform. Trading platforms provide a way for participants in a decentralized application to obtain or sell the underlying utility token of the application. This in turn allows the application to achieve broader use and beneficial network effects," said Kevin Batteh, founding partner of Jenga Advisors.

"Kevin is widely recognized as a blockchain thought leader," said Bill Shihara, CEO of Bittrex. "Bittrex has relied on his global regulatory experience for several years, and he is an advocate that will enable blockchain clients to securely and efficiently navigate the current regulatory complexities, as well as the demands of responsible digital asset trading platforms who insist on working with compliant partners."

"Kevin has been a trusted partner and advisor to several of our projects from the beginning and we are excited to see the launch of Jenga Advisors. Given his deep experience in navigating regulation both as an advisor to entities that must navigate regulation and as a regulator himself, we know that he will be a valuable partner to other token teams," said Matthew Roszak, chairman of Bloq.

"We have relied on Kevin's expertise in the past and look forward to working with him in his new role," said Victor Kil, Chief of Overseas Projects for Upbit.

Kevin has over two decades of experience as a financial services lawyer, and for the past seven years has focused on the intersection of financial regulation and blockchain. Kevin has a proven track record of advising blockchain companies, as well as digital asset trading platforms, regulated exchanges, miners, blockchain infrastructure providers, and mainstream companies that wish to leverage blockchain.

Kevin began his career at a Fortune 100 law firm. In 2003 he joined the CFTC and served as chief trial attorney in the US Dollar LIBOR manipulation cases that resulted in billion dollar settlements. He also served as counsel to Commissioner Jill Sommers. Kevin has held senior roles with the UK FCA and the US Senate. Kevin is also a partner in Washington DC based Delta Strategy Group.

Jenga BCG, headquartered in Singapore, is a comprehensive blockchain business consulting firm specializing in structuring and compliance, risk management and banking solutions, marketing and communication strategy for Asia markets. Over the last several years, Jenga BCG has assisted hundreds of blockchain projects out of Singapore.

Website: www.jengaadvisors.com

Contact email: [email protected]

SOURCE Jenga Advisors

Related Links

http://www.jengaadvisors.com


BEIJING, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fang Holdings Limited (NYSE: SFUN) ("Fang" or the "Company"), a leading real estate Internet portal in China, today announced that Mr. Jingbo Wang has resigned from the board of directors of the Company (the "Board"), effective from January 30, 2019. Mr. Wang's resignation did not result from any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company's operations, policies or practices.

"I and the rest of the Board would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to Mr. Wang for his services to Fang as our Board member and wish him continued success in his future endeavors," said Mr. Vincent Tianquan Mo, Fang's Chairman.

About Fang

Fang operates a leading real estate Internet portal in China in terms of the number of page views and visitors to its websites. Through its websites, Fang provides primarily listing, marketing, financial and other value-added services for China's fast-growing real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors. Its user-friendly websites support active online communities and networks of users seeking information on, and other value-added services for, the real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors in China. Fang currently maintains about 100 offices to focus on local market needs and its website and database contains real estate related content covering more than 651 cities in China.

SOURCE Fang Holdings Limited
WELLESLEY, Mass., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 4G Clinical, a cutting-edge randomization and trial supply management (RTSM) provider, today announced a strategic partnership with EPS Corporation, one of the largest CROs in Japan.

"We are very excited to select 4G Clinical as our IRT/RTSM provider for multinational clinical trials," says Hidetaka Ando, CEO of EPS Corporation. "We are impressed by the innovation, speed and flexibility of their RTSM solution, and are confident this partnership will contribute to our business expansion world-wide."

EPS Corporation has provided randomization services for clinical trials for almost three decades. Melding this experience and 4G's cutting-edge technology, EPS Corporation is sure to promote further improvements in business quality and efficiency for its customers.

"This partnership reflects our mutual commitment to make a meaningful impact on the way trials are executed," says David Kelleher, CEO of 4G Clinical. "As one of the most reputable CROs in Japan, we are thrilled to work together to better serve sponsors, investigators and patients world-wide."

The 4G-EPS partnership is consistent with 4G's global expansion, including the launch of a Tokyo office, and is in support of their mission to bring crucial medicines to those that need them, faster.

About EPS Corporation

Since its establishment in 1991, EPS Corporation has continued to grow, becoming a company with over 2,000 employees, providing comprehensive service offerings in nearly every therapeutic area. EPS Corporation has earned a reputation in the pharmaceutical industry as an ideal choice for clinical trials of new drugs, assisting with all aspects of developmentfrom drug development to post marketing/pharmacovigilance. EPS Corporation is headquartered in Shinjuku, Tokyo, with offices in Osaka and Nagoya. For more information, visit https://www.eps.co.jp/en/index.html.

About 4G Clinical

4G Clinical is a leader in randomization and trial supply management (RTSM) for the global life sciences industry, offering the only fully cloud-based, 100% configurable and flexible solution utilizing natural language processing (NLP) and integrated supply forecasting. 4G Clinical is headquartered in the Boston Biotech corridor of Wellesley, MA, with offices in Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.4gclinical.com .

Media Contact:

Amy Ripston

1-781-694-1400

[email protected]

SOURCE 4G Clinical

Related Links

http://www.4gclinical.com


El Dorado Chevrolet has been recognized as the first 'green' automotive dealership in the nation. "Our commitment to solar canopies is our biggest environmental initiative to date," said Stanley Graff, owner of El Dorado Chevrolet. "Sunfinity was able to show us how to benefit the environment and our bottom line all at the same time, and that's an unbeatable combination." (Other environmentally oriented programs at El Dorado Chevrolet include landscape design using plants suited for Texas with low water requirements, along with a major recycling program to cut solid waste disposal by 35% or more.) The new solar system will turn El Dorado's buildings into Net-Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), with the total amount of renewable energy created on the site exceeding the energy used by the buildings on an annual basis. Graff further states, "This will significantly reduce our cost structure, and we will be able to pass these savings on to our customers."

According to John Billingsley, Chairman, and CEO of Sunfinity Renewable Energy, the plan centers on powerful system design combined with leveraging Retail Electric Provider programs in deregulated Texas that credit excess electric generation exported to the grid back to the originating business. "While this 'net metering' concept is law in some other states, it isn't mandated in Texas," said Billingsley. "However, our Commercial & Industrial team has identified ways to, in effect, create net metering-like cash flows for a business."

The El Dorado system features 37 new car canopies topped with 3,456 solar panels, installed at El Dorado Chevrolet / Mazda. These canopies will produce more electricity than is used on the entire 28-acre campus, which is home to El Dorado Chevrolet / El Dorado Mazda. The excess energy not used on site will be exported to the state's power grid, generating electricity credits for El Dorado. The system is estimated to offset more than 45 million kilowatt-hours of electricity over a 30-year life, saving El Dorado more than $4 million in electricity expenses which can be reinvested into the business.

"This type of project is a win-win-win," said Billingsley. "El Dorado receives a lower utility budget certainty for decades, which enables them to dedicate those dollars to other business-building initiatives. The project helps the Texas grid by supplying power when it's most needed. And the community benefits environmentally because El Dorado will be offsetting a significant amount of CO2 - equivalent to replacing over 35 million pounds of coal burned."

"We have been looking for a solution to the rising insurance premiums due to hail damage for our automotive clients for several years and have been impressed with the Sunfinity solar solution to car protection and electricity generation in one clean package," said Bennett Ratliff, President of The Ratliff Group. "We believe this is a solution that delivers incredible value for El Dorado Chevrolet / Mazda and will be a model for the industry."

In addition to generating over a megawatt of clean energy, the Sunfinity-designed canopies will protect one of the largest automotive inventories in the North Texas region from hail and weather damage, and provide a shaded, protected environment for customers to shop. (El Dorado has up to 1,600 vehicles in inventory.) The Ratliff Group, LLC represents El Dorado Chevrolet / Mazda as their owner's representative and construction manager and projects construction will begin in the first quarter of 2019.

ABOUT EL DORADO CHEVROLET / MAZDA

The Graff family has been selling Chevrolets in the Dallas market for over 65 years, purchasing the El Dorado location in 1991 at 2300 N. Central Expwy. in McKinney and building the new facility in 2002 to accommodate the dynamic growth in McKinney, Texas. For multiple years, El Dorado Chevrolet has been one of the nation's largest Chevrolet dealerships and has repeatedly been recognized as Chevrolet 'Dealer of the Year' for sales and service leadership. El Dorado Chevrolet offers one of the largest selections of new and pre-owned Chevrolet cars, trucks and SUVs serving the DFW area, along with an award-winning service department, body shop, and parts department  and even an on-site barber shop for customer convenience.

This location is also home to El Dorado Mazda, again, one of the largest in the nation and recognized by Mazda as one of their Elite Dealers.

ABOUT SUNFINITY RENEWABLE ENERGY

Sunfinity Renewable Energy (www.sunfinityre.com) is headquartered in Dallas with full-service operations throughout California and Texas, and active expansion into the Southwest, South Central and Northeast regions of the U.S. Sunfinity Renewable Energy offers complete residential, C&I (commercial and industrial) specializing in auto dealerships, and utility-scale solar systems.

ABOUT THE RATLIFF GROUP

The Ratliff Group (www.ratliffgroup.com) is headquartered in Coppell, Texas and provides full-service owner's representation and construction management services for automotive clients across the United States. Having completed over 150 automotive dealership projects since their launch in 2002, Ratliff is one of the leading companies in the automotive facilities industry.

SOURCE Sunfinity Renewable Energy

Related Links

http://www.sunfinityre.com


Don Morphy's win will mark the first time in history that a Dallas-based label has won the Rising Star Award in the menswear category at the annual awards show.

The 22nd Annual FGI awards presentation featured American fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger as the keynote speaker, along with appearances by Phillip Lim, Jennifer Bandier, and many other celebrated figures within the industry.

"Tommy Hilfiger said earlier to always follow your passion and dreams," Mofor said in his acceptance speech. "Almost two years ago on January 31, 2017, I was a full-time computer engineer at Walmart  so I quit my job to focus on this full-time."

The FGI Rising Star awards are an annual event celebrating the "extraordinary accomplishments of emerging talents whose creativity and vision" are realized in the categories of accessories, beauty/fragrance entrepreneur, fine jewelry, home furnishings/product innovation, menswear, retail, and womenswear.

"It is a great honor and a dream come true to win the Rising Star Award," Mofor said. "It's great to see that the passion and hard work is definitely paying off. I hope that it will not only boost the morale of my business, but also make Don Morphy a household name."

Mofor and the Don Morphy label are indefinitely on the rise. Mofor was recognized by Fashion Group International of Dallas as a "Rising Star" nominee in Men's Fashion for both 2018 and 2019, and as one of Dallas' top 6 designers to watch for 2018. The brand is also the national celebrity favorite to the stars (Emmitt Smith, Bishop T.D. Jakes, NBA's Dwight Howard, etc.).

Past Rising Star winners have included Tory Burch, Phillip Lim, Derek Lam, Thom Browne, Joseph Altuzarra, Jason Wu, and many more who have crafted successful businesses and are now household names.

For more info visit DonMorphy.com. Additionally, peek the designs at @don_morphy and @thedonmorphyman.

SOURCE Don Morphy

Related Links

https://www.donmorphy.com


MISSION VIEJO, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- DBM Corporation, Inc., the Official North America Representative of MIRACU PDO Threads, has released their official Domestic Tradeshow Exhibiting and Educational Seminars Schedule for the first six months (Jan-Jun) of 2019. After having received the first PDO Thread 510(k) approval from the U.S. FDA in November of 2018 the company is eager to speak with medical professionals regarding their superior thread technology. The company is expected to release their second six month (Jul-Dec) Domestic Tradeshow Exhibiting and Educational Seminars Schedule on July 1st, 2019. *Apollo Med Innovations, LLC, a registered distributor of MIRACU PDO Threads has also released their 2019 Education Seminar Schedule.

DBM Corporation, Inc. is the Official US Distributor of MIRACU PDO Threads

JANUARY 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Atlanta, GA - January 19-20, 2019

FEBRUARY 2019

DBM CORPORATION TRADESHOWS:

53rd Annual Baker Gordon Symposium, Miami, FL - February 7-9, 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Las Vegas, NV  February 16-17, 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS TRADESHOWS:

Medical Spa Show, Las Vegas, NV - February 8-10, 2019

MARCH 2019

DBM CORPORATION TRADESHOWS:

AAD Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. - March 1-5, 2019

- ASPS Aesthetics, Las Vegas, NV - March 14-16, 2019

DBM CORPORATION EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS:

Introductory Seminar | Washington, D.C. - March 2, 2019

- Innovation Seminar | Mission Viejo, CA - March 3, 2019

- Innovation Seminar | Tijuana , MX - March 4, 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Dallas, TX  March 16-17, 2019

APRIL 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Atlanta, GA  April 27-28, 2019

MAY 2019

DBM CORPORATION TRADESHOWS:

The Aesthetic Meeting, New Orleans, LA - May 16-21, 2019

- A+MD Symposium, Coeur D'Alene, ID - May 15-19, 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Las Vegas, NV  May 4-5, 2019

JUNE 2019

DBM CORPORATION TRADESHOWS:

VEGAS Cosmetic Surgery & Aesthetic Dermatology, Las Vegas, NV - June 5-8, 2019

DBM CORPORATION EDUCATIONAL SEMINARS:

Level 1 | Palm Springs, CA - June 23-24, 2019

APOLLO MED INNOVATIONS EDUCATION SEMINARS:

Dallas, TX  June 22-23, 2019

About DBM Corporation, Inc.

DBM Corporation, Inc. (DBMCorporationInc.com), headquartered in Mission Viejo, California, is a solution provider for medical aesthetic needs in U.S. market. DBM Corporation is the Official North America Representative of MIRACU PDO Threads.

For more information regarding MIRACU PDO Threads, to place an order, or attend one of our Educational Seminars, please contact DBM Corporation, Inc. at 1-949-329-8124, or visit DBMCorporationInc.com or www.MIRACUUSA.com.

**Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those described in DBM Corporations periodic reports. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results.**

About Apollo Med Innovations, LLC

Apollo Med Innovations, LLC is a leading distributor of cutting edge aesthetic products to the MedSpa and aesthetic industries. Apollo Med Innovations, LLC is the Official Distributor of MIRACU PDO Threads in all territories East of the Mississippi, in addition to the state of Texas.

For more information regarding MIRACU PDO Threads, to place an order, or attend one of Apollo Med Innovations, LLC Educational Seminars, please contact Apollo Med Innovations, LLC at 1-888-473-9066, or visit www.ApolloMedInnovations.com.

SOURCE DBM Corporation, Inc.
NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW), the leading organization for beauty industry professionals, is celebrating its 65th anniversary. Founded in 1954, CEW has become the preeminent beauty organization for professionals at every stage of their careers and from every facet of the industry. The organization is committed to propelling the beauty industry forward by creating a forum for collaboration, idea exchange and growth for its members.

"CEW was founded to help women in the beauty industry achieve, advance and inspire," says CEW President, Carlotta Jacobson. "We have grown into the leading professional organization for our industry with more than 10,000 members worldwide and we remain committed to our mission of fueling the potential of all of our members. We do that by providing unparalleled programming, access to influencers and by recognizing achievement to encourage and inspire the next generation of leaders."

Programs to Inspire and Honor

CEW's year-round calendar of speakers, webinars and networking events feature industry experts that share thought-leadership and inspiration. Its annual State of the Beauty Industry Report is widely anticipated by members for its actionable insights on the evolution of the beauty industry. While the Connected Consumer conference explores the evolution of the digital consumer journey.

Recognizing and encouraging achievement are also part of CEW's mission and include the Achiever Awards, launched in 1975 to honor outstanding female leaders in the beauty industry and the Top Talent Awards were added in 2014 to recognize up-and-coming executives at mid-career. Both are designed to serve as inspiration for future leaders and support the advancement of women in the industry.

Outside the beauty industry, CEW is best known for its prestigious Beauty Awards program, which provides beauty consumers with a look at both the best of the beauty and wellness industry and a "seal of approval" on the most innovative new products each year. Now in its 25th year, the CEW Beauty Awards are still the only awards chosen by beauty industry insiders  the people who know beauty best.

A Brief History

CEW began as a social organization for women working in beauty careers. In 1975, CEW re-launched as a non-profit dedicated to promoting the contributions of women in the cosmetics industry. That mission expanded over time to include education, philanthropy and industry development.

CEW established a philanthropic arm, the Cosmetic Executive Women Foundation, in 1993 to help women better their lives. In 2001, the Foundation launched Cancer and Careers, a groundbreaking program dedicated to empowering and educating people with cancer to thrive in their workplaces by providing expert advice, interactive tools and educational events.

About CEW

CEW is an international organization of more than 10,000 individual members representing a cross section of beauty and related businesses. The composition of membership includes leading brands, indies, retailers, media and suppliers. CEW's primary purpose is to provide programs online and in person to develop careers and knowledge of the beauty industry. CEW provides opportunities to connect and gain industry knowledge through networking events, trend reports, industry newsletters, interactive workshops and industry leader talks. For more information, please visit https://www.cew.org/ .

SOURCE Cosmetic Executive Women

Related Links

https://www.cew.org


WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The leading ratings and reviews site Clutch.co released their annual list of the top 308 companies located in Canada.

The leaders embody exemplary customer service and demonstrate their expertise in the B2B sector through their strong industry knowledge, project management, thought leadership, and diverse portfolios of work and clientele.

Top Creative and Design Agencies Canada 2019 - Clutch Top Developers Canada 2019 - Clutch

The leaders can be found in the following research lists:

https://clutch.co/ca/top-service-providers

https://clutch.co/ca/seo-firms

https://clutch.co/ca/seo-firms/consultants

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/social-media-marketing

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/ppc

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/branding

https://clutch.co/ca/pr-firms

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/digital

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/digital-marketing

https://https://clutch.co/ca/agencies

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/inbound-marketing

https://https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/content-marketing

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/app-marketing

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/email

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/direct-marketing

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/digital-strategy

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/media-buying

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/market-research

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/digital-design

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/design

https://clutch.co/ca/web-designers

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/creative

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/ui-ux

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/video-production

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/naming

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/logo-designers

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/graphic-designers

https://clutch.co/ca/web-developers

https://clutch.co/ca/app-developers

https://clutch.co/ca/developers

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/testing

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/shopify

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/ruby-rails

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/php

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/react-native

https://clutch.co/ca/app-developers/iphone

https://clutch.co/ca/app-developers/android

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/dot-net

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/magento

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/angularjs

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/ecommerce

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/virtual-reality

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/wordpress

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/drupal

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/artificial-intelligence

https://clutch.co/ca/developers/internet-of-things

https://clutch.co/ca/bpo

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services

https://clutch.co/ca/accounting

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/staff-augmentation

https://clutch.co/ca/transcription

https://clutch.co/ca/translation

https://clutch.co/ca/call-centers/lead-generation

https://clutch.co/ca/call-centers/telemarketing

https://clutch.co/ca/call-centers

https://clutch.co/ca/call-centers/answering-services

https://clutch.co/ca/call-centers/virtual-receptionist

https://clutch.co/ca/consulting

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/cybersecurity

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/crm

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/cloud

https://clutch.co/ca/hr

https://clutch.co/ca/hr/recruiting

https://clutch.co/ca/hr/staffing

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/erp

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/ecm

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/msp

https://clutch.co/ca/it-services/analytics

https://clutch.co/ca/agencies/sem

"Clutch's sophisticated scoring methodology is a data-driven assessment that accounts for myriad strengths and skill sets," Senior Business Analyst Sara Philibotte said.

"Companies who lead the ranks on our platform have demonstrated not only an ability to deliver, but also a competitive edge as an industry leader," Philibotte continued. "Of the countless service providers in Canada we researched, these companies are truly best in class."

Clutch's research on companies in Canada is ongoing, and rankings are dynamic. The Clutch team invites interested companies to apply to get listed in the report next year.

The results are a snapshot of Clutch's Leaders Matrices on Tuesday, January 22. Rankings are dynamic and may not reflect the rankings currently listed on Clutch's website.

The full research can be found below:

https://clutch.co/ca/top-service-providers

About Clutch

A B2B research, ratings, and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, D.C., Clutch connects small and medium businesses with the best-fit agencies, software, or consultants they need to tackle business challenges together and with confidence. Clutch's methodology compares business service providers and software in a specific market based on verified client reviews, services offered, work quality, and market presences.

Contact

Sara Philibotte

(202) 609-9922

[email protected]

SOURCE Clutch
Stock Market Symbols

GIB.A (TSX)

GIB (NYSE)

cgi.com/en/investors

Revenue growth of 5.2% and 13.3% EPS expansion

Q1-F2019 year-over-year highlights

Revenue of $2.96 billion , up 5.2%;

, up 5.2%; Adjusted EBIT of $439.2 million , or 14.8% of revenue, up 40 basis points;

, or 14.8% of revenue, up 40 basis points; Net earnings of $311.5 million , or 10.5% of revenue, up 40 basis points;

, or 10.5% of revenue, up 40 basis points; Net earnings excluding specific items* of $314.7 million , or 10.6% of revenue, up 40 basis points;

, or 10.6% of revenue, up 40 basis points; Diluted EPS of $1.11 , or $1.12 excluding specific items*, up 13.3% and 13.1% respectively;

, or excluding specific items*, up 13.3% and 13.1% respectively; Cash provided by operating activities of $391.5 million or 13.2% of revenue, compared to $410.1 million ;

or 13.2% of revenue, compared to ; Bookings of $3.03 billion , up $54.7 million for a book-to-bill of 102.3%;

, up for a book-to-bill of 102.3%; Bookings of $13.55 billion over the last twelve months, up $2.25 billion for a book-to-bill of 116.3%;

over the last twelve months, up for a book-to-bill of 116.3%; Backlog of $23.34 billion , up $2.23 billion .

*Specific items in Q1-F2019 include $3.2 million in acquisition-related and integration costs net of tax. Specific items in Q1-F2018 are comprised of: a favorable tax adjustment of $34.1 million, $24.3 million in restructuring costs and $12.5 million in acquisition-related and integration costs, both net of tax;

Note: All figures in Canadian dollars. Q1-F2019 MD&A, interim condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes can be found at cgi.com/investors and have been filed with both SEDAR in Canada and EDGAR in the U.S.

To access the financial statements  click here (PDF)

To access the MD&A  click here (PDF)

MONTREAL, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB) reported fiscal 2019 first quarter revenue of $2.96 billion, representing growth of 5.2% compared with Q1-F2018. In constant currency, revenue grew 4.5% as foreign exchange fluctuations positively impacted revenue by $21.4 million.

Adjusted EBIT increased to $439.2 million, representing a margin of 14.8%, up 40 basis points, compared with $406.3 million, or 14.4% in Q1-F2018.

Net earnings increased to $311.5 million in Q1-F2019, compared with $285.3 million in the year ago period. Earnings per diluted share were $1.11 cents, an increase of 13.3% compared with 98 cents last year.

Net earnings excluding specific items were $314.7 million or 10.6% of revenue, compared with $288.0 million last year. On the same basis, earnings per diluted share were $1.12, an improvement of 13.1% from 99 cents in Q1-F2018.

"We are off to a good start in fiscal 2019, as our profitable growth strategy delivered strong first quarter results," said George D. Schindler, President and Chief Executive Officer. "I am encouraged by the broad-based growth we are experiencing across all regions, accelerated by our recent metro market mergers."

Bookings for the first three months of fiscal 2019 were $3.03 billion or 102.3% of revenue. On a trailing twelve-month basis, total awards were $13.55 billion, or 116.3% of revenue. At the end of Q1-F2019, the company's backlog was $23.34 billion, up $2.23 billion from the year ago period.

Cash generated from operating activities was $391.5 million or 13.2% of revenue, compared with $410.1 million in the year ago period. Over the last twelve months, the company has generated $1.47 billion or $5.15 in cash per diluted share.

At the end of December 2018, the company had more than $1.93 billion in available cash and unused credit facilities, while net debt was $1.74 billion, representing a net debt to capitalization ratio of 19.1%.







In millions of Canadian dollars except earnings per share

and where noted





Q1-F2019 Q1-F2018 Revenue 2,963.9 2,816.9 Growth 5.2% 5.3% Growth at constant currency 4.5% 4.9% Adjusted EBIT 439.2 406.3 Margin 14.8% 14.4% Net earnings 311.5 285.3 Margin 10.5% 10.1% Net earnings excluding specific items* 314.7 288.0 Margin 10.6% 10.2% Earnings per share (diluted) 1.11 0.98 Earnings per share (diluted) excluding specific items* 1.12 0.99 Weighted average number of outstanding shares (diluted) 281.6 291.6 Net finance costs 14.6 17.1 Net debt 1,738.7 1,635.0 Net debt to capitalization ratio 19.1% 19.3% Cash provided by operating activities 391.5 410.1 Days sales outstanding (DSO) 54 47 Return on invested capital (ROIC) 14.5% 13.7% Return on equity (ROE) 17.3% 16.2% Bookings 3,030.8 2,976.1 Backlog 23,337.9 21,110.1







*Specific items in Q1-F2019 are comprised of: $3.2 million in acquisition-related and integration costs net of tax. Specific items in Q1-F2018 are comprised of: a favorable tax adjustment of $34.1 million, $24.3 million in restructuring costs and $12.5 million in acquisition-related and integration costs, both net of tax.

Normal Course Issuer Bid

The company's Board of Directors authorized earlier this morning the renewal of its Normal Course Issuer Bid, which, subject to approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange, allows for the purchase for cancellation of up to 20,100,499 Class A subordinate voting shares over the next 12 months, representing approximately 10% of the company's public float as of the close of business on January 23, 2019. Purchases of Class A subordinate voting shares may commence on February 6, 2019. For further information, please refer to the company's press release regarding the renewal of its Normal Course Issuer Bid.

Q1-F2019 results conference call

Management will host a conference call this morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time to discuss results. Participants may access the call by dialing 1-800-377-0758 or via cgi.com/investors . For those unable to participate on the live call, a podcast and copy of the slides will be archived for download at cgi.com/investors .



Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders

This morning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, the company will hold its Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal. The meeting, as well as the question and answer session that follows will be broadcast live via cgi.com/investors .

About CGI

Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. With approximately 74,000 professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from IT and business consulting to systems integration, outsourcing services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. With annual revenue of C$11.5 billion, CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Learn more at cgi.com.

Non-GAAP financial metrics used in this release: Constant currency growth, adjusted EBIT, net debt, net debt to capitalization ratio, bookings, book-to-bill ratio, backlog, DSO, ROIC, ROE and net earnings and diluted EPS excluding specific items.

CGI reports its financial results in accordance with IFRS. However, management believes that these non-GAAP measures provide useful information to investors regarding the company's financial condition and results of operations as they provide additional measures of its performance. Additional details for these non-GAAP measures can be found on pages 3 and 4 of our MD&A which is posted on CGI's website, and filed with SEDAR and EDGAR.

Forward-looking information and statements

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other applicable United States safe harbours. All such forward-looking information and statements are made and disclosed in reliance upon the safe harbour provisions of applicable Canadian and United States securities laws. Forward-looking information and statements include all information and statements regarding CGI's intentions, plans, expectations, beliefs, objectives, future performance, and strategy, as well as any other information or statements that relate to future events or circumstances and which do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts. Forward-looking information and statements often but not always use words such as "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "anticipate", "foresee", "plan", "predict", "project", "aim", "seek", "strive", "potential", "continue", "target", "may", "might", "could", "should", and similar expressions and variations thereof. These information and statements are based on our perception of historic trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other assumptions, both general and specific, that we believe are appropriate in the circumstances. Such information and statements are, however, by their very nature, subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, of which many are beyond the control of CGI, and which give rise to the possibility that actual results could differ materially from our expectations expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not restricted to: risks related to the market such as the level of business activity of our clients, which is affected by economic and political conditions, and our ability to negotiate new contracts; risks related to our industry such as competition and our ability to attract and retain qualified employees, to develop and expand our services, to penetrate new markets, and to protect our intellectual property rights; risks related to our business such as risks associated with our growth strategy, including the integration of new operations, financial and operational risks inherent in worldwide operations, foreign exchange risks, income tax laws, our ability to negotiate favorable contractual terms, to deliver our services and to collect receivables, and the reputational and financial risks attendant to cybersecurity breaches and other incidents; as well as other risks identified or incorporated by reference in this press release, in CGI's annual and quarterly MD&A and in other documents that we make public, including our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators (on SEDAR at www.sedar.com) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (on EDGAR at www.sec.gov). Unless otherwise stated, the forward-looking information and statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and CGI disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information or forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. While we believe that our assumptions on which these forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are based were reasonable as at the date of this press release, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking information or statements. Furthermore, readers are reminded that forward-looking information and statements are presented for the sole purpose of assisting investors and others in understanding our objectives, strategic priorities and business outlook as well as our anticipated operating environment. Readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Further information on the risks that could cause our actual results to differ significantly from our current expectations may be found in the section titled "Risk Environment" of CGI's annual and quarterly MD&A, which is incorporated by reference in this cautionary statement. We also caution readers that the above-mentioned risks and the risks disclosed in CGI's annual and quarterly MD&A and other documents and filings are not the only ones that could affect us. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial could also have a material adverse effect on our financial position, financial performance, cash flows, business or reputation.

SOURCE CGI Group Inc.

Related Links

www.cgi.com


MIAMI, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Cruise Line's Mardi Gras  already creating buzz among cruise fans  is now open for sale of its inaugural schedule for 2020.

Mardi Gras will offer a diverse schedule with six- to 15-day sailings visiting top destinations throughout Europe and the Caribbean beginning in summer 2020.

Guests can choose from more than 20 different stateroom categories and multiple levels of spacious and luxurious suites, more than on any other Carnival ship. A range of stateroom options provides guests the opportunity to further personalize their vacation experiences and includes special staterooms and suites such as Family Harbor, Havana Cabana and Cloud 9 Spa accommodations, as well as a wide selection of suites, balcony, oceanview and interior staterooms.

"For Mardi Gras, we've developed some truly exciting and diverse itineraries that will provide our guests with opportunities to experience and explore top destinations in Europe and the Caribbean," said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. "These itineraries will serve as the perfect complement to the unique shipboard experience that Mardi Gras will offer. We've begun releasing some of the new stateroom designs to our guests and travel agency partners as part of today's announcement and plan to share additional details over the coming weeks."

Exciting Inaugural Season

Mardi Gras will offer an exciting inaugural schedule providing guests with myriad opportunities to experience and explore stunning and historic destinations. The schedule includes:

A nine-day maiden voyage from Copenhagen to Southampton Aug. 31  Sept. 9, 2020 calling at Kiel ( Hamburg ), Germany ; Gothenburg, Sweden ; Oslo, Norway ; Rotterdam, The Netherlands ; Zeebrugge ( Brussels ), Belgium ; and Le Havre ( Paris ), France .

to  calling at Kiel ( ), ; ; ; ; Zeebrugge ( ), ; and ( ), . A 14-day trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton to New York Sept. 9-23, 2020 , with stops at Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain ; and Funchal (Madeira) and Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal .

to , with stops at Las Palmas and de Tenerife, Canary Islands, ; and Funchal (Madeira) and Ponta Delgada, Azores, . A six-day cruise round-trip from New York to Portland, Maine and Saint John, New Brunswick Sept. 24-30 .

to and . A 15-day Carnival Journeys voyage departing New York Sept. 30, 2020 and arriving in Port Canaveral, Fla., on Oct. 15, 2020 , calling at Amber Cove, San Juan , St. Thomas , St. Maarten , St. Kitts , Aruba , Curacao , and Grand Turk, positioning the vessel for year-round voyages to the Caribbean .

Year-Round Caribbean Departures from Port Canaveral

Following a special eight-day Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral on Oct. 16, 2020, Mardi Gras will kick off its seven-day program from the Space Coast Oct. 24, 2020, offering two different three-port, seven-day itineraries, alternating weekly to the eastern and western Caribbean featuring some of the region's most beautiful and popular ports.

Eastern Caribbean cruises will visit San Juan , Amber Cove and Grand Turk.

cruises will visit , Amber Cove and Grand Turk. Western Caribbean sailings will stop in Cozumel, Costa Maya and Mahogany Bay (Isla Roatan).

Additional Information and Reservations

Additional details on the six themed zones that will provide Mardi Gras guests with scores of ways to Choose Fun and have a great Carnival cruise vacation are scheduled to be announced over the coming weeks.

To learn more about Carnival Cruise Line, visit Carnival.com. For reservations, contact any travel agent or call 1-800-CARNIVAL. Carnival can also be found on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Journalists also can visit Carnival's media site, carnival-news.com or follow the line's PR department on Twitter at twitter.com/CarnivalPR.

About Carnival Cruise Line

Carnival Cruise Line, part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL;NYSE: CUK), is "The World's Most Popular Cruise Line" with 26 ships operating three- to 24-day voyages to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Bermuda, Cuba, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. The line currently has three new ships scheduled for delivery  Carnival Panorama in 2019, Mardi Gras in 2020 and an as-yet-unnamed ship in 2022.

SOURCE Carnival Cruise Line

Related Links

http://www.carnivalcorp.com


TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (TSX: CF) is scheduled to release its third quarter results and supplementary financial information on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 after TSX market close. Interested investors, the media and other stakeholders may review the earnings release and supplementary financial information at www.canaccordgenuity.com/investor-relations/investor-resources/financial-reports/

QUARTERLY CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST:

Interested parties are invited to listen to Canaccord Genuity's third quarter results conference call via live webcast or a toll-free number. The conference call is scheduled for Thursday, February 14, 2019 at 5:00 a.m. Pacific time, 8:00 a.m. Eastern time, 1:00 p.m. UK time, 9:00 p.m. China Standard Time, and midnight Australia EST. During the call, senior executives will comment on the results and respond to questions from analysts and institutional investors.

The conference call may be accessed live and archived on a listen-only basis at: www.canaccordgenuity.com/investor-relations/news-and-events/conference-calls-and-webcasts/

Analysts and institutional investors can call in via telephone at:

647-427-7450 (within Toronto )

) 1-888-231-8191 (toll free outside Toronto )

) 0-800-051-7107 (toll free from the United Kingdom )

) 0-800-91-7449 (toll free from France )

) 10-800-714-1191 (toll free from Northern China )

) 10-800-140-1195 (toll free from Southern China )

) 1-800-287-011 (toll free from Australia )

) 800-017-8071 (toll free from United Arab Emirates )

Please ask to participate in the Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. Q3/19 results call. If a passcode is requested, please use 2376626.

A replay of the conference call will be made available from approximately two hours after the live call on February 14, 2019 until April 14, 2019 at 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 by entering passcode 2376626 followed by the (#) key.

ABOUT CANACCORD GENUITY GROUP INC.:

Through its principal subsidiaries, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (the "Company") is a leading independent, full-service financial services firm, with operations in two principal segments of the securities industry: wealth management and capital markets. Since its establishment in 1950, the Company has been driven by an unwavering commitment to building lasting client relationships. We achieve this by generating value for our individual, institutional and corporate clients through comprehensive investment solutions, brokerage services and investment banking services. The Company has Wealth Management offices located in Canada, the UK, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Australia. Canaccord Genuity, the international capital markets division, operates in North America, UK & Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. is publicly traded under the symbol CF on the TSX.

SOURCE Canaccord Genuity Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.canaccord.com


SEATTLE, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tom and Sonya Campion, founding trustees of the Campion Advocacy Fund and the Campion Foundation, announced today the selection of Neil Kornze as the new Chief Executive Officer of both organizations, which work to protect public lands, end homelessness, and build nonprofit capacity.

"We could not be more thrilled to welcome Neil to Seattle and the Campion team," said trustees Tom and Sonya Campion. "Our nation's public lands and our most vulnerable communities are facing unprecedented threats. We're up for the fight and we're excited to have Neil's leadership take our work to a new level of impact and leverage. Together, we will execute a bold vision into the future for wild places, people experiencing homelessness in our communities, and advocacy in the nonprofit sector."

The Campion Foundation and Campion Advocacy Fund were established to preserve the last remaining wild places across the West. Through this work, Campion has directed substantial support to the protection of vital landscapes like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness in Idaho, and numerous other wild places throughout the western United States and Canada.

A second major focus for the Foundation and Fund is working to end homelessness in Washington state and across the country. Campion has supported critical efforts including the establishment of the Washington State Office of Homeless Youth and the creation of innovative public-private partnerships to end youth homelessness like A Way Home America and A Way Home Washington.

Kornze, who started as CEO at the beginning of January, brings extensive experience in public administration to these important programs. From 2014 to 2017, he served in the Obama Administration as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the nation's largest public lands agency. The BLM has more than 10,000 employees and responsibility for more than ten percent of land in the United States. Prior to his time at the BLM, Kornze spent nearly a decade working as a policy advisor to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. After leaving the Obama Administration, he founded his own strategy firm to help clients protect land and wildlife, and focused on expanding the outdoor economy.

"I am proud to join the stellar team at the Campion Advocacy Fund and the Campion Foundation. The majestic land, water and wildlife that define us as a nation are under assault. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Americans lack a safe place to sleep, and the problem is getting worse in many communities. We will be working tirelessly to bring attention to these urgent issues and to support those who are fighting for change," said Neil Kornze.

Under Kornze's leadership at the BLM, an unprecedented fifty-five million acres of public lands were protected to support the recovery of keystone species like the Greater Sage Grouse and to preserve treasures like the ancient Native American sites found in Bears Ears National Monument. Kornze also led major reforms of our nation's energy programs, including halting massive federal coal sales, dramatically reducing emissions from oil and gas operations on public lands, and authorizing the largest wind and solar projects in North America.

The Campion Foundation was founded in 2005 by Tom and Sonya Campion following Tom's success in co-founding and leading Zumiez, a Washington-based company that is the world's largest action-sports retailer with 700 stores on three continents. Tom and Sonya took their efforts a step further in 2013 when they established the Campion Advocacy Fund, a separate but affiliated 501(c)(4) nonprofit that works on similar issues to the original 501(c)3 foundation.

Raised in Elko, Nevada, Kornze earned his undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and a master's degree from the London School of Economics.

SOURCE Campion Advocacy Fund
The President's Volunteer Service Award is a national volunteer awards program, encouraging citizens to embody a life of service. The award is intended to recognize companies and citizens that demonstrate a commitment to community involvement. To receive the award, employees had to donate more than 100 hours to community service efforts during 2018.

"Our employees have dedicated themselves not only to Bridgepoint's giving mission, but also to community service on their own time and of their choosing," said Andrew Clark, chief executive officer for Bridgepoint Education. "We are proud to see them recognized at a national level for the impact they make on the local communities where they live and work."

Recipients of the President's Volunteer Service Award were given a personalized certificate and a letter of appreciation from President Donald Trump. For more information on the President's Volunteer Service Award program, visit www.presidentialserviceawards.gov.

About Bridgepoint Education

Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (NYSE:BPI) harnesses the latest technology to reimagine the modern student experience through programs, technologies, and resources representing a unique model for advancing education in the 21st century. Bridgepoint stands for greater access, social learning, and exposure to leading minds. For more information, visit www.bridgepointeducation.com or www.facebook.com/BridgepointEducation.

Contact: Lauren Coartney

858.513.9240 x11636  [email protected]

SOURCE Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bridgepointeducation.com


Home to traditional villages, artisan workshops, small museums, and distinctive restaurants, Samcheong-dong is an ideal hub for Blue Bottlea coffee company known for its dedication to craftsmanship and quality. Surrounded by mountains, with stylish art galleries nestled among royal palaces built during the Joseon dynasty, Samcheong-dong harmoniously blends ancient and modern elements. The new cafe will exist in balance with its surrounding landscape and allow guests to delight in the joy of the unfamiliar.

To share its story with the coffee community in Korea, Blue Bottle will host a special event with World Barista Champion Michael Phillips, who will offer a deep dive into the brand and his experience as a barista, followed by a Q&A session. "There are few places in the world more exciting to be a part of specialty coffee than Korea. We are entering the market with no preconceived notions and intend to listen closely to our guests, while still maintaining the core values that make our brand unique," said Phillips, Blue Bottle's Director of Coffee Culture.

Blue Bottle invites coffee professionals and anyone interested in working with the company to join them on January 31st:

Blue Bottle Korea Open House

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Information: Bluebottlecoffee_korea Instagram

About Blue Bottle

Blue Bottle Coffee was founded by James Freeman in Oakland, California, in 2002. A self-declared coffee lunatic, James hand-roasted beans in a 182 square-foot potting shed and then delivered them to friends from his Peugeot wagon. Seventeen years later, Blue Bottle is now a network of more than 60 cafes in the U.S. and Japan. Delightfully, the company continues to grow, but remains united by the simple purpose of connecting the world to delicious coffee. Follow Blue Bottle Korea on Instagram, or visit bluebottlecoffee.com for more information.

SOURCE Blue Bottle Coffee

Related Links

http://bluebottlecoffee.com


ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, American Trucking Associations announced its new team of 18 professional truck drivers to the 2019-2020 class of America's Road Team. The drivers will immediately begin their service as the premier group of trucking industry ambassadors to the general public, elected officials and members of the media.

"These drivers represent the diverse experiences of the 3.5 million professional drivers across the country and will be able to bring their unique stories to new, critical audiences as part of America's Road Team," said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear. "ATA is very excited to begin working with this group of professional, respected drivers and see them continue spreading the positive image of the trucking industry. We are extremely proud of them, as are their companies and families."

America's Road Team is an outreach initiative that utilizes professional truck drivers to impress upon the motoring public, lawmakers, and media the importance of the trucking industry. Since it was established in 1986, America's Road Team has educated millions of drivers about the trucking industry's safety record, necessity, and professionalism.

"These Captains have dedicated their lives to spreading the message of safe driving while promoting a positive perception of the trucking industry. They are leaders in their communities, role models in their companies, and truly embody the professionalism and dedication that comes with the passion that they have for the industry," said ATA Senior Advisor and Executive Vice President of Industry Affairs Elisabeth Barna. "This new class represents everything we strive to promote about our industry and its professionals."

The Captains will have the opportunity to share their passion for trucking as they travel the country on behalf of ATA and the industry. They will share their experiences as professional truck drivers and the critical role the industry plays in the delivery of goods and services while also stressing the importance of a safety-first mentality. The drivers will continue to work full-time for their ATA member companies, appearing on behalf of ATA anywhere from 3-5 days per month. The new Captains will tour the country in ATA's Interstate One Image Truck, an American flag emblazoned Volvo VNL 760, featuring a state-of-the-art truck driving simulator and mobile classroom.

"Volvo Trucks is honored to continue our sponsorship of America's Road Team with a brand new Volvo VNL 760 and take part in this week's selection of the 2019-2020 Captains," said Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve. "America's Road Team is one of the most visible groups of professional truck drivers in the country, and we believe their hard work and dedication pays dividends for our industry. We want to thank the Captains for their strong engagement and being passionate ambassadors of this great profession. We congratulate the new class of America's Road Team Captains and wish them the best of luck as they carry out their mission over the next two years."

ATA held its final round of selections from January 27-29 in Arlington, Virginia. The drivers were judged on their ability to express their knowledge of the industry, their skills in effective communication about safety and transportation, and their overall safe-driving record. The panel of judges included trucking executives and trade press.

"I'm excited to start off 2019 by welcoming these new Captains to the America's Road Team family. America's Road Team is an important tool for our industry and I can't wait to see how they will continue to spread our message of safety and professionalism," said ATA Chairman and professional truck driver Barry Pottle, president of Pottle's Transportation. "Everyone introduced tonight has earned their spot on the team through their hard work and dedication to safety and their passion for trucking.

After receiving their signature navy blue America's Road Team blazers, the 2019-2020 Captains will immediately begin their work in improving public perception of the trucking industry. Trucking industry professionals can support America's Road Team's mission by following the team's two-year journey on Facebook and Twitter and interacting with the Captains at major industry events, conferences and community visits.

The 2019-2020 America's Road Team Captains are:

William C. Bennett III, UPS Freight, Maytown, Pennsylvania

Sammy Brewster, ABF Freight, Powder Springs, Georgia

Jorge Chavez, Jetco Delivery, Houston, Texas

Timothy Chelette, Big G Express, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

James Clark, Penske Logistics, Otter Lake, Michigan

April Coolidge, Walmart Transportation, Mint Hill, North Carolina

Scott Davis, ABF Freight, Kearney, Missouri

Douglas Frombaugh, FedEx Freight, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

William Goins, Old Dominion, Cloverdale, Indiana

Billy Hambrick, Werner Enterprises, Yoder, Wyoming

Russell James, YRC Freight, Bonner, Montana

Gary Martin, FedEx Ground, Galt, California

William McNamee, Carbon Express, Christopher, Illinois

Tina Peterson, FedEx Ground, Blaine, Minnesota

Theldorine "Dee" Sova, Prime Inc., Sacramento, California

Ronald Vandermark, UPS Freight, Delran, New Jersey

Nicolette Weaver, FedEx Freight, New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania

Todd Wilemon, ABF Freight, Fulton, Mississippi

To learn more about the 2019-2020 America's Road Team and view the team's biographies, visit the official America's Road Team webpage.

The America's Road Team, sponsored by Volvo Trucks, is a national public outreach program led by a small group of professional truck drivers who share superior driving skills, remarkable safety records and a strong desire to spread the word about safety on the highway. www.americasroadteam.com.

American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation's freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or on Facebook . Trucking Moves America Forward .

SOURCE American Trucking Associations

Related Links

http://www.trucking.org


DUBLIN, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Asia-Pacific Data Centre Pricing Tracker" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker provides average pricing information (rack space, m2 rentals and kW rentals), Data Centre space, Data Centre Customer Power (DCCP), the key geographical clusters and new build Data Centre facilities across 7 Country Markets. The Country Markets covered include - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore & Thailand.

The publication also identifies the key aggregated pricing - by standard rack space (without power) and by m2. Finally, Datacentre pricing summarises the overall Data Centre trends taking place in seven markets surveyed.

DCP Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker - analysis of seven Asia Pacific Country Markets - which provides a unique survey of the third party Data Centre Country Markets of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. The Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker provides for each of the 7 Country Markets a breakdown of third party Data Centre space, power, pricing, key geographical clusters and new Data Centre developments.



The first edition of the Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker highlights the significant differences in pricing and Data Centre development across the region. The largest Data Centre market in the 7 country survey is Japan (with 595,000 m2 of space) followed by Singapore (with 338,000 m2 of space) and Hong Kong in 3rd place (with 290,000 m2 of space).



Data Centre price levels also vary significantly across the region, with Indonesia having the lowest cost average rack space pricing (at USD $540 per month) and Hong Kong with an average rack space rate (at USD $976 per month). The highest average rack space rates in the region are found in Thailand (at USD $1,510 per month) and Singapore (at USD $1,414 per month) per rack.



The largest Data Centre geographical clusters in the region are Tokyo and Seoul, followed by TKO (Tseung Kwan O in Hong Kong), East & West Singapore and Cyberjaya (Malaysia).



DCP has identified 17 third party Data Centre facilities under construction across the region with Singapore in particular continuing to add new facilities, with new build outs by Global Switch, Equinix, ST Telemedia and Colt Telecom. Singapore has become established as an Asia Pacific hub for international companies expanding into Asia including cloud, content and hosting companies. Hong Kong is becoming a Data Centre hub for Chinese companies and is also gaining a range of service providers who require access to the Chinese market.

Key Topics Covered:



Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Pricing (Average Data Centre rack space & m2 rentals) Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Sizing (by Data Centre raised floor space & Data Centre Customer Power) Key Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Geographical Clusters New Asia Pacific Country Market Data Centre Developments Overall Asia Pacific Market Data Centre Trends

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vpklmq/asiapacific_data?w=5



Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ArcherDX, Inc., a molecular technology company dedicated to developing breakthrough solutions that advance the application of personalized genomic medicine, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Baby Genes, Inc, a privately held CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratory focused on empowering individuals to take charge of their health through genetic insights. Baby Genes will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary under the name ArcherDX Clinical Services, Inc. and the company will continue to market the suite of existing newborn and carrier screening genetic testing services under the Baby Genes brand name.

The Baby Genes acquisition adds valuable new assets to ArcherDX, including the CLIA-certified, CAP accredited genetics laboratory in Golden, Colorado with a test menu including a supplemental newborn screening panel that interrogates over 100 genes covering more than 72 clinically-actionable, inherited conditions as well as pre-defined carrier screening tests that include full-gene sequencing for Cystic Fibrosis (CF), Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and Fragile X Syndrome. In addition, the laboratory also offers customized confirmatory and reflex genetic testing services to physicians.

"We have a long, positive working relationship with Baby Genes and from day one we saw natural alignment between the two organizations regarding our shared commitment to accelerating the adoption and application of personalized health," said Jason Myers, co-founder and chief executive officer of ArcherDX. "Archer's mission is to democratize personalized medicine and decentralization of testing is fundamentally important to the success of personalized medicine because of the efficiencies and accuracies that are gained when testing is done locally. The addition of a CLIA/CAP accredited lab enables our mission, not through centralizing testing, rather to allow us to extend our capabilities in the genetic testing market, improve our ability to understand and anticipate our customers' needs  especially those customers looking to implement NGS for the first time or expand NGS capabilities, and to enhance our biopharma partner co-development capabilities."

Following the transaction, ArcherDX Clinical Services, Inc. will leverage the existing ArcherDX research and development functions in Boulder, Colorado while all commercial profiling services for both companies will be consolidated in the Golden, Colorado laboratory. Finally, Richard Sjogren, previously the co-founder and chief executive officer at Baby Genes, will join ArcherDX's senior management team as vice president of operations.

"We are looking forward to working with the broader ArcherDX team to expand the scope and availability of our proactive genetic health tests," said Richard Sjogren. "We see tremendous growth opportunities ahead as we continue to partner with innovative scientists, health care professionals and proactive individuals to make a difference in extending and improving the quality of life."

About ArcherDX

ArcherDX is advancing molecular pathology with a robust technology platform for genetic mutation detection by next-generation sequencing. By combining patented Anchored Multiplexed PCR (AMP) chemistry in an easy-to-use, lyophilized format and powerful bioinformatics software, the Archer platform dramatically enhances genetic mutation identification and discovery. ArcherDX provides oncology-focused research products and is pursuing regulatory approval for multiple companion diagnostic assays. ArcherDX also recently received Breakthrough Device Designation with a Companion Diagnostic Assay for both Liquid Biopsy and Tissue Specimens by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Learn more at archerdx.com. Learn more about Baby Genes at babygenes.com.

ArcherDX is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

SOURCE ArcherDX

Related Links

http://www.archerdx.com


The filming was originally intended for a planned TV special, but organically turned into something completely different, climaxing with The Beatles' legendary performance on the roof of Apple's Savile Row London office  which took place exactly 50 years ago today.

Peter Jackson said, "The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be the ultimate 'fly on the wall' experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about - it's like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together."

Although The Beatles were filmed extensively during the 1960s - in concerts, interviews and movies - this is the only footage of any note that documents them at work in the studio.

The Let It Be album and movie, having been released in the months following The Beatles' breakup, have often been viewed in the context of the struggle the band was going through at that time.

"I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth," continues Jackson, "After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it's simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there's moments of drama - but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating - it's funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate."

"I'm thrilled and honoured to have been entrusted with this remarkable footage - making the movie will be a sheer joy."

Jackson will be working with his They Shall Not Grow Old partners, Producer Clare Olssen and Editor Jabez Olssen. The footage will be restored by Park Road Post of Wellington, New Zealand, to a pristine standard, using techniques developed for the WW1 documentary film which has been nominated for a BAFTA for best documentary.

The untitled film is currently in production and the release date will be announced in due course. This film is being made with the full co-operation of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison.

The Executive Producers are Ken Kamins for WingNut Films and Jeff Jones and Jonathan Clyde for Apple Corps.

Following the release of this new film, a restored version of the original Let It Be movie directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg will also be made available.

SOURCE Apple Corps Ltd./WingNut Films Ltd.
"We are genuinely thrilled to have Anissa join our Tres Picosos team," said Jane Hartgrove, President of Tres Picosos. "I can't imagine anyone better suited to promote our burritos and grow our brands. Anissa helped us launch the Tres Locos burrito line exclusively for 7-Eleven when she was on the retail side, so she's a fantastic brand ambassador here on the supplier side. Plus her birthday is Cinco de Mayo!"

As Director of Development, Anissa will help expand the burrito brands Tres Picosos, Mucho Muncho, and Tres Locos, plus Naughty Chile Taqueria, a licensed restaurant concept for made-to-order Mexican in non-traditional retail locations.

"This is an exciting career move," comments Anissa. "I value working for a Colorado-grown business that sources high quality ingredients to make delicious authentic food. It's empowering to be part of a company with a woman at the helm. I really look forward to helping Jane expand Tres Picosos' footprint both locally and nationally."

Growing up as one of six in Alamosa, Anissa learned to cook from an early age. Her grandmother cultivated her deep love of Mexican cooking, which makes Tres Picosos the perfect place to grow her passion. "To this day, my favorite breakfast is homemade pork green chile with a freshly made tortilla!" enthused Henry.

Tres Picosos LLC provides branded authentic Mexican food to the convenience and foodservice channels. Founded by Jane Hartgrove in 2006, the company now offers three distinct burrito brands: Tres Locos, Mucho Muncho, Tres Picosos, and Naughty Chile Taqueria, a licensed restaurant concept. For more information please visit www.trespicosos.com or contact Grace Markley at 720-421-9633; [email protected].

SOURCE Tres Picosos

Related Links

http://www.trespicosos.com


IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Alteryx, Inc. (NYSE: AYX), revolutionizing business through data science and analytics, today revealed it was named a Challenger in Gartner's 2019 Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms1. This placement marks the sixth consecutive time that Alteryx was recognized in this Magic Quadrant.*

Gartner predicts, "Through 2020, the number of citizen data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of expert data scientists."2 Alteryx enables the citizen data scientist and the collaboration between all data producers, changing the conversation around analytics as customers look for an end-to-end platform that can support their analytic journeys from beginning to end and from simple to sophisticated. The company achieved this position with a strategic focus on solidifying a platform that bridges the gap between the business and the data scientist; last year, delivering the general availability of Alteryx Promote, which allows enterprises to deploy, manage, and monitor production-based predictive and machine learning models, and the introduction of Visualytics, which provides real-time, interactive visualizations throughout the analytic workflow. In 2019, Alteryx will build upon its market leadership, prioritizing new features to help data scientists succeed and creating guided utility to help analysts improve their skillset and start building models.

"Many organizations still struggle to turn their data into actionable insights and that is due, in large part, to the shortage of trained data scientists. In today's data-driven business landscape, understanding data to make imperative business decisions can no longer be the responsibility of one role, one team or one department," said Ashley Kramer, senior vice president of product management at Alteryx. "We believe that our position in this Magic Quadrant validates our strong execution, delivering an analytics platform that simultaneously addresses the needs of the data analyst, data scientist and citizen data scientist, and enables seamless collaboration across data workers. We are committed to innovating for our customers and enhancing the Alteryx Platform to address increasingly complex data science and analytic challenges."

Recently, Gartner also acknowledged Alteryx as a 2018 Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice for Data Science and Machine-Learning Platforms, a recognition given to vendors in this market based on reviews by verified end-user professionals, taking into account both the number of reviews and overall user ratings. As one solutions architect and data scientist in the transportation industry described, "Alteryx has allowed us to catalyze the deployment of analytics and data science. Analysts have been able to upscale into data scientists, and data scientists into leaders."

Review the entire report and download a complimentary copy of the Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms here.

1Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms" by Carlie Idoine, Peter Krensky, Erick Brethenoux, Alexander Linden; January 28, 2019.

2Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms" by Cindi Howson, Rita Sallam, James Richardson, Joao Tapadinhas, Carlie Idoine, Alys Woodward; February 26, 2018.

*The report was formerly titled Magic Quadrant for Data Science Platforms and Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics Platforms.

Gartner Disclaimers

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

About Alteryx, Inc.

Revolutionizing business through data science and analytics, Alteryx offers an end-to-end analytics platform, which empowers data analysts and scientists alike to break data barriers, deliver insights and experience the thrill of getting to the answer faster. Organizations all over the world rely on Alteryx daily to deliver actionable insights. For more information visit www.alteryx.com.

Alteryx is a registered trademark of Alteryx, Inc. All other product and brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Alteryx, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.alteryx.com


CHICAGO, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (AKA), in partnership with the Educational Advancement Foundation (EAF), is pleased to announce the establishment of the AKA-HBCU Endowment Fund. The fund was created on behalf of the nation's oldest historically African-American sorority in an effort to assist in the financial stability of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Dr. Glenda Glover is the 30th International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. Dr. Glover took the helm of the nations oldest Greek-letter organization established by African-American college women in 2018. She leads the prestigious organization for four years, 2018-2022, under the theme: Exemplifying Excellence Through Sustainable Service.

Over the course of the next four years, AKA-HBCU Endowment Fund has pledged to distribute $10 million in financial support to 96 accredited institutions. On February 28, 2019, presidents from 32 of the participating HBCUs will receive the first installment of the endowment gift in the amount of $50,000 at the Alpha Kappa Alpha International Headquarters in Chicago, Illinois.

"As an HBCU graduate and someone who has dedicated my life's work to the HBCU community, I personally know that the financial challenges of many institutions have an impact on student enrollment, retention and graduation rates," said Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. International President Dr. Glenda Glover. "Implementing an endowment fund is a critical need and has been a priority for my administration since I took office last year. Alpha Kappa Alpha's 111-year history is deeply interwoven into the history of HBCUs and therefore it is imperative that we continue to invest in these treasured institutions."

The endowment fund is one of many components of Alpha Kappa Alpha's international platform under Dr. Glover's leadership whose focus is Exemplifying Excellence Through Sustainable Service. The fund falls under the organization's target HBCU for Life: A Call to Action, which aims to promote HBCUs by encouraging students to attend and matriculate through these institutions as a sustainability measure.

Presidents from the 32 HBCUs that will join Dr. Glover and sorority leadership during the Black History Month program represent: Albany State University, Alcorn State University, American Baptist College, Bennett College for Women, Chicago State University, Coppin State University, Fayetteville State University, Florida Memorial University, Fort Valley State University, Grambling State University, Harris-Stowe State University, Le Moyne-Owen College, Lincoln University, Livingstone College, Miles College, Mississippi Valley State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina Central University, Philander Smith College, Savannah State University, Shaw University, South Carolina State University, Southern University at New Orleans, St. Augustine's University, Stillman College, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Voorhees College, West Virginia State University, Wilberforce University, Wiley College, Paul Quinn College and Edward Waters College.

The program will include a tour of the recently renovated Ivy Center International Headquarters in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.

In further commemoration of Black History Month, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the Educational Advancement Foundation encourage education advocates globally to support the advancement of America's HBCUs, which have served as a cornerstone in the Black community since 1837. In partnership with EAF, Alpha Kappa Alpha hopes to leave a lasting legacy for the next generation of leaders through the AKA-HBCU Endowment Fund. On September 17, 2018, Alpha Kappa Alpha achieved a record-breaking, single-day goal of raising over $1.2 million to support its $10 million goal in providing support to the nation's HBCUs. For more information about the endowment or to contribute to the Alpha Kappa Alpha Educational Advancement Foundation, visit www.AKAEAF.org.

About Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (AKA) is an international service organization that was founded on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1908. It is the oldest Greek-letter organization established by African-American college-educated women. Alpha Kappa Alpha is comprised of nearly 300,000 members in more than 1,000 graduate and undergraduate chapters in the United States, Liberia, the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Germany, South Korea, Bermuda, Japan, Canada, South Africa and the Middle East. Led by International President Glenda Glover, Ph.D., JD, CPA, Alpha Kappa Alpha is often hailed as "America's premier Greek-letter organization for African-American women." For more information on Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and its programs, visit AKA1908.com.

About Alpha Kappa Alpha Educational Advancement Foundation

The Educational Advancement Foundation was founded in 1980 by Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, an organization with a rich and distinguished history of service that spans more than a century. Creating the Educational Advancement Foundation was the method by which Alpha Kappa Alpha sought to ensure that there would always be support for education, its oldest program of service. Today, the Foundation, a financially strong and viable organization, is a powerful tool for good, pooling the resources of others who share this vision of providing a perpetual source of support for education. For more information on Educational Advancement Foundation and its programs, visit www.AKAEAF.org.

SOURCE Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aka1908.com


DETROIT, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

Stratview Research announces the launch of a new market research report on Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Aircraft Type (Narrow-Body Aircraft, Wide-Body Aircraft, Very Large-Body Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, and Business Jet), by Platform Type (B737, B777, B787, B737Max, B777x, A320 Family, A330/A340, A350XWB, A380, A320neo Family, A330neo, E 175, A220, and Others), by Material Type (Metal Pressure Bulkhead and Composite Pressure Bulkhead), by Shape Type (Flat Pressure Bulkhead and Curved Pressure Bulkhead), by Manufacturing Process Type (Sheet Stamping, Resin Infusion Process, and Prepreg Layup), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2019-2024.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660595/Stratview_Research_Logo.jpg )

This market report, from Stratview Research, studies the aerospace pressure bulkheads market over the trend period of 2013 to 2018 and forecast period of 2019 to 20224. The research report provides detailed insights on the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.

Pressure Bulkheads Market in the Global Aerospace Industry: Highlights

Pressure bulkhead is an essential component of an aircraft that covers the front and rear end of a fuselage. It maintains the pressure required for the cabin of an aircraft; hence, it is considered very important for the safety of passengers and crew members. Front pressure bulkhead is located near the nose landing gear and maintains front cabin pressure, whereas rear pressure bulkhead seals the pressurized passenger compartment.

As per Stratview Research, the global aerospace pressure bulkheads market is estimated to grow at an above industry growth rate over the next five years to reach an estimated value of US$ 505.5 million in 2024. The market is served by aircraft OEMs producing bulkheads in-house for some of their programs as well as independent suppliers/tier players producing bulkheads for different OEMs. Major OEMs, such as Airbus and Bombardier, are producing pressure bulkheads, generally front one, of some of their aircraft programs. Also, major tier players including Spirit AeroSystems and RUAG, are also present in the market, primarily producing rear pressure bulkheads. However, tier players also produce front pressure bulkheads for some aircraft programs.

The research's findings suggest that narrow-body aircraft is expected to remain the largest segment of the market during the forecast period, whereas wide-body aircraft is expected to experience the highest growth during the same period. Increasing commercial aircraft deliveries to support rising passenger and freight traffic, introduction of fuel-efficient next-generation aircraft, and rising commercial aircraft fleet size across regions are the key factors propelling the demand for pressure bulkheads in the segment.

Click Here and Browse the Detailed TOC of the Report

Based on the material type, metal pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the most dominant segment of the market over the next five years. Metal pressure bulkheads, generally aluminum, have an excellent strength-to-weight ratio and are easy to repair as compared to composite ones. Low cost is another key countable factor for its preference over composite bulkheads. However, composite pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the faster-growing segment during the forecast period. Rear pressure bulkheads of aircraft are more often made with composites compared to the forward ones. But recently, composites are also gaining traction in the forward location. Both the major commercial aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, have played a crucial role in the development of composite pressure bulkheads targeting further improvements in the safety of aircraft. They are highly corrosion resistant and offer high strength-to-weight ratio, low maintenance requirement, and contain reduced number of parts.

In terms of shape type, flat pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the most dominant segment of the market over the next five years. Pressure bulkhead structure is highly dependent upon the structure of an aircraft. Rear pressure bulkheads are generally curved, whereas front ones are flat; however, Boeing, in its major program B737, has replaced curved pressure bulkhead to flat one in the rear location in order to increase more cabin space and add more seats.

Register Here and Ask for a Free Sample on the Report

As per the study, North America is projected to remain the largest market during the forecast period as the region is the manufacturing capital of the aerospace industry with the presence of several large- to small-sized aircraft OEMs and tier players. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest CAGR over the next five years, propelled by several factors including upcoming commercial and regional aircraft, such as C919 and MRJ, and an opening of assembly plants in China by Boeing and Airbus

Major pressure bulkhead manufacturers are Airbus Group, Bombardier Inc., Spirit AeroSystems GmbH, RUAG Holding AG, Premium AEROTEC GmbH, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., and Aernnova Aerospace S.A. Development of lightweight pressure bulkhead, collaboration with OEMs, and formation of long-term contracts are the key strategies adopted by the major players to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Report Features

This report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:

Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis.

Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis.

Market trend and forecast analysis.

Market segment trend and forecast.

Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.

Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities.

Emerging trends.

Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players.

Key success factors.

This report has segmented the aerospace pressure bulkheads market in six ways, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. Following are the six ways in which the market is segmented:

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Aircraft Type:

Narrow-Body Aircraft

Wide-Body Aircraft

Very Large-Body Aircraft

Regional Aircraft

Business Jet

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Platform Type:

B737

B777

B787

B737 Max

B777X

A320 Family

A330 / A340

A350 XWB

A380

A320 neo

A330 neo

E 175

A220 (C Series)

Others

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Material Type:

Metal Pressure Bulkheads

Composite Pressure Bulkheads

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Shape Type:

Flat Pressure Bulkheads

Curved Pressure Bulkheads

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Manufacturing Process Type

Sheet Stamping Process

Resin Infusion Process

Prepreg Layup Process

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Region

North America (Country Analysis: the USA , Canada , and Mexico )

Europe (Country Analysis: Germany , France , Russia , and Rest of Europe )

Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: Japan , China , and Rest of Asia-Pacific )

Rest of the World (Sub-Region Analysis: Latin America , the Middle East , and Others)

Stratview Research has number of high value market reports in the global aerospace & defense industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:

Click Here for Other Reports from Stratview Research in the Aerospace & Defense Industry

Some of our other premium market reports in the aerospace & defense industry:

Aircraft Fairings Market by Aircraft Type (Narrow-Body Aircraft, Wide-Body Aircraft, Very Large-Body Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, and General Aviation), by Application Type (Wing-to-Body Fairing, Flap Support Fairings, Engine Cowls, Vertical Fin Fairings, and Others), by Material Type (Composite Fairings and Metal Fairings), by Manufacturing Process Type (Prepreg Layup, Stamping, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2019-2024.

Airborne Pods Market by Aircraft Type (Combat Aircraft, Helicopter, UAV, and Others), by Pod Type (ISR, Targeting, Self-Protection/Countermeasure, and Others), by Enclosure Type (Composite and Metal), by Sensor Type (EO/IR, EW/EA, IRCM, and Others), by Range Type (Short, Intermediate, and Long), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2018-2023.

About Stratview Research

Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm providing wide range of services including syndicated market reports, custom research and sourcing intelligence across industries, such as Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive & Mass Transportation, Consumer Goods, Construction & Equipment, Electronics and Semiconductors, Energy & Utility, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Oil & Gas.

We have a strong team of industry veterans and analysts with an extensive experience in executing custom research projects for mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies, in the areas of Market Assessment, Opportunity Screening, Competitive Intelligence, Due Diligence, Target Screening, Market Entry Strategy, Go to Market Strategy, and Voice of Customer studies.

Stratview Research is a trusted brand globally, providing high quality research and strategic insights that help companies worldwide in effective decision making.

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Contact:

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Stratview Research

E-mail: [email protected]

Direct: +1-313-307-4176



SOURCE Stratview Research
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte [Photo: China Plus]

BEIJING, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent a condolence message to his Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, over the blasts in the southern Philippines.

In the message, Xi said he was shocked to learn of the two serious attacks inside and near the entrance of a Roman Catholic church on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippine province of Sulu that have caused heavy casualties.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people, as well as in his own name, Xi deeply mourned the deceased and sent sincere condolences to their families and the injured.

China determinedly opposes all forms of terrorism, and deeply condemns acts of violence targeted at innocent civilians, Xi said, adding that China is willing to fight terrorism together with other countries of the international community, including the Philippines, to maintain international and regional peace and stability.
FELTON, California, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

The global Activated Bleaching Earth Market was appreciated at US$ 2.35 billion in the year 2014. It is estimated to develop at a substantial CAGR for the duration of the prediction. Activated bleaching earth is an earthen creation, combination of montmorillonite, bentonite, and attapulgite resources. It is likewise recognized as activated fuller's earth or bleaching clay. This creation holds aluminum and silica in its normal form.

Growing production of vegetable oil & fats in developing marketplaces of the Asia Pacific and Central & South America is projected to be a fundamental motivating reason for the activated bleaching earth market above the forecast period of prediction. It extensively utilized in the processes like bleaching and purifying of eatable oil & fats. Most important demand practiced from Asian nations such as India, Malaysia, China, and Indonesia. Advantageous rules and strategies by the government in these nations have ensured an optimistic effect on the progress of the market.

The increasing harvest per acre of oil seed crop and the technical progress in the production procedure have endured important dynamic powers for the production of vegetable oil & fat. Increasing demand for biofuel, which is resulting from vegetable oil is likewise one of the issue prompting the demand for the activated bleaching earth, in this business, mainly in the industrialized nations.

The activated bleaching earth market on the source of Type of Application could span Lubricants & Mineral Oil, Eatable Oil & Fats. The subdivision of the Eatable oil &Fats was the most important sector of the application, by way of capacity surpassing 5. 0million tons, during the year 2014. The development of the application division is motivated by growing manufacture of vegetable oil. Endorsement from the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] and World Health Organization [WHO] that the food-ranking mineral oil be utilized in the preparation of food, is estimated to motivate the mineral oil market in the industrialized marketplaces of Europe and North America.

Browse 115 page research report with TOC on "Global Activated Bleaching Earth Market" at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/activated-bleaching-earth-market

The activated bleaching earth industry on the source of Area with respect to Trades in terms of intake, Profits, Market stake and Development percentage in these areas, for the duration of the prediction could span North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa.

By the source of geography, activated bleaching earth market in the Asia Pacific steered the international business by way of demand stake surpassing 60% during the year 2014. This development is expected to escalate due to the increasing manufacture along with the ingestion of eatable oil & fats in the Asian nations like Indonesia, Malaysia, China and India.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the biggest manufacturers of vegetable oil. The activated bleaching earth is extensively utilized in treating & purifying the eatable oils. The progress in the production of oilseed harvest in these nations is expected to take an optimistic influence on this market. Central & South America are hub vegetable oil in the nations like Brazil and Argentina. This is estimated to add to the progress of the activated bleaching earth industry.

The development of the Middle East & Africa is influenced by the production of eatable oil & fats in the nations comprising South Africa and Turkey. Yet, the development of the subdivision of lubricants & mineral Oil manufacturing is likewise expected to motivate the demand for activated bleaching earth, in this area.

The statement revises Trades in terms of intake of activated bleaching earth in the market; particularly in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America, and Middle East & Africa. It concentrates on the topmost companies operating in these regions. Some of the important companies operating in the field are Oil-Dry Corporation of America, Korvi Activated Earth, Shenzhen Aoheng Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Clariant International AG, Musim Mas Holdings, Ashapura Perfoclay Limited, AMC (UK) Limited, BASF SE, and Taiko Group of Companies.

Browse reports of similar category available with Million Insights:

Market Segment:

Global Activated Bleaching Earth Application Outlook (Volume, Kilo Tons; Revenue, USD Million, 2012 - 2022) Edible oil & fats Mineral oil & lubricants Other



Global Activated Bleaching Earth Regional Outlook (Volume, Kilo Tons; Revenue, USD Million, 2012 - 2022) North America U.S Canada Europe Germany UK Russia Ukraine Asia Pacific India China Malaysia Indonesia Central & South America Brazil Argentina Middle East and Africa South Africa Turkey



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SOURCE Million Insights
IOWA CITY, Iowa, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ACT, Inc. and Aspiring Minds have partnered to launch ACT Stack, a work-readiness solution for institutions, employers and individuals around the world who need to identify and measure work readiness covering foundational, job-specific and essential skills.

ACT Stack combines a comprehensive set of foundational and job-specific skill assessments from ACT and Aspiring Minds that are designed to validate the skills necessary for success in the workplace. Together they will enable "stackable credentials" for current and prospective employees as well as students, helping companies and institutions better prepare people for jobs in the 21st century.

ACT is the nonprofit learning, measurement and navigation organization behind the ACT test, ACT WorkKeys, and the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC). Aspiring Minds is a global leader in talent assessments and credentialing, working with some of the world's largest corporations to help select the right talent and with institutions and job seekers to measure and credential job readiness. Aspiring Minds' highly scalable artificial intelligence (AI)-driven assessment and interviewing technology consistently helps organizations of all sizes take the guesswork out of hiring their ideal candidates.

ACT Stack easily enables organizations to assess their employees' competencies and identify key skills and performance gaps. With AI-driven technology, companies can better manage the costs associated with an unsuccessful hire and hire with confidence for all types of positions and skill types.

"This collaboration is a natural fit that will benefit employers and job seekers around the world," said Suzana Delanghe, ACT chief commercial officer. "We are very excited to be joining forces with Aspiring Minds to create ACT Stack and to build on the legacy of both organizations to improve workforce readiness and link employers with the right talent."

"With the rapidly evolving nature of jobs, workforce readiness signals are severely underserved," said Himanshu Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO Aspiring Minds. "We are very excited to partner with ACT to provide a comprehensive, credible and highly scalable workforce credentialing solution. Aspiring Minds' highly scalable AI-driven assessment technology has led to its global success in helping organizations select the right talent and assess and certify job readiness."

ACT Stack will combine ACT assessments and credentialing programs such as ACT WorkKeys and the recently launched ACT Tessera Workforce with Aspiring Minds' Automata, the world's most advanced programming assessment; SVAR, AI-powered spoken language assessments; and over 200 simulations and skill tests. This robust set of assessments will be delivered on Aspiring Minds state-of-the-art assessment and credentialing platform providing a simple yet powerful user experience.

"Our collaboration with Aspiring Minds on ACT Stack will add to the richness of our product offerings while making them available to more of our international customers in a way that is convenient to them," said Simmy Ziv-el, ACT vice president of international markets & global business development. "Working together provides us with a great opportunity to deliver on the promise of stackable credentials, which help workers to build up their qualifications and navigate their career pathway."

Terms of the agreement were not released.

For more information about ACT Stack, visit: www.act.org/stack.

About ACT

ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa, ACT is trusted as a national leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality assessments grounded in nearly 60 years of research. ACT offers a uniquely integrated set of solutions designed to provide personalized insights that help individuals succeed from elementary school through career. To learn more, visit www.act.org.

About Aspiring Minds

Aspiring Minds is a global leader in job skills assessments and credentialing, dramatically improving recruitment efficiency. Powered by AI, psychometry and science both Fortune 500 and over 3,000 companies and institutions worldwide rely on our validated assessments to help them recruit the right people, develop requisite skills benchmarks and to assess workforce health. Aspiring Minds' flagship product AMCAT is the world's most popular employability test helping over three million candidates find the 'right' jobs every year. Using proprietary adaptive assessment technology and machine learning algorithms, AMCAT provides adaptive, standardized and reliable measurements of language, cognitive, behavioral skills across a wide range of functional skills for a wide variety of jobs. Visit www.aspiringminds.com

Contact:

Ed Colby, ACT Public Relations

319-337-1147 | [email protected]

Marianne Rocco, Aspiring Minds VP of Marketing

617-416-1279 | [email protected]

SOURCE ACT

Related Links

http://www.act.org


CHICAGO, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS) is pleased to release a video interview with Dr. Ken Rothfield. Dr. Rothfield is Chief Medical Officer at Medical City Dallas, which is operated by the Hospital Corporation of America. Dr. Rothfield is not only a doctor, but he developed sepsis following hernia surgery. So, Dr. Rothfield has the unique perspective of knowing sepsis from the point of view of a doctor and a patient.

In this video, Dr. Ken Rothfield emphasizes the need for early detection and treatment of sepsis and implores his colleagues to commit to the early detection and treatment of sepsis:

"I would like you to commit to to early detection and treatment of sepsis, because you may not get a second chance to save your patient's life.

"But, first, you have to know when your patient is suffering from sepsis. You must know at the earliest possible time when sepsis is occurring. Clinical studies show that mortality is significantly reduced if septic patients are identified at early stages of the disease process. In my own case, I was admitting on Thursday, by Friday I was septic, but it was not until Saturday that emergency surgery was performed which removed a section of gangrenous intestine. In my opinion, this can best be done through patient monitoring, which would have been able to provide early detection of my sepsis and I could have had earlier intervention.

"Monitoring a patient's heart rate and respiratory rate allows clinicians to detect changes over time while supporting hospital protocols for early detection of sepsis. Although nursing assessments taken every few hours may detect sepsis, patient monitoring can alert you at the earliest possible moment when sepsis is developing.

"You may not get a second chance to save your patient's life - monitor for sepsis."

In the video, Dr. Rothfield discusses 5 keys to reducing sepsis:

Be Committed to Early Detection and Treatment of Sepsis

Monitor for Sepsis

Treat Sepsis Early

Work Collaboratively

Be Open to Using New Technology

Dr. Rothfield is a member of PPAHS's board of advisors. PPAHS is proud to be invited to be a member of the Sepsis Alliance and the Global Sepsis Alliance. Both www.sepsis.org and www.global-sepsis-alliance.org are great resources and information about sepsis.

To read a transcript of the video, please click here.

To watch the video with Dr. Rothfield, please click here.

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12751537

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety

Related Links

http://www.global-sepsis-alliance.org


WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Looking toward 2020, a major new study by the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) at the University of Maryland finds voters are seeking candidates who they believe will be more responsive to the people. Their dissatisfaction with elected officials in Washington, DC is fueled by the pervasive perception that they give a higher priority to special interests, partisan interests, and wealthy campaign donors.

Nine-in-ten endorse a new meanscalled a 'Citizen Cabinet'for officials to systematically consult their constituents on key decisions. Most say they would even cross party lines to vote for a candidate who would support having such a Citizen Cabinet.

The study was conducted over the last two years, with a series of five surveys administered to 16,525 registered voters, by the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) in conjunction with the nonpartisan organizations Voice of the People and Common Ground Solutions.

"In both 2016 and 2018, outsider candidates like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez were buoyed by their claim that they would listen to the people over special interests and their parties," said PPC Director Steven Kull. "Voters may well be looking for candidates with that message in the 2020 election as well."

Eighty-eight percent say that members of Congress should be more responsive to the views of a majority of voters than they are. Asked about candidates in a recent election, voters were far more likely to vote for candidates they thought would be responsive to the people.

Historically high numbers (89%) say the government "is run for a few big interests" rather than "the benefit of all the people." Nine-in-ten say that "members of Congress think mostly about their party, not about what is good for the country."

Citizen Cabinet

Overwhelming majorities responded favorably to a new method for citizens to give input to members of Congress called a 'Citizen Cabinet.' The Citizen Cabinet is a large representative sample of constituents from a specific district, state or the nation as a whole who go through an online process called a 'policymaking simulation' that is reviewed in advance by experts and advocates across the spectrum of views to ensure accuracy and balance. Constituents:

receive a briefing on a current issue,

evaluate arguments for and against the policy options, and

make policy recommendations.

Nine-in-ten voters approve of the Citizen Cabinet idea. Two-thirds think that a Citizen Cabinet would likely increase the responsiveness by a member of Congress to the views of the people.

Importantly for the 2020 elections, when Democratic and Republican respondents were presented a candidate from the opposing party endorsing having a Citizen Cabinet, large majorities from each party nonetheless expressed a positive view of the opposing party candidate. Presented a hard-hitting debate for and against the idea of a Citizen Cabinet, large majorities said they would cross party lines to vote for the candidate who favored it.

Finding Common Ground

An overwhelming 88% say that Congress would be more likely to find common ground if the public's views had more influence on policymakers.

A major pilot study with Citizen Cabinets suggests they are right. The report summarized the findings of a major pilot study with a national Citizen Cabinet, as well as in nine states and in two Congressional districts. Bipartisan majorities agreed on dozens of solutions to national policy challenges on a wide variety of topics including immigration, the federal budget, Social Security, Medicare, federal poverty programs, energy and the environment, government reform, criminal justice, the U.S. Postal Service, and more.

"Frustrated voters, and voters who feel disconnected from government, won't be satisfied with new slogans," said Howard Konar, founder of Common Ground Solutions. "They are more interested in answers and results. They want clear signs that their elected officials are actually listening to them and working on common sense solutions."

Methodology: The five surveys for this study were conducted online over the last two years with a total of 16,525 registered voters provided by Nielsen Scarborough from Nielsen Scarborough's panel of respondents, who were recruited by mail and telephone using a random sample of households. The margin of error varied from +/-1.8 to +/-2.2% for questions that were asked to the full sample. For questions that went to partial samples, the margin of error was as high as +/-4.5%.

Full Report: www.publicconsultation.org/voter_dissatisfaction_report_0119/

Questionnaire with Findings: www.publicconsultation.org/voter_dissatisfaction_quaire_0119/

Contact: Steven Kull, 202-232-7500, [email protected]

SOURCE Program for Public Consultation

Related Links

http://www.publicconsultation.org


COSTA MESA, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CETY announces its year in review with an update on the progress and improvements it has made at Clean Energy Technologies, Inc. in 2018 and to share some insight into its plans to achieve significant growth going forward in 2019.

First, we want to thank all of our shareholders for their patience and loyalty while we have been quietly and diligently building our company since 2016 into one that now has the exciting potential to generate substantial and profitable growing sales in a $20 Billion industry of capturing wasted heat and converting it to valuable electric power.

2018 was a pivotal year for our company where we achieved several important milestones to substantially increase our ability to generate much larger revenues with the world class heat to power technology that we purchased from General Electric.

Following is a list of milestones we have achieved in 2018 and since we purchased the Heat Recovery division from General Electric:

Consolidated our operations and moved into an 18000 sq-ft facility in Costa Mesa, California in October of 2016.

in October of 2016. We restructured a strong board of directors and its composition in 2018 made up of bankers with strong financial skills and advanced budgeting, executives in marketing and relevant industry experience providing guidance on major issues to help the company achieve its objectives.

We secured our first round of major funding with MGW II in March of 2018 and are focused on the next round to support our growth strategy, including acquisitions and increase strength in our financial position.

Sold 10 Heat Recovery Systems at an average price of $300,000 each to 3 different markets.

each to 3 different markets. Completed the installation of 2 systems to the Marshall Islands Utility Company under a $2.3M dollar lease with expected commissioning in the 1 st quarter of 2019.

lease with expected commissioning in the 1 quarter of 2019. Sold and commissioned 3 units to a waste water treatment plant in Nashville, Tennessee .

. Entered the Canada's large Biomass Industry with our first installation at an anerobic digestion facility.

large Biomass Industry with our first installation at an digestion facility. Delivered the first system for use in high-profile, high rise buildings in NY with potential to lead to many sales opportunities as property management companies and building owners and operators learn about the opportunity to slash electric power costs. We expect to commission this first high-rise system in the first quarter of 2019.

CETY is beginning 2019 with over a million in backlog.

New cross sales agreement finalized in 2018 with Biomass Power LTD, a waste to energy systems provider with potential for large number of unit sales.

New distribution and sales agreement with Corycos finalized in 2018 and closed on one-unit sale with potential for large number of unit sales.

Launched our sales and service center in Italy in October of 2018 supporting over many existing installations in Europe and potential from many new sales.

These accomplishments are due to our committed and hardworking employees and the team of experts that we have retained from GE's Heat Recovery Solution and in part to our superior core technology with the patented magnetic levitating bearing generator with its lower maintenance costs due to no oil and no lubricants, and is efficient at any output with no gear box and the power electronics with a power factor of 1. Our technology requires no fuel, has no emissions and minimal integration with a rapid payback. The existing sales and our expansion in Biomass, waste water treatment plants and Combined Heat to Power (CHP) in the North American Market provides customers with proof of concept and supports future scalable sales.

The commissioning of Marshal Islands should support additional sales to the Island Nations in the Pacific Islands taking advantage of fuel savings and increasing efficiency. We have several similar opportunities with the other Island Nations awaiting MEC's commissioning.

Our recent launch of our sales and service center should re-establish CETY Heat Recovery Solutions in Europe and support additional sales throughout the continent.

In 2018 we expanded our revenue opportunities by partnering with other companies for sales and distributions and to cross sell systems that could increase revenues by several multiples.

Our aim is to become a leader in efficient power generation and renewable energy.

We are focused on building a strong backlog for Clean Cycle II (existing product acquired from GE), developing the next disruptive generation of waste heat generators, introducing larger waste heat generators addressing the larger markets, providing integrated solutions in combined heating, cooling and power (CCHP) applications, and acquiring synergistic technologies.

We wish to thank our customers, partners, employees, and shareholders for their continued trust, confidence, and support as we move into the next exciting phase of CETY.

About Clean Energy Technologies, Inc. (CETY)

Clean Energy Technologies, Inc. designs, builds, and markets clean energy products focused on energy efficiency and environmental sustainability technologies. The Company's principal product is the Clean CycleTM organic rankine cycle heat recovery generator (HRG), offered by CETY's Clean Energy HRS, or Heat Recovery Solutions, subsidiary, www.heatrecoverysolutions.com. The Clean Cycle system captures waste heat from a variety of sources and turns it into electricity that can be used or sold back to the grid. CETY's proven, reliable technology allows municipal, commercial, and industrial users with heat sources, such as from industrial processes or energy production, to boost their overall energy efficiency with no additional fuel, no pollutants, and little ongoing maintenance. CETY's engineering and manufacturing resources support the Heat Recovery Solutions business, as well as CETY's other technologies. Headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, CETY's common stock is currently traded on the OTC Market under the symbol CETY. For more information, visit www.cetyinc.com or www.heatrecoverysolutions.com.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements may be identified my words such as "expect," "look forward to," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "estimate," "will," "project," or words of similar meaning. Because such statements include risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are outside our control, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and contingencies include, but are not limited to those relating to: changes in general economic and market conditions; future technology performance; market acceptance and adoption of CETY's products and competitive products; the availability of financing; the acquisition and integration of business assets and operations, technologies, or companies; and other risk factors as outlined in CETY's periodic reports, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements were made, and we undertake no obligation to update any such statements that may become untrue because of subsequent events.

Contact:

Clean Energy Technologies, Inc.

Kam Mahdi, CEO

949-273-4990 x814

[email protected]

SOURCE Clean Energy Technologies, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cetyinc.com


COLUMBIA, S.C. and TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- WellCare of South Carolina, a WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) company, named Urcel R. Fields as state president. In this role, he is responsible for WellCare's Medicaid and Medicare Advantage businesses in South Carolina.

"Urcel is a results-driven professional with more than 20 years of healthcare experience," said Gregg MacDonald, WellCare's division president for South Carolina and other markets in the Southeast and Midwest. "He brings a deep understanding of Medicaid managed care, strong operational experience and concern for those he serves."

Fields joins WellCare from Amerigroup Community Care, where he held leadership positions including chief operating officer for the Medicaid plan in Georgia. Before joining Amerigroup, Fields held positions of increasing responsibility with Peach State Health Plan, a subsidiary of Centene Corporation, which serves the Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids populations in Georgia. He also held senior positions with Aetna Health Inc. Fields earned his Master's degree in Public Health from Boston University and his Bachelor's degree from Howard University.

"I am honored to lead WellCare's operations in South Carolina," said Fields. "This is an exciting opportunity to work with a talented and dedicated team in partnership with the state, providers and community-based organizations, to help enhance the quality and access to care for South Carolinians."

As of Sept. 30, 2018, WellCare serves approximately 77,000 Medicaid members, 14,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members and 9,000 Medicare Advantage members in South Carolina.

About WellCare Health Plans, Inc.

Headquartered in Tampa, Fla., WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) focuses primarily on providing government-sponsored managed care services to families, children, seniors and individuals with complex medical needs primarily through Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, as well as individuals in the Health Insurance Marketplace. WellCare serves approximately 5.5 million members nationwide as of September 1, 2018. For more information about WellCare, please visit the company's website at www.wellcare.com .

SOURCE WellCare Health Plans, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.wellcare.com


OSAKA, Japan, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its efforts to raise public awareness of glaucoma, Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Santen"), based in Osaka, will sponsor glaucoma awareness-raising activities to be conducted around the world during the World Glaucoma Week, from Sunday, March 10, to Saturday, March 16, 2019.

Glaucoma is an eye disease that causes damage to the optic nerve, resulting in progressive visual field loss. Although this disease can lead to loss of vision when left untreated, early treatment often allows patients to maintain visual field throughout their lifetime. Therefore, early detection through regular ophthalmic consultation is the desirable starting point when treating glaucoma. The World Glaucoma Association, of which Santen is an Associate Glaucoma Industry Member, defines one week every March as the World Glaucoma Week and hosts various events and awareness-raising activities around the world to encourage people to detect and begin treating glaucoma as early as possible.

Santen has also implemented various initiatives to increase public awareness of the importance of early detection and continued treatment of glaucoma. As part of such initiatives, Santen hosted the disease awareness-raising event "Recommendations for Continued Treatment and Care" targeting glaucoma patients in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, on November 17, 2018. This event included a makeup lesson given by facial therapist Ms. Reiko Kazki (hereafter "Ms. Kazki"), a pioneer in rehabilitation makeup*, and a lecture by glaucoma specialist Dr. Aiko Iwase (Director of Tajimi Iwase Eye Clinic, hereafter "Dr. Iwase").

Photo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M105326/201901292640/_prw_PI1im_hkGVy617.jpg

Although many types of eye drops are available for treating glaucoma, they can sometimes bring about adverse effects, such as hyperpigmentation (abnormal coloring) around the eyes and deepening of the upper eyelid sulcus (sunken eyes).

An important challenge of glaucoma treatment is that some patients hesitate to receive continued treatment out of concern about such side effects or stop using eye drops based on their own judgment. This event was held to provide such patients with the opportunity to overcome their feelings about the adverse effects and increase their awareness of the importance of continued treatment.

At the event venue, Ms. Kazki's demonstration of rehabilitation makeup* aimed at making the adverse effects of eye drops for glaucoma inconspicuous met with cries of surprise from both female and male audience members. Ms. Kazki also gave a hands-on makeup lesson to some in the audience. Dr. Iwase explained in her lecture, "Continued glaucoma treatment allows patients to maintain vision field. Drug side effects sometimes inevitably accompany glaucoma treatment, and discourage some patients to continue receiving treatment. My strong desire to change this situation motivated me to participate in this event."

Santen also continues to regard the World Glaucoma Week as a period for employees to learn about glaucoma on their own initiative and impart their learning to their loved ones, including family members and friends. The company will devote further efforts to encouraging all employees, including those working around the world, to deepen their understanding about glaucoma.

* Rehabilitation makeup: Makeup for nullifying a defect or helping return to the original condition

About Santen

As a specialized company dedicated to ophthalmology, Santen carries out research, development, marketing and sales of pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter products, and medical devices. Santen is the market leader for prescription ophthalmic pharmaceuticals in Japan and its products now reach patients in over 60 countries. With scientific knowledge and organizational capabilities nurtured over a nearly 130-year history, Santen provides products and services to contribute to the well-being of patients, their loved ones and consequently to society. The company's Chairman and CEO is Akira Kurokawa. For more information, please visit Santen's website (www.santen.com).

SOURCE Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.santen.com


WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cancer Support Community (CSC), a global nonprofit, is launching a unique research study focused on individuals diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow which accounts for approximately 19,520 new cases of cancer each year (American Cancer Society, 2018).

"AML is a serious diagnosis and patients require immediate and intensive treatment. Because of the acute nature of the disease, there is much to be learned about the patient and caregiver experience with AML," said Linda House, president of the Cancer Support Community, whose Philadelphia-based Research and Training Institute will oversee the study. "This new study gives us the opportunity to learn more from patients about the full spectrum of their experience and allows us to address their concerns through our support services, educational materials, and by informing public policy."

The Cancer Experience Registry: AML will explore the patient experience on several different topics, such as, their physical functioning, social life, work, stress, financial impact, treatment decision-making, and more. After completing the survey, participants will be connected to support and resources that meet their unique needs and have the option to receive additional information from CSC and its partners.

The Cancer Experience Registry: AML was created thanks to support from inaugural sponsors, Astellas Pharma Inc. and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. First launched in 2013, The Cancer Experience Registry has captured important information about the physical, social, and emotional health from more than 13,000 patients, survivors, and caregivers. The Cancer Experience Registry: AML is the 11th in a series of specialty registries hosted by CSC.

"We are proud to work with CSC to create an important resource to help AML patients and their loved ones navigate the physical and emotional challenges of this rapidly progressing and life-threatening blood cancer," said Steven Benner, M.D., senior vice president and global therapeutic area head, Oncology Development, Astellas. "By generating actionable data to inform programming and scientific discourse, we believe this registry may help contribute to creating a brighter future for AML patients."

"At Jazz, our passion for addressing patients' unmet needs drives our day-to-day activities and fuels our commitment to raising awareness about conditions like AML," said Allen Yang, M.D., Ph.D., vice president and acting chief medical officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals. "We are pleased to support this ground-breaking hematology initiative and we thank the patients and caregivers for their willingness to share their experiences with AML."

For more information on the Cancer Experience Registry: AML, the Cancer Support Community, Astellas Pharma, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, please visit https://bit.ly/2sV5px8.

Media Contact:

Ted Miller

[email protected]



SOURCE The Cancer Support Community

Related Links

http://www.thewellnesscommunity.org


ATLANTA, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- InTown Suites has partnered with industry leader SHR, Sceptre Hospitality Resources, to design, deploy, and support their new central reservation system. The Windsurfer CRS platform allows InTown Suites to have a scalable and reliable solution for its 188 locations in 22 states. This new CRS system has created a seamless online booking experience for new and returning guests.

This branded experience allows guests to reserve their room via a credit card, which helps the brand be more efficient with inventory management. Now, guests can book or renew their stay with a more pleasant experience, without leaving the comfort of their suite. Plus, InTown Suites offers the lowest weekly rates for guests booking directly through their website or call center, so ease of use is crucial.

Rod Jimenez, SHR CEO and Co-Founder, sees similarities in philosophies as key to the new relationship. "We are very pleased to be working with InTown Suites because of their well-known reputation for doing whatever it takes to deliver an outstanding experience to their guests," he said. "We work hard to bring a better user experience to life every day for our own clients. So, helping InTown meet and exceed their needs and the needs of their guests is a natural fit."

Brendan Wegler, VP of Revenue Management stated, "We are very excited to grow our partnership with SHR, by adding our entire brand to Windsurfer CRS. Windsurfer enhances our revenue management capabilities through new channel options and dynamic inventory controls, all while offering an improved customer experience through their booking engine."

About InTown Suites

InTown Suites is America's largest wholly owned extended stay brand with 188 locations in 22 states. InTown suites offers apartment-style suites with affordable monthly, weekly, and nightly rates. The company has transformed the extended stay space by making every guest stay memorable with small gestures that make a big difference. Find out how you can Stay.Save.Smile at intownsuites.com.

About SHR

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific, SHR is a leading provider of advanced tools and services that help hotels execute their best distribution strategy while delighting guests and optimizing profitability. The technical maturity of SHRhaving built not one but two Central Reservations Systems (CRS)is second to none. In addition to serving thousands of properties around the globe with Windsurfer CRS and Booking Engine, the company also provides Revenue Management for Hire to brands, chains, and management companies. SHR brings hoteliers nimble technology, intelligently supported by tested industry expertskeeping hotels competitive. For more information, please visit www.shr.global.

SHR is the trade name for Sceptre Hospitality Resources, LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company.

SOURCE InTown Suites
In the spot, Jason Bateman stars as an elevator operator in a building full of life's best and worst experiences. When a happy couple explains they are going car shopping, the elevator descends stopping on floors named "Root Canal," "Middle Seat," and "The Talk," where other passengers reluctantly step off. The elevator reaches "Car Shopping" and the doors open to a car lot with blaring music and inflatable "air dancers." After realizing the couple used Shopper Assurance, Bateman cranks the elevator upwards and they are greeted by their brand-new Hyundai Palisade .

"We understand that shopping for a new car is typically something people don't look forward to," said Dean Evans, chief marketing officer, Hyundai Motor America. "However, our dealers are using Shopper Assurance as a north star in helping evolve and improve the retail experience. This year's Super Bowl spot communicates the program in a fun, lighthearted way that viewers will relate to."

Hyundai's Super Bowl ad was developed by its agency of record, INNOCEAN USA, and is directed by Jim Jenkins, the well-known commercial director from O Positive who has worked on past successful Hyundai Super Bowl ads, including "Team" in 2013.

"For us, this commercial is a return to our comedic roots," said Barney Goldberg, executive creative director, INNOCEAN USA. "We want it to be more than just laughs, though. We really aim for consumers to see themselves in our spot."

For information on all of Hyundai's Super Bowl marketing activities, including its pregame ads and experiential marketing in Atlanta, visit its Super Bowl media kit.

Hyundai Shopper Assurance

Shopper Assurance consists of four elements that make the process of purchasing a car easier, faster and worry-free. Since the start of its national availability in February 2018, 632 of Hyundai's dealers now offer the voluntary program, representing more than 77 percent of Hyundai's sales volume. Customers who have purchased a Hyundai vehicle through the program have responded very favorably1:

95 percent loved or liked the purchase process

68 percent said it was better than their previous experience

71 percent agreed it made them feel more positive about the Hyundai brand

68 percent said it made them feel more positive about the Hyundai dealer

Shopper Assurance's four features include:

Transparent Pricing: Participating dealers post the market pricing (MSRP minus incentives and any dealer-offered discounts) on their websites, so customers know exactly what the market price is for the vehicle. This can reduce the time it takes to negotiate a price and eliminate the frustration of widely advertised incentives not being displayed on dealer websites.

Participating dealers post the market pricing (MSRP minus incentives and any dealer-offered discounts) on their websites, so customers know exactly what the market price is for the vehicle. This can reduce the time it takes to negotiate a price and eliminate the frustration of widely advertised incentives not being displayed on dealer websites. Flexible Test Drive: Customers are given the option to conduct a test drive for any new vehicle on their own terms through Hyundai Drive, a platform that allows the test drive to be scheduled by contacting the dealer through its website, by phone or by using a custom-built app (in available markets). The selected test-drive vehicle can be delivered to a location of the customer's choosing, such as their home, their office or a coffee shop.

Customers are given the option to conduct a test drive for any new vehicle on their own terms through Hyundai Drive, a platform that allows the test drive to be scheduled by contacting the dealer through its website, by phone or by using a custom-built app (in available markets). The selected test-drive vehicle can be delivered to a location of the customer's choosing, such as their home, their office or a coffee shop. Streamlined Purchase: Allows car buyers to complete most of the paperwork online prior to visiting the dealership for a vehicle in the dealer's inventory, reducing the total transaction time. This includes applying for financing, obtaining credit approvals, calculating payment estimates and valuing trade-ins.

Allows car buyers to complete most of the paperwork online prior to visiting the dealership for a vehicle in the dealer's inventory, reducing the total transaction time. This includes applying for financing, obtaining credit approvals, calculating payment estimates and valuing trade-ins. Three-Day Worry-Free Exchange: Customers who are not satisfied with their purchase is given a three-day period to return the car in exchange for another new Hyundai vehicle, contingent upon a dealer inspection and the vehicle having fewer than 300 miles since the purchase/lease date. This turns potential second thoughts into peace of mind. Full conditions and terms of the exchange policy can be found at www.hyundaiusa.com/shopperassurance.

Creative Credits

Hyundai Motor America

Chief Marketing Officer: Dean Evans

Executive Coordinator, Marketing and Communications: CY Park

Director, Marketing Communications: Paul Imhoff

Senior Group Manager, Brand Marketing & Advertising: Monique Kumpis

Agency: INNOCEAN USA

VP, Executive Creative Director: Barney Goldberg

VP, Group Creative Director: Jeff Bossin

Creative Director: Ryan Scott

Associate Creative Director, Art: Brook Boley

Associate Creative Director, Copy: Carrie Talick

VP, Head of Content Production: Nicolette Spencer

Senior Producer: Melissa Moore

Content Producer: Devondra Dominguez

SVP, Head of Brand Management: Angela Zepeda

VP, Group Brand Director: Mike Braue

Brand Director: Bryan DiBiagio

Brand Manager: Christy Butler

SVP, Head of Strategy Planning: Kimberly Bates

Planning Director: Tim Anderson

SVP, HMA Media: Ben Gogley

Director, Media: Sean Gilpin

PR Manager: David Thalberg

Associate Director, Business Affairs: Lisa Nichols

Business Affairs Manager: Delores Martin

Broadcast Traffic Supervisor: Theresa Artaserse

Broadcast Traffic Manager: Valerie Neibel

Project Management Supervisor: Suzanne Cheng

Project Manager: Joy Simmons

Director, Product Information: Brian Bittker

Senior Product Manager: Charlie Ashby



Production Company: O Positive

Director: Jim Jenkins

Executive Producer: Marc Grill

Head of Production: Devon Clark

Production Supervisor: Sameet Patadia

DP: Trent Opaloch

Casting: Envision Studios



Editorial: Arcade Edit

Editor: Geoff Hounsell

Managing Partner: Damian Stevens

Executive Producer: Crissy DeSimone

Head of Production: Kirsten Thon-Webb

Sr Producer: Adrienne Tararin

Assistant Editor: Josh Miller

Color: Company 3

Sr Colorist: Dave Hussey

Producer: Gabriel Wakeman

Online/VFX: JAMM Visual

VFX Supervisor/Lead Compositor: Brian Hajek

Flame Artist: Jake Montgomery

Flame Artist: Miles Essmiller

Flame Artist: Mark Holden

CG Artist: Fred Hopp

Executive Producer: Asher Edwards

Producer: Ashley Greyson

Mix/Record Studio: Lime Studios

Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

Sr Mix Engineer: Mark Meyuhas

Assistant Sound Engineer: Peter Lapinski



Sound Design Company: LSD

Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

Sound Designer: Michael Anastasi / Kai Paquin

Music: Massive Music

Managing Director: Scott Cymbala

Creative Director: Ben Einziger

Creative Director: Tim Adams

Producer: Kiki McDaniel

Hyundai Motor America

Hyundai Motor America is focused on delivering an outstanding customer experience grounded in design leadership, engineering excellence and exceptional value in every vehicle we sell. Hyundai's technology-rich product lineup of cars, SUVs and alternative-powered electric and fuel cell vehicles is backed by Hyundai Assuranceour promise to deliver peace of mind to our customers. Hyundai vehicles are sold and serviced through more than 830 dealerships nationwide and the majority sold in the U.S. are built at U.S. manufacturing facilities, including Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. Hyundai Motor America is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, and is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea.

Please visit our media website at www.HyundaiNews.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

1 Source: Hyundai Consumer Research led by Root & Associates, March-November 2018 (n=2,995; +/-1.8 margin of error at 95% confidence)

SOURCE Hyundai Motor America

Related Links

http://www.hyundainews.com


Shining light on rare patients and caregivers around the world, Global Genes takes this opportunity to share one family's journey of hope and discovery. Seven-year-old Taylor's diagnosis of infantile Batten disease in 2006 was grievous, but always with hope, they founded Taylor's Tale and joined the Global Genes RARE Foundation Alliance. There, they found connections, resources, knowledge, support, compassion, all of which have helped them achieve groundbreaking victories.

Taylor is 1 out of 10 Americans who are affected by rare disease. Global Genes wants to remind everyone on World Rare Disease Day and every day, rare is not so rare.

"It has been an honor to become intimately involved with rare disease patients, advocates, families, and stakeholders over the past 10 years," stated Nicole Boice, Founder of Global Genes. "The culmination of the ongoing work that has been done to help build 'community' and 'unity' within rare disease comes together in a very important way the last day of February for World Rare Disease Day; celebrated around the globe."

"Global Genes will continue to be involved in activities like World Rare Disease Day, as part of our strategy to expand awareness efforts," Boice continued. "Over the last decade, we have established ourselves as a true partner for patients, and as such have been able to grow our network, and build on our impact, with the intention of continuing to expand our engagement globally. We are motivated about what we can and need to accomplish 10 years hence."

To get involved and raise awareness for more than 7,000 rare diseases during the month of February;

Rally for rare. Visit globalgenes.org to download and print the #CareAboutRare sign, take a selfie and post on social media with #CareAboutRare and #WRDD2019. Tag a friend and challenge them to #CareAboutRare too.

Visit globalgenes.org to download and print the #CareAboutRare sign, take a selfie and post on social media with #CareAboutRare and #WRDD2019. Tag a friend and challenge them to #CareAboutRare too. Attend an event. There are countless events, fundraisers and exhibits during World Rare Disease Day. Host or take part in an event and share the details with us.

There are countless events, fundraisers and exhibits during World Rare Disease Day. Host or take part in an event and share the details with us. Wear Blue Denim. The Blue Denim Jeans Ribbon is a symbol of hope for more than 7,000 small rare disease communities around the world. Wearing a denim ribbon shows support for World Rare Disease Day. Ribbons may be requested on globalgenes.org for local events, the workplace, school clubs, etc. Don't forget to wear blue jeans and a denim ribbon on February 28!

To learn more about Global Genes and to get involved in World Rare Disease Day 2019, please visit globalgenes.org/world-rare-disease-day/ .

About Global Genes

Global Genes is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization on a mission to connect, empower and inspire the rare disease community. We provide hope for more than 350 million people affected by rare disease around the globe. To date, we've educated 6 million people in 100 countries about rare disease, equipped 30,000 patients and advocates with tools and resources, and provided $400,000 in support for innovative patient impact programs. This is just the beginning of what we can achieve together. Visit globalgenes.org to get involved today.

SOURCE Global Genes

Related Links

http://www.globalgenes.org


OTTAWA, Ontario, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics Mission SystemsCanada announced today that it was awarded three contracts  valued at $621.5 million  by the Government of Canada to support the Land Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) system for the Canadian Army. The three contracts include: Engineering and Integration, Software Support and Cyber Security Engineering Support.

Together with Calian, Scalar Decisions and DLS Technology Corporation, General Dynamics will offer the Canadian Army an improved ability to help protect the communications and information systems they depend on, while continuing to develop technologies that generate economic impact for Canada.

"General Dynamics has a long and proud history of working closely with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Army  winning these programs means that we continue to be part of their future," said David Ibbetson, vice president and general manager of General Dynamics Mission SystemsInternational. "With these three contracts, we take seriously the faith that the Government of Canada has placed in us to deliver for Canada, the Canadian Army and our soldiers, while creating and sustaining jobs for years to come."

Part of every Canadian Army vehicle, weapons platform and headquarters, the Land C4ISR system helps to coordinate and conduct modern operations. Specifically:

The Transition Software ISS Contract, valued at $197.75M , will provide support to software that helps integrate various data points such as GPS-based position reporting into a single system to allow for timely and informed decision-making. The Cyber Security Engineering ISS Contract, valued at $56.50M , supports the protection of the Land C4ISR data systems from theft of, and damage to the information they contain. The Engineering and Integration ISS Contract, valued as $367.25M , will ensure the Land C4ISR system is fully integrated.

General Dynamics Mission SystemsCanada delivers advanced system solutions to Canadian and international customers. Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, it is one of the largest defence and security companies in Canada and is a world-class prime contractor and systems integrator for military and public safety applications. For more information, visit gdmissionsystems.ca/.

SOURCE General Dynamics Mission Systems

Related Links

https://gdmissionsystems.ca


NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle Market By Automation Level (L0, L1, L2, L3 & L4/L5), By Component (Embedded System, Camera, etc), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Commercial Vehicle), By Country, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2016-2030



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05729018



According to "Europe Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle Market By Automation Level, By Component, By Vehicle Type, By Country, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2016-2030" semi & fully autonomous vehicle market is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 21% by 2030.Anticipated growth of the market is led by growing government support for developing driverless vehicles to ensure safe driving.



Moreover, over the last few years, automobile manufacturers have been constantly focusing on enhancing the safety features in the vehicles, which is further anticipated to positively influence Europe semi & fully autonomous vehicle market. Additionally, growing interests of technology giants such as Google, Intel, etc., is encouraging companies worldwide to focus on the concept of autonomous vehicles. Furthermore, increasing research & development in self-driving concept is anticipated to fuel growth in the market in the coming years.Some of the major players operating in Europe semi & fully autonomous vehicle market are BMW AG, General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Volkswagen AG, Tesla Motors Inc., Volvo Car Corporation, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) NV, and Hyundai Motor Company, among others.



"Europe Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle Market By Automation Level, By Component, By Vehicle Type, By Country, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2016-2030" discusses the following aspects of Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle market in Europe:

 Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle Market Size, Share & Forecast

 Segmental Analysis  By Automation Level (L0, L1, L2, L3 & L4/L5), By Component (Embedded System, Camera, etc), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Commercial Vehicle), By Country

 Competitive Analysis

 Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities



Why You Should Buy This Report?

 To gain an in-depth understanding of Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle in Europe

 To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years

 To help industry consultants, Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle distributors and other stakeholders align their market-centric strategies

 To obtain research-based business decisions and add weight to presentations and marketing material

 To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players

 To avail 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs



Report Methodology

The information contained in this report is based upon both primary and secondary research.Primary research included interaction with Semi & Fully Autonomous Vehicle distributors and industry experts.



Secondary research included an exhaustive search of relevant publications like company annual reports, financial reports and proprietary databases.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05729018



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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SOURCE Reportlinker

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RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Five nonprofit arts organizations were honored today as 2019 Dominion Energy ArtStars for inspiring people of all ages in creative endeavors. Each received a Shining Star award and a $10,000 grant to use towards their winning arts or cultural education program.

"This year we expanded ArtStars beyond K-12 students to include groups serving people of all ages," said Hunter A. Applewhite, president of the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation. "We had a strong response and are pleased to recognize five top-notch organizations that are enriching lives and communities through the arts."

The ArtStars winners were honored at the Virginia Commission for the Arts: Art Works conference:



Armed Services Arts Partnership (ASAP) for providing improvisation, comedy, storytelling, writing and visual arts classes to veterans, service members and military families in several Virginia regions.

for providing improvisation, comedy, storytelling, writing and visual arts classes to veterans, service members and military families in several regions. Cadence Theatre Company of Richmond for offering creative writing, theatre performance and job-readiness training to at-risk high school students.

of for offering creative writing, theatre performance and job-readiness training to at-risk high school students. Soundscapes of Newport News for helping underserved children develop transformative life skills through intensive music study and performances.

of for helping underserved children develop transformative life skills through intensive music study and performances. Creative Cauldron of Falls Church for performance and visual-arts education programs serving multi-generational students.

of for performance and visual-arts education programs serving multi-generational students. The Origin Project of Big Stone Gap for helping K-12 students find their voices and tell the rich stories of their Appalachian upbringing through writing, creative expression and exposure to the arts.

Visit www.dominionenergy.com/artstars for more information. Photos of the 2019 ArtStars are posted on our Media Downloads page.

About the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation

Nearly 7.5 million customers in 18 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or natural gas from Dominion Energy (NYSE: D). Through its Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation, as well as EnergyShare and other programs, Dominion Energy contributed nearly $35 million in 2018 to community causes. The Foundation supports nonprofit causes that meet basic human needs, protect the environment, promote education and encourage community vitality. Please visit www.DominionEnergy.com to learn more.

SOURCE Dominion Energy

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ANNVILLE, Pa., Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA) experienced a strong year fulfilling its dual mission of supporting nearly 800,000 Pennsylvania veterans and providing safety and security for our commonwealth and nation.

"We had an incredibly busy and successful year, thanks to the employees throughout our agency who work hard to support the DMVA's dual mission," said Maj. Gen. Tony Carrelli, Pennsylvania's adjutant general and head of the DMVA. "Our focused commitment to serve Pennsylvania veterans and our communities has resulted in a number of accomplishments that we are proud to highlight."

Serving Commonwealth and Nation

In 2018, approximately 1,300 Pennsylvania National Guard (PNG) soldiers and airmen deployed in readiness and training missions to numerous locations throughout the world, including Kuwait, the Middle East, Lithuania and Southeast Asia. The PNG also supported domestic operations, deploying more than 1,000 personnel in Pennsylvania and nationally for search and rescue, communications and transportation missions during floods, snow storms and hurricanes. Numerous lives were saved and protected during these missions. August of 2018 was a particularly critical month where Pennsylvania Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team (PA-HART) members pulled 18 commonwealth citizens from their rooftops during extreme flooding conditions.

The PNG also had a high-tasked summer schedule when it sent over 5,000 Guardsmen to California for about a month to participate in demanding training exercises at the National Training Center in the Mohave Desert. The 56th Stryker Brigade and other supporting units were lauded by senior Army staff for their outstanding performance.

The PNG also found itself in the spotlight in 2018 after all three of its Air Force wings  the 111th Attack Wing in Horsham, the 171st Air Refueling Wing in Pittsburgh, and the 193rd Special Operations Wing in Middletown  received coveted Air Force Outstanding Unit Awards from the United States Air Force signifying all three units as exceptional performers.

In 2018, the PNG commemorated a 25-year state partnership with the Lithuanian Armed Forces with events hosted in Pennsylvania and in Lithuania. Other key training partnerships took place throughout the year, including those with the British Army, German Air Force, Canada's 450th Tactical Helicopter Squadron, and Pennsylvania civilian first responders.

Fort Indiantown Gap (FTIG) in Annville, Lebanon County, continued to play a big role supporting National Guard activities as the PNG's headquarters. Known as the busiest National Guard training center in the nation, FTIG played host to more than 150,000 active duty, Reserve and National Guard service members in 2018, the most to ever train there since its inception in 1998. Included in that training was the 2018 Army National Guard Best Warrior Competition. This prestigious national competition is a test of physical and mental ability and was held at FTIG for the first time ever.

While FTIG is well known for its training activities, the installation also received the 2018 Secretary of the Army Natural Resources Conservation Team Award, for its conservation efforts to protect 17,000 acres while running a high-volume military training facility.

Serving Pennsylvania Veterans

With nearly 800,000 veterans, Pennsylvania has the fourth largest veteran population in the country. The DMVA works feverishly year-round to connect veterans to the earned benefits and services they may be eligible for because of their service to our country.

To connect with veterans one-on-one about their benefits, the Office of Veterans Affairs (OVA) mobilized its outreach vans and participated in 107 events statewide in 2018. The OVA also focused on educating veterans with unique needs, partnering with the Women's Veterans Committee of the Governor's Advisory Council for Veterans Services to host a series of statewide town hall and expos for women veterans and their families; and collaborating with the Department of Corrections to hold 10 outreach events with incarcerated veterans at various state correctional facilities.

Partnering with community organizations in 2018, the OVA issued 12 Veterans' Trust Fund (VTF) grants to Pennsylvania county Veterans Affairs Offices and 18 charitable or veteran service organizations, totaling $800,000. The VTF grants help create or expand programs throughout the state to meet emerging needs of veterans and their families. OVA also distributed another $800,000 to needy veterans through the Veterans Temporary Assistance Program which is also funded through the VTF.

The DMVA Bureau of Veterans Homes continued its effort to raise awareness of its six long-term care veterans homes, holding a series of well-attended open houses last year. The public was invited to visit the homes, take a tour, meet the staff, participate in activities and experience the camaraderie of living with fellow veterans. The DMVA provides residency to more than 1,300 eligible veterans and their spouses throughout the commonwealth at the six veterans homes located in Erie, Hollidaysburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton and Spring City.

"I am extremely proud of the entire DMVA team and the great things we were able to accomplish over the past year," said Carrelli. "We have raised the bar of service every year for our veterans and our communities and look forward to continued successes in 2019."

For more information about the DMVA, visit us online at www.dmva.pa.gov or follow us at www.facebook.com/padmva or www.twitter.com/padmva.

MEDIA CONTACT: Joseph Butera, 717-861-2178

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

Related Links

http://www.dmva.state.pa.us


New "Steamables" Product Line Bob Evans Farms Steamables offer three varieties of redskin potato wedges, are available in a 22-ounce bag, and contain 100 calories or less per serving. Steamables are ready after just five minutes in the microwave and come in a bag with a resealable zipper so consumers can add their choice of cooking oil prior to cooking.

"The new Steamables product line provides healthy and delicious side dishes that are a breeze to make," said Chris Lambrix, SVP Retail Business Development at Bob Evans Farms. "We listened to our consumers who were asking for more options to make meals easier. Steamables are a great way to add fresh, never frozen, pre-cooked redskin potatoes to any meal without sacrificing time or taste."

Additions to the "Family Classics" Product Line

The Family Classics product line was introduced in 2018 as a complete meal solution. It launched with two chicken pasta meals: Roasted Chicken Alfredo Pasta, and Creamy Chicken & Noodles. Bob Evans is expanding the protein-packed product line to include two new kinds of pasta with protein. Italian Sausage Marinara Pasta has 11 grams of protein per serving and features Bob Evans Italian Sausage, tomato sauce and onion. Beef Stroganoff Pasta features prime rib beef, mushroom and onion and contains 14 grams of protein per serving. Both varieties contain no artificial flavors, have two servings per container, and are under 300 calories per serving.

"The Family Classics product launch last year was the most successful in Bob Evans history, showing consumers want more mealtime solutions that are high in protein and made with real ingredients," Lambrix said. "We expanded the line to give consumers even more variety when choosing a quick, protein-packed meal or side dish that has minimal prep time."

For more information about Bob Evans Farms' new products and to find grocery store locations where the products are sold, visit www.BobEvansGrocery.com.

About Bob Evans Farms, Inc.

Bob Evans Farms, Inc. is a brand born and raised on the promise of farm-fresh goodness. For more than 70 years, the company has been making delicious, quick-to-table farm-fresh food that is sold in grocery stores all over the country. Today, Bob Evans brand mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese products are the #1 selling refrigerated side dishes in the United States*. Based in Columbus, Ohio and owned by Post Holdings, Inc., a consumer-packaged goods holding company, Bob Evans Farms is also a leading producer and distributor of refrigerated potato, pasta and vegetable-based side dishes, pork sausage, and a variety of refrigerated and frozen convenience food items under the Bob Evans, Owens and Pineland Farms brand names. For more information about Bob Evans Farms, Inc., visit www.bobevansgrocery.com.

* SOURCE: IRI Total US MULO Latest 52 W/E 12/30/18.

SOURCE Bob Evans Farms, Inc.
Frost & Sullivan invites you to join our Transformational Health team, for the webinar "2019 Life Sciences Predictions: Decoding 5 incredible Growth Opportunities ", on Wednesday, February 6 , 2019, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern Time. Our global life sciences experts Unmesh Lal , Program Manager; and Khushbu Jain , Industry Analyst, will explore key industry trends and discuss top 5 predictions that will re-shape the industry in 2019 and why they matter. Barbara Gilmore, Americas Senior Consultant; and Fred Mao, China Executive Director will present a fireside chat with Nitin Naik , Global Vice President, to reveal the growth opportunities in the United States and Chinese markets.

For more information and to register for the webinar, please visit: http://frost.ly/32z.

"Frost & Sullivan thought leaders will detail out a clear strategy to win in the new digital era wherein precision healthcare is amplified. In this session, participants will learn the perspective of how business models will change as companies embrace new trends and disruptive technologies related to these growth opportunities," explains Naik.

Key benefits of attending this webinar:

Establish the leading factors that will influence the size and direction of the global life sciences market in 2019.

Build clarity on technology developments in the global life sciences market in 2018 that will have an impact during 2019.

Identify the business models used to commercialize and distribute novel life science solutions.

Discover the key growth opportunities and strategic imperatives for companies in 2019.

The event will also be recorded and available for on-demand viewing at http://frost.ly/1ti.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Press Contact:

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Frost & Sullivan

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mariana.fernandez@frost.com

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
The media is terrified of anything they dont control

Paul Joseph Watson

PrisonPlanet.com

January 29, 2019

The same activist journalists who abuse their corporate media platforms to get their adversaries banned from the Internet.

The same digital assassins who try to deplatform maverick independent creators like PewDiePie.

Are now crying because they lost THEIR platforms.

Cry me a river.

Please share this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dICPJypfegc

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:

Follow on Twitter: Follow @PrisonPlanet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.

This article was posted: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 5:13 pm

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Mac Slavo

SHTFplan.com

January 30, 2019

Presidential candidate and Democrat darling Kamala Harris says she wants to ban all assault rifles.

But as the video below shows, its not exactly clear what an assault rifle is within the context of banning.

For some of the participants of whatever the following protest is about, any military-grade weapon is considered an assault rifle. For others, an AR-15 or handgun is an assault weapon.

What we do know, is that when emotion hits the brick wall of logic, many turn to insults.

Watch for yourself and try not to get confused.

Kamala Harris says she wants to ban assault weapons and rifles. Assault rifle is a made up term used to take our guns away. The left intentionally wants to misrepresent reality to take our guns away. The left hates facts when confronted. pic.twitter.com/mU1vgVS7w0  America First (@Chris57735990) January 29, 2019

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 7:00 am

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When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant

Steve Watson

Prison Planet.com

January 30, 2019

President Trump fired off a tweet barrage Wednesday morning touting tremendous progress on foreign policy, pressing the point that things were a mess when he took office.

Trump furthered expectations that he is seeking to end the never ending war in Afghanistan and withdraw American troops, saying that the Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.

When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

The President then turned to North Korea, noting that the relationship with the rouge state is the best it has ever been with U.S. and that he sees a Decent chance of Denuclearization.

.Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

The President further stressed that the progress made with North Korea could not have been foreseen considering the previous administrations position.

At the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Trump urged.

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

The President was less optimistic concerning the situation in Venezula, however, issuing a warning to Americans not to travel there for the forseeable future.

Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Trump surreptitiously sought to have the Colombian government and mafia assassinate him.

Maduro also claimed that White House National Security Adviser John Bolton has prevented Trump from communicating with the Venezuelan government, despite efforts to start a dialogue.

For all these years, I have been trying on a personal level. But Bolton prevented Donald Trump from initiating a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro. I have the information that he has prohibited this, Maduro said.

Turning to the southern border, Trump addressed Democrats, stating that if they do not wish to discuss a border wall with Republicans at a meeting scheduled for today then it will be pointless.

If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

The President followed up with another tweet warning of new caravans of migrants marching toward the US.

Three separate caravans marching to our Border. The numbers are tremendous. @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 7:55 am

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Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 9:27 am

Allen E. Kelly, known to all his friends as Kelly, was born April 24, 1934, in Oakland, Calif., to Burrell and Evelyn Kelly. He passed away peacefully at home Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019, at the age of 84 with his beloved wife, Leanne at his side and surrounded by his loved ones.

He married Gloria Jordan in 1953, and they had five children. They later divorced, but remained friends until Glorias death in 2009. Kelly married Leanne Wood in 1977, and they began their lifetime adventure. He was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and an uncle to many. Kelly's sense of humor brightened the room clear up to the day of his passing. He was very witty and he evoked a smile from everyone he crossed paths with. He loved playing the slot machines, watching western movies and fishing.

Kelly was always someone you could count on. He lived life to its fullest and made every day the best. Kelly was a proud United States Navy veteran who served in the Korean War. He joined the National Guard in 1950, served for two years then enlisted in the Navy in 1952, serving our country until 1955. After his honorable discharge, Kelly began driving trucks and did that for most of his working career. In the early 1960s, Kelly was the owner of C-K SAV-MOR gas station in Edmonds, Wash.

He leaves behind his wife of 42 years, Leanne; daughters, Cheri Kelly and Donna Mohs; son, Mark; brother, David Blodgett; and many other extended family and friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents; siblings, Donald and Jeannie; daughters, Debra Cook and Linda Cronin; and granddaughter, Jamie Whittaker.

Services will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019, at Purdy & Walters Floral Hill, 409 Filbert Rd., Lynnwood, WA 98036. Reception following.
Zero Hedge

January 30, 2019

If you listen to the government tell it, a post-hard Brexit Britain will inevitably resemble the post-apocalyptic Australia from Mad Max: A post-apocalyptic hellscape where Britons will be forced to battle it out Thunderdome-style for access to scare essentials like food, medicine and guzzoline.

Sound outlandish? Well, thats because it probably is. The notion that reverting to WTO rules on trade would cause anything beyond a transient disruption to supply chains is ridiculous on its face. Most of this blatant fearmongering can be attributed to a very effective propaganda campaign weve dubbed Project Fear. In recent weeks, Mays government has staged traffic jams near would-be border checkpoints and warned that the hit to economic growth will linger for years, if not decades.

Yet, out of naivety or shrewdness, Brexiteer MPs have largely ignored these warnings and continued to oppose Mays deal, despite her insistence that it is Britains best and only option. So far, the EU has refused to reopen negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement, prompting Mays latest attempt to transform a wave of resistance into a surmountable obstacle by winning support for an amendment that she could then pitch to the EU27 as the only workable arrangement. But like her other plans, this too appears to be mired in conflict.

Fearful of the shortages that could lie just around the corner, both warehouses and UK citizens have begun hoarding food, medicine and other supplies. Perhaps realizing that they have pushed the country to the brink of hysteria, PM Mays government on Monday tried to walk back some of the more outrageous claims, assuring citizens that there will be enough to eat in the event of a hard Brexit, though prices on fresh foods could see a temporary spike. The walk back followed another warning from supermarket chains about possible supply shortages if no deal goes through.

The U.K. has a high level of food security based on a wide range of sources, including strong domestic production and imports from other countries, James Slack told reporters in London on Monday afternoon. This will continue to be the case whether we leave the EU with our without a deal. On the face of it, the statement  in response to a warning from food retailers  is uncontroversial. But the government of the worlds fifth-largest economy having to reassure its citizens theyll have food is a mark of the atmosphere pervading the nation.

Alas, this wasnt the only example of fearmongering to circulate in the press so far this week. A study by several UK universities concluded that a no-deal Brexit could lead to thousands more deaths by 2030, according to Bloomberg. The reason? Get this  rising fruit and vegetable prices, which could lead to a spike in unhealthy eating.

Any deal under which the UK exits the EU will push up prices, cutting the amount of fresh produce people buy, it said. A no-deal Brexit would have the worst impact, leading to more than 12,000 extra deaths between 2021 and 2030. The new study, from Imperial College London and the University of Liverpool, used data from the World Health Organization and HM Revenue and Customs to model the impact of Brexit on health. The models included a free-trading agreement with the EU and third-party countries; a free-trading agreement with the EU; and a no-deal Brexit without a new trade agreement. All scenarios assumed an increase in trade tariffs and transaction costs  extra costs that the UK will be required to pay on imported goods.

And as if the level of hysteria wasnt already at a fever pitch, the Associated Press reported that Jews living in the UK are so concerned about Brexit that theyre literally applying for German citizenship, waging that a return to the land where their ancestors were slaughtered would be a solid contingency plan in the event of no deal.

The German Embassy in London says it has received more than 3,380 citizenship applications since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 under article 116 of the German Constitution, which allows the descendants of people persecuted by the Nazis to regain the citizenship that was removed between 1933 and 1945. In comparison, only around 20 such requests were made annually in the years before Brexit.

Through it all, May remains stuck between a rock and a hard place. MPs cant agree on an alternative to her deal, making it impossible for her to try and sell an alternative arrangement to the EU, while the EU remains publicly opposed to reopening the Withdrawal Agreement.

That should set everybodys mind at ease.

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 7:14 am

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RT

January 30, 2019

strong>Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Donald Trump ordered the Colombian government and mafia to assassinate him, but insisted that hes well protected from the threat of assassination.

Without a doubt, Donald Trump gave the order to kill me, told the Colombian government, the Colombian mafia, to kill me. If something happens to me, Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible, Maduro told RIA Novosti.

Maduro, however, expressed confidence in his countrys security services.

I am always protected by the Venezuelan people, we have a good intelligence service, he said.

Maduro also claimed that White House National Security Adviser John Bolton has prevented Trump from communicating with the Venezuelan government. The Venezuelan president told RIA Novosti that he has repeatedly tried  but failed  to reach out to the US leader.

For all these years, I have been trying on a personal level [to establish dialogue]  But Bolton prevented Donald Trump from initiating a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro. I have the information that he has prohibited this, Maduro said.

Maduro and his government are currently being challenged by Juan Guaido, the US-backed leader of the countrys National Assembly. Guaido declared himself interim president last week, and has received open support from Washington and its Western allies.

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 7:15 am

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Free Beacon

January 30, 2019

During a CNN-sponsored town hall in Iowa Monday night, Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) said there is no reason to have assault weapons in a civil society.

We have got to have smart gun safety laws in this country, and weve got to stop buying this false choice. You can be in favor of the Second Amendment and also understand that there is no reason in a civil society that we have assault weapons around communities that can kill babies and police officers, Harris said.

Harris, one of the many Democrats running in the 2020 presidential primary, held a town hall in Iowa where a pastor asked what she would do to tackle gun violence.

As you know, the rates of gun violence in America are astronomically higher than in other western democracies. What do you think can be done, and what would you be prepared to do to address the problem of gun violence? the pastor asked.

Read more

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 6:59 am

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Breitbart

January 30, 2019

Italian efforts to block migrant boats from Africa is a betrayal of Europe and of its citizens, EU Parliament boss Antonio Tajani has alleged, insisting Brussels must put in place a permanent mechanism which would spread third world migrants throughout the bloc.

Ahead of a visit to the Aosta Valley, a region of Italy home to a number of ski resorts, the centre-right politician branded it unacceptable that EU nations had chosen to turn away from what is happening in the Mediterranean.

In so doing, they betray the European project and citizens expectations. Immediately approve the accord on mandatory distribution voted by the European Parliament, stated Tajani, according to reports from the news wire service, ANSA, on Tuesday.

The Italians remarks came as open borders-backing NGOs were attempting to increase pressure on Rome to open the countrys ports to a Sea Watch vessel carrying a batch of 47 migrants it picked up off the coast of Libya last week.

Read more

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 7:31 am

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American Mirror

January 30, 2019

Hillarys just like us!

The failed presidential candidate  who is now reportedly leaving the door open to a third run in 2020  made an appearance in Puerto Rico on Monday and made a churro.

Time to make the churros at Kreamy Ice Cream Shop in Puerto Rico. @ClintonGlobal and @Foundation_PR are working together to deploy $1.2 million in grants to local entrepreneurs as small businesses continue to recover from Hurricane Maria. pic.twitter.com/as2oSoYqZ5  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 28, 2019

Ohhhh! Clinton cheered, standing behind the machine at Kreamy Ice Cream Shop.

Oh my gosh! she exclaimed.

After holding up her creation, she looked at it in amazement and said, That is fabulous!

The Clintons have a history of using food to pander to voters.

In 2016, Bill Clinton made an unannounced stop at Francos Home Cooking in Louisville, Kentucky, and got behind the counter to serve food.

But it wasnt just any food, and it wasnt just any crowd.

As Saturday Morning Solutions, a weekly black radio show, reported, Bill Clinton came to the hood in Louisville and LITERALLY served fried chicken to Black people.

Bill Clinton came to the hood in Louisville and LITERALLY served fried chicken to Black people pic.twitter.com/6DoJVAPSB7  Sat. Morn. Solutions (@SMSS4) May 3, 2016

Will Clark of WHAS tweeted another photo of Clinton serving food without a hairnet, gloves or an apron.

The Health Department would call that first black president privilege.

Earlier that year, Hillary was accused of engaging in black stereotypes when she insisted to a trio of black radio hosts that she always carries hot sauce in her purse.

Hot Air reported April 19:

During an appearance on The Breakfast Club, a morning radio show on Urban/Hip Hop radio station Power 105.1 in New York, Hillary Clinton (D-NY)said she always carries hot sauce with her wherever she goes.

The radio hosts immediately responded with giggles and snorts of recognition. You see, the suggestion that she carries hot sauce in her purse was immediately recognized as the lowest form of pandering to the radio programs African-American audience. 

One of the shows co-hosts, Charlamagne Tha God said to her, now listen, I want you to know that people are going to see this and say, Shes pandering to black people,

Clintons response: Okay, is it working?

The pandering is strong with this one.

This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 6:42 am

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WHO says Africa experiencing full-blown third wave of COVID-19 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said Africa is in the middle of a

Euro 2020: Scotland frustrate England in Wembley draw England will have to wait to secure a place in the last 16 of Euro 2020

Police escape latest bullion van attack on Kasoa-Winneba road A police officer on escort duties in a bullion van has escaped an attack by

Ethiopian couple forego wedding party for Tigray aid An Ethiopian couple has donated funds they had set aside for a lavish wedding
Ethiopian couple forego wedding party for Tigray aid An Ethiopian couple has donated funds they had set aside for a lavish wedding

British Airways plane collapses at Heathrow Airport A British Airways plane has been damaged at Heathrow Airport after collapsing

Euro 2020: Scotland frustrate England in Wembley draw England will have to wait to secure a place in the last 16 of Euro 2020
Abolish unfair fees, charges - BoG directs banks The Bank of Ghana, BoG has in a notice directed all Banks and Specialised

Copa America: Neymar counts down to Peles record for Brazil Neymar might not win three World Cups in his career like Pele did, but he is

Euro 2020: Croatia hold Czech Republic to draw The Czech Republic took a huge step towards qualifying for the last 16 at Euro
Customs officials intercept guns at Tema Port Customs officials at the Tema Port have intercepted three assault rifles

A/R: Police arrest three persons with human parts The police in Ashanti Region have arrested three suspects for unlawful

Iranians vote in presidential election marred by disqualification row Iranians are voting to elect a new president, with all but one of the four
Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 9:35 am

A proposed bill would double the fine for motorists caught using a cellphone in a school, playground or crosswalk speed zone to up to $234 per infraction, or up to $468 for repeat offenders.

Washingtons first law to address texting-while-driving went into effect two years ago, which also prohibited eating and applying makeup.

One of the primary crosswalks I sit at is Mill Creek Elementary, said Christine White, a patrol officer with the Mill Creek Police Department.

I have seen people on their cell phones talking, texting, reading, doing other things besides actually paying attention to what is in front of them, she said. I've had to smack the side of cars, and fortunately I have a very hard ring and it gets gets their attention.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,477 individuals were killed and 391,000 were injured in distracted driving-affected accidents in 2015, although its not clear how many of those happened in school zones.

The bill would require one-half of the fines collected to be deposited in a school zone safety account.

If we cant keep our children safe in our communities and their schools, I dont think theres anything else were going to do in this world thats going to matter said the bills sponsor, Rep. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek. This is just an opportunity to keep our children safe.

If passed, the new fines would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
A/R: Police arrest three persons with human parts The police in Ashanti Region have arrested three suspects for unlawful

Police escape latest bullion van attack on Kasoa-Winneba road A police officer on escort duties in a bullion van has escaped an attack by

Black Meteors arrive home after 15-2 defeat in Asian tour The Black Meteors have touched down in the country after ending their Asian

Euro 2020: Scotland frustrate England in Wembley draw England will have to wait to secure a place in the last 16 of Euro 2020

Police officer found dead at Flagstaff House barracks A policeman has reportedly been found dead in his room at the Flagstaff House

WHO says Africa experiencing full-blown third wave of COVID-19 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said Africa is in the middle of a
Ethiopian couple forego wedding party for Tigray aid An Ethiopian couple has donated funds they had set aside for a lavish wedding

Abolish unfair fees, charges - BoG directs banks The Bank of Ghana, BoG has in a notice directed all Banks and Specialised

Nigeria: Teachers and students missing after attack A University for girls in northwestern Nigeria was targeted Thursday in an
Plattsburgh, NY (12901)

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Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 10:03 am

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, has reintroduced a bill to reinstate oil train safety regulations. The rules, implemented by the Obama administration in 2015, were rolled back last year.

The regulations required trains carrying oil or other flammable materials to update air-controlled braking systems with electronic brakes. But the U.S. Department of Transportation previously determined the cost to outfit trains with new braking systems outweighed the safety benefit.

Herrera Beutler first introduced the bill, known as the Oil and Flammable Material Rail Transportation Safety Act, to bring back the safety requirements in October.

"With trains carrying hazardous materials through Southwest Washington, it is paramount we increase safety for the nearby communities," Herrera Beutler said in a press release. "I'm committed to reversing the decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation to ease this critical safety regulation, and reinstating the braking upgrade requirement for trains carrying flammable liquids."

The Washington State Department of Ecology classifies Southwest Washington as a major oil train corridor, with hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil moving through the region each year.

"As a community that has oil trains regularly running through our commercial areas, neighborhoods and downtown, Vancouver is very supportive and appreciative of Congresswoman Herrera Beutler's efforts to reinstate the requirement that oil trains transition to the much more effective electronic pneumatic brakes," Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle said in a press release.
ATLANTIC CITY  The state wanted input from the local community on addressing Atlantic Citys challenges, and its representatives got it Tuesday night, as about 500 people packed Jim Whelan Boardwalk Halls historic Adrian Phillips Ballroom to share their concerns and ideas.

Libbie Wills of the First Ward Civic Association kicked off the evening with a talk about the need for residents to report crime to police and clean up their neighborhoods.

And she asked for more creative approaches from the city and state.

There is no reason to wait another 20 years to get vacant lots developed or the South Inlet developed, she said.

Atlantic City High School sophomore Tahani Muhammad, 16, gave a speech about the needs of young people.

It will be impossible (to succeed) if the roads for success are not paved for us, like the casinos had roads paved for them, said Muhammad.

Audience members asked Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who as commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs oversees the states control of the resorts finances, about addressing blight, increasing police presence in neighborhoods, recreation and job opportunities for young people, and the time frame for returning city workers to Civil Service rules.
However, commercial sex exploitation  in which victims can be lured with drugs and alcohol and then forced into sex  may be the most well-known type, she said.

Dozens of students packed the auditorium to listen and ask questions.

Kendall Elliot, a criminal justice major, said the event opened his eyes.

We could be walking by every day and not even know its happening, the 21-year-old Mays Landing resident said.

New Jersey is the perfect place for human trafficking, said Judge Susan F. Maven, of Atlantic County Superior Courts Family Division. We have various ways that people can move through the state very quickly by highway, by train, and it makes it very easy for traffickers to move into an area, recruit, do their business and then move on before theyre detected.

The court created a program called YES, or Youth Empowered for Success, to help juveniles who are at risk for sexual or labor exploitation. Maven said theyre working with 10 young women identified as being at risk.

Monica Kristen, a social worker at Avanzar, formerly the Atlantic County Womens Center, said they work with clients all over the state who have experienced human trafficking.
We firmly believe that in order to increase student awareness and identify opportunities that the field of computer science has to offer, our students need to build competence in these fields at an early age, which in turn will build confidence that they can and should consider pursuing this competitive career field, Ocean City Superintendent Kathleen Taylor said after the governors announcement. This grant will afford us to further expand our program, as well as recruit and motivate our students to pursue computer science opportunities by providing more introductory programming, identifying those students with Advanced Placement potential and recruiting students for our current AP Computer Science offering at the high school.
The rift between the Lagos State House of Assembly and the executive arm may be taking another turn with the lawmakers reconvening for an emergency parliamentary session on Wednesday.

The House had on Monday adjourned till February 4, but with new developments, reconvened for the emergency session.

Recall that the House had on Monday threatened to commence impeachment proceedings against Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, over alleged financial infractions in the 2018 budget and the yet-to-be-laid 2019 Appropriation Bill.

The House had summoned the governor and relevant commissioners to appear before it in seven days to explain themselves.

The lawmakers said if they failed to show up, gathering of signatures for the governors impeachment would begin.

During the House plenary on Monday, the lawmakers took turns to condemn the governor, with some asking him to resign.

Following the threat, however, about five different groups staged peaceful protests to the House on Wednesday, demanding that the House should desist from any attempt to impeach Mr Ambode.

In another development, a group, the Legislative Probity and Accountability (LPA) asked the Assembly to account for the N28.8 billion allegedly collected as running cost.

Reacting on behalf of the House at a news conference after Wednesdays emergency meeting, the Majority Leader, Sanai Agunbiade said the House was not witch-hunting Mr Ambode, but wanted due process on the appropriation bill.

Mr Agunbiade said the House would apply the maximum sanction on the governor if he failed to utilise the window of one week given to him to appear before the House for explanations.

According to him, the House is doing all in the interest of the public and the tax payers money.

The majority leader said it was illegal for the governor to start spending budget estimates without the appropriation bill being first laid before the House.

We are responding to various groups that have come today to appeal to the House in respect of what they heard and the seeming impasse between the executive and the House.

`We decided to correct the misconceptions and wrong information that have been fed the public.

We wish to state clearly that today, about five groups paid visit to Lagos Assembly to plead with the House not to impeach the governor.

The issue before us is not whether or not we want Gov. Ambode to end his tenure. He is still the governor of Lagos State and we take him as the governor.

We want the public to know that the major issue in contention is the 2019 appropriation bill, which by now we feel should have been before the House, Mr Agunbiade said.

According to him, the stipulation of the constitution is that the bill, which the governor shall cause to be prepared and laid before the legislature, should be done before the commencement of another fiscal year.

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He said government in government out had been doing this, including Gov, Ambode-led government in the last three years.

Mr Agunbiade said the House waited for the budget in December but did not get it.

Unless the budget is laid before the House, there is no budget before the House of Assembly, he said.

The lawmaker added: We were willing to take the budget, but we didnt have the budget.

We now discovered that expenditures are being incurred and warrants have been issued in respect of the budget that has not been laid before the House.

This we found inappropriate, and before this also, we have found some infractions in the 2018 budget, where we discovered that some expenditures were made outside the budget without the approval of the House.

We have to make these clarifications so as to let the public know that what is going on is not witch-hunting.

We are legislators and we must do things properly. The government must be well funded; why should we be managing when we can make things work freely?

The House of Assembly is doing all these in the interest of the state and the intent that we want Lagos to continue to flourish, but we cannot compromise the constitution.

Mr Agunbiade said for the public to know that the legislature was not witch-hunting the governor, when the infractions were noticed, the House decided to invite the governor and affected commissioners for explanation.

According to him, if the House wanted war, the legislature will not have given the window for explanation.

It is now left for the governor to shut the window at us and tell us he is not interested or take advantage of the window we have given.

Of course we are expecting that he will walk in and we look at the issues.

Of course, the constitution is so clear about what is to be done where there are infractions and that is why the issue of impeachment came in.

Where these infractions continue with impunity and nothing is done and the opportunity given to make clearance on these, we will apply the necessary provisions of the constitution, which is impeachment.

If the public is saying the House should not impeach the governor, the public should also tell the governor to do the needful in respect of the budget.

On allegations that the impasse was because the lawmakers wanted their campaigns funded, Mr Agunbiade said this was a lie, as the governor could not fund the campaigns of individual legislators.

(NAN)
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President Muhammadu Buhari who kicked off a two-State campaign tour of Abia and Imo on Tuesday got two critical endorsements for his second term bid.

The presidents Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said this in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday.

The statement said the first endorsement of the presidents candidature was from the Chairman of Aba Traditional Council, Isaac Ikonne, Enyi 1 of Aba.

The traditional ruler called on all indigenes of Abia to vote for the All Progressives Party (APC) Presidential Candidate.

Mr Ikonne said Igbo people would remain loyal and committed to President Buhari for the payment of pensions to ex-Biafran security personnel.

He lauded the administrations policy on ease of doing business which, the traditional ruler said, had benefited the Igbo more than any other ethnic group.

The traditional ruler also expressed delight over the massive infrastructure development going on throughout the South-East.

You love Nigeria and you need to return to consolidate your fight against the monster of corruption and to take us to the Next Level.

I want to assure you that Aba and Abians and indeed all Igbos will massively vote for you, the royal father told the president as he raised his hand and proclaimed him winner of the coming presidential poll.

The presidential aide revealed that the second endorsement was by the secretary-general of apex-Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Uche Okwukwu, who had earlier expressed a dissenting view from that of his chairman in expressing support for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the imminent elections.

President Muhammadu Buhari goes on his presidential campaign in Imo and Abia states, [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Buhari] President Muhammadu Buhari goes on his presidential campaign in Imo and Abia states, [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Buhari] President Muhammadu Buhari goes on his presidential campaign in Imo and Abia states, [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Buhari]

Mr Okwukwu announced the adoption of President Buhari as the true Ohanaeze candidate who would be formally recognised as such at a coming event at the Aso Rock Villa.

On his part, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State welcomed the existing synergy between the federal government and his state which he said, had come with enormous gains that were cherished by the government and the people.

In his response, President Buhari pledged to provide more infrastructure to the South-East geopolitical zone of the federation to give a further impetus to the spirit of industry, hard work and competitiveness for which the Igbo are known.

They deserve more and more infrastructure to further excel, the president said.

(NAN)
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The Chief Press Secretary to Taraba State Governor, Hassan Mijinyawa, was reportedly abducted by gunmen on Wednesday while on his way to Gembu along Bali  Gashaka axis of the road.

Haruna Manu, the Deputy Governor, confirmed this to journalists in Jalingo.

Mr Manu, who said the abductors had yet to contact anybody, urged the public to pray for the safe release of Mr Mijinyawa and other kidnap victims.

The wife of the abducted official, Sekina Mijinyawa, also confirmed the incident to journalists.

She said that her husband left home for Gembu in Sardauna Local Government Area at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday only for him to be kidnapped on the way.

The News Agency of Nigeria gathered that Mr Mijinyawa was on his way to Mambilla Plateau to join Governor Darius Ishaku who is on a campaign tour of the area.

She appealed to the kidnappers to have mercy on her husband and release him unhurt.

Yusuf Garba, one of those who narrowly escaped the kidnappers, said apart from the CPS and another government official, a foreigner whom he said was on his way to one of the Internally Displaced Persons camp, was also kidnapped.

Mr Garba, who narrated how the kidnappers took over the highway for several hours, said the CPS and the other victims after being dispossessed of their belongings, were led away into the forest by the abductors.

David Akinremi, Commissioner of Police in Taraba, also confirmed the incident.

He, however, said that police had deployed some officers in the area to commence a search for the victims. (NAN)
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A Gombe Chief Magistrates Court III, on Wednesday, remanded an 18-year-old student, Usman Shehum of Bypass quarters, Gombe, for alleged trespass and rape of a 12-year-old girl.

The court clerk, Michael Chimuje, who read the First Information Report (FIR), alleged that the accused committed the offences on January 19 at about 2.30 p.m.

He said that the accused criminally trespassed into the House of One Zainab Kachalla of same address.

Mr Chimuje said the accused entered into the bedroom of the complainants 12-year-old daughter and forcefully had carnal knowledge of her.

He said the accused committed the offences contrary to Sections 282 and 342 of the Penal Code.

However, the police prosecutor, Salihu Jibir, told the court that investigation into the matter was in progress and applied for an adjournment to enable the police to complete their investigation.

The Chief Magistrate, Saluk Yusuf, ordered that the accused be remanded in prison.

Mr Yusuf adjourned the case until February 26. (NAN)
Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 10:10 am

MOSES LAKE  A Moses Lake man blamed his 13-year-old daughter for the meth that law enforcement found on him Sunday evening.

Daniel B. Clark, 53, was contacted around 5 p.m. Sunday when officers with the Moses Lake Police Department recognized that he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. The responding officer conducted a routine search on Clark's person and discovered an unidentified toy.

Clark indicated to the officer that his daughter had given him the toy to "help him calm down," according to police reports. The officer on the scene opened a pouch on the toy and discovered a plastic baggie with a substance that field-tested positive as meth.

Law enforcement asked Clark if he knew what the substance was and whom it belonged to. Clark said he did not know but repeated that it had been given to him by his daughter, a police official said.

Law enforcement confirmed Monday that Clark's daughter was not being charged in connection with the confiscated methamphetamine. Clark was booked for possession of a controlled substance and an outstanding warrant for possession of a controlled substance.
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The governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, on Tuesday called on aggrieved members of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) who are not happy with his government to be loyal to the party and not meddle in anti-party activities during the coming elections.

Following the recent party primaries, many members of the APC in the state, especially those that aspired for different positions, accused the government and party leaders of forcing them to step down for most of the incumbent officeholders. While those that went into the primaries said the party leadership didnt give them a fair contest.

In order to manage the disgruntlement in the party, the governor last year directed the ruling party to inaugurate a compensation committee to address the grievances amongst the aspirants that lost out.

Though meetings were held, it is not clear if the committee had been able to resolve the anger amongst the aspirants.

The governor also acknowledged that there are other members of the party, whose grievances predated the party primaries  especially those that were edged out of appointment or government patronages in the last seven and a half years of his administration.

Speaking on Tuesday while inaugurating the Borno APC 2019 campaign council, Mr Shettima said irrespective of how aggrieved they are, it would be a costly mistake for party members to work against their candidate in an election.

Mr Shettima, who chairs the APC campaign council,l told members that future patronage of party politicians by the government would be measured by how well they had done in delivering the winning votes for candidates within their electoral units, wards, and local government areas.

As stakeholders you should bear in mind that, your political reputation will lie with your collaborative effort to win all elections within your area, Mr Shettima said.

For instance, losing MMC, Chibok, Hawul, Askira Uba, Biu or anywhere to PDP will only make stake-holders from these local government areas to lose the legitimacy of bargaining for any political privileges within the APC in Borno State.

Moreover, you should always bear in minds that electorates are not robots that you tell to vote APC in one ballot paper and vote PDP in another ballot paper. From history, anti-party activities are never hidden and they have unpredictable outcomes.

And I think one question we should wonder is what if we work against any of our candidates and yet he or she wins? When you work against someone as he or she wins an election, it automatically means that you are not relevant.

I think it is wiser to help someone you disagree with to win the election so that at least, you have something to boast before such person. I have sounded these notes of caution not based on any particular realities but based on hypothetical possibilities that are inherent in Bornos democratic experiences.

I urge all of us to bury whatever grievances we have and work together. There are some candidates who were angered in 2015 after losing out. Today, they are flag bearers of our party. I urge us to work for each other.

We should always remember that the APC is a vehicle on a journey with all of us on board. When a vehicle is moving with you, it will be suicidal to remove any part of that vehicle otherwise everyone will crash. Perhaps the person who removes the part of the moving vehicle could be the first casualty, the governor said.

A number of aggrieved party members, especially those who contested and lost the governorship primaries are currently in different courts battling to convince judges to either cancel the result of the primary election or declare them as candidates in place of the APC flagged bearer, Babagana Umara, who polled overwhelming votes to emerge candidate.
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Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, has said he would concede defeat if he loses the 2019 elections, provided the exercise is adjudged free and fair.

Mr Abubakar said he has conceded defeat when he lost before and does not see why this should be an outlier.

Mr Abubakar appeared on TheCandidates a televised town hall hosted by journalist Kadaria Ahmed on NTA Wednesday night. Peter Obi, his running mate appeared with him.

Mr Abubakar is the main challenger to President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential elections scheduled for February 16.

The opposition candidates response appeared starkly different from the one offered by Mr Buhari when he was asked the same question when he appeared on an earlier instalment of the programme earlier this month.

Ms Ahmed asked Mr Buhari whether he would concede, but rather than say categorically whether or not he would, the president gave a response that was widely deemed non-committal.

Although he made reference to his previous presidential election losses, he insisted those happened because he was cheated, and not because citizens did not vote for him.
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Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, said on Wednesday that anti-open grazing laws in some states would be reviewed for compatibility with the Nigerian Constitution.

The former vice president said at a town hall Wednesday night that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees free movement of citizens, and suggested that herders should not be an exception.

Mr Abubakar said if the governments through extension services could educate herders, the income the latter would generate from beef and milk would be higher.

Mr Abubakars proposal could conflict with the position of Benue, Taraba and Ekiti states, where strict anti-open grazing routes have been in enforcement since 2016.

The states have said they would not back down on the law, despite repeated warnings by President Muhammadu Buhari that the law was antagonistic towards the predominantly Fulani herders.

Mr Abubakar, a Fulani, is also widely believed to own large investment in livestock.

The governors in Taraba and Benue States are of the same Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as Mr Abubakar, but it is unclear how they would react to Mr Abubakars position, which they had countered when Mr Buhari suggested it.

Ekiti States anti-open grazing law was implemented by Ayodele Fayose of the PDP while governor, but the state is now being run by Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress who was elected governor last July.

Still, Mr Abubakar said, if elected, he would implement policies geared towards establishing reserves for nomadic herdsmen.

Even though he acknowledged that open grazing is a way of life for the Fulani herders, the nomadic education would help reduce the culture while increasing interest in grazing reserves for modern rearing of livestock, he said.
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The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has said he would deal with any military commanders under whose watch Nigerian soldiers face casualties and loss of equipment.

He, however, said he would first provide adequate equipment, welfare and training for the military in its fight against Boko Haram.

Mr Abubakar said it would be unacceptable that military commanders would be provided enough resources and they would be derelict at their jobs.

If I give you arms and then you are overrun by insurgents, I will deal with you, the former vice president said.

Why we are having setbacks is because there are no consequences for nonperformance in the fight against corruption. I can only assume that lack of equipment in the fighting troops is one of the problems so we will make sure that adequate equipment is made available but we can not contain this challenge if the military keeps loosing weapons in the hands of insurgents.

Nigerian military chiefs have faced criticism for their failure to curb incessant attacks by Boko Haram insurgents. Hundreds of troops have been killed over the past six months, and a great deal of equipment carted away by the ruthless terrorists.

President Muhammadu Buhari has been equally criticised for not disciplining the military commanders despite their alleged complacency.

The president, however, said he has no reason to fire the commanders, whom he had used since assuming office in 2015, because he was satisfied with their performance. The tenures of the Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai and the Chief of Defence Staff Gabriel Olonisakin were extended by Mr Buhari when they should have retire since 2017.

Mr Abubakar spoke while appearing on The Candidates hosted by journalist Kadaria Ahmed on NTA.

The Boko Haram insurgency has caused tens of thousands of deaths since 2009.

SHIITE CRISIS

Mr Abubakar also criticised the involvement of the military in clashes with Shiites that led to the murder of hundres of civilians.

He said the military has no business in the handling of a Shiite protest in 2015.

If they (Shiite) misbehave, let the police deal with them. What the military should have done is to invite the police to handle them, he said.

At least 347 members of the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria were killed when soldiers attacked them for blocking a road being used by the army chief, Tukur Buratai.

The Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, has been in detention since then.

Dozens of Shiites have been killed since the 2015 incident during protests demanding the release of Mr El-Zakzaky.
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The Nigerian government has filed criminal charges against the former head of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayodele Oke, and his wife, Folashade.

The defendants are facing a four-count charge of money laundering amounting to millions of dollars.

Mr Oke was removed from office in October 2017 after millions of dollars belonging to the NIA were found in an apartment in Lagos.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt Mr Oke and his wife will be arraigned on February 1 before Chukwujekwu Aneke, a judge of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court.

In count one, the couple were accused of hiding $43 million belonging to the federal government in an apartment in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The second count stated that the couple indirectly used $1.6 million of government money to acquire an apartment in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi.

The government listed 13 witnesses including those who would give evidence of how they received almost $300 million from the Central Bank of Nigeria and delivered to Mr Oke.

Read charges below:
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Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, on Wednesday denied using his position as a top government official to enrich himself.

Mr Abubakar resigned in 1989 as a top official with the Nigerian Customs Service.

Host Kadaria Ahmed put Mr Abubakar under the spotlight for his purchase of private shares in a logistic firm during his days at customs, a practice that was deemed a conflict of interest.

The former vice president, however, denied the claim, saying he was allowed to purchase private shares based on existing laws at the time.

Today in Nigeria, a public official is not allowed to own or engage in private businesses, but many officials said a convention from the public service rules allows for engagement in agriculture businesses.

Mr Abubakar also denied monopolising logistics business in Nigeria after assuming office as Nigerias vice president in 1999. He was in office until 2007.

Mr Abubakars Intels Logistics Limited is widely deemed a major player in maritime logistics, and Ms Ahmed said the firm described itself on its website as having a monopoly in the sector.

Mr Abubakar denied operating a monopoly, saying his company might have made a mistake in describing itself as the only player in that sector.

There is fierce competition against Intels, Mr Abubakar said, mentioning some of the players.

Mr Abubakars running mate, Peter Obi, was also fired with a barrage of questions surrounding his use of government funds to invest in private businesses while governor of Anambra State between 2003 and 2014.

Mr Obi denied the allegations, saying he had never enriched himself with government funds but instead invested government funds that ended up yielding so much he was able to leave a record N52 billion in government coffers.

The candidates are participating in the town hall, which is being broadcast live on NTA, ahead of the elections on February 16.

President Muhammadu Buhari and his running mate, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, were on the programme earlier this month, during which they defended their first term and gave reasons why they deserved another.
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Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, has described himself as the bridge between Nigerias young and old generations.

Mr Abubakar, 72, was challenged about his age during a town hall between him and his running mate, Peter Obi, on Wednesday night.

Host Kadaria Ahmed suggested that Mr Abubakars age could constitute a hindrance to his performance. He rejected this notion, saying his performance as a public official in the past had given him enough experience to be able to relate with Nigerians of all age groups.

He also knocked President Muhammadu Buhari for not delivering on his promises. He said the APC administration came in on a promise to address three serious issues: improve the economy, fight corruption and contain the Boko Haram insurgency.

He said the administration failed on all the three. Before the APC came in our GDP was six per cent, he said. Immediately they came in, our country was plunged into recession.

Mr Abubakar said Nigerias corruption perception had not changed since Mr Buhari came into office, showing that his administrations anti-corruption posturing was a ruse.

He also said security crisis had worsened from only the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East to other violent crisis in the North-West and central Nigeria.
The Ebonyi Council of Traditional Rulers on Wednesday said President Muhammadu Buhari would get the support of many voters in the state at the February 16th presidential election.

The traditional rulers also endorsed the state governor, David Umahi, for a second term.

This is even as President Buhari expressed satisfaction that the impact of federal government projects was being felt in Ebonyi State.

The chairman of traditional rulers council, Charles Mkpuma, said Mr Buhari is loved by the people of the state because of the robust relationship he has with Mr Umahi despite the two being in different political parties.

He said this would translate to more votes for the president on election day

He gave the assurance during an audience with the president at the Ebonyi State Government House In Abakaliki.

Mr Mkpuma, who commended Mr Buharis determination to tackle the security challenges of the country, especially terrorism, and fight against corruption, said he deserves their votes.

The monarch, who spoke on behalf of 140 traditional rulers in the state, said the president has done well in the fight against Boko Haram and corruption.

We appreciate your dogged determination to maintain utmost security of the country, especially your effort in eliminating Boko Haram and fight against corruption, which has brought respect and integrity to the country in the comity of nations.

We believe that your robust relationship with our son, the governor, and your love for him and the state will surely earn you votes in Ebonyi State, irrespective of party differences, the monarch said.

Mr Mkpuma said the traditional rulers were happy with the leadership of Mr Umahi, who he said has touched every facet of development in the state. We the traditional rulers like other residents of the state have been rejuvenated and revived by the governor, he said.

The traditional rulers told the president that Mr Umahi also deserves a second term for the sake of equity, as each of the two former governors before him from other zones served two terms.

Ebonyi traditional rulers

Since the inception of the present democratic dispensation, Ebonyi State has operated rotation of the governorship seat among the three senatorial zones. Thus, North had eight years with the same man, central had two terms with same man, and south is entitled to eight years with the same man.

It is right and proper that tradition should continue. This is why we have endorsed incumbent Governor David Umahi, whose performance has been historic and superlative, as the sole candidate for 2019 gubernatorial election in Ebonyi State.

We are happy with the governor. he has touched every facet of human and infrastructural development of the state, Mr Mkpuma said.

The monarchs later presented 1,000 yams and 1,000 bags to Mr Buhari.

President Buhari, on his part, commended the governor for infrastructural development in the state.

He promised that monies spent on the completion of the federal projects will be refunded after the review committee would have audited the projects.

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According to him, Mr Umahi told him during their short drive to the Government House, that he had not received up to 40 percent of the funds spent on federal projects in the state.

He said he assured the governor the monies will be refunded once the audit committee headed by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, conclude its work.

Mr Buhari told the traditional rulers that his administrations investment in agriculture was a deliberate policy, recalling that the First Republic was good in agriculture because the land was abundant and grazing routes developed.

But subsequently, we got drunk with oil money and abandoned what kept us intact. But we are going back to that (agriculture).

He assured the monarchs that the southeast will benefit from the second Niger Bridge when completed as it will affect the region positively in moving goods and services.

He pledged that his second term will be of benefit to the south-east as he would not be seeking a third term.

The governor, Mr Umahi, in his remarks said irrespective of some perceptions, the southeast has benefited from federal government projects.

He said the federal governments agricultural programme has benefited the state immensely and resulted in an increase in rice production.

He noted that the state has a comparative advantage in agriculture and solid minerals.

Southeast has fared very well in terms of distribution of projects. We have an abundance of salt and we have found a solution on how to develop our salt and we needed your help to do that and you gave your approval. The solid mineral development fund is also assisting us to develop our solid minerals.

Ebonyi traditional rulers

We have also benefited very much from your agricultural programme and we have a comparative advantage in agriculture and solid minerals and we are grateful for the support in this area from you.

Our people may be complaining about appointments but I keep saying that you are a listening president and you are still coming. The relation with the state and the way you have taken me as your son, we are grateful, Mr Umahi said.
President Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 16 presidential election, has pledged to sustain the ongoing war against corruption if re-elected.

Mr Buhari made the promise while addressing a crowd of APC supporters who thronged the Oruta Ngele Township Stadium in Abakaliki, Ebonyi on Wednesday for the APC presidential mega rally.

He said that his administrations commitment to repositioning the country and sustaining the anti-graft campaign was irrevocable.

Mr Buhari said that fighting corruption was a difficult task, but that his administration would not relent in the struggle.

We are fighting broad war against corruption and this system is a difficult process but we are doing our best by trying to reorganise the Nigeria Police Force and Judicial system.

When we vote people into public office who are without houses and good cars, within two years they will own cars, build houses in Abuja, Europe and America.

When we investigate them, we arrest them and take them to court and when we take them to court, we hope that they will be prosecuted.

The important thing that I assure you is that I as a president today have never been in a position of abusing trust.

As a governor in the defunct North-east state now made up of the six states, as a minister of petroleum for over three years and as a former Head of State, I was arrested, detained and investigated but they never found anything against me.

So, we will stand against anything that hinders our development as a nation because God has given us people, God has given us resources.

The president said is administration had achieved success in the implementation of the three key cardinal programmes it promised to pursue during the 2015 presidential campaign  the anti-graft war, insecurity and rebuilding of the economy.

He said that the military had successfully freed the local government areas previously occupied by the Boko Haram insurgents.

The president said that the nations economy has been repositioned through agriculture and agro-based businesses and added that the country was no longer importing rice as it used to.

We asked the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank to give soft loans to our farmers and those who dont have something doing and who do not feel too big to farm went to the farm.

Today we have achieved food sufficiency and the money we have saved from rice and food importation we use to provide infrastructure.

Multitude gathered during President Buharis campaign in Ebonyi State. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Bashir Ahmad] Multitude gathered during President Buharis campaign in Ebonyi State. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Bashir Ahmad] Multitude gathered during President Buharis campaign in Ebonyi State. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official twitter handle of Bashir Ahmad]0

We are building roads, we are building rail lines and gateways for new rail way lines and we are committed to restoring the confidence of people in good governance, he added.

The president who thanked the people of Ebonyi for the rousing welcome urged them to vote for him and other candidates of the APC in the forthcoming general elections.

Earlier, the Minister for Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, said Mr Buhari had performed well and deserved re-election.

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The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Rotimi Amaechi, Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation; Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, accompanied the president to Ebonyi.

NAN also reports that Adams Oshiomhole, APC National Chairman presented the partys governorship flag to Sonni Ogbuoji, Ebonyi APC governorship candidate. (NAN)
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The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, has called on state governments to key into the Open Defecation Free Roadmap to promote sanitation and hygiene in the country.

Mr Adamu, who made this call at the National Task Group on Sanitation meeting on Wednesday in Abuja, said this call became necessary following continued and low progress made in ending open defecation practice in the country.

Nigeria has a Roadmap for Ending Open Defecation by 2025, with a goal for every Nigerian to have access to safely managed sanitation and attain 100 per cent coverage of improved sanitation nationally.

He said it was saddening and scandalous that only nine local governments had been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), out of the 774 nationally.

According to him, states have a huge role to play in hygiene promotion, and with more commitment and political will at all tiers of government, this will be achieved.

He said that the ministry was taking some steps such as declaring a national emergency on the water and sanitation sector and implementation of ODF road map.

We have too many paper works, and less action, we want to start seeing more actions, especially in the states, we want to see that quantum leap toward ending open defecation.

The challenge we are always having as the federal government is translating these ideas to the states.

In the 36 states and the FCT, many of them have different priorities; we must continue to strive to see that the issue of ODF campaign is aligned together.

Mr Adamu said that Nigeria could not continue to do things with a bureaucratic mentality, adding that it was now time to think outside the box, and with behaviour change, this can be achieved.

The minister said that the federal government was already partnering with the Nigerian Governors Forum and the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, to advocate and champion the ODF campaigns.

In the last three years, India has built 80 million toilets; we need this kind of quantum leap in this country.

By next year, wherever you go in the world, you will hear that Nigeria is number one in open defecation, and that is a national shame and we must not allow it to happen, he said.

On water contamination, Mr Adamu said there was the need for stakeholders collaboration to regulate and promote water quality, saying it was a matter for regret that Nigeria still lacked behind in access to potable water and sanitation.

The National Task Group on Sanitation is an umbrella body of ministries, international organisations and stakeholders working to promote sanitation and hygiene in the country.

Since inception, the group has been able to facilitate and validate open defecation communities.

It carries advocacies to state governments to increase budgetary allocation for the sanitation and hygiene sector. (NAN)
Posted Tuesday, January 29, 2019 4:33 pm

Images Toledo School officials called disturbing that alluded to school shootings were allegedly sent to more than 15 high school students during school hours on Jan. 17, resulting in a felony harassment charge being referred to the Lewis County Prosecutors Office.

Both school and sheriffs office officials said an investigation revealed the images represented a hoax rather than a credible threat. A letter signed by Superintendent Chris Rust was sent to parents of high school students on Monday, alerting them of the situation.

Rust said in an email to The Chronicle that parents were alerted Monday rather than the week of the incident because he was waiting for the investigation and consequences to conclude before we talked to our student body. The letter went out to coincide with that discussion.

The letter was sent the same day as a school assembly where school staff talked about the incident, he said.

According to Chief Bruce Kimsey with the Lewis County Sheriffs Office, the day of the incident students were using the iPhone and Apple product feature AirDrop to send one another messages. AirDrop allows iPhone users to send other users messages and images. One user, who used the screen name School Shooter, sent images via the application that were opened by more than 15 students. The person sent three images, said Kimsey, that he described as distasteful and involved firearms inside schools. He described one as an image of a handgun juxtaposed beneath a school crossing road sign. They appeared to be images taken from the internet, he said.

Rust said one of the students who received the images notified school staff. Administration then contacted the sheriffs office.

Kimsey said that in the resulting investigation, various students denied that they were the one that sent the images, until a 16-year-old boy on Friday allegedly confessed. The boy said the images were meant to be a joke, and that he didnt have access to firearms.

Rust said they talked about the incident at a school assembly, and encouraged students to come forward with any information of perceived threats, whether they represent a hoax or not.

The letter sent to parents reads in part: You can help. Remind your children that the safety of all depends upon our willingness to watch out for each other and to report unsafe behavior to the adults. Insist that your children not accept texts, photos or emails from people that they dont know or who dont identify themselves. Watching out for each other and reporting promptly are the best ways to keep everyone safe in todays world.

Kimsey said a charge of felony harassment against the teen was referred to the prosecutors office on Tuesday.
Emmanuel Ezunu, Head, Clinical Services and Training, Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba, has confirmed the death of a housewife who died 15 hours after she was delivered of a set of quintuplet.

Mr Ezunu who made the confirmation to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Asaba, said Chukwunonso Onyejekwe, 29, died of complications after delivery.

According to him, the deceased suffered acute respiratory failure and died after a successful Cesarean Session (CS) delivery.

NAN gathered that late Mrs Onyejekwe was delivered of a set of five female babies.

Mr Ezumu said that the woman was brought into the hospital as an un-booked patient, and due to her emergency condition, she was taken straight to the theatre.

The woman in question was brought to the FMC, on the 28th of January 2019, un-booked; that is to say, she was not a registered patient here.

Also, when she came, we noticed that her blood pressure was so high and the condition put her in a high risk for a normal delivery.

So, we recommended a caesarean session for safe delivery and she was moved to the theatre for an emergency CS, he said.

According to the medical officer, the woman never knew she was carrying a set of five babies.

He said late Mrs Onyejekwe told the hospital that the last scan she had revealed she was carrying a set of triplet.

Mr Ezunu said that doctors in the hospital successfully delivered the woman of a set of quintuplet at about 9 p.m. same day.

We delivered the woman of a set of quintuplet, but moments after the delivery she developed respiratory failure.

We had to rush her to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where doctors and nurses battled unsuccessfully to stabilise her deteriorating condition.

Unfortunately, the woman gave up at about noon the next day, he narrated.

Also speaking, Oyefara Babatunde, the Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the hospital, corroborated Mr Ezunus position on the unfortunate incident.

Mr Babatunde, whose department handled the emergency delivery, disclosed that the babies were 31 weeks old upon delivery.

He said after the delivery the woman twice suffered cardiac arrest in a space of thirty minutes while at the ICU.

After delivery, the woman developed a respiratory problem known as Pulmonary Throb Embolism (PTE).

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It is a complication that has to do with difficulty in breathing. We tried to stabilise her and while we were battling with that she fell into cardiac arrest.

We were able to resuscitate her but moments later she fell into a second cardiac arrest. The complications were multiple; they were also occasioned by her high-risk quintuplet pregnancy.

Pulmonary Throb Embolism is a condition of abnormal blood clot formed in the lower limbs and released massively into the lungs.

It is so unfortunate that the woman died because after the successful delivery of five babies, the whole hospital was jubilating.

But our joy and jubilation was turned into sadness and cries. It is really a sad incident.

However, the five babies are currently under intensive care at the hospital and I can inform you that they are doing fine, he said. (NAN)
The Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) on Wednesday says the Global Funds has provided $29 million grant to help fight Tuberculosis (TB) in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer, IHVN, Patrick Dakum, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja. He said TB detection in the country still remains extremely poor.

Mr Dakum explained that Nigeria has the highest burden of TB in Africa and is the sixth highest globally.

Every hour, it is estimated that 47 Nigerians develop active TB, of which seven of them are children and every hour, 18 Nigerians including women and children also die of TB.

TB, a disease that is preventable and curable, has turned many children to orphans, taken many bread winners away with severe consequences on the economy of families and also on the economy of the nation.

The IHVN Boss said that the 29 million dollars covers supplies, resources needed for the private sector and incentives.

Mr Dakum said that lack of establishment of private clinics for free TB services has made the disease to increase.

At the TB Centre, it is supposed to be free; therefore, for every TB case they detect, we have to give money to cover part of the overhead because there are no free private clinics.

This is just an incentive to find out more cases, so they confirm more suspected TB cases knowing that if they do, they will get paid for it.

One of the unique things about the private sector is that of the incentive driven service.

Mr Dakum said the grant would contribute to providing quality care and services to Nigerians troubled with TB, thereby reducing mortality and morbidity associated with the disease.

Case detection and coverage is extremely poor, poor in the sense that we are just at about 27 per cent of coverage for TB case detection.

The expectation is that we should raise it in the next two years to a minimum of at least 50 per cent coverage.

We are targeting to reduce TB cases in two years, so we need innovative measures, we are going to be supporting community pharmacies, private clinics and hospitals, he said.

According to him, the idea is to now focus resources in the private sector in a way that would enable case detection to go up.

When someone who has TB coughs into the air, that person infects the environment; somebody breathes in the air and gets TB.

And when people fall sick, it is the community pharmacy or private hospital or community clinic they run to for treatment,

However, our target is to equip them to be able to treat when they confirm any case, instead of referring and the disease keeps spreading, he said.

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If we can reduce the cases such as we have in HIV we will reduce new incidents of TB, and that is what we are hoping for, Mr Dakum added. (NAN)
Following a report that about 14.3million people in Nigeria use drugs outside prescription, drug control experts have urged the authorities to improve on drug control policies in the country.

The report of the National Drug Survey Use released in Abuja on Tuesday showed that the number of drug users in Nigeria is higher than the entire population of some European countries.

The statistics showed that those involve in drug use are mainly between 15 and 64 years of age. One in every four them is also a woman.

The survey from which the report was written, was conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA). It was funded by the European Union.

he survey showed that the rate of drug use in Nigeria in 2018 is more than twice the global average of 5.3 percent.

According to the report, close to three million of the drug users are drug dependent and cannot access help due to lack of health facilities.

Speaking at the public presentation of the report, the Minister of State for Health, Osagie Ehanire, said drug use in Nigeria has become a public health challenge.

He said the extremely limited availability of drug counseling and treatment services has intensified the health crisis in the country.

Women drug users often do not get specialised attention in the country because most of the limited facilities are targeted at male drug users.

The survey is the first ever large scale nation-wide survey to examine the extent and pattern of drug use in the country. It involved 38,850 respondents in the household survey and 9,344 high-risk drug users across all states of the country.

The report provides for the first time, a robust data on the prevalence of drug use in Nigeria at the national level and also by geopolitical zones and states.

Mr Ehanire thanked UNODC and EU for supporting the Nigerian government to conduct the survey. He emphasised the importance of having statistically sound and relevant data on the extent and pattern of drug use, including high-risk drug use, to inform policy formulation and implementation.

He said the result has provided the government with the baseline information needed for the design and implementation of effective prevention, treatment and continuation of care services that are evidence-based.

He said the services will help reduce the demand for drugs and prevent the morbidity and mortality attributed to drug use in Nigeria.

Some of the findings are striking and alarming and call for concerted efforts to mitigate the negative consequences of this rising menace on the health, socio-economic and security of our nation, he said.

He said the ministry of health was paying attention to the issue of drug use and drug use disorders, and related health conditions as a major public health issue.

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He said it was for this reason that the government established a Drug Demand Reduction Unit in the ministry, as part of efforts to coordinate and implement strategies that will lead to evidence-based drug prevention, treatment, and care.

It was noted from the report that most users are into non-medical use of prescription opioids such as tramadol and cough syrup (containing codeine or dextromethorphan).

It showed that people who inject drugs (PWID) constitute a sizeable proportion of high-risk drug users with pharmaceutical opioids, followed by cocaine and heroin as the commonly injected drugs.

About 4.6 million people use these drugs in last year in Nigeria.

These expose them to risk of deadly communicable disease such as HIV, and Hepatitis B and C, among other diseases.

The survey showed medically prescribed drugs were abused in the north while in the south it was more of cannabis.

This places Nigeria among countries with high estimates of non-medical opioid use globally. While cannabis is the most widely used drug globally and in Nigeria, opioids are responsible for most of the negative health impacts of drug use.

Also at the launch of the report were the heads of relevant agencies and NGOs working on drug abuse in the country.

The officials include the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Elimination of Drug Abuse, Buba Marwa; Chairman of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Muhammad Abdallah); and the Statistician-General of the Federation; Yemi Kale.

Others include the Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Richard Young; and the Director, Division for Operations, UNODC, Miwa Kato.

In his remark, Mr Marwa commended the findings of the survey. He said it will help the authorities find a way forward in the fight against drug abuse.

Mr Marwa said drug uses have become a major public health problem in the country and this cuts across cultures and ethnicity.

He said the fight against drug use must cut across all sections and there is a need for blockage of all channels of supplies.

There are 58,000 registered medicine stores in the country but over million are operating illegally. The government needs to step up monitoring teams to regulate their activities, he said.

He also called for more facilities to provide treatment for dependent drug users as most of the facilities available are private and expensive to access.

He said access to treatment in these facilities cost between N500,000 and N2 million per month.

Mrs Kato advised, however, that any response on prescription opioids should be mindful of the need to recognise that they have a legitimate medical use.

She said there is a need for a nuanced approach to the issue. It is important to ensure that such prescription opioids are made readily available to those who have a medical need.

The UNODC Director said the agency is ready to work with the government to employ a balanced approach to drug control.
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The Nigerian Navy has handed over 19 suspects and two fibre boats laden with petroleum products to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for further investigation and prosecution.

A statement issued on Tuesday by Tony Orilade, the commission s spokesman, said that the suspects were arrested on August 30, 2018, in Lagos and some parts of Ondo State.

According to the statement, the suspects were involved in illegal dealing in petroleum products stolen from a hijacked vessel, MT MAMA ELIZABETH.

The sum of N3,500,000.00 only suspected to be proceeds from the sale of the illegally acquired products was found on the suspects at the point of arrest, he said.

Idris Abubakar, an investigator with the EFCC, who received the suspects and the boats on behalf of the commission, assured the Nigerian Navy of diligent investigation and prosecution of the suspects.

He said that the suspects would be arraigned in court as soon as the investigation was concluded.

(NAN)
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Less than 19 days to the commencement of the general elections, 40 European Union (EU) Observers have arrived the country for the elections.

David Dahmen, the leader of the EU Observers in charge of Oyo and Osun states, disclosed this to journalists on Tuesday in Ibadan, when he visited the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Oyo State, Mutiu Agboke.

Mr Dahmen, who was on a familiarisation tour, stated that the observers had been grouped into 20 teams to observe the forthcoming elections in all the states of the federation.

He said that he and Mukalay Banze, along with their Assistant, Sony Odiongenyi, would be in charge of Oyo and Osun states.

He said the observers would interact with some key stakeholders, INEC inclusive, in the course of their stay in the country.

We have just been briefed by the Oyo REC on the preparations made by INEC in respect of the forthcoming elections, Mr Dahmen said.

Earlier, Mr Agboke stated that the EU observers were on a familiarisation visit to the state headquarters of INEC.

We have updated the team on our preparations and readiness to conduct free, fair and credible polls, he said.

(NAN)
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The police command in Abia has confirmed the abduction of the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Donatus Nwankpa, on Monday night.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Geoffrey Ogbonna, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the command was aware of the incident.

Mr Ogbonna said that the information at his disposal was still sketchy but described the incident as very unfortunate.

It was very unfortunate for such a thing to happen on the eve of the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari for his campaign rally in the state, he said.

The spokesperson said that the command had swung into action and expressed the confidence that the perpetrators would be arrested and made to face the full weight of the law.

The Publicity Secretary of the party, Benedict Godson, told journalists that Mr Nwankpa was kidnapped by gunmen around 11 am on Monday at Osisioma, while on his way to Aba from Umuahia.

Mr Godson said that he was kidnapped along with one of his personal aides, who was later set free by their assailants.

He feared that the kidnap of the party chairman might not be unconnected with the threat by a rival party in the state, working with some bad elements in APC, to disrupt the presidents visit.

He, therefore, appealed to the abductors to release him unconditionally, describing him as God-fearing and a true son of Osisioma Ngwa.

(NAN)

USO/USO
A Professor of Guidance and Counselling and former Vice-Chancellor of Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Aize Obayan, has died. She was 59.

Mrs Obayan, whose cause of death remains unknown, was until her last breath, the Director of Covenant Universitys Africa Leadership Development Centre (ALDC).

The late lecturer lost her husband, Adetokunbo Obayan, less than two years ago. Mr Obayan, a leadership trainer, management consultant and founder of Adetokunbo Obayan and Associates, died of an undisclosed ailment on August 15, 2017.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt from reliable sources at the university that the late lecturer had not been active on the campus since October 2018, when she led her centre to hold its fourth Covenant-International Conference on African Development Issues (C-ICADI). The conference featured former Malawian President, Joyce Banda, as keynote speaker.

Mrs Obayan died less than one year after winning her prolonged case at the Supreme Court against her former employer- University of Ilorin, over what she consistently described as her unjust dismissal in September 1999.

Her death, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, had thrown the entire university campus, and the close circle of the popular pastor and Bishop of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo, into mourning.

Life and times of Mrs Obayan

Born on March 4, 1960, to the family of Sir and Lady Frank Imouokhome in Edo State, Mrs Obayan attended St. Andrews, Scotland, for her A Levels and later gained admission to the University of Benin for a B. Ed (English) degree from 1979 to 1982.

She attended the University of Ilorin, Kwara State for her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Guidance and Counselling. And upon completion of her programmes, she started her career as an Assistant Lecturer at the same university in 1986 and rose through the ranks to become a Reader in 1995.

Between 1996 and 1999, Mrs Obayan was on sabbatical at the University of Roehampton, United Kingdom as a Senior Lecturer in Counselling Psychology. On her return to Nigeria, the University of Ilorins management sacked her, saying she overstayed in UK. She, however, challenged the decision at the Federal High Court, Ilorin, insisting she got the approval of the management of the university for her time in the UK.

The Federal High Court, in its judgment, dismissed her case, following which she appealed to the Court of Appeal, who, in judgment on March 10, 2005, reversed the decision of the High Court and voided her sack.

The university and its Governing Council, through the then Vice-Chancellor, Abdulraheem Oba, appealed the judgement at the Supreme Court.

But, in its judgment delivered on February 2, 2018, 19 years after filing the case at the high court, the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal, granting the lecturer a victory.

The Supreme Court also held that the Court of Appeal properly invoked estoppel by conduct in favour of the respondent as stipulated by section 169 (formerly Section 151 of Evidence Act).

The court faulted the manner her employment was terminated and held that the respondent was denied fair hearing by the appellants in their decision to terminate her employment.

Justice Akaahs said, in the lead judgement: I find that this appeal is totally devoid of any merits and it is accordingly dismissed.

I further affirm the judgment of the lower court delivered on March 10, 2005, which ordered the respondents (now appellants) to reinstate and restore the plaintiff to her post as a lecturer and Reader in the Department of Guardian and Counselling of the university and to restore to her all rights, entitlements and other perquisites of that office and to pay her salaries, allowances and other entitlements from September 1999 to date.

For the avoidance of doubt, the plaintiff is still in the service of the University of Ilorin. I assess the cost of this needless and vexatious litigation forced on the respondent at N500, 000 in favour of the respondent and against the appellants.

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Meanwhile, while the case against the University of Ilorin lasted, Mrs Obayan was appointed to the Chair in counselling and as Pioneer Head of Department of Human Resource Development at Covenant University.

In July 2003, she was appointed the Dean of the former College of Human Development now part of the College of Development Studies. In October 2004, she became the Coordinator of the Universitys School of Postgraduate Studies.

On February 1, 2005, she was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of Covenant University; the position she held until 2012. She later moved to become the Vice-Chancellor of Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, before returning to Covenant University as the Director of the Africa Leadership Development Centre (ALDC), where she worked until her death.
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The ongoing trial of a PREMIUM TIMES journalist, Samuel Ogundipe, was stalled on Wednesday after the presiding magistrate died and no replacement was announced, several weeks after.

Mr Ogundipe, the newspapers general assignment correspondent, was arrested by the police on August 14, 2018, and was subsequently charged before Abdulwahab Mohammed at the Kubwa Grade 1 Area Court in Abuja.

Mr Mohammed granted Mr Ogundipe a bail in a case of alleged theft of secret police document on August 17. The matter was then adjourned until November 7 for commencement of trial after Mr Ogundipe pleaded not guilty in a repressive case that sparked local and international uproar.

On November 7, 2018, the matter was adjourned until January 30, based on the request of the police prosecutor who was unavailable in court.

On December 15, Mr Mohammed underwent treatment for a persistent toothache during which he developed complications and ultimately passed on after collapsing at home. He was 32. The News Agency of Nigeria reported the late jurist was survived by a pregnant wife.

He was a law graduate of the University of Ilorin and became a magistrate in 2014, according to the courts registrar, Jimada Mohammed.

But, weeks after Mr Mohammeds demise, judicial authorities have yet to assign another magistrate to replace him. This has left a backlog of cases to be on indefinite adjournments, including Mr Ogundipes.

The courts registrar, however, tentatively gave March 8 for possible hearing on Mr Ogundipes matter, saying he would notify parties on all pending lawsuits on whether or not a new presiding magistrate had been posted to the court, which is managed by the Federal Capital Territorys justice department.
Sitting on the bed in a room at Ogene-Amejo village and listening to Rose Abah, mother of the deceased rape victim, Ochanya Ogbanje; there was almost no way of telling what her next stunning revelation would be.

She earlier narrated the horrible details about her daughter, Ochanyas death.

Mrs Abah told PREMIUM TIMES that Andrew Ogbuja made several attempts to rape her other 26-year-old daughter, Esther Ameh.

According to Mrs Abah, the incident happened in April, 2018, when Miss Ameh went to the Ogbujas to care for her 13-year-old sister who had become perennially sick, after going to live with Mrs Ogbuja who was a maternal second cousin to the siblings.

Do you know that he also tried to sleep with my late daughters elder sister, Esther? That one is 13 years older than Ochanya, Ms Abah said.

Pointing at Miss Amehs picture hung on the wall, Mrs Abah said her other daughter had gone to the Ogbujas to care of the late Miss Ochanya, when the incident occurred.

The woman added that her elder daughter, who had travelled back to Lagos for work, made an audio record of some conversations with Mr Ogbuja.

Mrs Abah spoke with PREMIUM TIMES during a visit to the Ogene-Amejo village where the late Ochanyas parents had lived with their daughter till 2010.

In search of sound education, Mrs Abah had taken Miss Ochanya, at the age of five, to live with Mrs Ogbuja whose residence was located on a street almost opposite the Emmanuel Primary and Secondary School where Miss Ochanya obtained her primary education in Ugbokolo, Benue State.

Federal Government Girls College

According to Miss Ochanyas parents, Mrs Ogbujas maternal grand-father was a direct sibling to Mrs Abahs mother, making the suspended lecturers wife a niece to Mrs Abah and second cousin to the late Miss Ochanya.

Mrs Abah and her family were, however, plunged into sorrow when medical practitioners pronounced their daughter dead in October after 13-year-old Ochanya suffered from Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF).

This followed a series of rapes allegedly perpetrated by her nieces husband, Andrew, and his fugitive son, Victor Ogbuja, during the eight years when Miss Ochanya stayed with them.

Conversations with the suspect

Due to the current revelation by Mrs Abah, PREMIUM TIMES contacted Miss Ameh who provided curious records of a conversation between the 51-year-old man and herself during a night at the Ogbujas.

Miss Ameh said she recorded the conversation oblivious of the cause of her kid sisters terminal illness because it was difficult to believe the mischief intended by Mr Ogbuja.

In the recorded conversation, Mr Ogbujas voice is heard begging Miss Esther to meet him at a lonely place within his matrimonial home during night time.

I am waiting oh, the voice beckons on Mr Ogbujas end of the phone conversation, recorded by Miss Ameh.

I cant come, oh. What if someone sees us? Miss Amehs voice is heard responding to Mr Ogbuja on the other end of the phone in Idoma language.

As if to prove his state of desperation; Mr Ogbuja starts pleading with the young lady in Gods name.

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Please now, please! I beg you with God. Nobody is here. I have seen everywhere is clear. They have all slept. The place is clear, said the now suspended Catholic Knight and lecturer of the Benue State Polytechnic.

Before ending the call, Miss Esther announces her decision to meet with him, outside the house, during day time.

The dilapidated part of the school

In fact, me: I want to see you. I want us to sit and talk. Though not this night and not in this house, Miss Ameh said.

Sexual Predator?

Miss Ameh later recalled how Mr Ogbuja began his strange sexual advances towards her.

According to the lady, Mr Ogbuja started making casual romantic passes at her, each time she was working alone in the kitchen.

Confused about the situation, Miss Ameh said she wondered how to place the actions of Mr Ogbuja whom she fondly regarded as her uncle, until the suspected rapist demanded her audience.

The man told me that he had been eyeing me since I was small. That he wanted to ask my parents to let me come to stay at his house, Miss Ameh told PREMIUM TIMES.

She added that following her consistent refusal to yield to Mr Ogbujas request, the accused rapist instigated his wife to send both siblings packing.

This development marked the end of the late Ochanyas eight years of misery at the Ogbujas residence and subsequently resulted in the discoveries about the source of her illness.

Controversial Case

The trial of the two suspects accused of raping Miss Ochanya has already suffered two successive and controversial adjournments, at the instance of the court.

After finding out the true nature of their daughters sickness with the aid of a caregiver, Enuwa Soo, the case was reported to the Benue States branch of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, who filed a two-count charge against the suspects at an area court in Benue, before the death of Miss Ochanya in October.

However, after a previous adjournment of the matter in November, following the absence of the presiding judge, Isaac Ajim, who was said to be attending a conference in Abuja, the court again shifted the case till January 22 on the grounds that the judge had another meeting at a separate court in Benue.

Group protesting the repeated adjournments of Ochanyas case

Even the prosecution team present in court that December, 14 could not immediately provide a sufficient explanation to journalists on the reason for the second adjournment, after the court announced its next hearing date.

We are not happy that the court did not sit. We have not been told that there is a cogent reason why, a spokeswoman for the prosecution, Terfa Suswam told journalists, suggesting that she and her team of lawyers were not informed about the alleged attendance of Mr Ajim at the said meeting.

A court clerk later told PREMIUM TIMES during further enquiries about the absence of the judge; that he (the judge) could not sit because he had a meeting to attend at another court that same day.

Similarly, the younger Ogbuja who was also accused of sexually abusing the late victim is still at large, five months after the case began in August.

How it began

The late Ochanyas unfortunate journey began, following her quest for qualitative education, after the only primary school in Ogene-Amejo village became abandoned by the government.

According to the Ogene-Amejo community leader Onaji Cletus, the village with a population of 2000 people in 170 households had battled to educate its young ones, in a dilapidated government primary school under the rain and sunshine until a small part of the school was renovated three years ago.

Before the renovation; there were times when the roofing top covering the dilapidated building would fall off and we will have to fetch them and continue managing the place, so that our poor children can get whatever kind of education is affordable, Mr Cletus told PREMIUM TIMES.

The renovated building described by Mr Cletus is a block of few classes, currently managed by children within the village, after it was rebuilt by government.

A larger part of the school still appears devastated, like a set of buildings destroyed by storm, or some form of crisis.

According to Mr Cletus, the villagers are only able to manage the renovated block because a lot of children currently do not go to school in the village.

Efforts by this newspaper to find out when the state government plans to complete the renovation failed.

After repeated visits to the state ministry of education, this reporter was told by an official of the practically deserted department of information at the state ministry, Cecelia Akegh that the two people authorised to speak on the matter; namely the commissioner for education and permanent secretary were not available.

Ochanyas grave

The states commissioner and his permanent secretary are not the only ones whose absence have left more questions unanswered regarding the unfortunate story of the late victim.

Nigerias rape cases

The prosecution of rape cases is dismal in Nigeria.

Evans Ufeli, a lawyer who has worked on child rape cases for over a decade, in 2015, said only 18 rape matters reported in courts had resulted in convictions throughout Nigerias history.

Mr Ufeli said this at a quarterly public dialogue that focuses on child abuses and parenting in Lagos.

As explained by Mr Ufeli, a lot of rape cases are frustrated by the prosecution team who are mostly employed by the Nigerian Police Force.

According to a 2014 statistics provided by NOIPolls, a data website, about 78 percent of reported rape cases involving children within the ages of seven to 12, were taken to the police for necessary action.

And according to data provided by the UNICEF for children within the same age group in Nigeria, only 25 percent of female rape victims actually reported the matter, while 11 percent was recorded for men.

A previous investigation by PREMIUM TIMES had shown how the poor prosecution of a rape case involving an eight-year-old victim and her neighbour, Victor Enejor, resulted in the discharge of the matter.

This was after a medical report indicating that the victim contracted sexually transmitted disease from her alleged rapist was removed from the case file by the prosecution during their investigation.

A lawyer representing the second victim in another report by this newspaper, Beneath Nnemeka, told PREMIUM TIMES in a recent telephone interview that his clients father was frustrated by the case and has taken his daughter to the village.

The victim, now 15, was raped and impregnated by her schoolmates in 2016 at a public school in Abuja.

Advocates React

A child rights advocate, Ronke Ojeikere, who is the South-south zonal coordinator, National Council of Child Rights Advocates of Nigeria, (NACCRAN) said the country is practically living in a state of denial on many issues affecting Nigerian children.

We should sit down and look at our child right laws and examine critically the many gaps that remain silent. We are living in denial over so many things that are happening to children, Ms Ojeikere said.

Another child rights advocate, Mojirayo Ogunlana-Nkanga, noted the consequence of poor prosecution or abandonment of rape cases in Nigeria.

The one (suspect) you let go yesterday, may end up raping more tomorrow, Mrs Ogunlana-Nkanga told PREMIUM TIMES.
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An opposition presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday said he would consider granting amnesty to corrupt persons willing to surrender their loot.

Mr Abubakar said this while appearing with his running mate, Peter Obi, at a live town hall programme hosted by ace journalist, Kadaria Ahmed.

Mr Abubakar said he would consider drawing a line during which corrupt former public officials would be allowed to return their loot without prosecution. After then, strong policies would be put in place to prevent and fight corruption.

Mr Abubakar said it would be more prudent to allow looters return their assets to Nigeria tax free and invest them in order to boost the countrys economy.

Host Kadaria Ahmed suggested that Mr Abubakars proposal could be morally problematic, especially since he has faced corruption allegations since leaving office as Nigerias vice president in 2007.

If you are to go and be prosecuting these people, you will still be prosecuting them and would not get the money, Mr Abubakar said. He suggested that a similar scheme under past administration yielded over $4 billion.

Whether it is moral rectitude that you want to achieve or you want to see a fast development of your country, Mr Abubakar asked rhetorically.

The position was backed by Mr Abubakars running mate, Mr Obi, who said it is better than to allow looters keep their plunder just by joining another political party.

Mr Obis statement appears a jibe at President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been repeatedly accused of tolerating corruption amongst his political associates while going after opposition members.

Mr Obi said the Buhari administration has fought elusive corrupt people at the detriment of the Nigerian economy, which he said has been haemorrhaging jobs since the government was inaugurated in 2015.

Mr Buhari has denied going after opposition members.

On Wednesday evening, reports emerged that Babachir Lawal. a long time associate of Mr Buharis who was fired in 2017 for alleged stealing of funds meant for the internally displaced victims of Boko Haram, had been arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Mr Lawals delayed prosecution despite overwhelming evidence had been a spectre on Mr Buharis anti-corruption drive for several months.
Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 9:32 am

OLYMPIA  Two lawmakers have proposed a bill to create a state domestic violence offender registry to save lives.

Tina Stewart, 30, was beaten to death by her boyfriend on Nov. 24, 2017 at her home in Newman Lake. The police report indicates that she had been kicked and punched repeatedly over her body, as depicted from bruising on Stewarts face, chest and stomach, explained her uncle, Don Estes.

I read the autopsy report, said Estes in a testimony about his niece. It was horrific.

House Bill 1080 is co-sponsored by Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, and Rep. Carolyn Eslick, R-Sultan. The bill requires the Washington State Patrol to maintain a central registry of serious domestic violence offenders and create a searchable, public registry website.

As a law enforcement officer with over 25 years of experience, unfortunately Ive seen similar instances over and over again, said Klippert in reference to the murder of Tina Stuart.

RCW 25.50.010 defines domestic violence as the physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or infliction of fear between family or household members.

Many severe crimes involve intimate partner and family violence, says the bill. Wide ranging effects of domestic violence include injury to mental and physical health, economic and housing instability and victimization of children.

HB 1080 indicates Washington state data demonstrates a high rate of reoffense among domestic violence perpetrators. Aside from criminal background checks or court record requests, there is currently no way of knowing about a persons offense history.

Its not punitive in any way, shape or form, said Klippert. Its just informative.

The bill would allow access to a tool for increased protection, he explained at the hearing. While there is information online for nearly all court cases in the state, both criminal and civil, a registry would create ease for the citizens of Washington, explained Klippert.

The Washington State Patrol is the central repository for criminal history record information, submitted by law enforcement agencies and courts throughout the state. The patrol also maintains public information on registered sex and kidnapping offenders.

The proposed bill would require the state patrol registry website include the offenders name, date of birth, information about each domestic violence conviction, current address by hundred block, photograph and any other identifying data.

Tamaso Johnson from the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence testified with concerns about privacy, should the bill pass.

Privacy is so intimately linked to safety, said Johnson. It is very difficult to publicly publish information about domestic violence offenders without also identifying the victims, he explained.

The last thing we want to see is laws that are intended to protect people unintentionally cause harm, said Johnson.

The purpose of the registry is to prevent domestic violence before it happens by allowing citizens access to a list of offenders. The issue of protecting victims from previous abusers needs to be addressed ,he said.

If the bill becomes law, domestic violence offenders would appear on the registry for a required period of time in relation to the severity of the conviction. Registered offenders may be removed from the registry once the timeline is reached.

A person can also petition the court for removal from the registry once he or she has spent 10 consecutive years in the community without being convicted of a felony, according to HB 1080.
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The anti-graft agency, EFCC, has filed corruption charges against a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.

The EFCC filed the 10-count charge against Mr Lawal at an Abuja High Court.

A separate charge was also filed against Ayodele Oke, the former head of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency, who was removed from office after millions of dollars belonging to the agency was found in an apartment.

The acting spokesperson of the EFCC, Orilade Tony, confirmed the development on Wednesday night, in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES.

According to the charge sheet, dated January 30, the accused persons were brought before a high court of the Federal Capital Territory for the alleged offence.

Mr Lawal was removed from office after he was indicted by a Senate committee which investigated the management of money meant to assist persons displaced by Boko Haram. PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Lawal was indicted for using his companies to get contracts worth millions of naira without executing the contracts.

Since his removal in 2017 by President Muhammadu Buhari, many Nigerians have called for his prosecution.

Last week, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo announced that Mr Buhari had directed that charges be filed against Mr Lawal and Mr Oke.

Mr Lawal has since his exit been a major campaigner for President Buharis re-election in his home Adamawa State.

More details later
The Court of Appeal On Wednesday rejected a request by suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen seeking to stop his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

It did this after deciding that the request was not in line with provisions of the law.

In a ruling, the court said Section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) prohibits the suspension of criminal cases based on an interlocutory application.

An interlocutory application is that which is brought based on only a segment of a case, already before the court.

The three-member panel of the court led by Abdul Aboki also ruled that the evidence before the court was not sufficient for the court to consider suspending the matter.

The court said the application was brought on a vacuum and such a request could not be granted by an appellate court.

Genesis

Mr Onnoghen had approached the court through his lawyers, asking it to suspend his trial.

He did this on the grounds that the tribunal failed to entertain his motion challenging the jurisdiction of the lower court.

According to the applicant, his motion ought to have been heard before any other request is entertained in the tribunal.

Mr Onnoghens application was brought after the tribunal ruled on January 14 that it would continue the hearing of the case on January 22.

During the January 14 hearing, Mr Onnoghen failed to appear in court. The prosecution team, led by Aliu Umar had asked the court to make an order for the suspended chief justice to be served with the court summons personally.

Mr Onnghens lawyers led by Wole Olanikpekun also asked the court to entertain its motion challenging the jurisdiction of the matter, before taking further steps in the trial.

Mr Olanikpekun asked the court to treat his application challenging the jurisdiction on that first hearing date (January 14).

But the prosecution argued that the defendant was bound by law to appear in court and take his plea before any application could be heard.

Mr Umar also contended that the application challenging his courts jurisdiction was supposed to be treated and decided, along with the main matter.

In its ruling, the tribunal chairman, Danladi Umar, directed that the court summons be served personally on Mr Onnoghen.

He ruled that the tribunal would adjourn till January 22 for motions to be heard in the matter.

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Subsequently, Mr Olanikpekun and his team, believing that their request was denied recognition approached the Court of Appeal to contest the continuation of the trial.

The lawyers contended that an application challenging jurisdiction ought to have been heard before anything else.

Appeal Court ruling

However, in its ruling, the court of appeal said Mr Onnoghens lawyers appeared to have jumped the gun with their assumptions.

The court said the request challenging jurisdiction did not appear to have been sidelined by the ruling of the lower court.

The court read through the words used during the January 14 adjournment of the tribunal wherein the CCT slated January 22 for hearing of motions in the matter.

Matter is hereby adjourned till Tuesday. Motions to be taken, said judge, Abdul Aboki while reading through the tribunals ruling on January 14.

The above stated decision is an adjournment for motions filed by the two parties, the appeal court ruled.

It added that the applicant, (Onnoghen) had refused a similar request, based on the provisions of Section 306 of the administration of criminal justice act and should not be expected to be treated differently.

According to Section 306 of the ACJA; an application for stay of proceedings in respect of a criminal matter shall not be entertained

A court has inherent jurisdiction to grant a stay of proceedings where it is certified that enough evidence has been given for such, said Mr Aboki, who read the ruling.

Order for stay cannot be made in a vacuum. It is a matter of law and fact, the court ruled.

Mr Onnoghen is facing trial for failing to declare his asset.

He has since been illegally suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari who cited a CCT directive.

The suspension was widely condemned by legal experts and other Nigerians.
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A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has again defended his decision to support the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.

Mr Obasanjo in a statement to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Lagos Island Club said he has been called several names for sticking his neck for his former deputy.

A copy of the statement was sent to PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Obasanjo, recently, has come under criticism for publicly supporting Mr Abubakars presidential bid despite repeatedly calling him a corrupt person in the past.

Mr Obasanjo had in the past described Mr Abubakar as a shameless liar and said God would never forgive him if he supports Mr Abubakars presidential bid.

He has since announced that he has forgiven Mr Abubakar after the intervention of some clerics.

THREE REASONS

In his Wednesday statement, Mr Obasanjo said he has not retracted his words on Mr Abubakar but that the presidential candidate has done three things which are absolutely imperative for a leader to be followed and believed.

First, know who you are and present yourself as you are  a human being in blood and flesh and susceptible to human mistakes and human frailties. Dont cover up with sanctimonious veneer of bogus integrity, incorruptibility, uprightness, goodness and false figures and statistics, all of which are contrived to deceive, to cheat, to plunder and to destroy.

Atiku never claimed to be a saint and I never described him as such. I will never so describe any human being alive let alone calling him a Messiah. On an occasion in the past when I said that someone was not a Messiah, some Nigerians out of bad belle were up in arms. For me, as a Christian, the only Messiah I know and have is Jesus Christ and even then, the man aspect of Him was imperfect while the divine aspect of Him was perfectly messianic.

Secondly, a leader must be honest to himself and to the people he serves or he wants to serve. He must identify and acknowledge his situation, mistakes, shortcomings and inadequacy; show remorse where and when he has erred, seek forgiveness and repent; and not passing the bulk or keep blaming others and fail to accept responsibility. Atiku accepts responsibility for his mistakes, shows remorse and seeks forgiveness from his political party and subsequently from Nigerians. He asks for forgiveness from me and as a believer, a Christian as such, I forgave him in accordance with the teaching and instruction of my Saviour, For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matt 6:14-15 NIV). If anybody blames me for forgiving Atiku, I leave such a person with God Almighty, especially as both Christian and Islamic clerics joined Atiku to visit me to seek forgiveness. Anybody who does not forgive when forgiveness is sought with contrite heart cannot be a true believer and should not expect the forgiveness of God.

Thirdly, as a leader, you must understand the fundamentals of the problems you have to solve and be courageous, visionary and ready to reach out sufficiently to build a credible team of experts, knowledgeable men and women, concerned and interested citizens and non-citizens to work hard and tirelessly for solutions that will benefit all Nigerians and indeed Africans and humanity. He must have ability to build a credible team, lead them, listen to them and give them enough leeway to achieve and make meaningful contribution without abdicating his responsibility. He must be accessible to them. From my personal knowledge of Atiku, he has these qualities.

The former president said that both Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP have issues but one is better than the other.

I must reiterate that Atiku is not a saint and who is? But from what I know of Atiku, he will be a performer in all respects. I can say that again from my personal experience. He knows the problems and he handled some of them or similar and in the past. We now know that both Buhari and Atiku have issues and all of us as human beings have one issue or the other in different magnitude but judging both of them empirically and for the task at hand, Atiku will perform much better than Buhari and he will seek for good and able people around the country and beyond and make use of them to achieve his mission and vision for the general good of Nigerians and the country. He will be a team leader but will not allow the seizure of his mandate by a cabal. A system to prevent impunity and I can do what I like attitude and action must be put in place for all concerned. It is more than check and balance, rather it is for the good of all stakeholders and equity-holders.

Mr Obasanjo also used the opportunity to discredit a claim that he never allowed Mr Abubakar to preside over the Federal Executive Council meeting while they were at the helms of affairs. In doing so, he took a jibe at Mr Buhari.

One of the most ridiculous claims I have heard on these issues is that I did not give Atiku chance to preside over the Federal Executive Council because I did not trust him. That was not correct because he had occasions to preside on a few times that I was out of the country on duty. On those occasions, he was in charge of the Federal Executive Council meetings. And no Nigerian Chief Executive has devolved to his deputy as much as I did to Atiku. I did not need to designate him Acting President because the Constitution is clear, once the President is not available, the Vice-President automatically acts with full powers and he consults where and if he considers it necessary. But since I was not absent from home for 104 days at a time, people may not know that Atiku actually stood in for me whenever I was out.
A senator, Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara State), has blamed his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the current crisis rocking it in Zamfara State.

Mr Marafa also said he does not give a damn if APC loses elections in Zamfara State.

He accused the party of controlling the actions of its members since the inception of the 8th Senate.

His statement comes few days after he hailed the judgment of a Federal High Court in Abuja which upheld the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INECs) rejection of Zamfara APC candidates.

THE CRISIS

INEC had last October said it would not allow the ruling APC to field candidates in Zamfara because the party failed to conduct primaries before the deadline stipulated.

This was because the party failed to meet the October 7 deadline for conducting primaries to elect candidates for the elections.

Some members of the APC in the state approached the court challenging the decision of INEC. They argued that the APC conducted primaries which produced current governor Abdulaziz Yari as a senatorial candidate and his commissioner of finance, Shehu Idris, as the governorship candidate, among others.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how two courts gave conflicting rulings on whether INEC can accept candidates presented by the APC for Zamfara elections.

A Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the governing APC did not conduct primaries in the state and should not be allowed to present candidates for the electoral contest

It said INEC acted within its powers by refusing to accept the list of candidates from the Zamfara State chapter of the APC.

However, a High Court sitting in Gusau, Zamfara State, on Friday ruled that the governing APC actually conducted primaries in the state and should be allowed to present candidates for the electoral contest.

The Zamfara court specifically directed the electoral commission to accept candidates from the party for Zamfara State in the forthcoming elections.

CRISIS STARTED WITH APC  MARAFA

Addressing journalists at the National Assembly on Tuesday, the lawmaker explained that the APC, from beginning, had told them who to vote for.

Theres a limit of my loyalty to the Senate can go. My loyalty first and foremost is to my God then to my people. APC is not a religion. So if APC decides the worst candidate is best than other candidate from anywhere, I will respect them and expect them to do that because theyre in politics to field the candidates and win elections. But that cannot be true to me.

Even if APC lose in Zamfara state, I dont give a damn. The crisis that we are in today started with the APC itself. When we assumed the 8th Senate, APC said these are the people we want you to vote as your leader. Some of us felt that this is the property of APC.

The same people we are fighting today reneged, said they wont do it and that was the beginning of this crisis. APC asked us to vote Ahmad Lawan as President of the Senate and we stood hell bent that APC must have its way and this people said no. They acted in disobedience.

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Some of us are closer to Saraki than many of them but we obeyed the party and today the people that made us to take that line of action are silent. Nobody cares about us. Nobody is talking. Some of them gang up. There is a massive gang up to all of us today, he said.

The lawmaker went ahead to mention members of the party who, he alleged, attempted to sabotage President Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders of the party.

President Muhammadu Buhari [Photo: Presidency]

He also accused them of instigating the murder, rape and kidnapping going on in Zamfara State.

Like Senator Adamu Aliero, he is one of the people that did all the ground work to make sure that Ahmad Lawan lose and today he is at the forefront of fuelling this crisis in Zamfara because he is a contractor there and he and his co-travellers, the body of former governors and everything.

They are using their kinsmen in the government circle to ensure that our people are enslaved, maimed, killed, our women are raped, our children are orphaned all because they want to continue to steal the resources of Zamfara. We are not afraid of them, we are going to face them and challenge them. If God is the God of justice, we will surmount them.

Even Buhari, some of them sabotaged him, all of them that are in this, gang up as governor of Kebbi under ANPP where Buhari contested last time as president. He sabotaged ANPP, sided with Obasanjo and while Buhari was licking his wounds, Aliero was there cutting victory cake of PDP. These are the people we have as leaders and we have a duty to fight them, he said.

When asked if these governors are still in the state or still in the Senate, he said there are some in the Senate.

Like I said, we have them outside. At the appropriate time if you want to ask me I will name them. I am not afraid of anybody. Just like I named this one, he is the arrow head of all the things that are happening now, we know.

So, the government there (in Zamfara) has failed woefully. The State House of Assembly is worse than toilet paper. The only institution that we as the people of Zamfara are proud of, is the judicial system and look at what they did. The judge did what even a primary school pupil if assigned to adjudicate over this case will not do. The owners of this thing came before you, APC said they didnt do this election, he explained.

Abdulaziz Yari Former Governor of Zamfara State

Mr Marafa called for the resignation of the Zamfara State governor, Abdulaziz Yari.

He also said Mr Yari should be prosecuted for treason.

No compromise. Let him resign as governor, let me resign as senator and let us go and meet the people for elections.

If he gets 10 per cent of what I get, I will resign. So what else do I need. I think I am overripe to die if you want to kill me. They will say be died at the age of almost 60. I think it is a very good number. What I am afraid only is how I die. I dont want to die telling lies.

I dont want to die procuring false and illegal judgements. If you come with that kind of thing, I will run. I dont want to die, spending security votes when I resign as chief security officer.

But if it is on the account of telling the truth and standing by the truth and on the truth, I dont care what happens. I pray may God take my soul while I am in good service not what we are seeing today.

To me like I said here, AbdulAziz is supposed to be prosecuted for treason because what they did was treason and if allowed to stand, then we are laying a very bad precedence in this country. A day will come when maybe a president will do a similar thing.

The senator said President Buhari is pained by what is happening in Zamfara and he will want to see a change in leadership in Zamfara.

While hoping that the president shares the same view with him, Mr Marafa said it will be better to have another party in Zamfara than to have bad ones from APC just because APC wants to win.

Mr Marafa has been the governors political foe overtime.

Both men have constantly accused each other of being responsible for the unrest in the troubled state.

He had in June, declared his intention to vie for the governorship slot. He said he joined the race due to numerous calls from members of the party in the 14 local government areas of the state.

The lawmaker had pledged to fight corruption, injustice and provide leadership to stimulate the growth of the state.

He also pledged to provide security as well as look at the states legal system to make it conform with the true teachings of Islam.

The state has been affected by violence in recent months with armed bandits killing many people, kidnapping others and destroying several houses.

The lawmaker has continuously blamed the state governor for the high rate of insecurity and poverty in the state.
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The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, on Wednesday was on a collision course with the European Union.

This followed the demand by lawmakers that she renegotiates a Brexit divorce deal that the other members of the EU bloc said they would not reopen.

Less than two months before the UK is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies are trying to gauge whether the Brexit crisis will ultimately end up with a disorderly Brexit, a delay to Brexit, or no Brexit at all.

Two weeks after voting down Mrs Mays Brexit deal by the biggest margin in modern British history, parliament demanded she returned to Brussels to replace the so-called Irish backstop.

There is limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy.

I agree that we should not leave without a deal, Mr May told lawmakers who voted 317 votes to 301 to support the plan, which had the backing of influential Conservative lawmaker, Graham Brady.

However, simply opposing no deal is not enough to stop it, Mrs May said. She was an initial opponent of Brexit and won the top job in the chaos following the 2016 referendum.

Mrs May said she would seek legally binding changes to the divorce deal which she clinched in November with the EU after two years of tortuous negotiations.

In essence, she will try to clinch a last-minute deal by using the implicit threat of a no-deal Brexit from the other 27 members of the EU whose economy is, combined, about six times the size of the UKs.

The response from European capitals was blunt.

France, the EUs second most powerful member, said there could be no renegotiation and demanded a credible British proposal.

Germany has so far not given a public comment.

European Council President, Donald Tusk, said the divorce deal was not up for renegotiation.

Sterling, which was traded at 1.3190 dollars before lawmakers voted, fell over a cent and was trading at 1.3080 dollars. (Reuters/NAN)
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:22:59

NORTH YORK / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / ZTEST Electronics Inc. ("ZTEST" or the "Company") (CSE - "ZTE") is pleased to announce that it will be closing the final tranche of its non-brokered private placement (the "Offering"), announced on December 17, 2018 and December 27, 2018, with the sale of 340,000 working capital units ("Units") at $0.30 per Unit for gross proceeds of $102,000 on January 31, 2019.Each Unit consists of one (1) common share and one half (0.5) of a common share purchase warrant. Each full warrant entitles the holder to acquire an additional common share of the Company at $0.40 for eighteen (18) months from closing. Eligible Finders will be paid $4,620 and be issued 15,400 broker warrants. Each broker warrant entitles the holder to acquire one (1) common share of ZTEST at $0.30 for eighteen (18) months from closing. All securities issued pursuant to the final tranche of the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period expiring on June 1, 2019.The proceeds of the Offering will be used for working capital and to invest in Twenty49 Ltd ("Twenty49"), based in Waterloo, Ontario, and operating in the US through its wholly-owned subsidiary as disclosed in the December 17, 2018 Press Release. A new Letter of Intent (the "New LOI") has been signed to replace the one announced on December 17, 2018. Pursuant to the New LOI, the Company will invest $112,000 CDN (the "Subscription Price") to acquire approximately 5,600,000 Founder shares, representing not less than 30.27% of the current issued and outstanding voting securities of Twenty49 Ltd., and 8,200,000 Founder Warrants exercisable at $0.025 CDN per share, or $205,000 in total, on or before May 31, 2019 (the "Founder Warrants"). A subsequent round of financing will be completed by Twenty49 on or before May 31, 2019 and if the Company chooses to exercise the Founder Warrants, it will hold not less than 34.84% of the voting securities of Twenty49 Ltd. after giving effect to the subsequent round of financing. The payment of the Subscription Price will be conditional upon, among other things, delivery of a detailed use of proceeds for the Subscription Price, upon ZTE raising financing by way of a private placement of at least $200,000 (the "Financing"), which condition will be satisfied with the completion of the final tranche of the Offering, and upon execution of a subscription agreement containing customary terms and conditions for transactions of this nature (the "Subscription Agreement"). The Company will have until February 8, 2019 to completed its due diligence and it is anticipated that the Subscription Agreement will be executed and the Subscription Price paid by February 15, 2019 but in any event the transaction must be completed no later than March 15, 2019.An insider of the Company subscribed for 70,000 Units of the Offering. The insider private placement is exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101") by virtue of the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1) (a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration for the securities of the Company issued to the insider did not exceed 25% of its market capitalization.About ZTEST Electronics Inc.ZTEST Electronics Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary Permatech Electronics Corp. ("Permatech"), offers Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) to a wide range of customers. Permatech's offering includes Materials Management, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Assembly, Testing and Design services. Permatech operates from a 20,000 square foot, ISO 9001:2015 certified facility in North York, Ontario, Canada. The company serves customers in the Medical, Power, Computer, Telecommunications, Wireless, Industrial and Consumer Electronics markets requiring high quality, quick-turnaround, small and medium size production runs. ZTEST also holds a 25.29% equity interest in Conversance Inc. ("Conversance"). ZTEST has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to invest $293,200 in Twenty49 in exchange for a 27.14% equity ownership interest in Twenty49.About Conversance Inc.Conversance, a private company based in Waterloo, Ont., founded by Mr. Chen, is focused on developing and marketing proprietary artificial-intelligence supported distributed ledger technologies. Mr. Chen is an electrical engineer with a strong background in radio frequency, digital signal processing, VLSI (very-large-scale integration), complex systems, chemistry and physics. Mr. Chen joined Research in Motion (now BlackBerry) in 1999, becoming a senior member of the office of the chief technology officer, where he was instrumental in many of Blackberry's key telephony innovations and patents. While at BlackBerry, the office of the CTO first began looking into blockchain in 2008.About Twenty49 Technologies Inc.Twenty49, based in Waterloo, Ont., and founded by David Hwang, is focused on providing a suite of technologies that enable Cannabis entities to boost operational efficiencies and increase revenues. Mr. Hwang is a physicist by training with a wide-ranging background including startup CEO (with several successful exits mostly in the Hospitality space), Hedge Fund Quant, and Cannabis entrepreneur. Mr. Hwang will be leveraging his data monetization experience in hospitality technology and simply applying these past learnings to the nascent Cannabis vertical. Mr. Hwang is a sought-after speaker on the subject of data monetization (TEDx Raleigh, BigDataTech Talks, etc.) and has received several honors including; RSPA Most Innovative Solution Award, Big Data Innovation Summit (Finalist).For more information contact:Steve Smith, CEO(604) 837-3751email: stevesmith15@ shaw.ca The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: ZTEST Electronics Inc.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the  Water Repellent Agent Market" report to their offering

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PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 16:33:10

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comMANAGER3479183531

Water repellent agent market has been witnessing varied actions and functions taking place to cater to the demand for water repellent agent in a wide range of end user segment. The water repellent agent market players are extending their efforts to ensure reaching greater possibilities for acquiring the market with developments pertaining to an application-specific approach. Moreover, the growth of the water repellent agent market is expected to be driven by technological advancements embracing the globe in the forthcoming years.New Water Repellent Agent Options to Fuel the Growth of the Water Repellent Agent MarketWhile every market player in the water repellent agent market is focused towards getting a hold of the market with improved products and customer-centric product delivery, market participants such as Archroma, a color and specialty chemicals company, introduced their universal Smartrepel Hydro AM. Apart from being a latest addition to their product portfolio, this water repellent agent is a highly biodegradable and PFC free durable water repellant protection series. Sustainability given paramount importance, the introduction of this revolutionary water repellent agent with benefits of performance-excellence and environmental-friendly protection is sure to boost the water repellent agent market by opening more opportunities with the element of sustainability.Introduction: Water Repellent Agent MarketWater proof and water repellent are the same terms but have a considerable difference in terms of application. In the case of water proofing the surface of the product or fabric is filled with appropriate substances, resulting in having low air permeability. Whereas, in the case of water repellent, the fibres are usually coated with the hydrophobic nature, and the pores are not filled during the course of the treatment. And the fabric or product is permeable to water vapour and air.Water repellent agent are also known as water resistant agent in the global market. Water repellent or water resistant agent has the ability to resist the penetration of the water to some degree of the wall of any product. These water repellent agent is added to the fabric during the process of the manufacturing of the end product in the global market. There are several types of the water repellent agents are used in the industry to sustain the water penetration through the wall. Silicone is the best materials to use for the water repellent agent.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7183 Market Dynamics: Water Repellent Agent MarketThe water repellent agents market is gaining traction in the near future owing to increasing textile manufacturing units due to resilient long-term demand from the increasing consumer base in the emerging markets. Additionally, the growing demand from waterproofing automotive components, and also on increasing expenditure on research activities is projected to create several growth opportunity for the global water repellent agent market over the forthcoming years. Moreover, the surging construction industry growth is also expected to create more growth prospects in the water repellent agents market in the coming future. Capillary absorption of water by concrete is expected to be the key driver for the growth of water repellent agent market.In addition to this, the factor responsible for the water repellent agent market demand is the increasing automobile production and sales along with the expanding consumption of water repellents coated windshields. Furthermore, increasing disposable income in the developing and emerging economies is expected to propel the growth of the water repellent agents market in between the forecast period. However, government stringent regulations have limited the use of toxic organic chemicals in the production of water repellent agent, which is expected to hamper the water repellent agent market growth during the forecast period.Market Segmentation: Water Repellent Agent MarketWater repellent agent is segmented on the basis of type, technology and end useOn the basis of type, the water repellent agent market segmented asPolyurethaneTeflonSiliconeOn the basis of technology, the water repellent agent market segmented asWater BasedSolvent BasedOn the basis of end use, the water repellent agent market segmented asTextileConstructionLeatherMedicalFurnitureOthersRegional Outlook: Water Repellent Agent MarketOn the basis of the regional outlook, Asia Pacific is projected to expand at a significant CAGR in the coming forecast period owing to the lucrative growth in expanding textile industry. The countries in Asia Pacific such as China and India are expected to predict positive growth owing to adoption rate of textile yarn manufacturers. Moreover, Consumer preference towards comfortable clothing and affordable price in the region have enriched the demand for fabrics by uniting water repellent technology into the textile production.North American market is expected to witness for rapid growth the factors for the growth are increasing production capacities, high consumption potential and surge in economic growth rate. The U.S. is expected to be the major contributor to the growth of the North America water repellent agent market. As of 2018, the U.S. accounts for the more than two third of the market value and volume share and is estimated to expand at a moderate CAGR. In Europe, the water repellent agent market is gaining traction in the several countries such as Germany, Italy, the U.K, and Russia due to increasing investment on innovation, as well as on increasing purchasing power of the consumers. However, Europe is the major manufacturers of automobile and automotive equipment which can create more opportunities for the market. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are the countries in Latin America are expected to witness a substantial growth due to the increasing consumer spending on passenger cars as well as in the implementation of innovative technologies in water repellent agent market.Some of the key players of the water repellent agents market are theBASFThe Dow Chemical CompanyEvonik Industries AGThe Chemours CompanyHuntsman CorporationDaikin Industries LtdBlue Star Silicone USAThe 3M CompanyShin-Etsu Chemical Co. LtdRequest to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7183
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:19:30

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager8009610353

The demand for water pumps across North America and Latin America continues to grow in parallel with the growth in the regions population. More households emerging in countries such as the US, Canada, Brazil or Mexico will certainly require water pumps for domestic purposes. Concurrently, agricultural, administrative and industrial sector in these regions will also adopt such pumps to keep up with the surging demands of consumers. Water pumps being deployed in the residential sector of North America and Latin America are projected to grow as municipalities & county authorities from this region will strive to improve their drinking water facilitation and upgrade the wastewater treatment plants.Request Report TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/13618 Nevertheless, a recent study developed by Persistence Market Research projects that revenues garnered from sales of water pumps across Latin America and North America will soar at a moderate CAGR of 4% over an eight-year forecast period. After amassing an estimated US$ 9,422.9 million revenues in 2016, the water pumps market in North America and Latin America is anticipated to reach a valuation of US$ 13,412 .8 million by the end of 2024.Key Deterrents for Adoption of Water Pumps in North & Latin AmericaAvailability of cheap Chinese water pumps: North American and Latin American manufacturers of water pumps are constantly at risk of losing market presence to newly-entered Chinese pump makers. Consumers in these regions end up opting for cheap Chinese water pumps, which tend to go kaput in short span of time. On the other hand, availing Chinese water pumps becomes more practical for consumers with tight budget, especially for deploying them in agricultural activities.Durability & energy efficiency of centrifugal pumps: Manufacturers of centrifugal water pumps in this region are improving the operating life of their products. This has decelerated the rate at which water pumps get replaced. Low replacement rate has dragged down the aftermarket sales of water pumps in North America and Latin America, thereby impeding the aggregate market revenues.Budget limitations in industrial and agricultural sectors: Expenditure on water pumps fares on a tightrope in North America. Submersible pumps are also expected to impact the adoption of centrifugal water pumps in this region. Latin Americas industrial sector is likely to trim its gross expenditure, which will incidentally impact the sales of water pumps in this region. Low profit margins in North Americas agriculture industry have also slowed down the rate at which water pumps were being installed or replaced in farming activities.Request for sample report: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13618 In the report, titled Water Pumps Market: North & Latin America Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, Persistence Market Research predicts that more than 90% of water pump revenues in Latin America and North America will be accounted by sales of centrifugal pumps. While over 936 thousand units of positive displacement pumps are estimated to be sold in the Americas during the forecast period, sales of centrifugal pumps will be raking in revenues worth over US$ 12 billion by the end of 2024. In 2016, centrifugal pumps worth nearly US$ 3 billion were estimated to be consumed by wastewater and water treatment plants across North America and Latin America. Oil and gas industries in this region have been predicted to have consumed over 200 thousand units of positive displacement pumps in 2016.Compared to Latin America, North America will continue to have a large share in their collective regional market for water pumps. In 2016, the US water pumps market accounted for more than two-third of North Americas water pump revenues, while Brazil and Mexico attributed to more than 50% growth in Latin Americas water pumps revenues. US-based companies Xylem Inc. and Flowserve Corporation are the leading native players in North America and Latin Americas water pumps market. The market will continue to witness higher participation from European water pump manufacturers such as KSB AG, Weir Group Plc., Grundfos, and Sulzer AG. Japanese water pump manufacturer, Ebara Corp is also observed to be a key participant as the company has established two manufacturing plants in North America and one in Latin America.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Turbine Blade Material Market : Global Industry Analysis 2013 - 2017 and Opportunity Assessment; 2018 - 2028 " report to their offering.

Turbine Blade Material Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 11:57:35

In fast growing economies and developing markets, the aerospace and marine industry is estimated to gain momentum in the coming years. Technological advancements in the materials used to manufacture turbine blades have increased their adoption. Besides, they ensure a prolong life of the turbine blades and reduce the maintenance cost. Different types of turbine blade material are available in market such as stainless steel, nickel alloy, titanium alloy, and composite material. Among these, nickel alloy can be used in temperatures of up to 1,700 degrees Celsius.Failure in steam and gas turbines are often caused due to blade fatigue, and this can be cured by using high melting point materials. More recently, the demand for turbine blade material is significantly impelled, owing to a surge in the demand from turbine blade manufacturers.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7477 Turbine Blade Material Market: Market DynamicsDrivers:Ever growing end use industries such as automotive, aerospace, industrial, marine, etc., both, in developed and developing economies, is anticipated to be a major factor responsible for the growth of the global turbine blade material market over the forecast period. Moreover, the continuously declining cost of energy generation using renewable sources is also anticipated to give traction to the growth of turbine blades as well as turbine blade material in the coming decade. That apart, governments are focused on using renewable energy and encouraging people to do the same. This is expected to further boost the demand for turbine blades and turbine blade material over the forecast period.Restraints:Turbine blades require high capital investments as well as maintenance costs, which is anticipated to act as a restraining factor to the growth of the turbine blade material market over the forecast period. Moreover, the prices of turbine blade materials are highly volatile. This is also expected to act as a factor hampering the growth of the turbine blade material market in the coming future.Trends:A major trend predicted five years down the line includes market players of turbine blade material focusing on strategic expansions to expand their presence across the globe. This is projected to act as a catalyst to maintain leadership. Moreover, the strong outlook of the global automotive, aerospace, marine, etc., industries across the globe creates considerable opportunities for turbine blade & turbine blade material manufacturers.Turbine Blade Material Market: SegmentationThe global turbine blade material market can be segmented on the basis of material type, application, and end user.On the basis of material type, the global turbine blade material market can be segmented as:Stainless SteelNickel AlloyTitanium AlloyComposite MaterialsOn the basis of application, the global turbine blade material market can be segmented as:Gas TurbinesWater TurbinesWind TurbinesSteam TurbinesOn the basis of end user, the global turbine blade material market can be segmented as:AutomotiveIndustrialMarineAerospaceOthersTurbine Blade Material Market: Regional OutlookThe global turbine blade material market is totally dependent on the growing demand for turbine blades from end use sectors across geographies. Over the forecast period, Asia Pacific is expected to be closely followed by North America. Both these markets are predicted to witness enormous growth in the turbine blade material market, owing to increasing government initiatives to use renewable energy in emerging economies such as the India, China, and the U.S. Western Europe is estimated to grow at a considerable CAGR during the forecast period, owing to the high demand for turbine blade material in the growing automotive sector in the region. Germany is expected to be the leading automotive and automobile market in Western Europe. Latin America is anticipated to witness the growth of the turbine blade material market over the forecast period. The Middle East & Africa is expected to grow at a substantial CAGR during the forecast period, owing to an increase in the demand for turbine blade material from turbine blade manufacturers in the region.Request Report for TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7477 Turbine Blade Material Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the key participants identified across the value chain of the global turbine blade material market include:AcerinoxAperamAK SteelGuangxi Chengde GroupJLC Electromet Pvt. Ltd.KOBE STEEL, LTD.Mannesmann Stainless Tubes GmbHNippon Steel and Sumitomo MetalPOSCOTata Steel Europe
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Tool Steel Market : Global Industry Analysis 2013 - 2017 and Opportunity Assessment; 2018 - 2028 " report to their offering.

Tool Steel Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 11:48:27

Tool steels are from the family of carbon steel and are particularly well-suited to be crafted into tools. Tool steels comprise four carbide-forming elements: tungsten, chromium, vanadium and molybdenum. These elements enhance the hear resistivity, hardness and durability of tool steels. Tool steels also contain cobalt or nickel, which improves their high temperature performance. Tool steels are classified under six broad groups: water hardening, cold working, hot working, shock resistance, high steel and special purpose. The selection of tool steels depends on various factors, such as cost effectiveness, required surface hardness, strength, working temperature, shock resistance and toughness requirement. Tool steel is used for various applications, such as cutting, pressing, extruding, stamping, forming, shearing and cutting metals. Further owing to the high resistance provided to abrasion by them, tool steels are also used in the production of injection of molds.Tool Steel Market: DynamicsOver the past few years, the manufacturing sector across the globe has witnessed significant growth. The sector is expected to witness further growth in the years to come, driven by economic growth. The growth of the manufacturing sector is set to drive the demand for tool steel for the production of various tools, such as drills, tool bits, taps, cutters, saw blades, dies, milling cutters, punches, etc. Owing to tool steels high strength, resistance to wear and tear, good thermal conductivity and cost-effective machinability, tool steels are highly preferred in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, tool steels also find another prominent application in the automotive industry in fabrication of components and chassis parts. In the recent past, automotive production across the globe has witnessed steady growth owing to increasing demand for passenger cars and commercial vehicles, these trend is expected to continue over the coming the years, thereby driving the growth of tool steel market.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7470 Tool Steel Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global tool steel market can be segmented into:Water-hardeningCold-workShock-resistingHigh speedHot-workingSpecial purposeOn the basis of end use, the global tool steel market can be segmented into:General ManufacturingAutomotiveDefense and AerospaceElectronic & ElectricalShip BuildingOthersTool Steel Market: Regional OutlookAsia Pacific is estimated to be the most prominent region in the global tool steel market. Moreover, the region is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period, primarily due to high economic growth and increasing government initiatives and policies favoring growth of the manufacturing sector in the region. Moreover, increasing disposable income of the middle-class population and rapid industrialization in countries, such as India, China and Indonesia, is propelling the growth of the tool steel market in Asia Pacific. Backed by favorable government initiatives, such as Make in India initiative and skill India initiative, the manufacturing sector in India is set to witness robust growth, which in turn, will propel the growth of tool steel market in near future.The recovery in automotive and construction industry and surge in oil and gas E&P activity across North America is expected to create new opportunities in the tool steel market in the region. Europe is expected to witness moderate growth in the tool steel market. Latin America & Middle East & Africa are expected to create new horizons for the growth of tool steel market. Positive economic outlook and favorable political scenario in Latin America is driving investments in manufacturing sector and automotive industry, which in turn, is set to induce the demand for tool steels in the region. Further, Middle East & Africa, backed by growing construction industry, petrochemical industry and oil & gas, is expected to contribute towards the growth of tool steel market during the forecast period.Request Report for TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7470 Tool Steel Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the prominent market participants operating in the global tool steel market are:Hitachi Metals, Ltd.Samuel, Son & Co., LimitedERAMET groupSandvik ABBaosteel Co.,Ltd voestalpine High Performance Metals Corp.SCHMOLZ + BICKENBACHBuderus Edelstahl GmbHGloria Group
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:11:02

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616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1-347-918-3531

Surgical Navigation Systems is one of the most reliable technology which is developed to render surgeries safer and less invasive as compared to the surgeries without Surgical Navigation Systems. Navigation during surgery is an excellent technology applied currently in medical devices. Surgical Navigation Systems have accelerated the technical processes in a surgery and paved the way for complex procedures. Surgical Navigation Systems target the anatomy to be operated on and guide to place the implant safely to the particular anatomy of the human body. Surgical Navigation Systems act as information centers during surgeries. Surgical Navigation System is essential in accurate visualization of the anatomy and in surgery planning in a virtual environment. Surgical Navigation Systems reduce risks associated with surgeries.Surgical Navigation System Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe global surgical navigation system market is driven by the navigation technology which encompasses surgical planning software, intra-operative imaging and instrument tracking technologies. Surgical Navigation Systems aid in guiding the surgeons to make data-oriented decisions during surgeries. This Surgical Navigation System technology is a driver for the global Surgical Navigation Systems market. A major factor that could adversely affect the growth of the global Surgical Navigation Systems market is the surge of minimally invasive and non-invasive surgeries. The minimally invasive and non-invasive surgeries are becoming popular among the masses owing to the rapid post-operative recovery with minimal pain to the patient.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-977 Surgical Navigation System Market: SegmentationSurgical Navigation System market is classified on the basis disease indication and geography.Based on disease indication, the global Surgical Navigation System market is segmented into the following:Neurosurgery Navigation SystemSpine Navigation SystemENT Navigation SystemOrthopedic Navigation SystemSurgical Navigation System Market: OverviewSurgical Navigation System is also known as computer-aided surgery or computer-assisted intervention. The navigation system has to perform medical imaging of the anatomy which leads to image analysis. Based on the image generated, the navigation system helps in diagnosis and surgery simulation. The global surgical navigation system market is majorly dominated by the neurosurgery segment owing to the complicated procedures. Orthopedic navigation systems accounted for the second highest share in the global surgical navigation system market, closely followed by ENT navigation system.Surgical Navigation System Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global Surgical Navigation System market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Due to the mature healthcare sector in the North American countries, North America held a substantial market share in the global surgical navigation system market and is expected to retain the share over the forecast period. The countries of Japan and Germany are projected to present considerable growth rate in the global surgical navigation system market due to the well-established infrastructure and advanced Information Technology (IT) in healthcare.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-977 Surgical Navigation System Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global Surgical Navigation System are GE Healthcare Ltd., Medtronic Inc., Siemens Healthcare Corporation, Stryker Corporation, B.Braun Melsungen AG, Bausch & Lomb Incorporated, CAScination AG and Brainlab AG. The global surgical navigations system manufacturers are involved getting product approvals from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory authorities for market launch of their products. The global surgical navigations system market players are encouraging acquisitions and strategic collaborations to gain competitive advantage, expand into emerging markets and broaden the product portfolio.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:54:43

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Office: Dublin 2Suite 988427 Upper Pembroke Street,Dublin 2, IrelandHead of Marketing+353-1-4434-232

Understanding negotiated savings is always beneficial for any business organization; which can be achieved by supplier management within an organization. Supplier management is akin for managing relationships and interactions with external organizations which provide goods and services to our organization. Supplier management is primarily organizations plan (strategic) for managing supplier resources that saturate throughout the organization. Also, we can say that supplier management is simply the management of supplier-facing business processes throughout the lifecycle of a supplier. Supplier management market includes establishing policies to govern suppliers, contracts with suppliers match business needs, setting up of targets in contracts with suppliers, maintaining relations with suppliers, observing supplier performance, maintaining an accurate record of the supplier and negotiation with the help of supplier management. The supplier management market is expected to have a significant growth during the forecast period due to increasing need of the supplier management in various industries. Get Free Exclusive Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2871 Supplier Management Market: Drivers and challengesThe extension of the industries provides a better opportunity to growth of supplier management market because there will be an essential requirement of supply management to increase the productivity of the industry. This factor is expected to be responsible for the potential growth of the supplier management market during the forecast period. Also with the increase of the data and information within an organization, the responsibility to handle it also increases which can be achieved with the help of supplier management. Thus, during the forecast period with the growth of any industry the requirement of the supplier management will also increase which will result in the growth of supplier management market. Another, driver for the supplier management market is globalization. With the adoption of globalization by any country the suppliers of any company also increase (increase in international suppliers) giving scope to supplier management market. Hence, the growth in the supplier management market also increases. With the release of ITIL v3 in 2007, a discrete supplier management process was introduced service design lifecycle stage as its part. This process was further updated ITIL 2011 update. The same has an influence on supplier management market during the forecast period. Moreover, supplier management can be used for quality management of products in any company. These benefit of supplier management is expected to provide a new growth opportunity to supplier management market during the forecast period. On the other hand, some of the sectors are less conscious about quality and supplier relations. These factors are expected to hinder the supplier management market during the forecast period. Supplier Management Market: SegmentationThe Supplier Management Market can be segmented as:-Segmentation of Supplier Management Market on the basis of type:-Vendor OnboardingVendor RiskFinancial ControlComplianceOthersSegmentation of Supplier Management Market on the basis of end-user:-ManufacturersRetailsWholesale/DistributionTransportation & LogisticsTelecomFinancial sectorsGovernment sectorsSegmentation of Supplier Management Market on the basis of enterprises:-SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises)Large EnterprisesSupplier Management Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players of the supplier management market are JDA Software Group Inc., Intelex Technologies, Oracle Corp., SAP AG, Epicor Software Corp., SLA, Lasta Inc., Generix Group, Zycus Inc., Neocase Software, Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) CloudSRM, Biznet Solutions Ltd., and Whiztec Software.Ask For Customized Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=2871 In October 2015, new supplier management software was launched by Intelex Technology; it offered solution to improve supply chain network at the subsidiaries and parent levels owing to supplier chain management market. Also, in February 2016, Neocase FS Power SRM software was launched, focussing on easing the financial operations and making it more efficient through advanced automation and offer a better experience for suppliers, buyers, customers and employees through a progressive portal and SLA management respected to supplier management. In June 2014, new GCI Supplier Portal was launched by Generix Group; it offers administrative task computerization and delegation, paperless documentation, operation pooling, data quality improvements, dispute reduction, and faster electronic communication in terms of supplier management.Supplier Management Market: Regional OverviewNorth America is considered as the principal supplier management market due to the presence of a high number of vendors and also due to the adoption of cloud computing in various sectors. The Asia Pacific supplier management market is expected to have significant growth during the forecast period due to industries requirement to improve the cost of services and delivery process. Industries in developing countries such as India and China have considerate growth in supplier management market because they are using software to generate a higher return on gaining investment and increase their supply chain with the help of supplier management. The Middle East & Africa supplier management market is expected to grow at a mild pace owing to lack of awareness about supplier management. The report covers exhaustive analysis on:Global Market SegmentsGlobal Market DynamicsHistorical Actual Market Size, 20132017Global Market Size & Forecast, 2018 to 2028Supply & Demand Value Chain for the MarketGlobal Market Current Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies Involved in the MarketMarket Solutions TechnologyValue Chain of the MarketGlobal Market Drivers and RestraintsRegional analysis for Market includesNorth America MarketU.S.CanadaLatin America MarketMexicoBrazilRest of Latin AmericaWestern Europe MarketGermanyFranceU.K.SpainItalyNordicBeneluxRest of Western EuropeEastern Europe MarketPolandRussiaRest of Eastern EuropeSEA and other APACAustralia and New Zealand (A&NZ)IndiaASEANRest of SEA and other APACJapanChinaMiddle East and Africa MarketGCC CountriesNorth AfricaSouth AfricaRest of MEAThe report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative, and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies. Request Brochure of this Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2871 Report Highlights:Detailed overview of parent marketChanging market dynamics of the industryIn-depth market segmentationHistorical, current and projected market size in terms of valueRecent industry trends and developmentsCompetitive landscapeStrategies of key players and product offeringsPotential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective towards market performanceMust-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintFor more information on this report, please visit: https://www.factmr.com/report/2871/supplier-management-market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 05:39:52

Superalloys or high performance alloys are the metallic alloys that possess high strength, significant surface stability, corrosion resistance and creep resistance at high temperature. Superalloys are generally utilized in products and applications operating at high pressure, radiation, force and temperature under the impact of corrosive media. They have austenitic face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal with alloying element of cobalt, iron or nickel as a base. Presently, there is escalation in demand of superalloys due to its high-strength that can resist creeping and high temperature in various applications like aerospace and aircraft.Superalloys are used in various application such as aerospace, oil and gas, industrial and gas turbine. Combustion chambers, shafts, blades of aircraft gas turbine, turbocharger and exhaust valve of reciprocating engines, bolts, fans and pumps of chemical and petrochemical industries, rocket engine parts of space vehicles, bolts, blades of steam turbine power plants are some of the prominent end-use products / applications where superalloys are extensively used. Furthermore, superalloys are widely used in automotive sector due to their capability to retain its strength at higher temperature. Additionally, due to their light weight, it helps in improving the fuel efficiency of automotive as well as aircraft. Superalloys can be nickel-based, iron-based and cobalt-based. Among these, the nickel based superalloys are highly preferred in aerospace sector as it can resist physical stress and extremely high temperatures, which in turn helps to maintain high surface stability. Industrial nickel-based superalloys contain alloying elements such as aluminum, chromium, titanium, tungsten, niobium, tantalum, cobalt etc. Some of the key players in the market are focused on development of cost effective light weight superalloys.Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4966 Superalloys Market: Market DynamicsIncreasing adoption of superalloys or high performance alloys in power and aerospace industry is expected to drive the growth of superalloys market over the forecast period. Moreover, increasing use of light weight components in automotive sector is also anticipated to upsurge the demand of superalloys across the globe. Additionally, excellent cryogenic temperature property, resistance to corrosion, oxidation resistant, high toughness and ductility are the properties of superalloys which are expected to fuel the demand of global superalloys market during the forecast period.High cost of the alloy metals is one of the major factor which is anticipated to hamper the growth of superalloys market. Moreover, specialty machines are used to manufacture superalloys and high price of these machines is further expected to restrict the growth of superalloys market. Furthermore, lack of skilled labors coupled with complex process involved in maintaining these specialty machines is further anticipated to affect the positive growth of the global superalloys market in near future.Superalloys Market: SegmentationThe global superalloys market can be segmented on the basis of base material and applications.On the basis of base material, the global superalloys market can be segmented as:Nickel-based superalloysIron-based superalloysCobalt-based superalloysOn the basis of applications, the global superalloys market can be segmented as:AutomotiveOil and gasAerospaceIndustrialSuperalloys Market: Region-Wise OutlookDuring the forecast period, North America is expected to witness rich growth in superalloys market due to increased utilization of aircraft and prominent growth in aerospace industry in this region. Asia Pacific, in particulars, is estimated to witness growth in superalloys market owing to growth in automotive industries and existence of developing economics. Japan is anticipated to grow at a significant CAGR during the forecast period due to growing automotive industry and related industry in these region. Middle East and Africa is projected to support the growth of superalloys market due to rapid industrialization in upcoming years.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4966 Superalloys Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants identified across the value chain of the global superalloys market include:Aperam S.A.AMG SuperalloysSpecial Metal CorporationHaynes InternationalNippon Yakin Kogyo Co., Ltd.Special Metals Corporation
Key players in the global Nucleic Acid Testing market include CapsoVision, Inc., Given Imaging, Inc., Medimetrics S.A. de C.V., Olympus Corporation, and Bio-Images Research Limited, IntroMedic Inc., Chongqing Jinshan Science & Technology Group Co. Ltd., Proteus Digital Health Inc., Novartis AG, and Philips Healthcare.

Smart Pill Technologies

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:17:15

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Smart Pill Technologies is the use of advanced methods for the preparation of prescription pills which has revolutionized patient monitoring, diagnosis of diseases and improved drug delivery. Smart pill technologies is the converging link between digital technology and healthcare industries. These smart pills have many benefits other than providing signals and alerts when consumed. By programming the pill accordingly, it can trigger a reminder according to the remainder time whenever the pill needs to be consumed. It can alert the physician, patient, medical staff or the caretaker when the medicine has been consumed which will help in accurate documentation of patient compliance or adherence. It can also provide alerts if the pill hasn't been consumed on a timely routine since multiple medications need to be taken by a large number of patients.Physicians do a good job of triangulating medications with their patients, since new additions/OTC medications are not routinely documented. So with the use of smart pill technology, the data collected can further be of assistance by identifying potential drug-drug interactions, errors in dosage, schedule errors and help identify/prevent adverse events. Pills can also turn to be useful in sending alert signals when medicines are past their expiry date.Patients on medications such as antibiotics can be monitored and alerted to complete their course to ensure that drug resistance is not encountered.Smart Pill Technologies Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe Smart pill technologies market is a flourishing market and has tremendous opportunities in future. The market has a wide scope in the monitoring and diagnosis of diseases. The rising prevalence of Gastro-intestinal diseases is acting as the major driver in the market. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2015, it is currently estimated that about 1 1.3 Mn people suffer from IBD in the United States. Prevalence of Crohn's disease is 201 per 100,000 adults and Ulcerative colitis is 238 per 100,000 adults. Also the changing lifestyle related syndromes and disorders will further boost this market. Likewise the increasing disposable income to avail the evolving innovative technologies in the market will further help in penetration of the developed as well as developing countries. The rising geriatric population will also act as a driver since this segment of population is more prone to IBD, Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that by 2050 worlds geriatric population count will reach around 2 Bn which will definitely contribute to the rapid growth of this market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1151 The chronic therapy monitoring can help in curtailing health care costs as well. To illustrate: the smart pill technology combination of an ambulatory monitoring with anti-thrombolytic drug can reduce the number of physicians visits and ensure that anti-thrombolytic therapy is adjusted remotely while ensuring compliance. Even so, all technological advancements of this segment come with some caveats. Barriers to technology such as age, cost and utility, pose challenges which the manufacturers should attempt to overcome. While customizability is the feature of smart pill market, it can also prove to be a hindrance and can be very cumbersome since it would be difficult to manufacture according to individual consumer needs. Furthermore, adaptability is also a point of concern and these parameters can thus act as a restraint in the market.Smart Pill Technologies Market: SegmentationThe Smart pill technologies market is classified on the basis of application, disease indication and geography.Based on application, the global smart pill technologies market is segmented into the following:Capsule EndoscopySmall Bowel Video Capsule EndoscopyColon Capsule EndoscopyOMOM Capsule Endoscopy PlatformSmall Bowel Capsule EndoscopyControllable Capsule EndoscopyStorable Capsule EndoscopeColon Capsule EndoscopepH Capsule Wireless Monitoring SystemImpedancepH Monitoring SystemMiroCamUpgraded MiroCam and Advanced Capsule EndoscopeThe ANKON MCE SystemCapsoCamDrug DeliveryPatient monitoring of cancerBased on disease indication, the global smart pill technologies market is segmented into the following:Occult GI BleedingCrohns DiseaseSmall Bowel TumorsCeliac DiseaseInherited Polyposis SyndromesSmart Pill Technologies Market: OverviewThe smart pill technologies has recently entered the market and is rapidly penetrating the developed as well as developing countries. The growing demand and escalating adoption rate for monitoring and treating diseases by newly advanced technologies has given an impetus to the global smart pill technologies market. In the last few years the market has seen high percentage of acceptance towards usage due to non-invasiveness, better patient accessibility and thorough monitoring. Capsule endoscopy accounted for the highest revenue in 2014. The first capsule endoscope model, which is now regarded as a first-line tool for the detection of abnormalities of the small bowel, was the PillCam SB. It was approved in Japan in April 2007. GI monitoring application segment is expected to register fastest growth in the forecast period, amongst all other segments. In the coming years, global smart pill technologies market will witness significant developments in innovation of a wide range of new products that will require novel marketing approaches. The smart pill technologies market is currently underpenetrated and in its nascent stage of development. Although the maximum revenues are generated by the developed countries, it is also observed that CAGR in the developing countries are high. The reason for the growth in the CAGR can be attributed to the increasing awareness in the latest innovative testing methods and the continuously improving economic conditions.Smart Pill Technologies Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of geography, Global Smart pill technologies market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America and Europe collectively accounted for the largest market share in the overall smart pills technology market, in 2014. North America accounted for about half the share of market revenue in 2014. The growth in this region is primarily attributed to the early adoption of novel technologies, a large patient population, high disposable incomes and the fresh marketing and commercializing of smart pill products. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a remarkable CAGR for smart pills technologies market due to increasing healthcare awareness.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1151 Smart Pill Technologies Market: Key PlayersKey players in the global Nucleic Acid Testing market include CapsoVision, Inc., Given Imaging, Inc., Medimetrics S.A. de C.V., Olympus Corporation, and Bio-Images Research Limited, IntroMedic Inc., Chongqing Jinshan Science & Technology Group Co. Ltd., Proteus Digital Health Inc., Novartis AG, and Philips Healthcare.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:54:23

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Sleep Aid Supplements: OverviewIn todays stressful life, getting a good nights sleep is a challenge. This can also be blamed on technology and the subsequent invention of numerous gadgets such as smartphones, which have become the key factors contributing to sleep deprivation in the society. Insufficient sleep is a major concern in developed countries such as the U.S. A professor from Cornell University quoted that the countrys national sleep debt is far more threatening than its national debt. In a broad perspective, sleep deprivation is a national concern as it decreases a professionals work efficiency. But, personally, it can lead to diseases derived from sleep deprivation and can damage ones health. These concerns are surging the demand for sleep aid supplements among people suffering from sleep deprivation. There are four major kinds of sleep aid supplements available in the market, namely chamomile tea, melatonin, Valerina and Kava. Sleep aid supplements such as melatonin and valerian are even backed up by good scientific evidence.Get Free Exclusive Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2893 Sleep Aid Supplements: DynamicsTo meet the rising demand for sleep aid supplements, manufacturers have been introducing a range of sleep aid supplements. Popular ingredients that manufacturers use in their sleep aid supplements include chamomile, hops, L-theanine from green tea and hormone melatonin. With growing awareness regarding the benefits of sufficient sleep among customers, the demand for sleep aid supplements has also been increasing. The sleep aid supplement market has been witnessing growth since years and is projected to have a positive outlook. Negative publicity from the side-effects of prescription-based sleep aid supplements has reverted customer preference towards natural and herbal sleep aid supplements. Recently, liquid-based sleep aid supplements have also been introduced in the sleep aid supplement market.Sleep Aid Supplements: SegmentationOn the basis of type, the sleep aid supplement market has been segmented as:PowderLiquidCapsulesTabletsOn the basis of nature, the sleep aid supplement market has been segmented as:Herbal/Organic/NaturalConventionalOn the basis of the manufacturing industry, the sleep aid supplement market has been segmented as:PharmaceuticalNutraceuticalFood and BeverageOn the basis of distribution channel, the sleep aid supplement market has been segmented as:SupermarketSpecialty storeOnline retailersOthersSleep Aid Supplements Market: Prominent PlayersSome of the key sleep aid supplement manufacturing companies identified are King, Sanofi Aventis, Sepracor, Pharmacia and Upjohn, Novel Laboratories, Inc., Takeda, Merck, Nutracap Labs, NutraClick, NutraScience Labs and others.Sleep Aid Supplements Market: Regional OverviewThe market for sleep aid supplements foresees a great opportunity in developed regions such as North America where sleep deprivation is observed in a large number of people. Regions such as North America and Europe are estimated to grab the highest share of sales in the sleep aid supplement market. Sale numbers for herbal sleep aid supplements are on the rise when compared with chemical sleep aid supplements in these regions. This shift towards herbal sleep aid supplements is aided by the negative perception associated with chemical sleep aid supplements, due to their side-effects. Lack of awareness regarding the benefits of sleep aid supplements restrains the sleep aid market growth in regions such as Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, despite their high potential for growth.Ask For Customized Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=2893 Sleep Aid Supplements Market: Competitive AnalysisMajor manufacturers are significantly investing in research and development in order to develop herbal sleep aid supplements. Research and development along with expansion are among the key strategies being employed by companies to grow in the sleep aid supplement market. For instance, in January, 2018, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Co. Ltd. announced a partnership and an agreement with Unipharm Inc. This partnership is estimated to benefit Unipharm with the enhanced promotion and sales of products in Russia, a place where Takeda has already established its presence. Such collaborations are estimated to drive the growth of the sleep aid supplements market at a global level.The sleep aid supplements research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The sleep aid supplements research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, type, application, and end use.The report covers exhaustive analysis on:Market SegmentsMarket DynamicsMarket SizeSupply & DemandCurrent Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTechnologyValue ChainRegional analysis includes:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K., Spain, BENELUX, Nordics)Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, CIS)Asia-Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, South Korea)JapanMiddle East and Africa (GCC Countries, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, Israel)The sleep aid supplements report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The sleep aid supplements report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Request Brochure of this Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2893 Report Highlights:Detailed overview of parent marketChanging market dynamics in the industryIn-depth market segmentationHistorical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and valueRecent industry trends and developmentsCompetitive landscapeStrategies of key players and products offeredPotential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective on market performanceMust-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintFor more information on this report, please visit: https://www.factmr.com/report/2893/sleep-aid-supplements-market
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: Global Industry Analysis, size, sales and Forecast by 2024: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:21:18

Military personal protective equipment has become a crucial and standard element of soldier equipment. One of the major factor driving the market is the increasing role of ground troops in different parts of the world such as Iraq, Afghanistan and India among others. The demand for military personal protective equipment is anticipated to be driven by modernization initiatives undertaken by several large defense spenders globally and various internal security threats, such as organized crime and terrorism among others.One of the major factor driving the market is the increasing role of ground troops in different parts of the world such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq among others. As of 2014, there were 8 active military conflicts and 10 official wars known by the United States. In addition, there were also other violent clashes relating 64 countries and 576 separatist and militias groups. In 2016, in wars between Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Lake Chad basin and Yemen helps the military personal protective equipment market to grow at a high CAGR which in turn is expected to boost the market.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230015-Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market Body armor (IBA), improved outer tactical vest (IOTV), advanced combat helmet (ACH), pelvic protection systems (PPS), life safety jacket, military combat eye protection (MCEP) and others sectors are the various product types of the military personal protective equipment market. Among various product types of the military personal protective equipment market body armor (BA) is the held the major market share in 2015 and expected to be the same during the forecast period of 2016  2024.The military personal protective equipment market has been segmented on the basis of application into army, air force, navy and others. Among various application of the military personal protective equipment market army held major market share in 2015 followed by navy and is expected to be remain the same during the forecast period of 2016  2024. Several countries are focusing on manufacturing better military personal protective equipment such as lightweight under suits, ballistic inserts, combat helmets and advanced night vision equipment that provide the benefits of enhanced protection and comfort to ground, navy and air forces. In 2015, the market is expected to be dominated by North America followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. In addition, Asia Pacific occupies more than 20% of the global market share, is driven by developing economies such as India, South Korea, Japan and China among others which are performing soldier modernization programs.By geography, the military personal protective equipment market is classified into five regions namely North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. In 2015, North America holds the largest market share in the military personal protective equipment followed by Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. However, in 2024 Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest market for military personal protective equipment market followed by North America. China held the largest share for the military personal protective equipment market in Asia Pacific in 2015. It is also expected to experience healthy growth in the coming years. Growing research and development activities started by different research organizations acts as a driving factor of the market. In addition, growing concerns over the safety and protection of the forces is expected to propel the growth of the market.Key players profiled in this report include 3M Ceradyne (United States), ArmorWorks (United States), Eagle Industries Unlimited Inc (United States), BAE Systems (United Kingdom), DSM Dyneema (United States),Armorsource (United States), Du Pont (United States), Honeywell Advanced Fibres and Composites (United States), Revision Military Inc. (United States) and GentexCorporatio Corporation (United States) among others.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230015-Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market The segments covered in the Military Personal Protective Equipment market are as follows:Global Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By ProductType Body Armor (IBA) Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Pelvic Protection Systems (PPS) Life Safety Jackets Military Combat Eye Protection (MCEP) OthersGlobal Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By Application Army Air Force Navy OthersGlobal Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificIndiaChinaJapanRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin America Middle East and AfricaSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesRest of Middle East and AfricaReport Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230015-Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 06:20:04

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Retinal biologics market value surpassed US$ 14.6 billion in 2018 and projected to grow at 10.7% y-o-y in 2019, as per a new FMI study. The projected growth of the market can be attributed to,Increasing prevalence of diabetic eye diseases and age-related macular degeneration (AMD)Significant R&D investments engaged in developing biologics for infectious and non-infectious retinal diseasesGrowing application of specific biologic molecules as a promising drug targetDevelopment of gene therapy as retinal biologics in the wake of large number of monogenic retinal disordersHigher specificity of retinal biologics as compared to other traditional therapies has escalated R&D efforts in the retinal drug delivery field. Rising burden of diseases as well as treatment on the back of ageing population and spread of diabetes epidemic have increased efforts in finding the cure of untreatable diseases. Greater strides to develop long-acting therapeutics in a bid to reduce disease burden is set to augur well for the retinal biologics market and generation of US$ 16.2 billion market value is projected in 2019, says FMI report.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8663 Promising Treatment of VEGF-A Antagonist Drug Translates to Hefty Revenue GenerationThe FMI study estimates that adoption of VEGF-A antagonist class of drugs remains higher as compared to TNF- inhibitor. In 2018, VEGF-A antagonist drugs witnessed significant penetration while accounting for a hefty 93% revenues of the retinal biologics market. Significant advances in developing biologics for VEGF-A antagonist therapy and their delivery to posterior ocular tissues are underway.Ubiquitous acceptance of VEGF-A antagonist therapy has led manufacturers to invest in the development of retinal biologics in a similar area. For instance, Eylea by Regeneron and Lucentis by Roche are VEGF-A antagonist drugs available in the market.The study finds that despite lower revenues, penetration of TNF- inhibitor drugs is likely to increase at a rapid pace in the coming years. In 2019, annual revenues of TNF- inhibitor drug class is expected to grow at an impressive rate of 11.6%.Retinal Biologics Find Prominent Use in Macular Degeneration TreatmentThe study opines that over 35% of the retinal biologics revenues were consolidated in the treatment of macular degeneration. Highest revenue growth of 12.3% is also expected in macular degeneration as compared to other indications where retinal biologics are used in 2019.Macular degeneration (MD) remains the leading cause of vision loss wherein it affects over 10 million Americans, the prevalence is higher than the combined incidences of cataract and glaucoma, as per the American Macular Degeneration Foundation (AMDF). As macular degeneration mainly affect people of age 50 years or more, with the ageing population, the prevalence of MD continues to rise despite improved treatment options.Diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema treatments also significantly include retinal biologics in therapy. FMI shows that collectively both the disorders accounted for over 43% of the retinal biologics market revenues in 2018. Annual revenue growth in these two disorders is estimated to remain above 10% in 2019. Increasing incidences of diabetes complications on the back of growing epidemic of diabetes will continue to increase cases of diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema, thereby generating demand for retinal biologics in the coming years.Retinal Biologics Distribution in Specialty Clinics and Hospitals ProminentManufacturers in the retinal biologics market distribute the products through institutional and retail distribution channels. The FMI study finds that institutional sales will garner higher revenues in the retinal biologics market wherein retinal biologics are distributed in specialty clinics and hospitals. Sales in hospitals accounted for over 35% of the market revenues in 2018.The study estimates that retail sales of retinal biologics will garner similar revenues as that of hospitals and grow at 11.9% in 2019. Retail distribution occurs through retail pharmacies and mail order pharmacies of which retail pharmacies will register higher revenues as compared to its counterparts in the coming years.Read Comprehensive Overview with Methodology of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-8663 Penetration in North America Higher, APEJs Attractiveness to IncreaseNorth America continues to hold leading revenues in the retinal biologics market. According to FMI valuation, North America held over 46% of the global retinal biologics market revenues in 2018. Revenues in North America are expected to grow at 10.4% y-o-y in 2019 on the back of increasing prevalence of retinal disorders, steady growth of the healthcare infrastructure and favorable reimbursement scenario.Europe garnered nearly one-fourth revenues in the retinal biologics market, wherein a bulk of demand penetration was observed in Western European countries such as Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain and others. The attractiveness of the APEJ retinal biologics market is expected to rise at the rate of 11% in 2019, wherein China and India remain the most lucrative markets.The FMI report tracks the retinal biologics market for the period 2018-2028. According to the report, the retinal biologics market is projected to grow at 11.1% CAGR through 2028.
Some of the key market players in global radioimmunoassay market are DIAsource ImmunoAssays, Beckman Coulter, Inc., IBL Internationa, PerkinElmer, Inc, DRG International, Inc., MP Biomedicals, LLC, Cisbi, Euro Diagnostica AB, DiaSorin S.p.A., EMD Millipore, Izotop, Berthold Technologies GmbH.

Radioimmunoassay

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:34:17

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Quantification of a specific protein in a complex sample is a valuable contribution in the field of medical science. Immunoassays use the highly specific antibodies to target specific molecule of interest and analyze its concentration in a sample. Thus, immunoassay can be defined as a biochemical procedure which is used to measure the concentration of specific antigen with a specific antibody. The first immunoassay was developed in 1959 wherein radiolabeled insulin was used to determine the concentration of insulin in human plasma. Radioimmunoassay (RIA) is a medical diagnostic procedure used to measure the concentration of specific antigens by using specific antibodies. RIA is a highly sensitive technique using which any biological substance for which a specific antibody exists can be quantified, in a very minute concentrations. Radioimmunoassay is the first immunoassay technique using which Nano molar and Pico molar concentrations of hormones in biological fluids can be determined. RIA technique relies on a very basic principle of competitive binding where a radioactive antigen competes with non-radioactive antigen for a specific antibody. RIA technique finds application in various areas of disease diagnosis such as it is used in early detection and diagnosis of cancer, it is also used in diagnosis of various other infectious diseases including neurodegenerative disorders. RIA is considered as one of the most pivotal and traditional method used for endocrine disorders diagnosis. In pharmaceutical industry RIA is used for drug testing. The market for RIA is expected to witness a significant growth rate over the forecast period owing to rising use of radioimmunoassay techniques in cancer diagnosis and advancements in medical research.The global radioimmunoassay market is expected to exhibit a single digit CAGR over the forecast period (2016-2026).Radioimmunoassay Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global radioimmunoassay market is expected to experience a considerable growth over the forecast period driven by rising prevalence of cancer and various other infectious diseases. The increasing use of RIA procedures in research centers, contract research organizations and pharmaceutical industries is also driving the overall growth of radioimmunoassay market over the forecast period. Furthermore rising demand for high throughput and automated procedures in research centers and diagnostic labs to ensure patients satisfaction in getting error free results are some of the key factors driving the radioimmunoassay market growth over the forecast period.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1196 Factors responsible for restraining the growth of global radioimmunoassay market include, high cost of the procedure and continuous innovations in various other immunoassay procedures such as ELISA.Radioimmunoassay Market: SegmentationGlobal Radioimmunoassay Marketis segmented on the basis of product, application, end use and geography as following:By ProductKits and ReagentsAnalyzersBy ApplicationScientific ResearchMedical DiagnosisBy End UserHospitalsPharmaceutical and Biotechnology IndustryAcademic Research InstituteContract Research OrganizationsRadioimmunoassay Market: OverviewWith rising incidence of cancer, endocrine disorders along with various other infectious diseases and increased use of radioimmunoassay procedure in pharmaceutical industry for drug testing, the global radioimmunoassay market is expected to have a robust growth over the forecast period (2016-2026). Other factors driving the growth of radioimmunoassay market include rapid advancements in medical research and increased spending in research and development and life science sector. The use of radioimmunoassay in diagnosing neurodegenerative disorders is also fueling the market growth.Radioimmunoassay Market: Region- wise OutlookThe global market for radioimmunoassay is expected to register a healthy CAGR during the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, global Biopsy Device market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.In terms of region Europe accounts for the largest market shares in global radioimmunoassay market owing to advancements in medical research, clinical trials, growing geriatric population with cancer indication. Also prevalence of various other infectious diseases in the region is expected to drive the radioimmunoassay market growth in the near future. North America holds the second largest share in the global radioimmunoassay market. The market for radioimmunoassay in North America is particularly driven by gradually increasing awareness, rising incidence of cancer patients and adoption of advanced technologies in research sectors. Increased investment by government and nongovernment organizations in establishment of research centers is also expected to drive the growth of radioimmunoassay market in North America. Asia pacific is expected to represent lucrative market growth in the radioimmunoassay market owing to rapidly aging population and rise in application of radioimmunoassay technique in cancer diagnosis.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1196 Radioimmunoassay Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in global radioimmunoassay market are DIAsource ImmunoAssays, Beckman Coulter, Inc., IBL Internationa, PerkinElmer, Inc, DRG International, Inc., MP Biomedicals, LLC, Cisbi, Euro Diagnostica AB, DiaSorin S.p.A., EMD Millipore, Izotop, Berthold Technologies GmbH.
Patient Registry Software Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 23:08:33

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Research N Reports announces the addition of a new market research study to its growing market intelligence repository. The new report studies the Global Patient Registry Software Market in detail and presents comprehensive forecasts regarding the markets growth trajectory in the coming years. The report, titled Global Patient Registry Software Market Research Report 2019, is available for sale on the official website of Research N Reports.The Global Patient Registry Software Market Estimated to Grow Progressively at CAGR of +12% during forecast period.Get Sample Copy of this Report @: https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=151697 The micro and macroeconomic factors influencing the growth of the market are covered in detail in this study. Furthermore, the prime strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors dominant in the market have been analyzed on the basis of SWOT analysis. The technological advancements taking place in this market have been presented by detailing their impact on the growth of the market.The Global Patient Registry Software Market can be segmented on the basis of end-use, application, and region. By application, the market is segmented into Patient Registry Software, Patient Registry Software, Patient Registry Software, and others. On the basis of end-use, the Global Market is segmented into Patient Registry Software, Patient Registry Software, and others.Winter Offer, Last Few Days Get 20% OFF on this Premium Report @: https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=151697 Moreover, extensive investments are being made in research and development to enable product enhancements and improvements. With the advent of new technologies on a regular basis, players are striving hard to incorporate the latest technology to gain a competitive edge above the rest.After studying key companies, the report focuses on the startups contributing towards the growth of the market. Possible mergers and acquisitions among the startups and key organizations are identified by the reports authors in the study. Most companies in the Patient Registry Software market are currently engaged in adopting new technologies, strategies, product developments, expansions, and long-term contracts to maintain their dominance in the global market.For More Information: https://www.researchnreports.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=151697
Depending upon the geographic regions Patient handling Equipment market is segmented into seven key regions: Those are North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa.

Patient Handling Equipment

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:36:58

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

Patient handling devices are assistive devices which allows the patients in hospitals and nursing homes and other medical centers to transfer between beds and chair other places. Patient handling equipment designed to help the patients with some mobility but who are lack the strength to control their body movements. The mechanical devices that are used to manual patient handling based on assessment of patient needs mainly based on safety for the caregiver, the patient, and rehabilitation goals. There are a variety of devices are available such as transfer sheets, it enables to minimize manual patient handling during lateral transfers and repositioning and helping to increase patient comfort. Beds that automatically turn patients into a sitting position. Sit and stand assistive devices that helps to patients for change positions. Non-mechanical assist devices Portable passive lifts that are able to turn and reposition patients, pick patients up from the floor, and take patients from ambulances.Patient handling Equipment Market: Drivers and restraintsGlobal Patient handling Equipment market can be driven by following drivers, Patient handling Equipment has gained widespread of acceptance by diverse departments such as rthopedics, Neurology, Critical Care Units, rehabilitation and bariatric surgeries etc., are provides lucrative market opportunities. Patient handling Equipment provides greatest contributions in assisting the patients from one place to another place. Increasing technological innovations in medical field propels the global patient handling equipment market. Major restraints of the market, Patient handling equipment are expensiveRequest Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1201 Patient handling Equipment Market: SegmentationGlobal Patient Handling Equipment Market can be segmented as following typesGlobal Patient handling Equipment by Products:By ProductMedical BedsLong-term care bedsPsychiatric care bedsCurative care bedsOthersWheelchairManual wheelchairPowered WheelchairMechanical EquipmentsNon mechanical equipmentBathroom safety suppliesAmbulatory AidsOthersBy AccessoriesStretcher accessoriesHospital Bed AccessoriesLifting accessoriesTransfer accessoriesEvacuation accessoriesBy End UserHospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentresHome careBy Type of CareCritical careWound careBariatric careOrthopaedic CareNeurologic CareRehabilitationPatient Handling Equipment Market: OverviewIncreasing the demand for advanced technological products in various medical fields and increasing the need of equipment to handle patients with more care are provides a robust market growth. Increasing the technological advancements and applications of these advancements in critical surgeries such orthopedic surgeries and cardiac and bariatric surgeries are propels Patient Handling Equipment market over the forecast period.Patient Handling Equipment Market: Region-Wise OutlookDepending upon the geographic regions Patient handling Equipment market is segmented into seven key regions: Those are North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa.North America dominating the global Patient Handling Equipment market. Increasing awareness among the people towards the use of innovative technologies providing lucrative market. Asian Pacific region market is considered to rapidly evolving healthcare infrastructure, this region is anticipating providing a robust growth of global Patient handling Equipment market over the forecast period.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1201 Patient Handling Equipment Market: Key playersSome of the key players in Market are Stryker Corporation, Handicare, Inc., Prism Medical, Linet, Inc., Mangar International, Inc., Invacare Corporation, Guldmann, Inc., Benmor Medical, Inc. Etac Limited, Joerns Healthcare.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:35:31

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The market for palm sugar is dominated by the Asia Pacific region. Several companies are importing organic palm sugar from Indonesia, India, and Philippines at a very low price and are offering palm sugar with private labelling to other regional markets. Companies are currently focusing on launching palm sugar in different forms, especially the liquid form, and are pumping in investments in research and development for product innovation, with a view to expand their customer base and enhance their regional presence. Insights like these and more are the crux of a new report on the global palm sugar market published by Persistence Market Research. The report titled Palm Sugar Market: Global Industry Analysis (20122016) and Forecast (20172025) tracks the performance of the global market for palm sugar over a period of eight years from 2017 to 2025. The global palm sugar market is estimated to be valued at US$ 1,684.2 Mn by 2017 end, and is forecast to be valued at US$ 2,205.8 Mn by 2025 end. Sales revenue is projected to increase at a CAGR of 3.4% during the forecast period (2017-2025).Global Palm Sugar Market: TrendsGrowing interest and popularity among consumers in organic food productsIncreasing demand for healthier and premium food options such as smoothies and other bakery productsGrowing interest among consumers regarding ethically sourced products, thereby providing opportunities for ethically traded palm sugarMore transparency in e-commerce, internet and online stores accompanied with review sites, thereby making it easy for consumers to compare productsRising trend of consuming products such as pastries, biscuits and cakesRequest for Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11023 Global Palm Sugar Market: Segmental Analysis and ForecastThe global palm sugar market is segmented on the basis of origin, end use, form, and distribution channel. By origin the market is segmented into conventional and organic. The growing demand for organic food products is expected to boost the demand for organic palm sugar across the globe. The organic palm sugar market is estimated to account for a value share of 23.3% by 2017 end, and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.4% in terms of value over the forecast period.On the basis of form the market is segmented into powder, crystal and liquid. The powder segment is expected to account for relatively high value share in the global market by 2025 end, while in terms of value, the liquid segment is expected to expand at a relatively high CAGR over the forecast period.End use segmentation of the global palm sugar market includes food and beverage, foodservice, and household. With more than 80% value share, the household segment is expected to lead the global palm sugar market and register a CAGR of 3.2% in terms of value over the forecast period.The segments by distribution channel comprise direct and indirect segments. In terms of value, the indirect channel segment is projected to be the most attractive market in the global palm sugar market during the forecast period.Global Palm Sugar Market: Forecast Analysis by RegionThe five key geographies of North America, Latin America, Europe, APAC and MEA have been covered in this report. Asia Pacific accounts for the highest market share throughout the forecast period. Indonesia is the largest producer as well as consumer of palm sugar in the Asia Pacific region and controls the dynamics of the global palm sugar market.Request for Report Table of Content (TOC) @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/11023 Global Palm Sugar Market: Key PlayersNavitas Organics, Windmill Organics Ltd, Wholesome Sweeteners, Inc., Asana Foods, Organika Health Products Inc., Betterbody Foods & Nutrition LLC, Big Tree Farms, e Farms, Inc., Royal Pepper Company, Sevenhills Wholefoods, and Phalada Agro Research Foundation are some of the leading companies operating in the global palm sugar market
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Pallet Market: India Industry Analysis, size, sales and Forecast by 2024: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:26:50

The pallet industry in India is soaring at a brisk pace. A pallet is designed to endure heavy load, serving as a rigid base for goods during their transportation and are usually handled by pallet jacks and forklifts. Indias rising economy coupled with higher production volumes of goods is potentially generating business opportunities for pallet manufacturers in the country. In order to manage large scale imports and shipments of consumer goods, industries avail smart logistic services. Hence, the demand for pallets from shipping and logistic industry has significantly increased in the country. Due to the lumpy transport infrastructure in Indian sub-continent, usage of pallet during goods delivery and storage becomes more important.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230031-Pallet-Market Boom in manufacturing sector of the country is fuelling the demand for pallets in the Indian market. Relentless support from the government and a blossoming business environment in the country is unveiling further market opportunities for the manufacturing sector. In addition, implementation of government policies such as Make in India is expected to ensure sustainability of the economic growth in the long run.These economic reforms are expected to bring some good news to the industrial sectors of the country, especially the manufacturing sector. Thus, the thrust to the manufacturing sector has also led to progression of the allied sectors such as hardware, logistics and transport. Off late, the country has witnessed establishment of large warehouses spreading in acres of land, these warehouses need several operational tools, pallets being a primary one. As production volumes in the country rise higher, it will have a direct impact on the demand for pallets. Moreover, stakeholders and manufacturers are strongly emphasizing on safer modules of transportation of materials and consumer goods, which is translating into the growth of the pallets market in India. The aforementioned factors are likely to drive the pallets market in India in the following years to come.Emergence of Logistics and Warehouse Business in India Responsible for the Bulk of Demand for PalletsNoticeably, several new startups are going into logistics, transportation and delivery service. Though the competition in the market is moderate, companies look forward to improve service offerings. Companies are focusing on developing advanced warehouse facilities with features such as auto temperature control and robotics. For instance, Gati Ltd a supply chain solution provider recently developed its first temperature controlled warehouse infrastructure in New Delhi. The warehouse facility is designed to meet the industry standards and will cater to various industry sectors such as pharmaceutical and food and beverage including dairy.The latest warehouse infrastructures have extended capabilities and robust network ensuring enhanced supply chain solutions. This, in turn, is essentially helping businesses to expand significant levels and likewise supporting the growth of logistics industry in India.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230031-Pallet-Market Warehouses provide storage services to a wide range of industries, operational tools such as pallet are important in managing goods and create sections and division between them. In additional, use of pallets allows stress-free movement of goods in bulk amount.TrendsProliferation of large retail or departmental stores in the country has led to a healthy demand for pallet from such outlets. Changing culture of retail business and an evolving market structure is expected to influence the market for pallets in India.ConclusionThe pallet market in India is anticipated to register a healthy growth rate in the coming years. By 2016 end, the pallet market in the country is expected to surpass INR 6,223 Cr, which is close to (US$ 971. Million) by 2024.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230031-Pallet-Market
Depending on geographic regions, global neurodegenerative disease market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Global market for neurodegenerative disease is expected to grow by a CAGR of around 5%. Asia Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth due to large population base over the forecast years.

Neurodegenerative Disease to Expand with Growing Demand for New Technologies

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 12:55:18

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

Neurodegenerative disease or neurodegeneration refers to the progressive damage or wear and tear of the nerve cells. Neurodegenerative disease causes loss of abilities like decision making and eventually memory loss. Neurodegeneration is a broader term which comprises of different disease namely Parkinsons disease, Huntington disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Alzheimers disease. These are the most commonly occurring diseases under the condition Neurodegeneration. Neurodegeneration can be caused due to genetic factor but the proportion is minimal. Major cause of neurodegeneration could be deposition of toxic protein substance in the brain or loss of functionality/improper functioning of mitochondria present in brain. Patients generally show mixture of symptoms for one or more neurodegenerative disease. Currently there is no cure for this condition however specific drugs are present in the market to minimize the symptoms (for example: donepezil and memantine for Alzheimers disease, L-dopa for Parkinsons, riluzole for ALS).Neurodegenerative Disease Market: Drivers & RestraintsNeurodegenerative market is expected to dwell due to continuous advancement in medical technology both for the diagnosis and the treatment of neurological disorders have raised the demand of neurodegenerative drugs. Ageing population is increasing which in turn is leading to increase in the incidence of neurological disorders are some major factors driving the growth of neurodegenerative market. Growing awareness amongst the physicians is helping the market to dwell in developed countries. Developing countries especially Asia Pacific countries, where due to large population the market growth is expected to be significant in the upcoming years. Lack of complete curative treatment measures primarily because of the manifold nature of the disease could possibly hamper the market of neurodegenerative disease market at the global level.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1052 Neurodegenerative Market: SegmentationNeurodegenerative market is classified on the basis of Drug class, indications and geography.Based on Drug class, the global Neurodegenerative disease market is segmented into the following:NMDASSRIsDopamine InhibitorsBased on Indications, the global Neurodegenerative disease market is segmented into the following:Parkinsons diseaseHuntington diseaseAmyotrophic Lateral SclerosisAlzheimers diseaseNeurodegenerative Disease Market: OverviewNeurodegenerative disease market is expected to grow at a significant pace mainly due to increasing cases of neurological disorders. The market is expected to witness advancement in the upcoming years due to launch of new type of drugs. In the Alzheimers market, drugs like GABA receptor modulators, anti-amyloid protein agents and nicotinic and cholinergic receptor agonists are expected to influence the market growth however in the Parkinsons disease market will be driven due to launch of drugs like dopamine receptor agonists and reuptake inhibitors, glutamate receptor modulators, and adrenergic and adenosine antagonists. New players are expected to enter the market in the forecast years due to patent protection loss for major players.Neurodegenerative Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global neurodegenerative disease market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Global market for neurodegenerative disease is expected to grow by a CAGR of around 5%. Asia Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth due to large population base over the forecast years.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1052 Neurodegenerative Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in global Neurodegenerative market are Novartis, Pfizer, Merck Serono, Biogen Idec, TEVA Pharmaceuticals Industries, UCB, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi S.A., GlaxoSmithKline to name a few. Major players will face competition in the upcoming years due to patent protection loss.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:10:02

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Nerve Monitoring allows supervision of nervous system for intraoperative surgeries. Nerve monitoring is an essential part of the surgery also known as intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) or intraoperative neuromonitoring which implements electrophysiological methods like electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and evoked potentials to monitor the functional integrity of certain neural structures. Nerve monitoring devices are used to monitor the neurological functioning. Neurophysiologist keeps a track of the nerve functioning and work as an integral part of the surgical team nowadays to avoid situation like irreversible nerve damage during surgical procedures. Surgical neurophysiology monitoring offers wide range of testing modality. Some of them are mentioned below:SSEP (Somatosensory Evoked Potentials)TCeMEP ( Transcranial Electrical Motor Evoked Potentials)BSEP (Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials)EMG (electromyography)Pedicle Screw StimulationEEG (Electroencephalogram)ECOG (Electrocorticography)Direct Cortical StimulationTCD (Transcranial Doppler)Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-958 Nerve Monitoring Devices Market: Drivers & RestraintsNerve monitoring market is growing due to continuous advancement in medical technology both for the diagnosis and the treatment of neurological disorders have raised the demand of Nerve Monitoring devices. Rise in the ageing population leading to increase in the number of surgical procedures being performed at the global level and increase in the incidence of neurological disorders are some major factors driving the growth of Nerve Monitoring devices market. More awareness amongst the surgeons is helping the market to dwell in developed countries however the market of developed countries are more or less saturated and have a limited growth opportunity as compared to developing countries especially Asia Pacific countries where due to large population the market growth can be significant in the upcoming years. Lack of skilled professionals in the developing countries and poor or unstable reimbursement regulations are hampering the growth of Nerve monitoring devices in developing countries.Nerve Monitoring Devices Market: SegmentationNerve Monitoring Devices market is classified on the basis of product type, modality and geography.Based on product type, the global Nerve Monitoring market is segmented into the following:MonitorsCables, Lead wires, AdaptersElectrodesReusable Surface ElectrodesDisposable Surface ElectrodesBased on modality, the global Nerve Monitoring market is segmented into the following:Electroencephalography (EEG)Electromyography/nerve conduction studies/evoked potential (EMG/NCS/EP)Magnetoencephalography (MEG)Nerve Monitoring Devices Market: OverviewNerve monitoring has become an integral part in surgical procedures like spine, brain, vascular and orthopedic surgeries. Nerve monitoring is essential due to increasing incidence of neurological disorders. Nerve monitoring devices market is well established in the developed countries, however some developing countries, where healthcare sector is not much developed are still using alternatives to nerve monitoring. Majorly this market is driven by after sales service contracts. The software used in Nerve Monitoring devices can be outsourced to the developing countries to offer low cost solutions and help in the development of these high end equipment.Nerve Monitoring Devices Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, global Nerve Monitoring market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the leading region in Nerve Monitoring Devices market due to the high volumes of surgical procedures being performed. Also, the availability of established healthcare infrastructure, high contribution of healthcare to economy, patient compliance are the reasons for the high demand in North America. Europe has the second largest Nerve Monitoring Devices market due to vast technological advancement in terms of healthcare sector. Asia Pacific market is expected to grow at a good rate as compared to NA and Europe as there is ample market opportunity in countries like India and China. Nerve Monitoring Devices market in NA and Europe are almost saturated.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-958 Nerve Monitoring Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in global Nerve Monitoring Devices market are Medtronic, NuVasive, Inc., Magtism, Inomed, NIHON KOHDEN CORPORATION, EMS Biomedical, NeuroSign, Dr. Langer Medical GmbH, Natus Medical Incorporated, Deymed Diagnostic to name a few.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:01:03

Mithra Announces Positive Top-line Results of Estelle

Phase III Oral Contraceptive Study in U.S/Canada

Primary efficacy endpoint indicates excellent contraceptive efficacy, with a Pearl Index (PI) of 2.41 1 per 100 women, in line with expectations

per 100 women, in line with expectations Key secondary endpoints achieved, including excellent bleeding profile, cycle control, quality of life and safety and tolerability

Data in line with previously announced Phase III trial in EU / Russia confirming Estelles  outstanding profile as a novel, next-generation combined oral contraceptive

outstanding profile as a novel, next-generation combined oral contraceptive Filing with U.S. and EU regulatory agencies anticipated by year end





Liege, Belgium, 30 January 2019, 07:00 EST  Mithra (Euronext Brussels: MITRA), a company dedicated to Womens Health, today announced that its Phase III Estelle study conducted in the United States and Canada successfully met its primary efficacy endpoint. Efficacy is well in line with expectations, similar to a recently FDA approved combined hormonal contraceptive (Annovera PI 2.98 [95% Confidence Interval 2.13-4.06]) per 100 woman-years of use2) and to Lo-Loestrin3 (PI 2.92 [95% Confidence Interval 1.94-4.21]), one of the best-selling Combined Oral Contraceptives (COC) in the United States with USD 527.7 million sales in 2018 (15% yoy growth)4. Estelle is Mithras COC candidate, composed of Estetrol (E4) 15 mg and drospirenone (DRSP) 3 mg.

The safety profile is supported by the unique Mode of Action of E4, which is a native estrogen with selective action in tissues. Two earlier Phase II studies conducted by Mithra confirmed E4 has a minimal impact on liver cells and metabolic pathways, including on the coagulation parameters5 resulting in an overall beneficial hemostatic profile. These coagulation parameters are effected more negatively by Ethinyl-Estradiol (EE), present in most oral contraceptives, making Estelle a promising new contraceptive solution for women with a unique benefit/risk profile.

Mitchell Creinin, Director of Family Planning at the University of California, Davis commented: I am excited about the introduction of a truly new estrogen into the field of hormonal contraception. This novel product has great potential based on Phase 2 data which shows less effects on liver metabolism, lipids, and the coagulation profile as compared to contraceptives using ethinyl estradiol. The overall efficacy, safety and excellent cycle control demonstrated in the Phase 3 studies confirms that Estelle offers a truly innovative, next-generation oral contraceptive option.

Francois Fornieri, CEO Mithra Womens Health, commented: We are very pleased with the outcome of the U.S. / Canadian top-line results, which complete the Phase 3 program and clearly demonstrate that Estelle is a novel, next generation oral contraceptive option for women. We are delighted to be one step closer to bringing Estelle to the U.S. market ($5.53 billion6). We believe it has the potential to support healthcare providers and women in their choice of a predictable and effective contraceptive respecting womens wellbeing and lifestyle with the greatest sense of safety.

The study assessed the efficacy, cycle control, general safety and acceptability of Estelle in healthy women aged 16-50 years and involved subject participation for 12 months (13 cycles, 1 cycle = 28 days). Women with a Body Mass index (BMI) up to 35.0 kg/m were included in the study. The primary endpoint was contraceptive efficacy measured by the number of on-treatment pregnancies per 100 women per 12 months of exposure among the women aged 16-35 years old at study entry. Results showed a Pearl Index (PI) of 2.41 (95% confidence interval 1.73-3.88) during 13,979 at risk cycles, in the absence of other contraceptive methods.

Amongst women aged 16-50 years old at study entry, results showed a PI of 2.30 (95% confidence interval 1.67-3.64) during 15,797 cycles, with in the absence of other contraceptive methods. The PI corresponds to a 98% efficacy rate over one year of use, in line with the efficacy goals of the study.

Cycle control and bleeding profile, which are essential to womens adherance, showed an excellent regular bleeding pattern similar to patterns seen with oral contraceptives containing EE7. Safety, acceptability and general well-being of the subjects (measured by two questionnaires) were also analyzed. Results from the MDQ (menstrual distress questionnaire) and QoL (quality of life) questionnaire showed that Estelle is well tolerated by women, while their overall quality of life is maintained. There were no lipid and metabolic changes. These results reinforce the safety profile of Estelle.

********

For more information, please contact:

Francois Fornieri (CEO): +32 4 349 28 22

Jean-Manuel Fontaine (PRO): +32 (0)476 96 54 59

investorrelations@mithra.com

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About Mithra

Mithra (Euronext: MITRA) is dedicated to providing innovation and choice in Womens Health, with a particular focus on fertility, contraception and menopause. Mithras goal is to develop new and improved products that meet womens needs for better safety and convenience. Its two lead development candidates  a fifth generation oral contraceptive Estelle and next-generation hormone therapy Donesta - are built on Mithras unique native estrogen platform, E4 (Estetrol). Mithra also develops, manufactures and markets complex therapeutics and offers partners a complete spectrum of research, development and specialist manufacturing at its CDMO. Mithra was founded in 1999 as a spin-off from the University of Liege by Mr. Francois Fornieri and Prof. Dr. Jean-Michel Foidart. Mithra is headquartered in Liege, Belgium. Further information can be found at: www.mithra.com

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The contents of this announcement include statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words "believes", "estimates," "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "may", "will", "plans", "continue", "ongoing", "potential", "predict", "project", "target", "seek" or "should", and include statements the Company makes concerning the intended results of its strategy. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. The Company's actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.







1 European definition

2 Registered trademark of Therapeutics MD

3 Registered trademark of Allergan Plc

4 Allergan plc 2018 full year earnings release

5 Kluft C et al., Contraception 2017; 95(2):140-7

https://investors.mithra.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-03-08-Hemostasis-ISGE-en-final.pdf

6 IQVIA Market Analysis, January 2019

7 Marr, J., C. Gerlinger, and M. Kunz, A historical cycle control comparison of two drospirenone-containing combined oral contraceptives: ethinylestradiol 30 mug/drospirenone 3 mg administered in a 21/7 regimen versus ethinylestradiol 20 mug/drospirenone 3 mg administered in a 24/4 regimen. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol, 2012. 162(1): p. 91-5.




PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:44:09

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Military personal protective equipment has become a crucial and standard element of soldier equipment. One of the major factor driving the market is the increasing role of ground troops in different parts of the world such as Iraq, Afghanistan and India among others. The demand for military personal protective equipment is anticipated to be driven by modernization initiatives undertaken by several large defense spenders globally and various internal security threats, such as organized crime and terrorism among others.One of the major factor driving the market is the increasing role of ground troops in different parts of the world such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq among others. As of 2014, there were 8 active military conflicts and 10 official wars known by the United States. In addition, there were also other violent clashes relating 64 countries and 576 separatist and militias groups. In 2016, in wars between Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Lake Chad basin and Yemen helps the military personal protective equipment market to grow at a high CAGR which in turn is expected to boost the market.Body armor (IBA), improved outer tactical vest (IOTV), advanced combat helmet (ACH), pelvic protection systems (PPS), life safety jacket, military combat eye protection (MCEP) and others sectors are the various product types of the military personal protective equipment market. Among various product types of the military personal protective equipment market body armor (BA) is the held the major market share in 2015 and expected to be the same during the forecast period of 2016  2024.Request for Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114595/Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market The military personal protective equipment market has been segmented on the basis of application into army, air force, navy and others. Among various application of the military personal protective equipment market army held major market share in 2015 followed by navy and is expected to be remain the same during the forecast period of 2016  2024. Several countries are focusing on manufacturing better military personal protective equipment such as lightweight under suits, ballistic inserts, combat helmets and advanced night vision equipment that provide the benefits of enhanced protection and comfort to ground, navy and air forces. In 2015, the market is expected to be dominated by North America followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. In addition, Asia Pacific occupies more than 20% of the global market share, is driven by developing economies such as India, South Korea, Japan and China among others which are performing soldier modernization programs.By geography, the military personal protective equipment market is classified into five regions namely North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. In 2015, North America holds the largest market share in the military personal protective equipment followed by Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. However, in 2024 Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest market for military personal protective equipment market followed by North America. China held the largest share for the military personal protective equipment market in Asia Pacific in 2015. It is also expected to experience healthy growth in the coming years. Growing research and development activities started by different research organizations acts as a driving factor of the market. In addition, growing concerns over the safety and protection of the forces is expected to propel the growth of the market.Request for Report Discount: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114595/Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market Key players profiled in this report include 3M Ceradyne (United States), ArmorWorks (United States), Eagle Industries Unlimited Inc (United States), BAE Systems (United Kingdom), DSM Dyneema (United States),Armorsource (United States), Du Pont (United States), Honeywell Advanced Fibres and Composites (United States), Revision Military Inc. (United States) and GentexCorporatio Corporation (United States) among others.The segments covered in the Military Personal Protective Equipment market are as follows:Global Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By ProductType Body Armor (IBA) Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Pelvic Protection Systems (PPS) Life Safety Jackets Military Combat Eye Protection (MCEP) OthersGlobal Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By Application Army Air Force Navy OthersGlobal Military Personal Protective Equipment Market: By GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificIndiaChinaJapanRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin America Middle East and AfricaSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesRest of Middle East and AfricaReport Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114595/Military-Personal-Protective-Equipment-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 05:39:20

Increasing inclination towards fuel efficiency is expected to gradually take over the market. Mild hybrid technology outlines the shift towards green environment that is expected to be a major driver for the mild hybrid vehicles market.Growing Demand for Fuel Efficiency, Vehicle Electrification: Key Factors Impacting Accelerating Mild Hybrid Vehicles MarketRequest For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4843 Fuel Efficiency is becoming a major purchasing factor for consumers in order to cut down on fuel spending. Recognizing this scenario, the auto-makers such as Mahindra and Hyundai are shifting towards alternatives that yield similar productivity but with high fuel efficiency. These initiatives are expected to boost the market for mild hybrid vehicles as they are designed for promoting fuel efficiency.Vehicle electrification is the expected to remain a key driver, contributing to the growth of mild hybrid electric vehicles market. Moreover, significant major economies including China and Michigan are going the electrification way, thereby, boosting the market for mild hybrid vehicles market.Geographical Evaluation of Mild Hybrid Vehicles Market Showcases the Key Regions that Offer Future OpportunitiesWith the increasing emphasis gained by electric vehicles in leading economies of regions such Europe, the mild hybrid vehicles market participants are expected to gain major opportunities of sales in the region. For instance, the best-ever year-to-date sales by September-end recorded by Kia Motors Europe facilitated by the increasing sales of their portfolio of electric and hybrid models, showcases the future of electric vehicles in the European market. The increasing sales of hybrid and electric models in this market is expected to present growth avenues for mild hybrid vehicles providers.Government Incentives for Electric Vehicle Purchase to Foster Mild Hybrid Vehicles Market GrowthLeading governments are offering valued perks to the consumers who purchase electric vehicles in order to support and nurture their actions towards a going green. For instance, the U.S. federal government offers an incentive of upto $7500 for qualified electric vehicles. Similarly, the government of China is also taking necessary actions to trigger the purchase of electric vehicles, where the central government initiated a consumer subsidy program. Moreover, the funds offered by German Federation for electric mobility projects under the Clean Air 2017-2020 emergency program also provides major opportunities for mild hybrid vehicles that promote energy and fuel efficiency.New Product Developments Strategy Recognized as a Major Determinant of Success Among Key CompaniesMild hybrid vehicles market players are recognizing the significance of fuel efficiency for which the companies are providing new product offerings to the market. Major players in the mild hybrid vehicles market include Honda Motor Company, Toyota Motor Corporation, Renault-Nissan, Daimler AG, Audi AG, BMW AG, Volvo Group, Volkswagen AG, Groupe PSA, Changan Automobile (Group) Co., Ltd., General Motors Company, and Suzuki Motor Corporation.Amongst the major strategies that enable companies to establish a market footprint, new product development holds an essential place. Mild hybrid vehicles market players are incorporating the mild hybrid technology into their new automotive models. With the new mild hybrid vehicles introduced by automotive giants, the market for mild hybrid vehicles is expected to be flourishing in the coming years.Volkswagen AG has been taking steps towards moving away from the diesel emission scandal that damaged its image in the market where the United States Environmental Protection Agency found the company programming the turbocharged direct injection diesel engines for activating their emission controls during the emission tests only. However moving forward from this the company aims to work towards facilitating electrification in its models by 2030. Volkswagen recently announced that they would introduce new mild hybrid vehicles.Maruti Suzuki also introduced its record breaking new model to the mild hybrid vehicles market which facilitates greater fuel efficiency for the customers that revolutionizes the way vehicles would be driven around the world.Audi AG, a luxury auto-maker has also been exploring the capabilities of mild hybrid vehicles for which the company launched their new Q8 mild hybrid vehicle enabled with mild hybrid technology.Mild Hybrid Vehicles Market Segmentation Helps in Understanding the Major Sub-divisions that are Included in Overall MarketThe mild hybrid vehicles is classified on the basis of capacity, vehicle type, and battery. When segmented based on the capacity, the mild hybrid vehicles market is divided into 24 volt, 12 volt, 48 volt, and others. On the basis of type of vehicle the mild hybrid vehicles market is segmented into LCV, passenger car, and HCV, while the battery type classification includes segments lithium ion, lead based, and others.The research report on mild hybrid vehicles market showcases a comprehensive evaluation of the overall market. It comprises of the facts and historical data, meaningful insights, and industry-validated and statistically-backed data providing a better understanding of the mild hybrid vehicles market. The report includes estimations using adequate set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report on mild hybrid vehicles market provides evaluations and data based on regions, market segments, technology, and applications.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4843 The report on mild hybrid vehicles market encompasses detailed evaluation on:Segments of mild hybrid vehicles marketMild hybrid vehicles Market- Influencing FactorsSize of the mild hybrid vehicles MarketDemand & SupplyRecent Challenges and Trends in the mild hybrid vehicles market
Medical Robots

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:19:30

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

Medical Robot is a robot which enables the surgeons to perform surgeries with more precision. Medical robotics is emerging field. There are a wide variety of medical applications had emerged such as Surgical robots, laboratory robots, telesurgery, remote surgery, and teleconsultation robots, rehabilitation robots to help for the deaf and the blind. Medical robots assist in surgeries and make possible to decrease risk of infection. Medical robots are enables to increases accuracy of surgeons and reduce risk of patients For instance, heart bypass surgery requires, patients chest to be open and that long incision be made. The surgeon first cuts through skin, then tissue, and muscle, fascia, and then reaches to the heart. Through Medical robots it become easy to perform critical surgeries with precision. Medical robots are has advantages such as decrease post-operative pain, decrease risk of infection, decreases blood loss and minimum level of anesthesia. Medical robots have many challenges in the application of robotics in the medical field, such as safety, cost and reluctance to accept this technology.Medical Robots Market: Drivers and restraintsGlobal medical robots market can be driven by following drivers, Medical robots has gained widespread of acceptance by diverse range of fields such as Interventional cardiological surgery, Neurological surgery and orthopedic surgery etc., are provides lucrative market opportunities. Medical robots provides greatest contributions in more complex cases with more precision. Increasing technological innovations in medical field propels the global medical robots market. Major restraints of the market, Medical robots are expensive and need a technical professionals to perform surgeries.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1181 Medical Robots Market: SegmentationGlobal Medical Robots Market can be segmented as following typesGlobal Medical Robots by Products:Instruments and AccessoriesRobotic SystemsSurgical RobotsNeurological Surgery Robotic SystemsCardiology Surgery Robotic SystemsLaparoscopic Surgical Robotic SystemsOrthopaedic Surgical Robotic SystemsSteerable RoboticsRehabilitation RobotsTherapeutic RobotsProsthetic RobotsAssistive RobotsExoskeleton RobotsNon-invasive Radiosurgery RobotsHospital and Pharmacy automation robotsPharmacy automation robotsIV RobotsGlobal Medical Robots Market, by ApplicationNeurology ApplicationsOrthopaedic ApplicationsCardiology ApplicationsLaparoscopic ApplicationsOther ApplicationsMedical Robots Market: OverviewIncreasing the demand for advanced treatment methods for various severe diseases, increasing the prevalence of cardiac and neurological disorders and cancer are provides a robust market growth. Increasing the technological advancements and applications of these advancements in critical surgeries propels medical robots market over the forecast period.Medical Robots Market: Region-Wise OutlookDepending upon the geographic regions medical robots market is segmented into seven key regions: Those are North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa.North America dominating the global medical robots market. Increasing awareness among the people towards the use of innovative technologies providing lucrative market. Asian Pacific region market is considered to rapidly evolving healthcare infrastructure, this region is anticipating providing a robust growth of global medical robots market.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1181 Medical Robots Market: Key playersSome of the key players in Market are Stryker Corporation, Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Houston Medical Robotics, Inc., Hansen Medical, Inc., Kirbey lester, Otto Bock Healthcare, Kinova robotics, Varian Medical Systems, Hocoma AG, Vecna Robotics, Globus Medical, IRobot Corporatin, Titan Medical, Inc, KB Medical S.A.
Marine Sealed Dock Doors Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:43:01

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305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751

Marine sealed dock doors are basically designed for transom access and various other locations, where watertight integrity is critical. Further, the marine sealed dock doors are coated with marine grade colour finishes, whereas use of galvanised and stainless steel and zinc coating provides an extended product life in harsh conditions. Further, the doors come with complete weather seals that are installed in aluminium sealed threshold, to prevent the water egress.Marine sealed dock doors are mainly manufactured with the precision components of steel, aluminium, stainless steel and other materials, etc. There are various types of marine sealed dock doors available in the market, which include bifold, hydraulic, rolling, etc. Also, the doors are available in various size structures whether its dry stacking/dry storage to dockyards to manufacturing facilities, performance and reliability are of paramount importance.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/22009 Global Marine Sealed Dock Doors Market: SegmentationThe global marine sealed dock doors market can be segmented on the basis of product type and material type.On the basis of product type, the global marine sealed dock doors market can be segmented as:HydraulicBifoldRollingOn the basis of material type, the global marine sealed dock doors market can be segmented as:AluminiumStainless SteelGlobal Marine Sealed Dock Doors Market: DynamicsThe naval sector is evolving in response to various social, demographic, economic, political and technological trends, from the cargo routes to shipbuilding to the future of seafaring. These trends are critical in order to improve the performance of the industrys investment and operational efficiency as well. Thus, growing marine industry is pushing the demand for the marine sealed dock doors across the globe.Moreover, rising seaborne trade activities across the globe are supporting the demand for marine equipment, for instance, seaborne trade between the Far East and Latin America, and Far East and Middle East. Strong growth is expected in the trade routes across these regions, which will drive the demand for marine sealed dock doors.Requirement of skilled engineers, painters, fabricators and craftsmen utilizing the latest designing software is expected to be one of the major challenges in the global marine sealed dock doors market.Manufacturers of marine sealed dock doors are found to be involved in the development of fully assembled and ready to install doors that saves both money and time.Global Marine Sealed Dock Doors Market: Regional OutlookAs far as regions are considered, globally the marine sealed dock doors market is expected to be dominated by the Asia Pacific region. Owing to the reason that, China and India are the two most populous countries in the world and accounts for more than one-third of the worlds population. Also, growing economy of the countries such as China, Vietnam, India, etc. is expected to push the growth of the marine industry and in turn drive the demand for marine sealed dock doors in the region. North America and Europe are expected to grow at a moderate rate in the market over the near future. Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are projected to grow at slow rate in the market over the next decade.Global Marine Sealed Dock Doors Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants involved in the global marine sealed dock doors market include AdvanTec Marine, DL Manufacturing, Inc., Well Bilt Industries, BEACON INDUSTRIES, INC., Shanghai Zhiyou Marine & Offshore Equipment Co., Ltd., NGF Industrial Doors.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/22009
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:31:14

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Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.comEmail: sales@researchreportinsights.com+1-631-721-42016317214201

The worldwide luxury market comprises of nine sectors including personal luxury goods, personal cars, luxury hospitality, fine food, luxury cruises, fine wine and spirits, private jet, yachts and luxury furniture. Out of these sectors, luxury furniture has exhibited huge market attractiveness everywhere throughout the world. Luxury furniture raises the artistic value of hotels, restaurants, offices and homes notwithstanding different indoor and outdoor spaces. In the course of recent years, the noteworthy development in real estate industry encouraged the expansion of luxury furniture market. Development of individuals from rural to urban territories and tendency in the individual disposable income is fortifying the development of the worldwide luxury furniture market. Rising ecological awareness among individuals is considered to prompt individuals rising interest for eco-friendly luxury furniture everywhere throughout the world till 2025. Other than this, increasing infiltration of online retailing all over the world is anticipated to additionally boost the worldwide luxury furniture market. Transform in the way of life alongside increasing disposable income would give remarkable prospects in the worldwide luxury furniture market over the years to come.Higher media infiltration, organized retailing, increasing the effect of globalization and vigorous development in the real estate sector are a few of the main considerations foreseen to encourage the development of luxury furniture market. Aside from this, increasing trend of modular kitchen is moreover fortifying the requirement for luxury furniture market as well as is anticipated to prompt the market.Request For Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124653/Luxury-Furniture-Market Among every one of the regions, Europe was conceived to gain the most in the worldwide luxury furniture market during 2014. China is anticipated to be the quickly developing furniture market in the future that will drive the overall Asia market for luxury furniture. Latin America market is likewise foreseen to exhibit quick development throughout the following couple of years. The prerequisite of luxury furniture particularly in the hospitality segment in the African region as well as the Middle East region is anticipated to drive the market of this region in future.The prominent market players identified all over the value chain of worldwide luxury furniture market comprise Valderamobili, Muebles Pico, Laura Ashley Folding Plc, Scavolini, Henredon Furniture Industries Inc., Nella Vetrina, along with others. It has been discovered that furniture producers are implicated in relation to the diminution in carbon footprints as well as initiated contributing to eco-friendly furniture. The worldwide market for luxury furniture is extremely competitive with a huge number of market players (both big and small) leading the industry. In the approaching few years, several furniture makers are anticipated to come into in this market.Request Report For Toc: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124653/Luxury-Furniture-Market The luxury furniture market is probably going to foresee a firm growth in the approaching years because of higher customer awareness. The market has been experiencing a noteworthy change as distribution channels are extending. Enhancing visibility of luxury furniture brands in shopping centers, malls as well as through online mediums has additionally profited the worldwide market. Besides, the enhancing disposable incomes and the growing need to coordinate a higher expectation for lifestyle conjointly impelled the requirement for luxury furniture products in the worldwide market. The requirement for luxury furniture is likewise slated to ascend as the economies limp back to commonality.The extension of the real estate market is likewise anticipated to positively affect the general market. The requirement for luxury furniture in the hospitality segment, for example, restaurants along with hotels is anticipated to boost the market. Furthermore, renovation and restoration of residential market are likewise going to win the market players in the worldwide market a range of new buyersReport Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124653/Luxury-Furniture-Market
* China on Tuesday (January 29) strongly urged the United States to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., according to a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

* US President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to deliver the State of the Union address on February 5.

* A Russian Su-27 fighter intercepted a US reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea approaching the Russian border, the Russian Defense Ministry said on January 28.

* The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) of China on January 29 started reviewing a new draft of the foreign investment law, the latest move to promote the country's opening-up initiative.

* The United States on January 28 slapped sanctions on a state-owned oil firm in Venezuela. The sanctions on Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., or known as PDVSA, will block US$7 billion in assets and could result in US$11 billion in lost sales over the next year, US National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters at a White House briefing.

* British lawmakers will have the opportunity to vote on up to seven proposed changes to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal on January 29, the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow said.

* Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched his bid for a second five-year term in front of thousands of supporters on January 29, ahead of a tight election race in March.

*Jordan will host a meeting for foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt on January 31 to explore regional developments and bilateral ties.

* Pakistan and Russia on January 29 agreed to continue regular consultations on Afghan peace process and support regional initiatives to bring lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said.

* The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on January 29 that 130 illegal immigrants were evacuated from Libya to Niger.

* Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev called on January 29 for fostering the security and military cooperation with Egypt, official news agency MENA reported.

* Arab League (AL) Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and the visiting Russia's Envoy to the Middle East Mikhail Bogdanov discussed on January 29 the latest developments in the region.

* Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on January 29 hailed the economic cooperation deals between his country and Iran as a strong economic base to face "the economic war launched by the West," according to the state news agency SANA.

* A senior Iranian security official said here Tuesday that the Islamic republic has no plan to boost the range of its missiles, official IRNA news agency reported.

* Turkish prosecutors on January 29 issued detention warrants for at least 51 police officers over their alleged links to a group blamed for a coup bid in 2016.

* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued on January 28 evening a presidential decree to stop the implementation and amendment of the controversial social security law.

* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi met in Jerusalem on January 28 to discuss economic cooperation and regional threats.

* The death toll from Brazil's mining dam collapse in southeastern Minas Gerais state has reached 65, local authorities said on January 28.

*At least 15 people, including six policemen, were injured Tuesday in a terrorist attack on a police office in Loralai district in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, police and hospital officials said.
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Lecithin Market: Global Industry Analysis, size, sales and Forecast by 2024: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 17:57:45

According to a Research Report Insights (RRI) report, the global market for lecithin is anticipated to reflect a CAGR of over 5% during 2016-2014. In 2015, the market was estimated at US$ 770.5 Million and is expected to stand at US$ 1225 Million in terms of value by the end of 2024.Lecithin is used as a food additive and food emulsifier in several food items in order to add desirable attributes for making them more appealing to the consumers. As an emulsifier lecithin enhances the texture of food items such as in salad dressing. Growing preference for low-calorie food and increasing demand for packaged or convenience food across the globe are the two major factors expected to drive the growth of global lecithin market. Amongst various food emulsifier products, demand for lecithin is anticipated to relatively higher in the near future.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230025-Lecithin-Market Based on source type, the global market for lecithin has been segmented into sunflower, soya bean, and others. Soya bean is expected to be the largest segment of the market and is anticipated to witness a robust growth.Based on form type, the market has been segmented into powder, granules and liquid. In terms of revenue, liquid segment is expected to account for the largest share. The segment is closely followed by powder and granules segment.By applications, the market has been segmented into pharmaceuticals, animal feed, food & beverage, industrial purpose and cosmetics. The food & beverage is expected to be the leading segment over the forecast period owing to the recent inclination of consumers towards natural ingredients for various food items. Food manufacturers are focusing on offering food products without GMO (genetically modified organism) ingredients to meet the expectation of the consumers. Moreover, food processing companies are launching new products to suit the growing demand for healthy ingredients in convenience food such as ready-to-eat items. According to US FDA, partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) do not fall under the category of Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) food items.Likewise, food manufacturers are emphasizing on developing non-GMO ingredients and raw materials substitutes. Further, most food processing companies are also focusing on production volume expansion. Higher production of lecithin will enable manufacturers to serve a larger base of customers and impact the price margins of lecithin across the globe.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230025-Lecithin-Market On the basis of region, the global market for lecithin has been segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, are anticipated to register strong growth rates during the forecast period. In 2016, North America is expected to account for the highest share of the market, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific respectively. In addition, the North America is expected to continue as the leading market over 2024 and is anticipated to account for over 37% share of the market in revenues. Demand for lecithin is expected to grow significantly in Asia Pacific during the forecast period. Countries such as China and India is expected to reflect an overwhelming demand for lecithin, which in turn is will support the market growth in the region.Key PlayersKey players operating in the global market for lecithin includes Cargill, Inc., Sternchemie GmbH & Co. KG, American Lecithin Company, Thew Arnott & Co. Ltd., Lipoid GmbH, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co, Archer Daniels Midland Company, NOW Foods, and Bunge Limited. Most of these companies the formulating strategies and actively focusing on better product offeringReport Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230025-Lecithin-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:34:35

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# 627 Words

Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.comEmail: sales@researchreportinsights.com+1-631-721-42016317214201

The food sector is considered to represent a noteworthy share as far as utilization in the worldwide industrial starch market. They are utilized in producing different products in the food sector, for example, confectionaries, bakery products, canned fruits and jams, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and commercial caramel. The food and beverages market was reported to lead the worldwide industrial starch market in 2015. The product is utilized in desserts, in the form of a thickening agent with the expansion of milk or chilly water. So also, gravy granules or cheese sauce granules might be thickened with boiling water without the product going knotty.The rising utilization of industrial starch in the form of adhesives in customer products and packaging sector is likely to enhance the expansion of the worldwide industrial starch market. The rising trend of biomaterials and biofuels, as well as the utilization of starch in this sector, is considered to fuel the market growth. A high requirement from a variety of end-use sectors comprising pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, drilling and oil, as well as paper is imagined to bode on form for market growth.On the other hand, the use of resin glue as a substitute for starch in textile and paper sector is anticipated to impede the development of the worldwide market for industrial starch.Request For Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124654/Industrial-Starch-Market Starch is anticipated to foresee considerable development over the years to come. Little factories located near farms for starch making from root crops has aided in decreasing overheads, logistics costs and transportation and enhancing effectiveness. India is one of the main manufacturers of textile raw material in the Asia Pacific region.APEJ is gaining traction in the market for industrial starch on the basis of consumption. This is because of the expansion of end-use sectors for instance food, paper and textile sector in the growing clustering of the region. North America as well is gaining traction in the industrial starch market, as a result of the fast expansion of the industrial packaging in the region. On the other hand, Latin America is considered to gain higher revenues over the years to come, owing to the rising requirement for processed food. Brazil is also considered as the foremost producer of corn as well as thus accounts for noteworthy in starch production. The rising industrial packaging sector and end-use sectors in Western Europe are probable to grow the industrial starch market share in the region.Request Report For Toc: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124654/Industrial-Starch-Market Industrial starches are in general made from wheat and maize on account of low cost along with their easiness of processing and availability. Small-scale mill proprietors act a critical role by adding collaboration with big-scale producers as contract producers. Companies are centering on r&d to employ fresh processing technologies to increase production capabilities and properties. A few of the foremost players in the worldwide industrial starch market are Tate & Lyle, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill, Incorporated, Grain Processing Corporation, Universal Starch Chem Allied Ltd., Manildra Group, GreenTech Industries Ltd., EVEREST STARCH (IND) PVT.LTD ., Bangkok Starch Industrial Co., Ltd. and Karandikars Cashell Private Limited.In 2015, Cargill Inc. was amongst the top market players. The company caters products for beverages, personal care, confectionery, food, and snacks. In July 2015, Cargill presented an instantaneous modified starch named C PulpTex 12931. This item could stand firm inconsiderate processing conditions as well as could improve the texture of soups, condiments, and sauces. Moreover, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) extends starch products extensively employed to widen the shelf life of food products. During August 2015, the ADM opened merchandizing and distribution offices in Guatemala and El Salvador to increase its footprint in Central America.Report Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124654/Industrial-Starch-Market
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Industrial Nailers Market : Global Industry Analysis 2013 - 2017 and Opportunity Assessment; 2018 - 2028 " report to their offering.

Industrial Nailers Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 12:01:04

Industrial nailers are high-end professional hand tools used for sheathing, subflooring, roof decking, external decks, siding, fencing, furring, exterior trim, strapping, and others. Industrial nailers, popularly known as nail guns, are operated pneumatically or via electricity. Pneumatic industrial nailers are operated through compressed air or high combustible gases such as propane and butane. The prime use of industrial nailers lies in manufacturing, metalworking, woodworking, packaging, and construction. These nail guns are light weight with a compact design, and they are maintenance-free equipment with automatically triggered lock systems.Industrial Nailers Market: Drivers and ChallengesThe industrial nailers are expected to gain significant recognition across various industries, as the adoption of this tool helps in time reduction, thereby increasing the productivity of a manufacturing or other similar facility. Also, their level of sturdiness and reliability has lifted their demand in the global industrial nailers market, and are expected to witness an above-average trade over the forecast period. Industrial nailers are very efficient, due to which, they might replace a couple of industrial adjustable hand tools such as hammers in various applications (especially metalworking), thereby gaining preference among professionals.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7480 Another prime factor attributed to the growth of the industrial nailers market is industrialization, which, in turn, has resulted into diversification of manufacturing demand, massification of manufacturing demand, and decline in the prices of massified goods. Owing to these factors, the global industrial nailers market is estimated to create compelling opportunities throughout the forecasted period.However, while employing industrial nailers, mandatory safety precautions are needed. Further, it is preferred that industrial nailers are operated by professionals. Thus, these factors might dampen the market for industrial nailers during the forecast period. Yet, industrial nailer manufacturers have started production with muzzles, aiming to increase the safety level that might eliminate the restraining factors of the market.Global Industrial Nailers: Market SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global industrial nailers market has been segmented as:Coil NailersFraming NailersFinish NailersSiding NailersOthersOn the basis of operation, the global industrial nailers market has been segmented as:Pneumatic Industrial NailersElectric Industrial NailersOn the basis of end use, the global industrial nailers market has been segmented as:PackagingManufacturingConstructionWood WorkingMetal WorkingOthersIndustrial Nailers Market: Regional OverviewIn North America the primary driver of the market is the growing manufacturing and packaging industry. Further, North America and Western Europe are inclined towards technological advancements, which, in turn, is anticipated to drive the traffic of industrial nailers in these regions over the forecast period. Thus, developed countries or regions are expected to remain dominant in the global market, but the global industrial nailers markets gravity has begun to shift towards developing economies such as China and India. Furthermore, the inclusive and sustainable development of various industries such as construction in China, India, and South East Asia, and the shifting of manufacturing facilities in these regions is likely to fuel the business of industrial nailers in the coming years. Moreover, Japan is expected experience sluggish growth in the market, owing to its dependence on exports, and the Middle East Africa & Latin America are anticipated to experience moderate growth over the projected period in the global industrial nailers market, owning to increasing construction activities due to urbanization.Request Report for TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7480 Global Industrial Nailers Market: Key PlayersThe industrial nailers market is expected to be fairly fragmented, owing to a vast number of local as well as global manufacturers. Examples of some of the market participants in the global industrial nailers market identified across the value chain include:Hitachi Koki USA, Ltd.Aerosmith FasteningBehrens AG (BeA)DEWALTTHE BOSTON WIRE STITCHERAPACH INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.MAX Co., Ltd.Raimund Beck KGJ AIR
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 05:40:01

Motors, being vital components in manufacturing units, have witnessed an increase in demand across several industries including construction, automotive, agriculture, and other industrial sectors. Application of electrical motors for being a power-source in steam-ships and industrial plants is a key factor pushing the application of industrial motors. Moreover, the overall industrial landscape witnessed a paradigm shift from traditional motors to full electric alternatives, thereby, pushing for compact and efficient industrial motors. Additionally, the last few decades saw a greater importance placed on environmental safety translating into stringent norms and regulations.Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5117 Companies to Harness the Industrial Motors Market PotentialThe industrial motors market has witnessed major transformations with the innovations introduced in the market. The manufacturers of industrial motors are leveraging the industrial transformations to develop enhanced industrial motors that could provide improved performance efficiency. With improved technological improvements, industrial motors manufacturers are also working toward reducing the size of the industrial motors. For instance, the supplier of industrial components, Kollmorgen recently started shipping its new compact-sized and powerful servo motorsNovel Innovations in Brushless DC Motors to Transform Industrial Motors LandscapeDC motors are likely to be highly used industrial motors as these motors have a simple design and they offer various benefits including low maintenance, high efficiency, and a longer life. Owing to this, various innovations are being made for the enhancement of such motors. For instance, Ablic, a Japanese chip-making company has developed a zero-crossing latch chip, which the company claims that it would significantly improve the design flexibility for brushless DC industrial motors.Promising opportunities for Key Manufacturers Spotted in Asian EconomiesThe manufacturers of motors have been focusing on the key regions that allow them to gain major profits in the emerging countries. The use of motors in the flourishing industries and extensive application segments in major economies of regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific is expected to project major investment opportunities for the key players in the market.For instance, Teco, a leading player in the industrial motors market is looking forward to expanding its capabilities for the Asia Pacific region, with their new manufacturing plant in the Vietnam. The company looks forward to tap into the market in South-east Asia with this plant whose annual production capability would be of 300,000 small industrial motors.Manufacturers to Focus on the Flourishing European RegionCompanies are seen targeting the European market for industrial motors owning to the increasing opportunities reflected in the region. With the help of key strategies such as expansion and acquisition, the industrial motors manufacturers are moving towards gaining a significant share in the European market. For example, the Nidec Corporation recently acquired complete ownership interest of 100 percent from its shareholders. This would create a crucial business combination, allowing the company to add new products while focusing on the European market to strengthen their motor sales.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5117 Transforming Efficiency Standards to Push High-Efficiency Motors in the MarketWhere countries such as India are banning the use of low efficiency motors, the manufacturers in the industrial motors market are focusing on new innovative technologies that could help the efficiency of the motors.ABB Group, an industrial motors market player focuses on these changing standards of efficiency. This could also act as an opportunity for shifting towards IE2-efficiency versions of industrial motors.Wolong Electric Group has went on to acquire the business of mid and low voltage industrial motors business of GE. This acquisition manufacturing, designing, development, and sales of these motors.Emerson, a company recognized in the industrial motors market has gained major end-market sales, which showcases its continual growth.
Research Report Insights

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 10:01:22

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# 636 Words

Research Report Insights42 joseph street,Portcarling P0B 1J0,Muskoka, OntarioT: +1-631-721-4201Manager6317214201

Today, there is an unprecedented economic pressure on clinical device manufacturers, payors as well as healthcare providers due to rapid radical change in the healthcare industry. Actually medical technology is experiencing a major shift from expensive healthcare innovation to enhanced productivity solutions, improved outcomes and cost reduction. Remote monitoring is the major element in this shift. The merging of pervasive cloud technology, noninvasive biosensors, wireless networks, and miniaturization is promptly introducing the patients monitoring concept. This kind of convergence proffers major price competences to the system. As per the Research Report Insights (RRI), the global remote patient monitoring devices market is anticipated to see a strong growth between 2017 and 2024. By 2024 end, the global remote patient monitoring devices market is estimated to reach US$ 1,502.9 Million revenue.From the bang of wellness applications to chronic illness management, industry leaders to start-ups and remote monitoring to innovative software solutions, healthcare innovation in healthcare industry is rushing to support a trade that is facing challenges related to rising tension among increasing demand and tightening capacity as well as growing care cost and new models of reimbursement aiming towards controlling costs.Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is an ambulatory healthcare allowing patient to perform his routine test and then send that data to healthcare professional by using mobile medical device. It is also known as homecare tele-health. It uses the base of digital technology for gathering medical and several other health data from people at different locations and communicating through electronic medical mobile device.Request For Report Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114693/Remote-Patient-Monitoring-Device-Market Market DriversFactors that are boosting the revenue growth of the global market of remote patient monitoring device include rising availability of solutions that effective in treatment and growing expenditure on healthcare. Increase in the geriatric population who have chronic diseases are propelling the demand of RPM devices which in turn driving the market growth. Moreover, growing awareness among patients as well as doctors regarding RPM devices and chronic diseases diagnosis in rural areas based on opinions due to shortage of standard diagnostic tests is further fueling the revenue growth of the global RPM device market in the coming years.However, shortage of skilled professionals to help with RPM devices is hindering the market growth of remote patient monitoring device globally. Lack of awareness regarding RPM devices as well as insufficiency while maintaining the security and privacy of stored data and lack of regularity in functionality of device are the major factors hampering the global market of remote patient monitoring device.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114693/Remote-Patient-Monitoring-Device-Market Globally, the segmentation of RPM device market is based on product, application, end user and regions. Based on product, the global market of remote patient monitoring device is segmented as Respiratory Monitors, Cardiac Monitors and Hematological Monitors. On the basis of application, the global market of remote patient monitoring device is segmented as Diabetes, Chronic respiratory diseases, Cardiac Arrhythmia, Sleep apnea, Ischemic diseases, Hypertension and Hyperlipidemia. While based on end use, the global market of remote patient monitoring device is segmented as Long-term Care Centers, Hospitals and Homecare Settings.Regionally, the global market of remote patient monitoring device is segmented as APEJ, North America, Europe, Latin America and MEA. North America will dominate the global market of RPM device in terms of value and will exhibit revenue share of 31.4% by the end of 2016. While the Europe market is estimated to exhibit 22.8% revenue share of the global market of RPM device by the end of 2016.Major PlayersThe leading companies operating in the global remote patient monitoring device market are Medtronic, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Boston Scientific Corporation, St. Jude Medical, LifeWatch AG, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Nihon Kohden Corporation, and Abbott Laboratories.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114693/Remote-Patient-Monitoring-Device-Market
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Heat Shrink Tubes Market : Global Industry Analysis 2013 - 2017 and Opportunity Assessment; 2018 - 2028 " report to their offering.

Heat Shrink Tubes Market

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 12:02:57

Heat Shrink Tubes are plastic tubes commonly used in cable management solutions. Heat shrink tubes are used to cover open wires/cables as well as connect wire/cable joints and terminals or coat wire/cable terminations. Heat shrink tubes protect the covered sections from the external environment. Heat shrink tubes are manufactured using a variety of chemical compositions, depending on the application they are being designed for. Heat shrink tubes are generally made from thermoplastics, such as polyvinyl chloride, polyolefin, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and others. The peculiar property of heat shrink tubes material is that they shrink on the application of heat.The amount of heat required to heat shrink any particular variety of heat shrink tubes and the extent to which shrinkage occurs, varies from product to product. Shrink ratio is the term used to denote the extent of shrinkage a product will undergo, compared to its original size, on application of heat. In a typical joint covering application, heat shrink tubes are slid over the area required to be covered and placed in position with adequate accuracy. Then heat is applied externally by a skilled technician, using devices, such as a hot air gun. Heat shrink tubes then shrink and form a tight and fully fitting cover over the underlying wire, cable or joint. Thus, heat shrink tubes serve the purpose of protecting wires & cables from damage, corrosion, extreme temperatures and other hazardous external factors.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7481 Considering these aspects of the Heat Shrink Tubes, the study of the trends in the Heat Shrink Tubes market becomes an important read.Heat Shrink Tubes Market:SegmentationOn the basis of material type, the Heat Shrink Tubes market can be segmented as:PolyolefinsFluoropolymersPolyvinyl chloridePolychloropreneOthersOn the basis of end users, the Heat Shrink Tubes market can be segmented as:PowerAutomotiveAviationMarineManufacturingCommercial & ResidentialOthersOn the basis of product type, the Heat Shrink Tubes market can be segmented as:SpoolsPre-cut LengthsOthersHeat Shrink Tubes Market:DynamicsThere is growing demand for Heat Shrink Tubes as it is a reliable solution for the protection and joining of cabling and wiring networks. Heat shrink tubes also offer other benefits for cable management. Heat shrink tubes are available in different colors, for helping color code and organize large number of cables, thereby simplifying not only installation, but also maintenance and repair. The strength and ruggedness of heat shrink tubes also relieve cable stress and provide support in moving parts. Heat shrink tubes help provide insulation to cabling systems to prevent current discharge and any related mishaps. Advancements in materials technology have made available high quality tubing products, with enhanced performance and durability in tough external environments, thereby helping the growth of Heat Shrink Tubes market. Also, heat shrink tubes are available with a solder tube beneath, which provides electrical joints between wires when heat shrink is applied, thus eliminating the need for separately soldering wires before covering the joints. All of these benefits, combined with growing end use industry demand, will drive growth of the heat shrink tubes market.Heat Shrink Tubes Market:Regional OutlookThe demand for Heat Shrink Tubes is set to grow at a robust pace in the next five to ten years as the demand for cabling, wiring and cable management grows across all sectors. Asia Pacific region is expected to be significant for Heat Shrink Tubes market as it is witnessing rapidly increasing electricity demand and continuously expanding transmission & distribution networks. Other end use sectors, such as automotive production and industrial infrastructure, are also witnessing strong growth in the region, which will positively impact demand for heat shrink tubes. Europe and North America are also large markets for Heat Shrink Tubes with ongoing upgrades of old cabling infrastructure, which is close to the end of its usable life. Regions with increasing energy demand, such as Middle East & Africa, will also be important for new opportunities or manufacturers. China, India, Japan, the US, the UK, Germany and Saudi Arabia are some of the key countries to watch in the Heat Shrink Tubes market.Request Report for TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7481 Heat Shrink Tubes Market:Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified in the Heat Shrink Tubes market include:3M CompanyTE ConnectivityPrysmian GroupABB LtdNexans SAHellermannTytonQualtek Energy CorporationHilltop Products LtdEssentra plcAlpha WireInsultab IncSumitomo Electric Industries, LtdGV Kinsman Pty LtdThomas & Betts
Research Report Insights

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 10:19:05

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6317214201

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# 709 Words

Research Report Insights42 joseph street,Portcarling P0B 1J0,Muskoka, OntarioT: +1-631-721-4201Manager6317214201

Research Report Insights (RRI) delivers key insights on the global hand tools market in its latest report titled Hand Tools Market by 2027. The long-term outlook on the global hand tools market remains positive, with market value expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.9% by 2027. Among application, the household & DIY segment is expected to expand at a significant CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period. Among product type, the metal cutting tools segment is anticipated to witness higher CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period. Global sales offhand tools is estimated to be valued at US$ 15,642.8 Mn by the end of 2017, witnessing a Y-o-Y growth of 3.9% over the year 2016. North America is estimated to account for a value share of 33.3% in the global hand tools market by 2017 end and it is anticipated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period.Hand Tools has been identified as one of the most profitable and consistently performing industry despite being low profile. Use of hand tools is largely affected by the demographic conditions with majority of consumers utilizing hand tools for several DIY (do it yourself) and remodeling activities. On the other hand, in industries use of hand tools has been largely characterized by companies looking for state of art technology to produce high quality products. To respond to the needs of industries, producers are aggressively focusing towards product innovation to satisfy the needs of different customers. One of the several areas of product innovation where companies are primarily focusing is ergonomic design of hand tools to make it more precise and comfortable to operate. Industrial expansion worldwide is primarily driving the demand for hand tools since adoption of hand tools for several maintenance purpose is continuously increasing. Further, emerging demand of hand tools from automotive repair and maintenance industry has also witnessed the growth of high precision hand tools.Request For Report Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market However, the global hand tools market is expected to face certain challenges. Consumer shifting preference towards power tools mainly due to fast and easy operating feature is primarily restricting the growth of the market. Moreover, raw material price rise is also identified as the challenge for the companies to maintain price quality ratio of hand tools primarily during shifting trend toward adoption of power tools. The segment is anticipated to account for a market value of more than US$ 9,000 Mn in 2017 and is anticipated to be valued in excess of US$ 12 Bn by 2027 end, expanding at a CAGR of 3.9% during the projected period.Segmentation analysisOn the basis of product type, the general purpose tools segment is anticipated to continue to dominate the market in terms of value over the forecast periodOn the basis of application, the industrial segment is anticipated to dominate the market in terms of value. This segment accounted for 59.9% value share in 2015On the basis of sales channel, the online sales segment is expected to be the most attractive in terms of CAGR index. The growth of this segment is due to rising penetration of e-commerce and increasing demand for cross border products among consumers.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market In terms of sales channel, retail segment is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. Mass merchant retailers selling product at price below industry average in order to drive their sales is primarily fuelling the growth of this segment.Regional analysisNorth America and Western Europe are estimated to collectively account for 63.8% value share in the global hand tools market by the end of 2017. The North America hand tools market is expected to remain dominant over the forecast period. Although power tools are continuously replacing hand tools in North America and Western Europe, increasing product innovations and companies aggressive expenditure in R & D is expected to propel the growth of the market. Mexico is expected to hold dominant revenue share in the Latin America hand tools market over the forecast period. This is primarily due to higher per capita consumption of hand tools. Sales of hand tools in APEJ is expected to increase to US$ 3,916.8 Mn by 2027 end from US$ 2,186.0 in 2017.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114717/Cosmetic-Ingredients-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:45:55

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# 689 Words

Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

Driven by growing popularity across the globe and steady adoption by the F&B industry, global tahini market volumes are estimated to surpass 314 thousand tonnes in 2016, up from nearly 305 thousand tonnes in 2015. According to the latest report published by Persistence Market Research titled Global Market Study on Tahini: Paste and Spreads Product Type Segment Projected to Remain the Largest Segment During the Forecast Period, global volumes are projected to reach 423,854 tonnes in 2025.Besides the availability of myriad flavors, rising adoption by local eateries are most likely to impact the global tahini market.  Market Research Expert, Persistence Market ResearchGrowing popularity of authentic Middle Eastern food flavors is expected to escalate the demand for tahini-based products, such as hummus and tahini spread. The surging significance of social media marketing will play a pivotal role in the promotion of tahini and derived products. Emerging tahini applications in hummus, butter and spreads, halva, salads, bakery products, toppings, and traditional Middle Eastern recipes such as Baba Ghanoush will also influence the market favorably.Request for Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12883 By product type, tahini paste and spreads will witness the highest demandPaste and spreads segment will account for over 55% share in terms of revenues by 2025Desserts and sweets segment, aggravated by growing popularity of halva, will maintain a market share of over 25% during the assessed periodSustained consumption of tahini dips and sauces will fuel the sauces and dips sub-segment, capturing over 18% market value shareBy distribution channel, major tahini sales will be directed through exportsConventional retail will lose its market share over 2015-2025; from over 37% market share in 2015, this sub-segment will settle at around 34% in 2025Modern trade is expected to witness decent growth, accounting for a revenue share of over 29% by 2025 endExports will, however, exhibit the fastest growth in terms of a distribution channel. With over 20% share of the revenues, this sub-segment is anticipated to reach US$ 465.9 Mn with a promising CAGR of 6.1%Considering product size, the tahini market is projected to gain the highest traction in the 50-150 gm size sub-segmentWith over 56% value share in 2025, the 50-150 gm size sub-segment will reportedly reach a consumption of around 243,189 tonnesAbove 150 gm size sub-segment is likely to witness an uptick over the forecast period, capturing a considerable 28% market value share in 2025Below 50 gm product size will be the fastest growing sub-segment at 5.9% CAGRDepending on the production process, industrial production process will remain dominant over conventional processWith a slight setback from 76% share in 2015 to around 73% share estimated by 2025 end, industrial production process will witness moderate growth with a CAGR to the tune of 5.3%Conventional process will experience significant growth over the forecast periodAccording to Persistence Market Researchs regional analysis, Western Asia will continue to be the largest market, whereas GCC will emerge lucrative by 2025 endWest Asia, identified as the most lucrative market for tahini, will predictably cross US$ 608 Mn by 2025 end, accounting for maximum revenues in the global marketGCC countries will exhibit the fastest growth at 5.9% CAGR, primarily driven by Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. GCC tahini market revenues will reach around US$ 202 Mn by 2025 endNorth Africa, followed by the U.K., are projected to grow moderately at respective CAGRs of 5.7% and 5.4%Request for Report Table of Content (TOC) @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/12883 New Production Plants on Key Players AgendaDipasa International S.A., Sunshine International Foods, Inc., Kevala International LLC, Joyva Corp, Premier Organics, Haitoglou Bros S.A., Halwani Bros. Co., Prince Tahina Ltd., El Rashidi El Mizan, Al-Wadi Al-Akhdar S.A.L, Carleys of Cornwell Ltd., Balsam Tahini, Ismail Termurcugil, and Alseedawi Sweets Factories Co. constitute some of the key players in the global market for tahini. While major export opportunities lie in Asia and North America, a majority of leading players are based in the Middle East and North America. Halwani Bros. Co. and Haitoglou Bros. are top Middle East companies, whereas Joyva Corp, Dipasa, and Kevala Int. are the key North American players. Alwadi Al Akhdars new factory in Lebanon is due in 2017 and Sabra Dipping Co. will soon double its tahini hummus production capacity.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:35:33

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# 620 Words

Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

In a new report titled Ready-to-use Therapeutic Food Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, Persistence Market Research delivers key insights on the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market and analyzes the key factors and trends impacting market performance over an eight-year forecast period (2016  2024). In 2015, the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market was valued at US$ 249.2 Mn, and this is estimated to increase to US$ 276.0 Mn by 2016 end, reflecting a Y-o-Y growth rate of 10.7%. In terms of value, the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market is expected to register a CAGR of 10.6% during the forecast period.Market dynamicsIncreasing government as well as NGO focus on the treatment of malnutrition is expected to drive revenue growth of the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market over the forecast period. Also, an increasing demand for drinkable ready-to-use therapeutic foods and rising global emergencies and disasters is expected to further fuel market growth. Demand for semi-solid paste therapeutic food products as a result of easy storage and distribution is fueling the demand for ready-to-use therapeutic food products to manage people suffering from severe acute malnutrition.Request for Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11044 Demand for ready-to-use drinkable therapeutic food is increasing with the government focusing on increasing the procurement of drinkable ready-to-use foods for small children. Rise in regional government bodies and global manufacturers planning to establish local manufacturing facilities is another major driving factor fueling the growth of the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market. However, increasing consumer/local government shift towards local ingredients and inconsistencies in ready-to-use therapeutic food milk products thereby creating a risk of contamination are factors likely to restrict market growth during the forecast period.The global ready-to-use therapeutic food market offers great opportunities for market players with UNICEF encouraging the domestic production of ready-to-use therapeutic foods.Market forecastThe global ready-to-use therapeutic food market is segmented on the basis of Product Type into Solid (Powder/Blends, Biscuits/Bar), Semi-solid Paste, and Drinkable Therapeutic Food; and on the basis of Region into North America, Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). The Powder/Blends solid segment is estimated to create incremental $ opportunity of US$ 1.5 Mn between 2016 and 2024, registering a CAGR of 11.2% during the forecast period. The Biscuits/Bar solid segment is estimated to create incremental $ opportunity of US$ 7.8 Mn between 2016 and 2024, witnessing a CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period. The Semi-solid Paste segment is expected to retain its dominance in the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market throughout the forecast period, with 90.7% value share by 2024.Among regions, Europe is estimated to account for a maximum revenue share of 62.0% of the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market by the end of 2016. The MEA market is expected to account for 19.1% market share of the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market by the end of 2016. The Europe ready-to-use therapeutic food market is estimated to be valued at US$ 171.0 Mn by 2016 end and is expected to increase to US$ 355.7 Mn by 2024 end, registering a CAGR of 9.6% during the forecast period.Request for Report Table of Content (TOC) @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/11044 Vendor highlightsThis report covers detailed profiles of key players operating in the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market  Insta Products (EPZ) Ltd., MANA, Nutrivita Foods Pvt Ltd., Power Foods Industries Ltd., Tabatchnick Fine Foods, HILINA Enriched Food Processing Center P.L.C., GC Rieber Compact AS, Diva Nutritional Products, Edesia, Inc., Nutriset, and InnoFasoSA. Ease of product availability, rising malnutrition population in developing nations, and an easy storage and distribution network are factors encouraging new players to venture into the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market. Established players in the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market are expanding production facilities and are focusing on product innovations, which is creating robust competition in the global ready-to-use therapeutic food market.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:30:54

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comManager8009610353

Belgium will continue to be the largest exporter of organic fertilizers, with total exports totalling 1.15 million tonnes in 2015. Netherlands and the U.S. will be the other two key exporters. In terms of imports, France continues to be the largest market globally.Global organic fertilizer demand was pegged at 17 million tonnes in 2016. In terms of value, the market was valued at US$ 5.57 billion. Persistence Market Research projects the market to grow at 7% CAGR through 2025 and reach US$ 10.23 billion.Request Report TOC @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/11950 Key DriversGovernment initiatives and subsidies promoting the use of organic fertilizers. For instance, in the EU, government is promoting organic sector via conversion subsidies and large subsidies on agricultural inputs.Rising awareness among consumers about organically produced food will continue to provide growth opportunities. From a US$ 15 billion market in 1999, the global organic food and drink market has grown to become a US$ 80 billion market in 2014.Organic fertilizers dont cause the same level of damage to the environment as conventional fertilizers. This is promoting their adoption among end-users.While Persistence Market Research maintains a positive outlook on the global organic fertilizer market, premium prices for organic fertilizers are a key impediment to adoption.Organic Fertilizer Market TrendsIntegrated nutrient supply system (INSS) is being adopted by farm owners, as the lower nutrient content alone is insufficient to supplement the demand for nutrients in plant growth.Considering the fragmented nature of organic fertilizers market, leading players are focusing on strengthening their distribution partnerships in local markets.Manufacturers in Europe are focusing on expanding their customer base in high-growth regions, including Latin America and North America.Non-profit organizations are playing a key role in promoting the use of organic fertilizers.According to Persistence Market Researchs analysis, demand for animal-based organic fertilizers is higher than plant-based variants. While 6.84 million tonnes of plant-origin organic fertilizers were sold in 2016, animal-origin organic fertilizer volume was pegged at 10.15 million tonnes.Use of organic fertilizers remains highest in the farming of cereals and crops. This application segment accounted for over 70% revenue share of the market in 2016. By volume, demand from cereals and crops was estimated at 12.53 million tonnes in 2016.Historically, solid organic fertilizers have remained sought-after, and the trend is expected to remain unchanged during the forecast period 2017-2025. While solid organic fertilizers are projected to grow at 6.2% CAGR, liquid organic fertilizers growth rate is estimated to be 5.1%.Request for sample report: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11950 Europe & Asia Pacific Collectively Account for over 60% Revenue ShareEurope is the largest market for organic fertilizers, followed by Asia Pacific. While Europe will continue to be the largest market for organic fertilizers, it will lose 2.3% revenue share to APAC during the forecast period. North America, the third largest market for organic fertilizers, is expected to account for 21.8% revenue share of the market by 2025-end.In its report, Persistence has profile key players in the organic fertilizers market, including Italpollina SpA, ILSA S.p.A, BioStar Renewables, Sustane Natural Fertilizer Inc., True Organic Products Inc., California Organic Fertilizers Inc., The Fertell Company, Purely Organics LLC, Pupuk Kaltim, and Qingdao Sonef Chemical Co., Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 11:26:29

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Contact UsFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comSales3479183531

Noise Insulation Jackets Market: IntroductionIn fast growing economies and developing markets, oil & gas and chemical industries are expected to witness traction in the coming years. Advancements in technology have led to higher acceptance for products, such as noise insulation jackets, which are used to reduce noise pollution in the workplace. Motors and compressors are leading offenders when it comes to noise pollution. Different types of noise insulation jacket materials are available in markets, such as silicone, fiber glass and pyrogel XT-E.Continuous exposure to high noise levels leads to a plethora of harmful effects, such as increased stress, hearing loss, increased blood pressure, heart problems and trouble in concentrating and interference with verbal communication. Hence, noise insulation jackets are expected to emerge as an essential product in the near future and will be used by various end-user industries. Strong outlook for end-user industries in the coming years will create considerable opportunities for noise insulation jackets manufacturers.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7489 Noise Insulation Jackets Market: Market DynamicsNoise Insulation Jackets Market Drivers:In the industrial sector, noise insulation jackets generally improve occupant & workplace comfort by reducing noise pollution, which is expected to be the prime factor responsible for the growth of the noise insulation jackets market over the forecast period. Moreover, noise insulation jackets can be easily removed and replaced, which facilitates easy repair and maintenance. This is also expected to give traction to the growth of noise insulation jackets in the coming decade. That apart, ever growing end-use industries, such as oil & gas, chemicals, automotive, construction, etc., both in developing and developed economies, are expected to further boost the demand for noise insulation jackets over the forecast period.Noise Insulation Jackets Market Restraints:The prices of noise insulation jacket materials are highly volatile, which is projected to be a retraining factor for the growth of the global noise insulation jackets market over the forecast period.Noise Insulation Jackets Market Trends:Market players of noise insulations jackets are focusing on research and development (R&D) activities to develop efficient and advanced products. Moreover, the manufacturers are offering customized noise insulation jackets based on customer demand to expand their consumer base and market share in the global market.Noise Insulation Jackets Market: SegmentationThe global noise insulation jackets market can be segmented on the basis of material type, thickness, applications and end user.On the basis of material type, the global noise insulation jackets market can be segmented into:SiliconeFiber GlassPyrogel XT-EOn the basis of thickness, the global noise insulation jackets market can be segmented into:Less than 25 mm25  35 mmAbove 35 mmOn the basis of application, the global noise insulation jackets market can be segmented into:CompressorMotorsGearboxSteam & Gas TurbinesOthersOn the basis of end user, the global noise insulation jackets market can be segmented into:Oil & GasChemicalsAutomotiveConstructionMarineAerospaceOthersNoise Insulation Jackets Market: Regional OutlookOver the forecast period, the Asia Pacific is expected to be closely followed by North America in the noise insulation jackets market. Both these markets are predicted to witness significant growth in the noise insulation jackets market owing to increasing norms being put to curb noise pollution in emerging economies, such as the India and China. Western Europe is estimated to grow at a considerable CAGR during the forecast period owing to high demand for noise insulations jackets from the growing industrial sector in the region. Latin America is anticipated to witness fastest growth in the noise insulation jackets market over the forecast period. The Middle East & Africa is expected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period owing to increasing demand for noise insulations jackets from the oil & gas industry in the region.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7489 Noise Insulation Jackets Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the key participants identified across the value chain of the global noise insulation jackets market include:Thermaxx JacketsATHALYE GROUPISC Insulated Soft Covers LTDUnionfull (Insulation) Group Ltd.Barrier GroupInsultech, LLCNK GroupFibre-TechOld Dominion InsulationAdvance Thermal Corp.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:10:29

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Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353

Innovatively designed baggage & leather goods will remain in great demand as tourists from all parts of the world will prefer travelling in style. Soaring demand for trendy suitcases and hand bags will also be instrumented by higher durability of leather goods and luggage. A latest report published by Persistence Market Research projects that during the 2016-2024 forecast period, the global market for luggage & leather goods will reach US$ 361,326.1 Mn value. The report further estimates that the market, which is presently valued a little over US$ 244,000 Mn, will soar steadily at a CAGR of 5%.Key factors impacting the dynamics of the global luggage & leather goods market are compiled in the report, which follow:Growing preference to vegetable-tanned leather is influencing the global consumption of leather luggage. Manufacturers of such goods are labelling their products according to such popular consumer preferences.Flourishing tourism industry is directly boosting the global sales of luggage & leather goods, with favors pouring in from both domestic and international tourism.However, the demand for luggage & leather goods is also expected to witness restrain from surging adoption of substitute materials. The demand for leather luggage products is expected to lose traction, gradually, to polyester, nylon, rexine, and other equally-durable synthetic materials.Request for Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3402 Rising demand for lightweight bags, organic leather products and affordable luggage goods is also expected to favor the growth of global market for luggage & leather goods. Over nine out of every ten luggage goods sold in the world will continue to be leather goods. The report predicts that by the end of 2024, the world will have witnessed sales of US$ 331,000 Mn worth of leather goods. Among which, footwear and leather accessories are anticipated to be top-selling leather products.The report further reveals that specialty & multi brand stores, single brand stores, and general retail outlets will collectively serve as largest sales channels for luggage & leather goods. In 2016, over 2,000 million units of luggage & leather goods were sold through general retailers, while online sales accounted for a little over 4.5% revenue share. Key findings in the report also exhibit that North America and Europe will collectively dominate the global market for luggage & leather goods. Nevertheless, these regions are likely to showcase value CAGRs below 5%. Contrary to this, Latin Americas luggage & leather goods market is projected to soar at 5.3% CAGR. Asia-Pacific region, on the other hand, will witness fastest revenue growth at 5.8% CAGR.The report has also profiled globally-prominent manufacturers of luggage & leather goods, which include, Knoll, Inc., Samsonite International SA, Hermes International SA, American Leather, Inc., Aero Leather Clothing Ltd., Timberland, Woodland, Johnston & Murphy, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, and VIP Industries Ltd.Request for Report Table of Content (TOC) @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/3402
Research Report Insights

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 11:35:17

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Research Report Insights42 joseph street,Portcarling P0B 1J0,Muskoka, OntarioT: +1-631-721-4201Manager6317214201

Today the market for any given product is governed by the awareness among the consumers. An average buyer concentrates on the personal priorities and needs, apart from the overall notoriety of the product. These factors often administer the commodities of personal hygiene like diapers to a great extent. The modern day parents analyse the products for the infants more soberly than ever before. The material, costing, comfortable level are significant factor for making a diaper brand popular. Thus research and development are imminent part of baby diapers manufacturing. Also, the market for baby diapers is rising at an enormous pace, following rise in global demand.In recent years, the demand for baby diapers has grown fixedly in various nations of East Africa.The report provides a thorough acument into the key market dynamics, emerging trends, recent design innovations, and competitive landscape. The study offers a detailed statistical analysis related to the market share and size of segments and analyzes the key factors configuring the competitive acts. Recent attempts by governments of various countries and private players in East Africa are highlighted and their impact on the costing strategies of vendors are evaluated.Request For Report Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114564/Baby-Diapers-Market East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe East Africa baby diapers market is principally driven by a continuous slump in the toddler mortality rate in developing nations, an upswing in urban population with significant expendable incomes, and increasing awareness related to the hygiene of infants. Coupled with this, in-depth and persistent efforts made by several governmental and non-governmental organizations to create awareness among rural population have led to an increasing use of baby diapers to promote the healthy growth of infants.Increasing shift toward the use of eco-friendly and viable materials in manufacturing baby diapers has resulted in various product innovations. The onset of ultra-soft and hypoallergenic diapers made without the use of any supplements is expected to shoot the market over the forecast period. However, the growing run of parents embracing longer in-between changing times of diapers has resulted in skin rashes and bugs among babies. Various study reiterating the role of disposable diapers in causing testicular cancer among males are likely to hinder the growth of the market to an extent.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114564/Baby-Diapers-Market East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Provincial VisionThe major countries considered in the research report are Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Kenya becomes top lucarative market for baby diapers in East Africa. The dramatic demand for baby diapers in Kenya is driven by the significant rise in birth rate included a substantial decline in the infant mortality rate as compared to other developing nations of East Africa. After Kenya,Tanzania is the second largest revenue contributing country in the East Africa diapers market. Other Countries Involved are Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Companies InvolvedLeading players are also establishing feasible products made with biodegradable materials to entice parents who are vigilant of the environmental brunt of adapting diapers. Major manufacturers are making product modernization and operating boosting their distribution channels to centralize their presence across major countries. Key players accomplishing in this market include Johnson and Johnson, INDEVCO Group Procter and Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, SCA Hygiene Products GmbH, Mega Soft (Fujian) Hygiene Products Co. Ltd., and Interconsumer Products Ltd.This report gives you approach to definitive data such as: Market growth drivers, Factors hindering market growth, Current market trends and Market extensions for the coming decade.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114564/East-Africa-Baby-Diapers-Market
Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:46:29

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

According to World Health Organization (WHO) accounts, 347 million people suffering from diabetes around the world and raised blood pressure is estimated to cause 7.5 million deaths around the world. Traditional treatment for monitoring glucose in diabetic patients requires periodic poking with needles. Presently, advanced technologies are available to overcome traditional treatment problems. Needle free glucose monitoring devices, wearable devices, and biosensors are the examples for Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices.Wearable devices such as wrist bands, necklace are available for self-monitoring of health includes heart rate, miles cycled, calories consumed, and counting steps. Frictionless remote monitoring device components include sensors, recorder and GPS systems, and mobile phones. Using of frictionless remote monitoring devices reduces the hospitalization by providing the useful health data to the patient to monitor health themselves.Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsPresently, Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market are driven by increasing the prevalence rate of chronic disorders such as diabetes and hypertension. Rapid growth in wireless technology, raised awareness among the people, increased geriatric population also drivers for Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1217 The devices are also available in new styles with customization options, this is the new trend in frictionless remote monitoring devices market.Health self-Monitoring Devices cost is very high, sometimes give wrong readings because of software problems and Mobile Apps disadvantage is the privacy of the patients health information. Not all healthcare service providers can be trust worth.Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market: SegmentationFrictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market further segmented into following typesBased on Product type:Wrist bandsGlucose monitoring devicesNecklaceBased on Application:DiabetesHigh Blood PressureCaloriesFitnessCounting stepsMiles cycledFloors climbedCalories consumedHeart rateBlood pressureFrictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market: OverviewWith rapid growth in wireless technology and raised awareness about personal health care, the global Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Marketis expected to have a double digit growth in the forecast period (2015-2025).Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market: Region- wise OutlookThe global Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market is expected to register a double digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, global Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.North America dominates the global Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market due to the technical advancements and good awareness of healthcare in people. Europe occupies second place in this market due to well healthcare setup and good awareness about health. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a remarkable CAGR.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1217 Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in Frictionless Remote Monitoring Devices Market areNikeAbbott LaboratoriesMedtronicFitbitLG ElectronicsiHealth Lab IncDexicomPhilips Healthcare
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Forage Seed Market: Global Industry Analysis, size, sales and Forecast by 2020: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:45:49

The global forage seed market is expected to witness a stable growth during the forecast period. Owing to, increasing demand for forage feed from various agricultural farms and livestock farms the demand for forage seed is expected to increase throughout the forecast period. In addition, increasing number of poultry birds and cattle is also expected to boost the demand for forage feed. Increasing global meat consumption and demand for dairy products are also fueling the demand for forage seed. Livestock farmers in order to improve productivity are focusing on good quality of forage goods in order to meet changing customer requirements. The scope of the global forage seed market also provides an insight into value (USD Million) and volume (Kilo Tons) of forage seeds across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230006-Forage-Seed-Market Forage feed manufacturers use legumes and grass seeds to plant pastures and hayfields. Based on product types, the forage seed market is categorized into alfalfa, clover, chicory, ryegrass, lablab, and fescue among others. Increasing meat consumption is one of the major factors driving the demand for forage seeds globally. Nowadays, consumers are very health conscious, and they prefer to consume organic food and meat products. To meet consumer requirements, producers are focusing on using high-yielding forage crops for feeding livestock instead of using additives and crop protection chemical products in forage crop production. Forage feed producers prefer to avoid additives and crop protection chemical products in forage crop production. Owing to these factors, the demand for forage seeds is expected to boost the demand for forage seed in the forecast period.In addition, high yielding, forage seeds also help agricultural producers in crop rotation and risk diversification by enhancing the soil quality. These forage seeds are used for feeding livestock including poultry, cattle, swine, and aquaculture animals. Farmers prefer to use forage seeds for feeding purpose, as these are available at lower prices and cultivation of these seeds generates some economic benefits such as crop rotation, risk diversification, and improve soil structure and prevention of soil erosion.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230006-Forage-Seed-Market The global forage seed market, by livestock type is segmented into  poultry farms, cattle farms, pork or swine farms among others. Due to increasing demand for poultry meat and eggs, poultry farms are focusing on providing good forages to the poultry birds that increases the demand for forage seeds. In addition, the growing dairy industry is further contributing to the growth of forage crops that helps to increase the demand for forage seeds. Increasing livestock size helps to increase the demand for forage seed that are used for animal feeding.In this report, the market has been segmented into by product type, by livestock type and by geography. It also includes the drivers, restraints and opportunities (DROs), and supply chain of the forage seed market. The study highlights current market trends and provides the forecast from 2014 to 2020. We have also covered the current market scenario for forage seeds and highlighted its future trends that will affect the demand for forage seed.By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW. The present market size and forecast till 2020 have been provided in the report.Geographically, the U.S. in North America is expected to experience robust growth in the coming years followed by France and China in Europe and Asia Pacific respectively. Currently, the market for forage seed in India and China are comparatively smaller as compared to other countries, but the forage seed market is expected to witness a decent growth in forecast period with a high CAGR growth rate.The report also analyzes different factors influencing and inhibiting the growth of the forage seed market. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report highlights key investing areas in this industry. The report will help the agricultural and livestock farmers, suppliers and distributors to understand the present and future trends in this market and formulate their business strategies accordinglyReport Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230006-Forage-Seed-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:42:01

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42 joseph street, Portcarling P0B 1J0 , Muskoka, Ontario, CanadaCEO16317214201

The global forage seed market is expected to witness a stable growth during the forecast period. Owing to, increasing demand for forage feed from various agricultural farms and livestock farms the demand for forage seed is expected to increase throughout the forecast period. In addition, increasing number of poultry birds and cattle is also expected to boost the demand for forage feed. Increasing global meat consumption and demand for dairy products are also fueling the demand for forage seed. Livestock farmers in order to improve productivity are focusing on good quality of forage goods in order to meet changing customer requirements. The scope of the global forage seed market also provides an insight into value (USD Million) and volume (Kilo Tons) of forage seeds across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world.Forage feed manufacturers use legumes and grass seeds to plant pastures and hayfields. Based on product types, the forage seed market is categorized into alfalfa, clover, chicory, ryegrass, lablab, and fescue among others. Increasing meat consumption is one of the major factors driving the demand for forage seeds globally. Nowadays, consumers are very health conscious, and they prefer to consume organic food and meat products. To meet consumer requirements, producers are focusing on using high-yielding forage crops for feeding livestock instead of using additives and crop protection chemical products in forage crop production. Forage feed producers prefer to avoid additives and crop protection chemical products in forage crop production. Owing to these factors, the demand for forage seeds is expected to boost the demand for forage seed in the forecast period.Request for Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114592/Forage-Seed-Market In addition, high yielding, forage seeds also help agricultural producers in crop rotation and risk diversification by enhancing the soil quality. These forage seeds are used for feeding livestock including poultry, cattle, swine, and aquaculture animals. Farmers prefer to use forage seeds for feeding purpose, as these are available at lower prices and cultivation of these seeds generates some economic benefits such as crop rotation, risk diversification, and improve soil structure and prevention of soil erosion.The global forage seed market, by livestock type is segmented into  poultry farms, cattle farms, pork or swine farms among others. Due to increasing demand for poultry meat and eggs, poultry farms are focusing on providing good forages to the poultry birds that increases the demand for forage seeds. In addition, the growing dairy industry is further contributing to the growth of forage crops that helps to increase the demand for forage seeds. Increasing livestock size helps to increase the demand for forage seed that are used for animal feeding.In this report, the market has been segmented into by product type, by livestock type and by geography. It also includes the drivers, restraints and opportunities (DROs), and supply chain of the forage seed market. The study highlights current market trends and provides the forecast from 2014 to 2020. We have also covered the current market scenario for forage seeds and highlighted its future trends that will affect the demand for forage seed.Request for Report Discount: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114592/Forage-Seed-Market By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW. The present market size and forecast till 2020 have been provided in the report.Geographically, the U.S. in North America is expected to experience robust growth in the coming years followed by France and China in Europe and Asia Pacific respectively. Currently, the market for forage seed in India and China are comparatively smaller as compared to other countries, but the forage seed market is expected to witness a decent growth in forecast period with a high CAGR growth rate.The report also analyzes different factors influencing and inhibiting the growth of the forage seed market. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report highlights key investing areas in this industry. The report will help the agricultural and livestock farmers, suppliers and distributors to understand the present and future trends in this market and formulate their business strategies accordingly.Report Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114592/Forage-Seed-Market
This research report on Powered Exoskeleton Market studied by focusing Top Key Players like Ekso Bionics, Lockheed Martin, Hocoma, Rex Bionics, Portescap, Able Bionics, Phoenix It also outlines the market shares for key regions such as Europe, North America, APAC, and ROW

Powered Exoskeleton

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 23:09:33

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Pune IndiaSales Manager9764607607

The scope of report on Powered Exoskeleton extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, sale and revenue of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis. Growing interest of large players in the development of smart technologies to help the disabled to walk and move is anticipated to drive the growth of mobile exoskeletons.The global Powered Exoskeleton market size is expected to reach at a CAGR of +51% during the forecast period. In the recent years, there has been an increase in the adoption of these devices in rehabilitation therapies for disabled and elderly patients.Get PDF Copy of this report@ https://www.qyreports.com/request-sample?report-id=87811 The Key Companies include: Ekso Bionics, Lockheed Martin, Hocoma, Rex Bionics, Portescap, Able Bionics, Phoenix etc.The increasing prevalence of nervous system trauma is one of the important factors that can lead to the use of the exoskeleton in the health care industry. The Spinal Cord Injury Patient (SCI) is one of the major end users of this product. In recent years, the number of SCI patients has increased significantly.Also, regional data of the key geographic segments with respect to Powered Exoskeleton market is explained in detail for the readers. This gives an idea about which region is leading in this particular market helping make a better future investment plan. Further, the upcoming challenges, ongoing trends, strengths, and weaknesses are meticulously researched and discussed.Avail Discount on this report@ https://www.qyreports.com/ask-for-discount?report-id=87811 Key Questions Answered in Report:1. What are factor which lead this market to next level?2. What will the market Demand and what will be Growth?3. What are the opportunities to Powered Exoskeleton market in future?4. What are the strengths of the key players?5. What are the key of Powered Exoskeleton market?The regions which have been studied in depth are North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. This helps gain a better idea about the spread of this particular market in respective regions. A list of leading key players has been given prime value to ensure their strategies are understood in this Powered Exoskeleton market.Moreover, aspects that affect the growth of the market, have been cleared out in the best possible manner to understand precisely this market. Each year in the forecast period is examined for better precise data with respect to every aspect affecting the market.
Drug Delivery Technology

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 13:20:34

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Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

Drug delivery system is the process of administering therapeutic substance through common route of administration to achieve a therapeutic effect in humans or animals. Drugs release the active ingredients in the target area so that in the period of time it controls though its formulation. The most important driving factor for drug delivery technology market is the increasing demand for effective delivery mechanisms of novel biopharmaceuticals.Recently, AstraZeneca signed a licensing agreement with Starpharma for the use of its DEP drug delivery technology aiming to enhancing the dosing and efficacy characteristics of pharmaceuticals. AstraZeneca agreed to fund all development and commercialization costs, including ongoing and future collaborative work conducted with Starpharma.Drug Delivery Technology Market: Drivers & RestraintsGrowing incidence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer, technological advancement, innovation, the growing focus on pediatric and geriatric patients, change in lifestyle due to growing urbanization, the increasing demand for minimally invasive surgeries, are the most important driving factors in drug delivery technology market. Since growth of biopharmaceutical market is fast, the demand for drug delivery technology market has increased.With so many advantages and splendid features of drug delivery technology, it has few disadvantages too. Side-effects related to drugs, patents expiry and regulatory hurdles are acting as key barrier for drug delivery technology.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1166 Drug Delivery Technology Market: SegmentationDrug delivery technology market is broadly classified on the basis of the following segments By Route of Administration :Oral RouteParenteral RouteIntramuscularIntravenousIntra-arterialSubcutaneous routeTransdermal RouteInhalation RouteNasal Drug DeliveryBy End User:HospitalsClinicsDiagnostic CentresHome care settingsOthersDrug Delivery Technology Market: OverviewThe drug delivery technology market has grown substantially at a healthy CAGR due to growing incidence of chronic diseases and change in lifestyle. With rapid technological advancement and innovation, drug delivery technology market is expected to grow globally. North America is the largest market for drug delivery technology and Asia Pacific would be the fastest growing market in the forecast period.Drug Delivery Technology Market: Region-wise OutlookThe drug delivery technology market is expected to register a double-digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, drug delivery technology is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the largest market for drug delivery technology market and is contributing the most as compare to other regions. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region in the forecast period.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1166 Drug Delivery Technology Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in drug delivery technology market are Johnson and Johnson Pvt Ltd, 3M, Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc, Glaxosmithkline PLC, Merck & Co., Inc, Antares Pharma, Generex Biotechnology, pSivida Corppration, Alkermes, Aradigm Corp., Vectura Group plc, NanoPass Technologies Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 11:30:41

Digital pathology enables pathologists to analyze, evaluate and share pathology outcomes remotely. The introduction of digital pathology in healthcare and life science applications has significantly reduced laboratory expenses and improved operational efficiency and productivity. The integration of conventional pathology operations with digital pathology in healthcare applications has enhanced treatment decision and patient care. According to the latest research by Future Market Insights (FMI), the global digital pathology market was valued at US$ 326.7 Mn in terms of value in 2015. The report on digital pathology further projects significant growth potential with an average year-on-year growth rate of 11.4% through 2025.Request a Sample Brochure of the Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-124 Digital Pathology Market: Overview & AnalysisThe global digital pathology industry is largely dominated by the histopathology application segment, which is part of the tissue diagnostics market. The digital pathology market has witnessed a significant transformation in terms of adoption across developed countries of Europe and North America over the recent past. Companies are not focused on the commercialization of cheaper digital pathology solutions in the APAC market as they already have a large consumer base in the region. Continuous efforts from AI service providers to integrate digital pathology solutions with commercial diagnostics are expected to hold key growth opportunities in the market. The recent collaboration between Microsoft India and SRL Diagnostics will empower the pathology services of SRL Diagnostics with Microsofts Azure and AI innovations. This collaboration will enable Microsoft to use a repository of more than a million histopathology slides of SRL Diagnostics for training an AI algorithm. The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer is demanding more reliable and cost-effective diagnostic platforms for pathology laboratories.Digital pathology imaging solutions have transformed the day-to-day operations image analysis and interpretation of histopathology images in pathology laboratories. The cost effectiveness and remote pathology review of digital pathology are attracting health and pharmaceutical sectors as well as education and contract research organizations. According to Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the overall spending on drug discovery and development was around US$ 90.0 Bn in 2016. Digital pathology has witnessed significant application in drug discovery and development, especially in preclinical GLP pathology and oncology clinical trials. Digital pathology technology is transforming the mode of drug delivery by enabling data sharing and integrating dispersed pharmaceutical pathology laboratories worldwide. Digital pathology technologies are primarily used for research purposes and are increasingly gaining prominence as one of the most competent technologies for pathology. The growing use of digital pathology technologies in drug discovery is a major factor expected to drive the growth of the global digital pathology market.The introduction of novel digital pathology tools in clinical diagnostics is expected to create major potential opportunities for investors over the forecast period. This can be attributed to the vast potential of digital pathology platforms in histopathology screening. Such promising opportunities for digital pathology in histopathology screening are also expected to present the histopathology screening service segment as an increasingly lucrative option for investment. The application of digital pathology in medical microbiology and hematology is likely to gain momentum by late 2020 due to the strong barriers with regard to the adoption of digital pathology technologies. These barriers include the high capital costs of products, lack of regulatory standards for commercial application and lack of product awareness among end users.FMI has segmented the global digital pathology market on the basis of product type, end user, pathology screening service and region. In terms of revenue, the instrument segment is expected to hold a substantial market share over the forecast period. The segment is expected to exhibit a healthy CAGR of 12.0% over the forecast period.Request Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-124 FMIs report covers some of the key companies operating in the digital pathology market, which include Perkin Elmer, Inc., Sectra AB, Definiens AG, 3D-Histech Ltd., Ventana Medical Systems, Koninklijke Philips N.V, GE Healthcare, Olympus Corporation, Inspirata Inc., Leica Biosystems, Digipath Co., Zeiss, Yokogawa Electronic Corporation Hamamatsu Photonics, K.K. and Quorum Technologies Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:54:37

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Office: Dublin 2Suite 988427 Upper Pembroke Street,Dublin 2, IrelandHead of Marketing+353-1-4434-232

Cushion Case Liner Market: Introduction and Need of the ProductCushion case liner is a protective packaging product used to protect fruits, vegetables, food, and other consumer products and equipment from bruising or any other physical damage. It is noticed that the demand for protective packaging solutions is increasing at a good CAGR value in the emerging as well as developed economies to protect fragile products during shipping and transportation. Cushion case liners are used inside packaging products such as corrugated boxes, for protective packaging. The product is widely used in packaging applications of fresh produce such as meat, fruits, vegetables, and other food products. It is primarily made up of polystyrene material which gives it a soft-finish and shock-proof design. Case liners are helpful in preventing product slippage and maintain cleanliness of the packaging product. They are available in a roll format, and can be easily cut with scissors for quick use.Get Free Exclusive Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2876 Cushion Case Liner Market: Market DynamicsThe cushion case liner market is expected to witness high demand during the forecast period due to the growing need for protective packaging products during shipping and transportation. Cushion case liners are widely used for the packaging of food, fruits, and vegetables to avoid any damage to the product. They are shock-proof and protect products during transit. It is expected that the high demand for cushion case liners will be generated from the major fruits and vegetables producing countries such as India. The demand for cushion case liners is expected to decline due to the introduction of new and innovative alternative packaging products. Other protective packaging products such as bubble wraps, foam peanuts, etc. might hamper the growth prospects of the global cushion case liner market. However, it is noticed that the current demand for cushion case liner is met through imports from developed countries. Therefore, there are enormous opportunities for the regional and global manufacturers to expand their market presence to leverage opportunities generated through the high demand.Cushion Case Liner Market: Market SegmentationCushion Case Liner Market Segmentation: By Material TypePolypropylenePolystyrenePolyethyleneOthersCushion Case Liner Market Segmentation: By End UseMeat, Poultry, and SeafoodFresh ProduceFoodFruitsVegetablesElectrical & ElectronicsDairy ProductsOthersCushion Case Liner Market Segmentation: By Sales ChannelB2BB2CCushion Case Liner Market: Regional OverviewOn the basis of region, the cushion case liner market is segmented as North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, APEJ (Asia-Pacific Excluding Japan), Middle East & Africa, and Japan. The demand for cushion case liners is generated primarily from North America and Europe due to the high emphasis on the use of packaging products that protect consumer products during shipping and transportation. Also, the number of manufacturers present in the region is quite large. These companies are planning to expand their presence to leverage the opportunities generated through the growing demand for cushion case liners in the region. It is expected that the cushion case liner market will continue to grow in the developed as well as developing countries. In the Asia-Pacific region, India and China dominate the cushion case liner market with the highest market share during the forecast period. In Latin America, Mexico is expected to witness strong growth due to the growing dairy industry in the country. In the MEA region, Saudi Arabia and UAE offer the highest incremental growth opportunities in the market due to the rapid expansion of the food industry. Japan also offers untapped growth opportunities in the global cushion case liner market.Ask For Customized Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=2876 Cushion Case Liner Market: Market PlayersSome of the key players in the cushion case liner market are Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc., Protective Packaging Ltd., Outlet Bags, and Victoria Box & Paper among others.The cushion case liner market report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, and inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The cushion case liner market report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators, and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The cushion case liner market report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Request Brochure of this Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2876 Regional Analysis Includes:North America Cushion Case Liner MarketLatin America Cushion Case Liner MarketWestern Europe Cushion Case Liner MarketEastern Europe Cushion Case Liner MarketAsia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) Cushion Case Liner MarketJapan Cushion Case Liner MarketMiddle East & Africa (MEA) Cushion Case Liner MarketCushion Case Liner Market Report Highlights:A detailed overview of parent marketChanging cushion case liner market dynamics in the industryIn-depth cushion case liner market segmentationHistorical, current, and projected market size regarding volume and valueRecent industry trends and developmentsCompetitive landscapeStrategies for key players and products offeredPotential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective on cushion case liner market performanceMust-have information for cushion case liner market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintFor more information on this report, please visit: https://www.factmr.com/report/2876/cushion-case-liner-market
Missions Expert Takes on Leadership of Long-Time Unreached Peoples Advocacy Group Dr. Kevin Higgins named General Director of Great Commission champions Frontier Ventures; continues in similar role at sister-ministry, William Carey International University



Contact: Gregg Wooding,

972-567-7660



PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- A significant leadership change has been made at one of the modern missions world's most quietly influential groups, with the appointment of Dr. Kevin Higgins as general director of Frontier Ventures (www.frontierventures.org). The ministry has a long history of promoting critical thought and creative action in missions efforts among the world's unreached people groups.



Higgins steps into the new role from being part of the three-person Office of the General Director team that has overseen the work at Frontier Ventures, founded more than 40 years ago as the U.S. Center for World Missions by the late missionary statesman Dr. Ralph Winter.



While leading Frontier Ventures' effortsincluding the innovative "launch lab," the Joshua Project's tracking of the progress of reaching the least reached; galvanizing prayer globally through the Global Prayer Digest; publishing "Mission Frontiers" magazine; and moreHiggins will also continue to serve as president of its sister organization, William Carey International University (WCIU, www.wciu.edu).



Founded in 1997, WCIU offers an MA in International Development through a robust distance-learning experience to equip men and women to address root issues of human problems among the world's most neglected peoples. Hundreds of students from around the world have completed studies through the university, where Higgins was named president in 2017.



"We are delighted that Kevin has agreed to take on this new role," said Greg Parsons, chairman of the Frontier Ventures board. "We believe this transition will allow us to further improve our effectiveness and also maximize coordination and cooperation between Frontier Ventures and William Carey International University, enhancing each of our 'Great Commission' endeavors."



Higgins, age 60, has a long history in missions leadership. Prior to joining WCIU, he served in two Muslim nations in South Asia, helping initiate a movement of people to Christ in more than a dozen language groups. He was international director of Global Teams from 2000 to 2017, and continues to serve as the organization's Asia region Muslim ministries coordinator.



Married with three grown daughters, Higgins earned his PhD in translation from Fuller's School of Intercultural Studies in 2013.



"It's an honor to be asked to assume this new role," Higgins said of his Frontier Ventures appointment. "Frontier Ventures has quietly played a powerful and significant role in educating, encouraging and equipping the church in regards to seeing Jesus proclaimed among those with the least opportunity to understand and experience the good news of his life and message. I am pleased to have this opportunity to be part of ensuring that contribution continues."



Other members of the former Office of the General Director will continue in different leadership roles at Frontier Ventures. Fran Patt has been named director of operations, and will oversee Frontier Ventures' work in the Northeast U.S., while Chong Kim will oversee the group's religious order expression and is helping with the launch of Frontier Venture's emerging SE Asia Hub.



Though Higgins' service as president of each organization is intended to maximize partnership and collaboration, the two will continue as distinct entities with separate boards and leadership teams.



Frontier Ventures Based in Pasadena, Calif., Frontier Ventures (www.frontierventures.org) promotes the cause of mission among the world's unreached people groups through research, education, and mobilization. Founded in 1976 as the U.S. Center for World Mission by the late missionary statesman, Dr. Ralph D. Winter, its subsidiary ministries include the acclaimed Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course.



William Carey International University

Named after William Carey, a pioneer British missionary to India in the late 1700s and early 1800s, WCIU (www.wciu.edu) was established in 1977 at the former U.S. Center for World Mission to equip international cross-cultural workers for overseas service. The distance-learning school has equipped hundreds of students.



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Cream of Tartar Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012 - 2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017 - 2027

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 08:03:54

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Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.commanager+1 03479183531

Cream of tartar is an acidic salt, initially discovered by the French is obtained from by-product left behind in barrels after wine and grape juice processing. It is used as a stabilizing agent for eggs whites while whipping them. The cream of tartar also helps in increasing the egg volume and keep them white and bright for a longer time. The baking powder obtained from the cream of tartar by mixing it with baking soda. It is used while boiling certain vegetables (like red cabbage, potatoes, and cauliflower) to keep their natural color. It is also used in sugar syrups to prevent crystallization.Request Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6094 Cream of Tartar Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe major factor driving the cream of tartar market growth is fast flourishing food and fast food market. Increased consumption of baked food items has a direct impact on the cream of tartar market growth. No exact equivalent substitute available for cream of tartar is a major factor driving the cream of tartar market growth. However, vinegar and lemon juice can be used as a substitute for cream of tartar, but it can get tricky as you need more amount of vinegar and lemon juice to get the same reaction which can cause changes in original recipes.Although cream of tartar is a natural ingredient, it has a high content of potassium, and high potassium consumption can cause many heart and kidney related problems. Rising health awareness among people is the biggest challenge faced by the manufactures of cream of tartar presently.Cream of Tartar Market: SegmentationThe global cream of tartar market is segmented on the basis of application and distribution channel. The cream of Tartar market segmented on the basis of application such as food and household use, pharmaceutical use and chemical use. The other type of segmentation is done on the basis of distribution channels such as modern trade, departmental and traditional grocery store, convenience stores, online channels and other retail formats.Ask the Analyst @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cream-of-tartar-market#engage_analyst Global Cream of Tartar Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global cream of tartar market divided into seven major regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Due to Rising population and changing food habits, APAC region dominates the global cream of tartar market. Also, the baked food market is increasing in the Asia Pacific, leading to increasing the demand for cream of tartar. Europe and North America also contribute a significant contribute in global cream of tartar market due to high consumption of baked food items.Global Cream of Tartar Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players for global cream of Tartar market include McCormick & Company Inc., Tartaros Gonzalo Castello SL, ATP Group, Newseed Chemical Co. Limited, A&K Petrochem Industries Limited, Foodchem International Corporation, Shanghai AiBo Additive Co. Ltd., SIP Chemical Industries, GC Chemicals Corporation, and American Elements. The companies are expected to expand their business by enhancing their product portfolio and spread their global presence. The companies are projected to frame certain strategies in future to gain the competitive advantage in global cream of Tartar market till 2027.
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Bulk Terminal Market: Global Industry Analysis, size, sales and Forecast by 2026: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:06:08

Research Report Insights (RRI) delivers key insights on the global Bulk terminal market in its latest report titled, Bulk Terminal Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 20162026. The report projects the market size on the basis of bulk volume throughputs from global sea ports. According to the report, total volume throughput from sea ports is projected to expand at an estimated CAGR of 3.2% over the forecast period. The bulk volume throughput implicates the loading and unloading of unpacked bulk commodities like coal, grain, iron ore, forest products, etc. from barges and vessels.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230044-Bulk-Terminal-Market The Bulk terminal market is classified into two main segments - dry bulk and liquid bulk based on bulk type. The dry bulk segment is expected to hold 62.9% share in bulk terminal volume throughput, while liquid bulk terminal holds the remaining share. The dry bulk segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.2% with coal and iron ore holding over 52% of share in terms of volume throughput. The other sub-segment of dry bulk, which include minor bulk commodity (minerals, agricultural bulks, forest products, manufactures, etc.) is expected to hold 37.68% volume share in dry bulk volume throughput during 2016.The liquid bulk segment is expected to grow with a CAGR of 3.4% during 2016-2026 with oil sub-segment holding 86% of share in liquid bulk volume throughput by the end of 2026. The oil sub-segment involves both crude oil as well as finished petroleum products.Global Bulk Terminal Market Volume throughput expected to increase at a CAGR of 3.2% over 20162026, with China driving the overall market of sea trades: RRIIncreasing global population and enhanced affordability is expected to raise the consumption of bulk commodities and therefore drive the bulk terminal market growth. Also, emphasis on increasing industrial productivity is expected to be one of the key drivers of the trade through bulk terminals. The increasing trade of grain and concentrated agricultural productivity is expected to push the dry bulk commodity market. Whereas, rising environmental concerns and adoption of cleaner energy approach by major coal consumer countries is expected to reduce the rate of coal consumption.APEJ is expected to remain the key region for bulk terminal market accounting for major share in bulk terminal volume throughput. China is one of the largest consumer of bulk commodities and it is expected to hold majority of share approx. 50% in APEJ. It is estimated to remain dominant in the market in terms of volume throughput. While developing economies like India are expected to cater high growth opportunities with a healthy CAGR of 4.8% during forecast period.Prevailing trade of grain and minor bulk commodities in North America and Latin America is expected to be the main driving factor of bulk commodity volume throughput in the regions. The cumulative grain volume throughputs in Latin America and North America is expected to mark over 383 million tonnes in 2016. Expanding shale oil and gas production in U.S and Gulf of Mexico is predicted to cater to high growth opportunities in North America liquid bulk volume throughput, where gas sub-segment of liquid bulk is expected to grow with a CAGR of 3.6% between 2016 and 2026. The expansion project of Panama Canal is also expected to lever up the terminal market in Latin America.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230044-Bulk-Terminal-Market With the development of Suez Canal, the trade through Europe and MEA should increase catering diversified growth opportunities of trans-shipment on the ports lying in proximity of Suez Canal.Slowdown in global economic growth has adversely affected the global seaborne trade in past few years. Also, overcapacity condition raised due to lower freight rates in shipping industry is expected to affect the bulk terminal market during initial years of forecast. Transformations of industrial production and international trades in major bulk consuming countries like China, Japan, Russia, India, and Australia are expected to stabilize the market by the end of 2018. The overall bulk terminal market is hence expected to grow with higher CAGR post 2018.Key playersChina Merchants Port Holdings Co. Ltd. and DaLian Port (PDA) Company Limited, Thessaloniki Port Authority SA., Global Ports Investments PLC., Ports America, Inc. APM Terminals, Euroports Holdings S.a.r.l., Puerto Ventanas S.A., HES International B.V., Yilport Holding Inc, DP World Ltd., Noatum Ports, S.L.U., and Ultramar GroupReport Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230044-Bulk-Terminal-Market
Breath analyzer devices do not estimate blood alcohol concentration or content directly, as it requires blood sample analysis. Although, they measure blood alcohol concentration indirectly by estimating the amount of alcohol in ones exhaled breath. The blood alcohol concentration test is based on the relationship between alcohol in the blood and alcohol in the breath circulation through the lungs.

Breath Analyzers

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 12:58:02

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# 761 Words

Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comSEO Manager3479183531

Breath analyzers are the devices which are used to identify the presence of various compounds in the breath sample of individuals. Breathe analyzer devices are mostly used to measure blood alcohol content (BAC) through an exhaled breath. Breath analyzers are considered as fundamental tool for the detection of drugs, alcohol, tuberculosis, asthma and other diseases. Globally large number of road accident cases are noticed owing to the over consumption of alcohol during driving, breath analyzers are recognized as major equipment in enforcing drink and drive laws. Breath analyzers play an important role in the conviction of DUI offenders. By technology, breath analyzer devices market is segmented into fuel cell technology, semiconductor oxide sensor technology, and infrared absorption technology, fuel cell technology being the dominating segment globally. The development in fuel cell technology has been enhanced by number of factors such as accuracy, portability and reliability of the devices. Fuel cell technology followed by infrared absorption technology which is commonly used for desktop machines for evidential breath analyzers. Breath analyzers can be used by personals as well as by professionals to restrict the drunken individuals from entering in the company premises and other social places.Breath Analyzers Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe primary factor for the growth of global breath analyzers market is growing awareness and enforcing strict rules by the government for drink and drive cases. The growth of breath analyzer devices market is primarily attributed to increase in consumption of alcohol, drug abuse and growth in the incidences of diseases like tuberculosis, asthma and other diseases. Over consumption of alcohol has led to the boost in the requirement for blood alcohol content level testing devices such as Breathalyzers. Governments in specific countries have set some legal limit for BAC test and also increased field breath testing activities. Growing use of breath analyzers in medical applications is one of key factor that would increase the demand for breath analyzers market globally. Some factors that restrain the global market of breath analyzers are unhygienic conditions for use and lower accuracy of the devices.Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1066 Breath Analyzers Market: SegmentationBreath analyzers market is classified on the basis of technology, application, end users and geography.Based on technology, the global breath analyzers market is segmented into the following:Semiconductor Oxide technologyFuel cell technologyInfrared absorption technologyBased on application, the global breath analyzers market is segmented into the following:Alcohol detectionDrug abuse detectionAsthma detectionpylori infection detectionTuberculosis detectionOthersBased on end users, the global breath analyzers market is segmented into following:Law Enforcement AgenciesEnterprisesIndividualsBreath Analyzers Market: OverviewBreath analyzer devices do not estimate blood alcohol concentration or content directly, as it requires blood sample analysis. Although, they measure blood alcohol concentration indirectly by estimating the amount of alcohol in ones exhaled breath. The blood alcohol concentration test is based on the relationship between alcohol in the blood and alcohol in the breath circulation through the lungs. The rapid advancement in technology, multiple applications and increased portability of breath analyzer devices are some of the key factors to drive the growth of breath analysers market globally during the forecast period. Law enforcement agencies on the basis of end users and alcohol testing by application held the largest market share in global breath analyzers market. The global breath analyzers market is expected to expand at healthy CAGR during the forecast period.Breath Analyzers Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic region, global breath analyzer market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America held largest share in the global market of breath analyzers market followed by Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific owing to high occurrence of several diseases and increasing number of road accidents, great advancement in field of breath analyzer devices and developed healthcare infrastructure. The developing nations in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa hold huge potential for growth in the global breath analyzers market, due to its affordable prices and strict rules enforcing by the government entities.Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1066 Breath Analyzers Market: Key PlayersSome of the key participating global players in breath analyzers global market are Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA, EnviteC-Wismar GmbH, Lifeloc Technologies, BACtrack, Inc., Quest Products, Inc., Akers Biosciences, Inc., Intoximeter, Inc., AK GlobalTech Corporation, Alcohol Countermeasure Systems Corporation. The breath analyzers market is fragmented with few global players and numerous small, domestic players particularly in Europe and Asia Pacific.
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 14:54:32

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Fact.MR

Office: Dublin 2





Suite 9884



27 Upper Pembroke Street,



Dublin 2, Ireland



Sudip Saha

Head of Marketing

+353-1-4434-232

email

https://www.factmr.com/





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Global Breast Prosthesis Market: Market InsightsA breast prosthesis is a form of artificial breast that can replace the shape and size of part or all shape of the breast which is removed. The breast Prosthesis device can fit into the bra cup with or without a bra even. In general, soft silicone gel are encased in a thin film which are used to prepare the breast prosthesis. The shaped devices are molded in such a way that it can resemble natural shape of a womans breast, or a part of the breast. A breast prosthesis surface is soft and smooth, and also include a nipple outline which gives it a natural look. For some women undergone breast removal, wearing a breast prosthesis can be a temporary choice, whereas for others wearing the device can be effective and a long term alternative.Women having different shapes and size of the breast also get benefits from the breast prosthesis . Awareness about the selection of size and style of breast prosthesis and sufficient privacy for the patient should be there while treating with breast prosthesis. Get Free Exclusive Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2882 Global Breast Prosthesis Market : Market DynamicsIncrease in the prevelance rate of cancer across the globe is the major growth driver of Global Breast Prosthesis Market .Efficient treatment and body balance provided to the patient when the breast is removed or no longer balanced act as a Global Breast Prosthesis Market driver. Breast Prosthesis are also used in cases where women do not have identical breast which is expected to increase the growth of Global Breast Prosthesis Market.Special washing techniques,Storage problems,High cost are expected to restrain the growth of Global Breast Prosthesis Market .Breast prosthesis are uncomfortable sometimes and they need to be replaced after every few years due to which the growth of Global Breast Prosthesis Market can be decreased .Global Breast Prosthesis Market: SegmentationThe Global Breast Prosthesis market is segmented by Material type, Modality and End user:Segmentation by Material TypeSolutionSiliconSalineFoam BasedOthersSegmentation by Modality TypeFull or Standard ProsthesisPartial or shaped ProsthesisShell ProsthesisStick On ProsthesisOthersSegmentation by ApplicationsCancer CareCosmetic SurgerySegmentation by End UsersHospitalsSpeciality ClinicsCosmetic ClinicsOthersGlobal Breast Prosthesis Market: OverviewSilicon breast prosthesis are the most commonly used breast prosthesis because they give a natural breast look to women and are also used in most of the cancer care cases . Other applications of silicon breast prosthesis include prevention of shoulder drop and poor balance of the body structure. Foam based breast prosthesis are expected to show a less share in the breast prosthesis market because they are very light weighted and are used in less number of cases such as swimming , exercising and other physical activities .Based on the modality type, partial breast prosthesis are generally used in cosmetic care purposes. They give a look of enhanced breast and are used in the women who have a disbalance in the size and shape of their breasts.They have a very soft texture and are fitted onto the short breast so that it matches a larger one .This type of breast prosthesis are also used in breast reconstruction cases where symmetry has not been achieved .Hence, partial breast prosthesis are currently being used in majority, it is estimated with confidence that this breast prosthesis will register highest demand. With the growing number laboratories and rapid technological innovations, the breast prosthesis market across globe registers a high revenue growth. Ask For Customized Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=2882 Global Breast Prosthesis Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of geography, Global Breast Prosthesis Market is segmented into seven key regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to hold largest shares in the Breast Prosthesis Market primarily due to presence of large number of hospitals and high quality healthcare infrastructure for clinical research and strict regulatory bodies . Europe is expected to show second highest share in Breast Prosthesis market due to high prevelance of breast cancer and good healthcare expenditure.Global Breast Prosthesis Market: Key PlayersMajor international manufacturers leading breast prosthesis Market are Arion Laboratories, GC Aesthetics, Hans Biomed, Allergan Inc., Hans Biomed, Johnson & Johnson, Silimed, Arion Laboratories and many others .The report covers exhaustive analysis on:Market SegmentsMarket DynamicsMarket SizeCurrent Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedValue ChainThe regional analysis includes:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico. Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia-Pacific Excluding Japan (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanThe Middle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa)The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Request Brochure of this Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2882 Report Highlights:Detailed overview of parent marketChanging market dynamics in the industryIn-depth market segmentationHistorical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and valueRecent industry trends and developmentsCompetitive landscapeStrategies of key players and products offeredPotential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective on market performanceFor more information on this report, please visit: https://www.factmr.com/report/2882/breast-prosthesis-market
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Branded Generics Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Sales and Forecast By 2026: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:07:37

Branded generics are pharmaceutical drug molecules that are bioequivalent to original products. However, they are marketed under a companys brand to differentiate itself from the generic products. Branded generics or generics require low research or development costs compared to the branded prescription products. Companies, which operate in branded generic business invest majorly in marketing the product and to create the brand awareness. Companies are seeing growing opportunity in the branded generics market owing to the higher deemed in the emerging countries. The global branded generics market has been segmented on the basis of therapeutic application, drug class, formulation type, distribution channels, and region.The global branded generics market has been estimated to be valued at US$ 193.3 Bn in 2015, and is expected to expand at a 7.3% CAGR over the forecast period (2026).Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230043-Branded-Generics-Market Market DynamicsGrowth of the global branded generics market is mainly driven by increasing affordability of branded generics owing to fierce competition, favourable demographics across the regions, and companies differential pricing for these products in accordance with geographic needs. These are expected to drive the market over forecasted period.Other prominent factors driving growth of the market are adoption of branded generics by large scale pharmacy chains in European countries, integrated supply chain, growing captive sales force and conducive regulatory environment in developing countries.However, price pressure from payers such as government and insurance agencies, misuse of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), pay for delays, and commoditization of generics are the factors suggestive of barriers to growth of global branded generics market.Large players in this market are employing strategies like Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) and maintaining distribution agreements with strong local players in various regions to consolidate their market position.Market Segmentation by Therapeutic ApplicationBased on therapeutic application, the market has been segmented into oncology, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, neurology, gastrointestinal diseases, dermatology diseases, analgesic and anti-inflammatory, and others. In terms of value, others segment is estimated to account for more than 41% market share in global branded generics market, by 2026 end.Market Segmentation by Drug ClassAccording to drug class, the market has been segmented into alkylating agents, antimetabolites, hormones, anti-hypertensive, lipid lowering drugs, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-epileptics and others. Others drug class segment accounted for highest market share of 79.5% in 2015 and is expected to gain moderate market share over the forecast period to reach at the value US$ 330.6 Bn by 2026. Increasing demand for drugs is mainly attributed to the favourable market dynamics for branded generics across the developing countries or regions coupled with rising competition among existing players.Market Segmentation by Formulation TypeAccording to formulation type, the market has been segmented into orals, parenteral, topicals and others. Oral formulation type segment accounted for highest market share of 58.0% in 2015 and is expected to gain moderate market share over the forecast period to reach the value of US$ 241.3 Bn by 2026. Increasing demand for oral pharmaceutical formulations can be mainly attributed to the availability, affordability, and accessibility to these formulations.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230043-Branded-Generics-Market Market Segmentation By Distribution ChannelsOn the basis of distribution channels, the market has been segmented into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, online pharmacies, and drug stores. Retail pharmacies followed by hospital pharmacies are the most preferred medium of distribution of branded generics across the regions. However, increasing consumer preference for online sales channel which provides mail order requests, are expected to impart significant competition to these traditional channels in some of the regions such as North America and Western Europe.Key RegionsThe global branded generics market has been segmented into seven major regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). In terms of value, the APEJ market has been estimated to dominate the global branded generics market in 2016, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.0% over the forecast period. APEJ, MEA, and Latin America are expected to be the fastest growing markets among regional markets. APEJ market is expected to witness highest CAGR of 10.0% over the forecast period. In APEJ, cardiovascular diseases therapeutic application sub-segment is expected to grow at faster rate to reach the value US$ 21.1 Bn by 2026 end. Market in Japan is expected to exhibit healthy CAGR owing to growing acceptance of generics in the region.Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global branded generics market include Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Novartis AG, Mylan N.V., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Aspen Pharmacare Holding Ltd., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230043-Branded-Generics-Market
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Bottled Water Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Sales and Forecast By 2024: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:24:27

Global bottled water market was valued at $198.4 million in 2017, and is expected to reach $307300 Million by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.4% during the forecast period 2024 End. Bottled water is packaged drinking water that is purified and free from contamination. It is available in plastic and glass water bottles, and is the most convenient way for the body to fulfill its hydration needs being easily available in nearby retail stores and supermarkets. The market driven by the rise in healthcare awareness about waterborne diseases such as malaria, typhoid, diarrhea, food poisoning, and others. Moreover, bottled water is more portable and convenient to use as it is handy, thus supporting the market growth. In addition, tap water is available at a lower cost, which also poses a restrain to market growth.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230013-Bottled-Water-Market Bringing about extensive innovations in bottled water manufacturing processes, and striving towards increasing awareness among masses regarding benefits of using recycled bottles are prime strategies implemented by businesses working in the global bottled water market. Many companies are developing advanced and cost-effective techniques of producing water bottles, so that they can efficiently function while causing least harm to the environment. Such businesses are also receiving tremendous support from most governments all over the globe. Mountain Valley Spring Company LLC, GroupeDanone, PepsiCo Inc, Icelandic Water Holdings, The Coca Cola Company, Nestle Waters, Unicer - Bebidas SA, Grupo Vichy Catalan, Suntori Beverage & Food Ltd, and CG Roxane, LLC, are key players operating in the global bottled water market.The continued increase in per capita consumption indicates that consumers see bottled water as a healthy alternative to other packaged beverages. Consistent with this view, sales revenues for the U.S. bottled water market in 2017 were nearly $16000 Million in wholesale dollars, a 7.4% increase over the previous year.Nearly all of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is sourced domestically. In fact, imported bottled water accounts for only 1% of the U.S. market. The vast majority of bottled water companies in the U.S. are small, community-based companies using local water sources and distributing their products within an average radius of 300 miles from their bottling facilities.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230013-Bottled-Water-Market Segment Review:The global bottled water market is segmented based on type and geography. Based on type, it is classified into still water, carbonated water, flavored water, and functional water. In 2017, the still water segment held the largest market share, accounting for three-fifths of the total market share and is expected to maintain this trend during the forecast period. In terms of geographical analysis, in 2017, Asia-Pacific dominated the market, occupying 35.6% share, followed by Europe with 27.1%. Geographically, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.The mounting concern of large carbon footprint of the manufacturing processes as flagged by environmentalists is another critical factor likely to negatively impact the market to an extent. Stricter imposing of unfavorable regulations is a key factor likely to hamper its production in some states. Nevertheless, the introduction of products that have a variety of health benefits and innovative flavors are key trends impacting the growth of the U.S. market. The growing popularity of mineral laced water and low-calorie flavored drink bodes well for the market.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230013-Bottled-Water-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 19:37:57

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This market look into examine breaks down the biochips market on worldwide premise and gives appraises as far as income (USD million) from 2014 to 2023. It depicts the market flow influencing the business and examines their effect through the conjecture time frame. In addition, it features the noteworthy open doors for market development in the following eight years.Biochips are a gathering of microarrays which are masterminded on a strong substrate that empowers various biochemical responses, for example, translating of qualities in no time flat. Furthermore, biochips are intended to work in organic situations and are equipped for recognizing and estimating countless and perform complex biochemical responses all the while in a limited capacity to focus time. There have been significant headways in the biotechnology business by virtue of the expanding utilization of biochips. What's more, biochips are to a great extent utilized for investigate in medicate revelation and advancement, genomics, proteomics, and atomic diagnostics. Biochips help in breaking down natural particles identified with living beings. In this manner, they help in identifying quality arrangements, ecological contaminations, airborne poisons, and other biochemical constituents.Expanding utilization of biochips in the medicinal area for disease treatment, medicate research, and diagnostics is one of the main considerations driving the development of the worldwide biochips market. What's more, factors, for example, accessibility of atomic data, computerization of biochemical procedures using biochips and use of biochips for quality and protein distinguishing proof are set to drive the worldwide biochips market.Request for Report Sample: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114580/Biochips-Market The utilization of biochips has achieved a change in the field of medication disclosure and research. Biochips can identify disease before its manifestations create in human bodies. What's more, it can without much of a stretch distinguish destructive maladies, for example, smallpox, Bacillus anthracis, and torment in a limited capacity to focus time. In addition, biochips are progressively discovering application in veterinary diagnostics. Biochips involve frameworks that might be dabs or little wells. Every network contains nucleic corrosive or antibodies and proteins which tie to a DNA grouping or an objective antigen. The wealth of proteomics and hereditary qualities information combined with the requirement for distinguishing quality groupings and proteins in individuals is driving the biochips market. Traditional quality and protein sequencing techniques can't give subjective yield and are incapable though biochips are to a great degree powerful and deliver exact quality sequencing brings about a limited capacity to focus time.Critical development in the medicinal services division, rising requests for diagnostics and expanding therapeutic use combined with financial changes in real creating nations has possessed the capacity to support the development of this market. Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW) are key markets for the future and are relied upon to give tremendous chances to the worldwide biochips producers.The market is fragmented based on topography into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). These sections have been assessed as far as income (USD million). What's more, the report has been portioned in light of sorts, which incorporates DNA chips, protein chips and microfluidic gadgets. Likewise, the report is additionally divided by application that incorporates medicate disclosure and advancement, genomics, proteomics and in vitro diagnostics.For better comprehension of the biochips market, the examination involves market appeal investigation, where the kinds of biochips are benchmarked in view of their market scope, development rate and market engaging quality.Request for Report Discount: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114580/Biochips-Market The report likewise gives organization market share examination of the different business members. Key players have been profiled and their organization outline, budgetary diagram, business procedures and late improvements have been canvassed in the report. Significant market members profiled in this report incorporate Affymetrix Inc., Illumina Inc., GE Healthcare Ltd., Agilent Technologies Inc., Fluidigm Corporation and Cepheid Inc. among others.The biochips market has been divided as:Worldwide Biochips Market: By Type DNA Chips Protein Chips Microfluidic DevicesWorldwide Biochips Market: By Application Drug Discovery and Development Genomics Proteomics In Vitro DiagnosticsReport Analysis: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114580/Biochips-Market
Research Report Insights (RRI) has launched the report titled, Baby Diapers Market: East Africa Industry Analysis, Size, Sales and Forecast By 2024: Research Report Insights.

PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 18:59:35

Today the market for any given product is governed by the awareness among the consumers. An average buyer concentrates on the personal priorities and needs, apart from the overall notoriety of the product. These factors often administer the commodities of personal hygiene like diapers to a great extent. The modern day parents analyse the products for the infants more soberly than ever before. The material, costing, comfortable level are significant factor for making a diaper brand popular. Thus research and development are imminent part of baby diapers manufacturing. Also, the market for baby diapers is rising at an enormous pace, following rise in global demand.Report For Sample with Table of Contents@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/sample/230003-East-Africa-Baby-Diapers-Market In recent years, the demand for baby diapers has grown fixedly in various nations of East Africa.The report provides a thorough acument into the key market dynamics, emerging trends, recent design innovations, and competitive landscape. The study offers a detailed statistical analysis related to the market share and size of segments and analyzes the key factors configuring the competitive acts. Recent attempts by governments of various countries and private players in East Africa are highlighted and their impact on the costing strategies of vendors are evaluated.East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe East Africa baby diapers market is principally driven by a continuous slump in the toddler mortality rate in developing nations, an upswing in urban population with significant expendable incomes, and increasing awareness related to the hygiene of infants. Coupled with this, in-depth and persistent efforts made by several governmental and non-governmental organizations to create awareness among rural population have led to an increasing use of baby diapers to promote the healthy growth of infants.Increasing shift toward the use of eco-friendly and viable materials in manufacturing baby diapers has resulted in various product innovations. The onset of ultra-soft and hypoallergenic diapers made without the use of any supplements is expected to shoot the market over the forecast period. However, the growing run of parents embracing longer in-between changing times of diapers has resulted in skin rashes and bugs among babies. Various study reiterating the role of disposable diapers in causing testicular cancer among males are likely to hinder the growth of the market to an extent.East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Provincial VisionThe major countries considered in the research report are Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Kenya becomes top lucarative market for baby diapers in East Africa. The dramatic demand for baby diapers in Kenya is driven by the significant rise in birth rate included a substantial decline in the infant mortality rate as compared to other developing nations of East Africa. After Kenya,Tanzania is the second largest revenue contributing country in the East Africa diapers market. Other Countries Involved are Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Companies InvolvedLeading players are also establishing feasible products made with biodegradable materials to entice parents who are vigilant of the environmental brunt of adapting diapers. Major manufacturers are making product modernization and operating boosting their distribution channels to centralize their presence across major countries. Key players accomplishing in this market include Johnson and Johnson, INDEVCO Group Procter and Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, SCA Hygiene Products GmbH, Mega Soft (Fujian) Hygiene Products Co. Ltd., and Interconsumer Products Ltd.Request For Report Discount@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/discount/230003-East-Africa-Baby-Diapers-Market This report gives you approach to definitive data such as: Market growth drivers, Factors hindering market growth, Current market trends and Market extensions for the coming decade.Key highlights of this reportOverview of key market forces propelling and forbiddingmarket growthUp-to-date analysis of market trends and technological advancementsPin-point analysis of market competition dynamics to offer you a competitive edgeAn analysis of strategies of major competitorsAn array of graphics and SWOT analysis of major industry segmentsDetailed analyses of industry trendsA well-defined technological growth map with an impact-analysisOffers a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and key product segments.Report Analysis@ https://www.researchsolutioninsights.com/report/analysis/230003-East-Africa-Baby-Diapers-Market
PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-30 05:40:02

Increasing investments in the Asia Pacific Region to Provide Greater Business Opportunities for Major Market PlayersAn assessment of the automotive LED market at a global level reveals its spread across the seven key regions, including North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Japan, Middle East and Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific excluding Japan.The key market players are seen engaging in various strategies for expanding their businesses in the promising regions. The Asia Pacific is expected to be amongst the key regions that would provide the scope and increasing opportunities for major participants in the automotive LED market. In countries such as China and India in the Asia Pacific region, the key companies are seen harnessing the potential of these nations and extending their business in these regions. With increasing investments in this region, market players are able to strengthen their global presence owing to the ever-growing automotive industry. For instance, key players such as OSRAM and Lumiled are seen extending their capabilities in the Asia Pacific market.Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5126 The European automotive LED market is also one of the key markets that contribute to the overall growth of the market. The increasing use of automobiles in the European region is expected to provide major growth prospects for the companies that are involved in automotive LED manufacturing.From Halogen Lamps to Automotive LED Lights, the Industry to Exhibit Major TransformationThe cost effectiveness associated with automotive LED is amongst the key factors that facilitate the shift from conventional halogen automotive lamps to automotive LED. This has further led to the adoption of automotive LED in the economy cars segment, which is amongst the major drivers for the penetration of the automotive LED market.The prevalence of automotive LED in interior automotive lighting is comparatively higher. When it comes to exterior automotive lighting, there is a noteworthy uptake of automotive LED in the high-end and premium vehicle segment. Moreover, manufacturers are seen investing in innovation centers and advanced technologies, which is further expected to boost the market for automotive LED. OSRAMs automotive LED are being incorporated for interior lighting to achieve a stylish ambience in the vehicles.The increasing demand for hybrid and electric vehicles is expected to foster the demand for automotive LED owing to the automakers emphasis on attractive interiors to be a major differentiating factor. Furthermore, the governments of various nations are providing incentives for the manufacturing of automotive LED in light of their aim to promote the use of energy saving alternatives. The automotive LED market is influenced by these major factors that could contribute to its growth.Auto-makers such as Jaguar are implementing automotive LED into their autonomous cars with innovative applications and are identifying newer capabilities of automotive LED. The company developed a prototype autonomous vehicle with two virtual eyes with the idea of making an eye contact with pedestrians to ensure that they feel safe when they cross the road.Although being widely used, government regulations such as those imposed by the UK government are to be followed when automotive LED lamps are fitted into vehicles. Moreover, with drivers being distracted with bright lights in their rear view mirrors, it could be a restraining factor for the automotive LED market.Automotive LED Market Players to Harness Future Opportunities with Innovative Offerings and Competitive StrategiesThe automotive LED market participants are seen engaging in major strategic functions to ensure that they could grab a bigger share of the overall market. New product developments carried out by market players are anticipated to help the automotive LED market players differentiate their brand offerings in the global market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5126 OSRAMs new automotive LED, Oslon Boost HX, is designed with innovation that helps headlights gain high resolution and project the relative information onto the road.Lumiled had opened its new innovation center in Shanghai with an aim to reinforce its Asian commitments.HELLA was seen partnering with Volkswagen for the development of the LED Matrix HeadlampAutomotive LED Market Segmentation helps Analyze the Sub-divisions of the MarketThe automotive LED market is segmented based on three major factors which include application, type of vehicle, and sales channel. Based on the application, the segments in which the automotive LED market is sub-divided into interior and exterior lighting.
In this post, I listed nine federal appeals court nominees resubmitted to the Senate for confirmation this year, including two nominees for the Ninth Circuit. Unfortunately, Trump did not renominate three other Ninth Circuit nominees he submitted to Senate last year.

One of these nominees is Patrick Bumatay. A graduate of Yale and of Harvard Law School, Bumatay clerked for a district court judge and for a Tenth Circuit judge. He then served in various important positions at the Justice Department, including as Counselor to the Attorney General and as a federal prosecutor in the criminal enterprises and narcotics sections of the U.S. Attorneys Office in San Diego. In the latter capacity, he argued cases before the Ninth Circuit.

Bumatay is thus well qualified for the Ninth Circuit. Oh, and if confirmed, Bumatay would become the first openly gay judge on the Ninth Circuit and the first Filipino American to serve as an Article III federal appellate judge.

Clearly, President Trump should have renominated him.

But the scandal here isnt that Trump didnt renominate a well qualified gay Filipino conservative. The scandal is the administrations reason for not doing so. Trump withheld the renomination out of deference to California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.

Last November, Feinstein and Harris requested of the new White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, that the White House work with us to reach an agreement on a consensus package of appeals court nominees from California. The Democrats want to pick one name from the White House list, one from their own, and a third consensus nominee.

Its hardly surprising that Feinstein and Harris want this. Whats shocking is that the White House didnt dismiss the request out of hand. Instead, it took the request seriously  so seriously that it chose not to resubmit Bumatays nomination plus the nomination of two other highly qualified conservative nominees from California, Daniel Collins (a former Scalia clerk) and Kenneth Lee.

What on earth is the administration thinking? Feinstein and Harris have no power to prevent the confirmation of Bumatay, Collins, and Lee. And the Ninth Circuit needs all three. Remember, this is hands down the most left-wing appeals court in America. It has been instrumental in blocking key Trump administration initiatives.

The Ninth Circuit needs to be transformed. It wont be transformed by adding one conservative, one moderate and one leftist handpicked by Feinstein and Harris.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal suggest that the administrations motive is to produce less resistance to future Trump nominees including, perhaps, a nominee to succeed Justice Ginsburg.

No better explanation comes to mind, but this rationale is ridiculous. As the Journal notes, Harris is running for President and would go all-out to oppose any Trump nominee to the Supreme Court. Feinstein cannot be considered an honest broker after her disgraceful conduct during the Kavanaugh confirmation ordeal.

The arguments against dealing with Feinstein and Harris are overwhelming. In addition to those Ive already presented theres the obvious reality that, in the Journals words, a concession to [Feinstein and Harris] now on nominees would rightly be seen as political weakness. It would concede influence that neither Senator has earned and set a precedent for other Democrats who would demand similar consideration, resulting in nominees who arent nearly as qualified, or as originalist in their thinking, as Mr. Trumps nominees have been.

The Journal concludes:

Consulting Senators on judicial nominees from their home state is a courtesy, not a right. It hails from a day when most Senators operated in good faith, unlike today. Democrats are trying to cajole White House concessions now because they know it will be harder to defeat nominees with 53 GOP Senators. Remaking the federal judiciary may be the only thing a Republican Senate can accomplish in divided government. The White House shouldnt water down the quality of its nominees to please Democrats who wont be helpful when their votes are really needed.

Exactly.
Ryan Crocker, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan (among other hot spots, has published an op-ed in the Washington Post. In the paper edition, his op-ed is called The U.S. is surrendering to the Taliban.

It looks that way. The U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban. The Afghan government has been cut out of the negotiations at the Talibans insistence. The two parties  the U.S. and the Taliban  have announced a framework agreement that could lead to the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. In exchange, the Taliban would commit to not harboring terrorist organizations that could threaten U.S. security.

I believe the Taliban would do its best to honor that commitment. Its interest is in power  in reinstating its oppressive theocratic rule over Afghanistan. Why jeopardize that goal by harboring anti-U.S. terrorists? Im pretty sure the Taliban wouldnt have harbored bin Laden if it had known the consequences of doing so.

The contemplated deal thus serves the Talibans interest in gaining control of Afghanistan and the U.S. interest in disengaging from that country. What about the Afghan people, though?

The deal may or may not include various promises and guarantees by Taliban regarding the post-withdrawal Afghanistan. It doesnt matter. The Taliban wont honor any commitment that stands in the way of its quest for absolute power.

This means a nightmare for secular Afghans, especially Afghan women. The Afghan government appears to be no match for the Taliban. And the version of the Taliban likely to take over Afghanistan seems little changed from the version that ran it before 2002.

Its true that in areas controlled by the Taliban things are a bit looser than 20 years ago. Girls are allowed to attend school, for example. But the Taliban has not renounced its goal of imposing a particularly puritanical version of Islamic law, thereby undoing almost 20 years of liberalization and westernization.

I would prefer that the U.S. remain in Afghanistan to block this result, at least in areas like Kabul. But we have been fighting there for 17 years. I understand President Trumps position that we cant remain indefinitely. I also understand his frustration, and the frustration of many Americans, that the Afghans have been unable to develop a fighting force that can cope with the Taliban absent an American presence.

The U.S. has given Afghans, or at least a substantial number of them, nearly two decades of freedom. Id like to see us guarantee that freedom for another decade. However, its simply not realistic to expect us to bear that burden.

Its not that a lot of American lives are being lost in Afghanistan at this point. Its that, with no end in sight, the loss of even a small number of American lives plus the cost of our presence is not considered acceptable by enough Americans to sustain our involvement for much longer.

How will the the unhappy and probably bloody aftermath of our withdrawal play here? Well see. My guess is that it wont have much of a political impact here absent terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.
I had a misspent youth. Not primarily because I haunted South Dakota pool halls, although I did some of that, but because I devoted most of my energies to high school and college debate. Paul did, too: we became friends as members of the Dartmouth debate team. Competitive debating had its faults, but there was never any doubt that facts, evidence and logical argument were all that counted.

So this headline really hurt: High School Students Disqualified From Debate After Quoting Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson. Sadly, the story is even worse than the headline.

A pair of Utah high school seniors lost a debate round because they read quotes from Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, who were deemed white supremacists by the judge. Layton High School senior Michael Moreno and his debate partner, whom The Daily Wire will not name, were participating in a round with a topic relating to immigration. The specific topic of the round was Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce restrictions on legal immigration.  Instead of arguing in the affirmative, Moreno told The Daily Wire, the other team read a slam poem about how terms like legal and illegal are dehumanizing. In documents provided to The Daily Wire, these students quoted from numerous professors critical of assimilation and the notion that immigrants must act American to live the good life. Promises of citizenship and the good life force non-normative subjects into a slow death, working towards the unbelievable goal of the American dream, the students said.

Apart from being idiotic, the affirmative teams presentation did not conform to the rules of policy debate.

Moreno and his partner responded by arguing the other team did not actually articulate a position. The structure of this debate allowed for the affirmative to propose a plan and then have the negative argue against that plan. Since the other team did not propose solutions to reduce restrictions on legal immigration, Moreno said, his team had nothing to argue against and claimed this was unfair.

This is correct. The affirmative team must offer a specific plan that implements the broad terms of the resolution. If they dont do that, they should lose by default.

Now we get to the usual, disgusting leftist cant.

The other team, during the cross-examination section of the debate, said Moreno and his partner could not talk about fairness because they were white males. Moreno said he then speed-read through quotes from Shapiro and Peterson pertaining to identity politics. He specifically cited comments Shapiro made at the University of Connecticut on January 24, 2018, where he said: Evil things are still evil even if Im a white well-off religious man and good things are still good even if Im a white well-off religious man . My identity has nothing to do with what is right or wrong.

Arguing that the race or gender of ones opponents entitles you to victory is more antithetical to the principles of debate than anything I can imagine. Yet, in this case it worked.

The judge ended the round after Morenos quotes from Shapiro and Peterson, as the other team continued to affirm that they had no standing as white males. The judge, who before the round told each team not to be racist, claimed Moreno and his partners evidence and saying things like your identity doesnt matter were actually racist. The judge then joined the opposing team in claiming it was Moreno and his partner who turned the debate into a discussion of identity politics and claimed Shapiro and Peterson are racists. After another 10 minutes of this kind of back and forth, the judge said Moreno and his partner lost the round.

It is enough to make you weep. If you follow the link, there is a video that was made by one of the losing debaters. He is obviously a sharp young guy. Watching the video reminds me how fast you need to be able to talk to participate in a timed event. More importantly, this episode demonstrates that there is no bastion of reason that liberalism cannot infiltrate and pervert.
When I was a kid, everyone knew the unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service, which was inscribed on the principal New York City post office: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. I think it was true, once, too. But not any more: Wednesday mail delivery canceled:

The U.S. Postal Service announced late Tuesday afternoon that deliveries and other services in Minnesota and several other states will be suspended Wednesday in the wake of a deep freeze unmatched for nearly a quarter-century. The National Weather Service is forecasting a high of minus-17 in the Twin Cities on Wednesday, with windchills tumbling to the minus-50s.

So I wont get any mail tomorrow. I will, however, be in my office, like most private sector workers.

Sure, its going to be cold: the current forecast calls for a high temperature tomorrow of 17 below zero, and a low of 33 below. We are in the midst of a three-day stretch in which the temperature never gets to zero. Fahrenheit. And that is in the Minneapolis suburbs.

So it is remarkable that just 13 days ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune assured us that cold temperatures are a thing of the past, even in northern Minnesota:

We just dont expect temperatures to be below 10 degrees Fahrenheit in Duluth anymore, [Tracy] Twine said.

Heh. Great prediction. Ms Twine is an expert on climate who testified before the Minnesota House Energy and Climate Committee on January 15. I ripped her testimony, which as usual was based entirely on models that are known to be wrong, here. Ms. Twine assured lawmakers that declining snowfalls in northern Minnesota are due to man-made global warming. Only she forgot to check the weather records: snowfall in northern Minnesota is increasing, not decreasing.

And of course, those who said we would no longer be seeing cold weather in Duluth150 miles north of the Twin Cities!failed to foresee the current epic cold snap, which was just days away. Nevertheless, their models, which are programmed to produce politically-desired results, tell us with great confidence what the weather will be like in 100 years. Right. Fortunately, not many people are still buying the global warming scam.

UPDATE: Have all Americans gone soft? No! Twin Cities sportswriter Pat Reusse tweets:

Cold way beyond reason today in northwest Minnesota, but school was held in Warroad and Roseau for most noble of reasons: the Warriors and Rams had a boys hockey game scheduled in Roseau tonight.  Reusse (@Patrick_Reusse) January 30, 2019



Current temperature in Roseau: 30 degrees below zero. Warroad and Roseau are two of the most storied northern Minnesota hockey programs, even though both towns are tiny. I wrote about the Roseau Rams here. And I believe it is still true that no American hockey team has ever won an Olympic medal without at least one player from Warroadpopulation, 1,763.

Among other things, Warroad is the home of the Christian family, which contributed one brother to the 1956 Olympic team that won a silver medal, and two younger brothers who starred on the 1960 gold medal winning team. Bill Christians son David played on the 1980 gold medal winning team. (Happily, but irrelevantly for this purpose, a Christian grandson is my son-in-law.) So whether activities go forward in the face of adverse weather conditions depends, basically, on how much you really care.
Like former Obama administration CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied notoriously to Congress, yet he remains at large. He is not under indictment. The FBI has not sent a heavily armed battalion to raid his home and take him into custody in front of his friends at CNN.

Clapper could certainly have been included in Rep. Devin Nuness list of those who should be charged with lying to Congress along with Roger Stone if lying to Congress is now to be treated as a serious offense (see They need to start with themselves). President Trump himself has asked what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others? Its a good question. Former assistant to President Bush (1) Charles Kolb considers the anomalies in the Daily Caller column Can we give James Clapper the Roger Stone treatment yet?

President Trump, you have the right to get an answer to your question. You might want to give the current Acting and/or incoming Attorney General a call to get your question answered. As you suspect, it is probably not coincidental that Clapper and Brennan colluded in the engineering of the Russia collusion hoax along with the others named in your tweet. They must be getting some kind of credit for that from Team Mueller.
Commentary >> Catherine Rampell

The Trump administration learns that fighting gravity is hard
Matthew Ruffings, 20, of Norristown, leaves Montgomery County courtroom after testifying he was assaulted by county correctional officers in his jail cell on Feb. 14, 2017. Ruffings told jury, "I was kicked and beaten by all of them. I tried to cover my face.
@montcocourtnews on Twitter

Carl Hessler Jr. is a multi-media reporter who writes about crime and justice from the Montgomery County Courthouse for 21st Century Media Newspapers Greater Philadelphia area publications. Follow Carl on Twitter: @MontcoCourtNews
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Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said Wednesday she will seek a total Guam exemption from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's yearlong ban on the hiring of Filipino workers under the H-2B visa program.

She said Guam will seek relief from the shortage of skilled foreign workers, which she said has already had a detrimental effect on the local construction industry.

The H-2B crisis topped the list of issues raised by the governor in a speech to the Guam Chamber of Commerce membership on Wednesday at the Hilton Guam Resort & Spa in Tumon.

DHS's decision last week is, first and foremost, in everyones mind, said Leon Guerrero.

However, she noted that an exemption is available for workers needed for projects related to the military buildup.

So our approach with the federal government, said the governor, will be that all of the construction projects on our island are tied to the military buildup.

In November 2018, the Tsubaki Tower hotel project became the first private sector project on Guam to be associated with the military buildup and received approval for temporary foreign workers on H-2B visas.

The argument, said Leon Guerrero, is that military personnel and their families stationed on Guam rent or buy homes off base, stay in our hotels, patronize our restaurants and drive on our roads. They place demands on our infrastructure that require repairs, upgrades or new facilities, and skilled temporary foreign labor is needed to ensure those construction needs are met.

Thats the case Leon Guerrero she said shell make to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and other federal officials, when she attends the National Governors Association winter meeting next month in Washington D.C.

Our case for a total Guam exemption is strong, said Leon Guerrero. We are gathering the evidence now and will make our case based on the numbers reflecting the economic downturn that is currently happening because of the H-2B denial(s).

The governor said she is working closely with delegate Michael San Nicolas, former delegate Madeleine Bordallo who is now the Washington liaison, as well as CNMI delegate Kilili Sablan and Governor Ralph Torres who is close to the Trump administration.

All of us are committed towards the goal of increasing access of foreign labor to our region, she said.

Supporting a 'responsible' buildup

Leon Guerrero stated she supports a "responsible" military buildup at Guam's pace and one which the local government and community can support.

"I welcome the buildup but it has to be done at a pace that can be done to benefit our people, our island," the governor stated. "We must be our own advocates."

The governor is concerned whether the $7 billion in federal funding for the military buildup would benefit Guam fully, and questioned whether the $3.1 billion coming from Japan will be under special purpose entities and if Japanese companies will have a preference for buildup projects.

First 23 days

Leon Guerrero also spoke about the financial state of the government of Guam, which has been another focus of her first 23 days in office.

"I feel we have done a lot," the governor stated.

She told Chamber members that she is receiving daily cash flow reports and, so far, our revenues are tracking as budgeted. But she called on senators to leave the current fiscal year budget intact as we navigate through these uncertain times.

She called on senators to hold off on tax decreases.

Goals

The governor acknowledged that more funding will be needed to achieve the goals she has set for her administration.

Leon Guerrero expressed optimism that she will work to get the Trump administration to reimburse $60 million in Earned Income Tax Credit to the territory, joking that President Donald Trump's White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is now her "best friend." The EITC is a federal mandate that Guam pays out in the form of tax refunds.

She said her administration will invest in personnel and technology needed so the Department of Revenue and Taxation can properly collect the millions owed in taxes to our government.

"We will be asking people and businesses to pay their taxes if they have not done so," Leon Guerrero said, prompting applause from the Chamber membership.

She said the hiring of tax collectors could bring in millions of dollars that can be given back to the people in the form of more police officers on the streets, more nurses in the hospital and improved facilities.

The governor vowed that Guam Memorial Hospital will be accredited once again under my watch, although, she said newly appointed GMH Administrator Lillian Perez-Posadas has identified consistent funding and reimbursement as her main areas of concern.

"We have been looking at ways to shift money to (the Guam Police Department) so they can hire more officers, and we actually need an entire new prison, but funding is the issue," said the governor.

In addition to recruiting more corrections officers to reduce the departments overtime costs, Leon Guerrero announced that she will issue an executive order to expedite implementation of a commissary at the prison to cut down on the amount of contraband being smuggled into the prison.

Addressing the deficiencies with waterfront facilities at the Port of Guam and revitalizing downtown Hagatna are among the other goals of her administration. Those projects, too, will need funding to be realized.

To be sure, we have our challenges, said Leon Guerrero, but Guams sky is not falling.
RED WING  Stuart Pimsler Dance will perform the multimedia dance piece "Matinee," at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sheldon Theatre, 443 W. Third St., Red Wing.

"Matinee" is a dance, film, theater adaptation of a Robert Coover short story. The piece was created and directed by Stuart Pimsler and Suzanne Costello, co-artistic directors, in collaboration with filmmaker Andrew Welken. Following its premiere in February 2017 at the Womens Club of Minneapolis, the piece has been toured nationally.

Stuart Pimsler founded his dance company in 1979 in New York City, and moved the company in 2000 to Minneapolis. The ensemble has toured around the world, performing in Israel, China, Mexico, Germany and Russia. Stuart Pimsler Dance has also performed in 35 U.S. states.

Tickets for "Matinee" are $20, free for ages 14 and younger with the purchase of an adult admission; 651-388-8700, and sheldontheatre.org.

In addition, Stuart Pimsler Dance will present a free workshop at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Sheldon.

Grand Meadow, Lourdes advance in play competition

Grand Meadow and Lourdes high schools will advance to the Section 1 one-act play competition following last Saturdays sub-section.

Five teams competed in the Sub-Section 2 one-act play contest Saturday at Lourdes: Kingsland, Austin Pacelli, Southland, Grand Meadow and Lourdes.

Grand Meadow was placed first by the judges with the play "An Inconvenient Squirrel," by Joseph Scramshaw. Lourdes placed second with an original script, "Handprints on My Heart."

The Section 1 competition will be held Saturday at Kasson-Mantorville High School.

Dusty Heart returns Saturday to Oak Center

OAK CENTER  Dusty Heart, fresh off a concert tour of Europe, is back at the Oak Center General Store for a show at 8 p.m. Saturday.

The duo played in Berlin and Denmark, as well as at the People Festival, a weeklong festival of artists from around the world organized by Justin Vernon and Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

Dusty Heart is made up of Barbara Jean and Molly Dean, two fixtures on the Twin Cities music scene. Harmony vocals, backed by guitar, fiddle and banjo combine for a set of roots, indie, pop and folk music. Dusty Heart released a debut album, "Dusty Heart," last spring.

Tickets are $15; 507-753-2080 and folkforum@riverland.org.
Head outdoors with the entire family at Quarry Hill Nature Centers ' Its Snow Crazy .' Part of the WinterFest lineup, the early afternoon event is designed to get family members of all ages off the couch and into the winter spirit.

"Its Snow Crazy is an opportunity for families to embrace being outside and have fun enjoying our Minnesota winter," said Pam Meyer, the nature centers executive director. "In February we have Groundhog Day and we start to think spring. And yes, we may see signs of spring, but theres still plenty of winter left and plenty of opportunity to enjoy it."

The annual event typically draws around 100 attendees. Activities begin outside the 329-acre parks nature center.

"Well use Quarry Hills backyard (the area behind the nature center) for ice bowling, snow snakes, and snowball toss," said Meyer. "Definitely dress for the weather, because all activities are held outside."

Then families will make their way up to Quarry Hills new Prairie House for snow candy, a roaring fire, and a game of I Spy.

"Families will be invited to play a game of I Spy Spring as they hike up to the Prairie House, looking for signs of spring around the park," said Meyer. "Once there, the building will be open, well have a fire going, and well be making maple syrup candy as we learn all about the science of maple syruping. Well boil down real maple syrup a bit further, pour it into the snow and roll it onto a popsicle stick. Its a yummy treat."

The cost is $5 per person. Call ahead to reserve your spot. Proceeds benefit the natural science programming offered year round at Quarry Hill Nature Center.

"A visit to Quarry Hill is a great idea any time of the year," Meyer said. "Its especially great this time of year. After a snowfall, families can look for signs of who is out and about in the park, whos hanging out at the feeders. You might find a chewed pine cone or tracks in the snow. There are a lot of signs that animals leave behind. Its always fun to guess who it might be."
Severe crowding is nothing new at Berkeley County's jail.

Officials have made incremental improvements to Hill-Finklea Detention Center over the years, including a three-story addition to boost the jail's capacity in 2016. But the facility hasn't been able to keep up with the county's soaring population growth.

The latest consequence of overcrowding played out Saturday, when three inmates escaped from a holding cell by shimmying out a window, sending officers from a handful of law enforcement agencies scrambling to detain them.

Officials say theyre drafting solutions.

Sheriff Duane Lewis this week said he planned to make a pitch "fairly soon" to County Council to either add onto the jail in Moncks Corner  by building up or out  or to find another facility. He said he and others are looking to jails around the state and evaluating whats best for county taxpayers, though he didnt have a potential cost estimate for such a project.

"Nobodys got their head in the sand," Lewis said. "Everybody understands its a priority."

The jail operated well beyond its 291-person capacity every day last year, and the problem is persisting. As a result, portable beds line the floors, theres no space for continuing education classes and some inmates are sent away from the cramped facility to Charleston Countys jail.

Authorities pointed to crowding as one of several factors that contributed to Saturdays jailbreak. Over the weekend, the detention centers population swelled to as many as 440 inmates  nearly 150 above what it's meant to.

In a Facebook post Saturday announcing that authorities had captured the inmates within two hours, the Sheriffs Office used a flurry of hashtags including #WeNeedABiggerJail.

Berkeley County Supervisor Johnny Cribb said in a statement Tuesday he is working with council "to determine priorities and identify funding sources."

"I have no doubt that I can work with all county departments and leaders to develop a plan to address their respective concerns," he said. "Jail overcrowding is undoubtedly an issue for the county, and I will work with the sheriff to come up with a plan to adequately address the problem."

In the meantime, an internal investigation is delving into how three men were able to break free from a holding cell that operates out of a former office in the jail.

One of the things weve determined is that there shouldve been more security measures in place, Lewis said.

Authorities said Michael Andrew Hutto 29, Eric Evander Garner, 41, and Thomas Matthew Davidson, 33, were among 15 people in the temporary cell thats meant to hold six to eight people as they await processing.

Garner was charged with possession of a Schedule I controlled substance, while Hutto was being held on a first-degree burglary charge, according to jail records. Davidson was in custody for charges out of Cascade County, Mont.

Lewis said it took longer than normal to process inmates that morning. Part of the internal investigation is looking into how the backup happened.

About 15 minutes after a deputy fed the inmates, one of the men spent several minutes kicking out an acrylic glass window. Security footage showed the men  dressed in plainclothes  crawling out the window from the top of a bunk bed. Deputies noticed the inmates were missing around 11:30 a.m. The Sheriff's Office released an edited version of the video, which does not show the men removing the window.

Randy Demory, director of the detention center, said the window in question has been taken out and will be replaced with brick masonry.

Lewis said staff are also evaluating the jail's security. Theyve identified another area where they could hold inmates who have yet to be processed.

As a general response to overcrowding, Lewis said the jail has added surveillance cameras and correctional officers have increased cell checks.

Shaundra Young Scott, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, stressed the need for officials to prioritize decongestion or remodeling efforts at the detention center, which employs about 90 people.

I know this is something that happens when you do not have the resources you need to adequately staff the facility, she said of the escape.

She added that the conditions are illustrative of a mentality of punishment over rehabilitation.

Demory said Sheriffs Office arrests have increased considerably in recent years, from 2,960 in 2016 to 3,626 arrests last year.

An annual report showed that 28 percent of inmates were jailed on drug charges in 2018. The vast majority of inmates are in jail awaiting sentencing. The average stay is 26 days, the director said.

Demory emphasized the need for collaboration among County Council as well as within the 9th Circuit Solicitors Office to work out a system in which detainees accused of minor offenses can be fast-tracked so they are not occupying the detention center for long periods of time.

Those (minor) cases pile up ... and contributes to the conditions that are tantamount to chronic and severe overcrowding, Demory said.
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Thunderstorms likely - windy with locally heavy rainfall possible, especially early. A few storms may be severe. Low near 75F. Winds SW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely - windy with locally heavy rainfall possible, especially early. A few storms may be severe. Low near 75F. Winds SW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
Russias RIA Novosti state news agency published a news item on Monday, January 28 headlined: The prime minister of Hungary refused to put pressure on Russia on the demand of the United States.

The article referred to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article headlined Hungary Bucks U.S. Push to Curb Russian and Chinese Influence, published the same day.

Polygraph.info found that RIA Novostis rendering of the Wall Street Journal article differed significantly from the original, even though RIA Novosti put quotation marks around some phrases as if they were direct translations.

For instance, RIA Novosti wrote: (The Wall Street Journal) noted that the head of the government (Hungarys Orban) has received orders (from the U.S.) to counter Chinese cyber espionage and support Ukraine as a counter to Russia.

However, the Wall Street Journal actually wrote: In recent weeks, the U.S. has sought to rally fellow NATO members to take firmer steps to counter potential Chinese cyber-espionage and for months has been pushing the alliance to step up its backing for Ukraine in the countrys running confrontation with Russia.

Timothy Lemmer, the Wall Street Journals letters editor, told Polygraph.info via email. What we published doesn't contain the words receiving orders,"

In describing the U.S. actions, the newspaper used such verbs as push, pressure and persuade, but none of those words translates into Russian as order.



The U.S. government doesn't order other countries to do things. It does, through diplomatic channels, encourage other countries to adopt certain policies, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer told Polygraph.info.

Pifer believes it is entirely plausible that in recent months the United States has urged the Hungarian government to take steps to protect itself against Chinese cyber espionage and to support Ukraine against Russian aggression.

Hungary has been weak on those issues, Pifer said.

But a senior Hungarian official said Mr. Orban strongly objects to U.S. pressure aimed at curbing the influence of Moscow and Beijing in Europe, the WSJ reported, still falling well short of Ria Novostis assertion that the U.S. 'ordered' the Hungarian government to take action.

As for the RIA Novostis mistranslation of the WSJ article, Pifer calls it deliberate and intended to support a Kremlin propaganda line that the United States controls its NATO allies and other European partners.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has told U.S. diplomats that he wants his country to be neutral, like Austria, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, it also quoted unnamed close allies of Orban as saying he wants to remain a troop-contributing member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and values the security Hungary gets from the alliance.
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MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on his show Wednesday that Donald Trump and his allies have been lying for two years to cover up Donald Trump Jr.s crimes related to Russia.

The comments came after the Morning Joe panel discussed the shocking new revelation that Trump had another private meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in November. Although everyone knew about his private meeting with Putin in Helsinki, the Buenos Aires meeting had not been previously disclosed. This shows that Trumps deception about his Russia contacts is even greater than we realized.

Scarborough also pointed out that many commentators, including former MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin, had identified the presidents son Don Jr. as one of the most deeply implicated persons in the alleged election conspiracy.

Scarborough said:

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In March of 2017 I was asking Mark Halperin, quietly while all were around, this is when the whole Russia thing started to percolate, I said, Whos in trouble?

Halperin replied, Don Jr., for one. I said, What, Don Jr., does he not have a hunting license in Idaho? Then he said:

All of these contacts with Russians that Donald Trump and Don Jr. and his whole team have been lying about two years.

On her show last night Rachel Maddow also pointed out that Roger Stones grand jury could be still working on more indictments, including some for the presidents son. She said:

I feel like I would be remiss not to note that the one other person associated with the Trump campaign, besides Roger Stone, who admits to having months of communication with Wikileaks during the campaign  the only other person other than Roger Stone we know of that had months of communications with Wikileaks is  the presidents eldest son and namesake, Donald Trump, Jr..

Yesterday Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that he also believes that Don Jr. is in legal peril for both lying to Congress and for his communications with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump Jr. is in a world of legal hurt, as Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) suggests. https://t.co/GfZ4J2jFF6 pic.twitter.com/klHBxFBS4X  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 30, 2019

All signs are now pointing to Donald Trump Jr. as the next likely subject of a Bob Mueller indictment, and it is very likely that he will be charged with numerous crimes before the special counsels investigation is concluded.

CLICK HERE to watch the Morning Joe clip on YouTube
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Trumps Foxconn scam has fallen apart in Wisconsin as the company announced that they wouldnt be bringing manufacturing back to the state.

The Washington Post reported:

A major jobs deal President Trump has touted with former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker now looks uncertain: Foxconn, a supplier for Apple and other technology firms, says its scrapping plans to build a giant new factory in Wisconsin, opting to hire American engineers and researchers instead of a promised fleet of blue-collar workers.

In Wisconsin were not building a factory, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment.

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The Foxconn project was a Trump and Scott Walker scam

A man who was Trumps pastor for five years called out the presidents bible thumping by noting that Trump never went to church.>Scott Walker and Trumps big idea was to create thousands of jobs by giving Foxconn $4.5 billion in taxpayer money. The Foxconn scam is reminiscent of the Carrier con that Trump and Mime Pence pulled in Indiana where they gave Carrier $7 million in tax breaks to save jobs, only to have the company take the money, and still move the jobs to Mexico.

Trump loves to claim that he is bringing manufacturing back, but the president is doing nothing of the sort.

Instead of creating jobs for US workers, he and his Republican allies are giving corporations handouts in exchange for photo ops that create the illusion of jobs that never materialize.

It is all a fraud, and the people who get hurt the most are taxpayers who lose money that could be used for schools, bridges, and roads, and workers who either lose jobs or never get that ticket to the middle class that Trump and partners in crime promise.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook
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More than any other figure indicted by Robert Mueller so far Roger Stone loves to talk to the press. Like his longtime friend Donald Trump, Stone loves to be the center of attention. So one of his biggest fears is that the judge in his case  Amy Berman Jackson  will issue a gag order prohibiting him from discussing his case publicly or talking to the media.

But if Jackson does issue such a gag order (which is likely, considering that she has done it before, to Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) Stone has a plan to allow him to get around it. The fact that he has such a plan shows that his highest priority is getting publicity for his cause which appears to be creating chaos in America.

Gag orders are not something that defense attorneys like to deal with, as pointed out by CNN legal analyst Mark Geragos, who tweeted:

Such gag orders are often more of a burden on the defense than the prosecution, since prosecutors typically issue a press release or hold a press conference to announce the charges and then go mum about the case  at least officially.

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Such gag orders are often more of a burden on the defense than the prosecution, since prosecutors typically issue a press release or hold a press conference to announce the charges and then go mum about the case  at least officially  https://t.co/oKDwwfyOHS via @politico  Mark Geragos (@markgeragos) January 30, 2019

There is no question that both Stone and his lawyers would definitely see a gag order as a burden. And that is why Stone has added to his legal team one of the nations top First Amendment attorneys. He has also designated a pair of close friends as spokesmen in the event he and his lawyers are ordered to stop talking to the press.

The issue will probably come up Friday when Stone is scheduled to appear for his first hearing before Jackson with respect to Muellers charges that he lied to Congress and obstructed the Houses investigation into Russian election meddling.

Already the judge has a huge amount of media coverage to look at when deciding what to do going forward. Since his arrest last Friday, Stone has been on a media blitz. Hes discussed his legal defense plans during a series of interviews with the major television and cable networks, as well as in impromptu press conferences outside his South Florida home. He has been complaining nonstop that he was the subject of a lynching by Mueller, who he accused of using Gestapo tactics in his arrest.

He has also been sending out emails complaining about his arrest, and asking for money to pay for his defense.

On Instagram, Stone has posted 30 times about his indictment, including a doctored image Robert Mueller in a waiters outfit holding up a tray topped with an empty hamburger bun. Heres what Mueller has on me #nothingburger Stone wrote.

Michael Caputo, one of the Stone friends who has been designated to act as a spokesman if Stone gets gagged, said:

Its always been Rogers intention to maintain his First Amendment rights throughout the process.

But during Stones arraignment yesterday judge Deborah Robinson issued a warning, saying that he should not talk about the charges against him in the indictment. Any statements you make may be used against you, Robinson said.

But Roger Stone has no intentions of keeping quiet.

No gag order! I will fight and the deep state is in panic mode! Onward, he wrote in an Instagram post yesterday.

But many legal experts expect Stone to get a rude awakening before Judge Jackson on Friday. She is a no-nonsense judge who reacts harshly to what she perceives as showboating.

During a Paul Manafort hearing she was quoted as saying:

This is a criminal trial, and its not a public relations campaign. I expect counsel to do their talking in this courtroom and in their pleadings and not on the courthouse steps.

Roger Stone views himself as an irresistible force, but in Judge Jackson he may have met an immovable object. When they do battle, its not clear what the outcome will be, but one thing is for sure: Roger Stone will do everything he can to make it interesting, to generate as much publicity as possible, and to make his legal proceedings into a giant public spectacle.
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Donald Trump posted several tweets this morning that directly contradict national security intelligence on several major foreign policy matters, showing that he is doing actual damage to the country.

When Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday, he drew significant media attention by breaking with multiple points Trump has been trying to make in recent days, such as:

Trump claims ISIS has been defeated in Syria, but Coats says the terror organization still commands thousands of guerrilla warfare fighters in Syria and Iraq.

Trump says hes making progress with North Korea as he heads towards another summit with Kim Jong Un , and yet, Coats says the rogue regime is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.

North Korea unlikely to give up nuclear weapons: U.S. spy chief Coats https://t.co/hZrieEceSW via @politicususa  PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 30, 2019

There have been other points of divergence between Coats and Trump also, but the president does not seem to be aware of them.

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So heres what the president had to say today in his insane morning tweetstorm:

When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..

.Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!

When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

.Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

Note that Trump is contradicting himself as well his Director of National Intelligence. In December, he declared victory over ISIS. Last year, he declared, There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.

Trump also posted about the situation in Venezuela and told Americans to stay away from the country.

Then he tweeted an update on the border wall, telling members of Congress that if their negotiations on border security dont include a wall, they can forget about it. This comes just after Trump temporarily ended his misguided government shutdown in U.S. history after failing to obtain any additional funding for his wall.

If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!

If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

He also mentioned that there are more migrant caravans marching to invade America.

This mornings tweets show that Donald Trump is still living in a reality of his own making. They also show that he has not given up on his futile attempts to persuade Congress to fund his border wall with Mexico.

Trump doesnt even realize that the statements he tweets contradict himself and also contradict the official policies and positions of his own administration.

It is very clear that Donald Trump, through tweeting, is doing more harm than good. He should stop immediately and turn over foreign policy statements to the professionals in the American Intelligence Community.
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Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee has warned that Donald Trump is a threat to the national security of the United States.

Rep. Speier said on MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell Reports, It is not normal. It is not normal for the president of the United States to disparage his intelligence experts or his military experts. And yet thats what the president does day in and day out. He is becoming a national security threat himself. And I think we have got to step back now and recognize that he spews out toxic information. He spews out lies. And were not going to accept that. His intelligence community has now stated very clearly what the threats are, where we are succeeding, where we are not. He chooses not to recognize that. On the one hand, Iran is complying with the agreement. On the other hand, North Korea has 19 additional sites of nuclear weapons. He gets an F for comprehension of what the national security issues are.

Video:

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said that Trump is becoming a national security threat. https://t.co/wQUBgRiWAH pic.twitter.com/7WgiIy5sgn  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 30, 2019

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Trump is a threat to national security

The most obvious threat to national security is Trumps relationship with Russia. Trump is hiding secret meetings with Putin from his own government, which is a textbook national security risk. Trump is jeopardizing the security of the US and the West by maintaining a shady relationship with Putin that lends credibility to the impression that he is working for the Russians. Trump has also jeopardized national security by killing the Iran nuclear deal while cozying up to North Korea. Trump is putting the US at risk by downplaying the threat from ISIS while damaging US relationships with allies.

One of the biggest national security risks that the US currently faces isnt a threat from abroad, but Donald Trump occupying the Oval Office.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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By Jess Macy Yu and Karl Plume

(Reuters)  Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus, and said it intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers rather than the manufacturing workforce the project originally promised.

Announced at a White House ceremony in 2017, the 20-million square foot campus marked the largest greenfield investment by a foreign-based company in U.S. history and was praised by President Donald Trump as proof of his ability to revive American manufacturing.

Foxconn, which received controversial state and local incentives for the project, initially planned to manufacture advanced large screen displays for TVs and other consumer and professional products at the facility, which is under construction. It later said it would build smaller LCD screens instead.

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Now, those plans may be scaled back or even shelved, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. He said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high.

In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S., he said in an interview. We cant compete.

When it comes to manufacturing advanced screens for TVs, he added: If a certain size of display has more supply, whether from China or Japan or Taiwan, we have to change, too.

Rather than a focus on LCD manufacturing, Foxconn wants to create a technology hub in Wisconsin that would largely consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations, Woo said. It would also produce specialized tech products for industrial, healthcare, and professional applications, he added.

In Wisconsin were not building a factory. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment, Woo said.

Earlier this month, Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple Inc., reiterated its intention to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but said it had slowed its pace of hiring. The company initially said it expected to employ about 5,200 people by the end of 2020; a company source said that figure now looks likely to be closer to 1,000 workers.

It is unclear when the full 13,000 workers will be hired.

But Woo, in the interview, said about three-quarters of Foxconns eventual jobs will be in R&D and design  what he described as knowledge positions  rather than blue-collar manufacturing jobs. Foxconn is formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

Rather than manufacturing LCD panels in the United States, Woo said it would be more profitable to make them in greater China and Japan, ship them to Mexico for final assembly, and import the finished product to the United States.

He said that would represent a supply chain that fits with Foxconns current fluid, good business model.

Heavily criticized in some quarters, the Foxconn project was championed by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican who helped secure around $4 billion in tax breaks and other incentives before leaving office. Critics of the deal, including a number of Democrats, called it a corporate giveaway that would never result in the promised manufacturing jobs and posed serious environmental risks.

The companys own growth projections and employment goals suggest the taxpayer investment would take at least 25 years to recoup, according to budget think tank the Wisconsin Budget Project.

Foxconn CEO Gou plans to meet with Wisconsins new Democratic governor, Tony Evers, a past critic of the deal, later this year to discuss modifications of the agreement, according to the source familiar with the companys thinking.

Evers could not be reached for comment.

Currently, to qualify for the tax credits Foxconn must meet certain hiring and capital investment goals. It fell short of the employment goal in 2018  hiring 178 full-time jobs rather than the 260 targeted  failing to earn a tax credit of up to $9.5 million.

The company may be prepared to walk away from future incentives if it is unable to meet Wisconsins job creation and capital investment requirements, according to the source familiar with the matter.

(Reporting by Jess Macy Yu in Taipei and Karl Plume in Wisconsin; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Paul Thomasch)
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It is being reported that Trump had a secret meeting with Putin at the G20 that took place no US translator or notetaker present. It was Trump and Putin discussing foreign policy alone.

MSNBCs Chris Hayes summed up the latest developments:

Just a few weeks after the revelation that the president of the United States was suspected by his own government of working on Russias behalf, were learning about yet another undisclosed exchange the president had with Vladimir Putin.

No American interpreters, just Putin, and his own interpreter. This is wildly out of step with the usual protocol and if you were disposed, you might conclude this is how the president meets with his handler. We knew the president had spoken briefly with Putin late last year during the G 20 summit in Argentina. They held an informal a quote conversation only after it was revealed by the press but now the Financial Times reports it was longer and more substantive than we were led to believe. The president was accompanied by Melania Trump, his wife but no staff, while Mr. Putins interpreter was there. According to a Russian government officials account, the two spoke for about 15 minutes about a number of foreign policy issues.

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Video:

Trump hid another meeting with his Russian handler from the US government. https://t.co/KwxKa1V6pS pic.twitter.com/sF5vRNphTn  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 30, 2019

Why is Trump hiding meeting with Putin from his own government?

It is a very simple question. Why does Donald Trump insist on hiding his meetings with Putin from his own government? If Trump were innocent, one would expect that the president would demand full transparency. He would want the country to know that there was nothing unusual in his conversations with Putin. Instead, Trump continues to sneak around and act guilty.

The president cant hide. The meetings are coming out, and soon the details will follow. Donald Trump is acting like a Russian asset, and his refusal to have his own government present when he meets with Putin makes it clear that he is working for Russia, not the United States.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) showed that Donald Trump Jr. with Wikileaks, which is another reason for the presidents son to be indicted.

Blumenthal said on MSNBCs The Beat with Ari Melber, It really is about what the special counsel knows and can prove about Wikileaks coordinating with the trump campaign, and using Roger stone as an intermediary, a conduit, someone close to Donald Trump personally. Then in the indictment, an outreach from someone directing a senior official to contact Roger stone. Again the pieces of this mosaic are coming together. They involve also, remember Donald Trump Jr. Messaging with Wikileaks at almost the same time, but what is this I hear about a Wednesday document, Tom?

Video:

Donald Trump Jr. is in a world of legal hurt, as Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) suggests. https://t.co/GfZ4J2jFF6 pic.twitter.com/klHBxFBS4X  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 30, 2019

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Trump is worried that his son is going to be indicted. House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff is turning over transcripts of Don Jr.s testimony to Robert Mueller to investigate potential perjury charges against the Trump Jr. The perjury charges are expected to be related to Trump Jr. lying about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians to the House Intelligence Committee, but if Don Jr. committee crimes with Wikileaks, it will open up a whole new legal can of worms.

It is a matter of when, not if, Donald Trump Jr. gets indicted. The presidents son was not an official member of the campaign, but he obviously was deeply involved in the inner workings of whatever happened with the Russians.

Donald Trump Jr. is in a world of trouble, as it seems Mueller has his choice of felonies prosecute when it comes to Donald Trump Jr.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  President Donald Trumps longtime political ally Roger Stone pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to making false statements to Congress and other charges brought in the investigation into Russias role in the 2016 presidential election.

Stone, a self-proclaimed dirty trickster and Republican political operative for decades, also pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Washington, D.C., to obstructing an official proceeding and witness tampering.

He is the latest member of Trumps inner circle charged in Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation and was arrested on Friday in an early-morning raid on his home in Florida.

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Prosecutors say Stone told members of Trumps 2016 presidential campaign that he had advance knowledge of plans by the WikiLeaks website to release damaging emails about Trumps Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded were stolen by Russia.

The indictment did not indicate whether Stone knew that Russians had stolen the emails by hacking into computers used by Clintons senior campaign adviser John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee.

Stone, 66, could face about 50 years in prison if found guilty on all the charges but he is unlikely to receive such a harsh sentence, sentencing experts say.

Stone, a Republican operative since the days of the Watergate scandal that forced his former boss President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974, smiled as he passed through a gauntlet of reporters upon arrival at the courthouse on Tuesday. A small group of protesters waved Russian flags and a placard that said Dirty Traitor while other people showed their support for him.

Stone had held an impromptu news conference after being released from custody after his arrest and gave interviews during the weekend but he did not speak to the media after the brief arraignment in Washington.

The charges against Stone marked the first time Muellers team has publicly tied the Trump campaign to WikiLeaks, and raise questions about what Trump may have known prior to the public release of the stolen emails.

Mueller last year charged 12 Russians accused in the hacking as part of his investigation of Russias role in the election, whether Trumps campaign conspired with Moscow and whether the president has unlawfully sought to obstruct the investigation.

The charging documents said a senior campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information WikiLeaks had about Clintons campaign but do not disclose the identity of the person who gave the order.

Stone, who is free on a $250,000 bond, has accused Mueller of a raw abuse of power.

Trump has called the investigation a witch hunt and denied any collusion. Russia has denied U.S. intelligence communitys finding that Moscow interfered in the U.S. political arena.

Thirty-four people have been swept up in the Mueller investigation. Those charged include Trumps former campaign chairman and deputy campaign chairman, former national security adviser and his former personal lawyer.

It remains unclear whether any further charges have been filed. Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Monday said Muellers investigation was close to wrapping up and that a report was expected soon.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Will Dunham and Bill Trott)
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By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee on Tuesday said he and other senior Democrats aim to write a fiscal blueprint this year that would cut annual budget deficits by 50 percent in the next 10 years, possibly including tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy.

Representative John Yarmuth, in an interview with Reuters, said part of the effort could focus on raising the U.S. corporate tax rate to 26 percent or 27 percent, up from the 21 percent enacted through a broad Republican tax cut law in 2017.

Even with added tax revenues, Yarmuth conceded the difficult path toward deficit-reduction.

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Annual federal budget deficits are hurtling toward $1 trillion and Yarmuth said it is not going to be easy to cut them by half a trillion dollars by around 2029, especially given looming economic cross-currents and a Republican-controlled Senate hostile to tax increases.

We have so many threats to the economy going on with trade wars and a slowdown in other (nations) economies, said Yarmuth, who took control of the Budget Committee early this month with the new Democratic majority in that chamber.

The odds of there being a significant slowdown if not a recession are pretty substantial, Yarmuth said, which likely would cut into Washingtons revenue collections. That, in turn, could pump up deficits further in the short-term.

On the spending side, Yarmuth said House Democrats will advance legislation to lower prescription drug prices that contribute to higher government healthcare costs.

Many of the Houses freshmen Democrats are liberals who were elected last November on an agenda of expanding Medicare, the healthcare program for seniors, as well as boosting access to pre-kindergarten and college education and bolstering environmental programs.

At the same time, Democrats vaulted into their House majority with the election of several lawmakers representing districts that either backed Trump in 2016 or typically swing between Republican and Democratic majorities.

As a result, Yarmuth faces a difficult balancing act in advancing a fiscal 2020 budget plan this winter and spring and said he will conduct education sessions for his fellow Democrats that typically occur at the start of a new Congress.

We have some members I believe in the caucus who believe in the theory that you can spend whatever you want to spend. And I dont think thats possible, said Yarmuth, 71, who is in his 13th year representing a district that includes Louisville, Kentucky.

He did, however, express optimism the House would vote to broaden Medicare by the end of next year.

MODERATE, PROGRESSIVE APPEALS

Yarmuths concern for fiscal restraint may appeal to the more moderate wing of House Democrats.

Progressives might be heartened by Yarmuths openness to tax increases for corporations and top income earners.

While the budget plan Yarmuth produces will cite revenue goals, it is up to another major committee, House Ways and Means, to write the actual tax policy.

Theres no reason we have the maximum (tax) rate ended at $400,000 in annual income, Yarmuth said.

I think certainly taxes at the high end (of the income scale) need to be looked at, he added  but probably not to the level of 70 percent for top earners, as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a darling of progressives, has advocated.

Referring to what arguably is the biggest legislative achievement of President Donald Trumps first years in office, Yarmuth said, We have to look at that entire 2017 tax cut program and see what if anything is positive coming out of it.

Furthermore, the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to embrace any of House Democrats tax-increase plans, which are also likely to be rejected by Trump.

But Yarmuths audience is far broader than Washingtons political establishment. It is the electorate at large, which in November 2020 will be choosing a president and a new Congress.

Its fair to say that virtually everything the Democratic majority in the House will be doing for the next two years will be demonstrating a different vision for the country and direction for the country, Yarmuth said.

Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, are expected to tout the many conservative federal judges they have installed since early 2017, along with the rollback of federal regulations that they argue slow economic growth.

The U.S. budget deficit last year came in at $779 billion and is projected to hover around $900 billion this year. But government debt is rising at a significantly faster pace when counting interest payments on that debt.

Washington started 2019 with a national debt of nearly $22 trillion, amid slowing economic growth.

On Monday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that unless Congress makes fiscal adjustments, the debt held by the public will grow to 93 percent of the economy in 2029, its highest proportion since just after World War Two, and to about 150 percent of the economy by 2049, a level that many economists fear is unsustainable.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Susan Cornwell, Howard Schneider, Jason Lange, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Amanda Becker; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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American Contemporary Ballet presents five Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers duets this week. Victor Demarchelier, Courtesy ACB.

Onstage This Week: Justin Peck World Premiere at NYCB, The Beatles, Fred & Ginger, and More!
CHEYENNE, Wyo. Governor Mark Gordon has appointed Jim Ruby as the director of the Wyoming Office of Administrative Hearings and reappointed Del McOmie as the director of the Wyoming State Construction Department, Darin Westby as director of the Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, Dr. Erin Campbell as the Wyoming State Geologist, Michael Reed as the State Fire Marshal, Diane M. Lozano as the Wyoming State Public Defender, and Tom Glause as the Insurance Commissioner of the Wyoming Department of Insurance.

Coming from the Environmental Quality Council, Jim Ruby brings a wealth of legal experience to conduct fair and impartial contested case hearings, Governor Gordon said. Im also very pleased to announce that Del McOmie, Darin Westby, Dr. Erin Campbell, Michael Reed, Diane M. Lozano, and Tom Glause have agreed to stay and be part of my Cabinet.

The governor will announce more of his Cabinet next week. He is following the formal process for the appointment of the Wyoming Adjutant General and developing a stakeholder process to name the State Engineer and the director of the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

Wyoming Office of Administrative Hearings

Ruby has served as the executive officer of the Wyoming Environmental Quality Council since 2008. He replaces Peter Froelicher, who was appointed by Governor Matt Mead to be a District Court Judge in Wyomings First Judicial District in December 2018. Ruby served as the legal counsel for the Nebraska Legislature for three years and Seward County Attorney in Nebraska for four years.

Wyoming State Construction Department

McOmie has served as the director of the State Construction Department, overseeing the School Facilities Division and Construction Management Division since 2016. He has served as chief engineer for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, interim director of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, and director of Wyoming School Facilities.

Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources

Westby has been the director of the Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources since August 2016. Westby has over 24 years of experience in the environmental, architectural, engineering, construction and management fields. This includes twenty years in State employment and seventeen years with the agency. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wyoming, a Civil Professional Engineering license, and a certificate in public management.

Wyoming State Geological Survey

Campbell has served as the State Geologist and director of the State Geological Survey since being appointed to the position in 2017. She previously worked at WSGS as the Manager of Energy and Minerals Resources. She is the first woman to be named Wyoming State Geologist. Campbell has a B.A. in Geology from Occidental College in Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Wyoming (UW). Prior to working at WSGS, she worked for Chevron and as a lecturer at UW.

Wyoming State Public Defender

Lozano has served as the Wyoming State Public Defender since 2007. After 13 years as a trial attorney for the State of Wyoming Public Defender, she was appointed the State Public Defender in 2007 by Governor Dave Freudenthal and then reappointed in 2011 by Governor Matt Mead.

Wyoming Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety

Reed has served as the Wyoming State Fire Marshal, heading up the Department of Fire Prevention and Electrical Safety since 2016. Prior to that, he served as a policy advisor for Governor Matt Mead. He spent 24 years in active law enforcement, including twelve years as Chief of Police in Rawlins. He has extensive training in law enforcement, fire inspection, arson investigation, emergency management, and incident command. He also attended the FBI National Academy and served as President of the Wyoming Sheriffs and Chiefs Association. He is an active member of the International Association of Arson Investigators, National and International Association of State Fire Marshals and has chaired many committees.

Wyoming Department of Insurance

Glause has served as the Insurance Commissioner of the Wyoming Department of Insurance since 2015. Prior to this, he served as vice chairman of the Wyoming State Board of Equalization. He obtained his bachelors degree in accounting from the University of Wyoming in 1984 and a law degree from the University of Wyoming, College of Law in 1987. Glause is active in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) where he serves as vice-chairman of the Financial Conditions Committee, secretary/treasurer of the Western Zone and is the Whip for the Government Relations Leadership Council. Glause also serves as President of the National Insurance Producers Registry.

ANNOUNCED APPOINTMENTS

On January 10, Governor Gordon announced his appointment of Lynn Budd as the director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and Leland Christensen as the deputy director and Mike Ceballos as the director of the Wyoming Department of Health. The governor also announced that the following three agency directors have agreed to stay: Todd Parfitt, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ); Dan Noble, director of the Wyoming Department of Revenue; and Doug Miyamoto, the director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture.

Wyoming Office of Homeland Security

Budd replaces Guy Cameron, who is retiring. She has worked at the Office of Homeland Security for the past eight years in a variety of positions. Prior to that, she worked with her husband in the management of Red Canyon Ranch for the Nature Conservancy for twelve years. She received her Bachelors degree in Business Administration and was named the 2018 recipient of the Women of Influence award for Government, Military and Law. She has served as a volunteer for the Public Relations Committee of Cheyenne Frontier Days for over 25 years.

Christensen, a former Wyoming State Senator, served 15 years in the 19th Special Forces Airborne Army and the National Guard and worked in the Teton County and Lincoln County Sheriffs offices for 20 years. Christensen was twice elected to the Teton County Board of Commission. He has volunteered for and served on a variety of local and state governing and non-governing boards including the Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics, Salvation Army, Crime Stoppers and the Teton County Fair Board.

Wyoming Department of Health

Ceballos will replace Dr. Tom Forslund, who is retiring after this legislative session. Ceballos brings a tremendous amount of corporate experience, retiring as the Wyoming State President for Qwest Communications International in 2011. His career began in 1980 under the AT&T Bell System and served customers in the residential, business, public coin telephone, and wholesale markets. Ceballoss undergraduate education began at the University of Arizona and he received a BSBA in 1980 from Northern Arizona University. In 1997, he received an MBA from the University of Colorado. Currently, he is completing a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the UW College of Education.

Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality

Parfitt has served as the DEQ director since 2012. He has over 30 years of experience in the environmental field, including 25 years with the DEQ. Prior to becoming the director, Parfitt spent seven years as the DEQ Deputy Director and as the Administrator of DEQs Industrial Siting Division. Parfitt has a bachelors degree in Natural Resources, Fisheries Management and a masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Environmental Policy both from The Ohio State University. He is a 2008 graduate of Leadership Wyoming and was the President of the Environmental Council of the States in 2017-2018.

Wyoming Department of Revenue

Noble is the director of the Department of Revenue since 2013. Noble is a graduate of the University of Wyoming with a Bachelors degree in Accounting and served in the U.S. Army from 1974 -1981 as a surgical technician. Before entering government service, he worked in public accounting as a microcomputer consultant for three years and spent several years as a Chief Financial Officer of an ambulance company. Noble joined the Department of Revenue in 1998 as the Administrator of the Administrative Services Division and was subsequently appointed in March of 2000, as the Administrator of the Excise Tax Division.

Wyoming Department of Agriculture

Miyamoto has served as director of the Department of Agriculture since 2015. He was recently elected President of the Western United States Agriculture Trade Association. Prior to becoming director, Miyamoto served as the Executive Director and deputy director of the Wyoming Livestock Board. Miyamoto earned a Masters Degree in Rangeland Ecology and a Bachelors Degree in Range Management, both from the University of Wyoming. He has served as chairman of the Natural Resource and Environment Committee of the National Association of Conservation Districts of Agriculture since 2016.
Logansport, IN (46947)

Today

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Jillian Fellows (231) 439-9389 jfellows@petoskeynews.com

The Petoskey News-Review

Northern Michigan will get relief from the bitterly cold temperatures this weekend, but rain could provide a complication at the start of next week.

Mike Kurz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Gaylord, said the extremely low temperatures will begin to ease by Thursday night.

This brutal cold will begin to lose its grip, especially as we head into Thursday night and definitely going into the weekend, he said. By Friday, the temperatures will really start to rebound.

Thursday night will see low temperatures near minus 3 degrees, with a wind chill factor around 12 below zero. Light lake-effect snow is also expected to linger in the area.

On Friday, temperatures will rise into the double digits, with a high around 15 degrees. Kurz added that the wind chill might drop the temperature into the single digits and that there may be some light snow flurries during the day.

The overnight low into Saturday is expected to be around 8 degrees, with the wind chill dropping into the single digits below zero. By Saturday, Kurz said the dangerous wind chills of the past week will no longer be in effect.

The high on Saturday is expected to be around 31 degrees, and no precipitation is in the forecast.

Its pretty much a quiet, dry Saturday, Kurz said. It should be a brief, dry period before we get into another system moving through later in the weekend. Saturday, right now, is looking petty dry and temperatures will get up to near freezing.

The overnight low heading into Sunday will be around 25 degrees.

On Sunday, another weather system will move into the area. With the warming temperatures  the high will be around 40 degrees  the system could bring a mix of precipitation.

In terms of the system lifting through, its probably going to start out as snow and then gradually transition into briefly a rain/snow mix as temperatures begin to warm up, Kurz said. Then, later in the day, it might be a period of just plain rain.

As temperatures fall during the overnight hours to a low around 31 degrees, the precipitation could transition back into snow.

Kurz said there is concern that the system could result in icy roads for Monday morning travelers, especially on the back roads and on snow-packed routes.

Putting liquid rain on top of that could certainly refreeze in spots and make it pretty slick, he said.
Steve Foley

(231) 439-9397

Even when he was just a small boy growing up on a dairy farm in Charlevoix, Larry Warner had a fascination about human behavior.

I always knew I wanted to work with people, the 75-year-old Warner said. I liked meeting people with different personalities. It was something about different types of people. Id even write about it in high school.

Just knowing about human behavior always interested me.

It ultimately led to a rewarding career which has spanned 40 years working as a psychologist in Northern Michigan, where over the years hes earned a reputation as a well-respected professional in the area.

Warner, who for the past several years has been working at Harbor Hall as an outpatient counselor, will officially retire from the profession in April.

Its going to be hard to walk away, Warner said. I feel a commitment to it. Im 75 and people ask me why Im still working. Part of it is financial, but what motivates me is when somebody cares or when they come up and thank you me for what Ive done, or if you get a card. Just answering questions, it keeps me going.

Warner, whos been working on Mondays and Fridays with a Health Professionals Group as well as a group Fridays at the Emmet County Jail, said initially he had some reservations about his current role, but he liked the idea of meeting people, the stimulation and the challenge.

Warners never been one to shy away from a challenge, including when he commuted for two years to Sault Ste. Marie and back from his Petoskey home following the closure of the Department of Psychiatry at Burns Clinic Medical Center, where he worked for 10 years after merging with the Woodland Counseling Center.

I worked at the Burns Clinic in the Department of Psychiatry, but I didnt have a golden parachute like some people, Warner said. The closest job I had at the time was in Sault Ste. Marie, and I drove back and forth. I loved the challenge. During the trip, I looked forward to it, even if they had to close the Mackinac Bridge. I knew I could make it. I tried to make the best of it during the worst of times.

Warner, who received his associate degree from North Central Michigan College and bachelors in sociology/psychology from Central Michigan University, has worked in all capacities as a psychologist, including outpatient and inpatient therapy, has worked with adults, children, adolescents and couples as well as families.

Its worked out, Warner said. Somebody once asked me what kind of therapy do you do? I said whatever works. While somebody might wait for me to say Freudian or Jungian or a specific cognitive behavior, for me it starts with getting to know your client or patient and building some rapport or trust, and then start working.

For Warner, building that rapport and trust  and using his sense of humor in the process  has proven to be successful on a number of levels.

There needs to be trust, because confidentiality is crucial, especially being in a small community, Warner said. Once you build trust, then you begin to know them (patient or client) and they share more with you other than the weather. For me, its then I can really begin to help someone.

Warner, who also worked for a number of years as a licensed certified psychologist examiner and was contracted with the State of Michigan and the court/correctional system for psychological testing, can still recall advice he received years ago when he first got into the practice.

That first client or patient when you close the door to them, its Larry Warner, its not Freud or any of the rest of them, Warner said. You have to be yourself. People dont want you to waste their time, they want to get in and get help.

Over the years, Warner has presented a number of seminars and lectures to the Northern Michigan community, which included contracting with the Northern Michigan Hospital Community Foundation. Hes volunteered many hours to various support groups, including Hospice, and trained citizens interested in becoming volunteers for the organization.

In 2004, he was nominated by the American Red Cross as its citizen of the year, and in 2006 took an early retirement because of medical complications. He was able to make a full and healthy recovery and take on part-time work with Harbor Hall outpatient doing assessments, facilitating groups, including a weekly group at the Emmet County Jail and transitional house at Harbor Hall Residential.

In his retirement, Warner said hes looking forward to spending time with his family, including his wife of 56 years, Lorraine, his 1-year-old golden retriever, Barney, his three children and six grandchildren.

Its my early experiences I think that led me into the field, Warner said. I think I learned a lot about human behavior just growing up here and working in the Army.
Staff reports

The Petoskey News-Review

EAST JORDAN  Firefighters from the East Jordan Fire Department and at least two other area departments are responded to a house fire near East Jordan Wednesday.

Firefighters were initially called to a home on Rogers Road between Waterman Road and Ranney Road around 12:45 p.m. to a report of a chimney fire. When the first fire crews arrived on the scene they reported smoke coming from the eaves of the home, indicating that the fire had likely spread from the chimney.

Fire crews from Banks Township and the Boyne City fire departments have since been called to the scene to assist.

Emergency official had Rogers Road between M-66 and Ranney Road closed while fire crews were on the scene. Fire crews were on the scene until about 4:30 p.m. and the road was reopened to traffic.

Further details on the incident were not immediately available.
China Aviation Daily | Jan. 29, 2019

Jetstar Asia is the only international carrier to operate direct services from Singapore to Xuzhou, located in the Northern China plain, with the first charter service taking off today.

Operating three times a week with an A320 aircraft, the services are a joint agreement between Jetstar Asia and Nanjing Oriental International Travel Agency and the fourth destination for Jetstar Asia in mainland China.

The inaugural service arrived in Singapore Changi Airport this afternoon with Jetstar Asia's CEO Mr Bara Pasupathi and Changi Airport Group's (CAG) Managing Director for Air Hub Development, Mr Lim Ching Kiat at the airport to welcome the passengers, which included Xu Donghai, Vice Mayor of the Xuzhou Municipal Government.

"As the only Singapore-based airline flying direct to Xuzhou, the service brings greater choice for local and international travellers," said Mr Pasupathi.

"We predict the service will be popular with both leisure travellers keen to explore China's history as well as business travellers with Xuzhou, known as the most ancient city in China and the center of the Huaihai economic development zone.

"The flight is part of our strategy to enable more people to travel to more places and make travel more accessible, helping further build Jetstar's presence in the important Chinese market," said Mr Pasupathi.

CAG's Managing Director for Air Hub Development, Mr Lim Ching Kiat said, "With the addition of Xuzhou - a new city link for Changi, we are now connected to 34 cities in China with 16 carriers operating routes between the two countries. This new Xuzhou service was made possible by Changi Airport Group's efforts in working closely with our industry partners, including charterers, and will bring greater convenience for leisure and business passengers travelling between Singapore and the Jiangsu province in China. CAG will continue cultivating new points in China and strengthening existing connections to the country, to offer an even greater range of destinations for our passengers."

Jetstar currently operates more than 80 weekly flights to six destinations in Greater China -Shantou, Haikou, Sanya, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Contributed by Jetstar Asia
Steve Zucker

(231) 439-9346

Despite the spells of single-digit and below-zero temperatures that have gripped Northern Michigan during the past week and a half, area water utility officials are reporting few problems with freeze-ups.

Petoskey public works director Mike Robbins said the city had no problems aside from one recent water main break and one service line issue. He noted the water main break was likely not related to the cold weather.

Robbins said water department officials have notified the residents on the citys usual winter run-water list to start a leaving a trickle of water running. He said those are only for homes that have older services with a long identified history of water line issues. Those customers are individually notified each winter.

He said the only other issues have involved a few homes where a pipe inside the building  perhaps in a poorly insulated area  has frozen.

Similarly, Charlevoix public works department head Pat Elliott said hes not yet seen any issues with that citys water lines freezing up because of the cold weather.

He noted that hes had some inquiries as to whether the city will be issuing a wide run-water notice, or if one has been issued already. Elliot emphasized that no such notice has been issued and if one was, it would be extensively publicized through multiple outlets.

He said he has notified the customers on the citys list of known freeze-up problem locations to start running a trickle of water. However, he noted that this year that notice went out a little later than normal, thanks to relatively warm temperatures in December.

He also noted that, thanks to significant investment in infrastructure by the city in recent years, the list of problem water services has shrunk from about 500-600 five years ago to just 138 now.

In East Jordan, city administrator Tom Cannon noted that no major problems have cropped up yet, however, city officials are reminding residents and private plow operators to be careful not to clear snow from atop meter pits or water line locations. He said doing so can greatly increase the chances of water line freeze-ups because the insulating property of the snow cover has been removed.

Cannon noted that the city has not issued any run-water advisory and therefore, anyone who chooses to run a trickle of water would not receive any credit for it on their utility bill. He suggested that people check with their homeowners insurance companies because some may reimburse additional costs for running water as a preventative measure against freeze-ups.

In Boyne City, city manager Michael Cain said city crews continue to monitor frost depth levels, but so far, no major issues have cropped up. He noted that there are about 39 water customers out of about 1,600 on the citys system that have a history of water freeze-up problems, who have been advised to run a trickle of water.

Cain said hes hopeful that the recent snowfall  and the additional that is expected  will help insulate underground pipes further.

Extended snaps of extremely cold weather in early 2014 and 2015 prompted officials in cities across Northern Michigan to issue run water advisories for water customers  for as long as two months in some cases.

The long-term forecast calls for high temperatures barely breaking into the single digits on Wednesday and Thursday, before climbing into the mid-teens on Friday and the mid-30s Saturday and Sunday.
Sean Miller (231) 439-9394 - semiller2@petoskeynews.com

The Petoskey News-Review

An area organization is offering a warming station for people to get out of the cold.

The following warming station is available locally as of Wednesday morning.

 The First Presbyterian Church in Petoskey is offering a warming station from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday this week with coffee and donuts.

The News-Review has reached out to the Manna Food Project, Salvation Army, CCE Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan and Nehemiah House for information about local warming stations. If you have information on one, or would like yours listed, contact News-Review reporter Sean Miller at semiller2@petoskeynews.com.
Lonnie G. Allen (231) 547-6588 lallen@charlevoixcourier.com

The Petoskey News-Review

CHARLEVOIX  Charlevoix Township will decide in March if it will join Michigans growing list of communities banning businesses that would sell recreational marijuana.

At the board of trustees meeting in January, Charlevoix Township officials wanted more information before moving forward with any opt out ordinance.

In March, we will discuss whether or not to move on any legislation for the township, said Chuck Center, township supervisor. There are some municipalities opting out of the sale of marijuana in their municipality boundaries, however, the state has a year to decide  and there is a lot of issues yet to be decided, so it might be a little premature for us to make any decision at all.

In November, Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older. However, the voter-approved act also permits municipalities to opt out of having recreational marijuana-related operations in their communities.

Township officials decided to discuss opting out after receiving a letter against recreational marijuana from resident Nancy LaCroix.

In her letter she listed 20 bullet points to encourage township officials to opt out of legal marijuana sales.

Parents work so hard to keep their children away from drugs, LaCroix wrote in her letter to the board. I would hope our local politicians would send the right message  No recreational marijuana stores in Charlevoix County.

Center asked attorney Harry Golski to prepare a list of pros and cons so the board could understand both sides of legal marijuana businesses in the township.

In Lansing things are in a state of flux on how the dispensaries are going to be approved or not approved, Golski said.

Golski suggested township officials make a decision on the question of opting out before a business opens up.

You dont want to be in a situation where you havent opted out and are forced to accept a dispensary, Golski said. Even if you opt out you can always opt back in. I think you may want to look into the time limitations so were not stuck with the decision or the decision isnt forced on us because we havent preserved our municipality rights.

Though the City of Charlevoix is opting out until it sees what state regulators come up with, people can still possess and use marijuana in non-public places in the city under the new state law, said Mark Heydlauff, city manager.

There is another provision of the law that not a lot of people have noted that plays into this process. It allows residents to collect signatures and bring it to a vote if they think elected officials are making the wrong decision by opting out, marijuana supporters said.

Places where high numbers of voters were in favor of adult-use legalization could be particularly ripe for action if their elected officials have chosen to opt out, a Charlevoix resident said.

According to county documents, people in Charlevoix and Charlevoix Township did support legalization, but the margins between yes and no were smaller compared to statewide totals.

In the City of Charlevoix, Prop 1 saw support in two of the three wards. The voters in Ward 1 had 253 yes votes to 260 no votes; Ward 2 voters said yes by 236 votes to 148 votes and in Ward 3 there was 240 yes votes and 205 no votes.

In Charlevoix Township, there was 482 yes votes and 462 no votes on Prop 1.

The next Charlevoix Township meeting is at 7 p.m. on March 11 inside the township hall at 12491 Waller Road.
About a dozen children dressed in Lorax costumes went to Gov. Tom Wolfs office Monday. They wanted to give him petitions urging action on climate change and Pennsylvanias environmental rights amendment.

But when they got there, three Wolf staffers met with them and told them the governor wasnt available to talk to them. Schedule a meeting, they said. The kids were disappointed.

One young boy said, I think he might not want to listen, and thats not something we want.

Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network told Wolf aide Sam Robinson that theyd seen the governor walk into his office a few minutes earlier. Finally, the staffers relented.

The kids got their meeting, and they gave Wolf the petitions.

Reporters werent allowed in, but nine-year-old Seamus Johnson said the governor shook all the kids hands.

During his first term, Governor Wolf was criticized by some groups for failing to take a strong stance on environmental issues. However, he has recently been talking about it more, calling climate change one of the big issues we have to deal with. Earlier this month signed an executive order setting a new goal for the state to combat climate change: reducing greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050.
(Updated 5:32 p.m.): The Eagles announced they signed linebacker Paul Worrilow to a one-year contract through the 2019 season.

Roster Move: #Eagles have signed LB Paul Worrilow to a one-year contract through the 2019 season.#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/QGX0GnBfxe  Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 30, 2019

The other Eagles linebackers currently under contract for the 2019 season are: Nigel Bradham, Kamu Grugier-Hill, Nathan Gerry and B.J. Bello.

PHILADELPHIA  The Philadelphia Eagles will re-sign linebacker Paul Worrilow, according to multiple reports.

Worrilow missed all of last season after tearing his ACL on the first day of organized team activities.

NJ.com first reported the pending signing Tuesday. The Delaware News Journal reported it confirmed the signing with Worrilow on Wednesday.

The Eagles signed Worrilow, 28, to a one-year deal last offseason, and he seemed poised to compete for a spot in the teams rotation. But Worrilow banged knees with another player in collision during drills in May, and his 2018 season ended before it began.

Worrilow was still a presence around the NovaCare Complex during the course of the 2018 season with a locker in line with the rest of the teams linebackers.

Worrilow could compete for a core special teams spot or a reserve role this offseason. Linebackers Jordan Hicks, LaRoy Reynolds and D.J. Alexander are poised to hit free agency this offseason. Hicks was the teams every-down linebacker before a calf injury in Week 11, while Reynolds and Alexander were major contributors on special teams.

Worrilow spent the first three years of his career was a contributors with the Atlanta Falcons where he made 43 starts and appeared in 47 games. But he moved out of a starting role in 2016, and in 2017, he played 30.6 percent of defensive snaps and 62.6 percent of special teams snaps for the Detroit Lions.

Signing with the Eagles was a bit of a homecoming for Worrilow. He was born in Wilmington, Del., and starred in college at Delaware, where he earned All-American honors. He was undrafted in 2013, but he caught on with the Falcons and won a starting job.

Philadelphia Eagles on PennLive

--@danieljtgallen
In a stunning development, the president has been forced to eat crow, having little choice but to delay the State of the Union Address until the government shutdown he proudly claimed is concluded.

The move is something he clearly did not anticipate. Welcome to Democratic control of the U. S. House and divided government, Mr. President, in which you do not necessarily get your way.

Knowing Donald Trump's vindictive nature, one can imagine how he is now seething, plotting revenge against the Speaker who has interfered in his ability to receive adulation and adoration from the GOP sycophants of the House and Senate.

Will the president strike back by referring to Speaker Pelosi as Senior Horseface? Will he engage in the strategy he has employed with former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, threatening he and members of his family on the eve of his planned appearance before a Congressional Committee?

Nancy Pelosi has upped the ante, outsmarting the stable genius. What will be the next shoe to drop in this high-stakes chess game?

OREN SPIEGLER, South Strabane Township, Washington County
China Aviation Daily | Jan. 29, 2019

London Oxford Airport (OXF-EGTK) is participating at the NBAA's Schedulers and Dispatchers event in San Antonio, TX this week (29th January to 1st February) and is highlighting a 'first time user' offer to North American-originating pilots and corporate flight departments. New arrivals from the US and Canada can claim 25% off their landing fees from now until April 1st quoting S&D Offer 2019 when placing a handling request.

"We are keen to encourage more transatlantic, mid to large cabin business aviation movements, (up to Airbus ACJ/ Boeing BBJ and Embraer Lineage E190 size) and now is an opportune time to try us out," said James Dillon-Godfray, Head of Business Development.

He cites that RAF Northolt is set to close to all fixed wing aircraft movements between April and October this year (for runway improvements). Luton and London Stansted are restrictive on night flights again this summer, a situation expected to continue, plus RAF Brize Norton (popular with Heads of State visitors) is temporarily closed to civil traffic during the Spring. We want to get over the message that London Oxford Airport offers "the longest opening hours of any non-commercial airport in the UK." Opening hours can extend to midnight (on a 24-hour request) while its usual 'standard' opening hours were recently extended from 06.30hrs to 23:00 hours, seven days a week. This is notably better than all GA and Biz Av airport peers at the weekends.

The airport is further exploring the ability to accept limited movements after midnight and before 06:00 hrs - in part to satisfy potential 24 hour needs of regional manufacturers who have a critical need for the most expeditious options for Just-in-Time logistics. This has come into sharp focus now, especially with the possibility of Brexit and consequences of any disruption to normal supply channels.

London Oxford Airport's award-winning OxfordJet FBO is IS-BAH Stage 2 accredited. It is also approved for Pet imports, having accepted thousands of cats and dogs to date.

Lowest Cost Helicopter Connectivity to London Heliport

Through its shared ownership with the London Heliport in Battersea, the only UK CAA licensed heliport in the capital, London Oxford Airport offers a 50% landing fee discount for any business jet making an interline connection to Battersea at Oxford Airport. "This means we can offer the lowest cost helicopter connectivity of any of the London region airports to Battersea - from just 1,999 pounds for a 22-minute hop in either direction," James added.

London Oxford Airport offers quick London region access via the M40 motorway, statistically the least congested and fastest arterial route into London (well-placed for Kensington, Notting Hill, Holland Park and the NW central London zone.)

James Dillon-Godfray will be on Booth 937 with its new fuel provider World Fuel Services Corp, headquartered in Houston, TX, during Schedulers. WFS has just agreed a five-year contract to be the fuel supplier to London Oxford Airport and London Heliport, effective 1st February.

Contributed by London Oxford Airport
Accordingly, arrivals by air and sea increased by 1.4% and 26.9% compared to the same period last year, respectively, while those arriving by land decreased 30.5%.

The number of Asian tourists hit over 1.1 million during January, up 5.4% over the same period last year. Visitors from the Republic of Korea (RoK) went up 23%, surpassing China to become the country with highest number of travellers to Vietnam.

The number of European visitors rose by 3.1% year-on-year, including those from Russia (up 2.2%), the UK (3.9%), France (1.3%), Germany (3.9%), Sweden (6%) and Italy (3.9%).

In addition, tourists from America and Oceania were up 7.8% and 0.2%, respectively, while the number of African visitors was down 2.1% over January last year.

The tourism sector expected to serve 6.6 million domestic tourists this month and earn VND56.5 trillion from both domestic and international visitors, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%.

Vietnam also targeted to receive 18 million foreign visitors and serve 85 million domestic tourists in 2019, earning total revenue of over VND700 trillion.
Accused of promoting prostitution at a Franklin County massage business, a Chambersburg woman now faces criminal charges, including a felony.

According to Chambersburg police, 52-year-old Chang Hong Zhao was arrested after a months-long criminal investigation into multiple allegations of prostitution that was alleged to have occurred within the business.

The business, which officers said is called Asian Massage, has been shut down, police said.

Zhao was arrested after local police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, investigators from the Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Enforcement and state police troopers served a search warrant at the business at 58 Lincoln Way West, police said.

Several pieces of evidence, including items related to prostitution, were seized by officers from the business, police said.

Police said their investigation into the business is ongoing, and additional arrests related to the business are expected.

Online court documents show that Zhao faces a felony charge of promoting prostitution, as well as a misdemeanor charge of promoting prostitution.

The documents show Zhao was arraigned on her charges Tuesday evening before Magisterial District Judge Jody C. Eyer, and she is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing at 8:15 a.m. Feb. 5.

As of noon Wednesday, online court documents showed that Zhao remained incarcerated in Franklin County Prison unable to post $500,000 cash bail.
It has been said that you can count on two hands - and most days probably one - the number of state lawmakers who really call the shots at the Pennsylvania State Capitol.

It is a place where partisanship really matters, because its whole structure is built around the five families of the governors office, and the Republican and Democratic caucuses of the state House and Senate, respectively.

Layer on the outsized powers that come with being in the majority - the ability to call up bills for votes, or essentially ignore other ones - and you can start to see how difficult it is for most legislators to really deliver on a personal priority.

A group of reform-minded, mostly-Democratic House members presented an alternative view Tuesday:

One in which it would be far more possible for a single lawmaker gifted with a good idea to actually let that proposal live or die on its merits, as opposed to the getting quashed by leaders responding to the majority of the majority. Or, as can also happen, a committee chairman that doesnt like it.

Their proposals came in the form of proposed changes to House rules, and they are a long way from bearing fruit. Most, it must also be noted, come from Democratic members, who have an especially hard time getting bills advanced in a GOP-dominated (110-91, with two vacancies at present) chamber.

The changes, which would apply only to the House, would create a little bit of power sharing for rank-and-file lawmakers, and could help force action on popular measures like adding sexual orientation to the list of classes included in the states anti-discrimination law that have stalled thus far under GOP leadership.

They also require a majority thats willing to give up a bit of its policy-making prerogative.

(The lure of majority control is a bipartisan thing in Harrisburg, incidentally. House Democrats were presented with a number of the same proposals when they won a narrow majority in 2007; none made it into a final reform package adopted that year.)

Unlikely? Sure.

Still, its interesting to ponder how differently the House might work if some of these proposed changes took root.

The key changes:

A requirement that any bill that has a majority of the 203 House members signing on as a co-sponsor gets an automatic final consideration vote on the House floor.

This proposal by Rep. Steve Samuelson, D-Bethlehem, would see such bills moved out of committee in their original form and brought before the full House for debate, where they could be passed, amended or rejected.

Samuelson noted the rule would have been invoked three times in the 2017-18 legislative session, one of them being a proposal to change how redistricting is accomplished in Pennsylvania. That bill was blocked by then-State Government Committee Chairman Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County.

No guarantee it would pass on the House floor, Samuelson said. "But the full House should have the opportunity to consider legislation with broad, bipartisan support.

A second proposal from Rep. Pam DeLissio, D-Philadelphia, would require that any bill with 20 co-sponsors from each party would, at the request of one member from each party, be brought up for a committee vote within three legislative days.

Again, DeLissio said, this is to help members with an idea that has garnered significant support avoid being blocked by a committee chair that simply wont consider a bill for years on end.

Rep. Melissa Shusterman, a first-term Democrat from Phoenixville in Chester County, would permit each member to designate one piece of legislation as a priority bill in each two-year legislative session.

The priority bill would have to pass, like any other piece of legislation. But the designation would allow each member to single out one cause, idea or issue for a guaranteed committee vote - guaranteeing that it gets at least that initial airing, and also letting constitutents understand what their legislators top priority is.

This will guarantee that voices are heard and that the government is at least attempting to truly work for everyone in Pennsylvania. That should not sound like a radical concept at all, Shusterman said.

Rep. Joe Webster, a first-term Democrat from Norristown in Montgomery County, called for making committee membership in proportion to the two major parties overall membership in the House. At present, the rules establish a 60-40 balance of power in favor of the majority party.

There is no clear path forward for the proposed rules changes at this time.

However, Rep. Bob Freeman, an Easton Democrat who is one of the leaders of the reform effort, said he and Steve Samuelson have had a preliminary discussion of the proposals with Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, and they hope to have a more extensive sit-down with him soon.

Any changes to the rules would have to come in the form of a resolution passed by the House Rules Committee. Such a resolution would then require majority passage by the full House.

Cutler expressed his willingness, on the Houses Jan. 1 swearing-in day, when the initial rules for the session were adopted, to consider amendments down the road. But he also made no promises.

Well look at them (proposals) as they come, Cutler said then.
Pennsylvania stands in the company of nine states that fail to provide constitutional protections to the rights of crime victims and some lawmakers have set out to change that.

Legislation proposing an amendment to the constitution, dubbed Marsys Law, would ensure crime victims have the right to receive notification of proceedings in criminal justice system, to be heard at plea and sentencing hearings, and to file motions to challenge instances in which they believe their rights were violated.

We never forget to notify a defendant as to when a court hearing is. We never forget to notify a defendant as to when is their probation period is coming up or for the possibility for parole. Why shouldnt we notify the victim and make sure their voice is heard in the system as well, said Rep. Sheryl Delozier, R-Cumberland County, at a Capitol news conference on Tuesday. She is sponsoring the legislation, House Bill 276, in the House.

Sen. John Sabatina, D-Philadelphia, the bills sponsor in the Senate, formerly worked in the Philadelphias district attorneys office and saw firsthand the difficult position in which crime victims involuntarily find themselves.

Victims of crimes are all confused. They are befuddled by the process. And its not a good time for them, he said. What Marsys law would do is make it a little easier for them. Explain the process, give them the same rights as the people that are accused of crimes right now.

The legislation is named after Marsalee Nicholas of California, who was stalked and killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1983. Only one week after her death, her mother and brother, unaware the accused killer had been released on bail, confronted the accused killer in a grocery store. Her brother has made it his lifes mission to ensure crime victims and their families have constitutional protections and equal rights.

Since it is a proposed constitutional amendment, it requires identical legislation to pass in the House and Senate in two consecutive legislative sessions. The proposal passed both chambers in the last session. If approved in the current session, it would be up to voters to decide through a ballot referendum whether it should be added to the constitution.

Delozier said the goal is to have this legislation pass swiftly through the House and Senate so it can be placed on the November ballot. She emphasized that the intention of the legislation is to leave it to voters to decide.

They get to make this choice, she said. Equality is what our constitution is about. Equality is what were asking for.

While the states Victim Advocate Jennifer Storm said this amendment would correct the imbalance in justice that exists for crime victims, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania argues it may conflict with the accuseds right to due process under the state and U.S. constitutions.

The ACLU argues provisions in the proposed amendment are dangerously broad or vaguely worded. Further, it says the victim notification requirements could delay court proceedings and prove costly to counties to provide.

The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association supports the measure. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said the proposed constitutional amendment does not give victims veto power at any step in the process. He also maintained that it takes away no rights from the defendants.

It simply gives the victim legal footing with the defendant in the criminal justice system, Steele said.
One of the most powerful lawmakers in Harrisburg is signaling willingness to push through legislation to once and for all ease restrictions on victims of child sex abuse to bring predators to justice.

On Wednesday, Rep. Bryan Cutler was poised to have the first formal meeting with Rep. Mark Rozzi to discuss the path forward in the new legislative session.

Cutler, a Lancaster County Republican and newly elected House Majority Leader, made it clear that reforming the statute of limitations was a legislative priority.

It needs solved, Cutler said. It needs solved sooner rather than later. It should have been solved years ago. Thats whats a priority. Finding a solution that can get the votes.

In terms of his meeting with Rozzi, Cutler said: Well see how that turns out.

The two lawmakers were scheduled to meet in the afternoon.

Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who has long spearheaded the efforts to reform the laws, said he remained optimistic that his goals would be achieved in the new legislative session.

The opposition can only run and hide so long, said Rozzi, pointing to New York, which this week passed the Child Victims Act.

The New York bill gives survivors of sexual abuse for the first time in their lives, the ability to seek damages for their abuse - no matter their age.

Similar efforts have failed in Harrisburg for years dating to the investigations into clergy sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Subsequent state investigations into the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, and last years more broad statewide probes across all Catholic dioceses have failed to result in legislative changes to the child sex crimes law.

Cutler on Wednesday said he had reached out to all stakeholders on both sides of the aisle.

"I think we can find a solution, he said.

Cutler said he favored prospectively changing the law immediately to protect the greatest number of people going forward including some victims who fall within the required age limits. The General Assembly can then return to the issue at some later time to make other changes - that might include retroactivity.

The one thing that we know is that the proposal as it passed the House last session - thats been four years that nothing has happened, Cutler said. So lets go into the future and suppose a bill is passed with a retroactive component. At that point, if the court declares it unconstitutional, which is a risk that I think we need to be mindful of, if they declare that unconstitutional, we got some number of victims who for the last at least four and a half years now, could potentially be six before we find a solution, that are now without any remedy whatsoever. Ive always advocated that the best approach would be to bifurcate the problem.

In October, after months of negotiations, the Senate failed to ratify a bill that would have eliminated the statute of limitations in criminal cases of child sexual abuse.

The measure would have extended to adults who were sexually abused as children a two-year period to file civil lawsuits against predators. But the bill lost support, in part, due to a proposal that would have allowed victims only a limited ability to sue predators. Victims would have been barred from suing institutions, including the Catholic Church.

Rep. Mark Rozzi remains optimistic on efforts to reform statute of limitations in Pennsylvania.

The reform efforts were largely fueled by a scathing grand jury report released in August 2018 that found that more than 1,000 children were sexually abused in Catholic dioceses across the state over a period of seven decades. The grand jury recommended that the Legislature enact a retroactive window to sue as a safeguard to preventing such systemic abuse from happening again.

Rozzi said he was willing to negotiate on some of the finer points, including those pertaining to gross negligence and negligence. Critics of the last failed bill argued that it held victims to a double standard: Victims suing private organizations, including churches, for their roles in covering abuse would only have to demonstrate negligence. Victims suing government entities, such as public schools, would need to demonstrate gross negligence.

Cutler, who voted against the measure in the last House session, said that had been a bigger issue than the debate over retroactivity.

Rozzi said he did not think the matter was going to be an issue this time around.

We absolutely should hold public and private institutions on the same page, he said. There should be no difference. All victims deserve justice.

Rozzi, however, reiterated that he would not back off the demand for a retroactive window - whether the time period was for one or two years.

Again, he pointed to Albanys Child Victims Act, which, among its provisions opens up a one-year window for any victims to seek civil damages against individuals, churches and even school districts.

Theres no reason why that same type of bill should not be passed here in Pennsylvania, Rozzi said.

Staff writer Jan Murphy contributed to this report.
Emboldened by a rare win in 2018, Pennsylvania gun control advocates kicked off the new legislative session with calls for one, two or more next steps in their quest to reduce gun violence across the state.

At a Capitol Rotunda rally visited by Gov. Tom Wolf, a coalition of groups called for measures such as establishment of a new extreme risk protection order, creating a process not unlike protection from abuse orders in domestic violence cases to let police or family members petition local courts for temporary confiscation of guns from a person deemed to be mentally unstable.

They also promised to work on tightening perceived loopholes in state background checks for gun purchases and other steps that - if not cure-alls to the plague of gun violence - might at least bend the arc of community safety in the right direction.

New voices this year included the ex-wife of a survivor from the October shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and a trauma surgeon from Philadelphia who argued its past time for lawmakers to treat gun violence just like other public health campaigns that produced safer automobiles or dramatically reduced cigarette smoking.

Of the top two priorities, CeaseFire PA executive director Shira Goodman noted that an extreme risk protection order bill did pass in the House Judiciary Committee last year, and its not dissimilar to the domestic violence confiscation measure signed into law by Wolf last year in that it:

Sets out a defined process to be followed for any weapons seizure takes place;

It is temporary, and;

It does not affect the broader pool law-abiding gun owners.

Last years bill, sponsored by Rep. Todd Stephens, R-Montgomery County, was never debated by the full House of Representatives.

The background check improvements being sought would require background checks on transfers of hunting rifles, shotguns and other long-barreled guns between two private persons. Thats long been one type of gun transfer that has been exempt from any kind of records check in Pennsylvania.

That may have worked in the past, Goodman said.

But in an age of Internet-based transactions and no bans on assault-style weapons, she and other gun reformers believe long-gun transfers should be given the same scrutiny as handgun sales, which are all already subject to background checks.

Wolf threw his support behind expansion of background checks Tuesday, arguing that we put our communities at risk by allowing individuals to buy long guns, including AR-15s, through private transactions without a background check.

Wolf also voiced support for the extreme risk protection order concept.

Calls for gun control come amid a mixed bag of crime statistics.

Overall, major crime rates have dropped considerably nationally and in Pennsylvania over the last generation, since a spate of tough-on-crime legislation was passed at the beginning of former Gov. Tom Ridges administration.

However, the number of homicides in Pennsylvania has risen in each of the last four years, with 637 reported across the state in 2017 as compared to 545 in 2014. (2018 figures are still being compiled, but Philadelphia police have already noted an increase in the number of murders there from 2017.)

And, Pennsylvania State Police records show, guns are still used to commit 69 percent of those murders.

All told, there were more than 9,000 robberies, shootings or murders that involved a gun in 2017.

So there is, speakers here said Tuesday, lots more work to be done.

Dr. Zoe Maher, a trauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital, said it is the human cost of those crimes - both in lives lost and in lives changed forever by serious injuries - that should motivate further change.

As a health care community, we have tackled a number of public health crises," Maher said, ticking off a list that included gains in highway safety, reductions in the use of cigaerettes, and the current battle against the abuse of opioids.

So why cant we tackle the public health crisis from firearms injury?, she asked. "The answer is that we can, and we must."

Its unclear if the momentum gun control advocates felt late last year with the passage of a bill mandating the surrender of guns in more domestic violence cases will continue in the 2019-20 legislative session.

Gun control advocates believe that with the election of more Democrats in the state House and Senate, they are in a better position to defeat public safety approaches they dont like, like permitting teachers and other school officials to be armed.

But with two new Republican chairs in both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, where gun-related bills typically take their first step, its a little less clear how new gun reforms will be considered there.

Efforts to reach the new Senate Judiciary Chairman, Lisa Baker of Luzerne County, were not successful for this story.

In the House, however, incoming Judiciary Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin County, described himself Tuesday as someone who will look at all gun-related bills with the 2nd Amendment rights of Pennsylvanias citizens in mind.

That said, however, Kauffman said that doesnt mean he has a closed door on gun safety issues.

Away from Tuesdays rally, House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, said in an unrelated public appearance he is interested in exploring the extreme risk order proposal.

Cutler said hes interested in that concept because in a lot of the worst mass shooting events the one commonality, other than just the firearm, is that most of these individuals really needed intervention much sooner in terms of treatment, medication or whatever...

I think its important to focus on what would produce real results, and also focus on those things that I think could find solutions, the majority leader said.
SUNBURY -- Bone fragments from a female were found inside a wall removed from a duplex in Milton as part of an investigation into the 1989 disappearance and murder of a Sunbury woman.

The discovery was confirmed Tuesday by a spokesman for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in Fort Worth, Texas.

Former Sunbury Police Chief Timothy S. Miller called it a "major development" toward solving the homicide of Barbara Miller, whose body never has been found. "It's huge," he said.

The file that the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System opened last June contains little information, such as he estimated age of the female. A spokesman said it is likely the fragments were sent to laboratory it uses that also is at the University of North Texas.

It can take months to determine if DNA in the fragments match DNA in the system's database, he said. He confirmed DNA from Barbara Miller's family members is in the database.

Timothy Miller, who is no relation to Barbara Miller but reopened the cold case when he was named Sunbury police chief in 2016, said he decided to have the wall removed from the duplex in June 2017 after eight cadaver dogs indicated it contained human remains.

Also, multiple individuals provided information that human remains might be in the wall, he said. "I believed there was something there," he said. "This confirms it."

It is Timothy Miller's theory that Barbara Miller was killed in her home, and her remains were put in the non-load bearing wall in the duplex in the 700 block of North Front Street in Milton.

The late Cathy Reitenbach lived in the duplex, which police say was a hotbed for drug activity at that time.

Reitenbach is the sister of Joseph Walter "Mike" Egan, identified in a search warrant affidavit as a suspect in the Miller case. He denies any involvement.

Miller, 30, was last seen at her Sunbury home on July 1, 1989, after attending a wedding. She had planned to meet friends at a bar in Mifflinburg, but never showed.

A judge on Oct. 10, 2002, declared her dead. Her death is classified as a homicide.

It is Timothy Miller's belief that her death is linked to the 1986 drug-related murder of Ricky D. Wolfe, who was killed execution-style at a Susquehanna River boat ramp north of Montandon.

He believes Miller was killed because she had information about the Wolfe case.

Prior to her disappearance she received threatening letters accusing her of planning to go to police, a search warrant affidavit states.

After Timothy Miller resigned as police chief last July, Northumberland County Judge Charles H. Saylor asked the state attorney general's office to take over the investigation.

The Attorney General's office does not discuss investigations, spokesman Joe Grace said, but PennLive has learned agents have obtained numerous files related to both the Miller and Wolfe cases.

Scott R. Schaeffer, who spent 17 years in prison for the Wolfe murder, also has said he believes the cases are linked.

A March 1 hearing has been scheduled on his claim newly discovered evidence will clear him of involvement in the Wolfe murder. Timothy Miller supports his claim that he was wrongly convicted.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale called for Pennsylvania democratic Sen. Daylin Leach to resign from his position, after sexual misconduct allegations arose regarding Leach.

Leach, 57, D-Montgomery County, responded by denying any wrongdoing, and on Monday he announced he was suing his accuser for defamation.

It is past time for Sen. Leach to step down. The serious and shocking allegations against him need to be thoroughly investigated. In the meantime, he has no business serving in the Senate, much less serving on the Judiciary Committee that could weigh in on statute of limitations issues," DePasquale said in a statement issued Tuesday. I find it disgusting that he filed a defamation lawsuit against his accuser. I will continue to stand by brave victims who have the courage to speak out and ask for justice.

DePasquale also said he believes Rep. Brian Ellis, 49, R-Butler County, should step down, following sexual assault allegations made against him in recent weeks.

It is the best interest of their constituents and Pennsylvania taxpayers for both men to resign, and do so now," DePasquale said.

The House GOP leaders have called for Ellis to resign. Governor Tom Wolf has also called for Ellis and Leachs resignations.
Its shaping up toto be an exciting year for fans of alternative rock band Vampire Weekend.

The group is releasing Father of the Bride" in spring 2019. Its the bands first full length album in six years -- the last record released was 2013s Modern Vampires of the City, which won the 2014 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.

Adding to the good news: theres a new North American tour to celebrate its release.

The tour kicks off on May 17 in Alabama, but Pennsylvania fans will have to wait until 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 4 to catch the band live. Itll be performing on that date at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. That is the only Pennsylvania date on the tour thus far.

Tickets go on sale at noon on Feb. 8 and can be purchased on ticketmaster.com. They range from $25 to $99.50. All online tickets purchased through Ticketmaster will include a physical CD of Father of the Bride.

Cant wait until Feb. 8 to get your tix? Sign up for the Ticketmaster Verified Fan pre-sale by registering at verifiedfan.ticketmaster.com/vampireweekend before noon on Feb. 5. Thatll give you access to a pre-sale running from 10 a.m. Feb. 5 through 10 p.m. Feb. 7.

Vampire Weekend isnt the only act coming to the Mann Center in 2019. Old Dominion will performing at the outdoor venue on May 18.

DETAILS: 6 p.m. doors, 7:30 p.m. show Sept. 4 at Mann Center of Performing Arts, 5201 Parkside Ave., Fairmount Park. Cost: $25-$99.50. manncenter.org.

Want more stories about Philly and the surrounding areas? Click here for all our coverage of the City of Brotherly Love.
After a $2 million renovation, the six Chinese Art Galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art are re-opening to the public on Feb. 3.

Itll mark the first time in ten months since the museums collection was on display and the first comprehensive renovation for the Chinese art galleries in half a century.

The new galleries will showcase the museums 7,000 strong collection of Asian works including tomb figures from the Tang dynasty (618-907), art from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and an emperors robe from the Daoguang period (1821-1850). If that wasnt enough, the collection also boasts 500 different paintings dating as early as the 12th century, numerous textiles and a gilded dog cage.

Dog Cage, late 18th19th century, made in China. Brass with cloisonne enamel and gilt decoration; jade rings, 45 1/2 x 32 x 24 3/4 inches. Gift of the Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1964. Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2018.

There are also contemporary pieces as well, including a 2015 archival pigment print of the Wen River by Taca Sui.

Visitors will be able to enjoy viewing these works in new display cases with updated lighting. The pieces are also arranged thematically rather than purely chronologically, which invites the viewer to see how approaches to death in art, for instance, have changed over time.

While much of the collection was not on display during the renovation period, there was an exception for several notable pieces including the museums 17th-century painted wood reception hall and 18th-century scholars study. Both were available for public viewing for much of the renovation.

The re-opening of the Chinese Art Galleries is all part of the Philadelphia Museum of Arts reinstallation program, which started in 2012 with the Rodin Museum. The last gallery to receive the renovation treatment was the South Asian Galleries in 2016.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is also in the midst of an extensive architectural project which will result in more public spaces, more gallery space and a new restaurant. The project is the work of acclaimed architect Frank Gehry, who is also responsible for crafting the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, Dancing House in Prague and Walt Disney Concert Hall in California. The work, which the museum is calling its Core Project, is expected to be complete in 2020.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located at 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, $14 for students and free for children 12 and under. Learn more at philamuseum.org.

Want more stories about Philly and the surrounding areas? Click here for all our coverage of the City of Brotherly Love.
I also want a new era for the coal industry, like Terry Jarrett (January 20 op-ed). I have a personal connection with coal as my father and grandfathers were coal miners, and they ended up with the horrible black lung disease. I grew up in Somerset County and also saw the environmental effects of coal, and became an environmental biologist as a result.

Coals new era should be limited to museum displays, and our energy should come from renewable sources.

Jarrett paints renewables (and even natural gas) as unreliable. Wind power accounted for 6 percent of the nations electric power in 2017, but studies indicate that wind power could supply 20 percent to 35 percent of a regions electricity without compromising reliability.

Pennsylvania has about 5,500 jobs in the coal industry  and almost 3,000 people employed in wind power. Even the coal-friendly Trump Administrations Department of Energy (DOE) website advises visitors how to map a career in solar but nothing on getting a coal mining job..

According to the federal government, solar power provides more jobs than the total number of jobs in the coal and oil industries. With renewables, we can have good-paying jobs that dont have the severe consequences of fossil fuels.

Coals detrimental effects go far beyond what I saw all over Pennsylvanias landscape. Climate scientists say we need to take meaningful action to reduce fossil fuel consumption before its too late. We have the technology to do this. What we lack is the political will. So it is up to us to elect representatives who support taking action to reduce fossil fuel consumption. We have no time to lose.

C. MARK HERSH, Portland, Ore.
By yan, Xinhua | Jan. 30, 2019

Ethiopian Airlines Group, the fastest growing aviation group in Africa, has envisaged to realize its ambition of becoming Africa's leading aviation hub with its latest Chinese-built infrastructure.

Ethiopia's flag carrier on Sunday inaugurated an expansion project at the Bole International Airport in the capital Addis Ababa, which was funded and built by China with a construction cost of some 363 million U.S. dollars.

The newly inaugurated terminal, with funding from the Export-Import Bank of China and built by the Chinese construction giant China Communications Construction Company, has an annual capacity of serving about 22 million passengers, eventually tripling the airline's current capacity towards making Addis Ababa as the aviation hub of the African continent.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said during the inauguration ceremony on Sunday that "What we learn from today's inauguration of the new passenger terminal is that we have a lot of work ahead of us."

"We expect the Board and the Management (of Ethiopian Airlines Group) not to be complacent with the new terminal, but rather to aim for a bigger facility with a capacity to accommodate at least 100 million passengers," Ahmed said.

The newly expanded airport terminal is equipped with amenities and high-tech systems of 21st century global airport hub, including improved baggage handling and latest technology security machines along with modern passenger service packages, it was indicated.

The new passenger terminal features the latest technology security systems, self-check-in machines, self-boarding system, lounges, duty free shops and other amenities, it was reported.

Ahmed, together with the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, also inaugurated another Chinese-built hotel, which was constructed with about 65 million U.S. dollars.

Hosting the largest Chinese restaurant in Africa and a conference hall with a capacity of accommodating some 2,500 people, 373 guest rooms and spacious executive suites, the newly inaugurated Ethiopian Skylight Hotel is said to enable the airline to offer packaged tour and travel programs.

The hotel would enable Ethiopian Airlines to attract around a third of tourists out of the 6 million passengers transiting through Bole Airport to visit Ethiopia, the airlines said.

Ahmed, who noted that "Ethiopian Airlines is our national pride and a special icon among our companies as it carries our common name Ethiopia and our national flag," also spoke highly of the new infrastructure in modernizing the sector.

"The new hotel Ethiopian Airlines inaugurated today will enable us to attract tourists, and will serve as a model for other companies to emulate," he said.

The newly inaugurated terminal and luxury hotel are said to be part of the Ethiopian Airlines' Vision 2025 strategic roadmap, as the company currently implements a 15-year strategic plan aimed at becoming Africa's leading airline group.

Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde Gebre-Mariam said that the expansion project would further boost Ethiopia's flag carrier's share in Africa's aviation sector.

"This grand terminal building is further evidence of the development of Bole Airport as one of the largest and most convenient global aviation hubs," Gebre-Mariam said.
Pauls Valley, OK (73075)

Today

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 75F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 75F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.
Patna: Veteran socialist leader and a key figure in the Jaya Prakash Narayan-led Total Revolution of in the 70s that led to the collapse of the then Indira Gandhi government, George Fernandes passed away at Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Tuesday after prolonged illness.



https://www.patnadaily.com/index.php/news/14103-nitish-pays-emotional-tribute-to-george-fernandes.html#sigProId84b96a0fe6 View the embedded image gallery online at:

A former member of both houses of the Parliament, the socialist leader served in the Vajpayee cabinet in different capacity including Railway Minister, Communication Minister, Industry Minister, and Defense Minister,

Canceling all government events, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar declared two days of state mourning in Bihar and described Fernandes death as a major loss to the nation and a personal loss to him who, he called, was his political mentor.

At a program at Janata Dal  U office in Patna, the Chief Minister talked about Fernandes leadership qualities and his initiative in forming Samata Party in Bihar, the precursor to the JD-U today.

He was my mentor and my guide. It was he who taught me to serve the public and while we all have to go one day; his death has been most painful to me. Not only the nation has lost a noble leader, I have lost my guardian, he said.

The Chief Minister then left for Delhi to take part in the funeral service.

Seeing the mortal remains of Fernandes lying at his home in Delhi, Kumar could not hold back his tears and began crying before family members.

He was a leader who was liked by all. As a trade union leader, his role in Mumbai for the rights of workers cannot be forgotten. Mr. Fernandes was a man of high ideals and principals who sacrificed his life at the altar of public welfare. He played a major role in the JP movement that led to the formation of Janata Party. It was under his tutelage that I learnt the ins and outs of politics and the realization that the nation is above any single individual, Kumar said.
Patna: Firebrand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh is in hot water after police in Bihar lodged a case against him and 32 others in a case involving illegal capture of 2.56-acre of land owned by a man in Danapur.

The FIR, lodged with the Danapur police station back in September last year, alleges that Singh, the Union Minister for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, along with 32 other men, had illegally captured land of one Ram Narayan Prasad, age 68, in Asopur village near Danapur.

However, after failing to get any response from the police, Prasad knocked the door of the Special Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe court in Patna last week that directed the Danapur police to re-open the case.

As expected, Singh, an MP from Nawada, denied allegations saying he found out about the FIR through a tweet by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) de facto President Tejaswi Yadav.

"I know Tejaswi Yadav is behind this smear campaign against me but I have nothing to hide and I will cooperate with the investigation to prove my innocence.

Seizing the moment, Yadav, who faces a host of corruption charges himself involving illegal acquisition of properties to the tune of several crore rupees, demanded Singh's resignation saying the BJP minister should be sacked and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who walked out of the Grand Alliance to show his moral high ground on corruption issues, should also resign from his post on the same moral high ground.

"Giriraj Singh is the same man who was caught with several crore rupees in unaccounted money a few years ago. If Nitish Kumar can break alliance with the RJD and Congress following charges of corruption against some members of the coalition then he should also resign from the NDA government after the revelation of case against the BJP minister," the former Deputy Chief Minister said adding Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who has a history of holding press conferences to accuse others of corruption, was yet to make any comment on charges against the Nawada MP.
Patna: Police in Patna claimed to have busted an international gang of 'hawala' racket following the arrest of four men from a bag shop in Bakerganj under Kadam Kuan police station and recovery of Rs. 24.6 lakh in cash from their possession.

Acting on a tip-off, police raided a bag shop named Mittal Impax located within the Danda Shahi Complex in Bakerganj and arrested kingpin Pankaj Agrawal, a Surat (Gujarat)-based diamond merchant Anil Mittal, and salesmen Ashutosh Kumar and Nand Kumar. Police also seized Rs. 24.6 lakh in cash, a currency counting machine, two laptops, one IPad, half a dozen cell phones, and hard disks containing several hours of surveillance footage from the store, ASP Rakesh Dubey, who led the raiding team, said.

Talking to the reporters, the ASP said that Patna unit was just a small part of a much larger outfit active in big cities like Mumbai and Delhi with its arms reaching foreign nations like Singapore, Hongkong Nepal, Middle East, and even other western countries.

On an average, the hawala shop in Patna did transaction in excess of Rs. 10 crore per day, he said.

Dubey further said that cops posing as agents of Pankaj Agrawal, approached Mittal who was staying at a luxury hotel in Patna in connection with some jewelry show in the state capital, to collect money from him for his illegal transaction. When Mittal handed them Rs. 3 lakh in cash, he was immediately taken into police custody.

The remaining Rs. 21.6 lakh was recovered from the Bakerganj shop, he said.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, State Rep. Lori Saine stated the following on the Colorado House floor:

We have come a long way on that arc since the Reconstruction, since whites and blacks alike were in nearly equal numbers lynched for the crime of being Republican.

The context was a complaintLori argued that she was not allowed to make a MLKJ Day resolution because she was white. Presumably, her claim about lynching was made to argue that what really mattered was that she was a Republicanbecause political party affiliation, and not skin color, was the reason people were lynched in Reconstruction South.

Im going to get back to Loris complaint toward the end of this post, because frankly, even apart from her comments about lynching, the existence of her complaint was tone deaf and off-puttingand illustrative of something she fundamentally does not understand about the history and current trajectory of the countrys two main political parties.

But lets be completely clear here from the start: black people in the U.S. South were lynched because they were black. Or to be more specific, they tended to be lynched when they were perceived to have stepped out of their place. One way they did this was by voting or going into politics. White Southerners didnt want to cede even a smidgeon of political power to black Southerners. When black Southerners went into politics, they tended to be Republicans, both because white Southerners controlled the Democratic party in the U.S. South and because the Republican Party was the party of abolition.

And yes, white Republicans were lynched in the South during Reconstructionthis was for supporting the rights of black people, not for being Republican. Now yes, you could argue that at the time there was little distinction. Still, the underlying root cause was not party affiliation, but that partys stance on race and on what Reconstruction should look like (i.e. giving freed slaves citizenship and rights equal to white Southerners). First and foremost, lynching was always about race.

I could go into detail about white people not being lynched at anywhere near the number of black peoplewe do have some databut honestly, this is such a settled issue that recognizing it would legitimize it more than anything else.

I want to talk about something else. Time and again, todays Republican Party appeals to the Civil War and Reconstruction to argue that they are the true not-racist political party. They point to a past when Southern Democrats were the ones doing the lynching and robbing black people of their right to vote, to prove that the Democratic Party is the one that actually has a problem with race. And Im tired of it.

You dont get to point at a perfect math score you got in 2nd grade to get out of doing your math homework in 9th grade. It does not work that way. You still have to do your math homework in the grade youre in. And sometimes the kid who never turned in their math homework in 2nd grade turns things around and starts turning in their homework in 9th grade.

At some point, the parties flipped. Before, say, 1930, black voters overwhelmingly supported the Republican party; after, say, 1980, black voters overwhelmingly supported the Democratic party. In between, things shifted. Did you know that more Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats?

No really, check it out:

The House: Democratic Party: 15296 (6139%)

Democratic Party: 15296 (6139%) Republican Party: 13834 (8020%) The Senate: Democratic Party: 4621 (6931%)

Republican Party: 276 (8218%)

Roughly 63% of Democrats voted for the bill, and roughly 80% of Republicans voted for it. The shift in two political parties, however, was already well underway. Do you know how we can tell? By breaking it down by region.

Check this out:

The House: Southern Democrats: 787 (793%)

Southern Republicans: 010 (0100%)

Northern Democrats: 1459 (946%)

Northern Republicans: 13824 (8515%) The Senate: Southern Democrats: 120 (595%)

Southern Republicans: 01 (0100%)

Northern Democrats: 451 (982%)

Northern Republicans: 275 (8416%)

Note: Southern refers to those from states that joined the Confederate States of America during the Civil War; Northern refers to those from every other state, not just those in the geographic north.

Southern Democrats overwhelmingly voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, yes, but so did Southern Republicans. If we exclude the South altogether, what we have looks far different: 95% of Northern Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 compared with 85% of Northern Republicans. More members of Congress from the South were Democrats than were Republicans, and it was members of Congress from the South opposed the Civil Rights Act in overwhelming numbers.

As The Root puts it:

[I]t wasnt the Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Republicans who favored it. Everyone supported the Civil Rights Act except the South. It was Southern politicians from both parties who voted against the legislation. The reason Republicans say they supported the bill is that there werent very many Southern Republicans in Congress in 1964.

Now, this isnt to say that Southern Democrats werent a real problem. They were. They were a very big problem, in fact. But the interesting thing is that between 1964 and the 1990s, the South swung from Democrat to Republicanand not because black Southerners were suddenly voting Republicans in, because during this same time black Southerners switched from voting for Republicans to voting for Democrats. Why do that? Because the parties changed.

The Republican party became the party of racial obstructionism. The Republican party became the party that opposed busing and affirmative action. The Republican party, today, is the party that opposes criminal justice reform and accountability for police departmentsand, yes, the party that opposes welfare and other programs that people of color, who are stuck in poverty in higher rates than are white Americans, disproportionately depend on.

The Republican party, too, became the party that says things like this:

We have come a long way on that arc since the Reconstruction, since whites and blacks alike were in nearly equal numbers lynched for the crime of being Republican.

That doesnt exactly sound like someone who values racial justice. That sounds like someone who cares more about scoring rhetorical points for her political party. And its actually worse than that.

Saine claimed that a fellow lawmaker had been told she could not introduce a resolution honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because of the color of her skin. Saine made the following statements on the Colorado House floor:

My colleagues, how can you redeem your marginalized voice by marginalizing ours? Our march towards justice is not over when a colleague is barred from introducing a resolution on this floor because of the color of her skin, Saine said. Our march of justice is not over when a member of this body who represents all races, creeds and religions is told that Martin Luther King does not represent her heritage.

Other lawmakers have contested this assertion, stating that Leslie Herod and Jovan Melton introduced this years resolution because they were also honoring former state Rep. Wilma Webb, who championed the bill that made MLK Day a Colorado holiday and Herod now represents Webbs district and Melton is close friend. The resolution was also sponsored by white lawmakers, including Saine. In other words, this wasnt fundamentally about skin color.

But so what if it were? Can you imagine having the presumption, as a white lawmaker, to claim that you should be the one to introduce this years resolution honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when there are black lawmakers who want to do it? Why would you do that? What point could you possibly be trying to prove?

How is it not obvious that, say, if you are going to have a resolution honoring Italian heritage, you should give lawmakers who actually have Italian heritage the first chance to introduce the resolution? This is the same thing. This isnt about rights. Its about basic decency.

Most of the coverage of this moment has focused not on Saines complaint but on her bizarre claims about lynching. On those, Saine has only doubled down:

Lori Saine defended her claims of roughly equal Reconstruction Era lynchings in the comments of a posted video of her speech made on her official Facebook page. Friends, if we can get this conversation going about our the real history and what actually happened during reconstruction, that will be just tremendous, she said in one comment. She also upped the ante on her original claim, saying whites were disproportionately targeted: In the decade following reconstruction the best data available shows more whites lynched than blacks.

Thats rightit only gets worse.

Saine goes on to cite the Tuskegee Institute for her numbers. First, the Tuskegee Institute did not begin tracking lynchings until 1882, when it was founded. Perhaps Saine does not know what years Reconstruction was? Second, the Tuskegee Institute data on lynchings reveals that far more black people were lynched than white peopleespecially in the South.

There is no part of this that looks goodat all.

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Notes from Voting with their feet: Thousands of Gulf Arabs are abandoning their homeland: Fed up with social restrictions and political repression, Saudis are leading the way, an article that appeared in the print edition of The Economist for 19 January 2019:

According to the refugee agency of the United Nations  formally, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees  815 citizens of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia applied for asylum in 2017. Thats not a huge number. But its a 318% increase over the analogous figure for 2012.

Moreover, the numbers of asylum-seekers dont convey the full story. Jamal Khashoggi, for instance, went into exile in America before agents of the Saudi Arabian government brutally murdered and dismembered him  appallingly, that order should perhaps be reversed  in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October. This isnt uncommon: Saudis who are uncomfortable with life at home and who have the means to do so often take up residence in places like Washington DC and London without feeling the slightest need to seek asylum.

Should such departures be blamed on the repression notoriously overseen by the Saudi crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman? No, because the trend began well before he became the heir apparent to (and the power behind) the Saudi throne.

Moreover, as The Economist points out, The trend is not limited to Saudi Arabia. About three times as many from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sought asylum in 2016 as in 2012. Tiny Qatar saw its count more than double in the same period. Saudi Arabia has seen the steepest increase, though.

The most likely catalyst for the phenomenon may well be the so-called Arab Spring, the series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across the Middle East in late 2010 and continued until fading away in mid-2012, and its discouraging aftermath.

Though most Gulf states weathered the Arab spring without serious unrest, The Economist says, the revolutions elsewhere unnerved them. The UAE stepped up domestic surveillance and rounded up activists. Qatar passed a cyber-crime law that is broad and easily abused. Political activity was never encouraged in the Gulf, but after 2011 it was ruthlessly punished.

Muhammad bin Salman is, to put it mildly, a huge disappointment. When he came to power, a millennial with reformist attitudes toward Saudi economics and culture, many people had great hopes. Overturning prior bans, he allowed movie theaters to open, permitted public concerts, and granted women the right to drive. Many expatriate Saudis began to come home, or to think about it. But the crown princes autocratic ways, the vicious assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the arrest of hundreds of activists in the Kingdom  these things have soured his image in the West and among many of his own people.

Its another opportunity largely squandered, much like the Arab Spring itself.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

(Langston Hughes)
Matthew 2:13-23

Luke 2:39-40

In the Bible  in the Old Testament, anyway  Egypt is often a threat. But it also figures more than once as a place of sanctuary. On this topic, see S. Kent Brown, Biblical Egypt: Land of Refuge, Land of Bondage Ensign (September 1980).

Matthew 2:16 cites as prophecy a statement taken from Hosea 11:1: Out of Egypt have I called my son. In its original context, it clearly refers to the exodus from Egypt of the people of Israel as a whole. This offers an interesting perspective on Matthews overall approach; plainly, he sees the history of Israel as somehow foreshadowing the life of Christ. Or, to put it another way, he regards Jesus as, in some sense, recapitulating the story of the Hebrews. At least in part.

Its sometimes rather difficult to keep the various Herods of the New Testament straight. In the passages for today, were concerned with only two of them.

The first, of course, is Herod the Great  who was, as everybody should realize, only great in terms of his ambition and his vast building activity, certainly not in terms of his character or his success as a family man. He dies in Matthew 2:19.

The second is Herod Archaelaus (23 BC-ca. 18 AD), who is mentioned in Matthew 2:22. Josephs reluctance to go back from Egypt to living under his rule is entirely understandable: He was legendarily cruel. He ruled as the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea (the biblical Edom), including the cities of Caesarea and Jaffa, for roughly nine years (ca. 4 BC to 6 AD). This was roughly one half of the territory ruled by his father. However, Herod Archelauss gross brutality, coupled with egregious and offensive violations of the Law of Moses, caused his Jewish subjects to lodge a formal complaint with the Roman Emperor Augustus. Accordingly, Archelaus was deposed in 6 AD and banished to Vienne, in Gaul. At that point, the province of Judaea was formed and placed under direct Roman rule.

The prophecy to which Matthew 2:23 alludes (He shall be called a Nazarene) does not appear in the Old Testament. Was Matthew aware of a text that is now lost to us, but which he took to be genuine scripture? If so, this passage represents a potentially interesting challenge to people who insist on the completeness and sole-sufficiency of the Bible as we currently have it.

Luke 2:40 (The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him) is a powerful reminder of the humanity of Jesus, which should not be forgotten in the overpowering light of his divinity.
Notes from the 22 December 2018 print edition of The Economist, from an article entitled The search for life on Mars: New results suggest there is no methane on Mars: Living organisms are thus less likely:

Most of the methane in Earths atmosphere derives from living organisms, so discovering methane in the atmosphere of Mars would be strongly suggestive of Martian life.

Alas, though, the preliminary results from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a European spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars for the past two years, reveal no Martian methane. They were shared on 12 November 2018 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in Washington DC.

Some previous observations, drawn both from orbiters and from terrrestrial telescopes, had suggested otherwise. And the data from the American Mars rover Curiosity, which spent six years sampling on the Martian surface, did seem to find methane and even to detect seasonal variations ranging from 0.25 parts per billion in the winter to 0.65 parts per billion during the summer  occasionally spiking all the way up to a relatively whopping 7.0 parts per billion.

Where would that surface methane originate? It might come from space, via carbon-rich molecules arriving aboard meteors and then breaking down into methane. Or it might arise beneath the surface of Mars, perhaps concentrated near its source (which Curiosity might have been lucky enough to find). Subsurface methane could come from a geological or geochemical process that might be heightened during the (relative) warmth of a Martian summer. Perhaps, if its biological, there might be a subsurface organism that wakes up during the summer.

But methane should persist for centuries. So the fact that the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which features instrumentation thats twenty times more sensitive than that aboard Curiosity, has failed to find even the slightest trace of methane in the Martian atmosphere is discouraging for those who hoped for signs of organic life.

The optimists havent given up, though. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter cant sample anything lower than five kilometers above the Martian surface. And, by sheer bad luck, when it flew over the specific area explored by Curiosity, a dust storm obstructed its view of anything within thirty kilometers of the surface.

At least I think that we can confidently rule out any idea that the surface of Mars resembles a giant New Zealand sheep paddock.

***

A very slightly related story:

4bn-year-old Earth rock found in Apollo 14 crews moon haul: Scientists say rock must have been blasted to moon, buried then uncovered by asteroid impacts

***

In other science news:

In Iran, parched lands hollowed by water pumping now sinking

Surprising and refreshing:

Anne Hathaways Lesson on Celebrity Pseudoscience
It's being reported today in Korea that Samsung's new Galaxy S10 went into full production on January 25 in Korea and overseas. The twist is that only their 4G models have gone into production. A source told the Korean publication that "The 5G Galaxy S10 is still in the pipeline and will start being produced later during the first half."

The report went on to repeat some of the new features coming to the Galaxy S10, such as a fingerprint scanner using an ultrasonic sensor under the display and a triple back side camera. It also repeated that their new foldable smartphone will be priced out of range for most consumers.

What the report didn't address adequately is why Samsung may delay their 5G smartphone. More importantly, the question that begs to be asked is why is Samsung confusing their fanbase by selling both 4 and 5G smartphones in the first half of 2019?

What customer in their right mind would want to put down their hard earned money down on a 4G smartphone when a 5G version is set to be released only a few short months later?

If Apple sold the iPhone XR with 4G and then said they'd have a 5G model ready in 3 to 4 months, why would any Apple fan buy and XR restricted to 4G now?

Unless Samsung is planning to sell their 5G smartphone at a much higher premium price, the rumored strategy on paper doesn't make much sense. Why don't they have a single focus selling the Galaxy S10 in 5G only so as to give their customers something over Apple's latest iPhones?

The complexity may rest with some parts of the US and Europe not having their 5G services up and running in time. Verizon has promised to sell the new 5G Samsung phone in the first half 2019. But in the end, every Samsung customer wants to buy a 5G phone so that they're ready for when 5G services comes to their area. Samsung's 5G phones will carry 4G anyways, so why not just sell 5G phones. It's rather confusing. How they manage inventory of 4 and 5G models will be interesting to hear about as they year progresses.

Samsung will no doubt explain their strategy in full when Samsung's event unfolds on February 20th in San Francisco. The original rumor was that Samsung was going to ship their 5G smartphone close to March 29th.

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A super cyber-weapon, dubbed Karma, was a tool that allowed the small Gulf country to monitor hundreds of targets beginning in 2016, from the Emir of Qatar and a senior Turkish official to a Nobel Peace laureate human-rights activist in Yemen, according to five former operatives and program documents reviewed by Reuters. The sources interviewed by Reuters were not Emirati citizens.

Karma was used by an offensive cyber operations unit in Abu Dhabi comprised of Emirati security officials and former American intelligence operatives working as contractors for the UAEs intelligence services. The existence of Karma and of the hacking unit, code named Project Raven, havent been previously reported. Ravens activities are detailed in a separate story published by Reuters today.

The ex-Raven operatives described Karma as a tool that could remotely grant access to iPhones simply by uploading phone numbers or email accounts into an automated targeting system. The tool has limits  it doesnt work on Android devices and doesnt intercept phone calls. But it was unusually potent because, unlike many exploits, Karma did not require a target to click on a link sent to an iPhone, they said.

In 2016 and 2017, Karma was used to obtain photos, emails, text messages and location information from targets iPhones. The technique also helped the hackers harvest saved passwords, which could be used for other intrusions.

It isnt clear whether the Karma hack remains in use. The former operatives said that by the end of 2017, security updates to Apple's iPhone software had made Karma far less effective.

Lori Stroud, a former Raven operative who also previously worked at the U.S. National Security Agency, told Reuters of the excitement when Karma was introduced in 2016. "It was like, We have this great new exploit that we just bought. Get us a huge list of targets that have iPhones now," she said. "It was like Christmas."

The disclosure of Karma and the Raven unit comes amid an escalating cyber arms race, with rivals such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE competing for the most sophisticated hacking tools and personnel.

Three former operatives said they understood Karma to rely, at least in part, on a flaw in Apples messaging system, iMessage. They said the flaw allowed for the implantation of malware on the phone through iMessage, even if the phones owner didnt use the iMessage program, enabling the hackers to establish a connection with the device. You could read more of this story here.

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This afternoon after the bell Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2019 first quarter ended December 29, 2018. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $84.3 billion. Apple's original revenue guidance for this quarter was between $89 billion and $93 billion.

Revenue from iPhone declined 15 percent from the prior year, while total revenue from all other products and services grew 19 percent.

Services revenue reached an all-time high of $10.9 billion, up 19 percent over the prior year.

Revenue from Mac and Wearables, Home and Accessories also reached all-time highs, growing 9 percent and 33 percent, respectively, and revenue from iPad grew 17 percent.

Tim Cook, Apples CEO: "While it was disappointing to miss our revenue guidance, we manage Apple for the long term, and this quarters results demonstrate that the underlying strength of our business runs deep and wide. Our active installed base of devices reached an all-time high of 1.4 billion in the first quarter, growing in each of our geographic segments. Thats a great testament to the satisfaction and loyalty of our customers, and its driving our Services business to new records thanks to our large and fast-growing ecosystem."

Luca Maestri, Apples CFO: "We generated very strong operating cash flow of $26.7 billion during the December quarter and set an all-time EPS record of $4.18. We returned over $13 billion to our investors during the quarter through dividends and share repurchases. Our net cash balance was $130 billion at the end of the quarter, and we continue to target a net cash neutral position over time."

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2019 second quarter:

revenue between $55 billion and $59 billion

gross margin between 37 percent and 38 percent

operating expenses between $8.5 billion and $8.6 billion

other income/(expense) of $300 million

tax rate of approximately 17 percent

Apples board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.73 per share of the Companys common stock. The dividend is payable on February 14, 2019 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 11, 2019.

In Apple's conference call, Apple's CEO blamed the decline overall to four areas: (1) Greater China lower upgrades than expected, (2) Foreign Exchange, (3) Subsidies business in larger markets and (4) the iPhone Replacement battery program.

To get around the subsidies business declining, Apple's CEO said that Apple will push to make their trade-in program easier to understand because it acts just like a subsidy.

While Apple's CEO commented on the company having a great pipeline of products for this year, Cook and Maestri seemed to overly push their "services" business to analysts as some kind of silver bullet to replace declining iPhone sales.

After hours Apple is at $164.09 up $9.41 (+6.08%). You could check for any fluctuations between now and tomorrow morning here. You could listen to Apple's replay of their conference call later this afternoon here.

Yesterday Patently Apple posted a report titled "While Q4 was a Struggle for the Tech Sector, Apple Continued to Dominate all Premium Smartphone Segments from $400-$1000 +." In that light, it's hard to ding Apple's iPhone performance if they continue to dominate the most important smartphone segment in the industry.
In July 2018 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Ex-Apple Employee Arrested for Stealing Project Titan Secrets." Whether the ex-employee was stealing secrets for a Chinese startup or for the Chinese Government is interesting at a time when the U.S. has been pushing the issue of China stealing U.S. IP during trade talks with China. Now a second Chinese national working at Apple has been arrested for stealing Project Titan trade secrets.

Earlier this month Patently Apple posted a report wherein National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that one the key points in the US-Trade talks is about China's ongoing IP theft. "That may be a part of the Apple issue. I don't want to surmise too much here, but Apple technology may have been picked off by China and now China is becoming very competitive with Apple."

This month has been filled with reports of China stealing US IP (01, 02, 03 & the most recent #04) along with a Huawei arrested for spying in Poland.

Late yesterday California's NBC investigative team reported that "For the second time in six months, the FBI is accusing a Chinese national working for Apple of attempting to steal trade secrets related to the companys secret autonomous vehicle program.

Apple began investigating Jizhong Chen when another employee reported seeing the engineer taking photographs in a sensitive work space, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed this week.

Chen, according to the complaint, allowed Apple Global Security employees to search his personal computer, where they found thousands of files containing Apples intellectual property, including manuals, schematics, and diagrams. Security personnel also found on the computer about a hundred photographs taken inside an Apple building.

Apple learned Chen recently applied for a job at a China-based autonomous vehicle company that is a direct competitor of Apples project, according to the complaint. A photo found on Chens computer, which Apple provided to the FBI, showed an assembly drawing of an Apple-designed wiring harness for an autonomous vehicle.

Chen was arrested just one day before he was scheduled to fly to China, according to the complaint.

Apple released a statement that read: "Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our IP very seriously. We are working with authorities on this matter and are referring all questions to the FBI." Source.

If anyone ever doubted Apple's Project Titan in the past, the evidence of two former employees stealing high technology secrets from the project should prove just how advanced the project is at the current moment.

Yesterday Patently Apple posted a granted patent report covering Apple's reinvention of the safety belt.

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While it's no secret that Samsung will be introducing their new foldable smartphone this year and more than likely at the San Francisco even on February 20th, what's new is that Samsung was granted a "design patent" yesterday by the U.S. Patent Office for a gaming version of a future foldable smartphone or tablet.

At this year's CES, AMD delivered their first ever keynote and surprised their audience with news that they were working with Google's Project Stream that will be an online gaming service delivering 1080p quality. AMD's CEO presented clips for Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Earlier this month Samsung went on a week-long PR Blitz with Kim Hark-sang, Samsung's head of their visual R&D team and mobile communications business, talking about 5G supporting the need for a bigger screen.

Playing games on Google's new gaming platform will be enhanced with users being able to use a foldable smartphone or tablet in the future to get a wider and larger display experience.

Obviously Samsung has had this on their minds for some time. Their granted design patent filing date goes back to early 2017 in South Korea and late 2017 in the U.S. It was published yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under the title "Display Device."

Samsung's patent FIG. 2 above is a front view; FIG. 3 is a rear view; and FIG. 8 is a front perspective view of the display device when folded along a center portion and unfolded along an edge portion.

Samsung's patent FIG. 4 above is a left side view; FIG. 5 is a right side view; FIG. 6 is a top view; FIG. 7 is a bottom view; and FIG. 9 is a perspective view of the display device when unfolded along the center portion and the edge portion.

Unlike "patent applications," design patents published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office never reveal pertinent information about a particular design. We can only look at the design and appreciate it for what it projects, but never know the needed details that could explain new design features.

What is crystal clear is that Samsung may be considering a standalone gaming version of their future foldable smartphone and tablet line up for the future.

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For the first time in its almost 200 year history, Brouwerij Rodenbach is going to collaborate with another brewery on a beer. Their chosen partners? Delawares iconic, pioneering craft brewery, Dogfish Head.

The key to the entire endeavor, it would seem, is Dogfish Heads fantastically successful SeaQuench, a session sour ale that has capitalized on multiple market trends at once: lower-ABV beers, calorie consciousness and the rise of sour beer styles in the USA. Unsurprisingly, given the Rodenbach portfolio, the collaboration beer the two companies create will also be a sour.

This is a historic moment for our brewery, said Rudi Ghequire, Master Brewer of Rodenbach Brewery. Not only is the time right for this partnership as sour beer has become more popular than ever before (thanks in large part to Dogfish Heads SeaQuench Ale), but we found an incredible partner and kindred spirit in Sam Calagione and the Dogfish Head brewing team. Though centuries and an ocean apart, our breweries share many similar values and principles. From our independent and family-owned brewery to the spirit of collaboration among the people at our respective organizations, our shared appreciation and respect for quality ingredients, and how the coast influences both of our beers. We couldnt have found a more perfect partner in our first collaboration voyage, and were excited for the journey ahead.

Calagione, of course, was not to be left out of the commentary, as any U.S. craft beer fan familiar with Dogfish Head would no doubt expect.

I have been a huge fan of Rodenbach beers since the early 2000s when legendary beer writer, Michael Jackson, turned me on to them at the Brickskeller in DC. Rodenbach are the global pioneers in sour and wild beers production. Dogfish Head is proud to have the number one selling sour beer in America. So we have a lot to learn and explore togetherand getting to know Rudi, David and the Rodenbach team has been rewarding and fun. I am confident we are going to make a beautiful, unique beer together, Calagione said.

Unfortunately, we really dont know quite what that beer is going to look like just yet. The pair (Calagione and Ghequire) met last year following a panel discussion at the Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, TN, and have apparently been brainstorming ever since. Ghequire has already paid a visit to Dogfish Heads brewery in Milton, DE, and Calagione will travel to Belgium in the future, where the collaboration beer will be planned.

We intend to take our time and get it right for a beer of this magnitude, and in order do that we have to go to where it all beganto Roeselare, Belgium, Calagione said. The brainstorming will continue overseas, as Rudi and I explore the region together, explore the areas culinary influence and experience the legendary brewery and cooperage which undoubtedly will serve as a huge inspiration behind the beer we create.

Thats about all we know for now, with the first press release saying that the beer will be brewed and blended in the U.S. in 2019, for an early 2020 release. Expect to hear quite a bit more on this particular collaboration once we get closer to the date.
At a time when the far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahuwhose corruption runs so deep that his own police force has recommended that he be indictedseems to have thrown its lot in almost entirely with Republicans in general and Donald Trump specifically, registered Democrats are expressing less support than ever for Americas prominent ally, and more support than ever for the oppressed Palestinian people. The partisan divide, as with every issue in America, has grown starknew polls suggest that liberal Democrats only support Israel over Palestine at a rate of 19%, down from 33% before Trump took office, while Republicans break for Israel at a rate of 79%. Theres a big age gap too: If youre under 30, theres only a 32% chance you sympathize with Israel, but if youre over 65, that number rises to 56%.

However, the divide among the population has never made its way into the halls of Congress, where the vast majority of representatives from both parties wholeheartedly support Israel. Until recently, it was considered political suicide to hold any other opinion, and, frankly, thats where the money was. From wealthy donors to lobbyist groups like AIPAC, pro-Israel voices dwarfed Palestinian interests in terms of sheer wealth and power.

That has changed with the incoming freshman class, but only very slightly. The New York Times, in a piece about a new group formed to protect Israeli interests, names the outliers:

While the overwhelming majority of congressional Democrats are strong supporters of Israel, the partys pro-Israel wing has been jolted by election of a pair of high-profile freshman, Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the country.

Ms. Omar was appointed to a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which drew scorn from Republicans but offers her a prominent perch in the debate over Middle East policy. And Ms. Tlaib drew widespread attention earlier this month when somebody in her office placed a Post-it note that read Palestine over Israel on a map in her office.

The word they dont use is Muslim, as in, these are the first two Muslim women to ever serve in the House. And there are a couple more sympathizers:

But they are hardly alone among the newer Democratic lawmakers in taking, at least, a more nuanced view of Israel. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has called the occupation of Palestine a humanitarian crisis, and other progressives like Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington have not hesitated to criticize Israels use of force against Palestinian protesters.

I dont know if Id call that hardly alone, since four is still a pretty lonely number, but point taken: There are now some people in Congress who dont blindly follow D.C.s pro-Israel line.

And people are worried. Specifically the people behind the new group Democratic Majority for Israel, who are trying to snuff out the widespread sympathy for Palestinians among Americas liberal population, and the very meager sympathy in the House. Thats almost their exact words:

Most Democrats are strongly pro-Israel and we want to keep it that way, said Mark Mellman, the groups president and a longtime Democratic pollster. There are a few discordant voices, but we want to make sure that whats a very small problem doesnt metastasize into a bigger problem.

Metastasizelike cancer. The other four things that are worth knowing about this group are:

1. The members we know included Mellman the pollster, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Bill Clintons housing secretary Henry Cisneros, and a Clinton strategist named Ann Lewis.

2. They have lots of money, but were not sure where it comes from quite yet. (Will they have to register as an agent of a foreign power?) Mellman told the Times they have substantial financial resources.

3. They have some congressmen on board already, including Hakeem Jeffries, who gave a nice quote to the Times and who, rumor has it, may be the target of a progressive primary campaign in 2020 and probably wants to shore up his support.

4. Theyre going to form a PAC, and may engage in primary fights, which means theyre absolutely going to engage in primary fights. The last quote in the Times article, also from Mellman, is really something:

Our first choice is to educate and persuade, he said, before vowing: If theres a political and intellectual battle to be waged, were here to wage it.

In other words, agree with us about Israel or were going to bring the full force of the pro-Israel lobbying set against you. Though they claim to be separate, this is basically the Democratic version of AIPAC, and while thats just politics, to some extent, its worth wondering whether its truly in step with the liberal electorate, and how much it will benefit elected Democrats when full-throated supported of Israel in the face of Palestinian suffering has become, essentially, a conservative proposition.
With the U.S. entering its fourth year of entanglement in Yemens bloody civil war, Democratic lawmakers on the Hill are preparing a coup: a historic rebuke of the Trump administrations policy of arming and aiding Saudi Arabia and its allies by both legislative houses. While Donald Trump is expected to veto any war powers resolution, such a measure even reaching his desk will signal to the world a shift in American attitudes towards the conflict.

Leading the effort are Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Khanna will be introducing his resolution on Wednesday.

Ive had the commitment of both Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to bring it to a vote, and Jim McGovern, the Rules Committee Chair, he tells Paste. Even though my service is somewhat spotty, I can tell hes excited. Ive spoken to Khanna on and off in recent months about the US role in the deepening humanitarian crisis in Yemen and his efforts to bring it to an end, and I dont remember the last time I heard him sound so confident. I anticipate a convincing victory in the House, having it brought up right away in the Senate, and a convincing victory in the Senate.

I feel somewhat bad asking about the likelihood of a Trump vetowhether it concerns him and if there is support to override it.

Probably not enough to override a veto in either body, he says frankly. But were going to make the case [for Trump] to sign it. Obviously thats an uphill battle, but it would be hypocritical for him to be talking about withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan and then talking about an escalation in intervention in Yemen. So I think it would be consistent for him to sign it.

At this point, hes grown accustomed to uphill battles and setbacks. Hes been fighting the same fight going on two years. In that time, hes learned to take every victory and build off it, and inch by inch, public opinion has shifted. The flashpoint came in October with the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but an earlier eventthe August school bus bombing in Saada by coalition jets using American bombs that left 44 children deadalso played a role.

In December, Sanders and Murphy even managed to secure a victory in the Senate for a war powers resolution to end US involvement in Yemen. However, that victory was short lived as Khannas mirror resolution in the House was blocked by then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) who added a rider to the annual farm bill which stripped it of its privileged status under the War Powers Act. Notably, Democrats could have stopped Ryans plan without killing the farm bill, but didnt. Washington Post journalist Jeff Stein reported that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer stood down.

Still, even that single victory was a far cry from where the effort stood when Khanna was first approached by peace groups and activists in 2017. He tells me that hed originally wanted to recruit a more senior House member to be the face behind the effort, but was informed that nobody else was interested. They were candid and said well we cant get anyone to introduce a war powers resolution, weve been trying and youre our best bet, he explains. So I introduced it and we started gaining momentum.

We briefly touch on how that momentum came about, despite heavy opposition from the Saudi lobby and the GOP as well as pushback from fellow Democrats. When we first introduced the legislation in 2017, we were told it was a bad idea, Khanna would later elaborate in a follow-up email. We were advised against pushing the legislation and told it would split the Democratic caucus. At the time, believe it or not, not all Democrats wanted to end US involvement in the war and many did not like the War Powers Resolution vehicle.

In November 2017, Khanna saw his first real victory when the GOP House passed a compromise resolution acknowledging U.S. involvement in Yemenrefueling of Saudi jets, providing intelligence supportand the unauthorized nature of it. Since its passage, Khanna has gone on record stating that it wasnt everything hed been hoping for, but it was a start. His disappointment comes across even now with the way he emphasizes the word compromise.

Khanna does point out, however, that it proved to be a turning point. It was after that small victory that the California congressman teamed up with Sanders. The acknowledgement by the House paved the way for the senator to introduce the war powers resolution. And though it failed, it got 40 votes and his star power, as Khanna calls it, brought necessary public attention to the issue.

Since then, for a year and a half, both Senator Sanders and I would coordinate, Khanna explains. We would introduce something in the house to build momentum. And often when we would introduce it we got new partnersAdam Smith (D-WA) or Steny Hoyer (D-MD) or Eliot Engel (D-NY)and every time we would introduce it, he would introduce it in the Senate. And so for a year and a half we were coordinating to really continue to keep this alive.

And keep it alive they have, with the upcoming vote marking just the latest step towards finally ending U.S. complicity in Yemens immiseration, and potentially hastening the end of a seemingly endless conflict.

The Yemen civil war began in 2015, but traces all the way back to 2011, when a popular Arab Spring uprising forced the countrys longtime dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to step down. Succeeding Saleh was his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who struggled to address the numerous problems facing the population. Yemen was already the poorest country in the region. Hadis perceived failure fueled the rise of a Zaidi Shia minority group with alleged ties to Iran. The Houthis, as they were known, seized territory in Yemens northern region following the transition before ousting Hadi from the capital of Sanaa in 2015 and declaring the formation of the new Ansar Allah government.

In response, nine predominantly Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia, and backed by the US and its allies, formed a coalition to restore Hadi to power and stop the spread of Irans influence, and fighting has followed ever since with both sides committing war crimes and employing the use of child soldiers. Complicating matters, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters have occupied territory in the south.

A fragile ceasefire was brokered in December between the Ansar Allah and coalition forces to stop fighting in the port city of Hodeidah, but that agreement has all but fallen apart. Experts fear renewed fighting could send the country spiraling into one of the worst famines in living memory, affecting 14 million Yemenis. Already a coalition blockade of Hodeidah has left much of the country in need of necessary supplies, from food to medicine. That, along with the decimation of Yemens infrastructure, has made the country a hotbed for disease. It is currently ground zero for the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history, having reached over a million reported cases. Swine flu is reportedly on the rise as well.

If the war continues as it has, millions of people stand to die. As many as 80,000 have already been killed since the start of the conflict. But that number only accounts for those killed in the fightingnot the humanitarian crisis which has been dubbed the worlds worst by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Guterres noted that a staggering 22 million Yemenis are in desperate need of assistance.

In our follow-up email three days later, Khanna tells me the experience has left him hopeful about the direction the U.S. seems to be headed. We built a massive left-right coalition comprised of congressional members and outside groups, bringing the Progressive and Freedom caucuses together, he writes. We are taking on the foreign policy establishment and very wealthy foreign countries who have tremendous influence in D.C. and are going to pass this resolution. To me that is amazing. It shows me the power that ordinary Americans can play in our democracy.

But for all of his optimism, Khanna concludes on a sobering note. On the flip side, it is discouraging that a wealthy country like Saudi Arabia can buy off so many think tanks and politicians, he adds. To me, that is what is broken with the system, and something that needs to be changed.

Walker Bragman previously wrote about the U.S. involvement in Yemen, and the importance of showing graphic images, here.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has purchased an indirect equity stake in Airport International Group (AIG), the concessionaire operating Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA), as part of its widespread support of infrastructure private-public partnership (PPP) projects in Jordan.

The Bank is committing up to 30.5m (US$35m) to AIG through acquisition of an indirect stake in Meridiam Eastern Europe Investments 2 SAS (Meridiam), which acquired 32% of AIG last year.

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With its participation in the project, the EBRD is helping to strengthen the resilience of the Jordanian economy by supporting the development of PPP markets and the capital markets of the country. It aims to be a catalyst that will attract more investment capital into PPP projects and support the development of a secondary market for PPPs in order to attract institutional investors.

Jordan became an EBRD shareholder in 2012 and, to date, the bank has committed more than 1.3bn (US$1.5bn) across 43 projects in various sectors of the economy.

Interested in airport investment? Dont miss the Innovative Airport Investment panel discussion at the Passenger Terminal Conference, which takes place during Passenger Terminal Expo, on March 26, 27 and 28, 2019, in London.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!
100 years ago

Jan. 30, 1919: Petitions are going out today to place a tax issue on the ballot. The referendum asks Bloomington voters if they want to build a community hall (coliseum) for public use. The present coliseum is privately owned. A new state law makes this referendum possible.

75 years ago

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Jan. 30, 1944: Paul J. Abraham, 616 Indianapolis St., is making knives in his basement. So far he has sent about 60 to his friends in the service or to the Marine base in San Diego. But he only sends the sturdiest of his knives. He gives the weaker ones to the Boy Scouts.

50 years ago

Jan. 30, 1969: Local police, fire and sheriffs brass met with officials of General Telephone about starting a 911 system here. Residents still use seven-digit numbers to call dispatchers in an emergency. General Tel says 911 is only for when callers cant remember those numbers.

25 years ago

Jan. 30, 1994: A total of 426 homes will be built in Normals new Pinecrest and Tramore subdivisions. The explosive growth in Twin Cities housing is seeing bulldozers instead of combines in Norman Browns former farm fields. He says he has come to accept the growth.

Compiled by Jack Keefe; jkeefe@coldwellhomes.com.
Welcome to the eye of the hurricane.

For more than a month, the federal government was in partial shutdown while President Donald Trump and congressional leaders were deadlocked over the presidents demands for money to build his long-promised border wall.

Neither side would budge and all the wiggle room for negotiation, particularly over the stickiest issue, Trumps proposed wall, had been squeezed out.

Then suddenly on Friday afternoon, Trump announced a deal to make a deal. After a 35-day impasse, the longest partial shutdown in U.S. history, the government would be reopened and back pay released to some 800,000 federal workers, if only for three weeks.

After that, what? Risky as it is to make predictions about this most unpredictable presidency, I believe the past offers clues to where this wagon train is heading: into a debate, I believe, over what is meant by a wall.

Contrary to popular belief promoted by President Trump and his allies in this deeply partisan divide, Democrats have never opposed border security. Over the past decade alone, the Democrats have voted for billions of dollars in funding for physical barriers.

In 2006 the Secure Fence Act passed with bipartisan support to construct physical barriers along 700 miles of the almost 2,000-mile Mexican border.

It won the votes of current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama  who said it would certainly do some good and help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.

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Bipartisan majorities voted to fund physical barriers in 2006, 2013 and even last year.

After the failure of President George W. Bushs comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007, enter candidate Trump to inflame the issue in 2015 by describing immigrants in the country illegally in terms of menace.

Build that wall became Trumps defining chant at his rallies. According to Joshua Greens book Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Nationalist Uprising, the wall was a mnemonic device to help Trump remember to refer to the immigration issue, a sure crowd-pleaser.

Footnote: One of the advisers was Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend who was arrested Friday in connection with special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race. Small world, Washington.

Yet Trump was about to back away in December from his commitment to a wall-or-shutdown until conservative author-columnist Ann Coulter stepped in. The author of In Trump We Trust scorched her former hero in a column, titled Gutless President in Wall-less Country. Other immigration-skeptic conservatives joined in the scorching.

Suddenly Trump turned away from the bipartisan bill he was about to sign and instead made new demands of a border wall. But there was no way the new Democrat-controlled House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi was going to approve what sounded like a wall, although that left a long menu of other border security measures, including drones, sensors and additional Border Patrol personnel that would be more effective than an old-fashioned wall.

I see signs of hope, however modest, in Trumps evolving rhetoric. He has begun to describe his proposal as a wall, a fence or whatever you want to call it. He also conceded that a barrier could be a fence or steel slats, among other possibilities. That did not impress Speaker Pelosi much. Beaded curtain, she sarcastically offered.

But that sounded to me and many others like a hint. Maybe the president was getting tired of this single issue, especially as it began to take a noticeable toll on his approval ratings. Estimates were reported of 1 in 5 Americans being affected directly and negatively by the shutdown. Some fraying was even beginning to show around the edges of Trumps base.

If things follow the traditional pattern in Trumps Washington, I expect to see both parties extract as many concessions as they can in negotiations, pressured by the possibility of another shutdown that nobody wants. With Democrats receiving almost none of the blame for the shutdown compared with President Trump, who naively let himself take the blame for it even before it happened, I dont expect them to surrender their wall opposition while theyre ahead.

But I also dont expect Trump to do anything so blatantly obvious as to give up either. Instead, I predict the debate will turn on a barrier of some sort and, regardless of whatever it is, I expect President Trump to call it a wall. Hes never allowed himself to be confined very long to actual facts. Why should he start now?

Contact Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.

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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  The deadly deep freeze enveloping the Midwest sent temperatures plunging Wednesday to rival some of the most frigid spots in the world, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and the canceling of more than 1,600 flights from Chicago's airports.

The U.S. Postal Service even took the rare step of suspending mail delivery across much of the region. Hundreds of public schools and universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes as residents huddled inside amid one of the coldest air masses in years.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to drop much farther south than normal. That meant temperatures in parts of the Midwest were lower Wednesday than in Antarctica, where the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station hit negative 25 degrees (negative 31.7 Celsius)  balmy compared to Fargo, North Dakota's negative 31 degrees (negative 35 Celsius) and Minneapolis' negative 27 degrees (negative 32 Celsius), according to the National Weather Service.

Snowplows were idled overnight because of the cold in southeastern Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to negative 29 degrees (negative 34 Celsius). In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees (negative 28 Celsius), breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966  and colder than the weather in Barrow, Alaska, the most northern town in the U.S.

And that doesn't include wind chill, which in northern Illinois made the air feel as cold as negative 57 degrees (negative 49.4 Celsius). The National Weather Service warned that a wind chill of minus 25 (negative 32 Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold , including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

About 1,300 of Wednesday's canceled flights in Chicago were at O'Hare International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports. United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart said "everything tends to slow down" during severely cold weather, including manpower, fueling and equipment. Calling the temperatures "dangerous," Hobart said United was bringing in extra workers and providing heated tents for employees.

A popular saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat ..." will stop the mail from being delivered, but extreme cold did so Wednesday. The U.S. Postal Service has suspended mail delivery in parts or all of several Midwest states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming "overloaded," Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

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"People don't want to be out there right now," said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

At least six deaths have been linked so far to the weather system, including two people in the Detroit area, according to local police. Other deaths included a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana, and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

Hawaii native Charles Henry, 54, was staying at a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota, and said he was grateful to have a place to stay out of the cold.

"That wind chill out there is not even a joke," he said. "I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside."

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that "you're going to freeze or lose a limb," said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. The extreme cold was "a scary situation," because much of the housing is of poor quality, said Chris Fairbanks, energy assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

But it wasn't stopping one of America's most formidable endurance tests: the three-day Arrowhead 135 was going on as scheduled in northeastern Minnesota. Competitors can cover the race route by bicycle, cross-country skis or just running.

___

This version of the story corrects that snowplows were idled overnight in southeastern instead of southwestern Minnesota. Also corrects that mail delivery is suspended Wednesday in some Ohio locations but not in Kansas

___

Associated Press reporters Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee; Caryn Rousseau and Don Babwin in Chicago; Corey Williams, David Runk and Mike Householder in Detroit; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; and Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein also contributed.

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SPRINGFIELD  The five-member Illinois House Rules Committee will maintain its power over the legislative process for the 101st General Assembly despite objections from Republican members of the committee this week.

One day after the committee passed legislative rules by a 3-2 vote, the House voted 73-42 along party lines Tuesday to keep the rules in place with only minor adjustments.

Per the rules, every bill that is heard on the House floor is first assigned to the Rules Committee, which then meets to assign bills to substantive committees to be formally heard by lawmakers and the public.

State Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, one of the Rules Committees two Republican members, said this procedure gives wide-ranging power to the committees three Democrats to slow or stop the legislative process for bills they dont like.

We support and are striving for rules that improve transparency, Demmer said, noting concerns about how the rules limit the ability of rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties to represent their constituents.

Demmer was joined by state Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, in opposing the rules at the committee hearing Monday.

Demmer said if the three Democrats on the Rules Committee decided to halt a bill, it would require approval from three-fifths of each of the Democratic and Republican caucuses to bypass the committee to bring the bills to the House floor for full debate.

Do you think its appropriate that a motion to discharge a bill from the Rules Committee has a more stringent threshold than an amendment to the Constitution of Illinois? Demmer asked.

State Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, the Rules Committee chair and assistant House majority Leader, said the Rules Committee is necessary to sort and assign the 6,000-plus bills that originate in the Legislature each year.

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Thousands and thousands and thousands of bills are referred out to other committees, Harris said. I think its sort of a solution in search of a problem to find, out of 6,000 bills, the two or three that do not advance and say 'Aha! Something is going on.'"

He also noted that the current process has been in use for several years, including by Republican leadership in the 1990s, and called the process thorough, rigorous and inclusive of both sides.

This process is old and it has worked well for decades, Harris said. Its old and we know it works and we know its worth keeping.

House Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin said he voted for the rules in 1995, but times have changed.

Twentieth century Republicans are providing the foundation for 21st century Democrats in todays debate, he said. Things have changed a lot in this state and in this country since then. But to use that as a foundation for todays rules is mind-boggling, and even worse its breathtaking.

Durkin added that the bills were a reflection of the past and not the future, and put a damper on the air of bipartisanship that has pervaded Springfield since Gov. J.B. Pritzker was elected.

Harris said allegations of a rigged system were out of order as well, and only one bill that was filed before the established deadline was held in Rules Committee without being assigned.

There is a big difference between not getting the things you desire and the system being rigged, he said. I think thats very important for us to remember.

At Mondays committee meeting, Demmer also raised concerns that the Rules Committee does not abide by the same six-day posting requirements as regular House committees and has few requirements for posting the content that will be discussed at the meetings.

Harris said Rules Committee discussion is always subject matter and ministerial in nature, which allows the committee to discuss bill assignments when the committee is called as needed.

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SPRINGFIELD  There was general agreement at the Senate Education Committee meeting Tuesday that the definition of a school day is changing, but the committee voted unanimously to reinstate an old definition of the term  at least temporarily.

If the bill, which passed on a 16-0 bipartisan vote, becomes law this session, it would reinstate a requirement of five hours of direct supervision by a teacher in order for a day to be considered an instruction day.

Opponents of the mandate said it would limit flexibility for digital snow day alternatives and other opportunities such as apprenticeships or programs for students that have trouble in a classroom environment.

State Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, D-Shorewood, the bills lead sponsor and committee chair, said she understood that more flexibility is needed for school districts and was committed to working toward it. But she warned of the wild, wild west created by the repeal of the five-hour mandate.

Right now a district could choose to have four days of school in a year, she said.

Illinois Education Association lobbyist Sean Denney, a proponent of the bill who represents Illinois teachers, said a trailer bill to last years education funding overhaul repealed the five-hour mandate, and it was rolled out without real oversight.

Denney said teachers unions such as the IEA and Illinois Federation of Teachers need the bill to move forward as a negotiating point for future discussions about flexibility.

Representatives of the Illinois State Board of Education, the Large Unit District Association and other public education advocacy groups were joined by Donn Mendoza, superintendent of Round Lake School District 116, in speaking against the bill.

The groups said they had concerns that any step backward could tie up the negotiation process indefinitely, and the bills effective-immediately clause would cause confusion for districts this year.

Mendoza said his district used the flexibility of a state waiver to offer new e-learning capabilities and other innovative programs.

I understand the request and the idea of having a minimum, but our position is learning shouldnt be tied to seat time, he said. The one thing Im worried about is we will lose the ability to take these next steps.

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As the committee met, the Downs-based Tri-Valley school district was using an e-learning day to replace what would have been a regular snow day due to the bitter cold.

David Mouser, Tri-Valleys superintendent, has children in the district and said they spent hours taking part in digital instruction that had been uploaded to the districts website. He said he received several emails or social media messages from parents of students participating in learning on their snow day.

Theres no substitution to being at school and engaging kids in real time, Mouser said. But after seeing what my kids have experienced today and hearing from parents around the district, youd be hard-pressed to convince me that going backward is the right decision.

Mouser said a district poll showed most students have internet or cellphone access, but instruction is formative, assignments are not graded and attendance is not taken on digital snow days, so those who lack access are not penalized.

Mouser also noted there was discussion between the local teachers union and the district, and all of the district employees  even hourly staff  get paid as if it were a regular day.

Despite the dialogue at Tri-Valley, statewide teachers unions fear the absence of the five-hour mandate will give districts uneven footing in negotiations with school boards.

For Mouser, the concern is that days added to the end of the school year will delay a multimillion-dollar renovation project at the districts high school.

It certainly seems that the learning our students experienced this week was much more effective than a day tacked on to the school year in July, he said.

While there is no immediate clarity as to how long it will take for the bill reinstating the mandate to clear the legislative process, both sides agreed to start negotiations on greater flexibility as soon as possible.

Photos: Tri-Valley schools develop "digital days" concept

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SPRINGFIELD  The five-member Illinois House Rules Committee will maintain its power over the legislative process for the 101st General Assembly despite objections from Republican members of the committee this week.

One day after the rules passed committee by a 3-2 vote, the House voted 73-42 along party lines Tuesday to keep the rules in place with only minor adjustments.

Per the rules, every bill that is heard on the House floor is first assigned to the Rules Committee, which then meets to assign bills to substantive committees to be formally heard by lawmakers and the public.

Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), one of the Rules Committees two Republican members, said this procedure gives wide-ranging power to the committees three Democrats to slow or stop the legislative process for bills they dont like.

We support and are striving for rules that improve transparency, Demmer said, noting concerns about how the rules limit the ability of rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties to represent their constituents.

Demmer said if the three Democrats on the Rules Committee decided to halt a bill, it would require approval from three-fifths of each of the Democratic and Republican caucuses to bypass the committee to bring the bills to the House floor for full debate.

Do you think its appropriate that a motion to discharge a bill from the Rules Committee has a more stringent threshold than an amendment to the Constitution of Illinois? Demmer asked.

Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago), the Rules Committee chairman and assistant House majority Leader, said the Rules Committee is necessary to sort and assign the 6,000-plus bills that originate in the Legislature each year.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of bills are referred out to other committees, Harris said. I think its sort of a solution in search of a problem to find, out of 6,000 bills, the two or three that do not advance and say Aha! Something is going on.

 Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever.

He also noted that the current process has been in use for several years, including by Republican leadership in the 1990s, and called the process thorough, rigorous and inclusive of both sides.

This process is old and it has worked well for decades, Harris said. Its old and we know it works and we know its worth keeping.

House Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin said he voted for the rules in 1995, but times have changed.

Twentieth century Republicans are providing the foundation for 21st century Democrats in todays debate, he said. Things have changed a lot in this state and in this country since then. But to use that as a foundation for todays rules is mindboggling, and even worse its breathtaking.

Durkin added that the bills were a reflection of the past and not the future, and put a damper on the air of bipartisanship that has pervaded in Springfield since Gov. J.B. Pritzker was elected.

Harris said allegations of a rigged system were out of order as well, and only one bill that was filed before the established deadline was held in Rules Committee without being assigned.

There is a big difference between not getting the things you desire and the system being rigged, he said. I think thats very important for us to remember.

At Mondays committee meeting, Demmer also raised concerns that the Rules Committee does not abide by the same six-day posting requirements as regular House committees, and has few requirements for posting the content that will be discussed at the meetings.

Harris said Rules Committee discussion is always subject matter and ministerial in nature, which allows the committee to discuss bill assignments when the committee is called as needed.

Demmer was joined by Rep. Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) in opposing the rules at the committee hearing Monday, and they were joined in opposition by the rest of the Republican caucus Tuesday.

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Saginaw Valley State University has earned continued recognition for the support it provides to military-affiliated students.

A service-disabled, veteran-owned small business founded in 2001, named VIQTORY, has designated SVSU as a military friendly college for the 2019-20 school year. It marks the eighth time the school has been honored with the recognition.

This designation is due in part to the staff in SVSU's Military Student Affairs Office. They assist military-affiliated students with everything from admissions counseling to a veteran peer support group.

Bethany Alford, director of Military Student Affairs at SVSU, said that the staff works hard to be sure that military-connected students feel valued and receive exceptional service from SVSU.

"We take much pride in serving those who have served for us," she said. "This national designation demonstrates, once again, SVSU's commitment to serving student veterans and their families."

Along with the designation, SVSU also has been recognized by military times for its "best for vets" national honor and the gold level veteran friendly honor by the Michigan Veteran Affairs Agency earlier in the school year.

VIQTORY's free, data-driven military friendly lists can be found online at www.militaryfriendly.com.

Colleges and universities are selected for the designation based on public data and surveys completed by veterans.

For more information on SVSU's Military Affairs Office, visit www.svsu.edu/militarystudentaffairs/.
Marilyn Schaar Fruchey of Coleman and Jiyeon Choi of Suwon, South Korea, come from two different cultures and generations. But a youth exchange program has brought them close together.

In the first half of January, Fruchey traveled to Suwon to attend Jiyeon's high school graduation -- three years after hosting her for a school year at Coleman High School.

Besides the graduation, there were several other highlights on Fruchey's trip including a cable car ride from Seoul to South Korea's highest mountain, a bus tour to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone at the border with North Korea), and a private tour of the War Memorial of South Korea, which includes a hallway where the names of American soldiers killed during the Korean War are listed.

"That was just phenomenal.  It was a touching and moving time," Fruchey said.

The 62-year-old Fruchey was Jiyeon's host "Mom" through PAX, the Program of Academic Exchange.

"This was my way to help someone have the American experience," Fruchey said.

The exchange program also helps Fruchey fill the void of not having any children of her own. She and her husband, Ron, have hosted five girls so far, two from South Korea, two from Germany, and one from Sweden. While visiting with Jiyeon and her family, Fruchey got to spend a day with her other youth exchange daughter from South Korea, SunYoung Park, who also lives near Seoul.

Fruchey, a retired hairdresser, paid for her own airfare to Seoul but Jiyeon's parents and younger sister "rolled out the red carpet" after inviting her to see their homeland. Jiyeon's parents don't speak English so she interpreted for Fruchey and they also used a computer program to help communicate. The family lives in a 35-story apartment building in Suwon, which is about an hour north of Seoul. It has a population of close to 1.2 million people, quite a contrast to Coleman's population of about 1,200.

Fruchey rode the subway, bus, and taxis.

"That's not normal," she laughed.

Fruchey also rode on escalators large enough to carry shopping carts. Fruchey was apprehensive about what food would be served, but Jiyeon's Mom is a chef and exposed Fruchey to octopus, squid, and other local favorites.

"It was unbelievable," Fruchey said.

Jiyeon, now 19, and her family made an appointment for Fruchey to get her hair and make-up done and then outfitted with a traditional Korean gown worn for special occasions. During her exchange, Jiyeon wore her traditional gown for Homecoming at Coleman.

Another highlight for Jiyeon's exchange was joining the marching band. She played flute.

After first seeing the band practice, Fruchey said "(Jiyeon) was in love."

But the highlight for SunYoung was becoming a cheerleader.

When Fruchey hosts, she always takes the student to Mackinac Island and the state capitol in Lansing.

Of the students she's hosted so far, Fruchey said, "They are just part of the family."
Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Ottumwa, IA (52501)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Storms may produce large hail and strong winds. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms, some strong early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Storms may produce large hail and strong winds. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Turns out Oregonians dont want to see the The Oregonians grand old tower clock mothballed.

Some suggested installing it in another tower. Others offered to buy it. One reader floated the idea of putting it in the tower of his retirement community. Another said shed like to see it go to the clock repair program at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton.

Francis McBride, an architect who works at Portland State University, said Tuesday hed like to talk with OMSI administrators about installing the clock in the light-filled atrium of the schools engineering and computer science building on Southwest Fourth Avenue.

The ideas came after The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote about the clocks fate -- headed to storage at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, where it had been on exhibit for decades.

The clock was made more than a century ago by the E. Howard Watch & Clock Co. and for decades kept time atop The Oregonian clock tower in downtown Portland. The newspapers owners paid $1,845 for the clock, known as the No. 4 Striker.

It was destined for the trash heap when The Oregonian building was demolished in 1950, but an engineer paid $300 for the clock and used it as a teaching tool at Oregon State University.

By the late 1950s, the clock made its way to OMSI, where it remained on view until last month. OMSI decommissioned the No. 4 Striker to make room for fresher exhibits in its retooled Turbine Hall.

A team of volunteer clock enthusiasts who have helped care for the clock over the years have prepared it for storage.

Readers responded with a variety of ways the clock could stay in public view.

So far, the Portland State idea seems the most concrete. The engineering building already houses other nifty scientific tools, like the worlds tallest barometer and a drop tower thats used to create nearly weightless conditions for falling objects.

McBride, who works in project management at the school, said he thought about the atrium when he read about the clocks uncertain future.

I thought that would be a cool thing to have the clock there, he said.

OMSI said its too early to say where the clock will end up.

John Farmer, a spokesman for the museum, said the organization has rules for items it has taken off display.

The key is we are being very deliberate and responsible in how we treat this clock, he said. It is very important to Oregons history and to Portlands culture and heritage.

We have not really entered into talks with anyone right now, he said.

Bill Butcher, one of the volunteers who have helped care for No. 4 Striker, was happy to hear PSU is interested in exploring the possibility of exhibiting it in the engineering school, calling it an ideal venue.

After all, the No. 4 Striker was on display at Oregon States engineering school for years before it went to OMSI.

It would get a lot of attention, he said, noting that the clock has many gears and thats what engineers like.

McBride said the atrium is a busy location that offers plenty of foot traffic, ensuring that a small piece of Portland history would continue to be appreciated.

Its a beautiful piece of design, he said.

-- Noelle Crombie

503-276-7184

ncrombie@oregonian.com

@noellecrombie

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
WASHINGTON - Democrats have tapped Georgias Stacey Abrams to deliver the response to President Donald Trumps State of the Union address, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer announced Tuesday.

Abrams narrowly lost the state's race for governor in November after a lengthy dispute over blocked votes. She will address the nation in a prime-time speech shortly after Trump finishes his address to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 5.

In statements announcing the decision, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Abrams embodies the American Dream, while Schumer praised the Georgia Democrat as a present and future leader in this country.

"Stacey Abrams offers a welcome, stark contrast to President Trump's politics of division and lack of leadership as American families are still feeling the impacts of his self-imposed shutdown," Schumer said.

The New York Democrat extended the invitation to Abrams when the two met in Washington earlier this month.

Abrams, 45, said she was honored to deliver the response "at a moment when our nation needs to hear from leaders who can unite for a common purpose."

"I plan to deliver a vision for prosperity and equality, where everyone in our nation has a voice and where each of those voices is heard," she said in a statement.

Schumer and Pelosi also announced that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a former member of House Democratic leadership, will deliver the Spanish-language response.

Abrams' political future is the source of much speculation. During their meeting in Washington, she and Schumer discussed the possibility of Abrams running against Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in 2020.

Abrams is the first black woman to win a major-party nomination for governor. While she fell short in her bid against Republican Brian Kemp, she received more votes than any Democrat who has run statewide in Georgia, prompting some to suggest she should be in the presidential or vice presidential mix.

"I'm interested in everything," Abrams told The Washington Post earlier this month when asked about the possibility of another run for office. "What I am trying to do is decide what's the right job, am I right person and is this the right time."

She said she has given herself until the end of March to make a decision.

Abrams has refused to concede defeat in the governor's race and has since announced a new voting rights organization, Fair Fight Georgia, that has filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia elections officials for allegedly mismanaging the 2018 election. State officials have until the end of the month to respond to the suit.

During her gubernatorial campaign, Abrams' top issue was health care, particularly the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in Georgia. Since becoming governor, Kemp has proposed seeking a federal waiver to have more flexibility in spending funds, but Abrams has argued that Democrats should continue pushing expansion, "full stop."

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day last week, Abrams was in Albany, Georgia, where she began a "thank you" tour for supporters of her gubernatorial campaign.

Abrams said Democratic presidential candidates "should be talking not about who's occupying the White House now but about what they will do to make America stronger."

They have to be running for America, she said. That means talking about issues that reflect our values, and it means talking to communities that are left out of the conversation.
Barely a week into the 2019 legislative session, Republicans are complaining that theyve been shut out of drafting one of the sessions highest-profile bills, the carbon cap and trade legislation that backers have dubbed the Clean Energy Jobs Bill.

House Republicans sent out a news release Monday lambasting their Democratic counterparts, who they said, are poised to ram it through the process without careful consideration of its impact on Oregons families, who will bear the brunt of the bill, or employees whose jobs may be endangered.

The Republican Vice Chairs and Democrat Chairs of the Joint Committee on Carbon Reduction spent months and countless hours discussing conceptual ideas surrounding legislation during the interim prior to Christmas, said Rep. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford and co-vice chair of the committee. However, I have not been privy to any legislative language since.

The other Republican co-vice chair, Sen. Cliff Bentz of Ontario, noted that though the last committee meeting was held Dec. 21, the Democratic co-vice chair, Sen. Michael Dembrow of Portland, has been holding ongoing discussions with the governors office, the House speakers office and legislative counsel to draft the bill.

Important decisions regarding first draft content were therefore made without any input from the Republican co-chairs, Bentz said in an email. It should be made very clear that there has been no effort between December 21st and January 25 to involve Republicans in the development of a draft of this complicated, expensive carbon pricing bill.

Dembrows response: He hasnt seen the bill himself, which will likely get a first reading later this week.

Were all waiting for the final bill language, which were promised will be available by 3 pm on (Jan. 31), he said. While he had hoped to have the draft available mid-month, he said that the legislative counsel drafting the bill went on vacation for two weeks, which delayed the process.

There are substantive issues remaining to be resolved in the legislation, which could make the difference between a meaningful climate change program or one that environmental groups believe would lack integrity. There is still debate, for instance, over which sectors of the economy should be exempted, which regulated entities will receive free allowances and how many. Its unclear how strict the interim emissions reductions targets will be and how governance of the program will work. Some legislators worry about the impact of the legislation on gas prices, and after several years of debate, there are still concerns about where revenues from transportation fuel providers can legally be used.

Brock Smith, Bentz and fellow Republicans are no fans of the legislation, which they predict will be an expensive new tax on businesses and consumers that scares away jobs while doing little to combat global warming. Bentz said there are clear differences of opinion on many of the issues discussed last year, and those differences have not been resolved.

A coalition of business groups calling themselves the Partnership for Oregon Communities also opposes the legislation and launched their own broadside this week, complaining in a news release that Democrats were drafting the bill behind closed doors.

Despite lawmakers claims of an inclusive process, its been almost an entire year since Oregonians had a chance to testify for or against cap and trade, said Preston Mann, a spokesman for the group, referring to the last public comment period on the legislation during short 2018 legislative session. Thats not right.

Dembrow said he and Rep. Karin Power, D-Milwaukie, the Democratic co-vice chairs of the interim committee, spent many hours this fall working with Republicans on a draft of the bill.

To say they were shut out of the work on this bill is incorrect. To say that this bill is rushed is equally incorrect, he said. After the bill comes out this week, well have weeks of public testimony and consideration of further amendments. While not everyone will agree with where we land at the end of the day, we will have engaged in the kind of thorough public process that a program of this degree of consequence deserves.
Updated at 5:50 p.m.

The airplane of a pilot missing since Friday after flying from a Camas-area airport was found wrecked on Mount Hood on Tuesday, and he is presumed dead.

Hood River County Sheriffs deputies went to the mountain around 10:30 a.m. after learning of a transponder signal emitting from the north side of Mount Hood near Eliot Glacier, said Deputy Joel Ives, a county sheriffs office spokesman.

A Civil Air Patrol pilot flew over the area, found the crashed plane and confirmed the downed aircraft had the same tail number as a fixed wing, single-engine plane flown by George Regis. He was the only one in the four-seat plane at the time.

Regis, 63, of Battle Ground flew from the Grove Field Airport near Camas on Friday and was reported missing by his wife three days later after no one had heard from him. He was flying to Arizona, Ives said.

The planes tail number is N1332J and described in Federal Aviation Administration records as a 1975 Rockwell International 112A. Regis has had an active private pilot license since September 2016, federal records show.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

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SALEM  A Salem man was sentenced to 90 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to first-degree animal neglect for his role in the death of a starving Pomeranian named Chewy.

The Statesman Journal reports that 47-year-old James Arthur Craver Jr. admitted to failing to provide minimum care for the dog and was sentenced Monday.

He also pleaded guilty to DUI charges in a separate case.

Craver is prohibited from possessing a domestic animal for the next five years.

-- The Associated Press
Mount St Helens WARNING: Scientist reveals molten rock 'rising FIVE metres a DAY'

So reported Britains Express newspaper last week. The newspaper added that an eruption, like the volcanos famous deadly one in 1980, was a possibility and that [s]cientists are now closely watching the volcano to make sure they are prepared in case the same happens again.

The thing is, the news report is 15 years out of date. "The dome at St. Helens has been quiet since 2008, seismologist Wes Thelen told KGW on Tuesday.

This was an odd goof by the Express, but its had far worse in recent years.

In 2008 the Express and its sister publications settled a libel case and issued a public apology for suggesting the parents of a missing 3-year-old girl had caused her death and covered it up. A year later, Britains advertising watchdog censured the Express four times in less than a month for disguising advertorials as legitimate news stories, The Guardian reported.

The Mount St. Helens activity that scored the Express interest last week caused a much bigger media ruckus in the fall of 2004, when the mountain burped after a series of small earthquakes. A new lava dome formed as the volcano pushed molten rock to the surface.

Gawkers in two states scrambled for the best view, The Oregonian wrote on Oct. 5, 2004.

Some of those gawkers got to see a small wisp of smoke rising at the volcanos summit. ... The plume drifted eastward, walling off the sky with a white-and-dark-gray blanket from the treetops east of the mountain, rising to the height of the summit.

This is God's power in action," said one awed observer.

But, for Portlanders who stayed in the city, the volcanos power remained distant. Binoculars-carrying denizens who gathered at elevated spots such as Council Crest Park and Pittock Mansion admitted there was nothing to see.

Thats even more accurate 15 years later.

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry
The Portland school board is headed back to the drawing board in its negotiations with city police to deploy nine full-time officers at its high schools.

Amid intense backlash from students and community members, the board voted Tuesday to pull back a contract it approved on Dec. 11 under pressure from city officials. Back then, the district pledged $1.2 million per year to pay for city police officers to patrol its nine public high schools.

Board members now say the financial liability should rest with the city, not the school district. And before their vote to reverse course Tuesday, some wondered whether the district has been too quick to give concessions when its asked to pick up a bill.

When the city pulled out of supporting us with Tri-Met passes, we grumbled. When this proposal came down the pipeline we grumbled, but not much else, board member Scott Bailey said.

Board member Julia Brim-Edwards replied: We have a chance to do more than just grumble.

Last week, board members said they felt pressured by a false Dec. 31 deadline the city imposed for the district to approve the contract. Meanwhile, the neighboring Parkrose and David Douglas districts are just in the beginning stages of talks with the city police bureau on funding officers in their schools.

Brim-Edwards, who proposed Tuesdays reversal of approval for the contract, said the board believed failing to OK it in December would result in the district losing its existing police officers, who currently work at Portland schools three-quarters time.

She wondered aloud why the city asked the district to pay for officers in schools now after providing the service for free for nearly two decades.

Were not a profit-making enterprise. Our enterprise mission is to educate students, and we should devote every last dollar to that, Brim-Edwards said.

She also said students werent given enough opportunities to chime in on the agreement. District leaders agreed.

A team led by Jonathan Garcia, senior director for strategic partnerships, proposed a series of listening sessions that include stops at every high school and the appointment of student representatives to gather feedback from their peers. That group would then make recommendations to the board on an amended contract.

The board invited students from each high school to testify at Tuesdays meeting. Although a few spoke to the costs, most voiced concern over whether police, often referred to as school resource officers, or SROs, belong in their hallways at all.

Students need support, not armed police patrolling the school like a war zone, Roosevelt senior Breely Buttitta said.

I dont think SROs are performing any duties in high schools, Jefferson senior Jamari Signor said.

Four students stood along the walls holding signs reading, Fund prevention! Not just detention! and Restore justice. Several in attendance snapped their fingers and clapped at their peers testimony urging the school board to dismiss student resource officers.

But at least two students who took the microphone during the public comment period said they want police in Portlands public schools.

I think I may have a lot of disagreements with a lot of students. Just because some people have the louder voices doesnt mean theyre the only ones with opinions, Grant High School student Ben Sneads said.

He also criticized the board for holding a vote to cancel the resolution it passed more than a month ago.

I would hope that public officials would be stronger in their convictions in what needs to happen, he said.

The board unanimously approved the resolution to nix Decembers agreement. But the lone voice from the dais that lined up with the majority opinion among students was its sole member of color.

I think that we can support students in other ways and keep them safe partnering with other school districts but not with armed officers, said Julie Esparza Brown, who is Latina.

If the coming weeks result in a resolution that would place police in Portland schools?

Its still going to be a no vote for me, she said.
New England Patriots safety Patrick Chung started a cross-country war of trash-talking Sunday when he boasted that the when the Patriots face the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53, they were going "to go out there and kick their ass, baby.

The former Oregon Ducks eye-opening remark prompted Ram wide receiver Brandin Cooks, a former Oregon State Beaver, to respond.

Hey Chung, we heard you talking that talk back there in Foxboro ... lets get straight, Cooks said as he ended his words with a mic-drop while walking off the stage.

When asked about that comment on Tuesday, Chung kinda, sorta, walked back that prediction, saying hes a clown.

You guys dont know me. Im a clown, Chung told reporters.  "Brandin Cooks knows I am a clown. You guys want to write whatever you want to write. Thats OK. Obviously, you guys have nothing else to write about.

Chung is expected to make his fifth appearance in a Super Bowl, including his third consecutive Super Bowl. He should know more than most players that any statement that even remotely sounds controversial will be amplified during Super Bowl week.

Chung made the butt-kicking boast during the Patriots Super Bowl send-off rally, much to the delight of an estimated 35,000 Patriots fans in Gillette Stadium. Chung offered some clarification of his comment, but he didnt apologize Tuesday.

Were confident. Theyre confident, Im sure. Theyre thinking the same thing," Chung told reporters. "It was just me being a a clown. I guess I apologize, but I am not really apologizing because we are confident just like they are. They are a great team, we know that. We are a great team, they know that.

-- Geoffrey C. Arnold | @geoffreyCarnold
The owner of an outdoor gear retailer based in Columbia City is accused of selling counterfeit Leopold rifle scopes that he allegedly imported from China.

Mark Aaron Culp, founder and owner of CulMar Outdoors, made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland Tuesday afternoon, accused of trafficking in counterfeit goods.

Assistant federal public defender C. Renee Mares entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

The one-count indictment alleges Culp, 56, sold rife scopes bearing the Leupold brand name and the companys Gold Ring design from May through July 2015.

According to federal investigators, Culp sold the counterfeit scopes to buyers across the United States, through his companys website and through third-party sites, including the website www.gunbroker. com and eBay.

He made $3,728.50 in sales of the counterfeit rifle scopes to buyers in New York, Connecticut, California, Texas, Florida and Indiana, according to court records.

Leupold & Stevens, Inc. has its headquarters in Beaverton and specializes in high-quality optics for sporting, shooting, and military applications and makes rifle scopes, range finders, binoculars and thermal sensors.

Culp was arrested at his home Monday night on an arrest warrant, after an effort to reach a plea agreement pre-indictment fell apart, according to court records.

He appeared briefly Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta, and was ordered to be released from custody, pending trial. The judge also ordered Culp not to possess or sell firearms while the case is pending.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
If at first you dont succeed, try, try, try, try again.

For the fourth time since 2007, a Portland lawmaker is sponsoring a bill designed to kickstart serious talks about extending TriMets commuter rail line to Salem.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, said as he retires from the Legislature, he is giving one of his pet projects one more shot.

Its now or never, the 83-year-old legislator said in an interview. It makes so much sense to me.

Greenlick wants to extend the Westside Express Service, TriMets beleaguered commuter rail line between Wilsonville and Beaverton, an estimated 29 miles south to Salem. His bill would create a 17-person task force of local leaders to study expanding the commuter rail to the states capital. He introduced identical legislation in 2007, 2013 and 2015.

Seperately, Oregon is studying ways to speed up Amtrak service between Portland and Eugene, part of a $1 billion plan to give commuters an option other than driving on Interstate 5.

Greenlicks bill comes as WES ridership continues to plummet.

According to TriMets latest figures, the 15-mile line averaged 1,250 daily boardings last month, down 19 percent from the same period in 2017. The train runs every 30 minutes during the work weeks morning and afternoon rush hours.

It doesnt run on weekends.

Critics, including avid WES riders, have long said the transit service is hampered by its considerable limitations. While it connects with bus and light rail lines along the way, riders have little flexibility about when the train runs and cant hop onboard on nights or weekends.

Greenlick, who said he wouldnt seek a 10th term in the Oregon House of Representatives in 2020, said hes been frustrated by the lack of progress on the commuter rail.

Before WES was even operational in 2009, Greenllck had introduced legislation to study extending the line to Salem.

He said it took 14 years to make the project a reality in the first place. I suppose it will take as many years to expand it to Salem, he predicted.

Greenlick said expanding the train to Salem and Keizer brings the possibility of more riders to sustain the system.

This is not only a transportation plan, he said of the proposed extension, its a housing plan.

He said metro residents need more housing options in the mid-Willamette Valley, especially for those workers who have jobs in Washington County but cant find housing.

Keizer Mayor Cathy Clark said she supports studying commuter rail as an option for her Marion County community. Keizer has grown into the 13th largest city in the state, she said, and congestion is worsening. Housing is an issue as well.

I think its important to have in-depth, data-driven conversations on our transportation system, she said, adding that she views commuter rail as one option, but she also wants to see more lanes on Interstate 5.

Part of its going to be in the data, she said. Are we going to get the ridership?

Greenlicks bill in 2007 passed the House but died in a Senate committee. None of the subsequent attempts got a vote from his colleagues.

In 2009, he co-sponsored a bill to study Oregons commuter rail system overall. That bill became law, and a 2010 rail report outlined some of the challenges inherent in the Salem extension.

That report determined extending to Salem was technically feasible but would raise many political and financial challenges, including where the rail would end.

In 2008 figures, the extension was estimated to cost from $327 million to $387 million. That wouldnt include annual operations costs of $5.5 million to more than $6.9 million for TriMet, the report said.

The projected route  which would have stops in Woodburn, Keizer and either North or central Salem  would draw 2,920 to 3,570 riders, the state estimated, depending on the final route.

It would also raise a host of other questions, the report said. Since the line would extend outside of TriMets service area, a new regional entity will likely need to be established to oversee the project development, administer funding, and eventually own and operate the system, the report said.

TriMet said Greenlick has been a partner in promoting the growth of transit in the past.

We appreciate his focus and continued support of our efforts to draw riders to the transit system, Roberta Altstadt, a TriMet spokeswoman, said in a statement.

The bill is not scheduled for a hearing, but Greenlick said he will lobby his colleagues to debate it.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
UPDATE: Crews have removed the body from Mount Hood.

Rescuers on Wednesday reached the wreckage of a once-missing plane that a day earlier was found crashed on the north side of Mount Hood near Eliot Glacier.

A crew of 23 rescuers reached the wreckage just before 9 a.m., according to Hood River County Sheriffs Sgt. Pete Hughes.

The crew located the plane and a dead body. George Regis, a 63-year-old Battle Ground resident, was reported missing Friday, and the wrecked plane has the same identifying tail number as a single-engine plane flown by Regis.

Hughes confirmed only one body was in the wreckage of the four-seat plane. A Civil Air Patrol pilot spotted the crashed plane Tuesday after sheriffs deputies learned of a transponder signal emitting from the slope of the mountain.

The crew included nine members of the Hood River Crag Rats rescue team, nine members of the Air Force reserves and five Air National Guard members.

The crew left on a snowcat at 4:30 a.m. and arrived at the Cloud Cap Inn on the northeast side of the mountain. From there, the crew skied and snowshoed up to the wreckage site. The trip took about four hours, Hughes said.

Hughes said the plane crashed into the mountain at about 8,750 feet.

He said a plan to remove the plane wreckage hasnt been made yet, adding that law enforcement agency will coordinate with the U.S. Forest Service to remove the plane parts.

Regis was flying a 1975 Rockwell International 112A, according to Federal Aviation Administration Records, and he has had an active private pilot license since 2016. He was flying to Arizona, according to law enforcement officers, and was reported missing by his wife.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.
GLOBAL DIGITAL MUSIC CONTENT MARKET SIZE STUDY, BY TYPE (PERMANENT DOWNLOADS, MUSIC STREAMING), BY APPLICATION (05-15 YEARS, 15-30 YEARS, 30-45 YEARS, 45 YEARS & ABOVE) AND REGIONAL FORECASTS 2018-2025

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Global Digital Music Content Market valued approximately USD xxx billion in 2017 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than xxx% over the forecast period 2018-2025. The Digital Music Content is developing and expanding at a significant pace. In the present scenario, The digital music content market is experiencing constant replacement of digital music records and compact disks by various alternatives which includes portable storage devices such as multimedia players, Ipods and cloud storage services considering the global scenario.Request For Free Sample-On the basis of segmentation, The Digital music content market is segmented into Type and Age Groups. The Type segment is classified into Permanent downloads and Music Streaming. The Age Group segment is classified into 05-15 Years, 15-30 Years, 30-45 Years, 45 Years & Above. The Type segment is anticipated to dominate the digital musiccontent considering the forthcoming years considering the global scenario.On the basis of Geography, The digital music content market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Rest of World. The Europe region is anticipated to fastest growing in the digital music content market. The European countries which includes United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden are the key revenue contributing countries considering the European region.The regional analysis of Global Digital Music Content Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the fastest growing region across the world in terms of market share. Whereas, owing to the countries such as China, Japan, and India, Asia Pacific region is anticipated to be the dominating region over the forecast period 2018-2025.The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offerings of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below:Buy Now-By Type:Permanent DownloadsMusic StreamingBy Age-Group:05-15 Years15-30 Years30-45 Years45 Years & AboveBy Regions:North AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeUKGermanyAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of the WorldFurthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2015, 2016Base year  2017Forecast period  2018 to 2025The leading market players mainly include-AppleDeezerGoogleiHeartMediaSpotifyCBSClear Channel RadioGuveraMixcloudTarget Audience of the Global Digital Music Content Market in Market Study:Key Consulting Companies & AdvisorsLarge, medium-sized, and small enterprisesVenture capitalistsValue-Added Resellers (VARs)Third-party knowledge providersInvestment bankersInvestorsRead More-About Kenneth ResearchKenneth Research is a reselling agency providing market research solutions in different verticals such as Automotive and Transportation, Chemicals and Materials, Healthcare, Food & Beverage and Consumer Packaged Goods, Semiconductors, Electronics & ICT, Packaging, and Others. Our portfolio includes set of market research insights such as market sizing and market forecasting, market share analysis and key positioning of the players (manufacturers, deals and distributors, etc), understanding the competitive landscape and their business at a ground level and many more. Our research experts deliver the offerings efficiently and effectively within a stipulated time. The market study provided by Kenneth Research helps the Industry veterans/investors to think and to act wisely in their overall strategy formulationContact Us1412 Broadway,21st Floor Suite MA111,New York, NY 10018Name:DavidEmail:sales@kennethresearch.comPhone: +1 313 462 0609
Comprehensive Analysis on Cancer Immunotherapies Market with Key Players: Amgen  Bristol Mayers Squibb  F. Hoffmann-La Roche  Merck  Takeda

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The Cancer Immunotherapies market research report compiled by Market Study Report, LLC, offers a comprehensive study on the current industry trends. The report also offers a detailed abstract of the statistics, market valuation, and revenue forecast, which in addition underlines the status of the competitive spectrum and expansion strategies adopted by major industry players.The global Cancer Immunotherapies market is valued at xx million USD in 2017 and is expected to reach xx million USD by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2017 and 2023.This report studies the Cancer Immunotherapies market status and outlook of Global and major regions, from angles of players, countries, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global market, and splits the Cancer Immunotherapies market by product type and applications/end industries.Request a sample of this premium report at:Cancer immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that boosts the human bodys natural immune system to fight against the cancer cells. This therapy is provided to cancer patients to stop the spread of cancer, to slow down the growth of cancer cells, and to improve the natural immunity for destroying the cancer cells.Scope of the Report:Rising R&D in cancer immunotherapy is resulting in introduction of advanced treatment options that are more effective and efficient. A paradigm shift from traditional chemotherapies to immunotherapies is propelling the overall market.The world cancer immunotherapy market is foretold to gain impetus due to rising popularity of patient assistance programs and broad portfolio of promising pipeline drugs. However, there could be more significant factors augmenting the demand in the market. For instance, rise in requirement of cancer monoclonal antibodies and launch of more effective bioinformatics tools offering improved drug development options could help with more demand for cancer immunotherapy. Furthermore, surge in adoption of immunotherapy therapeutics compared to conventional ones and high incidence of cancer could help the market to increase growth in the coming years.The Americas accounted for approximately 47% of the market share of the global cancer immunotherapies market in 2015. High incidences of cancer in regions like the US, Canada, and Latin America are expected to contribute to the market growth in this region. region. This has led to an increase in consumption of immunotherapies that is used to treat cancer patients, thereby aiding the market growth.The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.North America, especially The United States, will still play an important role which cannot be ignored. Any changes from United States might affect the development trend of Cancer Immunotherapies.Europe also play important roles in global market, with market size of xx million USD in 2017 and will be xx million USD in 2023, with a CAGR of xx%.Market Segment by Companies, this report covers Amgen Bristol Mayers Squibb F. Hoffmann-La Roche Merck TakedaMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers Monoclonal Antibodies Cancer Vaccines Check Point Inhibitors ImmunomodulatorsMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Lung Breast Colorectal Melanoma Prostate Head & NeckRequest a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Table of Contents1 Cancer Immunotherapies Market Overview2 Manufacturers Profiles3 Global Cancer Immunotherapies Market Competition, by Players4 Global Cancer Immunotherapies Market Size by Regions5 North America Cancer Immunotherapies Revenue by Countries6 Europe Cancer Immunotherapies Revenue by Countries7 Asia-Pacific Cancer Immunotherapies Revenue by Countries8 South America Cancer Immunotherapies Revenue by Countries9 Middle East and Africa Revenue Cancer Immunotherapies by Countries10 Global Cancer Immunotherapies Market Segment by Type11 Global Cancer Immunotherapies Market Segment by Application12 Global Cancer Immunotherapies Market Size Forecast (2018-2023)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 AppendixMore Details on this Report:About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLC4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
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The (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals market study developed by Market Study Report, LLC, enumerates an in-depth analysis of the powerful trends prevailing in the industry. This study also encompasses valuable information relating to the profitability prospects, growth dynamics, market size, market share forecast, and revenue estimation of this business vertical. The study descriptively charts out the competitive backdrop of eminent players partaking in the industry share, in consort with their offering portfolio & business strategies.mPOS market is projected to surpass USD 55 billion by 2024. Lower installation costs as compared to the traditional POS systems will propel the mobile POS market growth. The traditional systems require a telephone connection or a SIM card in addition to the card swiping machine. On the contrary, the mobile systems are available at a fraction of the costs as compared to the traditional systems or affordable rental prices.Request a sample Report of (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals Market at:Key players in the mobile POS market include:Fujian Newland Payment Technology Co., Ltd., NCR Corporation, Posiflex Technology, Diebold Nixdorf, and Ingenico Mobile Solutions.Hardware mPOS market is expected to gain momentum over the forecast timespan due to the increasing penetration of smart handheld devices such as smartphones. The handheld terminals are witnessing a large-scale adoption due to low costs and the easy setup of these systems. Also, these systems do not require a high degree of technical expertise for their operation. The retailers are buying multiple devices for their delivery personnel or installing multiple devices on their billing counters to enhance the customer experience.The mPOS market is characterized by the compliance of these systems with industry standards such as EMV2 and PCI, making them highly secure. Additionally, a high degree of security allows these systems to perform well with high transaction success rates. The implementation of technologies is increasing the capabilities of these devices to perform fraud detection in case of any anomalies in the system. For instance, the geo-tagging facility allows the devices to track the place and the time of the transaction.The key trend of the growing adoption of cloud-based solutions is expected to impact the mobile POS market positively. Cloud solutions allow the merchants to store and access the product and customer data across multiple platforms. Increasing penetration of internet and smartphones is allowing an increased number of vendors to integrate the systems with cloud-based solutions.Enquiry about (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals market report before Buying at:The mobile POS market in the retail sector is expected to witness an upward growth due to the significant expansion of the e-commerce sector. The retailers are implementing these devices to enhance the shopping experience for the customers. Features, such as geolocation, allow the sellers to send sale or discount alerts, coupons, and codes to the customers. These solutions also help the retailers to build customer profiles that store and analyze the purchases and preferences of customers.Europe mPOS market will experience a significant growth due to the increasing adoption of these systems in the BFSI sector. The banks in the region are adopting these systems to offer customers lesser transaction fees. For instance, in June 2016, Spire Payments has partnered with a leading European bank to implement SPm2 devices in the branches of the bank. The solution will allow roaming services to serve bank customers from anywhere within the branch.These companies are constantly competing to gain the majority share and implementing strategies such as product development for customer-specific requirements. For instance, First Data launched Clover Mobile, an mPOS solution that adds versatility and flexibility to the Clover Station. The solution allows more personal engagement by taking payment experience from off-the-counter to the floor.Ask for Discount on (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals Market Report at:Some of the Major Highlights of TOC covers:Chapter 1: Methodology & ScopeDefinition and forecast parametersMethodology and forecast parametersData SourcesChapter 2: Executive SummaryBusiness trendsRegional trendsProduct trendsEnd-use trendsChapter 3: (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals Industry InsightsIndustry segmentationIndustry landscapeVendor matrixTechnological and innovation landscapeChapter 4: (mPOS) Mobile POS Terminals Market, By RegionChapter 5: Company ProfileBusiness OverviewFinancial DataProduct LandscapeStrategic OutlookSWOT AnalysisAbout Us:Marketstudyreport LLC allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLCPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.com
Baby Diapers Market 2024 | Johnson and Johnson, INDEVCO Group Procter and Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, SCA Hygiene Products GmbH, Mega Soft (Fujian) Hygiene Products Co. Ltd., and Interconsumer Products Ltd.

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Today the market for any given product is governed by the awareness among the consumers. An average buyer concentrates on the personal priorities and needs, apart from the overall notoriety of the product. These factors often administer the commodities of personal hygiene like diapers to a great extent. The modern day parents analyse the products for the infants more soberly than ever before. The material, costing, comfortable level are significant factor for making a diaper brand popular. Thus research and development are imminent part of baby diapers manufacturing. Also, the market for baby diapers is rising at an enormous pace, following rise in global demand.In recent years, the demand for baby diapers has grown fixedly in various nations of East Africa.The report provides a thorough acument into the key market dynamics, emerging trends, recent design innovations, and competitive landscape. The study offers a detailed statistical analysis related to the market share and size of segments and analyzes the key factors configuring the competitive acts. Recent attempts by governments of various countries and private players in East Africa are highlighted and their impact on the costing strategies of vendors are evaluated.Request For Report Sample:East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe East Africa baby diapers market is principally driven by a continuous slump in the toddler mortality rate in developing nations, an upswing in urban population with significant expendable incomes, and increasing awareness related to the hygiene of infants. Coupled with this, in-depth and persistent efforts made by several governmental and non-governmental organizations to create awareness among rural population have led to an increasing use of baby diapers to promote the healthy growth of infants.Increasing shift toward the use of eco-friendly and viable materials in manufacturing baby diapers has resulted in various product innovations. The onset of ultra-soft and hypoallergenic diapers made without the use of any supplements is expected to shoot the market over the forecast period. However, the growing run of parents embracing longer in-between changing times of diapers has resulted in skin rashes and bugs among babies. Various study reiterating the role of disposable diapers in causing testicular cancer among males are likely to hinder the growth of the market to an extent.East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Provincial VisionThe major countries considered in the research report are Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Kenya becomes top lucarative market for baby diapers in East Africa. The dramatic demand for baby diapers in Kenya is driven by the significant rise in birth rate included a substantial decline in the infant mortality rate as compared to other developing nations of East Africa. After Kenya,Tanzania is the second largest revenue contributing country in the East Africa diapers market. Other Countries Involved are Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.Request Report Discount:East Africa Baby Diapers Market: Companies InvolvedLeading players are also establishing feasible products made with biodegradable materials to entice parents who are vigilant of the environmental brunt of adapting diapers. Major manufacturers are making product modernization and operating boosting their distribution channels to centralize their presence across major countries. Key players accomplishing in this market include Johnson and Johnson, INDEVCO Group Procter and Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, SCA Hygiene Products GmbH, Mega Soft (Fujian) Hygiene Products Co. Ltd., and Interconsumer Products Ltd.This report gives you approach to definitive data such as: Market growth drivers, Factors hindering market growth, Current market trends and Market extensions for the coming decade.Key highlights of this reportOverview of key market forces propelling and forbiddingmarket growthUp-to-date analysis of market trends and technological advancementsPin-point analysis of market competition dynamics to offer you a competitive edgeAn analysis of strategies of major competitorsAn array of graphics and SWOT analysis of major industry segmentsDetailed analyses of industry trendsA well-defined technological growth map with an impact-analysisOffers a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and key product segments.Report Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com
Instrument Transformers Market Forecasts-2024 By Leaders Schneider Electric, Toshiba corporation,Raychem RPG (P) Ltd., Weidmann Electrical Technology, KONCAR Group

Instrument Transformers Market

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Rising demand for electricity owing to rapid urbanization across the globe have instigated concerns pertaining to grid stability, which in turn will drive the instrument transformer market. Ongoing urban migration adhered by rising infrastructural investments will further complement the deployment of effective monitoring and control T&D systems. Sustainable economic proliferation along with revamping lifestyles have led to an exponential rise in the peak load demand for energy. Hence, accruing energy demand across the globe subject to the ongoing economic and social reformation will appreciable augment the industry outlook. Instrument Transformer market will exceed USD 7 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc.Get a Sample Copy of this Report@France instrument transformer industry is set to exceed USD 100 million by 2024. Stringent regulatory reforms pertaining to emissions coupled with rapid technological transitions to sustain an energy efficient grid infrastructure will comprehensively thrust the business. Inclination towards clean energy adhered by rising investments across the renewable sector will further escalate the product penetration across the country. In 2017, the French government has led forward its plan to invest over USD 20 billion toward its energy transition plan. The framework lays grounds for a segregated investment mechanism catering towards energy efficiency, renewable integration and cleaner vehicle development.Oil immersed in 2016, accounted for over 50% of the instrument transformer market share. Effective insulation and di-electric strength when compared to its counterparts makes its adoption preferable. Applicability across high voltage applications coupled with economical cost structure will further escalate the product penetration. The technology since inception has witnessed sheer progression owing to its higher voltage output and operational flexibility with its prime application across utility and commercial electrical networks.In terms of regional industry outlook, the Asia Pacific instrument transformer market is estimated to exceed 7% growth rate in the ensuing seven years. The region has been witnessing large-scale migration across the urban centers along with the brisk expansion of utility-based electricity infrastructure, which has, in turn, favorably influenced the APAC instrument transformer industry. Furthermore, the rising rural electrification initiatives by governments of the developing economies across the region, augmented by significant investments by foremost financial entities such as Asian Development Bank and World Bank to restructure the existing electrical grids across the nations will further boost the instrument transformer market progression.Instrument Transformer Market Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024 in detail along with the table of contents@Speaking of the product spectrum of the instrument transformer industry, the oil immersed transformer led the overall business sphere accounting for over 50% of the global industry share in 2016. Its ease of deployment across high-voltage applications coupled with modest cost is bound to further escalate its requirement across diverse sectors, which would further contribute to the instrument transformer industry growth.In the recent times, instrument transformer market has witnessed a meteoric rise in its revenue graph, courtesy the rising demand for electricity owing to the exponential pace of urbanization, swift technological advancements to assist an energy-efficient and sustainable grid network, growing inclination toward clean energy with massive investments in the renewable sector coupled with various government initiatives to electrify rural hinterlands across the globe.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Eminent players across the instrument transformer market include Eaton Industrial Corporation Schneider Electric CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited (Formerly Crompton Greaves Limited) Toshiba Corporation Raychem RPG (P) Ltd. Weidmann Electrical Technology KONCAR GroupAbout Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Renal Biomarkers Market  Industry Size, Growth, Share, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast to 2019 - 2023

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Renal biomarkers help diagnose or identify the patients at risk of developing kidney diseases, by measuring their blood or urine levels. They are commonly released in acute or chronic kidney injuries, which are characterized by the rapid or gradual loss of kidney function resulting in serious clinical implications.Get the Sample Report:There is an impending need for specific and sensitive biomarkers that can identify kidney diseases at the earliest. The early identification helps to take timely preventive steps before the damage becomes irreversible. The major factors fuelling the global renal biomarkers market are; increased incidence of kidney diseases, large geriatric population and increasing prevalence of multiple co-morbidities.The market would also gain prominence due to rising incidences of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, as these diseases are often associated with the gradual loss of kidney function. Furthermore, increasing investments in research and development will further drive the market, as renal biomarkers are widely used in preclinical and clinical trials, to assess the safety of new drugs. However, lack of transparent reimbursement and regulatory scenario, especially, in the developing countries, is likely to restrain the market.The global renal biomarkers market is segmented on the basis of marker type, assay platform, application, and geography. On the basis of marker type, the market is segmented into Creatinine, Blood urea nitrogen (BUN), Cystatin C, Neutrophil gelatinize-associated lipocalin (NGAL). It is further segmented into other markers such as N-Acetyl--D-Glucosaminidase (NAG), Kidney Injury Molecule 1 (Kim1), TIMP-2, L-FABP, Interleukin-18, and Clusterin.Purchase the Report @Discount:The market is segmented on the basis of assay platform type into, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and Turbidimetric Immunoassay which includes Particle-Enhanced Turbidimetric Immunoassay (PETIA). The market further segments into other assay types such as Chemiluminescent Immunoassay (CLIA) and fluorescence immunoassay. Geographically, the market is segmented across four regions namely North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and LAMEA.Few of the strategies adopted by key industrial players are collaborations, FDA approvals and distribution agreements. For instance, recently, the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) with the support of industry players, has launched, 0by25, a human right initiative to neutralize the count of deaths arising from acute kidney injury, worldwide, by 2025. In Sep 2014, FDA approved Astute Medicals NephroCheck, the first diagnostic test for acute kidney injury.The company also entered into a marketing and development agreement with BioMerieux, allowing the use of NephroCheck on VIDAS immunoassay system. The companies profiled in the report include Abbott Diagnostics, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Beckman Coulter Inc., Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Astute Medical Inc., Alere Inc., bioMerieux SA, and Randox Laboratories Ltd.KEY MARKET BENEFITSComprehensive analysis of factors that drive and restrict the growth of the global renal biomarkers market is provided.The market estimations are made in the report by conducting the high-end analysis of the key market segments for the period of 20142020, which would enable the stakeholders to capitalize on prevailing market opportunities.An in-depth analysis of key segments of the market demonstrates the types of markers and assay platforms that are currently being used along with the variants that would gain prominence in the future.SWOT analysis enables to study the internal environment of the leading companies for strategy formulation.Region-wise renal biomarkers market conditions are comprehensively analyzed in the report.Competitive intelligence highlights the business practices followed by leading market players across the geographies.The global renal biomarkers market is segmented below:Global Renal Biomarkers Market  By Marker TypeCreatinineBlood urea nitrogen (BUN)Cystatin CNeutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL)OthersN-Acetyl--D-Glucosaminidase (NAG)Kidney Injury Molecule 1 (Kim1)TIMP-2 (TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 2)Liver-type Fatty Acid-Binding Protein (L-FABP)Interleukin-18 (IL-18)ClusterinGlobal Renal Biomarkers Market  By Assay Platform TypeEnzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA)Enzymatic AssayTurbidimetric ImmunoassayParticle-Enhanced Turbidimetric Immunoassay (PETIA)OthersChemiluminescent Immunoassay (CLIA)Fluorescence ImmunoassayGlobal Renal Biomarkers Market  By ApplicationDiagnosis and disease progression monitoringResearchGlobal Renal Biomarkers Market  By GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificLAMEAAbout Us:-Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. 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Comprehensive Report on Ankle Splints Market 2019-2025: Recent Trends and Growth Opportunities | Profiling Players- Breg, Aircast, Bird & Cronin, Bauerfeind Braces, BORT Medical, RCAI Restorative Care of America, Thuasne etc.

Ankle Splints

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UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Ankle Splints Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 119 pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability. This report focuses on the Paper Platform market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type, segments and application.Get Exclusive FREE Sample Copy Of this Report @Ankle Splints Market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Ankle Splints Market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018  2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Ankle Splints Market analysis & forecast 2018- 2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region- wise Analysis Global Ankle Splints Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)For More Information On This Report, Please VisitThe Major players reported in the market include: Breg Aircast Bird & Cronin Bauerfeind Braces BORT Medical RCAI Restorative Care of America Thuasne Allied OSI Labs SAFTE ItaliaGlobal Ankle Splints Market: Product Segment Analysis: Air-Stirrup Ankle Brace OtherGlobal Ankle Splints Market: Application Segment Analysis: High Ankle Sprains Sub-acute Ankle Sprains Chronic Ankle SprainsGet Exclusive FREE Sample Copy Of this Report @Ankle Splints Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market- driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real- time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real- time scenario.You can also ask for region wise market research report, as below: Ankle Splints - Global Market Status & Trend Report 2013- 2025 Top 20 Countries Data Ankle Splints - North America Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - South America Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - Europe Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - EMEA Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - Asia Pacific Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - China Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - India Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025 Ankle Splints - United States Market Status and Trend Report 2013- 2025Global Ankle Splints Market: Key Stakeholders: Ankle Splints Manufacturers Ankle Splints Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Ankle Splints Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Ankle Splints are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Ankle Splints Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 and its commercial landscape. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Ankle Splints market analysis and forecast 2018- 2025.Avail Discount On this Report @Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well- defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States.
Airport Service Market 2019 Global Industry Share, Size, Key Players, Trends, Competitive and Regional Forecast to 2025

Airport Service Market

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Expansion of domestic and regional routes in the aviation market, a strong economic growth, and rising air passenger traffic increase the demand for airport services. The major drivers of this industry are reviving airline and tourism sector and increasing penetration of low cost carriers in the developing countries.In 2018, the global Airport Service market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025. This report focuses on the global Airport Service status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Airport Service development in United States, Europe and China.Request for PDF Sample of this Market Research Report@The key players covered in this study: Aeroports de Paris ,BBA Aviation ,Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Srvc Wrldwd ,Japan Airport Terminal ,SatsMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoInternationalDomesticMarket segment by Application, split intoHospitality Event ServiceCargo Handling ServiceAircraft Handling and Related ServiceOtheMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Airport Service status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Airport Service development in United States, Europe and China.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.Get full Access of this Market Research Report@Contact Usinfo@supplydemandmarketresearch.comGlobal Contact: +1-276-477-5910About Supply Demand Market Research(SDMR)We have a strong network of high powered and experienced global consultants who have about 10+ years of experience in the specific industry to deliver quality research and analysis.Having such an experienced network, our services not only cater to the client who wants the basic reference of market numbers and related high growth areas in the demand side, but also we provide detailed and granular information using which the client can definitely plan the strategies with respect to both supply and demand side.302-20 Misssisauga Valley, Missisauga,L5A 3S1, Toronto
Assisted Reproductive Technology Market Focusing With Key Player: Cooper Surgical, Hamilton Thorne, Irvine scientific, Merck and Thermo Fisher Scientific

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In its latest report on Assisted Reproductive Technology Market, Market Study Report, LLC, provides a concise analysis on the recent market trends. The report further includes statistics, market forecasts and revenue estimations, that in addition highlights its status in the competitive domain as well as expansion trends adopted by major industry players.Assisted Reproductive Technology Market will reach over USD 32.5 billion by 2024; as per a new research report.Increasing number of people suffering from infertility issues coupled with rising awareness about assisted reproductive technology (ART) will drive ART market over the forecast timeframe. Furthermore, changing social factors and rising disposable income should positively impact industry expansion.Request a sample of this premium report atEmbryo/egg banking procedure segment is estimated to reach over 5.8 billion by 2024. Embryo banking preserves couples reproductive future. Moreover, cryopreserved eggs/embryos can be thawed later and utilized for in-vitro fertilization will drive segment growth. More than 1,000 children are conceived with the help of embryo banking in Southern California alone.Frozen embryo replacement (FER) technology segment will witness significant growth of 6.1% during the forecast period. FER technology has high success rate as compared to fresh embryo transfer cycles as well as it offers better planning for transfer of embryo. Nearly 85% of embryos survive thawing procedure, reducing need for repetitive procedures. All these factors will drive segment growth during the forecast period.Procedures such as in-vitro fertilization are offered at low cost in developing countries such as India, hence many people having trouble with getting or staying pregnant opt for this treatment in developing countries, leading to business growth. Growing awareness about ART procedure and its success rates will further lead to industry growth during the forecast period.Delayed child bearing is one of the dominant factors for increasing adoption of assisted reproductive technology. Numerous initiatives such as the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE), an exclusive task force of scientists and clinicians, engaged in fertility management and ART in the region should support industry growth. However, high cost associated with ART treatment will hamper industry expansion to certain extent over the coming years.Hospitals end-use segment accounted for 6.8 billion in 2017. Rising prevalence of infertility problems coupled with growing awareness about assisted reproductive technology and its success rate should drive segment growth during the forecast period. According to CDC data, around fifteen states in the U.S. provide insurance coverage for infertility treatment should positively impact market growth.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report atGermany assisted reproductive technology market will reach 2.2 billion by 2024, owing to high technology adoption coupled with rising awareness about ART procedures in the country. Delayed child bearing is major driver for assisted reproductive technology market growth in Germany. Growing demand and adoption rate of ART will drive industry growth during the forecast timeframe.India assisted reproductive technology market will witness lucrative growth rate of 6.9% during the analysis period. High adoption of in-vitro fertilization in the country coupled with low cost of ART procedures should drive Indian ART market during the forecast period. Increasing number of medical facilities such as fertility clinics and several initiatives undertaken to create awareness about assisted reproductive technology should further stimulate business growth over the coming years.Few notable players operating in global assisted reproductive technology market are Cooper Surgical, Hamilton Thorne, Irvine scientific, Merck and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Industry players are investing heavily in developing cost-effective products to gain competitive edge in lucratively growing markets of developing regions such as Asia Pacific. Companies are adopting strategies such as acquisition and partnership with local players of these regions to consolidate their market position.Complete report titled Assisted Reproductive Technology Market Size By Procedure (Fresh Donor, Fresh Nondonor, Frozen Donor, Frozen Nondonor, Embryo/Egg Banking), By Technology {In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) [IVF with Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), IVF without ICSI], Artificial Insemination-Intrauterine Insemination (AI-IUI), Frozen Embryo Replacement (FER)}, By End-Use (Hospitals, Fertility Clinics) Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China, India, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Saudi Arabia), Technology Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 - 2024 of 120 pages and published in January, 2019 is now available atAbout Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLC.4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
Globally Online Language Learning Market to Enjoy Explosive Growth of +18% during Forecasts (2019-2026) | Top Vendors; Duolingo, Houghton Mifflin Harcour, Pearson, Rosetta Stone, Sanako

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Online language learning is the process of learning languages done with digital mediums such as software and mobile apps that have access to the Internet. The Worldwide online language learning market is expected to grow at a CAGR of almost +18% during the forecast period. The online language learning market size will grow by almost USD XX billion during 2019-2026. This report provides an analysis of the market based on product segmentation such as courses, solutions, and apps. The online language learning market research report further presents in-depth insights on the progress prospects of the market across geographic regions- the Americas, APAC, and EMEA.For Sample copy of this Report:Companies Profiled in this report includes: Duolingo, Houghton Mifflin Harcour, Pearson, Rosetta Stone, Sanako and othersAbout Online Language Learning MarketOnline language learning business growth is expected to accelerate over the next five years, driven by flexibility and cost benefits of online learning of languages. The cost benefits of online learning are low owing to least requirements such as necessary software and hardware to register and complete the course assignments, which will drive the growth of the market. Furthermore, with the rapid digital penetration across the world, online language learning platforms and apps are easily accessible, which is expected to augment the growth of the worldwide online language learning market over the next few years. The Research Insights online language learning industry analysis reveals promising markets around the world.Highpoints of the report: Complete background analysis including assessment of parent market Key Changes in Market Trends Market segmentation to second or third level Historical, current and projected size of the market in terms of both value and quantity Reporting and evaluation of recent industrial developments Market Share and Strategies of Major Players Appearing Niche and Regional Markets Objective evaluation of market trajectory Recommendation for strengthening market penetrationAccess Complete Report @:North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Europe have been examined on the basis of different aspects such as, online language learning. It offers regional analysis based on different segments of the global online language learning market. The research report offers a brief online language learning timeline for the various segments. Furthermore, it offers forecast based on the online language learning analysis. To understand the sales structure of this global online language learning market, it offers a hierarchy of global online language learning market sector. In orders to provide a clear idea of market different graphical presentation techniques have been used for curating this research report. New research study on global online language learning comes with an analysis of market dynamics such as Drivers, Restraints, and opportunities.Finally, researchers throw light on manufacturers responsible for increasing the sales in the worldwide Online Language Learning market. These manufacturers have been inspected in terms of the manufacturing base, contact details, and competitors. The report describes the definitions, specification, and classification of the global Online Language Learning market.Reasons to access this research report: It offers informative data on recent advancements and technological trends. For a comparative study of the Online Language Learning market. It offers extensive research on market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Furthermore, it offers an in-depth analysis of the economic aspects of the businesses. The global analysis of global trading, import, export, and local consumption. Market analysis of sellers, vendors, and buyers. It offers an evaluation of competitive landscape.Get Discount on This Premium Research now @:The demand within the global market for Online Language Learning industries has been rising due to the several approaches like Online Language Learning. It includes different aspects of the businesses and represented by using several graphical presentation techniques such as graphs, charts, pictures, and diagrams.About usThe Research Insights  A global leader in analytics, research and advisory that can assist you to renovate your business and modify your approach. With us, you will learn to take decisions intrepidly. We make sense of drawbacks, opportunities, circumstances, estimations and information using our experienced skills and verified methodologies. Our research reports will give you an exceptional experience of innovative solutions and outcomes. We have effectively steered businesses all over the world with our market research reports and are outstandingly positioned to lead digital transformations. Thus, we craft greater value for clients by presenting advanced opportunities in the global market.Contact usThe Research InsightsRobin(Sales Manager)+91-996-067-0000sales@theresearchinsights.com
Expecting Massive Growth for Global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries Market 2019-2026: top key players - Sony, Sanyo, Maxell, Olympus, Motorola, Nippon Chemicals, Kodak, Nikon, Fujifilm

Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries Market

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Lithium-ion polymer battery is a rechargeable battery comprised of lithium-ion in a packaged pouch framework. The lithium ions change over negative terminals to positive anodes when the battery is being utilized and the other way around when the battery is being charged. The batteries are lightweight as a result of the packaging or pouch like design. They are components of consumer gadgets electronics, electric vehicles (EV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), PCs and digital cameras.Visit on the below link to get a sample of Report:What the research report offers:1. Market definition of the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market along with the analysis of different influencing factors like drivers, restraints, and opportunities.2. Extensive research on the competitive landscape of global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market.3. Identification and analysis of micro and macro factors that are and will effect on the growth of the market.4. A comprehensive list of key market players operating in the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market.5. Analysis of the different market segments such as type, size, applications, and end-users.6. It offers a descriptive analysis of demand-supply chaining in the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market.7. Statistical analysis of some significant economics facts8. Figures, charts, graphs, pictures to describe the market clearly.Key Players:Sony, Sanyo, Maxell, Olympus, Motorola, Nippon Chemicals, Kodak, Nikon, FujifilmThis is anticipated to drive the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market over the forecast period. This research report covers the market landscape and its progress prospects in the near future. After studying key companies, the report focuses on the new entrants contributing to the growth of the Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries sector. Most companies in the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market are currently adopting new technological trends in the Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries sector.Avail Discount on this report now at:Further, the key geographical segments of the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market have been discussed in the research study. The key factors that are boosting the growth of the key segments have been offered in the study. A detailed study of the competitive landscape of the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market have been given, presenting insights into the company profiles, financial status, recent developments, mergers and acquisitions, and the SWOT analysis. This research will give a clear idea to the readers about the overall market scenario to further decide on this market project.The major strategies adopted by the established players for a better penetration in the global Rechargeable Poly Lithium-Ion Batteries market also form a key section of this study. These strategies can be employed by the upcoming vendors for a better penetration in the market. The global market on Incinerator has also been analyzed in terms of revenue. The market dynamics such as market drivers, challenges, opportunities, and trends have been presented coupled with their respective impact analysis. The impact analysis helps in gathering information on the future development of the market.Browse the entire report in detail on the below link:About usThe Research Insights  A global leader in analytics, research and advisory that can assist you to renovate your business and modify your approach. With us, you will learn to take decisions intrepidly. We make sense of drawbacks, opportunities, circumstances, estimations and information using our experienced skills and verified methodologies. Our research reports will give you an exceptional experience of innovative solutions and outcomes. We have effectively steered businesses all over the world with our market research reports and are outstandingly positioned to lead digital transformations. Thus, we craft greater value for clients by presenting advanced opportunities in the global market.Contact usThe Research InsightsRobin(Sales Manager)+91-996-067-0000sales@theresearchinsights.com
CT scan and X-ray technique segment hold the dominant share in the Medical Image Processing Market upto 2023

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Medical imaging is a technique used for creating the visual representation of the internal body parts for the purpose of clinical analysis and medical intervention. The use of this technique reveals an internal structure that is hidden by the skin and bones for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The medical imaging technique includes the use of several modern equipments such as CT scan, ultrasound, X-ray, MRI, and others.Get the Sample Report:The market for medical imaging processing has witnessed a high growth due to increasing use of these techniques in the medical diagnosis, disease monitoring, and treatment of disease. The growth would be driven by the increasing government investment in the healthcare infrastructure development. Moreover, the growing awareness about the early diagnosis of disease with the help of medical imaging process are fuelling the growth of the global medical imaging processing market.Global medical imaging process market is segment based on the techniques into CT scan, X-ray, MRI, Ultrasound, nuclear imaging, and others. CT scan and X-ray technique segment holds the dominant share in the market. The availability of handheld X-ray devices and MRI scanners are fuelling the growth of the global medical image processing market. Based on the image type, the market is segmented into a 2D image, 3D image, and 4D image. The introduction of 4D imaging have injected new momentum in radiation therapy and it has also minimized the small tissue complications.The 4D imaging technology aims to track and compensate the target motion during radiation treatment and minimization of normal tissue injuries. The market is further segmented based on the application such as cardiology, gynecology, breast mammography, neurology, oncology, autoimmune disease, and others. Based on the geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.Purchase the Report @Discount:North America holds the dominant share in the market owing to the early acceptance of the technology. Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing segment due to the increasing government initiatives in the healthcare industry. Moreover, the rising awareness of these techniques has been playing a key role in the growth of Asia-Pacific medical image processing market.The key players of the market include GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Hitachi Medical Corporation, Hologic, Inc., Siemens Healthcare, Samsung Medison, Shimadzu Corporation, and Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation.KEY BENEFITSMarket analysis based on the current market scenario and expected future trends to enable stakeholders to take strategic decisions. Analysis of the factors impacting the market to understand business opportunities. Analysis of the market based on devices and geography as well as forecasts from 2014  2021. Identification of key investment pockets for various applications, services, and geographies. Identification of the key players and their strategic moves. Implications of the regulations and reimbursement scenario in diabetes care. Evaluation of market trends to provide deep-dive intelligence into every market segment. Competitive analysis to effectively plan and execute the business plan. Micro-level analysis based on application, service, and geography.KEY MARKET SEGMENTSThe global medical image processing market is segmented into three major categories: application, technology, image type, and geography.BY APPLICATION- Cardiology- Gynecology- Breast mammography- Neurology- Oncology- Autoimmune disease- OthersMARKET BY TECHNOLOGY- CT-Scan- X-ray- Ultrasound- MRI- Nuclear Imaging- OthersMARKET BY IMAGE-TYPE- 2D- 3D- 4DMARKET BY GEOGRAPHY- North America- Europe- Asia-Pacific- LAMEAAbout Us:-Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact:David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free (USA/Canada):+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1-855-550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb:
Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Worldwide Top Players Revenue Analysis of Lenovo, NetApp, Dell, IBM, Cisco Systems, EMC | Forecast to 2024

Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market

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Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Report 2019 offers elaborated knowledge on the market parts like size, Key Regions, growth, trends, dominating firms, Major Manufactures. The Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware report introduces market competition situation among the vendors, revenue, product & services, latest developments and business strategies.Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Overview:According to market analysts, Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market is projected to grow at a high CAGR value from 2019 to 2024.Sample Copy of Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Report Available @Cloud infrastructure refers to the hardware and software components - such as servers, storage, a network and virtualization software that are needed to support the computing requirements of a cloud computing model. Cloud IT infrastructure hardware is present in all the three cloud computing models  infrastructure as a service, platform as a service and software as a service.The growth of this market is majorly driven by increasing ICT spending and trend of big data and analytics; rising demand from organizations for agile, scalable, and cost-effective computing; increasing number of digital services and their applications; and high penetration of hybrid cloud.The Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market is segmented based on component, end-user and Regions. On the basis of component, the market is sub-segmented into Server, Storage Systems and Network Devices. By end-user, the market is sub-segmented into Cloud Service Provider and Third Party Data Center Provider.Regionally, Cloud IT infrastructure hardware market is currently dominated by North America region owing to increasing IT hardware capacity requirements of companies and data center technologies; especially in US and Canada.Purchase this report online along with table of contents @Key Regions:1 North America Country (United States, Canada)2 South America3 Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)4 Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)5 Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Top global key service provider companies covered in the study include:1 Lenovo2 NetApp3 Hewlett-Packard Enterprise4 Dell5 IBM Corporation6 Cisco Systems and More..Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @Key Questions Answered in this Report:1 How has the Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years?2 What are the price trends of Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware?3 What is the structure of the Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware industry and who are the key players?4 Who are the key vendors in the global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware market?5 What are the latest market trends?Table of Content:1 Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Industry Introduction and Market Overview2 Industry Chain Analysis3 Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market, by Type4 Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market, by Application5 Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Production, Value ($) by Region (2014-2019)6 Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2014-2019)7 Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Status and SWOT Analysis by Regions8 Competitive Landscape9 Global Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Analysis and Forecast by Type and Application10 Cloud It Infrastructure Hardware Market Analysis and Forecast by Region11 New Project Feasibility Analysis12 Research Finding and Conclusion13 AppendixAbout us:BusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune  Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940
Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market to witness an outstanding growth by 2024 | Global Key players: Kenexa, Hudson, Accolo, Hays, Manpower

Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market

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A new report has been added to the wide database of Business Industry Reports. The examination contemplate is titled "Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market 2019" by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2024 which provide freshest industry information and industry future patterns, enabling you to recognize the items and end clients driving Revenue development and productivity.Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market Overview:The report spread crosswise over 140 pages is an outline of the Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market Report 2019. The Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market is anticipated to develop at a sound development rate from 2019 to 2024 as indicated by new research. The investigation centers around market patterns, driving players, inventory network patterns, technological innovations, key improvements, and future systems.Accessible Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @The major Factors of Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing market, such as Understanding the profile required by the business and precisely mapping it with the representative's profile is a factor that is relied upon to assume an essential job in separating the RPO advertise players and help them in sustaining the fierce market competitiveness.The report also covers segment data: Type, Applications and Regions. Based on type the market has been segmented into on-demand RPO models and End-to-end RPO models.Based on type, On-demand RPO chooses the recruitment team within the premise of the employer and provides end-to-end recruitment services. In off-demand RPO services, RPO providers are liable for the entire methodology used for hiring new employees. Based on outsourcing, recruitment process outsourcing services are categorized in to fully outsourced and partially outsourced. Fully outsourced RPO market players are responsible for conducting the entire recruitment process. Additionally, they are responsible for document verification of the hired employee. Partially outsourced RPO providers are responsible for understanding the profile requirements for the employer and search & short list candidates for the company.Based on regions, Asia Pacific region is estimated to grow considerably over the forecast period in the RPO market owing to growing number small, medium, and large organizations. Additionally, the expansion of multinational organizations is expected to drive the regional market. India and China are estimated to grow significantly over the next few years owing to high growth in industrial sectors including, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing.Purchase this report online with 140 pages list of tables and figures and all around table of contents on @Significant key players:1 Kenexa2 Hudson3 Accolo4 Hays5 ManpowerRecruitment Process Outsourcing market, by region:1 North America2 Europe3 Middle East & Africa4 South America5 OthersGlobal Recruitment Process Outsourcing market 2019-2024: From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) market.Snatch your report @This investigation answers to the underneath key inquiries:1 What is the current size of the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) market in the world and in different countries?2 How is the Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) market divided into different product segments?3 How are the overall market and different product segments growing?4 How is the market predicted to develop in the future?5 What is the market potential compared to other countries?In the end this report covers information and information on limit and generation outline creation piece of the pie investigation deals review supply deals and lack import fare and utilization and additionally cost value income and gross margin of Recruitment Process Outsourcing.Significant points in table of contents:1 Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Introduction and Market Overview2 Industry Chain Analysis3 Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market, by Type4 Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market, by Application5 Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Production, Value ($) by Region (2014-2019)6 Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2014-2019)7 Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market Status and SWOT Analysis by Regions8 Competitive Landscape9 Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market Analysis and Forecast by Type and Application10 Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Market Analysis and Forecast by Region11 New Project Feasibility Analysis12 Research Finding and Conclusion13 AppendixAbout usBusinessindustryreports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media contactBusiness industry reportspune  indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940
High Intensity Focused Ultrasound Market Witness Significant Growth During the Forecast Period

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High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a medical procedure that involves the use of focused ultrasonic waves to destroy diseased or damaged tissue through ablation. When ultrasonic waves are focused on the target tissue, the temperature increases which in turn results in protein denaturation, thereby leading to irreversible cell death. Surgical procedures involving HIFU products are generally preferred because they are minimally invasive.The global HIFU market is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period due to factors such as the various benefits associated with HIFU products (such as they cause less bleeding), and a large patient population base across the world suffering from chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.Get Sample Copy of Report @In addition, increasing use of HIFU in various treatments, such as for urinary disorders imaging and removal of excess subcutaneous fatty tissue, further propel the market growth. However, stringent regulatory approval procedures for HIFU systems and unfavorable reimbursement scenarios hamper market growth.Leading Players:Accutome Inc.Blatek Industries IncorporatedEDAP TMSHaifu MedicalKoninklijke Philips N.V.Medtronic plcSonaCare Medical LLCStryker CorporationSuperSonicUltrasound Technologies Ltd.Key Benefits:This report provides an extensive analysis of the current and emerging market trends and dynamics in the global HIFU market.Comprehensive analysis of regions is provided to determine the prevailing opportunities in the global market.This study provides the competitive landscape of the global market to predict the competitive environment across geographies.This report entails the detailed quantitative analysis of the current market and estimations from 2014 to 2022 to identify the prevailing opportunities.Send Enquiry on this Report @About Us:Allied Market Research, a market research and advisory company of Allied Analytics LLP, provides business insights and market research reports to large as well as small & medium enterprises. The company assists its clients to strategize business policies and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collection to investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that help clients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The company amplies clients insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growth or fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. As follows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clients to turn into prominent business firm.Contact:David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free (USA/Canada):+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1855550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb:
3D Display Market 2019 Eminent participants across the Industry include Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, LG Electronics. Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Electronics Corp

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Global 3D Display Market is accounted for $48.21 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $253.90 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 20.2% from 2017 to 2026. Factors such as advancement in display technologies, increasing need of 3D display technique in defence and medical sector, rising demand of 3D visualization in entertainment industry such as in gaming and emergence of 3D channels are some of the factors fueling the market growth. However, lack of 3D content and high cost are restricting the market growth.Detailed Sample Copy of Updated Analysis @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.A 3D display is used to display a three dimensional view of a picture or environment.3D display is an emerging technology and adopted more and more for various applications such as gaming, video, education, photography and defence among others. 3D display is one of the latest developments in the electronic industry as it offers a very immersive 3D viewing experience.Top Players:Some of the key players in 3D Display Market include Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp., Panasonic Corp., Sharp Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Samsung Electronics Corp., Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, 3D Fusion, AU Optronics Corp., Coretec Group, Inc. and SHARP Corporation.Request Discount on this report @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.Market Segmentation:Amongst Application, consumer electronics segment accounted for significant market share during the forecast period due to the rising implementation of 3D displays in TVs, smart phones and monitors. Asia Pacific is expected to witness rapid growth by the year 2022 strongly driven by the increasing demand for 3D display in advertising and broadcast sectors in the region.Products Covered: 3D Holographic Display Head Mounted Displays (HMD) Static Volume Displays Stereoscopy Swept Volume Displays Volumetric DisplaysTechnologies Covered: Digital Light Processing Rear-Projection Television (DLP RPTV) Light Emitting Diode (LED) Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) Plasma Display Panel (PDP) Liquid Crystal Display (LCDs)Enquiry Before Buying@Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.About Market PrognosisWe at Market Prognosis believe in giving a crystal clear view of market dynamics for achieving success in todays complex and competitive marketplace through our quantitative & qualitative research methods.We help our clients identify the best market insights and analysis required for their business thus enabling them to take strategic and intelligent decision.We believe in delivering actionable insights for your business growth and success.Contact us:ProgMarkPvt Ltd,Thane - 421501India.Contact No: +1 973 241 5193Email: sales@marketprognosis.com
Food Enzymes Market Sizing and Forecasts to 2024: Key Player Includes E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (U.S.), Novozymes A/S (Denmark), Dyadic International (U.S.), Deerland Enzymes (U.S.)

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The global food enzymes market is expected to grow from USD 1,985.15 million 2017 to USD 3,128.84 million by the end of 2024, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.72%.Market Segmentation & Coverage: The report on global food enzymes market identifies key attributes about the customer to define the potential market and identify different needs across the industry. Understanding the economies and geographies of the potential customer group can help to gain business acumen for better strategic decision making. Our market coverage across different industry verticals reveals the hidden truth about the strategies adopted by the players in different verticals and help the organization to decide target audience. This report gives you the composite view of sub-markets coupled with comprehensive industry coverage and provides you with the right way of accounting factors such as norms & regulations, culture, to make right coverage strategy for your market plan.Get Free Sample Copy of This Report@Some of the players in global food enzymes market includes E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (U.S.), Novozymes A/S (Denmark), Dyadic International, Inc. (U.S.), Deerland Enzymes (U.S.), Associated British Foods plc (U.K.), Chr. Hansen A/S (Denmark), Koninklijke DSM N.V. (The Netherlands), Advanced Enzyme Technologies (India), Amano Enzyme Inc. (Japan) and Puratos Group (Belgium)This research report categorizes the global food enzymes market to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:Based on Formulation1. Liquid2. Lyophilized PowderBased on Source1. Animals2. Microorganisms3. PlantsBased on Type1. Carbohydrase2. Lipase3. ProteaseEnquiry about Report@Based on Application1. Bakery Products2. Beverages3. Confectionery Products4. Dairy Products5. Processed FoodBased on Geography1. Americas (United States)2. Europe, Middle East & Africa (United Kingdom, Germany, and Saudi Arabia)3. Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, and India)Research Methodology:Our market forecasting is based on a market model derived from market connectivity, dynamics, and identified influential factors around which assumptions about the market are made. These assumptions are enlightened by fact-bases, put by primary and secondary research instruments, regressive analysis and an extensive connect with industry people. Market forecasting derived from in-depth understanding attained from future market spending patterns provides quantified insight to support your decision-making process. The interview is recorded, and the information gathered in put on the drawing board with the information collected through secondary research.Purchase Report@Reasons to Buy:1. To comprehensively understand of the food enzymes market with respect to major influencing factor such as drivers, restraints, opportunities and challenges2. To strategically analyze each vertical and geographic sub-segment in the food enzymes market and its individual growth and its impact towards the growth of overall market3. To position selected vendors in FPNV Positioning Matrix for the food enzymes market to uncover a competitive landscape based on business strategy and product satisfactionAbout Us:Qurate Business Intelligence delivers unique market research solutions to its customers and help them to get equipped with refined information and market insights derived from reports. We are committed to providing best business services and easy processes to get the same. Qurate Business Intelligence considers themselves as strategic partners of their customers and always shows the keen level of interest to deliver quality.Runwal Platinum,Ramnagar Colony, Bavdhan,Pune, Maharashtra, India-411021IN +919881074592info@qurateresearch.com
FPGA Global Market 2019:2025 - Achronix Semiconductor, E2V Technologies, Atmel Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor, Microsemi Corporation, Tabula

FPGA Market

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The FPGA Global market 2019-2025 from QY research gives basic data to advertisers, managers, analysts, business consultants, senior management and different key individuals that with the critical information need to assess global FPGA market. This information is optimistic for the commercials, residential & industrial buyers, governments and other shareholders to present their product-centric tactics in proportion to the projected as well as existing trends in the FPGA industry.For FREE sample copy of report @Scope of the FPGA reportThis report studies the FPGA market status and outlook worldwide and major regions, from angles of players, countries, product types and end industries. The FPGA report analyzes top players in the market which includes Achronix Semiconductor , E2V Technologies , Atmel Corporation , Lattice Semiconductor , Microsemi Corporation , Tabula , Xilinx , , and further splits the FPGA market by product type analysis SRAM Based FPGA , Anti-Fuse Based FPGA , Flash Based FPGA , and applications analysis Telecommunication , Consumer Electronics , Automotive , Industrial , Military & Aerospace , Medical , Others , , .The FPGA report calculates the limitations and strong points of the leading players through SWOT analysis. With the slowdown in world economic growth, the FPGA has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, FPGA market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of XXX from XXX million $ in 2015 to XXX million $ in 2017, believe that in the next few years, FPGA market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the FPGA will reach XXX million $ with a CAGR of xx.x % between 2019 and 2025.Read Full Research FPGA Report with TOCWhich Study objectives are covered in this report?What is the global market size for market?What is the market size in different countries around the world?Are the markets growing or decreasing?How are the markets divided into different kinds of products?How are different product groups developing?How are the markets forecast to develop in the future?Which are the most potential countries and markets?FPGA market also covers -Market Attributes - Numerous attributes of FPGA System Market such as growth and restraining factors, the technological advancements, new upcoming opportunities, and emerging segments of the with respect to different types and applications, market micro-economic factors.Trends - The trend section reveals the details about the emerging trends involved in FPGA System such as globalization, market fragmentation regulation & environmental concerns, technology advancement, over-capacity in developed markets, and product proliferation.Miscellaneous elements - The Miscellaneous elements such as, leading players with respect to their company profile, product portfolio, capacity, price, cost and revenue. The FPGA market also covers System production capacity, price, demand, supply chain/logistics, profit/loss, material parameters/specifications, and the growth factor of the market.Why to buy FPGA market ?This report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a six-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsEnquire Here Get customization & check discount for report @MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting.3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138
3D Cell Culture Market Growth Analysis by 2028 | Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Merck KGaA, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Lonza, Corning Incorporated, and Synthecon

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The 3D cell culture market revenues surpassed US$ 778 million in 2018, as per a new FMI study. The market is estimated to grow at 7.8% y-o-y in 2019; key factors responsible for the projected market growth include,A steady rise in global research and development expenditureEfforts to leverage the potential of 3D cell culture to replace animal model testingIncreasing demand for biosimilar productsRequest to View a Sample Copy of This Report @Extensive application of stem cell research and a growing emphasis on regenerative medicineWhile 2D cell culture revolutionized the research efforts in stem cells, tissue engineering and molecular biology, 3D cell culture has pushed the boundaries of traditional 2D cell culture technique with functional superiority. As the R&D efforts continue to rise in a bid to investigate the cause of different diseases and improve human health, 3D cell culture is set to remain a highly sought-after technique in the coming years, says FMI.The FMI study finds that scaffold-based 3D cell culture techniques are highly preferred over scaffold free 3D cell culture. Owing to a significant adoption of scaffold-based 3D cell culture, study finds that this techniques garnered over 81% of the global market revenues.Scaffold based 3D cell culture techniques deliver researchers with additional functional operations in terms of material  natural or synthetic and different mechanical properties.The technique uses either hydrogel-based support or polymeric hard material based support. Both types of supports find equivalent penetration in terms of application, however revenues garnered from polymeric hard material based support are higher.According to the study, revenues of polymeric hard material based support held over half the scaffold-based 3D cell culture technique revenues in 2018 and the trend is expected to continue in the future.Application of 3D Cell Culture in Cancer Research ProminentThe FMI study estimates that 3D cell culture application in cancer research accounted for over 31% of the 3D cell culture market revenues in 2018. Cell culture is an integral part of cancer drug discovery practices. Greater strides are underway in the field to precisely characterize the diseases and develop advanced tumor cell lines using 3D cell culture techniques.2D culture lines are considered as a standard for in vitro pre-clinical cancer treatment screening. However, more recently, the field is turning to 3D cell culture techniques to implement an ideal experimental model that mimics the human body environment to its best.Stem cell technology is another lucrative field for 3D cell culture market. According to the FMI study, application in stem cell technology accounted for over one-fourth of the 3D cell culture market revenues in 2018. While 2D cell culture posed challenges of scalability in stem cell technology, apart from few challenges, 3D cell culture has provided greater density and multi-fold expansion of the culture system in stem cell technology. Other fields that utilize 3D cell culture techniques are tissue regeneration, regenerative medicine and drug discovery.Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries - Prominent End-UsersThe study reveals that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries were accounted for over one-fifth of the global 3D cell culture market revenues in 2018. Buoyancy in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries can be profitable for the 3D cell culture market in the coming years and over 9% growth is projected in 2019 over 2019.Get Report Customization Now @Academic research institutes are the second prominent end-users of 3D cell cultures wherein they accounted for over one-fourth of the global 3d cell culture revenues in 2018. Government funding in cancer research projects carried out at academic institutes and organizations has increased significantly, thereby supporting the investments in advanced technologies including 3D cell culture techniques.Revenues in North America Continue to SurgeNorth America continued to spearhead the revenues of 3D cell culture market during the historical period and the status-quo is likely to continue in the future. In 2018, North America accounted for over two-fifth of the global 3D cell culture market revenues. The study estimates that regional revenues are expected to grow at 8% in 2019 over 2018.Funding in research and development, especially in cancer research remains higher in the United States as compared to other developed countries. Europe also presents significant funding in R&D activities. The FMI study finds that over one-fourth of the 3D cell culture market revenues were accounted for the Europe region in 2018, of which a bulk of revenues come from Western European countries such as Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Endometriosis Treatment Market Growth Analysis by 2028 | AbbVie Inc., Bayer AG, AstraZeneca, Pfizer Inc.

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The endometriosis treatment market is likely to exceed US$ 2.5 Bn in 2019, as per the findings of a recently published research study by FMI. According to the study, demand for endometriosis treatment is envisaged to grow against the backdrop of wide-spread prevalence of endometriosis affecting women, notably those in the reproductive age-group.According to the Endometriosis Foundation of America, around 200 million women worldwide are diagnosed with endometriosis and majority of them experience a prolonged delay in diagnosis. Alarming situations as such are driving the adoption of endometriosis treatment, finds the FMI study.The growing adoption of endometriosis treatment can be attributed to,Increasing rates of endometriosis across the globeHigh investments in healthcare infrastructureGrowing need for early diagnosis and preventive medicineWhile the rate of new therapies gaining approval has remained sluggish over the recent decades, an extensive analysis of the endometriosis pipeline by FMI unveils that this status quo is set to change. Although only limited products are in development worldwide, the endometriosis pipeline remains relatively diverse with a distinct range of molecule types and molecular targets.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Oral Contraceptive Pills Remain Topselling Category: FMI SurveyAdoption of endometriosis treatment is also gaining traction owing to broader concerns pertaining to individualizing patient care with effective detection, diagnosis, and treatment. As per the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), endometriosis can develop into infertility in around 25-50% of the affected women. Growing focus on early detection and treatment is driving the adoption of effective endometriosis treatment in healthcare facilities.According to FMIs study, oral contraceptive pills continue to witness significant demand, on account of end-user preference for easy to consume drugs. East availability and reasonable pricing are among the other key factors driving demand for oral contraceptive pills.The FMI study finds that hospital stores remain the preferred distribution channel for consumers. Consumer confidence pertaining to the quality of the drugs sold through hospitals, combined with availability of a wide range of drugs are the key factors for the lucrativeness of this channel in the endometriosis treatment market.Value-Based Production: A Win-Win for Manufacturers and ConsumersThe leading players in the endometriosis treatment market remain highly focused on upgrading their market share across emerging markets, such as Asia Pacific. These players are making headway with strategic mergers and acquisitions with regional players and investment groups for market consolidation. The leading players are focusing on value-based production that is a win-win situation for them and the consumers, resulting in greater revenues, higher convenience, and enhanced patient experience.Request Customized Copy of Report @North America retains its lucrativeness in the endometriosis treatment market, with US leading in terms of investment-making opportunities. Demand for endometriosis treatment drugs remain highly concentrated in the US, where healthy investments in healthcare services are creating sustained opportunities for manufacturers. As per the report, incidences of endometriosis among the American women are growing at a healthy rate, which is creating favorable circumstances for large-scale adoption of endometriosis treatment.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Global Female Condoms Market Insights 2019  Trends, Opportunities and Forecast Analysis to 2023

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This report studies the Global Female Condoms market status and forecast, categorizes the global Female Condoms market size (value & volume) by key players, type, application, and region. This report focuses on the top players in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Middle East & Africa.Request Sample Report atA female condom is a birth control device that acts as a barrier to prevent sexual fluids from entering the vagina during intercourse. It protects against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).The online stores will be the fastest-growing segment and will continue to maintain its lead in the global market. Much of the segments growth is due to its higher penetration rate and adoptability. Female condoms are easily accessible online and allow for useful comparison in terms of brand, price, and product features. Also, with the constant provision of reviews and feedback through online platforms, the segment will witness considerable growth in the coming years.The APAC is anticipated to be the fastest-growing region in terms of market share owing to the increasing consumption pattern of female condoms in the coming years. The use of condoms is increasing in developing countries, such as India and China, because of the rapid changes in consumer lifestyles and rising awareness, besides the initiatives taken by the governments to promote the use of female condoms for the prevention of STDs and population growth restriction.The global Female Condoms market is valued at xx million US$ in 2017 and will reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% during 2018-2025.The major manufacturers covered in this reportDurexOkamotoTrojanAnsellThe Female Health CompanySagamiGulin LatexReckitt Benckiser GroupStaySafe CondomsGeographically, this report studies the key regions, focuses on product sales, value, market share and growth opportunity in these regions, coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaWe can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:North AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaSingaporeRest of Asia-PacificEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalySpainRussiaRest of EuropeCentral & South AmericaBrazilArgentinaRest of South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaSaudi ArabiaTurkeyRest of Middle East & AfricaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoVaginal Contraceptive RingVaginal Contraceptive MembraneOtherOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingOnline StoresRetail OutletsThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze and study the global Female Condoms sales, value, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025).Focuses on the key Female Condoms manufacturers, to study the sales, value, market share and development plans in future.Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the marketTo analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the marketTo strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Female Condoms are as follows:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2018 to 2025For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.Key StakeholdersFemale Condoms ManufacturersFemale Condoms Distributors/Traders/WholesalersFemale Condoms Subcomponent ManufacturersIndustry AssociationDownstream VendorsMore Information at:Table of ContentsChapter One Industry Overview1.1 Definition1.2 Specification1.3 Classification1.3.1 Vaginal Contraceptive Ring1.3.2 Vaginal Contraceptive Membrane1.3.3 Other1.4 Application1.4.1 Online Stores1.4.2 Retail Outlets1.4.3Chapter Two Industry Chain Analysis2.1 Up Stream Industries Analysis2.1.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.1.2 Equipment and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Analysis2.2.1 Manufacturing Process2.2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure2.2.3 Manufacturing Plants Distribution Analysis2.3 Down Stream Industries Analysis..Chapter Five Major Manufacturers Analysis5.1 Durex5.1.1 Company Profile5.1.2 Product Specification5.1.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.1.4 Contact Information5.2 Okamoto5.2.1 Company Profile5.2.2 Product Specification5.2.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.2.4 Contact Information5.3 Trojan5.3.1 Company Profile5.3.2 Product Specification5.3.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.3.4 Contact Information5.4 Ansell5.4.1 Company Profile5.4.2 Product Specification5.4.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.4.4 Contact Information5.5 Sagami5.5.1 Company Profile5.5.2 Product Specification5.5.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.5.4 Contact Information5.6 Gulin Latex5.6.1 Company Profile5.6.2 Product Specification5.6.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.6.4 Contact Information5.7 NOX5.7.1 Company Profile5.7.2 Product Specification5.7.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.7.4 Contact Information5.85.8.1 Company Profile5.8.2 Product Specification5.8.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.8.4 Contact Information5.95.9.1 Company Profile5.9.2 Product Specification5.9.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.9.4 Contact Information5.105.10.1 Company Profile5.10.2 Product Specification5.10.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.10.4 Contact Information5.115.11.1 Company Profile5.11.2 Product Specification5.11.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.11.4 Contact Information5.125.12.1 Company Profile5.12.2 Product Specification5.12.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.12.4 Contact Information5.135.13.1 Company Profile5.13.2 Product Specification5.13.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.13.4 Contact Information5.145.14.1 Company Profile5.14.2 Product Specification5.14.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.14.4 Contact Information5.155.15.1 Company Profile5.15.2 Product Specification5.15.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.15.4 Contact Information5.165.16.1 Company Profile5.16.2 Product Specification5.16.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.16.4 Contact Information5.175.17.1 Company Profile5.17.2 Product Specification5.17.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.17.4 Contact Information5.185.18.1 Company Profile5.18.2 Product Specification5.18.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.18.4 Contact InformationContinuedContact Us:NORAH TRENTsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Contact Us:NORAH TRENTsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)
Global Corrugated Box Packaging Market 2019 Key Players: Amcor, International Paper, Smurfit Kappa Group, MeadWestvaco, Mondi Group.

Corrugated Box Packaging Market

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Corrugated Box Packaging Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Corrugated Box Packaging Market 2019 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting 2025 reports tits database.Executive SummaryGlobal Corrugated Box Packaging Market is valued approximately USD XX billion in 2017 and is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than XX% over the forecast period 2018-2025. The Corrugated Box Packaging Market is continuously growing on a surging trend in the global scenario. Corrugated boxes are paper-based container boxes used to pack various durable and non-durable goods. These boxes are made up of corrugated paperboard that contain rows of air columns. The columns make their paper tougher than average cardboard with air acting as a cushion for any items inside them. Increasing demand of packaging boxes due to rapid industrialization and development of e-commerce marketplace are the driving factors exerting positive influence on the market growth. In addition, growing demand from food & beverage industry and rise in demand for packaged products are also propelling the Corrugated Box Packaging demand. Corrugated box packaging protects items during long distance transportation. They are extremely cost effective, sustainable, lightweight, versatility and completely recyclable. These benefits of corrugated box packaging also results in increase in demand assisting the growth of market. However, the volatility in corrugated box prices and availability of low-cost alternative to corrugated boxes such as corrugated plastic container are some factors which are limiting the global Corrugated Box Packaging market. Moreover, poor barrier property of corrugated packaging material is also restricting its use across the world.Key areas considered for regional analysis of global digital money transfer market includes Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. Asia-Pacific is the leading/significant region across the world in terms of market share owing to escalating e-commerce activities and booming sales of processed food & beverages especially in developing nations such as China, India and South Korea. Europe is also contributing satisfactory growth in the global Corrugated Box Packaging market. North America is also anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate/CAGR over the forecast period 2018-2025 due to increasing strict regulations regarding non-biodegradable materials.The major market player included in this report are:AmcorInternational PaperSmurfit Kappa GroupMeadWestvacoMondi GroupDS SmithOji Holdings CorporationSononco ProductsU.S. CorrugatedTGI PackagingNampak Ltd.Georgia-PacifiWelch PackagingInduspacClarasionThe objective of the study is to define market size of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offering of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below:Request Sample Report @By Type:Single CorrugatedDouble CorrugatedTriple CorrugatedBy Application:Food & BeveragesElectronics & Home ApplianceConsumer GoodsPharmaceutical IndustryOthersFurthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2015, 2016Base year  2017Forecast period  2018 to 2025Target Audience of the Global Corrugated Box Packaging Market in Market Study:Key Consulting Companies & AdvisorsLarge, medium-sized, and small enterprisesVenture capitalistsValue-Added Resellers (VARs)Third-party knowledge providersInvestment bankersInvestorsTable of ContentsChapter 1. Executive Summary1.1. Market Snapshot1.2. Key Trends1.3. Global & Segmental Market Estimates & Forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.1. Corrugated Box Packaging Market, by Type, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.2. Corrugated Box Packaging Market, by Application, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.3. Corrugated Box Packaging Market, by Region, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.4. Estimation Methodology1.5. Research AssumptionChapter 2. Corrugated Box Packaging Market Definition and Scope2.1. Objective of the Study2.2. Market Definition & Scope2.2.1. Industry Evolution2.2.2. Scope of the Study2.3. Years Considered for the Study2.4. Currency Conversion RatesChapter 3. Corrugated Box Packaging Market Dynamics3.1. See Saw Analysis3.1.1. Market Drivers3.1.2. Market Challenges3.1.3. Market OpportunitiesChapter 4. Corrugated Box Packaging Market Industry Analysis4.1. Porters 5 Force Model4.1.1. Bargaining Power of Buyers4.1.2. Bargaining Power of Suppliers4.1.3. Threat of New Entrants4.1.4. Threat of Substitutes4.1.5. Competitive Rivalry4.1.6. Futuristic Approach to Porters 5 Force Model4.2. PEST Analysis4.2.1. Political Scenario4.2.2. Economic Scenario4.2.3. Social Scenario4.2.4. Technological Scenario4.3. Value Chain Analysis4.3.1. Supplier4.3.2. Manufacturers/Service Provider4.3.3. Distributors4.3.4. End-Users4.4. Key Buying Criteria4.5. Regulatory Framework4.6. Cost Structure Analysis4.6.1. Raw Material Cost Analysis4.6.2. Manufacturing Cost Analysis4.6.3. Labor Cost Analysis4.7. Investment Vs Adoption Scenario4.8. Analyst Recommendation & ConclusionChapter 5. Corrugated Box Packaging Market, by Type5.1. Market Snapshot5.2. Market Performance - Potential Model5.3. Key Market Players5.4. Corrugated Box Packaging Market, Sub Segment Analysis5.4.1. Single Corrugated5.4.1.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.1.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.2. Double Corrugated5.4.2.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.2.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.3. Triple Corrugated5.4.3.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.3.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)ContinuousFor further information on this report, visit Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528/524, Amanora Chambers, Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411028+91 841 198 5042
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market worth 245.2 Billion US$ till 2024 | Global Key Players like Pfizer, Inc., Novartis AG , Sanofi , Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb etc.

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Download Free Sample Report of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market atReportsnReports always aims at offering their clients an in-depth analysis and the best research material of the various market. This new report on the global Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market is committed fulfilling the requirements of the clients by giving them thorough insights into the market. An exclusive data offered in this report is collected by research and industry experts team.The Global Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market is estimated to reach US$ 245.2 Billion by 2024 from US$ 182.2 Billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 6.1% during the forecast period. The increasing incidence of chronic diseases, growing importance of generics, and the increasing uptake of biopharmaceuticals are some of the major factors driving the growth of the global APIs market.Top Key Players in the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market include are Pfizer, Inc. (US) Novartis AG (Switzerland) Sanofi (France) Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) Bristol-Myers Squibb (US) Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Israel) Eli Lilly and Company (US) GlaxoSmithKline plc (UK) Merck & Co., Inc. (US) AbbVie Inc. (US) F. Hoffmann-La RocheComplete report on Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market spread across 253 Pages, profiling 12 companies and supported with tables and figures. Buy Research atBased on product, the biotech Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient market is segmented into monoclonal antibodies, hormones & growth factors, cytokines, fusion proteins, therapeutic enzymes, recombinant vaccines, and blood factors. In 2019, the monoclonal antibodies segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the biotech APIs market.North America is expected to dominate the market, followed by Europe. The major factors driving the overall growth of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market in this region include the growing incidence of preventable chronic diseases, increasing government focus on generic drugs, rising demand for biologics and specialty drugs, and technological advancements in the manufacturing processes of APIs.The Study Objectives of this report are: To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders and provide details of the competitive landscape for market leaders To strategically analyze micromarkets with respect to the individual growth trends, future prospects, and contributions to the overall market To track and analyze competitive developments such as partnerships, agreements, collaborations, joint ventures, alliances, mergers & acquisitions, approvals, expansions, and R&D activities in the global Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market. To forecast the size of the market segments with respect to four main regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (RoW) To profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their product portfolios, market positions, and core competenciesA Discount can be asked before order a copy of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient market report atReason to buy this report:Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market report will help market leaders/new entrants by providing them the closest approximations of the revenue numbers for the overall APIs market and its sub segments. Also, this report will help stakeholders to better understand the competitive landscape and gain more insights to better position their business and make suitable go-to-market strategies.About Us:ReportsnReports.com is your single source for all market research needs. Our database includes 500,000+ market research reports from over 95 leading global publishers & in-depth market research studies of over 5000 micro markets.Contact:Mr. Vishalsales@reportsandreports.com / Call +1 888 391 5441Tower B5, Office 101,Magarpatta City SEZ,Pune-411013, India
Well Intervention Services Market 2018 | Major Key Players: Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Weatherford, Archer, Calfrac, Cudd Energy Services(CES), Superior Energy - Analysis & Forecast 2025

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WiseGuyReports.Com adds Well Intervention Services Market - 2018 research report to its databaseDescription :Well intervention is a part of the upstream segment. After the drilling of the well is done, the well has to be readied for production. All the activities that prepare the well for production come under well intervention services. Moreover, after the production starts, activities such as coring and fishing may also be carried out if required. Workover operations in a well are also a part of well intervention services. A well intervention is performed on an oil or gas well during or at the end of its productive life.The African market is expected to be the fastest growing segment of the well intervention market, by region, during the forecast period. The region is experiencing continuous oil & gas field development which triggers the need for well intervention/workover services.In 2018, the global Well Intervention Services market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025.This report focuses on the global Well Intervention Services status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Well Intervention Services development in United States, Europe and China.Request For sample Report The key players covered in this studySchlumbergerBaker HughesHalliburtonWeatherfordArcherCalfracCudd Energy Services(CES)Superior EnergyTrican Well ServiceC&J EnergyMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoLogging & Bottomhole SurveyTubing/Packer Failure & RepairStimulationSand ControlArtificial LiftFishingOthersMarket segment by Application, split intoOil And GasOthersMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaClick Here For Complete Report Table Of Content1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global Well Intervention Services Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2014-2025)1.4.2 Logging & Bottomhole Survey1.4.3 Tubing/Packer Failure & Repair1.4.4 Stimulation1.4.5 Sand Control1.4.6 Artificial Lift1.4.7 Fishing1.4.8 Others1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Well Intervention Services Market Share by Application (2014-2025)1.5.2 Oil And Gas1.5.3 Others1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 Well Intervention Services Market Size2.2 Well Intervention Services Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 Well Intervention Services Market Size by Regions (2014-2025)2.2.2 Well Intervention Services Market Share by Regions (2014-2019)2.3 Industry Trends2.3.1 Market Top Trends2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Opportunities3 Market Share by Key Players3.1 Well Intervention Services Market Size by Manufacturers3.1.1 Global Well Intervention Services Revenue by Manufacturers (2014-2018)3.1.2 Global Well Intervention Services Revenue Market Share by Manufacturers (2014-2018)3.1.3 Global Well Intervention Services Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)3.2 Well Intervention Services Key Players Head office and Area Served3.3 Key Players Well Intervention Services Product/Solution/Service3.4 Date of Enter into Well Intervention Services Market3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans12 International Players Profiles12.1 Schlumberger12.1.1 Schlumberger Company Details12.1.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.1.3 Well Intervention Services Introduction12.1.4 Schlumberger Revenue in Well Intervention Services Business (2014-2019)12.1.5 Schlumberger Recent Development12.2 Baker Hughes12.2.1 Baker Hughes Company Details12.2.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.2.3 Well Intervention Services Introduction12.2.4 Baker Hughes Revenue in Well Intervention Services Business (2014-2019)12.2.5 Baker Hughes Recent Development12.3 Halliburton12.3.1 Halliburton Company Details12.3.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.3.3 Well Intervention Services Introduction12.3.4 Halliburton Revenue in Well Intervention Services Business (2014-2019)12.3.5 Halliburton Recent DevelopmentContinued About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.CONTACT US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Home Diagnostics Market: Technological Augmentation Drives Growth in the Coming Years

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According to the report, sales will remain buoyant in developed regions, with North America and Europe collectively accounting for over 50% revenue share of the market. The Fact.MR study remains bullish on the prospects of home diagnostics market players in developing countries, as growing focus on health & wellness, and emergence of many Asian countries as medical tourism hubs creates opportunities.Request Sample:The report also finds that home diagnostics manufacturers are focusing on incorporating advanced technology to differentiate their offerings in the market. For example, Abbott Laboratories adopted next-generation sensor technologies to upgrade its FreeStyle Libre system (10 day) to the FreeStyle Libre 14 day Flash Glucose Monitoring system with improved accuracy and better mean absolute relative difference.The Fact.MR study finds that glucose monitoring devices will continue to witness robust demand and dominate the home diagnostics market with over than 80% revenue share in the market. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people suffering from diabetes reached 422 million in 2014, and it will soon become a leading cause of death. Increasing prevalence of diabetes worldwide and the growing need for monitoring sugar levels among diabetes patients is likely to boost adoption of glucose monitoring devices during the assessment period. Home diagnostics market players are aware of the surging demand for glucose monitoring devices, and are focusing on increasing their product portfolio in this segment. The other lucrative segments in the home diagnostics market include pregnancy tests and ovulation prediction kits.For More information Raise EnquiryLow Penetration of Home Diagnostics in Emerging Markets: A Longstanding ChallengeDeveloped countries are witnessing rising adoption of advanced technologies to develop highly-efficient home diagnostics with the increasing focus on R&D Consumers are becoming more aware of the availability of home diagnostics that can enable them to conduct in vitro diagnosis tests at home without the need for any professional assistance.Browse Full Report with TOC-Home Diagnostics Continues to be a Heavily Regulated IndustryAs home diagnostics help patients to detect diseases without any professional medical assistance, the accuracy and precision of the results provided by these tests plays an important role in the performance of home diagnostics. Taking into consideration the pervasiveness of home diagnostics, governing organizations across the world are imposing stringent rules and regulations to ensure the quality and reliability of home diagnostics marketed worldwide. Home diagnostics manufacturers need to comply with Section 510(k) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and get Premarket Approval Application (PMA) approvals established by FDA to enter the US home diagnostics marketTo Buy Home Diagnostics Market ReportCompetitive AnalysisThe Fact.MR report helps readers to track the salient developments in strategies adopted by their competitors in the home diagnostics market and plan their upcoming strategies accordingly. The report covers all the leading stakeholders in the home diagnostics market and provides detailed information including the company revenues as well as their business plans for the coming future. Market players in the home diagnostics market that are featured in the report include Abbott Laboratories, ACON Laboratories Inc., BTNX Inc., ARKRAY Inc., Assure Tech (Hangzhou) co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson & Company, Bionime Corporation, Roche Holding AG, Quidel Corporation, and True Diagnostics Inc.About Fact.MRFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:
Chillers Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2025 | Daikin Industries, Carrier, Trane

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2018-2023 Global and Regional Chillers Industry Production, Sales and Consumption Status and Prospects Professional Market Research Report is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global and Regional Chillers Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Daikin Industries, Ltd., Carrier Corporation, Trane, Johnson Controls ? Hitachi Air Conditioning, Smardt Chiller Group Inc., Broad Group, Dunham Bush, GEA Group, Midea Group Co., Ltd., Thermax Limited, Advantage Engineering, Inc., Airedale Air Conditioning, Bluebox, BV Thermal Systems, Climaveneta S.P.A., Cold Shot Chillers, Drake Refrigeration Inc., Kaltra Innovativtechnik GmbH, Lennox Emea & Polyscience.Research projects that the Chillers market size will grow from USD 9.63 Billion in 2017 to USD 12.83 Billion by 2023, at an estimated CAGR of 4.9%. The base year considered for the study is 2017, and the market size is projected from 2018 to 2023. The market is driven by increase in cooling process applications, growing concern over energy efficiency, growing industrialization, and use of environment friendly products. Chillers are used in various cooling applications, in various end-use industries such as chemical & petrochemical, plastic, and food & beverage.Chillers Market Overview:If you are involved in the Chillers industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Food & Beverage, Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Rubber, Medical & Pharmaceutical & Others, , Scroll Chillers, Screw Chillers, Centrifugal Chillers, Reciprocating Chillers & Absorption Chillers and major players. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement.Enquire for customization in Report @Chillers Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023Research study is to define market sizes of various segments & countries in previous years and to forecast the values to the next 5-8 years. The report is designed to comprise each qualitative and quantitative elements of the industry facts including: market share, market size (value and volume 2012-17, and forecast to 2023) with admire to each of the areas and countries concerned inside the examination. Furthermore, the report additionally caters the detailed statistics about the vital elements which includes drivers & restraining factors which will define the future growth of the market.Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2013-2017Base year  2018Forecast period**  2018 to 2023 [** unless otherwise stated]Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players.The designated segments and sub-section of the market are explained below:The Study is segmented by following Product Type: , Scroll Chillers, Screw Chillers, Centrifugal Chillers, Reciprocating Chillers & Absorption ChillersMajor applications/end-users industry are as follows: Food & Beverage, Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Rubber, Medical & Pharmaceutical & OthersSome of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are  Daikin Industries, Ltd., Carrier Corporation, Trane, Johnson Controls ? Hitachi Air Conditioning, Smardt Chiller Group Inc., Broad Group, Dunham Bush, GEA Group, Midea Group Co., Ltd., Thermax Limited, Advantage Engineering, Inc., Airedale Air Conditioning, Bluebox, BV Thermal Systems, Climaveneta S.P.A., Cold Shot Chillers, Drake Refrigeration Inc., Kaltra Innovativtechnik GmbH, Lennox Emea & PolyscienceYou can get free access to samples from the report here:For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies. If opting for the Global version of Chillers Market analysis is provided for major regions as follows: North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Buy this research report @Key Answers Captured in Study areWhich geography would have better demand for product/services?What are the strategies adopted by big players in the regional market?Which country would see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth?What is the current & expected market size in next five years?What is the market feasibility for long term investment?What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the Chillers market?What is risk involved for suppliers in the geography?What factors would drive the demand for the product/service in near future?What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global and Regional Chillers market growth?What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global and Regional Chillers market.Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global and Regional Chillers market, Applications [Food & Beverage, Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Rubber, Medical & Pharmaceutical & Others], Market Segment by Regions North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc;Chapter 2, objective of the study.Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques.Chapter 4 and 5, to show the Overall Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics;Chapter 6 and 7, to show the Market size, share and forecast; Five forces analysis (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition;Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain AnalysisChapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencers, overview of decision framework accumulated through Industry experts and strategic decision makers;Chapter 11 and 12, Market Trend Analysis, Drivers, Challenges by consumer behaviour, Marketing Channels and demand & supply.Chapter 13 and 14, describe about the vendor landscape (classification and Market Positioning)Chapter 15, deals with Global and Regional Chillers Market sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia or Oceania [Australia and New Zealand].About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Sex Reassignment Surgery Market Analysis Focusing on Top Key Players Mount Sinai Centre for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, Transgender Surgery Institute of Southern California, Chettawut Plastic Surgery Centre

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The Sex Reassignment Surgery Market report 2018-2024 provides a comprehensive landscape of the industry, accurate market estimates and forecast split By Gender Transition, and regions. All quantitative information is covered on a regional as well as country basis. The report provides valuable strategic insights on the Sex Reassignment Surgery, analyzing in detail industry impact forces including growth drivers, pitfalls and regulation evolution. The report also includes a detailed outlook on the Sex Reassignment Surgery segment competitive environment, diving in to the industry position of each major company along with the strategic landscape.Request a sample of this premium report at:Notable Sex Reassignment Surgery market players comprise Mount Sinai Centre for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, Transgender Surgery Institute of Southern California, Chettawut Plastic Surgery Centre, Phuket International Aesthetic Centre, Yeson Voice centre.Sex Reassignment Surgery Market will exceed USD 968 million by 2024; as per a new research report.U.S. gender reassignment surgery market will grow at a CAGR of 24.5% during the projection time period. Increase in number of total sex change surgical procedures in the last few years will augment the country market. According to The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in U.S., there was a total of 19% increase in number of surgical procedures conducted in 2016.Thailand sex reassignment surgery market is the second biggest market after U.S., accounting for around USD 16.2 million in the year 2017. High number of transgender population opting for sex change surgical procedure, low cost of the surgical procedure and booming medical tourism in the country will augment the industry growth in upcoming years.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Increase in number of gender reassignment surgical procedures across the world will drive the growth of sex reassignment surgery market. There has been an increase in the patients wanting to change their sex from male to female or vice versa, increasing nearly fourfold in the last decade. According to the recent statistics from The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in the U.S. plastic surgeons performed more than 3,250 sex change operations in the year 2016, increased by 19% as compared to the previous year.In the last few years, public awareness regarding transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) population has reached unprecedented heights. Increase in awareness and resources regarding transgender issues and accessibility related to gender reassignment surgical procedures have resulted in boosting the demand for sex reassignment surgeries. According to the recent news, more people are seeking advice on the sex reassignment surgical procedure, indicating a better societal awareness and acceptance of gender diversity behind the growing demand.A concerning number of transgender patients that have undergone gender reassignment surgeries have expressed regrets, suicidal thoughts and depression. Increase in number of sex change regret incidence will affect the growth of sex reassignment market as it will lead to decline in the number of people opting for surgical procedures.Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and ScopeChapter 2. Executive SummaryChapter 3. Sex Reassignment Surgery Industry InsightsChapter 4. Sex Reassignment Surgery Market, By Gender TransitionChapter 5. Sex Reassignment Surgery Market, By RegionChapter 6 Company ProfilesMore Details on this Report At:Related Reports: -World Wireless Health and Fitness Devices Market by Product Type, Market, Players and Regions-Forecast to 2023The report includes the forecasts, Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates and profiles of the leading industry Players. The Players mentioned in our report Abbott Laboratories, adidas AG, Beuer GmbH, Entra Health Systems, Fitbit, Fitbug Limited, FitLinxx, Garmin Ltd, Humetrix, Alive TechnologiesAbout Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLC4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
Nano Crystalline Soft Magnetic Materials Market Indicates Notable CAGR growth at (10.1%) until 2028 | Key Players - MK Magnetics, Bomatec, MH&W International Corp, etc.

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The radical role of nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials in several electrical and electronic systems, which has characterized the modern society. Continuous improvements in the properties of these materials have extended their application scope into power generation & transmission, receptors of microwaves & radio signals, electromagnets and magnetic shielding. The nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials are relatively new concept, with the paradigm of increased emphasis on energy conservation accelerating research efforts. Leading players in the market are expanding their production capacity to cater growing demand for soft magnetic materials with high-performance characteristics. Hitachi, the pioneer of nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials market, in 2017, announced its plan of tripling its production capacity of Finemet nano-crystalline soft magnetic material.Request 100 Page Sample Report from Here -The company aims at completion of boosting its production capacity by 2018-end. Innovative soft magnetic materials have become the new normal in electrical engineering, thereby leading to advanced component developments. Toroidal tape-wound cores produced by using nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials such as Vitroperm have been deemed highly effective for interference suppression in common-mode chokes (CMC).Leading industry stakeholders, such as SCHURTER, have expanded their range of existing compensated chokes with the high-current types for use in PCB mounting. The new DKIH series of SCHURTER incorporates a nano-crystalline core, which imparts higher inductance (8x) than the ferrite core versions when placed in similar compact dimension. Open designs are a key focus area among producers of chokes having nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials as their core, which in turn suppress electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise produced by power applications on PCB.Electrical systems have perceived increased penetration in automobiles for catering demands of enhanced vehicle reliability and energy efficiency. Compact electrical components are being used as a replacement for large components such as inductors. Inclining interest of automotive manufacturers toward compact dimensions to optimize the operational efficiency of vehicles will create huge opportunities for nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials in the upcoming years. One such fast-emerging application is electro-mobility, wherein these materials are used to counter EMI noise as well as in next-generation semiconductors that include GaN and SiC.Request Global Market Report with TOC Here -Relatively lower energy loss at low frequency is a distinguishing property of nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials, which has extended their application scope into transformers. These materials tackle energy loss issues faced in transformers, while enabling downsizing of the system. High magnetic permeability, along with robust flux density, of nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials has propelled their employment in power transmission industry, witnessing increased used as transformer cores. Upward trend toward energy conservation has further attracted transformer manufacturers interest in using nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials for large transformers.Albeit nano-crystalline soft magnetic materials market is at its nascent phase, increased exploration efforts by researchers worldwide is likely to expand the application potential of these materials. Applications of these materials, currently based on singular property, are expected to perceive combination of various desirable properties in the foreseeable future.Table of ContentsExecutive Summary1.1. Summarizing Key Findings1.2. Opportunity Assessment1.3. Highlighting Action Area  Wheel of FortuneContinuedIf You Need This Useful Report Then Buy This Report Here -About FactMrFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400, Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:
IBM Watson Services Market Indicates Notable CAGR growth at (29.6%) up to 2028 | Key Players - IBM Corporation, Accenture PLC, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Capgemini SE, etc.

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The report studies the IBM watson services market worldwide, especially in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, India and Other Regions with production, size, growth, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions. The intelligent report also anticipates that the IBM watson services market would grow at a constructive CAGR until 2028. In order to study the various trends and patterns prevailing in the concerned market, FactMR has included a new report titled IBM Watson Services Market Indicates Notable CAGR growth at (29.6%) up to 2028 to its wide online database including upcoming trends and growth factors. This research assessment offers a clear insight about the influential factors that are expected to transform the global market in the near future.Request 100 Page Sample Report from Here -Understanding the cognitive computing platform of IBM, known as Watson, is imperative for gauging the future evolution of the company. With the decline of its core business, IBM is banking on Watson for driving growth in potential areas including, but not limited to, healthcare, analytics, security, and internet of things (IoT). IBM Watson has gained immense traction by powering advertisements that generate authentic content, such as food ingredients-based custom recipes by assessing human taste.Customer expectations are on the rise, with increased integration of technology into retail models. In order to tap into the upward trend, IBM Watson is leveraging the vigour of cognitive insight and digital technology for offering more personalized user experience. Demand from IBM Watson services will continue to be driven by growing opportunities for cognitive insights in the retail sector in the forthcoming years. A new FactMR report has envisaged the IBM Watson services market to reflect an exponential growth over the period of forecast, 2018 to 2028. Sales of IBM Watson services worldwide are foreseen to bring in over US$ 20,000 Mn revenues by 2026-end.Supercomputers such as IBM Watson effectively consume huge amount of healthcare data and to provide doctors with relevant intelligence, and access to better & actionable diagnostic information. Imminent integration of IBM Watson Genomics into the TruSight Tumor 170 tool or Illumina, for speeding up recommendations of tailored drugs for cancer patients, promises a time-effective way of diagnosing conditions for doctors.IBM Watson Genomics holds potential in scanning patient data in a very short time-period, to create report based on alterations in genetic sequencing by leveraging Illuminas tool. The report will also incorporate medical literature and clinical trials apropos of relevant drugs for precise recommendation, facilitating diagnostic procedures for doctors and patients alike. This will further rub off on demand for IBM Watson services in the healthcare sector.Browse Market Report with TOC Here -Recent revelation of IBM Watsons special version, which is designed for preventing cyber-attacks, has gained traction as language of security. This cybercrime-fighting and cloud-based software is capable of analyzing research into potential threats for locating suspicious or malicious activity in a computer system. The software has become an effective solution for growing concern of hacks in the digital world. IBM Watsons security system holds potential in saving resources spent by an organization on chasing false alarms every year. Combining unique abilities of machine and human intelligence for fighting against advanced cybercrime, IBM Watson is set to witness increased penetration among organizations with data security requirements.IBM Watson services involve time-intensive laborious training, with the need for experts to feed enormous quantity of well-organized data into the platform for drawing insightful conclusions. Additionally, it can draw conclusions based only on body of data that it has been or being trained on. Well-organized requirement is a key challenge confining penetration of IBM Watson services, as unprepared sets of data are typically insufficient.Another drawback of IBM Watson is its inability to make connections with different corpora, which in turn makes gleaning even basic insights challenging. Training Watson on oncology has been seen to provide no insights on heart disease  a limitation that drastically constrains its deployment in clinical settings.To Buy Global Market Research Report, Go with this Link -About FactMrFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400, Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:
Baby Food and Formula Market 2019 Analysis By Key Players Abbott's Danone Kraft Heinz MJN Nestle

Baby Food and Formula Market

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Infant milk powder, also known as mother milk powder, is a milk product that is formulated on the basis of ordinary milk powder to meet the infant's nutritional needs. Make it close to human milk ingredients, then add various vitamins and trace elements, suitable for feeding infants.In the infancy stage, breastmilk is certainly the best food for your baby, but as your baby grows up, it takes about six months to start. Light breast milk or infant formula can no longer meet your baby's nutritional needs. So during this time, in addition to the original breast milk or infant formula, in addition to the baby should be given some solid objects, which is what we call complementary food. Food supplements include rice flour, muddy lake foods, and other homemade foods.Request a Sample of this Report @This report focuses on the Baby Food and Formula in global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Wellbeing concerns, higher disposable incomes, food safety and government support are key factors contributing to the growth of market. Parents are looking for foods that offer optimal nutrition for the healthy growth. They are also choosing packaged baby foods and formulas to supplement breastfeeding. The growing wellbeing concerns and higher disposable incomes have propelled parents to procure high-quality and expensive baby foods. Additionally, vendors have also come up with organic baby food products that are safer and nutritionally better when compared to conventional foods. Owing to their busy lifestyles and hectic schedules, consumers are opting for online shopping for baby food products, which is time consuming and cheap.The worldwide market for Baby Food and Formula is expected to grow at a CAGR of roughly xx% over the next five years, will reach xx million US$ in 2023, from xx million US$ in 2017, according to a new GIR (Global Info Research) study.Browse the Full Report @This report covers Analysis of Global Baby Food and Formula Market Segment by ManufacturersAbbott'sDanoneKraft HeinzMJNNestleGlobal Baby Food and Formula Market Segment by regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Make an enquiry before buying this report @Global Baby Food and Formula Market Segment by TypePrepared FoodDried FoodMilk FormulaGlobal Baby Food and Formula Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoSupermarkets and HypermarketsSpeciality StoresSmall Grocery StoresSome of the Points cover in Global Baby Food and Formula Market Research Report is:Chapter 1: Describe Baby Food and Formula Industry Introduction, Product Scope, Market Overview, Market Opportunities, Market Risk, Market Driving ForceChapter 2: To analyze the top manufacturers of Baby Food and Formula Industry in 2016 and 2017 Sales Revenue and priceChapter 3: Competitive analysis among the top manufacturers in 2016 and 2017 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 4: Global Baby Food and Formula Market by regions from 2013 to 2018 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 5, 6, 7 and 8: Global Baby Food and Formula Market by key countries in these regions Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 9 and 10: Global Baby Food and Formula Market by type and application from 2013 to 2018 Sales Revenue and market share Growth rateChapter 11:Baby Food and Formula Industry Market forecast from 2018 to 2023 Regions Type and application with sales and revenueChapter 12 and 13:Baby Food and Formula Industry Sales channel Distributors Traders and dealers Appendix Data sourceOrbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019
Global Oilfield Services Market to surpass $ 127.31 Billion by 2022 includes Companies, CONMED Corp., Olympus Corp., Fujifilm Holding Corp., Boston Scientific Corp.

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Oilfield Services Market (Pressure Pumping Services, Oil Country Tubular Goods, Wireline Services, Well Completion Equipment & Services, Well Intervention Services, Drilling & Completion Fluid Services, and Coiled Tubing Services) for Offshore and Onshore Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2016 - 2022The global Oilfield Services Market report delivers the clean elaborated structure of the Oilfield Services Market comprising each and every business-related information of the market at a global level. The complete range of information related to the global Oilfield Services Market is obtained through various sources and this obtained bulk of information is arranged, processed, and represented by a group of specialists through the application of different methodological techniques and analytical tools such as SWOT analysis to generate a whole set of trade-based study regarding the global Oilfield Services Market.Request Free Sample Report @The global Oilfield Services Market supports market-connected various associations, industries, vendors, firms, and organizations by offering a broad stage revealing opportunities time-to-time to rise higher in the market. Some of the chief contenders keyplayers including pre-established businesses and newly-emerging firms are contending with one another for global trade expansion in terms of production, supply, demand, income, and after-sales services.The global Oilfield Services Market report presents the detailed extensive study regarding the market in an efficient way by dividing the whole market into different segments on the basis of type and form of product offered by the industries, product processing methods and techniques, end-user applications, and others. Not only this, but the market study also categorizes the market based on the regions U.S., Europe, UK, France, Germany, Asia Pacific, China, Japan, India, Latin America, Brazil, Middle East, and Africa. The report also comprises the market growth forecast information calculated by the professional on the basis of previous information about the market and its-related industries as well as the current trends followed by the market. The report also provides the markets CAGR forecast for the specific period of the upcoming time.Download Request Table of Contents (TOC) Oilfield Services Market @The report also highlights the various key factors as well as administrative guidelines that may impact the market in both the ways, either direct or indirect. The global Oilfield Services Market report is embedded with several charts, figures, graphs, and diagrams to make it better understandable for the clients.What Reports ProvidesFull in-depth analysis of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsSegmentation details of the marketFormer, on-going, and projected market analysis in terms of volume and valueAssessment of niche industry developmentsMarket share analysisKey strategies of major playersEmerging segments and regional marketsTestimonials to companies in order to fortify their foothold in the market.Request For Discount for Oilfield Services Market:Reasons to invest in this report:This exhaustive research covers all the important information pertaining to the Oilfield Services Market that a reader wants to know. Zion Market Research employs the combination of secondary research followed by extensive primary research. Under secondary research, we refer to prominent paid as well as open access data sources including product literature, company annual reports, government publications, press releases, industry associations magazines and other relevant sources for data collection. Other prominent secondary sources include STATISTA, trade journals, trade associations, statistical data from government websites, etc.For this study, Zion Market Research has conducted all-encompassing primary research with key industry participants to collect first had data. Moreover, in-depth interviews with key opinion leaders also assisted in the validation of findings from secondary research and to understand key trends in the Oilfield Services Market. Primary research makes up the major source of data collection and validation.Browse detail report @What makes different than others, and heres the reason whyWith Zion Market Researchs wide research coverage and in-depth data analysis, youll have the plan to execute your business strategy more effectively and efficiently.Here is All Reports Category:-Technology & MediaFood & BeverageChemical & MaterialsAutomotiveHeavy IndustryLife SciencesEnergy & MiningSemiconductor & ElectronicsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting-edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, the company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. 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Disposable Incontinence Products Market 2016-2026 | Drivers and Restrains | Key Players are C. R. Bard, Inc, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Coloplast UK Ltd, Kimberly Clark Group

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Incontinence means inability of the body to control the evacuative functions of urination of defecation is called as Incontinence. Incontinence Products are manly used in the treatment of urinary tract and nephrological disorder of patients such as chronic kidney Disease, Kidney Stone, End stage renal disease and benign prostatic hyperplasia.According to the National Kidney Foundation globally 2 million people worldwide currently receive treatment with dialysis or a kidney transplant to stay alive, but this number may only represent 10% of people who actually need treatment to live, globally more than 80% of all patients who receive treatment for kidney failure are in wealthy countries with universal access to health care and large elderly populations.Request Sample Report @Global Disposable Incontinence products mainly contains Disposable adult Diapers, Disposable Adult Sheilds, Disposable under Pads, and Disposable Pull up pants.Global Disposable Incontinence Products Market: Drivers and RestrainsGlobal Disposable Incontinence Products market is driven by the raising prevalence of chronic kidney Disease, End stage renal disease, and benign prostatic hyperplasia. According to the WHO reports more than 190 million patients are suffering with chronic renal failure and undergo renal dialysis and more than 220 million males suffer from disease associated with prostate gland such as swelling that results in blockage of the flow of urine through the body. According to the Nation Kidney Foundation 10% of the population worldwide is affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD), and millions die each year because they do not have access to affordable treatment.Global Disposable Incontinence Products main restrains is awareness about this products are very less.Global Disposable Incontinence ProductsMarket: SegmentationGlobal Disposable Incontinence Market segmented based on product type, ApplicationBased on Product Type,Disposable Adult DiaperDisposable Adult SheildsDisposable Under PadsDisposable Pull up PantsBased on ApplicationChronic Kidney failureKidney StoneEnd stage renal failureBenign prostatic HyperplasiaBladder CancerGlobal Disposable Incontinence ProductsMarket: OverviewWith increasing use of Disposable Incontinence Products in Kidney Disease conditions will boost the growth of the Global Disposable Incontinence Products market. North America is contributing more income to the Global Disposable Incontinence Products and Asia region is showing fastest growth rate because of having more population base in this region.According to the National Kidney Foundation, Globally 2 million people who receive medication for kidney failure, the mostly are treated in only five countries which includes United States, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Italy. These 5 countries represent 12% of the world population. Only 20% are treated in about 100 developing countries that make up over 50% of the world population. In the US, treatment of chronic kidney disease is going to exceed $48 billion per year. Treatment for kidney failure consumes 6.7% of the total Medicare budget to care for less than 1% of the covered population.Global Disposable Incontinence ProductsMarket: Region wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, Global Disposable Incontinence Products market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is having more market for Disposable Incontinence Products Market, In North America, U.S. represents the largest market because of increasing prevalence rate for Chronic Renal Failure Disease.Asia region is expected to have more growth rate in upcoming years because of increasing awareness about Disposable Incontinence Products in this region. In Asia region India, China, Japan are expected to have more growth rate for Global Disposable Incontinence Products Market.Request to View TOC @Global Disposable Incontinence ProductsMarket: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in Global Disposable Incontinence Products market are C. R. Bard, Inc, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Coloplast UK Ltd, Kimberly Clark Group, First Quality Enterprises, Inc, Covidien, and Hollister Incorporated.Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. 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Global Adult underwear Market Research Report 2019 | Industry Trend, Size, Share and Top Key Players  Jockey International, Calvin Klein, American Eagle Outfitters, Hanesbrands, Jack Adams & Forecast to 2023

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Global Adult underwear Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Adult underwear - Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers and Analysis of Top Key Players to 2023 To Its Research DatabaseGlobal Adult underwear Market 2019Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (M USD), market share and growth rate of Adult underwear in these regions, from 2012 to 2023 (forecast), coveringNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Global Adult underwear market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingCalvin KleinByfordHanesbrandsJack Adams2(X)ISTPull-InDuluth TradingMeUndiesPhillips-Van HeusenRalph LaurenJockey InternationalAmerican Eagle OutfittersIconix Brand GroupJ.C. PenneyAimerGet Sample Report of Adult underwear Market@On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoCottonSilklinenOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Adult underwear for each application, includingManWomenIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete report with Comprehensive table of contents@Major Key Points in Table of ContentGlobal Adult underwear Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 20231 Report Overview1.1 Definition and Specification1.2 Report Overview1.2.1 Manufacturers Overview1.2.2 Regions Overview1.2.3 Type Overview1.2.4 Application Overview1.3 Industrial Chain1.3.1 Adult underwear Overall Industrial Chain1.3.2 Upstream1.3.3 Downstream1.4 Industry Situation1.4.1 Industrial Policy1.4.2 Product Preference1.4.3 Economic/Political Environment1.5 SWOT Analysis4 Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis4.1 Calvin Klein4.1.1 Calvin Klein Profiles4.1.2 Calvin Klein Product Information4.1.3 Calvin Klein Adult underwear Business Performance4.1.4 Calvin Klein Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.2 Byford4.2.1 Byford Profiles4.2.2 Byford Product Information4.2.3 Byford Adult underwear Business Performance4.2.4 Byford Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.3 Hanesbrands4.3.1 Hanesbrands Profiles4.3.2 Hanesbrands Product Information4.3.3 Hanesbrands Adult underwear Business Performance4.3.4 Hanesbrands Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.4 Jack Adams4.4.1 Jack Adams Profiles4.4.2 Jack Adams Product Information4.4.3 Jack Adams Adult underwear Business Performance4.4.4 Jack Adams Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.5 2(X)IST4.5.1 2(X)IST Profiles4.5.2 2(X)IST Product Information4.5.3 2(X)IST Adult underwear Business Performance4.5.4 2(X)IST Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.6 Pull-In4.6.1 Pull-In Profiles4.6.2 Pull-In Product Information4.6.3 Pull-In Adult underwear Business Performance4.6.4 Pull-In Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.7 Duluth Trading4.7.1 Duluth Trading Profiles4.7.2 Duluth Trading Product Information4.7.3 Duluth Trading Adult underwear Business Performance4.7.4 Duluth Trading Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.8 MeUndies4.8.1 MeUndies Profiles4.8.2 MeUndies Product Information4.8.3 MeUndies Adult underwear Business Performance4.8.4 MeUndies Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.9 Phillips-Van Heusen4.9.1 Phillips-Van Heusen Profiles4.9.2 Phillips-Van Heusen Product Information4.9.3 Phillips-Van Heusen Adult underwear Business Performance4.9.4 Phillips-Van Heusen Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.10 Ralph Lauren4.10.1 Ralph Lauren Profiles4.10.2 Ralph Lauren Product Information4.10.3 Ralph Lauren Adult underwear Business Performance4.10.4 Ralph Lauren Adult underwear Business Development and Market Status4.11 Jockey International4.12 American Eagle Outfitters4.13 Hanesbrands4.14 Jack Adams4.15 2(X)IST12 Market Forecast 2019-202412.1 Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD), Market Share and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.1 Global Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Market Share by Regions 2019-202412.1.2 Global Adult underwear Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.3 Asia-Pacific Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.4 Asia-Pacific Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.5 Europe Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.6 South America Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.1.7 Middle East and Africa Adult underwear Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.2 Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) by Types 2019-202412.2.1 Overall Market Performance12.2.2 Cotton Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.2.3 Silk Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.2.4 linen Sales (K Units), Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate 2019-202412.3 Sales by Application 2019-202412.3.1 Overall Market Performance12.3.2 Man Sales and and Growth Rate 2019-202412.3.3 Women Sales and and Growth Rate 2019-202412.4 Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Profit12.4.1 Global Adult underwear Price (USD/Unit) Trend 2019-202412.4.2 Global Adult underwear Gross Profit Trend 2019-2024Continued..Contact US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. 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Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market is Expected to Mask a CAGR of 3.6% by 2023 | Top Key Players  Google, Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Display corporation, LG Display, Microsoft corporation, Cisco Inc.

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A fresh report titled Smart Grid Data Analytics Market  By Application (Healthcare, Energy Consumption, Automotive industry, Smart Meters, Information Technology, Others), By Technology (Infrared, Resistive, Capacitive, Electromagnetic, Others) & Global Region - Market Size, Share, Trends and Forecast 2018-2023 has been presented by KD market insights. It evaluates the key market trends, advantages, and factors that are pushing the overall growth of the market. The report also analyzes the different segments along with major geographies that have more demand for Smart Grid Data Analytics Market. The competition analysis is also a major part of the report.The Smart Grid Data Analytics Market is expected to mask a CAGR of 3.6% during the projected period. Further, the market was calculated at USD 4.3 billion in 2018 and is anticipated to reach at a valuation of USD 5.1 billion by the end of forecast period.Request for Sample @Growth DriversSmart grid data analytics is a key sector of the industrial internet of things (IOT) with the potential to help market to address key financial, operational and customer challenges. Innovations in the field of data science, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data analytics (BDA) are allowing seamless and quick integration processing and analysis of multiple data. The smart grid data analytics is majorly growing market in telecommunication industry across the globe. The Information layer is now added to the conventional electricity transmission and distribution network for data collection, storage, and analysis with the help of installation of smart meters and sensors. Companies are now significantly investing in new and potential technologies such as smart grid data analytics; this factor is predicted to rise demand for smart grid data analytics in the coming years. Currently the China is the strongest region in the smart grid data analytics sector, as china is the major producer of renewable energy and coal production compare to other countries, so this factor is projected to drive the growth of market in coming years.SegmentationThe research offers a comprehensive analysis of smart grid data analytics market with respect to following sub-markets:By Application- Healthcare- Energy Consumption- Automotive industry- Smart Meters- Information Technology- OthersBy Technology- Infrared- Resistive- Capacitive- Electromagnetic- OthersBy GeographyNorth America (U.S. & Canada)Europe (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Rest of Asia Pacific)Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Rest of Latin America)Middle East & Africa (GCC, North Africa, South Africa and Rest of Middle East & Africa)Competitive landscapeThe report profiles various major market players such as,- Google- Panasonic Corporation- Samsung Display corporation- LG Display- Microsoft corporation- Cisco Inc.- Ricoh Ltd.- NEC corporation- FOXCONN tech group- Hitachi Ltd.- Other Prominent PlayersCompetitive landscape analysis provides detailed strategic analysis of the companys business and performance such as technology information, revenue breakup by segment and by geography, SWOT Analysis, risk analysis, key facts, company overview, business strategy, key product offerings, marketing and distribution strategies, new product development, recent news (acquisition, expansion, technology development, research & development expansion and other market activities.Browse Full Report With TOC@Table of Contents@Research MethodologyMarket Definition and List of Abbreviations1. Executive Summary2. Growth Drivers & Issues in Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market3. Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Trends4. Opportunities in Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market5. Recent Type Activities, 20176. Porter's Five Forces Analysis7. Market Value Chain and Supply Chain Analysis8. Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Size (USD Million), Growth Analysis and Forecast, (2017-2023)9. Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Segmentation Analysis, By Application9.1. Introduction9.2. Market Attractiveness, By Application9.3. BPS Analysis, By Application9.4. Healthcare9.5. Energy Consumption9.6. Automotive industry9.7. Smart Meters9.8. Information Technology9.9. Others10. Global Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Segmentation Analysis, By Technology10.1. Introduction10.2. Market Attractiveness, By Technology10.3. BPS Analysis, By Technology10.4. Infrared10.5. Resistive10.6. Capacitive10.7. Electromagnetic10.8. Others11. Geographical Analysis11.1. Introduction11.2. North America Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Size (USD Million) & Volume, 2017-202311.2.1. By Application11.2.2. By Technology11.2.3. By Country11.2.3.1. Market Attractiveness, By Application11.2.3.2. BPS Analysis, By Application11.2.3.3. U.S. Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.2.3.4. Canada Market Size (USD Million 2017-202311.3. Europe Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Size (USD Million) & Volume, 2017-202311.3.1. By Application11.3.2. By Technology11.3.3. By Country11.3.3.1. Market Attractiveness, By Country11.3.3.2. BPS Analysis, By Country11.3.3.3. Germany Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.4. United Kingdom Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.5. France Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.6. Italy Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.7. Spain Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.8. Russia Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.3.3.9. Rest of Europe Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4. Asia Pacific Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Size (USD Million), 2017-202311.4.1. By Application11.4.2. By Technology11.4.3. By Country11.4.3.1. Market Attractiveness, By Country11.4.3.2. BPS Analysis, By Country11.4.3.3. China Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.4. India Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.5. Japan Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.6. South Korea Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.7. Indonesia Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.8. Taiwan Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.9. Australia Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.4.3.10. New Zealand Market Size (USD Million, 2017-202311.4.3.11. Rest of Asia Pacific Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.5. Latin America Smart Grid Data Analytics Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.5.1. By Application11.5.2. By Technology11.5.3. By Country11.5.3.1. Market Attractiveness, By Country11.5.3.2. BPS Analysis, By Country11.5.3.3. Brazil Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.5.3.4. Mexico Market Size (USD Million) 2017-202311.5.3.5. Rest of Latin America Market Size (USD Million, 2017-2023Continue.@Check for Discount@About KD Market InsightsKD Market Insights has come with the idea of helping business by intelligent decision making and thorough understanding of the industry. We offer a comprehensive database of syndicated research, customized reports as well as consulting services to help a business grow in their respective domain. At KD Market Insights, we offer our client a deep Market research reports accompanied by business consulting services that can help them to reach on top of the corporate world. Our customized reports are built by keeping all factors of the industry in mind.Contact Us150 State street, 3rd Floor,Albany, New YorkUnited states (12207)Telephone: +1-518-300-1215Email: - sales@kdmarketinsights.comWebsite: -
E-cigarette Market (Electronic Cigarette) Insights 2019  Trends, Opportunities and Forecast Analysis to 2023

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The E-Cigarette (Electronic Cigarette) was first introduced in the year 2003, by Hon Lik in China and was available commercially in the market by 2006. The recognition of e-cigarettes touched instant base with the US and European markets. Since then this industry has been growing at a rapid pace convincing players from Tobacco industry and Pharmaceutical industry to implement several strategies to grow and sustain in the market. While top established tobacco players are securing their market positions with acquisitions and rolling out new brands. The Pharmaceutical monoliths have been acknowledged as opposing the rising trend of e-cigarettes in this fresh or fledgling market.Request Sample Report atThe Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market has been mainly driven by a flurry of activities mainly including Mergers & Acquisitions, Patent Warfare, and increasing customization in products. Additionally, the emergence of Vape shops is engaging more users through their extensive variety of products and improved assistance while shopping the preferred products. However, the state and local governments proposals to charge heavy taxes on e-cigarettes is emerging as a key challenge for the Global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market.The global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market is valued at xx million US$ in 2018 and will reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025. The objectives of this study are to define, segment, and project the size of the E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market based on company, product type, end user and key regions.This report studies the global market size of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer in these regions.This research report categorizes the global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors.The following manufacturers are covered in this report, with sales, revenue, market share for each company:NjoyV2International VaporgroupVaporcorpElectronic Cigarette International GroupTruvapeProVapeCigr8KiKHangsenFirstUnionShenzhen Jieshibo TechnologyInnokinKimreeMarket size by ProductE-CigaretteVaporizerMarket size by End UserMaleFemaleMarket size by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaSingaporeMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalySpainRussiaCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of Central & South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaThe study objectives of this report are:To study and analyze the global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products and end user, breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025.To understand the structure of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market by identifying its various subsegments.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).Focuses on the key global E-Cigarette & Vaporizer companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development.To project the value and sales volume of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer submarkets, with respect to key regions.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer are as follows:History Year: 2014-2018Base Year: 2018Estimated Year: 2019Forecast Year 2019 to 2025This report includes the estimation of market size for value (million US$) and volume (K Units). Both top-down and bottom-up approaches have been used to estimate and validate the market size of E-Cigarette & Vaporizer market, to estimate the size of various other dependent submarkets in the overall market. Key players in the market have been identified through secondary research, and their market shares have been determined through primary and secondary research. All percentage shares, splits, and breakdowns have been determined using secondary sources and verified primary sources.For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2018 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.More Information at:Table of ContentsChapter One Industry Overview1.1 Definition1.2 Specification1.3 Classification1.3.1 Cigalikes1.3.2 eGos1.3.3 Mods1.4 Application1.4.1 Male1.4.2 Female1.4.3Chapter Two Industry Chain Analysis2.1 Up Stream Industries Analysis2.1.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.1.2 Equipment and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Analysis2.2.1 Manufacturing Process2.2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure2.2.3 Manufacturing Plants Distribution Analysis2.3 Down Stream Industries AnalysisChapter Five Major Manufacturers Analysis5.1 Blu eCigs5.1.1 Company Profile5.1.2 Product Specification5.1.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.1.4 Contact Information5.2 Njoy5.2.1 Company Profile5.2.2 Product Specification5.2.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.2.4 Contact Information5.3 V25.3.1 Company Profile5.3.2 Product Specification5.3.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.3.4 Contact Information5.4 International Vaporgroup5.4.1 Company Profile5.4.2 Product Specification5.4.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.4.4 Contact Information5.5 Vaporcorp5.5.1 Company Profile5.5.2 Product Specification5.5.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.5.4 Contact Information5.6 Truvape5.6.1 Company Profile5.6.2 Product Specification5.6.3 2011-2016 Global Market Performance5.6.4 Contact Information5.7 ProVape5.7.1 Company Profile5.7.2 Product SpecificationContinuedContact Us:NORAH TRENTsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Contact Us:NORAH TRENTsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)
Enterprise Data Storage Market 2019: Top Key Players are CA Technologiesm, Dell, EMC, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, Huawei Technologies etc.

Enterprise Data Storage Market

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Enterprise Data Storage Market 2019 Report analyses the industry status, size, share, trends, growth opportunity, competition landscape and forecast to 2025. This report also provides data on patterns, improvements, target business sectors, limits and advancements. Furthermore, this research report categorizes the market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Get Sample Copy of this Report@ -Global Enterprise Data Storage market 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Enterprise Data Storage market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analysed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.Enterprise Data Storage Market research report spread across 91 pages with top key manufacturers and list of tables and figures.Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @ -Global Enterprise Data Storage market competition by TOP MANUFACTURERS, with production, price, revenue (value) and each manufacturer including CA Technologies Dell EMC Hewlett Packard Hitachi Data Systems Huawei Technologies IBM Netapp ..This report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaGlobal Enterprise Data Storage Market providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also carried out. The Global Enterprise Data Storage market development trends and marketing channels are analysed. Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed and overall research conclusions offered.With tables and figures helping analyse worldwide Global Enterprise Data Storage market, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Order a copy of Global Enterprise Data Storage Market Report 2019 @ -Market segment by Type, the product can be split into External Drives Cloud StorageMarket segment by Application, split into BFSI IT Telecom Government OthersThe study objectives of this report are: To analyse global Enterprise Data Storage status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Enterprise Data Storage development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyse their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.There are 14 Chapters to deeply display the global Enterprise Data Storage marketChapter 1: To describe Enterprise Data Storage Market Overview, Introduction, product scope, market opportunities, Application.Chapter 2: To analyse the Top Manufacturers of Enterprise Data Storage, with sales, capacity, production, revenue, and price of Enterprise Data Storage, in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 3: Enterprise Data Storage, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers with capacity, production, share by region, sales, revenue, gross margin and market share in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 4: To show the global market by regions, supply, consumption, with sales, export-import, revenue and market share of Enterprise Data Storage, for each region, from 2014 Enterprise Data Storage to 2019.Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 To analyse the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, analysis by application, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions.Chapter 10 and 11 To show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, strategy analysis and factor analysis from 2014 Enterprise Data Storage to 2019.Chapter 12 Enterprise Data Storage market forecast, by regions, type, with sales and revenue, growth rate, price Forecast from 2019 to 2025 Enterprise Data Storage.Chapter 13: Connected Enterprise Data Storage.Chapter 14: To describe Enterprise Data Storage sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.About Us:Research Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. At Research Reports World, our objective is providing a platform for many top-notch market research firms worldwide to publish their research reports, as well as helping the decision makers in finding most suitable market research solutions under one roof. Our aim is to provide the best solution that matches the exact customer requirements. This drives us to provide you with custom or syndicated research reports.Contact Us:Name: Mr. Ajay MoreEmail: sales@researchreportsworld.comOrganization: Research Reports WorldPhone: +1 408 520 9750/+44 203 239 8187
Global Automotive Safety Technology Market Outlook 2019-2027: Bosch Company, Delphi Automotive PLC, Autoliv Inc.

Global Automotive Safety Technology Market

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The global "Automotive Safety Technology market" report offers the analyzed data of the Automotive Safety Technology market in categorized view. The Automotive Safety Technology market offers a common platform with multiple opportunities to many firms, associations, industries, and other products and services providers Bosch Company, Delphi Automotive PLC, Autoliv Inc., Denso Corporation, Takata Corporation, ZF TRW, Continental AG, Johnson Electric Holdings Limited, Magna International Inc., Mobileye N.V. to compete among themselves by offering better products and acceptable services to the clients and expand significantly at the global level. The global Automotive Safety Technology market report offers summarized detail about the major market holding key contenders alongside the recent developing industries in the market relating to the revenue, demands, sales, and product quality.Get Access to the FREE sample report::Furthermore, The report presents a detailed segmentation LIDAR, RADAR, Vision System/3D Vision, Braking System, Airbags, Seatbelts, ADAS, Others, Market Trend by Application Passenger Vehicle, Commercial Vehicle of the global market based on technology, product type, application, and various processes and systems. The report contains information on a large number of highly reputed organizations, vendors, and manufacturers in the global Automotive Safety Technology market.The global Automotive Safety Technology market report delivers a part of the important information as growth promoting and growth limiting factors of the market globally. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the performance of the global Automotive Safety Technology market can be analyzed by studying the growth trend using previous data and current conditions that provides prediction in the production, sales, revenues, market share, and growth rate, along with the upcoming trends to be followed by the market in the forecast period.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at::The report represents the analytical data in the form of graphs, diagrams, and statistical data for easy and better understanding; and help in analyzing the status of various industries of the market at the regional and global basis.There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Automotive Safety Technology marketChapter 1, Definition, Specifications and Classification of Automotive Safety Technology , Applications of Automotive Safety Technology , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Automotive Safety Technology , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, China, Europe, Japan, Korea & Taiwan, Automotive Safety Technology Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, The Automotive Safety Technology Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Automotive Safety Technology ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type LIDAR, RADAR, Vision System/3D Vision, Braking System, Airbags, Seatbelts, ADAS, Others, Market Trend by Application;Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, The Consumers Analysis of Global Automotive Safety Technology ;Chapter 12, Automotive Safety Technology Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, Automotive Safety Technology sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Enquire Here Get customization & check discount for report @:About UsReports Buzz is the most sufficient collection of market intelligence services online. It is your only source that can fulfill all your market research requirements. We provide online reports from over 100 best publishers and upgrade our collection regularly to offer you direct online access to the worlds most comprehensive.Contact UsJoel3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442,Tel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714Email id - sales@reportsbuzz.comWebsite -
GDPR Services Market 2018-2023 Global Prominent Key Players are IBM, Micro Focus, AWS, Veritas, Microsoft, Capgemini, Absolute Software, Informatica, Mimecast, Iron Mountain, Oracle Etc.

GDPR Services Market

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Market SynopsisGlobally, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) services market is expected to grow from USD 987.4 million in 2018 to USD 3,177.6 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 26.3% during the forecast period, 20182013. Global need to meet the GDPR compliance requirements, increasing digitalization creating large volume of customer data, and need to protect brand reputation are some of the major driving factors for the wide adoption of GDPR services globally. However, lack of expertise and awareness among many organizations, particularly Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies, act as a major restraining factor for the growth of the GDPR services market in the upcoming years.GDPR services are outsourced services that include a well-defined framework for compliance assessment and policy implementation within an organization. These services cover all the aspects of an organization- people, processes, and technology. It provides the right guidance to enterprises on how to store and process the EU citizens personal data, irrespective of the location where the data are stored and processed.GDPR services has a wide adoption in almost all industry verticals, such as Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), government and defense, education, retail and eCommerce, healthcare, media and entertainment. BFSI, healthcare, and retail and eCommerce are some of major industry verticals adopting the GDPR services to operate their business processes according to the GDPR guidelines.Request a Sample Report @Segmentation.The Global GDPR services market is segmented based on component, organization size, industry vertical, and region/country.By component, the market is segmented into solutions and services. The solutions covered in the study are data discovery and mapping, data governance, and API management. The services segment is further segmented into GDPR readiness assessment, risk assessment and data protection impact assessment (DPIA), data protection officer (DPO) as a Service, and managed services.By organization size, the market is segmented into large enterprises and SMEs.By industry vertical, the market is segmented into BFSI, government and public administration, education, retail and eCommerce, heatlhcare, media and entertainment, travel and hospitality, and others.Competitive AnalysisAccording to the latest trend in the GDPR services market, most enterprises are expanding their technological capabilities, with increased investments in research and developments activities. Most of the companies have adopted inorganic strategy to expand their businesses, wherein, new product/service launch and product/service enhanement accounted for XX%, whereas; the strategy of partnership and collaboration accounted for XX% of the overall key development undergone by the key players in the market.Brief TOC of GDPR Services Market1 Executive Summary2 Market Introduction2.1 Market Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objectives2.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations2.3 Markets Structure3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Secondary Research3.3 Primary Research3.4 Forecast Model4 Industry Overview4.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis4.1.1 Threat Of New Entrants4.1.2 Bargaining Power Of Buyers4.1.3 Threat Of Substitutes4.1.4 Segment Rivalry4.1.5 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers4.2 Value Chain/Supply Chain Of Global GDPR Services Market5 Market Dynamics5.1 Introduction5.2 Growth Drivers5.4 Market Restraints5.4 Market Opportunities6. Global GDPR Services Market, By Component6.1 Introduction6.2 Solution6.2.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.2.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.2.3 Data Discovery And Mapping6.2.3.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.2.3.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.2.4 Data Governance6.2.4.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.2.4.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.2.5 API Management6.2.5.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.2.5.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.3 Services6.3.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.3.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.3.3 GDPR Readiness Assessment6.3.3.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.3.3.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.3.4 Risk Assessment And DPIA6.3.4.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.3.4.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.3.5 DPO-As-A-Service6.3.5.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.3.5.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-20236.3.6 Managed Services6.3.6.1 Market Estimates & Forecast, 2018-20236.3.6.2 Market Estimates & Forecast, By Region, 2018-2023ContinueAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Hospital Management Software Market Is Projected to Grow at a Substantial Rate by 2025

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"The Latest Research Report Hospital Management Software Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Information technology has transformed the field of medicine. In the fast-paced medical industry, it is difficult to manage and operate a multi-specialty hospital. A hospital management system is a web or computer based system that enables the functioning of any medical set up or hospital. Hospital management software assists in making the entire functioning paperless. This software integrates with all the information regarding doctors, patients, and staff among others. Across the globe, various health organizations have installed hospital management software in order to streamline their business and operation process, better manage projects of all sizes, and boost their work efficiency across the management or board. This in turn is expected to increase the demand for hospital management software during the forecast period 2017- 2025.Get Sample Copy of this report @The global hospital management software market has been segmented on the basis of deployment type, module, and geography. On the basis of deployment type, the market has been segregated into cloud and on premises. Online report generation is a modern technological trend that provides cost cutting and improves communication with the end users. This software helps end users to manage and complete their work on time. Additionally, rising demand for installation of these software in hospitals is expected to increase the demand for this product in the coming years. Based on module, the market has been bifurcated into radiology utilization management solutions, event driven solutions, bed management, system, online registration solution, event driven patient tracking, attendance, laboratory equipment management solutions, and real time locating among others. With the help of this advance software, enterprises are able to track the basic information of employees including address and contact numbers along with professional details. New technology developments that allow communication over a broader range of end points is anticipated to deliver opportunity for market growth during the forecast period. On the flip side, cyber threat is expected to be a challenge for the growth of the hospital management software market. In developing countries, lack of software knowledge and higher investment infrastructure cost to implement such systems is restraining the growth of the global hospital management market. Medical industries are shifting business to the cloud platform and are also focusing on installing this product to improve their customer management, avoid duplication of data and functionality, and enhance cost effectiveness of their services. These factors are in turn anticipated to create new demand for this product in the near future.This global research report and study offers a complete assessment of the hospital management software market and covers in depth insights, historical data, statistical figures, facts and industry-validated primary and secondary market data. Geographically, the global hospital management software market has been segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa (MEA), and South America. In the year 2016, North America led the hospital management software market followed by Asia Pacific and Europe. Asia Pacific is estimated to be the fastest growing market for this product currently, followed by Europe. High internet penetration and cloud based services is projected to mainly drive the Asia Pacific hospital management software market during the forecast period from 2017- 2025. Asia Pacific is the most attractive and fastest growing market for hospital management software as vendors are continuously expanding their business across various parts of this region.This report explores the major international industry players in detail. Major companies operating in the global hospital management software market are GE Healthcare (U.K.), Awarepoint Corporation (the U.S.), IBM Corporation, (the U.S.), Ekahau, Inc. (the U.S.), Aero Scout, Inc. (the U.S), Zebra Corporation (the U.S), Infor (the U.S), Tyco International Ltd.(Republic of Ireland), Vizbee RFID Systems Ltd.(the U.S), Trimble Navigation Ltd.(the U.S), Siemens Healthcare (Germany), Motorola Solutions Inc. (the U.S), Sonitor Technologies Inc. (the U.S), Sisoft (the U.S), MEDIWARE Information Systems, Inc. (U.K), and Versus Technology Inc.(the U.S) among others.Request For TOC Report @This report explores the major international industry players in detail. Major companies in the global home media server market are Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd (South Korea), Apple Inc. (the U.S), Autonomic Control Inc.(the U.S), Logitech (Switzerland), Panasonic Corporation (Japan), Sony Corporation (Japan), Western Digital Corporation (the U.S), Sling Media Inc. (the U.S), and CyberLink (the U.S) among others.MRR.BIZ has been compiled in-depth market research data in the report after exhaustive primary and secondary research. Our team of able, experienced in-house analysts has collated the information through personal interviews and study of industry databases, journals, and reputable paid sources.The report provides the following information:Tailwinds and headwinds molding the markets trajectoryMarket segments based on products, technology, and applicationsProspects of each segmentOverall current and possible future size of the marketGrowth pace of the marketCompetitive landscape and key players strategiesThe main aim of the report is to:Enable key stakeholders in the market bet right on itUnderstand the opportunities and pitfalls awaiting themAssess the overall growth scope in the near termStrategize effectively with respect to production and distributionMRR.BIZ is a leading provider of strategic market research. Our vast repository consists research reports, data books, company profiles, and regional market data sheets. We regularly update the data and analysis of a wide-ranging products and services around the world. As readers, you will have access to the latest information on almost 300 industries and their sub-segments. Both large Fortune 500 companies and SMEs have found those useful. This is because we customize our offerings keeping in mind the specific requirements of our clients.Request To PRE BOOK This Premium Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Azo Pigments Market Regional Analysis with Top Firms - Clariant International, Pidilite Industries Ltd, Lanxess AG, Synthesia a.s. and Sincol Corporation

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Azo Pigments Market Regional Analysis with Top Firms - Clariant International, Pidilite Industries Ltd, Lanxess AG, Synthesia a.s. and Sincol Corporation" to its huge collection of research reports.Global Azo Pigments MarketRecycle and reuse practices are impacting the sales of virgin materials, resulting into lesser dependency on volume-driven growth. New materials are showcasing potential for driving value-based growth, but chemical companies are still some time away from achieving voluminous production, while maintaining high quality at the same time. Barring few exceptions, a majority of players are still prioritizing short-term volume growth over long-term value growth. Pressure on improving bottom-line is influencing manufacturers to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs. The impact of value-driven growth may not be visible in the short-term, but long-term outlook remains in favor of a balanced approach between value and volume.Manufacturers are under increasing pressure to incorporate digital solutions in their offerings. Forward-thinking manufacturers are investing in technology to reduce human interference and streamline key operational aspects such as ordering and shipping. Resonating its influence over every industry, Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to transform and disrupt the chemical sector. Connectivity through IoT devices is gaining traction, whereas product-level sensors on dispensing equipment and barrels are helping manufacturers track their consignments digitally. Through assessment of long-term benefits, chemical companies are capitalizing on digitization by adopting digital platforms & processes that eliminate human error in profit-associated operations.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Manufacturers continue seeking low-priced feedstock in a bid to marginally reduce pre-production costs. Industry leaders are joining forces to replace fossil fuel-derived feedstock with bio-based alternatives. However, concerns related to producing affordable and sustainable feedstock at mass scale remains a challenge. Access to quality and affordable feedstock will continue to remain a focus area for manufacturers. Chemical manufacturing processes are running on limited energy, while volume of feedstock is getting stranded at ports as disapproval from import authorities keeps disrupting supply chains in sectors, such as oleochemicals and petrochemicals industries.Chemical manufacturers have promised support and adherence to governments & regional authorities that are committing towards green, sustainable initiatives. Development of bio-alternatives is gaining momentum. Research & academic institutes are teaming up with manufacturers to formulate sustainable substitutes for commonly-used chemical substrates. Many companies are keeping a close eye on advancements in green chemistry. Shift towards eco-friendly chemicals will gain momentum in the future on the back of government regulations and end-user preference. Rising costs of fossil fuels will also instrument the upsurge for sustainable chemicals manufacturing.Browse TOC @List of factors tracked in the Chemicals and Materials Market ReportChemical Industry Value AddChemical SalesPer Capita ConsumptionStandard Capacity FactorsPlastics Consumption OutlookGlass Consumption OutlookPolicies and RegulationsHistorical growth of top playersGrowth in associated marketsNet trade scenarioApparent production capacityResearch MethodologyPMR utilizes robust methodology and approach to arrive at market size and related projections. The research methodology for this report is based on 3 dimensional model. We conduct about 45-60 min duration detailed interviews with product manufacturers; apart from this we also collect market feedback from industry experts. To validate this data, we interact with senior panel members having more than 10 years of experience in relevant field. The panel members help in validating the findings and fill the gaps if any. In addition, we leverage on our existing pool of information, paid database and other valid information sources available in public domain. Usually industry interactions extend to more than 50+ interviews from market participants across the value chain.Data CollectionPMR collects data from secondary sources including company annual reports, association publications, industry presentations, white papers, and company press releases apart from these we leverage over paid database subscriptions and industry magazines to collect market information and developments in exhaustive manner. After being done with desk research, detailed questionnaire and discussion guide is formulated to initiate primary research with key industry personnel; the discussion aims at collecting key insights, growth perspectives, prevalent market trends and quantitative insights including market size and competition developments. Both of these research approaches help us in arriving at base year numbers and market hypothesis.Data ValidationIn this phase, PMR validates the data using macro and micro economic factors. For instance, growth in electricity consumption, industry value added, other industry factors, economic performance, growth of top players and sector performance is closely studied to arrive at precise estimates and refine anomalies if any.Data Analysis and ProjectionData analysis and projections were made based on proprietary research frameworks and statistical analysis, which was further validated from industry participants. These frameworks include Y-o-Y growth projections, macro-economic factor performance, market attractiveness analysis, key financial ratios, and others.For public companies we capture the data from company website, annual reports, investor presentations, paid databases. While for privately held companies, we try to gather information from the paid databases (like Factiva) and based on the information we gather from databases we estimate revenue for the companies. In addition, the team tries to establish primary contact with the companies in order to validate the assumptions or to gather quality inputs.Standard Report StructureExecutive SummaryMarket DefinitionMacro-economic analysisParent Market AnalysisMarket OverviewForecast FactorsSegmental Analysis and ForecastRegional AnalysisCompetition AnalysisMarket TaxonomyThe global azo pigments market has been segmented into:Solubility:OilWaterProduct Type:RedYellowOrangeApplication:PlasticsTextileWoolSilkCottonLinenPrinting InkFoodPaints &VarnishesRubberOthersRegion:North AmericaLatin AmericaEuropeSouth East Asia &PacificChinaIndiaMiddle East & AfricaAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @Follow us on Blogger @
System Infrastructure Software Market 2019: Top Key Players like EMC Corporation, IBM Corporation, Symantec Corporation, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, BMC Software Inc., CA Technologies, Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co

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Global System Infrastructure Software Market Research Report Forecast from 2019 to 2025System infrastructure software is type of enterprise software or program designed to increase the IT performance of any organization. It provides various solutions to enterprises such as workforce support, business transactions, and internal services & processes.Advancements in cloud technologies and virtualization is expected to boost the market. Further, rise in demand of automation and integrated approach in business process is also anticipated to fuel the market. However, high implementation cost and absence of standardized framework is expected to hinder the growth of the market. Moreover, adoption of bring your own device (BYOD) is major opportunity for key players in the system infrastructure software market.This report studies the global market size of System Infrastructure Software in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of System Infrastructure Software in these regions.Ask for Sample Copy of this Report:The report also summarizes the various types of the System Infrastructure Software market. Factors that influence the market growth of particular product category type and the factors that influence the market status for it. A detailed study of the System Infrastructure Software market has been done to understand the various applications of the products usage and features. Readers looking for scope of growth with respect to product categories can get all the desired information over here, along with supporting figures and facts. The report also covers details on market mergers, acquisitions and important trends that have influenced the market growth or might influence the market over the forecast period.The Top Key Players covered in this market Report are EMC Corporation, IBM Corporation, Symantec Corporation, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, BMC Software Inc., CA Technologies, Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co. This report focuses on the global System Infrastructure Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.Segmentation by Type:System & Network Management SoftwareSecurity SoftwareStorage SoftwareSystem SoftwareSegmentation by Application:Building Management SystemCloud IntegrationData Center Infrastructure ManagementIntegrated CommunicationNetwork IntegrationOthersTo Get Reasonable Discount in this Report Click Here:All the manner through this report, the center dynamic elements of the System Infrastructure Software Market have been stated and the industrial companions, quit users have been also labored out. The enterprise section enterprise, enterprise configurations and encounters of this Market the world over are also part of this extensive analysis. Abundant interviews and talks had been carried out with the protuberant leaders of the enterprise to benefit reliable and reorganized information applicable to the market.Table of Contents:Global System Infrastructure Software Market Research Report 2019Chapter One: Report OverviewChapter Two: Global Growth TrendsChapter Three: Market Share by Key PlayersChapter Four: Breakdown Data by Type and Application.Chapter Eleven: Company Profiles11.1 EMC Corporation11.1.1 EMC Corporation Company Details11.1.2 Company Business Overview11.1.3 EMC Corporation System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.1.4 EMC Corporation System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.1.5 EMC Corporation Recent Development11.2 IBM Corporation11.2.1 IBM Corporation Company Details11.2.2 Company Business Overview11.2.3 IBM Corporation System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.2.4 IBM Corporation System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.2.5 IBM Corporation Recent Development11.3 Symantec Corporation11.3.1 Symantec Corporation Company Details11.3.2 Company Business Overview11.3.3 Symantec Corporation System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.3.4 Symantec Corporation System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.3.5 Symantec Corporation Recent Development11.4 Apple Inc.11.4.1 Apple Inc. Company Details11.4.2 Company Business Overview11.4.3 Apple Inc. System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.4.4 Apple Inc. System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.4.5 Apple Inc. Recent Development11.5 Microsoft Corporation11.5.1 Microsoft Corporation Company Details11.5.2 Company Business Overview11.5. Microsoft Corporation System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.5.4 Microsoft Corporation System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.5.5 Microsoft Corporation Recent Development11.6 BMC Software Inc.11.6.1 BMC Software Inc. Company Details11.6.2 Company Business Overview11.6.3 BMC Software Inc. System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.6.4 BMC Software Inc. System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.6.5 BMC Software Inc. Recent Development11.7 CA Technologies11.7.1 CA Technologies Company Details11.7.2 Company Business Overview11.7.3 CA Technologies System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.7.4 CA Technologies System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.7.5 CA Technologies Recent Development11.8 Dell Inc.11.8.1 Dell Inc. Company Details11.8.2 Company Business Overview11.8.3 Dell Inc. System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.8.4 Dell Inc. System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.8.5 Dell Inc. Recent Development11.9 Hewlett Packard Co11.9.1 Hewlett Packard Co Company Details11.9.2 Company Business Overview11.9.3 Hewlett Packard Co System Infrastructure Software Sales, Revenue and Gross Margin (2013-2018)11.9.4 Hewlett Packard Co System Infrastructure Software Products Offered11.9.5 Hewlett Packard Co Recent Development13 Market Effect Factors Analysis14 Research Finding/ConclusionAbout Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email ID: sales@orbisresearch.com
During a meeting with 300 outstanding intellectuals and scientists from all over the country on January 29 in Hanoi ahead of the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival 2019, PM Phuc conveyed his gratitude to scientists for their great contributions, while stressing the importance of science and technology to the countrys development.

He appreciated the opinions shared by participants at the meeting, saying that he will dedicate more time to listening to and holding dialogues with scientists on issues related to institutions and policy-making.

The PM also expressed his joy at the strong development of the intellectual and scientist community.

At the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Vietnam brought along a very strong message, demonstrating the countrys aspiration and determination to become a nation of innovation, with an economy that is deeply linked to the global financial system, Phuc said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc shakes hands with intellectuals and scientists at the meeting. (Photo: NDO/Tran Hai)



He noted that Vietnam signed a cooperation agreement with WEF on building a technological revolution centre in Vietnam, which will be connected to other similar centres in the US, the EU, China, and India.

The country aims to create acceleration in economic development and disaster prevention in the coming time, he said.

The PM called on intellectuals and scientists, including those living abroad, to make more contributions towards national development, turning Vietnam into a high-income country in the future.

He asked for more efforts in adapting to climate change; ensuring energy safety and security; and promoting healthcare, agriculture, and social science.

Agreeing with the idea that in order to develop science and technology, it is necessary to have good institutions and laws, PM Phuc said the Government must work to fine-tune policies so as to develop not only innovative thinking but also financial policy, thus smoothing the way for increased sci-tech development and financial management.
Europe Generator Sets Market Trends, Demand, Survey till 2024: Kohler, Cummins, Generac, Caterpillar, Honda, Escorts, Yamaha, John Deere, Atlas Copco, Caterpillar among others

Europe Generator Sets Market

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Europe Generator Sets Market size is predicted to exceed USD 5 billion by 2024. Rising demand for uninterrupted & reliable power supply in response to the inadequate grid infrastructure will drive the Europe gensets market growth. The ability of these gensets to efficiently backup crucial operations during power fluctuations or unexpected blackouts constitutes the key factor which will strengthen the products adoption.According to the Graphical Research new growth forecast report titled Europe Generator Sets Market analysis based on Current, Fuel, Power Rating, Application, End-Use, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Price Trend, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018  2024, estimated to exceed USD 5 billion by 2024.Request for a sample of this research report @Increasing digitization accompanied by sizeable expansion of the data center infrastructure will propel the Europe generator sets market growth. The booming regional data center industry, primarily led by Germany, the Netherlands, France, and the UK are supporting the widespread deployment of generator sets as requisite backup power equipment. These units are majorly installed across financial services and IT firms, hospitals and other commercial spaces.Germany gensets market, in 2017 was valued over USD 600 million. Growing investments by industry giants toward the expansion of their cloud footprint is set to stimulate the industry expansion. For instance, Microsoft, in March 2018, announced the extension of its data centers infrastructure in Germany with the opening of two new facilities, which in turn will create cyclical demand for gensets.Europe gas fired gensets market is set to witness robust growth on account of stringent legislative requirements aimed at reducing GHG emissions and supporting the adoption of energy efficient equipment. In addition, the expansion of gas pipeline infrastructure across the region, coupled with increased competitiveness of fuel prices will support the industry outlook. As per the European Commission (EC), the EU, in 2016 funded the construction of a gas pipeline (Balticconnector) between Finland and Estonia with an investment of over USD 200 million.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report Europe Generator Sets Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Rising infrastructure and commercial investments, predominantly across the Eastern Europe will drive the Europe gensets market size. The industry growth is largely driven by gradual upturn in overall investment volumes in 2017 on account of improving macro-economic outlook and real estate expansion. Moreover, growing demand for retail, logistics and office properties in addition to expansion of senior nursing and housing establishments will accelerate the deployment of gensets in the region.Europe AC generator sets market size is set to expand over 6% by 2024. AC gensets are majorly deployed across residential spaces subject to their low maintenance requirements and operational viability for small power ranges. Affordable price, operational durability, quick start-up, and reliability are some of the key features strengthening the product demand.Notable industry players operating in the Europe gensets market include Kohler, Cummins, Generac, Caterpillar, Honda, Escorts, Yamaha, John Deere, Atlas Copco, Caterpillar among others.Segments We Cover:Europe Generator Sets Market Growth, By CurrentDC, ACEurope Generator Sets Market Statistics, By FuelGasoline, Diesel, GasEurope Generator Sets Market Trends, By Power Rating1000 kVAEurope Generator Sets Market Share, By ApplicationBackup, Prime PowerEurope Generator Sets Market Analysis, By End UseResidential, Commercial, IndustrialThe above information is provided on a country basis for the following:Russia, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, ItalyMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb:
Global Interactive Whiteboard Market Analysis to 2025 Lead By Panasonic, SMART Technologies ULC, Promethean, Seiko Epson, Hitachi, Samsung, Sharp, Juong Educational Technology, Mimio and LG

Global Interactive Whiteboard Market

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The report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global interactive whiteboard market based on type, technology and end-user. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Interactive whiteboard market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM). The market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 16 countries globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.Some of the key players influencing the interactive whiteboard market are Panasonic Corporation, SMART Technologies ULC, Promethean Limited, Seiko Epson Corporation, Hitachi, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Juong Educational Technology Co., Ltd, Mimio, and LG Electronics among others.Get Sample PDF Copy@An interactive whiteboard is an instructional tool that permits computer images to be presented on a board utilizing a digital projector. The trainer can then work on the board by using finger, pen, stylus or other device. Data written or presented on interactive whiteboard can be easily stored or edited. Interactive whiteboard is a powerful tool in the classroom adding collaboration and interactivity, enabling the incorporation of media content into the lecture and benefiting collaborative learning.The major factors such as need for experiential learning, high acceptance of blended learning, improved compatibility through digital content, and technological advancements are driving the growth of interactive whiteboard market. In addition, upsurge in education gamification, penetration of mobile devices, and growing focus on K-12 schools are the major trends that are expected to provide significant opportunities for interactive whiteboard market to grow. However, high implementation costs and strong competition from substitute technologies such as interactive flat panels and tablets are anticipated to hamper the interactive whiteboard market growth.The report aims to provide an overview of global interactive whiteboard market with detailed market segmentation by type, technology, end-user, and geography. The global interactive whiteboard market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the interactive whiteboard market.Besides this, the report analyzes factors affecting market from both demand and supply side and further evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend. The report also provides exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions namely; North America, Europe, APAC, MEA and South America after evaluating political, economic, social and technological factors affecting the market in these regions.Buy Now@About Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Automotive and Defense.Contact Us:The Insight Partners533, 5th Floor, Amanora Chambers,Amanora Township, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028sales@theinsightpartners.com
Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

Chicago-based asset manager Northern Trust has appointed Kimberly Evans to head of private capital fund administration in North America, as it looks to expand its middle- and back-office services for alternative investment managers.

The administrator of assets worth $10.1tn said in a press note that Evans will focus on growing global capabilities for real estate, private debt, infrastructure and both traditional and hybrid private equity funds, a segment of the alternatives market experiencing rapid asset growth and increased demands for transparency.

"Kim's experience with sophisticated investors, dedication to client service and proven ability to leverage the strength of Northern Trust's global platform and expertise will be a powerful combination for our business," said Peter Sanchez, head of North America Alternative Fund Services at Northern Trust.

"Her appointment signals our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to investment managers across the spectrum of alternative asset classes and strategies," Peter added.

Kimberly Evans joined Northern Trust in 2010 and has held senior management roles, including Global Head of Client Valuation Reporting and head of the Public Funds/Taft-Hartley pensions business, with more than $800 billion in assets under custody.

Prior to Northern Trust she was a senior operations executive at major financial institutions including the former First Chicago and LaSalle banks, and se......................

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Yggdrasil Inks Deal with Top 3 UK Betting & Gaming Brands

Published January 30, 2019 by Brett C

Top Swedish gaming developer Yggdrasil has signed a deal with the leading UK gaming and betting brands including Gala, Coral and Ladbrokes.

Yggdrasil Gears up for ICE London with Major Slots Content Deal

Yggdrasil, a leading provider of online gaming solutions, recently sealed a deal with Gala, Coral, and GVC's Ladbrokes to offer slot games to a broad player base. The finalised deal will see each of these brands offering top-tier slots games from Yggdrasil. Coral and Ladbrokes have an extensive network of betting shops peppered across the country. Gala dominates the bingo scene in the UK, while Coral and Ladbrokes are regarded as the front-runners in UK gaming and betting.

Top-Tier Yggdrasil Slots Games Boost Gaming Portfolios

GVC Holdings is comprised of scores of regulated markets, encompassing Coral and Ladbrokes. These online gaming brands and betting shops have made GVC Holdings a major player in the global arena. Now, the Yggdrasil deal will allow players at all of these brands to enjoy instant access to a smorgasbord of offerings including top slots like Hanzos Dojo, Baron Samedi, Trolls Bridge and the dynamic Vikings trilogy games. Thanks to Yggdrasils innovative technology, players will be able to enjoy pulse-pounding casino slots in their droves.

Yggdrasil Games Set to Delight Players at Coral and Ladbrokes

Yggdrasil casino games come replete with BOOST promotional tools. Now, these 3 leading UK gaming and betting brands will be running an exciting array of promotions within the gaming client. The CEO of Yggrasil and the chief product officer of GVC Holdings released joint statements about this exciting deal. Yggdrasil CEO Frederik Elmqvist indicated that the deal was a major achievement ahead of the ICE London event. The GVC Holdings CPO is thrilled about bringing the dynamic slots games to Coral and Ladbrokes players.
Indian man in UAE stabs colleague 11 times after he misses mother's funeral in India

UAE hands out gender equality awards but none of the takers was a woman!

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Abu Dhabi, Jan 30: It's not an uncommon thing in West Asia but yet it continues to make the headlines as something bizarre. In March 2017, Saudi Arabian authorities came up with a girls' council meeting in the country's al-Qassim province but the irony lied in the fact that not a single girl was present on the stage when the meeting took place.

Two years later, it's time for Saudi's regional friend United Arab Emirates to follow suit. Recently, the country came up with the 'Gender Balance Index 2018' awards and all the winners who reportedly took initiative to boost gender equality were men.

The event earned a backlash on Twitter after the Dubai Media office shared photos of the winner of the awards online.

India's gross economic inequality also has a sorry revelation about its gender inequality

The Index recognised winners in three categories - the Best Personality for Supporting Gender Balance, Best Federal Entity for Supporting Gender Balance and the Best Initiative for Supporting Gender Balance. The Twitter expressed surprise that no woman was considered worthy enough to be awarded for gender equality.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, who handed out the medals and certificates, said he was proud of Emirati women.

"We are proud of the success of Emirati women and their role is central to shaping the future of the country. Gender balance has become a pillar in our governmental institution," the media office quoted Rashid al-Maktoum as saying.

Meet Aisha Mohammad, a women who made a name out of carrom, a game dominated by men

However, no woman was visible on the award-giving stage.

Sheikh Maktoum "recognised the efforts" of only one woman, Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, wife of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. However, she did not win an award, the press release read.

Here are some reactions that the Twitterati came up with:

Sometimes you just have to laugh when ppl forget to take the diversity & equity training before claiming theyve done sometiing for diversity & equity lol https://t.co/9Du5Kh4H3u  Priya Shah (@PriyaShah16) January 29, 2019

This is The Onion-worthy, no edits needed. https://t.co/Gv0geIjTKv  Raymond Lidal (@rlidal) January 29, 2019

*We are proud of the success of Emirati women. ok let's give all the awards to men* The irony is too strong here! https://t.co/xp4oomBrx7  AB (@ahlamsaga) January 29, 2019

How can gender balance be a pillar in your organisations when its not even in your photographs?  Naseerah (@Naz_Faulkner) January 28, 2019

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 9:33 [IST]
What impact will Centres plea to return excess land have in the Ayodhya case

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 30: The move by the Centre to seek permission before the Supreme Court to return 67 acres of land it had acquired around the disputed land in Ayodhya to the original owners has become a debating point.

There have been at least three stay orders on the entire 67.703 acre land- two by the Supreme Court and one by the Allahabad High Court. In all the three stays, it has been stated that till the time the final order is made on the title suit, the entire land cannot be disposed off.

OneIndia caught up with S Q R Ilyas, who is a member of the All India Muslim Law Personal Law Board and also part of the Babri Masjid Action Committee to understand the Centre's move behind filing this affidavit.

Will Ram Temple be built: Decoding the Centre's application to return excess land

Ilyas says that the land which the Centre has sought permission to return cannot be touched in the wake of a stay order. He says that when the land was acquired in 1993, it was said that a Mandir, Mosque and a pilgrimage place would be set up there.

The issue came up before the Supreme Court in the Ismail Faruqi case. The court asked the government whether it would provide sufficient land and access to the disputed site if the case went in favour of the Muslims. The Centre said that it would do so.

When the Centre was asked if the Muslims do not win the title suit, would the government give land to the Muslims to which the Centre said yes, Qureshi also said.

Qureshi said that the land that the Centre wants to return is very much part of the title suit and hence cannot be touched. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that the land cannot be touched until the title suit is decided.

On what ramification, such an application would have, Qureshi said that this is a political move. The Centre is trying to say that it is trying to get the land. It is basically an explanation that the BJP led government is giving to its supporters.

There has been restlessness on this issue and also too much hype that has been surrounding it, Qureshi also points out. The way the Supreme Court is moving on the matter, it appears that there will be no judgment anytime soon. It may take some more years before the matter is finally decided, he also says.

The ordinance route:

When asked if the government would opt for an ordinance route, Qureshi feels that the option may not be opted for. The title suit is pending in the Supreme Court and hence no ordinance can be brought about.

Further he also says that a secular government cannot bring about an ordinance on this issue. Moreover the government has also made it clear that it would not explore anything to this effect.

Committed to building Ram temple in Ayodhya by taking legal routes: Prakash Javadekar

Moreover the government has said in the past in the court that it would give land to construct a Mosque if the Muslim parties do not win the case. There is no question of returning the land as proposed by the Centre unless and until the title suit is decided.

On the inordinate delay in the Supreme Court regarding the hearing on the title suit, Qureshi says that this is a regular custom. There are so many cases pending for so long.

He also says that when Justice Dipak Misra was the Chief Justice of India, he had made it clear that the court was in no hurry. This is a title suit and such matters take up a lot of time, Qureshi further explains.

On whether he sees a resolution to the issue anytime soon, he laughs and says he does not think the matter would be sorted out soon. If you carefully look at the papers, everything goes in favour of us and hence this issue would be prolonged, he also says.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 15:46 [IST]
Induction of Congress MLAs into BJP is death of Parrikar's legacy, says outgoing Goa deputy CM

Tube in nose, Manohar Parrikar presents Goa budget, says 'High on Josh'

India

oi-Deepika S

Panaji, Jan 30: Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar presented on Wednesday presented in the state assembly.

"Present circumstances have prevented me from delivering detailed budget speech, but there is a josh, that is too high.... Very high and I am in hosh .... Full in hosh," Parrikar said during his 6 minutes Budget speech.

Manohar Parrikar had begun his speech with the same catchy line from the recently released film "Uri: The Surgical Strike", asking the gathering "how's the josh?"

'First hosh, then josh': Congress targets Manohar Parrikar

The chief minister told the Assembly the he would serve the state with sincerity, integrity, dedication until his last breath.

The opposition Congress on Monday said while the BJP-led Goa administration has "collapsed" and the state's debt is mounting, the chief minister is asking about the 'spirit' among people in the state.

Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar on Monday said while the administration had collapsed pushing the state into a "crisis", some leaders were asking "how's the josh". "Pehle hosh me aao, baad me josh ki baat karo (first come to your senses and then talk about josh). Everyone is sleeping in the state. The ministers are sleeping and hence, the administration has collapsed," Chodankar told reporters.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 16:51 [IST]
RRB JE recruitment 2019: Tomorrow is last day to apply online

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Jan 29: Tomorrow is the last day to apply for the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) recruitment for Junior Engineering (JE) positions. To submit the application form, aspirants will have to visit the official website of RRB. A total of 14033 vacancies were announced in the advertisement but later it was reduced to 13, 847 vacancies.

Candidates now have only one day left to apply for the 13, 847 vacancies of junior engineer. The last date to apply in January 31, 2019.

As per the notification, a total of 13,487 posts are vacant for the post of junior engineer (JE). The last date to submit the online application form for RRB JE post is 31st January and applicants can do the registrations till 11:50 pm. The stage-I computer-based exam for the same will be held in April.

Candidates can pay for the exam till February 4, 2019 via offline mode and online application fee is accepted till February 5, 2019. Selected candidates will get Rs 35,400 per month remuneration.

Here's how to apply for RRB JE Recruitment 2019:

Open the regional website of RRB at rrb.gov.in

Click on the link for the recruitment of RRB JE

Register yourself for the vacancy

Upload your documents

Submit the application fee

Click on OK to submit your application form

Download your application form

Take a printout for future references
Remembering Mahatma Gandhi: Why South Africa revers Gandhiji

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Jan 30: On this day (January 30) in 1948, father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead by extremist Nathuram Godse, who blamed him for the partition of the country. His death saw an outpour of emotions not only in India but also from around the world. His fight for India's independence made him become a universal symbol for peace and non-violent protests.

Mahatma Gandhi's role in India's freedom struggle is well known, but before that, it was in South Africa where Gandhiji began his fight against oppression. The work that Mahatma Gandhi did in South Africa to fight racial discrimination often gets overshadowed.

Mahatma Gandhi was a barrister by profession and studied law in London. In April 1893, Gandhi left for South Africa to be the lawyer for Dada Abdullah's cousin. Abdullah owned a large successful shipping business in South Africa. His distant cousin in Johannesburg needed a lawyer.

[PM Modi visiting Dandi on Mahatma Gandhis death anniversary]

Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin colour and heritage, like all people of colour. One particular incident which took place at Pietermaritzburg is said to have shaken Gandhi.

While he was travelling by train to Pretoria, Gandhi, despite carrying first class ticket, was thrown out of the train by the authorities because a white man complained of an Indian sharing space with him. It was after this incident that Gandhi decided to fight against the oppression of non-white people in South Africa.

After several such racial incidents in South Africa, Gandhi's thinking and focus changed, and he felt he must resist this and fight for rights. He entered politics by forming the Natal Indian Congress.

[Bharat Rang Mahotsav to feature 4 plays on Mahatma Gandhi's life]

The Abdullah case that had brought him to South Africa concluded in May 1894, and the Indian community organised a farewell party for Gandhi as he prepared to return to India. However, a new Natal government discriminatory proposal led to Gandhi extending his original period of stay in South Africa. He planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right.

Gandhi staunchly opposed racism and led many protests against apartheid. According to the Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and his colleagues served and helped Africans by opposing racism.

In the years after black South Africans gained the right to vote in South Africa (1994), Gandhi was proclaimed a national hero with numerous monuments.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 5:00 [IST]
Rahul Gandhis claim on what Parrikar said about Rafale

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

Panaji, Jan 30: Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, Congress President Rahul Gandhi claimed that former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the 'new deal.'

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Mr Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," he told a booth-level party workers meeting here.

Rahul Gandhi learns from Modi: promise first, promise big

His statement came hours after he met Parrikar, now Goa chief minister, at the state assembly complex in Panaji.

The Congress president, however, did not clarify whether the issue was discussed during his meeting with Parrikar, who is suffering from a pancreatic ailment.

Gandhi made the remarks a day after he alleged that the "Goa audio tapes", cited by the Congress to attack the Centre on the Rafale issue, were authentic and that Parrikar was in possession of "explosive secrets" that give him power over Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Reiterating his charge against Modi over the Rafale deal, Gandhi said he has taken Rs 30,000 crore of people's money and given it to his friend Anil Ambani.

"Why was a plane that costs Rs 526 crore bought at a price of Rs 1,600 crore?" he asked.

"The youngsters of the country, the youngsters of Kerala - they get only one answer. And the answer is that the Prime Minister of India is corrupt," he said.

The Congress has been targeting Modi on the deal, alleging that the price of each aircraft was sharply hiked from around Rs 526 crore, negotiated under the deal during UPA, to Rs 1,600 crore and that the contract would help Anil Ambani get Rs 30,000 crore benefit through offset contract.

The government has denied the charges and has accused the Congress of spreading 'falsehood' on the issue.

Gandhi questioned the removal of the CBI chief even after the Supreme Court reinstated him and alleged that the Prime Minister did it to "protect himself" and "ensure that no enquiry is carried out" against him in the Rafale deal.

Traders to Rahul: First implement Minimum Income Guarantee in Congress-ruled states

"Why did the ex-president of France tell the press clearly that he was told by the Indian prime minister to give the Rafale contract to Mr Anil Ambani. I want to ask why was a man who has no experience in building an aircraft given a contract after it was snatched away from those people (Hindustan Aeronautical Limited), who are building the aircraft for 70 years?" Gandhi asked.

The Congress president said thousands of young Indians who could have got high paid jobs in HAL have now 'lost the opportunity.'

No defence capabilities were going to be built in India due to Modi's actions, he alleged.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 6:18 [IST]
Rahul Gandhi learns from Modi: promise first, promise big

India

oi-Prabhpreet Singh Sood

It wasn't that long ago that when it came to politics, Rahul Gandhi was considered a lost cause. And with good reason. His list of blunders is long. Yet, as of today, while not everyone might have changed their opinion about him, his improvement as an opposition leader is becoming difficult to ignore.

This has happened in just a year or so. Ever since he took over as Congress president from his mother, Sonia Gandhi. Though he has clearly been helped by mistakes made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, his newfound ability to drive the political narrative has been the big change.

Traders to Rahul: First implement Minimum Income Guarantee in Congress-ruled states

Surprisingly, he seems to have learnt his lessons from Modi.

As can be seen by Rahul's first strikes in the form of big promises, as was done by the prime minister on the 2014 campaign trail (well documented 'election jumlas').

Rahul's Minimum Income Guarantee promise for the poor if his party comes to power, is just the latest example of this. While Modi government had discussed a Universal Basic Income a few years ago, no movement on it so far has handed Rahul the first mover's advantage and leaving the government to play catch-up.

But this by no means is the first time he has blind-sided Modi or his BJP. He was on the ground as farmer unrest gripped Madhya Pradesh. He followed this up with the promise of waving farm loans in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, if his party defeated the ruling BJP in the upcoming assembly elections. It did and he delivered. Leaving the saffron party reeling from losses in three states it had almost whitewashed in the last Lok Sabha elections.

These have gone hand in hand with Rahul's adoption of a 'soft-Hindutva' approach (even if it goes against the Congress' grain) following the unprecedented consolidation of the Hindu vote by Modi. Taking away a stick that the BJP used continuously to beat the grand old party with, especially in north-central India's Hindi Belt since 2014.

All this has ensured that the Modi-government can be targeted for its perceived 'corrupt and 'anti-poor' policies meant for the benefits of just the 'rich'. The exact attack employed by Modi, on the Congress, five years ago.

Plus last year gave another example of a lesson the Congress-scion learnt from Modi. Forming governments at the state level even when it was perceived to have had lost the election. His party formed the Karnataka government as part of an alliance with an opponent, similar to tactics employed by BJP in Goa.

Will pass Women's Reservation Bill if voted to power: Rahul Gandhi

Although time will tell if all these translate into seats, the perception that he is gaining momentum is quite real. Shown by surveys ahead of elections pointing to a substantial increase in seats for the Congress with the NDA having trouble getting a majority.

And as things stand today, Rahul, once described by his opponents as a 'clown prince,' seems to have used candidate Modi's tricks to push the prime minister on the back foot. A big change in a year's time.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 5:49 [IST]
Power-drunk Modi govt lost all sense of responsibility towards people: Cong on ex gratia for Covid victims

PM Modi dedicates Salt Satyagraha memorial and museum to nation

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Surat, Jan 30: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated to the nation the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial and Museum at Dandi in Gujarat's Navsari district on Mahatma Gandhi's 71st death anniversary.

The memorial has statues of Mahatma Gandhi and 80 'satyagrahis' who had marched with him during the historic Dandi Salt March (also called Dandi March) in 1930.

During his day-long visit to the state, he will also lay foundation stone for extension of the terminal building at Surat Airport.

The Terminal building is being constructed at a cost of Rs.354 Crore with an area of over 25,500 square metres. It will be an eco-friendly sustainable building, using solar energy and LED lighting.

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi: Why South Africa revers Gandhiji

In Surat, PM will interact with the youth at the New India Youth conclave. He will also inaugurate Smt. Rasilaben Sevantilal Shah Venus Hospital and visit the facilities there.

PM's next destination will be Dandi in Navsari district of Gujarat. Here, he will dedicate the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial to the nation, on Bapu's Punya Tithi. The memorial has statues of Mahatma Gandhi and 80 Satyagrahis who had marched with him during the historic Dandi Salt March.

The Salt Satyagraha March, better known as 'Dandi March', was a landmark event in the freedom struggle.

As part of the civil disobedience movement against the British rule, 80 Satyagrahis led by Gandhi marched 241 miles from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the coastal village of Dandi and made salt from sea water, thus breaking the Salt Law imposed by the British.

Before visiting Dandi, the prime minister will lay foundation stone for extension of the terminal building at Surat Airport.

PM Modi will also inaugurate Smt Rasilaben Sevantilal Shah Venus Hospital in Surat.

On return to Surat from Dandi, he will interact with participants at the New India Youth conclave. This will be PM Modi's second visit to Gujarat this month. He had visited the state on January 19 to dedicate the Armoured System Complex at Hazira besides attending the Vibrant Gujarat Summit on January 17 and 18.
Power-drunk Modi govt lost all sense of responsibility towards people: Cong on ex gratia for Covid victims

PM Modi inaugurates a slew of projects in Surat, seeks clear majority in 2019

India

oi-Deepika S

Surat, Jan 30: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged voters to give a clear mandate so that a majority government can take strong and tough decisions.

"If we didn't have the majority, I could have said it's not a clear majority and have compulsions. The mandate helped us work for the people," he said.

He also stated that for the last 30 years, the country had a "hung Parliament" due to which progress was affected. "But four years ago, people voted to give full majority after which the country is progressing rapidly," he said.

The prime minister was addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for extension of the new terminal at Surat airport in Gujarat.

PM Modi will not walk quietly into the sunset

"I was asked what has been the benefit of note ban decision. You should ask it to the youth, who could buy residential homes at affordable rates after the decision. Black money used to be parked in real estate sector, but with decisions like note ban and RERA, we put a check to it," Modi said.

He lauded the Civil Aviation Ministry's 'Udaan' (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme - a regional connectivity scheme that makes flying affordable for masses, saying it will boost development of the country's aviation sector.

The prime minister also said that during the last four years of NDA rule, his overnment constructed 1.30 crore houses while during the previous UPA rule, 25 lakh houses were built.
Can men get arrested for sporting long hair: Apparently in Pakistan YES!

Pak envoy summoned over FM Qureshi's phone call to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Jan 30: India's Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on Wednesday summoned Pakistan's High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood to register protest against Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi calling Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Gokhale reportedly told the Pakistan envoy that Qureshi calling Farooq has confirmed that Islamabad 'encourages individuals associated with terrorism'.

"Foreign Secretary underscored that Pakistan has confirmed that it abets&encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities. It exposed Pakistan's duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India, while openly inciting anti-India activities," ANI quoted an MEA statement as saying.

"The Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood was categorically informed by the Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale that the Govt of India expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions. He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," it further said.

The Indian Government reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and that Pakistan has no locus standi in the matter.

[Pak foreign dials Hurriyat friend, discusses Kashmir issue]

Shah Mahmood Qureshi had on Tuesday telephoned Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and discussed with him Islamabad's efforts to highlight the Kashmir issue. The Pakistan Foreign Office said Qureshi spoke with Mirwaiz and discussed with him the efforts of Pakistan's government to highlight the Kashmir issue.

Qureshi also mentioned the June 2018 report issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a report of the UK Parliament, the FO said in a statement. He also emphasised that India should permit the visit of the Commission of Inquiry, as envisaged in both reports.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 23:53 [IST]
'Not one less,' Amit Shah's clarion call to win 74 seats in Uttar Pradesh

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Kanpur, Jan 30: BJP chief Amit Shah, in a booth level workers conference held in Kanpur, reiterated that the party is committed for Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Also, he urged the workers to take pledge that BJP will bag 74 seats in place of current 73 seats. "Not one less," said Amit Shah.

The party chief urged the workers to PM Modi's leadership. He said, "Only a man like Prime Minister Narendra Modi can run this country without any compromise. This country can go ahead with 56 inch. In 10 days of Uri strike, the Army at the orders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took revenge with a surgical strike. BJP is committed for Ram temple in Ayodhya."

'Gathbandhan will have a new PM every day,' says Amit Shah in Kanpur

The BJP government has worked for all not for any one caste. The BJP is ending this caste system because caste based politics doesn't give benefits to those at lowest of the pyramid.

H went on to day that the Bua-Bhatija or BSP-SP rule has always been synonymous to crime and corruption. Now another alliance is in place. This one is of crime, corruption and caste. The forces which left Uttar Pradesh regressive and non-performing due to their caste based politics have come together. Two have joined hands and two others will also join. Let them come together, the BJP is well prepared at the booth level.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 17:21 [IST]
Never spoke to Rahul on Rafale: Manohar Parrikar

India

oi-Deepika S

Panaji, Jan 30: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday hit back at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for using their brief meeting for 'petty political gains.

"I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, now did we discuss anything related to it,' he wrote in a letter to Rahul.

He also accused Gandhi of lying, and maintained that the subject of the Rafale fighter jet deal had not even come up during their conversation.

Tube in nose, Manohar Parrikar presents Goa budget, says 'High on Josh'

Hours after a "personal visit" to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar at his office in Panaji, Congress President Rahul Gandhi today claimed that the former Defence Minister had clearly stated he had nothing to do with the "new deal" on Rafale fighter jets, and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," news agency PTI quoted Rahul Gandhi telling booth-level party workers in Kochi in Kerala.

Rahul Gandhi, however, did not clarify whether the Rafale deal was discussed during his meet with Parrikar, who has been extremely unwell over the past few months with a pancreatic condition.

Gandhi's visit to Parrikar came a day after the Congress chief tweeted about "explosive Rafale secrets that gave the Goa Chief Minister power over the PM". The Congress president has been asking for an inquiry into audio tapes that he says reveal that Manohar Parrikar has files on the Rafale jet deal and so has leverage over his leadership.

The Congress claims to have an audio recording of a Goa minister quoting Mr Parrikar as saying that files related to the Rafale jet deal were "in his bedroom". Parrikar, who was defence minister before becoming Goa chief minister in 2017, had tweeted that the audio clip was a "desperate attempt to fabricate facts". The minister supposedly on tape, Vishwajit Rane, also alleged that it was doctored.
Sonia Gandhi took both doses of COVID vaccine, Rahul's jab delayed due to positive result: Congress

Modi provided maximum income guarantee to 15 friends says Rahul Gandhi

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

Kochi, Jan 30: A day after announcing his party would ensure "minimum income guarantee" for the poor if Congress was voted to power at the Centre, party chief Rahul Gandhi took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has provided 'maximum income guarantee' to 15 of his friends.

"For the last five years, he has provided a maximum income guarantee to 15 of his friends. We have decided that if Narendra Modi can give maximum income guarantee to 15 rich people, we will give minimum income guarantee to every single citizen," Gandhi said.

Rahul Gandhi learns from Modi: promise first, promise big

Like MGNREGA committed right to work, like RTI committed right to information, like Food Security Bill guarantees the right to food, the Congress government is going to guarantee a minimum income to every poor Indian citizen, he told a booth-level party workers meeting here.

Attacking the policies of the Modi government,he alleged that the prime minister had done nothing for the farmers and assured that a congress government would ensure their welfare.

"We have waived off farm loans in the three states where we won elections.... (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh).

We have committed that in 2019, we will have a government that will make up for all the crimes that Narendra Modi has done against farmers in five years," he said.

The Congress President said the Women's Bill would be passed on a priority if the party was voted to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"The first thing we will do when we win the 2019 election is to pass the Women's Reservation Bill in the Parliament," he said.

He was responding to a suggestion from a party worker on the need for more women candidates.

"We want to see women in position of leadership," he added.

The bill seeking to reserve 33 per cent of seats in Parliament and legislature has been pending for a long time in view of lack of consensus.

Refraining from directly commenting on the sensitive Sabarimala temple issue, wherein the Supreme Court had permitted entry of women of all age groups into the Lord Ayyappa temple, he merely said the party respects the traditions of Kerala.

"Congress party respects women of Kerala and at the same time respects the traditions of Kerala.

Traders to Rahul: First implement Minimum Income Guarantee in Congress-ruled states

We do not agree with the violence carried out by the BJP and CPI(M) in the state," he said.

The 69 day annual pilgrimage season in Sabarimala, which ended on January 20, had witnessed widespread protests from devotees and right wing groups.

This was over the CPI(M)-led LDF government's decision to implement the September 28 Apex Court verdict, allowing women of all ages to enter the shrine.

The Congress President referred to Kerala as not just a state, but an 'idea'.

"It is a way of looking at the world that includes compassion, humility, respect. People of Kerala are helping guide the people of India," he said.

"Don't think less of yourself. RSS has cadres, CPI(M) has cadres, but India lives in the hearts of Congress workers', he told the gathering.

Gandhi alleged that the CPI(M) and BJP work on 'dividing' the people of Kerala and said the real issue of jobs and protection of farmers was put on the back burner.

He also flayed the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.

Gandhi told the Congress workers that the party had launched a 'shakti' programme in which all workers could directly talk to the leadership.

"Want every single Congress worker to feel 'Ente booth, ente abhimaan, ente party' ("My booth, my pride, my party").

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 7:26 [IST]
Decision on lockdown should have been made by Centre: Ashok Gehlot

Minimum income guarantee: Have started work on it says Gehlot

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

Jaipur, Jan 30: Welcoming Congress president Rahul Gandhi's announcement of minimum income guarantee to poor, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said he has already started preparations about the scheme.

Gehlot said that the country is capable of providing such a guarantee to its citizens.

"This is a historic announcement. I have started preparations from today that how this scheme can be implemented, how this should be implemented and what model should be there for the implementation," Gehlot told reporters here.

Rajasthan assembly polls: Only 5 won with more than 30 per cent margin

He said that the governments formed by the Congress in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are fulfilling the promises made by Gandhi ahead of the state polls.

"Whatever promises he made during assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we are fulfilling them, be it farm loan waiver or allowance to unemployed youths. The announcement of minimum income by Gandhi is historic," he said.

"Everything is possible if a government has willpower," he added.

Gandhi Monday promised his party would ensure minimum income guarantee for every poor person if it comes to power at the Centre, echoing the 'Garibi Hatao' ('Remove Poverty') slogan coined by his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the 1971 general elections that she won.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 7:47 [IST]
Nation observes Martyrs' Day:

Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation and the tallest hero of India's independence, died on this day, that is January 30, back in 1948. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948. The day is now also observed as Martyr's day.

'We gratefully remember Mahatma Gandhi and the countless freedom fighters'

In a tweet the President wrote, "On Martyrs' Day, we gratefully remember Mahatma Gandhi and the countless freedom fighters who sacrificed their all for our Independence #PresidentKovind".

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi: Why South Africa revers Gandhiji

Salt Satyagraha March, better known as 'Dandi March'

Prime Minister Modi who is on his second visit to Gujarat today will be inaugurating the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial in Dandi.

"Tomorrow, on Bapu's Punya Tithi, I will be in Dandi, the place from where Bapu challenged the might of colonialism. In Dandi, the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial will be dedicated to the nation. This is a tribute to Satyagrahis led by Gandhi Ji, who worked for India's freedom," the PM tweeted.

Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh also paid tributes

Mahatma Gandhi's favorite bhajan "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" was also played at Rajghat. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh also paid tributes to the Mahatma at his memorial. Remembering Mahatma on his death anniversary, Modi tweeted, "...Remembering Bapu on his Punya Tithi. We reiterate our commitment to follow the path shown by him and abide by the values he stood for."
Maratha, Kunbis not separate castes says BC Panel

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

Mumbai, Jan 30: The Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission in its report has said that Marathas and Kunbis are one and the same community.

As the Kunbis are already included in the Other Backward Class (OBC), the Marathas too should have been categorised as a Backward Class long ago, it said.

The nine-member commission headed by retired Justice M G Gaikwad had submitted its report on November 2018.

'We are the big brother and will remain so': Shiv Sena on BJP alliance

On the basis of it, the state legislature on November 30, 2018, passed a bill giving 16 per cent quota in government jobs and education to the Marathas, declared as a "socially and educationally backward class".

The report was on Tuesday given to the petitioners who have moved the Bombay High Court challenging the decision to grant the reservation.

In April 1942, a government resolution (GR) was issued by the then government of Bombay with a list of Backward Classes which included the Maratha community, the report said.

"The GR included the Maratha caste as intermediate class for the purpose of education only. Thus the reservation for Maratha caste was for the first time given in the year 1942 for education purposes only," it said.

However, in 1950, the central government prepared a list of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Communities.

"The caste, Maratha, which was appearing in the 1942 list disappeared from the list of Other Backward Communities prepared by the Government of India," the report said, adding that in 1966, the state government prepared a modified list by which the Kunbi caste was included in the OBC.

"The commission is of the considered and firm opinion that the Maratha and the Kunbi are not separate castes, but they are one and same caste that is Kunbi," it said.

The Kunbis and Marathas being one and the same, the Maratha community should have been and should be included in the list of Other Backward Classes, it said.

Citing information procured from the state Directorate of Archives, the report said, "The Maratha is not a caste in itself but consists of Marathi-speaking people. The caste of such people is Kunbi, who were agriculturists."

The Maratha community is socially, economically and educationally backward so as to hold it a 'Backward Class', it said.

The report also took note of high number of suicides among Maratha farmers.

"As per the reports submitted by the collectors and commissioners, the percentage of Maratha farmers committing suicide is much more," it said.

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According to the report, between 2013 to 2018, there were 13,368 farmer suicides in the state, of which 23.56 per cent suicides were of Maratha farmers and 19.34 per cent were of Kunbi farmers.

"From this statistic, it can be inferred that the distress and frustration of the Maratha community is to such an extent that they are forced to commit suicide. It shows that they are not respected in the society and as such they feel that their prestige is gone," the commission said in the report.

The percentage of Marathas engaged in agriculture too is much higher compared to other castes, it said.

"Maratha caste and persons from other castes engaged in and depending on agriculture are victims of natural calamities. Except the Marathas, all other such castes are included in the list of Backward Classes... So the Maratha caste should not have been an exception," the panel said.
PM gifted copy of Gandhi's speech about need to make India 'Atmanirbhar': Sabarmati Ashram trust

Mahatma Gandhi death anniversary: Remembering 'The Father of The Nation' with quotes

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Jan 30: On January 30, India will mark the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the most prominent leader in India's independence movement.

Born on October 2, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Bapu was one of the more popular freedom fighters instrumental in leading India to freedom from British servitude. He organised peasants and labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.

The political leader, born in Gujarat in 1869 to Karamchand Gandhi and Putlibai, fought for the freedom of India and is called the Father of the Nation.

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi: Why South Africa revers Gandhiji

Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Mahatma Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

Here are 10 inspiring quotes for you to read:

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will

Silence is the best answer to anger

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistake

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 8:55 [IST]
Kerala: Cong leader booked for sexually assaulting 17-year-old girl for nearly 2 years

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Wayanad, Jan 30: A case under sections of POCSO has been registered against a Congress leader and DCC member for allegedly sexually assaulting a 17 year old Adivasi girl for nearly two years.

According to the victim's complaint, the Congress leader and former Sulthan Bathery panchayat president identified as Om George molested the girl for more than a year. And, he is now absconding. As per the latest reports, Om George, who hails from Sultan Bathery, was absconding.

It is learnt that the victim's parents used to work at George's house. And during school holidays, even the girl used to work in his house. Whenever the girl wasn't around her parents, George used to sexually assault her.

Andhra Pradesh: Class 2 girl allegedly sexually abused by teacher

Authorities were alerted about the incident after the girl allegedly tried to commit suicide last week. Following this, she narrated her ordeal to the parents who approached the police.

The police have also reportedly taken statements of the complainant and her family and were also probing the contents of the girl's mobile phone which is said to have crucial information regarding the case.

Meanwhile, the Congress party has suspended DCC member OM George from the primary membership of the party on Wednesday in the wake of sexual assault charges levelled against him.
Temple in Srinagar that was closed due to militancy, reopens after 31 years on Panchami

Fresh terror attack in Bagat Barzulla area of Srinagar, two cops martyred

Srinagar-Leh national highway to reopen for regulated traffic from February 28

J&K: Three civilians injured in grenade attack in Kulgam

India

oi-PTI

Srinagar, Jan 30: At least three persons were injured on Wednesday in a grenade attack by militants on a police station in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Militants lobbed the grenade at the local police station at Damhal Hanjipora in Kulgam district, a police official said.

J&K elections: CEO begins review

He said the grenade exploded by the roadside,resulting in injuries to three civilians.

The injured have been rushed to a local hospital.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a hunt for the attackers, he added.

PTI

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 13:16 [IST]
In Shakespeare style, CBI officer questions his transfer

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 30: You know better than me that you are not a man of any honour. I am an eternal optimist about humanitarianism said Rajah Balaji Superintendent of Police (CBI) in a letter to the agency's interim chief Nageshwar Rao.

The letter which quotes heavily from Shakespeare asked Rao to review his transfer. He further wrote, " there is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men observingly distill it out."

From govt's caged parrot to punching bag; CBI hasn't seen worse days

He was posted with the anti-corruption branch of the CBI, New Delhi and then transferred to the CBI training academy in Ghaziabad. He said that he was transferred to Delhi on his request due to his mother-in-law's cancer treatment.

It was "incumbent and necessary" on Rao's part to not go on a spree of mass transfer of various officers from joint directors to additional SPs before the scheduled January 24 three-member meeting, he also said while questioning the timing of the transfer.

He also said that the transfer letter handed over to him did not offer any reason or show it was in institutional interest or public interest. My posting in Delhi was accorded to me on humanitarian grounds, he also said.

"You bear, or think to bear, an animosity to me, not to an ailing old woman. I request you purely on the humanitarian grounds in the hope that you can truly make a start to redeem your humanity. It is never late in life to become a good man again," he also wrote.

CBI has got an ultimate certificate from Jaitley says Chidambaram

Balaji who probed cases such as the Mecca Masjid blast, Madhumita Shukla murder and bank fraud cases in Bengaluru has received the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 6:11 [IST]
Importing Japan culture: Railways to say sorry if bullet train gets late by a minute

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

New Delhi, Jan 30: Punctuality is not a popular word in Indian culture and the country's railway service is no exception.

However, as India crawls towards having its first bullet train in some time, the National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) has decided that it will say "sorry" to each passenger in case a bullet train delays, even if by a few minutes.

The NHSRCL is currently implementing a high-speed train corridor between Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Mumbai in Maharashtra, covering a distance of 508.17 kilometres at a speed of 320 kilometres per hour.

Why Japan bullet train staff made to sit by tracks?

The expected time for the travel will be two hours as against seven hours by train now.

NHSRCL has said that it is trying to imbibe the Shinkansen culture of Japan where even a minute's delay is considered a delay. "We will apologise to our clients. We will also issue a public apology in the train, at stations, if we are delayed. This is the Shinkansen culture we aim to imbibe, wherein delay by even a minute or so is considered a delay. We will also explain the reasons for the delay to our passengers," NHSRCL Managing Director Achal Khare was quoted as saying by The Sunday Express.

Shinkansen trains have not only made Japan famous for their high speed travelling but also the famed work culture that is followed in 'Land of the Rising Sun'.

In Japan, bullet trains on an average reach their final destination less than a minute late and in case the delay is by five minutes or more, the passengers are given a certificate that they can produce at their office or institutions to cite the reason for their arriving late, BBC News reported (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42024020).

In fact, a rail company in Japan apologised to the passengers in 2017 after a train started 20 seconds early.

In India, the punctuality stats are a distant second. According to data collected by the Railway Board, 2018 saw a four-year low in the maintenance of punctuality in train services, InUth cited reports as saying.

Bullet train project should complete by 2023: Japanese Consul

The overall punctuality of trains was 73 per cent in November as compared to 79.3 per cent (2017-18), 79.41 per cent (2016-17) and 83.37 per cent (2015-16).

As per the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General), lack of adequate infrastructure was the reason for trains getting late.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 9:17 [IST]
Gujarat Minister sends his best wishes to rape-convict Asaram Bapu's ashram

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Ahmedabad, Jan 30: Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on Wednesday has written to rape-convict Asaram's organisation congratulating them for celebrating 14 February as 'Matru-Pitru Diwas'.

Chudasama thanked Ashram for organising its annual 'Matru-Pitru Pujan Divas' on 14 February instead of Valentine's Day, and congratulated him for doing "great work in making young boys and girls and unmarried men and women better citizens of India".

The ashram's ad for the event not only carries a photo of Asaram Bapu, but also mentions that it has been inspired by him.

Asaram Bapu's plea for parole rejected

Self-styled godman Asaram Bapu was sentenced to life in prison by a Jodhpur court which found him guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl in one of his ashrams five years ago. Madhu Sudan Sharma, Special Judge, SC/ST Cases, handed 20 years each in jail to Asaram's two aides, Sanchita alias Shilpi and Sharad Chandra alias Sharat Chandra, for helping him in the crime.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 10:16 [IST]
George Fernandes: The firebrand leader who had packed Coca Cola off from India

George Fernandes never missed an opportunity to express gratitude to the jawan

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Anuj Cariappa

New Delhi, Jan 30: George Fernandes, as defence minister, once sent two senior bureaucrats of his ministry to Siachen glacier when he came to know that they had held back a file on purchase of snow bikes for soldiers deployed at the world's highest battle field.

Known for quick decision-making and administrative acumen, his concern for the armed forces was all too evident. He visited the Siachen glacier, where temperatures can dip to minus 50 degrees Celsius, nearly 30 times as he was very much concerned about living conditions of the soldiers deployed there, defence ministry officials said.

When George Fernandes called China India's enemy No.1, sparked controversy

An avid admirer of socialist Ram Manohar Lohia, Fernandes, who died on Tuesday, would never miss an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution and express gratitude to the soldiers, particularly those deployed in difficult areas along India's borders with Pakistan and China.

"Kaise hain aap log? Sab kuch theek hei na? Kab chhutti mein ja rahen hain? (How are you? Is everything fine? When are you going on leave?)" -- this is how he would often converse with army men, according to a senior military official.

Fernandes became Defence Minister on March 19, 1998 in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet. However, he had to quit from the Cabinet in March 2001 following the Tehelka scandal.

In October 2001, he returned as the defence minister after an inquiry cleared his name in the Tehelka episode, and continued on the post till May 2, 2004.

In the early part of his tenure as defence minister, Fernandes was once "very livid" when he came to know that two bureaucrats in the ministry's finance department were sitting on a file for procurement of snow scooters for soldiers in Siachen.

Officials who worked with Fernandes said he immediately issued orders for sending the two officials to the Siachen glacier to have a first-hand experience of soldiers' life there.

He sent defence ministry officials on familiarisation trips to various parts of Jammu and Kashmir and to the areas bordering China in Arunachal to see for themselves the difficulties faced by border guards.

The life and times of George Fernandes

On several occasions, Fernandes played Santa Claus to the soldiers in Siachen as he would carry cakes and gifts to them during Christmas.

India had conducted the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in May 1998 when Fernandes was the defence minister.

The Kargil war broke out between India and Pakistan during his tenure as defence minister.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 6:04 [IST]
'Gathbandhan will have a new PM every day,' says Amit Shah in Kanpur

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Kanpur, Jan 30: BJP chief Amit Shah took a jibe at prime ministerial candidates of gathbandhan during the first conference of the booth level workers for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Kanpur.

At the outset, Amit Shah said, "The 2014 lection campaign was started at the heroic land of Kanpur and even today the first conference of the booth level workers is being held in the same place."

In a funny jibe at the mahagathbandhan leaders, he said, " If gathbandhan comes to power then Behenji will be PM on Monday, Akhilesh ji on Tuesday, Mamata didi on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar ji on Thursday, Deve Gowda ji on Friday, Stalin on Saturday, and the whole country will go on a holiday on Sunday."

PM Modi seeks clear majority in 2019, says coalition government can't perform

Hailing BJP's commitment to law and order in the Uttar Pradesh, Shah said, "The law and order in Uttar Pradesh had been deteriorated, but today there is strict implementation of the law. There has been a exodus of goons from Uttar Pradesh today."

He went on to say that during Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections two boys [ Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi] came together and today, there is gathbandhan promising same things. However, when BJP booth workers hit the ground the party won 325 seats in the assembly elections.

Shah asked opposition leaders to take stand on the Citizenship Bill. "Before election gathbandhan leaders should clarify their stand on NRC Act to the people of the country. They should tell whether are they supporting infiltrators?, " he asked.

There are 1.63 lakh polling booths in Uttar Pradesh and with 21 members each at nearly 1.4 lakh booths, over 29 lakh party workers will be deployed for ensuring the success of party candidates in the Lok Sabha elections.
Former SIMI man accused of sedition arrested at Varanasi airport

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 30: A former member of the Students Islamic Movement of India against whom a Look out Circular had been issued has been arrested, while trying to leave the country.

He was arrested at the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport in Varanasi. Mohammad Faiz, a resident of Khuda Daadpur village in Azamgarh had reached the airport and was set to board a flight to Sharjah.

When he gave his passport for checking, the officials found that he was a former member of the SIMI and had been barred from leaving the country. There was an LOC issued against him in the year 2001. He has been handed over to the Azamgarh police.

SIMI operative gets 10 years in jail for attack on cops

A probe has now been ordered after it was learnt that he had managed to travel abroad in 2015 despite a ban on foreign travel. He has a shop in Saudi Arabia and officials are trying to find out, how he managed to visit the country in 2015-16.

In 2001, he had been booked for intent to cause riot, promoting enmity, imputations, assertions, prejudicial to national integration and statement conducing to public mischief.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 12:41 [IST]
Chhattisgarh polls: Only 4 winners won with more than 30% of margin of victory

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 30: In the Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections 2018, 61 political parties and independents were in the fray. These included 6 national political parties, 4 state political parties, and 51 registered unrecognized parties. In comparison, during the 2013 Chhattisgarh State Assembly elections, 45 political parties were in the fray.

These included 6 national political parties, 5 state political parties, and 34 registered unrecognized parties. This reflects that there has been 36% increase in the number of political parties that contested in 2018 from 2013 says a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms.

25 candidate lost election by less than 2000 votes in 3 states

The voter's turnout for the Chhattisgarh Assembly 2018 was 76.8% whereas voter's turnout in 2013 assembly elections was 77.5%.

Vote Share of Winners:

The winners of the Chhattisgarh State Assembly elections, 2018 won by an average of 46 % of total votes polled. In the 2013 elections winners won by an average of 45.5 % of total votes polled 36(40%) winners won with 50% and above of the total votes polled in their constituencies.

54(60%) winners won with less than 50% of the total votes polled in their constituency.

Out of 15 winners of BJP, 12(80%) won with less than 50 % of total votes polled in their constituencies. 36(53%) out of 68 winners from INC; 2(100%) out of 2 winners from BSP and 4(80%) out of 5 winners from Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) have won with less than 50% of total votes polled in their constituency.

10(42%) out of 24 winners with declared criminal cases have won with a vote share of 50% and above.

28(41%) out of 68 crorepati winners have won with a vote share of 50% and above.

Representativeness of Winners:

All the winners of the Chhattisgarh State Assembly Elections, 2018 won with an average of 35.3% of the total registered voters. This implies that the winners represent on an average, 35.3% of the total electorate. In the Chhattisgarh State Assembly Elections, 2013 won by an average of 35.2% of the total registered voters.

Chhattisgarh election results: Which exit poll came the closest?

Out of 2 winners of BSP, 2(100%) have won less than 40% of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency. 14(93%) out of 15 winners from BJP; 4(80%) out of 5 winners from Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) and 39(57%) out of 68 winners from INC have won less than 40 % of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency.

Margin of Victory:

4 winners have won with a margin of victory of less than 2000 votes.

Only 4 winners have won with more than 30% of margin of victory.

Winners with Declared Criminal Cases and their Margin of Victory:

24 (100%) out of 24 winners with declared criminal cases have won against runners up with a clean background.

Among these 24 winners, 6 winners have won with more than 20% margin of victory.

Among these, Dwarikadhish Yadav (INC) from Khallari constituency won with 34% margin of victory.

There are 6 winners with a clean background who have won against a runners up with declared criminal cases. Only one of them has won with more than 20% margin of victory.

Crorepati Winners and their Margin of Victory:

17 out of 68 crorepati winners have won against non-crorepati runners up.

Among these 17 winners, 2 winners have won with more than 30 % margin of victory.

There are 17 non-crorepati Winners who have won against crorepati runners up. Out of these 17 winners, 3 have won with more than 20 % margin of victory.

Performance of Women Winners:

Among the 90 winners, 13 are women.

None of the women winners has won with less than 30 % of Vote share.

Among the women winners, Dr. Lakshmi Dhruw (INC) from Sihava Constituency has won with the highest vote share, i.e. 56% in her constituency. She has won with 47% representativeness and 29% of margin of victory.

Performance of Re-elected Winners:

Out of total 30 re-elected winners, none have won with less than 30 % of vote share in their respective constituency. 10(33%) have won with more than 50% of vote share.

2(7%) re-elected winners have won with less than 5% of margin of victory whereas 5 have won with more than 20% of margin of victory.

NOTA:

The NOTA button instated by the ECI in 2013 gave the voters an option of rejecting all the candidates in their constituency. The total number of votes polled for None-of-the-above option were 2, 82,744 votes during the Chhattisgarh State Assembly Elections, 2018.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 16:33 [IST]
Chanda Kochhar fails to appear before probe agency, to be summoned again

Chanda Kochhar's stepping down as CEO to be treated as Termination': ICICI Bank

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Jan 30: ICICI Bank on Wednesday said that resignation of Chanda Kocchar, who allegedly violated the bank's code of conduct and rules on conflict of interest, would be treated as 'Termination for Cause'.

"Chanda Kochhar was in violation of ICICI Bank Code of Conduct, its framework for dealing with conflict of interest&fiduciary duties. Board of Directors has decided to treat separation of Chanda Kochhar from Bank as 'Termination for Cause' under Bank's internal policies," ANI quoted an ICICI Bank statement as stating.

Last week, the CBI registered a case against Chanda Kochhar, the former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank, her husband Deepak Kochhar, V N Dhoot, MD of Videocon group and others. It is alleged that accused sanctioned certain loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy with other accused to cheat ICICI Bank.

ICICI Bank, India's third biggest lender, said it will treat Kochhar's resignation as "termination for cause" and will stop payment of unpaid benefits, including bonus, a Reuters report said.

[ICICI-Videocon case: CBI officer probing Chanda Kochhar transferred day after complaint]

In October 2018, Chanda Kochhar resigned from the ICICI bank in the wake of allegations against her. Kochhar also relinquished office from the board of directors of the bank's subsidiaries. The board then decided to appoint Sandeep Bakhshi as Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer for a period of five years.

[Chanda Kochhar resigns as ICICI Bank's CEO, Sandeep Bakhshi replaces her]

The bank has been in focus due to conflict-of-interest allegations by a whistle blower against Kochhar over loans to Videocon Industries which she has denied. It was alleged that she did not disclose business dealings of her husband Deepak Kochhar with the Dhoots of Videocon.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 19:31 [IST]
Now, pay Rs 10,000 as penalty in case you enter wrong Aadhaar number for transactions

Centre 'cheated' Andhra: Chandrababu Naidu wants protests on Budget day

India

oi-PTI

Amaravati, Jan 30: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said on Wednesday that February 1, the day the central government will present the union budget in Parliament, will be a "black day" for Andhra Pradesh, and called for protests on that day.

In his daily teleconference with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders, Chandrababu Naidu alleged that the Centre had cheated the state in the last five budgets.

"February 1 is a black day for the state. The BJP-led government at the Centre has discriminated against the state at every step. Unless the BJP is trounced at the hustings, justice will not be done to Andhra Pradesh," the chief minister said.

Chandrababu Naidu to go on fast in Delhi on Feb 13 over Andhra special status

He asked his party cadre to observe peaceful protests by sporting black badges and showing black flags when the Centre presents the budget for 2019-20.

Referring to reports in China Global Times, a newspaper in China, Naidu said failures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government were being publicised even in China. "The country has been pushed into chaos under PM Modi's rule. There is widespread antagonism towards (Narendra) Modi due to unemployment. People are opposing the BJP," he claimed.

He alleged discrimination against Andhra Pradesh with regard to the central government releasing funds on Tuesday to various states through the National Disaster Relief Fund.

"Maharashtra has been given Rs. 4,717 crore while Andhra Pradesh got only Rs. 900 crore for drought relief. Andhra Pradesh suffered extensive damage running into thousands of crores of rupees due to cyclone Titli. Cyclone Phethai also caused severe destruction, but the Centre did not grant even a rupee," Naidu alleged.

PTI

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 14:47 [IST]
Assam blast: NDFB founder Ranjan Daimary gets lifer, what you should know about him

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Guwahati, Jan 30: A special CBI court on Wednesday sentenced National Democratic Front of Bodoland Founder Ranjan Daimary and nine others in connection with the 2008 Assam serial blasts case.

The blast had claimed 88 lives. The others to be sentenced included George Bodo, B Tharai, Raju Sarkar, Anchai Bodo, Indra Brahma, Loko Basumatary, Khargeswar Basumatary, Ajay Basumatary and Rajen Goyary.

The conviction is a welcome news for the security agencies for whom Daimary has been a menace. It was in the year 1986 that the Bodo Security Force was founded. This group went on to rename itself as NDFB.

2008 Assam blasts: NDFB chief, 9 others get life imprisonment

Soon, the group became notorious for killings, extortions and terror attacks. The Indian agencies stepped up the heat on the outfit, following which it retorted to Bhutan. However there is faced stiff counter insurgency operations by the Indian Army and the Royal Bhutan Army in the early 2000s.

In October 2008, the group carried out the Assam serial blasts. This led to the division of the group into NDFB (Progressive) and NDFB (RD), which was headed by Daimary. The progressive faction began talks with the government of India in 2009.

In 2010, Daimary was arrested in Bangladesh and handed over to India. He was granted bail in 2013. He has been in peace talks with India since then.

In 2012 the outfit was further divided with Kathar Songbijit walking out of the group to form the NDFB (S). This faction was behind the massacre of 66 adivasis in Assam in December 2014.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 16:18 [IST]
Had BJP ruled for 70 yrs you would have been sitting on silver chairs: Ananth Kumar

Ananth Kumar Hegde questions Rahul Gandhi's religion, calls him "hybrid breed"

India

pti-PTI

Bengaluru, Jan 30: Union minister Ananth Kumar Hegde, whose comments have often triggered controversies, on Wednesday called Congress president Rahul Gandhi a "hybrid breed", saying how can son of a "Muslim" father and Christian mother be a Brahmin. He also hit out at Gandhi for his repeated allegations targeting the Narendra Modi government over the Rafale deal.

Addressing an event in Uttara Kannada district, Hegde said: "...they have no sense about religion. See how much they lie, father is a Muslim, mother a Christian, son is Brahmin. How did it come?"

"You cannot get such hybrid breed in any laboratory in the world, it is available in our country's Congress laboratory only," he said, attacking Gandhi.

A priest at the Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, who presided over the puja offered by Gandhi during the poll campaign there, had said that the Congress president's gotra was 'Duttatreya' and he was a Kashmiri Brahmin.

[Rahul Gandhi lashes out at Anant Kumar Hegde, demands his sacking]

Hegde's comments come days after he said at an event at Madikeri that a hand that touches a Hindu girl's body should not be there.

On Monday, Hegde referred to Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao as "a guy who ran behind a Muslim lady" after he criticised the BJP leader's remarks. Gandhi had criticised Hegde's comments and said, "This man is an embarrassment to every Indian. He's unfit to be a Union minister and deserves to be sacked."

[Ananth Kumar says Chop off hands that touch Hindu girl, drags Dinesh Gundurao in Twitter war]

Attacking the Congress chief over Rafale Wednesday, Hegde said there was a "limit to lying".

"Rahul Gandhi these day is uttering Rafale, Rafale... he doesn't know how many letters are there, he doesn't know the spelling. He thinks Rafale is a three wheeled cycle....," he alleged.

The Union minister also levelled corruption charges against Karnataka Revenue Minister and district in-charge of Uttara Kannada R V Deshpande, calling him "percentage Pande".

PTI
More than 30 BJP workers killed in attacks made by TMC in West Bengal: Dilip Ghosh

Do not come back: TMC slams West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar who is visiting Delhi

Explained: Can Mukul Roy be disqualified as MLA for jumping from BJP to TMC

8 BJP supporters missing after Amit Shah's rally in Kanthi

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Kolkata, Jan 30: West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh claimed that eight of our supporters are missing, including a woman, in violence following a rally by BJP chief Amit Shah at Kanthi in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

Alos, 13 vehicles have been ransacked and three motor cycles torched. Workers of the Trinamool Congress and the BJP clashed following a rally by BJP chief Amit Shah at Kanthi in East Midnapore district of West Bengal on Tuesday.

A TMC party office was ransacked and vehicles ferrying BJP workers were set on fire in the clashes, PTI reported. Sources in the two parties said three persons were injured in the clashes. No confirmation was available from the police.

Amit Shah to launch his poll strategy in UP today

Meanwhile, the TMC alleged BJP workers had attacked a local TMC party office in Kanthi and vandalised it. Vehicle ferrying BJP workers to the rally were ransacked and set on fire allegedly by TMC workers.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh called up West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and expressed serious concern over the reports of violence, officials said. During the telephonic conversation with Banerjee, Singh asked her to take action against those who indulged in the violence.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 13:21 [IST]
Covid-hit family of six starve at home, hospitalised by Good Samaritans in UP's Aligarh; DM offers help

Ayodhya's 'Princess Park' likely to be inaugurated during Diwali

UP govt relaxes night curfew by 2 hours from Monday

UP cop play good Samaritan, jumps into canal to save drowning man; Video goes viral

3 journalists, police inspector arrested for extortion in Noida

India

oi-Deepika S

Noida, Jan 30: In a major operation, a police inspector and three journalists were arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Noida on charges of bribery and extortion.

"Manoj Kumar Pant, SHO of Sector 20 police station, and journalists Sushil Pandit, Udit Goyal and Raman Thakur were arrested yesterday," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vaibhav Krishna said.

He said the four were caught red-handed while taking the bribe of Rs. 8 lakh at the Sector 20 police station.

2008 Assam blasts: NDFB chief, 9 others get life imprisonment

"They were extorting money from a call center owner in the name of removing the latter's name from an FIR registered in November 2018," Krishna said.

A Mercedes car has also been seized from the possession of one of the journalists, which Mr Krishna said, seemed to be related to some "criminal activity".

A .32 bore pistol was seized from the possession of another journalist, he said.

"A total of Rs. 8 lakh has been seized and all four have been arrested," the district police chief said.

Meanwhile, Additional SHO of Sector 20 police station, Jaiveer Singh, has been suspended for his alleged involvement in the case, the officer added.

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 13:33 [IST]
The following editorial appeared in the Washington Post.

A few months ago, every day seemed to bring with it a new technology scandal. Now, each day seems to bring a new policy proposal to fix the problem. Even the companies support action from Congress. The gaps between the proposed solutions offer some insight into areas of agreement  and more important, disagreement  that will define the fight to come.

A handful of lawmakers, including Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced bills last session. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent his shot across the bow earlier this month, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Neely Kennedy, R-La., put their 2018 proposal back on the floor soon after. Think tanks and industry groups have produced reports and model legislation.

Republicans so far seem determined that any federal framework will pre-empt a California law that companies consider too complicated and burdensome. Democrats might sign on to that  with the caveat that the replacement regulations provide at least as much protection as states already offer. Theres room for compromise and controversy  in figuring out how to provide that protection.
Kudos to them to not bow to one board members wishes. I want to know what the Douglas County Board was thinking in endorsing the project when there are obviously some basic unanswered questions in regards to the project. Are they afraid to let the people who would be paying for it vote on it?

Paul Kazak, Omaha

Border wall is just a tool

Why not build a wall or at least a part of a wall?

I think most would agree that our southern border is vulnerable. We have hired conscientious border guards and try to give them tools to help. They have a difficult job. A wall would be just another tool (probably one of the better ones available).

No tool is perfect or able to stand alone. If you had a Border Patrol job, wouldnt you want all reasonable tools available? Guarding a border without a definite dividing line would be very difficult, and a physical wall would certainly help. These workers need all the help they can get.

A wall certainly cannot protect the border by itself since we know it has many shortcomings. Persistent violators could climb over, under, through or around the structure, or perhaps they could demolish a part of it, but it would still be helpful.
Then there is the really big game almost surely being tracked by Mueller's team (not necessarily as targets -- i.e., likely defendants -- but at a minimum as subjects of investigation): Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and, possibly, Ivanka Trump. Of these, Trump Jr. could be imperiled for, among other things, problematic statements to Congress. Why would the special counsel bring false-statements cases against Cohen and Stone but give the president's oldest son a pass?

Kushner, meanwhile, is in a tight spot for his involvement in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting intended to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, and he pops up in several other Russia-related episodes. And even Ivanka Trump could face possible exposure for what we now know to be her prominent role in the Moscow Trump Tower project. Mueller surely understands that charges against any of the Trump children would provoke a kind of Armageddon with the president -- as well as a likely extended court battle. It makes sense to forestall that upheaval until he is ready to lay all his cards down.

By the same reasoning, it can't be ruled out that Mueller will still move to subpoena Trump, a maneuver that would trigger a several-month court battle that Mueller probably would win.
Other Nebraska communities have projects in the works through the program. A housing nonprofit in Columbus has applied for grants and has letters of intent from developers willing to build rental units and single-family homes in varying price points through low-interest loans, the Wall Street Journal reports. Schuyler, Neb., has received grants to build as many as 32 new rental units  the first market-rate rental units to be built since 1985.

To qualify for the competitive grants, a community needs to meet one or more requirements: an ongoing housing need as shown through a significant study, a low unemployment rate, difficulty filling vacancies or potential projects that could be ready for occupancy within two years.

Fewer homes are being built per household than at almost any time in U.S. history, and it is even worse in rural communities, the Wall Street Journal reports. Developers in less populated areas cant tap into the economies of scale available in urban centers, making materials and labor more expensive. Rural areas are also seeing their populations stagnate or decline as younger people opt for urban living, adding to the gamble involved in speculative building.
Anne Boyle, one of the best known and influential Omaha Democrats for decades, suffered a stroke on Monday and was at home in hospice care Wednesday.

Douglas Countys public information officer issued a press release Wednesday at the request of Boyles husband, Douglas County Board member Mike Boyle, who is also a former mayor of Omaha.

The former chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party, Anne Boyle served for nearly 20 years on the Nebraska Public Service Commission. Boyle was first elected to the commission in 1996, and retired in 2015.

The statement from the county said the family wished to share the news about Boyles illness but requested privacy.

Here is the full statement from Leia Baez, Douglas County public information officer:
The Nebraska Farm Bureau plans arent on par with those short-term plans  they are ACA-compliant. But Pollitz told The World-Herald that they still differ from ACA plans in important respects.

While plans on the exchange have to rate their products for the average person across the state, the Farm Bureau insurance has to deal only with the specific group signing up.

And just pooling people together on its own isnt going to be a magic bullet for reducing costs, she said.

Pooling does not reduce costs ever, Pollitz said. It redistributes costs. It doesnt change costs.

Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., a senior member of the committee, said the hearing shows broad agreement on the concept of protecting people with pre-existing conditions. But he also said hes concerned to see such high premiums today.

Many Nebraskans have been harmed by the heavy hand of the federal government, Smith said.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., thanked Robertson for his testimony but emphasized that the insurance the group is offering is ACA-compliant.

Thats an important factor, because if it werent for that, it could very easily be another junk policy that takes your members premiums and theyre there for you every step of the way, unless you become injured or you become ill, Thompson said. It was the ACA that provided that protection.

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The all-time record low for Omaha is minus 32 degrees, set in the 1880s.

What it boils down to is this system is going to be swept off to the east, and warmer air will take its place, Kern said.

By Saturday, the high could approach 50 in Omaha, and skies are expected to be partly sunny.

Siberian air has traveled across the North Pole and down into the central U.S. this week to bring the region its bitter cold, according to Alan Reppert of AccuWeather Inc., The World-Heralds weather consultant. By Wednesday evening, winds will have shifted to the south as warmer air from the nations southern Plains flows in behind the eastward traveling cold, he said.

And why is this shock of Siberian air traveling here? A so-called polar vortex working in tandem with a weakened jet stream, meteorologists say. The polar vortex is a swirl of intensely cold air that circles Earths northern pole. The jet stream is a powerful ribbon of air that circles the globe south of the vortex and acts as a barrier, keeping cold air bottled up to the north. When the jet stream weakens, it starts to meander and its loopy path allows big pools of cold air to flow south  and warm air to shift north.
The City of Omaha will most likely have to find more money to pay for its next waste hauling contract.

And Omahans will certainly have much different collection service when the new contract begins.

Those two facts have been long expected, but on Wednesday, city officials got their first look at just how much more the new service could cost: Officials opened bids from vendors vying to pick up Omahans waste for the next decade, starting in 2021.

All but one bid is more expensive than the current roughly $15 million that the city pays Waste Management annually to pick up trash, yard waste and recyclables.

Mayor Jean Stothert has said she will not support a contract that would require the city to raise taxes or make severe cuts.

This decision will impact every taxpayer for the next 10 years or more, and we will ask the council to approve a contract that provides services that meet our needs, at a price we can afford, she said.
A man was taken to a hospital in critical condition Wednesday after he was found in a park near Carter Lake.

He has since been identified as Scott Demers of Grand Island. Demers turned 49 on Wednesday.

A passerby noticed Demers lying by the lake about 10:30 a.m., according to a police report.

When Omaha police officers arrived at Kiwanis Park, near East Locust Street and Abbott Drive, they found Demers, unresponsive, on the ice next to the shore.

He was not wearing gloves and was missing one of his shoes, according to the police report. A pair of winter gloves and a boot were found nearby.

His extremities felt frozen to the touch, according to emergency scanner traffic.

Police officers could smell alcohol emanating from Demers as he was lifted off the ground and loaded into a police cruiser to be taken to a waiting ambulance, according to the police report.

Demers remains in critical condition at the Nebraska Medical Center.

At the time that authorities found Demers, the temperature in Omaha was about minus 10 degrees and the wind chill about minus 20 degrees.

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The City of Omaha wont enlist private contractors to help with emergency pothole repair this year.

The City Council on Tuesday voted 4-3 to shoot down an agreement under which the city would pay three vendors as much as $450,000  combined  to help fill potholes.

Austin Rowser, the citys street maintenance engineer, urged the council to approve the agreement because city workers, during the busy pothole-filling season, are overworked, he said. That creates morale and turnover problems, he said.

Mayor Jean Stothert, who had signed off on the agreement, said she was disappointed in the councils decision. She said not enlisting outside contractors would probably have two effects: City workers will have to work longer hours, and itll take longer to fill potholes.

Im getting (Facebook) messages from Public Works workers who are saying we need some time off. Were working too much, she said. Were trying to remedy that issue and provide better customer service and they (the council) voted against it.
Ready to head outside for some snowy fun? Be sure you have the best sled to keep your entire family safe.

Here are the different types of sleds available, along with their pros and cons.
LINCOLN  Nebraskas craft brewers are in a froth over two bills that would increase the states excise taxes on beer to the highest in the nation.

Lawmakers sponsoring the proposals say that the hike would translate into only about 10 cents per mug of beer and that increasing taxes on beer, wine and liquor is part of the solution to lowering property taxes.

But a craft brewers group, representing 49 small breweries across the state, say the tax increase could cause layoffs and could end some operations if they are forced to absorb what amounts to a 345 percent increase in the tax. They have been inundating state senators with complaints, which might be the first of many they hear about ideas to raise some other taxes to lower property taxes.

Were really scared that if this passes, it will stop the growth of this industry, said Gabby Ayala, the executive director of the Nebraska Craft Brewers Guild. Other states that have high taxes dont have as many breweries  it stops people from wanting to invest and expand.
Betsworth said training people to stop bleeding is not that different from training them in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

At some point in our history, CPR wasnt a thing, he said. Now, almost everybody at some point has been exposed to it. Were kind of going down that path here.

Tourniquets are for arm and leg injuries, he said.

The philosophy is, you apply a tourniquet as high up as you can, and you tighten it down until the bleeding stops, and that tourniquet stays in place until you get to a trauma center, he said. You basically get above the wound and cut off the blood flow below it.

For injuries to the abdomen  the part of the body above the hip joints and below the neck  the kit has gauze and pressure bandages for applying direct pressure, he said.

Training is realistic and includes some pictures of actual wounds and practicing on an artificial leg with simulated blood, he said.

The class helps with confidence, preparing people to get involved in an emergency situation, he said.
Nebraskas fourth case of a paralyzing illness this season has been confirmed in a child from northeast Nebraska.

The child confirmed with acute flaccid myelitis currently is hospitalized, state health officials said Wednesday. An additional suspected case is under further testing and expert review by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Two cases were confirmed late last year in the Sarpy/Cass Health Departments jurisdiction and one was corroborated in Douglas County.

The condition  which is rare  affects mostly children and as of yet has no clear cause. Its not believed to be transmitted from person to person. The northeast Nebraska case initially was reported in mid-December as a suspected case in the Dakota County Health Departments jurisdiction.

Symptoms tend to occur about a week after a child has had a fever and respiratory illness. They include sudden muscle weakness, including in the face, neck, back or limbs. CDC officials say at least half the patients do not recover from the paralysis and some have serious complications.
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Patrick Yu

FleishmanHillard has promoted Patrick Yu to general manager of its Hong Kong operations. He succeeds Geoff Bilbrough, who has stepped down to return home to New Zealand. Yu, who was previously deputy general manager of FHs Hong Kong office, will continue to lead the firms financial and professional services across Asia Pacific. He started his career with the agency in 2005. Yu is also a guest lecturer at The University of Hong Kong and makes presentations throughout Asia Pacific on financial and fintech communication trends. In his new post, he will report to Rachel Catanach, FleishmanHillards senior partner and president of Greater China. To support Yu, Kitty Lee is being promoted to deputy general manager. Lee started her career with FleishmanHillard in 2004 and was promoted to senior vice president in 2015.



Olivier Lefebvre

FF Paris has promoted Olivier Lefebvre from executive creative director to president and partner. Lefebvre joined FF in 2014. Before coming to the agency, he served as creative director at CLM-BBDO and was a copywriter at DDB Paris. He has worked with such brands as Mercedes France, Tag Heuer Worldwide, Mars Group, Greenpeace and Lipton International. Lefebvres promotion is intended to bring the management structure of FFs Paris bureau in line with its offices in Shanghai, Los Angeles and New York, all of which are run by an executive from the firms creative division.
If you though excavating a basement was hard work, try doing it with R/C miniature construction machinery. One Canadian man has been doing it for 14 years and hes still not done. Luckily, hes in no hurry to finish.

Joe Murray, a farmer and radio-controlled construction machinery enthusiast from Saskatchewan, Canada, started excavating a basement under his house in June of 2005. In the beginning, he had a hands-on approach, using a pickaxe and an air chisel hammer, but then he started acquiring miniature radio-controlled digging machinery and he took a back seat, letting them do all the dirty work. By 2010, his fleet of trucks and excavators were already doing all the work, while he controlled them from a distance. But the problem with using miniature machinery to dig a life-size basement is that it takes a long time. And I mean a really long time.

Photo: LilGiantsConstrCo/YouTube

We first wrote about Joe Murray and his awesome project back in 2012, but back then it was reported that he was getting close to finishing the basement and planning to start even more ambitious projects, like digging a pond with his radio-controlled machinery. But seven years later, the Saskatchewan farmer is still busy digging under his house.



What a better place to have an all-weather playground than under your house? Murray told Carscoop a few years ago. Its just a few steps away when I have time for it, its a comfy place to be when its -30C outside. I am in no hurry to finish.

I guess he meant it when he said he wasnt in a hurry, because he posted a video of his miniature machinery earlier this month, and they were still in that basement. Murray started documenting his progress through YouTube videos in 2007, so if youd like to see what hes been up to in the last 12 years, feel free to check out his channel, LilGiantsConstrCo.

While using miniature construction machinery to dig a basement may seem counterproductive, its worth pointing out that to Joe Murray this is more of a hobby than actual work. He knows there are lots of advanced tools he could use to finish his project faster, but he just doesnt care for it.

The common misconception here is that the RCs (radio-controlled scale models) are not here to excavate my basement, but rather the basement excavation project is here for the RCs, Murray wrote on his website.
Azusa Sakamoto loves Barbie so much that she spent a small fortune turning her Los Angeles home into a shrine to the popular Mattel doll.

Sakamoto, who goes by Azusa Barbie on Instagram, didnt get to play with Barbie dolls while growing up in Japan, because Mattels iconic doll just wasnt very popular back then. She was already in middle-school when she first got her hands on a Barbie product  a lunchbox she found at an American imports store  but it was love at first sight. She has been collecting Barbie dolls and memorabilia ever since and estimates that she has spent over $80,000 turning her Los Angeles home into a life-size Barbie house.

Photo: Azusa Barbie/Facebook

It just looked like cool American pop culture, Azusa recalled about the first encounter with Barbie. I didnt think it was for kids, you know?

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Azusa Barbie (@azusabarbie) on Jul 29, 2018 at 8:58am PDT

Even though she only discovered Barbie when she was 15, Azusa has definitely been making up for lost time. She has been collecting every piece of Barbie memorabilia she could get her hands on, and her studio apartment in West Hollywood is a veritable pink shrine to the iconic character. The walls are painted bright pink and covered with Barbie-themed decals and artworks, and almost everything she uses, from drinking glasses to bath towels, is either pink or Barbie-themed.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Azusa Barbie (@azusabarbie) on Apr 21, 2018 at 8:10am PDT

Azusa, who has been working as a nail designer in Los Angeles for four years, also dyes her hair pink and only wears clothes that are pink or feature the Barbie logo. She travels to Barbie conventions all over the country to meet like-minded people and keep up to date with whats been going on in the world of Barbie.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Azusa Barbie (@azusabarbie) on Apr 13, 2018 at 8:26am PDT

While some people might mistake her obsession with Barbie as an attempt to emulate the doll in real life, Azusa Sakamoto insists that she just loves Barbie, not trying to be like her.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Azusa Barbie (@azusabarbie) on Jan 19, 2018 at 6:03pm PST

Whether its designing Barbie-themed fake nails, posting photos of her Barbie house on Instagram, or shooting YouTube videos for like-minded fans of the Mattel doll, Azusa says she does something related to Barbie every day. And looking at her house and the way she dresses, I guess its really hard not including the popular doll in everything she does.

Azusa Barbie estimates that she has spent over $80,000 on Barbie dolls, clothes and other related items, but she has no regrets. Although some people might see her obsession with the Mattel character as strange, she claims its really fun being in her shoes. I just love being myself, she told Barcroft TV.

Something tells me that Azusa Sakamoto and Barbie Man Stanley Colorite would really hit it off.
Meeting with Chilean Ambassador Jaime Chomali Garib, the Government leader urged Vietnam and Chile to promote their trade ties as they have substantial potential for collaboration in this field.

Ministries, agencies and businesses of the two countries should make further study of each others markets, he suggested.

Talking about Chiles hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 2019, PM Phuc pledged that Vietnam will actively support the country in organising the event and asked Chile to arrange bilateral meetings on the occasion of the forum.

Vietnam wants to maintain the operation of the free trade council mechanism in order to make use of cooperation opportunities, he said, noting that the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has come into force recently, would help both countries participate deeper in the global value chain.

For his part, Jaime Chomali Garib highlighted the strong development of the Vietnam-Chile relationship, especially after they have become APEC members.

With its foreign policy focusing on Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia, Chile has registered to become a partner of the ASEAN, he said, calling for Vietnams support in this regard.

The diplomat also expressed his hope that Vietnam will participate constructively in the international conference on climate change which Chile will host this year.

He noted rapid progress in bilateral trade since the two countries signed the free trade agreement in 2011, with efforts being made to step up the trade in fruit. He added that Chile wants to cooperate with Vietnam in startup and space projects.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Canadian Ambassador Deborah Anne Paul. (Photo: VNA)



At the meeting with Canadian Ambassador Deborah Anne Paul, PM Phuc said the relationship between Vietnam and Canada is at the best level ever in all spheres, from economy to national defence and security.

He asked the diplomat to make greater efforts to promote the bilateral trade in the time ahead, suggesting that the Canadian side organise more trips to Vietnam for Canadian enterprises to study the market.

In reply, Deborah Anne Paul stressed that trade and investment ties are a priority of the two countries which, she said, have shared common viewpoints on multilateral trade institutions.

Canada stands ready to support Vietnam in assuming the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2020, she said, adding that the two countries will organise many activities marking the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2019.
Sarah Morris/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) -- Eric Garcetti, the 47-year-old mayor of Los Angeles, announced Tuesday that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.



"This is where I want to be, and this is a place where we have so much exciting work to finish," Garcetti said at a press conference at Los Angeles City Hall. "I have decided not to throw my hat in the ring to run for President in 2020."



He added, "This was not an easy decision given the extraordinary times that we live in. ... As an American, like so many of us we look to Washington, we look to a government that would be kind and caring, but today we see one that is corrupt and cruel."



Garcetti also said he felt "even more sincere" in his decision after seeing the crop of candidates who have already announced their candidacies, including his fellow Californian, Sen. Kamala Harris.



"First of all let me say how excited I am for Kamala," Garcetti said, adding that Harris personally called him to say she was running.



Garcetti added that Harris' decision did not influence the one he announced Tuesday evening.



"I said from the beginning that nobody jumping in was what this decision was about," Garcetti said.



Another factor in his decision was his confidence in the ability of the growing field of Democrats vying to take on President Donald Trump in 2020. Garcetti said he will do what he can to help them win.



"I didn't have a burning desire that I had to be president at all costs, that's not been a life-long dream, this was a moment when I saw somebody who I felt was destroying this country," Garcetti said. "The weaker that he gets and the stronger that our field gets makes me even more confident about the work I can do here. I'll help them -- I'll work very hard."



The mayor of America's second most-populous city, Garcetti had been one of the most active potential 2020 candidates over the past year, making trips to the critical, early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.



At a press conference last week in the nation's capital, Garcetti told reporters to "stay tuned" on a possible presidential announcement, but that his mind had been preoccupied with ending the Los Angeles teachers strike. It finally came to a conclusion earlier this month after the teachers union and city officials reached an agreement.



While he is now officially declining to run, Garcetti said he believes nominating a candidate without ties to Washington could be an asset for Democrats in 2020.



"Right now Americans that live in the real America bring a perspective that is different," Garcetti said last week at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington. "It's not about sending tweets. A victory is not about how many likes you get, a victory is paving a street, opening a factory, is getting real things done."



Of the major Democratic candidates that have either announced presidential bids or have taken steps towards one, South Bend, Indiana's Pete Buttigieg is currently the only mayor in the race.



Other current and former mayors thought to be mulling presidential bids include New York City's Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg, and New Orleans' Mitch Landrieu.



Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty against capital murder suspect Derrill Richard "Rick" Ennis in a cold case related to the 2006 disappearance of an Auburn woman.

Ennis appeared in court Wednesday afternoon at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika for a status conference.

Prosecutors announced the decision to pursue the death penalty.

There are many factors that go into this. Whether it is the nature of the crime thats been alleged, the victims family; just a number of factors that we weigh in determining whether or not we want to seek the death penalty in a capital murder case, Lee County District Attorney Brandon Hughes told the media Wednesday afternoon.

Ennis is facing charges of capital murder  burglary and capital murder  kidnapping in connection to the disappearance of 24-year-old Lori Ann Slesinski.

Slesinski was last seen on June 10, 2006, and reported missing by her mother days later on June 13. The next day, the young womans car was found on fire at the dead end of Dekalb Street in Auburn, according to records.

Ennis was an acquaintance of Slesinski and lived in Auburn, police said in an August 2018 news conference.
The Lee County District Attorneys Office has hired a cold case investigator to focus on open, unsolved homicide cases in Lee County.

The new investigator is Mark Whitaker. He comes from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys Cold Case Unit and has more than 38 years of local, state and federal law enforcement experience, according to a news release from the District Attorneys Office on Monday.

Every city and county in this country has cold homicide cases, but very few police agencies have the resources to devote an investigator to concentrate only those older open, unsolved homicides, said District Attorney Brandon Hughes. My purpose in hiring Mark is to provide that investigator who can focus his time and effort solely on cold cases with the belief that this will give us the best chance of obtaining justice for these victims and their families.

Whitaker and Hughes first met while working together in the 15-month investigation of the disappearance of Lori Ann Slesinski  a 12-year-old cold case that resulted in the arrest of Derrill Ennis on capital murder charges in 2018.
Editor's note: This story was first published in early 2018 on the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive.

****

No one saw it coming that previously calm, cool, 1968 morning in the heart of Vietnam, and certainly not a young United States Marine captain from Auburn, Alabama, who found himself there working on a CIA mission before the enemy struck.

Sadly, 50 years ago today and during that surprise attack that changed the course of an entire war, Capt. Robert W. Hubbard lost his life.

But not until he put up a damned good fight, as one witness described it.

The following is an account of how Capt. Hubbard fought to the end, killing numerous enemy combatants while saving the lives of fellow Americans at a time when enemy yells struck fear, their bullets struck death, and heroes struck back.

They attacked everywhere

Out of ammunition, out of food, out of water and mostly surrounded, the handful of young Marines knew they had to do what Marines do: stay mobile.

It would be days after his death on Feb. 4, 1968, before Hubbards bullet-riddled body could be recovered and returned to Auburn for burial, but the story behind the four harrowing days leading up to that tragic ending recently was allowed by the CIA to be shared by one of the men who survived the events.

It was called the Tet Offensive.

Tet, which celebrates the lunar new year, is the most important holiday on the Vietnamese calendar.

Vietnam at the time was torn from years of war, with the Communist North Vietnam battling the U.S.-supported South Vietnam. American officials feared the spread of communism if the North took control of the entire country. The war in general, however, seemed to be at a stalemate.

The overall strategy of the North Vietnamese was to inflict as many casualties as it could and try to sway an already-divided American public against the war and for the U.S. to leave Vietnam.

The wars momentum took a drastic shift with the massive holiday offensive launched on Jan. 30-31, 1968, when most Vietnamese families were celebrating the first day of Tet, associated by them with the first day of spring.

Within 24 hours, the enemy engaged in more than 120 attacks throughout South Vietnam, some of them involving massive military assaults and others involving organized suicide squads at strategic targets such as the American embassy.

One such target was the city of Hue.

Hubbard was there.

The CIAs role

Hue lies in the center of Vietnam, and in addition to a population of more than 350,000 today, it features several historically significant palaces and shrines.

Hubbard was recruited by the CIA for what some called a pacification program, akin to more contemporary descriptions of winning the hearts and minds of the local people. His job was to help plant seeds on why the Vietnamese living there should be more interested in freedom and democracy than in a communist style of government.

He often wore civilian clothing because of that role, as did Marine Capt. Ray Lau, who joined Hubbard and a small group of others temporarily living and operating in Hue. It was Lau who would manage to survive the Tet attacks and who was allowed to tell his story last December to the Studies in Intelligence magazine, which focuses on topics of interest to the Central Intelligence Agency community.

Lau, like Hubbard, was recruited by the CIA to act as a so-called advisor.

The timing of his arrival, however, was a bit more ominous.

The fighting begins

Lau arrived in Hue on Jan. 30. After the long journey to get there, he was assigned to a house with two other men, and on the morning of Jan. 31, We were awakened at about 4 a.m. to the sound of gunfire and explosions in the distance, he wrote in his first-person account.

South Vietnamese guards were concerned, reporting that a guard camp across a nearby canal was under attack, but to Lau and others, nothing seemed unusual from previous, small-scale attacks.

After a sustained firefight and the continued sound of gunfire, they realized something bigger was afoot.

Hubbard and Marine Sgt. Howard Vaughn arrived in a Jeep at about 7 a.m. Hubbard was concerned about having not had radio contact that morning with other colleagues, so he and another man named Jim, a former special-forces member, left on foot to learn more.

Lau and Sgt. Vaughn were standing by their compounds gate posts when Vaughn noticed enemy soldiers running down the street about 70 yards away.

Vaughn let go a short burst of fire with his M-16 rifle.

Almost immediately, his volley was answered with automatic fire, Lau wrote in his accounts. Vaughn wheeled away from the post and fell to the ground.

He was wounded, but not killed. Mortar rounds began falling and an explosion from one on a roof showered the men with debris.

Hubbard and Jim returned, and Hubbard checked on the injured Sgt. Vaughn and moved him into a side bedroom of the house they all occupied now, as they watched steady streams of enemy soldiers pour into the city across the main streets further down and wondered when more troops would approach their location.

The men took up positions inside the house, and they prepared for a fight they knew was coming.

No surrender

A foreign service officer named Tom lived in a neighboring house. As enemy soldiers began searching and destroying pockets of resistance, surrender did not seem to be an option.

Lau later would learn that Tom and another man had surrendered when their house was surrounded.

Toms story was especially sad, Lau wrote. He was in his 60s and had served in the army through World War II and the Korean War.

In World War II, he was captured by the Italians. In Korea, he was captured by the North Koreans. This time the North Vietnamese were not so kind, as Tom did not make it.

Tom and the other man were taken into the bathroom and executed.

Although Hubbard, Lau and the injured Vaughn did not know those details at the time, they knew enough about their enemy.

Cornered in the house and already exchanging fire when an enemy soldier would approach, they began to realize the large scale of the attack and knew they would be taking enemy lives in this fight. So they made a vow:

They would not be taken alive.

Death at close range

There were two Jeeps parked in front of their house, and at least one had a radio, but efforts to reach someone for help were fruitless, as battle waged on throughout the country in the concerted attack.

American troops and officials throughout South Vietnam were fighting for their lives; everywhere.

Around 8:30 a.m., Lau saw a grenade fly through the air and land in one of the Jeeps. It exploded and the Jeep burst into flames.

The same happened to the second Jeep moments later. So much for using the Jeeps to escape, Lau recalls.

Around 9:30 a.m., an enemy soldier entered the house.

He walked slowly and stealthily in, toward the right-side bedroom where Bob Hubbard and Jim were, Lau said, describing how the scene unfolded. When the enemy soldier was about 10 feet away from Hubbard, Hubbard stood up, and they both started firing on full automatic. It was like the movies, where chips of wood were flying off the door around Hubbard.

But Hubbards bullets found their mark, and the (enemy) wheeled, staggered a couple of feet and collapsed at our front entrance.

Lau described how seeing a man killed a close range was not the same as firing a rifle at a more-distant target.

I thought about how easy physically it was to kill a person, he wrote, but it is the psychological aspect that is more difficult.

Surviving another day

About 10 minutes later, an explosion blasted the house at the front door from an RPG round (rocket-propelled grenade).

Around 10 a.m., the enemy attacked again, and then, again moved onward.

The men stayed quiet and patient for the rest of the first day of battle. Vaughns condition, meanwhile, continued to worsen as he bled from his wounds.

Day 2 arrived. Around 11 a.m., the enemy returned.

Grenades and gunfire sprayed the house and soon it was again close-quartered fighting.

It seemed as if the (enemy) were now in the other bedroom, as one grenade rolled into our room, Lau recalled. Bob Hubbard dived for it and threw it back outside the living room, where it exploded.

A second grenade rolled in and exploded near the doorway. Lau suffered a small shrapnel wound in his left arm.

They waited for their attackers to charge the room, but to their surprise, no charge came. Most likely, the enemy thought they were dead.

The men knew, however, they had to move. No doubt, more soldiers would be coming, and sooner or later they would be outgunned if they sat there as targets.

Hubbard helped the injured Vaughn through a back window and the men moved to a smaller house.

It wasnt long before their next encounter with NVA, or soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army.

Shots were fired into the small room they occupied. One of them hit Vaughn as he lay on the floor, inflicting yet another serious wound.

Lau recalled Hubbards response:

Hubbard yanked the door opened and fired, killing three NVA.

Hubbard pulled back, yelling that he was out of ammunition.

Lau went to the door to help, but the only NVA he could see were the three men Hubbard had killed.

Once again, the American trio survived.

But how long could it last?

Looking to escape

Lau peered over the dead bodies and saw a usable AK-47 rifle and clips of ammunition. He picked them up, as the American servicemen were about out of any and all supplies.

Little did he know that simply carrying the rifle would later help save his life without even firing a shot.

During a tense moment in a move to find another location, Lau looked toward a building and saw an enemy officer staring at him. But the officer didnt order any shots fired nor took any other action before moving elsewhere.

Lau reasoned that because he was wearing civilian clothes and carrying an AK-47, the officer likely thought he was a North Vietnamese guerrilla fighter.

The men became more desperate as the days passed, supplies ran out, and the enemy continued to hold the city. They knew American forces would retake the area sooner or later, but they had no idea how widespread the attack had been, and it was obvious that their survival depended on finding help.

Lau described more firefights before the men eventually became separated.

Vaughns injuries had become too serious to move him, and he passed away.

Lau became separated from the others because of his small body frame and his ability to crawl through a small culvert. He soon realized the others were making a dash the best way they could.

Villagers during the next several days hid Lau and gave him food and water. They stashed him away in a pig sty, but it kept him alive, as enemy soldiers continued their search for Americans.

Finally, on Feb. 7, 1968, Lau heard the most wonderful words he could hear being shouted in English:

U.S. Marines!

They were looking for survivors, and in Lau, they found one.

Only later did he learn that his fellow serviceman who had fought so heroically and helped save his life, Bob Hubbard of Auburn, was killed by gunfire while trying to cross a bridge in his own escape attempt. One report said he was leading others, armed only with a single hand grenade.

He had been shot at close range and likely died instantly, Lau wrote.

But Lau hasnt forgotten about his brave friend.

And hes coming to Auburn to tell about it.

A sincere dedication

The Marines dont leave anyone behind. Nor do they forget.

Bob Hubbard, who posthumously received the Navy Cross for his bravery, had a lifelong connection to Auburn, and Auburn to Hubbard, who was a 1963 graduate of Auburn University.

Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. in Auburn Universitys Langdon Hall, an all-star cast of heroes will be on hand for a dedication ceremony organized in part by Alabama Assistant Attorney General John Davis, a family friend.

Hubbard spent the last Christmas of his life with my family, Christmas 1967, said Davis, whose wife Barbara, an artist, will present a portrait of Hubbard that later will be displayed in the Nichols Center, home of Auburns ROTC programs.

Among those attending and speaking at the portrait dedication will be Medal of Honor recipient and 1962 Auburn graduate, Marine Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston; and Opelika resident and Medal of Honor recipient, Army Sgt. Maj. Bennie Adkins.

And, retired Marine Capt. Ray Lau.

Semper Fi, Capt. Robert W. Hubbard.

Semper Fi.

******

Troy Turner is editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. His son, Lt. Jonathan Shane Turner, is an active-duty officer serving in the Marines. Turner also has a step-son and son-in-law who served multiple combat tours as Marines, and he has a nephew who is attending the Armys West Point Military Academy. Turner is a 1984 graduate of Auburn University. He can be contacted at tturner@oanow.com.



Troy Turner is editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. His son, Lt. Jonathan Shane Turner, is an active-duty officer serving in the Marines. Turner also has a step-son and son-in-law who served multiple combat tours as Marines, and he has a nephew who is attending the Armys West Point Military Academy. Turner is a 1984 graduate of Auburn University. He can be contacted at tturner@oanow.com.

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ISTANBUL  A Turkish court ordered the release of an American consular employee on Wednesday after almost two years in jail, while also convicting him of terror-related charges.

Hamza Ulucay, a translator who had worked at the United States Consulate in the southern city of Adana for over 30 years, was one of three employees of American consulates in Turkey detained over the past two years, along with several American citizens, in a growing confrontation between the two countries.

Mr. Ulucay was sentenced to four and a half years in jail for aiding an armed terrorist group, but he was ordered released with reductions for time served, the private Demiroren news agency reported.

The court, in the southeastern town of Mardin, ordered that he remain under travel restrictions that will prevent him from leaving the country, but he was able to return home on Wednesday.
MOSCOW  President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has long made the buttressing of beleaguered despots a pillar of his foreign policy  most successfully by deploying the military in Syria  to drive home the point that outside powers should not dabble in other countries internal affairs.

On the face of it, the upheaval in Venezuela would seem to check all his boxes. Venezuela, however, is not Syria.

It is separated from Russia by thousands of miles of ocean; there is no allied regional power like Iran that Moscow can rely on to do the dirty work on the ground; and with the Russian economy suffering long-term anemia, the Kremlin does not really have the means or the domestic support for another costly overseas adventure.

Nevertheless, the question What should Russia do? is raised daily by newspaper columnists and television pundits.
The church decided that the service could be safely ended after a grand compromise between the four parties of the Netherlands governing coalition. The parties provisionally agreed on Tuesday that up to 700 families who had been previously listed for deportation, despite having lived in the Netherlands for more than a decade in some cases, could have their cases reassessed.

The announcement constituted a radical policy reversal for some of the parties. One government minister had previously described the Tamrazyan familys fate as hopeless.

For me, I hope it shows that wherever you are in the world, you can raise your voice, said Tim Hofman, a filmmaker whose documentary about families like the Tamrazyans was instrumental in raising awareness about their fate. Mr. Hofman also started the petition against their deportation.

Though no instructions have yet been issued to the Dutch Civil Service, and no familys fate has been confirmed, Mr. Stegeman said he had been assured by several political leaders on Tuesday night that the status of the Tamrazyan family would be among those reassessed.

That encouraged Mr. Stegeman and his colleagues to halt the service, which began last fall in secret and with few congregants present but ended on Wednesday afternoon with an emotional final communion in front of a packed chapel.

It was very emotional, very humorous. We laughed a lot, we applauded for a long time, Mr. Stegeman said.
============================================= LUKE: An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scottishman walk into a bar. The Englishman wants to leave, so everyone has to leave TOUTS: music This paranoia ,... TITLE: DISPATCH FROM NORTHERN IRELAND TOUTS: Singing KASSIE: How was Northern Ireland considered when this was - MATTHEW CROSSAN / LUKE MCLAUGHLIN - I dont think it was considered at all. JASON FEENAN: Brexit is the exit of the United Kingdom based on the wishes of Great Britain. MATTHEW: (When Article 50 was actually triggered) The exact words that Theresa May used was that because of the wishes- THERESA MAY file: Under accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union MATTHEW: Great Britain consists of Scotland, England and Wales. And the United Kingdom consists of Scotland, England and Wales and Northern Ireland. (MAP) So even in her language it shows that definitely when it first happened there wasnt much thought. MATTHEW: I am struggling to see any positives for the North of Ireland. But that didnt last long. The question of Northern Ireland and its border has frustrated negotiations over Brexit. We came here to find out why. And to understand the consequences for people who live here. For the last century, Northern Ireland has had to wrestle with its identity- torn between Protestants who consider themselves British Unionists and Catholics who mostly identify as Irish Nationalists. The divide has brought years of conflict. In 1968 the Catholic minority rose up against Unionist and British control, spurring 30 years of brutal sectarian violence known here as The Troubles. In 1998 both sides came together under the Good Friday Agreement, It created a somewhat unique reality here. Northern Ireland would continue to be a part of the UK, but also, open its border completely with the rest of Ireland. But the history of The Troubles is inescapable. Murals are everywhere. And Neighborhoods are color coded along sectarian lines. Here in Londonderry, or Derry, depending on whom you ask, there are walls that separate Protestants from Catholics. And the gates are locked every night. For punk band Touts, this us and them mentality, has informed more than just their music. LUKE: Ive lived here 22 years - me whole life, basically and theres places in Derry Ive never been, or Ive never walked to. I think thats crazy. MIRIAM WHYTE: Well its kind of rough,cause theres the Bogside - the mostly Catholic area then theres here, which is clearly the more Protestant area, but very divided, even though theres trying to do more what is it called when they like - integration or something. People told us those divisions have deepened since the Brexit vote. Under Brexit, Northern Ireland would leave with the UK, and the Republic of Ireland would remain in the EU. An idea that appears to overlook the reality on the ground here. We headed east, thinking we could drive along the border - but it wasnt so simple. In part because the border is mostly invisible. To get from one town in Northern Ireland to another, we crossed into the Republic of Ireland multiple times - without even realizing it. The roads continuously zigzag across international lines. Nat sound Kassie: Oh! We just crossed. Speaker: Ah good morning everyone, my name is Florence and welcome to our cross-border conference, Brexit and Young People, Can You Hear Us? These high school students live in border communities. Many commute seamlessly from one side to the other to attend school. SPEAKER: The project recruits young people from both Protestant and Catholic communities on both sides of border. LARRY: Now does anyone have some strong views on that like how would you see yourselves different than someone in the north? GIRL: If you have an Irish passport, in my mind youre Irish, doesnt matter where youre parents are from, doesnt matter what background you have, if you carry an Irish passport, youre Irish. Its part of the Good Friday agreement: residents of Northern Ireland can choose a British or Irish passport. Or both. DOIRE FINN: People living in Northern Ireland are allowed to have a British passport and an Irish passport and I think I identify as Irish but I mean I hold a British passport so really, for my identity isnt ever something that in my family was a massive issue. My parents kind of said, You identify as how you feel and I think that that was a really nice way to bring us up. DOIRE: The census that was happening here you could either say you were Irish or British my mum wanted to identify as European and they were like, Well, youre not allowed and she was like, No, Im identifying myself as European. And they were like You have to pick. By aiming to separate the UK from the EU, Brexit could interrupt the free flow of people and goods - and violate the Good Friday Agreement. ALAN (walking with Kassie) - I hope, I hope when youve got photographs my cows now, that we finish up getting a better price for these cows. Alan Mc Farland raises cattle and sheep a few miles north of the border. But he gets his feed from a distributor in the South. Its a transaction that happens regularly, without border checks, customs duties or tariffs. ALAN McFARLAND: No one knows what the final result is yet going to be - we just approach our business each and every day having made an assumption that post-Brexit we will be trading with the same people on the same terms. KASSIE: Did you feel strongly about staying or leaving? ALAN: I was actually undecided in the matter, to the extent that I didnt vote at all. But having that said in Northern Ireland the majority of the vote was remaining in the E.U. **GRAPHIC of vote breakdown** ALAN: But one thing I would say you always have the right to change is to change your mind - I would be in favor of a second referendum, to do away with the ambiguity. Thats because many people here remember the border as a source of hostility and violence. And a whole generation since then has grown up without one. HARD BORDER MONTAGE FARMER: NO HARD BORDER GIRL: HARD BORDER LEAD TO TROUBLE SOMEONE ELSE: IT JUST MAKES THINGS HARDER But when Prime Minister Theresa May tried to introduce a provision.. MONTAGE: BACKSTOP BACKSTOP ..that would guarantee an exit without a hard border in Northern Ireland, hardline Brexiters rejected it...arguing an open border would essentially keep the UK tethered to the EU. So no hard border, no deal, and so far no Brexit. ... Also, no sense of where all this could lead. ALAN: I think there should be a second referendum FR. McVEIGH (287_2358.MFX 09:08): I want to see Ireland reunified. Because I think its the only hope for this island. Economically, culturally. ANGLICAN: We need to stay with England for their money And while everyone saidsays they didntdont want a return to violence, the uncertainty seems to be threatening what is already a fragile peace. //testing the countrys fragile peace. (i think that can cover the pessimists and optimists) Police are investigating a recent bombing outside the courthouse in Londonderry reminder that the past is not far behind. ANGLICAN: We were in the sun and now Brexit destroyed the sun SIOBHAN: If there is a hard Brexit I think there will be damaged but we will have to be OK at the end of it. And weve been through harder times than this before. FIRST NAME, LAST NAME Siobhan is a mental health expert who studieds? the effects of the countrys history on mental health. SIOBHAN: Well, weve got to adopt a trauma-informed approach and think about everything from the perspective of those whove been a victim of violence. We have no way of describing it. We have no common narrative. And its going to take a while for us to generate those materials. TOUTS: This paranoia, when will it end, Ive heard it all before and Im hearing it again. DAOIRE: I think Im just really scared about the future of Northern Ireland. I love living here and I think its a lovely place to be. The craics really good and everyones really friendly and I dont want that to be dragged backwards into a past that was really, really dark for so many people. And I think, you know, theres so many good things about Northern Ireland and I just dont want those to go away. (credits with funny tag of Farmer asking about our Mexican border) Producer Kassie Bracken Cinematography Souki Mehdaoui Editor Shane ONeill Senior Producer Mona El-Naggar Graphics Aaron Byrd Nicole Fineman Dave Horn Archival Research Dahlia Kozlowsky Archival Footage Tktktk Tktktk Tktktk Aerial Cinematography Adithya Sambamurthy Executive Producer Marcelle Hopkins SIOBHAN: In 2008 we studied the Northern Ireland population and we asked people whether they had witnessed violent events that were related to the troubles such as bombings and shootings and we found that 39% of the population had. Theres some evidence that biological changes that happen in response to trauma, that thats passed to the next generation and in effect its programming the next generation to be able to respond more quickly and rapidly if theres a bombing or a shooting or whatever. But of course when a child has that it increases the risk of mental illness. Um, thereve been more deaths by suicide since the signing of the Good Friday agreement than there were through the whole of the troubles through violence. END!!!******* BENCHWARMERS SIOBHAN ONEILL: I mean the hard border is very symbolic I think if that happened theres a place to attack theres a place to focus that anger. Siobhan ONeill is a leading mental health researcher who has studied the legacy of the Troubles SIOBHAN: Part of the GFA was that British forces that were there that that would no longer be the case and that there would be free movement. Anth the remove of the border was an amazing think and now if you pass through the border theres absolutely no evidence of it. You would maybe see that the signs that the speed limits were miles and then kilometeres and that would really be it. Or Its called bomb scare We grow up with it, not as bad as it used to be Match shots of Northern Ireland today Match shots of The Undertones with the Touts <But I also think things can regressyou get a groundswell and everything moves forward 10 or 15 years and then one thing kicks in and it backslides Kassie: is that Brexit?> OPEN BEAT ONE - INTRO TOUTS An afterthought during the Brexit referendum in 2016, Northern Ireland and how do deal with its Southern Border if and when it leaves the EU has been the main issue threatening the entire deal. (MAYBE A MAP HERE THAT SHOWS REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (E.U) and NORTHERN IRELAND (U.K) But to understand why this remains unresolved two years later, and whats at stake in the decision you need to know a bit about recent history in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was created in 1922. But since its creation its been characterized by conflict between two groups, each claiming the In 1968 hostilities intensified during the period known as the troubles An afterthought during the Brexit referendum in 2016, Northern Ireland and the unresolved issue of how do deal with its Southern Border when it leaves the EU now threaten the deals collapse. (MAYBE A MAP HERE THAT SHOWS REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (E.U) and NORTHERN IRELAND (U.K) But to understand why this remains unresolved two years later, and whats at stake-you need to know a bit about the history of Northern Ireland and the border itself. In Derry, The Touts singer and drummer werent old enough to vote in the referendum, but they live in the country many expect to be most impacted by the deal. We drove The singer and drummer werent old enough to vote in the referendum, but they live in the country many expect to be most impacted by the deal. Theirs is the generation that grew up after the good Friday agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence has only known relative peace in the region. ASSEMBLY 031019 - KASSIE NOTES Notes - I think we need in the narration a sense that, despite the fact this generation is defined by growing up in peace, there are still deep divides and conflict. Brexit has already impacted this by exacerbating polarization and creating economic uncertainty and anxiety that violence could return. I would love to try to use the Touts/kids in park/Derry to establish the us v them nature of Northern Ireland - I agree the piece is not about sectarianism per se, but it sets up and personalizes the visual sense of place - the dispatchy-ness - peace walls and murals, and also then might have more impact when we see that it seems most young people are united in the feeling like they werent considered. Also, Brexit was prompted in large part by the us v them mentality in England, but in NI, as compared to the rest of UK, they already have their own us v them which continues today. **** Its here in Derry where many say The Troubles began, in 1968, - when the predominantly Catholic community protested against housing and employment discrimination. A civil rights march was brutally shut down by police/army. It led to roughly 30 years of sectarian violence between the predominantly Catholic Nationalists who consider themselves Irish, and the Unionists, who consider themselves British, the majority, Protestant. BEAT TWO: THE BREXIT Generation in Northern Ireland - Youth/Derry/Recent History - fear of retriggering violence felt most acutely by people nearest the border BEAT THREE: YOUNG PEOPLES CONFERENCE Challenging Identity, Good Friday - which allowed people to claim Irish or British citizenships - the idea that the fluidity of movement will be stopped BEAT FOUR: along the actual border between the countries, it is much more complicated - interwoven - FARMER BEAT FIVE: The members of Touts call Derry their home. Many say its here where the period known as the The Troubles began, in 1968, - when the predominantly Catholic community protested against housing and employment discrimination and unfair voting policies under British rule. But some claimed it to be a cover for paramilitary actors, and a peaceful civil rights march was halted by police in a brutal crackdown. 30 years of deadly sectarian violence followed between the predominantly Catholic Nationalists who consider themselves Irish, and the Unionists, who identify as British - the majority, Protestant. Sound up on Touts Touts may have grown up in the comparatively peaceful era marked by the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. But their city, called Derry by nationalists and Londonderry by unionists remains fractured. The tensions never way and in fact many say Brexit has exacerbated it TOUTS: Line about divisions still there Schools are still mostly segregated along sectarian lines. As are neighborhoods. A TKTK fence/wall helps secure the border between a Catholic community and a Protestant community. Every night, it is locked for protection. TOUTS Line about impact of Brexit already? Or line about Brexit? Just 100 feet away from the wall, in the mostly Protestant community The Fountain, we spoke with a group of teenagers about TKTK MIRIAM: Nearly everyone I spoke with mentioned/agreed the same worst case scenario HARD BORDER MONTAGE To impose a hard border, with check points and official crossings would cause headaches both practically and symbolically. And thats where the Irish backstop comes in. THERESA MAY: The Irish backstop was the UKs provision to ensure that Brexit would not Sounds good, but The problem is, Northern Ireland is in a customs union that requires a customs border PROTESTANT PRIEST: WE had a number of years that we thought we were seeing the sunshine, and now with Brexit its as if the sun has gone behind the clouds. GIRL: Its going to become again a situation of us and them. LARRY: Who is them and us? GIRL: LIke Catholics and Protestants or Irish people and people from Northern Ireland, were not going to see each other as the same country LARRY youre saying were both live in the same country, in my mind thats true, but yet I live under a British jurisdiction, Kassie: they have a lot to be fucked about Cut to: kids workshop Yeah, these kids are confused because this shit is confusing. Brexit, and Northern Ireland itself. 45 second history lesson of Northern Ireland And this is the legacy theyve inherited. NOW made worse by Brexit! Borders are usually about keeping people in or keeping people out, In this case, But its about something more nuanced and complicated, like the border itself DRONE SHOT OF MEANDERING BORDER And Ireland, with its taste for storytelling and humor has a singular relationship with its own border People wandering in and out, funny smuggling stories. LOYALISTS EQUANIMOUS STATEMENT ABOUT BREXIT (maybe from mental health professor) CONCLUSION: AT THE BAR IN DERRY WITH THE TOUTS (with compelling TOUT SOT) One of the other key stipulations of the Good Friday agreement was a free border with the south. Now, Brexit is threatening this. Its the thing people I spoke with said worried them most. HARD BORDER Montage. Before I got here Id planned to drive along the border - it wasnt so simple. Heres the border. On my TKTK mile journey from TK to TK, I crossed international lines/crossed TKTK times. THIS SECTION TBA BASED ON GRAPHIC I often didnt even realize Id crossed. Thirty years ago, this crossing would have looked more like this: FR. McVEIGH (287_2356.MXF 03:23)): The hardline Brexit people are determined to leave without a deal if necessary, or with a deal without a backstop - (thats the only thing thats going to satisfy them, and the DUP who are propping up the London government) 04:50 The Brexiteers in London dont care all that much. Father Joe McVeigh grew up along the border and remembers the checkpoints as violent hotspots. Sound up: Fr. McVeigh shows Kassie photos of the border But this bridge at the border in Belleek shows none of the vestiges of Thats help spur a new momentum for a united Ireland. 13:35 If the Brexit people want to continue their line, they have to consider whats going to happen to us. We needed to be treated separately and differently. The fear of a hard border, with all of the economic and practical implications has given rise to another potential outcome. FR. McVEIGH (287_2358.MFX 09:08): I want to see Ireland reunified. Because I think its the only hope for this island. Economically, culturally. (08:54 It has to happen, it just has to happen 09:45 Partition has run out of road. ) FARMER: Voted to remain in the EU. So leaving the EU would go against the voting majority of Northern Ireland. But leaving the UK altogether would go against the wishes of some of Northern Irelands Protestant majority. ANGLICAN: Protestant people would certainly be nervous of any changes. Theres a huge amount of money that comes from Westminster and London. Ironically, the hardline Brexit position has revived some calls for a United Ireland FR. McVEIGH : I want to see Ireland reunified. Because I think its the only hope for this island. But positions like Friar McVeighs arent very popular, especially among Protestants in Northern Irelands 6 counties, who would become a minority overnight if they joined Irelands 26 as one country. So maybe they could have a political border that remains somewhat relaxed. Thats called a Soft Border or an Irish Backstop. Theresa May: Irish Backstop montage But no one really knows how that would work or what it would look like, which is why its been such a bee in the bonnet of the Brexit process. Some hardline Brexiters are calling for the re-establishment of a hard border, a fringe position that proved very unpopular with most of the people I met while I was here: HARD BORDER MONTAGE The hard border was both inconvenient and psychologically fraught. TO SIOBHAN Leaving the United Kingdom altogether would mean losing money from England. The DUP advocates it effectively mean keeping the And thats why the Irish backstop came up and failed?. THERESA MAY: BACKSTOP MONTAGE. When May tried to introduce a deal that said no hard border, hard brexiteers, including forcing Britain to play by the rules of a single European market even after it separates from the EU, it wouldnt pass. It was meant to guarantee that there would be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after the UK separates from the EU. But then, how and where would goods undergo checks as they travel between the UK and the EU. Theres no easy answer? The backstop provision says Britain should continue to play by the rules of a single European market until politicians can agree on how and where goods will undergo checks as they travel between the UK and the EU. But how can the UK leave without violating the terms of the peace treaty that calls for an open border here? Which is, in part, why politicians do not agree on the terms of the backstop, and its unclear if they ever will. They didnt want to feel tethered to the EU. It leaves the question of Brexit unsolved and opens up new questions for Northern Ireland. It all leads to this renewed interest among some people for a united ireland. Of leaving the UK altogether. Siobhan ONeill is a leading mental health researcher who has studied the legacy of the Troubles, And the border debate has, somewhat ironically, revived an old argument (for reuniting the north with the south) Is FR. McVEIGH (287_2358.MFX 09:08): I want to see Ireland reunified. Because I think its the only hope for this island. Economically, culturally. The present is more closely tied to the past here than Theres been a fragile peace here for 20 years but Brexit Well, weve got to adopt a trauma-informed approach and think about everything from the perspective of those whove been a victim of violence. We have no way of describing it. We have no common narrative. And its going to take a while for us to generate those materials. But despite 20 years of fragile peace And Brexit has also had a real psychological impact on the citizens of Northern Ireland For a country that is only a generation away from one of the most bitter conflicts in modern history the tumult How will Northern Ireland SIOBHAN: LINE ABOUT HOW BREXIT HAS ALREADY HAD AN IMPACT
BRUSSELS  After Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, its leaders were in a panic. The bloc was mired in a migration crisis, and anti-Europe, populist forces were gaining. Britains decision seemed to herald the start of a great unraveling.

Two years later, as Britains exit from the bloc, or Brexit, looks increasingly messy and self-destructive, there is a growing sense, even in the populist corners of the continent, that if this is what leaving looks like, no, thank you.

Nothing has brought the European Union together quite as much as Britains chaotic breakdown.

A country is leaving and has gotten itself into a right old mess, making itself ridiculous to its European partners, said Rosa Balfour, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

The challenges facing Europe  low growth, eurozone governance, migration, debt, border security and populism  have by no means gone away. Nor has Europe found consensus on how to deal with them.
SEOUL, South Korea  A close political ally of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring with bloggers to illegally influence public opinion before Mr. Moons election in 2017.

The politician, Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo of South Gyeongsang Province in the countrys southeast, was taken to prison shortly after Seoul Central District Court convicted and sentenced him on Wednesday.

No evidence has emerged that Mr. Moon was aware of Mr. Kims activities. But the verdict is a political setback for the president, for whom Mr. Kim was a key adviser during the 2017 presidential campaign, in which Mr. Moon ran as a champion of clean politics.

Mr. Kim was accused of working with a blogger named Kim Dong-won, known widely by his alias, Druking, to sway online opinion in favor of Mr. Moon, both before and after the election.
MANILA  A grenade was lobbed into a mosque in the southern Philippines before dawn on Wednesday, killing two Muslim religious leaders, in the second attack in days on a place of worship in the restive south, officials said.

The attack, in the city of Zamboanga, occurred three days after a bombing at a cathedral on the nearby island of Jolo, which killed 20 people outright. More than 100 people were wounded in that attack, one of whom died on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 21.

The police said it was too soon to identify a motive for the Wednesday mosque attack.

The countrys defense secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, said it was unlikely that the two bombings were connected.

Were still looking at it, but we havent seen any connection, Mr. Lorenzana told reporters, discounting the possibility that the mosque attack was revenge for the cathedral bombing. The president has said in Jolo that the Christians and Muslims have been coexisting for a hundred years and there have never been revenge attacks.
The official said the language of Mr. Ghanis letter was broad  asking for teams from both sides to discuss details of where costs could be reduced, and how the troop levels could be brought down from the current 14,000 to a more efficient level.

The official said the possibilities they had envisioned could save as much as $2 billion a year for the United States, drawing from areas such as maintenance contracts, and reduce the level of American troops to as low a 3,000.

Mr. Ghani alluded to such savings during an appearance last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he argued for caution in any American withdrawal.

The United States as a sovereign power, as a global power, is entitled to leave, he said. But we need to get the departure right. Are the fundamental reasons that brought the United States to Afghanistan  are those objectives accomplished? The first issue is cost. We completely agree that the cost must come down, must become more efficient.

The United States Embassy in Kabul declined through a spokesperson to comment on Mr. Ghanis letter to Mr. Trump, saying we are not going to get into the specifics of diplomatic conversations.

It was not immediately clear on Tuesday whether Mr. Trump had received the letter yet. It was sent to him via Alice Wells, the principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, who had been visiting Kabul. A spokesman for Mr. Ghani also declined to discuss the letter.

Mr. Ghani has found himself increasingly at odds with other members of the Afghan political elite, who are now rallying around the American effort to negotiate with the Taliban. They are painting Mr. Ghani as an obstacle to peace.
CARACAS, Venezuela  President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela warned Americans in a video posted on Wednesday that intervening in his country would lead to a Vietnam worse than they can imagine.

The video, posted on his social media accounts, came out on the same day Mr. Maduro gave an interview to Russias RIA news agency in which he seemed more conciliatory, saying he was open to talks with the countrys opposition but rejecting calls for a new election.

I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition, Mr. Maduro said, naming Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and Russia among possible mediators, but giving no indication of having made progress in arranging the talks.

The United States last week recognized Venezuelas opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as the countrys acting president, as have 26 other countries.
For the latest developments, read our Thursday live briefing on the polar vortex here.

CHICAGO  A merciless cold crippled the Midwest on Wednesday, halting planes and trains, shuttering schools and prompting officials in Detroit, Minneapolis and Chicago to open emergency warming centers for the homeless and vulnerable.

The bitter weather was believed to be tied to the deaths of at least eight people, including a man thought to have collapsed after shoveling snow and frozen to death in his Milwaukee garage. Hospitals saw a steady stream of patients reporting symptoms of frostbite.

Temperatures in Minneapolis dipped as low as minus 28, with the wind chill reaching minus 53, the National Weather Service said. Fargo, N.D., reached minus 33; Milwaukee, minus 20. The worst of the cold was feared overnight into Thursday, when meteorologists predicted that temperatures could dip to minus 27 in Chicago, a record for the city. The Midwest was expected to see miserable temperatures through Thursday, and the cold air was moving east.

Across the Midwest on Wednesday, residents who are used to carrying on with lifes routines despite bad weather had little choice but to shiver, stay indoors and make the best of it, even as the insides of their windows became ominously lined with ice. Office workers were stuck at home. Parents scrambled for last-minute child care. In Michigan, a gas company asked customers to use less natural gas to heat their houses after a fire at a compressor station.
If youre going to ignore that information, then youre going to make poor decisions, Mr. Schiff said in an interview on Wednesday. He added, It means the country is fundamentally less safe.

Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, defended the intelligence agencies on Wednesday, saying, They are doing a very difficult job and they are actually trying to advance the presidents priorities.

Tuesdays testimony was linked to the release of the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, a report to Congress that ranks threats to American national security from around the world and provides the public with an unclassified and up-to-date summary of the most pressing threats.

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, had told lawmakers that North Koreas leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival. He said that there was some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization in the country and that most of what it had dismantled was reversible. Mr. Trump is expected to meet with North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un, next month.

Mr. Trump announced in December a plan to withdraw American troops from Syria after concluding that we have won against the Islamic State. Prominent members of his own party have denounced what Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, on Tuesday called a precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

While it is unusual for a president to pick a fight with his intelligence chiefs, this is not the first time for Mr. Trump. After the 2016 election and before he took office in 2017, Mr. Trump was publicly skeptical of intelligence conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and he mocked intelligence agencies for their role in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

_____________________

 A new American intelligence assessment of global threats concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activity needed to make a bomb. Their conclusions challenged President Trumps assertions on both countries.

 As Senator Kamala Harris attempts her own version of former President Barack Obamas historic rise from first-term senator to the White House, she is likely to need the same strong support from black voters that Mr. Obama attracted in 2008. It may not come easily.

 The State Department said that it had given the Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaido, the right to control assets and property in the United States bank accounts of the government of Venezuela.
The road to the Democratic nomination would likely be fraught for any moderate, especially one who would not break a historic barrier by virtue of identity, as Barack Obama did in 2008. To some Democrats, a more centrist message might too closely echo Hillary Clintons unsuccessful 2016 campaign, which left many in the party determined to focus on mobilizing the left over pursuing the middle. And the most vocal Democratic factions have shown little interest so far in settling for something other than a liberal champion, on issues from taxation and business regulation to criminal justice and gender equality.

Ms. Warren has emerged as something of an intellectual pacesetter for liberal Democrats on economic issues, including her proposal to tax the wealth of households with assets greater than $50 million at a rate of two or three percent per year. And on Monday Ms. Harris, whose signature proposal has been a more conventional middle-class tax cut, called in a CNN interview for the elimination of private health insurance as part of a shift toward a Medicare for all single-payer health care.

Several other liberals of differing stripes are likely to join the race soon, including Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Cory Booker of New Jersey; others are considering it seriously, like Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Polls of Democratic voters offer mixed signals about how liberal they want their nominee to be. There is no question the party has moved leftward: the Gallup Poll found this month that for the first time in decades, a majority of Democrats describe themselves as liberal, while just 34 percent now call themselves moderate. And taxing the rich is broadly popular, with a sizable majority of Americans believing wealthy people and corporations pay too little to the government.

People have grown more liberal and more willing to call themselves liberal, said Lydia Saad, a senior editor at Gallup, cautioning that ideology did not necessarily predict voting behavior: The public is very fungible in terms of who they will accept as a leader, based on things that seem to go beyond ideology.

Arkadi Gerney, a Democratic strategist who runs the Hub Project, a liberal advocacy group that has focused heavily on taxes, said that intensive issue polling had consistently found powerful support for raising taxes on the wealthy, not just among Democrats but also among working-class white voters in Mr. Trumps base.
What Was Said

Jake Tapper, CNN anchor: When you were attorney general, you opposed legislation that would have required your office to investigate fatal shootings involving police officers. Why did you oppose that bill?



Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California: So, I did not oppose the bill. I had a process when I was attorney general of not weighing in on bills and initiatives, because as attorney general, I had a responsibility for writing the title and summary. So I did not weigh in.

 at a CNN town hall in Iowa on Monday

This is misleading.

Mr. Tapper was referring to Assembly Bill 86, introduced in the California Legislature in 2015, which would have required the attorney generals office to appoint a special prosecutor to examine fatal shootings by the police.

Ms. Harris, who formally entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination this week, did not take a public position on the legislation in question. But she had expressed a general disagreement with its aims, and the bills sponsor said she declined to support it.

A spokeswoman for her campaign acknowledged on Wednesday that Ms. Harris expressed that she had concern about taking discretion away from local district attorneys who are held accountable by their constituents. Ms. Harris made statements to that effect in 2014 and 2016, and could have repeated this rationale during the CNN appearance.

In an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle before the police shooting bill was introduced, Ms. Harris said, I dont think it would be good public policy to take the discretion from elected district attorneys.
She was dying.

Ms. Dockerys death at age 36 underscores the dangers of the nations jails, where inmates are either doing time for the least serious crimes or have not been convicted of the charges against them. Jails often have fewer resources than prisons and, like the work-release center here in Goshen, lack medical staff. Illness and injury can go untreated and every week, it seems, brings a new report of an unsafe jail or a death that was likely preventable.

It would be a national scandal if people realized exactly how bad it was and how much abuse inmates are subjected to when they become sick inside prisons and jails, said William R. Claiborne, a lawyer in Savannah, Ga., who specializes in cases of inadequate medical care, such as one in which an inmate was told he was faking fainting spells, only to die of congestive heart failure. The more marginalized that you are, the more likely you are to not be believed, the more likely you are to get denied care, Mr. Claiborne said.

The problem is worse, he said, for those already discounted by society: As a black woman and a drug user, Ms. Dockery was in that category. Jails have not adapted to the growth of the number of female inmates, which has far outpaced the growth in the number of men, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a group that advocates criminal justice changes and is focused on jail, and experts say that racial bias has contributed to worse health outcomes for black women.

In 2015, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old black woman jailed after a traffic stop in Waller County, Tex., hanged herself in a cell. In December in Bexar County, Tex., Janice Dotson-Stephens, who was black and mentally ill, was ignored to death, as her lawyer put it, after her family had been told that she was not even in custody.

Ms. Dockery was sent to the work-release center for just shy of a year after she violated probation on a shoplifting conviction. Because she had failed a drug test on arrival, officers dismissed her complaints as those of a user in withdrawal, an ordeal that is rarely life-threatening. But she died of sepsis, probably caused by a perforated ulcer in her intestine, according to James P. Elliott, the Elkhart County coroner.
Very few issues can bring together lawmakers of both parties. Animal cruelty is one of them.

Thats why a bipartisan pair of congressional lawmakers from Florida is trying to close a gaping loophole in federal law: If you record yourself abusing an animal, you can face federal charges for documenting it, but not for the act of cruelty itself.

The lawmakers, Representative Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Representative Ted Deutch, a Democrat, introduced a bill this month that would impose a federal ban on animal abuse.

What would the bill do?

The bill, known as the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, was introduced last week. It would build on a 2010 law that criminalized making or distributing videos depicting the killing or torture of animals.

While the 2010 law targeted the documentation of such acts, the new bill targets the acts themselves. Anyone convicted of intentionally crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling or otherwise seriously harming an animal would face federal felony charges, fines and up to seven years in prison.
In early interviews, Mr. Schultz has positioned himself as a centrist who could win voters who are dissatisfied with both parties. This is somewhat more like Mr. Perot, who capitalized on populist dissatisfaction in 1992. Perhaps a Schultz bid could even be thought of as the reverse of Mr. Perots bid: a revolt of pragmatic, centrist voters against newly resurgent populism.

Dissatisfied centrists are well represented in the American elite, but not across the American electorate. According to a Pew Research survey of more than 5,000 Americans in 2017, 78 percent of registered voters have a favorable view of at least one major party, and only 18 percent have an unfavorable view of both. Similarly, only 16 percent say both parties are too extreme, according to the survey.

These dissatisfied centrist voters fit the profile of affluent, socially moderate and fiscally conservative suburban voters. They are twice as likely to make more than $100,000 per year than voters who have a favorable view of a party, and 78 percent of these voters say Democrats too often see government as the only way to solve problems.

Like Mr. Schultz, who built up Starbucks starting in Seattle, these affluent voters also tend to be men and are overrepresented in the West. On balance, it is a group with libertarian instincts and corporate sympathies.

Mr. Schultz could certainly play to these voters, but it is not a particularly electorally fruitful group. In an analysis of the Voter Study Group, Lee Drutman, a political scientist, found that just 4 percent of voters were conservative on economic issues and liberal on cultural issues. In comparison, populists represented 29 percent of the 2018 electorate. Mr. Schultzs candidacy might be the reverse of Mr. Perots, but Mr. Perots pitch probably had broader appeal.

During parts of the 1992 campaign, Mr. Perot also had the benefit of a president with an approval rating in the low 30s and upper 20s. In theory, that was low enough to create an opening for a centrist independent candidate who could win with as little as 35 percent of the vote if he drew evenly from both parties. In the end, Mr. Perot won 19 percent, though at times he held significantly more support in the polls.
But in general, prices jumped. That was surprising given that product costs typically fall as technologies mature and parts become widely available, which was what happened with televisions.

The more I examined the pricing, though, the more evidence there was that the latest Apple products are more expensive to make. Apple also appears to be under pressure to introduce more complex innovations to compete in the brutal technology market.

Take a look at the companys gross profit margin, or the money it makes from products after the cost to make and sell them is factored in. If Apples gross margins are lower today even though prices are higher, that indicates the products cost more to make.

And that is indeed the case. Toni Sacconaghi, a financial analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein who has studied Apple for years, estimated that the companys gross margins for the iPhone were below 40 percent, down from more than 50 percent several years ago.

Mr. Sacconaghi said the shrinking margins demonstrated how tough it had become to compete in the technology market. Apple has had to add features like stronger metals, sophisticated cameras, high-resolution displays, advanced chips and faster wireless connectivity while trimming back on some profit given that rival products from the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo have become very capable. If Apple had wanted to keep profit margins consistent with past years, he said, it would have had to raise prices even higher and risk losing sales.

You have to put in more to stay competitive, or youre going to lose share, he said.

Jared Wiesel, a partner at Revenue Analytics, a pricing and sales consulting firm, said Apple was still in a unique position to introduce broad price increases. Other companies, such as grocery brands, lack the clout to do so because their competitors might undercut them and lure away customers.

Theyre in the very enviable position that they can, by and large, take major action across the board without, so far, seeing a major erosion of loyalty as a result, Mr. Wiesel said.
NEW DELHI  On Friday, Indian consumers will wake up to an emptier, more expensive version of Amazons shopping service.

Gone will be iPhones and cheap jumbo packs of Pampers diapers. Fewer varieties of Maybelline cosmetics will be available, and Amazons own Echo smart speakers will vanish entirely.

In all, more than 400,000 items that account for nearly a third of Amazons estimated $6 billion in annual sales in India will probably disappear at least temporarily from the local version of the companys service, as Amazon tries to comply with new e-commerce rules imposed by the Indian government.

Amazon, which had structured its operations carefully to adhere to a 2016 revision to the countrys e-commerce rules, said it had asked the Indian government to clarify the new policy and give it an additional four months to comply. We remain committed to be compliant to all local laws, rules and regulations, Amazon said in a statement.
If youre a New Yorker with disposable income and a fondness for restaurants, youve likely done one of the following things: eaten a locally sourced carrot; purchased New York-raised cuts of meat at a small neighborhood shop; had dinner in Williamsburg; listened to a server rattle off the provenance of each component of your dish; sipped a glass of natural wine to the tune of some cool but obscure music.

You can trace all of these experiences  now so common theyve evolved into cliches  back to one place: Diner, a 60-seat Williamsburg restaurant that serves locally sourced and simply prepared food out of a refurbished dining car, which opened 20 years ago this month. Over the past two decades, its proven to be one of the citys most influential restaurants, turning a neighborhood full of artists lofts and not much else into a culinary destination. Through its casual-hip service and ad hoc vibe  and a fanatical interest in all things locally and sustainably sourced  it has created a new blueprint for restaurants and hospitality that has since been copied around the world.

[Sign up here for the T List newsletter, a weekly roundup of what T Magazine editors are noticing and coveting now.]
Over the past decade, the Denisova Cave in Siberia has yielded some of the most fascinating fossils ever found. To the naked eye, they are not much to look at  a few teeth, bits of bone.

But the fossils contain DNA dating back tens of thousands of years. That genetic material shows that Denisovans were a distinct branch of human evolution, a lost lineage.

At some point in the distant past, the Denisovans disappeared  but not before interbreeding with modern humans. Today, people in places like East Asia and New Guinea still carry fragments of Denisovan DNA.

One of the biggest obstacles to understanding the Denisovans is their age. Standard methods for dating these fossils have left scientists perplexed.
The school district later ended that program, and in 2014, Mr. Caputo-Pearl was elected president of the United Teachers Los Angeles, the local union. He represented a new, more militant generation of teachers union leaders. This month, he led 30,000 educators in a weeklong strike for higher pay and more classroom funding, and against the growth of the charter school sector. Its a story I covered with Jennifer Medina, my fantastic National desk colleague in Los Angeles, and our editors Julie Bloom, Dave Kim and Marc Lacey.

Ive been reporting on education for 13 years, but I am absolutely stunned by the extent to which teachers strikes and walkouts are now a day-to-day part of my job. The Los Angeles action was the eighth mass teacher protest Ive reported on in just 11 months, shutting down schools for one million students across the country. The reappearance of Mr. Caputo-Pearl in my professional life was just one of several uncanny moments that have made me, at age 34, feel old in beat-reporter years. So much has changed in education, as the focus shifts from calling out and overhauling bad teachers and schools to listening more carefully to what educators say about their working conditions and how students are affected by them.

I was at the Democratic National Convention in 2008, when one of the hottest tickets was to a panel discussion in which rising stars in the party, including Cory Booker, then the mayor of Newark, spoke harshly of teachers unions and their opposition to charter schools, which are publicly funded, privately run and generally not unionized. Union leaders argue that charters draw public dollars and students away from traditional schools like Crenshaw High.

Back then, it was hip for young Democrats to be like Barack Obama, supportive of school choice and somewhat critical of teachers unions. But now, the winds have changed pretty drastically. The revival of democratic socialism within the party has left many elected officials  even Mr. Booker  much more hesitant, it seems, to critique organized labor. Across the country, red-clad teachers on strike, sometimes dancing and singing, have won the affection of grass-roots progressives over the past year, leading to a new political dynamic around education, just as the Democratic primary field for 2020 emerges. The emphasis now is on what education experts call inputs  classroom funding, teacher pay, and students access to social workers and guidance counselors  and less on outputs, like test scores or graduation rates.

The truth is, both inputs and outputs are important. In some ways, continuing to cover the war between union leaders and charter school supporters frustrates and exhausts me. Charter schools are a growing part of our educational landscape because parents are always looking for more good options when it comes to how and where to educate their children. On the other hand, while politicians and wealthy philanthropists have always given outsize attention to charters, they educate just about 6 percent of American public school children, some three million students. In many ways, the battle is ideological, over what role choice should play in our education system. Will public-sector competition between charters and traditional schools lead to improvement, or simply provoke a melee over scarce taxpayer dollars? So far, both outcomes, Ive observed, are very real across the country.
It was surely no accident that on Jan. 23, the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the countrys legitimate president. That challenge to President Nicolas Maduro occurred on the anniversary of a military coup in 1958 that ended a decade of dictatorship and ushered in an era of Venezuelan democracy and economic progress.

Venezuelas military has long been a kingmaker at defining democratic moments. In addition to the 1958 coup, it helped to install a lion of Venezuelan democracy, Romulo Betancourt, in the presidency in 1945 and was central to returning Hugo Chavez to office after he was displaced in a coup in 2002. That helps explain why Mr. Guaido has appealed to the military by, for instance, persuading the National Assembly to pass an amnesty law for those who act in favor of the restitution of democracy in Venezuela.

Venezuela is not exceptional. In many countries, the military has played a critical role in establishing democracy. To be sure, it often exacts a steep price in the process, pushing for economic and institutional distortions to democracy that hamper its responsiveness to the will of the majority. In countries like Chile, Indonesia, Myanmar and Pakistan, coaxing powerful and entrenched militaries from power has required not just amnesty guarantees but also carving out economic domains for them to run autonomously and in many cases shunting profits directly to the military without any congressional authority to the contrary. Often these perks are then protected politically through constitutional provisions that grant outgoing authoritarians disproportionate political power or make the transition deal very difficult to overturn.

In Venezuela, Mr. Guaidos outreach, at least initially, was not persuasive: The defense minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, flanked by Venezuelas top military brass, publicly cast the militarys lot with Mr. Maduro. He proclaimed that Mr. Guaidos declaration represented a grave danger to national sovereignty and public order and that the military would remain loyal to the Constitution.
With the political madness of recent weeks  the shutdown and the smackdowns, the incitements and the indictments  its easy to forget there is much actual governing to be done by the new Congress: bills to introduce, nominees to consider and, for House Democrats in particular, oversight of the executive branch to conduct. Major oversight.

Attempting to hold this administration to account will be among the new Democratic majoritys most vital, and most fraught, duties  especially after two years of cowed Republicans letting the president operate unchecked. A White House has perhaps never more vividly demonstrated the need for some countervailing force to check its corruption and incompetence, its disdain for the Constitution and its assault on democratic norms.

But precisely because there are so many legitimate avenues of inquiry, Democrats must proceed with caution to avoid looking as though theyre piling on in a punitive or grossly partisan manner. While many Democrats and not a few anti-Trump Republicans would doubtless be delighted to see the president subjected to daily investigative torture, House Democrats cannot afford to alienate the independents and swing voters needed to send him packing in 2020. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that a plurality of independents already expect the new House majority to go overboard with its oversight, and even some Democratic lawmakers have expressed unease. Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the new Budget Committee chairman, recently joked that Congress would have to build an air traffic control tower to keep track of all the subpoenas flying from here to the White House.

Eager to fuel this perception, Team Trump has been smearing Democrats as engaged in a campaign of presidential harassment. Its the presidents signature move: attack anyone or anything that displeases him  the news media, the courts, the electoral process, insufficiently obsequious Republicans, his own Department of Justice, science  to undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of his base.
Last month hundreds of Western water managers, farmers and scientists gathered at a conference with state, federal and tribal officials in Las Vegas, where they heard a sobering address about the Colorado River.

The crowd knew the situation was grim. But it was up to Colby Pellegrino, the director of water resources at the Southern Nevada Water Authority , to set the scene. She methodically laid out how bleak the situation had become for the river, which supports roughly 40 million people in the Southwest.

So bleak, in fact, that the federal government could soon begin restricting Colorado River water allocations if the seven states that share the water dont approve their drought plans to reduce water consumption. The deadline for those approvals is Thursday.

Warnings of doomsday on the river are nothing new. Too many people, farms and factories depend on too little water, which is why the Colorado now rarely flows to its end point at the Gulf of California. The sprawling Southwest has sucked the river dry. Yet the region has thrived in spite of the naysayers.
These political movements are strongly and causally associated with an individuals or an areas exposure to austerity since 2010, Fetzer writes. Examination of economic trends, welfare policy and polling data shows, according to Fetzer, that

the EU referendum (Brexit) could have resulted in a Remain victory had it not been for a range of austerity-induced welfare reforms. These reforms activated existing economic grievances. Further, auxiliary results suggest that the underlying economic grievances have broader origins than what the current literature on Brexit suggests. Up until 2010, the UKs welfare state evened out growing income differences across the skill divide through transfer payments. This pattern markedly stops from 2010 onward as austerity started to bite.

There are significant parallels between voting patterns for and against Brexit and the patterns in the 2016 and 2018 elections in this country.

In a separate 2017 paper, Who Voted For Brexit, Fetzer and two fellow economists at the University of Warwick, Sascha O. Becker and Dennis Novy, found that in particular, fiscal cuts in the context of the recent U.K. austerity program are strongly associated with a higher Vote Leave share. This held

all across the board: more deprivation is tightly associated with a larger Vote Leave share or, vice versa; less deprivation is tightly associated with a lower Vote Leave share.

The results here and in England reinforce the conclusion that the worse things get, the better the right does.

As a rule, as economic conditions improve and voters begin to feel more secure, they become more generous and more liberal. In the United States, this means that voters move to the left; in Britain, it means voters are stronger in their support for staying in the European Union.

In his forthcoming book, Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads: Technological Change and the Future of Politics Carles Boix, a political scientist at Princeton, describes how postwar prosperity from 1945 to the mid-1970s led to a liberal international consensus:

In light of the historical experience of advanced countries, embracing the program of embedded liberalism made economic and political sense. Twentieth-century democratic capitalism had proved to be both successful and resilient: it had delivered high growth; it had allowed governments to fund generous social programs; and it had sent its main political and economic competitor  communism  to the ash heap of history.

As global competition, outsourcing and later, automation, began to produce significant economic disruption, beginning in the 1970s, this liberal consensus frayed.

Boix writes,

The structure of electoral participation became strongly polarized across the Atlantic  very much in line with the economic transformations brought about by the decline of industry and by globalization in the last forty years.

In the United States, economic adversity helped produce Trump, whose inaugural speech (reportedly the handiwork of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller) Boix cites as emblematic of the hostility emerging with the fall of liberalism:

For too long, a small group in our nations capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left. And the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nations capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. That all changes starting right here and right now.

Together, the trends described above raise an intriguing question: If the Republican Party now depends on the votes of those who are falling behind, does the party have a vested interest in economic stagnation and decline?

I asked scholars and officials at the Niskanen Center  a Washington think tank that recently received favorable coverage for its efforts to resolve contemporary ideological division  whether they thought the Republican Party has come to recognize that prosperity helps Democrats, while economic adversity engenders hostility to immigrants, resentment of liberal elites and animosity among rural voters toward urban America. Does this awareness give politicians on the right a motive to support policies and actions that foster government dysfunction and further impair sections of the country that are in decline?

Jerry Taylor, president of Niskanen, replied to my inquiry by making the case that as conservatives see it, the more visible government dysfunction is, the better. It provides civic education.
This article is part of David Leonhardts newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the countrys most respected health care pollsters  Kaiser Family Foundation  conducted a survey on Medicare for All. And the top-line results looked great for advocates of the idea, like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris.

Some 56 percent of respondents said they favored a national plan called Medicare for All in which all Americans would get their insurance through a single government plan. A large majority of Democrats backed the idea. Almost a quarter of Republicans did, too.

The polls details, however, were a lot of less positive about Medicare for All. In fact, they showed why single-payer health care may turn out to be one of the few problematic issues for Democrats heading into 2020  if the party isnt careful. Harris has highlighted the tensions this week, saying on Monday night that she supported the most aggressive version of Medicare for All before moderating her position, via aides, late yesterday.
To the Editor:

Re 12 White Faces Reflect Blind Spot in Big Law (front page, Jan. 28):

In the summer of 1990  almost 30 years ago  I was a summer associate at Paul, Weiss. I had just written a letter published in these pages defending protests seeking more diversity among the faculty at elite law schools and decrying the trope so consistently offered that law schools had to choose between excellence and diversity.

Partners, all of whom were white and most of whom were male, called me into their offices to talk about how the firm tried to find and recruit qualified minority candidates. Uh huh. Meanwhile, my office mate, a black man and fellow summer associate, was routinely mistaken for a copier repairman by associates and partners alike. He did not return to the firm after the summer.

When I was interviewing for that summer job, in the fall of 1989, many of my Columbia classmates and I wore buttons with a question mark. We had committed to asking questions about law firm diversity practices and plans during our job interviews. It was our goal to take action in this little sphere of influence to make clear that we deeply valued diversity and would make decisions based on those values. I wonder if any of those questioners are partners at Paul, Weiss now.

Perhaps todays law students and associates will keep fighting  and we wont be reading in another 30 years about the white male lock on powerful institutions. Hope springs eternal ...
To the Editor:

Re A DNA Magic Box Can Snare Criminals, but Also the Innocent (front page, Jan. 21):

A Rapid DNA machine does more to threaten communities than protect them. It combines a potentially unreliable testing method with an ever-expanding and often unregulated DNA databank. New York City residents should be concerned because this practice is coming to their neighborhood police precinct very soon.

The New York City Police Department recently announced that it intends to use Rapid DNA in conjunction with the local DNA databank operated by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Unlike other state databases, the medical examiners database stores DNA from juveniles as well as from people who were never charged with a crime, or who had their cases dismissed or who were acquitted.

The people whose DNA is stored in the medical examiners databank largely come from the same communities plagued by stop-and-frisk and broken windows policing: underserved communities of color.

The medical examiners databank, alone or combined with Rapid DNA, threatens wrongful arrests, prosecutions or even convictions. Unless lawmakers start to truly regulate the medical examiners database before technologies like Rapid DNA come online, our clients will continue to suffer because of the color of their skin.
To the Editor:

Re Todays Weather: Stifling to Frigid and U.S. Intelligence Disputes Trump on Global Peril (front page, Jan. 30):

Since the time of Galileo, humankind has reserved special enmity for those cursed with the ability to challenge orthodoxy and see far into the future. In 1992, Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance. A quarter century later, it is clear that Mr. Gores warnings, widely mocked and derided to this day, were ignored at our peril.

On a day when you also report that President Trumps rhetoric and policies do not accurately address or even acknowledge the long-range threats posed to the United States, according to the Worldwide Threat Assessment issued by our nations top intelligence agencies, a peculiar American malady comes into focus.

Until we overcome our shortsightedness individually, we cannot overcome it collectively. We must begin sensible, nonideological, evidence-based strategic planning, or I fear the world will witness the ebb of the American moment.

David D. Turner

New York

To the Editor:

Todays Weather: Stifling to Frigid helps explain how the extreme cold in the Midwest can be consistent with global warming.
But Dengs statement was also an admission of the inherent frailty of performance-based legitimacy: In a top-down, state-dominated political system, the link between performance and legitimacy is dangerously tight. When I was conducting research about the health effects of pollution in China last summer, I was amazed to hear so many people, academics and ordinary Chinese, treat a policy failure (like a food safety crisis) or an economic problem (like rising income inequality) as failures of the system (tizhi) itself.

The centralization of power since late 2012-early 2013, when Mr. Xi became the C.C.P.s general secretary and then president of China, has only highlighted the systems fragility. Thanks partly to the removal of presidential term limits and his vast, terror-inducing anticorruption campaign, Mr. Xi has become Chinas paramount leader. But his extraordinary authority has deeply unsettled officials at all levels, with unwanted effects.

Lower-level officials have strong incentives to jump onto Mr. Xis bandwagon, especially when he signals a policy priority clearly and consistently. With pollution control, for example, they have sometimes become overzealous and have overshot. But with issues that have gone on and off the governments agenda, such as vaccine safety, local officials are more likely to adopt a wait-and-see attitude for fear of making a mistake  paying lip service to directives but essentially shirking their responsibilities. As the independent scholar Deng Yuwen has argued, extremely centralized leadership leads to the paradoxical situation in which strict regulation backed by tough penalties can actually translate into no regulation and little accountability.

A preliminary investigation by the Jinhu government found that vaccine-management personnel at the townships health center had failed to follow protocols for the use and stockpiling of vaccines. And that the local center for disease prevention and control had then failed to report the problem or take follow-up supervisory measures. The report attributed those oversights to chaotic management, neglect of duties, and regulatory failure.

Even as policy paralysis at the local level makes major policy failures and scandals more likely, the social discontent spurred by scandals tends to unnerve the government, which then sometimes overreacts. Within a week or so of last summers outburst of public outrage, the word vaccine became one of the most restricted words on Chinese social media. This month after the scandal in Jinhu, a video circulated on Weibo and WeChat showing a meeting with local officials and residents from a neighboring district, Hongze. A woman can be heard angrily asking about unknown disturbance to her phone line and, singling out the local security chief, saying, Is this way the government treats us? 

So how can the Chinese government get out of its legitimacy bind? To limit the chances of being perceived as under-delivering public goods, it should stop over-promising them, and concentrate on the ones that the people think are of the utmost importance to their well-being, such as food and vaccine safety. To improve its performance in delivering those, the government should allow economic and social forces to play a bigger role. For example, it should open the vaccine market to foreign products, while encouraging citizens to participate in oversight and formalizing ways they can report any violations of safety standards. Setting clearer directives but less draconian and less arbitrary-seeming penalties would also reduce fear among lower-level officials, giving them reason to do their fair share of work and mitigating the policy-paralysis problem.

Chinas people have no institutional recourse to replace the countrys top leaders: They are stuck with the government whether they are pleased with its performance or not. Still, the party-state is generally unwilling to pursue widely unpopular policies and risk triggering mass discontent. In this sense, even the C.C.P.s rule is an extension of the mandate of heaven of imperial times  and in that lineage lies some reason for optimism about the future of vaccine safety in China, more rational and more effective policymaking overall and maybe even some measure of decentralization within the party itself.

Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Seton Hall Universitys School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
As she eyes an impending exit from political life, however, and contemplates her legacy  Ms. Merkel has announced that she will not run again as chancellor when her term expires in 2021  her reticence to discuss such issues is clearly changing. The interview in Die Zeit is the clearest example yet, but follows a string of markedly more frequent comments about gender and womens representation: The same day last fall when she announced she would step down as leader of the Christian Democrats, Ms. Merkel opined on the gender pay gap at an event; earlier that month, shed called out the youth wing of her party for its disproportionately male leadership; that same month, appearing on a business round table in Israel with only men, she said it would be better if the next such gathering included a woman.

Those hoping for a full-throated embrace of the role of feminism in politics were likely still disappointed by the interview. Ms. Merkel drew a distinction between herself and those she considers real feminists  those who fought all their lives for womens rights  and people like herself, who merely had to find my way to contribute. Throughout, Ms. Merkel suggested her importance to women came automatically  that is, by simply being a woman and being powerful  rather than from any specific outreach or advocacy on her part. I rarely address only women, she said. The fact that women compare themselves to me arises from the fact that I am a woman and other women also sometimes face difficult tasks.

She downplayed the idea that shed been an important role model, calling it a bit exaggerated and noting that other women on the world stage  Hillary Clinton, Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher among them  have contributed to womens equality.

Still, Ms. Merkel called for gender parity in all areas, by saying such an idea just seems logical. And she spoke of her own personal experience as a female politician, from how to be taken seriously  radiating authority is something women must learn, she said  to the focus on her wardrobe. Its no problem at all for a man to wear a dark blue suit a hundred days in a row, she said, but if I wear the same blazer four times within two weeks, the letters start pouring in.

Of course, drawing attention to an issue is different than actively advocating change. Ms. Merkels historic ascension to the chancellery has had seemingly little effect on womens representation at the mid- and high-levels of business, politics and technology here, a point on which womens rights activists have long criticized the chancellor. Less than one-third of positions on the supervisory boards of German public companies are held by women, statistics from 2018 show. And while several of Germanys major political parties are led by women, the percentage of women in the German Bundestag (31 percent) actually declined after the 2017 elections; women are underrepresented in local- and state-level politics.
Morton Sobell, who was convicted in the Cold War spy trial that delivered Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to their deaths and divided the nation for decades, died on Dec. 26 in Manhattan, his son, Mark, confirmed on Wednesday. He was 101.

Mr. Sobell, whose death was not reported at the time, had lived in the Bronx and then on the Upper West Side and had recently been in a nursing home.

Serving 18 years in prison until 1969, Mr. Sobell asserted his innocence until 2008, when, in an interview with The New York Times, he startled his defenders by reversing himself and admitting that he had indeed been a Soviet spy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that, he said. I never thought of it as that in those terms.

In the interview, he also implicated Mr. Rosenberg in a conspiracy that supplied the Soviets with non-atomic military and industrial secrets stolen from the United States government.
Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, were adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.

When a radio interviewer suggested to the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad that her verses could be characterized as feminine, she rejected the notion.

What is important is humanity, not being a man or a woman, she said. If a poem can get to that point, it is no longer connected with its creator but with a world of poetry.

Farrokhzad was one of Irans pre-eminent mid-20th-century writers, both reviled and revered for her poems, which often dealt with female desire. Throughout her life she struggled with how her gender affected the reception of her work in a culture where women were often confined to traditional roles, but where there are few higher callings than the life of a poet.

In the afterword to Captive (1955), her first poetry collection, Farrokhzad wrote, Perhaps because no woman before me took steps toward breaking the shackles binding womens hands and feet, and because I am the first to do so, they have made such a controversy out of me.
In recent years, Dr. Wrights focus had shifted to the democratization of the economy and to the ruling class, said Mitchell Duneier, a former Madison colleague who is now chairman of Princetons sociology department.

Dr. Duneier, who interviewed Dr. Wright in December for a sociology textbook, quoted him as saying:

If I were to write a 50-page text on how to think about class in the 21st century, I would begin by saying the problem of class is not the problem of the poor, the working class or the middle class. Its the problem of the ruling class  of a capitalist class thats so immensely wealthy that they are capable of destroying the world as a side effect of their private pursuit of gain.

In addition to scholarship, Dr. Wright loved teaching, and his courses attracted many non-Marxists. When he accepted the universitys distinguished teaching award in 1998, he said his best ideas came from dialogue with students.

Scholarship remains a passion, he said, but teaching is a joy.

Erik Olin Wright was born on Feb. 9, 1947, in Berkeley, Calif. He grew up in Lawrence, Kan., where his father, M. Erik Wright, and his mother, Beatrice Ann (Posner) Wright, were professors of psychology at the University of Kansas, although his mothers appointment was delayed several years because of an anti-nepotism policy.

Erik was planning to attend the University of Kansas and, because of his advanced studies, would have entered as a junior. But a family friend gave him an application to Harvard as a gift. He applied and was put on the wait list. In the meantime, he won first place in mathematics at the 1964 National Science Fair (now called the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair) with a project on Mobius strips.

He was accepted at Harvard, received his bachelors degree in social studies in 1968 and studied history for two years at Balliol College, Oxford. He met Marcia Kahn at Harvard; they married in 1971.

In addition to his wife, Dr. Wright is survived by two daughters, Jennifer Wright Decker and Rebecca Wright; a sister, Colleen Rand; a brother, Woodring Wright; and three grandchildren.
Dumisani Kumalo, who was pivotal in the anti-apartheid campaign to halt investment in South Africa and, after white minority rule ended in the 1990s, spent a decade as the countrys representative to the United Nations, died on Jan. 20 at his home in the Johannesburg suburb Midrand. He was 71.

The Sunday Times of South Africa said the cause was an asthma attack. His life was celebrated in a state funeral in Midrand on Saturday.

Early in his career Mr. Kumalo was a reporter for various South African publications, and in the 1970s he became increasingly involved with anti-apartheid causes. He left the country to live in the United States after the police wrecked my home and threatened me in 1977, he told The Weekly Mail in 1985.

He was soon working for the American Committee on Africa and the Africa Fund, promoting divestment. He traveled the United States urging pension funds, universities, cities, states and the federal government itself to shed investments in companies doing business with South Africa.
Charles J. Hynes, who as Brooklyn district attorney for 24 years sent corrupt officials to jail and won praise for his approach to nonviolent drug cases, but who lost his bid for a seventh term in a swirl of controversies, died on Tuesday while on vacation in Deerfield Beach, Fla. He was 83.

His son Sean said a specific cause had not been determined. In the past Mr. Hynes had undergone heart surgery and been treated for leukemia, and he had been hospitalized again while he was in Florida. He died in the hospital.

Hearty, gregarious and blunt, Mr. Hynes was first elected Brooklyn district attorney in 1989 after his success as a special state prosecutor in a 1986 racial attack on three black men in Howard Beach, Queens. A gang of white teenagers chased one of the men, Michael Griffith, onto a highway, where he was struck and killed by a car.

The surviving victims and their lawyers said they distrusted the Queens district attorneys office and refused to cooperate with its investigation. Mario M. Cuomo, then the governor, appointed Mr. Hynes to take over the case, and he won manslaughter convictions against three of the main defendants.
On Monday night, a young mother carrying her toddler in a stroller fell down subway stairs in Manhattan and died.

Malaysia Goodson, 22, died doing what countless others are forced to do each day: navigate a subway system notoriously lacking in accessibility.

Ms. Goodsons death, in a Midtown station that has no elevator, could be a crystallizing moment for advocates who have been pushing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to make more stations accessible to disabled riders and to those who find stairs an obstacle.

[Read our story about Ms. Goodsons death and the battle to make the subways more accessible.]

The numbers are daunting.

 Only 24 percent of the 472 subway stations have elevators, and the elevators that exist break down an average of once a week.
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Two days after a 22-year-old woman with her 1-year-old daughter in a stroller fell down the steps of a Manhattan subway station, the citys medical examiner suggested that the womans death was not caused by the fall but appears to be related to a pre-existing medical condition.

The chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, did not provide details but said no significant trauma was involved in the death of the woman, Malaysia Goodson. She said the cause of Ms. Goodsons death had not yet been determined. Ms. Goodsons daughter Rhylee, who was tucked in the stroller, survived.

Malaysia had been healthy all her life, including the past year after the birth of Rhylee, Tamika Goodson, her mother, said. She said she was awaiting word on an autopsy. I need to know, she said. Were going to find out. If theres anything, were going to find out.

Whatever the circumstances that resulted in Ms. Goodson ending up at the bottom of the stairs, her death shaped an anguished dialogue about life in New York City  about how people so rarely offer to lend a hand to those with strollers, about how so many subway stations lack elevators, about how the elevators in stations that have them are so often broken and about how the limitations of the citys old and creaking transportation system create obstacles, not just for people with small children but for older passengers and people with disabilities.
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The blood has been mopped up. The tables are bustling again and the smell of Chinese food fills the air at Seaport Buffet, an unpretentious restaurant in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, where Asian and European immigrants gather to eat, sometimes bringing their own bottles of liquor.

But the trauma of what happened in this peaceful gathering spot on Jan. 15 has etched itself into the minds of the people who were there when a man, identified by the police as Arthur Martunovich, came in shortly after 5 p.m. with a hammer in his hand and bludgeoned three employees to death.

The triple killing has reverberated through Sheepshead Bay, leaving workers and customers struggling to recover from the events. Some local politicians have said that Mr. Martunovich, whose family is Russian by way of Estonia, had racist motives and should be charged with hate crimes.

Dermot Shea, the citys chief of detectives, said on Wednesday that he expected Mr. Martunovich to be indicted soon. We anticipate some kind of hate crime charges, he said.
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In the past month, Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the drug lord known as El Chapo, has become a controversial central character in her husbands trial.

A witness named her as a co-conspirator in his infamous maximum-security prison break in 2015. Transcripts of text messages between the husband and wife showed him asking her to stash his weapons ahead of a raid. The morning one of El Chapos mistresses took the stand, Ms. Coronel and her husband wore matching maroon velvet suit jackets in what appeared to be a show of solidarity.

Over the course of Joaquin Guzman Loeras three-month trial, witnesses for the prosecution have described a grim life for the women in and around the cartel who are often expected to balance a role that walks the line between lover and accomplice. Most fail, usually wanting to be too much of one, and not enough of the other. They often end up behind bars or in hiding.

But Ms. Coronel, the most prominent female presence in a trial of almost exclusively male players, has emerged as the exception.
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After facing months of vocal resistance, Amazon executives delivered a counteroffensive during a hearing Wednesday before the City Council, the second to delve into a deal that would bring new corporate offices to Queens with 25,000 jobs in exchange for as much as $3 billion in state and city incentives.

At the start of the hearing, Amazons vice president for public policy, Brian Huseman, made a glancing reference in his prepared testimony to the fact that the company still has some say in whether it expands in New York City.

We were invited to come to New York, and we want to invest in a community that wants us, he told the Council. He closed by repeating that the company wanted to be part of the growth of a community where our employees and our company are welcome.

Opponents of the deal and their allies on the City Council also raised the possibility of the deal unraveling, asking officials whether the city could opt out of the agreement.
Im Dan Gilroy. Im the writer/director of Velvet Buzzsaw. [playful music] This sequence is the gallery opening of the deceased outsider artist Vitril Dease, who inhabits and  and lurks through our film. We started with the split screen. And we come to our split screen, Jake Gyllenhaal is our protagonist. Hes there. All of our characters are there in a Robert Altman-like way. And now, the reason we came through a champagne glass was we were trying to sort of show this  this world out of balance and maybe slightly supernatural. He came from nowhere, knew no one And Rene Russo is the foremost gallery owner in Los Angeles. The wonderful Zawe Ashton is her protegee whos found all this outsider art and kept it for herself. I spotted it by streetlight over a dumpster. And what youll notice if you start to watch is that were going to stay in this tracking shot for quite a while. Robert Elswood, our cinematographer, did an amazing job with this, and we had a great Steadicam operator named Colin Anderson. Theres one were very interested in. Just know demand has people ready to kill. Ah. Toni Collette plays a museum curator whos become an advisor. Shes sold out. And from a camera standpoint, were doing something which I think is interesting. Were sort of  were staying with them, but were pinballing back and forth, which we decided to do on the day, and I thought conveyed the scene really well. Well, how hilarious for you. What theyre talking about is the shenanigans economically in the contemporary art world, how a curator for a museum can become an advisor and advise people with money to buy things that they might not be inclined to buy in order to establish a relationship with the gallery owner. Ill sell you two Dease if you buy three pieces at Damrishs opening next month. What if my client doesnt respond to Damrish? Well, youre the advisor. Advise. John Malkovich plays the foremost contemporary art in the world who has stopped drinking and is now utterly creatively blocked. Hes come to see this outsider artist because hes represented by Renes character. And hes walking this space, and he comes upon Daveed Diggs, wonderful, wonderful actor. Hes a street artist whos up and coming, and they are both now looking at this outsider artists piece of work, which has to deal with childhood trauma. In our film, artists see something in the paintings that other people do not see, and are deeply affected and touched by it, which is whats happened now. John Malkovich, after two years now, has decided hes going to have a drink. And I love Marco Beltramis ascendant score as he raises the glass to his lips.
Now they do.

For the time being, the judge will not release the data to the public. But a passage from a congressional report gives a sense of the granular information in the data: during 10 months in 2007, one distributor, McKesson, shipped three million prescription opioids to a single pharmacy in a West Virginia town with 400 residents.

The data has turned out to be a modest help to some of the defendant companies, too: because the D.E.A. reports show that certain medications were not sold in large quantities in some communities, companies that make and distribute them have been dropped from a few cases. In the Cuyahoga County, Ohio lawsuit, for example, the Kroger Company, which owns grocery stores that include pharmacies, was dropped because they turned out not to have a location in the area.

Going to trial is a win for plaintiffs

In a 39-page decision last month, Judge Polster shot down the drug industrys efforts to dismiss the Ohio trial. Instead, h e gave the lawyers the go-ahead to test just about every legal theory the plaintiffs raised.

They include: that the companies conspired; committed fraud; were negligent; violated public nuisance laws  this last being a relatively recent, novel way for communities to redress health crises.

Of course, legal theory is one thing. Next comes the hard part: the plaintiffs will actually have to prove those allegations to a jury.

The companies demand personal medical records

Typically, patients who sue for medical malpractice or product liability must turn over their own medical records as proof. They forfeit conventional privacy rights.

Here, the overwhelming majority of plaintiffs are government entities, not individuals. They are seeking to be reimbursed for the accumulated costs of drug addiction and its collateral damage. The defendants want them to produce precise evidence showing how those costs are calculated, including the chain of events  for example, from a drugs development, to its delivery, to a pharmacy-filled prescription to, eventually, bills from hospitals and others.
Nearly 3,000 users agreed and filled out extensive questionnaires, which asked about their daily routines, political views and general state of mind.

Half the users were randomly assigned to deactivate their Facebook accounts for a month, in exchange for payment. The price point for that payment was itself of great interest to the researchers: How much is a months access to photos, commentary, Facebook groups, friends and newsfeeds worth? On average, about $100, the study found, which is in line with previous analyses.

During the month of abstinence, the research team, which included Sarah Eichmeyer and Luca Braghieri of Stanford, regularly checked the Facebook accounts of the studys subjects to make sure those who had agreed to stay away had not reactivated them. (Only about 1 percent did.)

The subjects also regularly received text messages to assess their moods. This kind of real-time monitoring is thought to provide a more accurate psychological assessment than, say, a questionnaire given hours or days later.

Some participants said that they had not appreciated the benefits of the platform until they had shut it down.  What I missed was my connections to people, of course, but also streaming events on Facebook Live, politics especially, when you know youre watching with people interested in the same thing, said Connie Graves, 56, a professional home health aide in Texas, and a study subject. And I realized I also like having one place where I could get all the information I wanted, boom-boom-boom, right there.

She and her fellow abstainers all had access to Facebook Messenger throughout the study. Messenger is a different product, and the research team decided to allow it because it has similarities with other person-to-person media services.

When the month was over, the quitters and control subjects again filled out extensive surveys that assessed changes in their state of mind, political awareness and partisan passion, as well as the ebb and flow of their daily activities, online and off, since the experiment began.
Health professionals have been reluctant to recommend their use because of the lack of clear evidence from randomized controlled trials. This is now likely to change, said Peter Hajek, the lead author of the study and a professor of clinical psychology at Queen Mary University of London, which coordinated the clinical trials through public stop-smoking clinics.

The New England Journal devoted much of its current issue to e-cigarettes, publishing two editorials and a letter, and the collection embodies the tangled public health debate over the devices. One editorial  written by Belinda Borrelli, a behavioral health expert and Dr. George T. OConnor, a pulmonologist  pumped the brakes on inclinations to embrace e-cigarettes.

They noted that 80 percent of the study participants who had quit by using e-cigarettes were still vaping at one year, while only nine percent of the nicotine replacement therapy group was still using nicotine products. That raised concerns, they wrote, about sustained nicotine addiction and the unknown health consequences of long-term e-cigarette use.

The editorial recommended that e-cigarettes be taken up when other cessation approaches, including behavioral counseling, have failed; that patients use the lowest dose of nicotine possible; that health care providers establish a clear timeline for e-cigarette use.

Another editorial implored the Food and Drug Administration to ban all nicotine flavors for vaping devices because of their appeal to adolescents.

The clinical trial took place from May 2015 to February 2018. Because the smokers were recruited at the clinics, they were already predisposed to quitting, a feather on the scale that could slightly have affected results. The participants were typically middle-aged, smoked between half a pack and a pack a day and had already tried quitting.

The e-cigarette subjects were given a starter kit with a refillable device and one bottle of tobacco-flavored nicotine e-liquid, with 18 milligrams per milliliter  the most common product in England.
It was heralded a year and a half ago as the start of a Midwestern manufacturing renaissance: Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics behemoth, would build a $10 billion Wisconsin plant to make flat-screen televisions, creating 13,000 jobs. President Trump later called the project the eighth wonder of the world.

Now that prospect looks less certain.

Pointing to new realities in the market, the company said Wednesday that it was reassessing the plans, underscoring the difficult economics of manufacturing in the United States. The global market environment that existed when the project was first announced has changed, Foxconn said in a statement.

Company officials had signaled for months that their emphasis was increasingly on research and development rather than large-scale production, dampening the potential for blue-collar job creation.

That turn runs counter to Mr. Trumps vision for the project, which he had cited as a milestone in reversing the decline in factory jobs. The twist also brought new friction in Wisconsin, where the initiative has been politically fraught from the start because of its billions of dollars in tax subsidies.
LONDON  Farmers, bakers and food producers have added their voices to warnings that Brexit could become a dinner plate issue. And they werent mincing words: they called Brexit a catastrophe and said they were too busy preparing for it to deal with any other business issues.

In a letter to Michael Gove, the secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, trade associations said, Business throughout the U.K. food chain  and their trade associations  are now totally focused on working to mitigate the catastrophic impact of a no-deal Brexit.

Neither we nor our members have the physical resources nor organizational bandwidth to engage with and properly respond to non-Brexit related policy consultations or initiatives at this time, they wrote on Friday.

The department responded on Tuesday that it was meeting with representatives on a weekly basis. While we have intensified our no-deal planning, we are continuing to tackle other priority issues that matter to people, including our plans to reduce plastic waste and deliver a Green Brexit, it said an email.
Purchases of big-ticket items like cars and smartphones have fallen off especially quickly. Apple said on Tuesday that profits were flat and revenues were down in its most recent quarter, in part because of weakness in sales in China. Data from the research firm Canalys showed that smartphone sales in China had fallen 14 percent in 2018, to their lowest levels since 2013.

During an earnings call, Alibaba executives sought to play down concerns about the Chinese economy and the smoldering trade war between Beijing and Washington. Joseph C. Tsai, the companys executive vice chairman, said Alibabas exposure to the trade war was low, and he emphasized that e-commerce had generally grown much faster than Chinas economy.

The slowdown of macro might cause concerns in the market; however, what we see from Alibabas platforms is Chinese consumption growth is still strong, Alibabas chief executive, Daniel Zhang, said. He added that although there had been weakness in sales of goods like appliances and smartphones, other sectors, like apparel and home furnishing, had had fast growth.

Alibaba has suffered, however. Its shares have fallen about 16 percent in the past six months. It has also cut its estimate of revenue growth for the current fiscal year, which ends in March, by about 5 percent. On its blowout Singles Day sale in November, Alibaba sales grew from a year earlier, but also at a much slower rate. A bike-sharing company it backed, Ofo, has also fallen into trouble, and millions of users are demanding deposits back.

We expect a tougher macroeconomic outlook for China to weigh on Alibabas commissions and advertising revenue for the next few quarters, said Shelleen Shum, an analyst with the research firm eMarketer, in a report.
Details: Between 2013 and 2015, the Pacific Ocean became unusually warm. At the same time, millions of starfish started succumbing to a wasting disease. The study found that, in fact, there was a correlation between the two events. Everywhere the ocean warmed, the sunflower stars sickened and died.

Background: The ocean, which absorbs 90 percent of atmospheric heat trapped by greenhouse gases, has been warming faster than previously thought, which in turn is killing off marine ecosystems, raising sea levels and creating more extreme weather patterns.

Speaking of extreme weather: While parts of the U.S. are suffering through a polar vortex, wildfires are raging in Australias record-breaking heat. Scientists say climate change could be the culprit.

Heres what else is happening

Facebook: Despite the privacy scandals, the social media company said that its revenue and profits climbed in the most recent quarter as did the number of new users. As for the number of fake accounts, thats something that hasnt added up in the past.

India: On Friday, Amazon and its local competitor, Flipkart, will hike up prices for or pull thousands of products on their platforms, after the Indian government effectively barred them from selling products by affiliated companies .

Tesla: The electric-car maker reported a rise in revenue and vehicle sales but anticipated slower sales in America in the next quarter .
ANTISEMITISM

Here and Now

By Deborah E. Lipstadt

As recently as the turn of this century, it was just about plausible to hope that anti-Semitism might soon go the way of fear of witches  not extinct, but too manifestly absurd for all but the dumbest of bigots to avow. In the United States, there was hardly an institution where Jews werent welcomed and fully (if not over-) represented. In Europe, taboos against anti-Semitism continued to hold firm two generations after the end of World War II. In the Middle East, it seemed possible that the peace process would lead at least to a softening of hatred toward the Jewish state.

And in London, Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish history at Emory, was fighting a defamation suit brought against her by the Holocaust denier David Irving. When the 349-page verdict against Irving was handed down in April 2000, it felt as if a concluding chapter in the history of an infamous lie had been written.

Lipstadts new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now  completed long before the massacre at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue, but made all the more timely in its wake  underscores how vain that millennial hope was. Written as a series of letters to two composite characters, a whip smart Jewish college student and a well-meaning gentile law professor, Lipstadts book aims not to break new scholarly ground but to awaken her audience to the nature, persistence and scale of the threat, along with the insidious ways in which it seeks to disguise itself.

Image White nationalists at the University of Virginia, August 11, 2017. Credit... Stephanie Keith/Reuters

She succeeds. Even readers who try to keep current with the subject may have missed the story of Ken Loach, the acclaimed British filmmaker and Labour Party activist, slyly refusing in 2016 to condemn Holocaust denial because history is for us all to discuss. Or a 2013 survey by German researchers of thousands of anti-Semitic messages received by the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, 60 percent of which came from educated, middle-class Germans, including lawyers, scholars, doctors, priests, professors and university and secondary school students. Or a 2015 protest by Students for Justice in Palestine at the City University of New York, in which activists blamed planned tuition hikes on the Zionist administration [that] invests in Israeli companies.
According to the World Bank (WB), Vietnam currently has the lowest amount of non-cash transactions in the region, at only 4.9%, while the figure in Thailand is close to 60% and Malaysia 89%.

In addition, while people in the above countries mostly use card payment methods or bank accounts, only 59% of adults in Vietnam own bank accounts, not to mention 60% of the population in rural areas doesnt have a bank account and face difficulties in accessing financial services.

In addition, the system of payment acceptance venues is mainly concentrated in urban areas, restaurants, hotels and large shops. Therefore, the current e-payment system in Vietnam only meets a part of the retail payment demand of urban residents. For rural areas, this service is almost non-existent.

In order to promote a non-cash habit among Vietnamese people, the Government and the State Bank have issued a series of mechanisms and policies to develop the e-payment and digital payment systems. A series of banks and payment intermediaries have also been established to provide this service to the people.

However, the digital payment infrastructure in Vietnam still faces problems that need to be solved. First of all, these systems have not yet been universalised to all parts of the country. Several financial institutions focus only on developing networks and drawing more customers in urban areas, targeting high-income people and bank accounts. Meanwhile, people in remote areas with low incomes and saving habits also need cheap and easily accessible financial services.

In addition, the "pure Vietnamese payment system is still small and weak, combined with fragmented development in digital payment and commercial markets by Vietnamese enterprises somewhat lacking a strategic strategy. A large number of digital payment companies were born in the form of startups but due to a lack of financial resources, they had to call for investment from abroad. In 2017, there were about 20 large e-commerce enterprises operating in Vietnam, of which 17 were foreign-invested.

From international experience, an effective solution to widely deploy low-cost digital payment services is to use telecommunications network infrastructure. In fact, the use of mobile subscriber accounts for small value service consumption has been widely applied in Japan, Singapore and European countries, focusing on transactions such as payment on e-commerce sites, recharge of e-wallets and covering public transport service fees and parking fees. Even the rate of using mobile subscriber accounts for payment in many countries is five times higher than the use of bank accounts.

In Vietnam, the use of mobile accounts for payment has also been applied to multiple types of services, such as making donation in charity programmes, paying for digital content applications or, most recently, covering the cost in the pilot e-parking service, namely I-parking in Hanoi and My-parking in Ho Chi Minh City. The results of the pilot e-parking service payment show that the proportion of users with telecommunications accounts stands at 94%, compared to 6% of those using bank accounts.

Experts said that the use of mobile subscriber accounts for e-payments in Vietnam would create favourable conditions and opportunities to develop modern mobile payment products and services, contributing to promoting no-cash payment and better meeting the increasing demands of customers.

In particular, this method is suitable for the population groups in rural and remote areas, who have little access to traditional financial services. For that reason, if there are appropriate solutions to promote the expansion of e-payment through mobile subscribers, while promoting communications to raise public awareness and strengthen consumer confidence on this payment method, it would be an important contribution to creating a fundamental change in the publics perception about e-payment and their current cash use habits.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who met with Mr. Liu on Wednesday, said a day earlier that the Huawei case was being handled on a separate track from the trade talks. But given Chinas heated reaction to the arrest and indictment, it is hard to imagine that Chinese officials will not raise the issue.

I think its very difficult to keep them separate, said Weijian Shan, a private equity investor based in Hong Kong and the author of Out of the Gobi, a memoir that depicts Chinas modern history. To the extent that China feels that this is a major issue with America, they will bring it up.

For now, both sides appear eager to find areas of agreement, including on purchases of more American goods. China has demonstrated a willingness to address Mr. Trumps concerns about the United States bilateral trade deficit with big purchases of goods and services, like chicken, soybeans and tractors. That is the easy part. More difficult is persuading China to overhaul its economic policies.

The Trump administration has been pushing China to scale back subsidies of state-owned enterprises, sharply open its markets to foreign investment and end its longstanding practice of forcing American companies to hand over trade secrets as a condition of doing business there. China has made a series of moves in the last month that suggest it is willing to accept some of those changes, but there is division in the Trump administration over whether they are merely symbolic  and empty  gestures.

None of Chinas domestic reforms since December have really addressed the structural issues in the relationship, said Nick Marro, an Asia and China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Progress on increasing U.S. imports or tackling questions over Chinas currency dont really address what the U.S.T.R is really looking at, which are fundamental market access issues facing U.S. companies.

One of the biggest questions hanging over the trade talks is whether the United States can truly enforce any deal agreed to by Beijing.

Mr. Trump has wielded tariffs as a stick to get Beijing to the bargaining table. But if the tariffs are lifted as part of a trade deal, there is no guarantee that China will live up to any commitments. American officials, who say China has broken promises in the past, have discussed mechanisms such as snapback tariffs that would be reimposed if China does not follow through. Another option is carousel tariffs that would hit different portions of Chinese products to prevent its economy from becoming immune to the pain of the duties.
A Star Wars spinoff is on TNT. And Brad Birds superhero family sequel hits Netflix.

Whats on TV

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016) 7 p.m. on TNT. Disney and Lucasfilm may have marketed this Star Wars story as an offshoot, but fans of the galaxy way, way out there will find many familiar things here: Yes, there are impossibly big spaceships looming over the plains of far-off planets; yes, our heroes have smaller, rustier laser guns than their clean, evil opponents; and yes, theres a witty robot chiming in at inopportune moments to tell them the odds. (Hes played, through motion capture, by Alan Tudyk.) Felicity Jones stars as Jyn Erso, a young woman who becomes involved with heroic resistance fighters while the Death Star is being built. Forest Whitaker plays Jyns mentor, a galactic extremist. Jyns rebel crew includes: Diego Luna as a resistance fighter, Riz Ahmed as a pilot and Donnie Yen as a blind monk. The cast is wonderful, A. O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. But the movie that this fine ensemble operates in, Scott cautions, is thoroughly mediocre.

THE WOLVERINE (2013) 5 p.m. on FX. The director James Mangold brings an artful, small-scale sensibility to the X-Men franchise with this film, which stars Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, the clawed antihero, in Japan, where he battles samurai and a guilty conscience. A modest superhero picture may sound like a contradiction in terms, A. O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. But really it is a welcome respite.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If youre interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox.

We Get It!

With a polar vortex sweeping much of the United States, Stephen Colbert took a short break from Trump-bashing on Tuesday to make a few jokes about the bone-chilling cold.
They always just focused on it   as in her husbands detached and reattached and then, a couple of years later, surgically kind-of enlarged penis. That was all the media, before now, before the Womens March and the #MeToo movement, when we were all less evolved as humans, wanted to talk about. And its like they all missed or didnt care why I did what I did, she said.

Lorena is correct, of course, that most people forget that before she was tried for what she did, John was charged with marital sexual assault. (He was acquitted.) At the time, marital rape only recently had been made a crime in all 50 states and was nearly impossible to prove in Virginia. Many in the media, including Ladies Home Journal and Gay Talese on assignment for The New Yorker, questioned whether it was an oxymoron. (Wife Rape? Who Really Gets Screwed? an earlier column in Penthouse read.) Al Franken, as the character Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, implored Lorena to apologize to Johns penis. And, she is correct, that people forget that a jury found her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. We forget about the string of witnesses at her trial who testified that they had seen bruises on her arms and neck and that she had called 911 repeatedly and that John had bragged to friends about forcing his wife to have sex. In the years since the trial, he was arrested several times and served jail time for violence against two different women. (He denied the allegations.) This is about a victim and a survivor and this is about whats happening in our world today, Lorena told me.

[Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow and others on how #MeToo changed their lives.]

That is the story she tells in Lorena, a four-part, Jordan Peele-produced documentary that will debut on Amazon Prime Video on Feb. 15. And that is why she took a break from volunteering with her daughters volleyball team and her work at her nonprofit, Lorenas Red Wagon, that helps survivors of domestic violence, to have lunch and show me around this bedroom community outside Washington, where it all went down.

It has been 26 years since Lorena Bobbitt, a 24-year-old wounded bird of a woman with dark, wiry hair and sad, penetrating eyes became so enshrined in the annals of popular culture that she makes a cameo in both a Philip Roth novel and Eminem lyrics. Today, Lorena is shy, a petite 117 pounds in a black blazer, tasteful black stilettos, diamond hoop earrings and a Louis Vuitton handbag. (She told me her weight because she had weighed 95 pounds in 1993, when John said she had assaulted him.) Even though she has physically transformed, now the picture of an upwardly mobile 49-year-old suburban mom with wispy blond hair, she has the same, sad, dark, orb-like eyes. And even though she goes by her maiden name and, shortly after the trial, the media moved on (thank you, Tonya Harding), people meet Lorena in Manassas and it doesnt take long for them to make the connection that she is that Lorena in Manassas. I live here. This is my home. Why should he have the last laugh? she said when I asked why she didnt move away.
Occasionally I find myself retracing a boyhood route, or part of a route, through my old neighborhood. With my father, or Uncle Harry, I used to head up Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village toward the 8th Street Bookshop, lose myself for a while at Discophile, the classical record store, then hit some of the used book dealers that constituted Booksellers Row along Fourth Avenue and Broadway.

More often than not, we ended up at the Strand bookstore.

Save for the Strand, the citys biggest and most famous indie book shop, nearly all the rest is long gone, like the small-town, scruffy Village of the 1970s. Whats there now is a scrubbed, wealthy enclave punctuated by new luxury high rises and vacant storefronts.

You might think this would make the site of the Strand a no-brainer for landmark status. But its third-generation owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, is having none of it. Rallying its devotees, she has been scrambling to keep her beloved shops 11-story, 1902 Italianate building, 828 Broadway, designed by William H. Birkmire, off the citys registry of designated landmarks. She says that landmark regulations would saddle her unionized, thin-margin business with potentially crippling burdens.
Rodulfo Figueroa, an official with Mexicos National Migration Institute, said the man in the brown jacket, whose name was not revealed, would be the only migrant returned to Mexico on Tuesday under the new policy, but that more are expected soon.

Were just reacting to a unilateral decision, said Mr. Figueroa, a top federal migration official in the Mexican state of Baja California.

Since the Trump administrations announcement of the new asylum policy, Mexican officials have been negotiating with their counterparts in Washington to define the conditions under which they would accept the migrants.

On Monday night, Tonatiuh Guillen Lopez, the commissioner of Mexicos National Migration Institute, said Mexico would only accept migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras between the ages of 18 and 60. He also said that Mexico would only receive returned asylum seekers through the border crossing that connects Tijuana with San Diego, California.

The returned asylum seekers will be granted special four-month, multiple-entry visas that would allow them to travel to the United States for their court dates and then once again return to Mexico, Mexican officials said. Some of the returnees will already have one-year humanitarian visas which allow them to work and travel freely in the country. Asylum cases in the United States can take years to resolve, yet it remained unclear whether and under what terms the Mexican visas would be extended.

The American policy change applies to some asylum seekers who try to enter the United States at official crossings on the countrys southern border, or are apprehended on American soil after trying to cross illegally. But it will not apply to Mexican asylum seekers who might risk harm if returned to Mexico, the very place where they are claiming fear of persecution as grounds for their asylum claim.
Word of possible massacres around Yumbi first surfaced a few weeks ago, when the United Nations human rights office said it had reports from credible sources of horrific violence between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18 that had killed 890 people. Michelle Bachelet, the top human rights official at the United Nations, said it was crucial that this shocking violence be promptly, thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators be brought to justice.

A fact-finding team sent to Yumbi and the nearby town of Bongende by the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in Congo, known as Monusco, found the burial sites, a spokeswoman, Florence Marchal, said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

In Yumbi, she said, if you walk along the main road you see the graves.

Ms. Marchal said Monusco had yet to establish an exact death toll. But confirming her remarks quoted in a Reuters report from Kinshasa, she said that several hundred people, including women and many children, were killed in unbearable circumstances.

Abdoul Aziz Thioye, the director of the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in Kinshasa, said the graves had been dug by local Red Cross workers and family members who initially fled the violence and had returned to bury the dead.

Very often when you talk about mass graves, everyone has in mind people who have been summarily executed and thrown into a hole, which was not the case here, he said in a telephone interview.
A claim made last week by the Texas secretary of state  that 95,000 registered voters had a citizenship status that could not be determined  appeared to fall apart on Tuesday when local election officials said many of the people were known to be United States citizens.

Some registered to vote when they applied for a drivers license at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires them to prove citizenship status to state officials. Others registered at naturalization ceremonies, a data point to which state officials said they did not have access.

Election officials in Harris County, home to Houston, said they received 30,000 names  the largest single batch of potential noncitizen voters  from the secretary of states office on Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, they had determined that roughly 400 of those names were duplicates and 60 percent so far of the others were United States citizens.

We are not willing to conclude at this point that we know of anybody on this list who is not a United States citizen, Douglas Ray, special assistant attorney for Harris County, said. We may determine that at a later time, and we are going to investigate that very carefully, but as you can tell by the numbers, so far things aint looking good for this list, referring to the states claim.
WASHINGTON  In an interview on Monday on Good Morning America, Cliff Sims, a former White House aide promoting a tell-all book about life inside the West Wing, wanted to make clear that he had left his job on his own terms. Anticipating pushback from the White House, he told George Stephanopoulos, the host, that he had brought his resignation letter along to prove it.

White House aides have been telling reporters for weeks that Mr. Sims was fired, but did not want to comment about him on the record. A former official noted that Mr. Sims was instructed to leave due to a major security breach  a reference to what Mr. Sims said was the time he recorded President Trump in the White House on his government phone and then emailed those files to himself, but insisted that was not the reason he left.

The Trump White House has set a record for turnover  more than double that of President Barack Obamas after two years in office  but somehow leaving it is never simple.

Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former communications adviser, was abruptly fired in the Situation Room, though she said Mr. Trump later claimed that he knew nothing about her dismissal and she denied that she had abused the White House car service, as aides claimed. Lesser known aides, like Sean Cairncross, a former senior adviser, have announced their resignations and then lingered for months in a building next door to the White House, continuing to collect government salaries while waiting for their next gig.
Theres no dearth of evidence of the disconnect between the president and Republican orthodoxy, said Mr. Edelman, a longstanding critic of Mr. Trump. But Mr. Edelman noted that the disagreement has been rooted in Congress. As you look at the Republican Party in the electorate, I think its lining up a little more with the president because I think hes shifting Republican voters more on things like trade and Russia, maybe on Syria and Afghanistan.

Indeed, many of Mr. Trumps supporters have cheered his more protectionist stance on trade and the tariff wars with China as well as American allies. Likewise, many Trump supporters have grown weary of overseas military ventures that never seem to end and therefore applaud his moves to bring home American troops. Polls have even detected a shift in Republican views on Russia, which throughout the Cold War was a unifying force in the party.

In Republican circles in Washington, however, the unease coincides with a critical juncture in Mr. Trumps foreign policy. His pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan come as trade talks with China head toward a climactic deadline and Mr. Trump prepares to get together next month with North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un, for their second summit meeting after an initial encounter in Singapore last year.

Olivia Enos, a policy scholar on Asia at the Heritage Foundation, said doubts had grown about Mr. Trumps negotiations with North Korea to eliminate its nuclear program.

Many initially welcomed the presidents pursuit of diplomacy in North Korea, she said. But after Singapore, many questioned whether North Korea was sincere in coming to the negotiating table. Since that time, North Korea has continued to play hard to get, calling its sincerity to denuclearize into further question.

Some analysts said it was the way Mr. Trump makes his decisions as much as the decisions themselves that rattle the foreign policy establishment. Announcing the Syria pullout by Twitter without preparing the allies or framing the public explanations left even some of the presidents strongest supporters in Washington unnerved.

I dont think Leader McConnell or anyone else wants to take the wheel from the president or even give him rudder direction, said Frederic C. Hof, a former State Department official who worked on Syria and is now diplomat in residence at Bard College. They want to be sure hes at the helm and he knows he has a crew. They want real deliberation to take place on these tough issues. They want the president to be part of it.
A day after Senator Kamala Harris of California endorsed ending private health insurance in favor of a Medicare for all government plan, Michael R. Bloomberg, a possible rival of hers for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the proposal would bankrupt us for a very long time.

Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who is considering a 2020 bid on a centrist Democratic platform, rejected the idea of Medicare for all, which has been gaining traction among Democrats.

I think you could never afford that. Youre talking about trillions of dollars, Mr. Bloomberg said during a political swing in New Hampshire, which holds the nations first primary in 2020.

I think you can have Medicare for all for people that are uncovered, he added, but to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time.
This sprawling, comprehensive proposal is basically the far lefts entire Christmas wish list where our nations political process is concerned, Mr. McConnell, a longtime opponent of campaign finance disclosures, said in remarks on the Senate floor, again declaring that the bill may pass the House, but not the Senate.

For Democrats, passage of such a sweeping measure is not necessarily the point. The bill, the first of the new House, forms something of a platform for the 2020 campaign. Democrats on the committee seized the opportunity to press for the bills efforts to counter state tactics to remove voters from the rolls and require automatic registration for eligible voters. Many of the issues, they believe, will have bipartisan appeal beyond Washington, in a country convinced that the capital is rife with corruption and in the thrall of the rich and connected.

This should be a bipartisan issue, and yet there is not a single Republican member of Congress thats a co-sponsor, said Vanita Gupta, who testified before the panel in her role as the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Republican lawmakers on the committee, vociferous in their condemnation and occasionally inflammatory in their language, argued that the bill violated the right of states to control their own elections and decide their own districts. Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, chalked it up to the Democratic Partys long history of stealing elections.

Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the committees ranking Republican, said, Contrary to its name, this bill takes power away from the people, and it does this by violating the Constitution.
CHICAGO  As temperatures in Midwestern cities plunged to levels colder than parts of Antarctica and officials warned people not to step outside even for a few minutes, Tony Neeley stood on a downtown Chicago street corner Tuesday, wearing wet sneakers and clutching a hand warmer packet in each of his bare hands. He had already been there for hours.

Im cold and Im afraid, Mr. Neeley said, adding that he was trying to raise enough money from the bundled commuters rushing past to pay for a $45 motel room on a night that weather forecasters warned would send the Midwest into a deep freeze unlike anything even this region has seen in years.

[Read the latest on the deep freeze.]

What about the prospect of going to one of the scores of shelters officials in Chicago  and in cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Detroit  had urged homeless people to seek warmth in during the stretch of dangerous and extreme cold?

You dont understand, Mr. Neeley said. A lot of us dont go to the shelters because of bedbugs, we dont go because people steal from you, we dont go because you cant even really sleep in the shelter. But my feet are cold, and these clothes are all Ive got.
[Check out the Democratic field with our new candidate tracker.]

The mayor praised Ms. Harris and said he was proud and excited about her candidacy; he did not make any endorsements, however. He also had good words for several Democrats who are now considering 2020 bids: He said Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey was a close friend of many years, and called former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a good friend and mentor.

Asked if he would consider being a vice-presidential candidate, he said, I think I got a better job than that.

Mr. Garcetti, 47, is a former Rhodes Scholar who has spent much of his professional life in city government, and reflects the diversity of the city he leads, with Italian, Jewish and Mexican roots. In a city that is majority Latino, Mr. Garcetti, when speaking publicly, often switches back and forth between English and Spanish. He grew up as the son of a prominent public official in the city  his father, Gil Garcetti, is a former district attorney who became nationally known as the prosecutor leading the O.J. Simpson trial.

Mr. Garcetti, along with other leaders in a state that has steadily become more liberal, has eagerly touted Los Angeles  and California  as a counterweight to the agenda of President Trump, giving him a national profile that he, at one point, thought could make him a viable national candidate. He has embraced Los Angeless role as a sanctuary city that protects undocumented immigrants from federal immigration authorities, and sought to shape the agenda of the Democratic Party by pushing for more liberal policy goals.

In an interview in late 2017 with The New York Times, as he was already thinking about running for president, Mr. Garcetti described himself as a member of the impatient next generation of Democratic leaders.
Whether identifying as black, female, Latinx, queer, trans, Native American, Asian-American, Arab-American, disabled, Muslim, biracial or any combination thereof, playwrights traditionally marginalized in the theater face a second problem if their work finally ekes its way to the stage. They often feel pressure, from critics and producers, to depict globally and endorse unequivocally their diverse communities  which is bad for them and worse for their stories.

Call it vexation without representation.

Leah Nanako Winkler isnt having it. In a note to the script of God Said This, which opened on Tuesday at the Cherry Lane Theater in a bumpy ride of a production, she urges directors and actors  and, by implication, audiences  to see the multiethnic family at the heart of her play as deeply flawed, complex people who are not defined by their race.

Nor by much else, it seems. She sets out not only to bust stereotypes about submissive Japanese-American women but also to rescue hick Kentuckians, intolerant Christians, tiger moms and even the dying from the broad brush of caricature.

Mission accomplished, though at a cost to coherence. Hiro, the daughter of a Japanese mother and a white American father, is no meek good girl; shes more like a hot mess. The last time she came home to Lexington from New York  a disastrous visit that was the subject of Ms. Nanako Winklers Kentucky, seen in New York in 2016  she nearly ruined her sister Sophies wedding and wound up having sex with an acquaintance on the roof of their old school.
SAN FRANCISCO  On Jan. 19, Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old in Arizona, made an unexpected discovery: Using FaceTime, Apples video chatting software, he could eavesdrop on his friends phone before his friend had even answered the call.

His mother, Michele Thompson, sent a video of the hack to Apple the next day, warning the company of a major security flaw that exposed millions of iPhone users to eavesdropping. When she didnt hear from Apple Support, she exhausted every other avenue she could, including emailing and faxing Apples security team, and posting to Twitter and Facebook. On Friday, Apples product security team encouraged Ms. Thompson, a lawyer, to set up a developer account to send a formal bug report.

But it wasnt until Monday, more than a week after Ms. Thompson first notified Apple of the problem, that Apple raced to disable Group FaceTime and said it was working on a fix. The company reacted after a separate developer reported the FaceTime flaw and it was written about on 9to5mac.com, a news site for Apple fans, in an article that went viral.

The bug, and Apples slow response to patching it, have renewed concerns about the companys commitment to security, even though it regularly advertises its bug reward program and boasts about the safety of its products. Hours before Apples statement addressing the bug Monday, Tim Cook, the companys chief executive, tweeted that we all must insist on action and reform for vital privacy protections.
Over the last decade, these advances in the speed of connectivity and the elimination of complexity have grown exponentially. Because as big data got really big, as broadband got really fast, as algorithms got really smart, as 5G got actually deployed, artificial intelligence got really intelligent. So now, with no touch  but just a voice command or machines acting autonomously  we can go so much deeper in so many areas.

Scientists and doctors can now find the needle in the haystack of health data as the norm, not the exception, and therefore see certain disease patterns that were never apparent before. Machines can recognize your face so accurately that the Chinese government can punish you for jaywalking in Beijing, using street cameras, and you will never encounter a police officer.

Indeed, with todays facial recognition technology, I can dispense with the card reader at my offices security gate and instead use each employees face as an ID. And cars can drive on their own.

DeepMind, the artificial intelligence arm of Googles parent, developed an A.I. program, AlphaGo, that has now defeated the worlds top human players of the ancient strategy game Go  which is much more complex than chess  by learning from human play.

As The Times reported, DeepMind showed yet another way that computers could be developed to perform better than humans in highly complex tasks and to mimic the way the brain functions. DeepMinds next breakthrough, AlphaZero, did not even need to learn from humans. It learned even faster by repeatedly playing against itself!

Today virtual agents  using conversational interfaces powered by artificial intelligence  can increasingly understand your intent when you call the bank, credit card company or insurance company for service, just by hearing your voice.

It means machines can answer so many more questions than nonmachines, also known as humans. The percentage of calls a chatbot, or virtual agent, is able to handle without turning the caller over to a person is called its containment rate, and these rates are steadily soaring. Soon, automated systems will be so humanlike that they will have to self-identify as machines.
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The messages landed in mailboxes across Queens like clockwork: glossy fliers, such as those from a political campaign, extolling a deal that would bring Amazon to Long Island City, paid for by Amazon.

With smiling faces and iconic Queens scenes, three rounds of fliers arrived in recent weeks as part of a concerted effort by the company to reset its image after the mostly disastrous rollout of its plans for a corporate campus in New York City. The opposition was fueled by Democratic activists and others inspired by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Now Amazon is striking back.

The company offered a few salves to skeptics on Wednesday at a City Council hearing: It will hire public housing residents to work at a new 30-person customer service center and establish a certificate program at LaGuardia Community College to help students gain entry-level technology jobs. The company also announced that it would fund computer science courses at more than 130 New York high schools.

But Amazon executives, during their testimony, referred obliquely to the companys displeasure at the local opposition that has greeted it and appeared to entertain the idea of backing away from the deal.
The 91st Academy Awards are less than a month away, which means its about time to get caught up on the nominated movies. Many contenders made their theatrical debut in December and are still available on the big screen (Mary Poppins Returns, If Beale Street Could Talk and Mary Queen of Scots, to name a few).

Others, like Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born, debuted earlier but expanded to more screens after snagging promising awards and nominations. And then you have the films that are getting revival runs with a look ahead to the Oscars: Black Panther will screen for free in early February and BlacKkKlansman returned to 33 states this month. Below is more information on where to watch those and other nominees.

[Heres where to stream other nominated movies.|Heres your Oscar ballot.]

Back in Theaters

These movies are getting new life on the big screen.
In such extreme cold, exposed skin can develop frostbite in as little as five minutes, said George T. Chiampas, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

The bodys first reaction to extreme cold is to restrict blood and oxygen flow from its extremities, in order to preserve major organs, Dr. Chiampas said. The first signs of frostbite including tingling or pain in the affected areas. If you think you have frostbite, you should immediately go inside and check yourself for any discoloration or other clear sign of frostbite. Fingers, toes and the face are most often affected.

People with frostbite sometimes dont realize what is happening, because their fingers or other parts of their bodies go numb as it sets in. And if they are also experiencing hypothermia, which can be deadly, their judgment could be seriously impaired. (More on that below.)

Signs of frostbite include skin that has blistered or become discolored, or that feels unusually firm or waxy. It can result in permanent damage and amputation, and can be more dangerous the longer it goes without treatment.

Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Chiampas said his department had treated 15 patients with weather-related complaints in the previous 36 hours, including one who had a finger amputated because of frostbite  a much higher number than is typical for this time of year. The hospital, which is operating a warming center, has prepared for a spike in such patients over the next two days.
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In Chicago, officials warned about the risk of almost instant frostbite on what could be the citys coldest day ever. Warming centers opened around the Midwest. And schools and universities closed throughout the region as rare polar winds streamed down from the Arctic.

At the same time, on the other side of the planet, wildfires raged in Australias record-breaking heat. Soaring air-conditioner use overloaded electrical grids and caused widespread power failures. The authorities slowed and canceled trams to save power. L abor leaders called for laws that would require businesses to close when temperatures reached hazardous levels: nearly 116 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47 Celsius, as was the case last week in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.

This is weather in the age of extremes. It comes on top of multiple extremes, all kinds, in all kinds of places.

When something happens  whether its a cold snap, a wildfire, a hurricane, any of those things  we need to think beyond what we have seen in the past and assume theres a high probability that it will be worse than anything weve ever seen, said Crystal A. Kolden, an associate professor at the University of Idaho, who specializes in wildfires and who is currently working in Tasmania during one of the states worst fire seasons.
French report on restitution of tribal art has dealers nervous

Belgium and France  two of the largest former colonial powers in Africa  are central trading hubs for artworks from sub-Saharan Africa. And dealers are alarmed by a November report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron of France that recommends French museums permanently return artworks removed from Africa without consent, if their countries of origin ask for them back.

Effects: The impact of the report so far is unclear, but dealers are grousing about possible implications for their bottom lines and insisting their trade is moral. They also wonder what the report means for collections like that of the Africa Museum in Belgium, many of whose 120,000 items were acquired during a brutal campaign by Belgian colonial leaders that killed millions of Congolese.

One take: Didier Claes, a tribal art trader in Brussels of Congolese ancestry, was critical of the report and said that, as a member of the African diaspora, he appreciated being able to see his heritage in European museums. Im so proud to go to an important museum and see my culture next to a Modigliani, he said.

Looking ahead: Mr. Macron has called for an international conference to be held in Paris this year to develop a policy based on exchanges of artifacts. Sharing, rather than restitution, could prove to be the preferred solution for problematic objects.
Our legal system and society must get tougher on drunken driving.

We've repeatedly made that point as drunken-driving-related vehicle crashes continue to kill people on Northwest Indiana roadways at a higher percentage than the rest of the state and nation.

All too often, drunken driving leads to the death of innocent people who played no role in an offending driver making the decision to become intoxicated and then get behind the wheel.

In every case of intoxicated driving, innocent human lives are put at unnecessary risk.

So the Indiana Senate deserves the gratitude of the state for a 48-0 vote Monday, cracking down on repeat drunken drivers.

That Senate vote should serve as an important reminder to county prosecutors  in Lake, Porter, LaPorte and elsewhere in the state  to apply the laws that are on the books rather than minimizing the gravity of the charges with soft plea deals for offenders.

The state Senate's resounding vote sends a bill to the Indiana House that would extend the "look-back" period for which a second operating while intoxicated conviction qualifies as a felony.
Even in the United States, there is a growing realization that a piecemeal, case-by-case approach to cyber security based on blocking bad companies must eventually be replaced by an assurance framework that manages risk from all vendors. The Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act adopts this improved approach.

The act creates a Federal Acquisition Council charged with addressing security threats to Americas digital supply chain in the government IT acquisition process. Consisting of seven federal agencies, the council will use criteria created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to decide which specific products should be excluded from procurement by U.S. government agencies because of supply chain risk.

Consistent with U.S. traditions of due process, companies whose products are targeted by a federal ban will be given reasons for the proposed action, plus a chance to show that the ban is not warranted. Government agencies will need to explain why more limited measures were not sufficient to mitigate the risk. Targeted companies will also have a limited right to judicial review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The Fire Department also recommends keeping heat in a home set at a minimum of 55 degrees.

Avoid scammers

Hammond police Lt. Steven Kellogg said its important to frequently check on family, friends or neighbors, especially elderly members who may fall target to scam home visits and phone calls.

If anyone comes to your door stating they need to check your furnace or threatens that your utilities may be shut off, call 911 immediately, Kellogg said.

Occasionally, utility workers are present in communities doing repairs. However, a legitimate utility worker, such as someone from NIPSCO, will never mind the police verifying their identity for the safety of their customers.

Phone scams are the most common scams used against the elderly, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Kellogg said the best thing to do is to always check your sources, with phone calls, adding to never take anyone on their word, especially during these times.

If you need help
Utility crews did not let the ongoing chill stand in their way of restoring power to thousands throughout the Region Wednesday.

Luckily, a warmup is on its way for Thursday. By noon, the Region will see higher air and wind chill temps, meteorologists predict. However, snow will begin coating Northwest Indiana by late afternoon.

Highs will be around minus 7 in both Gary and Valparaiso by noon Thursday, Meteorologist Kevin Donofrio of the National Weather Service said. The wind chill will also likely climb, hitting minus 10 to minus 20 by the afternoon.

Temps will likely peak at zero later into the day.

Snow will begin in the afternoon and continue into daybreak Friday with an expected accumulation of 2 to 4 inches throughout Northwest Indiana, Donofrio said.

Power outages across NWI

Jasper County REMC, which had about 4,000 of its members without power at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, had reduced that number to less than 100 by late morning, CEO Bryan Washburn said.

By 4 p.m., the online outage map reflected only one household without power in Jasper County REMC's coverage area.

NIPSCO had whittled its outages down from 1,000 during the early morning hours to just 21 by late morning, spokeswoman Dana Berkes said.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, only five households were reported as being without power among the Gary, Hammond, Merrillville and LaPorte communities on the NIPSCO power outages website.

"The company continues to closely monitor its gas and electric system, taking proactive and precautionary measures to ensure reliability, and crews have been responding quickly to brief service interruptions as they occur," a NIPSCO news release stated. "Any risk for potential issues begins to decrease as the forecasted temperatures are expected to rise Thursday afternoon."

The company was overstaffed, Berkes said, and had crews standing by waiting to respond to problems.

Both companies said the outages were weather-related.

"Wind tends to be the No. 1 cause of wires down," Berkes said.

Washburn said earlier Wednesday that a transformer issue caused his area's outage. The cooperative worked with its supplier, which was quick to respond, Washburn said.

Jill Terborg, a single mother with three daughters who lives in Wheatfield, was one of those customers.

Terborg said her power was out from about 7:30 to 9 a.m., but she was cautiously optimistic it would stay on the rest of the day.

During the outage, her thermostat fell to 64 degrees.

"The first thing I did was make some coffee," she said.

She told her daughters, ages 7, 10 and 12, to put on socks and cuddle up in blankets while they waited it out, she said.

Her 12-year-old daughter had a lot of questions, she said. What would the family do? Would they freeze? Would they die? Could they stay in the home? If they leave, where would they go?

Terborg said her mother was concerned about her brother, who drives a tanker truck carrying milk. He still had to work in the extreme temperatures, though his start Wednesday was delayed, she said.

Terborg, a nurse, said she was grateful to be off work Wednesday so she could be home with her children. On Thursday, she will have to travel to work to relieve others who are working through the cold snap, she said.

"People need to be taken care of," she said.

Any NIPSCO customers who experience service-related issues should immediately call 800-464-7726.

About 160 Kankakee Valley REMC customers in the North Judson area were without power early Wednesday, spokeswoman Amanda Steeb said. By 1 p.m., Steeb said, all power was restored to the company's coverage area.

Wind chills

Air temperatures in Northwest Indiana hovered around minus 20 early Wednesday, and wind chills ranged from 44 to 51 below zero.

Wind chills measure the combined effects of cold air temperatures and wind, the National Weather Service said.

At the start of the day Wednesday, air temperatures at about 6 a.m. were minus 20 with a wind chill of minus 46 in Lansing, minus 20 with a wind chill of minus 51 in Gary, minus 18 with a wind chill of minus 47 in Valparaiso and minus 19 with a wind chill of minus 44 in LaPorte.

As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, the air temperature was minus 12 with a wind chill of minus 34 in Lansing, minus 9 with a wind chill of minus 34 in Gary, minus 10 with a wind chill of minus 33 in Valparaiso and minus 14 with a wind chill of minus 36 in LaPorte, according to the National Weather Service.

A wind chill warning for Lake, Porter, Newton and Jasper counties will remain in effect until noon Thursday. A wind chill warning for LaPorte County will also continue until 1 p.m. Thursday.

The weather service warned frostbite on exposed skin in such cold conditions can occur in as little as five minutes. If residents must go out, wear layers, a hat and gloves, and waterproof boots.

Bring pets inside and check on neighbors, officials said.

Closures

Schools and offices across the Region closed Wednesday and Thursday because of the cold.

The U.S. Postal Service announced it has temporarily suspended service throughout most of the state for Thursday out of concern for the safety of employees.

Officials warned heating systems in older homes likely won't be able to maintain temperature. New homes' systems may also have trouble.

Warming shelter availability varies by community. Check the map attached to this story or call city or town halls or township trustees for more information.

The South Shore Line suspended service Wednesday and Thursday after a test train early Wednesday encountered significant overhead wire problems due to the extreme cold. The commuter railroad plans to resume service Friday.

Gary Public Transportation Corp. will suspend its bus and paratransit service Thursday due to mechanical problems caused by the cold weather. It expects to resume service Friday.

On the road

The Indiana Department of Transportation Northwest District warned the extreme cold makes road salt and de-icers ineffective, so its plows will face major challenges in fighting against blowing and drifting snow during the remainder of the cold snap.

If you must drive during the lingering negative temps, leave with a full tank of gas, an emergency kit, a charged phone and heavy duty winter gear, INDOT said.

Indiana State Police for the Toll Road said about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, they were responding to two rollover semi crashes between the LaPorte/St. Joseph County line and South Bend.

Jasper County was under a travel warning Wednesday, the highest level of travel advisory, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. Residents were advised to refrain from all travel.

Lake, Porter, LaPorte and Newton counties were under a travel watch Wednesday, which means only essential travel, such as to and from work or in emergency situations, is recommended.

Meanwhile, authorities said a crash on a snow- and ice-covered road in rural northern Indiana killed a police officer and his wife. The Noble County Sheriff's Office said on Monday night 22-year-old Ligonier police Officer Ethan Kiser's SUV spun into the path of another SUV near Cromwell. Deputies say the crash also killed 21-year-old Shawna Kiser.

The extreme cold on Wednesday morning also caused a semitractor-trailer to stall out at a railroad crossing in LaPorte, causing a train to crash into the semi. Police said the truck's fuel had begun to gel.

Residents who find themselves in potentially life-threatening emergencies should call 911, Lake County 911 said. Nonemergency callers should dial 219-660-0000 in Lake County or 219-322-5000 in Cedar Lake and Schererville.

For information on travel conditions in Indiana, call 800-261-7623.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Check back at nwi.com for updates to this story.

Gallery: Winter weather in the Region

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The public is invited to attend one of two free training workshops for prospective volunteer monitors of local frog populations. Staff from Shirley Heinze Land Trust, The Field Museum and Indiana University Northwest will present the workshops on Feb. 9 in Michigan City, and on Feb. 13 in Valparaiso. The two sessions are identical in content. Workshop participants will learn about the characteristics of each species, their preferred habitat and how to identify the calls of thirteen local frog and toad species. Newcomers to the program will be assigned a preserve or natural area close to their home, or they may attend the session just to learn about the issue. Spencer Cortwright, Biology Professor at Indiana University Northwest, will lead the workshop from 10 a.m. to noon Feb. 9 at Barker House, 444 Barker Road in Michigan City. Alan Resetar, Amphibian and Reptile Collections Manager at The Field Museum, will lead the workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. Feb. 13 at Meadowbrook Conservation Center, 109 W. County Road 700 North, Valparaiso. Call 219-242-8558.
The public meeting is set for 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, at the former Carrie Gosch Elementary School, 455 E. 148th St., in East Chicago.

Residents have argued EPA's proposal isnt protective enough because contamination beneath two feet will remain in place and it does not factor in pending results of EPAs ongoing study on groundwater contamination.

When EPA first canceled the requested Jan. 10 hearing, the East Chicago Calumet Coalition Community Advisory Group and others cried foul, saying EPA was not fulfilling its commitment to engage residents.

Those living in the Superfund site are considered part of an "environmental justice" community that has been disproportionately impacted by the long-term exposure to toxins, the group argued.

Debbie Chizewer, a Northwestern University environmental attorney working with the CAG, said EPA's announcement was welcomed news.

"This environmentally overburdened community will now have the opportunity to have its voices heard. Hopefully, (EPA) will also take great care to amend its remediation plans to reflect the communitys input," she said.

Residents can submit public comments until March 13, and have several options to weigh in:

Submit comments orally or in writing at the public meeting

Send a fax to Janet Pope, 312-385-5311

Use the form at epa.gov/uss-lead-superfund-site/forms/comment-proposed-amendment-cleanup-plan-residential-area-zone-1-0

Mail comments to:

Janet Pope (pope.janet@epa.gov)

Community Involvement Coordinator

77 W Jackson Blvd, SI-6J

Chicago, IL 60604

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When contacted by The Times, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez confirmed county and city police responded Wednesday morning to Sparks-Wades residence to "conduct a welfare check on an individual.

Martinez described it as a domestic situation.

Washingtons arrest Wednesday morning comes less than two months after Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Thode sentenced him in connection with his conviction for battering a female cousin.

The judge sentenced Washington to 180 days at the Lake County Jail, but suspended all but time already served to be spent on unsupervised probation.

Special prosecutor Stanley M. Levco, of Evansville, who is handling Washingtons most recent case, told The Times he was made aware of the arrest and that it would be his responsibility to prosecute any alleged violation. He said he will check with the Lake County probation department when it reopens Friday.

Gary police Cmdr. Jack Hamady said he did not expect charges to be filed Wednesday due to the Lake County government's closure due to weather.

Because of his status as a past public official and current candidate for Gary city council, Washington will be held in isolation at the jail for his own protection, Martinez said.
GARY  A couple orchestrated a robbery in which two Gary post office employees were held at gunpoint, courts say.

James Caffey, 28, and Tanisha Banks, 38, of Merrillville, were convicted of conspiring to rob and aiding the robbery of U.S. Postal Service employees, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

On Aug. 3, 2017, a man named Leeroy Beck held two employees at gunpoint and stole money and mail from the Tolleston Station post office in Gary at 2407 W. 11th Ave.

The four-day trial in Chief U.S. District Court Judge Theresa Springmann's court determined that Banks and Caffey conspired with Beck to rob the post office.

Banks, a former employee of the Gary post office, gave Caffey information to execute the robbery, according to court records. Caffey handled the transporation to and from the post office.

Banks and Caffey recruited Beck, the gunman, to carry out the robbery, the news release said. Evidence presented in the trial showed that Caffey gave Beck a handgun to use for the robbery.

The money was divided among the three people, in which Banks and Caffey used their share to pay bills, courts said.
CROWN POINT  An East Chicago man charged in a Hammond home invasion and gang rape has escaped from electronic monitoring, police said.

Elias Costello, 19, was charged July 18 in connection with a Hammond home invasion and gang rape of his girlfriend's relative. Charges filed Aug. 3 allege he burglarized a different Hammond home belonging to a different girlfriend's family.

Costello posted bond in both cases Dec. 7 and was placed on electronic monitoring pending trial.

Costello's surety bond was $125,000 in the rape case and $60,000 in the burglary case, online court records show.

Police went to his home after his ankle monitor stopped working Jan. 16, but two relatives denied having any knowledge of his whereabouts, records say.

Costello is accused of conspiring with girlfriend Alexis M. Lietz, 20, of Antioch, Illinois, and two of his friends to break into Lietz's family's home in July.

According to court records, Nathaniel J. Asbury, 21, and Isiah Barboza, 16, raped Lietz's 19-year-old relative at gunpoint during the burglary. Costello is accused of holding down the woman and groping her during the assault.

Anyone with information about Costello's whereabouts is asked to call 911, Lake County sheriff's spokesman Emiliano Perez said.

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CROWN POINT  A man was charged with murder Monday on allegations he beat his roommate to death last weekend at a Gary assisted living facility.

Craig Withrow, 28, of Gary, told police he argued with David Carte and started to become very angry when Carte called him a profane name, Lake Criminal Court records say.

Withrow claimed Carte swung on him, and he hit Carte numerous times in the face and hit Carte's head on the floor, bed and table leg, records state.

An employee of the facility found Carte on the floor, his face in a pool of blood. Police found several pools of blood, and noticed the carpet was soaked in a circular pattern, records say.

Withrow and Carte had not been roommates for long, and both had been known to be violent, the employee told police.

Carte was taken to a local hospital and later transferred to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he died Sunday.* He suffered a severe brain bleed and internal bleeding into the lungs, records say.

Withrow, who was found at the scene with no shirt and covered in blood, was being held without bond.
HAMMOND  A Crown Point man on Tuesday admitted to aiding Two Six Nation street gang members in an attempted kidnapping that turned fatal more than 15 years ago.

In a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court, Jerome Sims, 54, admitted to helping Two Six gang leader Jesus "Chu Chu" Fuentes, of Chicago, and others as they sought out East Chicago's Julio Cartagena for an owed drug debt.

At the direction of Fuentes, Sims placed a tracking device on Cartagenas pickup truck and made plans to meet with him on May 16, 2003  so Fuentes and his associates could kidnap Cartagena and recover his lost money and drugs, according to documents in the case.

Fuentes associates, while armed with firearms, ended up shooting and killing him, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Documents show Sims entered a guilty plea Tuesday of one count of aiding and abetting a murder resulting from the use and carrying of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years and a maximum $250,000 fine.

Sims played small role
With family in the wine business, there's a future plan for a stack of wine and bourbon barrels in the corner of the brewery, some now housing imperial Russian ales and sour ale stocks. But Thompson said that, and plans for other future products, are still up in the air.

"At the moment this is a fun curiosity at best," he said. "At some point we're going to sit down and plan it out, and have a clear objective."

So, the real action is just inside the brewery's door from the taproom, its new pilot brewing system.

Fernson got a loan financed through the Governor's Office of Economic Development last year, allowing it to buy new equipment to boost beer quality, as well as buy a five-barrel pilot brewing system, allowing the brewers to make small test batches of multiple brews.

The new system is revolutionizing Fernson's work on new beer. When the Sioux Falls Business Journal visited the brewery, it had three brews on the pilot system: a sour IPA, a hazy IPA, and another sour  "a take on cherry pie," according to Thompson.
A conference room at a southeast Iowa school has been turned into a food pantry for students and their families.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Bank of Iowa and local community groups helped launch the food pantry at New London School District in December, The Hawk Eye reported.

Families in the district with a student in kindergarten through 12th grade can use the food pantry, which is open on Thursdays. The pantry also offers non-food supplies such as toiletries. About 30 families have used the resource so far.

"It's kind of on a first-come, first-serve basis, so whenever we run out for the month that's when we run out, but we have not run out yet," said Scott Kracht, principal of the New London high school and middle school.

Students can also access the pantry during the school day if they're hungry.

"It they're full, they'll tend to be able to learn better," Kracht said.

The food pantry is being operated at no cost to the district. The community has been donating items and staff have volunteered their time running the pantry.
Everyone agrees Indiana's teachers need to be paid more, but there is little agreement about how to make that happen.

The Indiana State Teachers Association, in announcing its 2019 legislative agenda in December 2018, said the state ranks in the bottom third for teacher pay in the country.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb made the issue one of his key initiatives in his Jan. 15 State of the State address.

In my budget proposal last week, I requested K-12 education funding increases of 2 percent for the next two years. That's a 4 percent increase and equates to $432 million more than today, stated Holcomb.

We're in a financial position to use surplus dollars to pay off a pension liability that local schools currently pay...These two proposals would result in $572 million new dollars to K-12 schools over the biennium. I believe local school districts should allocate 100 percent of the $140 million to increasing teacher paychecks.

House Republicans want to drive more money into K-12 classrooms in an effort to raise teacher salaries, but only using existing resources.

House Bill 1003, authored by Rep. Dale DeVon, R-Granger, would encourage Indiana school districts to transfer only 15 percent or less of their state money into its operational budget, which funds items like administrative costs, school safety and superintendents salaries. HB 1003 says districts should keep the remaining 85 percent for classroom instructional needs, including teachers paychecks. Nothing in this bill, however, says the savings from trimming operating costs must be passed on to teachers. HB 1003 passed the House Education Committee by a 9-3 party line vote, and then headed to the House Ways and Means Committee.

House Bill 1396, authored by Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero, establishes the teacher supplemental compensation fund, and ncreases the cigarette tax by $1 to $1.995 per pack of regular size cigarettes with the additional revenue deposited in the fund.

Senate Bill 606, authored by Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Centerville, removes a provision that provides that a combination of certain factors may account for not more than 33.33 percent of the calculation used to determine an increase or increment in teacher salaries. HB 1205 also does this, but SB 606 does not mandate a salary increase.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats said they will push for $150 million in wage hikes for teachers.

House Bill 1205, authored by Rep. Pat Boy, D-Michigan City, provides that a school corporation must provide each classroom teacher a salary increase of between 2 percent and 5 percent to receive a basic tuition support distribution that includes the additional appropriation, among other things.

House Bill 1611, authored by Rep. Ryan Hatfield, D-Evansville, provides that the minimum annual salary for a full-time teacher employed by a school corporation may not be less than $50,000.

House Bill 1560, authored by Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, provides that a school corporation may provide an increase or increment in a local salary range for a teacher who possesses a master's degree or doctorate degree.
The United States Census is conducted once per decade, and the results have enormous consequences for voters in Indiana.

The last Census was conducted in 2010, and the next one is scheduled for 2020. That makes this legislative session extremely important because under the current system, the legislature is responsible for drawing both congressional and state legislative district lines, and the governor may veto the maps drawn.

Advocates for redistricting reform have been trying unsuccessfully to get a bill through the Statehouse. In 2018, for the second year in a row, Rep. Milo Smith, R-Columbus, killed a redistricting reform bill and House Speaker Brian Bosma, said he was OK with that.

This session, several bills have been introduced in an attempt to introduce some measure of independence from the political whims of the party in the power in choosing their own voters.

Bosma did not make redistricting reform one of his legislative priorities this session.

However, Senate Democrats did, and more than a few Republican colleagues have joined the fight

House Bill 1011, authored by Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, establishes a redistricting commission (commission) to create, hold hearings on, take public comment about, and recommend plans to redraw general assembly districts and congressional districts.

Senate Bill 91, co-authored by Sen. John Ruckelshaus, R-Indianapolis, Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, and Sen. Jon Ford, R-Terre Haute; House Bill 1386, authored by Rep. Pat Boy, D-Michigan City; House Bill 1317, authored by Rep. Justin Moed, D-Indianapolis; and Senate Bill 37, authored by Sen. Timothy Lanane, D-Andersonall do much the same thing.

Senate Bill 105, co-authored by Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, and Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, establishes redistricting standards for congressional and state legislative districts. It provides that the initial proposed plans for congressional and state legislative districts must comply with the redistricting standards. It allows the general assembly to consider and adopt modifications to the initial proposed plans that deviate from the redistricting standards as long as the reason or reasons for each deviation are publicly explained and documented.

On Jan. 24, the League of Women Voters of Indiana, Common Cause Indiana, Women4Change Indiana Action Fund, Hoosier Environmental Council, American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Indiana Muslim Advocacy Network, Earth Charter Indiana, Indiana Friends Committee on Legislation, and The Greater Indianapolis NAACP Branch 3053 all signed onto a letter supporting SB 91 and HB 1011.

Time is running out for our legislature to act on the leading issue of redistricting reform. If we fail to act in the 2019 session, we may have to wait another 10 years before we have another shot at creating fairer maps for Indiana. Much is at stake for voter and civic involvement, stated Jesse Kharbanda of the Hoosier Environmental Council.

More than 25 local governments in Indiana have adopted resolutions calling for a citizen-led redistricting commission for Indiana.

Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah are some of the states that recently enacted redistricting reforms. We have many models to followand states like Indiana can otherwise create our own path, stated Julia Vaughn of Common Cause Indiana.
NOTE: See related articles at the bottom for the most up-to-date information on hate crimes legislation this session.

Indianaalong with South Carolina, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Georgiais currently one of only five states in the country without a hate crimes law on the books.

A series of high profile incidents helped highlight this disparity, including a July 2018 attack on Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in Carmel, in which a pair of spray-painted Nazi Party flags and Iron Crosses, along with burn marks, were discovered on the brick walls around the garbage bins outside the synagogue.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders have pledged 2019 would be the year Indiana would remove itself from this ever-shrinking list.

However, the question of whether or not to include protected classes continues to be a sticking point.

Hate crimes legislation was conspicuously absent from House Speaker Brian Bosma's list of legislative priorities for this session, but remains a top priority for Democrats and the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, in particular, has been outspoken on this issue. He even broke with members of his own party to push for progress.

I look forward to working with the General Assembly to achieve this goal so that our state law reflects what's already in my administration's employment policy, he said during his Jan. 19 State of the State Address. Businesses interested in Indiana care about this issue, but it's not just about business. At heart, this has to do with people's dignity and how we treat one another. Standing strong against targeted violence motivated to instill fear against an entire group is the right thing to do.

Indiana Forward, a bipartisan group of representatives from the business, nonprofit, advocacy, education, and faith communities praised Holcomb's efforts. At a minimum, the campaign believes that any bias crimes law should clearly enumerate at least the following immutable characteristics: race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, ability, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

We look forward to working collaboratively with him and our leaders in the General Assembly to make sure the best legislation crosses the goal line, read part of the group's statement following Holcomb's address.

Hate crimes bills introduced this session include

Senate Bill 469, authored by Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis

House Bill 1203, authored by Rep. Pat Boy, D-Michigan City

House Bill 1159, authored by Rep. Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis

House Bill 1371, authored by Rep. Chris Campbell, D-West Lafayette

House Bill 1093, authored by Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon

House Bill 1020, authored by Rep. Tony Cook, R-Avon

House Bill 1320, authored by Rep. Justin Moed, D-Indianapolis

Senate Bill 12, co-authored by Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores

Senate Bill 75, co-authored by Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange, Sen. John Ruckelshaus, R-Indianapolis, and Sen. James Merritt, R-Indianapolis

Senate Bill 599, authored by Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis
Nebraskans understand that federal government regulation affects our lives in almost every way. If you talk to anyone  a county commissioner, a farmer, or a small business owner  they will tell you the impact firsthand. More so, theyll tell you how overregulation has wasted time and hurt wallets.

For nearly 70 years, an outdated construction contract loan with the Bureau of Reclamation anchored the Northport Irrigation District in an older era.

Northport received a long-term infrastructure loan from the BoR in the early 1950s. Under the contract, individual landowners in the district were restricted to a 960-acre limit until the debt was paid. This came in addition to the mountains of complicated paperwork that was required in order to obtain their water each year.

The contract prevented members in the district from making payments on their overall debt. This forced people to abide by unnecessary, burdensome reporting and certification requirements. Producers near Bridgeport were stymied, as their ability to expand farms and local businesses was severely limited. Many families in western Nebraska told me they sacrificed precious time and resources due to this obsolete regulation. In some cases, it directly impacted their ability to pass their land on to the next generation.
Byington hopes to show his film in North Platte, aiming for the summer or fall.

The small-town location wasnt the only attractive feature to Byington.

It cools down at night in September because of the altitude, he said. It doesnt really cool down until mid-October here.

Before Wheless arrived, Byington would take screen shots of his weather app on his phone and send them to her.

I think to get her excited, but it had the effect of taunting her, he said, as both he and Wheless laughed.

Residents in North Platte werent just hospitable and excited about a movie filming in North Platte. Some received parts of their own as extras or in minor roles.

Yoko Lawing was connected with the filmmakers as they scouted local locations, and she was soon given a part.

I didnt even audition, she said.

Lawing, who is originally from Japan, was given the part of a Korean detective, she said. Though she was given a script, she said she was later told, Just be yourself. Just do your thing.

Thats one of the toughest things, she said. What am I going to talk about?
Napoleon, OH (43545)

Today

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
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Eleven individuals were sentenced for various crimes in Tioga County on January 28, 2019, according to Tioga County Court documents. They are:

- Michael Lute, 25, of Greenwood, New York, 12 days to 18 months with credit for 12 days Tioga County Prison, $100 fine and no contact with the victims for one count of first degree misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. Also sentenced to 18 months concurrent probation for a second count of first degree misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. Docket sheet.

- Amos L. Preston, 40, of Millerton, 30 days to six months Tioga County Prison, $1,000 fine and 12 months driver's license suspension for second degree misdemeanor DUI (highest rate of alcohol), first offense. Docket sheet.

- Ryder Stinehart, 22, of Westfield, three years intermediate punishment, phase one four months EHM, phase two probation, for third degree felony criminal trespass. Docket sheet.

- Austin L. Short, 21, five years intermediate punishment, phase one six months Tioga County Prison with work release, phase two 90 days EHM, phase three probation, $100 fine and DNA sample for felony conspiracy possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. Docket sheet.

- Christopher R. Tomb, 31, of Sabinsville, was re-sentenced to 18 months to 60 months minus one day Tioga County Prison, $1,500 fine and 18 months driver's license suspension for DUI (highest rate of alcohol), second offense. Docket sheet.

- Austin Joseph Moore, 25, of Harrison, Arkansas, five days to six months Tioga County Prison, $500 fine, 12 months driver's license suspension and 12 months ignition interlock for DUI, second offense. Docket sheet.

- Kenneth W. Cowan, 35, of Blossburg, five years intermediate punishment, phase one six months EHM, phase two probation, 18 months driver's license suspension, 12 months ignition interlock and $1,500 fine for first degree misdemeanor DUI (highest rate of alcohol), second offense. Docket sheet.

- Darlene A. Decker, 74, of Elkland, five years intermediate punishment, phase one 90 days EHM, phase two probation, 18 months driver's license suspension, 12 months ignition interlock, and $1,500 fine for DUI, second offense. Docket sheet.

- Lowell C. Lake, 34, of Camphill, six to 24 months Tioga County Prison with 14 days credit for time served, early parole granted, $240.67 restitution, $50 fine for second degree misdemeanor theft. Docket sheet.

- Raymond E. Smith, 61, of Middlebury Center, 90 days to 12 months Tioga County Prison, $25 fine for misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance. Also sentenced to the cost of prosecution and no further penalties for possession of a small amount of marijuana for personal use. Docket sheet.

- Derrick T. Anderson, 28, of Mansfield, five years intermediate punishment, phase one 90 days EHM, phase two probation, $1,500 fine, 18 months driver's license suspension and 12 months ignition interlock for first degree misdemeanor DUI (highest rate of alcohol), third offense. Docket sheet.

Three were placed on Accelerated Rehabilitative Dispositon. They are:

- Allen Costley, 12 months probation. Docket sheet.

- Pamela Johnson, 9 months probation. Docket sheet.

- Nicholas Batchler, 12 months probation. Docket sheet.
Research shows that reading aloud to children every day puts them almost a year ahead of children who do not receive daily read alouds, regardless of parental income, education level or cultural background.

Thats why the James V. Brown Library, 19 E. Fourth St., is encouraging everyone to read aloud together on the 10th annual World Read Aloud Day on Feb. 1.

Reading aloud to children is important because:

 If all children in low-income countries left school literate, 171 million people could move out of poverty, according to the World Literacy Foundation.

 Poorly-literate individuals are less likely to participate in democratic processes and have fewer chances to fully exercise their civil rights, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

 Illiterate people earn 30-42 percent less than their literate counterparts, according to the World Literacy Foundation.
Norman, OK (73070)

Today

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph.
As icy winds whistle around the area, school officials are watching closely to see if they will need to cancel classes for Wednesday.
A Council Bluffs man who plead guilty to setting fire to a BMW as part of an insurance scam in 2017 has been sentenced for arson, according to court records.

William Odinas, 35, was sentenced to 74 days in jail with credit for time served and a fine of $625. He was also ordered to pay court fees and restitution.

The alleged co-conspirator, Peere Shackelford, 34, is also charged with conspiracy to commit a non-forcible felony. He has plead not guilty ahead of his March 5 jury trial.

Shackelford was served with the Pottawattamie County warrant after his arrest on Dec. 5 in Omaha. He was extradited to Council Bluffs on Dec. 27 and has since posted $10,000 bond.

Odinas, 35, plead guilty to setting fire to the BMW, according to Iowa Court Records.

Earlier, the Iowa Insurance Divisions Fraud Bureau announced an investigation with the Council Bluffs Fire Department led to issuance of a warrant for Shackelford and his subsequent arrest.

Authorities said Shackelford provided false information to his insurance carrier in support of an insurance claim.

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On Oct. 17, 2017, the 2005 red BMW X5 was found burned in a parking lot near 3400 South Expressway.
Can we specify how long they have been there? Can we get a DNA sample? Well look at missing persons reports from around the time we believe they passed, Roberts said.

The fact is, some are found without a drivers license in their back pocket. Time can lessen the chance to collect a blood sample or lift fingerprints from the subject.

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Even if they can gather a sample or print, both are near useless without something on record to compare them to.

They could be missing from across the country or not have a DNA profile in the records system, Roberts said.

If lucky, investigators may get in touch with friends or relatives of the subject. An old piece of clothing they possess that may have been worn by the subject could still have strands of hair. Relatives could provide their own blood samples to see if the DNA matches theirs, as well.

Walker Hodges, chief investigator at the Iowa medical examiner officer, said there are ways beyond blood and dental records, should those options be exhausted.

Sometimes its a circumstantial mark, like a tattoo. Medical implants, like bone plates can also lead to a positive identification, he said. We really strive to find an answer.
A Council Bluffs woman was arrested Tuesday morning after she allegedly left her two children unattended in a car in sub-freezing temperatures.

Police were called to the parking lot at The Marketplace retail center, 3271 Marketplace Drive, after a concerned citizen called about two children left alone in a car. Police said the woman provided the children shelter in her vehicle until police arrived.

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The investigation revealed the children, ages 2 and 4, had been left unattended in the vehicle for approximately 45 minutes before the citizen located them, police said in a release.

The vehicle the children had been left in was not running, was unlocked and the window was partially down, police also said. The children were only wearing light clothing. The outside air temperature at the time of the incident was 5 degrees with a -14 to -15 degree wind chill.

The mother of the children was located by police after she came out of the Boot Barn Store. The mother, 25, was arrested for two counts of child endangerment, police said. The children were placed into protective custody and the Department of Human Services was contacted.

The children were not injured.
Befitting a man with a heavy background in coffee, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is making a lot of people nervous these days.

Schultz announced in an interview Sunday (Jan. 27) on 60 Minutes that he is considering a run for president, not as the lifelong Democrat who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, but as an independent disenchanted with the policies of both parties.

"I will run as a centrist independent, outside of the two-party system, Schultz said. We're living at a most fragile time, not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president but the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what's necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics."

With a personal fortune estimated at about $3.3 billion, a reputation as the force behind Starbucks aggressive expansion and retail success and a recently published inspirational book, From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America, Schultz cant be taken lightly. And thats what has Democrats on edge.

Repealing Roe v. Wade wont end the debate

With visions of Ross Perot and Ralph Nader in their heads, some fear that Schultz will drain enough votes from the Democratic Party nominee to re-elect Republican President Donald Trump.

Or as a heckler at a recent Schultz book-signing put it: Dont help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire ass--!

That has been the tone of much of the coverage of Schultz announcement. But there is another question of why the longtime Democrat would choose not to seek his partys nomination in favor of an independent bid that has never played more than a spoilers role in American politics.

The short answer is that he has decided his centrist approach is not going to get much traction in a Democratic primary field that so far tilts heavily to the left. The campaign promises of the announced candidates so far include higher taxes on the wealthy, Medicare for all and free college tuition. And we havent even heard from Bernie Sanders yet.

Schultzs complaints of reckless spending and the nations $21.5 trillion debt arent likely to stir primary voters who are more focused on revolution and resistance. The Texas political maxim that there is nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos could certainly be applied to the current Democratic Party landscape. For the Louisiana version, just replace armadillos with blue dogs.

That also raises questions about former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who currently remains on the might run list of Democratic candidates.

Landrieu, a self-described radical centrist, would be bucking the same trends that challenge Schultz. Primary voters in both parties tend to be more extreme than the general election voting pool, and its hard to see how a Democrat wins the nomination next year without a strong veer to the left.

That may also be a part of former Vice President Joe Bidens calculations. Biden has plenty of liberal bona fides, but at the age of 76 and a long career within the establishment, he may seem a little out of date for the 2020 version of the Democratic Party.

Catholic kids in MAGA hats and everything wrong with the media

If the guy who helped bring us the Pumpkin Spice Latte, secular Christmas cups and political messaging from baristas finds himself too far to the right in this campaign field, how does Landrieu make it to the front of the line?

Tim Morris is a columnist on the Latitude team at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Latitude is a place to share opinions about the challenges facing Louisiana. Follow @LatitudeNOLA on Facebook and Twitter. Write to Tim at tmorris@nola.com.
You probably dont like the Rev. William Barber. He spends too much time in the pulpit advocating for the poor, too much time talking about the multiple ways this country, this countrys people and this countrys systems have trampled poor people and kept them down. You dont have time for that. Youd rather give your attention to a real preacher, one who tells you boldly that faith without wealth is dead.

Barber is in South Louisiana this week on some kind of Poor Peoples Campaign. Sounds absolutely radical, doesnt it? Well, wait till you hear the details. This Poor Peoples Campaign is demanding the immediate implementation of federal and state living wage laws that are commensurate for the 21st century economy, guaranteed annual incomes, full employment and the right for all workers to form and join unions. Theres also a demand for fully-funded welfare programs for the poor and an end to the attacks on programs that help the poor. The campaign wants every state to expand Medicaid and the protection of Medicare and single-payer universal health care for all.

Barber is the pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, N.C. Hes a former president of the North Carolina NAACP and remains on the national organizations board of directors. You probably think hes an example of how black leadership has gone off track since the days of Martin Luther King Jr. I mean, guaranteed annual incomes? Who in their right mind would support such a thing?!

OK, so its just now been brought to my attention that King himself supported that very thing in his speeches and in his writing. In a 1967 speech at Stanford University called The Other America, King drew his audiences attention to the rampant inequality in America, the co-existence of opulence and destitution. Now one of the answers it seems to me, he said, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the civil rights movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income, begin to organize people all over our country, and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this is something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negros economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation.

Whats more, it turns out that King himself was leading the original Poor Peoples Campaign when he was assassinated in 1968. He was making plans to take a caravan of the nations poor to Washington so the countrys political establishment could see the faces of the people theyd been so assiduously avoiding.

Wow. This new information about King might make it a bit harder for you to hate Barber. I mean, if hes trying to carry on the work that King didnt get to complete, then you might have to give him a pass and listen thoughtfully to what he says. Because everybody knows how much you adore King. I mean, dont you include that content of their character line in your email signature every January 15?

Still, I understand if theres something about Barber that rubs you the wrong way. Maybe King was right to attack poverty back in his day, but things are different now, right? Theyre better. People have opportunities now that they didnt have then. Anybody not making it today just isnt working hard enough, right?

It takes $61,000 a year for a family to get by in New Orleans. Many are struggling.

According to a January report from the Louisiana Association of United Ways, a family of four needs $61,000 a year just to barely get by in New Orleans. But more than half the citys households are struggling to bring in that much. About a quarter of the citys 154,000 households were living in poverty, which means they were making less than $24,3000 a year to provide for a family of four.

According to a December report from the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University, 1 in 6 Louisianians (about 783,000 in all) struggle with hunger. Louisiana is renowned for its cuisine, but rampant food insecurity led the JSRI to call its report Hungry at the Banquet.

Barber writes the foreword to a book I just started reading: Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom From Slaveholder Religion. In that foreword, he writes, In his first sermon  not his second or third, but his very first sermon  Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor.

I dont know a gospel, he writes, that doesnt challenge the injustice of poverty.

And so Barber has brought his message that poverty is injustice to one of Americas poorest states.

He preached at First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans Monday night. On Tuesday, he was scheduled to stand with residents in St. James Parish who are protesting a proposed $9.4 billion chemical plant. And Wednesday evening, hes scheduled to lecture at Tulane University.

You could go, but you probably wont like him. Because he might cause you to think that your prosperity gospel aint gospel at all.

Jarvis DeBerry is a columnist on the Latitude team at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Latitude is a place to share opinions about the challenges facing Louisiana. Follow @LatitudeNOLA on Facebook and Twitter. Write Jarvis at jdeberry@nola.com or @jarvisdeberry.
I was running late, and I hate running late. I especially hated to be late for a blind date.

OK, it wasnt really a blind date. I had seen a picture of her before. But this wasnt a romantic date. It was a mom date.

Mom dating is exactly what it sounds like  moms meeting other moms in the interest of starting a long-term relationship  albeit platonic. The term is often used in a joking manner, but in reality, its quite common.

Making friends as an adult can be hard, and so many things need to line up if youre trying to make a new parent-friend.

Are you in the same life stage? Do you like being around their partner? Do you have similar parenting philosophies? Do your kids get along?

But most importantly, do your schedules line up?

A recent study found that it takes about 50 hours of time with someone before you consider them a casual friend, 90 hours before you become real friends, and about 200 hours to become close friends, according to Business Insider.

Thats a lot of time, and if youre a parent, then your free time is already limited. Try striking up a friendship with a mom whose toddlers nap schedule is the complete opposite of your kids.

How to find a good babysitter in New Orleans

Im not saying parents cant have friends without kids, but it is nice to have friends in the same life-stage; friends who can understand what youre experiencing because theyre experiencing it as well.

Finding your village in New Orleans can be hard, though. This city isnt exactly transient. Many people who live and work in this area grew up here, and their social circles have already formed.

Ill never forget the time I went to get a haircut at a salon in Lakeview. I asked the stylist if she was from here. Oh no, Im not from here, she responded. I grew up in the Irish Channel.

By here, of course, I meant New Orleans. It was my first lesson in how some New Orleanians associate the phrase from here more with neighborhoods than other cities.

So, when an email about an app branding itself as the Tinder for moms landed in my inbox, I was intrigued.

The app is called Peanut. Instead of swiping left or right on potential romantic partners, moms are asked to swipe up or down to be matched with potential mom friends. If both people swipe up, congratulations, you got a match!

At first, the concept struck me as strange. Sure, its no longer uncommon to hear about a couple meeting on Match.com. But a matchmaker app  for moms?

Peanut creator Michelle Kennedy asks, why not?

Wouldnt it be great if we used those same algorithms in dating and applied them to women and mothers? Kennedy asked me on a recent call.

Kennedy began her career as a matchmaker, but of the romantic variety. After having a child, she realized there was a similar need in the parenting community, and she had just the right skillset to do something about it.

I didnt think that was where I was going in my career  mommy matchmaker. But each life stage we go through, theres a change and theres room for innovation.

The app debuted in New York, then made its way to cities like Chicago and Dallas before recently landing in New Orleans. With over half a million active users, the app seems to have found its audience.

But could this app really help me tap into more mom friends in New Orleans?

I set up my profile, which mostly consisted of providing information like how many kids I have, what languages I speak, where I studied and what kind of person I am; I sorted through some descriptive badges and chose Mom Boss, Wine Time and Outdoorsy.

Then I started swiping. At first, it felt weird  judgmental, even  to swipe on a picture of another mom after only getting a glimpse of a photo and surface personality descriptions. So, I swiped up to match with everyone.

But the more time I spent on Peanut, the more my approach started changing. After all, if it takes so much time to establish a real friendship with someone, you might as well be selective and start with someone who really seems like a good fit.

I started swiping up on moms who lived in or near my neighborhood, with only one or two children around my daughters age. I also looked for working moms, who I thought could relate to my 9-5 lifestyle and issues.

The more you interact with the product, the smarter it gets about who its showing you, Kennedy says.

Be authentic, she said. You have to remember, youre all on the platform for the same purpose. You all want to find your community, your support, your crew, your people.

In other words, be bold and get over that fear of rejection.

At what age do New Orleanians start hating potholes? I think I know.

I also started browsing through the apps message boards, where moms ask each other questions and talk about way more things than their kids.

After a week or so of swiping and exchanging messages, I matched with another local mom, Jenni. Jenni has one child my daughters age, and we decided to skip the instant messaging and go straight to a face-to-face meetup.

And I was late. Thankfully, Jenni was as chill and relatable as her profile made her out to be. We had a glass of wine and discussed Hallmark Christmas movies for the next hour.

I started seeing moms that I already knew on the app, too. One day, a notification from one of my best friends popped on my screen through the app. You seem so familiar

Funny enough, I met that friend through the internet last year, via a local moms Facebook group.

I havent met another mom from the app since Jenni, because ultimately, while I think its a great tool for the modern mom, it does take time. Like with most things, you get out what you put in.

If youre a mom whos new to the area, a new mom who wants some parent friends, or a mom who stays at home full time and wants to build a support network, then Peanut could be a great tool. Swipe away.

What I really took away from the experience is that there are a lot of mothers in the New Orleans community who want to connect with each other, and theyre willing to put themselves out there to do it.

Maybe instead of sitting on our phones while our kids run around the playground, we should sit down next to that other mom on the bench and strike up a conversation. We might walk away with a great new friendship.
Interstate 10 in eastern Mississippi has been reopened, following an hours-long standoff between police and a machete-wielding truck driver who was taken into custody, the Sun Herald reports.

The interstate was closed near the Gautier Vancleave exit for nearly five hours Wednesday (Jan. 30).

The Sun Herald reported the truck driver had been involved in an earlier road rage incident. WLOX reported earlier Wednesday that the standoff followed a chase on westbound I-10 that began in Alabama.

I-10 standoff

The truck was stopped on the shoulder of the interstate east of Ocean Springs around 9 a.m. and police began negotiating with the driver to surrender. The driver was armed with a machete, police said.

See the Sun Herald story here.
UPDATE: The Mississippi Department of Transportation said around 12:30 p.m. that all lanes were still blocked.

ORIGINAL STORY: Police in Mississippi are involved in a standoff with an armed motorist that has blocked traffic on Interstate 10 east of Ocean Springs, WLOX reports.

WLOX reported Wednesday morning (Jan. 30) that the standoff followed a vehicle chase on westbound I-10 that began in Alabama. The standoff is near the Gautier Vancleave exit and has traffic blocked in both directions.

The standoff involves the driver of an 18-wheeler that is stopped on the shoulder of the highway. Multiple law enforcement agencies are involved, WLOX reports.

Read the full WLOX story here.
Theres now a link between the Louisiana 2019 governors race and special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into President Donald Trump -- sort of.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone has hired Tony Fabrizio, the chief pollster for Trumps 2016 campaign, who reportedly met with federal investigators last year.

Fabrizio has not been accused of any wrongdoing or named as a subject of the probe. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday (Jan. 29) or Wednesday. But like some other former members of the presidents campaign, Fabrizio met with Muellers team in early 2018, CNN reported.

A veteran of several high-profile political campaigns, Fabrizio is considered one of the best in the business of political polling  and hes familiar with Louisiana. He previously worked for U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and former Gov. Mike Foster. Other notable clients include Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

We hired Tony because hes one of the best pollsters in the United States, said Anthony Ramirez, campaign spokesman for Rispone on Tuesday. His record of winning elections, including the Trump presidential campaign, demonstrates his deep understanding of the conservative electorate.

Fabrizio is closely connected with two people in Trumps orbit who became targets of the Mueller investigation: Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former advisor Roger Stone.

Manaforts attorneys revealed earlier this month that Manafort shared polling data with a Russian thought to have intelligence connections. Fabrizio was one of the people who conducted polling for Trumps campaign, though he has not been asked to appear as a witness at either of Manaforts trials.

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Louisiana governors race scrambled after John Kennedy opts out

Fabrizio and Manafort also have a long-standing professional relationship. The two started working together during former Sen. Bob Doles presidential campaign in the 1990s, Fabrizio has said in past interviews. Manafort, while serving as Trumps campaign chairman, reached out and hired the pollster for the 2016 Trump team, Fabrizio has said.

Prior to the two men joining the Trump campaign, Fabrizio also worked on Ukrainian elections with Manafort, according to CNN and Bloomberg News. Manaforts work for pro-Russian oligarchs in the Ukraine is one of the sources of his current legal troubles.

Several news outlets have also reported that Fabrizio is friends with longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, who was indicted this month. The two men live near each other in Florida. Mueller alleges Stone lied to Congress and obstructed a congressional investigation into Russian election meddling. Stone has said hes innocent of the charges.

Fabrizios relationship with the Trump campaign wasnt always smooth. Toward the end of the campaign, Trump was refusing to pay Fabrizio over $750,000 that the pollster said he was owed for services. Trump ended up paying the fee eventually, according to The Washington Post.

Correction: This article originally listed Tuesday as Jan. 30. It was Jan. 29.
One third of the students enrolled at Ray St. Pierre Academy in Marrero were marked absent Tuesday (Jan. 29), the second straight day of high absenteeism blamed on illness. Fifteen of the children are suffering from confirmed cases of influenza, and others have flu-like symptoms, a Jefferson Parish public schools system spokesman said.

Tuesday saw 122 students missing at a school that enrolls 332 from prekindergarten through fifth grade. That was up from 110 on Monday: 54 who didnt report to school plus 56 who went home early.

We havent seen any widespread numbers at any other school, school system spokesman Ted Beasley said.

The school informed parents by letter, and the school system posted a video in English and Spanish to explain flu and provide recommendations.

Marrero school cleaning planned after absences surge

. . . . . . .

Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach.
Here are picks from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayunes food team for eating and drinking in New Orleans this week and beyond.

THURSDAY (Jan. 31)

Blues Pop Up  Chef Joshua Blue, a MiNO scholarship recipient, will cook four Italian inspired dishes in the wine room at Luke (333 St. Charles Ave.). Proceeds benefit MiNO. The price includes wine. $85. 7 p.m. See Eventbrite.com for tickets.

MONDAY (Feb. 4)

Mardi Gras auction  Normally Galatoires (209 Bourbon St.) does not accept reservations in the main dining room. Seats for the Friday before Mardi Gras, however, will be auctioned to benefit the Galatoires Foundation, which supports location organizations. $50 donation per couple to attend, which includes cocktails. Call 504.335.3920.

TUESDAY (Feb. 5)

Food and restaurant news in your inbox Every Thursday we give you the scoop on NOLA dining. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Brown Estate wine tasting  Grande Krewe (2305 Decatur St.) pairs five wines from Brown Estate with catered from chef Scott Snodgrass, formerly of One Restaurant. Limited to 40 guests. $50. 6:30 p.m. Call 504.309.8309.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Feb. 8: Nuit Belge pairs Belgian and Belgian-style beers with food from top local restaurants. See www.nuitbelge.com.

March 14: Top Taco will pit the best local taco makers against each other to win prizes in categories such as most creative or best traditional taco. See www.toptaconola.com.

Got a food or drink event? Send it to foodevents@nola.com.
Cafe du Monde, the new coffee and beignet vendor in New Orleans City Park, is serving from its food truck each day while renovations are under way inside the Casino building.

The truck, which is parked facing the Casino building, with an awning to protect patrons from the elements, will be onsite from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. until renovations are completed.

1862: The first cup at Cafe Du Monde

Wayne Maher, Cafe du Monde branch supervisor, said the repairs and improvements to the site will take the full 90 days allotted by the park when it took bids for a new vendor in 2018.

Cafe du Monde submitted the highest bid to operate the stand in December.

Cafe du Monde submits highest bid to run City Park coffee stand, but no decision made yet

Food and restaurant news in your inbox Every Thursday we give you the scoop on NOLA dining. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Morning Call ran the City Park site from 2012 until Jan. 20. The business lease ended in 2017 and City Park officials decided to put the restaurant space out for bid rather than renew that lease. City Park officials reviewed bids from Cafe Beignet, Cafe du Monde and Morning Call.

Cafe du Monde was awarded the lease last summer, but a second bidding process was necessary after Morning Call disputed the results of that first go-round. Bids were relet and Cafe du Monde was the highest bidder again.

Morning Call is now seeking a new location for its business.

Morning Call: 149 years of history in 40 photos

Cafe du Monde is required to be open from 6 a.m. to midnight, but has the option of expanding those hours. Morning Call operated 24-hours a day.

Cafe du Monde, which operates the iconic French Quarter coffee shop on Decatur Street, runs nine other shops around the greater New Orleans area. The City Park site will be the 10th, with an 11th opening at the new terminal in the Louis Armstrong International Airport set to open in May.
Update: Police arrested 25-year-old Vernon Gilmore Thursday night (Jan. 31) in connection to the Bourbon Street shooting. On Wednesday (Jan. 30), NOPD released photos of a different man they believed was connected to the shooting. They no longer consider that pictured man a suspect in the shooting, said NOPD spokesman Aaron Looney.

Police are looking for a man they suspect shot a 25-year-old man in the leg on Bourbon Street Tuesday morning (Jan. 29).

The 25-year-old man and the pictured suspect were arguing when the suspect pulled out a handgun and shot at the 25-year-old around 4:38 a.m. near the intersection of Bourbon and Iberville streets (map), police said. The bullet struck the 25-year-old in his right thigh.

The suspect fled on Iberville Street toward Royal Street and then in an unknown direction.

The 25-year-old man showed up at a hospital shortly after gunfire was reported, but left without receiving treatment, police said. He then returned to the hospital around 6:47 a.m.

Authorities said the investigation was ongoing and anyone with information should contact Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111.

Bourbon Street shooting injures man, New Orleans police say
New Orleans police reported three robberies within seven hours in the Bywater, Treme and Algiers from Monday night (Jan. 28) until Tuesday morning.

7:04 p.m. Monday: A 25-year-old woman walked out of her front door in the 3600 block of Burgundy Street in the Bywater when a man approached her from behind and pressed a gun to her stomach. He took cash from her purse then fled.

In addition to two shootings  one in Algiers and one on Bourbon Street  NOPD also reported an early Tuesday morning stabbing in the Warehouse District near Lee Circle. A 38-year-old man was leaving the nearby Circle K gas station when a man approached him from behind and stabbed him below the right ear. The man was transported to the hospital where he was treated for a laceration, police said.
Two women who were inside a New Orleans East apartment the morning Hasahn Shawl was killed in 2016 said the men accused in his murder forced their way in, and were angry that the women had not responded to their earlier phone calls and text messages.

Asia Thomas and Starkesha Lee testified Tuesday (Jan. 29) in the second-degree murder trial of Tyrance Chancellor, who is charged in Shawls slaying and with obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to get rid of the murder weapon.

Authorities said Chancellor, 36, and his 15-year-old nephew, Jaquin Thomas, forced their way into Lees apartment at the Chateau dOrleans complex on Chef Menteur Highway around 3:30 a.m. on July 21, 2016.

Thomas, who died by suicide inside the Orleans Parish jail three months after his arrest, fired the shot that killed Shawl, according to testimony.

Assistant District Attorney Angad Ghai said Chancellor and Thomas were texting Asia Thomas and Lee in the hours leading up to the shooting, and showed up at Lees apartment after the women stopped responding.

Lee said she had a casual sexual relationship with both Shawl and Chancellor.

Shortly before the shooting, both women testified they heard rocks or acorns being thrown at a window, and minutes later heard the door to the apartment pop open. The pop was the sound of the door being kicked in, they said.

They saw Chancellor and Thomas coming up the stairs armed with a gun and a stick, they said. Shawl, who was at the apartment getting his hair done by Lee, came out of a bedroom when he heard the commotion, according to testimony.

Ghai said in opening statements that words were exchanged among the three men when Thomas and Chancellor got to the top of the stairs.

Asia Thomas said at one point she was standing between Jaquin Thomas and Shawl, and both were armed with guns. She said one of Lees children walked out of a bedroom, so she walked around Shawl and pushed the boy back in the room.

She heard a shot after she closed the door, she testified, then she heard Chancellor say, Why you shot the man?

Thomas said when everyone was outside the apartment after the shooting, Chancellor tried to give her his gun. She didnt want any part in that, she said.

An unanswered text, then news that sent a mother running

Defense attorney Gregory Rome questioned whether the door to Lees apartment actually was kicked in, or whether it might have been easily opened because building management failed to have it properly repaired after a former boyfriend kicked it in a year earlier.

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Lee said the lock would not have been blown off if the door wasnt forcefully opened.

New Orleans Police Detective Tindell Murdock Jr. said there was obvious forced entry, and a partial footprint on the door underneath the lock.

Chancellor, in a recorded interview with Murdock that was played for the jury, said Lee previously told him and his nephew how to get into her apartment because the lock was messed up. He said you can just push the door or use a butter knife or something.

He said Shawl was in the apartment when they went inside and was holding a pistol. Shawl was trippin, Chancellor said in the interview, and Asia Thomas was trying to calm him down.

Chancellor said Jaquin Thomas and Shawl got into a little disagreement, and Chancellor tried to take the gun out of Shawls hand.

I ran in the room, next thing you know I heard a boom, he said.

Murdock said Chancellors claim that he was inside a bedroom when Shawl was shot contradicted statements from Asia Thomas and Lee.

Chancellor said Thomas screamed and told him he had to shoot Shawl because Shawl was going to kill him.

Before a jury was seated Monday, Chancellor turned down an offer to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 20-year sentence. Criminal District Judge Karen Herman asked Chancellor to consider the offer once more before she called the jury in Tuesday, explaining he will face life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

Youve got a lot of family members here that love you and care about you, she said. Everyone is looking out for your best interest.

Chancellor chose to continue with a trial, and Tuesday morning expressed concerns about his attorneys lack of communication related to his case. Herman dismissed his concerns, saying he chose to hire his lawyer and never indicated any dissatisfaction in the past.

Chancellor also is facing charges of possession with intent to distribute oxycodone, possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Those charges were included in the six-count second-degree murder indictment, but prosecutors chose to sever the case and could try him on those charges later.

His second-degree murder trial is expected to continue Wednesday.

Hanna Krueger contributed to this report.
New Orleans police arrested an 18-year-old man suspected to be involved in over a dozen car burglaries in Gentilly, Lakeview, Mid-City and the Fairgrounds between Dec. 25 and Jan. 12, including one involving a JPSO deputys vehicle.

Zamyron Thomas admitted to driving around the city in stolen vehicles, smashing multiple car windows and stealing items from inside those cars, according to court documents. He also told police he carjacked at least two cars in the nineteen-day span.

Thomas was arrested Jan. 16 on allegations of vehicle burglary. Once in custody, he waived his right to remain silent and admitted to involvement in a string of burglaries throughout the city, police said. Detectives matched his accounts with burglary reports from the previous three weeks and ultimately connected the 18-year-old to the following crimes, as described in an arrest warrant affidavit:

Dec. 25:

- A white Subaru was stolen from a garage in the 6900 block of Vicksburg Street in Lakeview on Christmas afternoon. Thomas told police he had carjacked a Subaru that day near Canal Boulevard while driving a stolen Mazda, police said. Vickburg Street is located a bock away from Canal.

Dec. 29:

- A Toyota Tundra was burglarized in the 6300 block of Caldwell Drive in Gentilly. A wallet containing $600 was missing. A neighbor reported seeing the white Subaru at the location.

- A car was ransacked in the 6600 block of Vicksburg Street in Lakeview. Nothing was reported missing.

Jan. 3:

- A woman parked her Hyundai Tucson on Finch Street in Lakeview on Dec. 28 before leaving for vacation. Police called her on Jan. 3 and told her that the car had been used in a number of crimes throughout the city. Thomas told police Courtney West, 27, had picked him up in the stolen Tucson and the duo used the car to steal a Land Rover from Uptown, court records say. West was arrested Jan. 8 on burglary and motor vehicle theft charges.

Jan. 5:

- A man noticed that the car door of his Tahoe was ajar in the 6300 block of Canal Street in Lakeview. Multiple pairs of shoes valued at $280 were missing, police said.

Jan. 6:

- The front window of a mans white Mercedes was smashed in the 3100 block of Derby Place in the Fairgrounds. Earphones, reading glasses and knit hat were reported missing, police said.

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- Less than a quarter mile away from the Mercedes burglary, another car window was found smashed in the 3300 block of Castiglione Street in the Fairgrounds, police said. Nothing was reported missing.

Jan. 10:

- The window of a Ford was smashed in the 6100 block of Pratt Drive in Gentilly, police said. A pair of gloves were reported stolen.

Jan. 11:

- A Ford F-250 was stolen from a RV park in the 6000 block of France Road in Gentilly Woods. A F-150 in the park was ransacked. Two guns, including a .357 Taurus revolver and a .22-caliber North America arms, were stolen from the F-150, police said.

- The window to a mans F-150 was smashed near North Soloman and Toulouse streets in Mid-City.

Jan. 12:

- The rear window of a car belonging to a Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office deputy was smashed near North Hennessy and Iberville streets in Mid-City, police said, and a live round of ammunition was stolen from the inside

- Also in Mid-City, the window to a mans car in the 4700 block of Baudin Street and the windows of two cars in the 400 block of South Bernadotte Street were smashed, police said. Nothing was reported missing.

- A backpack was stolen from a mans truck in the 6500 block of Memphis Street in Lakeview. A man later returned the backpack with the laptop still inside. Thomas admitted to stealing the car and throwing out the backpack, telling police that did not keep items that could be tracked, police said.

Thomas admitted to committing many of the crimes with a crew of people inside a stolen Dodge Charger, police said. Surveillance cameras and witness accounts confirmed the presence of the Charger at several burglary scenes, according to authorities. It was not immediately clear if police had arrested anyone else connected to the burglaries other than Thomas and West.

Thomas was booked on 40 counts related to the crime spree, including charges of simple burglary, motor vehicle theft and criminal damage to property. His total bond is set at $91,000, court records show.

At the time of his arrest in the burglary spree, Thomas was facing charges of resisting an officer and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in Nov. 2018, according to court records. He last appeared in court for that case on Dec. 17, days before the first burglaries were reported.
The South Louisiana man accused of killing five peoplehis parents, his girlfriend and two of her relativeshad threatened to burn down his familys Norco home, with his family inside, and on another occasion kicked in the door as part of a violent episode that prompted police intervention, The Advocate reports.

Dakota Theriot, 21, had a troubled relationship with his father that involved encounters with police and also had a series of short-term inpatient stays for mental-health evaluations, according to The Advocate report, which cites St. Charles Parish Sheriffs Office records.

About a year-and-a-half before Saturdays (Jan. 26) lethal rampage, Theriots father called 911 to report that his son was angry, seemed to be hearing voices and was trying to break into the familys home.

Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard and Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said Tuesday that Theriot has confessed to Saturdays murders in Livingston and Ascension parishes.

The killings set off a manhunt for Theriot, who was captured Sunday morning in Virginia. He remains in custody there but will be extradited to Louisiana.

For the full story, see The Advocates story here.
As a boy, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson didnt aspire to be a cop, he said, nor was he pushed into the career. When the agency accepted his application in 1994, his parents talked him out of it.

He contemplated policing back then, Ferguson said, because it was a sensible option for a New Orleans native finishing up college with a young family to support. It was a stable job with good benefits, and NOPD was hiring.

That year, the department had a new chief: Richard Pennington, who has since earned a legacy as a reformer. The reforms hadnt yet taken hold in 1994, and it was also around the time then-NOPD officer Antoinette Frank killed her patrol partner and two other people during an armed robbery, and officer Len Davis ordered the murder of a woman who had filed a brutality complaint against Davis. New Orleans saw its peak number of murders that year, with 424 deaths.

There was concerns on my familys behalf because of the way people perceived the police department, Ferguson said. His mother pleaded with him at the time, he said, to Please think about it.

So Ferguson took a job as a security officer at The French Market, instead. Four years later, murders in New Orleans had dropped to 230, and Pennington enacted reforms that started to weed out corrupt and unethical officers. This time, when Ferguson considered joining NOPD, he said, his mother was the first one at the stage for his academy graduation in 1998.

He initially took the job because it was a job, said Ferguson, 46, but developed a love of law enforcement after he started wearing a uniform and was assigned detective work.

Investigations, he said, has been my heart, my passion.

Ferguson, sworn in Jan. 18 as NOPDs superintendent, spoke with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Monday about his passion for policing; his thoughts on his new role; and his commitment to fairness -- which was publicly tested days after his swearing in, with the arrest of his adult son.

In his new role as chief, Ferguson said he is still assessing the department but knows he wants to make changes to bring more people responsible for homicides and nonfatal shootings to justice.

I want to be able to give more families closure, he said.

Shaun Ferguson named new NOPD chief by Mayor LaToya Cantrell

Racehorse in a barn?

Described by observers and colleagues as a crime fighter, and a good cop, Ferguson is said to have the respect and support of leadership and those under his charge in the department. Dr. Peter Scharf, a criminologist with LSU School of Public Health who advised Mayor LaToya Cantrell on criminal justice matters during her transition, said one downside to placing Ferguson in the top administrative role could be comparable to putting a racehorse in the barn.

During a two-week operation in mid-January, New Orleans police arrested 45 people, including two new murder, eight armed robbery and two rape suspects. At a late January news conference announcing the results of the operation, Ferguson said the initiative continued the progress made in 2018, which saw the lowest murder rate in four decades and a reduction in armed robberies and gun violence.

Ferguson said he hopes to continue those efforts to solve nonfatal shootings by expanding NOPDs TIGER team to focus more on nonfatal shootings. The TIGER team, an acronym for Tactical Intelligence Gathering and Enforcement Response, was created in 2016 to conduct complex investigations, sometimes involving surveillance or other resources, to arrest more armed robbery suspects. The TIGER team already works well with homicide, Ferguson said, which hed like to continue to see. Arresting those responsible for homicides and shootings may remove those involved in much of the citys other violent crime, Ferguson said.

While Ferguson would provide an aggressive crime-reduction face to the police department, Scharf said earlier this month, he has less experience addressing the media and implementing strategic plans  the kinds of things a chief of police does in a press room or an office.

Ferguson said hes prepared for the top administrative role, though, crediting his seven months serving as commander of the education and training division. He said Harrison explained to him that he moved him in mid-2018 from 2nd District commander to commander over the academy  generally seen as a lateral move  to give Ferguson more insight into the inner workings of the department.

He put me in that direction, Ferguson said, of Harrisons choice to move him from a district commander position to a more administrative role. Im ready for it.

Michael Harrison's 'darkest day' as NOPD chief helped light the way

That said, Ferguson still plans to have my fun managing the crimefighting and investigative side of the department, he said, by talking with the patrol officers and supervisors, sharing some of the knowledge I have on that side of it.

Fergusons crime reduction efforts must align with constitutional policing reforms put in place as part of a 2013 federal consent decree, under which the department is still operating. NOPDs past aggressive tactics, coupled with cronyism and scores of ethically shaky officers and supervisors, resulted in a pattern of civil rights abuses and excessive force, punctuated by post-Katrina fatal shootings of unarmed civilians, that ushered in the federal oversight.

Ferguson has publicly pledged his commitment to constitutional policing and full compliance with the consent decree in at least three public appearances since becoming superintendent. He said Monday many phenomenal changes implemented as a result of the consent decree have helped NOPD fight crime in a more modern and efficient way. Before 2013, reports were handwritten, he noted. The body-worn camera program provides transparency, he said, and Tasers, Crisis Intervention Training and other de-escalation methods have made the streets safer for the community and for officers, reducing the need for as many SWAT rolls.

We identified a lot of resources as a result of being in this consent decree, Ferguson said.

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Remarkable reforms made at NOPD, but work on consent decree remains, judge says

Communication is key

When announcing her choice for chief, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she tapped Ferguson in part because he is fair, firm and friendly. Ferguson said he has tried to be fair when arresting suspects, when managing other officers and when parenting his children, and he plans to continue seeing issues from all sides as superintendent.

Growing up in Algiers and graduating from O. Perry Walker High School, Ferguson said he had the unfortunate opportunity to arrest people he knew from his childhood while working as a homicide detective in the 4th District, which polices Algiers. Those hes known who have ridden in the back of his police car, Ferguson said, know how I am  they dont think its personal. He said some of those people later told him they appreciated how he encouraged them, even while driving them to jail, he said.

He also investigated cases involving victims and families he knew from his neighborhood.

Its hard to see someone you know that is hurt, when its their loved one that is lost, Ferguson said.

The greatest reward hes received on the job, he said, has been hearing from people who described how he helped them  and stayed in close touch  during a homicide investigation. Even if he was unable to close the case with an arrest, Ferguson said, if we ran into a bump in the road, a dead end, if they know that... they will have peace of mind themselves.

Communication is key to everything, he said.

When faced with shaking up the command staff at NOPD or signing off on disciplinary actions, Ferguson said his colleagues should expect him to be fair and to hold them accountable. They can also, in most cases, expect him to explain the reasons behind those decisions, he said.

I do realize this is business, Ferguson said. This is not personal. Just like Im not doing anything (to help) my son, Im not about getting friends to be in certain places  its about getting the best individual officer in the right place to serve the community.

'We are in this together,' NOPD's new chief Shaun Ferguson says at swearing-in

Im going to love him no matter what

Four days after Ferguson took his oath as superintendent, NOPD arrested the second-eldest of his three sons, Shane Ferguson, on a domestic abuse allegation. A warrant shows the 21-year-old was accused of punching his ex-girlfriends face and spitting at her the evening of Jan. 18, hours after the Ferguson family gathered for the new chiefs swearing in that Friday morning.

I am a father, just as I am chief of police, Shaun Ferguson said initially, when asked about his sons arrest.

The superintendent said he told his son he would not get involved in the arrest or the case, and re-emphasized to his son what he said at the swearing-in ceremony, that we should all be held accountable at every level.

Hes going to go through due process. I have no influence on that, Shaun Ferguson said of his son. He knows, everyone else knows, I am not someone who condones domestic abuse at any time.

Regardless of the outcome of his sons court case, Ferguson said, thats his life, and thats my son  Im going to love him no matter what. Im going to make sure he gets through this. ... Im going to encourage him just the same.

Ferguson stood at his swearing in ceremony flanked by Shane Ferguson and his other two sons, 24, and 17; as well as his longtime girlfriend and her 17-year-old daughter, who Ferguson said is like family. The parents who convinced him to turn down the job at NOPD nearly 30 years ago were also there, Ferguson said, and had nothing but pride for him after seeing the strides NOPD has made.

They all cried, he said of his parents and other relatives.

Serving as chief of any police department, let alone the NOPD, the place I was born and raised, Ferguson said, is the opportunity of a lifetime. And while he was nervous about how the job would change his life and impact his family, he said, I know I can do it. Its just a matter of embracing it and pushing forward.

Ferguson said he sees his new position as an opportunity to show his own community, how police are really good people.

Fergusons parents are supporters of NOPD and law enforcement, after seeing their son shine in the career, the new chief said, but he added, they still hold us accountable.

Whether theres a national story critical of another police department or a story critical of policing in New Orleans, it wont just be the federal monitors hell hear from, Ferguson said, but his mother and father: Theyll give me an earful.
A man in a red and black jacket lifted his shirt to reveal a handgun after a cashier tried to stop him from leaving a clothing store without paying for merchandise in Gentilly Woods Tuesday afternoon (Jan. 29), New Orleans police said.

Police reported the armed robbery at Replay Boutique in the 4300 block of Louisa Street around 1:25 p.m. The armed man fled in an unknown direction, according to an initial police report.

Police also reported the following crimes between Tuesday and Wednesday (Jan. 30):

Desire area: A 54-year-old woman was in the 3400 block of Clouet Street when two women and one man approached her around 10:10 a.m., police said.

The man punched the 54-year-old woman and took her purse. The two women and man fled in a black Nissan Altima and a black Nissan Rogue in an unknown direction.

Algiers: As a 54-year-old woman was sitting in her car in the 1600 block of JoAnn Place, a man ordered her out of the car, police said. As she was getting out of the car, the man pointed a gun at her.

He fled north on JoAnn Place in the womans car and then east on Lauradale Drive, police said. Police later found the car in the 1800 block of JoAnn Place.

The carjacking was reported just after midnight Wednesday (Jan. 30).
Some flights in and out of the New Orleans airport are canceled Wednesday (Jan. 30) as an arctic cold front brings double-digit, sub-zero temperatures to much of the Midwest.

At least five flights headed from New Orleans to Chicago were canceled Wednesday morning, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks flights nationwide. That included three flights headed to Chicagos OHare International Airport and two going to Chicago Midway International. Another seven flights bound for New Orleans from Chicago airports were canceled.

Temperatures across the Midwest hit record lows overnight thanks to a blast of frigid arctic air. The Chicago Tribune reports temperatures were down to 23 degrees below zero at 7 a.m. Wednesday at OHare International Airport. The feels-like temperature was minus 52 degrees, factoring in wind chill.

The Associated Press reports the deep freeze has triggered cancellations across the Midwest, including more than 1,500 flights at Chicagos airports. The U.S. Postal Service has even suspended mail delivery to many parts of the region.

The FAAs Twitter account urged travelers to check on the status of flights to the region with their airline, noting OHare and Midway, in particular, are expected to see dangerous temps with wind chills dropping down to minus 60 degrees.

In addition to canceled flights, WVUE Fox 8 reports Amtrak has canceled all trains to and from Chicago. Long distance trains traveling from Chicago will likely be canceled Thursday as well, the report says.

The frigid blast is expected to hold on through Thursday. The Tribune reports temperatures in Chicago are forecast to reach a low of 27 degrees below zero at OHare on Thursday, an all-time record.
Jefferson Parish might have lost out on more than $175,000 because of a poorly written contract with a vendor installing and selling advertising on bus stop benches and the vendors own failure to comply with the agreement, according to draft findings by the inspector generals office. But the vendor doesnt want the public to know about the report until the company has a chance to respond, something the company says the inspector general has not offered.

The vendor, Go Graphics LLC of Metairie, persuaded Judge Glenn Ansardi of Louisianas 24th Judicial District Court to issue a temporary order blocking release of the report. The inspector generals office objects, saying the company is not entitled to the draft. The two parties are scheduled to air their differences in court Thursday (Jan. 31).

The dispute centers on a contract that the politically connected Go Graphics first won under unusual circumstances in 2004. Its chief competitor for the job, Creative Outdoor Advertising of Gormley, Ontario, reported more than 20 years of experience in the field in more than 35 cities and offered Jefferson the most benches and ad revenue. Go Graphics by contrast was a two-year-old company with a single bench contract in St. Bernard Parish, and it offered Jefferson the fewest benches and just one third of the money that Creative offered.

An administrative evaluation committee gave Creative the highest ranking of the three companies seeking the deal. Yet the Parish Council gave the contract to Go Graphics, which not only was local but had out-lobbied Creative for the business.

There were other differences in the companies approach to the job. Creative had not contributed money to the campaigns of Jefferson politicians. But Go Graphics founder, Ramsey Skipper Jr., had given a total of $4,800 to Parish President Aaron Broussard and two council members. Its operations director was the father of Steve Scalise, a state representative from Old Jefferson at the time and now the No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Scalise wrote the company a reference letter for the Jefferson contract.

Jefferson Parish campaign contributor up for new contract; competitor didn't disclose donations

In 2012, Go Graphics won a new contract after Creative was disqualified for failing to complete an affidavit reporting its political contributions to parish officials. Go Graphics had contributed a total of $16,800 to the seven parish officials in the previous two years.

More recently, Inspector General David McClintocks office began investigating the contract and Go Graphics performance after receiving confidential information, according the agencys draft report on the investigation. Per policy, McClintocks office has not made the report public but has circulated the draft to parish officials for comment. A portion of the draft was obtained Tuesday by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune from a person who has seen it.

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The draft says Go Graphics was not in compliance with several contract requirements regarding reporting on bench removals, numbering of benches and timing of payments to Jefferson Parish. It adds that Parish President Mike Yennis administration had difficulty in monitoring and enforcing the contract resulting in lost revenue to the parish in excess of $176,832. McClintocks office makes six findings in the draft, some faulting parish officials and some faulting Go Graphics.

Jefferson Parish paid two photographers for same work after one sought help from Chris Roberts

In his lawsuit, filed Thursday, Skipper says the inspector generals office interviewed him Sept. 24 and that he has anxiously awaited a copy of the report ever since. His attorney wrote that the findings might damage the business reputation of the company and that its due process rights are violated if the report is released without the company having the opportunity to respond to it.

McClintocks office responded Tuesday with a court filing of its own. It moved to dissolve the temporary restraining order that the judge issued and said sharing the draft report with Go Graphics would be in opposition to the inspector generals authority in parish law and the professional standards of the Association of Inspectors General.

. . . . . . .

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect date for when Go Graphics and the inspector generals office are scheduled to air their differences in court.

Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach.
Free-agent sluggers Manny Machado and Bryce Harper remain unsigned with spring training two weeks away.

The Philadelphia Phillies have courted both players during the offseason, and hope to sign at least one, if not both, of the perennial All-Stars.

Phillies general manager Matt Klentak went on 97.5 The Fanatic on Wednesday to explain where the team stands, per Crossing Broad:

"I dont know whats happening with (other teams). I can tell you that we feel like we put a really strong foot forward, with our presentations to these guys and the way we welcomed them to Philly or told them about the franchise. I feel really good about that, the pitches that we made a lot of this will come down to dollars and cents, we know that, but I feel good about the pitches we made to both guys.

Klentak wouldnt say if contract offers were made to both players. It really doesnt benefit us, so I have to keep that under wraps", according to Crossing Broad.

The White Sox are believed to be the front-runners for Machado, who visited Chicago, as well as the Yankees and Phillies, in December. The White Soxs offseason has been highlighted by signing free-agent outfielder Jon Jay and trading for first baseman Yonder Alonso, who is Machados brother-in-law. Jay trains during the offseason with Machado and Alonso.

Chicago reportedly made Machado a seven or eight-year contract offer worth around $175 million. Thats far less than the $300 million he was hoping for, and the $325 million Giancarlo Stanton received from the Marlins before being traded to the Yankees.

The Nationals are believed to have made Harper a 10-year, $300 million offer before the end of the 2018 season.

A great interview not long ago with @Phillies GM Matt Klentak, if you missed it, the podcast is right here for you > https://t.co/YehzLbtyIs  975TheFanatic (@975TheFanatic) January 30, 2019
What could be better on a cold winter day than to step into a warm cozy gallery and find yourself surrounded by good art? The Artists' Gallery in Lambertville is offering that right now with its four-artist exhibition, "Winter Warmth."

The exhibiting artists are Beatrice Bork, Richard Harrington, Carol Sanzalone and Joseph Zogorski. It's a good mix of medium, style and subject matter, ranging from birds and bees to fields and flowers, from brilliant washes of summer florals to snowy neighborhoods and snowplows at work.

Setting the tone for the exhibit is Richard Harrington's gouache painting "Winter Warmth." In this, a home with the porch light on stands welcomingly in the blue dusk falling on snow banks. The steps are cleared, the snow shovel stands by the front door and all the house lights speak of the warmth inside.

Harrington, who is President of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, is an illustrator whose work can be seen weekly in the Philadelphia Daily News. An Associate Professor of Illustration at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, he lives in Newtown, PA and is exhibiting here three acrylics on illustration board showing Newtown snowplows clearing neighborhood streets of deep fallen snow. Although his illustrations are photo real, they also have a painterly quality about them. That is especially seen in "Newtown Plow II" where the shiny red plow is the focus and the buildings are seen through the haze of still-falling snow.

Where Harrington's paintings have a photo-like quality about them, the photographs of Joseph Zogorski have the look of a painting. The soft light falling on the land and the backs of grazing sheep make take this archival pigment print, "Summer Pasture, New Hope," from simply capturing a moment in time to a work of art. The same is true with his "Summer Storm" that draws the eye into a vast stretch of low land to one single tree standing under low clouds on the far horizon where light begins to break through far above.

Zogorski's photographs are all sepia-toned which also makes them art photos rather than reportage. You see that especially in his still life, "Lily Pads." In this, the deep sepia-tone pads lie scattered in sand. Zogorski's focus is so sharp you see the grains of sand on many of the pads and yet there is a lyrical grace in the scatter of the pads and the gentle play of light and shadow on them.

Carol Sanzalone says light, shadow and color patterns are properties of nature that also inspire her work. The watercolor paintings she is exhibiting are beautiful bursts and bleeds of color. Her "Wash of Petals" is color and shape emerging from the background and sweeping forward as if will spill over the edges of the frame. "The Color Underneath" takes the eye into the quiet depth of a close up of leaves and flower.

Her "In the Sunny Window" is a limited palette wash of lavender and yellow flowers, green leaves and floating streaks of blue. Yellow sunlight pours in a suggested window illuminating the nearest blooms as the others bleed into deep warm darkness.

In her displayed artist statement, Sanzalone says when she considers a subject she draws on her creative background history that includes oil painting, printmaking, silkscreen and lithograph as well as her professional experience in teaching and graphic design.

Beatrice Bork is also a watercolorist, but she focuses mostly on detail and an obvious personal connection to her subjects. She has two paintings of her beloved dog, Buttons, in this show--one in the gallery window on Bridge Street and another indoors.

Her paintings on display here validate why she has been recognized as an "Artist of Note..." by Wildlife Art magazine and why her art has been displayed in prestigious exhibitions and museums across the United States and abroad.

Her small watercolor/gouache painting "Apple Orgy" is unique. It is a small painting showing just a section of a red apple. The skin, shiny and crisp, has cracked open and six bumblebees are feasting on the fruit's sweet meat. Not only are the bees precisely presented and anatomically correct, Bork also captures their orgiastic feasting. And she also captures the joy of a Labrador Retriever in "Fetch" swimming back through rippling water with a stick in its mouth. And the "Little Princess," female Golden-crowned Kinglet, posing prettily in a cascade of evergreen tendrils.

This show will only be there until February 3, so I urge you to take advantage of the winter warmth of this gallery and see it before it disappears. Then you may want to go back to see four more of the gallery artists, Claudia Fouse Fountaine, Joe Kazimierczyk, Laura Rutherford Renner and Annelies vanDommelen in their "Connexions" exhibit beginning February 7.

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IF YOU GO:

WHAT: Winter Warmth

WHERE: Artists' Gallery, 18 Bridge Street, Lambertville

WHEN: Through February 3. Hours, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday-Sunday,

And by appointment

CONTACT: 609-397-4588. www.lambertvillearts.com
They're a group of many notes and whimsical arrangements.

Pyrenesia (pronounced peer-uh-nee-juh) has spent the last year crafting their forthcoming 12-track record, "Off-Beat Symphony." After much local fanfare, they celebrate the release of full-length album on Feb. 2.

The event venue, 1867 Sanctuary, is fitting indeed. The 150-year-old building stands in its own majestic stone, preserved by Preservation New Jersey, and serves as an arts and cultural center. Pyrenesia has a mystical, almost foreign vibe to its repertoire. The intimacy and intrigue of the Sanctuary is bound to make this event an experience.

The gypsy-jazz-inspired quartet includes Daniella Fischetti (violin, backing vocals); Tony Kovatch (accordion, backing vocals); Dan Manchester (upright bass/backing vocals); and Alan Rigoletto (guitar/backing vocals).

Together, they create a performance of eclectic, upbeat, and often improvised arrangements that allow the music to feel free, yet intertwined in the same story. The release pays nod to French manouche jazz and features eight original tunes, two jazz standards, and two traditional pieces. Learn more about the band and order your album at pyrenesia.com.

You can order tickets through the venue website at 1867sanctuary.org.

IF YOU GO

Pyrenesia record release party

Where: 1867 Sanctuary

101 Scotch Road

Ewing, NJ

When: Sat., Feb. 2 at 8 p.m.

How Much: $5 for students/ $20 general admission

ALL AGES

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

They're big, bold, and brassy.

The Sensational Soul Cruisers are coming back to the New Hope Winery on Sat., Feb. 2, and with them comes an incredible set list of high-energy tunes. The 11-man band comprises horns and harmonies, under the direction of Jersey Shore sax player, Screamin' Steve Barlotta.

For more than 20 years, Barlotta has captained the soul cruise that has grown tremendously since their humble beginnings in a basement. Playing more than 200 shows a year, the Soul Cruisers are rooted in R&B with nuances of Philly Soul, Motown, Disco, and the Jersey Shore.

In addition to the bold and brassy, members also work on the keys, percussion, and bass. The collaboration between instruments and genres is what creates a smooth, silky groove that is peaceful yet exciting all at the same time.

Check them out ahead of time at soulcruise.com. You'll notice the theatrics that come with their live performances - the moves, the outfits, the pizazz. It's not just a soundtrack of somewhere else, it's a journey.

Doors open at 7 and the show starts at 8. It's a two-hour event. Tickets are $25. The New Hope Winery is located at 6123 Lower York Road in New Hope, Pa. For more information or to order your tickets, log onto newhopewinery.com.

ALSO FEATURED:

The band describes their sound as "rhythm and blues to rattle the bones"; it's "sweet soul music to set you free."

The Shady Street Show Band wants you to groove harder and grin wider. The Jersey Shore-based band includes up to nine pieces with a full horn section. There's nothing small about their production, so it's no wonder they won the Asbury Park Music Award for "Best Soul Act" in 2014 and 2015.

They take stage at Triumph Brewing Co. in New Hope, Pa. on Sat., Feb. 2. The show starts at 10 p.m. and you must be 21 to enter. Admission is typically $5. The venue is located at 400 Union Square Plaza. For more information, log onto triumphbrewing.com.

SAVE THE DATE:

John Mellencamp is bringing his show to the Stat Theatre in New Brunswick on Sat., Feb. 23.

It would be no surprise if this show sold out; act fast to get your seats - and even then, you may be lucky. Ticket details are advertised as having "very limited availability." Tickets range from $42 - $300+. Learn more at statetheatrenj.org.

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The man killed earlier this month during a shooting on someone elses Bound Brook property was trying to retrieve belongings leftover from when he lived there, his mother says.

The family of Terrence Coulanges, of Old Bridge, is speaking out after seeing news reports that he was an armed intruder at a home on Farm Lane in Bound Brook. They said they werent promptly notified of his death and dont buy the idea that he would come onto the property with a gun.

A resident of the home shot Coulanges, 29, after a struggle on Jan. 9, the Somerset County Prosecutors Office said the next day. They said that Coulanges was alleged to have a semi-automatic handgun and the resident wrestled the gun from him and shot him.

Initial news reports, including on NJ.com, described the incident as involving an armed intruder. But a prosecutors spokeswoman later reached out to clarify that the investigation did not show Coulanges to be an intruder.

When Coulanges arrived at the home is still under investigation.

The Somerset County Prosecutors Office declined to comment on the case Tuesday, saying it was still an ongoing investigation.

Authorities were dispatched to the house just after 7:30 p.m., when the residents mother called 911. On the call, she tells the dispatcher she arrived home and her son told her what happened. She describes Coulanges as this guy we had known in the past.

But that doesnt tell the whole story, Lisa Myrick, Coulanges mother, says.

Coulanges was friends with the shooter and used to live with with him in Bound Brook, Myrick said. (Authorities have not publicly named the shooter.)

She said Coulanges used to record music with the shooter, and was going to the house for some music equipment they used together. He had been trying to get the items back for a few months.

Myrick doesnt think her son instigated violence.

Terrence is non-confrontational. All his friends can attest to the nature of Terrence: helpful, good-willing, happy-go-lucky. Music, that was his passion, she said. And his songs were about blessings and about how life is good.

She says Coulanges was dropped off at the house not long after flying in from Austin, Texas. She says he wouldve had to get a gun between getting off the flight and arriving at the home.

Youd think if there was an intent to utilize a firearm there, wouldnt he have a getaway car? Myrick said.

Myrick and her daughter Shanise had just received Coulanges death certificate Tuesday. They had learned he was shot in the left chest near his heart with another wound that pierced his right thigh after passing through his left thigh.

The chest wound, that means youre trying to kill them, Shanise Myrick said.

Coulanges was pronounced dead at 8:23 p.m. Wednesday. Lisa Myrick said she didnt learn the news until roughly 1:30 p.m. Thursday, when Bound Brook officers visited her.

Thursday afternoon they decided to drive to our house...when they knew he was dead on Wednesday, Lisa Myrick said.

NJ Advance Media is not naming the shooter because he has not been charged with a crime.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@JBrandt_NJ. FindNJ.com on Facebook.

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Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday signed legislation taking fatal police shooting inquiries in New Jersey out of the hands of county prosecutors and turning them over to state investigators.

The governor, who faced a Thursday deadline to sign or veto the legislation, approved the measure (S1036) despite objections from his own attorney general, calling it a limited solution to a challenging issue.

The new law was a victory for police reform advocates who had lobbied for years to change how New Jersey handled deadly police shooting probes, which are among the most fraught cases prosecutors handle. Its signing drew stern rebuke from police union leaders, who argued it was unnecessary and undermined the reputation of police and prosecutors.

The measure, passed by the state Legislature in December, would require the attorney general to supersede county prosecutors in any death investigation involving law enforcement and, if charges are brought, to try the case in another county.

Currently, most police shooting investigations in New Jersey are handled by county prosecutors if they involve local police and turned over to a specialized shooting response team in the Attorney Generals Office only if they involve county or state officers. The attorney general does have the power to supersede local prosecutors in almost any inquiry, however.

An effort to change that started as the Black Lives Matter movement rose to prominence amid national scrutiny of police shootings involving young black men. Murphy, a Democrat, was under intense pressure from progressive religious leaders and other advocates who said he promised on the campaign trail to sign the bill into law.

Advocates for the legislation said county prosecutors can have too-close relationships with local police that cast a cloud over police shooting inquiries. One of the bills sponsors, state Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake, D-Essex, said Wednesday the new law would be of assistance to officers who are doing the right thing while also sifting out biases that exist amongst those armed with power.

Zellie Thomas, a Paterson-based activist, wrote in an op-ed on NJ.com that the uncertainty about whether an officer is acquitted because of the facts or because of a relationship with a prosecutors office could disappear instantly by putting the investigation in someone elses hands as a matter of course.

But state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, who was appointed by Murphy, testified against the bill in December, telling lawmakers the legislation as written will slow down police shooting inquiries in the hours immediately after a persons death by requiring county officials stay clear of the scene and wait for state investigators to arrive. He said a frequent source of criticism of police shooting investigations, which can drag on for months, is how long they take.

Everyone must have complete confidence that deaths in law enforcement custody will be investigated thoroughly, fairly, and entirely free of bias," Grewal said in a statement Wednesday evening. "While I believe that the current the system effectively achieves those ends, the Legislature and the governor have now acted to adopt a different approach. I will do everything in my power to ensure that the new law is implemented in a manner that bolsters public confidence.

Representatives from the states police unions argued the measure sent the message that county prosecutors could not be trusted. In a statement, New Jersey State Policemens Benevolent Association President Patrick Colligan called the new law terrible public policy and a direct slap in the face to every law enforcement officer throughout the state.

Our experience has been that county prosecutors investigators are at the scene of the incident in minutes," said James Stewart, the vice president of the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police. "Will the AGs office have the capacity to dispatch their people quickly to begin investigations before witnesses leave and evidence is disturbed?

The reforms enacted do not apply to many cases. Murphy noted in his signing statement that there were 14 deaths in 2018 that would have fallen under the new law had it been in place.

Requiring that all of these cases be handled by the Attorney Generals Office, which has staffing constraints, creates the risk of slower investigations and outcomes, he wrote. And requiring the presentment of evidence to a grand jury, even if a prosecutor does not believe the evidence to be credible, raises difficult questions regarding prosecutors ethical and professional responsibilities.

Still, he wrote, the governor has full confidence that the attorney general can investigate fatal shootings and will likely clarify portions of the bill through regulations or directives.

The bill drew increased attention in the aftermath of the death of Jameek Lowery, a 27-year-old Paterson resident who died in the hospital after a bizarre incident in which he arrived at Paterson police headquarters and begged for help, streaming the ordeal in a Facebook live video.

The Paterson Police Department had been under scrutiny amid an unrelated FBI probe that had implicated five police officers on a range of civil rights and drug offenses. Lowerys family has called for an independent inquiry, saying he suffered a broken cheekbone and fractured eye socket during the ordeal and arguing authorities have not been forthcoming with details.

Officials later said Lowery had tested positive for meningitis, and its unclear whether the new law would apply to his case because he died more than 48 hours after arriving at the police station.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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Let Me Finish. That is the title our hot-headed, boisterous former governor, Chris Christie, chose for his new, tell-all memoir, which finally went on sale Tuesday, after weeks of leaks and pre-publication hype.

But its unclear if any New Jerseyans care to even listen this time around. The book, according to our informal survey of independent bookstores across the state, has barely generated interest, at least so far.

NJ Advance Media spoke to four New Jersey bookstores and one in Washington D.C. to get a sense of the buzz that the book has been generating. Its still early  its only been on sale for a few hours, after all  but workers from two bookstores said it was clear to them that Christies memoir has not nearly matched the interest and anticipation of other political books released in recent years, such as Michelle Obamas memoir Becoming or Bob Woodwards expose on the Trump White House, Fear."

Wow, Chris Christie's memoir is really called LET ME FINISH? That's so... pathetic. He really is a real-life Jonah from @VeepHBO, isn't he.  Geonn Cannon (@GeonnCannon) January 29, 2019

We had one pre-order, said Deirdre Birmingham, a worker at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair. It just came out today, (but) its been mild. Its nothing like some of the other political books  It just doesnt seem to have the same interest as some of the others.

Sarah Costello, marketing manager at Politics and Prose Bookstore, a renowned independent bookstore in Washington, D.C. thats often ground zero for launching political books, said the book has also fallen flat in our nations capital.

We haven't noticed much on this one today ... There's been no noticeable spike in sales (and) not a lot of pre-orders, she said.

She noted the other memoirs and political blockbusters within the past year that took off right out of the gate, including Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury," released in January 2018, and Michelle Obamas book, Becoming," released in November.

Those, she said, had huge hype before even hitting the shelves.

I don't think this has had the same type before the release, she said.

Michelle Obamas book was an instant hit, selling more than 3 million copies and becoming the best-selling book of 2018 within just weeks of release, according to a December report by The Washington Post.

Fire and Fury sold more than 1.7 million copies in the first three weeks.

It hasnt even been 24 hours since Christies book hit the shelves, so its unclear how sales will eventually pan out and how its received by the public. And, to be fair, its Amazon ranking on Thursday afternoon was very high, resting at #12 for all books currently on sale.

But, aside from the political gossip and details about the turmoil within the Trump administration, several reviews said if you're looking for something profound, in-depth and chock full of intimate details and self-reflection, this isn't your book.

If you are looking for introspection or deep thoughts, look elsewhere, a review by NPR.com said.

The book starts with an image of Christie crying on his way to his first day of Kindergarten, then discussing his move as a child from Newark to the suburbs of Livingston. He talks about his time in New Jersey politics. However, much of the book is dedicated to dishing on political rivals and describing the inner workings and dysfunction surrounding the presidents administration.

According to a review by The New York Times, its a superficial and ungainly book full of attacks and justifications.

Christie, once beloved by New Jersey residents, ultimately left with a historically low approval rating. Throughout his eight years, he was never shy to engage residents in heated exchanges at town halls or rallies, sometimes calling them idiots or telling them to shut up."

Some people took to social media to decry the book, particularly the title, which one person called one of the most rude and grating phrases." Another called it the most tone deaf title a man could possibly write in this day and age.

Chris Christie's chose "Let Me Finish," one of the most rude and grating phrases, for his new book's title. Didn't know it was possible to annoy a reader before they get past the cover.  Loren Gomez (@RealLorenGomez) January 29, 2019

The commercial prospects of Christies book  which seemed to promise a lot more dirt on President Trump than it finally delivered  may have also been further hurt by the fact that another book by a Trump insider, former communications aide Cliff Sims, also published today. (That book, Team of Vipers," presently ranks #6 on Amazons sales chart.)

Might there still be hope for Let Me Finish?

Stephen Walter, manager at Labyrinth Books in Princeton, said there hasnt been a ton of interest yet," but noted that is subject to change in the coming days, especially after Christie hits the circuit of talk shows promoting the book.

Nonetheless, he added, Its not one we were really hit over the head with so far."

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It didnt take long at all following his first shot of tequila for former Gov. Chris Christie to declare that President Donald Trump totally blew it with the government shutdown.

When he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it, Christie, a longtime Trump friend and fellow Republican, said Tuesday night on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Trump got rolled, Christie concluded.

Listen, and I said this to him, I said, Listen, youre gonna do this, you better have an exit plan. Because sometimes in politics things dont go the way you expect, so if it doesnt go well in the first couple of days youve got to have a way to get it back open,' Christie said.

He added: I dont think, given that it went 35 days, that we had a plan.

And that was just in the first three minutes of his interview.

Colbert pressed the former New Jersey governor  who was there to promote his new book, Let Me Finish  on his steadfast support for Trump.

How, as a former federal prosecutor, could you support him when the president routinely undermines the Justice Department? Christie said hes told Trump the attacks hurt him personally and that he shouldnt do it.

Do you regret helping him get elected after seeing what hes done over the first half of his term? No, Christie said, he prefers his policies over those of Trumps rival, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Why stay with him? Hell toss anybody under the bus, Colbert asked. Think I dont know? Im the guy who got fired from the transition, Christie responded.

Would he have made a better president than Trump? Yes, he said emphatically.

Then the former governor shifted his aim at his successor, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

Colbert, admitting at one point during the interview that this was more fun than I thought itd be, tried to squeeze out of Christie: Who in the world is his constituency if he chooses to make another run for president? The comedian noted he left office with historic low approval ratings, the book wont curry favor with the people who surround the president, and so on. Colbert hammered away: who are your fans?

Most of your staff backstage, Christie quipped, saying he received a warm welcome before coming out before the cameras.

He said he had no regrets and that if he left office after eight years without people souring on him it would have meant he didnt accomplish anything of significance. Plus, he continued, You look across the river now and they cant even clear the snow.

It was a reference to that November storm that turned New Jerseys highways and roads into parking lots.

Youve got to clear the streets, Christie said, explaining how it took him nearly six hours to make a drive that normally takes 35 minutes.

He and thousands of others were trapped in their cars all while (Murphy) was sitting down in a restaurant while having like a pretty expensive dinner down in Monmouth County, Christie said, a reference to Murphy unwinding with dinner at an upscale restaurant near his home.

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By Zellie Thomas

UPDATE: Murphy signs law for state to take over fatal police shootings

In his speech on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Gov. Phil Murphy spoke these words: There are those who will talk today about Dr. King and yet ignore, willfully, that many of the issues that he fought for still plague us.

This week, Murphy has an opportunity to manifest Kings overarching view on civil rights: that the cause of justice is not ephemeral, but an eternal moral issue. Specifically, Dr. King demanded that sympathetic white northerners show strong leadership and commit to racial justice, not embrace lukewarm liberalism, to borrow his immortal language.

In principle, that means taking difficult stands that are morally right, even when they come with a degree of political risk.

In practice, it means signing the bill to require independent investigations for deaths that occur during a police encounter.

Investigations and prosecutions of police officers after violent arrests or deaths of suspects in police custody come with an inherent conflict. The professionals tasked with investigating a death at the hands of a police officer must collaborate with those same departments on a regular basis. With such rapid role-shifting, the public cannot trust that the inquiry  or subsequent prosecutions  will be conducted with good faith.

Conflicts arent just perceived  theyre understood. Police officers who have appeared for years as witnesses for the prosecution sit before those same prosecutors in secret grand jury proceedings to determine whether theyll face charges. Its common knowledge that police officers are almost never indicted.

The tragic death of 27-year-old Jameek Lowery on Jan. 7 in the hospital after live-streaming from the Paterson Police Department, along with officers subsequent aggression toward peaceful demonstrators begging for answers, illustrates the desperate need for this legislation. The extreme racial disparities in officers use of force confirmed by The Star-Ledgers Force Report make the governors action urgent.

In New Jersey, and beyond, the law itself already makes it notoriously difficult to prosecute police. The uncertainty about whether an officer is acquitted because of the facts or because of a relationship with a prosecutors office could disappear instantly by putting the investigation in someone elses hands as a matter of course.

Recently, the Paterson Police Department uncovered a stunning ring of corruption and criminality within its ranks. Instead of investigating the department themselves, local prosecutors sent it to the FBI, appropriately. The decision to cede the investigation to an agency with greater distance only bolsters the professionalism of the department. Recognizing the potential for conflicts, and taking steps to allay it, instills far more faith in our government than telling the public to close its eyes.

The primary question at hand isnt whether prosecutors could handle local investigations of their partners in law enforcement. Its whether they should handle investigations of their local partners. Obviously, and unequivocally, the answer is no. The risk of tainting the investigation is too great, and the consequences at stake are too high.

Very few circumstances exceed public corruption in their level of seriousness. Ending someones life is one of them. By passing this bill, the Legislature would send a clear message that the status quo is unacceptable.

When someone dies at the hands of law enforcement, independence in the investigation should never be optional. If the governor vetoes this bill  or vetoes it conditionally to take out the strongest measures for holding our public servants accountable  thats exactly what he would sanction.

Governor Murphy delivered another line in his Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech that has echoed in the days since. Remembrance is easy  action is hard. At this juncture in the governors tenure, the action he takes will define the remainder of his governorship. The action of signing the bill currently before him is a moral obligation.

The governor needs to listen to the civil rights leaders in front of him. Theyre speaking in a single voice, telling him to sign the independent prosecutor bill into law.

Zellie Thomas is a Paterson-based activist, public school teacher and lead organizer of Black Lives Matter - Paterson.

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The New Jersey Supreme Court declined this week to hear appeals in a lawsuit that sought to block the controversial swap of an antique carousel for just over an acre of beach in Seaside Heights, a decision that parties on both sides say could end the drawn-out legal challenge to the deal.

A state Superior Court Judge and an Appellate Division panel had already upheld the swap following a trial and then an initial appeal, before the states highest court notified the parties on Monday that it would not take the case.

Attorney James Curry, Jr., who represents the Seaside Heights pizzeria owner who filed the lawsuit seeking to block the deal, said Wednesday that his client would not file an appeal in federal court.

Were done, Curry said on behalf of his client, Three Brothers from Italy owner Stephen Melvin.

The case involved a deal in which the Seaside Heights Borough Council agreed to trade a 1.3-acre piece of borough-owned beach to the owner of the adjacent Casino Pier amusement park. In exchange, the borough received a hand-carved 108-year-old carousel, a beloved icon long associated with the borough and appraised at more than $2 million, but no longer a money maker for the private amusement pier.

In what Seaside Heights officials insist was a win-win deal that kept the carousel from being sold and shipped out of town while also aiding a local business, the borough took ownership of the brightly colored merry-go-round and a .75-acre boardwalk lot also owned by Casino Piers owner, the Storino Family. The borough will operate the carousel in an enclosure to be built on the boardwalk lot, four blocks from its traditional location at Casino Pier, a move Mayor Anthony Vaz said will be completed by the 2020 summer season.

For its part, Casino Pier received the 1.3-acre beach parcel, where it built an addition to make up for an above-water portion destroyed in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy. The piers addition now hosts a new Ferris wheel, plus a roller coaster that replaced one carried into the sea by Hurricane Sandy, where it became a semi-submerged symbol of the super storms destruction.

To satisfy state Green Acres rules requiring that the loss of public land be offset in any such deal, the borough convinced Ocean County to dedicate 67 acres of wetlands in Toms River as permanent open space, an arrangement approved by the Statehouse Commission, a state panel.

While Melvins suit had sought to overturn the borough councils approval of the deal, he was later joined as a co-plaintiff by a Bloomfield resident and environmental activist named Robert Moss, whose main concern was the Statehouse Commissions decision.

Green Acres regulations require that the replacement land be roughly equivalent, Moss said in an interview Wednesday. How is wetlands in Toms River equivalent to a beach?

Moss, who is not a lawyer, filed a separate pro se petition he drafted himself asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the commissions decision. But like Melvins petition drafted by his lawyer, Moss self-penned effort was also rejected by the court.

A pair of statewide environmental groups, the American Littoral Society and the New Jersey Conservation Federation, had also joined the suit, but dropped out following the appellate decision, and did not petition the state Supreme Court.

Moss said he was unsure what his next move would be, though he did not see any federal grounds on which to file a federal appeal in U.S. District Court.

That said, the case has attracted interest on the federal level, though from criminal prosecutors at the U.S. Attorneys Office in Newark, who in June subpoenaed records involving the carousel deal from Seaside Heights. On Wednesday, Vaz and an attorney for the borough, Jean Cipriani, said there has been no further contact from federal prosecutors since last summer.

Absolutely nothing, Cipriani said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys office, Matt Reilly, declined Wednesday to confirm or deny the existence of any probe into the swap.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
A Newark Liberty International Airport passenger claiming to be a member of the military tried to check a bag that contained a de-activated grenade Wednesday morning, officials said.

Transportation Security Administration officers detected the gold-colored grenade during a routine inspection. The grenade had been made inert, according to the TSA.

Man claimed he was flying to military training, a TSA spokeswoman wrote in a tweet. Perhaps train guys not to pack grenades!

The passengers name was not provided, but he was booked on a flight from Terminal C to Phoenix, officials said. He was allowed to continue on his flight, but the grenade was confiscated.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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The new president of The College of New Jersey has been accused of improperly overturning a decision to suspend a student accused of rape while she was serving as president of the University of Maine at Farmington, according to a Bangor Daily News report.

Kathryn Foster, who became the president of The College of New Jersey last summer, intervened in a case involving two students on the Maine campus in the final months before she stepped down as head of the school last year, the report said.

A campus discipline committee had found the male student responsible for holding a female student by the throat and raping her after they had been drinking in January 2018, the report said. The male student was suspended for two years to allow the alleged victim to finish her degree.

But Foster unexpectedly intervened after the male student appealed the decision. She reversed the committees ruling and overturned the suspension. In a letter, the president also urged both the alleged victim and the alleged assailant to take advantage of alcohol awareness education and counseling.

The president wrote she had reviewed the case file, but did not explain why she was overturning the earlier ruling, the report said.

The alleged victim, University of Maine junior Chloe Woodward, said Fosters decision to dismiss the sexual assault case and tell her to get help for drinking alcohol made her feel like she was being blamed for her own alleged sexual assault.

I was feeling every negative feeling you could think of, said Woodward, 21, who agreed to let the Bangor Daily News use her name.

In a statement to NJ Advance Media, Foster said she could not discuss the reasons behind her decision.

All of these cases are complex and difficult. Due to federal privacy laws and the fact that the case is currently the subject of a complaint before the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, I am unable to provide more detail. I can say, however, that I took great care in fulfilling my role in the process, Foster said.

The Bangor Daily News investigation found Foster may have improperly intervened in the case. University officials admitted there was a typo in the system-wide University of Maine school rule -- referring to the wrong section of the student code -- that the president thought granted her the power to step in an overturn the sexual assault case.

Foster had also previously spoken to the victims mother by phone after she complained about how her daughters case was being handled. The president told Woodwards mother in the phone conversation that she would recuse herself from any involvement in the case because she had personally spoken to the family, the report said.

Several experts on Title IX, the federal law that governs sexual assault investigations on college campuses, also told the newspaper that the case may have been mishandled.

Woodward and another female student involved in a similar sexual assault case on campus filed complaints with the University of Maine System Board of Trustees and the Board of Visitors at the University of Maine at Farmington. Woodward also filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, which can investigate how colleges handle sexual assault complaints.

The case comes as college campuses across the nation have been under increased scrutiny for how they handle sexual assault allegations. While the Obama administration launched hundreds of investigations into whether hundred of colleges were mishandling sexual assault complaints, the Trump administration has called for new rules that critics say are fairer to those accused of wrongdoing.

The College of New Jersey, Fosters new campus, recently revamped its policies for dealing with sexual assault allegations. The school has instituted a restorative justice program that gives victims the choice of avoiding a formal investigation and reaching an written agreement where the accused can admit their guilt and agree to education programs and other ways to make amends. It has been viewed as a model for other schools looking for alternate ways to address complex sexual assault cases on campus.

In a statement, officials at The College of New Jersey said the public colleges policies for handling sexual assault cases differ greatly from the policy at the University of Maine. At The College of New Jersey, the president would never be involved in a rape case.

At TCNJ, Title IX cases are handled entirely within the Division of Student Affairs, with final appeals heard by the vice president for student affairs, a campus spokesman said.

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Gov. Phil Murphy announced on Wednesday his support of a full ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin, a move long pushed for by environmental groups.

The Democratic governor detailed his concerns in a letter to the Delaware River Basin Commission, the interstate group that is charged with regulating and protecting the Delaware River and the waters that feed into it.

Murphy currently serves as the chair of the DRBC, and is joined on the commission by the governors of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York, as well as a representative of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

As DRBC Chair, I would like to seize this opportunity and provide the fullest protection to the Delaware River watershed and the 13.3 million people who rely upon it for pure drinking water, Murphy wrote in the letter, which was sent Monday. To achieve this, I believe the proposed rules should be amended to include a ban of all fracking-related activities.

Fracking is an informal name for hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that forces a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock in order to release oil and natural gas that would otherwise be inaccessible.

There are currently no fracking operations in New Jersey, but there is no statewide ban on the practice either. A one-year ban existed in the state from 2012 to 2013. Former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, had repeatedly vetoed efforts to ban the dumping of fracking waste in New Jersey.

Fracking is booming business in Pennsylvania, however, particularly in the Marcellus Shale region of the state. The DRBC has jurisdiction of some eastern portions of the Marcellus Shale.

A temporary moratorium on fracking in the Delaware River Basin has been in place since 2010. The DRBC is currently considering a proposal to make that ban permanent. The proposal was introduced in late 2017.

In calling for the current DRBC proposal to be amended to include all fracking-related activities, Murphy is addressing the direct impact of the fracking industry in New Jersey. Specifically, the governor is seeking a ban on the import, treatment and discharge of fracking wastewater in the basin. Citing a 2016 report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Murphy detailed in the letter concerns he had about the byproducts of fracking.

The inclusion of fracking-related activities in a permanent fracking ban is something that advocates in New Jersey have long sought.

As it now stands, there is a lack of clear data on the toxicity of the 1,400 chemicals found in hydraulic fracturing fluid, said state Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker, D-Mercer. Since this information is minimal, we dont have a definitive answer as to the long-term environmental impact caused by fracking. I appreciate the Governor taking heed to these real concerns and taking action to protect our waters.

New Jersey environmental groups, which in December had presented the governor with more than 100,000 petitions for a fracking ban, and state lawmakers praised Murphys announcement.

Governor Murphy is taking the lead to protect New Jersey residents, our water supply and the Delaware River by pledging his vote for the Delaware River Basin Commission to ban fracking, including the discharge of wastewater produced by fracking and the withdrawal of the Rivers water for fueling fracking elsewhere, said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper. As the chairman of the DRBC, Governor Murphy is showing true environmental leadership.

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A Princeton couple has been charged with orchestrating a $5 million gas and oil company Ponzi scheme that defrauded friends across five states and using the money to pay for an elite schools tuition, a tropical vacation and high-end shopping, authorities said.

Ford Graham and his wife, Katherine Graham, are accused of operating the scam from January 2012 to January 2014, according to the Attorney Generals Office. The couple peddled unregistered securities to potential investors, claiming they were low-risk opportunities in gas and oil with returns of up to 20 percent, authorities said.

Instead, they used investor money to repay previous investors and withdrew the funds in cash, authorities said. They allegedly financed country club memberships, a vacation to Antigua and private school and summer camp tuition, authorities said.

At least $1.9 million came from selling unregistered securities to New Jersey investors, according to the Attorney Generals Office.

Ford Graham, who graduated from Princeton University, allegedly leveraged his connections in the town to appeal to investors.

Investors tend to lower their guard when someone they know socially or professionally offers them an opportunity to invest in a sure thing, as happened here, Christopher Gerold, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, said in a statement. But this case illustrates the importance of thoroughly vetting the person offering the investment, and the investment itself, before handing over your hard-earned money.

The alleged scam violated the states uniform securities law, which prohibits making false and misleading statements to investors regarding the sale of unregistered securities. Those were issued by Ford Grahams companies, which include Specialty Fuels Americas, LLC; Aries Energy Group Venture, LLC; CCC Holdings, LLC; and Rattler Partners, LLC. Additionally, he acted as an unregistered agent, authorities said.

The state is seeking repayment of profits, restitution for the investors, civil penalties and a permanent injunction that would prevent the couple from working in the securities industry.

The Grahams could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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EDITORS NOTE: Interested in the marijuana business industry? NJ Cannabis Insider is a new premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and Realtors. View a sample issue.

The mayors of New Jerseys two biggest towns wont allow marijuana dispensaries in their cities unless they are happy with how the legalization bill addresses previous weed convictions.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop joined a handful of other town leaders from across the state Wednesday to call for stronger social justice provisions if legal weed were to come to New Jersey.

It has to be changed in order for us to move forward, Baraka said of the legalization bill, citing deep-seated inequalities in the current version. The mayor bemoaned people making millions of dollars off of marijuana if its legalized, while others would still be dealing with the ramifications of marijuana convictions.

Baraka called for the automatic and immediate expungement of marijuana possession and distribution convictions for amounts up to 50 grams, just shy of 2 ounces. That goes beyond whats been proposed so far.

We will have a hard time supporting legalization without expungement, Fulop said.

On the issue of expungements  which means wiping away past convictions from someones criminal record  the two mayors have friends both in the governors mansion and at the State House.

Gov. Phil Murphy has long said his motivation for legal weed is to provide a modicum of justice for the hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey who have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past 30 years. He repeated his call for expungements as part of his legalization plan in the State of the State address earlier this month.

Several state lawmakers have been working on expungement legislation over the past year and one version of the bill was passed by both state Assembly and Senate committees in November. Assemblyman Jamel Holley said recently that the expungement legislation remains a work in progress, though he favors provisions similar to those suggested by Baraka and Fulop.

The announcement that Newark and Jersey City wouldnt support marijuana dispensaries without more social justice provisions puts additional pressure on lawmakers as they could be set to restart weed negotiations next month.

Losing access to the states two biggest potential marijuana markets would be a huge blow for legalization, especially considering that the mayors have generally been supportive of legal weed. If Newark and Jersey City were to go that route, theyd join more than 60 other towns that have already banned marijuana businesses.

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More than five years after it was canceled, ferry service is returning to the Newport section of Jersey City this summer, Newport Associates Development Company officials announced this week.

A spokeswoman said that the tremendous growth in Newport over the past several years  more than 1,000 new residents units  has created a new demand for ferry service.

Ferry service at Newport was discontinued in late 2013 when NY Waterway officials cited deteriorating conditions of the pier. An alternate site was offered and NY Waterway applied for the required permits, but the ferry company declined to build a new terminal.

The service will run between Newport and the West 39th Street Ferry Terminal in Manhattan seven days a week, officials said. Newports new ferry landing will be located at the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway behind the East Hampton rental building at 30 River Court. Newport officials said residents will receive a discount on one-way fares.

We are thrilled to revive the NY Waterway ferry service between Manhattan and Newport, said Jeremy Farrell of Newport Associates Development Company.

One-way trip tickets for NY Waterway ferries are $9 weekdays and $7 on weekends. A 10-trip ticket package is $84.50.
JERSEY CITY  Former Gov. Jim McGreevey was spotted dining with U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito at a Jersey City Italian restaurant on Friday.

The timing of the dinner at Laicos, just about two weeks after McGreevey was fired as head of the Jersey City Employment & Training Program, is sure to raise eyebrows. McGreevey has said federal investigators are probing the allegations that he claims led to his firing.

Carpenito spokesman Matthew Reilly told The Jersey Journal the meet-up at Laicos was not related to any investigation.

Just dinner, Reilly said.

McGreevey could not be reached to comment.

Laicos, located in the citys Greenville section, is a hot spot for old-school political types.

Just before the former governor was fired as executive director of JCETP  a federally funded nonprofit that manages the citys job training and prisoner re-entry program  he alleged he was a victim of a retaliation campaign waged by Mayor Steve Fulop, an allegation Fulop has denied.

Last year, McGreevey fired a Fulop political operative, Eugene McKnight, and accused him of shaking down JCETP clients for cash. In a Jan. 3 letter to Fulop, McGreeveys attorney said the former governor told federal authorities to investigate McKnights conduct.

Federal investigators paid a visit to the city Department of Public Works last week and asked about McKnight, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. City spokeswoman Ashley Manz said they asked about a former employee that no longer works for the city.

Fulop does not technically oversee JCETP but he appoints its board of directors, which voted 5-3 to fire McGreevey at their Jan 7 meeting. Fulops claim is that McGreevey misappropriated funds, which the former governor has denied and demanded Fulop retract.

Fulop directed JCETP to hire McGreevey in 2013.

Carpenito is scheduled to speak at McGreeveys annual re-entry conference in Jersey City on April 18, along with U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

An earlier version of this story should have said McGreeveys annual conference is April 18.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Januarys FDI disbursement also rose 9.3% year-on-year to US$1.55 billion.

Meanwhile, the capital pledged for stake acquisitions reached US$761.8 million, up 114% compared to the same month last year, the data noted.

One remarkable project was Japanese Kyoshin Vietnams project which was allowed to raise its investment by US$134.7 million. Based in HCM City, the factory specialises in manufacturing molding products and machinery.

Others included a US$65 million logistics project funded by Katolec Global Logistics Vietnam from Japan in the northern province of Ha Nam and a Chinese-financed textile chemical manufacturing project worth US$60 million in the southern province of Tay Ninh.

As per the data, foreign-invested enterprises continued to record a trade surplus of US$1.83 billion during the month despite modest decreases of 5.1% and 1.3% in export and import turnovers at US$13.58 billion and US$11.75 billion, respectively.

The manufacturing and processing sector retained its crown as the most attractive sector to foreign investors, accounting for US$1.19 billion, or 62.4% of total registered capital.

The science and technology sector beat the retail sector to rank second with US$185.6 million, or 9.7%, while the retail sector came third with US$179 million, or 9.3%.

Among 51 countries and territories investing in Vietnam in January, Japan remained the leading investor with nearly US$364 million, making up 19% of the nations total FDI. It was followed by the Republic and Korea with US$349 million, or 18.3%, and China with US$308 million, or 16.1%.

Statistics showed that foreign investors pumped cash into 39 localities. Among them, Ho Chi Minh City attracted the lions share of FDI with US$746 million, or to 39.1% of the total capital pledged in the country. The southern province of Binh Duong and northern Hai Duong province were the runners-up with US$240 million, or 12.5%, and US$126 million, or 6.5%, respectively.

As of January 2019, the nation is home to more than 27,640 valid foreign-invested projects with capital totaling US$340.1 billion. Over half of the FDI has been disbursed thus far.

According to the ministry, Vietnamese businesses invested only US$1.25 million into five projects abroad in January. Their overseas investments targeted wholesale and retail and science, technology and communication sectors in Singapore, Finland, Japan and the US.
JERSEY CITY  Employees of ex-Gov. Jim McGreeveys statewide prisoner re-entry nonprofit were evicted Wednesday from the Jersey City office where they have been working.

The move represents an escalation of hostilities between McGreevey and the new management of the Jersey City Employment and Training Program, the federally funded nonprofit McGreevey ran until he was fired earlier this month.

There are about a dozen employees of NJ Reentry Corp, a nonprofit McGreevey chairs that runs re-entry services around the state, who worked at the JCETP office on Martin Luther King Drive, according to Alex Avellan, general counsel for NJ Reenty Corp. Avellan told The Jersey Journal they were told Wednesday morning they had to be out by the end of the day, then they were told they had to be out sooner.

Well be fine. Well recover, he said. What bothers me is any disservice to our clients.

The mingling of NJ Reentry and JCETP business is part of the public reason why McGreevey was canned from JCETP on Jan. 7. Sudhan Thomas, chair of the JCETP board and now its interim director, told JCETP board members in an email on Jan. 11 that under McGreeveys direction, JCETP was usurped and merely exists as a facade for  NJRC operations.

Thomas told The Jersey Journal the reason the employees were evicted Wednesday is that NJ Reentry, which paid for JCETPs prisoner re-entry services, is no longer doing so.

I had no obligation to let these folks continue to occupy the (JCETP) office, he said.

Asked to respond, McGreevey said, "Its sad. Its a partnership that worked for the past five years and that Mr. Thomas was intent upon destroying.

McGreevey alleges his firing was retaliation from Mayor Steve Fulop, who appoints JCETPs board. Fulop has denied this.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY  Jersey Citys police unions are asking a judge to force the city to reinstate off-duty jobs, saying Mayor Steve Fulops decision to kill the off-duty gigs represents a broad overreach of his powers.

Fulops unilateral decision to end the program is unlawful because he cannot repeal the city ordinance that allows for off-duty jobs, according to the complaint filed Tuesday by the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association and the Jersey City Superior Officers Association.

Fulop "does not have such unfettered power, reads the complaint, filed in Hudson County Superior Court.

The mayor announced last year he would ax the off-duty jobs program, citing a string of guilty pleas from cops who admitted abusing the program for personal financial gain. The side jobs continued for a bit until the mayor ended them all this month, leading to criticism from police officers who say the program leads to more cops on the street at no cost to taxpayers.

Asked for comment on the legal action, city spokeswoman Ashley Manz said, The unions are entitled to bring any lawsuit they like and we anticipate years of litigation before there is a resolution either way. In the meantime, we will be incorporating best practices from other cities across the country. The program was abused and embarrassed the residents of Jersey City.

In a statement, JCPOBA President Carmine Disbrow said, Mayor Fulop speaks of instituting best practices into the program yet refuses to discuss the proposal we brought forward that includes additional oversight. The embarrassment,' as we see it, is that Mayor Fulop is putting Jersey City residents in harms way to score political points.

The ordinance that allows for off-duty gigs was last approved by the City Council in 2013. That was three years before federal prosecutors revealed they were investigating the off-duty jobs program, a probe that eventually led to 10 guilty pleas from now ex-cops who admitted participating in a conspiracy to take money for jobs they didnt work and accept or offer bribes in exchange for officers silence.

Five of the officers were sentenced to prison. One died before his sentencing. An 11th, ex-Police Chief Phil Zacche, pleaded guilty to a separate but related scheme to bilk the Jersey City Housing Authority out of more than $20,000 for off-duty security jobs he didnt work.

The unions argue in their complaint that the officers implicated in the investigation represent a fraction of the citys police force, which comprises roughly 900 people. They name a few businesses that once hired off-duty cops to act as security, including Newport Centre mall, and say in the complaint that those companies were told on Jan. 10 that they could not longer hire local cops. The next day two people were shot at the mall, leading to panic among shoppers.

Some of the private companies that formerly hired off-duty cops for security or traffic management have been hiring New Jersey state troopers instead, which has angered Jersey City officers and council members and irked some motorists. Cars towed from sites state troopers oversee have been towed to Totowa, according to law enforcement sources.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
A Jersey City businessman was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for scamming two investors out of $3.4 million by lying to them that he secured lucrative contracts to sell olive oil to major retailers, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.

Antonio Fasolino, 62, who pleaded guilty in August, was sentenced to 37 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $3.4 million when he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael Vazquez in Newark federal court.

According to the court documents and statements made in court, Fasolino admitted that he received approximately $3.4 million from two victims in 2012 by telling them his companies  which manufactured, sold and distributed pasta, tomato sauce, olive oil and other food products.

Fasolino had facilities in Bayonne and Secaucus.

Fasolino admitted in court that there were no lucrative contracts. He covered the lies about his companies by altering bank statements for the investors  a Kansas City business and an individual in Florida -- authorities said.

The 62-year-old spent the money on car and mortgage payments, apartment rentals, a wedding, college tuition and credit card payments, authorities said.

Fasolino has been convicted three times previously, twice on bank fraud charges and once on mail fraud. He was sentenced to 46 months, 14 months and 51 months for those convictions, officials said.
For almost all of us, the risk of getting Alzheimers depends on our age more than anything else.

Thats because Alzheimers is primarily a disease of aging  even if most researchers dont approach it that way.

Perhaps they should.

A leading authority on dementia research says we might see effective treatments sooner if we put more focus on how the chronic conditions of aging contribute to Alzheimers and develop medicines that target those conditions.

Dr. Howard Fillit says that strategy has worked on other age-related illnesses  including heart disease, cancer and hypertension  and the time has come to attack Alzheimers that way.

The overarching idea here is that the leading risk factor for Alzheimers disease is aging, says Fillit, founding executive director and chief science officer of the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation. What hasnt been done, and what weve been working to do for a very long time now, is bring to (Alzheimers) research the concepts of biological gerontology that are common to almost all diseases of aging.

Fillit makes that case in a research review published last month in the online issue of the journal Neurology. In his paper, he says novel approaches that tackle the effects of aging on the brain could usher in a new generation of medicines to prevent and treat Alzheimers.

These therapies might aim at such condition as inflammation or oxidative stress, Fillit says.

In 1995, more than 20 years ago, I showed that people with Alzheimers disease had evidence of increased inflammation in their blood, Fillit says. Inflammation is a hallmark of aging, but we havent applied the knowledge thats been gained over almost 70 years now about aging and used it to develop new drugs to treat Alzheimers disease.

Why not?

Well, part of the reason is that researchers became enamored with other approaches  ones that so far havent been fruitful.

Fillit traces that back to the mid-1980s, when the presence of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain of Alzheimers patients was first identified as a tell-tale sign of the disease.

Thats why, historically, beta-amyloid has been the primary target for new drugs, because it was the first clue we had to what was going on, Fillit says. Ever since then, weve been trying to target that protein.

In his article in Neurology, Fillit notes that more than half of the more advanced clinical trials currently underway target either the amyloid plaques, or the tangles of tau protein that are another hallmark of Alzheimers. He says these approaches looked promising in preliminary studies, but so far have been largely unsuccessful in slowing or halting the progression of Alzheimers.

Pathology doesnt necessarily mean these are good drug targets, and so far they havent been, Fillit says. Getting rid of the plaques and tangles doesnt necessarily mean thats going to help.

That unproductive emphasis on plaques and tangles is one reason there has not been a major breakthrough in Alzheimers drug research in well over a decade.

Fillit has not given up on whats called the amyloid hypothesis, and says it may eventually prove to be part of the solution. But his organization, the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation, has been working for years to broaden and diversify the research efforts, including an emphasis on drugs that target the biology of aging.

The concept of Alzheimers as a disease of aging is supported by the statistics. Most cases of the disease are whats called late-onset Alzheimers, and the average age of onset is 75. Beginning around the age of 65, your risk of Alzheimers goes up about 2 percent every year. By the age of 85, the risk of Alzheimers is around 50 percent for the average American.

Fillit says research already is gravitating toward the kinds of health concerns that arise in the aging process.

There are more clinical trials out there targeting the mechanisms of aging that are relevant to Alzheimers disease, he says. They are not targeted at beta-amyloid and tau, but toward other things. There are about 40 different trials going on now that target these non-amyloid, non-tau approaches.

Pursuing a variety of medications is important, because Fillit and other Alzheimers experts do not believe the disease will be conquered by a single blockbuster drug. Instead, they foresee it being treated with some combination of medications, in addition to improvements in health habits, the way such conditions as AIDS and heart disease are.

We think that were going to need combinations of therapies because aging is a very complex biology and Alzheimers is a complex biology, Fillit says. People who have cancer, which is predominantly a disease of aging, are on three, four or even five different drugs. With diabetes, they are often on two or three different drugs. All of these chronic diseases of old age require combination therapies to attack the multiple mechanisms that affect the brain and cause Alzheimers disease.

Fillit says the chronic conditions of aging that can be associated with Alzheimers include not just inflammation, but also metabolic dysfunction, vascular problems and loss of synapses in the brain.

There are many avenues for Alzheimers research to target the risk factors of aging. One that the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation supports is the practice of repurposing drugs. That involves taking a medication thats been proven to treat some other illness and applying it to Alzheimers.

One example would be a drug called AGB101, which is being tested on people with a mild form of memory loss to see if it can prevent them from progressing to Alzheimers, or at least delay the progression.

AGB101 is a low-dose version of levetiracetam, a drug that has been used to treat epilepsy for more than a decade. It does not target plaques or tangles. Instead, it is being tested to see if it can preserve memory and delay cognitive decline by preventing the hyperactive firing of neurons in the brain of people who have signs of Alzheimers disease. That hyperactivity is believe to hasten memory loss.

In a small study, the drug not only proved to be safe, but significantly improved memory in a group of several dozen older adults.

Last week, the maker of the drug, AgeneBio, announced that it has enrolled the first patients in a Phase 3 clinical trial that eventually will involve more than 800 patients at study sites across the United States, Canada and Europe.

Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, AgeneBio research and development vice-president, said the company is pleased to be at the forefront of a new direction in Alzheimers disease research moving beyond amyloid-directed therapeutics.

Fillit says one of the great advantages of repurposing a drug already approved by the FDA for other conditions is that if it proves effective against Alzheimers, it can immediately be used for that purpose.

If any of these trials are successful, doctors dont have to wait for an FDA approval years down the road to enable patients to have access to the drug, he says. We can prescribe that drug right away as an off-label drug.

Its opportunities like these that have Fillit excited about the future of Alzheimers research. Hes been studying Alzheimers for 40 years and treating Alzheimers patients for nearly that long, and he says the potential for a cure has never looked more promising.

I just want to express complete optimism about where we are and where were going, he says. Im very optimistic that we will have in the relatively near future, three to five years, some drugs on the market that will be effective and safe for the treatment of Alzheimers, and we also know a lot about the prevention of Alzheimers today, so Im very excited and optimistic about where we are.

Tony Dearing may be reached at tdearing@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyDearing. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A Newark mainstay, McGoverns Tavern, has been named one of the best bars in America in a new list rounded up by The Daily Meal -- even though it is currently closed for renovations.

Iconic for its signature green doors along its white facade, the Irish pub opened in Newark in 1936 and has been a fixture in the community ever since -- staying open even after the 1967 Newark Riots that prompted several local businesses to close.

McGoverns storied history, cold brews and working-class vibe helped secure New Jerseys only place on The Daily Meals 2019 list of the 150 best bars in the country. Located six blocks from Newarks Penn Station, the bar was highlighted for serving pints of Guinness and the Dublin Decker, a corned beef, turkey, Swiss cheese, coleslaw and Russian dressing sandwich on rye bread.

The pub, according to the article, has attracted its clientele of blue collar types, office workers, college students, and police officers and firefighters (many of whose hats and helmets hang from the ceiling)" after it opened as a meeting place for Irish immigrants more than 80 years ago.

A call to McGoverns and a message on Facebook were not immediately returned.

McGoverns is undergoing a major renovation and has been closed since the summer.

The Daily Meal said it was not aware McGoverns was still closed for renovations until reading it on NJ.com but decided to keep the bar on the list.

While it may be peculiar to keep a yet-to-be-reopened bar on our list, we believe the accolade shouldnt be taken away because of a delayed reopening, The Daily Meal wrote in a Jan. 30 update to their story. Given the bars long-standing excellence, devoted patrons, and impact on Newark; McGoverns Tavern remains on the list, appearing for the third time, because it is simply the best bar in New Jersey.

Happy New Year from McGoverns Tavern! We are making progress and hope to open soon. We will keep you posted on when the opening date will be! Slainte  Posted by McGovern's Tavern on Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.

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Crash involving a @NJTRANSIT bus, a car and a traffic signal at Bergen & Nye in Newark... possible hit and run situation via @NewarkNJPolice pic.twitter.com/2tRjTnFBm8  Henry Rosoff (@HenryRosoff) January 30, 2019

Three people were injured and a driver was being sought Wednesday after a car collided with a New Jersey Transit bus in Newark, authorities said.

The crash occurred shortly before 10 a.m. as the No. 39 bus from Irvington was on Bergen Street crossing over Nye Avenue, according to Nathan Rudy, spokesman for NJ Transit.

The bus then hit light pole, which fell on a sidewalk. The badly damaged car was in the intersection near Watson Avenue, video from the scene showed.

The driver of the passenger vehicle did not remain at the scene, said Catherine Adams, spokeswoman for the Newark Public Safety Office.

Three people were hurt, including two passengers on the bus, according to police and New Jersey Transit.

They were taken to University Hospital in Newark for treatment of minor injuries.

The accident is under investigation.

BREAKING: Car smashes into #NJTransit bus in #Newark ... three passengers hurt ... police say driver of car ran from the scene #nbc4ny https://t.co/G4F8ODfF44 pic.twitter.com/90hTjzh6JV  Steven Bognar (@Bogs4NY) January 30, 2019

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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A woman authorities say survived a murder attempt by an alleged New Jersey serial killer is alive only because she woke up in the middle of the attack, a Superior Court judge said Wednesday.

The woman, identified on the court record only as T.T., had left an Elizabeth motel with Khalil Wheeler-Weaver in November 2016 after agreeing to have sex with him for money, prosecutors have alleged in filings referenced by the judge.

After she was apparently drugged, she regained consciousness in handcuffs to find she was being sexually assaulted and choked in the back seat of the car, the judge said, reading from a summary of the case.

Wheeler-Weaver, who is charged with the Elizabeth attack and in the murders of three women in Essex County that fall, will now stand trial April 1 in all four crimes after Judge Alfonse Cifelli on Wednesday denied a motion by the defense to split the case into separate trials.

Wheeler-Weaver, 22, is accused of strangling Robin West, 19, Joanne Browne, 33, and Sarah Butler, 20, in separate killings between August and December 2016. In addition to murder and charges of desecrating human remains, he faces an aggravated arson charge for allegedly starting a fire to cover up Wests slaying. The Orange resident is also charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault in the attack on the surviving victim.

Wheeler-Weaver, who is represented by defense attorney Deirdre McMahon, had argued it would be prejudicial for a jury to hear evidence from all four crimes before deciding his guilt or innocence on any one count. The judge, however, ruled a single trial was permissible to allow Assistant Prosecutor Adam Wells to establish a common scheme or motive for the killings.

Viewed as a singular incident, Cifelli said, its not clear why Wheeler-Weaver would have wanted to kill Butler, a Montclair resident who was a student at New Jersey City University. But viewed alongside the Elizabeth murder attempt and the killings of Browne and West, who was working as an escort, the motive becomes clear, the judge said: the victims were each targeted for a perceived connection to the sex trade.

Firefighters found Wests burned body when they responded to a house fire in Orange on Sept. 1, 2016. Browne, who was last seen getting into a car in Newark, was found dead that December inside a vacant home on Highland Avenue in Orange. Shed been strangled with a jacket, according to a detectives affidavit, and her mouth and nose had been covered with tape.

Wheeler-Weaver wasnt charged in connection with any of the killings until after Butlers body was discovered on Dec. 1, 2016, buried beneath leaves and debris at the Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange. But by that point, hed been on investigators' radar for months.

Police in Union, where West had been living, contacted Wheeler-Weaver as part of their missing persons investigation, after learning he had been seen picking her up. He not only admitted having been with her the night she disappeared, but also took detectives to an address where he claimed he had dropped her off  less than two blocks from where Wests burned and then yet-to-be-identified body had been found.

After Butler went missing and his number was found in her phone, Wheeler-Weaver later told Montclair detectives he had messaged her online looking for sex, and later spent a day with her driving around Essex County. As in Wests case, a Montclair detective testified Wheeler-Weaver took them on a drive through areas he said he visited with Butler.

While McMahon argued her client' statements should be barred as evidence because he wasnt advised of his Miranda rights, Cifelli ruled her client wasnt a suspect in a criminal investigation  merely a missing persons case  when he voluntarily spoke with those officers.

The judge also said he would allow prosecutors to introduce a video recording of Wheeler-Weaver speaking to Essex County detectives after his arrest in Butlers death, comments which he made after explicitly waiving his Miranda rights.

Cellphone and Google records are likely to play a significant role in the states case at trial, as the Essex County Prosecutors Office has said data from Wheeler-Weavers phone connected him to each of the crime scenes.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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A New Jersey electrical contractor who pleaded guilty to 10 federal crimes Monday is among those embroiled in the high-profile FBI takedown of a powerful Philadelphia union boss and a city councilman this week.

In addition to tax evasion charges, George Peltz, owner of MJK Electrical Corp., which has an office in Camden County, admitted his company did tens of thousands of dollars of work on buildings owned by or associated with an unnamed official with IBEW Electricians Local 98, and also gave him over $5,000 in gift cards.

CBS Philly reports it was all part of the FBI investigation, ongoing since 2016, that culminated in the indictment Tuesday of union head Johnny Doc Dougherty on charges of embezzlement and fraud charges, as well as seven others.

Dougherty exerted complete control over the union, according to the 116-count indictment, using that power to repeatedly and persistently steal its funds and put his own self-interests over that of the membership. All told, the defendants misspent more than $600,000 in union funds, officials said.

Dougherty, 58, leads the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, with 5,000 members, along with the city's Building Trades Council, an umbrella group with more than 70,000 members. He has been at the helm of the century-old electricians union for 25 years.

The union over the years has emerged as a major political donor, spending tens of millions of dollars through its political action committees, mostly to help Democrats in Pennsylvania.

According to the indictment, Dougherty used union credit cards to buy groceries and household goods and to splurge on restaurants, and let others in his orbit do the same. He allegedly used union funds to pay contractors for work at his South Philadelphia home and bar. And he put friends and family members on the union's payroll, showering them with raises and overtime for hours they didn't work and using them to do personal tasks, prosecutors said.

Councilman Bobby Henon, a former union official, got a $70,000 union salary to press Doughertys interests at city hall, officials said in the indictment unsealed Wednesday. Henon used his office to pressure Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Comcast Corp. and others to use union labor, prosecutors said at a morning news conference.

The union paid Dougherty $1.4 million between 2010 and 2016. He and the other defendants are due to appear in court Friday.

His lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer, said Dougherty has devoted "all his energies" to the union for a quarter century, leading to dramatic increases in wages and benefits. "To allege that John in any way attempted to defraud the union he cares about so deeply is preposterous," Hockeimer said in a statement.

Dougherty helped Mayor Jim Kenney win election in 2015, the same year his brother, Kevin Dougherty, won a seat on the state Supreme Court. Henon had been Doughertys political director before winning a city council seat in 2011.

T.J. Rooney, a former state Democratic Party chairman, said the political reach of the electricians' union under Dougherty in the region is unparalleled and in the state is tremendously impactful.

The electricians' union is easily the most influential private-sector labor union in Pennsylvania politics, rivaled only by public-sector labor unions, he said.

Henon has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. His office said he will continue to serve.

The defendants include Henon, the majority leader on council and chair of the public property and public works committee; union president Brian Burrows, and union officials Michael Neill, Marita Crawford, Niko Rodriguez and Brian Fiocca  Doughertys nephew. Also charged was Anthona Massa, who ran a construction company that received more than $1.8 million from the union for work done between 2010 and 2016.

Associated Press reporter Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Newsfrom Japan

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)--Nissan Motor Co. <7201> President Hiroto Saikawa and Renault SA's new Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard are slated to have their first face-to-face talks in the Netherlands, informed sources said Wednesday.

The two will meet on the sidelines of a regular executive meeting there from Thursday of the Japanese-French automotive alliance, also involving Mitsubishi Motors Corp. <7211>, according to the sources.

The company leaders are expected to confirm their commitment to maintaining the partnership.

Mitsubishi Motors Chief Executive Officer Osamu Masuko is likely to join the talks via a teleconference system from Japan, the sources said.

Senard was appointed to the Renault chairman post only last week, following the recent resignation of former Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn. He led the three-way alliance until being arrested in Japan last November on charges of financial misconduct.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Japan Data

Japan is fast approaching the end of the Heisei era, which began in 1989. The name of the next era will be announced on April 1, one month before Crown Prince Naruhito is due to become emperor.

Japan has had 247 era names since instituting the system under Emperor Kotoku in 645. From the Meiji era (18681912), there has been one era for each emperor. Previously, however, the name often changed several times during an imperial reign, such as in a spirit of renewal after an inauspicious event like a war, earthquake, epidemic, or major fire.

The characters in the 247 names add up to a total of 504, although due to repeated reliance on the same kanji, just 72 different ones are used. The top five appear in almost half of all era names, presumably because of their particularly felicitous associations.

For example, the most commonly used character  (ei/nagai) signifies eternal or very long, while  (ten/ama), meaning heaven, carries connotations of holiness and reverence. The third most frequent kanji,  (gen/moto), indicates a beginning, and the fourth,  (chi/osameru), is associated with well-ordered government.

Incidentally, in Heisei (), the character  (peace) was used for the twelfth time, but  (become) made a debut appearance. In the preceding Showa () era (192689),  (Japan/harmony) was included for the nineteenth time, but  (shining) was new.

Most Commonly Used Kanji in Japanese Era Names

1.  (ei/nagai) Eternal; very long 29 times 2.  (ten/ama) Heaven 27 times 3.  (gen/moto) Beginning 27 times 4.  (chi/osameru) Reign; order 21 times 5.  (o/kotaeru) Respond 20 times 6.  (sei/tadashii) Righteous 19 times 7.  (cho/nagai) Long 19 times 8.  (bun/fumi) Culture 19 times 9.  (wa/yawaragu) Japan; harmony 19 times 10.  (an/yasui) Tranquil 17 times

In 1979, Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshis cabinet set six guidelines for choosing an era name. It should be (a) one whose meaning is appropriate to the ideals of the nation, (b) two kanji in length, (c) easy to write, (d) easy to read, (e) one that has not previously been used as an era name or emperors posthumous name, and (f) not a term in common use.

Historically, era names have been taken from classical Chinese sources like the Four Books and Five Classics, which are central texts to Confucianism. It is not simply a case of picking two kanji that sound good together. Heisei is based on phrases in Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian, and Shujing, or Book of Documents. Although not clearly stated in the guidelines, it is also expected that the next era name will be chosen to have a different initial letter from Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and Heisei, (M, T, S, and H) so it can be clearly distinguished when abbreviated.

The new era name will be announced on April 1, one month before the imperial accession. What hopes and dreams for the future will it express through its kanji?

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Chief Cabinet Secretary Obuchi Keizo announces the adoption of the era name Heisei on January 7, 1989.  Jiji.)
Niagara Falls, NY (14301)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
MADISON  When people first met Joe Deane, he made a lasting impression.

You would often find the gregarious 23-year-old chatting with customers at his familys restaurant, Brother Mikes, in Madison making the rounds and ensuring everyone was having a good time.

Joe had the biggest heart and touched the lives of anyone he ever met, shared his mother Lisa Deane sitting in the dining room of the restaurant.

On Dec. 7, 2018 Joe lost his battle against drug addiction to an overdose of pure fentanyl.

The impact of his loss to both family and friends culminated in a funeral with 1,400 people in attendance.

The support that people gave us because everywhere he went he touched peoples lives, said Deane.

He was an athlete, he loved everything about sports, and he loved talking sports. Unfortunately, the drugs isolated him sometimes when he was doing them. When he was sober, he became our Joe again, she added.

She described the painful journey her family braved to get help for Joe ranging from inpatient and outpatient care to preventative medications.

Its insidious. He did not want to be an addict, and it was heart-wrenching to watch him struggle. He tried so hard. My kid was just about the toughest kid youll ever meet, and I truly think if he hadnt been as tough as he was, he wouldnt have made it to 23.

Joe isnt alone  some 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hhs.gov/opioids). Among more than 72,000 drug overdose deaths estimated in 2017, (of which Connecticut saw an increase of 12.8 percent), the sharpest increase occurred among deaths related to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic drugs) with nearly 30,000 overdose deaths(wonder.cdc.gov).

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. While pharmaceutical fentanyl is prescribed to manage severe pain, illegally manufactured and sold fentanyl has claimed thousands of lives. In many cases, fentanyl is mixed with other drugs such as heroine or cocaine as well as pressed into other pills, many times without the users knowledge.

After Joe died, Lisa Deane, her husband Peter and son Michael made a commitment to honor Joes memory by helping others who still have time to fight. The Deane family lives in Madison.

Together they founded a nonprofit called demandZero to combat the growing opioid epidemic plaguing so many communities and families.

Because the drug crisis extends beyond the immediate Shoreline community, Deane and her family wanted to reach out to New Haven law enforcement officials. They met privately Jan. 5 with New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell in his office, joined by hundreds of supporters outside.

We discussed with Chief Campbell what we could do to help. Is it canine units, camera surveillance, boots on the ground? He said, Lisa, I need everything. 

While Deane and her husband Peter spoke with Campbell inside, friends and Shoreline community members gathered on the steps of the New Haven Police Station. Standing shoulder to shoulder in the pouring rain, they sought to show their solidarity to the Deane family, and to support to the work of the police who fight the onslaught of illegal drugs each day.

Asked why it was so important to attend the event, Madison resident Tina Garrity said, Ive known Lisa for a number of years, and Im here to show support. We as communities have to come together. I believe that this peaceful stand-in was just a show of support. What can we do as average people and find ways to be supportive to the police who are really on the front lines trying to combat it.

Others echoed similar sentiments of love and support for the Deane family.

One supporter said, Were glad its raining because it shows we want to be here more. We would have come out in a blizzard.

Each attendee received a demandZero leaflet describing its mission, Chief Campbell has granted us a meeting to discuss how we, along with other concerned citizens, can best help the New Haven Police Department with resources to bolster their efforts in bringing the deadly drug supply and the dealing of those drugs to a halt in the city of New Haven.

After an hour of quietly huddling outside, attendees were invited inside by Campbell and ushered into his office while he addressed the issues facing both the New Haven and Shoreline communities.

The thing that has really devastated this community and your communities is drugs. Our communities are under attack. The only way were going to overcome and get to the root of the problem is not with more police. Its by working together, putting pressure on our legislators to deal with this real issue, and stop these drugs from coming into our country.

Before adjourning the meeting, Campbell made a pledge to the audience, Were going to work with you to get whatever we can done to stop this. No one else needs to lose their life. This is totally preventable, and I believe that if we work together we can make a difference.

Moving forward from the meeting, Deane said her family will continue the conversation with the New Haven Police as well as local legislators.

Were going to talk to Noreen Kokoruda (state representative, R-Madison), Sean Scanlon (state representative, D-Guilford), and whatever legislators will lend us an ear, and try to find out the quickest way that we can possibly get to stiffer penalties.

As the meeting came to a close, attendees filtered outside on the steps of the police station where cast members of the local anti-bullying musical Her Song sang a moving rendition of Stand Up and Speak Out from the show.

Deane, who is a fellow cast member, said, I so appreciate the cast of Her Song coming out, and the support I got from the town. If someone is hurting whether theyre being bullied or taking drugs and you know it, youve got to stand up and speak out. I am absolutely speaking from my heart. Im not going to let Joe go in vain. No way.

For information go to demandZero on Facebook: https://bit.ly/2RYap2l or Instagram: https://bit.ly/2DrLCvp
The New Haven Board of Alders Education Committee held a public hearing on the issue of discipline in New Haven schools. Their specific concern was the disproportionate disciplinary actions in New Haven schools involving minority and disabled students, many resulting in numerous suspensions, some involving police. However, this issue, affecting so many of our students, isnt an inner-city problem. In neighboring Hamden, parents and advocates have met over the same issue, citing that statistically Hamdens minority and disabled students had a greater chance of being subject to a disciplinary event involving police than in the city of New Haven. Also, in Hamden, a group of parents have formed an ABAR (Anti Bias Anti-Racism) chapter at one of the towns highly regarded elementary schools. One of their goals this year is to look at the schools disciplinary practices.

Statewide, then-Gov. Dannel Malloys veto of the SB 453 Classroom safety bill also brought attention to this issue. Although supported by the teachers union, the General Assembly failed to override the veto thanks to the efforts of outside advocacy and parent groups, as well as experts including Connecticuts Child Advocate, Sarah Eagan, and its commissioner of education, Dianna Wentzell. Commissioner Wentzell stated the bill was flawed and would risk increasing the disproportionate disciplining and suspension of minority students in Connecticut. She bravely added that research showed that educators tend to assess behavior of same-race students more favorably than they would students of another race. She added implicit racial bias is real and the bill as written could exacerbate it.
In the Forum article A lesson on Justice and its indivisibility (Jan. 21, 2019) the author starts his column by invoking First Amendment issues concerning the cancellation of an award to Ms. Angela Davis. I share his concern about the possibility of First Amendment violations. However, the author quickly hijacks the issue and turns into another screed directed at the state of Israel.

He quotes Professor Marc Lamont Hill who he reports called for a free Palestine from the river to the sea. That language is a thinly veiled wish for a Judenrein (Jew-free) Palestine and the destruction of the Jewish state.

He quotes the professor as saying we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing. How ironic! If any group suffered ethnic cleansing it was the Jews of the Middle East. Fifty-six years ago, when I was serving my medical internship, I vividly recall my co-intern, who had grown up in Baghdad, telling me that when he was a boy of 9 or 10 he remembers Jews hanging from the lampposts. It was then that his family, along with over 120,000 other Jews, fled Iraq, mainly to Israel but others to safe havens all over the world.

Prior to 1948 there were approximately 70,000 Jews in Baghdad, constituting of one-third of the population. Now there are none. In 1947 there were 40,000 Jews in Damascus, Syria. Now there are seven. . Egypt had 80,000 Jews, mostly in Cairo. Now there are six. In all about 900,000 Jews fled from Arab lands mostly to Israel but also to North America, Europe and Latin America, approximately equal to the number of Palestinians who fled from their homes during the War of Independence. The difference between the two groups of refugees that resulted from that war is that Israel, at that time a nation of about 650,000 souls, took in its refugees and painfully integrated them into Israeli society. At the same time 22 Arab nations, some awash in oil money, were unwilling to integrate their refugees. Instead they put them in squalid camps, to be used later as cannon fodder.

The author conveniently omits the fact that the Arab League rejected the United Nations Resolution of 1947 dividing the British Mandate between Israel and the Palestinians. Five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State, occupied the West Bank and Gaza (Jordan subsequently annexed the West Bank while Egypt occupied Gaza) thereby strangling a potential Palestinian State before it was born.

Which brings me to the greatest irony of all, the authors allusion to state violence. No one has suffered more from state and non-state violence than the people of Israel. Five wars, unremitting suicide attacks, bus and cafe bombings, slaughter of kindergartners in school, knifings in the street, attacks with cars and trucks in the street, airplane bombings and hijackings, cruise ship attacks, the Munich Olympics massacre  it goes on and on. And what is the response of the Palestinian Authority? Suicide bombers are made into martyrs, city squares are named after them and their families are given cash rewards to reduce any temptation to dissuade the would-be attackers!!

If Jewish Voices for Peace would genuinely desire peace and work for shared futures instead of hostile pasts, for transformation instead of intransigence, and for hope instead of despair between Israelis and Palestinians we all might be able to achieve something positive. Instead JVP continues to demonize and delegitimate the Jewish State and subject it to a double standard. Each people has its own narrative and its own grievances. We all need to recognize that reality in order to cultivate a foundation for any future peace.

Arthur L. Levy is chairman of the Israel Committee at the Jewish Community Relations Council at the New Haven Jewish Federation.
SHARON  Denise George, president of Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and senior vice president of Health Quest, has been named interim president of Sharon Hospital, effective Feb. 4.

Sharon has a skilled and compassionate team of physicians and staff, and I look forward to working with them to offer quality health care to patients throughout the region, George said. I also look forward to meeting the community we serve.

An active search is under way for the next president of Sharon Hospital. Candidates will be interviewed by members of the hospitals community Board of Directors, medical staff and leaders throughout Health Quest.

In the interim, George will provide daily oversight of administrative and clinical functions. She said she wants to provide a smooth transition for departing hospital President Peter Cordeau, who was recently named president of Norwalk Hospital, part of Western Connecticut Health Network, in Norwalk, and to whoever the new president will be.

We are grateful for Peters contributions and many years of service to Sharon Hospital and our system, and wish him well in his future endeavors, said Kerry Eaton, chief operating officer for Health Quest, in a statement. Peters new role at Western Connecticut Health Network is a testament to our philosophy of growing talent within our organization and creating opportunities for development.

When asked if she knew the status of a replacement for Cordeau, George said, Were moving on it.

You never know how long these things will take, she said. We want to make sure we find the right person for the position. That could happen right away or it could take a little time.

But Im up for it, she said, regarding her interim status as president for Sharon.

Sharon Hospital recently announced that it will offer a Mental Health First Aid Training program and adult exercise classes for adults. The interim president said she wants to continue that effort to connect with the population of Sharon and its surrounding communities, many with aging residents.

Connecting with the communities we serve is something I certainly want to continue, she said. Our focus is on wellness ... were having a heart (health) lunch in February, and a smoking cessation class is planned, and support groups. There are a lot of things were committed to bringing to the community.

She is also looking forward to meeting residents and the hospital staff.

George will have that opportunity on Feb. 4, when residents can attend a meet-and-greet from 11:30 a.m. to1 p.m. in the hospitals main lobby, 50 Hospital Hill Road. Light refreshments will be served.

George is a veteran administrative leader with more than 30 years of health care experience. She began her career in nursing in Brooklyn, N.Y. at what is now NYU Langone Hospital  Brooklyn, and joined Health Quest in 1999, serving as vice president of clinical services and chief nursing officer for Northern Dutchess Hospital. She was later promoted to hospital president in 2007. George is a resident of Red Hook, N.Y. She and her husband have two grown daughters.

Under her leadership, Northern Dutchess Hospital opened a $47 million patient pavilion in 2016 and was named a Best Regional Hospital by U.S. News and World Report, according to a statement from the hospital.

Sharon Hospital joined Health Quest in 2016, and Health Quest plans to integrate with Western Connecticut Health Network to create a new health system in spring 2019. The name of the system is in progress, George said, and the hospitals included in the new network, along with Sharon, are Danbury, Norwalk and New Milford Hospitals, Vassar Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Northern Dutchess Hospital and Putnam Hospital Center in Putnam County, N.Y.

In July 2018, Sharon area residents objected to a proposal to close the hospitals maternity ward in August of that year. The hospital said at the time that obstetricians were not delivering enough babies in Sharon, and it was considering a focus on other aspects of womens health care. In July 2018, administrators and Sharon OB/GYN said they were reviewing the proposal to close the ward. To date, the maternity ward remains open.

Were staffed, George said. We want to keep it open. We have babies being delivered, and there are pediatricians taking care of them. As long as it can be staffed, its not closing.

For more information about Sharon Hospital, visit healthquest.org/sharonhospital.
NEW HAVEN  The Grand Avenue Bridge will be getting a makeover.

Beginning late this year, the city plans to begin rehabilitation of the bridge, expected to take up to two years, which means the span could be closed for up to two years. City engineers Tuesday sought input from residents on the future of the iconic neighborhood bridge.

This is truly a special structure on the Quinnipiac river, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said. Its truly a treasure and with that comes the responsibility of preserving that historical character.

In a community discussion involving dozens of area residents from both sides of the Quinnipiac River, Zinn covered the scope of work on the bridge, bridge closure and other traffic impacts, project finances and schedule, public amenities and business impacts, in addition to community concerns.

The design of the bridge project is 90 percent completed and expected to be finished and ready to be put out to bid by late winter. Construction is not anticipated to start until late fall . But once underway, construction could last up to 2 years.

The project cost is estimated to be $25.5 million, two-thirds of which will be underwritten through a combination of federal and state funds. The rehabilitation project will include new bridge abutments, approach spans, electrical and mechanical systems and rehabilitation of the swing span.

This is transformational, state Rep. Al Paollilo, D-New Haven, said. This will set the stage for the next 40 to 50 years. This is good planning and it has been a priority for the delegation.

The project limits extend from Front Street to Quinnipiac Avenue and will involve replacement of both approach spans, rehabilitation of the center truss and full replacement of the mechanical and electrical equipment on the bridge.

The mechanical systems of the bridge are the original systems built in 1898. The bridge closes for every few years for maintenance, which can take up to a couple of weeks to complete.

The city also plans to create new abutments where the bridge meets the land, allowing engineers to take weight off aging piers that arent structurally sound, because the approach spans will be built in one span, unlike the current two, Zinn said.

One of the planned improvements is to provide a minimum sidewalk width of 10 feet on the south side of the bridge to accommodate a shared-use path.

Additionally, work will include rebuilding the bridge deck; rehabilitating the house; replacing any electrical; and blast cleaning and repainting the structural steel. The black paint on the bridge now causes it to overheat during the summer, so Zinn proposed changing the color to gray.

Quinnipiac Avenue resident Chris Ozyck, who can see the bridge from his home, suggested painting the bridge green instead, so as not to make the neighborhood look drab. He cited other historical bridges in the Northeast that are green.

The other element Zinn sought input for was lighting on the bridge. It currently has no lights, but Zinn presented several options of how the bridge could be lighted.

The lighting is a really subjective thing, Ozyck said. People dont like change so getting consensus on lighting, if its not done in a traditional way, will be hard. Its a great idea and Ive been an advocate and Im hoping we can work on it longer.

The intersections on either side of the bridge will remain in service the entire time, Zinn said. Nevertheless, it will cause complications for a couple of days once its closed. Traffic was one of resident Lee Cruzs concerns, along with the effect on local businesses.

Whatever traffic (the businesses are) getting from the other side wont be there, so how do we make that up? he said. But overall we need to do it and its going to be good for us. Just like telling kids to take their medicine and trust it will make you better.

The importance of the bridge was evident in the number of people who showed up to the presentation, said Acting Economic Development Director Michael Piscitelli, a Fair Haven Heights resident .

All of us on the city team are really proud we were able to organize design and construction funding so that it moves in sequence without having to shut the bridge without a plan to repair, he said. This is a New Haven treasure. Its a historic resource for the state and the city. Here we have water-dependent businesses, aquaculture, great coastal parks and the bridge is an anchor to all that. Its an anchoring point to all residents.

This is the iconic symbol of Fair Haven, Cruz said. It is a physically and emotionally the bridge between Fair Haven and Fair Haven Heights. I dont think theres any person thats grown up here in the last 100 years that doesnt think of the Grand Avenue Bridge when they think of their neighborhood.

The design firm Hardesty and Hanover has been hired for the project and the city will go out to bid later this year for the construction work.

mdignan@hearstmediact.com
NEW HAVEN  Excitement around a once-popular revision to the city charter allowing for two high school students to be elected by their peers to a two-year term on the Board of Education seems to have waned recently, as students around the district and on the board have expressed that they dont actually feel represented.

Aldermanic Education Committee Chairman Aaron Greenberg, D-8, said the Committee on Student Elections must find a way to get students to once again buy into the process, and he believes an information campaign is the way.

Our main goal is to get the word out to students, Greenberg said.

In the second citywide student election campaign in 2016, Jacob Spell won his race in a field of seven students; two years later, after a growing sense among city youth that students on the school board were being treated as window dressing, Metropolitan Business Academy student Nico Rivera was seated to the board as the only candidate to complete the necessary paperwork before a deadline.

At the citywide student council meeting where Rivera answered questions that was initially intended as a candidates forum, multiple students expressed a fatalist view on the student elections process.

Theyre not going to listen to us, said Engineering and Science University Magnet School student Thomas Nardini.

Months before Rivera declared his candidacy, the school board voted to hire Carol Birks as its superintendent of schools, concluding a contentious, yearlong search during which public testimony was overwhelmingly against the decision. Both students  Spell and Makayla Dawkins  were against the decision to hire Birks.

There has been an attempt to stifle our voices, Spell said at a rally in opposition to Birks the day before the vote.

After students met the three finalists in that search during a day of community forums, students were overwhelming in their support for Gary Highsmith, whose passionate speech and local connections resonated. Some acknowledged that Highsmiths resume was a bit light on experience, and said they found bilingual educator Pamela Brown, the only candidate at the time with superintendency experience, to be suitable.

This year, school district officials have promised a rebrand of sorts to the citywide student council, recognizing that the past format was not meeting student needs.

It was kids going to different schools every month and reporting what had happened in their schools. What students need and want is leadership development, said Dolores Garcia-Blocker, the districts student council supervisor.

So, too, has the Committee on Student Elections realized it needs to reach students so they can participate in an equitable election that guarantees a right to be heard on the school board.

Last year, there was a real indication of the room there is to grow on (student engagement), so we want to make sure weve got a lively and contested election this year, Greenberg said.

District survey coordinator Carolyn Ross-Lee said the district will contact the state about whether it can use $5,000 in Title IV grant funding  student support and academic enrichment funding  to conduct the election. If approved, the committee would determine how to allocate that money.

Ross-Lee identified one program called Flipgrid that all student candidates would be encouraged to use, so as to create an equitable process in which students can share ideas and answer questions without using personal resources for campaigning. The district will also provide each candidate with 2,000 blank sheets of paper.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
NEWTOWN  Conspiracy extremist Alex Jones cant get a fair trial in Fairfield County because of adverse news coverage here, says a lawyer defending him against three defamation lawsuits by Sandy Hook families.

While the ability to receive a fair trial in this county was questionable from the start, this pretrial publicity has ensured that (Jones) will not ever be able to receive a fair trial in Fairfield County, said Jones attorney Jay Wolman in a motion filed in state Superior Court in Bridgeport.

Jones wants to have his court cases moved as far from Sandy Hook as possible  to Windham County, in the northeastern corner of Connecticut, the motion states.

Children and educators were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, understandably scarring and causing extraordinary grief throughout the community, Jones lawyer argues. People who have lived this close to such a horrific tragedy cannot be expected to think about it unemotionally, particularly when an attorney representing its victims is directly and falsely accusing third parties (in this case, Defendants) of callously profiting from their grief.

The lawyer is referring to Josh Koskoff, the attorney representing eight families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and an FBI agent. Koskoff has accused Jones of defaming them by arguing on his Texas-based web program InfoWars that the shooting was a hoax, and inciting others to act on these malicious lies.

The defamation lawsuits in Connecticut are separate from two lawsuits filed against Jones in Texas by parents of first-graders who were slain in the shooting. The parents accuse Jones of claiming the 2012 murder of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook School was staged, synthetic, manufactured, a giant hoax and completely fake with actors, with inside job written all over it.

Jones has claimed in court that he no longer believes the worst crime in modern Connecticut history was faked, and that he has the right to have been wrong about it.

His attorney in Connecticut argues that news coverage has twisted the substance of the case against Jones.

This case involves a high-profile crime, which is terribly upsetting to the residents of Fairfield County  few of whom have been untouched by the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Wolman writes. But this case is not about the crime; it is about the press right to question governmental and entrenched-media reporting about a crime and to investigate and express unpopular opinions about it.

Chris Mattei, one of the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook families, said they would fight to keep the cases local.

We will oppose this motion, Mattei said in a prepared statement. It is also hard to ignore the irony of a media personality bemoaning the extent of media coverage he attracts.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
With urgency for action mounting, the Government of Canada now has less than a month to respond to a report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development offering realistic solutions, including legislative action to address child and forced labour in Canadian supply chains.

"As a young person living in Canada, I enjoy freedoms that protect my right to a safe future, a future I have the ability to choose. I find it heartbreaking that girls and boys globally do not have these same opportunities. Around the world, 152 million children are exploited through child labour, to provide the clothes we wear, the electronics we use, and the food we eat," says Kassandra N., the voice of the new change.org petition which now has more than 50,000 signatures.

"A lot of Canadian teens like all kinds of big brand names," says Mira Gillis a high school student and World Vision Youth Ambassador from Windsor, Ontario. "But the fact that child labour may have contributed to what I buy has made me second guess what's important to me. With this legislation, it would be the responsibility of Canadian companies to take action to address labour exploitation in their supply chains."

"Every kid has the right to be safe and to have a childhood free from fear and danger. No matter our age, or where we come from, we can lend our voices to help support safer and less degrading environments for kids around the world," says "Patrick the Spoken Word Artist", a Toronto poet speaking out against child exploitation and injustice.

MEDIA RESOURCES

Kassandra's petition, with more than 50,000 signatures: HERE

"Where things come from" a spoken word poem by Patrick de Belen, a Toronto artist: HERE

Canadian youth video calling for action: HERE

Government of Canada report: "A Call to Action: Ending the Use of All Forms of Child Labour in Supply Chains": HERE

No Child for Sale digital media kit with photos, stories and reports on child labour: HERE

FAST FACTS

Canadian imports of "risky products" now total $34B , a 31% increase over five years . (World Vision)

, . (World Vision) 91% of Canadians agree that the Canadian government should require companies to publicly report on who makes their products and what they are doing to reduce child labour in their supply chains (Ipsos)

Canada risks falling behind in the global fight to eliminate child and forced labour in supply chains. Five significant jurisdictions, the UK, France , Australia , California , and the Netherlands , have all passed supply chain legislation (World Vision)

World Vision is a Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by our Christian values, World Vision is dedicated to working with the world's most vulnerable people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

SOURCE World Vision Canada

For further information: Brett Tarver, (647-825-2712) or [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.worldvision.ca


The Village Tavern won't be going anywhere after all.

The Main Street business has not been sold and plans to reopen in late February or early March, according to a statement posted on the restaurant's Instagram account.

"The Village Tavern in downtown Ridgefield has not ben sold as recently stated to the press by Bruno DiFabio," the statement read. "After becoming aware of certain unethical business practices, the original partners, Chef Germano Minin and resident Joe Chelednik have taken over the operation of Ramapoo Restaurant Corporation which owns and operates The Village Tavern and Romolo Gastro Pizza."

The new ownership went into place Tuesday, Jan. 29.

"Minin and Chelednik are looking forward to re-launching and re-opening The Village Tavern the last week of February or first week of March," the statement said.

Minin and Chelednik plan to post updates on social media "as they become available," according to the Instagram post.

The post concluded with an apology to the businesses customers and Ridgefield residents "for any confusion caused by incorrect and misleading information that circulated last week."

Editor's note: This story broke too late for the Jan. 27 print edition of The Press. The print story this week states the business is was closed and was being sold. We apologize for the error.
Once again, Oregon is center stage in the marijuana legalization movement in 2019 -- this time not intentionally.

The state, one of the first to make recreational marijuana legal, made news last year because of its one-million pound surplus of cannabis. Now, lawmakers want to make it legal to sell that surplus to other states that have also legalized marijuana. In the complex world of cannabis laws, such a move is controversial but, if approved, it would be a huge step forward for the legal cannabis industry.

It certainly would help Oregon, where sales have soared but prices have dropped because of a glut in marijuana product.

Related: Here's the Medical Cannabis Super Bowl Ad CBS Refused to Run

Supply exceeds demand

Oregon's weed overpopulation problem happened for several reasons and can serve as a cautionary tale to other legal states. First, state lawmakers made it easier for former black-market marijuana growers to join the legal cannabis industry. They also allowed out-of-state investors to enter the business. And there is no cap on the number of licenses the state can award.

All this -- coupled with the states position in an excellent region to grow weed -- helped create the current surplus of marijuana in a relatively small state.

No one person is to blame for the crisis. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Adam Smith, founder of The Craft Cannabis Alliance, an association of small marijuana businesses in Oregon, explained that neither state leaders nor the marijuana industry fully considered that legalizing pot could also make it primarily an export industry in Oregon. So suddenly you had one of the best and most prolific growing regions in the world hemmed into a market of less than 4 million people, he said.

Related: Oregon Marijuana Sales Soared 29 Percent in 2018. So Why Aren't More Entrepreneurs Happy?

The exporting solution

Despite Oregon's cannabis surplus situation, industry executives and lawmakers believe that having so much unsold cannabis is like sitting on bricks of gold. They just need permission to sell it across state lines. In addition to bringing in millions more in revenue, exporting cannabis could save cannabis producers from going under.

The solution? Oregon may look initially at reworking a 2017 proposal allowing Oregon marijuana companies to export to the adjacent states of California and Washington. Sen. Floyd Prozanski told the Statesman Journal that he plans to reintroduce some provisions of the bill. Those provisions include all exports meeting Oregon standards and a 17 percent tax on sales out of state.

The change ties into a proposed law in the U.S. Congress from Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer that would remove marijuana from the federal controlled substances list. It also would put regulation of the cannabis industry under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

That would eliminate the problems inherent in a state trying to export marijuana in a country where the product is illegal at the federal level.

Roadblocks ahead

But there are potential roadblocks to the bill, including whether other states would even allow imported weed. While Smith told the Statesman Journal that these markets would be thrilled to have world-class cannabis, states would still need to assess the impact on their own cannabis industry as well as untangle the complex legal knots involved with interstate marijuana commerce.

If the law is passed in 2019, exports could begin as soon as 2021.

Related: Legal Marijuana a 'Powerful Force' in Oregon Economy

To stay up to date on the latest marijuana-related news make sure to like dispensaries.com on Facebook

Related:

Oregon Has So Much Extra Weed, It Wants To Export It To California

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STAMFORD  A city family is grieving after a tragic accident claimed the life of a young Stamford mother following a misstep down a flight of stairs in a Manhattan subway station Monday evening.

We are just shocked and I guess we all are trying to wake up from this bad dream, said Tamika Goodson, the mother of Malaysia Goodson, 22, who was killed in the fall at the 53rd Street subway station.

I dont have much to say, but Id like to thank everyone for sending their condolences. Im thanking everyone for their prayers because God knows we are going to need it, Tamika Goodson said in her darkened Seaside Avenue home surrounded by pictures of her daughter Tuesday morning.

Goodsons brother Dieshe Goodson, 23, said his younger sister was walking down the stairs in the subway station when the 2015 Westhill High School graduate fell.

Goodson was unconscious when police arrived. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Her mother said Goodson was carrying her 1-year-old daughter Rylee, but her granddaughter was not hurt in the fall. The baby is being cared for by the girls father in New York City, Tamika Goodson said.

Those are hard floors and hard steps, Dieshe Goodson quietly said, his head bowed with his right hand rubbing the top of his head as if in disbelief. I want Malaysia back, my sister.

The Goodson family moved to Stamford from the Bronx nine years ago and Tamika Goodson said her daughter had been visiting a cousin in New York City for the past couple of days.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is investigating the death, called Goodsons death a heartbreaking tragedy.

Only about a quarter of New York Citys 472 subway stations have elevators, and the elevators that do exist are often out of service. The New York Times reported the elevator was out of service in the 53rd Street subway station.

I was devastated, Dieshe Goodson said when he heard the news from his nieces father, who called the family in Connecticut only hours after the accident happened. He said he watched as between 250 and 300 condolence messages streamed onto his sisters Facebook page.

All night and all morning there was nothing but notifications from Facebook, Dieshe Goodson said, adding he was grieving too hard to reply to anyone but Rylees father.

Dieshe Goodson said his sister always wanted to play, but she was very protective of her family.

You would see a different side of her if you would try to mess with her family, he said.

Tamika Goodson said her daughter loved to swim and her daughter was working at Building Blocks, a day care center on High Ridge Road.

She wasnt the party type and she loved kids. She was very outgoing, she said of her daughter.

I know we have a long recovery ahead of us, she said. God is going to get us through, but I dont know how.

Includes prior reporting from the Associated Press.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
BROOKFIELD  Students at St. Joseph Catholic Academy will see first-hand the life cycle of trout thanks to a state program that encourages them to monitor animal habitats.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection donated about 150 brown trout eggs for the program, called Trout in the Classroom. The students will raise and release the fish into the Housatonic River.

They will raise trout from eggs to fry, monitor tank water quality, engage in river and stream habitat studies, learn to appreciate water resources, begin to foster a conservation ethic and grow to understand ecosystems, science teacher Marde Dimon said.

Each student in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade will participate. The school said students will learn to measure data, conduct water quality tests, study ecosystems, food chains, animal behavior, anatomy and scientific inquiry.

The eggs have been placed in a small hatching basket inside a cold-water habitat in the schools science lab. This habitat mimics the conditions of the Housatonic River and is kept at 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dimon expects it will take the eggs four to five weeks to hatch, after which they will be released into a 55-gallon aquarium. Students will then feed the trout until they are ready to go into the Housatonic River.

Parents will bring their children to the boat launch at Lake Lillinonah, where students will release one or two trout.

Trout in the Classroom is held in schools across the state through DEEP and the Connecticut Council of Trout Unlimited, according to the organizations website.
School districts across the state have protocols for what to do if an active shooter forces his way into their buildings.

But under the chaos of gunfire, everything gets a lot more complicated.

The goal should be to ensure teachers and students are equipped to quickly react to any circumstance, said Greg Crane, founder of the ALICE Training Institute, which teaches civilians how to respond in active shooter situations

Having a predetermined plan of action is just really not acceptable, Crane said. Because it never really can take into consideration all of the dynamics of the event, the chaos of the event, the variables of the event.

Local school districts recognize this and have been training students and staff to respond under various scenarios.

We want to teach our kids situational awareness, Bethel Superintendent Christine Carver said. In any situation, it might be different how you react.

This is a change from the philosophy after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, she said. Carver recalled schools conducted drills in the classroom, where teachers would shut the shades and turn off the lights and students would stay put.

Unfortunately, its not that clean, she said, pointing out that last years shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., occurred during dismissal.

Research suggests the traditional lockdown alone is not the most effective way to protect students during school shootings.

The Journal of School Violence released a study in the fall that compared traditional lockdowns to a multi-option approach, where students and teachers evacuate an area, form barricades and, as a last resort, resist the gunman.

In simulations of that response, the situation ended sooner and fewer people were shot, compared to traditional lockdowns, according to the study.

Superintendents declined to get into specifics on their security procedures, citing safety reasons.

But area districts uses cameras and other measures to protect the buildings, while working closely with local police departments during emergencies.

Were always trying to train and communicate with the school teachers and administration and make sure were on the same page with things, said Bethel Police Capt. Stephen Pugner.

Connecticut also requires districts annually to review and if necessary improve their security plans and submit them to the state. Many districts formed committees after last years shooting in Parkland to examine upgrading emergency protocols.

Were always updating and refining our practice and keeping people apprised of whats going on, Brookfield Superintendent John Barile said.

In New Fairfield, the district this year started conducting drills at inopportune times, such as lunch or between class periods, said Richard Sanzo, director of business operations. Lockdown, evacuation, fire and shelter-in-place drills are held multiple times a month, he said.

It helps us to plan and be able to problem solve around different scenarios that can occur, he said.

Joel Barlow High School in Redding held a lockdown this week during passing time, said Thomas McMorran, superintendent of Easton, Redding and Region 9. The district plans again to conduct drills at odd times.

The drills prevent students and staff from panicking in an emergency because they know what to do, Carver said.

That helps keep people feel calm if, God forbid, there is a crisis, she said.

Newtown heightened its security measures after the Sandy Hook tragedy, where 26 children and educators were massacred in the elementary school.

The buildings are protected by surveillance cameras and access card systems, said Mark Pompano, director of security. Newtown holds drills once a month, in addition to drill week, where emergency drills are practiced.

Afterward, the district surveys students and staff on how these protocols could be improved, Pompano said.

Weve always had emergency response procedures, he said. Even on the day of the tragedy, those procedures were put into place. Weve practiced them. Weve continued to practice them.

Aside from drills, Pompano or principals train new hires on security protocols. Pompano also speaks at faculty meetings and to various unions.

In New Fairfield and Brookfield, the districts have held tabletop exercises with staff where participants are given scenarios to practice what they would do in various scenarios.

Each of us have different roles in responding to a crisis or event, Sanzo said. It helps us to think through the steps we would be taking.

Staff in Easton, Redding and Region 9 have teamed up with Bethel schools and the local police departments for similar exercises, McMorran said. He said this has been instrumental in figuring out little details, such as that certain staff members need walkie talkies or where administrators should keep their emergency vests.

The important thing is when youre in an actual crisis to be able to rely on training and previous thinking, McMorran said. Because when you're in a crisis, your body responds, your heart rate goes up, your sweat glands turn on. You want to make sure you have pre-positioned the places people will go, the things theyll do.

New Milford has not conducted these exercises yet, but hopes to do so in the spring after updating its security protocols, said Stephen Tracy, interim superintendent. He said this method has been effective in other districts he has worked for.

They are worthy exercises because you really walk through the process and you throw a few curveballs in to see how people respond, Tracy said.

After all, there is no step-by-step protocol students and staff can follow to protect themselves, Crane said.

What we need to do is tell people what all these options are and then give them the training, the confidence, the skill set, so they can make a decision in the moment, he said.

Some area school districts said they use pieces of the ALICE method, but havent been trained specifically through the institute. But Shelton High School conducted an ALICE drill a couple years ago.

Bethel considered this year reading a book to elementary-school students based on its teachings.

The picture book, Im not Scared...Im Prepared! Because I Know all about ALICE, encourages students to listen to their teacher during emergencies, while also teaching them to run, hide and fight if an active shooter comes into the building.

The book suggests students throw objects at the attacker and run in a zig-zaggy formation while waving their arms and making strange noises.

Crane said these methods distract and delay the attacker. If students simply hide under their desks, they could still be found, he said.

I dont want them to be calm, he said. I want chaos. Chaos is bad for the bad guy, too.

After backlash from parents over the book, Carver said the district is reevaluating whether teachers will read the text in class.

We were looking for a way to have a conversation with kids that is developmentally appropriate and not make them afraid, Carver said,

She said these discussions about how to respond during emergencies would still happen, even without the book.

Surveys of Bethel students have shown they feel safe from bullying and emergencies at the schools, Carver said.

Part of it is because they do understand we do take it seriously, and we want to make sure were giving them the proper drilling and procedures, so they know what to do in an emergency situation, she said.
Connecticut State Police

A Connecticut inmate has been arrested after he asked fellow prisoners to kill his brother-in-law.

Joseph Arroyo, 29, was charged with inciting injury to person or proper.
Chicago:

The US Midwest dug out from a snowstorm that closed schools and businesses, as millions braced for dangerous sub-zero temperatures that could shatter records. School districts in Minnesota and Wisconsin cancelled classes and government offices, universities and businesses shuttered, with the mercury expected to drop to a polar -40 Celsius.

Dangerously cold and potentially record-breaking temperatures and wind chills are expected by Tuesday and Wednesday, National Weather Service (NWS) said Monday.

The arctic air, together with brisk winds, can lead to dangerously cold wind chill values. In Wisconsin, where nearly a foot (30 centimeters) of snow was measured in one location, Governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency, freeing up the Wisconsin National Guard for emergency work, if needed.

In North and South Dakota, peak wind gusts were measured at 60-70 miles (96-113 kilometers) per hour.

More than 1,000 flights were canceled at two airports in Chicago, a major regional hub and Americas third largest city, in nearby Illinois.

On the heels of the storm, nearly a dozen states braced for a blast of arctic air known as a polar vortex, which was expected to lower temperatures well below normal and far below zero (minus 17.8 degrees Celsius).

The frigid air mass had veered from its usual path and was forecast to fall into the Midwest beginning Tuesday. The chill was expected to bring temperatures to extreme lows by Wednesday and last through Thursday.

Temperatures were expected to plummet to between -10 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit in a vast area stretching some 1,200 miles from the Dakotas to parts of Ohio.

Wind chill would make temperatures feel more like -30 to -65 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NWS.

On Tuesday, the snowstorm was expected to move to the northeast, where it could dump another 8 to 12 inches of snow in some areas.

In Wisconsins biggest city, Milwaukee, downtown streets were virtually deserted Monday and every major highway in the state covered in ice or snow, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In Minnesota, numerous cities declared snow emergencies, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

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London:

British MPs on Tuesday voted to reject a chaotic no-deal Brexit by 318 to 310 votes but backed British Prime Minister Theresa Mays bid to change the withdrawal agreement already struck with the European Union (EU). Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the EU, which won the support of MPs by eight votes, undermining the governments argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the EU without an agreement.

However, the vote is not legally binding - meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date of March 29.

Soon after, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek alternative arrangements to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit.

May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an emphatic message of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the Houses views,? May said in a statement after the vote.

Earlier, the Commons had voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour Party MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes.

If passed, the amendment would have secured time for MPs to vote on a draft bill that sought to hand Parliament the power to request an extension of the Brexit negotiations if Theresa May failed to secure backing of her Brexit plans by February 26.

The votes came as part of changes sought to the British PMs current proposals before she seeks a re-negotiation of an agreement with the EU, which she will hope is more acceptable to a deeply divided UK Parliament.

The House of Commons on Tuesday also rejected a bid by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labours Brexit plans.

Corbyns call for more time to be given for MPs to consider alternatives to the Brexit deal was the first in a series of amendments being put to the vote on Tuesday evening.

Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29 and there is a scramble to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to all sides before that deadline to avoid a chaotic no-deal crash out of the UK from the economic bloc.

Different Brexit factions have tabled amendments to Theresa Mays exit plan, which she was forced to bring back to the Commons on Tuesday after MPs had overwhelmingly rejected her Brexit deal earlier this month.

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Washington:

Giving his stamp of approval to the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that negotiations are proceeding well with the militant group to end over 17-year old war in Afghanistan. Trump made the comment after US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad held fourth round of talks with the Taliban in Qatar last week, following which he said significant progress was made.

Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..., Trump said in a series of foreign policy tweets Wednesday. Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never-ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful?? Trump said.

Khalilzad held six days of intense negotiations with the Taliban representatives in Doha last week. After the talks, Khalilzad said that the US and the Taliban have drafted the framework of a deal which could pave the way for peace talks with Kabul. Since being appointed in September last, Khalilzad has met with all sides in an attempt to end Americas longest war in which the US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in more than 17 years.

Also Read | UK MPs reject chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit, back PM May's bid to reopen deal

The Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan and are more powerful than at any time since the 2001 US-led invasion after the 9/11 terror attacks. A day earlier, CIA Director Gina Haspel said a very robust monitoring regime? would be essential in Afghanistan and the US needed to retain the capability to act in national interests.

?Its very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups that are there and so if there were an eventual peace agreement a very robust monitoring regime would be critical and we would still need to retain the capability to act in our national interests if we needed to,? Haspel said in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats, Director of National Intelligence said that his assessment is that neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year, even if coalitions support remains at current levels.

However, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan has said the US has de-legitimised the Afghan government by negotiating with the Taliban without its involvement. He described as surrender the Trump administrations framework of a deal with the terror outfit.

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New Delhi:

No more asking awkward leaves because of the date you had scheduled last week. Two companies in China are giving single female employees over the age of 30 an extra eight days of annual dating leave. This comes as big news for working women over 30 who have been labelled the controversial leftover women, because the companies are now urging single women to go out there, date and find love.

As of now, two companies, Hangzhou Songcheng Performance, and Hangzhou Songcheng Tourism Management have said that unmarried/single women over 30 in non-frontline roles would be given an additional eight days of leave over the Chinese New Year for dating reasons.

This news has been well-received by the employees at the firms and are reported to have welcomed the move.

Read | Do you know dogs may help diabetes patients regulate blood sugar?

Female employees mostly work in internal functional departments, and some are show performers, Huang Lei, a human resources manager at one of the firms, told a local publication.

They have less contact with the outside world; thus we hope to give more leave to them to give them more time and opportunities to be in contact with the opposite sex.

Single women in China in their late 20s and early 30s are deemed as leftover women or shengnu, which are seen as the more undesirable women due to engrained traditional beliefs, which the Chinese people have tailed for a long time. The Telegraph reported that Chinas marriage rate has also fallen every year since 2013, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, leaving roughly 200 million single adults in the worlds second-largest economy.
New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was addressing a rally at the inauguration of the new terminal building in Surat, stopped his speech in the middle after a cameraman fainted in the crowd. PM Modi was seen asking his officers to urgently arrange for an ambulance for the cameraman, Kishan Ramolia.

#WATCH: PM Modi stops his speech at the inauguration of the new terminal building in Surat after observing that a cameraman has fainted. PM told the officers to urgently arrange for an ambulance for the cameraman, Kishan Ramolia. He was rushed to the hospital in a 108 Ambulance. pic.twitter.com/xUudmFl7cc  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

During the rally, PM Modi said, Recently an international report stated that in the next 10-15 years, the top-10 fastest developing cities will be from India. And Surat will top the list of those ten cities.

Earlier, a video went viral on social media, in which Congress president Rahul Gandhi was seen rushing to the rescue of a photographer who tripped and extended a helping hand.

#WATCH Congress President Rahul Gandhi checks on a photographer who tripped and fell at Bhubaneswar Airport, Odisha. pic.twitter.com/EusYlzlRDn  ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019

The incident occurred at Bhubhaneshwar airport when representatives from the media had gathered around Rahul Gandhi. In the chaos that followed, a cameraman tumbled and fell on his head. Within seconds, Rahul ran towards him to assure if he was okay.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rebuked former Union Minister P Chidambarams son Karti Chidambaram over non-cooperation in the corruption probe. The bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi told him that if he wishes to go abroad, he must deposit Rs 10 crore with the Supreme Court. The conditional permission would come as a huge relief for Chidambaram junior, who has been embroiled in the INX Media case. You can go wherever you want to, you can do whatever you want, but don't play around law. If there is an iota of non-cooperation, will come down heavily, the Chief Justice of India told Karti Chidambaram. The Supreme Court has told him to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for interrogation in the Aircel Maxis, INX cases.

Earlier on January 28, a Delhi court had extended the interim protection from arrest granted to former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti from arrest in the Aircel-Maxis scam till February 18. Special CBI Judge OP Saini extended the relief to Chidambaram noting that he will not be available on February 1 for which the matter was earlier listed.

The case relates to alleged irregularities in grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval in the Aircel-Maxis deal. In the previous hearing on January 11, CBI had informed the court that the Centre has granted sanction to prosecute five people, including serving and former bureaucrats, accused in the Aircel-Maxis case including the Chidambarams.

The CBI had on November 16 last year informed the court that similar nod was procured for Chidambaram. There are 18 accused in the case. Chidambaram and Karti were named in the chargesheet filed by the CBI in the case on July 19 last year.

The CBI is probing how Chidambaram, who was the Union finance minister in 2006, granted FIPB approval to a foreign firm, when only the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) was empowered to do it.

The CBI and ED, in their replies to the anticipatory bail pleas of Chidambarams, had recently told the court that custodial interrogation of both the accused was required. The father-son has denied the allegations of both the agencies. The senior Congress leader and his son have come under the scanner of investigating agencies in the Rs 3,500-crore Aircel-Maxis deal and the INX Media case involving Rs 305 crore. In its chargesheet filed earlier in the present case against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others, the CBI alleged that P Chidambaram granted FIPB approval in March 2006 to Mauritius-based Global Communication Services Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Maxis.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

At least three civilians were injured after a group of terrorists hurled grenade towards a police station in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam on Wednesday. However, no casualty has been reported in the incident so far.

"Jammu and Kashmir: Terrorists lobbed a grenade towards a Police station in Kulgam, three civilians injured," the news agency ANI reported.

#Visuals: Jammu and Kashmir: Terrorists lobbed a grenade towards a Police station in Kulgam, three civilians injured (visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/45mfZLLfla  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

Speaking to news agency PTI, a police official said, the incident took place at the local police station at Damhal Hanjipora, adding that the grenade exploded by the roadside, resulting in injuries to three civilians. The injured have been rushed to a local hospital.

Soon after the incident ecurity forces have cordoned off the area and launched a hunt for the attackers.

Earlier on January 25, terrorists carried out two grenade attacks on security forces in Anantnag and Pulwama districts of the state. A loud bang was heard in the Civil Lines area of the city as well, but the police have ruled out a terrorist attack.

(With inputs from agencies)

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court refused to stay the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 on Thursday. The Act passed by Parliament ruled out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against SC/STs. The Supreme Court said that the petitions against the amendment and review pleas against the March 20 judgment should be heard together. "No interim order can be passed in these matters," the top court said.

Earlier in August last year, fresh plea was moved in the Supreme Court challenging the amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, claiming it to be a violation of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution. Advocate Varinder Sharma, appearing for petitioners advocates Suman Rani and Hira Lal Trivedi, said that the amendments made to 1989, are violative of fundamental rights given under the Constitution. The petition sought setting aside of the addition of Section 18A to the Act, which supersedes the apex court judgment delivered on March 20 by the apex court, which virtually diluted provisions of arrest under SC/ST Act.

The March 20 verdict had led to a nationwide protest by the various rights organisations. The apex court in its March 20 verdict had found that Section 18 of the old Act (denying anticipatory bail to person accused of offence under SC/ST ACt) was violative of the Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

Section 18A of the amendment Act provides, "The investigating officer shall not require approval for the arrest if necessary of any person against whom an accusation of having committed an offence under this Act has been made and no procedure other than that provided under this Act or the code.

Last year also witness widespread protests against the Supreme Court verdict. At that time, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had accused the Opposition of fuelling misconception about the SC/ST Act that triggered Bharat Bandh. The Bharat Bandh was called by some upper caste-OBC groups to protest against the recent amendments to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by Parliament to overturn a Supreme Court judgment. The Lok Janshakti Party chief questioned opposition leaders' "silence" on the shutdown. Paswan, an ally of the BJP, stressed on the need for removing misgivings about the Act which was diluted by a recent Supreme Court judgment, but restored in its original form by a bill passed later on in Parliament.

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New Delhi:

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for stating that he was not involved in the new Rafale deal. The ailing chief minister said that he feel let down that the Congress president used the meeting for his petty political gains. Questioning the purpose of visit, Parrikar said that he thought Rahuls visit would give him good wishes in the cause of serving people but had no idea about his other intention. Expressing disappoitment over Rahul Gandhi's comments, Parrikar also asked the Congress president to put out the truth.

Here's the full text of Manohar Parrikar's letter to Rahul Gandhi:





Dear Shri Rahul Gandhi,



Yesterday i.e. on 29th January 2019, without any prior information, you called on me and enquired me about my health condition. We have a healthy political tradition in India to rise above bipartisan considerations and wish even opponents a quick recovery from any ailments. I received your visit in that spirit, fighting as I am, with good medical care, a severe ailment. I appreciate your kind gesture.



However, reading media reports covering your visit to my office has cause me distress. It is reported in the media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it. I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 05 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me.



The Inter Government Agreement(IGA) and the procurement of Rafale are as per defence Procurement Procedure. I have said this before and wish to reiterate it again in today's context too. The fighter aircraft are procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority.



Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself.



Here am I fighting against a life-threatening illness. Due to my training and ideological strength. I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds. I thought your visit would give me your good wishes in that cause of serving our people. Little did I know that you had other intentions.



With deep disappointment, I write to you hoping that you would put out the truth. Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism.



I remain in the service of the people of Goa and India.



With warm regards,

Manohar Parrikar

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New Delhi:

Starting from the Salt Satyagraha March to the Khilafat movement, Mahatma Gandhi, popularly known as Bapu, was instrumental in the freedom movement of India. The Salt Satyagraha March, popularly known as 'Dandi March', was a landmark event in India's freedom struggle. As many as 80 Satyagrahis led by Gandhi marched 241 miles from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the coastal village of Dandi and made salt from sea water, thus breaking the Salt Law imposed by the British. Under the Khilafat movement, Gandhi organised a worldwide protest to fight against the collapsing status of the Caliph. After the first World War he became a prominent spokesperson of the All India Muslim Conference and his influence on the community was remarkable.

Other major freedom movements initiated by Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, include the World War I, Champaran, Kheda, Non-cooperation Movement and Quit India movement among others. His contribution to the Indian freedom movement cannot be measured in words.

Read | Gandhi death anniversary: Books on Mahatma up for sale at half price

On Gandhis death anniversary, January 30, here we bring 5 lesser known facts you may want to know about his assassination:

1. Before January 30, 1948, there were five failed attempts to assassinate Gandhi - in June 1934, in July and September 1944, September 1946 and January 20, 1948. Nathuram Godse was involved in three of those attempts. 2. Gandhi had a premonition about his impending death and talked about it dozens of times before that fateful day. On the decisive morning, Gandhi handed over the final draft of his future plan for the Indian National Congress. 3. Despite several warnings to Mahatma Gandhi from the government, he told the authorities that he does not want security. Hence, his assassination could have been averted. 4. The first attempt on Gandhi's life in 1934 was the Hindutva's response to the dominant political articulations of nationhood, caste and economic and other democratic rights which challenged the idea of a hegemonic and authoritarian Hindu Rashtra. 5. There are several reports linking the BJP and the RSS with the assassination of Gandhi. In a related note, KB Hedgewar, the founder of the Sangh, was one of the secretaries of the Hindu Mahasabha.





In a bid to commemorate the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, India observes January 30 as Martyr's Day.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Dandi in neighbouring the Navsari district of Gujarat to dedicate the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhis death 71st anniversary. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan have called separate all-party meetings today ahead of the Budget session, which begins on January 31. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for seven road and river projects in Bihar, entailing Rs 871.61 crore investment, on Wednesday. Anna Hazare to hold a protest in Maharashtra's Ralegan Siddhi over state governments not enacting Lokayukta Acts. British MPs vote in favour of changing Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal.

21:19 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Rajiv Saxena was picked up by UAE state security from his residence this morning at 9:30 am (UAE time) and illegally extradited to India around 5:30pm (UAE time).

19:20 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu announces to hold protest against the Central government from February 1 to February 13. Agitation in Delhi will be on February 11.

18:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Hindon airbase, Ghaziabad will be operational for commercial flight by first week of March under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), 80-seater aircraft will be allowed to operate.

14:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi: Fire broke out at a chemical factory in Okhla Phase- I, earlier today; 22 fire tenders engaged in fire fighting operation, no casualties reported.

14:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In West Bengal: Elephants damage houses and vegetable farms in Chanduria village in Bankura district.

12:57 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi police has arrested Sanjay Sachdev, owner NGO Love Commando for threatening and extortion of money from a couple.

12:57 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Fire breaks out at Mochi building, at 5th Kumbharwada, Maruti Mandir road, Girgaon; Fire brigade and police rushed to the spot, no injuries reported.

12:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Congress suspends DCC member OM George from primary membership of the party.

12:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi's Safdarjung hospital has reported 18 positive cases of Swine Flu. Out of 18 cases, three deaths took place till January 28.



Delhi's Safdarjung hospital has reported 18 positive cases of #SwineFlu. Out of 18 cases, three deaths took place till January 28.

 ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019



11:05 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.



Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu pay tribute to #MahatmaGandhi at Rajghat pic.twitter.com/0kGL7ZC7Lg

 ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019



10:40 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi Chief Secretary alleged assault case adjourned for March 5 by Delhi's Patiala House Court.

10:21 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama has written to rape-convict Asaram's organisation congratulating them for celebrating 14 February as 'Matru-Pitru Diwas'.

09:52 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In A man gives triple talaq over the phone to his wife for reaching home 10 minutes late in Uttar Pradeshs Etah.

09:50 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama has written to rape-convict Asaram's organisation congratulating them for celebrating 14 February as 'Matru-Pitru Diwas'.



Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama has written to rape-convict Asaram's organisation congratulating them for celebrating 14 February as 'Matru-Pitru Diwas'. pic.twitter.com/WACinwJAW1

 ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019



08:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In UNESCO celebrates 150 years of chemistry's periodic table

It is the periodic table of chemical elements' 150th birthday, and the UN scientific agency is holding a year of events to celebrate. Anyone who has studied chemistry will recognize the table, which organizes all chemical elements by the number of protons in a given atom and other properties. Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev published the first such table in 1969.

The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization kicked off the International Year of the Period Table of Chemical Elements on Tuesday with a ceremony including a Nobel chemistry laureate and Russias science minister, among other dignitaries.

Other activities UNESCO is organizing this year include an online competition to test high school students knowledge of the table, and scientific experiments brought to schools around the world.

08:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In A grenade attack on a mosque in the troubled southern Philippines killed two people early Wednesday, authorities said, just days after a deadly Catholic cathedral bombing and a vote backing Muslim self-rule. "A grenade was lobbed inside a mosque killing two persons and wounding another four," regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana told AFP of the attack in Zamboanga City.

07:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi: 12 trains are running late due to fog and low visibility.

07:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Damoh (MP): A pregnant lady was allegedly denied treatment by govt hospital staff for not paying Rs.5000 in Tendu Kheda yesterday. Narayan Singh, SDM says," statements of relatives revealed that hospital staff had demanded money. Proper action will be taken."



Damoh: A pregnant lady was allegedly denied treatment by govt hospital staff for not paying Rs.5000 in Tendu Kheda yesterday. Narayan Singh, SDM says," statements of relatives revealed that hospital staff had demanded money. Proper action will be taken." #MadhyaPradesh pic.twitter.com/Xd4fssi4tE

 ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019



07:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The Congress party in Karnataka will issue a fresh round of notices to four of its legislators who did not attend the recently-held CLP meetings.

07:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Maharashtra: Senior BJP leaders including state BJP president Raosaheb Danve held a meeting at CM Devendra Fadnavis' residence last night.

07:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Mumbai: A 35-year-old woman was stabbed to death by her husband at her office in Bhayander yesterday. The accused has been arrested and further investigation is underway.

07:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In US to deploy radar in Japan to detect missile launches by China, Russia.

07:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The Madhya Pradesh government will open 1000 gaushalas or cow shelters across the state to provide shelter to over 1 lakh cows, said OSD to Kamal Nath.

07:21 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In British MPs vote in favour of changing Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal: AFP.

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New Delhi:

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for stating that he was not involved in the new Rafale deal. The ailing chief minister said that he feels let down that the Congress president used the meeting for his petty political gains.

"Reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress. It is reported in media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it. I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 05 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me," Parrikar writes in the letter to Gandhi.

Goa CM Manohar Parrikar writes to Congress President Rahul Gandhi, writes "I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, now did we discuss anything related to it.' pic.twitter.com/HbUX6yiDk3  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

"Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself," he added.

Questioning the purpose of visit, Parrikar said that he thought Rahuls visit would give him good wishes in the cause of serving people but had no idea about his other intention. Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself. Here am I fighting against a life-threatening illness. Due to my training and ideological strength. I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds. I thought your visit would give me your good wishes in that cause of serving our people. Little did I know that you had other intentions, the 63-year-old chief minister said.

His letter came a day after Gandhi targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, claiming that Parrikar, the former defence minister, had clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the 'new deal'.

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Mr Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," the Congress chief told a booth-level party workers meeting.

The Congress president had met the chief minister on Tuesday at the Goa Assembly complex in Panaji.

Meanwhile, BJP president Amit Shah also attacked the Congress president saying his act shows how insensitive he is. "Dear Rahul Gandhi, you showed how insensitive you are, by lying in the name of a person fighting a disease. The people of India are disgusted by your reckless behaviour," tweeted Amit Shah.

Dear Rahul Gandhi, you showed how insensitive you are, by lying in the name of a person fighting a disease.



The people of India are disgusted by your reckless behaviour.



In his trademark style, @manoharparrikar ji sets the record straight. https://t.co/ok4GN8I6yS  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) January 30, 2019

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New Delhi:

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday called for a protest during the 2019 Budget Session of Parliament - from February 1 to February 13. Naidu said the Centre had cheated the state in the last five budgets and hence it is a black day. According to reports, he is expected to be present in the national capital on February 11 to participate in the protest against Modi-led NDA government. "February 1 is a black day for the state. The BJP-led government at the Centre has discriminated against the state at every step. Unless the BJP is trounced at the hustings, justice will not be done to Andhra Pradesh (AP)," the chief minister said.

The chief minister asked his party cadre to observe peaceful protests by sporting black badges and showing black flags when the Centre presents the budget for 2019-20. Targeting PM Modi over a report published in China Global Times, a newspaper in China, Naidu said failures of his government were being publicised even in China.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announces to hold protest against the Central government from February 1 to February 13. Agitation in Delhi will be on February 11. (File pic) pic.twitter.com/OCcExznVWM  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

"The country has been pushed into chaos under Modi's rule. There is widespread antagonism towards Modi due to unemployment. People are opposing the BJP," he said.

Naidu alleged discrimination against the state with regard to the Central government releasing funds on Tuesday to various states through the National Disaster Relief Fund.

"Maharashtra has been given Rs 4,717 crore while AP got only Rs 900 crore for drought relief. Andhra suffered extensive damage running into thousands of crores of rupees due to cyclone Titli. Cyclone Phethai also caused severe destruction, but the Centre did not grant even a rupee," Naidu lamented.

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New Delhi:

Ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament that will begin on Thursday, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan have called separate all-party meetings. Sumitra Mahajan has called a meeting on Wednesday, while Venkaiah Naidu has invited floor leaders of all parties on Thursday morning before the commencement of the session. Both Vice-President Naidu and Sumitra Mahajan have called the meeting for the smooth functioning of their respective houses during the session, officials said. The Budget Session will be the last parliamentary session of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, before the general elections due this year.

Beside these two meetings, the government is also expected to call a similar meeting of leaders of all parties from both the Houses on Wednesday, which the prime minister may also attend. The interim Budget will be tabled on February 1 and both the Houses will remain in session till February 13.

Political pundits say that the Interim Budget is like the election manifesto of the ruling party. Many feel that this would be the last chance for the Modi government to impress the masses

Meanwhile, a CAG report on the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) has said that the government should frame a policy on off-budget financing and sources of such funding in view of its fiscal implication.

In the report tabled in Parliament Tuesday covering fiscal 2016-17, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said off-budget financing was being used to defer fertiliser arrears, food subsidy bills and outstanding dues of Food Corporation of India (FCI) through borrowings.

It said that off-budget financing being outside the parliamentary control has implication for fiscal indicators as they "understate" government's expenditure in the year by keeping them off the budget.

"Such off-budget financial arrangement, defers committed liability (subsidy arrears/bills) or create future liability and increases the cost of subsidy due to interest payment," the report said.

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highlights Foundation stone of Ram Mandir will be laid on February 21: Shankaracharya

RSS had been seeking a legislative route for the construction of Ram temple

We have to construct grand ram temple in those 66 acres: Shankaracharya

New Delhi:

Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati today declared that the Ayodhya temple foundation will be held on February 21. The massive congregation of sadhus that was called by Shankaracharya has also decided to march towards Ayodhya on February 21 before laying the foundation stone. The 'dharamadesh' issued by the Dwarka Peeth Shankaracharya after the `Dharam Sansad' urged Hindus to reach Ayodhya carrying four bricks each. "We all know that Mandir can't be built in a single day, but one has to start building to complete it," Shankaracharya said. "We will have to build Angkor Wat type Ram Temple in Ayodhya," he added. Speaking after the Param Dharam Sansad at Prayagraj on the sidelines of the ongoing Kumbh, Swami Swaroopanand said they are ready to take bullets if stopped from going ahead with the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. He also demanded that Ayodhya should be given the status of Vatican city.

They are planning to construct a statue by taking possession of the land around Ram Janmbhoomi and not the 0.3 acres of the disputed land, Saraswati said. How did you decide that land should be returned, who are you (govt) to decide. We have to construct grand ram temple in those 66 acres, he added.

The Shankaracharya criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government for not bringing legislation to enable the construction of the temple, even though it had an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. It said the government demonstrated this majority when a bill to provide reservation in government jobs and educational institutes for the economically weaker sections was passed in Parliament. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has also planned a two-day Dharam Sansad in Allahabad, beginning Thursday.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the RSS had been seeking a legislative route for the construction of temple at Ayodhya. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an interview earlier this year ruled out any move to bring in an ordinance for the acquisition of the disputed land as the matter was pending before the court.

Earlier, the Centre said that the entire 2.77-acre premises, within which the disputed structure stood before its demolition on December 6, 1992, cannot be termed as disputed. The Centre claimed in its application before the apex court that only 0.313-acre plot, on which the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid structure stood, was the disputed land.

Meanwhile, an advocate, representing a Muslim body in the Ayodhya land dispute matter, dubbed the Centre's move as "political stunt" and questioned the delay of almost 16 years in seeking modification of the apex court's 2003 order. Facing growing pressure to move swiftly on the Ram temple issue, the Modi government Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to return the "non-disputed" surplus land acquired around the disputed structure in Ayodhya to a Hindu trust and other original owners, in a significant move ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The move could see some form of construction of a Ram Temple by Hindu groups if the handover is allowed, amid pressure from the RSS and Hindutva groups on the Centre to facilitate this step. The statement made by the Centre, in an application, may have some impact on the hearing of the main title dispute case. The hearing by a five-judge constitution bench, which was to be held Tuesday, was cancelled due to non-availability of one of the judges.

The fresh application by the Centre was filed in another connected matter relating to Ayodhya in which the apex court in 2003 had directed to maintain status quo on the entire acquired 67.7-acre land, which included 2.77-acre land. The advocate, on condition of anonymity, said, "What was the urgency to file such an application. Why do you want that order to be changed."

"It is all a political stunt," he said, adding that there was no need for such an application when the apex court has been on more than one or two occasions and even the Allahabad High Court had favoured maintenance of the status quo on and around the disputed site at Ayodhya. Fourteen appeals have been filed in the apex court against the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

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New Delhi:

Days after the extradition of 'middleman' Christian Michel in the AgustaWestland chopper scam, Rajiv Saxena, a co-accused in the case, has been extradited to India from Dubai on Wednesday. This is the second big achievement for the investigation agencies in the matter. Rajiv Saxena was picked up by UAE state security from his residence this morning at 9:30 am (UAE time) and illegally extradited to India around 5:30 pm (UAE time), Geeta Luthra and Prateek Yadav, lawyers of Rajiv Saxena, said.

There were no extradition proceedings started in the UAE & he was not allowed access to his family or lawyers or essential daily medicine. He was onboard onto a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai International Airport, ANI quoted the lawyers as saying.

Rajiv Saxena, an accused in AgustaWestland chopper deal scam, was extradited from Dubai, UAE, to India on Wednesday, making it second such catch for the investigating agencies after Christian Michel



Read @ANI story | https://t.co/AbCCbpAoPJ pic.twitter.com/tE4TbGBbdU  ANI Digital (@ani_digital) January 30, 2019

When his lawyers asked to speak to UAE state security and demanded to understand what happened, they were told he's on a flight and cant be stopped. When they queried this further, they were told, Ask the Indian Government.

It is also understood that corporate aviation lobbyist Deepak Talwar, wanted by the ED and the CBI in a case of misusing over Rs 90 crore taken through the foreign funding route as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR), is also being deported along with Rajeev Saxena from Dubai.

Talwar has been charged with criminal conspiracy, forgery and under various sections of the FCRA for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore worth of foreign funds meant for ambulances and other articles received by his NGO from Europe's leading missile manufacturing company. His role in some aviation deals during the UPA government's regime is under scanner.

Talwar has been booked by the ED and the CBI in criminal cases of corruption, even as the Income Tax Department has charged him with tax evasion.

Earlier, alleged middleman Christian Michel was extradited from Dubai and arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on December 22 last year. On January 5, Michel was sent to judicial custody in the ED case. He is also lodged in judicial custody in the CBI case related to the scam.

Michel is among the three alleged middlemen being probed in the case by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The others are Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa.

The ED, in its chargesheet filed against Michel in June 2016, had alleged that he had received 30 million euros (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland.

The CBI, in its chargesheet, has alleged an estimated loss of 398.21 million euros (about Rs 2,666 crore) to the exchequer due to the deal that was signed on February 8, 2010 for the supply of VVIP choppers worth 556.262 million euros.

With PTI Inputs

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New Delhi:

A new film, which questions the narrative around Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of Nathuram Godse, hit UK screens on Wednesday, marking the 71st death anniversary of the leader of the Indian independence movement. The Gandhi Murder, described as a period film based on true events surrounding the killing of the Father of the Nation, will not be released in India at present due to alleged death threats faced by its co-producers.

"It is very sad that some extreme elements, without knowing the content of works of art, decide to attack it. This film does not demonise anyone, it is an attempt to analyse the historical facts," said Pankaj Sehgal, the film's writer and co-director.

"Gandhi belongs to the whole world and is being simultaneously released in many countries including the UK, US, Middle East, Canada, Russia, France and even Pakistan. Ultimately, the film will reach Indian audiences as well," he said.

Co-directed by Golden Globe-nominated Algerian-Dutch director Karim Traidia and produced as the maiden venture of Dubai-based Nugen Media, the film explores the wider conspiracy around Gandhi's assassination by Hindu right-wing activist Godse.

Read | Alia Bhatt pays DOUBLE amount for fancy apartment in Mumbai

It claims that the police and many Indian politicians were aware of the threat to Gandhi's life, and even knew of the key planners.

"The film demonstrates that the assassination was not an act of a single assassin, but a collective plan hatched within the corridors of power of the newly independent India," said Sehgal, who has been conducting research on the subject in historical archives over several years.

"Our intent is to show Gandhi's immense contribution to India post-Independence, which is something that very few people understand. They don't understand that his assassination was bigger than any of his other contributions... India was on the verge of a civil war," added Sehgal, who believes that the murder on January 30, 1948, silenced the communal frenzy that was threatening to further erupt in the aftermath of Partition the previous year.

The film stars Spanish actor Jesus Sands in the role of Gandhi and also marks the last film by Indian actor Om Puri, who passed away in January 2017 soon after completing the shooting on the project.

Read | Alia Bhatt to replace Priyanka Chopra in Karan Johars Dostana sequel?

"Gandhi and his philosophy of passive resistance is well-known in Spain and, of course, we are all familiar with Ben Kingsley's portrayal in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi'. It was a massive task to take this on, said Sands, who is also a co-producer on the project.

The narrative follows three senior police officers in different parts of India, who, well aware of the intelligence that Gandhi's life is under threat, must take key decisions. The film, with an international set of cast and crew from 34 different nationalities, sets out to question who really played a role in the murder and whether some conspiracy theories around the tragedy are indeed credible.
New Delhi:

Former Bigg Boss candidate Karanvir Bohra, who is in the Russian capital for the MacCoffee Bollywood Film Festival, said he has been detained at Moscow International Airport due to passport issues. According to reports, Bohra was detained after authorities at the Moscow Airport found that his passport was damaged and had, therefore, detained him. Following the incident, Karanvir had tweeted on his official Twitter handles of the Indian Embassy of Moscow for a plea. Authorities are said to be rectifying the issue. Twitter, meanwhile has also been flooded with support for the actor.

The actor tweeted "So bummed... waiting at #moscowairport coz my passport is a little damaged. They (are) contemplating to deport me back to India "@IndEmbMoscowRus @IndEmbMoscow I wished you would have told me that prior to issuing me the visa. Feeling bad for @IndianFilmsRus (sic),"

Television stars to come to Bohra's aid were Karan Patel, who tweeted, "Not done, thats no reason to deport someone .... and that too a popular known celebrity .... @KVBohra hang in there bro, im sure the #IndianEmbassyInRussia will help you out." The official Twitter handle of Embassy of India in the Russian Federation responded, saying "Embassy officials are in touch with Russian authorities regarding the issue." While Vikas Gupta tweeted, "Is anyone listening. Is this realy how someone be treated #disappointed." Fellow Bigg Boss contestant, Hina Khan has also shown support to her fellow co-star.

Also Read | Sonam Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao grace the special screening of 'Ek Ladki Ko Dekha..'

Replying to the pouring of support, Bohra has expressed his gratitude, "Thank you so much.... much much appreciated. Always good to know that I'm looked after by my @IndEmbMoscow," he wrote. The official Twitter handle of Embassy on India in the Russian Federation said that they are in touch with the Russian authorities regarding the issue. Bohra was last seen in the reality TV show Bigg Boss 12.
Chennai:

Actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Wednesday welcomed Priyanka Gandhi Vadras official entry into politics. Welcome sister, said Makkal Needhi Maiam chief when asked about his opinion on Vadra being appointed Congress general secretary of Uttar Pradesh east ahead of Lok Sabha Elections 2019.

Hassan also described Congress president Rahul Gandhi's promise of minimum income for the poor as a worthwhile dream. However, he said that implementing it would be very difficult.

It is a great dream, nice dream. I would not say it is an epiphany. But is a nice worthwhile dream. We'll pursue it. But to enact and actually bring it into force is very difficult. I hope he (Rahul) succeeds," Hassan said after launching the Puducherry unit of his party Makkal Needhi Maiam.

Earlier on Monday, while addressing a 'Kisaan Abhaar Sammelan' in Raipur had promised that Congress would ensure "minimum income guarantee" for every poor person if it comes to power at the Centre.

On the Ram temple issue, the MNM leader said he stood for amity and unity of the country.

"My personal opinion, which I have said in 1993 or 94 as soon as Babri Masjid was demolished. I was the single voice which rose from here. I still stand by it. I am very sure any sensible Indian would stand for amity and unity of India," he said.

Answering questions on alliances for fighting the upcoming General Elections, he said the executive committee of his party had given him the authority to decide on it, but no time limit had been set to take the call.

"We are deliberating on it. It is very important to not carry other people's laundry," he said without elaborating.

With PTI Inputs
New Delhi:

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah today took dig at Mahagathbandhan of the opposition for not disclosing the name of their prime ministerial candidate and said that there will be new prime minister every day of the week if the grand alliance comes to power. "The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is," Shah said addressing a meeting of BJP's booth-level workers here ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"If the 'gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sunday will be a holiday," he said. "They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added. "The BJP has four Bs -- 'Badhta Bharat' and 'Banta Bharat'. Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs -- 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," Shah said, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic politics.

"Their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government. Only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he asserted. The BJP president exhorted the workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in the parliamentary polls. "It is also important for the country that BJP wins these elections..the win should be such that it shakes the opposition parties," Shah said.

He also lashed out at the Congress and said none of the party's leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. "I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that BJP is committed to ensure that a grand temple is made at the Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said. "The Congress government had acquired 42 acres of land of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas...Nyas has asked that it be returned...we hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said.
highlights I am democratic representative, elected to serve the people: Rahul Gandhi

I totally empathise with Parrikar Ji's situation and wish him well: Rahul

Manohar Parrikar under pressure from the PM after our meeting: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi:

Hours after Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for playing petty politics over his visit to him, the Congress party chief countered his remarks in a Facebook post. Rahul Gandhi said that his visit was strictly personal and driven purely by his empathy for the CM. You will no doubt recall that I also called you when you were undergoing treatment in the United States to enquire after your health and wish you well, he wrote.

Congress party president further added that he is democratic representative, elected to serve the Indian people, and as such, he reserves the absolute right to attack the corrupt PM on his blatant dishonesty in the Rafale deal. I have not shared any details of my conversation with you when we met in Goa yesterday. In my two speeches since we met, I have referred to what is already in the public domain, Rahul Gandhi posted on Facebook.

Attacking the prime minister over Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi wrote It is a fact that in April 2015, while you were inaugurating a fish market in Goa, PM Modi announced the RAFALE deal in France with the then French President, Hollande. It is also a fact that you clearly stated to the press that you had no idea about the new deal engineered by the PM. This has been widely reported in all sections of the media.

I totally empathise with Parrikar Ji's situation & wish him well. He's under immense pressure from the PM after our meeting in Goa and needs to demonstrate his loyalty by attacking me.



Attached is the letter I've written him. pic.twitter.com/BQ6V6Zid8m  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 30, 2019

Again, it is a fact that there is an audio recording of your own Cabinet colleague in Goa, claiming you told ministers in a cabinet meeting that you have the RAFALE papers in your bedroom, implying that you have power over PM Modi and his cronies, he added. Accusing PM Modi of creating pressure on ailing Manohar Parrikar, Rahul said, Parrikar Ji, I empathise with your situation. I understand the immense pressure you are under after our meeting yesterday. Pressure that has forced you to take the highly unusual step of demonstrating your loyalty to the PM and his cronies by attacking me in this uncharacteristic manner.

Earlier today, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of using his courtesy visit to him for "petty political gains", asserting that there was no mention of the Rafale issue in their five-minute meeting. In a letter to Gandhi, Parrikar asked the Congress chief to put out the truth and not to use his visit to an ailing person to "feed political opportunism", BJP sources said. His letter came a day after Gandhi targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, claiming that Parrikar, who is a former defence minister, had clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the 'new deal'.

Goa CM Manohar Parrikar writes to Congress President Rahul Gandhi, writes "I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, now did we discuss anything related to it.' pic.twitter.com/HbUX6yiDk3  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Mr Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," the Congress leader told a booth-level party worker meeting in Kochi. In his letter to Gandhi, Parrikar said he feels "let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 05 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, not did we discuss anything about/related to it."
New Delhi:

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today launched a blistering attack against Congress president Rahul Gandhi after the later alleged that the Goa CM had told him personally that the prime minister didnt take the defence ministry into confidence while changing the Rafale deal. Yesterday, I met Parrikar ji. He told me personally that Prime Minister Narendra Modi didnt take the defence ministry into confidence which changing the Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi said today while addressing a rally in Delhis Talkatora stadium.

Rahul Gandhi had Manohar Parrikar, who is suffering from a serious ailment, on Tuesday. He later said during a meeting with booth-level party workers in Kochi that Mr Parrikar had clearly denied any involvement in the Rafale fighter jet deal, allegedly "orchestrated" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "benefit" Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani.

Manohar Parrikar said in his letter that he had received Rahul Gandhi in a "healthy political spirit" despite the fact that he was fighting a severe ailment. "However, reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress. I feel let down that you have used this visit for petty political gains..." he wrote.

#WATCH Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi says "Main kal Parrikar ji se mila tha. Parrikar ji ne swayam kaha tha ki deal badalte seamay PM ne Hindustan ke Defence Minister se nahi poocha tha." pic.twitter.com/adgAV0SKhU  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

Responding to Congress presidents allegations, Manohar Parrikar wrote a fiery letter where he slammed the Gandhi scion for peddling lies and using the visit for petty political gains. Here are top 5 digs, Manohar Parrikar took on Rahul Gandhi through his two-page long letter:

I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains.

In the 05 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it.

Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself.

Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism

Due to my training and ideological strength. I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds.

Goa CM Manohar Parrikar writes to Congress President Rahul Gandhi, writes "I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, now did we discuss anything related to it.' pic.twitter.com/HbUX6yiDk3  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

This is not the first time that Rahul Gandhi has targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal. Yesterday, Rahul claiming that Parrikar, who is a former defence minister, had clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the 'new deal'.

"Friends, the ex-defence minister Mr. Parrikar clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr. Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," the Congress leader told a booth-level party worker meeting here. His statement had come hours after he met Parrikar at the Goa assembly complex in Panaji.
New Delhi:

A day after skipping Yogi Adityanath Cabinet meet in Prayagraj, Om Prakash Rajbhar has announced the date of his political split from the BJP. According to latest reports, Rajbhars Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party is likely to walk out from the NDA on February 24.

Earlier, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief and minister in Yogi Adityanath, had given a 100-day ultimatum to the NDA. Talking to News State, Rajbhar said that in case the BJP fails to implement 27% reservation, then his party will leave the NDA. He also said that his party will contest on all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone.

Interestingly, Rajbhar made these comments in Varanasi, which happens to be the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajbhar also targeted the Uttar Pradesh government over the law and order situation in the state. He said that the UP government is sheltering the criminals. Taking a dig at the gau kalyan cess, Rajbhar said that in coming days, there will be tax levied on stray dogs too. Rajbhar is known for making such acerbic remarks against his government.

The Backward Classes Welfare Minister had alleged that the Bulandshahr violence was a pre-planned conspiracy of the RSS  the ideological patriarch of the ruling BJP  in collaboration with the hard-line Hindu groups VHP and Bajrang Dal to disturb peace. This (Bulandshahr violence) was a pre-planned conspiracy by VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS, now police is even naming some BJP members. Why did the protest happen on the same day of Muslim Ijtema event? It was an attempt to disturb the peace, ANI was quoted SBSP leader Rajbhar as saying.

Recently, during the VHP Dharma Sabha in Ayodhya, Rajbhar had sided with former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and described the gathering of the mob in the holy town a "failure of the government". "The chief minister is interested in election campaigning at a time when Section 144 has been imposed in Faizabad (Ayodhya). This means that the administration has failed, and the Army should be brought in," Rajbhar had said at that time.
Boosting innovation, overcoming barriers

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), in 2018, pangasius export turnover reached the highest level ever, at US$2.26 billion, up 26.4% compared to 2017 and 15% compared to the set plan.

Statistics from the MARDs Directorate of Fisheries showed that the pangasius farming areas of the whole country in 2018 reached 5,400 ha, up 3.3%, while output reached 1.42 million tonnes, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2017. Several key pangasius farming provinces reached high outputs, namely Dong Thap, roughly 452,000 tonnes, up 3.7% over the same period, An Giang 333,200 tonnes, up 36% and Ben Tre 182,000 tonnes, up 3.1%.

Along with the increase in farming area and production output, the price of raw pangasius in the Mekong Delta in 2018 also reached a high level. On average, the price for tra fish production was around VND21,000/kg, while the price of commercial tra fish during its peak was from VND35,000-36,000 per kg, bringing great profit for farmers. A few years ago, they suffered losses, but in 2018, many of them were able to revive farming as well as improving income thanks to good yields and high prices of tra fish.

One of the biggest victories of the Vietnamese pangasius industry in the past year was the effort to overcome many trade and technical barriers imposed by importing countries. Specifically, the Vietnamese pangasius has regained its credit from consumers in the European market after a long time being reported by the regional media with inaccurate and adverse information, that negatively affected the image of Vietnamese pangasius in the region and the world market in general. Currently, frozen pangasius products and processed pangasius from Vietnam have been sold in multiple supermarkets in France, Spain, and Germany, with a good response from local consumers. The consumption of tra fish in the European market in 2018 reached roughly US$231.3 million, up 19.1% compared to 2017.

Vietnamese pangasius products also surpassed the strict technical barriers of the US as the US States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recognised the pangasius farming process in Vietnam similar to that of catfish raising in the US. Previously, according to US regulations, exporters wanting to export pangasius to this market had to comply with the whole process in an America style in creating products, from the first (seed, feed) to the last stage. The time to implement the conversion process was 18 months, from March 2016. This was a big challenge for the Vietnam pangasius industry at that time. However, with Vietnams efforts to comprehensively innovate the whole industry, by 2018, after the actual inspection in Vietnam, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service proposed to recognise Vietnamese tra and basa fishes as having a quality control system comparable to US catfish, and qualified to export to the US. This is an important factor that made the US become the market with the highest growth rate in 2018 for Vietnamese pangasius, with a growth rate of 57.7%, surpassing China and returning to the world No. 1 position in consuming Vietnamese pangasius products.

Increasing quality, value added

Commenting on the breakthrough development of the pangasius industry in 2019, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) Truong Dinh Hoe said that multiple difficulties have appeared since the end of 2018 and in early 2019. Specifically, it is fierce competition from other countries, such as China, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia in the field of catfish farming. In particular, special emphasis must be placed on China - the country that consumes more than 60% of Vietnam's pangasius, as it has started farming pangasius and harvesting. According to statistics of VASEP, China has raised and harvested 10,000 tonnes of tra fish in Hainan Island. In India, tra fish production reached 650,000 tonnes, while the figures in Bangladesh were 450,000 tonnes and Indonesia 110,000 tonnes. Although the quality of pangasius in these countries is lower than that of Vietnam, the domestic pangasius industry should not ignore the situation.

Another risk for the pangasius industry in 2019 is concern over oversupply or lack of supply. In fact, the price of pangasius began to increase sharply from the beginning of 2017, prolonged and reached its peaked in 2018. This led to massive farming and then surplus in the harvest season. At that time, the price of raw pangasius sold to processing factories slipped, forcing the loss-making farmers to stop farming for the next season, and then resulted in a lack of supply for enterprises to implement export contracts. This cycle is not new, but if there is a lack of synchronous planning and conscious farming, it will surely reoccur and leave unpredictable consequences.

According to VASEP Secretary General of Truong Dinh Hoe, in order for the pangasius industry to maintain its growth momentum, there should be clear solutions, in which the quality of pangasius must still be the main focus, from seeding and tra fish production to processing products for export. To do so, farming areas must constantly be inspected and monitored, thus ensuring the requirements of production and the farming environment. The preservation of quality recognised by the US must be done regularly and continuously. In addition, it is necessary to focus more on deep processing and diversifying products from pangasius, not only pangasius fillets or frozen pangasius but also for spiced and seasoned pangasius and skewered pangasius - which are popular in Asian markets such as Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Another equally important requirement is to maintain key export markets such as the US, the EU and China, and to open new markets, including the markets in the Middle East region, such as the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. In 2018, it is estimated that these markets imported pangasius from Vietnam worth US$290 million and may continue to increase in 2019. Another market segment that should be considered is ASEAN. 2018 also saw a sharp increase in this region with a total export value of nearly US$200 million (up nearly 50% compared to the same period in 2017). In particular, Thailand is the largest market of Vietnamese pangasius in ASEAN, accounting for 36.8% of the total exports. Singapore and the Philippines are also stable import markets and are expected to increase sharply in the near future. In particular, with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which has just come into effect, and as Vietnam prepares to sign the EU - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), Vietnamese pangasius promises to have more opportunities to expand its consumption market globally.
New Delhi:

Though most parts of India are experiencing chilly January, but the political temperature is rising in West Bengal. Day after Amit Shahs election rally in Nadia, there are reports that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had war of words over the violence after the rally. According to an NDTV report, Banerjee reportedly told Singh to control his party. She also said that the BJP was trying to provoke trouble in Bengal. Both leaders were talking over the phone after BJP complained of widespread violence after Shahs Rally. The telephonic conversation

The BJP alleged that buses in which party workers were returning from Shah's rally were ransacked and set on fire allegedly by Trinamool Congress activists. The Trinamool Congress, on the other hand, claimed that the BJP workers had attacked a local TMC party office in Kanthi and vandalised it. Irked, TMC supporters then retaliated and clashes broke out, they said. "When our supporters were returning from Amit Shah's rally they were attacked by TMC activists. This is a shame. We condemn it," BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said. As the situation spiralled out of control, the Rapid Action Force (RAF) was called in to control it. The Rapid Action Force is still deployed in the area.

Following the incident, Home Minister Rajnath Singh called West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and expressed serious concern over reports of violence near the venue of the rally of BJP president Amit Shah in East Midnapore today. He has asked the Chief Minister that those indulging in violence should be brought to book.

There are reports that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also likely to address a rally in Bengal on Saturday. Though, for security reasons, it is still not confirmed as to where will his chopper land. Today will also witness yet another rally by the BJP in the state. BJP's national executive committee member Mukul Roy and Bengal BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu will also participate in the rally today.
New Delhi:

The SHO of Noida sector 20 police station, Manoj Pant was arrested and suspended from duty, along with three journalists in connection with an extortion case, the police said on Wednesday. Another inspector Jaiveer Singh is said to be on the run. The three journalists were identified as Sushil Pandit, Udit Goyal and Raman Thakur. They were extorting money amounting to Rs 8 lakh from an owner of a call center for removing his name from an FIR which was registered against him in November last year, SSP Vaibhav Krishna said.

A Mercedes car was also seized from one of the journalists, which the SSP said, prima facie seemed to be related to some "criminal activity". A pistol and rs 8 lakh cash were also recovered from their possession. Additional SHO Jaiveer Singh was suspended in the case.
New Delhi:

The Budget will be presented by the Narendra Modi government on February 1. This will be the last Budget before the Lok Sabha election due this year. Political pundits say that this Budget is like the election manifesto of the ruling party. Many feel that this would be the last chance for the Modi government to impress the masses. The country has had as many as 30 finance ministers since Independence. Let us take a look at the all the distinguished leaders who held this key portfolio and what their journey as the finance minister was like:

RK Shanmukham Chetty: 1947-1948





Independent India's first Budget was presented by the country's first finance minister, RK Shanmukham Chetty, on November 26, 1947. It was an interim Budget and a review of the economy and no new taxes were proposed as the budget day for 1948-49 was just 95 days away. He resigned shortly. It is believed that he was asked to resign by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India due to a minor dereliction of duty by a subordinate official, so as to ensure probity.

TT Krishnamachari: 1957-1958





TT Krishnamachari took over from CD Deshmukh. He found that the calculations made in the Budget for 1955-56 had gone awry. So, on November 30, 1956 in a 5,000-word speech he described the changed economic situation and underlined the need to levy fresh taxes even before the next budget was presented. The Second General Elections were held in February-March 1957 and he presented an interim Budget for 1957-58 on March 14, 1957 and the full budget subsequently. He was instrumental in setting up the countrys three major steel plants and financial institutions like IDBI, ICICI and UTI. Krishnamachari had to resign in February 1958 when Justice Chagla Commission found him guilty of corruption.

Krishnamachari once again became the finance minister for the second time in 1964-66. He presented the budgets for 1964-65 and 1965-66. Embarking upon measures needed for providing social security, Krishnamachari expanded the pension scheme to cover family members of the deceased government servants by introducing a new Family Pension Scheme in 1964.





Jawaharlal Nehru: 1958-1959





Following Krishnamacharis resignation in 1958, the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, himself took charge of the finance portfolio and presented the Budget for 1958-59. In the opening para of his budget speech Nehru had said, According to custom, the budget statement for the coming year has to be presented today (February 28, 1958). By an unexpected and unhappy chain of circumstances the Finance Minister, who would normally have made this statement this afternoon is no longer with us. This heavy duty has fallen upon me almost at the last moment.

Morarji Desai: 1959-1964





Morarji Desai presented the maximum number of Budgets as finance minister. The 10 Budgets include 5 annual and 1 interim Budget during his first stint. In his second tenure, he presented 3 full Budgets and one interim as finance minister and deputy prime minister. His annual Budgets were for the years from 1959-60 to 1963-64 and the interim Budget for 1962-63. After the fourth General Elections in 1967, Morarji Desai once again became the finance minister. This was his second stint. The annual budgets for three years 1967-68 to 1969-70 and the interim budget for 1967-68 were also presented by him. The interim budget for 1967-68 was on account of the General Elections in March 1967. He was the only Finance Minister to have had the opportunity to present two budgets on his birthday - in 1964 and 1968. He was born on February 29.

Indira Gandhi: 1969-71





After Morarji Desais resignation, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister assumed the finance portfolio. So far, she has been the only woman finance minister of the country till date.

Pranab Mukherjee: 1982-1984





Pranab Mukherjee presented the annual Budgets for 1982-83, 1983-84 and 1984-85. He was the first Rajya Sabha member to hold the finance portfolio. Pranab Mukherjee's first stint as the Finance minister of India was during the Indira Gandhi government in 1982. He presented his first annual budget in 198283. Mukherjee's first term was noted for his work in improving the finances of the government and for successfully returning the last instalment of India's first IMF loan. The 201011 Budget included the country's first explicit target to cut public debt as a proportion of GDP

Rajiv Gandhi: 1987-1988





Rajiv Gandhi presented the Budget for 1987-88. He was the third Prime Minister to present a Budget. The exercise in zero-based budget began in 1987-88. The zero-based budgeting is a process of review, analysis and evolution for each budget request in order to justify its inclusion or exclusion from the integrated whole budget before it is finally approved. In India, the zero-based budgeting was implemented in three phases - one third in the first year, two thirds in the second year and fully from the third year. It is a continuous process.

Yashwant Sinha: 1991-1992 & 1998-2002





Yashwant Sinha became the finance minister and presented the interim budget for 1991-1992. In March 1998, he again got the finance portfolio in the first ever BJP-led Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He presented the interim and final budgets for 1998-99. He again became the finance minister in 1999. He had presented four annual budgets - from 1999-2000 to 2002-2003. Yashwant Sinha was the first to present the budget for 1999-2000 in the forenoon. Earlier, the budgets used to be presented at five in the evening as a pre-Independence custom introduced by the British establishment. Sinha paid great attention to rationalisation of excise and reduced the slabs from 11 to 1.

Manmohan Singh: 1991-1996





Manmohan Singh served as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India in the late 1980s, and was given the portfoilo of finance in 1991 by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. He presented the final budget for 1991-92 in July 1991. This was the first occasion when the interim and final budgets were presented by two ministers of two different political parties. The next four annual budgets of Manmohan Singh had an orientation different from the one followed till then. The economic liberalisation package pushed by Singh and Rao opened the nation to foreign direct investment and reduced the red tape that had previously impeded business growth. He was instrumental in making of an opened economy. He reduced the peak import duty from 300 plus to 50 per cent. He will be remembered best for making the rupee convertible in current account in just two phases. Introducing the concept of service tax was his idea.

Jaswant Singh: 1996 & 2002-2004





He served as Finance minister in the short-lived government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which lasted just from May 16, 1996, to June 1, 1996. In July 2002, he again became the finance minister switching posts with Yashwant Sinha. He served as finance minister till May 2004 and was instrumental in defining and pushing through the market-friendly reforms of the government.

P Chidambaram: 1996-1998 & 2004-2014





In 1966, P Chidambaram, of the Tamil Maanila Congress, was given the key Cabinet portfolio of Finance in the coalition government supported by the left parties. It was the second time that interim and final budgets were presented by two ministers of different political parties. He was re-appointed as the finance minister under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004. He remained so through 2014, except for a three-and-a-half-year stint  beginning November 2008  as home minister, in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Chidambaram returned as finance minister in July 2012, succeeding Pranab Mukherjee.

Arun Jaitley: 2014-present





Arun Jaitley took charge of the finance ministry in 2014. Owning to his ill-health, he will not be able to present the interim Budget on February 1. Under his ministership, the government successfully met its social welfare initiatives. The country also migrated to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which ended the gamut of indirect taxes.

Notable mentions:

Kshitish Chandra Neogy charge of the finance ministry in 1948. He was the second Finance Minister of free India. He held office for just 35 days and didn't get an opportunity to present a Budget. John Mathai presented two budgets for 1949-50 and 1950-51. CD Deshmukh presented an interim budget for 1951-52. He was the finance minister from 1950-1956. Sachindra Choudhuri presented the budget for 1966-67. YB Chavan presented the interim budget for 1971-72 and the final budgets for four years - 1971-72 to 1974-75. C Subramaniam presented the budgets between 1975-76 and 1976-77. HM Patel presented the interim budget for 1977-78. He also presented the annual budget for 1978-79. The budget for 1979-80 was presented by Chaudhary Charan Singh who was also Deputy Prime Minister. Ramaswamy Venkataraman presented the interim and final budgets for 1980-81 and the annual budget for 1981-82. VP Singh presented the annual budgets for 1985-86 and 1986-87. ND Tiwari presented the budget for the year 1988-1989. SB Chavan did the budget exercise for 1989-90. Madhu Dandavate presented the annual budget for 1990-1991.
New Delhi:

Crisis-ridden Jet Airways has cancelled 15 flights today following the grounding of six Boeing 737 planes due to non-payment of lease rentals, according to sources. The airline, which is grappling with acute financial woes, cancelled around 20 flights on Tuesday as three more Boeing 737 aircraft were grounded, they added. In two days, the carrier has grounded six such planes following non-payment of lease rentals.

The sources said the airline would be cancelling 15 flights on Wednesday, including a few flights from the national capital to various destinations. "Jet Airways has defaulted on aircraft lease rentals and it has been forced to ground three more narrow-body Boeing 737 planes," a source told PTI earlier in the day.

Due to the fresh grounding of the planes, the airline, which is negotiating with its partner Etihad for an additional cash infusion, has cancelled as many as 19 flights to/ from Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Port Blair and Bengaluru, the source said.

The full-service carrier would be holding a meeting of the shareholders on February 21. The airline will seek shareholders' approval for conversion loan into shares or convertible instruments or other securities, according to a regulatory filing made on Monday.

The carrier would seek shareholders' nod to "convert the whole or part of the outstanding under loans, extended / to be extended by the lenders, into shares, or convertible instruments or other securities, of the company...", according to the notice of the meeting submitted to the stock exchanges.

The conversion will be done as per the terms contained in the respective loan documents between the company and its lenders. It would also be subject to all requisite regulatory approvals.

Besides, Jet Airways will seek shareholders' approval to negotiate and finalise the terms and conditions with the lenders for raising further loans from time to time as well as provide the lenders with a right to convert such loans into shares, or convertible instruments or other securities.

Jet Airways on cancellation of its 4 flights on January 28

Meanwhile, Jet Airways issued a statement on the cancellation of its four flights on January 28. "The cancellations were due to scheduled termination of an aircraft lease and to carry out an engine normalization exercise. The aircraft temporarily grounded are expected to rejoin operations from February 1," it said.

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Shamokin, PA (17872)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
An Australian TV host has been labelled 'racist' over comments she made about sexual violence within Aboriginal communities.

Kerrie-Anne Kennerley, a well-known presenter on morning talk show Studio 10, appeared on the show's panel on Monday (local time) to discuss the increasingly controversial Australia Day.

The #ChangeTheDate movement has grown in strength in the past few years, with many saying the national day - which marks the anniversary of the arrival of the British fleet in 1788 - represents the beginning of the genocide of Australia's indigenous population.

Thousands took part in 'Invasion Day' marches around the country on Saturday.

Kennerley expressed her disapproval of the protests, claiming those who want to change the date are ignoring the problems faced by Aboriginal people.

"Has any single one of those 5000 people waving the flags saying how inappropriate the day is, has any one of them been out to the outback where children, babies, five-year-olds are being raped?" she said on the panel.

"Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. They get no education. What have you done? Zippo."
An Israeli biotech company has said its preliminary research on mice has given it hope of curing cancer "within a year's time".

Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies told the Jerusalem Post it has developed a drug to combat cancer, using peptides.

Peptides are compounds of amino acids linked in a chain, which the company is using to target and kill cancer cells in mice.

The chairman of the board of directors, Dan Aridor told the Jerusalem Post the company has high hopes for the drug.

"We believe we will offer in a year's time, a complete cure for cancer."

However, the company has only tested its drug on mice. It can take up to seven years to bring cancer drugs to market, even with special permissions from US regulators, reports CNBC.

The biotech company is yet to publish clinical evidence proving the treatment is effective in humans.

Its CEO Ilan Morad told the Jerusalem Post it had just finished its first mice experiment, which he claims was successful.

Before a drug can move from mice to humans, it must undergo rigorous testing according to the Food and Drug Administration.

First laboratory and animal tests must be performed.

If these prove effective, and safe, the drug can move into human trials.

The results are then analysed by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research before it can be approved for sale.

So the cure for cancer could still be a while away.

Newshub.
OPINION: Every idea has its time. Who would have thought that this country would so frustrated by politicians breaking their promises in the 80s and early 90s - that we would vote out the old electoral system and vote in a new one?

Who would have thought 20 years ago that we would sing the first part of the national anthem in Maori?

Who would have thought that what we knew as Mt Egmont would become Mt Taranaki?

Has the world changed because weve done this? Has the sky fallen in?

We put an h in Whanganui despite the ever-present argument over how to actually say the name of the town.

So, is it now time for New Zealand to officially change its name to Aotearoa New Zealand? A Wellington local has started a petition to make the name official. Because Aotearoa is already on all our official documents like birth certificates and passports, he argues we should go the whole hog and call the country Aotearoa New Zealand.

When you think about it, he has a point.

To be honest, I hadnt looked closely at my cash for a while. So when I went in my wallet this morning, I noticed that sure enough - my $10 note listed our country as New Zealand Aotearoa.

I had to get a new passport late last year. On the main page, the passport owner is identified as being a citizen of Aotearoa New Zealand.

As far as I know, the driver's licence is about the only official ID document in this country that doesnt have Aotearoa on it. But for how much longer, I wonder.

I reckon it's time to make it official. The reality is that it will take years, if not generations, for it to become common place. No doubt my generation will keep on calling the country New Zealand until we pop our clogs. But if we recognise Te Reo as an official language, shouldnt we officially call this country by its Te Reo name?

Just think of the advantages. Our place among the long list of countries will go from being lost between Nepal and Nicaragua, and we'll be right up there with Algeria and Andorra.

When they have the parade of nations at the Olympic Games, well be among the first countries into the stadium.

Theres never been any problem being at the top of the list or near the top of the list, no matter what that list is. Why is Aaron Court the most popular name for a motel? Because it was always first on the alphabetical list in the motel directories. That was rule number one of marketing - make yourself prominent.

But all joking aside, if we became Aotearoa New Zealand, would the world come to an end? The answer is no.

Why not make official what is becoming more and more common place anyway?

But the petition isnt going too well. He started it in July last year. Its due to go till the end of February. As of Tuesday he had only 1067 signatures.

I have a feeling this petition isnt going to fly. But remember, every idea has a time. This one will come, but maybe not this year.

Peter Williams is host of Magic Mornings, weekdays from 9am - midday.
New Zealander Sulub Warfaa has been arrested in Kenya as part of a crackdown on terrorism after a brutal attack on a hotel earlier in January.

Do you know more? Email Cleo Fraser at cleofraser@mediaworks.co.nz

He was found near the border with Somalia, Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation reports.

Warfaa, 36, was arrested with two passports bearing different names. The other passport had the name Ramadhan Yusuf.

Kenya has been cracking down on terror suspects and their aides after the attack on Nairobi's Dusit D2 hotel, which left 21 people dead.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Newshub the ministry is providing consular assistance to a New Zealander detained in Kenya.

They refused to provide any further information, citing privacy reasons.

Newshub.
There's a welcome sight along State Highway 1 north of Kaikoura this year: the seal colony at Ohau Point has returned in big numbers despite the earthquakes.

Road workers have built a small carpark to accommodate tourists, but it is already overflowing with seal sightseers.

It's a whole new playground created by the earthquakes, and the perfect place for seal pups going through their teenage years to learn to test their boundaries.

"The earthquake has moved the seals on a little bit, but fortunately for us the seals haven't been scared away and they've remained in this region in great numbers," says Department of Conservation community ranger Brett Cowan.
New Zealand meat company Hellers has been fined almost $40,000 after mislabelling a batch of Sizzlers sausages, causing three children to have allergic reactions.

Three children became sick in September 2017 after consuming cheese flavoured Sizzlers sausages that were incorrectly labelled as original flavour.

The Ministry of Primary Industries' Manager of Food Compliance Melinda Sando said the three children had differing levels of reaction, one needing hospital treatment for severe anaphylaxis.

"The company had a duty to ensure its products were safe and suitable," it said.

"Customers should be able to rely on food labelling when making their purchasing decisions."

Hellers was fined $39,375 and ordered to pay an additional $5000 to each of the three children who were affected.

Ms Sando said the incident could have been prevented if staff had cross-checked labels and the products themselves.

Since the incident the company has put in place additional training and procedures to stop the problem reoccurring.

Allergy New Zealand CEO Mark Dixon said the fine is a good reminder for businesses to take their food management seriously.

"Food allergy is not a lifestyle choice, it is a challenging condition which needs to be managed all day every day for many thousands of people."

He said there has been an increase in food recalls for undeclared allergens in the last 12 months and this is a real concern for some consumers.

"This incident is also a reminder to companies to use a range of communication channels to reach their customers during a food recall."

Allergy New Zealand encourages consumers with severe food allergies to register with MPI's food recall alerts service.

Newshub
New Zealand schools shouldn't force boys to cut their hair, says a legal expert.

The recent case of James Hunt, a 13-year-old who last week had to cut his long hair in order to attend Auckland Boys' Grammar, has brought the issue to public attention.

It's far from the only school that doesn't allow male students to have long hair - Westlake Boys and Wanganui Collegiate School forbid hair that touches the collar, while Palmerston North Boys' High School and Otago Boys' High School say hair must be "neither long nor too short".

Dr Dean Knight, Associate Professor of Law at Victoria University, has followed the shifting nature of school regulations for much of his legal career.

"They're a vivid expression of law, power and authority," he told Newshub.

"It's tricky stuff. The mood ebbs and flows on law, and these are deep questions."

He uses case like that of Lucan Battison (who took St John's College to court over his long hair in 2014 and won) when talking to high schoolers about studying law because they're a useful microcosm of where society is at in relation to certain social issues.

The High Court ruled that St John's College's decision to suspend Lucan was unlawful and that the wording of its hair rule was vague. It did not make a judgment on whether it was unlawful for the school - or any other school - to force its students to have short hair.

Dr Knight says he has "real concerns" over schools that enforce hair regulation rules with the threat of expulsion.

"I suspect the courts would dislike it," he says in regards to James' situation. "I certainly find it problematic."

The fact that James was in zone for Auckland Boys' Grammar - a public school - is a key detail, he says. It's also of note that the school gave him no other options, such as being able to tie his hair up.

Such rules are "ripe for being challenged" in court, he says.

"What educational purpose do these rules serve? Conformity is not a blank cheque for discipline."

He says while courts generally give schools a "degree of latitude" over how they enforce their rules, they can intervene if punishment is deemed "ugly or flawed" or disproportionate to the supposed rule-breaking.

"My underlying concern is that these rules have a reach outside of school. Unlike a uniform which can be taken off, the student has to have short hair on weeknights and weekend too. It reaches right into personal autonomy."
Cities around New Zealand hit record highs on Tuesday, with many parts of the country reaching 30degC.

While humans are able to take the necessary steps to cool down, our feline friends need a helping hand.

Cat parents took to Facebook to share how they were helping their furry kids cope with extreme temperatures, with some unexpected tips.

Many owners advised placing your pet in front of a fan or air conditioning unit, and others recommended a cooling mat picked up from Bunnings.



Another tip was to put ice cubes in your pet's drinking bowl.

Karen of Wellington, where temperatures broke a 90-year record on Tuesday, shared a video of her attempt to do just this - but her cat, Nox, misunderstood what these foreign objects were.

Nox thought his Mum had given him some new toys to play with, but seemed to be quite disappointed when his toys melted.

New Zealand is showing no signs of cooling down today, so keep an eye on your pets and use these tips to help them out.

Newshub.
There are concerns New Zealand's fight against cancer has stalled.

A three-day conference is taking place in Wellington, and Dr Chris Jackson from the Cancer Society told Newshub progress against the disease has slowed.

"Our outcomes for cancer survivorship are falling behind other countries like Australia, and like Canada."

He said the possible impacts of the slowdown continuing are dire.

"We're at a cross roads between the status quo being changed [or continuing]a If we continue with the status quo then the New Zealand health system is going to collapse under the weight of cancer."

Dr Jackson is calling for a Government intervention on the issue, and district health boards to adopt a national approach to cancer management.

"It could potentially turn around outcomes for cancer and see ourselves make our way back up the leader board again."

Dr Jackson told Newshub in August 2018 cancer survival rates are far worse in New Zealand than Australia.

"What's clear is that 2500 New Zealanders died from cancer whose lives could have been saved if they were treated in Australia over the course of the last five years," he said.

Newshub.
Beth Messenger for The Spinoff

There is a lot of confusion out there at the moment about the right way to take the contraceptive pill. Family Planning doctor Beth Messenger gives us the facts.

The Combined Oral Contraceptive Pill has been in the news lately with Britain changing its official pill guidelines to reduce the risks of unplanned pregnancies. The new British guidelines state that it is safe to take the pill continuously.

For many people who have always been told they must take their placebo or sugar pills each month, or should only 'skip' a bleed when absolutely necessary, this came as a shock.

It wasn't a shock to us here at Family Planning. For more than five years we have been encouraging people to take the contraceptive pill continuously.

And the reason is simple: continuously taking the pill is the best and safest way to avoid pregnancy while on the pill. What's more, there is no medical reason to have a period.

Usually, when you take the combined pill, you take 21 hormone pills, and then seven inactive non-hormone pills (also known as placebo or sugar pills) which causes you to get your 'period'. Some women will use a pill type that comes with just 21 pills, but the majority are using 28-pill packs  21 hormone pills and 7 non-hormone pills.

When you take your pill continuously, however, you only take the hormone pills, skipping the inactive pills  meaning you also skip your 'period'. You can continue to take the hormone pills for as long as you like.

There are no side effects to not having a period. Because your hormone levels stay the same, blood does not build up in your uterus if you don't have a period. The longer you take the pill, the thinner the lining of the uterus becomes.

The seven-day 'period' you have when you take the placebo or sugar pills is not a real period. This 'period' was introduced in the 1960s to mimic a natural menstrual cycle. But it's not natural. It is simply withdrawal bleeding  your body reacting to not taking the hormones in the pill.

The fact that you can take your contraceptive pill continuously is not widely known and there's a reason for that. There are currently no official guidelines on contraception for people in New Zealand.

That means advice around contraception can differ between GP, after-hours services, and clinics. For example, the Ministry of Health's website advises women to take a seven-day break while on the pill despite the fact that it's really not necessary.

The Ministry has told Stuff that they are reviewing their advice.

So here's our official advice. If you want to take your pill continuously, you should.

Here's why:

It gives you better contraceptive protection than regular use. That said, there are more effective ways not to have a baby such as a long-acting contraceptive like an IUD or implant.

It lets you control your period. You can choose when you have your period, if you decide to have it at all.

It can help women who have long, heavy or painful periods.

Not having a monthly period can help women who suffer from endometriosis or anaemia. Talk to your doctor or nurse about this option.

Taking the pill continuously could lower the risk of ovarian cancer.

Doing it is simple: Take the 21 hormone pills in your packet, then go on to the next packet, missing the placebo or sugar pills.

If you're worried about pregnancy, remember, the monthly period you have while on the pill is not proof that you are not pregnant. The only way you can know whether you are pregnant is to take a pregnancy test. As soon as you stop taking the pill, your fertility will return to normal. There is no difference to your fertility whether you take the pill continuously or with a break.

The side effects from taking the pill continuously are the same as taking the pill in the regular way. Serious side effects are rare, but important to be aware of.

Ultimately, whether you take the pill continuously or not should be up to you, not anyone else. And it's vitally important everybody has the information they need to make the right choices for their bodies.

The Spinoff
Empire star Jussie Smollett is recovering in hospital after a suspected racially charged and homophobic attack in Chicago.

Smollett was approached by two unknown offenders yelling "racial and homophobic slurs" on Tuesday (local time) USA today reports.

The pair then beat Smollett and poured an unknown chemical substance on him. One of them tied a rope around Smollett's neck.

Smollett took himself to Northwestern Hospital and is in good condition. Chicago Police say he is cooperating with an investigation into the attack.

The attack is currently being investigated as a hate crime.

"Detectives are currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline," police said in a statement sent to USA Today.

Smollett played the role of Jamal Lyon on Empire since 2015. Other actors including John Legend, Shonda Rhimes and Zendaya have shared their upset at the situation on Twitter.

"Sending love to Jussie and the Smollett family after this horrific attack. We support you and pray that you find peace and justice," Legend said.
Elizabeth DePompei is the digital editor for The News and Tribune. She has degrees in journalism and film from the University of Cincinnati and CUNY's Hunter College and was previously the paper's criminal justice reporter.

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Funeral services for Thomas Armond "Tommy" Ritch, 72, will be Friday, June 11 at 11 a.m. from the Chapel of Kilgroe Funeral Home. Interment to followe at Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Cemetery in Gallant. The family will receive friends on Friday from 10 a.m. until service time at funeral home
We always appreciate a call; the more occurrences we can chart, the more likely we are to find a piece of evidence, or video, that may be useful in finding the culprit, Sullivan said. However, many residents recognize this for the ignorance that it represents and put it in its proper place: the trash can.

Weber City police said if residents find the bags, they can contact authorities.

Or if you should see any strange vehicles or persons, please feel free to contact us with a description of such, police said. Once again, at this time, this is seen as an attempt to recruit members.

Authorities in other communities across the country have also reported the KKK material in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the Fluvanna County Sheriffs Office in Virginia said it received four reports of similar materials. The materials were also placed in plastic bags and weighed down with bird seed, the Sheriffs Office said in a news release.

It is unclear who distributed the materials locally, but based on the wording, it is apparent that the distribution was timed to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as there are remarks attempting to disparage Dr. King, the release states.
The public response and outcry to Delaneys original decision to not display the flag was overwhelmingly opposed to that decision, and residents of not only Central Virginia but from other areas of the commonwealth and indeed other states and foreign countries, too, let their voices be heard loud and clear on this issue.

Malfeasance is defined as wrongdoing, especially by a public official. The only malfeasance I see is Crawley continuing to not support her museum director or the community she is supposed to be serving. If she is incapable of putting aside her personal animosities in the interest of furthering the mission of the Lynchburg Museum System which is to collect, interpret and preserve the history and material culture of Lynchburg and surrounding area, then perhaps it is time for her to consider stepping down from her position on the Lynchburg Museum Advisory and Foundation Board of Directors.

KEVIN SHROYER

Forest

Editors note: The writer is a member of the Lynchburg Home Guard Civil War Reenactors group, which raised $12,000 to preserve the Confederate flag in question.

Equality: a simple concept
As I said, Schultz cant actually win as an independent. Even Trump was smart enough to figure that out.

Remember how coy Trump was early in the Republican primary campaign, reserving the option of an independent candidacy if the GOP did not treat him fairly? Trump used the threat as leverage to get his way on debate logistics and ballot access. But then he suddenly reversed course, signing a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.

A person familiar with Trumps thinking told me why. Trump understood that the most likely outcome, if he ran on his own, would be to guarantee Hillary Clintons election by taking votes away from the GOP candidate. In his wildest dreams, he might hope to win enough electoral votes to keep either major-party candidate from reaching a majority. But in that case, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives  which would surely choose the Republican or the Democrat, not Trump.

Leave aside the fact that Trump, a proven cheapskate, would never seriously consider spending the money it would take to run a nationwide independent campaign. His reasoning about the inevitable outcome was sound  and remains so today. Schultz may follow through on his pledge to spend whatever it takes to compete in all 50 states. But he cant win.
 Flash

Venezuela's National Assembly head and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido talks to journalists upon arrival at the National Assembly in Caracas to attend a session on January 29, 2019. [Photo/VCG]

Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) barred opposition leader Juan Guaido who self-proclaimed himself interim president from leaving the country and froze his financial assets Tuesday.

The TSJ's order came hours after Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that he requested the high court to apply precautionary measures against Guaido.

"We are requesting the TSJ the application of the following precautionary measures prohibiting departure from the country, of selling and mortgaging real and personal property and freezing bank accounts," the attorney general said.

Saab explained that the request to the TSJ is in line with a preliminary investigation opened against Guaido "in response to violent events that were incited in the country beginning on Jan. 22."

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, in response to Saab's request, tweeted that "there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido."

Maduro was reelected in the May presidential elections with 67.84 percent of the votes, and he was sworn in as president on Jan. 10 for another six-year term.

Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, Guaido, head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23.

The United States, Brazil and some other countries have recognized Guaido's presidency, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that "all options are on the table." Maduro, in response, cut diplomatic and political ties with the United States.

On Monday, the United States announced sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., which the U.S. Treasury described as "a primary source of Venezuela's income and foreign currency," in an attempt to pile financial pressure on Maduro.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified Guaido's authority to receive and control certain property in accounts of the Venezuelan government or its central bank held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S. insured banks, according to a statement from the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.

Pompeo said the certification "will help Venezuela's legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people."
Planned to go into effect in July but now set for 2020, the new rules require prosecutors to turn over police reports, witness statements and witness lists to defendants facing criminal charges. That way, defendants have time to fully examine and challenge the evidence.

"While the Court continues to recognize that criminal discovery reform is overdue, it also recognizes that when separate branches of government work cooperatively, it benefits the citizens of the Commonwealth," state Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Lemons said in a statement announcing the move Tuesday.

Virginia's discovery rules are among the nation's most restrictive; they have not changed since 1972 and give defendants little idea of what evidence will be used against them at trial. While individual commonwealth's attorneys often share materials with defendants, the policies vary widely and are inconsistently followed.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who revealed the delay during a hearing last week, said prosecutors approached him late last year and expressed concerns about putting the changes into practice.

"It is far-reaching and is going to change really the way they do business in the context of redaction and the like," Jones said in an interview. "And so it could have really a deleterious impact on the operation of offices."

In particular, he said, they were worried about making these changes while also dealing with an increase in body-camera evidence. "It was . . . the convergence of these two things at one time," Jones said.

Reviewing footage from police-worn body cameras is incredibly time-intensive, a problem law enforcement agencies across the country are facing. The cost of complying with the new transparency rules is less clear.

Douglas Ramseur, a death penalty lawyer who worked on the new discovery rules, said there's no evidence that forcing prosecutors to be more open will cost anything. A study of discovery policy in Virginia and neighboring North Carolina suggested that transparency was ultimately more efficient because it dramatically cut down disputes over evidence.

"My wish is that they would go ahead and allow the new discovery rules to go into effect, and I think we'll see that they actually make things more efficient," Ramseur said.

The law requires that prosecutors turn over material that could exonerate a defendant or impeach a witness. In his statement, Lemons noted that prosecutors already must review any body-camera footage "with or without the rules" to comply with that mandate.

Prosecutors would save time, Ramseur said, by simply handing over the recordings: "I don't think it makes it worse, I think it makes it easier."

Some commonwealth's attorneys have expressed concern over victim and witness safety and suggested that redacting evidence to protect those people will be time-consuming. The new rules do allow for protective agreements or orders that keep material from being disseminated beyond defense attorneys. They also require defendants to turn over witness lists.

"This has been a pretty long process to get to this point," said Brad Haywood, the public defender in Arlington County. "It took a lot of effort, there was a lot of input from both sides and what they reached was a compromise."
The committee voted unanimously, 16-0, to pass by the legislation indefinitely, which means it fails unless it is revived at the committees next meeting, said Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, who sits on the committee. Newman, a co-sponsor of the bill, was not in the room when the vote was recorded Tuesday. A proxy vote was taken on his behalf, which he said is a common practice in the General Assembly when legislators are not present during votes. If he were in the room he would have voted for the bill, he said.

Newman said he plans to bring the bill back up for discussion at todays (Wednesday) Finance Committee meeting.

Its chances of survival, unfortunately, are not good, Newman said. It appears the sense of the committee is its not going to pass.

Another measure related to CVTC, however, earned unanimous approval from the committee.

Senate Bill 1072 seeks to change the definition of a training center and now will proceed to the Senate floor.

Peake introduced SB 1072, a companion bill to SB 1071, with the intent of preventing further transfers of CVTC residents to Hiram Davis Medical Center in Petersburg.
The YMCA did a wonderful job during the past five years and they stepped up to the plate when no one else would, Gross said. But this will be the first time the farmers market will be run by farmers and we are looking forward to showing what that brings to the table.

Gross said starting in May, the new market will not charge vendors for their spaces.

It will be on a rent-free basis, Gross said. Vendors that have been at the farmers market will have preference for a spot this spring but we will be opening it up to anyone that wants a spot.

The 2019 market also will run later into the year under the new management.

A lot of the farmers in the area wanted the market to run through the fall and even into early winter, Gross said. That is something that we will be doing as well.

Gross said the new management group also will be working closely with local entities like the Bedford County local Farm Bureau, the Bedford County Agricultural Board and the town of Bedford to help the annual open-air market be more successful.

We really want this to be a win-win for everyone, Gross said. We are trying to get the right entities on board to make this bigger and more successful than ever.
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Israel's military said early Monday that it has launched strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria and warned the Syrian forces not to attack Israeli territory or forces.

"We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory," the Israeli military said in a statement.

The overnight strikes followed cross-border attacks on Sunday in which Israel's military said its air defense systems intercepted a rocket fired from Syria.

Earlier in the day, Damascus said it repelled an Israeli air attack targeting the country's south.
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Barron, WI (54812)

Today

Showers likely along with a possible rumble of thunder early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Showers likely along with a possible rumble of thunder early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
A study conducted by Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Tanzania sheds light on the factors that influence young people's access to and use of alcohol, and subsequent engagement in safe or unsafe sexual behaviors. The results showed that alcohol use intersects with a spatial dimension in relation to where youths are consuming alcohol and subsequently engaging in sex which, in turn, influences their likelihood of using condoms and practicing safer sex. The findings are published online in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

"Our study aimed to understand the spaces in which young people are engaging in sex after drinking alcohol, the ways in which space is influenced by social and cultural perspectives and the economic realities of their lives and, that in turn, influence their likelihood of using condoms in such contexts," said first author Marni Sommer, DrPH, RN, associate professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia Mailman School.

The researchers explored the experiences and perspectives of 177 adolescent girls and boys in and out of school in four sites across Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. These included in-depth interviews with the adolescents as well as adults; mapping alcohol density outlets and advertising around schools and youth centers, and participatory activities conducted with adolescent boys and girls in and out of school.

Very frequently described spaces for sex after alcohol included guesthouses and rented rooms--both articulated as spaces more likely to be used when there was some advance planning or preparation with regard to the likelihood of a sexual encounter after drinking. Young people said these spaces were preferred for their convenience, comfort, and for the ready availability of condoms. By contrast, youth described a range of situations in which they might have sex after drinking and no condoms would be available, such as cars, toilets in bars, the beach, classrooms after school, and alleys.

Young people described gendered norms around adolescent girls' ability to be away from home, with the expectation that they return to their houses by a certain hour, added an additional pressure of time that pushed for more rushed sex in whatever convenient spaces might exist after drinking. Poorer youth may also be more likely to engage in "rushed sex" due to cost of safer spaces, such as guesthouses.

The alcohol context in Tanzania, as in many sub-Saharan African countries, has been under-studied, despite data indicating heavy episodic drinking (21 percent males; 14 percent females) among Tanzanians. Sommer and colleagues felt it was important to conduct research to better understand the ways in which the use of alcohol among young people in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly those with a high-density of alcohol outlets, is intersecting with their sexual encounters, and how this dynamic is influencing the practice of safer sex.

An earlier study led by Sommer and Dr. Sylvia Kaaya at MUHAS of adolescent boys in rural and urban Tanzania revealed the intense peer pressure boys experience from older adolescent boys and men to consume alcohol to demonstrate their manhood, and how the use of alcohol helped them to overcome their shyness around approaching or "seducing" girls.

Unique to the latest study was the inclusion of adolescent girls and boys in a range of participatory activities, such as photovoice, mapping, and story writing, that enabled insights into the alcohol-sex dynamics from the perspectives of young people themselves.

Sommer recommends that future research identify new and innovative ways to assure that condoms are more widely accessible for youth engaging in sex. She also sees a critical need for structural and environmental interventions that both reduce youth access to alcohol, and increase the availability and accessibility of condoms in spaces and situations where alcohol is sold or consumed.

"It is key to keep youth at the center of public health research focused on improving their sexual and reproductive health," said Sommer. "They are the knowers of their own lives, and often have the most useful insights for how to best address the vulnerabilities they encounter in daily life."
Rain-repelling fluorochemicals used in waterproof clothing can and should be phased out as unnecessary and environmentally harmful, textile researchers argue.

But they remain the only effective option for medics and emergency service personnel.

New research demonstrates how waterproofs using highly fluorinated chemicals are over-engineered for consumers, building in unnecessary resistance to oil and other stains, when only resistance to rainwater is required.

Publishing their findings today in the Journal of Cleaner Production, the team - from Leeds and Stockholm - say effective alternatives to harmful fluorochemicals used in durable water repellents (DWRs) for waterproof clothing are readily available.

Dr Richard Blackburn, who heads the Sustainable Materials Research Group at the University of Leeds' School of Design, said: "Environmentally-friendly and biodegradable solutions are available, but are being resisted by some manufacturers and retailers."

The reasons for this were unclear, he said, putting it down to a lack of information and appropriate technical research demonstrating the effectiveness of sustainable alternatives, as well as a lack of engagement with consumers.

In the new research, a survey of 300 outdoor clothing users revealed that most consumers only look for water repellency from their gear, not stain resistance.

"Non-fluorinated alternatives are a viable option in all cases where stain repellency is not an essential function," Dr Blackburn added. "These alternatives provide excellent rain protection, and there are long-term ecological benefits from phasing out the highly fluorinated chemicals."

Fluorochemical repellents were shown to be the only effective option for clothing worn by medical staff to protect against infection spread by bodily fluids, and by military, firefighting or oil and gas industry personnel seeking protection against chemical contamination.

The study's co-author Philippa Hill, a PhD researcher from the School of Design at Leeds, said there was still room for innovation when it came to eliminating fluorochemicals from protective clothing worn by people in hazardous circumstances.

"Currently, only fluorinated chemicals can provide the high levels of protection needed from other types of liquids such as oils, chemicals, and bodily fluids, so there is a major opportunity for future innovation in that area," she added.

In this collaborative research - the most detailed study of its kind - Ms Hill from Leeds and co-author Steffen Schellenberger, a fellow PhD researcher, from Stockholm University, developed an innovative new testing method and applied different waterproof finishes to test fabric before measuring resistance to a wide range of fluids - water, orange juice, red wine, olive oil, synthetic blood and gastric fluid, and cough medicine.

Fabric treated with non-fluorinated repellents was shown to be resistant to water-based stains such as orange juice and red wine, but gave no repellency to oil-based stains.

When it came to medical fluids, non-fluorinated repellents showed some resistance to synthetic blood and cough medicine, but none for gastric fluid.

The researchers' innovative "roll-off" method assessed repellency with movement, which more accurately reflected clothing as it is worn.

The paper points out that the textile and clothing industry uses a quarter of all chemicals produced globally and is known to be a large contributor to environmental pollution.

Concerns have been raised about waterproofing fluorochemicals finding their way into the environment during their production, as well as during the life of a garment - through washing and microfibre shedding - and when it is disposed of.

All highly fluorinated chemicals are extremely persistent in the environment, and some have been associated with health problems in humans.

"We want to help textile producers and retailers to develop better garments that also have minimal environmental impact," said co-author Professor Ian Cousins from Stockholm University. "It is important to look into the necessary functionality and durability, otherwise people won't buy the greener alternatives."
insights from industry Dr. Michael W. Dong Principal Consultant MWD Consulting

An interview with Dr. Michael Dong, about his upcoming talk at Pittcon.

Why are stability-indicating methods important in pharmaceutical analysis?

The stability-indicating assay is perhaps the single application of HPLC that has the most impact. It is the method used to establish shelf-life for pharmaceuticals. It is this HPLC assay that determines the expiry date of a drug. A pharmaceutical company will conduct thousands of stability studies to establish the shelf lives of their products.

 Zolnierek/Shutterstock.com

HPLC and mass spectrometry each account for only about $5 billion of global sales. In contrast, pharmaceutical global sales are about $1.3 trillion. Even though the value of HPLC equipment sales is minuscule compared to pharmaceutical sales, HPLC is very important in affecting health and well-being when it comes to the drug development process and production.

Before a drug can be marketed it needs to have proven safety and efficacy - both depend on the purity of the drug. Impurities can make the drug unsafe and the level of drug potency depends on how much of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) is present. In order for pharmaceutical companies to be certain of the purity of their drugs they conduct numerous quality control analyses.

Acceptable potency is specified for each drug using the HPLC stability-indicating assay, which ensures that each batch of drug product is within 5-10% of the target level (label claim). Similarly, it must confirm that the level of impurities is acceptably low, for example, a maximum of 0.1 - 1% of the total drug. HPLC is a primary tool for the quality control of pharmaceuticals, for both large and small molecules.

The stability-indicating assay for drug purity is important because the purity of drugs is equated with quality and safety. Stability studies are required by regulatory bodies such as the US FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration), or the EMA (European Medicines Agency) in Europe. The purity of the drug must be within specification before it can be sold (release testing) and within the stated expiration date under the recommended storage conditions. Consequently, HPLC is pivotal to the pharmaceutical industry and hundreds of thousands of HPLCs are being used for this purpose alone. More than 50% of HPLC is in the pharmaceutical industry.

Why is RPC/UV a commonly used stability-indicating method and what are the challenges associated with it?

When liquid chromatography was first implemented, a silica column was used. The sample was diluted in a solvent, such as hexane, and poured through a column of silica. This is referred to as normal-phase chromatography. Differential adsorption of components of the sample to the silica resulted in different compounds move through the column at different rates, allowing them to be separated into fractions.

In order to avoid contamination of the column when compounds with particularly strong absorption to silica are present, reverse-phase chromatography was developed. This involves modifying the silica surface to make it hydrophobic and diluting the sample in aqueous solution. It is the reversed of normal phase as the mobile phase is polar and the stationary phase is nonpolar.

Reverse-phase chromatography is based on hydrophobic interaction, which is a much weaker interaction through van de Waal or dispersive forces. This provides reassurance that everything that goes into the column comes out again; there is 100% mass balance. This is critical for drug quality control that no impurities are retained or absorbed in the column. That is one reason that stability-indicating and purity assays invariably use reverse-phase chromatography in addition to the fact that it is highly reproducible and versatile.

Regulations stipulate that the HPLC method must be able to separate the main component, the API, and all impurities including degradation products. All the small molecule pharmaceutical drugs are made by a synthetic process to obtain a highly-purified compound. However, there will always be some trace impurities and each impurity will form a distinct band or peak on the chromatogram. The area under the different peaks in the HPLC chromatograms are proportional to the concentration of the trace impurities.

Pharmaceuticals, even though they are highly stable, do degrade forming degradation products. These too are measured using the stability-indicating method. The chromatography method may need to be tweaked many times in order to achieve a separate peak or zone from the API, the excipients, each impurity and the degradation product, which is essential to accurately quantify each of these components. Good sensitivity, down to at least 0.05% is also needed.

Once the HPLC method has been developed, it must be reproducible for many laboratories around the world as most companies do global manufacturing. For example, in a stability study, a drug may be in the chamber for two to three years, and needs to be measured every three months, year after year. The bar for method performance, accuracy, and reproducibility, is thus very high. So, not only is it HPLC challenging, it is also under very stringent regulatory compliance guidance.

The challenges for HPLC assay are increasing as newer drugs get more complex. More than 50% of newly developed pharmaceuticals are chiral-compounds with many having multiple chiral centers. Consequently, it is not unusual to have 40-60 different peaks in the HPLC impurity profiles of a complex drug. These more complex drugs require greater separation power in the HPLC column. Development of such methods are time-consuming and arduous, and the analysis time keeps getting longer.

What is ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) and how is it beneficial over conventional HPLC?

Conventional liquid chromatography uses gravity to draw the diluted sample through the packed column, so the different fractions can be collected. It's a purification technique and is not a very reproducible process.

High performance liquid chromatography uses a column with smaller particles and the whole process is automated using a high-pressure pump. For about 50 years, the pressure limit was 6,000 psi (400 bars). As more complex separations were needed, for example to analyse complex drugs, environmental samples, physiological fluid bloods and serum, or in proteomic studies, there was a need for greater separation power and faster analysis.

In 1997 Professor Jim Jorgenson in University in North Carolina at Chapel Hill demonstrated that liquid chromatography can be performed at ultra-high pressures to provide higher speed and resolution. Pressure, and separation power, is controlled by the particle size in a column, and by this time particle size had been reduced to below 2 microns.

Pittcon 2021: March 6-10Find out More Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

New Orleans, LA USA

In 2004 the first commercial UHPLC instrument was developed by Waters Corporation, who you will be able to visit in the exhibition floor at Pittcon 2019. HPLC conducted at pressures above 15,000 psi is generally referred to as ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC).

HPLC can separate a maximum of about 200 peaks, whereas UHPLC can separate almost 1,000. This makes it possible to quantitate very complex drugs much more confidently and accurately.

There are also other features of UHPLC that make it better. Typically, they have a smaller flow path (system dispersion). The UV detector flow cell is smaller; less than one microliter, compared with 8-10 microliters in HPLC. A smaller flow cell controls dispersion or band broadening so that narrow peaks are maintained.

What is the 3-pronged template approach to HPLC method development and why is it well suited to early drug development?

This is a terminology I have coined. When I was working for a major pharmaceutical company, many scientists were developing HPLC methods to support his or her new drug development projects and everybody did it their own way. A more efficient process was needed for the development of high-quality methods with more consistency for the less experienced scientists. My proposed solution was this three-pronged template approach. If you have a template you can follow, the method development process is a little easier and encourages consistency across individuals with different experience levels. This would be especially helpful for the stability-indicating assay using template #3 (multi-segment gradient approach).

These three templates help laboratory scientists to understand the different method types and decide which method template is appropriate for the intended use. It provides a model to help reach the end result faster by understanding the method attributes for each template.

Please describe your research which led you to develop this concept.

My research was much more applied research than basic research. Working for the pharmaceutical industry, I developed many HPLC methods in rapid successions.

At that time, I was supporting an oncology project for a drug for prostate cancer and gastric cancer. The molecule is quite complex and has 3 chiral canters, and many methods must be developed quickly to support the synthetic process to control the purities of the starting materials, intermediates and the API. I applied the three-pronged template approach in this project and developed 40+ methods to support this very complex project efficiently.

The use of UHPLC method development is a no-brainer; UHPLC is faster, because it uses shorter columns packed with smaller particles. I am therefore going to talk more about the #3 template approach of using a multi-segment gradient and how to apply it in two case studies.

The first one is a HPLC stability-indicating method for an API with 3 chiral centers mentioned before. Figure 1a is the structure of the NCE; 1b is the regulatory HPLC method, while 1c and 1d are UHPLC methods used to support phase 2 drug product development which are faster and has higher resolution.

The second case study illustrates the high-resolution capability of a well-developed UHPLC method for a drug product with 4 APIs using a 5-gradient-segment method capable of separating up to 60+ impurities in a robust manner.

Please give a brief introduction to the talk you will be presenting at Pittcon 2019.

In this upcoming presentation at Pittcon 2019, I will discuss several approaches to expedite HPLC method development using UHPLC and an a 3-pronged method template approach with a focus on stability-indicating analysis of complex pharmaceuticals.

Where can readers find more information?

M. W. Dong and K. Zhang, UHPLC in method development, Trend in Anal. Chem. 63, 21-30, 2014.

M.W. Dong, A Three-Pronged Template Approach for Rapid HPLC Method Development, LCGC North Am. 31(8), 612-621, 2013.

M. W. Dong, A Universal Reversed-Phase HPLC Method for Pharmaceutical Analysis, LCGC North Am. 34(6), 408-419, 2016.

M. W. Dong, D. Guillarme, D. Prudhomme, et al., High-resolution separations of complex pharmaceuticals by UHPLC: Case studies and quality control implications, LC GC North Am. 32(11), 868-76, 2014.

D. Guillarme and M. W. Dong (Eds). UHPLC: Where we are ten years after its commercial introduction, Trends in Anal. Chem., 63, 1-188, 2014 (Special issue).

About Dr. Michael Dong

Dr. Michael W. Dong is a principal consultant in MWD Consulting focusing on consulting and training services on HPLC/UHPLC, pharmaceutical analysis, and drug quality. He was formerly Senior Scientist in Analytical Chemistry and Quality Control at Genentech, Research Fellow at Purdue Pharma, and Senior Staff Scientist at Applied Biosystems / Perkin-Elmer.

He holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the City University of New York, and a certificate in Biotechnology from U. C. Santa Cruz. He has 120+ publications including a bestselling book on chromatography (Modern HPLC for Practicing Scientists, Wiley). He is an editorial advisory board member of LCGC magazine, American Pharmaceutical Review, and Chinese American Chromatography Association.
By Keynote Contributor Dr. Rowena Johnston Ph.D. Vice President and Director of Research

amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research

In 1981, HIV burst into our consciousness as an almost universally fatal infection. Since those early days, around 80 million infections have occurred worldwide, with 37 million people living with the virus today. Intensive research efforts led to the development of antiretroviral therapy (ART), which has saved hundreds of millions of years of life. For those fortunate enough to have and maintain access to medical care, ART can reduce the virus to undetectable levels, below 20 virus copies per milliliter of blood. Under these circumstances, progression to disease is halted and transmission to others is highly unlikely.

This scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image revealed the presence of numerous human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) virions budding from a cultured lymphocyte. See PHIL 1197 for a black and white view of this image. Also, please see PHIL 14270, for a low-magnified view of these budding virions. Multiple round bumps on the cell surface represent sites of assembly, and budding of virions. CDC/ C. Goldsmith, P. Feorino, E. L. Palmer, W. R. McManus

But HIV continues to exact significant costs  to the individual, insurance company or government paying the costs of medication and monitoring; to the physical health of the individual in the form of potential side effects, toxicities, and ongoing immune inflammation; and to psychological well-being in terms of stigma, depression and anxiety.

A cure for HIV would remove the need for ART, thus addressing the issue of financial costs. But the form a cure takes will have a significant impact on the ways in which physical and mental health will be improved. Two different approaches are being taken to the development of a cure  post-treatment control and viral eradication.

Post-treatment control

Over the past 10 years, reports have emerged from France, the UK and the US describing small numbers of patients who maintain control of the virus after stopping ART. The great majority of these are people who initiated ART within 3 months of the initial transmission event, took ART for several years, and then stopped treatment either against medical advice or in the context of closely monitored clinical trials. The mechanisms underlying post-treatment control are not well understood, but appear to comprise a combination of immune functions.

Virus is still detectable in all these cases using sensitive lab assays, so it is clear that eradication has not occurred. Given that several of these people have maintained control for 10 years or more, it seems unlikely that the prevailing immune mechanisms will clear the infection. Although around 100 post-treatment controllers have been identified, there is currently no intervention that can reliably bring about post-treatment control and these rare individuals are thus the subject of intense scrutiny.

Viral Eradication

There is only one known case so far of apparent viral eradication, in a patient originally known as the Berlin patient. This American man, now known to be Timothy Ray Brown, was living in Berlin with HIV that was well controlled by ART until he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia that called for a stem cell transplant.

The doctor sought a donor with a genetic mutation known as CCR5delta32, found in approximately 1% of northern Europeans. The mutation renders cells extremely resistant to HIV infection and these cells, along with the radiation and chemotherapy he received, eradicated Mr. Browns HIV infection. More than 10 years following the procedure, he remains free of leukemia and HIV.

The significant risk of morbidity and mortality, along with the rarity of CCR5delta32 donors, means this approach is not possible for a broadly applicable cure. Gene therapy approaches have attempted to mimic this cure but have resulted in post-treatment control at best. Studies in experimental animals using combinations of immune-based approaches, such as antibodies and vaccine adjuvants, appear to have cleared infection, but questions remain as to the comparability of outcomes in experimental animals to the clinical experience in humans.

Testing whether a cure has taken place

Testing whether an intervention has resulted in post-treatment control or viral eradication is one of the most challenging aspects of HIV cure research. The only way to definitively determine either outcome is to withdraw ART. If virus re-appears, viral eradication has not occurred. But waiting to see whether some combination of immune responses will eventually bring the virus under control can be a nerve-wracking experience for clinician and trial participant alike.

Researchers expect that there will be a period of some, perhaps even substantial, viremia during this waiting period, for up to several months. During this time, the CD4 T helper cells of the immune system may undergo substantial attrition, and it will be possible to transmit the virus to others.

How long should clinicians and participants wait before deciding the intervention has not worked and ART should be restarted? If ART is restarted too early, we may miss a positive outcome. If we wait too long, the trial participant may experience significant harm. There are as yet no definitive answers to these important questions.

Which type of cure is better?

Researchers believe it will be easier to achieve post-treatment control than viral eradication, and the 100 or so cases of the former, compared to the single case of the latter, bear this out. As a result, much of the effort in HIV cure research focuses on understanding and bringing about post-treatment control.

But people living with HIV almost universally prefer a viral eradication scenario. While either outcome relieves the burden of daily ART adherence, only eradication will remove the ongoing immune inflammation that leads to increased risk of cardiovascular and other serious events. And importantly, only eradication will remove the stigma of living with HIV.

In some regions of the world, HIV infection can literally mean a death sentence, no longer because of the consequences of the infection itself but because of societal attitudes and responses. Stories continue to emerge of people beaten, jailed or murdered for their infection. While post-treatment control is a laudable interim goal, we cannot lose sight of the desperate need for a true cure. We cannot eradicate HIV from the world until we can eradicate it from all those living with the virus.

Further Reading

About Rowena Johnston, Ph.D.

As vice president and director of research at amfAR, Rowena Johnston is responsible for overseeing the Foundations pioneering research program. Her responsibilities include determining the Foundations research priorities, evaluating and analyzing the programs direction, and serving as a liaison between the scientific community and other communities.

In 2010 Dr. Johnston was instrumental in forming the amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE). She directs the research focus of the Consortium and ensures collaboration between ARCHE grantees. She also oversees amfARs other cure research initiatives, as well as the Foundations program to support young researchers.

Disclaimer: This article has not been subjected to peer review and is presented as the personal views of a qualified expert in the subject in accordance with the general terms and condition of use of the News-Medical.Net website.
Pediatric spinal deformities are notorious for causing obvious and progressive deformities in posture, gait and appearance. Non-surgical and surgical management has been attempted over the centuries.

Nonsurgical management

The use of spinal whole body casts preceded the development of modern spinal braces, which have reduced the time required for immobilization of the spine. The material for the brace has evolved with time.

X-ray image of child patient spine show Scoliosis. Image Credit: ChooChin / Shutterstock

The concept behind bracing is to counteract the deforming effect of the scoliosis by the pull of opposite forces acting through the ribs or the torso. This uses normal growth forces to prevent or, at least, reduce the progression of the spinal curve. In most cases this is a holding measure but a few patients have not needed surgery following the discontinuation of the brace.

Spinal deformity types. Anterior view and lateral view. Illustration Credit: Olga Bolbot / Shutterstock

Different types of braces are used depending on the area of the spine that shows the maximum curvature, such as the thoracolumbosacral orthosis (TLSO), and the cervicothoracolumbosacral orthosis (CTLSO) like the Milwaukee brace.

The latter was meant to be worn continuously, but has now been largely replaced by modern, lighter and thermoplastic rigid TLSOs, which may be customizable.

For those who cannot tolerate day wear, nighttime bending TLSO braces are available, where overcorrection of the thoracic, lumbar or sacral spine is performed only from the evening onwards. Tension-based orthoses are also being used.

The role of bracing is under review to establish the actual success rate and the best models for general use. This depends on the actual use-time, which is best recommended to be over 12 hours a day. A very low percentage of wearers use it for more than this period in any case.

Surgical correction

The place of surgery in scoliosis is unchallenged, due to the often progressive nature of this condition and the late stage at which it is diagnosed.

Surgical correction aims at achieving a balanced spine, which is free of pain and is properly fused. It also aims to preserve maximum spine mobility, in addition to preventing cardiopulmonary difficulties. Required imaging should be done to arrive at the right degree of correction and to rule out other spinal pathologies, such as cord tethering or tumors.

The Lenke system of classification for scoliosis is the most commonly used, because it helps with selecting the right level for fusion and enables surgeons to elect to do lumbar-sparing fusions, thereby reducing secondary spinal morbidity, due to lumbar immobilization.

Tell Me a Story: Straightening Out Scoliosis Play

Spinal fusion is the backbone of spinal deformity surgery. It began without the use of instruments and depended on lengthy post-operative spinal immobilization by long body casts. This was followed by Harrington instrumentation using two points of fusion above and below the curve, but still needed a prolonged period of immobilization. Segmental fixation is the present standard of care, using hooks and wires at multiple points.

The current management depends upon pedicle screw fixation, which can correct the curve more powerfully and fuses shorter segments of the spine, thus allowing a greater final spinal length. No bracing or rest is required after the procedure, which is a great advantage. The success of the technique depends on the formation of a firm bony union over time, which should precede the time of normal implant fatigue.

Normal activity is usually possible within 6-12 months after the surgery. Other procedures used in hemi-vertebra include excision of the hemi-vertebra, using an anterior-posterior or wholly posterior approach, the latter being preferred as less risky. Former techniques included hemi-epiphysiodesis, to prevent normal growth on the side of the hemi-vertebra, as well as spinal fusions and osteotomies.

Complications of surgical intervention include inadvertent interference with growth, progression of the deformity after surgery, or the occurrence of a new deformity.

Revision surgery may be needed to correct many of these, including junctional degeneration adjacent to the surgical site, undue restriction of spinal curvature or mobility, implant breakage or infection, pain due to the implant, or failure of union.

References

Further Reading
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday hailed the economic cooperation deals between his country and Iran as a strong economic base to face "the economic war launched by the West," according to the state news agency SANA.

Assad made the remarks during his meeting with Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice president of Iran, who arrived in Damascus a day earlier and signed economic cooperation deals with Syria.

The Syrian president said the signed agreements hold a strategic dimension and constitute a solid economic base for Syria and Iran to face the economic war launched by the Western countries.

Assad also underlined the need to intensify the mutual efforts at this phase to strip the Western countries from any reason to weaken Iran and Syria.

The president noted that the economic war on both countries comes following the failure of the Western powers to impose their will on Syria through supporting terrorism.

For his part, Jahangiri said that his country, which stood by Syria's side in the war on terror, will be with Syria in the reconstruction process.
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Don Manno and his grandson Christian Cifra share an interest in model trains and other collectibles, so they made it a point to stop at Lakela
The Munson Township Fire Department is accepting applications for the position of part-time firefighter.
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Mark is a lifelong Northeast Ohioan and an Ohio University grad. Along with loving music, movies and television, he is crazy about sports and tech. Reach the author at mmeszoros@news-herald.com or follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkMeszoros.
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KENT  Route 7 in Kent finally reopened Monday afternoon after days of closure due to flooding from the Housatonic River.

The flooding situation was not as severe as last winter, when an ice jam on the Housatonic River closed the road and Kent School for several days, forcing the evacuation of families and led the town to declare an emergency.

But the Kent School, which saw flooding last week, closed Monday morning and was open by 12:40 p.m. Route 7 was open for traffic about 2:30 p.m.

Route 7 closed south of Route 341 late last week because of water flooding onto the road.

The extreme variables that we experienced last year, some that brought historic flooding and ice jamming, are not being seen right now, Brian Ohler, a former state representative, said on social media.

One Kent School student, 17-year-old Ally Thanassi, described how water quickly covered the private schools fields Thursday afternoon. She estimated the water was as much as 3 feet deep as it swelled in a little over an hour.

Ohler assisted the emergency team with last years ice jam. He described this years ice build-up as moderate just south of the Double 90 section, where an ice jam reached nearly two miles long last year.

Ohler, who said he had been in contact with the Kent Volunteer Fire Department, said Sunday morning the waters were expected to recede in the coming hours and days.

As always, please stay away from ice build up and floodwaters and yield to all direction and detour signs, Ohler said on social media.

Kent Volunteer Fire Department also urged drivers to follow detours and to not approach the ice jams.

They are extremely dangerous, unpredictable and full of debris, the department said on Facebook.
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent a condolence message to his Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, over the blasts in the southern Philippines.

In the message, Xi said he was shocked to learn of the two serious attacks inside and near the entrance of a Roman Catholic church on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippine province of Sulu that have caused heavy casualties.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people, as well as in his own name, Xi deeply mourned the deceased and sent sincere condolences to their families and the injured.

China determinedly opposes all forms of terrorism, and deeply condemns acts of violence targeted at innocent civilians, Xi said, adding that China is willing to fight terrorism together with other countries of the international community, including the Philippines, to maintain international and regional peace and stability.
NEW MILFORD  New Milford Police Lt. Lawrence Ash was reinstated to the department last week after an investigation found no wrongdoing.

The allegation that led to the investigation is still unknown.

Ash was placed on administrative leave this summer pending the outcome of the investigation, which stemmed from a complaint filed with police.

Ash was cleared by an outside independent review of potential violations that resulted in no finding of any wrongdoing, according to a news release from Mayor Pete Bass.

Outside investigations are standard protocol for investigations on senior-level administration, according to the news release.

Bass directed questions to Police Chief Spencer Cerruto.

Cerruto and Ash could not be immediately reached for comment.

In the news release, both the mayor and chief welcomed Ash back.

Lt. Ash has been exonerated and we are happy to have such an important and integral part of our police administration back, Bass said.

Ash has been with the department since 1987. He started as a patrol officer and rose through the ranks to lieutenant.

He serves as the departments spokesman.

He followed in the footsteps of his father, Robert, a decorated, 17-year department detective, according to an earlier article.

Cerruto said Ash has tremendous experience in town and is pleased to have him as a resource.

This has been a very challenging time for all of us, including Lt. Ash and his family, Cerruto said in the release. We are going to move forward in a positive manner as a team.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345
NEW MILFORD  Town Council members are seeking more information before they make any decisions about replacing school roofs.

Replacing Sarah Noble Intermediate Schools roof had been the original school priority, but the macroburst in May changed those plans and pushed the high school to the top of the list, requiring $200,000 for patchwork in the meantime. The town and the schools are working together on replacing roofs at both schools and town buildings.

Town officials are getting prices to replace shingles with new ones at the high school, so that they have costs for all of the options. The school board already has the figures for the metal roof options and the possibility of adding solar panels.

Council members and school officials will also meet to determine the best plan for replacing Sarah Noble Intermediate Schools roof. There are not as many options for Nobles type of roof, so interim Superintendent Stephen Tracy is asking them to use the USA Communities Process for Roof Replacements, which was used a few years ago at Schaghticoke Middle School.

Councilman Paul Szymanski said that he didnt have faith in the schools facilities officials overseeing these projects. He said only a few options were presented for the high school and that the oil tank projects went over budget, which he said were mismanaged.

He said he worries the school board will come back with only a few options and Town Council will have to send it back to get more information, losing time.

We need to look at every single option, he said.

Szymanski said they should also wait until they heard from a company that wants to look at how to make all of the buildings in town more energy efficient.

Town Councilman Tom Esposito said they needed to better look at insulation and could use those energy savings to fund other projects. He also recommended a committee be established to oversee all of town and school buildings and that those committees should have members that have construction experience.

He added that he was in favor of solar.

All of our schools are under blue skies, Esposito said.

School Board member Wendy Faulenbach said theres a time frame on the dialogue. The school board will need direction soon so that they can get information together for a bonding package and not be in the same position next year.

Its going to take weeks to be completed, she said. We want to make sure we have everyones thought process, but we want to be ready.

The town plans to go out to bond in the spring.
The Connecticut Audubon Societys Deer Pond Farm in Sherman will offer a variety of programs in the coming weeks.

They will include a late winter ecology walk with Jim Arrigoni, featuring a gentle 1.5-mile walk around the trails and a talk about the implications of late-winter weather on species as variable as Sugar Maples to Spotted Salamanders, Feb. 1 at 3 p.m.; winter bird walks with Miley Bull Feb. 6 and 14 at 9 a.m. and Feb. 27 at 1 p.m.; and a full moon owl prowl with Jim Arrigoni and Stefan Martin, which will include a discussion of the characteristics and ecology of different owl species, the challenges they face in winter, and the ethics of birdwatching in the era of birding apps and Bluetooth speakers, Feb. 19 at 6 p.m.
Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

BRIDGEPORT  Bridgeport Hospital, 267 Grant St., will offer an administration of medicine class for day care providers and camp counselors from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb.12, or from 6:30 - 8 p.m. for injectable medications only, in the hospitals fourth-floor Hollander Auditorium. The course is for three-year certification and teaches proper administration of oral, topical, inhalant, and injectable medications. Instruction is provided by a registered nurse. To register, call 888-357-2396 or visit www.bridgeporthospital.org/events.




The tradition of a "temple fair" (Miao Hui) began as groups of vendors who did business near Buddhist and Taoist temples when many pilgrims came to pay tribute to the gods during traditional festivals. The practice grew, gradually turning into a regular event. Now temple fairs are an important and joyful destination for Chinese people during festivals, most especially the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year.

Temple fairs in Beijing have a very long history, dating back to around 1000 AD, when they were called "Spring Outings," and saw a boom especially during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) as well as the Republic of China (1912-1949). Major temples all have their own festivals, some of which are held regularly. During the Spring Festival, the temple fair is one of the most important activities, and a traditional cultural event that features all kinds of Chinese folk art. So far, there have been more than 10 major temple fairs held each year in Beijing.

In traditional temple fairs around Beijing, there are performances and booths demonstrating and selling traditional arts and crafts. The fairs have lots of games to play, food to eat, and performances to see, which attract lots of people. In the temple fairs you can taste numerous kinds of local snacks, court foods, and other dishes.

Most temple fairs feature dragon and lion dances, waist drum dancing, lotus blossom fairy dances, ground and clam dancing, as well as other folk performances, and some even stage traditional wedding ceremonies.

For foreigners, a temple fair is definitely a cultural experience, because it airs Chinese cultures from a very detailed perspective. While enjoying the samplings of Chinese delicacies, you can appreciate craftsmanship and artworks displayed by local artisans.

Nowadays, going to temple fairs has become a Spring Festival routine for residents in Beijing.
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A former teacher at a Vermont boarding school accused of sexually exploiting a 17-year-old student has pleaded not guilty.

Police last year charged 44-year-old Anitra Lahiri, of Bethlehem, New Hampshire, with sexual exploitation of a minor and disseminating indecent material to a minor.

She taught at Lyndon Institute in Lyndon Center, school for grades 9 through 12.

Police say Lahiri and the student had sex at least twice before he graduated in the spring of 2018. She was fired from her position at the Lyndon Institute shortly before Thanksgiving last year.

Lyndon Institute Head of School Twiladawn Perry said in a statement that the safety of students is the school's top priority. Police say the school cooperated fully with their investigation.
A woman who is hearing-impaired and non-verbal was found safe in Rhode Island after going missing from a Massachusetts hospital.

Authorities said 24-year-old Emily Medina had last been seen around 3 p.m. Tuesday by staff members at Tewksbury State Hospital, where she lives.

Tewksbury Police announced Wednesday that Medina had been found safe in Warwick.
A Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty to forging an artifact that was placed on display at a Connecticut museum.

Harold Gordon, 69, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. According to the US Attorneys office, Gordon admitted to turning a plain writing desk into the "Bingham Family Civil War Memorial Secretary." The piece was said to be a gift given to a Civil War veteran in honor of his brother who was killed at the Battle of Antietam.

Gordon sold the piece to a Connecticut antiques dealer for more than $64,000 in 2014. The victim showed the piece at a 2015 Winter Antiques Show in New York, where it was purchased by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

In 2018, questions were raised about the authenticity of the desk. The US Attorneys office said when the victim questioned Gordon, he admitted to decorating the desk himself and lying about the items history, then targeted the victim to buy it because of the victims respected reputation in the American folk art community. When the fraud was discovered, the victim refunded the museum for the desk.

Gordon is scheduled for sentencing on April 23. He face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
France and Germany  political and economic powerhouses of Europe  have rewritten the terms of their long-term engagement to increase bilateral cooperation, offering a promise of long-term peace and stability on the continent. However, it might have the opposite effect.



President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel signed their landmark agreement on January 22 in the city of Aachen, 56 years after their predecessors inked the historic Elysee Treaty establishing the contours of post-war reconciliation between the erstwhile rivals.

The 16-page document details cooperation in various diverse fields such as defense, foreign policy, climate, politics, culture, economy and business.

The venue chosen for making the agreement is highly symbolic.

Aachen was the capital of King Charlemagne, famous ruler in the 8th and 9th centuries credited with uniting Europe by establishing an empire consisting of most of the territory of the six countries, including France and Germany, that became founding members of the EU.

Like the venue, the timing is crucial. The agreement cements closer Franco-German cooperation and their position within EU at a time when the U.K. is embroiled in an intense political struggle to leave the union.

The agreement primarily covers bilateral matters, yet it also creates a platform to considerably impact wider EU policies.

Given the fact that the two countries fought three wars against each other in less than a century, security and foreign policy naturally are priority areas. They pledged to provide "aid and assistance by all means at their disposal, including armed forces, in case of aggression against their territory."

A Franco-German Defense and Security Council is to be established to provide guidance and direction in this regard.

Economic and commercial ties have also been given special place and the two sides agreed to set up a Franco-German economic zone with common rules. They also agreed to harmonize the rules related to doing business.

The third tier of agreement is about diplomatic relations. France will make efforts for Germanys permanent membership of the UN Security Council. The two countries will also work for unified EU stand on various issues that come before the world body.

The fourth tier is related to people-to-people contacts. It provides for promotion of facilities on both sides of the border so that people and business entities can easily move to and fro.

The agreement is seen as a sheet-anchor in a turbulent 21st century to keep Franco-German ties on an even keel, and strengthen the European integration project.

However, far-right parties on both sides of the border, and detractors within the EU, are crying foul and branding the agreement as being a disservice to their respective people.

There are claims that the agreement will erode sovereignty. Both French and German right-wing politicians allege that the agreement will compromise national freedom by giving each other too much say in the affairs of the other.

The objection is somewhat outdated. The traditional idea of sovereignty is losing its sheen. And the concept of absolute freedom of action has changed in the presence of hundreds of bilateral, regional and international bodies that keep a check on the sovereign powers.

However, those claiming that Germany and France are creating a "Super EU" are partly right. This is countered by an argument that, even without Aachen agreement, the two countries are strong enough to influence EU politics.

Also, there is no secret that both Merkel and Macron want to strengthen European ability to become less dependent for security on the U.S. and NATO.

Overall, however, the Aachen treaty is good to the extent that it will further integrate the policies of France and Germany and reduce chances of friction between them that would be widely damaging.

Yet, any effort to dictate to the rest of Europe, or build some kind of European security union by sidelining the U.S. or U.K., could actually further divide and weaken the continent.

Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Officials at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire have reported another decline in passengers for the 13th year.

The airport says there were 123,000 fewer passengers in 2018 compared to 2017, a 6.2 percent decrease.

New Hampshire Public Radio reports much of the loss is due to a decrease in passengers on the airport's largest carrier, Southwest Airlines.

Airport Director Ted Kitchens says the decrease is a reflection of larger changes in the aviation industry. He says he plans to meet with Southwest officials in the coming weeks to convince them to add flights back to the airport.

Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig tells WMUR-TV recent commitments to increase air service from American Airlines and United Airlines will have a positive impact on the airport.
A man changing a tire was struck and killed Wednesday afternoon after being struck by a vehicle in Easton, Massachusetts.

The incident happened on Washington Street (Route 138) just before 1 p.m.

Fire officials said the victim, identified late Wednesday night as 64-year-old Mark Bobbitt of Easton, was changing a rear driver's side tire when he was struck by a red pickup truck with a plow attached to it.

"I heard the crash," said Deborah Bocchino. "I walked back to the window and saw the body at the end of the driveway."

The crash happened outside the home of Bocchino and her husband, Bobby. Their security cameras captured the incident and they turned the video over to police.

"He was kneeling down and it shows the truck coming along and just sideswipes him," Bobby Bocchino said.

The couple said Bobbitt was hit by the plow's blade, and that he was dragged.

Richard Andrede said he heard the commotion and immediately rushed outside.

"We were working out in the back and one of my guys said there was an accident out front," Andrede said. "Seemed to be a gentleman changing his tire on the side of the road, a plow truck came along and hit him."

Bobbitt was taken to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, where he later died.

Police said the driver remained on the scene and is cooperating with the investigation.

The exact cause of the crash remains under investigation.

"We still need to figure out where this gentleman was, whether he was in the roadway... whether he was off the roadway. There are still too many unanswered questions," said Easton Police Chief Gary Sullivan.
Police in Concord, Massachusetts, are warning residents that some of their private information may have inadvertently been posted online.

Authorities said a department employee accidentally posted the wrong version of the weekly police log earlier this week. The log is supposed to contain information about police incidents and calls for service.

The log that was posted, however, had names, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, phone numbers, and social security numbers of residents who reported incidents between Jan. 21 and Jan. 27.

Chief Joseph O'Connor immediately ordered the log be taken down. It was removed through its website vendor who then purged the website cache.

"On behalf of the entire Police Department, I would like to sincerely apologize for this breach of individual privacy. We are committed to working with all those affected by this," O'Connor said in a statement.

Concord Police said they are sending letters and information packets to everyone whose information appeared on the log. Anyone who thinks they may have been a victim of identity theft due to the incident is urged to contact the department.
A brutal blast of cold has reached Vermont, bringing wind chills overnight and into Thursday morning that at times could feel like thirty degrees below zero in some places.

Vermont saw more snow and plunging temperatures Wednesday, as it braced for air temperatures necn meteorologists expect will dip to 0 to -10 Thursday morning, with the wind making it feel like -20 or even -30, at times.

Jessica Welsch, a physicians assistant on the urgent care staff at the UVM Medical Centers Fanny Allen campus, warned of the risk of frostbite. She urged folks to bundle up well if they have to go out, saying keeping your core warm can conserve body heat thatll help protect your most vulnerable extremities.

Even just putting on an extra jacket, an extra vest, keeping the rest of the body warm, can keep the fingers and toes warmer longer and keep them from getting frostbitten, too, Welsch explained.

Meteorologist Michael Page, from the necn First Alert Weather team, said despite the arctic blast, Vermonters will dodge the kind of incredible cold that polar vortex is forcing on the Midwest.

Parts of the countrys midsection had forecasted wind chills of -70. There were widespread business and school cancelations, and more than 1,800 flights were canceled from Chicagos airports, NBC News reported Wednesday.

The dangerous cold even forced the U.S. Postal Service to suspend mail delivery to parts of 10 states.

Its not nearly as biting, Page said of the cold expected for Vermont, as compared to what Chicago and the upper Midwest saw.

Vermont resorts like Bolton Valley are grateful temperatures will moderate soon.

Until they do, Bolton asked skiers and riders to come ready for the cold, with extra layers.

People who are here day in and day out know that as long as you have the right gear, you can prepare for almost anything, said Bolton spokesman Scott Pellegrini.

Pellegrini said he expects the fresh snow in the mountains and typical winter temps by the weekend to draw excited crowds in the days ahead.
The state of the union is dark.

A large majority of Americans say they are pessimistic about the state of the country and few expect things will get better in the year ahead, according to a poll released Tuesday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

A week before President Donald Trump delivers his assessment of the nation in a State of the Union speech to Congress delayed by a record-setting government shutdown, the survey found just 28 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction.

Meanwhile, 70 percent say America is headed the wrong way. That's up from 59 percent in December, with the percentage of those saying the country is on the wrong track now at its highest point in about a year.

A majority of Americans, 52 percent, also believe things are going to get worse over the next year.

While Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to feel negative about the direction of the country, even Republican pessimism is on the rise. The poll found that 55 percent of Republicans and just 9 percent of Democrats think the country is headed in the right direction. A month ago, 69 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of Democrats said the same.

Jim Wadkowski, an 80-year-old self-described conservative from Fountain, Colorado, said he approves of the job Trump is doing but sees the nation going the wrong way.

"All they do is fight. If one party thinks it's good, the other thinks it's bad. If the president thinks it's good, the party opposed to him thinks it's bad," he said of the nation's leaders. "They don't do anything for the people."

The remarkable level of national gloom is even beginning to extend to how Americans view the economy, once a relative bright spot in America's mood. Since December's swoon in the stock market, a slim majority of Americans still has positive feelings about the national economy, but many expect it to decline in the next year.

The AP-NORC survey was conducted during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, the result of Trump's desire to deliver on his campaign vow to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border running headlong into the commitment of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats to stop him.

When Trump delivers the State of the Union address delayed by that political fight next month, he'll speak to a nation both in need of a pep talk and deeply skeptical of him as a messenger. The survey found that 34 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, compared with 65 percent who disapprove.

Carrie Montgomery, a 40-year-old learning specialist from Pawtucket, said she blames Trump for what she sees as an increase in "people's boldness in speaking hatefully to other people."

"I'm concerned about the oppression and hatred that the president drives in this country  the safety of citizens and their ability to access their basic human rights," she said.

Trump's approval rating is near his all-time low as president, as measured by AP-NORC polling since he took office two years ago. But the survey finds the nation's pessimism reaches beyond the recent budget standoff and its opinion of the president, as doubts about the economy appear to be growing.

For the first time since February 2018, Americans are significantly more likely to disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy than approve. In October, and for much of the last year, about half of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the economy.

Democrats are staunchly negative in their ratings of the president overall and on most issues, but about 2 in 10 had approved of the president on the economy last year. Now, only 14 percent of Democrats do so.

Americans in general feel better about the state of the economy than about the country in general, but also find increasing anxiety about what will happen in the next year.

About half of Americans, 53 percent, describe the economy as generally good. But looking ahead, they're more likely to expect the economy to get worse than better, 44 percent to 27 percent. Another 27 percent expect no change. A month ago, Americans were evenly divided on whether the economy would improve or worsen.

The poll shows 8 in 10 Republicans call the current economy good, while just 37 percent of Democrats say the same. And 56 percent of Republicans expect the economy to get better in the next year, while 67 percent of Democrats expect it to get worse.

Early in 2018, 68 percent of Republicans expected the economy to improve and 50 percent of Democrats expected it to worsen.

At the Modern Diner in Pawtucket, 40-year-old waitress Kelcie Tipping is among the more than half of Americans who believe the economy is still in good shape. She's worked at the restaurant for 10 years, and business is booming, although she's nervous about a future in which robots or other technology could push people out of work.

"As long as people are making money," she said. "As long as there's jobs."

The AP-NORC poll of 1,062 adults was conducted Jan. 16 to 20 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.
President Donald Trump has declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency and urged prosecutors to seek the death penalty against drug dealers. Congress has provided targeted grants for treatment, recovery and prevention and made numerous policy changes to help people struggling with addiction get access to services. From the National Institutes of Health to Veterans Affairs and the Agriculture Department, government agencies are deploying their own specialized skills. Still, the addiction crisis will not easily release its grip on the nation, even as progress is made providing resources and improving coordination.

Here's a look at the extent of the epidemic, and what the federal government has been doing.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING DUE TO OPIOID OVERDOSES?

Some 47,600 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2017, according to federal numbers. That's more than die as a result of traffic crashes. Opioid deaths were 13 percent higher compared to 2016, up a notch in a 20-year onslaught. The street drug fentanyl  an extremely powerful opioid  is the top killer today, displacing heroin and pain pills. But prescription painkillers are still a problem, contributing to 14,495 deaths in 2017.

It's too early to say for sure, but experts are watching a potential indicator that opioid overdose deaths may be peaking. Month-to-month data reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have shown a leveling off in deaths, said Bob Anderson, a CDC senior statistician. However, those numbers are considered preliminary, because investigations have not been completed in all cases.

"We may start to see a decline," Anderson said. "This reminds me of what we saw with HIV in the '90s." Final numbers for 2018 won't be available until the end of this year, and things could also get worse, not better.

Although overdose deaths get the most attention, that's not the only way for users to die. People who inject drugs can get heart infections, HIV and hepatitis C. The risk of infection is higher than the chance of dying from an overdose.

Counting all fatal drug overdoses, not just opioids, the CDC puts the number at 70,237 for 2017.

WHERE DO THESE DRUGS COME FROM?

Many people got started on the path to addiction with painkillers, prescribed by a doctor for treatment of injuries, post-surgical pain or a chronic condition  or purchased illegally from a dealer. Much of the heroin sold in the U.S. comes from Mexico, and the drug is more potent than in the 1970s, during a previous crisis. China is the major source of fentanyl, which is used as an additive in street drugs.

The multitude of opioid drugs, the increasing lethality of some and their varied routes to market make the crisis especially challenging. Some effective responses can be surprisingly simple: In a recently reported experiment, doctors were sent a letter from the medical examiner's office telling them of a patient's fatal overdose. They responded by prescribing fewer opioids.

WHAT HAS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DONE TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS?

Starting under former President Barack Obama, the government has been providing grants to states  to help treat people addicted to opioids and to prevent others from getting hooked. The expansion of the Medicaid health program under Obama's health care law has also played a role in financing treatment.

With the exception of Medicaid expansion  which Trump and the Republican Congress unsuccessfully tried to repeal  the federal response to the opioid crisis has been bipartisan.

Various federal agencies are bringing specialized expertise. CDC is closely tracking the epidemic's toll. NIH is researching pain management and ways to treat addiction. The Agriculture Department is focusing on opioid misuse in rural areas, where treatment resources are scarce. And Veterans Affairs maintains an opioid safety initiative dating to 2013 to help its doctors reduce unnecessary prescriptions.

On the enforcement side, drug, cybercrime and money laundering sleuths are targeting major suppliers. In the 1980s, cocaine from Colombia was smuggled via speedboats, and bales of marijuana were flown in on small planes, but now fentanyl from China can be marketed online and shipped by mail. The Food and Drug Administration is deploying more inspectors at international mail facilities to intercept packages of fentanyl.

HOW MUCH MONEY IS THE GOVERNMENT DIRECTING TOWARD THE CRISIS?

It's difficult to get a complete and authoritative accounting, since spending is across many agencies and programs. That includes entitlements like Medicaid, that don't require annual funding approval from Congress, as well as dozens of other programs that do  in addition to specific grants. Experts say the government is spending billions of dollars, there's no doubt that's increasing, and it's still probably not enough.

In its last year in office, the Obama administration secured a commitment to expand treatment, and Congress reserved $1 billion for grants to states . Last year, Congress provided another $1 billion to states under a new grant program. The Trump administration recently awarded those grants. That comes on top of nearly $1.9 billion for the government's main drug treatment, recovery and prevention program, according to the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors.

Additional funding is allocated across other agencies and programs. A study sponsored by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlighted Medicaid's role. It found that the federal-state health program for low-income people covers more than 1 in 3 of those with opioid addiction. Even before Medicaid was expanded, researchers estimated it spent more than $9 billion in 2013 on care for low-income people addicted to opioids.

WHAT IS ALL THIS MONEY SPENT ON?

States are spending grant money on treatment, overdose antidote kits, recovery support services, training for doctors and public awareness campaigns. The goal is to get more people treated with medications for opioid addiction such as buprenorphine and methadone. There's solid evidence backing these medications, when they're used alongside counseling and ongoing support.

States have started reporting back to the federal government that thousands of people have entered treatment as a result of grant money, including hundreds of pregnant women. Pennsylvania, for example, says it treated 11,423 people in FY2017, including 86 pregnant women. Michigan says it treated 2,974, including 30 pregnant women. Tennessee: 3,075, including 55 pregnant women.

WHAT IMPACT HAS THE OPIOID ANTIDOTE NALOXONE HAD ON THE CRISIS?

With little or no training, bystanders can reverse an opioid overdose with a naloxone nasal spray or by injection of the drug. States have handed out thousands of naloxone kits to first responders, schools, family members and drug users themselves.

The Health and Human Services department has several programs to help states and communities pay for the antidote, but with overdose deaths still high, it's tough to say what the impact of naloxone has been. A 2017 working paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggests laws encouraging naloxone might be having a small effect on reducing fatalities.

People dealing with the epidemic say deaths would be even higher without the antidote.

PRESIDENT TRUMP APPOINTED A COMMISSION ON OPIOIDS AND DECLARED A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY. HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE HAVE THOSE ACTIONS MADE?

Administration officials say they are making headway daily, deploying more resources and sharpening the coordination of government efforts among agencies. Some experts in the field debate the administration's role.

"When you look at the administration's actions in the wake of that public health emergency, I was not overwhelmed by any of it," said Rebecca Farley David of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which advocates for organizations that provide addiction treatment.

She singled out Trump's attempt to repeal the Medicaid expansion: "That would have had a devastating impact on people with addictions."

But Jessica Hulsey Nickel, founder of the advocacy group Addiction Policy Forum, said, "Whether you are an 'R' or a 'D,' this administration has made sure every element of the government that has a role to play has been engaged."

Trump's opioid commission delivered 56 recommendations, including more drug courts, training for doctors and wider use of treatment medications in the criminal justice system.

WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT BRINGING AN END TO THIS CRISIS?

In some ways the opioid epidemic is only the latest manifestation of drug problems deeply rooted in American history. Public health experts say one major difference today is that addiction is increasingly recognized by experts and lay people alike as a disease of the brain, not a moral failing. That could open the way for building an infrastructure for what's called the "continuum of care"  prevention, treatment and recovery.

For many people, the road back from addiction is a yearslong journey, and relapse is common. Dr. Deborah Richter, a Vermont physician who treats addiction, says there's no fixed timetable for pronouncing a patient "cured." ''They're not ready unless they can say, 'I wouldn't know where to get heroin unless it bit me,'" Richter said.

HOW DOES TRUMP'S USE OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS COMPARE WITH OTHERS?

Getting tough has traditionally been part of the U.S. "war on drugs." Only recently has the importance of treatment been widely recognized.

Former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton supported the death penalty for drug kingpins in egregious cases. Reagan said that while he thought drug dealers deserved the death penalty, pursuing it could create counterproductive political divisions.

Trump has speculated that countries like Singapore have fewer issues with addiction because they mete out harsh justice and has said he wants the Justice Department to seek the "ultimate penalty" when possible. The U.S. drug kingpin law already allows federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in cases where someone is intentionally killed during a drug deal or in furtherance of a drug enterprise. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had vowed to seek the death penalty "wherever appropriate."

Cautionary note: Many judges, prosecutors, crime experts and lawmakers of both parties now see the get-tough approach of the 1980s and 1990s as an overreach that landed too many people in prison with long sentences, especially African-Americans.

"While it's important to make interdiction a priority, we need to make sure we don't criminalize the disease of addiction," said Jessica Hulsey Nickel of the Addiction Policy Forum.
After an unprecedented week in Venezuela that brought violent mass demonstrations, the rise of self-declared interim leader Juan Guaido and numerous countries coming to his support, all eyes are now on the armed forces and whether they will remain loyal to President Nicolas Maduro.

With government supporters and the opposition vying for the militarys backing, Venezuela is entering a new chapter of potential turmoil, NBC News reported.

The U.S. State Department updated its travel advisory Tuesday to its highest level, warning Americans not to travel to Venezuela "due to crime, civil unrest, poor health infrastructure, and arbitrary arrest and detention of U.S. citizens.
A young man from Louisiana has confessed to killing his parents, his girlfriend, and two of her family members who had taken him in after he was kicked out of his house, authorities said Tuesday.

Dakota Theriot, 21, told authorities he used a gun he stole from his father, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said at a news conference. He said while Theriot was cooperating and had provided authorities with a lot of information about how the killings unfolded, they still haven't determined exactly why the killings happened.

"We don't really know what the motive is. We just know what he did," Ard said.

Authorities have said Theriot shot and killed three people  Summer Ernest, 20, his girlfriend; and Ernest's brother and father  in Livingston Parish, then drove her father's pickup truck to Ascension Parish, where he shot his parents. He then drove to his grandmother's house in Warsaw, Virginia, where he was arrested on Sunday morning, Ard and Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

Theriot is due in court on Friday in Virginia for an extradition hearing and will eventually be sent back to Louisiana to face multiple murder charges. Detectives from Louisiana went to Virginia and questioned him, the sheriffs said.

In addition to Summer Ernest, the victims have been identified as Billy Ernest, 43; Tanner Ernest, 17; and Theriot's parents, Keith Theriot and Elizabeth Theriot, both 50.

Summer Ernest and Dakota Theriot had only been dating for a couple of weeks, and he was living with her family for about the same amount of time after his parents kicked him out, Ard said.

The sheriff said that just a short time before the shootings, Theriot tagged along with Billy Ernest as he drove his wife to work early Saturday morning.

Summer Ernest and her father and brother were each shot once in the head, Ard said. Autopsies on Theriot's parents were to be done Tuesday, Webre said.

Keith Theriot survived the shooting long enough to call 911, and when deputies arrived he told them just before he died that his son had shot him, the authorities said.

Two children were in the Ernest home in Livingston Parish  a 7-year-old and a 1-year-old  Ard said. They went to a neighbor's house and the neighbor called law enforcement.

Theriot's grandmother had checked into a hotel Saturday night in Virginia, fearing he might show up there, Richmond County Sheriff Stephan B. Smith said in a phone interview. The woman asked authorities to check her house Sunday morning to ensure it was safe before she returned.

While deputies were there, Smith said, Theriot drove up with a firearm pointed out the window of a pickup. A sheriff's statement said deputies sought cover and challenged Theriot, who then dropped the gun and was arrested without incident. Smith said the pickup Theriot drove apparently was the one taken in Louisiana.

Authorities have said Theriot had some run-ins with law enforcement previously in other parishes but described those as misdemeanor-type incidents that did not include violence.

But people who lived with Keith and Elizabeth Theriot said their son had struggled with drugs over the years and had violent outbursts, and the relationship between him and Summer Ernest had raised red flags with her family and friends.

If Theriot doesn't fight extradition, he could be back in Louisiana by Friday or Saturday, said Webre, who added that he would not oppose the death penalty if prosecutors asked for it.

"We know what happened here," Webre said. "He killed five people. So, this is a monster."
Police are trying to track down a man who they say scammed an elderly woman out of money for home repairs.

Investigators with the San Diego Police Departments Elder Abuse Unit say John Ted Barney showed up to a Morena womans home last September and told her she had cracks in her driveway in need of repair.

Barney allegedly gave the woman a flyer advertising handyman services ranging from cleaning and plumbing to interior and exterior decorating. The flyer read that read No job is to small or to big (sic).

Barney went on to convince the 94-year-old woman that he could make repairs around her home if she paid him up front. She paid Barney a substantial amount of money for work that he never finished, SDPD said.

Police are now asking for the publics help tracking down Barney who is wanted for grand theft of an elderly person and residential burglary. Investigators believe he has stolen from other victims in the area.

Barney also has a felony warrant for theft out of Washington state, according to SDPD.

He is described as 50 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, and 160 pounds. He has a medium build and brown hair and eyes. Barney may be driving a newer model white Dodge Ram truck,

SDPD says Barney is known to use the aliases Ted John, Mike Thomas and Ted Wanko.

Potential victims or anyone with information regarding Barneys whereabouts can call SDPDs Elder Abuse Unit at (619) 446-1070 or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at (88) 580-8477. Up to $1,000 is being offered to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest.
An officer with the San Diego Police Department is facing felony charges of assault with a firearm stemming from an alleged domestic violence incident involving his girlfriend, officials confirmed Wednesday.

The police department said Officer Timothy Romberger  an 11-year veteran of the SDPD  was arrested on Jan. 23, one day after the department became aware of the alleged incident.

Romberger was arraigned at the El Cajon Superior Courthouse Wednesday. San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Jessica Paugh said the officer was charged with a two-count complaint that includes one count of felony assault with a semi-automatic firearm and one charge of felony domestic violence.

Romberger pleaded not guilty.

According to the complaint filed with the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, Romberger allegedly assaulted his girlfriend on Jan. 12. The police department said the incident happened in Santee.

The complaint lists the victim as the mother of Romberger's children.

Paugh said a judge has ordered a criminal protective order against Romberger restraining him from having any contact with his girlfriend. He was also ordered to have no contact with his children.

The prosecutor said Romberger is accused of taking out a gun and pointing it to his girlfriends head. He also allegedly asked her to tell him a reason you deserve to live, Paugh said.

The firearm was recovered.

The investigation is ongoing.

For now, the SDPD said Rombergers powers have been revoked and he has been suspended from duty, with pay. The officer is normally assigned to Eastern Division Patrol.

The case is being handled by the San Diego County District Attorneys Office. The DAs office said Romberger faces up to nine years in prison, if convicted.

For now, he remains out of jail on a $50,000 bond.

He is due back in court on Feb. 22 for a readiness hearing and again on March 19 for a preliminary hearing.

Paugh said that police officer or not, the DAs office treats all criminal defendants the same.

Hes not going to get any special treatment simply because hes a police officer, said Paugh. Its our duty to protect domestic violence victims, no matter who the perpetrator is.

District Attorney Summer Stephan released a statement Wednesday thanking SDPD Chief Dave Nieslit and his team for investigating this case and submitting to her office.

For justice to thrive, it is important that everyone is accountable under the law, Stephan added.

NBC 7 spoke with a former neighbor of the officer Wednesday who said that when Romberger lived near her, she often heard loud noises and yelling coming from his home.

One time, Willey said she heard Romberger throwing things into a pool and pounding on a shed.

She said deputies would repeatedly be called to Rombergers home due to the disturbances.

As a neighbor, Willey said Romberger mostly kept to himself.
A California judge on Monday upheld protection for gray wolves under the state's Endangered Species Act, rejecting a legal challenge from ranchers and farmers who fear the predators will threaten their livestock.

The judge in San Diego ruled that California was right to list the wolves as endangered in 2014. A lawsuit on behalf of the California Farm Bureau Federation and the California Cattlemen's Association argued the listing was arbitrary because there are so few wolves in the state.

The suit was filed to give ranchers "more flexibility in co-existing with wolves," said Jim Houston, the farm bureau's manager of legal and governmental affairs.

The group is committed to working with the state to reduce "the burdens of raising livestock in areas with wolves, but we do not expect it to be easy," Houston said in a statement.

A wolf known as OR-7 made headlines in 2011 when it traveled south from Oregon  making it the first known wolf in California since 1924. One of OR-7's offspring has become the breeding male of the only known wolf pack in California. Two of OR-7's female pups also ventured into the Golden State, and one has traveled as far south as Lake Tahoe.

The California Fish and Game Commission granted the gray wolf protections under the state's endangered species act, despite opposition from hunting and livestock groups who worry an unchecked population will kill deer and valuable cattle. Under California's protections, gray wolves can't be killed or hunted.

The lawsuit suit brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation alleged it wasn't known whether the wolves that entered the state are the same subspecies originally native to California and that the commission failed to perform a population analysis of the species' natural range. The foundation also didn't respond to a request for comment.

OR-7 eventually returned to Oregon in 2014 and the wolf has successfully reproduced each year since. It was so-named because he was the seventh wolf captured and collared in Oregon.
A Honduran migrant seeking protection in the United States was the first to be sent back to Mexico Tuesday under a new U.S. policy as his asylum claim is processed.

Under the new policy, announced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in remarks to Congress last week, immigrants without proper documentation will wait in Mexico until a U.S. judge can hear their claim.

Previous U.S. policy permitted applicants to be released into the U.S., often with ankle monitors, while their cases wind through an overwhelmed system of immigration courts.

Under the new policy, asylum seekers will be bussed to the border while waiting for their appointment with a judge, who will either grant their asylum claim and allow them into the U.S. or deny their claim and return them to their home country.

Mexican officials said migrants will only be allowed to cross back to Mexico through the El Chaparral border crossing into Tijuana.

Only adult migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador will be given four-month visas to stay in Mexico as they wait, Mexican officials said.

Telemundo 20's cameras were rolling as the first migrant was escorted by National Mexican Institute immigration agents into Mexico.

His only reply to requests for comment was that he was originally from Honduras.

Mexico's cooperation with U.S. officials marks a historic one as the country has traditionally refused to accept into their country the return of any migrants who are not Mexican.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said last week the move is a temporary, humanitarian measure.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Weather Alert

...HEAT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TO 9 PM PDT MONDAY... * WHAT...Temperatures between 98 to 102. * WHERE...In Washington, Lower Columbia Basin of Washington and Eastern Columbia River Gorge of Washington. In Oregon, Lower Columbia Basin of Oregon and Eastern Columbia River Gorge of Oregon. * WHEN...From noon to 9 PM PDT Monday. * IMPACTS...Hot temperatures may cause heat illnesses to occur. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Temperatures will cool slightly Tuesday but still remain hot. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances. Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Know the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing when possible. To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 9 1 1. &&
Some immigrant youth looking to start over in the United States after fleeing abusive homes are seeing their applications for green cards rejected because the Trump administration says they're too old.

A U.S. government program in place since 1990 has let young immigrants subject to abuse, abandonment or neglect by a parent seek a court-appointed guardian and a green card to stay in the country.

While applicants must file paperwork before age 21, the Trump administration has said some are too old to qualify once they turn 18, prompting a flurry of denial notices over the past year in New York, Texas and California and additional questions of applicants in New Jersey.

Immigrant advocates have filed lawsuits in New York and California and said hundreds of young people could be affected by the change.

"This administration is literally going after some of the most vulnerable people trying to seek relief," said Mary Tanagho Ross, an appellate staff attorney at Los Angeles-based Public Counsel's immigrant rights project.

The Trump administration has been pushing to harden the U.S. border and slash immigration with a series of steps targeting Central American children who arrive on the border alone or with relatives. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions sought to make it tougher for young immigrants fleeing gangs or domestic violence to win asylum  though some guidance he issued on such cases was recently blocked by a federal judge. And the U.S. government has been slower to release immigrant children caught on the border to family in the country.

The program is the best chance for many of the thousands of young immigrants arriving on the border to be allowed to stay in the U.S. Under U.S. law, they can apply for green cards once a designated court in the U.S. state where they live assigns them a guardian and declares they are eligible to apply.

A now-22-year-old woman in Northern California, who requested anonymity out of fear the U.S. government will retaliate against her for speaking out, fled her Mexican immigrant parents' home in high school after her father repeatedly beat her.

She was taken in by a teacher, who helped her get started in college and took care of her when she was diagnosed with cancer. When a judge formally named the teacher her legal guardian it was a huge relief, she said. But she later learned the U.S. government wouldn't accept the court's order for her green card application. She dropped to the floor and sobbed, she said.

"I just couldn't believe I was going to have to try to defend myself again," she said. "I don't refer to her by her name or that she's my guardian  I just call her mom."

More than 50,000 young immigrants have obtained green cards by qualifying for special immigrant juvenile status since 2010. The overwhelming majority of applications have been approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, making the program a safer bet for many immigrant children seeking refuge in the United States than pleading a case before an immigration officer or judge for asylum.

Applications to the program have surged in recent years, rising more than three-fold between the 2014 and 2017 fiscal years, federal data shows. During that time, the number of denials also increased, with 2,000 applications rejected over the past two fiscal years  more than all of the previous seven years combined.

The change was most notable in the nine months ending in June 2018, when one in five applications that were decided were denied, the data shows. About 7 percent of application decisions in the 2017 fiscal year and 4 percent of decisions in the 2016 fiscal year were denials.

The U.S. government started reviewing applications at a centralized location in late 2016 to improve efficiency. The following year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sought legal guidance from the agency's Office of Chief Counsel for cases involving immigrant children who turned 18 before their paperwork had been completed and determined that a state court order is only valid if that court has the authority to reunite children with their parents, which many don't, according to agency officials.

As a result, 260 cases were denied, they said, adding that the agency may have previously approved some cases that it should not have.

USCIS officials said they could not comment on pending litigation, but said the agency "continues to ensure that children who have been abused, abandoned or neglected receive the humanitarian benefits they are eligible for."

Beth Krause, supervising attorney of the immigrant youth project at Legal Aid in New York, said the federal immigration agency doesn't have the authority to question state law, which in New York expressly allows courts to issue guardianship orders to cover this age group.

"USCIS changed their policy and they changed their policy in a way that is arbitrary and capricious because it doesn't comport with the federal statute" that says young people have until age 21, said Krause, who is representing young immigrants in the New York filing. "They're getting it wrong."

In California, a federal judge has blocked the U.S. government from denying the young immigrants' cases for now. The state enacted a law several years ago expressly allowing probate courts to issue orders for immigrants who are between 18 and 21 so they can apply to participate in the federal program.

In response to the Trump administration's changes, immigrant advocates said they are also changing how they try to help these young applicants. Often, attorneys are looking into alternative ways to get these youth on stable legal footing in the United States, for example, applying for asylum in addition to special immigrant juvenile status, said Priya Konings, deputy director of legal services at Kids in Need of Defense.

"It is just creating extra work for us  which is fine but overburdening an already almost broken system," Konings said. "It's incredibly obvious that the administration is targeting immigrants at large, particularly unaccompanied minors, and they're doing it on every front."
British Prime Minister Theresa May (Front) attends a debate on the Brexit deal amendments in the House of Commons in London, Britain, on Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/UK Parliament/Mark Duffy)

LONDON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Just days after suffering the biggest humiliation in British political history, Prime Minister Theresa May was r than ever Tuesday to finally reaching an elusive Brexit deal.

By 317 votes to 301, MPs in the House of Commons gave their backing to May's deal which they rejected earlier this month, providing changes are made to the so-called Irish backstop border issue.

The 16 majority for her deal gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to call for a re-opening of negotiations, and indicates that the Brexit deal is likely to win the critical final vote in British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue.

The victory for May's minority government was assured after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) backed tonight's move.

Immediately after the vote was announced, May said that two weeks ago MPs rejected the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement when only 202 MPs voted in favor.

"Tonight a majority have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop.

"It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority to leave the EU with a deal," she said, to loud cheers from the Conservative benches.

Veteran MP Sir Graham Brady has been hailed as the hero of the night by including a crucial addition to May's rejected deal. It says the deal requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border.

The words were enough to win over the DUP as well as Conservative politicians strongly against a backstop over fears it could tie Britain permanently to the EU.

May said the British government can look forward to obtaining legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement with regards to the backstop, allowing no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

May and her senior advisers are not waving victory flags at the moment, with the developments in London receiving a frosty reaction in Brussels and Dublin.

May admitted that winning over Brussels will not be easy. She said: "With changes to the backstop, plus assurances on workers' rights, it is now clear there is a route to passing a deal."

May said there was limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. "But MPs have now made it clear what it wants," she said.

The Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, said in a statement issued later in Dublin: "The withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

Referring to the withdrawal agreement agreed between EU leaders and May, Varadkar said it is a carefully negotiated compromise, which balances the UK position on customs and the single market with avoiding a hard border and protecting the integrity of the EU customs union and single market.

He said Ireland will continue its preparations for all outcomes, including for a no-deal scenario.

A spokesman for Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said: "The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and the withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

The Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who earlier in the evening, lost a vote that would have avoided a no-deal outcome, said he was now prepared to meet May to discuss Brexit.

The business world reacted to May's victory in the House of Commons.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said another day had been lost while the clock is ticking. "Government and parliament are still going round in circles when businesses and the public urgently need answers," he said.

Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors said: "The prime minister clearly faces a difficult task in winning a compromise on the backstop. However, if the choice is between trying to change the deal and leaving without one, business will have to hope the EU can be flexible and consider whether any legal changes at all could further clarify that the backstop is not a permanent fixture."

May plans to discuss developments with the EU ahead of returning at a later date to the British Parliament for a meaningful date needed on a deal with Brussels.

Until now Brussels has insisted that a backstop must be part of the Brexit deal to avoid a hard border between EU member state Ireland, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.

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[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
What to Know Federal officials announced 116 corruption counts against Philadelphia IBEW 98 Local union leader John J. Johnny Doc Dougherty.

The 160-page indictment alleges that Dougherty and his co-defendants conspired to embezzle union money for their own use.

The embezzlement charges stem from falsified financial records from 2010 to 2016.

Baby wipes, Q-Tips, bottled water and expensive dinners were all part of an elaborate embezzlement scheme by powerful electricians' union leader John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty and Philadelphia Councilman Bobby Henon, according to a federal charging document unsealed Wednesday morning.

Dougherty, whose brother sits on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, exerted complete control over the union, according to the 116-count indictment, using that power to "repeatedly and persistently steal its funds and put his own self-interests over that of the membership."

He also helped propel Henon, a Local 98 staffer, into a powerful leadership position on the Philadelphia City Council to apply pressure to other trade groups and businesses, prosecutors allege.

I dont give a f--- about anybody, all right, but f---ing you and us, and you know that," Henon told Dougherty in 2015 when reassuring him about their quid pro quo relationship.

All told, the defendants, which included several IBEW Local 98 union employees and associates, misspent more than $600,000 in union funds, officials said.

The sweeping 160-page presentment alleges that Dougherty and his co-defendants conspired to embezzle union money for their own families, friends and business. They concealed these funds by falsifying documentation to make the money appear union-related, according to the indictment.

Read the complete indictment below.

Charges include conspiracy to embezzle labor union funds, falsification of labor union records, making false statements to the FBI and theft from employee benefits, among many other counts.

Dougherty and Henon have denied all of the allegations.

In addition to Dougherty and Henon, six IBEW Local 98 leaders were also named. They are:

Brian Burrows, president since 2008

Michael Neill, director of training since 2008

Marita Crawford, director of government affairs

Niko Rodriguez, former union apprentice and now-treasurer of Brighter Pennsylvania PAC

Brian Fiocca, union employee and Dougherty's nephew

Anthony Massa, owner and operator of Massa Construction

The defendants allegedly spent thousands of union dollars on expensive family meals, baby supplies, hair styling items and even dog food, federal officials said.

During a birthday dinner for Dougherty in 2015, Crawford used a union credit card to spend more than $1,300 at the Old Homestead restaurant, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to the indictment.

Crawford falsely reported to Local 98 that the birthday dinner was a Political Campaign Meeting Hosted by John Dougherty.

I got a different world than most people ever exist in. I am able to take care of a lot of people all the time," Dougherty allegedly said to a family member, according to the indictment.

The alleged embezzlement outlined in the indictment took place between 2010 to 2016.

Dougherty's personal attorney, Henry Hockeimer, denied any wrongdoing on behalf of his client.

"Every move he makes is done in order to better the lives of the membership of Local 98. And the dramatic increase in wages, health care benefits and the overall standard of living for the membership is a testament to that singular focus," the statement read. "To allege that John in any way attempted to defraud the Union he cares about so deeply is preposterous."

The charges point to dizzying schemes between Dougherty and Henon that, ultimately, did benefit the union itself. In July 2015, for example, the two conspired to shut down the installation of a new MRI machine at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia because Local 98 was not given the opportunity to bid on the project. CHOP responded that the manufacturer was installing the machine in order to keep it under warranty should it fail or need repair in the future.

It is also an L&I violation ... you dont want a city thing shutting it down," Dougherty reportedly told a hospital administrator. "We have had other hospitals shut down because of that.

Henon referred the dispute to the city's Department of Licenses and Inspection, which ultimately issued a stop work order for the MRI machine installation.

In another scheme, Henon and Dougherty allegedly pressured Comcast during its franchise licensing agreement talks, according to the indictment. The two warned Comcast that if the cable provider did not hire union workers to install its fiber optic network, city council would not approve the franchise agreement.

Comcast, the parent company of NBC10 and Telemundo62, said it "cooperated fully" with the federal investigation and will continue to do so as a fact witness.

The charges revealed Wednesday come more than two years after the FBI and IRS raided over a dozen offices of people connected to IBEW Local 98, including Dougherty.

Earlier this week, two additional associates were indicted.

George Peltz, a South Jersey contractor and an ally of Dougherty's, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, theft from employee benefits and other charges. He admitted to providing more than $60,000 in gifts and free work, including home and office improvements, to an unnamed union official.

Many people have speculated that unnamed official, identified simply as Official No. 1 in federal documents, is Dougherty.

Dr. James Moylan, the former Zoning Board Chairman of Philadelphia, was also indicted in connection with the investigation. Prosecutors said he used more than $40,000 in union donations to pay his business and personal expenses. He stepped down as zoning board chair after federal agents raided his home and chiropractic business.

Despite never holding public office, the 58-year-old Dougherty has long been one of Philadelphias most powerful political figures.

He is head of the broader Philadelphia Building Trades Council, and has sat on influential boards, such as the Delaware River Port Authority. Many inside Philadelphia City Hall consider him to be most influential at the municipal level, where he has had a hand in securing votes for several current councilmembers, including former Local 98 protege Henon.

Henon, an electrician by trade, served as the local's political director before being elected to City Council in 2011. He represents the city's 6th District that covers the River Wards, Mayfair, Frankford and other lower Northeast Philly neighborhoods. In 2016, Henon was unanimously elected as Democratic majority leader.

A spokesman for IBEW Local 98 did not respond to a request for comment.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, who received campaign support from IBEW, defended the union's right to contribute to his mayoral campaign.

Speaking to reporters at a different event Wednesday morning, Kenney said he was "sad" and disappointed by the federal charges, but is not worried that anyone in his administration will be implicated.

"Weve had conversations with the U.S. Attorneys Office and theres no one in the administration or myself or anyone that is involved in that regard," he said.

The mayor recommended that Councilman Henon make the best decision for the people he represents.

If he stepped down today, his constituents would not be represented for 10 months. So thats certainly up to him," Kenney said.

Henon issued a statement on his Facebook page shortly after the charges were revealed.

"I want to make clear: I have done nothing wrong. I have spent 28 years proudly working for Local 98. In 2011, I ran for City Council to give a voice to honest union men and women, working Philadelphians and those in need of a strong voice to represent them in this great city," the statement read.

NBC10 obtained a copy of a letter Dougherty sent to union members Monday that touted recent union successes and said he will "continue to be your business manager for the foreseeable future."

Editor's Note: Some NBC10 employees are members of Local 98.
Stacey Abrams, the rising political star who marshaled the power of black women voters but narrowly lost the Georgia governor's race, will deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, congressional Democrats said Tuesday.

The choice elevates Abrams in Democratic politics as the party looks to keep core supporters, such as black women who anchor the base, energized ahead of the 2020 congressional and presidential elections. It also sets up an implicit contrast with Trump, who has a history of questioning the intellect and integrity of nonwhite politicians.

"She is just a great spokesperson. She is an incredible leader. She has led the charge for voting rights, which is at the root of just about everything else," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who, along with other Democrats, is urging Abrams to challenge Republican Sen. David Perdue, one of Trump's most outspoken allies on Capitol Hill. "She knows what working people, the middle class, go through."

For her part, Abrams said in a statement that she intends to "deliver a vision for prosperity and equality, where everyone in our nation has a voice and where each of those voices is heard."

Abrams narrowly lost the governor's race to Republican Brian Kemp after a protracted challenge over blocked votes. A group backed by Abrams filed a federal lawsuit this month saying Georgia deprived many low-income people and minorities of their voting rights with Kemp, then secretary of state, overseeing the 2018 election.

The Democrats' selection of Abrams is intended as a visual and philosophical counter to Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 5 in the House, which Democrats control. Trump has a history of making inflammatory remarks about black and brown Americans, as well as Muslims and immigrants. He's questioned the intellect of Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, now chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee. He's referred to black Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum as "a thief" because of an undercover FBI investigation into his acceptance of Broadway tickets.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and former member of the House, will deliver the Spanish-language response to the State of the Union, according to Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Abrams' travel and meeting schedule in recent weeks shows how hotly Democrats have pursued her as their top choice for the Georgia Senate seat.

She's been inundated with calls from Democratic Party leaders, including Schumer, Pelosi and House campaign chief Catherine Cortez Masto. Abrams also met privately with presidential candidate and California Sen. Kamala Harris, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Democratic House members from her state.

Party officials see an Abrams candidacy as a promising scenario in 2020. Enthusiasm around her Senate run could drive up turnout that would also benefit a Democratic presidential candidate in the state, while the money that a White House campaign would bring to Georgia would also help Abrams.

Abrams has started a voting rights advocacy group but is also considering her own political future and looking to help other Democrats. She is expected to make a decision about the Senate race in coming months.

The State of the Union response often serves as an audition of sorts for ambitious political figures looking to raise their profiles. But it's also frequently a thankless task, with brutal reviews. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's lunge for a water bottle became a meme after his response in 2013. Then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, was panned for being dull in 2009. In 1996, then-Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole gave a less-than-boffo performance that was widely criticized for its delivery and for the lighting.
Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered on the streets of Venezuela's capital Wednesday, waving their nation's flag and demanding Nicolas Maduro step down from power in a walkout organized by the nation's reinvigorated opposition to ratchet up pressure on the embattled president.

Protesters said they were heeding the opposition's call for another mass demonstration despite the heavy-handed response by security forces over the last week to quell anti-government protests.

"I'm going out now more than ever," said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63. "We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left."

The latest walkout comes one week exactly after opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the nation's rightful president amid a sea of supporters, hurling the nation into a new chapter of political tumult as the anti-Maduro movement tries to establish a transitional government and the socialist leader clings to power.

"We are staying in the streets," Guaido told students at a surprise appearance at the Central University of Venezuela. "Not just in protest of the crisis we are living in all of Venezuela, not just because of how bad things are, but also for the future."

The 35-year-lawmaker has transformed from a little-known opposition figure into a commanding force in the nation's politics with the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump and two dozen other nations recognizing him as Venezuela's interim president.

The turmoil has morphed into a larger geopolitical standoff as Maduro accuses the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and enacting punishing oil sanctions while powerful Venezuela allies China and Russia continue to stand by the president.

On Tuesday, the government-stacked Supreme Court barred Guaido from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts as a probe into his anti-government activities led by Maduro-ally and chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab advances. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton warned that if Guaido is harmed Venezuela will face "serious consequences."

Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation could signal that Maduro's administration is moving to take a more punitive approach in the days ahead.

Speaking at the walkout, Guaido said he wasn't losing any sleep over the probe. "We don't want to leave the country," he said. "We want people to return."

Maduro huddled Wednesday with military troops, prayed with evangelical supporters and released a video urging the American people to rise up against Trump and support him as Venezuela's rightful leader. He said Trump has his eyes on Venezuela's vast oil reserves and warned against any U.S. military intervention.

"We won't allow a Vietnam in Latin America," Maduro said. "If the aim of the United States is to invade, they'll have a Vietnam worse than can be imagined."

Maduro has been overseeing military training exercises broadcast on state television on a near-daily basis over the past week in an apparent attempt to show he still has the backing of the armed forces, whose support is key to either man's claim to the presidency.

In an interview with Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency, Maduro said he was "willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future," an offer he has repeated often but that the opposition is reluctant to accept. He also accused Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia but offered no proof.

The already distressed nation is likely to face even tougher times soon after the U.S. imposed sanctions Monday on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, potentially depriving the Maduro government of $11 billion in export revenues over the next year.

Maduro called the sanctions "criminal" and vowed to challenge the U.S. in court.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Guaido declared during a huge opposition rally in Caracas that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Maduro's "dictatorship."

Under Venezuela's constitution, the head of the National Assembly is empowered to take on the duties of the chief executive under a range of circumstances in which the presidency is vacated. The opposition contends that Maduro's reelection was a sham because, among other things, top opposition candidates were barred from running and that his new second term is therefore illegitimate.

The U.N. human rights office says security forces in Venezuela detained nearly 700 people in just one day of anti-government protests last week  the highest such tally in a single day in the country in at least 20 years  and that more than 40 people were killed.

Maduro's allies blame the opposition for the violence and deny the high death toll as well as reports that minors were among those arrested.

Guaido called on Venezuelans to take to the streets Wednesday holding signs stating "your reasons for fighting" and urging the armed forces to join them.

"I want a free Venezuela," several protesters in the Chacao district of the capital wrote on their signs as passing cars and trucks honked their horns in support. Others chanted, "Maduro is a delinquent, not a president!"

A row of National Guardsmen blocked off one street in Caracas to stop protesters from going through but there weren't any reports of violent confrontations as happened last week.

The walkout drew a cross-section of Venezuelan society ranging from professionals to blue-collar workers, though participation appeared to be lower in some of the poorer enclaves that are traditional government strongholds.

A few of demonstrators from the Catia neighborhood, where protesters set barricades on fire last week, said they didn't feel safe protesting there and joined the walkout from wealthier districts instead.

Among the protesters was Dr. Hugo Rosillo, who stood outside a children's hospital just blocks from Maduro's presidential palace. He said he and others were fed up with not being able to treat their patients facing life-threatening illnesses like cancer because of shortages of medical supplies.

The hospital has turned into just "a storeroom for cadavers," he said.

Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez and Manuel Rueda in Caracas contributed to this report.
What to Know What was initially believed to be a sinkhole turned out to be a 50-yard tunnel leading to a bank in Pembroke Pines, FBI officials said

Officials said they don't know who made the tunnel or how long it has been there

A tunnel leading toward a bank from a wooded area was discovered in Pembroke Pines, Florida, Wednesday and the FBI is investigating.

A public works crew responded to what appeared to be a sinkhole on a side street in the area of Flamingo Road and Pines Boulevard near a Chase bank, FBI Special Agent Michael Leverock told reporters.

When they looked into the hole, they noticed a power cord running into nearby woods.

Leverock said police and FBI agents responded and found the entrance to a tunnel about 50 yards long leading right up to the bank. A winch, a wagon, a small generator and other items were found near the hole.

Workers continue to dig next to the Chase Bank on S Flamingo Rd and Pines Blvd. where an underground tunnel was found. FBI has yet to give details but weve seen muddy boots, a generator, a stool, and a rake, pulled from the hole @nbc6 pic.twitter.com/wB7ib8hFIv  Dan Grossman (@Dan_Grossman) January 30, 2019

"We don't know who is behind this at this time, they could have been here a week ago, last night, we don't know at this time but it is an extensive hole," Leverock said. "Usually you use equipment to do that, these people were using pickaxes and a small little wagon...this is truly a unique case here."

Leverock estimated that the hole was about a foot or two below ground and between two and three feet in diameter, calling it "very claustrophobic."

FBI

"I would like to say I saw something like this in movies however this hole is so small, it's unique," he said. "I don't know how they did it, I would like to put it into words for you, but it is so cramped in there."

A Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office cadaver dog was also sent into the hole to make sure no one was inside, but no one was found.

Leverock said recent heavy rain may have contributed to the collapse of the tunnel, and said whoever made it didn't get into the bank, calling it an attempted burglary.

"It's a puzzle, I can't imagine how they did it," he said.
NBC 6's Nathalia Ortiz spoke to FARC hostages 10 years after they were rescued from captivity. Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves were held hostage for five years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). (Editor: Miguel Orihuela)

NBC 6s Nathalia Ortiz speaks to two men  Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves  10 years after they were taken hostage by the once narco terrorist group-turned political party. (Editor: Miguel Orihuela)

NBC 6s Nathalia Ortiz spoke to FARC hostages 10 years after they were rescued from captivity. Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves were held hostage for five years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). (Editor: Miguel Orihuela)
What to Know Grant Amato, 29, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his parents and brother

A Florida man killed his parents and brother after he was kicked out of his home and accused of stealing $210,000 from his family to send to a woman he had met on a porn website, according to a sheriff's office.

Grant Amato, 29, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his parents, Chad and Margaret Ann Amato, and brother Cody.

Seminole County Sheriff's Office deputies found the victims' bodies Friday in their Chuluota home after a co-worker reported that Cody Amato had not shown up for work.

Grant Amato was arrested and ordered held without bail Monday.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that according to an affidavit, Cody Amato's girlfriend told deputies Grant Amato had stolen $60,000 and guns from his brother. She said Grant Amato had recently been kicked out of a training program to become a nurse anesthetist and stole the money to talk to a Bulgarian woman he met online. She also said Cody Amato told her he was afraid Grant "would kill everyone."

Another brother, Jason Amato, told investigators Grant had stolen $150,000 from their father.

In an interview with investigators, Grant Amato said he had argued with his parents over his relationship with the woman he met through an adult website and that his parents told him he could have no contact with her if he wanted to continue living at their home.

Amato said he began a 60-day internet- and sex-addiction treatment program in Fort Lauderdale in late December at his parents' request, but he left after a few weeks.

"Grant Amato initially agreed to the rules his father had set, but he didn't think they were fair because he felt that the Bulgarian female was his girlfriend and they had a relationship," the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, in response to seeing crime-scene pictures of his parents and brother, Amato said "his family had been blaming him for months for ruining their lives ... so he might as well be blamed for this, too."

The Sentinel reported that last year, authorities responded twice to calls about Amato's behavior.

In June, Orlando police responded to AdventHealth Orlando, where he worked as a nurse, about a report of a suicidal person. Officers said Amato did not meet the criteria to be held for observation as a danger to himself or others, but he was arrested on a grand theft charge for allegedly stealing vials of Propofol, a powerful sedative.

Amato said he took the drug for patients who were not "adequately relaxed by doctor-ordered medication," according to a police report. Prosecutors opted against filing charges against him.

On Dec. 20, his mother and brother reported that Amato was missing, depressed and possibly suicidal after losing his job and failing out of school. They also told deputies Amato had access to guns.

Jail records did not show whether Amato had an attorney.
The family of a mother of seven who died after she was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood earlier this month is begging for the person responsible to come forward.

Family members of 30-year-old Shameka Cone held a news conference with Miami Police officials Wednesday as the search continues for the driver responsible for her death.

Cone and her boyfriend, Jay Cephus, were driving along Northwest 2nd Avenue near 64th Street just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 8 when they were hit by an older model Infiniti that fled the scene.

Cone was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition and later passed away. Cephus suffered broken bones but survived.

"Whoever did this, they really need to turn themselves in because she didnt deserve that. She left seven kids behind and I dont think its fair to them. Theyll never see their mother again and I will never see my daughter again. Its a hard pill to swallow," mother Tara Butts said.

Police said they're looking for a light-colored 2016 to 2019 Infiniti Q60 that has or had front end damage. Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
In Illinois, temperatures could rise by 80 degrees within days. In Michigan, melting snow and rain and a 17-mile ice jam on the Muskegon River could lead to flooding. And across the Midwest, the warmer forecast was sure to bring more broken roads and busted water mains.

The polar vortex that brought many cities to a standstill was expected to come to a swift end with a rapid thaw that experts say could be unprecedented. But the sudden swing from long johns to short sleeves could create problems of its own.

"I don't think there's ever been a case where we've seen (such a big) shift in temperatures," in the winter, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the Weather Underground firm. "Past record-cold waves have not dissipated this quickly. ... Here we are, going right into spring-like temperatures."

On Thursday, the system marched east, spreading arctic conditions over an area spanning from Buffalo to Brooklyn. In western New York, a storm that dumped up to 20 inches of snow gave way to subzero temperatures and face-stinging wind chills. In New York City, about 200 firefighters battling a blaze in a commercial building took turns getting warm on buses. The number of deaths that could be blamed on the cold climbed to at least 15.

For the nation's midsection, relief was as close as the weekend.

Rockford, Illinois, was at a record-breaking minus 31 on Thursday morning but should be around 50 on Monday. Other previously frozen areas could see temperatures 55 degrees or higher.

The dramatic warm-up will offer a respite from the bone-chilling cold that canceled schools, closed businesses and halted trains. But potholes will appear on roads and bridges weakened by the freeze-thaw cycle. The same cycle can crack water mains and homeowners' pipes. Scores of vehicles will be left with flat tires and bent rims.

Joe Buck, who manages Schmit Towing in Minneapolis and spent about 20 hours a day outdoors this week responding to stranded vehicle calls, said he's already taking calls for Monday to deal with a backlog of hundreds of stalled vehicles.

"Sunday is going to be 39 degrees ABOVE zero," said Buck, who has had 18 trucks running around the clock in wind chills that dropped to minus 50.

In Detroit, where some water mains are almost 150 years old, city workers were dealing with dozens of breaks, said Palencia Mobley, deputy director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

"We'll have all hands on deck. Hopefully, we'll be able to address as many of the issues as possible over the next week," Mobley said.

The thawing of the pipes can sometimes inflict greater damage than the initial freeze. Bursts can occur when ice inside starts to melt and water rushes through the pipe, or when water in the pipe is pushed to a closed faucet by expanding ice.

Elsewhere, a bridge in the western Michigan community of Newaygo, 40 miles north of Grand Rapids was closed as the ice-jammed Muskegon River rose above flood stage. Officials in Buffalo, New York, watched for flooding on the Upper Niagara River because of ice.

In other signs that the worst of the deep freeze was ending, Xcel Energy on Thursday lifted a request to its Minnesota natural gas customers to temporarily lower their thermostats to ease concerns about conserving gas.

Earlier in the day, several cities set new record lows. Rockford, Illinois, saw a record low temperature of minus 31, on Thursday. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, set a daily record low of minus 30 degrees.

Chicago's temperature dropped to a low of around minus 21 degrees on Thursday, slightly above the city's lowest-ever reading of minus 27 degrees in January 1985. Milwaukee's low was minus 25 degrees, and Minneapolis recorded minus 24 degrees. Wind chills were lower still.

In Michigan, efforts to conserve heat during the extreme cold reduced usage by 10 percent following a fire at a major natural gas facility, officials said. Consumers Energy, the state's largest supplier of natural gas, asked its 1.7 million customers and others to continue to set their thermostats at 65 degrees or lower until Friday morning.

"In our 130 years, we've never experienced this kind of demand or these kinds of temperatures," CEO Patti Poppe said.

Masters, from Weather Underground, said the polar vortex was "rotating up into Canada" and not expected to return in the next couple of weeks. If it does return in late February, "it won't be as intense."

Still, memories of the dangerous cold were bound to linger.

At least 144 people visited hospital emergency rooms for cold-related injuries over two days. Most of the injuries were hypothermia or frostbite, according to a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The effect on the overall economy was not expected to be that great.

"It only shows up marginally in the economic data," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, who ended up working from home because her offices in Chicago were shut because of weather.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said one reason the severe cold weather will have less impact is that, unlike a hurricane, people did not lose electric power.

"People may be in their homes, but they can do things such as online shopping," Zandi said. "Life goes on. It is a disruption to daily life, but it is not a big hit to the economy."

Associated Press Writers Martin Crutsinger in Washington; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Amy Forliti in Minneapolis; Corey Williams and Ed White in Detroit; Blake Nicholson in Bismarck, North Dakota; and Caryn Rousseau and Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this story.
Turkish flags were hung early Tuesday morning at two Armenian schools in the San Fernando Valley, prompting a police investigation.

About a dozen flags were found at Holy Martyrs Ferrahian Armenian High School at 5300 White Oak Ave. in Encino and 14 on the exterior fencing at AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in the 6844 of Oakdale Ave. in Canoga Park, according to the schools' principals.

A person in dark clothing and wearing a mask can be seen going over the perimeter fence of the Encino school in security camera video, said principal Sossi Shanlian.

The hanging of flags at Holy Martyrs were being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Underscoring the seriousness with which the case is being taken, three LAPD captains, two Los Angeles city council members, and the City Attorney joined school officials and representitives of the Armenian National Committee of America at an evening news briefing, denouncing the hanging of the flags as clearly intended to be provocative and "hateful."

Because the hanging of the flags outside the AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian campus did not involve criminal trespass, it was being investigated as a possible "hate incident," according to LAPD Officer Jeff Lee.

The school in Canoga also recorded security video, but it did not show the person as clearly as at the Encino school.

Time code on the video reveals the incidents at the schools five miles apart occurred about 90 minutes apart.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire is blamed for the deaths of more than one million Armenians a century ago during and after the First World War. The refusal of the successor nation of Turkey to recognize what has become known as the Armenia Genocide remains a source of tension.

"Hanging that flag at this school and the other school is tantamount to a threat or an attempt to intimidate," said Nora Hovsepian, chair of the Armenian National Committe of America, Western Region.

"To put a Turkish flag on an Armenian institution would equate to putting a swastika in a synagogue," said AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School Principal Arpi Avanesian.

As per its usual schedule, the Turkish Consulate of Los Angeles was closed Tuesday afternoon and no one could be reached for comment.

Tuesday night, as part of an effort to locate the perpetrator, LAPD was expected to release images from the security camera video.
A U.S. judge berated Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. on Wednesday, accusing the nation's largest utility of enriching shareholders instead of clearing trees that can fall on its power lines and start fires and making "excuses" to avoid turning off electricity when fire risk is high.

Judge William Alsup in San Francisco did not immediately order PG&E to take any of the dramatic measures he has proposed to try to stop more wildfires.

But he warned that he was not ruling out at least some new requirements on the company if it did not come up with a plan to "solve" the problem of catastrophic wildfires in California.

"To my mind, there's a very clear-cut pattern here: that PG&E is starting these fires," Alsup said. "What do we do? Does the judge just turn a blind eye and say, 'PG&E continue your business as usual. Kill more people by starting more fires.'"

Alsup is overseeing a criminal conviction against PG&E on pipeline safety charges stemming from a 2010 gas line explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.

He proposed earlier this month as part of PG&E's probation that it remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines in high-wind conditions and shut off power when fire is a risk regardless of the inconvenience to customers or loss of profit.

Alsup said his goal was to prevent PG&E equipment from causing any wildfires during the 2019 fire season.

PG&E shot back in a court filing last week that the judge's proposals would endanger lives and could cost as much as $150 billion to implement.

Kevin Orsini, an attorney for the company, said PG&E shared the judge's concerns about wildfire and was working to reduce risk. But there weren't enough qualified tree trimmers, and shutting off power would have "repercussions that affect the community," he said.

Power cutoffs impact first responders, critical medical care and phone service and are potentially fatal, the utility said in its court filing.

"PG&E is facing a fundamental problem. The state is facing a fundamental problem," Orsini said.

PG&E announced last year that it would cut off power preemptively when fire danger was high and did so for the first time in October for about 60,000 customers in Northern California. The move prompted complaints and demands for reimbursement from some customers.

Attorneys for wildfire victims, California regulators and the U.S. Department of Justice also spoke at Wednesday's hearing.

Alsup was also critical of the California Public Utilities Commission, accusing it of working slowly and using former PG&E employees. The judge later apologized for those comments but still questioned how so many fires broke out under the CPUC's watch.

Later, CPUC President Michael Picker told lawmakers it would take between 15,000 and 20,000 new workers to "police" every utility pole and wire, adding "that's just not going to work."

Regulators are looking at deploying drones to monitor equipment, Picker said. At the Legislature's direction, the CPUC is now requiring utilities to submit wildfire mitigation plans, and the CPUC wants to contract for about 100 new workers to help monitor utility safety.

It's also conducting a review of PG&E's safety culture that could result in replacing the utility's entire board, breaking up its electric and gas division or other major changes. That review could take a year. Regulators have learned that fines are not an effective way to make change at PG&E, Picker said.

Some lawmakers mirrored Alsup's frustrations that regulators work too slowly.

"What assurance can I give my constituents that things are going to be safer this year?" Democratic Assemblyman Jim Wood, who represents Santa Rosa, which was hit by a devastating 2017 wildfire, said in a pointed exchange.

Picker said addressing California's wildfires is a huge challenge driven by climate change that will require multiple solutions.

"I don't think that we are prepared in any way here in the state of California for the enormity of what we're seeing," he said.

PG&E's return to a U.S. courtroom came a day after it declared bankruptcy in the face of billions of dollars in potential liability from wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018. PG&E in that case is seeking another judge's approval to obtain up to $5.5 billion in financing and pay $130 million in bonuses to thousands of employees.

Alsup only briefly mentioned the bankruptcy case during Wednesday's hearing. Filing for bankruptcy generally does not put criminal proceedings on hold, so PG&E's Chapter 11 reorganization may not allow it to avoid any orders issued by Alsup.

The judge found separately that PG&E violated its probation for failing to notify probation officials that a prosecutor's office had opened a full investigation into the utility's role in a 2017 California wildfire. Alsup said he would set a sentencing date later.

Kate Dyer, another attorney for PG&E, said the company had communicated with probation officials and didn't hear until recently that it had not met their expectations.

Alsup said he would wait to see a wildfire mitigation plan PG&E was scheduled to submit to the CPUC on Feb. 6 before deciding what, if any, additional requirements to order.

PG&E is facing hundreds of lawsuits from victims of wildfires in 2017 and 2018, including the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century.

That blaze in November killed at least 86 people and destroyed 15,000 homes in and around the Northern California town of Paradise. The cause is still under investigation, but suspicion fell on PG&E after it reported power line problems nearby around the time the fire broke out.

Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne contributed from Sacramento, Calif.
Maryland-based Lockheed Martin is celebrating in Fort Worth Wednesday the first operational F-35 Lightning II being built for the Netherlands.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force placed an order for 37 F-35A's -- the first two were delivered in 2013 and are at Edwards Air Force Base in California as part of operational testing. This particular F-35 is off to Arizona in February for training exercises at Luke Air Force Base.

In attendance at the ceremony Wednesday in Fort Worth were Lt. Gen. Dennis Luyt, Commander, Royal Netherlands Air Force; Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin F-35 program vice president and general manager and various Dutch and U.S. government officials.

NBC 5 News

The F-35 Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter jet that combines advanced stealth with speed and agility with a host of modern advances like network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment.

According to Lockheed Martin, three distinct variants of the F-35 will be replacing fighters for 13 nations.
What to Know Stone arrived in court to a small crowd of supporters and protesters, including some yelling, "Lock him up"

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser and confidant of President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony charges in the Russia investigation after a publicity-filled few days spent slamming the probe as politically motivated.

The political operative and self-described dirty trickster faces charges that he lied to lawmakers, engaged in witness tampering and obstructed a congressional investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

He was uncharacteristically quiet during Tuesday's brief court appearance, rising to his feet to say, "Yes, Your Honor," as U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson asked if he would agree to the conditions of his release, including restricted travel.

Stone attorney Robert Buschel entered the plea on his client's behalf.

The voluble Stone, 66, held no press conference as he arrived and departed the courthouse amid dueling chants of "Lock Him Up" and "We Love Roger." He waved and smiled to the small crowd, some holding up glowing photos of him, and he largely ignored a group of protesters carrying signs reading "Dirty traitor." The Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R." blared from speakers outside the courthouse.

Although large crowds surrounded him as he was driven away in a black SUV, Stone was more subdued than during the circus-like atmosphere of his Friday court appearance, when he emerged in a blue polo shirt, flashed a Richard Nixon victory sign, predicted his vindication and vowed that he would not "bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself."

Stone, who was arrested last week at his Florida home, is the sixth Trump aide charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

The indictment does not accuse Stone of coordinating with Russia or with WikiLeaks on the release of hacked Democratic emails. But it does allege that he misled lawmakers about his pursuit of those communications and interest in them. The anti-secrecy website published emails in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election that the U.S. says were stolen from Democrats by Russian operatives.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Monday that the investigation is "close to being completed," although an exact timetable is unclear.

Mueller continues to be interested in hearing from Stone aide Andrew Miller, who is fighting a grand jury subpoena, indicating the special counsel could be pursuing additional criminal charges against Stone or others related to the release of hacked material during the 2016 election by WikiLeaks, its founder, Julian Assange, and the online persona Guccifer 2.0.

Paul Kamenar, Miller's attorney, said Mueller's team notified him of their continued interest late Monday. Miller defied the grand jury subpoena last summer and took his challenge of Mueller's authority to a federal appeals court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has yet to rule in the case.

Mueller's team and lawyers with the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia are jointly prosecuting the case against Stone. They did not push for Stone to be jailed or for Robinson to impose a gag order in the case.

He remains free on $250,000 bond.

Stone, who has alleged without evidence that the FBI used "Gestapo tactics" in arresting him, has said he did nothing more than exercise his First Amendment rights to drum up interest with voters about the WikiLeaks disclosures. He has also denied discussing the issue with Trump.

"That's what I engaged in. It's called politics and they haven't criminalized it, at least not yet," Stone said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"All I did was take publicly available information and try to hype it to get it as much attention as possible, because I had a tip, the information was politically significant and that it would come in October," he added.
A local high school is bringing a piece of Broadway to North Texas... literally. Theater students at The Colony High School now have the entire set from the Broadway production of Bonnie and Clyde. A Dallas connection and a warehouse auction helped make it happen.

Building a set takes a lot of work and time, said Fox Elrod, a senior The Colony High School. And you have to be super dedicated in doing it."

Dedicated is one word which describes theater kids at the school perfectly. They are spending the last few days of January rehearsing for a major production which runs in February. Bonnie and Clyde  the Broadway musical, rooted in Texas.

They met in west Dallas, said theater director Ronda Craig, of the outlaw couple of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose story of crime and murder in the 1930s has been told in cinema and on stage. Everyone seems to have a connection."

A musical adaption of that story had a Broadway run in 2011. Dallas Summer Musicals helped produce it. Last fall, the outfit announced it was auctioning off the original set from the Broadway show, which had been in storage at a Dallas warehouse. That auction caught the attention of Dwayne Craig, who with his wife, Ronda, directs The Colony High School theater program. For the price of $10,000, they placed the winning bid.

So what The Colony is getting, is about 90 percent of a Broadway show here, he said.

That includes most of the stage setup, all of the props  including three cars, as well as the entire wardrobe. Craig says building such a set would cost even more.

For theater kids like us, that's a big deal, said Brinkley Oropeza, one of two students to play the lead role of Bonnie.

As a person that's not on Broadway, who's a high school student who does high school theater, you'd never dream that one day, I'll be in that guy's clothes or that girl's costumes, said Elrod, who stars in the role of Clyde Barrow.

The fact that all of this is here and we get to use it, it's magical, said Ella Huestis, the other actress playing the female star. The lights of Broadway  shining on a stage in North Texas.

It's crazy, said Oropeza of the opportunity. That's where we want to be. The fact that we can bring a little Broadway here to our home, it's awesome."

Bonnie and Clyde" runs February 7-11 at The Theatre at The Colony.
The heirs of a Jewish collector say a painting from a Texas museum on loan in Germany was stolen from their family by the Nazis, and have filed a complaint asking for its return, a German newspaper reported Wednesday.

German daily Bild reported the unidentified heirs are claiming ownership of Henri-Edmond Cross' "Regatta in Venice" from 1903/04, which is currently on show at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin.

The painting is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, who told NBC 5 Wednesday they take, "very seriously all questions of rightful ownership. We have initiated a review of the matter; aspects of research to date contradict a number of the plaintiffs assertions."

The painting originally belonged to Jewish-French collector Gaston Levy, but was confiscated by the Nazis in 1940, said Christoph Partsch, a lawyer for the family.

"My clients found out only now about the existence of this long-missing painting and they demand its return," Partsch told The Associated Press.

The lawyer said the family lives in Europe, but didn't want to further identify them.

The Potsdam state court has given the Barberini Museum a deadline of next week to respond to their demand, Partsch said.

The court had no immediate comment, but the Barberini Museum confirmed the court's involvement and said it was in touch with the Houston museum. It said both "see the clarification of the legitimate owner as an urgent obligation."

After the war, the painting surfaced in the United States where in 1958 it was donated to the Houston museum, the Barberini museum said.

"The question of provenance is especially important because Cross is an artist whose work has been forgotten in Germany due to confiscations by the Nazis from German collections as well," the museum said in a statement.

The impressionist work is painted with oil on canvas in the pointillism style and shows several gondolas on the water and the city line of Venice in the background.
The Democratic-controlled House on Wednesday approved a pay raise for civilian federal employees, a step that lawmakers said shows respect for a workforce that just endured a 35-day partial government shutdown.

The 2.6 percent raise matches the raise given to the military last year and would override a pay freeze imposed by President Donald Trump. The measure, passed by a 259-161 vote, goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., whose district includes more than 55,000 federal workers, said government employees "have dedicated their lives and careers" to public service, "yet far too often their sacrifice and dedication go unappreciated."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who represents more than 60,000 federal workers, said the shutdown over Trump's demand for a border wall with Mexico was just "the latest in the long list of attacks on our hardworking federal civilian workforce."

A Senate committee last year approved a 1.9 percent raise for civilian employees, but it was derailed amid the standoff over the border wall.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the proposed pay raise was "not good policy" because "it rewards the bad along with the good" by giving all workers a raise regardless of performance reviews.

Meadows and other Republicans also took issue with how quickly the plan passed the House. It was introduced last week and was not subject to a committee vote.

"All of a sudden what we have here is a rush to try to send a message that Republicans are awful to federal workers, and Democrats are not," Meadows said.

But Democrats said the bill could not move forward until the government shutdown ended last Friday. More than 800,000 federal workers missed paychecks during the five-week shutdown, including 400,000-plus deemed essential and forced to work without pay.

The pay raise is "not only deserved, but it's also symbolically important," Connolly said. He said it crucial that Congress "make a statement to the civilian workforce that it is respected, that their work does have dignity and we recognize that."

Twenty-nine Republicans joined 230 Democrats in supporting the bill. No Democrat opposed it.

The House rejected a Republican proposal that would have prevented federal employees who have been disciplined for sexual misconduct from receiving the pay increase. Democrats also turned aside a GOP amendment blocking raises for federal employees who owe back taxes.

"Today Democrats sent a clear message: federal bureaucrats, including those with delinquent tax debt or disciplined for sexual misconduct, deserve the same pay raise as those risking their lives to protect our country" in the military, said Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican.
Connecticut drivers are gearing up for another blast of freezing cold.

Extreme cold can cripple a vehicle, leaving you stranded on the side of the road.

At the AAA Car Care Center in Southington mechanics were busy Wednesday making sure cars can weather the single-digit and subzero temperatures expected.

The main thing is probably batteries. Cars not starting and getting stuck on the side of the road, explained mechanic Jaek Staron.

During the cold snap last week when temperatures were in the teens and single digits, AAA of Greater Hartford got more than 5,000 calls for help. About half of those calls were for dead batteries and many of them required a tow.

Generally batteries last about three to five years, but with the cold weather and extreme conditions weve seen batteries as old as six months have a bad cell in them and cause the car not to start, Staron said. AAA says at zero degrees, a cars battery loses about 60 percent of its strength. Battery life can also be drained faster if you have devices like cell phone chargers or GPS plugged into your car.

Staron also suggested checking tire pressure and adding air as needed because of slippery conditions. Tires tend to lose air when air temperatures are cold.

Experts advise drivers to keep emergency items in the car in case of a breakdown. Your kit should include items like a shovel, ice scraper, flares or reflectors to make sure youre seen in the dark, sand or kitty litter for traction, warm clothes and blankets, and snacks in case youre stuck for a long time.
Two more sentences have been handed down in a patient abuse case at Connecticut's maximum security mental hospital.

It comes exactly two weeks after the first employee charged got prison time in a plea agreement.

The employees from the Whiting Forensic Division in Middletown are among 10 arrested in connection with repeated kicking, poking, and other abuse of Bill Shehadi, a patient in his 50s.

It was all caught on camera in the winter of 2017.

Carl Benjamin got seven years in prison, suspended after six months, in his no contest plea agreement on a pair of charges of intentional cruelty to persons. He did not address the court.

Willie Bethea received a two-year sentence, suspended after four months, for his no contest plea on the same charge.

Bethea spoke about his involvement, My actions were silly, they were juvenile, but at no time did I ever try to hurt Mr. Shehadi.

The victims brother, Al Shehadi, also spoke, My brother is a sick man and he's not easy to deal with, that is a fact, but that fact is irrelevant in the context of the charges before us today, the videos are clear that my brother did nothing to instigate the abuse he received.

All told, the state put 37 people at Whiting on administrative leave in the Shehadi abuse case, and 35 no longer work for Whiting.

Of those, 26 were dismissed or terminated, four resigned and five retired.

Of the 10 employees charged in the case, seven are still in the process of either making a plea agreement, or taking their case to trial.
A man wanted by the FBI in connection with the alleged theft of cash from an armored car in Louisville, Kentucky has been captured in Connecticut, according to the FBI in Louisville.

Wethersfield police arrested him, according to WAVE News in Louisville, Kentucky.

FBI Louisville and @LMPD are excited to announce the capture of Mark Espinosa. Espinosa was arrested on a federal warrant near Hartford, Connecticut for his role in the Garda armored car theft. Thank you and great work @WethersfieldPD pic.twitter.com/ckRt4vYLVe  FBI Louisville (@FBILouisville) January 30, 2019

The FBI had been searching for Mark Espinosa, a 29-year-old man with ties to New Britain, since December.

In a joint press conference with @LMPD, FBI Louisville announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Mark Espinosa for his role in the Garda armored car theft. #FBIMostWanted pic.twitter.com/Y7A9NLMy2I  FBI Louisville (@FBILouisville) January 9, 2019

The FBI Wanted poster for Espinosa said he was working as an armored truck driver near Jefferson Mall in Louisville, Kentucky on Dec. 5 and he and money from the truck owned by Garda World disappeared.

Police have not commented on how much cash was missing because it is part of the investigation and said just that a large amount of U.S. currency is missing.

The FBI affidavit says "hundreds of thousands of dollars" were missing from the truck, according to the Associated Press.

An Associated Press report from Dec. 5 says a Garda employee went inside the mall to make deliveries and pickups and returned to find that Espinosa and the cash were gone. Police said a truck usually has two employees.

During a prior news conference, police said they ruled out a random act of violence and believe that Espinosa took steps to plan out the theft and cover up the planning.

Its not clear what Espinosas connection to New Britain is, but police said he has ties to the Northeast and family members on the West Coast, in Texas and in Florida.

No additional information was immediately available about the arrest.

According to the FBI, a federal arrest warrant was issued on Dec. 10 after Espinosa was charged with theft from interstate shipment.

Garda offered a reward up to $50,000 for the recovery of stolen funds and the arrest and conviction of those responsible, officials said during a news conference, and the FBI was offering up to $10,000 for the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
Over the course of about 24 hours, the backlash over legislation that would cut back on what craft breweries would be allowed to do in Connecticut led to it being shelved. A second, similar measure, remains as a possibility in the General Assembly.

Ive asked that we hold off on the bill. In our world, we kill it, and really sit down and talk about ways we create an even playing field for those package stores that may not feel like theyre a part of the evolution of the beer industry, said Rep. Brandon McGee, (D  Hartford), who sponsored one of the bills.

McGees proposal was aimed at barring breweries from selling beer if they also distribute it for purchase elsewhere. The bill even lays out that the purpose is to, "eliminate the ability of breweries to sell beer in competition with restaurants."

McGee, who also announced his bid to run for mayor of his hometown, the City of Hartford, earlier in the week, said he did not expect the backlash over social media and to his office over the bill, and says he plans to discuss the matter before moving anything forward.

"Man, I didnt realize how organized the beer community is, but the good thing about our democratic process is that we as legislators, we listen, and Im hearing from all of them," he said.

Curt Cameron, who has owned Thomas Hooker Brewery in Bloomfield since 2006, was one of the earliest crafter breweries in Connecticut to distribute his beer to local restaurants and for retail sale. Cameron also has a tasting room in Hartford where some beer is also brewed.

He says McGees measure, and another sponsored by Hartford Senator Douglas McCrory, would lead him to a difficult decision.

"It means I have to choose between my fantastic wholesale and retail partnerships, and I have to choose between them and closing my tasting room in Bloomfield, which would mean no more non-profit fundraisers and events and no more consumers coming in to taste beer, and in our Hartford location, completely shut it down," Cameron said.

McCrory actually represents the part of Bloomfield where Thomas Hooker is located, and he never reached out to Cameron for his opinion on his legislation.

McCrorys proposal, which he says he has no plans on shelving, would require breweries to, "choose between off-premise or on-premise sale and consumption."

What makes craft breweries so popular is that guests can enjoy their beer in the same place where it was brewed. The Brewer Association, a national trade group that works on behalf of independent breweries, counts 84 craft breweries in Connecticut.

McCrory, a Democrat, says he is concerned for the impact that crafter breweries have had on smaller package stores.

He says the industry has grown at a speed faster than regulations could keep up.

"Its getting out of hand and we need to get back to the initial purpose and thats what the original purpose of the bill was for and for the people it supports," McCrory.

"Since the market has changed, the policy has to change, the rules (have) to change and they should be in place so we can have a level playing field for everybody thats in play," he said.

Cameron says the craft brewing community is open to discussions on changes to their business, but wants to be included in those conversations, especially when its his own senator proposing an idea.

"I think it was a little unfortunate that my state senator for both Bloomfield and Hartford was the one who really put in this legislation without talking to us and I hope this was just an oversight and we can start a dialogue," Cameron said.

McCrory says if there is any fallout, its only going to be positive, and says he and his proposal would not be responsible for putting any small business out of business.

"No, Im going to be the guy who expands craft breweries in Connecticut so that all of them can open and work in a fair capacity," he said.
A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures on Wednesday, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and the canceling of more than 1,800 flights from Chicago's airports.

The U.S. Postal Service even took the rare step of suspending mail delivery across much of the region. Hundreds of public schools and universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes as residents huddled inside amid one of the coldest air masses in years.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to drop much farther south than normal.

In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees (negative 28 Celsius), breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966, though wind chills in northern Illinois made it feel as cold as negative 57 degrees (negative 49.4 Celsius). The city was colder than places like Siberia, the South Pole and Mount Everest.

"Just brutal," NBC 5 meteorologist Andy Avalos said from Chicago.

Snowplows were idled overnight in southeastern Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to negative 29 degrees (negative 34 Celsius). And the temperature in Fargo, North Dakota, was 31 degrees below zero (negative 35 Celsius).

The National Weather Service warned that a wind chill of minus 25 (negative 32 Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

More than 1,500 of Wednesday's canceled flights in Chicago were at O'Hare International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports. United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart said "everything tends to slow down" during severely cold weather, including manpower, fueling and equipment. Calling the temperatures "dangerous," Hobart said United was bringing in extra workers and providing heated tents for employees.

All Amtrak trains going to and from the city were also canceled on Wednesday. Major Chicago attractions including the Lincoln Park Zoo, Art Institute and Field Museum weren't opening.

A popular saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat ..." will stop the mail from being delivered, but extreme cold did so Wednesday. The U.S. Postal Service has suspended mail delivery in parts or all of several Midwest states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming "overloaded," Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

"People don't want to be out there right now," said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

At least six deaths have been linked so far to the weather system, including two people in the Detroit area, according to local police. Other deaths included a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana, and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

Hawaii native Charles Henry, 54, was staying at a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota, and said he was grateful to have a place to stay out of the cold.

"That wind chill out there is not even a joke," he said. "I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside."

Chicago turned five buses into makeshift warming centers moving around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold.

"We're bringing the warming shelters to them, so they can stay near all of their stuff and still warm up," said Cristina Villarreal, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Family and Support Services.

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that "you're going to freeze or lose a limb," said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. The extreme cold was "a scary situation," because much of the housing is of poor quality, said Chris Fairbanks, energy assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

But it wasn't stopping one of America's most formidable endurance tests: the three-day Arrowhead 135 was going on as scheduled in northeastern Minnesota. Competitors can cover the race route by bicycle, cross-country skis or just running.

___

Associated Press reporters Caryn Rousseau and Don Babwin in Chicago; Corey Williams, David Runk and Mike Householder in Detroit; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; and Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein also contributed.
Warning: Graphic details could be offensive or disturbing to some readers.

The mother of a baby whose lifeless body was found in an infant swing wearing a maggot-infested diaper is standing trial in his death.

Court records say 21-year-old Cheyanne Harris has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. The trial was moved to Le Mars in Plymouth County from Chickasaw County because of publicity.

Prosecutors are expected to begin their case Wednesday.

Medics called to an Alta Vista apartment in August 2017 found 4-month-old Sterling Koehn dead in a swing in a dark, sweltering bedroom. An autopsy shows he died of malnutrition, dehydration and an E. coli infection caused by being left in the maggot-infested diaper for up to two weeks.

The boy's father, Zachary Koehn, already has been sentenced to life in prison.

"He died of diaper rash. That's right, diaper rash," Assistant Iowa Attorney General Coleman McAllister said in December during that trial.

In the opening statements of Koehn's trial, his attorney said the baby's death was a tragedy, but not a crime.

McAllister denied the defense's claims, saying Koehn was an experienced parent. He noted that Koehn's 2-year-old daughter was also in the apartment and was healthy, and that Koehn had money to buy food and baby supplies. He stated Koehn was a drug user.

Nurse and county rescue squad EMT Toni Friedrich testified that she was the first to arrive at the apartment after Koehn called 911 to report the baby had died. Friedrich said Koehn showed no emotion when he led her to the dark, hot bedroom where the baby's body was.

The baby's "eyes were open, and it was a blank stare," she said.

Friedrich said when she touched the baby's chest, his clothing was crusty. When she moved his blanket, gnats flew up, she said.
More than 50 Illinois State Troopers packed a Skokie courtroom Tuesday for the bond hearing of 61-year-old Scott Larson--the Wisconsin man who has been charged with the death of trooper Christopher Lambert.

"We are always going to have a footprint in this courtroom while this case is on going we are doing it for the support of the family," Major David Byrd said.

On Jan. 12, prosecutors say Lambert had been heading home when he spotted an accident on a snowy I-294 in Northbrook. Prosecutors say trooper Lambert, who was in uniform, turned on his emergency lights, positioned his cruiser in the left lane and then stepped out of his vehicle.

"Hes in the shoulder lane and hes attempting to obtain from the vehicles that had been involved in the collision," Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Andreana Turano said.

Prosecutors say Larson had been speeding in the left lane as he approached the accident scene and then suddenly changed lanes.

"He moves into the shoulder and drives in between the shoulder and that first left lane when he strikes Trooper Lambert causing his body to fly into the air," Turano said.

Larsons attorney called what happened a tragedy and says his client has been a lifelong resident of Kenosha and works as a Certified Public Accountant and financial planner.

Five years before this latest accident, prosecutors say Larson had been convicted in Wisconsin for driving the wrong way while intoxicated.

Larson has been charged with reckless homicide of a police officer along with two counts of reckless homicide under Scott's Law which requires drivers to move over and slow down for stopped emergency vehicles.

If you can move over you should move over, its for your safety and its definitely for ours," Byrd said.

Larson could spend nearly 15 years in prison on the Scott's Law charge, he will be back in court at the end of next month.
What to Know Retired state trooper Daren DeJong has pleaded guilty in connection to the ongoing overtime abuse scandal at the Massachusetts State Police.

Authorities said DeJong earned $200,416 in 2016, which included an estimated $68,000 in overtime pay.

Eight other troopers were arrested and charged with embezzlement in similar cases. Seven troopers have pleaded guilty or agreed to do so.

A retired state trooper has pleaded guilty in connection to the ongoing overtime abuse scandal at the Massachusetts State Police.

Daren DeJong, 57, of Uxbridge, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to one count of embezzlement from an agency receiving federal funds.

DeJong, who was a trooper assigned to Troop E, which is responsible for enforcing criminal law and traffic regulations along the Massachusetts Turnpike, is accused of receiving overtime pay for hours he did not work.

Authorities said DeJong earned $200,416 in 2016, which included an estimated $68,000 in overtime pay. He is accused of receiving $14,062 for shifts he did not work or left early for.

DeJong was arrested in July 2017.

Eight other state troopers have been charged in the ongoing investigation, seven of whom have pleaded guilty or have agreed to do so.

DeJong is scheduled to be sentenced May 1. He could face up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.
A yellow Labrador retriever named Liberty is currently in training to become an integral part of the Concord, New Hampshire Police force.

Liberty is going through "comfort dog" training at Hero Pups in Exeter and when she graduates, will be the first certified comfort dog used by a police department in the state.

On Tuesday, state lawmakers got a special visit from Liberty as they considered a bill that would make it legal for Liberty to sit with victims, especially children when they take the witness stand in a courtroom.

"Her main mission really is to help people who have been victims of violent crimes," said Concord Police Lt. John Thomas.

Advocates for the bill included Rep. Skip Berrien who is a retired pediatrician.

"This animal can mitigate the child's stress allowing the child to provide more accurate and credible testimony," Berrien told the committee.

Thomas says when appropriate, Liberty will accompany officers to crime scenes, or even car crashes, though her job will be far different than that of a police patrol dog.

"You have the dog that;s working, that's really trying to do real police work, sniff out drugs and find the bad guys, where Liberty, she's just going to lick you to death," Thomas explained.

Rep. Anita Burroughs who used to have a therapy dog spoke to the committee in support of HB 513, appropriately named, "Liberty's Bill."

"People who've never had a dog don't understand the full powers of a dog," Burroughs told NBC10 Boston. "I'm prejudiced, I think they're magical."

Liberty will also play an important role back at the police station  providing comfort even for officers who didn't know they needed it.

"Some of our big tough husky guys, when they first saw this dog they melted," Thomas said. "They never realized how powerful that the dog could be for them."

Liberty's handlers say she's the perfect dog to be helping trauma victims  because she experienced trauma of her own.

Last summer, when she was just nine weeks old, she was rescued from severe flooding in Pennsylvania and brought up to Hero Pups in New Hampshire.

Opponents of Liberty's Bill say they're concerned the dog could snap at someone in a courtroom.

Regardless of how lawmakers vote on the bill, Liberty will join the Concord Police Department as soon as she graduates her comfort dog training in May.
San Francisco lawmakers avoided having to bend the city's sanctuary city policy after federal authorities backed off their demands for the law to be relaxed if they wanted help extraditing a rape suspect from Canada.

Mohamed Ben Azaza, 39, was arraigned Wednesday in San Francisco on charges including rape by use of drugs, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious person. He pleaded not guilty.

Homeland Security officials said last week that they would not extradite Azaza unless San Francisco relaxed its sanctuary city policy, which limits communication between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials.

Azaza, who is from Tunisia, was sought on suspicion of raping an unconscious woman he drove from Daly City to San Francisco in 2017 while working as a rideshare driver.

San Francisco's sanctuary city exemption applies only to people who have convictions. Azaza has no violent felony convictions. His attorney, Robert Beles, provided The Associated Press a copy of Azaza's valid green card, which allowed him to live and work in the United States at the time of the alleged rape.

The district attorney's office had sought approval from the Board of Supervisors to communicate with federal immigration officials if Azaza posted bail, was acquitted or if the district attorney couldn't find probable cause to continue the prosecution, as requested by Homeland Security.

But at a meeting Tuesday, Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee told colleagues that the district attorney's office "confirmed that this ordinance is no longer needed and asked us to table the item," the San Francisco Chronicle reported .

Beles said his client was on his way to San Francisco to face the charges when he was detained in July in Montreal, where he remained in jail until his extradition.

"He was not fighting extradition. He got caught in a political crossfire and was stuck in a Canadian jail for months," Beles told the AP.

"We're looking into see if we can make a motion to either release Mohamed or somehow dismiss the case because his return to the U.S. was inhibited by the federal government," he added.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Critics had argued that the Trump administration was trying to weaken sanctuary laws that advocates say are designed to make people living in the country illegally more likely to cooperate with local police without fear of deportation.

They said carving out an exception  even just for the single case  would be a bad precedent.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen had called the legislation only a "technical clarification" and not an exception when she and two colleagues on the rules committee voted for the proposal last week and sent it to the full board.

But on Tuesday, Ronen said she would push back against future federal demands.

"We will not play games with you, Mr. Trump, any more. And do not bring these ordinances to us any more, D.A.," Ronen said. "I will refuse to consider a resolution like this ever again."
California drivers pay some of the highest gas prices in the country much of that is a federal, state and local tax, but 20 cents per gallon remains a mystery and drivers are starting to ask where that money is going.

A professor at UC Berkeley discovered that amount adds up to more than $18 billion and legislators are now asking the attorney general to disclose where that money is being used for.

"It amounts to three to five billion dollars a year that Californians are paying for gasoline above what we would normally expect to pay," said Severin Borenstein from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

In 2014 Borenstein joined a committee that was responsible for investigating why gasoline prices in California were so much higher than the rest of the country.

Borenstein realized prices increased after an explosion at a refinery in Southern California and realized prices never came back down.

"We have some problem, its a lot of money, and I think the state should, and Im glad they are now, addressing it," Borenstein said.

A group of 19 legislators including several from the Bay Area have written a letter to Californias Attorney General asking the Department of Justice to look into where the money is going.

"We got bills to pay. That 20 cents adds up," driver Colin Trang said.

Gas prices are typically cheaper at unbranded stations like Rotten Robbies or Safeway and the difference between name brands and unbranded station is bigger in California compared to other states, Borenstein said.

"Theres no reason why in California, that we should be paying more for gas than other states," said driver Dion Byrd.
A popular San Francisco Italian deli and grocer that's been in business for more than nine decades is closing up shop for good this spring.

Lucca Ravioli at the corner of Valencia and 22nd streets in the city's Mission district is set to close April 20, according to Eater San Francisco.

The family-owned shop known for its pastas was established in 1925. The owner is selling the building and surrounding property to a developer, which plans to build a five-story development at the site, according to SocketSite.

Lucca is best known for its pastas, which passersby can watch employees make though a window from the street, Eater SF said. The store also sells Italian meats, sandwiches, wines, and cheeses.
A federal judge in Los Angeles on Wednesday dismissed the state attorney general's move to block Santa Clara County from purchasing two local hospitals after their owner declared bankruptcy.

Verity Health System, which owns O'Connor Hospital in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, declared bankruptcy on Aug. 31, 2018, and began the sale process.

The Los Angeles court approved Santa Clara County's $235 million bid to purchase both hospitals, making it the only bidder, but Attorney General Xavier Becerra ordered a stay on the purchase Jan. 9.

Becerra said the county had not met the conditions to maintain the hospital -- the same conditions imposed by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris when Verity purchased the hospitals from the Daughters of Charity Health System in 2015.

Those conditions include maintaining general acute care and 24-hour emergency facilities.

"The Attorney General is entrusted with the responsibility under the state constitution and statute to protect the health and safety of patients and the community served by hospitals," Becerra's office said in a statement.

Bankruptcy Judge Ernest Robles issued a tentative ruling saying the attorney general's stay order, if it had been approved, would have led to the collapse of the sale agreement. The court stood by the tentative ruling on Wednesday, according to Verity Health attorney Samuel Maizel.

Robles questioned Becerra's authority over reviewing the sale agreement, and said the hospital and Santa Clara County had already put significant resources into transferring the hospital's ownership.

"If the sale collapses, all of that work will have been wasted," the tentative ruling says. "Closure of the Hospitals, even if it were temporary, would severely harm the public interest."

The county and local residents held a news conference last week pushing back on Becerra's move, saying hospital closures would remove 451 beds for patients and further aggravate a shortage in the county.

They said the hospitals would continue abiding by some conditions, such as the general acute care and 24-hour emergency services, but many others were not feasible for a public hospital.

County officials said today it is awaiting the attorney general's next move, as Becerra's office prepares to file an appeal to the dismissed stay order.

"Our message in court has been clear and simple. We take our responsibility to protect the health and safety of California patients and the Santa Clara community seriously," Becerra said in a statement.
The number of vacant storefronts in Los Gatos is on the rise, and business owners say it's the result of skyrocketing rents.

J Crew is one of at least seven vacant businesses downtown. Gymboree, Los Gatos Bar and Grill and Opa are among others that have closed their doors for good.

Opa, a Greek chain restaurant, shut down its Los Gatos location last week after it couldn't negotiate a rent that would allow it to stay.

The Chamber of Commerce admits it's concerning but said it's working on a plan to lure more businesses.

"When we lose these businesses, we feel part of our community is leaving," resident Lisa Harris said.

J Crew told the Los Gatos chamber that its corporate headquarters wanted to focus on its other South Bay stores. Gymboree, a children's clothing store, filed for bankruptcy.

The chamber said the closures are raising red flags, and it's working on forming a business improvement district, which would tax property owners to fund improvements downtown.

"It's them infusing money back into the downtown they own," said Catherine Somers, the chamber's executive director.

The business improvement district money could be used for everything from lights and flowers to bringing more music and art installations downtown, with the hope that those additions will attract more businesses.
An 18-month-old toddler was reunited with her mother at the San Francisco International Airport Tuesday night after she was separated from her father at the U.S. and Mexico international border about a month ago.

Sindy Flores, 23, and her partner Kevin Ventura-Corrales left Honduras months ago and arrived at the California border in Calexico in late December. Kevin was caring for their daughter Gretchen Juliet when he was detained due to prior deportation.

The toddler was placed in the custody of federal agents and was taken to a shelter for migrant children in Texas while Flores stayed in the U.S. while her asylum request processed.

She said that at times didnt know where her daughter was.

"I was devastated, not knowing what to do," Flores said. "Impotent knowing she was somewhere else and not with me."

The mother said she could tell her daughter is not the same as when she last saw her and is concerned about what happened to her over the last month.

"Not only is she old enough to be affected," said UC San Francisco psychologist Chandra Ghosh Ippen. "She's more likely to be affected than an older child because her parents are her world, they're everything she knows."

Flores has two other children, ages 9 and 7, who came across the border with her and all three are staying with family in San Francisco.

She hopes for asylum while Ventura-Corrales continues fighting deportation.
The head of Californias public education system, Tony Thurmond, tells the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit he hopes to sponsor new legislation in the coming days that would require additional training on LGBTQ issues for all middle and high school teachers throughout the state.

We are going to start raising awareness now, Thurmond said. We will go up and down this state talking about the importance of the bill, but more importantly the importance of supporting our students.

If passed, the reforms could go into effect as early as next school year.

NBC Bay Area

'A Bill of This Kind Has Never Been Implemented Before'

Thurmond first pushed the reform effort last year, as a state assemblyman, following an NBC Bay Area investigation that exposed a serious lack of teacher training that may be leaving educators unprepared for the growing number of transgender students.

A bill of this kind has never been implemented before, Thurmond said during a September interview with the Investigative Unit, shortly after the Legislature passed his legislation.

Theres nothing about this bill that in any way should infringe upon parental rights. All it does is it acknowledges that sometimes things come up in the school environment and we have to have a way to address it for the safety of our children.

Despite approval from the Legislature, then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the plan.

If local schools find that more training or resources on this topic is needed, they have the flexibility to use their resources as they see best, Brown wrote in a statement.

Thurmond, who was sworn in as Superintendent of Public Education earlier this month, said he has yet to discuss the reform plan with Gov. Gavin Newsom but is confident Californias newest governor will not share the same opposition to the bill as Brown.

[[503632152, C]]

Teacher Training on Gender Issues Varies Widely

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit spent the past two years obtaining records and reviewing policies from the 20 largest school districts across the Bay Area, which enroll nearly half a million students. According to the findings, even when gender education is offered to teachers, training varies widely. Courses for educators range from just 19 minutes to 16 hours, according to data collected and analyzed by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit.

Two years ago, an NBC Bay Area investigation revealed that five of the largest school districts in the Bay Area, home to more than 105,302 students, did not offer any teacher training at all. After that initial investigation aired, however, three school districts  East Side Union, Napa Valley Unified, and Livermore Valley Joint Unified  changed their policies to begin training educators. San Jose Unified and Vallejo City Unified still do not offer any gender training to teachers.

To learn more about what types of training are offered at schools in your area, use the interactive chart, below.

Educators Enact Major Changes, Credit NBC Bay Area Investigation

Following the series of NBC Bay Area reports, several Bay Area school districts have taken steps to implement new teacher training programs. This year, 61 schools added new training courses to help educators better navigate gender issues in the classroom. The schools, which enroll nearly 60,000 students, were the subject of a previous NBC Bay Area investigation, which revealed a wide disparity in the level and frequency of gender training at schools across the Bay Area.

Theres lots of communities and lots of communities who have [blinders on] -- we dont want to see it. And we are not that community, we are not that district," said Chris Van Schaak, assistant superintendent of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District.

'It Did Give Me Pause'

When Van Schaak first spoke to the Investigative Unit in 2017, his school district was not providing gender training to educators. Beginning this school year, however, Livermore Valley Joint Unified is now offering new online training to its 650 teachers.

Honestly, the conversation you and I had last year  it did give me pause, said Van Schaak, speaking to Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban during a recent interview. You know what, we need to do more. There are certainly students at every school in our district who identify themselves as transgender.

Van Schaak believes providing additional training for teachers will help ensure students receive a proper education.

That student having somebody that they can connect with is essential and whether it's a trans student or an African-American student or a student who doesn't speak English -- they have to know that there's a support system there, he said. Without that, you know, the student has very limited chances of being successful.

An Estimated 1.5 million Adults and Teens are Transgender

More than 1.5 million adults and teens identify as transgender, according to estimates from the Williams Institute. The number of trans children, however, is largely unknown. Yet, the population is expected to rise in light of relatively new changes in international clinical guidelines that allow children to begin physically transforming their bodies at younger ages.

Educators across the Bay Area tell the Investigative Unit its now common to have students openly identify as transgender at every school in their district. An NBC Bay Area investigation, however, reveals many teachers may not be prepared to navigate a rapidly changing student body. Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban reports.

All were trying to do is create an environment where all kids are welcome, said Chris Funk, superintendent for the Eastside Union High School District, which recently began implementing new gender training for teachers.

We're just getting caught up in times, said Funk. We were slow to respond, and this was an area that we just feel like where the time is right for us, and it's something that we have to do.

Social workers have been leading training sessions across the district  educating about 1,100 teachers, including English teacher Lauri Weckesser.

I learned some new things, said Weckesser, who has been teaching for 26 years. Id like to think that I'm someone who stays current on things that are happening with teenagers, but there were some things in that training that I didn't even know.

NBC Bay Area

'It's About All Students'

The training tackles real-life scenarios and also explains that some trans students prefer plural pronouns like they or them instead of he or she.

Weckesser said she has repeatedly been the first adult students have come out to in revealing their identity as transgender.

It's pretty amazing that a kid will trust you that much to tell something that personal, and it feels like a responsibility to hold that trust and to help this kid kind of negotiate their way through what's going to happen to them the next four years at our school, she said.

We have to support our trans students, but we also have to teach our other students who are not trans  how to be accepting of everyone's experience as well. Its about all students.

______________________________________
For the second time in six months, the FBI is accusing a Chinese national working for Apple of attempting to steal trade secrets related to the companys secret autonomous vehicle program, NBC Bay Areas Investigative Unit learned Tuesday.

Apple began investigating Jizhong Chen when another employee reported seeing the hardware developer engineer taking photographs in a sensitive work space, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed this week.

Chen, according to the complaint, allowed Apple Global Security employees to search his personal computer, where they found thousands of files containing Apples intellectual property, including manuals, schematics, and diagrams. Security personnel also found on the computer about a hundred photographs taken inside an Apple building.

Apple learned Chen recently applied for a job at a China-based autonomous vehicle company that is a direct competitor of Apples project, according to the complaint. A photo found on Chens computer, which Apple provided to the FBI, showed an assembly drawing of an Apple-designed wiring harness for an autonomous vehicle.

Chen allegedly told the company he backed up his work on his personal device as an "insurance policy" because he was placed on Apple's Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) in December 2018, CNBC reported. But Apple said the confidential information was found prior to his placement on PIP.

Chen was arrested just one day before he was scheduled to fly to China, according to the complaint. His lawyer and a spokesperson from the Northern District of California U.S. Attorneys Office declined to comment, CNBC said.

Last July, former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang was arrested by federal agents for allegedly stealing proprietary information related to the companys autonomous vehicle project. Zhang was accused of trying to bring Apples trade secrets to China-based XMotors.

"Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our IP very seriously," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "We are working with authorities on this matter and are referring all questions to the FBI."

The FBI declined to comment on the story.

Last week, CNBC reported that Apple dismissed more than 200 employees from its secretive autonomus vehicle group, Project Titan.

NBC Bay Area will update the story as it learns more.
At the age of 90, Yu Yi is still full of energy. As honorary principal of Shanghai Yangpu Senior High School, the retiree is still engaged in Mandarin primary education and training young teachers in China.

She has compiled several books based on her teaching procedures-the first books on pedagogy of their kind in China in the late 1970s. Among them, Introduction to Modern Teacher Development and Introduction to the Study of Modern Teachers have been used as training materials by the Ministry of Education.

Last year, a collection of eight books on her 66 years of Mandarin teaching experience was published to inspire younger teachers.

Yu, born and raised in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, was awarded the title "Reform Pioneer" in primary school education at a grand gathering celebrating the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up in Beijing on Dec 18.

Despite her decadeslong devotion to pedagogy, Yu said she is still learning how to be a good teacher. The late Soviet teacher and educational theorist Vasyl Sukhomlinsky is the educator she respects the most.

Yu appreciates one of Sukhomlinsky's sayings, that "a unique string at a secret corner deep down in the heart of each child makes a distinct sound of its own, and to help every child understand what a teacher is saying, the teacher's heart needs to beat as one with the child's, with the same tone."

Inspired by Sukhomlinsky's educational concept, Yu said she has never scolded any student throughout her career. It is up to the teacher to develop the students' interest and passion in learning.

For this purpose, Yu said she usually prepares three kinds of questions in her classes-a general one for most students to think over independently, a simple one for relatively slower learners, and a challenging one for students to solve together.

"Learning to differentiate learning abilities helps teachers present materials in a way that will engage all students on all levels at the same time in class," Yu said, while sharing her insights with teachers at the Experimental High School affiliated to Shandong University last year.

"A good class by a teacher is not what is written on the blackboard, but what students learn and keep in mind for a lifetime."

Yu's passion for education was inspired by professors from Fudan University's education school, where she did her four-year undergraduate studies, beginning in 1947.

"I was lucky and grateful to have met excellent teachers in the education, social, historical, and natural science fields during my undergraduate studies," she said. "They are great role models."

After seven years of being a history teacher after graduation, Yu started teaching Mandarin in 1959.

For Yu, preparing Mandarin classes was a three-step process. First, she went through the articles to understand them.

Then, she would read a variety of references to learn from other teachers and expert analysis on the articles. Last of all, she evaluated what did or did not work well after a class, and revised her teaching plans before teaching a particular class.

Wang Ronghua, chairman of the Shanghai Education Development Foundation, said Yu acted more as a parent than a teacher to students. She cared a lot for her students, and often spent her savings on their daily necessities and school supplies if needed.

Educating young teachers has been Yu's focus since 1985, when she became principal of Shanghai No 2 Normal Middle School.

She sat in on young teachers' classes, and provided them with constructive advice and suggestions. She has also organized 2,000 open Mandarin classes across the country for students and teachers, and after her retirement in 2002 she set up Mandarin teacher training bases in Shanghai.

Many young teachers who have graduated from these training bases have been recognized as special grade teachers, won prizes in national education competitions, or have taken up leadership positions in schools.

"I am proud of them," Yu said. "Maybe I am too old to do many things, but the future of education will continually develop because these young talented teachers will continue to join the education sector."


An endangered Queensland bird is at risk of extinction because environmental legislation is failing to protect its habitat, according to a University of Queensland-led study.

Researchers reviewed Australian and Queensland laws that protect threatened and endangered species, in light of a more than 80 per cent reduction in the distribution of the southern black-throated finch's population.

They found that despite the protection laws, extensive finch habitat loss has continued to be approved - with more in the pipeline.

Dr April Reside, from UQ's Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, said the best of the bird's remaining habitat was now under threat.

"Extensive clearing for agriculture and grazing has been allowed in the finch's open woodland habitat - from north of Townsville to New South Wales," Dr Reside said.

"Australia and Queensland have laws to protect threatened species, but they're failing to do just that.

"Two Australian mammals and a lizard have gone globally extinct in the last ten years, and with extensive habitat destruction still being approved by governments, the finch may be next."

The study found that more than 700 development projects overlapping the finch's habitat have been referred to the Federal Government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999.

Only one out of the 775 projects - a housing development near Townsville - was refused because of an unacceptable impact on the finch.

"All of these proposed projects for the finch's habitat were assessed independently, so the cumulative impact is not properly considered - it's death by a thousand cuts.

"And an additional 500,000 hectares of likely finch habitat was cleared without referral to the Federal Government.

"This species is now in a very perilous situation, but recently approved developments will clear much of the best remaining habitat for the southern black-throated finch."

Dr Reside said approved developments had relied on 'habitat offsets' to compensate, but a recent study showed offsets were failing to provide habitat for the endangered bird.

The spotlight is on Australia's record of extinctions, with a Senate Inquiry hearing in Brisbane this Friday (1 February) to investigate the ongoing decline of Australia's 457 threatened animal species.

"Often extinctions happen because we just weren't watching," Dr Reside said.

"This time we have charted the steep decline of this Australian bird, but so far we have permitted the decline to continue.

"Under our current state and federal environmental policy, southern black-throated finch habitat continues to disappear.

"If we're to prevent yet another extinction in Australia, we need to halt the decline of this bird's habitat, otherwise we may lose them forever."

The research is published in Environmental Science and Policy (DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2019.01.005).
When predators hunt for small reef fish in the ocean, many of those small fish do the same thing: they hide in a nearby anemone.

New research from the University of Delaware, however, shows that larger-bodied fish also associate with anemones. The difference is that the big fish associate with anemones as juveniles, while the smaller bodied species partner with anemones throughout their lives.

This mutualistic relationship, in which individuals from two or more species cooperate, is driven by predation. Predators tend to target smaller fish, who in turn, associate more with the anemones for protection. While the benefit for fish is protection from predators, anemones get access to nutrition and increased aeration by hosting and protecting these small reef fish.

"Being able to understand why this relationship has evolved can tell us more about coral reef ecosystems as a whole," said Lane Johnston, who graduated with her master's degree from UD in marine behavioral ecology in 2018 and worked on the study during her time at the University. "Our finding was that predation and trying to avoid predation is really what drives the relationship, and that might help us understand how population dynamics change on a reef or in any ecosystem moving forward."

The research was recently published in the Ecology Letters scientific journal.

Johnston conducted the study in Moorea, located in French Polynesia, with her advisor, Danielle Dixson, assistant professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment's School of Marine Science and Policy; William Feeney, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia who worked as a Fulbright Fellow in Dixson's lab during the study, and Rohan Brooker, now a research fellow at Deakin University in Australia who was a post-doctoral researcher in Dixson's lab during the study.

From January through February 2016, the researchers collected anemones and corals as well as threespot dascyllus -- a fish they chose to be their case study subject that is an anemone mutualist -- on snorkel and scuba dives, in order to conduct a lab study along with a field study in the shallow reef flats at Tema'e Bay.

They selected surge damselfish as a locally abundant and non-anemone associated comparison species to the threespot dascyllus, and sorted the damselfish and the dascyllus into four size categories:

Recruit -- less than 2 centimeters in size; Juvenile -- 2 to 4 centimeters in size; Small adults -- 4 to 6 centimeters in size; and Large adults -- larger than 6 centimeters.

Arceye hawkfish, speckled sandperch and squirrelfish were selected as the predators in the study.

The purpose of these experiments was to see if dascyllus' body size could explain patterns of anemone associations between individuals under natural conditions, whether smaller fish were more vulnerable to predation by the three predators compared to their larger counterparts and whether associations with anemones provided more protection than coral refuge.

Their field study revealed that recruit and juvenile dascyllus associate almost exclusively with anemones whereas anemone use progressively decreased among the small adult and large adult dascyllus.

They also discovered no preference among the predators with regards to body size with the dascyllus and that if anemones were available, they helped the dascyllus survive predation better than the coral.

"It's kind of intuitive. If smaller fish can't be protected from predators, they need to find a habitat that can aid in protecting them when they're smaller," said Johnston. "It makes sense [that they'd use anemones], and we just needed to prove it."

In addition to the field and lab study, collaborators in Australia, France and the UK followed up on the field results to determine the evolutionary history behind anemone use.

Using large datasets from places like fishbase.org, a global fish species database, these researchers found that fish-anemone mutualisms have evolved on at least 55 occasions across 16 fish families over the past 60 million years. Moreover, they also found that larger-bodied species partnered with anemones as juveniles while smaller-bodied species partner with anemones throughout their lives.

Johnston said that it was interesting to discover that many species of fish associate with anemones, as they have been linked in the past to only a handful of fish species, such as the titular hero in the movie, Finding Nemo.
(Natural News) According to the World Health Organizations latest annual list of global health threats, anti-vaxxers  people whose fears about the safety of vaccines have made them hesitant to allow their children to be vaccinated  pose as much risk to world health as the Ebola virus, air pollution, climate change, HIV and superbugs, among others. The WHOs position is that vaccine hesitancy  a delay or refusal to accept vaccines  is threatening a global resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases.

The WHO claims that vaccines prevent upwards of three million deaths each year, but that 50 percent more lives could be spared if everyone, everywhere agreed to accept every mandated vaccine. They claim that the recent resurgence in measles outbreaks is an example of how a reduction in the number of people vaccinated can cause an increase in occurrences of a disease.

But is the WHO accurate in its claims? Are vaccine-hesitant people really making others sick? Or is the WHO simply looking for a way to put a stop to vaccine truth educators like Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and editor of Natural News?

Vaccine hesitancy  why?

The WHO uses the term vaccine hesitancy, and its actually a pretty accurate description of many of the people who have chosen not to vaccinate their children. Hesitancy is by definition not a refusal but a reluctance to do something. Merriam-Webster notes that hesitation implies a holding back especially through fear or uncertainty. It is certainly true that an increasing number of people have become uncertain about the necessity and/or safety of vaccinating their children.

People ultimately believe what they see. No matter what the flawed, bought-and-paid-for science says  most of which has been conducted by pharmaceutical companies who themselves have a vested interest in producing vaccines  anecdotal evidence carries a tremendous amount of weight. As more and more people see the previously normal, healthy children of friends and family develop health problems after being vaccinated, they become nervous about allowing their own children to receive vaccines.

And this hesitancy is spreading globally, across cultures, countries and different socio-economic groups. An increasing number of highly educated, well-respected politicians, lawyers, medical professionals and others have voiced their concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. And for this reason, the anti-vaccine movement is gaining more and more traction. This scares organizations like the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because it means that they are losing their control over people.

Are anti-vaxxers really making others sick?

As noted at the outset, the WHO argues that people who do not vaccinate are selfish because they make others sick. They quote the 30 percent increase in the number of measles cases in recent years as an example of this. Interestingly, however, they do admit:

The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy. [Emphasis added]

Lets take a closer look at one of those measles outbreaks. Natural News previously reported:

As published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, the 2011 measles outbreak in New York has been confirmed to have originated from a fully vaccinated woman, according to a study conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Westchester County Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  [S]he went on to infect four other people with the measles, two of them also fully vaccinated. Tests also confirmed that the other two people infected, though unvaccinated, had previously been exposed to measles and therefore should have had natural immunity to it.

The reasons for measles outbreaks are complex indeed.

And the same is true of recent mumps and other infectious disease outbreaks that are being blamed on vaccine hesitancy.

The fact is, people have more than enough reason to be concerned about vaccines. Their fears should be acknowledged and addressed, with a fresh look at the overly intensive CDC-mandated vaccine schedule, removing dangerous adjuvants like thimerosal from vaccines, and eliminating the multi-dose vaccines like the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which are given to young children with under-developed immune systems and which have been linked to autism spectrum disorder and other serious health problems.

Vilifying people who have legitimate questions about the safety of a dubious set of medical procedures is simply not acceptable. Learn more at Vaccines.news.

Sources include:

CrazzFiles.com

CNet.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Most people think the biggest drug problems in the USA have to do with crack-heads, coke-heads, and meth-heads, but they would be wrong. There are 101 ways to lie to a medical doctor and convince them youre suffering from pain, including physical or mental anguish, and get prescribed, over and over again, the most addicting, experimental, and dangerous drugs on the planet  prescription medications. Its literally impossible for a doctor to prove that you dont have pain, so its a prescription for fraudulent claims.

Walk in to any doctors office in America and tell the doc youve got back pain, knee pain, joint pain, neck pain, migraine headaches, or any major discomfort from previous injuries or surgeries and voila! Youve just earned yourself a prescription of the most commonly abused drugs ever  heroin-based painkillers (opioids) that you can suck down yourself or sell on the street for cold hard cash, or both.

Kidney stones, gall stones, previous surgeries, and old broken bones are excellent excuses for acquiring ultra-strong, deadly prescription painkillers

According to the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA), the best approach to getting the strongest heroin-based drugs from medical doctors is to be proactive and candid with your doctor about your pain health. Though youll certainly seem like a drug addict when you ask, he or she wont care, because theyre in the business of doling out as much painkiller as they can, in order to earn kickbacks (sometimes even illegal cash), bonuses, and free tickets to sporting events from their pharmaceutical reps who visit them regularly.

In other words, why would any drug addict, who can simply collect disability and fake pain for more drugs, ever try to get a job or contribute to society, when the doctors are helping them remain addicts and drug dealers? Its too easy in America to get prescriptions refilled, too, once theyre already prescribed. Doctors are calling them in late at night or on Fridays at happy hour to these drug stores that are open nearly all hours of the day and night.

Its impossible to prove or disprove chronic pain, and it could just be the patient eating and drinking all the wrong foods, leading to inflammation and nerve pain. Then the doctors advice includes more chemicals in the form of pills, vaccines, and over-the-counter medications that simply add to the compounded health chaos.

Narcotics in your blood and in your pocket  the vicious cycle of Americans addicted to painkillers and dealing their own prescriptions to friends

From morphine and codeine to hydrocodone, oxycodone, fentanyl, and methadone, the majority of Americans on painkillers have no clue they could easily overdose at any time, even when taking their prescription medications as directed by their pill-pushing quacks. In fact, more Americans are now dying from painkiller complications than from automobile wrecks, or from all hard street drugs combined. Let that sink in for a minute.

Instead of people simply changing their food regimen, or taking ibuprofen for their pain, its more fun and profitable to get multiple prescriptions (usually covered by insurance anyway) for heroin-based drugs and take them and sell them to acquaintances. Its like one big party, and all the M.D.s are known accomplices to the party crimes. Are these people really managing their pain or are they managing their own illegal neighborhood pharmacy. You might call it their harmacy.

Department of Justice already criminally charged dozens of doctors, pharmacists and nurses with medical fraud for pushing toxic drugs

Part of Trump draining the swamp has to do with arresting pill-pushing medical staff in America who knowingly abuse their drug-dealing privileges. Our health care system is literally plagued by rampant fraud and profiteering at the expense of patients health and safety. The DOJ has cracked down on more than $2 billion in medical fraud, charging more than 600 health care practitioners with criminal activities.

Health and Human Services (HHS) division also, as part of that crack down, charged dozens of doctors with the illegal distribution of opioids, as if its not bad enough with the legal (but still highly dangerous) mass dosing of patients.

The US chronic care system of symptom management has become a massive criminal drug racket, run by criminal doctors (glorified drug dealers) and drug companies who all profit from the mass poisoning of people, whether innocent or not. Its all the same to them. Now its being reported that drug-addicted Americans are harming their own pets just to get more opioid prescriptions for themselves. How sick is that?

Tune into BadDoctors.news for more updates on pill-pushing shills and hucksters who could care less about their patients, but just want more of that cold hard cash and luxury kickbacks from Big Pharma instead.

Sources for this article include:

VeryWellHealth.com

NaturalNews.com

BadDoctors.news
(Natural News) New York Democrats have just made late-term abortions the law of the land, legalizing the practice of murdering preborn infants up until the moment of birth. The bill, named the Reproductive Health Act, uses an overly broad health exception for third-term abortions which many people find repugnant. Even health professionals within the field of obstetrics say that third-term abortions are never necessary; at that point, the child should just be delivered, not murdered.

As a state with an overwhelming demand for the right to murder the unborn, New Yorks crackdown on gun rights is laughable. Democrat politicians preach violence, blame guns for the problems tearing our society apart, and call for the termination of the Second Amendment  all while turning a blind eye to the inherent violence of ripping a fetus from the womb and tearing it to pieces.

New York passes bill to protect late-term abortions

After making its way through state legislature, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the highly detestable Reproductive Health Act (RHA) into law. Under RHA, abortions are legal until 24 weeks of gestation  at which point, a majority of babies are able to survive outside the womb with well-orchestrated care.

But, the legislation also provides room for abortions after this 24-week period, when a baby would have an excellent chance at survival. The broadness of this health exception has been a sticking point for pro-life advocates.

New York Right To Life contends that the legislation makes it possible to abort a baby for any reason, including age, economic, social and emotional factors, rather than the biological definition of health that normally comes to mind.

Life News reports further that RHA also introduced a new definition for the word person. The pro-abortionist definition is now a human being who has been born and is alive.

Under RHA, abortion is named a fundamental right, which the state cannot deny, regulate or restrict.

As many others have surmised, this language all but ensures that abortions can be carried out at any stage of pregnancy, up until the moment of birth. And Democrats around the country are celebrating this as a victory.

Guns are bad, but murder is fine

While New York hasnt completely stripped citizens of their Second Amendment rights, the deep blue state has gone to extreme lengths to restrict gun rights and is known for having some of the toughest gun laws in the country. As Guns To Carry reports:

The New York state gun laws are regarded as very restrictive and operate on a May Issue policy at the local county level. This means that the issuance of a pistol license is entirely up to the issuing officer. As a rough rule, the higher the population of a county the more restrictive the gun laws become with New York City being the most restrictive.

While it may be a bit easier in more rural areas of the state, getting a pistol permit can still take six months or longer. The climate in New York is not gun-friendly, to say the least.

The Left is especially prone to preying upon school shootings and similar tragedies, using them as propaganda to fill their anti-American agenda. There is a great bit of irony in liberal fear-mongering over a constitutional right thats been in place for centuries and the partys role in promoting and carrying out millions of abortions. It is impossible to rationally believe that violence and death caused by guns is bad, while also believing that death by way of abortion is good.

Unless the left-wings agenda is a bit of a Trojan horse: The Left presents abortion as a medical necessity for moral good and equality, and gun control as a means to advance society and protect people from danger. But the truth is that the Second Amendment was designed to protect us from Big Government  not from each other. And as such, a government that wishes to disarm its people probably shouldnt be trusted.

In the same purview, abortion is not actually a good thing for women; its merely a tool of the deranged Left to gain power and influence over women.

See more coverage of stories like this at Abortions.news.

Sources for this article include:

LifeNews.com

GunsToCarry.com

FoxNews.com

NationalReview.com
(Natural News) A recent study published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment revealed how scattered trees in active pastures promote biodiversity of the ecosystems around the area and help support forest recovery.

Forests provide habitats and resources to a wide range of species, but as large areas of forests have been cleared and modified for growing crops and producing livestock, many of these areas are transformed into pastures with scattered trees.

Studies have explored the importance of scattered trees in preserving species biodiversity within agricultural systems. One such study, titled How scattered trees matter for biodiversity conservation in active pastures, was conducted by a team from the Federal University of Lavras.

The researchers investigated an area of 618.59 hectares in southeastern Brazil composed of active pastures of signal grass(Urochloa decumbens), with scattered trees and forest patches. The researchers surveyed all the scattered trees in the active pastures and in 60 plots measuring 200 square meters within eight forest patches.

The team then assessed regeneration, distance of propagules (bud or spore) source, grass cover, microclimate, seed rain, and soil compaction under scattered tree crowns and in samples in the pastures without scattered trees.

The findings revealed that scattered tree communities are highly diverse. The researchers associated this with the landowners preference for large tree species over small ones during the clearing process for pasture, selecting the trees based on their shading capability, which maintains a highly diverse community of trees. The team found this to be the major difference between forest patches and scattered tree communities.

In addition, the researchers found that the scattered trees strongly affect seed rain and sapling regeneration. Only a few tree species are able to regenerate under the scattered trees, although many more are dispersed in the sites. The scattered trees were also found to reduce soil compaction and improve microclimate. The team noted that the positive effects of the scattered trees on these variables depend on the distance from forest remnants.

The findings suggested that areas with scattered trees may help support the preservation of ecosystems by providing habitats and resources around the fragmented agricultural landscapes, which could promote forest recovery.

Findings consistent, worldwide

A similar study conducted in Costa Rican pastures surveyed the density and species composition of scattered trees occurring in pastures of 24 dairy farms near Monteverde, Costa Rica. The research team interviewed farmers to determine why they leave trees in pastures and how they manage them.

The researchers retrieved some common reasons cited by the farmers, such as shade for cattle, timber, fruits for birds and fence posts. Most farmers expressed interest in increasing tree cover within their pastures for the economic and ecological benefits that these trees could provide.

Another study took this whole premise on a global scale, with a meta-analysis on the role of scattered trees in conserving biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems. The research team looked into a total of 62 studies that contained suitable data for the quantitative analyses and found that the local abundance of animal species such as arthropods and vertebrates, as well as woody plants was 60 percent to 430 percent greater and overall species density was 50 percent to 100 percent higher in areas with scattered trees than in nearby open areas.

The researchers posited that areas with scattered trees can be regarded as keystone structures for animal species and terrestrial plants in landscapes worldwide, promoting greater levels of biodiversity than open areas.

For more stories on biodiversity and conservation efforts, visit Ecology.news.

Sources include:

Science.news

ScienceDirect.com

OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com

Link.Springer.com
(Natural News) The United States has been deeply entrenched in the opioid epidemic for years. Dozens of cities, counties and states have filed suit against a number of the nations top pharmaceutical industry for their role in creating a drug epidemic which has destroyed thousands of families and claimed thousands of lives.

Big Pharma has been accused of many things, ranging from dirty marketing tactics and negligence to flat-out buying off doctors. Now, research has shown that Big Pharma had another ace in the hole: Opioid-induced hyperalgesia  also known as opioid-induced pain.

Long-term use of opioid painkillers is what causes opioid-induced pain. What this means is that over time, opioids start making pain worse (or causing pain altogether) instead of making it better. While opioids have many harmful side effects, this one helps ensure that even after a patients initial problem has resolved, they will continue to crave opioids.

As so many people have long suspected, Big Pharma is only interested in creating patients  not cures.

Opioids can make pain worse

While not everyone who takes an opioid will develop opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH), experts say that taking high doses of the drugs and using them for long periods of time are two factors that can increase your risk.

How OIH actually develops is still under examination as well. Recent research has shown that opioids alter specialized cells found in the central nervous system, known as microglia.

Microglia are responsible for releasing signalling molecules which activate neurons in the spinal cord and send pain signals to the brain. Research has now shown that opioids make microglia many times more sensitive, amplifying pain signals.

While this may not be the only way in which opioids make pain worse, it appears that the drugs effects on microglia are a key factor in the onset of OIH.

Now, many are wondering if opioids potential to make pain worse is actually by design. As Natural Health 365 posits, worsening pain can lead patients to seek higher doses of the drugs  which again, fuel addiction and cause more pain.

Big Pharmas opioid scam

Opioids were never supposed to be used long-term, and especially not for chronic pain. But reckless marketing tactics saw opioids prescribed for anything and everything, as Big Pharma put the value of their profits above the value of human life.

Even pharma giant Pfizer recently conceded that there is no scientific evidence to support the use of opioid drugs after just 12 weeks. This means that doctors shouldnt be prescribing opioids to anyone for more than three months.

The opioid epidemic is now killing an average of 130 people every day. This includes prescriptions as well as illicit drugs like heroin or fentanyl.

Proponents of the pharmaceutical industry are quick to point out that many of the people who die from an opioid drug are not using a prescription drug  but what they arent telling you is that an overwhelming majority of street drug users started out on a prescription drug.

Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that 80 percent of heroin users started out on a prescription pain medication. What this means is that Big Pharma is responsible for many more addictions and deaths than most estimates currently indicate.

Estimates indicate the financial burden of the opioid epidemic is a cool $78 billion. The entire pharmaceutical industry should be held accountable for the wave of death and destruction their drugs have created.

Learn more about hazardous pharmaceuticals at DangerousMedicine.com.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalHealth365.com

VeryWellHealth.com
(Natural News) Have you ever read a story in the news that made you physically ill? For some people, this has been happening more often than usual lately  and its not horror stories of evil pedophiles making peoples stomachs turn this time. Instead, its the blood-thirsty mainstream media, doing its best to inspire panic by portraying life under President Trump in the worst light possible.

In a recent piece on Consortium News, writer Caitlin Johnstone takes a close look at Trump Anxiety Disorder. If you use social media, youve surely seen the comments from people who say they are physically unwell reading about Trumps latest travails  and the mainstream media is all too happy to ensure the masses feel that way. Weve all seen those photos of young kids allegedly separated from their parents at the border, complete with captions and comments designed to pull at the heartstrings, blindly re-tweeted by celebrities to their thousands of followers.

Last year, Canadas CBC News reported on Trump Anxiety Disorder  an illness they say might not be an official diagnosis but is nevertheless one that therapists are all too aware of these days. After stating that the feelings of politics-related stress were on the rise in the months after the election, CBC said it was maybe not surprising given the relentlessly negative headlines and politically divisive climate.

Whether it was Trumps attitude toward women, his stance on immigration or the wall, or his Supreme Court picks, it really has been negative headline after negative headline. Even those who support him are reporting strong feelings of social isolation  in other words, its making everyone sick.

Placing the blame squarely on the mainstream media, Johnstone writes: If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, people would be no more worried about this administration than they were about the previous ones, because when it comes to his administrations actual behavior, hes just as reliable an upholder of the establishment-friendly status quo as his predecessors.

Stress in America

The American Psychological Associations 12th annual Stress in America survey, which was carried out in August 2018, revealed that those aged 15 to 21 are the most likely of all generations right now to report poor mental health, with significant stressors being identified as gun violence and sexual harassment  topics the mainstream media loves to harp on even though, for example, opioids are killing more people than guns. School shootings, for example, are a significant source of stress for 74 percent of parents and 58 percent of young people. Remember David Hogg? The leftist media embraced this Parkland high school student, using him to help push their social agenda, while largely ignoring the fact that Big Pharma drugs are killing young people left and right.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media has immigrants terrified about a sudden wave of deportation, even though a report from the Migration Policy Institute shows that arrests by ICE in 2017 were roughly half the number seen during Obamas peak years of 2010 and 2011.

Some of the other topics that are causing Generation Z youth to feel stressed include climate change and global warming (58 percent) and rises in suicide rates (62 percent)  its ironic, then, that many depressed young people are turning to antidepressants, which mainstream news outlets conveniently forget to mention actually raise a persons suicide risk.

Its not at all surprising that stress is at an all-time high. Life tends to throw all kinds of stressful situations at us, and while concern about the future of your country and the world in general is certainly justified even under the best of circumstances, inducing anxiety among the populace in hopes of furthering your own political agenda is a special breed of evil that should not be tolerated. With stress linked to a host of health problems ranging from heart disease and obesity to depression and gastrointestinal problems, the media is literally making us sick.

Sources for this article include:

ConsortiumNews.com

CBC.ca

APA.org
Zhang Yuxi, a resident of Xiayi county, Henan province, was acquitted of a charge of intentional injury by a local court on Tuesday after being released 18 years ago on bail pending trial.

Zhang was involved in a dispute in 1992 with another resident, Zhang Gongshe, which led to violent scuffles between members of the two families. Zhang Gongshe's father, Zhang Chaoming, was rendered unconscious during the fight and died.

Zhang Yuxi was later detained and prosecuted on a charge of intentional injury in 1997. According to the indictment by the local prosecutor, Zhang Yuxi hit Zhang Chaoming's forehead with an iron rake, causing the older man to fall into a coma and later die.

The local court sentenced Zhang Yuxi to 11 years in prison in 1997 and he appealed.

In October 1997, the Shangqiu Intermediate People's Court ruled that Zhang Yuxi's case was unclear and the evidence was insufficient, and it revoked the judgment and sent the case back for retrial.

In 2001, police detained Zhang Yuxi's cousin Zhang Shengli in Zhejiang province on charges of being involved in the fight. The local court found Zhang Shengli was guilty of killing Zhang Chaoming and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

Zhang Yuxi, who had been held in custody for nine years, was released on bail pending trial.

Zhang then waited another 18 years - until Saturday, when he received a subpoena from the court ordering him to stand trial on Tuesday.

Zheng Xiaojing, Zhang's defense lawyer, said the trial was focused on finding out who caused Zhang Chaoming's death, and this time their evidence was found to be sufficient.

"The effective judgment in 2001 has already proved that Zhang Shengli was the only individual involved in the killing of Zhang Shengli, so we were confident that Zhang Yuxi is innocent," the lawyer said.

She said the trial being delayed for such a long period of time violated the law, and now that Zhang has been acquitted he will apply for state compensation.

Zhang Yuxi told Ynet.com that he felt very emotional when he received the subpoena.

"I have lived as a suspect. Our farmland has gone. My mother and wife moved away with my two children. After I was released on bail I could only seek a living elsewhere," he said.

Recalling the fight 27 years ago, Zhang said that he had been stabbed in the leg by Zhang Gongshe at the beginning of the fight and he "didn't even know someone was dead" until he was brought to the police station.

"I didn't kill anyone. I should be acquitted. I believe the court will give me justice," he told Ynet.com before the trial.

When asked about his future plans, Zhang said he still wants to go back to the village, build a new house and continue to be a farmer and grow crops.
(Natural News) Emboldened by ongoing and obvious witch hunts of the president, the co-opting of governmental institutions, Democratic gains in the House, and the dominance of progressive ideology in academia and pop culture, the American Left is making a full-on push to steal all remaining power in the country and, when obtained, use it to crush all political opposition.

That is, all conservative, pro-Trump opposition.

Case in point: The Atlantics Dick Polman actually suggested in a story published this week that more Americans needed to be slaughtered by a madman so that Democrats could use the new massacre to elevate gun control to a first-tier story.

Its thinking like this that would have made Uncle Joe Stalin and Adolph Hitler blush. (Related: Dems gun control push wont be enforceable without a national gun registry.)

As reported by Breitbart News, Polman, a contributor to the Left-wing magazine, acknowledged that Democrats took over control of the House in the November midterms with one of their political objectives being new restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Democrats have, indeed, begun their push, introducing legislation that criminalizes private gun sales by requiring Americans to get government permission, via a background check, beforehand.

Gun control fail

However, Breitbarts Awr Hawkins reports:

Polman notes that the gun control bill did not garner major airplay in the establishment media, leading him to suggest a new massacre will be key in getting the push more attention. He wrote: The Democrats championing of gun reform is not currently a first-tier story, but a new massacre would likely make it so.

Polman lamented that the Jan. 23 SunTrust Bank shooting failed to elevate gun control to the top of Democrats political agenda. As Hawkins noted, the real lesson to glean from the murders is that once again, gun control failed to keep Americans safe  and in particular, Floridas red flag law and waiting periods.

The Democrat Party has transformed itself into an authoritarian party of death. When it isnt celebrating infanticide in New York, it is praying for Americans to be gunned down over a political agenda. Sick.

Read more about Democrats push for new gun control measures at Guns.news.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

NewsTarget.com
(As delivered)

First of all, Minister Les, its great to be back here in Bucharest, and Im looking forward to meet with the EU Defence Ministers.

I meet regularly with the EU Defence Ministers, and High Representative Federica Mogherini regularly meets with Foreign and Defence Ministers at NATO and I think that reflects a very strong cooperation and close cooperation between NATO and the EU.

And we have been able to strengthen the cooperation between EU and NATO over the last years. Responding to a more demanding and challenging security environment, and its even more important that EU and NATO work closely together. We work together on issues like cyber, like hybrid threats, in the maritime domain, we have coordinated exercises and we also work together on issues related to Women, Peace and Security. And tonight we will discuss the issues the issues related to Women, Peace and Security and this is important for EU, its important for NATO and its important for our joint efforts.

NATO is responding to a more challenging security environment also by adapting our forces, our structure, Romania is very much part of that. I welcome the strong efforts of Romania to strengthen the Alliance. And we are also investing more in defence. Since 2016 NATO Allies across Europe and Canada have increased defence spending by 41 billion US dollars, and by the end of 2020, by the end of next year, I expect this figure to rise to 100 billion US dollars. So this is showing the commitment of all NATO Allies, and the strength of our Alliance and the importance of strengthening our collective defence. And with that Im ready to take any questions if there are any.

Question: [Inaudible]

Secretary General: It is up to Russia to preserve the INF Treaty. Because Russia is responsible for putting the Treaty in jeopardy. Russia has developed and deployed new intermediate-range missiles for some years now. This is a clear violation of the INF Treaty and at the NATO Foreign Ministerial meeting in December, the United States made it clear that they will start the withdrawal process from the Treaty within a 60 day period if Russia doesnt come back into compliance. All NATO Allies agree that its important that Russia comes back into compliance in a transparent, verifiable way. This is urgent because the 60 day period will end this weekend. And if Russia doesnt come back into compliance, then we have to be prepared for a world without the INF Treaty and with more Russian missiles violating the Treaty. These missiles are hard to detect and mobile. They are nuclear capable. They can reach European cities. And therefore, this is something which is of great concern and it undermines a cornerstone of European security  the INF Treaty.

Question: [Inaudible]

Secretary General: We welcome EU efforts on defence. And I have stated that again and again that for NATO its a good thing that Europe, the European Union do more together when it comes to defence, because we believe that can develop new capabilities, increase defence spending and also address the fragmentation of the European defence industry. At the same time, it is of course important that the EU efforts on defence doesnt compete with NATO, but complement NATO. And this has been stated clearly by European leaders again and again. Because there is no way that EU can substitute NATO. After Brexit, 80 percent of NATOs defence expenditure will come from non-EU NATO Allies. And three of the four battlegroups we have deployed in the eastern part of the Alliance will be led by non-EU Allies. We also have to understand that European unity is important, but European unity cannot substitute for transatlantic unity. Two World Wars and that Cold War taught us that North America and Europe have to stand together. And thats the main task of NATO  to make sure that Europe and North America stand together, addressing a lot of challenges in the security environment.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is attending the meeting of EU Ministers of Defence, which is taking place in Bucharest. Arriving at the Palace of the Parliament, the Secretary General praised Romania for making the cooperation between NATO and the European Union a priority for its first Presidency of the Council of the EU. Tonight (30/01/2018) Mr. Stoltenberg will meet with EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, and will discuss Women, Peace and Security issues with EU Ministers. Tomorrow he will meet with the President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Iohannis.

Read NATO Secretary General's doorstep statement here.
Watch the trailer for a new film by Story in Progress following a team of scientists, explorers and conservationists surveying the effects of climate change on a remote region of the Great Barrier Reef.

The full film is available to watch now.
Yves here. This Real News Network segment with Lawrence Wilkerson is a useful antidote to the impression much of the domestic media is trying to convey, that the US has broad-based support for its coup attempt in Venezuela.

PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. Im Paul Jay.

On Saturday morning there was a somewhat extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council. It was an open meeting. Countries were invited to come give their opinion and response to the push by the United States, led by President Donald Trump, to recognize Juan Guaido. This is the man who is the president of the National Assembly in Venezuela who declared himself president. Apparently, as the Wall Street Journal is now reporting, that Vice President Mike Pence phoned Guaido the night before he made such a declaration. And either he suggested he make the declarationthats not clearbut at least what is clear, according to the report, Pence says that if hed made such a declaration he would get U.S. support. And in fact, the United States supported Guaidos declaration almost immediately after he made it.

Well, theres been a very interesting split in the world that wasthis was reflected at those meetings Saturday morning, where many countries refused to go along with this plan, saying that the UN Charter says there should be non-interference in the internal affairs of UN member countries, and that that should be respected. The United States says they dont like the way the elections were held, and a bunch of countries have aligned themselves with the United States on this, on their position of recognizing Guaido and calling, essentially, what many people are calling a coup that Guaido should take power. And they are openly trying to foment support within the Venezuelan military, they being the United States, to engineer such a coup.

At any rate, heres a little sample of what took place at the UN on Saturday morning.

SPEAKER: Now we have a new leader, Juan Guaido, in Venezuela, who has promised to bring elections and constitutional order back to Venezuela, and security back to the region.

SPEAKER: This is not about foreign intervention in Venezuela. It is not an attempt to impose a result on the Venezuelan people. Democracy never needs to be imposed. It is tyranny that has to be imposed.

SPEAKER: But what about if we look at the international law, the Charter? Where is this based on? Are we simply setting aside international relations based on international law, and replacing the with international relations based on force?

AMBASSADOR FROM CHINA: China supports the efforts made by the Venezuelan government to uphold national sovereignty, independence, and stability.

SPEAKER: The meeting which we are being forced to be present is another element of the strategy of the United States to effect regime change in Venezuela. We regret that in this unethical ploy, in its unethical ploys, the United States is involving the Security Council.

AMBASSADOR FROM COLOMBIA: Colombia has come here to the Security Council to ask the international community to demand that the life and well being of Juan Guaido is upheld, and not just that he is protected but also the members of the National Assembly and all those who fight for democracy. And indeed, we have come to call for the international communitys support for all those Venezuelans who are sparing no effort to build a better future.

AMBASSADOR FROM BELGIUM: Belgium calls for the restoration of constitutional order in Venezuela. The presidential elections, which took place in May of last year, were in no way free, fair, or credible, thus stripping the government of Nicolas Maduro of any democratic legitimacy. The main threat to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean is, in fact, the bullying by the United States and its allies of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which is a flagrant affront to the popular will of the people of Venezuela, and to the institutional framework of this country.

SPEAKER: I ask the question honestly: If we look back through history, which country has been better after an intervention by the United States of America? Have we not discussed in this very Security Council the serious adverse impact and consequences of situations such as the current situation in Iraq, or Syria, or in Libya?

PAUL JAY: So that was a sampling of what took place Saturday morning at the United Nations. Now joining us to discuss this somewhat realignment of forces in the world, I think, as well as whats really at stake at this issue with Venezuela, is Larry Wilkerson. Larry is the former chief of staff to Secretary of State, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

LARRY WILKERSON: Thanks for having me, Paul.

PAUL JAY: So it seems you canthe fundamental issue that was seemed to be raised by many countries at the UN was that this is an issue of non-interference, not an issue of how you assess the Venezuelan elections, although some countries went even further and said one should respect the outcome of those elections. But other countries, it seems to me, were saying its not up to countries outside Venezuela to decide on the domestic affairs of Venezuela, and that that principle trumps everything else. What do youwhats your view of this?

LARRY WILKERSON: Its all a discussion about how power should be managed and arranged in the world. And despite what anyone says, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump, or Mike Pompeo, these kinds of things are all about the distribution of power in the world and whos going to have influence over who.

And so when you look at Venezuela, on the rim of the Gulf of Mexico and subject to the Monroe doctrine, and its oil, some saymany with reasonand experts say that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Very difficult to get to, very difficult to get out of the ground, high economic costs for doing so, but nonetheless a lot of oil. And the United States has a long relationship with Caracas. And so you can understand this happening.

At the same time, the principle of non-intervention is just that: non-intervention. And not for a moment do I think that the United States, particularly with this administration, will restrain itself from intervening significantly in Venezuela. After all, I was there in 2002 when we began this more or less slow fuse coup detat against Chavez. And of course, Ive read all about Salvador Allende, and Mohammed Mossadegh, and Jacobo Arbenz; all the other people in the world who we have overthrown from time to time.

So this is no surprise to me. It is somewhat of a surprise that we have this division of view in the world. And the majority of the world, if you want to go by population, seems to be in favor of a more pure definition of non-intervention than the United States likes to entertain.

PAUL JAY: Yeah, I think its its interesting the way that most of the corporate media is reporting on this. Its as if the majority of the world, governments of the world, are with the United States with Trump on recognizing. But in fact, the governments that represent the majority of the people of the world are certainly not with this plan. India has refused to recognize Guaido, and considers this a domestic concern of Venezuela. China, Russia. And also, I thought, maybe even most interesting of all of this, is that Saturday morning the CARICOM, countries the Caribbean countries, they refused to buckle under U.S. pressure. Trump has been making a lot of threats about countries that take our aid and want to be allied with us, and then they dont even vote for us at the UN. Well, they stood up to Trump. There were several very small countries that made a point of coming to speak at that meeting. They could have just gone with the CARICOM statement, which wasnt as strong as what Barbados said, and St. Thomas and the Grenadines said, and some others. They really took up this position for non-interference in domestic affairs.

And the fact that Canada, which, you know, Canadas whole international identity is supposedly based on its support for the United Nations and the Charter of the United Nationsof course, theres a lot of history of that not being true. But Canada tries to pretend its true. Canada is supporting this. Germany, Spain, and France are now calling for elections. I mean, who are they to call for elections in Venezuela? And the hypocrisy of all this. Like, if theyif they dont like the elections that took place in ChinaIm sorry, in Venezuelaand thats a reason not to recognize the government, then why dont they apply that to China and Saudi Arabia and any number of countries, including the United States? Theres a lot of people that could say the United States, the American elections, werent all that democratic.

LARRY WILKERSON: I think you have to consider the situation in Venezuela. Now, I remember very well the words of Richard Nixon to his then-CIA director Richard Helms: Made the Chilean economy scream. Thats exactly what the President said to his CIA director as they prepared to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile. So Im not discounting the fact thatwhat Im going to say nowmight have in part or in large part been caused by the United States making the Venezuelan economy scream. Thats certainly a possibility.

Nonetheless, it is screaming. The Venezuelan people are flocking into Colombia, the only South American country that will take them, by and large. And the only reason Colombia is taking them is because its returning the good offices of Venezuela when the FARC was giving Colombia so much trouble and Colombians were going into Venezuela. So it feels like it owes Venezuela a debt, and rightfully so. But there are some three to four million Venezuelans now who are in the diaspora, and left Venezuela because of the economic conditions.

So whoever is responsibleChavez, Maduro, the National Assembly, the United Stateswhomever is responsible for this chaos in Venezuela, it is, nonetheless, chaos. And so something needs to be done. But, as these other countries have said, I believe its up to the Venezuelan people to do this, and not the United States, and not Canada, and not France, and not Germany. Thats what non-intervention is all about.

PAUL JAY: And there is a proposal on the table from Mexico and Uruguay to help negotiate this. And it seems to me that this isit is such a fundamental principle of international law, and it goes to the very core of why there is a United Nations, that its really something that Canada and some of these European countries that try to pretend they are believers in international law are going along with this. I can kind of understand the right-wing governments of Latin America that are supporting this in Brazil and some of the other countries. Although what a joke that they consider the Brazilian elections legitimate. You have a parliamentary coup against the Brazilian president, and then you have an election where the main opponent to Bolsonaro is sitting in jail. Lula is sitting in jail. They wont let him run. And those elections are considered OK by the Trump administration.

LARRY WILKERSON: Lets go back and look at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Honduras. In my estimation the Honduranrecent Honduran exchange of governments was unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, and illegal. And yet the United States jumped right on top of it to recognize the new, more conservative, Honduran president. And Ive been in Honduras, Ive been in Tegucigalpa, and I know the kind of person that we recognize.

So this is something we do. If its in our interest we do it; if its not in our interest we dont do it. Thats the simple formula that we use. The difference with the Trump administration is you never know when that formula is going to be applied or how its going to be applied. And I would suspect that one of the reasons you got such instant agreement, if you will, from countries like France, like Germany, like Canada, is because Trump has frightened them. Hes frightened them with his approach to NATO, and hes frightened them with his trade wars, and so forth. And so on this particular issue, where they really dont have a dog in the fight, not up close and personal, anyway, theyre not going to turn against Trump.

PAUL JAY: Yeah, I think thats a very important point. I interviewed a Canadian general during the early stages of sending troops to Afghanistan. And I asked him, why did we send troops to Afghanistan? Lots of the opinion at the time after 9/11 was that this could have been more of a police-style operation in Afghanistan, going after al Qaeda, the Taliban. It didnt need to be a full-scale military invasion with so many countries involved. It wasnt a proportional or even, to large extent, legal response. And he told me its very simple why Canada sent troops to Afghanistan. He says we sent troops to Afghanistan because we need to pay in blood to send our goods across the border into the United States. That if we want the same kind of this easy trade relationship with the U.S., we have to take up some of the burden of military operations. And he didnt use the word empire, but thats what it came down to. We have to play our role in the world.

And Venezuela, I think, is a very good example of this. And it wasnt just now that Canada has played this role. Canada has been playing this role in Venezuela from around the time of the coup in 2002.

LARRY WILKERSON: Thats the empire. Thats the lessons of empire throughout history, whether its Athens dealing with Corinth and Milos and others in her empire, or whether its Britain dealing with the subcontinent in her empire. You demand obeisance, and obeisance is given so that your people can have some sort of stability and prosperity, until you get rid of the empire.

PAUL JAY: And I think its important, just to add to your point about Honduras and Obama and Clinton, that some of theseveral of the leaders of the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi, have actually endorsed Trumps strategy in Venezuela.

LARRY WILKERSON: This is a bipartisan issue. I think I told you, the other day I came out of a room that had a bipartisan national security elite group debating things. And one of the thingsdebating the future and all manner of issues, everything from whether or not we should plus up States 150 account, the international relations account, how we should go after the defense budget, and so forth. And so I came out of that with the distinct impression that everyone there, Democrat and Republican, had decided that perpetual war is the concomitant of empire. Put in plain English: War, interminable war, is this Empires debt to the future.

PAUL JAY: All right. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

LARRY WILKERSON: Thank you for having me.

PAUL JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
You have to give Theresa May credit for being clever, or at least more clever than the various MPs that were braying that Parliament would take control of Brexit yesterday.

No such thing happened, not even close. For starters, all Parliament was voting on were motions, and motions are not legislation, so none of them could even deliver on something that was also supposed to occur yesterday, that of taking a no-deal Brexit off the table, although they could have started that ball rolling.

Instead, two of five motions passed, and one of them, the so-called Brady amendment, was backed by the Government. It read:

To require that the Northern Ireland backstop be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border while supporting the notion of leaving the EU with a deal and therefore supporting the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change.

The second was:

To reject the UK leaving the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship

Note that Yvette Coopers amendment to debate her bill which would delay Brexit and Dominic Grieves to allow Parliament six days to debate amendable motions were both defeated.

By backing the first amendment, the Government is running out the clock by at least another ten days and more likely, two weeks. May knows full well that the EU isnt going to change its repeatedly-reaffirmed position that it is done renegotiating the Withdrawal Agreement. It has indicated it would entertain negotiating a markedly different deal as part of the future relationship if the UK were to relent on its major red lines. But the idea that the EU is going to concede on the Irish backstop because the UK is having a hissy fit is a non-starter.

Depressingly, some UK press outlets are enabling the delusion that the EU will tremble in its boots in the face of the UKs wrath. For instance:

At least none of them had handbag in the title.

And the EU, predictably and promptly, reiterated its no. Donald Tusks spokesman immediately issued a statement that included, The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation. From Cyprus, Emmanuel Macron said:

As the European Council in December clearly indicated, the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK and EU is the best agreement possible. It is not renegotiable.

The EU Parliaments Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, also warned any UK changes wouldnt be approved:

Guy Verhofstadt told The Independent that the EUs legislature, which has to approve any deal, would not consent to a watered down agreement and that the controversial Irish backstop could not be ditched.

So May remains in charge, and by wasting more time with another pointless round of meetings on the Continent, she will have decisively curtailed the choices to her deal or no deal. As Richard Murphy pointed out:

So, the Commons has voted. It would seem that it has rejected No Deal, because one non-binding amendment that suggested this was passed. But it has rejected Mays Deal. And it has rejected creating the time to find a better deal. And it has rejected staying. So the Commons has voted, yet again, for wishful thinking and nothing concrete of benefit to anyone. What can I see happening now? First, there is no chance of a Peoples Vote: if the Commons cannot vote to extend Article 50 they could not get the majority required for a second vote. I call that option dead. For the record, so too is staying: I do not think there is anything like a majority for that. So there are only two known options. One is the EUs deal, which was once called Mays deal, but cant be any more as she has apparently abandoned it. And the other is No Deal.

The only place I differ with Murphy is that May is depicting her apparent retreat from her deal as accepting the will of Parliament. From Richard North:

it looks as if the prime minister is playing a passive submissive game. Her ratification motion has been rejected, so she has quite deliberately gone to parliament for instructions. With her marching orders in her pocket, she will now obediently toddle off to Brussels, where she will receive a polite but firm rejection to her request to renegotiate the backstop. She has absolutely nothing to lose by doing this. She will be following in the wake of Canute when he commanded the tide to retreat, to demonstrate to his courtiers the limits of power. Mrs May will return calmly to parliament and tell MPs how sorry she is. I tried my best, she will say, but the man from the European Council, he say no'. She might be able to sugar the pill with a few cosmetic changes to the political declaration, but her basic message to parliament will be: over to you. The same choice then awaits them: the Withdrawal Agreement or a no-deal. But it will be parliament that makes the decision. She is but the obedient servant, doing her best to execute parliaments will Even as the clock ticks down to oblivion, Mrs May can afford to bide her time. There will still be a few delusional MPs  like Alexander (aka Boris) Johnson  who believe that the EU will cave in, but my guess is that the majority are beginning to see the writing on the wall.

Even though North is much closer to the mark, he does not appear to appreciate fully the depth of denialism in the UK political classes. Displaying too much faith in the idea of the plucky underdog pulling out a win at the last minute, and perhaps also harboring more than a bit of sexism, far too many even now seem to believe that a markedly better deal could still be had. Jeremy Corbyn has been going on in this vein in op-eds and interviews for months, and he still seems to hold this view. The vote today, which broke largely along party lines, says hes far from alone. Recall how many times last year the Tories were insisting that the UK could get Norway plus or Canada plus plus plus and refused to abandon that view despite repeated clear rebuffs by the EU.

As reader David said yesterday:

Interesting that the Guardian headline in the link has now changed to Brexit: EU dismisses Tory compromise plan as unworkable. That didnt take long. [The original headline: Brexit: Tories unite to back compromise giving May extra time]. As I choked on my (gluten-free) cereal this morning, while looking at the original Guardian story, I reflected that this development is only the logical end-product of a political process which has been obsessed with the purely UK dimension of Brexit, as though the EU27 were just bystanders, waiting patiently to learn what the UK was prepared to accept. Its one way in which a crisis typically develops at the very end: internal differences become so obsessively dominant, that the whole purpose of (in this case) the negotiations becomes a secondary issue. Indeed, its now clear that Brexit was not, ultimately, an issue between the UK and the EU, but an internal issue within the UK. I dont mean by that that, as some commentators have suggested, Brexit is an issue which fundamentally divides the country. On its own, successive polls have shown that its really not a priority for most people. But it served as a detonator for a whole series of unresolved issues to do with power and wealth in the country, which are now about to explode.

I have been saying for some time (with Lambert and Richard Smith among my witnesses, although I should have stuck my neck out on the blog) that the crisis will hit no sooner than mid-February. That is when MPs will no longer be able to pretend that they have options besides the ones May set forth when she brought her deal back in November: her deal, no deal, or no Brexit.

And by mid-February, its too late to toss May out without guaranteeing a no deal departure. Remember there are 14 calendar days for Parliament to reverse itself and pass a confidence motion. Otherwise, the general election process starts, and thats a minimum of 25 business days. There would be no Government to push through amending the Withdrawal Act to remove its hard coding of the Brexit date. Any MP can nix a private bill (one not sponsored by the Government) and you can be sure an Ultra would do that. And even though the EU has said it would allow the UK to push back the Brexit date in the event of a general election, the UK, meaning the Government, has to ask formally. Can it so so procedurally after a no confidence vote? Keep in mind that the Ultras would do everything in their power to jam the controls and assure a no deal.

Another possibility is Grieve and the speaker John Bercow trying more Parliamentary gambits, but Parliament remains too divided to implement any other idea, even if they managed to get their hands on the steering wheel. Richard Murphy is right: if they cant even back an extension, they cant muster the votes for a second referendum. And revoking A50 without a referendum? Fuggedaboudit.

In a few week, well have a better sense if sentiment is moving towards Mays deal or no deal. And remember, more denial and squabbling over unicorns increases the odds of no deal.
Belarus has offered Zimbabwe a facility of 500 buses to modernise its mass public transport system, as the recent visit by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to Eurasia begins to yield fruit.

The Head of State and Government visited Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in a week-long tour of the subcontinent.

In their meeting, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered Zimbabwe 500 buses, a boost for the country which is moving towards mass public transportation in line with both the Transitional Stabilisation Programme and Vision 2030 blueprints.

Briefing journalists after yesterdays Cabinet meeting, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said: Belarus has offered to help develop Zimbabwe as a regional transport hub using its own experiences.

Belarus also offered to provide Zimbabwe with an initial 500 buses with the possibility of increasing the number in future.

The TSP talks about modernising public transport and this is part of that. We know our people are suffering a lot and Government interventions have given a relief to our people in the urban areas but there is still a lot more work to be done to make sure we give that kind of relief to people in rural areas and inter-city.

It is estimated that over one million people use the urban transport system countrywide.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said the Government was looking at the latest offer.

It is really an offer from Belarus that we have to evaluate and see how we can obviously take, he said.

During their talks, Presidents Mnangagwa and Lukashenko advanced a grand infrastructure scheme in road and rail network that could make Zimbabwe a regional transport and logistics hub.

It is being formulated under a tripartite arrangement involving Zimbabwe, Belarus and China, to link the Indian and Atlantic oceans, across Southern Africa and through Zimbabwe.

A joint venture company will in the coming weeks be registered to advance the ambitious project, underlining Belarus importance as a mechanisation partner following recent successes in equipping Zimbabwes agriculture and mining sectors.

 Herald

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OPPOSITION MDC leader Nelson Chamisa yesterday said his party was ready for dialogue with the ruling Zanu PF party to end the countrys deteriorating economic, social and political situation, but on condition the talks are anchored on President Emmerson Mnangagwas unresolved legitimacy issue.

Addressing journalists at the partys Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House headquarters in Harare, Chamisa said: I am not a lie. I dont want to acknowledge lies. I have said I will not recognise what is not recognisable.

We are ready to talk, but we are going to talk about that issue (Mnangagwas legitimacy) as the first issue. It is a dialoguing point. Lets agree on that issue. Why are you putting conditions? Why do you want Chamisa to acknowledge you? If you allege that you won the elections, why do you want the acknowledgement of an individual?

Chamisa, who narrowly lost to Mnangagwa in the July 30, 2018 election results announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, has refused to recognise the Zanu PF leaders victory despite the ruling by the Constitutional Court upholding the results.

Several church and civil society organisations as well as Chapter 12 commissions have offered to provide a platform for the countrys two protagonists to talk over their differences and arrest the crisis.

The youthful opposition leader also called for unconditional release of all political prisoners and for soldiers to go back to the barracks following two weeks of unrest, which left 12 people dead and over 70 others nursing gunshot wounds after soldiers opened fire on civilians protesting sharp fuel price increases.

Chamisa, who distanced himself from the recent protests, said the opposition was compiling a dossier of atrocities and human rights abuses committed by security forces during the crackdown.

He said so far, they had recorded 844 human rights violations, 78 gunshot injuries and many arbitrary detentions.

We are now escalating this matter to our regional bodies, Chamisa said.

In fact, our worry as Im indicating this more, I have already indicated this to our Sadc leaders that we have a crisis situation in Zimbabwe, we have a humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe, but I have not received any response.

I dont know how many people are supposed to be killed, I dont know how much blood is supposed to flow on the streets of Harare before Sadc does something. I dont know how many women should be raped before we begin to see the intervention of our regional bodies to try and help the situation.

Chamisa also raised concern over the clemency extended to Zanu PF officials, including Harare youth chairman Godwin Gomwe, who was implicated in human rights violations in the recent demonstrations.

He said they held Mnangagwa responsible for the anarchy being witnessed in the country.

This is now 14 months after Mr (Robert) Mugabe exited the political stage, but what we are seeing is actually an escalation, not only of the Mugabe type of terror, but we are witnessing something that will make Mugabe look like a baby in terms of terrorism, Chamisa said.

We have seen very serious and gory developments in the countryside and urban areas where there have been serious crimes against humanity, serious internal displacement of people and serious violations of fundamental freedoms as enshrined in our Constitution.

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(SAN ANTONIO, TX) Do you have what it takes to survive on another world?

Leave Earth behind and travel into the unknown at the Witte Museum this spring. Travel to another world where you will explore, adapt and survive on a brand-new planet. Planet Pioneers puts budding astronauts and space explorers to the test as visitors attempt to source their own food, air and shelter while solving problems in an unknown world.

"Planet Pioneers was a perfect choice for the Witte Museum," said Marise McDermott, President and CEO of the Witte Museum. "Every day we inch closer to the reality that our children and grandchildren will visit, and possibly inhabit, another planet. This exhibition is a fun, immersive experience for the whole family and explores what that reality looks like and the science that will make it a possibility."

Jump in to a Surface Exploration Vehicle and take a virtual drive to learn how exploring the surface of another planet gives scientists useful information about the planet. Traveling to another planet can be dangerous! Construct a scale model habitat for you and your team and discover the protection needed from extreme temperatures and radiation. Fly a virtual drone around a planetary habitat to locate the problems for your team to fix to maintain a healthy habitat. Climb into the "centrifuge" capsule and increase the speed of rotation and see how many Gs you can spin to simulate how astronauts train for the effects of low gravity.

Along with 17 interactive experiences included in the exhibit, Witte visitors will have the opportunity to touch another world! Pieces of the Moon, Mars and a meteorites that have traveled from hundreds of thousands to millions of miles away will be on display.

During the week of spring break, March 9  17, the Witte Museum will be offering demonstrations and hands-on activities for the whole family. Operate a REAL NASA deep space telescope and scan a distant object to help NASA scientists collect data. Learn how astronauts and scientists study space and space travel with a 3D printer demo, Rocket Science demo, Glovebox Challenge and Radiation Detector Table Activity. For more information and times for these activities, please visit www.WitteMuseum.org and the Witte Museum's Facebook page.

Planet Pioneers opens on February 2 and runs through April 7, 2019 in the Kathleen and Curtis Gunn Gallery. Admission is $5 plus museum admission. Tickets are available at www.WitteMuseum.org or at the Sally and Ganahl Walker Admissions Desk.

Planet Pioneers is generously supported by the Orr Family Foundation and Radiant Point, Ltd.

Editors Note: This content is made possible by The Witte Museum. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
Primary and middle schools in Beijing should carry out thorough inspections of all apps, WeChat groups and QQ groups that students use, as well as the WeChat and Weibo public accounts they follow to ensure the mobile tools will not harm students' physical or psychological health.

Education authorities in Beijing should submit a report on their progress to the Beijing Municipal Education Commission by March 1, the commission said on Tuesday in an online statement.

Apps that contain pornography, violence, online games, commercial advertisements or that increase students' academic burdens are to be banned, it said.

The content, links, functions and information security of apps should be strictly reviewed and sent for approval to higher education authorities, and unapproved apps are forbidden from use by schools.

Homework and students' scores and rankings should not be shared in chat groups, and teachers should refrain from praising students or criticizing them in the groups, the statement said.

Parents should not post sycophantic replies or advertisements or curry votes if their child is in the running for a prize or title, it said.

Schools and education authorities should also strengthen their supervision of content and the comments on their own social media accounts. They should not post anything that is forbidden by laws or regulations, it said.

On Jan 2, the Ministry of Education asked education authorities at all levels, along with middle and primary schools, to establish daily supervision to ensure that mobile apps used by the schools meet the standards set by the ministry.

Schools should avoid using apps to increase the academic load for students, and educational apps used on campus are not allowed to charge money. Information should be protected and privacy leaks should be prevented, the ministry said.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, said the chat groups were originally designed as conduits of informative and harmonious dialogue between families and schools. Instead, the sheer convenience of the instant-messaging platform is becoming a cause of stress for teachers and parents alike.

"The chat groups no longer play their original role, but have instead devolved into a free-for-all in which parents argue, show off and bootlick to curry favor with teachers, while the teachers feel obliged to answer questions and requests from parents 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said.

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said that although the Beijing regulation intends to protect students from harmful content, the education authorities should refrain from going to the extreme and regulating every aspect of students' lives.

"The part about teachers not recommending any social media account not managed by the school is a bit over the top, as students should have the freedom to follow any legal account they want," he said.
Why is Gov. Greg Abbott spending $800 million to enhance Texas border security? Dont we have about 250 troopers and DPS gunboats patrolling the Rio Grande? It seems to me it is getting a little crowded at the border with the Border Patrol, U.S. Army troops, Immigration and Customs personnel and now DPS troopers!

Would it be better to spend the $800 million on humanitarian relief, like temporary housing, medical facilities and other care-related facilities for immigrants?

Like it or not, as long as there is political unrest and poverty in Central America, refugees will still come to America.

Lloyd R. Mathews, Rockport

Wall off Congress

I seldom agree with our presidents priorities. But I think he is right about the wall. The only problem is, he wants it in the wrong place. What we need is a wall around Congress. We should herd all our senators and representatives and the president, and put them in one room in Congress.

Secure the premises with some kind of wall and patrol the area with Border Patrol agents. Nothing and no one will be allowed in or out. That means no press, no food, no cellphone use and no outside communication of any kind until a compromise is reached.

Maybe theyll get as sick of each other as we are with them and finally get something done.

Ross Smith

Beyond one issue

Re: Early support, Your Turn, Jan. 23:

Felix Gonzalez excoriates Dennis Nixon for his support of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, calling it hypocritical. He bases this on one issue and one issue only  the wall. President Trump is for it, Mr. Nixon is against it.

Mr. Gonzalez, perhaps you may be aware of other issues that interest Mr. Nixon and all of us? Pro-life, tax cuts, constitutional judges, less regulation, etc. It is silly to base your support of a candidate on solely one issue.

I wonder if Mr. Gonzalez agreed with every single one of Hillary Clintons positions when he presumably voted for her in 2016?

Mr. Nixon is the CEO of IBC. If there is a single issue for Mr. Nixon to base his support for a candidate on, it would be banking.

The Dodd-Frank Act killed community banks, and IBC took a financial hit under the burdensome rules and regulations during the Obama administration. The Trump administration has been much friendlier to banks, and IBC has had two record years in a row helped by this administration.

As an IBC stockholder, it is clear to me that Mr. Nixon chose the right candidate to support in 2016. No hypocrisy there.

Bob Simpson, Laredo

Switch sides

Re: Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive in the U.S. Senate, Other Views, Jan. 23:

Michael Gersons column on the Knights of Columbus conveniently omitted the relevance of Christopher Columbus well-known cruelty toward the indigenous populations of the Americas.

Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono are perfect spokeswomen to scream out against the oppression of minorities represented by the name Columbus. As if those drawn swords by the Knights of Columbus and their medieval plumage symbolize love, generosity and charity for the poor and downtrodden. Cannot be!

Doesnt the bigotry actually lie with the Catholic Church and its powerful organizations that try to take action against women and their reproductive rights? Isnt that the real issue? After all, the courts have supported womens reproductive rights. It is the Catholic Church that has organized its power against them. Men form the hierarchy of that church.

If Gerson wants to fight bigotry, he had better switch sides.

Michael L. Vogelsang

U. of Bad Manners

Re: More woe for professor UTSA suspended, Metro, Thursday:

I suggest if Dean Howard Grimes, UTSA Provost and Vice President Kimberly Espy and UTSA President Taylor Eighmy feel that placing ones feet on furniture and reclining (lying down in class) are not disruptive  not to mention unsanitary  they should immediately request recliners and expect visitors to their offices to recline and place their feet on their desks.

I also suggest that UTSA have a special course on civility and decorum in our society. They can instruct students on how to accomplish said behaviors in church, doctors offices, attorneys offices and job interviews. Oh, I forgot: Why have a special class when apparently bad manners are acceptable in every class?

The only woes besides poor professor Anita Moss  who should be looking for a new job  are the poor freshman biology students who need a rigorous class to advance. Shame again on UTSA!

Kate Andrew

Cheap or good?

I have been reading the articles about hospitals having to publish their price lists, but the truth is far more complex.

This requirement is just another bureaucratic exercise in muscle-flexing and chaos-creation by someone with power but no sense. Price shopping for a hospital is an exercise in futility because of the one factor I believe is most important: Just because you find a relatively inexpensive place for your treatment doesnt mean your doctor is on staff there. Having a medical degree and a state license doesnt automatically grant a physician staff privileges at every hospital that his patients may find on the list.

The decision then becomes: Do you want a cheap hospital? Or do you want to be treated by the doctor you have come to trust for your care?

Louis Levy
I went into journalism to cover politics, but now I find myself in national marriage therapy. Covering American life is like covering one of those traumatizing Eugene ONeill plays about a family where everyone screams at each other all night and then when dawn breaks you get to leave the theater.

But Im here to help. Ive been searching for practical tips on how we can be less beastly to one another, especially when were negotiating disagreements. Ive found some excellent guides  like Negotiating the Nonnegotiable by Daniel Shapiro, The Rough Patch by Daphne de Marneffe and The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker  and Ive compiled some, I hope, not entirely useless tips.

The rule of how many. When hosting a meeting, invite six people to your gathering if you want intimate conversation. Invite 12 if you want diversity of viewpoints. Invite 120 if you want to create a larger organism that can move as one.

Scramble the chairs. If you invite disagreeable people over for a conversation, clear the meeting room, except jumble the chairs in a big pile in the middle. This will force everybody to do a cooperative physical activity, untangling the chairs, before anything else. Plus, youll scramble the power dynamics depending on where people choose to place their chairs.

The best icebreaker. To start such a gathering, have all participants go around the room and describe how they got their names. That gets them talking about their family, puts them in a long-term frame of mind and illustrates that most people share the same essential values.

Tough conversations are usually about tribal identity. They are over issues that make people feel their sense of self is disrespected and under threat. So when youre debating some random topic, you are mostly either inflaming or pacifying the other persons feeling of tribal identity.

You rigidify tribal identity every time you make a request that contains a hint of blame. You make that identity less inflamed every time you lead with weakness: I know Im a piece of work, but Im trying to do better, and I hope you can help me out. When tribal differences are intractable, the best solution is to create a third tribe that encompasses both of the warring two.

Never have a meeting around a problem. If you have a problem conversation you are looking backward and assigning blame. If you are having a problem conversation youre saying that one episode  the moment the government shut down  was the key to this situation, rather than all of the causes that actually led up to the episode. Instead, have a possibility conversation. Discuss how you can use the assets you have together to create something good.

Your narrative will never win. In many intractable conflicts, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, each side wants the other to adopt its narrative and admit it was wrong the whole time. This will never happen. Find a new narrative.

Never threaten autonomy. People like to feel that their options are open. If you give them an order  Calm down or Be reasonable  all that they will hear is that youre threatening their freedom of maneuver, and they will shut down.

Attune to the process. When youre in the middle of an emotional disagreement, shift attention to the process of how you are having the conversation. In a neutral voice name the emotions people are feeling and the dynamic that is in play. Treat the hot emotions as cool, objective facts we all have to deal with. People cant trust you if you dont show them youre aware of how you are contributing to the problem.

Agree on something. If youre in the middle of an intractable disagreement, find some preliminary thing you can agree on so you can at least take a step into a world of shared reality.

Gratitude. People who are good at relationships are always scanning the scene for things they can thank somebody for.

Never sulk or withdraw. If somebody doesnt understand you, not communicating with her wont help her understand you better.

Reject either/or. The human mind has a tendency to reduce problems to either we do this or we do that. This is narrowcasting. There are usually many more options neither side has imagined yet.

Presume the good. Any disagreement will go better if you assume the other person has good intentions and if you demonstrate how much you overall admire him or her. Fake this, in all but extreme cases.

As you were reading this list, you might have thought the real problem was other peoples obnoxiousness, not your own. But take an honest look at yourself.
Tom Reel, Staff / Staff photographer

AUSTIN  Texas lawmakers will each receive an extra $4,340 to cover their daily expenses during the 140-day legislative session, which started Jan. 8.

The change comes after the Texas Ethics Commission voted in December to boost lawmakers per diem by $31, to $221 a day. It amounts to a 16-percent bump in the amount of their per diem, which was last increased in 2015.
Tom Reel, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

AUSTIN  House and Senate committees are taking up school and state finance matters Wednesday as they continue to hammer out dueling state budget proposals.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: In a year when lawmakers are promising to tackle school finance reform, the House Public Education committee will kick off its hearing Wednesday with testimony from the Texas Education Agency. View the agenda here.
Bexar County Jail officials mistakenly freed an inmate earlier this month who was supposed to be held for another county, bringing the total number of botched releases in January to three.

Andrew Taylor Ford, 32, was booked into the Bexar County Jail on Dec. 28 on a misdemeanor charge of failure to stop and give information.

When he was booked, jailers overlooked an order to hold Ford on a charge out of San Patricio County, according to the sheriff's office. He was released on Jan. 3 after his charge in Bexar County was dismissed.

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According to a statement from the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, Ford surrendered to his probation officer in San Patricio County on Jan. 11 and has been in custody since.

"As a result of tracking down the error that lead to the release, Sheriff's Administration has identified additional changes needed to the systems and practices with our new booking protocols," the statement from the sheriff's office reads. "Additionally, Sheriff Javier Salazar will be implementing upgrades to personnel training and changes in supervisory staff."

The announcement comes less than a week after Salazar suspended the deputy overseeing the jail in the wake of another mistaken inmate release, the latest in a string of missteps at the detention facility over the past year.

Terrik McCoy, who had been in the Bexar County Jail since Nov. 28 on an evading arrest charge, was released Saturday without an electronic monitor, which had been a condition of his release. McCoy was rearrested the following day, given the state-mandated monitor and released again.

Two weeks earlier, Ricardo Mujica, who had completed his jail sentence but was being held on an immigration detainer, was "inadvertently walked out" of the facility with a group of other inmates set for release. Before he left the jail, Mujica had been convicted of a domestic violence charge and sentenced to four years of probation. Because he was released after his state charge had been handled, the sheriff's office had no authority to rearrest him.

RELATED: Bexar County Sheriff blames negligence, lack of oversight for recent mistakes at jail

All three releases took place on Deputy Chief Ruben Vela's watch, according to Salazar. Vela was suspended Sunday.

"I think we have a difference in management style," Salazar said Monday. "This jail administration had been advised to get a handle on that situation ... it was clear we still haven't gotten a handle on it."

Salazar said in the press conference Monday that he plans on meeting with Vela to discuss the oversight issues occurring at the jail.

"I'll be having a meeting with him very soon to address my concerns and what took us to this point," Salazar said. "We need to figure out what went wrong and what we could have done better to fix it."

Staff Writer Fares Sabawi contributed to this report.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com |

cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns
Anne Frank's childhood friend turned stepsister Eva Schloss will be in San Antonio in March to share memories of the author behind the renowned Holocaust diary and speak about her own survival story.

On March 19 from 7:30 to 9 p.m., Trinity University's Laurie Auditorium will host a "Historic Evening with Anne Frank's Step Sister." Schloss, now 89, "will share her experiences as the childhood friend and step sister of Anne Frank, including accounts of the publishing of Anne's famed diary."

The event is suitable for all ages and guests of all faiths and backgrounds are welcomed to attend, according to event details shared online.

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"This is a special opportunity to hear a first-hand account from someone whose life intersected with one of the most compelling figures in modern history," event details read.

Schloss met Frank when the two were neighbors in Holland before both being deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"The two girls became friends and playmates (though, as Eva would say many years later, the girl was 'much more grown-up and mature than me')," the Facebook event page explains. "They passed the time by skipping, playing hopscotch and marbles, and drinking lemonade that the girl's mother prepared."

Schloss survived the concentration camp and moved to England, where she married Zvi Schloss, raised a family and ran an antique shop. Frank became Schloss' posthumous stepsister when her mother married Frank's father after the war, according to AnneFrank.org.

Since 1985, Schloss has dedicated her time to Holocaust education and has traveled the word for more than a thousand talks like the one in San Antonio.

FROM OUR SUBSCRIBER SITE: NPR's Totenberg addresses Supreme Court term and political polarization at Trinity lecture

The event is hosted by the Chabad Center for Jewish Life & Learning and Trinity University in conjunction with the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio, The Alamo Colleges District, University of the Incarnate World, St. Mary's University, and the University of Texas at San Antonio, details say.

General admission tickets will be available soon via Ticketmaster.com for $18. Students will be able to receive a complimentary ticket through their respective colleges. Details on student admission and a VIP package, which provides priority seating, Schloss' autographed biography and a private reception with her, are to follow, the Facebook event page reads.

"Eva joins many courageous individuals who work tirelessly to end the violence and bigotry that continue to plague our world," details say. "Eva's story is sensational and difficult to imagine, yet her insightful message reminds us that life is precious and fragile, that the creative spirit is stronger than fear, that the power of good is immeasurable, and that love makes a difference."

Madalyn Mendoza is a breaking news reporter and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @MaddySkye
A man who was fatally struck Friday while crossing a South Side street was identified by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office.

William Thomas Everitt, 47, was pronounced dead at 7:10 p.m. in the 10400 block of Roosevelt, according to preliminary information from a San Antonio police report.
A court in eastern China's Fujian Province has sentenced a man to death for hijacking and crashing a bus killing eight people in December.

Qiu Rihui was also deprived of his political rights for life for homicide and endangering public security with dangerous means, according to the Longyan City Intermediate People's Court.

Eight people were killed and many others injured after the hijacked bus crashed into pedestrians on the street in the city proper of Longyan on Dec. 25, 2018. Police later caught Qiu, who was unemployed and a native of Longyan.

The initial police investigation shows that on that day, the suspect had a conflict with an official of the neighborhood committee, with whom he had long been at odds, during the official's visit to his home. He then attacked people with a knife, hijacked a bus and used it to hit pedestrians.
Although the partial federal government shutdown ended earlier this month, its effects are still ongoing and on Wednesday, Padre Island National Seashore announced it would be canceling its 2019 Kite Day festival.

Due to the government shutdown, we simply do not have enough time to plan and prepare for the festival, the organization said in a Facebook post. "As well, there is uncertainty about whether we would be open on the day of the festival due to another potential lapse in funding on February 15.

READ ALSO: Video shows dozens of alligators at remote island off South Padre

The national park is hoping for an amazing Kite Day in 2020, it added.

Its Big Shell Beach Clean-Up, which also had an uncertain future during the shutdown, will be held Feb 23 at 7 a.m., according to the Facebook post.

Multiple people on social media expressed interest in helping clean debris from the beach following the 35-day shutdown. One woman asked how the public could help and another said she didn't mind making the drive to assist.

READ ALSO: Texas man catches 12-foot tiger shark near South Padre Island early Saturday

Padre Island National Seashore Education Coordinator William "Buzz" Botts said there's lots of debris on the beach, but it's not substantially worse than it would have been without the shutdown since so many beach volunteers continued to clean throughout those 35 days. A large influx of wood  likely from a flood somewhere  recently floated ashore by chance, he added, so crews are trying to deal with that as well as standard trash.

The Texas coast, and particularly Padre Island National Seashore, is already prone to higher amounts of trash than other areas along the Gulf because of the way the Gulf funnels, Botts said.

"In Texas, we get about 10 times the amount of plastic on our beaches than any other Gulf states, mostly because of the current," Botts said. "It's not Texans per se, but like anything else, we're a part of the problem."

READ ALSO: South Padre expands 2019 spring break music lineup

In addition to the Big Shell Beach Clean-Up, the park has two other upcoming days when the public can help clean. The winter adopt-a-beach cleanup is Feb. 9 and spring adopt-a-beach cleanup is April 13, he said. Later this year, the fall clean-up will be Sept. 15. All three are annual events.

He encouraged visitors to take a few minutes to pick up a bag or two of garbage even during non-official events.

"Trash comes off the beach one bag at a time, so whether (visitors) are part of a large cleanup like Big Shell or just come as a family and pick up a bag or two, either helps," Botts said.

The seashore may have some slight delays in its seasonal hires, Botts said, but has otherwise had a relatively smooth start-up following the shutdown.

S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey
New Braunfels police on Wednesday issued a 90-day ban on commercial electric scooters in the city and will cite anyone caught using one with a Class C misdemeanor, city officials announced.

The temporary order was issued by Assistant Chief of Police Joe Vargas in an effort to address the scooter issue through "proper channels of city government," according to a statement from David Ferguson, the communications coordinator for the City of New Braunfels.

"We understand it's a national trend, but the reason behind this is getting something down on the books from city council and figuring out what the city wants to do about [the scooter companies] should they locate here," Ferguson told mySA.com.

The ban applies to the commercial use of "electric motorized scooters on public streets, sidewalks and rights-of-way inside the incorporated city limits."

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"Under the temporary order, officers with the New Braunfels Police Department will be able to cite those using motorized scooters if they were acquired through a commercial business (shared mobility service) and if they are being used on public streets or sidewalks," Ferguson said in a statement. "Each citation is the equivalent of a Class C Misdemeanor with a fine not to exceed $500."

Prior to Wednesday's ban, at least one scooter company, who Ferguson declined to name, conducted a test run in New Braunfels and then removed all the scooters from the city. No scooter companies currently operate in the city.

New Braunfels' municipal code allows the chief of police to make "regulations necessary to make and enforce temporary or experimental regulations to cover emergencies or special conditions." Because New Braunfels' current Chief of Police, Tom Wibert, is out on medical leave, the responsibility fell to Vargas.

New Braunfels isn't the only Central Texas city taking a closer look at policies surrounding electric scooters.

The San Antonio City Council last year approved a six-month pilot program for scooter regulations, then watched as scooter use "exploded" to a level that "compromises" safety, sidewalk traffic and cleanliness, officials said.

FROM OUR SUBSCRIBER SITE: City Council to mull new restrictions for scooters on San Antonio streets

Citing the unexpected growth in the vehicles' popularity, Mayor Ron Nirenberg on Tuesday expressed support for even more regulation. The city council will consider tighter regulations and more oversight for the electric vehicles on Feb. 14.

"Pedestrian safety must be our top priority," Nirenberg said. "While I remain committed to nurturing innovative transportation solutions, we must institute best practices to ensure a safe and welcoming environment for everyone using City streets and sidewalks."

In nearby Kirby, the city council directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance banning the electric scooters from all 118 streets of the suburb.

"We didn't take a formal vote yet," said Kirby councilmember Mike Grant. "But there is consensus among us all that we have to get in front of this issue and not allow ourselves to be like downtown San Antonio."

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com |

cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns
A utility crew foreman's day took a turn when he decided to relieve himself near his work site in New Braunfels Tuesday and found a human skull.

Ky Sandelovic, who works for Sendero Powerline Construction, was installing new power poles with his crew near the intersection of FM 1044 and Green Valley Road, he told mySA.com. In the afternoon he needed to use the bathroom, so he found a spot about 45 yards away from the work site, he said. That's when he spotted what looked like a skull.

"I was in a little clearing and you can see it plain as day," he said.

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At first, he didn't think the skull was real, but he couldn't help passing close by it on his way back to work.

The skull was only slightly sunk into the ground, he said, so he nudged it with his foot.

"I flipped it over and you could see the pores on it," he said. "You could see a tooth, too."

Sandelovic quickly became certain it wasn't just a discarded Halloween prop.

"I just figured I should call it in so (police) could come do whatever was necessary," he said.

Sandelovic said he couldn't see any other human remains near the skull.

New Braunfels police confirmed the discovery in a news release Wednesday morning.

Their initial forensic analysis indicated that the skull was in fact, in fact, real and belonged to an adult. However, they still have not been able to determine the person's gender, age, condition or manner of death, according to the news release.

Investigators shut down Green Valley Road between FM 1044 and Ron Road for most of the day Wednesday to look for additional evidence. It was unclear Wednesday afternoon if they found anything that will help them solve the case.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA
A Texas lawmaker wants to legalize casino gambling in some Texas counties and use some of the proceeds to provide relief to residents affected by future hurricanes and other storms.

Texas state Rep. Joe Deshotel, DBeaumont, filed the bill in December that would guarantee casino licenses in Harris, Galveston, Jefferson, Nueces and Bexar counties.

Three other licenses would be allotted for other counties along the state's Gulf Coast, according to the bill.

ALSO: Some of the most notable or unique bills filed in the Texas Legislature

The bill aims to place an 18 percent tax on casino revenue, about half of which would be allocated into the catastrophe reserve trust fund.

The bill also creates what Deshotel is calling the catastrophic flooding assistance trust fund, which is where the rest of the taxed revenue would wind up.

That fund would not be subject to the state's budget bill, but legislators would be able to put state money into the fund if they wanted to do so.

More Information Casinos in Houston? Texas lawmaker wants to legalize gambling for hurricane relief See More Collapse

Both funds could be used by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to provide emergency relief to flood or wind-damage victims of hurricanes and other severe storms throughout the state.

Even if the bill passes through the Texas Legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas voters will have a say in whether or not casino gambling will be allowed.

Casino gambling is currently barred by the Texas Constitution. Deshotel also filed a separate resolution asking for a constitutional amendment allowing the bill to take effect if passed.

That amendment, if approved by the legislature, would go to a statewide vote in November 2019.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message
A Texas lawmaker wants to legalize casino gambling in some Texas counties and use some of the proceeds to provide relief to residents affected by future hurricanes and other storms.

Texas state Rep. Joe Deshotel, DBeaumont, filed the bill in December that would guarantee casino licenses in Harris, Galveston, Jefferson, Nueces and Bexar counties.

Three other licenses would be allotted for other counties along the state's Gulf Coast, according to the bill.

ALSO: Some of the most notable or unique bills filed in the Texas Legislature

The bill aims to place an 18 percent tax on casino revenue, about half of which would be allocated into the catastrophe reserve trust fund.

The bill also creates what Deshotel is calling the catastrophic flooding assistance trust fund, which is where the rest of the taxed revenue would wind up.

That fund would not be subject to the state's budget bill, but legislators would be able to put state money into the fund if it wanted to do so.

Both funds could be used by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to provide emergency relief to flood or wind-damage victims of hurricanes and other severe storms throughout the state.

Even if the bill passes through the Texas Legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas voters will have a say in whether or not casino gambling will be allowed.

Casino gambling is currently barred by the Texas Constitution. Deshotel also filed a separate resolution asking for a constitutional amendment allowing the bill to take effect if passed.

That amendment, if approved by the legislature, would go to a statewide vote in November 2019.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message
WASHINGTON - House Democrats unveiled a new border security plan Wednesday that contains no money for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico divide, defying President Donald Trump's insistence on a wall of some kind to stave off another government shutdown.

The Democrats' proposal was their opening bid in bipartisan House-Senate negotiations aimed at coming up with a deal to keep the government open when temporary funding runs out Feb. 15. It came just hours after Trump dug in on his conditions for signing off on such a deal, writing on Twitter that lawmakers would be "wasting their time" if they're not considering a wall or physical barrier on the southern border.

But in a sign of how difficult it may be for lawmakers to strike a compromise that Trump can support, Democrats dismissed the president's insistence on physical barriers on the border, arguing that security funds would be better spent elsewhere.

"We've seen that walls can and will be tunneled under, cut through or scaled," said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. "We cannot focus on archaic solutions in order to address this very modern problem. Technology works for securing the border."

Aguilar spoke as 17 House members and senators from both parties met in the basement of the Capitol to open negotiations aimed at resolving the border wall standoff that led to the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history, which ended Friday after 35 days. The deal that temporarily ended the shutdown and reopened the government for three weeks also provided for the creation of the "conference committee" to negotiate over border security.

Trump has threatened that if the committee does not produce a solution he likes, he will shut down the government again, or declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and use the military to build the border wall for which he long claimed Mexico would pay.

Having backed Trump through a politically disastrous shutdown that did not get him the $5.7 billion in border wall money he wants, Republicans have no desire to repeat the experience, and many do not favor an emergency declaration, either. Democrats, too, say they would like to see Congress reach a solution that both parties and the president can support.

But despite expressions of goodwill on all sides Wednesday as the committee met, with many lawmakers insisting that they share the same goals and agree more than they disagree, the gap between Trump and congressional Democrats on the fundamental issue of the wall yawned as wide as ever.

In fact, Democrats' renunciation of any spending for physical barriers represented a entrenchment compared with where they've been in the past, when they supported spending bills for the Homeland Security Department containing some level of funding for fencing or other barriers on the border. Even the current stopgap spending bill that is keeping the government running through mid-February would allocate tens of millions over that time to build and repair pedestrian fencing along the border.

But Trump's singular focus on a wall has made it politically toxic for Democrats, and their success in forcing him to accept a deal on their terms to temporarily end the shutdown has emboldened them against his demands.

Asked about Democrats' newfound insistence that they cannot fund physical border barriers at all, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, said that "there's a lot of new technology now that is available that was not available when we made other decisions."

At the same time, Democrats suggested that they were open to eventual compromise on the issue.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., refused to say whether opposition to physical barriers was nonnegotiable for Democrats, responding at a news conference: "At this point, I'm certainly not going to give an answer to that question."

Noting that negotiations were just getting underway, Lowey added: "We're open to everyone's facts and figures."

House Democrats' proposal includes funding for myriad other security measures along the border, including 1,000 additional customs officers, new imaging technology to scan vehicles for drugs and contraband, repairs at ports of entry, and changes aimed at reducing detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Republicans on the committee echoed some of the Democrats' calls for improved technology to screen cargo and stop drug shipments, but they followed Trump in calling for physical barriers as part of an overall solution.

"Our Border Patrol tells us they need physical barriers to help them do their job - not from coast to coast, but strategically placed where traffic is highest," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

"It's unfortunate the issue has become politicized," Shelby added. "That has not always been the case."

Compounding the challenge for members of the conference committee is the lack of clarity about what deal Trump would ultimately find acceptable. Republicans say they are unsure whether Trump would accept less than the $5.7 billion in wall funding he has been demanding, and if he would, what number would be acceptable to him.

Ahead of the committee meeting Wednesday, White House legislative affairs director Shahira Knight met behind closed doors with bipartisan members of the House "Problem Solvers" coalition where one lawmaker challenged her on that point.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., said Knight contended that the White House had made its position clear on border security and immigration, but Costa said he disputed that.

"I challenged her," he said. "I said, 'That's wonderful.' She said - she used the term 'secret sauce.' I said, 'Well, we all want to find out what the secret sauce is,' I said, 'but for many of us it's not clear.' "

"I came out of that meeting with what I believe on her part was a sincere desire to work an agreement out," Costa added. "But I think that the details, from my perspective, as to what would be the basis of that agreement, for me, was not clear."

There has been discussion among some lawmakers of trying to widen the border negotiations to encompass more issues, such as a solution for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children and whose Obama-era protections are being challenged in court by the Trump administration. But Lowey said the conference committee, which she is chairing, will focus on the narrower issues within the parameters of the Homeland Security spending bill.

Costa said there was discussion in the meeting with Knight about aiming for a larger deal, but ultimately, he said, "I don't think there's enough trust to go big."

Also Wednesday, in a sign that House Democrats expect tense final days of negotiation, they delayed an issues retreat that had been slated to run in the last days up to the Feb. 15 shutdown deadline, postponing the retreat until spring.

- - -

The Washington Post's Paul Kane contributed to this report.

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Video: With President Donald Trump thinking about declaring a national emergency in order to fund the border wall, an immigration emergency declaration could be met with numerous legal challenges.(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

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Video: House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Tuesday, Jan. 29, said Democrats may be willing to support additional "evidence-based" fencing along the southern border.(The Washington Post)

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Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea, was the most popular overseas destination for Chinese Douyin users last year, a report from the leading short video platform revealed.

Following Seoul were Vietnam's Nha Trang, Singapore, Dubai and Thailand's Pattaya. Douyin, also known as Tik Tok, gathered the information after tracking 260 million visits marked via the app by Chinese users in 233 countries and regions in 2018.

Beijing was the most popular domestic city, followed by Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding took the crown as the most visited domestic scenic spot, with the animals popular subjects for short videos.

The social media upstart teamed up with several cities such as Xi'an and Chongqing in tourism promotion last year.

The report also showed usage preferences of different generations, with post-90s users fond of taking selfies and post-60s users enjoying recording their children's lives.

Douyin reported over 500 million monthly active users and 250 million daily active users as of last December. It was the most downloaded social media app on iOS last year, according to mobile app data analysis firm Sensor Tower.




Houston oil field service company Baker Hughes has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions for its worldwide operations by 2050.

During the company's annual meeting in Florence, Italy, Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli announced that the oil field service giant has committed to reducing the company's carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and to have net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

"Oil and gas will continue to be an important part of the global energy mix, and BHGE is committed to investing in smarter technologies to advance the energy industry for the long-term," Simonelli said in a statement. "Managing carbon emissions is an important strategic focus for our business. We believe we have an important role to play as an industry leader and partner. BHGE has a long legacy of pushing the boundaries of technology and operating efficiency. Today, we take this to the next level by committing to ambitious new goals for ourselves, and to providing lower carbon solutions expected by customers and society."

Industry Outlook: Oilfield services companies face another rough patch

Baker Hughes plans to achieve those carbon dioxide reductions by applying new technology throughout its manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, energy sourcing and power generation platforms. The company has also pledged to help its customers do the same.

The company's oil field consulting arm Gaffney, Cline & Associates has launched a new carbon management practice will inventory emissions for customers and find ways to reduce them.

Baker Hughes has already deployed modular gas processing plants in Iraq to recover 200 million standard cubic feet of flare gas per day, reducing emissions by 5.7 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent.

In addition to developing compressors with emissions-free electric motors, Baker Hughes is working is with Australian hydrogen technology firm H2U to develop a gas turbine that runs on hydrogen, a green fuel source that produces water instead of carbon dioxide as a waste product.

Meanwhile, the company's LM9000 Gas Turbine is producing 20 percent more power with 40 percent lower nitrous oxide emissions at lower costs for liquefied natural gas customers.

In a related announcement, Baker Hughes officials unveiled LUMEN, a drone designed for monitoring methane emissions at oil and gas operations.

Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox

Environmentalists praised Baker Hughes' announcements, which come at a time when the Trump administration is trying to rollback stricter regulations enacted by the previous Obama administration.

"In a carbon constrained world, minimizing methane emissions is a critical path issue for the oil and gas industry," Environmental Defense Fund Business Energy Manager Isabel Mogstad said in statement about LUMEN. "No operator can afford to sit still as service companies and others bring ever more innovative methane solutions to market."

Environment Texas Executive Director Luke Metzger noted that Baker Hughes' announcements come at a time when wind and solar are cleaning up the power grid and electric vehicles promise to take market share away from gasoline-powered cars.

"I'm encouraged by the commitment, especially the short-term target," Metzger said. "Technology is currently available, for example, to cut methane emissions in half. The longer-term commitment will require advances in technology. It's good they see the writing on the wall about advances in electric vehicles and renewables and recognize the industry needs to change or suffer the consequences."
Governor Gavin Newsom View Photos

Sacramento, CA  New California Governor Gavin Newsom is asking the state legislature to remove the Division of Juvenile Justice from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He says it would be the first step in changing the culture of the states juvenile justice system. Newsom says the state should focus its energy more on helping youth develop career skills, as opposed to just incarceration.

The Governor states, Juvenile justice should be about helping kids imagine and pursue new lives  not jumpstarting the revolving door of the criminal justice system. The system should be helping these kids unpack trauma and adverse experiences many have suffered. And like all youth in California, those in our juvenile justice system should have the chance to get an education and develop skills that will allow them to succeed in our economy.

Related to the change, Newsom is proposing $2-million be set aside for a program that will allow AmeriCorps members to help mentor youth released from facilities. In addition, $100-milllion in new revenue is proposed to go for screenings for adverse childhood experiences and early childhood trauma. The hope is that early intervention can help keep kids out of the criminal justice system.

Newsoms newly appointed Surgeon General, Dr. Burke Harris, a pediatrician, will help raise awareness about the benefits of early interventions. The California Surgeon General position was created earlier this month under Newsom.

Instead of being overseen by CDCR, Juvenile Justice would now fall under the California Health and Human Services Agency.
Sonora, CA  Mother Lode Republican Congressman Tom McClintock declared his support for President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency to secure funding for a wall at the southern board of the United States.

McClintock delivered that remark on the House floor today. He argues that the President offered plenty of compromises to Democrats to end the stalemate and criticized that he is skeptical their position will change in the coming weeks. He stated, If the next three weeks produces the unreasonable demands and intransigence that we have come to expect from the Democratic leadership, I strongly urge the President to use his existing authority.

McClintock spurred objectors adding, Some argue this would divert money from other defense department projects. Its an odd logic that argues the defense of the Iraqi border is more important than the defense of our own.

Below is his entire speech:

Mr. Speaker:

I believe the Presidents decision to temporarily resolve the shutdown was correct. The Democrats refusal even to discuss a path forward had created a crisis of governance in addition to the ongoing crisis at our southern border.

The President had offered many compromises to the Democrats  reducing his funding request; altering the design; adding nearly a billion in humanitarian aid. Yet the Democrats spurned all of these good-faith overtures.

When the President invited congressional Democrats to the Oval Office to hear their views, they refused to go. They had plenty of time to vacation in Puerto Rico with a hundred lobbyists during the shutdown, but couldnt seem to fit a simple meeting with the President into their busy schedules to resolve it.

Based on their past behavior, I am skeptical their position will change over the next three weeks.

They tell us there is no crisis. Yet the facts speak for themselves. Between 16 and 29 million people are now living illegally in the United States, costing American taxpayers well over $100 billion a year to support. Sixty thousand more are illegally crossing our border every month. In 2017, illegal aliens murdered 1,800 Americans and violently assaulted 48,000 more.

The congressional Democrats who oppose the Presidents proposal insist that they support border security but they say a wall is a costly and ineffective way to stop illegal immigration.

It is hard to take either claim seriously.

These same politicians have long advocated for providing a wide range of services for illegal immigrants, ranging from health care and legal counsel to education and housing, all at taxpayer expense. It is hard to believe they want to discourage illegal immigration while rewarding those who illegally immigrate.

The Democrats long ago ceased to call illegal immigration for what it is  illegal. Many have gone so far as to advocate abolishing the agencies that defend our borders. They have enacted sanctuary laws that protect dangerous criminal aliens from deportation; theyve opposed mandatory employment verification to hold employers accountable for hiring illegals; theyve opposed visa tracking of foreign nationals entering our country.

They tell us that walls are medieval, and what we really need are sophisticated cameras. But we dont want to monitor them illegally crossing our border, we want to stop them from crossing.

Walls have been used for thousands of years to impede unauthorized entry for one reason: they work. And they still work: when Israel built a 143-mile wall to protect its southern border, illegal immigration fell 99 percent. The cost of building a wall is a fraction of the cost incurred by American citizens every year to support the illegal population in this country.

It doesnt address the whole problem, but a wall would be a tremendous force multiplier for border enforcement agencies. It would protect them from the violent attacks to which they are constantly subjected and allow them to apply their slender resources more efficiently and effectively.

If the Democrats continue to oppose serious measures to defend our borders and enforce our laws, I urge the President to use the authority Congress granted in 1976 to reprogram already appropriated but unobligated military construction funds for the defense of our nation. And what is more fundamental to national defense than the integrity of our borders?

Some argue this would divert money from other defense department projects. Its an odd logic that argues the defense of the Iraqi border is more important than the defense of our own.

Others have worried that a presidential order would provoke a protracted legal challenge. But isnt that true of any course the President could take?

Others worry leftist activists would misuse the precedent. Let me ask you: when have such activists ever relied on precedent to expand their power?

Using this authority would not only build the wall, it would avoid the need to meet any demands to further diminish or dilute our current immigration laws.

If the next three weeks produces the unreasonable demands and intransigence that we have come to expect from the Democratic leadership, I strongly urge the President to use his existing authority.

Countries that either cannot or will not enforce their borders simply arent around very long. Let that not be Americas epitaph.
Watertown, SD (57201)

Today

Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 45F. N winds at 25 to 35 mph, decreasing to 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 45F. N winds at 25 to 35 mph, decreasing to 10 to 15 mph.
Apple Inc. said Tuesday that its revenue of the fiscal 2019 first quarter has fallen 5 percent to 84.3 billion U.S. dollars from the year-ago quarter, the first time that the U.S. hi-tech giant has reported a revenue decline for the quarter ending in December in more than 10 years.



Market analysts attributed the drop in earnings largely to the company's disappointing sales in China as Apple reported a 15 percent decline in iPhone revenue for the first quarter ending on Dec. 29, 2018.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said it was "disappointing" that the Cupertino, California-based company has missed its revenue guidance for the past quarter.

The revenue from iPhone sales for Q1 quarter totaled 51.98 billion dollars, slightly below the market forecast of 52.67 billion dollars.

However, Apple said its total revenue from all other products and services grew 19 percent, with services revenue from Apple Pay, Apple Music and iCloud storage hitting an all-time high of 10.9 billion dollars, up 19 percent over the prior year.

The company posted all-time highs in its revenues from Mac and Wearables, Home and Accessories, which increased 9 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

"Our active installed base of devices reached an all-time high of 1.4 billion in the first quarter, growing in each of our geographic segments," Cook said.

He said Apple's net cash balance topped 130 billion dollars at the end of the first quarter.

Apple predicted its revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 will stand between 55 billion and 59 billion dollars, while gross margin will be 37 percent and 38 percent.

While Apple generated "strong operating cash flow" of 26.7 billion dollars during the December quarter, its operating expenses for the second quarter are forecast between 8.5 billion and 8.6 billion dollars.
You are here: Arts

As part of celebration of the Chinese New Year 2019, a calligraphy and Chinese painting competition was held in Dhaka on Jan 27.



Scores of Bangladeshi students attended the competition of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy to greet the upcoming Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb 5.

The Chinese embassy in Dhaka organized the competition.

The competition featured diverse performances along with a festival of local traditional handmade delicious local pithas (cakes).

Apart from the competitors, hundreds of people including dignitaries joined the Chinese New Year celebration ceremony which was held at the Shanto-Mariam Foundation campus in Dhaka on Sunday night.

Winners of the contest were given certificates and prizes.
Ambassador Le Dung and overseas Vietnamese at the event (Photo: baoquocte.vn)



Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to Austria and Slovenia Le Dung reported on Vietnams situation over the past year as well as achievements in socio-economic development and foreign affairs. He also said that the year of 2018 marked positive development steps in the Vietnam-Slovenia friendship and cooperation, especially with bilateral trade revenue of nearly USD400 million.

The ambassador encouraged and desired that the overseas Vietnamese in Slovenia continue to promote solidarity, mutual support and make more effort to maintain Vietnamese cultural identity, look toward the homeland and promote Vietnam-Slovenia relations in the future.

The event was organized in a warm atmosphere. At the event, the overseas Vietnamese enjoyed a special art program and traditional dishes of Vietnam prepared by the embassy./.
THE LAW: Is the law an ...
More than 1,700 miles northeast of New Zealand is a small island. Described as "a place where nature hasn't been broken," the raised coral atoll is called Niue. Known for its imposing limestone cliffs and pristine dive sites, the island nation is home to about 1,600 people, and as of January 2018, exactly one duck - a mallard named Trevor.

Elsewhere in the world, ducks are a fairly common sight, but Trevor's presence on Niue was somewhat surprising. Before his arrival, there were no ducks on the remote island, commonly referred to as "The Rock" for its lack of wetlands, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

Local officials believe Trevor - fittingly named after the speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Trevor Mallard - ended up on Niue after being blown there by a storm. But unlike other ducks who have made infrequent, and brief, visits in the past, Trevor stayed.

A muddy puddle on the side of a dirt road became his new home, and Trevor "became part of the community," Rae Finlay, chief executive of Niue's Chamber of Commerce, told The Washington Post in a phone interview early Tuesday.

But Trevor's solitary existence, which attracted global attention and earned him the distinction of the "world's loneliest duck," has come to a tragic end.

"We've had confirmed reports that Trevor the Duck - Niue has died," read a post Friday on the duck's official Facebook page, which is run by Finlay. "He was seen dead in the bush after being attacked by dogs."

Concern for Trevor, widely known as "a global celebrity and promoter of Niue," began rippling through the island and on social media last week when many reported that the duck was no longer at his puddle and wondered where he may have gone.

"I'm lost and can't find my Puddle," a post on Trevor's Facebook announced Wednesday. "Has anyone spotted me this week around Niue?"

Commenters were immediately alarmed.

"WHAAATTTT????? What is going on???," wrote Claire Trevett, a journalist with the New Zealand Herald, who was one of the first to report on Trevor's existence in September. The story, called "The sorry tale of Niue's only duck," went viral and helped launch the duck to international fame, Finlay said.

"Has he been Ducknapped????" another person asked. "Seriously I hope he is ok though."

Trevor, Finlay would soon find out, was not OK.

"We went looking for him, and then one of the local families told us that a dog had got him," she said. "Somebody saw the dog attack."

Niue's "lovely little duck friend" was laid to rest by a group of locals near his puddle, Finlay said.

"A lot of people will miss the fact that he's no longer with us," she said.

When Finlay first spotted Trevor in the puddle last year, she never thought he would take up a permanent residence on the island.

"I've seen him fly," she said. "There didn't appear to be anything wrong with him. We had no idea why he chose to stay there, but he did."

Despite calls for a mate to be brought in or for Trevor to be moved to a place more suitable for ducks, Finlay said the proposed solutions presented their own issues. There were concerns about introducing a second duck "to a country with no natural water source," she said, adding that Trevor's puddle was "only big enough for one." Moving Trevor was also a challenge because no one knew exactly where he came from, so many argued that the best option was to leave him be, she said.

"He certainly seemed happy were he was," she said.

More for you News New federal duck stamps now on sale

Before long, Trevor was a fixture in the community. A sign was erected near his puddle that read "Niue Duck Sanctuary," and under Trevor's name in smaller text was a description: "The lonely only duck in Niue."

People regularly brought food to his puddle (his favorites included cooked rice, cabbage and corn) and gave him treats whenever he would stop by their lawns, Finlay said. When the puddle looked too dry, residents and the local fire department "always came to his rescue and topped him up until it rained," she said.

Trevor became such a constant that locals even started using him as a reference point when giving directions, Trevett wrote, recalling that when she visited the island last year, someone instructed her to "turn right after the duck."

Though headlines billed Trevor as "the world's loneliest duck," Finlay said the label wasn't entirely accurate.

"He had plenty of visitors each day bringing him food, just checking on him or taking photos and selfies," she said, noting that the duck also appeared to make friends with a chicken, a rooster and a weka, a flightless bird native to the island.

News of Trevor's untimely death was met with an outpouring of grief on social media.

"Deepest sympathy to the people of Niue from the Parliament of New Zealand," wrote the duck's namesake, Trevor Mallard, the New Zealand politician, on Facebook.

"Oh Trevor we will miss you," one person commented, "thank you for gracing our shores for a year and for bringing my children a lot of joy. You also taught them to be compassionate and find fun in filling your pond."

Another wrote: "Fly on, Trevor."

Others were angered by how Trevor died, calling for the dog to be "put down."

"That dog should be put behind bars for life," one person opined on Facebook.

Finlay, who regularly fed and checked in on Trevor, told The Post she was "devastated."

"He will definitely be missed, he captured many hearts and even the rooster, the chicken and the weka were looking a little forlorn today wandering around the near dry puddle," she said.
Europe's first Hun museum, and the world's second, is going to be built in Kunszentmiklos, central Hungary, Xinhua reported, quoting official sources in Budapest on Tuesday.

"A Hungarian version of the Xiongnu (also known as the Hun tribes) museum of Hohhot, China, is going to be set up in Kunszentmiklos," the official journal of the department of the city of Kunszentmiklos declared.

"The second such cultural institution of the world will be set up in the building of the Viragh mansion," the journal added.

As part of the preparatory work, the city tries to promote the lifestyles the Hun conquerors with the help of regular programs. One invited professional lecturer per month will be able to present the topics to the public.

Some of the exhibition material of the planned Kunszentmiklos Museum can be already seen in Ozd, eastern Hungary, and the rest of the exhibition will be purchased soon, according to the announcement.

The transformation of the Viragh mansion into a museum is going to start in the spring, with the help of substantial state subsidies.

The first museum on Xiongnu opened in Hohhot, capital city of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in August 2017.

The Xiongnu, a nomadic tribe, emerged in the third century BC, and had a huge impact on the history of China and the world.
A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures on Wednesday, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and prompting the U.S. Postal Service to take the rare step of suspending mail delivery to a wide swath of the region.

Many normal activities shut down and residents huddled inside as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years. The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, breaking the days previous record low set in 1966. Snowplows were idled overnight in southwestern Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to negative 29 degrees. And the temperature in Fargo, North Dakota, was 31 degrees below zero.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold , including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.

A wind chill of minus 25 can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming overloaded, Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

People dont want to be out there right now, said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

Detroits outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 12, with wind chills dropping to minus 35.

At least four deaths were linked to the weather system Tuesday, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

A popular saying goes: Neither snow nor rain nor heat  will stop the mail from being delivered. But extreme cold will on Wednesday.

The U.S. Postal Service said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of several Midwest states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

Hawaii native Charles Henry, 54, was staying at a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota, and said he was grateful to have a place to stay out of the cold.

That wind chill out there is not even a joke, he said. I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside.

Chicago was turning five buses into makeshift warming centers moving around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold.

Were bringing the warming shelters to them, so they can stay near all of their stuff and still warm up, said Cristina Villarreal, spokeswoman for the citys Department of Family and Support Services.

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that youre going to freeze or lose a limb, said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Hundreds of public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes Tuesday or planned to do so Wednesday.

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. The extreme cold was a scary situation, because much of the housing is of poor quality, said Chris Fairbanks, energy assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

But it wasnt stopping one of Americas most formidable endurance tests, however  the three-day Arrowhead 135 was going on as scheduled in northeastern Minnesota. Competitors can cover the race route by bicycle, cross-country skis or just running.

The cold is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase. That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.
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The "British Chinese Film Day" on Sunday night was held in London's British Film Institute, with focus on Chinese ethnicity filmmakers working in Britain and their productions on short films.

The event was also as part of the Filming East Festival 2019.

Five Filming East Shorts Award winners, featuring short films across drama, comedy, action, animation, and documentaries, were screened during the event.

The shortlisted filmmakers also shared with the audience their experience of working in the film industry in Britain.

In addition to the short films, three award-winning Chinese language films, namely SUSU, The Soul of Himalaya and The Fragile House, are also being screened during the festival from Jan 27 to Jan 31 in collaboration with Chinese Arts Now (CAN) to show the British audience the contemporary Chinese films from different angles, themes and artistic expression.

An-Ting Chang, the CEO of CAN, said that through the cooperation with the Filming East Festival, new opportunities of showcasing and communications will be created for Chinese filmmakers in Britain, who have been facing challenges.

Since 2007, Filming East Festival has been dedicated to showcasing excellent contemporary Chinese language films in Britain. So far, over 300 Chinese shorts and feature films have been screened, which have won certain amount of audience in the country, and thus facilitated cultural exchanges between Britain and China.

Yao Tu and Tilda Li, the festival programmers, said the festival has new breakthroughs this year as it focuses more on encouraging young Chinese filmmakers in Britain and followed the new trend of showing films completely using Chinese dialects.
Jamison Jaron Weeden, 28, Okmulgee resident, left us June 5, 2021. Service of Remembrance will be Friday, 11:00 AM, The Chapel of Peace of the Keith D. Biglow Funeral Directors, Inc., of Okmulgee. biglowfunerals.com
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A looted Chinese bronze vessel returned to China in November, is on display in an exclusive exhibition at the National Museum of China.



The exhibition showcases the vessel known as the Bronze Tiger Ying as well as its historical background, and such an exhibition featuring one single cultural relic is rare in the museum's history, said Wang Chunfa, curator of the museum.

The vessel that dates back to the Western Zhou period (1046 BC-771 BC) was auctioned in April 2018 by Britain's Canterbury Auction Galleries and was later shipped back to China with the efforts of China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage in November.

It was added to the museum's collections in December.

Once belonging to the royal family of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the vessel was taken as war booty by British military officer Harry Evans from Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, in 1860 during the invasion of Anglo-French allied forces.

The exhibition is expected to last for a month.
The transformation of Interstate 20 through Midland and Odessa continues.

The Texas Department of Transportation held a public meeting Tuesday to provide details and answer questions about the latest project  an interchange at County Road 1250, which is located west of Loop 250 and east of Farm-to-Market Road 1788.

There is about $19 million for the project, and construction could start as early as summer of 2020. Officials at the forum, which was at the Horseshoe Education Building, said it is possible construction could take 1 1/2 to 2 years.

The project is part of a longer-term planning project in which interstate traffic could exit at a future growth area. County Road 1250 has been identified as a future major arterial, especially heading north toward the new development in west Midland. That arterial also will provide drivers another opportunity to move from I-20 to roads and highways, including State Highway 158, north and northwest of Midland.

RELATED: Repairs to begin on bridge damaged by oversize load

The project would lift I-20 over County Road 1250, similar to what drivers experience at State Highway 349. County Commissioner Robin Donnelly told the Reporter-Telegram after the meeting the expectation is that eventually all intersections along Interstate 20 will feature bridges that go over highways and roads. He said the process of changing the Midkiff Road/I-20 interchange is expected to start soon.

One benefit was that trucks traveling the interstate would not have to worry about the height of bridges, according to officials at the forum. Bridge strikes have been an issue in the region.

Another change expected because of the project is the reversal of entrance and exit ramps on both sides of County Road 1250. Whether traveling east or west, the opportunity to exit will happen sooner, while drivers looking to gain access to the interstate will have to wait. One benefit of this is the expected reduction of traffic back on to the interstate because traffic will be pushed to the service roads earlier.

Once service roads are made one-way, drivers are expected a greater benefit to reversal. As one traffic official said, interchanges must be fixed, improved or  as is the case with CR 1250  created.

Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Gene Powell told those in attendance that these are busy times for the Odessa district. He said it wasnt long ago that there was $30 million to $50 million in projects being let in the 12 counties. This included the building or rehabbing of roads and bridges. He said TxDOT is now doing $250 million to $300 million and is looking at $430 million in the next 12 months. He said projects let over a four-year period will total $1.1 billion in the districts 12 counties.

I-20/County Road 1250 interchange timeline

Finalize schematic design, summer

Federal Highway Administration review/comments, summer

TxDOT National Environmental Policy Act decision, summer

Finalize Plans, Specifications and Estimate (PS&E) Design, winter

Right of Way acquisition, winter

Project letting, February 2020

Begin construction, summer 2020
Felon and former state Sen. Carlos Urestis Helotes estate is heading for the foreclosure auction block.

The 8,100-square-foot mansion, featuring six bedrooms and six full bathrooms, has been posted for the Feb. 5 foreclosure auction by a mortgage servicer for lender Security Service Federal Credit Union, records show.

The property, at 15530 Spur Clip, is slated to be sold outside the Bexar County Courthouse.

Uresti received court approval in September to sell the property, which is listed for $1.5 million. The matter is still before the court, according to Daryl Fields, a spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in San Antonio.

As I understand it, the house is still under contract and was supposed to close at the end of the month. Stay tuned, Fields said in an email Monday.

Uresti, the longtime Democrat, and his wife, Lleanna, had the house built in 2013  long before his 2017 indictment on charges that he was involved in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors in a now-defunct oil-field services company called FourWinds Logistics.

A federal jury last February found Uresti, 55, guilty on 11 felony charges. A judge later sentenced Uresti to 12 years in prison and ordered him to pay $6.3 million in restitution to victims of the fraud.

On ExpressNews.com: Uresti gets 12 years in prison

The property was posted for foreclosure on Jan. 14.

Were just enforcing the terms of the (loan) contract, said Brian Engel, an Austin attorney for the trustee conducting the foreclosure sale, San Antonio attorney Marty LaCoutoure.

The Urestis had received an offer from an undisclosed party to buy the property in September.

At the time, Uresti, along with the U.S. attorneys office, asked Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra for authority to sell the property.

Ezras had issued a restraining order in March barring Uresti, his wife and other family members, representatives and others from disposing of any assets without court approval.

Prosecutors asked for the order after alleging Uresti was selling furniture, statues and artwork, which they said could hinder his victims ability to recover their losses.

The government also alleged that a divorce petition, filed by Lleanna Uresti shortly after her husbands conviction, was largely to avoid the lien that will arise at sentencing to enable it to apply their property to his restitution debt. Lleanna Uresti has denied the allegation.

If the property is sold before the foreclosure, any monies remaining after payment of the outstanding mortgages, taxes and costs related to the sale would go into the courts registry and be applied to the restitution judgment.

Mikal Watts, a lawyer for Uresti, didnt have any information on the foreclosure or why the property hasnt sold.

This is the first Ive heard about this, Watts said.

Juanita Pelaez-Prada, a lawyer for Lleanna Uresti, said she believed there is an ongoing effort to sell the property.

I think the parties are still working to accomplish that, Pelaez-Prada said.

The Helotes property is described in a Realtor.com listing as a Tuscan sanctuary with stylish Italian warmth (and) hints of royalty.

Uresti last month sold his former law office building at 924 McCullough to Hill Country Real Holdings for an undisclosed price, property records show. Two weeks after the sale closed, signage bearing Urestis name was removed from the building. Uresti surrendered his law license following his conviction.

Uresti is awaiting sentencing next month in a public corruption case out of Reeves County in West Texas. He pleaded guilty to a single bribery charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. As part of his plea, he agreed to drop the appeal of his conviction and sentence in the case involving the oil-field services company.
Saudi Arabia expects to reduce oil output once again in February and pump for six months at levels well below the production limit it accepted under OPECs oil-cuts accord, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said.

The worlds biggest exporter targeted production of 10.2 million barrels a day in January and is aiming to pump about 10.1 million in February, he said. Saudi Arabias voluntary limit under the December cuts deal with Russia and other producers was 10.33 million barrels a day.

Saudi Arabia will be well below the voluntary cap that we agreed to and will pump beneath its ceiling for the full six months of the December cuts accord, he said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Riyadh.

SUPPLY: U.S. oil production is 23 years ahead of schedule

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, a coalition known as OPEC+, agreed to pare production starting this month in an effort to buttress sagging oil prices. Crude futures have gained this year as Saudi Arabia leads the way in curbing output amid a surge in U.S. shale-oil supplies. Benchmark Brent crude was trading 42 cents higher at $60.35 a barrel at 10:37 a.m. in Dubai.

Demand will start picking up at the end of the first quarter and into the second quarter, Al-Falih said. The impact of OPEC+ output reductions will trickle down into the global markets over the next few weeks.

U.S. Oversupply

The U.S. is currently way oversupplied with its own output and with oil from other Western hemisphere producers, Al-Falih said.

So, as we look at the oil market, and we see it in the price differentials, its really not rewarding us to export a lot of oil to the U.S. And as a result, as we make adjustments, it makes commercial sense that thats the market that gets the majority of our cuts.

EARLIER: Saudis say OPEC+ oil cuts on 'right track' to balance the market

Saudi Arabia and like-minded countries are determined to drive inventories below the five-year historical average, he said. Were going to do it by ensuring that supply is below demand for 2019."

Its still unclear what effect political turmoil in Venezuela will have on crude markets, Al-Falih said. Output from the South American OPEC member has languished amid escalating tensions between forces loyal to President Nicolas Maduro and those supporting opposition National Assembly leader Juan Guaido.

--With assistance from Hussein Slim and Vivian Nereim.

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Our two remote learning days this week will give our students an educational opportunity, and they wouldnt be going out to play in the snow anyway, because its going to be way too cold, Avoca School District 37 Superintendent Kevin Jauch said.
MOULTRIE [mdash] Gary Ray Riggins, age 67 of Colquitt County died Monday June 14, 2021 at his home surrounded by family Celebrations of Life Services are being planned and will be announced later Gary was born September 17, 1953 in Moultrie Ga. to the late Curtis R. and Martha Latrail Holmes
Amid markers of newfound economic robustness, data from the Canadian Real Estate Association showed that national home sales in 2018 declined by 11.1% annually.

This represented the greatest shrinkage ever since the recession in 2008, immediately following a 4.64% shrinkage just the previous year  and might even herald further slowdown that would pose a considerable risk to economic stability.

Any such weakness may become apparent soon as any unsuccessful sale would account for approximately $64,000 lost in possible spin-off economic activity, CREA estimated. Also, just 3 transactions are already equivalent to the economic activity arising from 1 new job.

Spin-off activity is typically general household purchases, furniture and appliances, moving costs, renovations, and professional services (financial, legal, real estate, appraisal, etc.). Those professional services represent nearly half of the spin-off dollar value, Better Dwelling explained in its analysis of the CREA data.

Read more: Transactions hit 18-year low

Earlier this month, BMO senior economist Sal Guatieri cautioned that the outsized economic footprint of real estate  approximately 76% of the $11.415 trillion total national wealth as of Q3 2018  might be a major liability in the event of a sharp, sustained correction in house prices given the wealth effect on spending.

A recent analysis by Altus Group also warned that among the countrys hottest markets, Vancouver is exhibiting the most potential for downside risk, considering the prevailing environment of increasing borrowing and construction costs.

A key challenge that has become more apparent as of late in Vancouver has been the price sensitivity of consumers, with higher priced projects, or those priced above the competition, experiencing below average sales rates.
Earlier this week, the federal government announced that it will be spending $114.7 million on compensation for provinces and municipalities currently struggling with housing supply and costs, largely impelled by a much-boosted demand for temporary residences for asylum-seekers.

The sum will be allocated to federal interim lodging facilities that would help with inventory, The Canadian Press reported. All of this is already on top of the $50 million offered last summer for refugee housing in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba.

The announcement came amid increased pressure from the mayors of the countrys major cities.

Among this contingent is Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, who admitted that his city had to scramble to defray around $5.7 million in extra housing costs in 2017, in connection with asylum seekers from the United States.

Read more: Affordability for millennials might be a political kingmaker

Watson added that Ottawa might have shelled out a similar expense volume in 2018.

Toronto received $11 million in July to deal with refugee claimants. Our city has received nothing, he lamented, as quoted by CBC News. What often happens is a government will make a decision at a senior level and the consequences trickle down to us.

The Ottawa mayor expressed confidence, however, that his city will benefit accordingly from the much-needed federal funding.

Toronto mayor John Tory echoed Watsons sentiments, saying that the Liberal administration should also share the burden of resolving housing supply issues.

[The federal government] makes the decisions about what happens at the border and Toronto is very supportive, for example, of admitting refugees, Tory explained.

Weve had a historically compassionate approach in this country which we support. But the federal government, who admits refugees to the country, also has to take a hand in helping to house and settle them.
Lorain County

Northeast Ohio officials Brown, Kaptur nominate students for service academies

Christian Velez of Amherst is one of the nominees
On the ninth day of trial, federal prosecutors began presenting evidence that Portage Mayor James Snyder allegedly sought $12,000 from Scott Jurgensen, of Samsons Towing, who was cooperating with the FBI, and John Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, to get them a spot on the citys towing list.
Pavilion paint and parking lot sealant are on the to-do list for 2019 capital improvements for the Lorain Port Authority.
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Polar vortex

Lorain County warming centers available to help against the freeze
In the last few years, the city of Elyria has and will continue to transform in multiple areas, according to Mayor Holly Brinda.
Applicants can expect to be in the process for about a year after they get approved before they can move into their home.

Its not a quick fix, but its an excellent long-term solution, Black said. Its amazing to work with families and see the whole process, through being approved and the sweat equity that they do, and meeting the volunteers. They get so much stronger as people.

Dedicating homes

Once a Habitat home is built, the organization holds a dedication ceremony to celebrate the family moving in. Home dedications are open to the public, held rain or shine and last 20-30 minutes. They are Christian themed, with prayers and Scripture readings, and are customized to each homeowner wishes.

We present a Bible at every house dedication to commemorate the day, (since) were a Christian organization, Black said. We present them with a big ceremonial key and a dove (figurine) to symbolize that we hope their home will be filled with peace. We present a loaf of bread so they may enjoy many meals together as a family, and then we present a candle, (to symbolize that), just like Christ is the light of the world, we hope their home will be a beacon to their family and those in their neighborhood.
This video contains some coarse language

Popular Australian blogger and writer Constance Hall has hit back at some of her harshest online abusers in a recent video posted to her Facebook page.

After recently announcing that she'll be taking part in an Australian version of Dancing With The Stars - Constance was faced with a slew of negative and nasty comments.

In an emotional plea, she takes a stand against her detractors and urges others to call out bullies when they see them.

The video has been viewed millions of times in just a few days.
January 30, 2019

When 'Former' Spies Run Wild, Bad Things Happen

A number of related stories describe nefarious activities by 'former' NSA, 'former' CIA, 'former' military officers who joined private businesses which harm other people. They demonstrate that there is a structural problem when those trained to be weapons are allowed to run in the wild.

Reuters just published a two part story about 'former' NSA staff, more than twenty in total, who since 2013 built a snooping center for the United Arab Emirates.

Inside the UAEs secret hacking team of American mercenaries

Ex-NSA operatives reveal how they helped spy on targets for the Arab monarchy  dissidents, rival leaders and journalists.

The 'former' NSA staff did not mind to spy on local dissidents or 16 year old kids on Twitter for the dictatorial Gulf State. Only some of them jumped ship when they found out that their shop was also used to spy on Americans. The 'private' company they worked for is named Dark Matter. It claims to do only cyber-security work, but is a known snooping shop directly connected to the UAE's digital intelligence service NESU. It even resides in the same building.

In October 2016 Jenna McLaughlin reported on Dark Matter for the Intercept:

How the UAE is recruiting hackers to create the perfect surveillance state.

In December 2017 she followed up with an piece in Foreign Policy:

Deep Pockets, Deep Cover

The UAE Is paying Ex-CIA officers to build a spy empire in the Gulf

McLaughlin reports that Dark Matter is under FBI investigation.

The UAE hires not only 'former' NSA and 'former' CIA spies but also 'former' U.S. special operations soldiers:

A Middle East Monarchy Hired American Ex-Soldiers To Kill Its Political Enemies. This Could Be The Future Of War.

The second Reuters story published today describes the technical side of the UAE's cyber-spy shop:

UAE used cyber super-weapon to spy on iPhones of foes

The ex-Raven operatives described Karma as a tool that could remotely grant access to iPhones simply by uploading phone numbers or email accounts into an automated targeting system.

Reuters does not say so, but from the description of the spy tools it seem clear that the Karma tool was bought from the notorious Israeli spy shop NSO Group. The tool's original marketing name is Pegasus. The quoted 'former' NSA spy in the Reuters piece makes some curious claims like 'the tool could not record phone calls'. But that claim makes no sense. Once a decent spy software is on the phone everything is accessible. The claim is obviously made to divert from NSO/Pegasus. Sales of the NSO Group tools to the UAE were confirmed in earlier reports. From August 2018:

Lawsuits claim Israeli spyware firm helped UAE regime hack opponents phones

The government of the United Arab Emirates used Israeli phone-hacking technology to spy on political and regional rivals as well as members of the media, with the Israeli company itself participating in the cyber attacks, The New York Times reported Friday. The Herzliya-based NSO Group uses its controversial Pegasus spyware program to turn smartphones into listening devices.

...

In 2016, Israels Yedioth Ahronoth daily first reported that the Defense Ministry had given the NSO Group permission to sell the software to an Arab company, which went on to target a prominent UAE rights activist.

The NYT original:

Hacking a Prince, an Emir and a Journalist to Impress a Client

The U.A.E.s use of the NSO Groups spyware was first reported in 2016. Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati human rights advocate, noticed suspicious text messages and exposed an attempt to hack his Apple iPhone. The U.A.E. arrested him on apparently unrelated charges the next year and he remains in jail. After Mr. Mansoors disclosures, Apple said it had released an update that patched the vulnerabilities exploited by the NSO Group. The NSO Group pledged to investigate and said in a statement that the company has no knowledge of and cannot confirm the specific cases. But other leaked documents filed with the lawsuits indicate that the U.A.E. continued to license and use the Pegasus software well after Apple announced its fix and the NSO Group pledged to investigate.

NSO Group was founded by two 'former' Israeli army spies:

Everything We Know About NSO Group: The Professional Spies Who Hacked iPhones With A Single Text

But founder Omri Lavie keeps a remarkably tight ship. ... Co-founder Shalev Hulio had not responded to messages. Both are believed to be alumni of Israel's famous Unit 8200 signals intelligence arm, as are many of the country's security entrepreneurs.

The NSO Group tools were also used by the government of Mexico under the former president Nieto to spy on journalists and its opposition.

It was the Toronto University Citizen Lab that in 2016 uncovered the UAE attacks on human rights activists and found NSO to be behind it. It has since published a number of pieces about the NSO Group. Last year Citizen Lab alleged that the NSO tools were used by Saudi Arabia to spy on Jamal Khashoggi, a 'former' Saudi intelligence asset, Muslim Brotherhood activist and Washington Post columnist, who the Saudis slaughtered inside their consulate in Istanbul.

Last month two leading members of Citizen Lab were approached by a shady figure who purported to offer investment money. The Citizen Lab folks became suspicious. They recorded their talks with the man, photographed him and invited some journalists. AP reported on January 26:

APNewsBreak: Undercover agents target cybersecurity watchdog

The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggis inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found.

Two days later the NYT found that the spy shop which sent the man was the Israeli company Black Cube.

The Case of the Bumbling Spy: A Watchdog Group Gets Him on Camera

Black Cube denied that it had played any role in approaching Citizen Lab employees, but the same undercover agent turned up in an earlier case in Canada with a Black Cube connection.

...

The New York Times, in collaboration with Uvda, an investigative television show on Israels Channel 12, has confirmed that the mysterious visitor was Aharon Almog-Assoulin, a retired Israeli security official who until recently served on the town council in a suburb of Tel Aviv.

Black Cube also spied on some people who supported Obama's Iran deal.

Trita Parsi: I Was Targeted by Black Cube in Dirty Ops Effort Attacking Supporters of Iran Deal

Black Cube is run by a number of 'former' military officers and 'former' Mossad agents.

Black Cube: Inside the shadowy Israeli firm accused of trying to undermine the Iran deal

Internal Black Cube documents obtained by NBC News and interviews of sources with direct knowledge of Black Cubes operations reveal a business intelligence company with governmental contracts and a special department for politically motivated work.

...

The firm was founded by former Israeli military officers in 2011. It retains close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, and many of its recruits are former Mossad agents.



The UAE hires 'ex-CIA', 'former NSA' and 'ex-soldiers' to spy on dissidents, friends and enemies. It uses tools produced by the NGO Group which is run by 'alumni of Israel's famous Unit 8200 signals intelligence arm'. When Canadian researchers dig too deep into NGO Group's business they get visits by 'retired Israeli security official' from a company founded by 'former Israeli military officers' who recruit many 'former Mossad agents'.

There is also the 'former MI6 agent' Christopher Steele who created the Dirty Dossier about Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign. Parts of the dossier were likely written by the 'former MI6/GRU double agent' Sergei Skripal who the Brits novichoked and vanished in Salisbury. The international media reaction to that incident was of special interest to the secret military intelligence shop Integrity Initiative which is run by Nigel Donnelly, a 'former British military intelligence official'. The Initiative is financed by the British government.

When I read pieces like those linked above I always presume that the 'former' CIA/NSA/FBI/MI6/8200/Mossad/military folks are not 'former' at all, but active agents on a mission for their original service. Some stories only make sense when one reads them under that premise.

But many of the 'former' people above may really have quit their service. They then get hired for a lot of money by shady states or businesses. This is dangerous not only for human rights advocate in the Emirates or some Jamal Khashoggi. These people could be directed to attack anyone.

There was a time when people entered public jobs when they were young and stayed with their service until they were old and retired. For the services it made sense to keep the expensively trained people within the house and their knowledge away from potentially hostile competition. The public services offered good perks and paid sufficient pensions to make the long stay attractive. They were competitive employers.

That is no longer the case. One of the 'former' NSA spies in the Reuters story above is Lori Straud:

She spent a decade at the NSA, first as a military service member from 2003 to 2009 and later as a contractor in the agency for the giant technology consultant Booz Allen Hamilton from 2009 to 2014. ... Marc Baier, a former colleague at NSA Hawaii, offered her the chance to work for a contractor in Abu Dhabi called CyberPoint. ... Many analysts, like Stroud, were paid more than $200,000 a year, and some managers received salaries and compensation above $400,000.

It is crazy that the NSA trains people who then leave and get hired by a contractor for more money only to do the very same work at the NSA while costing the taxpayer much more than they originally received. That's a racket and not a sensible policy.

(Years ago I managed the IT division of an international company. I made it policy to never ever hire a contractor who was earlier employed in my shop. Thereafter the termination rates decreased significantly.)

'Former' NSA, CIA, military etc have special knowledge and abilities that can be very dangerous. They should be handled like controlled substances. To allow these people to get hired by foreign spy shops is ridiculous.

The above reports of 'former' agents in the wild only scratch the surface of what has become a big business, but is unhealthy for our societies. It is bad enough that state actors spy on us. It will get worse when private businesses do the same.

There will come a day when a crew of former NSA analysts will help some foreign power to defend against NSA analysts who spy on it or will even counterspy on the NSA. There will come a day when former U.S. special operation forces hired by someone will get into a fight with U.S. special operation forces. The outcry will be great. Decent public service pay and sensible regulation could probably prevent the situation.

Posted by b on January 30, 2019 at 21:33 UTC | Permalink

Comments
Jerome Sims, 54, took a plea agreement with the government and pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to aiding and abetting murder resulting from the use and carrying of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime, court records show.
With the new year upon us and a legislative session (under way), let us resolve to be the bright light that shines through the darkest night for the smallest and most vulnerable of angels.
The price of Qantas Airways Limited [ASX:QAN] has hit its lowest point for 2019 in what has been a turbulent day of trading for airlines. At time of writing, Qantas shares were down 5.43%, a 32-cent drop, to trade at $5.57 per share.

Air New Zealand Limited [ASX:AIZ] also took a hit to their share price, down 14.6%.

What caused Qantas share price to drop?

With no news out of the company, the drop in share price was likely sparked by Air New Zealand announcing downgraded earnings guidance.

AIZ announced this morning it had downgraded its earning for tax guidance to $340400 million from the range of $425525 million.

The downgrade, prompted by global Rolls-Royce engine issues, has continued to challenge the airline both commercially and operationally.

Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon stated:

We are concerned with our latest outlook which reflects the softer revenue growth that we are seeing in the second half of the year. Therefore, we have commenced a review of our network, fleet and cost base to ensure the business is on a strong footing going forward.

Free report: Aussie stock picker Sam Volkering (with gains as high as 1,431% in the last 18 months) reveals what he believes are his next four big potential winners.

The problems with Rolls-Royces Trent 1000 engine, which power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the Trent 900 engine, which power the Airbus A380 have forced constant repairs and inspections worldwide.

Investors likely fear a similar fate for Qantas to that suffered by Air New Zealand in its next investor update.

As of November 2018, Qantas had 12 Airbus A380s in service and eight on order, as well as eight Boeing 787s in service with another six on order.

What 2019 looks like for Qantas?

Qantas will likely burden the Rolls-Royce engine issues better than Air New Zealand. Not all the 787 Dreamliners Qantas currently flies uses Trent 1000 engines. Instead, the Qantas Dreamliners flying between London and Perth use General Electrics GEnx engines.

AIZ, despite the engine issues, posted decent customer growth in their update this morning. AIZ recorded 1.7 million customers carried in December 2018, up 4.5% in comparison to the 12-month previous corresponding period.

This is not the first time we have heard about issues affecting Rolls-Royce engines. Airlines have been battling problems with their Trent 1000 and Trent 900 engines for years.

Regardless of the disruption caused by ongoing global engine issues, Qantas posted strong Q1 FY19 revenue, up 6.3% to $4.41 billion versus prior corresponding period.

This growth was likely helped along by their operational excellence, minimising the downtime for planes due to engine issues.

Regards,

Ryan Clarkson-Ledward,

For Money Morning

PS: Check out this must read report on the best ASX stock for 2019. Sam Volkering has already bagged 1,431% in the last 18 months. Could his next four picks be just as lucrative? Click here to download your free report now to find out.
In what appears to be a bold step towards reinforcing the rule of law in the country, an individual under the scanner for a crime has been added to those myriad segments of the society who harness the Right to Information (RTI) Act for procuring justice. While we know of innumerable RTI applications filed from behind the closed doors of jails, in this case an alleged accused in the deadly 2006 Mumbai train blast case, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, has used RTI to procure a copy of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) report placed before the home ministry, which according to him has stated that he was falsely implicated in the serial blasts.

Siddiqui was tried in the 7/11 blast case and was convicted on 30 September 2015 by the Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court. The petitioner stated that the said verdict is pending confirmation before the Bombay High Court. When he got to know that the IB has placed a report with the home ministry in 2009 wherein he is probably falsely implicated, he filed an RTI application with the central public information officer (CPIO) to procure a true copy of the IB report submitted to the home ministry.

On 21 September 2017, the CPIO rejected the application and denied the information, under Section 24(1) of the RTI Act wherein IB is excluded from the purview of the RTI Act.

Siddiqui then filed his first appeal, contending that CPIO's rejection citing Section 24(1) of the RTI Act, was invalid because the same section also states "the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations shall not be excluded under this sub-section..."

The first appellate authority (FAA), however, rejected this contention and upheld the decision of the CPIO.

Siddiqui then filed a second appeal with the Central Information Commission (CIC). CIC Yashovardhan Azad also rejected the request stating in his order of 26 March 2018 that, The Commission finds that the present query raised by the appellant fails to satisfy either of the essential preconditions of being related to allegations of corruption and human rights violations. As such, the RTI request is bad per se in law and the present appeal is dismissed.

Siddiqui then approached the Delhi High Court. His lawyer, Arpit Bhargava, argued in the court on 16 January 2019, that, the information sought by the petitioner pertains to the violation of human rights; that Siddiqui was/has been falsely implicated in the 7/11 blast case by fabrication of evidence and was awarded capital punishment on the basis of false and fabricated evidence. Thus, his case falls within the scope of human rights violation.

The High Court observed that the 'conclusion arrived at by the CIC is erroneous, as the information does relate to a violation of human rights.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru from the Delhi HC further observed that, as per the Section 24 (1) of the RTI Act, only the CIC has the authority to examine the document (the IB report) and decide whether it is fit for disclosure.

The HC order states: In terms of second proviso to Section 24(1) of the RTI Act, the information sought for by the petitioner can be provided to him only on the approval of the CIC. Clearly, the CIC would have to examine whether such information is relevant and material. If the CIC on examination of the material finds that it is not so, the approval for disclosure of such information would not be granted.

The HC order of 16 January 2019 also states: Section 8 of the RTI Act provides for certain exemptions from disclosure of information and the said provisions would be equally applicable to information pertaining to allegations of corruption and human rights violation. Thus, the concerned authorities would have to examine whether the information sought for by the petitioner is otherwise exempt from such disclosure by virtue of Section 8 of the RTI Act.

Thus, the matter has been remanded to the CIC to consider afresh having regard to the observations made in this order.
Venezuela | Believe it or not, but a litre of petrol in the South American country costs is virtually free due to its highest subsidy. Image shows a corporate logo of state-owned oil company PDVSA (Image: Reuters)

Shock and fear swept through the headquarters of Venezuela's state-owned oil firm, PDVSA, on January 29, employees said, after the United States imposed sanctions aimed at limiting President Nicolas Maduro's access to oil revenues.

A high-level manager said PDVSA President and Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo was ensconced in his office. Several employees and union leaders wondered how much worse PDVSA's situation could get now that President Donald Trump's administration had frozen its crucial US-based assets.

"There is total shock. This company is already too beat-down," the manager said on condition of anonymity. PDVSA was once among the world's leading oil companies, but has suffered years of mismanagement and output declines.

White House national security adviser John Bolton said the sanctions on PDVSA were intended to prevent Maduro's government from siphoning off funds from the oil company to maintain his grip on power. Bolton said they would block Maduro from accessing PDVSA assets worth $7 billion and cost him $11 billion in lost export proceeds over the next year.

Trump's order restricts assets including PDVSA's US refining arm, Citgo Petroleum Corp, Venezuela's most important foreign asset and a key source of foreign income.

The US government, along with countries around the world, have declared Maduro an illegitimate usurper and have thrown support behind the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guaido, who has proclaimed himself interim president.

Maduro began a second term on January 10 after an election last year that the opposition and the United States considered a fraud. Maduro says he is victim of an economic war and accuses Trump of directing a coup against his socialist government.

On January 28, Maduro said the United States was unlawfully seeking to "steal" Citgo and PDVSA would take legal action to defend Venezuela's US interests.

Since being appointed oil minister in 2017, Quevedo, a National Guard general, has enacted a series of measures that oil industry experts and PDVSA employees say have pushed the company, which accounts for over 90 percent of export revenues, toward ruin.

Quevedo gave the company's reins to military managers with scant oil experience, while workers face the risk of arrest and charges of sabotage or corruption, and contracts go to small, little-known firms with no experience in the sector, according to a Reuters special report last month that cited former and current officials.

'NO TEARS'

Ivan Freites, a PDVSA union leader, said the sanctions marked the moment for "responsible people" to take over Venezuela's oil industry, where production has slid to a 70-year-low after years of crushing debt and shrunken investment.

"It's an industry ruled by mafias, where smuggling is the chief operation," Freites said.

Thousands of PDVSA's workforce, which totals some 100,000 employees, have already fled abroad to escape poor pay and shortages of food and medicine, draining the company of expertise, according to employees.

Employees said there were no tears at PDVSA's headquarters, just stony-faced resignation. They said they were tired of Quevedo's military management and the corruption they alleged had spread to every corner of the company.

"There is no return now. Either Maduro leaves, or the country sinks completely," said one plant operator.

The Trump administration had long held off on targeting Venezuela's vital oil sector for fear it would hurt US refiners and deepen Venezuela's economic crisis. The United States stopped short of imposing a ban on imports of Venezuelan oil, which US oil refiners had opposed.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a televised address to the nation from his desk in the Oval Office about immigration and the southern U.S. border on the 18th day of a partial government shutdown at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 8, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria - RC1874104B10

President Donald Trump is lashing out after top US national security officials told Congress that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal as promised. Trump tweeted Wednesday that the relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been with the US."

He points to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some US service members' remains and the release of Americans once detained there as signs of progress.

Still, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats told Congress on Tuesday that intelligence information doesn't support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (kim jawng oon) will get rid of his nuclear weapons.

Kim committed to denuclearization after meeting with Trump last year. A second Trump-Kim meeting is expected in February.
Image source: https://www.bellflight.com

Ride-hailing service Uber had stated last year in May that the company aims to start air taxi services by 2023. At CES, Uber's partner company Bell Helicopter unveiled their air taxi.

The air taxi was unveiled in Las Vegas by Bell Helicopters and is called as the Bell Nexus. In a statement released by Uber, the company said that the Nexus represents a major step in its Elevate initiative to create an on-demand Uber Air network, and shows it is on track for delivering the worlds first aerial ride-share network in the coming years.

Uber had only shown a concept of the cabin on the then-unnamed air-taxi. The test model unveiled this year weighs at 600 pounds and is a hybrid-electric vehicle that has a range of 150 miles.

The company plans to test the flying car design  a cross between a helicopter and a giant drone by 2020 and launch the commercial service by 2023.

The Nexus will have space for four passengers and a pilot. Bell stated that Nexus would be designed to fly safely even if one of the fans  used to generate power  gets disabled.

Bell Helicopter partnered with Uber in 2017 when Uber stated its plans to launch a network of city-based flying cars. Bell makes both commercial and military aircraft, according to the companys website.

Uber plans to launch the Uber Air Service in Dallas-Fort Worth area and Los Angeles by 2023. The company is already working with several aircraft manufacturers that are developing eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft.

Uber is not the first company to work on flying car service. Boeing recently tested its flying car that had vertical test flight for less than a minute.

The companys Aurora Flight Sciences designed the flying vehicle and tested it in Manassas, Virginia. Boeing stated that the current testing including successful controlled takeoff, hovering and landing.
Wisely, my former co-star Collins is away during this arctic blast basking in the warm sun at her winter home on the Island of Key West in the Florida Keys. Fortunately, my former features editor has agreed to pick up Collins script and stage alter-ego to join me for this one exclusive performance at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, which is also celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2019.
Congress BJP, BJP Congress

An opinion poll conducted by news channel Times Now and survey agency VMR has predicted 252 seats for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The current Lok Sabha has 543 seats, of which the NDA, led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 336 seats during the 2014 national elections. Of the 336 seats, the BJP had won 282 seats alone, 10 more than the majority mark of 272.

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by Congress, is predicted to win 147 seats while Others, comprising regional and national parties not aligned with either of the alliances, set to win 144 seats.

Significant gains for BJP in Odisha and West Bengal

According to the survey, the BJP is all set to make major gains in Odisha and West Bengal, where the saffron party has trained its focus in the recent months.

The survey predicts that the BJP would win nine seats in West Bengal, an increase from two during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. While the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), according to the survey, will sweep Bengal, winning 32 of the 42 seats, Congress and the Left would be decimated.

In case of Odisha, where the BJP held its national executive meeting in 2017, the survey predicts that the party will win 13 seats, a significant increase from its dismal 2014 performance when it won only one Lok Sabha seat. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), led by long-time supremo Naveen Patnaik, would manage to win eight seats, a drop from its 2014 tally when it won 20 out of the 21 Parliamentary seats in the state. Odisha's assembly elections are also scheduled to take place along with the national elections in 2019.

Painting the West saffron

In Maharashtra, which has the second highest number of Lok Sabha seats at 48, the BJP-Shiv Sena combine is predicted to win 43 seats as against the 42 it won in 2014. The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine's tally is set to down from six to five, according to the survey. Multiple reports have stated that the BJP-ruled Maharashtra, along with Haryana and Jharkhand, might move for simultaneous polls.

According to the survey, in Gujarat, the BJP is likely to gain 24 out of its 26 seats, the Congress winning the remaining two.

In Goa, Congress and BJP would win one seat each, the survey has predicted. The BJP had won both the seats in 2014.

Grand Alliance magic in Hindi heartland

The survey has predicted a huge defeat for the BJP and its allies in Uttar Pradesh, the state with the highest number of Lok Sabha seats at 80. The NDA in UP is likely to slump to 27 seats, as against the 73 it won in 2014.

Numbers presented by the survey suggest that the BJP's loss is the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party (SP-BSP) Mahagathbandhan's gain, with the combine predicted to win 51 seats. Congress, which was kept out of the grand alliance in UP, will manage to cobble up only two seats, the survey has predicted.

Also Read: How an SP-BSP alliance can impact the BJP arithmetic in Uttar Pradesh

In states like Jharkhand and Bihar, BJP and its allies might face stiff opposition and lose seats. According to the survey, the BJP combine's tally is likely to go down from 30 to 25 in Bihar. The Mahagathbandhan, led by Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), will increase its tally from 10 to 15, the survey has predicted.

Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the BJP will face significant losses, with a fall from 12 seats in 2014 to six in the upcoming elections and Congress increasing its tally from two to eight.

In Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, which were BJP-ruled states until the recent assembly polls brought Congress to power in all three, the saffron surge is predicted to be halted. While BJP is likely to win 23 of the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh four less than what it won in 2014, the party's seat share would decline in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

In Rajasthan, BJP's tally will come down to 17 with Congress winning the remaining eight. The survey predicts that of the 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, Congress will win six, and the BJP five, a rise from one and a fall from 10 respectively in 2014.

NDA sweep in Northeast despite Citizenship Bill

According to the survey, the Citizenship Amendment Bill will help in consolidating votes for the BJP instead of working the other way round, as was being predicted.

Of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Assam, the survey reveals that the BJP is likely to win eight seats, one more than its share during the last general elections. According to the survey, the Congress is likely to retain its three seats while the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) might win two.

The survey predicts that the NDA is all set to sweep the rest of Northeast, winning nine of the region's 11 Lok Sabha seats.

Also read: EXPLAINER | Citizenship (Amendment) Bills key question: Why are some illegal immigrants more equal than others?

All going south for the NDA in South

In the South, where the BJP is hoping to make inroads, the survey predicts a bittersweet result for the saffron party and its allies, with more bitter than sweet in the offing.

In Tamil Nadu, the UPA, comprising Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is predicted to sweep by winning 35 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is predicted to win four seats while the BJP is unlikely to win any seat. This is in stark contrast to 2014 when the AIADMK had won 37 seats while the BJP had won one.

In Kerala, where the BJP will manage to win one seat and open its account in the state, the United Democratic Front (UDF) is likely to win 16 seats and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) three. The UDF had won 12 seats during the 2014 elections while the LDF had won eight.

Of the 28 seats in Karnataka, the BJP and Congress are likely to win 14 each, according to the survey. That is a gain from 11 in 2014 for the Congress while a fall from 17 for the BJP.

The survey predicts that the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh will be reduced to two of the 25 Lok Sabha seats with YSR Congress Party chief Jagan Mohan Reddy playing the kingmaker. In Telangana, meanwhile, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is likely to grab 10 seats, and Congress winning five.
representative image

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)'s plans to ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tamil Nadu for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls might be hindered due to an internal feud within the party, Hindustan Times has reported.

The ruling AIADMK, which had stated that it is not averse to an alliance with the saffron party, had won 37 out of 39 seats during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party then was being led by J Jayalalitha, whose death in 2016 brought about a split within the party.

According to the report, the alliance might be running into problems even before being sealed due to internal squabbles within the AIADMK and some of its leaders' stance towards the BJP.

Senior AIADMK leaders like M Thambidurai, C Ponnaiyan and D Jayakumar, for instance, have continued to criticise the BJP. Their comments come even as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam (OPS) have constituted committees to look into possible alliance options with friendly parties.

Moreover, according to news agency ANI, the AIADMK on January 30 stated that those who want to contest the elections can apply between February 4 to February 10, and has listed all 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu and one seat in Puducherry.

Also Read: Aftermath of Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa's demise: Open season in Tamil Nadu politics

The party, which has been going through a rough patch ever since the death of its matriarch Jayalalitha, has also been witnessing infighting.

Senior AIADMK leader V Maitreyan recently wrote a Facebook post in which he expressed his displeasure over being excluded from election-related committees constituted by the CM and Deputy CM. He wrote that while "Amma" had included him in each and every panel when she was alive, "this time, my name was missing in committees formed by our leaders".

The party, however, is unhappy over a senior leader expressing his grievances on a public platform.

"As a senior leader, he should have informed this to our coordinators. Every leader has his or her own style of functioning in steering the party," AIADMK spokesperson Gokula Indira said, adding that more committees are likely to be formed in the coming days and that leaders excluded from the manifesto and poll panels will be accommodated in them. Indira, however, ruled out disciplinary action against the former BJP state president.

According to political analysts quoted by the report, Maitreyan's comments point to a polarisation within the party, where Maitreyan and his camp are seen leaning more towards the BJP, while many senior leaders are opposed to the saffron party.

"... Within the party, there is no unanimity on electoral alliance and the party is speaking in different voices. And, if one reads between the lines, Maitreyans discontent is not out of a personal contradiction but a political one," Ramu Manivannan, HOD of Politics and Public Administration, Madras University, told the newspaper.

C Lakshmanan, Associate Professor with Madras Institute of Development Studies, told the newspaper that the question of survival would eventually bring AIADMK and BJP together.

"The AIADMK has been more close to the right wing ever since Jayalalithaa took over the reins of the party. It hasnt changed. Also, there are influential Other Backward Class (OBC) cliques within the party, like the dominant Gounder, Nadar and Thevar, which are pro-BJP. Yet, leaders from these sections also strive to protect their turf which is what is being played out," Lakshmanan said.

BJP national secretary Ram Madhav had earlier said the party is working on adding allies in south and eastern India, hinting at a tie-up with the AIADMK. "Alliance politics is all about accommodation and adjustment and for that, the BJP is ready," Madhav had said.
Rare footage of Mahatma Gandhis immersion rites has been released in a digitised-coloured video on the National Cultural Audiovisual Archives website under an initiative by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts under Ministry of Culture.

The 16-MM 8 minutes 16 seconds film has been titled as 'Immersion of Mahatma Gandhi's Ashes in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh' and was shot by photographer James E McEldowney.

Here's the link of the footage.

The 8-minute film begins with Congress leader and Indian Independence Movement activist Ravishankar Shukla receiving the ashes in an urn at the Jabalpur railway station.

He is shown taking the urn to an open vehicle, followed by other officials and police. A procession is then carried out with people supporting and giving their last tributes to Mahatma Gandhi.

The video shows people following the procession from Jabalpur station to the banks of the river Narmada for 3 minutes. A guard of honour is given and shown in the video at 5 minutes and 58 seconds.

Later, leaders of Congress are seen giving their tribute in the form of speeches before the last rites are performed.

This is not the first released video that gives details about the urns of Mahatma Gandhi. Many urns filled with the ashes of Gandhi were sent all over India.

Many urns are thought to remain in the hands of the followers, including one that is enshrined in an ashram in California and another that is installed in the palace of the Aga Khan, the head of the Ismaili Islamic sect, in southern India.

In Cuttack, an urn filled with the Mahatmas ashes was found in a vault in a state-owned bank. The ashes were then immersed in 1997 in the rivers Ganga and Yamuna. Another urn was given to a museum by an Indian businessman in Dubai but was later immersed into the Arabian Sea in 2008.

All these immersions were, however, done on the same date - January 31 with their respective mentioned years. However, this video by McEldowney is the closest to the assassination date when the Father of the Nation was shot dead on January 30, 1948.
Sounak Mitra

India has signed an agreement with China to export tobacco leaves as an agri product. That means Indian companies get easier access to a new market, and can now export to China without double taxation, and vice-versa.

There are two reasons why Chinese companies, who so far majorly depended on US and Brazil for quality tobacco leaves for cigarettes, will trade with Indian exporters. First, India produces global standard Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco which is used in cigarettes. Second, China has just increased import duty by 25 percentage points (from 10 percent to 35 percent) on tobacco leaves procured from the US. On the other hand, the tariff is at 10 percent for imports from India.

Despite China being the largest producer of tobacco, it imports a huge quantity of these leaves from the US and Brazil. Thats because China also produces around 42 percent of all cigarettes manufactured globally.

Naturally, it requires Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco and around 40 percent of total tobacco produced in India is this variety. China used to import from India till 1981-82 when it bought 30.37 million kg of unprocessed tobacco. But in 1982-83, China stopped importing from Indian farmers expressing concerns over the high level of pathogen content in Indian tobacco. In 2008, the two countries signed a Protocol of Phytosanitary Requirements for trade in tobacco leaves. However, trading did not take off.

Besides the duty structure and availability of FCV tobacco, importing from India will also give China the advantage of lower logistics cost.

China is not only worlds largest cigarrette maker, but also home to the maximum number of smokers. There are around 350 million smokers in China, more than a third of the one billions smokers around the world. So, there is huge captive demand. For Indias unprocessed tobacco exporters, China is a market that will come as a growth pill.

For the past few years, tobacco farmers in India have been have been under stress due to several reasons. The high taxes on the legal cigarette industry has led to a fall in domestic demand and consequently prices. Thus, farmers are holding excess unprocessed tobacco. For instance, Karnataka (produces FCV tobacco) has so far produced around 93 million kg of tobacco in 2018. But around 60 million kg of produce is unsold as on 22 December, according to the Tobacco Board of India.

Besides, government has not been supportive to tobacco farmers. Unlike most other agri-produce, tobacco farming does not get any incentive. Moreover, tobacco farming in new land has been restricted. Since 2015-16, the government has continuously reduced the budgetary allocation for the crop diversification programme, which is an ongoing sub-scheme of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojona to encourage tobacco farmers to shift to alternative crops. In any case, none of the alternative crops could manage the total value that tobacco offers. Besides, lands become less usable for other crops after tobacco farming.

The agreement with China that will ensure good price for unprocessed tobacco leaves will now revive the ailing tobacco farming industry that involves livelihoods of about 46 million people in India.

It will bring fresh business for the likes of ITC, which is the largest buyer, processor and exporter of leaf tobacco in India, and its rivals such as Godfrey Philips India.
In light of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill intensifying in the Northeast, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma announced on January 29 that 10 political parties, including allies of the BJP, have unanimously opposed the bill.

Meanwhile, a conglomerate of 64 civil society organisations has called for a statewide 24-hour strike in Manipur on January 30.

The contentious bill has the capability of ruining the prospects of the saffron party in the Northeast given the vehement opposition by regional parties, even the BJPs allies.

The bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 so as to make illegal immigrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, eligible for Indian citizenship.

While the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have said relaxing the norms for immigrants is atonement for mistakes made during Partition, the regional parties are up in arms fearing loss of indigenousness. The Assamese-speaking community in the state dread that the influx of Bangladeshi Hindus will stagger the states demography. The Assamese have also expressed their concern over added burden on existing resources and hence the economy of the state.

Activists protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Bill introduced in Parliament to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. (Image: PTI)

Where are the political parties placed?

As a result of the perpetual dispute, the BJP has irked many of its allies in the Northeast and possibly pulled the thread that was holding the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) in place. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which held 14 seats in the states 126-member assembly, withdrew support from the alliance with the BJP, citing differences over the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

The ripples of this have been felt beyond Assam too. For instance, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), a coalition partner of the BJP in Tripura, has been vocal about its opposition to the Bill. The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) cabinet, led by National Peoples Party (NPP) president and chief minister Conrad K Sangma, has passed a resolution opposing the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The MDA includes two BJP MLAs who have openly backed the cabinets decision, saying, We are with the people of the state.

Read Also: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill | Why are some illegal immigrants more equal than others?

Meanwhile, BJP chief minister N Biren Singh said the Manipur government will not support the Bill unless a provision for protecting the rights of the indigenous people are included. In Manipur, the BJP had formed a coalition government with the regional parties even when the Congress was the single largest party in the 2017 Assembly elections.

The governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram have reiterated the same sentiment, even when their states are protected by the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) Act, which requires Indians from other states to get an inner line permit (ILP) in order to enter the state. In fact, the Nagaland cabinet rejected the bill on January 20.



I am disturbed by the growing violence & unrest in the N East where religion & ethnicity are being used as weapons by the BJP to polarise the region for political gain. This type of politics, that pitches brother against brother & fans hatred, is evil & must be stopped.

 Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 25, 2019

As far as national parties are concerned, Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently tweeted:

Trinamool Congress satrap Mamata Banerjee has warned the people of West Bengal against the electoral gimmicks of the BJP.

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee (Image- Reuters)

If the bill is causing so much commotion, then why is the BJP hell-bent on the passage of the bill?

According to various media reports, the protests in the Northeast have not had a deterring effect on the BJP, which is firm to get the bill passed in the Rajya Sabha in the Parliament Session that starts January 31.

The BJP had passed the bill in the Lok Sabha in the Winter Session, courtesy their overwhelming majority in the lower house.

From their rigid stance, it seems that the saffron party is willing to risk the Northeast in a trade-off to make inroads in West Bengal. In the process, the party is ready to risk violating Article 14 of the Indian Constitution by discriminating the incoming immigrants on the basis of religion. They are also brazenly negating the Assam Accord, which had fixed March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for foreign immigrants.

The Assam Accord also mandates the maintenance of a National Register for Citizens (NCR) in order to keep track of the bona fide citizens of India living in Assam. The exercise, supervised by the Supreme Court of India, left out about 40 lakh people from the list of citizens.

In the absence of official figures, leaders across political parties have estimated that Bengali Hindus (seen as BJP voters) constitute a large section of the 40 lakh, The Indian Express reported.

In addition, BJP minister Himanta Biswa Sarma spelled out his estimate in a TV interview, saying the NRC will leave out 8 lakh Bengali Hindus. Based on this estimate, Sarma told media persons, If the Bill is not passed, 17 Assamese seats, which elect Assamese people, will go the Jinnah way.

The Northeast contributes 25 seats to the Lok Sabha, out of which Amit Shah has asked BJP workers to aim for at least 21, banking on the fact that except Mizoram, all other states in the Northeast are ruled by NEDA (North-East Democratic Alliance) constituents.

In West Bengal, however, the BJP has a dismal representation  both in the state assembly and parliamentary constituencies  which explains their blinded efforts to establish foothold in the state, even if it is at the expense of the Northeast.
Amit Shah

In a dig at the proposed 'mahagathbandhan' of the opposition parties for not disclosing its prime ministerial candidate, BJP president Amit Shah on January 30 said there will a new prime minister every day of the week if the grand alliance comes to power.

"The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is," Shah said addressing a meeting of BJP's booth-level workers here ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"If the 'gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on January 29, Mamata (Banerjee) on January 30, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sunday will be a holiday," he said.

"They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added.

"The BJP has four Bs -- 'Badhta Bharat' and 'Banta Bharat'. Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs -- 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," Shah said, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic politics.

"Their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government. Only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he asserted.

The BJP president exhorted the workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in the parliamentary polls.

"It is also important for the country that BJP wins these elections..the win should be such that it shakes the opposition parties," Shah said.

He also lashed out at the Congress and said none of the party's leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.

"I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that BJP is committed to ensure that a grand temple is made at the Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said.

"The Congress government had acquired 42 acres of land of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas...Nyas has asked that it be returned...we hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said.
Rahul Gandhi

A day after announcing his party would ensure "minimum income guarantee" for the poor if Congress was voted to power at the Centre, party chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has provided 'maximum income guarantee' to 15 of his friends.

"For the last five years, he has provided a maximum income guarantee to 15 of his friends. We have decided that if Narendra Modi can give maximum income guarantee to 15 rich people, we will give minimum income guarantee to every single citizen," Gandhi said.

Like MGNREGA committed right to work, like RTI committed right to information, like Food Security Bill guarantees the right to food, the Congress government is going to guarantee a minimum income to every poor Indian citizen, he told a booth-level party workers meeting here.

Attacking the policies of the Modi government,he alleged that the prime minister had done nothing for the farmers and assured that a congress government would ensure their welfare.

"We have waived off farm loans in the three states where we won elections.... (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh). We have committed that in 2019, we will have a government that will make up for all the crimes that Narendra Modi has done against farmers in five years," he said.

The Congress President said the Women's Bill would be passed on a priority if the party was voted to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"The first thing we will do when we win the 2019 election is to pass the Women's Reservation Bill in the Parliament," he said. He was responding to a suggestion from a party worker on the need for more women candidates.

"We want to see women in position of leadership," he added. The bill seeking to reserve 33 per cent of seats in Parliament and legislature has been pending for a long time in view of lack of consensus.

Refraining from directly commenting on the sensitive Sabarimala temple issue, wherein the Supreme Court had permitted entry of women of all age groups into the Lord Ayyappa temple, he merely said the party respects the traditions of Kerala.

"Congress party respects women of Kerala and at the same time respects the traditions of Kerala. We do not agree with the violence carried out by the BJP and CPI(M) in the state," he said.

The 69 day annual pilgrimage season in Sabarimala, which ended on January 20, had witnessed widespread protests from devotees and right wing groups. This was over the CPI(M)-led LDF government's decision to implement the September 28 Apex Court verdict, allowing women of all ages to enter the shrine.

The Congress President referred to Kerala as not just a state, but an 'idea'. "It is a way of looking at the world that includes compassion, humility, respect. People of Kerala are helping guide the people of India," he said.

"Don't think less of yourself. RSS has cadres, CPI(M) has cadres, but India lives in the hearts of Congress workers', he told the gathering. Gandhi alleged that the CPI(M) and BJP work on 'dividing' the people of Kerala and said the real issue of jobs and protection of farmers was put on the back burner. He also flayed the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.

Gandhi told the Congress workers that the party had launched a 'shakti' programme in which all workers could directly talk to the leadership. "Want every single Congress worker to feel 'Ente booth, ente abhimaan, ente party' ("My booth, my pride, my party").
Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 30 credited his government's demonetisation decision for bringing down prices of houses and making them affordable for the aspiring youth.

He also said that if the previous governments had to do the work that he has done so far, they would have needed "25 more years" for it.

The prime minister was addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for extension of the new terminal at Surat airport in Gujarat.

"I was asked what has been the benefit of note ban decision. You should ask it to the youth, who could buy residential homes at affordable rates after the decision. Black money used to be parked in real estate sector, but with decisions like note ban and RERA, we put a check to it," Modi said.

He lauded the Civil Aviation Ministry's 'Udaan' (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme - a regional connectivity scheme that makes flying affordable for masses, saying it will boost development of the country's aviation sector.

The prime minister also said that during the last four years of NDA rule, his overnment constructed 1.30 crore houses while during the previous UPA rule, 25 lakh houses were built.

He also stated that for the last 30 years, the country had a "hung Parliament" due to which progress was affected. "But four years ago, people voted to give full majority after which the country is progressing rapidly," he said.
Shiv Sena_BJP_Devendra Fadnavis_uddhav thackeray

The Shiv Sena on January 28 said it would always be the "big brother" in an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra, hinting that a seat-sharing agreement was in the works.

The Sena, however, added that no such proposal had come from the BJP.

Soon, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis countered the Sena's claim, saying his party is not seeking a tie-up desperately and can take on the Congress-NCP combine.

The frantic discussions in both camps have been happening after increasing pressure from their Members of Parliament (MP) and cadre.

According to reports, party workers on both sides have asked their leaders to take a call on the alliance soon to be able to start preparations.

What makes Maharashtra key for the BJP

The BJP and its allies are expected to face heavy losses in the Hindi heartland. The assembly election results in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and multiple opinion polls concur.

The Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance has also led to concerns for the NDA that its tally of 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, could be halved.

After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra has the second largest pool of parliamentary seats  48.

Winning a significant chunk of these seats would improve chances of either the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of forming the government at the Centre.

The impact

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA won 42 out of the 48 seats in the state. BJP and Shiv Sena won 23 and 18 seats respectively. Their then ally Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha won one.

BJP and Shiv Sena had contested 24 and 20 seats each. Swabhimani Paksha contested two seats. Rashtriya Samaj Paksha and Republican Party of India (Athawale) contested on one seat each.

In terms of vote share, BJP and Shiv Sena bagged 27.56 and 20.82 percent of the votes, respectively.

Maharashtra: Seats won by major parties in Lok Sabha polls (1999-2014)

On the other hand, Congress and the NCP have already confirmed their alliance in the state. The parties are likely to get a few more parties on board including Prakash Ambedkars Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM), Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM).

The UPA is also likely to include Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), which has a strong presence in Palghar district.

The BJP and the Sena fighting separately would split their traditional voter base, even as the Opposition votes would consolidate.

In 2014, Congress finished second in 224 constituencies it contested in across the country. The party finished second in at least 25 seats. The NCP finished second in 16 seats. Their alliance is more likely to have an advantage over the NDA.

The Sena is also facing internal problems. Reports quoting BJP leaders suggest that multiple Sena MPs have shown willingness to contest on a BJP ticket if the alliance breaks.

In the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the four major parties had fought separately. The split in their traditional voter base also led to a fractured mandate. Eventually, BJP and the Sena had to come together in a post-poll alliance.

Fadnavis had also earlier expressed that both parties (BJP and Shiv Sena) would suffer if the alliance ends.

The polls would also have a bearing on the assembly polls expected to happen in September-October this year. A poor performance by either side in the general election would lead to harder bargaining for more seats by the other. With talks of assembly polls being held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls, the parties need to decide more now than ever.
With the Lok Sabha elections just months away, the BJP on Tuesday started holding division-wise meetings here to assess the ground situation and prepare itself for the polls, a party functionary said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis started conducting the meetings with the party MPs and discussing the situation in their respective constituencies, the BJP leader said.

"Most of the meetings held on Tuesday are related to the Lok Sabha constituencies in Mumbai region. The other segments will be discussed in the subsequent days," the office-bearer of the saffron party said.

"The BJP has earlier carried out some surveys about the party's chances of winning the 2019 general elections. Based on it, we have given instructions to our MPs so that they should not lag behind on any front," the leader said.

On the possibility of a pre-poll tie-up between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, another party leader said, "The BJP is keen on forging an alliance with the Shiv Sena, but the latter is bargaining hard this time."

"The statements made by the Sena leaders time-to-time show that they do not want to join hands with the BJP easily," he said.

Maharashtra is the second largest state, next only to Uttar Pradesh, in terms of number of Lok Sabha seats.

The Shiv Sena, which has been continually taking potshots at the BJP, had said on Monday that it would be the "big brother" in the alliance, while not making it clear whether it will have a fresh tie-up with the saffron party.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party had said last January that it would go it alone in all future elections.

Till 2014, the BJP and the Sena, allies for long, had an understanding where the former contested a larger share of Lok Sabha seats and the latter contested a greater number of Assembly seats in Maharashtra.

In the 2014 Assembly polls, which the two parties fought separately, the BJP had won 122 seats against Sena's 63. The Sena later joined the government in the state as a junior partner.
The Department of Minority Studies and the Black Student Union at Indiana University Northwest will join to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department and the Black Student Union at 6 p.m. Monday in the Bergland Auditorium on campus, 3400 Broadway, Gary. The keynote speaker, Dr. Abdul Alkalimat, will discuss the topic: 50 Years Later: The Significance of African American, African Diaspora Studies, Black History Month and Black Student Unions. Following the address, honors, recognitions and awards will be presented to members of the Black Student Union, Chancellor Emeritus F.C. Richardson, PhD, and Todd Deloney, former president of the Black Student Union. The evening will conclude with a Meet and Greet reception for students, faculty and the community. The event is free and open to the public. More information is with Dr. Earl Jones, Chair of the Minority Studies Department, at 219-614-5326.
Amit Shah

BJP president Amit Shah mocked the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as a Congress general secretary on Tuesday and said a government run by a dynasty could not serve the people, but could only provide a "majboor" (helpless) government.

The Congress had brought the "third G" into the fray after the "two Gs -- Sonia G and Rahul G" to indulge in more corruption, he told a public rally here in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

Referring to the 2G scam that dogged the Congress-led UPA-2 regime, Shah said the opposition party wanted to indulge in more corruption now with the induction of the "third G -- Priyanka G".

"I am here to tell you that during the 10 years of the UPA rule under (then prime minister) Manmohan Singh, there were only two Gs -- Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. We had then witnessed the 2G scam of Rs 12 lakh crore. Now, if the third G joins the 2Gs, what will be the amount of the scam?

"The Congress has made a long-term plan of indulging in corruption by joining the 2Gs and the third G," he said.

Shah's comments came in the backdrop of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra being appointed the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East by her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi last week.

Stating that the Congress and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal were both sides of the same coin as both parties were run by dynasties, the BJP chief said like Rahul Gandhi was there to take over his party's reins from his mother Sonia Gandhi, in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had her nephew Abhishek Banerjee to take charge of the TMC after her.

"Dynasties cannot serve the country well. The dynasts say the country needs a majboor (helpless) government, but the BJP says it needs a majboot (strong) government. Only Narendra Modi and the BJP can provide a majboot government at the Centre," he said.

Asking the people whether the country needed a "leader" or a "dealer", Shah said only the saffron party could provide a government headed by a leader and the Opposition wanted to throw up a government led by "dealers and brokers".

Launching his party's Lok Sabha poll campaign in West Bengal, Shah had held a rally in Malda last week, where he had scoffed at the efforts of the opposition parties to forge a grand alliance.
Foreign ministers from around the world will meet next week in Washington to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State movement after President Donald Trump's controversial decision to pull out of Syria, the State Department said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host a day of meetings on February 6 of the 79-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, which the United States assembled in 2014 as the extremists seized vast stretches of Syria and Iraq.

"The United States is determined to prevent a resurgence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq after the withdrawal of US forces from Syria takes place, and remains committed to working with the Global Coalition to continue to destroy ISIS remnants and thwart its global ambitions," the State Department said in a statement on January 29.

"As ISIS is defeated on the battlefield, the coalition will continue its stabilization efforts to facilitate the safe and voluntary return home of those who have been displaced by the violence."

Trump, a longstanding sceptic on US foreign involvements, said in December that he was withdrawing the 2,000-strong US force from Syria and declared the defeat of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or IS.

Aides have since walked back the timeline but said that the pullout will happen.

The US envoy instrumental in building the coalition, Brett McGurk, resigned in protest over Trump's decision and voiced fears for Syria's future.

European nations, which have faced a wave of attacks by sympathizers of the extremist ideology, have voiced concern about Trump's orders, which came just as the movement had lost nearly all of its land in Syria.

Turkey has been the most supportive of the US withdrawal and has threatened to smash Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State movement, although the Trump administration has warned Ankara against an attack.

The coalition last met at the level of ministers in July in Brussels.
Manipur Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh appealed to the people not to panic over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 even as a 24-hour general strike has been called from January 30 midnight demanding withdrawal of the bill.

The apprehensions of the people need to be removed first and the Centre will be urged not to let the bill impact the state, he told reporters on the sidelines of a programme here.

The recently formed Manipur People Against Citizenship Amendment Bill (MPACAB), with representation from 66 organisations, has called the general strike demanding the controversial bill be withdrawn.

The chief minister said the government is trying to clear doubts regarding the Citizenship Bill from the minds of the people.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim nationals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India.

Biren Singh said he will be attending a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states "probably day after tomorrow."

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress slammed the government for indulging in "delay tactics" and reiterated that the bill must not be passed under any circumstance.

Former chief minister O Ibobi Singh told reporters that state legislators were not been able to take a firm stand on the bill unlike the Nagaland cabinet.

The Nagaland cabinet has rejected the bill following pressure from various tribal organisations and student bodies.Ibobi Singh said a Congress team is leaving for the national capital to oppose the passage of the bill in the Rajya Sabha.
Congress

The Congress on January 30 accused the Modi government of destroying yet another institution after two members of the National Statistical Commission resigned and said one more venerable institution has died due to the government's "malicious negligence".

Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said the party mourns the death of the National Statistical Commission and will remember its valiant fight to release 'untainted' GDP data and employment data.

His colleague Ahmed Patel said the resignations serve the government's objective to "black out" all data and statistics of its "mis-governance", while party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi wondered if this has come in the wake of the "very embarrassing" jobs data and whether the NSC was "being forced" by government to do more data doctoring.

The attack on the government came in the wake of two independent members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) -- P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi -- resigning on Monday over disagreement with the government on certain issues. Mohanan was also acting as the commission chairperson.

"One more venerable institution died on 29 January, 2019 owing to malicious negligence by the government," Chidambaram tweeted.

"We mourn the death of the National Statistical Commission and remember with gratitude its valiant fight to release untainted GDP data and employment data. May the NSC rest in peace until it is re-born again," he said in another tweet.

Patel said the resignation of all non government members from the National Statistical Commission has rendered yet another public institution "defunct and toothless".

"It also serves the government's larger objective to black out all data and statistics of its mis-governance since last 5 years," he said.

"Government must immediately release the unemployment report which it is trying to withhold. The report and the Commission which prepares such reports belong to the people of India and not to any political party. Government has no business to sit on it because the findings don't suit them," Patel tweeted.

Singhvi also said statisticians have quit the government over differences in "job data in actuality and being projected by government in the election season".

"Modinomics is all about ModiStats," he charged.

"Another venerable institution national statistical commission victim of BJP Modi achievement of destroying institutions. Was it because jobs data very embarrassing, hence national sample survey report withheld by government as stated by resigning chairman? Or was NSC being forced by government to do more data doctoring," he said on Twitter.

"NSC joins distinguished institutions led to wreck and ruin by Modi BJP: RBI, CBI, CVC, CBDT, ED, IT. Self respecting professionals cannot stand this government's pressure nor attempts to doctor data. But pliable bureaucrats can be used for vendetta politics. Latter should learn from former," he tweeted.

With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members -- Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of UPA years.

NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.
European leaders moved quickly on January 29 to reject an attempt by Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May to re-open talks on the Brexit divorce deal, as British lawmakers voted to demand changes.

When May signed the withdrawal agreement in November, both she and the other 27 EU leaders hailed it as the only way to avoid Britain crashing out of the bloc on March 29 without a plan.

But the embattled British premier failed to sell the agreement to her own parliament, which on January 29 voted to send her back to demand that the deal be stripped of the "Irish backstop", a clause created to keep the border open with Ireland.

May's call got short shrift from EU Council president Donald Tusk, who called round the other 27 EU capitals to coordinate a response and issued a firm statement ruling out renegotiation.

"We continue to urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to the next steps as soon as possible," Tusk's spokesman said.

"The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

"The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation."

Nevertheless, the spokesman repeated the longstanding EU position that the other members could find a way of tweaking a political declaration that was issued with the withdrawal deal.

If Britain makes a "reasoned request" to extend the Brexit deadline beyond March 29, this could be arranged if the other 27 leaders agree.

"If the UK's intentions for the future partnership were to evolve, the EU would be prepared to reconsider its offer and adjust the content and the level of ambition of the political declaration," he said.

This is a restatement of Brussels' offer to May that, if she is willing to reverse her opposition to Britain remaining in the EU customs union, then a broad trade deal could be possible.

This in turn would make the backstop irrelevant, since it would only be invoked to prevent the return of a hard border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

But, crucially, even this offer was only for a more ambitious political declaration -- a non-binding roadmap to future ties -- and would not involve rescinding the withdrawal agreement.

"We will continue our preparations for all outcomes, including a no-deal scenario. We will also continue the EU's process of ratification of the agreement reached with the UK government," the official said.

Tusk's response mirrored that of France's President Emmanuel Macron, who had earlier warned May not to expect Europe to bend to British demands.

During a regional summit in Cyprus, Macron declared that the existing Brexit deal is the "best agreement possible and is not renegotiable".

Macron urged London to "promptly" lay out to EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier "the next steps that will prevent an exit without an agreement, which nobody wants but for which we must all prepare ourselves".

Barnier himself had no immediate reaction to the British decision, and his boss EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker is due to address the crisis on Wednesday in a speech to the EU parliament.

But on Monday, Barnier's deputy Sabine Weyand had laid out the situation in stark terms, chiding May for failing to sell the hard-won agreement even to her own eurosceptic ministers.

"There is a very real risk of crash out. Not by design but by accident," Weyand said, noting that if Britain's position does no change then it automatically leaves Europe without a deal on March 29.

Throughout the negotiations, Brussels has been clear that it stands by Ireland -- a continuing member with much to lose from any disorderly Brexit.

On Tuesday, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney insisted again that the backstop remains necessary "and tonight's developments at Westminster do nothing to change this".

Finally, even if the EU capitals agreed to re-open the deal and the Commission negotiated a backstop free text, leading members of the EU Parliament have warned they would not ratify it.

The centre-left Socialists and Democrats group and the Greens both issued statements after the British vote restating this.
Tripuras Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb made himself a laughing stock with a series of asinine statements transcending logic and facts in 2018. Whether it was claiming the existence of Internet in Mahabharat that was used by Sanjay to narrate episodes of war to Dhritarashtra or suggesting youths to rear cows instead of running after government jobs, the BJP CM gave series of chances to laugh.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb claimed on January 30 that the citizenship bill had not put the BJP on the back foot in the Northeast. Deb accused some organisations "with no support base" of portraying the Northeast as a troubled region for personal gains.

"The claims that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has caused trouble in the region and has put the BJP on the back foot is completely false and baseless. Had this been the truth, the BJP would not have won autonomous council elections in Assam," the saffron party leader said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 19 of the 28 seats in the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, where elections were held on January 19 amid protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

"The victory in the election means people are with us," the chief minister said.

The bill seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014, after six years of residence in the country.

The bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, has triggered protests across the region.

Asked about political and social outfits protesting against the bill, Deb said, "The organisations that don't have any base in the region want to portray the northeastern states as a disturbed territory. But we will not allow it to happen."

To a query whether he would implement the bill in Tripura, Deb said, "The state of Tripura is a part of India and we are part of the federal structure. This bill is applicable to all the states of the country."

Asked about BJP allies in the Northeast objecting to the bill, the chief minister declined any comment, saying every political party had its own policy and agenda.

The BJP will win more than 20 out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region and over 300 seats across the country to form the next government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi again, he asserted.
N Chandrababu Naidu

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on January 30 said February 1, the day the central government will present the budget in Parliament, will be a "black day" for the state, and called for protests.

In his daily teleconference with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders, Naidu said the Centre had cheated the state in the last five budgets.

"February 1 is a black day for the state. The BJP-led government at the Centre has discriminated against the state at every step. Unless the BJP is trounced at the hustings, justice will not be done to Andhra Pradesh (AP)," the chief minister said.

He asked his party cadre to observe peaceful protests by sporting black badges and showing black flags when the Centre presents the budget for 2019-20.

Referring to reports in China Global Times, a newspaper in China, Naidu said failures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government were being publicised even in China.

"The country has been pushed into chaos under Modi's rule. There is widespread antagonism towards Modi due to unemployment. People are opposing the BJP," he said.

The Andhra chief minister alleged discrimination against the state with regard to the central government releasing funds on Tuesday to various states through the National Disaster Relief Fund.

"Maharashtra has been given Rs 4,717 crore while AP got only Rs 900 crore for drought relief. Andhra suffered extensive damage running into thousands of crores of rupees due to cyclone Titli. Cyclone Phethai also caused severe destruction, but the Centre did not grant even a rupee," Naidu lamented.
Cuttack: BJP President Amit Shah addresses booth-level party workers conference, at Kulia in Cuttack, Tuesday, Jan 29, 2019. (PTI Photo) (PTI1_29_2019_000104B)

BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday exhorted party cadres to ensure party's victory in 74 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming 2019 general elections by working to secure 50 percent of polled votes for its candidates at every booth.

Addressing the party's booth-level workers, Shah sought to put the party's poll machinery in election mode and asked them to resolve to get 50 percent of polled votes for the BJP at every booth.

The 2019 elections should be remembered as the one in which Uttar Pradesh gave 74 seats to make Narendra Modi the prime minister again, Shah told the BJP workers.

"Behenji says she wants a 'majboor' (weak) government that can indulge in corruption, but we want a 'mazboot' (strong) government," Shah asserted.

"Tell me what do you want. Narendra Modi is the only one who can give a strong government. They, however, do not want a government which is run by a leader but by a dealer," he said.

"As it was said in 2014 that Modi could form a majority government because Uttar Pradesh gave 73 seats, it is my request with folded hands to ensure 74 seats so that Modi can become PM again," he said.

In 2014 elections, a strong foundation of BJP was laid, in 2017 a building was made on it and the 2019 elections provide an opportunity to "saffronise" it, he said.

Making an apparent reference to the poll alliance between Mayawati's BSP and Akhilesh Yadav's SP, Shah claimed once the BJP wins the 2019 elections, "it would be neither bua nor bhatija, but only the BJP here for the next 25 years."

Describing Modi as a hard-working, proven and sensitive leader, Shah made a fervent appeal to the party workers to ensure "such a win" for the BJP in the state that it "stops the opponents' heartbeats".

Shah earlier addressed workers in Kanpur and hit out at the failure of the BJP opponents to project a prime ministerial face.

In a dig at the proposed 'mahagathbandhan' of the opposition parties for not disclosing its prime ministerial candidate, Shah Wednesday said there will be a new prime minister every day of the week if the grand alliance comes to power.

"The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is," Shah said.

"If the 'gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sunday will be a holiday," he said.

"They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added.

"BJP has four Bs-they are badhta Bharat, banta Bharat and those who are forming an alliance has four Bs - bua-bhatija, and bhai-behen. Their government can not take the country," he said. NAV SABRAX .
Moneycontrol Contributors

TCS, the bellwether of the Indian IT industry, has been in the news for some great results of late. Wed discussed in earlier podcast about TCS breaching the $100 billion barrier to join an exclusive club of worldwide organizations. It was the second Indian company after RIL to do so. Four Indian IT services companies - TCS, Infosys, HCL and Wipro - made it to the global rankings.

Now comes news that TCS is the third most-valued IT services brand globally. Thats right, globally. Brand Finance, a London-based branded business valuation consultancy, releases an annual list of Brand League tables, segmented by region or sectors. And this year, Tata Consultancy Services has been ranked the third most-valued IT services brand globally in 2018-19, after Accenture and IBM.

Accenture, which is valued at $26.3 billion, was declared the world's most-valued IT services brand. Last year, that top spot was held by IBM, which now occupies second place with a brand value of $ 20.4 billion. The statement by Brand Finance said, Holding steady in third place is India's largest IT services conglomerate, TCS, up 23% to $ 12.8 billion, with a value bolstered by the brand's disciplined focus on the market's increased demand for digital services.

TCS Chief Marketing Officer Ravi Viswanathan said, 2018 was a year of celebrations at TCS, marking the completion of five decades of industry-leading customer satisfaction, business performance, and community impact. He said the last year was characterised by momentum and milestones for the company, including reaching $100 billion in market capitalisation, and securing record-level new customer partnerships in digital services.TCS also emerged a leader in the Japanese market, thanks to all-round customer experience and use of artificial intelligence and robotic automatics in its transformation programmes.

TCS & Tata: Keeping it splendid

In addition to the IT services list, The Tata brand has entered the list of Top 100 most valuable global brands, according to the Brand Finance Global 500, 2019 report released at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Tata is the lone Indian brand in the Top 100. It was rated 104 last year and has climbed to 86 this year. The total value of the Tata brand shot up 37% to $19.5 billion in 2019 from $14.2 billion a year ago. Brand Finance explained that the increase in the valuation of the Tata brand came about after improved performances by key Tata companies like TCS, Tata Motors and Tata Steel.

David Haigh, the CEO of Brand Finance, said The Tata Group has seen an impressive increase in Brand Value in 2019, and have been rewarded by being the only Indian brand within the top 100 most valuable brands in the world. This solid increase in Tata Groups brand value has largely been driven by an outstanding year for TCS, which improved on their Brand Strength and are for the first time rated a AAA brand. Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said, This recognition of the strength of our brand will encourage us to drive our businesses in a socially responsible manner globally while continuing to strive for excellence through innovation and entrepreneurship.

Crucially, Haigh also added that another reason for the conglomerate's increase in value was its cash-cow Tata Consultancy Services.

TCS, in a lot of ways, was one of the companies that put India on the map as an IT hub. It was after all TCS along with similar firms like Infosys which pioneered modern IT outsourcing, by taking over many of the back-office support functions for the Who's Who of global corporations like GM, Citigroup, among others. The models that were built by TCS and its peers have in fact been adopted by much of the rest the world, and have in the process made Silicon Valley teem with Indians. The IT Services industry which today generates about $167 billion annually is now at a crossroads. There is the rise of automation, artificial intelligence, there is cloud computing... all of these trends in the industry are pushing away the rather labour-intensive back office programming operations that TCS specialises in. But analysts also believe that Tata may be in the best position to make that leap from the old ways into the New World, so to speak.

TCS has shown that it has the spunk to do what it takes. IBM and Accenture, of course, remain the top players in the IT services market cap pecking order, but IBMs market cap is only about 33% higher than that of TCS, though its revenue is more than 300% higher. However, TCS is in a unique position - it has built a position as the low-cost value player at scale backed by the execution ability to maintain low costs while still delivering quality work. But that ability to maintain low costs might be threatened in the wake of the new technology sweep that is being seen across the sector. According to veteran industry watchers, the positioning by TCS supports good revenue growth and this low cost execution supports distinctive margins. "Good growth plus distinctive margins over many years produces a huge market cap," said Rod Bourgeois, Head of Research in the US-based Deepdive Equity Research.

Phil Fersht, CEO of IT research firm HfS praised TCS, saying, TCS has stayed very focused on relentless execution and less obsessed with marketing messages and trying to sound like everyone else the phone has created its own individual identity which many of the other service providers are still struggling to do. I sometimes call TCS the 'Indian IBM' because of the longevity of its staff and its unique culture. Rajesh Gopinathan, the company's CEO had said last year, "TCS is uniquely positioned to offer a combination of services - from core-tech transformation all the way to front-end digital technologies. The full spectrum of services is what is positioning us beautifully in this space".

TCS - a behemoth

TCS is the ubiquitous IT company in India. It is everywhere. Literally. TCS is the largest private sector employer in India, with nearly 4 lakh employees representing 131 nationalities. It is present in 46 countries. More importantly, it's woke! 35.3% of TCS' employees are women! And that is a sort of gender ratio that is enviable in the IT space. Now, the Tata Group is a huge conglomerate of many successful companies. But even in that group of achievers, TCS is the most profitable firm, accounting for about 85% of the group's profit! Clearly, TCS also played a crucial role in helping the Tata Group enter the elite league of 10 trillion rupee market capitalisation.

Another thing that also contributed significantly to the success of TCS is the fact that the waters in TCS seem to not be choppy. Founded in 1969, the company is on the cusp of celebrating is golden jubilee year, but take a guess as to how many CEOs it has had. Well, I didn't know this either, but, just four! Since its founding in 1969, all the way up to 1996, the company was under the stewardship of FC Kohli. Then there was S Ramadorai, after whom N Chandrasekaran took over. Chandrasekaran of course went on to be promoted as the Chairman of Tata Sons in 2017. Currently, TCS is helmed by Rajesh Gopinathan.

Homegrown success

Brand Finance also had a word of praise for the business ecosystem in India. David Haigh said, There is a reason why Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India. As more IT services brands ramp up their outsourcing outposts across the country, it is the skilled workforce, world class facilities and infrastructure that makes India such an attractive location and ultimately a global powerhouse. Clearly, Mr Haigh has never been stuck in the mess that is Whitefield. But seeing as praise for Bengaluru is in short supply these days, I suppose we would do well to accept his kind words graciously.

Bangalore based company, Wipro, also made the top-10 list this time around. Brand Finances report stated, Up 25 percent to $ 4 billion, Wipro's significant investments in digital transformation capabilities, niche acquisitions, and a recent brand refresh, have propelled it to be the third fastest-growing brand in the segment. Wipros President of Marketing, Innovation and Technology, Milan Rao, told PTI that such a recognition is a testament to the company's rich technology heritage, sustained investments in building digital transformation capabilities, and deep domain and consulting expertise.

A Moneycontrol report also noted that American brand Cognizant, whose brand value is up 12% to $ 8.7 billion, and India's Infosys, which saw its brand value rise 8% to $6.5 billion, held onto their previous rankings of four and five. It is also worth noting that though Cognizant is headquartered in New Jersey, USA, it holds a major employee base in Chennai and has offices in Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and Cochin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be visiting India in February or March, before elections in both the countries, in what would be his second visit to New Delhi coming after just over a year.

"A date is being worked out but no confirmed dates are available as yet. Both the sides have exchanged their preferred dates but there is no final decision on it. The visit, however, is likely sometime in February or March," informed sources here told PTI.

Netanyahu visited India in January 2018 while Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Tel Aviv in 2017, becoming the first Indian Prime Minister to tour the Jewish state.

Both the leaders spoke over the phone earlier this month when Israel's National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbath visited New Delhi. Ben-Shabbat also met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

The Israeli prime minister is said to have expressed his desire to visit India again to which Modi is said to have consented, sources said.

Netanyahu has taken up many trip abroad recently to strengthen Israel's standing in the international community, something that his supporters have been using to project him as the only leader who can drum up support for Israel.

Israel has recently seen major diplomatic breakthroughs with Netanyahu visiting Oman, a country that doesn't have diplomatic ties with Israel, and Chad, an overwhelming Muslim country, restarting diplomatic engagement with the Jewish state.

The Israeli leader seems to be trying to convince his people that his country is not isolated in the global community and many more nations would be working with Tel Aviv, irrespective of a breakthrough on the deadlocked peace process with Palestinians.

Israel will hold elections for the Knesset (parliament) on April 9.
Tallian told the committee about a time when her mother was ill, and as someone who owns her own law practice, she didnt have access to benefits under the Family and Medical Leave Act. She said she had to adjust her work schedule.
Relations between India and China is expected to remain tense this year, despite the efforts of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping to improve ties between the two nations, a top American spymaster told lawmakers on Tuesday.

National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said though Modi and Xi held an informal summit in April 2018 to defuse tension and normalise relations between the two nation post the 2017 military standoff at Doklam, they did not address border issues.

"Misperception of military movements or construction might result in tensions escalating into armed conflict," he warned.

"We expect relations between India and China to remain tense, despite efforts on both sides to manage tensions since the border standoff in 2017, elevating the risk of unintentional escalation," Coats told members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a Congressional hearing on World Wide Threat assessment of the US intelligence community.

Coats said Chinese leaders will try to extend the country's global economic, political and military reach, while using China's military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy investments under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to diminish the US' influence.

"However, Beijing is likely to face political pushback from host governments in many locations...," he said.

India has been severely critical of the BRI as the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is part of the BRI, passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). India says it cannot accept a project that ignores its core concern on sovereignty and territorial integrity.

India was the only country in the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on June 10 last year which refused to endorse the ambitious BRI for which Beijing has signed pacts with nearly 80 countries and international organisations.
Air India

Moneycontrol News

The government is expected to bring out preliminary information memorandum (PIM) for the bidders of Air India's ground handling arm Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL) in 10 days, a senior aviation ministry official said on January 30.

"We are hopeful of bringing the PIM in about seven to 10 days," the official said on condition of anonymity.

A PIM is a document providing information about the company so as to let bidders make a sound judgement before submitting initial expression of interest (EoI).

Releasing PIM would kickstart the government's plan of selling the subsidiary, which it intends to complete by March 2019.

The government had decided to sell AIATSL under the state carrier's latest revival plan in order to generate funds to service the debt.

The plan was prepared in November 2018 under which the government decided to sell Air India's non-related, non-core assets in order to avoid servicing the national carrier's debt via its revenue.

AIATSL was selected as the maiden asset to be sold through a special purpose vehicle (SPV), called Air India Asset Holding Company. The sale proceeds will be used to service the mounting debts of the airline.

The government has transferred debt of Rs 29,000 crore, out of Rs 55,000 crore, leaving a debt of Rs 26,000 crore in the books of Air India.

AIATSL is the largest ground handling company in the country. According to Air India officials, the company has close to 80-85 percent share of the domestic and international ground handling business in India.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported that the government was waiting for the Empowered Committee's report on the ground handling arm's status, after which the Request for Proposal (RFP) was to be invited.

The state carrier has been reeling under a mountain of debt for over a decade due to high fuel prices and steep competition. Air India's market share in (calendar year) 2017-18 was 12.7 percent and had accumulated loses of Rs 30,000 crore as of December 2018.
Moneycontrol News

In their bid to ensure Air Indias survival, the ministry of Civil Aviation has asked the debt-laden carrier to present its business model to the government in order to keep a hawk's eye on its revenue and expenses.

According to a senior government official, the business plan of the airline is constantly being "monitored".

"Under the airline's revival strategy, we have asked for their business plan," a senior official of ministry of Civil Aviation told Moneycontrol.

He said that the airline was doing "pretty well" with a revenue growth of 20 percent YoY for the period ending December 2018.

"With a reduced fleet and better passenger count, the airline has recorded a revenue growth of 20 percent," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Air India's passenger revenue increased from Rs 4,615 crore in Q3FY18 to Rs 5,538 crore in Q3FY19. While the passenger growth, in absolute terms, was four percent (from 53.28 lakh to 55.27 lakh), the revenue growth was five folds.

The official said that the government was constantly monitoring the airline and it is unlikely to walk the path created by Jet Airways or Kingfisher Airlines.

"We are constantly monitoring it and it is doing reasonably better," he said.

Jet Airways is the latest entrant in the league of loss making airlines that are facing huge debt. It has a debt of over Rs 8,000 crore and is considering various revival strategies including reducing its owner and promoter, Naresh Goyal's, controlling stake to below 20 percent, converting the loan amount to equity and giving state lender State Bank of India (SBI) a stake in the airline and letting the minority stake holder, Etihad airways, raise its stake above 40 percent coupled with infusion of fresh capital in the airline.

Kingfisher had also fallen prey to mounting losses and debt. Its owner Vijay Mallya owes over Rs 9,000 crore to a consortium of lenders.

The scale of Air India's decade long debt, however, is much more at Rs 55,000 crore. The government, now, has transferred half of its debt to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which will sell the state carrier's non-core business arms to generate funds. This will enable the airline to service its debt.

The difference, however, between other airlines and Air India is that the national carrier is backed by sovereign guarantee by the government, which is constantly pumping in money in the airline.

Another government official told Moneycontrol that the government will provide funds to Air India "subject to its efficiency parameters".

"If the airline is generating enough funds, then the financial advisors do not advice the government to infuse equity," he said.

He said that the airline must work efficiently in order to "enjoy" the government's financial support.

The government has decided to infuse Rs 2,345 crore equity in the airline in the remaining part of FY19, of which Rs 1,500 crore is expected to be infused soon. Till December, AI had received funds infusion of Rs 1,600 crore from the government.

The government had tried to sell its stake of 76 percent in the airline as part of its divestment strategy in May 2018. The proposal from the government, however, saw no bidders due to its huge debt and the government's decision to sell the airline as a single entity.

Officials, now, believe that the "momentum" around Air India's stake sale has picked up and the new government should be able to off-load the stake.
mindtree

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IT firm Mindtree has been making headlines lately as L&T Infotech and private equity firm KKR are reportedly gearing up to contest for a stake held by Coffee Day Enterprises and its owner VG Siddhartha in the software company.

Since its founding in 1999, Mindtree has created an envious business with fairly stable growth. Suitors see a stake sale in Mindtree by one of the company's large non-promoter shareholders -- VG Siddhartha, who along with his group companies owns about 21 percent in the software company, as an attractive opportunity.

Over the last 10 years, Mindtree's shares have appreciated 15 times or at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent. This is one of the reasons why the potential could even look at a complete buyout via an open offer, even as founders of the mid-sized company are reluctant to sell.

Moneycontrol independently could not verify the report.

Also Read: Mindtree Q3 review: Back on the growth path; buy

Considering Mindtree has built itself a good portfolio over the two decades, here's what it has to offer its stakeholders who either want a bite of its shares or make good returns on the shares they hold:

> VG Siddhartha

Media reports suggest Siddhartha is looking to exit Mindtree to steer through financial challenges in his company, Coffee Day Enterprises, that operates the Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) chain. The stake sale is expected to help CCD pay off Rs 5,000 crore in debt and deleverage the balance sheet.

Siddhartha directly holds 3.33 percent stake in Mindtree, 10.63 percent through Coffee Day Enterprises and 6.45 percent through Coffee Day Trading, taking his total ownership to 20.41 percent. Coffee Day Trading is a subsidiary of Coffee Day Enterprises established in 2000 to provide companies with access to capital.

According to media reports, LTI has offered Rs 1,150-1,200 per share for the 20.41 percent stake, while KKR is open to shelling out Rs 1,500-2,000 crore for the stake through a combination of debt and equity. The share closed at Rs 902.10 on January 29 at a market value of Rs 14,779.26 crore.

A rough estimate suggests Siddhartha will bag Rs 3,000 crore if he sells the entire 3.3 crore shares at the last closing price of Rs 902.10 per share on January 29.

Siddhartha, who joined the board when he first invested in Mindtree in 1999, stepped down as an independent director in March 2018. The development triggered speculations that he may cash out on his investments and deploy the funds to scale up CCD's operations.

> L&T Infotech

With 50 percent of Mindtree's revenue accruing from digital, it becomes an attractive acquisition for LTI as it fits well within the transformed LTI which has digital technology at its core under the new leadership.

Read: Stake sale battle at Mindtree: Will minority shareholders have the last laugh?

LTI's earnings indicate a strong growth with sharp improvement in operating margin and a strong deal pipeline. Mindtree's addition to its portfolio will allow LTI to expand further and deploy excess cash and get access to technical capabilities and/or markets.

Market analysts suggest LTI has a strong management that can add value to Mindtree and the latter's shareholders can look forward to benefits from synergies after the initial integration pangs. Moreover, the coming together of two successful mid-tier IT names will lead to a more efficient larger-sized IT company that can better navigate the challenges and grab opportunities thrown by the changing technological landscape. Thus, the regulator might insist on an open offer to minority shareholders.

However, the Mindtree promoters are worried about a hostile takeover in the process. Mindtree may lose its control over management and policies, Shailendra Kumar, Director at Narnolia Financial Advisors told Moneycontrol. For instance, if LTI acquires Siddhartha's stakes in Mindtree, there may be some change in management. In this case, the regulator may also insist on an open offer to minority shareholders.

> KKR

KKR is said to be in discussions with a homegrown technology-focused investment bank to finalise a deal with Siddhartha with the backing of the incumbent management and founders.

Owing to the promoters' concern over a change in management due to a hostile takeover, the Mindtree management has reportedly reached out to several potential investors and family offices to come on board as a white knight.

There are other reasons also for the promoters to feel uncomfortable. Market analysts suggest a white knight to help the founders is unlikely to pay top dollar for the stake. These investors typically like to monetise their investment within a relatively shorter time frame. To that extent, the near-term stock upside is limited and the question of an open offer doesn't arise. But long-term investors should read this as a strong sign of confidence about the company's future from the founders, who know the company best.

> Founders

Siddhartha's move to sell his and associates' stakes in Mindtree may impact other promoters of the company, who own about 13 percent stake. Until now, Siddhartha backed Mindtree founders and promoters enabling them to take management decisions and formulate policies independently without interference from other stakeholders.

Losing Siddhartha's 21 percent stake to someone hostile may result in the promoters losing their control over management, which may impact the company's growth strategy for the future.

The four remaining founders -- Subroto Bagchi, NS Parthasarathy, Krishnakumar Natarajan and Rostow Ravanan -- have been holding out against a sale, according to a report by The Economic Times. The founders and promoters are now looking at options available to retain management control and gain support from other influential investors such as Baburaj Pillai, Pulak Prasad, and Akash Prakash, who own about 15 percent stake in Mindtree through their associates.

Hurdles for Siddhartha

Even though VG Siddhartha is all set to cash out from Mindtree, there is a hurdle. Two days after the report of Siddhartha's stake sale surfaced, the Income Tax (I-T) Department attached 4.5 percent shares held by Coffee Day Enterprises and VG Siddhartha in Mindtree for a period of six months over a potential tax demand.

According to the company, 74.90 lakh shares of Mindtree have been affected by the provisional attachment by the Income Tax Department, in which 22.20 lakh shares are held by Coffee Day Enterprises in Mindtree and 52.70 lakh shares by its promoter Siddhartha.

In response to the attachment, Coffee Day Enterprises said in a regulatory filing it has already discharged its tax liability along with the revised returns. "there is no tax liability payable by the company and its subsidiaries as per the revised returns filed," Coffee Day Enterprises said on January 26.

Read: Mindtree Q3 review: Back on the growth path; buy

Coffee Day has requested the I-T Department to attach the company's shares worth Rs 150 crore instead of its holding in Mindtree that had been attached earlier, according to a report by CNBC-TV18.

While VG Siddhartha is said to move the Central Board of Taxes (CBDT) to

release his shares that have been attached, he may not be able to touch these shares until the I-T Department gives him and his company (Coffee Day Enterprises) a clean chit.

In 2017, the I-T Department had conducted raids at premises of Cafe Coffee Day and its group companies across 25 locations in Bengaluru, Chikmaglur, Mumbai and Chennai, including the residence of Chairman and Managing Director V G Siddhartha. At that time, the I-T Department had detected undisclosed income worth over Rs 650 crore linked to the Cafe Coffee Day group
State Bank of India is examining a possibility of Essar Steel loans, said Managing Director Dinesh Kumar Khara, after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) rejected Ruia family's bid for the insolvent company.

"Now since there is a positive development, there is a definitive development which has taken place in the yesterday's judgement, so we can revisit our earlier stance, where we wanted to allot the value which was stuck in this asset," said Khara.

In terms of rethinking of selling of Essar loans, he said, " think Ruias are quite open to taking a call on the subject because our anxiety was in terms of realising the money at the earliest and the kind of delays, which were taking place."

"We will evaluate at the point of time how the circumstances unwind and then depending upon that, we will take an appropriate call," he added.

Also read: It's advantage ArcelorMittal, as NCLT rejects Essar Steel promoters' plea to repay debt

Speaking about not getting enough demand, Khara said, "All these things are commercial considerations. Let us wait and watch. As a lender, at some point of time, we have to think about how to get the money out also."

The NCLT Ahmedabad rejected Essar Steel promoter Ruia family's plea to repay debt, effectively scuttling the group's attempt to hold on to the company and boosting the chances of lenders selling it to a new owner, possibly ArcelorMittal.

The resolution professional will now present the ArcelorMittal plan before the NCLT for approval. ArcelorMittal had offered to pay creditors Rs 42,000 crore to take over Essar Steel that faced insolvency proceedings to recover Rs 50,800 crore of unpaid loans.

Welcoming the order ArcelorMittal said the ruling by the NCLT protects the integrity of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and ensures its legitimacy as a rules based law.

The Essar group hinted at challenging the verdict, citing the last week's Supreme Court order that upheld the August 2018 amendment to the IBC law by adding Section 12A which allows creditors to take the company out of insolvency proceedings and allows out-of-court settlement with an upfront payment of the dues.

Source: CNBC-TV18
affordable housing

It is a no-brainer that ready-to-move-in houses are the best bet, especially for homebuyers who are averse to taking risks considering the scores of projects that are currently under litigation. Also, in the present economic scenario, the market is favourable and there are abundant options available across cities. Prices too have come down drastically as there is plentiful of unsold inventory that may take several months to get exhausted. Another positive is that ready-to-move properties unlike the under construction units are exempt from the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

As per ANAROCK data, out of the total 6.73 lakh units of unsold housing inventory, nearly 85,000 units are currently ready-to-move-in across the top 7 cities. Interestingly, out of these total unsold ready-to-move options, nearly 60 percent units are in the affordable and mid segments priced below Rs 80 lakh. In terms of budget segmentation, MMR and NCR have the maximum available ready-to-move stock in the affordable and mid segments (below Rs 80 lakh)  together accounting for 55 percent of the stock in the main seven cities. Pune has an equal mix of ready-to-move properties priced below Rs 80 lakh and properties priced above this budget range.

Cities Total Unsold Units Approx. RTM Units Approx. RTM % of Total Unsold Units Bengaluru 73,340 12,000 16% Chennai 30,840 8,800 29% Pune 87,440 8,600 10% Kolkata 49,470 5,400 11% NCR 1,86,710 23,500 13% MMR 2,19,490 22,300 10% Hyderabad 25,960 4,400 17% PAN India 6,73,210 85,000 13%

NCR and MMR are the cities with maximum unsold ready-to-move stock. Together, they account for nearly 54 percent of such stock in the top seven cities. Hyderabad has the least amount of ready-to-move stock with just over 4,400 units.

Source: ANAROCK Research (RTM= Ready-to-move-in)

The RTM advantage

While RTM units are considered relatively 'safe', there are still a few mandatory checks that homebuyers should conduct before signing on the dotted line. Buyers should try and shortlist the best five options basis the location, quality of construction, legal sanctity of the documents and the structure, the best price offered and most important whether the project has a RERA registration number or not.

"The current preference for ready-to-move options is understandable. Despite many customer-favouring court rulings on this front, the unwholesome aura of delayed, stalled and even shelved projects which had beset many cities markets continues. In fact, the recent and ongoing NBFC crisis has made the situation even worse. Another pain-point for under-construction properties has been GST. Ready-to-move properties were cumulatively assumed to be and marketed as exempt from GST. However, a recent clarification confirmed that only ready projects with completion certificates in place enjoy this benefit," said Anuj Puri, Chairman  ANAROCK Property Consultants.

Despite the property being ready-to-move-in, a buyer should not blindly invest in it. The project should be is in a well-connected location and have a decent saturation of amenities and facilities. An optimal entry point in terms of ticket size is critical for good ROI - it should be attractive to begin with and, if possible, negotiated further. Investors must also verify historic capital values and rental rates trends, he says.

Besides the physical structure of the building, homebuyers should also check if the infrastructure in the vicinity and facilities such as clubs, power back up, parking, basement etc are also up and running. Not only the apartment, but all shared amenities and facilities should have been completed by the developer.

The project should have legal sanctity

All legal processes associated with the project should be complete. This means that all documents  occupation certificates and the completion certificates should be in place. Potential buyers should check if all land dues have been paid to the authorities, there are no multiple financing issues and no-objection certificates have been received from lenders. This is important to ensure that the property you are buying into can be registered.

Always negotiate for an all-in price

If you have made up your mind regarding the unit you wish to buy, make sure the seller quotes an all-encompassing price. There should not be separate water charges, power charges, parking fees, external development charges and internal development charges. Ask for the price of the entire package.

Start negotiations with 5% to 7% lower than the benchmark price

Choose a price point that is lower than what the builder is quoting or what the local broker has proposed. For example, if the price of the inventory held by the builder in a project is Rs 6000 per sq ft and the broker has quoted Rs 5200 per sq ft for a secondary sale, you should try and start negotiations with anything 5 per cent to 7 percent lower than what is supposed to be the lowest price in the market, say real estate experts.

"Do your homework well before entering the negotiation table. Always negotiate for an all in number  there should be no additional EDC, IDC, PLC as an all in price will compete with the re-sellers price in the market, especially if the investors are stuck with properties for over five years. Also remember that it is this investor who decides the resale price in the market. Make the investor price the benchmark and negotiate for a price below that. There is every possibility that the investor may have a better located unit compared to what the builder is left with," said Anckur Srivasttava of GenReal Advisers.

Puri also has a word of advice here.

"While even credible developers will negotiate with serious buyers to some extent, only weak players in deep financial pain (and probably wanting to exit the market altogether) will opt to sell at an outright loss. A reduction of 5-7 percent should be considered an acceptable knockdown on the overall ticket size. To push beyond this is inadvisable, and can be counter-productive," he added.

Check for the chain of title

If you have decided to buy from an investor through a local broker, make sure that there are no dues pending. Also, if it concerns a property that has not been registered with the authorities and you are buying an investor invested property, make sure there are no issues with. Of late, some authorities have come down heavily on such properties which have relied on the builder transfer mode.

Experts say that often developers are expected to submit a list of owners in a project as on the date on which an occupation certificate has been received by the developer. And if a builder transfer mode buyer gets the unit registered under his name post the OC, he may get a notice saying that the authority list had another owner and may even have to pay penalty.

The current owner may receive a notice saying that he has transferred the property in his name post the project receiving an OC and therefore he should pay penalty. In this case, the previous owner may also have to pay penalty with interest. Technically the property should have been registered by the previous buyer. This can become problematic for people who have relied on builder transfers. It can create a bit of a hurdle in clean ownership despite you having the unit registered in your name," said legal experts, adding the authorities may see this evasion of duty as loss to the exchequer.

Visit the property and speak to residents

In case of an established project, make sure you meet members of the RWA. While some price appreciation is definitely attributed to the location and quality of the project, it is the quality of the community or the residents that ensures the long term value of any residential development.

Try and find out the ratio of self-occupied flats to units that are on rent. If more than half of the flats are leased out, the maintenance of the complex may not be very good and the complex may turn into a ghost town. Also check for the ratio of large sized apartments to smaller units. If there are 400 apartments whose size is over 2000 sq ft and 200 units whose size is around 1000 sq ft, the upkeep and maintenance of the society is bound to be better. The resale value of the unit in such societies will also be much better.

vandana.ramnani@nw18.com
PG&E Corp, owner of the largest US power utility, filed for bankruptcy protection on January 29 in anticipation of liabilities in excess of $30 billion from the deadliest wildfires in California's history.

PG&E, which provides electricity and natural gas to 16 million customers in northern and central California and employs 24,000 people, vowed to keep the lights on and continue with critical investments it said were needed in its system's safety and maintenance.

"The power and gas will stay on ... We are not 'going out of business,' and there will be no disruption in the services you expect from us," interim Chief Executive John Simon said in a letter to customers.

PG&E faced no immediate cash crunch. Its decision to file for bankruptcy was driven by its assessment of upcoming legal liabilities. While state investigators cleared PG&E this month of liability in one of several 2017 wildfires in California's wine country, the company still may be found liable for a fire that killed at least 86 people in Northern California in November.

The San Francisco-based company faces lawsuits from owners of homes and businesses that burned during that and other fires. Filing for bankruptcy temporarily shields PG&E from these claims, allowing it to negotiate settlements in bankruptcy court.

PG&E's bankruptcy attracted criticism from some California politicians, shareholders and wildfire victim advocates. California Senate President Toni Atkins called PG&E's decision disappointing and said the bankruptcy was not the optimum solution for Californians.

"That was PG&E's choice but it does not change my focus, which remains protecting the best interests of the people of California," Gavin Newsom, who took office as governor of California earlier this month, said in a statement.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, said he expected to represent the state and its people in the bankruptcy court as the proceeding continued.

"We're prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect ratepayers, taxpayers and wildfire victims," Becerra said in an interview in Sacramento.

Calling the bankruptcy "a whole new world" because it put the massive utility under the control of a federal court, Becerra said several state agencies would be affected by the move, along with California's 40 million people and victims of wildfire that the company's equipment may have ignited.

BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, an investment firm that owns about 2 percent of PG&E, called the company's move "reckless" and detrimental to shareholders. It has vowed to launch a proxy contest next month to replace PG&E's board directors.

PG&E's shares jumped more than 16 percent on Tuesday as investors speculated over how much equity holders will be able to recover.

PG&E listed assets of $71.39 billion and liabilities of $51.69 billion as of Sept. 30 in the voluntary Chapter 11 document filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, indicating that its equity would likely retain at least some of its value.

PG&E shares closed at $13.99 on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of $7.26 billion. Still, the stock remains down close to 80 percent since October, before the latest round of wildfires broke out. PG&E had said earlier this month it was preparing for bankruptcy.

PG&E is seeking court approval for $5.5 billion in debtor-in-possession financing from J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, and other banks, it said. The sum is roughly equal to PG&E's annual spending.

PG&E also carries a debt load of more than $18 billion. Company advisers expect that it may take two years or more to emerge from bankruptcy.

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

An arcane California legal rule, known as "inverse condemnation," exposes California utilities to liabilities from wildfires regardless of their negligence as long as their equipment is involved.

This has raised concerns among some PG&E investors that exiting bankruptcy could take longer if there were more wildfires, a real threat given that climate change has turned the blazes into an annual occurrence.

Investors in other utilities are fretting as well. Shares of Rosemead, California-based Edison International, for example, are down 20 percent since the November wildfires.

Another issue at stake is PG&E's contracts for renewable power. These are critical for California, which last year delivered 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources and has a goal to source 60 percent of its power from renewables by 2030. PG&E has more than 250 contracts for renewable power that represent $57 billion in investment, it said last month.

Federal energy regulators said on January 25 they had joint jurisdiction with a bankruptcy court over requests to cancel or renegotiate power contracts by PG&E.

PG&E as part of its bankruptcy filing on January 29 challenged that claim to jurisdiction, saying in court papers that rejecting and assuming power purchase agreements will be vital to its reorganization.

The company's papers asked for an order keeping the agreements under the bankruptcy court's exclusive jurisdiction and declaring that any decision to reject the agreements would not need the approval of federal energy regulators.

"We ultimately continue to view power-purchase agreements as being fully honoured by PG&E in our base-case scenario where key California Public Utilities Commission, legislative and other stakeholders with strong ties to the state's environmental goals intervene in the bankruptcy process," JPMorgan analysts wrote in a research note this week.

Last year, lawmakers gave PG&E permission to raise rates to cover wildfire losses from 2017. But elected officials have shown little appetite for new rate hikes or other manoeuvres to prevent a bankruptcy filing.
Answer: Uber

Global cab aggregator Uber is gearing-up to offer Mumbaikars an all-new mode of transport. The US-based company has launched UberBOAT, a service that will allow customers to book boat rides using their mobile phones.

The new service, which begins from February 1, will employ speedboats that can seat a minimum of six passengers. Uber will be focusing on two routes, Gateway of India to Mandwa Jetty, and Gateway of India to Elephanta. At the moment the company is launching group boat services priced between Rs 5,700 and 9,500 per boat.

Conventional boats ferry passengers on this route in approximately an hour. With the new speedboats, this time will be cut to about 20 minutes.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Prabhjeet Singh of Uber India and South Asia said, "It is too early to say what other cities or what other routes in Mumbai this service will be scaled to."

"We will evaluate our launch plans to more cities or more routes within Mumbai later," he added.

"There has been a demand from commuters to have a water transport service from Navi Mumbai areas such as Nerul or Belapur to south Mumbai. If UberBOAT is launched to connect the two cities, it would be of immense benefit to those travelling from far suburbs South Mumbai daily for work," a Mumbai Port Trust was quoted by The Times of India.

Prices are likely to be fixed at first with Uber's dynamic pricing to take over soon after, the report added.
The new leadership at Axis Bank has outlined the banks mediumterm growth strategy while announcing its Q3 FY19 earnings. With an aim to achieve 18 percent return on equity (RoE) within the next three years, the strategy rides on three pillars of growth, profitability and sustainability. Strengthening the liability franchise as well as processes across all levels and risk adjusted growth lie at the heart of this drive. With a clear strategic intent, the bank looks all set for a rewarding long-term journey for its investors.

The headline jump in profitability was impacted by recovery in written off accounts, but the core wasnt uninspiring.

- The quarter under review saw exceptionally strong growth in deposits (25.7 percent) driven by low cost CASA (current and savings accounts) as well as term deposits. The latter was supported by both retail as well as wholesale. Probable shift in liquidity from mutual funds could be one of the drivers of this surge

Source: Company

- The bank boasts of a solid granular deposit base with retail term deposits along with low-cost CASA constituting close to 80 percent of total deposits

- Q3 witnessed a significant jump in non-interest income. Driven by retail fees, while core fees grew by over 16 percent, the sharp spurt came from recovery in written-off accounts (Rs 998 crore as against Rs 40 crore in the year-ago quarter) and monetisation of stake in two strategic investments, resulting in gains of Rs 342 crore

- The recovery in one of the large steel account (cash recovery of Rs 714 crore) resulted in a five basis points (100 bps=1 percentage point) positive impact on interest margin. Net interest margin improved 11 bps sequentially and 9 bps year-on-year to 3.47 percent. The benefit of MCLR (marginal cost based lending rate) repricing is also starting to contribute. The management is quite confident of maintaining its improved margin trajectory

- While overall advances grew 13 percent, there was de-growth in the international book. Domestic advances grew 18 percent, supported largely by retail, which is now close to 49 percent of total advances

- Quality of lending is improving with 86 percent of SME exposure rated SME3 and above and 82 percent of corporate exposure rated A or better. The decline in the ratio of risk weighted assets to total assets stands testimony to the same

- The improvement in quality of the book has resulted in capital conservation with the bank adding nine bps to its core capital. Its overall capital position is extremely healthy (Tier I: 13.07 percent) to take care of future growth acceleration

- Asset quality is stable with gross and net non-performing assets (NPA) declining to 5.75 percent and 2.36 percent, down from 5.96 percent and 2.54 percent reported in the previous quarter, respectively

- Most of the slippage in Q3 were from below BB rated accounts and this pool has declined by 14 percent sequentially to Rs 7,645 crore. The management after a careful scrutiny of the books feels that the BB and below rated book can only improve from hereon and that the rating downgrade exercise is complete

- The bank has created an ad-hoc provision of Rs 600 crore towards non-performing assets. Excluding this, the provision coverage ratio (provision held against NPA) has improved to 75 percent. Q3 also saw a provision write-back on investment

- The management is planning to focus on its subsidiaries and targets to take them to a meaningful size in the coming years through the organic as well as inorganic route

- RBI audit for FY18 pointed to minor divergence. Accounts worth Rs 225 crore wasnt recognised as NPA. However, the same had turned into a bad loan in Q1 FY19. The regulator wanted the bank to provide an additional Rs 99.7 crore, which has also been complied with

- CASA ratio has decelerated to 46 percent

- Although recovery was encouraging, the total quantum of gross slippage at Rs 3,746 crore was a tad higher

The bank under the new leadership and a revamped senior management is eyeing strong risk adjusted growth, with a thrust on garnering market share, improving cost matrix and leveraging technology. With the worst of corporate NPA cycle behind, a moderation in credit cost would also be a key earning kicker. At 2.6 times FY20 estimated adjusted book, we do see scope for re-rating should the bank successfully complete its journey of reaching high-teen RoE in the future. Axis Bank is an ideal candidate for any long term portfolio.Moneycontrol Research analysts do not hold positions in the companies discussed here
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History suggests due to fiscal deficit, a slowdown in the economy, populist schemes, and reduction in government spending impacted industrial sectors like OMCs, banks, cement, infrastructure and capital goods negatively, Satish Menon, Executive Director at Geojit Financial Services, said in an interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand.

Edited excerpts:

Q. What are your expectations from the upcoming Interim Budget?

A. During an election year, no government may be able to come out with a reformist budget. Therefore, one need not expect any major reformist policies in the Budget.

But, since the ruling party is naturally under pressure during an election year, one can expect some steps that address the concerns of common man and farmers.

But, I dont think that the Budget as such is going to be a full-fledged budget, but maybe the Finance Minister may share his long-term views towards the benefits to the common man as well as for farmers.

This may be outlined in the Interim Budget speech while concrete measures may be taken up in the final budget.

Q. Do you see a knee jerk reaction if the government is unable to meet its fiscal deficit target?

A. Well, on the fiscal deficit front, I expect it may go up 10 bps or 20 bps. But, I dont think that is going to have any major impact on the markets. The market has already factored in the possibility of some increase in the fiscal deficit.

This mainly comes from lower tax collection and higher expenditure. From the growth perspective, a small increase in the fiscal deficit is not going to have any major impact in one year for an economy that is growing at a good rate.

A slight slippage in the fiscal deficit will be a non-event for the markets if the same can be fixed over the next 1 or 2 years.

Q. The FM in a speech highlighted that the government would address issues confronting the farm sector. What kind of sops are you factoring in your estimates?

A. It seems that the Finance Minister is going to announce some sops for the farm sector. As per reports, the central government may consider to support the farmers directly as done by few states. It may cost to the tune of Rs 70,000 crore to the Center. This could be placed as a non-budgetary expense. This would be a political decision rather than an economic decision.

Q. What according to you should be ideal portfolio allocation ahead of the Budget?

A. Well, portfolio allocation is a long-term decision and should not be related to the budget, which is a short-term phenomenon. Having said that, I should also add that given the muted state of the market, it is safe to invest in cyclical sectors.

Capex oriented sectors are also likely to recover post elections. So these two sectors may be the right mix to play. Since the market has written down all these stocks, it is my opinion that it is the right time to enter these sectors and have them in your portfolio.

Q. Any 5 stocks that are likely to benefit the most from the upcoming Budget.

A. As a matter of principle, we dont recommend any stocks based on short-term views. And we dont have any short-term recommendations on any stocks. We rather prefer to take a long-term view.

But, we expect some action in the consumer-oriented stocks. We are also bullish on infrastructure stocks, like L&T, PNC Infra, and Shree Cements to benefit if populist measures are not as bad being feared by the market while outlook improves due to return of government capex.

Q. Historically, which are the sectors that have been in limelight ahead of the Budget and what are you recommending your clients and why?

A. Well, historically, the budget has not impacted the long-term trend of the market or specific sectors.

But, this time due to fiscal deficit, a slowdown in the economy, populist schemes, and reduction in government spending impacted industrial sectors like OMCs, banks, cement, infrastructure and capital goods negatively. This trend will turn opposite as the businesses outlook normalize.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Although the federal government shutdown may prevent U.S. EPA from hosting the Jan. 10 meeting, the need for the meeting has not changed; residents need the opportunity for meaningful input in the decision-making process, and U.S. EPA needs to determine whether there is community acceptance of the proposal, the East Chicago Calumet Coalition said in a letter to the EPA.
An art item performed at the event (Photo: VNA)

All officials, staff, their spouses and students attending the event were in traditional long dress to contribute to preserving and honouring cultural values of Vietnam, as well as attracting the attention of international friends.

Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to India, Nepal and Bhutan Pham Sanh Chau affirmed that the embassy had made efforts to organize the community Tet for overseas Vietnamese so that they feel Tet atmosphere like in the homeland.

He desired the overseas Vietnamese in India to always look toward the homeland, abide by the local law and make efforts to promote their role as a bridge for Vietnam - India friendship in the coming time.

At the event, the participants enjoyed a special art program performed by Vietnamese staff, monks, students and soldiers in India as well as traditional Tet dishes of Vietnamese people.

In early January, on the occasion of presenting his letter of credence in Bhutan, Ambassador Chau met and conveyed Tet wishes to the Vietnamese community in the country. He desired the overseas Vietnamese there to be united, continue mutual support and positively promote Vietnams image to the local people./.
Tridhaatu Realty & Infra

The Central Government can support the real estate sector by streamlining industry friendly policies that will help in alleviating the pain points of the industry.

We need a more simplified process of getting online approvals from various government bodies like Ministry of Environment, civil aviation and GST. Getting approvals from central agencies is time consuming resulting in delay and escalation of cost to project. This delay also hampers economic growth. We request for a more simplified online approval process where delay is minimized and can be done at one go.

Presently, under-construction properties are levied a GST of 12% which puts a strain on the finances of a home buyer as he is already burdened with stamp duty charges. Having a single GST rate of 5% will simplify the process, encourage better compliance and collections for the government and improve market sentiments.

Though the government has introduced a slew of policies for better transparency within the realty sector, we still have a long way to go in terms of realizing that dream of providing shelter for all Indians. For that to happen the government will need to introduce policies that directly encourage the builders to build more pocket friendly housing stock.

Related stories Pritam Chivukula Co-Founder & Director|Tridhaatu Realty & Infra Pvt. Ltd

We have seen resurgence in the Mumbai residential property market with increased sales happening mainly in the affordable and mid housing segment of the market towards the second half of 2018.

In order to promote affordable housing, the government needs to give more incentives like income tax benefits for development of EWS, LIG and MIG housing. Subsuming stamp duty into SGST will be a big boost to the flagging industry.

This will spur developers to get into this space in a bigger way by creating more housing for the lower end segments thus reducing the gap between demand and supply. Also, the government should not levy GST on the affordable housing segment so that benefits are passed directly to the end user. This translates into a lower cost making it more affordable to the target segment of home buyers.

This push in the affordable housing segment will continue to drive demand and supply and will be the key growth driver for residential sector going forward.

Housing for All, introduction of RERA and GST are some good initiatives taken by the government. These have the potential to bring in more transparency and accountability, increase affordable housing for the masses, tax compliance, and creation of better infrastructure and improve market sentiments.

The real estate sector is the second largest employment generator after agriculture and many ancillary industries depend upon it for their sustenance. A robust realty sector will reflect in a healthier economy for the country.
Fueled by its sales drive, online supermarket Grofers aims to touch revenues of Rs 2,500 crore in FY19, according to Albinder Dhindsa, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Grofers.

The company is optimistic about achieving the target after it clocked a revenue of Rs 310 crore in January 2019, driven by its grocery sales week in the month.

The company clocked Rs 700 crore in sales in the FY18. A year earlier, in 2017, its revenues stood at Rs 250 crore.

Grofers is a low-price online grocer that allows consumers to order products across categories like grocery, staples, beverages, personal care, home and kitchen, and meats and seafood, and it delivers these products to their doorsteps.

Currently, the delivery service is operational in 13 cities including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Noida, Mumbai and Pune.

Grofers recently concluded it sales offer called Grand Orange Bag Days (GOBD), when it brought 2.5 lakh new customers to its platform. The company, which was running GOBD from January 19-27, recorded an average of 14 lakh visits per day on its app. During this period, a total of 1.81 crore items worth Rs 207.5 crore were sold.

"With an average ticket size of Rs 2,640 and 20 items per cart, Grofers recorded highest customer engagement in Delhi NCR followed by Mumbai and Bangalore," the company said in its statement.

During the sale period, grocery and staples were the highest selling items followed by household items such as detergents, dishwash bars and personal care products. During the same time, Grofers recorded 80 percent increase in sales of Grofers branded products as well.

"We have received a tremendous response in the Grofers Orange Bag Days sale and we will sustain the momentum going forward. We are geared to bringing better-priced grocery products to 100 million customers and this is just the start," Dhindsa said.
Piyush Goyal

The interim Union Budget is almost upon us and we are all on tenterhooks. Some of us have spent sleepless nights worrying about the big question: who will Piyush Goyal quote in his Budget speech?

We have a time-honored tradition of finance ministers quoting famous persons during the Budget speech. In last years budget, for example, Arun Jaitley quoted Swami Vivekanandas Memoirs of European Travel, You merge yourselves in the void and disappear, and let new India arise in your place The exhortation to merge into the void and disappear was obviously directed to the Congress, but they seem to have refused to listen to his advice.

Anyway, Jaitleys quoting Vivekananda was a bit of a surprise, because in the 2017 budget he had stated, it is said: When my aim is right, when my goal is in sight, the winds favour me and I fly. And in 2016, he said, it is said that champions are made from something they have deep inside of them - a desire, a dream, a vision. This referring to it is said was widely deplored as a cheap trick to avoid quoting anybody and there was a strong suspicion that these quotes hadnt really been said by anyone but manufactured for the occasion by Jaitley himself. Some give the benefit of the doubt to Jaitley, pointing out that he had quoted from the Upanishads in his 2015 budget speech. I really dont think he can be forgiven so easily. I had bet on him quoting Money is the root of all evil in the 2017 budget after demonetisation, but he missed a splendid opportunity.

What is difficult to forgive is Jaitleys not quoting anybody at all in his 2014 budget. Perhaps he was tired after reading 16,485 words non-stop. Perhaps he thought that I propose to exempt PSF and PFY manufactured from plastic waste and scrap including PET bottles from excise duty with effect from June 29, 2010 to May 7, 2012. I also propose to levy prospectively a nominal duty of two percent without cenvat (central VAT) benefit and six percent with Cenvat benefit on such PSF and PFY was no mean literary flourish, far better than any quote.

Be that as it may, P Chidambaram was, by contrast, a very steady quote person. In his 2013 budget speech and 2014 interim budget, he quoted Saint Tiruvalluvar. In fact he quoted Tiruvalluvar without fail in each of his Budget speeches from 2004 to 2008. He was so stodgily predictable that in 2013 the odds on him quoting the Tamil saint were 10/100. In other words, if you bet a hundred rupees on Chidambaram quoting Tiruvalluvar, you would get back a mere one hundred and ten rupees. It was hardly worth the effort.

No doubt stung by such criticism, Chidambaram had, in addition to Tiruvalluvar, also quoted Henry David Thoreau in 2006 and Mohammed Yunus in 2007, but the double quotes took too much out of him and he abandoned the practice. Experts say two quotes in a long budget speech are too exhausting and Chidambaram was never the same man again after his 2006 and 2007 Herculean efforts.

The only year Chidambaram didnt quote Tiruvalluvar was in his 1997 budget speech, when he opted for Rabindranath Tagore and, hold your breath, Deng Xiao Peng. No, it wasnt Dengs famous line about not caring whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice, nor was it the inspiring To be rich is glorious----it was a boring quote on Development is the only hard truth. The ghost of Tiruvalluvar must have taken offence and it wasnt until 2004 that Chidambaram became Finance Minister again. No wonder he kept on quoting the saint thereafter.

Pranab Mukherjee, during his stint as Finance Minister, had a penchant for quoting Kautilya. Perhaps he was his role model. But as befits a Bharat Ratna, Mukherjee was versatile in his quotes. In his 2012 budget speech, he quoted Shakespeares Hamlet, I must be cruel only to be kind---a rather ominous quote for a budget.

Jaswant Singh unfortunately didnt quote anybody at all in 2003 and 2004, a sad departure from hallowed tradition. He was following in the footsteps of Yashwant Sinha, who also didnt quote anybody in 2002. In 1999, all Sinha did was quote Vajpayee, which doesnt really count. Perhaps he had exhausted himself by giving three quotes in his 1998 budget---one of them Vajpayees, another by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and a third that said, As the saying goes, "only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong". That last one was probably made up by Sinha, but nonetheless the effort seems to have exhausted his repertoire of quotes.

Manmohan Singh, during his days as finance minister, often quoted Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. But his masterpiece was the 1991 budget speech which heralded the beginning of economic liberalisation with Victor Hugos stirring quote, No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. No subsequent finance minister has come close to that marvellous quote.

Who will Piyush Goyal quote on Interim Budget Day? Punters have pointed me to a recent speech of his at DPS Ghaziabad for clues, where he quoted from the TV serial Game of Thrones that winter is coming. Perhaps he will quote from the same source in his Budget speech? My bet is on "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Or even better: Everyone is mine to torment.
Q14. What exclusive government-owned store was inaugurated at the departure terminal of the Goa International airport in January 2019 by Suresh Prabhu, minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation? (Image: PTI)

Commerce minister Suresh Prabhu Wednesday said the government will release the new e-commerce policy soon which is awaiting approval from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

"The new e-commerce policy, initially drafted by industry stakeholders, is currently waiting for clearance from the DIPP," Prabhu told PTI without elaborating.

Speaking on sidelines of an event organised by the Federation of Gujarat Industries, he said, "although the government is willing to listen to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the policy will be prepared by us."

The minister also said the new industrial policy, which aims at boosting manufacturing, promote foreign technology transfer and attract overseas investments, is also is awaiting the Cabinet approval.

Elaborating on the policy, Prabhu said, it will replace the 27-year-old existing policy, aims to resolve bottlenecks arising from inadequate infrastructure, restrictive labour laws and complicated business environment.

He also informed that the government is creating 'sub-national'- ease of doing business parameters which will be measured at the district level because that is where the local industries are flourishing.

Prabhu said countries like Russia, Japan, Korea, and Sweden have expressed interest in investing in projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and smart cities besides the railways, and public transport.
London, where British Indians make up for 6 percent of the population, is the most popular entry point to the country.

A funding crunch is squeezing British banks' profits and hitting their share prices, as the threat of a disorderly Brexit and the end of cheap cash from the Bank of England begin to bite.

The average cost for British lenders of issuing secured debt has leapt to its highest since just after the 2016 EU referendum, JPMorgan data shows, as investors fret that political turmoil could tip the economy into recession.

Conversations with bank executives, investors and analysts, and analysis by Reuters of data on the cost of British banks' funding from various channels, show lenders under increasing strain as Brexit approaches on March 29.

The tough funding market is likely to have the most impact on so-called challenger banks, which are less able to rely on savers' deposits to finance lending.

This could be tested within months. Metro Bank is seen by analysts and investors as likely to need fresh funds after an accounting mistake last week hit capital levels and sent its share price diving.

Lenders have already been hit by the end of the BoE's 127 billion pound ($167.14 billion) cheap funding scheme, launched after the Brexit vote to support lending to consumers and businesses.

After years of government and regulatory efforts to promote competition and shake up the banking sector, it remains dominated by six huge lenders -- RBS [RBS.L], Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, Santander and building society Nationwide.

Below them, challengers like Metro Bank and Virgin Money -- recently acquired by Clydesdale Bank owner CYBG -- and specialists such as OneSavings Bank have taken advantage of cheap funding since the 2008 crisis to grow.

The end of the BoE scheme last February is forcing those banks into new forms of funding, such as issuing debt secured against assets or trying to attract more deposits from savers.

Because those tend to be more expensive, banks could face a hit to earnings of between 10 and 20 percent, analysts at KBW said, and by up to 40 percent for CYBG.

CYBG shares fell 17 percent on Nov. 20 when it signalled its profit margins would shrink in 2019. CYBG declined to comment.

The cost of funding is crucial for banks, which make money by lending at higher rates than they pay to borrow.

A spiral in funding costs as credit markets seized up accelerated the 2008 financial crisis, and while banks are in better condition now, a cost spike could put pressure on their business models.

The central bank has recently begun asking more pointed questions about funding costs during regular conference calls with the banks, bank executives told Reuters.

The BoE did not respond to a request for comment, but has previously said Britain's banking system is robust enough to cope with a disruptive Brexit.

One bank executive said they believed funding pressure may force some challengers to pull back from the mortgage market, pointing to a recent move by Secure Trust to stop writing new loans until market conditions improve.

Paul Lynam, chief executive of Secure Trust, said the move was "not driven by funding costs" and was instead a response to tightening margins in the competitive home loans market.

RISING CONCERN

Metro Bank offered an example of the potential for concerns about the challenger banks to boil over, when its shares fell 37 percent after it disclosed the hefty hit to its capital levels.

A bond Metro Bank issued last year is trading at about 80 percent of face value, suggesting investors fear a potential restructuring of the lender's debts that could see them lose money. Metro Bank declined to comment.

Broader concerns about funding costs and Brexit are reflected in bond prices, with investors demanding a premium for British lenders' debt over German and French peers.

For example, Barclays' September 2023 euro bond was trading on Tuesday at a yield of 1.85 percent, some 56 basis points more than Deutsche Bank's August 2023 issue despite the latter's well-publicised woes.

"We are quite cautious on British bank bonds, especially given that they are much more focused on mortgages. It is unclear what the outcome of the current Brexit discussions will be, which has implications for the UK economy," said Arnaud-Guilhem Lamy, fixed income portfolio manager at BNP Paribas Asset Management.

If top names like Barclays and HSBC are finding it costly to borrow, smaller banks will have to pay even more, bankers who work on such deals said.

POISED TO ACT

Increased costs have already started to hit some lenders specialising in higher-risk mortgages.

Alex Maddox, digital and capital markets director at Kensington Mortgages, said it had raised money late last year to preempt an anticipated funding squeeze caused by Brexit concerns, regulators' demands for higher capital levels and lenders refinancing the BoE's loans.

"They've all come to a head at the same time, so there have been a few lenders that have been caught out by that," he said.

"We're wholesale-funded only. It definitely got more expensive throughout last year. We did our first deal at 0.65 percentage points over Libor and by the end of the year it was 0.95 over Libor. It's gone up since then -- it's probably at 1.15 now."

Some analysts believe the central bank would offer more cheap funding if a no-deal Brexit caused market conditions to worsen further.

"The BoE stands ready to act, potentially even via a new version of the TFS (Term Funding Scheme). This is not my base-case scenario, but should the need arise the BoE will intervene," said Filippo Alloatti, senior analyst at fund manager Hermes Investment Management.

($1 = 0.7598 pounds)
Volkswagen Group has held on to its position as the world's top-selling automaker for the fifth year in a row, although the German group was edged out again by the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance in the light-duty vehicles segment.

Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co Ltd and Mitsubishi Motors Corp together sold 10.76 million passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in 2018, according to Reuters' calculations after new data released on January 30. The group doesn't sell heavy trucks.

Nissan said on January 30 it sold 5.65 million vehicles last year, down 2.8 percent on the year. Mitsubishi reported an 18 percent rise in sales to 1.22 million units while Renault sold 3.88 million units, up 3.2 percent on the year.

Volkswagen's deliveries rose 0.9 percent to a record 10.83 million last year, including its MAN and Scania heavy trucks, the German company said earlier this month. Excluding heavy trucks, it sold 10.6 million units.

Toyota Motor Corp retained its third spot, announcing on January 30 that it had sold 10.59 million vehicles last year including its Toyota and Lexus brands, along with minicars made by subsidiary Daihatsu and light and heavy trucks produced by its truck division Hino Motors Ltd.

Excluding Hino trucks, Toyota sold 10.39 million units last year. The automaker has said it expects to sell a total of 10.76 million vehicles in 2019.

Many automakers are trying to boost sales volumes to achieve economies of scale and reduce costs amid soaring investments needed to develop next-generation technologies, including self-driving cars and electric vehicles.

This has been a focus of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors group, which is looking to share more vehicle parts and consolidate production platforms to trim R&D and manufacturing costs, while raising profitability.

The alliance, which brought Mitsubishi Motors into its fold in 2016, is currently in crisis with its former Chairman Carlos Ghosn arrested and indicted on charges of misconduct. Nissan has also been indicted, and Renault appointed new top management last week.
Jet Airways owes banks nearly Rs 8,000 crore.

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Grounding of Jet Airways' five aircraft and subsequent flight cancellations have brought back memories of the Kingfisher episode, when similar developments had a spiralling effect and eventually led to the Vijay Mallya-owned airline shutting shop.

At the same time, industry executives said the impact could be limited and temporary this time, as Jet Airways seems to be close to raising funds, after calling for an extraordinary general meeting on February 21 to convert its debt into equity.

Jet Airways has been forced to ground five of its aircraft, with the lessors starting the process to take back their planes following delay in payments. The airline follows a sale and lease model, where it sells new aircraft to lessors before leasing them back. Of its fleet of 124 aircraft, the airline owns 16.

It had planned to sell these 16 aircraft to raise at least $500 million. But the plan has remained stuck, with difference of opinion between the airline management and lessors over aircraft valuation.

The inability to sell the aircraft had worsened the airline's liquidity crunch, and it defaulted on loan repayments on December 31, 2018. The company, which has debts of over Rs 8,000 crore, now needs to repay about Rs 1,700 crore by March.

The Jet Airways management is now pinning its hopes on the EGM. Apart from turning debt into equity, it also wants to increase its authorised share capital.

These will consequently lead to dilution of stakes held by Naresh Goyal, and Etihad Airways, which owns 51 percent and 24 percent in Jet Airways, respectively. Both have promised to put in money. The lender, led by State Bank of India, will get a stronger hold on the company. Reports suggest that SBI will acquire significant stake after shareholder nod.

In the meanwhile, Jet Airways has to find ways to manage its operations. "The fleet being taken back will lead to lower yield," said an industry consultant.

"If lessors are grounding aircraft and flights are cancelled, these can have a spiral effect," said a senior airline executive.

This is what happened with Kingfisher Airlines. Bogged down by losses and a high debt, the airline was forced to ground aircraft, cancel flights and then close down operations in cities. As salary payments got delayed, pilots and engineers went on a strike.

The airline eventually lost its license to run an airline from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in 2012.

At Jet Airways too, there were instances of pilots not showing up. But overall, the airline has managed to hold on to its employees, who are also waiting to see how the fund raising exercise pans out.

While Naresh Goyal has promised to invest Rs 700 crore, Etihad too has shown willingness to bring liquidity. But the two differ on valuations.
While some northern states, such as North Dakota, sometimes delay winter burials until spring due to the bitter cold and frozen ground, local cemetery officials said they have never delayed a burial due to the weather and in fact had ones scheduled for Wednesday, despite the threat of a brutal wind chill of around 50 below zero.
If it doesnt make sense to do this, we wont do it. If the cost benefit ratio isnt there it wont be done and then we will figure out what else to do with that property, whether we sell it whether we use it for something else, Frum said.
At the Jan. 22 school board meeting, Bridges told members he added about 70 new Twitter followers in the two hours prior to the meeting, most of whom were Naperville Central and Naperville North high school students questioning whether the ice storm that evening might cancel classes the next day.
The concerto was rarely played for decades but was revived in 1844  well after Beethoven's death  and is now considered one of the most important works of the violin repertoire, Muir said. Beethoven is so important in the transition between Classical and Romantic music; the Violin Concerto falls in that middle period when he was developing this new style.
The Kremlin is only responsible for providing linguistic support for the Russian president, and not for other world leaders, Moscow said after reports that Donald Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin without an interpreter in Argentina.

The Financial Times published a report on Tuesday, claiming that there were no interpreters or notetakers present from the US side when the two leaders chatted privately during a G20 summit in Buenos Aires last November.

The article was widely quoted by other media outlets, but the sensation was short-lived.

Also on rt.com What did Trump promise Putin? Bring his interpreter to Congress & find out, Democrats insist

Putin had plenty of sporadic chats on the sidelines [of the summit], Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told the media on Wednesday.

Its none of our business at all who had and who didnt have an interpreter there.

Russian protocol requires that an interpreter accompany the president at all times when may need linguistic support, Peskov said. President Putins interpreter is there at any time, and yet, this is our business and this is where we have full integrity and full order.

The FT article was obviously seeking to stoke collusion fears again, with the authors writing that the unrecorded meeting  which the newspaper said lasted for 15 minutes  could trigger new alarm bells about Mr Trump and his relationship with the Kremlin.

Citing unnamed sources who were briefed on the matter, the paper said that Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania, met with Putin at the 19th-century Colon Theater in the Argentine capital, as world leaders and their spouses or guests were exiting the building. They were among the last to leave.

Also on rt.com WaPo recycles old Russiagate memes in latest gossip piece about Trump-Putin secret collusion

It is not officially known what they discussed during the short encounter. However, the FT cited a Russian official who revealed that Trump and Putin talked about Syria and the Azov Sea incident, in which three Ukrainian vessels were seized and numerous sailors were detained for what Moscow says was a violation of its maritime borders off Crimea.

At any rate, even the presence of an interpreter wouldnt save Trump from Russiagate proponents. Last year, some US lawmakers called for the presidents interpreter, Marina Gross, to be subpoenaed in order to uncover what Putin and Trump discussed privately.

However, interpreters are usually required to keep the contents of political conversations secret, and revealing it in public usually goes against codes of conduct adopted by professional organizations.

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Two Venezuelan soldiers loyal to self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido have pleaded with the Trump administration for arms, in a bid to realize Venezuelan freedom. What could go wrong?

The former soldiers, living outside Venezuela, told CNN that hundreds of willing defectors inside the country had been in contact with them, asking the US for weapons and support for a planned revolt.

As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication, with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom, Guillen Martinez told CNN. Martinez fellow soldier Hidalgo Azuaje added that the pair are also requesting support from Venezuelas right-wing neighbors: Brazil, Colombia, Peru, all brother countries, that are against this dictatorship.

Also on rt.com Is a mystery plane heading to Russia loaded with Venezuelan gold?

The soldiers told the network that various groups of disgruntled units have been talking and organizing via WhatsApp, apparently waiting for the right time to rise up in arms against Maduro.

The soldiers stopped short of calling for a US invasion. We do not want a foreign government [to] invade our country, Azuaje said. If we need an incursion, it has to be by Venezuelan soldiers who really want to free Venezuela.

Picking sides in another countrys war has historically led to catastrophe for the United States. The Mujahideen who fought the Soviets in 1980s Afghanistan turned their US-supplied weapons on American troops two decades later. More recently, US-armed moderate rebels in Syria would end up funneling their weapons to terrorist groups, and uniting with the very same hardcore Jihadists the US purports to fight.

Naturally, some commentators were skeptical about the CNN report.

Amid the ongoing political turmoil in Venezuela, both Maduros government and Guaido have sought to woo the military to their side. The protests that accompanied Guaidos declaration last week kicked off when a National Guard unit in Caracas staged a mutiny.

The rebellious soldiers were arrested, and Maduro has since been keen to demonstrate that the military is unflinchingly loyal to him, inspecting and training with troops in a series of Twitter videos posted this week.

Guaido, meanwhile, has tried to sway the military with a promise of amnesty to soldiers and officers willing to break ranks with Maduro. The military envoy to the US has also refused orders to return home, and called on his brothers in the armed forces of the nation to recognize President Juan Guaido as the only legitimate president. Few, however, have heeded the call.

The US has done everything short of shipping weapons to support Guaidos parallel government. President Trump was among the first world leaders to officially recognize Guaidos self-declared presidency, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo immediately promised Guaido $20 million in humanitarian aid.

The US gave Guaido another boost on Tuesday, when Pompeo authorized the opposition leader to take control of Venezuelan assets held in US banks. One day earlier, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the US would seize all assets of Venezuelas oil company PDVSA, and channel them into accounts that would be accessible only by Guaido or a new government which the US approves of.

National Security Advisor John Bolton also threatened serious consequences if Maduros government harms Guaido.

Whether the US will arm the opposition in Venezuela remains unknown. The president has made it clear that all options are on the table, Bolton told reporters on Monday. Maduro has refused to heed international calls for fresh elections, but has said that he is willing to enter into talks with Guaido.

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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has had his stay in Ethiopia extended after defects were found on his government plane. Its the second time his plane has had trouble in Ethiopia as well as a few other countries.

His flight onboard the Airbus A340 was originally scheduled to depart Addis Ababa for the German capital at 12.30pm CET (11.30am GMT) on Wednesday. However, a technical issue, found prior to takeoff, left ground crew scrambling to repair the problem, according to German tabloid, Bild.

A source from the presidential office told the paper that the delay was due to a compressed air problem, but could be remedied at the airport in Addis Ababa.

Steinmeier, along with the 55-person delegation that has accompanied him on his trip, returned to their hotel while work got underway.

During his stay in the African country, Steinmeier met with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, discussing policy, cultural, and development issues.

Its not the first time Steinmeier has been grounded in Ethiopia, or indeed while on official business. On a previous trip to the country in 2014, while serving as Germanys Foreign Minister, Steinmeier was delayed from returning to Germany due to a burst tire on his plane.

READ MORE: Bundeswehr breakdown: Whats gone wrong for Germanys army?

Other occasions which have left him waiting for plane repairs included a six hour delay at a provincial Chinese airport, a broken cockpit window in Latvia, and an unexpected layover in Vienna after the plane he was taking to a 2006 EU-Latin America summit experienced a sudden drop in air pressure.

Hes not the only German politician to have recent airplane trouble either. Ahead of last Novembers G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the Airbus A340 carrying Chancellor Angela Merkel made an emergency landing after some mid-flight electronic problems.

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SAGINAW, MI  A husband and wife accused of sexually abusing a teenager and forcing her to eat cigarettes have received jail and probationary sentences.

The couple in November pleaded no contest to the seldom-used charge of seduction. The Michigan statute, which dates to 1931, states Any man who shall seduce and debauch any unmarried woman shall be guilty of a felony.

Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Demond Tibbs previously said the charge was agreed to as a way to avoid trial and prevent two alleged victims from having to testify.

Saginaw County Circuit Judge Janet M. Boes on Tuesday, Jan. 29, sentenced Kyle D. Roy, 34, to 180 days in jail with credit for 23 days already served. Upon release, Roy is to serve five years of probation.

The judge sentenced 47-year-old Jennifer E. Roy to one year in jail, with credit for 35 days already served. Like her husband, she is to serve five years of probation. While on probation, the Roys must complete marriage counseling and sex offender treatment.

Each must register as a sex offender.

The Roys declined to speak when Boes gave them the chance.

Tibbs said the victim was not present but had written a victims impact statement. He said the victim had sought closure in the case and wanted to avoid the rigor of a trial, which led to a plea deal.

The seduction charge is often found on websites listing so-called dumb laws throughout the country, akin to other Michigan laws banning the sale of motor vehicles on Sundays and prohibiting drunkenness on trains.

In exchange for the Roys' pleas, the prosecution dismissed the following counts against them:

Kyle Roy - Two counts of third-degree child abuse and single counts of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct. In a separate file and involving a second alleged victim, two more counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes.

Jennifer Roy - Single counts of third-degree child abuse, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

By pleading no contest, the Roys did not verbally admit to having committed any crime. Judge Boes had to rely on police reports to enter convictions on the record.

According to court records, the Roys from November 2014 through October 2016 were accused of sexually and physically abusing a teenage girl at a Thomas Township residence. The Roys were dating but not married at the time; they wed in October 2016.

The reports state the Roys made the girl "eat half a pack of cigarettes and smoke half a pack of cigarettes."

In his second case, Kyle Roy was accused of sexually assaulting another minor from May through December 2014.
MUSKEGON, MI  Toxic chemicals called PFAS that have shown up in drinking water in Norton Shores near the Muskegon County Airport will be the subject of an upcoming public meeting.

Representatives from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the states Department of Health and Human Services will meet with the public during an open house that begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, at Western Michigan Christian High School, 455 E. Ellis Road in Norton Shores. A panel discussion will begin at 7 p.m.

Officials plan to discuss the nature of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS; their effects on public health; and an ongoing investigation into high PFAS levels found recently in Norton Shores.

More than 20 homes around the airport, out of 52 tested, have tested positive for several types of PFAS, including two compounds known as PFOS and PFOA.

Exposure to PFAS is linked to certain types of cancer, high cholesterol, hypertension in pregnancy, thyroid disease and other health problems. State health officials say ingestion is the primary route of exposure concern.

The contamination is believed to result from the airports past use of chemical-based AFFF firefighting foam.

In September, Muskegon County and the DEQ found high levels of PFAS in residential drinking water wells near the airport. Those initial results prompted bottled water deliveries to four homes and the DEQ to expand its testing area to at least 30 additional homes.

Two homes, which were sampled between November and December, tested well above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys lifetime health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion.

The DEQ has a standing agreement with the county to pay for testing and monitoring of well water, Lake Michigan, public swimming pools, septic waste, area campgrounds and medical waste until Sept. 30, 2019.

In addition, the county is currently seeking its own engineering contractor for PFAS monitoring and potential remediation. Steve Fink, an engineer working with Muskegon County Public Works, said the county wont know how much monitoring or remediation will cost until a contractor can investigate the area and understand the scope of the problem.

Those issues are likely to be discussed at the Feb. 19 public meeting.

Toxic PFAS chemicals have also been found in drinking water at a Grand Haven district elementary school at levels well above whats considered acceptable for human health. In December, the DEQ ordered testing at 41 more wells for PFAS near Grand Havens Robinson Elementary School.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Red lights penetrated windswept snow ahead of Breonna Short and Donald Riddle as they trudged alongside railroad tracks in their journey to find shelter for their 5-month-old son.

Shortly after dawn Wednesday, Riddle struggled to push the wheels of their stroller through snowbanks covering the normally well-worn path between Kalamazoos two downtown shelters. The infant stayed quiet and still under blankets gathered to protect him from subzero temperatures made worse by dangerously cold wind chills in Southwest Michigan this week.

Every day were worried about him, Riddle said.

The family slept overnight Tuesday at the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, still begrudging that men and women are separated at the facility. They trekked Wednesday morning to Ministry With Community, the only daytime shelter in the city of Kalamazoo.

Due to extreme winter weather conditions, with temperatures recorded by the National Weather Service at 11 below zero by 10 a.m. Wednesday, several other shelters were opened to protect people experiencing homelessness from frostbite or death.

A few hours later, the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety dispatched officers to find the couple and bring them to another shelter in the Douglass Community Association. City Manager Jim Ritsema said public safety officers visited known tent encampments this week to convince homeless people to join emergency shelters established at First Congregational Church and First Baptist Church.

An annual point-in-time count of the countys homeless population scheduled for Jan. 30 was postponed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. David Anderson, director of housing and facilities at Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said staff would be at risk in the extreme weather and the count would likely be inaccurate anyway.

Freeman Cramer, 61, was living in a tent behind his decrepit house in the city of Parchment before Kalamazoo Township police officers transported him to First Congregational Church. He was reticent to go to the Gospel Mission, a sentiment shared by some other homeless people for a variety of reasons.

But Cramer said he felt he might not wake up if he spent another night outside.

Kalamazoos historic downtown churches sprung to action late last week when it became clear that Michigan could experience record-breaking low temperatures. Roughly 20 cots were set up for people on the second floor of First Congregational Church and another 30 beds at First Baptist Church.

The Kalamazoo County Emergency Management Office partnered with the American Red Cross and the city to open 50 more shelter beds after the churches hit their capacity on Tuesday. Others are staying in hotels funded by community donations.

These people are probably Gods angels right now, Deborah Haas said while standing outside First Baptist Church.

Haas, 67, said the churches are offering transportation for people who have doctors appointments or need to visit Ministry With Community for a shower or to check their mail. All shelters, including the Gospel Mission, are being opened during the day to prevent people from being exposed to the brutal weather.

People taking refuge Wednesday said they have no plans to go outside, but volunteers worried about other people who refused to abandon their tent sites.

Jessica Decker said her sister was part of a group who police convinced to seek indoor shelter. Decker said she never arrived.

Another group camping along the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail also refused to come inside, said Sarah Losota, a volunteer at the Douglass Community Association.

Sitting on a cot provided by the Red Cross, Sharon Davis expressed surprise that help came at all. A few hundred feet away, volunteers prepared breakfast with donated food.

Why would people care? Were homeless, she said. A lot of people, when they see us, they will cross the street and walk in the other direction. They say you all can help yourself. A lot of us cant. I do the best I can.

Esto Juarez, director of the Urban Outreach Initiative at Urban Alliance, helped organize the relief effort on the ground at the Douglass Community Association building on 1000 Paterson St. He applauded the churches' efforts to be involved with homelessness and said the community as a whole is more aware since protests last summer.

More than 100 tents occupied Bronson Park in downtown Kalamazoo for more than a month in 2018 to protest a lack of affordable housing, shelter options and financial supports for people who are unable to work. The encampment ended after the city established a police barrier to clean up the park and arrested those who stayed, but the City Commission pledged to address their needs.

Adam McGehee, 42, was among many of the protesters who took refuge at the shelters this week. He said the help is a sign of the protests success.

Juarez said people are starting to work on complicated problems related to homelessness, albeit slowly.

Generally, I think the city is concerned about the welfare of people, all across the board, Juarez said. Theres this notion that the city doesnt care about homeless people. I dont think thats true.

Losota said her reasons for getting involved with the relief effort are simple.

This is my community; this is where I live, Losota said. "Im a northsider.

The three shelters provide a needed alternative to the Gospel Mission. People who used the Gospel Mission overnight said it was busy but not overcrowded. Others like Davis, 41, said the institution does not work for everyone.

Davis, 41, suffers from seizures made worse by crowds. She endured repeated episodes during the last few days in close proximity with other people. Decker, who is six months pregnant, said she was not allowed inside the Gospel Mission because her dog is not registered as a service animal.

The Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, located at 448 N. Burdick St., extended its hours to remain open 24/7 for the duration of the period of extreme cold. The Gospel Mission is offering daytime warming rooms for single men, single women and women with children, in addition to showers and free winter gear.

Those who were barred from the Gospel Mission due to past incidents are welcome to return, as long as they do not display violent behavior while at the shelter.

Juarez said the Douglass Community Association facility will remain open as long as its needed, at least until a Michigan state of emergency declared by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Jan. 29 is lifted. Residents can bring donations to 1000 Paterson St., or First Baptist Church at 315 W. Michigan Ave. and First Congregational Church at 345 W. Michigan Ave.

Kalamazoo County Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services has a non-emergency number set up for people who need a ride to shelters. Call (269) 488-8911 to receive the assistance of a public safety officer.

Kalamazoo County also has an emergency number set up to connect people living on the streets with shelter. People who see someone living outside this week can call (269) 364-6945.

Those in need of assistance are encouraged to call 2-1-1, a 24-hour hotline that connects people with resources offered by various community organizations. Pets needing temporary shelter from the cold can be brought to the Kalamazoo County Animal Services Building at 2500 Lake St.

Juarez said the biggest need at Douglass Community Association is food, particularly non-perishables and meals. Board games and movies are also welcome donations to provide a distraction while visitors are locked inside.

Shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, the gym-sized shelter room inside the community associations facility was still mostly silent. Most people remained under their blankets while snow continued to fall outside.

Everybody is resting, Losota said. Theyre getting some good sleep. Thats a beautiful thing, to see everyone close their eyes and regroup.
That once-in-a-lifetime cold-weather alert is now about as constant as the warning of 100-year-floods, several of which weve seen in the last decade or so. Its so frosty outside that Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday issued a disaster proclamation  before the brutal cold settled in  because of potentially historic temperatures. Yipes!
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Emergency management teams in Kalamazoo County are offering more shelter beds but advocates for people experiencing homelessness said the governmental response to dangerous subzero temperatures should have started sooner.

Kalamazoo County, the city of Kalamazoo and American Red Cross established a daytime and overnight warming shelter at the Douglas Community Association in the city on Tuesday, Jan. 29. Wind chill temperatures are expected to drop as low as 45 degrees below zero through Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service, prompting concern for people living outside.

Frostbite, hypothermia or death can occur quickly if precautions are not taken, according to NWS.

Another 50 beds have been available overnight at First Congregational Church and First Baptist Church each night since Jan. 25. Kalamazoo County and the city of Kalamazoo referred people to the churches and the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, but local officials said they did not see a need for more shelter space until Tuesday.

A handful of volunteers who attended Tuesdays Kalamazoo City Commission meeting expressed frustration that no government entity provided a clear framework for how their efforts should move forward.

This is a project that is being organized spontaneously by citizens who are stepping up to meet a need, said the Rev. Sarah Schmidly, a pastor at First Congregational Church. It is not something that we had a plan for. It is not something that our city has committed resources to communicating about effectively and were feeling the pinch of that.

Advocates said last summers month-long protest in Bronson Park made it clear that homeless people need shelter options during extreme weather. They criticized the city for not being prepared.

The risk of people freezing outside is not a new thing, Emily Demorest said. So I have to ask myself how does the primary church thats been identified as the emergency shelter in a county-wide plan not know what theyre doing ... and not have any direction for what they are doing and how long they are supposed to be open?

Mayor Bobby Hopewell said the countys emergency management office should be taking the lead.

Kalamazoo Countys hazard mitigation plan acknowledges extreme winter cold and snowstorms as emergency hazards. However, Kalamazoo County Board Chair Julie Rogers said there wasnt a clear threshold for when the county should act until an emergency preparedness plan was finalized last week.

Rogers said the countys emergency management office supports local municipalities and steps in when more resources when needed. She said shelters and churches appeared to be handling the situation on their own until Monday night.

The county called on the Red Cross to bring cots to the Douglass Community Center. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmers state of emergency declaration is causing Red Cross resources to stretched across the state, officials said.

City Manager Jim Ritsema indicated Kalamazoo County hasnt offered much guidance. He wasnt aware of a need for more shelter space until Tuesday, he said.

Were in a situation where were not aware specifically of needs out there, Ritsema said. As they are brought to our attention we can address them. As far as the situation on the street, so to speak, our public safety (department) is out there every day to help people out.

Commissioner Shannon Sykes-Nehring, who was arrested during her participation in the summer 2018 protests in Bronson Park, said the city has come a long way to acknowledge the needs of its homeless population. Government, activists and volunteers are working together better than ever, she said, but better connections are needed between partners.

Last winter, our residents were out in the cold freezing and this conversation was not happening, she said.

Protecting vulnerable populations in the winter is being recognized as a community problem, said Commissioner Don Cooney. There should be stronger planning efforts to prepare for extreme weather, Cooney said.

Commissioner David Anderson said he considers the weather conditions to be a disaster situation," but it may not have been seen that way by emergency planners until this week. Resources are available, Anderson said, but arent being organized effectively.

Im not sure if it clicked the emergency management switch like other things might, Anderson said. I think it was just as a growing awareness occurred of how cold it was going to get, thats when people start realizing that something has to be done.

Anderson and Ritsema convinced around 30 people in two different tent encampments to seek shelter indoors. The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety is urging people staying outside to get off the streets.

Anderson said there are a variety of challenges inherent to the task. Some are adverse to large groups of people and distrustful, while others dont feel comfortable in churches or the Gospel Mission and would prefer to live on their own terms, he said.

In some ways there were resources available but people still were adamantly opposed to take advantage of those resources," Anderson said. The folks who are in most desperate need of services are often a group of people who are most reluctant to participate in those services.

Rogers said the county should take an inventory of nonprofits, churches and secular partners who can step up in future emergencies.

Kalamazoo County Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services has a non-emergency number set up for people who need a ride to shelters. Call (269) 488-8911 to receive the assistance of a public safety officer.

Kalamazoo County has an emergency number set up to connect people living on the streets with shelter. People who see someone living outside this week can call (269) 364-6945.

People are encouraged to call 2-1-1 for assistance. Pets needing temporary shelter from the cold can be brought to the Kalamazoo County Animal Services Building at 2500 Lake St.

Non-emergency offices at the cities of Portage and Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo County will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 30.
JACKSON, MI  A teens murder conviction in the death of his brother more than four years ago was tossed out last year, and the highest court in the state says it will stay that way.

The Michigan Supreme Court issued an order Jan. 23 denying an appellate review of the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling that tossed out Riley Spitlers murder conviction.

A jury convicted Spitler, now 20, of second-degree murder in 2016 for the shooting death of his older brother Patrick Spitler in their Blackman Township home.

His trial attorney Alfred Brandt argued the shooting was an accident, and Riley Spitler believed the .380-caliber handgun was unloaded when he fired at his brother Dec. 6, 2014.

Riley Spitler called 911 and Blackman-Leoni Township police found Patrick Spitler on the floor of his room, suffering from a gunshot wound to his chest.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Riley Spitler told detectives hed pointed a loaded .380 at his brother, de-chambered a bullet and said Lets see if its your lucky day.

He said he did not expect the gun to fire.

The prosecution argued the killing was intentional and premeditated. He was 16 when he fired the fatal shot.

With the high court rejecting final appeal, the prosecutors office now must decide whether to allow Spitler to be re-sentenced for manslaughter, a lesser offense, or to take his case to trial again.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jerry Jarzynka his office is weighing the options.

We want the public to know that Riley is not a monster and that this whole episode was a tragic accident, his uncle Mark Spitler wrote in an email. It has been a very painful last four years for them. I know it is a unique situation. They are the parents of both the victim and the defendant.

The Court of Appeals reversed the murder conviction in June 2017 and again in June 2018, finding that testimony from three friends of the victim and a detective presented as an expert in linguistic statement analysis" should not have been admitted.

The appeals court found the friends' testimony to be inadmissible hearsay and the detectives expertise unsupported.

The Court of Appeals decided the cumulative effect of the errors seriously undermined the fairness of the proceedings before the trial court.

The court affirmed his two other convictions of intent to deliver marijuana and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Circuit Judge John McBain sentenced him in March 2016 to four to six years for the drug and firearm offenses and 20 to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The David D. Hunting YMCA will be providing a full meal to students and families in the Grand Rapids School District on Thursday, Jan. 31, and Friday, Feb. 1, officials say.

District students have been out of school this week because of a major snowstorm and dangerously low wind chills.

Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal announced Wednesday, Jan. 30, that she was closing school for the remainder of the week because of the weather, road and sidewalk conditions.

The David D. Hunting YMCA, located at 475 Lake Michigan Dr. NW, will be providing meals from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. through its Food Service Program.

Kids' Food Basket, the nonprofit that distributes sack suppers after school to students in Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties, will also provide sack suppers for families to take home, according to the YMCA.

According to the state, 76.3 percent of Grand Rapids students are economically disadvantaged and 71.5 percent are eligible for free and reduced price lunch.

Schools across West Michigan have been closed for consecutive days this week.

School leaders say beyond the classroom time missed, closures can be a hardship on families, including those who rely on their children receiving school breakfast and lunch.

According to the YMCA, families can enter through the main entrance and follow the signage to the community room to receive their meals this week.

A winter storm warning is in effect until 1 p.m. Thursday with wind chills below zero and more snow showers expected.

On Monday, Jan. 28, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency as the state prepared for the sustained subzero temperatures.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Dozens of flights at Michigans second-busiest airport are grounded for a third day in a row as winter weather continues to pound West Michigan.

More than 40 departures and 15 arrivals were cancelled Wednesday morning, Jan. 30, at Gerald R. Ford International Airport.

Crews at Ford Airport are working to keep one runway open at all times, with intermittent closures to plow, said Alicia Roberts, a spokesperson with the airport.

Travelers can check the status of their flight online.

Roberts said Ford Airport hasnt tallied the number of flights cancelled so far this week.

On Monday, the first day of major snow in West Michigan, dozens of flights were nixed. As snow continued to fall and strong winds reduced visibility, more flights were grounded the following day.

Roughly 8 to 13 inches of snow fell on the Grand Rapids area between Sunday and Tuesday mornings, according to the National Weather Service.

Airports in cities also hit by the storm, such as Chicago and Detroit, add to the closures at Ford Airport.

Roberts said she hopes normal travel will resume Thursday.

The decision to cancel a flight falls on the airline and, ultimately, the pilot, she said.

While extreme cold temperatures arent hampering deicing efforts, some air carriers expressed concerns about federal regulations regarding the length of time ground crews could be out in such frigid temperatures, Roberts said.

The region remains under a winter storm warning until 1 p.m. Thursday. The National Weather Service expects additional snowfall accumulations of 2 to 5 inches and wind chills as low as 40 below.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - All Kent and Ottawa county school districts will close Wednesday, Jan. 30, with wind chill values projected to fall between 25 and 40 degrees below zero.

This will be the third consecutive day most students will be out of the classroom.

Thursday is expected to be the fourth day with the dangerously cold temperatures and high winds expected to continue through the morning hours in West Michigan.

Hudsonville schools Superintendent Douglas VanderJagt said he already informed district parents that a Thursday closure was possible if the weather forecast doesnt change.

The safety of our students and staff is our No. 1 priority, he said. We dont want them out in those conditions.

Most districts expect to notify parents either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday before 6 a.m. about whether there will be school on Thursday.

A winter storm warning is in effect until 1 p.m. Thursday for Kent, Ottawa, Ionia, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, Montcalm, Mecosta, Allegan, Kalamazoo, Van Buren, Calhoun, and Berrien counties.

Tuesdays widespread lake effect snow showers and icy roads caused multiple highway closures. Sections of I-196, I-96, M-6 and U.S. 131 were closed because of crashes in the Grand Rapids area.

While the school closures have brought joy to many children, theyve made things more challenging for some parents who have had to adjust their schedules.

You try to create a routine, but theyve been out of their routine for three days now and possibly four, said Megan Hojnacki, a married mother with two daughters ages 7 and 4. School was out, and daycare was closed yesterday.

A Northview parent, Hojnacki said she and her neighbor have taken turns having their children come over and play because it takes a village during closures.

She said she has also tried to plan outings with the girls, but with the road conditions and business closures, those options have been somewhat limited. However, she said she did manage a trip to Meijer to buy materials to make slime.

Hojnacki is a speech language pathologist, and even though schools are closed, there are still deadlines for projects. She said she has done some virtual meetings with colleagues.

For those families struggling due to the closures, Grand Rapids Public Schools suggested Tuesday, Jan. 29, that they reach out to the Heart of West Michigan United Way 211 to see what services and resources they have to offer.

Kent City Superintendent Mike Weiler said while their focus is always on safety, superintendents are aware that closures are more of a hardship on some families from balancing work to finding child care and replacing missed school meals.

There is a ripple effect of unintended consequences, he said.

I will make a decision Wednesday about closing Thursday to give families as much notice as I can. I dont think it is going to warm up between Wednesday and Thursday.

Heading into uncertain February weather, districts have or are close to using up their state allotted snow days. Michigan law allows districts to count up to six days as forgiven time because of conditions beyond their control before they have to make up days or hours.

Up to an additional three days may be granted with the approval of the state superintendent.

Area colleges and universities -- including Aquinas, Calvin and Grand Rapids Community College, and Grand Valley State, Cornerstone and Davenport universities and the Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University -- are also going to be closed Wednesday.
MACKINAC ISLAND, MI -- Michigans fudge capital is challenging decisions by state regulators last year to allow more anchor supports on the Line 5 oil and gas pipeline crossing the Straits of Mackinac.

The legal filings contend that state regulators didn't appropriately evaluate alternatives and the potential for damaging environmental effects when they granted Enbridge Energy permits last year to install 70 more anchor supports on the 66-year-old pipeline, according to a Wednesday, Jan. 30 press release from lawyers representing Mackinac Island.

The challenges seek to rescind the permits and make the DEQ undertake those evaluations in accordance with the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act, a state law intended to protect the lake bottoms.

For years, island residents have been promised that Line 5 would have a limited life span. Instead of safely phasing out the dangerous aged dual lines in the Straits, state officials have proposed to extend the operation of the dual pipelines as much as another 10 years, Margaret Doud, Mackinac Islands mayor of more than 40 years, said in a statement.

The city, people and businesses have waited far too long. It is time to bring Line 5 under the rule of law and bring it to an orderly closure. Enough is enough.

Enbridges ongoing survey work necessary to complete a tunnel that would house a Line 5 replacement underneath the Straits of Mackinac likely wont be hampered by the challenges, according to attorney Ross Hammersley with Olson, Bzdok & Howard, P.C., the firm representing Mackinac Island.

Like the challenges filed in the spring by Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and citizens group Straits of Mackinac Alliance, the city claims the recurrent addition of anchors to Line 5 constitute a new design that is beyond the scope of the 1953 agreement in which Michigan agreed to have the twin pipelines laid along the lake bottom.

Lawyers for the city likewise claim Enbridge has implemented this new design piecemeal under the guise of maintenance.

Because the almost 200 additional anchors constitute a new design, attorneys for the city contend, there should be a full review of the potential risks and impacts of that design and a requirement for Enbridge to prove there is no other alternative to oil transport other than the Straits pipeline.

If alternatives exist, the lawyers maintain, Line 5 should be shut down.

Screw anchors have been continually added to Line 5 over the past 15 years. The Department of Environmental Quality approved 22 anchors in March 2018 and 48 more in December 2018.

The number of anchors, including those only approved, total 195. Enbridges 1953 easement with the State of Michigan requires anchor supports on any gaps in the lake-bed span greater than 75 feet.

Enbridge officials previously said the use of anchor supports are part of larger work to keep Line 5 in "top condition.

In the 15 years we have been using them as part of our safe operations, support anchors have enhanced safety on Line 5, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy previously said.

Some environmental groups have criticized the anchor additions in the past because of their connection to gaps in the pipelines protective coating. A previous visual inspection of the pipeline revealed either calcareous deposits or bare metal on 42 of 48 anchor locations inspected.

The challenge by the city against DEQs approval of 48 anchors is being filed in tandem with Straits of Mackinac Alliance. The city is also seeking to join the Alliance and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in their earlier filings against DEQs approval of the 22 anchors.

A hearing date before an administrative judge in Lansing on the petition against the 22 anchors is set for early February.
ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI  Sheriffs deputies on Wednesday, Jan. 30, urged motorists to use caution on M-40 south of Holland after multiple vehicles left the road.

That section of highway, north of Hamilton, has open fields with blowing snow covering the road.

Sheriffs deputies described driving that stretch as very treacherous at this time. Several deputies are in the area while vehicles are being pulled out of ditches.

If traveling, please use extreme caution, police said.

Meanwhile, westbound M-6 near Eighth Avenue was closed around 2:30 p.m. after two semi-trucks collided.

Police across West Michigan have responded to multiple crashes, with whiteouts reported and slick roads.

Eastbound I-196 near 28th Street SW was shut down briefly while a jackknifed semi-tractor trailer was removed from the expressway.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- When a jackknifed semi-truck suddenly came into view on I-96 near Coopersville, Dora Jenkins figured she wasnt going to be able to stop in time.

I had to make a decision....There was a rail on the side, so I figured Id take my chances by running into the steel rail," she said.

She ran into the rail as planned, but at the same time struck another vehicle that already was in the same spot. Then a truck struck her car from behind.

The chaotic scene was part of multiple vehicle crashes Tuesday, Jan. 29 on I-96 between Marne and Nunica as snow and strong winds produced nearly white-out conditions at times.

Ottawa County sheriffs deputies estimated that up to 40 vehicles were involved in the crashes, including a couple of pileups.

Jenkins spoke about the harrowing ordeal after her family, along with 12 others, were brought to the Berlin Baptist Church following the wrecks. The church was opened as a temporary shelter where people could stay warm while awaiting rides.

She was headed east on the freeway near Coopersville when the crash happened. After her car came to rest jammed against other smashed vehicles, Jenkins and her passengers braced for another possible impact and hoped it would not happen.

She was traveling with her 82-year-old mother, 10-year-old daughter and 16-year-old nephew.

It was very nerve-racking, she said. I was trying to keep my cool because with the kids and my mother both nervous, my daughter was crying, my nephew was getting nervous and my mother was holding her chest. So my mind was all over the place,."

Firefighters soon arrived to help Jenkins and her family and they got out of harms way.

Police closed the freeway in both directions for several hours Tuesday because of the multiple crashes. Other sections of freeway -- M-6 near Kalamazoo Avenue, U.S. 131 in Allegan County and I-196 between Hudsonville and Zeeland -- also were closed for periods due to crashes.

On I-96, the melee started about 12:15 p.m. when a tanker truck jackknifed in the eastbound lanes near the Marne exit. Several cars collided with the tanker and each other.

Although many vehicles were damaged in the I-96 crashes, the injuries were few. Ottawa County sheriffs deputies said they were aware of at least two people injured in a crash on the freeway near 68th Avenue.

Jake Van Hoesen also was headed east on I-96 when the van in front of him started wobbling, he said, and then began to stop. He decided to ditch his vehicle off the road instead of colliding with the van.

It was actually pretty soft, so Im hoping the car is all right. It seemed like it was going to be, he said at the church.

Van Hoesen said he spent what seemed to be about two hours waiting in the car until he was able to leave the vehicle and head to the church. He read his Bible during that time.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Subzero temperatures and a dumping of snow early this week have caused challenges for Grand Rapids' road-clearing efforts.

And with rain and rising temperatures in the forecast this weekend, James Hurt, the citys public services director, said residents might see an unfortunate consequence of efforts to clear roads and prevent issues with the citys catch basins.

During an update to the city commission Tuesday, Jan. 29, Hurt said the city will be using its front-facing plows this evening when crews make their way through primary and secondary roads.

Because the banks are so high, well be pushing snow into peoples driveways, Hurt said. Unfortunately, we dont have any other option right now. We try not to put the front plows on but its necessary. We need to get to the curbs.

When temperatures warm up this weekend, melting snow and ice could accumulate in the road if proper drainage isnt possible, and then freeze again and create dangerous conditions.

Hurt said crews spent most of Monday morning and afternoon trying to maintain primary roads, but blowing snow caused problems. Overnight, crews plowed about half of the citys local streets, but in doing so, let major roads become slippery.

The public works departments goal is to clear snow curb-to-curb as much as possible on local streets Tuesday evening, and to go back through neighborhoods throughout the rest of the week.

With the wind chill expected to push temperatures below minus 30 degrees on Wednesday, Hurt said hes very concerned about using salt. Instead, crews are using a combination of salt and sand to gain traction where absolutely necessary.

City staff is also urging residents to follow the odd-even and same-side parking rules in place for winter to assist snow- plowing efforts. Violators can expect a $20 parking ticket, and in some cases having their vehicle towed.

Its important for public safety that our plows can clear and keep streets open when we have snow and ice, Hurt said. We are in the middle of a major storm. Our police department is enforcing the city ordinance that requires residents to follow the odd-even parking rules that have been in effect since Nov. 1.

If a vehicle is stickered as abandoned and not removed within 48 hours, the city warns that it will be towed and impounded at the owners expense.

The city also is reminding residents and private snow plow operators that its against city ordinance to put snow in streets, alleys and sidewalks. It also prohibits the blocking of fire hydrants and mailboxes.

Grand Rapids Fire Chief John Lehman told commissioners on Tuesday that the winter weather hasnt had too much of an impact on the citys operations. There have been reports of some frozen and broken pipes, mostly in residential areas, and Lehman said he expects more of those complaints over the weekend due to the expected thaw.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A former Grand Rapids Catholic Central student accused of groping a classmate last year has been found guilty of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The charge carries a potential two-years incarceration.

Cameron Cross, 18, was found guilty Tuesday, Jan. 29, following a jury trial in Kent County Circuit Court.

He was accused of inappropriately touching a 15-year-old female student at the high school between Feb. 12 and March 12.

The victim accused Cross of touching her breasts, butt and groin on separate occasions in an elevator and a stairwell at the high school.
Jan 22 is a very sad anniversary. Its the 46th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision which overthrew all the abortion laws in this country in the individual states and legalized abortion all over this country, which resulted in the deaths of millions and millions of unborn babies. The pro-abortion side has tried to make it a matter of choice for women to control their own bodies. But they totally ignore the science, which is that from the moment of conception the baby is not a part of he womans body. It depends on the womans body, but it is not a part of the womans body. It has different DNA, it can have different blood type. I saw pictures in the Tribune about the Womens March. Where were the pictures of the pro-life march in Washington? They only cover what they want to cover. Very unfair.
GENESEE COUNTY, MI  School officials across mid-Michigan may have to make some adjustments in the coming days as frigid temperatures have left districts closed all week.

A wind chill value of 27 degrees below zero was recorded Wednesday, Jan. 30 at Bishop Airport in Flint and 26 degrees below at H.W. Browne Airport in Saginaw Countys Buena Vista Township.

Ben Mainka, superintendent of Swartz Creek Community Schools, said the safety of students comes above all else in determining if classes will be canceled. The district is at eight days off -- two beyond the six-day allotment -- with this weeks cancellations including Thursday, Jan. 31.

But there are other factors and conversations that weigh into the decision-making process.

The National Weather Service has given us a general guideline that negative 19 degrees tends to be the threshold we use that a child standing at a bus stop can get frostbite standing there at that temperature, commented Mainka.

If the actual temperature or wind chill falls below that figure, he noted, The chances are very good were going to close.

Ryan Relken, superintendent of Goodrich Area Schools, said the types of roads in his community are a variable.

Eighty (percent) of our roads are dirt so we have to pay special attention to that, he pointed out. Since I became superintendent, I have had to respond to a weather-related bus issue at least once every year. We always err of the side of safety for all our students and staff.

Discussions also take place between district superintendents on road conditions and decisions, Mainka said.

Hes in regular communication with Genesee County school officials from Fenton, Lake Fenton, Linden, Flushing, Carman-Ainsworth as well as districts in surrounding counties including Byron and Durand in Shiawassee County, the National Weather Service and the Genesee County Road Commission.

Relken called any closing a challenging decision where we know families are counting on us.

When we close it affects everyone and we know some people might be frustrated, he added. We are always open to ideas and ways to improve. It definitely helps that the county and regional superintendents collaborate so well.

Mainka acknowledged its hard for some working parents to find childcare. Some parents also feel schools may cancel a little too easily, the type of parents who may tell their kids they walked uphill both ways to school in three feet of snow when they themselves were children, according to Mainka.

Some of that mentality goes against some of the guidance weve received, he said of information from the American Pediatric Association on the cold weathers potential impact on children.

If a districts number of days off goes above their allotted amount, Mainka said they have the option to petition the Michigan Department of Education for some forgiveness  up to three days.

Michigan school districts are by law required to hold 180 days of classes.

I think that theres no question we want kids in school, said Mainka. We want to get them educated. Theres no doubt we want them in school. Im not opposed to making those (missed) days up.

With the district having previously laid out its 180-day calendar, he did question the potential educational value of placing those days at the end of the year.

Its not exactly the same thing to plop those days at the end of the year and make them equal, argued Mainka.
FLINT, MI -- Flint Community School students have the day off Wednesday but they may head to one of the districts buildings with their family to pick up a warm meal on the cold day.

A Cold Day Lunch is being offered in partnership with SodexoMAGIC to district students and their families from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Jan. 30 at Southwestern Classical Academy, 1420 W. 12th St.

Derrick Lopez, superintendent of Flint Community Schools, said approximately 87 percent of students in the district are on free or reduced lunch.

We have a moral obligation to ensure that we figure out how to meet the nutritional needs of our children, even when they are not in school, he noted, adding all the districts schools are Title I schools. Feeding our children breakfast and lunch, as well as an evening snack at after school programming, is a huge deal and a big part of meeting the needs of our children so that they are available to learn.

Lopez pointed out the move is a major part of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Developments Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child approach the district has been implementing under his leadership.

The district has been closed on Monday, Tuesday, and officials have already announced classes are canceled on Wednesday.

A wind chill warning issued by the National Weather Service for Genesee, Shiawassee, Lapeer, Saginaw, and St. Clair counties goes into effect at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29 until 11 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 31.

Wind chill values may drop to between 25 to 40 degrees below zero in the region on both days.

Those hoping to attend the lunch must provide their own transportation as well as registering each child and adult here by no later than 9 a.m. Jan. 30.
ANN ARBOR, MI - Conservative commentator and The Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro is scheduled to speak at the University of Michigan in March.

The UM chapter of Young Americas Foundation (YAF) announced Tuesday that Shapiro will speak at 7 p.m. on March 12 inside Rackham Auditorium. Information about tickets will be announced soon on yaf.org, the group said.

Shapiro, bestselling author of Bullies: How The Lefts Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America," is expected to speak at UM as part of the YAFs Fred Allen Lecture Series.

Shapiro is host of one of the most listened-to conservative podcasts in America, The Ben Shapiro Show." He previously was the former editor-at-large of Breitbart News.

He has gained notoriety for sounding off against traditional liberal viewpoints and personalities. According to his online bio, Shapiro has sought to challenge the lefts ideological stranglehold on academia and has worked to push back against that trend through fact and logic-based speeches and debates.

Shapiro spoke in Ann Arbor in 2016, also with an invite from UMs chapter of the YAF.

YAF says its committed to exposing more young Americans to conservative ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise and traditional values. The group hosted noted conservative comedian Steven Crowder and political commentator Michael J. Knowles in Ann Arbor last year, and announced plans in December 2018 to bring Shapiro back in 2019.
Editors note: This story has been updated following an MSP press conference

DETROIT -- Michigan State Police say they now have a suspect in custody for the shooting death of 3-year-old Christian Miller. The suspect turned himself into police Wednesday, nearly a week after Miller was shot while riding in the backseat of his godmothers car.

Southfield Freeway Shooting Update: On 1/30 the suspect in the homicide of Christian Miller turned himself in to police. This is quickly evolving and more information will be released as we can. pic.twitter.com/Bi0EaEfMRS  MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) January 30, 2019

During a press conference Wednesday, MSP Lt. Michael Shaw said the suspect is a 24-year-old male from Detroit. The suspects name has not been released as the case has been turned over to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthys office.

Shaw said the suspect turned himself while accompanied by family members who pressured him into going to police. The car he drove in the alleged shooting was found by police in Detroit Tuesday and Shaw said officers were getting close to finding him.

I think he took the easier way out and turned himself in," Shaw said.

What exactly caused the shooting was not revealed by police, but Shaw said there was some sort of traffic incident between the alleged shooter and the godmother, but the godmother did not appear to know there was an issue between the two cars. Shaw would not go into further detail about possible footage of the incident or other information that would explain what happened.

Shaw repeatedly said the department was holding back information so MSP could present the best case possible to a judge. He also said the efforts of community members and the media helped officers find the suspect. Detroit Police Department chief James Craig echoed those sentiments.

I want to say thank you to the Detroit community," Craig said.

Shaw also declined to reveal any details of the suspects criminal past or what sort of weapon was used. Instead, he said the suspect had contact with law enforcement before."

Earlier in the day, police announced they found the vehicle suspected in the shooting but had yet to locate the suspect. At that time police then asked for the publics help in finding more information about the shooting. However, the suspect turned himself in shortly after that message was sent.

The suspects car was described as a newer model silver Mercedes with four doors. The suspect was described as a light-skinned man with a full beard.

Miller was shot last Thursday around 7:30 p.m. while he and his godmother were on their way to Sesame Street Live." They were traveling northbound on the Southfield Freeway near the Joy Road exit when someone shot at the car. Miller was struck between the shoulder blades. His godmother exited from the freeway, stopped at a local gas station and called for help.

Miller was transported to Sinai Grace Hospital before being transferred to Childrens Hospital where he died Friday morning. Earlier this week, Crime Stoppers announced a $10,000 reward for information that led to an arrest of the suspect.

The next step will involve Worthys office which will decide what if any charges will be filed and when an arraignment will take place. The suspect is currently being held at the Detroit Detention Center.
Despite changing her mind and ripping up the note instructing a bank teller to give me the money, police in Massachusetts are on the search for a woman wanted in connection with a potential bank robbery.

The Fall River Police Department released surveillance images from the would-be bank robbery incident that occurred about 2 p.m. Monday afternoon, Jan. 28 at the Fall River Municipal Credit Union in Fall River, Massachusetts.

According to police, the suspect reached the teller and said give me a minute before walking over to a counter where she wrote a note on a piece of paper. She then ripped the freshly-written note into pieces, threw it in the trash and exited the bank.

Due to the females behavior, bank employees retrieved the note which read give me the money, Fall River police report on Facebook. Police were then notified.

No money was stolen and the woman was said to leave the scene without incident, outside of the weird interaction and found note. Anyone with information regarding the case is asked to call 508-324-2796 or leave an anonymous tip at 508-672-8477.
LANSING, MI  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday declared a state of emergency over the states dropping temperatures, setting into motion a process that helps the state respond quickly.

So what does that state of emergency mean? Sorry readers, the state isnt going to send somebody to fix your furnace or shovel your driveway. But in a situation that overwhelms emergency services, the state can step in with additional resources and equipment to help everybody stay safe.

Heres a Q&A on how it all works.

So, whats the emergency?

Its freezing outside. Actually, its way below freezing  temperatures are expected to dip into the negatives for much of the Lower Peninsula, and wind chills could get to down around negative 40 degrees.

That is combining with lake effect snow and poor road conditions in some parts of the state.

And why declare an official state of emergency?

An executive order issued by a governor declaring a state of emergency puts Michigan authorities on alert and ready to respond to incidents all over the state.

Keeping Michiganders safe during this stretch of dangerously cold temperatures is our priority, Whitmer said in a press release.

Dale George, spokesperson for the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security division, said a state of emergency is usually declared when a local government declares an emergency and asks for state assistance. In this case, though, the National Weather Service had predicted the cold stretch and we could see this coming, so the governor declared a state of emergency.

Now, he said, the state is ready to respond to any local emergencies that come up.

What is the state doing now, with the State of Emergency in place?

The state spun up its State Emergency Operations Center, which serves as a central hub to coordinate state and local resources and respond to emergencies.

Its at the Michigan State Police headquarters in Dimondale, and brings together all the people in charge of responding to emergencies.

Theres an emergency coordinator for every state agency in Michigan, as well as some of our nonprofit partners and private partners, George said, citing electricity companies as one example of private companies playing a role.

The State Emergency Operations Center has a seat for each of these people. And with a state of emergency officially declared, they have access to equipment and money to help in local emergencies.

Where does the money come from?

The state has a Disaster and Emergency Contingency Fund the governor can tap into in a state of emergency.

According to Michigans Emergency Management Act, a local government coping with a diaster can apply for a grant from the fund If the demands placed upon the funds of a county or municipality in coping with a particular disaster or emergency are unreasonably great..."

George said it could be used for things like paying for overtime for an emergency response.

There are limits on how much the state can give out through the fund, and a community asking for funds has to demonstrate an exhaustion of local efforts.

How does the State Emergency Operations Center know there is an emergency?

The state has eight Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security division district coordinators who are constantly working with local emergency management agencies, George said.

They are a communication link between on-the-ground emergency response efforts across the state and the State Emergency Operations Center.

As of Tuesday evening, no local unit of government had yet declared a state of emergency to request state assistance, George said.

Are state employees still working?

Yes. While State of Michigan offices are closed due to the extreme cold, employees with essential work functions are still reporting, including those helping with emergency response.
Applying for a medical marijuana card in Michigan -- and renewing it -- can now be done online through a state website.

The new services mean state officials believe they can issue medical marijuana identification cards at a faster pace.

If an applicants physician certifies the medical use of marijuana online, the patient could potentially be issued a registry identification card within 2-3 business days," said Andrew Brisbo, director of the Bureau of Marijuana Regulation, in a statement.

The states Bureau of Marijuana Regulation has been adding online services for medical marijuana patients for the past several months. Previously patients had to apply, renew and update their information by mailing in paper documents.

In October 2018 the state launched the first wave of services by offering online applications for identification cards online through an account.

This January officials have added new features to the online account options, including the ability to update patient personal information, remove caregivers and the option to withdraw from the program.

We are pleased to be able to make these services available online, said Orlene Hawks, Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs director, in a statement. Its a small but significant step in making access to government services easier for Michigan residents. Our new online capabilities deliver services where and when and at the times our constituents need them.

The new online services also extent to doctors who register with the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program, who will be able to certify their patients' medical use of marijuana online after conducting in-person medical evaluations.

The online registry card portal can be found at www.michigan.gov/BMRonline and by clicking on the Registry Cards tab.

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical marijuana.
ECORSE, Mich. -- A former Ecorse city council member was found dead outside of his home, according to Fox 2 Detroit. The Ecorse Police Department is investigating the death and officials say the man -- who is in his 70s -- died from exposure to the elements.

Police have not identified the deceased man and have not provided any details other than to say his death was weather-related.

Earlier in the day Wednesday, Detroit Police confirmed a 70-year-old man was found dead and frozen outside of a home in the city. Temperatures in the Southeast Michigan dipped below zero with wind chills dropping even further overnight.
Fords design team has come a long way from the days of a simple pencil, ruler and paper as the automaker is using a 3D virtual reality tool to take a new approach to the process.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker says that it is the first of its kind to work with Gravity Sketch, and that this new creative tool lets its designers put the customer at the center of the vehicle creation process.

In a news release detailing the collaboration, Ford says its designers imitate gestural interactions through motion tracking that replications sketching with a pen and paper. In lieu of starting with a 2D sketch and scanning that into an illustration, Gravity Sketch lets Ford speed the process from weeks to hours and skip the 2D stage of the design stage.

Related: Ford teaches Mustang to decipher handwritten Chinese characters

Designers can anchor a driver at the center, rotating their 3D design to view it from any angle to create a scalable vehicle around their driver, the automaker explains.

They can even step inside the vehicle sketch to quickly adjust design attributes to best suit occupants."

Related: Ford plant workers outfitted with exoskeleton vests after successful pilot program

Michael Smith, Fords design manager, said in the release that seeing the vehicle in 3D from a VR standpoint unleashes creativity and aides in crafting a human-centric design. The automaker says that Gravity Sketch is being utilized at five design studios across the world, with dozens of interior and exterior designers using it.

This application has the potential to help ensure we are delivering the very best vehicle designs for our customers, Smith said in the release. It moves the entire process into the world of virtual reality, giving us greater options for reviewing more models in the 3D environment to create the best possible vehicles."

As for Gravity Sketch, the company was founded back in 2014 and has received grant funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program. The company describes itself as a London-based startup, and that they are determined to bridge this gap by delivering intuitive digital creation tools.
STURGEON BAY, WI  The United States Coast Guard used airboats to rescue seven people stranded in sub-zero temperatures near Lake Michigan.

The individuals had been in an ice shanty one mile northeast of Snake Island near Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin on Tuesday, but were unable to make it back to shore due to difficulties with their utility vehicle and inclement weather.

The weather on scene was reported as 4 below zero with a wind chill factor of minus 30 degrees.

Coast Guard Station Sturgeon Bay and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources arrived on scene with airboats, loaded the seven people in the two boats and transported them to shore with no apparent injuries or medical concerns.

Door County Dispatch and the Brussels-Union-Garner Fire Department also assisted at the scene.

The Coast Guard advises the public against going out on ice. Risks include hypothermia, frostbite, and death.

Sturgeon Bay is located approximately halfway up the Door Peninsula extending into Lake Michigan. The bay is connected to Lake Michigan by the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal
The districts were selected from among the 373 school districts  including 17 from Lake County  that applied for a collective $50 million in funding, according to state documents. They were chosen because they had the highest tax rates of the districts that applied based on a formula that weighed whether they were a unit, elementary or high school district.
Due to the dangerously cold temperatures throughout the Midwest, Amtrak has canceled all service in Michigan and trips to and from Chicago for Wednesday, Jan. 30 and Thursday.

Amtrak reports in a news release that its only active Midwest service offered Wednesday and Thursday are two round-trips between Kansas City and St. Louis. A search of Amtraks schedule for Wednesday and Thursday in Michigan confirmed that all trips in the Great Lakes state is off until Friday.

Customers with reservations on trains that are being modified will typically be accommodated on trains with similar departure times or another day, Amtrak reports in the release.

Amtrak will gladly waive additional charges for customers looking to change their reservation during the modified schedule by calling our reservation center at 800-USA-RAIL.

The service usually operates 55 trains each day to and from Chicago, and adds that this information is subject to change as conditions warrant.

Related: Weather craziness as Michigan goes from -50 to +50 in next five days

Related: Lyft offering free rides to warming centers in Detroit through Friday

As for the weather, Detroit is looking at a low of minus 13 overnight Wednesday with a high of zero degrees on the horizon for Thursday. Thursday night carries a low-temperature of minus four before things start to warm up Friday with a high of 16 degrees.

Wind chill values could reach as low as minus 28 Wednesday afternoon in Detroit, with gusts reaching speeds as high as 36 mph. Overnight projections call for a windchill as low as minus 34 with gusts as strong as 25 mph.

Lake effect snow showers/flurries will move across locations north of the I-69 corridor this afternoon. Wind chills will remain dangerously pic.twitter.com/y50DIiAFfK  NWS Detroit (@NWSDetroit) January 30, 2019

Coldest arctic blast since 1994 hangs on into much of Thursday. Little to no improvement in the temperatures & wind chills compared to what occurred Wednesday morning. Dangerous travel conditions with snow in western & middle portions of the lower peninsula. #wmiwx #miwx pic.twitter.com/tRu3QEDCtU  NWS Grand Rapids (@NWSGrandRapids) January 30, 2019

Here is a look at the lowest observed temp & wind chill values across the area from this morning. Temps fell into the -20s for much of the area &, when combined with winds of 10 to 20 mph, resulted in wind chills generally in the range of -45 to -55F. pic.twitter.com/QxQsHHXlS1  NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) January 30, 2019
The Reds announced today that they have signed lefty reliever Ian Krol to a minors pact. Hell receive an invitation to participate in MLB Spring Training as a non-roster player.

Krol, 27, had thrown 188 MLB innings over five seasons heading into the 2018 campaign, pitching to a 4.50 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9. He didnt receive much of a shot last year, however, ultimately making just one appearance in the majors with the Angels. Krol did work to a 2.72 ERA with 9.4 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 56 1/3 Triple-A frames, split between the Halos and Mets organizations.

Needless to say, Krol will not enter camp as a favorite to secure a big league job this spring, but he will have a chance to show what he can do. Amir Garrett is locked in, but theres otherwise a fair bit of uncertainty on the left-handed side of the Cincinnati relief corps. Wandy Peralta and Brandon Finnegan each struggled badly last year. Cody Reed showed some promise in a brief stretch as a reliever but could be stretched out as a starter, perhaps leaving the door open for Krol or fellow minor-league signee Buddy Boshers to snag an opportunity with an impressive effort in camp.
The Marlins announced that theyve designated right-hander Nick Wittgren for assignment. His roster spot will go to veteran infielder Neil Walker, who signed a one-year contract with Miami this evening.

It registers as at least a moderate surprise to see Wittgren cut loose, as the right-hander pitched to a 2.94 ERA with 8.3 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 0.27 HR/9 and a career-best 46 percent ground-ball rate in 33 2/3 innings with Miami this past season. However, Wittgren isnt likely to repeat the success he had in limiting homers last season (one allowed; 2.7 percent homer-to-fly ball ratio), and the four walks he averaged on a per-nine-inning basis was the highest mark of his career.

Last year was a roller coaster for Wittgren. He allowed just one earned run through his first 15 2/3 inning, posting a 17-to-7 K/BB ratio along the way before being absolutely destroyed over the next month. Wittgren missed a bit of time with a finger injury along the way and was ultimately torched for eight runs on 14 hits and six walks through just 6 2/3 innings before being optioned to Triple-A. He returned as a September call-up, though, and posted a brilliant 1.59 ERA (two runs in 11 1/3 innings) with an 11-to-2 K/BB ratio.

All of that said, Wittgren is a 27-year-old righty (28 in late May) with a career 3.60 ERA, 8.2 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 in 127 2/3 of big league relief. He also has a minor league option remaining, which could boost his appeal should the Marlins look to find a trade partner. Wittgren did miss some time in 2017 due to an elbow strain, but he avoided elbow troubles in 2018. His 92.1 mph average fastball in 2018 falls right in line with his 92.2 mph career mark, though he relies heavily on that offering and doesnt generate much spin on it.
The submarine thriller "Hunter Killer" (out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital) had a long and complicated journey from book to screen.

Based on the novel "Firing Point" by Navy veteran George Wallace and Don Keith, the Gerard Butler movie was days away from beginning production when Relativity Studios shut down.

After a delay, new director Donovan Marsh joined the project. They regrouped with Summit and made a movie with extensive support from the Pentagon, which envisioned the film as a "Top Gun" for submariners.

Gerard plays Capt. Joe Glass, a maverick who is given command of a sub even though he didn't go to Annapolis. The Russian president gets kidnapped, and Glass must break the rules to save the world.

"Hunter Killer" features an impressive cast that includes Gary Oldman, Common, Linda Cardellini, Toby Stephens and Michael Nyqvist from the original Swedish Lisbeth Salander/Millennium movies

Marsh made the well-regarded South African crime thriller "Avenged," but "Hunter Killer" is his first big Hollywood movie. He told us about working with the Pentagon, how much of the movie was shot on real submarines, and how you make an action movie on a submarine.

Gerard Butler and Donovan Marsh at the "Hunter Killer" premiere aboard the USS Intrepid October 22, 2018. (Photo Credit: Patrick Lewis/StarPix2018)

You're from South Africa, a country not known for its Navy. Did you have an interest in military movies or history growing up?

South Africa has two diesel submarines, but only crew for one. One is in dry dock, and they can't afford to take the other one out. So if I couldn't love my own Navy, I could love the navies of the movies. Enter "Das Boot," "Crimson Tide" and "Hunt for Red October." Three of my favorite films of all time.

Gerard Butler worked on this movie as a producer for many years before it got made. Tell us how you came on board as the director.

The film had a different director and was months from shooting with Relativity. When Relativity came apart, the film was looking for a new home and a new director. I pitched and won the job. When I came on board, Gerard, Oldman and Common were already part of the project.

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The Pentagon has been unusually supportive of your "Hunter Killer," even hosting a press conference with Gerard Butler. What was it like working with the Navy on the movie? Did they have input into the filming since they gave your production so much access to Navy subs?

The Navy was incredible. They welcomed us in Pearl Harbor, sent myself and Gerry out on a real nuclear sub for three days, and showed us behind the scenes in the way that few civilians ever get to see. They gave us access to Navy experts, captains and admirals every step of the way, many of whom were present during filming and who made sure we stayed as realistic as was dramatically possible (and without giving away anything classified!).

The submariners want to know. How much filming did you get to do on real submarines and how much did you recreate on sets?

I had one day in the USS Texas with the real crew They were amazing; I challenge you to pick them out from the actors. I had one afternoon with the Texas at sea for helicopter shots. We nearly crashed the chopper (metal in the transmission!), had to return the next morning to shoot the emergency blow. I had one take and only knew the point they were going to surface within 100 hundred meters. They surfaced in the edge of shot and I quickly reframed!

Michael Nyqvist and Gerard Butler star in "Hunter Killer." (Summit Pictures)

What roles did practical and CGI effects play in your production?

We had 900+ visual effects shots that took over a year to complete. It was the biggest challenge of my life, and I still feel they could have been much better. To simulate reality is very difficult, and only the most skilled VFX teams with months and months of time can do it.

A submarine commander once told me, "The Army plays rugby. I play chess." How do you approach a battle movie when you've got to depend more on suspense than brute action?

I just flat out prefer suspense to brute action. It's more interesting. It's delicious. It's dramatic. During brute action scenes, I always end up looking at my watch. I wanted HK to create as much tension and suspense as the audience could bear and then release that with action that was quick, sharp and believable.

Gary Oldman, Linda Cardellini and Common in "Hunter Killer." (Summit Pictures)

Even though the movie portrays American and Russian presidents who are nothing like the real leaders, "Hunter Killer" portrays a contentious relationship between the two countries that didn't exist even five years ago. Did rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia help you get this movie made?

Tensions between the U.S. and Russian escalated leading up to this film, significantly adding to its relevance. A Russian MiG buzzed a destroyer, and Russian sub activity in American waters and vice versa was on the rise. This played in wonderfully to the plot of the film, which starts with two subs getting into it under the ice.
The United States wasn't the most dominant country on Earth from the get-go. For most of our nearly 243-year history, in fact, we lived by the skin of our teeth. It's a relatively recent development where some other country can call out for the blood of Americans to fill the streets, and we at home barely seem to notice. That's the chief benefit of U.S. military. In the olden days, someone threatening the United States might have actually had a chance.

Those days are gone.

This list is about more than just how many Americans an enemy could kill. This is about being able to REALLY take down the United States at a time when we weren't able to topple the enemy government or wipe out their infrastructure without missing a single episode of "The Bachelor."

9. Terrorists

If Wal-Mart sold armies, they would sell ISIS.

Radical terrorism is nothing new. Just like insurgent groups, extremists, and jihadis attacking Americans in the name of their gods, other militants have been picking at the U.S. for centuries. ISIS and al-Qaeda are just the latest flash in the pan. Anarchists, organized labor, and other saboteurs were bombing American facilities well before Osama bin Laden thought of it. The U.S. Marine Corps even established its reputation by walking 500 miles through the North African desert just to rescue hostages and kill terrorists... in 1805.

What terrorists have been able to do is force tough changes in defense and foreign policy  but as an existential threat, the Macarena captured more Americans than global terrorism ever will.

8. The Soviet Union

Maybe the state should buy fewer guns and more food, comrade.

The Cold War was a hot war, we all know that by now. It had the potential to kill millions of people worldwide and throw the American system into total disarray. It definitely had potential. Unfortunately, they were much better at killing their own people than killing Americans. In the end, their deadliest weapon was food shortages, which they used to great effect...on the Soviet Union.

But thanks for all the cool 1980s movie villains.

7. Mexico

When the only southern border wall was one made of gunpowder smoke.

It may surprise you all to see Mexico ranked higher on this list than our primary Cold War adversary, but before the United States could take on pretty much the rest of the world in a war, a threat from Mexico carried some heft. Until James K. Polk came to office.

Even though the Mexican-American War was a pretty lopsided victory for the United States, it was hard-won. More than 16 percent of the Americans who joined to fight it never came home. And imagine if the U.S. had lost to Mexico  California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming could still be Mexican today.

6. China

Good luck with whatever is happening here.

The 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century didn't look good for China, but they sure managed to turn things around. While, like their Soviet counterparts, the Chinese were (and still are) better at killing Chinese people than Americans, they sure had their share of fun at our expense. The Chinese fueled the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, and the ongoing struggle with Taiwan and they continue their current military buildup to be able to face threats from the U.S.

While not an existential threat right now, China could very well be one day.

5. Native Americans

The old "cowboys and indians" movies leave out the relentless slaughter.

At a time when our nation's growth and survival demanded it stretch from sea to shining sea, the principal stumbling block was that there were many, many other nations already taking that space between the U.S. east coast and west coast. Predictably, the Native American tribes fought back, making the American frontier manifest much more than destiny, it manifested death and destruction.

While the native tribes had very little chance of conquering the young United States, the Indians were key allies for those who could and for many decades, did keep the two parts of the U.S. separated by a massive, natural border.

4. Great Britain

Why we can't have nice things.

The United States would be very, very difficult to invade, sure, but what if your armed forces were already on American soil and all you had to do was just keep those colonists from revolting while still paying their taxes? The only way anyone could ever have killed off the fledgling United States would be to kill it in its cradle and the British came very, very close. And just a few years later, they would have another opportunity.

In round two, Canadians burned down the White House and have been the envy of every American enemy ever since.

3. Japan

Don't start what you can't finish.

Japan had the might and the means to be able to take down the United States. Their only problem was poor planning and even worse execution. The problem started long before Pearl Harbor. Japanese hubris after beating Russia and China one after the other turned them into a monster  a slow, dumb monster that had trouble communicating. Japan's head was so far up its own ass with its warrior culture that they became enamored with the process of being a warrior, rather than focusing on the prize: finishing the war it started.

2. Germany

No one likes to see this.

There's a reason the Nazis are America's number one movie and TV-show enemy. The Germans were not only big and bad on paper; they were even worse in real life. Even though the World War I Germany was vastly different from the genocidal, meth-addled master race bent on world domination, in 1916, it sure didn't seem that way. But the threat didn't stop with the Treaty of Versailles.

The interwar years were just as dangerous for the United States. The Great Depression hit the U.S. as hard as anyone else. Pro-Hitler agitators and American Nazi groups weren't just a product of German immigrants or Nazi intelligence agencies  some Americans really believed National Socialism was the way forward. Even after the end of World War II, East Germans were still trying to kill Americans.

1. Other Americans

After all, who fights harder or better than an American?

Like many countries before the United States and many countries since no one is better at killing us than ourselves. But this isn't in the same way the governments of China, the Soviet Union, and countless others decide to systematically kill scores of their own citizens. No, the closest the United States ever came to departing this world was when Americans decided to start fighting Americans.

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The Air Force Knew It Had an Ejection Seat Problem, But Didn't Speed Up a Fix. Then a Pilot Died

And his widow fears that another pilot may suffer the same fate.
A bipartisan push in Congress on a bill to get Agent Orange benefits for "Blue Water Navy" veterans of Vietnam gained traction Wednesday from a court ruling that went against opposition from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I hope they've heard it loud and clear at the VA," Thomas Snee, national executive director of the Fleet Reserve Association, said of the court ruling that could extend Agent Orange benefits and health care to an estimated 90,000 sailors who served off the coast of Vietnam.

Snee, a former master chief who served on the destroyer Vogelgesang off Vietnam, said, "The VA needs to stop pushing back and get to 'Yes.' "

In a 9-2 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of 73-year-old Alfred Procopio Jr., who served on the aircraft carrier Intrepid off Vietnam. He had been denied benefits by the VA for lack of scientific evidence that his diabetes and prostate cancer were related to exposure to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.

In her ruling for the majority supporting Procopio's claim, Judge Kimberly A. Moore wrote, "We find no merit in the government's arguments to the contrary."

John Wells, a lawyer and Navy veteran who argued the case for Procopio, said that "innumerable veterans were denied palliative and potentially lifesaving benefits" in the long struggle for coverage.

In a statement after the ruling, Wells, head of the Military Veterans Advocacy group, said, "The many people who fought this battle alongside us and the veterans whose lives have been forever changed by the VA's policy are all due thanks and credit."

The VA has yet to decide whether to appeal the decision or continue to oppose congressional efforts to pass a bill mandating benefits and health care for the Blue Water veterans.

"VA is reviewing this decision and will determine an appropriate response," a spokesman said.

In his concurring opinion in the Procopio case, Judge Raymond T. Chen wrote that legislation is needed to back up the court's action.

"Recent debates in Congress, which required consideration of the significant cost of the proposed addition of Blue Water Navy veterans [for Agent Orange benefits], underscores why Congress, rather than the courts, should be the one to revisit our interpretation," he wrote.

Last year, the House unanimously passed a Blue Water Navy bill, but several Republican senators, citing the costs, blocked a vote in the Senate. A spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, one of the senators who blocked the vote, said that he was "still reviewing the [court] decision at this time."

A similar bill was introduced on the House side earlier this month. Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, the new chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said the court ruling "appears to bring our country one step closer to ensuring that we fulfill our duty to care for veterans affected by exposure to Agent Orange."

He noted the failure of the bill last year, and said in a statement, "It is time for Congress to right this wrong, redouble our effort to pass H.R. 299 and uphold our responsibility to care for our nation's veterans."

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement that he supported the bill last year "because I believe [Blue Water veterans] should have remained eligible for these benefits as Congress intended."

"I am pleased to see this recent court decision, and I look forward to working with the VA on its next steps on addressing this," he said.

Earlier this month during a VA town hall meeting webcast, Paul Lawrence, head of the Veterans Benefits Administration, said the VA still lacks "sufficient evidence" to prove a presumptive link between service off the coast of Vietnam and the illnesses caused by the widespread use of the Agent Orange.

Those who served on the ground or the inland waters of Vietnam currently are eligible for benefits for the "presumptive" link to 14 Agent Orange-related illnesses, but those who served off the coast are not.

"In terms of presumptives, they come with a real requirement of sufficient evidence to indicate it's warranted," Lawrence said.

Major veterans organizations hailed the court's decision and urged Congress to move quickly on legislation for the aging Blue Water veterans.

Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander B.J. Lawrence said the ruling for Procopio, a life member of VFW Post 6587 in Spring Lake Park, Minnesota, was laudable, but "the VFW isn't quite ready to celebrate."

"That's because the VA can always appeal the ruling and Congress has yet to pass a Blue Water Navy bill," he said in a statement. "But it is very encouraging to now have a court of law support Blue Water Navy veterans along with the court of public opinion."

Carl Blake, an Army veteran and executive director of Paralyzed Veterans of America, said the court ruling "resolves a decades-long controversy that has visited a grave injustice" on Blue Water veterans.

"Now our staff around the country will work to ensure that the Blue Water veterans and their families receive their benefits," he said in a statement.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Having spent 17 years conducting counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in the deserts and mountains of the Middle East, the Naval Special Warfare community is shifting its focus to threats from China, Russia and aspiring adversaries.

Navy operations planners are including Navy SEALs in all aspects of planning and training, such as war games, exercises and tabletop scenarios, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran told reporters Jan. 16 at the Surface Navy Association's annual conference.

The shift began in 2013 when Rear Adm. Brian Losey, then-commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, began making "a concerted effort to talk to his teams about getting back to the 'blue side,' " Moran said, referring to the Navy's large fighting forces of ships, submarines and aircraft.

That focus has continued since Losey retired in 2016, Moran added.

"[Losey] saw the 'great power competition,' he saw the threats of an emerging Russia, China, North Korea and Iran," Moran said. [SEALs] have a very specific and important role to play in all situations."

Since the U.S. insertion into Afghanistan in 2001, special operations forces, including the SEALs, have focused on a specific selection of their skill sets, including small-scale strikes and offensive actions, counterinsurgency, hostage rescue, counterterrorism and countering weapons of mass destruction.

But these forces have other expertise that is relevant to both large-scale military conflicts as well as the type of posturing and competing for regional and global dominance that currently is happening, according to a 2017 report by David Broyles and Brody Blankenship, analysts at CNA, an Arlington, Virginia-based think tank that concentrates on the U.S. Navy.

Those skills include preparing an environment for operations, reconnaissance, unconventional operations, military information support operations and foreign humanitarian assistance, according to the report, The Role of Special Operations Forces in Global Competition.

"Special operations forces have a greater role to play in today's global competition through a counteractive approach to adversary maneuvers," Broyles and Blankenship wrote. "The United States has only recently recognized that adversaries are exploiting the U.S. view of 'preparing for future war' vice 'competing in the here and now.' "

Moran agreed that Navy SEALs have a unique talent set that the "blue side" had largely forgotten.

"We've grown used to not having them in a lot of situations. ... Wow, there are some great capabilities here that can set the conditions in the world for the kind of operations we are going to need in every single one of our campaigns," he said.

A draft environmental assessment published by the Navy on Nov. 8 indicated that the SEALs are planning to increase training in Hawaii, asking to increase the number of exercises from the 110 events allowed now on non-federally owned land to as many as 330 training events on non-federal land or waterways and 265 training events on federal property.

The proposed training also would expand the area for conducting exercises to include Kauai, Lanai, Maui and Molokai, in addition to Oahu and Hawaii.

The training, in a location relatively near to and similar in climate to the South China Sea, where China continues to assert its dominance, is necessary to enhance the Navy Special Warfare Command's traditional skill sets, including diving and swimming; operating with submersibles and unmanned aircraft systems; insertion and extraction; reconnaissance and parachuting; and rope suspension training activities, according to the report.

Moran said the SEALs' return to their roots will bolster lethality of the Navy as a whole.

"As much as it's their chance to re-blue, it's our chance to reconnect from the blue side," he said. "That will continue to grow, I think."

-- Patricia Kime can be reached Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
PADS has beds for more than 100 homeless clients at two churches each night, and some families are being put up at local hotels through other organizations that partner with PADS. In addition, people with no particular affiliation are stepping forward to help out.
It's an arms race for the post-modern age.

China has been developing Artificial Intelligence weaponry at a much higher rate than the U.S. and experts say it's something that neither Silicon Valley nor The Pentagon should be turning their backs on.

Reports suggest that the tech and governmental sectors of China have been working together in a "military-civil fusion" and according to a recent Financial Times report, the partnership has become a nightmare for western governments like the U.S., which has mostly taken the opposite approach.

"China has fewer barriers to adopting AI in the military because there is not as large of a social stigma attached to their usage like there is in the United States," Matthew Bey, a Senior Global Analyst at intelligence firm Stratfor told Fox News. "While we focus on AI the difference in this view is far beyond just AI but rather tech in general. Americans, on average, are far more skeptical about the benefits of technology."

Bey also points out that China's rise over the last few decades has been synonymous with the adoption of new technologies, which its citizens have been quick to adopt.

Related story: China Leaving US Behind on Artificial Intelligence: Air Force General

"The cultural difference makes it far more likely for China to quickly adopt AI for any application, including military applications," he said.

The Pentagon works with U.S. tech companies, although these efforts have sometimes proved controversial.

Last year Google opted not to renew its contract with the Department of Defense for Project Maven, a controversial Pentagon Drone AI imaging program that sparked a backlash from many Google employees.

Thousands of employees signed a petition opposing Google's involvement in Project Maven. Dozens also reportedly resigned in protest.

Bey adds that while the U.S. government, like its Chinese counterpart, relies heavily on its national tech sector, there is less of a stigma about controversial projects in China.

"China has fewer barriers to adopting AI in the military because there is not as large as a social stigma attached to their usage like there is in the United States," he said. "While we focus on AI the difference in this view is far beyond just AI but rather tech in general. Americans, on average, are far more skeptical about the benefits of technology."

"[T]here are collaborative efforts in the works between the United States tech sector and the Pentagon even if some projects, like Project Maven, have seen backlash and ended. The primary reasons have been fears over using AI and robotics for military applications and the fact that many in Silicon Valley oppose such efforts."

Skepticism is believed to run high in the offices and shared workspaces of Silicon Valley, where many see companies like Google, Apple, and others as global entities and not beholden to any particular government.

Washington appears desperate to make a partnership with Big Tech work, as it is seen as vital to national security. According to a recent Washington Post column, the government is making efforts to win the trust of software engineers who may be wary of it with the AI Principles Project that was launched last October by the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board. Also in October, defense officials met with nearly a dozen AI experts at Harvard where they debated concerns about privacy and human accountability for AI actions.

"If we're going to be the arsenal of democracy in the 21st century, we have to show that we have ideals and are ready to stand up for them," a Pentagon official involved in the program told Post columnist David Ignatius. "It wasn't going to be enough to say, 'Hey, we're the good guys, we're Americans.' We needed to be more introspective."

Another concern in Washington is China's ability to use AI technology developed in the West. The U.S. has also looked at ways to screen Chinese students and scientists who come stateside to study and do research.

Above all, the U.S. does not want to find itself behind China and its development of AI for military use.

"The challenge here is that because much AI advancement is dual use, Washington risks undermining U.S. commercial competitiveness in the AI sector by trying to develop a strategy to limit China's military adoption of AI," Bey says. "The best solution to the problem may be in fact arms control negotiations and/or trying to out-invest the other -- both of which have their own pitfalls as well."

The Stratfor analyst adds that despite China's advancements, there may not be any need for concern.

"[W]e cannot totally isolate China's AI advances -- especially if they are more advanced than the United States -- from the rest of [our country's] qualitative advantages," he says. "China's military development in many of these areas remains behind the United States and AI alone will not make up the gap entirely."
Foxconn said in its statement that it was still considering the production of products such as TV sets at the facility. However, Reuters, which first reported the news, said Foxconn planned to dial that back, citing the expensive costs of making advanced TV screens in the U.S. It also reported that the pace of hiring would be slower than originally projected.
Vietnamese Ambassador to France Nguyen Thiep speaking at the event (Photo: VNA)

Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to France Nguyen Thiep announced that 2018 was a successful year of Vietnam with its economic growth of 7.08%, the highest rate over the past 11 years. This is also a special year in Vietnam-France relations, marking 5 years of strategic cooperation and 45 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Trade exchange between France and Vietnam has exceeded USD4 billion, and the total investment of France into Vietnam reached USD590 million, an increase of six times compared to the previous year.

The high-level visit by Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to France in March 2018 and the official visit by French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to Vietnam in November 2018 further strengthened the strategic partnership between the two countries. Bilateral cooperation has been expanded to many new areas such as agricultural food, biology, energy, digital and urbanization.

The ambassador emphasized that 2019 will also be a year of many important events, including the 100th anniversary of overseas Vietnamese movement and the Vietnamese Association in France. 100 years ago, Nguyen Ai Quoc, a patriot and his friends from the Association for Annamite Patriots, presented statements of Annamites at the International Conference on Peace in Versailles, marking the beginning of the patriotic movement of Vietnamese people in France.

Mr. Nguyen Thiep affirmed that each success of Vietnam today has important imprints from overseas Vietnamese all over the world. He sent his sincere thanks to the entire Vietnamese community in France for positive contributions to the development of the country, becoming an important bridge between Vietnam and France.

New bilateral cooperation opportunities will open through exchanges of high-level delegations between the two countries, including a visit to France by National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan scheduled in April, and a visit to Vietnam by French President Emmanuel Macron scheduled at the end of 2019. The 11th Conference on Decentralized Cooperation, scheduled to be held on April 1st-2nd in Toulouse, will create new possibilities to deepen trust and strengthen relationships between localities of Vietnam and France.

Speaking at the event, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo affirmed that Vietnam is an important and effective cooperation partner in many fields with France. The co-organization of the community Tet by the administration of Paris and the Vietnamese Embassy at the City Hall showed that the Vietnamese culture contributes to enriching the cultural diversity of Paris. She wished the Vietnamese community a successful new year, contributing to the common development of Paris and France.

At the event, the participants together enjoyed songs about Vietnam and traditional Tet dishes of Vietnamese people./.
NORWALK  Jacob Timchaks award-winning photograph, Elena, a black-and-white shot of a young Peruvian girl staring stonily into the camera, was taken almost by accident.

Timchak, now a Norwalk High School senior, was in Peru in 2017 on a service trip, on which he brought his camera and a beginners understanding of the Spanish language. With the latter, he was able to communicate on a basic level with some of the village residents, one of whom became his subject.

In the moment I actually wasn't meaning to take the photo. The little girl was taking a photo with another girl in our group. I guess she got a little overwhelmed, and she looked away. She looked straight at me, Timchak said. There is a lot of intensity in her expression.

The judges of the 28th Connecticut Regional Scholastic Art Awards, the largest juried student art exhibition in the state, apparently agreed.

Timchak was one of five Norwalk High School students to earn honors in the competition. He was also the only Norwalk High School student to win the prestigious Gold Key award, which qualifies him for a shot at further recognition in a national competition with first place winners from each state  part of the National Scholastic Art Awards and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers.

The other winners were Hannah Coleman, who won a Silver Key, Felicity Lagomarsino, who won honorable mention, and Grace Long, who won a Silver Key. All are seniors and AP Studio Art students of Lauren Delong  as is Timchak  and all won in the Drawing and Illustration category. A fifth student, junior Natalie Hernandez, studies under Duffy Franco, and was awarded an honorable mention in the photograph category. All the students work will be hung in the University of Hartfords Silpe Gallery until Feb. 2, and the work of national winners will be exhibited this spring in New York City.

This was a strong year, said Delong. Some years well have five winners, some years there will be two. The past two years have been strong.

Every December, the students submit a portfolio of their best work to their art teachers, who then determine which might fare best among the juries.

The state tends to like a more traditional style, Delong said. I try to find high quality work with a good concept.

Out of Norwalks winners, most selected work from their concentration portfolio.

As part of the AP Studio Art curriculum, Lagomarsino explained, each student selects a concentration, which can be a style, a theme, or an artistic idea they are excited about exploring. To complete the course, each student completes 12 concentration pieces and five breadth pieces, the latter of which show their versatility.

Lagomarsino said she tends to explore dark themes in her work  her concentration is fear  and her honorable mention drawing in colored pencils, Drowning in Fear, is no exception. The piece depicts a friend of Lagomarsinos submerged in a bathtub with a resigned expression, bubbles emanating from her mouth. It is a disturbing work, but its part of the artists process of working through her anxieties.

I think that you learn from fear if you try to explore it more and try to conquer it, Lagomarsino said.

Coleman, for her concentration, has decided to focus on mythology, a longtime obsession of hers spurred, in part, by the fantasy young adult novel series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Her Silver Key-winning drawing is a take on the myth of Icarus, inspired by the coloring and spatial techniques of British artist Michael Leonard.

I always loved the story of Icarus just because of the lesson thats learned. He flew too close to the sun and he ended up falling. It always taught me something about ambition and how careful you should be with it, Coleman said.

For Longs concentration, she decided to create a series of pieces reflecting the nostalgia she feels for the farmhouse in Vermont where her family used to vacation.

Its really secluded in this little town called Randolph, on a mountain, in the woods, Long recalled.

Many works in her portfolio are verdant landscapes, but the drawing she submitted is an interior scene of a cutting board on a table, over which a pair of knife-wielding hands hovers, slicing into a piece of fruit. Next to the cutting board is a box of Band-Aids, a comedic detail that Long likes to point out. She said she knew of the awards at the start of the year, but that knowledge didnt have an effect on what she created.

Ive submitted work to it before, but the works never been made for the awards, Long said.

Timchak, the Gold Key winner, actually hadnt planned on submitting his work at all. It was only thanks to a last minute suggestion from Delong that Timchak entered the photograph from Peru.

She (Delong) deserves the recognition because shes a really great supporter and teacher, Timchak said.

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586
MIDDLETOWN  Twenty-three-year-old Othar Odie Wilson Jr. perhaps best exemplifies the transformative power of Unified Theater.

Over the course of six years, Wilson, who has autism, has blossomed in Middletowns program, developing his natural singing ability and penchant for quick learning.

Hes the strongest vocalist in this years group of 45 students of all abilities, said Karen Nocera, recreation supervisor and inclusion specialist, who has led the citys Unified Theater program for the past eight years.

He quickly took to signing, part of the big number, I Believe I can Fly, from the film Space Jam. Its Odies favorite movie, one hes watched more than a 100 times, said his father Othie Wilson.

Keith Vinci, the son of deaf parents who serves on Middletowns Committee Concerning People with Disabilities, taught the youth how to use sign language.

This years production, Unifieds Got Talent, has three performances, Thursday through Saturday. Its based on the popular television show Americas Got Talent.

The students will demonstrate each of their skills: among them, circus tricks, guitar, improvisation, singing and dancing. Common Councilman Eugene Nocera (Noceras husband), Assistant Superintendent of Schools Enza Macri and state Rep. Quentin Phipps serve as guest judges of the students acts.

Youth in grades four through twelve take part in Unified Theater, along with special needs students in the Transition to Life Center program, which teaches Middletown High School graduates to develop skills in independent living, careers, community resources and day-to-day academics.

Unified Theaters motto is Let teens lead, let creativity rule, and put the spotlight on ability.

The program began in 2002 at Conard High School in West Hartford. The youth-led movement fosters meaningful inclusion of teens of all abilities and backgrounds through the performing arts, according to its Facebook page. Since then, it has been adopted in middle and high school drama programs throughout the country.

Funding for the productions came from a $4,500 check from the Mayors Ball proceeds, enough to fund the program for the next three to five years, Nocera said. Community support included local businesses that purchased ads for the playbill, donations from school employees who took part in dress-down days, and $5 donations from the family of participants, who gave shout outs to their actors in the playbill.

When Odie first joined, in 2012, he just jumped in, his father said. Socialization with older kids really boosted his confidence. He loves it to death, Wilson said. In fact, his father is so impressed with Middletowns program, he drives his son from Groton to take part.

Becky Carroll, who volunteers with Unified Theater, is the mother of three daughters. One, now in college, participated in the program since second grade.

Her youngest two, Aislinn, 14, and Zoe, 12, also perform. Although we didnt really let second-graders in, [Aislinn] had (orchestral) strings in the same building. She would get out, eat her little dinner, and watch the big kids, her mother said.

She was 7 years old and she was choreographing numbers for the high school students. It was insane, said Nocera, who let her take part as an exception because of her obvious talent. We put her on stilts and let her stand on a box, she said.

Zoe was in fifth grade when she began. She was a little more reticent at first. Its because of her personality. She wasnt the one who wanted to be in the spotlight, Carroll said. But that changed after she saw her sisters enjoying Unified Theater. It drew her out of her shell, her mother added.

Now, its all she wants. Shes hogging the spotlight, Nocera said with a laugh.

Whats so special about Unified Theater is its a worry-free zone, something a student told her that really stuck in her mind, Nocera said. Youre not going to be stressed out or worried here if youre running late, if you cant make a night. This is a place where, whenever you come, you feel comfortable.

A big part of Unified Theater is the journey. For a lot of kids, there are real leadership roles in this, Nocera said. Everyone has their own strengths and the kids bring it in. The adults are not doing that.

The kids rehearse Wednesday nights from October through January, when Saturdays are added in. Its profound to see what the students do  independently, Nocera added.

Unified is a place with some of the most talented actors that strive to push themselves beyond their limits. It always amazes me what you guys can accomplish. Break a leg to all the actors and techies. I have no doubt in my mind that they will put on a stellar performance, said Kenny Liappes, who participated in last years show.

Ahead of the Friday show, at 6:30 p.m., there will be a fashion show with the theme One World One Heart, which encourages the idea of living in harmony. Nocera tells the children to wear something they feel special in when they walk the catwalk.

For Carroll, watching how the kids of all abilities interact with one another is a great pleasure. This inclusion idea is second nature to them. They automatically think that way. Its been really heartwarming to see they are so generous, giving and thoughtful, she said.

In fact, her oldest daughter was so moved by her time with Unified Theater shes now pursuing a masters degree in special education.

Performances are Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Middletown High School Santo Fragilio Performing Arts Center, 200 LaRosa Lane. The snow dates is Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets are a $5 donation at the door. For information, visit middletownunifiedtheater.org.

Managing Editor Cassandra Day can be reached at cassandra.day@hearstmediact.com. Follow her on Twitter @cassandrasdis.
CROMWELL  The Town Council has sent the public works garage project back to the Board of Finance for another review.

The board last week split 3-3 on a motion to approve the project.

The tie vote scuttled the proposal to build a 38,000-square-foot plus garage and office space for the Public Works Department and Water Pollution Control Authority.

The building would be built on a 13-acre parcel of town-owned land off County Line Road, which sits between Shunpike Road and Interstate 91. The projected cost of the project is $9.3 million. The WPCA would pay for 28 percent of the cost.

The Board of Finances no votes were cast by Republican Steve Wygonowski and Democrats Edwin Maley and Bob Milardo (who was incorrectly identified as a Republican in a Middletown Press article that ran Tuesday).

On Tuesday evening, Maley said there was no question the garage is needed.

But he said he did not feel he had sufficient information  and the time to examine it in detail  before he was asked to vote on the proposal.

The council met Monday to approve a proposal to abate taxes for residents who are federal employees who were caught up in the 35-day government shutdown.

Also on the agenda was a proposal from the town administration to bring up the garage proposal again and ask the council to approve it.

Earlier this month, the council voted 4-0-3 to approve the project.

The councils three Democratic members abstained.

On Monday, the council voted 6-0-1 to approve the project.

Councilor Allan Waters was one of the members who initially abstained. Councilor Myron P. Johnson again abstained.

On Monday, Waters and fellow Democrat James Demetriades voted in favor to the plan.

We need it. Theres no two ways about it, Waters said of the project on Wednesday morning.

Waters is especially pleased that the garage would be built on town-owned land, so theres no $300,000 wed need to spend to buy it, because we already own it.

In an email Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Enzo Faienza thanked his colleagues for approving the project.

Im very pleased with the Town Councils decision for the reconsideration to the Board of Finance, he said. I hope the board will have a meeting in the near future so they can reconsider the proposal, and I hope we can all move on from here.

Town Manager Anthony Salvatore also said Tuesday, Im very pleased at the councils action.

And I hope the Board of Finance will act upon this in an expeditious manner, he said.

We have a contractor out there who is waiting for approval so he can lock this project into his schedule, Salvatore said.

Whats more, the town is anxious to take advantage of the 2019 construction season, Salvatore said.

These are reasons to keep this project moving forward at a timely pace, along with the favorable bond rates that we still can capture due to our AAA bond rating, Faienza added.

Salvatore said he and Director of Finance Marianne Sylvester are continuing to discuss options that we can bring to the Board of Finance to consider.
While on patrol Wednesday, Vice said he saw a woman walking down the middle of the road on Route 22 near Route 12. He said he stopped to ask what she was doing and mentioned that the weather conditions were dangerous, as is walking in the middle of a highway.
BRIDGEPORT  Charged with killing 12-year-old Clinton Howell in a drive-by shooting last month, 18-year-old Tajay Chambers waived a hearing on probable cause Tuesday morning.

Not guilty, Chambers said simply, when asked by Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin how he pleaded to the charges of murder with special circumstances, murder, use of a firearm during the commission of a felony, illegal carrying or possession of a pistol or revolver without a permit, three counts of risk of injury to a child, first-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree larceny.

Chambers then asked for a jury trial.

If convicted of murder with special circumstances, Chambers could be sentenced to life without the possibility of release.

In a hearing on probable cause, state prosecutors would have to present their evidence in the case before a judge to determine if they have probable cause to try Chambers for murder. However, Chambers lawyer, Michael Riley, told the judge they were waiving the hearing.

The judge continued the case to Feb. 22.

Riley declined comment as he left the Fairfield County Courthouse.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Dec. 18, Howell was standing outside his Willow Street home with an older cousin when he was shot in the chest. Police said Chambers had been aiming for the cousin, who had shot with BB gun at the stolen car Chambers was in.

An undocumented immigrant from Jamaica, Chambers joined his family in Bridgeport 18 months ago. Enrolling in September at Central High School, he quickly formed his own gang with 16-year-old Alexander Bolanos Jr. and a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old whose names are not being released, police said.

On Oct. 8, they attacked a 16-year-old boy in a stairwell of the high school, police said. Police said as the victim protested he was not involved in gang stuff, Chambers and associates pummeled him and then kicked him down the stairs.

Police said Chambers gang had a rivalry with a supposed gang from the citys East Side calling themselves the BGs or Blitz Gang, and both sides were using Facebook and Snapchat to trade boasts and insults.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Chambers told Police Detective Adam Roscoe that on Dec. 18, Bolanos and the two other youths had picked him up in a Ford Escape they had previously stolen on Madison Avenue. Chambers took over the driving and they went to a location in Stratford to make a sneaker trade. While driving back, Chambers received a Snapchat video on his cell phone from Howells cousin, who Chambers told the detective is a member of the BGs.

In the video (the cousin) showed them the Willow Street sign and they understood this to be a dare or challenge. Chambers stated that after receiving the video he said, they just hit me, they are on Willow,  the affidavit states.

With Bolanos now at the wheel, the four drove to Willow Street.

At first, they didnt see any BG members, so they drove around the block twice, the affidavit states. On the third pass, they saw Howells cousin who they believed to be one of the captains of the BGs. He was coming back from the corner store with the younger Howell.

When the cousin saw them, he fired at them with a pellet gun, the affidavit states. Bolanos then drove to the end of the block and made a U-turn. One of the other youths in the car handed Chambers a loaded 9mm handgun and Chambers told the detective he extended his hand out the rear passenger window and fired twice.

I didnt know that he was 12 years old, police said Chambers told them. He said he didnt know he shot someone until he saw it on the website Doing It Local.

Police said they later recovered the gun used in the shooting.
MIDDLETOWN  ARTFARM's Circus for a Fragile Planet is back with a brand new show which delivers a powerful portion of climate science in a circus package.

Professor Offli Varminhere and the Fossil Fools use comedy, acrobatics, juggling, stilting and other circus artistry to engage the audience around pressing issues facing us all today, asking questions like "What can I do to lessen the inevitable impacts of climate change on my community and the planet?"

The 70-minute performance appeals to all ages, and the show is available to tour to schools, theaters and festivals. Performances are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 2 at Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown.

This is the third iteration of Circus for a Fragile Planet, and the first to exclusively look at climate change, its impacts, and the steps that we can take as individuals, schools and communities to mitigate and adapt to the changes that are happening to our planet. The show is aimed at a 4th to 6th grade audience, but people of all ages will emerge inspired and energized to take their role as world citizens more seriously.

Tickets for Circus for a Fragile Planet are $10 for adults, $5 for students, or $25 for an entire family. Tickets may be purchased in advance at oddfellowsplayhouse.ticketleap.com, reserved by calling 860- 347-6143, and should be available at the door. Oddfellows Playhouse is located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown.

Educators and PTO members interested in bringing Circus for a Fragile Planet to their school may contact info@art-farm.org for information and to receive a complimentary ticket to one of the shows Saturday.

ARTFARM is a Middletown-based non-profit theater company which cultivates high-quality theater with a commitment to simple living, environmental sustainability and social justice. This performance is part of the ongoing Oddfellows Playhouse Presents series of guest performances presented at Oddfellows.
CASS CITY -- Hills & Dales General Hospital will host a free American Heart Association Family & Friends CPR class later this month.

The class will run from 10 a.m. to noon on Feb. 23 at the Regional Education Center located at 6667 Main St. in Cass City. This class is intended for anyone who wants to learn CPR, and does not need a course completion card for a job or other requirements.
Miami, FL (33127)

Today

Overcast with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly this evening. Low near 80F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Overcast with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly this evening. Low near 80F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
 Repairing the village water fountain that vandals damaged in 2018. The cost of a new fountain and a steel railing around it are estimated to be just shy of $39,000. The fountain was replaced last year and the railing is expected to be installed in mid-February.
The Walgreens where Gibson works at Willow Springs and Joliet roads, as well as the stores in Hinsdale and La Grange, planned to be open their usual hours, which is until 9 p.m. in Hinsdale, 10 p.m. in Indian Head Park and 11 p.m. in La Grange. The pharmacy in the La Grange Walgreens is scheduled to close at 9 p.m.
The owner decided to be open for part of the day, Mazur said. Residents headed into work have been stopping by to get coffee, but it has been "a little less than usual," he said.
How many times have we read in the newspaper and heard on television that Chicago aldermen are upset because they heard of corruption in the police force, in the fire department or in the city water department. All over the city its corruption, corruption, corruption. So, I guess their turn might be coming up.
A couple miles west on 95th Street at the Oak Lawn Home Depot, a sales associate said the store had run out of both salt and snow blowers in recent days. The store has since received a fresh shipment of salt, which was stacked near the entrance, but it wont be getting in any more snow blowers this season, he said.
Sometimes, whether a school is in a rural or urban area doesnt seem to factor as much into decisions as one might imagine. Conventional wisdom might lead one to believe that blowing and drifting snow would have a greater potential impact on safety in open areas.
Funeral services for Mrs. Deloris Broadhead will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 19, 2021, at Robert Barham Family Funeral Home, with Bro. Randall Sims and Bro. Lane Busbee officiating. Burial will be held at Graham Cemetery. Robert Barham Family Funeral Home is honored to be entrusted wi
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.

Jan. 30, 2019

Beth Ulrich

Mastering Precepting, Second Edition: A Nurse's Handbook for Success

By Beth Ulrich , EdD, RN, FACHE, FAAN

, EdD, RN, FACHE, FAAN Published by Sigma, 2018

ISBN-13: 9781945157868

EPUB ISBN: 9781945157875

PDF ISBN: 9781945157882

MOBI ISBN: 9781945157899

Price: US $49.95 .

. Trade paperback, 400 pages.

Trim size: 8 x 10

Beth Ulrich

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

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the United States

Wales

/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Nurse preceptors are the essential link between what nurses are taught and what they need to know. Competent preceptors are critical to educating nursing students, transitioning new graduate nurses to the professional nursing role, and transitioning experienced nurses to new roles and specialties. Since the first edition was published, the importance of having preceptors and the need to educate and support RNs who transition into the preceptor role has increased.In this second edition, published by the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (Sigma), each chapter has been updated with the most recent precepting evidence and two new chapters have been added."Precepting is a complex endeavor that requires competence and commitment," said author, EdD, RN, FACHE, FAAN, who has witnessed firsthand the importance of precepting and well-constructed preceptor programs in improving patient care. "By becoming a preceptor, you have accepted the professional responsibility of sharing your knowledge and expertise with others. There is no greater contribution to nursing and to patient care than to ensure the competence of the next generation of nurses."This book is available at http://www.sigmamarketplace.org/sigmabooks.About the author:, EdD, RN, FACHE, FAAN, is a professor at the Cizik School of Nursing at The, teaching in the DNP program, and editor of the Nephrology Nursing Journal, the professional journal of the American Nephrology Nurses Association.###The Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (Sigma) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is advancing world health and celebrating nursing excellence in scholarship, leadership, and service. Founded in 1922, Sigma has more than 135,000 active members in over 90 countries and territories. Members include practicing nurses, instructors, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and others. Sigma's more than 530 chapters are located at more than 700 institutions of higher education throughout, andLearn more at http://www.SigmaNursing.org.SOURCE Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing
As many as 28.3 million people will likely switch insurance carriers this year from the major brands -- Allstate, State Farm, Geico and Progressive -- according to new data from consumer intelligence platform Resonate.

Thats nearly half the churn of consumers the total car and property insurance industry will face. Even in a rapidly changing world, thats significant.

Resonate has a few suggestions based on its analysis. One is that in a business built on relationships with friendly neighborhood agents, insurance companies now need strong mobile apps to keep and build their base. Those apps make it easy to do business with the insurance company -- and possibly sidestep the agent altogether, an increasingly attractive element.

A big part of the reason for that is generational, says Steve Touhill, executive director at Resonate. Its easy for someone involved in a crash, for example, to take cell phone photos of the damage and upload it via an app. But more than other age groups, millennials and Generation Z, who live a lot of their lives via smartphones, cant imagine it any other way.

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Whether its your car or leaky pipe in your house or youve got to get your roof fixed, you take a picture, you call the claims guy, they have to set up an appointment, Touhill says, recalling the old way to deal with a problem that insurance covers.

Compare that experience to what consumers are becoming accustomed to in the world of ecommerce. If you can, at the accident scene itself, take a photo of that and upload it and file your claim from that spot, thats a big benefit.

An easy app might only be considered a way for a company to save money, says Ericka Podesta McCoy, CMO. But it could be the difference between churning and not churning.

Resonates real-time intelligence data is based on 250,000 respondents and thousands of questions, constantly updated and measured against its algorithm.

Studying its latest insurance data, for example, Resonate found that:

-- 8.3 million GEICO switchers are most likely to switch insurers due to rate increases rather than myriad other reasons.

--And, to get even more specific, Resonate says, The 6.6 million Allstate switchers are most likely to be found watching The Resident and A&E, spending time on Pinterest and reading Rolling Stone.

Thats actionable information, McCoy says, and companies ought to be paying attention to new ways to relate to their customers. Where is that true connection to a brand? she asks. Its not as sticky as it once was.
by Rob Williams , January 30, 2019

News of job cuts at BuzzFeed and HuffPost  two of the few top pure-play digital media companies ranked by Comscore  has rattled the publishing industry and revealed many interesting insightsabout its economics.

The simple lesson is that publishers need to give readers a reason to spend more time with value-added news and information, and not with freely available user-generated content, the essence of social media.

Matthew Perpetua, BuzzFeeds director of quizzes until getting cut this week, discussed these market dynamics in a blog post. In the recent past, the second-highest traffic driver worldwide has been a community user in Michigan, a teenager in college who, for some reason, makes dozens of quizzes every week.

Thats right, a volunteer who has nothing better to do on campus than to write quizzes like Which Pop Diva Are You? or Would a Teen Think Youre Cool? is a web-traffic genius. Call me old-fashioned, but don't college students have anything better to do, like going to keg parties or smoking tons of weed?

Anyone who is competing with volunteers for their very professional existence needs to re-think whether they want to be in the business of creating content.

Unfortunately, much of the media industry faces a similar existential threat because its competing with platforms like Facebook and Google that dont have to pay for content. Theyre all in the business of seeking the limited attention of media consumers, many unmoved by news and information about anything outside their immediate social circle.

Facebook peddles in peoples pictures of vacations, pets and grandkids  emotional pull is far greater than most professionally produced content. Smartphones level the playing field, letting consumers swipe past important, award-winning journalism as quickly as they scan pictures and posts from family and friends.

Google search results consistently point straight to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia written mostly by volunteers. Google.org, the search giants charitable unit, has made token donations to the nonprofit Wikimedia Endowment and supplied technical support over the years. Google likely gets far more value from Wikipedia and its volunteers than any other company.

For advertisers, the key disadvantage to user-generated content is brand safety. Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube have had to put more time and money into policing content with algorithms and teams of human monitors.

BuzzFeed also devoted company resources that added value to platforms like Facebook and YouTube, as New York's Brian Feldman writes this week. But those platforms dont care whether BuzzFeed supplies the content or millions of unpaid people do.

Its kinda amazing how much revenue-generating traffic the site gets from unpaid community volunteers, former BuzzFeed employee Perpetua wrote in his blog. So, in a ruthless capitalist way, it makes sense for the company to pivot to having community users create almost all of the quizzes going forward. I understand math. I get it.
Last fall, Orland Parks Village Board approved Structured as the villages department partner, although the two still need to finalize a master development agreement that, among other things, will spell out the process and terms for the company to acquire the village-owned land as well as any financial incentives Structured is seeking from the village. The village and Structured have said they believe an agreement could be reached before the end of March.
by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, January 29, 2019

This week, two would-be challengers to Amazons e-tail crown were humbled in one fell swoop. When Walmart pulled its products off Google Express, the position of Amazon as the undisputed owner of online sales was further consolidated.

When Google introduced Express in 2013 and then expanded the delivery service to the primary U.S. metro areas in 2014, the company was aiming directly at Amazons Prime service. But in the past five years, Prime has flourished, and Express -- well, it appears to be expiring. It may join a growing list of other shuttered Google projects: Google Plus, Google Glass, Google Waves, Google Buzz -- you get the idea.

Walmart, for its part, has certainly grown its online sales, thanks to a buying spree to help beef up its online marketplace. But according to the most recent numbers I could find (July of 2018), Amazon owns 50% of all retail ecommerce sales compared to just 3.7% for Walmart. What is probably even more discouraging for the Big Box from Bentonville is that Amazons year-over-year growth kept pace with Walmart's, so it wasn't able to make up any lost ground.

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Why is Amazon dominating? In my humble opinion, this is not about technology or online platforms. This is about what happens on your doorstep. Amazon knows the importance of the Customer Moments of Truth.

The First Moment of Truth, as laid out in 2006 by former CEO of Procter & Gamble A.G. Lafley, is the moment a customer chooses a product over the other competitors offerings.



The Second Moment of Truth is when the customer makes the purchase and gets her hand on the product for the first time.

The Third Moment of Truth is when the customer shares her experience through feedback -- or, today, through social media.

Since Lafley first defined these moments of truth, there have been a few others added that I will get to in a minute, but lets focus on Moment One and Moment Two for now. Remember, a marketplace is really just a connection between producers and consumers. The home of Moments One and Two -- especially Moment Two -- is where Amazon is reimagining the Marketplace.

Amazon has out Walmarted Walmart at its own game. It has been all about logistics and consumer convenience in the Second Moment of Truth. Amazon has assembled a potent consumer offer that is very difficult to compete against, based on making the gap between Moment One and Moment Two as seamless as possible.

That brings us to another addition to these Moments of Truth: The Actual Moment of Truth, as defined by Amit Sharma, CEO and founder of Narvar. According to Sharma, this is the gap in online retail between when you hit the buy button and when the package hits your doorstep. Sharma has some street cred in this department. He helped engineer Walmarts next-generation supply chain before heading to Apple in 2010, where he oversaw the shipping and delivery experience.

Why is this gap important? That's because it is the black hole of customer intent: a pause button that has to be hit between purchase and physical fulfillment. Its this gap that Amazon has grabbed as its own.

Google hasnt been able to do the same. Why? Because Google failed to connect the physical and digital worlds. Amazon did, and reinvented the marketplace. And the company did this through branded fulfillment. That was the genius of Amazon, getting brown boxes with the ubiquitous Amazon Smile logo on your doorstep.

Yes, Amazon also ushered in the long tail of product selection, but that is an ephemeral ground to defend. Its the branding of the moment of delivery that has made Amazon the most valuable brand in the world, according to Brand Finance, a brand consultancy firm. And now it can extend that into new areas, seemingly at will. This is not so much a pivot as a sprawl. Its a digital land grab.

The final Moment of Truth is the ZMOT: The Zero Moment of Truth, as defined by Jim Lecinski, who was with Google at the time. According to Lecinski, the Zero Moment of Truth is the precise moment when they (the customers) have a need, intent or question they want answered online. This is -- and will continue to be -- Googles wheelhouse. But it remains firmly anchored in the digital world, far on the other side of the Actual Moment of Truth.

For Amazon, winning in online retail is all about Minding the Gap.
by Melynda Fuller , January 29, 2019

As anticipated last year, TicToc, Bloomberg Medias round-the-clock Twitter news network, launched as its own digital video platform Tuesday, according to Axios.

The network, which first appeared in December 2017, has spent the past year establishing its brand with expansions across podcasts, newsletters, live events and into international markets, like Hong Kong and London, growing its audience along the way.

The mobile-first iteration of TicToc will live on the site www.TicToc.video and features a feed-like interface with video offering users various options, including watching with or without sound with data, along with text and images tailored to a mobile news audience.

The videos, less than a minute each, allow viewers to digest information quickly. Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith described the new platform in a memo to staff, stating it will curate category-based playlists of TicToc videos, allowing viewers to get beyond the social feed and deeper into our quality content.

While TicToc still publishes to viewers social media feeds, the brand hopes to draw users directly to its site.

In that same memo to Bloomberg Medias global team, Smith addressed the success of TicToc and other products as the company exits a banner 2018.

TicToc continues to redefine news consumption for next-generation professionals who crave mobile-first video news they can trust, Smith wrote. He added that TicToc is now in more than 30 airports across the U.S. and Canada and is preparing the launch of its first foreign-language edition.

In addition to acknowledging todays launch, Smith wrote that Bloomberg Media anticipates that TicToc will stream on OTT platforms starting later this year.

Aside from TicToc, Bloomberg Media hit record revenue in 2018 with 16% year-over-year growth. According to Smiths memo, digital advertising revenue grew 15%, new digital format advertising rose by 44% and Bloomberg Live revenue jumped 82%.

Our priority for 2019 is to double-down on our strategy of innovation-based growth, Smith wrote. He cited four businesses poised for expansion and integration across the companys present lineup of products, platforms, services and teams.

Bloomberg Media projects double-digital year-over-year growth in 2019, with a strong first quarter expected.

Among those areas expected to expand are TicToc and The New Economy Forum, which the company wants to build into a year-round global media platform.

Bloomberg Media has also set the goal of increasing subscriptions by 60% in 2019, leveraging in-house data, group subscriptions and a bolstered customer service center. The company tripled its first-year subscriptions in 2018.

The company will focus on international expansion this year, with a new TV station set to launch this spring in Beijing and a second studio in Shanghai planned.

Bloomberg Media plans to pursue TV, digital content expansions in Israel, Switzerland, Middle East and Latin America.

Bloomberg LIVE events will expand globally as its Bloomberg Equality Summit launches in London and Dubai.

Smith concluded: Were pleased with our results in 2018, and confident in our ability to achieve another strong year of growth in 2019, despite the industrys challenges. Together weve created a new blueprint of a global, modern media company.


The plasma protein therapeutic market size across the globe accounted for USD xx.x billion in the historical year (2017) and is estimated to grow registering a CAGR of x.x % over the forecast period (2018-2025). Major factors expected to drive the plasma protein therapeutic market growth in upcoming years are endorsement of the product across several manifestation, growing research & development activities as well as rising demand for advanced therapeutic alternative.

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The global market of plasma protein therapeutic has been segmented by different product, application and geography. Further, product segment of the market is Immunoglobulin (IG), albumin, plasma-derived factor VIII and others. Immunoglobulin (IG) led the market in 2017 with major plasma protein therapeutic market share owing to the approval of biologics across several manifestation, easy administration as well as cost-effective treatment. Likewise, application segment of the market is sub-segmented into Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases (PID), Hemophilia and others.

Geographically, global plasma protein therapeutic market is led by North America and Europe, as large number of plasma for the plasma protein manufacture is collected in over 450 collection centers in the United States and Europe. Other key regions include Middle East & Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Some of the key players operating in the competitive edge of plasma protein therapeutic market include Octapharma AG, CSL Behring LLC, Grifols S.A., Shire Plc, Biotest AG, Bayer AG and Kedrion S.P.A. CSL Behring LLC dominated the global market in 2017, acquiring more than 20.0% of the overall market share.

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Furthermore, market is expected to remain competitive with large number of players focusing over innovative drug development as well as expanding the network of plasma collection. In addition, Grifols S.A. acquired around 24 plasma donor centers in the United States, in August 2018 that was operated by Biotest AG. Moreover, organizations are targeting over collaborations for expanding their product portfolio as well as regional presence & organizing clinical trials in order to boost their market share.

Key segments of the global plasma protein therapeutic market include:

Product Segment of plasma protein therapeutic market

Albumin

Immunoglobulin

Fibrinogen

Segment of plasma protein therapeutic market

Hemophilia

Primary Immunodeficiency Disorder (PID)

Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP)

Others

Geographical Segmentation of plasma protein therapeutic market

North America

S.

Canada

Europe

Germany

UK

Asia Pacific

Japan

China

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Middle East and Africa (MEA)

South Africa

Saudi Arabia

What to expect from the upcoming Global Plasma Protein Therapeutic Market analysis:

-Analysis over future prospects as well as Global Plasma Protein Therapeutic Market trends

 Information regarding technological progressions as well as innovations taking place in developing as well as developed economies and also various macro & microeconomic factors that affect the growth of the market.

 Supportive initiatives by government likely to influence the market dynamics.

 Key drivers influencing markets growth, opportunities, restraints, sales channels and distributors.

 In-depth analysis of different market segmentations including product, application and geographical regions.

 Deep analysis about the competitive landscape of the market and the initiatives by them to improve this market such as expansions, growth strategies, agreements, new product launches and acquisitions in the market

 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis

Who should buy this report?

 Report is especially designed for Venture capitalists, Investors, financial institutions, Analysts, Government organizations, regulatory authorities, policymakers, researchers, strategy

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The Global Particle Therapy Market is accounted for USD 790.45 million in 2017 and expected to register 9.1% CAGR during the forecast period (20182023). Particle therapy is one of the worlds most advanced areas of external beam radiation therapy applied to oncology. This technique saves healthier radiation tissue better than conventional photon therapy. These particles have more favorable physical intrinsic properties that reduce the intake dose to approximately 50% of the dose in a clinically relevant target.

The rising prevalence of cancer population, low risk of treatment induced disorders, potential for retreatment owing to low radiation dose, and rising number of particle therapy centers across the world are expected to drive the growth of the market. Moreover, rising R&D spending and aggressive strategies adopted by the top players such as new product launches are contributing to the growth of the market. For instance, in December 2017, Advanced Oncotherapy plc announced that it secures the fresh funding of USD 46.75 million from which USD 37.5 million of funds coming from a new Chinese investor. The lack of adequate reimbursement policy and high costs involved in the establishment of these centers may hamper the growth of the market during the assessment period.

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Key Players

Some of the key players in the global particle therapy market are Advanced Oncotherapy PLC., Danfysik A/S, Hitachi, Ltd., Ion Beam Applications Sa (IBA), Mevion Medical Systems, Inc., Optivus Proton Therapy, Inc., Protom International, Inc., Provision Healthcare, LLC, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., Varian Medical Systems, Inc.

Segmentation:

The Global Particle Therapy Market has been segmented on the basis of type, product & service, cancer type, system, and application.On the basis of type, the market has been classified as proton therapy and heavy ion therapy. The market, by product and services, has been segmented into products and services. Products are further segmented into cyclotrons, synchrotrons, and synchrocyclotrons. Based on cancer type, the market has been segmented into prostate cancer, lung cancer, pediatric cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, and others. The market, by system, has been segmented into multi-room systems and single-room systems. On the basis of application, the market has been classified as treatment applications and research applications. The pediatric cancer segment is expected to hold the largest market share of the particle therapy market, by cancer type, during the forecast period. Also, research applications to register the highest CAGR in the global particle therapy market during the forecast period.

The market has been segmented, by region, into the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. The particle therapy market in the Americas has further been segmented into North America and South America, with the North American market divided into the US and Canada. The European particle therapy market has been segmented into Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Western Europe has further been classified as Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe. The particle therapy market in Asia-Pacific has been segmented into Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. The particle therapy market in the Middle East & Africa has been segmented into the Middle East and Africa.

Regional Market Summary

The Americas are likely to dominate the global particle therapy market owing to the rising prevalence of cancer patient, increasing funding & investments by manufacturer, and government focused for establishment of centers for treatment. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2018, around 1,735,350 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and 609,640 people will die from the disease.

The European market is expected to be the second-largest Particle Therapy market. The market growth in this region can be attributed to government funding and support of the healthcare sector coupled with increasing research and development. Moreover, favorable reimbursement policies in European countries are contributing to the growth of the market in this region.

Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing particle therapy market during the forecast period owing to the increasing prevalence of cancer, rising investments in healthcare and expansions by market players in the region. Also, country such as India and China are considering fastest growing region due to the presence of huge patient population. Moreover, the government of these countries are open to adopt new technology, and best treatment option from a developed country. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in 2018, India has a prevalence of 173.5 cancer patients per 100,000 population. Moreover, in China, the prevalence rate of cancer was 377.6 patients per 100,000 population in 2018.

The market in the Middle East & Africa is expected to account for the smallest share of the global Particle Therapy market due to an underdeveloped healthcare sector, lack of technical knowledge, and poor medical facilities.

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A cannabinoid is a class of chemical compounds that change the neurotransmitter release in the brain by acting on cannabinoid receptors in the cells. Cannabinoids are derived from plants and are also referred to as the phytocannabinoids. Majority of the cannabinoids available for cannabinoid therapy are cannabis-driven, but there are several different plants from which cannabinoids can be derived as well. Approximately 70 plant compounds are identified for cannabinoids. Majority of these cannabinoids exhibit pharmacological activity and also at times, psychoactive effects. According to the study by Mechoulam and Hanus (2000), delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is the most intensively researched cannabinoid and exhibits the greatest psychoactivity among all the available cannabinoids. Cannabinoid therapy includes the use of these chemical compounds for various cancer cases, neuropathic disorders, spasticity conditions and is used for sedation as well. Legalization of the consumption of cannabis has increased the production and research related to cannabinoids. In the U.S., the District of Columbia and nine other states permit the use of recreational marijuana. Canada legalized the consumption of recreational marijuana in 2018. Cannabinoid therapy is being extensively used for sedation and treating nausea conditions in unfavorable environment.

Cannabinoid Therapy Market: Drivers

The growing popularity of cannabis among the youth and legalization of recreational cannabis globally are the major factors responsible for driving the cannabinoid therapy market. Increasing incidences of multiple sclerosis spasticity, anorexia nervosa related to HIV/AIDS, nausea, and cancer are also contributing to the demand for cannabinoid therapy during the forecast period. The first FDA-approved cannabis drug has been launched and several cannabinoid therapies are on the receiving end of FDA approval. This factor might also drive the cannabinoid therapy market during the forecast period. Legal issues and cannabis-related abuse might hinder the market growth of cannabinoid therapy. Certain side effects related to the use of cannabinoids like, hallucinations, lung problems, impaired mental functioning, blood pressure problems, etc. might also hinder the market for cannabinoid therapy during the forecast period.

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Cannabinoid Therapy Market: Segmentation

Tentatively, the global cannabinoid therapy market can be segmented on the basis of Cephalometric X-ray type, technology, product type, end users, and geography.

Based on therapy type, the global cannabinoid therapy market is segmented as:

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)

Cannabidiol (CBD)

Cannabinol (CBN)

Others

Based on product type, the global cannabinoid therapy market is segmented as:

Oils

Capsules

Isolates

E-liquids

Topicals

Others

Based on applications, the global cannabinoid therapy market is segmented as:

Cannabinoid therapy for cancer

Cannabinoid therapy for spasticity

Cannabinoid therapy for neuropathic disorders

Others

Based on end users, the global cannabinoid therapy market is segmented as:

Hospitals

Cancer Centers

Military Healthcare Settings

Rehabilitation Centers

Others

Based on geography, the global cannabinoid therapy market is segmented as:

North America

Latin America

Europe

Japan

CIS & Russia

APEJ

Middle East & Africa

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Cannabinoid Therapy Market: Overview

Epidiolex, which is manufactured by the United Kingdom-based company called GW Pharmaceuticals is the first ever marijuana-based medication that got approved by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and has become available for sale in all the 50 states in 2018. Cannabinoid therapy is being efficiently used for various neuropathic syndromes as well as epileptic conditions like Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Tetrahydrocannabinol is the most common cannabinoid therapy product that is available in the market. Many synthetic cannabinoids have been previously approved by the FDA. Manufacturers dealing with the cannabinoid therapy market are also focused on combining THC and CBD to develop drugs for the treatment of conditions like muscle spasms and stiffness which are associated with multiple sclerosis. Sativex, a combination of CBD and THC is a cannabis-derived and FDA-approved drug. Cannabinoid therapy is also highly popular among cancer patients for easing symptoms or side effects caused by treatments like chemotherapy.

Cannabinoid Therapy Market: Regional Outlook

North Americas cannabinoid therapy market is expected to grow the fastest over the period of forecast owing to the continued adoption and high FDA approval rate of the cannabinoid therapy in the region. Development of technologically-advanced cannabinoid therapy in the region is also expected to boost the market growth of cannabinoid therapy in the region. Europes cannabinoid therapy market is also anticipated to grow at a robust growth rate during the period of forecast because of increased demand and supply of cannabis-derived cannabinoids. The Asia-Pacific cannabinoid therapy market is estimated to grow at a decent rate during the period of forecast owing to the legal issues regarding the use of cannabis and low awareness about cannabinoid therapy.

Cannabinoid Therapy Market: Key Players

The major market participants operating in the global cannabinoid therapy market are Zynerba Pharmaceuticals, Cannabics Pharmaceuticals Inc., GW Pharmaceuticals PLC., Enecta, Alpha-CAT, Teewinot Life Sciences, Tilray, GD Pharma, Cyrelian Pty Ltd., Cape Bouvard Technologies Pty Ltd, MedReleaf Australia, and AusCann Group Holdings Pty Ltd.

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Definite causes for the development of autoimmune diseases have not been identified. Thus, the emphasis is on the early diagnosis of the disease. Increasing awareness coupled with large-scale prevalence is likely to aid the proliferation of the autoimmune disease treatment market in the foreseeable future.

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Expenditures for the treatment of these diseases are on the rise and is poised to exhibit a similar trend in the forthcoming years. As per the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S., the healthcare expenditure for autoimmune diseases has reached half of that of the cancer expenditure. Furthermore, the introduction of favorable policies for insurance reimbursements are anticipated to augment the market over the next couple of years. However, factors such as side effects, counterfeit drugs, and expensiveness of the treatment are forecasted to check the expansion of the autoimmune disease treatment market across the review period.

Autoimmune Disease Treatment Market  Segmental Analysis:

By disease type, the global autoimmune disease treatment market has been segmented into localized, and systemic. The localized segment is further sub-segmented into multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, and other. The systemic segment is sub-segmented into rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, and others.

By diagnosis, the autoimmune disease treatment market has been segmented into ELISA, dot blot, line blot, agglutination, double immune diffusion, western blotting, multiplex immunoassay, and others.

By therapeutic products, the global autoimmune disease treatment market has been segmented into drugs and therapeutic and monitoring equipment. The drugs segment is further sub-segmented into biologics, immunosuppressant, anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

By distribution channel, the autoimmune disease treatment market is segmented into hospitals & clinics, diagnostic centers, drug stores, pharmacies, and others.

Regional Outlook:

The regional analysis of the autoimmune disease treatment market spans across Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa. Americas signifies a huge potential for growth owing to increasing patient population. In addition, the increase witnessed in the expenditures associated with medical facilities is prognosticated to favor the expansion of the market over the next couple of years. The region has been estimated to gain control over the largest share of the global autoimmune disease treatment market in the forthcoming years.

The government of Europe has extended firm support in favor of research & development in the healthcare sector. This, in turn, is likely to pave the way for the growth of the autoimmune disease treatment market in the region. It is expected to place the region on the second spot globally over 2023.

Asia Pacific has unleashed immense opportunities in the market through rapid developments witnessed in the healthcare sector. The population has also created a positive influence on the growth of the autoimmune disease treatment market by increasing its healthcare expenditures.

Autoimmune Disease Treatment Market  Competitive Dashboard:

Some of the prominent players profiled in this MRFR report are Abbott Laboratories, Genentech Inc., Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Amgen Inc., Biogen Idec Inc., Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Danaher, Bio-Rad, Elan Corporation Plc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, HYCOR Biomedical, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson Inc., Siemens, Squibb Company, Merck & Co. Inc., and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Industry News:

In January 2019, Cabaletta Bio, launched out of the University of Pennsylvania, has raised USD 50 Mn for the treatment of for cell-based autoimmune disease.

In January 2019, Banner Life Sciences LLC, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company, has received tentative approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for BAFIERTAM developed for the treatment of relapsing forms of Multiple Sclerosis.

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The expected arctic blast of sub-zero wind chills was enough for Crawford County's school districts to cancel classes for today.

Crawford Central, Conneaut, PENNCREST and Titusville schools all announced closings Tuesday afternoon and the Crawford County Career & Technical Center also is closed.

Crawford Central said it would make any decision for delays or cancellations for Thursday this afternoon.

Allegheny College announced around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday that no classes will be held today and all administrative offices will be closed today. Residence halls and student dining facilities will remain open, and limited shuttle service will be available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

On Monday, Edinboro University announced it was canceling classes for today and Thursday.

Pets need protection from cold weather too With a wind chill warning in effect for Crawford and Erie counties and parts of northeastern

The National Weather Service in Cleveland said dangerously cold wind chills are expected to reach minus-35 degrees by daybreak today and temperatures likely staying below zero.

Tonight's lows, according to the NWS forecast, are for low temperatures "well below zero" and the coldest wind chills of this stretch are expected. Wind chill readings could be as cold as minus-35 degrees to minus-40 degrees by daybreak, which would yield frostbite in as little as 10 minutes.

Thursday's temperatures improve with highs in the single-digits. The weather service expects wind chills to go above minus-20 degrees by Thursday afternoon and continue to improve Thursday night.

In advance of today's closings, Crawford Central School District explained its procedures for determining whether a delay or closings are necessary because of inclement weather  including extremely low temperatures.

Superintendent Tom Washington said those procedures always involve consulting with officials from Conneaut and PENNCREST school districts, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and representatives of local municipalities as well, Washington said.

This is winter in northwestern Pennsylvania, he said Monday. Were constantly watching it. Its just a part of our routine.

Even with wind-chill factors expected to dip below minus-30 degrees, that routine remains the same, according to Washington.

Well apply our procedures as we normally would, he said.

Decisions regarding delays and closures take into consideration the extent and severity of the conditions expected as well as the progression expected over the course of the school day, Washington said.

As soon as a decision is made, the district contacts all student families through its automated call system and also publicizes the announcement through social media, Washington said.
Meadville, PA (16335)

Today

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
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Articles Decatur man pointing gun at Douglasville police officer shot to death

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Fulton County public school students can look forward to seeing a number of changes planned for the 2019-20 academic year, but one of the newe
Businessman Trey Kelly was re-elected for a third term as the Fulton County Republican Partys chair along with a slate of other officers at t
With snow in the forecast for Tuesday, all four local school districts and two local governments' offices are closing that day.
According to authorities, McCray had been staying with his father at the apartment complex. Around 3 p.m., he walked outside and got into a car with Foster and another man. The trio smoked marijuana together before Foster allegedly pulled out a .45-caliber handgun and shot McCray, prosecutors said.
Ugandas coffee exports in December 2018 amounted to about 314.4 60-kilo bags earning the country the much needed foreign exchange of US $32.41 million, according to Uganda Development Coffee Authority (UCDA) says in its latest report. But the figures represented a decrease of 18.51 per cent and 24.06 per cent in quantity and value respectively from the same month in 2017.

By comparing quantity of coffee exported by type in the same month of last coffee year (December 2017/18 and 2018/19), Robusta registered a percentage decrease in both quantity and value (16.51 per cent and 22.67 per cent) respectively.

Arabica exports also registered a percentage decrease in both quantity and value -24.71 per cent and 27.35 per cent respectively.

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Coffee exports for the last 12 months (January 2018- December 2018) amounted to 4.17 million bags worth US $ 436 million compared to 4.77 million worth US $555 million the previous year, a 12.58 per cent and 21.30 per cent reduction in both quantity and value respectively . Some of the factors that led to this were: Low global prices on account of higher crop in Brazil which affected export prices and high stocks at exporter and farm level.

The destinations of Ugandas coffee exports during the month of December 2018 were; Germany had the highest market share with 23.81 per cent compared to 25.12 per cent in November, it was followed by Switzerland with 21.14 per cent compared to 5.52 in November, Italy 6.67 per cent compared to 27.78 per cent in November, India had 5.45 per cent share compared (2.93) in November while the USA had 5.41 per cent compared to 1.18 per cent in November.

Coffee exports to Africa amounted to 14,904 bags, a market share of 4.74 per cent compared to 60,699 (20.70 per cent) bags in November. The figures in brackets represent percentage market share held in November 2018.

World coffee exports increased by 5.7 per cent to 9.88 million bags in November 2018, compared with 9.35 million in November 2017. The 2018/19 global production is expected to be 167.47 million exceeding world consumption at 165.15 million bags.
Roswell, GA (30075)

Today

A few clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 71F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

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A few clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 71F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced the Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act, legislation that would provide responsible management of the wild horse population around Corolla, North Carolina and the Outer Banks. Representative Walter Jones (R-NC) introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives in previous Congresses and has been a long time champion of protecting the Corolla wild horse population.

A cherished part of our states history and an admired attraction, thousands of tourists visit North Carolinas beaches each year to witness the majestic nature of the Corolla horses, said Tillis. This legislation will take the necessary and proper steps in protecting the health and safety of the wild animals and their habitat, while encouraging continued tourism and economic investment for our local coastal communities.

The Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the State of North Carolina, Currituck County and the Corolla Wild Horse Fund to craft a new management plan to care for the wild horses that inhabit the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
According to the latest report, Lake James continues to have good water quality but that could be threatened by the trash coming into it, particularly the amount coming from the McDowell side.

Any amount of man-made litter or trash in Lake James or its watershed is too much, given that unlike many other environmental threats, this is one threat that is easily preventable, reads the State of Lake James Watershed Report. Lake James is being overwhelmed with trash, especially on the western (McDowell) side where two thirds of its total water volume enters the lake. This problem is all the more shocking given that Lake James is a headwaters lake and that it drains a mostly rural area.

On Monday, Jan. 14, the Lake James Environmental Association held its annual meeting at Catawba Brewing in Morganton. President Todd Bell said the event had great attendance and the members there heard the latest State of Lake James Watershed report.

Last year, the LJEA embarked on an initiative to put together a State of the Watershed Report to help identify what issues truly are or are not threats at this time and put the findings into a 10-year strategy. LJEA will use this watershed assessment to identify, seek funding for, and execute projects necessary to keep the Lake James Watershed the beautiful and healthy place it is.
RALEIGH The North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) welcomes lawmakers back to Raleigh and is ready for the opportunity to work with members of the House and Senate to ensure the states students and public schools are successful.

Currently, North Carolina ranks 39th in per-pupil funding, more than $2,300 per student behind the national average, and ranks 37th in average teacher pay, more than $9,600 behind the national average. Its time for much-needed change, said NCAE President Mark Jewell.

Our students deserve every opportunity to be successful. North Carolinas voters made it clear last November that public education is a top priority. What students need are resources, professionally compensated educators, and learning environments that are safe, healthy places in which they can flourish.

NCAE recently released its 2019 Legislative Priorities, which are geared toward making public schools great. The Association strongly urges lawmakers to consider these priorities: boost per-pupil funding to the national average in four years, invest in health and well-being of students, implement a multiyear professional compensation and benefits plan for all educators, pass a $1.9 billion statewide school construction bond, and eliminate corporate tax cuts until per-pupil spending and teacher pay reach the national average.
Tobacco is a highly addictive product, and close to 95 percent of smokers try their first cigarette by the age of 21. More must be done to prevent and reduce youth tobacco use in North Carolina, and one powerful tool is increasing the minimum age of sale for tobacco products to 21.

Nearly all adult smokers had their first cigarette before age 21, and most before the age of 18, but we can change this in North Carolina by increasing the age of sale for tobacco products to at least 21 years old. This move would significantly reduce youth tobacco use, slow the e-cigarette epidemic and save thousands of lives, said Deen.

Nationwide, increasing the age of sale of tobacco to 21 would prevent 223,000 deaths among people born between 2000 and 2019, including 50,000 fewer dying from lung cancer  the nations leading cancer killer, said Deen.

The U.S. Surgeon General has concluded there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Comprehensive smoke-free laws eliminate smoking in all public places and workplaces.

This health protection would benefit everyone and is especially critical for those who work in the service and manufacturing sectors and are often exposed to secondhand smoke. A person should not have to choose between their health and their job. said Deen.

State of Tobacco Control 2019 provides a blueprint that states and the federal government can follow to adopt proven policies that will have the greatest impact on reducing tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke in the U.S.
An Old Fort man was arrested and charged after deputies responding to a break-in and domestic dispute found meth on the suspect while he was detained, authorities said Wednesday.

Deputy Gioia Holland of the McDowell County Sheriffs Office charged Daniel Ted Stewart, 32, address listed as Vernon Bradley Road in Old Fort, with possession of methamphetamine.

Stewart was also served with an outstanding warrant for larceny of a motor vehicle.

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On the morning of Friday, Jan. 4, Holland was called to Foothills Industries, on Rockwell Drive in Marion, in reference to a break-in and domestic dispute.

When the deputy arrived on the scene, Marion police officers had Stewart detained.

A subsequent search of his person and belongings yielded .80 gram of methamphetamine.

Stewart was previously charged by the Sheriffs Office following the theft of a 2003 Saturn from Cody Bradshaw of Old Fort, reported on Dec. 6.

Stewarts bond for the latest charge was set at $21,000.
With classes canceled at area schools because of the dangerously cold weather, activities and programs were interrupted and school officials have already begun to rework the academic calendar, forewarning that the school year will be a few days longer.
Viola Caudill, 85, a resident of the Gowen Community passed away Thursday June 10, 2021 at home. A Graveside service will be held a 11:00 AM Monday June 14, 2021 in the Pavilion at Bache-Red Oak Cemetery. There will be a family and friends visitation on Sunday June 13, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7:
Worcester could soon see its first adult-use marijuana grown in the city, as the states Cannabis Control Commission on Wednesday authorized Temescal Wellness to begin cultivation and product manufacturing on Feb. 3.

Temescal Wellness has already received authorization to operate adult-use cannabis shops in Pittsfield and Hudson. The Pittsfield store opened on Jan. 15. An opening date has not yet been set for Hudson.

Temescal Wellness already operates a cultivation business at 141 SW Cutoff in Worcester.

That location does not have a retail component.

Recently, cultivators at Temescals Worcester facility have been amping up growth efforts in order to keep up with the growing demand for adult-use cannabis.

Chris Cover, Temescals digital media marketer and marketing manager, said it will likely be a few days after Feb. 3 until the facility begins to cultivate.

This is the final piece that really completes our vertical integration in Massachusetts, providing the seed to sale process, Cover said.

It also means new manufactured products, like cannabis-infused lotions, he said.

This does also ensure that our medical patients will continue to get a consistent supple of high quality cannabis medicine, Cover added.

The city has entered negotiations with five marijuana retail establishments, two marijuana cultivation facilities, one product manufacturing business and one microbusiness -- all in addition to Temescals cultivation facility.

All of those operations could mean the creation 225 jobs and substantial tax revenue for the city.

Worcester is required by state law to allow for 15 marijuana retail establishments.
A plan to bring a 1920s-theme restaurant the Worcesters Hanover Theatre has likely fallen through, according to the Boston restauranteur who was planning to open the establishment.

Chris Rassias, owner of The Fairmount Grille in Boston, had been planning to open the restaurant  Josephine  inside the first floor of the Hanovers Main Street Conservatory and Event Center.

When reached by phone Wednesday, Rassias said plans for the restaurant are on hold indefinitely.

We couldnt get the financing to match up with the bank and city and everyone else, he said. It just didnt work out, but maybe there will be something in the future.

The Hanover announced plans for the restaurant in November 2017. Construction was originally set to begin that winter, with a projected opening date of spring 2018.

Troy Siebels, president and CEO of The Hanover, said the plans fell through last month.

Were still committed to a restaurant in that space. We are disappointed that this fell apart, but I think ultimately we will end up in a better place, he said. The landscape has changed so much since we first went out and started to looking for restaurant partners.

Siebels said The Hanover has received interest in the space from restauranteurs and has a few loose prospects.

I think were flexible, and are looking for something that works well with the theater audiences and that attracts an audience on non-show nights, he said.

While Siebels said Josephine would have been a good fit, there are other options, as well.

The name of the restaurant was in honor of Josephine Baker, an entertainer, and activist who was extremely popular during the 1920s in France. The actress had a renaissance-type style, which matches the Hanover Theatre, Rassias previously told MassLive.

Going forward, Siebels said he hopes to find a restaurant that will be synergistic with both The Hanover and the downtown.
Joseph Herman admitted in federal court Wednesday to using drug money belonging to former Worcester restaurateur Kevin A. Perry Jr. to open The Chameleon restaurant on Shrewsbury Street just months after The Usual shut down following Perrys arrest.

The scheme began in 2016 when Perry used drug money to open The Usual, a new restaurant on Worcesters popular Shrewsbury Street. Herman was the restaurants manager.

Herman, 37, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, false statements and attempted tampering with a witness. He was indicted in February 2018 and pleaded not guilty at the time.

When asked Wednesday if he was pleading guilty because he was guilty, Herman, wearing a blue suit and tie from the witness stand, responded yes, sir.

He is scheduled to be sentenced May 28.

Hermans money laundering activity involved more than $150,000 but less than $250,000, according to court records.

Herman began working as the manager of The Usual around October 2016, when the restaurant opened, expected to become another hot spot along Shrewsbury Street amid a renaissance of dining and development in the city.

But the restaurants success was short-lived. The fallout began when Perry was arrested on March 20, 2017, for several charges including money laundering. Authorities revealed in an indictment that Perry purchased nine properties, including The Usual, using funds from drug sales.

The Usual closed a few months later.

Following Perrys arrest, officials allege that Herman and Perrys wife, Stacey Gala, used money from Kevin Perrys drug sales to re-open The Usual restaurant as a new concept called The Chameleon.

In or about May 2017, Perry told Gala that he had hidden approximately $260,000 in a self-storage locker in Northborough, Massachusetts. The money consisted of Perrys drug proceeds, the indictment said. Gala told Herman about the money and, eventually, Herman and another individual, [Christopher Slavinskas], removed over $200,000 from the self-storage locker in which Perry had concealed the drug proceeds prior to his arrest.

Slavinskas was another Worcester restaurateur charged in the scheme.

When Herman appeared before the Worcester License Commission in July 2017, he lied to the commission, authorities said, falsely saying he invested $40,000 of his own money to renovate The Chameleon.

The Chameleon opened, and Herman and Gala used drug proceeds to partially fund the restaurant until September 2017, officials said.

Investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration interviewed Herman on Aug. 3, 2017, and Herman lied to the investigators about his involvement with hiding and spending Perrys drug proceeds.

In fact, Herman coordinated the concealment of at least $330,000 of additional drug proceeds and personally spent more than $40,000 of those proceeds, federal officials wrote in the indictment.

Last March, Slavinskas, admitted to hiding a black toolbox containing more than $300,000 of Perrys drug money in a church and using $20,000 of the funds to pay for a vacation to Atlantic City.

Slavinskas admitted to removing about $80,000 from the toolbox, about $20,000 of which was used so Slavinskas and Herman could take two women on a vacation to Atlantic City, federal officials said.

Slavinskas pleaded guilty to a charge of false statements. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16.

Herman advised Slavinskas to lie to federal authorities when Slavinskas was summonsed to testify to a federal grand jury in September 2017 regarding his involvement with removing the drug funds from the storage locker.

Galas case is pending trial, which is scheduled for May 6. Prosecutor Greg A. Friedholm referred to Gala as Perrys former wife.

Perry filed for divorce last year, but the case was dismissed after neither he or Gala appeared in court, records show.

Perry pleaded guilty in 2017 and was sentenced last year to serve 14 years for money laundering and drug charges.

It was not the first time Perry faced drug charges. In 2005, Perry was convicted in federal court of selling and manufacturing ecstasy. After his release in 2008, Perry returned to selling drugs.
The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered a subcontractor for Worcesters new luxury apartments at 145 Front St. to pay $158,000 in back wages to 50 employees.

The company, P&B Partitions Inc. of New Jersey, was found to have paid employees  including laborers, dry wall hangers, carpenters and a lull operator  straight time in cash when they worked overtime hours, according to the Department of Labor.

P&B Partitions worked on 145 Front, located in the CitySquare development, between August 2016 and April 2018.

The investigation began after the Worcester Carpenters Union filed a complaint in April 2017. In a statement, the union said all of the theft victims were people of color, primarily Latino.

This is very good news for these workers, but it is also another loud warning bell for our city as well as local and state leaders. The wage theft business model perpetuates itself because it is profitable, David Minasian, business manager for Carpenters Local 336, said in a statement.

Minasian said the union was concerned when property owner Mack-Cali Realty hired Erland Construction to build the project. The union was also worried when P&B Partitions was hired as a subcontractor, as Minasian said the company has a history of avoiding wage and hour laws.

There is no Worcester renaissance if our new downtown and Worcesters future are being built at the expense of taxpayers or the carpenters who build it, he said. Worcester is better than this.

The compliant began with five carpenters and grew to a group of 12 signed complaints, the union said.

In April 2018, the National Labor Relations Board awarded one of the carpenters that stepped forward $15,000 in back wages after the union said he was unlawfully fired for trying to improve working conditions.

The $90 million project at 145 Front brought 365 units of luxury housing to Worcesters downtown. The units, which range in size from studios to two bedrooms, are available for $1,500 to $2,600 a month.

P&B Partitions declined to comment when reached by MassLive Wednesday morning.
More than half of American voters say they believe President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are to blame for the 35-day-long partial government shutdown that ended last week, a new poll has found.

According to a Quinnipiac University national survey released Tuesday, 56 percent of voters said Trump and GOP leaders are responsible for the shutdown, which began late last month after Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on border security in must-pass spending legislation.

By contrast, about a third, or 34 percent, said they believe Democrats in Congress are responsible for the December funding lapse impacting nine Cabinet-level departments and various agencies, the poll found.

A similar margin, 55 to 41 percent, meanwhile, said they oppose the presidents push to build a wall along the United States' southern border with Mexico -- an issue that came to a head in negotiations to end the shutdown.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents further said they do not believe a border wall would significantly reduce violent crime in the United States, while six in 10 voters offered that such a structure would not decrease the amount of illegal drugs in the country, according to survey results.

Voters, by a 61 to 33 percent margin, however, said they would support legislation that funds new border security measures, but does not include money for a border wall.

A majority of respondents -- 66 percent -- also said they would disapprove of the president using emergency executive powers to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border without Congress' approval, Quinnipiac found.

Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said the findings suggest that while voters buy in on better border security, they see a border wall as a bad idea.

Dont build it, voters say, and it wouldnt work anyway,' he said in a statement.

Despite voters' opinions on the presidents proposed border wall, nearly all -- 79 to 16 percent -- agreed that its inappropriate for lawmakers to use government shutdowns as leverage in policy disagreements.

The poll, which surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. voters from Jan. 25 to 28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

The record-setting government shutdown ended Friday after Trump signed federal spending legislation, which lawmakers passed as part of a deal to reopen the government for three weeks as Democrats and Republicans debate border security spending.

Lawmakers faced mounting pressure to end the shutdown, as an estimated 800,000 federal employees had been furloughed or working without pay since late December.

Trump, who is seeking $5.7 billion for construction of a wall along the United States' southern border with Mexico, has stressed that if the White House fails to get a fair deal from Congress on border security spending, the federal government could enter another shutdown in February.
Despite being among the first Democrats to announce her White House ambitions, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren trails behind other possible 2020 contenders in what appears will be a wide open contest for the partys presidential nomination, according to a new poll.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week found that voters prefer former Vice President Joe Biden and California U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris to other confirmed or rumored candidates if the 2020 Democratic primary were held today.

A vast majority of voters, or 43 percent, however, said they had no opinion about the 2020 Democratic contest when asked whom they would support as the partys presidential nominee -- signaling that the primary race remains wide open with less than a year left before voters start heading to the polls.

Biden, who has yet to unveil whether he will enter the 2020 race, led the field of possible Democratic presidential contenders, with 11 percent of registered voters saying they would back him if the primary took place now.

Harris, who formally launched her campaign earlier this month, saw similar support, with 10 percent of registered Democrats saying theyd vote for her in a hypothetical primary contest, the poll found.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who successfully sought the Democratic Partys nomination in 2016; former U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke, who lost his 2018 U.S. Senate bid; and President Donald Trump, a Republican, trailed Harris with a respective 3 percent of voters saying theyd back their campaigns if the 2020 Democratic primary were held today.

Two percent of voters said theyd vote for former First Lady Michelle Obama or Oprah Winfrey, respectively, according to the surveys results.

Just 1 percent, meanwhile, said theyd back Warren, who announced she had formed a presidential exploratory committee on Dec. 31.

The Massachusetts Democrat saw slightly higher support among voters who identified themselves as liberal, with 3 percent saying theyd back her, compared to 12 percent whod support Harris and 7 percent whod endorse Sanders in the hypothetical matchup.

The poll surveyed more than 1,000 adults nationwide via telephone from Jan. 21 to 24. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Its the latest national survey to place Warren in the middle of the pack of Democrats who are expected to seek the partys 2020 nomination.

Real Clear Politics, which tracks such polling data, gives Biden a 21-point edge in the Democratic presidential primary, with 33 percent to Sanders' 12 percent.

Warren trails ORourke, Harris and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, with just 4.3 percent of the vote, according to the website.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took aim this week at former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, arguing that his criticism of her plan to increase taxes on the super wealthy underscores the need for her proposal and others that seek to root money and influence out of Washington.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who is eying a 2020 White House run, hit back at Schultz for suggesting that her so-called ultra-millionaire tax plan" is ridiculous and something that Congress will never pass.

Pointing to recent polls that found support for increased taxes on wealthy individuals, Warren argued that her plan to raise taxes on those making more than $50 million a year is not just popular, but something both Democrats and Republicans back.

The senator, however, offered that a possible barrier to her plan winning congressional support is billionaires like Schultz -- another possible 2020 contender -- who pull the strings in Washington.

In Howard Schultzs world, people like him who are rich and powerful get to block any popular policy ideas they dont like. And if they feel so inclined, people like him can even buy themselves the presidency of the United States, she said in a late-Tuesday fundraising email to supporters of her presidential exploratory committee. Now, thats ridiculous.

Warren, who noted that she will not take money from corporate political action committees, Super PACs or special interests, urged supporters to join her grassroots movement so we can make Washington work for working people, not just the billionaires who ran Starbucks.

The senator further told Hill.TV Tuesday that while billionaires, like Schultz, "think that this government works just great the way it is, its not working for anyone else.

Schultz, who is considering running for president as a third-party centrist candidate, criticized liberal policies like a Medicare for all health care system and tuition-free college in a Tuesday interview with NPRs Morning Edition.

The former Starbucks CEO also slammed the senators proposal, which would impose a 2 percent wealth tax on those with at least $50 million in net worth and a 3 percent tax on those worth above $1 billion.

"When I see Elizabeth Warren come out with a ridiculous plan of taxing wealthy people a surtax of 2 percent because it makes a good headline or sends out a tweet when she knows for a fact thats not something thats ever gonna be passed, this is whats wrong, he said. You cant just attack these things in a punitive way by punishing people.

According to Forbes, Schultz has an estimated $3 billion net worth.
HOLYOKE -- It wasn't your typical morning Tuesday for Blessed Sacrament School students. There wasn't anyone telling them to be quiet. They didn't have to sit in their seats. They didn't have to raise their hands.

Instead they got to scream, roll bowling balls, play video games and eat pizza.

It was all part of the school's observance of Student Appreciation Day, part of Catholic Schools Week, an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States.

Around 200 students, the entire pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school, were treated to three hours of fun at the AMF Chicopee Lanes courtesy of the school's student council, which raised the money from their annual end of school year carnival.

Principal Anne O'Connor said that when administrators sat down to decide what activity would be appropriate for students from pre-school age 3 through eighth grade, bowling was the winner.

According to the National Catholic Educational Association, Catholic Schools Week is an "annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. Schools typically observe the week with Masses, open houses and other activities for students, families, parishioners and community members. Through these events, schools focus on the value Catholic education provides to young people and its contributions to Church, local communities and the nation."

According to the kids at Blessed Sacrament Church, Catholic Schools Week is just plain fun.
HOLYOKE - Police are investigating a shooting at the Motel 6 at 1515 Northampton St. that left a 40-year-old male with a non-fatal wound to the torso.

Police continued to canvas the scene Tuesday afternoon.

Holyoke Police Lt. Jim Albert said police received a call Tuesday at 9:47 a.m. about shots fired at the motel, formerly a Day's Inn that borders Northampton and Hampden streets. Responding officers found no evidence a shooting occurred, including victims or witnesses, according to Albert.

"At the same time they're arriving, we got a call from Holyoke Medical Center that there was a walk-in victim of a gunshot," Albert said. He described the victim as a 44-year-old Hispanic male from Holyoke.

Albert said the upper-torso wound appeared non-life-threatening. "We haven't really talked with him or any other witnesses at this time," Albert said. "We're currently canvassing the area, checking for witnesses and any possible video or information with links to this crime."

Police believe the shooters are two dark-skinned men wearing gray hoodie sweatshirts. Albert would not comment how investigators obtained the information about the possible shooters. The type of weapon or caliber used also is unknown.

Investigators said the likely suspects drove away from the motel in a gray sedan.

As in several past shootings in Holyoke, including an August homicide on Maple Street, information has been sparse.

Anyone with information about the shooting can call the Holyoke Police Department's Criminal Investigation Bureau at 413-322-6940. Albert emphasized the calls are confidential. "The detectives will be glad to talk to anybody," he said.

The HPD also operates Text-A-Tip, which masks the sender's identity. Text the word 'SOLVE' plus the message to 274637.
"Empire" actor Jussie Smollett was attacked early Tuesday morning in what Chicago police are calling a possible hate crime.

Smollett, who is black and openly gay, was attacked by two people, who shouted racial and homophobic slurs and poured an unknown chemical substance on him, police told The Chicago Tribune.

One of the alleged attackers also put a rope around his neck, police said.

Both fled the scene and Smollett took himself to Northwestern Hospital, where he was listed as in good condition, police said.

Fox, the broadcast network that airs "Empire," released a statement to Variety, saying it was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the attack."

"We send our love to Jussie, who is resilient and strong, and we will work with law enforcement to bring these perpetrators to justice," the statement read. "The entire studio, network and production stands united in the face of any despicable act of violence and hate -- and especially against one of our own."
By SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press

The leaders of Connecticuts two federally recognized tribes tried to assure state lawmakers yesterday they remain committed to opening their Tribal Winds casino near the Massachusetts state line, despite lengthy delays in obtaining final federal approval for the project.

Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Chairman Rodney Butler and Mohegan Tribal Chairman Kevin Brown said the tribes have spent about $14 million so far on the project. The site for the $300 million East Windsor project along Interstate 91 has been purchased and cleared, most state and local approvals have been obtained and a project labor agreement has been reached with construction unions. MMCT Venture, the development company formed by the two tribes, is now awaiting the final OK from the federal government or the passage of proposed state legislation this session that would eliminate the required federal authorization.

We understand there are skeptics out there, Butler told members of the General Assemblys Public Safety and Security Committee. The fact is Tribal Winds is a shovel-ready project that will create much-needed jobs and revenues for our state as soon as we are approved to break ground.

Lawmakers invited Butler and Brown to yesterdays forum to provide an update on the project, which has been billed as a way to help the tribes existing casinos in southeastern Connecticut compete with MGM Springfield and protect existing casino jobs in Connecticut.

Tribal leaders originally hoped to open the jointly owned and operated satellite casino before MGM opened its doors last August, but their plans were stymied by the U.S. Department of Interior, which refused to sign off on an amended revenue-sharing agreement between the state and the tribes. A federal investigation into former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and his agencys handling of the matter is underway. Both Butler and Brown said yesterday they believe heavy lobbying by MGM is to blame for the lack of federal approvals so far. A message was left seeking comment with an MGM representative.

Despite the tribes assurances theyre ready to begin construction, interest remains among some lawmakers to allow casinos elsewhere in Connecticut.

MGM yesterday reiterated that call, urging state lawmakers to move beyond the back-and-forth of the past few years and establish an open, competitive bidding process for a commercial casino. MGM has said it wants to open a casino complex in Bridgeport.

The tribal leaders reiterated that they would like to open a casino in Bridgeport as well. They currently hold exclusive rights to casino gambling in Connecticut, in exchange for providing the state with 25 percent of the slot machine revenues at their existing Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun facilities. That agreement would be breached if the state allowed an outside entity such as MGM to open a private casino.

The tribal chairmen said Tuesday they dont believe that lucrative agreement would be breached if the Tribal Winds satellite casino opens on non-reservation land, without the federal governments blessing. Former Attorney General George Jepsen had cautioned state lawmakers to first secure the formal approval in order to protect the states share of slot machine revenues, which is roughly $270 million annually. State Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, co-chairman of the Public Safety and Security Committee, said a request for a new opinion on the matter by Jepsens successor, Attorney General William Tong, has been requested.
SPRINGFIELD  City Councilor Orlando Ramos has scheduled a meeting of the councils Public Safety Committee seeking answers regarding a federal jury award of $250,000 in a police brutality case.

The jurys finding that the City of Springfield has a custom of failing to discipline officers is especially troubling! Ramos said in a prepared statement after the outcome of the trial, for a lawsuit filed by Lee Hutchins, was reported on MassLive Wednesday. I want answers as to what the police department has done to address this.

Ramos, who is chairman of the councils Public Safety Committee, has scheduled the meeting at 4 p.m. Monday at City Hall.

There is a possibility the council committee could go into executive session, Ramos said. Executive sessions are closed to the public.

Councilors have been critical of court cases involving allegations of police misconduct, including settlements paid with taxpayer dollars.

Earlier on Wednesday, a jury in U.S. District Court in Boston awarded $250,0000 to Lee Hutchins of Springfield, who sued the city and officers Daniel J. McKay, Felix Romero and Thomas Hervieux, alleging the three used excessive force against him in his home on Jan. 20, 2013.

Attorney Luke Ryan, who was among lawyers trying the case, said that the jury found that Hervieux was the only one of of the three who used excessive force. The jury found that the other two officers had unlawfully entered Hutchins home but were not the proximate cause of the damages, Ryan said.

Hutchins had claimed that police pepper-sprayed his eyes and beat him with batons while he was trying to defuse a domestic melee.

Ryan said that the jury found that the city had a custom of failing to discipline officers and this custom demonstrated deliberate indifference to the rights of those citizens with whom the officers came into contact and this was a direct cause of the officers constitutional violaton of Lee Hutchins rights,

The award is being reviewed by the city Law Department.

In October, the City Council approved legal settlements totaling $885,000 to four men who claimed they were beaten by off-duty police officers outside Nathan Bills Bar and Restaurant in 2015.

In 2017, meanwhile, The Republican / MassLive reported that the city had paid $3.9 million over 10 years for police misconduct lawsuits.
Miguel Rivera, the 58-year-old Lawrence man facing charges in connection with the death of his 11-year-old niece Precious Wallaces, was charged Tuesday on a new charge of rape of a child with force.

The Eagle-Tribune reports Rivera was brought to Lawrence District Court Tuesday and was arraigned on the new charge. The alleged rape victim was not identified during Riveras arraignment.

NECN reports authorities confirmed the charge was filed after an autopsy was conducted on Wallaces.

The alleged rape took place on Dec. 15. That is the same day Wallaces was found unresponsive at Riveras Jackson Street apartment in Lawrence.

Wallaces, who is from Haverhill, tested positive for having fentanyl in her system after sleeping at her great-uncles apartment in Lawrence, according to a police report.

When authorities arrived at Riveras apartment on Dec. 15, she was unresponsive. The girl was taken to Lawrence General Hospital and then flown by medical helicopter to Tufts Medical Center, where she later died.

Rivera was charged last week with permitting substantial bodily injury to a child and misleading a police investigation.

Rivera is being held without bail.

Wallaces and another child slept at Riveras apartment on Dec. 15. All three slept in the same bed.

Rivera heard Wallaces having a hard time breathing during the night, police reports said.

Miguel Rivera said that he rolled Precious on her side and wiped mucus away from her nose and mouth, the report reads. Miguel Rivera said that he physically picked her up, took her to a sink in the room, by physically having to carry her, and splashed water on her face. Miguel Rivera said that he put her back on the bed and gave her chest compressions.

He then called 911 after attempting the chest compressions.

Rivera told investigators he flushed prescription sleeping pills down the toilet in the common bathroom while Wallaces was having a medical issue, reports said.

Investigators say it took Rivera 13 minutes to call 911. Rivera claims he did not give Wallaces a sleeping pill, but flushed the pills down the toilet because he was worried, she took one of them, the police report said.

An autopsy was performed on Wallaces, but a cause and manner of death were not determined.
Mark Fitzgerald, the 37-year-old Lynn man accused of driving at least 3-miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike with another man on the hood of his SUV Friday, had his license to drive suspended indefinitely, according to driving records obtained by MassLive.

Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles records show Fitzgeralds license was suspended indefinitely on Tuesday, Jan. 29, the day after he appeared in court in connection with the apparent road rage incident.

The record shows he was deemed an immediate threat by the RMV. A spokeswoman said the RMV exercised its authority under the immediate threat provision within state laws. A Massachusetts State Police spokesman confirmed troopers requested the RMV to deem Fitzgerald an immediate threat after the incident.

Fitzgerald and 65-year-old Richard Kamrowski of Framingham were both in Waltham District Court Monday after they were both charged in connection with the Friday incident.

Records show Kamrowski also had his license indefinitely suspended after he was deemed an immediate threat, the Boston Herald reports.

Massachusetts State Police said a minor side-swipe collision occurred between vehicles driven by Kamrowski and Fitzgerald around 4:30 p.m. Friday while they drove on Interstate 90 in the Weston area.

While both men give different accounts of how the event unfolded, it is clear that Kamrowski ended up on the hood of Fitzgeralds SUV. Both men accuse the other of being the instigator.

Kamrowski smashed a metal water bottle he pulled from Fitzgeralds SUV against the windshield to try to stop Fitzgerald from driving, authorities said.

Eyewitnesses told investigators they saw Kamrowski jump onto the hood of Fitzgeralds SUV to avoid being run over. Another witness told troopers but a Kamrowski appeared very angry and jumped onto the SUV before Fitzgerald began driving away.

Fitzgerald accelerated up to 60 or 70 mph with Kamrowski on the hood, according to police reports.

The road rage incident ended when several other drivers used their vehicles to block the SUV. Frankie Hernandez ,49, got out of his car carrying his licensed firearm.

Hernandez then ordered Fitzgerald out of his SUV at gunpoint and held him there until troopers arrived. A trooper ordered Hernandez to drop his weapon.

Hernandez was handcuffed then later released with no charges.

Fitzgerald was arraigned on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60, negligent driving and leaving the scene of an accident.

Kamrowski was charged with disorderly conduct and malicious damage to a motor vehicle.

The two men were both ordered to have no contact with one another.
ASHBY - First responders are used to being call out for all sorts of rescue calls, both big and small.

But in the town of Ashby, a small town of 3,000 on the New Hampshire line north of Fitchburg, firefighters helped rescue a horse that had fallen and couldnt get up.

According to a statement from Fire Chief Mike Bussell and police chief Fred Alden, the horse had apparently slipped on some ice at the top of a hill and stumbled, and then it tumbled down a 25-foot embankment. When it came to a rest, the horse was on its side and unable to stand.

Obviously in this weather, it behooved everyone involved to get the animal back on its feet.

First responders called to the Richardson Road location at around 5:30 p.m. for a report of an injured animal. They found the horse at the bottom of the embankment. unable to move.

The Ashby Fire Department called for assistance with the District 8 Technical Rescue team, which has experience with large animal rescues, said Bussell.

With the aid of a local veterinarian, firefighters were able to life the animal to its feet and then lead it to the nearby barn. The horse was being examined by the vet Tuesday night, but it was not expected to have suffered any serious injuries.

When a large animal takes a fall, it can be a very serious situation, Bussell said. Thankfully, we were able to get the horse back on its feet safely.

Ashby firefighters were assisted at the scene by firefighters from the town of Pepperell.
WORCESTER  Peter Molle Jr. of Holland pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to running an illegal marijuana-growing operation and money laundering.

Molle, 36, admitted to two counts of manufacturing marijuana and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute, and a single count of money laundering in U.S. District Court in Worcester. Judge Timothy S. Hillman has scheduled a sentencing date of April 29.

He faces between five and 40 years in federal prison, and fines of up to $5 million on the drug charges.

According to prosecutors, Molle operated an illegal commercial-style marijuana grow operation at his home over a least an 11-month period between February and December of 2017.

Federal agents raided the property in February 2017, and confiscated more than 100 pot plants. But Molle continued to operate a grow facility, leading to an other federal raid the following December that revealed another significant growing operation.

At the time of the first raid on his home, Molle was featured in an article in High Times, a marijuana industry trade publication, about burgeoning grow facilities in Massachusetts and Maine. It was titled New Englands patriot pot growers.

Marijuana is a Class D controlled substance according to federal law. It is illegal to own, grow or distribute.

In Massachusetts, marijuana was legalized by a state referendum in 2016, but there are strict restrictions on both the production and distribution of the drug. Private citizens may have no more than six plants at one time, or 12 plants per household, and the sale of the drug is prohibited between private parties.

Marijuana cultivation facilities and retail sales facilities are permitted but only when licensed by the state Cannabis Control Commission.

At the time of his arrest 13 months ago, Massachusetts had not yet issued any licenses for retail sales.
SPRINGFIELD - Springfield diocesan Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski will discuss and respond to questions about how the diocese has been addressing allegations of sexual abuse against clergy in the first of four "listening and dialogue" sessions Wednesday, Feb. 6, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Mary, Mother of Hope Church, 840 Page Boulevard.

In a Jan. 15 letter to parishioners, Rozanski noted the Catholic Church has "once again found itself confronting the crisis of child sexual abuse, specifically the past failures of the church to respond to this terrible evil within our midst."

Rozanski cited two such church-related failures of reporting in the letter - Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick and the Pennsylvania grand jury report - as having "no direct relationship to our diocese" but being the "cause of renewed concerns within our Catholic community."

He said this "has given way to questions regarding how we as a diocese have responded to allegations and reached out to victims of abuse, both in the past as well as through ongoing efforts."

"There is a collective sense we need to do more."

Rozanski said during the upcoming sessions people "will have the chance to share concerns and questions with me and representatives from the diocese."

"The sessions will be moderated and interactive," Rozanski wrote.

"We will try to provide answers to as many questions as possible."

The others sessions scheduled are Sunday, Feb. 10, at St. Joseph Church, Pittsfield, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; Monday, March 18, at St. Mary Church, Westfield, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.; and Sunday, March 24, at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, Northampton, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

The Pennsylvania 18-month grand jury report released in August revealed that 300 priests in six dioceses there had sexually abused 1,000 children over seven decades and that the cases were covered up by church hierarchy.

McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, was removed from ministry after a review board of the New York Archdiocese found credible allegations that he had abused a teenager 47 years ago. He also resigned from the College of Cardinals in the wake of the allegations.

In the letter, Rozanski asked churches in the diocese to open Monday, March 11, the first day of Lent, for a "Day of Prayer for Healing and Reconciliation."

"I have also asked parishes to consider offering a rosary prayer service or Eucharistic adoration on this same day, and have requested that those churches with bells toll them throughout the day as an outward call to prayer," Rozanski said.

On Sunday, April 7 at 2 p.m., there will be prayer services at St. Michael's Cathedral and at St. Joseph Church in Pittsfield.

"It is my hope that all will join in some aspect of this effort as a sign of our collective commitment to victims that we are truly sorry for our church's past failure and remain steadfast in our ongoing efforts to prevent any future abuse," Rozanski said in his letter.

The Springfield diocese is estimated to have paid more than $12 million to sex abuse victims since 2004, and a 2016 list of "credibly accused clergy" in the diocese shows 18 names.

In November, Rozanski said the diocese, which covers the four counties of Western Massachusetts, had been asked by the U.S. Department of Justice, as all dioceses have in the wake of a Pennsylvania report, to "preserve" any documents related to clergy sexual misconduct.
SPRINGFIELD - In the hallway outside the office of Sara Bedford at Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, child car seats are lined up like mini-taxi cabs waiting for their young cargo.

Bedford is director of JFS' New American Program which usually involves helping some 240 refugees resettle annually in the Greater Springfield Area, but the seats are not for any such influx.

The Trump administration cap of 30,000 on the number of refugees allowed into the country for the current fiscal year, the lowest cap in decades, and its limitations and restrictions on entry from certain countries has greatly affected refugees waiting to come and the work of organizations funded to help them with food, housing and employment during their initial three months.

JFS is a long-time partner of HIAS, one of the voluntary agencies that collaborates in the work of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The 18 new infant and child car seats that have replaced JFS' older fleet used by staff to transport refugee families to appointments have become a symbol of some of the areas of concentration Bedford has focused on since she was hired as program director in July.

These include working with Maxine Stein, JFS president and chief executive officer, on what more can JFS do to help the existing refugee community function better as well as to provide more opportunities for the larger community to help in this effort.

Refugee resettlement here and elsewhere has drawn controversy in recent years over such issues as housing, isolation and safety.

In her outreach for new car seats, which brought a donation from a Springfield temple and resulted in a Connecticut firefighter instructing some refugee parents on their use, Bedford sees the possibility for broader collaborations to help support refugees and their families as they adapt and continue to adapt to a new life and culture.

Enfield firefighter Joseph J. Kara, recommended for his expertise on child car seat installation and safety, as well as Mandi Summers of the Massachusetts Child Safety Program, headquartered at Baystate Children's Hospital, teamed up to spend several hours refreshing Bedford and her staff on how, in hands-on fashion with dolls, to install and use the various models of infant and child car seats.

Summers program donated about 10 such seats, Rabbi Jeremy Master of Sinai Temple helped provide funds for several others and Kara worked with refugee mothers on how to install them and buckle in a child.

"This was a mobilization I didn't expect," said Bedford, adding a few of the seats were given to refugees to keep at home.

"Some of our staff transport three or four kids a day of all different sizes. Now we are really on the forefront of not only installing car seats but being able to answer questions from parents. It is an important skill to be knowledgeable about. I picked up a mom from the hospital with her newborn a few weeks ago in the JFS mini-van. She had a new car seat and I taught her how to install it, buckle it in and strap in the baby."

Another program introduced by Bedford offered recent refugees resettled from the Democratic Republic of Congo five Friday sessions in which a firefighter talked at one about the importance of smoke detectors in homes, how to replace their batteries and make sure they are working, and during another they learned about using the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority's bus system.

This Wednesday, Jan. 30, in space provided by the Springfield Housing Authority, Bedford will continue on-site educational classes at the request of longer-settled Somali Bantu refugees, some of them now citizens, at Riverview Apartments who have been learning how a child's college education is financed in this country or the purchase of a home.

"It is such a profound moment to be working within communities in welcoming and helping refugees," Bedford said.

"Refugees demonstrate over and over again to other community members and to the people who work with them just how resilient they are."

Still, Bedford added that "it is hard thinking of refugee resettlement now" in terms of the few being admitted versus "the capacity we have to resettle" and hopes what she calls "the slowdown in arrivals" will eventually be reversed.

"Every person, every family who comes is one more who is safe, has a future, has a community and has opportunity which is how we are continuing to think about the program," said Bedford who grew up in Chicago.

"Yet, we have to acknowledge the capacity we have to resettle and the people who are not arriving and continue to be in danger and in very serious situations. We are ready to receive them. We have staff and community members."

Bedford, who worked with HIAS prior to coming to Springfield, holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College in international studies and a master's degree in public administration from New York University.

She sees both gratitude in refugees "to come to a place of safety and be accepted" as well as anxiety for family members awaiting processing "in places of profound danger."

"But, even with that, they are going to school, they are getting jobs, they are continuing," Bedford said.

"They want success for their kids, they want their kids in school, they want to be independent and we continue to see that no matter the number of folks coming in."

Bedford, 33, became involved with refugee work at Boston College, observing first-hand the commitment of the Somali Bantu, who have no written language of their own, to learning English.

"A lot of Somali Bantu were resettled in 2004, 2005, 2006 and among the challenges they had was that their language is only an oral language," said Bedford who helped Somali women learning to read and eventually to write with child care.

"I saw those women, and I see the same thing today, approach an enormous challenge - the long road between learning the concept of letters and writing to being able to read road signs and sign a permission slip for their child to go to school - with such energy and vitality. The sense of getting on that road, even if you are at the very beginning, and pointing yourself in the right direction and going one step at a time."

Bedford later worked for the International Rescue Committee in Baltimore, where she first did case management work. This meant picking people up at the airport, registering them for school, helping them find a job.

In 2011, after spending six weeks in a refugee camp in Thailand, where the U.S. provided literacy and other classes for Burmese refugees to be resettled in this country, she started what she called an "intense program" of similar life skills training and cultural orientation for refugees in Baltimore with the help of different interpreters.

"It was one week, five-hours a day, so 25 hours, and I was on repeat every week with a new language group," Bedford said.

"We went over taxes, what is credit, what is health insurance - this was around the time Affordable Care was introduced."

Bedford said she speaks "functional French," but generally leaves the language skills to JFS's staff of 50, about 30 of whom are former refugees and asylees who "actually speak the languages of the clients."

Staff work includes helping refugees resettle into a home as well enroll children in school, access employment and meet the needs of any elderly or disabled members.

Classes are offered in learning English, drivers' education and becoming citizens after a residence of five years.

In coming to JFS, Bedford said she has been particularly impressed by "the sheer number of staff who are multi-cultural and multi-lingual and who are on track to get social work and higher degrees to be able to serve refugee communities more knowledgeably and in-depth."

"We have staff members from all corners of the world and they are rising to become clinicians and therapists to make sure refugees who come here are economically sound but emotionally mentally whole because there is a lot of trauma before people come."

Bedford said the language classes scheduled to start this week at Riverview are an outgrowth of financial literacy classes offered there earlier to the Somali Bantu, many of whom have been here for several years and are now citizens, and requested the opportunity to further improve their English skills.

"Many of the participants have been women and they said they had a continuing need for English classes," Bedford said.

"When they first came, they may have had small children and had to stay home or were working and now they feel they are in a place where, as a community or individuals, they feel they can come to class."

She added the on-site class is also allowing the participants to come together a half-hour before the mid-day class.

"As trainers we sometimes forget the importance that this is also a common place for people to come together and share in community and they are demonstrating that back to us by asking if they can come a little bit early to bring food and tea and look at their homework and socialize," Bedford said.

JFS has a number of other programs besides its New American one, but its history as a formal resettlement program dates back to the 1940s and its support of refugees continues beyond the initial resettlement period in a variety of ways.

"I have found a really dynamic environment here for refugees to start off in in the United States," Bedford said.

"I meet people all the time through little and big ways who are ready to welcome refugees and help them. We have the volunteer English as second language teacher. We have family mentors who help with friendship and companionship to newcomers."

She cited the Jewish Community of Amherst as well as the Lander-Grinspoon Academy in Northampton in getting involved in either volunteering help to families with young children recently resettled from the Congo or helping prepare apartments to welcome them.

"The students brought to the apartments things they collected - sheets, pots, pans, fire extinguishers as well as toys, umbrellas and teddy bears and welcome signs," Bedford.

"It has helped me think more broadly about having communities - whether it is a synagogue or a school or a company - play a more direct role in resettling families in terms of banding together and thinking about the refugee experience in coming to the Springfield area."

She said in talking to kindergartners and first graders at the Northampton academy about the resettlement experience of a young person she spoke about "being a newcomer in a new space" and "if you came to your new house what toy would you want" and do you have an "extra toy that you want to share with the boy who is coming."

"The kids were very on-board with the premise," Bedford said.

"They wanted to reach out and welcome people who might not be in the same place because they escaped from somewhere dangerous."

She added with the emphasis on being a newcomer, "They were able to think about putting yourself in other people's shoes who do not necessarily look like you or have the same experience as you."

Through her outreach work, Bedford, whose academic studies concentrated on the role of culture and development, has been able to triple the number of individuals involved on a regular basis as volunteers with her program over the last six months as well as accommodating students and others who come for specific commitments.

"Besides working with youth and adult education, I enjoy the volunteers and matching them," Bedford said.

"For example, someone who has an hour and wants to go in and practice English with someone. Or, having a having a mom with a young child at home wanting to befriend a refugee mom also with a child at home."

She said motivation to work with refugees sometimes stems from a volunteer's own background and sometimes from the divisions within the country today.

"In working with our Jewish partners, it is certainly Jewish values of welcoming the stranger," said Bedford, noting JFS' work in resettling those fleeing the Holocaust.

"People also come to us to take action and get out and connect with people across divisions."

She added, "The question for me as a newcomer to Springfield is to learn all the players in different corners to not only help with resettling refugees but also help set them on that path to being community members and civically engaged as citizens and become whatever they want to be."

"My hope is that when more refugees start arriving again we are stronger and more prepared and capable," Bedford said.

"So that no matter what happens on a national level that here in Massachusetts we are together and moving in step with each other in welcoming these newcomers."
When Christopher R. Serra was living and working in industrial spaces in South Boston and Holyoke, they affected his work as an artist. "My experiences exploring warehouses and waterfront alleyways led to a fascination with the inherent beauty of rundown factory buildings, broken machines and rusted mechanisms," he said.

The work in his new show represents his interpretation of interior and exterior architectural space. "The forms are imaginary, yet based on my real experiences," he said.

Serra will be showing paintings and sculptural work with his friend, John Galt, from

Feb. 7 to March 3. "New Work" will be shown at Oxbow Gallery, 273 Pleasant St., Northampton. There will be a reception Feb. 8 from 5 to 8 p.m.

A Conway resident, Serra will show seven or eight works. They will be for sale for an estimated $500-$1,500.

In the 1980's and 1990's he lived in a warehouse studio in the Fort Point Channel neighborhood of South Boston when that area of Boston was undeveloped. It's now home to the new federal courthouse, and the surrounding area has been built up substantially. "I can remember wandering around in the alleyways on weekends looking for old lumber and steel to use in my sculpture and studio furnishings," he said. "That's when I became aware of the beauty of the brick factory buildings. Vast unoccupied, interior spaces also became etched in my mind as mysterious places with long forgotten histories."

Later, after moving to Western Massachusetts, he discovered a similar environment in a studio in the canal district of Holyoke.

Ideas for his artwork have been developed over the years through sketchbooks as well as experimentation with various materials.

A freelance illustrator, Serra's work has been published in newspapers and magazines, including The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Drawing plays an important part in his creative process. Ideas are chosen from his sketchbooks; sketches then become rough "blueprints" for sculptures. "The books reveal connections and metamorphoses between figurative and nonrepresentational images," he said. Notes and instructions to himself accompany some of the sketches.

"I hope the viewer can look deeply into the work and imagine or recall their own experiences," he said of his work.

For more information, go to christoph4serra.com.

For more information about the gallery, go to oxbowgallery.org. Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday noon to 5 p.m.
PITTSFIELD -- Berkshire Museum will welcome Jeff Rodgers as its new executive director on April 1.

Rodgers brings more than 20 years of museum experience to the Berkshire Museum's top post. He currently serves as provost and chief operating officer of the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Florida.

Rodgers was the unanimous selection after a four-month search led by the Berkshire Museum Board of Trustees. The search was facilitated by a national firm, Brent D. Glass LLC.

"Jeff brings a track record of innovative leadership and creative thinking that will, true to our unchanging mission, take the museum into a secure and successful future," said Elizabeth McGraw, president of the board of trustees, in a staement. "Jeff shares our commitment to finding new and meaningful ways to connect art, science and history for people of all ages across our community and this region."

Van Shields, 68, retired in June 2018 as the museum's executive director after seven years in the top post. He had been criticized for his leadership role in the museum's decision to sell off pieces of art to raise up to $60 million to guarantee its future.

In a statement released by Berkshire Museum, Rodgers said, "The Berkshire Museum is, and must continue to be, an integral part of the Berkshire community. The museum creates experiences that spark new thinking and new connections ... Over the past few months I've met with leaders from across the community and came away buoyed by the spirit of cooperation in our conversations. I am eager to lead that work with a commitment to collaboration and transparency. I have a lot of listening ahead."

Rodgers has served in a number of roles at the South Florida Museum. Since 2016, as provost and chief operating Officer, he has held broad leadership responsibilities for strategic planning, creating innovative programming, fundraising, and outreach across the community to build and sustain crucial partnerships and collaborations.

A former teacher, Rodgers also served in a variety of roles at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, including as director of the Moveable Museum Program.
The NBAs silly season came crashing through the wall like the Kool Aid Man this week. Anthony Davis' trade request has been accompanied by all sorts of rumors, most notably the idea that there is growing concern that Kyrie Irving may not re-sign with the Boston Celtics and is, in fact, interested in reuniting with LeBron James

Jackie MacMullan was on ESPNs Around the Horn on Tuesday and she shot these reports down when asked if she heard similar things saying I will say this, there is some frustration from Kyrie Irving. Of course there is, because this team is not performing the way he had hoped and he is carrying a huge load, and he doesnt want to be the James Harden of New England, OK. But, its January. He hasnt made any kind of seismic decision like that. And lets say even if he is a little unhappy and a little unsure, dont you think bringing Anthony Davis aboard may quell all of those fears or concerns for Kyrie Irving? So, I dont put any stock in it. Sorry.

She begins the segment clearly suggesting that Davis' agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, is behind this. Paul, a long-time friend of LeBron James, seems to be driving Davis towards the Lakers and playing with LeBron. ESPNs Adrian Wojnarowski reported earlier today that Davis may soon declare a willingness to only re-sign with Los Angeles.

(M)ultiple league sources expect the agent and star to soon deliver word throughout the league that Davis' preferred destination is the Lakers and hell become a rental player until 2020 with a trade anywhere else.

If Paul is behind the slew of reporting suggesting Irving is open to Los Angeles, it could be part of a PR campaign aimed at pushing Davis to Los Angeles by the trade deadline. If the New Orleans Pelicans feel Irving is a flight risk, they could fear Boston will drop out of the race for Davis and keep all the assets they might be trading away. If the Pelicans feel Bostons assets are off the table, they may be inclined to accept the Lakers offer before the deadline.

Its hard to say if thats the case, but Jackie MacMullan isnt the only person suggesting Rich Paul is feeding this beast right now. As always during trade deadlines and free agency, beware of rumors. There are people on all sides of them trying push agendas to sway public opinion and plant seeds in the heads of people involved.
The only bright light at this juncture, Lange and his wife told me when I met them at their home on Monday, is that last spring, after a prolonged and costly court battle, they won visitation rights to their grandson, who is now 6 years old. And so, every other Sunday, from the time they pick Alex him up at noon in the parking lot of a grocery store or gas station to the time they return him at 7 p.m., this grandma and granddad make sure they dont waste a single moment with him.
Two former Massachusetts State Police troopers were arraigned on additional charges related to the overtime abuse scandal in Suffolk Superior court Wednesday.

John Giulino and David Keefe, both former lieutenants with the state police, each pleaded not guilty to one count of larceny over $250 by single scheme, procurement fraud and public employee standards of conduct violation.

Their cases are being prosecuted separately but they are both being represented by attorney Timothy Burke.

The charges presented in court Wednesday were related to alleged overtime abuse in 2015. Both men were arraigned on charges related to overtime fraud in 2016 in October. They both pleaded not guilty to the allegations from 2015 and 2016.

John Reynolds, assistant attorney general, laid out the charges against each man in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday.

Giulino, 68 of Lanesborough who is retired, is accused of skipping out on more than 180 hours of Accident Injury Reduction Effort patrols, known as AIRE shifts, and then unlawfully collecting $18,000 from the agency in 2015 for those shifts, according to the attorney generals office.

Keefe claimed to work 58 hours overtime that Reynolds said he did not show up for and that he subsequently received $5,000 from the state police for those hours, Reynolds said.

Giulino and Keefe, along with Lt. David Wilson, are the focus of the attorney generals inquiry into the alleged overtime scheme, which reached back at least to Jan. 1 2015, federal prosecutors said.

Attorney General Maura Healey is investigating the alleged fraud on the state level, while U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling is investigating on the federal level.

Wilson, who faced both state and federal charges, pleaded guilty to an embezzlement charge in a Boston federal court on Tuesday. His plea agreement reached with the government recommends a sentence of six to 12 months in prison.

Wilson is one seven troopers to plead guilty to federal charges. He has pleaded not guilty to state charges alleging misconduct in 2015 and 2016.

Burke, who is representing Giulino and Keefe, said the guilty pleas entered in federal court do not impact his clients. The key difference, he said, is that his clients are not accused of writing so-called ghost tickets - during which troopers wrote false citations in an attempt to prove they were working the over time shifts for which they never showed up.

I dont want to harp on this to detriment of the people who are pleading guilty but those cases involve writing false tickets and thats not the situation here, Burke said to reporters outside of the courtroom. In my mind thats a much more egregious allegation than saying someone did not work four hours.

Burke said discrepancies with transponders, information from GPS and other sources led to the charges. He maintains Burke and Keefe worked every single over time shift they signed up for.

You will never find a shift in which they did not respond to, Burke said.

Asked if he expected additional charges from behavior that predated 2015, Burke said no.

Frankly I was surprised they went to the extent of bringing these charges, he said.

Giulino and Keefe declined comment. Both are scheduled to go to trial in October.

A total of 46 Massachusetts State Police troopers are under investigation for allegedly stealing overtime pay while claiming to conduct specialized traffic enforcement on the Massachusetts Turnpike and Metropolitan tunnels system.
A 21-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with a fatal stabbing near the University of Massachusetts Lowell Monday night.

Victor Crespo of Lowell was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and two counts of violating a restraining order, according to the Middlesex District Attorneys Office.

He is expected to be arraigned in Lowell District Court Tuesday.

Lowell police responded to the area of Lawrence Drive and River Walk around 7 p.m. where they found the victim, identified as 18-year-old Asiatic Alvarez, suffering from stab wounds.

He was transported to Lowell General Hospital and pronounced dead.

Authorities said it appears as though Crespo and Alvarez knew each other and had arranged to meet to exchange marijuana for money.

Crespo allegedly stabbed Alvarez multiple times before fleeing the scene, according to the district attorneys office. Crespo was taken into custody Tuesday morning.

The stabbing remains under investigation by local and state police, as well as the Middlesex District Attorneys Office. v
Former Massachusetts State Police Lt. David Wilson pleaded guilty to an embezzlement charge in federal court in Boston Tuesday, acknowledging his role in the overtime scheme that has roiled the agency.

Wilson, 58 from Charlton, faces both state and federal charges. He agreed to plead guilty to the federal embezzlement charge, but has pleaded not guilty to state charges connected with overtime abuse from 2015 and 2016.

He is the seventh trooper to plead guilty to federal charges, following Daren DeJong, who pleaded guilty to an embezzlement charge in Boston Monday. U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling is investigating the abuse at the federal level, while Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is pursuing charges at the state level.

Federal prosecutors say Wilson submitted false overtime claims in 2016 for $12,450. That year, Wilson earned $259,475 and received a total of $102,062 in overtime pay.

In court Tuesday, federal court Judge Richard G. Stearns asked Wilson if he understood the charges against him. Wilson said: I do, your honor.

Mark J. Grady, a prosecutor with Lellings office, said Wilson falsified Massachusetts State Police paperwork and claimed to work hours he did not. Wilson, like others who have been implicated in the scandal, issued false citations in an attempt to prove he was working during hours he was not.

Grady noted two examples of Wilsons fraudulent overtime. He said that on Aug. 3, 2016 Wilson signed up for an Accident Injury Reduction Effort patrols, known as AIRE shift. Wilson issued eight citations that day, but data from his cruiser radio showed that his vehicle was turned off for all but 90 seconds of the shift.

Six of the eight citations did not exist, Grady said.

On Dec. 3, 2016 Wilson submitted five citations to Massachusetts State Police but the Registry of Motor Vehicles has no record of the violations, Grady said. Wilson did not run drivers history checks, ordinarily completed during a motor vehicle stop, until his shift on Dec. 4, Grady said.

Leonardo A. Angiulo, a lawyer for Wilson, said he had no comment outside the courtroom.

Wilson is one of three former Massachusetts State Police lieutenants facing state charges in connection with the overtime scandal. Wilson, 68-year-old John Giulino of Lanesborough and 52-year-old David Keefe of Norfolk are all charged with larceny over $250 by single scheme, procurement fraud and violation of public employee standards of conduct involving a false or fraudulent claim.

In 2015, Wilson, who was a shift commander in Troop Es Duty Office in Boston, was paid over $270,000, including more than $120,000 in overtime pay, according to Attorney General Maura Healeys office.

Wilson allegedly submitted fraudulent claims for pay for at least 116 hours of overtime, allowing him to collect at least $11,000 for hours he did not work, according to the attorney generals office.

Wilson, who retired from the State Police in 2018, receives pension checks from the state totaling $8,791.02 a month.

A total of 46 Massachusetts State Police troopers are under investigation for allegedly stealing overtime pay while claiming to conduct specialized traffic enforcement on the Massachusetts Turnpike and Metropolitan tunnels system.
Nearly 400 years of Massachusetts records have a new home in a facility on Columbia Point in Boston.

At an unveiling of the new vault storage at the Massachusetts State Archives, scholars and state officials spoke about the importance of record keeping.

Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court Ralph Gants said it is essential, as a society, to catalog cases big and small.

Without immediate conservation efforts these records would be dust in a number of years, he said.

Robert Allison, a history professor at Suffolk University, said the records would allow the public a peek into the lives of people in 1700s.

It is a great power to see these documents, Allison said. We bring back the people and voices of the past.

The vault was constructed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance. It features a full range of environmental and security controls specifically designed to properly safeguard the Commonwealths permanent public records, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said in a statement.

With nearly 400 years of historical documents and treasures to safeguard, Im happy that we were able to expand the Archives facility to meet our growing needs, Galvin said.

Files from the Lizzie Borden case, and Boston Massacre trial were available for viewing on Tuesday.
TODAYS WORD is counterintuitive. Example: It might seem counterintuitive, but the dreaded polar vortex is bringing its icy grip to the Midwest thanks to a sudden blast of warm air in the Arctic. (Source: Science says to get used to outbreaks of the polar vortex, AP, Martinsville Bulletin, Jan. 29)

TUESDAYS WORD was prototype. It means a first, typical or preliminary model of something, especially a machine, from which other forms are developed or copied. Example: The transition to 5G  already beginning in prototype systems in cities from Dallas to Atlanta  is likely to be more revolutionary than evolutionary. (Source: America Pushes Allies to Fight Huawei in New Arms Race with China, by David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes, Raymond Zhong and Marc Santora, The New York Times, Jan. 26.)

Riddle

Johnsie Finney of Martinsville shared this riddle (the answer is below):

A couple who have five sons went for a picnic. Each son has seven sisters. Each sister has three babies. In total, how many people went for the picnic?

Insurance scam

Theres a new scam in the area, warns Rosa Millner, and she wants people to know about it so they dont fall for it.
It is not all that unusual to have a big case take a significant amount of time to put together and investigate, Nester wrote. This case is still very much an active case that is being investigated and is by no means a cold case."

Essie Handy wrote a letter to the Bulletin that said her family was grief-stricken and fear the perpetrator could have escaped.

Lorene  Bug to her loved ones  has not been forgotten by those who knew her and loved her; she was truly a one-of-kind soul, but it seems like many in this community especially the Henry County [Sheriffs Office] have forgotten her and her heartbroken family, Handy wrote.

Handy alleged that some members of the family have been told by the Sheriffs Office one set of facts while other members of the family have been told a conflicting set of facts. She said family members don't know if Hopkins-Pequignot suffered and that they "demand justice for Lorene!"

But in a follow-up interview, Handy alleged the death certificate indicated Hopkins-Pequignot was hit over the head and strangled. Cooper of the medical examiners office said she didnt see anything on the death certificate indicating that Hopkins-Pequignot was hit in the head.
The Henry County Sheriffs Office concluded on Monday an undercover narcotics operation that has led to dozens of arrests and indictments and the confiscation of large quantities of illegal drugs, a sheriffs department release said.

Sheriffs deputies, assisted by the Virginia State Police, Martinsville Police Department, Patrick County Sheriffs Office, Henry County Department of Public Safety, United States Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested 24 suspects on 65 felony charges.

This followed indictments on Jan. 22 by a Henry County Grand Jury for 111 felony charges against 43 adults.

Three other are incarcerated in correctional facilities awaiting service of their indictments. There are 16 suspects who remain at large.

During the course of this arrest operation pharmaceutical pills along with quantities of fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana were seized, along with assets connected to the distribution and trafficking of narcotics, including multiple vehicles and U.S. currency.

Most of those arrested on Monday are being held without bond. The those arrested:
Power is from the city, and the heating system is run with natural gas.

She also had given them utility reports and other documents regarding energy use.

The hunt begins

Engineers broke into teams for lights, HVAC system and miscellaneous to spend a few hours going through the building.

At the restrooms, the miscellaneous team nodded in agreement at the light sensor, and they said sensors would be good for the faucets, too.

The museum probably doesnt use ice often enough to justify the energy used by the icemaker in the kitchen, they said.

In the galleries, the lighting team scrutinized the lights. Light sensors should be added to the switches so that lights would turn off automatically when no one was in the galleries, they said. The standard wall switches could be changed to receiver types, operated by battery-controlled remote sensors.

Automated lights can be set to remain on for a time period after the room is vacant  5 minutes, for example, or half an hour.

They noted that, as the traditional, 40-watt light bulbs burned out, Piedmont Arts replaces them with 10-watt LED bulbs, which results in a 75 percent electrical savings per bulb.
I think this is ridiculous as a community  we are losing many jobs, he said. We have a company that wants to come in with a $40 million investment and were not trying to work something out with them.
Apples holiday quarter of calendar-year 2018 was, by most measures, incredibly successful. Revenue of $84.3 billion, $20 billion of that profit. The second largest quarter in Apple history. And yet, the fact is, Apples holiday quarter was down five percent from the previous-years holiday quarter, and iPhone revenue dropped 15 percent year-over-year. And when the iPhone is hurting, Apple is hurting.

Here are some observations from Apples financial results for its fiscal first quarter of 2019 and Tuesdays customary hourlong conference call between Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri and a gaggle of Wall Street financial analysts.

Apple took its lumps sort of?

After Tim Cooks letter to investors back on January 2, it was clear that this was going to be a tough quarter for Apple. The iPhone represented 62 percent of Apples revenue last quarter; as the iPhone goes, so goes Apple. (In fact, outside of the iPhone, Apples business grew 19 percent year-over-year last quarter.)

One common theory for Apples iPhone issues is that this years iPhones were simply overpriced, and it suppressed phone sales. But when asked about that theory by Steve Milunovich of Wolfe Research, Cook flatly dismissed it, saying that the iPhone XS matched the price of the iPhone X and that the iPhone XR was right in the middle of where the entry iPhone 8 and entry iPhone 8 Plus had been priced. So its actually a pretty small difference in the United States compared to last year.

I have to admit that I may have raised an eyebrow at this one. People dont buy the average of two price slotsthey buy a phone, and even the iPhone XR (which Maestri confirmed was the best-selling iPhone during the period, followed by the iPhone XS Max) was priced more expensively than the base-model iPhone 8, which was itself more expensive than the iPhone 7.

But Cook did admit that people in many markets outside the U.S. are indeed experiencing sticker shock, citing foreign-exchange problems. He said that this month, Apple has lowered prices in many markets outside the U.S. to match the prices in local currency last year, taking the hit on the foreign-exchange front in order to stabilize prices.

Still, when it comes to mitigating the high price of iPhones, Cook seemsas he was in his lettermore focused on ways of easing the pain for consumers rather than cutting prices. Cook mentioned that in Japan, cellular carrier subsidies have ended, leading to major sticker shock for buyers. And even in the U.S., some people are still making the transition from a subsidized phone to one they need to buy outright.

We are undertaking and accelerating a number of initiatives to improve our results, Cook said. One such initiative is making it simple to trade in an iPhone in our stores, and raising awareness of this opportunity Beginning last week, we started making it easier for people to pay for their phones over time with installment payments, and were working on rolling out this program to more geographies as soon as we can.

Longer iPhone life is a feature

At last Septembers iPhone event, Apples Lisa Jackson said that Apple wants to design its products to last as long as possible, and highlighted the goal to have iOS 12 run better on older phones. Thats great, but on Tuesday Cook was questioned by analyst Toni Sacchonaghi of Bernstein about what impact that might have on iPhone sales in the long run. Cook stood by that philosophy.

Apple Apple VP Lisa Jackson at the September 12 Apple iPhone event. Jackson stated that Apple wants it products to last a long time.

We do design our products to last as long as possible, Cook said. Some people hold onto those for the life of the product, and some people trade them in, and then that phone is then redistributed to someone else The upgrade cycle has extended, theres no doubt about that where it goes in the future, I dont know, but Im convinced that making a great product that is high quality is the best thing for the customer and we work for the user, and so thats the way that we look at it.

An interesting quirk here is that Apple has started leaning into the concept of the size of the total number of iPhones in use, the installed base. (Every phone thats handed down or resold isnt a new iPhone sale, but it does still count toward the total number of iPhones in use.)

According to Maestri, Apples iPhone installed base reached an all-time high at the end of December, and gave that number for the first time: 900 million iPhones in use. Maestri said that number was up year-over-year in all five of Apples geographic segments, and that it grew almost 75 million in the last twelve months. Maestri also indicated that Apple will continue to provide information on the installed base of iPhones (as well as total iOS installed base, a figure its shared before) periodically. This is a way for Apple to communicate the size of the overall iPhone market, at a time when its stopped sharing specific unit sales figures for the iPhone.

China hurts

Apple has invested a lot in China and reaped the benefits. But last quarter, China was a black eye for Apple. Cook said that Apples revenue in its Greater China segment was down $4.8 billion versus the year-ago quarterthats a 27 percent decline. (Talk about hitting a pothole.) Cook said that iPhone, Mac, and iPad all declined in China, and that despite the lower number of iPhone upgrades overall, Apple set new records in the Americas, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and in their Rest of Asia Pacific segment. The U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Korea all set records.

Apple iPhone, Mac, and iPad quarterly sales declined in China.

And it didnt matter, because more than 100 percent of the companys worldwide year-over-year revenue decline was driven by our performance in Greater China, Cook said.

On a brighter note, services revenue in China set a record last quarter, and wearables revenue was up 50 percent. Cook said that more than two-thirds of Mac and iPad buyers in China last quarter were buying those products for the first time, and that overall Apples sales were up in China for the calendar year when compared to calendar 2017, despite the problems in the holiday quarter.

We are proud to participate in the Chinese marketplace and we believe our business has a bright future there over time, Cook said. Macroeconomic factors will come and go, but we see great upside in continuing to focus on the things that we can control.

New products are good

Last fall Apple released a new MacBook Air, a new Mac mini, and new iPad Pros. Guess what? Mac and iPad sales responded accordingly, generating more revenue than the year-ago quarter. Mac revenue grew year-over-year for the second straight quarter, up nine percent. And iPad had its best quarter of growth in almost six years, up 17 percent.

After a few rocky years, the iPad seems to have stabilized as a business that generated nearly $20 billion per year for Apple. Apple doesnt sell quite as many Macs, but owing to the much higher average sales price of a Mac, the Mac is a $25 billion per year business. According to Apple, the installed base of both the Mac and the iPad reached all-time highs in December.

Dont fear the headwinds

Theres been a lot of speculation about Apples recent layoffs in some groups. Daring Fireballs John Gruber pondered if Apple saw a recession coming and was purposefully slowing Apples hiring.

The conventional wisdom is that if youve got the money to spend, you invest during a downturn, because youll be able to find good value and bounce back even stronger when the economy does. I thought it was interesting that Cook addressed this directly on Tuesdays call.

We are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business, and we have a very strong pipeline of products and services with some exciting announcements coming later this year, Cook said. Apple innovates like no other company on Earth. And we are not taking our foot off the gas. Well continue to invest through near-term headwinds just as we always have, and will emerge stronger as a result.

If Apple is a company thats in dire straits, as you might read about in some media reports, its executives certainly show no sign. They seem confident that Apple will weather the storm in China and that with some adjustments to how the iPhone is sold, it can bounce backand all the while, its other product lines (and its subscription-services business) continue to grow rapidly.

Cook and Maestri sounded apologetic about Apple missing so badly with its financial forecast for this quarter, but beyond that, they sounded much more like executives at a company that just had its second-best financial quarter ever and walked away with $84 billion in revenue and $20 billion in profit. Nobody should set up a GoFundMe for Apple any time soon.
Novi, Mich., resident Paul Whelan, who was arrested in Moscow on Dec. 28, 2018, on suspicions of spying, looking through a cage's glass as his lawyers talk to each other in a court room in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. He was found guilty in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison.
Kathryn Houghtaling, teacher accused of having sex with students, also charged with giving Xanax to alleged teen victim
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Local News, National & World News, Press Releases, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: January 30 2019

Zeldin: "It is my highest priority to advance the safety and security of our nation at home and abroad."

Long Island, NY - January 30, 2019 - Today, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) was appointed to serve as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations making him the highest ranking Republican on the subcommittee.

It is an honor to serve as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to support and strengthen American foreign policy, Congressman Zeldin said. It is my highest priority to advance the safety and security of our nation at home and abroad, treat our adversaries as our adversaries and our friends as our friends while putting politics aside and the facts first. I look forward to working with my colleagues to provide bipartisan oversight of American foreign policy.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul (R, TX-10) said, Today, I am proud to announce that Congressman Zeldin will serve as the Ranking Member for the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a proven leader dedicated to finding solutions that support American interests abroad and enhance national security. As a Ranking Member, Lee will provide a dynamic voice supporting the Committees foreign policy authorization, the implementation of U.S. law, and fiscal discipline for foreign aid programs around the world. His experience as both a former prosecutor and U.S. Army officer will serve him well in this new role and I look forward to working together to promote American leadership around the world.
Met Eireann's latest forecast warns of 'treacherous' weather with temperatures 'dropping like a stone' with the worst of likely snow heading for inland counties of Ireland.

In her bulletin after the RTE news, meteorologist Siobhan Ryan said the weather will be bitterly cold right up to the end of the week with a Yellow Warning remaining in place.

Also read: Longford mourns death of cool and brave youth volunteer Ross McCann

"At the moment it looks as if Thursday could be problematic with moderate snow accumulations in some parts of the country. So, obviously treacherous conditions now until Saturday," she said.

Here is our 7 day Atlantic forecast chart, including pressure and precipitation. Information on this chart can be found here: https://t.co/5MyRVoQsUq pic.twitter.com/3Sf7J3m8Hm January 30, 2019

Ms Ryan said a cold polar northwest airflow would bring rain, hail, sleet and snow.

Temperatures dropped to -3 Celsius overnight Tuesday with severe frost and extensive icy patches in places. Fresh gusty west to northwest winds eased overnight but snow hit western counties and hills in other parts.

Wednesday is expected to be a dry, sunny but cold day. Ms Ryan forecast that Wednesday night would be followed by the coldest night so far this winter.

Also read: Many of Longford's secondary roads are impassable this morning

"Air temperatures falling back to -4, -5 or even -6 degrees so really dropping like a stone. (It will be) Extremely icy, frosty to begin the day on Thursday," she said.

Ms Ryan expects the 'problematic' low with cold and windy weather will meet cold stagnant air over Ireland during the day.

"In fact, that rainfall will fall as moderate snow in some parts of the country with inland areas must under threat," she said.

Also read: A number of Longford schools closed due to snowfall and dangerous road conditions

MET EIREANN WEBSITE FORECAST

WEDNESDAY 30TH JANUARY

Very cold Wednesday. Widespread frost and icy patches in the morning with lying snow in places. Sunny spells and scattered wintry showers during the day, these mainly of hail and sleet and especially over the north and west, but many areas will have a dry day. The showers will become isolated during the afternoon. Moderate west winds will fall light. Highest temperatures 3 to 6 degrees Celsius.

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

Headline: Very cold conditions expected in the coming days with showers or longer spells of rain, a mixture of hail, sleet and snow at times, but sunny spells also. There will be overnight frosts and icy conditions in many areas.

Wednesday night: A mainly dry and cold with widespread frost and ice patches forming overnight. Lowest temperatures of between -1 to -5 degrees in light to moderate easterly breezes.

Thursday: Continuing cold on Thursday morning with a spell of rain pushing up from the southwest with falls of sleet and snow expected for parts of Munster, Connacht and Leinster. The extent of this weather system is uncertain but parts of the north should remain dry. Highest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees moderate to fresh and gusty northeasterly winds.

Thursday night: Very cold with widespread severe frost. Wintry precipitation will continue overnight. Lowest temperatures of 0 to -3 degrees fresh and gusty northeasterly wind.

Friday: The rain and sleet will be slow to clear the east and southeast on Friday. Elsewhere a dry, bright and cold day with a few showers in the west and north. Highest temperatures of 3 to 5 degrees in moderate to fresh northerly winds. Widespread frost again overnight on Friday with lowest temperatures of 0 to -2 degrees.

Saturday: Cold and frosty, but mainly dry and bright. Highest temperatures of 4 to 6 degrees in mostly moderate northwesterly breezes. Bitterly cold on Saturday night under clear skies with lowest temperatures of -2 to -7 degrees.

Sunday: Some uncertainty for Sunday but current indications suggest and dry and bright start to Sunday but outbreaks of rain pushing in from the Atlantic later in the afternoon. Highest temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees.
It may be freezing hard out there, but the cold certainly hasn't stopped nurses and midwives from across Longford from mounting a strike picket at St Joseph's Hospital this morning as part of the all-out industrial action.

Dean Flanagan is the INMO Industrial Relations Officer for the Midlands and spoke to the Longford Leader this morning regarding the need for strike action.

"It's a case of nurses and midwives not having any other choice. There's no clear message coming from the government. Pay is only a small bit of the strike action today but nurses are the lowest paid degree graduates," he said.

Also read: A number of Longford schools closed due to snowfall and dangerous road conditions

"We've had great support from abroad in Australia and Canada and England. There's a lack of respect coming from the government and comments about threatening jobs in the economy due to Brexit are not helping.

"Everyone is up for the strike action. There are two things it's boiling down to: recruitment and retention. We need to keep our nurses here in Ireland. And equality with allied healthcare professionals.

"Strike committees have been active since the crack of dawn this morning and we've had the support of the public. Even the patients understand why this is being done, because they're seeing what's going on day in, day out.

Also read: Longford Leader columnist Mattie Fox: Once nurses appear on picket lines government wont stand a chance

"There is no section within the HSE that is immune to the mass exodus from this country. We need to provide for who is going to care for the future. We need those people in the future to look after the most vulnerable in our society and that is why we're striking today."

So far there has been an incredible show of support for Longford's nurses and midwives, all of whom have wrapped up warm and driven in snowy and icy conditions to be there today.

Also read: Met Eireann warns of treacherous weather with snow and temperatures dropping like a stone

Members of the public are beeping their horns as they pass and many are stopping with tubs of hot sausages and other food to keep the nurses warm in these freezing temperatures.
It's not as busy as it normally is, said Bass, who has worked as a ticket agent for 15 years. People have been kind. They told me how appreciative they are for having me being here on this cold day.
Minister for Transport Shane Ross is being let ruin rural Ireland with his dramatic drink driving laws, according to a number of local representatives at the January meeting of Longford County Council.

While drink driving is certainly an issue that needs to be taken in hand, councillors expressed their concerns for the decent, sensible drinkers who are doing everything right but getting caught out the next morning at Garda checkpoints.

Cllr Martin Mulleady (FF) raised the issue that Minister Ross had not responded to a letter from Longford County Council regarding dramatic changes in laws, saying that the minister's lack of response was disregarding this council.

This is going to be a serious issue if this man is let ruin rural Ireland like what hes doing. We dont have a luas. We dont have access to taxis in the country. And we dont have bus services in the country thats going to bring people into the town and home, Cllr Mulleady fumed.

Also read: Do home alcohol breathalysers work? Drinkaware gives us the definitive answer

This minister is getting away with an awful lot and its about time he starts to cut back on what hes doing or well have nobody left in the midlands. Its just absolutely scandalous what hes getting away with.

Cllr Micheal Carrigy (FG) was quick to point out that the council was not just sitting back and taking it, but being proactive with the establishment of the hugely successful local link, which runs between Granard and Longford town.

In fact, he said, it is hoped that this service could be extended to other parts of the county in due course.

Theres an evaluation going on on all those routes at the minute and what wed be putting forward is that there would be an expansion on that service throughout the county and that we would look at subsidising hackneys throughout the county or put in subsidies for the pub industry, he said.

So were not sitting back and taking it. Were actually working on proposals for rural Ireland and there was significant investment put into that scheme.

Cllr Gerard Farrell (FG) agreed that the local link was an excellent idea but expressed his concern that the service would take customers from businesses in smaller towns like Lanesboro, Kenagh or Ballymahon.

Also read Granard - Longford Local Link evening service extended until March

Places like Lanesboro and Ballymahon are trying to grow all the time and theres some great work going on there. But if you have a bus taking customers out of the town and bringing them back at 11 oclock at night... it wouldnt be high on my agenda anyway, he said.

Cllr Farrell was in favour, though, of the idea to subsidise taxis in the areas as this would create employment and encourage people to set up hackney businesses.

I know the Local Link is pretty successful in north Longford, but for towns like Lanesboro that are trying to develop tourism initiatives and so on, or a place like Ballymahon thats flying at a great pace, a bus leaving there with people on it and coming back at 11 oclock is not a good idea in my book, he concluded.

Following a deep discussion on drink driving laws in rural Ireland, it was agreed that the council would write to Minister Ross again to follow up on the original correspondence.

Other concerns of council members, however, were with regard to the attitude of Gardai at checkpoints.

People feel very intimidated and afraid that theyre going to be stopped and in trouble, said Cllr John Browne (FG).

I totally agree, said Cllr Farrell in response.Its particularly terrorising people who drink sensibly. People who drink at home are drinking huge glasses of wine, huge measures of this, that and the other.

At least if they drink in a pub, theyll drink sensibly and the people that drink sensibly and have five or six drinks and are basically more or less sober going home shouldnt be terrorised the next morning. These are the decent people that are working and that are keeping this country going.

Also Read: Driver stopped by Gardai on Christmas Day was drinking from a bottle of whiskey

Cllr Mulleady pointed out that the attitude of the Gardai when they breathalyse drivers leaves a lot to be desired.

The Gardai dont make it easy for the person thats going to be bagged, he said.

The first thing they do is they put pressure on you straight away. The first thing the guard said to me was that if I didnt have my drivers licence on me, that I had points straight away on my licence. I dont understand that.

To be honest with you, the pressure that he put on me straight away made me nervous even though I knew that I had no drink on me from the night before. But the guards need to take a proactive look at what theyre doing here.

After much debate, it was suggested that the whole issue be discussed in detail at the next JPC meeting, which is due to be held in early March.
Lockport, NY (14094)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms this evening becoming more widespread overnight. Low 69F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
The city has 31 bridges, and some get inspected every year, but others only every two to four years, depending on their age and condition, according to city records.
Towards the end of last year, a survey by telco 2degrees found that community newspapers and magazines remain the leading source of local news for New Zealanders.

A total of 29 percent of the 2000 people surveyed chose local papers, with the next most popular source (23 percent) being social media.

It was heartening to hear this, despite the relatively small sample, and it definitely reflects the feedback this paper receives on a daily basis.

Commenting on the survey, Sir Bob Harvey, who has had almost 30 years in local government, said he could not overstate the importance of community journalism in ensuring the health and wellbeing of communities.

Community papers provide channelled advocacy of important local issues in a way that isnt mirrored simply by residents chatting on a community Facebook page, he said.

They also champion issues and stories that would escape the attention of the mainstream media.

Further, we believe that knowing a community, and being based within it, is how the best stories are found. Increasingly those stories are picked up by the wider media  most recently the Silverdale School prizegiving story that gained huge national and international traction after we published it last November.

As more and more information becomes available at the touch of a button, people are finding value in stories, and advertising, that relates to them, their community and their local concerns.
Thanks Eddie

Louise Duncan, Orewa

Eddie Law, we are going to 100 percent miss you! You are one of those business owners who has put so much back into the community in a real and tangible way over many years. The closure of this store (HM December 12) is a loss that will be felt by all of us who appreciate good old fashioned service.

Sad to see Eddie go

Mike Williams, Little Manly

I was greatly saddened to see that Eddie Law was finally shutting up shop in Whangaparaoa, though not at all surprised. We moved to Whangaparaoa as a family 13 years ago and have always bought all of our electrical goods, large and small, from the store in Whangaparaoa from the very beginning, including a full kitchen fitout relatively recently. The staff have always been excellent to deal with and price wise the store has always competed well with the major retailers. In particular, Id like to say a huge thanks to Gary, who has been our go-to guy for years. Its a terribly sad indictment on the current state of Whangaparaoas retail climate that one of the very last few surviving longstanding local retailers is finally giving up and locking the doors. Im sure health issues and the importance of family play a part but the reality is that no level headed retailer would invest in Whangaparaoa unless they wanted to open a nail bar or a $2 shop - and even they are closing faster than they open. The Plaza, once a thriving business hub, is now a soul-destroying and sombre empty shell of what was once the heart of the town and the Warehouse, always a slightly down-market purveyor of made in China crap must now be spending more to keep the lights on than it takes in sales. I cant see that staying open much longer. The only very slightly attractive aspect of the Plaza these days are the somewhat optimistic and rose tinted advertisements thinly promising major improvements coming soon. Sadly they dont so much offer promise as beg to be featured on the next Tui advertisement with the caption Yeah right!. Thank you Eddie Law and the team for being such a great part of our community for so many years. And finally, but on a more positive note, a huge congratulations to the team at Hibiscus Matters. You guys are outstanding at producing a local newspaper packed full of interesting articles, real local news coverage and relevant content. I look forward to each issue...as opposed to just dropping the Rodney Times straight into the recycle bin on the way back from the post box. Keep up the good work.

Crossing concerns

Michael James, Orewa

It cant be a surprise to anyone that AT have ignored two of the three recommendations to fix problems at the Orewa pedestrian crossings (HM December 12). They ignored the NZTA Road Safety Procedures, they ignored the wishes of the people. And furthermore, instead of making things easier for both vehicles and pedestrians to use the same bit of road, all they have done is made the roads even more congested. AT appears to be a law-unto-themselves, why was the audit not done at the planning stage?

Monstrosity looms

Simon Hughes, Stanmore Bay

The lack of changes to the hulking apartment building planned for Stanmore Bay has been a shock for those of us who live nearby (HM December 12). We all have our fingers crossed that we will be given the chance to make our feelings felt about this monstrosity and hopefully prevent it from ever happening or get significant changes made. Not against apartments as such, but surely the design needs to be sympathetic to the surrounding coastal low rise environment? Or maybe not.

Elderly costs unfair

Jill Jeffs, Orewa

I would like to comment on North Shore Hospital treatment of the elderly who require care and assistance. When I was on the Health Board we had a problem with local construction workers parking vehicles in the car park and patients couldnt get a space, so the Board decided to start charging parking fees. Eventually the builders moved off, but the charges continued and each year they got more expensive by the hour. So now patients have to pay a huge cost every time they need to go to the hospital clinics. As all the appointment times stated are for 9am or 1pm, the waiting rooms are full and it takes a few hours to be called for attention. This sitting in the waiting rooms can be up to four or five hours while their appointment may only take 15-30 minutes. When you add on the cost of travel from Orewa and north Rodney, the cost of parking plus transport, becomes very difficult on a pension, and most of the expense is from sitting in a crowded waiting room. When it is remembered that the cost of the land, building, facilities and staff was paid (and still is) from the income taxes paid by older folk for many years, and are still paying tax now, then it is shocking. They should only be charged for the time taken for their examination, check up or treatment. That time could be stamped on their appointment letter or card on the way out, or a free carparking card collected at reception. They should not be paying up to $20 or $30 to sit on a chair. I hope elderly folk will put pen to paper and support what I have said. You deserve respect and consideration.

Sculpture rotated

John Simons, Orewa

Whatever happened to Estuary Arts confidence in its own artistic competence to make it succumb to pressure and remove the voluptuous Rubenesque sculpture outside the gallery? As all good artwork should, it grabbed ones attention, curiosity and interest. It demanded investigation and examination. It invited an emotional response and comment, it made one ponder and reflect. Sadly the replacement does none of this at any level at all. I am sure Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso would be just a little saddened at such a timid response to criticism and so am I. Not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder, response and interpretation also lie in the beholders mind.



Estuary Arts manager Kim Boyd replies: Thanks for your comments John. In fact, the statue was not taken down and replaced because of the heated debate. The work belongs to Philipp Ripa and it was due to be returned to him. My vision was to keep the sculpture rotating to keep it fresh for the community and visiting public. The aim is to rotate sculpture every four months or thereabouts. I am always looking for submissions from new sculptors to display their work.

Money making exercise

Adrienne Bird, Stanmore Bay

Great, another 500 homes and associated traffic coming to a road near you soon! (HM December 12). All I can say is there are people making a lot of money out of carving up land around here and selling house and land packages. I am not one of them. Not many seem to consider the impact on the community, infrastructure and environment when there is so much money to be made.
SEGUIN  Gary Inmon, a lawyer and longtime Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District trustee, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two felony charges stemming from his handling of an elderly womans estate, agreeing to pay back $120,000 to her family.

He admitted to misapplying fiduciary property and to committing aggravated perjury and was sentenced to 10 years of deferred adjudication probation. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will drop a theft charge against him.

Inmon was indicted by a Guadalupe County grand jury in June on the three third-degree felonies, all stemming from his execution of an estate in a probate case. Each charge carried a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The plea deal requires him to pay $120,000 in restitution and to surrender his law license for the duration of his probation supervision. He made a $60,000 payment Wednesday morning.

The school board, which had voted 6-0 in June to censure Inmon and issued a statement calling it the strongest possible action we are allowed, has scheduled a special meeting Saturday to discuss whether Inmon should resign or be removed from the board, its president, Robert Westbrook, said Wednesday.

Westbrook said trustees will allow Inmon to present information about his actions and his plea.

Asked if he planned to stay on the board, Inmon replied in a text message, My actions were solely personal in nature and were not related to SCUC-ISD or the Board of Trustees.

Inmon was executor of the estate of Elizabeth Doss, a 91-year-old Schertz woman who died in 2016. Her will called for her assets to be split between her three stepchildren and a fourth beneficiary.

Her assets were valued at $131,456, including a home valued at $126,456, according to an inventory Inmon filed in the case. The property was sold to a rental company, according to Guadalupe County Appraisal District records.

But the beneficiaries received none of the proceeds, a lawyer for one of her stepchildren said in a court filing in January 2017.

The indictment states that in 2016 Inmon intentionally and knowingly (misapplied) property that he lied under oath in 2017 about giving notice to members of the Doss family that they were named as beneficiaries in the will.

Unfortunately, during the spring of 2016, I was overwhelmed with a perfect storm of debilitating issues related to my marriage, family finances and personal health. In an effort to deal with those issues, I made some incredibly poor decisions, Inmon said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

I entered into a plea agreement accepting full responsibility for my actions and accepting the terms offered by the District Attorney, he said.

Court records also show that Inmon filed documents in the Doss case while his law license was suspended. The State Bar of Texas had ordered the yearlong suspension after concluding that he failed to return a $10,000 advance payment to a client.

Inmon also was arrested in late 2017 on an unrelated charge of assaulting his adult stepson during an altercation. Inmon has said he was acting completely in self defense to protect himself and his son, then 8. He has not been indicted in that case.

If school district trustees believe Inmon should be removed, theyll need to consult with the districts lawyer about how to do it, Westbrook said. SCUCs board policy allows for the removal of a trustee who is convicted of a felony, but does not address deferred adjudication, which leaves defendants unconvicted unless they violate their probation.

This is an opportunity to display some leadership, and an opportunity to make sure we place the interests of the school district before anything, Westbrook said.

Inmon was first elected to the board in 2000 and is its longest-serving member. His current term ends in November 2021.

LTeitz@express-news.net
Midland College students and faculty are joining other community colleges today at the Texas State Capitol for Community College Day.

There are 50 community colleges and hundreds of students  including two dozen MC students  in attendance, advocating for their colleges' needs.

Terry Gilmour, professor in government and political science at MC, said this is a once-in-a-life-time experience for students.

"For about the last 10 legislative sessions, we have taken the students to Austin for Community College Day," Gilmour said. "Many of them have never been to the Capitol, and it's also their first time to be in Austin. Almost none of them have ever met their elected representatives. So, we've set up meetings with our elected representatives, Senator Seliger and Representative Craddick."

She said the event gives students the opportunity to meet their elected officials face-to-face and shake their hand and realize those are the people working for them and their benefit.

"It's more an awareness event than anything," Gilmour said. "I think they understand the importance of paying attention to what's going on during the legislative session, because the senator and representative are very good at playing out how hard they are working on behalf of higher education, community college education, funding issues, the cost of text books, financial aid  all of the things that directly affect most of our students."

Students are selected on a first-come, first-serve basis, though they try to take as many students as possible, she said.

"I think it's probably one of the best things that we do for our students -- to let them have a first-hand, real experience with meeting those people that are making decisions on their behalf," Gilmour said.

The all-day event begins with students rallying together on the steps of the Capitol.

"It's quite a sight to see  hundreds and hundreds of community college students there in support of their own college," MC President Steve Thomas said.

The primary issue during each legislative session usually revolves around adequate funding for Midland College, he said.

In past sessions, he said stake reports have been up and down. Sometimes the allocation for MC has been adequate, and there have been some sessions that they have left disappointed  but that was typically in the context when the state budget was not as strong as it had been in previous years.

"The overall success may not be so much in terms of what the Legislature does," Thomas said. "In terms of student experience, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn more about how state government works."

There will not be any discussion at the Capitol from MC about Senator Seliger no longer being chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee.

Thomas said it was an internal decision made by the lieutenant governor, and they will just stick to advocating for MC and its needs, although he disagrees with the outcome.

"I was really surprised when I heard the news," Thomas said. "It's disappointing for me as a president  and one in his district. Senator Seliger has been chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee for several years and is probably one of the more experienced senators on issues related to higher education and community colleges. So, I think we've lost a really, really important voice  not only for community colleges  but for West Texas."
MISD

South Elementary received its first round of equipment for its on-campus food pantry on Jan. 24. Less than a week later, anonymous donors have provided the rest  after the need was published and aired across several news outlets.

The donor told the school they would be willing to cover everything South needs for its pantry, according to a press release. The donation included multiple refrigerators, an additional freezer and the wire shelving needed to hold cans and boxes of food items.
Chicago White Sox starter Lance Lynn had his shortest outing of the season Saturday in a 7-3 loss to the Houston Astros. Lynn allowed six runs (five earned) on eight hits with six strikeouts and a walk in four innings, and the Sox lost their third straight in the series.
Have a few snowflakes turned Americans into, well, snowflakes?

Matt Bevin, the Republican governor of Kentucky, seems to think so. He lamented school closures in his state on Wednesday - when the wind chill could make it feel as frosty as minus-15 - as evidence that the country had lost its mettle.

"I mean, what happens to America?" he wondered during an interview on Tuesday with 840 WHAS radio in Louisville, where several school districts said they would close in anticipation of a blast of arctic air from the polar vortex, expected to bring life-threatening temperatures to parts of the Midwest and nearby states.

The one-term Republican incumbent, who is up for reelection this year, wasn't asking about the increased frequency of extreme weather events, which scientists believe is a sign of intensifying climate change. Or about the fate of thousands of homeless Americans whose lives will be at acute risk in the biting cold.

His question was about why everyone couldn't just toughen up.

"We're getting soft," warned Bevin, who loves posting selfies on social media but has also blocked hundreds of his constituents from interacting with his pages because he doesn't like what they say about him, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. In case his message wasn't clear, he repeated: "We're getting soft."

The arctic weather was already interrupting air travel and preventing planned deliveries by the U.S. Postal Service, which ordinarily promises, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom..." By early Wednesday morning, the bitter conditions had been blamed for at least for a half-dozen deaths. When the radio host, Terry Meiners, remarked that the governor's kids would keep him up late because they would not have to rise for school in the morning, Bevin complained about the move by the school districts.

"Now we cancel school for cold," he said.

"It's deep freeze!" the host replied. "This is serious business."

Bevin scoffed at the forecasts. "Come on now," he said. "I mean, there's no ice going with it, or any snow."

The National Weather Service has, in fact, predicted "moderate snow" in the Louisville area, causing "hazardous road conditions" on top of "very cold wind chills." Whether it is safe to drive and whether students are safe waiting at bus stops are amo ng the decisions weighing on schools, scores of which announced closures this week.

The governor tried to qualify his comments, saying, "I do appreciate it's better to err on the side of being safe." But he also said he was "being only slightly facetious."

Then he doubled down. "But it does concern me a little bit that in America - on this and any number of other fronts - we're sending messages to our young people that if life is hard, you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard," he said.

"And that isn't reality," added Bevin, described as "one of the nation's least popular governors," with just 38 percent of Kentuckians approving of his job performance, according to polling published in December by independent firm Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy. It just isn't."

Bevin was swiftly rebuked for his observation.

Jessica Duenas, Kentucky's 2019 "Teacher of the Year," issued a "personal challenge" for the governor in a video posted Tuesday on Twitter. "Please go outside tomorrow," she told him, "and stand outside for 30 minutes as if you were waiting for the bus, dressed as one of our students would be, because I guarantee you most of our students are not wearing some fancy Patagonia or North Face jackets."

"How about you give one of our students your jackets, and you stand outside in that cold, since you're being so 'hard?'" she said.

Another teacher, Tiffany Dunn, also took to social media to share her indignation, writing, "These elitist comments don't shock me anymore, but they're still appalling."

The Kentucky Education Association, which has clashed with the governor over pension reform, said it supported the decision to keep students at home. "We will always support decisions made for the health & safety of Kentucky's children," the teachers' union wrote on Twitter. "Always."

Adam Edelen, the former state auditor and Democratic candidate for governor, also weighed in, calling the governor's remarks "dumb and mean."

The sharpest attack came from within Bevin's own party. Republican state Rep. Robert Goforth, who is challenging Bevin in the GOP primary in May, knocked the governor for his elite education.

Bevin, who was born in Colorado and grew up in New Hampshire, attended the Gould Academy, a college preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, where annual tuition for boarding students is now $61,350. The school touts its generous financial aid, which benefits 41 percent of families. The governor's bio on the state's website describes how "Bevin and his family of eight lived in an old farmhouse, sharing three bedrooms and one bathroom. The humble home stood on a farm where the family raised crops and livestock, instilling in their children a strong work ethic and solid Christian values."

After college, Bevin served in the U.S. Army and then went into investment banking. In a Fox News interview last October with right-wing pundit Mark Levin, Bevin said his family was "financially humble," revising Levin's characterization of "dirt poor." He also incorrectly predicted that the Republicans would hold the House in the 2018 midterm elections.

Goforth wasn't the only Republican to find fault with the governor. Doug Stafford, an adviser to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Bevin to "hush."

"It will be 0 degrees with 20-30 mph winds in places in KY tomorrow," he wrote on Twitter. "Kids have to sit on bus stops and or walk a mile or more in that. No one wants to hear your old man stories about walking uphill both ways in that when you were a kid."

Bevin hadn't addressed the blowback by early Wednesday. He is no stranger to controversy surrounding his own words.

Last August, he was condemned for comparing state workers who opposed his plan to reform public pensions to drowning victims. Speaking on a conservative talk show based in Cincinnati, the governor said, "It's like saving a drowning victim, Brian. It's like somebody - they're fighting you, biting you, pulling you under. You just need to knock them out and drag them to shore. It's for their own good."

And on Monday, Bevin waded into the controversy du jour, writing an op-ed for the Washington Times on the viral encounter between Catholic students and a tribal elder in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Titled "Maintaining unity in toxic times," the piece took aim at the "faux outrage expressed by the sanctimonious thought police of the liberal left and their water carriers in the mainstream media."
WASHINGTON - A crop of new health insurance plans enabled under regulations from the Trump administration appears more consumer-friendly and less like "junk" insurance than Democrats originally charged.

Chambers of commerce and trade associations have launched more than two dozen of these "association health plans" in 13 states in the seven months since the Labor Department finalized new rules making it easier for small businesses to band together to buy health coverage in the same way large employers do. And there are initial signs the plans are offering generous benefits and premiums lower than can be found in the Obamacare marketplaces.

President Donald Trump billed the new rules as one of several ways to provide consumers with cheaper coverage options than they could find in the Obamacare marketplaces, prompting complaints by Democrats that he was undermining consumer protections laid out in the Affordable Care Act. There's indeed plenty of evidence the administration is trying to weaken the ACA, including the Justice Department's refusal to defend it in court.

But when it comes to these new association health plans, they appear - at least so far - to offer benefits comparable to most workplace plans and haven't tried to discriminate against patients with preexisting conditions, according to an analysis released today by Kev Coleman, a former analyst at the insurance information website HealthPocket.

"We're not seeing skinny plans," said Coleman, who founded a website last year with information on association health plans. "We're seeing the regular doctor care, we're seeing emergency room care, we're seeing mental health coverage."

The farm cooperative Land O'Lakes, which is expanding its association plan to farmers in Nebraska and Minnesota, has said its premiums will cost 25 percent to 35 percent less than plans sold on Nebraska's ACA marketplace. Every category of essential health benefits - which are required for marketplace plans - is covered, according to an analysis by Modern Healthcare.

Several business associations in Nevada have started offering association health plans to member companies. Enrollees in the plan offered by the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce have cited lower deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.

Two of Michigan's largest business associations are partnering to offer members association plans managed by BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan, some of which will cover essential health benefits and offer different premium and deductible levels.

According to Coleman, who analyzed 28 association health plans operating under the new rules, a majority of the new association plans are being launched by regional chambers of commerce, four out of five are being managed by a third-party insurance company, and half the plans offer tax-free savings account options.

The idea behind expanding association health plans was to make more widely available the type of coverage often offered to employees of big companies. Small businesses have typically struggled to provide affordable coverage for workers, given the small size of their risk pools.

The new regulations allow small businesses, associations and self-employed individuals - including those operating in different industries - to band together to buy health coverage by pooling all of their employees together. The health consulting firm Avalere has estimated 3.2 million people could eventually be covered by such plans, which have to comply with the same rules governing large employer plans.

The association plans don't have to cover the essential health benefits required of plans purchased by individuals in the ACA marketplaces - something Democrats have been quick to note. Analysts have also warned that they'll cause marketplace premiums to increase by as much as 3.5 percent, by drawing healthy people away from Obamacare plans and into association coverage.

But what's sometimes been lost in heated, politicized exchanges is that the Labor Department did ban these plans from discriminating against patients with preexisting conditons. That perhaps reflects a growing realization among Republicans that opposing these popular protections is a political loser.

Democrats' claims that association plans constitute "junk" insurance aren't necessarily true. That's because the plans are subject to the same requirements currently in place for large employer plans, including requirements to fully cover preventive care and bans on limiting annual and lifetime benefits.

Republicans strove to highlight association health plans in a contentious Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday. Ways and Means Democrats spent their time bashing GOP lawmakers for trying so long and hard to knock down the ACA and its protections for people with preexisting conditions.

For their single witness, Republicans brought in Rob Robertson, chief administrator of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation. The organization for farmers and ranchers is offering an association health plan it says will cost 25 percent less than plans currently offered in the state's individual market and will cover a broad range of benefits including prescription drugs, emergency room visits and prenatal and maternity care.

The plan won't discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, Robertson said. That's now a point of emphasis for Republicans, who spent last year's midterm elections on the defensive as Democrats accused them of abandoning people with serious medical conditions and drawing attention to a GOP-led state lawsuit against the ACA that could dismantle those protections.

"I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, take 'yes' for an answer," Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., said. "We agree with you. This reform is good; this reform will stay as the law of the land."

But even if association health plans ultimately prove successful - and it's too early to say for sure - Republicans face a harsh reality on health-care policy. After years of slamming the ACA but failing to come up with a viable alternative, they're now stuck in a defensive posture as energized Democrats leveraged the issue to their favor in 2018 and seek to do the same in 2020.

"They get that preexisting conditions must be protected," Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., said sarcastically in remarks aimed at his colleagues on the other end of the dais. "They hear the message - it only took years; it only took hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign commercials."
Jacksonville Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Latonja B. Binion, 49, of 724 Grove St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 12:57 p.m. Monday on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended.

 Tyler A. Stewart, 33, of 918 E. Independence Ave. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 10:35 p.m. Monday on a charge of criminal trespass to land.

 Deshonta L. Smallwood, 29, of 342 W. State St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:32 a.m. Tuesday on charges of possession of a controlled substance, driving while licenses is revoked or suspended, operating an uninsured motor vehicle and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended registration.

State police

ACCIDENTS

 Illinois State Police has released information about a one-vehicle rollover accident Friday that injured four people.

Alexis A. Williams, 21, Rashad P. Williams, 22, and Antwaun G. Davis, 21, all of Chicago, and a minor were injured when the vehicle they were in left eastbound Interstate 72 about 3 p.m. and flipped into the median.

The injured were taken to Passavant Area Hospital or Memorial Medical Center in Springfield.

Compiled by Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree
EDWARDSVILLE  Former dentist and personal injury lawyer Barry Julian has been appointed to the associate judge position left vacant by last falls election of Sarah Smith as a circuit judge.

The appointment touched off disquietude among at least two Republican leaders, who issued a news release claiming the judges, most of whom are Democrats, should appoint more Republicans to the bench. Julian, a Democrat, declined comment on the partisan issue.

The nine-judge group that appointed Julian to the associate judge position preside in the Third Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Madison and Bond counties; however, most of the cases arise in Madison County. There is one circuit judge elected to be the Bond County resident judge.

Julian is one of the founding partners of Gori Julian & Associates, P.C., based in Edwardsville. He retired from Gori Julian & Associates in 2015 but has remained in contact with his co-founder, Randy Gori, and the rest of the team at the law firm.

Julian graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1972 with a biology degree. In 1976, he received a D.M.D. degree from Washington University School of Dental Medicine in St. Louis.

After a career as a dentist, he received a degree from St. Louis University School of Law in 1995.

Prior to forming Gori Julian & Associates with Randy Gori, Julian was also a partner at Wise & Julian in Alton. He and Gori started the firm Gori Julian & Associates in 2008, focusing their efforts on asbestos litigation cases. Today, the firm has a nationwide presence and continues to grow, expanding their practice areas and staff.

Madison County Republican Chairman Jeremy Plank said the nine circuit judges preach about diversity, but their practice paints a different picture.

Where is the diversity of thought? Plank asked. Eight of the nine circuit judges are Democrat. Republican Dave Dugan was elected to a four-year term in November after having been appointed to fill the vacancy of Republican John Barberis, who was elected to the Fifth District Appellate Court.

I find it troubling that Republican applicants for associate judge have been passed over now 17 times in a row, with only two appointments in the past 24 years and none in the past 13 years, Plank said. They couldnt even bring themselves to pick from the many qualified attorneys living in Madison County. Instead, their choice was a powerful asbestos attorney and Florida resident, the chairman said.

Madison County Board Member and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mike Walters of Godfrey, said, I think that residents of Madison County would be shocked to know that only two of 23 judges in the circuit are Republicans. Appointing a wealthy asbestos attorney to the bench will only make the reputation of the Madison County courts even worse.

Reach reporter Sanford Schmidt at 618-208-6449.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will on March 18-22, 2019 hold public hearings on the question of US$10 billion reparations Uganda is supposed to pay the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There will two rounds of oral arguments where Uganda will respond to DRC.

Members of the diplomatic corps are expected to attend the hearings of which verbatim records of the pleadings will be published on the Courts website. Upon the conclusion of the hearings, a press release will be issued presenting the submissions of the Parties, the court says.

Ugandas army the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) is accused of plundering DRCs minerals in the case concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda) from Monday 18 to Friday 22 March 2019, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court.

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The international court IN 2005 ordered Uganda to pay reparations to DRC for the five-year occupation of its eastern regions.

The court ruled that Ugandas 1998-2003 intervention violated international sovereignty and led to the killing and torture of civilians and the destruction of villages. Ugandas claim that it acted in self-defence was dismissed.

The court upheld Congos claim that it had been the victim of unlawful military intervention, though it did not find a deliberate policy of terror. Kinshasa welcomed the ruling and said it would seek $6-$10bn (3.4-5.6bn) in compensation, an estimate the court said would be appropriate.

More than 3 million died in fighting which spawned myriad Congolese militias and rebel groups and sucked in armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. Foreign forces withdrew aftafter accords paved the way for Congos current fragile peace.

By the conduct of its armed forces, which committed acts of killing, torture and other forms of inhumane treatment of the Congolese civilian population  [Uganda] violated its obligations under international human rights law, Shi Jiuyong, president of the 17-member court based at The Hague, said in the judgment. It said Ugandan forces deployed child soldiers, stirred ethnic tension and stole natural resources. The ruling is final.

A UN report in 2001 found that Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda intervened to secure their borders but later the plunder of resources became a reason to stay.

Overview of the case

On 23 June 1999, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) filed in the Registry of the Court Applications instituting proceedings against Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda for acts of armed aggression committed . . . in flagrant breach of the United Nations Charter and of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity. In addition to the cessation of the alleged acts, Congo sought reparation for acts of intentional destruction and looting and the restitution of national property and resources appropriated for the benefit of the respective respondent States.

In its Applications instituting proceedings against Burundi and Rwanda, the DRC referred, as bases for the Courts jurisdiction, to Article 36, paragraph 1, of the Statute, the New York Convention of 10 December 1984 against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Montreal Convention of 23 September 1971 for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation and, lastly, Article 38, paragraph 5, of the Rules of Court. However, the Government of the DRC informed the Court on 15 January 2001 that it intended to discontinue the proceedings instituted against Burundi and Rwanda, stating that it reserved the right to invoke subsequently new grounds of jurisdiction of the Court. The two cases were therefore removed from the List on 30 January 2001.

In the case concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), the DRC founded the jurisdiction of the Court on the declarations of acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court made by the two States. On 19 June 2000, the DRC filed a request for the indication of provisional measures to put a stop to all military activity and violations of human rights and of the sovereignty of the DRC by Uganda. On 1 July 2000, the Court ordered each of the two Parties to prevent and refrain from any armed action which might prejudice the rights of the other Party or aggravate the dispute, to take all measures necessary to comply with all of their obligations under international law and also to ensure full respect for fundamental human rights and for the applicable provisions of humanitarian law.

Uganda subsequently filed a Counter-Memorial containing three counter-claims. By an Order of 29 November 2001, the Court found that two of the counter-claims (acts of aggression allegedly committed by the Congo against Uganda ; and attacks on Ugandan diplomatic premises and personnel in Kinshasa and on Ugandan nationals for which the Congo is alleged to be responsible) were admissible as such and formed part of the proceedings. It also directed the submission of a Reply by the Congo and a Rejoinder by Uganda relating to the claims of both Parties in the proceedings. Those pleadings were filed within the time-limits laid down by the Court.

By an Order of 29 January 2003, the Court authorized the submission by the DRC of an additional pleading relating solely to the counter-claims submitted by Uganda, which was duly filed on 28 February 2003.

Following oral proceedings in April 2005, the Court handed down its Judgment on the merits on 19 December 2005. It began by noting that it was aware of the complex and tragic situation which had long prevailed in the Great Lakes region and of the suffering of the local population. It observed that the instability in the DRC in particular had had negative security implications for Uganda and several other neighbouring States. It recalled, however, that its task was to respond, on the basis of international law, to the particular legal dispute brought before it.

The Court first dealt with the question of the invasion of the DRC by Uganda. After examining the materials submitted to it by the Parties, the Court found that, in the period preceding August 1998, the DRC had not objected to the presence or activities of Ugandan troops in its eastern border area. The two countries had agreed, among other things, that their respective armies would co-operate in order to insure security and peace along the common border. However, the Court drew attention to the fact that the consent that had been given to Uganda to place its forces in the DRC, and to engage in military operations, was not an open-ended consent. It was limited, in terms of objectives and geographic location, to actions directed at stopping the rebels who were operating across the common border. It did not constitute a consent to all that was to follow.

The Court carefully examined the various treaties directed to achieving and maintaining a ceasefire, the withdrawal of foreign forces and the stabilization of relations between the DRC and Uganda. It concluded that none of those instruments constituted consent by the DRC to the presence of Ugandan troops on its territory (save for the limited exception regarding the border region of the Ruwenzori Mountains contained in the Luanda Agreement). The Court also rejected Ugandas claim that its use of force, where not covered by consent, was an exercise of self-defence, finding that the preconditions for self-defence did not exist. Indeed, the unlawful military intervention by Uganda was of such magnitude and duration that the Court considered it to be a grave violation of the prohibition on the use of force expressed in Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter.

The Court also found that, by actively extending military, logistic, economic and financial support to irregular forces operating on the territory of the DRC, the Republic of Uganda had violated the principle of non-use of force in international relations and the principle of non-intervention.

The Court then moved to the question of occupation and of the violations of human rights and humanitarian law. It observed first that, under customary international law, as reflected in Article 42 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, territory is considered to be occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army, and the occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.

Having concluded that Uganda was the occupying power in Ituri at the relevant time, the Court stated that, as such, it was under an obligation, according to Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, to take all measures in its power to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety in the occupied area, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the DRC. This had not been done. The Court also considered that it had credible evidence sufficient to conclude that UPDF (Uganda Peoples Defence Forces) troops had committed violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. It found that these violations were attributable to Uganda.

The third issue that the Court was called upon to examine concerned the alleged exploitation of Congolese natural resources by Uganda. In this regard, the Court considered that it had credible and persuasive evidence to conclude that officers and soldiers of the UPDF, including the most high-ranking officers, had been involved in the looting, plundering and exploitation of the DRCs natural resources and that the military authorities had not taken any measures to put an end to these acts. Uganda was responsible both for the conduct of the UPDF as a whole and for the conduct of individual soldiers and officers of the UPDF in the DRC. This was so even when UPDF officers and soldiers had acted contrary to instructions given or had exceeded their authority. The Court found, on the other hand, that it did not have at its disposal credible evidence to prove that there was a governmental policy on the part of Uganda directed at the exploitation of natural resources of the DRC or that Ugandas military intervention was carried out in order to obtain access to Congolese resources.

In respect of the first counter-claim of Uganda, the Court found that Uganda had not produced sufficient evidence to show that the DRC had provided political and military support to anti-Ugandan rebel groups operating in its territory, or even to prove that the DRC had breached its duty of vigilance by tolerating anti-Ugandan rebels on its territory. The Court thus rejected the first counter-claim submitted by Uganda in its entirety.

As for the second counter-claim of Uganda, the Court first declared inadmissible the part of that claim relating to the alleged maltreatment of Ugandan nationals not enjoying diplomatic status at Ndjili International Airport. Regarding the merits of the claim, it found, on the other hand, that there was sufficient evidence to prove that there were attacks against the Embassy and acts of maltreatment against Ugandan diplomats at Ndjili International Airport. Consequently, it found that the DRC had breached its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The removal of property and archives from the Ugandan Embassy was also in violation of the rules of international law on diplomatic relations.

The Court noted in its Judgment that the nature, form and amount of compensation owed by each Party had been reserved and would only be submitted to the Court should the Parties be unable to reach agreement on the basis of the Judgment just rendered by the Court. Following the delivery of the Judgment, the Parties have regularly informed the Court on the progress of negotiations. On 8 September 2007, the President of the Republic of Uganda and the President of the DRC concluded an Agreement on Bilateral Co-operation, Article 8 of which provided for the establishment of an ad hoc committee, composed of not more than seven members nominated by each Party, to study the Judgment rendered by the Court and to make recommendations concerning reparation. At a meeting on 25 May 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, the two States named their respective members of the ad hoc committee and agreed that that committee would adopt a work plan, rules of procedure and determine timeframes for completing its work. In addition, the DRC presented to the Ugandan delegation a document in which it provided its valuation of the damages it had suffered. In September 2012, the DRC and Uganda concluded an agreement establishing a work plan for the presentation of evidence in support of their respective claims.

On 13 May 2015, deeming that the negotiations with Uganda on this question had failed, the DRC requested the Court to determine the amount of reparation owed by Uganda. While Uganda indicated that this request was premature, the Court, in an Order of 1 July 2015, observed that although the Parties had tried to settle the question directly, they had clearly been unable to reach an agreement. It consequently fixed 6 January 2016 as the time-limit for the Parties to file their written pleadings on the question of reparations. By Orders of 10 December 2015, 11 April 2016 and 6 December 2016, the time-limit was extended to 28 April 2016, 28 September 2016 and 6 February 2018, respectively.
A pregnant Lyft driver in Arizona was stabbed to death by a passenger she had picked up during the weekend in the Phoenix area, authorities say.

Tempe police spokesman Sgt. Ronald Elcock said the driver, 39-year-old Kristina Howato, was stabbed numerous times all over her body early Sunday morning in Tempe. Howato, who was in her third trimester of pregnancy, died along with her unborn child, he said.

The passenger, who was identified by authorities as 20-year-old Fabian Durazo, has been arrested on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the driver and the unborn child, Elcock said.

"Throughout our careers as officers, we have incidents that really, really touch our hearts and stay with you throughout your careers," Elcock said during a news conference. "This is definitely one of those incidents that really is going to affect the police department for a long time, and the community will think about this for a long time. Our hearts right now and our thoughts are with the victim of this incident."

It was not immediately clear whether Durazo has an attorney in the case.

Lyft could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday by The Washington Post but said in a statement to CBS affiliate KTVK: "We were shocked and deeply saddened to learn of this tragedy, and our thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims. The safety of the Lyft community is our top priority. The passenger's account has been permanently deactivated, and we are actively assisting law enforcement with their investigation."

Authorities said Howato picked up Durazo early Sunday morning and drove him to an apartment complex less than a mile away. There, police said, Durazo began attacking the driver, stabbing her repeatedly with a kitchen knife inside the vehicle.

According to police, Howato left the vehicle, and Durazo continued to attack her. He then he took off in Howato's SUV.

Howato was rushed to a hospital, where she and the unborn baby were pronounced dead, police said.

Authorities said they tracked Howato's vehicle and found Durazo outside Quartzsite, Arizona, about 20 miles from the California border. He was taken into custody without incident, police said.

Authorities said that during an interview with police, Durazo admitted to stabbing Howato and taking her vehicle. Although Durazo's motive is unclear, authorities said, they believe he had already planned the attack when he called for the car. It's also unclear where he was going when police caught up to him, police said, but they noted that Durazo has family in California.

Durazo was arrested on charges of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of theft of means of transportation and one count of armed robbery, authorities said.

Police said Howato had two children, a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, who are in the custody of family members.
A suspected marijuana grow house next to a church and across from Needville High School in Fort Bend County was raided early Wednesday the Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force.

According to a news release, the Narcotics Task Force  a Houston HIDTA Initiative  "concluded an investigation, targeting a suspected residence manufacturing and cultivating hydroponic marijuana in Needville."

"I am proud of the work the Task Force has done to get rid of this operation," said Sheriff Troy Nehls in a news release. "Here's what really bothers me: this operation was directly across the street from Needville High School and right next to a church. Absolutely disgusting."

Michael Ferguson, 41, of Needville, was arrested and booked into the Fort Bend County Jail for possession of marijuana in a Drug Free Zone, a second-degree felony, and money laundering, a third-degree felony.

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The search warrant was executed about 9 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30, on a residence in the 16400 block of Highway 36 in Needville.

Task Force officers found that the garage "had been altered into a hydroponic marijuana grow operation capable of growing and harvesting several hundred plants at a time."

Items recovered in the raid included 102 marijuana plants, four large bags of marijuana, more than $5,000 in U.S. currency, suspected THC edibles, and packaging and scales "consistent with the sale and distribution of illicit substances."

As of Wednesday afternoon, Ferguson was not listed as being booked into the Fort Bend County Jail.

A second-degree felony in Texas includes a sentence of 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000 while a third-degree felony carries a penalty of 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.
The FBI is seeking the public's help in locating a Richmond man wanted on a federal child pornography charge.

Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information which leads to the man's arrest.

Robert Shouse, 31, of Richmond, is wanted based on a criminal complaint filed against him in federal court for sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography.

Shouse is "known to frequently visit College Station and Lubbock, Texas," the FBI reported in a news release. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs about 220 pounds, and has light brown hair and brown eyes.

After an FBI investigation, "law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Shouse's home in Richmond, Texas. There, law enforcement officers located, seized, and searched digital devices."

After examining the devices, law enforcement officers allegedly discovered images and videos constituting child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.

Anyone who has information about Shouse's whereabouts is asked to call Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers at (281) 342-TIPS (8477). You can also submit a tip online via Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers.

Information which leads to the apprehension and filing of charges on the suspect(s) involved, could earn you up to $5,000 cash reward. All calls to Crime Stoppers are anonymous.

rkent@hcnonline.com
LPD's SWAT team and negotiators have responded to a residence in northwest Laredo.

Bristol Road, located off Mines Road, has been closed to westbound and eastbound traffic by police as they secure the perimeter, LPD said at about 5:20 a.m. Wednesday.
A Laredo man appeared in court again for a case that was pending after he was sentenced in a murder case earlier this month.

After 49th District Court Judge Joe Lopez sentenced Mario Angel Gonzalez to life in prison Jan. 18 for the murder of 16-year-old Lesley Sanchez, 406th District Court Judge Oscar J. Hale sentenced Gonzalez to 15 years in prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault. The sentences will run concurrently.

Gonzalez was found guilty of fatally stabbing Lesley Sanchez multiple times at a walking trail near the Haynes Recreation Center in July 2017.

According to a Laredo Police supplemental report, Kassandra Jimenez told police that Gonzalez picked her up and took her to eat at Taco Palenque then drove around the city to North Central Park where they walked around.

READ ALSO: Uncle, friend testify about finding missing Laredo teen's body near walking trail

She then told police that Gonzalez drove her to the riverbanks where he got off the vehicle and began to look for something. He asked Jimenez to hold a flashlight for him, the report states.

Jimenez reluctantly exited the vehicle and held the flashlight for Gonzalez for a short amount of time, and when she attempted to get back into the vehicle, he hit her on the back of the head with a wooden board, causing her pain and a large bump to the back of her head, the report states.

According to the report, Gonzalez then threatened to hit her again unless she allowed him to have sex with her. Jimenez feared for her life and feared further bodily injury so she did not fight Gonzalez, the report states.

After several attempts of have sex with Jimenez, Gonzalez told her to lay on her back and raped her, according to the report. She told police that Gonzalez finished inside her and didn't wear protection. After he finished, Gonzalez laughed at Jimenez after she showed concern, the report states.

Jimenez then told Gonzalez that she needed to use the restroom so he took her to a store on Lafayette Street where she was able to call 911, according to the report.

After his arrest, Gonzalez told police investigator Andres Perez that he wanted to press charges on Jimenez if she was pressing charges on him because she allegedly bit him, the report states.

READ ALSO: Father's outburst brings murder trial of 16-year-old Laredo girl to a halt

According to the report, Gonzalez told the investigator that Jimenez bit him and he hit her on the back of the head with his closed fist. Gonzalez showed the investigator where he was allegedly bitten.

Gonzalez alleged that he and Jimenez were arguing when she began to bite him on his forearm and to defend himself, he hit her on the back of her head.

"After that we went to the back (of the suburban). ... she said 'I'm sorry that I hit you.' then we hugged," Gonzalez said.

Perez asked Gonzalez if he'd ever had sex with Jimenez and he said no, the report states.

After asking Gonzalez again what had happened, Perez told him that he had seen him biting himself in the back of the patrol unit, the report states. After changing his story several times, Gonzalez admitted to Perez that he and Jimenez had sex, but that she asked him to penetrate her, the report states. Gonzalez told Perez that he couldn't remember details due to "short term memory loss," according to the report.

The report states Perez then told Gonzalez that Jimenez said he used a weapon to hit her on the back of the head to which he responded, "that's bullcrap" and repeated that he punched her with his hand.

"Gonzalez then said, 'I don't know anything about what she said,' and 'nothing about a palo' being used as a weapon," the report states.

According to the report, Perez kept asking Gonzalez why he had mentioned a "palo" until he became upset and said, "I hit her with my hand!"

READ MORE: Records: Laredo murder suspect previously arrested for striking woman with 2-by-4, raping her

Perez then asked Gonzalez why Jimenez would have injuries that indicated sexual assault and Gonzalez responded that they had "hard sex," the report states.

During the punishment phase of his murder trial, prosecutors called Jimenez to the stand where she testified that Gonzalez got on top of her and raped her after he had hit her with a 2x4 piece of wood.

Prosecutors also called a sexual assault nurse examiner to the stand. The nurse testified that upon examining Jimenez, she had an abrasion on the back of her head, a scratch on her right breast and another abrasion to her left knee. The nurse said that from her examination of Jimenez, there were indications she had been sexually assaulted.

Maria Salas may be reached at 728-2580 or msalas@lmtonline.com
The FBI has seized about $1.6 million from a maquinita owner whose establishments authorities raided in Laredo, Zapata and Falcon Heights last year, authorities said.

The seizure came Friday after the Fourth Court of Appeals denied a motion filed by the Zapata and Webb County District Attorney's Office to consider rehearing the forfeiture case.

On Friday afternoon, a cashier's check was given to attorney Silverio Martinez as trustee for Hilda Diana G. Villarreal of Zapata. Shortly thereafter, FBI special agents served Martinez with the seizure order and took possession of the cashier's check.

READ MORE: Webb County family who operated maquinitas appears in court for illegal gambling allegations

In an opinion issued by the appellate court in December, the justices concluded that the forfeiture petition was not filed with the Zapata County District Clerk's Office, but instead it was filed in Bexar County, and thus the trial court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.

In January 2018, authorities raided Villarreal's home in Zapata and six 8-liner establishments in Laredo, Zapata and Falcon Heights. Her daughter, Rebecca Villarreal Lopez, along with Miriam Sanchez and Lucio Saldivar, were also arrested for their alleged involvement in illegal gambling at the maquinitas.

Villarreal was charged with money laundering. The other co-defendants face charges of gambling promotion and engaging in organized criminal activity. Villarreal Lopez was also charged with keeping a gambling place.

In June, District Judge Susan Reed ruled that the Bexar County court did not have jurisdiction to hear the forfeiture petition. She also gave the Webb County District Attorney's Office five days to return all the seized items belonging to Villarreal.

Reed was assigned to preside over the case in Zapata County due to a conflict of interest involving the only judge who hears cases in Zapata, 49th District Court Judge Joe Lopez. Villarreal Lopez is married to the judge's brother, Joel Lopez.

After the Fourth Courts of Appeals affirmed Reed's decision in December, the District Attorney's Office requested a rehearing. Two weeks later, Fourth Court of Appeals Justice Luz Elena D. Chapa issued an order denying the motion to consider rehearing the case because Justice Karen Angelini and Justice Marialyn Barnard retired on Dec. 31.

READ ALSO: Mugshots: 10 accused of illegal gambling operations in Laredo

"Mr. Martinez and the Villarreals will now have to petition the federal courts for the return of their gambling proceeds," said District Attorney Isidro R. "Chilo" Alaniz said.

Alaniz recalled he said he would exercise every legal remedy available before returning the money.

"The point that I want to make very clear is that gambling and gambling proceeds are illegal under state and federal law," he said.

Alaniz added, "As district attorney, we are now collaborating with our federal partners to deal with this crime."

Martinez, Hilda Villarreal's attorney, awaits for the battle in court.

"We litigated against the state and the state lost. They lost, and they pursued every single appellate avenue and they lost. They were out of options, and they called the feds," Martinez said.

Martinez said the case in federal court will be arguable. But whether prosecutors will be successful in subsequent forfeiture, that's still in question, he said.

"We're pretty confident. There are a lot of different angles to defend that case as well. I don't think it is going to be held from us forever," Martinez said.

"Just because the federal government seized the money, it doesn't mean it doesn't belong to us. I still expect to be able to recover it," he said.

Alaniz said federal authorities were aware of the case since its inception. He intends to continue with the case in state court, unless federal charges are filed, he said.

The forfeiture petition was filed with the Bexar County District Clerk's Office on Jan. 29, 2018. These documents were captioned as being filed in Zapata County, Alaniz previously said. His office said the forfeiture petition was delivered to Judge Sid Harle at his Bexar County office for record-keeping purposes, not because it was filed in that county. Harle was the judge who had signed off on the search warrants in connection with the illegal gambling investigation.

More than two months later, the state filed a motion to transfer venue with the Bexar County district clerk, asking the trial court to transfer the forfeiture proceeding to Zapata County. On March 22, 2018, the trial court granted the motion to transfer venue and ordered the proceeding transferred to Zapata.

On April 9, 2018, the owners of the seized property filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the state had not filed its forfeiture petition in Zapata County as required by law. The plea to the jurisdiction further asserted that the state had failed to comply with Texas' code of criminal procedure, which requires that a forfeiture action be commenced not later than the 30th day after the property is seized.
A mother carrying shopping bags, a stroller and her 1-year-old baby died on Monday after falling down a flight of stairs in a New York subway station, officials said.

The woman, Malaysia Goodson, 22, of Stamford, Connecticut, was found unconscious at about 8 p.m. on Monday night in a stairwell of a subway station on Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street, police said. She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Lt. Paul Ng, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said Goodson was carrying her baby, who was unharmed, in her arms. Some media reports said Goodson was carrying the child in a stroller.

Dieshe Goodson, Malaysia's brother, told News 12 Connecticut that his sister had been in Manhattan for a shopping trip, saying she had a lot of bags with her in addition to the stroller.

"When I was on my way to the hospital last night, I was praying that it wasn't her the whole time," he told the television station.

It was not immediately clear whether Goodson was affected by any other medical condition. The medical examiner's office, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to a request for information. The agency that runs New York's subway system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a statement that it had found the stairs, railing and floor at the station where Goodson to be in good condition.

"This is an absolutely heartbreaking incident," the agency said in a statement.

Goodson's death drew wide attention Tuesday. Transit and disability groups have increasingly pointed to the system's accessibility issues for those in wheelchairs or who need to use elevators for other reasons. The station where Goodson was found has no elevators, only two escalators that head up to the street from the subway platforms, the MTA said.

"This is a heartbreaking tragedy that never should have happened," Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted. "The subway system is not accessible for everyone and that's an environment the MTA should not allow."

New York has the most subway stations of any transit system in the world. But three-quarters of its 472 stations do not have elevators, lifts or other features to make them fully accessible to those who are unable to use stairs. For the stations that do have elevators, service outages have been a long-standing complaint.

The MTA said it was working on a plan to add as many as 50 elevators in the next five years.

A group of disability organizations and disabled residents sued the MTA in 2017, arguing that New York's subway system was one of the least accessible in the United States.
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It might be cold enough in Chicago right now to make the ground shake.

Local news station WGN reported today (Jan. 30) that its viewers had heard "frost quakes" in the city overnight. And though the reports in Chicago are still unconfirmed, frost quakes are indeed a real thing.

Frost quakes, or "cryoseisms," occur when water trapped underground freezes suddenly as the temperature drops, causing it to expand. (Water expands as it freezes.) All that rapidly expanding water underground can split rocks and put stress on the soil, causing loud booms. Frost quakes are fairly rare events and difficult to positively identify. A huge blast that shook northwest Calgary, Canada, in 2014 was widely attributed to a loud cryoseism, but researchers never confirmed that as the cause. [9 Tips for Exercising in Winter Weather]

Charles Mott, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) office serving Chicago, told Live Science he hasn't personally heard any frost quakes in recent days, but added "that has to do with being inside all day."

But Mott said that there's been some chatter about the possibility of them around the office, and that he has no reason to doubt WGN's report.

For a frost quake to occur, at least three conditions are required, according to "Frost Quakes: Forecasting the Unanticipated Clatter," published online in 2015 in the meteorology journal Weatherwise. First, rain or snowmelt saturates the ground with water. Second, there's little to no snow on the ground, which otherwise blankets the soil and protects it from sudden temperature changes. Third, the temperature rapidly drops, freezing the earth.

There's some evidence that frost quakes have become more common recently, at least in the Toronto area. The authors of "Forecasting the Unanticipated Clatter" published a different paper online in June 2016 suggesting that this increase might be the result of the changing climate. Warmer, wetter air masses have become more common in the area over the winter, leaving the ground wet and free of snow. When those air masses do turn frigid, frost quakes can result.

It's unclear if frost quakes are occurring elsewhere in areas impacted by the current polar vortex event. But meteorologists in the Grand Forks, North Dakota, NWS office laughed when contacted by Live Science with the question and said they'd never heard the term "frost quake" before.

("Cryoseisms" rang a bell, one forecaster said, but he was unsure of the details and would "have to google it, just like you.")

Brent Hewett, a meteorologist at the NWS office in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, said that there had been no reports of cryoseisms in that area, probably because there's snow on the ground.

Originally published on Live Science.
Diver Tracy Wildrix inspects what may be a coral-covered aircraft wing spar at the crash site during an August 2018 expedition.

In the late 1930s, a little boy on a Papua New Guinean island saw a plane  its left wing engulfed in flames  crash onto the beach. The little boy told his elders, but they didn't believe him.

The tide quickly dragged the plane offshore and underwater, where it's now covered with coral. And it might not be just any plane: One amateur historian thinks it could belong to Amelia Earhart.

"We're still exploring to try to find out whose plane it is. We don't want to jump ahead and assume that it's Amelia's," said William Snavely, the director of Project Blue Angel, the group spearheading the project to identify the plane. "But everything that we're seeing so far would tend to make us think it could be." [In Photos: Searching for Amelia Earhart]

On a diving expedition in August 2018, divers with Project Blue Angel said the sunken plane matched certain characteristics of Earhart's plane, a Lockheed Electra 10E. The team also found a glass disc that could possibly be a light lens from the front of the plane, Snavely said.

A local resident holds what may be the glass face of a plane light. (Image credit: Stephani Gordon, Open Boat Films)

However, much more analysis is needed, he said. The group now has a GoFundMe page to raise money for a second trip to Papua New Guinea. And experts still need to examine the glass, Snavely said.

"It's obviously glass that appears to be old and covered significantly with barnacles," Snavely told Live Science. "It has a rough shape and diameter that appears to be relatively consistent with lights that were on the plane back in the 1930s for Lockheed. But we don't know for sure if it's a Lockheed light. That's what we're getting checked right now."

Fiery crash

Snavely, a social worker who used to work for the state of Maryland, said he's been interested in Earhart since he was a kid, when he used to build model airplanes. He even had a toy replica of the Lockheed Electra 10E.

Later, while studying up on Earhart's mysterious disappearance, he realized a key fact. Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were trying to circumnavigate the world, but they went missing on July 2, 1937, after they left Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island, located between Hawaii and Australia.

Most Earhart sleuths were looking for the crash near Howland Island, but few had searched the beginning 70 percent of her route, Snavely realized. So, that's what he set out to do.

In 2005, he flew over to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, with the plan of talking to locals who might have information about a mysterious plane crash. Almost immediately, Snavely met a corrections officer at his hotel who had knowledge of a crash that the little boy saw all those years ago. Apparently, another man free diving for sponges spotted the wreck in 1995, verifying the boy's account. (The once little boy was still alive in 1995 when the diver first spotted the plane, but has since passed away, so there's no way to verify his story.)

The corrections officer asked Snavely for five characteristics that set the Electra apart from other planes. That way, he could have the sponge diver revisit the wreckage to see if it matched up. Snavely rattled off some features: The plane had a twin engine, a twin tail, a door on the pilot's side, a loop on the front of it for navigation purposes and a spar for an antenna. [Up She Goes! 8 of the Wackiest Early Flying Machines]

To Snavely's surprise, the corrections officer later verified that the plane wreckage had all five of the features, Snavely said.

A local points to the site of the crash, near Matsungan Island. (Image credit: Stephani Gordon, Open Boat Films)

Deep dive

The wreckage sits off a small, inhabited island near the town of Buka on the eastern side of Papua New Guinea. Snavely's hypothesis largely rests on the premise that the Electra's gas tank wasn't filled to full capacity when Amelia and Noonan took off from Papua New Guinea. This, however, is subject to debate; there is no definitive evidence that would indicate how much fuel was put on board that day, according to Mary Lovell's book "The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart" (St. Martin's Griffin, 1989). According to some sources, the gas tank wasn't fully filled because the plane was already at its full-weight capacity. But, according to others, it was nearly filled, Lovell wrote in the book.

Assuming the tank wasn't filled enough, it's possible that Earhart and Noonan decided to turn the plane around after they ran into strong headwinds (meaning it took more gas than usual to fly). Perhaps the aviators realized they wouldn't make it to Howland Island and rerouted the flight, flying toward Buka, which had the closest known runway, Snavely said.

Then, during a tumultuous thunderstorm, it's possible Earhart crashed down on the island next to Buka, Snavely said.

How feasible is this?

There are plenty of ideas about what happened to Earhart, said Chris Williamson, the project director of the "Chasing Earhart" podcast, which explores the different hypotheses surrounding her disappearance.

The majority of these hypotheses fit into five main categories, Williamson said.

The Electra crashed and sank into the vast Pacific Ocean. Or, perhaps, Earhart purposefully landed (ditched) the plane on the water, and then it sank. Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese. Then, they either died in captivity or were executed. Earhart and Noonan became castaways on a distant island, perhaps on Nikumaroro (previously called Gardner Island). It's possible that they survived for some time. In this scenario, it's unclear who died first. Earhart was captured by the Japanese, but she didn't die. Instead, she was repatriated to the United States, where she took on the name of Irene Bolam. (This is disputed, however, by Bolam herself, according to The New York Times.) The Buka hypothesis, in which Earhart turned the plane around and then crashed into the island near Buka.

Williamson commended Snavely for his skeptical approach. "He's being very cautious about it," Williamson told Live Science. "He's not saying we found her, this is a slam dunk."

Instead, Snavely said he hopes to learn who perished in the Buka plane crash.

"We, at this point, are just interested right now in making an identification as to whose plane it is," Snavely said. "Somebody died in that plane, and we'd like to know who it was to be able to tell their families."

Originally published on Live Science.
When she is gearing up, Shinya focuses on minimizing exposed skin, and combining layers of silk and wool. She suggests wearing silk next to the skin, as stockings, pantyhose or long underwear. In Antarctica, she wore clothing issued by the U.S. Antarctic Program, including two lightweight wool undershirts, and a heavy wool sweater, bib overalls, a down jacket and a puffy red parka on top of that. She wore two pairs of socks and cut off sections of wool sock to cover her wrists between her coat sleeves and gloves, with hand warmers on her wrists and ankles.
Burned bones are a vexing problem for archaeologists. Cremation burns away information: sex, age and other identifying features are wiped clean by fire.

But there may be some hope left for getting information from burned bones. In a new study of Iron Age and Bronze Age skeletons, researchers have found that it's likely possible to determine the sex of an individual, even from small bone fragments.

"In Europe, especially in the second and first millennium B.C., we just have almost exclusively cremations," said study author Claudio Cavazzuti, a bioarchaeologist at the Museo delle Civilta in Rome. "It's very important to reconstruct the ritual customs, but also the demographic structure of these societies." [Bones With Names: Long-Dead Bodies Archaeologists Have Identified]

Cremation conundrums

Unfortunately, those societies did not make it easy on modern archaeologists. Cremation does a number on bones. It shrinks them and warps them, Cavazzuti told Live Science. And while ancient cultures didn't pulverize bones to powder like most crematories today, the bones would splinter and fragment as the funeral pyre collapsed. Occasionally, fragments of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) long will survive cremation, said Elzbieta Jaskulska, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw who specializes in cremated remains. But finding a specimen with fragments that large is like winning the lottery, Jaskulska, who was not involved in the current study, told Live Science. More often, archaeologists feel lucky to get fragments that are 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) long. [After Death: 8 Burial Alternatives That Are Going Mainstream]

Cremated bone fragments from the Narde di Frattesina necropolis in Italy. The bones on the left probably belong to a male, while the bones on the right are probably from a female. (Image credit: Claudio Cavazzuti, 2018)

Making matters worse, the delicate, spongy bones in the pelvis and at the ends of joints are most susceptible to flame, Jaskulska said, so the most information-rich parts of the skeleton are lost most easily.

Some researchers have tried to figure out sex-specific measurements in cremated bones by looking at modern cremations, where the sex of the deceased is known. The problem with that, Cavazzuti said, is that modern people are bigger-boned than ancient people, so the measurements may not translate. These methods tend to classify ancient men as women.

Sex versus gender

So Cavazzuti and his team took a controversial approach. They gathered 124 burials from between the 12th and sixth centuries B.C. from five necropolises in Italy. All the specimens had been held in the Museo delle Civilta. When the bones were originally found, they had been buried with objects that likely hint at the sex of the individuals: weapons for men, weaving tools for women. This is a fraught assumption, the researchers admitted today (Jan. 30) in the journal PLOS ONE. There's no guarantee that the gender indicated by the grave goods matches the individual's biological sex. Indeed, Jaskulska said, many cultures around the world recognize more genders than male and female, so assumptions about binary gender are tricky.

Cavazzuti and his colleagues argued, however, that most bodies with masculine objects were likely biologically male, and most with feminine objects were likely biologically female. Proceeding from that assumption, they made 24 measurements of various bones, such as the width of the part of the jaw that connects to the skull and the diameter of the head of the thigh bone.

They found that 21 of the 24 measurements predicted a sex matching the individual's grave goods. Eight measurements, including the width of the kneecap, the diameter of the head of the radius in the forearm and the length of the lunate  a tiny bone in the hand  predicted whether an individual was male or female (as gauged by grave goods) with at least 80 percent accuracy.

Demographic questions

The method is intriguing, Jaskulska said, but it may not be universally useful, because the bones measured by Cavazzuti's team are not found in all cremations. In fact, she said, they're quite rarely preserved.

"I have a very nicely preserved burial I'm working with," Jaskulska said, noting that many fragments in her current specimen range up to 2 inches (5 cm) in length. "I said to myself, 'Let's see how many of those measurements I can take from that burial,'  there is not even one that I can take down."

Another promising method, Jaskulska said, might be to study cremated bone fragments on a microscopic level. Sex differences in the microscopic structure of bone might survive fire, she said.

Cavazzuti and his colleagues plan to test their method on other remains. The study of cremated bones is becoming more sophisticated, Cavazzuti said. Scientists are now able to extract isotopes of the element strontium from some burned bones that can indicate where a person grew up, which can in turn reveal patterns of human mobility. Those patterns, he said, might be very gender-dependent.

"It's maybe the warriors, or the artisans, or the wives who were moving around," he said. "So it's important to have this basic information."

Originally published on Live Science.
Naval sonar has been linked to mass strandings of otherwise-healthy whales for nearly two decades, but the precise mechanisms of how it affects whales has eluded scientists. Now, researchers have explained key details of how this disruptive signal triggers behavior in some whales that ends in death.

Previously, necropsies of beaked whales from multiple stranding incidents found nitrogen bubbles in their body tissues, a hallmark of decompression sickness, or "the bends." This dangerous condition also affects scuba divers when they rise too rapidly from deep water; it can cause pain, paralysis and even death.

Whales are adapted for deep-sea diving, and beaked whales are the record-holders for the longest and deepest dives. But the new research explains how sonar in certain frequencies disorients and terrifies some beaked whales so much that the experience overrides an important adaptation for deep diving: a slower heartbeat. Extreme fear accelerates a whale's heart rate, which can lead to decompression sickness; the intense pain of this condition incapacitates the whales, so they strand on beaches and eventually die, scientists reported in a new study. [Whale Photos: Giants of the Deep]

Mass strandings of Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) were almost unheard of prior to 1960, but that changed with the introduction of midfrequency active sonar (MFAS) in naval exercises in the open ocean. This type of sonar, developed in the 1950s for submarine detection, operates in a range of 4.5 to 5.5 kHz, according to the study. After this sonar appeared, mass stranding events soon skyrocketed for beaked whales, with 121 such strandings taking place between 1960 and 2004, the researchers wrote.

Scientists first noted a connection between mass strandings of Cuvier's beaked whales and naval exercises using sonar in the late 1980s, lead study author Yara Bernaldo de Quiros, a researcher at the Institute for Animal Health and Food Safety at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain, told Live Science in an email.

That link strengthened after similar stranding events in Greece in 1996 and in the Bahamas in 2000, de Quiros added. And in September 2002, when 14 beaked whales stranded in the Canary Islands during a NATO naval exercise, veterinary pathologists discovered lesions in the animals that were "consistent with a decompression sickness," de Quiros said.

Biologists studying beaked whales call for an end to naval exercises using sonar, which can sicken whales and lead to mass beachings. (Image credit: Copyright Cabildo de Fuerteventura)

Fight or flight

In 2017, biologists studying beaked whales gathered for a workshop to analyze findings about strandings from the past decades, looking at mass strandings that were linked to nearby naval exercises using sonar.

Between 2002 and 2014, six mass strandings took place in Greece, the Canary Islands and Almeria in southeastern Spain, but the dead whales did not appear to be malnourished or sick. However, they displayed "abundant gas bubbles" throughout their veins, blood clots in multiple organs and microscopic hemorrhages "of varying severity" in body tissues.

Beached whales may have experienced "a fight or flight response" that overrode a key diving adaptation: the lowering of heart rate, which reduces oxygen consumption and prevents nitrogen accumulation. The result was hemorrhages and "massive bubble formation in their tissues," de Quiros explained.

These symptoms of decompression sickness likely afflicted the whales after they were spooked by sonic blasts, according to the study.

"The temporal and spatial association with naval exercises with use of sonar is very clear," de Quiros said in the email. What's more, behavioral studies have shown that whales that have never encountered sonar (or that have been exposed to it only occasionally) typically exhibit a stronger response than animals living near military outposts, she added.

In 2004, Spain banned sonar in Canary Islands waters, a mass-strandings hotspot. No mass strandings have taken place since the ban was enacted, "proving the effectiveness of this mitigation," de Quiros said.

Based on their findings, the study authors recommended more-widespread bans on military exercises using sonar across the Mediterranean Sea, where atypical mass strandings of beaked whales still take place. Further research will determine the long-term impact of mass strandings on beaked whale populations, the authors wrote in the study.

The findings were published online today (Jan. 30) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Originally published on Live Science.
The remains of Capt. Matthew Flinders were found during excavations of a cemetery near Euston train station in London, as part of the HS2 high-speed rail project.

Archaeologists working at a London construction site for a high-speed rail line rediscovered the lost grave of Capt. Matthew Flinders, an English explorer who circumnavigated Australia.

A lead plate on the coffin revealed Flinders' identity among thousands of other graves buried near London's Euston station.

"The discovery of Captain Matthew Flinders' remains is an incredible opportunity for us to learn more about the life and remarkable achievements of this British navigator, hydrographer and scientist," Helen Wass, head of heritage for the rail project, known as HS2, said in a statement.

From 1802 to 1803, Flinders led the first expedition to sail around the coast of Australia (then known as Terra Australis Incognita, or the Unknown South Land) and confirmed it as a continent. [The 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages]

Flinders died in 1814, at age 40, and was interred in the St. James burial ground in London. The location of his grave was lost in 1849, when an expansion of the Euston railway station disturbed the burial ground and Flinders' headstone was removed. (An urban legend held that Flinders was buried under Platform 15.)

The St. James burial ground was used in the 18th and 19th centuries, and contains about 40,000 other graves of individuals from a wide swath of London society, from artists and musicians to soldiers and nobility.

"Given the number of human remains at St. James', we weren't confident that we were going to find him," Wass said. "We were very lucky that Captain Flinders had a breastplate made of lead, meaning it would not have corroded. We'll now be able to study his skeleton to see whether life at sea left its mark and what more we can learn about him."

HS2 is a high-speed rail line that, in its first phase, will connect London and Birmingham. The British government has billed the archaeological component of the HS2 project as Europe's largest archaeological dig. More than 60 archaeological sites will be investigated along the rail line, including prehistoric villages, medieval manors and battlefields.

Wass noted that Flinders has a curious connection to archaeology: He was the grandfather of Flinders Petrie, an English Egyptologist who was a pioneer of methodical archaeological excavation.

Strangely enough, Petrie's remains, or at least part of them, had also been lost after his death in 1942. While his body was buried in Jerusalem, Petrie's head was sent to the London Royal College of Surgeons in a jar, as a donation to science. But amid the chaos of World War II, Petrie's head was misplaced in storage and only re-identified in 1989.

The remains of Flinders and the others buried at St. James will eventually be reinterred at a location to be announced.

Original article on Live Science.
The polar vortex has returned to the United States, bringing "historic" cold and wind chills to a region spanning much of the Upper Midwest and the Dakotas. Temperatures close to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 degrees Celsius) are possible in the Twin Cities region today (Jan. 29) and tomorrow (Jan. 30), according to the National Weather Service. That's comparable to winter conditions at the North Pole, and a bit warmer than the current forecast at the South Pole, where temperatures around minus 20 F (minus 29 C) are expected for the next few days.

Nearby cities like Chicago aren't much better off, with temperatures below minus 20 F expected on Jan. 30. And Grand Forks, North Dakota, may reach minus 38 F (minus 39 C) overnight. That's nearing the supercold point where the metric and imperial temperature scales converge, and dropping below expected temperatures at the North Pole. [In Images: Tracking a Retreating Glacier]

So what the heck is going on?

"I'm sure everyone is familiar with the polar vortex," said Tyler Hasenstein, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Minnesota's Twin Cities region.

See more

Hasenstein is referring to the body of supercold air that, under normal circumstances, stays locked up in the Arctic, turning endless circles around the North Pole.

But this past weekend, a low-pressure storm system that moved through the Great Lakes region cleared a path for the vortex to escape southward, Hasenstein told Live Science. And the frigid air will be locked in place for the next few days thanks to "very strong system of high pressure" north and west of the arctic air mass, he said.

The particularly intense cold in a wide region around Minneapolis has to do with the particular shape of the jet stream at the moment, Hasenstein said, which is delivering even more cold air into this area.Making matters worse, that high-pressure mass is interacting with the arctic air to produce high winds that make the already dangerously low temperatures even worse for people outdoors, he said.

Wind chills as low as minus 60 F (minus 51 C) have already been reported in North Dakota, according to the local NWS.

See more

Being outside on a minus 30 F day with an additional minus30 F of wind chill isn't quite the same thing as being out in true minus 60 F weather, Hasenstein noted. But it's similar enough, and extremely dangerous, because the wind strips away the natural insulating layer of heat on the outside of a human body.

"In terms of frostbite, if you're out in minus 25 degrees with no wind you can get frostbite in about 5 to 10 minutes, probably closer to the 5-minute end," he said. "But if you're out in minus 25 degrees with another 25 of wind chill, you can expect frostbite in under 5 minutes.".

Hasenstein also said that people should know that their otherwise-working cars might fail in this weather.

"It can be quite dangerous for vehicles that have been sitting out," he said, "Especially if they're not properly maintained or are toward the end of when they'd be getting their next oil change or something of that nature."

Engines can fail, tire pressures can drop, and other problems can occur that would leave motorists stranded in the extreme cold.

"The biggest thing for people to know is that if you absolutely have to be outside keep it as short as possible and try not to have any exposed skin. And that includes especially your nose and ears, as well as any extremities, [such as] your fingers and toes," he said.

As scientist Michael Mann previously wrote in an op-ed for Live Science, there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that events like this are going to be more common as climate change makes the jet stream wander more wildly.

Originally published on Live Science.
Newly described black fungus <i>Aeminium ludger</i> could threaten a historic Portuguese cathedral, where the corrosive fungus was discovered.

A Portuguese cathedral built more than 800 years ago has a high-walled exterior that resembles the ramparts of a medieval fortress. But these fortifications were powerless against an insidious enemy that penetrated the cathedral walls from within  black fungus.

The Old Cathedral of Coimbra (Se Velha de Coimbra) stands on a hillside in the city center of Coimbra, Portugal. It was constructed between the late 12th and early 13th centuries on the grounds of the University of Coimbra, Alta and Sofia  a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013.

Scientists recently surveyed the Coimbra cathedral for signs of deterioration and made a startling discovery: They found a type of black fungus that was unknown to science, describing it as a new family, genus and species. [Microscopic Worlds Gallery: Fascinating Fungi]

Slow-growing black fungi are considered to be especially destructive to stone monuments because they sink their hyphae  branching tendrils  deep inside, leading to cracks and fissures, the researchers reported in a new study, published online Jan. 28 in the journal MycoKeys.

Black fungi can further damage stone with the production of polysaccharides, which cause corrosion.

Once black fungi take hold somewhere, they can be very difficult to dislodge. These hardy organisms have a high tolerance for drought, solar and ultraviolet radiation, and extreme temperatures, according to the study. Their destructive power and resistance to corrective restoration treatments make black fungi "one of the major challenges" for experts working to preserve culturally important objects and buildings, the researchers reported.

In the cathedral's Santa Maria chapel (top) scientists retrieved black fungus from carved artwork (bottom). (Image credit: Miguel Mesquita)

They collected fungus samples from a deteriorated limestone carving in the cathedral's Santa Maria chapel, evaluating the fungus's physical features, its DNA, and its tolerance of extreme heat, salt and acid. Analysis revealed a new lineage of black fungus, and the study authors dubbed it Aeminium ludgeri: "Aeminium" is the old Latin name of Coimbria, and "ludgeri" references a deceased colleague, Ludgero Avelar, a researcher with the Centre for Functional Ecology at the University of Coimbra.

The fungus may have traveled to the Coimbra cathedral during its construction, in limestone brought from two nearby quarries, the scientists reported. And while the cathedral is currently the only known host to this black fungus, it might be native to limestone quarries in the region, they added.

"Additional sampling may further expand the full geographical and ecological spectrum of this fungus," the researchers wrote in the study.

Originally published on Live Science.
Later this week the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will present its sixth and final Union budget . Though only an interim budget, as the general election cycle will kick in within two months to elect a new regime, it is still very critical, both in terms of the underlying politics, as well as the economics, it will project.

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will undoubtedly like all PMs leave his stamp on the budget, and his co-author, the finance minister, strike the right notes, it will help them shape the desired narrative to assist the re-election bid of the NDA.

At its core, the Union budget will have to strike the perfect balance in managing expectations and yet not ignoring the economic reality, which provides little or no fiscal space to underwrite populist schemes to politically blunt the largesse promised by the opposition, unencumbered by the burden of elected office.

In any case, it is also true that the Union budget in the context of a transformed Indian economy of today no longer commands the same cause and effect that it did previously. However, the daunting challenge facing the FM also mirrors equally compelling opportunities for the bold.

The thing is, the business as usual no matter how spectacularly packaged will belike the so-called dream budget presented by P. Chidambaram in 1997only worth the headlines in the next days newspapers. On the other hand, an out-of-the-box thought redefining scope of the Union budget, and detailing contours of a new emerging India, will enjoy greater currency with a thinking electorateand, they account for bulk of the voting populace. While the prudent would caution that this is not the moment for a daring flourish, for a consummate risk taker like PM Modi it is exactly the right circumstance to buck the norm.





Undoubtedly, the scope of the Union budget has diminished substantially. To put it frankly, it has lost its mojo. At the same time, India has undergone a transformative makeover since the presentation of the first budget of modern India seven decades ago. Yet, while its ability to be the force multiplier in the economy is diminished, it is still a document that can provide an excellent marker on the governments blueprint for action.

Before that, it is important to understand why the Union budget has lost its verve. For one, the private sector has emerged as a key economic agent; in fact, private sector investment now outpaces that of the public sector. Second, the implementation of the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission increased the share of states in pooled tax revenues to 42%, implying that fewer resources now accrue to the centre.

And, if we take into account the fact that almost three-quarters of the Union government receipts are pre-empted by payments owed on account of interest payments on the giant pile of internal debt, salaries of government personnel and subsidies, the money with the government is even less. Third, the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) has ensured that most indirect levies are now decided by the GST Council and not by the Union governmentso an FM, unlike in the past, no longer has the option of tinkering with indirect tax rates to offer sops to key electoral constituencies. Fourthly, the states, fiscally very empowered, are now in a position to influence economic action like never before.

On the other hand, the duo of PM Modi and interim finance minister Piyush Goyal, who is standing in for the indisposed Arun Jaitley, cant miss out on the opportunity provided by the platform of the Union budget to make a fresh electoral case for the NDA.

At the very least, it will have to seek to address the perception problem facing the NDA (the latest survey conducted by the India Today magazine identifies the second biggest failure of the NDA to be in managing inflation; and this, when retail inflation has declined from near double-digit levels to little over 2% in the last four years.)

So far, this regime has contained the impulse to seek easy political gains through fiscal sops, preferring a policy of empowerment over entitlement (something it has not abandoned entirely). PM Modis steady popularity ratingsas recent opinion polls show, regardless of whether it is sufficient to guarantee a re-election, suggest that this mantra is working despite all the noisesome of it self-induced by misguided cadressurrounding the government.

At the same time, they have not been averse to junk customs, such as advancing the presentation of the Union budget to 1 February. Similar was the case with the railway budget being merged into the Union budget. Clearly, there is a case for embracing a daring new format for the budget, the question is whether the NDA will exhibit the necessary political will to implement it.

Anil Padmanabhan is managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics. Comments are welcome at capitalcalculus@livemint.com

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GARDAI in Limerick are appealing for information after a house in Castletroy was broken into in broad daylight last week.

The incident happened at Glenside, Castletroy sometime between 2pm and 3pm last Wednesday  January 23.

According to gardai, the culprit forced a sliding door at the rear of the property in order to gain entry.

Once inside, he took some personal items belonging to the owner, said a garda spokesperson who appealed to anyone who was in the area at the time to contact gardai.

Around this time in the afternoon many parents would be waiting to collect their children from school. If you were around this area and noticed anything suspicious or unusual please contact the gardai, he said.

Inquiries have been carried out in the locality and CCTV is being obtained. Gardai at Henry Street are investigating and can be contacted at (061) 212400.
STRICTER drink driving laws have resulted in a huge upsurge in the purchase of home breathalyser kits in Limerick with many local stores selling out of the devices.

The products were sold out in Limerick stores, Boots on William Street and Halfords on City East Retail Park when visited by The Leader this week.

A Halfords store assistant referred to the sought-after product as not hard to get, just hard to keep adding that they sell out straight away following deliveries.

When contacted this Tuesday afternoon a sales representative from AlcoSense, the leading manufacturers of off-the-shelf breathalysers, and supplier to Boots and Halfords said: Its absolutely crazy in Ireland since the limit changed adding that he hopes the products will be back on shelves soon.

Starting at 48 and rising to as much as 300, the entire range of six AlcoSense products were all sold out in Halfords when The Leader inquired.

Local publican and councillor Jerry ODea says the use of home breathalysers is very topical at the moment.

He explained that there appears to be an increase in the use of such products, particularly for the average man who has to be in work for 8am the following morning.

The upsurge in the purchase of the devices follows an increase in garda checkpoints, as well as the tightening of drink driving laws.

Drinkaware CEO Sheena Hogan warned users that the standards applied to the manufacturing of these devices is not the same as those applied to the technology used by gardai.

The reality is that these off-the-shelf breathalysers are not developed using the same medical and safety technology standards as those used by officials like An Garda Siochana, she stated.

Despite this, a staff member of the local Boots store explained that they were very popular and that they havent been able to get them in, in two weeks.

Cllr ODea who is also a member of the Vintners Federation of Ireland said he welcomes any technology that helps people to make the right decision.

France originally brought the home breathalyser kit into the public domain when it changed its own road safety laws in 2012, making it compulsory to carry one in your car at all times, with sanctions for those who dont.

Coinciding with the increase in popularity of home breathalysers has been the marked increase in demand for non-alcoholic beverages, Cllr ODea added.

He said that both non-alcoholic beer and wine have been much sought-after in recent times, with all major breweries now competing in this niche market.
Minister of State, Andrew Doyle has announced that a study is to be undertaken by UCD to assess the social, economic and environmental impact of afforestation in Co Leitrim.

The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) broke news of the study late last night and IFA President, Joe Healy, has weclomed the news.

There are often differing claims reported on the impact of afforestation, said Mr Healy. But one thing that is crystal clear is that local farmers and their families in Co Leitrim are very concerned about the impact it is having on their communities.

There is a real need for this study, said Mr Healy, it will provide much needed information to address the concerns of rural communities, particularly in relation to the increased planting and ownership by people not living in the county."

He continued by saying her hoped that the study would help inform the debate, so it can go beyond broad claims and provide a greater understanding of the effects the expansion of the forest sector has on population, employment, incomes, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, amongst others.

An IFA delegation met with Minister Doyle in early December 2018 seeking support from the Minister to fund an independent study to assess the social, economic and environmental impact of afforestation to address the common claims and perceptions associated with the land use change.

IFA Farm Forestry Chairman, Vincent Nally said that forestry is a permanent land use change, so it is very important that there is full understanding of what the shift from traditional agriculture to growing trees means for rural communities.

The changes that were introduced in the current programme that removed the farmer premium differential and increased the payment to non-farmers, had significantly increased the level of planting by non-farmers, as well as the negative feeling towards forestry, said Mr Nally.

He said that by evaluating the impacts and the common perceptions around forestry in the study, he hoped that it would help to propose changes to improve forest policy and mitigate the adverse impacts for those living in rural Ireland.

Leitrim IFA Chairman James Gallagher welcomed the announcement.

We need an objective assessment of the impact of forestry in Leitrim, said Mr. Gallagher. There are real and genuine concerns about the impact the level of afforestation is having on farming and the wider community.

Aine Ni Dhubhain, Associate Professor with the School of Agriculture and Food Science in UCD has been appointed to oversee the study. Ms Ni Dhubhain research expertise is in socio-economic impact of forestry, forest policy and farm forestry.
Three children from Kildare town will travel to Aras an Uachtarain tomorrow, Thursday January 31, as the county prepares to celebrate St Brigids Day.

Emma Bergin, Sophie Hannon and Oisin Lee will present St Brigids crosses to President Michael D Higgins on St Brigids Eve to mark the start of a week-long programme of activities commemorating the life of the Kildare native and Irelands female patron saint.

All are pupils of St Brigids Primary School, Kildare Town and will be accompanied by the Mayor of Kildare Cllr Sean Power, the Chief Executive of Kildare County Council Peter Carey, the Chairperson of Kildare Failte David Mongey, the CEO of Kildare Failte Aine Mangan and Sr Rita Minehan of the Solas Bhride Centre, Kildare Town.

The children will make and present the crosses during their trip to the Aras, to mark St Brigid's Day which takes place on Friday February 1.

St Brigid has a long association with Kildare and is also the Patroness of our Country. For centuries it has been customary on the eve of our feast day for Irish people to fashion a St Brigids cross of straw or rushes and place it in their house over a door to protect their home, said Mr Mongey.

St Brigids spirit of hospitality is legendary. She challenges both men and women today to create a society where both are equally respected. Her legacy has endured and her life still speaks to us in the 21st century.

She continues to be remembered as an extraordinary women of faith and occupies an important place in the hearts of the people of Ireland and far beyond.

The event is described as a terrific opportunity to take pride in the county and celebrate the role St Brigid and the Solas Bhride Centre play in attracting visitors to Kildare, according to Aine Mangan.

The very special legacy of St Brigid is a key part of the promotion of Kildare as a visitor destination," she said.

We are very grateful to President Higgins for inviting us to celebrate the feast of St Brigid with him.

St Brigids Day and Feile Bride will be a celebration of the spirit of County Kildare and life of our revered saint.

The commitment of St Brigid to justice and peace will be marked during Feile Bride 2019 which takes place from tomorrow (Thursday) to Saturday, February 9 at a number of venues in Kildare Town.

The Solas Bhride Centre at Tully Road, Kildare Heritage Centre and Boyles Pub at the Market Square, Kildare Education Centre at Friary Road and the Town Library at Claregate Street will all host events celebrating her life.

These will include a concert, The Music of Spring featuring tenor Patrick Hyland and guests at the Solas Bhride Centre on Sunday, February 3 at 8.0 and a conference on justice and peace organised by Irish campaign group, Afri at Solas Bhride on Saturday, February 9 from 10-4.30.
Gardai are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a priest of Abbeyleix and Ballyroan today in what appears to have been a tragic freak accident at his home.

There is deep shock in the Laois town and surrounding area at the death of the priest who has been named locally as Fr John Cummins. Originally from Newbridge in Co Kildare, he was aged in his fifties and was well known in the community where he has served as Parish Priest for the past year and a half.

While the cause has yet to be established, it is understood that the accident occurred at around 3 pm on Wednesday, January 30 after a car went out of control in the driveway of his house on the Ballinakill Road.

Laois County Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that it was called to the scene of a single vehicle incident at 4:20 pm. Locals said an air ambulance also attended, along with local paramedics, but the extensive injuries suffered proved to be fatal.

Fr Ger Ahern preceded Fr Cummins as Abbeyleix PP. He said he knew the deceased as a 'good friend' and was devastated by grief at his death in what he described as a 'freak' accident.

Read also: SPECIAL TRAFFIC AND PARKING ARRANGEMENTS IN ABBEYLEIX FOR FUNERAL

Cllr John Joe Fennelly said the community has been plunged into disbelief.

"We are all devastated here, it is shocking news, it is unbelievable, we are absolutely in disbelief. He was dedicated to his work and really dedicated to the life he chose. He will be sadly missed," he said.

Cllr Mary Sweney is a councillor in the neighbouring Ballyroan. She also paid tribute on behalf of her community.

"The community here in Ballyroan are devastated at the news. We had a deep fondness and regard for Fr John Cummins. He was a very gentle person and had lovely characteristics which endeared him to this community and was much respected as a result," she said.

Read also: FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

She said he became very involved in community work none more so than through his role as Chairperson of the Board of Management of the local primary school Scoil Eoin Phol Naofa II.

She said he was much loved by children, parents, grandparents and all he helped during his time here. She said this was particularly noticeable after Mass.

"He spent a lot of time meeting and greeting people after Mass and during his brief tenure here, this developed into lovely ritual which led to many people waiting after Mass to speak with him.

"He emanated calmness and sincerity which is what endeared him to people so much," she said.

Cllr Sweeney said he never failed to praise all involved with the parish and always had a special word of praise for the parish choir which impressed and touched him greatly at the recent Christmas Carol Service in Ballyroan.

She extended her sympathy to his family on his loss.

The Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Denis Nulty visited the scene today and blessed Fr Cummins' remains before they were removed to Portlaoise hospital.

Read also: BISHOP PAYS TRIBUTE

In the hours prior to the tragedy, Fr Cummins had been busy serving his community at the local Scoil Mhuire primary school attending grandparents day. Fr Cummins was also Chaplin to Scoil Mhuire.

Scoil Mhuire principal Aidan McEvoy paid tribute.

"Please pray for him and his family at this sad time. It is a tragic event for our community and our school family," he said.

Former Newbridge curate, Fr Paddy Byrne, who is now based in Portlaoise, described Fr John as "a wonderful man and kind priest" and "a gentleman to his finger tips".

He had also recently attended the Abbeyleix Senior Citizens Party.

Gardai confirmed that his family and relatives have been notified.

Fr Cummins comes from a well-known, liked and respected family in Newbridge. His father Con ran the famous Con Cummins pub on the Kildare town's Main Street. The pub remains in the family and his still run by his brother Con.

Prior to serving in Abbeyleix, Fr Cummins spent some time in Carlow town where he was based at the Kildare and Leighlin Diocesan Office, Carlow Parish and as Chaplain to Carlow IT. He also spent time as a curate in Naas Parish.
Hundreds of nurses are on the picket line outside Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise today, joining almost 40,000 colleagues around Ireland.

Some of them spoke to the the Leinster Express about the conditions that are affecting patients as well as nurses in Portlaoise.

For the nurses its a struggle. Recent feedback from patients, its a nightmare for them. Its uncomfortable for them, they are on trolleys for a long time," said Rita Flaherty.

"Were striking, I believe for the publics interest, and our future, and our childrens future. The service is inadequate, it is not fit for the patients thats in our ED departments and wards, their whole journey throughout the hospital. Its substandard, it needs to improve. Nurses are poorly paid, were not recruiting into positions, not retaining staff, theyre emigrating, its extremely concerning," Ms Flaherty said.

Nurse Siobhan McCann said the hospital is "short staffed on a daily basis".

She said Portlaoise has become much busier over the years.

"The demand, the numbers who come to the hospital are increased with the population growth, the population is getting older, people need more care, one to one care and theyre not getting it," she said.

Trish Henry said they are striking to address problems for patients.

"The national media are painting us in a very poor light. Every Monday morning they should put up statistics, no beds, people on trolleys, surgeries being cancelled but they were quick to put up statistics about the strike. What were doing today is we are trying to prevent those statistics that are happening every week," she said.

"Its about better working conditions overall. Youre not going to improve working conditions if we cant recruit into the empty positions that are out there. Its pay restoration we are looking for but also to improve the service for the service user," said Ms Flaherty.

A second strike is scheduled next week. Psychiatric nurses plan a strike on Thursday, and ambulance crews are also planning a strike.

The nurses are not hopeful that after today, the Department of Health and HSE will sit with them and resolve a deal.

"Its very doubtful. Weve started the process, we need to follow it through, we are here for the future, whatever it takes. We might not sway the public but unfortunately were doing it for them," said Rita Flaherty.



Tony Arthur is the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) chairman of the strike committee in Portlaoise.

He said the low wage has caused the staff shortages.

"We dont want to take this route but weve been left with no other option. Its to do with staffing and retention of staff. Newly qualified nurses wages are just too low. They are just over the minimum wage, compared to the other allied work professions, the likes of physios and occupation therapists, theres a massive gap. In some cases its nearly 5k to 6k at the starting level and it takes them a good few years to try catch up with them.

It affects patients directly he said.

"Theres overcrowding in A&E every single day. Theres seven or eight on the trolleys today which is actually quite good compared to some other days when there could be 20 if not more. Were up to our capacity nearly every single day which puts a lot of strain on staff and patients. Theres a pressure on nurses to perform basic nursing care," Mr Arthur said.

"The government have tried numerous ways but none have succeeded. The only way we can see is if they increase the wages. In Australia, England, Dubai theres nurses saying that if pay and conditions were good here they would come back in a heartbeat. And it would be good quality nurses that would come back as well," the Portlaoise nurse said.

Below: nurses strike outside the main entrance of Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise.
The owner of a play centre in Laois is facing many sleepless nights after her business insurance costs doubled for 2019, despite having no claims in ten years.

Elaine Mullally opened Clown Around play centre in Portarlington in 2008. The successful business has had no claims in ten years but is facing a huge hike in its non-negotiable insurance cost.

In 2018 the insurance jumped from 3,500 to 7,000. The quote for 2019 has more than doubled from last year to 14,500.

Elaine told the Leinster Express that after cutting so many corners to cover the cost last year, she has been left with few options to keep her business open.

Last year we sat down with our staff and had a serious look at what we could do. We decided to close on Mondays and Tuesdays during the school term to lower our costs.

It was a tough year, we were closed for a week during the snow and with the fantastic summer weather the footfall wasnt what it was in other years. There was the sugar tax and VAT increases, we endured all of this and now the insurance premium has gone from 7,000 to 14,500.

We have no more cuts to make, we are closed for two days of the week, we are not touching our staffs pay, they work hard for their money. Our only option is to increase our prices and we havent done that since we opened. There are sleepless nights ahead and it has not been an easy 12 months, she said.

It is understood that a number of play centres in Ireland have closed because they cannot get an insurance quote if they had any previous claims.

Elaine said she has never had a claim on her insurance and that is why they were able to secure the 14,000 premium.

It is because of the claims culture in Ireland, years ago if kids got scratched or hurt they were picked up and got on with it, now the parent turns around and asks who can I claim off for this? Ireland has become a dirty word in relation to claims culture and this is only the start.

If a child breaks its arm and the medical bills are covered why is there a need to go after the company for 15,000? Just because a child has an accident doesnt mean you have to go after the business.

We spent a lot on maintenance and I dont begrudge that, we had external inspectors who have pointed out very minor, low-risk adjustments which we have carried out and invested heavily to make those changes and we are told if we dont do those improvements we wont get insurance, she said.

Despite carrying out the minor improvement works, the premium still more than doubled this year.

Elaine is a member of the Alliance for Insurance Reform group which is a national lobby group calling for changes in insurance for all businesses.

One of the directors of this group is Linda Murray who owns a play centre in Co Meath.

It has been reported that Ms Murray is calling on the Government to fast-track solutions to the insurance crisis, including a new investigative forum, before its too late for the leisure industry here.

WATCH: Nurses on the picket line in Laois at Portlaoise hospital.
Met Eireann's latest forecast warns of 'treacherous' weather with temperatures 'dropping like a stone' with the worst of likely snow heading for inland counties of Ireland.

In her bulletin after the RTE news, meteorologist Siobhan Ryan said the weather will be bitterly cold right up to the end of the week with a Yellow Warning remaining in place.

"At the moment it looks as if Thursday could be problematic with moderate snow accumulations in some parts of the country. So, obviously treacherous conditions now until Saturday," she said.

MORE BELOW TWEET

Here is our 7 day Atlantic forecast chart, including pressure and precipitation. Information on this chart can be found here: https://t.co/5MyRVoQsUq pic.twitter.com/3Sf7J3m8Hm January 30, 2019

Ms Ryan said a cold polar northwest airflow would bring rain, hail, sleet and snow.

MORE BELOW PICTURE

Temperatures dropped to -3 Celsius overnight Tuesday with severe frost and extensive icy patches in places. Fresh gusty west to northwest winds eased overnight but snow hit western counties and hills in other parts.

Wednesday is expected to be a dry, sunny but cold day. Ms Ryan forecast that Wednesday night would be followed by the coldest night so far this winter.

"Air temperatures falling back to -4, -5 or even -6 degrees so really dropping like a stone. (It will be) Extremely icy, frosty to begin the day on Thursday," she said.

Ms Ryan expects the 'problematic' low with cold and windy weather will meet cold stagnant air over Ireland during the day.

"In fact, that rainfall will fall as moderate snow in some parts of the country with inland areas must under threat," she said.

Met Eireann's Status Yellow warning is in place until Saturday.

MET EIREANN WEBSITE FORECAST

WEDNESDAY 30TH JANUARY

Very cold tomorrow Wednesday. Widespread frost and icy patches in the morning with lying snow in places. Sunny spells and scattered wintry showers during the day, these mainly of hail and sleet and especially over the north and west, but many areas will have a dry day. The showers will become isolated during the afternoon. Moderate west winds will fall light. Highest temperatures 3 to 6 degrees Celsius.

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

Headline: Very cold conditions expected in the coming days with showers or longer spells of rain, a mixture of hail, sleet and snow at times, but sunny spells also. There will be overnight frosts and icy conditions in many areas.

Wednesday night: A mainly dry and cold with widespread frost and ice patches forming overnight. Lowest temperatures of between -1 to -5 degrees in light to moderate easterly breezes.

Thursday: Continuing cold on Thursday morning with a spell of rain pushing up from the southwest with falls of sleet and snow expected for parts of Munster, Connacht and Leinster. The extent of this weather system is uncertain but parts of the north should remain dry. Highest temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees moderate to fresh and gusty northeasterly winds.

Thursday night: Very cold with widespread severe frost. Wintry precipitation will continue overnight. Lowest temperatures of 0 to -3 degrees fresh and gusty northeasterly wind.

Friday: The rain and sleet will be slow to clear the east and southeast on Friday. Elsewhere a dry, bright and cold day with a few showers in the west and north. Highest temperatures of 3 to 5 degrees in moderate to fresh northerly winds. Widespread frost again overnight on Friday with lowest temperatures of 0 to -2 degrees.

Saturday: Cold and frosty, but mainly dry and bright. Highest temperatures of 4 to 6 degrees in mostly moderate northwesterly breezes. Bitterly cold on Saturday night under clear skies with lowest temperatures of -2 to -7 degrees.

Sunday: Some uncertainty for Sunday but current indications suggest and dry and bright start to Sunday but outbreaks of rain pushing in from the Atlantic later in the afternoon. Highest temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees.
PHILADELPHIA -- The Eagles plan to re-sign linebacker Paul Worrilow to a one-year contract, a person with knowledge of the situation told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old was set to become a free agent in March.

UPDATE (Jan. 30, 5 p.m.): The Eagles have made the move official.

Roster Move: #Eagles have signed LB Paul Worrilow to a one-year contract through the 2019 season.#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/QGX0GnBfxe  Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) January 30, 2019

Worrilow missed all of last season after tearing his ACL on the first day of organized team activities. The veteran linebacker is entering his seventh season in the NFL. The former undrafted free agent from Delaware spent his first four seasons with the Atlanta Falcons. He played for the Detroit Lions in 2016.

He has produced 415 tackles, four sacks, 11 pass breakups, two interceptions and two forced fumbles in 72 career games (52 starts).

Worrilow will have a good opportunity to make the Eagles' roster during his second offseason with the team. Linebackers Jordan Hicks, LaRoy Reynolds and D.J. Alexander are all set to become free agents and the team is lacking depth at the position.

Hicks has been a mainstay at middle linebacker over the last three seasons. Worrilow could compete to take his spot in the lineup during the summer. Worrliow has plenty of starting experience and can play middle linebacker.

Worrilow could also compete to replace Reynolds or Alexander on special teams. Reynolds was signed to replace Worrilow after he suffered his knee injury in May. Alexander was claimed off waivers during Week 1.

The Wilmington, Delaware native will need to prove he can stay healthy throughout the summer. He will also need to out-duel former draft pick Nathan Gerry to earn a consistent role on defense.

Mike Kaye may be reached at mkaye@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Mike_E_Kaye. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Avowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has risen to prominence in the Democratic party, has a plan for a Green New Deal." Now being embraced by the highest levels of the party, it claims to conquer global warming by eliminating fossil fuels in 10 years. In reality, however, its a smoke screen for a utopian socialist dream of federally guaranteed jobs, income levels, health care  and on. The required trillions of dollars in additional costs for the massive government growth would be financed, of course, by printing money and taxing carbon and rich people.

Ocasio-Cortez either flunked fourth-grade arithmetic or doesnt want us to know what the deal would really do. It wouldnt change the weather, but it would cripple the nation.

News media routinely support and promote the plan, implying that most registered voters want it. (Refreshingly, this papers informal poll showed that readers resoundingly opposed it!)

Current events warn us about such global warming and socialist fantasies. In France, a global warming tax sparked rioting that has spanned three months. Protesters are being intimidated by heavily armed police with high-capacity live ammunition weapons. Venezuela, once the most prosperous nation in South America, has lost both prosperity and freedom to an oppressive regime that enforces socialism with brutal force. Latin America is reeling from the mass exodus of Venezuelans searching for food and medicine.

Individually, global warming initiatives and socialism are destructive. The Green New Deal would combine the two creating the ultimate national nightmare.

James M. Policelli

Plainfield Township
A Lackawanna County man was seriously injured Wednesday morning after losing control of the SUV he was driving and crashing into a tractor trailer on Route 33, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Donald Welsch, 39, of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, was traveling north on Route 33, past the Belfast exit in Plainfield Township, in a Toyota 4Runner.

At about 5:48 a.m., Welsch lost control of the SUV and drove over the snow-covered median and into the southbound lanes of Route 33, troopers said.

The 4Runner hit a tractor trailer head-on, troopers said. The tractor trailer was driven by Wayne Baxter, 55, of Dallas, Pennsylvania.

The SUV came to rest facing north in the northbound lanes, while the tractor trailer stopped across the median and into the northbound lanes, state police said.

Welsch was flown by helicopter to St. Lukes University Hospital in Fountain Hill. Baxter was not injured.

The highway was shut down for more than three hours while crews cleaned up the wreckage.

Heck of a morning!! Thanks to 35, 52, and 27 EMS as well as our own 36 team on a job well done! A very cold AM but we prevailed! Thanks everyone!! Posted by Plainfield Township Volunteer Fire Company on Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Northampton County jury wasnt convinced Walter Floyd deserved to be the first county resident convicted of a new aggravated animal cruelty law.

The jurors on Wednesday morning convicted the 50-year-old former Pen Argyl man of cruelty to animals but found him not guilty of aggravated animal cruelty, a new law which makes killing or seriously abusing an animal a felony.

His dachshund-Chihuahua mix, Princess, suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs, a lacerated spleen and compound fracture to her leg, according to veterinarian Karin Breitlauch. The 15- to 20-pound dogs broken leg bone poked out through her skin, Breitlauch testified.

Floyd told police initially that the dog died in its sleep. At trial he said someone must have broken into his home and brutally beat the dog because he didnt do it.

The confusing verdict means jurors held him responsible for abusing Princess, despite his claim that he had nothing to do with her injuries, but did not hold him responsible for seriously injuring or killing her.

Assistant District Attorney Abraham Kassis confirmed the verdict but had no further comment. Defense attorney Robert Eyer did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The jurors deliberated for about three hours Tuesday afternoon. After not reaching a verdict, they returned to deliberate at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Kassis confirmed the verdict just before 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Floyd will be sentenced Feb. 20, Kassis said.

Floyd told police he had been drinking on Jan. 12, 2018, the night Princess was found dead in his home in the 200 block of C Street in Pen Argyl. Court records say Floyd now lives in Roseto.

Floyd admitted he ransacked his home, but said he did it because he was upset that Princess had died. Kassis said Floyd claimed he performed CPR on Princess, but Floyd completely missed the compound fracture immediately seen by animal control officer Christine Mammi.

Eyer said that although evidence suggests Floyd killed the dog, no one saw him do it.

Floyd was the first Northampton County resident charged with the aggravated animal cruelty law that went into effect June 30, 2018.

Former Bethlehem Township resident Jahjah Melhem has also been charged with the law for allegedly allowing two animals to die in his care. Multiple animal abuse charges are pending against Melhem for failing to provide proper care to his animals.

Derbe Skip Eckhart pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated animal cruelty in Lehigh County on Monday. Hell be sentenced in February.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
uBaba Sibisi from Giants Castle sells beautiful and pure animal skin in Durban. The hardworking man can be found on the Colenso/Bergville ramp every day without fail as he works always with a smile.

Sibisi has been selling in Durban for a while now and is fondly recognised by Durbanites who see him as they pass by often keeping cool under a banana tree.

A social media user identified as Lethu (@NguLethu) on Twitter shared Sibisi's story with the country. Lethu disclosed that he is proud of the man's hard work and the quality of his products.

READ ALSO:

South Africans who regularly travel through the area thanked Lethu for sharing news of Sibisi and his craft with the rest of the country.

This is because even though he is part of their memories of Durban, they never really took a moment to think about him and what he does until they saw Lethus post.

The prices of the stunning skins start from a reasonable R1,500 (N7,000). Enthused at the idea of supporting small black businesses, a social media user who lives close to where uBaba sells his skins offered to deliver some products to people living in Gauteng.

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Legit.ng earlier reported that an Instagram user identified as Ije-Luv (@ijeomadaisy) recently took to her social media page to share a series of photos of a young Nigerian female carpenter. In the photos, the young lady was seen at the different stages of the completion of what appeared to be a just completed sofa set.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better

I started this hustle because I needed money for GCE form - Street phone charger | Legit TV.

Source: Legit
- No fewer than 40 European Union observers are in the country to monitor the coming general elections

- The observers would be shared into 20 different groups to ensure everything goes well with the elections

- The leader of the observers said they would collaborate with INEC and other organisations to ensure the elections go well

Forty European Union (EU) observers have arrived the country ahead of the forthcoming general elections.

David Dahmen who is the head of the EU observers in Oyo and Osun states made this known on Tuesday, January 29, while speaking with journalists in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state, Nigerian Tribune reports.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Appeal Court rejects Onnoghens request to stop trial at CCT

Dahmen also disclosed that all the observers will be grouped into 20 different teams to oversee elections in all the states in the country.

He said the observers would partner with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other significant organisations in the country.

He said: We have just been briefed by the Oyo REC on the preparations made by INEC in respect of the forthcoming elections.

Dahmen said he and others like Sony Odiongenyi and Mukalay Banze would monitor the elections in Oyo and Osun states.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that federal government assured the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) deployed to monitor the forthcoming general elections that the exercise would be free, fair and credible.

Foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, gave the assurance on Monday, January 21, when the chief observer EU EOM to Nigeria for the 2019 general elections, Maria Arena, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

Obasanjo bombs Buhari again, says FG is empowering Boko Haram | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- NEMA has distributed relief materials to 1,000 victims of armed bandits attack in Kwara state

- 600 bags of rice, 200 bags of beans, 300 bags of garri, 300 gallons of vegetable oil, 300 bundles of roofing zinc, and other items were distributed to the victims

- The head of operations in charge of Niger and Kwara, Lydia Madu, said the attacks on Woro, Nukku, Worumskoto and Tunganmaje communities were carried out in 2018

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has distributed relief materials to 1,000 victims of armed bandits attack in four communities of Kaiama local government area of Kwara state.

Legit.ng gathered that the NEMA head of operations in charge of Niger and Kwara, Lydia Madu, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Wednesday, January 30.

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She said that the attacks on Woro, Nukku, Worumskoto and Tunganmaje communities were carried out in 2018.

The bandits took farm produce, while members of the communities that resisted the bandits were killed and their houses burnt down. The relief items distributed were rice, beans, garri, vegetable oil, tomatoes, roofing zinc, cement and nails, she said.

According to her, 600 bags of rice, 200 bags of beans, 300 bags of garri, 300 galons of vegetable oil, 300 bundles of roofing zinc, 150 bags of roofing nails and 100 bags of zinc nails were distributed to the victims.

READ ALSO: NJC may sack Onnoghen, Mohammed to end crisis

Madu added that the relief materials were approved by the federal government to identify with the victims and bring succor to them.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Troops of Operation Sharan Daji (OPSD) conducting operations in Zamfara and Katsina states killed 21 bandits and rescued 17 persons from captivity between January 22 and 29.

The acting Force information officer Operation Sharan Daji, Major Clement Abiade, on Tuesday, January 29, said while giving an update on OPSDs activities within the period, that the troops also destroyed bandits camps and rescued 89 kidnapped victims.

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Nigerian Air Force Operations Against Boko Haram - on Legit TV

Source: Legit
- JAMB on Tuesday, January 29, claimed that it discovered that candidates for the UTME in the University of Benin were extorted at the school's Computer-Based Centre

- The examination board said that this was why it suspended the university from registering candidates for the UTME

- JAMB called on the university's authority to fish out those behind the criminal act which is described as shocking

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has expressed shock at the alleged extortion of candidates at the University of Benins Computer-Based Test (CBT) centre leading to its suspension in the registration of the current Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

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JAMB, its spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, on Tuesday, January 29, demande that the university should track and arrest those behind the criminal act.

Confirming the ugly development, JAMB's registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, said that evidence of the extortion was discovered at the universitys CBT centre.

The statement by the board partly read: The attention of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has been drawn to a press release by the University of Benin on the suspension of the University CBT centre on the breach of the code governing the 2019 UTME registration exercise.

The Board, therefore, asks the university to do a thorough investigation to identify the bad eggs in the shameful episode before further development.

An apology shall be required not only to the Board but also to the nation if, after the denial, the evidence is adduced to prove the infraction committed on the ground of a highly respected institution as the University of Benin.

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The centres affected by JAMB's recent suspension include the University of Benin ICT Computer Based Test (CBT) and DA Civic Centre, both in Benin City, Edo state; Mardakem Company Ltd., Oron, Akwa Ibom state; Bintels Global Services LTD, Aguleri, and Noble & Shuaib ICT Ltd, Alor, Anambra state.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that JAMB had announced that the sale of the UTME forms to candidates would begin in January 10, 2019.

Benjamin, in a statement on Thursday, December 20, said 50 centres for registration have been sanctioned for infractions. Ahead of 2019, the board said it has 718 accredited CBT centres, which would help in spreading digital literacy.

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Nigerians express mixed feelings as JAMB reduces admission cut-off to 120 | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The NJC may resort to the dismissal of Justices Walter Onnoghen and Tanko Mohammed

- This presumed move by the council would be focused on ending the growing crisis within the judiciary

- Also, should the NJC dismiss both justices, the council would recommend Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour of the Supreme Court as a new CJN

Following the recent suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari, there are indications that the National Judicial Council may sack both the embattled CJN and the newly nominated CJN, Tanko Mohammed.

Guardian reports that the NJC after an emergency meeting had abridge the usual 14 working days notice to issue to Onnoghen a seven-day ultimatum to respond to series of petition against him.

The council also mandated Mohammed to respond to the allegations of corruption and professional misconduct levelled against them within a-week.

The duo were also excluded from the meeting because they are both involved in the crisis leading to the election of a former president of the Court of Appeal Umaru Abdullahi as an interim chairman over the meeting.

It was also gathered that if NJC sanction Onnoghen and the new CJN with dismissal, Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour of the Supreme Court - who is not a member of the NJC - will probably assume the position of the CJN.

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Rhodes-Vivour's appointment, Legit.ng gathered would follow a recommendation from the NJC which had to abridge the timing based on the interim order which President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Mohammed.

However, if the order expires, there will be the need for a fresh order to continue to keep him in office, as vacancy must be forestalled as the constitution does not allow anyone occupying the office of the CJN in acting capacity cannot be reappointed by the president if he fails to get the Senate confirmation at the expiration of three months.

Section 231 (1) of the 1999 Constitution states: The appointment of a person to the office of Chief Justice of Nigeria shall be made by the President on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council subject to confirmation of such appointment by the Senate.

Subsection 4 provides that: If the office of Chief Justice of Nigeria is vacant or if the person holding the office is for any reason unable to perform the functions of the office, then until a person has been appointed to and has assumed the functions of that office, or until the person holding has resumed those functions, the President shall appoint the most senior Justice of the Supreme Court to perform those functions.

Except on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council, an appointment pursuant to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section shall cease to have effect after the expiration of three months from the date of such appointment, and the President shall not re-appoint a person whose appointment has lapsed," Subsection 5 states.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Centre for International and Strategy Studies, has commended President Buhari on the suspension of Onnoghen.

The CISS breaking its long silence on the controversy rocking the presidency and the judiciary said President Buhari's action against the CJN was a right step in the right direction.

CISS president, David Bamidele, aid the suspension of the CJN, Justice Onnoghen by President Buhari in compliance with the order of the CCT was not only reasonable and timely, but necessary to salvage the partly battered image of the Nigerian judiciary.

According to Bamidele, the president's decision was to protect democracy from the class of the few bad characters in the judicial and political system.

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Onnoghen's Trial is Politically Motivated - APRJ | Legit TV:

Source: Legit
The Chief Customer Officer of MultiChoice Nigeria, Martin Mabutho, has shared some interesting details about the upcoming 2019 Big Brother Naija reality show which will be taking place in Nigeria.

Recall earlier on, Legit.ng reported the news of how the reality show is going to take place in Nigeria and how the auditions will hold on the first and second of February. Following several reactions by fans of the show, the Chief Customer Officer of Multichoice, Martin Mabutho, has explained the reason for the change.

In a recent interview, Mabutho, revealed that the reason is to attract more investments. He also revealed that the prize money for the 4th edition of the show will be N45 million which is way bigger that what previous winners went home with.

READ ALSO: Personal letter from the Editor-in-Chief of Legit.ng (former NAIJ.com)

Read excerpts from the interview:

Why did Multichoice decide to bring the show to Nigeria?

"It made sense that we bring it here. The first one we did was See Gobe, and Double Wahala last year eclipsed See Gobe it was completely flawless. Now at that state we said theres no doubt that bringing the show to Nigeria would be the right decision. It would be worth the investment and its exciting for us. Corporate Nigeria and sponsors have latched onto it in a big way so in my view, its going to be bigger than all the shows we have ever done."

READ ALSO: Omotola Jalades first daughter Princess graduates from University of Cyprus

How is the selection process for housemates carried out?

"Im not on the selection panel but for this year, the mixture of different individuals will determine the final number that will go into the house."

Will there ever be a female host?

"We had two hosts for the first one Big Brother Nigeria  Michelle Dede and Olisa Adibua. So lets see what happens with this one."

Will there a bigger prize money this season?

"I can put it this way  I cant say about the prize money but the total value of the grand prize will exceed N45m."

The 2018 edition of the show was tagged Double Wahala and Nigeria's flyboy, Miracle, emerged as the winner. Controversial housemate, Cee-C Nwadiora took second place while former banker Tobi Bakre came third.

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Top 5 Big Brother Naija Scandals (BBNaija) | Legit TV

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- The abduction of the chairman of the APC in Abia, Chief Donatus Nwankpa, has been confirmed by the state police command

- Nwankpa was said to have been kidnapped by gunmen at Osisioma, while on his way to Aba from Umuahia

- According to the state police public relations officer, the perpetrators would be arrested and made to face the full weight of the law

- Ogbonna said it was very unfortunate for such a thing to happen on the eve of the visit of President Buhari for his campaign rally in the state

The police command in Abia has confirmed the abduction of the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Chief Donatus Nwankpa, on Monday night, January 28.

The police public relations officer, Geoffrey Ogbonna, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the command was aware of the incident.

Ogbonna said that the information at his disposal was still sketchy but described the incident as very unfortunate.

READ ALSO: Northern elders, southern counterparts reportedly plan endorsement of Atiku

He said: It was very unfortunate for such a thing to happen on the eve of the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari for his campaign rally in the state."

The PPRO said that the command had swung into action and expressed the confidence that the perpetrators would be arrested and made to face the full weight of the law.

The publicity secretary of the party, Benedict Godson, told newsmen that Nwankpa was kidnapped by gunmen at Osisioma, while on his way to Aba from Umuahia.

Godson said that he was kidnapped along with one of his personal aides, who was later set free by their assailants.

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He feared that the kidnap of the party chairman might not be unconnected with the threat by a rival party in the state, working with some bad elements in APC, to disrupt the presidents visit. He therefore appealed to the abductors to release him unconditionally, describing him as God-fearing and a true son of Osisioma Ngwa

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Nwankpa, was on Monday, January 28, abducted by suspected kidnappers.

The state publicity secretary of the party, Comrade Benedict Godson, said Nwankpa had been kidnapped by unknown persons.

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Can Nigerian Soldiers really not deal with Boko Haram fighters? - on Legit TV:

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- The federal government has condemned statements from envoys over the suspension of CJN Walter Onnoghen

- The federal government dismissed the statements by foreign representatives accusing it of plotting to rig the forthcoming elections

- Statements linking Onnoghen's suspension to plot to rig elections portend corrupt acts, according to the federal government

The federal government of Nigeria has cautioned representatives of foreign countries and organisations resident in the country against interfering in Nigerias internal affairs.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave the warning in a statement signed by its spokesperson, George Edokpa, on Monday, January 28, in Abuja

The ministry expressed deep concern on statements made by the US Embassy, UK High Commission and European Union Election Observer Mission, regarding the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen.

According to the ministry, the action demonstrated serious and unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Nigeria.

The various statements, especially of those referred to above, appear prejudicial and signify alignment with the opposition and endorsement of its position that the ruling party. And, by extension the federal government of Nigeria, is working on rigging the forthcoming elections in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Why we rejected Atiku's endorsement by Ohanaeze - Anambra govt

These statements also portend tolerance for corrupt acts and downplay the anti-corruption crusade of the Buhari Administration, knowing fully that the suspended CJN had not denied the charges against him. Also, probity requires of him to step aside while the case is under scrutiny, it stated.

According to the ministry, it is pertinent to underscore the unfortunate fact that statements, as referred above, are inimical to the well-being and development of Nigeria.

Given their nuisance value of promoting sectional and religious divide in the country, anarchy and retrogression. Now, more than any other time, Nigerians and true friends of Nigeria should be working toward repositioning Nigeria to realise her potential and sustainably provide the leadership expected of her, it stated.

The ministry noted that President Muhammadu Buhari had consistently demonstrated respect for the rule of law as a presidential candidate and as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and would engage in nothing to the contrary.

He remains a man of integrity, who has severally pledged free and fair elections. It is therefore absurd to presume that the suspension of the CJN is geared towards rigging the forthcoming elections in favour of the ruling party.

For the avoidance of doubt, be it known that on three occasions that president went to court, as a presidential candidate and lost his case, in 2013, 2011 and 2007.

The presiding judges at the Supreme Court were all northerners and Muslims: Justice Muhammad Lawal Uwais, Idris Lebo Kutigi and Dahiru Mustapha respectively, it stated.

It noted that in one instance, the presiding judge at the Appeal Court was from Katsina state and the presidents former classmate, yet, he lost the case.

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The minority judgments in his favour were given by two judges, both of them southerners and Christians: Justices George Adesola Oguntade and Sylvanus Nsofor.

Resident Embassies and International Organisations invited to observe the forthcoming elections should be wary of being drawn into the camp of the opposition.Otherwise their neutrality, which is the hallmark of election observers becomes questionable.

It is indeed unfortunate that foreign missions would align with the opposition and seek to negatively interpret actions by the federal government, no matter their positive basis and intention, it added.

The ministry noted that had the federal government been high-handed, would the opposition have been able to express its views, even to the point of pouring invectives on Mr. President?

How best can the corruption in the judiciary, which has enormously undermined the rights of the common man and made justice available only to the highest bidder, be best tackled than by ensuring that known cases are fundamentally tackled? Where is the rule of law, if justice is applied selectively?

Pertinent questions that the opposition and their sympathisers must reflect upon are: How has the action of President undermined the resolve for free and fair election?

In what ways does it undermine the independence of the Judiciary, except in the minds of the opposition and its cohorts?

What right has a representative of a foreign government to incense an already volatile situation on the grounds that her government has invested heavily in the elections?, it stated.

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According to the ministry, it is insulting for any foreign representative to claim the right to interference in Nigerias internal affairs, based on the premise that its government has invested heavily in the election.

The ministry said that Nigeria had invested enormously, over the years, in election processes of many African countries, and will continue to do so without interfering in their internal affairs.

Interference in Nigerias internal affairs under any guise will therefore not be accepted.

Representatives of foreign governments and organisations are therefore advised to tread with caution and desist from using the utterances and actions of opposition organisations and individuals as a vehicle to interfere in Nigerias internal affairs.

Embassies and organisations accredited to Nigeria should desist from actions and utterances that can only create political, sectional and religious crises and divides, the ministry warned.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the Nigerian Senate approached the Supreme Court for an interpretation of the powers of the president in the appointment and removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), with respect to the roles of the upper chamber of the National Assembly and the National Judicial Council (NJC) in the entire process.

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Onnoghen's Trial is Politically Motivated - APRJ | - on Legit TV

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The special adviser to Muhammadu Buhari on the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) Charles Dokubo, has revealed that the Nigerian leader was once advised to put to an end the effort of the government in that direction.

Dokubo noted that the president deserves mass support from Niger Delta on his second term bid for shunning the advice to scrap the programme.

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Vanguard reports that while speaking in his community, Abonema in the Akuku Toru local government area of Rivers state as part of the new year celebration, Dokubo said that Niger Deltas support for Buhari in in the forthcoming election would further demonstrate the peoples appreciation for what the region hasd benefited under his government.

There was advice by some persons that PAP should be terminated as it was an ad-hoc programme but the president insisted that the programme should go on.

Government has done a lot about the programme. It has not relented in its support for the programme.

With The type of vocational centres that have now been developed in Kaiama and other places, I strongly believe that the next level the President is bringing, which I know will come, will even be better for this programme, Dokubo projected.

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The special adviser said since the inception of PAP, a lot of Niger Delta youths had benefited from scholarships and vocational skills.

According to him, he is in the community to mobilise his kinsmen to stand out as first to return the president during the election.

Legit.ng earlier reported that the Ndigbo Unity Forum (NUF), a pan-Igbo socio-cultural group, urged Ndigbo to vote wisely by voting for the re-election of Muhammadu Buhari.

The president of NUF, Augustine Chukwudum, made the call while speaking with.the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday, January 1, in Enugu.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

Primate Ayodele releases 2019 prophecies, says B/Haram will infiltrate the army| Legit TV

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During a conversation Solis reportedly recorded on Aug. 18, 2014, Madigan told the developer whose law business he sought, Were not interested in a quick killing here. Were interested in a long-term relationship. Solis later told an associate of the developer that if he (the developer) works with the speaker, he will get anything he needs for that hotel, according to the report. On Aug. 21, the developers associate called Solis to say the developer had agreed to retain Madigans law firm. Five days later, Solis reportedly wrote a letter of support for the hotel. But when an FBI agent filed the affidavit in 2016, the developer hadnt retained Madigans firm. The City Council did approve a zoning change for the hotel, but it hasnt been built.
Dilnoza Khasilova wants to bring the world to Wyoming, and Wyoming to the world. By creating
A Sunrise Beach Fire Protection District board member wants the district to pay the legal costs of his attempt to oust a fellow board member.

Robert Hemen, SBFPD Board Treasurer, made the request at the board's Monday, Jan. 21 meeting.

The costs Hemen referred to were incurred after he filed a petition in 2018, as a member of the district, against the district, in an effort to oust SBFPD Board Secretary Denise Dill, by questioning the validity of her position. Dill was appointed by a majority of the district board in 2016 to fill the term of outgoing board member Robert Smithey. But Hemen contended that Dill should have later run for election to the position.

At the Jan. 21 meeting, Hemen said he would have been fine if Dill were elected to the board, but he wanted her to resign and then run for election.

The district filed a suit against Hemen and his claim. Judge Kenneth Hayden rendered his ruling on that case stating that Dill would continue to serve as a member of the fire board because, according to state statute, she was legally appointed, and no successor had been duly elected or appointed and qualified.

At the Monday, Jan. 21 meeting, Hemen requested the district pay him back $9,700 that he spent, as a citizen, on attorney fees to fight the district.

All you [Dill] had to do was resign and then run for re-election, Hemen said in a recording of the board meeting. He said the district spent more than $80,000 in legal costs, and is still going to have an election. "Just think how we could have used that money for our firefighters or our community," he said.

The amount that Hemen contends the district has spent on legal fees over his petition for Dill's removal could not be confirmed. However, the board has incurred tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees responding to and battling Hemens actions. These costs have been adding up since before Chief Dennis Reilly resigned, in 2018.

Hemen also questioned how the board paid bills during Board Secretary Brian Laymans temporary resignation. At that time there were only two board members and he (Hemen) did not vote to pay some of the bills.

I have not seen approval anywhere in the minutes to pay those bills, Hemen said.

Layman resigned a few days after former SBFPD Chief Dennis Reilly resigned. Reilly resigned due to alleged harassment and bullying by Hemen. Layman said the reason for his resignation was due to comments made by Hemen that made him fear for his familys safety. Hemen denied both accusations. A letter released by SBFPD Attorney Tom Lorraine stated that both Dill and Layman witnessed the comments.

After announcing his resignation, Layman reversed course and decided to continue serving on the board. According to Lorraine, Layman was able to continue as board president because the board had not officially accepted his resignation. Actions taken by the board require a majority and Layman and Dill both signed to pay the bills that Hemen referred to.

I know the district has the money to pay my legal costs in reserve. You could pay me tonight, Hemen said. Following Hemens comments, there were no comments from the board or the public regarding Hemens request or comments.
Palermo, January 30 - A Sicilian man who went to renew his Italian ID card was told by the employee at the registrar that he had officially been dead for 5 years, reported il Giornale di Sicilia on Tuesday. The man, Antonio Bartolotta, called it "absurd" and noted that "I have always paid all my taxes on time and my public health card was also sent to me." The incident occurred in recent days and, according to town councillor Gaspare Nicotri, who is in charge of demographic services, the reason is that Bartolotta had not been found during the 2011 census. He said, however, that "the offices are prepared to register him again".
Rome, January 30 - Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said Wednesday during a Senate hearing on Venezuela that the ministry was in contact with the family and lawyers of an Italian activist arrested in the South American country on January 23. The woman, Laura Beatriz Gallo, was arrested during protests against the regime. Moavero noted that the judge had ordered her conditional release but that the prosecution had instead opposed the move and the appeals ruling was awaited.
Rome, January 30 - A 65-year-old school janitor was placed under house arrest in Rome Wednesday on suspicion of molesting around 10 girls aged 5-13 during breaks.
Rome, January 30 - Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said on Venezuela Wednesday that "the European Union, with the full support of Italy, has always insisted on five points: the full restoration and respect for the powers of the national Assembly, that credible presidential elections be called, the release of all political prisoners, the full guarantee of freedom of information and expression, and the opening of humanitarian corridors". The South American country is in the throes of a crisis caused by a standoff between President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Rome, January 30 . The Sea-Watch3 migrant rescue ship with 47 migrants aboard has received instructions to head for the port of Catania where there are ministerial centres for minors, the interior ministry said Wednesday. The adults will be immediately transferred to the Messina hotspot. Six EU countries have agreed to take in the migrants.
Rome, January 30 - Discussion in the Italian Chamber of Deputies on motions regarding a high-speed rail line (TAV) will be held in the second week of February, party whips decided on Wednesday. The Democratic Party (PD) disagreed with the decision. The discussion is expected to be held after that on the Carige bank rescue law and the draft constitutional law concerning referendums. "If it goes well, it should be held at the end of the month," PD whip Graziano Delrio said, adding that "the majority is hiding and (Deputy Prime Minister Matteo, Ed.) Salvini prefers to show off instead of debating and telling the truth."
Rome, January 30 - Interior Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini said Wednesday the possibility of the 5-Star Movement (M5S) voting in favour of lifting his immunity in the Diciotti migrant alleged 'kidnapping' case did not pose any threat to the M5S-League government. "There is no danger for the government, it does not risk, absolutely," he said. Salvini added: "I spend my days working, not meditating on what ifs". The interior minister is facing possible charges of kidnapping migrants on board the Diciotti Coast Guard ship in a standoff with the EU last summer. If tried and convicted he could face up to 15 years in jail, he has said.
After Jan. 29, 2013, the day Hadiya was killed, I could not find the strength to continue my education at King College Prep. Every day was a reminder of her absence, her locker became a shrine, people were constantly asking me, am I OK. I transferred to Jones College Prep, but that was not distance enough. I left Chicago, reluctantly and anxiously, and went to boarding school in Massachusetts. There, I thought Id escaped. I could pretend that wasnt me, that trauma wasnt mine. I could rebuild myself, I thought. But it was isolating in ways I cant explain. I had experienced something my new peers could not fathom. These were wealthy, sheltered kids who never had to worry about gang violence taking them or one of their friends. They never had to watch their backs, be on guard about anything. One time we were celebrating our friends graduating. After the festivities were done, somebody started to pop the balloons, one after another. I ran out of my dorm crying, having a panic attack. When one of my floormates came out to ask what was wrong and if I was OK, all I could do was cry. Because I knew saying yes would be a lie.
Rome, January 30 - Premier Giuseppe Conte's on Wednesday dismissed reports that his government was at risk over the 'Diciotti' case. Conte said that there was "no concern" about whether his executive could stay afloat. "I don't know where this news came from," he added in Milan. Deputy Premier, Interior Minister and League party Matteo Salvini has said parliament should not authorize magistrates to proceed with criminal charges of alleged kidnapping for refusing to allow over 100 migrants saved by the Coast Guard to get off the Diciotti ship during a 10-day stand-off with the EU in August. It not clear yet whether the League's coalition partners in the 5-Star Movement will vote for or against authorizing the case to go forward. Sources close to Salvini said the atmosphere at a meeting overnight with Conte and fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, who is also Labour and Industry Minister and the M5S leader, was "serene and relaxed".
Ladysmith, WI (54848)

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Showers likely along with a possible rumble of thunder early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 48F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..

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Showers likely along with a possible rumble of thunder early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 48F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Harris intention to get rid of private insurance will feed this fear. Americans rightly didnt believe Barack Obama when he said, If you like your health care plan, you can keep it. When Harris says that people who like their health care plans will not be able to keep them, voters will believe her, to her detriment. Democrats can promise that Medicare for All, however it is defined, would be an improvement over the status quo, but millions of people with private coverage will figure they are about to get the shaft.
An estimated 1000 metric tons of assorted beans were sold daily in various markets around Uganda in the last week, according to Farmgain Africa Weekly Market Update. In Busia, yellow beans were preferred at Shs2,240 per kilogramme (kg) , Nambale beans at Shs2,024/kg , mixed beans from neighboring Rwanda at Shs1,480/kg , red beans at Shs1,590/kg kidney beans at Shs1,663/kg.

In Kampalas major markets, beans supply was good and yellow beans were bought at Shs2200-2400/kg depending on quality, long Nabe Nambale at Shs1900-2000/kg wholesale price, mixed beans from Kisoro, Kabale and neighboring Rwanda at Shs.1800-1850/kg, Masavu (Nabe) beans at Shs2100-2200/kg and Short (Nabe) Nambale beans at Shs1900-2000/kg wholesale price. Supply was mainly recorded from Ntungamo, Kyegegwa, Kagabi-Kibaale and Kkoki-Masaka.

Less trading was registered for maize at Busia border market. Several traders were not doing business since it involves less capital to raise a substantial stock of maize grain, according to the Weekly Market Update.

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An estimated 30-50 metric tons of maize only were recorded traded on a daily basis. Grain prices have since declined from the previous weeks Shs.723/kg to Shs.697/kg.

The least acceptable quality was bought at Shs.679/kg. The Kenyan market reflected a lower grain price than Busia border post price which is the main gate of Ugandan maize to Kenya.

The Market Update says this situation is expected to continue until the first week of February when a better price is expected as a result of reduced supply of maize from within Kenya.

The major grain markets in Kampala recorded a price declined due to increased maize supply to the market. Previously traders in Kampala offered Shs700/kg, however, with increased supply the market price declined to Shs.660-670/kg. Speculators think the school opening week might have caused this increment in supply as parents search for school fees to return their children, the Weekly Market Update says.

Maize was received from Hoima, Kiboga, Kyanyanzi, Kyeggegwa, Kyangaali, Masindi, Kibaale and parts of Mubende.

Apparently after the involvement of the army in the fisheries section on curbing down catching premature fish, the supply of mature and big fish has dramatically increased in several markets.

In the major fish markets around Kampala, Tilapia that was offered in three grades, is now offered in one grade. The wholesale fish market operated in auction where bundles of five pieces weighing half each cost Shs4000-8000 depending on supply. The other grade consisted of 10 small fish weighing between 100-300grams at Shs10, 000-20,000 each bundle. The big size grade weighing 700 grams to 1 kilograms has been maintained.

The tough regulation in the sector has rendered fish at reducing price per piece offered in Kampalas major fish markets of Bwayise, Kireeka and Busega. Tilapia cost Shs4000-4500 per piece. Plenty of Nile Parch and Lung fish was delivered in the last few weeks rendering the market price lower. A kilo of Nile Parch cost Shs6, 000-6,500 compared to Shs9,000-10,000/kg during scarcity.

Other commodities that were demanded from the Kenya traders included red sorghum at Shs795/kg, white sorghum at Shs723/, green grams at Shs2, 711-2,530/kg, cassava chips at Shs.686/kg, soya beans at Shs2241/kg, groundnuts at Shs3325/kg, and millet at Shs/kg. There was an increase in volumes of millet demanded at Busia border market to 300 metric tons daily.

Most of the traders who have a sizable capital have reverted to dealing beans at Busia. It was noted that since beans are more costly than maize, only those with more capital could afford trading, the Market Update says.
jetcityimage/iStock(MIAMI) -- Authorities in Florida have found a 50-yard tunnel leading from a wooded area straight to the drive-up teller of a bank, the FBI announced Wednesday.



Investigators believe the tunnel was dug with the intention of robbing the Chase bank at the Flamingo Pines shopping center in Pembroke Pines, about 22 miles northwest of Miami, FBI Miami Special Agent Michael Leverock told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.



"They were heading toward the bank, and that's for sure," he said, adding that whoever dug the hole did not get in.



Pembroke Pines Public Works was called to the scene Tuesday around 9:30 p.m. after receiving reports of a possible sinkhole, Leverock said. When the workers got there, they saw a power cord running toward a wooded area, and called the Pembroke Pines Police Department, Leverock said.



When police officers arrived, they noticed what looked like an entrance to a tunnel, Leverock said, describing it as "an extensive hole." The officers decided to wait until morning for daylight to investigate further.



Authorities in Florida have found a 50-yard tunnel leading from a wooded area straight to the drive-up teller of a bank, the FBI announced Wednesday.



Investigators believe the tunnel was dug with the intention of robbing the Chase bank at the Flamingo Pines shopping center in Pembroke Pines, about 22 miles northwest of Miami, FBI Miami Special Agent Michael Leverock told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.



"They were heading toward the bank, and that's for sure," he said, adding that whoever dug the hole did not get in.



Pembroke Pines Public Works was called to the scene Tuesday around 9:30 p.m. after receiving reports of a possible sinkhole, Leverock said. When the workers got there, they saw a power cord running toward a wooded area, and called the Pembroke Pines Police Department, Leverock said.



When police officers arrived, they noticed what looked like an entrance to a tunnel, Leverock said, describing it as "an extensive hole." The officers decided to wait until morning for daylight to investigate further.

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The U.S. Postal Service is suspending operations in parts of Montana on Wednesday due to severe weather conditions from Polar Vortex Jayden.

The release did not clarify which regions or communities it included in that designation.

They say no business or residential mail will be collected. Some limited retail operations will be available at local offices.

From the full release:

Postal Service Suspends Delivery on Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Due to projected deteriorating weather conditions related to Polar Vortex Jayden, postal delivery operations will be suspended for the following areas:

Eastern Montana

Retail operations at local offices will be available, but may be limited.

There will be no collection mail pick up from businesses or collection boxes. Additionally, there will be no residential or commercial package pick-up services.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
Talen Energy has filed an objection to Westmoreland Coal Company's Chapter 11 Reorganization Plan.

Part of Talen's statement on the objection said, "This is in response to Westmoreland and it's creditors' stated plans to nullify the coal supply contract for the Colstrip Power Plant, unless we agree to their latest proposal for extending the contract beyond 2019."

Talen coowns the Colstrip plant along with Puget Sound Energy, Portland General Electric, Avista Corporation, PacifiCorp, and Northwestern. Talen is the soul operator of the plant and according to the company, their objection is based on the critical need to maintain a supply of coal to the Colstrip Power Plant at an economic price.

The owners of the plant purchase the coal that Western Energy Company mines and sells from its coal mine, which is located in Rosebud County. Western Energy and the buyers purchase and deliver coal according to 3 long-term agreements for the sale and transportation of coal. Accorading to the objection documents, in spite of the agreements, Western has indicated they intend to reject the agreements.

Below is a part of Talen's statement on the issue:

"Westmoreland's most recent offer to the Colstrip owners would very likely make operation of Colstrip Units 3&4 uneconomic for Talen Montana and generally make the plant much less competitive. Additionally, while at the present time, there has been no decision to shut down Units 1&2 prior to the previously-announced closure date of July 1, 2022, we continue to experience financial challenges related to keeping the units open. Talen Montana has made hard-won progress to improve the financial condition of Units 1&2, however, if Westmoreland rejects our current contract or increases our cost, the financial issues associated with the operation of Units 1&2 will likely get worse."

Over 300 people who work at the plant may also be living in the town of Colstrip. The Mayor of Colstrip, John Williams, told KULR-8 that they are not too worried about the situation between the plant owners and the coal mine owners. "It doesn't have any impact on our city as far as our operations here," according to Mayor Williams.

According to the court documents, the agreements are set to expire at the end of the year. Westmoreland has filed voluntary petitions for relief under the Bankruptcy Code.
Montana lawmakers are working on two bills to help prevent and overturn wrongful convictions.

Lawmakers heard from two men who shared their stories of spending years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit.

Cody Marble is one of those men testifying that more needs to be done to ensure innocent people don't lose years of their lives behind bars.

SB156 would block false convictions from incentivized witness testimony which put Marble behind bars for 14 years.

While SB 172 allows the convicted to access court documentations if presented with new evidence in their cases.

Marble credits the Montana Innocence Project for helping him appeal his case.

"They're very aware, that there are people accused of crimes in jail, that some members of law enforcement like to bribe threaten or coerce their evidence by any means possible," said Marble. "What's worse is when you're sitting in jail, you know you're guilty, you did something. Maybe you're going to jail for 10 years and you have somebody come along well if you say this or that we'll give you less time. It should be illegal all together but at least if this law was in place I feel like there's a much better chance this wouldn't have happened to me. "

Marble was exonerated two years ago.

He hopes to use his new lease on life to raise awareness.

Meanwhile these bills are getting some push back within the legislature.

Some prosecutors argue passing this legislation could hinder ongoing investigations with confidential witnesses.
Crowds packed the Art House Cinema to watch a three part docuseries highlighting pornography's harmful effects.

Montana Operation Underground Railroad hosted this free event to raise awareness about human trafficking.

The documentary called "Brain, Heart, World" focuses on how pornography impacts the brain, relationships and society.

Montana Operation Underground Railroad is focused on identifying the supply and demand of human trafficking, and reducing it.

The organization hopes to show how big of a role pornography plays in human trafficking.

"One thing that we found that is a common denominator running through a lot of that is pornography. How easily it is accessible to children, how it grooms them for trafficking, how the people being filmed in pornography; we can not tell if they're doing it for willingly," said team leader Brittany Homer."Whether they're victims or they're participant, there's so many things to look at with that connection with human trafficking and pornography."

Homer said the more people are educated about this connection, it's easier for change to begin.

She hopes to push forward with more prevention efforts and policy change.

One policy change the organization is working on is pushing to declare pornography a public health crisis in Montana.
White House not tamping down tensions after Bolton seen holding notepad with words '5000 troops to Colombia'
"We are going to be running at just about full capacity again this year after the pandemic last year," said Director of Idaho Falls Parks and Recreation PJ Holm. Read more
"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump wrote on Twitter. ". . . They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There (sic) economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran."
Auburn, IN (46706)

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Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Kendallville, IN (46755)

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Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch..

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Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
Angola, IN (46703)

Today

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms - some may contain locally heavy rain, especially this evening. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Gause added he did not think the North Koreans would relinquish their nuclear program until they normalize relations with the United States and end the decades-long conflict between the two nations. "The Russians can do whatever they can to facilitate the situation, but if the United States continues to be adversarial, the North Koreans are going to be very reluctant to take that deal," he said.
A developer that sued the city last year after Solis rezoned a property in Pilsen to block construction of a big mixed-use complex at the site is arguing that the alderman must be deposed soon in the case because the allegation that hes wrapped up in a federal investigation puts his future availability in doubt. Under the circumstances, it is unclear how long Alderman Solis will be available for deposition, states the motion, which was filed last week in Cook County Circuit Court.
A federal judge ordered a luxury real estate developer and his investment firm to pay $1 billion in penalties and forfeited profits for operating an alleged Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of mostly elderly investors. Full Credit: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Andrew Wigfall III, 46, was charged Monday with eight counts of child pornography of a victim under 13-years-old. His bond was set at $200,000.
'It's as dysfunctional as it looks;' Sen. Hawley frustrated by gridlock in his first weeks in office
Tim Watkin at Pundit wrote:

Its almost become a truism within political circles, but the cry around Ardern is always, but what has she done?. Shes had almost a decade in the House and a string of high profile portfolio responsibilities  from police to vulnerable children and more  and its a struggle to point to any impact shes had either on policy or public opinion in any.

Several other journalists have also pointed to the lack of tangible achievements, so I thought it was worth expanding on this.

Jacinda does have many political skills. She is warm and funny. She is a good communicator. She is smart. She has been a political staffer and knows Parliament. She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is genuine. She is a bit of a policy wonk. She attracts and motivates supporters. And she is the queen of soft media. She is definitely one of the better performing Labour MPs. She is a genuinely nice person.

But after eight years in Parliament, to quote Tim Watkin, what has she done?

To answer why so many ask this question, I want to look at three areas  electorate, political and legislative.

Electorate

Jacinda stood twice in Auckland Central and lost both times. I had to laugh at one media article which said she had always stood in unwinnable seats. Auckland Central was held by Labour for 90 years or so, and the combined left party vote of 46% is greater than seats Labour did win such as Christchurch East, Te Atatu, Rimutaka, Wigram, Palmerston North, Port Hills, Hutt South, West Coast Tasman and Napier.

The current electorate MP, Nikki Kaye, has a huge list of things she has achieved in the electorate. They include:

Getting Aotea Conservation Park established on Great Barrier Island

Delivered rural broadband to GBI

Key role in re-establishing the Pride Parade

Led a campaign on changing body corporate laws for apartment dwellers

Helped persuade Mt Albert Grammar to include GBI students in their zone

A former staffer for Len Brown once told me that when most people met the Mayor they had just one issue to talk about. Nikki would front up regularly with 10 to 15 issues.

This is why Nikki beat Jacinda in 2011 and 2014. The electorate knew she had delivered for them.

Now you might say that it is unfair to compare Nikki to Jacinda as Nikki is already the Electorate MP and Jacinda just a List MP. Well lets look at what Chris Bishop has done in just two years as a List MP in Hutt South:

Established Hutt City Youth Awards scheme in 2015 to recognise young talent in Hutt

Successfully campaigned for free parking in the Hutt CBD with local businesse

Established monthly food truck night in Hutt CBD with local food trucks and Council

Helped local student organise a Ted-X style Tech Talks event

Two successful public meetings (Technology Valley and Predator Free), both with standing room only. Tech meeting led to a student tech forum in the Hutt

This is why I believe Chris Bishop will win Hutt South. He has shown that a List MP can be just as effective as an Electorate MP in achieving things. If Jacinda had done what Chris Bishop is doing, Jacinda would probably have won Auckland Central.

Another example is Labours Stuart Nash. He won Napier by being all over local issues  he led the fight against amalgamation, against the dam and on police staffing levels.

Now in no way am I saying that Jacinda is not active or hard working locally. She sleeps out for charity, she door knocks, she turns up to all the functions etc. But that is different from actual achievements.

Political

Jacinda has held 11 portfolios including Employment, Social Development, Police, Corrections, Children, Justice and Small Business. In all of them she has been hard working and competent and on top of the issues but she hasnt really achieved anything, compared to some of her colleagues. For example:

Kelvin Davis  hugely successful in his campaign on prisons, and also on Australian deportees. Both led to government policy changes.

Shane Jones  very successful campaign against Countdown on behalf of small suppliers

Stuart Nash  campaign on petrol prices got Government to do an inquiry. Also helped get Government inquiry into guns.

Phil Twyford  huge cut through on housing issues

Legislative

It is in the legislative area that Jacinda has done worse. Her two members bills have been shockingly weak. Her first bill on adoption was a press release pretending to be a bill. It merely instructed the Law Commission to go write the real bill and have the Government introduce it. The bill was so bad even the Greens voted against it. It actually undermined the real work done cross party by Kevin Hague and Nikki Kaye who met with all the stakeholders, with law professors, adoption groups and wrote a detailed law reform bill.

Her latest bill is much the same. It is labelled the Child Poverty Reduction and Eradication Bill. It basically sets up a a Child Poverty Reduction Board! Thats it. Its a sound bite not a serious law.

In no way do I think Jacinda doesnt care about gay adoption and child poverty. She does. But the consistent pattern in her career has been that she prioritises empathy over effectiveness. She is not alone in this, of course.

Jacinda has said you cant achieve much in opposition, that you get to make a difference in government. But this is not true. Many other MPs have achieved substantial things as List MPs and/or in Opposition.

Jacinda will become a Minister one day. I stand by my prediction she will become Prime Minister  possibly as early as 2020, if she becomes Leader of the Opposition after this years election.

As I said at the beginning Jacinda does have many skills, and she is a good MP who deserved to be on Labours front bench. But her record of achievements is very limited for eight years in Parliament. Her challenge is to show effectiveness as well as empathy.

She is now the MP for Mt Albert, so thats a good place to start.

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BRUMADINHO, Brazil, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Vale SA , the world's largest iron ore miner, vowed to sacrifice production for safety to avoid another instance of the tailings dam failures that have tarred its legacy - a move that sent metal prices and shares of rivals soaring.

Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman vowed to take up to 10 percent of Vale's output offline to decommission 10 dams similar to the one that burst on Friday in the town of Brumadinho, leaving hundreds missing and presumed dead. Chinese iron ore futures jumped in early trade on Wednesday, and shares of mining rivals BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group lifted Australia's benchmark metals and mining index to its best day in two years. The dramatic move by Vale was an effort to preempt tough questions about its safety record, as the Friday disaster at the Corrego do Feijao mine - where the death toll has reach at least 84 people - came just over three years after a similar dam burst at the nearby Samarco mine it co-owns with BHP.

Vale's plan to cut output was expected to cost 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) over the next three years, and involved suspending operations at mines producing some 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of pellets per year, Schvartsman told journalists in Brasilia.

Brazilian prosecutors have said they will bring criminal charges against those responsible for the disaster and on Tuesday they arrested three Vale employees, including two senior managers at Corrego do Feijao. The have also arrested two engineers from German auditor firm TUV SUD. In the town of Brumadinho, which was devastated by the torrent of mining waste, Vale workers organized to demand more from the company. In a letter seen by Reuters, the local miners' union demanded months of additional pay and years of guaranteed employment, among other benefits.

In a separate statement, the union said it had asked Vale for the last two years to move the company dining hall, which was located directly under the dam, a charge that Vale denied. A worker outside the cafeteria who narrowly escaped the fast-moving mud flow told Reuters he doubted anyone inside had made it out alive. On a hilltop site, Brumadinho cemetery director Jose Eustaquio da Silva, 63, has been working long days, digging 98 graves with his team in one cemetery alone. So far, five of the graves have been filled as recovery crews comb through mud from the disaster.

"Everyone is tense," he said. "People who live near other dams are tense as well."

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Jake Spring in BRASILIA; Editing by Tom Hogue)
When youre involved in the sausage-making process for as long as he has been, then you have to have a strong moral compass because youre going to run across people all along the line who want to slice it a little fine, do things that might be dubious ethically and legally, Mooney said. You have to be able to say, No, this is how far Ill go and no further. 
Nornickel, part-owned by Russian tycoon Vladimir Potanin and aluminium giant Rusal, said previously it would ramp up output by 2025 to tap an expected boom in demand from electric vehicle makers. "In 2018, the output of all our key metals, especially copper, exceeded our production guidance owing to an increase in processed volumes of concentrate purchased from (Russian state conglomerate) Rostec and productivity improvements," Sergey Dyachenko, Nornickel Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.

This year, Nornickel, which vies with Brazil's Vale to be the world's largest nickel producer, plans to produce from Russian feedstock 220,000-225,000 tonnes of nickel, 430,000-450,000 tonnes of copper, 2.77-2.80 million troy ounces of palladium and 646,000-670,000 ounces of platinum.

In 2018, consolidated nickel production was 218,770 tonnes, up 1 percent year-on-year, and consolidated copper output was 473,654 tonnes, up 18 percent. Its palladium and platinum production was 2.73 million ounces, down 2 percent, and 653,000 ounces, down 3 percent, respectively.

Nornickel's production in 2018 and production guidance for 2019 from Russian feedstock, excluding its Bystrinsky copper project*:

Metals 2018 output 2019 forecast from Russian from Russian feedstock feedstock Nickel, 000 tonnes 216,856 220-225 Copper, 000 tonnes 473,515 430-450 Palladium, 000 ounces 2,729 2,770-2,800 Platinum, 000 ounces 653 646-670

* In 2019, Bystrinsky plans to produce 40,000-46,000 tonnes of copper and 192,000-212,000 ounces of gold in concentrate. Nornickel owns a 50 percent stake in the project. Source text for Eikon: (Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Louise Heavens)
(Updates with closing prices) By Peter Hobson LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Nickel prices rose to a three-month high on Wednesday as investors worried that one of the world's largest producers, Brazilian miner Vale , could curtail supply in an already tight market. Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed up 1.9 percent at $12,350 a tonne.

The stainless steel ingredient hit more than two-year lows on Jan. 2 as concerns over slowing economic growth in China cut demand expectations, but it has since rallied around 17 percent as supply deficits reduce exchange inventories.

Iron ore and nickel producer Vale on Wednesday said it would sacrifice production for safety after a tailings dam burst in Brazil last week, killing at least 84 people. The news pushed Chinese iron ore futures to their highest in nearly 17 months and stirred the nickel market. "There is a bit of concern that there could be some impact on Vale's nickel assets," Deutsche Bank analyst Nick Snowdon said.

But it was unclear what, if any, effect there would be on Vale's nickel output, Snowdon said, adding he expected supply shortfalls both this year and in 2020 and nickel prices around current levels were justified.

Vale produced 288,200 tonnes of nickel in 2017, around 14 percent of total global output, of which around 25,000 tonnes is mined in Brazil.

NICKEL STOCKS: At 202,032 tonnes inventories of nickel in LME-registered warehouses are down from around 370,000 tonnes at the start of 2018 and near the lowest since 2013. SPREADS: Suggesting that availability of nearby metal is tightening, the discount of cash nickel compared to the three month contract has shrunk from around $95 a tonne in July to around $60. WARRANTS: One entity holds between 50 and 79 percent of LME nickel warrants, increasing concerns over short supplies. TRADE TALKS: The United States and China launch a critical round of trade talks on Wednesday amid deep differences that will make it difficult to reach a deal before a March 2 U.S. tariff hike. NORILSK: Russia's Norilsk Nickel said on Wednesday its output of nickel from Russian raw material would increase in 2019 to 220,000-225,000 tonnes from 216,856 tonnes in 2018. COPPER: LME copper ended up 1.4 percent at $6,136 a tonne after 12,500 tonnes of cancellations cut on-warrant stocks in LME-warehouses to 104,950 tonnes, reversing recent gains and pushing levels towards October's 13-year low of 56,650 tonnes. OTHER METALS: Aluminium finished up 0.8 percent at $1,909.50 a tonne, zinc closed 1.1 percent higher at $2,686, lead gained 0.7 percent to $2,090 and tin rose 0.6 percent to $20,800.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Top base and precious metals analysis - GFMS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Additional reporting by Tom Daly; Editing by Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens)

LME price overview COMEX copper futures Base metals news All metals news All commodities news Metals diary Foreign exchange rates SPEED GUIDES ))
(Kitco News) - Gold and silver prices are modestly up and in early U.S. trading Wednesday. Gold notched an eight-month high overnight, while silver prices pushed to six-month highs. Several factors are presently at work supporting the precious metals market bulls. February gold futures were last up $2.10 an ounce at $1,311.00. March Comex silver was last up $0.066 at $15.905 an ounce.

The just-released U.S. ADP national employment report came in at up 213,000 in January. That was well above the average trade guess of up 183,000. Gold and silver prices did retreat just a bit following the release of the report. The ADP report is a precursor to Friday mornings more important Employment Situation Report issued by the Labor Department.

European and Asian stock markets were again narrowly mixed overnight, ahead of key news events to play out this week. U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward slightly higher openings when the New York day session begins. A negative earnings report from Apple, released late Tuesday, has U.S. investors in a tentative mood today. This weeks wobbly U.S. stock market is prompting some safe-haven demand in the gold and silver markets.

The economic highlight at mid-week is the Federal Reserves Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting that began on Tuesday morning and ends Wednesday afternoon with a statement on monetary policy. No change in monetary policy is expected. However, traders want to know if the Fed today will tip its hand regarding the course of monetary policy in 2019. Many expect the Fed to lean toward the accommodative side of monetary policy today. Such would be bullish for the raw commodity markets, including the precious metals. Markets could become active and volatile following the results of the meeting, which includes a press conference by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after the FOMC statement. Powell is getting a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth while making comments to the press or at speeches.

The U.K. parliament on Tuesday evening backed the Plan B Brexit initiative from Prime Minister Theresa May. The Parliament had rejected Mays initial Brexit plan. The British pound was not significantly impacted by the news.

U.S. and China high-level trade officials are meeting in Washington, D.C, on Wednesday and Thursday. There is no consensus at all on any progress that may or may not be made at this weeks talks. The U.S. government this week filed new charges against the high-tech company from China, Huawei. President Trump also plans to speak to the Chinese delegation that is in Washington this week.

The political situation in Venezuela is still very fluid at present, with the potential for civil violence. The U.S. on Monday slapped economic sanctions on the country, which is a major oil producer.

The outside markets today see the U.S. dollar index trading near steady. Meantime, Nymex crude oil prices are firmer and trading around $53.50 a barrel.

U.S. economic reports due for release Wednesday include the weekly MBA mortgage applications survey, the ADP national employment report, the Treasurys quarterly refunding announcement, pending home sales and the weekly DOE liquid energy stocks report.

Technically, the gold bulls have the firm overall near-term technical advantage and have gained power this week. Prices are in a 2.5-month-old uptrend on the daily bar chart. Bulls next upside price objective is to produce a close in February futures above solid resistance at $1,330.00. Bears' next near-term downside price breakout objective is pushing prices below solid technical support at last weeks low of $1,275.30. First resistance is seen at todays high of $1,310.50 and then at $1,320.00. First support is seen at $1,300.00 and then at this weeks low of $1,296.50. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 7.0

March silver futures bulls have the near-term technical advantage and have momentum on their side. A 2.5-month-old uptrend on the daily bar chart has been restarted. Silver bulls' next upside price breakout objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $16.00 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at the January low of $15.195. First resistance is seen at $16.00 and then at $16.25. Next support is seen at $15.725 and then at this weeks low of $15.61. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5.
Gold is already up 2.5% this year and is heading for a fourth straight monthly gain, says commodities brokerage SP Angel. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index has eased over the last couple of months. The metal is seeing strong renewed interest as a store of value as investors weigh prospects of fewer U.S. rate hikes this year and track signs of slower global growth amid the U.S.-China trade war, SP Angel says. Spot gold traded as high $1,315.50 an ounce earlier Wednesday, its highest level in eight months. While the Fed hiked four times last year, officials have indicated a willingness to be patient and flexible in their approach to additional increases, SP Angel says. Analysts later add, Investor sentiment in gold remains strong, with holdings in bullion-backed exchange traded funds at the highest since April 2013 after about 61 [tonnes] were added this year.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

FXTM: Gold Has Strong Week As Investors Seek Safe Havens

Gold has had an incredibly positive trading week as a result of caution in the broader markets and investors avoiding riskier assets in favor of so-called safe-haven investments, says Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM. For as long as U.S.-China trade tensions, concerns over slowing global growth and Brexit drama continue to weigh on risk appetite, gold is seen shining throughout the trading week, the analyst says. The zero-yielding metal is poised to receive a welcome boost if the Federal Reserve adopts a dovish tone. With the fundamentals driving gold marrying the technical, we see vast upside potential. A daily close above $1,308 an ounce could open a path towards $1,316 and $1,324, respectively, Otunuga says. As of 9:05 a.m. EST, spot gold was down $1.40 to $1.309.90 an ounce but earlier hit an eight-month high of $1,315.50.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Bannockburn: Fed On Hold During Early Part Of 2019

Marc Chandler, chief market strategist with Bannockburn Global Forex, says there is no doubt that the Federal Open Market Committee is on hold during the first part of 2019. While the market anticipates that the Fed is likely on hold all year, many economists still look for a hike or two, he says. Policymakers are wrapping up a two-day meeting Wednesday. The FOMC statement should be succinct, Chandler says. While it maintains the roughly balanced risk outlook, the forward guidance will likely be replaced with the emphasis on patience, flexibility and data dependence. Although the impact of the balance sheet reduction is controversial, we look for some rhetoric that will ease the anxiety in some quarters. Chandler says Fed Chair Powell is likely to emphasize the balance sheet will remain much larger than before the Great Financial Crisis. He is unlikely to announce a target in time or size, Chandler adds.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

MKS: Asian Gold Demand To Abate During Chinese New Year

Demand from China was decent overnight but may abate next week as markets in the country close for the Lunar New Year, says MKS (Switzerland) S.A. Gold hit a fresh multi-month high overnight. Decent demand seen once again from Chinese investors, with the physical premium for onshore investors now sitting at around $11-12 over the spot price, MKS says. However, MKS later adds, With the Chinese NY [New Year] period encroaching (4-10 Feb.) and no SGE [Shanghai Gold Exchange] during that period, much of this buoyant demand throughout Asia will be stripped out of the market. So could we be in for a slight pullback over the next week?
(Adds new death toll and comments from cemetery director; restores context) By Jake Spring and Gram Slattery BRASILIA/BRUMADINHO, Brazil, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Vale SA , the world's largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 10 more dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents. Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said it would temporarily paralyze operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years.

The move came as prosecutors began arresting Vale executives over the Friday collapse of a tailings dam in the Brazilian town of Brumadinho, which was hit by a torrent of mining waste that killed at least 84 people and left hundreds more missing.

The disaster raised fresh questions about the company's commitment to safety after a similar deadly dam burst just over three years ago at a nearby mine it jointly owned.

"We decided the company should, once and for all, do what it takes to remove any doubt about the safety of Vale's dams," Schvartsman told journalists in Brasilia. The burst Brumadinho dam was one of 19 "upstream" tailings dams owned by Vale, all in the state of Minas Gerais, built with a method banned in Peru and Chile for safety reasons. Vale had already begun the process of decommissioning nine of them. A corporate presentation seen by Reuters showed that the company had studied but did not implement several steps that could have prevented or lessened the damage from the Brumadinho disaster. Schvartsman said Vale's board had approved the decision to decommission its 10 remaining upstream dams and suspend the related mining operations as necessary, relocating 5,000 workers to other parts of the company. Those operations currently produce 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of pellets per year, he said. Vale forecast total iron output of 390 million in 2018.

FIRST ARRESTS Earlier on Tuesday, police arrested three Vale employees, including two senior managers at the Corrego do Feijao mine in Brumadinho, as they began a criminal investigation into the disaster with an expected death toll of more than 300 people. Vale said it was cooperating with investigators in the case and the mining complex had been built to code, with equipment showing the dam stable two weeks before the disaster. Two other engineers, who worked for Germany's TUEV SUED on a contract where they attested to the safety of the Vale dam, were arrested in Sao Paulo, according to state prosecutors and a spokesman for the German firm. Minas Gerais state investigators issued a total of five arrest warrants and seven search warrants on suspicion of murder, falsification of documents and environmental crimes, a judge's decision showed. The collapse of the dam in the hilly, pastoral region has killed at least 84 people, according to firefighters' count on Tuesday evening, with another 276 missing and likely dead. The search and recovery efforts have taken their toll on weary firefighters, helicopter pilots and volunteers. Jose Eustaquio da Silva, 63, the head of cemeteries in Brumadinho, has also been working long days with the team digging the town's new graves with picks and shovels. "All I see is sadness and hopelessness," he said, overlooking a hillside pocked with 98 fresh graves - only five of which had been filled. 'PREMEDITATED'

Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani said Vale was doing all it could, offering money to mourners, extra tax payments to local government, a special membrane to remove mud from the river and major investments to make its dams safer. Yet residents in the devastated town of Brumadinho have been unmoved, watching in shock and anger as one dead body after another has been pulled from the mud. Following a deadly 2015 tailings dam collapse just a few towns over at a mine half-owned by Vale, the disaster remained unforgivable in the eyes of many Brazilians. At the headquarters for the local mining union, which lost more than one in 10 members by organizers' count, treasurer Jose Francisco Mateiro blamed the company and authorities for putting him and his comrades at risk. "They call it an accident but the design of those dams was premeditated," he said. "There have been warnings about all mining dams for a long time now." Still, prosecutors and politicians have not held their fire. Government ministers have said Brazil's mining regulations are broken. The country's top prosecutor said the company should be criminally prosecuted and executives held personally responsible. On Monday, a presidential task force contemplated forcing out Vale's management, but by Tuesday senior officials pushed back on the idea. "There aren't conditions for any degree of interference. It would not be a good signal to the market," presidential chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni said in a news briefing.

($1 = 3.7201 reais) <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FACTBOX-Vale tailings dam collapse adds to long list of mining disasters BREAKINGVIEWS-Vale's Brazil dam damage will hurt its peers too EXCLUSIVE-Vale eyed dam design changes in 2009 that may have prevented disaster GRAPHIC-Sudden disaster Indigenous village faces existential threat from Brazil dam burst ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Jake Spring in Brasilia and Gram Slattery in Brumadinho;

Additional reporting by Marta Nogueira, Pedro Fonseca, Gabriel Stargardter in Rio de Janeiro; Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo Editing by Brad Haynes and Matthew Lewis)

brad.c.haynes.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Total gold production for the country's largest independent gold miner for the three months to Dec. 31 came in at 654,849 ounces compared with 612,695 ounces a year ago, a 19 percent increase from the previous quarter.

The miner maintained its fiscal 2019 gold production guidance of 2.35 million ounces to 2.6 million ounces.

Newcrest said it continues to expect gold production in the second half of the year to be higher than the first half due to fewer planned shutdowns.

The company's low-cost Cadia Valley Operations in New South Wales achieved record gold output in the second quarter, it said, producing 239,470 ounces of gold, which made up about 37 percent of its overall production.

All-in sustaining costs were down to A$720 per ounce in the quarter, the company said in a statement, from A$829 per ounce a year ago.

In December, Newcrest raised its stake in Ecuador gold and copper developer SolGold Plc and solidified its position as the largest investor, ahead of mining giant BHP Group . Gold producers across the world are on a deal-making spree to bolster their shrinking reserves, amidst higher prices for the yellow metal.

After two recent large acquisitions by Newmont Mining and Barrick Gold , analysts are expecting Newcrest to be one of the next gold companies to combine with a rival. Newcrest also signed a deal in December with the government of Papua New Guinea to fast-track approval for a major mining lease by the end of June 2019. The company is already developing a joint venture in its Wafi Golpu project with Harmony Gold Mining in Oceania's poorest country.

Newcrest's stock price had risen about 12.3 percent in the last three months of 2018, with a corresponding rise in gold prices of around 7.6 percent.

(Reporting by Niyati Shetty in Bengaluru Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
CLEAR LAKE, Iowa - The weather we're experiencing right now is very dangerous.

Schools are cancelling classes, and dozens of businesses are also closing their doors because of the cold, including the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce.

But they're keeping up on their workload by working remotely.

The Chamber recently updated their personnel policy to close their office if Clear Lake Community Schools are off for a snow day, which includes Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tim Coffey is the President and CEO of the Chamber. Not only is this helping keep the employees safe, but it's also convenient for them.

"It's easy to be a virtual worker nowadays, with the laptop and the internet and your cell phone. There's probably a good number of people doing the same thing as I am. And certainly I'd think parents with kids out of school. We have two staff members that have children in school."

Chamber staff members can be accessed by their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses, which can be found on the Chamber's Facebook page.
WINNESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa - Two assault incidents have been investigated involving South Winneshiek High School students.

The Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office said one of the incidents occurred at the high school and another occurred at a rural location near Fort Atkinson. Both incidents involve assaults that occurred on South Winneshiek students.

The prosecutor is reviewing the case and make a final decision on charges and juvenile referrals.

Due to a conflict of interest the Winneshiek County Attorneys Office has turned over the prosecution of this case to the Howard County Attorneys Office, the Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office said in a press release Wednesday.

Charges will be filed upon receipt of confirmation from the prosecutors office.
DES MOINES, Iowa  A murder charge has been filed more than a year after a body was found in rural Floyd County.

Armando Adame III, of Waterloo, is accused of 1st-degree murder in the death of 28-year-old Michael Bruce Johns.

Johns was reported missing to the Grundy Center Police Department on Oct. 26, 2017. An investigation indicated foul play was involved in Johns disappearance. A body was then near 290th Street and Shadow Avenue in Floyd County on Dec. 1, 2017. The body was identified as Johns and it was determined he was killed by a shotgun blast to the head.

During the investigation, cell phone records indicate Johns, Adame and another person were around the Charles City area at around 6 a.m. on Oct. 25, 2017. At around 6:05 a.m., Johns phone records showed the phone being used northeast of Greene. At 6:08 a.m., there was no other outgoing activity from his phone, according to court documents.

Cell phone records for Adame and the other individual showed incoming and outgoing activity on their cell phones between the Charles City and Waterloo/Cedar Falls area after 6:08 a.m.

During an interview with the individual who was with Adame and Johns that night, it was learned there was an argument inside the vehicle in the early-morning hours of Oct. 25, 2017.

The other individual stated that while they were stopped on a gravel road, Adame pulled Johns out of the vehicle and then shot and killed Johns with a sawed off shotgun, the complaint states.

Adame was arrested on December 7, 2017, in Black Hawk County on a federal warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty in Cedar Rapids Federal Court on May 10, 2018, and was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Adame was behind bars when he was charged with Johns murder on Tuesday.

This case was a joint investigation by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Grundy County Sheriffs Office, the Waterloo Police Department, the Floyd County Sheriffs Office, the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the Iowa Attorney Generals Office, the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner, the Floyd County Attorneys Office, the Grundy County Attorneys Office, and the Black Hawk County Attorneys Office.
MASON CITY, Iowa  A woman is sentenced to jail for letting her child stay in the same room as a known sex offender.

Brittany Erin Mulliner, 38 of Clear Lake, was arrested after officers conducted a welfare check at a Mason City home on October 6, 2018. Officers say Mulliners four-year-old son was there with a man who is not allowed to be around children.

Police say Mulliner admitted she knew the man, who is not the childs father, is a sex offender.

Mulliner has pleaded guilty to aggravated misdemeanor child endangerment. Shes been given a two-day jail sentence.
U. of I. officials previously have said the flagship campus is admitting more Illinois students but that generous scholarships from other schools are a big reason they do not enroll at Urbana-Champaign. The university has tried to address that as well by increasing financial aid and unrolling a free tuition package for low- and middle-income families. UIC also introduced a scholarship program for high-achieving local students.
ROCHESTER, Minn. - The temperatures the area is experiencing haven't dropped this low since the mid-nineties.

February 2, 1996 marks some of the lowest temps in the areas history, with lows ranging around -32 to -36.

Visiting Rochester from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Henry family did not expect Minnesota to be quite this cold when they arrived.

"Trying to go through our luggage in the airport to get our clothes out and we were not prepared," says Julia Henry. "We were not prepared at all until I pulled everything out of the suitcase that I had packed," adds Walker Henry. "They said you're going to expect the cold weather, but this is not cold weather. This is much worse than cold weather," says Buddy Henry.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  The Republican-led House voted Monday to reject 29 absentee mail ballots cast in a northeast Iowa House district, handing the seat to a Republican who won by nine votes in the first contested election to go before the Legislature in 27 years.

The mailed absentee ballots were confirmed by a U.S. Postal Service scan of a barcode on the envelopes as having been sent to election officials on time, but House Republicans insist those barcodes are not allowed under state law to be used to validate ballots.

Iowa law says mailed absentee ballots must be postmarked to confirm they were mailed by the deadline one day before an election. The 29 ballots had no postmark.

Legislators, realizing mail ballots often are no longer postmarked, updated the law in 2016 to allow a specific code called an intelligent mail barcode to be used to authenticate ballot timeliness if a postmark is missing. The Postal Service has acknowledged absentee ballots are not always postmarked.

About 1,045 absentee ballots received by mail were rejected in the November election because they were not postmarked or were received too late, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate's office said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press.

House Republicans argued a postal routing barcode is not an intelligent mail barcode as defined in Iowa law and cannot be used to validate ballots, and therefore the 29 votes must be rejected.

"This isn't comfortable. This isn't pleasant and we don't change the rules in the middle of the contest. That's why we have to follow the rule of law in this case," said GOP Rep. Steve Holt of Denison.

Incumbent Republican Rep. Michael Bergan won by just nine votes out of more than 14,000 votes cast on Nov. 6. Counting the 29 votes from Winneshiek County could have changed the outcome of the race.

Democrat Kayla Koether filed an election challenge, which by law means the House had to decide whether the ballots are opened and counted. It's the first contested election to be decided by the Legislature since 1992.

Koether said lawmakers have the authority to interpret the law in a way that allows them to count the ballots of voters who did everything right.

"They are making a choice here about how to interpret the law and whether they will do so in a way that includes these 29 voters who want their votes to be counted or not," she said. "They can follow the rule of law and count these ballots."

The House voted 53-44 along party lines to reject the ballots and dismiss Koether's challenge. Democrat Bruce Hunter said democracy suffers when legitimate votes are denied.

"It seems nobody will ever deprive the people of Iowa the right to vote except the Iowa Legislature. For 29 people in Winneshiek County, democracy is dead," Hunter said.

Koether said she and some of the voters may file a lawsuit.

Her attorney has said the inconsistent way of affirming votes in Iowa may present a constitutional equal protection challenge. Another county in the same House district, Fayette County, counted 12 ballots with no postmark or barcode. The county election official has acknowledged that was a mistake.
ROCHESTER, Minn.-Local energy companies in Minnesota and Iowa are urging people to check their meters and vents to prevent carbon monoxide from getting into their homes.

Artic air has many people bundling up in the cold. With temperatures forecasted in the negative teens many people like Bob Speedling are choosing to stay indoors.

Crazy crazy cold. I've been inside all day. I don't want to go outside, said Rochester resident Bob Speedling.

Tom Duxbury works at a Haley Comfort Systems. He's worked on homes throughout southeast Minnesota install and upgrading heating systems. He's stressing the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning, which kills more than 400 people each year.

We haven't had cold temperatures like this in a long time so the main thing you want to make sure is make sure you have a carbon monoxide detector, said Duxbury.

Minnesota energy also says to clear the vents and meters with a brush like this or a broom. Because a shovel can damage the vent.
Millions of Americans grappling with this week's deep freeze would be better off warming up in parts of Antarctica.

A mammoth blast of frigid air sweeping through the Midwest is headed toward the East, on track to shatter dozens of records along the way.

"The coldest air in a generation is sinking south, with below-zero temperatures already in the Upper Midwest," CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said Tuesday. "And the worst yet to come."

The deadly weather has already claimed at least two lives and snarled travel in even the hardiest cities. Over 1,600 flights are canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday, including more than 760 in and out of Chicago airports, according to FlightAware.com.

Chicago could reach a new record low temperature of 27 below zero by Thursday morning. The city's daytime high on Wednesday might only reach 15 below zero.

Compare that to the relative warmth of Priestley Glacier, Antarctica, which will have a Wednesday high temperature of 6 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of 7 below zero.

While Hennen said Chicago will be "the epicenter of the extreme cold," its misery will have plenty of company.

Temperatures will plunge to 20-40 degrees below zero between Tuesday and Thursday in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, Hennen said.

And more than 83 million Americans -- about 25% of the US population -- will suffer sub-zero temperatures sometime between Wednesday and Monday.

Beware of life-threatening wind chills

The only numbers more shocking than the temperatures are the wind chills.

Wind chills will plummet to 30-60 degrees below zero this week in parts of in the northern Plains and Great Lakes region, Hennen said.

Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker declared a state of emergency, saying even a brief time outside with exposed skin can be life-threatening.

"There is a real risk of hypothermia and frostbite," Pritzker said Tuesday. "Even five minutes of exposure can have very severe health consequences."

The Windy City might stay below zero degrees from Tuesday all the way until midday Friday, Hennen said.

At least 2 deaths are linked to weather

Authorities are urging people to bundle up, stay inside and check up on the elderly and vulnerable.

But already, at least two deaths have been attributed to the extreme cold.

On Sunday, a man in Rochester, Minnesota, was found dead outside the home where he was staying with a relative.

Ali Alfred Gombo, 22, didn't have keys to the home and was unable to enter after being dropped off outside early Sunday morning, CNN affiliate KIMT reported. The single-digit temperatures that dipped below zero may have played a role in his death, Rochester police said.

And in Illinois, a man was killed Monday "after a roadway crash involving a village plow truck and a pedestrian," Libertyville police said.

The plow truck driver has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the results of an investigation, police said.

States accustomed to snow make emergency declarations

You know it's bad when northern states like Michigan and Wisconsin declare emergencies.

"Such widespread, extreme conditions have not occurred in Michigan for many years, and it is imperative that we are proactive with record-low temperatures being predicted by the National Weather Service," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers also declared a state of emergency, as some school districts -- including Milwaukee Public Schools -- are closed Tuesday.

"I want to make sure all state assets are available, including Wisconsin National Guard if needed, to help communities across the state and keep people warm and safe," Evers tweeted.

What about the Super Bowl?

In Atlanta, where the New England Patriots are set to face the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl on Sunday, temperatures are plunging Tuesday.

Georgia state offices are closed, and Atlanta will have emergency warming centers running from Tuesday until Thursday morning.

But despite earlier predictions of up to 2 inches of snow, the latest forecasts show Atlanta won't get any accumulation.

Temperatures are expected to rebound before Sunday's kickoff at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, melting anything that sticks to the roads in time for the big game.
FREEBORN COUNTY, Minn. - One person was injured Tuesday when semis collided at the bottom of an exit ramp off Interstate-90.

The Minnesota State Patrol said 21-year-old Timothy Frazier, of Austin, suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to Albert Lea Medical Center when his 2003 Sterling semi truck/trailer was struck by a 2016 Freightliner semi driven by 33-year-old Daniel Hidu, of Eagan.

Authorities said the Freightliner pulled out and struck Fraziers vehicle.
The official launch of the Ferrybank Community First Responders takes place tomorrow night (January 31) at Abbey Community College in Ferrybank.

The guest speaker on the night will be John Fitzgerald of CFR Ireland.

Community First Responders are volunteers who operate within the community they live or work and respond to incidents within a given geographical area. A first responder is trained at a minimum in basic life support and the use of a defibrillator, who attends an actual or potentially life-threatening cardiac emergency.

The first AGM will be held directly after the launch. Local councillor Melissa O Neill is encouraging people to come along and get involved. She said there are currently 25 members, but with 6,000 or so people in the area, it was hoped more would get involved. The group was busy over the Christmas period.

Cllr O Neill is also calling on the Government to make funding for the group separate to the CLAR scheme, which is based on areas of depopulation.

It should have been separate; it should never have been under CLAR, she said.
Award winning, comedian and actor, Steve Coogan, who has received a nomination for best actor from BAFTA for his role as Stan Laurel in the film, Laurel and Hardy, is a Kilkenny man.

His great grandfather was Thomas Coogan who came from the Hebron area of the city.

Incredibly the woman who is responsible for heading up the genealogical service at the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, Mary Flood, is a cousin of the 53 year-old funny man who enjoys a hugely successful career.

He has been in such hits as Night at The Museum, Philomena and won a number of awards for playing inept television personality, Alan Partridge.

Thomas Coogan was from a family of tailors in the city. He emigrated to England from Kilkenny with his Cork born wife in the late 189os and settled in Manchester.

Steve Coogan has often talked about the importance of his Irish roots and about attending Catholic schools.

Pierce Coogan, Steves grandfather was born in Manchester and left school well-educated, able to play musical instruments and a qualified electrician.

The Irish connection was strengthened when Steves father married his mother, a Mayo woman.

Steve Coogans grandparents, Pierce and Florence, had the Astoria Irish dance hall and then the Assembly Rooms in Manchester, a Mecca for Irish people at the time.

Pierce brought Joseph Locke over and then the show bands so there was an established line of entertaining in the Coogan family.

Pierce held many charity dances to raise money for orphanages and the convents which looked after the aged and unwanted  the list was endless.

Even with their seven children, Tony and Kathleen fostered children too. Steve Coogan recalled that his father was a computer engineer for IBM and that his mother was a stay-at-home mother who raised the family.

They did short term fostering, but on top of those children, there would be abused kids, or kids who would be made wards of court, he recalled.

They often fostered a brother and sister to keep them together, Mr Coogan told the West Cork Times newspaper in an interview back in 2014 .
Hundreds of Kilkenny-based nurses will picket St Lukes General Hospital in Kilkenny today (Wednesday) as a national strike takes effect.



Community Care headquarters in James Green will also be picketed as members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association (INMO) take the first of six days strike action.



INMO members picketing the Community Care offices on James' Green, Kilkenny, today (Wednesday) as part of the nationwide strike. All pictures: Pat Moore

St Lukes General Hospital will operate on a skeleton staff who will maintain life preserving services to patients; Kilcreene Hospital will be fully closed.



Liz Curran, INMO union rep for the Kilkenny nursing staff, said that a picket will be placed on St Lukes from 8am to 5pm on Wednesday. She said the union is expecting several hundred members to take part across the day.



The unions local strike committee worked with hospital management in advance of the strike to ensure there will be life preserving and essential nursing cover in Kilkenny during the strike.

A number of services will not be affected on this first day of the strike: residential care of older people and people with intellectual disability centres will not be involved on the first day.



Other services that will remain in operation include: urgent cancer surgery, certain maternity services, colposcopy, dialysis and oncology services, palliative care and limited newborn screening.

Emergency departments will remain open and people are asked to attend only if absolutely essential.

Planned inpatient and day surgeries have been cancelled, all outpatient appointments are cancelled.

Routine community nursing services and health centre clinics where nurses participate are cancelled.

Aut Even hospital will remain open as it is a private hospital.



The INMO is in dispute with the HSE over staffing and pay issues. Last minute talks at the Labour Court to resolve the dispute ended without a breakthrough, earlier this week.



There will be further 24 hour strikes on February 5 and 7, and then again on February 12, 13 and 14, if the dispute is not resolved.



In addition, the Psychiatric Nurses Association will commence an overtime ban on Thursday, escalating to full strike action on February 12,13. 14.



The INMO argues a serious shortage of nurses across the health service is impacting on patients and and staff.

The union is also calling for a 12% pay increase to bring them into line with other health professionals, to attract and retain nurses.



Kilkenny's Indian nurses held a protest at St Luke's general hospital last Thursday, in support of their Irish colleagues. Kranthi, a cultural and political organisation for people in Ireland from the Kerala region, wanted to publicly express their solidarity with their Irish colleagues.
A University of Idaho professor previously placed on administrative leave has now been barred from campus.
Sipi Metals is among several sites in the area that Sterling Bay agreed to buy in recent years as developers hope to build up the industrial corridor that sits between the Lincoln Park and Bucktown neighborhoods, according to Tribune reports.
In the midst of a controversy surrounding a University of Idaho professor on administrative leave who was barred from campus Wednesday, studen
Sabra Purdy and Seth Zaharias live just outside Joshua Tree National Park in California and own a rock-climbing tour company. They lost up to 30 percent of their business, Cliffhanger Guides, due to the longest federal shutdown in US history.

During the shutdown, which ended Friday, they and hundreds of other volunteers scoured the park, picking up trash and emptying jammed trash bins. Both even got on their hands and knees and scrubbed toilets in the park, spraying disinfectant and restocking toilet paper.

As the federal government reopens, the husband-and-wife team are preparing for their busy season, which Zaharias says stretches from mid-February through the end of April. But they're concerned that potential visitors to Joshua Tree will be scared off by the possibility of another shutdown after the current deal expires February 15.

"It would be devastating," Purdy told CNN. "The economics of this town cannot withstand a complete closure of this park, which we experienced in 2013 for 17 days. It damn near killed all of us."

Rocking the economic boat

The couple's dilemma is playing out in similar ways for business owners near other national parks whose livelihoods depend on a steady stream of visitors.

Cheryl Connelly co-owns Island Packers, a boat company that ferries passengers to Channel Islands National Park off the Southern California coast.

She said she felt frustrated by the uncertainty.

"We just have to put an extra effort by hitting social media through press releases just to let people know we are still going out to the (Channel) islands. We have to do extra because in 15 days we don't know what is going to happen," she said.

Connelly said the confusion around another possible shutdown is casting doubt on vital infrastructure repairs to the park that her business needs to operate effectively.

"We need the piers to be maintained," she said.

Though federal workers can expect paychecks at least for the next few weeks, the threat of another shutdown means some entrepreneurs working in and around parks can't bank on a steady income.

Beth Pratt, who oversees the California branch of the National Wildlife Federation, lamented that almost everyone she knows works in Yosemite National Park or runs a business that is tied to the park.

"Friends tell me they don't know how they are going to make their mortgage payments," she said.

In some areas where national parks kept their gates open and admitted visitors for free, local businesses actually saw a surge in customers.

Amberae Canfield works the front desk at the Bumbleberry Inn in Springdale, Utah, about a mile from the Zion National Park entrance. She said her occupancy rate during the slow winter season -- usually about 10% -- jumped to 30-50% over the past month.

Zion stayed open throughout the shutdown, and "the free entrance allowed more people to visit," Canfield said. And the hotel's restaurant saw "record days during the shutdown," she added.

Parks feeling the pinch

As local entrepreneurs coped with uncertainty, non-profits working on the ground at various parks were able to step up to help -- for a time.

John Laurentig, who runs Friends of Joshua Tree, estimated his organization saw a 75% spike in donations during the shutdown, which enabled his group to provide interest-free personal loans to federal employees and local contractors.

But Laurentig cautioned against leaning too far on support groups like his. "You need professionals all the time to monitor these national treasures," he said.

Kerry Gallivan runs Chimani, a company that builds apps that act as national park travel guides. In an email he told CNN, "The partial government shutdown is now starting to severely impact the underlying support systems of the national parks -- the non-profit partners. These groups are losing critical revenue to support the parks and having to lay off workers. During normal times, their efforts fill the gap for essential services and repairs, but now their ability to do so is being jeopardized."

Unlike the 17-day shutdown in 2013, many parks worked to remain open, often stretching themselves too thin.

"Unfortunately, the best policy decision -- from a resource management/visitor experience perspective -- should have been to completely shut down all the parks from the very beginning," Gallivan said.

The effort to stay open during the shutdown will leave businesses and nonprofit groups around certain parks limping for the foreseeable future, he said.

"In several parks, non-profit partners used their own funds to keep basic services functioning," he said, adding that this could have a ripple effect on future projects and maintenance.
Usually his job is to bring people to services like detox treatment. He lives in Humboldt Park, the same neighborhood as the Freedom Center. It feels good to make a difference, to be able to see people choose whats good for themselves, he said. Now he was about to pick up at least one last person who had agreed to go to the center.
Crete, NE (68333)

Today

A good deal of sunshine. High near 90F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mostly clear skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 61F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph.
EUGENE, Ore. -- Oregon Connections Academy students got a look at careers in science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) with a field trip to the Academic Achievement Center in Eugene.

Career Technical Education (CTE) business leaders are struggling to hire qualified employees, so teachers are pressing the importance of early education, preparing students for careers in technical fields.

During the field trip, online elementary students got a hands-on education in STEAM, giving them a chance to develop an interest in those fields early in life.

We have a real passion to help students align with pathways of interest to them, said Summer Highfill, CTE Business Instructor with Oregon Connections Academy. So if students are able to explore those opportunities in K through eight, then by the time they get to high school, they have a little bit more guided idea of what theyre interested in.

The online school teaches kids from kindergarten through 12th grade.

KEZI is partnering with employers in our area to address the lack of workers for skilled jobs. To learn more, click here.
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In an ideal world, we should all be compensated fairly for our services and skills. The reality, as we all experience, is an amalgam of mistakes and victories. One hopes that with time our skills will translate to a greater number of victories. Most greenhorns entering the workforce are unfortunately poorly equipped to assess their worth. I certainly was.

Greenhorn doctors stand to lose a financial lot from mistakes simply because doctors tend to experience a significant jump in income after they finish their formal training. Seemingly inconsequential mistakes can end up costing us a lot of green and sleep over time.

The significant jump in salary signals a well-deserved reward at the end of the rainbow, but what doctors frequently fail to recognize is how big or small that pot of gold ought to be. In some ways it is difficult to believe that relatively intelligent, hard-working people who become doctors can have so little clue about our worth. When I was in my training, business sense certainly wasnt in the medical school or residency curriculum. I doubt that much has changed over time either.

The last time I interviewed a high school student from New Jersey for college, I asked her if she knew how to pump gas. The response was an overwhelmed deer in the headlights look. (New Jersey law still doesnt permit people to pump their own gas.) It isnt that difficult to find voids in ones fund of knowledge, no matter how intelligent anyone is.

When I was a fledging greenhorn coming out of my training, I made plenty of mistakes in looking for a job. Some of the factors I overlooked were so egregious that I probably deserved to fumble. Live and learn, as they say. January and February are the typical months of the year that graduating trainees start looking for jobs. This is also the time I start getting questions about job hunting.

I figured it was time to distill some of my impressions about rookie mistakes into a post.

Underestimating your worth

Medical trainees provide way too many services pro bono. In my training, I moved gurneys, waited for up to an hour over the phone for health insurance companies, cleaned up excrement, and performed many duties that didnt require busting my ass. When trainees enter the workforce, life suddenly becomes easier in most respects.

Sometimes if life becomes easier no matter how you spin it, we may be more willing to take anything we are given. Maybe your potential employer intends to give you a signing bonus of $5,000. Great! Would you think any differently if they gave your coworker an $8,000 signing bonus instead? Thats where doing your research will pay off. Most medical graduates do a good job in their sleuthing skills because thats what medicine is all about.

The key is going to the right sources. Your friends who are several years into practice can give you pointers. But relying solely on their experience can only give you a certain picture into the situation. Your friends might share similar views that you do, or even think like you do. They are likely to provide the information that you want to hear, but there is also a possibility that their mindset leads them to overlook certain aspects of the job world that youd miss too.

Pro tip: Ask doctors who may be in a different generation as well as other maybe even in another specialty about their wisdom. Get the advice of others who have worked for the employer that youre considering, or those who have paved a career similar to what you envision your career to be.

Overestimating your worth

Not understanding your skill level can lead doctors to ask for too much as well. There are statistics out there that include median starting salaries along with median mid-career salaries of all the specialties. The problem is that these are median numbers, and you have to be able to extrapolate the statistics.

For instance, if you plan to join a bustling medical practice that is drowning with patients, you will be busy very quickly. However, most new doctors fail to recognize that they still need time to ramp up their practice patterns. Just because the retiring doctor who touch-typed was seeing 100 patients a day doesnt mean that you could see 120. As someone learning the ropes, you might only be capable of doing a fraction of the work and maybe even at a fraction of the quality! There may be reasons why the employer would consider starting you at a much lower salary as someone else with a decade of practice under their belts.

Pro tip: Go into your negotiations with the facts, and make your potential employer give you good reasons why they think that youre worth what theyre offering you. If you can prove them wrong, you can command a better arrangement. Just be aware of your limitations too. Gray hair does come with some benefits.

Overestimating what the employer can afford

This is a touchy subject. Financially and business savvy new doctors can make very informed decisions about their qualifications and practice goals to potential employers. The problem arises when everything is a great fit except that the potential employer isnt actually able to financially afford what youre asking. Sometimes this happens.

Pro tip: You cannot earn more than your boss. If you do, then they are in either a horribly desperate situation to bring you on board or a situation to make you work like a dog. Neither situation is sustainable long-term.

You have to set realistic expectations in any situation. I have known plenty of doctors who calculate how much they should be earning based on professional charges, negotiate based on expected overheads, and anger many potential employers. The reason? Many of these doctors dont realize that there is give or take. They may have underestimated the costs of running a business.

Pro tip 2: Do your homework. Go into your negotiations with reasoning. But dont forget that you could be wrong too.

Smart Money, MD is an ophthalmologist who blogs at the self-titled site, Smart Money MD.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Gonzalez was in her kitchen when she first smelled smoke and then heard screaming, she said. She called 911 and dressed her two children in warm sweaters, coats and boots in case they had to evacuate.
Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw said he happens to believe that the Hispanics should be working harder on assimilation, including doing more to ensure their children learn English.

We do not wish to tar and feather the former news anchor, but we do need to correct the record, because a man who many Americans still look to as a paragon of honesty just botched this one.

Brokaw offered his diagnosis as part of a supposedly balanced analysis of Americas demographic future. On the one hand, he said, some whites are racist and simply dont want brown grandbabies; on the other, he surmised, Spanish speakers are failing to meld into the broader national community.

Incorrect. Over the generations, Americas 50 million-plus Latinos see their educational attainment rise sharply, their homeownership rates increase, their poverty rates decline and their intermarriage rates spike. All are telltale markers of assimilation.

Among second-generation Americans of Hispanic ancestry, just 6 percent continue speaking mostly Spanish at home. By the fourth generation, just half of U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry even call themselves Hispanic.
The Hub has written about a number of different Kearney residents who operate Airbnbs. One uses the extra cash to travel  and of course, she stays at other Airbnbs. A couple said that, two years ago, on a lark, they posted rooms in their home to rent during the total solar eclipse. They landed several travelers, but after the celestial event, they forgot to take down their Airbnb posting. They got more inquiries, and over time, used Airbnb income to repay student loans. Retired couples say they are using an asset  their home  that they acquired over their lifetimes, to help produce a little extra cash.
Willa Cathers childhood home is once again locally owned.

History Nebraska, a state agency, has transferred ownership of the Willa Cather State Historic Site to the Willa Cather Foundation, a Red Cloud-based nonprofit.

The site  in Red Cloud, Nebraska, where Cather spent her formative years  includes six properties and about 8,000 artifacts. The transfer went through in January.

The state had owned the properties since 1978, but History Nebraska and the Willa Cather Foundation have operated the site together since 1994. It is the largest single collection of buildings devoted to an American author.

The Cather Foundation said the transfer will ensure that Red Clouds recently completed National Willa Cather Center will remain a primary location to learn about one of America's most iconic writers. Tourists and scholars from around the world visit Red Cloud because of its associations with Cather.

It also helps ensure a well-preserved tribute to a very private person, said Ashley Olson, executive director of the Willa Cather Foundation.
Extreme cold weather can cause steel to contract, causing breaks, said Metra spokeswoman Meg Thomas-Reile. While Metra uses continuously welded rail on most of the system, there are some locations near switches and some crossings where the rail is bolted together. Those areas are the most vulnerable to separating in frigid temperatures, although breaks can happen anywhere along the line.
The GIC got down to collecting data and facts about what the closures impact would be on Gothenburg and Dawson County. Wyatt said at the time of the closing, the countywide unemployment rate was three percent and many people in the business community were looking for workers. Gothenburg also has a housing shortage, a problem many communities in the county face.

Wyatt said Gothenburg was helped somewhat by Baldwins gradual relocation of jobs as the four lines of the facility were shut down in phases. He said the community was able to absorb those positions of those people who did not want to commute.

The closing of the Tenneco plant in Cozad provided a rough idea of what Gothenburg might expect from the facilitys closing, said Wyatt. The impact on Gothenburg would be less, due to the smaller number of people the Baldwin facility employed, compared to Tenneco in Cozad.

After they had gathered the facts, the GIC started to hold community meetings to educate Gothenburg residents about the impact of the plant closure.

When it comes to finding a business to fill the building, the GIC has no plans to rush the decision. Wyatt said, We want to find another partner for Gothenburg, a businesses which is a quality employer and a good corporate citizen.
KEARNEY  Bright Futures Preschool, 1511 5th Ave., will be closed today and Friday this week in an effort to stop the spread of illness.

Bright Futures was at a Level Four for illness, the highest category for the Kearney Public Schools District. Two Rivers Public Health Department suggests to KPS that they close schools when they reach this level, where 25 percent to 30 percent of students are absent because of illness.

According to a letter from Principal Tom Jochum, parents also had the option of picking up their child early on Wednesday.

While most viruses are not life-threatening, they are highly communicable, especially among younger children, Jochum wrote. The problem with viruses at school is how very easily it is spread from one person to the next, either in respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes, or direct contact from contaminated surfaces.

In the two days the school is closed, KPS maintenance staff will be thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the school.

Jochum also reminded parents to check their childs temperature if they arent feeling well, and to remind their children to wash hands and cough into their sleeves. Children with a temperature of more than 100 degrees should not be sent to school.
KEARNEY  The American Red Cross is urging blood and platelet donors to give now after multiple snowstorms, frigid temperatures and the government shutdown reduced lifesaving donations.

In January, more than 4,600 Red Cross blood and platelet donations went uncollected as blood drives were canceled due to severe winter weather blanketing parts of the U.S. Additional cancellations are expected this week.

About 30 blood drives hosted by federal offices were canceled across the country due to the federal government shutdown, leaving more than 900 donations uncollected.

These disruptions jeopardize the availability of blood for patients who depend on transfusions for survival, said Cliff Numark, senior vice president, Red Cross Biomedical Services.

Right now, Red Cross blood donations are being distributed to hospitals faster than they are coming in, and there is less than a three-day supply of most blood types on hand. The Red Cross strives to maintain a five-day supply.

All eligible donors, especially platelet donors and blood donors with type O blood, are urgently needed. Donation appointments can be scheduled by using the free Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).
GRANTS PASS, Ore.  The tactic is becoming a familiar one  scammers calling up random people while pretending to be someone with law enforcement, then using intimidation in order to gain payment. While there are always slight variations, the Josephine County Sheriff's Office (JCSO) said that the scam is back on their turf.

According to JCSO, they started receiving multiple reports of the scam on Tuesday. The callers said that they'd been getting phone calls from a man claiming to be a deputy or detective with the Sheriff's Office. He would provide a phone number, then tell the potential victims that they had an arrest warrant "due to missed jury duty."

How does one avoid certain arrest, you ask? Why, simply buy a prepaid Fred Meyer gift card and leave the details at the number provided: 541-644-2154

"When calling the scam number you will hear a recording that appears to be from a Deputy or Detective from the Josephine County Sheriffs Office with an automated voice recording," JCSO said. "This is a scam and should not be mistaken for our phone system which is the actual voice of our Sheriff Dave Daniel and offers relevant options for divisions within our office. We do not have an option to pay by phone for any service."

In fact, if you call the number you'll hear it ring a few times (as if someone might, in fact, answer) before the voice message kicks on  apparently recorded in the middle of an audibly busy "Sheriff's Office" by an officer with a pleasant, gravely Southern twang named "Mike McCallister." Mike will entreat you to leave a message, or dial 911 if it's an emergency.

"Law enforcement does not operate in this fashion," JCSO said. "Funds are NOT solicited by law enforcement from citizens to avoid arrest. The Sheriffs Office would like to remind citizens to remain vigilant and report any potential scams that come their way. Persons should never provide financial or personal information to anyone until they are certain who they are speaking to."

A near-identical scam sprang up in Josephine County in May of last year, while another version of the scam targeted Jackson County residents just months ago in December.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  Two ranchers who were convicted in 2012 of intentionally setting fires on public land in Oregon have had their grazing rights restored.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, in one of his last actions before resigning, ordered the renewal of a 10-year grazing permit for Hammond Ranches Inc., run by Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven Hammond. The decision was dated Jan. 2, but it wasn't sent out until this week.

Zinke ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to renew the grazing permit through 2024.

Last year President Donald Trump pardoned the Hammonds, whose case had prompted the armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, led by two sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy.

In February 2014, the federal government had rejected the Hammonds' renewal application, citing their criminal convictions for setting fire to public land.

"I find the pardons constitute unique and important changed circumstances since the BLM made its decision," Zinke wrote in the decision.

The Hammonds had been convicted in 2012 of arson on land where they had grazing rights for their cattle. They were ordered back to prison in early 2016 to serve out five-year sentences in a case that incited right-wing militias and inspired the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which abuts the Hammond family ranch.

But on July 10, 2018, Trump pardoned the father and son.
MEDFORD, Ore.  Signing an executive order during a press conference at the Medford Air Tanker Base on Wednesday, Governor Kate Brown made official a response to what she called "the new normal"  a group dedicated to evaluating the state's response in cases of devastating wildfires.

"Oregon's firefighting approach leads the nation in effectiveness," said Governor Brown. "However, wildfire dynamics are changing and it is never too soon to evaluate the approach to wildfire education, prevention, suppression, attack, and community recovery."

The new Oregon Wildfire Response Council aims to examine the state's current system for wildfire response, and then figure out ways that might be more effective in defending communities and the environment from the threat of fire.

According to a statement from the Governor's office, the Wildfire Response Council will issue a report on the subject in September of 2019  near the end of what is sure to be another eventful fire season  with recommendations for "the future of Oregon's wildfire response infrastructure."

A recent report commissioned by the U.S. Forest Service found that communities in Southern and parts of Central Oregon were by far the most at risk for destruction from wildfire exposure.

Governor Brown also announced a $1.5 million Focused Investment Partnership (FIP) grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) to the Rogue Forest Restoration Partnership  part of a $6 million pledge through 2025 to speed up dry forest restoration and wildfire fuels management on federal and non-federal lands.
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) - The Coast Guard in Alaska is searching for an overdue medical flight with three people aboard.

The Coast Guard says the King Air 200, operated by Guardian Flight, had taken off from Anchorage on Tuesday and was expected to land in Kake at 6:19 p.m., but never arrived.

A pilot, a nurse and a paramedic were aboard.

A Coast Guard vessel was sent to search near the aircraft's last known position.

Light rain was reported in the area.
The United States has filed criminal charges against Huawei, escalating its fight against the Chinese tech giant and potentially complicating efforts by Washington and Beijing to negotiate an end to their bruising trade war.
Yesenia Rodriguez, 27, of the 900 Block of North Honore Street, has taught junior high school at St. Procopius School since 2014, according to a statement from the archdiocese. She has been suspended and will remain away from the Pilsen school until the matter is resolved, the statement said.
Colder air for your Tuesday with highs in the lower 20s around lunchtime, then falling into the mid-10s by 5 p.m. We will be keeping an eye on the chance for a few flurries and light snow showers possible today as well.
Our service is up and running as usual in the vast majority of the region, Segal said. Small pockets of the region have been impacted by network issues stemming from the unprecedented cold.Segal said Comcast was prioritizing network-related outages during the cold snap, and was working to restore service as quickly as possible.
Well, Madigan is quoted as saying in the report, our interest would be that we represent buildings like that on the real estate taxes  And we do a few hotels. And, uh, we have a little different approach on hotels than the other law firms that do the work.
He was able to secure a violin for me, but it was definitely the wrong size for me  way too big, she remembers. So I started learning with my left arm fully extended.  I didnt have a radio until I was maybe 12. I got to an advanced level of playing, got into the Shanghai Conservatory middle school, and it was necessary for me to be in touch with first-class playing.
As time went on, and this has been true of every restaurant Ive been associated with, your customers define who you are, Manion said. And after 2 1/2 years, weve attracted more and more of a carnivorous clientele. Its apparent that this is who we are.
A minister threatened to ban Amnesty International from Israel after the rights group on Wednesday accused Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor of profiting from war crimes by offering accommodation in settlements.

Amnesty International, that hypocritical organisation that speaks in the name of human rights, is acting to promote a boycott of Israelis as part of a campaign of anti-Semitic delegitimization, said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan.

I have instructed the ministry of strategic affairs to examine the possibility of preventing the entry of members of Amnesty to Israel.

A few weeks ago, I went to the finance ministry to ask it to cancel the tax benefits granted to the organisation, he said, without providing further details.

Amnesty issued a report on Wednesday calling on Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories.

They are doing so despite knowing that Israels occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal, it said.

In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law.

The London-based human rights group accused the digital tourism giants of normalising settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

In November, Airbnb announced it was removing from its rental listings settlement homes in the occupied West Bank.

About 450,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements often in confrontation with the territorys 2.5 million Palestinians, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in occupied east Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and major roadblocks to peace, as they are built on land Palestinians see as part of their future state.

jlr/lal/dv/dr

TRIPADVISOR

EXPEDIA

PRICELINE GROUP
Digital tourism giants Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor are profiting from war crimes by offering services in Israeli settlements, rights group Amnesty International said in a report published Wednesday.

The British-based NGOs Destination: Occupation study called on the companies to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.

They are doing so despite knowing that Israels occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal, said the report.

In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law.

The rights group accused the firms of normalizing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

To boost bookings, many listings in settlements boast of their proximity to areas of natural beauty in the occupied territories, such as the Dead Sea, nature reserves and the desert, it added.

By listing and promoting these natural features and nature-based activities and attractions the digital companies are increasing the attractiveness of the listings, securing greater numbers of tourists and ultimately benefiting financially from the illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources.

Amnesty launched a campaign in 2017 calling on governments to prevent businesses based in their countries from operating in settlements.

Governments worldwide must take action to regulate companies or activities over which they have control, urged the report.

jwp/dt/wai

TRIPADVISOR

EXPEDIA

PRICELINE GROUP
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Peter Miles, President and CEO of Sanatana Resources Inc. (Sanatana or the Company) is pleased to welcome Ian Smith to the Companys board of directors.

Mr. Smith, FAusIMM, MCIM, is a mining engineering graduate of the University of Queensland, Australia, with 50 years experience in corporate, operations and project management and consulting within the international base and precious metals industries. He has a broad range of underground and open pit operating experience. Most importantly for Sanatana, Mr. Smith was Mine Superintendent and Chief Mining Engineer at the 90,000 tpd Bougainville Copper mine in Papua New Guinea, located to the northwest of Sanatanas recently acquired Tirua project.

Peter Miles, President and CEO, states, "Ian's extensive engineering and operational experience in the Papua New Guinea and Solomon Island region, and indeed around the world, will be invaluable to Sanatana's board and technical team as we move forward on our Tirua project."

Mr. Smith managed the startup of the 72,000tpd La Caridad open pit copper mine in Sonora, Mexico and as president and CEO, engineered and constructed a 2,500 tpd (70,000 opy) CIL gold project in Uruguay. As president and CEO of bcMetals Corp., he engineered the 30,000tpd Red Chris copper/gold porphyry project for development in northwest BC prior to it being acquired by Imperial Metals Corp. As president and CEO of Yellowhead Mining Inc., Mr. Smith took the Harper Creek Project from exploration to development stage with the completion of pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for a 70,000 tpd open pit mine in a period of 18 months. Mr. Smith was president and founding partner of Mineral Resources Development Inc., one of North America's most successful mining industry consulting companies until it was purchased by Canadian interests in 1995. He has managed engineering and strategic studies on large scale open pit projects in Zambia, PRC, Chile, Argentina, Siberia and the Philippines.

About the Company

Sanatana Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration and development company with an experienced management team and board of directors. Sanatana is based in Vancouver and is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: STA).

SANATANA RESOURCES INC.

(signed) Peter Miles______________



Peter Miles

President and Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Some of the statements contained in this news release are forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects, intends, is expected, potential, suggests or variations of such words or phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, should, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information are not historical facts and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond Sanatanas control. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Summerville, SC (29483)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near an inch..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. A few storms may be severe. Low 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near an inch.
Without regard to the timeline of the school construction bond, without consideration of childrens safety or costs to taxpayers, against the counsel of advisors, despite an obvious conflict of interest and with no public discussion whatsoever, the demolition of the Wiley Magnet School gym was advanced a year ahead of schedule (Wiley project raising questions, Jan. 23). Why our school board would agree to exposing students to the hazards of a construction zone for an additional six to 12 months and pushing the project to coincide with the I-40 closure rather than waiting for it to reopen was never considered or discussed, but it was perfectly clear. The move is essential to pave the way for the as-yet unfunded Reynolds High School stadium and advanced by the same politics of division that has long surrounded Home Field Advantage.
The notion, meanwhile, that all will be rectified in due course is cold comfort when you cant meet your financial obligations. Now that the government is reopened  for three more weeks, at least  federal employees are still likely to face days of paperwork and telephone roulette as they try to correct their credit history and satisfy debtors.

This isnt end-of-world stuff, obviously, but the shutdown certainly wasnt a vacation, as President Trumps chief economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, suggested. Ross, who made his billions partly by buying distressed debt, further revealed his own cluelessness by dryly noting that the 800,000 furloughed and unpaid workers represent only one-third of 1 percent of our gross domestic product.

Why all the sad faces?

Thanks to Fitzgerald, we learn that being blessed with wealth does something to them ... that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. Which is to say, we have a failure of mutual understanding.

Ross and Trump are primarily businessmen and, thus, perhaps see people more as commodities than human beings. Despair is a market fluctuation that cool investors simply wait out. And massive inconvenience for the ordinary working stiff is represented as dots and jagged lines on a spreadsheet.
Parscale's polling presentation is a bad joke. It claims that in ten House districts that Democrats just flipped (ones Trump won in 2016) narrow majorities believe there's a national security crisis at the border and support Trump's wall. But, comically, according to a database compiled by America's Voice, in around half those districts, Democrats won after Republicans ran ads echoing Trump's xenophobic immigration messaging. And Republican strategists have privately conceded that this messaging helped lead to the GOP wipeout among swing voters.

Whether or not Parscale really believes Trump's shutdown helps him with swing voters, it seems more likely that this is really about ensuring that Trump holds firm to keep his base happy. This is in keeping with the nonstop propaganda coming out of Foxlandia, which has filled Trump's head with the notion that Trump's wall is popular and that he holds all the leverage, which means he needn't accept any compromise that perturbs his base in the slightest.

What this means is that, If Trump ends up deciding that his vision of what his base wants must veto any genuine compromise, and Senate Republicans really do want to avoid another shutdown, at some point they will have to buck the base. And that will require breaking with the big lie conflating the wall with border security that Trump has told those voters for many years now -- a big lie that Senate Republicans themselves have largely endorsed.

Greg Sargent is a columnist for The Washington Post.


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A woman was injured Tuesday afternoon when a Davidson County school bus collided with her car, authorities said.

The incident happened at 3:23 p.m. when the school bus was making a left turn and struck a car in the intersection of Craver and Enterprise roads in the county's northern section, said Trooper T. J. Miles of the N.C. Highway Patrol.

The school bus' driver, Candice White of Lexington, failed to yield and hit a 2014 Toyota, the highway patrol told FOX8/WGHP, the Journal's newsgathering partner. The driver of the Toyota, Sheellochnie Basdeo, was taken to Lexington Medical Center with minor injuries, the television station reported.

At the time of the crash, 34 students from North Davidson middle and high schools were riding on the bus, the highway patrol said. No injuries were reported among the students who were evaluated by emergency medical technicians, Miles said.

White was cited with an unsafe-movement violation, Miles said.

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N.C. Sen. Joyce Krawiec introduced a bill on Wednesday that would ban female genital mutilation in the state.

Krawiec, R-Forsyth, said she filed Senate Bill 9 because we must protect our girls from this abuse of being mutilated ... and this barbaric procedure.

When this issue has been brought up, most people cant believe its not already illegal to do this in North Carolina.

The bill, if passed, would make it a Class C felony  with a 44 to 182 month prison sentence  for someone to perform the procedure in North Carolina, as well as a parent, guardian or another person to consent to the procedure.

The bill would be effective Dec. 1. Krawiec said the effective date would "give time for notification of the new statute to legal authorities, and give time to educate and notify medical providers of the change in statute."

Krawiec said she has heard no opposition to the bill, whether in the legislature or from constituents.

FGM is defined as the partial or complete removal/circumcision of the labia majora, labia minora, or clitoris, for nonmedical reasons. The practice is done in parts of India and northern and southern Africa as a means of controlling the sexuality of women.
On Tuesday, Bob Feikema, president of Family Services in Forsyth County, said several organizations will examine the best path forward for a possible Family Justice Center, taking about a year to examine which programs in the county are already working well and what may be needed. Invested stakeholders include government, law enforcement, legal entities and family-violence agencies, as well as input from the public.

Part of the countys examination included inviting Casey Gwinn, president and co-founder of Alliance for HOPE International, to Forsyth County for two days. Alliance for HOPE International started the first family justice center in San Diego in 2002, and has helped establish family justice centers in 40 state and 25 countries, Gwinn said.

North Carolina has one of the highest number of justice centers open or developing in the country, behind California, which has 22 open and 10 in development. There are five in North Carolina already  in Guilford, Buncombe, Alamance, Henderson and a combination one in Nash and Edgecombe counties, Gwinn said. Additionally, six others are in the planning stages, including facilities in Wake, Mecklenburg and Forsyth counties.
The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County held a public meeting Tuesday night at the Canteen Market and Bistro to launch its annual Community Fund for the Arts.

The Arts Councils 2019 goal is $2.5 million, a goal that it exceeded in 2018.

The money is used to help fund local arts organizations, small community grants that are offered throughout the year, and for operating and administering the Arts Council.

Martha Bassett provided music for the kick-off, and LB The Poet performed spoken word.

Randy Eaddy, a long-time board member and retired corporate lawyer, became the president and chief executive of the Arts Council in August. This will be the first fund-raising effort for the Community Fund in his new role.

The challenge is great, of course, but I have no doubt that individuals and business members of this community, who know the enriching and empowering value of arts and culture, will again demonstrate their generosity, Eaddy said. Only with such support can the Arts Council deliver on its essential mission to support (financially and otherwise) and promote the arts organizations and initiatives whose excellence makes us a city of arts and innovation. 
Rabil also said Forsyth County prosecutors failed to provide information to Hayes attorneys about Kenneth Evans, who was also shot in the incident but survived. He identified someone else as the shooter, not Hayes.

State prosecutors with the N.C. Attorney Generals Office, which is representing Forsyth County prosecutors, have denied the allegations in court documents. They also argue that Hayes claims of innocence should be dismissed, partly because they were filed too late. They argue Hayes could have filed his petition sooner based on evidence already available to him. Rabil has said most of that evidence was not available until nearly 20 years after Hayes was convicted.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond will hear oral arguments on whether Hayes conviction should be overturned. It will be months before the court issues a decision.

The Innocence and Justice Clinic and the Appellate Advocacy Clinic are working on Hayes case, and Raquel Macgregor, a third-year law student at Wake, will present the oral arguments on Hayes behalf.
The woman said Bennett raped her several times and told her not to go to law-enforcement, the search warrants say. He also threatened to kill her family if she told anyone, according to the documents.

Bennett also took her cellphone and erased all the calls she had made to him and any text messages she had sent him, investigators said.

On Oct. 21, 2012, deputies received another report of rape from a Greensboro woman. The site of the alleged rape was at the same Rural Hall house. The woman also identified Bennett as her rapist and told deputies that Bennett raped her several times, according to the search warrants. He also threatened to shoot her and gut her, according to warrants. Bennett also walked to a dresser, pretending to retrieve a weapon, several times, the search warrants said. The search warrants said the woman told deputies that Bennett gagged her with a handkerchief.

The Greensboro woman told deputies that Bennett forced her into a bathroom and made her take a shower. He took the womans cellphone and deleted information, removing a battery from one of her phones and keeping it, warrants said. Bennett also went through the womans purse, removed mail from it and made the statement that he now knew where she lived, she told investigators. He threatened to harm her family if she told police.
In a recorded interview with police played during the trial, Slade told investigators that he had not seen Cuthbertson the night of the killings and that Cuthbertson had been beefing with a subset of the Bloods gang. Its not clear what set Cuthbertson and Slade belonged to, but the different sets are known to fight one another in the city.

In his closing, defense attorney Alec Carpenter questioned Kenyatta Hamptons credibility as a witness.

He reminded jurors that throughout her testimony and conversations with police she admitted to being a Bloods affiliate, a drug dealer, having criminal convictions, and consuming both drugs and alcohol the day of the shootings.

The state does not know what happened on Bragg Street, Carpenter told jurors. They werent there. I dont know what happened. I wasnt there.

Thompson reminded jurors that Hampton never lied about the illegal activity she had been involved with that day, and that several small details she told police were confirmed through evidence.

She also said Slade confirmed he was at the crime scene in phone calls to his mother, either played in court or dictated during testimony by investigators.
Q: Has the comic strip Marmaduke been canceled? For the past few days, a strip called The Argyle Sweater has been in its place.

H.M.

Answer: Yes, and it is the first of several changes coming to the comics pages. The Argyle Sweater is a gag-a-day panel akin to The Far Side. The change came about because of a change in the agreement between the Journal and the syndication company.

Three strips that run repeats are being dropped in late February - For Better or For Worse, Get Fuzzy, and the daily Doonesbury strips. However, the Sunday Doonesbury strips are new material and will continue.

In their places will be Luann, a strip about a young college student; Breaking Cat News, about a trio of housecats who report events around their home as if they were newscasters; and Nancy, a modern revival of a comic strip that started in the 1930s. Those strips, as well as Argyle Sweater, will be in the weekday and Sunday comics pages.

Also, a gag panel strip called The Flying McCoys will replace the panel Ziggy, starting Feb. 25.
ITG Brands said in a statement Wednesday that it has timely fulfilled its obligations under all state settlements or agreements to which it is a signatory. ITG Brands is not a signatory to the Texas settlement and has not assumed any obligations under it.

ITG said it expects a similar legal outcome with the Texas claim as it had in Florida.

The state of Texas has treated ITG Brands as a non-settling manufacturer since it acquired the brands from R.J. Reynolds and all fees due for the sale of the brands has been collected by the state of Texas, the company said.

The fact that the Texas attorney general has waited for over 3 years after ITG Brands purchased these brands to bring this action is extraordinary, and the company looks forward to vigorously defending this case, it said.

Reynolds spokesman Michael Shannon said its position remains that ITG purchase the brands and should be making the payments.

Texas collects fees from wholesalers selling cigarettes sold by non-settling manufacturers, such as ITG, Shannon said. Texas has been collecting this fee from the brands we sold to ITG. Whereas, Florida does not collect a fee.
The incentive package Foxconn signed totals nearly $4 billion, but the actual amount the company receives is dependent on job creation quotas. It fell short with the 178 full-time jobs it created in 2018, and did not claim its funds, according to a letter the company sent to Wisconsin officials. It can still earn the credits down the road if it makes up for the deficit.
Foxconn Technology is re-thinking its approach to a cutting edge display factory in Wisconsin that was part of a promise to create 13,000 jobs in the United States.

There are no plans to scrap the facility but the company is considering what liquid-crystal display technology is best suited for the $10 billion plant, Louis Woo, special assistant to Chairman Terry Gou, said Wednesday. Reuters reported earlier that the company could scale back LCD production plans or even abandon them.

Foxconn and U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled the Wisconsin project with much fanfare in 2017 as the Taiwanese company extracted a raft of incentives from the state, although some were forfeited last year after falling short of hiring goals. Gou's company is in a particularly precarious position as the U.S. and China wage an escalating battle over trade. It does most of its manufacturing in the mainland, sells products to Americans and faces pressure from both sides to maintain or create new jobs.

"Given global economic conditions and the trade tensions between China and the U.S., we have to be responsible to our employees and customers, and it's impossible that we can always stay committed to our original plan without any change," Woo said. "There is no scrapping of our plans. We are upholding our commitment to Wisconsin."
EAST WINDSOR  The two Indian tribes attempting to build a casino in East Windsor have renewed their promotion of the facility with a name cha
Batteries suffer in cold temperatures, so aircraft and other equipment that rely on them to start up may need to be kept running or connected to power, said Robert Mann, a New York-based airline industry consultant. Aircraft also need to be kept warm enough to keep water systems  like those that provide drinking water  from freezing.
LONDON  Aleksandar Mitrovic scored twice Tuesday as Fulham came from two goals down to beat Brighton 4-2 and boost its chances of avoiding relegation from the Premier League.
David Abel, 72, died June 18th, 2021, at his home in El Dorado, AR, surrounded by his family after a short battle with cancer. David was born November 26, 1948, in Sacramento, CA, to Earnest "Bood" Abel and Peggy Downing Abel. David attended school in Miami, OK, and graduated in 1967. He joi
Deputy Editor

Melissa Cassutts job should come with a badge. Regrettably, it does not. She oversees Valley, Scene and special projects. She also writes features, mostly about people but often dogs. Send story tips and pet pictures.
Scene Editor Billy Arnold covers arts and entertainment. He apprenticed as a sound engineer at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio before making his way to Jackson, where he has become a low-key fan of country music.
Cody Cottier covers town and state government. He grew up with a view of the Olympic Mountains, and after graduating Washington State University he traded it for a view of the Tetons. Odds are the mountains are where youll find him when not on deadline.
Ferroelectric single-crystal-architecture-in-glass is a new class of metamaterials that would enable active integrated optics if the ferroelectric behavior is preserved within the confines of glass. We demonstrate using lithium niobate crystals fabricated in lithium niobosilicate glass by femtosecond laser irradiation that not only such behavior is preserved, the ferroelectric domains can be engineered with a DC bias. A piezoresponse force microscope is used to characterize the piezoelectric and ferroelectric behavior. The piezoresponse correlates with the orientation of the crystal lattice as expected for unconfined crystal, and a complex micro- and nano-scale ferroelectric domain structure of the as-grown crystals is revealed.

A team of researchers from Lehigh University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lebanon Valley College and Corning Inc. has demonstrated, for the first time, that crystals manufactured by lasers within a glass matrix maintain full ferroelectric functionality.

"This includes the ability to uniformly orient and reverse orient the ferroelectric domains with an electric field despite the fact that the crystal is strongly confined by the surrounding glass," says Volkmar Dierolf, Chair of Lehigh University's Department of Physics and one of the scientists who worked on the experiments that resulted in these findings.

Dierolf, who holds a joint appointment with Lehigh's Department of Materials Science and Engineering part of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, is co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, Crystal in Glass, along with Principal Investigator Himanshu Jain, Diamond Distinguished Chair of Lehigh's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The group has become a world leader in producing single crystals in glass by localized laser irradiation.

The team conducted the first detailed examination of the piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties of laser induced crystals confined in glass. They found that the as-grown crystals possess a complex ferroelectric domain structure that can be manipulated via the application of a DC bias.

"The findings open up the possibility of a new collection of optical devices that use fully functional laser-fabricated crystals in glass which rely on the precise control of the ferroelectric domain structure of the crystal," said Keith Veenhuizen, currently Assistant Professor, Department of Physics at Lebanon Valley College and the lead author of the paper, which builds on the work he did as a graduate student at Lehigh.

Applications for such technology include use in modern fiber optic technology used for data transmission.

"Being able to embed such functional single crystal architectures within a glass enables high efficiency coupling to existing glass fiber networks," says Dierolf. "Such low loss links?that maximize performance?are of particular importance for future quantum information transfer system that are projected to take over the current schemes for optical communication," adds Dierolf.
Mike has reported on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's wildlife, wildlands and the agencies that manage them since 2012. A native Minnesotan, he arrived in the West to study environmental journalism at the University of Colorado.
Two top Realtors tell how they do it, and disagree
School of Music Hosts Guest Artist Shawn Head

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  The School of Music will host internationally performed composer and shakuhachi player Shawn Head for a performance on Friday, Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m. in Presser Halls Westbrook Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Head is a master performer on the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute which is one of Japan's most valued and traditional instruments. In addition to performing, Head is a gifted composer, using his talents to mix traditional Japanese music with Western compositional style.

The program for his Illinois Wesleyan performance will consist of two traditional Japanese pieces, three of his original compositions and a set of improvisations. In addition to shakuhachi, his compositions will feature piano and cello.

Four IWU musicians will perform with Head, including faculty pianists Coordinator of Accompanying Eva Ferguson and Adjunct Instructor and Accompanist Nancy Pounds, student cellist Kira Gurovich 21, and Fern Rosetta Sherff Professor of Music David Vayo on piano, keyboard harmonica and synthesizer. Head will also lead a discussion for music students and faculty during his visit.

Head comes to IWU through a connection with Vayo, who composed a piece for Head on shakuhachi and cello at the end of 2018. Vayo was one of several composers to respond to an invitation Head sent asking if theyd be interested in writing compositions for shakuhachi.

I've composed a number of pieces for traditional Chinese instruments, and last year for the first time composed for a Japanese instrument, so given my interest in East Asian instruments I was pleased when Shawn asked me to write something for him, Vayo said.

For more information, please contact the School of Music at (309) 556-3061.

By Megan Baker 21
Australia ranks as the fifth most digitally mature country in the Asia Pacific, Japan, and China region and 13th globally, and 78% of Australian businesses believe they are continually innovating and 88% are investing, or have already invested, in digital transformation.

According to a newly published survey conducted for Dell by research firm Vanson Bourne, by sharing knowledge and creating a positive culture, business Australian business leaders will be better placed to overcome barriers to digital transformation.

In the 2016 Digital Transformation Index, Australia was in second place in APJC, behind India, with emerging markets Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea having since been included in the research.

Australian businesses have a positive outlook for the next five years. We are confident we will meet customer demands, remain competitive with our peers, and believe our employees have the right skill sets to drive success, says Mark Fioretto, vice-president and managing director, Enterprise, Dell EMC ANZ.

Yet 80% of business leaders believe that digital transformation should be more widespread throughout their organisations, signalling that more work still needs to be done.

From the research, we can also see that emerging markets in APJC are quickly becoming digitally mature. Businesses in Australia must continue to share knowledge across businesses and industries as we support each other in the digital transformation journey to ensure that we stay ahead of the curve.

Developing a positive and supportive company culture is essential for a successful digital transformation journey, says Jocelyn Macedo, vice-president, Human Resources, Asia Pacific and Japan, Dell.

Developing in-house digital skills and talent  teaching more employees how to code, for example  will help transform the workforce.

Almost two thirds of Australian businesses are sharing knowledge about their digital transformation across their organisation, equipping IT leaders with business skills and business leaders with IT skills. Its encouraging that leaders are integrating digital goals into departmental and staff objectives  setting the right mindset now will set businesses on track to success.

According to the research, Australian businesses arent as worried as the rest of the APJC region about being left behind in digital transformation.

Only 18% of Australian businesses surveyed are worried they will be left behind compared to New Zealand at 26%  while the rest of the region surveyed is much more concerned, including 50% in Japan, 48% in Malaysia and 47% in Taiwan.

The research also reveals that Australia believes it has the right skills to achieve digital transformation:

Only 25% of businesses cite this as a barrier compared to 30% in New Zealand, 44% in Thailand and 33% across APJC.

While three-quarters believe they have the right skills, 80% believe digital transformation should be more widespread across their entire organisation.

But Australia is making progress as almost two thirds (62%) of Australian businesses say they are sharing knowledge across business functions, compared with just under half (48%) in APJC.

Other results of the survey revealed that:

Ninety-three percent of Australian businesses are planning to invest, investing or have invested in security;

Ninety-one percent of Australian businesses are planning to invest, investing or have invested in multi-cloud;

Eighty-eight percent of Australian businesses are planning to invest, investing or have invested in data centre modernisation;

Eighty-nine percentof Australian businesses are planning to invest, investing or have invested in software defined technology; and

Eighty-two percent of Australian businesses are planning to invest, investing or have invested in converged infrastructure.

And, Australian businesses are the second most confident in APJC  tied with New Zealand  that they will meet customers demands over the next five years:

Only 30% of ANZ businesses think they will struggle to meet customer demands compared to 91% in South Korea and 71% in Thailand.

Only China is more confident at 27%.

Australian businesses believe they are trustworthy:
The framing of Chinese telecommunications vendor Huawei Technologies two days before the scheduled resumption of talks to resolve a US-China trade row is a clear indication that Washington will use any kind of pressure to assert its claims over Beijing.

The US has sunk to the level where they will even take a woman hostage  in this case Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou  to try and exert pressure on China.

This isn't mere conjecture  no less a person than the US President Donald Trump has said that Meng could well be a pawn in the trade negotiations.

In December, Trump, when asked whether he would intervene in the case of Meng  who was arrested in Vancouver on a US request on 1 December  responded: "Whatevers good for this country, I would do.

"If I think its good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made  which is a very important thing  whats good for national security  I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary."

The indictments, released by a bevy of suited and booted American officials on Monday, have been blown up by the Western media to make it look as though they are ultimate crime and fraud of the century.

Yet a close look shows that the allegation of theft  in which Huawei is accused of stealing technology for a robot from T-Mobile  was already litigated as a civil case. Huawei paid about $4 million to T-Mobile as damages.

Now the US wants to reopen the incident as a criminal case. It illustrates the fact that Washington holds a weak hand  the specs for the so-called technology are available all over the Web.

In the second charge, that of breaking US sanctions, Huawei is accused of dealing with Iran through a company known as Skycom, which it is claimed to have owned.

But again, how serious is this charge? Another Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE, was found guilty of breaking the sanctions but all it took was political intervention by Trump for the whole matter to be smoothed over with a fine.

The US initially made a big deal of the ZTE affair, with the Department of Commerce imposing a seven-year ban on the company doing business with American firms.

ZTE shut down its main business activities in the US on 9 May 2018.

But then the political dealmaker Trump intervened following a request from Chinese President Xi Jinping and ZTE was allowed to return to business by paying a fine of US$1 billion, changing its management team and depositing US$400 million in an escrow account against possible future transgressions.

These incidents indicate that the charges made with so much fanfare on Monday are more showbiz than substance.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation apparently still has some concerns about the encryption law that was passed by Parliament on 6 December, despite there being no changes to the draft that was discussed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence.

But you and I will not be able to know what the great minds at the spy agency  which, by the way, has yet to catch a single spy  are thinking.

The contents of the ASIO submission are apparently meant only for the eyes of the committee. Secrecy hints at dark and deep secrets, of matters that are just too dastardly for the average man or woman to know.

Governments and law enforcement the world over control the people in their countries through fear and ASIO is certainly good at this.

ASIO appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security andin open committee on 26 November, with other government agencies, all of whom were pushing for the bill to become law before Parliament rose for the year on 6 December.

At that time, Duncan Lewis, the head of ASIO, had to admit that there was no specific threat on the radar of his agency. All the wisdom he could offer was that Christmas is a time when the threat is generally high.

Asked why the country's threat level could not be raised, he again was forced to admit that to do that, ASIO would have to have knowledge of a specific threat.

The bill was passed on 6 December but just 12 days later, the PJCIS said it would begin a fresh review.

The new review has asked for submissions and will submit a report by 3 April.

On a totally unrelated note, Wikipedia tells me that Asio is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. The genus Asio contains the eared owls, which are characterised by feather tufts on the head which give the appearance of "ears". The genus name Asio is the Latin name for a type of eared owl.

How is this related to what appears above? I leave it to you to figure out, dear reader.
A newly published international study, conducted by The Centre for Generational Kinetics and commissioned by WP Engine, has revealed the ways that different generations view and interact with the digital world, with Gen Z fwilling to sacrifice privacy for the personalisation that modern technology is able to provide.

The study shows that Gen Z, born between 1996 and 2010, are fuelled by technology in all facets of their life, and expect the Internet to connect them, entertain them, sell to them and build their digital brand.

According to WP Engine, these expectations also translate to what this generation is prepared to give up for their digital experience.

We have seen that younger generations have been far less likely to opt out schemes like My Health Record, and 45% of Gen Z said that they are happy to provide their data to prioritise a personalised experience over privacy. Beyond that, 64% of Gen Z believe websites should already know what you are looking for before you tell them, WP Engine notes.

The generational survey, a follow-up to one conducted in 2017, explores three key aspects of Gen Zs relationship with digital: being online, buying online and building online.

WP Engine says the study found that Gen Z has a powerful tech-centric view of the future, and when thinking about how websites will function five years from now:

Eighty-six percent of Gen Z believe that with biometrics (fingerprint and face recognition, voice and speech recognition), Internet authentication will be done without keyboards;

Fifty-five percent believe websites will become more human in experience by exhibiting emotions when you visit and interact with them;

Seventy-seven percent think that through augmented reality or virtual reality, the Internet will impact our view of the world constantly, wherever we are;

Sixty-seven percent believe that everyone will have their own personalised virtual digital assistant (Siri, Alexa, etc.) to help them do everything they need to do online; and

Eighty-one percent think all software and websites/digital experiences will have digital learning/AI capabilities.

Gen Z is well on its way to becoming the largest generation of consumers by the year 2020, said Mark Randall, Australia/New Zealand country manager at WP Engine.

This will have profound implications for marketers and brands who, to effectively engage Gen Z, must embrace new technologies, experiment with new forms of communication, and internalise the nuances in how Gen Z seamlessly blends the analogue and digital worlds.

According to WP Engine, from being to buying and building online, Gen Z is already changing the way we build digital experiences.

While generations from Baby Boomers to Millennials continue to view the Internet as bimodal, Gen Z is the first generation to intrinsically combine the digital and the physical worlds. From now on, the digital experience will be synonymous with our human experience, WP Engine csaid.

To read the complete Reality Bytes: The Digital Experience is the Human Experience study, click here.
Numerous components of 42 different wines have been analysed using state-of-the-art equipment for the first time. The data generated will provide an extremely accurate basis for definitively characterising different wine varieties, as well as an innovative approach for routine wine analysis. The method could also allow a wine to be clearly authenticated and be used to uncover counterfeits, as well as providing new insights into the role of specific substances in giving wines their aroma. This advance was made possible by EQ BOKUs range of ultra-modern equipment  the facility provides precision scientific instrumentation and expertise to members of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria), as well as to external clients. High performance liquid chromatography was used in combination with ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry to pinpoint the characteristics of various red wines. The study has now been published in an international journal.

Wine is much more than just alcoholic grape juice  at least if you taste it carefully. And a team from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), working with colleagues from Macedonia, has done just that. However, instead of using their palates, the researchers made use of high-precision analytical devices to carry out a comprehensive analysis  a huge challenge in itself owing to the complexity of wine. The drink contains carbohydrates and amino acids, as well as organic acids and various phenolic compounds. Today, characterising these individual substances is no longer a problem, but examining all (or most) of the variants in an entire category of substances in wine is a different story  especially if you have no idea what variants are found there. This requires cutting-edge technology and highly developed expertise. The team used equipment provided by EQ BOKU, a service provider linked to BOKU, which gives clients access to complex, large-scale devices. Using a technique called high performance liquid chromatography with ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC x IMS-TOFMS), the team succeeded in characterising previously little-known substances so precisely that they allow clear conclusions to be drawn on the origin and variety of the wine. There is an urgent need to uncover such data, as it is now not so much a case of in vino veritas as in vitro veritas.

Fingerprint in the bottle

We generated a sort of fingerprint for 42 different types of wine, which could serve as the basis for accurately identifying them in future, said Dr. Tim Causon, head of the research project, summing up the findings, which have now been published in an international journal. The combination of high performance liquid chromatography with ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry permits the extremely precise separation of individual substances  including unknown ones  in the wine. We can confirm the identity of these substances beyond any reasonable doubt using highly specific parameters, and the patterns they form is unique to a particular wine.

Although it sounds straightforward, the procedure is extremely sophisticated. It can only be performed in a handful of well-equipped specialist labs and requires the right expertise to produce precise and accurate results. Using this method, each wine was analysed by considering all of its constituent parts. The first step was to separate the molecules according to their properties (such as polarity) using liquid chromatography  an established, tried-and-tested approach to separating the components of complex samples. Online time-of-flight mass spectrometry, which enables the high-resolution separation of the analysed substances according to the ratio of mass to charge, is now also a routine procedure.

Random and unknown

However, applying these methods in combination is more difficult if there are no standards in place for comparing the results generated. This is indeed the case as the wine is randomly broken down producing different distribution patterns and abundances for all unknown or unspecified components. This is what Dr Causon achieved in this project (officially titled MK 12/2016), which is funded by Osterreichischer Austauschdienst (OeAD), a service centre for cooperation in education, science and research. A decisive factor was the separation of components, prior to performing mass spectrometry, according to their ion mobility. In this way, the team succeeded in producing a unique fingerprint for each of the 42 wines analysed. This comprises a string of different substances, with their identities characterised using up to seven parameters, including retention times, the precise mass as well as the standardised collision cross section, which was calculated on the basis of ion mobility and drift time (in nitrogen gas). As Prof. Stephan Hann, head of the international working group, explained: Our aim was to develop a workflow that sets new standards of precision and selectivity for the characterisation of wine. We have laid the foundations for that, thanks to EQ BOKUs state-of-the-art equipment and our extensive experience.
iOS share of smartphone purchasing in Australia has seen a decline of 2.9% from 46% in the three months ending December 2017 to 43.1% in the three months ending December 2018, according to the latest global report of OS shares of smartphone purchasing from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

While the data shows the usual share uplift in the Q4 period, with seven Apple devices making it into the top 10 best sellers for the Christmas period, Kantar says it is a considerable decrease on share reported for the previous year.

According to Kantar, in Q4 2017, Apples then new models, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, accounted for a combined share of 26.5%, primarily led by the iPhone 8 which, alone, commanded a share of over 12%.

But the comparative figures for Apples latest models show a combined share of 15.2%, with the XS Max taking second place, the XR in fourth place and the XS in fifth place.

Similar to the total Apple profile, buyers of the standard XS model skew towards females aged under 25, whilst the larger XS Max version appeals more to younger males. Buyers of both XS devices have been primarily influenced by having had a good experience with Apple previously.

Kantar says the iPhone XR, so far, shows a fairly even split by gender and skews heavily towards those under 25 and, while previous good experience features strongly as a purchase driver, other factors such as good tariff deals and trade-in schemes are also important influences.

In the same period, Android share enjoyed significant growth, up from 53.1% to 56.5%, and Kantar says growth for the platform was driven largely by three brands.

Samsung share grew year on year, from 25.6% in Q4 2017 to 28.5% in the Q4 2018 period. Despite a drop in share from Q3 2018, Samsungs flagship Galaxy S9 device was the best-selling smartphone in Q4 2018 and, since its launch, has gradually attracted more female buyers aged under 25, Kantar reports.

Kantar says Galaxy S9 buyers were largely driven by good deals on the plans or on the price of the phone itself, while Huawei share increased from 3.9% a year ago up to 5.6% this quarter, with growth concentrated in the mid price tier ($301-$600), driven by the Nova 3E device in the open channels such as JB Hi-Fi and the premium tier ($901-$1200), driven by the Mate 20 Pro and the P20/P20 Pro models, aided by partnering with Vodafone.

According to Kantar, the main purchase driver was a good deal on the price of the phone, however, advocacy in the form of hearing/reading good things and in-store recommendation played an important role this period in influencing consumers to buy.

The third winner in the Android market was Nokia, whose share grew by 1 ppt to 2.3% in the latest quarter, largely driven by the 6.1 and 2.1 models. With share concentrated in prices up to $300, a good deal on the handset price featured heavily as the main purchase driver. Although Samsung and Apple remain by far the most recommended brands in-store, recommendation for Nokia rose from just 6.5% a year ago to 18.3% this period, Kantar said.

On the worldwide smartphone OS data, Kantar reports that for the three months ending December 2018, Android accounted for more than three-quarters of all smartphone sales across the five major European markets, thanks to increased penetration for Chinese operators Huawei and Xiaomi.

But iOS still registered the vast majority of the remaining quarter of sales, despite an OS share fall of 1.3 percentage points.

Dominic Sunnebo, global director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said, The European smartphone market remains highly competitive. Despite recent negative headlines for the Chinese manufacturers, theres no evidence that these issues have affected sales as Huawei, Honor and Xiaomi continue their concerted push into western Europe. Samsung and Apple still performed admirably, with disruption limited to only a marginal loss of market share.

Kantar says Xiaomi is now the fourth best-selling smartphone brand in Europe, with nearly six million active owners, and the manufacturer is continuing to expand rapidly in Spain and, more recently, in Italy and France as well.

Sunnebo said: Having only launched in the UK in November last year, Xiaomis presence in Great Britain is still small, but with new products already going on sale in January we expect further growth in 2019. The Chinese manufacturer has found success so far with a competitive pricing strategy which places its most expensive flagship model at around 500. This appeals to users who are looking for premium quality but are not willing or able to splash out the best part of a four-figure sum.

While Samsung and Apple are still doing well in Europe, the impact these Chinese giants are having on the market is causing headaches for the smaller operators. Sony, LG and Wiko are being disproportionally impacted because of their historic stakes in the ultra-competitive low and mid-price tiers. To keep up in this landscape, these brands should take heed from their competitors when it comes to marketing. Xiaomi has a legacy of shunning traditional media in favour of community-driven social campaigns  which goes to show that greater marketing spend doesnt always generate a bigger buzz.
An Australian software engineer, who works at a health tech start-up that uses encryption to protect patient data, has suggested several changes to the Federal Government's encryption legislation which was passed in December.

Jake Bloom, who formerly worked with Facebook in California, listed the following changes which, he said, should be made to the law in the event that it was not taken off the books altogether:

Remove the concept of a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) as it amounts to nothing more than servitude;

Amend the legislation such that Technical Assistance Requests (TARs) and Technical Assistance Notices (TANs) can only be served to a corporation, not an individual;

Narrow the scope of the legislation so that it can only be used in the case of terrorism and child sex offences, not the broad scope that currently exists;

Properly define a whole class of technology;

Allow the public to immediately view which companies have been served with TARs and TANs.

The bill was passed on 6 December but just 12 days later, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security said it would begin a fresh review.

The new review has asked for submissions and will submit a report by 3 April.

In November 2018, during hearings on what is officially known as the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018, a number of law enforcement agencies  ASIO, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police  said the law needed to be passed as quickly as possible, and before Christmas, though no concrete justification was offered for this.

Later, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told the media that they would be asking the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which was holding hearings into the bill, to speed up the process and send the bill back to Parliament as soon as possible.

Elaborating on his suggestions, Bloom pointed out that serving a TCN appeared to be illegal, as it involved engaging an individual in servitude according to the definition in section 270.4 of the Australian Criminal Code.

The section reads: "(1) For the purposes of this Division, servitude is the condition of a person (the victim) who provides labour or services, if, because of the use of coercion, threat or deception:

"(a) a reasonable person in the position of the victim would not consider himself or herself to be free:

"(i) to cease providing the labour or services; or

"(ii) to leave the place or area where the victim provides the labour or services."

Said Bloom: "Under this definition, if an individual was to be served with a Technical Capability Notice, they would be a victim of servitude, as the Commonwealth is not remunerating the individual for building the capability, the individual is not free to cease building the capability, and is operating under the threat of jail time. While I do not claim to be a legal expert, in my mind, the concept of a Technical Capability Notice seems at odds with this definition."

He said he had ideological issues with the law as well, pointing out that in a democracy, "it is important for there to be methods of communication among citizens that is free of government oversight".

But Bloom also listed economic and practical concerns with the law. In the first instance, he pointed to the government ban on Chinese vendor from playing a role in the rollout of 5G networks. "This legislation ensures that there is no doubt when it comes to Australian technology  the Australian Government is listening, and the public debate around these laws means that the international community has noticed."

He provided the example of Apple and NASA using Australian firm Atlassian's BitBucket software to store source code.

"As a result of the passage of the bill, Apple and NASA know that a capability to read their source code could be installed into BitBucket without notice," Bloom said "As a result, international firms will move away from using Australian-made software to power their business, in a huge blow to the Australian export market."

He also pointed out that the GDPR, which came into force in May last year, required immediate disclosure of improper use of user data, even if only a very few users were affected.

"This means that an Australian company that has been subjected to a TAN or a TCN cannot comply with the GDPR laws and cannot legally export to Europe," Bloom said.

"As a result, this legislation cuts off the export market for Australian software companies, and puts in jeopardy the employment of Australians overseas. There are over 300 Australians employed at Facebook, and all of them are learning world class skills that many hope to bring back to Australian shores one day. This legislation would cut off this learning pathway for Australians overseas and stymie the knowledge that they bring home with them."

As many other have, Bloom also said the law did not provide clarity on what exactly constituted a systemic vulnerability. This could lead to someone creating a backdoor unintentionally, he suggested.

"Secondly, it is accepted practice when writing software that before you can deploy your code for users to interact with it, it needs to be reviewed by another person. This renders the confidentiality clauses within the legislation useless, as at least one other person will see that a weakness, vulnerability, spyware or redundant code is being inserted," Bloom said.

"Upon discovering this, it would be raised immediately to management or leadership of the company, and would likely resolve in an immediate termination of the engineer who executed the TCN. Having worked at a large multinational company, I can tell you that the rank and file employees as well as the leadership would be more inclined to pull a product from a market altogether rather than compromise the security of the application.

"Given that Apple has previously declined to unlock iPhones for the FBI, and Facebook and Google are unwilling to comply with Chinese Government to access a market of over one billion people, I find it difficult to believe that these companies would waste time and money making a product less secure to satisfy a market that they can be successful without."

Bloom said developers would often to caught between a rock and a hard place if they were asked to comply with any compliance notice.

"...for many people, being served with a request or notice under this legislation places them into an entrapment scenario, where ignoring the notice would breach laws in Australia and complying with the notice would breach laws such as Europes GDPR or the USAs HIPPA. This creates a no-win scenario where being served with a notice means fines or jail time in multiple jurisdictions, regardless of the action taken," he added.
Ithaca, NY (14850)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
On Friday, officials with the Walker County Hospital District board announced that they have finalized a $7.8 million purchase of Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Do you feel like this is a good use of tax dollars, and is this the right direction for the struggling health care facility?

You voted:
Wednesday, January 30th, 2019 (9:57 am) - Score 1,753

Ofcoms newest Q3 2018 UK consumer complaints report has revealed that, for the first time, ISP Vodafone attracted the most gripes for fixed line broadband and landline phone services, while Sky Broadband won praise for seeing the fewest moans. Pay TV and Mobile providers are also covered.

The report states that the overall level of consumer satisfaction with communications services is 87% for landline phone, 80% for broadband and 91% for mobile. However, Ofcom said they continued to receive nearly 300 consumer contacts per day during Q3 2018 (unchanged from Q2) and most of those resulted in complaints, although their study only includes feedback from the largest ISPs (i.e. those with a market share of at least 1.5%).

The data itself is reflected as a proportion of residential subscribers (i.e. the total number of quarterly complaints per 100,000 customers), which makes it easier to compare providers in a market where the largest ISPs can vary significantly in size. Overall the total volume of complaints across all service sectors has risen slightly since Q2 2018.

Jane Rumble, Ofcoms Director of Consumer Policy, said: With so much competition in telecoms and TV services, companies that are falling short need to make service quality and complaints handling their priority. Customers who arent happy with their provider can shop around and vote with their feet.

Todays report only covers complaints that the regulator itself has received and not those sent directly to an ISP or ombudsman. Ofcom does not itself deal with individual complaints but they do monitor them and can take action if enough people inform them of a problem.

Consumers who are unable to resolve a complaint with their provider can (after 8 weeks) raise a case with one of the two ombudsman operators  Ombudsman Services: Communications or CISAS  under the Alternative Dispute Resolution process. The ADR handler can then investigate the issue at no cost to yourself.

Fixed Line Home Broadband Complaints

The biggest news this quarter is the inclusion of Vodafone into Ofcoms rankings (i.e. they now have over 500,000 fixed broadband customers and are one of the cheapest ISPs), which is notable because they also generated the highest volume of complaints. Apparently their main complaint drivers stemmed from gripes about changing provider (switching), which was followed by complaints handling and faults.

The Post Office has also entered the table for the first time but they scored well below the industry average (volume of complaints), which in this case is a positive result. Meanwhile Sky Broadband and Virgin Media continued to be the least complained about of the big boys.

A spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview.co.uk that they were the fastest growing provider in the UK and have unfortunately seen some issues with the signing on process and this is reflected in the complaints data. However the ISP claims to have put in place a plan to make the switching process as easy as possible, including setting up a new Easy Switch team.

Fixed Line Phone Complaints

The story for landline phone providers was much the same as fixed line broadband. Vodafone entered Ofcoms table at the top of the naughty boys club and generated most complaints due faults, service and provision issues. Interestingly the Post Office saw their complaint levels fall away to below the industry average (volume), which is a positive result.

However the biggest increase in quarterly complaints actually came from Plusnet, which we strongly suspect may be due to their migration on to a new billing platform (caused lots of problems). Elsewhere Sky Broadband and EE continued to attract the fewest complaints overall.

Mobile Complaints

On the mobile front only BT saw a sizeable increase in complaints this quarter, while Virgin Mobile (Virgin Media) continued to be the most complained about operator (main complaint drivers were issues related to complaints handling, followed by billing, prices and charges and changing provider).

Pay TV Complaints

Finally, Virgin Media and BT both saw a significant surge in complaints against their Pay TV services during Q3, although Virgin was overall the most complained about TV provider (main complaint drivers were contract issues, followed by complaints handling, and billing, pricing and charge issues). Meanwhile Sky TV generated the fewest gripes.

Ofcoms Complaints Report Q3 2018

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../telecoms-pay-tv-complaints-q3-2018.pdf

UPDATE 4:20pm

Weve added a comment from Vodafone above.
Editorial Acknowledging the Elephant in the Room

NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during a campaign rally in Yangon on Nov. 1, 2015. / REUTERS

The ruling National League for Democracy has initiated the process of forming a joint parliamentary committee to work on amending the countrys military-drafted Constitution. Facing public frustration and sensing a loss of confidence among the partys hardcore supporters, the senior leadership of the NLD pondered the move for months before finally deciding to submit a proposal to Parliament.

The move coincided with the second anniversary of the assassination of prominent lawyer U Ko Ni, an expert on constitutional law and a member of the NLD.

As expected, the militarys representatives in Parliament questioned the proposals legality and insisted that any move to amend the Constitution requires a draft signed by at least 20 lawmakers. Despite these objections, Parliament voted in favor of forming a committee.

A total of 397 lawmakers voted in favor of the measure with 17 voting against it, three abstaining and 187comprising all of the military members and 21 othersboycotting the vote.

NLD legislator U Aung Kyi Nyunt, who submitted the proposal, said membership of the joint committee on constitutional reform would be open to lawmakers from all parties.

I am not proposing a draft law to amend the Constitution, he said. This is just to form a joint committee on constitutional reform, which can work transparently on a draft law systematically and speedily.

Under the previous government led by then-President U Thein Sein, lawmakers only succeeded in passing a few minor amendments to the Constitution having to do with regional legislation.

Key campaign vow

In 2015, the NLD made reform of the 2008 Constitution one of its key campaign promises, along with economic development and achieving peace. So far, however, the ruling party has failed to fulfill those promises.

Indeed, many have warned that making substantial changes to the charter will never be easy so long as the military maintains its current level of control and power.

Under the Constitution, 25 per cent of seats in all parliaments at both the Union and regional levels are reserved for military appointees, who do not represent any constituency. Moreover, the military controls three key portfoliosDefense, Home Affairs and Border Affairsand reserves the right to appoint a vice president.

The NLD government has faced several serious challenges since it came into power: the ongoing crisis in northern Rakhine State and the resultant international condemnation; its failure to achieve substantive progress in peace talks; and a stubbornly sluggish economy. Nonetheless, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now State Counselor, attended an investment forum in Naypyitaw recently in an effort to drum up foreign investment. The government believes that by prioritizing peace it can promote economic progress in this ethnically diverse nation.

In the cities, the publics frustration is obvious, but Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the government still enjoy considerable support in the countryside. At any rate, the public has few alternatives, as there is little support for the formerly ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party.

In November, NLD leaders were alarmed by the outcome of the by-election, in which the party won just seven of the 13 seats it contestedfar below its expectations. In the end it won just 54 percent of the seats that were up for grabs, giving party leaders a real wake-up call.

But the NLDs senior leaders say they remain focused on fulfilling their campaign promises, including amending the Constitution.

In May last year, Dr. Myo Nyunt told the Irrawaddy, There are concerns that our government has done nothing to change the Constitution. In fact, all the things we are doingfrom mobilizing [public] support, reconciling with the Tatmadaw [Myanmars military] and fostering the publics trust to improving their daily livesare about constitutional amendment. It is utterly impossible to amend the 2008 Constitution without those foundations. We are waiting for the right time, while working toward national reconciliation and building substantial support among the people. In politics, you cant just make demands all the time; you have to wait for the right time.

The partys leaders appear to have decided that the time has come. With support building for the ethnic parties and the election in 2020 approaching fast, the party needs to demonstrate that it is a force to be reckoned with.

The move to amend the Constitution received considerable support from ethnic representatives in Parliament. Some ethnic parties still believe the NLD is committed to establishing a federal Union and moving the country along the path of democratization and reform. But many are also frustrated, seeing little progress on a range of issues amid a deepening sense of crisis, division and growing mistrust.

Thus, the NLD leaders will have to work hard to reach out to major ethnic parties such as the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy and many other parties. Some party faithful believe there has been progress on this front.

Naypyitaws unseen game

Recently, control of the General Administration Department (GAD) passed from the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs to the Ministry of the Union Government Office.

There is speculation that the Police Departmentnow under the control of the Ministry of Home Affairswill follow suit and soon be under the control of the Union government.

These changes are encouraging, but the game in Naypyitaw continues to be played largely out of sight, and appears to still be unfolding.

The NLD wants to amend over 160 articles of the Constitution, including sensitive ones relating to the militarys role in national politics; Article 59(f), which bars anyone with a foreign spouse or children from holding the presidency; and Article 436, which requires that proposed changes to the Constitution be supported by more than 75 percent of legislators.

Article 59(f) bars NLD leader and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president because she has relatives who are foreign nationals.

However, the powerful military cannot be excluded from the constitutional amendment process; without the militarys cooperation, any amendments will have little meaning.

In fact, the primary aim of amending the Constitution in ethnically diverse Myanmar should be decentralizationnot only political but administrative.

This is not going to be a smooth journey, and there is no guarantee of success. It is a small step and a late start, but if the NLD thinks the time is right, so be it.

One thing is certain; we can expect some interesting developmentsand headlinesin the coming months.
News Scrap Myitsone Dam Project, Says Ex-Presidents Office Minister

Former Presidents Office Minister U Soe Thein / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYITAWFormer Presidents Office Minister U Soe Thein has expressed support for terminating the controversial Myitsone Dam project, saying it could undermine national unity.

I dont accept [a dam] at Myitsone. This is my view. It could negatively affect national unity. Myitsone is a landmark of Kachin State, U Soe Thein, who is currently a lawmaker in the Upper House, told reporters at the Union Parliament in Naypyitaw on Tuesday.

However, he suggested that a dam could be built somewhere upstream on either of the Mali or the NMai rivers, at whose confluence the Irrawaddy River begins. If necessary, compensation could be paid to China for canceling the project in Myitsone, he said.

We [former President U Thein Seins administration] shelved the project. In my opinion, we shouldnt build a dam in Myitsone, he said.

The political leaders today also opposed the dam during our administration. I dont know why there is talk now of it being resumed, U Soe Thein said.

When the National League for Democracy (NLD) was in opposition, its leader, current State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, called on the then government to make the dam contract public.

After the NLD took power in 2016, the government set up a 20-member commission including the chief minister of Kachin to review the project, including its environmental and social impacts. The commission has produced two reports to date, but the government has yet to release either.

Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, vice chairman of the NLD and Mandalay Region chief minister, has publicly said the party stands by the people regarding the Myitsone Dam project.

Another Upper House lawmaker, Dr. Khun Win Thaung from Kachin State, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, Kachin State has long experience with China. It cannot avoid engaging with China. We have to rely on it one way or another, and the authorities need to be smart when making a decision. If [the government] cant make a decision, it should try to make [the project] acceptable to the people.

Union Minister for Investment and Foreign Economic Relations U Thaung Tun told reporters at the Invest Myanmar Summit in Naypyitaw on Tuesday that the government is working hard to come up with a final decision on how to proceed with the dam project.

The minister said the government and a commission studying the project are holding serious discussions and considering all possibilities, including downsizing the dam, relocating it or developing other projects instead.

U Thaung Tun said the government was taking its relations with China into consideration as it decided what to do with the project.

The US$3.6-billion (about 5.4-trillion-kyat) project, shelved by then-President Thein Sein in 2011 amid widespread public concern over the dams social and environmental impacts, came under the spotlight again when Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang claimed after a visit to Kachin State at the end of December that the Kachin people were not opposed to its resumption.

The dam project agreement was signed under the military government between former Vice Senior-General Maung Aye and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was vice president at that time.

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, while meeting locals in Sagaing Regions Kalay Township on Jan. 22, said no investor would trust Myanmar if a new government abolished projects approved by its predecessor just because they do not comply with its policies.
News Investigation into Military Raid on Rakhine Village to be Demanded

The wounded child who died while being transferred from Sittwe to Yangon General Hospital on Monday evening, photographed at Sittwe General Hospital on January 28, 2019. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

SITTWEConcerned lawmakers have said they will demand an investigation into the case after a seven-year-old boy died of wounds caused by an artillery explosion in an alleged military raid near his home in the village of Tha Mee Hla in Rakhine States Rathaedaung Township on Saturday.

A military column, identified by villagers as the 99th Light Infantry Division, raided the village and looted gold, jewelry, cash and dozens of mobile phones from the villagers on Saturday, according to a number of Arakanese lawmakers.

The wounded child was rushed to Sittwe General Hospital but died on Monday evening while being transferred by ambulance to Yangon General Hospital for treatment.

His body was taken back to Tha Mee Hla village and the funeral will be held on Wednesday.

They can fight for their causes, but as a representative of the people, the bullying of innocent civilians is totally unacceptable to me. As locals have reported the incident to us, I will write to the authorities, requesting that they carry out an investigation into it, Lower Hose lawmaker Daw Khin Saw Wai told The Irrawaddy.

While innocent civilians are suffering from the fighting, more are being charged under the Unlawful Association Act following clashes between Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army (AA) in the area, according to Daw Khin Saw Wai.

The two sides should stop fighting and engage in negotiations to find a solution, said the lawmaker.

U Than Naing, a regional lawmaker who went to the village and saw the bullet-riddled houses, said that he would raise questions about the raid at the Rakhine State parliament.

The parliament will convene on Feb. 13. I have submitted a proposal for a ceasefire and I will talk about [the raid] there, he told The Irrawaddy.

The soldiers raided and shot into the village after the military column was attacked with a series of remotely detonated mines near the village, according to U Than Naing.

Both Daw Khin Saw Wai and U Than Naing told The Irrawaddy that they will officially lodge complaints with evidence to the relevant authorities, including the commander-in-chiefs office.

The commander-in-chief offices spokesperson Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun has denied the allegations, saying there was no raid by the military on the ground.
News Gen. Aung San Statue Lands in Loikaw, Renews Local Ire

A statue of Gen. Aung San is unloaded from a truck in Loikaw, Kayah State, on Wednesday. / Kayan New Generation Youth / Facebook

Mon State  A statue of the late independence hero General Aung San was brought to the Kayah State capital of Loikaw on Tuesday to be erected in a city park against the wishes of many local residents.

Local rights activist Myo Hlaing Win said many residents were surprised to see the statue arrive, accusing the government of breaking a promise the states chief minister made in July not to erect it without the publics approval.

He said some of them met the truck at the park hoping to stop the statue from being unloaded but were told to take up their concerns with the government.

When we asked them [last year] not to build the statue, they told us they would not do it. But they actually did it. They act like thieves, Myo Hlaing Win told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday. They were not sincere to our people.

They knew they would have a lot of problems with the locals if they built the statue, but they are still doing it. They just do what they want to do. They have no dignity, said Khun Be Du, chairman of the Kayan National Party, based in Loikaw.

Myo Hlaing Win and Khun Be Du said locals would mount a protest against the statue soon.

U Taung Htay, who heads the Loikaw office of the ruling National League for Democracy, said local party members were not involved in erecting the statue.

Some members of the government and a group of people are leading this project, not us, because local people have already protested against this project, he said.

We just told them to implement the project by themselves as flexibly as they could, he added. They decided to implement the project on their own. We are not involved in the project because we are worried it will hurt our partys image.

State-level officials said they were too busy to comment on the issue when contacted by The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.

Gen. Aung San statues have already gone up in other states against the wishes of their non-Bamar communities. Some ethnic rights activists say they should not be erected while the countrys minorities continue to feel persecuted and their demands for a federal system of government remain unfulfilled. They say those communities should get statues of their own politicians and freedom fighters instead.

The Kayah State government has yet to say when it intends to inaugurate the statue in Loikaw.
News Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Calls for Swift Justice for Slain Lawyer U Ko Ni

U Ko Ni speaks to the media at the first 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference in Naypyitaw in 2016. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged authorities to find justice as soon as possible for prominent constitutional lawyer U Ko Ni and taxi driver Ko Ne Win, two years after they were gunned down in Yangon.

U Ko Ni, a legal adviser to the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), was gunned down at pointblank range outside Yangon International Airport on Jan. 29, 2017. Ko Ne Win, a taxi driver at the scene, was killed by the same gunman while chasing after him.

The 63-year old lawyer was an expert on the military-drafted Constitution and came up with the idea of creating the position of state counselor to get around a clause in the charter effectively banning Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency. He advocated for changes to the Constitution that would strip the military of its undemocratic privileges; many believe those efforts led to his death.

In her message at a commemoration ceremony for the lawyer and driver in Yangon on Tuesday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi praised them as role models who sacrificed their lives for truth and justice and called their deaths a big loss for Myanmar.

I would like to urge the concerned authorities to find speedy justice for Saya U Ko Ni and Ko Ne Win, who both sacrificed their lives to help fight the challenges to promoting the rule of law and justice in Myanmar, she said.

To date, 72 prosecution witnesses and 40 defense witnesses have appeared in court over the course of 101 hearings in the trail of U Ko Nis accused assassins  gunman Kyi Lin and alleged conspirators Zeya Phyo, Aung Win Zaw and Aung Will Tun. A verdict is expected after the defense makes its closing argument on Friday, prosecution lawyer U Nay La told The Irrawaddy.

However, the suspected mastermind of the assassination, Aung Win Khaing, remains at large.

During Tuesdays commemoration, U Ko Nis daughter, Daw Yin New Khaing, said two years was more than enough time for a trial.

I pray with anxiety that the judicial sector, which he valued and respected, can provide him with the truth. I want to get the most honest answer from the judicial sector, she said.

NLD spokesman Monywa Aung Shin called the murder of U Ko Ni a political assassination targeting the ruling party.

We have lost a person who was resisting those hampering the NLDs efforts to amend the 2008 Constitution, he said.

Coincidently, the NLD submitted an urgent proposal to form a constitutional amendment committee to the Union Parliament on Tuesday. Despite strong objection from military lawmakers, a debate on forming the committee was approved for early next month.
Buena Vista, CO (81211)

Today

Sunshine and a few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Burma Myitsone Dam Must Be Stopped: Cardinal Bo

Cardinal Charles Bo in Yangon in December 2018 / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

YANGONThe Archbishop of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Bo, said the controversial Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam slated for construction at the source of the Irrawaddy River, known as Myanmars lifeline, must be stopped to ensure a peaceful future for the country, adding that the construction of the dam would be a death sentence for the people of Myanmar.

In the face of nationwide opposition, Myanmars previous government under President U Thein Sein suspended the dam project in 2011, after the state-owned China Power Investment Corporation had already started work. Environmentalists and villagers warned that the mega project would disrupt the flow of sediment in the countrys main waterway, harming agricultural livelihoods. If completed, it would flood an area twice the size of Singapore and displace thousands of people.

The cardinals call follows a strong push by China to convince local people to support the project. In his statement Stop Trafficking Our Mother Irrawaddy, Cardinal Bo told Myanmar authorities and the international community that Myanmar is facing the sad prospect of losing the Irrawaddy to the greed of a superpower.

On behalf of all the people of Myanmar, especially the poor farmers, we earnestly request all stakeholders to stop their attempts to abuse our Mother Irrawaddy, the cardinal said in his statement released this week.

Calling the Irrawaddy Her Majesty, Cardinal Bo said the river is not a commodity to be bartered but the most sacred symbol of our nation, as thousands of sacred sites are situated along its banks.

The cardinal also warned that the dam would be an environmental disaster and a toxic cognac for chronic war, referring to fighting between the Kachin ethnic armed group and the Myanmar military in the north of the country, where the dam site is located.

Peace will fade over the horizon. A bleak future awaits the people of Myanmar. We do not deserve this, he said.

Currently, the Myitsone project remains in limbo. After the National League for Democracy took power in 2016, the government set up a 20-member commission including the chief minister of Kachin to review the project, including its environmental and social impacts. The commission has produced two reports to date, but the government has yet to release either.

Myanmar investment and foreign economic relations Minister U Thaung Tun recently said the government still wants to find a solution for the dam because they [value] relations with China, and was considering all possibilities, including downsizing the dam, relocating it or developing other projects instead.

But the Cardinal said everyone in Myanmar would support the move to abrogate any treaty that abuses Mother Irrawaddy, while comparing those who support restarting the Myitsone Dam to sons and daughters who exploit their own parents for monetary gain. History would never forgive those who sell our Mother Irrawaddy, he said.

We earnestly request that the people of Myanmar join hands to protect the dignity of our Mother Irrawaddy. We are hopeful that our leaders will resist all efforts to destroy our nations destiny and dignity, the cardinal said.

It was not the first time that Cardinal Bo has spoken out against the Myitsone Dam project.

In 2017, during a visit to Kachin State, Cardinal Bo told Catholic villagers in Tanphaye, one of the villages in the project area, that the entire country should object to the dam project.

This project shouldnt be completed, he said at the time. It can destroy not only Kachin state, but also the entire country.
Asia Refugees in India's West Bengal Get Land Titles Amid Citizenship Row

People shout slogans as they carry placards during a protest against a bill passed by India's lower house of parliament that aims to give citizenship to non-Muslims from neighboring countries, in New Delhi, India on January 14, 2019. / REUTERS

BANGKOKAuthorities in Indias West Bengal state have given land titles to about 30,000 refugees who have lived in settlement colonies for years, and promised that thousands more will also get property rights, as a row over their citizenship intensifies.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee handed out the title deeds on Monday, and said those living in more than 200 settlements will also get land rights, even though their settlements are on private or federal government land.

We will try to buy the land from the owners, and we will ask the central government to regularize the colonies on plots owned by central agencies, Banerjee said at a public meeting late on Monday.

There are an estimated 150,000 families in the eastern states refugee colonies. Most are from Bangladesh, according to officials.

Banerjees move is part of a wider push to give more rights to certain refugee groups in the country.

India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which spells out refugee rights and state responsibilities to protect them.

Nor does it have a domestic law to protect the more than 200,000 refugees it currently hosts, including Tibetans, Sri Lankans, Afghans, Bangladeshis and Rohingya from Myanmar.

But in recent years, the government has been granting limited rights to some refugee groups.

Last year, the western state of Maharashtra granted land ownership rights to refugees who had fled what is now Pakistan some 70 years ago, when the countries were partitioned at independence.

Indigenous Chakma and Hajong refugees who left Bangladesh more than five decades ago have limited citizenship in India, but not land rights, while Tibetan refugees get welfare benefits, but no property rights.

Refugee rights are in focus with the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019, which proposes to give citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who came to India before Dec. 31, 2014.

Land ownership is an issue for refugees, so having a title will make them feel more secure, said Achin Chakraborty, director of the Institute of Development Studies in the West Bengal capital Kolkata.

But the issue over the cut-off date still remains, and it is not clear if having a land title is enough, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday.

Chakraborty is one of more than 100 academics and activists who have appealed to President Ram Nath Kovind to reject the Citizenship Bill as it discriminates on the grounds of religion and violates the constitutional principle of equality.

There have also been protests in the northeastern state of Assam, where residents complain that immigrants from Bangladesh have encroached their land and strained resources.

The bill, which was passed in the lower house of parliament earlier this month, is expected to face resistance from the opposition Congress party in the upper house.
Asia Huawei Units to be Arraigned on U.S. Criminal Charges on Feb. 28

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker speaks flanked by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (L) and FBI Director Christopher Wray (R) during a news conference to announce indictments against China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, several of its subsidiaries and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, at the Justice Department in Washington on Monday. / Reuters
News Army Detains Teachers, Villagers as Dozens Flee Fighting in N. Rakhine

Myanmar Army troops join a military parade in Naypyitaw in 2018. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

YANGONLocal residents and a monk told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that a pair of primary schoolteachers and two villagers were detained for questioning by government troops in northern Rakhine States Rathedaung Township on Monday, as fighting in the area between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) caused more villagers to flee their homes.

The abbot of the monastery in Ohn Chaung said fighting took place near the village on Monday morning, and that Border Guard Police and Army troops jointly conducted a search of the entire village on the same day. Ko Maung Htay, a resident of Ohn Chaung who managed to escape Army detention, told The Irrawaddy that about 40 local residents were sheltering in a neighboring village.

He said about 200 Army troops shot into the village after soldiers were ambushed by Arakan Army fighters near a hillside in the region. The AA announced on its official website that fighting erupted on Monday morning, adding that the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) had previously attacked the village, as well as Tha Mee Hla village

The Irrawaddy phoned Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun of the Commander-in-Chiefs Office multiple times on Tuesday to ask him about the claim that troops shot into the village. The calls went unanswered, however.

In its news update, the AA claimed that Tatmadaw troops randomly fired about 70 artillery shells into the forest and that some of them had landed in hills near the village. It added that Ko Maung Shwe Aye, U Maung Kyaw and U Myat Thein Tun were arrested. Ko Maung Htay confirmed that Maung Shwe Aye, a schoolteacher, was detained by Army troops.

The other detained schoolteacher was identified as Than Win Chay.

Two women from Ohn Chaung told The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity that the Army unit fired on them as it approached the village. No one was hit by the gunfire, but some structures were damaged, they said.

They arrested teacher Maung Shwe Aye and later set him free, said villager Yae Gaung Chaung.

It remained unclear on Wednesday whether the other detainees had been released.

The two women told The Irrawaddy over the phone on Monday that some 100 soldiers and Border Guard Police were camped in the village on Tuesday evening. Spent bullet casings could be seen on the ground in the village but a monk later disposed of them, fearing they might be dangerous for children.

Soldiers forced the villagers to house them in the village at night, one of the women said.

Amid fierce fighting in many locations in northern Rakhine, local civil society organizations estimate the displaced population to number at least 6,000 so far. Apart from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC) and World Food Program, the Rakhine State government is not allowing international relief agencies to provide assistance following the recent armed clashes in five townships. The vast majority of displaced villagers rely mainly on local aid groups.

The ICRC said it is continuing to provide assistance to approximately 5,000 people displaced by the recent violence in Rakhine State. Several thousand IDPs are sheltering in neighboring villages without proper accommodation. Neither the government nor the ICRC has put up tents or constructed temporary shelters for the IDPs. The ICRC said it can provide the necessary materials to construct shelters and sanitary facilities.
Venezuela may be on the brink of civil war. What should we be doing?

The crisis probably would not have arisen if violent street protests were not stoked up by the US and UK, alleging electoral fraud.

Venezuela has a good record for conducting fair elections. The last election was boycotted, but there was still quite a good turnout.

The US, UK, and others say it was illegitimate. I do not believe that is true, but our MPs, supporting the ouster of Maduro, ought to be asked to give evidence when they make that claim.

The US claims that people were forced to vote for Maduro or be denied food vouchers. Do they have evidence?

Do they believe the election process is fair in other countries, eg: Turkey, Egypt?

Suppose the elections were invalid. The US response was totally unjustified. They have supported violence. Pro-Maduro citizens (or people thought to be pro-Maduro) have been burnt in the street. A police motorcycle cavalcade was bombed. The US has supported calls for a military coup.

If the US/UK really believed the election was invalid, they should have confined themselves to promoting peaceful methods to mitigate the human rights abuses they claim result from it.

There are several reasons and alleged reasons for the suffering in Venezuela:

socialism, corruption, incompetence, a fall in oil prices, economic war by the US, aided by powerful business corporations in Venezuela. The only one in our control is the last. The question of US subversion in Venezuela is widely, credibly alleged, but never seriously discussed in our mainstream media.

The US has been unremittingly hostile to Venezuela since Chavez came to power. The great things he did are acknowledged only in a token way. The country had serious problems before Chavez, including, I believe, food riots, with people shot down in the streets by their own military.

The US has a horrendous record in South America, turning the continent into a charnel house in the last century.

There is a danger that they are going to bring civil war to Venezuela and, if not, ongoing strife.

If I could advise Maduro, I think I would plead with him to call early elections, to be monitored by neutral international observers.

However, Maduro seems intent on carrying on, which I believe he has a right to do.

In those circumstances, our government should call on all opposition protestors to use only peaceful methods and call on the US to do the same; condemn calls for a military overthrow of the government; cease and oppose all sanctions that harm the Venezuelan economy; end the hostile rhetoric; and seek a rapprochement with Maduro, asking for early elections and promising no-strings aid to the country.

Brendan OBrien

London
Republicans arent preparing for another shutdown because they dont want to believe that one is possible  but thats what they thought last time too, says Ramesh Ponnuru.

Republicans are already working to lose the next government shutdown.

On NBCs Meet the Press last Sunday, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy denied that US President Donald Trump had shut down the government.

The shutdown  which started December 22 and lasted until last Friday was, he said, the decision of the Democrats Senate leader, Charles Schumer of New York.

The same morning, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was asked on CBSs Face the Nation whether the president is really prepared to shut down the government again in three weeks, when funding for some of its operations runs out.

Mulvaneys response?

Yeah. I think he actually is

Shutdowns typically result in failure for the party that is blamed for starting them, and the party that gets blamed is typically the one that is seeking to use legislation that keeps the government funded to enact a policy change.

The odds were therefore against Trumps hope that the latest shutdown would end with new funding for a wall, or even increased physical barriers, on the Mexican border.

The odds would have been against Republicans even if they had made a sustained and consistent case that they were trying to keep the government open but were being thwarted by stubborn Democrats who refused to give them an inch of fencing.

But the Republicans did not make that effort. Instead they made three errors that reduced their chances of success still further.

First: They engaged in no political preparation for the shutdown. The White House in December put out the word that Trump would sign a government-funding bill without extra money for the wall, and then close to the last minute the president decided to insist on that money. Second: Some of them actively and preemptively took responsibility for the shutdown. Trump famously told Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he would take the heat for the shutdown. Third: They continued to broadcast duelling messages throughout the shutdown. (It was no problem for most Americans, and it was a tragedy caused by the Democrats.)

Almost everyone agrees that Trump and the Republicans lost the political battle over the shutdown. Trump agreed to fund the government for another three weeks with no added border security.

All he seems to have gotten is slightly worse polling numbers (based on the RealClear Politics average).

Amazingly, Republicans are making the exact same mistakes now, even as Trump threatened on Sunday to close the US government again to get his wall.

They are not preparing for the possibility of another shutdown in a few weeks. The conventional wisdom, which many of them are promoting, is that this fight is over. They are not trying to avoid blame for another shutdown, as Mulvaneys comment shows. And they are not getting on the same page, as McCarthy and Mulvaney just demonstrated.

Republicans arent preparing for another shutdown because they dont want to believe one is possible

Congressional Republicans generally think it wont happen because it would be crazy for Trump to precipitate it. But thats what they thought last time, too.

Republicans in the US Congress can take two steps to avert a shutdown. One is to reach a deal on border issues with their Democratic counterparts before government funding runs out, and sell the president on it.

The other is to communicate to Trump that if he tries to use another shutdown to get his way, enough of them will vote with the Democrats to keep the government open that any veto would be overridden.

Theyre not going to take that second step, no matter how many pundits tell them to do it, because theyre not willing to deliver on the threat.

They dont want another shutdown, but they want a bitter party split even less. And thats what breaking with Trump on a shutdown would be: a declaration that congressional Republicans will work with congressional Democrats to sideline Trump.

Trump would  understandably  respond by lashing out at Republican traitors. Republicans have no intention of entering the 2020 election cycle that way.

So while Republicans in the US Congress and the Trump administration do not want another shutdown, and have every reason to expect another shutdown would end no better for them than the last one did, they have effectively resigned themselves to the fact that whether there will be one and what role they will play in it depends on the whims of the president.

This is not the place they want to be, but at least it is a familiar one.
A birthday getaway to New York wouldnt normally involve booking into a course on tidying  but thats exactly what Corkwoman Vera Keohane did.

The course run by Marie Kondo, the internationally renowned organising guru, so inspired Vera that she actually qualified as Irelands first certified Konmari consultant and is now devoting a good chunk of her time to helping others swamped by clutter achieve calm and order.

I read Marie Kondos book and, while I was inspired, I was initially sceptical that it would actually work. I started small  organising things like socks and underwear and was delighted with the satisfaction it gave me

"Then I had planned a trip to New York as a 50th birthday treat and found out that she was going to be giving a seminar.

Sounds a bit kooky right? Well, theyve been together for 30 years but Vera didnt even tell her husband about her holiday plans until she was nearly on the plane. But her family are fully on board with her new status as a queen of clean now.

I was so inspired to meet her and other like-minded people, I even took on my first client right there in New York, laughs Vera.

Vera sat exams in the Konmari method and built up the required number of clients and is now in high demand thanks to the Marie Kondo show becoming a Netflix hit here this month. Though, thats not to say that her whole house was transformed overnight:

I was always organised to a degree but there were problem areas such as the utility room and attic. And, for a while, youd have to put your bum against the hotpress door to close it!

Now though, the mum of five is enjoying the calm and extra time shes gained from being so organised. Her children are young adults now, but at one stage she had five children under the age of six so shes well aware of the pandemonium involved in getting everyone out of the house in the mornings while finding lunchboxes, socks and hats.

A key part of the Konmari method is keeping only items which spark joy, or are functional.

So a toilet brush or phone charger doesnt exactly spark joy in me  or indeed most people  but because they are functional they can stay. But the six other chargers for outmoded phones and the tatty tracksuits and pretty much the entire contents of that junk drawer every house has  all that has to go.

All that stuff is replaceable if you really need it, explains Vera.

And dont go hanging onto basic clothes which you havent worn in ages either  if its so nice you should be wearing it and if it doesnt fit then get rid of it, Vera urges.

If you have a shirt you havent worn in two years but youre telling me that you really like it then Im asking you why youre not wearing it. You really like your husband or wife but you wouldnt ignore them for two years, would you?

You can keep some items for sentimental reasons  but Vera queries if the memories of the occasion you wore that dress or if photographs of that important day would suffice.

She says she hasnt militantly imposed the Konmari method on her family, instead she worked on the living areas and her own bedroom. But its contagious. They did ask to be shown how to organise their own things. There are a few things to note about the Netflix show, says Vera. Its not an interiors show so the real transformation is in the person themselves. Also, it is a very gentle method so there isnt a dramatic change in a room or house.

If you hire a Konmari consultant they dont pop on a hazmat suit and start filling up a skip outside your house. Instead they help you recognise what you dont need so you can appreciate and deal with the things you do need.

The process begins with a one-hour home consultantion and then follows up with five-hour sessions.

Vera has brought her organisational skills to work with her too. Shes a nurse in a health centre and has rearranged the medical supplies in the store cupboards there, making it easier to reach what is needed and to see what needs to be replaced.

Vera can be contacted on Facebook and Instagram on enjoy_your_home_
Malaysian police authorities have advised the family of an Irish man who has been missing for one month to hire a private detective to help in the search as a fundraising drive is launched.

Tourist Stephen Warde, 32, was last seen on CCTV footage outside Mercu Summer Suites on Jalan Sultan Ismail in Kuala Lumpur on December 28 last.

It is understood he has been to Malaysia once in the past.

His family are offering a 4,400 reward for any information that could lead directly to finding him.

A gofundme.com fundraising page has now been set-up to help finance the search for him.

The post by friend Christian Coady reads: This page has been set up by the friends and extended family of Stephen. He has been missing in Kuala Lumpur since 1st January 2019 (when there was last contact with friends and family).

As this is very much out of character, his family have traveled to Malaysia to look for him.

"He has been registered as a missing person but unfortunately there has been very little progress in the investigation.

This fundraiser is to finance the search for Stephen such as potential medical expenses when he is found, accommodation for his family while in KL, the cost of a private investigator (as recommended by the KL police!), and a reward for any information leading to his whereabouts.

Hopefully Stephen will be found safe and well, in that case, any excess funds will be donated to a suitable charity for missing persons.

"If you cannot donate - please share with your friends and please god we can bring Stephan home.

The fundraising goal is 25,000 and since being set-up on Monday night, thousands of euro in donations has begun to flood in.

The post adds, We have received some leads from the public and we would like to appeal for anyone who may have any information, including potential sightings of Stephen, to contact the police in Kuala Lumpur (+60 3 2600 2222 or +60 3 2697 7099) as soon as possible.

The last communication we received from Stephen was on January 1st and the last confirmed sighting of him in Kuala Lumpur was on December 29th.

"The police believe that he may still be in Kuala Lumpur. Though we dont currently have strong leads on his whereabouts, we still have hope.

Stephen with his mother, Mary Morrissey

He is described as being a quiet and placid man with dark brown hair, brown eyes, 511 in height, of a heavy set and was last seen wearing a blue and purple T-shirt, khaki shorts and black sneakers.

Mr Warde, who works in e-commerce is from a large family, was last, a day before his tenancy was to expire.

He had been due to fly to Thailand on the same day.

All of his belongings were still in the unit rented by him when searched by police.

His passport has not been used to exit the country.

Donations can be made to gofundme.com/Help Find Stephen Warde - In Malaysia.
Striking nurses outside Connolly Hospital in Dublin got a lot of support from motorists travelling on the busy Navan Road.

They left the hospital with their placards, crossing a bridge spanning the busy N3 where motorists sounded their horn to show support for their cause.

With them was the general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, who said the Government had forced the current situation on nurses.

Asked if she thought nurses had enough public support, Ms Ni Sheaghdha, said people had been showing their support in many ways.

Our members are telling us they are actually overwhelmed, she said at the start of the 24-hour strike.

She also warned that there would be further work stoppages on top of the six already announced.

Yes, I think the mood of nursing and midwifery is very resolute. They believe the issue has to be addressed now, she said.

They are willing to negotiate. They have instructed us to negotiate on their behalf and that is what we want to do.

Ms Ni Sheaghdha said the ball was in the Government's court now to come to the table with the mindset to resolve the dispute.

She said nurses did not believe they had stepped outside the public service agreement by taking industrial action.

We believe fundamentally that there is a resolution within the public service agreement. We believe we were forced to the brink.

Jacinta Shields, from Dublin, who works as a clinical nurse manager at the hospital, said she was out on the picket line because patients deserved better.

As a nurse manager I am finding we are short-staffed every day and it means that we cannot give our full 100% to our patients.

It is not just about pay, she said, it is about making the job she had been doing for 20 years more attractive to younger people.

They are all going off to different places where they are more respected than they are in this country. They are not respected here.

Aisling O'Neill from Dublin said the Government had underestimated public support for nurses.

I did not think that we would go out on strike. It is a very difficult place for a nurse to be. We should be off the picket and at the bedside but we also need to resolve the dispute.

Rose Shivmangal, an ex-emergency nurse, now a discharge coordinator at the hospital, said it was not easy for her to leave her job and go out on the picket line.

You know you are walking away from patients in the hospital who are sick. That's not right but there is a point where we have to stand up.
A young nurse who graduated less than two years ago has seen ten of her classmates emigrate to Australia in the last month.

The self-confessed home bird, Jenny O'Riordan, who is on the picket line at Cork University Hospital (CUH), said she doesn't want to have to get on a plane to Australia when her heart is in assisting patients in her native country.

"The people who graduated with me are in Australia. There is about 10 gone in the last month in my year that I know of [to Australia].

"There is four or five in the UK. They are all gone. Going would be an option but I don't want to leave my family. But things are so bad that you would be tempted even to do a post-grad.

People are calling in sick because they are stressed. Sometimes I finish a night and I realise I never even took a break or went to the bathroom. It is that bad.

Ms O'Riordan says all of her colleagues suffer from tremendous anxiety and stress. When they finish their shift issues surrounding lack of manpower and pay and conditions swirl around in their minds.

"I get home and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking 'I never went back to that man.' You are thinking of it at home.

Do you support the nurses in their strike action? #nursesstrike  Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) January 30, 2019

"The lack of staff on the wards is shocking. I only graduated in 2017 but sometimes we are considered senior staff. Conditions are a big concern."

Jenny, who was holding a placard saying 'Cough up Leo,' says she couldn't survive without the emotional support of her parents.

"I don't have the responsibility of children or anything like that at the moment but I don't know how people afford it. I live with my mum and dad thanks be to God. If I lived out of home I don't know what I would do."

Jenny dreamed of being a nurse her whole life but says conditions are so horrendous that she is considering her options.

She is grateful for the backing of the public because the supports of patients gives them solace in their darkest hours.

Midwife Naomi O'Donovan of CUMH says she and her colleagues are tired of writing farewell cards to their colleagues.

"Collections" for staff happen as regularly as their weekly lotto contributions, she said.

"It is often more than one member of staff who is leaving. We give it with open hearts but I often think should we collect for the people who are staying? We also do a big collection for the lottery so sometimes the going away collection is as big as the lottery collection.

It is every week now. They are going to Australia. They are getting out of midwifery and going to the UK. They can't work here anymore. Out of 22 of my classmates, there is about eight left in the hospital."

Discussing the snowy conditions hundreds of nurses endured to get to the picked line Naomi said the working conditions on site were far worse than the weather.

Naomi says all they want is parity with other health care professionals.

We are not a vocation. We are a profession. A lot of people now have Masters. These are the people we want looking after us but they are not going to stay in the country.

"I qualified in 2008. My pay now is only very slightly above what I was getting as a student nurse. Most of my classmates in college have left. One of my colleagues is running a nursing home in Dublin."

Naomi says it is heartbreaking to see newly trained nurses leave for Australia and the UK.

"They are the ones who if we are having a hard day they keep us going. They are being crushed. We are being crushed alongside them. I have nightmares frequently about my job and I love my job. I do 12 hours day. That is often a thirteen hour day. We are rushed off our feet.

Sometimes I will have my lunch at six o clock. Forget about going to the toilet.

It is worrying. 'Did I remember this? Did I remember that?'

I have a degree, a post-grad and a Masters. They expect us to behave as professionals but they won't pay us. We worry about patients."

Staff at the picket line in CUH were inundated with free coffee and sandwiches from area businesses. The owner of the local Subway Katie Flannery said the nurses were their regular customers and they had to support them on this momentous day.

"Some of my friends are nurses. Their mothers are nurses. The people on the picket line are all familiar faces and we couldn't not support them on a day like today."

Susan Smith (18) from Limerick who was leaving the hospital said she fully backed the nurses in their industrial action.

My mum is a nurse. They are right to strike. She does twelve-hour shifts. They had no choice at all. My mum is in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. She has done the long hours all my life.

Meanwhile, Cork's 96FM ran a poll which found that over 99% of listeners were supportive of the nurses strike.

The Clinical Director of Nursing at CUH also praised the strike committee of the INMO who he says have been extremely cooperative.

Dr Mike O'Connor says he understands the frustration of nurses and midwives.

"We are running the hospital as normally as we possibly can. We had a meeting with the INMO strike committee who have been profoundly helpful. We are meeting them every ninety minutes or every two hours. And as a response to pressure points they are able to redeploy and add nurses to the hospital from the baseline they had initially prescribed.

"The INMO has been extremely helpful. In addition to that, we support the nurses' action. They have been treated badly and that is something that needs to be addressed."

The Emergency Department at CUH is operating today with half of its normal staff of nurses, seven instead of fifteen. The hospital cares for a population of in the region of half a million people.
By Catherine Shanahan, Evelyn Ring and Olivia Kelleher

Teas, coffees, soup, even a bunch of flowers from a supportive member of the public - nurses on the picket line were at the receiving end of the TLC theyre more used to doling out.

If the beeping of car horns is a measure of public support, then they have it in spades.

The din outside Cork University Hospital (CUH) was enough to wake the babies in the nearby maternity hospital.

Do you support the nurses in their strike action? #nursesstrike  Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) January 30, 2019

The tens of thousands that turned out around the country for the first of six 24-hour national strikes proved that nurses are a hardy bunch, undeterred by sub-zero temperatures.

Aileen Laceda (43), a staff nurse at Cork University Hospital (CUH), came to Ireland 19 years ago from the Philippines.

Nurses are enticed here by the euros but the standard of living is too high. The rent is too much for someone starting out.

"The nurses arriving here now cant put down roots because everything costs so much and the working conditions are so bad, Aileen said.

She was on the picket line because she feels bad for her niece who has just started nursing in Tallaght Hospital.

I am here to fight on her behalf. It was really me who inspired her to do nursing so I feel I have to do something, she said.

Niamh Phayer (26) from Caherciveen, Co Kerry, also a staff nurse at CUH, said she graduated in 2014 and 50 of her classmates attended their graduation ceremony in January 2015.

The ceremony was on a Thursday. By the following Monday, about 10 of my classmates were left in Ireland, she said. The rest had emigrated in search of better pay and working conditions.

Over at the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), a passerby who presented protesting nurses with a bouquet of flowers was dazzled by smiles of gratitude.

Julianne Ryan, from Conna, Fermoy, a nurse at SIVUH, said they were delighted with the publics support.

We hope it lasts, because it doesnt sound like the government is about to give in. Leo [Varadkar] seems to be really digging his heels in, she said.

I understand government concerns about knock-on pay claims in the public sector, but we are here because the health service is in crisis.

"The nurse: patient ratios are at dangerous levels and working conditions are very very bad, she said.

Nurses were stretched too thin and the threat of losing their professional registration on foot of a mistake was ever-present, Julianne said.

The standards required by HIQA, the health watchdog, placed additional pressure on nurses, who spent much of their time auditing and doing paperwork when they should be prioritising patients.

Sharon Hattersley, who works in theatre recovery in SIVUH, said young nurses wanted pay parity with other health professionals starting out. The demands on them were high, sometimes dealing with more than a dozen acutely ill patients.

Nurses on picket line duty at the start of their 24-hour stoppage at the Mercy Hospital, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan.

These are patients who might have a number of underlying problems and who need experienced staff to be safe, she said.

Back at CUH Patrick OShea from Cork city was with a bunch of interns, nurses in their fourth year of study, who were holding aloft a poster with the words Give us nursing interns a reason to stay.

Patrick (32) was a care assistant for a decade before training to become a nurse. What he finds now, in his final year of training, is that experienced nurses are so overrun on the wards that they dont have time to teach interns.

Come next October, I will be responsible for caseloads of patients and I am not fully prepared, he said.

Jenny O'Riordan (23), from Glanmire, Co Cork, who graduated less than two years ago, said colleagues are calling in sick "because they are stressed".

Nurse Jenny O'Riordan, with her colleagues on the picket line during the nurses strike at Cork University Maternity Hospital. Picture: David Keane.

Sometimes I finish a night and I realise I never even took a break or went to the bathroom. It is that bad.

"I get home and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking 'I never went back to that man.' You are thinking of it at home. she said.

Inside CUH, corridors were unusually empty, not a single patient waiting in outpatients and the emergency department (ED) waiting room singularly quiet.

HSE National Director Liam Woods warned EDs will have a difficult day today, with a surge of patients expected.
Update - 7.35pm: Patients who have had their medical appointments cancelled today are being urged not to make contact with hospitals to reschedule.

The HSE says it will be in touch with arrangements for over 25,000 people affected by the nurses strike.

37,000 INMO members will end their first day of industrial action over pay and working conditions at 8am tomorrow morning.

Health Minister Simon Harris has ruled out any special deal for them and says they must respect the public service pay agreement.

General Secretary of the INMO, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, says paying nurses more would lead to a better health service:

"When you invest in a proper salary scale, provide adequate numbers of nurses and midwives in work, we know it works, we know it completely stabilises the workforce in order to develop a service which is ulitimatley what we all want so that patients when they come to hospital or when they are sick, they have a service that is very safe and available.

"Unfortunately, today that isn't the case," she said.

Earlier: HSE 'concerned' about risk to patient safety as nurses strike continues

The HSE has said it is concerned about the risk to patient safety as the nurses strike continues across the country.

Significant delays are being experienced in emergency departments, and people are being urged to stay away.

Further disruption is expected tomorrow, as the health service gets back up and running following the action by 37,000 INMO members.

Teams from the HSE and the union are holding hourly meetings to try to limit the impact on patients.

HSE national director of acute operations, Liam Woods, said there is a greater risk to safety in our hospitals:

Clearly, the cancellations of some procedures and indeed some delegation for some areas that are still working normally have helped maintain a level of service and a level of public safety, but in reality without full staff confidence, we are concerned that there is a greater risk than would be normal in our hospitals and wider health environment.

"So the sooner we're back to full staffing as normal tomorrow morning, the better," he said.

Earlier: Government 'legally considering' pay sanctions on striking nurses

The government is 'legally considering' whether it can impose pay sanctions on striking nurses.

37,000 members of the INMO are holding the first of six days of industrial action today, in a dispute over wage increases and staffing shortages.

Patients are being urged to stay away from hospital emergency departments and to expect increased delays in admission.

Under legislation brought in last year, members of unions who breach the public service pay agreement by striking can face financial penalties such as frozen pay rises and increments.

Health Minister Simon Harris says sanctions will be considered: "You cannot lodge a cost-rising claim for the duration of the agreement and derive the benefits of the agreement.

"That is what the agreement says in essence.

"Seeking pay parity for your members at a cost of 3 million is by any count a cost-rising claim.

"In relation to the issue of sanctions, I don't think the government should be in that space today. The government isn't in that space today.

"The Department of Expenditure and Reform will legally consider that."

Taoiseach: We are willing to engage with nurses on dispute

1.30pm: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has rejected criticism in the Dail this afternoon from opposition TDs, including Mary Lou McDonald, that the Government is not doing enough to resolve the nurses dispute.

Mr Varadkar said: "Deputy, I don't think you are a moron and I can assure you that I'm not a moron either, but if you keep asking me the same question, I will keep giving you the same answer.

"We have a mechanism under which we resolve industrial relation disputes, the Workplace Relations Commission, the Labour Court. They are State bodies, Government bodies and we are happy and willing to engage through that process."

Nurses on picket line duty at the start of their twenty four hour stoppage at the Mercy Hospital, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan.

Trade union, Unite, has said that it has advised its members to "not engage in work ordinarily done by nurses.

In expressing their solidarity with striking nurses and midwives, Brendan Ogle said the union will fully support and stand with any members who decide, as a matter of personal conscience, not to pass official INMO pickets.

Mr Ogle, said: No worker decides to take industrial action lightly. That the workers in dispute feel compelled to take such action speaks to the declining nature of our public health service and increasingly poor treatment of both staff and patients. Nurses and midwives deserve the solidarity of trade unionists, as they take action today, and Unite asks that its members do nothing to undermine their action.

Todays dispute is symptomatic of a wider problem in our unequal society. Unless we bring down rampant costs through the provision of public housing and State-sponsored childcare, workers in a range of sectors will find themselves forced to take action to secure a decent standard of living, or  in the case of many young people who should be the future of our health service  they are forced to take employment elsewhere to secure their futures.

"An economy based on property price inflation and relatively poor pay increases will only result in continuing damage to our public health services, Mr Ogle warned.

Earlier: Health system is 'broken and sick' and we are the cure, say nurses

The health system in Ireland is "broken and sick" and "we are the cure".

That is according to signs being held by nurses who are striking outside hospitals today, in a dispute with the government over pay and recruitment issues.

Picture: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

37,000 INMO members are on the picket line, leading to the cancellation of 25,000 medical appointments and reduced cover in emergency departments.

Nurses want a 12% pay increase to bring them in line with other graduate health professionals.

Health Minister Simon Harris has again insisted there cannot be any changes to current pay agreements.

Minister Harris says there are some things they can offer but not a direct pay rise.

"What I would say to patients is there is a willingness on the side of government and management to find a resolution but we have to operate within that space of not breaching the Public Service Stability Agreement because to do anything else would be grossly irresponsible," said Minister Harris.

"There is no consequence-free direct pay rise."

Sorcha Byrne, a nurse at Connolly Hospital in Dublin, is dismissing the comments: "There is money to pay the TDs, there is money to build children's hospitals that are overrun.

Basically, they have to prioritise what they think is important and obviously they don't think we are important.

INMO general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, had this message for patients who have had appointments cancelled: "Nurses do not want to be on strike but it is a feature of our health services that cancellations now are the norm."

Five further days of strikes are planned by nurses over the next fortnight.

Consultant calls for speedy resolution as 37,000 nurses and midwives strike

Update 11.45am: Emergency medicine consultant Fergal Hickey is calling on both sides in the nurses strike to resume talks to find a speedy resolution, writes Vivienne Clarke.

Ultimately this dispute will be resolved, it would be better for that to happen sooner rather than later, he told RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show.

Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Dr Hickey said he was very concerned at the prospect of multiple days of strikes in the coming weeks.

This morning there were only four patients in the emergency department at Sligo University Hospital, where he is based. Usually there would be 105-110 per day.

We are coping at the moment. Between the snow and the strike it is taking longer for patients to get to us.

He said it is worrying that some patients who should go to the emergency department were afraid to attend because of the strike.

Emergency Dept Nurses Jessica Ryan and Jo Bergin from the INMO trade union on the picket line outside St James Hospital in Dublin. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

For many conditions there is a clear treatment window and those patients should be in hospital.

Dr Hickey also expressed concern about attendance levels tomorrow when normal service resumes.

He said emergency department nurses did not want to be on the picket line, but he knew they were under relentless pressure because of the inability to recruit new nurses.

We understand the need to do what theyre doing. But as the strike ramps up tempers will fray and difficulties will arise. Im very fearful.

I would ask both parties to reflect on the situation and set about trying to resolve it.

'Enough is enough': 37,000 nurses and midwives take to picket line

Update 9am: 37,000 nurses and midwives have taken to the picket line outside hospitals and HSE facilities.

They are demanding pay increases and government action on staff shortages.

Nurses and midwives standing strong at St James', the Rotunda and Beaumont in Dublin, St. Finbarr's Cork, MWRH Nenagh, and Portiuncula

#standwithnurses #standwithmidwiveshttps://t.co/ua8qW23Ea7 pic.twitter.com/1E7nmqUTnR  Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (@INMO_IRL) January 30, 2019

Margaret Frahill, Nurse Manager at Mercy Hospital, Cork, says that when students reach their fourth year in college they are already considering either leaving the country or leaving the profession.

She also says that more experienced nurses are leaving due to stress and burnout.

"The HSE aren't listening," said Ms Frahill.

"They know the salary doesn't relate to other countries. They know we're leaving in droves.

"Yet they are recruiting from abroad. They are spending 10,000 on a nurse to come in from abroad, from the Philipines or India."

Huge support for #StandWithNursesAndMidwives at the Mater pic.twitter.com/nRNezXhQvc  Mary Lou McDonald (@MaryLouMcDonald) January 30, 2019

The HSE says it will not be a "normal day" for the service with 25,000 appointments cancelled.

People are also being advised to only attend emergency departments if it is essential.

"We have to do it. Enough is enough," said one of the nurses picketing outside Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown in Dublin.

"It's time that we got our safe conditions, our safe pay and patients and nurses are treated with respect and given fair care and we get the value and appreciation that nurses deserve."

37,000 nurses and midwives to mount largest strike in HSE history today

Update 7am: Nurses and midwives will mount the largest strike in the history of the health service this morning.

37,000 INMO members will take to the picket line outside hospitals and HSE facilities from 8am, demanding pay increases and government action on staff shortages.

Nurses on picket line duty at the start of their 24-hour stoppage at the Mercy Hospital, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Nurses and midwives will gather in cold conditions to demand pay increases of around 12% and for the HSE to sort out what they call a recruitment and retention crisis in nursing.

The government says wage hikes for nurses would open the floodgates for others to seek pay claims, and it will not be doing a special deal.

25,000 medical appointments have been cancelled and the HSE is appealing to people not to attend emergency departments unless absolutely necessary.

Dr. Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer with the HSE, says delays in accessing services today are inevitable.



Nurses and midwives are going on strike for only the second time in 100 years.



They are standing up for patients and fair pay.



If you're near a picket from 8am-4pm tomorrow, drop by and show your support.



Full list of pickets here https://t.co/zbPHTsvcyR pic.twitter.com/KUKj5oJqfq  Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (@INMO_IRL) January 29, 2019

"People may experience increased delays because other aspects of unscheduled care such as local injury units or acute medical assessment units will not be open," said Dr Henry.

Further strikes are planned for next week.

As the Labour Court says it cannot intervene in the dispute, it is up to the INMO and the HSE to resolve it.
British prime minister Theresa May is on a fresh collision course with the EU after a majority of MPs voted to renegotiate the Brexit Irish backstop.

The vote came as the Irish Government delivered a stark warning about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, saying it could wipe 4% off economic growth.

Within minutes of the vote in the House of Commons, the EU and the Irish Government firmly shot down the British prime ministers new plans, saying the withdrawal agreement was not open for renegotiation.

A 16-majority vote for the British prime ministers Plan B to renegotiate the Irish backstop came after several amendments were rejected by MPs.

Afterwards, Ms May pledged to return to Brussels with her new mandate to renegotiate the backstop while still promising to ensure there would be no new hard border on the island of Ireland.

Its now clear there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal.

We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, she said.

But within just minutes of the dramatic vote on the Graham Brady amendment, the Government and European Council president Donald Tusk rejected the move.

Mr Tusks spokesman said the backstop was part of the withdrawal agreement and that this was not open for renegotiation.

Dublin agreed, immediately rejecting attempts to open up the Brexit deal on the backstop to prevent a hard border. A statement said changes could only be agreed in the political declaration for a future EU-UK relationship.

Tweeting last night, Tanaiste Simon Coveney also defended the backstop, saying: Backstop was agreed by UK/EU as the insurance policy to avoid a hard border in all scenarios.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Ms May are expected to resume discussions by phone later today.

Amid the fallout, Tory MPs were accused in the House of Commons by Scottish National Party member Ian Blackford of ripping apart the Good Friday Agreement and reneging on peace in the North.

During the evening, several amendments, some designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit and to allow for ways to explore alternatives through parliament, were defeated by British MPs.

While the House of Commons rejected Labour MP Yvette Coopers substantial amendment to avoid a no-deal Brexit, MPs did approve Tory former minister Caroline Spelmans amendment seeking to prevent the UK leaving the EU without a deal. However, this is non-binding.

Doomsday projections in the event of a Brexit no-deal were released by the Government, forecasting job losses and a potential 4% slowdown in economic growth.

Unemployment, with a no deal, would increase by 2% to 7.25% while employment numbers would increase at a slower pace, with 55,000 fewer new jobs created by 2023. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said food producers, manufacturers, and small businesses could be sectors worst hit by job losses with a no deal.

There remains considerable uncertainty surrounding the format the UKs exit from the EU will take. The assessment by my department shows that a disorderly exit would be particularly severe, he said.

The Cabinet also discussed the gloomy projections for a no deal, with Agriculture Minister Michael Creed later warning that trade fines of some 1.7bn could be slapped on Irish exports to the UK.

However, addressing concerns last night at the AGM of the Irish Farmers Association, Mr Varadkar pledged to protect farmers.

We have already alerted the European Commission that we will seek emergency aid in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The purpose of this aid would be to help cope with the impact on Irish trade, particularly for the beef, dairy, and fishing sectors, he said.

During the day, Mr Varadkar had told the Dail that, amid fading hopes for a Brexit deal, that Ireland may need to find a lot of money in the coming weeks.It is also likely now that more pressure will fall on the government to open up the backstop or agree to concessions with the

UK.
Israel may take retaliatory measures, including placing a tariff on Irish imports, if a bill boycotting goods manufactured in the occupied West Bank becomes law.

The warning by the Israeli government comes in the wake of the decision on Monday by members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to cancel a planned trip to Ireland in March in protest at the passing of the bill in the Dail last week.

The Knesset delegation was due to meet Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail and members of the Oireachtas foreign affairs and defence committees during the visit.

Its not surprising that Ireland is once again looking to hurt and boycott Israel, said Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein. The law to boycott Judea and Samaria has serious repercussions for relations between the countries.

Therefore, I instructed to cancel the MK delegation to Ireland that was meant to take place in March.

Edelstein said many countries seek to visit the Knesset and invite Israeli lawmakers to their legislatures.

We are happy to take the time to go to a country that wants to cooperate with all of Israel and not just parts of it, instead of wasting our time in a country that obsessively looks for ways to hurt us, he said.

Meanwhile, the Dublin Broadcasting Branch of the National Union of Journalists has pledged to support any member who chooses to exercise a conscientious objection towards involvement in coverage of this years Eurovision Song Contest, which is due to take place in May in Tel Aviv.

At a meeting held earlier this week, the branch condemned Israels continued attacks on journalists and on freedom of expression, noting the fact that since April its forces have shot and killed two journalists reporting from Gazas border and injured with live rounds at least 20 more.

The union expressed its support for the stance taken by RTE, enunciated by director general Dee Forbes last September, that RTE would not bring any sanction against anyone working for the station who declined to travel to Israel to cover the contest on conscientious grounds.

The Dublin Broadcasting Branch serves hundreds of journalists working for RTE.
A health watchdog report on a Cork centre for people with intellectual disabilities has raised concerns for the safety of those in its care due to regular incidents of peer-to-peer abuse and challenging resident behaviour.

The HSE said it was surprised and disappointed by some of the feedback.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) inspected the HSE Cork Youghal Community Hostels in February 2018 - despite being told the premises would be closed by the end of 2017 due to concerns raised in previous audits.

Hiqa inspectors had deemed that the design and layout of the centre was not suitable for its stated purpose.

The centre had, at the time of inspection, 16 male and female residents spread across two houses.

The report found that there was a marked contrast in the experiences of the residents living in each of the houses.

However, the HSE had yet to buy and adapt alternative accommodation or transfer residents which, inspectors found, had a negative impact on the quality of life and safety of residents in one of the houses that comprised the centre.

The report stated that there were instances of alleged, suspected or confirmed peer-to-peer abuse, the majority of which had not been notified to Hiqa as required by regulations.

The person in charge of the centre had also failed to notify Hiqa that a limit was imposed on one residents access to alcohol.

It found the provider did not ensure services were safe and appropriate as a result of the ongoing, identified incompatibility of the residents in one house.

Despite the acknowledged incompatibility of residents in this house, the practice of sharing bedrooms continued for the majority of residents, the report found.

While the provider had made efforts to address this matter, the impact on residents' continued safety and welfare is of concern, inspectors noted.

Residents in the centre told inspectors that they did not want to live in this house because of peer-to-peer incidents.

There was no evidence of an assessment undertaken to identify the cause of a residents challenging behaviour, the report read.

It further stated that evidence indicated that the residents in one house were inappropriately placed resulting in peer-to-peer incidents occurring on a regular basis between residents in this house.

The inspection report was one of 27 published by Hiqa on services for people with disabilities.

A spokesperson for the HSEs Cork Kerry Community Healthcare said it accepts the report, but noted a subsequent inspection found just two areas of moderate non-compliance.

Certain aspects of the February 2018 inspection feedback surprised and disappointed us and we asked HIQA to clarify a number of issues raised.

"The May 2018 inspection team found the centre to be compliant in 11 areas and recommended registration for the centre.

It said none of the non-compliances highlighted in either inspection was rated as high-risk by HIQA and that the HSE remains confident that staff provide care that is high quality and safe.

It had initially told Hiqa that it would have residents moved to a new property by last September - but this move has yet to take place.

While the purchase of a particular property has taken longer than we had planned, we are now very glad to confirm that a new home will be ready shortly for a number of residents to move into.

This will address many of the issues raised in the report of February 2018 in relation to the sharing of bedrooms and the compatibility of particular residents, the HSE said.
A cervical screening expert who examined a 2009 smear slide of Ruth Morrissey, who is suing over the alleged misreading of her cervical tests today, told the High Court some cells on the slide identified as "abnormal".

Dr Michael McKenna said 95% of the cells on the slide were atypical but some others identified as abnormal with cells showing darker with a staining intensity.

Dr McKenna in the second day of the resumed action by Limerick woman, Ruth Morrissey against the HSE and two US laboratories, said he identified in the sample cells that were darker and with a staining intensity and irregularity of outline.

A consultant cytopathologist in charge of one of the North's four laboratories responsible for screening cervical smear tests Dr McKenna said he examined in October last year the 2009 Morrissey slide which had been tested by Quest Diagnostics at their lab in Wyoming.

The doctor said there were single cells which were normal and looked like cornflakes but he could clearly see a very dark and large group of cells. The darker cells would be a "red flag".

He said at even four magnification he concluded you would need to go back and have a look and there was a heightened level of awareness. He said in the case of atypical cells the screener would pass it on to the pathologist for further examination.

Ruth Morrissey and her husband Paul Morrissey of Kylemore, Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick have sued the HSE and the US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland Ltd with offices at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin along with Medlab Pathology Ltd with offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18.

It is claimed there was an alleged failure to correctly report and diagnose and there was an alleged misinterpretation of her smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012.

A situation it is claimed allegedly developed where Ms Morrisseys cancer spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014.

It is further claimed a review of the 2009 and 2012 smears took place in 2014 and 2015 with the results sent to Ms Morrissey's treating gynaecologist in 2016, but she was not told until May 2018 of those review results which showed her smears were reported incorrectly.

The Morrisseys further contends that if Ms Morrissey had been told the results of the smear test audits in late 2014 or early 2015, she would have insisted on an MRI and other scans.

The HSE the court has already heard admitted it owed a duty of care to Ms Morrissey but not to her husband. The laboratories deny all claims.

Earlier, Dr McKenna said primary cervical screening should have a high sensitivity for detecting abnormalities and when the sample is being tested, if there is any doubt, it should be passed on to the pathologist.

A negative, he said should only be reported when absolutely certain.

You dont want to call something negative when there is uncertainty, he told Mr Justice Kevin Cross.

You can only have absolute confidence if you know its definitely negative. If it is borderline, you cant call it normal, he added.

The case before Mr Justice Kevin Cross continues tomorrow.
The failure to build the national childrens hospital would be a scar on the Governments legacy, Health Minister Simon Harris told an Oireachtas committee.

Not to build this hospital would be a scar on our legacy as an Oireachtas and as a Government, he told a meeting of the Health Committee.

Wed be yet again neglecting kids who went through the last economic boom promised a hospital that was never built because we had parish pump politics of trying to fit it into peoples constituencies on a site that we could never get planning permission for.

Mr Harris was before the committee to answer questions on cost overruns of the national project.

The bill for the hospital, being built at the St Jamess Hospital site in Dublin is expected to be at least 1.4bn.

Mr Harris told TDs and senators that he learned in August that costs were not on track but it was November before he knew the exact figure.

The cost of the hospital is now 450m higher than the 930m approved by the Government two years ago.

Mr Harris said he could not stop the development of the hospital because it was so badly needed.

He had three options  to either pause, re-tender or proceed with the project.

We couldnt actually stop this project because it is so badly needed in terms of the infrastructure for our children.

The secretary general of the Department of Health, Jim Breslin, agreed it was a mess and was totally unhappy with the situation.

The situation we are in now is absolutely invidious but we are going to build a hospital that has been required in this country for 30 years.
Ryanair could acquire one or two smaller airlines like its separately branded Polish and Austrian units in the coming years, but nothing big, chief executive Michael OLeary has said.

Youll see in the next couple of years, Id like to see Ryanair evolve as kind of a group of different airlines. We will have Ryanair based out of Ireland, youll have Laudamotion based out of Austria, youll have Ryanair Sun ... in Poland, he said.
So thats Wednesday nearly wrapped up. Heres some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening.

TO INFORM

Nurses' Strike: More than 30,000 nurses and midwives around the country took part in a 24-hour protest in a dispute over pay and staff shortages.

Brexit: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has rebuffed demands from British Prime Minister Theresa May to re-open the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, insisting it is the only viable option.

Court: An agony aunt letter allegedly written by a man who denies murdering his love rival details the break-down of a relationship that left the man "broken-hearted" and "angry" over finding out his former lover was seeing someone else.

Weather: Motorists are being urged to take care on roads in the coming days as plummeting temperatures threaten to cause havoc.

Pairc Ui Chaoimh: GAA director general Tom Ryan has claimed the organisations authorities felt they were bullied into hosting the Liam Miller Tribute Game in Pairc Ui Chaoimh last summer.

Brexit Markets: Sterling recovered from its sell-off in the wake of the British parliaments Brexit votes, as investors bet the UK government would still avoid exiting the EU without an agreed trade deal in place.

TO ENGAGE

Republicans arent preparing for another shutdown because they dont want to believe that one is possible  but thats what they thought last time too.

Ian Diamond and his wife, Josie, have failed to secure a place for their autistic son in 26 schools and are unable to find a home tutor willing to stay long-term. Every day is a gruelling battle for their rights.

TO ENTERTAIN

Cork woman Vera Keohane is now Irelands first certified Konmari consultant. She tells Caroline Delaney why Marie Kondos clear-outs make sense.

Chris Hemsworth has said he almost quit acting but carried on so he could pay off his parents house.
Cradlepoint, a cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions company, announced today on the keynote stage at IoT Evolution Expo, a platform integration with Microsoft Azure that will make it faster and easier for enterprises to Build Your Own IoT solutions (BYOIoT). The solution includes Cradlepoints new NetCloud Edge Connector for Azure IoT Central to help simplify and accelerate the process of building and deploying IoT applications and devices. George Mulhern, CEO, Cradlepoint, and Tom Davis, Azure IoT, Microsoft spoke on the IoT Time podcast about the goals and executions plans for the new solution.

According to a recent study by Cisco, 74 percent of IoT initiatives fell short of achieving success with 54 percent citing the lack of collaboration between IT and other business units and 48 percent attributing it to a lack of IoT expertise. The new platform integration between Microsoft and Cradlepoint helps provide Operational Technology (OT) teams the freedom and ability to build and deploy IoT solutions that improve business competitiveness and efficiency, while giving IT teams the tools they need to ensure secure, reliable and compliant device connectivity at the wide-area-network (WAN) edge.

The mission of Azure IoT Central is to improve the success rate and time-to-value of enterprise IoT projects by reducing development complexity and IT integration challenges, said Tony Shakib, GM, Azure IoT. With Cradlepoint, we are extending this mission by addressing one of the key issues that threatens successful IoT outcomesenabling IT to deliver secure and reliable IoT device connectivity across the WAN.

Azure IoT Central is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that lets customers build and deploy production-grade IoT applications in hours without cloud computing experience or specialized skills. Cradlepoint will join the Azure IoT Central partner program allowing the two companies to collaborate on marketing the solution to enterprise and public sector customers.

Cradlepoint will offer a pre-built integration for its NetCloud service, called NetCloud Edge Connector for Azure IoT Central, that allows organizations to connect IoT devices to applications built on the Microsoft Azure IoT Central platform with complete visibility, security and control. For example, a vendor that uses kiosks in airports, campuses, or storefronts can rapidly develop and deploy a new IoT solution to monitor the video terminal, the door alarm, the temperature and the WAN connectivity of the application running in the kiosk. Previously, developing such a solution would require complex application programming and introduce significant network connectivity and management challenges.

Our State of IoT 2018 highlights the nature of enterprise IoT with 69 percent of customers having either deployed or planning to deploy IoT; with 53 percent developing their own solutions, which includes leveraging their own WAN, said George Mulhern, chairman and chief executive officer at Cradlepoint. The prevailing go-it-alone approach is the catalyst behind our Microsoft partnership and integration with Azure IoT Central. We are committed to helping IT teams deliver secure and reliable connectivity and accelerate IoT time-to-value for their business constituencies while providing a pathway to 5G in the future.

The new IoT solution will be very beneficial for both Microsoft and Cradlepoint partners. It provides a blank canvas for rapidly developing, deploying and managing custom IoT applications for specific customers, use cases and industries without them having to invest in cloud infrastructure or specialized resources.

The Microsoft and Cradlepoint integration of the NetCloud and Azure IoT Central platforms is a huge win for companies seeking to build their own IoT solutions, said James Brehm, founder and chief technology evangelist at James Brehm & Associates. The new partnership promises to help bridge the OT and IT collaboration gap, improve IoT project outcomes and finally put the IT back into IoT.

Cradlepoint is a Diamond Sponsor of the IoT Evolution Expo 2019 and is exhibiting at Booth 1604.

Edited by Ken Briodagh
China just tested the world's most powerful naval gun, and US intelligence says it will be ready for warfare by 2025

Amanda Macias

WASHINGTON - January 30, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) China tested the world's most powerful naval gun earlier this month, and it is expected to be ready for warfare by 2025, according to people with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.

China's railgun was first seen in 2011 and underwent testing in 2014, according to the people, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.

Between 2015 and 2017, the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished. The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.

The development comes at a moment when tensions between China and the U.S. are already high, underscored by crucial trade talks that were scheduled to move to Washington on Wednesday.

Railguns use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder to propel rounds, and China's is capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second, according to the people who have knowledge of the intelligence report. For perspective, a shot fired from Washington could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds.

Railguns have long appeared on Russian, Iranian and U.S. military wish lists as cost-effective weapons that give navies the might of a cannon with the range of a precision-guided missile.

The rounds used in China's railgun cost $25,000 to $50,000 each, according to the intelligence assessment. Though not an exact comparison since the weapons have different technologies, the U.S. Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile has an estimated price tag of $1.4 million each.

The U.S. Navy's railgun, which is years away from being operational, remains a classified system still in development under the Office of Naval Research.

China's sprint to develop a weapon of this magnitude, coupled with coastal defense systems, represents a significant addition to Beijing's military arsenal in one of the most contested regions of the world: the South China Sea.

In May, CNBC learned that China quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its fortified outposts west of the Philippines in the sea, a move that allows Beijing to further project its power in the hotly disputed waters.

Home to more than 200 specks of land, the South China Sea serves as a gateway to global shipping routes where $3.4 trillion of trade passes annually.

The numerous overlapping sovereign claims to islands, reefs and rocks - many of which disappear under high tide - have turned the waters into an armed camp. Beijing holds the lion's share of these features with about 27 outposts.

For more information contact:

Jennifer Dauble

CNBC

t: 201.735.4721

m: 201.615.2787

e: jennifer.dauble@nbcuni.com

Erin Kitzie

CNBC

t: 201.735.4739

m: 201.753.8107

e: erin.kitzie@nbcuni.com

More Info:

This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

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Gibraltar - January 30, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX), an institutional-grade, regulated and insured token sale platform and digital asset exchange, today announced the addition of Stellar Lumens (XLM) to its Digital Asset Exchange (GBX-DAX), a state-of-the-art exchange created with the high expectations of professional crypto-traders in mind. XLM has been brought to the GBX-DAX by Sponsor Firm Rampart Corporate Services, and follows the addition of XRP, EOS, and TRON in recent weeks.

Nick Cowan, Managing Director and Founder of the GSX (Gibraltar Stock Exchange) Group Limited said, "Already, we have made significant strides in 2019 in delivering on our mission to set the highest standards in institutional-grade token sales, providing our users with the most dynamic trading experience possible. The addition of XLM is another landmark moment for the exchange, as our status continues to rise within the global trading community."

The Stellar network enables money to move directly between people, companies, and financial institutions quickly and simply. Stellar Lumens (XLM), the native asset of the Stellar network, are a cryptocurrency-based payment solution on a global scale, aiming to make cross-border payments cheaper and more efficient.

Peter Howitt, Founder of Gibraltar based law firm Ramparts, the Sponsor Firm involved in bringing XLM to the GBX-DAX said, "We are delighted to have worked with Kurt and the GBX team and Boris Reznikov of Stellar Partnerships to act as the sponsor firm for Stellar (XLM) on the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange. Stellar is a great brand with the potential to help bring borderless, safe and low-cost payments to the world and is a great fit for GBX."

The GBX-DAX is a digital asset exchange built on institutional-grade best practices and good governance, derived from the capital markets experience gained through the GBX's parent company, the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), an EU-regulated stock exchange. The GBX-DAX platform has been designed to be highly intuitive and easy to use. From strict verification requirements to the listing of a wide range of assets, every aspect of the GBX-DAX works towards creating the most professional and secure trading environment possible.

"I'm pleased to add yet another leading token to the GBX-DAX. XLM tokens are built on the principles of efficiency and speed - the same principles that underpin our efforts here at GSX Group. We have outlined an ambitious roadmap for the year ahead which will see us continue to expand our token listing offering. Adding tokens such as XRP, EOS, TRON, and now XLM this month alone assertively underlines our credentials as a bonafide platform for the trading of high-profile tokens," concluded Cowan.

For more information, visit https://exchange.gbx.gi/

Nick Cowan, Managing Director and Founder of GSX Group Limited, is available for interview on request

Media Contact:

Liam Murphy

Senior Account Supervisor // Wachsman

+353 87 119 2107 // liam@wachsman.com

About the GBX

The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) is a world-leading institutional-grade token sale platform and Digital Asset Exchange that is a part of the GSX Group, which also includes the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), a European Union (EU) regulated stock exchange. The GBX is a global listing and token sales springboard for utility tokens that have satisfied a strict due diligence and admissions process as well as a high-quality Digital Asset Exchange. The GBX is setting a higher standard for token issuance and trading through best practices and good governance, for the benefit of all market participants. The GBX received its full Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Licence from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) in November 2018.

About Stellar

Stellar (XLM) is a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit organization that supports the Stellar network - a free, open-source network that connects diverse financial systems and lets anyone build low-cost financial services  payments, savings, loans, insurance  for their community. The Stellar network enables money to move directly between people, companies, and financial institutions as easily as email. This interconnectivity means more access for individuals, lower costs for banks, and more revenue for businesses.

About Rampart Corporate Services

RCSL is part of the Ramparts group, founded by Peter Howitt in 2012 with offices in Gibraltar and Manchester. The Ramparts team specialise in English, Gibraltarian and EU law, and assist clients worldwide with European commercial and regulatory matters. In the last few years, Ramparts has grown its client base and revenue in the cryptocurrency, blockchain and DLT sectors where it is a leading firm.

Deirdre Livingston

Account Executive

Wachsman

P: +353 87 340 1029

E: deirdre@wachsman.com

More Info:

This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

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Iowa-based Holmes Murphy is expanding into the Houston and Central Texas markets and has added Travis Brashear to lead the initiative.

Brashear, an attorney, will lead Holmes Murphys presently forming Houston team as vice president/market leader for South and Central Texas, with an eye for expanding the Texas employee benefits division into one of the largest markets in the country.

Brashear is a national expert in employee benefits, bringing 22 years of experience to the Holmes Murphy team. Brashear first moved to Texas in 2004 as the market leader for the South/Central Texas and Louisiana divisions of CIGNA HealthCare. During that time, he helped to lead the development of Kelsey Care powered by CIGNA, which became one of the countrys most successful network delivery models and first accredited ACOs.

Brashear then transitioned to a consulting role as the practice leader for Willis Towers Watson. He grew the Houston office into one of the largest consulting firms in the state, and in a later role, led the Willis Towers Watson private exchange business in the western half of the US. Brashear is joining Holmes Murphy from his most recent role as the chief growth officer for Imagine Health.

Holmes Murphy is optimistic about this expansion. The Dallas office has been in operation since 1987 and currently houses around 220 full-time employees of Holmes Murphys nearly 1,000 employee-strong team.

Source: Holmes Murphy

Topics Texas
Employees of Lansing, Michigan-based insurer, AF Group, have pledged $266,750 in support of numerous charitable organizations around the country as part of the companys recent Caring and Sharing Community Campaign.

Together with a dollar-for-dollar corporate match, AF Group and its subsidiaries, including Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, United Heartland, Third Coast Underwriters and CompWest, will contribute $533,500 to 34 organizations nationwide throughout 2019.

Now in its ninth year, the successful employee campaign has raised more than $2.6 million for regional and national charities in the communities where AF Group and its subsidiaries do business.

This year, AF Groups support for both national and local organizations includes:

National Organizations

Autism Speaks

Disabled American Veterans

National Breast Cancer Foundation

Paws With A Cause

St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Kids Chance of America

Leader Dogs for the Blind

National Kidney Foundation

Regional Organizations

Alzheimers Association of Orange County

Childrens Hospital of Orange County

Orange County Food Bank

Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano

Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area

Greater Lansing Food Bank

American Red Cross  Mid-Michigan Chapter

Eles Place

Chicago Debates

Northern Illinois Food Bank

Milwaukee Center for Independence

Make-A-Wish Wisconsin

LindenGrove Foundation

Milwaukee Center for Independence

United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County

Big Brothers Big Sisters Michigan Capital Region

Capital Area United Way

Cristo Rey Community Center

Habitat for Humanity Capital Region

Junior Achievement of Mid-Michigan

Casa Central

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin

Give Kids the World Village

Heartspring

Source: AF Group

Topics Michigan Funding
North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread has been nominated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to serve as the state insurance regulator on the national Air Ambulance and Patient Billing Advisory Committee, the states insurance department announced.

This committee, which was recently created by Congress, will review options to improve the disclosure of charges and fees for air medical services, better inform consumers of insurance options for such services and protect consumers from balance billing.

Godfread said the committee will address the critical issue of air ambulance balance billing practices. He added he hopes the committee can craft meaningful recommendations that will allow Congress to take action and greatly reduce or eliminate the practice of surprise, balance billing for air ambulance transports.

The commissioners nomination comes after a federal judge issued a split decision regarding a consumer protection law enacted by the state during the 2017 legislative session.

The law protects consumers with health insurance from receiving balance bills from air ambulances, prohibits air ambulance subscription agreements from being sold and requires hospitals to inform patients in non-emergency situations about which air ambulances have contractual agreements with the patients health insurance company so patients can make informed decisions about which air ambulance company they should use.

The decision invalidated the portion of the law that protects North Dakotans from receiving balance bills from air ambulances. However, the provision requiring hospitals to inform patients in non-emergency situations about which air ambulances have contractual agreements with the patients health insurance company and the provision prohibiting the sale of air ambulance subscription agreements both remain valid and enforceable by law.

Godfread said he was extremely disappointed with the courts decision. He said legal options are being reviewed and a plan is being created for how to respond to the ruling.

Despite this setback, I will continue to fight to protect North Dakotans from receiving these unfair and unreasonable bills that in many cases lead to financial ruin, Godfread said in the insurance departments announcement.
Brazils deadly tailings dam collapse is likely to complicate a settlement for a similar disaster less than four years ago at the Samarco iron ore mine, owned jointly by Vale SA and BHP Group, investors said on Tuesday [Jan. 29].

Vale and BHP have been aiming to restart the mine as early as 2020 following a dam failure in 2015 that killed 19 people and buried a village. A second deadly dam burst at a Vale mine on Friday killed 65 people and there are fears the death toll could soar into the hundreds.

The Brazilian prosecutor running talks to settle a lawsuit over the Samarco collapse told Reuters on Saturday the second dam burst could scramble those sensitive negotiations.

Federal prosecutor Jose Adercio Sampaio said that depending on Vales culpability in the new disaster, it may change how his task force handles a 155 billion reais ($41 billion) case against Samarco. The case is currently suspended amid negotiations for a potential settlement.

A restart at Samarco Mineracao SA depends on talks with prosecutors on building a new tailing dam system and a restructuring of the companys debt, executives at BHP and Vale have said.

BHP said on Tuesday that Samarcos operations will only restart if it is safe, economically viable and has the support of the community and regulators.

It said Samarco has not yet reached an agreement with its lenders on the restructuring of its unsecured financial obligations.

The latest dam failing could draw out any settlement for Samarco and potential mine restart, investors said.

In terms of remediation, its clearly a very sensitive time to be trying to resolve it. So now its just another thing to try and work through, said Andy Forster, senior investment officer with Argo Investments in Sydney.

However, the fallout for BHP was likely to be limited.

Its obviously an ongoing issue  while they do still have minority interest in Samarco, they wear these potential liabilities when they occur, said Jason Teh, Chief Investment Officer at Vertium Asset Management in Sydney.

Samarco is quite small in terms of BHPs operations. Its a small proportion of its total business. BHP today has a pretty good balance sheet for any potential liabilities.

Vale fell 24 percent on Monday to lose about 71.34 billion reais ($18.96 billion) in market value.

A rise in iron ore prices after the mine disaster was lifting BHPs shares as well as fellow Australian iron ore miners Rio Tinto and Fortescue.

BHP shares rose about 2 percent on Tuesday after a long weekend in a broader market down about 0.5 percent.

($1 = 3.7614 reais) (Reporting by Melanie Burton; additional reporting by Ambar Warrick in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Pullin)

Related:

Topics Mining
Octo Telematics, the Rome-based provider of telematics and data analytics solutions for the auto insurance industry, has partnered with Qualitas, Mexicos largest auto insurer with operations throughout Mexico, Latin America and the United States.

Qualitas, which has more than 4 million insured vehicles, will work with Octo to develop the telematics market in Mexico by leveraging Octos driving behavior analytics in the commercial lines space.

Octo will supply Qualitas with fleet telematics as it expands its commercial offerings throughout Mexico with a new program, available to its customers in early 2019. The program will include risk management and asset utilization by leveraging driver behavior data, explained Octo Telematics, explaining that Qualitas commercial fleet customers will be able to track vehicles at all times, better serve customers with accurate and intelligent logistics, improve driver safety and prevent accidents.

As the largest auto insurer in Mexico, Qualitas was a natural fit for us as a partner, as we continue to lead the growth of UBI and telematics in the country, said Geoff Werner, Americas country manager at Octo Telematics, which has an office in Newton, Mass.

Octos years of gathering, managing and delivering data, understanding the insurer to insured relationship in different countries  and how to expand an insurers value proposition  means that we can quickly integrate and roll out a program for them that fits their needs. Were excited to see how it expands their value proposition to policyholders, added Werner.

Octo said its market share of active usage-based insurance (UBI) policies, combined with its ability to provide both data and actionable insights to the insurance industry, will enable Qualitas to continue its insurance leadership position.

The ability to allow our commercial auto customers to better care for their employees and fleets is an exciting proposition that fits with our mission to offer them more advantages  including guaranteed quality and efficiency, said Margarito Villas, director of Risk Prevention at Qualitas.

Octos renowned, global leadership in gathering and analyzing telematics data to improve insurer operations, profit and value proposition was very attractive to us, added Villas. With Octo, we will continue to improve customer loyalty, trust and retention. Octo was the obvious choice for our needs, and we are confident that our customers will swiftly adopt this program and see additional value in us as their insurer.

The insurtech industrys digital footprint is becoming wider and we consider ourselves a market leader in this innovative push, said Pilar Moreno, technical director, Qualitas. Working with market-leading partners such as Octo Telematics ensures that we have the best technology to support our customers as the Internet of Things, data and analytics continue to be game changers for our customers. We are confident in working with Octo, given their storied history in these areas.

Source: Octo Telematics



Topics Carriers Auto Commercial Lines Mexico
Travelers Europe announced it has been granted a license by the Central Bank of Ireland to form a wholly owned insurance subsidiary in the Republic of Ireland.

Based in Dublin, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Co. (Travelers Insurance DAC) will provide uninterrupted service to the companys customers and broking partners in Ireland and across Europe when the UK exits the European Union.

Travelers Europe has been present in the Irish general insurance market for more than 20 years and will utilize its existing branch resources for its subsidiary, which will be led by CEO James Liston. Travelers UK-based operations, comprising its general insurance business (Travelers Insurance Co. Ltd.) and its Lloyds syndicate, will continue to operate under existing UK licenses.

Where necessary, business will be transferred from Travelers Insurance Co. Ltd. to Travelers Insurance DAC in accordance with current requirements to assure a seamless transition for customers and brokers. Travelers Insurance DAC is expected to commence writing business at the end of March 2019.

During the Brexit negotiations, our priority has been to ensure that we are positioned to continue meeting the needs of our policyholders who have assets and business across Europe, said Matthew Wilson, CEO of Travelers Europe. The authorization of our subsidiary means it will be business as usual for our customers and brokers, and we will continue to deliver the expertise they have come to expect from Travelers.

Source: Travelers Europe

Topics Europe Uk Brexit
SCOR SE slumped the most in more than a decade in Paris trading [on Tuesday, Jan. 28] after rival Covea abandoned efforts to buy the French reinsurer, ending one of the countrys most acrimonious takeover attempts in recent years.

Covea said that a transaction with SCOR, in which it owns an 8.2 percent stake, is no longer among its strategic options after the company declined to enter talks about a friendly deal, according to an emailed statement Tuesday. Covea had previously reiterated its interest even after SCORs board spurned an 8.3 billion-euro ($9.5 billion) unsolicited offer last year.

An acquisition of SCOR would have helped Covea almost double its premium income and diversify its business beyond home, auto, life and health insurance coverage. Insurers and reinsurers have become popular acquisition targets for strategic as well as private equity buyers searching for higher returns. SCOR, whose shares were among the best performers among European insurers last year, slumped as much as 15 percent in Paris trading, the most since 2008.

SCOR learned with great surprise and astonishment that Covea issued its statement during market hours, the reinsurer said. The company, which closed 11 percent lower in Paris, said its suing Covea and some of its banks.

Covea cited continued attacks and hostile tactics which it had been subject to since its Aug. 24 offer  adding that these had intensified in recent days  and SCORs refusal to engage in talks for its decision to abandon the offer. SCOR denied it was using hostile tactics.

Yet shortly after Coveas announcement, SCOR said it is starting criminal action against the company and its chief executive, Thierry Derez, over the preparation and submission of last years offer. SCOR has started actions before the Paris criminal court against Derez for breach of trust, and against Covea for concealment of breach of trust. Derez was forced to resign from SCORs board in November following multiple reminders by the reinsurer of a conflict of interests situation.

Covea said in a statement after the market closed that it strongly denies all SCORs allegations.

SCOR is also taking civil action against Rothschild & Co. in France and against Barclays Plc before the High Court of Justice in London for serious breach of confidence and trade secrets. Spokesmen at Barclays and Rothschild declined to comment.

The insurance industry has been consolidating amid pressure on margins and as some private equity companies seek ways to tap the large pools of premiums that need to be invested.

AXA SA, the largest French insurer, last year agreed to purchase XL Group Ltd. for $15.3 billion, the biggest-ever European acquisition of a U.S. insurer. Apollo Global Management LLC has increased its stake in reinsurer Catalina Holdings Bermuda Ltd. amid a broader insurance push, and Carlyle Group LP has been expanding its team to do more deals in the sector.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics Carriers Reinsurance France
A Massachusetts judge says more details contained in a lawsuit that accuses the maker of OxyContin of deceiving patients and doctors about the risks of opioids must be made public.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders sided Monday with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and media outlets, which argued the full complaint against Purdue Pharma should be released.

Healeys lawsuit accuses Purdue Pharma of fueling the opioid crisis by hiding the dangers of the drug from doctors and patients.

Purdue Pharma argued that redacted portions of Healeys lawsuit should stay secret. The judge said only one paragraph containing medical information can remain redacted.

She said the new version must be made public by noon on Friday.

A Purdue spokesman said it plans to seek a stay of the judges ruling, pending appeal.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Massachusetts
If you could get a glimpse of my desk, you would think its a mess. At least my wife does.

It isnt really. Its more of marginally organized chaos. I really can find what I want on my desk anytime I want to. Honest. For real.

Anyway, if you saw my desk, most of what you would find are the books in my future reading list (and the stacks keep growing); the content that Im studying to teach (and those stacks dont shrink, either); and notes about stuff that Im working on.

All that to remind you that learning is a passion of mine and thats why last year, after being in the insurance world for almost 15 years, I started working on my CPCU. Why would I put myself through that? I mean, Im already in a dream job as an insurance educator. I get opportunities to speak to the Academy audience and to other insurance professionals. I can teach whatever I want and when theres a topic that I cant teach, I have friends that can do it for me.

So the question remains why on earth would I start the CPCU trek now? Its not about the letters that I can put after my name (I already have more letters after my name than in my name). Its not about getting the books (although they are great reference books to keep on my shelf). Its not even about the respect that comes with it (although, I have always looked up to folks that can complete the CPCU because its hard).

Enough of the why nots. Why on earth am I doing it?

I like continual learning.

You mean thats it? Yeah. Thats it. I just like learning. I like to keep stretching my mind. I like to study. Yes, I have a life, but Ive discovered that there are a pile of things that I can fill my time with and I decided a long time ago that part of that should include continued learning.

It all started in my Army days. In those days, the promotion process was fairly simple, not easy (big difference). When my chain of command (my boss and his boss) thought I was ready and worthy of promotion from Specialist to Sergeant (or from lower enlisted into the Non-Commissioned Officer ranks), they recommended me to stand before the promotion board.

A promotion board is like a high-stress interview. They critiqued everything from how I marched into the room to the details of how my uniform looked to how I handled the questions that they asked me. They asked different questions about military history, etiquette, heraldry, and a stack of other general military knowledge. Once I passed the board, I would be put on the list to go to Primary Leadership Development School.

As a side note, one of the elements of Army leadership training is how to train those in your care. Thats where my passion to teach started.

When I finished school, I waited until I had enough points on my promotion score card to be promoted. The easiest way to build up points fast was to be constantly learning. Every Army and Air Force correspondence course I took added points. In those years, I spent a lot of time studying these courses, learning new skills and learning more about my specific job.

Ever since those days, Ive always been involved in learning. When I got out of the Army, I went to college. When I got out of college, I was working two gigs and one of those was in insurance so I started learning all I could about insurance.

I dont know it all, and probably cant.

The more that I learn, the more I realize that I dont know as much as I thought I did; nor do I know as much as I want to know. Risks change. Policies change. Technology continues to create new and easier ways to evaluate and price risk. I keep studying. Theres more to study and more to learn today.

I like using designations to continue learning because they are created with a specific curriculum. Each curriculum has its own learning objectives and focus. That helps me to gain additional mastery of specific topics and it allows me to be systematically be exposed to new topics. The organized way these topics are presented speaks to me. Every objective builds upon the one before.

The CPCU curriculum is well rounded enough that it allows me to take small steps and small bites at a time so that I can learn most of it. Yeah, there are topics that I dont do well with and honestly, Im ok with that, too. I love to study coverage forms and I love to study the how and why of underwriting. Those are really interesting to me. I really dont like the financial part. I understand the basics of financial accounting and I can tell you some reasons why insurance companies use different accounting methods. That doesnt mean that Im an expert or that I want to know much more about it.

I want to be an example.

The way I figure it, Im not everyones favorite writer, teacher, etc. and thats ok. On the other hand, there are some people who are paying attention to my journey and maybe its helping them on theirs. Thats why I want to keep growing in my journey because as soon as I let up, it gives someone else permission to let up.

Whether youre the type thats competitive and you look at our designations as a game that you can win, or youre just taking the same cue that I am and you just like it, keep going. If its a race you want, lets get after it. Im at five designations, with a total of 16 letters. CPCU will give me six and 20. Oh yeah, you with more than me, I know youre reading and Im coming up on you. Those with less, I see you, too. See if you can keep up.

If its just the learning that you want, lets learn together. Im studying CPCU 530 right now so if you have suggestions or questions, let me know. Ill take your suggestions and questions will make me push to find an answer. If youre thinking about different designations to go after, let me know that, too. Ill tell you what Ive done and why.

Its all about the learning. In the end, we need experts in our field. We need people who can explain all the minutia of insurance policies because therell always be people who need us to help them with it. Am I an expert? Thats up to you to decide. Let me turn the question around on you.

Why arent you an expert?
The report, titled Bashe Attack: Global infection by contagious malware, presented a hypothetical scenario where the attack spreads through infected emails. Once the email is opened, it forwards the ransomware to all of the victims contacts. The attack is able to encrypt all data on around 30 million devices worldwide, forcing companies to either pay a ransom to retrieve their data, or replace the infected devices.

According to the study, a ransomware attack of this magnitude would cause substantial economic damage to multiple business sectors through reduced productivity and consumption, IT clean-up costs, ransom payments and supply chain disruption.

The retail and healthcare sectors would be the top two most affected, with losses of US$25 billion each, closely followed by the manufacturing sector (US$24 billion). Geographically, the US would be the hardest hit, with US$89 billion at risk. Meanwhile, Europe stands to lose US$76 billion, followed by Asias US$19 billion. The rest of the world is estimated to lose US$9 billion.

Despite the huge value at risk, the study highlighted the lack of preparedness of the global economy against such a threat  86% of the total economic costs are uninsured, resulting in an insurance gap of US$166 billion.

This report shows the increasing risk to businesses from cyberattacks as the global economy becomes more interconnected and reliant on technology, said Dr Trevor Maynard, head of innovation at Lloyds. Companies must ensure they are better prepared for ransomware attacks, and that includes working with insurers to reduce the risks before they are attacked and ensure they have the right insurance cover in place to respond after the event. The reality for business is its not if you get attacked but when.

Malware respects no boundaries, whether geographic, industrial or legal, said Elizabeth Geary, global head of cyber at TransRe. As companies increase their reliance on technology, it is essential they increase their defences against challenges such as malware, and effective cyber insurance is a critical component of that defence. Similarly, the insurance industry must also acknowledge and appreciate the potential for systemic risk, in addition to monitoring loss frequency and severity. This report seeks to quantify that systemic economic and insured impact. It represents an important step forward in our understanding, and provides a benchmark for business interruption and its associated costs.
Elsewhere, legislative support has not been so easily granted. The United States had to pass a bill which barred individual states from blocking driverless car testing after some imposed strict regulations citing concerns over public safety. Canada also lags behind the UK, but change is slowly happening. In December 2018, Canadian transport minister, Marc Garneau, introduced Testing Highly Automated Vehicles in Canada: Guidelines for Trial Organizations, a joint collaboration between Transport Canada and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA), which would support more testing and development of autonomous vehicle technology.

Controls over autonomous vehicle testing are very important, said David Williams, technical director at AXA Insurance. You cant rush these things through. Youve got to do the simulation miles and the real road miles  and youve got to do them in the appropriate environments and with appropriately trained people. At AXA, we believe autonomous vehicle technology will be an essential part of making our roads safer. The last thing anyone wants is for people to rush this technology through and then have some serious accidents that destroy peoples confidence.

It could be argued that public confidence is precisely the thing lacking around autonomous vehicle technology at the moment. Thats largely due to the smorgasbord of unanswered questions around issues like safety (what criteria will be used to define safety in the autonomous era?), liability (when something inevitably goes wrong, whos at fault?), accessibility (who can safely use a driverless car?), and so on.

Tom Karol, general counsel  federal, at the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) in the US, commented: Safety is a key area of the autonomous vehicle debate. Its the primary, if not the sole reason, for driverless vehicles to exist. But one of the things we have to get our heads around is how to determine this safety. There are numerous questions that need answering. How much safer [than human drivers] do we want autonomous vehicles to be? Is 1% safer enough, or do we need 10%, or 100%? Yes, a driverless car wont fall asleep, but can it identify a bicycle? Can it determine a stop sign in the snow? Can it identify a paper bag versus a child running across the street?

One issue raised by Karol - and debated regularly by experts  is the ability of autonomous vehicles to cope with difficult weather conditions like snow and fog. Snowy conditions have been described as particularly problematic because they can cause problems for the cameras and sensors that autonomous vehicles use to perceive the world around them.

A human being might say: I found it really difficult driving home last night because there was lots of snow and I couldnt see the road edge. Thats a human worry when it comes to driving in hard conditions. But when it comes to autonomous vehicles, as long as they have the right variety of sensors and cameras, then they can cope with any weather conditions a human being can, more safely, Williams told Insurance Business. Sensor technology like Radar and Lidar can penetrate objects and can identify things with much greater clarity and at a much greater distance than the human eye. Its about having an appropriate blend of technology to make these vehicles as safe as they can be.

As autonomous vehicle technology continues to advance, and testing becomes more thorough, the insurance industry is really starting to engage. Not everyone can be an expert, but they do need to educate themselves about the risks, according to Williams. Brokers, for example, need to keep up to date with the latest technological advances and the latest legal and regulatory decisions so that they can keep their clients informed as interest in autonomous vehicle technology continues to accelerate.

Mike Hudzik, head of casualty underwriting, Swiss Re, commented: Were very bullish in our preparations for autonomous vehicle technology at Swiss Re. We think autonomy will bring a strong set of positives and will help to reduce loss frequency in terms of collision claims, distracted driving and so on. Moving forwards, the real challenge is going to be making the transition towards autonomy. The expectations are that the automotive industry can introduce autonomous technology slowly and it can gradually gain momentum. However, even if the transportation industry embraces autonomous technology, that doesnt necessarily mean the world around the industry will embrace it with the same speed or the same degree of momentum.

When do we think autonomous vehicle technology will make a huge difference to insurance? Probably not in the near-term. Its going to take some time before we see the benefits become clear in the industry. What we can say with certainty is that once we have fully autonomous vehicles, motor risks are likely to decrease tremendously, and product liability will become more important than ever. Its going to be exciting to experience how this technology changes the industry.
Most of the industry takes a cross-sell approach to verticals, said Russ Johnson, CEO of QBE North America. We have gone down a unique path, putting multiple product underwriting under a single team and single business so that we can take a holistic approach to the customer.

The model allows businesses to work with one team in order to save time and resources and simplify the process of securing insurance coverage, QBE said. When claims arise, customers will have access to a dedicated point of contact.

With QBE, financial institutions can gain confidence that they are protected with an end-to-end solution that no other carrier can match, Meade said. Our management liability, professional liability, general liability, property, workers compensation, umbrella and auto solutions cover the evolving risks of a financial institution, so our customers can focus on their businesses. Everything is backed by our claims promise to provide the expertise, service, technical knowledge and guidance our customers need to resolve their claim and continue working towards their goals.

QBE Integrated Advantage for Financial Institutions is distributed through QBEs preferred network of agents and brokers.
As a branch executive, Kate will help brokers in her territory understand the full range of Liberty and Ironshore primary, excess and specialty insurance products and how they can better meet the needs of companies with complex risks, said David Russo, senior vice president, regional executive  Mid-Atlantic at Liberty Mutual. She brings more than 30 years of account management and underwriting experience, significantly contributing to both brokers and insurers.

Before joining Liberty Mutual, Horn was vice president at Keating, Inc. where she specialized in larger, complex placements for brokers across the Northeast.

Liberty Mutual is the fifth largest global P&C insurer based on 2017 gross written premium, with over 50,000 employees in 30 countries and economies around the world.
In the letters, Ye demanded that the recipients send him one Bitcoin each, which was worth between SG$6,500 and SG$9,900 at the time.

Ye, a former agent for Prudential Plc Singapore, targeted clients that did not show up for scheduled meetings, cancelled their insurance policies with him, or rejected his sales pitches outright.

In July 2017, Ye used his wifes laptop to create an email address through a Switzerland-based service that did not require personal information. He then created a Bitcoin wallet under the name Lord Voldemort and began sending out the threatening letters and emails.

For the past few months, I have been monitoring you and your wife and I know everything about you and your family. I know where you live, where you work, one of the emails read.

I can make your life total humiliated and miserable [sic] in your Myanmar community. I can make you become jobless. I can even physically harm you and your wife and your parents if I want to.

The Singapore Police Force and Nee Soon MP Lee Bee Wah issued advisories warning recipients not to respond to the letters and emails from Lord Voldemort.

None of the victims transferred funds into Yes account, and instead filed police reports, according to Deputy Public Prosecutor Thiagesh Sukumaran.

Ye was later arrested after a police investigation after his identity was traced through multiple accounts from victims and DNA evidence. He pleaded guilty to five charges of criminal intimidation and eight charges of violating the Protection from Harassment Act, plus another 30 charges taken into consideration during sentencing.
Arthur J. Gallagher has expanded its footprint in the southern US with its acquisition of Louisiana-based brokerage firm The Chapman Group, Inc.

Based in Baton Rouge, The Chapman Group is an employee benefit consultancy and retail property/casualty broker offering coverage and services to clients throughout the state of Louisiana. According to the firm, its approach to business is to build long-term client relationships based on trust, transparency and delivering customer value.
First Chicago Insurance Company (FCIC) has announced the launch of its personal auto insurance programs in the Kansas market, with endorsements available that provide coverage for vehicles on ride-sharing platforms.

According to Dave Alessi, regional sales and marketing director at FCIC, the insurer has developed several endorsements that can be added to the insureds personal auto policy that allows them to customize additional coverage  including endorsements geared towards vehicles on ride-sharing platforms such as Uber and Lyft. FCIC also offers a business-use endorsement that provides additional coverage for workers who use their vehicle to visit multiple work sites.
Organised by the AIGs Women & Allies employee resource group, the event saw the top sportswomen weigh in on a variety of topics, including the challenge of creating a strong team culture, the importance of effective communication, and the resilience required to overcome career barriers.

That culture aspect is so important because youre never going to be at your best if youre not comfortable in your environment or theres tension within the team, said Olympic athlete and former player of the year, Ruby Tui.

Therell be times when, as a team, we arent all going to agree  but its about having a culture where we all respect each other and understand where everyone else is coming from, without judgement, she continued.

Tui also told attendees that effective communication is of the utmost importance but admitted its been a long road to building the skills she has today.

You have to get to that point where youre willing to talk to someone else if you have a problem but youre also able to listen to what others have to say too, she told attendees gathered at Parramattas Gatehouse Tea Rooms.

Its taken me years to be able to communicate the way I do now and its still a constant learning process because you need to understand how other people prefer to communicate and be communicated with.

AIGs Women & Allies network is just one of the insurers many employee resource groups, which are designed to build inclusive leaders and support employee engagement by leveraging education and cross-cultural experiences.

In addition to Women & Allies, the insurer also operates a variety of other employee resource groups, including Disabilities & Allies, Veterans Leadership Network, Working Families, Black Professionals, and Young Professionals.
In addition to the criminal proceedings, SCOR is also initiating civil actions before the Commercial Court of Paris. Derez is being accused of serious breach of his legal and fiduciary duties and obligations as a SCOR director in his personal capacity  a post he resigned from in November 2018  as well as breaching the companys trade secrets.

Meanwhile the civil action against Covea alleges direct participation in, and benefit from, Derezs breaches.

These proceedings are intended to sanction and remedy the alleged criminal and civil misconduct having resulted from, inter alia, the unlawful misappropriation, disclosure, communication, and use of SCORs sensitive and strictly confidential documents and information which Thierry Derez had access to as a director of SCOR in his personal capacity, stated the accusing party.

The SCOR group considers in particular that this unacceptable misconduct was committed with the aim of wrongfully favouring the preparation and submission by Covea of its unsolicited proposed combination with SCOR. This serious misconduct has compelled SCOR to bring actions before the relevant courts.

Following SCORs announcement, Covea issued a statement asserting that it strongly denies all of the allegations outlined. It also said that the firm will be holding a board meeting today, January 30.

Covea added that it reserves all rights to protect its interests in view of these serious and unfounded accusations which are harmful to its reputation.

Deal off the table

Earlier on January 29, prior to the unveiling of the legal actions, it was revealed that the highly contended takeover deal is now off the table completely.

Covea takes note of SCORs refusal to enter into any discussions in relation to Coveas proposed friendly transaction offer addressed on August 24, 2018, said the insurance group in a previous release.

The continued attacks and hostile tactics targeting Covea since then have intensified in the last few days. As a consequence, Covea states that a transaction with SCOR is no longer part of its strategic options.

In response, SCOR cited great surprise and astonishment over the declaration, which took place during trading hours. The move, particularly its timing, prompted the company to bring the matter to the attention of stock market regulator Autorite des Marches Financiers.

The reinsurers shares closed 11% lower in Paris on Tuesday.

SCOR had not previously been informed of Coveas change of position, it stated. SCOR strongly denies the claim by Covea that there were continued attacks and hostile tactics targeting Covea.

In particular, SCOR has made no public statement on Covea and its intentions since November 13, 2018.

Meanwhile also embroiled in the tussle are financial advisors Barclays and Rothschild, who will be facing civil actions for serious breach of confidence and trade secrets. The case against the latter will be in France while that against Barclays will be before the High Court of Justice of London.
With access to data from insureds and carriers increasing, and tools to analyse data becoming ever more popular, Jones predicts that the broker of the future will also be more in tune with that information.

Theyve amassed all of this data over the years  its disorganised, its erroneous, etcetera, but they are sorting through that and getting into the position where they can take advantage of all the data. I think the brokers of the future will be very data-aware, said Jones.

Read more: Collaboration key to leveraging AI and machine learning in financial advice

Finally, the insurance supply chain itself will undergo a shift.

Theres a lot of excess expense in the chain  we all know that  and the broker of the future will figure out how to take non-value added time and effort out of the transaction, Jones explained. It will, I think, be an evolution, not a revolution. Im not one that sees the brokers or underwriters disappearing in a year or two [and] in Beazleys planning horizon, which is more like five years, we see brokers as essential, but operating in a different way.

To remain an essential part of the insurance industry and continue to see profits, brokers have to have their eyes focused on growth, according to Jones.

The main thing brokers need to do is keep growing, and I think theyve figured out that theres only a hundred Fortune 100s, and risk managers are brutal on squeezing the fees down, so I dont think they see a lot of profit growth in the high-end, he said. Brokers are really focused now on the middle market and its interesting because the middle market relationships still matter a lot, so you need the personal touch, but on the other hand to grow profits there, they need to get more efficient, and in every part of the cycle, from identifying prospects all the way through to renewing policies.

In its own relationships with brokers, quality over quantity is the motto that appears to be driving Beazley in recent years. Since Jones came into his role in 2010, the specialty insurer has deepened its relationships with key producers by significantly trimming their numbers.

The first thing we did was we cut down the number of producers we were trying to work with, he told Insurance Business. At the time, Beazley was still a relatively new operation in the US and in 2010, the company had more than 1,000 broker appointments, which was cut by 600 down to 400 relationships. The next step that we took is to really focus our strategy and our efforts to make progress with about a half dozen retail brokers and a half dozen wholesale brokers in the US and focus down on about nine cities with those 10 brokers.

This strategy, which was also applied in London, proved to be effective because Beazley was able to dedicate more time to helping key broker partners. In turn, those brokers discovered that if they also narrowed down the number of people they dealt with in the placement process, efficiency was improved and they could reap more rewards at the top end for allowing their partners to be part of a smaller club, said Jones. Beazley is now dedicating time and money to ensure that its systems are compatible with brokers.

We thought for a while that if we built systems that would improve efficiencies, brokers would be happy to link into us. I think now weve come to realise that were going to have to link into the broker systems, so we have to develop application interfaces on our end that match their system requirements because their brokers are not going to log on to six different screens to get into six different carrier systems.

While Beazley has focused its broker network, the specialty insurer still has room to grow its future relationships going forward, one broker at a time.

Just like were adding a city or two every year to the Beazley geographic network, were adding a broker or two every year to my teams penetration zone. Were not going to move back up to a thousand, but were definitely increasing our involvement with brokers as were getting larger, said Jones.
Local Twin Cities artists Enzyrose, Eyenga Bokamba, Noah Lawrence-Holder, LeShon Lee, and Meadow Gillispie, talk about their reaction to the murder of George Floyd, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and life as a black artist during this time.
Woodbridge, VA (22192)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
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Insurance fraud seems like it might be an easy thing to do. Insurance companies are often so huge, one wonders how they might not even notic...
'Mahatma Gandhi and World Peace', is a new exhibition of 75 artworks on display at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi. Shown here is the work of painter Arun Suryawanshi. (IANS photo)
Salim Patel (right), seen here with U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was sworn in Jan. 17 by the states Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. The Indian American was elected as a councilman for the Passaic, N.J., council in November. (Patel/Facebook photo)
Amit Kumar of Baltimore, Maryland, is suspected of fatally stabbing his wife, Ankita Verma. Kumar turned himself in to Syracuse, New York, police two days after Verma was found dead. (Baltimore, Maryland Police Department photo)
Actor Vivek Oberoi in and as PM Narendra Modi. The makers have announced the final cast of the biopic that will also star veteran actors Boman Irani and Zarina Wahab. (photo provided)
Actors Anil Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Juhi Chawla and Rajkummar Rao along with producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Shelly Chopra Dhar at the trailer launch of the film "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga" last month. The film is set for a Feb. 1 release. (IANS photo)
We've seen some of the worst things happen on United Airlines flights - from the time when a passenger smeared his faeces all over at least two bathrooms in the plane, to when a doctor was dragged off one of their flights due to overbooking.

The latest in the string of mishaps that have affected United Airlines is a passenger who went on a fat-shaming tirade against her co-passengers.

ALSO READ: Passengers Panic After United Airlines Engine Fails Over Pacific, Forcing Emergency Landing

The unnamed woman was aboard the United Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Newark, N.J. when she was caught on video complaining about her seating, saying she was sitting between 'two pigs'.

The footage was filmed by Norma Rodgers - a victim of the woman's foul insults.

The two passengers, Norma Rodgers and Mckinley 'Mac' Frink were both sitting patiently until the flight attendant gave people an option to switch their seats.

That's when Rodgers lost it and told the flight attendant that she was not going to tolerate the woman's verbal abuse.

Just as she was made to get up from the seat, other passengers tagged along and told her off for her insensitivity. One passenger can be heard saying, "You should be ashamed of yourself, madam. What youre doing is so terrible. You should be ashamed of yourself."

But she keeps trying to justify that she was claustrophobic and was being squished by her co-passengers.

"I am not starting my new year off with this kind of negativity," Rodgers posted the video to Facebook with the caption: "My old days would have been to beat the b***h's ass."

The rude woman was subsequently taken off the flight. Rodgers' video went viral on Facebook and now has more than 1 million likes since she uploaded it.

ALSO READ: Another Nightmare For United Airlines, Passenger Gets Stung By A Scorpion On Flight
Earlier in January, a Mumbai businessman was robbed of Rs 1.86 crore when he got six missed calls which happened because of sim swap fraud. There have been a lot of OTP frauds too, and now, hackers have graduated to executing biometric fraud.

Remember when you were getting your Aadhaar card made, you submitted a bunch of biometrics - Retina scans and fingerprints? Well, that's exactly what they are using.

A 40-year-old man, Vikram, was shocked when he received a message on his phone. The message read that his fingerprint has been used to withdraw Rs 1000 from a Micro-ATM in Delhi. (FYI- Micro ATMs use Aadhar card/debit cards and instead of a pin they use fingerprints.)

Shutterstock/Kaspersky

A week later he got another message saying that Rs 7500 was withdrawn from Bihar and both the transactions involved his personal details. After this, Vikram complained to the officials and got his biometrics locked.

Vikrams profession is to generate Aadhaar cards for people. According to Times Of India, hackers use their personal ID and password to log into UIDAI software and create fake cards.

The investigation for his case is still on but it is clear that anything and everything can be hacked. Not to mention that our Aadhaar data is in very very dangerous and flimsy hands.
If someone ever needs a guide on how not to pull off a robbery, here are five of the best examples we can offer.

No, seriously. These people seem to lack the most basic logic and yet attempt a heist with full confidence. Well, we could give a point for their confidence, but everything else is just a huge facepalm.

Case No.1:

These two genius burglars from Texas were caught leaving a home almost empty-handed after a flat screen television, which they had stolen, didnt fit in their car.

    -     , , .  17  2019 / Burglars Return Flat Screen TV, Too Big https://t.co/9cYl8YdK1e @coub    (@lpostmsk) 27 January 2019

After multiple failed attempts, they carried the television back inside the property and ran away.

Case No. 2

In a hilarious attempt to rob an office a burglar chose to disguise himself as Captain Underpants! This guy wore blue underwear as a mask over his head to hide his identity.

The Leander Police Department from Texas US, posted a short CCTV clip on Facebook that shows a burglar entering a building through a window, wearing blue boxers on his face.

Case No. 3

This man covered his face with a TRANSPARENT plastic bag while attempting a robbery.

This thief from Kanyakumari was convinced that it was a darn good idea, and he confidently went ahead with it. According to a report in Puthiya Thalaimurai TV channel, the robbery took place in Kanyakumari's Colachel area.

Case No. 4

A gang of five thieves was caught dancing after robbing a flat, and there's legit CCTV footage to prove that. The video of the burglars dancing in front of the camera as if they were mocking the cops went viral.

And they were busted!

Case No. 5

One of the most common forms of theft in the US is the robbery of delivered packages that lay unattended. The unidentified man is seen storming towards what looks like a huge TV. He then grabs and makes a dash towards his car. But the weight of the package gets the better of him.

Not only did the ineffectual thief fall while carrying the TV, he also struggled to put it in the trunk of his getaway car.
People look forward to weekends to unwind and relax. But for Marites Fortaliza, it turned into a nightmare when she got stuck in her employer's lift for an ENTIRE weekend,

Marites Fortaliza, 53, who works as a housekeeper for Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens got stuck in the lift on Friday evening. The couple was away for the weekend and Marites remained trapped in the elevator until Monday, The Associated Press reported.

Pretty sure I would be a basket case. @FDNY reporting woman stuck in brownstone elevator since Friday. Rescued this morning. No one knew she was there all weekend!!! pic.twitter.com/S5WpSytYf5  Lauren Glassberg (@LaurenGlassberg) 28 January 2019

Now you would assume that anyone who had gone through such trauma would likely sue their boss (even though it wasn't really his fault). But Marites doesn't plan on doing any such thing.

This report quoted the woman as saying She says she has no intention to sue her boss. She says they treat her very good. She says shes still with her sister and will be back in a week.

Fortalizawho has been working as a long-time housekeeper of investment banker Warren Stephens and his wife Harriet, on East 65th Street in Manhattan where she was trappedwas taken to the hospital Monday morning as she was dehydrated.

Fire Department spokesperson James Long said she seemed to be in a good condition when rescued, The New York Times reported.

ALSO READ: Building An Elevator From Earth To Space May Finally Happen, Thanks To This New Wonder Material

On Monday, the firefighters had arrived at the townhouse to merely fix the elevator after they received a call from a member of the Stephens family and a delivery person, who said that it was stuck between the second and third floors. They were surprised to find Marites trapped inside.

Heres the home on E 65th St (left) where a woman was rescued, after telling #FDNY shed been trapped in an elevator all weekend. This is a one-family home worth an estimated $20mil. Woman said to be in good condition. @wcbs880 pic.twitter.com/ZhQjGAGzYE  Peter Haskell (@peterhaskell880) 28 January 2019

Glad The Lady Is Ok.. Sad To Know No Elevator Phone & No Cellphone To Call For Help..!  Arod5005 (@Arod50051) 29 January 2019

Pretty sure I would be a basket case. @FDNY reporting woman stuck in brownstone elevator since Friday. Rescued this morning. No one knew she was there all weekend!!! pic.twitter.com/S5WpSytYf5  Lauren Glassberg (@LaurenGlassberg) 28 January 2019

ALSO READ: Mumbai Woman Who Stripped In The Elevator Now Explains Why She Did It
Global warming is real, and its effects are manifesting in the most bizarre possible way -- as a bone-chilling cold wave gripping most of North America, thanks to an arctic polar vortex.

In fact, across Chicago and some parts of US have been hit so hard by the polar vortex, temperatures there have plummeted lower than Antarctica at -40 degree celsius.

reuters

ALSO READ: Global Warming Is Putting Ships And Fishermen In More Danger, As Seas & Oceans Get More Wild

According to reports, federal and state officials are asking all residents from the affected northern states to stay indoors and stay warm, as the worst cold weather in a few decades hits US making life itself pretty dangerous.

Health advisory has been issued out warning people of the dangers of hypothermia and frostbite from the record chill, which meteorologists expect to last for another two months, according to the Independent.

Reuters

ALSO READ: We Need To Make Unprecedented Changes If We Want To Survive Global Warming

The city of Chicago at -40 degree celsius is actually colder than Antarctica (where summer time temperature is hovering at -27 degree celsius), North Pole and Alaska. This is unprecedented in US history.

Schools and US postal service remain closed across the states affected by the severe cold weather in the US, and over 2,000 flights remain grounded due to dangerous weather as well.

Reuters

According to Reuters, the record cold weather sweeping across the US right now is due to the polar vortex. It is a stream of cold air that spins around the stratosphere over the North Pole, but whose current has been disrupted and is now pushing south into the United States.

And experts are blaming the polar vortex disturbances down to global warming, and weather patterns changing due to human activity.

The record chill gripping US right now prompted President Trump to tweet, asking global warming to make a return for 'beautiful Midwest' in the country.
Social media giants Facebook are leaving no stone unturned to let fake news affect the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. In early 2018, Facebook was involved in a massive political data scandal with British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica. To prevent a repeat of such aberrations, Facebook has decided to monitor threats to the upcoming Indian general election from an operation in Singapore, a report in Quartz stated.

On January 28, Facebook, in a blog post, discussed measures that the company is taking to tackle fake news and ensure the integrity of elections across the world.

The post states that Facebook is planning to set up two new regional operations centres, focused on election integrity, located in our Dublin and Singapore offices.

Reuters

The Quartz report said that Facebooks Singapore office will be a hub for the team managing intimidations to the Lok Sabha 2019 elections.

Facebooks blog post says having regional centres that focus on election integrity will allow our global teams to better work across regions in the run-up to elections, and will further strengthen our coordination and response time between staff in Menlo Park and in-country.

Also Read: Ahead Of 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, Facebook & Google Unite To Scrutinise Political Advertisements

The centres in Singapore and Dublin, the post specifies, will work cross-functionally with our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, community operations, legal and other teams.

Not just Facebook, but search giants Google, too, has vowed to fight fake news in India as the elections approach.

AFP

Facebook will maintain total transparency in political advertising and has beef up third-party fact-checking.

On December 6, 2018, Facebook said that anyone who wants to run political ads in India will must disclose their name and location.

By authorising advertisers and bringing more transparency to ads, we can better defend against foreign interference in Indias elections, Sarah Clark Schiff, product manager at Facebook, said in a post announcing the move.
A lot of people have been speculating if Tiger Shroff the next Hrithik Roshan. From Ek Pal Ka Jeena to Main Aisa Kyu Hoon and Dhoom, every time Hrithik Roshan shakes a leg in a film, the dance moves become rage and fans cant stop gushing over this dancing skills.

Tiger Shroff, who is also known for leaving fans floored with his sleek dance moves is a big fan of Hrithik Roshan. He has got some killer dance moves and theres no denying that fact.

Tiger Shroff recently paid a tribute to Hrithik Roshan on his birthday. He was so good that even Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow left a comment on it praising the star. So good, wrote the Avengers and Oscar-winning actress.

Blessed to be working with my inspiration  thank you for being born and giving direction and inspiration to so many of us! #HappyBirthdayHrithikRoshan  @iHrithik pic.twitter.com/QrCYsrhCJN  Tiger Shroff (@iTIGERSHROFF) January 10, 2019

Just imagine how it would be to see Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff dancing together in a movie? Well, that is going to be a reality soon. Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff are collaborating for a yet-to-be-titled Yash Raj banner movie, and he is on cloud nine.

It was like a dream come true moment for me. After every shot, when I see him on the monitor, I feel like I am dreaming because it has been my childhood fantasy working with him. When we do a high speed shot or an action scene then it feels amazing, he said.

Twitter

Ask him what is that he learned from Hrithik Roshan while working with him, and he says, I have learnt many things from him. If I have to say one thing then, it would be working on minute details of everything. Hrithik sir thinks a lot before giving every shot from every aspect so, understanding his mind-set and his thought process in a scene or in an action sequence has been a great learning for me.

We want to see a dance face-off between Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff!
By Acee Agoyo

The first Native women in Congress continue to make strides as Democrats chart a new course in the U.S. House of Representatives

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) was selected as vice chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources at the panel's first organizational meeting on Tuesday. She is the first Native person to hold the leadership role and it's one with significant ramifications for Indian Country.

The committee exercises jurisdiction over Indian issues so Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna , will have a major say in which bills and topics come up for consideration as the 116th Congress kicks into gear.

Our deep respect for our land, air, and water are at the heart of why my seat on the House Natural Resources Committee is so important to New Mexico," Haaland said on Tuesday, linking her background to her new position.

But that wasn't the only big news for Haaland. In a rare feat for a new member of Congress, she was named as chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, another area of interest to tribes and residents of her state.

I am honored as a freshman to be elected to these leadership roles," said Haaland.

ICYMI: Ill be working #ForThePeople in my new leadership positions on the House Natural Resources Committee #nmpol https://t.co/ycgSvFKwRo  Congresswoman Deb Haaland (@RepDebHaaland) January 30, 2019

And in a further sign of change, Democrats announced the creation of a Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. The new panel, which is being chaired by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), will oversee issues affecting American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.

The development marks a major shift from Republican rule, when Indian issues were grouped with those of U.S. territories that don't enjoy the same government-to-government relationship and trust and treaty obligations . Democrats had opposed that structure, which was put in place in 2015, and now that they are in power, they have restored Indian and Indigenous issues to their own place within the overall committee.

We must work together to improve access to health care, justice, education and sustainable economic growth, to safeguard tribal water rights, and to protect sacred cultural and historical lands," Gallego said on Tuesday. "I am committed to continuing our work with Indian Country and with American Indian and Alaska Native peoples throughout the country to achieve these goals while advancing economic self-sufficiency, environmental justice, and tribal sovereignty.

The changes come as Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) takes control of the committee. He's the new chair, following three years of serving as the ranking member when Republicans were in charge, and he's promising to take the panel in a different direction.

Protecting our environment, taking climate change seriously, and putting the public interest first are not optional on this Committee, and thats what Democrats are going to do every day for the next two years, Grijalva said.

I'm ready to investigate what was behind the Trump Administration's decision to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and whose interests were prioritized. https://t.co/RE2ET1DZ5q  Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) January 29, 2019

Stronger oversight of the executive branch is high on Grijalva's agenda. Among other issues, he plans to investigate why the Trump administration reduced the boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah over the objections of Indian Country.

Grijalva also has re-introduced the H.R.665 , the Save Oak Flat Act, in order to prevent the federal government from approving a huge copper mine on sacred Apache territory in Arizona. Republicans had refused to schedule a hearing for the bill when they were in charge of the committee.

"We urge Congress to pass this legislation to save the Oak Flat area in the Tonto National Forest from destruction by foreign mining companies," Chairman Terry Rambler of the San Carlos Apache Tribe said.

"The Oak Flat area, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property, is sacred to not only the San Carlos Apache Tribe but also other tribes in the region whose significance has been documented in ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies," Rambler said. "Our cultures and traditional ways of life were put in jeopardy when this special area was transferred to these mining companies in a secret back room deal without regular order or any transparency."

Republicans also alarmed tribal leaders and advocates for the way they ran the committee. Hearings on tribal homelands federal recognition and sacred lands were often tilted against Indian interests, and may blame that on the former chairman, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who now serves as the ranking member.

"Bishop worked in Congress to undermine tribal lands and resources," the Ute Tribe said in a statement. "Bishops most recent attacks on the Ute Indian Tribes reservation include attempts to legislatively overrule the federal courts."

"Having lost in the courts, Bishop and the state of Utah introduced bills to take the tribes lands and waters," the statement continued. "In fact, Bishop repeatedly introduced and supported legislation that would result in the first Indian land grab in more than 100 years!

The committee held a second organizational meeting on Wednesday as the 116th Congress moves forward. A date for the committee's first hearing hasn't been announced.

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Troublemaking: A Mohawk Tradition and the Heroes of Alcatraz

By Doug George-Kanentiio

One of the more admirable traits of the Mohawk people is the ability to shake things up, to disturb the complacent, to agitate, confront and demand.

It was no mere chance that Skennenrahowi, the Peacemaker, decided to enter Mohawk territory first as they had the most formidable reputation, one based on cruelty, vengeance and plain meanness. His reasoning was that if he could shift the Mohawks away from being artists of war to proponents of peace he could effect similar changes in any people, at any time.

Skennenrahowi succeeded but not before he proved to a doubtful people that he was, in truth, a messenger from the Creator. But he did not extinguish Mohawk characteristics such as their innate intelligence, their physical toughness, their willingness to speak out when moved by an issue or to take leadership in the face of adversity. The Mohawks then, and for most of our history, refused to be passive even in times of danger.

In the past century we have many examples of Mohawks who refused to bend to the forces of oppression. These people were not complacent with the ways things were but risked liberty, home security and their personal safety to take a stand in defense of what they believed to be right.

In the first decades of the 20th century Akwesasne in particular was mired in factionalism. The border was set, the elected councils in place and the traditional customs called the "longhouse" virtually invisible. The Nation council leaders had been jailed and one of their supporters killed by the RCMP for resisting the imposition of the Indian Act system. Despite repeated attempts to get rid of the St. Regis tribal council New York actively intervened and kept the "trustees" in place.

Yet the idea, the dream, of a united Mohawk people at Akwesasne would not fade. A new era of activism began after World War I when Iroquois leaders from New York to Wisconsin sought o assert the right to self determination. From the Oneidas of Wisconsin came Laura Cornelius Kellogg, one of the founders of the Society of American Indians, a group of Natives from across the United States who shared their common experiences and adopted a pro-unity strategy.

Ms. Cornelius-Kellogg wanted the revival of the Iroquois Confederacy as a recognized entity in the world and the return of lands stolen by New York State. She was the first person to travel to Europe using an Iroquois passport and she came to Akwesasne to help the Mohawks regain control over the territory under the jurisdiction of the Mohawk Nation Council.

"Indian Land": Graffiti on a water tower at Alcatraz. Photo: Estrnc

Grand councils were held at Akwesasne where Ms. Cornelius Kellogg spoke with passion. She helped win the Paul Diabo case in the US Supreme Court which recognized the aboriginal right to cross the border and thereby saved the economic lives of thousands of Mohawks. She was a real troublemaker as seen by the US and tribal council supporters. She gave inspiration to the people to reject the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which in turn led the clanmothers of the Nation to block the entrance of the old tribal building on St. Regis Road and order the tribal council to disband. Those brave ladies were certainly troublemakers.

As were the families who built the longhouse on Route 37 at great personal risk. At that time a family could have lost their jobs, been evicted from their homes and stripped of their enrollment status if they were seen to have taken part in the ancient rituals. But a group of young people refused to concede to the accusation that they were "dancing with the devil" and renewed the ceremonies.

Among these brave ones, these troublemakers, were Alec Gray, Joe Mitchell, Ross and Madeline David, Mike Boots and Ray Fadden. It was Mr. Fadden who added to this fire when he took Mohawk history into the schools and made those stories into a source of pride. He raised a generation of young Mohawks to extract the wisdom and teachings of their grandparents and restore dignity to a people.

Among his compatriots was Ernest Benedict, one of the first Mohawk college graduates, the editor of the first Mohawk newspaper and a man who was jailed because he defied the US and said it had no right to draft Mohawks into World War II. Ernie did serve with distinction but he never compromised on his ideals.

Another contemporary was Phillip Cook. Although he remained a Christian throughout his life he was an advocate for the restoration of the traditional government. He was elected as one of the three trustees for the Tribal Council but knew the people wanted that "elected" system out. So after receiving almost universal support he, and the other trustees, disbanded the Tribe in 1948 only to have New York State hold an off territory election and using the threat of the New York State Police return the tribe to power.

In the 1950's we had the leadership of Frank Thomas-Standing Arrow. He had been taught by his elders that the Mohawk people had never sold their ancestral lands despite the fraudulent Seven Nations of Canada and Joseph Brant "treaties". Rather than wait for litigation he acted and in 1957 moved his family and other Mohawks to the Schoharie Creek at its confluence with the Mohawk River west of Amsterdam. He held on for two years until New York once again sent in the troopers to burn their longhouse and dismantle the community.

Intelligent Channel on YouTube: Richard Oakes at Alcatraz

But Standing Arrow was right, direct assertion of Mohawk sovereignty was a possibility. His troublemaking inspired young Mohawks such as Tom Porter to become advocates for traditional knowledge and a group of Kahnawakeronons to act on that knowledge in May of 1974 when they moved to secure a camp at Eagle Bay, New York, and give birth to Ganienkeh. What Standing Arrow did was to show the viability of the longhouse in political matters. A Nation Council could govern and was seen as leading the move towards unifying Akwesasne.

Among the people affected by Standing Arrow was Mike Kanentakeron Mitchell. He made serious trouble when he and his friends blocked traffic on Kawehnoke to protest the imposition of import duties on goods taken from the "US" to Mohawk homes north of the border. What Mr.Mitchell did on December 1968 ignited a national movement to assert aboriginal rights across Canada.

From that incident, which received worldwide attention, came the publication Akwesasne Notes, the most influential Native news journal in history, And the White Roots of Peace, the travel troupe which was the most effective advocate for Native sovereignty. Both were sanctioned by the Mohawk Nation Council and made Akwesasne the beacon for the the rights of indigenous people worldwide. Now that was epic troublemaking.

Then came the takeover at Alcatraz in November, 1969. The Native peoples of the US were ready for the spark which would ignite the movement and it came from Richard Oakes , the son of Irene Foote (my grandmother's niece) and Arthur Oakes, both Akwesasnoronons. Richard was schooled in Mohawk nationalism by the White Roots when the troupe visited San Francisco in early 1968. He promoted the ideas of Standing Arrow, Ray Fadden and Ernie Benedict-his edicts read at Alcatraz were absolutely pro-Native sovereignty and when he swam to that island on November 9, in 50 degree water through 250 yards of lethal currents he initiated what we all have benefited from: the principles of Native self determination and the use of direct action to assert those rights.

Oakes did not wait for the courts, he did not engage in useless, confidential negotiations with government officials, he would not be coerced by those who wanted to take a more "reasonable" approach to Native rights. He saw the dangers of appeasement so he stripped off his shirt, plunged into the San Francisco Bay and did a perfect Akwesasne backstroke to Alcatraz. Joining Oakes in that epic swim were Joe Bill, Ross Harden, Jim Vaughn and Jerry Hatch.

And so began a truly historic trouble making with international ramifications.

Richard Thariwasatse Oakes would be murdered in 1972 in his 30th year but his legacy is wide reaching. When he was shot and killed a national caravan was organized to go to Washington and demand his death be investigated by the federal government. This caravan, originally named after Oakes, would become the Trail of Broken Treaties and arrive in DC in later October, 1972 on the eve of the US national elections. The headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (an agency then led by Akwesasne Mohawk Louis Bruce) was occupied and ransacked (some say by government agents).

After leaving the BIA with money given by the Richard Nixon reelection campaign many of the occupiers would rally to the call for support at Pine Ridge, South Dakota in February, 1973. With the American Indian Movement in prominence the standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, would last for over 100 days and become the longest armed standoff between the US and Native peoples in the 20th century.

There would be other incidents of trouble at Akwesasne and elsewhere across both Canada and the US. To respond to this the Americans would pass new legislation including the 1988 National Indian Gaming Act, a law impossible to conceive of without Native activism with an economic slant. If those troublemakers had not been brave enough to take their stands we would all still be under the heavy hand of Indian agents, hostile courts and oppressive state and federal legislatures.

We should all be grateful for those Native patriots even as we look for those in this generation to show the same leadership, to show the same courage and unbending will as their troublemaking grandparents. With Oakes at Alcatraz were the original group: LaNada Means War Jack, Joe Bill, David Leach, John Whitefox, Ross Harden, Jim Vaughn, Linda Arayando, Bernell Blindman, Kay Many Horse, John Virgil, John Martell, Fred Shelton, Rick Evening, Jerry Hatch and Al Miller with prime organizer Adam Fortunate Eagle and spokesperson John Trudell. Peter Blue Cloud Aroniawenrate Williams of Kahnawake would become the poet and chronicler of Alcatraz.

Other events and laws which came about directly because of the new activism coming from Alcatraz: BIA takeover Wounded Knee 1973 Ganienkeh 1974 the end of the termination era and the restoration of federal recognition to many nations including the Menominee and Klamath the enactment of the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act the passage of the Indian Education Act the enactment of the American Indian Child Welfare Act the expansion of Indian Health Services the enactment of the Indian Self Determination law the founding of the Indian Water Rights Office the passage of the Native Graves Protection and Repatriation Act the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act the founding of the National Museum of the American Indian  the 1978 Longest Walk the 1977 Native presence at the United Nations Human Rights forum in Geneva and the 2007 passage of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

And yet there is still no formal recognition of Richard Oakes at Akwesasne. Perhaps on the 50th anniversary of the swim to Alcatraz we can do something tangible to give him and his compatriots the honor they deserve.

Doug George-Kanentiio, Akwesasne Mohawk, is the vice-president of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge. He has served as a Trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian, is a former land claims negotiator for the Mohawk Nation and is the author of numerous books and articles about the Mohawk people. He may be reached via e-mail at: Kanentiio@aol.com or by calling 315-415-7288.

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Sovereign immunity has saved the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe from being included in a missing horse lawsuit in Nevada.

As part of the case, Colleen Westlake claimed the tribe wrongly rounded up her horse earlier this month. But the tribe can't be sued without its consent, Judge Miranda Du determined on Monday, The Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

The sovereign immunity doctrine is very broad, it doesnt really matter what the facts are, Du said in court, the paper reported. For the same immunity reasons, she removed the state of Nevada from the lawsuit.

The decision, however, does not affect a temporary restraining order which bars the slaughter of any horses that were rounded up on the reservation. It's possible that Westlake's horse, named Lady, is among those in the custody of other defendants in the lawsuit.

Im just so devastated, honestly," Westlake told the paper.

The horses that were rounded up this month have been sent to New Mexico, according to the American Wild Horse Campaign. The group is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

"The overall goal of our lawsuit is to recover the horses and to hold the Tribe and the Nevada Department of Agriculture accountable for violating Nevada law, including trespass on private property and failure to notify residents of the pending roundup of the horses, who qualify as feral under state law," the group said after the hearing on Monday.

The tribe conducted the roundup in order to address the impacts of wild horses on the reservation, KTVN reported.

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Tribes seek practical border solutions that respect culture, religion and family

Tribal governments continue to press to be included in the debate about international borders and securityBy Mark TrahantIndian Country Today

Tribal governments continue to press to be included in the debate about international borders and security, including a proposal to include an Indigenous-only visa. Last week in Arizona tribes met at a border summit and produced a working document that will be released next month in Washington.

Chairman Edward Manuel of the Tohono Oodham said the tribal border alliance is preparing a document that will propose practical solutions that secure the U.S., while respecting our traditional and cultural practices and protocols.

Manuel said tribes want relatives on the southern border to be able to temporarily enter the U.S. in order to participate in traditional and cultural activities.

Tribes are on record opposing the physical construction of a border wall. A resolution passed by the National Congress of American Indians in 2017 said such a wall would further divide historic tribal lands and communities; prevent tribal members from making traditional crossings for domestic, ceremonial, and religious purposes; prevent wildlife from conducting migrations essential for survival and general life, health and existence; injure endangered species such as the jaguar and other wildlife sacred to tribes; destroy endangered and culturally significant plants; militarize the lands on the southern boundary; disturb or destroy tribal archeological, sacred sites, and human remains and have a negative impact on tribal communities on both sides of the border.

Tohono O'odham Nation Chairman, Edward Manuel overview of violation of O'odham Human Rights and Report of Outcomes of the Tribal Border Summit Posted by Amy Juan on Saturday, January 26, 2019

Amy Juan on Facebook: Tohono Oodham Nation Chairman Ed Manuel at Tribal Border Summit

The current visa categories do not consider the cultural requirements of tribal members and our relatives, Manuel said. We are frequently subject to inconsistent and arbitrary actions. We will push for the creation of an Indigenous-only visa that will permit all tribal members to engage in their culture and to protect their heritage no matter which side of the border that they reside.

He said there also needs to be improvements in the execution of the Jay Treaty of 1794 that recognizes the inherent rights of northern border tribes to freely cross into Canada.

Unfortunately, Manuel said, subsequent U.S. laws require that tribal members prove they possess at least 50 percent Native-tribal heritage or blood quantum to permit regular border crossings. Tribes, as sovereign nations, have the exclusive right to determine who qualifies as a member. We propose amending the Immigration and Nationality Act so that our own governing bodies can decide who can claim member-status and cross the border freely.

We are at a unique opportunity in history, said Francisco Valencia, council member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, in a telephone news conference Monday. The debate over securing our borders is front and center never had we had a better chance to advance common sense solutions that can receive support from policymakers on both sides of the aisle.

The tribal leaders said whether or not there is a southern border wall, tribes will be caught in the middle of the same border debate and that tribes have cultural, religious, and family ties on both sides.

Indian Country has three borders to navigate. The southern border with Mexico. The northern border with Mexico. And the border in the Bering Sea with Russia.

The Tribal Border Alliance is committed to solutions that protect our sovereignty, culture and traditions while simultaneously securing our borders, Valencia said. International borders may cross (and) intersect our Native land that that does not weaken our resolve to protect them.

The tribes said there must be better training for federal officials to get a better appreciation for the culture, and legal rights, of the tribes on both sides of the border. That includes a recognition and capability for translation of Indigenous languages.

Mark Trahant is the editor of Indian Country Today . He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes . Follow him on Twitter @TrahantReports

This story originally appeared on Indian Country Today

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A 28-year-old citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe was shot to death by a police officer and his mother is seeking justice.

"At the time of his death, Jamie Brave Heart was 28 years old and had a life expectancy of at least 45 years," the July 30, 2018, complaint filed by Anita Brave Heart reads. "He suffered pain and suffering prior to his death. His estate has been deprived of his instruction, moral training, superintendence, counsel, guidance, aid, loss of advice, assistance, companionship, society, and protection."

The federal government responded on January 10 . U.S. Attorney Ronald A. Parsons, Jr. blamed Brave Heart for causing his own death.

"The negligence and/or actions of the decedent and/or third parties was the proximate cause of the accident, the death of decedent, and any and all alleged injuries or damages sustained by the plaintiff," the answer reads.

Jamie Brave Heart, 1987-2016.

The case has been assigned to Chief Judge Jeffrey L. Viken. He put the case on hold on January 14 in response to the shutdown of the federal government.

Proceedings are expected to resume now that federal funding has been restored as of Friday, albeit on a temporary basis. Viken ordered the government to "notify the court as soon as the Department of Justice attorneys are permitted to resume their regular civil litigation functions."

Prior to the resolution of the shutdown, Parson's office had said Department of Justice attorneys aren't allowed to work "even on a voluntary basis, 'except for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.'" The Brave Heart case does not appear to qualify for that exception.

"The government was shut down, and the Department does not know when funding will be restored by Congress," Parson wrote on December 27 , five days into the shutdown.

A day after the filing, Brave Heart's wife shared a tribute to her late husband. "I miss you," she wrote on social media, along with a photo of his grave site in Kyle, on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

In addition to his wife, Brave Heart left behind three daughters.

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By Acee Agoyo

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A bill to exempt tribes and their casinos from federal labor law has once again reared its controversial head on Capitol Hill.

States and local governments are already exempt from the National Labor Relations Act . Tribes believe their governments should be treated in the same manner.

And that would be the case, but for a 2004 ruling from the National Labor Relations Board , the independent agency that enforces federal labor law. That's where S.226 , the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, comes in.

"The TLSA would provide parity for all Indian tribes by ensuring that tribal government employers have the same opportunities as all other governmental employers to regulate labor relations with their government workforces," said Harlan Baker, the chairman of the Chippewa Cree Tribe . "This legislation builds upon a principle that has been amply demonstrated by tribes across the country  when tribal sovereignty is respected and acknowledged, opportunity and economic success follows.

Republican supporters of S.226 agree. They are promoting the bill as a means of bringing clarity to an area of law and policy that's been in dispute since the George W. Bush era

It is time to correct a decade-old error made by the National Labor Relations Board and once again allow tribal governments, elected by their members, to possess the right to make informed decisions on behalf of those they represent, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said as he introduced S.226 last week.

This sensible and narrow bill amends the National Labor Relations Act to exempt tribally-owned entities operated on tribally-owned lands from the NLRB and is supported by more than 160 Indian tribes and tribal corporations," Moran continued. "The Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act would rightfully restore the sovereign status of tribal governments, and I will continue working with my colleagues to get this bill to the presidents desk.

Moran's bill took an important first step in the legislative process when it was approved by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Wednesday. S.226 and 11 other bills were adopted en bloc at the panel's first meeting of the 116th Congress

Were going to hit the ground running, Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), who was again named chairman of the committee on Wednesday, said of the quick actions being taken by the panel.

Hoeven pointed out that all 12 measures have been approved by the committee during prior sessions of Congress. What he left out was that when Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act came up the last time, Democrats weren't happy about it, and that contributed to the bill's spectacular demise on the Senate floor

This time around, though, no Democrats spoke up about S.226 and how it would affect the rights of employees in Indian Country. But they don't really need to, seeing as how the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act stands even less of a chance of getting passed in the newly divided Congress.

Prior versions of the bill have been easily approved in the House on two separate occasions. But that was when the chamber was under Republican control.

My Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act passed the Senate @IndianCommittee without objection today. Supported by 160 Indian tribes and tribal corps, this legislation would restore the sovereign status of tribal governments. https://t.co/dZErKH9sHo  Senator Jerry Moran (@JerryMoran) January 29, 2019

And even though some Democrats voted in favor the bill during the 115th session, they have effectively abandoned the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act now that the House is under their control. Upsetting labor unions, who oppose the measure and were key allies in the just-concluded fight against the #TrumpShutdown , isn't one of their priorities.

The shift in the agenda is reflected in H.R.779 , the House version of the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act. The bill was introduced last week and it has just one Democratic co-sponsor at this point, down from the four who signed up the last time around.

H.R.779 was referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor where it had received favorable hearings under Republican control. The panel's new Democratic chairman is Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia), who has consistently voted against the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act and who has vowed to protect the rights of workers in his leadership role.

Back in the Senate, S.226 only has Republican co-sponsors . That's not much a change from the last time around but it isn't stopping the party from pushing the bill again.

"Its time the government gets out of the way, and empowers tribes to determine their own destiny and create good-paying jobs for their citizens," said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), one of the co-sponsors.

In addition to the Chippewa Cree Tribe, the new leader of another Montana-based tribe is also endorsing S.226. Rynalea Pena won election as president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe earlier this month.

In a January 29 letter to Daines , Pena said the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act would "include tribal governments alongside federal, state and local governments that are already exempt from the NLRA. The tribe aspires to have successful economic development on its reservation and the TLSA could enable such opportunities."

For decades, tribes never had to worry about the NLRA, which was first passed in 1935, just a year after the Indian Reorganization Act . But that changed as their casinos became more and more successful and attracted the attention of labor unions that sought to represent employees.

The legal landscape shifted dramatically when the NLRB determined that tribes must comply with the law under certain circumstances. Merely employing non-Indians, or catering to non-Indian patrons, was enough to trigger federal jurisdiction.

Even though the 2004 administrative ruling overturned 70 years of precedent, it has withstood numerous legal challenges. A case known as Casino Pauma v. National Labor Relations Board aims to put the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court but the petition stands only a small chance of being granted. The justices took a pass on the controversy back in 2016.

S.226 addresses the situation by clarifying that tribal governments and the enterprises they operate on their lands are exempt from the law. The bill does not affect private enterprises in Indian Country and it does not change labor laws that tribes have enacted on their own.

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There is a secret about North Carolinas early colonial days, something even more disturbing and horrifying than traditional slavery.

I learned about it reading UNC-Wilmington professor David La Veres The Tuscarora War: Indians, Settlers, and the Fight for the Carolina Colonies. That book interested me because I want to learn more about the 18th-century explorer, John Lawson, one of the The Tuscarora Wars main characters. I am studying Lawson to get ready for the upcoming publication of another book about him, A Delicious Country: Rediscovering the Carolinas along the Route of John Lawsons 1700 Expedition by Scott Huler, senior staff writer at Duke Magazine.

What does all this have to do with this dark secret?

Keep reading to the end.

La Vere sets out in detail the background for the Tuscarora War that began in 1711. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, North Carolina was sparsely settled, mainly by Virginians moving south onto the lands around the Albemarle Sound. They encountered small groups of Indians and were generally able to subdue them.

However, to the south and west, the mighty Tuscarora Indian strongholds stood as a barrier. They were, writes Le Vere, like a cork that capped settler expansion.
RALEIGH  The single most important issue during every legislative session is the approval or revision of North Carolinas state budget. For the 2019-20 session about to get underway, the political implications of the budget debate are going to be nearly as important as the policy implications.

For the first time since the administration of Gov. Beverly Perdue, the state capital will feature a Democratic governor tussling over the budget with Republican legislative leaders who do not command a veto-proof majority.

Gov. Roy Coopers budget proposals in 2017 and 2018 werent exactly dead-on-arrival, because as a practical matter much of what any General Assembly ends up approving was originally requested by executive agencies. But where the two sides priorities were in conflict, the GOP legislature generally prevailed.

Thats not the scenario we face in 2019. If  or perhaps I should say when  Cooper vetoes the state spending and revenue plan the General Assembly enacts for the 2019-21 budget biennium, Democratic lawmakers will have enough potential votes to sustain the veto. Republicans will either have to compromise with Cooper or peel off enough Democrats in both chambers to override the veto.
KANNAPOLIS- Local officials, legislators and members of the Rowan-Cabarrus Community College Board of Trustees recently toured the colleges new Advanced Technology Center at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. The center is still under construction, but it scheduled to be open for classes by August.

The college officially broke ground on the $17 million center in January 2018. It sits on nearly three acres of land that was donated by David Murdock through the collaborative efforts of Vice President of Castle and Cooke North Carolina Operations at North Carolina Research Campus Mark Spitzer, Rowan-Cabarrus President Carol Spalding and Kannapolis Mayor Darrell Hinnant.

The combined efforts and support of the Cabarrus County Bond Referendum ($9 million), Cabarrus County funding ($8 million) and additional funding from the Rowan-Cabarrus Foundations Building a More Prosperous Community Major Gifts Campaign made the creation of this new building possible.

The ATC will support lifelong learning in emerging, incumbent, and transitioning workforces in addition to assisting business operations in the surrounding communities.
I spent a lot of time practicing especially when I was in high school. I would practice every day. Id go to school and build a project to practice for the masonry contest every single day. Sometimes Id build two or three a day. Id go to school and Id build one and sometimes two at school and then Id come home and build another one some days and it really pays off when you win."
About Trinity at Home | Home Health Care Services | Salisbury, NC

Trinity at Home in Salisbury, North Carolina provides locals with the support and home care services they need to maintain independence

Trinity at Home provides home care support services in Rowan County, North Carolina with personalized care plans that cater each individual's needs. Our goal is help seniors, adults and others in need of additional home support stay comfortable in their homes with services, including respite care, light housekeeping and transportation assistance. Our hourly rates vary depending on the type of service and care needed.

Our staff at Trinity at Home provides caring, thoughtful and professional homecare services

At Trinity at Home, we want to help our clients maintain dignity through supported independence as long as possible. We provide 24-7 personal and companion care as well as caregiver support. Our services include:

Personal Care: Mobility and transfer assistance, including transportation to appointments and errands; Assistance with bath, shower and personal hygiene

Companion Care: Respite care; Light housekeeping, laundry and ironing and help with hobbies and interests; Caring companionship and conversation, and companion in an assisted living, nursing home or hospital setting; Medication reminders, healthy meal preparation and wardrobe selection

Lutheran Services Carolinas is a nonprofit ministry serving North and South Carolina

Trinity at Home, based on the campus of Trinity Oaks, is a program of Lutheran Services Carolinas. Lutheran Services Carolinas is a ministry nonprofit that focuses on helping vulnerable citizens overcome obstacles, such as seniors, veterans, children, disabled, refugees and those affected by disasters. LSC offers seniors retirement communities, including Trinity Oaks, rehabilitation and skilled nursing services adult day services and caregiver support.
TSB employees are to be given access to the boardroom and the companys executive team as part of efforts to rebuild public trust (Gareth Fuller/PA)

TSB employees are to be given access to the boardroom and the companys executive team as part of efforts to rebuild public trust following a disastrous year.

In what is thought to be a first for a high street bank, TSBs employee advisory panel will able be to provide feedback and present ideas direct to the board, giving its more than 8,000 staff further influence on the lenders business strategy.

The move follows a torrid period for TSB after its boss, Paul Pester, stepped down last September when millions of customers were locked out of their online accounts following a botched IT migration.

Expand Close Paul Pester stepped down as chief executive of TSB after millions of customers were hit by a botched IT migration at the bank (Nick Ansell/PA) / Facebook

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The panel, called Link, is made up of 125 TSB employees from across its branches and head office.

Working on a two-year cycle, the latest cohort is due to start in March. The Link convenes four times a year and will now present to the board once a year.

Rachel Lock, TSBs HR director, said: It has always been part of our culture to give partners the opportunity to speak up and be involved in the decision-making and direction of the bank.

Our experience has shown that talking to and listening to our partners about their views on how we run the bank and serve our customers is critical.

TSB said Link has already influenced its business strategy such as its suggestion to redesign how it manages staff performance.

The initiative to enhance the voice of employees on TSBs board has been backed by trade unions and industry bodies.

Unite union national officer Dominic Hoo said: It is important that businesses rebuild public trust; to do that boards of directors need to listen and be responsive to a wide group of stakeholders.

We support TSB incorporating the employee voice into corporate governance

We support TSB incorporating the employee voice into corporate governanceDominic Hoo, Unite

We support TSB incorporating the employee voice into corporate governance. Alongside direct engagement with the unions for TSBs staff, this will improve trust and ultimately lead to better employee satisfaction and business productivity.

Ged Nichols, from the Accord union, said the measure will help steer decisions made in the long-term interests of the company, partners and customers.

Josh Hardie, deputy director-general, policy and communications at the Confederation of British Industry, said TSBs action will enhance their existing employee engagement model and is a great example of business leadership.

On Monday, TSB pledged to support small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers when they are in financial distress and protect them against unfair treatment and charges, and called on other banks to follow suit.

TSB is due to report full-year results on Friday.
Ophir Energy is being taken over (PA)

Ophir Energy has agreed to a takeover by Indonesias Medco in a deal that values the London-listed company at 390 million.

Medco will pay 55p per share in cash, a 66% premium to Ophirs closing price on December 28, the last business day before the offer was announced.

Ophir shares were trading more than 6% higher on Wednesday at 53.8p.

Ophir, which operates in Africa and Asia, earlier this month rejected a 48.5p per share offer on the grounds that it undervalued the firm.

The Ophir board believes the Medco offer reflects the future prospects of Ophir's high-quality assets, as reflected in the premium of 66% to the closing price of 33.20p per Ophir share on December 28Ophir Energy chairman Bill Schrader

The companys chairman, Bill Schrader, said on Wednesday: We are pleased to announce a recommended transaction with Medco. The transaction delivers upfront value in cash to Ophir shareholders for the strategy the Ophir directors set out in September 2018.

The Ophir board believes the Medco offer reflects the future prospects of Ophirs high-quality assets, as reflected in the premium of 66% to the closing price of 33.20p per Ophir share on December 28. Consequently, the Ophir board intends to recommend unanimously the transaction to Ophir shareholders.

The deal has to be voted on by shareholders and requires regulatory approval.
Roger Stone, a longtime adviser and confidant of US President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty yesterday to felony charges in the Russia investigation after a publicity-filled few days spent slamming the probe as politically motivated.

The political operative and self-described dirty trickster faces charges that he lied to lawmakers, engaged in witness tampering and obstructed a congressional investigation into possible co-ordination between Russia and Mr Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

He was uncharacteristically quiet during the brief court appearance, rising to his feet to say, "Yes, your honour," as US Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson asked if he would agree to the conditions of his release, including restricted travel. Stone attorney Robert Buschel entered the plea on his client's behalf.

Mr Stone (66) made no public statements as he arrived and departed the courthouse amid duelling chants of "Lock Him Up" and "We Love Roger." He waved and smiled to the small crowd, some holding up glowing photos of him, and he largely ignored a group of protesters carrying signs reading "Dirty traitor".

Mr Stone, who was arrested last week at his Florida home, is the sixth Trump aide charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. The indictment does not accuse Mr Stone of co-ordinating with Russia or with WikiLeaks on the release of hacked Democratic emails. But it does allege that he misled lawmakers about his pursuit of those communications and interest in them. The anti-secrecy website published emails in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election that the US says were stolen from Democrats by Russian operatives.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said on Monday that the investigation was "close to being completed," although an exact timetable is unclear.

Mr Mueller continues to be interested in hearing from Stone aide Andrew Miller, who is fighting a grand jury subpoena, indicating the special counsel could be pursuing additional criminal charges against Mr Stone or others related to the release of hacked material during the 2016 election by WikiLeaks, its founder, Julian Assange, and online persona Guccifer 2.0.

Paul Kamenar, Mr Miller's attorney, said Mr Mueller's team notified him of their continued interest late on Monday. Mr Miller defied the grand jury subpoena last summer and took his challenge of Mr Mueller's authority to a federal appeals court.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has yet to rule in the case. Mr Mueller's team and lawyers with the US attorney's office for the District of Columbia are jointly prosecuting the case against Mr Stone. They did not push for Mr Stone to be jailed or for Mr Robinson to impose a gag order in the case.

He is free on $250,000 bond.

Mr Stone has said he did nothing more than drum up interest with voters about the WikiLeaks disclosures. He has also denied discussing the issue with Mr Trump. "That's what I engaged in. It's called politics and they haven't criminalized it, at least not yet," Mr Stone said on 'This Week'. "All I did was take publicly available information and try to hype it to get it as much attention as possible, because I had a tip, the information was politically significant and that it would come in October," he added.

Yesterday's arraignment didn't inspire the same circus-like atmosphere that surrounded his Friday court appearance in Florida, where Mr Stone emerged from the courthouse and flashed a Richard Nixon victory sign.
(L-R) FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel; and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats; and Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on 'Worldwide Threats' in Washington, DC. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons programme, America's most senior intelligence chief said yesterday, in stark contrast to Donald Trump's optimistic comments on securing a breakthrough.

Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence, said that North Korea's leaders see keeping their nuclear arsenal as crucial to "regime survival".

Mr Coats also warned there was evidence that Kim Jong-un's regime was taking actions inconsistent with its declared support for denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

The remarks, which came during an appearance by six US intelligence chiefs before the Senate intelligence committee, jar with the US president's public views on the stand-off.

Mr Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of North Korea denuclearising since he met with Mr Kim, the country's leader, during a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018. The US president tweeted shortly after that meeting that "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea".

Mr Coats is a former Republican senator who serves in Mr Trump's cabinet.

He said: "We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival. Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearisation."

The assessment that North Korean leaders do not want to give up their nuclear weapons programme challenges a central tenant of the Trump administration's stance.

Mr Trump has repeatedly talked up the chance of a breakthrough - though at times has made clear he does not know when talks will end.
Break from the front: A member of Syrias Arab Shaytat tribe fighting Isil rests in the Syrian village of Baghouz yesterday. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

France is planning to repatriate more than 100 Isil suspects from Syria amid fears they could lose track of them after US troops withdraw from the war-torn country.

Some 130 Isil suspects being held in custody by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in prisons across northern Syria are to be sent back within the next few weeks, according to French channel BFMTV.

"All those who will return to France will be entrusted to the judges. The judge will decide that it will be necessary to put them in prison," Christophe Castaner, France's Interior Minister, told BFMTV.

"The Americans are disengaging from Syria There are now people in prison who are being held because the Americans are there and who are going to be released They'll want to return to France."

Among those in SDF custody are a number of senior French Isil leaders including Adrien Guihal, a Muslim who was part of the infamous Artigat network that masterminded several attacks in France, including one in Nice which killed 87 people.

Such a decision would make France the first European country to take back citizens arrested on suspicion of links to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

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Only the US, Lebanon, Russia, Indonesia and Sudan, have so far agreed to repatriate their nationals.

Thousands of other foreign Isil members in SDF detention remain in limbo, including six British male Isil suspects, seven women and 12 of their children.

Britain and other countries have expressed reluctance to take back those with links to Isil, citing fears they represent a security threat.

They have also indicated concern about evidential and legal challenges that would prevent them from prosecuting returning extremists.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, the two so-called Beatles jihadists, have had their UK citizenship revoked.

The Kurdish-led SDF has been supported on the ground by US special forces, as well as British and French.

However, US President Donald Trump announced he was to bring home 2,000 American troops within months.

Following the announcement, Turkey, which considers Kurdish militants fighting with the SDF to be terrorists, threatened to carry out an assault on Kurdish-held areas near their shared border.

The Kurds warned they may not be able to keep jihadists inside their jails.

There also remains the possibility that the SDF, which has begun talks with the Bashar al-Assad government, could hand over prisoners to the regime.

Tens of thousands have disappeared inside government prisons, where many were executed without trial.

"Reversal of French policy with respect to Isil suspects held in northern Syria, as France finally agrees to take its nationals back," Nadim Houry, director of the counterterrorism programme at Human Rights Watch, tweeted. "This may be unpopular but it is the right thing to do. Prosecute those who committed crimes, reintegrate children."

The plan provoked outrage on the right. Eric Ciotti, a conservative MP from the main opposition party, the Republicans, said: "The place of jihadists who betrayed our nation and fought our civilisation is no longer in France. Let them be judged in Iraq or Syria."

Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, also took exception to a remark by Mr Castaner that those in Syria and Iraq "are jihadists, but they were French first". "Non @CCastaner They are jihadists, they should no longer be French," she tweeted. ( Daily Telegraph London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he is willing to negotiate with the countrys opposition.

His remarks in an interview with the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency came amid a dire political crisis in Venezuela.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president last week and has urged citizens to challenge Mr Maduro with walkouts on Wednesday.

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Mr Maduro told RIA Novosti he is willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future.

He said the talks could be held with mediation by other countries. Russia is one of the staunchest supporters of Mr Maduro and has offered to mediate. He also mentioned Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and the Vatican.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Mr Guaido held a major opposition rally in Caracas and declared that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Mr Maduros dictatorship.

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On Tuesday, Mr Guaido urged Venezuelans to step outside their homes and workplaces for two hours on Wednesday in the first mass mobilisation since last weeks big protests.

Mr Maduro accused Donald Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia.

He said he was aware of orders by the US president for the Colombian government and the local mafia to kill him.

Russia has provided Mr Maduros government with loans and weapons.

A senior official said on Tuesday that Moscow is expecting problems ahead of an upcoming payment on Russias 3 billion dollar (2.3 billion) loan.

Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday: Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following US sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice.
Plan of attack?: US National Security Adviser John Bolton holds the folder with 5,000 troops to Colombia written across it. Photo: REUTERS

The Pentagon yesterday refused to rule out military intervention on Venezuela's border, a day after John Bolton, the US national security adviser, was photographed carrying a notepad that read: "5,000 troops to Colombia."

Patrick Shanahan, the acting defence secretary, was asked repeatedly whether the notes indicated a deployment. "I'm not commenting," he said. "I haven't discussed that with Secretary Bolton."

Asked on Monday, Mr Bolton refused to rule out the use of US troops in Venezuela. "The president has made it clear on this matter that all options are on the table," he said.

The US military has about 200 troops in Colombia, which was among the first to follow the US lead last week in recognising Juan Guaido, the "interim president", as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

Colonel Rob Manning, the Pentagon spokesman, said the number of military personnel in Colombia remained unchanged, and Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia's foreign minister, said Bogota had not been informed of any increase in a US military presence.

"We are not aware of the significance or the reason" for Mr Bolton's notes, he said.

The drum beat began last Saturday with President Donald Trump's recognition of Mr Guaido, and grew louder in the intervening six days.

Over the weekend, Australia and Israel joined 20 countries to accept Mr Guaido as the interim president. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, told the UN security council the time is now" to move to oust the "illegitimate mafia state" of Nicolas Maduro.

The US yesterday raised the state department's tourism warning to "do not travel" - putting Venezuela in the same category as only 12 countries worldwide, among them Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Mr Pompeo also announced yesterday that Mr Guaido had full control of Venezuelan assets in US federal banks.

Mr Guaido is petitioning the Bank of England to prevent Mr Maduro getting his hands on 1bn (1.14bn) in gold held in London vaults. Venezuela, which is struggling to provide basic services, has about $8bn (7bn) in foreign reserves around the world.

On Monday, the US imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state oil company - a move designed to cripple the Maduro regime financially and sway the military to defect.

Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury Secretary, yesterday said more economic pressure could be applied, while ensuring "medicine and other humanitarian goods can still get through".

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin - who backs Mr Maduro - said the Kremlin shared the view of the Venezuelan government that the sanctions were illegal and a tool of unfair competition on part of the US.

Russia shored up its alliance with Venezuela as the second-largest lender to Caracas after China, supplying tanks and Kalashnikovs and investing in the country's main asset, its oil resources.

As recently as last month, Mr Maduro announced during a visit to Moscow that Russia would invest $6bn (5.25bn) in Venezuela's oil and mining sectors. Reports have surfaced of hundreds of mercenaries from the secretive Russian private military contractor Wagner being deployed to Venezuela.

Moscow denied this but Vladimir Rouvinski, a political commentator in Colombia, said: "Everything suggests Russian mercenaries have been in Venezuela for a while, although most likely far fewer than reported by media."

Meanwhile, Tarek William Saab, Venezuela's attorney general and a Maduro loyalist, put a travel ban on Mr Guaido and froze his assets - symbolic gestures unlikely to have a significant impact.

"I'm not dismissing the threats, the persecution, but we're here, we're continuing to do our jobs," said Mr Guaido.
Fiona Onasanya has become the UK's first sitting MP to be jailed in almost 30 years after she was sentenced to three months in prison.

The Labour MP for Peterborough was found guilty of perverting the course of justice following a retrial in December over the lies she told police to avoid a speeding ticket.

Mr Justice Stuart-Smith jailed the politician for three months at the Old Bailey, keeping open the possibility she could keep her seat and remain on the parliamentary payroll.

Christine Agnew QC, defending, had said: "She has already been expelled from the Labour Party, at the moment she continues to stand as an independent MP and her only reason for that is because it is her only source of income.

"It is likely she will lose her seat as an MP because she will be deselected."

'Disastrous'

The judge accepted she had acted "totally out of character", but did not agree her case was exceptional enough to warrant a suspended sentence.

Passing down the punishment, he said: "That is the shortest sentence I'm able to impose." He added Onasanya had made a "disastrous decision" to continue with the lie after learning her brother had entered the name of a Russian former tenant on the form in the hope the trail would "go cold".

"There cannot be one way for those in positions of power, privilege and responsibility and [another for] those that are not," he told the court.

Parliamentary rules require the removal of an MP who is jailed for 12 months or more. But if the sentence is less than that a recall petition can force a by-election if it is signed by more than 10pc of the electorate in her constituency.
President Donald Trump has insisted congressional negotiators working on a compromise border security deal include money for his proposed wall between Mexico and the southern US border.

Mr Trump tweeted as negotiators prepared to hold their first meeting.

The president said if the negotiators are not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!

Mr Trumps insistence on a wall led to an impasse with Democrats that resulted in a 35-day partial government shutdown.

On Friday, Mr Trump agreed to a temporary deal reopening the government while negotiators work toward a longer-term border security deal.

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Democrats have been adamantly opposed to a wall.

In recent days, Mr Trump has appeared to retreat from using the word.

On Tuesday, Republican representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, suggested that barrier was the same thing as a wall.

Negotiators are facing a February 15 deadline to reach a compromise.
Pakistan's supreme court has upheld its decision to acquit Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row over blasphemy charges.

Ms Bibi's case became a totemic cause for fundamentalist preachers in Pakistan after she was accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad during an argument with two Muslim women. She strongly denied the allegation.

Her conviction and death sentence were thrown out by the supreme court in October, which cited a complete lack of evidence. The decision sparked protests across the country.

Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said in court yesterday that Ms Bibi's acquittal would stand.

"Based on merit, this review petition is dismissed," he told a lawyer representing dozens of petitioners.

"You could not point out [even] a single mistake in the supreme court's verdict."
Congolese children were allegedly kidnapped, taken to an orphanage and put up for adoption in Belgium after their parents were tricked into sending them to a holiday camp, it has emerged.

Belgian prosecutors have been asking around 15 families for DNA samples from their adopted children in a bid to trace their biological parents.

The adoptive families had been led to believe that the biological parents were dead.

Lorin Parys, a Flemish politician with an adopted son, said: "This is a drama. How do you explain such things to those children? Not to mention the pain the real parents must feel."

The demand for DNA applies to Congolese children adopted in Belgium from November 2013. Prosecutors want to find out the extent of any trafficking to Belgium, which colonised a region of Africa, including the present day Democratic Republic of Congo. Investigators have identified at least four cases where a Congolese child adopted in Belgium had living biological parents thousands of kilometres away.

The parents, who lived in the countryside, were persuaded to send their children to a holiday camp in the capital, Kinshasa. But the children were instead put in the Tumaini orphanage, which investigators found had recently been hastily closed. The children were then flown from there to Belgium.
The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to the National Theatre in London, her first since becoming its patron. Photo: Jon Bond/The Sun/PA Wire

The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to the National Theatre in London, her first since becoming its patron. . Photo: Jon Bond/The Sun/PA Wire

The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to the National Theatre in London, her first since becoming its patron. Photo: Jon Bond/The Sun/PA Wire

The Duchess of Sussex during a visit to the National Theatre in London, her first since becoming its patron. Photo: Jon Bond/The Sun/PA Wire

Meghan Markle during a visit to the National Theatre in London, her first since becoming its patron. Photo: Jon Bond/The Sun/PA Wire

The heavily pregnant Duchess of Sussex will soon have her own "production" ready for the world, the director of the UK's National Theatre in London has joked.

Meghan's first official visit to the attraction since becoming its patron saw her chatting to community actors, meeting backstage apprentices and watching potential stage stars of the future, primary school youngsters performing a War Horse inspired piece.

Rufus Norris, director of the UK's National Theatre on South Bank, described the new relationship between his organisation and the duchess, a former actress, as a "natural fit".

Asked when Meghan, who wore a Brandon Maxwell mini-dress and coat, would be returning to the theatre its director replied: "Absolutely a matter for Kensington Palace.

"And obviously she's got her own production coming up."

During the event Meghan commented on a previous private visit she had made to the theatre and reminisced about a trip to see a West End theatre production of 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime', first staged at the UK's National Theatre.

The duchess has an affinity with theatre after spending a decade working as an actress in television, where she was best known for her role in the hit US legal drama series 'Suits', playing paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane.

Mr Norris said about the collaboration between his organisation and Ms Markle, who succeeded the queen as patron: "It's a natural fit because she knows what a rehearsal room is, she knows what dressing rooms are and is passionate about the impact the arts can have."

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He added: "The duchess is a very dynamic new member of the royal family and so there is a lot of interest around her, and I think particularly because this relationship makes absolute sense for us and for her.

"We had a very, very good relationship with Her Majesty the Queen and are massively grateful of the work she has put in to support this organisation since she became our royal patron in 1974, but I think time moves on and if a change is going to happen we couldn't be more delighted in the way that it's gone."

Meghan has a stage background having studied theatre and international relations at Northwestern University, Illinois, and volunteered at a performing arts after-school programme for youngsters from underprivileged school districts in Los Angeles.

Talking about her own acting experience, she said: "It's unbelievable to be out on stage, that whole sense of self that comes out...just so wonderful."

Mr Norris revealed she had spoken about Greek tragedies and her "knowledge of Greek tragic heroes, and what a big part of her time in Northwestern (University) that was".

During the visit Meghan was briefed on the theatre's programme to bring drama to school children, and was told how an adapted version of its hit production The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time has toured 60 schools.

She reminisced about seeing the West End version of the show with Harry, saying: "I love the book and the production is incredible, great for kids to follow that."

Harry and Meghan were photographed during that theatre night in December 2016, the first time they had been pictured together as a couple.

Ordinary Londoners who have appeared at the National Theatre, thanks to organisation's community outreach programme, gave the duchess a brief performance from their production of Shakespeare's Pericles staged last summer.

She then met some of the cast, including 13-year-old Blessing who was in a wheelchair.

Bending down so she could speak eye-to-eye with the schoolgirl, Meghan asked her about the company's next performance.

Told it was another Shakespeare play, 'As You Like It', Meghan exclaimed: "Oh that's so exciting."

Before leaving she watched primary school children perform part of their production inspired by the story War Horse and met the pupils afterwards.

Kroni Pacolli (10) said after chatting to Meghan: "I'm speechless. She came and shook my hand and I'm never going to wash this hand again!"
Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss attend the Cleveland Cavaliers vs New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

Karlie Kloss says her life is different "in the best ways" after her wedding to long-term love Joshua Kushner.

The 26-year-old supermodel tied the knot with her Kushner in an intimate ceremony in upstate New York last October after a six-year relationship. She gushed over married life, telling reporters at the 2019 Winter Television Critics Association: "I love being married. Honestly, I just feel really happy. Its so nice to just have a home base. I cant explain. Nothing has really changed, but in all the best ways, it feels different. I love it."

Karlie also praised her spouse for being an incredible support to her whilst she continues to grow her career - in addition to modelling, she also runs Kode with Klossy, a camp which educates teenage girls on coding and has just taken the reins of hosting Project Runway after Heidi Klum's departure.

Im sure everyone is juggling ten things that you wouldnt even realise. For me, like every women, [Im] just figuring out how to continue to grow my career and balance my personal and professional life. I feel really grateful that I have a partner, my husband, whos an incredible support to me and wants to help me accomplish my dreams no matter what they are," she said.

Expand Close Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss on their wedding day. Picture: Instagram / Facebook

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Whatsapp Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss on their wedding day. Picture: Instagram

Meanwhile, Karlie previously admitted she follows her "own moral compass" within her relationship. Kushner's brother Jared is one of US President Donald Trump's senior advisers and his wife, Ivanka, was one of the first people to congratulate Karlie and Jared on their engagement on social media, affectionately referring to her as a "sister".

And while most people's complicated relationships with their in-laws occur behind closed doors, Kloss' decision to remain so tactile with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law to be retaining such powerful positions in the White House has been somewhat unusual. Even more jarring was the fact that she and Joshua were among the thousands protesting at March for Our Lives in Washington D.C. earlier this year.

"At the end of the day, Ive had to make decisions based on my own moral compass - forget what the public says, forget social media. Ive chosen to be with the man I love despite the complications," she told Vogue last year. "Its frustrating, to be honest, that the spotlight is always shifted away from my career toward my relationship. I dont think the same happens in conversations with men."

"Josh and I share a lot of the same liberal values that guide our lives and the things we stand for. Weve really grown together personally and professionally. Josh knows that Im just a nerdy, curious human being. I think thats why he loves me. We have each others back."
Courteney Cox (L) and Jennifer Aniston attend the American Film Institute's 46th Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to George Clooney at Dolby Theatre on June 7, 2018 in Hollywood, California. 389980 (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Turner)

Courteney Cox and musician Johnny McDaid attend the Los Angeles Special Screening of "Just Before I Go" at ArcLight Hollywood on April 20, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Darin Pfeiffer Consulting)

Johnny McDaid (L) and actress Courteney Cox attend the Amazon premiere screening for original drama series "Hand Of God" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 19, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Amazon Studios)

British singer Johnny McDaid (L) and partner US actress Courteney Cox pose on the red carpet on arrival for the BRIT Awards 2018 in London on February 21, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Tolga AKMEN

Courteney Cox says her relationship with Johnny McDaid is better now that theyre no longer engaged.

The 54-year-old actress broke off her engagement to the musician in 2015, and the pair spent months apart before rekindling their romance, with John now based in London and Courteney living in Malibu. But the former Friends star insists that despite their long distance relationship, things are much better between them than theyve ever been before.

"Isn't that strange? We broke off our engagement and he moved to England, then we got back together, and it's actually better than it was before. Everything is better," she said on Ellen. "Not because he's in London, although the distance after that breakup - we were apart for six months - that really showed us a lot, and it's just better.

She said she is still enamoured with her incredible Snow Patrol musician other half, whom she first started dating in 2013, although she admits the relationship can be expensive because they both have to travel so far to see one another.

Expand Close Johnny McDaid (L) and actress Courteney Cox attend the Amazon premiere screening for original drama series "Hand Of God" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 19, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Amazon Studios) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Johnny McDaid (L) and actress Courteney Cox attend the Amazon premiere screening for original drama series "Hand Of God" at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 19, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Amazon Studios)

"I mean, it's expensive, it's an expensive relationship, we go back and forth a lot. Hes incredible. He's also an incredible writer. He writes tons of music," she said.

Meanwhile, Courteney - who has 14-year-old daughter Coco from her previous marriage to David Arquette - admitted earlier this month she isnt keen on calling Johnny her partner, because it can sometimes cause confusion for other people.

"He's my guy, he's my one. He's my partner, that's what he calls it, 'my partner'. I'm from Alabama, so you don't really say partner unless you're in the same sex ... Saying partner is difficult for me," she said. "I was in Atlanta not that long ago and I was like, 'Oh, I'm supposed to meet my partner in section F,' and they were like, 'Oh, I'm sure she's going to be there, don't worry about it.' Not that it matters, but it's just a different way to speak."
(L-R) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge watch the RAF flypast on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, as members of the Royal Family attend events to mark the centenary of the RAF on July 10, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson/Getty Images) (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Britain's Prince Charles, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Duchess of Cambridge along with Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrive at St Mary Magdalene's church for the Royal Family's Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate in eastern England, Britain, December 25, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

The Duchess of Cambridge, who is known as the Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, speaking during a visit to officially open the V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design museum

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge listens to a speech by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge at RAF Akrotiri, where they met with serving personnel and families living on the base during an official visit on December 05, 2018 in Akrotiri, Cyprus

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who are known as the Duke and Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, during a visit to officially open the V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design museum on January 29, 2019 in Dundee, Scotland. (Photo by Jane Barlow - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who is known as the Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, during a visit to officially open the V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design museum on January 29, 2019 in Dundee, Scotland. (Photo by Jane Barlow - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge leaves a community centre in Dundee after meeting with employees and their families from the local Michelin tyre factory which is to cease production on January 29, 2019 in Dundee, Scotland. (Photo by Ian Rutherford - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who is known as the Duchess of Strathearn in Scotland, speaks during a visit to officially open the V&A Dundee, Scotland's first design mulefteum, Jdnuary 29, 2019 in Dunrightee , Scotland. (Photo by Jane Barlow - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

It's easy to see why Kate Middleton has always been embraced by royal traditionalists: over the last 15 years, she has perfected the of practice of being seen and not heard.

Sure, on occasion we would get a glimpse into her personality - the infamous eye roll at an overzealous department store employee who yelled at her to wrap faster in New York in 2014 which went viral in gif form, the fist bump with a sick child at a children's hospice in 2013 or any of the many moments between her and Prince William captured off guard over the years - but when it came to her official duties, she rarely speaks publicly. Her job as Britain's Duchess of Cambridge is an ambassadorial role which requires she show up to the right events, shake hands, speak to well-wishers and look picture perfect doing so. In theory, it's a cinch, especially with access to unimaginable wealth, a team of experts guiding you and a supportive partner who knows the ropes better than anyone.

In practice, it can be tougher to master the balancing act, especially in a career which requires you to be an adept public speaker while also keeping your political alliances to yourself. And in an industry that will never forgive you for taking a step wrong. Over the years, Kate's work model has been characterised as the supportive wife, she is often pictured beaming as she watches her husband Prince William speak about any of the myriad issues they hold dear to their hearts, but there are only a handful of occasions when she has stood behind the mic herself.

In fact, she has delivered less than 10 public speeches since her 2011 wedding, which makes her newfound desire to express herself all the more notable. In the last two months alone, we have heard more from her than we have in a decade.

Expand Close Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge delivers a speech at Hospis Malaysia on Day 3 of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge's Diamond Jubilee Tour of South East Asia on September 13, 2012 in in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia / Facebook

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Whatsapp Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge delivers a speech at Hospis Malaysia on Day 3 of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge's Diamond Jubilee Tour of South East Asia on September 13, 2012 in in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

There are two reasons for her sudden change of tactic: one being the arrival of her sister-in-law Meghan Markle, an accomplished orator who delivered speeches before the United Nations before she married Prince Harry last year; the other being down to the fact that things are changing briskly behind palace gates.

The second half of 2018 was focused on the reported falling out between Kate and Meghan which makes for juicy headlines, but the real story is the structures being put in place for Charles' eventual ascension to the throne. Queen Elizabeth is 92 and while she's still in good health, she has been giving her responsibilities and patronages to the younger, more energetic royals. All of this means that Kate's preference to sit and observe is becoming an endangered practice and soon, she will be delivering as many speeches as William, who rarely makes an appearance without delivering some sort of dialogue.

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The British royals have also been tactfully positioning themselves as a necessity in a post-Brexit United Kingdom, arranged as a symbol of continuity, especially when Charles, whose relationship with the public and press has been tempestuous at best, is about to take the throne. They couldn't have dreamt this opportunity for endurance if they tried. The 'Fab Four' have been rolled out for visits and meet-and-greets with EU allies - Meghan and Harry flew to Dublin, while Kate and William visited Norway and Sweden last year and also met with Spanish and Dutch royals.

Kate's shyness has been well documented over the years, in part, it's why she has proven so compatible with her transition from upper middle class 'normal' girl to queen-in-waiting. It's also this personality trait that is believed to have been the source of a clash with Meghan, an outgoing California native who enjoys the confidence that comes with being a television star. But in the grand scheme of things, her unwillingness to seek out too much attention has allowed her the time to not only observe the experts at work, but also endeared herself to royal watchers - you can't very well annoy people if you barely speak, can you?

Former British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman who profiled the princess for the magazine's centenary issue in 2016 described her as being as down-to-earth as her image projects.

"The Duchess arrived, in jeans and a parka, her hair in big rollers, with a bright, inclusive smile, she recalled. "Although the Duchess of Cambridge is one of the most photographed women in the world, she is not someone who feels entirely comfortable at the end of the lens, nor as the centre of attention, and throughout the day the whole mood was very low-maintenance."

In recent months however, we've heard more from Kate than we have in 15 years, each at a carefully selected event aligned with children, families or mental health, three of her most passionate causes. Her remarks are often generic but appropriately uplifting and appealing to the intended audience, which is really all that matters.
Yet again, the imaginary line between the 'six counties' and the '26 counties' of the island of Ireland looms large in the narrow minds of the die-hard men of violence, waiting in the shadows.

A car-bomb in Derry which thankfully caused no injuries, allied to threats of violence should a hard Border be imposed, is a sad reflection on those who threaten the hard won peace, a peace that brought liberty, economic improvement and, above all, hope for the future of young people throughout Ireland.

Those who seek to bring terror and mayhem over a failed ideology not alone don't serve the Irish nation in any meaningful way, but - worse - they destroy any semblance of hope or charity in themselves.

The Border that requires dismantling is the self-imposed 'border' in their own mind.

Violence will never force any British government to alter its position on Northern Ireland.

In 1970, Ted Heath became PM of the UK and Northern Ireland. Within a month of taking office, he met with the heads of MI5/6 and the British army to discuss the situation in NI. Two years earlier Enoch Powell had made his infamous 'Rivers of Blood' speech; this was cited by the trio as good cause to use NI as a training ground to "counter future urban-terrorism in the UK itself".

British intelligence and the army were 'successful' because they understand violence. When you understand violence, you can control it.

Mahatma Gandhi frightened the bejaysus out of the British with his peaceful protest: they could not "grasp" peace with their hands, nor their minds, hence Gandhi and India triumphed.

Working in London in the late 1960s, my boss told me of seeing Gandhi arrive at King's Cross Station in 1948: "The station was thronged, and when Gandhi alighted from the train, there came a collective gasp of awe from the crowd."

They were surprised by his slight stature. "Gandhi did not walk down the platform: he glided along as if elevated!" was another comment.

To all those Irish people who imagine that killing or maiming in the name of a nation, without the sanction of the majority of the people, take a lesson from the late Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. They realised the most successful way to unity is through the parliamentary system.

Those, who title themselves Continuity, Real or whatever, claiming "their sole right" to continue violence, should ask themselves this question: What loving God could understand, let alone accept, deliberate slaughter, maiming of bodies and minds for a "belief" that can be achieved by discussion, irrespective of how many years, or centuries, it may take?

Declan Foley

Berwick, Australia

British have an ideal but should learn from history

It seems so sad the British people - in a very small majority obviously - do not seem to have learned from the very, very expensive lessons from history.

To others it might seem a level of belligerence, intransigence, even naivety exists at a seemingly almost gladiatorial level, to believe and suggest the world cannot do without the British Empire and its possibly relative influence on the rest of the world.

That ship has long since sailed, the world is much smaller, and mutual dependence is the only way forward.

OK, so that is my opinion. Please remember every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The long and well fought-for fragile tolerance that up to today exists between the different segments of society in Northern Ireland can only be sustained if greed, self-promotion and aggrandisement and expansionism is outgrown and dismissed by the thinker in the community. Do they want that, do they not, or do they even care?

Are the minds of the influencers big enough to see further than self-interest, be it political or even economic?

While joining the EEC of the time might now seem to be an enormous error - and maybe it was, as who could possibly predict the outcome relative to laws, finance etc - it now is a fact.

The UK is no longer the country it was, any more than Ireland, France, Italy and so on can be. We have evolved, for better or worse, and we will evolve further.

A pig in a poke is what was offered to the people of Britain as nobody knew then, or even knows now, what the outcome might be or become. But trying to turn back the clock to how things used to be is just pure nostalgia.

The idealism of independence prevails in Britain, exactly what happened to Ireland in 1916. And who can blame them for that, or us for that matter?

And please remember, it's really not all about just them.

Dan McColgan

Gorey, Co Wexford

Government must stand firm to stop hard Border

The Empire and the Orange state are gone and will not be coming back, ever. The United Kingdom is in disarray yet the DUP clings to its apron strings with their fingernails at this stage.

It has taken every opportunity to insult the Republic and elected ministers and it should stand firm on the Border issue and the Good Friday Agreement signed up by 27 countries.

Now is the time for a Border poll on all of this without any preconditions and let the people of this small country decide its future.

It is the duty of our Government to stand firm on the backstop and protect the Good Friday Agreement that no hard Border will ever exist again in this country.

Noel Harrington

Kinsale, Co Cork
I'm moving house in the next few months, so I'm busy packing up and clearing out. Naturally I'm glued to Marie Kondo's new show on Netflix (at least it gives me an excuse to avoid actually packing up and clearing out).

Now, whatever the state of your home, tiny tidiness expert Kondo is either a fairy godmother genius or too insufferably smug for words. I'm afraid I thought she would help, but I'm quickly falling into the latter category with each new episode.

It's not that I'm an overly messy person to begin with; truth be told, I prefer de-cluttered necessary over cluttery sentimentalism, but it's mainly that I don't care that much. If someone comes to visit me and their first thought is, "Look at the mess in this kitchen, wouldn't you think she'd clear it up?", then they have two options: find a cleaner friend, or knock themselves out and clean it up!
That man renowned for shouting "Order - Order!" - the UK parliament chairman John Bercow - had picked seven of a total of 14 Brexit amendments put down by various MPs.

These seven votes ranged from efforts to prevent a no-deal Brexit, delay the Brexit process, or try to change key elements of the prime minister's deal. That deal had been beaten a fortnight earlier by a resounding 432 to 202 votes.

The two successful victorious amendments do not have force in law. But they can be hugely important politically. On another night of political theatre we got the first semblance of a signal about where this Brexit process might move from total stalemate.
The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, signed 21 years ago by almost all parties in Northern Ireland, is an international agreement between two sovereign governments, lodged with the United Nations and recognised by the European Union.

To meet these undertakings, Westminster passed the Northern Ireland Act, 1998. This Act specifically states that "Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be without the consent of a majority of the people in Northern Ireland voting in a poll" Furthermore, it states that Northern Ireland can leave the United Kingdom "and form part of a united Ireland". In that event, proposals "as may be agreed" between the British and Irish governments shall be laid before parliament in Westminster to give effect to that wish.

In the Republic, the Constitution of Ireland was amended. A new Article 3 recognises "that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island".

There can be no slippery slope or backdoor unification of Ireland. Even if the British government could abandon Northern Ireland, it could not push it into a united Ireland without the agreement of the Irish Government. The Irish Government is bound by the Constitution and could not enter into such a destructive arrangement, even if it wanted to, without the consent of a majority in both jurisdictions. It is, therefore, reckless of the DUP to fire people up by peddling deceitful nonsense about dangers to Northern Ireland's position within the UK because of the so-called backstop agreement between the UK and the EU.

Goods and services are traded on the island of Ireland at present without restriction because the UK and Ireland have the same EU standards. If the UK was to leave the EU without a comprehensive deal on future access to each other's markets, including customs arrangements, only then would the backstop come into play. In simple terms, this would then mean that services and goods developed in Northern Ireland would have to meet standards "aligned to" EU rules, if exported to any part of the EU.

Northern Ireland would remain within the UK and its market, moreover it would have full access to the market in the Republic and all of the rest of the EU.

Separately, every person born in Northern Ireland, under the provisions of Article 2 of the Constitution, may claim Irish citizenship, should they wish, without any requirement to renounce British citizenship. They can continue to hold a British passport and have an Irish one as well, thereby conferring on them all the rights and benefits of EU citizenship.

In just over a decade, total trade between the Republic and Northern Ireland doubled to 3bn in 2005. In 1993, Britain was the main market for Northern Irish outbound goods, 54.5pc as against 10.6pc to the Republic. In 2015, the Republic accounted for 61pc of Northern Ireland's exports to the EU and 34pc of its total exports, which by then had also grown exponentially. The trend continues upwards, facilitated by both Northern Ireland and the Republic being within the same regulatory environment.

The backstop, if it ever came into play, would guarantee Northern Ireland's ability to continue that upward trend while maintaining its constitutional position within, and relationship with, the UK. In terms of trade, travel and citizenship, Northern Ireland can have its cake and eat it. This is the prize the DUP is thumbing its nose at, against the wishes of a majority in Northern Ireland. Its game-playing could turn the North's economy from a silk purse to a sow's ear.

The backstop would present no challenge to the constitutional and legal status of Northern Ireland. However, without an alignment to EU rules of some binding form, the constitutional position of the Republic, whose citizens have voted time and again to insert EU Treaty arrangements into the Constitution, could be undermined.

If Northern Ireland continued to send goods and services to the Republic, without an alignment of standards, and via the Republic to other EU countries, checks on goods and services leaving the Republic for other EU countries could follow.

This is not some fanciful theory. Goods and services which are initiated on one side of the Border at present are routinely brought to a finished state on the other side. If such goods and services do not meet EU-wide standards, they cannot be freely traded within the EU. If we allowed the standard of our exports to be diluted in any way, our full access to EU markets would be in question.

The backstop is an option that would come into play only if no other way can be found that meets the need. In those circumstances, it would be no weight to carry and should prove hugely beneficial to Northern Ireland. Nor are different regulatory requirements without precedent in the UK, eg Scotland has a different legal code to England. For the Republic, ensuring everything we export is accepted without question as meeting EU standards is a requirement, not an option. There can be no weakening of these standards. Because EU treaty arrangements form part of our basic law, this is a constitutional imperative, not a choice.

Gay Mitchell is a former MEP and minister for European affairs
How best to explain the madness that has gripped the House of Commons in recent weeks? Maybe we should look to the Middle Ages and the mysterious case of the meowing nuns for some answers.

In the 14th century, in a convent in northern France, a nun began meowing like a cat. Soon, every other nun in the convent began meowing. Eventually, the nuns were all loudly meowing in concert throughout the day - greatly irritating those who lived outside the convent walls.

It was only when soldiers arrived at the convent door, and threatened the nuns with physical violence, that this early recorded example of mass hysteria abruptly ended.

Fast forward 700 years and, in the UK, people like arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage suddenly began meowing. Before long, the right wing of the Tory party dropped to all-fours and started howling. Now, this sickness has infected almost the entirety of the British polity, who are content to spend their time squawking at each other while the rest of the world looks on in astonished horror.

It remains to be seen whether a threat of brute violence - in the form of a catastrophic 'no deal' - can quell the unintelligible caterwauling emanating from the House of Commons.

Early signs are the psychosis that has taken hold, both in parliament and across the country, is too firmly entrenched to be exorcised so easily.

The BBC, for instance, interviewed an elderly man on Monday who appeared to welcome the prospect of food shortages as a form of character-building exercise.

"It's pure scaremongering," he meowed, when asked about warnings from major retailers about threats to food supplies from a no-deal scenario, before immediately deciding doom-mongering wasn't too bad.

"It would do the country good to go without for a little while, make them appreciate what they had," he added, appearing to believe any food shortages, if they happened, would only affect unidentified others and not himself.

Sticking it to the Europeans by eagerly submitting to a future of deprivation and hardship doesn't seem like a successful result to those of us not suffering from Brexit delirium, but hysteria isn't rational.

Therein lies the problem. How can EU negotiators engage with British politicians who don't appear to believe in an objective reality?

Less than two months ago, Theresa May told the House of Commons "there is no deal without a backstop and without a backstop there is no deal".

She was adamant on this point because it is a statement of the obvious. Given the red lines imposed by the UK throughout the negotiations - to leave the customs union and the single market - coupled with its commitment to retain an open Border on this island and uphold the Good Friday Agreement, a backstop is an essential component of any withdrawal agreement. It is non-negotiable.

Despite this, yesterday Mrs May marched into the same chamber and encouraged MPs to jettison the backstop - a provision she herself had been instrumental in shaping - in favour of some nebulous unarticulated alternative.

With just 58 days to go until the UK crashes out of the EU, with the British parliament in disarray and chaos, Mrs May is still selling the notion that fairy dust can be sprinkled on the Brexit negotiations to deliver hardliners their preferred option.

It is clear now Mrs May's priority has shifted from negotiating a credible withdrawal agreement to cobbling together a Faustian pact to prevent the Conservative Party from splitting.

Instead of trying to find a consensus on a way forward among members of parliament, she has kowtowed to the zealots and extremists, in her own party and the DUP, and continues to entertain their delusions.

Urging MPs to vote for a rebel motion that fatally undermines the agreement she herself endorsed as the only option two weeks ago, Mrs May said a resounding majority was required "to send an emphatic message" to the EU about what parliament wants.

Well, every morning when I get up I send an emphatic message to the universe that I would like to win the lottery but inexplicably it has yet to happen. Sending emphatic messages is all well and good, but if they have almost no chance of actually happening, they are not very useful.

This is particularly true when your emphatic message, if it falls on deaf ears, will result in the economic impoverishment of an entire country.

At the start of this interminable process, those who forecast job losses, increased poverty and disruptions to food and medical supplies at the end of it were accused of engaging in 'Project Fear'. Brexit, they were told, would lead a populace, unshackled from the EU, to "sunlit uplands" and there would be "no downside, only a considerable upside".

Now that Project Fear has become manifest reality, its disastrous impact has been recast by those who have drunk the Brexit Kool-Aid as some kind of patriotic call to duty - 'Brexit may be bad, but the war was worse and we survived that'.

Those leading the charge over the cliff have also reimagined themselves as noble soldiers on a crusade to save Britain from a foe as evil as the Nazis.

When Airbus CEO Tom Enders last week derided the British government's handling of Brexit negotiations as "a disgrace" and warned the company, which directly employs 14,000 people, could pull out of Britain, an enraged Tory MP Mark Francois accused him of "Teutonic arrogance".

"My father was a D-Day veteran. He never submitted to bullying by any German and neither will his son," vowed Mr Francois, who proceeded to rip up a copy of Mr Enders's comments live on TV.

How is anyone supposed to react to these kinds of monumentally stupid theatrics?

A self-aggrandising Mr Francois may believe he is metaphorically going into battle, but to seriously compare his jingoistic rhetoric to the actions of World War II patriots is grotesquely offensive - not to mention hugely embarrassing.

If politics were in any way normal, those who hold views as obnoxious as the delusional Mr Francois would be shunned. Yet, it is people like Mr Francois, and his chums in the ERG, Mrs May has now aligned herself with.

In doing so, she is torching any credibility she once had in the EU and, unless she changes course, any chance of a deal being agreed before the UK crashes out - and, it is unlikely Blitz spirit will prevail for long when the effects of this particular war will have been entirely self-inflicted.
The Clio has a new 'smart cockpit' with a big 9.3in vertical multimedia screen

Renault have done an 'inside job' on their new Clio.

The car, unveiled yesterday in advance of its debut in Geneva in March, is due in Irish showrooms later in the year.

This fifth generation Clio has a new 'smart cockpit' with a big 9.3in vertical multimedia screen and 10in TFT digital instrument binnacle as the brand concentrated big time on improving the cabin.

The major criticism of the outgoing model was the quality of plastics and materials in general.

Now, as well as improving material quality, the interior layout appears better too.

And there are as many as eight cabin design schemes (the exterior is not forgotten, though, as it gets a range of 10 colours).

With the brand planning on having 12 electrified models in its range by 2022, the new Clio will be the first (2020) with the E-Tech hybrid engine (89bhp) combining with a 40bhp electric motor and 1.2kWh battery.

They claim it will drive like an EV and use electric power 70pc of the time in urban driving. A similar drivetrain with a 9.8kWh battery will power the Captur SUV.

The new car is 14mm shorter than the previous one. But there is more internal room (thinner seats, for example, increase rear leg room by 26mm) even though it has a 6mm-shorter wheelbase and the roof is up to 30mm lower.

Boot space is up 26 litres to 391 and has a double floor to make loading as easy as possible. There's a flat floor when the rear seats are folded.

They are making a big thing of having a new RS Line trim with sportier looks and touches which include an F1 blade and honeycomb grille.

LED headlights are standard across the range.

They say the car comprises 100pc new parts but its engines are likely to include some, or all, of the following: a 1-litre naturally aspirated petrol (65bhp, 75bhp), a 1-litre turbo (99bhp, 129bhp) as well as a 1.5-litre diesel (84bhp, 114bhp).

Around 15m Clios have been bought since its 1990 initial rollout and it remains the brand's best-selling car worldwide.
Sometimes the obvious escapes us - as a reader points out to good effect.

Following some advice from me on how to cut insurance costs he outlines, briefly, how easy it is to forget to check one source.

Here's an abbreviation of his story:

'My renewal (with An Post) was 640; not cheap but relatively happy with it. I thought I'd get a few other quotes. All were either close or a lot more. This confirmed I was getting a good deal. Just before finishing I noticed that An Post was on the Google search page, so I thought "I wonder . . ."

I completed all sections (address, car, driving history, named driver, etc., all of which they already have on file), selected the same fully comp cover as I had received in my renewal quote, and was quoted 515 (125 less).

I phoned, checked details with the agent, then bought the policy.

When the agent asked me to forward my proof of no-claims-bonus, I said: "You already have that on file. I am currently insured with yourselves."

She retrieved my quote and said "Oh, OK. I'll put you through to renewals."

So, Eddie, your advice was spot on - though perhaps next time you could mention RETRYING one's current insurer.'

* SKODA's third SUV - an urban crossover - will reach Irish showrooms this autumn. The KAMIQ will first be unveiled at the Geneval Motor Show in March.

The name derives from the Inuit language and means 'perfect fit'

The KAMIQ joins the 7-seat KODIAQ and compact KAROQ (all start with a K and end in a Q).

It has a high seating position, better visibility, easier entry, and higher ground clearance.

* Be warned: many cars are 'highly' vulnerable to keyless theft.

A study of new cars has found that only a handful are not.

The Which? research was carried out on 237 cars with keyless entry technology. The researchers were able to open and start all - except seven - using devices that are able to extend the signal from the key in the owner's house.

A relay box 'fools' the car into the false premise that the key is closer than it is. Thieves can, therefore, get in and start it before the system discovers the key is much further away.

Four of the seven cars that couldn't be started could still have their doors unlocked.

The three cars not fooled were the Range Rover, Land Rover Discovery and Jaguar I-Pace.

* Honda's Urban electric city car will debut at Geneva too. Meantime, the new hybrid version of their C-RV will be unveiled to the press here on February 13.

* Peugeot will reveal a crossover version of the new 208 in the autumn, it is reported.

* Mitsubishi will reveal an electrified SUV concept model at the Geneva Motor show in March. They have released a teaser of what the car will look like. They are calling it the Engelberg Tourer (pictured) after a Swiss ski resort. And the focus, they say, will be on "next-generation technology".
'I don't think I could have written this even 15 years ago," says Seamus O'Mahony, consultant gastroenterologist at Cork University Hospital, of his remarkable new book Can Medicine Be Cured?

The book tackles the state of modern medicine, from the highest reaches of technological research, down to the GP's surgery and front- line healthcare workers. "The perspective of three-and-a-half decades is fantastic," he continues. "It gives you knowledge, experience." And daring, I suggest - the book is subtitled The Corruption Of A Profession.

Might he have been wary, even afraid, at an earlier point in his career? "I might have been," he says. "I'm at a stage in my life and my career - I'll be 59 next month - where I'm not looking for promotion or advancement so I'm not worried about any fallout in that regard. I think writing it at this stage gives you the freedom to say what you want to say."

That said, he also believes that "the overwhelming majority of doctors who read this would be in agreement with what I say. All I've done in this book is put together what people in medicine and medical science have agreed is happening".

So, what does he say? Plenty - this is a book shored up by deep medical, historical and sociological knowledge and research, which it wears so lightly that it is, as well as deeply provoking, even game-changing, a compulsive read.

He challenges the usefulness and credibility of medical research; the illusion of progress; our stubborn belief that we can be perfected; over-prescribing; poly-prescribing; the efficacy of many drugs that are routinely administered; the corruption of academic medical research; our collective failure to accept that medicine cannot cure everything, and indeed can cause trouble of its own; over-reliance on metrics; the pharmaceutical industry and its vast reach and influence, and far more.

There was, he points out, a 'Golden Age' of medicine, from the 1930s to the 1980s, during which a number of huge advances were made. TB, smallpox, polio, all huge killers, were effectively eradicated in the developed world. This Golden Age ended "just as I came into it, I caught the end of it. There have been very big advances since then, but nothing like that accelerated level of discovery and innovation that occurred in those 50 years." Since then, medicine has increasingly lost its way.

Starting with 'research' - that great hope that will save us all - he is fairly scathing. I suspect that many of us believe (as I did) that medical research is being conducted in a coherent, structured, completely credible way, such that it will gradually solve all ills. That all one has to do is wait, and research will do the rest, finding cures for sicknesses long before we succumb to them. Maybe not, it seems. "Contemporary bio-medical research is itself very sick as an endeavour," O'Mahony says. "There is even an acknowledgement and a consensus within bio-medical science that it has lost its way. It's been estimated that anything up to 85pc of all bio-medical research is a waste of time. And that's at a cost of $170bn (150bn) annually."

So what about the Human Genome Project, another shining light to many lay people with health issues? "The clinical applications from the humane genome project have been very few. And even the people who led the project, freely admit that the practical applications have been very disappointing. We're nearly two decades on from it now and very little has emerged that has been useful to sick people. It's a way of doing science, not a way of doing medicine."

There is a fairly negative trickle-down effect to this; "frontline workers, GPs, hospital doctors, who may not be carrying out any of the research, who just do what they're told in a way. I've drawn a parallel between modern medicine and medieval church: the higher level lay out dogma, the lower level work on the front line and implement it. They are not supposed to question any of it".

At a more practical level, there's the routine over-prescribing that goes on. "Pushing people into patient-hood," as O'Mahony describes it, "for marginally elevated cholesterol levels, for example. The statin story is a great example of how the medical-industrial complex works. The overwhelming majority of people prescribed statins for high cholesterol levels are never going to benefit from taking this medication, and may experience harm."

Connected with that, is poly-pharmacy, in which patients are prescribed further medication to deal with the side effects resulting from the primary medication, to the point where many elderly patients in particular are now taking five or more medications daily, all with their own side effects and possible complications.

This is O'Mahony's second book. His first, The Way We Die Now, published in 2016, won a British Medical Association book award, and this is very much a follow-on. "One of the themes that emerged from that book was that modern medicine has become this culture of excess, this technological runaway train. I took that theme and ran with it for this book."

Seamus studied medicine at UCC - he was the first person on his father's side to go to university. "There's a big thing in Ireland for doctors' children to become doctors," he says, "but I didn't come from any kind of medical background. My father worked in Ford's in Cork, he was a plasterer by trade and worked in the maintenance department. He was 20 years older than my mother. My mother's 86 now, my dad died 34 years ago; he was 71. I was only a year qualified when he died."

After UCC, he spent about four years doing junior hospital jobs in Cork, "then I emigrated to the UK". He worked in Edinburgh, Yorkshire and finally as a consultant in Leeds for five years, then moved back to Ireland in 2001.

"A job came up, and at the time I was about 40, and it was then or never. I was very happy working where I was, but I did have this feeling of questioning myself: 'Do you want to grow old and spend the rest of your life in England?' The answer to that was I'm not sure, I don't think so. So I came back to Ireland, at peak Celtic Tiger."

He was married with two children - "I met my wife in Edinburgh. She's Scottish. We met while she was doing a PhD in the same lab but her background was science, not medicine. She subsequently retrained as a solicitor, working mainly in medical negligence."

The move back wasn't without its traumas. "My wife liked the idea of Cork so she was happy to move. My daughter was five and my son was seven; he found it difficult to adjust to school in Ireland. He found it hard going. I found it hard going too, I'll be honest, coming back after 14 years. I left in the 1980s, I came back and everything's crazy. It's the Celtic Tiger. It took a long time to adjust." But, as time has gone on, he says, "I'm very glad I did make the decision".

What would he like readers to take away from this book? "I write about the bogus contract between doctor and patient that has existed for several decades. The basis of this contract is that we can diagnose everything, fix most things, we never make mistakes and medicine is not dangerous. All of these things are untrue. We have limited powers. Medicine is very often ineffective and sometimes dangerous. We can't fix everything, particularly social and existential problems. I think society needs to lower its expectations around what medicine can deliver. That's one message I'd like people to take away with them.

"Then, there's this cultural thing in Ireland where a consultation with a doctor must conclude with a prescription. I'd like people to think, 'Is this medication really going to help me?' I'd think about that in particular when it comes to drugs like statins, drugs for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis - these drugs that you're going to take for the rest of your life, maybe 40 years, with an overwhelming likelihood that it will not give you any benefit whatsoever."

As for where the evidence is coming from that such drugs "will not give any benefit", there's a thing called Number Needed To Treat (NNT), which is simply the number of patients you need to treat to prevent one additional bad outcome. The ideal NNT is 1. Statins have an NNT of 104. Meaning that 103 people will not benefit, and may well suffer side effects.

The industry side effect is that, because the money is in drugs taken over the long-term, that's where the money and research goes. There is, O'Mahony says, "no money, or very little, going into antibiotic development, because a prescription for antibiotics is for seven days; a prescription for dementia, they'll take it for 10-20 years. The return for a drug company on a new antibiotic is pretty low. The return on a drug for Parkinson's, chronic lung failure, dementia - they're huge returns."

On the subject of patient support groups and 'raising awareness', he is scathing. "Ireland is stuffed with patient support groups. We're a tiny country, but the number of these groups it's quite a big sector. Often, they are paying relatively well-known people reasonable wages to be chief executives." The real problem is that the raising awareness leads to a kind of 'my disease is better than your disease' type scenario, where those who shout the loudest get the most, even where, as in the case of Orkambi, one of the best-known drugs and used to treat cystic fibrosis, the cost is around 100,000 per patient per year.

"Funding treatment on the basis of those who can best advocate - those who shout loudest - is bad. It's unfair, it's unscientific. It isn't how we should be allocating what is a finite resource."

And of course there is a particularly nasty downside to the whole 'raising awareness' notion: the neglect of those who don't fit the profile or tick the virtue boxes. "I deal with a lot of people who suffer from chronic liver disease - this is a relatively young population, in their 30s, 40s, 50s, with established liver cirrhosis due to alcohol. It has a worse outcome than most cancers, but because it is perceived as self-induced and because it afflicts poorer, less-educated people by and large, you don't have awareness campaigns for investing in treatment for chronic liver disease."

Perhaps most alarming of all is his analysis of the future of the world of digital health - "Anyone with a smartphone will be monitoring themselves, or - more likely - will be monitored by some external agency. Health and life insurance companies will offer financial inducements to people to be monitored, and big corporations will undoubtedly make the wearing of health-tracking devices mandatory. The danger of all of this is that in countries where health care is paid for by insurance, a new underclass of uninsured people will emerge. Digital health," he points out, "is presented as something empowering, but the reality is that it will lead to forms of enslavement that we can barely imagine. Facebook and Google have shown how easily people hand over their privacy and personal data in return for a few shiny trinkets. They have also shown how this personal data can be monetised."

There isn't a single bit of that analysis that seems far-fetched, indeed much of it is happening already, but it is chilling.

There is also a strong current of social conscience that runs through the book. "Medicine and healthcare has relatively little effect, now, on overall population health," he points out. "Your health is far more likely to be determined by your education, your income, your job and where you live. Take the USA where they spend around 20pc of the GDP on healthcare and yet they have some of the worst outcomes, healthwise, in the world in terms of infant mortality, longevity and so on. We're spending an ever-increasing amount of money on healthcare, but the benefit to us as a society is getting less and less as time goes on." That healthcare budget, he says, should be put into housing, education, the eradication of deprivation, a boost in opportunity, the arts - "that's a more effective way to treat the health of the population."

Equally, he has simple, obvious solutions to the growing gap in global health inequality: "If we simply applied evenly and fairly across the world what we know currently works, medicine and society would be transformed. If we never did another new research project, and just took what we know now, and gave everybody access to it, global health would be transformed."

Why has he written this book? "I'm still at the coalface - I'm down there, working in the medical department, seeing people on trolleys, and it seems an awful long way away from the journals, research departments.

"What I am seeing every day on the wards doesn't tally up with the narrative that we as a profession present to our patients and our politicians - which is that everything is getting better. We've come to believe that our core function in medicine is to cure everything, extend life as far as possible, prevent diseases by putting whole populations on drugs and into screening programmes."

Which is impossible. Because if there is one piece of 'raising awareness' O'Mahony is in favour of, it's the obvious: "I've suggested we should have different awareness campaigns," he says; "we're all going to die".

'Can Medicine Be Cured?' by Seamus O'Mahony, 20, is published on February 7 by Head of Zeus

Trust them, they're doctors

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* This is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

Comedian Adam Kay's account of his time training in obstetrics and gynaecology (referred to at med school as 'brats and twats'), and as a hospital doctor, depicted the life as chronically badly paid, over-worked and undervalued.

* Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery

Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh's bestselling story of his career, operating on the most delicate part of the human body. His great strength is the absolute honestly, and humility, with which he writes: "As I become more and more experienced, it seems that luck becomes ever more important."

* The Language of Kindness

Christie Watson spent 20 years as a nurse before moving into a career in writing. This book moves from her first days as a student nurse to her final day as a senior one, and the dawning of her understanding that nursing, rather than being about chemistry, biology, physics, pharmacology and anatomy, is about psychology, ethics, philosophy and politics.

* The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, described as "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th Century" by The New York Times, here recounts the case histories of patients lost in the very strange world of neurological disorders, Throughout, he never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "The suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."
President Michael D Higgins will today unveil two Luke Kelly statues in the capital to mark the 35th anniversary of the musician's death.

The first sculpture was created by one of Ireland's most prominent figurative sculptors, John Coll, who has also created the citys Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan statues.

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It features a life-size bronze, seated Luke Kelly singing and playing banjo and was donated to the city by the late Gerry Hunt and will be unveiled at 2pm on South King St.

The second sculpture, a marble portrait head of Luke Kelly, created by award winning portrait artist Vera Klute, will be unveiled at 3.30pm on Royal Canal, Guild St/Sheriff St.

Veras piece, which was commissioned by Dublin City Council, is over two metres high and was unanimously selected as the winner of a limited competition established by the then Lord Mayor, Christy Burke in 2014.

Luke Kelly passed away on January 30, 1984, and calls for a statue in memory of one of the original members of The Dubliners have been made for decades.

A special concert will also take place at Liberty Hall in honour of Kelly, with the surviving members of The Dubliners due to attend.

Speaking on behalf of organisers Dublin City Council, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Nial Ring said:

"Lukes presence is still felt on the streets of his birthplace Sheriff St and the pubs and haunts of the literati circles around Grafton St/Baggot St where he frequented. This is a unique celebration for a very unique man.

"To this day he inspires Irish and international artists through his words, songs and activism. It is only fitting that we celebrate the man, the music and his immeasurable impact on the Irish music scene and wider Irish culture."
Fr John Cummins parish priest in Abbeyleix was killed in an accident involving his car at the parochial house on January 30, 2019

A parish priest has been killed in a "freak accident" involving his car at the parochial house.

Fr John Cummins, parish priest of Abbeyleix, died following the incident which is understood to have happened at around 3pm yesterday.

The popular priest had been appointed to serve in the parish in summer 2017 and had said Mass earlier in the day, before tragedy struck.

Aidan McEvoy, principal of Scoil Mhuire in Abbeyleix, posted the news on the Abbeyleix Facebook page.

It was soon inundated with tributes to "a kind and gentle man". A number of social events planned in the town have been cancelled.

Fr Cummins was originally from Newbridge, Co Kildare, his family are very well-known in the area and run a local business there.

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Whatsapp Fr John Cummins parish priest in Abbeyleix was killed in an accident involving his car at the parochial house on January 30, 2019

He said: It is with great regret that I must inform you all of the tragic death following a suspected accident of our beloved parish priest and Chaplin Fr Cummins RIP.

Please pray for him and his family at this sad time. A tragic event for our community and our school family.

May he rest in peace. Aidan McEvoy Principal.

Denis Nulty, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, added in a statement: "It is with deep regret and sadness that I announce the sudden death of Fr John Cummins, Parish Priest of Abbeyleix, after a freak accident today with his car at the Parochial House.

"My thoughts and prayers are with Father Johns loving mother, brothers and sister, his priest colleagues throughout the Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin, his team in Faith Development Services and ACCORD, Carlow, and, of course, his many parishioners in Abbeyleix whom he held in his heart so dearly.

"At this time of profound heartbreak, I also remember his former colleagues at the Institute of Technology, Carlow, and the parishioners of Carlow Cathedral Parish.

"Father John was much loved in the diocese and is a tremendous loss to all of us. I will hold all of you in my prayers over these very difficult and lonely days.

"Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis."

Gardai confirmed that they were called to the scene at around 4.30pm yesterday afternoon and that a man in his 50s had died.

A post-mortem is due to be carried out tomorrow.
Sheep enjoy the snow in the mountains near Killakee Photo credit: Niall Carson/PA Wire

A walker enjoys the snow in the mountains near Killakee, to the south east of Dublin Photo credit: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Sheep in the snow in the mountains near Killakee, to the south east of Dublin Photo credit: Niall Carson/PA Wire

A walker enjoys the snow in the mountains near Killakee, to the south east of Dublin Photo credit: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Lambs in a field with a snow covered Muckish Mountains outside Falcarragh in Donegal in the background Picture credit: Damien Eagers / INM

Red deer stags make their way through the snow line as the foraige for food in the Wicklow Gap. Photograph: Garry O'Neill

A woman walking in the snow near Killakee in the Dublin Mountains. Picture: PA

Shan Smith, and her sister Lily, Firhouse, enjoying the snowfall at Glencree in the Dublin Mountains. Picture: Arthur Carron

DRIVERS have been told to drive with care as the low overnight temperatures that lead to snow and ice in some areas will be repeated in the coming days.

A status yellow snow and ice warning remains in place for Ireland until Saturday afternoon, with showers of hail, sleet and snow forecast.

Large parts of the north west, west and south of the country were hit by snow last night - and those conditions are expected to hit the east of the country, and Dublin, later in the week.

This morning, a number of flights faced delays at Cork Airport after the first flurries of snow hit.

"Please allow extra time for all journeys to and from Cork Airport over the next few days," the airport said on social media.

AA Roadwatch have confirmed that many roads have begun to thaw this morning after reports of poor conditions and black ice.

"Continued care is needed in some areas, especially minor roads and higher grounds," a spokesperson said.

The Department of Education told Independent.ie that they are aware of a number of schools closing today, but that it is up to the school's discretion to decide on closures depending on the severity of the weather.

"The Department does not hold figures of schools that have closed as there is no onus on schools to report closures to the Department, these are at the discretion of the School Principal/Board of Management," a spokesperson said.

"The Departments advice to schools is to remain vigilant in the event of adverse weather conditions. Schools should monitor weather forecasts in order to be prepared for any severe weather which may affect the school.

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"The decision to close a school is to be taken at a local level by the individual School Principal/ Board of Management in the interests of child safety, having assessed the local risks and having consulted, as appropriate, with school transport operators."

Bus Eireann confirmed that a number of routes are affected today and apologised to customers.

"We wish to advise customers that a number of our services nationwide are currently being affected by adverse weather conditions. We are closely monitoring the situation and will update route specific information via Twitter," a spokesperson said.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers."

"Bitterly cold"

Met Eireann have warned that "bitterly cold" conditions are still on the way, with parts of Leinster getting snow later in the week.

Driver stopped using their mobile phone on a very icy road in Cork this morning. Conditions are already poor and with the added distraction of using a phone this could have been catastrophic.#BeSafe #ArriveAlive #Sneachta pic.twitter.com/6VOg3iweYq  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) January 30, 2019

As the five-day "status yellow" warning comes into effect, the country is facing temperatures as low as -7C.

Tonight will be "very cold" and frost will set in quickly after dark, "becoming severe, with fairly widespread ice".

Thursday will be very cold and frosty, with overnight temperatures between -2C and -5C.

"Large accumulations of snow are possible over mountainous areas of south Leinster and Munster," a forecaster said.

"The snow is likely to be heaviest over much of Munster and south Leinster, with some significant accumulations in places.

"But this band of weather will clear southwards later in the night and the fresh and gusty east to northeast winds will moderate also.

"Friday will be bitterly cold overnight, with a severe frost and icy conditions."

Some sunny weather is expected on Saturday morning, but the frost will return at night, Met Eireann said.

"There will be a widespread severe frost overnight, with icy roads and some freezing fog can be expected also."

Parts of the country woke up to the first sightings of snow yesterday morning, including Westport in Co Mayo and the Wicklow mountains.

Motorists

AA Roadwatch reported snow lying on a number of roads across the country this morning, including Midleton, Carrick-on-Shannon, Manorhamilton, Sligo Town and Letterkenny.

"Slippery conditions have also been reported around Longford Town, Roscommon Town, Tullamore, Mullingar, Cavan Town, Cork City, Limerick City, Galway City, Portlaoise and Thurles," a spokesperson said earlier today.

"Frost and ice are likely on secondary routes and on high ground in particular.

"Remember it takes up to ten times longer to stop on an icy road. In affected areas, slow down, keep further back from the vehicle in front and keep all manoeuvres gentle."

The status yellow weather warning will remain in place until Saturday.

While the wintry showers were previously described as isolated, "serious" snowfall can be expected today and Thursday, according to Met Eireann forecaster John Eagleton.

"The big threat of snow this week is on Wednesday night and during Thursday, as the winds turn easterly in direction and as the pressure to the south of Ireland injects moisture to those easterly winds," he said.

"Once that threat passes, it will remain cold and frosty for Friday and the weekend, and then temperatures will start to creep up again at the start of next week.

There is still uncertainty for next week, but current indications show a changeable and unsettled week with some spells of rain at times. Temperatures will be normal by day, but cool at night, with some frost in places.
A garda has been suspended from duty over his alleged involvement in a vehicle registration tax (VRT) scam estimated to have cost the taxpayer thousands of euros, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

The midlands-based garda, who buys and sells imported cars, is facing a criminal investigation over his alleged involvement.

The alleged car tax fraud is also understood to involve an official from the Revenue Commissioner's office, who has also been suspended from work pending a criminal investigation.

The garda is believed to have imported a number of cars from the UK before obtaining fraudulent tax certificates for the vehicles.

"As well as being suspended there is a criminal investigation into that garda and the fraud operation," a senior source said.

The garda was suspended from duty within the last month and is likely to face a court action over his alleged involvement in the scam.

He also faces an internal garda disciplinary action over the allegations.

However, a Garda spokesman said they cannot comment on the allegations.

"Gardai do not comment on internal disciplinary matters," the spokesman said.

A Revenue Commissioner spokeswoman confirmed a staff member has been suspended over the fraud claims.

"There was an issue dealt with by the Revenue Commissioner under the civil service disciplinary code and the matter is currently the subject of a criminal investigation," she said. The Revenue official was suspended from work last year.

The Sunday Independent understands the garda at the centre of the allegations was previously cleared of an assault charge after an incident that took place in a nightclub.

He also played a central role in high-profile garda investigations which gained national attention.

Sources say the scam cost the State significant amounts of money in lost revenue.

It is claimed the garda imported high specification cars from the UK but registered them for VRT at lower rates with the aid of the Revenue official.

The move allegedly resulted in the garda making significant savings - at the cost of the taxpayer - when he eventually sold on the cars.

It is alleged the garda was paying the Revenue official to process the fraudulent forms.

"They were very close and she was registering the cars from UK to Irish plates," a source said. "It is alleged he went to her house and paid her cash and she kept it in her pocket," the source added.

VRT must be paid on all cars and motorbikes, and vehicles must be registered before they can be licensed for motor tax.

The National Car Testing Service (NCTS) currently carries out vehicle registration checks on behalf of the Revenue Commissioners.

All unregistered cars or cars registered outside of Ireland must make an appointment with the NCTS for a pre-registration examination of the vehicle within seven days of being imported into Ireland.

Prior to this, VRT checks had been carried out by Revenue officials. It is unclear if the alleged scam was carried out before or after the NCTS was given responsibility to carry out the checks.

Under legislation, the decision to suspend a member of An Garda Siochana lies with Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan. Once a garda is suspended, the Commissioner can review the case every three month or at shorter intervals if deemed necessary. An internal disciplinary action facing the garda will run parallel to the criminal investigation which is currently underway.
Eight people lost their lives when a black VW Passat with seven young men collided with a car near Buncrana, Co Donegal in July 2010. Photo: Paul Faith/PA

What is it about Donegal that makes us think 'not again' when we hear of a tragic road crash?

On the face of it the county seems to have the worst statistics when it comes to road deaths, but in actual fact other counties currently have a worse record when it comes to road deaths.

Figures from the Road Safety Authority (RSA) show that Cork and Dublin had 16 road deaths each last year, followed by Tipperary with 11, and then Donegal with 10.

In 2017 Dublin had 23 road deaths, followed by Cork with 14, Mayo with 12, Louth with 10, Meath with 9, Kerry and Monaghan with eight, Limerick and Wexford with seven, and then Donegal with six along with Kildare.

Figures aside, the county seems to endure more than its fair share of multiple fatalities arising from these collisions.

And tragically, on many occasions, young lives are lost.

The horror of one collision - which claimed the lives of eight men - still resonates in our consciousness nearly a decade later.

It was a July day in 2010 when eight people's lives were lost near Buncrana when a black VW Passat with seven young men collided with a car driven by a 66-year-old man returning from bingo.

In 2014 Shaun Kelly (26), of Hill Road, Ballymagan, Buncrana, was sentenced to four years in prison with two suspended, and was disqualified from driving for 10 years, after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths.

More recently, in July 2016, three friends died in a head-on collision in Corravaddy. Three months later, another two women died in a collision in Ballybofey.

And last year a young man and woman in their 20s were killed when their car hit a wall and a lamppost in Bundoran.

Two teens died in a crash in Inishowen in April 2017.

We don't know yet what caused the crash that killed four young friends in Gortahork last Sunday night.

The garda investigation will take time and we can't jump to any conclusions.

Roads are bad in many areas of the county, including where the latest tragedy occurred, and its geography means that across west Donegal a lot of roads bend around and over bog hills with no lighting.

Emergency services too have far to travel on the same roads before they can get to an accident scene.

Last year saw a reduction in road death figures nationwide after 150 died compared to 158 in 2017.

It was actually the safest year since road death figures were first recorded in 1959 - but this will offer little solace to four grieving families in Donegal today.
THOUSANDS of nurses across the country are on the picket line today, despite freezing temperatures and a risk of snow.

More than 35,000 nurses have walked out in front of hospitals nationwide today after a last-ditch attempt to avert industrial action in the row over their demand for pay parity.

We spoke to three nurses in Ireland about why they're taking part in the strike today, how it feels to leave their patients, and what changes need to happen.

Lisa Kelly (36) Dublin: "I don't do my job for money... but I got up one morning and my electricity was gone"

"I dont do my job for the money. The other night I kept waking after a long day in work, thinking about a patient that passed away and then dreaming about her when I fell back asleep. Money does not come in to that, wages dont have any place in the care you give or the patients that affect you. I was a teenage mother, Ive never had money so Im okay with that.

"I did my four-year degree, I did my post grad for a year and have just finished another four-month course. I do these courses so I know more, so I can give my patients better care, so Im better at my job.

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Whatsapp Lisa Kelly (36) from Dublin has spent over five years upgrading her training as a nurse.

"None of us want to strike. Non-emergency surgeries and procedures are cancelled every single day because of lack of beds and lack of staff. They will be cancelled on Wednesday like theyre cancelled all year round, only this time the Government is telling people about it. Skeleton staff will be in place. Were all worried what will happen when we walk out, about the extra strain on doctors and carers and porters, and especially about our patients.

"We are at breaking point. All weekend we were short staffed. I got up one morning and my electricity was gone. I havent paid my daughter's mock fees. Its three days until pay day and all the money will be gone within three days on bills. We work so hard to be so poor.

"Were not looking for an increase, we are looking for our 12pc restored that was taken from us in cutbacks. Stop young nurses emigrating so we dont do two peoples work for one person's pay.

"No matter what comes of it we will still care for our patients the same, we will still work as hard, but we will feel like we are as appreciated as the OTs and physios, we will feel acknowledged.

"Our staffing numbers will improve making it safer for our patients and we might even have the petrol to make it to work."

Anna Murphy (19) Kildare: "Nursing students are often seen as an extra pair of hands"

"As cliche as it sounds, I think every nurse has a calling.

"Whether it be a call to care for someone until they get back on their feet or the privilege of holding someone's hand when they take their final breathe. The fundamental want to care, to show compassion and kindness is deeply rooted in our being and cannot be taught.

"As a nursing student we see the ins and outs of the struggles that qualified nurses are undertaking each day. As a student nurse you learn to read people very quickly, by reading these qualified nurses you can see them being emotionally and physically burned at both ends. Working with the fear that their nursing registration is in jeopardy due to the conditions they are enduring.

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Whatsapp Anna Murphy (19) is a student nurse from Co Kildare, currently on hospital placement abroad.

"It is often seen that nursing students are used as an extra pair of hands to facilitate the shortage of staff. While training in a hospital in January 2018, nursing students were required to attend a class in the student education building. I remember my nurse manager, who was doing her ultimate best to run the ward in the most efficient way possible, ringing my tutor to inform we couldnt attend due to how short-staffed they were and that we needed to stay and undertake morning obligations.

"On this particular morning the ratio was one nurse to 10 patients of varying needs and a lack of resources. These dangerous and unsuitable working environments are not an unusual occurrence and is seen regularly on each ward.

"As a student for less than two years I will not pretend to know every struggle a nurse goes through, because I do not. We are still, to an extent, sheltered by the term trainee however we are not naive to the truth. All we know is that we want a higher standard. We want to remain hopeful that we can have the choice to stay at home with our families and give care in Ireland, to the Irish people, but change has to be made.

"As a nursing student we are always told when you feel numb by loss it's time to leave the profession however, we are not numb to the unfairness and injustice of the current health care conditions nurses are undertaking daily. Every nurse, no matter where in the world wakes up in the morning wanting to care for someone who needs their help, but Irish nurses are growing weary without the support they need and failing to see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Margaret Keohane (46) Cork: "We've spent our whole career looking after your families, now we need you to look after us"

Expand Close Margaret Keohone (46) from Cork has been qualified as a nurse for 25 years. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Margaret Keohone (46) from Cork has been qualified as a nurse for 25 years.

"It is with a heavy heart that I am participating with strike action today. I dont know one nurse that wants to be on strike, but we have been left with no other choice.

"I qualified as a nurse almost twenty-five years ago.

"My ward will run as normal and to full capacity albeit it with only five nurses. But unfortunately, this isnt the first time it has operated under these conditions. Relief lines and sick leave are now more than often not replaced. Our patient to nurse ratio is constantly increasing. This is not safe practice for patients or nurses.

"This is the main reason that we have been left with no option but to take to the picket lines today. We are exporting our amazing nurses to every country in the world and cant offer them any incentive to come back home.

"Every single INMO nurse will be at their work place today, either working under massive constraints, taking care of our patients or picketing. Enough is enough. Please show your support.

"We have spent our whole careers looking after your families and we are honoured to be able to do so. But now we need you to look after us, as we are now near breaking point, which in turn has led us to this action."
It took until last November for a "loud warning sign" to be sounded about the escalating cost of the 1.4bn national children's hospital - although health officials were told about"worrying trends" last August, the Oireachtas health committee was told yesterday.

Health Minister Simon Harris and Department of Health Secretary General Jim Breslin were before the committee to account for how the bill for the hospital mounted under their watch.

Mr Harris said he had been briefed on the hospital cost in August, but it was November before he was told about "the colossal" escalation in costs after negotiations with the builder BAM.

It was signed off for 983m in April 2017.

When he was told of the increase he had three options - to pause it, re-tender or proceed. The decision to proceed was the "least worst" option.

Questioned by Fianna Fail's Health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly on whether anyone has been asked to resign for the overrun, the minister said he expected the external review of the project, which will be be carried out by PWC, would provide a "warts and all" finding.

"I have not asked anyone to resign," Mr Harris told the committee.

"I will allow due process. But I need accountability. Something went seriously wrong here."

A briefing note to the committee said the paediatric development board - which has responsibility for construction of, design and equipping the hospital - told the department that conclusion of the process was taking longer than planned.

Costs were "trending very significantly over the original costs and the main contractor had just submitted very substantial additional cost claims".

The development board said the costing of initial work packages was in line with expectations but more recent work packages, in particular mechanical and electrical work, were showing significant escalation.

The committee questioned how the cost of the hospital could have jumped in the space of a few months and was told the department had been updated in September.

But the final bill had not been submitted by the hospital board until November, when the "loud warning" sound was emitted.
A major hospital has told patients to avoid the emergency department unless they are "seriously injured or ill" amid the fallout of the nurses' strike.

More than 35,000 nurses hit the picket lines across the country as they began their industrial action.

Some hospitals are already feeling the brunt of the strike - with further pressure on emergency departments expected tomorrow.

The Emergency Department at University Hospital Limerick is currently "very busy", it said in a statement, with "a high number of patients waiting for beds and experiencing extended waits".

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Whatsapp Nurses on the picket line at Blanchardstown (Photo: Mark Condren)

It added: "UL Hospitals Group is reminding members of the public to consider their care options before presenting to the ED.

If you are unwell, please go to your GP or pharmacy in the first instance. However, if you are seriously injured or ill or are worried your life is at risk the ED will assess and treat you as a priority.

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Whatsapp Nurses mount pickets at 8am in Crumlin, Dublin (Photo: Mark Condren)

We apologise to any patients who are experiencing long waits while we prioritise the sickest patients.

Nurses defended their right to strike in the battle for pay parity.

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In Crumlin, hundreds of nurses began marching up and down Cooley Road outside Our Ladys Childrens Hospital at 8am.

Anne Marie McGuinness from Lusk, Co Dublin said they didnt want it to come to this.

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"Theres not one nurse walking up and down the picket line that wants to be on the picket line, where they want to be is in looking after their patients," she said.

"This industrial action is not about a pay increase. What its about is pay parity and recognition for the highly skilled nurses that we have in this organisation and organisations throughout this country.

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"There are hundreds of highly skilled nurses that have trained here and qualified here, theyre leaving this country to go work in organisations all over the world," she added.

Her colleague, Helene Murchain, a cardiac nurse specialist from Dundrum, said she was on strike in 1999 and said; "I never thought wed have to come back to this".

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"When I qualified in 1987 Im one of the nurses that had to leave the country because there were no jobs for us, there was no adequate pay," she said.

"Now were in a situation where people look at our salary slips but they dont realise the issues that are happening.

"Were losing staff all the time, senior nurses are leaving, trying to staff the wards adequately and safely to maintain quality patient care for our patients and their families," she added.

Radiology nurse, Seamus Keogh, from Dooradoyle Co Limerick said moral is at an all time low.

The main challenges are giving the patients the time and giving them the care they need.

Mr Keogh said he has seen 500 taken from his monthly wage in taxes and charges since 2008.

Its a big whack on a house. Ive one child and my other half isnt working at the moment. I don't want to be out here on the picket; I dont want to be loosing a days pay, two days possibly next week and three days the next, but Im willing to take the hit for the team and drive on, and I think well succeed.

The message to the Government is to engage. Theyll have to listen, just look at the crowds, if they don't listen to us, its borderline ignorance.

Risk

As soon as nurses began their stoppage, they faced a freeze of their incremental pay hikes, loss of a wage boost for recent recruits worth 3,300 each, as well as a day's pay.

But those who provided emergency cover will get paid, a departure from the norm during health sector strikes.

The rest will get a small contribution from their union as strike pay.

There are fears that some A&E departments could become flash points of safety risk as the bad weather increases the numbers of patients to seek emergency care.

A last-ditch attempt to bring the nurses back from the brink of industrial action in the row over their demand for a 12pc pay rise failed earlier this week.

The Labour Court found no basis to intervene after eight hours of exploratory talks with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and Government officials.

It will continue to assess what assistance it might provide "at the appropriate time".

As well as today's stoppage, the nurses plan strikes next Tuesday and Thursday, and three consecutive strikes on February 12, 13 and 14.

The health system faces further pressure tomorrow as psychiatric nurses refuse to work overtime.

The nurses want a 12pc pay rise on top of increases already due under the public sector pay deal.

Sources revealed that INMO leaders sought a pay rise upfront during the 11th-hour talks, plus a review of their pay and responsibilities.

They were willing to discuss "development" of their positions but Government officials are "not on the same page".

Further strike action is already planned but the INMO has not ruled out adding to this again.

The INMO said they are available for talks to avoid further industrial action.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the nursing unions are seeking a significant pay rise over and above all of the benefits of the current wage agreement, which they signed up to.

He said he had no doubt that conceding the pay demand would generate leapfrogging claims from the rest of the public service workforce.

Fianna Fail's health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly called for a nurses to be "taken seriously" and "treated with respect".

He said his party strongly supports the nurses and midwives saying none of them wants to be on strike but they've been raising "serious issues" on inequitable pay grades, staffing, patient safety and working conditions since 2013.

He said a lot of them are "feeling burnt out" and the "anger and frustration around the country is palpable".

Mr Donnelly said "The reality is there is a recruitment and retention problem, there are issues with staffing."

He said there needs to be "meaningful engagement" and claimed "that hasnt really happened. They need to be listened to properly."

He argued that nurses are feeling that they're not being respected by the Government" and added: "That needs to change".

Mr Donnelly said his party's solution would be engagement that offers nurses a "clear pathway" to resolving the issues that they've raised.

He said it would be up to the government and the INMO who would be involved in such talks, listing the Workplace Relations Commission. the Labour Court, the HSE and the Department of Health and Simon Harris as bodies and individuals "that can be brought into play".

He was asked about concern that other public sector unions would seek new pay deals if the nurses' demands are granted.

Mr Donnelly said the national pay agreement must be protected while addressing the issues raised by nurses.

He claimed the national pay agreement allows for mechanism to address sector-by-sector issues if there are difficulties in recruitment and retention.

He said one examples is Galway University Hospital where a third of operating theatres are closed on a daily basis because it can't hire enough theatre nurses.

Mr Donnelly added: "Individual cases like that are happening all over the system and theyre having huge impacts on patients, patient safety, waiting lists, access to healthcare.

"The nurses and midwives know this. They want this resolved. They want patient care at the centre of this. They want be taken seriously and they want to be treated with respect and thats what were calling on the government to do."
Graduates who want to pursue a post-graduate course in primary teaching have been given a years breather before stricter entry requirements come into effect.

Education Minister Joe McHugh has announced that higher requirements in relation to Leaving Cert grades in Irish, English and maths, which were due to apply for entry in 2019, are being delayed for a year for the masters programme.

Changes to the minimum entry requirements for all applicants to the primary teacher training programmes were announced in 2017.

Applicants to the undergraduate primary teaching BEd degree will have to meet the new requirements this year, but there is a deferral until 2020 for applicants to the Primary Professional Masters of Education (PME) .

There are 200 places available on the Primary PME across four state-funded primary teacher training colleges.

In 2018, the four colleges received about 1,617 applications - about eights applicants for each PME place  although some applicants may have applied to more than one college.

Mr McHugh said the new entry requirements were the appropriate standards but the original timing of their introduction may have caused difficulties for some students planning for a PME as a way to launch themselves into a primary teaching career.

We are giving those students time and clarity on the new requirements. It is the right thing to do.

The deferral means we are allowing students the opportunity to make arrangements to ensure they have the necessary entry requirements.
In a classroom in Dublin's Marino Institute of Education last Saturday, a small but important building block was laid with a view to improving the structural diversity of Irish education.

Almost 40 students, all foreign-trained teachers living in Ireland, were on the first day of a bridging programme aimed at helping them to develop and apply their knowledge and skills in an Irish context - and, importantly, to get work here.

Participants, who include both primary or post-primary teachers, came from 17 countries: Spain, India, Poland, Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, Croatia, UK, Italy, USA, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Russia, Iceland, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia.

They were selected from about 140 applicants, following a call last year. To date, about 550 teachers who gained their qualification in another country have expressed an interest in the programme.

While about 12pc of the pupil population is from an immigrant background, migrant teachers face obstacles when it comes to getting work. They are a loss to the system, as international research shows the benefits to schools and students of having a diverse teaching staff, including promoting integration. The Marino project is funded by the Office for the Promotion of Integration of Migrants in the Department of Justice and Equality.

The 'Being a Teacher in Ireland' programme has been specially designed, with its content based on an analysis of what both the migrant teachers and school principals said they needed.

There are four days of face-to-face lectures/workshops, the first of which was last Saturday. There is also an online teaching and learning component, and at least five days' school experience, to be completed between February and April,

Foreign-trained teachers coming into Ireland cannot automatically walk into a job. For a State-paid post, they need Teaching Council registration, which can be a time-consuming process, involving gathering documentation from their home country and making up qualification shortfalls, where necessary. For instance, if they want to be primary teacher, Irish is an added requirement.

More than half of the students on the course now have their Teaching Council recognition, but even that is not enough, which is where the Marino programme comes into play.

The course is about helping them to understand the culture and workings of the Irish education system and to overcome invisible obstacles to getting a job, such as lack of social networks and the sort of discussions among cousins and friends where opportunities may be mentioned.

One of the co-ordinators of the Migrant Teacher Project is Dr Emer Nowlan, who says that, as in any other profession, "if you are a migrant, it is harder to get a job; you are expected to meet a higher standard".

She says the course will familiarise the teachers with the Irish curriculum and with classroom management styles, explaining that "in some countries, teacher preparation is very similar to Ireland, but not everywhere".

The make-up of Irish education is also a mystery to many, with systems in most other countries operated through State structures rather than largely along religious lines.

"They are all aware of certain things, like the dominance of the Catholic Church, but it is so complicated," says Nowlan. She says foreign-trained teachers will be helped to understand the differences in the school ethos so they can address questions such as: "Where do you want to work? How do you know what type of school it is? What kind of culture might you expect there?"

Migrant teachers face a vicious circle of finding it harder to get a job and, as a consequence, not gaining necessary experience. Nowlan says both principals and migrant teachers identify this as a gap.

She says some teachers are "blue in the face" trying to be even a volunteer in a school, but are not being given the opportunities.

On the other hand, principals say they "would love to see these people with some experience of the Irish context. But the teachers don't have local networks; they need the school experience, to get them in the door".

One of the Marino group is Latvian-trained primary teacher Gunita O'Connor, who volunteers in her children's school.

She came to Ireland 13 years ago and has settled in Kells, Co Meath, with her Irish husband. With her two children getting older, she decided to try to restart her career, building on the confidence she has gained from her volunteer work with small groups.

She already has conditional recognition from the Teaching Council, but hopes this course will help her to dip her toe into the Irish system, starting as a substitute or support teacher.
Catholic Schools Week is being celebrated in schools around Ireland. Students, teachers, parents, godparents and grandparents are all invited to reflect on what it means to belong to a Catholic school community in contemporary Ireland. Change is in the air and for those who work in Catholic education, it is an exciting time. There are many challenges in schools today, but there are new possibilities too.

This is a time for creative thinking and Catholic schools are reinventing themselves all the time. What an eye-opener it can be, encouraging the variety of young people involved in Catholic schools to tell their stories, ask their questions, listen to others, awaken to new ways of seeing the world, and reach out, especially to those most in need of love and support.

The Catholic understanding of education today is built on respect for the dignity of every human person. It is directed towards the growth of each individual as a person. It celebrates all of life in a spirit of justice, generosity and gratitude. In recent years, Catholic schools in Ireland have become well known, here and abroad, for the way in which they have quietly opened their doors to welcome young migrants and refugees. Among the themes for Catholic Schools Week, then, is 'welcoming diversity', in particular respecting people of other religions and world views.

What many adults remember about Catholic schools in their day is often very different from what is happening in Catholic primary and post-primary schools today. The mission is still the same but the approach is different. The Catholic community believes that Jesus Christ has revealed God's love for all to the world. That is the starting point in Catholic schools from which everything else follows. All are embraced, all are cared for equally, all are loved and with Jesus.

Catholic Schools Week therefore also includes a focus on the 'living tradition' of Catholic schools, acknowledging the riches that come down to us through time and culture. The emphasis is on this as a living tradition, always looking to the future in new ways with young people and their families.

During Catholic Schools Week, grandparents are specifically invited to engage in reflection with their grandchildren on how to love, how to care, how to share. They can also teach us about God and how prayer is such a wonderful way to talk to God. Catholic schools are being asked to find new ways of 'supporting faith'. They see themselves working 'in service of our community' as Jesus has taught us.

There is an opportunity this week to talk with young people about school, to listen to what they are learning for life, what they enjoy most about being in school, and what they have discovered through their conversations in religious education. My bet is that you will be surprised by the depth of the issues they are dealing with and amazed to hear about the dialogue that is taking place. Maybe it will be you who comes away with a new way of seeing the world.

Rev Dr Gareth Byrne is Associate Professor of Religious Education and Director of the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education at DCU Institute of Education.
Winifred McDonagh (left) and Melissa McDonagh (right), two of the plaintiffs involved in the case

Gardai have been praised for their "vigilance" after four personal injury claims worth over 100,000 were dismissed following a High Court appeal.

Aviva Insurance, which acted for the defendant, welcomed the ruling of the High Court but said the cost of having to fight appeals like this is discouraging.

Rob Smyth of Aviva said they suspected the claims were exaggerated based on the evidence of the garda at the scene.

"I wish to acknowledge the excellent work of the gardai, it was their vigilance at the scene of the accident that assisted us in successfully defending these claims," he said.

"If successful, the potential payout could have been in the region of 100,000 upwards. Unfortunately, significant costs are incurred in defending these claims, but we are committed to taking all necessary steps to recover our costs," he added.

Julianne McDonagh, Angelina McDonagh, Melissa McDonagh and Winifred McDonagh, with an address of Nash's Boreen, Fairhill, Co Cork, each brought injury claims after the vehicle they were travelling in was rear ended.

The case was heard before Cork Circuit Court last May and all plaintiffs lodged an appeal to the High Court after their claims were dismissed.

Garda Eoin Hodnett of Guarranbraher Garda Station attended the scene and provided evidence that the damage shown in the photographic evidence obtained from an engineer was not consistent with his observations at the scene.

The woman who rear-ended the vehicle also said in her evidence there was only a scratch to the back of the car following the accident.

Each of the plantiffs said they sustained soft tissue injuries to the neck and back, while Julianne McDonagh said she sustained a fracture to her rib.

An x-ray report indicated that Ms McDonagh had fractured her rib, but the evidence heard that none of the passengers complained of any injuries at the scene of the accident.

Justice Michael Hanna this week dismissed all four claims and awarded costs against the plaintiffs.
Wreck: Ronan Norton rammed this car belonging to a neighbour, believing it to be driven by burglars

A father of two who drank up to seven pints and six brandies before getting behind the wheel of a friend's SUV and ramming another car at high speed has been jailed.

The court also heard athlete Michelle McGee - an elite runner who represented Ireland at European competitions - had to forego her promising career due to injuries she sustained when Ronan Norton repeatedly rear-ended the vehicle she was travelling in.

Norton, with an address at Derryharrow, Co Longford, was sentenced by Judge Keenan Johnson to two-and-a-half years in jail when he appeared before Longford Circuit Court yesterday.

Last October, Norton, a master farrier who previously worked with champion trainer Aidan O'Brien, pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage and endangerment at Esker, Ballinalee, Co Longford, on December 31, 2016.

The court heard Stephen Reilly, the driver of a VW Passat, had been dropping his girlfriend Ms McGee home when they were suddenly rear-ended by Norton.

Burglars

It was revealed Norton had been drinking with another man on the night, when about 11pm the pair decided to go and get more drink from a local pub.

After consuming up to seven pints and another six brandies earlier in the day, Norton decided to get into his friend's Honda SUV.

Along their journey, Norton spotted Mr Reilly's car and mistakenly believed it contained burglars.

The court was told how Norton's house had been broken into some years earlier, causing him to wrongly believe the car driven by Mr Reilly may have been in some way connected.

The court was told that in the moments that followed, Norton pursued Mr Reilly's car at high speed before going on to ram his VW Passat on at least six occasions.

Both Ms McGee and Mr Reilly sustained significant injuries as a result, with Ms McGee receiving a fracture to her ankle and sternum.

The court heard elite runner Ms McGee had been forced to forego her burgeoning career and remained in pain on a daily basis.

In her victim impact statement, Ms McGee described the offence as a "horrific nightmare" and how she thought she was "100pc going to die".

In mitigation, Norton expressed remorse, adding he regretted his actions every day.

It was also revealed by the defendant's partner, Thelma Fanning, that she and the couple's two children risked losing the family home if Norton got a custodial sentence.

In delivering his sentence, Judge Keenan Johnston said Norton's nature of driving, violence and decision to flee the scene on foot on the night, effectively abandoning his victims, were aggravating factors in the case.

Risk

He said Norton's guilty plea, albeit a late one, did have the effect of saving his victims the ordeal of having to give evidence before a full jury trial.

A probation report, which indicated Norton was at low risk of reoffending, also had to be factored in, he said.

Judge Johnston consequently sentenced Norton to five years in prison for endangerment, suspending the final two-and-a-half years for a period of five years.

The sentence was backdated to January 22, the date Norton first went into custody.
A hairdresser who was trusted to make house calls to a seriously ill elderly lady betrayed her by using her bank card to steal from her.

Elaine Long (47) heartlessly took the card to make cash withdrawals and book flights for herself as 88-year-old Bernie Clarkes condition deteriorated.

A court heard how Mrs Clarke, who had lost the power of speech to a progressive brain disorder and communicated by writing, loved to see the accused come to do her hair, which was her weekly treat to herself.

After the betrayal was revealed, she lost trust in people and has since passed away.

Her daughter said the family was devastated by the thefts and felt manipulated by Long.

Judge Dermot Simms adjourned sentencing for a probation report and payment of compensation for the 924 that was proven to have been stolen. The victims family want this to go to charity.

Long, from Blackhorse Grove, North Circular Road, pleaded guilty to five counts of theft.

Garda Padraic Walsh told Dublin District Court in June 2017, Mrs Clarkes daughter Marian Murray reported to him the compromised use of her mothers AIB bank card in a cash withdrawal.

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Whatsapp The late Bernie Clarke, victim of theft by Elaine Long.

Mrs Murray had said her mother was unable to report it herself due to old age and ill health. Mrs Murray viewed CCTV and was horrified to identify Elaine Long, who was her mothers hairdresser.

Gardai established that Long had used the card to withdraw 500 from an ATM at Spar, Ashtown, Navan Road on June 4, and another 100 from a Maxol Service Station also on the Navan Road on June 14, 2017.

The card was also used to pay for a 133 Dublin to Liverpool Ryanair flight in Longs name on June 5, and another similar flight for 131 on June 9.

Long used the card to make a payment on her own Virgin Media account on May 30, 2017.

When Gda Walsh questioned Long at her home in 2018, she denied using Mrs Clarkes card at any time and mostly replied no comment after she was arrested. When shown the CCTV footage and correspondence from Ryanair and Virgin Media she did not accept any involvement or show any remorse, the garda said.

Mrs Clarke had sadly passed away last year, the court heard.

Long had no prior convictions and at the time of the offences, her sister was in Liverpool undergoing cancer treatment, defence solicitor Fergal Boyle said.

Long was under financial pressure, he said. The accuseds sister had since passed away.

Long acknowledged that she had abused a position of trust and what she did was totally unacceptable.

Marian Murray then read out a victim impact statement. She said at the time she reported the crimes as her mother had progressive supranuclear palsy, and could not speak.

For 60 years, mums treat to herself was her weekly hair appointment, she said. When she became sick in 2015, she began getting treatments at home from Elaine Long and as her condition deteriorated, Elaine was provided with a key to the family home, such was the trust we had developed with her.

Expand Close Pictured are the late Bernie Clarke (left) with her daughter Marian Murray (right). Bernie Clarke was the victim of theft by Elaine Long. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pictured are the late Bernie Clarke (left) with her daughter Marian Murray (right). Bernie Clarke was the victim of theft by Elaine Long.

Elaine and mum had described each other as each others adopted mother/ daughter. Mum loved to see Elaine coming to do her hair. As mum became more immobile with her illness she also lost the power of speech and had to communicate with writing which left her very vulnerable.

"It was at this point that Elaine Long took advantage of the trust that been placed in her and honesty expected of her by the family and we are devastated by this betrayal of our mother.

Ms Murray said the family had been disturbed by the breach of trust.

I was speechless when I saw it was Elaine Long on the CCTV footage using our mums bank card. I had dinner on occasions with Elaine and could not believe that she would breach the trust our family and Mum herself had placed in her.

"We feel manipulated by Elaine Long. When it became apparent what had happened Mum became guarded with her personal information and did not want her business discussed in front of the carers employed to mind her.

Previously she had been very trusting, open and had a good relationship with them. In essence, Mum lost her trust in people at a time in her later life when she actually really needed to be able to trust people. We hope the case will bring awareness to others about protecting vulnerable and defenceless persons in society.

Adjourning the case to a date in March, Judge Simms said the court had not made up its mind but was very concerned about the situation.
The last picture taken of Warren O'Connor

Fatally wounded Warren OConnor shook hands with one of his friends as they told him they loved him before he went pale and died, a court heard.

A friend broke down in tears as he gave evidence of Mr OConnors final moments as he lay on a Dublin street after being stabbed following a row over a noisy house party.

Philip Woodcock said they were talking to him and trying to get him to blink but he didnt blink, he just died.

Mr Woodcock (34) was giving evidence in the Central Criminal Court trial of Gary Watson (35), who denies murdering Mr OConnor (24) at Hole in the Wall Road, Donaghmede on January 16, 2010.

The accused, of Millbrook Avenue, Kilbarrack also denies assault causing harm to Mr Woodcock and producing a knife in the course of a dispute.

Mr Woodcock, an apprentice electrician and former soldier, was living at the time in an apartment at The Beech, Grattan Wood with his then-partner Suzanne Martin and their son.

That night he said he heard loud voices shouting and roaring next door, where his neighbour Louise Kinsella lived.

Later, he heard music, more shouting and a lot of noise.

He went downstairs to remove the fuse and cut the power to the apartment so hopefully they would leave".

He drove to a garage and Ms Martin called him to say that the party was louder. Mr Woodcock then called and picked up friends Jonathan Gunnery, Richard Grant and Warren OConnor.

Mr Woodcock knocked on his neighbours door, it swung open and there were three men standing there with big kitchen knives.

He told the jury he had wanted them to get out of the block because he wanted a decent nights sleep, considering I hadnt had one for two weeks".

Mr Woodcock said Mr OConnor became aggressive when he saw the knives and he grabbed Mr OConnor and said leave it, lets go".

One of the men, with bushy eyebrows and wearing a Russell Athletic hoodie stood out and began talking to Mr OConnor, which defused the situation and the knives were gone at that stage".

Mr Woodcock told the others to leave and the man in the Russell Athletic top then came toward me and hit me with the top of his head onto mine".

Punched

Mr Woodcock said he punched this man, who fell to the ground. Another one of the other group ran back into the apartment and Mr Woodcock thought he was going to get the knives and ran after him.

He grabbed a chain that was around this mans neck, the man swung around and threw a punch at him and they scuffled, the court heard. As Mr Woodcock and his friends walked out, the man in the Russell Athletic hoodie said leave it out".

Mr Woodcock said he wanted to get his partner and son out and as they were gathering their things they heard the other group leaving.

His friends helped a man in a wheelchair who was there and Mr Woodcock saw the man in the Russell Athletic jumper standing by a Honda Civic, which the man with the chain was driving.

They were shouting we were going to get it, they knew where we lived, Mr Woodcock told the jury.

The others put the Civic in reverse and were trying to run me over so he kicked the back of their car. His friends were running at the Civic which was rallying around basically trying to knock us down".

As they drove out of the car park in a Ford Focus, his friend Richard Grant shouted to the men in the Civic dont be acting the b*******, there's kids in the car.

They drove onto Hole In The Wall Road, where Mr Woodcock said the Civic rammed his car, he lost control of it and both cars cut out.

There was a small potato peeler knife in his car and he gave this to Mr Gunnery and said if any of them have knives, look out for us.

Mr Woodcock got out and ran towards the Civics driver, who he began hitting. Out of the corner of his eye, Mr Woodcock could see the man in the Russell Athletic jumper running up behind him.

He said he ran towards this man, who had a big black handled kitchen knife in his right hand, about eight inches long and two inches wide.

It was like a chopping knife that you would get in a kitchen block, he said.

They ran towards each other and Mr Woodcock threw a punch at the man, who was bringing the knife down, putting it into my back".

I think what happened was I caught him with a punch at the same time as he was putting the knife into me and the knife didnt go fully into me, he said.

Stabbed

The man lost his momentum and fell to the ground and Mr Woodcock shouted to his friends: Get back into the car, Im after getting stabbed.

His friend Graham Hogan shouted Warren is after getting knocked out and they saw Mr OConnor lying face down on the ground.

Mr Woodcock drove the car to Mr OConnor and they turned him over.

He was lying there bleeding from his chest, he was still alive, Mr Woodcock said. He put his hand up and he shook Richards hand. He went pale, his eyes went glassy. We were all talking to him telling him we loved him. We were trying to make him blink. He didnt blink, he just died.

Mr Woodcock became emotional as he gave evidence and members of Mr OConnors family in the public gallery also began to cry.

Mr Justice White asked the jury to retire for 10 minutes.

When his evidence resumed, Mr Woodcock said he saw what was still left inside him - a small half-inch or inch long piece of the knife still sticking out of Mr OConnors body.

Two cars drove by with people beeping and cheering".

Mr Woodcock received stitches for a shoulder injury in Beaumont Hospital, where he also met members of Mr OConnors family. Everyone was distraught, he said.

In cross-examination by Ann Marie Lawlor SC, defending, he accepted he had lied to the gardai when he told them the knife given to Mr Gunnery was left in the car.

He accepted he told gardai his intention had been to beat the b******* out of the fellas in the Civic".

Earlier, James Dwyer SC opened the prosecution's case. He told the jury on the night, the woman next door to Mr Woodcock was celebrating her birthday and met a number of friends including the defendant. They went back to her apartment for a party and Mr Woodcock decided to deal with the noise coming from the neighbouring apartment by taking out the electrical fuse.

He then drove to a nearby garage and got a phone call from his partner to say the noise had resumed.

He decided to call to the apartment with a number of friends, including Mr OConnor. An altercation took place between Mr Woodcock and his friends including the deceased, and the other side.

This took place at the front doors of the apartments and knives were produced, Mr Dwyer continued. After that altercation, both sides appeared to retreat into their respective apartments.

Mr Watson and two men he was with went downstairs to the car park, as did Mr Woodcock and his partner, child and friends.

Mr Watson and the two men got into a black Honda civic while Mr Woodcock and the others got into a Ford Focus.

There were exchanges in the car park and both cars exited, the Focus leaving first. The Civic followed, driven by one of the men who was with the accused, Mr Dwyer continued.

Outside the apartment complex, the Civic collided with and rammed the Focus, both cars spun around and Mr Woodcock and the people who had come to assist him got out of the Focus.

His partner and child remained inside the Focus.

Mr Woodcock went to the drivers side of the Civic, where the driver was and was approached by a man with a knife who stabbed him on the shoulder, Mr Dwyer said.

The prosecution would say this was the defendant.

Mr Woodcock punched him in the chin, knocking him to the ground as he was being stabbed, Mr Dwyer told the jury. He went back to the Focus and saw his friend, Mr OConnor on the ground.

One of Mr Woodcocks friends ran to the door of the Civic where the prosecution would say the accused was sitting brandishing a knife.

There was an altercation between them, and Mr Woodcocks friend subsequently saw the deceased on the ground.

The deceased had been stabbed in the chest with a knife, breaking the blade in so doing, Mr Dwyer said.

A witness who lived on the other side of the Hole In The Wall Road said he was looking out his window having heard the sound of the collision between the vehicles.

He saw the fatal stabbing and heard the assailant say 'get that into you' when he carried out the stabbing, Mr Dwyer said.

The witness would say he saw the assailant, wearing a hooded top running into Grattan Wood with two men, and the prosecution would say this was Gary Watson.

Gardai were called, and Mr OConnor was brought to Beaumont Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Mr Watson, wearing a blue shirt and purple tie sat in court listening to Mr Dwyer as he made his opening speech.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Michael White and a jury of seven men and five women.
A couple found to have accepted a "loan" - rather than a "gift" - of 280,000 from a former friend must repay that sum immediately plus interest, a High Court judge has ruled.

Fidelma 'Della' Kerrigan was also entitled to the legal costs of the eight-day case brought by her against Jacqueline and John Keenaghan, Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy said. Those costs are expected to be a six-figure sum.

Outside court, Ms Kerrigan said she was "glad it was all over" but "deeply disappointed" her friends had betrayed her.

She gave the 280,000 to the Keenaghans in August 2010 out of a 750,000 compensation award made to her two weeks earlier for serious injuries suffered by her in a road accident in which her father died. She is now on social protection payments.

Earlier this month, Ms Justice Murphy ruled the 280,000 given by the "gullible and naive" Ms Kerrigan was a loan sought by Ms Keenaghan with no specified repayment date.

She rejected arguments by the Keenaghans that it was an unsolicited "gift".

The "real tragedy" in the case stemmed from the Keenaghans' reaction when Ms Kerrigan sought repayment in 2014 of the loan, the judge said.

She accepted evidence of Della Kerrigan and her sister Celine that in the months leading up to the settlement, Jacqueline Keenaghan - a friend of the sisters whose architectural technologist husband's business was in serious difficulty -broached the possibility of Della helping her out of the settlement proceeds.

She assured Della she would pay back "every penny", the sisters said.

Ms Kerrigan had agreed in principle to help out her "dear friend", the judge said.

Jacqueline Keenaghan's denial of the "true circumstances" of the loan ruptured this friendship and the Kerrigans saw the denial for what it was, "an enormous breach of trust".

She was confident any reasonable repayment proposal from the couple would have found favour with Ms Kerrigan even if spread over "many, many years".

Even if she had found the 280,000 was a gift, she would have set that aside as an "improvident transaction" on foot of which the defendants had been "unjustly enriched", she added.

The Keenaghans, Judge Murphy noted, had paid off all their debts, financed their children's education, retrained as counsellors and psychotherapists and opened a new business.

When the case returned for final orders yesterday, the judge granted judgment for the 280,000, plus interest at 8pc from 2014 when Ms Kerrigan first sought repayment.
Down Syndrome Ireland charity campaign Please dont Leave us Behind launched at Leinster House! Pictured: L-R: Yann O'Carroll, Lucy Corcoran, Niamh Smyth TD, Simon Smyth and Kate Hoskins Photographer: 1IMAGE/Donall Farmer

Children with Down Syndrome are being discriminated against in the education system, it was claimed today.

Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI) said children were being denied their right to an effective education due to a lack of resources and training for teachers, it was claimed today.

Representatives of the charity briefed TDs and senators at the Dail against the backdrop of dissatisfaction within the two second-level teacher unions, the ASTI and TUI, about the level of provision for ongoing developments in the area of meeting special educational needs.

DSI president Mary Doherty said children with Down Syndrome must be set up to succeed and not to fail.

This simply will not happen without adequate resourcing, teacher training and critical individualised education plans for children with additional needs, she said.

DSI, which represents 3,500 people with Down Syndrome and their families, is also calling for the July Provision programme, which provides funding to extend the school year for children with certain special needs, to be extended to all children with Down Syndrome.

Extending the programme to all children with Down Syndrome would cost just 1m a year, the charity estimates.

Ms Doherty said children with Down Syndrome needed the additional support during the summer months so they could catch up with their peers and stay in mainstream education.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photo: Reuters

European shares closed higher ahead of a blizzard of political, economic and corporate events, with a Brexit vote and Apple results yesterday and a Federal Reserve decision and Sino-US trade talks today.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended the day up 0.8pc, while London's FTSE 100 rallied by more than 1.3pc ahead of the vote in Parliament on Brexit.

In Dublin, the Iseq was up very slightly, by 0.09pc, boosted by risers including Ryanair and Smurfit Kappa, but in a mixed day AIB rose 1.75pc while Bank of Ireland dropped 1.24pc.

Across Europe the picture was mixed, but investors tended to shun stocks or indexes exposed to US-China trade, such as Frankfurt's DAX, which limited its gains to 0.1pc, or automotives, which fell 0.5pc.

News that the United States levelled criminal charges against China's Huawei before the new round of talks between Washington and Beijing added to the subdued mood.

In a sign of nervousness, trading was limited with FTSE 100 turnover at 88pc of the average 90-day daily volume. On the STOXX 600 it was 85pc and 77pc on the DAX. The mood was however better in Europe than on Wall Street where indexes were slightly in the red.

Stephane Barbier de la Serre, a strategist at Makor Capital Markets, said European markets had catching up to do and that Wednesday's US monetary meeting was making investors there more cautious.

The European technology sector, down 0.5pc, was also among the few losers with SAP, Europe's most valuable technology company, down 2.7pc after its results.
STRUGGLING Scandinavian airline Norwegian has turned to Norway's richest person as it hunts for a new buyer after Aer Lingus owner IAG ditched its pursuit of the low-cost carrier last week.

In danger of breaching financial covenants as its dream of providing profitable, low-cost, long-haul travels continues to fade, Norwegian said yesterday that it's raising 3bn kroner (309m) in a rights issue that's underwritten by investors including shipping billionaire John Fredriksen.

It gives Norwegian breathing room to find a suitor as its losses continue to mount in a competitive environment.

Last week, IAG chief executive Willie Walsh questioned the use by Norwegian of expensive 787 Dreamliners to fulfil its long-haul ambitions. But he also said that he believes Norwegian will survive. "I don't buy into the idea that Norwegian disappears, to be honest with you," he said. "I think Norwegian will, in some form, continue."

Norwegian's proposed rights issue is subject to shareholder approval at an extraordinary general meeting.

Norwegian said: "Following, among other issues, severe delays in aircraft and engine deliveries, the company has for some time been assessing financing needs and financing alternatives, including raising equity."

It added that it put the equity-raising plan on standby in December, but had not been in a position to execute it while engaged in potential acquisition talks.

"The company believes that a strengthened balance sheet will increase its competitiveness and stand-alone financial strength," it said. "The board will nevertheless continue to be willing to engage in consolidation discussions that can develop shareholder value in Norwegian."

Norwegian CEO Bjorn Kjos said: "I've known John Fredriksen for a long time, and we even have a CFO who has worked for Fredriksen.

"We're very happy to have the Fredriksen group as a part of that guarantee consortium."

Mr Kjos, who rejected two previous offers from IAG, has been struggling to weather a cash crunch. His company is awash with capacity after one of the fastest growth spurts in aviation history, at a time when a European fare war has depressed revenue.

Asked about Lufthansa, which held talks with Norwegian last year, and Ryanair, which has denied speculation of its interest, Mr Kjos declined to discuss specifics.

"I can't say who, I can only say that more than one interested party has contacted us," he said. IAG and Lufthansa declined to comment. Ryanair didn't respond to requests for comment. IAG's decision to walk away from the talks had spurred concerns about Norwegian's finances, with analysts widely predicting that a capital increase was likely - though the rights issue is bigger than many had forecast.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg
US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said he expects to see significant progress in trade talks with Chinese officials this week, adding that US charges against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei were a separate issue.

"Those are separate issues, and that's a separate dialogue," Mr Mnuchin said. "So those are not part of trade discussions. Forced technology issues are part of trade discussions, but any issues as it relates to violations of US law or US sanctions are going through a separate track."

China's vice-premier Liu He is leading a delegation for high-level trade and economic talks in Washington this week, including a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

On Monday, the US announced criminal charges against Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. She was arrested in Canada in December and is fighting extradition to the US.

Reuters
The illustrator behind the special 2 coin marking the 100 years since the first sitting of the Dail is establishing his stamp on the SME market.

The Central Bank of Ireland will mint one million of these new 2 coins for general circulation, their tiny decorated canvas featuring the words 'An Chead Dail', as the meeting took place entirely in Irish.

Emmet Mullins' coin design - which depicts the first TDs in attendance at the landmark event - was launched at the Mansion House earlier this month by the bank's governor Philip R. Lane, along with a commemorative 100 coin.

Mullins, who set up Brandish: An Advertising and Design Bureau, said he was "delighted to have had the opportunity to play a part in marking an event of such historical significance for Ireland".

After two decades working with advertising and design agencies, Mullins went out on his own last May to provide an "end-to-end" service for his clients.

"I have three core values: reliability, value and creativity. We work closely with clients to set realistic time lines and goals which leads to more value collaboration.

"When I take on a job, I don't have a big staff and all that flash that comes with agencies. That means lower overheads, and less of a cost that's passed on to the client.

"A lot of businesses are in the forgotten middle, they want agency quality work but they might not have the budget. Even if the budget is there, it's small in agency terms and might not get the full focus. That's where I come in."

The successful creative was also involved in the only other special circulating euro coin issued by the Central Bank, chosen after a public competition.

Four and a half million 2 coins to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising were released to general circulation in 2016.

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"Winning the public competition to design the 1916 Centenary coin was an incredible honour; being asked back to design this new commemorative coin to mark 100 years since the first sitting of Dail Eireann is a humbling endorsement of my work," he said.

In 2015, Mullins also designed the cover for a rare seven inch Rolling Stones single, Dead Flowers, from the album 'Sticky Fingers'.
Echelon Data Centres is to create 1,100 jobs with the 1bn development of two data centres.

The centres will be located in Dublin and Wicklow.

As many as 910 jobs will be created during the construction phase at the two sites, which once operational will employ 100 people in Clondalkin and 90 staff in Arklow.

Speaking at the jobs launch, Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation Heather Humphreys described the investment as "fantastic news" for Ireland.

"It's particularly encouraging to see an indigenous company making this type of commitment to a sector that we think of as being dominated by Silicon Valley giants," Minister Humphreys added.

Niall Molloy, CEO of Echelon, said the provision of customisable, scalable data centre facilities is key to the continuing growth of the digital economy, "driven by social media, e-commerce, and the Internet of things."

In addition to the two sites in Ireland, the group is in the process of identifying other sites in the UK and Europe.
Shannon Group, which consists of Shannon Airport, Shannon Heritage and Shannon Commercial Properties, enjoyed "significant growth" last year.

In 2018, Shannon Airport enjoyed its best year this decade with growth of 6.5pc, bringing total passenger numbers to over 1.86 million, the group said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Shannon Heritage, the largest commercial operator of day and night-time visitor attractions in Ireland, continued to grow, with a 4.3pc increase in visitor numbers to a record high of 924,718.

Eleswhere and Shannon Commercial Properties completed the 40m first-phase of its ongoing investment programme at Shannon Free Zone, more than doubling occupancy rates to 94pc since 2013.

Commenting on the results, Shannon Group CEO Matthew Thomas said: "2018 was a really positive year for Shannon Group."

"We are set on an ambitious course, investing aggressively in our businesses to drive further growth in the years ahead. In tandem with this, we are fully committed to the National Planning Framework ambitions and have put in place measures to play our part in helping Government deliver on its promise of generating 75pc growth outside of the capital by 2040."

Established in 2014, the group is owned by the Irish State and has a commercial mandate.

It supports over 46,500 jobs, and contributes 1.1bn in Exchequer returns.
Ryanair has completed its acquisition of low-cost Austrian carrier Laudamotion.

It signalled last year that it planned to take full control of the airline, which was created from the ashes of the Niki carrier that collapsed in 2017 along with its parent, Air Berlin.

Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda gazumped Aer Lingus owner IAG and Lufthansa in 2017 to seize control of Niki, with its assets acquired by Laudamotion.

Last year, Ryanair agreed to take a 75pc stake in Laudamotion, stumping up 50m for the holding, and an additional 50m in working capital.

Ryanair plans to boost Vienna-based Laudamotion's fleet to 25 aircraft for this summer, from 19 last year. It has also signed letters of intent with a number of lessors to increase the airline's fleet to 30 Airbus jets in summer 2020.

Ryanair said that will enable Laudamotion to grow its passenger numbers from four million a year to six million during the 2020 financial year that ends in March.

Ryanair expects Laudamotion to carry 7.5 million passengers the following year.

CEO Andreas Gruber said that the airline will be carrying 10 million passengers a year within three years.

Deputy CEO Colin Casey said the carrier is currently negotiating new routes and handling agreements with more than 50 airports.

"In winter 2019 we hope to announce at least one new base, which will be outside of Austria and Germany, and there are a number of new airports both in central and western Europe who are pitching to win this business," he said.

The Austrian airline is expected to make a loss of about 150m in the current financial year, and faces competition from IAG's low-cost airline, Level.
NAMA is on course to return a surplus of 4.5bn to taxpayers, after announcing retained earnings at the end of September ahead of its "life-time" guidance.

The State agency has reported new figures showing total cash generated in the nine months to the end of last September was 2.1bn.

Nama's so-called profit for the period - the excess of income over costs - was 447m. Even allowing for debt repayments, that lifted Nama's retained earnings to 3.9bn at the end of September.

Investec Ireland chief economist Philip O'Sullivan said it put Nama's retained earnings 400m ahead of the agency's own lifetime guidance.

"We continue to believe that it will deliver a surplus of at least 4.5bn to the Exchequer," he said.

At the start of January, Nama said it expects to generate a surplus "of the order of 3.5bn" by the time it is wound-up in 2020 or 2021.

That cash will be returned to taxpayers as the surplus after the agency repays banks for loans taken over in the wake of the crash.

Nama paid 31.8bn to Anglo Irish Bank, AIB and Bank of Ireland for loans with a face value of 74.1bn - using IOUs later repaid as it generated cash.

To the end of last September Nama had generated 42.8bn in cash through loan and land sales, rent and interest. Nama's senior bonds - which were guaranteed by taxpayers have been repaid - leaving just over 1bn of subordinated debt to repay.

In relation to house-building, which Nama is funding, the agency said it had facilitated delivery of over 12,000 residential units between 2014 and November 2018.

Another 9,000 units were either under construction or had planning permission, Nama said.
Greencore will formally announce the outcome of a 509m (587m) share tender offer tomorrow morning, as it returns money to shareholders following the $1.07bn (936m) sale of its US business last year.

Chairman Gary Kennedy told shareholders that 2018 had been a year of "extraordinary change" for Greencore, as it reported a solid start to its current financial year.

Some small shareholders continued to question the tender offer, but shareholder approval for the scheme was unanimous in a vote at the AGM.

One small shareholder said he would wait to see if CEO Patrick Coveney, pictured, can continue to execute an effective strategy in the UK.

"Two AGMs ago he was labelled as man of exceptional talent," said shareholder Denis O'Connor from Killarney, Co Kerry, who had travelled by train with his wife to Dublin for the meeting. "We're still waiting for him to deliver."

Mr Coveney said Greencore could grow via mergers and acquisition without having to go back to shareholders for cash.
A major protest against the Government's forestry policy will be held outside the Dail today.

Billed as the 'Communities not Conifers' protest, the action is being spearheaded by the Save Leitrim campaign and is also supported by groups in Roscommon and Cavan.

It comes as Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Andrew Doyle announced that he has commissioned an independent study on the forestry sector in Co. Leitrim.

The study is in response to calls for a review of the effects of publicly-funded afforestation in the County. The study will be led by Dr. Aine Ni Dhubhain, senior lecturer in Agriculture and Forestry in the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science.

The exact Terms of Reference for the Study will be finalised shortly and the report will be concluded by late-summer this year.

The protest, will highlight what activists claim is the Government's misguided focus on the growing of monoculture conifer plantations.

Activists want the Government to encourage the planting of more native hardwoods and move away from a reliance on Sitka spruce.

They also contend that the concentration of planting in the northwest has been detrimental to local communities.

Buses for the protest will depart a number of locations in Leitrim.

Speaking at the AGM of the Irish Farmers Association, Minister Doyle said I have discussed this matter with the IFA and have agreed with their request for a study to be undertaken. There are widely differing and often contradictory claims reported about the economic, social and environmental impacts of land use change to forestry. Its important that these claims are evidence based and the goal of this study is to review some of the common claims and perceptions made about forestry in Co. Leitrim. Its findings can provide information to local communities and the wider rural/agricultural sector so they understand the impacts of the expansion of the forest sector and will obviously help to inform Government policy on forestry, rural development and land use.

Minister Doyle added it is important to emphasise that there are no regional or county targets for forestry. We have engaged with all stakeholders and communities in the design and implementation of the current forestry programme and I have visited Co. Leitrim myself on different occasions to meet all groups. This study will also engage with local communities and assess the impacts of forestry both positive and negative. I am sure all stakeholders will take this opportunity to engage and I would encourage full participation.
A 'dairy backstop' will be required to guarantee continued free movement of milk across the Border post-Brexit.

Dairy processors have sought assurances from the Government that no impediments will be placed on milk imports from Northern Ireland to the South after the UK leaves the EU.

But some industry sources maintained that the retention of an all-island milk market in Ireland would necessitate restrictions on milk movements from Britain to the North.

This would certainly prompt political difficulties, since the DUP has strenuously opposed the imposition of any new Brexit-related barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and Britain.

"If the UK leaves the EU and the customs union then the only way we can continue to have free movement of milk on the island of Ireland is if Northern Irish milk is deemed Irish and complies with EU single market rules," one senior dairy sector executive explained.

"If butter or cheese is to be sold as EU produce, then it has to comply with EU Dairy Hygiene Regulations and all producers will have to have dairy hygiene certificates," he maintained.

"This means Northern Irish producers mirroring EU regulations which is effectively a backstop for the Irish dairy industry," he said.

Critically, sources within the dairy sector said restrictions on the import of milk into the North from non-EU-compliant regions of Britain will be necessary to protect the integrity of the EU single market if free movement of milk within Ireland is to be allowed post-Brexit.

This view was accepted by Conor Mulvihill of Dairy Industry Ireland (DII), but he stressed that this was an issue for customs authorities in Northern Ireland, Britain and the Republic.

However, he said there was an acceptance at European level that Ireland was an "integrated dairy island" and the industry wanted the status quo relating to the movement of milk to be retained.

Mr Mulvihill said if milk produced in Northern Ireland qualified both as Irish and British milk then procedures could be developed which satisfied EU regulatory requirements.

He pointed out that some Halloumi cheese in Cyprus is produced using milk from the northern sector of the island - an area that is outside the EU.

However, the milk volumes involved in this Mediterranean trade are minuscule compared to Ireland, with less than 100m litres produced in total in Northern Cyprus. In contrast, more than 810m litres of milk moves across the Irish Border for processing each year.

Importance

Mr Mulvihill said the size of the cross-Border milk trade was reflective of its economic importance both locally and nationally.

He refuted suggestions that Northern Ireland could act as a backdoor into the EU for British milk should an all-island dairy market get the green light from Brussels.

Mr Mulvihill said milk imports from Britain to the Republic of Ireland had fallen to insignificant levels since dairy expansion gathered pace.

The continuing political deadlock at Westminster has heightened fears in the Irish dairy sector of a hard Brexit and a consequent hard border.

Processors warned that restrictions on the flow of milk would reduce plant efficiency and increase costs, while trade tariffs would hit sales in the crucial British market.

Northern Ireland and Britain remain Ireland's most important outlet for dairy produce, taking a quarter of all exports.

Dairy exports to the UK increased by 7pc last year to top 1bn, according to the latest Bord Bia estimates.

This included 117,000 tonnes of cheese valued at 380m - of which 97,000t was cheddar worth 310m. Butter exports to the UK amounted to 44,000t worth 225m, while the market took 48,000t of milk powders valued at 74m.

The continued growth and development of the dairy sector in the wider Border region is dependent on the free movement of milk being retained, local processors maintain.

Processors seek Government guarantee on post-Brexit trading conditions
Dublin City Council has refused planning permission to businessman, Harry Crosbie for a luxury boutique hotel for Hanover Quay in the city over a row concerning the public gaining free access to the waterfront at his planned hotel.

Mr Crosbie was planning to convert his own home at 9 Hanover Quay on Grand Canal Dock into a four star 19 bedroom hotel with guest bars and dining areas along the floor length widows on the waterfront.

The hotel - which faced local opposition - was to compliment the planned U2 visitor centre for the adjacent site and that project received planning permission last week.

However the city council has turned down planning permission after Mr Crosbie refused to countenance the public having free access to the waterfront at the planned hotel.

In a further information request last year, the Council requested Mr Crosbie to investigate the possibility of maximising public access to the quayside at his planned hotel.

In response however, Mr Crosbie stated in a letter that if the Council insists on an open quayside, then I would prefer to abandon the project and stay as we are now.

Mr Crosbie - who has helped transform Dublin's docklands over the years with the construction of the Point music venue, now the 3Arena and the Bord Gais theatre - stated: To allow free access would bring chaos and would be unsafe and attract anti-social behaviour in this very narrow strip. This behaviour can be unpleasant and nasty.

In the letter, Mr Crosbie added: It would be impossible to run a business with huge crowds of young people regularly sunbathing right up against our windows as now regularly happens around the Basin on Summer days."

Mr Crosbie added: We have no problem with people using the quayside provided they enter through the main doors and we can control the numbers and the behaviour.

Now, the city council has refused planning on two grounds and its chief reason was that the proposed lack of access within the proposal is considered a lost opportunity for pedestrian engagement with the waterfront along Grand Canal.

As a result, the Council has ruled that the development would be contrary to North Lotts and Grand Canal Planning Scheme which has an objective to maximise public pedestrian access to all water body frontages.

The Council state: The proposed development would also create a precedent for similar type suboptimal development.

Mr Crosbies home, 9 Hanover Quay - bought for 18,000 27 years ago - is a protected structure and the Council also refused planning on the grounds that the proposal would seriously injure the special architectural character of the Protected Structure

The Council stated that the proposal is not compatible with the future long-term conservation of this historic building and would create an undesirable precedent for similar type development.

The Council refused planning after its planner in the case stated that while a sensitive and appropriate redevelopment may be welcomed in the future, the applicant has failed in this instance to address the issues and concerns expressed by the council.
Theresa May's U-turn on the backstop is raising the danger for Ireland. Here's the latest you need to know:

The backstop is a mechanism by which a hard Border on the island of Ireland can be avoided after Brexit. It ties the UK to EU customs regulations "unless and until" an alternative solution is hammered out during the negotiations on a future trade agreement between the EU and UK.

Initially the backstop was to apply to Northern Ireland only, but Theresa May asked for a UK-wide backstop in order to prevent the possibility of a border down the Irish Sea.

So Theresa May negotiated the backstop?

Yes. The British prime minister was one of the biggest champions of the backstop until recent days.

She previously told MPs that there could be no Brexit deal without a backstop? Why did she tell MPs to vote for an alternative then?

Mrs May is unable to get her Withdrawal Agreement through the House of Commons due to the backstop.

Her minority government is underpinned by the DUP who are vehemently opposed to it, as are many of her backbenchers.

What does the UK want instead of the backstop?

The UK is talking about "alternative arrangements" but it hasn't actually tabled any.

What happens now?

No one knows. There is little sign Mrs May can reverse the huge defeat the treaty suffered in parliament two weeks ago. The EU says it will not renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement or the backstop protocol within it, but could rework the political declaration setting out post-Brexit trade terms that may offer a clearer way of avoiding the backstop - say by keeping the UK in a customs union. That, however, remains anathema to Mrs May.

And if there's no deal?

If no one gives ground, the UK will leave the EU on March 29. Fresh talks on how to avoid a Border would then have to start between the UK and EU - but the custom posts would be firmly on the horizon.

So Ireland is in a bind?

Very much so. Our EU partners insist they will stand by it and defend the backstop. But they also want to avoid a no deal.

If there were no deal, Ireland would not be able for long to let the only EU land border with the UK stand open.

If it failed to check goods coming in from the UK, Ireland itself could find the EU raising questions on whether Irish exports to the rest of the union should remain free of all checks at their ports.

What's the Irish Government strategy?

Ministers will try to convince UK MPs that the most important thing is protecting peace in Northern Ireland.
Irish food group Greencore is prepared to airlift key ingredients such as rocket and spinach to the UK in the event of a hard Brexit, according to chief executive Patrick Coveney.

He also said that the group will need to push the button on its Brexit battle plan within three weeks, if the UK government has not managed to get a deal through parliament that would prevent it from crashing out of the European Union.

Greencore, whose main market is the UK after the sale of its US business last year, manufactures more than 700 million sandwiches and food-to-go items every year.

Its customers include supermarket chains such as Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Mr Coveney, a brother of Tanaiste and Foreign Minister Simon, said also said he's less optimistic now about a Brexit deal being reached, but remains hopeful.

About 20pc of Greencore's ingredients in terms of spend come from directly outside the UK, while another 10pc of ingredients originate directly from the UK but with a significant component of those that originate outside the UK.

Greencore - one of the world's biggest sandwich makers - has been stockpiling some ingredients such as prawns and tomato paste.

Mr Coveney said that a warning from the British Retail Consortium this week that a no-deal Brexit would leave supermarket shelves empty, "pretty accurately" sums up the potential outcome.

"For us, we won't be immune to that, but we think we'll be able to construct a solution that will have decent availability of some food, but there would certainly be some impact in terms of our business," he said, speaking after Greencore's annual general meeting in Dublin.

Read more:

He said the issue would be whether suppliers and companies such as Greencore can find ways of importing ingredients to the UK without going through Calais.

"The simple issue there is, would you be prepared to airfreight in fresh produce," he said. "We would require our customers to make a firm commitment to covering the cost of that difference if we were to do that."

He said the company has not made any specific plans yet to airlift produce to the UK.

"Over the next two to three weeks, we have to make a decision on some of those solutions if we were to go with that," he added.

"But we'll only make that [decision] in conjunction with our customers."

He said Greencore has enough product stored to be able to deal with between one and three months' of disruption on the main shipping channels.
Theresa May is set for a showdown with the EU after MPs instructed her to try to reopen negotiations on the Brexit deal.

The British parliament voted by 317 to 301 to send the prime minister back to Brussels to attempt to renegotiate the Northern Ireland backstop. However, EU leaders immediately told her she was wasting her time.

European Council President Donald Tusk bluntly told Mrs May: "The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation."

Mrs May was given a similar message in a phone call with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, while French President Emmanuel Macron said the current agreement was "the best deal possible and not renegotiable".

MPs also voted to block a no-deal Brexit, weakening Mrs May's hand in the negotiations.

More MPs - 318 - voted to block no deal than to support Mrs May's Brexit plan B, but Mrs May told them that "opposing no deal is not enough to stop it" and they must back an alternative.

The vote in favour of replacing the backstop with unspecified "alternative arrangements" represented a major victory for Brexiteers and the DUP, who had been urging Mrs May to drop the most controversial part of her Brexit deal.

She had always insisted that there could be no deal without a backstop, but in a major shift of her position yesterday she finally abandoned that position, saying the only imperative was to avoid a hard Border in Ireland.

She told the Commons: "It is now clear that there is a route that can command a substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal ... we will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.

"There is limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy, but this house has made it clear what it needs to approve the Withdrawal Agreement."

Downing Street said Mrs May had three options: to seek a unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop, to seek a time limit for the backstop, or to adopt a plan put forward by Kit Malthouse MP to "recast" the backstop as a type of free-trade agreement.

Attempts to delay Brexit and pave the way to a second referendum both failed on what was largely a successful night for Mrs May.

Labour made delaying Brexit its official policy for the first time, as Jeremy Corbyn whipped his MPs to back an amendment, put down by Yvette Cooper, that would pave the way for Article 50 to be extended for nine months.

Ms Cooper's amendment was defeated by 23 votes, and a Labour amendment calling for a debate on a second referendum was defeated by 31.

Mr Corbyn said he would now meet Mrs May to discuss the way forward, having previously refused to meet her until she took no deal off the table.

The main amendment passed last night, tabled by Graham Brady who chairs the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, called on Mrs May to replace the backstop with "alternative arrangements to avoid a hard Border".

Mrs May adopted it as official Government policy - even though it meant ripping up the deal she spent two years negotiating.

There were warnings from Europe that if Mrs May does restart talks, she will open a Pandora's Box as other countries seek other changes.

Manfred Weber, a German MEP and leader of the European People's Party, said: "The consequence will be that not just the backstop has to be renegotiated - the Gibraltar question, the question of how much money Britain has to pay for exiting, the question of citizens' rights, will have to be renegotiated." ( Daily Telegraph, London)
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has told the British Prime Minister that her U-turn on the backstop in the past 48 hours has only served to reinforce Irelands belief that one is necessary.

During a phonecall this evening, Theresa May outlined why she wants Brussels to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement she negotiated.

But her argument was met with a blunt response from Mr Varadkar who said Irelands position remains unchanged.

Confirming the phonecall, a spokesperson for the Taoiseach said he had noted that the latest developments had reinforced the need for a backstop which is legally robust and workable in practice.

Mrs May indicated that she is engaged in further consultations are taking place in London.

They agreed to stay in touch over the coming period, an Irish government spokesman said.

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As the UK Prime Minister prepares to return to Brussels in a bid to secure new concessions on the backstop, both Mr Varadkar and Tanaiste Simon Coveney offered thier most explicit rebuffs to her strategy yet.

EU Council President Donald Tusk has also sent a message to Mrs May, saying: The EU position is clear and consistent. The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation.

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Yesterday, we found out what the UK doesn't want. But we still dont know what the UK does want.

Earlier Mr Coveney warned the UK is "running out of road" on Brexit while strongly hinting that a delay beyond March 29 should now be considered.

In a State of the European Union address in Dublin this afternoon, the Tanaiste rejected the idea of finding "alternative arrangements" to the backstop.

"There are currently no alternative arrangements, which anyone has put forward, which achieve what both sides are determined to achieve  to avoid a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls, and to protect the all-island economy, North-South cooperation and the Good Friday Agreement," he said.

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"Believe me, this has been explored endlessly in the negotiations over the last two years. We have seen no alternative arrangements that meet this essential threshold.

"And we need a backstop or insurance mechanism based on legal certainty, and not just wishful thinking."

At the event, organised by the IIEA, Mr Coveney welcomed the fact a majority of MPs in the House of Commons have expressed a desire to avoid a disorderly Brexit.

But he added: "The best way to achieve this, as the Prime Minister has argued since November, is to agree the 585-page Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration on the Future Relationship.

"The Withdrawal Agreement wont be re-opened, but as the EU has continuously said, the Political Declaration on the future relationship can evolve if the UK Government changes its red lines."

However, Brexit matters became increasingly personal as former UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab accused Mr Varadkar of leaking details of a confidential meeting.

Mr Raab also accused the Taoiseach of giving out "inaccurate" information about his Brexit proposals following his meeting with Tanaiste Simon Coveney last October.

The Telegraph and Financial Times reported Mr Raab had insisted Britain has the right to pull out of the backstop after three months.

And speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Mr Raab said this information was leaked by "the Taoiseach directly".

Mr Raab said on Wednesday: "The conversation I had with him (Mr Coveney) was leaked to the media in terms which were not factually accurate, in terms of the proposal that I had put forward, privately and confidentially at his request.

"It was leaked in an inaccurate and misrepresenting way by the Taoiseach directly."

A spokesman for the Government here denied the allegation, saying: "There is no basis to this allegation. Mr Raab should produce evidence to support it if he has any."s

St Helens North Labour MP Conor McGinn said it was a "very serious accusation" to maket.

Mr Raab added: "Everyone in the UK Government knows the approach that I have been suggesting in relation to the Brexit mechanism, knows that's not what I have argued for within the UK Government let alone to my Irish friends."

He described his meeting with Mr Coveney as "very constructive".

Mr Raab added: "We both wanted to make this work, I found him a great interlocutor and I urged him not to rule out looking at some of the other opportunities and mechanisms in dealing with the exit from the backstop and we agreed, at his request, to keep the meeting confidential.

"Check the media, I did not comment on it, it was only commented on not by Simon Coveney but by the Taoiseach, so ask the question of whether the account of what I was proposing was what the Taoiseach leaked to the media or presented to the media.

"I don't the know the conversation Simon Coveney had with the Taoiseach and I don't understand what motivation may or may not have been.

"All I'm telling you is that is simply not what I discussed or what I was proposing and I have kept it confidential."

Rebuff

Speaking earlier this morning, the Tanaiste expressed "disappointment" at the latest developments in Westminster.

"We have been through all of these things. We have tested them and we have found that they do not stand up to scrutiny, and now we have a British prime minister advocating again for the same things that were tested," Coveney told RTE's Today with Sean O'Rourke programme.

"What we are being asked to do here is to compromise on a solution that works and to replace it with wishful thinking. That's what's being asked of the Irish government and we won't do it."

He continued; "The big difference between [Brexit] and the challenge with the nurses [the nurses' strike] is that we had an agreement here.

"And the British prime minister signed up to it. She was part of the negotiations.

"Up to three days ago, she was a strong advocate for the need of a backstop.

"If you look at her speeches in Westminster in defence of the backstop, she was talking about owing it to the people of Northern Ireland."

Threats

Meanwhile the Taoiseach told the Dail that the UK parliament has the power to stop threats of a no-deal Brexit.

Mr Varadkar said neither Ireland nor the EU were involved in creating the risk of the UK crashing out without a deal on March 29 next.

The withdrawal agreement is not up for negotiation and its not going to be re-opened, Mr Varadkar insisted in the Dail. He added that there are no plans for an emergency EU leaders summit to discuss any potential changes to the EU-UK draft divorce deal.

Speaking in the Dail, the Taoiseach said the UK government and the UK parliament had it in their authority to take no-deal away at any time.

He said London has the authority to do that, either by revoking Article 50 or by extending it. This provision in the Lisbon Treaty gives any EU state the right to leave.

Ireland and EU are not threatening no deal, Mr Varadkar said.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said history would not look kindly upon the North being left voiceless on Brexit and he believed that had the assembly should have been up and running.

Instead of the DUP promoting its pro-Brexit approach the majority would be able to pass resolutions for the benefit the North, Mr Martin said.

But Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said meetings with the DUP until the cows come home were of no avail. Unless there is a real pressure on them to do business they are not going to do business, Ms McDonald said.

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Mrs May has said she will seek "legally binding changes" to the divorce deal but has been met with a blunt response from the EU with European Council President Donald Tusk, among others, backing Ireland in saying it was not up for renegotiation.

The Tanaiste said there were mechanisms to get around some of the challenges May faces but the only way to do so was through the accompanying political declaration on future EU-UK ties that he said can be renegotiated to ease concerns on the backstop.

He also challenged May to stand by her previous statements that the backstop was necessary to avoid a return of customs checks between British-run Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.

However, she was having to accommodate a wing in the Conservative Party who want a different type of Brexit, he said.

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"She has outlined repeatedly that the backstop is not only desirable but necessary to reassure people in Northern Ireland so surely the responsible thing for the Irish government to do is to hold the British government to its word."

Additional reporting: Reuters
FIFTEEN families are facing homelessness in north Dublin after they were served notices of termination by their landlord, Independent.ie has learned.

Tenants renting apartments in St Vincent's Hall, Collins Avenue received the notices on January 4, and have lodged cases with the Residential Tenancies Board through housing charity Threshold.

Some of the tenants are arguing the notices are invalid due to the Tyrrelstown legislation, which states landlords cannot evict more than 10 tenants at one time from a single development.

The majority of families are long-term renters who have been living in St Vincent's for between three and seven years.

Parents are "extremely worried" as they have so far been unable to find alternative accommodation.

"My kids are in school in the area and all their friends are here, we haven't been able to find anything else around here that we can afford," one parent said.

"It's been very stressful. They tried to increase our rent last year too and now this is happening."

All the tenants have different dates by which they have to vacate the property, depending on how long they have been living there.

The landlord of the apartment block says he wasn't aware of the Tyrrelstown legislation but says he sought legal advice on the matter.

"I'm a family man myself and I know it's unfortunate but the whole plot is being sold due to a change in our circumstances," he said.

"It's a family run development and we have a good relationship with the tenants there and bent over backwards to accommodate them. We're not vulture funds or anything like that, we just simply want to sell the properties as it has cost so much in tax over the years.

"All tenants were given the appropriate notice and ideally Dublin City Council would buy the plot. We approached the Residential Tenancies Board to get advice on the matter but didn't get a concrete response," he claimed.

He also denied that some tenants - who pay 1,400 a month for three-bed apartments - received an undue rent increase.

"This is not the case, the rent has been very cheap there and we didn't try to increase it," he said.

The Tyrrelstown amendment was introduced in 2017 to prevent mass evictions whereby residents in single developments are served with termination notices simultaneously by a landlord in order to sell the entire development with vacant possession.

However, this doesn't apply in "exceptional" circumstances.

In a statutory declaration served with the notices of termination to St Vincent's tenants, the landlord - through his solicitor - claims the Tyrrelstown amendment does not apply in this case as they will receive 20pc below the market value if the block is not sold with vacant possession.

"This would be unduly onerous on, or would cause undue hardship to me [the landlord]," the declaration outlines.

Threshold CEO John-Mark McCafferty said it is providing advice and support to several of the tenants.

"Our clients have lodged cases with the RTB in order to establish the validity of the notices of terminations. As a determination on the validity of these terminations has yet to be made, it would be inappropriate for Threshold to comment on the specifics at this time," he said.

A spokeswoman for the RTB told independent.ie: "The RTB provide a range of services to landlords and tenants on their rights and responsibilities living and working in the rental sector.

"This information is provided via our phone service, through email and dedicated webchat services, and on our website.

"In 2017, the RTB received 170,000 calls  an increase of 31 per cent from 2016, and 61,000 emails  an increase of 18pc from 2016.

"On average, the RTB received 646 calls a day in 2017, with 66pc of calls coming from landlords seeking more information on their rights and responsibilities on the rental sector."

Last week Independent.ie revealed how residents of nine apartments in Riverwood Hall, Castleknock received letters in January notifying them of the landlords intention to sell the properties.

It is understood tenants have now been given an extra month to find alternative accommodation.

Fianna Fail TD Jack Chambers raised the issue in the Dail this week, criticising how a NAMA-appointed receiver was acting "against the spirit" of the Tyrrelstown legislation.

He told Taoiseach Leo Varadkar - who represents the same Dublin West area - it is "shocking that this has occurred in our constituency."

"I want to know what youre doing to address this and also what your view is of NAMA; how its central to an eviction process in turfing out local residents from their only homes and where theyll face homelessness. I think it shows a dysfunction in housing policy that is occurring on our doorstep," he said.

"It's undermining the legislation that you put in but also that its deliberately evicting residents and it undermines everything in the Programme for Government."

The Taoiseach deferred the question to Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, who responded: "I am at the moment in conversation with the RTB about the Tyrrelstown Amendment. Youll know that it was tested recently in front of the RTB and that threw up a couple of issues around that so we are in discussions with the RTB around the issue of evictions.

Obviously the law is clear. It was the legal advice at the time about the number of properties at any given time but theres the spirit of the law that has to be observed as well and if its not being observed, thats exactly what were looking at."
A robot called Tappy which monotonously jabs away at mobile phone screens does not, lets face it, sound like the most sophisticated of technologies.

So its possible to feel a degree of sympathy with the Chinese firm Huawei which finds itself accused by the US Justice Department of the theft of this supposedly bleeding-edge bit of intellectual property from T-Mobile. The phrase trumped-up charges (in every sense) comes to mind.

Yet, of course, theres a bigger picture here than Tappy and Trump. There are questions that go beyond the agenda of the current occupant of the White House and his rabidly sinophobic advisers.
What can the prime minister expect as she tries to reopen the negotiations on the Brexit deal? Remainers in the UK are too quick to take at face value protestations by the EU side that the withdrawal agreement has already been agreed and cannot be changed.

Of course the EU would change it if there were minor adjustments they thought could help to get it through the House of Commons. EU leaders dont want the UK to leave without a deal, and they want to be helpful to Theresa May if they can. But the problem for the prime minister is that they dont really believe she is prepared to leave without a deal, and they know that there is a majority in parliament opposed to a no-deal Brexit, as was confirmed last night.

So it will be a tactical negotiation on both sides. Each will be happy to talk up the significance of any changes, but the changes themselves are likely to be cosmetic.

Jeremy Corbyn had some fun at prime ministers questions today by asking her what the alternative arrangements for the border with Ireland, for which MPs voted yesterday, might be. She pretended to read out a list. Options included, she said, a unilateral right to exit the backstop  to which everyone knows the EU cannot agree.

Another option was a time limit on the backstop  to which the same objection applies. So she was left with the third item on her list: schemes for the mutual recognition of trusted traders.

No wonder Corbyn replied: None of that was very clear to me  I dont know about anyone else. It is unusual for a politician to admit that they dont understand something, but on this occasion the Labour leader spoke for the nation.

However, it is in the boring details of trusted trader schemes that some kind of movement in the Brexit negotiations might be possible. It has been reported that Olly Robbins, the civil servant who is the prime ministers chief Brexit negotiator, has drawn up nine options for changing the agreement on the Irish border, and I suspect that a lot of these will be technical options for handling practical questions of border checks.

Viewed from Theresa Mays perspective, the key is the Democratic Unionist Party. It not only sustains her government; it is in turn the key to winning over many of the hard-Brexit Tory MPs who dislike the backstop for the same reasons. The DUP hates the backstop because it applies some rules of the EU single market to Northern Ireland without applying those same rules to the rest of the UK. As unionists, DUP MPs think that starts to separate Northern Ireland from Great Britain and is a slip on the slope towards a united Ireland.

So what matters to the DUP is less the idea of being trapped in the backstop  the so-called vassalage that gets Jacob Rees-Mogg so excited  than the problem of Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK. Never mind that the DUP insists on Northern Irelands right to have different laws on abortion and gay rights; it doesnt want to be treated differently on trade, and it was unimpressed by Michel Barniers attempts last year to de-dramatise the checks that would be needed to maintain different regulatory regimes in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

However, Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, did say that those checks could be carried out away from the ports and airports. This is where trusted traders come in: big companies that send goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland could do all their paperwork (or digital tracking) without the need for physical checks on arrival in Northern Ireland. This is what the DUP calls a border in the Irish Sea, and they dont like it  except in the case of live animals, which are already subject to checks because of all-Ireland controls on diseases.

So if the prime minister can do a new deal, it could well be something technical of this kind. Corbyn may not understand it, but if the DUP can be persuaded that Northern Ireland will be treated the same as the rest of the UK, Theresa May will be significantly closer to getting her deal through parliament.
After a fortnight of obfuscation, Jeremy Corbyn finally agreed to meet Theresa May for "cross-party talks" to break the Brexit deadlock. But did they get on?

Theresa on Jeremy

What were you hoping for?

Salvation from my own failings, or just someone to share the blame.

What did you talk about?

The backstop. The customs union. The time I called him a national tragedy.

Any awkward moments?

At one point, no one spoke for twenty minutes.

Good table manners?

Impeccable. I left no deal on it but we both pretended it wasnt there.

Best thing about Jeremy?

He left after 45 minutes.

Would you introduce him to your friends?

No, neither of them.

Describe Jeremy in three words

Let me be clear.

Yes?

I think youll find Ive already answered this question.

No you havent

Let me be clear is four words. You only asked for three.

But let me be clear doesnt describe Jeremy

Ive already been very clear about this.

What do you think he made of you?

I dont know

But what do you think he made of you?

I dont know what other people think.

But if you had to show some empathy?

Ive already dealt with this.

Did you go on somewhere?

Yes, to the House of Commons to vote on the crime (overseas production Orders) bill.

A Corbyn near-kiss Show all 5 1 /5 A Corbyn near-kiss A Corbyn near-kiss Britain's Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn greets a supporter campaigning in Manchester, north west England EPA A Corbyn near-kiss PA A Corbyn near-kiss PA A Corbyn near-kiss Reuters A Corbyn near-kiss Reuters

And... did you kiss?

What is the next question?

If you could change one thing about the date, what would it be?

I wish we could have done it over email

Marks out of 10?

Three

Would you meet again?

Yes, but only as sworn enemies.

Jeremy on Theresa

What were you hoping for?

A straightforward, pointless, political game from which I emerge blameless

First impressions?

She has a very nice office.

What did you talk about?

A permanent customs union, a strong single market deal, no race to the bottom on standards, environmental protections and workers rights.

Any awkward moments?

She asked me what these things meant. There was a long silence.

What are they?

A permanent customs union, a strong single market deal, no race to the bottom on standards, environmental protections and workers rights.

Yes but what are they?

Seumas?

Good table manners?

Very good. I asked her to take no deal off it and she agreed to do so.

Best thing about Theresa?

The 2017 general election campaign.

Would you introduce her to your friends?

I would, but I dont think they would get along.

Why not?

My friends are from Hamas and Hezbollah.

Describe Theresa in three words

In my way

Yes, in your way

In my way

What do you think she made of you?

I think she saw someone who wants to bring people together, because people in this country are struggling because of Tory austerity, whether they voted Leave or Rema-

Did you go on somewhere?

I go on everywhere

And... did you kiss?

I kissed her on the cheek. She was present but not involved.

Marks out of 10?

Two

Would you meet again?

Yes. My advisors tell me we will have to keep up this pointless charade for several more weeks.
Despite being the circle that could never be squared, Northern Ireland remains the least understood aspect of the Brexit psychodrama.

Anyone tuning into the BBCs Today programme on Saturday in the hope of enlightenment, will have been sorely disappointed. Listeners to John Humphrys belligerent interview with Irish minister, Helen McEntee, would be forgiven for thinking that Brexit was Irelands idea.

When Humphrys asked why the Republic doesnt abandon the EU and throw in their lot with the UK, it was apparent that his knowledge of Anglo-Irish history was even more rudimentary than that of Priti Patel and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley.

Given the increasingly inflammatory and misleading commentary surrounding the backstop, it may come as a shock to some on mainland Britain to hear that the Irish government is an autonomous state with its own sovereign parliament. Ireland, as an EU member, has prospered, culturally and economically. Unsurprisingly, 92 per cent of the population want to remain in the EU. That number is said to have risen having witnessed the UKs descent into a wholly avoidable, Brexit-induced breakdown.

Being Irish, I have family and friends on both sides of the border (protestant and catholic). Unlike the troubles of the past, nationalists and unionist alike are united in their opposition to a hard border. They accept that the backstop is the only workable way of achieving that and have overwhelmingly endorsed it.

Recommended May ready to demand removal of Irish backstop after Tory pressure

This, despite being the majority view (Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU), is not being represented by the DUP and the media, which makes a mockery of Theresa Mays chicanery; that her Brexit red lines somehow uphold democracy and the will of the people.

Nowhere do those words ring more hollow than in Northern Ireland, where the absence of a functioning assembly has left the catholic community completely disenfranchised from the Brexit debate. As my cousin said: with no assembly, we have no voice. Our vote is meaningless. How is that democratic?

In March, Conservative MP and chair of Westminsters Northern Ireland committee, Andrew Murrison, warned Theresa May that the lack of a functioning executive was a democratic deficit, depriving the region of the opportunity to raise Brexit concerns.

"But", protests a unionist friend, "The DUP doesnt even speak for us". A point she made during the mock border patrol demonstration in Newry on Saturday. She went to show the world that communities across sectarian and national divides in the region, are united in their opposition to a hard border.

My parents are farmers and lifelong DUP supporters but they think Arlene Foster has lost the plot. The local CBI office and traditional DUP stalwarts the farmers union, have joined citizens in warning of the calamitous implications of a hard border. Last weeks bomb in Derry was a reminder of the fragility of peace within border communities.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

Still the DUP, like the Tories, seem bent on inflicting as much damage as possible in their apparently unstoppable quest to commit national hara-kiri. A sentiment my friend poignantly captured:

I dont say this lightly because I work in mental health, but it feels like the lunatics are running the asylum. When people inflict harm on themselves and others, and display delusional and suicidal tendencies, they are removed to a safe place to undergo treatment. When our government inflicts harm on us, were supposed to pretend its normal. Its not.

The backstop is designed to safeguard the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), a legally binding international peace treaty voted for by people across the Island of Ireland in a referendum, 20 years ago. The details of the GFA were meticulously circulated to every household beforehand so that people knew what they were voting for.

Today, the DUP (which voted against the GFA) seems likely to join fellow Brextremists in Westminster in jeopardising the result of that 1998 referendum, which underpins peace and stability in the region, in order to impose their back-of-a-fag-packet Brexit. They will invoke "democracy" and, in doing so, debase it.

Recent polls indicate that 60 per cent of people in Northern Ireland would prefer to be part of a united Ireland than a disunited little Britain. Ironically, by riding roughshod over the democratic rights of the people in the province, the DUP/Tory coalition of chaos, has done more to make the case for a united Ireland than Sinn Fein ever could.

It is incumbent on the British and Irish governments, as co-guarantors of the peace, to ensure regulatory alignment and open borders in Northern Ireland. The Irish government is right to hold Theresa May to that shared duty. As my father said after voting for the Good Friday Agreement, Is tsiochain bhuaigh crua agus go heasca a cailleadh (Peace is hard won and easily lost).
A passenger on an Emirates flight to Dubai was recently stunned to find his inflight meal with the prestigious airline consisted of a roll with a square of what looked like processed cheese and a very, very small piece of chicken in the middle.

Here are The Independent's worst experiences of plane food.

Simon Calder, travel correspondent

Over the years I have learned that the less hungry I am when boarding a flight, the happier the flight is likely to be. At the same time as airlines strip away complimentary catering, airports are getting better at providing fresh, nutritious fare to fill the dwell time between clearing security and boarding the flight.

But on long-haul trips, most passengers simply accept whats on offer  and, as the airlines know, feeding us helps to pass the time on interminable flights.

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Viasa, the leading Venezuelan airline, had a particularly painful itinerary from Heathrow to South America, but it beat the competition hands-down for price. The journey began by flying further away from Venezuela, to Paris Charles de Gaulle. After an hour or two on the ground in France, the elderly DC10 took off for Margarita, Venezuelas holiday island. Half the plane emptied to go off and enjoy the beaches and lagoons, while the rest of us carried on to Caracas.

At the airport serving the capital, the journey was far from over. I connected to a six-hour overnight hop to Rio, with Sao Paulo a couple of hours beyond that  where an onward flight to Asuncion in Paraguay awaited.

Shortly after take-off from Caracas, dinner arrived. It was the standard staple of chicken and rice. By now it was 3am in London, my tastebuds had been dulled by 17 hours of travel and my appetite was all over the place. So even though it was lukewarm and looked unappetising, I finished the meal.

Whether it was the chicken or the rice, revenge was not instant. If you are familiar with bacillus cereus (from reheated rice) or salmonella (from undercooked chicken), you will know that it usually takes a good few hours before the stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea begin. I was checking in for the final leg to Asuncion when it struck.

Missing the flight would have been disastrous, financially and logistically. So despite feeling ghastly, I managed to get airside and ask at the gate how busy the flight was. Barely a quarter full, was the answer.

If you are to suffer a severe gastro-intestinal attack, a mostly empty Boeing 737 is a good place to be. With three seats of my own at the back beside the loo, and an unlimited supply of sick bags, I got through the two-hour flight.

All that remained for me to do was clear immigration.

Asuncion airport is not the busiest in the world, but it does have a lunchtime bulge as flights arrive from various other South American capitals. The queue for passports was long, and every time I got near the front, I had to race away to the bano. It was mid-afternoon by the time I emerged, pale and feeble, but by then with the bacteria responsible fully evacuated.

On the flight home, I managed somehow to persuade the Viasa ticket desk to endorse the ticket across to British Airways  which at the time flew non-stop to Heathrow. And soon afterwards, the Venezuelan airline went bust.

The best inflight meal? Sashimi at 35,000 feet. But the raw fish was not aboard a Japanese airline, nor a long-haul flight: just a short hop from Reykjavik to Heathrow, with Icelandair. Fresh, tasty even at six miles high, and nutritious.

Julia Buckley, acting head of travel

Flying from Curacao to Haiti last year  via Miami on American Airlines, a six(ish) hour journey  I splurged on an upgrade to first class, one of the perks of which, I assumed, would be a good meal on the flight. Instead, I got an inedible attempt at breakfast on the crack-of-dawn first leg and took so long to get through passport control and customs at Miami that I had to make a run for the plane. No problem, I thought, therell be a proper meal on board. And there was, for virtually everyone except me  it turned out that on AA first class passengers are able to pre-book fancy meals, and because I hadnt all they had for me was a limp salad with some crackers they were doling out in economy. The cabin crew were deeply unsympathetic to my flight  I hadnt realised back then that they hate first class passengers.

My other perennial bugbear was the food British Airways used to serve on shorthaul flights  their chicken wraps with no discernable filling have the dubious privilege of being the only plane food Ive rejected outright.

The best? Austrian Airlines allows all passengers to pre-book a meal made by Do&Co, and I had a fantastic unplanefood-like platter of spatzle flying Vienna to Heathrow a couple of years ago. And three years ago I flew BMI Regional from Bristol to Milan. Not only was the cabin a 1-2 formation so I sat by myself, as if I was in a private jet; but they handed out really solid snack packs with everything from biscuits and crackers to nuts. It was one of my favourite ever flights.

Josh Withey, assistant editor Indy100

My worst meal was last autumn flying BA to Hong Kong  not terrible but unremarkable. It was your standard chicken or beef selections with a bread roll, then a slightly sad looking breakfast. My best was to Taiwan (via Bangkok) on EVA Air. They served a range of meals including western cooked breakfast, tasty curries with rice and some gorgeous stir fries too.

Rachael Pells, education correspondent

It wasnt my own worst meal, but flying Virgin Atlantic from Havana back to the UK in 2012, a vegan couple sat next to me were given first meat and then a vegetarian meal, despite having registered for vegan meals. The (British) air steward told them to just deal with it! Weirdly, the best plane meal I ever had was on Ukranian Airlines. It was only pasta but there was plenty of it and I just remember being really impressed. Qatar Airways were really generous on a recent flight  they had a really nice curry and savoury pastries last November. Emirates last week coming back from Dubai was pretty gross  really salty food.
Israels popular ex-army chief broke weeks of silence to launch his long-awaited election campaign, promising unity in the country and an end to corruption in a speech where he slammed Benjamin Netanyahu as no king.

To the chants of who is that? The next prime minister, the blue-eyed paratrooper formally declared his candidacy and tore into Israels prime minister, saying that the current government sows division and incitement.

Lt Gen Gantz, who is currently Netanyahus biggest rival, also made reference to the three graft cases against the prime minister which are casting a long shadow over the right-wing leaders chances of being re-elected. Israels attorney general Avichai Mendelblit is expected to file an indictment against the premier within the coming weeks.

Netanyahu is no king ... A prime minister cannot preside over Israel when an indictment has been filed against him, Gantz told the cheering Tel Aviv crowds on Tuesday night.

No Israeli leader is a king  The government we will form will be a national government and not a monarchy, he added.

If Mr Netanyahu is re-elected in the April polls he will be Israels longest-serving prime minister.

However, he may also become the first Israeli leader to face trial while still holding office.

According to leaks in Israeli media, the state prosecutor is likely to recommend Mr Netanyahu be indicted in case 4,000 or Bezeq as it is known, named after a telecommunications company he supposedly awarded regulatory favours to.

He may also face trial in the other two cases, in which police have argued that he received expensive gifts from wealthy friends, and in which he allegedly negotiated a deal with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper for better coverage.

Mr Netanyahu already had to call snap elections seven months early after he was left trying to rule the country with a paper-thin one-seat majority in Israels 120-seat parliament, when key coalition partner and defence minister Avigdor Lieberman quit in November over the prime ministers refusal to go to war with Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu was quick to respond to his rival, calling his speech ridiculous and labelling Gantz as weak left.

Gantzs campaign responded to the remarks, with a spokesperson saying: Thank you for the last 10 years, well take it from here.

Lt Gen Gantz served as chief of staff between 2011 and 2015 and led Israels offensive into Gaza.

He formed the Israel Resilience party and launched his election bid in December, but until Tuesday had kept silent on his political affiliations or plans.

Benny Gantz (right) former minister of defence Moshe Yaalon gesture supporters during a campaign event (Getty) (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Just ahead of his first campaign speech on Tuesday, he announced he had merged his party with that of ex-defence minister and also former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon.

General Yaalon, who served as Netanyahus defence minister from 2013 to 2016 and was Gantzs boss, joined him on stage Tuesday night but revealed no details about their partnership.

Instead Lt Gen Gantz gave a wide-ranging speech which looked to appeal to all segments of Israeli society in an apparent bid to draw in votes from both the right and the left.

Playing on his security credentials, the ex-army chief spoke of leading fighters across enemy lines and answering the phone in the middle of the night. He vowed never to give up the occupied Golan Heights, to protect the settlement blocs in the West Bank and threatened Irans president Rouhani, as well as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

He concluded the segment warning Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, that Ahmed Jaabari, the Hamas chief who was killed under Gantzs orders, that he wasnt the first and wont be the last.

However, he also vowed to uphold gay rights and introduce civil marriage, to deepen a partnership with the ultra-Orthodox, and to work to support the Arab population and the Druze. He also said he would allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

Some of those who turned up not knowing what to expect said they left feeling convinced of his candidacy.

I came here to hear him and I came out supporting him Tamar Ben Porat, Gantz supporter

I came here to hear him and I came out supporting him, said Tamar Ben Porat, 56, a lawyer and womens rights activist from central Israel.

He could bring votes from right, the centre and the left and Im happy he managed to get an understanding with Yaalon  they have both expressed their views on corruption.

She said people were fed up the current leadership because of the graft cases against Mr Netanyahu and were looking for a prime minister to help build peace with the Palestinians rather than peddling wars to get votes.

Netanyahus government is one of separation and hatred. We need a leader to reunite the people, she added.

A group of 19-year-olds, who were looking forward to voting for the first time, agreed that Gantz may be able to unite the right and left and build peace with Israels neighbours.

 Benjamin Netanyahus son banned from Facebook in wake of post calling for all Muslims to leave Israel

He does convince the youth  what we want to see a new face. He talks a lot of peace which the right dont anymore, said Yaniv Cohen.

He has been very clever with his campaign  he sneaks ideas from the left and puts them in the centre. I believe he could unite people, he added.

His friend Yoav said that his biggest hope was that Gantz would be able to reignite the stalled peace process.

I believe this is the last chance to make peace with the Palestinians and if we dont act now something bad will happen, Yoav said.

Gantz is one of the only people who talks about the chance for peace. Many dont believe in it any more, we hope he can bring change, he added.
A Vatican official who handled sex-abuse cases for the Catholic Church has quit two months after being accused of sexual abuse.

On Monday, Hermann Geissler resigned from his position as chief of staff in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a body that handles discipline in sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church, according to a statement from the Holy See's press office.

Mr Geissler maintained his innocence but said he was resigning to protect the church.

"Father Geissler decided to take this step to limit the damage already done to the congregation and to his community," the office stated.

Last year, a former nun accused an unnamed priest of making sexual advances toward her while in confessional. That woman, Doris Wagner, later identified the priest to be Mr Geissler, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

Ms Wagner shared her story at a November event in Rome called "Overcoming Silence - Women's Voices in the Abuse Crisis". There, she talked about how she had moved from her native Germany at age 19 to join the religious community known as "The Work".

In 2009, a priest asked to be assigned as Ms Wagner's confessor and used it to groom her for abuse, Ms Wagner said.

"He would keep me there kneeling in front of him for hours, and he would tell me how much he liked me and that he knew that I liked him and even though we couldn't marry, there would be other ways," Ms Wagner said at the event. "At some point he would try to hold me and kiss me, and I simply panicked and ran out of the room."

 Vatican spokesperson reveals first details about sex abuse summit

Ms Wagner said she reported the behavior to her female superior and asked if she could have another confessor assigned to her.

"When I told her, actually, I was extremely relieved that she didn't blame me," Ms Wagner said. "Instead, she said something like, 'You know, I knew Father has a certain weakness for women so we kind of have to put up with this.'"

While speaking at the Rome event, Ms Wagner did not identify the priest, describing him at the time as only "another leading member of the community, a priest, who to this day is working as capo ufficio [head of the office] at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith".

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

However, several news outlets soon claimed she could only be referring to Mr Geissler, and Ms Wagner confirmed it was him in later interviews.

Earlier this month, Ms Wagner told the National Catholic Reporter that nothing much had happened after she had reported Mr Geissler in 2014 to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex-abuse cases within the Catholic Church.

"I got a response that stated that Father Geissler had admitted, and had asked pardon and was admonished," Ms Wagner told the religious newspaper. "And that was all."

Ms Wagner added it was "ridiculous" and "symbolic of the church's attitude toward perpetrators" that Mr Geissler remained in the high-ranking position within the church.

On Tuesday, the Holy See press office said Mr Geissler maintained the accusation was untrue. He also asked the church to continue a canonical process it had already started to look into the allegation.

Mr Geissler noted he reserved the right to take civil legal action.

The Washington Post
A Russian politician has been arrested inside the countrys parliament on suspicion of ordering two murders.

Rauf Arashukov, 32, is suspected to have orchestrated the killings of two high-profile people in the Karachaevo-Cherkessia region, which he represents, in 2010.

Russias Investigative Committee, its top federal investigations unit, said Mr Arashukov was detained after the upper chamber of parliament voted to revoke his immunity from prosecution.

He was arrested and escorted from the building on Wednesday, reports said.

Mr Arashukov, the son of a prominent businessman, was nominated by the local legislature and sent to the Federation Council in 2016 to become the youngest council member at the age of 31.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Russian news website RBC quoted investigation sources last year as having said that three people testified against Mr Arashukov and accused him of orchestrating the murder of a prominent local activist.

The US government-funded Radio Free Europe reported that the session of parliament during which Mr Arashukov was detained was closed to reporters and that Federal Guards Service officers had blocked entry to the chamber.

Mr Arashukov was stopped before he could leave the room where deputies were discussing the motion to strip him of immunity.

He tried to get up and leave the session, and I told him to sit down because he was supposed to speak and give an explanation, and he went back, Federation Council speaker Valentina Matvienko said in televised comments.

Another politician, Sergei Kalashnikov, who was present when security officers detained Mr Arashukov, said no one was expecting it to happen.

That was a complete surprise to everyone including the suspect who was late for the session, Kalashnikov told the Interfax news agency.

Later on Wednesday, investigators announced that Mr Arashukovs father, Raul, a senior manager at the gas company Gazprom, had been detained on suspicion of embezzling 30 billion rubles (347m) worth of gas supplies.

They added that they were searching homes and offices in seven towns in connection with various investigations regarding the father and son.

Additional reporting by AP
A Dutch historian has received widespread acclaim after confronting billionaires at Davos over their perceived failure to pay enough in taxes.

Rutger Bregman, author of bestseller Utopia for Realists, admonished members of the audience during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland for their role in perpetuating growing inequality..

I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then, almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share, the 30-year-old said.

It feels like Im at a firefighters conference and no ones allowed to speak about water.

Mr Bregman told the assorted business leaders in attendance it was time to stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes, taxes, taxes.

This is not rocket science, we can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes, he said. We can invite Bono once more, but come on, weve got to be talking about taxes.

He added: All the rest is bulls*** in my opinion.

The historian's excoriation angered at least one audience member, Ken Goldman, Yahoos former chief financial officer, who stood up and complained about the focus on taxes.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

I have to say, honestly, this is a very one-sided panel, Mr Goldman said, adding: Weve actually reduced poverty around the world  no ones talking about that at all.

He defended the status quo by saying global poverty was being reduced and US employment was at near-record lows. He asked the panel to instead talk about what "we really do to help solve inequality over time beyond taxes?

But Winnie Byanyima, director of Oxfam and another panel-member, hit back at Mr Goldman.

Let me tell you something: Were talking about jobs, but the quality of those jobs, she said, highlighting the issue of poultry workers in US, the richest country in the world, forced to wear nappies to work because they were banned from toilet breaks.

The quality of the jobs matter. It matters. These are not jobs of dignity, she said.
China is moving to ban the use of sexy uniforms and see-through clothing by presenters in its booming online live streaming industry.

Authorities in the central province of Hubei set out the new regulations, the first of their kind in China, and suggested they set a standard for the rest of the country to follow.

The rules stipulate that woman webcast presenters cannot wear sexy uniforms, sexy underwear, see-through clothes, flesh-coloured tights, etc, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

Children appearing on such platforms must be accompanied by a responsible adult or obtain written permission from a guardian.

And platforms must do more to provide easy-to-use 24-hour complaints channels where users can report illegal accounts or activity, the rules stated. Where such complaints were received, the platform must be in a position to shut down the live stream within 90 seconds.

China cancels Christmas Show all 7 1 /7 China cancels Christmas China cancels Christmas A man sells Christmas decorations on a street of Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas a promoter dressed as a teddy bear rest along a retail street in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas A family walk past images of Santa Claus in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas A worker guards the entrance of a shop decorated with images of Santa Claus in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas Sales staff from an apparel shop dance wearing Christmas themed costumes to promote a year end sales in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas Sales staff from an apparel shop dance wearing Christmas themed costumes to promote a year end sales in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) China cancels Christmas a sales person waits for customers near a Christmas tree decoration in Zhangjiakou in northern China's Hebei province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Chinese web users have shown a huge appetite for live streaming in recent years, where the anchor, often a young woman, talks about their daily life and interacts with viewers.

Deloitte estimated that the industry was worth 3.3bn in China last year, up 32 per cent from 2017, and the number of platforms and star performers has proliferated.

Much of the revenue comes from ecommerce, with celebrity presenters being paid to use and review new products and recommend them to their followers.

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With more than 100 million viewers every month, it was inevitable authorities would move to regulate and censor content in the same way that traditional media is tightly controlled.

Xinhua said the Hubei state authorities had worked with Wuhan University, as well as online industry associations, for six months to come up with its web live platform management specifications.

Yang Jiandong, head of the Hubei Provincial Market Supervision Administration, said its implementation would push the webcasting industry into a benign development track.
Venezuelas chief prosecutor has asked the countrys top court to impose a travel ban on opposition leader Juan Guaido and freeze his accounts.

The United States, along with several other countries, has recognized Mr Guaido as Venezuelas legitimate head of state and denounced leftist president Nicolas Maduro as a usurper.

Mr Maduro, who was sworn in earlier this month for a second term after disputed elections last year, accuses Mr Guaido of staging a US-directed coup.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab made his request to the government-stacked Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking them to open a preliminary investigation into the self-proclaimed interim president.

Mr Saab said he asked the court to open a preliminary investigation into Mr Juan Guaido as a result of diverse violent occurrences provoked in this country since January 22. This is the day before Mr Guaido named himself president. Mr Saab also accused Mr Guaido of helping foreign countries to interfere in Venezuelas internal matters.

Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA

As a politician who also heads the National Assembly, Mr Guaido has immunity from criminal investigation that can only be removed by a high court.

Speaking minutes after the announcement, Mr Guaido said he did not underestimate a threat of imprisonment but said he did not believe it was anything new.

We are here, we will keep acting and working to confront the humanitarian crisis, he told a news conference.

 White House officials when asked if American forces would get involved in Venezuela: 'The president has made it clear that all options are on the table'

It comes as the US mounted pressure on Mr Maduros government. Earlier in the day, Washington handed control of Venezuelas US bank accounts to Mr Guaido.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the access would help Venezuelas legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.

Mr Guaido has been recognized as the nations rightful leader by two dozen nations that contend the re-election of Mr Maduro was a sham, in part because his strongest opponents were barred from running.

Juan Guaido named himself interim president (Reuters)

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week during a massive opposition rally in Caracas when Mr Guaido declared he had assumed presidential powers and planned to hold fresh elections, ending Mr Maduros dictatorship.

The US, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Paraguay have officially acknowledged Mr Guaido as the legitimate interim head of Venezuela, while countries including Russia and China have backed Mr Maduro.

The president has accused the US of leading an open coup to oust him and exploit Venezuelas oil reserves, the largest in the world.

Additional reporting by agencies
Venezuelas self-declared interim president, Juan Guaido, has been hit with a travel ban after the countrys chief prosecutor announced he would launch a criminal investigation into the congressional leader.

The supreme court  stacked with members loyal to president Nicolas Maduro  blocked Mr Guaido from leaving the counrty and froze his bank accounts, but did not strip him of his legislative immunity.

It came as Mr Guaido called on Venezuelans to stage a two-hour walkout from their homes and workplaces in protest at Mr Maduros stewardship of the country.

The incumbent president has said he will not stand down and told Russias state-owned news agency RIA Novosti he was open to negotiations alongside mediators.

Im willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we could talk for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future, he said.

Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA

Russia is a key ally, backing the Maduro government with loans and weapons.

Mr Maduro has accused the US of instigating a coup against him after Donald Trump recognised Mr Guaido as the legitimate interim leader, prompting a string of other countries including Britain to follow suit.

On Tuesday Washington announced fresh sanctions on Venezuela, targeting its state-run oil company PDVSA.

Mr Maduro called the sanctions criminal and vowed to challenge the US in court. With these measures, they intend to rob us, he said.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Mr Guaido, during a huge opposition rally in Caracas, declared he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Mr Maduros dictatorship.

Under Venezuelas constitution, the head of the national assembly can take on the chief executives duties in a range of circumstances in which the presidency is vacated. The opposition argues Mr Maduros re-election last May was unfair.

The 35-year-old Mr Guaido has re-invigorated the opposition movement by pushing for three immediate goals: to end Maduros usurpation of power; establish a transitional government; and hold a new presidential election.

The UN human rights office believes security forces detained nearly 700 people in just one day of anti-government protests last week  the highest such tally in a single day in the country in at least 20 years. It says more than 40 people are believed to have been killed.

Mr Maduros allies blame the opposition for the violence and deny the high death toll as well as reports that children were among those arrested.

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Socialist party leaders have been organising counter-protests by thousands of Maduro supporters in different parts of the country.

On Tuesday, Mr Maduro announced he would expand Venezuelas civilian armed militia to two million members.

The reserve force was created by the late Hugo Chavez to train civilians to assist the armed forces and defend the socialist revolution from attacks.

Additional reporting by AP
Parts of America are facing temperatures colder than Antarctica this week, as a cold front sweeps through the upper midwest.

US officials are urging residents from northern states to stay inside as the deep freeze sets in across the county, bringing with it life-threatening conditions.

A blast of Arctic air from the polar vortex is causing temperatures to drop as low as -40C (-40F), and in some cases even colder.

Read below for our coverage of the weather on Wednesday, as it happened

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Donald Trump has lambasted the US intelligence community as extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran, after top officials contradicted the presidents claims surrounding the foreign adversary and North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," the president tweeted. "They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict."

"They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge," he added. "There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

The tweets arrived after National Intelligence Director Dan Coats released the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which concluded Tehran was not engaging in operations geared towards producing nuclear weaponry, while the North Korean regime remains steadfast in its refusal to give up its nuclear capabilities.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival, Mr Coats said.

He added, Our assessment is bolstered by observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearisation.

Recommended Trump directly contradicted by US intelligence chief on Iran and Korea

The president has repeatedly claimed his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has paved the way for the chance of denuclearisation along the Korean peninsula, telling reporters at the White House earlier this month, North Korea, were doing very well. And again, no rockets.

Theres no rockets, he added. Theres no anything. Were doing very well.

 Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Mr Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday the US faced major threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea  the big four  including nuclear weapons and cyber warfare.

While we do not believe Iran currently is undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not obtain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal, he said to lawmakers.
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has been tapped to deliver the Democratic response to Donald Trumps upcoming State of the Union address.

The choice was announced on Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, just a week before the presidents planned speech on 5 February.

Ms Abrams gained national recognition during her failed run to become the governor of Georgia, when she was narrowly defeated after running a progressive campaign that energised new voters in the deep red, southern state.

Since her defeat  announced in December after Ms Abrams received more votes than any Democrat running for governor in the states history  Ms Abrams has vowed to run for political office again.

She lost 1.39 per cent to Republican Brian Kemp, Georgias former secretary of state whose voting access policies in that position were called into question by federal judges while votes were being counted last year.

 Stacey Abrams: 'I'm supposed to say nice things and accept my fate'

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Ms Abrams has indicated she may run as soon as in 2020.

The opposition partys response to the State of the Union provides an opportunity to provide an alternative narrative and way forward from the presidents vision, and often features prominent politicians viewed in their partys eyes as a rising star.

But, Ms Abrams being this years pick is notable in that Ms Abrams did not recently win her election, unlike others like Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who became the states first woman senator in history. Ms Sinemal is also the first democrat to represent the state in the Senate in over 20 years.

 Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

The choice to tap Ms Abrams  a progressive, black woman who showed she can energise voters in a state previously seen as out of reach for traditional democrats  to deliver the respose could reflect a shift in the general attitude of the party, and a shift towards embracing the types of policies and issues championed by politicians like the Georgian democrat.
Donald Trumps former political adviser Roger Stone says that his former boss presidency is in big danger.

Mr Stone, who on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to seven charges brought forward by special counsel Robert Muellers office, said that the Russia investigation that brought him to court is basically a speeding bullet heading for Mr Trumps head.

The remarks were made on Breitbart News Daily, a Sirius XM radio show.

The statement comes just after acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker said on Monday that he believes Mr Muellers investigation is nearing its end, ramping up speculation after nearly two years of a tight-lipped probe into Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Stone is among at least 34 people to have been charged in relation to the investigation, and is one of several Trump allies to be caught up in probe.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Others have included individuals like former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted last year for financial crimes.

Mr Trumps former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has also been charged, and last year pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mr Muellers probe.

In Mr Cohens plea and subsequent cooperation, the presidents former fixer said that he had lied to Congress about conversations with Mr Trump over a major deal to build a Trump property in Moscow.

He also indicated that he had paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the campaign for the president, a felony violation of campaign finance laws.

The president has insisted repeatedly that he and his campaign did not collude with the Russian government during the campaign, and has repeatedly argued that he is not a focus of investigation for Mr Muellers probe.

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It is not clear when the investigation may actually end, or whether the special counsels final report will be made public.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has likened photographs of her in an animated debate with Democrat colleague Gerry Connolly to a road trip buddy comedy.

The New York congresswoman shared a series of pictures, taken by New York Times photographer Tom Brenner, capturing her and Mr Connolly during a hearing recess in Washington.

Images show the pair in heated discussion until the final photograph, in which they are exchanging glances while smiling at each other.

The last photo in this panel its like @GerryConnolly and I are in a road trip buddy comedy or something, Ms Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.

Other users of the social media site chimed in to say how they thought a show featuring the two could play out.

Its like the last freeze frame shot on a tv sitcom about a couple of mismatched politicians - shes a young upstart/ hes a veteran - and together theyre Takin the House! one wrote.

This looks like the stills used in the intro to a late 80s sitcom about a couple of mismatched leads, another added.
The parents of a two-year-old girl have been sentenced to 18-months in jail after she died from being left out in the cold on their front porch.

Tierra Williams, 23, left their Akron, Ohio home for work on February 2, 2018 leaving her daughter, Wynter Parker, under the supervision of her father.

Two hours later, when Williams returned to their apartment, she found her toddler daughter unconscious and frozen on the porch, authorities said.

The mother immediately wrapped the girl with blankets and called 911. Shes frozen! Shes frozen, she said in the call.

Williams was pregnant at the time of the incident. She told the authorities that she left her daughter with Dariun Parker, the father, for two hours while she went out of the home with their four-year-old son.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Parker lost track of his daughter during a day when the towns temperature slipped below-freezing, never reaching higher than 19 degrees.

The two-year-old girl, who was not wearing a coat or winter clothing, was rushed to the hospital, but died from severe hypothermia.

On January 25, Williams reacted in outrage to Summit County Judge Alison McCarty decision to sentence the mother to two years in jail.

That is so f****d up, Williams screamed in anguish, as a sheriffs deputy put handcuffs on her wrists. Im so f****g mad.

Parker, the father, said he accepted full responsibility for the death of their daughter.

I cant tell you how sorry I am about what happened, it was a tragic accident, Parker was quoted saying in the Akron Beacon Journal.

The parents both plead guilty to child endangerment in November 2018, a charge that carries up to a three-year prison sentence. While Parker and Williams had hoped for probation, the prosecution advocated for a prison sentence.

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Assistant Prosecutor Dan Sallerson claimed the death of Wynter was not the first time that Akron police had been called to the parents apartment because their children were outside unattended.

He argued in court that the toddlers death was preventable, citing that the 25-year-old father was up all night and the family had breakfast together the morning of the incident.

This is a dangerous situation that didnt need to happen, Mr Sallerson said. It shouldnt have come to that.

Before adding, We do have a young child who died as a result. We do think prison is the appropriate sentence.

The judge acknowledged the couple, who have split up since the Wynters death, were in a malfunctional situation since Parker was stayed up throughout the night recording music in a studio for a non-paying career.

Williams, a hairdresser, also had to work during the day. Since she cuts hair clients hair at their homes, she could not have brought two children along with her.

That needed to be resolved, McCarty said. Thats an untenable situation.

She added that looking after their children should be their most important duty before alleging it wasnt the case for the Wynters parents.

McCarty went on to explain that if two-year-old children, like their daughter, were left unattended, they can often get into life hazardous scenarios like drowning in a pool or drinking poisonous substances.

There can be potential danger everywhere, she added. You two did not have eyes on. Not a lack of love, a lack of attention, noting that it wasnt the case all of the time, but some of the time, which put both children at risk.

McCarty told the defendants she will consider releasing the parents early.

Williams defence attorney, Kani Hightower, agreed in court that the mother made an error in judgement by leaving her daughter alone with Parker while knowing that he had not gotten any sleep the night before.

But she argued that Williams did everything in her power to rescue her daughter when she found her outside. In addition to warming Wynter with blankets and calling the police, Williams also cooperated with the authorities and prosecutors ever since.

Angela Williams, the maternal grandmother of the toddler, testified on behalf of her daughter, begging McCarty to give the 23-year-old mother probation.

The grandmother called Williams a good mother that made one bad decision, and already suffered enough since her daughters death.

We need to heal as a family and not be pulled apart with her being gone from her kids and her family, she said.

Since Wynters death, Williams and Parker had split up. The parents have split custody over their two children under the supervision of Summit County Children Services.
A man who approached police holding a mysterious "cylindrical object" has been shot dead following a car chase through a top secret nuclear test site.

The unnamed man burst past a security checkpoint at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, late on Monday afternoon, prompting private security contractors and local police to give chase.

The pursuit lasted around eight miles, the Department of Energy said in a statement, before the man pulled over, got out of the car, and approached the officers while holding a cylindrical object.

After failing to listen to police orders, he was shot and died at the scene.

The department said the FBI had been called in to help investigate the incident.

The closely guarded facility, previously known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, covers almost 1,400 square miles of desert in the western state, and was the site of hundreds of nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War.

As well as nuclear testing sites, the NNSS includes a nuclear weapons assembly factory, an experimental test flight centre, and a nuclear waste disposal site.

Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Show all 12 1 /12 Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman stands near the grave of her brother, a "liquidator" or an emergency worker who fought the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, during a commemoration ceremony on the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster at the Mitino cemetery in Moscow Reuters Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Belarussian soldiers of an honor guard carry wreaths during a memorial service for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster in Minsk EPA Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman holds a portrait of her relative, a victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as she visits the memorial during a commemoration ceremony in Kiev Reuters Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lays flowers during a commemoration ceremony at a monument to "liquidators", emergency workers who fought the blaze at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Reuters Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman puts flowers to a monument to Chernobyl liquidators at Mitino Cemetery in Moscow AP Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Nataliya Khodemchyuk, 64, from Ukraine, a widow of Chernobyl liquidator Valery Khodemchyuk, sits at his grave at the Mitino Cemetery in Moscow AP Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman holds portrait of her relative, a victim of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as she visits the memorial during a commemoration ceremony in Kiev Reuters Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Ukrainians light candles and lay flowers at the memorial for 'liquidators' who died during cleaning up works after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, during a ceremony in Slavutich city EPA Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A rescue worker which served during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster visits a memorial during a commemoration ceremony in Kiev Reuters Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Women hold portraits of their lost husbands near a monument honoring people who were killed during cleanup efforts after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, during a memorial ceremony in Kiev EPA Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman lays flowers at the Chernobyl victims' memorial in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev Getty Images Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster A woman holds a photograph of her husband who died following the clean-up operations for the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion, at the Chernobyl's victim monument in Ukraine's capital Kiev AP

As recently as 2012, it was used to conduct an underground explosion involving radioactive plutonium.

Last year, the state of Nevada sued the Trump administration over its plans to store more than a metric ton of plutonium at the site, citing health concerns and the environmental impact.

 Trump says US will pull out of nuclear deal with Russia

The NNSS is located around 30 miles west of the far more notorious site, Area 51 - a remote military testing facility subject to countless UFO-based conspiracy theories.

The Nye County Sheriffs Office has been contacted for comment.
Lawyers for a Muslim inmate scheduled to be executed in Alabama next month have requested a federal judge order a stay amid a new lawsuit filed this week.

The attorneys for Dominique Ray say the the state is violating his rights by requiring a Christian prison chaplain to stand near him as he is put to death, according to the lawsuit.

Ray is scheduled to be executed 7 February for the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville in 1995. The 42-year-old inmates lawyers asked the federal judge in the suit filed Monday to halt his execution while the court considers his claim.

Attorneys for Ray said the prison warden refused Ray's request to have a Muslim imam stand in the execution chamber instead of the prison chaplain during the planned lethal injection.

They also said the warden refused his request to not have the chaplain present during his execution.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

While condemned Alabama inmates can visit with their own spiritual adviser before an execution  and have that person witness the execution from an adjoining room only a correctional officer and the prison chaplain have been in the death chamber with the inmate during recent executions in Alabama.

Ray's attorneys said the chaplain's mandatory presence in the execution chamber can serve only one interest  an unconstitutional one  safeguarding the soul or spiritual health of the condemned inmate in the Christian belief system.

Recommended China orders death sentence for Canadian tourist amid Huawei tensions

Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton wrote in an email that the department has rules about who is allowed in the death chamber.

The Alabama Department of Corrections follows a protocol that only allows approved correctional officials, that includes the prison's chaplain, to be inside the chamber where executions are lawfully carried out, Mr Horton wrote.

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He added, the presence of the prison's chaplain in the chamber follows department protocol regardless of the chaplain's spiritual belief or that of the inmate.

Additional reporting by AP
A British passenger has been ordered to pay a Canadian airline C$21,260.68 (12,274) restitution after his absolutely disgusting drunken behaviour caused a flight to turn around.

David Stephen Young, 44, was ordered to compensate the company for the cost of fuel after pleading guilty to failing to comply with safety instructions and resisting arrest.

His actions led to Westjet dumping fuel and compensating passengers.

The court heard that Young, an alcoholic, had been sober for 18 months until 4 January when he relapsed and consumed about six alcoholic drinks while waiting to board his WestJet flight from Calgary to London.

He is said to have been visiting his mother in British Columbia after becoming depressed over the collapse of his marriage and death of a family member.

Court documents state he repeatedly tried to get up during takeoff to use the toilet and became belligerent with flight crew and a fellow passenger.

Fearing for passenger safety, after an hour of Youngs abusive behaviour the pilot made the decision to return to Calgary.

According to prosecutor Lori Ibrus, the pilot had to burn off and then dump 20,000lb of fuel in order to land safely.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Young was later detained and spent one week at the Calgary Remand Centre before being released on bail.

Delivering the sentencing, provincial court judge Brian Stevenson said: One has to feel some sympathy for the accused but as in all criminal legislation, it is trite to say that the voice of the victim must also be heard.

He added that it was important to send a message to the general public about what will happen if they break the law in a similar fashion.

 Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Young apologised for his behaviour and for the damage and inconvenience he caused to his fellow travellers in a written statement.

Defence lawyer Michelle Parhar said once Young returns to the UK hes essentially barred from entering Canada, barred from seeing his mother in British Columbia.

WestJets total losses are expected to exceed $200,000 in passenger compensation, which it can seek from Young in a civil lawsuit.
An ex-stripper who became a regional sales director at Insys Therapeutics Inc gave a doctor a lap dance at a Chicago club as the drugmaker pushed the doctor to prescribe its addictive fentanyl spray, a former Insys employee testified on Tuesday.

The testimony in federal court in Boston came in the first criminal trial of painkiller manufacturer executives over conduct that authorities say contributed to a US opioid abuse epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of people a year.

Former Insys sales representative Holly Brown told jurors the incident with her boss, Sunrise Lee, took place after Insys began rewarding the doctor for prescribing its opioid product by paying him to speak at educational events about the drug.

That Illinois doctor, Paul Madison, is one of several whom prosecutors say Lee and four other former Insys executives and managers including wealthy founder and ex-chairman John Kapoor conspired to bribe to boost sales of the spray, Subsys.

Lee, Kapoor, Michael Gurry, Richard Simon and Joseph Rowan deny wrongdoing and have pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

The US Food and Drug Administration has only approved Subsys for treating cancer pain. Prosecutors allege doctors paid by Insys often prescribed Subsys to patients without cancer. Defense lawyers note, though, that doctors may prescribe medications for off-label purposes.

Drugmakers often retain doctors to speak at events with other clinicians about the benefits of their drugs, and defense lawyers argue the events were legal compensation for the doctors educational work.

Yet Brown said Madisons events, held at a Chicago restaurant Kapoor owned, were attended by his friends instead of clinicians.

 Donald Trump calls for change to curb Big Pharma

The idea was these werent really meant to be educational programmes but were meant to be rewards to physicians, Brown said.

After one dinner in mid-2012, Brown said she, Lee and Madison went to a club, where she witnessed Lee sitting on his lap, kind of bouncing around.

He had his hands sort of inappropriately all over her chest, Brown said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Brown testified that at the time, Madison ran a notorious medical practice, which in a 2012 email shown to jurors she described as a shady pill mill.

Prosecutors say Insys paid Madison at least $70,800 in speaker fees.

Asked on cross-examination by Lees attorney, Peter Horstmann, if Madison appeared to be taking advantage of Ms. Lee, Brown said yes.

Madison was convicted in November of unrelated charges that he defrauded insurers into paying for unperformed chiropractic procedures. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

Reuters
The Northern Ireland Secretary has been accused of misleading MPs about human rights laws, after refusing to act on the provinces bans on abortion and same-sex marriage.

Karen Bradley sparked a backlash when she announced she would not intervene, despite the Commons passing guidance requiring her to take into account human rights obligations.

Campaigners had hailed an historic day when, in October, MPs forced the government to increase oversight of Belfast  two years after power-sharing collapsed.

But Ms Bradley not only insisted both abortion and marriage law remained matters for the devolved administration, but also argued Belfast had responsibility for ensuring equal rights.

Stella Creasy, the Labour MP who spearheaded the amendment, insisted that was factually wrong  because Westminster had authority for international human rights obligations.

Recommended Belfast woman forced to go to England for abortion bids to change law

The controversy blew up as Ms Creasy accused the government of putting its propping up by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ahead of the victims of domestic violence.

Ministers are alleged to have shut down a further amendment to liberalise abortion rights in Northern Ireland, by restricting their domestic abuse bill to England and Wales.

Fight us fair and square on abortion rights in this place, not through backroom deals and bargaining, Ms Creasy said, raising an urgent question in parliament.

Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Show all 8 1 /8 Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Campaigners intervene after police try to lead away one of the three women (centre with sunglasses) who publicly took an abortion pill during a demonstration outside Belfast's Crown and High Courts, where counter-demonstrations were held by both sides of the Northern Irish abortion argument. PA Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Police officers watch on from close by as abortion rights campaign group ROSA, Reproductive Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity hold a protest in Belfast Getty Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Eleanor Crossey Malone takes an abortion pill as abortion rights campaign group ROSA, Reproductive Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity distribute abortion pills Getty Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Ruth Coppinger TD addresses the crowds outside Belfast's Crown and High Courts where counter-demonstrations were held by both sides of the Northen Irish abortion argument. PA Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Eleanor Crossey Malone displays an abortion pill packet after taking a pill Getty Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills Protestors dressed as hand maidens stand as abortion rights campaign group ROSA, Reproductive Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity distribute abortion pills from a touring bus Getty Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills An unidentified woman takes an abortion pill as abortion rights campaign group ROSA, Reproductive Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity distribute abortion pills from a touring bus Getty Images Northern Irish women protesting anti-abortion laws take illegal pills A robot drone delivers abortion pills as abortion rights campaign group ROSA, Reproductive Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity distribute abortion pills Getty

In reply, Victoria Atkins, a home office minister, said it was normal practice for changes to criminal law to expand to England and Wales only.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service had described the October amendment - approved in the Commons with a majority of 90  as an important step forward to ensure womens basic rights.

But, in her first response, required after three months, Ms Bradley wrote: The current absence of devolved government in Northern Ireland should not dislodge the principle that it is for the devolved administration to both legislate on, and ensure compliance with, human rights obligations in relation to such devolved matters.

She added: I am firmly of the view that the people of Northern Ireland need their elected representatives back in government to take important decisions on the issues that matter most to them.

Ms Creasy said the first sentence was incorrect because the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by the UK, required national government to fulfil its obligations to all women within its jurisdiction.

Furthermore, the 1998 Northern Ireland Act said obligations under the Human Rights Convention remained under Westminsters control.

Ms Creasy told The Independent: The secretary of state for Northern Ireland tried to slip out a statement absolving her of any responsibility for the human rights of citizens of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's current abortion law is in breach of human rights. Devolution can be no excuse for denying women in Northern Ireland their human rights.

The Northern Ireland Office has been asked to respond to the criticism that Ms Bradleys statement had misled MPs.
Britain would keep paying into the EU budget for years after a no-deal Brexit under contingency plans drawn up by the European Commission.

In a move likely to enrage Brexiteers and cause yet another political row in Westminster, on Wednesday Brussels unveiled proposals for the UK to keep up its payments for the 2019 EU budget and beyond.

The UK would have to consent to the plan, with a deadline to agree set for 18 April  deliberately placed after the effects of a no-deal would have become apparent.

What we were thinking is we need to give a period which would allow some time for reflection, one EU official said of the chosen cut-off date.

The EU says keeping up payments would help soften the impact of the no-deal cliff edge in areas such as agriculture and research funding that rely on EU payments.

"Brexit betrayal" march in London Show all 43 1 /43 "Brexit betrayal" march in London "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a sign in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carrying a noose at the "Brexit betrayal" march. The man carrying it told a reporter: "That's what the traitor May deserves." AP "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit supporters hold a sign opposed to Nigel Farage Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters carry a defaced British flag on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson addresses a rally after taking part in a Brexit 'betrayal' march in central London PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London Police officers attempts to keep rival protesters from clashing at the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London Victoria Jones/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-Theresa May sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator and his dog Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator at the protest Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit demonstrators endorse UKIP Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A Brexit 'betrayal' march protester wearing a Make Britain Great Again hat in London on 9 December 2018 Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The "Brexit Betrayal" march passes through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson tells protesters to join Ukip via their mobile phones on stage next to leader Gerard Batten (right) at the Brexit 'betrayal' march Gareth Fuller/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester speaks thorugh a megaphone on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator walks in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carries a Union Jack on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator wrapped in the Union Jack Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro brexit demonstrators move through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator marches with sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a rude sign in the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march passes down Victoria Street near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A festive protester marches near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a mock noose as the march passes down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester wrapped in the Union Jack marches down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester makes some noise on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester dressed as a dinosaur holds a sign rallying against "Davocracy" - in reference to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a pro-brexit sign on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march approaches parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester distributes pro-brexit lapel badges Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A demonstrator wears an anti-EU poster and holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A smoke bomb is deployed in Parliament Square as the march comes across the counter-demonstration Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A flag bearing the Arms of Plantagenet flies in theprot Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent

The commitment would cover any EU contracts in effect on 30 March 2019 when the UK is due to crash out. Some of the contracts last two or three years, meaning payments could continue for some time.

As highlighted on many occasions, all commitments taken by the 28 Member States should be honoured by the 28 Member States, A statement released by the European Commission said.

This is also true in a no-deal scenario, where the UK would be expected to continue to honour all commitments made during EU membership.

The statement continues: Todays proposal enables the EU to be in a position, in a no-deal scenario, to honour its commitments and to continue making payments in 2019 to UK beneficiaries for contracts signed and decisions made before 30 March 2019, on condition that the UK honours its obligations under the 2019 budget and that it accepts the necessary audit checks and controls.

This would help mitigate the significant impact of a no-deal scenario for a wide range of areas that receive EU funding, such as research, innovation or agriculture.

This issue is separate from and without prejudice to the financial settlement between the EU and the United Kingdom in a no-deal scenario.

Officials admit they cannot force the UK to make any payments once it has left the bloc, though they hope Britain will take up the offer.

Though the EU has ruled out doing side deals with the UK to soften a no-deal Brexit, the move on the budget contributions suggests the commitment is open to interpretation.

The Commission says its no-deal planning cannot replicate the withdrawal agreement, is unilateral and is aimed at mitigating the most disruptive effect on EU27 stakeholders. It has stepped up preparations in recent weeks and months, with 88 stakeholder notices and 18 legislative proposals.

On Wednesday it also unveiled measures to protect the Erasmus international study programme, confirming that it would honour the overseas placements of UK and EU27 students who were abroad at the time of a no-deal. This commitment affects around 7,000 UK nationals on the continent and 14,000 EU nationals in the UK.

Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said last year that the Government would not pay the terms of the financial settlement, as agreed with the EU as part of the withdrawal agreement in the event of a no-deal, because theres no deal without the whole deal. It is not clear whether the Governments policy has shifted since Mr Raabs departure, however, with the issue of the divorce bill falling off the agenda and the focus moving to Northern Ireland.

In September Theresa May said the position changes on the issue of the payments if the UK left without a deal: leaving herself room for manoeuvre.
The government's refusal to give visas to science workers earning less than 30,000 could damage the research sector in post-Brexit Britain, the science minister has warned.

Chris Skidmore said he was trying to convince home secretary Sajid Javid to scrap the salary threshold which has been recommended in a document underpinning future immigration plans.

He said he was concerned about the impact on lab technicians and other employees who earn below the cap but make a vital contribution to UK science and technology.

His comments came after the government's strategy for post-Brexit immigration policy was released.

Mr Skidmore said he was committed to ensuring Britain remains the best possible place for international researchers.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

We made quite a clear statement on ensuring we have no cap on international students, but I want to go further, he told the Science and Technology Committee. For instance the 30,000 cap on salary can be seen as quite detrimental to the science community.

He added that while he was new to the job, he understood the importance of not breaking up research groups and ensuring the families of scientists could accompany them to the UK.

He said he was in the process of working with universities to build a case and make this clear to the home secretary.

Asked by the committee's chair Norman Lamb if he wanted to remove the cap altogether, the minister said he wanted to look at what alternatives there would be.

Last year, the Migration Advisory Committee recommended there should be no cap on high-skilled workers allowed into the UK, but that the existing 30,000 salary threshold should be maintained.

Current policy is to allow 20,700 high-skilled workers from abroad into the country.

The Home Office said they are now undertaking a period of consultations to establish what a suitable salary threshold would be.

According to the union Prospect, keeping such a high cap on salaries for workers from the EU will have profound consequences for public sector science, technology and engineering.

 'It's unicorns again, isn't it?' Cathy Newman challenges former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab over backstop

They list postdoctoral researchers, veterinary inspectors and agricultural research technicians as some of the professions earning below 30,000 for which the country currently relies on European workers.

Dr Mike Galsworthy from campaign group Scientists for EU said Mr Skidmore's comments revealed a "woeful state of affairs".

"The matter of highly-skilled, highly-talented but low-paid staff in our science and innovation system has long been known, but the new science minister only wants 'to look at... alternatives' at this late stage, on the eve of a potential crash out," he said.

Science is a sector that faces a great deal of disruption following Brexit, given the extensive collaborations and shared funding networks operating between the UK and Europe.

Recommended Top scientist fears Brexit will strip leadership from UK

Many researchers have expressed concern about the UKs future as a leading scientific power, despite assurances by ministers that any lost funding will be matched.

Particularly concerning is the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, which Mr Skidmore admitted would be disruptive to British science.

He said that while the government had underwritten guarantees to ensure UK researchers supported by the EUs Horizon 2020 scheme would not lose funding, when it comes to future schemes such as Horizon Europe we are crossroads.

He added: We are leaving the EU but we do not want to break those long standing ties."
Theresa May has been warned the EU will settle for a no-deal Brexit rather than abandon the Irish backstop, as Brussels ramped up its refusal to reopen talks.

A senior MEP, serving on the European Parliament's Brexit Steering Group, said the prime ministers plea to rip up the existing agreement would be rejected  because a no-deal outcome was the lesser evil.

There will be a price to pay, but the calculus that is being made on this side of the Channel is that the cost of hurting the integrity of the single market will be significantly bigger, said Philippe Lamberts.

And, therefore, if we have a choice to make between two evils then, well, no deal is the lesser evil.

The warning came as an ally of Angela Merkel said renegotiating the backstop would backfire on the UK  by reopening controversies over Gibraltar, fishing and the Brexit divorce bill.

Meanwhile, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, failed  four times  to say what alternative arrangements to the backstop Ms May will be seeking when she returns to Brussels.

Mr Barclay said that whats were exploring, as he also declined to say a new deal would be done by the next Westminster deadline, in just two weeks time.

The fresh barbs from the continent came as the government celebrated winning Commons support to seek to renegotiate the Brexit deal  while defeating attempts by backbench MPs to seize control of the Brexit process.

The prime minister is expected to return to Brussels in the coming days  after meeting Jeremy Corbyn later on Wednesday  but with the clock still ticking and little hope of success.

Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An abandoned shop is seen in Mullan, Co Monaghan. The building was home to four families who left during the Troubles. The town was largely abandoned after the hard border was put in place during the conflict. Mullan has seen some regeneration in recent years, but faces an uncertain future with Brexit on the horizon Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A defaced Welcome to Northern Ireland sign stands on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Mervyn Johnson owns a garage in the border town of Pettigo, which straddles the counties of Donegal and Fermanagh. Ive been here since 1956, it was a bit of a problem for a few years. My premises has been blown up about six or seven times, we just kept building and starting again, Johnson said laughing. We just got used to it [the hard border] really but now that its gone, we wouldn't like it back again Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Farmer Gordon Crocketts Coshquin farm straddles both Derry/Londonderry in the North and Donegal in the Republic. At the minute there is no real problem, you can cross the border as free as you want. We could cross it six or eight times a day, said Crockett. If there was any sort of obstruction it would slow down our work every day Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures John Murphy flies the European flag outside his home near the border village of Forkhill, Co Armagh Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Potter Brenda McGinn stands outside her Mullan, Co Monaghan, studio  the former Jas Boylan shoe factory which was the main employer in the area until it shut down due to the Troubles. When I came back, this would have been somewhere you would have driven through and have been quite sad. It was a decrepit looking village, said McGinn, whose Busy Bee Ceramics is one of a handful of enterprises restoring life to the community. Now this is a revitalised, old hidden village Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Union Flag colours painted on kerbstones and bus-stops along the border village of Newbuildings, Co Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Grass reflected in Lattone Lough, which is split by the border between Cavan and Fermanagh, seen from near Ballinacor, Northern Ireland Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Donegalman David McClintock sits in the Border Cafe in the village of Muff, which straddles Donegal and Derry/Londonderry Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures An old Irish phone box stands alongside a bus stop in the border town of Glaslough, Co Monaghan Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Billboards are viewed from inside a disused customs hut in Carrickcarnon, Co Down, on the border with Co Louth in the Republic Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Seamus McQuaid takes packages that locals on the Irish side of the border have delivered to his business, McQuaid Auto-Parts, to save money on postal fees, near the Co Fermanagh village of Newtownbutler. I live in the south but the business is in the North, said McQaid. "I wholesale into the Republic of Ireland so if theres duty, Ill have to set up a company 200 yards up the road to sell to my customers. Ill have to bring the same product in through Dublin instead of Belfast Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A disused Great Northern Railway line and station that was for customs and excise on the border town of Glenfarne, Co Leitrim Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures Alice Mullen, from Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland, does her shopping at a former customs post on the border in Middletown, Co Armagh. Id be very worried if it was a hard border, I remember when people were divided. I would be very afraid of the threat to the peace process, it was a dreadful time to live through. Even to go to mass on a Sunday, youd have to go through checkpoints. It is terribly stressful, said Mullen. All those barricades and boundaries were pulled down. I see it as a huge big exercise of trust and I do believe everyone breathed a sigh of relief Reuters Brexit threatens life on the Irish border: in pictures A bus stop and red post box stand in the border town of Jonesborough, Co Armagh Reuters

She was forced to promise another series of big votes no later than 14 February, to stop her own ministers from resigning en masse to block the UK crashing out on 29 March.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Barclay confirmed three possible options to rework the backstop; a time limit, an exit clause or the use of new  unproven  technology.

However, all three have been repeatedly rejected by the EU, which Ms May accepted when she signed the withdrawal agreement in early December.

Asked if a new deal could be secured in the next fortnight, Mr Barclay said only: There is an ongoing process.....we are working hard in the national interest.

Mr Lamberts, a Belgian MEP, said EU would suffer less from a no-deal Brexit than the UK, which was preferable to opening up a backdoor to the single market on the Irish border.

Manfred Weber, a Merkel ally who is the frontrunner to be the next European Commission president, said everything is reopened, if the withdrawal treaty is renegotiated.

We talk again about Gibraltar, we talk again about the fisheries policies, we talk again about how much Great Britain must pay when they are leaving the EU, he told a German broadcaster.
Theresa May has been accused of already making a stupid mistake as she tries to go into a new round of Brexit negotiations with the EU.

The flimsy Conservative truce achieved in a key vote on Tuesday fell apart in less than 24 hours when leading Eurosceptic MP Steve Baker attacked the prime ministers negotiating team.

He said Ms May should have included Britains leading trade negotiator Crawford Falconer, with Brexiteers doubtful that the UKs current civil service lead Olly Robbins would take the best approach.

It came as reports emerged that Remain-backing ministers were once again pressuring the prime minister to commit to a permanent customs union as a way of renegotiating the current withdrawal agreement to remove the Irish backstop.

Ms May continued to have meetings with other parliamentarians, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as she prepared to head back to Brussels, probably next week, in a bid to secure changes to the withdrawal deal she previously sealed with the EU.

On Tuesday night the Brexit-backing European Research Group agreed to support a motion that gave Ms May a mandate to go back to the EU in a bid to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements.

But Mr Baker, deputy chair of the group, told a committee of MPs on Wednesday that Mr Falconer should be involved in the new round of talks.

The former minister said: My experience in government ... tells me that our chief trade negotiation adviser, Crawford Falconer, has been cut out of our chief trade negotiation. And that is a stupid mistake.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

We have great experts in government on trade policy, Julian Braithwaite ... and Crawford Falconer, people with great expertise who should be intimately involved with our EU trade negotiations and they are not, and it is crazy.

Outside the meeting he said their exclusion was a mistake which should be rectified now.

It echoed calls from former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith who has said Ms May should organise a politically led team, including Mr Falconer, to head back to Brussels.

Mr Robbins, meanwhile, has drawn the ire of a large number of Brexiteers over his handling of negotiations with Michel Barnier and his team.

But speaking to reporters after prime ministers questions, Ms Mays spokesman said: In terms of the civil service side, the team remains the same.

 MPs vote on Brexit plans: Which amendments passed

The civil service team, which is led by Olly Robbins, remains the same.

Reports emerged that some Remain-backing ministers suggested the UK might hope to have the Irish backstop  hated by many Tory MPs  removed from the withdrawal agreement if the country committed to a permanent customs union with the EU.

The backstop comes into play if the UK has not secured a new trade deal with the EU by December 2020, in a bid to prevent a hard border in Ireland, but also potentially locking the UK into an indefinite customs union.

It has previously been backed by Ms Mays chief of staff Gavin Barwell, but would threaten a major split in the Conservative Party because Brexiteers, including those in cabinet, argue it would prevent the UK striking trade deals with other countries.

No 10 aides played down the idea that Ms May would be heading to Brussels to start new talks this week, with any trip likely to take place next week after she has had further meetings in the UK.

Mr Corbyn said he had held serious talks with the prime minister on Wednesday afternoon in which he set out the Labour case for a comprehensive customs union with the European Union.

But speaking to reporters in his parliamentary office after the meeting, he warned that he had suspicions about the governments motives in holding the meetings with opposition parliamentarians.

The Labour leader said: The whole process looks like its running down the clock by saying, well, its either the problems and the difficulties of no deal or support a deal thats already been rejected by the House of Commons.

Im suspicious that there is a programme of running down the clock here.
Labour has admitted that the partys unity over Brexit has been fraying around the edges after 14 MPs defied the party whip in a vote that delivered a victory to Theresa May.

A handful of shadow ministers also abstained in the vote which meant the prime minister blocked a bid to delay Brexit past the UKs 29 March departure date.

Jeremy Corbyns spokesman said that rebels would be dealt with by the whips in the usual way following the split exposed by the vote, but Remain and Leave factions of the party criticised each other in public in the wake of the vote.

Recommended Corbyn is running out of room to sidestep a Final Say vote

It comes as Mr Corbyn met the prime minister in Downing Street to discuss the countrys future path, where he planned to make the case for a permanent customs union and close relationship with the single market.

Mr Corbyns backing for the amendment laid by Yvette Cooper was expected to allow it to pass through the Commons on Tuesday, which would potentially have forced Ms May to delay Brexit for up to nine months.

But 14 of the Labour leaders own MPs defied the whip and voted with the government, with most of the rebels representing constituencies that voted Leave in the 2016 referendum. Several members of his frontbench also dodged the vote.

The spokesman denied the leaders office had given a nod or a wink to MPs from Leave-supporting constituencies that they could safely defy orders over the issue to preserve local support.

Asked how Mr Corbyn would respond to the rebellion, his spokesman said they would be dealt with by the whips office in the usual way, without giving more detail.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

But he added: There will be some fraying around the edges, but weve kept the party united both externally and internally.

Mr Corbyn himself later said he was disappointed that some Labour MPs had voted in favour of the Brady amendment, allowiung Ms May a mandate to keep negotiating on her deal, on Tuesday night.

Im very disappointed of those that chose to vote with the Conservatives last night on those issues.

Asked if he would take disciplinary action against MPs who rebelled, he said: We will be having discussions with them.

Remainers within the Labour movement, and also some close leftwing allies of Mr Corbyn, attacked the rebels for riding to the rescue of the PM.

 MPs vote on Brexit plans: Which amendments passed

Senior MP Chuka Umunna  a champion of the Peoples Vote campaign  said he was angry and disappointed at the Cooper amendments failure to pass.

There were calls from some Corbyn allies for MPs to be deselected. Commentator Paul Mason tweeted: Withdraw the whip, expel from the Labour party and select socialists instead of xenophobes.

The group who rebelled included veteran left-winger Dennis Skinner, Caroline Flint, John Mann, Graham Stringer and Kate Hoey. Hitting back, Mr Stringer likened MPs who were trying to delay the UKs exit from the European Union to kindergarten children.

He said: Often in discussing the European Union my colleagues use kindergarten language, they say theyre our friends, how could they not have our interests at heart?

I think it misunderstands that actually the bureaucrats in Brussels are a self-interested group of people, self-interested in their own survival and perpetuating their growing power and influence across the whole of the European continent.

The MP for Blackley and Broughton said shop steward trade unionists would not enter negotiations with the managers by saying whatever you do, we wont go on strike, as he criticised the approach to take a no-deal exit off the table.

Mr Corbyn emerged from a meeting with Ms May, saying that he had discussed a customs union and issues relating to the Irish backstop with the prime minister, before the pair agreed to meet again.
Europes top politicians set the scene for a major clash with the UK as Theresa May prepared to head back to Brussels in what was branded a crazy bid to reopen Brexit talks.

They accused British Eurosceptics of playing a blame game, attacked the prime minister for wanting to unpick the deal she agreed to herself, and again reiterated that the backstop Ms May wants to change will not be rewritten.

Among politicians who lined up against Ms May were Jean-Claude Juncker, Michel Barnier, Guy Verhofstadt, a key ally of Angela Merkel, Elmar Brok, and a string of European foreign ministers.

Downing Street aides said on Tuesday they had expected a backlash from Brussels in the wake of Ms Mays demand to reopen the withdrawal agreement, but the force of the reaction from the continent on Wednesday makes her strategy look more difficult than ever.

It comes as Ms May held further meetings in the UK with MPs, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whilst the flimsy Tory truce that held on Tuesday to give her a win in the Commons already began to crumble.

Speaking in the European parliament as news of Ms Mays plan to reopen talks sank in, Mr Brok said: Now the British want to renegotiate something that they proposed themselves in the first place. I think this is quite crazy.

The MEP from Ms Merkels CDU party, added: You in London have to sit down and talk to each other and decide what you want.

European Commission president Mr Juncker said the bloc had repeatedly told the UK there could be no change to the agreements controversial backstop policy, saying: The withdrawal agreement is the best and only deal possible.

Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters

The European Union said so in November, we said so in December, we said so after the first meaningful vote in the Commons in January.

The debate and vote in the House of Commons do not change that.

When I hear some people who were part and parcel of the negotiations saying what theyre saying, its tough  I find it hard to accept this blame game that theyre trying to play against us Michel Barnier

It came after Ms May won a majority for a plan to go back to Brussels and renegotiate the withdrawal agreement she spent 19 months sealing, with the intention of removing the Irish backstop.

This comes into play if the EU and UK cannot agree a future trade deal by December 2020, preventing a hard border in Ireland, but also potentially locking the UK into a permanent customs union.

Speaking at the same debate in Brussels, European parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said Ms May was always welcome in Brussels for discussions, but added: For what? To do what?

Mr Barnier said: For the first time yesterday ... Theresa May openly called to reopen the withdrawal agreement, even before the vote late in the evening.

She took distance from the agreement she herself had negotiated and on which we have achieved an agreement.

 MPs vote on Brexit plans: Which amendments passed

He also took an apparent swipe at former Brexit secretaries Dominic Raab and David Davis, criticising MPs who negotiated with us.

When I hear some people who were part and parcel of the negotiations saying what theyre saying, its tough  I find it hard to accept this blame game that theyre trying to play against us, he said.

We ourselves talked of so-called alternative arrangements which could prevent the return of a hard border. Only, no one, on either side, was able to say what arrangement would be needed to ensure controls on goods, animals and merchandise, without having a border, Mr Barnier told Frances RTL radio.

We have neither the time, nor the technologies.

French president Emmanuel Macron said the withdrawal agreement was not renegotiable, while a spokesman for Ms Merkel said that reopening the deal was not on the agenda.

Germanys foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said: Germany and the entire union are firmly on Irelands side. We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.

French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau said: The withdrawal agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.

Ashley Fox, the leader of the UK Conservative group in the parliament, said that the approach EU politicians were taking was counterproductive.

He said: The backstop in its current form will not prevent a hard border, it will create it. Its simply not good enough to repeat ad nauseam that the deal cannot be amended. That leads to no deal and a hard border.

Downing Street has suggested that the UK could argue for a time limit or exit clause to the backstop or swapping it for a free trade agreement, as proposed in the so-called Malthouse compromise drawn up by MPs from the Tories Remain and Leave wings.

The prime ministers official spokesman said: The EU had said it was seeking clarity  there had been suggestions that the backstop was not the main issue of concern, which had originated in Brussels.

I think yesterday a clear message was given by the House of Commons that the backstop is the concern which MPs have, and that if we can find a way to address those concerns that there is a stable majority for getting support for the deal in parliament.
A British man and his family have been made homeless after being told they could not rent a property in the UK because his wife was not eligible to rent under Home Office rules  despite the fact that she has the right to live in Britain.

Rory McCormick, 55, put a deposit down on a house in Suffolk after receiving a job offer in the area. He, his Russian wife Anna, and their two daughters, aged four and seven months, had been due to move from Ireland into the property on Tuesday.

But days before the move-in date, Mr McCormick was told by his letting agency, William H Brown, that his wifes Irish residency card would not be accepted because, while it established her right to reside in the UK, it did not qualify under the Home Offices right to rent guidance.

The case has prompted fresh criticism of the governments right to rent policy, a key branch of Theresa Mays attempt to create a hostile environment for illegal immigrants, which requires landlords in England to check the immigration status of prospective tenants.

Campaigners said the case demonstrated how bureaucratic incompetence and poorly explained and complex laws which landlords and estate agents are required to follow under the policy were having disastrous consequences for families who risk homelessness as a result.

Having already moved out of their home in County Wexford in Ireland, but being unable to move into the new property, Mr McCormick and his family were currently staying with his sister in the east of England, sharing one bedroom between four of them.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr McCormick, who works for a tour operator, said: It is incredibly stressful, as a husband and father, to realise that I may not be able to put a roof over my familys head because of a pedantic and unlawful guide issued by the Home Office.

My children do not deserve to be treated in this way, nor do I or my wife.

I am an Englishman, I served for nine years in the army, I have worked since I was 16 years old and it breaks my heart that my own government seems quite content to make a British citizen, his two British daughters and lawfully resident wife, homeless.

Mr McCormick: It breaks my heart (Rory McCormick)

In an email to Mr McCormick, the letting agency William H Brown claimed that right to rent isnt the same as right to reside and said they would risk facing legal action if they failed to abide by the Home Office rules.

Responding to the case, Labours shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: The home secretary claims to have ended the hostile environment but incidents like these show that is completely untrue.

Instead, what we are actually witnessing is the extension of those terrible policies towards wider groups all the time, not just all the people from the Commonwealth. The hostile environment must go, and Labour in government will end it.

Chai Patel, legal policy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), accused ministers of, through the hostile environment, enlisting ordinary people  from doctors to teachers to estate agents  in amateur border enforcement.

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The Blues won the game 4-1, (and the tie 5-3 on aggregate) sending them through to their first Champions League final AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 1 May 2020 Demonstrators during a march through London during a 'Kill the Bill' protest Angela Christofilou UK news in pictures 30 April 2021 Shoppers queue outside Primark in Belfast as shops reopen and hospitality is able to open outdoors in Northern Ireland where lockdown restrictions have begun to gradually ease PA UK news in pictures 29 April 2021 Specialist operators at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, near Telford, Shropshire, clean the Hawker Hunter aircraft displayed within the museum's National Cold War Exhibition, during annual high-level aircraft cleaning and maintenance PA UK news in pictures 28 April 2021 Millions of tulips in flower near Kings Lynn in Norfolk, as Belmont Nurseries, the UK's largest commercial grower of outdoor tulips, offers socially-distanced visits to its tulip fields at Hillington to raise funds for local charity The Norfolk Hospice Tapping House PA UK news in pictures 27 April 2021 Paula Laughton checks one of the newly installed Lego models in the new Lego Mythica land at Legoland Windsor Resort PA

He added: For a family of four, moving back to the UK from another country is likely to be a stressful enough experience as it is. But for Rory and Anna, they face another level of uncertainty about whether they would ever be able to live together in the UK at all.

This has disastrous consequences for families who risk homelessness owing to bureaucratic incompetence and poorly explained and complex laws. Landlords and estate agents are simply not qualified to carry out immigration checks, and Sajid Javid needs to stop trying to make them do so, particularly given the numbers of European nationals who are going to be unable to prove their status after Brexit.

The right to rent policy has previously come under fire from cross-party MPs, landlords and immigration lawyers warning that it risks putting people at risk of homelessness and exploitation.

It is currently being challenged in the High Court over claims that it incentivises discrimination in breach of the law.

A William H Brown spokesperson said: We certainly do not discriminate against any applicant tenants and we are simply following the Home Office right to rent regulations.

Unfortunately, the guidance that we have been given from the Home Office landlord checking service, based on the documents that the applicant has supplied, contradicts the advice given to the applicant and, in order to urgently resolve this, we are seeking further clarification from the Home Office.

A Home Office spokesperson said: An Article 10 residence card issued by the Republic of Ireland helps to demonstrate a right of entry into the UK. It does not confer the right to rent in the UK.

If an individual has applied for but not yet received a UK permanent residence card, they should have the right to rent in the UK. As made clear in our online guidance for landlords, in such cases prospective landlords can use the landlord checking service to provide confirmation of an applicants right to rent.

We are writing to the family in this case to clarify their position.
Of all the Brexit warnings coming from British businesses the one issued this week by food retailers was among the most alarming.

Several of the industrys biggest firms, including Sainsburys, Asda, Co-op, Waitrose and Lidl, said it is likely that a host of everyday products will begin disappearing from shelves if the UK leaves the EU without a trade deal.
Theresa May is returning to Brussels to try to renegotiate the European Union withdrawal agreement to make it acceptable to a majority of MPs in the House of Commons.

But what will she ask for?

On Tuesday night almost all of her partys MPs and a majority of the Commons voted in favour of an amendment put forward by the senior Tory backbencher Sir Graham Brady calling for the Irish backstop (the insurance clause that says the entire UK will remain in an EU customs union if there is no EU free trade deal struck that manages to avoid a hard border in Ireland) in the withdrawal agreement to be replaced with unspecified alternative arrangements.
A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists says President Donald Trump and his administration have taken scores of actions that have ignored scientific findings on climate change, LGBTQ rights, taxes and other issues and that those actions are harming public health and the environment.

The report, The State of Science in the Trump Era: Damages Done, Lessons Learned, and a Path to Progress, says the organisation has documented 80 attacks on science by administration officials with limited scientific credentials and significant conflicts of interest, including direct ties to industries that agencies are supposed to regulate.

Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed opinions about climate change and other issues that contradict the best scientific research. He kept vacant the key position of chief of the Office of Science and Technology Policy  which informs federal policies on climate change, online privacy, artificial intelligence and other issues  longer than any president.

President Trumps political appointees have taken a wrecking ball to science, which we all depend on, Union of Concerned Scientists President Ken Kimmell said in a statement. But the science community is more engaged than ever to fight back.

Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary

The report said the administration has compromised our nations ability to meet current and future public health and environmental challenges, and it continues to erode science across the federal landscape by taking actions that include:

Censoring scientific language

Ignoring science in proposing or rolling back federal regulations

Suppressing, cancelling or altering at least 14 scientific studies

Leaving key science positions in the federal government vacant

Excluding scientists from decision-making processes and pushing others out of the government

Politicising the scientific grant-review process

Reducing data collection

Refusing to enforce protections already on the books

The pattern exists across many areas of policy, the report says, involving taxes, immigration, climate change and LGBTQ rights, but it is seen most egregiously at two agencies.

President Trumps appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior stand out for their glaring conflicts of interest and their hostility to the science-based mission of their agencies, the report says. Climate science and studies on the public health impacts of pollution have been especially targeted  demonstrating the administrations commitment to helping politically powerful industries at the expense of the public good.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said the level of political interference in science varies by agency and issue. But it noted that both the courts and sustained pressure from scientists and their allies have prevented or restrained some of the worst abuses to date.

Scientists and others have gone to the courts, the public-comment process and Congress to try to check the administration, and they have prevented the confirmation of some nominees and stalled some policies. The report offers a path for the new Congress, with its Democratic-led House, to safeguard scientific principles from damage by the executive branch.

Congress has power to investigate attacks on science, defend the vital role of science in federal decision-making, and mandate increased protections for federal scientists, the report says. They have the power of the purse and must ensure that federal science and research remains well-funded, despite repeated attempts by the administration to cut budgets and staffing related to science. They should also demand that those nominated to lead federal agencies acknowledge and act upon the latest science.

The report describes in detail examples of actions taken  or not  by the administration.

For example, it noted that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised comprehensive studies of the economic impact of the proposed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act before it became law and even said that more than 100 people working around the clock on running scenarios would provide evidence that the proposed $1.5 trillion tax plan would pay for itself through economic growth. No such analysis emerged, the report said, and Treasury economists stated they were barred from conducting comprehensive analyses and that the analyses Secretary Mnuchin described did not exist.

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It said the Trump administration repeatedly ignored, dismissed, or suppressed the science of climate change, limiting the ability of federal scientists to speak about, report on, or even study it and has removed, revoked, and suppressed mentions of climate change in agency documents. Instead, it has pointed to elements of uncertainty about the magnitude of impacts and the human causes of climate change rather than the overwhelming US and international consensus on its very significant risks and the unequivocal evidence that recent warming is primarily caused by human activities.

An example of when scientists and other advocates successfully pushed back involved Scott Pruitt, the former EPA administrator who was forced out in July because of scandals. On his last day as administrator, he created a loophole that would have allowed a certain kind of truck to emit massive amounts of pollution, the report said. A coalition of public health groups, environmental activists, scientists and others lobbied against it and went to court. The new EPA administrator got rid of the change.

Washington Post
Scientists have found a huge object hovering on the edge of the solar system.

The body could help shed light on how planets form and resolve a decades-old mystery about where such objects were hiding.

The discovery is the first time scientists have ever seen one of the objects, despite them having been predicted for more than 70 years.

They are thought to be an important missing-link in the search to understand how we went from the initial clumps of dust and ice that formed and the planets they would eventually become today.

The object was found in the Kuiper Belt, a collecton of small objects floating beyond Neptune. The most famous of those objects is Pluto, but there are a number of bodies there.

They are thought to be remnants of the early solar system. Because they are so distant and mostly unaffected by radiation and the bigger planets, they are still largely as they would have been in those days, potentially allowing scientists a way of looking back in time to how the solar system might have looked before planets formed.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

Scientists had long predicted that objects of this size  a kilometre to several kilometres  were hovering out there, but they had not previously been seen. Now astronomers from National Astronomical Observatory of Japan have managed to spot one using a technique called occultation, where stars are watched until something passes in front of them and causes the light from it to dip.

The discovery suggests that there might be many of the objects than had previously been thought. It also indicates that that the objects that will eventually go onto be planets first form into kilometre-sized clumps before merging together to create the worlds that surround us today.
A mysterious "empty trash bag" object has been spotted floating above Earth.

The satellite is thought to be several metres across but is extremely lightweight, the astronomers who spotted it say.

The object is probably a piece of light material, such as metallic foil, that has been left over from a rocket launch. But it is not clear what rocket launch the object known as A10bMLz could have been launched from.

At the moment, the object is on a strange, highly elliptical orbit. Sometimes it comes as close as 600 kilometres from the Earth  but it swings around to be 1.4 times as far out as the Moon.

Because of its small mass, A10bMLz is very susceptible to radiation pressure from the Sun. That means its orbit changes "chaotically" on a scale of days to weeks, according to the London-based Northolt Branch Observatories (NBO) that analysed it.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

It means that it is impossible to fully predict where it might be flying. It is being buffeted around in space like a plastic bag might be in the wind.

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The object could re-enter Earth's atmosphere within a few motnhs, for instance, or might continue to fly around the Earth.

Such "empty trash bag" objects have been spotted before. But this is the first one that has ever been seen drifting at such a distant orbit.

The object was first seen by Hawaii's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope. Further analysis by the NBO confirmed that the object was very light but relatively wide, as well as its strange orbit.
The mans last footsteps, cast in concrete, lead out from an all-white mansion to the spot where he took his final breath.

On a mild winter day, Mohandas K Gandhi, more commonly known by the honorific Mahatma (great soul) walked slowly across a stately lawn in New Delhi, Indias capital, leaning on the shoulders of two young women, when an assassin greeted him, touched his feet and then shot the frail 78-year-old three times in the chest.

The grounds where Gandhi crumpled to the ground, and the elegant mansion where he spent his final days, have been turned into a memorial to his life, and violent death. To enter, there is no security check or ticket booth. You walk in off the street, unfettered and free, just the way Gandhi would have probably liked it.

The memorial, the Gandhi Smriti, is perhaps the best place in India to contemplate the legacy of one of historys momentous figures.

Seventy-one years after his assassination, Gandhis global influence is still enormous and his reputation as a force for good remains firmly intact.

From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest Show all 12 1 /12 From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p35gandhiAFPGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest rosa.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest 53016748.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34blackpowerGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34yokorGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest 3303977.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34tiananmenAP.jpg AP From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34brentsparGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34studentprotestsGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34studentprotests2GETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34occupyGETTY.jpg Getty From Gandhi to Occupy: the story of peaceful protest p34crawleyAP.jpg PA

Like few others in history, he harnessed the moral firepower of nonviolent resistance, helping wrest India from the British Empire. His example of what could be achieved with peaceful protest has inspired countless others, across different cultures and different times, from Martin Luther King Jr to the so-called tank man in Tiananmen Square.

Well into the 21st century, Gandhis halo is still bright in most of the world. Barack Obama picked Gandhi as his dream dinner guest.

But in contemporary India, Gandhi is no longer quite so awe-inspiring, or even relevant. As time goes on, he seems to be falling out of sync with the prevailing trends in Indian politics, although politicians still regularly exploit nostalgia for him.

I am afraid Gandhi has become marginal, says Pratap B Mehta, a political scientist who is the vice chancellor of Ashoka University and former president of the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. In modern India, the two dominant forces hate him.

Among Hindu nationalists, part of the demographic base that powers Indias governing Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi is seen as weak, Mehta says. Hindu supremacists are still angry at him for expressing so much sympathy for the countrys Muslim minority and for letting Pakistan split off from India.

Some Hindu nationalists have even built statues of Gandhis killer, Nathuram Godse, who was once a member of a Hindu nationalist group that prime minister Narendra Modi and many of his political allies also have belonged to. Godse is Indias real hero, some nationalists say.

Gandhi is also out of favour with the Dalits, a class of Indians bound at the bottom of Indias Hindu society for centuries, but who now, with an estimated population of more than 200 million, wield significant political clout.

Gandhi was passionate about the poor, including the Dalits, railing against exploitation and living almost like a monk, wearing a simple white loin cloth and famously eating little. After Obama picked Gandhi as his ideal dinner companion, he joked: It would probably be a really small meal.

And in an exhibit at the Gandhi Smriti memorial (smriti is a Hindi word that means something like in memory of), you can peer into his ground floor room and see what are labeled his worldly remains: his glasses, a spoon, a pocket watch and a pumice stone to scrub his body.

The monument marking where the Mahatma was assassinated, at Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi (Getty/iStock)

With such a commitment to the poor, it might seem curious that Gandhi was so comfortable here at a lavish private home built in 1928 for GD Birla, one of Indias early industrialists, who made a fortune from jute  and from others sweat. But Gandhi was close to some of the richest capitalists in India  and this mansion, with lush grounds trimmed by tall, bushy mango trees full of chirping birds, is where he often stayed when he visited New Delhi.

His attachment to Indias elite is one reason Dalits and those on the political left can be harsh in their assessment of Gandhi, whom they fault for not doing enough to dismantle Indias often brutal caste system. While he did stand up for the lowest castes, critics argue that Gandhi didnt question the system itself hard enough.

They think he was not radical enough and patronising in his call for Dalit emancipation, Mehta says.

Nearly three quarters of a century after Gandhi helped India win independence, lower caste people are still openly, and shockingly, discriminated against. Just recently, a lower caste man was scalped simply for asking for his rightful wages.

Despite the criticisms, Indian politicians of all kinds do often try to out-Gandhi each other when it suits their purposes, especially the party with which Gandhi remains most associated today.

A statue of Gandhi being painted for a float for 2019s Republic Day parade in New Delhi (AFP/Getty)

Gandhi was an early member of the countrys leading opposition party, the Indian National Congress, and helped transform the party from an elite debating club to a national force. Congress politicians often put Gandhis picture on their banners, especially when they hold Gandhi-like hunger strikes.

Modis government also sometimes tries to channel Gandhi, despite his disfavour with Hindu nationalists. You cant pass through an Indian village these days without seeing the image of a pair of black wire spectacles stencilled on a wall  Gandhis iconic glasses  as a symbol for one of Modis biggest social programmes, the Swachh Bharat (clean India) campaign. By the governments count, the programme has delivered nearly 100 million new toilets.

Gandhis birthday on 2 October (this year is the 150th anniversary of his birth) remains one of Indias national holidays; and he is a common sight in the capitals annual Republic Day parade on 26 January, as many floats carried giant models of him.

This political dance with Gandhi  sometimes embracing his legacy, sometimes pushing him away  doesnt surprise one of his most acclaimed biographers, Ramachandra Guha.

Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Show all 20 1 /20 Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Best photos from India's Republic Day parade "Daredevils" motorcycle riders from Indian Army's Corps of Signals regiment take part in the Republic Day parade in New Delhi Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Indian school children perform during the Republic Day parade in New Delhi AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade India celebrated its 70th Republic Day AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade A tableau of the Indian of Delhi is displayed at the Rajpath EPA Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Indian Paramilitary soldiers march past Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard AP Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AP Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade EPA Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade "Daredevils" motorcycle riders from Indian Army's Corps of Signals regiment take part in the Republic Day parade in New Delhi Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade EPA Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade Reuters Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AFP/Getty Best photos from India's Republic Day parade AP

Gandhi is like Churchill, Napoleon, Mao, Lincoln  any great figure, Guha says. His brand goes up and down. His legacy will be debated endlessly.

Some of the scrutiny in recent years has questioned Gandhis sex life; scholars say he lay in bed naked with young women to test his chastity.

The newest debate is whether Gandhi was racist. In December, a Gandhi statue was removed from a university in Ghana after students and professors complained that when he worked in South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th century, Gandhi showed a disdain for black people. Gandhi scholars dont disagree, though they argue Gandhi later reformed his views.

Asked which of Indias array of political parties have the best claim to being Gandhis ideological heirs, Guha leaves no doubt about what he thinks.

None of the political parties have any credible claim to Gandhis moral legacy, he says, checking off the reasons  spectacular corruption, dynastic politics and religious division.

The only true guardians of Gandhis legacy fall outside government, Guha says, like environmental groups, committees that try to protect traditional village life and groups promoting religious harmony.

The guides at the memorial wear rough homespun vests, a distinctive Gandhian touch  he promoted homespun cloth, known as khadi, as an alternative to British imports.

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When entering the grounds of the memorial from the hectic streets that surround it, the immediate sensation is one of calm, an island of quiet in an urban area of over 20 million people.

The memorial site is at once stimulating and soothing, haunting yet peaceful. It is as if the aura of the man himself hovers above it.

Part of the reason for the quiet, of course, is that the memorial simply doesnt attract that many visitors as Gandhis importance and pertinence to ordinary Indians fades. But still, some come.

Its not like he comes up in daily conversation, says Manoj Chudasama, a vendor of industrial scales who was visiting the memorial during a visit to Delhi. But we think of him.

 New York Times
Brazilian miner Vale will cut production by 10 per cent and close further iron ore mines after the collapse of a dam on Friday that has killed at least 84 people.

A further 300 people are still missing, five days after what is already Brazils worst ever industrial incident, according to the global mining workers union IndustriALL.

On Tuesday, Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said 10 further dams similar to the one which failed near Brumadinho will be taken offline in an attempt to prevent further catastrophic collapses.

A vast torrent of sludge swept over roads, destroying buildings in its path on Friday. The death toll is expected to rise further as the rescue and cleanup operation continues

Suspending production will cost the worlds biggest iron ore miner around 5bn reais (1bn) over three years, Mr Schvartsman said. The news boosted shares in rival firms, including Rio Tinto, Anglo American and BHP, on Tuesday morning.

Recommended Hopes fade for hundreds missing as search suspended at Brazilian dam

Two senior managers at the mine Corrego do Feijao were arrested on Tuesday along with a third Vale official and two engineers working for German subsidiary TUV SUD.

The tragedy comes just three years after another Vale dam jointly operated with BHP Billiton collapsed, killing 19 people in nearby Samarco and causing Brazils worst ever environmental disaster.

On Monday, state police searched Vales premises at its Aguas Claras Mine, seizing documents.

IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches said Vale had failed to learn from the past.

And now its workers are paying the ultimate price with their lives, he said. There can be no more excuses. Its time for Vale to listen and take real action to improve safety.

The Brazilian authorities must shut down all companies operations with tailings dams until they are rigorously inspected.

On Monday, Vales legal team began the first phase of the internal investigation to determine the cause of the accident. Preliminary results were shared with federal and state authorities, the company said.

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A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Vale has appointed longtime employee Claudio Alves as the leader of its immediate response group to consolidate emergency actions.

Vales general counsel, Alexandre DAmbrosio, said in a statement the companys board would do whatever possible to mitigate the suffering of those affected and their families.

He added: Vale is the most interested party in determining the causes of the breach.

Even before issuing the arrest warrant, I have been to a meeting with the federal and state prosecutors office in Minas Gerais to reinforce Vales commitment to the determination of the facts.
UK consumer borrowing slowed sharply in December, adding to the impression of weakening confidence among households ahead of Brexit.

The Bank of England reported that the annual growth of unsecured lending in the month fell to 6.6 per cent, down from 7.2 per cent in November.

This was the weakest figure since December 2014.

Credit card lending growth slowed to 7.1 per cent, down from 7.9 per cent the previous month.

Surveys have shown consumer confidence to be at a 5 year low due, in part, to concerns over Brexit.

The Bank of Englands credit conditions survey showed last week showed that demand over the next three months for such unsecured lending is expected by lenders to be the weakest since the survey began in 2007.

Recommended Bank of England deputy governor urges people not to panic over debt

Household spending accounts for around 60 per cent of the UK economy, and any weakening of the appetite for consumers to spend will be negative for overall GDP growth.

The UK economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 but GDP growth is likely to have fallen sharply in the final three months of the year as business investment and household spending fell.

The ongoing slowdown in net unsecured consumer credit growth to a 4 year low in December reinforces belief that heightened uncertainties focused on Brexit are likely to weigh down on the economy in the near term at least, said Howard Archer of the EY Item Club, and economic forecasting group.

The decline in the flow of borrowing was a key driver behind the slowdown in growth in household spending last year, said Samuel Tombs of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Consumer borrowing slowdown

The Bank also reported on Wednesday that residential mortgage approvals slipped to 63,793 in the month, down from 63,952 in November and below the 6 month average of 65,624.

Last week a deputy governor of the Bank of England, Ben Broadbent, suggested concerns about high unsecured consumer debt levels were misplaced, arguing that most of the growth in recent years has been acccounted for by personal contract purchases (for vehicles), car finance and student loans.
Businesses in Northern Ireland are growing increasingly concerned about Brexit and say they have been left in limbo by Westminster, with uncertainty on the rise just two months ahead of the UKs departure from the EU.

MPs voted on Tuesday to remove the Irish backstop from Theresa Mays Brexit deal and find an alternative, as yet unknown, replacement.

Companies in Northern Ireland are upset and confused by the result of the votes, according to Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing Northern Ireland, which represents 5,500 firms in the region.

The government has given various commitments [to Northern Irish companies], it has to honour them, and ripping out the backstop doesnt do this  so we are seeking clarity urgently, he said.

For very good reasons the backstop was included in the agreement. You cant have an independent trade policy and not have a hard border in Ireland unless there are specific provisions for NI.

Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Show all 10 1 /10 Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Black on Dark Evening sky, high over Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Silent A jet plane caught in the stillness of a gargantuan cloudscape over Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Miniscule A jet plane leaves its mark among cloud formations high above Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Black Matter 2 Depicting the insignificance of humanity, laid out against the power and majesty of nature in its rawest form Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Magnificence Grandeur in the sky. City of Belfast Playing Fields, Mallusk, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Sky Hunter Hunter and hunted perform a frenetic dance in an ethereal theatre in the sky. Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Heavy Ballintoy, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Cutting Through The Dross An airliners vapour trail coming to rest, before merging with clouds above Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Here and There Reflecting the multidirectional focus of humanity. Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley Spirits in the skies over Northern Ireland Sentinels 1 Ghostlike sentinels twist and dive in an ecstatic frenzy, in their home high above the Earth. Newtownabbey, Co Antrim Stephen S T Bradley

The uncertainty is already having a huge impact on companies in Northern Ireland.

I know a number of firms have been taking on agency workers instead of full-time staff so they have greater flexibility if it comes to a no-deal Brexit, said Mr Kelly.

So at a minimum, Brexit is making work short-term and tenuous.

One business owner based in Northern Ireland, who did not want to be named, said Brexit was already creating problems with trade.

He told The Independent that a customer based in the Republic of Ireland had already stopped working with his firm because they are scared about what will happen after Brexit.

We have customers asking us about what we are going to do and about our supply chains. Its really, really difficult, he said.

Its the uncertainty more than anything. Business does not like uncertainty and its creating havoc with us.

Trading partners across Europe are nervous about the future, and investment at a standstill because of the uncertainty.

We are holding back and keeping our cash because we many need it to get over the next few years, the businessman said.

Its created a real issue for us going forward. We just dont know whats going to happen and we wont be investing until we know whats going to happen and until we know what happens with the customs union.

If we get into the position where we cant trade freely across the border our competitors in the rest of Europe will jump on that and take that trade away from us.

He pointed out that if a deal is reached, there will still be two years of negotiations to get through. The alternative  a no-deal Brexit  is even more daunting.

If we go into WTO rules, thats going to create serious issues, he said.

Within Northern Ireland we will have a struggling economy in the UK on one side, the Republic of Ireland is going to have issues, and we will be left in the middle trying to trade. Its a no-win situation.

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Meanwhile, firms feel like they have been somewhat abandoned by the UK government. Mr Kelly said that the governments advice to business in Northern Ireland was essentially not to do anything.

Its 58 days to go  theres food on the shelves that has a longer shelf life than that, he added.

The Irish government has been working with industries for the past two years. We have nothing, weve have been left hung out, hoping for the best. Its unacceptable.

The business owner told The Independent that communication from Westminster had been very, very lacking.

The whole thing has been handled particularly badly, he said. We are in limbo, paddling away. We arent growing but we havent contracted, so thats something  but that could change very quickly. Its a nightmare.
Clay Center, KS (67432)

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Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 97F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph..

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Barclays has been given the all clear by the High Court to shift 190bn (160bn) of its clients' assets to Ireland as it ramps up preparations for Brexit.

The move which affects around 5,000 clients, can take place after judges approved it on Wednesday.

As we announced in 2017, Barclays will use our existing licensed EU-based bank subsidiary to continue to serve our clients within the EU beyond March 29 2019 regardless of the outcome of Brexit, Barclays said.

Our preparations are well-advanced and we expect to be fully operational by March 29 2019.

Financial firms are expected to shift at least 800bn out of the UK before Brexit day on 29 March according to figures from EY.

UK tax revenues are expected to take a hit as a result but the size of the impact is not yet known. The move is designed to ensure no disruption for clients in the case of a no-deal Brexit, which would deny UK banks so-called passporting rights which allow them to operate freely across the EUs single market.

The decision comes after a series of votes in the House of Commons failed to provide clarity on the shape that Brexit will take, with a cliff-edge Brexit still possible in eight weeks' time.

In approving the move, Mr Justice Snowden said in his judgment: Due to the continuing uncertainty over whether there might be a no-deal Brexit, the Barclays Group has determined that it cannot wait any longer to implement the scheme.

In light of the large volume of business to be transferred, the scheme contains a number of phased dates upon which the transfer of the different types of business, and the business of the branches in Spain, Italy and France, will become effective.

The overriding requirement, however, is that BBI (Barclays) must be legally and operationally ready to conduct all relevant regulated business with the in-scope clients by no later than March 29 2019, which is the date currently set for Brexit.

Barclays is also doubling its workforce in Dublin ahead of Brexit from 150 to 300. A host of other banks have shifted some staff and operations from London to Frankfurt, Paris and other EU cities as part of their preparations.
Holly Exley still remembers her most outrageous offer of free work.

Exley is a watercolour illustrator with a decade of experience making artwork for top-end clients, from monthly commissions of animals for BBC Wildlife Magazine, to mouthwatering illustrations for the Esquire Food and Drink Awards. But not that long ago a luxury luggage company approached her to work in collaboration on illustrations for their products  in return for a free suitcase.

It devalues the industry, Exley says. Illustration is used everywhere: from advertising to animation, packaging to publishing. It has value, and illustrators spend years honing their craft and promoting their talents, only to be asked to give it all away for free.

Exley is one of hundreds of freelancers who have signed a #nofreework petition started by The Freelancer Club, a support network for freelancers in the creative industries, pledging not to accept unpaid work. The campaign, which started in 2016, is stepping up a notch in 2019 and calling for legislation to give freelancers more rights.

The problem of free work is getting worse as the UKs freelance army grows. The number of self-employed people in the UK has increased from 3.3 million in 2001 to 4.8 million in 2017, according to the ONS, contributing the most to employment growth since the financial crisis. Yet self-employed workers earn on average 240 a week, compared to 400 by those in full-time work.

Illustrator Holly Exley frequently discusses issues around work and pay on her YouTube channel (Courtesy Photo)

Many young people entering creative industries like photography, graphic design or illustration take free work in return for exposure, hoping it leads to paid work further down the line. But the practice is not uncommon among experienced freelancers. In 2017, the Association for Independent Professionals estimated that free work costs freelancers with an average of seven years experience 5,394 a year. The law currently offers no protection and many creatives keep quiet for fear of a backlash from potential clients.

So many freelancers are scared to say anything, they are scared to name any company for fear of the backlash, says Matt Dowling, founder of The Freelancer Club and a former freelance photographer. Since starting the campaign, he has been shocked by the stories of unpaid work and its consequences. One make-up artist couldnt feed her children after her successful business turned into an epidemic of unpaid work because so many other artists were willing to work for free.

I cant imagine people approaching a plumber or a lawyer and asking them to work for free, Dowling says. But anything like photography or design, anything thats deemed to be a privilege, it doesn't get valued. Freelancers are accepting that work, and as soon as companies see that, they decide to save money.

Dowling started The Freelancer Club in 2016 after a company refused to pay him for photography work worth 11,000. It now has 30,000 members on a tiered payment scheme. Membership gives freelancers access to guides, discounts, access to paid work and legal advice. Freelancers are told from an early stage that its a rite of passage to work for free, he says. Its absolutely nonsense. Being an ethical company actually helps the bottom line. Millennials prefer to work for ethical companies, for instance.

Khandiz Joni is the founder of Novel Creatives, a booking platform for sustainable and ethical fashion and lifestyle brands to find photographers, hair and make-up artists and other creatives aligned with their ethos. Joni says it has pledged not to promote free work through the #nofreework campaign.

We support this because we are freelancers and understand the very real and direct impact it has on our own livelihoods, Joni says. Also, working with brands that are in the area of ethics and sustainability, we feel that it is important that all parties need to be paid fairly for their work and expertise, if these brands can make claims of their fair wage principles.

Working for ethical brands and charities is just one of the grey areas Dowling and The Freelancer Club have identified. Others include work experience, collaborative projects like test shoots, where no one stands to gain, and speculative work, which can be requested by agencies for clients in anticipation of paid work.

But Dowling says companies should never ask a freelancer to do professional work for free if they intend to gain from it commercially. He is calling for the UK Government to introduce legislation similar the Freelance Isnt Free Act in New York, which establishes and enhances protection for freelance workers, specifically the right to a written contract, timely and full payment and protection from retaliation.

Anna Codrea-Rado, a freelance journalist and author of The Professional Freelancer newsletter, says the onus needs to be taken off the freelancer to go against a system that is already rigged.

The conversation needs to shift away from asking freelancers not to work for free, to demanding that companies not exploit the self-employed workforce, she says.

Codrea-Rado says it is not uncommon for well-established journalists to say that young journalists should never work for free. That is a privileged statement to make that puts the onus on those at the very beginnings of their career to fight against a broken system that they did not break, she says. We shouldn't be telling young journalists not to write for free, it simply shouldn't be legal for a publication to commission a piece of writing without paying for it.

Exley frequently discusses issues around work and pay on her YouTube channel, which has 32,000 followers. She agrees that legislation is necessary to raise the profile of the issue and to provide security for freelancers as it becomes more popular for young creatives to go it alone.

I often feel vulnerable as a freelancer, she says. We don't have many of the benefits of traditional employment. We need a better support system to rely on and laws we can enforce.
Is Tim Cook preparing to take a bite out of Apples unfathomably juicy margins?

The tech giant has just released the figures for the first quarter of its financial year, which ended December 29, and they were every bit as disappointing as expected.

Given that the company had already taken the hit though warning of what was to come, the focus was understandably on Cooks plan for addressing the companys (relative) malaise.

The most eye catching part of that was a plan to cut the price of the companys slowing signature product, something that has happened just once before.

The the price of the already expensive iPhone has been pushed into the ridiculous bracket in important markets such as China by the strength of the US dollar, to which it is pegged.

Cook told the Reuters news agency that hes going to "adjust" prices in some markets to the level they were at a year ago in local currencies.

Those of us paid in bombed out sterling shouldnt get our hopes up just yet. He didnt specify which markets, although China is a racing certainty.

But such a move makes all kind of sense, particularly in the aforementioned where local champion Huawei has been putting out whizzy competing handsets to tempt patriotic Chinese buyers.

Apple has been squeezing its consumers for a long time. Will this be enough to stop the pips from squeaking?

The talk of prices being slashed certainly looks over done. The iPhone is going to remain a pricey piece of kit, and recent upgrades have been obeying the law of diminishing returns.

The phenomenon of people changing their handsets less often is an industry wide one, and its an open question as to whether relatively limited price cuts in some markets will be enough to turn back that particular tide.

The reason investors have less reason to be concerned than it might appear is that the iPhone is not the only string to Apples bow.

A notable feature of the results was that while revenues from sales of the device fell by 15 per cent, group revenues fell by just 5 per cent as other parts of the business grew.

The money taken in from selling Macs increased by 9 per cent, wearables, home and accessories (iWatches, speakers, headphones) put on 33 percent, the iPad 17 per cent.

The most important, and closely watched, line was, however, services. Think Apple Music, cloud storage, the App store and so on.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

The gap between the revenues that unit produces and those from Apples various products is enormous. But it is closing, and the margins are stunning.

Apples shares have lost nearly a third since October, driven by a widespread tech tumble as well as its own problems. It has also surrendered its much vaunted status as the worlds biggest company by market value. Accustomed to dazzling investors, the weather looks set to be cloudy for some time to come and full year revenues will likely be down on last year.

Still, Cook is sitting on a near $250bn cash pile, and the stocks fall may have been over done. Big investors seem to think so. Theyve started to order portions of Apple pie, scenting a buying opportunity at the current levels. They may well be right about that.
There is no more popular piece of jargon in the Brexit debate than World Trade Organisation terms.

Some cite them with approval, as a desirable destination for the UK upon leaving the European Union.

Others portray them as a disastrous outcome that we should avoid at all cost.

But whats the truth about the WTO and its framework? And what precisely does it entail for the UK?

What is the World Trade Organisation?

It is an inter-governmental organisation with 164 members  a majority of the states in the world and certainly all the major economies.

Its central purpose is to permit goods and services to flow across borders with relative ease.

The key element of its agreements is that every member shall treat every other member equally in terms of tariff charges, meaning there shall be no arbitrary discrimination.

So if country X, say, offers a lower tariff on a certain imported product to country Y it also has to automatically offer that lower tariff to every other country too. This is the most favoured nation principle.

However, there is an exception. Where two countries enter into a free trade agreement that covers the bulk of their trade, they can offer each other lower tariffs without having to also offer them to everyone else.

So the countries of the EU free trade area can charge zero tariffs on cars imported from each other but can keep the levies in place on all cars imported from America.

Another function of the WTO is to arbitrate disputes. So if one country accuses another of breaking the rules of the system the WTO will examine the case and decide which party is in the right.

The party that is in the wrong will be rebuked and the party that is in the right is allowed to impose import restrictions.

If we leave the EU would we be able to trade on WTO terms with the rest of the world?

Yes. The UK is already an independent member of the WTO.

To trade in its own right (outside the European Unions customs union) we would first need to notify the rest of the membership about our proposed tariffs and quotas, known as commitments. Other countries in the WTO could then raise objections to these  and indeed have already done so. But in truth this is a pretty minor obstacle.

A far more important problem is that many aspects of our economic relations would not be underpinned by WTO rules.

The WTO framework doesnt cover extremely important aspects of a modern economy like the UK such as aviation, medicine export licencing, data flow and many other areas.

The UK would also, incidentally, fall out of the coverage of all the free trade agreements between the EU and states such as Mexico and South Korea.

This is the reason why it is misleading to talk about a WTO deal. The WTO is a patchy, minimum framework not any kind of substitute for a comprehensive free trade agreement such as we have had with the EU.

But doesnt most of the world trade perfectly happily on basic WTO terms?

No. This is a fallacy. Even if countries are not in comprehensive free trade agreements, almost all have bilateral agreements with other states on top of their WTO relationship.

For instance, the EU does not have a comprehensive free trade agreement with the United States, yet the bloc does have over 100 sector-level agreements on various aspects of EU-US trade that go well beyond WTO terms, ranging from aviation to insurance.

Do the WTO terms say that if we agree with the EU to pursue a free trade deal we can keep tariffs at zero until its ready?

Another fallacy. This claim seems to be a reference to Article XXIV of the WTO rules.

But trade experts say this covers the circumstances of two countries forming a new trade agreement, not of them leaving one. And they insist that those who cite it as a reason why nothing has to change on trade after Brexit are labouring under a gross misunderstanding of the rule.

The idea that Article XXIV...somehow obliges the EU to continue providing the full benefits of the single market for the next ten years, or even allows the UK to unilaterally offer the EU (and no one else) market access is preposterous, says Dmitry Grozoubinski, a former Australian trade negotiator.

In any case the overriding concern of industry resulting from a no-deal Brexit is not actually tariffs but the negative impact of border checks resulting from leaving the EUs customs union and single market.

Do WTO rules compel the EU not to impose trade frictions on the UK?

Yet another fallacy. Some have argued that the WTO commits members to facilitate trade, implying the EU would be breaking the law if it imposed any new border restrictions or tariffs after a no-deal Brexit, including on the Irish border.

But analysts say that, however onerous they are, tariffs and border checks are perfectly compatible with this WTO facilitate trade requirement.

Both the UK and the EU already comply with this agreement, meaning any procedures they introduce on imports from each other will also comply, as long as the criteria are the same as for imports from, say, the US, China or India, says Peter Ungphakorn, formerly of the WTO Secretariat.

As for EU tariffs, the opposite is the case. If the EU did not impose its common external tariff on the UK after a no-deal Brexit it would be breaking WTO rules by favouring a state with which it didnt have a free trade deal.

So is the WTO really any use at all?

The WTO is not useless. Its rules are an essential part of the architecture for a peaceful and prosperous world, says Alan Winters of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.

But they are lowest common denominator rules for trade between 164 separate and sometimes mutually hostile states, not the rules for deeply integrated, highly cooperative, sophisticated allies.
As disheartening as it may be to acknowledge, incidents of racial discrimination are still prevalent in this day and age.

On 29 January, it was reported that Empire star Jussie Smollett had been admitted to hospital following a suspected racist and homophobic attack.

Theres a large discrepancy between the number of people whove witnessed acts of racism and those who decide to act upon it.

According to research conducted by business psychology firm Pearn Kandola with 1,500 individuals between November 2017 and January 2018, more than half of people in the UK have witnessed an act of racism in the workplace.

However, almost one third of those people did nothing about it.

Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London A young boy holds a placard reading 'migration is beautiful' during the march against racism demonstration in London. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Warsaw Protesters rally in Warsaw under the slogan 'Tired of racism and fascism'. AFP/Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London An anti-racism demostrators chants with chains around his neck during a march against racism. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Vienna People getting ready to march against racism in Vienna. Twitter/Wriseup Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Glasgow Anti-racism demonstrators take part in a rally through the city centre of Glasgow. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London An anti-racism demostrator holds a placard readin 'Laundry is the only thing that should be seperated by colour'. Getty Images Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Paris Thousand of protesters demonstrate against police brutality and in defense of migrants and those without papers in Paris. EPA Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London Anti-racism demostrators hold placards and chant during a march organised by the group Stand Up to Racism as an expression of unity against racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Athens A girl poses for a photo during a rally against the EU-Turkey deal blocking mass migration into Europe in Athens. AP Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Glasgow Aamer Anwar a prominent Scottish lawyer joins an Anti-racism rally through Glasgow city centre. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London Anti-racism demostrators hold placards and chant in London's march against racism. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Glasgow A man in Glasgow holds a banner reading 'refugees welcome'. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures London Anti-racism demostrators let off flares during the march against racism in London. Getty Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Paris A protester in a grim reaper disguise holds a shield reading 'State racism, no impunity for police brutality against those without papers' in Paris. EPA Anti-racism demonstrations across Europe: in pictures Athens Migrants who live in Greece chant slogans during a rally against the EU-Turkey deal blocking mass migration into Europe, in Athens. AP

Heres what you can do if you see someone being racially abused in public:

Speak up if its safe to do so

As per the Public Order Act of 1986, its a criminal offence for someone to deliberately stir up racial hatred by directing insulting language at an individual or exhibiting threatening behaviour.

If you witness someone being racially abused, you could stand up to the perpetrator by asking them to leave the victim alone.

However, as the Australian Human Rights Commission outlines as part of its Racism. It stops with me campaign, you should only say something if you think that its safe to do so in that particular situation.

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Standing up to racism can be a powerful sign of support. It can also make the perpetrator think twice about their actions, the organisation states.

When responding, always assess the situation and never put yourself at risk. Your actions dont need to involve confrontation.

The use of racist language can have a very harmful impact on the mental health of victims, as charity Campaign Against Living Miserably explains.

People who say stuff thats racist may not consider themselves as being prejudiced, but may take the mick out of someones accent or birthplace, the charity writes.

Although it is easy to go along with a joke at someone elses expense, it makes people feel down, depressed, worthless and isolated.

Report the incident

If you witness an incident of racial abuse, then it would be wise to report the incident to the authorities.

Not only will this ensure that the perpetrator is appropriately dealt with, but it will also provide the victim with security.

Childline advises making a note of every detail of the incident as soon as possible, as your witness account could prove vital as evidence later on.

If you believe that the victim is being threatened by the perpetrator or is at risk of further attack, then you can report the incident to the police by calling 999 or 101.

Despite the prevalence of racism in the workplace, the study conducted by Pearn Kandola highlighted the need for more people to report it.

Im astounded that the rates of witnessed racism in the modern workplace are still so staggeringly high, says Professor Binna Kandola OBE, senior partner at Pearn Kandola.

More than a third of those polled by the company who reported racial abuse were white, in comparison to a quarter of black people and a quarter of Asian people.

Its encouraging that white people, who are the least likely to experience racism, as the most likely to fight the issue, Professor Kandola says.

The fact that ethnic minority people are the least likely to take action against racism, out of fear of the consequences, suggests that organisations provide less psychological safety for minority groups.

How to support victims of racial abuse at work

In the opinion of Sandra Kerr OBE, race equality director of non-profit organisation Business in the Community (BITC), employers should be doing far more to make employees feel as though they can safely report incidents of racial abuse at work.

Many incidents of racial harassment occur in workplaces - whether thats directed towards employees or between customers or clients - yet often employees feel unable to call this behaviour out, she tells The Independent.

According to recent research carried out by BITC, only 22 per cent of employees said that they feel as though theyve received adequate support from their employees when addressing harassment.

Employers can take a number of approaches in supporting employees to call out racial bullying and harassment, she explains.

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These could include providing employees with training on how to respond to these incidents and when to escalate them to a supervisor, and an approved script on how to defuse the situation which is tailored to the organisation.

Kerr also stresses that employees should be made to feel comfortable reporting racial harassment internally within an organisation.

Formal and informal reporting mechanisms should be made available, so employees have multiple ways to report, and employers should clearly communicate their zero tolerance policies and that they take this issue seriously, she says.
Nike is being urged to recall an Air Max Sneaker that appears to feature Allah written in Arabic on the sole.

Earlier this month, Saiqa Noreen started a Change.org petition calling for the sportswear brand to remove its Air Max 270 trainers from stores.

Noreen cited the use of the brands Air Max logo on the sole of the shoe, claiming it resembles the Arabic word for Allah.

He also added that, given its placement, the script will surely be trampled, kicked and become soiled with mud or even filth.

It is outrageous and appalling of Nike to allow the name of God on a shoe, he wrote.

Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London Show all 9 1 /9 Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London DSC05305.JPG Anu Shukla Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London DSC05299.JPG Anu Shukla Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London DSC05286.JPG Anu Shukla Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London IMG-20181231-WA0000.jpg AMYA Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London DSC05311.JPG Anu Shukla Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London DSC05315.JPG Anu Shukla Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London IMG-20181231-WA0005-0.jpg AMYA Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London IMG-20181231-WA0002-(5).jpg AMYA Muslim youth charity AMYA deliver meals to homeless people in London IMG-20181231-WA0004-(2).jpg AMYA

This is disrespectful and extremely offensive to Muslims and insulting to Islam. Islam teaches compassion, kindness and fairness towards all.

We urge Nike to recall this blasphemous and offensive shoe and all products with the design logo resembling the word Allah from worldwide sales immediately. We also request stricter scrutiny of products before they enter the market.

Noreen concluded the petition by calling on Muslims and everyone who respects the freedom of religion to sign his petition.

The petition has been signed by more than 12,000 people (Change.org)

On 27 January, Footwear News reported the petition had received more than 5,400 signatures. Today (30 January) it has surpassed 12,000.

Despite the resemblance, Nike has issued a statement to say that the likeness to the word for Allah is accidental.

Nike respects all religions and we take concerns of this nature seriously, the company said.

The AIR MAX logo was designed to be a stylized representation of Nikes AIR MAX trademark. It is intended to reflect the AIR MAX brand only. Any other perceived meaning or representation is unintentional.

Many have taken to social media to call out the brand, with one person revealing he returned his new Nike trainers after seeing the logo.

Why are Nike selling trainers which clearly have Allah written in Arabic. Remove shoes from sales. Disgusting and appalling, another person wrote.

However, not everyone agrees with the petition, with some calling for Nike not to recall the trainers.

Is Nike going to cave in to this ridiculous demand? one person wrote.

We're supposed to believe that Nike intentionally went out of their way to write Allah on the sole of a line of shoes?

This isnt the first time Nike has been called blasphemous.

In 1997, the company was forced to recall 38,000 pairs of trainers worldwide after outrage sparked in Great Britain over a flame-like logo which some believed resembled the word Allah.

In addition to recalling the sneakers, Nike donated $50,000 (38,000) to an Islamic elementary school in the US, to be used toward the creation of a playground.
Julia Roberts has only been an Instagram user for seven months but she already has a list of favourite celebrity accounts she likes to follow.

The 51-year-old Oscar-winner joined the photo-sharing app in June 2018 and has revealed while she enjoys it, shes not addicted like others might be.

Speaking to People, the Instagram novice added that she likes the idea of taking on a social media presence at her own pace.

I do enjoy it. But the nice thing is, you know, I was actually just talking to a girlfriend today and saying its nice that I dont feel pressure or responsibility, she revealed while at the WSJ. Magazine Talents and Legends Dinner.

I do what I can when I can and its just so, in that way, its fun. It doesnt feel like work.

Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Show all 23 1 /23 Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes "I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure the rule is to eat as much as humanly possible before squeezing into a formal dress. Right?" Kristen Bell wrote in an Instagram caption. Bell's husband, Dax Shepard, can be seen relaxing in bed in the background. Kristen Bell (@kristenanniebell) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Following their delicious pre-Golden Globes meal, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard looked sharp in their chic ensembles, which they accessorised with napkins. Naturally. Kristen Bell (@kristenanniebell) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Golden Globes co-host Sandra Oh shared a photo on her Instagram story showing her getting ready before the big night. Oh won the Golden Globe for best actress in a television series drama for her leading role in thriller 'Killing Eve'. Sandra Oh (@iamsandraohinsta) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh had a lot to prepare before hosting the Golden Globes together. Here, in a photo shared on Samberg's Instagram story, the pair appear deep in conversation, likely discussing the clever quips hiding under their sleeves. Andy Samberg (@thelonelyisland) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Parenting is a time-consuming business, as Ricky Martin demonstrates in this photo posted on his Instagram account. "#Multitasking Getting ready for the @goldenglobes," he writes in the caption. In the picture Martin can be seen holding the pram of his daughter Lucia Martin-Yosef, whose birth he and husband Jwan Yosef announced in December 2018. Ricky Martin (@ricky_martin) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Dax Shepard showed just how much effort he'd put into his Golden Globes preparations with a selfie that he posted on Instagram. "Even showered (last night) for this," he wrote in the caption. What a gent. Dax Shephard (@daxshepard) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Melissa McCarty, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her leading role in 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?', wore a purple, star-studded Reem Acra dress for the award ceremony. She showed her seven million Instagram followers the preparations that she undertook for the big night, which included applying a face mask and receiving help from a dedicated glam squad. Melissa McCarthy (@melissamccarthy) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Thandie Newton had a team of people to thank for her breathtaking Golden Globes look, which she finished off with a stunning silver cut-out Michael Kors dress. The actor shared a Boomerang on Instagram of the final makeup touches being added, which included a smokey eye and a soft pink lip. Thandie Newton (@thandienewton) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes While the Golden Globes may be a glamorous affair for all the celebrities who attend, the early preparations are frequently decidedly less so. Alex Borstein, who stars in comedy-drama 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel', shared a photo on Instagram that showed her having an eye and neck mask applied while simultaneously having her hair curled. The definition of a multitasker. Alex Borstein (@alexborstein) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Timothee Chalamet may not have won the Golden Globe for his supporting role in drama 'Beautiful Boy', but he was very excited to bring his mother along to the award show. Chalamet posted this picture on his Instagram account, alongside the caption: "momma!" The actor wore a custom Louis Vuitton suit designed by menswear artistic director Virgil Abloh for the event. Timothee Chalamet (@tchalamet) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Jessica Chastain is typically very private about her personal life, choosing to keep her partner Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo and their baby daughter out of the spotlight. While getting ready for the Golden Globes, Chastain shared a photo of her daughter curiously holding a ruby Piaget ring, with the caption: "You've got good taste, kid." Jessica Chastain (@jessicachastain) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Rachel Brosnahan has become a household Hollywood name thanks to her star-making turn as an aspiring stand-up comedian in 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel'. The actor shared a selfie on Instagram with her "girl gang" prior to the Golden Globes, for which she wore a floor-length yellow Prada gown. Rachel Brosnahan (@rachelbrosnahan) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Catherine Zeta-Jones shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her Golden Globes preparations, posting a photo on her Instagram story showing her having her hair and makeup done. "Gold is for Globes," she wrote for the caption. Catherine Zeta-Jones (@catherinezetajones) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Sarah Silverman showed just how well she and ex-partner Jimmy Kimmel still get on by sharing a selfie with the talk show host and his wife, Molly McNearney. Silverman and Kimmel dated for seven years between 2002 and 2009. Sarah Silverman (@sarahkatesilverman) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Darren Criss epitomised elegance at the Golden Globes with his fiancee, producer Mia Swier. Criss, who won a Golden Globe for his chilling role as killer Andrew Cunanan in 'The Assassination of Gianni Versace', wore a floral Dior tux, and Swier wore a sleek Vera Wang gown. Darren Criss (@darrencriss) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes For her first ever appearance at the Golden Globes, actor and activist Jameela Jamil had a sneaky trick for ensuring she didn't feel the January cold. The star of 'The Good Place' revealed on social media that she wore jeans underneath her pink Monique Lhuillier gown. An experienced woman wears jeans under her Golden Globes gown because its forking COLD, she wrote in a tweet accompanying the video. Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamilofficial) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes 'The Big Bang Theory' actor Kaley Cuoco shared a candid snap on her Instagram account of her walking along a hallway hand in hand with her new husband Karl Cook, whom she married in June 2018. Cuoco wore a navy, black and white strapless Monique Huillier gown for the Golden Globes. Kaley Cuoco (@kaleycuoco) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes While last year's Golden Globes saw numerous stars wear black in solidarity with the Time's Up movement, this year celebrities chose to show their support by wearing bracelets and ribbons with the slogan "Time's Up X2" written across them. Julianne Moore shared this photo on her Instagram account, showing her wearing the accessory next to a beautiful Chopard bracelet. Julianne Moore (@juliannemoore) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Jamie Lee Curtis's stunning Alexander McQueen dress received a lot of praise when the actor appeared on the Golden Globes red carpet. Curtis posted this photo on her Instagram account while taking part in rehearsals for the show. Jamie Lee Curtis (@curtisleejamie) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes 'A Star Is Born' didn't win as many Golden Globes as people expected, having been nominated for five accolades. Nonetheless, the film's win for best original song still proved very exciting for Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt, all of whom collaborated on the song 'Shallow'. "We're off the deep end," Ronson wrote in an Instagram caption accompanying a selfie of the group. Mark Ronson (@iammarkronson) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen are known for their playful relationship, so much so that Fisher couldn't help but poke fun at her husband's Golden Globe loss for best actor in a musical or comedy for 'Who is America?' "My husband WON!... not," Fisher cheekily wrote on Instagram. Isla Fisher (@islafisher) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes With rumours rife that Idris Elba may still be in line to take over as James Bond when Daniel Craig decides to step down from the role, the 'Luther' actor fuelled the fire further when he posted this selfie with Craig on his Instagram story. "Awks..." he wrote, as Craig gives Elba a defiant stare. Idris Elba (@idriselba) Best celebrity Instagram posts from the 2019 Golden Globes One of the highlights of Julia Roberts's night came after the Golden Globes had ended, when she and husband Daniel Moder stopped off for a burger on their way home. "Fun night w my fella. Congratulations to all! And to all a good (burger) night," the actor wrote on Instagram. Julia Roberts (@juliaroberts)

Roberts, who already has 4.7m followers, also revealed the fellow-celebrity accounts she loves to follow.

There are a few, she said.

Molly Yeh is a chef who I really enjoy and I follow her and I love Josh Brolin. I think [he] is a brilliant Instagrammer. Great Instagrammer.

She continued by adding one more celebrity she always looks out for when scrolling through her feed.

Sarah Jessica Parker is really good, Roberts shared. 

So yeah, theres some fun things, for sure.

The actor joined Instagram in June sharing a photo of her sitting on some grass underneath a tree, wearing a black jumper emblazoned with the word love.

She captioned the post with a simple Hello alongside a sun emoji.

Last year saw a number of A-listers join Instagram for the first time including Jake Gyllenhaal, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise and Natalie Portman.
From wearing your coat indoors to hugging a hot water bottle at your desk, getting your work done in a cold office is not for the faint-hearted.

Icy cold temperatures and blankets of snow have covered everything from roads to cars in many parts of the UK, resulting in school closures and ongoing travel disruptions this week.

Commuters have also been warned to expect further disruption this week after the Met Office extended four weather warnings of snow and ice across most of the UK.

But how cold does it have to be to be sent home from work?

Heres everything you need to know:

How cold or hot is a workplace allowed to get?

You may be disappointed to learn that there is no specific law outlining the maximum or minimum temperature an office should exceed.

Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Show all 62 1 /62 Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow covers houses in Gold Hill, in Shaftesbury, Dorset PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People enjoying a walk through Whitelee Windfarm in North Ayrshire, Scotland EPA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow Rollers form in a field in Marlborough, Wiltshire. They are a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow are blown along the ground by the wind. As they move they pick up snow on the way, in much the same way that the large snowballs used in snowmen are made. SWNS/Brian Bayliss Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Two men help a driver try to get his car moving, after snowfalls yesterday and overnight have brought widespread disruption PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow dusts the Angel of the North sculpture and covers the ground surrounding it in Gateshead PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A wintry scene at Nenthead in Cumbria after a band of wintry weather brought hill snow and a risk of ice to large parts of the country PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Children play in the snow in Hartley Wintney, in Hampshire AFP/Getty Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A dog walker in a street in Bristol PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures The River Forth in Stirling PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A man walks past the Starbucks Coffee store at the Membury Services on the M4 PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A snowplough clears a road near in Shaftesbury, Dorset PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Ice crystals form on the windows of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A couple walk through a frosty landscape near Ashford in Kent PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Ducks on a frozen near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A gate at the entrance to a farm near the village of Moscow in Ayrshire EPA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People walk past the frozen Sefton Park Lake in Liverpool PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Partially frozen water on the River Clunie in Scotland Getty Images Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A frozen notice board at the allotments in Mudchute farm on the Isle of Dogs PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow on the hills around Buttermere in the Lake District PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A man snowboards at Solomon's Temple in Buxton, Derbyshire PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A couple walk through the Frost in Ashford, Kent PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A woman walks through snow covered trees in Buxton, Derbyshire PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Altrincham, Greater Manchester Reuters Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Braemar, Scotland Getty Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures 3 wheel Reliant Robin in the snow off the A6 near the village of Shap in Cumbria PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A red deer grazes in the snow, in Glen Etive, Scotland Getty Images Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People skiing along a road in West Didsbury PA/Twitter/CTizzle27 Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A Shetland pony gallops in a field in Tingwall on the Shetland Islands PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Morning fog floats through the valley at Tingwall PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Clare Strode and her 4 year old son Alejandro enjoy sledging on Camp Hill, Woolton PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Sheep surrounded by snow-covered fields near Balado in Fife PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Liverpool Airport which had to temporarily halted flights due to the severe weather Darren Reece/PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A husky dog enjoys a walk on Camp Hill, Woolton PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snowmen on the banks of the River Cam in Cambridge PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People walk along a snow covered road in Altrincham Reuters Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People walk through snow on the banks of the River Cam in Cambridge PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A train at Hunt's Cross station in Liverpool PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A couple walk through a snowy park, in High Wycombe Getty Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A horse in a snowy field in the Divis Mountain area of Belfast PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures An out of service Ulsterbus travels along the Glenshane Pass in after heavy snowfall in Northern Ireland PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Network Rail on the railway in Kyleum, Scotland PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A worker uses a bobcat to clear snow from a sidewalk alongside Nantasket Beach in Hull Getty Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A man walks his dog through the snow in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A snow plough CLEARING TRACKS PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Heavy snow fall in Glasgow's West End PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A woman walks through a snow shower in London EPA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow covers the ground in Cheshire PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Walkers on a snow-covered path outside the Peak View tea rooms near Macclesfield PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A gritter from the Northern Ireland Department of Infrastructure clears the road during heavy snowfall on the Glenshane Pass PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Surfers take on the big waves at Tynemouth PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Frost covers the grass in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire while deer eat PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow fall on the beach at Whitley Bay, North Tyneside PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures People traverse the frosty river banks at the base of Pen y Fan mountain in the Brecon Beacons PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Walkers make their way along the Long Walk near Windsor Castle PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Farmhouses in Teesdale PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Members of the public make their way through a snow shower in the West End in Glasgow Getty Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A dog walker makes her way along the Long Walk near Windsor Castle PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures A car drives through a snow shower in London EPA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Heavy snowfall on the Glenshane Pass PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Seagulls on a frozen Marden Quarry in North Tyneside PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow covers the Killhope lead mining museum in County Durham PA Snow and icy conditions hit the UK  Winter weather in pictures Snow showers along the sea front at Whitley Bay PA

That said, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 Approved Code of Practice state: During working hours, the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings shall be reasonable.

The guidelines explain that a workplace should be at least 16C and at least 13C if a persons work involves rigorous physical effort.

According to a survey in 2015, 53 per cent of employees say they are less productive when working in an office that is too cold.

Meanwhile, 71 per cent say they are less productive when working in an office that is too warm.

The government regulations dont specify a maximum temperature, however, as some employees work in hot workplaces. According to the guidelines, work can continue if the necessary precautions are taken.

What is thermal comfort?

According to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), thermal comfort is the sensation of being too hot or too cold. Environmental factors can influence someones thermal comfort, which can include:

Humidity and sources of heat in the workplace.

Personal factors such as clothing.

Physical demands of the work.

Its important to note that air temperature alone is not an accurate indicator of thermal comfort and should be used with other environmental and personal factors.

What can you do if your workplace is too hot or cold?

ACAS guidelines advises employees to raise any temperature issues with their boss or HR department in the first instance.

Employers can assess whether an office is too cold by carrying out a Thermal Comfort Risk Assessment.

If your workplace temperature drops below what is deemed reasonable, you are required by law to take extra measures to raise that temperature.

Do I still have a right to be paid if I can't get in to work?

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) explains that there is no automatic legal right for a worker to be paid for working time they have missed due to travel disruption or bad weather.

However, if employer-provided transport is cancelled due to bad weather and an employee is "ready, willing and available to work", workers should be paid, states ACAS.

Coworkers warming up hands over electric heater at office in winter (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Employees should notify their employees as soon as possible if they are absent or late.

What if I need to take time off for last minute childcare?

ACAS says that in an emergency situation involving a dependent, anyone with employee status has the right to take unpaid time off.

This includes the following situations:

A school is closed and a worker cannot leave their child

Caring arrangements for a disabled relative are cancelled

A partner is seriously injured as a result of bad weather

An employee should notify their employer of the absence and the length of time they envisage theyll have to take off in leave. The pair should then agree that the time could be take off as annual leave so that the employee doesnt miss out on pay.
Nasi lemak, a celebrated national dish in Malaysia, has been paid the tribute of a Google Doodle.

Traditionally eaten for breakfast, it consists primarily of rice cooked in coconut milk (santan) and infused with pandan leaves.

Toppings such as fried fish, anchovies, sliced cucumber, a hard-boiled egg, water spinach and crispy peanuts are then added.

A key ingredient is sambal (hot sauce), "the soul of the dish" that "brings together all the various toppings", according to the Rasa Malaysia food blog.

Sambal is considered as essential to the making of nasi lemak as coconut milk and pandan leaves, without which "a nasi lemak will not be authentic", the blog notes.

Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Show all 6 1 /6 Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Six healthy breakfast recipes to try You will need: 1 onion, 1 red pepper, 1 stick of celery, 1 cup of mushrooms, 4 to 6 eggs, 1 habanero chilli (optional), 1 tablespoon of oil, 25g of grated low-fat cheese, 150 ml of skimmed milk, 50g of turkey breast. Add some spinach for an extra boost. Method: 1) Cook your turkey breast so that its ready to add to the mix later on. Best to grill it and then chop it up as its healthier than shallow frying. 2) Meanwhile, heat the oil and add your onion, pepper, chilli, mushrooms and celery to your pan. Cook these for around five minutes until your veg is nice and soft. 3) Whisk your eggs and milk together in a separate bowl, seasoning with salt and pepper. 4) Add the egg mixture, veg, cooked turkey and cheese to a high-sided baking pan or tin and cook in your oven for around 15 minutes at 170C. 1) Cook your turkey breast so that its ready to add to the mix later on. Best to grill it and then chop it up as its healthier than shallow frying. 2) Meanwhile, heat the oil and add your onion, pepper, chilli, mushrooms and celery to your pan. Cook these for around five minutes until your veg is nice and soft. 3) Whisk your eggs and milk together in a separate bowl, seasoning with salt and pepper. 4) Add the egg mixture, veg, cooked turkey and cheese to a high-sided baking pan or tin and cook in your oven for around 15 minutes at 170C. DW Fitness Clubs Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Be careful when you buy your porridge, as some brands will cram a lot of sugar in there. Porridge is a good breakfast option as it is renowned for releasing energy slowly, which means you can get to lunch without suffering from a lull. A great source of fibre, potassium and vitamins, bananas are always a good accompaniment to your morning oats. DW Fitness Clubs Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Ingredients: 2 full eggs, 3 egg whites, asparagus, peppers, 50g of smoked salmon Method 1) Boil your asparagus in water for around five minutes. 2) Meanwhile, mix your eggs and egg whites in a jug, and add a splash of skimmed milk. Chop some peppers up and throw them in too. 3) Once your asparagus is cooked, drain it and chop into smaller chunks. Add these to your egg mixture. 4) Whisk your mixture and season with salt and pepper. 5) Pour the mix into a hot pan with a small knob of butter or a teaspoon of quality olive oil. 6) Cook the omelette for around 90 seconds to two minutes. 7) Once the bottom is cooked, take the pan off the hob and place under the grill for another 30 seconds to a minute in order to cook the top. 8) Serve with your smoked salmon. 1) Boil your asparagus in water for around five minutes. 2) Meanwhile, mix your eggs and egg whites in a jug, and add a splash of skimmed milk. Chop some peppers up and throw them in too. 3) Once your asparagus is cooked, drain it and chop into smaller chunks. Add these to your egg mixture. 4) Whisk your mixture and season with salt and pepper. 5) Pour the mix into a hot pan with a small knob of butter or a teaspoon of quality olive oil. 6) Cook the omelette for around 90 seconds to two minutes. 7) Once the bottom is cooked, take the pan off the hob and place under the grill for another 30 seconds to a minute in order to cook the top. 8) Serve with your smoked salmon. DW Fitness Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Greek yoghurt has vast nutritional benefits. Regardless of where you stand on the superfood debate, Greek yoghurts credentials speak for themselves. A good source of potassium, protein, calcium and essential vitamins, this food forms an ideal base for a healthy breakfast, especially if youre trying to lose weight. DW Fitness Six healthy breakfast recipes to try Eggs Florentine is not only a tasty breakfast, it also carries a hefty nutritional punch, particularly when you throw some spinach into the equation. DW Fitness Six healthy breakfast recipes to try So fast and easy to make, yet so effective. Wholemeal toast can be a good breakfast choice, as long as you are sensible with your toppings. Peanut butter is perfect. A good source of healthy fats, as well as protein and Vitamin E among other nutrients, a liberal spreading of peanut butter can set you up for the day. DW Fitness

Nasi lemak is typically served in a banana leaf in which the rice and all accompaniments can be encased and kept warm.

The dish remains one the cheapest offerings in street markets and food courts, according to the National Library Board of Singapore, and it is considered Malaysia's national meal.

The rice going into nasi lemak is usually steamed rather than heated directly, in order to keep the coconut milk from burning.

Some aficionados employ a rice cooker, swapping the water for milk.

Other tactics include cooking the rice at night, then adding pandan leaves and coconut milk the following morning.

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Cooks have been tweaking the original recipe with renewed creativity since the 1980s, experimenting with more condiments beyond the traditional combination of anchovies, cucumber, and hot sauce.
Marks and Spencer has been accused of cultural appropriation over its vegan biryani wrap.

The wrap, which costs 2.80 and is part of the supermarkets new Plant Kitchen range, is made out of sweet potato, spiced basmati rice, buckwheat and roasted red pepper.

A top chef and an Indian restaurant are among those to describe it as inauthentic on social media.

Thanks but I like my biryani with rice in a bowl not a wrap. Seriously M&S!? wrote Maunika Gowardhan, author of the cookbook Indian Kitchen.

The Mumbai-born chef went on to argue that M&Ss offering completely went against the traditions of Indian cuisine, given that biryanis typically contain either meat or fish.

Celebrate 60 years of Indian independence with these piquant summer snacks Show all 3 1 /3 Celebrate 60 years of Indian independence with these piquant summer snacks Celebrate 60 years of Indian independence with these piquant summer snacks 9551.bin Celebrate 60 years of Indian independence with these piquant summer snacks 9552.bin Celebrate 60 years of Indian independence with these piquant summer snacks 2116.bin

Just to put it in perspective, in India firstly there is no such thing as a veg biryani, she told The Times.

Most places will serve mutton or chicken or even fish. Its wrong on many levels when people will assume this is what a biryani looks like! Biryani needs rice, isnt stuffed in bread and doesnt include lettuce.

She added that biryani is a dish, not a flavour.

Her comments were echoed by a spokesperson for Darjeeling Express, an Indian restaurant in Soho, London, who tweeted: This is so wrong at SO many levels  who are you paying to design your wraps @marksandspencer?

You seriously need to rethink your exotic wrap selection. That is not biryani  you do not appropriate names from a cuisine without even bothering to do any research on that dish.

Other social media users accused the supermarket of misspelling, given that the wrap is being marketed as a Sweet Potato Biriyani.

Biryani  how is this a biryani? wrote one person on Twitter.

How have @marksandspencer managed not only to mess up the spelling, but make a biryani without rice and meat? IT NEEDS MEAT! Just because you put a sauce in it that maybe tastes like a generic curry, doesnt mean you can call it what you like!

Another person said they were just confused by the wrap, writing on Twitter: What part of this is biryani? Biryani is a rice based dish, traditionally with meat that most certainly doesnt have sweet potato, so its not right on any level???

Responding to the criticisms, an M&S spokesperson said: "M&S is famous for its food innovation and our developers use a fusion of different flavours and ingredients to create an exciting range of products to appeal to customers tastes.
President Xi Jinping's high profile anti-graft campaign has not made much of an imapact as China's ranking on perceived corruption has fallen to 87, below India's 78, according to the annual index by global watchdog Transparency International.

Xi, who took over power towards the end of 2012 and is currently in his second five-year term as president, has made fighting corruption in the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and the military a major objective of his rule.

Over 1.3 million officials at various levels including former security czar, Zhou Yongkong, and over 50 top generals of the People''s Liberation Army (PLA), including two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC) - the overall high command of the Chinese military - have been sacked and punished.

The campaign was also carried out amid allegations that Xi effectively used it to consolidate his power base within the party and the military.

China slipped by 10 ranks to 87th place in Transparency International''s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

India rose by three points to 78. Vietnam too figured high at 117 while Singapore moved up three spots to third place, behind first-placed Denmark and New Zealand, with the top spot signifying the least corrupt nation.

The US also fell, from 16th to 22nd position, tumbling out of the top 20 for the first time in recent years.

"The Asia-Pacific region is stagnating in the fight against corruption. A lack of progress is unsurprising given the prevalence of weak democratic institutions and a lack of laws and enforcement mechanisms," the Post quoted Transparency International in the report as saying.

Eugene Tan, associate professor at Singapore Management University''s School of Law, said China''s decline in the index revealed concerns that corruption was still prevalent, despite Xi''s campaign.

"The massive ''Belt and Road Initiative'' is probably adding to the negative perception of graft-busting as being more for domestic consumption," he said.

"China''s poor showing probably has more to do with how its intentions are perceived, particularly in overseas economic activity," he was quoted as saying by the Post.

Last month, the CPC declared a "crushing victory" in the battle to stamp out corruption, while warning that the situation was still tough and the fight must go on.

The party''s graft-busters detained another 23 "tigers", or high-ranking officials last year - five more than in 2017 - while prosecutors charged 32 provincial- and ministerial-level officials in 2018, 14 more than the previous year.

A paper released this month by the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre noted the campaign had targeted "big tigers and little flies" but as corruption had enabled economic growth in China, graft was difficult to eradicate.

-PTI
Scientists have called for a wide-scale ban on the use of sonar to protect whale populations after a study highlighted a link between the military sound pulses and mass strandings in which dozens of the mammals have died.

Marine biologists have long warned that the creatures' senses could be damaged by sonar, with the unfamiliar noises coming from vessels confusing the animals.

Experts said the mammals often attempt to swim away from the sound source, leading them to become disorientated.

For deep-diving marine life such as the beaked whale, which was the focus of the study, sonar can lead the animals to ascend too rapidly, causing decompression sickness.

This in turn has contributed to an increase in the number of whales dying in mass stranding events.

Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Show all 8 1 /8 Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Two dead sperm whales are seen washed up on a beach near Skegness in northeast England. Four sperm whales believed to be from the same pod washed up on beaches in northeast England. Three whales were found on a beach near Skegness and one died on Hunstanton beach AFP Getty Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk The dead 50ft (14.5m) young adult male sperm whale beached in Norfolk, which was was part of a group of six spotted in the Wash at Hunstanton, is believed to have been part of a pod that stranded and died in the Netherlands PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast 50ft sperm whale beached in Norfolk Two of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast One of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA Dead whales beached on the North Sea coast Photo taken from the Twitter feed of the @RNLIskegness of one of three dead sperm whales that have washed up on a beach in Lincolnshire, just a day after another was beached in Norfolk PA

Researchers at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria focused exclusively on beaked whales in the seas surrounding the Canary Islands.

They found that a sonar ban introduced there in 2004 had been effective in reducing whale strandings and called for more sites to be established to prevent further deaths, including in the Mediterranean, where beaked whales are listed as vulnerable.

Animals may respond to stressful situations by exhibiting the flight or fight response with increased heart and metabolic rates, often accompanied by fast movement away from the perceived stressor, wrote the authors of the report, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society journal. We recommend a moratorium on mid-frequency active sonar in those regions where atypical mass stranding events continue.

Beaked whales regularly dive deeper than one kilometre for longer than one hour, but when exposed to sonar they may dive for more than two hours to a depth of nearly three kilometres.

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Peter Tyack, professor of marine animal biology at the University of St Andrews, said exposure to sonar "pushes some whales over the edge  some lose their ability to manage gases under pressure, causing gas bubbles that can injure or kill, and some strand on the beach and die".

He told The Independent: "Current policies are not protecting marine life in UK waters. We need better monitoring of sound in the ocean coupled with policies that reduce exposure of vulnerable species to tolerable limits."

Sonar was developed in the 1950s to detect submarines  and mass strandings of beaked whales were rare before this point.

But between 1960 and 2004 there were more than 100 mass strandings reported and the number of species affected by the pulses increased.

Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures Show all 4 1 /4 Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures Marine experts investigate the mammal Gareth Fuller/PA Wire Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures The mammal is believed to be a minke whale measuring around 36ft-long (11m) Gareth Fuller/PA Wire Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures A man takes a picture at the scene where the whale washed up Gareth Fuller/PA Wire Dead whale washes up on Kent beach - in pictures Marine experts and members of the Coastguard stand beside the whale Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

In one case shortly before the Canary Islands ban, fourteen whales beached during a Nato drill involving sonar.

Strandings in 1985, 1988, 1989, 1991 and 2002 also coincided with naval exercises. As recently as last summer five whales died along the Irish coast in a suspected sonar-related incident.

found beaked whales not routinely exposed to sonar displayed the most extreme behavioural and physiological responses, while those inhabiting seas where sonar was routinely  or never  used were least affected.

The latest study's findings suggested that animals which had not become accustomed to the sonar sounds were even more at risk than those which experienced them frequently.

Sarah Dolman, policy manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation who was not involved in the study, said the latest research confirmed that beaked whales were "very vulnerable" to military exercises.

She told The Independent: "We have seen the likely effects of military activities on our own shores, including with the recent mass stranding of more than 80 Cuviers beaked whales off Ireland and Scotland. Experts have said that this event may have been so devastating as to affect a whole beaked whale population, yet nothing has changed.

"We might lose beaked whales around the UK before we even understand them."

The United Nations and other international bodies have warned that sonar is a major threat to the animals.

 Up to 145 Pilot Whales Dead in Mass Stranding on Stewart Island Beach in New Zealand

Previous studies have warned about the impact on the basic biological functions  such as feeding and mating functions  of whales and other marine life, including dolphins.

In 2008, the Ministry of Defence admitted that the Royal Navy had been conducting operations close to the Cornish coast where 26 dolphins had died, after having previously denied having any vessels in the area.

The MoD said it was extremely unlikely the animals died as a result of the sonar, but most-portems revealed they had no obvious signs of disease when they died after becoming trapped at four sites on the River Percuil.

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Peter Evans, of the SeaWatch Foundation, told The Independent: "Beaked whales will always be vulnerable to behavioural disruption and physical damage from loud noises produced by navies using mid-frequency active sonar. The ban on military activities in local waters introduced around the Canary Islands goes some way to reducing the harm this can cause.

"However, there are many areas where naval manoeuvres occur that may not receive such protection. It is therefore important that well-monitored locations are used for such routine exercises and if beaked whales also occur there, that appropriate mitigation actions are applied."

Travis Park, fellow at the Natural History Museum, which runs a UK whale and dolphin stranding project, added: Whilst I dont think there will be a one size fits all approach to reducing anthropogenic mass stranding events, this is certainly an approach that has merit given its success in reducing the number of these events in the Canary Islands.

Unfortunately, each species or even each population may require a slightly different strategy, which makes it a more difficult problem to solve."
Green campaigners have been left dismayed as a Chinese firm announced the discovery of the biggest gas field in the North Sea for more than a decade.

Drilling revealed gas reserves equivalent to 250 million barrels of oil, which could go a long way to supplying the UKs demand.

But with the nation facing strict targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement, environmentalists said it was time for an end to fossil fuel extraction in UK waters.

Scientists couldnt be clearer that, of the fossil fuels we have found, we need to leave 80 per cent in the ground if we have any hope of meeting targets that will deliver on the Paris agreement, said Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth.

This comes after a warning by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that nations around the world, including the UK, must stop burning fossil fuels by around 2030 to avoid catastrophic warming.

We need to be really clear about this  if these companies were to exploit this new find, and if these fossil fuels were to get burned, that will mean many more people will die because of the impacts of climate change, said Mr Bennett.

Environment news in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Environment news in pictures Environment news in pictures Davos 2019: David Attenborough issues stark warning about future of civilisation as he demands practical solutions to combat climate change Sir David Attenborough has issued a stark warning about climate change to business figures gathered in Davos, telling them that "what we do now...will profoundly affect the next few thousand years". On the eve of this year's World Economic Forum, the renowned naturalist told the audience that the worlds of business and politics should "get on with the practical solutions" needed to prevent environmental damage. "As a species we are expert problem solvers. But we've not yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus it requires. "We can create a world with clean air and water, unlimited energy, and fish stocks that will sustain us well into the future. But to do that, we need a plan," he said. The broadcaster made his speech after receiving a Crystal Award, which is awarded by the forum to "exceptional cultural leaders". AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures At least 60% of wild coffee species face extinction triggered by climate change and disease Two decades of research have revealed that 60 per cent of the worlds coffee species face extinction due to the combined threats of deforestation, disease and climate change. The wild strain of arabica, the most widely consumed coffee on the planet, is among those now recognised as endangered, raising concerns about its long-term survival. These results are worrying for the millions of farmers around the world who depend on the continued survival of coffee for their livelihoods. As conditions for coffee farming become tougher, scientists predict the industry will need to rely on wild varieties to develop more resilient strains Alan Schaller Environment news in pictures Warming Antarctic waters are speeding the rate at which glaciers are melting The Antarctic ice sheet is losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 1980s and the pace is accelerating, one of the most comprehensive studies of climate change effects on the continent has shown. More than half an inch has been added to global sea levels since 1979, but if current trends continue it will be responsible for metres more in future, the Nasa-funded study found. The international effort used aerial photos, satellite data and climate models dating back to the 1970s across18 Antarctic regions to get the most complete picture to date on the impacts of the changing climate. It found that between 1979 and 1990 Antarctica lost an average of 40 gigatonnes (40 billion tonnes) of its mass each year. Between 2009 and 2017 it lost an average 252 gigatonnes a year. This has added 3.6mm per decade to sea levels, or around 14mm since 1979, the study shows Nasa/Getty Environment news in pictures Greater Manchester to ban fracking, paving way for confrontation with government over controversial industry Greater Manchester is to effectively ban fracking, raising the prospect of fresh confrontation with the government over the controversial industry. All of the regions 10 councils are to implement planning policies which create a presumption against drilling for shale gas in their areas, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has announced. Campaigners said the move was the latest sign that the tide was turning against fracking, which has been the subject of multiple legal battles across the country. Critics of fracking say it poses environmental and health risks. Drilling at the UKs only operational fracking site, run by Cuadrilla in Lancashire, has repeatedly been halted due to earth tremors. But ministers support the industry and last year unveiled plans to accelerate the development of new drilling sites Ross Wills Environment news in pictures Japan confirms plan to resume commercial whaling in its waters from next year Japan will resume commercial whaling next year for the first time in more than three decades, in a move that has provoked strong criticism from campaigners and the international community. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said his nation would leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting the marine mammals in Japanese waters. However, he stated the activity would be limited to Japans territory and the 200 mile exclusive economic zone along its coasts. This means controversial scientific trips to Antarctica in which Japanese vessels killed hundreds of whales, as well as activity in the northwest Pacific, will stop in 2019 AP Environment news in pictures COP24: Environmental groups criticise morally unacceptable climate deal reached after major Poland summit Diplomats from around the world have agreed a major climate deal after two weeks of United Nations talks in Poland. But climate campaigners warned the deal  effectively a set of rules for how to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord  agreed between almost 200 countries lacked ambition or a clear promise of enhanced climate action. Activists cautiously welcomed elements of the plan, saying important progress had been made on ensuring that efforts to tackle climate change by individual nations can be measured and compared. But environmental groups were also highly critical of the agreement, warning it lacked ambition and clarity on key issues, including financing for climate projects for developing countries. The COP24 deal, which is aimed at providing firm guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them, was confirmed on 15 December, after talks overran Reuters Environment news in pictures Unprecedented changes needed to stop global warming as UN report reveals islands starting to vanish and coral reefs dying Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut almost in half by 2030 to avert global environmental catastrophe, including the total loss of every coral reef, the disappearance of Arctic ice and the destruction of island communities, a landmark UN report has concluded. Drawing on more than 6,000 scientific studies and compiled over two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, released this morning, warn enormous and rapid changes to the way everyone on Earth eats, travels and produces energy need to be brought in immediately. Though the scientists behind the report said there is cause for optimism, they recognised the grim reality that nations are currently nowhere near on track to avert disaster AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures Africas three biggest elephant poaching cartels exposed using DNA from illegal ivory shipments DNA taken from massive shipments of ivory has been used to identify the three largest wildlife trafficking gangs operating at the height of Africas elephant poaching epidemic. Ivory tends to be shipped around the world from African ports in bulk, and scientists have used genetic evidence gleaned from intercepted batches to reveal their origins. Led by Dr Samuel Wasser from the University of Washington, they traced a number of these shipments to three cartels operating out of Kenya, Uganda and Togo. Evidence collected by Dr Wasser has already helped convict ivory kingpin Feisal Mohamed Ali, and as his team joins the dots between shipments they plan to shore up the cases against more of the continents most prolific smugglers Art Wolfe

Chinas state-run energy firm China National Offshore Oil Corporation together with French company Total made the announcement concerning the the Glengorm project, east of Aberdeen, on Tuesday.

They now intend to carry out further drilling and testing to assess its viability.

Alongside another discovery by Total in the Glendronach field last year, industry figures said the discovery provided hope for the future of the UKs ailing fossil fuel extraction industry.

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Glengorm is an achievement that demonstrates our capacity to create value in a mature environment thanks to our indepth understanding of the basin, said Kevin McLachlan, senior vice president of exploration at the French firm.

Paul Wheelhouse, Scotlands energy minister, said he welcomed the announcement, which will help to support security of supply as we make the transition to a low carbon energy system.

As the UK moves to a greener system, many people, including energy minister Claire Perry, have emphasised the importance of gas as a relatively clean fossil fuel during the transition period.

 Sir David Attenborough at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice: Climate change 'our greatest threat'

However, despite warnings about reliance on foreign powers, including Russia, for gas, Mr Bennett said the UK has plenty of gas reserves to last until fossil fuels are phased out for good.

Government advisers have been tasked with setting out a strategy to effectively cut all carbon emissions within 30 years, and campaigners say further development of gas infrastructure is incompatible with such targets.

Scientists have also warned that by using all of its existing reserves the UK will be unable to honour its obligations under the Paris agreement.

Last year, scientists at the Tyndall Centre quantified the carbon budget left for Scotland alone to meet its obligations and found that to avoid even 2C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2050, 70-80 per cent of current oil and gas reserves should stay in the ground.

Its absolutely clear, if the UK is to abide by even a weak interpretation of the Paris agreement then it cannot develop this gas in the North Sea, said the studys author Professor Kevin Anderson.

It needs to be phasing out North Sea development as quickly as possible, obviously with a significant focus on a just transition so those working on it have good employment in industries not generating huge quantities of CO2.

 Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Since the study, BP celebrated a major milestone as it hit first oil in the North Seas Claire Ridge project, from which they believe they could recover 640 million barrels of oil.

Professor Anderson said: Developing a new reservoir is completely at odds with the Paris agreement and this is a really good bellwether of whether the UK government is genuinely committed to the Paris agreement or whether they just see it as lip service."

He also suggested the Scottish government's claims to be an international leader on climate change are at odds with its attitude towards new developments in the North Sea.

Its a disgrace that oil and gas exploration is still going ahead in the seas off Scotland, said Caroline Rance, Friends of the Earths Scotland climate campaigner.

But Mr Wheelhouse said the Scottish government has already introduced a bill setting "the most ambitious climate change targets of any country in the world" with the aim of carbon neutrality by 2050.

A strong domestic oil and gas industry and supply chain can play a positive role in supporting the low carbon transition," he said.
Climate change is likely to push Europes critically endangered eels even closer to extinction, a new study have revealed.

Populations have been in freefall for decades due to a combination of overfishing, pollution and dams being constructed along rivers, blocking their traditional migration routes.

Numbers of the once abundant fish have dropped by over 90 per cent since the early 1980s and now rising temperatures and acidic waters are posing yet another existential threat.

A new study conducted by scientists in Portugal tested the impact of the rising global temperatures on the survival and behaviour of young eels.

These glass eels  so-called due to their transparent bodies  were placed in different conditions to see how they would respond to a temperature increase of 4C and more acidic water, mimicking the environments expected under climate change by the end of the century.

Environment news in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Environment news in pictures Environment news in pictures Davos 2019: David Attenborough issues stark warning about future of civilisation as he demands practical solutions to combat climate change Sir David Attenborough has issued a stark warning about climate change to business figures gathered in Davos, telling them that "what we do now...will profoundly affect the next few thousand years". On the eve of this year's World Economic Forum, the renowned naturalist told the audience that the worlds of business and politics should "get on with the practical solutions" needed to prevent environmental damage. "As a species we are expert problem solvers. But we've not yet applied ourselves to this problem with the focus it requires. "We can create a world with clean air and water, unlimited energy, and fish stocks that will sustain us well into the future. But to do that, we need a plan," he said. The broadcaster made his speech after receiving a Crystal Award, which is awarded by the forum to "exceptional cultural leaders". AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures At least 60% of wild coffee species face extinction triggered by climate change and disease Two decades of research have revealed that 60 per cent of the worlds coffee species face extinction due to the combined threats of deforestation, disease and climate change. The wild strain of arabica, the most widely consumed coffee on the planet, is among those now recognised as endangered, raising concerns about its long-term survival. These results are worrying for the millions of farmers around the world who depend on the continued survival of coffee for their livelihoods. As conditions for coffee farming become tougher, scientists predict the industry will need to rely on wild varieties to develop more resilient strains Alan Schaller Environment news in pictures Warming Antarctic waters are speeding the rate at which glaciers are melting The Antarctic ice sheet is losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 1980s and the pace is accelerating, one of the most comprehensive studies of climate change effects on the continent has shown. More than half an inch has been added to global sea levels since 1979, but if current trends continue it will be responsible for metres more in future, the Nasa-funded study found. The international effort used aerial photos, satellite data and climate models dating back to the 1970s across18 Antarctic regions to get the most complete picture to date on the impacts of the changing climate. It found that between 1979 and 1990 Antarctica lost an average of 40 gigatonnes (40 billion tonnes) of its mass each year. Between 2009 and 2017 it lost an average 252 gigatonnes a year. This has added 3.6mm per decade to sea levels, or around 14mm since 1979, the study shows Nasa/Getty Environment news in pictures Greater Manchester to ban fracking, paving way for confrontation with government over controversial industry Greater Manchester is to effectively ban fracking, raising the prospect of fresh confrontation with the government over the controversial industry. All of the regions 10 councils are to implement planning policies which create a presumption against drilling for shale gas in their areas, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has announced. Campaigners said the move was the latest sign that the tide was turning against fracking, which has been the subject of multiple legal battles across the country. Critics of fracking say it poses environmental and health risks. Drilling at the UKs only operational fracking site, run by Cuadrilla in Lancashire, has repeatedly been halted due to earth tremors. But ministers support the industry and last year unveiled plans to accelerate the development of new drilling sites Ross Wills Environment news in pictures Japan confirms plan to resume commercial whaling in its waters from next year Japan will resume commercial whaling next year for the first time in more than three decades, in a move that has provoked strong criticism from campaigners and the international community. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said his nation would leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to resume hunting the marine mammals in Japanese waters. However, he stated the activity would be limited to Japans territory and the 200 mile exclusive economic zone along its coasts. This means controversial scientific trips to Antarctica in which Japanese vessels killed hundreds of whales, as well as activity in the northwest Pacific, will stop in 2019 AP Environment news in pictures COP24: Environmental groups criticise morally unacceptable climate deal reached after major Poland summit Diplomats from around the world have agreed a major climate deal after two weeks of United Nations talks in Poland. But climate campaigners warned the deal  effectively a set of rules for how to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord  agreed between almost 200 countries lacked ambition or a clear promise of enhanced climate action. Activists cautiously welcomed elements of the plan, saying important progress had been made on ensuring that efforts to tackle climate change by individual nations can be measured and compared. But environmental groups were also highly critical of the agreement, warning it lacked ambition and clarity on key issues, including financing for climate projects for developing countries. The COP24 deal, which is aimed at providing firm guidelines for countries on how to transparently report their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them, was confirmed on 15 December, after talks overran Reuters Environment news in pictures Unprecedented changes needed to stop global warming as UN report reveals islands starting to vanish and coral reefs dying Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut almost in half by 2030 to avert global environmental catastrophe, including the total loss of every coral reef, the disappearance of Arctic ice and the destruction of island communities, a landmark UN report has concluded. Drawing on more than 6,000 scientific studies and compiled over two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings, released this morning, warn enormous and rapid changes to the way everyone on Earth eats, travels and produces energy need to be brought in immediately. Though the scientists behind the report said there is cause for optimism, they recognised the grim reality that nations are currently nowhere near on track to avert disaster AFP/Getty Environment news in pictures Africas three biggest elephant poaching cartels exposed using DNA from illegal ivory shipments DNA taken from massive shipments of ivory has been used to identify the three largest wildlife trafficking gangs operating at the height of Africas elephant poaching epidemic. Ivory tends to be shipped around the world from African ports in bulk, and scientists have used genetic evidence gleaned from intercepted batches to reveal their origins. Led by Dr Samuel Wasser from the University of Washington, they traced a number of these shipments to three cartels operating out of Kenya, Uganda and Togo. Evidence collected by Dr Wasser has already helped convict ivory kingpin Feisal Mohamed Ali, and as his team joins the dots between shipments they plan to shore up the cases against more of the continents most prolific smugglers Art Wolfe

When placed in warmer water, fewer of the young eels survived, but those that did were more active and appeared more willing to continue their migration.

This was countered by the impact of the acidic water, which appeared to dampen the eels innate desire to migrate towards freshwater.

This result echoed previous studies showing acidic water harming the sensory abilities of fish.

Publishing their findings in the Biology Letters journal, the scientists said they had revealed how near future conditions could soon trigger unexpected and unwelcome changes in eel populations.

If greenhouse gases emissions to the atmosphere continue unabated and further conservation management policies are not considered in the near future, these stressors may, indeed, cause stocks disruption and push eels towards extinction, said Dr Tiago Grilo, one of the scientists at the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre behind the study.

Dr Reinhold Hanel, an eel expert at the Thunen Institute in Germany who was not involved in the study, said he fully agreed climate change is impacting eels.

He added that the new study supported previous work suggesting climate change was harming the eels by tampering with ocean currents along their migration routes or the Sargasso Sea where they spawn.

However, he also noted that for fish that travel more than 4,000 miles simply to reproduce, crossing both fresh and saltwater as they do, climate change was just one of many pressures on these vulnerable creatures.

 Sir David Attenborough at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice: Climate change 'our greatest threat'

If you travel that far you are at risk in many circumstances, and that is why it is the sum of these impacts that probably caused this decline, he said.

Samuel Stone, head of fisheries and aquaculture at the Marine Conservation Society, said the research was a reminder of the dire need to recover depleted fish stocks.

We are already seeing impacts of climate change on marine species and far more needs to be done to account for this in fisheries management, he said.
Jussie Smolletts colleagues and Hollywood peers have been outraged by an apparent racist and homophobic attack that left the Empire actor hospitalised.

Chicago police released a statement saying Smollett was approached by two men who yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him at approximately 2am on Tuesday (29 January).

He was then battered around the face by the offenders, before an unknown chemical substance was poured on him. One of the offenders also tied a rope around the 36-year-olds neck.

Smollett took himself to hospital and was said to be in a good condition. The attack is being treated as a suspected hate crime, with TMZ reporting that one of the attackers yelled This is Maga country at Smollett.

On Instagram, Empire co-creator Lee Daniels wrote: Jussie you are my son. You didnt deserve, nor anybody deserve to have a noose put around your neck, to have bleach thrown on you, to be called die f*****, n*****, or whatever they said to you. You are better than that. We are better than that. America is better than that.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

It starts at home. We have to love each other, no matter what sexual orientation we are, because it shows that we are united on a united front and no racist f*** can come in and do the things that they did to you. Hold your head up, Jussie. Im with you, Ill be there in a minute. Its just another f***ing day in America.

Fellow Empire co-creator Danny Strong posted on Twitter, saying: Whoever did this, do not forget that you are nothing but hate filled cowards while Jussies talent and activism will continue to shine a bright light on to the world for decades to come.

Ariana Grande, Reese Witherspoon and Terry Crews  along with various others, including American politicians  used social media to speak about the incident and to wish Smollett a swift recovery.

Smollett, who plays Jamal Lyon in Empire, has publicly identified as gay, telling Out magazine in 2016: I am a gay man with an extremely open heart.

Police say the incident happened on the 300 block of E North Lower Water Street in Chicago.
Dir: Dean DeBlois; Voiced by: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, TJ Miller, Kristen Wiig, Kit Harington, Craig Ferguson, F Murray Abraham

The richness and detail of the imagery in the latest DreamWorks animated feature sadly is not matched by the storytelling or characterisation. Certain sequences here are stunningly beautiful: shots of solitary dragons soaring through cloud-filled skies, and of thousands of the beasts, all different colours and shapes, in their ancestral home. There are huge waterfalls and mazes of caves. But the human characters seem lacklustre by comparison. As in the previous two films, they speak in a bizarre mixture of accents (American, Scottish, Scandinavian) and look as if they have stumbled out of an Asterix comic book.

Hiccup is the diffident young Viking hero (just a guy) who devotes his life to rescuing dragons from enslavement. The film opens with a sea battle during which he shows his familiar heroism. Jay Baruchel voices him in breathless fashion, making him sound more like a high school student than an ancient warrior.

On Hiccups home island of Berk, humans and dragons live cheek by jowl and spend much of their time slobbering over each other in the great hall. Hiccup is the leader but a very self-effacing one. He and warrior princess Astrid (America Ferrera) are clearly in love, but wary about marriage. The blacksmith Gobber the Belch (voiced by Craig Ferguson) is a father figure to Hiccup, and is here as much of a hairy hooligan as in the previous films. Roaring and belching, he lives up fully to his name.

The romance between Hiccup and Astrird is mirrored by that between Hiccupss dragon, night fury Toothless and a white female dragon nicknamed Light Fury. The courtship provides some of the films most charming moments. Writer-director Dean DeBlois doesnt anthropomorphise the creatures; the dragons themselves dont speak, but communicate in moans and bellows. Some of the little dragons may be very cute but theyre also wild and ferocious animals.

The 10 best Cate Blanchett films Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 best Cate Blanchett films The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 10. Manifesto (2017) Technically, this should rank as numbers 22 to 10 of Blanchetts best roles. She plays 13 different characters in Julian Rosefeldts experimental film, which began as a multi-screen installation before being condensed into a 90-minute feature. Each of its characters  which include a school teacher, a puppeteer, and a homeless man  recites the manifestos of various politicians, philosophers and artists, from Karl Marx to Lars Von Trier. The result is strange, captivating, horrifying, and funny in equal measure. Alexandra Pollard The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 9. Oscar and Lucinda (1997) Blanchett was essentially unknown before 1997, but received critical acclaim for her first leading role, as a 19th-century gambling addict and glass enthusiast in Gillian Armstrongs eccentric, beguiling romantic drama. She starred alongside Ralph Fiennes and shone as a proud square peg in a world of round holes  a description that has proven somewhat fitting for her movie career, too. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 8. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) The great director Anthony Minghella described Blanchett as the Bach of acting after casting her in his adaptation of Patricia Highsmiths psychological thriller, heaping praise on the remarkable transformation that happens when the camera rolls. Here, shes a rich, gauche young American socialite visiting Europe for the first time. Her role is not a large one  though every time Minghella revisited the screenplay, it became bigger  but Blanchett seizes it with both hands. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 7. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Though she may have starred in her fair share of Hollywood blockbusters, from 2017s Thor: Ragnarok to 2008s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, no other role has so perfectly suited Blanchetts ethereal presence than the Lady of Lothlorien herself, Galadriel. Dressed in shimmering white, and forever backlit to create the illusion of a halo, the elf queen is a momentary dream, offering a place of respite for the films heroes, as they recover from the loss of their leader, Gandalf (Ian McKellen). But Blanchett brings far more to the role than mere regal posturing; her enigmatic demeanour hints at danger as much as it does wisdom, as so memorably revealed in her moment of temptation, corrupted by the power of the Ring. In the actors hands, All shall love me and despair! becomes a chilling declaration. Clarisse Loughrey The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 6. Im Not There (2007) Six different actors, including Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger, play different facets of Bob Dylans public personas in Todd Hayness musical drama  but it is Blanchett, as an embodiment of his Sixties foray into electric guitars and existential angst, who steals the film. Its not surprising that Haynes thought of Blanchett again a decade later, when he came to make Carol. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 5. Notes on a Scandal (2006) As cinematic two-handers go, it doesnt get much better than Blanchett and Judi Dench in this morally troubling psychological drama. Blanchett plays Sheba, a school teacher who is having sex with her 15-year-old student. It is the intense, toxic, lustful relationship between her and Denchs Barbara, though, around which the film revolves, and both actors clearly relish the dark, delicious ambiguity of it all. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 4. Elizabeth (1998) Margot Robbie had some big shoes to fill when she stepped into the role of the Virgin Queen in this years Mary Queen of Scots  in Shekhar Kapurs Elizabeth, Blanchett beautifully navigates the monarchs ascent (or, perhaps, descent) from naive, indecisive 21-year-old to imposing, intrepid leader. The films climactic transfiguration, in which Elizabeth declares herself married to the throne and reveals her now famous ghostly pallor, is intoxicating. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 3. The Aviator (2004) Blanchett won her first Academy Award for her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorseses 2004 Howard Hughes biopic. Its a testament to the studiousness of her transformations; every pose, line, or look here is a pitch-perfect imitation of the Hollywood legend, but without any of the emotional stiffness that haunts perfectionists of this type. Blanchett interprets Hepburn as all angles: the boom of her upper-class, New England accent, the jaunt of her walk, and the forcefulness of her mannerisms. Yet, most crucially, she captures her vulnerability, too. As Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) taunts her  You are a movie star, nothing more  Blanchetts reaction hints at the brittle quality that made Hepburns performances so mesmerising to watch. CL The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 2. Blue Jasmine (2013) As Jeanette Jasmine Francis, Blanchett is a modern-day Blanche Du Bois, a Manhattan socialite with a drinking problem who descends on her quiet, sensible sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and irrevocably disrupts her life. The films director, Woody Allen, has rightly fallen out of favour recently, but Blue Jasmine deserves to be seen for Blanchetts electrifying performance as a woman as piteous as she is loathsome. AP The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 1. Carol (2015) What a strange girl you are, says Blanchett as Carol, clutching a cigarette and scrutinising the younger woman with whom she is falling in love. Flung out of space. It is a line she fills to the brim with such deeply felt subtext that its not hard to believe that Rooney Maras Therese is besotted with Carol from a single glance. In Todd Hayness gorgeous adaptation of Patricia Highsmiths novel, Blanchett is charismatic and inscrutable one moment, fragile and vulnerable the next. It is a beautiful performance. AP

The villain of the piece is Grimmel (F Murray Abraham), a dragon hunter who looks a bit like Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal and speaks in such a strange, European-sounding accent that we know he is not to be trusted. He wants to kill as many of the fiery beasts as he can and to destroy everything that Hiccup loves. He has a vast fleet and has drugged various dragons to do his bidding. Rather than confront him head on, Hiccup comes up with a plan for everybody (humans and dragons alike) to leave Berk and to look for the dragons mythical home at the edge of the world.

Grimmel is far more ruthless and cunning than Hiccup. He lives for the hunt. At first, Hiccup seems powerless against him. When he is not riding on a dragon, he is a weak and diminished figure who struggles to keep the confidence of the other members of the tribe. He has a prosthetic leg and isnt nimble, but he isnt big or brave either.

Perhaps because it is set in ancient times and features vikings as heroes, the film lacks the wisecracking, contemporary humour found in most of the Pixar films. In one very lively scene, Ruffnut Thorston (voiced by Kristen Wiig) is kidnapped and imprisoned by Grimmel but drives him to distraction with her inane, valley girl-style prattle. She simply wont shut up. Such scenes, though, are rare.

In the course of the film, Hiccup has all the experiences you would expect in a rites of passage story like this. Not only is he saving dragons, he is growing up. At times, as he shows selflessness and courage and proves that he doesnt need the dragons as a crutch, the film verges on sermonising. But it only really soars when the dragons themselves take wing. Its battle sequences and set pieces high above the clouds are far more impressive than anything that happens at ground level.
Kevin Hart has sent his best wishes to Jussie Smollett, who was attacked in what has been described as a hate crime.

The musician and Empire star was approached by two men who yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him at approximately 2am on Tuesday, according to a police statement provided to The Independent.

The offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim, the statement reads.

At some point during the incident, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around the victims neck.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Hart responded to the news on Twitter, writing: Sending prayers your way @JussieSmollett.... This is unbelievably sad. Why are we going backwards.... this is disgusting. We as people have to do better. WTF is going on the world????.

The comedian recently stepped down from hosting this years Oscars after past tweets in which he made homophobic statements resurfaced. He later embarked on an apology tour, and sincerely apologised to the LGBTQ community for his words.

Smollett is now in good condition, according to the police.

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The actor, who plays Jamal Lyon in Empire, has publicly identified as gay, telling Out magazine in 2016: I am a gay man with an extremely open heart.
I've noticed a bad trend in my house. There are phones and tablets strewn everywhere; every member of our household constantly has a video, podcast, social channel or article queued up and ready to go. We have to actively think about turning them off just to have dinner.

Electronics control us. Our inability to put our phones down has impacted our relationships. Technology was going to enable us to do anything we wanted from anywhere we wanted, giving us time back for the truly important things. Instead, we're working more: streamlining work has just pushed us to want to cram more of it into our 24 hours.

But the worst part is what it's doing to us over the long term. We're drowning in information (input) and struggling to remain creative in our approach (output). We're becoming consumed by our digital lives. We're not devoting enough attention to what's physically in front of us-- and our companies are suffering for it.

Brad Weimert, founder of Unplugged Fiji, felt the pressure that being plugged in 24/7 has caused in his own life. He discussed screen time with friends and realized that being tethered to his phone wasn't improving his life. In fact, it was doing just the opposite.

Weimert polled 113 entrepreneurs to find their average screen time, which came out to four hours and five minutes per day just on their mobile devices. I checked my own: I was only three minutes under that average for the past seven days.

A lack of time away from your office or laptop can result in burnout. Most leaders know burnout hurts employee retention, but they don't realize their own motivation can take a similar hit. If they're working nonstop, they'll eventually hit a point of diminishing returns-- and there's nothing more demoralizing than realizing your hours of work amounted to nothing.

Here are three ways to cut the cord:

1. Set boundaries.

The easiest way to meet any goal is to work your way backward. If your New Year's resolution was to lose 20 pounds, you'd have to pick up your activity level, cut your calories or both. Likewise, if you want to spend less time on your devices, you need to change your habits.

As the leader, you can clearly define the rules everyone plays by. Ban phones and laptops from meetings (or ask that they sit face down or closed). Set a new company standard that if someone's communicating with another person, the listener will stop everything else.

Make a bigger effort to take devices out of bonding moments, both inside and outside work: retreats, team lunches, date nights. My family doesn't have devices at the dinner table, and the success of that effort has encouraged me to adopt it at other times, like right before bed.

2. Intentionally schedule time away from your phone one day per week.

This might be easiest on the weekend, but don't limit yourself. To maximize your productivity, try making a weekday off-limits. A Monday after the weekend, or a Friday leading into the weekend, can be a great time to unplug while you're fresh or full of ideas from the week.

Some people worry that refusing to text, conference or post on social media will lead to their business' demise. Jake Wilder, a leadership writer and engineering manager, decided to figuratively drop off the face of the planet for two weeks while on vacation. No emails, no calls, no texts.

He found that constantly relying on people's accessibility actually inhibited collaboration: "We're quick to praise someone for their necessity," he said. "We encourage people to develop specialized knowledge and become 'indispensable' to the organization. But this also encourages people to hoard their knowledge and inhibits collaboration. It rewards the individual at the expense of the organization."

3. Try a long-term unplug.

Wilder was on to something. The longer we test something, the more likely we are to see definitive results. While it's a good idea to disconnect weekly, it also makes sense to take a full block of time-- say, a week-- to unplug.

Weimert was inspired by this need to create his Unplugged Fiji experience. A chartered plane takes entrepreneurs to Fiji; even on the plane, they take part in activities that require them to drop their phones and engage with those around them. Once they land, they join four unplugged days of workshops, speakers and activities. Weimert says this trip, focused on meditation and mindfulness, as well as personal growth, enables entrepreneurs to drop their day-to-day existence to focus on the bigger picture.
Photo: Michigan Technological University

The transfer of up to six wolves from a northern Ontario island where they were starving to the U.S. is getting underway following a weeks-long delay caused by the federal government shutdown south of the border.

The small pack, including the alpha male and female, will be moved from Michipicoten Island to Isle Royale National Park, on the U.S. side of Lake Superior, where American officials hope the wolves will help keep the moose population in check.

"We need to get these wolves off the island, otherwise they'll die," said Aaron Bumstead, director of lands and economic development with Michipicoten First Nation who is co-ordinating the move with the province's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

Last year, the province and the First Nation used several helicopters to move a total of 15 caribou  a threatened species in Ontario  off Michipicoten Island. Nine of the animals were transferred to the Slate Islands, and the other six to Caribou Island.

They were the last remaining caribou from a once-thriving herd on Michipicoten Island that started with just eight caribou in 1982 and grew to more than 700 by 2013, when four wolves reached the island after making the 15-kilometre trek across an ice bridge that formed on the lake.

There they found a bounty of caribou to feast on. But as the small pack grew to more than a dozen wolves in the following years, their food source  the caribou  all but disappeared. Now the wolves themselves are in danger, said Bumstead.

"We've been asking (the ministry) for a plan to remove the wolves from the island since last year," Bumstead said. "And there still is no plan to remove the ones that don't get moved to Isle Royale."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Natural Resources said she wouldn't comment on the wolves' transfer until the animals were captured and transferred to the U.S.

Bumstead said efforts to capture the wolves on Michipicoten Island were unsuccessful Wednesday. The two wolves they saw wouldn't come out from under cover, he said, so they'll try again Thursday.

American officials and researchers with Isle Royale are anxious to receive the Canadian wolves because it will help save the park's current pack, which dwindled this fall to just a non-breeding father-daughter pair.

There is an overabundance of moose on Isle Royale, and without enough wolves to keep their population in check their numbers will continue to grow, said Rolf Peterson, a research professor at Michigan Technological University who has been studying the wolves and moose on the island for the past 48 years.

The moose on the island, with a population of about 1,600, have decimated the balsam fir trees on the island.
(The Center Square)  The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is warning residents keen on recreating in the water to look out for cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, in Illinois waters, which can be toxic to humans and pets.
Ziad al-Sharaabi, a cameraman working for Abu Dhabi TV, was killed in a bomb attack on Monday in a restaurant located in Yemens port city of Mokha. Faisal al-Dhahbani, a reporter from the same network, was wounded in the attack.

The IFJ joins the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) and the UAE Journalists Association in condemning the attack and demanding a full investigation of the incident to bring those responsible for this heinous crime to justice.

Faisal al-Dhahbani told the YJS that he and his colleague Ziad went to a restaurant in a local market to have dinner. After a few minutes, a motorcycle that was next to the restaurant exploded killing Ziad and six other civilians, injuring many and causing widespread damage. Both journalists were on a mission to cover clashes in the Al-Mokha and the West coast areas of Yemen.

According to the IFJ, Yemen is one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world. Since 2011, 35 journalists and media workers have been killed in Yemen as a consequence of the fighting between different parties of the conflict, both during the reign of former president Ali Saleh and during the war between the Houthis, the Yemeni government forces supported by the Saudi led-coalition and al-Qaida.

Furthermore, the YJS reported a total of 226 attacks on press freedom during 2018, including killings, imprisonments, attacks on media houses, closure down of media and the confiscation of journalists material.

The YJS said in a statement: The YJS expresses its condolences for the killing of journalist Ziad Al-Sharaabi to his family and colleagues. This attack evidences the increasing threats to journalists work In Yemen. We stress that violent acts against journalists are war crimes.

Mohamed Al Hammadi, chairman of the UAE Journalists Association said: We call on international media organisations to expose the crimes of the Houthis, which target journalists continuously throughout Yemen, without regard to international conventions and laws that criminalise such immoral practices. The international community must ensure the security and protection of media professionals while performing their duties in conflict areas in accordance with international humanitarian law

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger added: We are deeply shocked by this violent attack and we send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all the victims. Crimes and attacks against journalists are going unpunished in Yemen. This is not acceptable. We demand the competent authorities ensure that all the perpetrators will be brought to justice and to do its utmost to protect and not attack journalists in Yemen.
Journalists in Jammu and Kashmir, India, have been attacked and blocked from covering events in recent days, raising questions about press freedom and safety in the region. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) condemning the latest incidents and calling for an investigation.

Kashmiri journalists hold placards during a protest march in Srinagar on January 26, 2019. Dozens of journalists marched in protest after authorities barred at least half a dozen journalists from entering the venue of India's Republic Day parade in Srinagar, local media said. Credit: STR / AFP

On January 22, four journalists were attacked with pellets by police during a clash between anti-government protesters and authorities. The journalists received head injuries during the attack. In a statement after the incident, police said they did not know the group were journalists, and did not deliberately target them.

On January 26, six photojournalists were barred from the Sher-i-Kashmir stadium to cover Srinagars Republic Day celebrations. The security wing of the Jammu and Kashmir police claimed there was an adverse report from the Criminal Investigation Department about them. This despite the fact that the six journalists had been issued security clearance passes by the police. Authorities claim the barring was an administrative error.

IJU president, Amar Devulaplli condemned the police action and termed it as not only an humiliating experience for the reputed journalists with their cards cancelled at the entry gate but added insult to injury with the police citing the reason for its action taken on grounds of adverse report against them from the CID. The IJU expressed solidarity with the journalists in Kashmir who strongly protested against the police action and boycotted coverage of the function. The Union urged upon the Press Council of India (PCI) to take suo motu cognisance of the case and take stringent action expeditiously.

The IFJ said: The authorities in Kashmir need to ensure the freedom of movement and reporting of the local media, and guarantee that they are not attacked, harassed or intimidated by security forces, for simply doing their job. We stand with IJU in demanding an investigation into the incident on January 26, and stand in solidarity with our colleagues in Kashmir.
Photo: Contributed

After nearly a decade of hard work, Peach City Radio is ready to hit the FM dial in Penticton.

The non-profit Peach City Community Radio Society (CFUZ) is ready to start broadcasting community-created content on Feb. 1 when the FM transmitter will be turned on and start broadcasting 92.9 FM.

Earlier this month CFUZ received a broadcast certificate from Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The test phase took place over a period of four weeks in December and January and during that time many Penticton residents discovered the 92.9 FM signal which was broadcasting a wide array of new music created by Canadian artists.

What began with a group of interested residents attending an information meeting at the Penticton Art Gallery resulted in incorporating as the Peach City Community Radio Society in early 2010. Along the way, the non-profit society raised funds for broadcast equipment and a studio, transmitted temporary broadcasts, and hosted numerous events such as concerts, volunteer training sessions, public talks and a live radio play.

The station makes its home in the Cannery Trade Centre and the tower and antenna are visible atop the eastern end of the building. Volunteers have been operating a 24/7 online stream of radio content since 2014 and this will continue in tandem with the FM signal.

Peach City Radio also hosts the annual Okanagan Vinyl Festival which acts as a key fundraiser for the organization.

It has been a tremendous amount of work for a group of volunteers with jobs, families and other commitments but the driving force has been a love of radio and the desire to provide

Penticton with a new local voice, states a press release announcing the launch of the FM signal. An impressive number of radio programs have been produced by volunteers over the years, some winning awards at the national level.

The station encourages members of the community to tune in for these locally produced programs which feature both spoken word content and a diverse music mix.

Comments can be sent to [email protected] and anyone interested in getting involved as a programmer or sponsor can visit www.CFUZ.ca for more information.

A formal grand opening and open house will take place in Spring 2019.
Photo: Twitter

Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered on the streets of Venezuela's capital Wednesday, waving their nation's flag and demanding Nicolas Maduro step down from power in a walkout organized by the nation's reinvigorated opposition to ratchet up pressure on the embattled president.

Protesters said they were heeding the opposition's call for another mass demonstration despite the heavy-handed response by security forces over the last week to quell anti-government protests.

"I'm going out now more than ever," said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63. "We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left."

The latest walkout comes one week exactly after opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the nation's rightful president amid a sea of supporters, hurling the nation into a new chapter of political tumult as the anti-Maduro movement tries to establish a transitional government and the socialist leader clings to power.

"We are staying in the streets," Guaido told students at a surprise appearance at the Central University of Venezuela. "Not just in protest of the crisis we are living in all of Venezuela, not just because of how bad things are, but also for the future."

The 35-year-lawmaker has transformed from a little-known opposition figure into a commanding force in the nation's politics with the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump and two dozen other nations recognizing him as Venezuela's interim president.

The turmoil has morphed into a larger geopolitical standoff as Maduro accuses the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and enacting punishing oil sanctions while powerful Venezuela allies China and Russia continue to stand by the president.

On Tuesday, the government-stacked Supreme Court barred Guaido from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts as a probe into his anti-government activities led by Maduro-ally and chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab advances. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton warned that if Guaido is harmed Venezuela will face "serious consequences."

Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation could signal that Maduro's administration is moving to take a more punitive approach in the days ahead.

Speaking at the walkout, Guaido said he wasn't losing any sleep over the probe. "We don't want to leave the country," he said. "We want people to return."

Maduro huddled Wednesday with military troops, prayed with evangelical supporters and released a video urging the American people to rise up against Trump and support him as Venezuela's rightful leader. He said Trump has his eyes on Venezuela's vast oil reserves and warned against any U.S. military intervention.

"We won't allow a Vietnam in Latin America," Maduro said. "If the aim of the United States is to invade, they'll have a Vietnam worse than can be imagined."

Maduro has been overseeing military training exercises broadcast on state television on a near-daily basis over the past week in an apparent attempt to show he still has the backing of the armed forces, whose support is key to either man's claim to the presidency.

In an interview with Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency, Maduro said he was "willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future," an offer he has repeated often but that the opposition is reluctant to accept. He also accused Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia but offered no proof.

The already distressed nation is likely to face even tougher times ahead after the U.S. imposed sanctions Monday on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, potentially depriving the Maduro government of $11 billion in export revenues over the next year.

Maduro called the sanctions "criminal" and vowed to challenge the U.S. in court.

The U.N. human rights office says security forces in Venezuela detained nearly 700 people in just one day of anti-government protests last week and that more than 40 people were killed.
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Photo: BC Gov't Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre

The province is launching a project aimed at reducing the number of overdose deaths by inmates recently released from correctional facilities.

A coroner's death review panel last year found about two-thirds of B.C. residents who died of an illegal drug overdose over a 19-month period had recent contact with the criminal justice system.

The panel said that between January 2016 and the end of July 2017, 333 people died within their first month of release from a correctional facility.

The Health Ministry says in a news release that five new community transition teams have been set up in Surrey, Prince George, Kamloops, Nanaimo, and Port Coquitlam to help people with opioid use disorders get treatment.

The teams consist of a social worker and a peer who has used drugs and may also been incarcerated to work with a person who's been released to help provide needed support.

Lynne Pelletier, with B.C. Mental Health and Substance Use Services, says people in the justice system are some of society's most vulnerable, yet they are the hardest to reach in the current overdose emergency.

"Integrating correctional care with community-based care gives us an opportunity not just to prevent overdose, but also connect to health services and possibly change the trajectory of their lives by addressing some of the social and economic realities that brought them to us in the first place."

Dr. Nader Sharifi, medical director for Correctional Health Services, says about 40 per cent of people in corrections facilities are getting treatment for opioid use disorder.

He says people are at a heightened risk when they leave a facility and don't have access to a physician.

"There are barriers to continuing the treatment they start with us. Clients are facing stigma. They might have no income and no fixed address. It's not as easy as visiting the nearest doctor's office," he says in a news release.

The community transition teams began connecting with their first clients this month. The Provincial Health Services Authority says it hopes to scale up the project next year based on results of the service.
Yes. I will do my part to conserve household energy usage, even if I'm uncomfortable in my home.

No. It is too hot to conserve household energy usage.

I already conserve, even before ERCOT requested it.

Maybe, depending on the reason ERCOT provides and whether or not I am home during that time.

Vote

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Photo: Contributed Mary Margaret Whitehouse

We have an update for you on the "looking for long lost brother" story.

After Castanet posted the story of Mary Margaret Whitehouse' search for her long lost brother Louis who was buried here in Kelowna, Mary received several solid leads from faithful Castanet readers.

"It's just so heartwarming that people I don't even know reached out to offer their help and support," says Whitehouse.

Mary Margaret has been searching for information on her long lost brother since 1961 and the last lead she had was a funeral at Hanson's Funeral Chapels and Crematorium in Kelowna.

After reading Mary's story, a half a dozen individuals reached out with information and offers of help. "I am very interested in local history and I love a good story. I do not know of your brother or his family, however, I would be very happy to help if I can. I am not sure what kind of research you have already done but I would be happy to look at local records if you would like, such as phone books or voter's records for the Okanagan."

Another reader (we have redacted the names to protect their privacy) says, "I have no info for you about James I'm sad to say but your story compelled me to drop you a note because it reminded me so much of my

search a few years ago for my father's family. I suggest if you haven't already done so to contact the Kelowna genealogy society and perhaps there is someone there that can offer the same help finding James for you."

Another reader located the death certificate for Mary Margaret's father who apparently died in Vancouver.

Mary Margaret is coming to Kelowna next fall, and she specifically asked to thank all our readers who have offered to help and opened up their hearts because of her story.

"Thank you Castanet for sharing my story and helping me learn more about my family." - Mary Margaret Whitehouse.
Photo: Marine Mammal Rescue Centre

An emaciated seal pup is on the mend at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre after being rescued by fish farm workers near Campbell River.

The pup, nicknamed Mo, was unable to dive and floating sideways when staff at the Mowi salmon farm alerted Fisheries and Oceans Canada on Monday.

The sickly seal was flown by Pacific Coastal Airlines to Vancouver, where rescue centre staff are caring for it, CTV News reports.

Shes dehydrated and severely underweight, which indicates she is failing to thrive after being weaned, but shes feisty, which is a hopeful sign," said assistant manager Emily Johnson.

The centre hopes to rehabilitate and release Mo back into the wild.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
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Vietnam improves resilience of coastal communities, advances SDGs 1, 10, 11, 13 and 15

by Leila Mead

January 29,2019 | Source: IISD

Viet Nams coastal provinces affirmed their commitment to build more than 1,300 storm-resilient houses and plant or regenerate more than 1,300 hectares of coastal mangroves in 2019 through a project, supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and other partners. These efforts are expected to advance implementation of the SDGs, including SDG 13 (climate action), SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 15 (life on land).



The five-year project, Improving the Resilience of Vulnerable Coastal Communities to Climate Change in Viet Nam, which is being implemented from 2017-2022, seeks to help to protect vulnerable coastal communities from flooding and storms, boost livelihoods, nurture biodiversity, and support a low-carbon, climate-resilient future. By 2022, when the project ends, an estimated 1.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will have been avoided. The project also aims to increase access to enhanced climate risk information and loss and damage data to guide climate-resilient and risk-informed planning in all 28 coastal provinces in Viet Nam, by both the private and public sectors.



During a meeting on 17 January, the project steering committee reviewed the projects 2018 achievements, including the construction of 1,098 resilient homes, the planting and regeneration of nearly 200 hectares of mangroves, and the implementation of training courses on community-based disaster risk management (DRM) for more than 15,000 people.



The project is the first GCF-supported project in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, and has innovated in such areas as monitoring and evaluation and ensuring adherence to gender and social safeguard requirements. The project relies on a USD 29.5 million GCF grant, as well as USD 9.4 million from the Government of Viet Nam and USD 1.6 million from UNDP.

 1990-2019, IISD

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Partnership to push for right fishing in Negros, the Philippines

by Erwin Nicavera

January 30,2019 | Source: PNA

A multi-sectoral partnership is being formed in Negros Island to push for the concept of right fishing, particularly in key biodiversity areas.



The initiative will banner the Fish Right (FR) program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) together with a consortium of partners, mainly to develop southern Negros seas and boost support for fishing communities in the area.



USAID FR for Southern Negros Principal Investigator Ben Malayang, during the executive briefing at Hotel Maefinne here on Tuesday, discussed the idea of right fishing to make the fishing scale sensitive to the limitations of the ability of the fish to replenish themselves.



This was prompted by the recognition of the government that we need to do something with how we fish not just why we fish, he added.



The main intention of the program is to save biodiversity and reverse the trends towards declining fisheries, Malayang added.



He said the partnership wants to address the overall situation, and not just a specific area where biodiversity and fishery are dwindling.



So where the fishery is still very healthy, we would like to make sure that it continues to be healthy, in fact healthier. Where the fisheries are already getting poorer, wed like to change the trajectory of the situation back to becoming better, he added.



To address declining fish catch and lesser people being able to afford fish, and acquire good income from fisheries, the program introduces ways to improve fish-based food and protein security through an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM), including right sizing when catching fish.



Right sizing can be achieved through better policies, better management, more alternative income opportunities for fishers and traders, better education and public awareness on fishery issues and opportunities, and stronger citizens push and pressure for better fisheries.



The southern Negros forms part of the three areas in the country where the FR program is being implemented. The two others are the Visayan Sea and Calamianes Group of Islands in Palawan.



It covers those identified as South Negros Marine Key Biodiversity Area, encompassing the municipal waters from Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental to Cauayan town in Negros Occidental, or a total of 11 localities in the island.



Malayang said the program for southern Negros will focus not only on the fish, but also on the fishers.



It will be an ecosystem approach because we look at both fish and fishers, and the institutional configurations that provide the dynamics between the fishers and the fish, he added.



The FR for Southern Negros also includes a consortium of partners, including fishers, traders, concerned government agencies, private sector like business chambers and cooperatives, civil society organizations, schools, media, and local government units (LGUs).



Under the program, USAID mainly provides the technical needs.



The executive briefing, also participated by Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry led by president Roberto Montelibano and chief executive officer Frank Carbon, and Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry headed by president Francel Martinez, was part of the teams effort to build coalition of partners.



This month, the partnership lab will also conduct media campaigns and science assessments on fishery situation and issues to be followed by the public launching of the program.



The two governors of the Negros provinces are expected to sign a covenant of commitment in the middle of February, along with the signing of partnership agreements by other partners.

 2019 Philippine News Agency

Theme(s): Others.
Progress being made in Thailand to ratify fishing convention practices

January 29,2019 | Source: The Nation

The Labour Minister of Thailand recently met with fisheries-related agencies and representatives of fishermen ahead of Thailands January 30 submission to become the first Asian nation to ratify the C188 Work in Fishing Convention despite protests from some in the industry.



Representatives from 22 coastal provinces met with Minister Pol General Adul Sangsingkeo earlier this month to review laws and to discuss issues raised by the adjustments needed to bring practices in line with C188.



The 11 main points raised:



-- Worker and employer contributions to a compensation fund and guidelines for refunds for workers who quit after less than a years employment;



-- Workers access to health insurance under the Public Health Ministry in addition to private policies as an alternative to Social Security;



-- A clearer definition for the term commercial fishing boat and which fishing vessels would also be subjected to C188 measures;



-- Clarifying the size and types of boats whose workers must be provided housing;



-- Clear criteria on the quantity and quality of drinking water to be supplied to workers;



-- Adherence to an agreement on the time needed to import migrant manpower, which employers consider a burden on them and on the foreign workers;



-- Objections to the Health Ministry collecting fees for employee eyesight and hearing checks beyond the charge for general health checks, and guidelines for patient referrals;



-- Rest time calculated for workers might not reflect working conditions on fishing boats, with some Port In-Port Out (PIPO) control centres reportedly citing the need for 10 consecutive hours;



-- Legal redundancy issues regarding lists of crewmembers;



-- Clearer criteria for staffing levels based on boat size, with mismatches causing some vessels to be refused departure from port;



-- Employers balk at covering expenses for migrants repatriation, especially when the workers are in the wrong.



Three other demands by the fishermen were also considered. They want it made clear what types of vessels would be required to have their condition certified and are concerned about gaining approval for workers of age 16 to serve as trainees. And operators object to having to pay into workers bank accounts rather than paying them in cash or in advance. The requirement is intended to ensure that workers are paid fully and on time.



Other issues involve work standards at PIPO centres, the GPS-based Vessel Monitoring System, and the level of government financial aid to vessel operators.



C188 became a hot topic after the National Legislative Assembly late last year approved the Labour Ministrys decision to ratify the convention designed to ensure workers welfare and safety. Its measures would come into effect one year after ratification.

 2017 by THE NATION

Theme(s): Others.
Fish-drained Senegal to exploit Liberian waters through new agreement with government

January 30,2019 | Source: Front Page Africa

Senegal, a country running out of fish in its waters, has signed a five-year agreement with the Government of Liberia to exploit Liberian territorial waters and in return provide training and support to local fisherman and the fishing industry.



The deal was signed in Dakar, Senegal on January 22, 2019. Ms. Emma Metieh Glassco, Director General of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority signed on behalf of Liberia while Senegals Minister of Fisheries Mr. Oumar Gueye signed for his country.







Liberia and Senegal signed a deal. Liberia allocates 300 fishing licenses (in its own water) for Senegalese fishermen for five years. 200 for artisanal fishing, 100 for semi-industrial fishing. In exchange Senegalese will give advises to Liberia to fight against illegal fishing, Radio France International reported.



The deal allows the Senegalese alone to harvest about 40,000 tons of fish from Liberia a year, FrontPageAfrica has gathered.



The five-year agreement which is also renewable for equal period will grant Senegal greenlight to the exploitation and the management of the marine resources, the enhancement and commercialization of fishery and aquaculture products, fisheries research, preservation of the marine and coastal environment, training and capacity building of human resources, monitoring, control and surveillance of fisheries and safety at sea for artisanal fishermen, among other important measures in Liberia.



According to the Deputy Managing Director of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority, Mr. Augustine M. Manoballah said the Agreement with the Senegalese has not been finalized.



He posted to his Facebook platform: While it is true the Director General of the National fisheries and Aquaculture Authority of Liberia and her counterpart from Senegal have signed the Agreement, the Agreement has to be attested to by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and the Ministry of Justice, which is yet to be done. Secondly, signing of the Agreement doesnt automatically transfer licenses to fishing vessels covered under this Agreement. Fishing vessels owners will have to file their applications in line with domestic and international requirements.



The Agreement is intended to strengthen relations in fisheries and aquaculture between the two countries. The Agreement has a 5-year term with the possibility of renewal. Some of the key areas of cooperation covered in the Agreement are as follow: Exploitation and marketing of living marine resources; Valuation and marketing of fisheries and aquaculture products; Fisheries research; Conservation of the marine and coastal environment; Training and capacity building of human resources; Fishing communities empowerment and development, etc.



He explained that the Agreement will ensure that all Artisanal fishing boats coming from Senegal to fish in Liberian waters will not exceed 100 per year and government will get the needed revenues for the exploitation of the countrys fish resources.



He added: Interestingly, all the fish those 100 artisanal boats will catch during the year, that is if all 100 come, will be landed in Liberia to supply our local market. Our local artisanal fishermen are charged a flat rate of L$10,000.00 a boat per year. Under this Agreement, the artisanal boats from Senegal will be charged a flat rate of US$1,000.00 per boat per year. This will see increase in our fisheries revenues and curtail illegal fishing which is a benefit for the country.



In his attempted to provide more details on the agreement, he further wrote:



For the Semi-Industrial fishing boats, which are largely operated by foreign fishermen, the Agreement provides that each boat will be charge a flat rate of US$1,500.00 per year. Boats of this categories are restricted to fish from the 4 Nautical Miles zone and above of our territorial seas. As a bargain, Semi-Industrial boats under this Agreement are not forced to land their fish catch in Liberia. This doesnt mean they cannot land here. If the facilities are available to allow them to land in Liberia they will be glad to do so. The good news is that the fisheries authority is working with international partners such as Japan, Iceland and the World Bank to ensure we have a functional port that will accommodate those boats and as well allow them process their catches for sale. This will also create jobs as Liberians will be needed to work on those facilities.

 2019 - FrontPageAfrica

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.
FAO, Ministry of Agriculture in joint effort to regulate fishing in Uganda as stakeholders validate Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill 2018

by MAURICE MUHWEZI

January 29,2019 | Source: PML Daily

Uganda will soon have a new Fisheries and Aquaculture law, if the proposed Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill, 2018, is reviewed and approved by Cabinet and the Legislature. The proposed law is a revision of the Fish Act of 2000 Cap 197, which only regulates capture fish and does not address aquaculture activities such as management of commercial fishing, fish selling, post-harvest handling, fish transportation, surveillance and control monitoring of fisheries units as well as fisheries research.



The proposed Bill is part of efforts by MAAIF to provide an enabling policy and regulatory framework to the stakeholders engaged in fisheries and aquaculture activities. The fisheries and aquaculture sub-sectors contribute significantly to Ugandas national economic growth, development as well as food and nutrition. In fact, Uganda has one of the largest fresh water resources in the world and almost 20 percent of its surface area is water. This expansive water resource has supported fisheries sector, enabling both capture and farmed fisheries since the 1920s.



While fisheries contribute 12 percent of agricultural GDP of Uganda and supplies 50 percent of animal proteins consumed in the country, a number of challenges, which seriously affect the economic and social contribution of fisheries and aquaculture, cripple the vibrancy of the sub-sector.



Some of the challenges include overfishing caused by increasing demand due to population growth, use of illegal fishing gear, poor quality of fish seeds, limited access to fish seeds and feeds, as well as continued trade in illegal and unrecorded immature fish hence costing the country about USD 429million in income lost.



These, coupled with weak legal and institutional frameworks are major bottlenecks to the development of favourable fisheries and aquaculture sub-sector in Uganda. The proposed Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill, 2018 will, therefore, help to address some of these challenges and foster sustainable fisheries and aquaculture sub-sector. As part of the review process of the proposed Bill, MAAIF and FAO, through the Food and Nutrition Security Impact, Resilience, Sustainability and Transformation (FIRST) Project, organized a National Validation Workshop of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill, 2018, on Friday 25 January 2019 at Colline Hotel in Mukono.



Participants who include key stakeholder in the sector have reviewed the current version of the draft Bill, validated it and produced a final version of the Draft Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill, 2018, that will subsequently be sent to cabinet for approval.



The validation workshop was held on the backdrop of regional and country-wide consultations that generated views from relevant regional and local government stakeholders, on the proposed Bill.



While officiating at the validation workshop, Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF)- Honorable Vincent Sempijja commended FAO and other stakeholders for prioritizing the fisheries and aquaculture sub-sectors and promoting relevant laws to ensure sustainability.



While the Fish Act, Cap 197, provides for the control of fishing, fish conservation, purchase, sale, marketing, processing of fish, it is now outdated to address current technological advancement and the changed fisheries sector, he said.



He added that The Fisheries and Aquaculture Bill is long awaited in Parliament and should be finalized as soon as possible to facilitate its enactment into law.



Speaking during the workshop, FAO Representative in Uganda, Mr Antonio Querido said that the proposed Bill will help to regulate developments in the fisheries and aquaculture sub-sectors while fostering sustainable and nutritious food production in Uganda.



If not regulated, aquaculture can become a potential risk to the environment such as increased water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Unplanned aquaculture can also lead to competition among other resource users that can degenerate into conflicts, he said.



The proposed law will also help to address post-harvest losses resulting from inadequate fish handling facilities and poor hygiene while also increasing the availability of fish and fisheries products for marketing and consumption, he added.



This bill for an Act entitled the Fisheries and Aquaculture Act, 2018 is to:



Provide for the conservation, capture, farming, rearing, processing and marketing of fish, the licensing and registration of fishing vessels and fishers;

Provide for the control and regulation of all fisheries and aquaculture production activities and practices, the methods of fishing and fishing gear;

Provide an enabling environment for equitable sharing of increased benefits from a more productive fisheries sector;

Allow for fisheries mechanisation;

Provide for the establishment and regulation of lake management organisations and landing site management units;

Consolidate and reform the law relating to fisheries and fisheries products;

Provide for the retention and utilisation of funds by the Directorate of Fisheries Resources.

Overall, improvement in the above areas is expected to cause a positive economic impact on the contribution of the sub-sector but also the sustainability of the benefits such as improved food security, nutrition and employment opportunities.



Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is committed to supporting MAAIF to develop and finalize necessary regulations and standard operating procedures required to adequately operationalize the fisheries and aquaculture policy and law in Uganda.

 2017. PML Daily

Theme(s): Others.
Fisheries agreement to be examined in a plenary session at the EU Parliament in February

January 29,2019 | Source: Yabiladi

The Morocco-EU fisheries agreement, officially signed on January the 15th in Rabat, will be examined in a plenary session at the European Parliament on February the 13th, Fisheries Minister Aziz Akhannouch revealed in a weekly session at the House of Representatives.



The Minister urged MPs to continue their efforts to win another battle in Strasbourg, especially as MEPs voted in favor of the association agreement between Rabat and Brussels. Akhannouch responded, Monday, to six questions on trade relations between Morocco and the European Union.



On January the 23rd, the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries adopted, by a large majority, the Morocco-European Union fisheries agreement.



According to a European parliamentary source in Brussels, the adoption of the agreement by 17 votes in favor, 7 against and 2 abstentions, reflects the position of the majority of the political groups represented at the European Parliament and is a logical continuation of the positive developments in the strategic partnership between Morocco and the EU.

 Yabiladi.com 2002 - 2017

Theme(s): Others.
Photo: The Canadian Press Amy Lawrence, right, helps someone wear a hat as she walks around the downtown bus stop terminal, handing out hand warmers to passengers in Sioux Falls, S.D., Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.

A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures Wednesday, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and prompting the U.S. Postal Service to take the rare step of suspending mail delivery to a wide swath of the region.

Many normal activities shut down and residents huddled inside as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold , including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago, where temperatures plunged to minus 19 degrees (negative 28 degrees Celsius) early Wednesday, breaking the previous record low for the day set in 1966.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

A wind chill of minus 25 (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming "overloaded," Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

"People don't want to be out there right now," said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

Detroit's outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 12 (negative 24 degrees Celsius), with wind chills dropping to minus 35 (negative 37 degrees Celsius).

At least four deaths were linked to the weather system Tuesday, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

A popular saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat ..." will stop the mail from being delivered. But extreme cold will on Wednesday.

The U.S. Postal Service said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of several Midwest states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
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Photo: The Canadian Press An overall view of the city after a winter storm hit St. John's. N.L., on January 5, 2014.

A winter-weary city councillor in St. John's, N.L., is hoping to resurrect an idea that has been tried, tested and mostly abandoned in other Canadian cities: heated sidewalks.

Sandy Hickman has asked city engineers to look at heating a small section of downtown sidewalk that's already scheduled for repair work, as a pilot project.

"We're a snowy city," Hickman says. "It's something we should at least look at."

Hickman was inspired by other cities that made the idea work, saved money on snow-clearing and built a more hospitable downtown in the process.

Holland, Mich., launched its "snowmelt" system in the late 1980s.

The system pumps hot water through a tubing system under city sidewalks, and has since been expanded to cover 600,000 square-feet of the city's pavement.

Since then the town of about 33,000 people has become a "regional running mecca," according to its website, attracting visitors and inspiring nearby towns to try out smaller experiments.

Holland also calls its heating system a money-saver, saying it has reduced slips and falls, requires no snow removal, salt or sand, and has extended pavement life.

Reykjavik, Iceland, heats some of its streets with underground geothermal energy, while other Nordic cities use electric heating.

Despite success stories both near and far, heated sidewalks haven't caught on in the snowy Canadian cities that have considered it, aside from a few small driveways and short paved stretches.

Saskatoon toyed with the idea as part of its plans to redevelop the city core, but officials were not pursuing it as of 2017.

In Montreal, the dream was introduced and then dropped after a change in administration.

The city had announced its plan in 2015. The system was to circulate a mixture of warmed water and glycol warmed by electricity under a 670-metre stretch of Ste. Catherine Street.

But the idea was scrapped due to cost concerns. In December, city officials said they had no current plans to resurrect the previous administration's idea.

Ahmed El-Geneidy, a professor in McGill University's urban planning department, said he's skeptical of heated sidewalks' cost-effectiveness and ability to make Canadian cities more widely accessible.

El-Geneidy said the idea seems too costly for such a small area of sidewalk, and could raise maintenance challenges that would disrupt sidewalk use in the future.

"You cannot do it for every single sidewalk, that would be crazy," El-Geneidy said from Montreal.

"We want people to be active and walking in the entire city, active in the suburbs, active everywhere, so we need to clear the snow everywhere."

El-Geneidy suggested incentives for researchers across Canada to come up with cheaper, environmentally friendly chemical snow-clearing solutions, or investing in more ice-breaking machines to get more of the city cleared faster.

Hickman, though, thinks heated sidewalks could put a dent in the sizable snow-clearing budget in St. John's, which hovers around $15 million per year.
Houston, MO (65483)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.
What Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez started in 1999 as a somewhat promising socialist experiment has turned into a full-blown humanitarian crisis under his successor Nicolas Maduro.

COUNTERPOINT: U.S. intervention only advances corporate interests

Today Venezuelans suffer from hunger, medicine shortages, insecurity and lack of basic services that have forced close to 3 million of them to flee the country since 2014. One million alone have walked, driven or flown to neighboring Colombia, which has taken the brunt of the Venezuelan immigration crisis.

The best hope for this oil-rich nation is new, democratic leadership  and supporting Juan Guaido is the first step.

On Jan. 23, 35-year-old Guaido took the oath of office as Venezuelas interim president, a position nominally held by Maduro. A few weeks earlier, Guaido had become the head of the countrys legislative body, the National Assembly, as part of a power-sharing agreement among Venezuelas fragmented opposition. Before that, he was a congressman largely unknown outside the National Assembly and his state of Vargas, one of Venezuelas poorest.

The United States immediately and rightfully recognized Guaido, as did several other countries, including Canada, regional heavyweights Brazil, Chile and Colombia and most of Latin America. As expected, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua were missing from the Latin American list, but the absence of democratic nations such as Mexico and Uruguay has been a regional disappointment. The latter countries are calling for a credible dialogue, but there have already been too many failed attempts at dialogue.

Given the U.S. history of interventionism in Latin America, Cuban, Russian, Chinese and Venezuelan officials are claiming this support for Guaido is just another instance of American meddling. But the fact of the matter is that Guaidos backers find support in the Venezuelan constitution. Without getting into legal complexities, they point to a part of the legal document that states if theres an absence of a president at the time of the presidential inauguration, the president of the National Assembly becomes the interim president until elections are held within 30 days.

Although it can be argued that the current situation did not strictly fit the mold, Venezuelas governability crisis and lack of separation of powers has brought the country into uncharted territory.

The presidential election held in May 2018 was deeply flawed. Ballot box irregularities, the banning or imprisonment of leading opposition candidates and other abnormalities marred the process. Although Maduro proclaimed himself winner for another term, dozens of countries, including those in the European Union, most of Latin America and the United States, did not recognize his election. Under such circumstances, Maduros term was over at midnight Jan. 9, 2019. The next day, when an elected president would have taken office, there was no legitimate officeholder.

Instead, the only democratically elected branch of government today is the National Assembly, whose members were elected in December 2015 for 5-year terms. Therefore, following the constitution, the leader of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, became the new president.

This strategic move by Guaido and his supporters required courage, given Maduros history of using the military to persecute anyone who opposed his government. So far Maduro has refused to budge and can boast military backing and the support of authoritarian governments in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and a few others.

However, Guaido also has ties with the military. He comes from a military family and is the grandson of a member of the National Guard and of the Navy. In a YouTube video widely circulated through social media, he addressed the military with a compelling and conciliatory message. He expressed understanding for the difficult choices theyve had to make, looking the other way for the current regimes crimes and repressing fellow Venezuelans who protest because they cant feed their families. Guaido firmly stated he is not asking the military for a coup d'etat but to join him in building the countrys future and restore democracy. He also announced the National Assemblys new amnesty law for members of the military and civilians who help restore constitutional order.

While Guaido tries to build support within the military, Venezuelas future remains unclear. For the time being, a standstill seems the most likely outcome. Meanwhile, uncertainty will further hurt the Venezuelan economy and people will continue to suffer.

Proclaiming Guaido as the interim president has been the oppositions boldest move to try to reinstate democracy. If Maduro is so sure of his popularity, he should be willing to hold proper elections and allow international observers to help guarantee the results are free and fair this time.

The European Union gave Maduro until Feb. 3 to call elections or they would recognize Guaido. It is important that more members of the international community join the Latin American, European and other nations in pressuring Maduro to hold elections or support Guaido as president.

As a Costa Rican, a country with no army, known for its deep convictions to peace and human rights and one of the oldest democracies in Latin America, I am proud we have taken a stand backing Guaido to restore democracy in Venezuela. This is no time for neutrality. As former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

De la Garza is the program director of the Latin America Initiative at the Baker Institute.
The Trump administration would have us believe that the crises in Venezuela is simply one of tyranny versus democracy, but the reality is much more complex. Often ignored by the American media is the long history of U.S. relations with Latin America  the foreign policy backyard.

COUNTERPOINT: Venezuelan opposition offers an alternative to crisis

For more than a century, the United States has engaged in numerous interventions in Latin America, many of them through outright violence, destroying democratically elected leaders and replacing them with repressive military dictators. Most notable among these were the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 and Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973. The U.S. intent in those interventions was not to protect or defend democracy but instead to establish, maintain or increase corporate profit by removing leaders who would limit the exploitation of land, people and resources.

The United States has not only supported repressive regimes in the past  in Brazil, Chile and Guatemala  but also in the present. The murderous monarchies of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, still receive robust U.S. support.

This intervention isnt always violent. The United States has also engaged in bloodless political coups to remove democratically-elected presidents such as Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 2004 and Jose Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in 2009 because corporate interests were threatened by their proposed social and economic reforms.

Given the capitalist nature of the U.S. foreign policy, reformist and especially socialist regimes are routinely targeted for political, economic and sometimes even military intervention regardless of whether the governments were established through the ballot or the bullet.

It is through this lens that the crises in Venezuela can best be understood. Im no admirer of the late Hugo Chavez , nor of his militarist mentality and cult of personality. Nevertheless, his administration did finally direct a large portion of Venezuelas enormous petroleum-based wealth to help the poor and destitute by funding education, housing, health and other benefits long denied to them. For decades this wealth had gone only to the elite, who were roundly and fairly defeated in the polls when Chavez won his democratic election. Nevertheless, the George W. Bush administration supported a failed military coup in 2002 that further served to divide the Venezuelan people and harden their resolve.

Under internal and external attacks, media misinformation and harsh economic sanctions and sabotage, the Chavez government became more paranoid and repressive. These problems were compounded by internal mismanagement, which spawned a host of economic hardships, leading to severe shortages of food and medicine and plummeting of oil prices.

This is the climate into which Nicolas Maduro took the reins of power. Whether or not you believe he won in a completely free and fair election, it is important to note the Trump administration routinely supports undemocratic regimes across the globe yet refrains from calling for their overthrow.

More to the point, the Trump administration and its allies have no right to declare who the president of Venezuela is, much less to name their designated choice  National Assembly President Juan Guaido, who did not even run for president or receive a single vote for that office. The United States is entering into volatile territory by supporting a coup in Venezuela, which will inevitably lead to more repression, violence and bloodshed.

There are more alternative means to resolving this crisis. Uruguay, Mexico and the Vatican have pushed for negotiations. Intervention by the U.S. will only make a peaceful resolution more difficult while working to divide Latin America.

Dont be fooled by rhetoric about democracy and liberating the Venezuelan people. The U.S. has its eyes on all those incredible petroleum reserves that are under Venezuelan soil. The Trump administration cares little for the lives of poor and destitute Central Americans seeking asylum. .Are we to believe that Trump really cares about the plight of Venezuelans?

The best way out of this conundrum is through dialogue, yet the Trump administration has refused to enter into negotiations with Maduro despite repeated invitations. The White House seems unilaterally focused on regime change to achieve its objectives and has no intent on pursuing peaceful solutions. We can only hope that the efforts at dialogue are realized and that another struggling Latin American nation can avoid the devastation of civil war brought about by the greed of their own elite and of the United States.

Noboa is a retired assistant professor of social studies from the University of Texas at El Paso now living in Costa Rica.
The tragic killing of Jazmine Barnes, 7, last month thrust the problem of gang violence into the headlines. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo has reassured us that HPD is on the job tracking the activity of gang members through its Gang Violence Task Force, which quickly arrested suspects in this case. Gov. Greg Abbott has weighed in as well, calling for an expansion of state support for local efforts to fight gangs. But more intensive gang suppression policing has rarely proven to be an effective long-term response and has often led to abusive practices and a hardening of gang identities.

The intensified policing of gangs using gang databases, injunctions, enhanced sentences and broad conspiracy charges relies on the same tough-on-crime logic that has driven much of the massive increase in incarceration over the last 40 years. It assumes that deterrence and incapacitation are the only ways to change the behavior of young people and that any young person who engages in almost any kind of violent behavior is a hardened sociopath with no possibility for an alternative future.

California has pursued this punitive approach for many years and has little to show for it. That states law enforcement tried using aggressive street suppression, such as the Los Angeles Police Departments CRASH unit, which was disbanded after officers were accused of widespread brutality, framing suspects and the theft and resale of drugs.

Defense lawyers in Houston now claim that their clients in the Barnes case were improperly interrogated by HPD gang unit officers, despite clear legal guidance, potentially jeopardizing prosecution efforts. Barnes, a second-grader, was shot and killed in Houston while in a car with her family. Two men have been charged with capital murder in the Dec. 30 killing.

Chicago and other areas also use gang databases to aid in identifying gang members and subject them to heightened surveillance, criminal penalties and deportation. In the last few years these databases have come under increased scrutiny for their arbitrary nature. Last year, Portland eliminated its database after a local journalist pressed for information about its contents and use. In 2017, California passed a law requiring that people be notified of their inclusion in a gang database and have the right to request their removal from it. In 2018 local organizations criticized Chicagos database for being arbitrary and racially biased.

HPD claims to have 20,000 people in its gang database, but there is little to no transparency about how the database is populated. Those included in the database arent notified, not even juveniles, and theres no clear way to get out of it.

Similar concerns have been raised about the use of civil injunctions that target people based on their alleged connection to a gang that may or may not be involved in crime. The restrictions on association are often impossible to abide by given their broad prohibitions on associating with known gang members, people on probation or those with previous felony convictions  even family members. Oakland dropped two of its civil injunctions in 2015 after community groups claimed it was ineffective and served to criminalize young people of color.

In 2013, the NYPD began Operation Crew Cut, which involved long-term investigations against suspected gang members in high violence areas. Officers have undertaken dozens of high-profile raids that resulted in the arrests of more than 2,000 young people on state and federal conspiracy charges.

The NYPD claims such raids have helped reduce the number of shootings over the last three years by targeting enforcement actions on the small groups of individuals responsible for a large portion of the remaining gun violence in the low-crime city. But there is little evidence that these raids are working. Crime is down in targeted areas, but crime is also down citywide. There also remain questions about whether these gains will be long lasting. Gang suppression efforts in other parts of the country rarely show long-term success. This is in part because there is always another cohort of young people facing the same insecurities and social conditions who will form similar groups with similar aims.

Instead of doubling down on gang suppression policing, Houston should invest in alternatives. Many cities around the country have embraced community-based strategies for reducing gun violence. Cure Violence sites in New York City use neighborhood violence interrupters, promulgate anti-violence public health messaging, and involve young people in pro-social activities.

The John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center reported last year that neighborhoods with Cure Violence sites had significant crime reductions compared to similar control areas without them.

This evidence shows us that when community-based alternatives are well-funded and well-operated they can make a real difference in reducing violence. While no one program will solve all our violence problems, its time to dial back the criminalization approach and give communities the resources they need to create lasting public safety without relying on mass incarceration.

Alex S. Vitale is a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing.  He is a Houston native and will be speaking at the Shape Center on Thursday, Jan. 31.
Outside the Texas Department of Public Safetys Driver License Megacenter in Leon Valley on Wednesday, a Marine veteran wounded in Iraq changed his 18-month-old sons diaper in the back seat of his truck, answered his wifes phone call on his wrist watch and lamented his two-and-a-half hour wait inside.

Some things simply never change, said an exasperated John Arguijo, 38 and a father of four. In the military you learn to wait, but not like this. They have got to figure this out.

Things have changed with the DPS license renewal ritual  wait times now are much worse, according to a state report, even as the Legislature has pumped more than $400 million into improving customer service at the offices since the 2012 fiscal year.

At the Leon Valley facility, one of nine megacenters across the state, average wait times to get a license have gone from 26 minutes in 2015 to 70 minutes in 2017. Thats one of the worst declines in efficiency but there were similar ones in South Dallas, Fort Worth, Garland and Houstons Gessner location.

We got here at 12:26 p.m., said computer programmer Joseph Rohrbach, seated with his wife, Jean, in their Honda SUV in the Leon Valley parking lot. And we just walked out at 2:34. Getting our (license) plates was a piece of cake compared to this, both in time and energy.

Like others, the Rohrbachs, who just moved back to Texas after 20 years in Colorado, found the DPS employees generally pleasant and efficient but said they believe the entire system needs a managerial overhaul.

Maybe we could be keying in some data while were waiting, said Jean Rohrbach, a retired programmer. Or maybe you should be able to renew your license at a convenience store. Who knows?

This legislative session, as lawmakers seem poised to put even more money into fixes, they are demanding a solution and questioning the commitment of DPS leaders who administer the offices. The recent 2018 report from the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission found the agency siphoned $8 million away from the driver license program between 2012 and 2016 to fund other things, even as driver license offices were chronically understaffed.

Fix the damn thing ... Were not getting better, were getting worse, Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, told agency leaders at a Senate Finance Committee hearing this week. We need you to respond like your job depends on it.

Though the $8 million is a relatively small figure compared to the programs overall budget, the reduction still impacts the struggling program, the report stated. Another $7 million in funds earmarked for the driver license offices went unspent in 2017 to meet a budget cut applied to all state agencies that fiscal year.

The Department of Public Safety is known for its law enforcement role, but one of the agencys main functions is issuing the driver licenses and IDs that are held by more than 80 percent of the states roughly 28.4 million residents.

Wait times at offices and over the phone continue to plague the program. Customers at the nine megacenters waited on average anywhere from 38 to 90 minutes for service in the 2017. Callers were on hold an average of 14 minutes that year, with DPS answering just 20 percent of the 24,400 daily calls, the sunset commission report said.

The DPS has attributed the problems to a lack of resources amid population growth and has asked for more than $400 million in the next two-year state budget to hire more employees and add offices. There are 1,100 customer service stations spread across the states 229 driver license offices, but just 850 employees are staffing them, agency officials told lawmakers.

None of our offices are fully staffed, DPS director Steve McCraw said. Theres no question about it.

The butt of generations of jokes, the beleaguered DMV has been held up as the model of bureaucratic inefficiency, but some states have made progress.

In Connecticut, some regions have seen wait times cut to as little as 20 minutes when drivers are allowed to use self-serve kiosks. In North Carolina, there are nearly 130 privately-owned DMV sites that feature amenities like Wi-Fi, freshly brewed coffee, baked goods and shorter wait times.

The Texas DPS website does offer customers the ability to get in line online in hopes of cutting those wait times, but those interviewed Wednesday in Leon Valley either said they were unaware of the program, found it too cumbersome or were dissatisfied that you couldnt reserve a time to renew a license other than on the day you logged in.

In response to interview requests to get the staffs perspective at the Leon Valley office, DPS regional spokesman Lt. Jason Reyes said, No one is authorized to speak with you at this time. Thats department policy.

The state has spent $443.1 million over the past four budget cycles to improve the driver license program, according to the Legislative Budget Board. Much of the money went to building new megacenters in growing urban areas, including Houston and San Antonio.

Still, 77 of the states driver license offices are tiny, with just one customer service representative, meaning the office closes when that employee is sick or on vacation, according to the sunset commission report.

Agency proposals to shutter inefficient offices and move those resources elsewhere, however, have been resisted by lawmakers. Voter rights groups have also fought office closures, warning they could disenfranchise residents who would need to travel to other counties to get the photo IDs they need to cast a ballot.

The report suggests the Legislature consider moving the driver license program to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, an agency that a majority of other states use to issue driver licenses and IDs.

Whether that idea will gain traction among lawmakers, it is clear theres an appetite for change.

This is one of the few places where everyone in Texas of driver license age and above interacts with their government, said Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, at the hearing. When its this dysfunctional, it doesnt look good on the whole state.

Bruce Selcraig is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read his stories on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | BSelcraig@express-news.net
The 35-day federal government shutdown cost NASA some employees, but Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday it could have been a lot worse.

"It is absolutely true that when we have a shutdown we lose people. That did happen," Bridenstine said during a meeting with employees at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "We did not have a mass exodus. Had this gone longer, that might have happened."

EXPERTS: Government shutdown could drive NASA employees to the private sector

The government reopened Monday for the first time since Dec. 22, when a political battle over funding a border wall caused a budgetary impasse. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders on Friday reached an agreement to reopen the government for three weeks.

The 45-minute meeting was livestreamed on NASA TV, and Bridenstine fielded answers ranging from public perception of NASA to cybersecurity to the possibility of contractor back pay.

'HELPLESS:' About 50 people protest government shutdown at NASA's Johnson Space Center

He did not specify how many federal workers NASA lost nationwide, but said it wasn't a large number. Bettina Inclan, a NASA spokeswoman said "it will take several weeks before we fully understand the impacts of the furlough."

"Once we have more data and information to share, we will communicate, as appropriate," she said.

About 16,700 space agency personnel  or 96 percent of the federal workforce  across the nation were impacted by the shutdown.

"Because of you in this room, NASA still is the best place to work in the federal government," Bridenstine said. "People who work here stay."

There are 3,055 federal employees who work at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the nation's astronaut corps. Only about 200 individuals continued to work during the shutdown, largely to keep the astronauts living on the International Space Station alive.

GLOVES PROVIDED: Unpaid workers at NASA's Houston center asked to clean toilets during shutdown

Space industry experts, however, previously told the Houston Chronicle they were more concerned that workers would leave NASA for jobs in the private sector, which typically pay better, as the duration and frequency of shutdowns increase.

"A lot of people take a salary cut to work at NASA," Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch, a website devoted to space news, previously said. "But when you can't pay the bills and you have to do chores for your landlord for rent, there's nothing worse than having your dream job taken away from you because of this."

RELIEVED? NASA workers wary as shutdown ends -- for now

And they have options. SpaceX and Boeing each are in the process of building spacecraft to carry humans to the International Space Station. Commercial companies have been tapped by NASA to construct unmanned probes destined for the moon. And there's talk of heavy commercial involvement in the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a mini-space station Trump wants to build to orbit the moon.

Bridenstine told employees during the meeting that he will work harder than ever to make sure the American public understands how vital NASA is to everyday life and other agency officials said NASA's cybersecurity held up pretty well during the shutdown.

Federal employees will get their back pay this week, but Bridenstine said contractor back pay would be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the contract.

He said hopes to standardize this process more over time, and asked that federal employees be sensitive and understanding during this time.

"Every contract is different and so we're working through that right now, he said. "In the future, we'd like to standardize that more, but we're working with what we have right now."

Bills have been filed in Congress to provide as much as $1,400 per week to contracted impacted by the shutdown. They have not yet been approved.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
The five police officers who were injured while serving a narcotics warrant on Monday represent the strength of Houston, which has faced repeated adversity over the past few years, Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a news conference on Tuesday.

NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.

Let me also say to you: the city of Houston is still standing, Turner said at Memorial Hermann, where four officers are still recovering. The spirit has not been broken and we are still Houston strong.

Turner thanked Houstonians and other mayors from around the country for the overwhelming support, just minutes after visiting with the officers who remained hospitalized.

Now Playing: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is live at Memorial Hermann Hospital visiting with the police officers who were injured serving last night's drug search warrant. Video: Godofredo Vasquez, Houston Chronicle

One officer, a 54-year-old case agent, was shot in the face and critically injured. Turner met with the officer, who wrote on a pad of paper when he couldn't speak.

He was working up a smile on his face and wanted to communicate, Turner said.

He just wanted to engage," Turner said. "As my mom would say, he has a very strong constitution.

'WE ARE SO SORRY': Family of man killed in drug raid offers prayers for wounded police

Another, a 50-year-old officer, was shot in the face and is expected to be released today. A third officer, also 50, suffered a knee injury and should be released later this week, police said.

Family of the fourth officer, who is in critical but stable condition, asked police not to release any information on his medical status. A fifth officer was released from the hospital on Monday.

We are so very fortunate to have officers of the quality and caliber, chief, that we have, said the mayor, who was flanked by Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. They are strong.

Turner spoke with the mother of one of the recovering officers, and relayed her message.

This is what they do; this is the sacrifice that they make, Turner said. We should all appreciate and value what they do every single day.
Photo: The Canadian Press Stan Lee arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Spider-Man: Homecoming" at the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Among comics lovers, Stan Lee was as much a superhero as the characters he helped create.

Those fans, along with Lee's friends and colleagues, will get to pay their final respects at a Los Angeles memorial Wednesday night for the Marvel Comics mastermind who helped bring the world Spider-Man, Black Panther and The Incredible Hulk.

Filmmaker and Lee super-fan Kevin Smith, actor Mark Hamill and Lee's daughter J.C. Lee will be among those at a public remembrance and celebration at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The evening will include speakers, musical performances, an art exhibit, and costumes and props from Lee's creations and Marvel-movie cameos.

The night is being called, "Excelsior! A Celebration of the Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible & Uncanny Life of Stan Lee."
A Texas lawmaker wants to legalize casino gambling in some Texas counties and use some of the proceeds to provide relief to residents affected by future hurricanes and other storms.

Texas state Rep. Joe Deshotel, DBeaumont, filed the bill in December that would guarantee casino licenses in Harris, Galveston, Jefferson, Nueces and Bexar counties.

Three other licenses would be allotted for other counties along the state's Gulf Coast, according to the bill.

ALSO: Some of the most notable or unique bills filed in the Texas Legislature

The bill aims to place an 18 percent tax on casino revenue, about half of which would be allocated into the catastrophe reserve trust fund.

The bill also creates what Deshotel is calling the catastrophic flooding assistance trust fund, which is where the rest of the taxed revenue would wind up.

That fund would not be subject to the state's budget bill, but legislators would be able to put state money into the fund if they wanted to do so.

Both funds could be used by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to provide emergency relief to flood or wind-damage victims of hurricanes and other severe storms throughout the state.

More Information Casinos in Houston? Texas lawmaker wants to legalize gambling for hurricane relief See More Collapse

Even if the bill passes through the Texas Legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas voters will have a say in whether or not casino gambling will be allowed.

Casino gambling is currently barred by the Texas Constitution. Deshotel also filed a separate resolution asking for a constitutional amendment allowing the bill to take effect if passed.

That amendment, if approved by the legislature, would go to a statewide vote in November 2019.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message
A former Fort Bend substitute teacher, recently captured in Syria as a suspected ISIS combatant, is expected to appear Wednesday before a federal magistrate in Houston.

Warren Christopher Clark, 34, has been indicted on a single charge of trying to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group between 2011 and October 2015. He appeared in court last week, accused of attempting to support the Middle East terrorist organization notorious for posting videos of American journalists being beheaded.
When Elizabeth Ferrari spoke to her brother last week, he seemed fine. The 59-year-old Navy veteran was happy and, it appeared, life was good.

NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message

His neighbors had spotted him out and about walking the dog.

But, generally, he and his wife of 21 years kept to themselves.

They didn't seem like troublemakers.

Then on Monday, both Dennis Tuttle and his wife Rhogena Nicholas were killed in a shoot-out with police during a drug raid gone wrong.

A day later his family offered kind words for the five lawmen wounded in the drug bust.

"We are so sorry that this situation happened," Ferrari said. "My prayer is for the officers and their families."

READ MORE: Acevedo pushes elected officials for gun reform

But at the same time, Ferrari and others who knew the couple started asking questions: Had the quiet, Harding Avenue couple really gotten into heroin?

"I don't buy it at all," Ferrari said. "Not one hot minute."

Now Playing: Warning: This audio captured from Houston Police Department radio traffic may be upsetting to some people. HPD radio traffic from a shooting in Southeast Houston on Monday, Jan. 28, 2019. Police say multiple officers have been shot. This audio has been condensed for time and content. Video: via Broadcastify

The raid started around 5 p.m., when an undercover narcotics officer burst into the house with a shotgun and killed a pit bull that allegedly lunged at him, officials said.

At the same time, Tuttle ran around from the rear of the house with a .357 Magnum revolver and opened fire, hitting one officer in the shoulder.

When the shot lawman collapsed onto a sofa in the living room, a woman - later identified as 58-year-old Nicholas - reached over and allegedly made a move for his weapon, Houston police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday morning at a news conference at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

A backup officer shot at Nicholas and hit her, but the shoot-out continued. In the end, four officers were hit, including a 54-year-old, who officials identified as the case agent who breached the door while the first officers entered the house.

READ MORE: 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured

It's not clear how many shots were fired, or how many officers fired their weapons.

Afterward, authorities recovered marijuana and a white powder - possibly cocaine or fentanyl - along with two 12-gauge shotguns, a 20-gauge shotgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a second rifle. It's not clear whether the couple may have legally owned them, and police didn't specify what quantities of the suspected drugs were recovered.

The whole thing, officials said, came about as the result of an undercover drug sale before the raid. In that instance, police allegedly bought black tar heroin from someone at the home. It's not clear if there were repeated sales or who the alleged seller was, but police said they first learned of the alleged drug den from complaints by neighbors.

Police did not recover any heroin on Monday.

To those who knew the long-time couple, it all came as a shock.

"I can't believe she's dead," Monique Caballero, a friend of the couple, said, as she sobbed on the phone. "They were private people. They stayed at home. They loved their dogs; they loved their animals."

UPDATE: Acevedo says one injured officer is 'in a fight' for survival

She'd never gotten any indication the couple did or sold drugs, and forcefully questioned the official narrative.

"I cannot believe this; she's not like that. " Caballero said. "She's not a drug addict or dealer."

Instead, she said, officers killed "innocent people."

Other friends and relatives offered similar disbelief.

Nicholas grew up in Mississippi, and later moved to Texas where she got married in 1990. Her first husband, Bennie Valites, said Tuesday that he hadn't seen her in roughly a decade, but he had never known her to use drugs.

After the two separated, Nicholas remarried in 1998, this time to Tuttle. She only had one prior arrest in Harris County - a misdemeanor charge for a bad check. She paid restitution for the $100, and a judge tossed the case, court records show.

Tuttle doesn't appear to have any local criminal history at all, and his sister said he'd been honorably discharged from the Navy.

He took prescription pills for injuries stemming from his time in the service, but there was no indication of any hard drug use, Ferrari said.

"My brother was a fine human being," she said. "He was a kind human, it's just a sad, sad situation."

keri.blakinger@chron.com
This years regular session of the Texas Legislature is off to a surprisingly smooth start.

And state Rep. Diego Bernal, a Democrat from San Antonio who serves as vice chairman of the House Committee on Public Education, is actually excited about this session.

Over breakfast in San Antonio this weekend, Bernal explained that he sees regular sessions of the Texas Legislature as an opportunity to do some good for his constituents and for the state as a whole.

That probably sounds naive, but its worth noting that Bernal is not new to the Texas Capitol. A former San Antonio city councilman, he has served in the Texas House since 2015.

In other words, Bernal remembers the 85th Legislature in 2017 in vivid detail. He also remembers that Gov. Greg Abbott decided to call a special session that year in response to the Legislatures failure to pass a bathroom bill.

Still, he told me, theres reason to think things will be different this time around.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Bonnen is an excellent choice to succeed Texas House Speaker Joe Straus

As evidence, he cited House Speaker Dennis Bonnens decision to appoint state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso as speaker pro tempore of the Texas House.

Thats honestly the best thing that could have happened, Bernal said.

Since Bonnen is a Republican, and Moody is a Democrat, the decision is one that raised some hopes on the left and some eyebrows on the right.

But Bernal wasnt speaking as a partisan. He was speaking as a member of the Texas House who hopes to do some good.

Joe Moody being speaker pro tem tells us that the work is valued, he said.

Thats a good point. Moody is seen by his colleagues as substantive and serious-minded.

And Bonnens decision to put Moody in a leadership position is worth highlighting during a week like this one.

On HoustonChronicle.com: In Angleton, Dennis Bonnen is not a celebrity but a friend

Theres been a lot of news over the past few days. Little of it has been good.

And it would be easier for us all to grapple with the bad news if we were assured that our local, state and federal leaders were committed to working on behalf of the Americans they represent  and to working with each other as part of the process.

Bonnens decision to elevate Moody should give Texans some measure of confidence that such things are still possible.

Moody is relatively obscure, in addition to being a member of the minority party. And his new role in the Texas House is ceremonial, in a sense: the speaker pro tempore presides over the chamber in the speakers absence and oversees the Local and Consent calendars.

But from Moodys perspective, theres more to it than that.

I think it is a position of responsibility in maintaining the dignity of the House, maintaining the civility, Moody said on Monday, when I caught up with him on the floor of the House in Austin.

Thats a serious responsibility, he said, given how the chambers dignity and civility have been frayed, of late.

Over the last few sessions, this institution has been disrespected by some people on the floor, Moody said. It was always something that ate away at me.

It bothered Bonnen, too, he said.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texans should hope for the best for the 2019 legislative session

Despite being from different parties, Moody and Bonnen have a few things in common, it turns out.

Bonnen was 24 years old when he won his first term as a state representative, and Moody was 27. They both grew up, in a sense, on the floor of the Texas House and are committed to the well-being of the institution.

To that end, theyre both committed to the fairness of the process by which policy is made in Texas, even if they disagree about the policy itself.

Those goals are easy to share, Moody said. Theyre not always easy to achieve, but theyre easy to share.

He said he got to know Bonnen during the 2015 session, when they worked closely together on a major border security bill. At the time, Bonnen was speaker pro tempore and Moody was a legislator from the minority party who happened to be serving on the House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety.

Still, Bonnen and Moody were able to work together and, along the way, they earned each others confidence.

I respect him. I trust him. He is someone who will always tell you what he means, and he will mean exactly what he says, Moody said. His leadership and his philosophy and his view on things in terms of how this body should conduct itself is exactly what we need right now, not just in Texas politics but in national politics.

The same could be said of Moody.

erica.grieder@chron.com
CARACAS, Venezuela -Venezuelans took to the streets for lunch hour protests on Wednesday, forming pockets of resistance outside military bases and on main streets across the country as the opposition movement seeks to force embattled President Nicolas Maduro to hand over power to an interim government.

Juan Guaido, who declared himself Venezuela's interim president last week and won backing from most Western governments, convened the protest and appeared as the demonstrations were wrapping up in Caracas' Central University.

"Let's keep protesting," he told the crowd of students, doctors, and nurses. "Let's keep taking the streets.

Maduro has sought to neutralize Guaido by ordering him not to leave the country and freezing his assets. The government has also responded to his challenge by cracking down on rebellious neighborhoods, trying to preserve an autocratic, socialist-style system increasingly imperiled by deep unpopularity and foreign pressure.

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, seemed undeterred on Wednesday.

"At this moment I'm not worried about the prohibition to leave the country. What worries me is that Venezuelans are able to come back to the country," Guaido told reporters that were covering the protest. "We have the backing of Trump and many European leaders...I'm willing to do anything that is necessary for humanitarian aid to come in."

The protests Wednesday were far smaller than the massive outpouring over the weekend and the government repression in recent days may have discouraged a broader attendance.

Over the past week, 35 people have died in protests - most shot by security forces as they took part in late night pot-banging demonstrations in slums, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict. More than 800 people have been detained, according to the legal aid group Foro Penal.

In past protests, it's been common for security forces to fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds. That didn't happen on Wednesday and some analysts saw that as the result of the more cautious approach by Maduro.

"I think participation was good. To repress now is a risk for the government," said Felix Seijas, a political analyst and head of the Delphos polling agency.

A larger protest is planned for this Saturday.

The Trump administration is leading an international campaign to drive the leftist Venezuelan leader from power, embracing Guaido's arguments that Maduro began a second term after an election riddled with fraud and years of authoritarian rule that have plunged this oil-rich country into an economic and humanitarian catastrophe.

Maduro has relied on the support of the powerful armed forces to stay in office, and on Wednesday, he attended military exercises in the morning. As the protests were starting, state television reported the launch of a new government social program to improve public spaces.

"We want to construct a more beautiful Venezuela," Maduro said in a nationwide address announcing the program.

Maduro and his supporters have waved away the European Union's demand that Maduro accept presidential elections by this weekend or the E.U. will recognize Guaido as president.

One of Maduro's most prominent supporters, Diosdado Cabello, said in a speech Wednesday that the only elections the government is considering are for National Assembly, currently the only opposition-controlled body in Venezuela.

"Militia members, members of the police and the armed forces, wherever we have to mobilize to defend the homeland, we will," Cabello said.

In Caracas, where supplies of food, medicine and electrical power have shriveled in the past few years, residents expressed frustration with the government, but some were wary about joining protests because of possible violence.

Outside the Jose Manuel de los Rios Hospital in northwest Caracas, about 100 employees filled the street, chanting and waving signs, as dozens of police officers looked on.

"I'm here because I'm in a hospital where my patients are dying. We have nothing," said 26-year-old radiology technician Haberlyn Mejia. "I hope there's a profound change in my country. We need it urgently."

The crowd shouted, "Families and patients, the people are present."

In the western commercial area of La Candelaria, dozens of demonstrators gathered in the street and urged others to join. "People, listen, join this fight," they shouted, holding signs that read "Humanitarian aid now." Maduro has rejected most offers of international food and medical aid.

Rafael Tafuro, 65, a carpenter who was waiting for the subway in eastern Caracas on Wednesday morning, said that "of course" he would take part in the demonstrations.

"Do you think what we're living isn't enough?" he said. "I protest because of everything. I haven't had work in a year. I'm a carpenter. Materials are way too expensive, and no one has money to pay for my services."

But Lasmick Valverde, a 19-year-old accounting student, said he would not join the demonstrations. "I'm too scared something will happen to me," he said. "I support what they're doing, but I don't like protests."

Earlier Wednesday, Maduro issued a new offer of dialogue to the opposition while warning the American people that intervening in his country could create a new Vietnam-style quagmire.

Guaido did not respond to the dialogue offer, the latest effort by Maduro to open talks with the opposition. The offer was immediately praised by Russia and drew a tweet from President Trump, who said it came after increased U.S. pressure on the Venezuelan government and economy. The reactions highlighted how the fight for power in the South American country has taken on the overtones of a superpower rivalry.

Trump for the first time spoke directly to Guaido in a phone call Wednesday, expressing his "strong support for Venezuela's fight to regain its democracy," according to a White House statement.

In an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that aired Wednesday, Maduro said he has sent letters to the governments of Bolivia, Mexico, Russia and Uruguay to involve them in a new process of dialogue with the opposition.

At the same time, he issued a video message directed at the American people, asserting that the Trump administration is trying to carry out a coup d'etat in Venezuela that he said would be disastrous.

The United States wants "to put their hands on our oil like they did in Iraq, like they did in Libya," Maduro added.

"I ask for the support of the people of the United States so that there is not a new Vietnam," he said in the video posted on Facebook.

Russia, which has been Maduro's most vocal international supporter and is a major investor in Venezuela, praised his willingness to negotiate with the U.S.-backed opposition.

"The fact that President Maduro is open to dialogue with the opposition deserves high praise," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a phone call.

In an early morning tweet soon after, Trump seemed to suggest that Maduro's offer of dialogue was prompted by "U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenue." He said a "massive protest" was expected Wednesday.

The Venezuelan Journalists Union reported Wednesday that two French journalists and their Venezuelan producer were detained a day earlier and were in custody at the presidential palace in central Caracas.

On Tuesday evening, four journalists - two Venezuelans and two Chileans - were also detained. They were picked up near the presidential palace, where they were covering a small pro-government demonstration.

The Venezuelans were released 10 hours later. The Chileans, Rodrigo Perez and Gonzalo Barhona of TVN, were also released and were waiting to be deported on an evening flight.

The detentions come as the government is increasingly intimidating journalists and warning radio stations not to transmit opposition rallies or speeches.

Authorities intensified pressure on the opposition Tuesday with a request by the chief prosecutor to freeze Guaido's assets and bar him from leaving the country. The request was later ratified by the loyalist Supreme Court pending a full investigation. The move stopped short of a detention order - something the Trump administration has strongly warned against.

Speaking at the National Assembly, Guaido dismissed the move as "nothing new under the sun." The United States strongly criticized the chief prosecutor's effort.

"Let me reiterate - there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," White House national security adviser John Bolton wrote on Twitter.

The United States on Monday targeted the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), which is a major contributor to Venezuela's economy. The U.S. move freezes $7 billion in U.S.-based assets and blocks more than $11 billion in revenue that Venezuela would receive from oil sales next year through its U.S.-based company, Citgo, which owns three refineries in the United States and employs thousands of workers.

In his interview Wednesday with Russian media, Maduro said the decision violates international law.

"It is an unlawful decision in a bid to expropriate a Venezuelan asset, a Venezuelan company," he said.

The Treasury Department said the money would go to a fund that a transitional government headed by Guaido could eventually access.

- - -

Krygier reported from Miami. The Washington Post's William Branigin, Anne Gearan, Paul Sonne and Joshua Partlow contributed from Washington. The Post's Amie Ferris-Rotman contributed from Moscow and The Post's Paul Schemm from Addis Ababa.

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Video: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro released a video Jan. 30, accusing the Trump administration of trying to stage a coup d'etat in Venezuela. (Nicolas Maduro/Facebook) https://wapo.st/2sSutF6

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State officials on Tuesday told voter registrars in several Texas counties that some of the nearly 100,000 names on a list of potentially ineligible voters should not have been included because they are U.S. citizens.

Cheryl Johnson, Galveston county's tax assessor-collector, said her county started sending letters Monday asking people on the list to verify their citizenship. But on Tuesday, Johnson said, the Texas secretary of state's office notified her that some on on the list had been verified as citizens.

"We managed to retrieve the second batch of letters that we were going to mail today," said Johnson. "The ones we sent yesterday, we're going to go back and check those."

Johnson said 837 Galveston County voters were flagged by the state, and her office sent letters to a little over 85 of them on Monday with plans to mail more on subsequent days. The letters ask that the recipients provide a U.S. passport, birth certificate or citizenship papers to her office within 30 days, she said. Those who fail to do so could be dropped from voter rolls.

Based on the source code that was given to her by the secretary of state's office, she said her office was able to pull 37 letters they planned to mail out on Tuesday. They were still planning to send out 50 letters to registered voters in the area.

"We're not going to infringe on anybody's right to be a registered voter," said Johnson on Tuesday. "What we are trying to do is ensure the integrity of the voter roll for all citizens of Texas and all the citizens and voters in my county."

In Fort Bend County, John Oldham, elections administrator, said roughly 8,035 voters in his county were flagged by the Secretary of State's office. But in a call Tuesday morning, Oldham said, his office was advised not to send letters to those on the list "until you review a little more."

The secretary of state's office explained, Oldham said, that some voters went to the Texas Department of Public Safety to submit voter registration applications after a specified date "so they should not be on the list."

Oldham said his office had not sent letters to any voters yet and would thoroughly review each flagged voter's record before doing so.

Voter registration officials in Harris, Travis, Collin and Williamson Counties got similar calls Tuesday from the secretary of state's office, the Texas Tribune reported.

The secretary of state's office, in a statement, said it was in touch with local counties "to assist them in verifying eligibility of Texas voters. This is to ensure that any registered voters who provided proof of citizenship at the time they registered to vote will not be required to provide proof of citizenship as part of the counties' examination."

In Galveston, Johnson said it's not out of the ordinary to check voters' citizenship status. Voter registrars get monthly lists of jury summonses with information that some residents can't serve on a jury because they're non-citizens or they moved out of the county, she said.

"I do not believe any of this would've affected the outcome of an election in Galveston County, but that would remain to be seen," said Johnson.

In Harris County, officials said they would research more before sending out letters inquiring about citizenship to those on their list.

"We are going to proceed very carefully," said Douglas Ray, a special assistant county attorney in Harris County who specializes in election issues.

As the process unfolds, civil rights groups say the state could be violating federal law. The League of United Latin American Citizens filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking for the state to release their data that claims 95,000 registered voters are not U.S. citizens.
While the federal government partially shut down for more than a month, the members of Clear Lake United Methodist Church stepped up.

The church did what sanctuaries have done for centuries, providing shelter, in this case during stormy financial times triggered by the 35-day shutdown.

This is a safety net, senior pastor Rev. Charles Anderson said.

The church has earmarked up to $150,000 of its reserves for members who were impacted. Each household may request a grant of up to $1,500 by showing proof of costs incurred during the furlough period.

Its a significant part of our reserves, Anderson said. But we wanted to make a significant statement. Were here for you.

He said that as the government shutdown continued, he could see the effects in his congregation.

It became more and more defined by the faces and people we were interacting with at church, he said. We saw it up close and personal.

Since NASA is a major employer in Clear Lake, a number of congregants were affected by the shutdown, Anderson said. He added that while 3,000 NASA civil servants worked without pay, more than 10,000 in the area were hit by the furlough.

Anderson explained that there are tiers of individuals affected  from high-level professionals to custodial or mechanical workers.

Those third tier jobs tend to have a lower salary, he said. And a $1,500 grant could be the difference between not making it and making it.

A number of government contractors will not get back pay, he added.

In the meantime, bills and mortgages dont stop, Anderson said.

Anderson proposed the idea to the churchs leadership council.

I simply felt like we cannot ask people to give sacrificially to the church if the church wasnt prepared to give to them, he said. Sacrifice means giving up something you love for something you love more. Were giving up our financial security for something we love more  the people in our church.

After the leadership council voted unanimously to support the project, and an e-blast went out to all church members.

Kanika Douglas serves on the leadership council. I thought it was an amazing idea, she said. Its awesome that the church wants to get involved and help support the members. It really touched my heart.

Her husband has served in the Coast Guard for the past 15 years, and she knows firsthand what the furlough can mean to a family.

Hes not getting paid with the shutdown, Douglas said in February. We didnt think it was going to last for so long. Hes still going to work, and we still have to pay for daycare. I know how this affects our family  in ways you wouldnt expect.

Even when church members brought her family a meal, it made a difference, she added.

These little things that people do help in a time like this, Douglas said. When the entire church is involved, it can be an even greater blessing. I thank God that Clear Lake United Methodist took this on and became a resource for people in need. Hopefully it will motivate other churches to do the same.

Grant requests are screened by the churchs business office. Households impacted by the government furlough may apply online at www.clearlakemethodist.org//relief or email finance@clearlakemethodist.org for information.
Photo: The Canadian Press NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson celebrates with Premier John Horgan after winning Nanaimo byelection.

The New Democrats won a key provincial byelection in British Columbia on Wednesday that allows Premier John Horgan's minority government to maintain its grip on power.

With the win, the NDP has 41 seats in the legisature but holds power with the support of three Green party members in the house.

The Liberals have 42 seats and there is one Independent, who serves as legislature Speaker.

With about 75 per cent of ballot boxes counted, New Democrat Sheila Malcolmson had an almost 1,000 vote lead over B.C. Liberal Tony Harris.

Malcolmson had just under 49 per cent of the votes cast in the six-candidate field, while Harris had almost 41 per cent.

Nanaimo traditionally votes NDP, but Harris has deep family roots in the Vancouver Island city and campaigned to bring economic development and infrastructure to the often neglected community.

Malcolmson resigned her seat in the House of Commons to run in the byelection, saying she wants to ensure the policies of the former B.C. Liberal government do not return because they increased homelessness and the cost of housing in the city.

Green candidate Michele Ney, the daughter of longtime Nanaimo mayor Frank Ney, campaigned on making the city a clean economy powerhouse.

Ney was drawing just over seven per cent of the vote in the early going, below the almost 20 per cent the party received in the last provincial election.

The byelection was called when New Democrat Leonard Krog resigned last year after he was elected the city's mayor.

There are 45,359 voters in the Nanaimo riding and Elections BC says 9,322 voters turned out at the advanced polls.
Dan Gilroys debut film, the disturbing Nightcrawler, was an absolute knockout of a calling card featuring a central performance from Jake Gyllenhaal as an amoral videographer that radiated with sinister ambition.

For his followup, Velvet Buzzsaw, airing on Netflix beginning Friday, Gilroy once again calls on Gyllenhaal though this time the director has fashioned a film around him thats more explicitly a horror movie, though one set in the art world and with its tongue firmly, if playfully, in cheek. Its I Know What You Did Last Summer with a better cast and an MFA degree.

Gyllenhaal is Morf Vandewilt (yes, seriously), a haughty, bespectacled art critic prone to making such pronouncements as Isnt it exhilarating to see something substantial other than celebrity tattoo artists and balloons for painting tools? When viewers first meet him, hes in the maelstrom of Miami Beachs Art Basel, one of Americas premier art fairs, though little there impresses him.

But back in Los Angeles, Josephina (Zawe Ashton), a woman with whom hes having a flirtation and an art-world wannabe who works for sharp-tongued art dealer Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo), has made a discovery thats about to turn the art world upside down. Vetril Dease (whats up with these names?), a loner elderly neighbor in her building has passed away, leaving behind a treasure trove of the startlingly original art he has created. She takes possession of it and, with some help from Rhodora, turns Dease into the Next Big Thing.

Velvet Buzzsaw Rated R: (bloody violence, strong language, a sex scene) Running time: 102 minutes Playing on Netflix beginning Friday ***1/2 (out of 5) See More Collapse

Everyone from a painter with painters block (John Malkovich) to a pretentious art adviser (Toni Collette), a grasping gallery owner (Tom Sturridge) to a struggling artist (Daveed Diggs) wants a piece of Dease. As Bryson (Billy Magnussen), an artist whose day job is lifting and hauling for Rhodora, explains of his Dease fascination, I do more than maintenance and packing. Im not just a man of primitive skills. This (stuff) speaks to me.

Of course, the catch is that Deases spirit apparently is none too pleased with all the greed and envy his work unleashes. And when his art starts taking revenge, thats when the bodies start dropping.

Certainly, Velvet Buzzsaw doesnt have much new to say about the big-league art industry and its attendant air-kiss pretensions and shallow intellectualism, or horror films and their roll call of grisly deaths. And coming after the more unique Nightcrawler, Velvet Buzzsaw is a bit of a comedown.

Yet Gilroy, working from his script, seems to be having a good time as are the actors who chew the scenery just enough to have a hint of campiness without overdoing it. It makes for a diverting viewing experience though if you really want to feel a chill down the spine, watch Nightcrawler again instead.
Mark Stolaroff is coming home  at least for a little while.

The Los Angeles-based indie movie producer with deep Houston roots  he co-founded a theater company here that staged a play called The Outrageous Mr. Houston  is hosting a public screening of his latest film, DriverX, starring Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul) and directed by Henry Barrial, at the AMC Houston 8 on Feb. 7. He wants his hometown to be able to see DriverX on the big screen as the distributor, IFC Films, only opened the movie  which is available everywhere to view through video-on-demand  in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles.

Stolaroff, 54, whose resume as a producer includes the troubled-young-man saga Manic (2001) starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel and Don Cheadle, and the horror-thriller Devils Whisper (2017) starring Luca Oriel from Shameless, felt that the subject matter would resonate with a lot of his old buddies from his Memorial High School days. Fabian plays Leonard, a fiftysomething music fan who finds himself in a life crisis when the record store he owns goes under, forcing him to become a house-husband and a driver for a ride-share startup called DriverX.

The difference is that this film is really a film that my friends would actually like, my old friends from high school, Stolaroff says by phone from Los Angeles. Because it really speaks to a group of people who are over 50. Not a lot of material does that these days. It (also) coincides with our 35th reunion, which we werent having. But we had a really big 30th reunion. So I said  let me screen the movie and we will try to make it an unofficial 35th reunion.

Planning a party

Its a reunion that members of the public can take part in as well since the $20 ticket includes a pre-party at Birraporettis downtown and a Q&A session with Stolaroff and Fabian after the movie.

The event is something he has been planning for a while. It was kind of a dream of mine for two or three years while we were making the movie, he says. So once the holidays were over, I decided Ill rent a theater, and come back to my hometown and screen the movie myself.

Though Stolaroff has made his home in Hollywood for more than two decades, Houston is more than just the city he calls a birthplace. After studying both business and film at University of Texas Austin and working as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch in New York City, he returned to Houston in the late 80s and finally decided to indulge his interest in the arts.

Making Houston a movie

DriverX When: 7 p.m. Feb. 7 Where: AMC Houston 8, 510 Texas Ave., Houston Details: $20; includes pre-screening mixer at 6 p.m., Q&A with star Patrick Fabian and producer Mark Stolaroff, and after-party at Birraporetti's Downtown; www.eventbrite.com See More Collapse

He co-founded the long-gone Curtains Theater on Washington Ave., a venue for such stage productions as The Outrageous Mr. Houston.

We tried to do as many local plays by local playwrights (as possible), that was our whole mission, to create a Houston theater audience, he says.

By creating works about Houston, we felt like that was the way to do it. That first play, The Outrageous Mr. Houston, which became our second most successful play probably of anything we did there, was that show, he continues. It was a funny show about Houston that took digs at Dallas. If you were from Houston, no one was making movies or doing anything about Houston. You didnt really know what you had in common with your neighbor. That show where youre laughing together at jokes about Houston, it binds an audience.

Ultimately though, the siren song of Hollywood lured Stolaroff where he started off working his way up the creative ladder as a production assistant. Now, hed like to return to Houston occasionally to work, maybe even dust off and update The Outrageous Mr. Houston as a film.

Its something Ive thought about it because my connection to Houston never really went away, he says. Im not a Rams fan. Im not a Dodgers fan. I saw the Astros play the Dodgers in the World Series.

I was by myself  and I showed up with my (Astros) shirt on, he continues. People were saying things, but they were pretty funny.

cary.darling@chron.com
Exxon Mobil said Tuesday it plans to triple its oil and gas production in West Texas' booming Permian Basin as part of its heightened emphasis on U.S. growth.

The country's largest energy company said it aims to increase its Permian production to 600,000 barrels a day by 2025 and spend more than $2 billion on terminal, pipeline and other transportation upgrades in West Texas, including expanding its crude oil terminal in Wink.

Exxon Mobil is beginning to break out specifics of its spending plans after announcing Monday that it wants to invest $50 billion in the U.S. during the next five years, in part because of extra financial benefits gained from the new U.S. tax law.

Last year, Exxon Mobil agreed to spend up to $6.6 billion to buy the Permian holdings of Fort Worth's Bass family, an acquisition that more than doubled Exxon's acreage in the prolific shale fields.

Through the Bass deal and other smaller ones, Exxon Mobil said it has doubled its rate of its horizontal well drilling while cutting the costs by 70 percent. Exxon said its combined development and production costs in the Permian are less than $15 a barrel.

Crude settled in New York Tuesday at $64.50 a barrel, down $1.06.

While the world biggest oil companies were slow to jump on board the U.S. shale revolution, Exxon Mobil and Chevron now rank among the largest Permian players in terms of acreage. Exxon Mobil made its big moves through its 2010 acquisition of the shale driller XTO Energy for more than $30 billion and the Bass deal. California-based Chevron, which already had substantial Permian holdings, acquired an additional 250,000 acres in 2012 from the Chesapeake Energy, an Oklahoma oil and gas company that announced the layoffs of about 400 employees Tuesday.

Also in 2012, Royal Dutch Shell acquired about 600,000 acres in the Permian from Chesapeake, which was developing them in a joint venture with Anadarko Petroleum of The Woodlands.

For Exxon Mobil, the increased production and transportation improvements will help feed Exxon Mobil's expanding refineries and petrochemical plants in Baytown, Mont Belvieu, Beaumont and Baton Rouge, La., with much of the oil and natural gas liquids they need to churn out fuels and plastics.

"With this production growth, we are well positioned to maximize value as increased supply moves from the Permian to our Gulf Coast refineries and chemical facilities where higher-demand, higher-value products will be manufactured," said Sara Ortwein, president of XTO Energy.

Exxon Mobil is planning to spend about $20 billion on refining, petrochemical and liquefied natural gas growth along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Much of that work is being completed now, while some projects are awaiting the final go-ahead.
Americans are still waiting for President Donald Trumps tax cuts to spur investment and hiring, but sadly, they will be disappointed.

Executives at four out of five companies say the tax cuts did not change their plans, according to a survey by the straight-laced National Association of Business Economists. And there is no indication spending or hiring will pick up in 2019.

After a year of robust capital spending, business investment has cooled a bit, and expectations for the next three months slackened similarly, said NABE President Kevin Swift, who is also chief economist at the American Chemistry Council. A large majority of respondents  84 percent  indicate that one year after its passage, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans.

On HoustonChronicle.com: We may be talking our way into a recession

Chief financial officers and economists at 106 companies said that while they do not expect a recession in 2019, neither do they expect robust economic growth. Half report slowing sales, and a quarter expect lower profit margins.

Materials input costs are rising at respondents firms, especially goods-producing firms, said Sam Kyei, who led the survey for NABE. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents report shortages of skilled labor at their firms and the current tight labor market conditions continue to push firms to raise wages, increase training, and consider additional automation.

Since NABE members expect the U.S. economy to grow only 2 percent in 2019, none of the companies plan extraordinary investment or hiring this year. The sugar rush created by Trumps $1.5 trillion tax cut has worn off.

The NABE report is consistent with every other analysis of the Trump tax cuts. The decision to cut the nominal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent boosted profits and benefited wealthy shareholders, but it also added trillions to the federal deficit while doing little for middle-class Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office said the tax cuts would add about 0.3 percent to annual GDP growth. But last week White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the government shutdown will likely shave 0.6 percent off GDP growth for 2019.

Meanwhile, executives spent $1 trillion in tax savings on stock buybacks, according to investment bank Goldman Sachs. The purchases not only drove up stock prices for shareholders, but boosted stock options for the executives who authorized the purchases. Management teams spent nearly another $1 trillion on higher stock dividends.

What did not significantly change was capital expenditures on new factories or equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Analysts at Merrill Lynch call it The investment boom that wasnt.

More disappointment awaits 80 percent of American taxpayers who will see no reduction in their income taxes, according to Brookings, a Washington think tank. But the wealthiest Americans will enjoy a 20 percent income tax cut, the elimination of the estate and alternative minimum taxes and new tax breaks for private school tuition.

On HoustonChronicle.com: GDP is a lousy way to measure economic progress

To pay for this, were pushing the tab on to our grandchildren who will see publicly-held debt rising from $16.1 trillion today to $28.7 trillion in 2029. The Congressional Budget Office reported Monday that debt as a percentage of gross domestic product will increase from 78 percent this year to 93 percent in 2029 under the current law.

CBOs annual report is a reminder that the situation is getting worse, not better, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Lawmakers need to stop the digging, but even that will keep debt growing. They should come up with a plan now while the economy is strong to put our debt on a downward path and phase it in to avoid the much more disruptive choices that procrastination will bring.

When Trump was elected, I mistakenly did not include the federal debt as one of my key performance indicators for his annual report card. After all, as a reader reminded me, Trump said he could eliminate the federal debt in eight years. Instead, the president is using the tried-and-true strategy of borrow and spend to juice the economy.

I will repeat for the umpteenth time that governments should focus less on cutting taxes and more on providing the services that businesses need to build a thriving economy. High-quality roads and bridges, a highly skilled workforce and reasonable regulations do far more to spur commerce than borrowing money to pay for tax cuts.

Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

chris.tomlinson@chron.com

twitter.com/cltomlinson
A plant expansion underway at Exxon Mobil's Beaumont refinery is expected to boost its crude refining capacity by two-thirds and make it one of the nation's largest refineries, the company announced Tuesday.

The project is expected to create up to 1,850 temporary jobs during construction and between 40 and 60 permanent high-paying jobs once the unit under construction starts up sometime in 2022.

"With access to terminals, railways, pipelines and waterways nearby, the Beaumont refinery is strategically positioned to benefit from Permian production growth," Bryan Milton, president of Exxon Mobil Fuels and Lubricants, said in a statement. "The addition of a third crude unit in Beaumont will enhance the refinery's competitive position and truly establish it as a leader in the U.S. refining industry."

Ashley Alemayehu, a public affairs manager for the Beaumont area, confirmed in a follow-up interview that the permanent jobs would be comparable to existing positions in the company.

"Full-time manufacturing jobs across the U.S. Gulf Coast are mostly high-skilled and high-paying and have average annual salaries ranging from $75,000 to $125,000," Alemayehu said in an email.

The third crude unit is planned to increase light crude oil refining as larger amounts of crude oil production is expected from the Permian Basin. The company has said this type of fuel will become an important investment as federal restrictions on emissions increase.

The company said in September that it plans to triple its production of oil and gas from the basin by 2025, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Boosting production capacity by 250,000 barrels per day, as expected, would increase the Beaumont refinery's daily capacity to 615,644 barrels. For comparison's sake, Motiva's Port Arthur refinery, the nation's largest, has a current daily capacity of 603,000 barrels.

> > RELATED: Exxon Mobil finishes one phase of massive Beaumont expansion

Exxon Mobil did not confirm the price of the expansion on Tuesday, but it is part of a $20 billion-plus initiative it calls "Growing the Gulf." In September, Exxon Mobil finished construction and started up a new unit at its Beaumont plant that produces another 45,000 barrels a day of ultra-low sulfur gasoline and diesel fuels aimed at meeting increased federal standards.

It also plans to complete construction of a new plastics plant at the Beaumont hub sometime this year.

In 2016, the Beaumont Independent School District made an agreement with the company for tax abatements to encourage future expansions. BISD will get $22 million in payments over a 10-year period, beginning in the 2019-2020 school year in lieu of taxes on the expansion property between now and then.

The company currently employs around 2,100 employees in the Beaumont area.

When Exxon Mobil started its first round of expansions, it reached out to local companies to register for projects. Alemayehu said more than 160 local businesses have registered using Exxon Mobil's online project portal.

"Hiring locally is mutually beneficial to both Southeast Texas residents and ExxonMobil," Alemayehu said in an email. "For every 100 skilled laborers hired locally, ExxonMobil could save more than $3 million a year in per diem costs that would otherwise be paid to out-of-town workers. This amount does not include the additional premiums imposed for an in-demand craft such as welding and instrumentation."
Juelz Santana was supposed to head to prison today to check-in for his 27-month bid. The rapper managed to push back his surrender date by a month after pleading with the judge to allow him to film a "Tyler Perry Reunion" in Atlanta in February. While the judge granted Juelz the month delay, Perry has reportedly denied any involvement in a reunion special with the Dipset MC.



Brad Barket/Getty Images

Sources close to The Blast are making it clear that Tyler Perry isn't doing a reunion special with Juelz Santana. The rapper claimed that he needed to travel to Atlanta in mid-February in order to film a "Tyler Perry Reunion."

Juelz might not be working with Tyler Perry directly, he wasn't lying entirely. He will need to travel to Atlanta to film "Love & Hip Hop: New York" at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. However, that's the extent of Perry's connection to the rapper. Sources close to Perry are dumbfounded as to why Juelz Santana decided to include the "Madea" star's name in his plea for the extension.

In his petition for the delay of his surrender date, the document reads, "Mr. James seeks to attend the filming of a Tyler Perry reunion in Georgia. connected to his participation in the television show Love & Hip Hop. It is crucial to his professional career that he be able to participate, and it will provide closure for him as he embarks on his term of imprisonment."
Earlier today, it was reported that Empire actor Jussie Smolett was the target of a suspected hate crime, leaving him with a fractured rib. The actor was assaulted in Chicago by two white men, who proceeded to put a noose around his neck, douse him with bleach, and deem him an intruder of "MAGA country." While Smollett has yet to openly address the traumatic ordeal, many have already spoken in his defense, offering their support, prayers, and kindness. As it happens, T.I., the de-facto voice of the people, was particularly shaken by the incident. Taking to Instagram, he proceeded to unleash fire and brimstone upon the country at large, calling for unity in the face of increasingly troubled times.

"Its a Disgusting Fuckking shame we continue to allow this shit to happen to OUR PEOPLE with no recourse!!!!" he writes. "THE HITS WONT STOP UNTIL WE HIT BACK!!!! Revolution is imminent... Laws of reciprocity say so... Prayers are great... But when Im wronged... get up off your knees and RIDE for ME!!!!! Be strong & Stay solid. We here for you Bro"

Police are still looking for the two men responsible. As for T.I, one has to wonder if he'll emerge as a leader of the revolution, should it eventually transpire. He certainly has the qualities one might look for - charismatic, passionate, and ruthless when need be. Do you feel he's speaking facts, or simply inciting further violence? Sound off below, and send your positive vibes to Jussie Smollett.
Photo: CTV News

Vancouver Police have made an arrest in a weekend homicide.

Alvaro Julio Roche-Garcia, 58, has been charged with first-degree in the death of Zenen Cepeda Silva on Saturday.

Just before midnight, police responded to a 911 call about a shooting near Fraser Street and East 51st Avenue.

Silva was found suffering from gunshot injuries and was pronounced dead after being rushed to hospital.

The death is Vancouvers second homicide of 2019.

Garcia remains in custody.
Soulja Boy screeching Drake's name will live on as one of the funniest moments on The Breakfast Club. The clip of him yelling "DRAAAAAAAKE?!" turned into a viral meme that managed to work its way onto Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment. The SNL cast clowned parodied Big Draco's appearance on the Breakfast Club last week. While he was upset by all the rappers that made him viral for his "TYGAA?!" meme, he praised the cast of Saturday Night Live for parodying him.

In the skit, Redd nails his impression of Big Draco as Michael Che asks him his thoughts on Donald Trump. Trump? TRUMP?! The dude that got bodied by the popular vote? Redd responded.

Speaking to Variety, Soulja Boy spoke nothing short of praise for Chris Redd who took on the role of Soulja Boy -- Gucci headband and all. That s was dope, he said. I loved it! It was amazing. I made it to Saturday Night Live without actually having to be there physically!

Soulja Boy added that he appreciated that the cast threw out the idea of running for president in 2020.

They made that up on they own. I never said nothin about running for president, but I like the skit a lot though. It was nice," he said.

In other Soulja Boy/Drake-related news, new reports claim that the two have some new music on the way. When we'll hear it remains a mystery but we haven't heard the two on wax since "We Made it."
A slew of bad news came through this week, which included the hospitalization of Empire star Jussie Smollett. Reports detailed how two assailants attacked the actor with rope and bleach while hurling racial and homophobic slurs at him. A public outcry followed. Most messages were focused on wishing a full recovery for Smollett and a great number of these also highlighted the pertinence of the continued fights for social issues relating to marginalized communities.

Lizzo offered a fiery response to how the incident was reported. According to the entertainer, the headlines circulating about the subject seemed to question the validity of the term "hate crime," potentially reducing the gravity of the perpetrators' actions. She shared one penned by TMZ which read, "'Empire' Star Jussie Smollett Hospitalized After Possible Homophobic Attack" as an example of the issue.



Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

"Keep your f*cking 'possible' to yourself," she wrote in capitalized letters, "When White people commit crimes they're innocent until proven guilty. F*ck That. Honestly, I'm ready to ride out for #JUSSIEGANG Let's whoop they ass I'll show you what's 'possible' b*tch."

Some of those who commented under her tweet pointed out that publications need to use such language until certain facts are confirmed. While this is true, the formulation of headlines often differs depending on the identities of both the victims and offenders. For example, using a term like "apparent" instead of "possible," would have been a mindful way to include reasonable doubt while also validating why the details in Jussie Smollett's case point to a hate crime.
While Kanye West has been teasing a potential run for president in 2024, his wife Kim Kardashian is engaging herself in the political realm as well. Kim has been known to speak up on issues revolving around criminal justice and criminal justice reform. She even met with President Donald Trump last year to talk about prisoner Alice Marie Johnson, who President Trump eventually granted clemency to, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This past Monday, Kim got even more involved in the crusade for criminal justice reform, by visiting the California Capitol to visit with lawmakers and discuss the "Free The Vote Act."

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the "Free The Vote Act" would allow 48,000 parolees to vote in the 2020 election, if the bill is ultimately ratified. This would be a huge development, and Kardashian spoke with politicians on both sides of the aisle, democrat and republican, to come to a solution.

"Had a great day at the California Capital today discussing criminal justice reform," Kardashian wrote on Twitter.

Kevin McCarthy, California state assemblyman was the one who introduced the amendment on Monday and took a selfie with Kim. It's clear some of the politicians were excited to have someone as high-profile as Kim amongst them discussing a topic that can truly change lives.

What do you think of Kim's foray into the political game?
Messages of support for Jussie Smollett have been circulating ever since his hospitalization caused by a brutal attack. Kevin Hart is one of many public figures who have sent their good wishes to the actor but his statement was criticized by some parts of the virtual community.

The comedian addressed Smollett's predicament while commenting on the awful nature of bigotry. "Sending prayers your way @jussiesmollett," Hart began. "This is unbelievably sad. Why are we going backwards....this is disgusting." His insights continued on Instagram. "I will forever choose love and I will continue to teach my kids how to do the same," he stated in a tribute to Jussie. "Stand strong brother."

As previously reported, the Empire actor was attacked in an apparent hate crime during which two assailants used rope and bleach against him. Racial and homophobic slurs are also said to have been spewed during the incident. Given the belief that Smollett was targetted for being gay and Black, Kevin Hart's expression was thrown back into his face by social media users. The homophobic tweets that resurfaced followed by his refusal to actually offer an apology for them have caused some people to perceived his words as disingenuous. He had, after all, made violence against gay men the punchline to a joke.

Later, the entertainer returned to keep propagating his message of love. "Operation spread love is in full effect damn it. I don't condone or believe in hate, in fact, I despise it. Hate makes me sick to my stomach...It's pointless," he offered. "Cowards & weak individuals embrace it. I choose love...I love all of you. I challenge the rest of the world 2 do the same."
Since the outset, Joe Budden has never been one to shy away from a skirmish. As a formidable lyricist in his own right, the Jersey City MC has a history of being prepared to tussle with anyone: from hip-hops commercial heavyweights to lesser MCs that could have been unworthy of a riposte. Whether it was Saigon or Drake, Jay-Z, Lil B or G-Unit, no one has played the antagonist as well as Budden. Despite renouncing his status as an artist to become a full-time media personality in recent years his gravitational pull towards beef hasn't lessened-- the antagonist narrative lives on.

From his position as a cultural commentator for Spotify and Revolt, Joe has continued to gain the ire of old heads and the new breed alike. While he may not be crafting wordplay-laden bars, his notoriously barbed tongue and uncensored outlook has still led to squabbles with former Shady Records boss Eminem, Chance The Rapper, Russ, Lil Yachty and Migos in recent years. Through all of the ensuing smoke thats come his way, Budden has remained steadfast in his claim that hes retired; seceding from the old days where hed mount up on a beat to settle scores, instead, entertaining diatribes on his podcast. Despite each controversy that hes taken in his stride, there's one unresolved issue that seems to have stirred something in Budden, and that is, the dangling carrot of battling CyHi The Prynce.

Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for VEVO

Unexpected as it may have been, this issue wasnt sparked by subs on a high-profile single but some throwaway bars in a freestyle. Flanked by Deante Hitchcock, Naj Murph and Tate228, the Stone Mountain MC uncorked a series of rhymes that put conflict firmly on the agenda:

I think that I shouldve been in Slaughterhouse/ Leave you with a rib-eye tryna clown me/ Boy, I knock the legs off a cow just to ground beef/ So call Backpack or Smack and tell em set it up/ And anyone who wanna bring a half a mil, we can bet it up. Rather than keeping it on wax, CyHi reiterated his willingness to place 500k on the line and claimed that he would end his rap and podcast career.

In days bygone, this wouldve been enough for Joe to jump in the booth with malicious intent but his initial response was far more reserved. As opposed to leaping into fight-or-flight mode, Budden calmly pointed out the futility of calling out rapper Joe when the issue falls under the remit of his media counterpart. However, this calm and collected exterior soon proved to be more penetrable than it appeared. Largely spurred on by his podcast co-hosts Rory & Mal, what began as comical jabs led to Joe erupting in trademark incendiary fashion:

"CyHi don't want no f****g Joe Budden smoke, When Joe get some time and if he put a record out, that would be the end of him. The only n***a who wants smoke with Joe is Lil B, that's it. All these other n****s... I don't give a fuck what you talking 'bout, n***a.

In the aftermath, Cyhi chalked the rant up as evidence of Budden being shook and it is a statement that seems to hold some weight. As to why Joe may find this particular feud to be so irksome, one plausible hypothesis arose during the podcast discussions. During his combative rebuke of CyHi as any potential threat, Budden's co-hosts proceeded to play devil's advocate, expressing reasonable doubt in his skillset. Budden posed: what would happen if CyHi exchanged bars with his former Slaughterhouse cohort, Royce Da 5'9"? To his incredulity, his co-hosts dismissed the possibility that CyHi was on Royce's level, in a way that insinuated there were lightyears between Joe and his former ally.

Michael Buckner/Getty Images

To that end, why would the same man that barely lifted his head to acknowledge Lil Yachty and Migos Ice Tray-- "If a n***a hatin call him Joe Budden (Pussy!)"-- and claimed disses from Eminem didnt merit a response, react so viscerally to the notion that he could not overcome Cyhi? The answer could reside in the fact that he sees parallels between his own career and his younger foes journey.

Despite coming up in different eras, the stark similarities between the two make for compelling evidence. For starters, the early stage of their careers saw both artists hailed as stars-in-waiting. In Buddens case, his acquisition by Def Jam came complete with the mantle of carrying on the labels tradition for the next ten years and this premonition seemed to be coming true when his eponymous debut arrived. From club-optimized bangers such as Pump It Up and Focus to the contemplation of Walk With Me and 10 Minutes, his penmanship and adaptability as an MC marked Joey as tailor-made for the intersection between the streets and the charts. Three years on from being the toast of his dream label, Joe was on the outs with Def Jam and had left a shelved album, titled The Growth, in his wake. From there, Budden would exact his vision and develop his emotionally raw style on the Mood Muzik mixtape series and subsequent studio projects.

For CyHi, his road to Def Jam and Kanye Wests G.O.O.D Music imprint was accelerated by a lofty co-sign from Mrs. Carter herself. Informed that you have to sign him by Beyonce, Ye heeded her words and put pen to paper, but it was far from an easy ride that followed suit. Following a stellar outing on So Appalled from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, where Cy proved he could hold his own with Jay, Pusha & RZA, it seemed as though the stars were aligning for the Georgia exports ascent. Much like Joe, this prospective greatness was kept under wraps at the behest of his label, only allowing for the occasional feature to emerge through official channels. In the same vein as his Jersey counterpart, CyHi took matters into his own hands and delivered a stream of mixtapes that highlighted his formidable talent, including the Royal Flush and Black Hystori Project series respectively.

By 2015, CyHi was released from Def Jam and sought his revenge on Kanye, Pusha and everyone that had bypassed him with the diss track Elephant In The Room. Later recanted as an Em and Dr Dre-esque ribbing between mentor and mentee, the ferocity and candidness of the bars bore resemblance to Joe Buddens Def Jam Diss in which he took aim at his employers and then-label head Lyor Cohen for stalling on his second record. Much like The Growth, Cyhi also has an album thats collecting dust in the form of L.I.O.N, and it would be two more years before his long-awaited debut No Dope On Sundays would emerge. An acclaimed if still under-the-radar release, the rapper has since teased a follow-up, set for arrival next month. While every fan of high-caliber lyricism is hoping this is the case, it is hard to take this proposed roll-out at face value when so many prospective release dates have never materialized over the course of his career.

Joe Budden, in his mind, has often been overlooked, overshadowed and hampered by the industry and those in his camp. Whether or not CyHi is cognizant of it, his time as an artist has been subject to a similar mix of reverence and rejection. When their creativity was stifled by labels, they rallied against the industry bureaucracy. When they were mismanaged by figureheads, they took it to the booth rather than burying it,and when everything else had been taken from them, their talents as MCs remained the one constant. Ultimately, this may be the reason why lyrical warfare with CyHi is so enticing to Budden, in a way that trifling with another rapper simply isnt. Budden left behind a blueprint for how to navigate through raps choppiest waters and create your own buzz, one that CyHi has-- likely unconsciously-- emulated.

For both of these artists, money and notoriety may have still found either, but it was self-expression and articulation of their stories that kept them involved in hip-hop at their lowest ebb. Now that Budden has been provoked by a genuine contemporary, he could feel the need to re-assert his abilities in a way that Quavo or Takeoff couldnt force him to. Whether or not an MCs net worth exceeds his is of little concern, what he couldnt abide by is if theyre perceived as lyrically and artistically superior, and thats why Cyhi is in prime position to make him grab the mic. Due to all of their jarring similarities and the potential for Buddens creativity to be re-ignited, lets hope the two decide to settle this on wax and not relegate this generational warfare to a pipe dream.
Cardi B's level of political engagement hasn't gone unnoticed by the powers that be in the Democratic caucus. Members of Iowa's Democratic party have invited Cardi B to participate in an upcoming speaking convention since she is conjointly scheduled to perform a concert in the Des Moines area in the month of May.

According to the Polk County Democrats' Twitter page, Cardi B has been invited to pass before their membership base at a "reception of her choice" whilst she's in town for the Wells Fargo concert. The Polk County Democrats have successfully enlisted other high-profile "political speakers" in the very same capacity: names like House of Representative's Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attorney Kalama Harris, New York State Assembly member Grace Meng, and many more.

As far as Cardi B's non-political dealings in the Des Moines, state officials are over the moon at the BX rapper's decision to bestow the Iowian people with an event of this magnitude. "We probably won't get another opportunity like this in the next calendar year," Wells Fargo Arena general manager Chris Connolly told the Des Moines Register. Polk County chair Sean Bagniewski told CNN that Cardi B has yet to confirm or decline her invitation. The speaking engagement, if accepted, would certainly be the first of its kind for either party.
Hyatt to expand its brand portfolio in California, Oregon and Washington by nearly 45 percent

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) today announced that Hyatt expects 40 new hotels to open in California, Oregon and Washington by the end of 2021, fueling Hyatts regional brand growth by nearly 45 percent. The new executed properties  under management and franchise agreements  will join 89 Hyatt-branded hotels that are currently open and operating in California, Oregon and Washington.

The West Coast is a priority for developers due to business demand from several strong markets in cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Seattle. Further reasons to support Hyatts strategy to focus on West Coast growth includes corporate and leisure travelers from Asia, where Hyatt has strong brand name recognition.

The West Coast U.S. is a primary area of focus for Hyatt, and we see enormous potential to grow our portfolio of brands in this region, said Jim Chu, global head of development and owner relations, Hyatt. Todays announcement further demonstrates the overall strength and resonance of Hyatt-branded hotels with developers, owners and guests.

Most notably, new West Coast properties include Hyatt House San Jose/Cupertino (March 2019) to be located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the 350-room Grand Hyatt at SFO (Summer 2019) which will be the only hotel on airport grounds, the 600-room Hyatt Regency Portland at Oregon Convention Center (Early 2020) and Thompson Hollywood (Early 2020). These will complement the recently opened Hyatt Regency Seattle, the largest hotel in the Pacific Northwest, per number of rooms (1,260) and meeting space (103,000 square feet).

Complete list of new West Coast U.S. properties:

Park Hyatt

Park Hyatt hotels provide discerning, affluent business and leisure guests with elegant and luxurious accommodations. Each Park Hyatt hotel is custom designed to combine sophistication with distinctive regional character.

Park Hyatt Los Angeles at Oceanwide Plaza (Calif.), 184 guestrooms, 2020

Park Hyatt Los Angeles Residences at Oceanwide Plaza (Calif.), 164 residences, 2020

Grand Hyatt

Grand Hyatt hotels celebrate the iconic in small details and magnificent moments, providing sophisticated business and leisure travelers with elegant accommodations, extraordinary restaurants, bars, spas and fitness centers, as well as comprehensive business and meeting facilities.

Grand Hyatt at SFO (San Francisco, Calif.), 351 guestrooms, Summer 2019

Andaz

Andaz hotels draw upon surrounding neighborhoods to craft distinctively local experiences, fully immersing guests in each inspiring destination through unique expressions of local culture. Andaz hotels are designed to reflect their surroundings and feature an innovative service model that creates a barrier-free and non-traditional environment.

Andaz Palm Springs (Calif.), 150 guestrooms, Fall 2019

The Unbound Collection by Hyatt

The Unbound Collection by Hyatt brand is designed to provide a portfolio of unconventional upper-upscale and luxury properties ranging from historic urban gems to contemporary new build hotels, boutique properties, and resorts. Each hotel is one-of-a-kind and offers story-worthy and extraordinary experiences for our guests.

A hotel within The Unbound Collection by Hyatt brand, located in Hollywood, Calif., 64 guestrooms, Late 2019

Destination Hotels

Destination Hotels is a collection of more than 40 upscale and luxury independent hotels, resorts and residences across North America. Serving as both the explorer and the guide, Destination hotels ensure a sense of genuine belonging and the chance to encounter life-enhancing discoveries.

A hotel within the Destination Hotels brand, located in Oceanside, Calif., 226 guestrooms, Q4 2020

Hyatt Regency

The Hyatt Regency brand prides itself on connecting travelers to who and what matters most to them. Conveniently located in urban and resort locations in more than 30 countries around the world, Hyatt Regency hotels serve as the go-to gathering space for every occasion, offering a one-stop experience that puts everything guests need right at their fingertips.

Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center (Ore.), 600 guestrooms, Early 2020

Thompson Hotels

Founded in 2001, Thompson Hotels is an award-winning international hospitality brand that delivers a new take on modern luxury at the refined edge of travel. Each location offers a stunning, carefully layered and dynamic urban or resort setting that molds into the surrounding community.

Thompson Hollywood (Calif.), 190 guestrooms, Early 2020

Hyatt Centric

Hyatt Centric hotels are full service lifestyle hotels located in prime destinations that are created for millennial-minded guests who view their hotel as more than a place to stay. Hyatt Centric hotels help guests discover the worlds most compelling destinations like an in-the-know local.

Hyatt Centric Mountain View (Calif.), 168 guestrooms, Spring 2019

Hyatt Centric Korea Town Los Angeles (Calif.), 310 guestrooms, Fall 2021

Hyatt Centric Downtown Sacramento (Calif.), 172 guestrooms, Fall 2020

Hyatt Centric Downtown Portland (Ore.), 215 guestrooms, January 2020

Hyatt House

Hyatt House hotels are designed to welcome guests as extended stay residents. Apartment-style suites with fully equipped kitchens and separate living areas remind guests of the conveniences of home.

Hyatt House San Jose/Cupertino (Calif.) 148 guestrooms, March 2019

Hyatt House San Jose Airport (Calif.) 165 guestrooms, April 2019

Hyatt House LAX (Los Angeles, Calif.), 129 guestrooms, February 2020

Hyatt House Davis (Calif.) 118 guestrooms, July 2020

Hyatt House Los Angeles USC Medical Campus (Calif.), 200 guestrooms, August 2020

Hyatt House Sacramento Airport - North Natomas (Calif.), 92 guestrooms, November 2020

Hyatt House Pomona (Calif.), 100 guestrooms, November 2020

Hyatt House Livermore (Calif.), 130 guestrooms, March 2021

Hyatt House Seatac Airport (Seattle, Wash.), 139 guestrooms, April 2021

Hyatt Place

Hyatt Place hotels offer a modern, comfortable and seamless experience, combining style and innovation to create a casual hotel environment for today's multi-tasking traveler. From the lobby to the guest rooms to in-hotel dining, every touchpoint is designed with the high value business traveler in mind.

Hyatt Place San Jose Airport (Calif.) 190 guestrooms, March 2019

Hyatt Place Santa Barbara (Calif.), 88 guestrooms, April 2019

Hyatt Place Fresno, California (Calif.), 126 guestrooms, April 2019

Hyatt Place Vacaville California (Calif.), 136 guestrooms, July 2019

Hyatt Place Bakersfield (Calif.), 120 guestrooms, September 2019

Hyatt Place LAX (Los Angeles, Calif.), 272 guestrooms, February 2020

Hyatt Place Sacramento Airport  North Natomas (Calif.), 109 guestrooms, November 2020

Hyatt Place Pomona (Calif.), 115 guestrooms, November 2020

Hyatt Place Sunnyvale (Calif.), 90 guestrooms, January 2021

Hyatt Place Hayward (Calif.), 119 guestrooms, January 2021

Hyatt Place Paso Robles (Calif.), 131 guestrooms, February 2021

Hyatt Place Livermore (Calif.), 90 guestrooms, March 2021

Hyatt Place San Carlos (Calif.), 103 guestrooms, March 2021

Hyatt Place SeaTac Airport (Seattle, Wash.), 237 guestrooms, April 2021

Hyatt Place Vancouver Washington (Wash.), 113 guestrooms, September 2020

Hyatt Place Portland - Pearl District (Ore.), 176 guestrooms, November 2020

Joie de Vivre

Since its founding in San Francisco in 1987, the Joie de Vivre brand has made curating playful travel through local connections and eclectic experiences its signature. Each Joie de Vivre hotel is an original concept designed to reflect its neighborhood.

A hotel within the Joie de Vivre brand, located in Oceanside, Calif., 161 guestrooms, Q4 2020

El Capitan, a Joie de Vivre Hotel (Merced, Calif.), 114 guestrooms, Q1 2020

tommie

tommie is a carefully edited hotel and gathering place that inspires guests to author their own experiences. By focusing on the essentials and providing fun, relevant choices, the tommie brand offers a fresh lens for the youthful and open-minded to explore, connect and discover.

tommie Hollywood (Calif.), 212 guestrooms, Q1 2020

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Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) yesterday announced Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, the second Hyatt Place hotel in Alberta, and the ninth Hyatt-branded hotel in Canada, is officially open.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) yesterday announced Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, the second Hyatt Place hotel in Alberta, and the ninth Hyatt-branded hotel in Canada, is officially open. The new hotel features the Hyatt Place brands intuitive, innovative design, upscale-casual atmosphere and practical amenities, such as free Wi-Fi and 24-hour food offerings.

Nestled in the heart of the Calgary Airport business sector, Hyatt Place Calgary Airport allows guests to exit the terminal, hop aboard the free airport shuttle and arrive at the hotel within five minutes, making the hotel the perfect destination for both business and leisure travelers staying near the airport.

As Calgary continues to grow and thrive economically, we are so excited to add to the momentum by welcoming the Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, said Director of Sales and Marketing Jenna Lambert. With social spaces and guestrooms designed with the travelers needs in mind, this new property really brings something fresh and innovative to the Northeast sector of the city.

Hyatt Place Calgary Airport offers:

127 spacious guestrooms and suites with separate spaces to sleep, work and play, as well as a Cozy Corner sofa-sleeper.

Free Wi-Fi throughout hotel and guestrooms

Gallery Kitchen Breakfast , a hot breakfast available daily in the Gallery Kitchen features hot breakfast items, fresh fruit, steel cut oatmeal, Greek yogurt, and more.

24/7 Gallery Menu & Market serves freshly prepared meals anytime, day or night and perfectly packaged sandwiches and salads

Coffee to Cocktails Bar featuring specialty coffees and premium beers, as well as wines and cocktails.

Odds & Ends program for forgotten items that guests can buy, borrow or enjoy for free.

Meetings Spaces offering just over 3,000 square feet of flexible, high-tech meeting/function space

24-hour Gym featuring cardio equipment with LCD touchscreens and free ear buds

Calgary is a vibrant city, filled with amazing people, great neighborhoods, and an ever-expanding list of fantastic places to visit and things to see, said General Manager Lisa Wigg. Our hotel is central to all of them and we are confident that the Hyatt Place Calgary Airport will exceed guest expectations and provide them with everything they need while visiting our area.

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Best Western Plus Executive Residency Ascension Hotel Debuts in Gonzales, Louisiana

Best Western Hotels & Resorts announced yesterday the debut of the Best Western Plus Executive Residency Ascension Hotel, located at 2815 W Highway 30 in Gonzales, Louisiana.The newly built dual-branded property features 44 Executive Residency by Best Western guestrooms and 38 Best Western Plus guestrooms, each complete with upscale sleeping and bath amenities, providing guests with the best in rest and relaxation. The hotel's common areas are also thoughtfully designed with impressive design elements including sleek contemporary furnishings, attractive lighting elements and pops of color.

Guests who are looking to spend some down time at the hotel can enjoy a drink at the hotel's on-site cocktail lounge, grab a snack at the sundry shop, swim in the outdoor pool, work up a sweat in the 24-hour fitness center or relax on the outside patio - which includes a barbeque area for outdoor grilling, perfect for connecting with friends and family while taking in the fresh air.

"Best Western Plus Executive Residency Ascension Hotel is an exceptional addition to our growing portfolio of dual-branded hotels," said Ron Pohl, Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Best Western Hotels & Resorts. "This hotel brings two of our revered brands under one roof to provide travelers with the best in short term stays and extended stays while visiting the local area."

Conveniently located near I-10 on Highway 30, the property offers travelers easy access to local businesses such as BASF, CB&I, Motiva, Westlake and Shell, as well as leisure attractions such as the Tanger Outlet Mall and Cabela's along with local and chain restaurants such as Mike Anderson's Seafood, Don's Seafood, Pot & Paddle Jambalaya Kitchen, Cracker Barrel & Chili's Grill & Bar.

"We are excited to open our doors to welcome guests and provide the high standards of customer service that the esteemed Best Western brand is trusted for," said Bob Harrison, general manager, Best Western Plus Executive Residency Ascension Hotel. "Our team of dedicated staff is committed to creating memorable stays for guests by bridging the best of the local area with everything Best Western's dual-branded concept has to offer."

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Performance

30 January 2019

Good news: U.S. hotels continue to make money. Year-over-year GOPPAR growth of 1.5 percent in December contributed to a 3.4-percent annual increase in profit for hotels in the U.S., according to data from HotStats tracking full-service hotels. It was the third consecutive year of GOPPAR growth, following YOY increases of 3.7 percent in 2016 and 3.0 percent in 2017.

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December GOPPAR of $71.41 was the lowest level for the year and 37.1-percent lower than 2018's total of $97.87. Still, revenue centers were up across the board, including Rooms (up 2.4 percent), Food & Beverage (up 3.3 percent) and Conference & Banqueting (up 5.1 percent), on a per-available-room basis.

As a result of the movement in revenues, TRevPAR growth for the month was recorded at 2.6 percent YOY at $225.56, which was approximately $33.50 below the full-year figure of $259.10, a 2.9-percent increase over the year prior.

Despite the increases, profit levels were impacted by rising costs, including a 1.1-percentage-point increase in labor to 38.2 percent, as well as a 0.7-percentage-point increase in overheads, which grew to 25.4 percent for the month.

The movement in revenue and costs meant profit conversion at hotels in the U.S. in December was recorded at 31.7 percent of total revenue, which is below the YTD figure of 37.8 percent.

Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - U.S. (in USD)

December 2018 v. December 2017

RevPAR: +2.0% to $132.26

TRevPAR: +2.6% to $225.56

Payroll: +1.1 pts. to 38.2%

GOPPAR: +1.5% to $71.41

Following the trend of 2018, room occupancy levels remained challenged in December and fell by 0.7 percentage points YOY to 65.6 percent, which was the lowest volume level for the year.

However, a 2.0-percent increase in RevPAR was abetted by a 3.0-percent increase in achieved average room rate, which grew to $201.64 for the month and marked the 12th consecutive monthly increase in this measure.

"Through challenging economic conditions and political instability, the U.S. hotel industry has once again demonstrated its resilience," said David Eisen, Director of Hotel Intelligence & Customer Solutions at HotStats. "Owners and operators hope the positive performance in 2018 will carry through 2019, despite macro concerns and worries over expenses."

Hotels in San Diego were amongst the best performing in December, recording a 41.8-percent YOY increase in profit per room, which hit $86.44 for the month. The growth contributed to the 5.8-percent YOY increase for the year, which grew to $144.52.

The increase in profit at hotels in the city was driven by a massive 26.5-percent YOY increase in RevPAR to $137.02, as room occupancy soared by 5.7 percentage points to 75.7 percent, coupled with a 16.9-percent increase in achieved average room rate to $180.95.

RevPAR growth was driven by the significant increase in demand for accommodation as the city hosted a number of major conferences, including key events at the San Diego Convention Center; namely, the ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition on haematology, a four-day event attracting more than 27,000 delegates.

At the same time, labor expense declined 2.8 percentage points to 33.6 percent of total revenue in December, helping contribute to YOY growth in GOPPAR to $144.52 in 2018 from $136.58 in 2017.

Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - San Diego (in USD)

December 2018 v. December 2017

RevPAR: +26.5% to $137.02

TRevPAR: +24.7% to $234.49

Payroll: -2.8 pts. to 33.6%

GOPPAR: +41.8% to $86.44

San Diego's growth contrasted to Philadelphia declines for the monthand the yearas profit levels tumbled, impacted by falling non-rooms revenues and rising costs.

On a positive note, RevPAR at hotels in Philadelphia increased by 3.2 percent in December to $151.98, which was in spite of a 0.8-percentage-point YOY decline in room occupancy, which fell to 73.8 percent.

However, RevPAR growth was wiped out by falling non-rooms revenues, which included an 11.4-percent decline in F&B, as well as a 16.1-percent drop in Conference & Banqueting, on a per-available-room basis. The mix contributed to a 0.9-percent decline in TRevPAR for the month to $221.21.

In addition to the decline in revenue, rising costs, which included a 5.6-percentage-point increase in labor, to 38.4 percent of total revenue, contributed to profit per room recorded at $67.49 in the month, more than 45 percent below the YTD figure of $97.56.

Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - Philadelphia (in USD)
Photo: The Canadian Press

Apple hoped to offset slowing demand for iPhones by raising the prices of its most important product, but that strategy seems to have backfired after sales sagged during the holiday shopping season.

Now, CEO Tim Cook is grappling with his toughest challenge since replacing co-founder Steve Jobs 7 1/2 years ago. Even as he tries to boost iPhone sales, Cook also must prove that Apple can still thrive even if demand doesn't rebound.

It figures to be an uphill battle, given Apple's stock has lost one-third of its value in less than four months, erasing about $370 billion in shareholder wealth.

Cook began tackling the test Tuesday with the release of Apple's quarterly earnings report, four weeks after rattled Wall Street by disclosing the company had missed its own revenue projections for the first time in 15 years  a time when the iPod was just beginning to transform Apple.

"This is the defining moment for Cook," said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. "He has lost some credibility on Wall Street, so now he will have to do some handholding as the company enters this next chapter."

The results for the October-December period were slightly above analysts' expectations that were lowered after Cook's Jan. 2 warning. Profit for dipped slightly to $20 billion while revenue fell 5 per cent from the prior year to $84 billion.

The past quarter's letdown intensified the focus on Apple's forecast for the opening three months of the year as investors try to get a better grasp on iPhone sales until the next models are released in autumn.

Apple predicted its revenue for the January-March period will range from $55 billion to $59 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been anticipating revenue of about $59 billion.

Investors reacted positively, elevating Apple's stock by more than 4 per cent to $160.40 in extended trading after the report came out.

"While it was disappointing to miss our revenue guidance, we manage Apple for the long term, and this quarter's results demonstrate that the underlying strength of our business runs deep and wide," Cook said in a statement.

The company didn't forecast how many iPhones it will sell, something Apple has never done since the product first hit the market in 2007 and transformed society, as well as technology.

What's different now is that Apple is no longer disclosing how many iPhones it shipped after the quarter is completed, a change that Cook announced in November. That unexpected move raised suspicions that Apple was trying to conceal a forthcoming slump in iPhone sales  fears that were realized during the holiday season.

Cook traces most of Apple's iPhone problems to a weakening economy in China, the company's second biggest market behind the U.S. The company is also facing tougher competition in China, where homegrown companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi have been winning over consumers in that country with smartphones that have many of the same features as iPhones at lower prices.
Opinion Article

30 January 2019

Last year proved to be a strong one for the U.S. hotel industry, with occupancy, average daily rate (ADR), and revenue per available room (RevPAR) all trending positively. For 2019, STR and Tourism Economics1 optimistically project another year of growth. Changes in supply, however, will impact local market occupancy levels and hoteliers' pricing power, with many hotels experiencing more intense competition among key guest segments. To maintain profit margins, and stay ahead of the curve, consider your business in light of these top seven hospitality trends.

Appealing to Next-Gen Travelers

In 2019, we'll see increasing focus on Millennial (Generation Y) travel trends, as Millennials overtake Boomers2 in population this year. Historically, the travel industry has treated business and leisure travelers as two distinct entities. But Millennials - who are expected to account for nearly half of all business travel spending by 20203 - are more likely to extend a business trip into a leisure vacation (bleisure). And adventure-seeking Millennials have championed the burgeoning "experience economy," valuing unique, cultural experiences over material possessions.4

Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2000 depending on which source you use) are coming up hot on the Millennial's heels when it comes to desire for changes in travel. While both generations share many similarities, one key difference between Gen Zers and Millennials is their desire for security. Having grown up during the Great Recession, Generation Z tends to be more pragmatic and fiscally responsible when it comes to travel.

Hotels can attract more Generation Y and Z customers in 2019 by offering off-the-beaten-path activities and opportunities to interact with locals, all the while incorporating incentives and discounts that appeal to their budgets. When it comes to F&B,5 both generations favor communal dining tables and organic, locally sourced dishes over fancy fare. And they're connected 24/7, with technology influencing how they shop and pay for travel. So, conveniences like mobile check-in and chatbots that provide instant answers to questions are increasingly important.

Personalization 2.0

In a move that mirrors the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), last summer the California legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)8 which goes into effect at the start of 2020. The new law will affect the state's privacy landscape in terms of personal data collection. And is likely to create an impact that will spread across the entire country.

Despite this however, the demand for greater personalization, or hyper-personalization, is increasing. With the vast majority of travelers willing to share personal information and preferences in return for greater convenience and personal touches. And many are willing to pay a premium10 for those personalized services. A survey by IBM Global Business Services9 revealed that more than 70 percent of hotel guests report positive experiences with personalization.

To achieve hyper-personalization, hotels must devote resources to harnessing the power of data, collecting and analyzing information at every customer touchpoint from your proprietary website to social media. Cloud-based solutions unify that information across technology platforms, giving you actionable insights into ways you can tailor individual guest experiences that will drive repeat business and increase revenues. As an example, perhaps a repeat business traveler routinely declines your parking option. Advanced systems can detect this behavior pattern and replace it with a more relevant offer, such as round-trip shuttle service or a drink voucher in the hotel lounge.

Reinvented Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs are popular with Millennial6 and non-Millennial travelers alike, with about half of all U.S. leisure travelers7 now belonging to one. Today's travelers are demanding more flexibility in their loyalty program experience. Not everyone wants a discount or complimentary night's stay as a reward. A change we'll see in 2019 is a move away from the points-only reward system.

You can increase guest satisfaction and on-property spend by making points liquid and spendable anywhere within your brand experience. This may include guests using points for a spa treatment, restaurant meal, or in the gift shop. Reimagined programs are also offering experiential rewards, such as tickets to live events, wine tastings, or exclusive activities. A deep understanding of your customers will help you determine which rewards speak most effectively to them, allowing you to forge deeper connections and adding greater value to their stays.

Integration over Isolation

In the past, revenue strategy, sales, and marketing have functioned in isolation. Each with their own goals, technology solutions, and customer databases. Their efforts were rarely aligned, with each using different data sets to develop marketing strategies and make key pricing decisions. The result was missed revenue opportunities, less effective direct marketing, and lower profitability.

Throughout 2019, we'll see a convergence of revenue strategy, sales, and marketing into one cohesive revenue-generation team, working in coordination to acquire, engage, and retain guests. Integrated technology solutions, particularly those utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze Big Data, will help increase hotel profitability by enabling cross-functional alignment and generating a single customer profile. One that takes into account detailed information like past preferences, reason for travel, length of stay, and booking behavior.

Total Revenue Optimization

Another trend that's emerging, is total revenue optimization that takes the full lifetime value of guests into account. Hotels are applying revenue optimization strategies to all hotel profit centers, going beyond a pure rooms focus to include F&B outlets, ancillary revenue sources, and conferencing spaces. In addition, hotels are becoming more strategic with group bookings. New tools have emerged that allow sales to quickly and accurately evaluate group business. Systems instantly generate optimized pricing, allowing hotels to close more deals while maximizing groups and meetings total revenue.

Social Media Matters

In the evolving world of digital marketing, hoteliers cannot afford to ignore the tweets, Instagram pictures, and Facebook posts that now define the social media domain. Millennials in particular are extremely active on social media, with 91 percent trusting online reviews11 as much as they would a personal recommendation.

Reputation management and having an active social media presence are crucial for your business success in 2019, with 49 percent of leisure guests, and 43 percent of business guests,12 regularly sharing views about their most recent travel experiences on social media. Hotels can engage with guests on social media, obtaining a gold mine of guest preference information and post-trip feedback. In addition, effective and free advertising in the form of user-generated content (UGC) will continue to grow. Hotels are even creating "Instagram-worthy" scenes on property to encourage photographs.

Sharing Economy Impact

Disruption caused by the rise of the "sharing economy," has reshaped the behavior of travelers. Guests appreciate platforms like Airbnb for their personalized approach, authenticity, and uniqueness. And with 68 percent of travelers13 seeing no noticeable difference between hotel chains, hoteliers have their work cut out for them.

Brands seeking to compete effectively with alternative accommodation sites are updating room decor with distinctive, local touches. And transforming lobbies into relaxing coffee shop-style settings that speak to the desires of today's travelers for combination co-working/socializing spaces. Furthermore, on the revenue strategy side, hotel managers are capturing more market share by accessing granular data and leveraging analytics in order to understand market penetration, pricing, and the dynamics around elasticity associated with these platforms.

This year is poised to be an action-packed one for the hotel industry, filled with new challenges and changes. By understanding and embracing these trends that are steadily transforming the industry - and putting the right tools and systems in place - you'll improve guest experiences, enhance your reputation, and optimize your revenue in 2019 and beyond.
Supplier News

30 January 2019

Langley, UK - Following the successful implementation of its NDC roadmap during 2018, Travelport (NYSE:TVPT), the leading travel commerce platform, has completed the onboarding of the first group of travel agencies to receive access to NDC content.

In October 2018, UK-based travel agency Meon Valley completed the first live booking using NDC content through Travelport's Smartpoint desktop. The next phase of Travelport's NDC roadmap involved onboarding a larger group of travel agencies. To ensure NDC works for all parts of the travel ecosystem, Travelport has implemented its booking solution with a wide variety of agencies of different sizes, including; American Express Global Business Travel, DNATA, Gray Dawes Group, Global Travel Management, Meon Valley Travel, Premier Holidays, TAG, Travel Counsellors and Travel & Transport Statesman.

Commenting on this milestone in Travelport's NDC delivery, Nick Dagg, SVP Global Agency Sales said: "We work at the heart of the travel industry and our agency customers rely on us to provide them with choice through access to the broadest range of travel content. NDC is no exception and we've taken great care in managing the roll out of our NDC booking capability through Smartpoint to our agency customers. This has allowed us to learn as we go, listen to the important feedback from our customers as they operate in this new distribution era and refine our NDC solution to ensure it provides seamless, integrated travel choice. I'd like to thank all our customers for collaborating with us as we deliver an NDC solution which works for everyone."

John Bukowski, Director, Content and Distribution, American Express Global Business Travel said: "We are working with key parties to ensure we continue to deliver access to all content, with a focus on improving traveler experience, controlling cost, maintaining full end to end servicing, as well as transparent fares, pricing and comparison shopping. NDC is an important step in advancing airline offers and fare options, which we believe should remain focused on delivering value to corporate clients and not as a means to limit access to content, add cost, or force new and costly airline connectivity. We look forward to continuing to engage with Travelport, airline partners, and others to continue to progress NDC capabilities while maintaining a focus on delivering a scalable, cost effective way to access content for our clients."

David Bishop, Commercial Director, Gray Dawes said: "NDC is a major shift in air content distribution so it's been great to be part of the initial group of agencies with access to NDC content through Travelport Smartpoint. We've provided feedback to Travelport as we work together to refine the NDC work-flow so it best serves the agents who will use it day-to-day and have appreciated Travelport's collaborative approach."

Mervyn Williamson, Managing Director, Travel and Transport Statesman said: "If you're involved in travel, you've probably had a conversation in the last few months on NDC. It's having a major impact on all of us as we work through the best way to be ready for the new era of content distribution, maintaining at the same time optimum fulfillment service for our clients. Having access to NDC content as soon as possible was of vital importance to us and our travelers so we were pleased to have been part of the initial group of NDC-connected agencies through Travelport Smartpoint."

Travelport recently shared insights from the first phase of implementation of its NDC booking solution, as part of its commitment to ensure NDC works for all parts of the travel industry. These learnings highlighted the importance of agent familiarity, workflow integration, a considered roadmap, the demand for NDC content and the need for broad industry collaboration.

Following the successful onboarding of the current agency partners Travelport will continue to refine its NDC booking solutions. Travelport will follow up with further Smartpoint enhancements along with an API NDC connection channel through Travelport's Trip Service API mid-year.
Press Release

30 January 2019

The Cornell University School of Hotel Administration has selected Christopher J. Nassetta, president and chief executive officer of Hilton, to receive the 2019 Cornell Hospitality Icon of the Industry Award. The award will be presented at the 11th annual Cornell Hospitality Icon and Innovator Awards gala, Tuesday, June 4, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

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One of the largest hospitality companies in the world, Hilton boasts more than 5,600 properties in 113 countries. Over the last 11 years, Nassetta has led the company through enormous change and growth in the global travel and tourism industry, positioning Hilton for continued leadership as it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019.

Before joining Hilton in 2007, Nassetta served as president and chief executive officer of Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc., a position he had held since 2000. He joined Host in 1995 as executive vice president and was appointed chief operating officer in 1997. In 1991 he co-founded Bailey Capital Corporation, a real estate investment and advisory firm, where he was responsible for operations. Nassetta serves as chairman of the World Travel & Tourism Council and also sits on the boards of CoStar Group, Inc., Washington, D.C.'s Federal City Council, and the Wolf Trap Foundation.

"In addition to his tremendous leadership at Hilton over the last 11 years, Chris supports a number of organizations that are focused on positively impacting the industry, as well as developing the next generation of hospitality leaders," said Kate Walsh, dean and E. M. Statler Professor at the School of Hotel Administration. "His industry imprint is second to none, and I'm thrilled we have the opportunity to honor Chris for all he has done, and continues to do, to strengthen our industry and promote the power of travel and tourism around the world."

The Cornell Hospitality Icon and Innovator Awards is the largest annual event for the School of Hotel Administration, attended each year by hundreds of influential leaders in the global hospitality and travel industries. The event is also a key fundraiser for SHA's annual fund, which provides critical need-based scholarships for students.

For details about the Cornell Hospitality Icon and Innovator Awards, please visit the event webpage or contact Meg Keilbach ([email protected]).
External Article

30 January 2019

Gillian Tans, president and CEO of Booking.com, discusses the U.S.-China trade war and digital regulation.
Now Open

30 January 2019

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) today officially opened DoubleTree by Hilton Perth Northbridge, marking the DoubleTree brand's first Western Australia property and the first new-build DoubleTree property to open in Australia. The 206-room hotel, which welcomed its first guests on December 21, 2018, is managed by Hilton under a management agreement with SKS Group.

The opening was officiated by WA Minister for Tourism the Honourable Paul Papalia CSC MLA and Windi Sim, Managing Director from SKS Group, as well as Perth Cluster General Manager David Constantine on behalf of Hilton. The opening incorporated a ribbon cutting ceremony and live creative performances by a local artist and Perth Festival musician.

DoubleTree by Hilton Perth Northbridge is located at 100 James Street, in the heart of the vibrant precinct of Northbridge. The full-service hotel resides in an ideal location for travellers with an array of restaurants, nightlife, shopping and cultural attractions all within close proximity. DoubleTree by Hilton Perth Northbridge is also the perfect location for business travellers with Perth's CBD just a ten-minute walk away.

The property features 206 well-appointed guest rooms including king or twin panoramic rooms, executive panoramic rooms and four executive deluxe panoramic rooms. The rooms feature contemporary design, Digital Key allowing Hilton Honors guests to use their smartphones as their room keys, Sweet Dreams by DoubleTree sleep experience beds and Crabtree & Evelyn bath products.

All guests will receive the signature, warm DoubleTree Cookie at check-in, a hallmark of the DoubleTree brand's warm and hospitable service. The hotel also features an outdoor pool and bar, 24-hour fitness centre and a versatile meeting space with capacity of up to 160 guests. The executive lounge on level two offers complimentary breakfast, evening refreshments and stunning views.

On-property restaurant James St Bar + Kitchen offers a relaxed and modern dining experience with a focus on Western Australian produce. The all-day dining venue serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in-between including bar snacks and 24-hour room service. Chef Kevin Garcia has created a menu that is reflective of his philosophy to work with the best in local and seasonal ingredients.
Spencer, IN (47460)

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Bloomington, IN (47401)

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And dont be afraid to speak up if you see someone else leaving their pet in the cold. The Humane Society of the United States recommends first politely letting the pet owner know you are concerned. But if they dont respond well, document what you see in detail including date, time, exact location and type of animal. Video and photographic documentation may help. Then contact animal control  in Carroll, thats the Humane Society of Carroll County, at 410-848-4810 or 410-875-5379  and local law enforcement. Follow up in a few days if you see the behavior continuing.
Click here to find out where to get a COVID-19 vaccine or test.

To find out how many local residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19, click here. Use the map to find numbers for individual counties.

Find detailed statistics about COVID-19 tests, cases and deaths by county and for the state as a whole on the Indiana State Department of Health's online dashboard.
Lima, OH (45805)

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Partly to mostly cloudy. An isolated shower or storm, mainly in the late afternoon. High 89F. Winds SW at 5 to 15 mph..

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A few clouds from time to time. Thunderstorms move in late overnight. Low 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
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Ultimately, it has fallen on federal, state and local governments to help address the crisis through a variety of programs, sometimes at great expense. That is the rationale for any legal action. Would we be in this crisis if not for the deceitful practices of greedy pharmaceutical companies? Ultimately, that will be up for a judge to determine but the evidence seems to be mounting against them, as do the number of lawsuits  including one soon to be filed by Carroll County.
The Sicilian village of Sambuca

Many of the abandoned homes for sale are in dire need of a full-scale renovation. While the scale of the work required is unclear, buyers must also commit to refurbishing the property within three years at a minimum cost of 15,000 (13,200).

A 5,000 security deposit will be taken as a guarantee, although it will be returned once refurbishment is completed.

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W ork on the controversial Chelsea Barracks development looks set to restart, a year after it was put on ice as Londons housing market weakened, and a full 10 years since an early version of the project was condemned by Prince Charles.

In 2009 a plan to replace the former garrison for infantry soldiers with a series of copper, glass and concrete pavilions with 448 homes, designed by Richard Rogers, provoked the prince to appeal to its new Qatari owners for a more traditional design.

His intervention was criticised as meddling and made headlines internationally, with the scheme dubbed a Gucci ghetto.

Planning permission for a toned-down scheme was granted in 2011 but progress was slow and work was put on hold in 2013 amid falling prices.

The project subsequently restarted and by 2017 the first three phases of a total of six were close to completion, with homes priced from 5.25 million.

It has emerged that building giant Multiplex has been awarded the 250 million contract to build the next phase of the stalled 3 billion scheme, having been dropped from the project at the start of last year only weeks before work was due to start.

At the time Qatari Diar, the property arm of the Qatari royal family, blamed the prevailing economic climate in the capital for the decision.

Now it appears that the Gulf state, which also owns Harrods and part of the former Olympic Village at Stratford, is feeling more confident. After running a new tendering process it has agreed to keep Multiplex on the job.

The first Chelsea Barracks residents are due to move in this year, according to architects Squire & Partners.

The news comes amid claims that Londons super-prime market is starting to recover after four years of price falls, as some of the worlds wealthiest take advantage of the weak pound and scoop up bargains in central London.

The number of homes sold for 15 million or more increased by more than 40 per cent in the past year, according to Savills.

As well as being lured by the weak pound, these buyers have been tempted by some significant price cutting on trophy homes such as Mansion House, an 11,075sq ft property in Westminster.
Miller has been in favor of legalizing the drug for several years, but has said he believes bills setting up referendums should be passed in the year they go before the voters. The states next election is in 2020.
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I do believe that we should have some responsibility to ensure that the safety measures are not only in place when they open but are continually in place as time moves on, Chiavacci said. I personally would like to take it away from planning and zoning and make that a responsibility of the police department. I think they are qualified to do it.
Antebellum army experimented with ships of the desert

ON A SPRING MORNING IN 1883, a homesteader near Eagle Creek in southeast Arizona left her adobe house to fetch water. Suddenly, the woman screamed. From inside the house, a second woman had looked out to behold a huge, strange red animal with a rider on its back. The second homesteader barricaded the door and began to pray. At nightfall, menfolk returned from hunting sheep stolen by Apaches to find the would-be water carrier trampled to death and surrounded by huge cloven footprints. A few nights later, several miles northeast, two prospectors awoke terrified as a beast stove in their canvas shelter. Clambering to their feet, the pair watched a large, ungainly animal gallop off, leaving a trail of cloven prints and, snagged on brush, tufts of red hair, inspiring legends of the Red Ghost.

The mystery beasts presence in the Southwest of the 1880s dated back four decades, to a time when westbound pioneers confronted the Rockies, the Sierras, and vast deserts between as they trekked toward the rich valleys of coastal California and Oregon. Pioneers crossed the continent using three main routes: the northerly Oregon and Humboldt trails, each originating in Missouri; and the southerly Gila Trail, starting from El Paso, Texas and traversing New Mexico and Arizona to Southern California through fry-pan hot Indian territory.

Migrants depended on draft and pack animals. Horses were suitable for short stretches but required grain to supplement local forage. Oxen were sturdier, cheaper, and

more dependable, but maddeningly slow. Mules, though stubborn, seemed the best bet: stronger, hardier, less picky about food and slower to thirst. Their flinty hooves easily negotiated mountain and prairie terrain; and their tough hides withstood saddle and harness abrasions. To protect western pioneers from Indians, Americas fledgling Army established cavalry outposts along the main trails. Provisioning these isolated garrisons challenged military logisticians, particularly in the most irksome desert for beasts in the world, as one Army quartermaster called the New Mexico terrain surrounding Fort Yuma. And once established out West, homesteaders needed a way to stay in touch with one another and folks back East. That meant reintroducing the camel to America.

North America had been the home of the original camels, which stood scarcely a foot high. Evolution wiped out those prehistoric North American ancestors, but their descendants, double-humped Siberian and Chinese Bactrians and speedy, single-humped North African Arabians called dromedaries became essential to transport and commerce in those regions.

Spanish and English colonists in America imported a few camelidae specimens for tasks like hauling ore. These experiments failed but the era of westward expansion revived interest. As early as 1837, U.S. Army Captain and Seminole War veteran George H. Crosman was advocating that the military import and test camels. Crosman corresponded with E.F. Miller, a generals son, who shared his enthusiasm. The two envisioned in the seven-foot-tall, half-ton camel an ideal means of negotiating Americas deserts.

With its dexterous lips and razor teeth, a camel would eat virtually anything. The animals series of regurgitant stomachs consumed every mote of nutrient and moisture. Humps stored fat, a reserve drained as needed until the hump turned flaccid. A camel ordinarily drank its fill every three days but could survive much longer. Camels hardened feet need not be shod; and they are so sure-footed that desert armies mounted light artillery on them. Capable of proceeding at 10 mph without a load, a heavily burdened camel slowed considerably but still was able to travel 12 hours without pause. With proper care, a camel lived 40 years, compared with horses at 30, mules 27, and oxen 20. In the 1800s, average human lifespans approximated the camelsallowing long and productive cross-species partnerships.

Crosman and Miller failed to impress U.S. Quartermaster General Thomas S. Jesup, but the case for camels eventually gained new urgency. The United States had acquired vast stretches of Southwest territory after defeating Mexico in the 1846-1848 conflict, whereupon prospectors combing the conquered territory discovered gold and silver deposits. Mexican War veterans like Quartermaster Corps officer Henry C. Wayne, knowing the terrains rigors and weather, recognized the camels suitability. Still, Jesup resisted.

Camel adherents finally found a welcoming ear in U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis (D-Mississippi). Davis, whose first wife had been a daughter of Zachary Taylor, had fought in Mexico alongside Old Rough and Ready. Named secretary of war in 1853 by President Franklin Pierce, Davis asked Wayne to make a case to Congress for camel transport. In his formal report, Wayne included a martial option: fleet Arabians might be used against Indians in promptly punishing their aggressions. Congress balked. However, newspaper editors, lecturers, and authors fostered the idea until, in 1855, the U.S. House of Representatives appropriated $30,000today, roughly $900,000for the purchase and importation of camels and dromedaries for military purposes.

Davis set to work, naming Wayne director of the Camel Military Corps and arranging for U.S. Navy storeship Supply, fresh from Commodore Matthew Perrys sally to Japan, to undertake a camel-buying expedition in the Mediterranean. Wanting recommendations for a suitable skipper, Davis turned to Edward F. Beale, a Mexican War Navy veteran who also had explored Death Valley with frontiersman Kit Carson. Beale nominated a kinsman: Lieutenant David Dixon Porter, a scion of a nautical family whose ranks included adoptive brother David Farragut.

Wayne, carrying orders from Davis to buy both Bactrian and Arabian specimens, sailed for Europe in spring 1855 to consult with zoologists before joining Porter late that July aboard Supply at La Spezia, Italy. The plan was to sail to Tunis, acquire a camel, and study its management on shipboard. In North Africa, Porter and Wayne connected with Gwinn H. Heap, Porters brother-in-law and Beales close friend. Son of camel expert Samuel Heap, former American consul at Tunis, Gwinn knew the region, knew camels, and possessed the skill to illustrate the expeditions travels.

At Tunis the Americans bought a camel. In addition, the local bey gifted them two more. The dromedaries adapted well to life at sea. Tethered below, the animals gave very little trouble, very much less than a horse, Heap reported. After pauses to dock in Malta, Smyrnanow Izmir, Turkeyand Salonikanow Thessaloniki, GreeceSupply arrived at Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey, in October 1855.

Demand generated by forces fighting the war in Crimea made camels too expensive for the Americans, but British demonstrations of Bactrians and Arabians performance convinced Wayne to stick with dromedaries. The party sold two of the test camels then sailed for Alexandria, Egypt, arriving late in November.

The Americans soon learned about camel idiosyncracies. Shady camel merchants disguised sick or overworked stock by blowing air through a reed to inflate limp humps. Camels ear-piercing groans, especially while being loaded, carried for miles. Worse, furious excitement seized bull camels during a prolonged rutting season. Males eyes reddened and mouths projected bladder-like membranes emitting burbling sounds like a human breaking wind. The sex-crazed beasts jousted among themselves and assaulted handlers, vexing their American stewards. In defense, Wayne hired three indigenous drovers to assist Albert Ray, his American wrangler. Egyptian dromedaries were cheap but Egypt was stingy with export permitsuntil the Americans proffered gifts: two rifled muskets, ammunition, and a mold for casting Minie balls.

Carrying ten dromedaries, Supply left Alexandria in January 1856 for Smyrna, where Gwinn Heap was already shopping. He greeted

Supply with a 21-animal herd: 19 Arabians15 male, 4 femaleone Bactrian, and one mixed-breed Booghdee. Wayne figured a Bactrian would mollify his boss, Davis. When Supply departed Smyrna for America on February 15, Waynes stock, augmented by the birth of an Arabian and purchase of another Bactrian, numbered 33. Wayne had spent only a third of the funds allotted. Storms plagued Supply all the way back. Of six calves born at sea, four died as did a birthing female. On May 14, 1856, 34 camels stepped ashore at Indianola, Texas, a small Gulf Coast port. As Porter and Heap arranged another buying trip, Wayne launched the Camel Military Corps experiment.

In the days ahead, while Waynes beasts made a few friends, they encountered many more skeptics and outright detractors. Watching a dromedary kneel so a drover could load it with two 300-pound hay bales, Indianolans guffawed. The animal wouldnt rise, much less move. Once handlers increased the load to four bales of hay, however, the beast calmly stood and strode off.

After acclimating his charges for three weeks, Wayne set out for the interior. Outside Victoria, Texas, Wayne met Pauline Shirkey, 10. He gave the girls mother, Mary, camel hair clippings from which she spun thread and knit socksa gift Wayne sent to President Pierce. Before the caravan departed for San Antonio, Pauline took a memorable ride. The camel bells were jinglingand I was sitting on the back of this unusual steed, she marveled 75 years later.

Most locals shied away from the animals odor, noise and, not least, their ability to terrify other livestock. A camels scent, an expert noted, was more easily imagined than described. Presaging the tactic associated with early automobiles, Wayne sent a horseman ahead. Get out of the road! the rider would shout. Camels are coming!

By the time the camel herd settled at Camp Verde, an Army post sixty miles northwest of San Antonio, the animals had demonstrated the advantages they offered the army. Once away from populated areas, Wayne advised Davis, camels delivered high-capacity, low-consumption, long-range desert transport for freight, mail, even infantry. The versatile creature could also be mounted with a small gun throwing shrapnel.

Wayne and Davis diverged on what came next. Wayne favored patient breeding; Davis wanted immediate full-scale testing. Orders were orders, but Wayne, sensing changes ahead, looked to transfer. Denied re-nomination for the 1856 presidential election, incumbent Democrat Pierce yielded the party reinsas well as the presidencyto James Buchanan. Davis subsequently lost out in a March 1857 cabinet shakeup. He was replaced by former Virginia governor John B. Floyd just as David Porter and Gwinn Heap were delivering 41 additional camels to coastal Texas. Accompanying the beasts were 10 foreign contract workers; notable among them were two Turks

Hadji Ali and Eliasand Greek-born George Caralambo. Having completed their contractual obligations, Porter and Heap moved on as did Wayne who, after turning over the Corps to Captain Innis N. Palmer, transferred to Philadelphia.

At first, incoming Secretary of War Floyd seemed eager to put the fledgling Camel Corps to work. A four-month debut projectsurveying for construction of a federal road north from El Paso to Fort Yuma, then west to the Colorado River, an 800-mile trek ending at the California borderbegan that June. Employing 25 Arabians from Camp Verde, each toting roughly 700 lb., and 75 mules, each carrying about 175 lb., Beale led the expedition through country where everything ahead is dim, uncertain or unknown, except the dangers. At one point, Beale, riding a large white dromedary stallion named Seid, galloped off, sheik-like, on a 27-mile scouting foray. The best horse or mule in our camp, he marveled, could not have performed the same journey in twice the time.

The party reached California on October 17 but Beale wasnt quite done. After sending a 22-animal caravan to Fort Tejon, an outpost adjoining what is now Californias Los Padres National Forest, Beale saddled Seid while Hadji Alihis name Americanized as Hi-Jolly saddled Tuile. Accompanied by horsemen, the two riders navigated their Arabians across more than 200 miles of barren terrain to reach El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula. The animals arrival at what is now Los Angeles stirred excitement. Camels had reached the American West.

Citing Beales enthusiasm, Floyd unsuccessfully urged Congress to buy 1,000 more camels, even though Lloyd and Jesup scarcely were able to employor maintaintheir existing herd. One Arizona cavalry captains request to use Arabians to chase marauding Indians did get Jesups endorsement, but Lloyd turned down the overture. At Camp Verde, meanwhile, Innis Palmer pleaded for funds to clothe his nearly naked foreign drovers. A major impediment was Department of Texas commander David E. Twiggs. I know that no living animal can bear the pressure of 600 pounds and go through a campaign in our country, Twiggs declared.

By now the West Coast Arabians had relocated to Camp Fitzgerald near Los Angeles. With little else to do, Hi-Jolly and George CaralamboGreek George to allgave camel rides to curious schoolchildren. Male camels began to scrap. During one particularly vicious fight, Tuile stepped on Seids head, killing the stallion.

Learning of the camels corralled down South, Newman S. Clarke, the California Departments San Francisco-based commander, requested jurisdiction. Jesup agreed, but it was September 1860 before Clarke instituted a camel express resupply route, an erstwhile Dromedary Line, between Los Angeles and Fort Mohave, 300 miles northeast. Greek George inaugurated the run only to have his camel die en route. When Clarke died that October, the Dromedary Line ceased. Mules stayed the preferred beast of burden.

By now, civilian camels were reaching American shores. In October 1858, American steamship Thomas Watson, a known slaver, docked at Galveston, Texas. The owner of record, Mrs. M. J. Watson, declared her vessel was carrying 89 camels. She asked British Consul Arthur T. Lynn for the certification of health required of vessels leaving Galveston for British ports. Suspecting Watson was bound for Cuban slave ports, Lynn declined. During the ensuing dispute, Watson let the beasts go free. About half succumbed to disease or slaughter before she paid a local rancher to round up the survivors. He pastured them on the mainland but, when payments stopped, they too were set loose.

In July 1860, San Francisco merchant Otto Esche returned to San Francisco from China with 45 winter-hardened Bactrians. He quartered the animals in a tent on Bush Street, planning to auction them individually. When Esches $1,200-per-head asking price got no takers, he sold ten in a package deal to Julius Bandmann, who pastured them near Pacific Street with occasional thistle-grazing forays to the Presidio. Bandmann resold the beasts for service as pack animals working the Washoe silver mines in distant Esmeralda County, now part of Nevada. Esche, meanwhile, sold a British Columbia mining outfit two dozen animals for a total of $6,000. Employed until 1863 on the rugged Old Cariboo Road, the Cariboo camels eventually were set loose. At least one, said to have been mistaken by a hunter for a bear, was killed, butchered, and served as grizzly steaks. Some of the beasts meandered south to Idaho and Nevada.

By then, two dozen Military Camel Corps Arabians had completed their final meaningful job, a midsummer 1859 topographical survey of the Big Bend region in southwest Texas. As Wayne and Beale had, expedition leader Second Lieutenant Edward L. Hartz extolled the animals. The patience, endurance and steadiness which characterize the performance of the camels during this march, Hartz wrote in his journal, is beyond praise.

Civil war undid the Camel Corps. When Texas seceded on January 28, 1861, former U.S. Army camels were neglected and abused. Some creatures delivered rural mail; one hauled a Confederate generals baggage. Another, Old Douglas, served with the 43rd Mississippi Infantry; he was killed at Vicksburg. Three camels escaped to federal lines in Arkansas, they were auctioned in St. Louis. When peace was declared, Camp Verdes 66 surviving camels were sold at auction for just $330 to Bethel Coopwood, a Confederate cavalryman who had fought in Arizona and New Mexico. Selling the Ringling Brothers Circus five animals, Coopwood employed the rest of the herd carrying freight between Laredo, Texas, and Mexico City. That business soon failed.

The army also auctioned its California camels. Caravanned amid great curiosity up the coast to San Francisco in 1863, all three dozen Arabiansincluding Tuile, now Old Tule and 35 years oldfetched $1,945 from Samuel McLaughlin. He sold a few to a small circus, sent others to silver mines in Nevada, and staged a few Great Dromedary Races.

In ensuing decades, remants of Americas camel experiment made occasional news. Edward Beale kept several at his ranch near El Tejon, California, training a pair to pull a sulky on 100-mile trips to Los Angeles. In advance of July 4, 1876, animals that had passed through Otto Esches and Julius Bandmanns hands climbed 9,000-foot Mount Davidson, Nevada, hauling firewood to fuel a centennial bonfire visible from all parts of the Washoe Valley.

By mid-1857, all but three Levantine drovers had returned to their homelands. As late as the 1885-1886 cavalry campaign against the Apache war chief Geronimo, Hadji Ali, now a naturalized citizen named Philip Tedro, skinned mules for the army. He married a Tucson woman and fathered two daughters but died impoverished and alone in 1902.

Greek George, too, became a citizen. Known as George Allen, he lived for a time near what is now Hollywoods Santa Monica Boulevard. Speaking only Spanish and recognizable by a Homeric and seemingly bulletproof thatch of beard and hair, he died in 1913.

The Turkish-born Elias was to exert the most significant impact. Moving to Sonora, Mexico, where he wed a Yaqui Indian woman, Elias operated a ranch and fathered Plutarcho Elias Calles. Nicknamed El Turco, Calles served as a populist Mexican president 1924-1928.

By the mid-1880s, American interest in camels as beasts of burden had run out. Cowboys and Native Americans who encountered feral camels were more inclined to kill than domesticate them. Accordingly, the 1883 sightings of Arizonas Red Ghost sparked the sort of wonder later sparked by UFOs. The Arizona mystery resolved itself in stages over the next decade. A month after the water carriers death, a rancher claiming to have seen the Red Ghost described a shaggy red-hued camel carrying a human figure. Seeing the same apparition weeks later, prospectors shot at it; the animal fled, shaking loose a human skull with bits of flesh and hair attached. Finally, in 1893, a rancher saw the Red Ghost consuming his turnip patch, grabbed a rifle, and killed the beast; inspection revealed that knotted rawhide strips, some cutting into the dead animals hide, had been securing remnants of a corpse. The only question, noted the Mohave County Miner, is whether the man was tied on him for revenge or merely as an ugly piece of humor by someone who had a camel and a corpse for which he had no use.

Over ensuing decades, camel sightings persisted but gradually dwindled. Old Topsy, last documented descendant of the original Camel Military Corps, died in 1934. Attendants at Griffith Park, the Oakland Tribune reported, destroyed her after she became crippled with paralysis.

This story originally appeared in the April 2019 issue of American History. Subscribe here.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro accused Donald Trump of ordering neighbouring Colombias government to kill him, but said he was open to the possibility of talks with the US leader and his own domestic foes.

In an interview with Russias RIA agency, Maduro rejected calls for an early election, said an order to arrest his rival Juan Guaido had not yet been given, and promised Caracas would honour debts to Russia and China.

Facing the biggest challenge of his six-year rule, the 56-year-old socialist leader also said his armed forces remained loyal and President Vladimir Putin was firmly behind him.

Maduros comments were published on Wednesday as the fight for control of Venezuela escalated with the government preparing an investigation into self-declared interim president Guaido, and new street protests planned.

Venezuela plunged further into turmoil last week after the United States recognised Guaido, 35, as acting president, while Russia, which has lent Caracas an estimated $17 billion since 2006, continued to back Maduro.

Donald Trump has without doubt given an order to kill me and has told the government of Colombia and the Colombian mafia to kill me, Maduro told RIA.

Though the Venezuelan was reprising an old allegation that critics scoff at as a smokescreen, there was speculation of military plans after Trump adviser John Bolton appeared on Monday with a pad showing the words 5,000 troops to Colombia.

If something happens to me one day, Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will bear responsibility, Maduro said of his right-wing foes.

I AM LEGITIMATE

Despite their increasingly militant opposition to Maduro, whom they regard as a dictator, both Washington and Bogota have repeatedly denied accusations of plots to kill him.

Maduro, who survived what he called an assassination attempt in August last year, said he was well protected, guaranteeing him a long life. He declined to comment on reports Russia sent private military contractors to help guard him.

He also dismissed calls for a snap presidential vote, saying his re-election last year was fair despite widespread allegations of fraud and the barring of two opposition rivals.

I won 68 percent of the vote, he told RIA. I won legitimately... If the imperialists want a new election, let them wait until 2025.

Despite alleging Trump wanted him dead, Maduro said he was ready to meet him wherever he wants, but thought the prospect unlikely given what he described as attempts by Trumps advisers to prevent it.

He said Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Russia, the Vatican and several unnamed European countries wanted talks between him and the opposition.

I am ready to sit at the negotiation table with the opposition for us to talk for the benefit of Venezuela, Maduro was quoted as saying.

Regarding the investigation and possible arrest of Guaido, he said: As far as I know, this measure has not yet been taken. Lets wait for the internal constitutional and legal processes to see what the results will be. We wont rush, well wait.
US president Donald Trump defended his policies on Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea in a string of tweets and went after his own intelligence community leaders calling them naive and passive on Iran, and suggesting they need to go back to school.

The president has facing increasing public criticism and pushback  branded rebuke and repudiation by observers  on his key foreign policy initiatives in recent days from close party allies, including Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican-controlled senate, and US intelligence chiefs.

They have disputed the presidents claims that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, that North Korea was willing to give up its nuclear weapons programme, that the Islamic State was decimated and it was time to bring home American troops deployed in Syria and Afghanistan.

McConnell, a close ally whose wife serves in the Trump cabinet, broke with the president in a rare move Tuesday and introduced a legislative measure opposing the precipitous withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Afghanistan and arguing al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to our nation.

President Trump has focussed his return fire on his intelligence chief for now. The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran, he wrote in one of the posts in which he had defended his position on Syria, North Korea and Afghanistan. He contended Iran was still testing Rockets and, added, Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

On Afghanistan, developments regarding which are closely followed by New Delhi, Trump wrote, Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting  We will soon see if talks will be successful?

The US and Taliban negotiators have said they have prepared a draft framework of a peace deal.

President Trumps ire with intelligence chiefs stems from their joint report  Worldwide Threat assessment, 2019  which they presented to US senate Tuesday at a hearing. Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence had said North Korea is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability.

And on Iran, Coats said, We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.

This is not the first time President Trump has clashed with the US intelligence, which he has held in some suspicion since taking office. Most notable of his confrontations took place in Helsinki, where he sided with President Vladimir Putin against US intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. That earned him a public pushback from Coats.

Trump backed down then and said he misspoke and said he had full confidence in the intelligence agencies. Not really, it seems.
Thirty bodies have been found after some 130 migrants went missing off Djibouti when two boats capsized in rough waters, the United Nations migration agency said on Wednesday.

Sixteen survivors were recovered, and the tiny East African nations coast guard continued a search and rescue operation after Tuesdays accident, the UN said in a statement. Witnesses said large waves caused the overloaded boats to tip over about a half-hour after departing.

An 18-year-old survivor told the migration agency that he had boarded one of the boats with another 130 people, including 16 women. There were no immediate details on the second boat.

Thousands of migrants from the turbulent Horn of Africa region set off every year from Djibouti to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait for the Arabian Peninsula with hopes of finding work in rich Gulf countries.

The vast majority of the migrants are Ethiopian, young and male, the migration agency says.

The crossing is dangerous, with smugglers in some cases forcing migrants overboard before reaching their destination. Other boats have been fired on as they approach Yemen, where fighting continues between pro-government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels.

This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives, said the migration agencys Djibouti chief of mission, Lalini Veerassamy.

The agencys Missing Migrants Project says at least 199 people have now drowned off the Djibouti coast near Obock, where the latest capsizing occurred, since 2014. More than 700 other deaths have occurred further off shore on the route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, according to the projects data.

The route also sees a flow of migrants from Yemen toward the Horn of Africa as people flee war.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) national president Mayawati said on Wednesday that the petition moved by the Centre in the Supreme Court for return of undisputed land in Ayodhya to its original owners was a new election gimmick of the BJP aimed at retaining power in the Lok Sabha polls.

In a press release, the BSP chief said the central government was trying to intervene in the matter to influence voters before the polls. Terming it a controversial move, she said people should know and thwart the BJPs divisive agenda.

The BJP-led Centre had moved the apex court to return the undisputed 42 acres of land in Ayodhya surrounding the disputed site of Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid, to the original owners, Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, which wishes to build the Ram temple there.

The Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas has welcomed the move and one Muslim litigant too said he had no objection to the step. However, another Muslim litigant questioned the timing of the petition.

The Supreme Court had earlier ordered status quo on the acquired land at Ayodhya, but, Mayawati said, the Centre was trying to promote its casteist, communal, religious and violent agenda by moving the petition. The move, she said, was anti-constitutional.

Mayawati said after the pre-poll alliance between BSP and SP, the BJP leaders knew they were not going to return to power and were using all the tricks to retain power.

She said the central government had failed on the development front and there had been an increase in poverty, prices of essential commodities, unemployment and illiteracy under the NDA government.

The Centre, which had lost the confidence of the common people, was now trying to grab power using the Ayodhya issue, she said.

Terming the petition as the last political ploy of the BJP, she said the people felt harassed by BJPs divisive politics.

She also stressed on the opposition against the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Assam and north-eastern states, where people had launched a movement against it. Mayawati said the BJP government was trying to crush the movement by portraying the protesters as anti-national.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday pitched for another stint at the Centre with full majority, saying that only such a government could take tough and strong decisions while remaining answerable to the public. His comments become significant because they come at a time when most polls and pundits indicate that Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)?may not win a majority on its own, with there being a chance that even the larger National Democratic Alliance (NDA)?may fall short of the magic 272 mark needed for a simple majority in Parliament.

Modi was addressing a function after laying the foundation for the international terminal at Surat airport.

The Prime Minister remembered that his 2014 government was formed with a full majority thanks to the power of each and every vote.

For 20 years, there was instability. There was no majority government. There used to be alliance governments. The growth of the country had come to a halt. But now we are progressing. We are taking tough and major decisions with full conviction, he said.

In 2014, the BJP became the first party in 30 years to win a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. Modi and the NDAs major opposition in the summers Lok Sabha election is likely to be a Mahagatbandhan, or grand alliance, which is still in the making at a national level, although there is a clear indication of who its opposition will be in some states.

In Bihar, for instance, there is already a grand alliance of nine prominent parties, including the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party that will take on the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most representatives to the Lok Sabha, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)?and the Rashtriya Lok Dal have already formed an alliance against the BJP. In 2014, the BJP won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state on its own.

BJP president Amit Shah said in a speech in Lucknow that his party would win 74 seats this time. If Modi spoke on the advantages of a majority government, Shah stressed on the disadvantages of a coalition government. The Mahagatbandhan is all about corruption, he said, and asked who its prime ministerial candidate is.

One reason for the delay in forging a national level grand alliance has been the number of regional leaders with prime ministerial ambitions. This includes Mayawati of the BSP and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress.Neither has been too keen to be part of a Congress-led alliance.

Shah, earlier addressing a gathering of party workers in Kanpur, said there will be a new prime minister every day if an alliance of Opposition parties comes to power in the national elections. They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader, Shah said.

The Congress, which headed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government between 2004 and 2014, disagreed with Modis claims on a majority.

Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel asked why does the BJP not exit from the state governments of Maharashtra, Bihar and Goa if the PM thinks coalition governments do not function properly. By saying that he cant function in a coalition government, has the Prime Minister confirmed that if the BJP gets less than 272 seats it will sit in Opposition and not try to form a government? Looks like they have learnt a lesson after trying to steal the peoples mandate in Goa, Bihar, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh , Uttarakhand and Karnataka, Patel, who is also the partys treasurer, said.

Attacking the Centre on the economic front, he said the period of worst economic growth in the country has been under the BJPs absolute majority rule.

The period between 2004 and 2008 saw significant economic expansion, although a recent revision of GDP data under 2011-12 series shows that this was lower than growth under the current government.
A day after he took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over delay in appointment of a Lokpal, anti-graft activist Anna Hazare on Wednesday began his indefinite fast at Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra. Hazare said the Modi government has been making excuses for not setting up a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states.

No party wants it. Lokpal (Bill) was passed in Parliament in 2013 but the government is yet to appoint it, news agency ANI quoted Hazare as saying while launching his fast. Hazare has been campaigning for a Lokpal that can investigate allegations of corruption against all public office holders including the prime minister and Lokayuktas in states that can probe graft charges against all including the chief minister.

Watch: Will continue hunger strike till last breath: Anna Hazare

Announcing on Tuesday that he would launch an indefinite fast from January 30, Hazare had taken a dig at PM Modi saying, It has been five years now but the Prime Minister Modi-led government at the Centre is making excuses. If they wanted, they could have done the needful by now.

Hazare said, Through Lokpal, even the prime minister can be investigated if people give any evidence against him...Similarly, a chief minister and all ministers and MLAs under him can be investigated by a Lokayukta if anyone gives evidence against them. Thats why they dont want it.

To restrict Lokpal, they passed another law within three days, got Presidents signature also on it. But to appoint Lokpal, they have taken five years and nothing has been done. We dont want political leaders with us on stage, Hazare said.

The activist, who is a self-proclaimed Gandhian, decided to begin his fast on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi which is also observed as Martyrs Day. The politicians belonging to any party would not be allowed to join his fast, Hazare said. We dont want political leaders with us on stage, he said.

According to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, a Lokpal would be set up at the central level as an ombudsman. The office of Lokayukta would function on the same line states.

The matter of Lokpal is also being heard in the Supreme Court, which in July 2018, had expressed its displeasure over non-appointment of Lokpal. Two months later, in September, the government appointed a Search Committee to nominate the chairperson and members of the Lokpal. Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court was nominated as chairperson of the committee.

The apex court asked the Search Committee earlier this month to complete the task of shortlisting the names of possible candidates for appointment as Lokpal by the end of February. The matter comes up for hearing in the Supreme Court on March 7.
There are an awful lot of economies of scale when you start talking about a 27-site organization versus a four-site organization, she said. Acts is going to be developing five-year capital plans for our communities, taking a look at everything from preventative maintenance, to what might the physical plant look like, what might programming look like.
A particular version of universal basic income (UBI), a welfare benefit that guarantees a certain threshold sum of money for everyone regardless of whether they work or not, is the next big political-economy idea fast catching up in India.

You could call it free money. It is an idea whose origins lie in the so-called Utopian Socialists. In India, UBI first became part of the official discourse when the countrys then chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian proposed it in the Economic Survey 2016-17.

On Tuesday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi put the idea on the forefront of the political agenda by promising a minimum income guarantee to the poor. There is speculation that apart from a farm relief package, the upcoming budget may include some form of UBI, although there is no official confirmation on this.

UBI is a darling of both right-wing economists, who think it will be fiscally efficient, and Left-leaning economists, who feel it will extend the welfare state. The main argument for a quasi-UBI  meaning UBI targeted only at the poor  as posited by the Economic Survey 2016-17, was that current subsidies suffer from massive misallocation.

Under no welfare scheme do districts accounting for 40% of the countrys poor have ever received 40% of resources, the survey states. This means that the share of welfare spending in the poorest districts was never equal to their share of poverty.

Also read: We guarantee minimum income for poor, PM Narendra Modi wants maximum pay for rich: Rahul Gandhi

The Economic Survey proposed gradually tapering some of the existing benefits or offering a choice to either to opt for UBI or subsidy. This has proved to be controversial.

According to welfare economist Jean Dreze, replacing crucial hard-won entitlements, such as subsidised food, could be a Trojan horse for the dismantling of hard-won entitlements of the underprivileged.

Two important proponents of UBI in India are economist Pranab Bardhan, professor of economics, University of California, Berkeley, and Vijay Joshi, emeritus fellow at Merton College, University of Oxford.

Both these economists have proposed that the main way to finance UBI is to cut so-called non-merit subsidies, which refer to subsidies that do not go into areas such as education and health and are directed at the non-poor.

Subramanian, a visiting lecturer at the Harvard University now, this week co-authored a paper for a quasi-UBI to 60-80% of the rural poor to offset rural distress. They argue an annual transfer of Rs 18,000 (Rs 1,500 a month) can cover three-fourths of the rural population at a cost of 1.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) or Rs 2.6 lakh crore at 2019-20 prices.

But many feel the UBI is simply preposterous in Indias case. The truth is we simply cannot afford a UBI. The only country to try it, Finland, had to give it up. It is too costly. Secondly, if it is quasi-UBI, then it is no longer UBI, said economist Abhijit Sen.

Dreze argues that even if some fiscal space is reclaimed by eliminating undesirable subsidies, there are many other urgent claims on public expenditure such as education, health care, environmental protection, and essential infrastructure.

According to Sen, some combination of NREGA, minimum wage and pensions can achieve better poverty-reduction goals. Sen says he does not agree with cutting existing benefits because you do not start off something which cannot reach everybody by cutting something which is already reaching many people.
In what could stoke another controversy, Union minister Ananth Kumar Hegde has called Congress president Rahul Gandhi a hybrid specimen that cannot be found in any laboratory in the world.

He (Rahul Gandhi) does not know this country. He has no clue about religion. Look how they lie. A father who is a Muslim, a mother who is a Christian and the son is supposed to be a Brahmin. How is that even possible? You will not find such a hybrid specimen in any laboratory across the world. Youll find such specimen in Congress laboratory in this country, where the father & the son are of two different types, Hegde said at a function in Karnatakas Karwar, according to news agency ANI.

Hegde, who is known for his inflammatory comments, had on Sunday said that the hand that touches a Hindu woman must not exist.

Addressing a function, organised by the Hindu Jagrana Vedike, at Madapura in Somwarpet taluk of Kodaugu district, Hegde also claimed that history had been distorted to claim that the Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and instead it was a Shiva temple called Tejo Mahalaya.

Calling for a fundamental shift in thinking, Hegde said the happenings in society had to be viewed in totality. The question was not which community or caste anybody belonged to. If anyone touches a Hindu girl then that hand should not exist. This is how history is written he had said.

Congress state president Dinesh Gundu Rao who reacted, saying that nothing better could be expected from Hegde, had asked: What kind of language is this? A Union minister is openly calling for vigilantism. No matter which community, if a woman is harassed then the law must be invoked.

Hegde, however, dragged Raos wife Tabu Rao into the controversy as he reacted to the Congress leaders remarks.

I shall definitely answer this guy @dineshgraos queries, before which could he please reveal himself as to who he is along with his achievements? I only know him as a guy who ran behind a Muslim lady.
A court in Haryanas Hisar on Wednesday sentenced three men to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of killing a person and destroying private properties during the 2016 Jat agitation for reservation in jobs and employment.

The agitation paralysed Haryana, hit water supplies to Delhis and left 16 people dead and over 150 injured.

Pawan, Daljeet and Surender Jhinda were convicted of rioting, murder, attempt to murder and robbery under the Arms Act.

The court said the three formed an unlawful assembly in shape of a mob in a planned manner under the garb of Jat Arakshan [reservation] and committed arson, dacoity in Dhani Pal area. It said they set houses and vehicles afire and shot several people. Mintu Gurjar, 24, was shot dead in the mob attack when he had rushed to Dhani Pal to inquire about a relative after learning about attacks on the colony.

The three pleaded for leniency saying they belonged to poor families and were their sole breadwinners as additional sessions judge DR Chalia gave them an opportunity to speak before announcing their quantum of sentence. Chalia said the convicts do not deserve even the least of sympathy in terms of quantum of sentence keeping in view the totality of facts and circumstances, especially the nature of offences.

The court cited a Supreme Court order and said the life terms for the three meant imprisonment for life until the convicts are alive. It also slapped a Rs 17,500 fine each on the three convicts.
In a bid to cut down on the daily ritual of advocates orally mentioning new and important cases before the Chief Justice of India and seeking early listing of the same, the Supreme Court on Wednesday published new rules on how fresh cases will be listed.

According to a circular issued by the Registrar Judicial of the Supreme Court of India, all fresh cases filed will be listed before an appropriate bench for hearing in the Supreme Court within four days.

The circular says the new arrangement will start from February 4 and fresh cases filed between Friday noon and Tuesday forenoon will be listed on Friday of the same week, while cases filed between Tuesday noon and Friday forenoon will be taken up on the Monday of the following week.

The new arrangement fast tracks listing of fresh cases; under the old arrangement it took anything between two to four weeks for a fresh case to be listed.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi last week indicated that there would soon be a system in place whereby all new cases filed in the top court will be taken up for hearing within five days.

I have settled new norms for listing of cases which will ensure that every urgent matter comes up on the docket within four days of its filing, at the most five days. We are trying to get rid of urgent mentioning before the court, which unnecessarily takes away judicial time. The attempt is to do away with the practice of oral mentioning altogether, said CJI Gogoi.

Currently, anything between 10 and 20 minutes are spent daily by the bench of the CJI for hearing pleas by advocates seeking urgent listing of their cases.

Vikrant Yadav, Secretary Supreme Court Bar Association and advocate on record of the Supreme Court, welcomed the move: The Chief Justice of India has done a great job. Under the new rules cases will be listed quick and fast. Most of the matters being mentioned by the advocates are for early listing of the cases.

Supreme Court advocate Viplav Sharma added that while he welcomed the move, he hoped there wouldnt be a complete end to the process of mentioning.  Advocates mention cases because there is an urgency. Lets take an example of a commercial transaction, which, if not stopped, will result in irretrievable loss. Can that be stopped?The answer is no. So mentioning must continue.

The circular is silent on whether advocates will be allowed to continue mentioning cases or if that practice will end.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took to Twitter to take a swipe at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath over his cabinets holy dip at the Kumbh Mela on Tuesday.

In a rare tweet in Hindi, Tharoor said, You want to keep the Ganga clean and also wash your sins here. Everyones naked in the Sangam. Jai Ganga maiyya.

Yogi Adityanath held a cabinet meeting at the Kumbh mela in Prayagraj, the meet was followed by the CM and his ministers taking a holy dip in the Sangam.

Watch: UP CM Yogi Adityanath along with state cabinet ministers take dip at Kumbh

Reacting to Tharoors comment, UP minister Siddharth Nath Singh said he doesnt understand the importance of Kumbh. How will he understand importance of Kumbh? The atmosphere hes in, the culture he has been brought up in, doesnt understand this. You people have committed a lot of misdeeds, take a holy dip in Kumbh and you might be able to repent for your sins, Singh said.

The UP cabinet also watched Vicky Kaushal-starrer Uri: The Surgical Strike at a special screening in a mobile theatre. Ahead of the movie screening, Adityanath also announced exemption of state GST for the film.

This was the first time that the UP cabinet held an official meeting outside Lucknow. The meeting in Prayagraj is part of a series of decisions that Adityanath has taken to boost the profile of the Kumbh Mela, one of the worlds largest pilgrimages.

Ahead of the meeting, Adityanath and his cabinet ministers visited the Allahabad fort built by Mughal emperor Akbar to see the Akshaywat, an ancient banyan tree mentioned Hindu mythology.

Adityanath expects the Kumbh mela to boost the BJPs campaign in Uttar Pradesh in the general elections due by May. The state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha and the BJP has been insisting that it will better its record of 71 seats that it won in 2014.
A two-day Hindu religious assembly that will start at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad on Thursday is expected to adopt a resolution pledging its commitment to the construction of a Ram temple at a disputed site in Ayodhya, senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders said on Wednesday.

The VHP leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave the indication after Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati of Jyotishpeeth said he would lead Hindu religious figures in performing the shilanyas (foundation-laying ceremony) of a grand shrine to the warrior-god in Ayodhya on February 21.

Calls for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya by Hindu groups have become louder in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections this summer.

At the Dharam Sansad, or religious parliament, Hindu religious figures are also likely to discuss bestowing the status of national animal on the cow. They may also demand a law imposing a strict ban on cow slaughter.

In a phone interview from Hathras, Uttar Pradesh energy minister and state government spokesperson Shrikant Sharma said, The government will consider all the demands and issues raised during the Dharam Sansad at Kumbh.

Other issues expected to be discussed at the Dharam Sansad include ensuring free flow of the Ganga, improving its water quality, a ban on religious conversions and ensuring teaching of the Vedas and other Hindu scriptures in schools.

VHP vice-president Jiveshwar Mishra said the programme for the event had been set by religious figures and any decision made by them would be accepted by the Parishad, which was once at the forefront of the temple campaign, without any reservations.

The top leadership of the VHP as well as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will be present on the same platform during the meeting of religious figures. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is expected to arrive at the Kumbh Mela tent city from Kanpur while the sarkaryavah (general secretary) Bhaiyyaji Joshi has already arrived in the RSS camp.

VHP working president Alok Kumar, vice-president Jiveshwar Mishra and general secretary Milind Parande held a closed-door meeting on Wednesday evening. The Dharam Sansad would be held between 1pm and 5pm on both Thursday and Friday.

On Wednesday, championing the Ram temple cause, Shankaracharya of Jyotishpeeth Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati appealed to Hindus to be ready to face bullets but also added that no one should revolt.

He made the appeal at the three-day Param Dharam Sansad where he also announced that February 21 had been set as the final date for proceeding to Ayodhya for laying the foundation of Ram temple there.
Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday hit back at Congress president Rahul Gandhi and questioned the sincerity and purpose of the latters visit to his office, ostensibly to inquire about his health, after Gandhi claimed at a rally in Kochi, Kerala, that Parrikar had claimed he had nothing to do with the Rafale jet fighter deal.

Gandhi, in an open letter to Parrikar released late in the evening, said he had indeed made a strictly personal call on the former defence minister in Panaji on Tuesday driven purely by my empathy for your situation. He claimed that he had not shared any details of the conversation they had and claimed that in two speeches since then, he had only referred to what was already in the public domain.

Parrikar, who has been undergoing treatment for a pancreatic ailment, wrote in his letter: Without any prior information, you called on me and inquired about my health condition. We have a healthy political tradition in India to rise above bipartisan considerations and wish even opponents a quick recovery from any ailments. I received your visit in that spirit, fighting as I am with good medical care, a severe ailment. I appreciate your kind gesture.

In the letter he wrote to the Congress chief, copies of which were distributed to the media, Parrikar said that reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress, adding that he felt let down that you have used this visit for petty political gain.

Parrikar was defence minister when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government signed the Rs 59,000-crore government-to-government deal with France in 2016 for 36 Rafale jet fighter planes. It replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

The Congress has alleged irregularities in the deal, claiming that the price at which India was buying the aircraft was Rs 1,670 crore for each, three times the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the fighter jets. The NDA has denied any wrongdoing in the transaction, which has become a Congress campaign issue ahead of this summers general elections.

Gandhi said in Panaji on Tuesday that he had visited Parrikar to wish him a speedy recovery. At an event in Kochi later, Gandhi said Parrikar had said he had nothing to deal with the new Rafale deal. He didnt say where Parrikar had made the remarks he quoted him as making.

In the five minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about or related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me, Parrikar said in his letter.

He said: The fighter aircraft have been procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority and that the Inter Government Agreement and the procurement of Rafale are as per Rafale procedures.

Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised in my mind question about the sincerity and purpose of your visit, Parrikar said, admitting that he was battling a life threatening illness.

Due to my training and ideological strength, I wish to serve Goa and its people against all odds. Little did I know you had other intentions, Parrikar said.

Goas Leader of the Opposition, Chandrakant Kavlekar, who was present at the meeting between Gandhi and Parrikar, claimed on Tuesday that the Rafale deal did not figure in the 10-minute meeting.

Gandhi, in his response, noted that in April 2015, when Parrikar was inaugurating a fish market in Goa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the Rafale deal in France with then French President Francois Hollande .

It is also a fact that you clearly stated to the press that you had no idea about the new deal engineered by the PM. This has been widely reported in all sections of the media, Gandhi wrote. Again, it is a fact that there is an audio recording of your own Cabinet colleague in Goa, claiming you told ministers in a cabinet meeting that you have the RAFALE papers in your bed room, implying that you have power over PM Modi and his cronies.

Gandhi was referring to a leaked conversation in which Goas health minister Vishwajit Pratapsingh Rane is purportedly telling an unidentified person that Parrikar told his cabinet colleagues that he had files related to the Rafale deal in his bedroom. Rane has called the audio tape doctored and Parrikar described it as a a desperate attempt to fabricate facts.

Parrikar Ji, I empathise with your situation. I understand the immense pressure you are under after our meeting yesterday. Pressure that has forced you to take the highly unusual step of demonstrating your loyalty to the PM and his cronies by attacking me in this uncharacteristic manner, Gandhi wrote in the letter. Normally, I would have refrained from this exchange. Unfortunately, your leaked letter has forced me to clarify my position on this unfortunate and unnecessary controversy.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi has promised a Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) scheme for the poor if the party comes to power in 2019. Aurangzeb Naqshbandi and Roshan Kishore spoke to former finance minister P Chidambaram, also the chairman of the Congress 2019 Lok Sabha manifesto committee, about MIG. Edited excerpts:

The timing of Rahul Gandhis promise of an MIG scheme is interesting. Was the party expecting something similar on these lines in the budget?

Our announcement has nothing to do with the interim budget. In fact, we ought not to expect anything in the interim budget. If this government breaks the convention and makes far-reaching announcements in the interim budget, that would be completely unconstitutional.

Mr Yashwant Sinha, their own party (Bharatiya Janata Party) member has pointed that out. Therefore, please do not link the Congress presidents announcement with the forthcoming interim budget. We are in the process of formulating a manifesto and the Congress president has articulated an idea that will find a place in it.

Has the party arrived at some kind of a figure on the cost and payments under the MIG?

Obviously not. We have a broad idea. We are not the first ones to discuss it (MIG). There is a whole body of work on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and quasi-UBI. There are eminent economists in India and elsewhere who have written about it. Dr Arvind Subramanian is one of them. We have looked at all that material...the time has come when such an idea can be implemented by the next government.

Also read: PM Modi may counter Rahul Gandhis income scheme with Universal Basic Income in budget

Will the MIG be like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) where the Centre gave 90% funds, or will the cost be equally distributed with the states?

We are not in government to discuss with the states. It is only when we form the government that we can discuss these things with the states.

This could be the first scheme where beneficiaries in urban areas might get more money than in rural India as the urban poverty line is higher than the rural poverty line.

We dont know what the numbers will turn out to be. It is only when the party is in government that it will have access to all the numbers. The chief statistician said a couple of days ago that the new poverty figures will be published in June 2019... It will be able to consult with the state government who will have more information...to form a firm estimate of the number of people in rural and urban areas. Thereafter the scheme will be designed to meet the needs of the poor people. At this stage, it is an idea which has developed and the contours of the scheme will be revealed in the Congress manifesto...

The MIG scheme can turn out to be pro-cyclical unlike the MGNREGS, which was demand-driven and sees large demand when there is a slump in the rural economy.

Because poverty numbers do not come out everyday, the government will be committed to giving MIG payments no matter what is the state of the economy. The objective of MGNREGS was very different. It was to ensure that people who do not have any income at all that day or that week will have a minimum income that will ensure that they had food on their plate that day. The objective of MIG is very different. Between 2004 and 2014 we lifted 140 million people out of poverty. Now we have to make a determined drive in the last mile... The objective of this scheme is to eliminate abject poverty.

Also read: We guarantee minimum income for poor, PM Narendra Modi wants maximum pay for rich: Rahul Gandhi

You have expressed confidence that the scheme can be financed. While direct taxes have shown growth, indirect tax collections havent . Do you see future tailwinds to economic growth and tax collection to fund such a scheme?

Why should I estimate the revenue performance of the next government using the benchmark of the current government? The benchmark of the present government is completely irrelevant. We are confident that a Congress government can find the sources.

Will the Congress manifesto also contain a promise on farm loan waivers?

Farm loan is state-specific and contextual...

There has been criticism the newly-elected Congress state governments have not implemented loan waivers fully yet.

They have been in government only for three weeks. Why should you do anything in a hurry and make mistakes? ...It was not anybodys case that within 24 hours of the formation of the government, money will be given to the farmer...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial to the nation today on Mahatma Gandhis death anniversary. During a day-long visit to Gujarat, his second this month, he will travel to Surat and Dandi to inaugurate and lay foundations of development projects.

He will conclude the day-long visit with a Youth Conclave.

Modi, who is scheduled to reach Surat around 1.30 pm, will lay the foundation stone of the international terminal at the airport there. The new terminal building is being constructed at a cost of Rs 354 crore in an area of over 25,500 square metres. Surat airport is the third busiest in Gujarat after Ahmedabad and Vadodara in terms of both aircraft movement and passenger traffic.

His second stop will be the inauguration of Smt Rasilaben Seventilal Shah Venus Hospital, in Surat.

After inaugurating the hospital, Modi will head for Dandi in Navsari district to dedicate the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial to the nation, on the death anniversary of the father of the nation.

The memorial has statues of Mahatma Gandhi and 80 Satyagrahis who had marched with him during the historic Dandi Salt March in 1930. The memorial also has 24 narrative murals depicting various events and stories from the historic march. Modi will walk through the memorial and address a public meeting.

The Prime Minister is scheduled to return to Surat to address a Youth Conclave. He will interact with thousands of professionals from a revolving dais.

Earlier this month, Modi had attended the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit on January 17 and 18 in Gandhinagar and visited Surat on 19 January to dedicate the Armoured System Complex at Hazira to the country.
Following the Punjab Congress move to ask the ticket aspirants for the Lok Sabha elections to pay a fee to get the partys nomination, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has told the party leaders willing to contest parliamentary polls to pay Rs 25,000 when they submit their application forms for the same.

The election ticket fee is applicable for seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, where the AIAADMK has significant support base. According to news agency ANI, the AIADMK has announced that party workers who are willing to contest in Lok Sabha elections can apply from 4.2.2019 to 10.2.19 after paying Rs 25,000. All 40 constituencies (39 Tamil Nadu and 1 Puducherry) have been listed for sending applications.

The AIADMK had issued a similar notification for the party ticket aspirants ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls, which were held in April-May that year. The AIADMK had, in December 2013, asked the party ticket aspirants to pay the same fee as sought for this years Lok Sabha polls.

A similar direction came earlier from Punjab Congress, which asked party members applying for tickets for 2019 Lok Sabha polls to shell out Rs 25,000 as application fee. The application fee is Rs 20,000 for the reserved category seats. Punjab has 13 Lok Sabha seats including four reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.

The Punjab Congresss move is aimed at helping the cash-starved party generate funds ahead of the general elections. The Punjab Congress also asked its Chandigarh counterpart to follow suit. The instruction to charge an application fee came from All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Punjab and Chandigarh Asha Kumari.

With Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of Punjab local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, and former Ludhiana MP Manish Tewari vying for the party ticket in Chandigarh, the competition for the nomination is getting stiff here.

The decision was communiA cated to us by the Punjab unit on Tuesday and both Sidhu and Tewari would also be asked to pay the application fee of Rs 25,000, Chandigarh Congress unit president Pradeep Chhabra said.

This is not, however, the first time that application fee is being charged by the Punjab Congress. The state unit chief Sunil Jakhar said the states have a leeway to decide on the application fee. It is not happening for the first time. We have levied a fee earlier too, he said.

A fee of Rs 25,000 has been sought by the Congress party along with application for four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh. However, Haryana Congress is undecided on the question. Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar said any such decision (to levy fee) is not in his knowledge.
The farmers feel that if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency approved certain products for farm use, the state shouldnt ban them, said Jason Myers, director of Maryland Farm Bureau District 2, which includes Carroll, Howard and Montgomery counties.
The commander of the Pathankot airbase when it was attacked by militants in 2016, Air Commodore JS Dhamoon, is likely to be issued a show-cause notice asking him to explain why he shouldnt face action for the strike that happened on his watch, and his plea for an early retirement has been turned down, two senior officials from the defence ministry said on condition of anonymity.

The show cause notice prepared by the Indian Air Force is pending approval of the Ministry of Defence, a third senior defence ministry official said, asking not to be named.

Heavily armed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants sneaked into the air base on the intervening night of January 1 and 2, 2016, killing six soldiers and an officer, and pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of an armed conflict.

The Pathankot air base is a frontline fighter base of the Indian Air Force (IAF). The militants managed to breach the security despite a clear warning about a possible attack sounded at least 12 hours before the terror operation. Counter-terror operations lasted for nearly three days.

Though the National Security Guards (NSG) and a detachment of the Indian Army were moved soon after the alert was issued, a court of inquiry into the incident revealed several lapses. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman was given a special briefing on the findings of the court of inquiry by IAF recently, according to one of the officials cited above.

The inquiry revealed that, among other things, a gathering to celebrate the new year was held despite the terror alert.

Sequence of events established by the inquiry shows that terrorist had sneaked into the airbase on the 1st, an abandoned police vehicle was located near the airbase; these were not appreciated by those in command, a second defence ministry official said , explaining the show cause notice.

Air Commodore Dhamoon resigned last year and was scheduled to leave the force in November 2018. He was shifted out of Pathankot days after the attack. The government, however, did not accept his resignation. Instead, it asked IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, to send Dhamoon a show cause notice. Section 17 of the IAF Act, like the Army and Navy, acts, allows chiefs of staff to sack someone if he is satisfied that officer is unfit to be retained due to inefficiency . The Government, on recommendations of the chief, may remove or compulsorily retire the officer from service, the act says.

IAF has already punished two junior officers for laxities in the Pathankot attack.

On at least two occasions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when speaking to top commanders of the three forces, referred to the Pathankot attack and expressed his displeasure over the ease with which the terrorists breached security despite the alert. Government is of the view that business, as usual, cannot continue, the second senior defence ministry official said. Now the government wants visible action against those responsible.

The governments move to hold senior officials of IAF responsible for alleged lapses leading up to the attack on the air base also raises questions about the Indian Army.

At least three army bases  Uri Brigade headquarters, Sunjuwan Camp, and 166 Field Regiment in Nagrota  were attacked between 2016 and 2018. Nineteen soldiers were killed in the Uri attack; 11 soldiers and one civilian in the Sunjuwan attack; and 10 soldiers, including two officers, in Nagrota.

The Indian Army removed officers from their respective commands but did not take disciplinary action against them. Army chief General Bipin Rawat has said that the removal from the operational command is in itself a disgrace to the officer and amounts to severe punishment.

A spokesperson for IAF declined comment. Air Commodore Dhamoon could not be reached for comment despite several attempts to do so. The Indian Army feels that proceeding against officers for attacks on installations will hamper our counter-terror operations, said a senior general officer who did not want to be named.

Veteran commanders, who didnt want to be named, questioned the timing of the notice and pointed to the fact that the defence ministry, too, had failed to strengthen installations despite a report by General Philip Campose that suggested the strengthening of vital installations. The government cannot now pass on the blame to the forces, a former Vice-Chief of Army Staff said.

Normally the decision of Chief of Staff should be final. The officer was moved from command, taking a second administrative (action) against the officer may not be in the best interest of the forces, Admiral Shekhar Sinha (retd), who commanded the Western Fleet, said.
Continuing his attack on the opposition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said they have only one agenda Modi. He said the opposition parties start and end their day by talking about him.

PM Modi claimed that there was a dearth of ideas among the political parties. The opposition talks only about Modi the whole day, I suspect they even dream about me, he said.

Earlier in the day, Modi had pitched for another stint at the Centre with full majority saying only such government can take tough and strong decisions.

The prime minister said Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother UPA chief Sonia Gandhi are out on bail and they dont like him because of his strong steps against corruption.

The PM said his humble beginnings helped him take on corruption as he had no baggage of the past. They can keep circling the courts but they have to pay for their acts, Modi said at the New India youth conclave in Surat.

People didnt think a chaiwalla could challenge a dynasty, but the public made us victorious, he added.

PM Modi said the greatest contribution of his government has been a change of attitude. He said India doesnt sit silently now when terrorists unleash violence but replies back with surgical strikes.

What happened after 26/11? Martyrs were garlanded. Uri happened during our time. What happened after that? Wasnt there a change? he added.

The PM thanked the people of Gujarat for believing in him. India believed in Modi, because Gujarat did. You invested in me in 2014, you got the returns, Modi said.
The Congress on Wednesday demanded another debate on the Rafale deal in Parliament, with a reply by the Prime Minister, signalling its intent to be aggressive in the last session of the 16th Lok Sabha that starts on Thursday.

At an all-party meeting convened by Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, the Congresss floor leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge warned the government of strong protests if it tries to bring a full budget ahead of the general election and even told Mahajan not to get angry if such protests continue.

The budget session of Parliament will run from January 31 to February 13, with just 10 working days for key debates and passage of key bills, including the Triple Talaq and the Citizenship Amendment bills.

Mahajan appealed to all sides to make the last session memorable. But the Congress, indicating its zeal to take on the NDA, demanded a fresh debate on the Rafale jet fighter deal, with Modis clarifications. When some NDA leaders pointed out that a debate of Rafale had been held in the last session, Kharge said that new developments have come to light after that session.

He added that no one less than the Prime Minister must come to Lok Sabha and reply to our queries. Modi did not participate in the last Rafale debate.

The government has been hoping to pass a long list of pending bills, including those penalising instant Triple Talaq and allowing non-Muslims from three neighbouring countries to acquire Indian citizenship, but with the Congress hardening its stance, that looks difficult. Some part of the all-too-brief session will also go to discussing the Presidents customary address and the business related to the presentation and passage of the interim budget.

The Opposition demanded that the Presidents speech to the joint sitting of the two Houses be debated over at least three days and the budget discussion must run for two full days. If this happens, the government will have just three days to pass the long list of pending bills.

The government has clarified, following reports that it will present a sixth budget, that it will in fact present an interim budget. To be sure, as HT has previously pointed out, there have been instances of elaborate interim budgets, including one presented by Pranab Mukherjee of the United Progressive Alliance in 2009. The Biju Janata Dals Bhartruhari Mahtab also cautioned the government not to deviate from the norm of presenting an interim budget in the last session.

At the meeting, parliamentary affairs minister Narendra Singh Tomar even requested Opposition leaders not to insist on long debates, but pass bills that have already cleared the lower house with a short discussion in the upper house. Opposition leaders laughed at the proposal, indicating they are not in a mood to heed the appeal.

While the current draft of the triple talaq bill has faced fierce resistance from opposition parties, the government is also in a fix over the bill to amend the Citizenship Act to allow minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to become Indian citizens. The citizenship bill, too, could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha in the last session in the face of Opposition resistance.

An Opposition leader said on Wednesday on condition of anonymity that if the government did not allow a debate on the Rafale issue, it would face resistance in its attempts to pass any bill.

Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyay and Kharge demanded a debate on the Reserve Bank of India (whose governor Urjit Patel abruptly resigned in December), the controversy at the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the crisis at the National Statistical Commission, whose last two non-official members resigned citing differences with the government. Bandopadhyay also demanded a debate on electronic voting machines that the Oppositions says are vulnerable to tampering.

Some other leader also demanded a debate on the agrarian crisis and unemployment.
Congress president found an unusual admirer in Goa -- deputy Speaker and BJP MLA Michael Lobo, who praised Gandhi a day after he called on chief minister Manohar Parrikar in the state assembly.

Rahul Gandhi came on a special visit to greet our ailing CM Manohar Parrikar. His simplicity, humility has to be admired by all Indians and Goans. He is a very simple person and leaders like him are required in Goa and India, Lobo said.

Watch video: Leaders like Rahul Gandhi required in India: Goa BJP MLA

After meeting Parikkar, who is undergoing treatment for Pancreatic cancer, in his office Panaji on Tuesday, Rahul tweeted, This morning I visited Goa CM, Manohar Parrikar, to wish him a speedy recovery. It was a personal visit, Gandhi wrote on Twitter.

The meeting between Gandhi, on a private visit to Goa, and Parrikar, lasted about 10 minutes. It came a day after Gandhi referred to a purported audio tape in which a Goa minister claimed that Parrikar possessed files relating to the Rafale deal.

Gandhi was initially scheduled to visit Parrikars residence but by the time he landed in Goa, the chief minister had left for the assembly. Gandhi then drove to the assembly to meet Parrikar. He was taken inside Parrikars office by state Congress chief, Girish Chodankar, and leader of the opposition in the Goa Assembly, Chandrakant Kavlekar.

Parrikar told the two Congress leaders that Gandhi had regularly enquired about his health whenever he was in hospital both in India and the United States. Gandhi was also in constant touch with his son, the chief minister told Chodankar and Kavlekar, who later left the two leaders for a one-on-one interaction that lasted seven minutes.
The Bhayander police arrested a 42-year-old man for allegedly stabbing his wife to death in her office on Tuesday morning. After committing the crime, the man, Kumar Bhoir, surrendered to the police.

According to the police, Kumar had suspected his wife Veena, 35, of having an extra-marital affair because of which they used to have frequent fights. Fed up with this, Veena had left their house on January 2 without informing Kumar after which he had registered a missing complaint, said RK Jadhav, senior inspector, Bhayander police.

On Tuesday morning, Kumar went to Veenas office in Venkatesh Apartment, Bhayander (West), said Jadhav. Veena had just turned on her office computer when Kumar went up to her and asked her to talk to him. The couple then went to the lobby of the office and soon started arguing. Kumar then took out a knife and stabbed Veena 15 times and then fled the spot, said Jadhav.

Locals then rushed Veena to a nearby private hospital where she was declared brought dead, said Jadhav. Meanwhile, Kumar came to us and surrendered. We have also seized the knife used by Kumar, which he had brought along, said Jadhav.

The police then arrested Kumar for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. He will be produced before the Thane court on Wednesday. It seems Kumar suspected his wife of having an extramarital affair and therefore murdered her. We are, however, investigating all possible angles, said Jadhav.
Martyrs day is marked every January 30 on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation.

Mahatma Gandhi - who was assassinated on January 30, 1948 - led the countrys freedom struggle with his non-violence movement. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on January 30 and the day is today known as Martyrs day.

In his first Mann ki Baat of 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on everyone to observe 2-minutes silence to pay a tribute to the martyrs of India on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30.

Earlier in the day President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister paid their tribute to the father of the nation on his 71st death anniversary.

On Martyrs Day, we gratefully remember Mahatma Gandhi and the countless freedom fighters who sacrificed their all for our Independence, President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted on Martyrs Day.

...Remembering Bapu on his Punya Tithi. We reiterate our commitment to follow the path shown by him and abide by the values he stood for, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu too paid floral tributes at Gandhis memorial at Rajghat in New Delhi. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also paid homage to the Father of the Nation at Rajghat on the occasion of Martyrs Day.

Mahatma Gandhis favorite bhajan Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram was also played at Rajghat.

In Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a host of projects and will inaugurated the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial in Dandi on the occasion of Martyrs Day.

During the freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi used innovative methods to unite the public and get rid of the British Raj. Foremost among his methods was that of non-violence.

Non-violence was Mahatma Gandhis way of fighting the British Raj. He believed that responding with violence to British atrocities would be counter productive. Instead, he united the masses to fight the British without any weapons but with a series of rebellions such as the non-cooperation movement.

In his book Experiments with Truth, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, Ahimsa (non-violence) is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing that this search is vain, unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis.

Such was Mahatma Gandhis belief in non-violence that he believed that deliverance for people lay only in truth and non-violence. In a letter to Daniel Oliver Mahatma Gandhi wrote that he had no message to give except this that there is no deliverance for any people on this earth or for all the people of this earth except through truth and nonviolence in every walk of life without any exceptions.
In the second such instance this month, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath Tuesday ordered the reinstatement of a government school teacher who was suspended for an objectionable social media post on Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Nath said the suspension of the primary school teacher would have been contrary to our leaders (Rahul Gandhi) way of thinking.

In a press statement, the MP CM said, I just came to know that Baleshwar Patidar, primary school teacher at Talod village of Alot development block in Ratlam, has been suspended for putting up an objectionable post on social media. For sure, action against him has been taken according to the rule book as his act was in contrast to conduct rules, Nath added.

But the memory, that I forgave a government primary school headmaster of Jabalpur (on January 13) for posting an objectionable comment calling me daku (dacoit) in social media, struck me, Nath said.

So I thought it wont be fair that a teacher should be punished for his statement in social media against Rahul ji as the (disciplinary) action was contrary to our leaders way of looking at things, his statement read.

Rahul ji is such a kind hearted man that he so far has forgiven his rivals who have made objectionable statements against him. He maintains that he grows stronger and more confident when criticised and scorned, Nath said.

So if a teacher is suspended in my government, it will be contrary to his (Rahul) way of thinking. The suspension was contrary to my way of thinking as well, the CMs statement maintained.

But I want to advise the teacher to read about the history of the Gandhi familys sacrifice and contribution to the nation to dispel any prejudice which he might be nursing against them, Nath said.

Earlier, Mukesh Tiwari, a government school teacher in Jabalpur, was suspended after a video showed him referring to Nath as daku (dacoit).

Nath had revoked his suspension on January 13.

I have directed the district administration to revoke the suspension....He (Tiwari) should decide for himself whether he used right words for a democratically-elected chief minister, Nath had said then.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to visit India next month for talks with his counterpart Narendra Modi. The visit comes two months ahead of elections in Israel, people familiar with the developments said on Wednesday.

The sources said dates for the visit were still being finalised, though reports from Israel said Netanyahu is expected to be in New Delhi on February 11.

This will be Netanyahus second visit to India in a little more than a year. He last came here in January last year, when the two sides were marking 25 years of diplomatic ties. Modi became the first Indian premier to visit Israel in 2017, when bilateral relations were upgraded to a strategic partnership.

The visit comes at a time when Netanyahu is facing intense scrutiny in Israel over a case of alleged corruption. Israeli media reports said that police suspect the premier and his wife influenced regulatory decisions to benefit a telecommunications firm.

Khinvraj Jangid, assistant professor at the Jindal Centre for Israel Studies, said Netanyahu is going into Israels April 9 elections with his foreign policy successes.

He is showcasing things such as the US moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israels role in getting the US to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and his personal chemistry with Modi, he said.

Israels National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat visited India this month and met his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval and Modi. Netanyahu and Modi spoke on phone while Ben-Shabbat was in New Delhi.

Ben-Shabbat also discussed promoting security deals, an official statement said. The two sides agreed on measures to advance security, technological and economic cooperation during the visit.

Reports from Israel suggested that a defence deal could be finalised during Netanyahus visit though there was no official word on this from both sides.

There has been speculation that India is set to conclude a follow-on order for 15 Harop attack drones, which can carry 23 kg of explosives and can be used to destroy high-value targets.

The Indian Air Force operates Harop drones acquired under a deal inked in 2009 and state-run Israel Aerospace Industries is the main supplier of drones to Indias military, including Searcher and Heron drones.
A Facebook post by AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP, V Maitreyan on his exclusion from the party panels entrusted with finalising seat-sharing, manifesto and campaign strategy could be an indication of an internal feud in the party which is preventing it from pursuing a likely alliance with the BJP, say analysts.

The AIADMK which swept the 2014 elections winning 37 of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu is now a much weaker party after it split following the death of J Jayalalithaa in December 2016.

Last month, BJP national secretary Ram Madhav had said that the party was working to build a strong political alliance in Tamil Nadu to challenge Congress and DMK. Madhav did not mention the AIADMK but Tamil Nadus ruling party is widely expected align with the BJP. But the AIADMK has not been able to take any decision yet on a possible electoral tie up.

While the AIADMK co-ordinators chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and his deputy O Panneerselvam (OPS) have constituted committees to carry out the seat-sharing talks with friendly parties, senior leaders of the party including Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, former minister C Ponnaiyan, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar and Information Minister Kadambur Raju continue to criticise the BJP.

Earlier this month cooperation minister Sellur K Raju said the AIADMK is preparing to contest all 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in neighbouring Puducherry.

The Facebook post on his exclusion from three election-related committees by Maitreyan, who is seen as a pro-BJP voice in the AIADMK, only underlines the fault lines in the AIADMK.

I joined in AIADMK in 1999. Since then, AMMA (late CM Jayalalithaa) had included me in the committees to draft the manifesto and on seat-sharing talks in 2001, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2014 State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. However, this time, my name was missing in the committees formed by our leaders, Maitreyan said in his Facebook post.

The AIADMK is not happy that Maitreyan went public with his grievance. AIADMK spokesperson and former minister Gokula Indira said the MP should have expressed his concern to the party leadership instead of going public on Facebook.

As a senior leader, he should have informed this to our coordinators. Every leader has his or her own style of functioning in steering the party. Our coordinators are likely to form more committees ahead of LS polls. So, people who have not been included in the seat-sharing committee and manifesto drafting committee could be accommodated in the other panels which are to be formed, she said.

She further said that if everyone came up with their own demands, the party could not move ahead. But she ruled out disciplinary action against Maitreyan.

After Jayalalithaa, Maitreyan, who is a former BJP state president, was seen as the only prominent Brahmin leader in the AIADMK. When OPS revolted against Jayalalithaas close-aide VK Sasikala when she tried to become the Chief Minister, Maitreyan was the first to side with OPS. Despite being in the AIADMK, he continues to have good rapport with the BJP leadership.

He denied that his Facebook post was critical of the AIADMK. I have just expressed my feelings. I did not criticize our party high command in my Facebook post. Also, I am not worried about being excluded in the committees, he said.

Analysts say Maitreyans post could be a pointer to the polarisation within the AIADMK over entering into an alliance with the BJP.

After Jayalalithaas demise, AIADMK has been weakened and the party is no more the formidable one it used to be. Within the party, there is no unanimity on electoral alliance and the party is speaking in different voices. And, if one reads between the lines, Maitreyans discontent is not out of a personal contradiction but a political one, Ramu Manivannan, Professor and Head, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Madras University, said.

But, C Lakshmanan, Associate Professor with Madras Institute of Development Studies, maintains that the question of survival would eventually bring both the parties together.

The AIADMK has been more close to the right wing ever since Jayalalithaa took over the reins of the party. It hasnt changed. Also there are influential Other Backward Class cliques within the party, like the dominant Gounder, Nadar and Thevar which are pro-BJP. Yet, leaders from these sections also strive to protect their turf which is what is being played out. Ultimately, the question of survival will bring them together, he reasoned.
India on Wednesday summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood and lodged a strong protest over the telephone conversation initiated by Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

A statement from the ministry of external affairs said Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of Indias condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert Indias unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister.

Qureshi had spoken with Farooq over phone and briefed him on Islamabads efforts to highlight alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, according to a statement from Pakistans foreign ministry.

This was the first time the Pakistan government reached out to the Hurriyat after Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office last year. Mirwaiz said Qureshi was disappointed that despite Khan trying to reach out sincerely to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, the government of India did not respond, people familiar with developments said.

Envoy Sohail Mahmood was summoned by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, who said that Pakistans duplicity had been exposed which on one side professed its desire for normal relations with India, but on the other hand was openly inciting anti-India activities, news agency ANI reported.

The government of Indias position that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall remain an integral part of India, and that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matters related to the state, has been made clear again to the High Commissioner of Pakistan.
Railways and coal minister Piyush Goyal, who was awarded the 2018 Carnot Prize for his contribution to the energy policy in New Delhi on Wednesday, said the country was saving $7 billion annually through the nation-wide LED movement that was conceived by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Power ministers, particularly of European countries, have thanked Modi for making LEDs affordable across the world after an 87% decline in the prices of LED bulbs, he said.

He recalled how Modi had ushered in the LED revolution in the country by replacing a traditional light bulb with an LED bulb in the Prime Ministers Office.

The cost of switchover to LEDs for the nation must have been $2 billion at most, maybe less. But we are saving $7 billion in electricity bills every year, Goyal said.

International Energy Agency (IEA) executive director Fatih Birol, who was present at the ceremony, said Indias power sector reforms under Goyal oversaw the worlds biggest and most successful LED programme.

The award was given to Goyal for his contribution to the power sector when he was minister of state (independent charge) for power, coal, new & renewable energy from 2014 to 2017. Currently, Goyal also holds charge of the finance portfolio.

Birol praised Goyal for donating the prize money of $25,000 (around Rs 17,75,000) to the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design formally presented the prize to Goyal in New Delhi as he could not receive the award in the US due to the Amritsar train tragedy in October last year.

Speaking on the occasion, Goyal said the country is expected to complete electrification of its railway network over the next four-five years. Over 4,000 kms of railway tracks were electrified last year, which would increase to 6,000 kms this year, he said.

According to Goyal, till five years ago, the average pace of electrification was only 600 kms every year.
India reacted strongly on Tuesday to Pakistans outreach to Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in an attempt to highlight the Kashmir issue, with people familiar with developments saying this reflected the duplicity of the Pakistani leadership.

Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke with Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference over phone, and briefed him on Islamabads efforts to highlight alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, according to a statement from Pakistans foreign ministry.

This was the first time the Pakistan government reached out to the Hurriyat after Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office last year. Mirwaiz said Qureshi was disappointed that despite Khan trying to reach out sincerely to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, the government of India did not respond.

Within hours, the Indian government reacted strongly, with the people cited above saying the approach reflected apparent divisions within the Pakistan government, as Khan was talking of better relations with India while Qureshi, perceived as being closer to the military establishment, was raking up contentious issues.

Such an attempt by the Pakistan foreign minister is a regressive step and is contrary to the overall perception which the Pakistani leadership is trying to create. It reflects duplicity in the Pakistani leaderships approach, said a person who didnt want to be named as he isnt allowed to speak to the media.

The persecution and discrimination of different ethnic populations, including Pashtuns, Baloch, Ahmediyas, Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan needs to end, the person quoted above said.
A day after its shares tumbled on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensitive index (sensex), cash-strapped carrier, Jet Airways cancelled 15 flights on Wednesday following grounding of six Boeing 737 planes over non-payment of lease rentals. Facing debts about $1.14 billion, Jet Airways had cancelled around 20 flights a day ago when three Boeing 737 aircraft were grounded.

Jet Airways has defaulted on aircraft lease rentals and it has been forced to ground three more narrow-body Boeing 737 planes, news agency PTI quoted a source as saying. Queries sent to the airline remained unanswered, the agency added.

The airline has cancelled several flights from/to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Port Blair. Jet Airways is in talks with its partner Etihad for additional cash infusion. The full service carrier would be holding a meeting of the shareholders on February 21.

According to a regulatory filing on Monday, the airline is likely to seek approval of the shareholders for conversion of loan into shares or convertible instruments or other securities.

Meanwhile, Jet Airways creditor State Bank of India (SBI) is likely to own 15 per cent of the airline if the carriers plan for a debt-for-equity swap is approved. Fierce competition from rival low-cost carriers, a weaker rupee and high oil prices have hit the finances of Jet Airways.

It owes money to banks, pilots, vendors and lessors. Its lenders, including the SBI, could end up owning as much as 30 per cent while shareholder Etihad Airways could see its stake rise to more than 40 per cent from existing 24 per cent if it injects more equity in the Indian carrier.

The airlines founder and chairman Naresh Goyal is likely to see his stake cut to below 20 per cent from 51 per cent. Jet Airways controls a sixth of Indias booming aviation market.

Indian banks in 2010 undertook a similar debt for equity swap to try and save Kingfisher Airlines, founded by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, and ended up owning nearly a quarter of the airline, before losing out when it was eventually grounded.

Jet defaulted on a debt payment to a consortium of Indian banks, lead by SBI, this month, prompting a downgrade by ratings agency ICRA.

The financial crisis of Jet Airways had its bearing on the companys shares on Tuesday, when they fell over 1 per cent with airline deciding to seek shareholders approval for conversion of loans into shares. At one point during the day, the scrip had dropped more than 2 per cent but recovered later.

(With inputs from agencies)
Amid strains in Congress-JDS ties, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Wednesday again threatened to quit if Congress leaders continued to take potshots at him.

Yes, I had said I would step down if Congress leaders continue to take potshots at me. If they repeatedly make such statements, how many more days can I tolerate such stuff. Power is ephemeral. What is permanent is you (party workers) and six-and-a-half crore people of this state, he said addressing the National JDS Convention in Bengaluru.

On January 28, Kumaraswamy had threatened to step down over adverse comments by a Congress MLA, prompting the coalition partner to swing into damage control mode.

Congress general secretary K C Venugopal and incharge of party affairs in the state said the party high command has full faith in Kumaraswamy and the State government.

On Sunday, Congress MLA ST Somashekhar had demanded that Siddaramaiah be made chief minister again.Somashekhar had claimed that development works had come to a grinding halt here and other parts of the state.

Addressing the convention Wednesday, former Prime Minister and JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda also said the Chief Minister has been hurt by some Congress leaders taking potshots at him.

He also referred to Siddaramaiahs alleged ambitions to become chief minister in 2006-2007. Back then, Siddaramaiah had told me that if I had put pressure on Sonia Gandhi, he would have become chief minister, instead of Kumaraswamy. Siddaramaiah is nursing pain and he should be seeking answer from Sonia Gandhi about it, Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said amid alleged bid to topple his government, it was becoming difficult for him to direct his officials to address peoples problems.

They (BJP and some Congress leaders) are giving threats of dislodging my government by Shankranthi or Rajyotsava Day, besides during assembly session beginning February 6.

Amidst these media leaks, how shall I ask my officials to address peoples problems. Just think of the situation I am in? However, I should be grateful to my legislators who have stood behind me, he said.

Kumaraswamy also appealed to farmers not to get carried away with some leaders portraying him as anti-farmers.

There is another message being circulated in WhatsApp that I brought down prices affecting milk farmers.During Siddaramaiahs rule, milk farmers were getting Rs 27 per litre, and I brought it down to Rs 20. I request farmers not to get carried away by this. I am continuing as the chief minister because of you, he said.

Kumaraswamy also asked party chief Deve Gowda to prepare the list of appointments to various boards and corporations to avoid any confusion in running a coalition government.

... In 2006, I committed a mistake by not heeding to my father (Deve Gowda) and was unable to make appointments to boards and corporations. I do not want to repeat the same mistake while running the present coalition government, he added.
Gujarat education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasma sparked controversy by writing a congratulatory message to a yoga ashram run by the controversial Asaram Trust for observing February 14 as Matru-Pitru Pujan(Mother-Father Worship) day.

The sprawling ashram located in Ahmedabads Sabarmati area was mired in controversy following deaths of two students allegedly for praticising black magic by self-styled godman Asaram, who was in 2018 convicted in a rape case and is currently lodged in Jodhpur jail.

On being asked about the controversy the minister said: All I have done is sent the best wishes message. I have nothing to do with controversy (surrounding the founder and the ashram).

February 14 is usually being celebrated as Valentines Day almost across the world. But, the Yog Vedanta Samiti, within ashram, observes this day as Matru-Pitru Pujan day.

The message in Gujarati from the minister read: Those who serve their parents and teachers become respectable figures in the society. Your initiative of observing this day is appreciable. Hope that this campaign becomes successful and the students understand their duties towards parents in becoming best citizens. My best wishes for the campaign.

The Congress termed the letter from the education minister as unfortunate and said that the BJP was trying to woo a section of people that are still under influence of Asaram.

This is so unfortunate that state education minister is appreciating ashram of a hardcore criminal, who is accused of rapes and murders. This shows the nexus between the BJP and godman, said Congress spokesman Manish Doshi, adding that as the elections are around the corner, they are trying to woo a section which is still under influence of Asaram.

Bodies of two people Dipesh and Abhishek Vaghela, students of residential school of Asaram Ashram, were found from Sabarmati River bank in 2008. The family of two cousins had accused that black magic practice by the ashram has taken their children lives, the family has demanded a CBI probe.
A day after Congress president Rahul Gandhi claimed that Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar had told him that he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal the state unit of the BJP Goa asked the Congress president not to politicise a courtesy visit.

Rahul Gandhi had made the claim in Kochi on Tuesday.

It was not the right thing for Rahul Gandhi to do, Mauvin Godinho, Goas minister of panchayats told reporters in Panaji.

When we extend civil courtesies to each other, it should remain at that. We may belong to different political parties [but] one should not get politics in it. Now if big leaders start getting politics into such things also, I think it is not the right thing to do, he said.

One should realise, that when you come to enquire about a persons health, it should be limited to that. He should not try to capitalise that and say something to the contrary, because when meetings like that take place between two persons, so many things can be said about each other, Godinho said.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi paid a surprise visit to Parrikar who has been ailing for a year to inquire about his health.

While Rahul didnt make it clear where Parrikar had made the comments about Rafale, Goas leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar who was present at the meeting, claimed that the issued did not arise in the brief meeting between the Congress chief and Parrikar.

No, there was nothing like that. It is Rahuls totally private visit. He only inquired about his health. He told the MLAs said he will make another visit to discuss party related issues. Maybe next month, Kavlekar said when asked.

A day before the visit Rahul tweeted about the alleged Rafale tapes in which Goas health minister Vishwajit Rane is allegedly heard saying that Parrikar told his cabinet colleagues that he has files concerning the contentious deal about the French fighter jets in his bedroom.

Earlier, South Goa BJP MP Narendra Sawaikar said that Parrikar does not need any certificate from Rahul Gandhi.

The allegations made against him are totally false and baseless. We dont need a certificate from Rahul Gandhi because Parrikars integrity and devotion and dedication is unquestionable, Sawaikar had said.

Ahead of Godinhos comments on Rahuls claims about Parrikar, Goa assemblys deputy speaker Michael Lobo who is from the BJP appreciated the Congress presidents gesture of calling on the ailing Chief Minister.
Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday accused Congress chief Rahul Gandhi of using his visit on the ailing chief minister for petty political gains. Rahul Gandhi had on Tuesday said that the former defence minister had said that he had nothing to do with the new Rafale deal.

Rahul Gandhi met Parrikar at the CMs office in Panaji on Tuesday. The meeting between Gandhi, on a private visit to Goa, and Parrikar, lasted about 10 minutes. It came a day after Gandhi referred to a purported audio tape in which a Goa minister claimed that Parrikar possessed files relating to the Rafale deal.

In his letter on the Goa CMs official letterhead, Parrikar said that Gandhi had, without any prior information, called on me and enquired me about my health condition. We have a healthy political tradition in India to rise above bipartisan considerations and wish even opponents a quick recovery from any ailments. I received your visit in that spirit, fighting as I am, with good medical care, a severe ailment. I appreciate your gesture.

However, in the very next paragraph in the letter, Parrikar writes that the recent media reports covering Rahul Gandhis visit to his office has caused him distress. The Goa CM said he had read in the media that Rahul Gandhi had quoted him as saying that he was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did he have any information about it then.

Watch | Manohar Parrikar had nothing to do with new Rafale deal: Rahul Gandhi

I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, now did we discuss anything related to it, Parrikar wrote.

Parrikar went on to clarify that the procurement of the Rafale was as per the Defence Procurement Procedure. I have said this before and wish to reiterate it again in todays context too. The fighter aircraft are procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority.

Parrikar went on to reprimand Rahul Gandhi and said, Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself.

Here am I fighting against a life-threatening illness. Due to my training and ideological strength. I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds. I thought your visit would give me your good wishes in that cause of serving our people. Little did I know that you had other intentions, Parrikar wrote.

With deep disappointment, I write to you hoping that you would put out the truth. Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism, Parrikar wrote.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday permitted former finance minister P Chidambarams son Karti Chidambaram to travel abroad. Karti is an accused in the Aircel-Maxis case.

At the same time, the court directed Karti to deposit Rs 10 crore with Supreme Court registry as a surety.

Telling Karti to not play around with the law, the Supreme Court also directed him to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for questioning in the INX Media and Aircel Maxis cases.

You go wherever you want to go, between February 10 to 26 but you must cooperate with the investigation, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. Please tell your clients that he will have to cooperate. You have not cooperated. We wanted to say a lot of things. We are not saying them right now, the bench said.

Karti has also been directed to file an undertaking that he will return and cooperate with the investigation.

Karti has sought permission to travel abroad from February 10 to 26 and again from March 23 to 31.

On January 16, the Supreme Court refused to give an urgent hearing to Karti Chidambaram who was seeking permission to travel abroad.

We are not interested. We have better things to do, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said during the hearing. We will see what can be done, he added.

Karti had asked for an urgent hearing for permission to travel abroad in November 2018 too. Dont go... Stay back in India, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said then.

The CBI and Enforcement Directorate are investigating Karti Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis and INX media case relating to the clearance by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to receive foreign funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore when his father was the finance minister.

In July last year, the Supreme Court allowed him to travel to the United Kingdom, France and the United States of America for about a week.

When he returned to the Supreme Court for permission to travel abroad again in November, the court made it clear that this was not a matter which deserved an out-of-turn hearing.
The breakneck pace of developments in talks between the US and the Taliban has had Indians foreign policy establishment scrambling to assess its options in war-torn Afghanistan, especially in the event of a speedy withdrawal of American troops.

The external affairs ministry and the security establishment are keeping a close eye on discussions between US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban leadership, in which the elected Afghan government has so far had no role.

Following six days of talks with the Taliban in Qatar, Khalilzad told The New York Times the two sides had agreed on the draft framework of a deal whereby the militants will guarantee Afghan territory is not used by terror groups ahead of the complete pullout of US troops.

The developments have been viewed with scepticism in New Delhi, where there is a growing belief that such moves will only embolden the Taliban and their supporters in Pakistans security establishment, people familiar with developments said.

While players like Russia and China would like to see the US troop presence in Afghanistan end eventually, no one except the Pakistanis will be happy with a situation where the Taliban dominate the set-up in Kabul, said a person who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the current circumstances, no one wants to deal with the messy situation that will surely follow any hasty withdrawal of American forces, said a second person, who too spoke on condition of anonymity.

The people quoted above pointed to the manner in which President Ashraf Ghanis government has been completely shut out of negotiations, with the Taliban refusing to meet Afghan officials. India has tied its position on the talks process to that of the Afghan government, calling for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned dialogue.

They also pointed to the need for caution expressed by US officials themselves, especially CIA chief Gina Haspels remarks during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that a very robust monitoring regime will be necessary under a potential accord to maintain pressure on the terrorist groups.

A senior member of the Afghan security establishment, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Taliban are cooperating with the Islamic State-Khorasan where their interests align. The official added, The Islamic State-Khorasan is just a rebranding of more radical elements of the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, that are an insurance policy for Pakistan.

The Afghan official indicated Kabul is looking to New Delhi to articulate the Afghan governments concerns about the talks as India is playing a leading role in the region as it reorganises itself.

There is also a debate on whether India should engage the Taliban, especially in the wake of New Delhis decision to participate in a non-official capacity in the Moscow Format talks in November.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said India supports efforts that can achieve an inclusive political settlement. In this context, it is important that the presidential election in Afghanistan takes place as per the schedule...We will participate in all formats of talks which could bring about peace and security in that region, he added.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, indicated Indias options were limited as the US-Taliban talks werent about peace. These are talks aimed at a flight from Afghanistan. The US has lost interest, lost purpose and lost the will to fight and is looking for a way to escape, he said.

The US is only seeking verbal guarantees that al-Qaeda and IS wont get a foothold in Afghanistan and the country shouldnt be a haven for anti-US terrorists, he added.
First, lets not over-produce these town halls and totally control the questions, skewing the process in favor of those in the audience who we have put there because we think they will be good on TV. Lets respect the tradition of the town hall a little and allow some room for organic audience questions and response even if it makes the telecast feel a little messy. (For those of us not working in TV, lets do the same in the voices we bring into our reports, stories, podcasts and videos.)
The Congress will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the citizenship bill, party general secretary in-charge for Assam Harish Rawat said Wednesday.

Talking to reporters after separate meetings with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Rawat said the party is always concerned about Assam and the Northeast and it will continue to do so.

As per the directive of the Congress president, the party will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the bill, he said, adding it will try to rope in like-minded parties for support against the bill. A Congress delegation comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia and Rawat besides others Wednesday met Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha.

The delegation apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and peoples strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Terming the bill as flawed, the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8. The Budget Session of Parliament will begin on Thursday.

The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill.

Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi governments decision to get Parliaments approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an atonement of the wrong that was done during Indias Partition... India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition.

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests.
The Supreme Court has lashed out at lawyers who, for cheap publicity, make personal attacks at judges and attribute political motives to their judgments, and said this behaviour denigrates the judiciary and amounts to the gravest form of contempt.

In a hard-hitting judgement delivered when a bench of justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran said it had become very common for advocates to go to the press and criticise judges.

This has no rationale, they added, pointing out that the very independence of the judicial system is under threat when people resort to unscrupulous means and create pressure.

The judges warned against the media trial of cases.

Authored by justice Mishra, the judgement also said that it was not advisable to wash dirty linen in public and enter into accusation or debates.

These tactics are aimed at influencing judgements, even denying justice, with ulterior motives, the judges said.

The lawyers who attribute political colour to judgements think they are above the bar council, which is a disciplinary body for lawyers, the court said. It also came down heavily on the bar councils for not discharging their statutory duties effectively and said state high courts should entertain petition against advocates for indiscipline in case the bar council fails to take appropriate action.

The Supreme Court order came even as it struck down the Madras high court s rules for lawyers.

The high court, in 2016, framed the new disciplinary rules under which advocates could be disbarred if they were found abusing or putting pressure on a judge, spreading unfounded allegations against a judge, or appearing drunk in court. The rules permitted high court and trial court judges to initiate action against erring advocates, even disbar them.

The rules were introduced after numerous instances of misbehaviour by advocates within the premises of the Madras high court in 2015.

The Supreme Court said that in case of a genuine grievance against any judge, the appropriate process is to lodge a complaint with the concerned higher authorities and not malign the system.

Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to press or media to ventilate their point of view. Contempt of court has to be used sparingly, the court said. However, it does not mean the court has a fear of taking action and its repercussions.

Referring to the statutory rules, the court said advocates are barred from advertising. Therefore, going to the press and putting out distorted versions is sheer misconduct and contempt of court.

Such press briefings make it more difficult to render justice in a fearless and impartial manner, the court added.

Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra welcomed the quashing of the rules made by the Madras high court to regulate the conduct of advocates.

He said: The entire bar welcomes the judgment. In fact, there was encroachment of rights and privileges by various high courts and it has rightly been struck down by the Supreme Court, said Mishra.

The suggestions and advice given by the court will be seen in the right light and the Bar Council of India will bring in amendments to its existing rules governing the conduct of advocates, he said.
The Centres decision to seek the Supreme Courts permission to restore the excess 67-acre land around the disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site to the original owners is being seen as a last-ditch effort by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to placate the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadre and Hindus saints who have intensified their campaign for construction of the temple.

Senior Sangh functionaries who spoke on condition of anonymity said the step is aimed to pre-empt any move by the saints to gather at the disputed site to start an agitation. A dharma sansad (meeting of saints) to take a call on the temple issue will take place on Thursday and Friday at the ongoing Kumbh mela in Allahabad. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is expected to attend the meeting.

On Tuesday, the Centre said it had acquired 67 acres of land, including the 2.77-acre disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site, and sought permission of the Supreme Court to return the excess land to its original owners.

This step is an attempt to assuage the anger of the cadre who will play a key role in drumming up support for the party as it seeks re-election. The cadre was not mollified by the governments claims that they are committed to the cause and it was during their tenure that the first temple was constructed in United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Muslim country, said a senior functionary on condition of anonymity.

He said, during a spate of meetings that were held to analyse the BJPs electoral setback in the three Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, there was unanimity in the feedback from the state units that not resolving the temple issue had adversely impacted the party.

Also read: Ayodhya petition a legal decision, govt not touching disputed land: Javadekar on Ram temple

Another functionary said the Sangh and party brass has been cautioned that saints could march to Ayodhya after the conclusion of the Kumbh on March 4, which could lead to a law and order problem and put the government in an embarrassing position.

There are many within the Sangh and the party who think that the BJP will not fare well (electorally) if it gives preference to the Ram Temple issue over development issues; but the determination of the cadre and the position taken by the sants (religious heads) has pushed the party to do whatever it can, the second functionary said.

While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has been demanding that the solution is through the legislative route, it welcomed the governments latest move.

Alok Kumar, international working president of the VHP, said, The Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas had obtained the land for construction of Shri Ram Mandir. The Union government had acquired a total of 67.703 acres of land in 1993. This included the Nyas land. The Supreme Court had said in the M Ismail case that the superfluous land shall be returned to its owners. The VHP hopes that the Supreme Court shall expeditiously decide the application filed by the government.

Political analyst Hari Desai, however said, the latest move is an attempt by the government to dilute the anger and divert attention of those demanding the temple at the disputed site. They (government) know that people are angry that nothing was done in the past five years; so they are trying to pacify them, he said.
A day after BJP party supporters clashed with Trinamool Congress workers in Bengal following party president Amit Shahs public meeting on Tuesday, a saffron party leader Rahul Sinha asked workers to carry sticks to all meetings.

I am telling our supporters that they should be carrying bundles of sticks to all public rallies in the state till this government is in power. These sticks should not be used to attack others, but for defence, the BJP national secretary said at a press conference in Burdwan.

After the attack by Trinamool supporters following Amit Shahs rally in Contai, we have to say this, said Sinha, who was a past president of the Bengal unit of the BJP.

BJP leaders alleged on Tuesday that their workers were beaten up by TMC supporters who were carrying sticks.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee reportedly told Union home minister Rajnath Singh to rein in BJP workers after the latter called her following the clashes.

Though violence is a part of politics in Bengal and even senior leaders issue threats of violent reprisals against their opponents, Sinhas appeal to party supporters to carry sticks was unprecedented.

Trinamool Congress leaders shot back immediately.

They carried sticks, knives, bows and arrows and even shotguns on Tuesday itself. Let them carry weapons as long as they want. We are also worth our mothers milk. We have tackled the (Left violence) in Nandigram. We know very well how to resist them no matter wherever they carry out their mischief in Bengal, said Sisir Adhikari, TMC MP from Contai.

BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh too has mentioned carrying stick while delivering a speech on Wednesday.

Previously, TMC used to deploy goons to scare off our supporters. Now-a-days you carry sticks and they know it and so TMCs goons have stepped back. Hence, TMC is now using the police to intimidate our supporters, Ghosh said at a gathering of party supporters in South 24-Parganas district.

East Midnapore police have arrested 11 persons for their role in Tuesdays vandalism where dozens of buses were vandalised, two-wheelers set on fire and two party offices of TMC set on fire.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday decided to take a call on choosing new Institutes of Eminence (IoE) only after the government takes a policy decision on whether there should be 30 such institutions as recommended by a high-level panel or 20, as originally planned.

This means that 12 prominent public institutions such as IIT Madras, the Delhi University, and as many private ones including Shiv Nadar University (Greater Noida), Jamia Hamdard (New Delhi), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Bangalore), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, will have to wait before being considered for the coveted status.

At a six-hour-long meeting that went on till late evening, UGC members led by chairperson D P Singh deliberated on the second report of the former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami-led panel on creating world class IoEs.

The commission has considered the final list of recommendations made by the Empowered Expert Committee and resolved to seek clarification from the government whether addition of 10 institutions, over and above the original mandate of 10 public and 10 private institutions can be considered. Further decision can be taken after receiving the clarification, a commission member said.

New names for the conferment of this status will be considered only after the government takes a decision on how many institutes have to be chosen, the member added.

The UGC will ask the HRD [human resource development] ministry which, if it feels the requirement, may also consult the prime ministers office, the official said.

The government had constituted the Gopalaswami-led panel to select 20 IoEs, which it plans to nurture into world class universities.

The government has chosen three public institutions  Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the IITs of Bombay and Delhi  as well as three private institutions  BITS Pilani, Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Jio Institute  as IoEs in the greenfield category
The Guwahati Special CBI court has sentenced National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) founder and chief Ranjan Daimary and 9 others to life in prison in the 2008 Assam serial blasts in which 81 people had died.

On Monday, the Special CBI court had held Daimary and 13 others guilty in the case. The courts verdict came more than 10 years after the blasts took place. Apart from the 81 people who died, as many as 470 people were reported to have suffered injuries when as many as 11 bombs went off across the markets of Guwahati and surrounding areas.

The 2008 serial blasts in Assam are believed to be one of the worst terror strikes in India which were carried out just a little less than a month before the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

The 2008 Assam bombings took place on October 30 around noon with at least 11 bombs going off almost simultaneously at three places in Guwahati and Bongaigaon, Barpeta, and Kokrajhar. The CBI had earlier said RDX and ammonium nitrate and Trinitrotoluene (TNT) was used to trigger the blasts.

Mridul Goyary, one of the accused, was acquitted in the case. Speaking to the media on Monday after his conviction, Daimary said that they would fight the case in a higher court.

There were a total of 22 accused out of which 15 faced trial. Seven others remain absconding while two of them are believed to be dead, said TD Goswami, special public prosecutor engaged by the CBI for the trial said.
Scores of families of people killed in the Assam agitation of the 1980s returned their awards to the state government in Guwahati on Wednesday to protest against the proposed amendment to citizenship law.

The amendment seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It has triggered protests in Assam and the rest of the northeast.

Civil society groups in Assam say the proposed amendment violates the 1985 Assam accord that sought to identify and deport illegal migrants from Bangladesh irrespective of their religion. The accord followed the six-year-long Assam agitation.

Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had felicitated the families of the 855 people killed during the agitation after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2016. The state government had given them an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh each along with mementos.

The families marched to the office of Guwahatis Deputy Commissioner to return the awards.

Rajen Deka, who heads an association representing the families, said they were returning the mementos as a mark of protest against the amendment. In our own land, this [proposed] amendment will rob us of dignity and respect, he said.

Dipti Bora, who is from Morigaon district and lost her brother, Padma Bora, during the agitation, said the proposed amendment will give protection to foreigners. What is the value of the sacrifice of the martyrs?

Separately, a BJP functionary in Assams Tinsukia was assaulted on Wednesday as the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill continued in the state.

Lakheshwar Moran, the BJPs Tinsukia district president, was injured when protesters waylaid him outside the venue of a meeting over the proposed amendment.

He [Moran] lost his tooth and sustained other injuries as he fell while he was being chased, said Tinsukia police superintendent Shiladitya Chetia. The matter is being investigated and the situation is tense.
Mocking at the alliance between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Wednesday said two UP boys had joined hands earlier also during the assembly polls, when our workers crushed them winning 325 seats for the BJP.

Two UP boys had come together during assembly election. But the BJP workers crushed the alliance to win 325 seats for the party and install a BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, Amit Shah said making a reference to an alliance between the Congress and the SP during 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had then announced that theirs was an alliance of youth for betterment of Uttar Pradesh.

Amit Shah described the alliance between the BSP and the SP as one of crime, corruption and caste. The two parties announced, earlier this month, that they would contest 38 seats each in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the Lok Sabha.

Now another alliance is in place. This one is of crime, corruption and caste. The forces which left the UP regressive and non performing due their caste based politics have come together Two have joined hands and two others will also join. Let them come together, the BJP is well prepared at the booth level. Whoever wants to unite, they may do so, the BJP cadre is ready for the battle of 50 per cent (vote share), he said.

The BJP president hit out at the regional parties trying to forge a united front to challenge the political might of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha elections saying they dont have a leader or policy to take the nation forward. Shah said while the BJP and NDA are clear about its prime ministerial candidate, the opposition parties are fighting among themselves.

Everyone knows who our leader is. But no one knows who could be their (Oppositions) prime ministerial candidate. I tell you what will happen if they win the election, Behenji (a reference often used for Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati) will be the PM on Monday. Akhileshji will be the PM on Tuesday(Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, (NCP president) Sharad Pawar on Thursday, (Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former PM) Deve Gowda on Friday and (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader) MK Stalin will be the PM on Saturday, and the nation will go on a holiday on Sundays, said Amit Shah taunting the regional parties, whose leaders recently converged at the United India rally convened in Kolkata.

They are thinking about leading the country but they dont have a leader or a policy to do so, Shah said.

Addressing the party workers in Kanpur, Amit Shah set an ambitious target of winning 74 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The party had won 73 in 2014 parliamentary polls.

The Kanpur meet of the BJPs booth-level workers was also attended by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, Union minister and BJPs UP in-charge JP Nadda and other senior party functionaries.

However, Kanpur MP Murali Manohar Joshi was not present on the dias. The faces of LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi were missing from the posters and cut outs. A hoarding of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was added at the last minute at the venue of the rally.

The Kanpur-Bundelkhand regions has 17 districts comprising 10 Lok Sabha consituencies having 20, 811 polling booths. Shah left Kanpur for Lucknow to address cadres of Oudh region that comprises 15 districts and has about 33,000 polling booths. The meetings were part of the BJP presidents plan to hold six booth-level meetings of the party cadre in Uttar Pradesh.

Amit Shah is expected to be back in Uttar Pradesh on February 2 to address booth-level cadres of western UP in Amroha. This meet would be followed by another at Etah in the Braj region on February 6.

The BJP president would address another rally of party workers in Kashi region (having parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi) on February 8. The rally will be held at Jaunpur. He will address a public meeting at Maharajganj in Gorakhpur region (the stronghold of CM Aditynath).
A 25-year-old man was allegedly killed by two brothers of his girlfriend in suburban Malad Tuesday morning, police said. The incident took place in Malvani area of Malad.

Saif Ali Sharafat Ali, the victim, was in love with a woman in the neighbourhood and the two were going to marry, a police officer said.

Her brothers Wasim Badruddin Khan (19) and Ajmal (23) were apparently opposed to the relationship, he said.

Ali went to the womans house Tuesday morning thinking her family members would not be home, but as he was chatting with her, Wasim and Ajmal arrived and allegedly thrashed him.

One of them allegedly stabbed him with a knife.

Ali was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead before admission.

Wasim and Ajmal absconded after the incident, but the police tracked them down and arrested them in the evening.

A case of murder has been registered and further probe is on.
Actor Priyanka Chopra has announced her fourth Hollywood project. She will play late spiritual leader Oshos disciple, Ma Anand Sheela, in a film, which will be helmed by Oscar-winning director, Barry Levinson (Rain Man).

Priyanka announced the project on the latest episode of Ellen on Tuesday. She was promoting her upcoming Hollywood movie, Isnt It Romantic, on the show, when she made the announcement to host Ellen DeGeneres.

Priyanka Chopra developing a movie with academy award nominee Berry Levinson. PRODUCING AND STARRING TAKE ALL MY MONEY @priyankachopra pic.twitter.com/lrBfgqcnyN  #jess (@hipslikePC) January 30, 2019

I am developing a feature with Barry Levinson. He is an iconic American director. We are developing it (from the perspective of) Sheela who is this guru who originated from India. She was his right hand woman and she was devious. She created a whole cult in America. He was called Osho. I dont know if youve heard of him. I am developing that next for me to star in and produce, she said about the project.

Also read: Manikarnika: Kangana Ranauts sister tweets her WhatsApp chat with Krish

Netflixs hit documentary Wild Wild Country was also based on Oshos community, Rajneeshpuram, which was run by Ma Anand Sheela in Oregon, United States. After a series of altercations with the locals, which ended with the mass poisoning of a town, she was convicted of multiple attempted murders and now lives in Switzerland. Osho himself accused Sheela of arson, wiretapping, attempted murder and mass poisoning, after she fled from the commune.

Earlier, actor Alia Bhatt was rumored to be playing Sheela in a film based on Osho. She said in Rajeev Masands Actress Roundtable that it was her dream role, but neither confirmed nor denied taking on the role.

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Bollywood actor Tabu and filmmaker Karan Johar were the showstoppers for fashion designer Gaurav Guptas opening show for the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) summer/resort 2019 at the iconic venue, Royal Opera House, which continues to hold significance in the cultural fabric of contemporary Mumbai. Karan Johar was dressed in black, with a red embellished blazer adding spunk to the look. Meanwhile, Tabu, riding high on the success of her film, AndhaDhun, looked ethereal in a grey off-shoulder ensemble. There was one thing common between them: The happiness of walking the ramp at the iconic Royal Opera House. Watch video:

For Karan Johar, walking the ramp at the Royal Opera House here brought back a flurry of childhood memories. After the show, he said: This is very emotional moment for me. I have so many memories of watching movies in this particular space. Royal Opera House is where I have come as a child several times, watched movies, and I cant believe that this has now transformed into this hugely iconic space... Just walking the ramp in this particular place makes me feel like life is completing an entire circle.

While talking about life in circles and orbiting things that are beautiful, Karan Johar said these things make him think of Gaurav Gupta, whose work, he feels, comes with an edge. His bespoke line is called Unfolding. It was unfolding with all the origamic structures, and then we did a lot of chikankari mixed with our techniques, and we used brocade. For me, its an unfolding of a new chapter as I mark 15 years of my brand, the designer said.

The audience, which included Diana Penty, Pooja Hegde, Mandira Bedi, Mohit Marwah and many other celebrities, witnessed Gaurav Guptas vision of a glamorous, powerful spring 2019 through zardozi work, chikankari and handwoven brocade textiles. Merging embellishments and textiles in an innovative manner, Gaurav brought his expertise with origami folding and fluid structural construction for silhouettes that will be coveted by the global Indian millennials.

Introducing Lucknowi Chikankari for draped demi-couture dresses along with a vibrant yellow, known traditionally as Basanti, Gaurav included sun-kissed Banarasi brocades for deconstructed lehengas. The show divided into colours, started with pale blue then moved to midnight black, then fiery rose, soothing ivory and then to gorgeous brocade. The final unbelievably constructed vibrant yellow, wired, curved and moulded will-power gown was an arresting study in construction and grandeur that only Gaurav can visualise.

A melange of dresses, pantsuits, saree gowns and eveningwear classics were dappled with zardosi, Chikankari and hand-woven brocades. The embroidery was specially crafted as 3D flowers in delicate organza and soft georgette, blossomed all over the garments along with a discreet splash of crystals. The construction was extreme with a scaffold-like inspiration; while the colour card kept the Chikankari craft in mind and therefore stayed true to timeless pastels like yellow, ivory, rose and powder blue.

The tucked, draped and folded skirts, asymmetric mini, embroidered yokes and sleeves for slinky gowns, the neo sari with a beaded bustier and the sensational sari gowns were breath taking. The swirling cape over a pant suit and a pair of black and red identical gowns kept the show in a high voltage state. Sleeves soared upward from shoulders, while sharply tailored jackets were worn with draped trousers.

The Indian bridal wear was given the Gaurav Gupta touch as heavily embellished skirts with 3D appliques were worn with intricately draped blouses. At times, a discreet transparency appeared for the creations to add a hint of mystery. Menswear followed in a similar fashion. Glittering black tuxedos, some with shimmering lapels, zippered tailcoats, a red bikers jacket, stylish brocade dinner jacket, as well as pin tucked and moulded lapels and shoulder detailing offered the western wear options. The Indian option came in the form of a long regal sherwani with a hint of glitter that will prove ideal wedding wear.

LFW is getting increasingly progressive every year, and becoming more interesting. Look at this magical place, and Tabu opening the show has been so beautiful for me. She is one of the most phenomenal artistes that we have in the country today, and someone who is so talented and is a timeless beauty. And as an individual, she is herself. So is Karan... Thats why theyre my perfect muses, because they are both breaking rules, living life by their own rules and setting new standards, setting new cultural definitions, and that for me is exciting. I resonate with that a lot, Gaurav Gupta said after his show.

However, the elegance of Tabu and exuberance of Karan Johar in creations by couturier Gaurav Gupta couldnt steal the thunder of poetess Navkirat Sodhi who performed, while suspended on an aerial harness at the Royal Opera House, which rolled out the red carpet for the opening show of the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Summer-Resort 2019 in Mumbai.

Sodhi introduced the show with spoken prose, illustrating fashion designer Gaurav Guptas creative spirit, as he embarks on his 15th year in the industry this year. She recited Kill Pain With Couture, while performing mid-air in a dramatic, self-embroidered bustier worn over an elongated sheer skirt which lent more drama to the show. Take a look:

The Delhi-based designer, who has made a comeback to LFW after four years, said it has been very exciting for him to be back in Mumbai for a show that has turned progressive and interesting. The poetess who was up... 20 ft above the ground, was my best friend for 20 years. It was emotional for me. Her poetry for me is the best poetry in the world... It is esoteric and so becoming, Gupta said. Lakme Fashion Week summer/resort 2019 begins from Wednesday, and will conclude on Sunday, February 3.

(With inputs from Indo-Asian News Service)

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The Union governments decision to seek the Supreme Courts permission to restore the excess land around the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site to its original owners  which would mean the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) backed Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas  is the outcome of stated ideological commitment, electoral vulnerability, and political signalling.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) immersed itself politically in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the late 1980s. It helped establish the party as the second pole of Indian polity. Secular parties and liberals saw it as an assault on Indian constitutional values; the cultural and political right saw it as correcting historical injustice, and resurgence of national  or Hindu  pride. Since the destruction of the mosque in 1992, which remains a dark chapter in Indian history, the BJP has reinforced its commitment to construct the temple at exactly the disputed site but with little success. But its hardline base became increasingly impatient over the past few years. The Sangh leadership, and the Hindu saints, who constitute an important element of the saffron constituency, asked a simple question: If the party, despite being in power at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with a full majority, and with the ideological climate in its favour, cannot commence the construction of the temple now, when will it ever do so?

The BJPs top leadership may have wanted to do so itself. But it realised that it could not be seen as bypassing the court. The legislative route was not easy either  an ordinance would be immediately challenged in court. There was also the possibility of communal tensions, marking a dent on governance record. Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement in January that they would wait for the judicial process to reach a conclusion emanated from this assessment.

But four things have led to a reassessment. For one, there was the immediate threat of a gathering of saints in Kumbh making their displeasure with the government clear and pushing their way to Ayodhya in the next few weeks. Two, there was the sense within the Sangh cadre that the BJP was not committed to its ideological agenda. Three, there was a feeling of political vulnerability after the state elections at the end of the last year where its original supporters appeared demotivated. And finally, there was the UP factor where the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have forged a formidable alliance and Priyanka Gandhi has entered the fray and could steal away a section of the BJPs upper caste voters. To show intent of its commitment, appease both its cadre and religious base, and to construct and sustain a Hindu voter who would go beyond caste in UP, but without excessive legal or constitutional jeopardy, the BJP found a way to ask for the excess land. If the court says no, the party can once again portray the judiciary as a villain. If it says yes, it gives the religious conservatives space to symbolically initiate construction activities. Whether this will indeed reap electoral dividends is to be seen. But the governments motivation is easy to discern.
The government is considering extending recently announced restrictions on foreign-owned e-commerce entities such as Amazon India and Flipkart to domestic firms like Snapdeal and Paytm as well to avoid complaints that it is discriminating against online retailers based overseas, two officials aware of the development said.

The matter is under consideration at the highest level of the government as pressure mounts on it from two fronts  giant foreign investors and the governments of their country of origin, and millions of small domestic traders, who want curbs on all e-commerce entities, domestic as well as foreign, the officials at two different ministries said on condition of anonymity.

On December 26, the government barred online retailers like Flipkart India, in which Walmart is the majority shareholder, and Amazon, a unit of Amazon Inc., from selling products of companies in which they own stakes and disallowed them from entering into exclusive deals with companies such as phone-makers for selling merchandise.

The new norms kick into force on Friday, February 1.

The commerce ministrys decision to introduce the new norms followed complaints by small traders, who form a core support base of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that the deep discounts offered by e-commerce firms are hurting their business.

An email query sent to the commerce ministry did not elicit any response.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which claims to have the support of 70 million small offline and online traders, including small mom-and-pop stores, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week demanding similar curbs on domestic e-commerce firms.

The FDI (foreign direct investment) norms as spelled out in the policy should be made applicable on domestic e-commerce players as well to restrict them from adopting any unethical business practices and remain at par with other e-commerce players, CAIT national secretary general Praveen Khandelwal wrote to PM Modi on January 24 in a letter, a copy of which has been seen by HT.

The letter said, In larger interest of the country and the economy, we request your good self to kindly direct the Ministry of Commerce not to budge against any pressure and do not defer or extend the stipulated date of 1st February, 2019 for implementing the policy nor bring any change or amendment in the policy.

The government press release of December 26, 2018 contained nothing new on e-commerce norms, according to Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological mentor of the BJP.

In fact, it is a clarification of an earlier press note-3 that was issued in 2016. The clarification was, perhaps, issued after observing non-conformity with the prevailing FDI rules by foreign e-commerce players, he said.

The government should have taken action against the foreign companies violating FDI norms instead of issuing clarification and giving time to observe law of the land, he said.

I have strong faith in the PM that he will save 7 crore small businesses by not extending the date, Khandelwal said.

Amazon and Flipkart are seeking more time to implement the new business model.
E-commerce player Travel Unravel Holidays Tuesday sought fiscal support from the government in the forthcoming budget to boost the growth of the tourism sector.

There is a need for an investment push for marketing and promotion of heritage destinations of India, Saurabh Sharma, co-founder and director, Travel Unravel Holidays, said in a statement.

Also read: Interim budget: Defence experts pitch for increase in funds

Income up to Rs 5 lakh should be exempt from income tax as the increased exemption slab will give people a window to use the additional money for travel and tourism sector, he said.

A special incentive for providing skill to the youth is a must as the industry needs more and more professionally trained manpower, he said, adding that travel and tourism sector should be given the status of priority lending for access to easy loans.

Also read: Interim Budget: Farmers may get interest-free loans, premium-free insurance

A continuation of tax exemption for start-ups and small enterprises for the next five years should also be taken into consideration in the budget, Sharma said.

Also read: Given elections, focus will be to woo voters: Realtors give up on budget

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. )
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government will present its last budget on February 1 before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, which will be held in April-May this year.

The Union finance ministry has issued a clarification that the budget will be called interim budget amid media reports and speculation that the government could present a full budget.

Union minister Piyush Goyal, who has been temporarily been given charge of the finance ministry in view of Arun Jaitleys indisposition, will present the interim budget.

Watch: Economy is slowing, shows Mints Macro Tracker

Here is all you need to know about the interim budget:

What is an interim budget?

An interim budget is the budget of a government that is going through a period of transition.

It is quite similar to a full-budget as the government presents expenditure for the ongoing fiscal and projections for the upcoming fiscal year through it. An interim budget is a complete set of accounts, including both expenditure and receipts, and gives the complete financial statement.

The Union government can introduce tax changes but during an election year, successive governments have avoided making any major changes in income tax laws during an interim budget.

When is an interim budget presented?

An interim budget is presented by a government if it does not have the time for a full Budget or because the general elections are to be conducted shortly. So traditionally, in an election year, the outgoing government presents an interim budget. The task of framing the full budget is left to the incoming government.

Also read: Rahul Gandhis announcement on minimum income for poor has nothing to do with budget: Chidambaram

Whats is the need for interim budget?

Governments require Interim Budgets to function during the time it takes for a new government to create its own fiscal plan. The budget for the year approved by Parliament gives the government spending rights only till March 31, the end of the financial year.

The government needs parliamentary authority for incurring expenditure in the new fiscal year until a full Budget in case it is not able to present one before the financial year ends.

Parliament passes a vote-on-account through the Interim Budget, which allows the government to meet the expenses of the administration such as paying the salaries and for its programmes.

This is until the new Parliament considers and passes the Budget for the whole year. In an election situation, the vote-on-account is usually for a four-month period.

How is interim budget different from regular budget?

In an interim budget , the vote-on-account seeks Parliaments nod for incurring expenditure for part of a fiscal year. The estimates are presented for the entire year, as is the case with the regular Budget. The new government has the full freedom to change the estimates completely when the final Budget is presented.

Can the government announce new taxes and policies?

The government can make tax changes in the interim budget under the Constitution. The 12 interim budgets since Independence have refrained from announcing big-ticket changes or new schemes.

At the same time, several governments, including the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2009, havent shied away from making policy pronouncements in interim budgets.
The realty industry is not expecting much from the interim budget being presented Friday saying given the elections the entire exercise will be to woo the voters.

While saner voices call for a vote-on-account, many are of the view that the Modi government, facing heat from an aggressive Opposition on the back of the drubbings from the December assembly polls, will go all out to woo the voters with many sops. Many expect the interim budget to dangle a minimum basic income to the poor.

Though the elections have to be completed before June 3 the Election commission is yet to announce the poll dates, giving the government the leeway.

Anarock Property Consultants chairman Anuj Puri says any government facing polls usually try to make a strong electoral pitch by offering tax sops or promises of welfare schemes even in an interim budgets. Since many previous governments have also done the same, we dont expect this government to be different.

But he was quick to add that the realty industry must temper its optimism even though some steps to ensure liquidity would be highly helpful.

Also read: Indias economy showed signs of slowing in December

Poddar Housings Rohit Poddar says since its an election year, populism will rule over sound economics, which though will delay economic recovery that has been curtailed due to the much needed policy changes which have been wanting. Echoing similar views, House of Hiranandanis Surendra Hiranandani said it is important to be realistic and hope for some measures that will enhance the overall economy instead of specific sectors.

From a real estate standpoint, last year was largely spent getting acclimatised to the new policies which ushered in transparency and accountability in the sector. We hope that the government looks into some of the key concerns raised by the industry and addresses the same, he says.

The industry still hopes getting infrastructure status to the real estate in the budget announcement.

We hope the finance minister grants infrastructure status to the housing sector which will be a boost for developers. Such a move will ensure easier access to institutional credit and help reduce borrowing cost for developers. It will also reduce approval processes and increase transparency, Ruparel Realtys Amit Ruparel said.

Also read: Interim budget: Defence experts pitch for increase in funds

Knight Frank Indias Shishir Baijal pointed out that since real estate is one of the major contributors to the economy supporting various ancillary industries and providing employment to millions directly and indirectly, a much-needed impetus from the budget can go a long way in helping turnaround the fortunes of the sector.

CBRE Indias Anshuman Magazine opined that the realty sector has already saw greater transparency and accountability since the GST and Rera but clarity on GST on under- construction houses will further provide an impetus to the realty sector.

He further said the government should consider rationalizing the stamp duties/registration costs for Union Territories as well.

Piramal Capitals Khushru Jijina said to stimulate demand, the budget should reintroduce the income tax deduction on both principal and interest on a second home loan.

The income tax deduction cap on interest paid should be hiked to Rs 5 lakh especially in large cities. Similarly, deduction allowed on principal paid should be also increased, he added.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)
Priyanka Chopra is slowly but surely getting back to work, after almost a two-month break for her wedding and honeymoon. In between, she also celebrated Christmas in London and rang in the New Year in Switzerland. The actor shared a fresh Instagram picture of herself on Wednesday and informed her fans that she would be appearing in the next episode of The Ellen Show, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.

Also read: Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas host a get-together for their family and the photos are pure goals

Sharing the picture, Priyanka wrote: Ready for ya @theellenshow - tune in tomorrow! #isntitromantic

She will also promote her upcoming film, Isnt It Romantic, on the chat show. The Ellen Shows official Instagram handle put out a video of the two of them. Sharing the clip, the handle wrote: Tomorrow, @PriyankaChopra tells me how her husband @NickJonas slid into her DMs.

In the clip, Priyanka tells Ellen how her romance with Nick started. We now know that Nick sent Priyanka a direct message on Twitter saying that their common friends believed that they should meet.

Priyanka said: He DMed me actually. So millennial of us! He DMed me on Twitter saying Ive heard we should connect and uh... Ive heard from common friends that we should meet. What do you think about that? I was like, just text me.

In the meanwhile, the couple is bonding with their families post their December 1 wedding in India. On Saturday night, Nicks side of the family held a reception party for the couple, hosted by Nicks parents Kevin and Denise at North Carolinas Nellies Southern Kitchen.

Sharing a picture, in which Priyanka's mother Madhu and brother Siddharth are also present along with other family members, Priyanka wrote: Fam jam. Thank you @nelliessouthernkitchen @mamadjonas @papakjonas for a wonderful reception! We love you! This was amazing.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Priyanka will soon return to set for Shonali Boses The Sky Is Pink, co-starring Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim.

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Actor Kangana Ranauts sister Rangoli Chandel has launched a fresh attack on director Raja Krishna Jagarlamudi for accusing Kangana of hijacking his movie, Manikarnika. She says Kangana asked him to watch the final film in December after he recently said that he was shut out of the process.

Krish had finished directing the film earlier last year and had then moved on to working on his other film, the NTR biopic. Kangana took over the directors seat and claims that she re-shot as much as 70% of the film on her own. Both Kangana and Krish were then credited as co-directors of the film. Krish disagreed with her getting the primary directors credit and said she had only a minor part in making the film.

Here is the proof kangana clearly asked u to come & see the film on 6th December, would u please explain this .... ?? @DirKrish pic.twitter.com/bxRCQkBidn  Rangoli Chandel (@Rangoli_A) January 30, 2019

Rangoli shared screenshots of Kanganas WhatsApp conversation with Krish, which she claims are from December 6. In the messages, Kangana tells Krish to watch the final version of the movie before making assumptions. She tells him that the producer was disappointed by his version of the film and refused to give their logo to the film. He asked them to shoot the film all over again. However, she said no one had the intention or time to shoot the film again for 45 days. But when the writers wrote new material (in which she claims she had no part to play), the producers shelled out an additional Rs 20 crore for the reshoots.

Also read: Alia pays double price for fancy Juhu home as public appearances with Ranbir increase

She then presented her new, directed and edited version to the producers and they liked it. They said that it was like a new film altogether. She again asked Krish to watch the film and decide for himself.

Here is the proof kangana clearly asked u to come & see the film on 6th December, would u please explain this .... ??, Rangoli wrote in a tweet. Kangana is very disturbed about constant conspiracies and public attacks, thats why she sent this to me from Germany, she wrote in another.

Manikarnika has made Rs 52 crore so far. The film saw a good opening weekend with a collection of Rs 40 crore.

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Actor Deepika Padukone has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. She has replaced filmmaker Kiran Rao.

According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, Kiran stepped down from the role to focus on a movie project. Deepika called her appointment a huge responsibility. Its an absolute honour and a huge responsibility. I believe in MAMIs vision and we are committed towards creating a community that cinema lovers and creators of a film passionate nation like ours truly deserve, she told the daily. Kiran also congratulated her. I am delighted to welcome one of Indias most loved film stars, Deepika Padukone as the new chairperson, she said.

To new beginnings! Thank you Kiran for your faith and generosity and hard work. Excited to learn from and work with our new chairperson, the amazing @deepikapadukone! pic.twitter.com/zkOHRKKr1V  Anupama Chopra (@anupamachopra) January 30, 2019

MAMI festival director and film critic Anupama Chopra shared the news on Twitter. To new beginnings! Thank you Kiran for your faith and generosity and hard work. Excited to learn from and work with our new chairperson, the amazing Deepika Padukone, she wrote in her tweet.

Also read: Alia pays double price for fancy Juhu home as public appearances with Ranbir increase

The festivals creative director Smriti Kiran also welcomed Deepika on board. Thank you for leading the way #Kiran! And a very warm welcome to #MAMIs new Chairperson, the incredible @deepikapadukone ! Excited and happy to work with you to keep building the Academy! #NewBeginnings #JioMAMIwithStar @MumbaiFilmFest, she wrote in her tweet.

Deepika was last seen in Padmaavat which released in January 2018. She is now working with Meghna Gulzar on her next film, titled Chhapaak. The film is based on the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Aggarwal.

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The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, earlier this month, informed schools in North Carolina that their software, PowerSchool, was reporting end-of-term grades incorrectly. Two school districts in the region have now reported finding errors in student grades. This will delay report cards until Feb. 8 in both districts, according to press releases from Catawba County Schools and Alexander County Schools.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we want you to be confident in the accuracy of grades distributed by Catawba County Schools, Deanna Finger, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Catawba County Schools, said in an email sent parents after discovering the error.

PowerSchool is a software provided by the NC Department of Public Instruction for teachers to report grades to students and their parents online. The error is due to a software issue in PowerSchool.

Catawba County and Alexander County schools both reported finding errors in PowerSchool. Both districts notified parents of the errors and provided a solution.
Rowan County authorities said Tuesday a Statesville man drove a woman who had been shot to a store near Salisbury, where her body was later discovered.

The Rowan County Sheriffs Office said it has identified Jason Donald Cranfill, 41, as the person who drove Lakyn Jade Bailey to the Country Cupboard store on Statesville Boulevard early Sunday morning.

Authorities said in a release on Tuesday that Baileys death appears to be the result of a methamphetamine drug deal that became violent, resulting in her being shot.

Cranfill, 41, lives in Statesville, according to the press release.

He has been charged with possession of a Schedule II controlled substance and was given a $5,000 secured bond. The release did not say if the charges were linked to the investigation of Baileys death.

Salisbury Police responded to a report of a shooting victim at the Country Cupboard Store on Statesville Boulevard around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, according to a previous news release.

Authorities said that they discovered a woman shot to death in a car outside of the store. Bailey, 25, was identified as the victim in a press release Sunday. She would have turned 26 on Monday.
HICKORY  Newcomers of Catawba Valley will hear an update on the local economy at their meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 13.

Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corporation, will talk about challenges and successes in bringing in jobs.

One of the biggest recent successes is the start of the Trivium Corporate Center, a business park financed by Catawba County, the city of Hickory and Millars organization. The 270-acre business park has announced its first two tenants  a Corning cable manufacturing plant and a German firm, ITM, which will make radiopharmaceuticals for treatment of cancer.

The meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Hickory Regional Airport, 3101 Ninth Ave. Drive NW, Hickory.

Newcomers is a social organization that allows new and longtime residents of the area to meet, make friends and participate in a variety of activities. For details, visit www.Newcomersofcv.com.
Recipients of a new Carteret Health Care scholarship Jamie Lawrence, center, and Kaleigh Tosto, second from right stand with CHC leadership, from left, President Dick Brvenik, Treasurer Mark Shouse and board member David Carr at a CHC Board of Directors meeting Monday at the hospital. (Michelle Lee photo)
Uniontown, PA (15401)

Today

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
St. Joseph, MI (49085)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds with some storms. Low near 65F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall may reach one inch..

Tonight

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds with some storms. Low near 65F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall may reach one inch.
Instead, Leopold is focused on the timing of when Medlin changed his catheter bag following back surgery, whether she was forced to do it and whether he could have done it himself. He is not, apparently, arguing it didnt happen. He just wants to poke holes in her credibility long after the verdict was rendered.
Nacogdoches, TX (75965)

Today

Sunshine and a few clouds. High 93F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.
Matthew Umstead

mumstead@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  A trial for a Tennessee man accused of sexually assaulting a young boy multiple times over a period of about five years was postponed Tuesday amid ongoing negotiations aimed at resolving the case.

Erik David Kellogg, 24, of Bristol, Tenn., was charged in October 2017 with six counts of first-degree sexual assault, according to Berkeley County (W.Va.) Circuit Court records.

Kelloggs trial was scheduled to begin Feb. 13.

Berkeley County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Barnhart said Tuesday that the trial was continued after what was scheduled to be a pre-trial hearing.

Instead, a status hearing for the case was scheduled for March 12 by 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge Laura Faircloth.

Kellogg is accused of assaulting the boy between November 2012 and January 2017, starting when the victim was 5, court records said.

Police alleged that the boy was assaulted at a Martinsburg-area home while Kellogg was on breaks from West Virginia University, records said.

The defendant would travel to Martinsburg instead of returning to his home in Tennessee, court records said.

The allegations were reported in June 2017, when the victim told authorities that the unwanted sexual contact occurred multiple times, records said.

A guardian was appointed to represent the interests of the children in the case, which include the victims sister.

Kellogg is being represented by defense attorney B. Craig Manford.
Jenni Vincent

jvincent@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  The partial federal government shutdown might be over, but its impact still is being felt.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., cited the shutdown Tuesday in seeking a one-month extension for the U.S. Department of Agricultures new ReConnect program.

The pilot programs goal is to build out broadband infrastructure in rural America, Capito wrote in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

USDA officials are making available up to $600 million in loans, grants and loan-grant combinations for the initiative, she said. They were slated to close the application window Feb. 22, but that might not be the best approach due to the recent shutdown in which agencies have not been working at full capacity, she said.

The ReConnect program is a critical new tool that will help achieve our shared goal of prioritizing rural broadband and closing the digital divide, Capito, R-W.Va., said in her letter. Timely technical-assistance webinars and workshops are imperative to informing potential applicants, especially for a new pilot program.

Extending all program deadlines by a month is in everyones best interest, she said.

An extension will help ensure applicants are receiving the assistance they need and the awards are being given to projects that achieve the programs goals, she said.

Capito, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, helped secure funds in the fiscal 2018 budget for the program, according to a Dec. 13 announcement.

West Virginia is expected to benefit from the program, she wrote in the letter.

Without access to reliable and affordable high-speed internet, rural communities and rural states, like West Virginia, are being left behind when it comes to education, health care, job creation and retention, and overall economic potential, Capito wrote.

The projects funded by these grants will help communities with fewer than 20,000 residents, like many communities in West Virginia, without broadband service or where service does not have sufficient broadband access, defined as 10 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.
Jenni Vincent

jvincent@herald-mail.com

INWOOD, W.Va.  West Virginia University junior Erica Chwalik is reaching for the stars, and her interest in space already is paying off.

The Musselman High School graduate is one of eight students from WVUs Eberly College of Arts and Science to receive an undergraduate fellowship from the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium.

The $1,000 grant will come in handy for additional research and time spent on high-powered telescopes, Chwalik said.

That is because she is majoring in physics, with minors in mathematics and astronomy, and hopes to focus on astronomy or planetary science in her graduate studies.

Physics was kind of a secondary thing for me because my original interest was space, she said, recalling childhood days in Inwood reading astronomy magazines and watching public-television science documentaries.

Chwalik already is doing research to provide a foundation for the future.

I am doing a lot of coding now because we have to operate the telescopes remotely, and we have to schedule observations, as well as analyze the data we collect, she said. My research is on fast radio bursts, which are millisecond-long radio pulses from out in deep space.

No one knows for sure what causes them, although theories range from stars with really strong magnetic fields to aliens, she said with a laugh.

Chwaliks observations are done remotely using a radio telescope located at the Green Bank Observatory in Pocahontas County, W.Va., and that is possible due to an online program from the comfort of my own home, she said.

The Skynet Robotic Telescope Network is a fantastic tool because it gives access to radio and observational telescopes. Its really exciting stuff, and it blows my mind to think I can do this, she said. I use it to access the 20-meter (diameter) telescope at Green Bank, and it even lets you put in observations for any spot in the sky that you want for as long as you want.

This telescope research time is not free, and that is how part of her grant funding will be spent.

That is especially helpful due to Chwaliks passion for doing research and sharing it with others in this field, she said.

The grant money also will help cover professional travel expenses, she said.

My goal is to present the results of this research at the summer 2019 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Mo., she said. And the funds provided by the space-grant award will directly support this opportunity.
Matthew Umstead

mumstead@herald-mail.com

MARTINSBURG, W.Va.  Spring Mills (W.Va.) High School teacher Jessica Salfia was the first to voice concerns Monday night about proposed comprehensive education legislation pending in the West Virginia Legislature at a Berkeley County (W.Va.) Board of Education meeting.

And she was not the last because other educators and service personnel echoed similar worries about Senate Bill 451, a 144-page bill that includes a pay raise for West Virginia educators and service personnel and salary equity among the 55 counties for teachers, but also provides for other changes, including the establishment of public charter schools and adjustments to county school levies.

To be frank, this bill is dangerous, Salfia, Berkeley Countys 2016 Teacher of the Year, told school board members. The reform is not about students. Its not about constituents. Its about dollar signs.

The West Virginia Senate is expected to review the legislation Wednesday morning.

State Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley/Morgan/Hampshire/Mineral, announced Tuesday on the Senate floor that the bill will be taken up for consideration beginning at 11 a.m.

Legislative floor sessions and committee meetings are web-streamed live on the Legislatures website at www. wvlegislature.gov/live.cfm.

In a brief telephone interview Tuesday, Blair said the session will give residents across the state the opportunity to learn about what is proposed in the legislation, which has triggered objections from Gov. Jim Justice and teachers union leaders.

Blair insisted that the proposal to allow for public charter schools would provide another tool to help improve education, and suggested that critics of the legislation are attempting to kill it by spreading lies about what the bill will do.

State Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson/Berkeley, separately announced Tuesday on the Senate floor that at least one section of the bill as it relates to proposed changes in class sizes was removed from the legislation.

A detailed nine-page overview of the bill prepared by the GOP caucus that Blair released Tuesday indicates that the concept of the Comprehensive Education Reform Bill is to address the changes that need to be made to the state education system.

West Virginia is past the point where it has the luxury to address only one of these items. We are at the point of failure. Failure for our students, failure for their parents and failure for the teachers, according to the overview.

The document summarizes multiple policy changes involving income-tax credits for education expenses, open enrollments, management of central office administrative staff by the superintendent, a host of personnel-related issues, school calendar modification, student attendance, special education, public-school funding and educational-savings accounts.

Though the legislation contains proposals that appear favorable to the Eastern Panhandle, Salfia asserted that they are tied up with extremely damaging items that wouldnt pass otherwise.

Its not reform. Its unconstitutional retaliation, she said.

Berkeley County Schools Superintendent Manny Arvon, who has voiced his own concerns with parts of the legislation, assured educators that he and other school district leaders are watching the legislation closely.

School board member Pat Murphy, a former state legislator, was outspoken at Mondays meeting about lawmakers handling of the bill and what it contains, likening the legislation to the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Jennifer Fitch

waynesboro@herald-mail.com

WAYNESBORO, Pa.  Renfrew Museum and Park is searching for a new executive director after the recent resignation of Dade Royer.

Royer, 62, who has been executive director since 2013, said he wants to focus on his family, and spend time hunting, fishing and volunteering in the community.

He is an appointed member of the Waynesboro Borough Council.

Renfrew Museum and Park will accept applications online at www.renfrewmuseum.org. Officials said a job description is being prepared to be posted on Renfrews website.

Royer served on the organizations board of directors before becoming its executive director. He manages the day-to-day operations and staff at the 200-year-old restored Pennsylvania German farmstead off Waynesboros East Main Street, or Pa. 16.

Changes during Royers tenure included restoring a lime kiln, adding a summer kitchen, creating an Oktoberfest fundraiser, and enclosing a wagon shed used for meetings and opportunities to showcase blacksmith and tannery tools.

Renfrew is very blessed to have great employees who understand our mission and vision. We all get along very well and work hard, and have some fun while were at it, Royer said in a news release, noting that the organization also relies on great volunteers.

He plans to remain in the position full time until a successor is in place.

Dade was very focused on executing around a variety of projects that occurred during his time as our executive director, Renfrew Board President Greg White wrote in an email. Dade has a clear love of Renfrew and its story. He is well connected in the Waynesboro area, and we will miss his daily presence.

White said the board is looking for someone with a passion similar to Royers. The chosen candidate will need to be able to finish projects that already have started and focus on the visitor experience, he said.
Jennifer Fitch

jenniferf@herald-mail.com

Pa. massage business closed after arrest

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa.  A 52-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday in Chambersburg on a prostitution charge as a result of a joint investigation among several law-enforcement agencies, the borough police department said.

Asian Massage on U.S. 30, or Lincoln Way West, was closed as a result of the investigation, according to a police department news release.

Chang Hong Zhaos business was the subject of a search warrant related to prostitution and promoting prostitution, police said.

The search warrant was the culmination of a months-long criminal investigation into multiple allegations of prostitution that (were) alleged to have occurred within the business, the release said.

The investigation involved the borough police department, Pennsylvania State Police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Pennsylvania Department of State Bureau of Enforcement.

 Jennifer Fitch
Julie E. Greene

julieg@herald-mail.com

Sewer rates will continue to increase, Washington County officials on Tuesday told representatives from towns upset that the county forgave Williamsports sewer debt.

Some officials with other towns have been unhappy with the decision by the previous county board, before the November election, to forgive the sewer debt Williamsport owed. The town owed the county about $195,000, while the county owed the town about $37,000. The county waived the difference of about $160,000.

The concerns officials from Sharpsburg and Smithsburg raised with the commissioners were hypocrisy and the effect the $195,000 debt forgiveness has on ratepayers. They also questioned why the commissioners voted on the issue when it wasnt on their Oct. 30 agenda.

Sharpsburg Vice Mayor Russ Weaver and Smithsburg Town Council Vice President Donnie Souders made several requests, including asking the commissioners to rescind the Oct. 30 decision and take a new vote.

New Commissioners Randy Wagner and Cort Meinelschmidt said they would not rescind a vote made by another board. They were not privy to the discussions at the time. Wagner said he didnt want to set a precedent for rescinding votes.

The commissioners agreed to forgive Williamsports debt after Williamsport Mayor Bill Green and Councilman Charles Brown III approached the commissioners during the public participation portion of the countys Oct. 30 meeting. Of the current board members, Terry Baker and Wayne Keefer voted to forgive the debt while Jeff Cline was absent during that meeting.

Since the issue came up during public participation, we didnt know it was happening, Weaver told the commissioners.

Meinelschmidt said he agreed a vote should not be taken during public participation.

Williamsports longstanding debt was related to sewer allocation fees, or EDUs, which stands for equivalent discharge unit. Businesses are charged EDUs for sewer usage, functioning like capacity credits on a property based on consumption.

If a property exceeds its capacity for a year, it is charged an additional EDU that stays with the property unless it changes ownership or use.

At one point, the county calculated there were 78 unpaid sewer-allocation fees to be collected from customers within Williamsports town limits under an agreement that dates to 1998.

Weaver said he wanted to know if he could go back to Sharpsburg and tell a resident living on a fixed income the debt forgiveness wouldnt result in increased sewer rates.

Meinelschmidt said hed be lying to say it wouldnt affect rates because the sewer fund is an enterprise fund, meaning its supposed to support itself. The forgiven debt will have to be replaced in that fund.

Meinelschmidt asked if money could be transferred from the countys general operating budget, which is supported by tax revenue, to the sewer enterprise fund. Chief Financial Officer Sara Greaves said she could not recommend that.

Weaver said the county was about to pay off a loan on a 1990s bond that should free up around $2 million.

But Greaves said that even if that debt relief freed up $2 million, it wouldnt cover the approximately $2.8 million gap in the sewer fund.

There would still be about a $750,000 gap, she said after the meeting. The county is using $2.7 million from its enterprise reserves to balance the sewer fund this fiscal year. Factors in the gap include capital projects and the rising cost of expenses.

The last rate model showed there would be rate increases for several years to balance the fund, Greaves told the commissioners.

Theres no good winners in this, Meinelschmidt said.

Anybody who makes $195,000 debt relief, with limited information ... I just dont know how somebody in management can do that. I just dont know. ... It just completely astounds me, Weaver said.

Officials discussed how to avoid a similar EDU debt from occurring again.

County Administrator Robert Slocum said building permits are not being approved until EDUs are paid. However, there could be EDUs missed because sometimes changes in use dont go through the permitting process, he said.

The county is monitoring water usage, which is how sewer fees are based.

When an aberration is spotted, county officials talk to that town to determine whats behind it. It could be commercial usage or even a leak in the system, Environmental Management Director Dan DiVito said after the meeting. A recent aberration in Smithsburg was accounted for, he said.

DiVito said communication between county staff and towns is essential and has probably doubled in recent months.

The hypocrisy Souders mentioned was a reference to an August workshop in Smithsburg with the commissioners about upgrades to the towns sewer treatment plant. The commissioners told the council that if the county paid for the entire upgrade  some $15 million  it would not be fair to taxpayers, Souders has said.
Trumps actions reflect a lack of understanding of the federal government he runs and respect for federal workers. Unfortunately, his views are consistent with those of many Republicans who have continually sought to reduce the size of the federal government by cutting federal budgets, reducing or eliminate government services, and limiting pay raises for federal workers. Unfortunately, these tactics appear to have been successful in making federal employment less appealing. Workers under 35 are now the biggest generational cohort in the American labor force but make up only 17 percent of an aging federal workforce.
Dave McMillion

davem@herald-mail.com

HANCOCK  Mayor Ralph Salvagno defeated Nigel Dardar in Monday's municipal election, according to Town Manager David Smith.

The first-term incumbent collected 224 votes compared to 62 for Dardar, a former Hancock Town Council member.

Also, Hancock Town Council member Tim Smith was re-elected with 169 votes and newcomer Roland Lanehart Jr., was elected to a second open council seat with 142 votes, Smith said.

Council incumbent Levi Little lost re-election with 133 votes. Two other council candidates were David Kerns, with 85 votes, and Preston Hall, with 10 votes.

Hancock mayors serve two-year terms and council members are elected to four-year terms. There are four council seats.

The mayoral election was a rematch of 2017 contest between Salvagno and Dardar. In that race, Salvagno finished with 269 votes compared to 54 for Dardar.

Salvagno, 63, said previously that an important priority will be hiring a town manager. On Jan. 9, David Smith announced his resignation after nearly 14 years on the job, offering no specific date.

Salvagno, who is chief of staff at Meritus Medical Center, said it is not an easy job to fill because the person must be able to accomplish administrative and operational work.

Dardar, 71, said the town manager should be a member of ICMA, which bills itself as "the world's leading association of professional city and county managers."

Dardar said one of his major concerns is the number of motorists who drive through town while using cellphones. Maryland law prohibits the use of hand-held devices while driving.

Tim Smith, who was first elected to the council 12 years ago, said he has tried to be responsive to Hancock residents and their concerns and to be "up front and honest" in tackling the town's issues.

Lanehart, who runs Roland's Garage and Used Cars in town, said he wants to focus on financial responsibility in town government.

Lanehart said he knows what it takes to run a business in a small town with limited resources and funds.
The Herald-Mail

ANNAPOLIS  Del. Mike McKay wasnt expecting House Speaker Mike Busch to appoint him to a panel studying economic hardships for many Maryland families, but he said hes ready to jump in.

In announcing the study group on economic stability, Busch said its been too long since the House of Delegates took a long look at poverty in Maryland. This study will focus on the working poor.

Thousands of Maryland families work hard, pay taxes and consistently find themselves falling further and further behind each year, Busch said. We need to create opportunity and pathways to the middle class for all Marylanders.

McKay, R-Washington/Allegany, said Maryland boasts some of the highest incomes in the country, but some residents are at the precipice  they make too much money to qualify for programs designed for people in poverty, but cant support their families on their income.

For low-income households, he said, we have safety nets, we have programs that we hear about all day long about those people being taken care of.

This panel will look at how those just above that level are able to have food, how theyre able to have insurance, how theyre able to have economic stability, so theyre not living paycheck to paycheck, McKay said.

The commission likely will get started next week, he said, although details are being worked out.

He doubts the group will have recommendations for the General Assembly this year, taking into consideration the enormous subject that were about to talk about.  We certainly havent studied all the financial impacts that have happened here in the state of Maryland, and I look forward to being part of that.
The Herald-Mail

ANNAPOLIS  In December 2016, news that a 5-month-old girl in neighboring Pennsylvania died from neglect after both of her parents died from overdoses stunned Allegany County, Md., resident Elizabeth Stahlman.

The girl was found in a Johnstown house with her parents, both of whom died from fentanyl overdoses. Authorities believe the baby lay in her bed several days, slowly dying from dehydration and starvation.

Stahlman contacted Del. Mike McKay, R-Washington/Allegany, with an idea for a smartphone app. The app would let at-risk parents check in with the Department of Social Services to let them know they  and their children  are OK.

As a result, McKay filed an Im Alive Today bill last year to require parents of babies born with exposure to substance abuse to check in daily, letting social workers know theyre functioning and can take care of their kids.

The bill died in committee last year, but McKay kept working on it. He filed a similar bill this year that he thinks has a better chance.

We have stripped all of the court requirements, anything to do with a presumption of guilt with the birth of a substance-abuse child from the bill, he said. A number of organizations opposed the bill last year because of legal ramifications, he said.

Hospitals must report these incidents anyway, McKay said, so there was no need to include it in the bill.

McKay has said that Frostburg State University is on board to develop the app, and IBM might be, too.

If you give birth to an opioid-exposed, or a substance-exposed newborn, the department (of Social Services) will set guidelines and regulations to require that person to have this app on their phone, McKay said.

How the department works those regulations is up to the department, but the custodial parent will have to check in. The department will determine if this is daily or twice a day, but it will just be a notification that says, Are you alive today? Can you take care of your child?

What were worried about is that infant to go 24 or 48 hours without any care, just in case somebody has had a relapse and cant take care of their child right now, McKay said.

Right now, the only way the authorities are alerted to this is because maybe a family member or a friend says to the police, Hey, I havent heard from Mary and she went home with a child two weeks ago, and Im concerned.

The bill has been assigned to the House Health and Government Operations Committee, but no hearing day has been set.
Don Aines

daines@herald-mail.com

A Hagerstown man shot during a Jan. 15 armed robbery has been charged following his release from the hospital.

Kenneth Tyrone Jackson, 20, of Bloomfield Court was ordered to remain held without bond following a hearing Tuesday before Washington County District Court Judge Mark D. Thomas.

In addition to two counts of armed robbery, Jackson is charged with robbery, first-degree assault, reckless endangerment, use of a firearm in a crime of violence and other offenses.

The charging document in Jacksons case said he was shot in the face. He appeared in closed circuit television from the detention center with his throat bandaged and spoke his name with difficulty.

Jackson and Ramon Leon Breland, 21, were driven to 155 Summer St. by 21-year-old Jason Raeshaud Smith, on the evening of Jan. 15 intending to rob the people inside, the charging document said.

During the holdup, they got into a fight with Joshua Neal Arnold, 31, and Michael Degarmo.

During the confrontation, Jackson pulled a gun and Arnold tackled him, the document said. Degarmo pulled a handgun from a kitchen drawer and fired, hitting Jackson.

Breland and the wounded Jackson ran outside and Smith drove them to Meritus Medical Center. Jackson was later taken to R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma in Baltimore.

Breland told police they went to the house to collect from someone who was fronted marijuana to sell, but failed to pay the supplier, the document said.

Arnold told police Degarmo made a deal to buy $1,800 in marijuana and arranged for the transaction to occur at the house, the document said.

A Frederick, Md., man at the house told investigators that Jackson pulled a gun and said, Wheres the bread? When Arnold rushed at Jackson, the man said, Jackson fell into him and both fell to the floor.

Jackson pistol-whipped the man and pointed the gun at him. A shot went off and Jackson fell to the floor, the man told police.

Police found three handguns, including one in a backpack Breland left behind.

Breland also was charged with armed robbery, while Degarmo was charged with attempted second-degree murder.

Smith, Arnold and the witness from Frederick were not charged, according to online court records.

At Tuesdays hearing, Deputy States Attorney Joseph Michael told Thomas that Jackson was charged with assault and resisting arrest in January 2018. He was released on his own recognizance, failed to show up in court and was at large until December, when he was arrested and again released on his own recognizance, Michael said.

Assistant Public Defender Sean Fitzgerald asked that Jackson be released, so he can make medical appointments related to his gunshot wound.
Don Aines

daines@herald-mail.com

A Hagerstown man charged last year with illegally possessing firearms  including one altered to fire fully automatic  received a time-served sentence Tuesday.

Washington County Circuit Judge Dana Moylan Wright sentenced Santino Edward Smith, 38, to a five-year suspended sentence on one count of illegal possession of a regulated firearm. All of the time was suspended, except what he has served since Oct. 6.

Wright added another five-year suspended sentence and five years of probation with a number of conditions.

The conditions include drug testing at least five times a month; substance-abuse and mental-health evaluations and treatment; no use of fentanyl or opiates for pain management; and no possession of any weapons.

Smith pleaded guilty to the charges in November. His attorney, Ahmet Hisim, on Tuesday told Wright that Smiths actions were due to being prescribed fentanyl for pain management over a period of years.

Smith was arrested July 3 on the weapons charges and released on his own recognizance. He was arrested again in October following a standoff with police at his home.

FBI agents went to Smiths North Locust Street apartment in July after the U.S. Treasury Department noted several red-flag online purchases of weapons and ammunition.

Smith purchased items from multiple weapons dealers and wanted them shipped to different addresses, the document said.

Smith made eight transactions May 1 and 2 and had three other addresses beside Hagerstown  two near Pittsburgh and another in West Virginia.

Smith cannot possess firearms due to a 2013 domestic battery conviction in West Virginia.

The leads provided to the FBI also noted the Happy ISIS Day post on his Facebook page, but Hisim on Tuesday said that was a reference to the Egyptian goddess Isis, not the terrorist group.

When FBI agents went to Smiths apartment, he opened the door partially and they heard a loud thump. He had dropped a handgun behind the door.

Hagerstown police were called for assistance and found an AR-15 rifle and a 30-round magazine on a bed. Smith told police the rifle was modified to fully-automatic operation.

Also found were parts of firing mechanisms for AR-style rifles and a drill press that could be used to alter them, the document said.

In a cereal box, police found a gallon-size plastic bag of psychedelic mushrooms.

Later in July, a warrant was issued for Smith, alleging he violated terms of his pretrial supervision. When police tried to serve the warrant Oct. 6, he refused to come out of his residence for more than an hour.
C.J. Lovelace

cj.lovelace@herald-mail.com

A new discounted parking rate of $25 per month for students who attend downtown Hagerstown educational institutions will go into effect Feb. 1.

The Hagerstown City Council on Tuesday voted 4-1 to approve a resolution revising the citys parking rates to reflect the change. It follows months of deliberation after downtown stakeholders complained about rate hikes that went into effect last July.

Councilwoman Emily Keller voted against the motion. Keller has been against any parking-rate increases.

The action follows the city councils consensus at a Jan. 8 work session meeting, during which Councilman Kristin Aleshire suggested a discounted rate for students to park in the citys Central, Market House and Rochester lots.

The discounted rate would be for all students, not just those who attend classes at the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown.

It would not apply to the citys two parking decks, where USMH students could park for $40 per semester prior to rate adjustments approved by a split council vote last June.

Under the current rate schedule, students who park in a deck would continue to be subject to the regular rate of $1 per hour on weekdays.

The monthly student rate excludes the use of the Antietam Street and Church Street lots. Antietam has a higher cost than the other three lots, and Church has a large number of contracted parking already, Aleshire has said.

There would be no other changes in metered or parking-deck rates. The monthly parking rate was increased for all users to $64 from $62 under rate adjustments that went into effect about seven months ago.

The June 26 resolution for the changes passed 3-2. Councilmen Austin Heffernan and Lew Metzner joined Aleshire in favor, while Keller and Councilwoman Shelley McIntire voted against.

The rate adjustments also ordered long-running bulk-rate discounts for businesses to be phased out later this year.

City staff members have said the adjustments were needed to level the playing field for parking users and help the citys parking fund build reserves for future maintenance and the possible construction of a third parking deck.

Changes to the bulk-rate discounts, which prompted outcry from downtown businesses last fall, could be discussed separately at a later date, city officials have said.
Don Aines

daines@herald-mail.com

The case of a Clear Spring man accused of sexually assaulting a woman at Meritus Medical Center was forwarded to Washington County Circuit Court on Tuesday. The defendant  Alexander William McIntyre, 54  waived a district court preliminary hearing.

McIntyre was charged with second-degree rape, physical abuse of a vulnerable adult, and third- and fourth-degree sex offenses in connection with an Oct. 15 incident, according to court documents.

He has been held without bond since charges were filed in November.

McIntyres attorney, David Harbin, said his client waived his scheduled preliminary hearing.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office was called to Meritus for a report of a sexual assault on the morning of Oct. 15.

A nurse told deputies the victim was an 84-year-old woman with dementia.

The nurse relayed to investigators what she heard from a clinical observer that McIntyre entered the victims room at 8:30 a.m. and leaned in to kiss the patient on her head.

McIntyre stopped what he was doing when the medical staff came in the room with an X-ray machine, the document said.

A sexual assault examination was later performed on the patient, the document said.

Detectives later spoke with McIntyre at Western Maryland Hospital Center in Hagerstown, where he worked as a geriatric nursing assistant. He told investigators he visited the victim at Meritus four or five times, but only kissed her hands and forehead.
Trump should call their bluff. He should go back to the experts at the Department of Homeland Security and ask them: If Democrats refuse to give you the addition physical barriers you have said are essential to secure the border, what other funding would you need to make up for it? How many extra border agents would you need in the absence of a wall? How many more canine units? How much more for improved coordination with state and local law enforcement in our border communities? How many more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for interior enforcement? How much for underground sensors, radar, unmanned drones and fixed towers with infrared cameras? How much more advanced detection technology at our ports of entry? How many more portable scanners to detect smuggled narcotics, weapons and other dangerous materials? How much for construction of new ports of entry? How many more immigration judges? How much for employment eligibility verification? How much more in humanitarian assistance and medical support for those detained at the border? How many more detention beds and temporary housing units for migrant families? How much more for DNA testing to establish family relationships? How much to set up a new system that will allow Central American minors to apply for asylum in their home countries?
Murder and robbery charges against two Bristol residents will move forward to a grand jury in Washington County, Virginia, after hearings held on Tuesday.

Timothy Dale Carrick, 39, and Gary Lynn Murray, 20, both of Bristol, Tennessee, were arrested in 2017 on charges of first-degree murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office said the body of Steven Jeremy Hafen, 39, was discovered on the morning of Nov. 30, 2017, at his apartment in the 4200 block of Reedy Creek Road.

The Sheriffs Office was called to Hafens apartment after his family said they hadnt heard from him for a few days. Family members went to the apartment and found the door was locked.

A man who later called 911 dismantled the lock and discovered the body. He told 911 dispatchers that he thought Hafen had been shot, but an autopsy later determined he died from blunt force trauma.

Criminal complaints filed in General District Court state that Hafen appeared to be beaten with a hammer and that Hafen owed money to one of the men charged.

On Tuesday, Murray and Carrick appeared in General District Court.
BRISTOL, Va.  A tractor-trailer carrying 70,000 pounds of paper overturned on Interstate 81 Wednesday morning.

The crash happened at approximately 6:45 a.m. in the southbound lanes heading toward Tennessee, according to Corrine Geller, public relations director with Virginia State Police. The driver was in the right lane and over corrected causing the vehicle to go into the ditch.

It has closed the right lane around Exit 10 temporarily as emergency crews worked to remove the tractor trailer from a ditch line. Lanes were fully operational by 10:45 a.m.

It was a single vehicle accident where the tractor-trailer ran off the road and overturned, according to Geller. The driver and a passenger were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

Geller said the vehicle has to be unloaded before it can be removed. This has closed the on-ramp at Exit 10.
The law requires owners to protect their pets from the elements and gives law enforcement tools to ensure the safety and health of an animal, including the ability in certain circumstances to seize an animal to ensure its safety, Herring said in a written statement. As we prepare for this cold snap, Id encourage all Virginians to check on and take care of yourself, your friends, neighborhoods, and family members, and dont forget about your animals.

With temperatures below freezing, residents who need a warm place to stay have a few options. Homeless shelters are available in downtown Bristol at night, and at least one church will have daytime hours through Thursday.

Hunt Memorial United Methodist Church at 824 Harmeling St., Bristol, Virginia, will open today and Thursday as a daytime warming shelter. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Bristol Virginia Fire Chief Mike Armstrong noted that the city is waiting to see if it needs to open a shelter. The city and Red Cross have a certified shelter on standby in case of an emergency.

Armstrong said the shelter would open if a long-term power outage occurs in the city and residents are unable to heat their homes.
Elfreths bill will have to go through committee before it finds itself on the floor of the senate. With every senator signed on as a cosponsor, the legislation will likely find easy passage on the Senate floor. It will then pass over to the House of Delegates where it will go through committee and then a floor vote.
BRISTOL, Va.  A fired former city police officer wants a judge to force the city to convene a panel to review his grievance and render a decision.

Michael W. Gross filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Bristol Circuit Court in late November 2018. A writ of mandamus is when a court orders a lesser government official to perform an act required by law, which he has refused or neglected to do, according to the website LegalDictionary.com.

According to the filing, Gross was terminated last year by City Manager Randy Eads, but no reason for the firing was given. Gross sought and received a grievance hearing from a three-member grievance panel. The hearing occurred on July 2, 2018, and the panel asked both sides to provide written briefs, according to the filing.

The panel included one person appointed by the city manager, one person selected by Gross and a third appointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

On Nov. 1, 2018, an email with a purported decision was sent to all counsel, according to the Gross filing. The decision of the majority of the panel reads as follows: This panel will not issue a decision in this matter.

Gross then requested a second panel in a letter to Eads, but the city manager denied that request, according to the filing.
UPDATED

Substitute legislation to allow casino gaming in Virginia passed out of the Senate Finance Committee today but original sponsor Sen. Bill Carrico, said the path to passage is now "more complicated."

"We're still working on it," Carrico said this afternoon. "The language that came out delayed it with the re-enactment clause on it."

The bill goes to the Senate for consideration, Carrico said, but the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission is expected to compile a study.

Carrico and other lawmakers introduced legislation to allow casino gaming in Bristol, Danville and Portsmouth, based on a referendum of local voters.

Twin City businessmen Jim McMcGlothlin and Clyde Stacy have proposed developing a $250 million Bristol Resort and Casino at the former Bristol Mall. They issued a written statement Wednesday supporting the vote and sounding an optimistic note.
Back story

Elwood Community Schools Superintendent Casey Smitherman picked up a 15-year-old Elwood Jr.-Sr. High School student from his home on Jan. 9 and, without permission from his guardian or parents, took him to two clinics for treatment for a sore throat. At the second clinic, she signed the student in under her son's name.

Smitherman also had taken the student to eat at McDonald's and to a salon for a haircut.

The first-time superintendent used her Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance to pay the total of $233 for the doctor's visit and antibiotics.

Smitherman turned herself in on Jan. 23 to the Elwood Police Department. She was charged with Level 6 felony insurance application fraud, Level 6 felony identity deception, Level 6 felony official misconduct and Class A misdemeanor insurance fraud and was released on $5,000 bond.
Shane Ragsdale, formerly of Greenville, beloved son of Sheila June Winters and father Sariah Vanderwal-Ragsdale, passed away May 31, 2021 in the ICU of Hilo Hawaii hospital of pneumonia. Hi memorial service was held June 12, in Makapala, Hawaii. His fellowship on Earth will be missed; antici
The former officer used his Tagged account to send messages to many other users offering to pay them to engage in specific sex acts with him and to negotiate over the pries he would pay for sex, the plea agreement reads.
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Failte Ireland fears a super- vised injection facility will increase crime and anti-social behaviour and could have a detrimental impact on tourism growth in Dublin city centre.

A submission made to Dublin City Council (DCC) stated that a considerable number of its most popular tourist attractions are close to Merchants Quay, where the proposed injection centre would be located.

Widespread drug dealing already taking place in and around Christ Church Cath- edral and Dublin Castle have been highlighted by the Herald in recent days.

Blatant

Incidents of blatant dealing on the streets, as well as drug addicts shooting up in broad daylight, have been witnessed on successive days.

Our latest photo shows addicts apparently taking drugs in a doorway on John's Lane West in Dublin 8, a short distance from several famous tourist spots.

In its submission to DCC last month, Failte Ireland said that while it was not against the idea of such a facility opening in Dublin, it had concerns over the proposed location.

It said that those in the tourism industry in that particular area of the city were worried that such a facility would encourage further anti-social behaviour and crime.

Failte Ireland spoke of the efforts to grow tourism further and of the major attractions close to Merchants Quay.

It highlighted that 1.7 mill-ion people visited the Guinness Storehouse in 2017, with 603,000 taking in St Patrick's Cathedral, 371,000 visiting Dublin Castle, 238,000 going to Christ Church Cathedral and 200,000 having a look at Dublinia.

"The tourism industry in the area of this proposed national facility has raised its concerns that the proposed medically supervised injecting facility may encourage crime and anti-social behaviour within this key tourism hotspot and may have a negative impact on their business and the safety of their staff," the submission read.

"Failte Ireland recognises the need for this type of facility; we would like to point out that we do not object in principle to a medically supervised injecting facility.

Value

"However, we do believe that the concerns of local tourism businesses should be given full consideration with respect to the value of the area's tourist amenity and we respectfully request that you take these concerns into consideration in the determination of this proposed development."

The tourism body's submission was one of nearly 100 made against plans for the injecting centre, which would be run by Merchants Quay Ireland.

Those in favour of the facility have argued that the number of incidents of addicts openly injecting drugs would drop if it got the go-ahead.

The plans anticipate having the capacity for 60 drug addicts each day.
A judge has asked if a public order incident in a Dublin branch of McDonald's was a case of "Big Mac-itis".

Judge John Lindsay made the remark in the case of Kevin Doyle (46), who was arrested for hurling abuse at staff in McDonald's.

The judge said he would strike the case out, leaving the accused without convictions, if Doyle pays 200 to charity.

Doyle, of Creston Avenue, St Margaret's Road, Finglas, pleaded guilty to public drunkenness and causing a breach of the peace in the incident.

Aggressive

Dublin District Court heard gardai found Doyle being restrained by staff at McDonald's on O'Connell Street Lower at 1am on November 23 last year.

He was asked to leave and became aggressive, striking out and threatening staff while gardai were speaking to them.

He was "clearly intoxicated", the court heard.

"What's all this about?" Judge Lindsay asked. "Big Mac-itis?"

Doyle had been at a funeral, had one or two drinks and ended up in McDonald's later, his lawyer said.

He apologised for his behaviour and was prepared to pay whatever the court thought appropriate to avoid convictions.

Judge Lindsay adjourned the case to a date next month and told the defendant to make a 200 donation to the Capuchin Day Centre.

He said he would strike the charges out if this was done. In default, he said he would convict and fine the accused.

Doyle was remanded on continuing bail.
For $40, a CHC quartet will deliver your singing Valentine on Thursday, February 14 between the hours of 12 noon and 7 pm. Theyll go to your home, office or a restaurant in the Annapolis area, perform two songs in perfect harmony, and deliver a rose. If that someone special happens to be out of town, the quartet will deliver your message by phone for $15.
Ruth and Paul Morrissey are suing the HSE and two US labs. Photo: Collins

A man whose wife has cervical cancer has told the High Court his family feels like there is a "dark cloud" over them.

Paul Morrissey was giving evidence after Mr Justice Kevin Cross resumed hearing the couple's action over alleged misreading of smears taken under the CervicalCheck programme.

The court heard his wife Ruth's scan results this month are very disappointing.

"It is like a bad dream you can't wake up from," he said.

"Just imagine if it was your wife, the love of your life. It seems to be one thing after another. It is heartbreaking, terrifying and unimaginable."

Ms Morrissey (37) told the court she had asked about surgery after her cervical cancer recurred last year but was told that was not possible

"It is tough at home. With so much radiotherapy and chemotherapy, we thought I had a chance of getting through," she said.

Had she known earlier of the results of a review of her smear slides, which showed they were reported incorrectly, she would have asked for more scans.

Ms Morrissey said she was told of the review last May.

"If I had known in 2015 and 2016 I would have absolutely asked for more scans and better surveillance. If they said no, I would have gone private."

Mastectomy

When the case reopened yesterday after being adjourned last July, Jeremy Maher SC, for the couple, updated the court on Ms Morrissey's condition.

She was separately diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy in November and her prognosis would be excellent but for the cervical cancer, he said.

Scans and an MRI this month had shown disappointing results and there was concern, despite chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the symptoms have returned.

The couple, of Kylemore, Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick, have sued the HSE; US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland, with offices at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin; and Medlab Pathology, with offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18.

It is claimed there was failure to correctly report and diagnose and alleged misinterpretation of her smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012, and that her cancer spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014.

It is further claimed a review of the 2009 and 2012 smears took place in 2014 and 2015, with the results sent to Ms Morrissey's treating gynaecologist in 2016.

The HSE has admitted it owed a duty of care to Ms Morrissey but denies it owed such a duty to her husband. The laboratories deny all claims.

Yesterday, Mr Maher said they were also contending the number of cells examined on the 2012 test was inadequate.

They were also contending that, if Ms Morrissey had been told the results of the smear test reviews earlier, she would have insisted on other scans.

Tumour

"There was an opportunity to detect an occurrence of the tumour at an earlier stage.

"You would have the probability of life rather than the probability of death," Mr Maher said.

Patrick Hanratty SC, for the HSE, had objected to the widening of the case but the Morrissey side argued the HSE knew of the issue from a medical report referred to it last September.

Mr Justice Cross ruled the case should proceed on its expanded basis.

The case continues.
Always ask for identification if someone calls to your door. Stock Image

Gardai have issued a warning about bogus callers and rogue traders after an elderly woman was pressurised into paying for tools she did not want or need - including 12 chainsaws.

Officers revealed that the pensioner, who lives alone, handed over "a substantial amount of money made up of several cheques" for 12 chainsaws, 11 generators, seven power-washers and other tools.

Most of the cheques were cancelled before they were cashed.

Gardai in Bantry, Cork, are appealing to anyone who has been the victim of a similar crime to contact them, and are asking the public to tell elderly relatives and neighbours about the incident.

Officers described it as a "heinous crime" and said extra patrols would be put on if vulnerable members of the public saw bogus traders in the area.

"This is a heinous crime as it targets the more vulnerable members of our communities," Sergeant Tony Davis said.

"If you have elderly or vulnerable neighbours and see or hear about bogus traders doing the rounds, let them and ourselves know so we can put out additional patrols.

"If you suspect that anyone who calls to your door selling goods or services is not who they say they are, tell them you are not interested and call the gardai immediately.

"Genuine tradespeople won't be offended by any queries the gardai may make. If you are answering the door to cold callers, apply the chain or door limiter before opening the door.

"I would also ask that if anyone feels like they or someone they know has been a victim of being sold goods for extortionate prices, or paid for a service that was not carried out, to call any garda station and report the matter."

Strangers

Gardai say people should always ask tradespeople who call at the door for identification.

They also advise the public to seek comparable estimates for services, to never engage a person who insists on cash-only payments and to never leave strangers, even bona fide workers, unsupervised in the home.

"If a person calls to your door offering you professional trade services or selling goods and you are worried they are not bona fide, tell the caller that you never employ tradespeople or buy goods from people who cold call," a garda spokesperson said.
Each year across West Virginia there are an almost certain set of tragedies that become a part of communities, as young lives are lost even be
Delmarva Poultry and the Annapolis-based Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment are together putting up $500,000 to pay for the new air monitoring equipment, which Maryland environmental regulators will operate and gather data from. Officials said they would use EPA guidelines to decide where to place the monitors, one upwind and one downwind of a farm or farms. And they also plan to use two existing monitors to establish a baseline for ammonia and particulate matter in the air more widely across the shore.
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Obesity  as research in the past decade has shown  is first and foremost a brain disease. Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, partners in the German Center for Diabetes Research, have now discovered a molecular switch that controls the function of satiety neurons and therefore body weight. The findings were published in the journal Nature Metabolism.

The worldwide epidemic of obesity has reached record levels, and what was once a problem only of industrialized countries is now also affecting the developing world. Consequently, scientists are working with great commitment to identify the mechanisms underlying the disease in order to find new treatments. Researchers at the Institute of Diabetes and Obesity (IDO) of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen have recently taken a further step in this direction.

Yin and yang of energy metabolism

Whether were hungry or feel full is largely determined in the brain  specifically in the hypothalamus, explains IDO scientist Dr. Alexandre Fisette, together with Dr. Carmelo Quarta lead co-authors of the aforementioned paper. Two groups of neurons in the hypothalamus control body weight and energy balance via various molecular messengers. Like yin and yang, they help strike a good balance. While neurons known as Agrp increase appetite, their counterparts, Pomc neurons, produce a sensation of satiety. However, if the interplay between the two is disturbed, the result can be obesity or type 2 diabetes.

In our recent study we discovered that a transcription factor* called Tbx3 plays a key role in this mechanism, says Carmelo Quarta, describing the new findings. Specifically, in the absence of Tbx3, the neurons responsible for producing a feeling of satiety are no longer able to synthesize the expected molecular messengers. Applying a broad range of techniques, the scientists were then able to show that Tbx3 plays a pivotal role in maintaining energy and sugar metabolism.



Lack of Tbx3 leads to an identity crisis



Both in a preclinical model and in fruit flies, the absence of Tbx3 leads to a kind of identity crisis of satiety neurons, resulting in obesity, says Alexandre Fisette. The same signaling pathways also appear to be present in humans: In preliminary experiments with human neurons, we were able to show that they are no longer able to carry out their function in the absence of Tbx3, Carmelo Quarta adds.

Humans with genetic defects in the Tbx3 gene have long been reported to suffer from obesity, explains study director Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Matthias H. Tschop, CEO of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and holder of the Chair for Metabolic Diseases at the Technical University of Munich.** Our study explains for the first time the underlying mechanisms and once again focuses attention on the central role of the brain in regulating energy metabolism. We hope that Tbx3 may come into consideration one day as a target for drug therapies.

Further Information

* Transcription factors are proteins that determine whether or not specific genes are read. They generally achieve this by influencing (promoting or suppressing) the binding of RNA polymerase to the DNA sequence that codes for the corresponding gene. In this case Tbx3 stands for T-box gene 3.

** It has been reported that TBX3 mutations in humans cause a rare genetic disorder called ulnar-mammary syndrome. The syndrome is associated with a number of typical symptoms, including delayed puberty, a lack of growth hormone production and, most notably, obesity.

Background:

The study was conducted in close collaboration with the lab of Claudia Doege at the Columbia University, New York.

Original Publication:

Quarta, C. & Fisette, A. et al. (2019): Functional identity of hypothalamic melanocortin neurons depends on Tbx3. Nature Metabolism, DOI: 10.1038/s42255-018-0028-1

As German Research Center for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes mellitus, allergies and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen has about 2,300 staff members and is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich. Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 19 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members. The Institute of Diabetes and Obesity (IDO) studies the diseases of the metabolic syndrome by means of systems biological and translational approaches on the basis of cellular systems, genetically modified mouse models and clinical intervention studies. It seeks to discover new signaling pathways in order to develop innovative therapeutic approaches for the personalized prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes and their concomitant diseases. IDO is part of the Helmholtz Diabetes Center (HDC). The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europes leading research universities, with around 550 professors, 41,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, San Francisco, and Sao Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mobauer have done research at TUM. In 2006 and 2012 it won recognition as a German Excellence University. In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany. The German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) is a national association that brings together experts in the field of diabetes research and combines basic research, translational research, epidemiology and clinical applications. The aim is to develop novel strategies for personalized prevention and treatment of diabetes. Members are Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen  German Research Center for Environmental Health, the German Diabetes Center in Dusseldorf, the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrucke, the Paul Langerhans Institute Dresden of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen at the University Medical Center Carl Gustav Carus of the TU Dresden and the Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen at the Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen together with associated partners at the Universities in Heidelberg, Cologne, Leipzig, Lubeck and Munich.
Restructuring expenses are projected to be 800m to 950m (A$1.2bn to $1.5bn), the vast majority of which will be recognised in the first quarter 2019, it added.

It is still unclear how many jobs exactly will be cut from SAPs Australian office as the company has yet to discuss the local retrenchment with its employees. However, it is believed that the extent will be substantial given the far-reaching restructuring plan SAP is targeting.

The strategy also follows a tight timeline, which means the firings will likely be carried out swiftly.

An SAP spokesperson said the mass retrenchment is expected to affect jobs in Australia and New Zealand, as well as across the rest of Europe and the rest of the Americas.

News of the impending workforce shake-up comes after SAP revealed that it had experienced an 11% increase in its non-IFRS revenues, at constant currencies, in 2018. Its operation profits also increased by 10%, which met the companys expectations for the year.
Havre Police Department

A two vehicle crash between a FedEx truck and a Yukon was reported on Second Street Tuesday at 12:39 p.m.

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A caller at a First Street West business asked Tuesday at 1:02 p.m. to speak with an officer.

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An arrest was made after a Sixth Street caller asked officers for assistance Tuesday at 1:17 p.m. removing a man from the residence. No information was provided on the charges.

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A gas drive-off by a driver in a blue pickup truck was reported by a First Street business Tuesday at 4:05 p.m.

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Two Boss speakers and an amplifier were reported at 4:07 p.m. T...
Last updated 1/30/2019 at 9:35am

Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees will hold a planning workshop Thursday in the Robins School Administration Building at 6 p.m.

The items for discussion are:

1. Board Evaluation Instruments

2. HHS bathroom facilities update

3. Student learning options

4. Restructuring

5. Other

...
Editor: The last lyrics of our National Anthem are, the land of the free, and hom
The need to find shelter for the countys homeless population was underscored Monday with the discovery of a homeless man apparently dead from exposure in the median of Route 10 in Glen Burnie. County police are awaiting the results of an autopsy on the 58-year-old and struggling to locate his next of kin, Sgt. Jacklyn Davis said.




Haiti - News : Zapping...





Number of Police Officers killed decreased

Inspector Gary Desrosiers, deputy spokesman of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), while respecting the work done by human rights organizations, is unable to confirm the figures provided by these organizations reporting 7 police officers killed during the month of January. Gary Desrosiers confirms that 5 police officers died in the first month of the year, 4 of them shot.



Rain of warrants

As part of the fight against crime in the department of North-West, Me Jean Volney Bellamin, head of the prosecutor's office of Port-de-Paix says that more than a hundred warrants of appearance are currently in force against actively pursued individuals.



At 101, Odette Roy Fombrun still at work

The historian and icon of Haitian literature, THE teacher Mrs. Odette Roy Fombrun (101 years old) author of numerous educational and civic books, sacred "Living National Treasure" in 2009, participated last week in a working session in the perspective of production of awareness videos around themes key to respecting the rights of people with disabilities : Inclusive education, tolerance, accessible tourism, etc...



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24517-haiti-education-vibrant-tribute-to-odette-roy-fombrun-on-the-eve-of-her-101-years.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22298-haiti-politics-message-of-wisdom-from-odette-fombrun-to-jovenel-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20958-haiti-politics-odette-roy-fombrun-proposes-a-revolution-to-the-pm.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20609-haiti-politics-constructive-proposals-by-odette-roy-fombrun.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20356-haiti-social-odette-roy-fombrun-appeals-against-immorality.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19363-haiti-politics-odette-fombrun-launches-an-appeal-to-presidential-candidates.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19434-haiti-politics-odette-r-fombrun-s-2nd-message-to-the-presidential-candidates.html



Audience of Godson Orelus put in continuity

The former Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), Godson Orelus incarcerated since late October https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25946-haiti-justice-godson-orelus-former-dg-of-the-pnh-arrested-and-imprisoned.html for illicit firearms trafficking, appeared Tuesday, January 29, at the Court of Appeal of Gonaives, to appeal the order of reference of the judge of instruction Dieunel Lumerant https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26393-icihaiti-justice-the-lawyers-of-godson-orelus-appeal-the-decision-of-judge-lumerant.html . The hearing has been put in continuation and will resume on February 5, 2019.



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26393-icihaiti-justice-the-lawyers-of-godson-orelus-appeal-the-decision-of-judge-lumerant.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26314-haiti-justice-seizure-of-weapons-in-st-marc-9-indicted-2-in-prison-and-7-fugitives.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25946-haiti-justice-godson-orelus-former-dg-of-the-pnh-arrested-and-imprisoned.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18569-haiti-flash-worrying-seizure-of-weapons-from-the-usa.html



Grants of discharges on the Senate agenda

On Tuesday, Senator Carl Murat Cantave chaired the 3rd plenary session of the legislative year with 20 Senators present where it was discussed "the law proposal of the article of 233 of the Constitution relating to the procedure of the grants discharge to former high dignitaries of the State."



Congratulations from the Canadian Embassy

The Embassy of Canada in Haiti, proud partner of the International Jazz Festival of Port-au-Prince, congratulates and thanks the organizers of the Festival for this extraordinary 13th edition which ended Saturday, January 28th.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Social : 126th anniversary of Madan Jamba the Haitian Dean





Sunday, January 27, 2019 in Moyette a locality of the 8th communal section of Petit-Goave, the Rector Jacky Lumarque of Quisqueya University celebrated with pomp the "126th birthday" of Benicia Souffrant better known under the name of "Madan Jamba" in presence of many personalities. On this occasion, two plaques of honor were given to the old woman.



Mrs. Hiracide Desgranges, Coordinator of the Communal Section Board of Directors (CASEC) said "We, the inhabitants of the community, are happy to gather here to celebrate with Madan Jamba. It's a pride for us. She lived 126 years, she represents for us to Moyette, a privilege. Therefore, we thank the men and women of Moyette who provided financial and other support to Madan Jamba. Today we can, thanks to it benefits from many things including the probable construction of the road of 8th [...]"



As for Deputy Mayor Delor Desgranges, he greeted the journalists Guyto Mathieu [HaitiLibre correspondent], Anel Joseph, Arnold Joicy and Pierre Joseph who helped to discover "Madan Jamba".



Me Delpeche Joassaint said "Madan Jamba" is a monument "[...] she was born in Verdier, a dwelling of the 8th section, January 17, 1893. Her parents gave her the name of Benicia Souffrant.



Emmanuel Jasmin was the first concubine of Madan Jamba. From her affair with this man, she gave birth to two children.



Then she married Mr. Jean Baptiste Laguerre. Hence the nickname Madan Jamba. From this marital union were born later 4 children : two boys and two girls. All her 6 children died. She only has great grandchildren and daughters.



During her youth Madan Jamba practiced trade and traditional medicine [...] She was seductive and attractive. At the time, soldiers were courting her but she never cheated on her husband. She was a fervent Catholic. She went to Mass regularly. She often went to the ball and practiced voodoo. Her stepson burned down her house and she lost all her papers. She loves her neighbor and she has a sense of sharing. Unbeknownst to her husband, she gave loans to people in the area. She always offers visitors something to eat or drink."



Jacky Lumarque said "[...] We are in contact with the national archives so that we can obtain irrefutable evidence. We are on the right path. We have a copy of the birth certificate of the twin sister of "Madan Jamba" Recall that Quisqueya University committed in April 2018 to support this elderly woman throughout her life https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23907-haiti-social-big-visit-to-the-oldest-woman-of-haiti-125-years.html )



Recall that currently, the oldest woman in the world (age 116) whose age has been established and officially recognized by the international authorities on July 22, 2018, is the Japanese Kane Tanaka born on January 2, 1903



If the age of "Madan Janba" is established and officially recognized by the international body, she will become the Dean of humanity.



See also about "Madan Janba" :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24861-haiti-social-a-new-house-for-the-oldest-woman-of-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24509-haiti-petit-goave-happy-feast-mrs-jamba-a-mother-of-125-years-old.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-23845-icihaiti-petit-goave-at-125-she-would-be-the-oldest-woman-in-haiti-and-of-world.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23945-haiti-social-the-oldest-woman-in-haiti-will-never-be-alone-again.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23907-haiti-social-big-visit-to-the-oldest-woman-of-haiti-125-years.html





HL/ HaitiLibre / Guyto Mathieu (Correspondant Petit-Goave)






















Haiti - Tornado : Sunrise Airways offers its aid to Cuba





The powerful tornado that suddenly formed on January 27th at 8:21 pm and hit Central-South Havana (Cuban capital) for 16 minutes with winds of 300 km/h over a distance of 11.5 km (source: Institute of Meteorology of Cuba (Insmet)), has left a heavy toll: at least 4 dead, 195 wounded, many of them in serious condition, damaging 1,238 homes and destroying 124 totally (according to the Cuban Government). The damage are considerable, besides the houses, it is necessary adding the partial or total landslides as well as damage to infrastructure and sectors of the national economy, said Juan Montalvo, Vice President of the Council of Public Administration of Havana.



Philippe Bayard, President and CEO of the Haitian airline Sunrise Airways, in a letter to the Cuban embassy in Haiti sent a message of sympathy to the Cuban people.



"On behalf of all of Sunrise, we show our support and stand in solidarity with all those who have lost goods they have acquired with so much effort [...] We know the country's ability to plan and to face to events, but this kind of natural hazard was not predictable, unlike other meteorological phenomena."



Bayard adds that it makes available to the Cuban authorities the transport possibilities of his airline to transport to Cuba from Haiti, all the necessary assistance.



Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Tuesday on his Twitter account that Habane will recover from the severe damage caused by the tornado, thanks to the collective effort.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26527-haiti-sunrise-airways-the-haitian-company-has-transported-250-000-passengers-in-2018.html



SL/ HaitiLibre


















A mid-level restaurant, like Chilis, Red Robin or Panera.

Light industry to keep jobs in the area.

More retail so we don't have to go to Tucson.

Better and more mass transit options.

All of the above.

Vote

View Results
PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Seniors in Pascagoula will place their acting skills on display by expressing themselves in their annual scene night at the Pascagoula Senior Center in the Live Oak Auditorium starting Thursday, Jan. 31- Feb. 2.

This year, the group will present A Showcase of Pure Comedy.

Featured scenes will come from The Odd Couple, Neil Simons classic Broadway play which later became a popular movie and television show, plus Simons female version of The Odd Couple."

In addition, scenes from Meow and The Apple Tree will be shown.

Cast members, playing various roles, include Faith Magallanes, Betty St. Amant, Pam Beecher, Richard Lucas, and Johnny Fryer.

We have had great success with this acting class, said director Mac Nelson. Right off the bat, I could tell we had a lot of talent around here, which you will see on display in these presentations. We believe what were doing is a very positive quality of life contribution locally, and we are grateful for the City of Pascagoulas support.

For Nelson, watching the seniors live out their dreams come forth and brought to life is an experience he cherishes.

I taught high school and college in theater, then I was an actor and theater director in New York for a number of years, so its nice in my retirement age to see some people who always wanted to do this to have the opportunity, Nelson said.

Dates/times are as follows:

-Thursday, January 31, 7 p.m.

-Friday, February 1, 7 p.m.

-Saturday, February 2 (Matinee), 2 p.m.

Admission for the production is free, with the opportunity to make donations to the Senior Center drama fund. There will be general seating in the senior center auditorium.
Nearby property owners are concerned a zoning change in a southwest Cape Coral neighborhood could have a devastating effect on their single-family home community.

They gathered Monday to protest the proposed land use and zoning change at Agualinda Boulevard and Beach Parkway, also known as Four Corners, which could result in the addition of up to 510 multi-family units of affordable housing at that intersection.

Nearly 100 residents gathered at one of the four empty lots at the intersection to make their feelings heard and to plan a strategy for next Mondays City Council meeting, where the change is expected to be discussed as part of a major revamp of Cape land codes.

The city of Cape Coral has been undergoing a comprehensive land use and zoning overhaul that is expected to have an impact on multiple sites countywide.

Randy Landers, a community organizer, brought concerned neighbors together to put their ducks in a row for the upcoming meeting. Landers said he expects more than 100 homeowners to come and present their case to oppose the land use and zoning change and change it back to single-family housing.

They are trying to change from marketplace residential to multi-family; from 283 apartments to nearly all multi-family on three of the four corners, Landers said. These are single-land roads. Adding 1,000 cars a day in this intersection where its already busy and where cars exceed the speed limit.

Residents expressed concern that the more than 500 units will not fit in with the single-family neighborhood, that it would overload the roads on Agualinda and Beach, nearby schools and utilities, and possibly increase crime while decreasing property values near the site.

Jim Michalski said the original 242 units was a bad deal, and that more than doubling it will make things worse.

This is a single-family development area and the infrastructure was designed for that. Were half a mile down the street from two schools. These are single-lane roads. This would decrease our property values, bring congestion, crime, something we dont need, Michalski said.

Cindi Kent said the area needs to remain single-family homes and perhaps even make it into a 55-and-over community.

Its what the baby-boomers really need. If Cape Coral is so interested in affordable housing, let them go to Cape Coral Parkway near Chiquita and see how long those condos have been sitting there empty because they cant sell them, Kent said. People wont buy those condos and they wont buy here, either.

The city of Cape Coral has identified a shortage of affordable housing, which will take at least 1,500 units per year for five years to make up the difference.

Landers said there is plenty of land elsewhere in the city for multi-family units to be built.

This doesnt need to go into persons neighborhood. Pine Island Road has a tremendous amount of space for multi-family units, Landers said. You want to built them in the proximity of businesses, and there are no businesses in this area.
The Redmi Note 7 arrived earlier this month with a 48 MP camera with a Samsung ISOCELL sensor. Rumors suggested another edition, this time with the Sony IMX586 sensor, is on its way, and the phone will be called Redmi Note 7 Pro.

Today, another hint about the upcoming device popped up online. Lu Weibing, Redmi CEO, asked fans what do they want from the Redmi Note 7 Pro, and one fan said: Omit the 3/32 GB version, go straight for 6/64 GB or 6/128 GB. Of all the replies, this exact one was reposted later by Lei Jun, Xiaomi CEO, suggesting that it might be onto something.

The upcoming Redmi Note 7 Pro is likely to have the same footprint, including the notched 6.4 screen and the 4,000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 4 capabilities. It should also ditch the Snapdragon 660 in favor of the Snapdragon 675.

We are now waiting for Weibing to announce a Redmi Note 7 Pro launch date.

Source (in Chinese) | Via
The Pixel 3 Lite XL surprised us the last time it visited Geekbench  it had 6GB of RAM, which is a something no other Google phone has. But does it? Theres a new result from a XL Lite and it only shows 4GB of RAM.

Google is not one to offer different RAM capacities. In fact, all Pixel phones have had 4GB of RAM and thats that. The search giant barely bothers to offers a choice of two storage levels.

We know this is a Lite version rather than a variant of the regular Pixel 3 XL because of the code name  Bonito and Sargo are the upcoming mid-range offerings from Google.

Anyway, it seems that this Pixel 3 Lite XL is using the same Snapdragon 710 chipset as last time. However, the score is lower  Google does have a tendency to underclock chipsets, so it may still be pinpointing the ideal clock speed (note that Geekbench reports only the speed of the small cores, which are not underclocked).

The drop in the score could also be explained by the lower RAM capacity, though Geekbench is not very sensitive to that.

Source | Via
The smartphone market is past its peak, say analysts from Canalys. The two big players, Apple and Samsung, both slipped down. Apple was the top smartphone vendor in the final quarter of 2018, however its in second place for the full year.

It fell about 7% in Q4, which put it very close to Samsung (down 5%) and the market shares of the two giants are within a percentage point. Meanwhile, Chinese brands gained ground.

The iPhone XR was the top model with over 22 million shipments. As for the premium models, the iPhone XS Max (14 million) was significantly more popular than the smaller iPhone XS (9 million).

Disappointing shipments in China are hurting Apple, which contributed to the 15% slump in iPhone shipments (the company stopped announcing shipment numbers, so we have to rely on analysts).

Canalys sees the popularity of the XR as a signal that Apple needs to offer cheaper iPhones.

Samsung has been under pressure from Chinese rivals and it shipped only 294 million smartphones  23 million less than in 2017 and well short of the 320 million target for 2018. Samsung is changing course to more feature-packed entry-level and mid-range phones, sacrificing profit margins to regain lost ground.

Huawei grew an impressive by the impressive 34.5% for the full year 2018 (and even more in Q4). It has a record market share in China, however it shipped most of its phones overseas (shipments were 40% domestic, 60% foreign).

Canalys notes that the companys image of a technology innovator (with multi-camera phones and AI) has improved its brand image. The US-China trade war and legal threats from the west pose a challenge for 2019, though.

Xiaomi was the other company to post a large annual growth (31.6%) year over year and it overtook Oppo for fourth place (though Oppo fought back in Q4 and managed a nearly even result).

Source
GREENWICH  By day, Joshua Moore was a truck driver working for a regional transportation company.

But by night, according to an arrest-warrant application filed by Greenwich police, Moore was a thief who used a hydraulic tool the kind used by firefighters for vehicle extrications  to bust into automatic teller machines around Greenwich and make off with tens of thousands of dollars.

Moores latest nighttime activities came to an end earlier this week, as police officers booked him on multiple felony charges of burglary, larceny and criminal mischief, authorities announced Tuesday.

Court papers in State Superior Court in Stamford revealed that Moore was handy with tools, allegedly using a Holmatro BCT 4120 Self Contained Rescue Tool for his ATM jobs. He was also known to have used a blow torch on a previous job in Brewster, N.Y., in May of 2011.

As police began to investigate a spate of ATM thefts around the region, Moore, 39, a resident of Shelton, became a logical suspect  he had a previous encounter with town police for a commercial break-in in Greenwich in October of 2012.

In that 2012 case, Moore was arrested near the Shell station and convenience store at 1429 East Putnam Avenue in Old Greenwich, hiding in a BMW sedan after police arrived on the scene following a break-in there in the early morning hours. That arrest, and other criminal cases in Stamford, sent him away to prison for a year.

In an earlier case, in May of 2011, Moore, a former Stamford resident, was arrested in Brewster, N.Y., by New York State Police, along with an accomplice. The troopers found that a McDonalds restaurant had been broken into, and an ATM machine there was opened with a blow torch. Inside the trunk of his car, a BMW, troopers found cutting tools, the cash box from the ATM, two-way radios, a pellet rifle, rubber gloves, ski masks and pry bars, according to court papers. He was subsequently convicted on theft charges, the court papers state.

The investigation into a recent spate of ATM thefts in Greenwich encompassed the break-in at a vestibule in a commercial building in Cos Cob in February of 2018 and November of 2018, and the Shell station in August of 2017. Police gathered a range of information they said tied Moore to those crimes, which netted over $100,000 in cash, according to the affidavit. All were staged in the early morning hours, by a man dressed in dark clothing with his face covered, using a hydraulic power tool. The machines were all free-standing, not mounted in a wall.

Investigators determined that Moore was in Greenwich around the times the break-ins took place, the court papers state. Investigators also determined that Moore had purchased a hydraulic power tool from eBay, court papers state, and he had a curious history of bank transactions. A pattern emerged in which burglaries and ATM larcenies occurred in a short period of time after Joshua Moores checking account balance fell to near zero or negative values, according to the court papers.

The accumulation of evidence led police to establish probable cause, authorities said this week, for an arrest warrant to be issued.

Moore has a fondness for BMWs, having driven that kind of car through the years during his early-morning exploits, police records state.

He is currently being held in state custody, failing to post $250,000 bail set in his case.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

Editors note: Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei released this statement in reaction to controversy over a Jan. 30 forum at Greenwich Town Hall hosted by town native Carl Higbie, who resigned from a post in the Trump Administration over controversial comments.

The Greenwich Town Hall is the focal point of government of the people, by the people and for the people and provides the opportunity to exercise constitutional rights  including those of free speech.
It was a night of remembrance at the Palmetto Pine County Club Friday evening. The Chamber of Commerce of Cape Coral hosted the 2019 Chairmans Gala, as well as celebrated its 30th anniversary, swearing in the 2019 board and chairman.

Legacy was the nights theme, as numerous past chamber chairmen, many still current chamber members, were in attendance to commemorate the milestone.

The 30th anniversary marks a major milestone for our organization that we are truly proud of, said chamber President/CEO Donna Germain. We are in a great place as an organization financially and with the programs and services we offer our members. We are completely debt free as an organization, we are approaching the 800-member mark, we have an amazing group of volunteers, supporters and, of course, staff that make what we do possible, so we have a lot to celebrate this year.

The chambers storied history was brought to life in a moving video package that highlighted the legacy of founding members, those who have positioned the chamber where it is today and those who continue to guide the organization into the future.

Being able to celebrate this milestone and recognize the people who helped us get here means the world to us, said Germain. So often we all get caught up in the day-to-day and rarely take the time to celebrate our accomplishments and hard work. That is what our Chairmans Gala is all about. Its our chance to say thank you to everyone who supports us.

They have all left us a legacy to live up to, a legacy to carry into the future as the Chamber of Commerce of Cape Coral continues its mission as a champion for business and advocate for community.

Chamber Awards were presented by Germain and outgoing 2018 Chairman Joseph Francioni.

Awards included:

Board Member of the Year: Trish Lassiter, LCEC

Board Member of the Year: Kim Morris, Jones, Haber & Rollings

Trustee of the Year: Denise Perchall, Accesspoint HR

Member of the Year: Its IT

Volunteer of the Year: Angela Gartin, Badgers Business Solutions

Government Affairs Committee Member of the Year: Gloria Tate, Raso Realty

Membership Development Committee Mem-ber of the Year: Lou Peppe, Lou Peppe Business Services

Education Committee Member of the Year: Chrysten Foley, Nova Southeastern University

Welcome Center Volunteer of the Year: Fred Nelles, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Realty

Chairman Emeritus Award: Brett Bisbe, B2 Technology Solutions

Chamber Champions included All Power Electric & AC, ACRA Electric, CenturyLink, The Aubuchon Team of Companies and Coral Ridge Funeral Home, Cemetery and Cremations.

The award that invoked powerful emotions came via the Chamber Lifetime Achievement Award, that went to recently lost Cynthia Cindy Gallagher.

There was not a dry eye in the room as Germain read quotes from friends and loved ones about Gallagher, whose daughter Darby was in attendance to accept the award on her mothers behalf.

Gallagher passed away due to ovarian cancer in November.

Cindy was a special person, tough as nails, but wore her heart on her sleeve when it came to community, goodwill and stewardship. For example, she was the inertia and the passion which developed Jr. Leadership Cape Coral. She represented the finest of us Cape Coralians  Mike Quaintance, Chamber President 98-15.

Germain announced that the chamber will fund a $1,000 scholarship in Gallaghers name to a Junior Leadership Graduate, with more details to follow as the application process continues.

Finally, Francioni, along with Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman, passed the gavel and administered the oath of office respectively to 2019 Chairman Bill Jacob of CenturyLink.

Bill has been an invaluable member of the chamber for many years, said Germain. There is no doubt that we will have another successful year with him as our chairman.

Im grateful, excited and humbled, said Jacob of his new title. This is a great organization, and Im very thankful to get the opportunity to lead it into 2019.

Jacob said his journey with the chamber began with the Leadership Cape Coral class, and has grown into volunteer positions, coupled with CenturyLinks close connection with the organization.

What he enjoys most about being a chamber member is the tight knit, almost family bond the members share, Jacob said.

What Im most looking forward to in 2019 is some of the new special events we have coming up for the community, he added.

The chamber offers businesses many different opportunities to grow and network, something Jacob is focusing on during his tenure.

We offer a lot of different things that a lot of small businesses dont know about, he said. If they have a question about law or zoning, we have a first-hour-free attorney, where they can get free advice for an hour. Businesses also get annual ribbon-cutting ceremonies, new member mentorship, lunches, networking after business hours  where they can meet new people and help grow their business.

Today, the chamber has nearly 800 members, keeping them informed of issues affecting the business community, holding monthly membership meetings and conducting other business-after-hours networking events.

Since 1993, there have been more than 650 Leadership Cape Coral graduates and more than 500 Junior Leadership Cape Coral graduates since 2002.

The chamber plays host to numerous special events throughout the calendar year, such as the Cape Coral Farmers Market, which has, for the last 25 years, brought more than 200,000 visitors to the South Cape; the Holiday Festival of Lights; Taste of the Cape; Freedom 5K; Womens Leadership Conference and more.

In the past, the chamber also has been involved in Red, White & Boom, Celebrate Cape Coral, Cinco De Mayo and countless others.

Though its true inception came in 1965, when Edward B. Quirks small storefront served as headquarters, it wasnt until 1989 when what is known as the Chamber of Commerce of Cape Coral today was formed by the Capes business community following a merger with the Fort Myers Chamber in 87.

The chamber has two welcome centers, one at Del Prado Boulevard and Cape Coral Parkway, as well as a location inside the FOS Furniture Store at Del Prado Boulevard and Pine Island Road to better serve the residents and visitors to the north side of the city.

The offices serve as the welcome centers for Cape Coral and a resource for residents, visitors, newcomers and future residents.

We hope to continue to grow and give back to the community. I would love to be able to expand on our programs, services and event and, of course, grow our membership, Germain said. I would also love for us to be able to build a new welcome center. We have been here for many years and would love to have a new facility, so we can better serve our members and visitors to Cape Coral.

 Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj
What do you get when you gather Jewish Orthodox Lubavitch Hasidic women from all over the world together for a weekend in Crown Heights, Brooklyn?

You get last weekend, a lot of food, a lot of noise  and me.

Some background: We are members of the Chabad of Greenwich, where our children attend Hebrew School. I am Christian; my husband, Ian, is an atheist; and his father is an observant modern-orthodox Jew.

As my husband likes to say, Were so not in the Chabad Manual.

But the Chabad felt like the closest thing to my father-in-laws orthodox synagogue in New Jersey. In Greenwich, many far less traditional and even secular Jews turn to Chabad for Jewish education. So even though some of their orthodox practices gave me pause, we decided to give it a try. I quickly became close friends with our Rebbetzin (which means wife of rabbi) who grew up in Crown Heights, just two miles from Park Slope (where I grew up). Did I mention they also had 10 children? TEN.

Before long, we were regular guests at our rabbis home for long Shabbat dinners, Jewish holidays, parenting classes, Torah classes and just old-fashioned kvetch sessions. Much of what the Chabad teaches are Orthodox Jewish ways of living, such as keeping kosher, observing Shabbat and bathing in the Mikvah  among others.

But heres the kicker: Even with 10 children, our rabbis home was a bastion of calm and peacefulness. There was no screaming from either child or parent, siblings were helping siblings  what was going on here? The rabbis children were eager to learn and discuss ideas with their parents; there wasnt an iPad in sight.

I want to learn how they do this, I told Ian as we started to get to know our rabbis family. Why was there house so calm?

Lack of bacon? my friend posited.

I became fixated on getting to the bottom on it, figuring out their secret.

This made Ian nervous.

Weeks later, I couldnt resist asking my mother-in-law if she had ever been to the Mikvah, the ritual bath. Now Ian looked really nervous.

Are you kidding me, Claire! she hollered. I was weaned on lobster and shellfish!

I guess that meant no Mikvah.

Point is, Ians family didnt roll like my rabbis family. Very few Jewish families did. Our rabbis house always felt like another planet in Greenwich to me, a world unto to itself yet oddly just across the street from Whole Foods. Life was lived differently in this home, and you could feel it the moment you walked in the door.

But Crown Heights is on a whole different level. If my rabbis house is another planet, Crown Heights is another galaxy. Crown Heights is where the Chabad movement began: Its like the mothership and the only one living differently there last Friday was, well, me.

You are going to Crown Heights to immerse yourself in Judaism? my mother-in-law asked. She didnt sound pleased.

The word is MODERATION, Claire, she added. No one here is asking you to do this, you know.

According to Ian, Jewish immersion for his mother was more Scarsdale than Crown Heights. But he knew better than to argue with me.

I arrived in Crown Heights on Friday afternoon for a conference that gathered Chabad women from all over the world. Everyone was in a tizzy. The countdown to sunset had begun and people were dashing about to get ready because once that sun set there was nothing to be done. Like nothing  and I dont just mean iPads. You couldnt touch anything  ovens, electricity, no work of any kind could take place on this sacred day of rest  including carrying objects from one home to another. If you had to carry keys, you fastened them to a string around your waist.

Ohhhh, that is such a good idea! I am ALWAYS losing my keys, I said to a woman at the registration desk, cluelessly. And getting my kids to turn off their iPads ... its a daily struggle.

The woman running the program took one look at me from behind the welcome desk and announced I was in the Visitors Program (not the In-Depth Program). I had little time to argue, because I was due at my host mothers house for Shabbat dinner.

What ensued is hard to describe. When I arrived at their brownstone, I was immediately immersed into a hotly contested multigenerational debate about wig styling with a group of women who were all related in some way, all very excited to be together and all with very strong opinions about wigs. Chabad women wear wigs in public, and only allow their husbands to see their real hair.

Its great, you can literally drop your hair off at the stylist and come back and its ready to go, one woman told me.

Shabbat in Crown Heights is like Shabbat on steroids. There were endless courses of food, the women all talked at once in full volume, but things really heated up when I turned the light off in the bathroom.

We cant touch the switch, so can you turn it back on please? my host kindly reminded me. And before you knew it, I was the Shabbos Goy: I got to do everything everyone else could not. It was like my 7-year olds highest ring of paradise.

How is JewCon? my friend texted me. Have you liberated the women yet?

The Hasidic Jewish community gets a lot of bad press for the treatment of women. They are often criticized for not allowing women the same privileges as men and for keeping females at a distance. Theres a lot of real controversy there, but the Hasidic women I shared a meal that night were anything but distant. Conversation flew around the table from Trumps wall, to New Yorks recent legislation on birth control, to a cousins wedding, to (my favorite) matchmaking.

Tell me about matchmakers, I asked a group of Hasidic bachelors. I wanted every detail.

Yeah, well, mine is fed up with me, one guy told me.

Hes been in the process for five years, his friend explained while everyone laughed.

What does your matchmaker look like? I asked, imagining a Fiddler-on-the-Roof lookalike.

Shes an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he replied flatly.

And there you have it. This was a world I had watched from the outside as a kid from Brooklyn; it both freaked me out but also fascinated me  and here I was, differences and all, being welcomed in. Yes, there were practices that would make many of my friends scream, but there was something else there, too.

Because thats the thing about the Chabad, especially the one I have come to know in Greenwich: They let you in. They embrace your differences and kindly show you theirs, running the constant risk of being made fun of, being called out or simply embarrassed. Some say its hard to relocate to a town like Greenwich  but imagine what it must have been like for my rabbis family.

It can be hard on the kids, a Chabad leader told me. But its what we do.

From every corner of the globe, the Chabad reach beyond their comfort zone, and in the face of a very real new wave of anti-Semitism, to share a light that burns deep within. And that light is their secret ... and its one not even a Shabbos Goy can turn off.

Claire Tisne Haft is a former publishing and film executive, raising her family in Greenwich while working on a freelance basis on books and films.
GREENWICH  First Selectman Peter Tesei on Tuesday defended the decision to allow Greenwich resident Carl Higbie to host a live streaming discussion at Town Hall despite comments Higbie has made in the past.

The Greenwich Town Hall is the focal point of government of the people, by the people and for the people and provides the opportunity to exercise constitutional rights, including those of free speech, Tesei said in a statement on Tuesday.

Critics of the event cite a town policy that says Town Hall should not be used for commercial purposes.

Higbie has organized and will appear as a panelist at a debate on current issues Wednesday at 7 p.m., the first in a planned series of events across the country by Americas Voice News. Higbie hosts a show for the online streaming channel.

Higbie, a former Navy SEAL who served two tours in Iraq, has come under intense criticism for past racist, homophobic, sexist and anti-Muslim remarks he made while hosting another online radio show. Higbie has since apologized for the remarks, which included promoting birth control for black women, but they led to his resignation last year from his role as chief of external affairs for the Corporation for National and Community Service in the Trump administration.

The remarks have led to a significant backlash against Wednesdays event. Critics, including town resident and activist Sarah Littman, have rejected the free speech justification.

No one is questioning or disputing Mr. Higbies right to hold an event, Littman said. The objection is to it being held at Town Hall, because it clearly goes against the town of Greenwichs Town Hall Meeting Room policy, as downloaded from the (towns) own website this week.

Littman has made requests under the Freedom of Information Act for any and all documents relating to the rental of the Town Hall Meeting Room for the event as well as any and all emails from or to town officials about it. She pointed to the towns policy stating that, Town Hall meeting rooms are not to be used for commercial or pecuniary activities of any kind.

Why is Peter Tesei going against the policies of the town he is purporting to lead and allowing this event to take place in the Town Hall meeting room under the seal of the town of Greenwich? Littman said. Tesei has said that even though it is a for-profit company, Americas Voice News is a news source hosting a community dialogue. And he said Town Hall is the appropriate venue.

In the interest of safety, we have determined that Town Hall offers the most secure environment given the nature of the potential controversy that might occur, Tesei said. In this instance, the forum organizer is paying for police and fire protection and has met the insurance requirements.

In regard to Higbies past comments, Tesei said The forum organizers past rhetoric and bigotry do not reflect the Greenwich community and the civility that our residents show one another. While we do not agree with the organizers opinions, it is our hope that we will demonstrate that Greenwich is a place where the right of free speech can be exercised with civil discourse in a safe environment.

Higbie said on Tuesday it was his understanding that the policy permitted use of Town Hall for both non-profit and community interests. Higbie said he feels the event is covered under that since it is of an educational and informational purpose, which are cited in the town policy.

According to Higbie, Tesei acknowledged that the panel is an event of community interest as it is bi-partisan and engages the community.

Higbie insisted that all the proper paperwork has been filed by himself and Americas Voice News.

Securing the room was a mountain of paperwork, compliance and hoops to jump through, Higbie said. We were very careful to dot our Is and cross our Ts to make sure the town and especially Tesei would not have any liability and we were in full compliance with any standard.

Both the Democratic Town Committee and the advocacy group Indivisible Greenwich have criticized the use of Town Hall for the event, saying they believed Higbie had a right to free speech but that it didnt have to be in that setting.

Neither the DTC nor Indivisible is planning any kind of formal protest for Wednesdays event.

We will not be showing up because that is exactly what Higbie wants, Indivisible Greenwich co-founder Joanna Swomley said. He is trying to create a circus-type atmosphere to promote himself and his commercial venture. We will not help him enhance his presence or elevate his voice.

The panel is touted to be a conversation about current events with panelists from the left and right. Topics such as immigration, gun control, taxes and foreign policy are all expected to be discussed. Higbie and conservative commentator Tom Borelli are to represent the rights views on the panel while the left will be represented by Cathy Areu, a regular guest on FOX News, and David Stevenson, who is billed as a Democratic socialist.

Alison Maloni, a former journalist who now works in public relations, is expected to serve as moderator.

Tesei is still scheduled to give brief opening remarks. In light of the ongoing controversy, Teseis remarks will include a statement reaffirming the communitys standard of civility in discourse and behavior as well as town values, he has said.

State Rep. Fred Camillo, R-151, had originally been promoted as giving remarks at the event but withdrew last Friday, citing a scheduling conflict with his work in Hartford. Camillo condemned Higbies past remarks but said it is our duty both as residents and public servants to have discussions about difficult topics like the ones on the agenda for the forum.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, hemmed in by ever-stronger U.S. sanctions, asset seizures abroad and calls for him to hand over power, is offering to sit down with the opposition to find a peaceful solution.

However, his opponents, led by National Assembly President Juan Guaido, have seen this tactic before from Maduro and don't seem ready to engage again.

"We're not willing to participate in any dialogue of the type Maduro is interested in, and the only thing we will accept in our agenda is how we will negotiate his exit," Carlos Vecchio, Guaido's appointed charge d'affaires in the U.S., said in a forum from the Atlantic Council in Washington on Wednesday morning. "We do not agree with dialogue for manipulative purposes. We have to look at the context of what's happened in the past."

Maduro made his overture early Wednesday, telling Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, "I'm willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we can talk for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future." He mentioned the possibility that Mexico, Uruguay and the Vatican could act as intermediaries.

In late 2016, Venezuelans took to the streets over a blocked recall referendum that might have cut Maduro's term short. Maduro, feeling the heat, agreed to sit down with his opponents in talks mediated by the Vatican.

The result? The streets went quiet, a few political prisoners were released and Maduro plowed forward with the creation of an alternate legislative body to rewrite the constitution, leaving the opposition bitterly divided. Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who participated in previous attempts at dialogue in the Dominican Republic, has been criticized by the opposition for helping the administration buy time.

Later, the government said it was willing to talk about terms of the presidential election, even pushing the date back, only to ban most opposition parties and hold a vote that was largely seen as fraudulent by the international community.

If the opposition is skeptical of Maduro's latest offer, President Donald Trump, who is trying to force change in Venezuela via sanctions, said that it shows the pressure is working.

"Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues," Trump wrote on his Twitter account early Wednesday. "Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice."

Trump congratulated Guaido in a phone call on Wednesday for declaring himself interim president of the country, the White House said.

Guaido himself has yet to reply to Maduro's call for talks. Wednesday, Guaido has called on supporters to take to the streets, following last weekend's efforts to publicize a measure that promises amnesty against corruption or abuse allegations to any soldier who defects.

"The last week has been entirely focused on trying to signal the armed forces that they should break from Maduro and so far they haven't done that in a meaningful way. The military continues to swear loyalty to Maduro," said Geoff Ramsey, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research organization that works for human rights. "I'm not sure what else there is, beyond some kind of credible, negotiated solution."

Maduro's first sit-down with opponents took place in 2014 after anti-government unrest claimed dozens of lives. The dialogue, facilitated by regional leaders and the Vatican, was televised and lasted more than four hours, but the warring factions reached no accords.

"Maduro has repeatedly used negotiations in the past to buy time until pressure on him subsides," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted Wednesday morning. "The only negotiation that needs to happen now is over his departure from power so Venezuela can reclaim it's (sic) democracy and constitutional order."

- - -

Bloomberg's Andrew Rosati contributed.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 1:53PM

Microsoft Canada and LE CAMP Incubator & Accelerator in Quebec City announced a partnership that will see Microsoft invest more than a $1M in cash, product and business services to help grow the innovative startup ecosystem in Quebec.

"It is with great pride that I celebrate this partnership between Microsoft and LE CAMP today; it will fuel innovation and the creation of new businesses in Quebec City, said Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume. The mentorship provided will offer a solid foundation for the entrepreneurial startups at CAMP. It is not surprising that Microsoft chose Quebec City for this partnership. Our city has an abundance of highly skilled tech talent and a critical mass of businesses in this sector."

The creativity and innovation that we see in Quebec is among the most exciting things happening in technology; we are tremendously pleased to join forces with CAMPto help foster growth now and in the future, said Kevin Peesker, President of Microsoft Canada. Our mission at Microsoft is to empower every person on the planet to achieve more and strategic partnerships with likeminded organizations like LE CAMP will help us reach that goal.

The partnership includes:

Funding to help CAMP further invest in Quebec entrepreneurs

Hardware, including Surface devices, Xbox and HoloLens, providing opportunities to develop tools and apps in the innovative field of mixed and augmented reality

The Microsoft Collaborative Space, outfitted with a Surface Hub, so Campers can create and collaborate with their colleagues from CAMP and around the world

Microsoft will host training workshops and mentorship sessions at CAMP, helping Campers learn the business and technical skills they need to succeed today and in the future

Select CAMP startups will receive a prioritized application path to Microsoft for Startups, providing additional tools for success, including Azure credits, mentorship and opportunities to sell solutions through to some of the biggest companies in the world

This announcement marks Microsofts latest investment in Quebec: Microsoft opened a local Cloud Region in Quebec almost four years ago, so Quebec-based businesses with sensitive data residency requirements could benefit from the power of the cloud; they also launch MSR Montreal two years ago and are bringing some of the brightest minds in AI to the region to work alongside visionaries like Yoshua Bengio and the talented researchers at the MILA Institute. On top of this, Microsoft is providing grants to Quebec academic institutions to further AI-focused research  because Microsoft is committed to fueling Canadas innovation economy, and Quebec plays an important role in driving Canadas overall economic engine.
The Department of Tourism made a first visit to NC recently to meet tourism stakeholders and enhance relations.
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WENTWORTH  Alicia Swofford shopped at a Mayodan Walmart without a buggy Tuesday because she is too financially strapped by health care expenses to buy many groceries.

Were living on a lot of sandwiches, said Swofford, 54, who, like roughly 10,000 Rockingham County residents, is without health insurance and in need of Medicaid coverage.

Swofford, who suffered a brain aneurysm in 2011 that left her with epilepsy, cares for her disabled husband and daughter Megan, 20. She stretches her familys $66 monthly food subsidy as far as she can, juggling her budget in order to afford vital anti-seizure medications.

Thats why were in here without a cart, she explained.

Residents and community activists from Rockingham County and nearby Danville, Va., called on North Carolina legislators Tuesday to remedy the states health coverage crisis by expanding Medicaid eligibility to some 500,000 people in need.

This is about basic human dignity, said Dr. Stephen Luking, who spoke at a Rockingham Community College forum sponsored by the North Carolina Justice Center, a Raleigh nonprofit.

Luking described how scores of his 5,000 patients are in dire need of Medicaid.
In the Jan. 27 News & Record, I found the comments in the News & Record by Decarlos Kinds, the Coliseum Commissions chair, interesting  and confusing.

First of all I was surprised to learn that fans of Bassnectar concerts have a constitutional right to enjoy the music they like  in their community (column, Negative response to Bassnectar concert is astonishing).

That cant be right, can it?

If it is, then I have a list of bands that I am a fan of and I demand under my rights as an American citizen that the Greensboro Coliseum book them.

The history of Bassnectar shows is littered with a huge number of extra medical professionals at every show not being able to keep up with all of the drug overdoses.

For Kinds to criticize local residents, hospital staff and local officials for wishing for something better than this for Greensboro seems shortsighted and obtuse.

Frank Hall Jr.

Greensboro
Im a graphic designer at heart, Harold said during an interview at the reception.

Harold also re-created picket signs and placed them on the wall behind the area where viewers watch footage, giving them a sense of being in the middle of the protests.

We need to empower people here that they were a big part of history, Harold said.

Also on display is a water hose used to spray Danville protestors in 1963 as well as handcuffs and a billy club from the era. Harold said it is not known whether the latter two items were used on protestors.

The significance of having the exhibit at the Sutherlin Mansion that houses the museum was most certainly not lost on museum officials, which is presenting the display in partnership with the group History United.

Its amazing that its here in the Danville museum, said Karice Luck, program coordinator with History United.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis resided at the Sutherlin Mansion during the last days of the Civil War from April 3-10, 1865. In the house, Davis held the last full cabinet meeting of his presidency and authored his last official proclamation as president of the Confederacy, which fought to preserve slavery in the South and lost.
As of late Wednesday, according to its website, Bennett had raised about 65 percent of its goal, or about $3.25 million.

Bennett is trying to raise at least $5 million to satisfy the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The commission voted in December to revoke Bennetts accreditation because its concerned that the school doesnt have sufficient financial resources to stay open. Colleges must be accredited to accept federal grants and student loans as payment for tuition and other college expenses.

The commission put Bennett on probation for the two prior years, and the school had run annual budget deficits for several years. But the college says enrollment increases over the past two years have relieved some of that financial pressure and its on pace to have a second straight annual surplus.

Bennett has appealed the commissions decision and remains accredited for now. The commission plans to hold an appeals hearing in Atlanta in mid-February.

Contact John Newsom at (336) 373-7312 and follow @JohnNewsomNR on Twitter.

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GREENSBORO  What started out as a gesture to give some folks a warm place to have a meal during a snowstorm turned into a viral sensation that landed a local couple and their daughter on the "Rachael Ray Show."

Patrick Roby and Tate Edwards, and their 9-month-old daughter Eleanor, will appear on the show at 10 a.m. Thursday.

What led them there began during the snowstorm that shut down Greensboro in December. Simonne Ritchy-McClinton, owner of the downtown restaurant M'Coul's Public House, took her SUV out into the storm, picked up the family and brought them to the restaurant for a warm breakfast and to discuss whether or not it was worth opening.

Downtown businesses, like much of the city, were closed.

"We figured since downtown has no grocery store and a lot of people rely on the local restaurants to eat, especially during a storm like that, we were like, 'Let's open the doors,'" recalled Roby, who is the popular restaurant's general manager.

So with the help of the kitchen manager and a cook, they welcomed a frostbitten public.

"We wound up getting absolutely slammed," Roby recalled. "(Edwards) strapped Eleanor on and she helped greet people at the door and take food orders."
If there is a proposal that solves these issues, then we are certainly willing to look at it, but we have yet to see a proposal that does that, he said.

Perhaps the most stark symbol of the GOPs legislative opposition came on June 15 when the Senate killed a bipartisan House bill that would have allowed just studying the cost of expansion.

The best thing to do for the working poor is to continue to grow the economy, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, has said.

Work requirement

Lambeth plans to reintroduce his Carolina Cares expansion bill that would contain a work requirement for some recipients to receive benefits.

He has said his bill would work more like an insurance product for those working who can pay a portion of the cost, and the benefits and coverage are built around preventive and wellness care.
N.C. Sen. Joyce Krawiec introduced a bill on Wednesday that would ban female genital mutilation in the state.

Krawiec, R-Forsyth, said she filed the bill because we must protect our girls from this abuse of being mutilated ... and this barbaric procedure.

When this issue has been brought up, most people cant believe its not already illegal to do this in North Carolina.

The bill, if passed, would make it a Class C felony  with a 44 to 182 month prison sentence  for someone to perform the procedure in North Carolina, as well as a parent, guardian or another person to consent to the procedure.

The bill would be effective Dec. 1.

Krawiec said she has heard no opposition to the bill, whether in the legislature or from constituents.

FGM is defined as the partial or complete removal/circumcision of the labia majora, labia minora, or clitoris, for nonmedical reasons. The practice is done in parts of India and northern and southern Africa as a means of controlling the sexuality of women.

It is a criminal offense in 27 states, banned in 59 countries and considered a human rights violation by the World Health Organization.
In 1933, the first episode of the Lone Ranger radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in Detroit.

In 1945, during World War II, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea with the loss of more than 9,000 lives, most of them war refugees; roughly 1,000 people survived.

In 1948, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, 78, was shot and killed in New Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. (Godse and a co-conspirator were later executed.)

In 1962, two members of The Flying Wallendas high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance at the State Fair Coliseum in Detroit.

In 1972, 13 Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot to death by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as Bloody Sunday.

In 1973, the rock group KISS performed its first show at a club in Queens, N.Y.

In 1993, Los Angeles inaugurated its Metro Red Line, the citys first modern subway.
| BY Lynchy |

Geometry Japan hase appointed Fumitaka Takano as Executive Creative Director. Takano (pictured) is tasked with scaling up the agencys creative offering and delivering transformational solutions, to provide the best brand experience.

His latest stint was at ADK Tokyo as a creative director and communication architect, building campaigns from strategic planning through creative execution. With his entrepreneurial spirit, he set out to launch the agencys digital creative team NOIMAN in 2014. He then took digital creativity even further, establishing innovative approach across digital and traditional channels to build brand equity and positive ROI. Throughout his 20-years career, he has worked with a range of domestic and global brands, such as Toyota, Air New Zealand, Ikea, Mondelez, to name but a few.

Ichiro Ota, CEO of Geometry Japan, said, We are so fortunate to have him on board. With his extensive and solid history of creating breakthrough work, Fumitaka is the industrys true visionary. He also has a full understanding of what is required to an agency like us that brings technology, creativity and marketing together. Geometry Japan is gaining great momentum after 6 years of the launch, putting the creativity at the center of our business. Im confident he will add strategic depth to our offering and create holistic experiences for our clients.

Fumitaka commented, Having witnessed Geometry has grown into an agency of multi-talented people, I am truly honored to join the team at such an exciting time. It is a great responsibility to lead one of Japans most progressive agencies which leads its audience to act in a whole new way. I cant wait to bring our creativity to life in a way that provides the best brand experience.

Fumitakas work has been recognized at international festivals, including Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, The One Show, New York Festivals, Adfest, and Adstars. He has also served as the jury for Cyber and Promo & Activation at Cannes Lions, Promo & Direct and Digital & Mobile at Spikes Asia and Cyber at Adfest.
KS HUAYU AluTech GmbH is extending its Neckarsulm production capacities with a new 5,000 square meter production shop for structural parts in aluminum. The move is mainly in response to current orders in the new-product and driveline segments.

In founding the company in 2014, international first-tier auto-industry supplier Rheinmetall Automotive AG (Rheinmetall Group) had contributed its foundry operation at the Neckarsulm location to a 50:50 joint venture with HUAYU Automotive Systems Co., Ltd. (HASCO), a member of Chinas SAIC Group.

KS HUAYU specializes in the development and production of engine blocks and structural parts as well as battery trays and housings for electric motors for cars. The company also has plants at two further locations in Germany and six in China. With annually over five million units, it is Chinas biggest manufacturer of aluminum cylinder heads.

The extension of the Neckarsulm production capacities costs around 35 million and is required by additional orders for non-I.C.-engine components including mountings for shock absorbers and suspension struts as well as cross members in aluminum. The company is also manufacturing battery trays for electric vehicles currently entering production.

At the new production facility, KS HUAYU covers the complete process chain from aluminum smelting via die-casting and heat treatment down to CNC finishing and final inspection.
| BY Lynchy |

Eight Hong Kong unveils Somewhere, a new and contemporary hospitality brand to be launched in Lombok, Indonesia. With a beach-chic vibe and a focus on wellness and wellbeing, the project is designed to deliver a special brand of natural and responsible hospitality.

The new resort is currently under development and is located on the beautiful south coast of the island overlooking a magnificent bay with a secret world-class surf break.

The off-the-beaten-path location inspired the name which carries the promise of hidden gems that are worth seeking out around the world. This is further emphasised in the visual identity that makes use of vanishing letter-strokes, taking inspiration from footprints in the sand that are washed away by the sea.

Were very excited about the birth of Somewhere, said Valia Gontard, Co-Founder of Somewhere. Eight is a close collaborator and design partner and their credentials in hospitality and eco chic design are invaluable in helping us bring to life our aspirations for the brand.

Somewhere is a lifestyle hospitality brand created by Claire & Valia Gontard. With their combined backgrounds in investment, events, travel and hospitality, the Franco-Chinese sisters united to bring to life their vision of a special destination for modern travellers. Embracing their Indonesian roots and heritage, the duo scouted the island of Lombok for many years in search of the perfect location for their first property.
| BY Ricki Green |

CB Exclusive  Multi-award winning creative duo Mandie van der Merwe and Avish Gordhan have been appointed joint executive creative directors of M&C Saatchi Sydney.

Recognised at D&AD, Cannes, The One Show, Spikes Asia, AWARD, ADMA, the Loerie Awards and many more local and international shows, van der Merwe and Gordhan have worked across three continents in the past 10 years.

The pair were previously CDs at Cummins&Partners Sydney and departed in July last year. The duo led Cummins&Partners Sydney to become one of the Top 20 Independent Agencies in the World and Spikes Asia Independent Agency of the Year. Most recently the team was awarded Best in Show at AWARD for Stop the Horror (Go Gentle Australia). Prior to Cummins&Partners they were senior creatives at TBWA\Sydney. They have previously held roles at The Jupiter Drawing Room, DraftFCB Cape Town, TBWA/Hunt Lascaris, Fortune Promoseven Bahrain and Black River FC.

They have a particular focus on effective creativity which has yielded awards at the Global Effies, the Australian Effies and South Africas APEX Awards for effectiveness. Past clients include Fox Sports, Nandos, Tourism New Zealand, David Jones, MINI and Virgin Money.

Says Cam Blackley, chief creative officer of M&C Saatchi: This is a coup for M&C Saatchi. As we look to flex our creative capability and offer, I couldnt think of a better, more creative duo to fill the ECD hot seats. Mandie and Avish are pure quality. They are lovely, thoughtful, quirky individuals who genuinely care about the work and have a formidable track record in non-traditional thinking. Throw group creative director Andy Flemming into the equation and we have the right leaders in place to really make some truly special work in the foreseeable future.

Says van der Merwe: The first time we met Cam, we knew we loved him. He has a wicked sense of humour and is very generous with his creativity. He is also really articulate about the vision for M&C Saatchi. Everyone here has a real love for this business and theres a determination to shape not just this agency but also the industry.

Says Gordhan: There is an intimidatingly deep pool of creative talent and experience at M&C Saatchi. So to be part of this team, and to build and grow with it, is both very exciting and humbling. I feel invigorated by this opportunity.
The Reporter's Notebook

When living in Bothell, we belonged to FIUTS (Foundation for International Understanding Through Students), a program through the University of Washington where you could sponsor foreign students. Through the program we sponsored students from Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. You were expected to share time and your home with them, and they, along with others we met, spread a lot of good cheer to us and our family.

We also belonged to a group that raised money to provide supplies for Dr. Pat Smith, a Seattle doctor who had opened a hospital in the Central Highlands in South Vietnam, about 250 north of Saigon and close to both the Laos and Cambodia borders.

I was planning my first visit to Vietnam in 1968 and had planned to visit my FIUTS families along the way, with stopovers in Japan, Hong Kong and eventually Thailand.

When the Pat Smith group learned that I was going to Vietnam, they asked me if I would deliver a portable electrocardiograph machine to Dr. Smith. I said sure, and afterwards wondered how I was going to do so. I went to SeaTac to meet the Pan American station manager to ask for his assistance.

He asked me to deliver the machine to him and he would see that it was sent without cost to the Pan Am station manager in Saigon, where I could pick it up.

I had fulfilled my plan to visit the parents of our FIUTS students in Japan, and Hong Kong and in Vietnam, a village some 35 miles north of Saigon. My next stop was the Pan Am station manager in Saigon. Things were sailing along pretty well until he told me that he hadnt received any machine for me.

He wired Seattle where he learned that the station manager there forgot to send the machine, and he said it would be on its way.

In a couple of days I returned, still no machine. Seattle said it was sent the same day of our wire. I checked the next day, no machine, and the following day the same.

I still had to go to Thailand to visit the family of our Thai student, and so on I went, machine or not.

After several days in Thailand, a call to the Saigon station manager produced the same result  no machine.

My 30-day leave from my work was about up, so I went back to Hong Kong, where I had been earlier, to contact a woman working there for the U.S. government. I asked to see one of our military attaches and a Marine captain came out to see me.

I walked him through the story and told him where the machine was supposed to be and where it was to go.

He took some notes and said not to worry, that the Marines would pick up the machine and deliver it to Dr. Pat Smith. It was a few weeks later that I received word from Dr. Smith that the machine had been delivered and it was in good working condition.

I thought I was going to be on the hook for a replacement machine, but the Marines really came through. Dr. Pat, as she was called, reported that a Marine helicopter pilot had delivered it personally to the hospital.

Got a tough job? You can always call on the Marines.
At Monday's school board meeting, Nespelem Superintendent Mary Hall thanks Jack Horne, who volunteered to help Dave Cirk write the grant to update the school. - Nancy Armstrong-Montes photo

The Nespelem School District has been awarded $2.86 million under a Washington state grant to help small, rural school districts modernize.

The award was announced at the district's Monday night school board meeting.

Apollo Solutions helped the Nespelem School District apply for the grant.

Transportation & Maintenance Supervisor Dave Cirk wrote the grant with help from Jack Horne, Principal Marcy Horne's husband.

Cirk said the money will be used to update the electrical system in the school, to replace every window with energy-efficient windows; upgrade all the lights to LED; update the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system; update the security at the school to include cameras in and outside the school; and to add doors that can be opened or closed remotely and with keycards.

Cirk said the upgrades are needed because electrical breakers are regularly tripping, and because the lights aren't bright enough for the students in many classrooms to meet standards.

"In the winter it's too cold, and in the summer it's too hot," Cirk said. "I definitely look forward to getting the new HVAC. It's also really noisy in the classrooms with our old system. With the fan blowing you can hardly hear, and the new system will completely eliminate that, so we're excited about it."
A new action-focused structure and new Timber Trade Federation members mark the start of a significant year for the UKs timber trading sector.

Two new Federations  the American Hardwood Export Council and the Institute of Carpenters  have joined the Timber Trade Federation, alongside four company members: Belarusian Forest Company JSC; Timberlink International; PDS Forest Products, and Composite Prime.

The Federation is also adapting its structure placing added impetus behind market-facing activities to improve opportunities for members and engagement with wood market stakeholders and end-users. The over-arching product committees, TTFs National Softwood Division, National Panel Products Division and National Hardwood Division, remain, but will meet only twice a year. However, each sector will have its own annual conference, providing networking opportunities and exchanges of views from a wide range of industry stakeholders.

Three new market-facing working groups are being launched by the TTF covering timber cladding, flooring and engineered wood products. These are intended to bring members and their customers together to discuss issues and opportunities relating to these product categories. Outputs from these groups will include guidance on avoiding risks, standards, and species and specification. This builds on TTFs recent and continuing work on issues such as plywoods and preservative treatments.

The TTF will be launching its new Foundation in Sales Management qualification during Q1, and continues to work in partnership with the Confederation of Timber Industries on the CTI Fire Project.

Managing Director David Hopkins said: We want 2019 to be a positive year for our members, industry partners, and the end users of wood in industry and construction.

We all face the many challenges of Brexit together, so working in concert with those we serve and those we supply is essential to making the most of the carbon reduction opportunities provided by using sustainably-grown wood.
Some tribal members feel objection ignored

The Colville Business Council took a series of actions on Jan. 24 related to feral horses on the reservation, including changing a law to allow machines such as helicopters to be used in the capture of feral horses, approving a contract to do so, and raising the bounty tribal members receive for removing the horses themselves.

The contract with Sun J Livestock is for $478,750 and is for the removal of approximately 1,250 horses. The Tribal Tribune reported the amount but not the name of the contractor.

Sun J Livestock removed about 420 horses in 2015.

The tribe also raised the reward for tribal members who capture feral horses under Range Program rules to $383, up from $250 for studs and $150 for mares.

Natural Resource Director Cody Desautel estimates the feral horse population to be between 1,600 and 2,000.

The CBC declared the horses an emergency due to the significant habitat and environmental damage being done.

Many tribal members are against the action.

The tribal members feel that we own these horses and have for many, many years since it became a reservation, Gerry Gabriel told The Star after the meeting. They slaughtered 400 about a few years ago. A lot of people are angry they used helicopters, chasing them all over. They were jumping fences, getting onto peoples properties. It was a big mess. Some of these were peoples riding horses, and very expensive.

Gabriel said the last capture operation took privately owned horses, along with feral horses and slaughtered them and that owners were never compensated.

A lot of people are unhappy with how its been handled, she said. Not only that, but they havent asked the people from the very beginning, yes or no  listen to the membership speak before they go ahead and slaughter more.

Tribal Code Chapter 4.14 regarding wild horses states, No roundup shall be authorized or undertaken in an inhumane manner, or where the captured animals are to be slaughtered or used for feed. All wild horses  shall be used for recreational or professional use in a humane way.

It was reported by tribal member and doctor of veterinary medicine Charlene McCraigie that the CBC response to illegal slaughter at this meeting, and a previous meeting, was that once the horses were off the reservation, it wasnt the tribes responsibility what the contractor did with the horses.

A 2015 Star article said the horses were to be shipped to Canada to be slaughtered after that roundup.

Gabriel said that she spoke at the council meeting but felt that the council wasnt listening. Others in attendance were not allowed to speak, according to Gabriel, McCraigie, and Rich Mervin, a horse expert from Idaho, all of whom attended the meeting.

Gabriel feels that the tribal membership should be asked their opinion on the issue, and that the issue should be brought to the separate districts of the reservation.

The tribal council doesnt even seem to care, Gabriel said. In a cultural aspect, we respect these horses and we dont want them slaughtered. I see it as going behind the peoples back by not having a referendum or going to each district and asking do you want the wild horses, or do you want them slaughtered? It feels like the council is ignoring the membership.

Gabriel said cows on the reservation damage the habitat and environment. Many of them arent owned by tribal members, and some, Gabriel speculates, are owned by council members.

Gabriel said that a water report shes seen that ranges from 2007-2017 shows more damage in the areas the cows are in than the horses. She claims that once horses were removed from the Buffalo Lake area, allegedly because of overgrazing, cows were allowed in the same area, thus negating the excuse of overgrazing as good reasoning for the horses removal.

Gabriel suggests setting aside land for the horses on the reservation and managing them appropriately, citing the Umatilla and other tribes as doing just that.

Ive been around horses all my life; Im 78, Gabriel said about growing up outside of the Nespelem area. Horses were our way of riding to go down to the creek to swim, or go to rodeos. Most every single family like that has had horses. Its our history and our life, our lifestyle.

McCraigie previously stated that implementing the tribes own Wild Horse Management Plan would take care of the horses and would eliminate the need to slaughter a portion of the herd every several years as the horse population grows.

A herd is said to grow by 25 percent annually.

Karen Condon was the one CBC member to vote against the contract.

CBC members were at a conference for Northwest Tribes and unavailable for comment, a staff member said.
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Goshen, IN (46526)

Today

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
VANCOUVER, January 30, 2019 - Barksdale Capital Corp. ("Barksdale" or the "Company") (TSXV: BRO)(OTCQB: BRKCF) is pleased to report initial results from its ongoing exploration programs (the "Program") at its Sunnyside property, located in southern Arizona, adjacent to South32's Taylor-Hermosa development project.

To date, the Program has focused on the northeast quarter of the 5,223-acre Sunnyside project, where the known extension of the Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit continues onto Barksdale ground. This is a priority zone for Barksdale as it sits within the footprint of the Company's proposed drilling plans that have been submitted to the US Forest Service for permit approval.

Surface Campaign

Barksdale's team completed detailed mapping (1:6,000 scale) and extensive rock chip sampling (1,904 samples) in the northern portion of the Sunnyside property during 2018. The surface campaign has identified multiple prominent mineralized structural zones around the periphery of the Sunnyside porphyry complex, which was partially defined by various ASARCO drilling campaigns in the 1960's through 1980's. Inpidual assays from the Barksdale Program returned select high-grade results of up to, and including, 15.75% copper, 19.15 g/t gold, 440 g/t silver, 6.54% lead, and 0.73% zinc, respectively. Comprehensive geochemical plots of copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc can be found at the end of this press release (Figures 1 through 5).

Geochemical data is currently being analyzed and further evaluated using geostatistical modeling software, such that project scale metal zoning patterns can be established at Sunnyside. These models will be updated as additional surface sampling is completed in 2019, which will likely see the sampling campaign extended over the remainder of the Sunnyside property. Barksdale believes that these mineralized structures likely represent leakage from larger mineralized bodies at depth and will use these data to generate drill targets once the ongoing program are completed.

Geophysical Surveys

Additionally, the Company initiated an initial 7-10 line-kilometer natural source audio magneto-telluric survey ("NSAMT") in October 2018, the purpose of which was to gain subsurface structural data as well as to potentially identify Paleozoic carbonate rocks (host rocks for the Taylor-Hermosa deposit) beneath volcanic cover. Based on the quality and depth of the data collected, Barksdale subsequently extended the survey and ultimately completed 23.3 line-kilometers of NSAMT (Figure 6). Initial results have identified numerous structural zones and geologic contacts at depths up to, and in some cases, exceeding 2,500 meters depth (Figure 7). A series of prominent resistivity and conductivity anomalies have been identified to date and Barksdale has engaged a third-party geophysical expert with extensive experience in similar geologic systems to review and interpret the survey results. Barksdale will provide additional updates to the market as these interpretations are finalized.

Target Generation

The Sunnyside-Taylor-Hermosa system is a very large mineralized system that has yet to be fully explored. In particular, Barksdale's ground has only seen a handful of historic drill holes that targeted the skarn/manto portion of the system that flanks the Sunnyside porphyry to the east. All data indicates that the causative source of the polymetallic copper-zinc-lead-silver replacement deposits at Taylor-Hermosa is the Sunnyside porphyry complex located within Barksdale's Sunnyside property. Barksdale is focused on not only defining the size and quality of the mineralized zone between the Sunnyside porphyry and the western edge of the Taylor-Hermosa deposit (the property boundary), but also additional skarn/mantos around the periphery of the Sunnyside porphyry.

Additional field and geophysical works for the 2019 field season are currently in planning stage. The additional data collected during these programs will allow Barksdale's geologic team to build a portfolio of drilling targets that will be ranked, prioritized, and then drilled once the requisite permits have been received.

Sampling and QA/QC

Surface samples reported herein are a combination of select, rock chip, float chip and channel chip samples. Samples were taken under the direction of qualified geologists and adhered to strict QA/QC programs. Samples were labeled, sealed and delivered to ALS laboratories in Tucson, Arizona. All samples were dried, crushed and pulverized with the pulps being analyzed by ALS in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. Systematic assaying of standards, blanks, and duplicates is performed for precision and accuracy. Analysis for 33 element four acid ICP AES with gold analysis by fire assay with an AA finish.

Lewis Teal, Barksdale's project manager and a "qualified person" as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects is responsible for approving the scientific and technical information regarding Sunnyside contained in this news release.

Barksdale Capital Corp. is a base metal exploration company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, that is focused on the acquisition and exploration of highly prospective base metal projects in the United States. Barksdale's portfolio of assets is located within a world-class base metal district in southern Arizona and are surrounded by some of the world's largest mining companies.

ON BEHALF OF Barksdale Capital Corp.

"Rick Trotman"

Rick Trotman

President and Chief Executive Officer

For more information please phone 778-558-7145, email info@barksdalecapital.com or visit www.BarksdaleCapital.com.



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release contains "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation which relates to future events or future performance (including, but not limited to, the Company's future exploration plans for the Sunnyside property) and reflects management's current expectations and assumptions based on information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking information is neither a promise nor guarantee, and is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to, actual results of exploration activities, environmental risks, future metal prices, operating risks, accidents, labor issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, availability of financing and other risks in the mining industry. There are no known resources or reserves on the Sunnyside property and the proposed exploration programs are exploratory searches for commercial bodies of ore. In addition, the close proximity of the Company's Sunnyside property to South32's Taylor-Hermosa deposit is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization within the Sunnyside property. All forward-looking information in this news release is qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO1.jpg

Figure 1. Rock chip sample locations showing lead values in ppm. The surface projection of the currently defined Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit footprint is highlighted in gray. The known deposit and mineralized system remains open on the Sunnyside property to the NW and SW.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO2.jpg

Figure 2. Rock chip sample locations showing copper values in ppm. The surface projection of the currently defined Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit footprint is highlighted in gray. The known deposit and mineralized system remains open on the Sunnyside property to the NW and SW.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO3.jpg

Figure 3. Rock chip sample locations showing gold values in ppm. The surface projection of the currently defined Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit footprint is highlighted in gray. The known deposit and mineralized system remains open on the Sunnyside property to the NW and SW.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO4.jpg

Figure 4. Rock chip sample locations showing silver values in ppm. The surface projection of the currently defined Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit footprint is highlighted in gray. The known deposit and mineralized system remains open on the Sunnyside property to the NW and SW.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO5.jpg

Figure 5. Rock chip sample locations showing zinc values in ppm. The surface projection of the currently defined Taylor-Hermosa zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit footprint is highlighted in gray. The known deposit and mineralized system remains open on the Sunnyside property to the NW and SW.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO6.png

Figure 6. Station locations for the NSAMT survey.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//01302019BRO7.png

Figure 7. NSAMT section line 200. The black dashed line is the interpreted contact between Paleozoic carbonate rocks and overlying volcanic units.

SOURCE: Barksdale Capital Corp.
TORONTO, January 30, 2019 - West Red Lake Gold Mines Inc. ("West Red Lake Gold" or the "Company") (CSE: RLG) (OTCQB: RLGMF) (FSE: HYK) announces that it has intersected 14.18 grams per tonne gold ("gpt Au") over 7.8 metres ("m") including 35.26 gpt Au over 3.0 m during exploration drilling at the NT Zone on the Rowan Mine Property in the prolific Red Lake Gold District of northwestern Ontario. The Company also intersected 6.51 gpt Au over 9.3 m plus several additional positive gold intersections from shallow drilling (see diamond drill results table below).

Drill Highlights Include:

14.18 gpt Au over 7.8 m, including 35.26 gpt Au over 3.0 m

6.51 gpt Au over 9.3 m

3.76 gpt Au over 5.6 m

13.80 gpt Au over 1.8 m

West Red Lake Gold completed 1,443 m of diamond drilling in eight shallow holes along a 250 m portion of the NT Zone which is interpreted to be approximately 2 km in length. The current drilling followed the NT Zone from the south property boundary along trend to the northeast. The next drill program on the property is planned to follow the NT Zone further along strike to the northeast.

Mr. John Kontak, President of West Red Lake Gold, stated, "We believe these results demonstrate that the 2 km long NT Zone holds significant exploration potential and we plan to focus exploration drilling at the NT Zone."

Red Lake Gold Mines, a subsidiary of Goldcorp and the 40% joint venture partner of the Company in the Rowan Mine Property, undertook surface exploration work on the property during the fall of 2018. The exploration work identified several areas of exploration potential including the location of these positive NT Zone drill results and additional NT Zone targets further to the northeast that are situated within the Structural Intersection area of the property.

All of the current holes intersected the NT Zone which consists of a broad hydrothermal deformation zone comprised of ultramafic, mafic and felsic volcanics as well as iron formation. The drilling intersected in excess of 100 m of pervasive alteration in every hole and most of the holes ended in alteration. All the lithologies have undergone intensive pervasive hydrothermal alteration consisting of extensive sericitization, silicification and carbonatization. This results in a sequence of rocks consisting of predominately sericite, iron carbonate, silica / quartz and fuchsite. Sulphide mineralization, consisting of pyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite, is also associated with the alteration package.

Technical Information

The technical information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Kenneth Guy, P.Geo., a consultant to West Red Lake Gold and the Qualified Person for exploration at the West Red Lake Project, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects" ("NI 43-101").

All drilling was completed using NQ size core. Gold analyses on the samples collected by West Red Lake Gold were performed by SGS Laboratories Ltd. Analysis consisted of a fire assay of a 50-gram sample with an atomic absorption finish. Samples assaying over 10.0 gpt Au are re-assayed with gravimetric finish. Samples noted to contain visible gold are analyzed via total metallic assay method. A rigorous Quality Control and Assurance Program is in place using control samples including blanks and standards.

West Red Lake Gold Mines is a Toronto-based minerals exploration company focused on gold exploration and development in the prolific Red Lake Gold District of Northwest Ontario, Canada. The Red Lake Gold District is host to some of the richest gold deposits in the world and has produced 30 million ounces of gold from high grade zones. The Company has assembled a significant property position totalling 3,100 hectares in west Red Lake (the "West Red Lake Project") which contains three former gold mines. The Mount Jamie Mine and Red Summit Mine properties are 100% owned by the Company and the Rowan Mine property is held in a 60%-owned joint venture with Red Lake Gold Mines, a partnership of Goldcorp Inc. and Goldcorp Canada Ltd. The West Red Lake Project property covers a 12 kilometre strike length along the Pipestone Bay St Paul Deformation Zone and the Company plans to continue to explore the property both along strike and to depth. To find out more about West Red Lake Gold, please visit our website at http://www.westredlakegold.com.

For more information, please contact: John Kontak, President Phone: 416-203-9181 Email: jkontak@rlgold.ca.

Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//WestRedImg101012019.jpg Image: https://www.accesswire.com/users/newswire/images//WestRedImg201012019.png



The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward looking statements". When used in this document, the words "anticipated", "expect", "estimated", "forecast", "planned", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements or information. These statements are based on current expectations of management, however, they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this news release. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements. West Red Lake Gold does not undertake any obligation to revise or update any forward- looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date hereof, except as required by securities laws.

West Red Lake Project Diamond Drill Results Table

Hole # UTM Easting UTM Northing UTM ele dip Az length from (m) to (m) length (m) Au-gpt RLG-18-56 421,270 5,656,858 371 -45 325 150 82.0 84.0 2.0 1.69 87.0 88.0 1.0 1.80 100.2 102.0 1.8 13.81 RLG-18-57 421,270 5,656,858 371 -60 325 177 96.0 103.5 7.5 1.33 incl 1.5 3.19 106.5 108.0 1.5 1.13 150.5 152.0 1.5 2.67 RLG-18-58 421,211 5,656,859 375 -45 275 201 67.5 69.2 1.7 1.44 RLG-18-59 421,211 5,656,859 375 -55 275 186 70.0 76.7 6.7 1.31 incl 1.2 2.82 85.8 87.3 1.5 2.15 RLG-18-60 421,366 5,656,868 374 -45 325 171 30.5 32.0 1.5 1.01 62.7 68.3 5.6 3.76 incl 1.4 8.87 73.2 74.8 1.6 1.50 86.9 88.2 1.3 1.62 RLG-18-61 421,366 5,656,868 374 -55 325 159 28.7 29.9 1.2 2.15 32.5 33.9 1.4 1.92 59.5 68.8 9.3 6.51 incl 1.2 9.52 73.1 74.5 1.4 1.03 85.2 93.0 7.8 14.18 incl 3.0 35.26 incl 1.4 60.69 RLG-18-62 421,437 5,656,936 380 -45 320 219 13.1 14.1 1.0 9.85 107.4 108.4 1.0 8.69 136.0 137.7 1.7 1.13 RLG-18-63 421,456 5,656,907 378 -60 320 180 33.7 38.0 4.3 1.86 incl 1.0 5.62 50.7 52.0 1.3 5.14 98.5 100.1 1.6 1.10 1,443 metres

Intervals reported here are core lengths. True widths are not known at this time. All depths are reported as down hole.

SOURCE: West Red Lake Gold Mines Inc.
Vancouver, January 30, 2019 - Walker River Resources Corp. (TSXV: WRR) ("Walker" or the "Company") is pleased to announce initial drill results from the late 2018 reverse circulation ("RC") drill program on the Lapon Canyon Gold Project, located approximately 60 kilometres southeast of Yerington, Nevada. RC hole LC18-29 returned 31.1 g/t Au (uncut) over 13.7 meters including 198 g/t (uncut) over 1.5 meters and 78.1 g/t (uncut) over 1.5 meters.

Key Highlights:

To date, mineralization has been discovered in a broad, altered, fractured and brecciated NE trending structural zone termed the Lapon Rose Zone. Anomalous gold values are denoted in many areas within this zone, and significant higher-grade mineralization over significant widths is located within sub vertical en echelon zones of intense alteration and gold enrichment.

The 2018 Drilling focused on infill and expansion drilling at the Lapon Rose zone, follow up drilling at the new discovery in Hole RC 17-19, (news release 11-08-17) as well as drilling other targets, including other fault alteration zones, which in some instances show evidence of previous workings.

Significantly, since the start up of drilling on the project, all holes drilled within the Lapon Rose zone returned gold values with the majority (80%) returning significant grades and widths in en echelon zones of gold enrichment.

Walker's initial geological mapping and prospecting on the Project demonstrated the potential for the emplacement of significant gold mineralization. Previous drilling in 2015, 2016, 2017 and now 2018 continue to confirm this potential.

Assay Table: Summary of Drill Results:

Hole Alt.

(m) From

(m) To

(m) Length*

(m) Assay (Au g/t)

Uncut Notes: LC 18-29 2580 12.2 25.9 13.7 31.1 Lapon Rose incl

15.2 16.7 1.5 198

incl

19.8 21.3 1.5 78.1



*True widths approx. 70%

The Lapon Rose Zone has now been drilled over a strike length of some 365 meters, width exceeding 150 meters and a height of over 200 meters. Furthermore, the discovery of new gold mineralization in RC 17-19; 18.6 g/t Au (uncut) over 6.1 meters (news release 11-08-17) is located 325 meters away and 200 meters higher than the last known gold mineralization. It is not known at this time if this is an extension of the Lapon Rose or an entirely new zone. With the discovery at this location, the vertical extent of gold mineralization now exceeds 400 meters.

The 2018 drill program was designed to expand gold mineralized zones discovered by the Company, to discover and delineate new gold mineralized zones. Further results from the 2018 drill program will be released as they become available.

Michel David, President states: "We are very excited and encouraged by these and past drill results which confirm the potential of the project. Most of the holes drilled in the Lapon Rose zone have returned significant gold grades and widths. We have also extended the strike length and width of the gold mineralization in Lapon Rose and have also shown that the gold mineralization is present over 400 vertical meters. The zone is also open at depth and strike. We will continue our exploration at Lapon and are excited about the future at this project."

About the Lapon Project

The Lapon Project consists of 96 claims (1,940 acres) situated in the Wassuk Range, easily accessible by secondary state roads from the main highway (25 kilometres). A state grid power transmission line passes within three kilometres of the Lapon Project. The Lapon Project is located within the Walker Lane shear zone, a 100-kilometre-wide structural corridor extending in a southeast direction from Reno, Nevada. Within this trend, numerous gold, silver, and copper mines are located, notably the historic Comstock Lode mines in Virginia City. Also, the past producing Esmeralda/Aurora gold mine, with reported production of some one million ounces and the Anaconda open pit copper mine in Yerington, Nevada.

The Lapon Project is cut by a series of steeply dipping cross fault structures cutting across the Walker trend, analogous to other cross fault structures responsible for many gold and base metal deposits in the world. These faults are heavily sheared and altered (sericite, iron oxides) with abundant silica, varying in width from 60 to 300 meters. Four of these structures have been discovered at Lapon, and at least two can be traced for over four kilometers.

Small scale high grade mining began on the project in 1914. Approximately 600 meters of drifts and raises were developed from two adits and a two-stamp mill was built. Further underground work was carried out, returning numerous assay values in the range of one ounce per ton, with a sample at the end of an adit returning 20.6 ounces per ton. (National Instrument 43-101, Montgomery and Barr, 2004). Additional work on the Project in the following years, included the installation of a ball mill and milling facilities.

Sampling Methodology, Chain of Custody, Quality Control and Quality Assurance

All sampling was conducted under the supervision of the Company's project geologists and the chain of custody from the drill to the sample preparation facility was continuously monitored. A blank or certified reference material was inserted approximately every tenth sample. The Lapon samples were delivered to ALS Minerals certified laboratory facility in Reno, NV. The samples were crushed, pulverized and the sample pulps digested and analyzed for gold using fire assay fusion and a 50g gravimetric finish. Higher grade samples used a 1kg screen fire assay with screen to 100 microns and 50g gravimetric finish

The scientific and technical content and interpretations contained in this news release have been reviewed, verified and approved by E. Gauthier, geol., Eng (OIQ) a director of the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Michel David"

_____________

Michel David,

Chief Executive Officer and Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Walker River Resources Corp.

Tel: 819 874-0030

Fax: 819 825-1199

Email: info@wrrgold.com

Website: www.wrrgold.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange Nor Its Regulation Service Provider (As That Term Is Defined In The Policies Of The TSX Venture Exchange) Accepts Responsibility For The Adequacy Or Accuracy Of This News Release.

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42532
Vancouver, January 30, 2019 - Nicola Mining Inc. (TSXV: NIM) (the "Company" or "Nicola") is pleased to announce that Dr. Jacob Longridge (Ph.D. Economic Geology) has joined the Company's geological team. Dr. Longridge obtained his PhD from Imperial College, in which he specialized in the field of hydrothermal alteration associated with economic porphyry deposits. His knowledge and expertise of hydrothermal alteration systems and the relationship with copper mineralization in both porphyry and skarn environments makes him an asset to the team. His experience in lithogeochemistry will be valuable as the Company continues to explore its wholly-owned New Craigmont Project.

Peter Espig, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "Dr. Longridge is the perfect fit for Nicola's geological team as we increase our efforts in understanding the relationship between the skarn and porphyry style mineralization in the halo of the historic open pit. Increased focus and understanding of lithologies and hydrothermal alteration will increase our exploration efficiency as we work towards developing a resource."

The Company had a very successful 2018 exploration program, in which it extended copper mineralization north of the historic high-grade Craigmont Open Pit. On September 25, 2018 the Company released some results of this northward extension of the halo grading 0.54% Cu over 150 metres (73.6 metres grading 1.05% Cu). These results did not include magnetite mineralization in the copper equivalent calculation. Complete results of diamond drilling program as well as the reverse circulation drill program ("RC Program"), focused on the approximate 80 million tonnes of historic Craigmont mining terraces have yet to be released.

"The Craigmont Story"[1] provides a comprehensive summary of North America's highest-grade copper mine which produced one billion pounds (450,000 metric tonnes) of copper over two decades. Following the steep decline in copper prices in the early 1980's (~$0.60 /lb), the mine was closed. In 1985, it was acquired from Placer Development Ltd. by the Craigmont Mines Joint Ventures (Craigmont Mines) who produced approximately 1,000,000 tonnes of magnetite[2], from the historic tailings. The combination of economic value for both copper and magnetite[3] has encouraged Nicola to conduct assays, recovery ratios, and magnetite separation analyses to provide a copper equivalent (CuEq) for future releases. The Company will begin providing CuEq results from the 2018 Exploration Program in the near future.

About Nicola Mining

Nicola Mining Inc. is a junior mining company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and is in the process of recommencing mill feed processing operations at its 100% owned state-of-the-art mill and tailings facility, located near Merritt, British Columbia. It has already signed four mill profit share agreements with high grade gold producers. The fully-permitted mill can process both gold and silver mill feed via gravity and flotation processes. The Company also owns 100% of Treasure Mountain, a high-grade silver property, and an active gravel pit that is located adjacent to its milling operations.

About New Craigmont Property

In November of 2015, Nicola became the first group in decades to consolidate ownership of the New Craigmont Project (the "Property") and has been actively conducting mineral exploration since. The Property is a wholly-owned copper property with an active mine permit (M-68), located 33 km south of the world-class Highland Valley porphyry district. It lies at the southern contact between the Nicola Group rocks and Guichon Creek batholith, of which the latter is known to be a precursor to mineralization at Highland Valley.

There are currently no mineral resource estimates on the Property. Historical "non-NI 43-101" resource calculations are recorded in internal memos and geological reports for Placer Development Ltd. An internal memo[4] estimated 60,000,000 pounds (27,000 metric tonnes) of >1.5% copper ore remained unmined from an original ore estimate of 27,754,000 short tons (25,178,005 metric tonnes) of copper grading 1.79%, following mine closure. A mineralized zone (Body No. 3) is known to contain an estimated 1,290,000 tons (1,170,268 metric tonnes) of copper ore grading 1.53% copper, with a 0.7% copper cut-off grade[5] and a 20-foot mining width between drill sections 6565E and 8015E. During mine closure a comprehensive report highlighted a 60.0 million tonne halo grading greater than 0.4% surrounding the western extension of the high-grade underground ore body.[6]

It should be noted that these historical estimates do not meet the requirements needed to conform to National Instrument 43-101 standards. The Company notes that an independent Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to verify and classify the historical estimates as current mineral resources and is therefore not treating the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. For further details on the Property, see the technical report entitled "Technical Report on the Thule Copper- Iron Property, Southern British Columbia, Canada", filed on May 8, 2013 on Sedar at www.sedar.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"Peter Espig"

Peter Espig

CEO & Director

For additional information

Contact: Peter Espig

Phone: (778) 385-1213

Email: info@nicolamining.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

[1] M. Shewchuk (1983) The Craigmont story

[2] Craigmont History: http://wikimapia.org/13449077/Craigmont-Mine

[3] Magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) products are used in the coal mining industry, the fertilizer industry, specialty paints, and as an abrasive in the sand blasting industry.

[4] J.F. Bristow reported in an internal memo on July 22, 1985 to Craigmont Mines Ltd.

[5] J.F. Bristow on October 30, 1985

[6] J.F. Bristow on November 19, 1985

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42543
If calling me a racist helps, then by all means have at it. What has really happened in both cases is that those in charge can do nothing big, so they have done so many little things, mostly compromise and making the role of teacher not to teach, but supervise chaos.

By the way, a student being bullied was forced off the campus and made to home school. Socialization is one of the most things learned at school. The one being bullied has lost that privilege. Now consider the bullies have not been punished to the best of my knowledge.

How is this justice? How is this fair or even equitable? I pose the question to those in charge.

Without an adequate police force, we suffer the intolerable. For chaos to reign supreme in schools, how is anyone benefiting?

We are the people who have banked our hopes and aspirations for our children on a dog that wont hunt and whose time for progress to be made is not likely to come about.

When Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn asked his mother how the Bolsheviks come to power in Russia, she is said to have answered, We had forgotten God.

Are we guilty too? Have we forgotten God? Is it too late to change?

Only who made us can save us.
Adcock said the past few months after the storm have been hectic for them. Theyve constantly been checking on temporary pumps placed where repairs were needed to make sure they worked properly, oftentimes requiring them to work after hours on the weekends or at night.

Theres probably a lot more infrastructure than people are aware of and a lot more areas to cover than our customers probably realize, so they shouldnt take it for granted when they get water or flush the toilet, said Adcock. Theres a lot of work that goes into getting that service to them.

Both the county and the service authority have applied separately to receive reimbursement funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the county and commonwealth declared a state of emergency during Tropical Storm Michael.

Both local parties have met with FEMA representatives at least twice since the storm  once in the weeks after and once earlier in the year despite the government shutdown.

Pittsylvania County Director of Public Safety Chris Slemp and Adcock said FEMA will reimburse for 75 percent of any costs it deems eligible.
As bitter cold temperatures move into the Dan River Region, Danville Utilities is asking electric customers to conserve power after its wholesale power supplier issued two peak alerts.

The peak periods are expected from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and from 6:30 to 9 a.m. Thursday.

The alert doesnt mean there will be a shortage of electricity.

Transmission charges for utilities are set, in part, during the times of high demand. Keeping power usage down during a peak period can prevent higher charges from being imposed on the utility.

With subfreezing temperatures expected on Thursday morning across the region served by the grid, we are certain the annual peak will come during these two hours, Utilities Director Jason Grey wrote in a statement Tuesday. Plenty of power will be available, but our customers have the opportunity to make a difference in their system and their rates by conserving power during this time.

American Municipal Power, the wholesale power supplier for Danville, monitors the power grid and issues peak alerts as needed, the city reported.

With subfreezing temperatures and wind chills expected Wednesday and Thursday, the city reports that anyone in need of shelter or a warming center should call the non-emergency number of the citys Emergency Communications Center at (434) 799-5111, option 8. The center will make arrangements to meet the need.

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The search found that a Danville doctor, who was not named in the report, had an unlikely frequency of documenting readings of 139/89.

When a reading of 140/90, signaling hypertension, is entered into the system, a reminder alert is triggered and requires the doctor or nurse practitioner to decide whether to change medications, order lab tests, make a referral or turn off the reminder. A reading below 140/90 would not trigger the alert.

A physician with the inspector generals office pulled records for 53 of the encounters between the Danville provider and patients known to have elevated blood pressure and found that in the majority of the visits, the provider did not change blood pressure management or recommend follow-up care.

Untreated hypertension can lead to heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease and congestive heart failure. The inspector general did not look to see if there were unfavorable outcomes for patients with the 139/89 readings.

The report said local Valor Healthcare managers were notified in late June of the suspicious records but were slow to act.
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US begins production of Trump's low-yield nuclear warhead

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:21AM

The United States has officially started to produce a new low-yield nuclear warhead following President Donald Trump's order last year to equip the Pentagon with tactical weapons that could be used in more realistic combat scenarios.

The US National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) confirmed Monday that the first production unit of the W76-2 warhead was in production at the Pantax Plant in Texas and would be delivered to the military by the end of 2019 fiscal year.

"NNSA is on track to complete the W76-2 Initial Operational Capability warhead quantity and deliver the units to the Navy by the end of Fiscal Year 2019," an agency spokesman was quoted as saying by Defense News website.

The spokesman said the units that the agency was bound to deliver this year were the initial operational capability (IOC) versions. He declined to reveal the total number.

The so-called Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which Washington revealed last year, included three notable changes to the US nuclear policy: Development of a low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), development of a new sea-launched cruise missile and increased plutonium pit production over the next decade.

This is part of the US government estimate that plans for modernizing and maintaining the country's nuclear arsenal will cost nearly $500 billion over the next decade.

Upon revealing the NPR, the Trump administration emphasized that it was mainly designed to counter Russia and China as the two most imminent threats to US national security.

The new nuclear device is based on the W76-1 warhead the US Navy has long been using to arm its Trident ballistic missiles.

According to the report, the warhead is designed to be smaller than the nuclear bomb the US detonated at Hiroshima, Japan, during Second World War.

The weapon's production has been faced with strong criticism from nonproliferation advocates and Democrats in Congress, who argue that all nuclear weapons are strategic by nature and not tactical.

Experts have warned that a low-yield nuclear weapon is still very powerful, considering that the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima killed between 60,000 and 80,000 people.

Military experts have also warned against using low-yield and high-yield warheads on the same missiles, arguing that it "creates a situation where an adversary doesn't know which system is being used and therefore reacts as if the larger warhead has been launched," the report said.

The NNSA announcement drew fire from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

ICAN researcher Stuart Casey-Maslen warned that the "low-yield US Trident [will] make first use more likely" by the Trump administration.
US plans to suspend INF nuclear arms treaty with Russia: White House

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 03:04PM

The administration of US President Donald Trump is poised to suspend a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty with Russia, a move likely to escalate already high tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Unless Russia destroys all its ground-launched cruise missiles known as 9M729s, associated equipment and launchers by February 2, the US will suspend its obligations under the INF treaty, a White House official, who asked not to be identified, said Monday.

Speaking to Bloomberg, the official did not say whether the US will simultaneously announce a full withdrawal from the INF treaty, triggering a process that would take six months to complete.

The US argues that Russia has jeopardized the INF treaty for years by deploying ground-launched missiles that fall within the banned range of 500 kilometers (311 miles) to 5,500 kilometers (3,417 miles).

Russia has denied violating the INF treaty and has accused the U.S. instead with breaking the deal, adding that a withdrawal from the accord would trigger an arms race

In December, the Trump administration rejected an offer by Moscow to save the INF treaty, claiming it could not be properly verified, setting the stage for Washington to withdraw from the pact next month.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin warned in December that Moscow will develop missiles currently banned under INF if the United States withdraws from the bilateral treaty.

Putin said the US had decided long ago to abandon the treaty and is now looking for justifications by blaming Russia. He, however, said Russia is against scrapping the treaty.

The INF was signed towards the end of Cold War in 1987 between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The pact requires the US and Russia to eliminate all their nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 1,0005,500 km (6203,420 mi).
Assad Likely to Retake Syria, Avoiding Conflict With Turkey, Israel - Coats

Sputnik News

20:08 29.01.2019(updated 20:12 29.01.2019)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Syrian President Bashar Assad will likely retake complete control of the Middle Eastern country while avoiding conflict with Turkey or Israel, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said on Tuesday.

"President Bashar al-Assad has largely defeated the opposition and is now seeking to regain control over all of the Syrian territory", Coats said during a Senate committee hearing. "The regime will focus on retaking territory while seeking to avoid conflict with Israel and Turkey".

The statement comes soon after acting Defence Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan claimed that the territory in Syria formerly controlled by the Daesh* terrorist group would be recaptured by the US-backed forces within a couple of weeks.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia

 Sputnik
Iran to remain with Syria until final victory over the terrorists: Veep

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, January 29, IRNA -- Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri stressed that Iranan government and nation will remain alongside the Syrian government and nation until the final victory over the terrorists.

In his meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Tuesday, Jahangiri said that regional changes and developments show that the Syrian government has been able to achieve good victories in countering terrorism, noting that groups that they did not know anything except for violence, murder and plundering, today with the prudence and solidarity of the leadership and the Syrian people and the cooperation of the friendly countries have been defeated and this has many lessons for history.

The senior official said that the victories of the Syrian government and the Syrian people made the supporters of the resistance in the world happy and the enemies were angry.

"The world witnessed, on the one hand, the Zionist regime evidently invaded to the Syrian soil due to its aggressive and on the other hand, the Americans realized that their continued presence in the region was costing them", he highlighted.

Jahangiri said that it is natural that Americans, after failing to pursue their policies to heighten economic pressure and sanctions are trying to compensate for the battlefield's failure at the political table. "This requires that we work together and pursue the political issues so that they do not turn the defeat in the battlefield to victory in the political space,' the official noted.

The First Vice President of Iran emphasized the pursuit of Syrian issues in bilateral, tripartite and Astana talks, saying, 'The issue of the reconstruction of Syria should be on the agenda, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the presence of a high-level delegation, showed that it has a resolute decision.

Jahangiri mentioned his talks with the president and prime minister of Syria and, while praising regional and international perspectives of the country's foreign minister, said the provision of space for the private and public sectors and the activation of businessmen and chambers of commerce could accelerate helping to rebuild infrastructure in Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mualm, for his part, also said at the meeting, 'Syria and Iran are at the united front in fighting terrorism and global arrogance which the US and the Zionist regime are at the forefront.'

'We are asking Iran to stay until the ultimate victory over the enemies and rebuild the country alongside the Syrian government and people,' he said, referring to the TV broadcasting of the words of the first vice president of Iran in Syria.

'Iran and Syria have achieved great achievements after victory over the terrorists, and today they have to go through this stage by developing economic cooperation in difficult circumstances,' Muallem said.

9455**2050
Khashoggi's Death Was 'Premeditated Murder,' But CIA Chief Dodges on MBS' Role

Sputnik News

22:45 29.01.2019(updated 22:48 29.01.2019)

During Senate testimony by US intelligence chiefs Tuesday, CIA Director Gina Haspel called journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death "premeditated murder" but refused to say if the agency believes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible, as a November leak indicated the agency had concluded.

Haspel and other leaders of the US intelligence community went before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday to talk about various US national security issues, and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden took the opportunity to press the CIA director on the question of Khashoggi's murder.

"I'm very concerned that the DNI's [Director of National Intelligence] statement for the record barely mentions the threat posed by Saudi Arabia to the rule of law around the world," the Democratic senator said. "Director Haspel: the Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating that the crown prince was responsible for the murder of US resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi  is that correct?"

"Senator, we can go into a little bit more detail this afternoon, but as you know, during the fall months we spent a significant amount of time briefing and providing written products on our assessment of what happened to Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Haspel replied. "As you know, and as the Saudi regime itself has acknowledged, 15 individuals traveled to Istanbul and he was murdered at their consulate and it was a premeditated murder on 2 October. The trial in Saudi Arabia, I believe, has begun, but in terms of further detail on our assessment of involvement, I'll hold it until the afternoon," in closed testimony.

However, Wyden wasn't satisfied with her answer, and he pressed her on the question of the veracity of the leak that emerged in November 2018, suggesting the CIA had concluded the Saudi crown prince had personally orchestrated the Istanbul murder. The revelation led to a sharp conflict between Congress and the executive branch, with US President Donald Trump and his staff sticking fast to their ally in Riyadh and Congress pressing forward with multiple resolutions to recognize the crown prince as responsible for the assassination and subsequent cover-up, as well as to extend Magnitsky Act sanctions against other Saudi officials to include the crown prince. Subsequent resolutions also pursued an end to US support for Riyadh's war in Yemen, the prosecution of which Mohammed bin Salman has made a major part of his administration since rising to the office in the summer of 2017. He is the effective power behind the throne of his father, King Salman.

"Respectfully, madam director, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that the crown prince was responsible," Wyden asked Haspel. "Was the Senate wrong?"

However, the spy agency chief remained tight-lipped, saying only that "it's my job to provide the intelligence to support the Senate's deliberations, and I think we've done that very adequately in this case, and will continue to do that, and we continue, by the way, to track this issue and to follow it very closely."

 Sputnik
CIA Provided Intelligence On Lifting Of Deripaska Sanctions But Raised No Concerns

By RFE/RL January 29, 2019

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) says it didn't raise any concerns over the lifting of sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department on three companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

CIA Director Gina Haspel told a Senate hearing on January 29 that the agency only provided information about Deripaska to the Treasury as it deliberated on what to do.

"No, I don't believe we raised any concerns but we provided all the supportive intelligence," Haspel told the hearing.

The Treasury said the removal of sanctions was based on the fact that aluminum giant Rusal, its parent company En+, and power firm EuroSibEnergo "have reduced Oleg Deripaska's direct and indirect shareholding stake in these companies and severed his control."

The sanctions were initially imposed in April, but they roiled global metals markets, unnerving businesses in the United States and Europe; Rusal is one of the world's largest aluminum producers.

The U.S. administration later reached a deal with the Russian firms to end Deripaska's control in return for a lifting of sanctions.

Four top U.S. lawmakers in the House said on January 29 that they were considering legislation to ensure aluminum giant Rusal and its parent En+ comply with the agreement.

Deripaska, who is widely believed to have close ties to the Kremlin, agreed to dispose of his controlling stakes in the companies. He himself remains subject to U.S. sanctions.

Deripaska has reduced his stake in En+ to 44.95 percent from about 70 percent previously, to comply with the lifting of the sanctions.

"We are considering additional legislative actions to ensure that [the U.S.] Treasury and these companies comply with the agreement in letter and in spirit," the four Democratic chairs of the House Ways and Means, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Financial Services committees said in a joint statement.

U.S. critics have accused President Donald Trump of making too many concessions to Russia for nothing in return, while Trump has insisted he has been tougher on Moscow than previous presidents.

Many Democratic lawmakers, and even some Republicans, insist that it was inappropriate to ease the sanctions at a time while Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Moscow.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/cia-provided- intelligence-on-lifting-of-deripaska-sanctions -but-raised-no-concerns/29740369.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Russian Justice Ministry To Decriminalize 'Unavoidable' Bribes

By RFE/RL January 29, 2019

Russia's Justice Ministry has proposed a bill decriminalizing bribery and other corruption acts committed under "exceptional circumstances."

The draft bill, published on the state website for legislation on January 29, was prepared following an anticorruption plan outlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.

"In certain circumstances, complying with restrictions and bans...to prevent or settle conflicts of interests...is impossible for objective reasons," the measure on the government's legal portal says, adding that the new legislation's goal is to free individuals from prosecution in such cases.

The Justice Ministry does not provide examples of circumstances that would allow officials to escape punishment.

Russia's Vedomosti business daily reported on January 28 that the ministry will provide specific examples of exemptions to anticorruption laws after public discussions of the proposal wrap up on February 8.

Russia ranks among the world's most corrupt countries, with Transparency International's annual corruption perceptions index ranking it in 138th place this year out of 180 countries.

With reporting by Vedomosti and The Moscow Times

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian- justice-ministry-to-decriminalize-unavoidable -bribes/29740470.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Navalny Office Manager Claims Russian Security Officer Tried To Recruit Her

By Matthew Luxmoore January 29, 2019

MOSCOW -- An employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation run by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has alleged that a member of the Russian secret services attempted to recruit her and issued threats when she refused to cooperate.

In a video posted to Navalny's YouTube channel on January 28, Olga Bulayeva, an office manager at the organization since September 2017, said she was confronted by two uniformed guards inside the Moscow subway as she made her way to the platform on the evening of January 15.

The security guards asked for her documents and then led her to a separate room in the vestibule of the station, Bulayeva said. They then confiscated her cell phone and passed it to a man who entered the room after her. He introduced himself only as Dmitry, according to Bulayeva.

"He told me, 'We know that your mother is ill and that you find yourself in difficult life circumstances. We want to help you with your mother's treatment and improve your financial situation, in exchange for your cooperation,'" Bulayeva says in the video (below).

Her mother is receiving treatment for cancer, she explained.

When Bulayeva declined, she said she was told that the Anti-Corruption Foundation is a corrupt organization and that Bulayeva's colleagues don't have her best interests at heart. The man began threatening her and said unspecified measures would be taken if she revealed details of their conversation to anyone, Bulayeva said.

When Bulayeva informed her colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation of the exchange, she was told by its lawyers that the threats carry no weight and advised her to go on the record about the incident.

"It's important to remember that they always try and frighten people in vulnerable positions," Bulayeva said. "And it's enough simply not to give up and to stay true to your principles."

The video, which has been watched more than 400,000 times, is more than a simple retelling of the incident by Bulayeva. It opens with a short introduction from Navalny, who comes on again after Bulayeva's appearance to criticize the "crooks and thieves" he alleges run the Russian government, and the measures they take to discredit the political opposition.

Neither the Federal Security Service (FSB) nor the Interior Ministry have yet commented publicly on the allegations made by Bulayeva.

In an interview with Kommersant, retired FSB General Aleksandr Mikhaylov said that an opposition office manager like Bulayeva would be a very useful source for the Russian secret services.

"She knows who comes and goes, who whispers what to whom, who influences whom, and who dislikes whom. This is a very useful person," Mikhaylov said.

In a telephone interview, Bulayeva said she thought for several days about whether to go public about the incident, as she is not used to the spotlight.

"I decided that it's better for me to publish a video or post on social media because I think that if I had continued to be silent, then those people would think that they'd managed in some way to scare me or influence me," she told RFE/RL. "But I want to distance myself from those people as far as possible, so that they understand clearly that they can't frighten me."

At the time of her questioning on January 15, Bulayeva added, she was concerned about funding for her mother's treatment and her job security. She said she suspects those who confronted her were well aware of her situation. But since the video went online, she said, she has received numerous offers of financial help from supporters.

Navalny's foundation has leveraged various social-media platforms in spreading the word about its anti-corruption campaign, and its videos are viewed by millions of people. It has sparked nationwide scandals in recent years with detailed probes into the illicit finances of Russia's elite, most recently publishing investigations into Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, National Guard head Viktor Zolotov, and various Duma deputies.

In March 2017, a video expose about the lavish lifestyle of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev catalyzed mass protests across Russia and led to a concerted Kremlin campaign to engage Russian youth, who have had a large presence at opposition marches organized by Navalny.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/navalny-office -manager-claims-russian-security-officer-tried to-recruit-her/29740206.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
9 Killed in Suicide Attack on Pakistan Police Complex

By Ayaz Gul January 29, 2019

Authorities in Pakistan say a suicide militant raid against a police facility Tuesday in southwestern Balochistan province killed at least nine people and injured 21 others.

A military statement said three bombers carrying guns assaulted the Deputy Inspector General Police office compound in Loralai at a time when about 800 candidates were present inside for enrollment in the provincial police.

One of the assailants blew himself up at the main gate, enabling the other two attackers to storm the crowded complex and take positions in one of the rooms before Pakistani security forces engaged them in a firefight.

"During the clearance operation remaining two suicide bombers have been shot dead and [the] area has been cleared," the army said. It added that the rest of the candidates were safely evacuated during the operation. The victims were airlifted to Quetta, the provincial capital, about 200 kilometers north of the site of the attack.

The outlawed extremist Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for staging the deadly raid. This was the second attack this month against a security installation in Balochistan claimed by the militant outfit.

On January 1, three gunmen, including a suicide bomber, raided a military installation in another district and killed four security forces.

The violence-hit largest Pakistani province, which shares a border with Afghanistan and Iran, has seen a rise in militant attacks in recent months.

Balochistan is home to several under-construction China-funded infrastructure projects, and it is a natural resource-rich region. But a low-level Baluch insurgency and the presence of militant groups, including loyalists of Islamic State, pose security challenges for Pakistani authorities.
Balochistan suffers another deadly attack on Pakistani police

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 03:29PM

At least five people have been killed and more than two dozen others have been injured in an attack by militants on a police office in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan.

The office of the deputy police inspector in Loralai district experienced a short period of armed upheaval on Tuesday when four assailants carrying guns and grenades attacked the building.

A group of candidates were sitting for a police entrance exam when the assault took place. Local security officials said four policemen and one of the candidates were killed.

Ataullah, a senior police officer, said that the "army, Frontier Corps and police are conducting search operations in the area" for the gunmen.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

Pakistan's restive and mineral-rich Balochistan province is rife with separatist, extremist and sectarian violence and has been the scene of several bomb and gun attacks over the past years.

Balochistan was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks in late 2016, raising fears about an increasing presence of armed militants in the area, including terrorists linked to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

Baloch separatist groups and militants in the province have also been engaged in a decades-long campaign against the central government.

Despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army, acts of terror by militants continue to target security forces as well as civilians.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered into an alliance with the United States in Washington's so-called war on terror.

Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence sweeping the country.
Japan Reserves Right on US Bases Decision in Case of Gaining Kuril Islands - Abe

Sputnik News

21:23 29.01.2019

TOKYO (Sputnik) - The US must receive a permission to set up military bases in any area of Japan, despite the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the two countries, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday when asked about the possibility of US military bases appearing on the Kurils in case of their handover by Russia to Japan.

"Despite the fact that under the US-Japan security treaty, the US military has the right to utilize lands and capacities in Japan, the Japanese government must approve the site for establishment," Abe said, as quoted by Kyodo news agency.

Russia and Japan have not signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II. The dispute over the Kuril Islands  referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan  has been one of the main stumbling rocks in the peace talks.

Moscow and Tokyo signed a Joint Declaration in 1956 that provided for the restoration of bilateral relations and stipulated that the two countries would continue efforts to sign a permanent peace treaty and settle the island dispute. The Soviet Union pledged to consider handing over two islands to Japan.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concern over the fact that the US military presence in Japan has been affecting the negotiations, arguing that Tokyo's obligations to Washington in the military field might have hidden threats.

Abe has assured the Russian side that the US troops are located in Japan only to guarantee the country's security, not to threaten Russia. Earlier in January, Lt. Gen. Jerry Martinez, the commander of the US forces in Japan, said that the United States had no intentions to deploy troops on the Kuril Islands if they are given to Japan.

In January, Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with the Japanese prime minister in Moscow. The leaders noted the strengthening economic cooperation between the two countries and the further potential for its development. The issue of the peace treaty was also discussed, though the parties have not reached any agreements yet.

On January 28, the Japanese Foreign Ministry reported that Tokyo and Moscow were working out the details of the planned meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Japanese top diplomat Taro Kono in the German city of Munich in February.

 Sputnik
Iraqi Militia Leader Says US Military Forces Should Go Home - Report

Sputnik News

01:53 30.01.2019(updated 01:55 30.01.2019)

The head of a powerful Shia militia group says he is "certain and confident" Iraqi lawmakers will vote on a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US military forces from the oil-rich nation, according to a new report.

"I think more than half the members of Parliament reject the presence of American military forces as a matter of principle," said Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib al-Haq (League of the Righteous), in an interview with the Associated Press.

"If the United States wants to impose its presence by force, and to bypass the Iraqi constitution and Parliament, Iraq can treat it the same way and drive it out by force But the first phase is political," said Khazali.

Daesh forces have been scraped out of Iraq, removing the US military's pretense for remaining there. "If the main purpose for their presence is to confront the military danger posed by Daesh, then this threat is eliminated," Khazali noted, asking, "So what is the justification for keeping this number [of troops] now?"

He envisions a small group of US advisers staying behind to help with logistics, the report says. "Anything other than that will be considered an infringement on sovereignty by the Iraqi parliament, the Iraqi people and political factions, including ours, and we will not allow it."

Approximately 24 million Iraqis were reported to be eligible to vote in Iraq's first parliamentary elections last May since the country's government declared victory over ISIS. Some 10.7 million people voted, including many Iraqi women who voted for the first time, Sputnik News reported.

 Sputnik
Sentencing of Wang Quanzhang

Press Statement

Robert Palladino

Deputy Spokesperson

Washington, DC

January 29, 2019

The United States is deeply concerned by the sentencing of human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang in Tianjin, China on January 28 to four-and-a-half years in prison on charges of "subverting state power." Wang was among the first individuals detained during the Chinese government's July 9, 2015 ("709") crackdown on legal advocates for rule of law and human rights defenders, and the last to be tried.

We are troubled that China has subjected Mr. Wang to a three-and-a-half-year period of pre-trial detention, and has been held incommunicado, has been deprived of legal counsel of his choosing, and that his chosen lawyer has been subjected to reprisals.

We call on China to release Mr. Wang immediately and allow him to reunite with his family. We remain concerned by the deteriorating situation for the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms in China, and continue to urge China to uphold its international human rights commitments and to respect the rule of law.
China: US crackdown on Huawei unreasonable suppression

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 08:04AM

China says the United States' legal measures against Chinese electronics giant Huawei are prompted by "political manipulations," following a move by Washington to formally indict the chief financial officer of the company.

"For some time, the US has used state power to discredit and crack down on specific Chinese companies in an attempt to strangle the enterprises' legitimate and legal operations," the Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday in a statement released by spokesman Geng Shuang.

"There are strong political motivations and political manipulations behind the actions," Geng said.

The development came after the US Justice Department declared 13 counts of indictments against Huawei Technologies, its Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou  who is currently out of custody on bail in Canada while awaiting an extradition hearing  and two affiliates that Washington accuses of having violated US sanctions against Iran.

Additionally, local press reports indicated that 10 US federal charges were filed against two Huawei affiliates for the alleged stealing of robot technology from the German telecommunications company T-Mobile.

Huawei rejects US charges

Huawei dismissed the US federal allegations against it on Tuesday, denying that the corporate giant was guilty of any of the violations in the wide-ranging legal indictment.

"Huawei is disappointed to learn of the charges brought against the company today," said the tech firm in an official statement. "The Company denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations of US law set forth in each of the indictments."

According to the statement, Huawei "is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms Meng, and believes the US courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion."

Beijing demands Meng's release

Beijing also emphasized that it is "highly concerned" about the legal case brought against Huawei, demanding that the US judiciary immediately withdraw the arrest warrant against Meng.

"We strongly urge the US to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei, and treat Chinese enterprises objectively and fairly," Geng's statement added, further calling on Canada to release Meng.

Meanwhile, China and Hong Kong stocks fell on Tuesday as Washington's broad criminal charges against Huawei undermined prospects for a Sino-US trade deal and impacted investor sentiments.

The CSI300 index fell 0.1 percent to 3,180.57 at the end of the morning session, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5 percent to 2,583.94.

A fresh round of trade talks between US officials and Chinese Vice Premier Liu is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
China urges US to stop "unreasonable suppression" of Huawei

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 14:44, January 29, 2019

China on Tuesday strongly urged the United States to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies, including Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., according to a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

The U.S. Justice Department reportedly unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, and continues to seek extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou from Canada.

"China highly concerned about those criminal charges," said spokesperson Geng Shuang.

The Chinese government always demands its enterprises conduct economic cooperation on a legal basis, and requires all countries to create a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for the legitimate operations of Chinese enterprises, said Geng.

"For some time, the United States has used its state power to discredit and suppress a specific Chinese enterprise and attempted to interfere in the legitimate operations of enterprise. Those act contained strong political intentions and manipulations," he said.

"China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of its enterprises," he added.

For Meng's case, Geng said that China has repeatedly stated its "solemn stance on the matter."

The United States and Canada arbitrarily misused the bilateral extradition treaty between them to unjustifiably take compulsory measures against a Chinese citizen, which has severely violated the Chinese citizen's safety and legitimate rights and interests, Geng said.

"We once again urge the U.S. side to immediately withdraw its arrest warrant for Ms. Meng Wanzhou and stop seeking extradition for her so as to avoid steering on to the wrong course," said the spokesperson.

China also urged the Canadian side to treat China's stance seriously, immediately release Meng and protect her legitimate rights, and not be a cat's paw for the United States, he said.
J-16 fighter jet stealth-capable, able to carry all types of Chinese air-to-surface weapons

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/29 16:40:27

China's multi-role fighter jet the J-16 is now covered by a coating that can provide near stealth capability and the jet is now confirmed to be able to carry all types of air-to-surface weapons in precision strikes, China's State broadcaster revealed on Monday.

An aviation brigade under the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force conducted day and night mock battle exercises with J-16s in late January, reported China Central Television (CCTV).

Brigade commander Jiang Jiaji, the first pilot to win the PLA's Golden Helmet competition three times, told CCTV at the exercise that the silver-gray painting covering the J-16 is a kind of cloaking coating that gives the warplane a certain stealth capability, making it nearly invisible to the naked eye and electromagnetic devices.

Fu Qianshao, a Chinese air defense expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the aerodynamic design of the J-16 stresses maneuverability rather than stealth, but the coating can make it more difficult to detect.

The stealth coating can reduce detection of the J-16 by radar, Fu said. The jet's camouflaged coloring makes the aircraft blend into the sky and sea, so that the enemy will only recognize it at close range, giving it a huge advantage in combat.

Jiang also revealed that all types of Chinese air-to-surface weapons currently in service with the PLA can be installed on the J-16.

This means the J-16 can use a wide collection of air-to-ground missiles, bombs and anti-ship missiles, Fu said, noting that the multi-role fighter jet can carry several tons of munitions and launch multiple waves of attack before it runs out of ammunition.

The J-16 is reportedly capable of carrying at least eight tons of weapons.

Although the J-20 is China's more advanced fighter jet, the PLA Air Force still needs the J-16 as the two types of fighter jets can complement each other, analysts noted.

The J-20 can use its stealth capability to destroy hostile anti-air installations and win aerial superiority first but it cannot carry as many weapons as the J-16, because the J-20 hides its weapons in smaller weapon bays to ensure stealth capability, Fu said.

The J-16 can follow up a J-20 attack and clean away surface targets with its missiles and bombs, Fu said.

The J-16 is a twin-engine, twin-seat multi-role fighter jet that is also capable of air-to-air combat. It made its debut during the Army Day parade on July 30, 2017 at the Zhurihe military training base in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
China slams US for using national power to tarnish Chinese companies

Global Times

By Yang Sheng and Chen Qingqing Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/29 22:18:41

Legal battle to have 'limited impact'

China on Tuesday urged the US to stop its unjustifiable crackdown on Huawei and urged Canada to immediately drop the arrest warrant for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou after the US Justice Department formally filed criminal charges against the Chinese company and Meng on Monday and sent the extradition request to Canada for Meng.

The timing of the filing coincides with upcoming high-level trade talks between the two countries, which are scheduled to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington DC. US actions create uncertainty that the two sides can strike a deal to end the ongoing trade war.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at Tuesday's routine press conference that China is highly concerned about the US' charges against Huawei and Meng.

"For some time, the US has been using its national power to tarnish and crack down on specific Chinese companies in an attempt to strangle their lawful and legitimate operations. Behind such practices are deep political intentions and manipulations," Geng noted.

Regarding the US request to Canada, China has made solemn representations to the US and Canada. China expressed strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to the US' disregard of China's solemn representation and its insistence on making extradition requests to Canada, Geng said. "We once again urge the US to immediately withdraw the arrest warrant and formal extradition request for Ms Meng Wanzhou," Geng said.

The US government has officially sent Canada an extradition request for Meng. Canada's Department of Justice confirmed Monday, the Canadian media Global News reported.

The US Justice Department on Monday also accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets, obstructing justice and engaging in bank fraud by evading economic sanctions on Iran.

"On Meng's case, China has made clear its stern position many times. The US and Canada abused their bilateral extradition agreement and took compulsory measures against a Chinese citizen for no reason. Such actions seriously violate the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese citizen," Geng noted.

Chinese experts said the US is nervous and desperate as it attempts to crack down on a rising competitor that has made great achievements in science and technology.

They warned that China needs to prepare for a "long legal battle" to deal with continued unwarranted persecution and unreasonable attempts by the US.

"Using judicial tools for political purposes is not a new tactic in US diplomacy when it desperately wants to crack down on its rival," said Diao Daming, a US studies expert at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

"The Chinese government and Huawei need to expose the truth about US tricks to the world. The US is obviously getting nervous over the achievements Chinese firms have made in sci-tech," Diao said.

Huawei Technologies said it is disappointed to learn of the criminal charges the US officially announced and denied that it or its subsidiaries and affiliates have committed any of the asserted violations.

"The company sought an opportunity to discuss the investigation by Eastern District of New York with the Justice Department, but the request was rejected without explanation," Huawei said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

The statement also showed that it is not aware of any wrongdoing by its CFO Meng, and Huawei believes the US courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion.

'Don't be used'

"We also urge Canada to take China's solemn position seriously, immediately release Meng and ensure her lawful and legitimate rights and interests, and stop risking its own interests for the benefit of the US," Geng said.

There are two possible consequences for Canada, said Li Haidong, a professor at the Beijing-based China Foreign Affairs University.

"First, pushing the judicial process objectively without political influence from the US, and Meng, under this circumstance, would very likely appeal successfully and get released; second, accepting the political manipulation from the US and proceed with the extradition, and under this circumstance, China-Canada relations would be much worse than at present and Canada would surely receive a harsher retaliation."

If Canada is truly judicially independent, it can just push the judicial process, and ignore the political manipulation behind the case, because it is not hard to realize that the case does not apply to the extradition treaty. Meng would be released and China-Canada ties could immediately be repaired, Li noted.

"Canada doesn't need to worry about the US, because the US would only blame its own agencies or departments who failed to provide concrete evidence and get humiliated rather than Canada, if the Canadian court makes an impartial judgment," Li said.

Former ambassador to China John McCallum also expressed his analysis that Meng has a very strong case in court against a US extradition, but he was fired by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau under pressure from conservative political forces.

Herb Dhaliwal, a former minister who served with McCallum in the Chretien government, said the firing of McCallum and the arrest of Meng have set back Canada's relations with China that Jean Chretien had cultivated.

Asked if the case will affect China's 5G development, Wen said the country will steadily deploy the next generation of wireless technologies and continue working with global partners.

Long legal battle

It's time for Huawei to fight US accusations in court, Fu Liang, a Beijing-based telecom industry expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"Huawei said it has been operating in strict compliance with applicable laws, so the legal battle may not be what the US expects. One thing's for sure, Huawei is not ZTE," Fu said.

The analyst noted that as a global company, Huawei has done better in complying with the law compared with ZTE. ZTE, which is one of the world's top telecoms equipment vendors, struggled last year after the US Department of Commerce activated a denial order in April against the Chinese company.

ZTE reached a settlement with the US in June, under which it agreed to pay a $1 billion penalty, put $400 million in an escrow account, and replace its entire senior management team in exchange for the lifting of the US ban.

"It will be a long battle for Huawei, but the case will have limited impact on the company, as it is not run only by Meng. They will act and respond to these charges through legal procedures," said Xiang Ligang, chief executive of telecom industry news site cctime.com.

The longstanding US-Canada extradition treaty requires that an offense for which extradition is sought to be a crime in both countries, also known as the principle of double criminality, Long Z. Liu, an attorney licensed in California, told the Global Times, suggesting that Meng's alleged conduct is not a crime in Canada, and, as such, the requirement for extradition cannot be met.

The US Justice Department also announced charges Monday against Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile. The charges stem from a civil trade secrets lawsuit filed by T-Mobile in 2014 over a robot called "Tappy," which was used in testing smartphones, CNBC reported. The timing was too coincidental, hence, could be political, Liu said.

The jury in Seattle said in 2017 that Huawei should pay $4.8 million to T-Mobile because the Chinese company had breached a supply contract with the US carrier, but it did not award any damages from the trade secret claim.

"The case was decided years ago, which has now been elevated in the justice department's indictment files, which was an abnormal move," Liu said.

The US Justice Department unsealed two indictments on Monday against Huawei. One, sent out by the Western District of Washington in Seattle, said Huawei allegedly got into T-Mobile's secrets, and the other accused Huawei of skirting US sanctions on Iran.

The charges are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, Liu noted.
Iran's Cyber Spies Looking to Get Personal

By Jeff Seldin January 29, 2019

Iran appears to be broadening its presence in cyberspace, stealing information that would allow its cyber spies to monitor and track key political and business officials.

As part of this growing focus, Iranian-linked cyber actors are using phishing emails and stolen credentials to infiltrate telecommunication companies and the travel industry in order to steal personally identifiable information they can use in future operations.

The main culprit, according to a report released Tuesday by cybersecurity firm FireEye, is a group known as Advanced Persistent Threat 39, or APT 39. Active since 2014, FireEye maintains the group has been working "in support of Iranian national interests," showing an ability to hits targets across the Middle East and beyond.

"APT 39's focus on the widespread theft of personal information sets it apart from other Iranian groups," the report said, warning the activity "showcases Iran's potential global operational reach."

"They are targeting a number of telecommunication and information technology entities and really going after just large amounts of PII [personally identifiable information]," said FireEye Senior Analyst Cristiana Kittner.

"Once in the network, they're looking at phone logs and employee records and airline records," she added. "Our assessment is that the PII is being stolen both for general surveillance as well as for specific targets, including high profile people and potentially political individuals and those that have significant roles in strategic affairs related to the country."

Kittner said APT 39 has even gone after visa and passport information, searching through keystroke logs to try to get what it wants.

And while most of the companies that have been targeted by APT 39 are in the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates  the group's pursuit of telecommunications and travel industry data have led it further afield. Companies in Norway, South Korea, Australia and the United States may also have been affected.

The report from FireEye follows similar warnings from other cybersecurity firms, which have increasingly voiced concern about Iranian-linked cyber actors targeting the telecommunications and travel sectors. And there is likely to be debate over just how new APT39 may be.

Much of APT 39's activity aligns with that of the Iranian-based cyber group known as Chafer, which was identified by the cybersecurity firm Symantec in 2015, and which has also focused on the telecommunications, travel and IT industries.

"Chafer has become notably more ambitious," Symantec told VOA in a statement. "Over the past two years, the group moved their attacks up the supply chain in the industries they typically target, and these supply chain attacks may allow Chafer to reach a broader set of victims in each industry they target."

Other experts and analysts worry advances by APT 39 and Chafer show that Tehran, already a formidable actor in cyberspace, has further refined its cyber espionage doctrine and will soon find more ways to use cyber spying to gain an advantage, economically and politically.

"Iran's leveraging these capabilities in order to identify supplierswhere they're shipping certain things to," said David Kennedy, the chief executive officer at the IT security consulting firm TrustedSec. "They may have the ability to snag individuals or pick them up."

"The methods that they use are very effective for going against a lot of different companies," added Kennedy, who previously served with the U.S. National Security Agency and with the Marine Corps electronic warfare unit.

European officials, meanwhile, worry that this is just the start, and that Iranian cyber actors are only going to get more ambitious as the U.S. and Western powers increase pressure on Tehran in response to its missile tests and nuclear activity.

"Newly imposed sanctions on Iran are likely to push the country to intensify state-sponsored cyberthreat activities in pursuit of its geopolitical and strategic objectives at a regional level," the European digital security agency warned in a report Monday.

U.S. officials have also warned of Iran's growing prowess in cyberspace.

This past November, the U.S. indicted two Iranian hackers for using the SamSam ransomware to extort millions of dollars from U.S. municipalities, hospitals and other public institutions.

And in march of last year, U.S. prosecutors charged nine Iranian hackers with penetrating the computer networks of hundreds of universities and institutions to steal research material.

VOA's Masood Farivar contributed to this report
Kenyan Court Says Four Suspects to Stand Trial in 2015 University Attack

By Mohammed Yusuf January 29, 2019

A court in Kenya says four men must stand trial for their alleged role in the 2015 terrorist attack on Garissa University College in the northeastern part of the country. The suspects are accused of belonging to a terror group and committing a terror act.

The suspects were in court Tuesday as Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi read the ruling.

"I have considered the evidence by the prosecution and submission by learned council, and my findings are that the prosecution has made it out of the prima facie case to warrant the court to call upon the first, the second, the third and the fifth accused persons to offer a defense on respective counts they are charged with, other than the fifth accused person on the 156th count," he said.

The suspects, Charles Mberesero, Mohamed Ali Abdikar, Hassan Aden Hassan and Sahal Diriye are charged in connection with the April 2, 2015, dawn attack in which more than 150 people, most of them students, were killed. The court acquitted Osman Dagane, a university guard, saying there was no evidence linking him to the attack.

Witnesses say the assailants followed the students to the classes and dormitories before killing them. The armed men were killed after security forces retook the institution. The four suspects were arrested a few weeks later.

Twenty-five year-old university graduate Steve Mwangi survived the assault, which Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility. Mwangi said he was pleased with the court decision.

"I am feeling happy. I am feeling good. At least some people will be punished for the crimes that were committed. Before, we have not seen anybody being punished. Now, at least I feel good some people will be punished," he said.

Mwangi lost his sister, who was also a student. Mwangi says every year, he dreads the anniversary of the attack.

"When [the] 2nd [of] April comes, you just wish it would be over soon. We stop all these reminders we see on TV and social media. I just pray that when a day like that comes, I just pray it ends soon," he said.

Prosecutors so far have testimony from 22 witnesses.

The defendants are expected in court again on February 13.

The town of Garissa is about 200 kilometers from the border with Somalia and has, in recent years, been the site of sporadic gun and grenade attacks blamed on al-Shabab. The group has targeted Kenya in retribution for Kenya sending troops to Somalia.
Pentagon Prepares to Send More Troops to US-Mexico Border

By VOA News January 29, 2019

The Pentagon is preparing to send additional troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, even as some members of Congress question the appropriateness of deploying troops there.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters Tuesday that "several thousand" active U.S. troops likely will be assigned to the border. Shanahan said that the move is in response to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) request related to placing concertina wire.

There are currently about 2,300 active troops at the border, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. The number is down from a high of 5,900 at the end of last year.

The committee's hearing into President Donald Trump's original decision to send troops to the border came as Congress and the president work to resolve their differences over construction of a wall on the southern border. Trump says he must have $5.7 billion for the wall, while House Democrats have held firm on zero funding for a wall. The two sides have until Feb. 15 to come to an agreement, when short-term funding for much of the U.S. government expires.

"To date, the impact of [the troops'] deployment isn't fully understood nor has there been a full justification for why the administration subsequently diverted active duty personnel to the border or details regarding when that deployment will end," Committee Chairman Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, said in his opening statement. "Moreover, the deployments to the border seem to conflict with the department's stated efforts to rebuild readiness."

Vice Admiral Michael Gilday told the committee that the troops have made a difference. Laying concertina wire "hardened those ports of entry," he said, allowing Customs and Border Protection to use its manpower more efficiently.

Gilday said the decision to deploy active troops was made by the Department of Defense because they could deploy faster than National Guard reservists and because the Guard was not skilled in laying concertina wire.

As far as future readiness is concerned, Gilday said some units have missed or will miss company-level training, but the Defense Department believes they can recoup.

The cost of the deployment of active troops has been $132 million since they were first called up last fall until the end of January, while deployment of the National Guard to the border is estimated at $550 million from last April through the end of 2019, Gilday said.

Rood told the committee that DHS is tracking three caravans moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border, one estimated at more than 12,000 members.

"We have to be more flexible to respond to changing circumstances. I think that is what the president is trying to do," said Congressman Mac Thornberry, a Republican from Texas. "I would prefer not to use the military ... but things change."

Steve Herman contributed to this report.
'New IRA' Group Claims Responsibility for Londonderry Car Bombing  Statement

Sputnik News

19:22 29.01.2019(updated 20:29 29.01.2019)

A group calling itself the 'New IRA' has claimed responsibility for detonating a car bomb in Londonerry on 19 January and issued a statement to the Derry Journal, stoking fears of fresh conflicts which could threaten the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Whilst no one was injured or killed in the January attack, the incident has raised terror threats across the region and spiked fears of materialising a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, authorities in Northern Ireland and the European Union have cautioned.

"We also caution those who collaborate with the British that they are to desist immediately as no more warnings will be given," the group said in a statement to the Derry Journal on Tuesday.

The group also denied that Brexit motivated it to plant the bomb, adding that the group's fight "goes on".

"We also caution those who collaborate with the British that they are to desist immediately as no more warnings will be given," the statement continued.

"All this talk of Brexit, hard borders, soft borders, has no bearing on our actions and the IRA won't be going anywhere," the statement read. "Our fight goes on."

The New IRA detonated a car bomb inside a pizza deliver van outside a Londonberry courthouse, prompting MI5, the UK's domestic security force to commission 700 spies to Belfast as a major security operation aimed at tackling the threat.

The period of the Troubles saw nearly 30 years of fighting between Catholic Republicans from the Republic of Ireland and Protestant Unionists from Northern Ireland prior to forming a ceasefire in 1994 and the Good Friday agreement in 1998, with the latest version of the IRA began as one of a cluster of groups opposed to the peace accord.

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USS Chung-Hoon Conducts Second Drug Bust in a Month

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS190129-01

Release Date: 1/29/2019 6:04:00 AM

From U.S. 5th Fleet Public Affairs

GULF OF ADEN (NNS) (NNS) -- While conducting maritime security operations in the international waters of the Gulf of Aden, the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) interdicted a shipment of illicit narcotics aboard a stateless vessel, Jan. 24.

Chung-Hoon's visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) team seized 4,700 kilograms of hashish while conducting a flag verification boarding.

This is the second such interdiction within a month. The Chung-Hoon seized over 5,000 kilograms of hashish while patrolling the Gulf of Aden on Dec. 27, 2018.

"What I'm most proud of is the synergy between our information, operations and boarding teams that allowed us to complete the mission," said Cmdr. Brent Jackson, commanding officer of Chung-Hoon. "Teamwork is the key enabler, and this crew was on station, ready to roll at sunrise to complete the task of interdicting contraband.

The vessel was determined to be stateless following a flag verification boarding conducted in accordance with customary international law. The vessel and its crew were allowed to depart once the narcotics were seized.

Chung-Hoon is serving as the surface action group (SAG) commander, leading the Whidbey Island-class amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), during maritime security operations in the Gulf of Aden. Both ships are operating under Task Force 55.

Chung-Hoon is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and the Pacific through the western Indian Ocean and three strategic choke points.

The U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations encompasses nearly 2.5 million square miles of water area and includes the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. The region is comprised of 20 countries and includes three critical choke points at the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Bab-al-Mandeb at the southern tip of Yemen.
US Denounces Venezuela's Attorney General as 'Illegitimate' - Bolton

Sputnik News

01:15 30.01.2019

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - White House National Security Adviser John Bolton in a statement on Tuesday said that the United States condemns Venezuelan prosecutors for threatening opposition leader Juan Guaido.

"We denounce the illegitimate former Venezuelan Attorney General's threats against President Juan Guaido", Bolton said via Twitter. "Let me reiterate  there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido".

Earlier, Venezuela's Prosecutor General Tarek Saab announced his intention to conduct an investigation into Guaido and asked the Supreme Court to implement a travel ban. Guaido proclaimed last week himself the interim president of the country and was swiftly recognized by Washington and its allies.

On Monday, Bolton during a press conference announced that the United States was imposing sanctions on Venezuelan oil company PDVSA. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said PDVSA could be relieved from US sanctions if it commits to the expeditious transfer of control to Guaido.

Last week a senior US administration official told reporters that "all options are on the table" for the United States if President Nicolas Maduro or any of his allies harm any members of the Venezuelan National Assembly or other legitimate government officials.

Maduro on Monday accused the United States of an attempt to "steal" the US-based Citgo energy company, a subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA oil and gas company, and called the new US sanctions against PDVSA illegal.

Maduro, the twice democratically elected president, has called the opposition leader a "US puppet", accused Washington of attempting to organize a coup in Venezuela and declared his intent to cut off diplomatic ties with the US.

Other major powers including Russia and China, along with Turkey, have refused to support the Venezuelan opposition leader's move, instead backing Maduro as the country's legitimate president and demanding that other countries respect the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign state.

Earlier in the day, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino confirmed in a statement that US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has certified the authority for Juan Guaido to take control of some Venezuelan government assets.

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Venezuelan Supreme Court Bans Guaido From Leaving Country

Sputnik News

02:34 30.01.2019(updated 03:28 30.01.2019)

According to media reports, the Venezuelan Supreme Court also blocked all of the self-proclaimed interim president's bank accounts and financial transactions within the country's jurisdiction on Tuesday.

Venezuelan authorities have launched a preliminary investigation into the activities of the country's opposition leader Juan Guaido, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing a statement by the Venezuelan Supreme Court's president. In particular, the court's ruling imposes a travel ban on Guaido until the completion of the investigation.

"The Supreme Court in its decision from January 29 ruled to take the following precautionary measures against Juan Gerardo Guaido Marquez: prohibition of leaving the country without an authorization until the investigation is completed; prohibition of alienation and pledge of property; blocking of bank accounts and/or any other financial instrument on the Venezuelan territory", Court President Maikel Moreno said on Twitter.

Earlier this week, Venezuelan Prosecutor General Tarek Saab asked the Supreme Tribunal of Justice to introduce these preventive measures against Guaido, who is the head of the National Assembly. US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that the United States condemns Venezuelan prosecutors for threatening Guaido, and he warned of "serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido".

Meanwhile, the US Department of State has granted Guaido the authority to take control of certain Venezuelan government assets. State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino emphasized on Tuesday that the certification would allow Venezuela's opposition leader to "safeguard" government assets for the benefit of the people of Venezuela.

The situation in Venezuela, which has been struggling to overcome a political crisis amid the opposition's refusal to recognize last year's re-election of President Nicolas Maduro, significantly escalated on Tuesday when the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared the president a usurper.

The very next day, Guaido proclaimed himself as Venezuelan interim president. In turn, Maduro accused Washington of attempting to organize a coup in Venezuela, declaring the decision to cut off diplomatic relations with the country.

Bolton announced Monday that the Trump administration was imposing sanctions against Venezuelan state-run oil giant PDVSA, adding that it will block $7 billion in PDVSA's assets. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that by blocking PDVSA assets, the United States is taking care of the company in the interests of the people of Venezuela and also taking measures to protect its own market.

In turn, Caracas has slammed the newly introduced restrictions against the country's energy sector as evidence of preparations for the coup attempt in Venezuela, vowing to take measures to protect its property, including by filing lawsuits in US courts.

The US treasury secretary has said PDVSA could be relieved from US sanctions if it commits to the expeditious transfer of control to Guaido.

 Sputnik
UNICEF Needs Nearly $4 Billion to Help 73 Million People

By Lisa Schlein January 29, 2019

The U.N. Children's Fund is launching its largest-ever appeal for $3.9 billion in life-saving assistance for 73 million people, including 41 million children affected by conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies in 59 countries.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.N. Children's Fund says 2019 also marks a year of heightened conflict, with more countries at war than at any time in the past three decades.

Among the greatest victims are more than 34 million children affected by conflict or disaster. UNICEF says they are suffering horrific levels of violence, deprivation and trauma with little access to protection and life-saving assistance.

UNICEF Director of Emergency Operations Manuel Fontaine says 88 percent of this year's appeal is for humanitarian crises driven by conflict. He says the single biggest operation is to help Syrian refugees, the largest displacement crisis in the world, and the host communities in five neighboring countries of asylum.

"The 2nd largest appeal is for Yemen, which over the past year has seen conditions, unfortunately, that were already catastrophic for children get even worse, if that is possible" Fontaine said. "Eight out of 10 children, which is over 11 million, now require humanitarian assistance in Yemen."

UNICEF's biggest operations traditionally have been in Africa. But this year the Democratic Republic of Congo places third, followed by Syria and South Sudan.

Fontaine says Africa unfortunately is the continent with the biggest gap in funding. He tells VOA African countries are not getting the attention they need, and that has serious consequences for humanitarian operations.

"In a country like Cameroon, which is one of the countries for which we have concerns, particularly in northwest and southwest region at the moment. We had aimed to immunize 61,000 children against measles and because of lack of resources, we could only immunize a bit more than 2,000," Fontaine said. "So, obviously, we are far behind what we need to do."

Fontaine says UNICEF has had to drastically cut back services for gender-based violence in Central African Republic because it only has received 36 percent of the money it needs. In all cases, he says funding shortfalls have very direct implications on the lives of children and women.
Venezuelan Opposition Leader Guaido Says Had Conversation With Trump

Sputnik News

09:06 29.01.2019(updated 09:20 29.01.2019)

BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) - The head of the opposition-led Venezuelan National Assembly and self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido, told the CNN broadcaster in Spanish that he had had a conversation with US President Donald Trump, during which the two politicians addressed the humanitarian situation in Venezuela.

"Yes, I have talked to the president [Trump] as well as other presidents in the region. Our conversation was focused on people, humanitarian situation [in Venezuela]", Guaido said late on 28 January.

The opposition leader added that they also discussed the "usurpation of power" in the country and the pressure that the Venezuelan authorities exercised on the rallying opposition.

On 15 January, the National Assembly declared incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, whose re-election last year it considers illegitimate, a usurper. On 23 January, Guaido proclaimed himself the country's interim president.

While dozens of countries around the world, including the United States, have recognized Guaido as acting Venezuelan president and called for a new presidential election, Maduro insists that he is the country's constitutional leader and accused Guaido of being a US puppet and said that Washington was organizing a coup in Venezuela.

 Sputnik
Venezuelan Oil Giant CEO Lambasts US Over Attempts to Seize US-Based Subsidiary

Sputnik News

09:26 29.01.2019(updated 09:33 29.01.2019)

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - The assets of Citgo, a US-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA, are not estimated at $7 billion, Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Maj. Gen. Manuel Quevedo, who heads PDVSA, said.

Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Maj. Gen. and Chief of Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA Manuel Quevedo said on Twitter that "Citgo is not valued at $7 billion" except a situation when Interim President Juan Guaido and his "charge d'affaires in Washington are trying to auction it as part of the payment".

Quevedo added that the United States had been trying to seize Citgo for many years, and called the blocking of PDVSA assets in the United States "a robbery" that is being accomplished with the help of the "treacherous action of the Venezuelan opposition".

The statement comes after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a day before accused the United States of attempting to "steal" Citgo and called the new US sanctions against PDVSA illegal. According to the president, Caracas will take measures to protect its property, including by filing lawsuits with US courts.

On 28 January, the United States blocked all PDVSA's assets under its jurisdiction and imposed a ban on deals with the company. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that by blocking PDVSA's assets, the United States is taking this step in the interests of the people of Venezuela and also to protect its own market. US National Security Adviser John Bolton has announced that the United States will block $7 billion worth of PDVSA's assets, while another $11 billion will be lost in terms of oil deliveries.

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Maduro is Not Protecting Russian, Chinese Investment - Venezuela's Guaido

Sputnik News

10:30 29.01.2019(updated 10:51 29.01.2019)

CARACAS (Sputnik) - Venezuela's self-proclaimed acting president and leader of the country's National Assembly, Juan Guaido, has told CNN in Spanish that incumbent Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, is not protecting Chinese and Russian investment in Venezuela.

"Russia and China definitely have their interests in Venezuela and billions in investment. Maduro, however is not protecting the investment", Guaido told the broadcaster.

According to the opposition leader, there are some states, China, Russia, Turkey and the United States, among others that want to see the crisis-torn country change.

"I have no doubt that some of these countries are among those who want to see changes in Venezuela", Guaido added.

The politician proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president on 23 January after the National Assembly declared Maduro a usurper since the opposition-led legislature, and a number of foreign states, continue to insist that the president was unfairly re-elected in 2018.

The United States and a number of Latin and Central American countries immediately backed Guaido as acting Venezuelan president, calling for new "fair" presidential elections to be organised in the country.

Maduro insists that he is the only constitutional Venezuelan leader and accuses Guaido of being a US puppet and Washington of organising a coup in Venezuela.

Such major powers as Russia and China, along with Turkey, have refused to support the Venezuelan opposition's move, backing Maduro as the country's legitimate president and demanding that other countries respect the principle of non-interference in Venezuela's internal affairs.

 Sputnik
Beijing Blasts New US Sanctions on Venezuela, Will Keep Cooperating With Caracas

Sputnik News

11:41 29.01.2019(updated 11:42 29.01.2019)

BEIJING (Sputnik) - China opposes the new unilateral sanctions the United States imposed on Venezuela and intends to maintain and develop cooperation with Caracas despite the restrictions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated.

"We oppose unilateral sanctions. History has shown that foreign intervention or sanctions complicate the situation and are not able to solve the problem," spokesman Geng Shuang said at a briefing.

China will continue to develop cooperation with Venezuela in different fields, Geng said.

The United States will have to bear responsibility for consequences of its sanctions that will lead to lower living standards of Venezuelans, the spokesman added.

The statements come after US National Security Adviser John Bolton announced on 28 January that the United States is imposing sanctions against Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA, adding that it will block $7 billion in PDVSA's assets.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in turn, accused the United States of an attempt to "steal" Citgo and called the new US sanctions against PDVSA illegal. According to the president, Caracas will take measures to protect its property, including by filing lawsuits with US courts.

 Sputnik
Russia Vows to Support Venezuela's Legitimate Authorities

Sputnik News

12:36 29.01.2019(updated 13:38 29.01.2019)

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the opposition in Venezuela is highly influenced by foreign forces and has been prohibited from contacting the government.

"The United States and its closest allies are creating the most serious obstacles to the possibility of international assistance in resolving the crisis in Venezuela", Lavrov said Tuesday.

The minister stressed that Moscow would do everything in its power to support the lawful authorities in Caracas. He also noted that the calls for open intervention in Venezuela were surging in the United States when addressing the recent news about National Security Adviser John Bolton holding a note with the words "5,000 troops to Colombia".

Bolton was earlier photographed with a yellow pad that raised questions about the White House's alleged plans to deploy US troops to Colombia, Venezuela's neighbour.

US Sanctions on Caracas

Lavrov has addressed the "cynical sanctions", imposed by the US on the Venezuelan petroleum company PDVSA, stressing that the move shall lead to the deterioration of the international financial system, based on the US dollar, and also provoke a conflict in Venezuela.

"The US, unfortunately, has experience in such illegitimate handling of other's money. Such freezing was applied at one time to Iraq, Libya, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama. In most cases, this freezing essentially resulted in the confiscation of assets from another government. The British authorities are doing the same thing now by arresting, and in fact confiscating, the gold reserves of Venezuela, which are stored in London", he stated.

The minister added that US companies operating in Venezuela had been excluded from the sanctions regime, highlighting that the US wanted to overthrow the government and also gain profits in Venezuela.

The situation in the Latin American country escalated last week after Juan Guaido, the speaker of the opposition-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly, declared himself the interim president. Washington and some other nations hastened to recognise him as the head of Venezuela, also introducing a new round of sanctions against Caracas. Other countries, including Russia, China, and Turkey, have vowed to back the legal government of President Nicolas Maduro.

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Guaido Says Venezuela Needs European Assistance to Rebuild  Reports

Sputnik News

13:19 29.01.2019

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido said the nation needed not just US but European and ultimately international aid to implement extensive reforms, in an interview with Sky News out Tuesday.

"I think it's not just about the help of the United States, it's ultimately at an international level. With European countries that are willing to help rebuild," he told the British news channel.

Guaido declared himself interim president at a protest in Caracas last week. He was backed by the United States, while several EU countries promised to follow suit if the Venezuelan government does not call a new presidential vote by this weekend.

Guaido described incumbent Nicolas Maduro, who still has the support of the working class and the military, as a usurper. He claimed he had received death threats, according to the outlet.

The self-declared president said he wanted Venezuela to have a healthy relationship with the rest of the world and develop its industry, most importantly energy. Venezuela commands the largest oil reserves on the planet.

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Guaido Says All Options in Venezuela on Table, Including Military - Reports

Sputnik News

14:55 29.01.2019(updated 19:09 29.01.2019)

A day earlier, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido had told the Colombian newspaper Tiempo that he hoped the United States wouldn't use force in Venezuela, but limit pressure to diplomatic and economic measures.

In an interview with CNN, self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela Juan Guaido said that the opposition movement in the country was capable of achieving a peaceful transition of power and free elections.

"We are sure we can achieve a peaceful transition  a transition and eventually free elections", Guaido said during the interview.

Last week, a political crisis in Venezuela escalated after Guaido, the head of the National Assembly, declared himself the country's interim president in a move that has been recognised by the United States, Canada, Israel, and a number of other countries.

Later on, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Spain announced their intention to recognise Guaido as interim president of the country if new elections are not announced in Venezuela within eight days.

In response, the country's President Nicolas Maduro accused Washington of orchestrating a coup in the Latin American country and said that Caracas was severing diplomatic ties with the United States.

 Sputnik
US Gives Venezuela's Opposition Leader Juan Guaido Control Over Some Assets

Sputnik News

16:35 29.01.2019(updated 17:29 29.01.2019)

The US announced Monday that it was introducing sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil giant PDVSA just a week after recognising the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the South American country's interim president.

Washington has certified the authority of Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido to control some assets held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other US-insured banks, the State Department announced on Tuesday.

"On 25 January, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo certified the authority of Venezuela's interim President Juan Guaido to receive and control certain property in accounts of the Government of Venezuela or Central Bank of Venezuela held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other US insured banks, in accordance with Section 25B of the Federal Reserve Act. [] This certification will help Venezuela's legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people", State Department spokesman Roberto Palladino said in a statement.

On Monday, US National Security Adviser John Bolton and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held a press conference to announce that the US had blocked all assets of Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA under its jurisdiction and banned deals with the firm.

Mnuchin, however, stressed that US companies would be allowed to go on purchasing Venezuelan oil, but the payments must be held in an account that cannot be accessed by the government of Nicolas Maduro.

"If the people in Venezuela want to continue to sell us oil, as long as that money goes into blocked accounts, we'll continue to take it. Otherwise we will not be buying it".

The legitimately elected Maduro has dismissed the sanctions as illegal, while PDVSA President and Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo slammed the restrictions as "a robbery" that is being accomplished with the help of the "treacherous action of the Venezuelan opposition".

The situation in the Latin American country escalated after Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president last week in a move swiftly recognised by the Trump administration.

Washington has been calling on the international community to follow suit, and urging Maduro to step aside in favour of a "legitimate leader reflecting the will of the Venezuelan people". Maduro, in turn, has accused Guaido of being a "puppet" and blasted the United States for orchestrating a coup.

Guaido has been recognised as Venezuela's interim president by the US, Canada, Israel, Georgia, Albania and a handful of Latin American countries, including Colombia, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Honduras, Argentina, etc. A number of European countries have signalled their intention to follow suit.

On the other hand, Russia, Turkey, China, Iran, Bolivia, El Salvador, Cuba, and Nicaragua are strongly supporting Maduro as the only legitimate head of state.

 Sputnik
Venezuelan Opposition Leader Guaido Vows to Win Over Military

Sputnik News

18:00 29.01.2019(updated 20:17 29.01.2019)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is optimistic he can woo the military, which remains loyal to President Nicolas Maduro.

"Between 75 and 80 percent of soldiers live like the rest of the population, in hunger and desperation  We have their support and I am convinced they will soon side with us", Guaido told German broadcaster ARD on Tuesday.

In an interview with ARD, Guaido confessed he had coordinated his self-proclamation with Washington but declined to say whether he supported a foreign invasion.

"We say clearly that we live under a dictatorship. The presidential palace must feel the pressure", he said in response to a question about possible military intervention.

Guaido declared himself interim president last week and was almost immediately recognised by the United States as Venezuela's legitimate leader. Other countries, including Russia, China, and Turkey, have vowed to back the legal government of President Nicolas Maduro.

 Sputnik
Buffalo, WY (82834)

Today

Showers this morning, becoming a steady rain during the afternoon hours. High around 60F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 48F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Venezuelan FM Says US Sanctions Expose Oil as Purpose of Coup Attempt

Sputnik News

18:32 29.01.2019

BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik)  Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza said Tuesday that US sanctions against Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA proved that the real purpose of the coup attempt in Venezuela is oil.

"Another proof in the dossier of the coup: yesterday, Washington's representatives, with the shamelessness that characterizes them, provided the world with concrete and irrefutable evidence of the sole and real purpose of this coup attempt in Venezuela: oil," Arreaza wrote on Twitter.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton announced on Monday that the United States was imposing sanctions against PDVSA, adding that it will block $7 billion in PDVSA's assets.

On January 21, mass protests started across Venezuela and lasted for several days. On Wednesday, head of the parliament Juan Guaido declared himself the country's interim president. Incumbent leader Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Washington has been orchestrating an anti-government coup in the country. Russia has stressed that it supported Maduro as the legitimate president.

 Sputnik
The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen: Joint efforts of the Coalition Command and the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen succeed in retrieving the Saudi Prisoner of War detained by the Houthi militia, and suffers from deteriorating health situation.

Saudi Press Agency

Tuesday 1440/5/23 - 2019/01/29

Riyadh, January 29, 2019, SPA -- Colonel Turki Al-Malki, the Official Spokesman of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, stated: "at (2145) this evening, the Saudi POW Private 1st class Mousa Bin Shou'i 'Awaji arrived at King Salman Air Base in Riyadh."

He added: "As a result of the joint efforts by the Joint Forces Command of the Coalition and SESGY Matin Griffiths, which ensued in the release of the Saudi POW detained by the Houthi militia, suffering from deteriorating health situation, and not receiving proper medical care by the Houthi militia, the Joint Forces Command of the Coalition has agreed to release (7) Houthi detainees in exchange for the Saudi POW detained by the Houthi militia. This reflects the resolve of the Joint Forces Command of the Coalition to retrieve the Saudi POW in accordance with the Third Geneva Convention, related to POWs, and humanitarian values and principles. The efforts to retrieve all POW Coalition forces are ongoing."

Colonel Al-Malki indicated that the detainee and POW negotiations do not receive due consideration by Houthi militia, and their intransigence has stood against the negotiations. As they attempt to acquire political or military gains with blatant disregard to the humanitarian aspect: "The Houthi militia is still imprisoning thousands of Yemeni people, including political, social and military leaderships. Foremost among them is Major General Mahmoud Al-Subaihi, former Yemeni Minister of Defense, whose immediate and unconditional release was included in UNSCR 2216 (2015)."

The Official Spokesman concluded his statement by extending the Joint Forces Command's thanks to SESGY Martin Griffiths and the ICRC for positively responding to its keenness in retrieving the POW, and considering his health condition, that requires medical care, which was not provided by the Houthi militia.

--SPA

22:11 LOCAL TIME 19:11 GMT

0027
U.S. Imposes Sanctions On State-Owned Venezuelan Oil Giant

By RFE/RL January 29, 2019

The United States has hit Venezuela's state-owned oil company with new economic sanctions, as Washington turns up the pressure on embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

The move, announced January 28, followed the decision by Washington, and a growing number of other countries, to no longer recognize Maduro as Venezuela's legitimate leader.

Venezuela is one of the world's largest oil producers, and the state-owned company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, has been a critical source of hard currency, bolstering Maduro's presidency even as the country has sunk into economic chaos.

The new sanctions don't ban U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil -- the U.S. market is Venezuela's largest export market.

However, the measures block U.S. companies from doing financial transactions with the company, known by its acronym, PDVSA.

That means that any payment for Venezuelan oil imports will go to blocked bank accounts, according to a statement issued by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

In a televised meeting with diplomats, Maduro criticized the U.S. move.

"These are illegal, immoral, criminal acts," news agencies quoted him as saying.

The move also has implications for Citgo, a U.S.-based company that is a subsidiary of PDVSA.

U.S. officials may seek to turn over control of PDVSA to allies of Juan Guaido, Maduro's rival and a prominent opposition figure whom Washington and other nations have recognized as Venezuela's leader.

If that happens, Maduro may stop paying back loans to the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft.

That in turn could prompt Rosneft to exercise a contract clause that would give it 49.9 percent control of Citgo.

With reporting by AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-venezuela-oil -company-sanctions/29737277.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Russia Vows To Do 'Everything' To Support Maduro, Criticizes U.S. Sanctions

By RFE/RL January 29, 2019

Russian officials have lashed out at the United States over the upheaval in Venezuela, vowing to support embattled President Nicolas Maduro and sharply criticizing Washington for imposing sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.

In comments on January 29, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of "publicly setting a course for illegal regime change" by recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president.

"Together with other responsible members of the world community, we will do everything to support the legal government of President Maduro in standing up for the Venezuelan Constitution," Lavrov said.

He did not outline any specific steps in support of Maduro's government.

In separate but almost simultaneous remarks, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman declined to comment when asked whether Russia would send military aid if the U.S. military gets involved in the crisis in Venezuela.

"It is inadmissable to discuss some sort of eventualities," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that the issue was "too sensitive."

His remarks came after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton appeared at a White House briefing on January 28 holding a notepad with the words "5,000 troops to Columbia" scribbled on the page, sparking speculation about U.S. intentions.

Two days earlier, Peskov sought to cast doubt on a Reuters news agency report that as many as 400 private Russian military contractors had been sent to bolster security for Maduro.

In his comments on January 29, Peskov also said that the U.S. sanctions against PDVSA amounted to illegal interference in Venezuela's internal affairs, and that Russia would use all the legal mechanisms at its disposal to protect its interests there.

The sanctions, imposed on January 28, prohibit PDVSA from collecting proceeds from crude oil sales to U.S. refineries, adding to the pressure on Maduro.

Bolton said on January 28 that the sanctions would cost Maduro $11 billion in lost export proceeds over the next year and block him from accessing PDVSA assets worth $7 billion.

In a defiant broadcast on national television later the same day, Maduro said he would take legal action to challenge the sanctions and defend Citgo Petroleum, PDVSA's U.S. refining subsidiary, which he accused the United States of trying to steal.

Russian state oil giant Rosneft, which operates in Venezuela and has issued loans to PDVSA, said that the company owed it $3.1 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2018.

The activity of Rosneft, headed by longtime Putin associate Igor Sechin, is a major element in Moscow's close ties with Venezuela.

Russia has poured money into the South American country, whose leaders have been deeply at odds with Washington since Maduro's predecessor, the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, came to power 20 years ago,

The Russian government and Rosneft have provided Venezuela with at least $17 billion in loans and credit lines since 2006, and a senior Russian official said on January 29 that Caracas will have trouble servicing its sovereign debt to Moscow.

"There will probably be problems. Everything now depends on the army, on the soldiers and how faithful they will be to their duty and oath. It is difficult, impossible to give a different assessment," Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told reporters.

The Venezuelan military has shown little or no sign of abandoning Maduro, but Bolton suggested that could change.

"Our assessment...is that the rank and file of the Venezuelan military is acutely aware of the desperate economic conditions in the country and we think they look for ways to support the National Assembly government," he said, referring to Guaido.

Guaido has rejected accusations from Maduro and Moscow that the United States is staging a coup, arguing that Venezuelan citizens are simply exercising their constitutional rights.

The head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president before thousands of supporters last week.

He has been recognized as the Latin American country's rightful leader by two dozen nations that say Maduro's May 2018 reelection was illegitimate because his strongest opponents were barred from running.

Meanwhile, the UN human rights office said that security forces in Venezuela detained about 850 people last week amid antigovernment protests, including nearly 700 on January 23.

Speaking in Geneva on January 29, rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said that more than 40 people are now believed to have been in killed "in different manners" amid the recent protests.

With reporting by Interfax, Reuters, TASS, AFP, AP, and USA Today

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia- everything-support-maduro-venezuelan- government/29739552.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
NATO, U.S. Officials Encouraged By Afghan Peace Talks After 'Draft Framework' Agreed

By RFE/RL January 29, 2019

NATO's chief and the acting head of the Pentagon said they were encouraged by the progress of peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, after the U.S. special envoy for the conflict-wracked country announced that American and Taliban negotiators had agreed on a draft "framework" for a peace deal seeking to put an end to the 17-year war there.

During a visit to Washington on January 28, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowed that the Taliban "will not win on the battlefield, so they have to sit down at the negotiating table."

"Therefore we are encouraged by what we see now, the progress... and talks with Taliban," he added.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan echoed that, saying "I'd say really the takeaway right now: it's encouraging."

Stoltenberg and Shanahan made the comments as Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, said that his five days of talks with Taliban negotiators in Qatar last week were "much better than previous meetings."

Khalilzad told Afghan reporters in Kabul that the sides "made progress on vital issues in our discussions and agreed to agreements in principle on a couple of very important issues."

"There is a lot more work to be done before we can say we have succeeded in our efforts but I believe for the first time I can say that we have made significant progress," he also said.

The Taliban has also said that "progress" had been made in the talks.

In an interview with The New York Times published earlier in the day, Khalilzad offered more details on the state of the negotiations with the militant group, saying the sides had agreed in principle to the "framework" of a deal.

Troop Withdrawal?

Under the framework, the militants would agree to prevent Afghan territory from being used by groups such as Al-Qaeda to stage terrorist attacks, Khalilzad said.

That could then lead to a full pullout of U.S. combat troops, but only in return for the Taliban's entering talks with the Afghan government and agreeing to a lasting cease-fire.

"We have a draft of the framework that has to be fleshed out before it becomes an agreement," Khalilzad told the newspaper in Kabul.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called on the Taliban to enter "serious" negotiations with the Kabul government and "accept Afghans' demand for peace."

"Either they join the great nation of Afghanistan with a united voice, or be the tool of foreign objectives," he said in a televised address.

Backed by Western nations, Ghani's government has struggled to fend off a resurgent Taliban and other militant groups.

The Taliban has so far refused to hold direct negotiations with Afghan government officials, whom they dismiss as U.S. "puppets." The militants have said they will only begin talks with the government once a firm date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops has been agreed.

U.S. officials have said President Donald Trump wants to withdraw about half of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Stoltenberg said it was too early to speculate about the number of NATO troops that would remain.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on January 26 that there was "progress" in the peace talks, but he denied earlier reports of an agreement on a cease-fire.

Until the withdrawal of international troops was hammered out, "progress on other issues is impossible," he said.

Another round of talks between the Taliban and the United States was tentatively set for February 25, the Reuters news agency reported.

With reporting by The New York Times, Reuters, and RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-us-afghan-peace- talks-taliban/29737284.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
'Hopeful Moment': What An 'Afghan-Led, Afghan-Owned' Peace Process Might Look Like

By Ron Synovitz January 29, 2019

After six days of talks in Qatar with Taliban representatives, the U.S. special envoy on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, announced on January 28 that an agreement had been reached on a "framework" peace process to end the 17-year Afghan war.

Khalilzad said the agreement calls for the Taliban to prevent international terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan and for the United States to withdraw its forces from the country.

RFE/RL spoke with Graeme Smith, an Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group, about what the implications of the development are for an Afghan-led peace process.

RFE/RL: Despite agreeing to a "framework" for future peace talks, the Taliban has yet to make concessions on two key U.S. demands -- implementing a cease-fire and agreeing to negotiate directly with Afghan government representatives as part of an Afghan-led, intra-Afghan peace process. Can these key issues be resolved?

Graeme Smith: The Taliban appears now to be considering whether it is prepared to make such concessions. A major unanswered question is how to structure an intra-Afghan dialogue. It's also unclear what the Taliban will accept on timing and sequencing. Do they see dialogue with the Kabul government starting before a foreign troop withdrawal? Or only later, after a U.S. troop withdrawal is under way that diminishes the leverage of the Afghan government and the United States?

There's a lot of anxiety around the peace process. It's completely understandable. So much is happening. So much could go wrong. But this is, in some ways, a hopeful moment. There is an opportunity here to end the largest war in the world and bring to a conclusion America's longest war.

RFE/RL: Khalilzad, the U.S. peace envoy, says the Taliban has agreed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a "platform for international terrorist groups." Would the Taliban be capable of doing that?

Smith: If there was a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government, it would be extremely bad news for any other militant groups. There are hundreds of battles on an annual basis between the Taliban and the Islamic State [extremist group]. The Islamic State would be very afraid of a Taliban that wasn't distracted by fighting Americans or Afghan government forces and could focus its attention on slaughtering the Islamic State.

RFE/RL: The Taliban's complex and secretive structure is not necessarily a unified hierarchy across the local, provincial, regional, and national levels. Does the Taliban's political office in Qatar have the clout to hold sway over local Taliban commanders in battlefields across Afghanistan?

Smith: We got a hint of how the Taliban works in June of 2018 when there was a three-day cease-fire. It was amazing to see the Taliban put out, essentially, a press release -- just a quick statement. It went out over their messaging apps and other channels. Commanders did not know this was coming. Out of the blue, they got instructions from the Taliban leadership for a three-day cessation of violence. Then, all across the country, the guns went silent. It was amazing. From hundreds of kilometers apart, these different Taliban groups all respected their leadership and stopped fighting. Then, at sunset on the third day, when the Taliban leadership said it was time to resume fighting -- boom! It was like a thunderclap. The violence came back.

You can argue night and day about how unified the Taliban is. The fact is that their command-and-control works. And the Taliban political commission in Qatar is part of that. So there is an ability to make people follow a cease-fire order if that order comes down.

RFE/RL: Is there a risk that less moderate Taliban might continue fighting or even join other militant groups like Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State?

Smith: The Islamic State is a very small fraction of the militant presence in Afghanistan. Only 2 percent to 5 percent of the violent incidents in Afghanistan are attributable to Islamic State. In other words, if you're concerned about violence in Afghanistan, you're not that concerned about the Islamic State. The Taliban is responsible for more than 90 percent of the militant activity. Islamic State has a presence in just a handful of districts in the east -- primarily in Nangarhar Province and Kunar Province. And there is just a minor presence of other militant groups. I don't know why we're even talking about it.

RFE/RL: The Taliban has been comparing the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan to what it calls recent Taliban "military and political" victories against U.S.-led coalition forces. Are there useful lessons in such comparisons?

Smith: Unfortunately, there's not a lot that we can learn from all the comparisons being thrown around to the Soviet withdrawal and to the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. So much is different now. Things have changed dramatically. The lesson we can learn from the Soviet withdrawal is that you need a peace agreement that sticks. Otherwise, just like we saw in 1992 after the Soviet withdrawal -- after the Afghan government was cut off from its subsidies from Moscow -- the government collapsed and the country was torn apart by multifactional civil warfare. Nobody wants to go back to that.

So maybe the only useful lesson from that time is the lingering threat that if this peace process doesn't work, things are going to turn out badly for everybody.

RFE/RL: What is significant about the appointment of a new leader for the Taliban's "political commission" in Qatar, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar?

Smith: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar co-founded the Taliban. He's from southern Afghanistan and he's part of a tight-knit group of Kandaharis who started the whole movement in the early 1990s. [Like former Afghan President Hamid Karzai,] he is a Popalzai tribesman. So he brings a significant amount of political clout, but also a strong military mind, to the negotiating team.

Baradar was appointed last week as the third deputy leader of the Taliban with special responsibilities for the political office in Qatar. That effectively makes him the chief negotiator on behalf of the Taliban. When you see a party to a negotiation appointing more senior people to a negotiating team, it signals that things are escalating and getting to the next level of talks.

Pakistan had imprisoned Bardar in 2010, and released him only last October as U.S. negotiating efforts began to gain traction. Pakistan's decision to free Baradar as part of a confidence-building measure and prelude to these talks signals that Pakistan has decided to take a more constructive role in this round of negotiations.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/interview-what -an-afghan-led-afghan-owned-peace-process -might-entail/29740150.html

Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
'Alert Venezuela!' Maduro says US stealing oil revenue

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 06:54AM

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has lashed out at the United States over new unilateral sanctions imposed on the Latin American country's oil sector, vowing to take legal action in response to the move.

The administration of US President Donald Trump announced a new round of sanctions against oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in order to funnel income from the country's main oil exporter into the hands of opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Guaido, who declared himself "interim president" last week, was immediately recognized as Venezuela's rightful leader by Washington and its allies.

In a live national broadcast on Monday, Maduro said Washington "intend[s] to steal the company Citgo from all Venezuelans," referring to the PDVSA's US subsidiary, which Guaido also has an eye on.

"(Be on) alert Venezuela, the United States today has decided to go down the path of stealing the company Citgo from Venezuela and it's an illegal path," he said.

Maduro also described the sanctions as "illegal, unilateral, immoral, (and) criminal."

Caracas to take legal action

He said that the firm is "already studying [legal counter-]actions and we from PDVSA will take all the legal, political, operative, technical, and commercial measures to defend the interests of Venezuela in the United States."

The Venezuelan president also vowed to "give the necessary, symmetrical and forceful response to defend the interests of Venezuela, at the right time."

Citgo Petroleum operates three refineries in the US.

Only moments before the announcement of the sanctions, Guaido said he had ordered the opposition-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly  which is not recognized by the state  to nominate executive boards for PDVSA and Citgo to "guarantee that Citgo continues to be for Venezuelans."

"From this moment forward we are beginning to take progressive and orderly control of our republic's assets abroad," Guaido wrote in a statement on his Twitter account.

'You will be responsible!'

In his Monday broadcast, Maduro also warned Trump against attempting to topple his government, saying that the US president would be held responsible for any violence that would erupt in the country as a result.

"You are the one responsible even though you don't show your face," Maduro said. "You are responsible even though you send [National Security Adviser] John Bolton, [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo , [Vice President] Mike Pence."

"You will have your hands full of blood if you bring Venezuela to partial or generalized violence," Maduro said.

Bolton said at a briefing on Monday that the sanctions would cost Caracas $11 billion in lost export proceeds over the next year and block Maduro from accessing PDVSA assets worth $7 billion.

Maduro in response accused Bolton of openly calling for a coup from Washington.

Guaido claimed earlier that he was involved in talks with military and civilian officials in Venezuela "behind the scenes" to convince them to defect. He also called for massive rallies to demand Maduro's ouster.

'Soldiers ready to die for homeland'

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino took to Twitter to respond, saying that the soldiers of the country "are not going to hand it over! We are ready to die for it!"

"It is time for revolutionary, Bolivarian, patriotic activism," Padrino tweeted. "This is the activism that today empowers us in this new phase of defending our homeland."

The army has remained loyal to the elected government of Maduro amid the political crisis.

China warns US of sanctions' consequences

Meanwhile, China has reacted to the US sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector, saying Washington bears responsibility for the consequences of the measures.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement on Tuesday that historical experience showed foreign interference "only makes situations more complicated."

"The relevant country's sanctions on Venezuela will lead to the deterioration of conditions of people's lives," Geng said.

Beijing has already criticized Washington for recognizing Guaido as "interim president."

Russia says will take necessary steps in support of Maduro

Separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington's sanctions "illegal," saying the Kremlin would take all necessary steps to support the elected government of President Maduro.

He was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying on Tuesday that the sanctions amounted to an attempt by the Trump administration to confiscate Venezuelan state assets.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also described the sanctions as an act of open interference by the US in the oil-rich country.

He said Moscow was assessing the impact on Russia of the measures and intended to use all legal mechanisms at its disposal to protect its interests in the South American country.

'Venezuela faces economic war because of its oil'

In an interview with Press TV, independent economic researcher Pye Ian referred to the West's biased media coverage of the developments in Venezuela and said that that reportage was a "psychological projection" of the position of Western governments.

Ian said Western media "paint the picture of Venezuela as this politically and economically isolated, poverty-stricken... [country] vindictively oppressing its own people."

"The fact is that Venezuela sits on 301 billion barrels of oil," he said, adding that this is "certainly relevant to that paint and press portrait as well as certainty to the ongoing economic and currency wars against Caracas."

'Americans unaware of real history of Venezuela, South America'

Scott Richard, a former American intelligence linguist who also spoke to Press TV about the crisis in Venezuela, said many people in the US were "unaware of the real history in Venezuela" due to the education they receive in the American school system.

He said the US has overthrown governments over 60 times in South America alone, adding that, "This is a sad story for the United States, our continuously sad story; and certainly there is no end to it."
Yemen targets Southern S. Arabia with missile

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Jan 29, IRNA -- Yemen has fired 6 'Zelzal-1' missiles toward Saudi forces' positions in Najran, southern Saudi Arabia.

Four missiles targeted Saudi military forces in Al-Sadis, the Yemeni media 'Al-Masirah' quoted a military source as saying.

He added that two 'Zelzal-1' missiles and one Katyusha rocket also hit Saudis' positions in Al-Baqa desert in Najran.

Meanwhile, explosion of a military car in Al-Jasher has resulted in killing some Saudi forces.

This is while explosion of a bomb in Mocha city, Taiz Province claimed the lives of at least six Yemenis and injured 20 more.

According to Russian media 'Sputnik', the incident happened due to the explosion a bomb-laden motorcycle near a restaurant.

Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Since then, the invaders have committed horrible war crimes against Yemeni civilians.

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2451 to support the Stockholm Agreement on deployment of a team in order to facilitate monitoring and implementing the Agreement and establishing truce in important Yemeni ports.

The resolution mainly focuses on sending essential commodities to the Yemeni people, supporting the Stockholm Agreement, assigning the Secretary-General of the United Nations to implement it and observing the ceasefire.

The fourth round of Yemen peace talks kicked off in Stockholm, Sweden on December 6 with the attendance of the UN special envoy Martin Griffith and the government representatives. It agreed to establish truce in Yemeni ports of al-Hudaydah, al-Salif and Ayn Issa.



9376**1771
Jan. 29, 2019

News

By Jim Garamone

Defense.gov

Dunford Welcomes Thai Counterpart for Talks on Military Relationship

FORT MYER, Va. -- Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hosted a welcome ceremony for his counterpart from Thailand at Conmy Hall here today.

Dunford and Thai Chief of Defense Forces Army Gen. Ponipaat Benyasri will hold discussions on the military-to-military relationship between the longtime allies.

Thailand will host the 38th iteration of Exercise Cobra Gold next month. The exercise, the largest of its kind in Asia, is a centerpiece of military cooperation in the region. U.S. service members will participate in this year's exercise alongside service members from 28 other nations.

The United States put a hold on military-to-military contacts with Thailand following a military coup in May 2014. The contacts were re-energized last year when Dunford visited Thailand after the Thai government scheduled free elections to be held in March.

Two Centuries of Friendship

The United States and Thailand are treaty allies. U.S. officials first established contacts in 1818 with what was then the kingdom of Siam, and the Southeast Asian nation has been a friend ever since.

The two military leaders will discuss conditions in the region and ways to strengthen the rules-based international order that has so benefitted Indo-Asian nations, Joint Staff officials said, adding that Thailand is a prime example of what the rules-based system established in the wake of World War II can mean. It was the first nation in the region to develop and maintain a middle class, they noted.

Thailand has excellent military capabilities and a robust exchange program with the United States military, officials said, adding that the Thai military also operates a plethora of American equipment.
Jan. 29, 2019

Transcript

Press Operations

Off-Camera Press Briefing in the Pentagon Briefing Room

Acting Secretary Of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan

ACTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PATRICK SHANAHAN: So, I think this is technically my first month in this acting role. I think we're going to do this on the record, right? Isn't that what we want to do?

STAFF: Correct.

MR. SHANAHAN: First of all, I think, Barbara, you said last month, why don't we use the nice room that we have to conduct and hold these meetings? So we'll do that.

And I think one of the other things that we talked about doing as well is setting up some smaller sessions for you so we can go into some deeper discussions on a number of either policy areas or, you know, subjects that are getting lots of attention. So what I thought I'd do today is maybe make a minute or two of remarks and then we can do Q&A.

So first of all, it's day 29. The terrain is not different or new. I spent the better part of 18 months, if you will, sitting in the right seat of the cockpit with Secretary Mattis in the left seat. So most of the material, the subject matter and the interactions are with people and subjects that are very, very familiar.

What's probably different is, you know, to a certain degree, much more interaction with Cabinet members. I see Chairman Dunford quite a bit more. Certainly more interaction with the president. And then a lot of discussions, and you know, some bilateral, but a lot of phone calls with my counterparts, whether it's in Europe or Asia.

No change to the priorities, no change to the strategy. It's really, you know, go faster on the implementation and the execution.

If there's a benefit of transitioning from the deputy role into this acting role, it's that in the deputy role, I was able to see some of the seams in the organization. And in this role, as I kind of rebalance my time, I think what you'll find is I'll probably travel less, but I'll look to shore up some of those seams and drive more integration between the services and the combatant commands, and then how we balance our time with Russia and China.

So maybe I'll stop and we'll do some Q&A. Lita?

Q: Mr. Secretary, thank you.

You, sort of, mentioned something about going fast. I'm wondering if you could bring us up to date on the withdrawal plans for Syria. We were told a while back some equipment has come out, but things seem to have slowed and stalled. And can you just tell us what that picture looks like --

MR. SHANAHAN: Sure.

Q: -- have troops or are they about to start coming out?

And then just a quick -- a quick other thing, are there other plans to send any troops to the South America region in or around Colombia, Venezuela? Or have you gotten any direction or have you heard anything about doing that?

MR. SHANAHAN: Good, Good.

So let's talk about Syria for a couple of minutes.

So, you know, maybe the way I'd frame that is in terms of the withdrawal, early stages, okay. So we are on a deliberate, coordinated, disciplined withdrawal.

And then when you think about Syria -- I would segment it, there's lots of pieces there, but it's really northeast Syria, and the MERV. If you'll let me just talk about the MERV portion of this first and then we'll characterize the more complicated piece being northeast Syria.

But, you know, just in terms of things that are happening or not happening, so ISIS is no longer able to govern in Syria. ISIS no longer has freedom to mass forces. Syria is no longer a safe haven. We've eliminated the majority of their leadership. We've significantly diminished their financial capabilities. So when you look at their -- you know, used to be their much-vaunted social media, that's been decimated. And, you know, if you look at the activity online there's a lot of confusion. They no longer hold key territory. And they no longer control significant population centers.

If we wind the clock back two years, I'd say 99.5 percent plus of the ISIS-controlled territory has been returned to the Syrians. Within a couple weeks, it'll be 100 percent.

The way I would probably, you know, characterize the military operations that we've conducted in Syria is that the risk of terrorism and mass migration has been significantly mitigated.

Now, there's more work to do, but let me maybe shift to comments on northeastern Syria, a complicated border. On one side of the boarder you have about 3.5 million refugees. On the other side you have significant internally displaced people.

The lots of mil-to-mil conversations, State Department conversation -- I think Ambassador Jeffery is in the region as we speak.

The mil-to-mil conversations have been very strong with our coalition partners. Those conversations have translated into discussions with their senior diplomats and politicians, and there are very important dialogues going on in major capitals in Europe about support to that portion of Syria, as well as some very important discussions with our SDF counterparts there in northeastern Syria.

The discussions hold real promise. Underscore the "real" part. Obviously lots of contentious issues, but, you know, the people that are working them, I have high confidence in.

Now, you know, maybe just kind of leaning forward, like, what's next? I mean, there's obviously more work to do. The phase that this moves to is, how do you sustain local security? You know, that's where the support of the coalition, that's where these partnerships are so critical.

You know, long term, eradicating extremism. I mean, that's hopefully in my lifetime, we'll be able to say that we've achieved that result.

And then maybe if we just shift to Venezuela, obviously, State and Treasury are taking a significant number of steps to recognize the National Assembly and President Guaido. We are supporting, we're monitoring the situation very carefully and we're watching. And we are working very much in real time, so.

Let me -- Barbara?

Q: I want to ask -- I have a question I want to ask, but first --

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah.

Q: -- may I just ask you briefly what you meant by "the Pentagon is supporting"? What are you doing?

But then I have --

(CROSSTALK)

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah, no, no.

The supporting role is, as you can imagine, the interagency, led by the National Security Council and Ambassador Bolton, created a number of options. We support them with their policy development.

And as the situation in Venezuela evolves, we're there to give them advice and counsel and support.

Q: I wanted to ask you, in your opening remarks, you spoke about how you spend more time with President Trump now. And I wanted to ask you about that relationship.

We all know that there is a broad policy that the U.S. military does not engage in partisan political activity, that you are shielded from that. We know that as a broad policy.

But when President Trump came here several days ago, he made some remarks that got attention, when he engaged in partisanship before a military audience here, saying that the party -- meaning the Democrats -- and I'm quoting, "have been hijacked by the open-borders fringe within the party, the radical left becoming the radical Democrats."

As secretary, is it appropriate for the president to engage in that kind of partisan rhetoric before a military audience? How do you then lead the policy that the military should not be involved in partisan activity? Are you prepared to say to the president, "Don't do it in front of a military audience"?

MR. SHANAHAN: You know, I think all of us and I include every one of us in this room -- it's been a longstanding responsibility of the department as well, is to not politicize the military.

And why that is so important is that we recruit from all parts of the United States. I mean, this is an all-volunteer force. So, yeah, I take your comments seriously, that we work to keep this a non-political environment and stay focused on our job of defending the country.

Q: But as we enter a political cycle with the 2020 election and the president engages in that in this building and you had someone wave a red hat, are you prepared to say --

MR. SHANAHAN: I don't recall anybody wearing --

Q: There is videotape.

MR. SHANAHAN: Okay. I --

Q: Yeah. But nonetheless, I think people --

MR. SHANAHAN: I think we're --

Q: When are you prepared to, perhaps, say to the president, "No"? Are you ever prepared to do that?

MR. SHANAHAN: I'm always prepared to give the president feedback.

Q: On this subject?

MR. SHANAHAN: I'm always prepared to give the president feedback. That's what he asks me to do. That's my job, okay?

Where's Mosheh?

Mosheh, how are you, sir?

Q: Good.

MR. SHANAHAN: Good morning.

Q: Good morning. Could you give us an update on where things stand in Afghanistan?

MR. SHANAHAN: Sure. Absolutely.

How are we doing so far? Everybody okay? Good? All right.

So, let's see. Afghanistan. You know, first, maybe a shout-out to General Miller, the coalition forces there and then the Afghan National Security Forces. I mean, they have been doing a tremendous job.

I would say there's no change to the 4R-plus-S plan. Remember? Realign, reinforce, regionalize, reconcile -- I think that's what we're seeing now, the reconcile piece -- and then, obviously, sustainment. I just emphasize no change to the 4Rs-plus-S.

I'll say a change recently has been the discussions between Ambassador Khalilzad and the Taliban. Obviously State has the lead there, and -- and we're supporting.

Yesterday I said, you know, the talks were encouraging. I would just add to that, that we have to give people time. So I'm -- you know, there's -- you know, I picked up the newspaper today and it was all, well, "Here are the things that can't happen." I think we have to look at it as, "What are the possibilities?"

You know, there is, a new level of energy. There's -- the reconciliation portion of our 4R-plus-S is working. Now we need to give the diplomats time and space to advance those conversations. I don't think there's any magic there, but it's time and it's space.

Q: Mr. Secretary?

MR. SHANAHAN: Yes, sir?

Q: I want to ask you about troops along the Mexican border. Adam Smith, the congressman, the Armed Services Committee chair, is holding hearings this morning on that issue. He said using active troops is not a good idea along the border. And your reaction to that.

And also, we keep hearing that thousands more active troops will be heading to the border to complete the efforts to shore up the 160 miles of fencing. If you could comment on that.

MR. SHANAHAN: Sure, absolutely.

You know, I've had lots of conversations with Chairman Smith. I think -- I mean, I know, you know, the conversations have been this way. He wants to ensure that there's transparency and oversight in his role. He also has emphasized the importance of really being able to understand the policy behind the movement of people to the border, the role of the military in support of the Department of Homeland Security.

So when we look at the role, it is a support role. So it's not about undertaking a law enforcement position.

Our activity to date has really been, you know, logistics, medical. Some, I'd call it construction, but the laying -- the installation of the concertina wire.

Then there's what I would consider, you know, more of a traditional capability of monitoring, surveilling and detecting. So this is the enhanced capability that we provide to DHS.

Most recently, DHS has asked us to support them in additional concertina wire, and then expanded surveillance capability. And we've responded with, you know, "Here's how many people it would take, and this is the timing we'd be able -- timing and mix of the people to support that."

Q: How many people (inaudible) --

MR. SHANAHAN: Several thousand. I'll leave it at that number.

Q: And just quickly on Adam Smith, he's questioning whether active troops should be used at all. He's saying it's just not a good idea.

MR. SHANAHAN: I, what, you know, he's been asking is, "Help us understand the policy." And the policy gets at, I think, what you're describing at, does it address border security? And I think at 10 o'clock, Secretary -- Under Secretary Rood and Admiral Gilday from the Joint Staff will be up to answer questions.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: (inaudible) question?

MR. SHANAHAN: Sure.

Q: If a national emergency is declared for the border, how would that affect DOD?

MR. SHANAHAN: So I would ask all of you, maybe, to go back and do some homework on this.

We've declared, you know, for the last decade or so, a number of national emergencies. So it's not that this is something that's unique and unprecedented.

How it affects us is that, the president would declare a national emergency, and then we would do the planning and make a recommendation as to how the military could support the request.

It's really, what is -- what is the military response? And I think this goes back along the lines of, what are things that we're inherently good at?

I mean, obviously we have capacity when it comes to, you know, aviation or medical. But it's really around this mission of monitoring, surveilling and detection.

Now, if we detect activity, then that's when we notify Customs and Border Patrol -- or Border Protection. And then they do their apprehension -- perform their apprehension responsibilities.

Q: But what about -- if I could just follow up -- Jamie McIntyre with the Washington Examiner -- what about the use of military construction funds that would normally go to other important projects, being diverted to -- for construction of border barriers?

MR. SHANAHAN: Right.

So in -- if a national emergency is declared, there is a section, 2808, and within that is language that says -- and I'll paraphrase here, but the language is pretty simple. I wish I had it in front of me. But it basically says, you know, to enhance the capability of the military, military construction funds can be utilized. It's really basically that simple.

So if the military was deployed and there was an ability to enhance their capabilities, then military construction funds, there's authority to utilize them.

Q: Do you have several billion dollars that you could reprogram for that purpose?

MR. SHANAHAN: The money that we have assigned for military construction was appropriated for specific tasks. So those have already been allocated and assigned to certain missions and requirements.

Q: Hi.

MR. SHANAHAN: Let me just (inaudible) -- hold on, I want to let -- we'll come back to you.

Sandra? Where's Sandra?

Hi, Sandra? How are you?

Q: Thank you.

MR. SHANAHAN: You wanted to talk about space. I know you guys were just dying to talk about space.

(Laughter.)

Q: Well, tell -- can you give us an update on Space Command? Have you made a decision on where it's going to be located, who's going to be the commander, all those formalities? Has that been decided?

MR. SHANAHAN: So we do have a person that we're going to move through in terms of who would lead the Space Command. I'm not going to mention the individual's name, but that -- that is moving its way through the process.

I think if I was to give you an update, I will -- you know, because I won't be traveling as much, when I think about using my time, the space effort is an area where I'll continue to work with Secretary Griffin as well as Dr. Wilson.

And just -- just so you can get a sense of what the -- I think the -- you know, major discussion points or issues or, where the focus will be, internally, it's how do we go faster with delivering capability? That part's been pretty consistent when we've had these conversations.

When I go up on the Hill and talk to members about, you know, where they have concerns or where their interests are, they're very focused on how do -- and this is where their expertise is -- how do we not grow a bureaucracy? How do we not generate unnecessary cost?

And so when we talk about the Space Force, and I think about the discussions we're going to have over the next, you know, five, six months, it's going to be small -- as small as possible footprint. That's why it's -- you know, recommended it sits underneath the Air Force. But then how do we go faster with the development and leveraging of commercially available technology, okay?

(CROSSTALK)

Q: Two follow-ups, actually. Afghanistan and then Venezuela.

On Afghanistan, for years we've been told and we've heard it's going to be an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process. What's happening now excludes the Afghan government.

And so I was wondering if you could help us understand this apparent about-face and why so much trust is now being placed with the Taliban in these negotiations.

MR. SHANAHAN: You know, I'll give you an unsatisfactory answer, in that let's let Ambassador Khalilzad roll out his framework and strategy. And, you know, this is really State-led.

I'll go back to the earlier point. There are some very encouraging possibilities. But we need to -- we need to give them time and space before we, in our rush to close certain doors.

Q: Okay. And then if I could just follow up on -- on Colombia.

Yesterday, Ambassador Bolton had a notepad that said, "5,000 troops to Colombia." Can you -- is -- is --

MR. SHANAHAN: I didn't bring a notepad today.

(Laughter.)

Q: You did?

Is one of -- you earlier mentioned that, you know, the -- I think you mentioned the Treasury and State Department, obviously, leading. But is one of the options that you've presented the NSC or the president, a brief deployment of troops to Colombia in a support role?

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah, I haven't discussed that with Secretary Bolton.

Q: There's no plan to send thousands of troops to Colombia?

MR. SHANAHAN: I haven't discussed that with Secretary Bolton.

Yeah?

(CROSSTALK)

Q: On Afghanistan --

Q: Did you discuss it with someone else?

MR. SHANAHAN: Tim, first, Tony?

Q: You're not ruling it out.

Q: (inaudible)

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah, sure.

Q: Does the title of "acting" impose a burden on your credibility, that you would have to diminish?

And I had a second one, you're seen in some quarters as the man from Boeing, and that this company's well-positioned. You call the F-35 -- P.G. version -- "fouled up" --

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah.

Q: -- and that Boeing could have done a better job. Can you just address both of those issues?

The acting, and the man from Boeing.

MR. SHANAHAN: Yeah, no. So far, at least in the interactions I've had, "acting" hasn't made a difference. And then I -- you know, and part of it is, a lot of the people that I've been working with have been in a previous capacity. So, they know that I'm more than capable of, you know, doing the work and making the right kinds of decisions.

In terms of, am I -- you know, still wearing a Boeing hat, I have enormous confidence -- and this is back earlier, some of the, you know, comments about the -- you know, our ethics agreements and ethics offices. I think that's just noise.

Q: Well, could I ask you --

MR. SHANAHAN: Sure.

Q: -- what is your current view, though, on the F-35? That -- that came up as an example of you being biased toward Boeing.

MR. SHANAHAN: Oh. I am biased towards performance. I am biased towards giving the taxpayer their money's worth. And the F-35 unequivocally I can say has a lot of opportunity for more performance.

STAFF: So we've got time for just one more question.

MR. SHANAHAN: Okay.

Phil

Q: Mr. Secretary, I wonder, are you operating under the assumption that you're going to stay in this job indefinitely? How are you thinking through limits on your (inaudible) position? And do you believe -- some people say you can only stay in the position without being nominated for 210 days. Do you subscribe to that?

MR. SHANAHAN: I haven't spent any time thinking about, you know, some of those either rules or constraints.

I mean, my mom sends me this little pray icon in the morning.

It's really whatever the president of the country would like me to do, that's what I'm prepared to do. And every day, I get up and focus on the task at hand.

STAFF: Thank you all.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: -- not ruling out the Colombia issue -- the Colombia thing, though? I want to make sure we understood you.

MR. SHANAHAN: What I want to do is close with Jeff.

Q: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

I was just hoping to get some clarity on your answer about Colombia. Are you saying that is not an option on the table?

MR. SHANAHAN: I said that I didn't speak with Secretary Bolton about it.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: Did you speak with someone else about it?

Q: You're not ruling it out?

Q: You're not ruling it out?

MR. SHANAHAN: I'm not commenting on it, okay? All right.

(CROSSTALK)

Q: Can I make one quick thing, (inaudible) for doing this in the briefing room. But on behalf of TV, if you would consider on-camera in the briefing room? I know this is your first one, but if you'd consider on-camera --

(CROSSTALK)

MR. SHANAHAN: -- you know, I think what -- what Barbara asked us to do, like we have a room. Let's use the room.

I -- what I'd -- where I'd like to be is, on a regular basis. And then we can bring in, also, experts.

I mean, look, you guys have an important job to do and we want to help you do that job. And I think it's my responsibility to make sure, in this department, we learn how to communicate.

There's going to be, you know -- it's tricky.

(CROSSTALK)

(Laughter.)

MR. SHANAHAN: You suggested -- you know, believe it or not, I -- I listened quite well. But --

Q: Did you tell other people?

(CROSSTALK)

MR. SHANAHAN: (inaudible), look, I'm very sympathetic to the -- to the important job that you have.

We want to tell our story. It's important we learn how to do that. And we'll work harder.

I'd like -- my mom would prefer to do it on camera.

Q: Mom's always right.

(Laughter.)

MR. SHANAHAN: Thank you, all. Very much. Thank you.

https://dod.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1743317/
Campus News

UB Libraries exhibit recalls history of civil rights activism on campus

This section of the "Revolution" exhibit in the Silverman Library features a timeline of events occurring throughout Buffalo and across the nation during the civil rights movement. Photo: Douglas Levere

By MARCENE ROBINSON

Part of the campus knows this history, but there is so much that has been forgotten. It is important that we both learn from and be inspired by our history. We have a responsibility to our legacy and to the people who spoke up to create a better environment for all of us. 

Long before the Distinguished Speakers Series, UB was a destination for powerful figures in the civil rights and political movements of the 1960s-70s, hosting influential guests that ranged from Malcolm X to Muhammad Ali.

The university will revisit this era through a new exhibit, Revolution: Civil Rights at UB, 1960-75, an array of visual displays in libraries across the campuses that document the social transformation that occurred on campus and across Buffalo.

The main exhibit will feature a 24-foot-by-4-foot structure in the Silverman Library in Capen Hall on the North Campus that showcases five transcendent leaders who visited UB: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Shirley Chisholm and Cesar Chavez. The wall will also include audio recordings of speakers and a timeline of events occurring throughout Buffalo and across the nation during the civil rights movement.

Portraits of prominent figures of the era also will be on display in the Health Sciences Library in Abbott Hall on the South Campus, and a civil rights-themed book display will be exhibited in Lockwood Memorial Library on the North Campus. In addition, a series of oral histories collected from faculty, staff, alumni and members of the Buffalo community who were engaged in activism during the period will become available online following the spring semester.

The project is a collaboration between the UB Office of Inclusive Excellence, UB Libraries and UB Honors College.

An opening reception will be held at 4 p.m. Feb. 5, in Silverman Library.

The reception will occur three weeks prior to human rights activist and author Angela Davis third visit to UB, this time as the 43rd annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Keynote Speaker of the Distinguished Speakers Series on Feb. 27.

As a historian, I am struck by UBs incredibly rich and important history of students, faculty and staff who have fought for justice and civil rights, says Despina Stratigakos, vice provost for inclusive excellence. The 1960-70s for UB was this period of incredible engagement around issues of social justice, she says, noting that UB was known as the Berkeley of the East because of that engagement.

Part of the campus knows this history, but there is so much that has been forgotten. It is important that we both learn from and be inspired by our history. We have a responsibility to our legacy and to the people who spoke up to create a better environment for all of us.

UB during the 1960-70s frequently made national headlines for the protests held by students and faculty. At the time a single campus along Main Street in Buffalo, the university was a hotbed of activism and demonstrations regarding civil rights, womens rights, politics and the Vietnam War.

One powerful myth that this exhibit can help challenge is that the civil rights movement was something that happened somewhere else, and that Buffalonians were simply observers, adds Victoria Wolcott, professor of history and an expert on race and civil rights in the U.S.

Buffalo had its own ongoing racial struggles that directly interacted with the national civil rights and Black Power movements. It was likely these struggles that spurred student groups to invite major movement figures to campus.
National Guard Soldiers outsmart the beast of winter during Operation Raider Lightning

By Sgt. Sarah Kirby January 29, 2019

BEMOWO PISKIE, Poland -- Once again, Soldiers with the Tennessee Army National Guard's 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, prove to be stronger than the weather and circumstance surrounding them as they train through a vicious winter snowstorm at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland.

For the past two weeks, these Soldiers who are presently assigned to NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), Battle Group Poland (BGPol), participated in Operation Raider Lightning, a series of platoon level, live-fire training exercises designed to better enhance combat readiness at a moment's notice.

"There is nothing quite like a live-fire event that gives the Soldiers confidence not only in their ability to execute the task to standard, but the confidence in their weapon system that they are employing," said U.S.Army Capt. Jamie Murphy, Task Force Raider S3 shop officer in charge. "During most force on force standard training exercises, you have an artificial environment with an opposing force that is a thinking, dynamic enemy. The Soldiers have to develop adaptive, critical thinking skills to be able to respond to the actions their enemies are taking. These lessons are amplified when they need to take more control with their firing measures; live ammunition accelerates that into real time."

Among the weaponry systems fired were King Battery's M109A6 Paladins, which made history for being the first U.S. heavy field artillery equipment fired this far in Eastern Europe since 1945.

"Today we are doing our direct fire training," said U.S. Army 1st Lt. Tommy Lane, King Battery's 2nd platoon leader. "Direct fire is something we don't normally conduct with artillery, we are usually an indirect fire system, and we have had a lot of success with it. The only challenges we have faced have been the weather, which we can't control but we can definitely overcome."

The primary mission for the allies among all eFP, Battle Groups to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland is to demonstrate the alliance's solidarity, determination, and ability to act by triggering an immediate allied response to any aggression. This motive was placed into full effect during Raider Lightning as British Soldiers were given the opportunity to work and fire King Battery's Paladins with the infamous nickname King of Battle.

"We were invited out here to fire one of the coolest weapons in the world, the Paladin," said British Armed Forces Lance Cpl. Thomas Walton. "It's an unreal experience; you simply don't anticipate the power behind it until you pull the lanyard."

Raider Lightning was conducted day and night, with each setting and rising sun presenting different conflicting elements. Soldiers fought through thawing and freezing of thick stacks of snow, temperatures dropping into the single digits (factoring the windchill being even lower) and a terminology most Tennessee Soldiers had never heard before, a whiteout.

"The weather always has the primary say-so in what we can accomplish" said Murphy. "During this exercise, we faced problems with freezing thermal crossovers, or a whiteout -- a problem we have encountered in the past and overcome with similar corrective actions."

Thermal crossover is a natural phenomenon that normally occurs twice daily when temperature conditions are such that there is a loss of contrast between two adjacent objects on infrared imagery.

"Working in subzero temperatures here with 100% humidity, which creates freezing fog, really impacted our ability to acquire targets," said Murphy. "Sometimes you would have visibility out to 1,000 meters or more and then in a matter of minutes your visibility would be restricted to 300 meters or less."

Most tankers and gunners use thermal optics on fire missions, day and night, to acknowledge thermal signature of what they are firing against during a combat situation.

"It's just not enough to simply be able to identify an object," continued Murphy. "You have to be able to discriminate the difference and to be fully positive before you pull the trigger, what is friendly -- what is not."

These polarizing temperatures and weather conditions are the exact opposite to what the conditions these troops trained through upon deploying. Not even a full year ago, Task Force Raider Soldiers were sweat drenched, muscling the same equipment through the Mojave Desert sand dunes in California at the National Training Center for their pre-deployment training.

"This is my first time training in cold weather like this," said U.S. Army Spc. Nicholas Williams, a Task Force Raider cannoneer crewmember assigned to Battle Group Poland. "Back home, we don't really get this much snow and ice, and if we do it doesn't last long. Here, it snows just about everyday and seems to last forever. I'm not used to that, but all I can do is my best -- layer up and drive on."

Looking forward, Task Force Raider and Battle Group Poland will move into the next level of company live-fire, where they will attempt to achieve a proficiency over a larger scale of requirements for direct action.
US Intel Chiefs Warn Washington Risks Losing Friends, Influence

By Jeff Seldin January 29, 2019

U.S. intelligence chiefs are sounding alarms about an ever more perilous future for the United States, one in which the country is in danger of seeing its influence wane, its allies waiver and key adversaries team up to erode norms that once kept the country safe and the world more stable.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, along with the leaders of five other top intelligence agencies, delivered the grim assessment Tuesday, unveiling their annual worldwide threats report for lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Coats described the challenges facing the U.S. as a "toxic mix," combing the exploits of the "big four"  Russia, China, North Korea and Iran  and of non-state actors such as terrorists and criminal networks, and factors such as rapidly advancing technology, climate change and migration.

"It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance," Coats said, sharing testimony that often and repeatedly contradicted past assertions by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"We face significant changes in the domestic and global environment that has resulted in an increasingly complex and uncertain world and we must be ready. We must be ready," he added.

Driving many of the concerns, according to intelligence officials, is a growing alliance between Russia and China competing against the U.S. not just for military and technological superiority, but for global influence.

Russia-China nexus

"China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s," the report warns.

That relationship is only likely to strengthen as both Moscow and Beijing attempt to take advantage of what they see as a growing U.S. unilateralism, it added.

Officials say that is already playing out in Europe where both countries find openings, as traditional U.S. allies question Washington's role and consider new partnerships.

The threat assessment, while not mentioning the Trump administration's focus on "America First" policies or its repeated criticism of alliances like NATO, cautions that many of these U.S. allies are already "seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing U.S. policies on security and trade."

At the same time, China and Russia appear to be benefiting from different approaches.

Beijing is trying to win influence by selling would-be partners "a distinctly Chinese fusion of strongman autocracy and a form of Western-style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values and institutions," Coats said.

In contrast, Coats warned Russia is using weapons sales, private security firms and energy deals with some success across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.

North Korea

The intelligence chiefs also broke with Trump over North Korea less than a month after the president touted what he called an "incredible" meeting with North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Yong Chol.

"We have made a lot of progress, as far as denuclearization is concerned," Trump said at the time.

But Coats is skeptical that Pyongyang will ever give up its entire nuclear arsenal, pointing to "activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization."

CIA Director Gina Haspel also said that despite indications North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "is trying to navigate a path toward some kind of better future," his calculations on the need for nuclear weapons do not seem to have changed.

"The regime is committed to developing a long-range nuclear armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States," she told lawmakers.

And while North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test in more than a year, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Robert Ashley likewise warned there is no reason to relax.

"They showed a capability to have an ICBM function," Ashley said, pointing to older missile tests. "The capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there."

Islamic State

The U.S. intelligence community also expressed caution about the president's willingness to declare the demise of the Islamic State terror group.

The IS caliphate, Coats said, has been defeated, reduced to just a "couple of little villages" in Syria. But he said underestimating the group's resolve would be a mistake.

"ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria," Coats said, using an acronym for the group.

"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States, and we're going to have to continue  to keep our eyes on that and our interest in the realization that this terrorism threat is going to continue for some time."

Iran nuclear deal

U.S. intelligence analysts also appear to split with Trump over Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"At the moment, technically, they are in compliance," Haspel said of the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers meant to prevent Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. withdrew from the agreement last May, after Trump decried it as "defective to its core," arguing that it would allow Iran to get economic relief and still have a path to nuclear weapons.

But for now, U.S. intelligence officials say Tehran is at least a year away from being able to produce a nuclear warhead, though they caution that with new U.S. and European sanctions, their willingness to stick with the agreement may be waning.

"We do see them debating amongst themselves as they've failed to realize the economic benefits they hoped for from the deal," Haspel added.

At the same time, Coats said intelligence analysts expect Iran to put greater pressure on the U.S. in the Middle East, with Iranian-backed Shia militias likely to pose a growing threat to U.S. troops in Iraq.

Cyber

Coats and the other intelligence chiefs warned lawmakers that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran would continue to pressure the U.S. in cyberspace.

"We expect these actors and others to rely more and more on cyber capabilities when seeking to gain political, economic and military advantages over the United States and its allies and partners," he told lawmakers Tuesday.

Coats said despite successful efforts to protect "the integrity of the 2018 midterm elections," the intelligence agencies expected Russia, China, Iran and others to target the 2020 U.S. presidential elections.

"We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in previous elections," he said.

Venezuela

Coats called the situation in Venezuela, where the U.S. has officially recognized Venezuelan legislative leader Juan Guaido as the country president, "tenuous."

In an effort to support Guaido and constrain Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. on Monday slapped sanctions on the country's state-run oil company.

But Coats said he expects Cuba, Russia and China "to prop up the Maduro regime's security or financing," and that the deciding factor could be the country's military.

"The influence of the military on that decision  probably is key to what direction we might go in," he said.

U.S. border

Despite the heavy focus from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security on the need for a border wall, the intelligence chiefs made no direct mention of threats along the southern U.S. border with Mexico.

Coats said he expected Mexico would "pursue cooperation with the United States as it tries to reduce violence and address socioeconomic issues, but authorities still do not have the capability to fully address the reduction, the flow and trafficking of the drug cartels."

Coats also warned that high crime rates and economic problems "will continue to spur U.S.-bound migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."

The Worldwide Threat Assessment report also warned of increased migration pressures worldwide due to a combination of a slowing global economy and climate change.
China most 'concerning' counterintelligence threat, FBI chief says

Iran Press TV

Tue Jan 29, 2019 08:41PM

China is the most "concerning" counterintelligence threat against the United States, says FBI Director Christopher Wray.

"As I look at the landscape today and over the course of my career... the Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of," he told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

The intelligence community also released a threat assessment, which claimed that China "presents a persistent cyber espionage threat and a growing attack threat to our core military and critical infrastructure systems."

"China remains the most active strategic competitor responsible for cyber espionage against the US Government, corporations, and allies," read the report, adding that Beijing also "has the ability to launch cyber attacks that cause localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure."

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also echoed the same anti-China sentiments before the panel.

"China had a remarkable rise in capabilities that are stunning," said Coats. "A lot of that was achieved, a significant amount of that was achieved by stealing information from our companies, by inserting Chinese in certain of our labs or bringing back technological stolen properties, which China engaged."

US officials frequently accuse China of resorting to espionage, a claim denied by Beijing.

The intelligence leaders discussed North Korea, Russia, China and cybersecurity among other topics.
Huawei 'disappointed' to learn of US charges, denies violations of US law

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/29 13:25:02

China's Huawei Technologies said it is disappointed to learn of the criminal charges officially announced by the US Justice Department, and denied that it or its subsidiaries and affiliates have committed any of the asserted violations.

"The company sought an opportunity to discuss the investigation by Eastern District of New York with the Justice Department, but the request was rejected without explanation," Huawei said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

The statement also showed that it is not aware of any wrongdoing by its CFO Meng Wanzhou, and Huawei believes the US courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion.

The US Justice Department on Monday US Time accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets, obstructing justice and bank fraud by evading economic sanctions on Iran. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker also confirmed at a press conference that the Justice Department is seeking the extradition of Meng from Canada.

The US department also announced charges against Huawei for allegedly stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile. The charges stem from a civil trade secrets lawsuit filed by T-Mobile in 2014 over a robot called "Tappy," which was used in testing smartphones, CNBC reported.

The local jury already determined that T-Mobile should be awarded $4.8 million in damages because Huawei had breached a handset supply contract with T-Mobile, but it did not award any damages from the trade secret claim, according to media reports.

Huawei said the allegations from the Western District of Washington trade secret indictment case were already the subject of a civil suit that was settled by the parties after a Seattle jury found neither damages nor willful or malicious conduct on the trade secret claim.
With over 3,000 bill draft requests and only a few hundred bills actually introduced, the Legislative Session is off to a remarkably slow start. While we dont expect the lull to last, it has made the first few weeks of the session surprisingly bearable! Since committee hearings have been few and far between in recent history, weve had time to work on pieces of legislation that arent yet introduced. Its often helpful to reach out to legislators before they even have a committee hearing scheduled. Sometimes were able to prevent bad bills from ever being introduced if were able to work with the bill sponsor beforehand. Similarly, its also much easier to make changes to bills before theyre introduced.

Were eager for the pace to pick up in Helenaand if next weeks bill schedule is any indication it looks like well be busier by the day, but the lull has provided a great opportunity to spend time working with legislators and fine tuning some of the legislation thats come across our radar.

SB 133, Revise eligibility requirements for livestock loss mitigation payments:

Sponsored by Sen. Bruce Gillespie (R) SD 9, Ethridge.

SB 133 would require a livestock owner has paid the previous years Per Capita fee to the Department of Livestock before they are eligible to receive any payments from the Livestock Loss Board. Per Capita fees are per-head fees assessed on all livestock. Livestock includes bees, poultry, sheep, swine, beef cattle, dairy cattle, horses and mules, domestic bison, domestic ungulates and ratites.

Livestock owners are responsible for self-reporting and fees are collected annually through the Department of Revenue. Per capita dollars are a critical piece of the Department of Livestocks overall budget. Fees support programs that monitor animal health, manage predators, monitor and restrict livestock imports and more. The Department also uses this funding source to administer programs that prevent the spread of animal diseases to humans.

The Livestock Loss Board (LLB) was established by the 2007 legislature to help compensate livestock owners dealing with wolf predation. Since then, grizzly bear and mountain lion have been added to the list of predators the LLB may provide reimbursement for. Livestock owners submit grant applications to the LLB asking for reimbursement for livestock killed by qualified predators. LLB must confirm that an applicant does in fact own livestock and the best way to do so is to confirm that they have paid their per capita fees. Montana Farm Bureau supports putting this requirement into law.

HB 50, Provide civil penalty for violations of agricultural commodity laws:

Sponsored by Rep. Joel Krautter (R) HD-35, Sidney.

The Montana Agricultural Warehouse, Commodity Dealer and Grain Standards Act requires people or businesses who buy or store commodities to be licensed and provide surety to help protect farmers for non-payment of agricultural commodities. If a commodity dealer or warehouse operates without a license, the contracts they enter with area farmers are at risk of not being honored.

Under current statute, noncompliance or violation of agricultural commodity law is a felony charge. While intentional criminal conduct should be punishable, The Department of Agriculture only has the power to revoke the dealer or warehouses license. The revocation of their license invalidates the contracts theyve made, often in the middle of a growing season. This is the only mechanism the Department has to force accountability and most violations dont ever see a courtroom.

This bill would allow the Department to seek civil penalties for violations of agricultural commodity laws. Montana Farm Bureau member policy supports this concept as it provides accountability that the system currently lacks. Its one thing to have a rule or law, and another to enforce it. We feel this provision protects our farmers and their contracts by giving the Department the ability to enforce them.

HB 76, Expand alternate dispute resolution services of the Department of Agriculture:

Sponsored by Kimberly Dudik (D) HD-94, Missoula.

This bill gives the Department of Agriculture the authority in current law to provide mediation services to producers, creditors, and other persons involved or affected by an agriculture related dispute. The Department was provided with a grant in 2016 that allowed them to perform alternate dispute resolution services for USDA-related decisions, but under the newest Farm Bill their grant was expanded to provide mediation services on a far broader category of disputes.

Montana Farm Bureau member policy supports this bill. The Department already has six staff members cross-trained as mediators. HB 76 provides the agricultural community a rapid time frame for fair solutions and prevents the need for costly litigation. This is simply another service the Department of Agriculture can provide our members, without costing the Department additional resources.

HB 151, Increase maximum annual assessment on wheat and barley

Sponsored by Ross H Fitzgerald (R) HD-17, Fairfield.

This bill would increase the maximum annual assessment levied on every bushel of wheat and hundredweight of barley grown across the state; also commonly referred to as the wheat and barley check-off. The Montana Wheat and Barley Committee retains the ability to set the assessment wherever they feel appropriate to fund research and crop advancement while remaining under the capped amount set by the Montana State Legislature.

The producer-funded and directed checkoff program is supported exclusively by the self-assessment farmers pay on the sale of their wheat and barley. The MWBC is currently up against the maximum assessment cap, with the last increase occurring 13 years ago. The assessment typically represents about 0.5 percent of the value of the crop, but at the current cap, the assessment is only at about 0.33 percent of the crop value. As a comparison, the pulse assessment is set at one percent of crop value.

Growers have the option to request a refund of the assessed funds, and only one percent currently do. This speaks to farmers faith in the check-off and the need to fund foreign and domestic marketing development and research programs. Farm Bureau supported raising the cap so that MWBC can set the assessment where appropriate.

Chelcie Cargill is a lobbyist for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. Shes a rancher and an expert in policy development and implementation, and serves as MFBFs program coordinator for its ACE Leadership and Advocacy training program. Chelcie can be contacted at (406) 930-2299 or [email protected]

Liv Stavick is the Director of State Affairs for Montana Farm Bureau Federation. She also coordinates the MFBF Policy Development Committee, the Resource Management, Environment and Technology Committee and is the Treasurer for the Farm Bureau PAC. Liv can be contacted at (406) 581-3996 or [email protected] The Montana Farm Bureau Federation is a non-partisan, non-profit, grassroots organization that represents 22,000 member families in Montana.
Dear Editor,

Central Montana is ground zero for the destruction of Americas food industry as the international investors bring their millions of dollars to buy private property surrounding public land to gain control of the agricultural leases. The American Prairie Reserve (APR) is methodically destroying the heart of American agriculture while also destroying our future hunting heritage. Sportsmen are being deceived by the APR propaganda as their future hunting will disappearhow much hunting in our national parks?

The APR purchases 500,000 acres of private property to control 3 million acres of government land then they plant 10,000 breeding buffalo which will be impossible to control with no fences and will soon overrun eastern Montana. The APR is also behind current Montana proposed Legislation promoted by radical environmentalists trying to classify bison as wild under the FWP protection.

In addition, APR does not allow predator control so neighboring ranches will not be able to survive as their livestock are slaughtered by government protected wolves, bears, lions, and etc. These predators will also quickly eliminate huntable game populations throughout the entire region (Sage Grouse anyone!).

This international funded group is the first step in implementation of the 1992 Earth Summit meeting of the United Nations Sustainable Development program which outlined their Agenda 21 goal of eliminating human habitation in Montana. This was established in the U.S. in 1993 by President Clintons Executive Order 12852 and his establishing of a Federal bureaucracy to implement this international environmental program with his next step setting aside millions of acres of government and private land in Monuments. The next Federal step was President Obamas signing of Executive Order 13575 establishing the White House Rural Council to place Federal Control over local government decisions. Now appears APR land acquisitions.

The latest propaganda effort by the APR seminar during the Lewistown Winter Fair Living With Wild Life is an effort to indoctrinate ranchers who are expected to accept responsibility for protecting their livestock from the hoard of predators. This is being propagated by these radical environmental millionaires who are creating a 3.5 million acre breeding ground in Central Montana.

Any bison which trespass on ranches must be treated as stray livestock under rules established by the Montana Department of Livestock. Of course any sportsman who thinks the APR will allow hunting once they get final control of the public is naive. The goal of these international millionaires is to convert Eastern Montana into an American Serengeti and will convince the Federal government to declare it an International Park controlled by the United Nations.

Montana agricultural groups must get off their Politically Correct butts and vigorously oppose the APR and their International millionaires promoting government control of private property!

Sincerely,

Sen. Ed Butcher (Ret)

Sen. Butcher is a Central Montana rancher/businessman and former college history professor concentrating on Constitutional history and land history. He served for 10 years in the Montana House and Senate during which time he sat as chairman of the Agriculture Committee.
After 35 days of being furloughed workers, members of the community who serve the public in government-funded agencies such as the National Weather Service, FBI, Bureau of Land Management, USDA Farm Service Agency and Fish, Wildlife Services are all back to work as of Jan. 28 and the agencies are fully operational. During a press conference on Jan. 25, President Trump announced he has approved legislation to open the government until Feb. 15, allowing all federal government employees the ability to receive back pay and perform their job duties while also allowing negotiations to continue regarding establishing a budget.

During the longest recorded government shutdown in history, employees at the National Weather Service were all considered essential employees, minus the administrative assistant. They were required to show up for their scheduled shift, and be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the public and their partners. They issued watches and warnings, as necessary, and made sure to notify the public about any and all winter weather that occurred. However, these employees do more than just forecast the weather and notify the public during their day-to-day operations. They have to go through training to issue watches and warnings, they have to attend conferences in order to exchange ideas and improve how they pass along the weather message. They have to provide maintenance to equipment provided to co-op observers that take different measurements to ensure accurate data and improve already existing processes to make their jobs easier in predicting the weather.

However, during the 35 days the government was shut down, employees were unable to perform any of the "extras" that was required of their job. "When the shutdown continued to go on, we were notified one of our employees would not be able to travel to be able to attend radar school, which would allow him to issue watches and warnings during severe weather season," said Vice Steward of the local NWS Employees Organization Brian Burleson. "Now we are not sure when or if he will be able to attend as this training is only offered once a year. Without this training, overtime will have to be issued in order to have that extra body keep an eye on what's going on and let the public know what to expect." As the weather is so unpredictable during the spring and summer months, without having everyone on the same page training-wise, it would be hard for these meteorologists to perform at their best.

Another project on hold was providing preventive maintenance to co-op observation equipment, which provides information such as temperature and rain in various parts of Northeast Montana. "I normally would clean the sensor and level the rain gauges to ensure accurate data is being reported back to us. I am unable to do that during a shutdown. If we noticed inaccurate readings are being collected, the data is not reliable, and therefore hinders our ability to be accurate when recording," said Burleson.

Other effects included one employee not being able to attend the American Meteorological Society conference, where meteorologists from the public and private sector as well as students within the field are able to bounce ideas off of each other, exchange best practices and improve processes. It's also unclear when or if another employee will be able to attend training to become an incident meteorologist (IMET), where he would be able to be called out during wildfire events and provide weather updates on site to assist in the containment of the fire. "It's always nice to be able to have an extra body to assist in these types of situations," stated Burleson.

Before the government was reopened, Burleson stated, "We are serving the public the best that we can, while also having to worry about how we are going to pay bills. It's really weighing on everyone in the office." The morale of the office was certainly low during the shutdown, but members of the community assisted in lifting their spirits by providing food to those on shift on given days and supported them.

The story isn't very different with the USDA Farm Service Agency. The agency was closed on Dec. 31, a little later than most government agencies as they had extra funding to last them through a few more days. The agency reopened for a short time on Jan. 17, 18 and 22, to assist producers with specific services. The Glasgow office was not fully staffed, as only the essential employees were able to assist producers with processing payments made on or before Dec. 31, expiring financing statements and opened mail to see if there was anything time sensitive that needed to be taken care of.

While the staff at the FSA office was furloughed, producers were not able to obtain necessary information to help plan their spring harvest season as certain reports were unavailable. The deadline to apply for the Market Facilitation Program, which assists farmers with losses occurring due to trade disputes came and went. Farmers and producers were not able to get assistance with obtaining new loans, or filing out the paperwork necessary to get them

The National Weather Service's mission is to protect life and property, each and every day. They certainly filled this mission, even when there was so much uncertainty in the employees' lives. USDA Farm Service Agency workers were not able to report to work, which resulted in area producers not being able to utilize the services necessary, which will impact spring harvest.

The Glasgow Courier did reach out to the local USDA Farm Service agency for comment and was referred to the communications office in D.C.
Lansdale, PA (19446)

Today

Sunshine and a few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 71F. Winds light and variable.
Montana senators Steve Daines (R) and Jon Tester (D) have not given up Savannas Act, with both senators vowing to move forward with the legislation. The bill failed to pass last session when retiring Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) refused to bring the bill up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Savannas Act was introduced by former Democratic Senator from North Dakota Heidi Heitkamp. The bill seeks to address the continuing epidemic of missing and murdered Native American women and children by boosting Justice Department data collection efforts, expanding tribal access to federal crime information databases, and establishing law enforcement guidelines for responding to these cases. Goodlatte objected to a provision in the law that gave preference to agencies with direct need for the services as opposed to agencies with no links to native communities.

The bill has been taken up again this session by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who sits on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs alongside Daines and Tester. On Jan 22, Daines sent a letter to the committee Chairman John Hoeven and Vice Chairman Tom Udall, calling for a field visit to Montana so that members of the committee could hear from tribal members and families.

Tester recently cited the case of Henny Scott as an example of how tribal families and communities suffer when failures in the system happen. He has promised to continue fighting for missing and murdered indigenous women and their families. In addition to his work on Savannas Act, he has reintroduced his Securing Urgent Resources Vital to Indian Victim Empowerment (SURVIVE) Act, to give tribes access to funding to help survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Funding would be available for shelter, medical care, counseling and legal assistance.

The Urban Indian Health Institute, a division of the Seattle Indian Health Board, recently released a study entitled Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls in which Montana ranked fifth in cases of missing and murdered indigenous women, of the 29 states included in the research. Billings ranked fifth out of 71 cities with the highest number of cases.
The Valley Community Food Bank, located at 1020 1st Ave. No., Glasgow, has been helping out members of the community for over 30 years, providing food staples for those who need it the most. As a volunteer-based service to the community, many hands play a role in making sure food is delivered, organized, and packed for families in need.

The Food Bank is open one day a month, the third Tuesday, for distribution day, where those who come are provided with a paper bag full of food including pasta noodles, pasta sauce, peanut butter, bread, soup, crackers, cereal, a half gallon of milk and juice. Families also have the opportunity to pick other items from a shelf near the entrance of the building which includes baby food, baby formula, popcorn and other items. Meat is also provided to complement items in the bag in order to complete a meal. "We serve approximately 100 families every month but we don't see the same families. We have seen over the past three to four months a lot of new families come through these doors," said volunteer Pat Hallet.

In addition to being entirely volunteer-based, the Food Bank is also entirely donation-based. The organization pays $75 a year to be a part of the Montana Food Bank Network, based out of Missoula, where food is purchased at a cheaper rate and provided for free through the program to the Valley Community Food Bank. The public can also donate paper products and food through the donation box in the Reynolds entryway and Reynolds also donates through their rescue program. The Reynolds Rescue Program allows food and goods to continue to be utilized even if the product line changes or if the store is not able to sell the items due to store guidelines. "We are not able to purchase paper goods through the Montana Food Bank Network, so donations of those items are greatly appreciated," said Hallet. Any financial donations directly to the Food Bank go towards the utilities of the building.

According to Hallet and volunteer Laurie Koessl, the past month saw an increase in donations thanks to food drives organized by Glasgow, Hinsdale, and Nashua youth. A five-year record was even broken last month with 7,317 pounds of goods donated to the Food Bank. "We are just so overwhelmed and it's so wonderful having the youth step up," said Kessel.

In order to be eligible, individuals and families must fill out an application and be at a certain income level as well as provide proof as a Valley County resident such as a utility bill or piece of mail. A proof of identification also needs to be presented. "These guidelines are determined at the state level," said Hallet, continuing, "However we are willing to help anyone who needs it, however we can."

Such was the case during the government shutdown, resulting in members of the community having a change in financial status due to not receiving a paycheck during the month of January. "In the event of an increased need of the Food Bank due to the government shutdown, we will receive more shipments from the Montana Food Bank Network," said Hallet. The government reopened on Jan. 25, for three weeks, however if the need arises in the future, the Food Bank is willing and able to assist those affected.

For more information regarding the Valley Community Food Bank, how to apply or for any questions, contact Hallet at 263-3353 or Koessl at 228-4647.
Chance of Rain: 0% Sunrise: 05:48:39 AM Sunset: 08:43:24 PM Humidity: 8% Wind: WNW @ 17mph UV Index: 9 Very High

Sunday Night

Clear skies. Low 63F. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph, becoming ENE and decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
Gillette, WY (82718)

Today

Cloudy with showers. High 63F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Evening clouds will give way to clearing overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 46F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Eka Beselia: You will not be able to stop me, to make me stay silent, to disappear me!!! - GeorgianJournal
An intoxicated man allegedly tried to steal alcohol from the Lebanon Walmart on Monday night and threatened store employees with a wine bottle opener or similar device that could have been used a weapon, according to the Lebanon Police Department.

Kevin Lee Miller, 36, of Lebanon, was charged with first-degree robbery and unlawful use of a weapon in Linn County Circuit Court on Tuesday afternoon.

Judge Michael Wynhausen set his bail at $100,000. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for Feb. 19.

The incident was reported at 10:44 p.m. on Monday. Sgt. Jeremy Weber of LPD said that Miller was taken into custody without incident.

Miller has an extensive criminal history that includes multiple convictions for fourth-degree assault.

In March 2017, he was sentenced to 20 months in the custody of the Oregon Department of Corrections after pleading no contest to a charge of unlawful use of a weapon as part of a negotiated settlement.

Kyle Odegard

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The Oregon Government Ethics Commission has dismissed two complaints against Linn County Commissioner John Lindsey filed in connection with his dealings with property owners who were developing a marijuana growing operation in his rural neighborhood south of Lebanon.

But the commission, at a meeting held Friday in Salem, voted unanimously to make preliminary findings of violation against Lindsey on two charges that he failed to publicly announce a potential conflict of interest regarding the matter on two occasions in 2017.

The commission dismissed a third conflict-of-interest charge and another charge that Lindsey had improperly used his official position in an attempt to stop the marijuana operation in his neighborhood, and thereby avoid diminished market value and other property-related costs.

Hayley Weedn, an investigator with the Ethics Commission, said in an email that she will now be "attempting to negotiate a settlement with Commissioner Lindsey" regarding the two violations. Potential sanctions range from a letter of education to a fine of up to $5,000 per violation, although officials said such fines are extremely rare.

Lindsey also could choose to appeal the commission's decision.
Artist and author Julia Christensen will speak at 7 p.m. Feb. 6 at Oregon State University as part of the School of Arts & Communications Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series.

The talk will be held in Construction & Engineering Hall at the LaSells Stewart Center, 875 SW 26th St. on the OSU main campus. A reception with the artist will be held 6 p.m. in the Myrtle Tree Alcove, outside of the auditorium. Both are free.

Christensen is associate professor of integrated media in the studio art department at Oberlin College in Ohio. She is an artist and writer whose work explores systems of technology, time, change and memory. She is currently collaborating with scientists at NASAs Jet Propulsion Lab to envision artwork for an interstellar spacecraft that will travel to Proxima b, 4.2 light years away from Earth.

Christensen is the author of Big Box Reuse, a book about how communities are reusing abandoned Walmart and Kmart stores in the United States. Her forthcoming book, on which her talk is based, Upgrade Available (Dancing Foxes), is a product of her long-term art and research project about how upgrade culture  the perceived relentless need to upgrade software and hardware to remain relevant  impacts life on a range of scales.
Over the last 25 years or so, advocates of openness in state government have lost ground each time the Legislature met, as bill after bill removed yet another set of records from public inspection  records that used to be open, back in the days when Oregon was considered a national leader for government transparency.

Over the years, legislators wrote into law hundreds of exemptions to the state's open records law  no one is quite certain how many, but Ginger McCall, the state's public records advocate, said in a recent report that at least 550 exemptions exist. To be clear, some of those exemptions are justified. But many never were, and yet they linger in state law.

The tide has turned somewhat in recent legislative sessions, as committees formed to examine the state of the public records law and new efforts were launched to clarify and add structure (and some teeth) to the rules governing access to records.

Still, every session brings with it the chance for additional exemptions to be added to the state's already-lengthy list. Bills that would do that already have been introduced this session. But, to be fair, this session also features bills that should cheer advocates of open government.

Here's a look at a few of the bills that have caught our interest thus far this session:
According to Digital Foundry, next-gen consoles are being showcased to developers and publishers, so it wont take ages before we learn more about PS5 and Xbox Scarlett.

In the description of a video about learning how to defend from supposed leaks and rumors, DF provided some details regarding Sony and Microsofts moves.

Next-gen consoles are in development, hardware exists and is being demonstrated, says Digital Foundry.

Its quite an interesting piece of information itself, even though it was already shared by analyst Daniel Ahmad that dev kits are in the hands of multiple studios.

Based on his intel, first party developers at Sony are already only focusing on PlayStation 5 to ramp the next-gen lineup up awaiting for a 2020 launch.

While we are working on bringing you reliable info, one things for sure. There will be leaks this year. Many leaks, says Digital Foundry.

Of course, well be ready to report those to you, although, as suggested, youll need to look very carefully at those you can trust, and those not.
Galveston, TX (77553)

Today

Cloudy and windy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy and windy with showers developing after midnight. Low 83F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
A celebration of life for Barabra Zackery, 79, of Gainesville, will be held at a later date. A full obituary will be published when service times have been scheduled. Barbara passed away on June 15, 2021 in Gainesville. You may sign the online registry at www.geojcarroll.com.
Fort Wayne, IN (46808)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High near 90F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 72F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.




Have any questions? Please give us a call at 907-352-2250
Joan Cowans children grew up frolicking on the banks of the Appomattox River, camping and hiking with friends on three islands owned by family since the 1970s.

We used to take the kids down there camping and hiking in the area, Cowan said in an interview, adding that the islands were also a place where she could seclude herself to paint. She said the river is at times knee-deep, allowing people to cross over to the islands by foot.

Its like another world when you get down there. Even though youre so close to the city, you think youre in another world, Cowan said.

In hopes of preserving those experiences for younger generations, Cowan, 80, donated the islands late last year to the Capital Region Land Conservancy  a land trust serving the Richmond region.

The islands are in Chesterfield County, downriver from the George F. Brasfield Dam and before the section of the river that divides Colonial Heights and Petersburg.

Named Grape Island, Hyde Island and Watson Glenn Island, they total nearly 10 acres.
In the weeks since Kantermans death, friends and co-workers in the Fredericksburg region have come to realize the impact the officer had on others.

He was just larger than life, said Katie Bailey, whose husband, Dan, went through the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy with Kanterman in 2016. Its amazing to me how I can only know someone for three years but feel like Ive known him for a lifetime. Brian had a large sense of life and community, and he was gone far too soon.

Kanterman always wanted to be a police officer, but departments up north wouldnt allow him to join because of his medical history, his father said. He came south where Virginia agencies said theyd take him, provided he proved he could do the job. He started as a patrol deputy with the Stafford County Sheriffs Office, broke his foot while pursuing a suspect and later became a correctional officer at the jail.

He kept himself in the best condition he could and took it to heart that being in shape physically was part of being a police officer, his father said. Kanterman spent a lot of time in the gym, said Stephanie Creed, an Orange County resident who had been dating Kanterman at the time of his death.
Prior to her death, which court records state took place the same day Metzger arrived at the home, Robert Keating went through her purse and found a pretrial services card that he mistakenly thought was evidence that she was a police informant, Adams said.

Newton confronted Metzger in the basement of the home as Benavidez and Codynah looked on. The prosecutor alleged that Newton eventually pointed a handgun at her and shot her in the face, saying, Youre a [expletive] narc.

Metzger died at the scene and there was initially talk of trying to make the shooting look like a suicide. Instead, according to Adams, the group went to Denekis trailer to get high, leaving the body in Keatings basement.

Robert Keating and Denekis later took the murder weapon to Washington, Adams said, where Keating traded it for 16 grams of an unspecified illegal drug that he split with Newton.

The others returned to the crime scene to clean it up. Adams said Codynah and Benavidez were directed by Newton to dispose of the body and to remove identifying parts.

Adams said the pair used tools to sever the victims head, cut off each of her fingers and toes and remove her teeth. They also broke her legs below the knees to make it easier to fold up her remains.
Going out to eat with dad and the family

Enjoying this nice weather outside with pops

Watching sports  either in person or on TV  with dad

Doing whatever he wants. (Which is probably nothing. Hes not one for fanfare.)

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Hyatt Place Calgary Airport Celebrates Official Opening

A spacious, 127-room Hyatt Place hotel opens in Calgary, Alberta

January 30, 2019 // Franchising.com // CHICAGO - Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) today announced Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, the second Hyatt Place hotel in Alberta, and the ninth Hyatt-branded hotel in Canada, is officially open. The new hotel features the Hyatt Place brands intuitive, innovative design, upscale-casual atmosphere and practical amenities, such as free Wi-Fi and 24-hour food offerings.

Nestled in the heart of the Calgary Airport business sector, Hyatt Place Calgary Airport allows guests to exit the terminal, hop aboard the free airport shuttle and arrive at the hotel within five minutes, making the hotel the perfect destination for both business and leisure travelers staying near the airport.

As Calgary continues to grow and thrive economically, we are so excited to add to the momentum by welcoming the Hyatt Place Calgary Airport, said Director of Sales and Marketing Jenna Lambert. With social spaces and guestrooms designed with the travelers needs in mind, this new property really brings something fresh and innovative to the Northeast sector of the city.

Hyatt Place Calgary Airport offers:

127 spacious guestrooms and suites with separate spaces to sleep, work and play, as well as a Cozy Corner sofa-sleeper.

Free Wi-Fi throughout hotel and guestrooms

Gallery Kitchen Breakfast, a hot breakfast available daily in the Gallery Kitchen features hot breakfast items, fresh fruit, steel cut oatmeal, Greek yogurt, and more.

24/7 Gallery Menu & Market serves freshly prepared meals anytime, day or night and perfectly packaged sandwiches and salads

Coffee to Cocktails Bar featuring specialty coffees and premium beers, as well as wines and cocktails.

Odds & Ends program for forgotten items that guests can buy, borrow or enjoy for free.

Meetings Spaces offering just over 3,000 square feet of flexible, high-tech meeting/function space

24-hour Gym featuring cardio equipment with LCD touchscreens and free ear buds

Calgary is a vibrant city, filled with amazing people, great neighborhoods, and an ever-expanding list of fantastic places to visit and things to see, said General Manager Lisa Wigg. Our hotel is central to all of them and we are confident that the Hyatt Place Calgary Airport will exceed guest expectations and provide them with everything they need while visiting our area.

Hyatt Place Calgary Airport Leadership

Hyatt Place Calgary Airport is under the leadership of General Manager Lisa Wigg and Director of Operations Jesse White. Wigg and White are directly responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the hotel, including overseeing the hotels 30-40 associates and ensuring guests encounter the thoughtful service for which the Hyatt Place brand is known. Director of Sales and Marketing Jenna Lambert is responsible for providing sales service and support to travelers and meeting planners frequenting the Calgary area.

For more information, please visit www.hyattplacecalgaryairport.com.

About Hyatt Place

Hyatt Place, a brand of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, combines style, innovation and 24/7 convenience to create a seamless stay with modern comforts. There are more than 312 Hyatt Place locations in Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Germany, Honduras, India, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Thailand, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. For more information, please visit hyattplace.com. Join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram, and tag photos with #HyattPlace and #WhySettle.

Media Contacts:

Jenna Lambert

Director of Sales

Hyatt Place Calgary Airport

403-300-0662

jenna.lambert@hyatt.com

Noelle Bauer

Hyatt

312-882-4241

noelle.bauer@hyatt.com

SOURCE Hyatt Place

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GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) - We are following the Vice President all day during her trip to Greenville, SC, follow along for the latest updates on her visit.
ANDERSON, SC (FOX CAROLINA) -The Anderson County Sheriff's Office says a man threw about 80 grams of meth out of the window while he was trying to flee from deputies during a traffic stop.
Nuns who protested Indian bishop accused of rape say church trying to silence them
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According to police, an officer-involved shooting was reported on the 3300 block of Badura Avenue, near Valley View Boulevard and West Warm Springs Road, at around 1 p.m.
The shooting death of Mobile Police Officer Sean Tuder has once again brought up the issue of stolen guns.

Police say the gun Marco Perez used to kill Officer Tuder was stolen from an unlocked vehicle just a few days before the shooting.

Tuesday morning, the Mobile City Council talked about what could be done to cut down on the number of weapons stolen from unlocked vehicles.

Mayor Sandy Stimpson and council members again paid tribute to Officer Tuder and his service.

They also talked about the problem of weapons stolen from unlocked cars and the need for people to lock their vehicles.

Council Member C.J. Small says he's asking the council attorney to look at what can be done to work with the state legislature to change laws, perhaps fine gun owners who leave their weapons in an unlocked vehicle.

Small said, "When people realize that, 'Hey, if somebody breaks into my car and they might steal my gun, I can be faced,' with this type of fine, they will think twice before they leave their gun unattended in a car, and that's what we aim to do."

Small also cited a law he says is on the books in California.

It requires unattended handguns to be safely stored, such as being secured in a locked trunk or a locked container that's out of plain sight.
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. (WALA) - Despite losing two principals to Gulf Shores City Schools, Baldwin County Superintendent Eddie Tyler says his school system is moving forward, pitching a promising upcoming school year to Orange Beach parents at an information meeting Tuesday night.

Prior to a presentation on what the infrastructure for the Orange Beach 2019-2020 portable village will look like for seventh through tenth graders, Tyler addressed losing two of his principals to the new Gulf Shores City Schools.

"I tell you what, there is no excuse for what's going on, none," Tyler said, before saying he felt deceived.

The current Gulf Shores Middle and High School principals informed Tyler before Tuesday night's meeting that they would keep their positions in Gulf Shores, which separates in June from the Baldwin County School System. Kevin Corcoran, the school board president for Gulf Shores City Schools tells FOX10 News the two principals applied for jobs with Gulf Shores City Schools, prior to the board unanimously approving the Gulf Shores Superintendent's recommendation for them to be hired Monday night.

Tyler had planned to introduce the two principals Tuesday night.

After addressing the principal controversy at the information meeting, Tyler showed pictures of the proposed portable village, which will take on seventh through tenth grade students until a new Orange Beach Middle/High School opens in Fall 2020.

Orange Beach parents who have will have tenth graders in the 2019-2020 school year have until Feb. 1 to declare whether their children will attend Baldwin Co. Schools or continue to attend school at Gulf Shores High School, in the new Gulf Shores City School System.
JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. --A five hour-long standoff near Gautier ends with an arrest in a case of road rage in Mobile Count which led to that standoff.

Authorities feared he could threaten them with weapons.

They identify him as Michael Troy Mack of Baton Rouge.

Tammy Ragsdale of Grand Bay watched this all play out for five hours stuck gridlock beginning about 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Mississippi Highway Patrol said they received a call to help with a suspected road rage motorist who had driven in from Alabama.

Mobile deputies say he intentionally hit an ambulance at the Pilot Truck Stop and, later, struck other vehicles going into Mississippi.

Troopers finally stopped him around Gautier, Mississippi, but say they noticed he had a machete in his truck along with black blinds covering the cab.

Troopers say negotiations began, and they used non-lethal gas and smoke to to try to get him out.

They talked about why they used caution.

Patrol Master Sergeant Chase Elkins said, He just had it in the truck. We didnt know what his intentions were, what else he had in the vehicle. The unknown is what caused us to use so much caution.

VIEWER SUBMITTED VIDEO:

Ragsdale talked about what she saw when the suspect finally came out.

She said, I had video of the smoke bombs going off in the truck. There was, you could see the gentleman coming back to re-load his gun to shoot more smoke bombs in, and there was just a bunch of rushing back and forth."

The Highway Patrol said say the suspect finally came out on his own after negotiations on the phone with Jackson County Sheriff's Officials.

No one was hurt.

Mack is facing a host of charges in Mississippi and Mobile County including felony pursuit, assault, and reckless endangerment.
What happened

Shares of iron ore producers are having one of their best days in years after Brazilian iron ore giant Vale SA (NYSE:VALE) announced it would close 10 tailing dams and shutter operations at several mines after last week's dam collapse. Here's a quick recap of some of the stocks climbing on today's news as of 10:45 a.m. EST.

Cleveland-Cliffs NYSE:CLF)

Companhia Siderugica Nacional (CSN) NYSE:SID)

(CSN) Vale: Up 8%

BHP Group NYSE:BHP)

So what

Iron ore is a commodity business, plain and simple. The price for that commodity is going to swing wildly based on the amount of supply available and demand for the stuff. Over the past several years, iron ore has suffered from oversupply. Several mining companies were betting heavily on China's voracious appetite for iron ore and built numerous new mines from 2005 to 2010. Once Chinese demand -- which is about half of global demand -- started to wane, the market found itself with too much supply.

For years, many of the world's largest iron ore miners -- BHP, Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), Vale -- tried to fight for market share, but eventually all of them capitulated and started to shutter less profitable or lower-quality iron-ore-grade mines. Only recently have iron ore prices started to climb to the point that companies could generate a decent return.

Today, the supply side of the equation just got smaller as Vale announced it would be closing operations at several of its mines in Brazil following the recent tailings dam collapse. The dam collapse has left hundreds missing, and 84 people have been reported dead.

Vale's cutting 10% of supply is a big deal for the overall industry both because it is a major supplier and because its iron ore quality is among the highest of the major miners'. It currently produces about 65 million tons of pellets -- a slightly refined product with high iron ore content. Pellets and higher-quality iron ore have been in greater demand lately as Chinese steel mills have tried to curb pollution by using higher-quality feedstocks.

So the loss of Vale's higher-quality iron ore will have a large impact on pellets and higher-ore-content-grade material. For companies like Cleveland-Cliffs and Companhia Siderugica Nacional that produce higher-quality iron ore and pellets, it will likely mean even larger gains on prices than for lower-grade-ore producers like the Australian mining giants.

Now what

Vale's decision to cut production is going to send ripple effects across the entire iron ore industry. While the tide will likely lift all boats, those with higher-grade supplies, such as CSN and Cleveland-Cliffs, are likely going to benefit the most. That's likely why these two stocks are gaining even more than some of the larger Australian iron ore producers.

Based on the scope of this tragedy in Brazil, chances are it could mean even worse things for Vale. After all, this is the second catastrophic dam failure in the past five years. It's hard to say if the decommissioning of these tailing dams is the only action the company will need to take for safety reasons. Also, there are now lawsuits coming in from victims as well as U.S. shareholders about Vale's not disclosing the environmental risks these dams posed.

This event is likely going to have even larger effects on the iron ore market in 2019, but it isn't entirely clear what those will be. So investors should certainly be watching what happens in the coming months and should probably keep a close eye on 2019 forecasts from Cleveland-Cliffs and CSN.

Check out all our earnings call transcripts.
Check out the latest Square earnings call transcript.

At this point, like most people in this country, you've probably encountered Square's (NYSE:SQ) products. The increasingly visible company provides the front-end hardware and backbone software that allows your local small business to accept payments through a mobile phone (using a Square-branded dongle) or via a tablet point-of-sale terminal.

But that's only part of the story. In mid-2017, my colleague Chris Neiger wrote a fine article exploring the various ways Square makes its money. With such a dynamic company, it's worth revisiting the subject almost 1 1/2 years later. Here's how things currently shape up for the ambitious payment processor.

Square deals

As with any payment processor -- incumbent Mastercard (NYSE:MA) is a good example -- Square makes the bulk of its money by taking a small cut of every transaction made through its system. One very appealing aspect of Square's operations is that it's come up with numerous other ways to make coin. And these are becoming an increasingly important part of its business.

Among its growing list of services is Instant Deposit, in which the take from a sale can be deposited near-instantaneously into a client's bank account. The company just introduced a business debit card co-branded with Mastercard and is even redoubling its efforts to obtain what's effectively a banking license. Anyone for a Square five-year certificate of deposit (CD)?

Let's take a look at Square's revenue breakdown. We'll do a side-by-side comparison, placing the company's most recently reported quarter (Q3 2018) next to the raw Q2 2017 figures provided by Chris in his article:

Q3 2018 Q2 2017 Product/Service Revenue ($mn) % of total Revenue ($mn) % of total TOTAL REVENUE $882.1 - $551.6 - Transaction-based $655.4 74% $482.1 87% Subscription and services-based $166.2 19% $59.2 11% Hardware $17.5 2% $10.3 2% Bitcoin $43.0 5% - -

The most striking aspect of this is the share of that bedrock transaction-based revenue. As a percentage of the overall total, it fell dramatically to 74% in the most recent period from Q2 2017's 87%. In contrast to this decline, subscription and services-based revenue recorded an 8 percentage point gain across that span of time.

These developments show that Square is effectively building its ecosystem taller and wider and becoming a "stickier" service provider for its clients.

Another figure of note is that for bitcoin, which leaped from nothing to 5% of total revenue in Q3 2018. In the final quarter of 2017, the company gave users of its peer-to-peer solution Cash App the ability to buy bitcoin. Given the volatility of the cryptocurrency and the costs associated with brokering it, Square makes an "insignificant" loss from bitcoin.

Nevertheless, it does demonstrate that the company is actively and constantly searching for new -- and perhaps ultimately lucrative -- revenue streams.

Hey hey, my my -- into the black

I've always been fond of restless companies that constantly buzz around for fresh ways to make money. Historically, payment processors basically have one major way to make money that dominates their revenue list -- transaction fees. (Again, Mastercard is a towering example of this.) Although Square is still very reliant on transaction fees, it's moving away from near-total dependency on them.

What Square isn't, of course, is consistently profitable. Even casual observers of the company are aware that it only recently (Q3 2018, in fact) netted its first quarterly profit. And it wasn't much of a net, at a margin barely over 2%.

But as evidenced by how well the company's stock has done since the start of this year, that flip into the black seems to validate Square's diversification strategy. It's a sound and sensible one, and largely because of it, I'm bullish on the company's prospects.
Jim_Pintar/iStock(MILWAUKEE) -- Seven people stranded in an ice shack -- or ice shanty -- were rescued without any apparent injuries or medical problems amid brutally cold, sub-zero temperatures in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.



Temperatures in the area were reported to be minus 4 degrees with a wind chill -- the temperature it really feels like if you take wind in account -- of minus 30 degrees, according to the Coast Guard.



The seven people had been "staged in an ice shanty" near Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, but couldn't get back to shore because of the weather and problems with their vehicle, Coast Guard officials said in a Wednesday news release.



Coast Guard officials said they are urging people to avoid going out onto ice in these conditions, as it can lead to hypothermia, frostbite and death.



Even the symptoms that precede hypothermia can impact motor skills and brain function -- to the point where it may be too difficult to call for help, Coast Guard officials said.



This rescue comes as extremely dangerous below-zero wind chills paralyze much of the Midwest.



Chicago is forecast to drop to a thermometer temperature of minus 26 degrees Wednesday night -- just one degree away from the city's all-time coldest temperature, set in 1994.



Exacerbating this painful cold snap is its length. Much of the Midwest won't see temperatures above zero for well over 24 hours.

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Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) Deputy Director, Modiri Kooagile has denied purging one of the organisations pilots by redeploying him to position of Air Liaison Officer.In July 2018 Kooagile redeployed Opelonomi Edwin Matlhagela, the DIS Principal Intelligence Officer from the Air Wing Division (Unit) of the DIS to the Corporate Services Division.

According to Kooagile, this was a DIS policy decision, but Matlhagela doubts that any such policy exists and argues that if it does, it is unlawful and unreasonable. This is because he was moved from a pilot to a Clerk (or Administrator) without his consent and outside his scope of duties that he has trained for. Much to my shock and surprise, I was on the 27th July 2018, served with a letter redeploying me from the Air Wing (where I served as a Pilot) to the Corporate Services Division.

It is important to point out that when I queried the justification for the change and what the role entailed, I was only given an unsigned note by my supervisor Tshegofatso Dioka. As it would appear from the profile these roles are not technical but merely clerical in nature as they include procurement of all logistical needs for Air Unit and their personnel, argues Matlhagela in his court papers challenging his redeployment.However, in his answering affidavit seen by this publication and filed with the court on December 4th 2018, Kooagile argues that the redeployment was a DIS Policy decision by the security organs management.

He said the decision was taken sometimes in June 2018 to create Air Liaison Unit so as to facilitate and coordinate flying missions of the organisation. In the court papers Kooagile denies that the redeployment occurred because Matlhagela was associated with former DIS boss Isaac Kgosi.

This is after Matlhagela pointed out that his redeployment took effect after he had flown former President Dr Ian Khama to Mosu under the instruction of Kgosi. Kooagile stated in court papers that the unsigned note by Dioka is as a result of discussions with the Applicant (Matlhagela), as a matter of fact his input. During the discussion with the Applicant, he proposed that he be allowed to continue to fly whilst in the Air Liaison Unit. A decision has not been made yet on the issue as currently the Applicant is the only officer in the Unit.

I have no knowledge of who made the undertaking to the Applicant, all I know is that the Applicant was recruited primarily as an Intelligence Officer and that depending on the needs of the organisation the Director General may exercise powers vested in him to redeploy the Applicant, Kooagile said. In his replying affidavit to Kooagiles answering affidavit, Matlhagela stated that, I am not privy to the policy decision and have not been favoured with it. After my redeployment I asked my supervisor, Tshegofatso Dioka, on numerous occasions if such policy exists and if so, I be given a copy of it, I am to date still waiting for it.

For all I know, from 6th June 2018 to 19th June 2018, I was at Simcom, Florida, USA for training. On 22nd, 25th and 27th of June 2018, I was called in by my supervisor, Tino Phuthego, not to discuss policy decisions but the instruction I received from the previous Director General Kgosi to fly former President Dr Ian Khama to Mosu on 13th and 20th of April 2018. As a matter of fact, I was told by Phuthego that a panel or board of investigations or enquiry (comprised of Kenamile Badubi, Gopolang Mogotsi and Tendai Mantanire) was assigned by management which convened at the Air Wing on the 5th July 2018 to investigate me.

Phuthego informed me this was to facilitate my removal from the Air Wing by any means possible as an Isaac Kgosi associate by way of recommending a dismissal, redeployment or demotion.Matlhagela has admitted that he was employed as an Intelligence Officer, but with a specific mandate. He said that he has no background of intelligence. According to Matlhagela he was never consulted before the redeployment.

I deny that there is a policy decision that informed my redeployment, it was merely for personal reasons that had nothing to do with the needs of the DIS. That is why I still do not have resources availed to my new office as there is nothing to do there. Procurement matters are done by procurement unit, for instance and have nothing to do with me, Matlhagela said in the court papers.
Geneva, NY (14456)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Venezuela's Supreme Court announced the order just hours after chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that he was opening a criminal investigation into Guaido's anti-government activities and requested that restrictions be placed on his movements abroad.

Caracas: Venezuela's Supreme Court barred opposition leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country Tuesday, a move certain to heighten tensions as the man challenging President Nicolas Maduro's claim to the presidency presses forward with establishing a transitional government and the US warns of "serious consequences" if he is harmed.

The government-stacked high court announced the order just hours after chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that he was opening a criminal investigation into Guaido's anti-government activities and requested that restrictions be placed on his movements abroad. The court also approved Saab's request that all of Guaido's financial assets be frozen.

US national security adviser John Bolton issued a warning to the Maduro government earlier in the day urging them not to harm Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress who has been recognized by the Trump administration and two dozen other nations as Venezuela's rightful president.

"Let me reiterate. There will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," Bolton said on Twitter.

The Supreme Court's order comes as tensions between the US and Venezuela reach a new high, with Maduro accusing the Trump administration of staging a coup against his presidency and Guaido seeking to consolidate an interim government under his own leadership.

Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest, and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation may signal that Maduro's socialist government is moving to take a more punitive approach.

Speaking earlier outside the National Assembly, Guaido said he is aware of personal risks, but added, "Venezuela is set on change, and the world is clearly conscious of what's happening."

"I don't underestimate the threat of persecution at the moment, but here we are," he added.

The US has emerged as Guaido's most powerful ally, announcing on Tuesday that it was giving him control of Venezuela's US bank accounts. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that Guaido has the authority to take control of any Venezuelan government accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other US-insured banks.

Pompeo said the certification would "help Venezuela's legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people."

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Guaido during a huge opposition rally in Caracas declared that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Maduro's "dictatorship."

Guido is calling for nationwide walkouts on Wednesday afternoon and another round of mass protests Saturday as he seeks to ramp up pressure on Maduro. But Maduro has so far shown no signs that he is looking to cede the presidency.

Maduro went on state television on Tuesday to announce that he was beefing up the nation's defence by expanding Venezuela's civilian armed militia to 2 million members. The reserve force was created by the late Hugo Chavez to train civilians to assist the armed forces and defend the socialist revolution from attacks.

"Once more we'll come out victorious," said Maduro, who wore a green cap and shirt before rows of troops. "We are on the right side of history."

On Monday, the US hit Venezuela's state-owned oil company with potentially devastating economic sanctions that could cost the already distressed nation billions in revenue. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told Russian state news agencies that "there will probably be problems" for Venezuela in paying its debts.

Storchak said Venezuela owes Russia $3 billion, and has repayments twice a year of around $100 million, with the next due in March. Russia also has extensive commercial interests in Venezuela, including state oil company Rosneft's partnership with the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin shares the view of the Venezuelan government that the US sanctions are "illegal" and sees them as a tool of unfair competition by the United States.

The US State Department, meanwhile, said Americans shouldn't travel to Venezuela, warning of unrest, the threat of being arbitrarily arrested and the danger of mass demonstrations erupting with little notice. The announcement raised the travel advisory to its highest level, putting Venezuela on a no-travel list that also includes Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and South Sudan.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Vale SA, the world's largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 19 dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents. Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said Vale would halt operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Vale SA, the world's largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 19 dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents.

Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said Vale would halt operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years. At the peak of that process, the impact on Vale's production will be 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of iron pellets per year, he said.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Writing by Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Brad Haynes and Dan Grebler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Jake Spring and Gram Slattery BRASILIA/BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Vale SA, the world's largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 10 more dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents. Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said it would temporarily paralyze operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years

By Jake Spring and Gram Slattery

BRASILIA/BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Vale SA, the world's largest iron ore miner, on Tuesday vowed to take as much as 10 percent of its ore output offline in order to decommission 10 more dams like the one that burst last week, killing scores of workers and nearby residents.

Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said it would temporarily paralyze operations using those dams and spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) to decommission them over the next three years.

The move came as prosecutors began arresting Vale executives over the Friday collapse of a tailings dam in the Brazilian town of Brumadinho, which was buried in a torrent of mining waste that killed at least 84 people and left hundreds more missing.

"We decided the company should, once and for all, do what it takes to remove any doubt about the safety of Vale's dams," Schvartsman told journalists in Brasilia.

The burst Brumadinho dam was one of 19 "upstream" tailings dams owned by Vale, all in the state of Minas Gerais, built with a method banned in Peru and Chile for safety reasons. Vale had already begun the process of decommissioning nine of them.

Schvartsman said Vale's board had already approved the decision to decommission the 10 remaining dams of that kind and suspend the related mining operations as necessary, relocating 5,000 workers to other parts of the company.

Those operations currently produce 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of pellets per year, he said.

Vale forecast total iron output of 390 million in 2018.

($1 = 3.7201 reais)

(Reporting by Jake Spring in Brasilia and Gram Slattery in Brumadinho; Additional reporting by Marta Nogueira, Pedro Fonseca, Gabriel Stargardter in Rio de Janeiro; Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Matthew Lewis)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Besides North Korea, the intelligence report on which the intelligence agencies based their testimony predicted that security threats to the US and its allies will expand this year, driven in part by China and Russia.

Washington: Directly contradicting President Donald Trump, US intelligence agencies told Congress on Tuesday that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, that the Islamic State group remains a threat and that the Iran nuclear deal is working. The chiefs made no mention of a crisis at the US-Mexican border for which Trump has considered declaring a national emergency.

Their analysis stands in sharp contrast to Trump's almost singular focus on security gaps at the border as the biggest threat facing the United States.

Top security officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats presented an update to the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday on their annual assessment of global threats. They warned of an increasingly diverse range of security dangers around the globe, from North Korean nuclear weapons to Chinese cyber espionage to Russian campaigns to undermine Western democracies.

Coats said intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will eliminate his nuclear weapons and the capacity for building more  a notion that is the basis of the US negotiating strategy.

"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Coats told the committee.

Coats did note that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed support for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and over the past year has not test-fired a nuclear-capable missile or conducted a nuclear test.

The "Worldwide Threat Assessment" report on which Coats based his testimony said US intelligence continues to "observe activity inconsistent with" full nuclear disarmament by the North. "In addition, North Korea has for years underscored its commitment to nuclear arms, including through an order in 2018 to mass-produce weapons and an earlier law  and constitutional change  affirming the country's nuclear status," it said.

The report said Kim's support at his June 2018 Singapore summit with Trump for "complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula" is a formulation linked to an end to American military deployments and exercises involving nuclear weapons.

Trump asserted after the Singapore summit that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat. However, Coats and other intelligence officials made clear they see it differently.

"The capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there," said Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Plans for a follow-up Trump-Kim summit are in the works, but no agenda, venue or date has been announced.

More broadly, the intelligence report on which Coats and the heads of other intelligence agencies based their testimony predicted that security threats to the United States and its allies this year will expand and diversify, driven in part by China and Russia. It says Moscow and Beijing are more aligned than at any other point since the mid-1950s and their global influence is rising even as U.S. relations with traditional allies are in flux.

"Some US allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perception of changing U.S. policies on security and trade," the report said, without providing examples or further explanation.

The report also said the Islamic State group "remains a terrorist and insurgent threat" inside Iraq, where the government faces "an increasingly disenchanted public."

The intelligence assessment, which is provided annually to Congress, made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which Trump has asserted as the basis for his demand that Congress finance a border wall. The report predicted additional U.S.-bound migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with migrants preferring to travel in caravans in hopes of a safer journey.

In Syria, where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of U.S. troops, the government of Bashar Assad is likely to consolidate control, with Russia and Iran attempting to further entrench themselves in Syria, the report said. Asked for her assessment, Haspel said of the IS group: "They're still dangerous." She added that they still command "thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."

The intelligence agencies said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other Western nations. In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat. In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from that accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.

The intelligence assessment of Afghanistan, more than 17 years into a conflict that began after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., projected a continued military stalemate. Without mentioning prospects for a peace deal, which appear to have improved only in recent days, the report said, "neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year" if the U.S. maintains its current levels of support. Trump has ordered a partial pullback of U.S. forces this year, although no firm plan is in place.

Coats told the committee that Russia and perhaps other countries are likely to attempt to use social media and other means to influence the 2020 US presidential election.

"We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections," the intelligence report said.

The report specifically warned about Russia's cyber attack capabilities.

"Moscow is now staging cyber attack assets to allow it to disrupt or damage US civilian and military infrastructure during a crisis," it said.
By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said on Wednesday they expect Congress will pass a resolution ending U.S. involvement in the Yemen war, which would force President Donald Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency in order to continue supporting the Saudi-led coalition

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said on Wednesday they expect Congress will pass a resolution ending U.S. involvement in the Yemen war, which would force President Donald Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency in order to continue supporting the Saudi-led coalition.

Republican and Democratic senators and representatives said on Wednesday they were re-introducing a war powers resolution that passed the Senate by 56-41 in December, a rebuke of Trump amid anger at Saudi Arabia not just over civilian deaths in Yemen, but also the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

The lawmakers - an alliance of progressive Democrats and Republican constitutional conservatives - deplored the "humanitarian disaster" in Yemen but also said they wanted Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to decide whether the United States should be involved in military conflict.

"That decision has never been debated and discussed and voted on and approved by Congress," Republican Senator Mike Lee, one of the measure's sponsors, told a news conference.

The United States has supported the Saudi-led air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen with mid-air refuelling support, intelligence and targeting assistance.

Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to risk disrupting the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel.

December's Senate vote was the first time either chamber of Congress backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval.

The measure never went further in December because the Republicans who then controlled the House of Representatives did not allow a vote in that chamber before the end of the year.

However, the measure's sponsors insisted it had helped lead to a ceasefire in Yemen that began in December. "Sometimes we underestimate how much influence we have," Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said.

Democrats now have a House majority, but Trump's fellow Republicans have increased their edge in the Senate by two seats to hold a 53-47 margin.

It would take a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to overcome a Trump veto. Trump had threatened a veto in December. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he still intended to do so.

"President Trump is going to have to make a decision," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Botswana is likely to sign the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AcFTA) at the next African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government scheduled for 11th to 13th February 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

However, whether we are likely to sign will depend on what Cabinet will advise President Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi. This is according to Director, Department of International Trade in the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, Gideon Mmolawa.He told Botswana Guardian that, as officials and having resolved issues of concern, we have recommended that Botswana sign. Botswana could have signed the Agreement during the December 2018 meeting of African Ministers of Trade but was held back by some outstanding issues.

Asked what these outstanding issues were, Mmolawa said they had to do with finalisation of modalities relating to the threshold of sensitive and exclusion products. Reaching consensus on these would pave the way for operationalising the Agreement and also demonstrate certainty of the value proposition for Botswana, he said.The Continental Free Trade Agreement provides Botswana access to the African market estimated at 1.6 billion people in 55 countries.This means a wider and increased market access for Botswana exports; among which are live animals, beef, salt, vaccines for veterinary medicine, minerals and leather products.

The Agreement also diversifies the current export markets and reduces our reliance on traditional markets, said Mmolawa in as much as it gives Botswanas private enterprises access to inputs at competitive prices. Other benefits of the Agreement include increased opportunities for investment attraction and growth in the services sector across borders.

However, access to markets is one side of the coin. The flipside, which will ensure that the country exploits the free trade agreement, requires coming up with programmes to improve output and efficiencies of local businesses.Mmolawa is confident that Government especially through the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre has placed the country on a pedestal to compete. He cites the implementation of the Botswana Exporter Development Programme as one such programme as a means to this end. The BEDP targets local enterprises who wish to export by developing export marketing plans, capacitating on quality management systems and improvement of productivity, and country market surveys for export development. He said local enterprises are enrolled following diagnostic assessments with a view to determining their export readiness and also to develop interventions that are appropriate.

Awareness creation workshops on signed Agreements for example, trainings on market access opportunities including trading requirements and regulations are also held for local businesses to position them to compete. Meanwhile, Botswana signed the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) on the 30th January 2018, which has also provided it access to a market of 700 million people.

The TFTA is between three regional economic blocs, being East African Community (EAC); Common Market for East and Southern African States (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Botswana has not yet ratified the Agreement. According to Mmolawa, ratification is dependent on the conclusion of tariff offers between the East Africa Community and the Southern African Customs Union. Mmolawa said that under this Agreement Botswana will be able to access the market for live animals, beef, salt, vaccines for veterinary medicine, minerals, leather products and other products.

As for the policy space to enable businesses to explot this Agreement he cited the National Trade Policy whose objective is to expose local producers and consumers to a wider scope of international inputs, goods and services; and also provides for a conducive environment for industrial development, economic diversification, export-led growth and economic integration.Mmolawa also mentioned the National Export Strategy of 2010 whose objective is to enable global competitiveness for Botswana. This strategy was refocused with a view to accommodating the dynamic industrial revolution, where Botswana wishes to achieve possible expansion of current levels of exports and future prospects in the international markets as well as diversify the countrys export base.

The country also creates contacts and business match making through outward investment promotion missions; and has a trade facilitation programme whose objective is to reduce the time and cost of importing and exporting. This is made possible through a One Stop Border Post which enables neighbouring countries to coordinate import, export and transit processes so that those transiting stop only once at either side of the border to undertake regulatory formalities, for example, between Botswana and Namibia.

Mmolawa said that other interventions being implemented include the National Single Window, which is a single electronic data information exchange platform that facilitates movement of goods and services across countries; as well as the ongoing Kazungula Bridge Project, which is set to open up the transport corridor between Botswana and Zambia with a view to reducing transit time. It will also contribute to the regions ideals of economic integration.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers will try again to pass a resolution ending U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers will try again to pass a resolution ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, with a greater chance of success than when a similar measure passed the Senate last month.

Republican Senator Mike Lee, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, as well as Democratic Representatives Ro Khanna and Mark Pocan, planned a news conference for Wednesday to introduce the legislation.

The Senate passed a Yemen-related war powers resolution by a 56-41 vote in December, as seven Republicans joined Democrats to vote for what was considered a rebuke of Republican President Donald Trump amid anger with Saudi Arabia not just over civilian deaths in Yemen, but also the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Trump had promised a veto.

It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval.

However, that measure never went further because the Republicans who then controlled the House of Representatives did not allow a vote in that chamber before the end of the year.

Democrats now have a House majority, but Trump's fellow Republicans have increased their edge in the Senate by two seats to hold a 53-47 margin. It would take a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to overcome a Trump veto.

Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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GENEVA (Reuters) - A U.S.-born anchor for Irans state-run Press TV arrived in Iran on Wednesday after 10 days of detention in the United States, Press TV reported, after U.S. authorities said she had testified as a material witness in an undisclosed federal investigation. The anchor, Marzieh Hashemi, was freed on Thursday.

GENEVA (Reuters) - A U.S.-born anchor for Irans state-run Press TV arrived in Iran on Wednesday after 10 days of detention in the United States, Press TV reported, after U.S. authorities said she had testified as a material witness in an undisclosed federal investigation.

The anchor, Marzieh Hashemi, was freed on Thursday.

Hashemi's detention added to the tension that has grown between Iran and the United States since U.S. President Donald Trumps decision last May to pull out of an international nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

"It's very good to be home," Hashemi said, on a visit to the Press TV office following her arrival in Tehran.

Hashemi said she feared she would be detained again on her flight leaving the United States from Denver to Frankfurt, adding: "I was not comfortable as long as I was over U.S. airspace.

"I was thinking they can reroute the plane and bring it down in Washington. It sounds like a movie but I lived through that movie so I know that anything is possible."

Hashemi, 59, was arrested by the FBI at St. Louis Lambert International Airport and transferred to a detention center in Washington D.C., where she was held for two days before managing to contact her family, Press TV said.

Press TV said she was mistreated in jail because her hijab was removed and she was offered non-halal food, or food not permissible under Islamic law.

The channel aired live footage of her arrival at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport, where a crowd greeted her with flowers.

U.S. federal law allows the government to arrest and detain a witness if it can prove their testimony is material to a criminal proceeding and it cannot guarantee their presence through a subpoena.

The U.S. government has declined to disclose details of the criminal case in which Hashemi testified. However, a U.S. government source told Reuters it appeared that the grand jury was examining whether English-language Press TV is a propaganda outlet that failed to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government.

Hashemi was born Melanie Franklin in the United States and changed her name after converting to Islam. She received Iranian citizenship after marrying an Iranian.

She had travelled to the United States to visit her family, Press TV said.

Several Iranian dual nationals from Austria, Britain, Canada, France and the United States have been detained in Iran in the past few years on charges such as espionage and collaborating with hostile governments.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh, Editing by Gareth Jones, William Maclean)

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Trump insisted on Wednesday on Twitter that the relationship with North Korea 'is the best it has ever been with the US.'

Washington: President Donald Trump lashed out at his intelligence chiefs on Wednesday after they told Congress that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and that the Iran nuclear deal is working.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!" Trump tweeted.

On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will eliminate his nuclear weapons.

Trump insisted on Wednesday on Twitter that the relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been with the US."

He pointed to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some US service members' remains and the release of Americans once detained there as signs of progress.

Kim committed to denuclearisation after meeting with Trump last year. A second Trump-Kim meeting is expected in February.

The US intelligence agencies also said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the US and other Western nations.

In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat.

In May 2018, Trump withdrew the US from that accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," Trump tweeted. "They are wrong!"
At least 22 states recorded sub-zero temperatures Wednesday and 139 million people in the U.S. who were under a wind chill advisory or wind chill warning as of midday Wednesday, according to information from the National Weather Service.

Chicago/ Minneapolis: A torrent of polar air brought record-low temperatures to much of the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, making conditions so unbearable that trash haulers stopped making pickups and mail carriers suspended deliveries.

At least 22 states recorded sub-zero temperatures Wednesday and 139 million people in the U.S. who were under a wind chill advisory or wind chill warning as of midday Wednesday, according to information from the National Weather Service. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York all saw temperatures that were below zero. New Hampshire also saw sub-zero temperatures at higher elevations. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Idaho saw temperatures below zero as well, but not as a direct result of the surge of cold air that has hit the Upper Midwest, according to the National Weather Service.

Classes were cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday in many cities, including Chicago, home of the nation's third-largest school system, and police warned of the risk of accidents on icy highways. Michigan said all state offices would remain closed through Thursday.

In a rare move, the U.S. Postal Service appeared to temporarily set aside its credo that "neither snow nor rain ... nor gloom of night" would stop its work: it halted deliveries from parts of the Dakotas through Ohio.

Streets in Chicago were nearly empty, with few people walking outside in the painfully cold air as temperatures hovered around minus 18 Fahrenheit (minus 28 Celsius).

"It's terrible!" Pasquale Cappellano, a 68-year-old waiter, said as he smoked a cigarette while waiting outside for a bus on the North Side of Chicago. "I gotta pick up my medication at Walgreens or else I wouldn't be out the door."

Temperatures in parts of the Northern Plains and Great Lakes plunged to as low minus 42 (minus 41 Celsius) in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and minus 31F in Fargo, North Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. The frigid winds were headed for the U.S. East Coast later on Wednesday into Thursday.

Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the service, said that some of the coldest wind chills were recorded in International Falls, Minnesota, at minus 55 (minus 48C). Even the South Pole in Antarctica was warmer, with an expected low of minus 24F (minus 31C) with wind chill.

Banks and stores in the region, including multiple branches of Chase and Trader Joe's, closed for business. Waste Management, a major trash collection company, said it was cancelling pick-ups in counties across the region on Wednesday and Thursday.

The bitter cold was caused by a displacement of the polar vortex, a stream of air that normally spins around the stratosphere over the North Pole, but whose current was disrupted and was now pushing south.

An Illinois police department found a fictitious cause for the icy blast, posting on Facebook that its officers had arrested Elsa, the frosty character from the Disney movie "Frozen," for bringing the arctic air to the Midwest.

The McLean Police Department shared a staged photo of officers putting a woman dressed in a blue princess gown in pink handcuffs and escorting her into a police car.

Officials opened warming centres across the region, and in Chicago, police stations were open to anyone seeking refuge from the cold. Five city buses were also deployed to serve as mobile warming centres for homeless people.

At least five deaths related to extreme cold weather have been reported since Saturday in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, local media reports said.

Hundreds of flights, more than half of those scheduled, were cancelled on Wednesday out of Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway international airports, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.

Amtrak said it would cancel all trains in and out of Chicago on Wednesday.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections

Moscow: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.

"I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that we could talk for the good of Venezuela," Maduro told the Russian state news agency in an interview in Caracas.

At the same time he dismissed the possibility of holding a new presidential poll any time soon. "Presidential elections in Venezuela have taken place, and if imperialists want new elections let them wait until 2025," he said in an apparent reference to Washington.

Last week, the oil-rich but economically devastated Latin American country was plunged into uncertainty when the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself "acting president".

The United States, a dozen Latin American countries and Canada have recognized Guaido as interim president, while China and Russia - Venezuela's two main creditors - have urged non-interference.

In the interview with RIA Novosti, Maduro also said he would support early parliamentary elections. "It would be very good to conduct parliamentary elections at an earlier stage, it would be a good form of political discussion," Maduro said.

Maduro has been in charge since 2013 but his re-election in May was branded illegitimate by the European Union, United States and Organization of American States.

The embattled leader also implied he was firmly in charge of the army whose support is crucial. "I am carrying out my duties as commander-in-chief according to the Constitution consolidating the national Bolivarian armed forces," he said. "And the Bolivarian armed forces are demonstrating a lesson in ethics, loyalty and discipline."

Maduro also claimed that US President Donald Trump had ordered the government of Colombia to assassinate him. "If something happens to me one day then Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible for everything that is happening to me," he said, adding however that he was in good hands.

"At the same time, I am protected. We have a good system of defence in place and moreover, we have more significant protection -- this is protection from God who will give me a long life," Maduro added.

Russia has denounced the opposition's "usurpation of power", calling Maduro the crisis-hit country's legitimate leader.

Russia and Venezuela have a long history of ties and Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, known for his tirades against the United States, was a welcome guest at the Kremlin.
By Leonardo Benassatto and Adriano Machado SAO JOAQUIM DE BICAS, Brazil (Reuters) - Miles (km) downstream from where a dam owned by miner Vale SA burst on Friday, killing hundreds, a small indigenous village in Brazil faces doubts about its very existence as the river at the centre of life here runs dark with mining waste. For members of the Pataxo-Hahahae tribe living at the end of a sinuous dirt road, fish from the Paraopeba River are the principal source of food.

By Leonardo Benassatto and Adriano Machado

SAO JOAQUIM DE BICAS, Brazil (Reuters) - Miles (km) downstream from where a dam owned by miner Vale SA burst on Friday, killing hundreds, a small indigenous village in Brazil faces doubts about its very existence as the river at the centre of life here runs dark with mining waste.

For members of the Pataxo-Hahahae tribe living at the end of a sinuous dirt road, fish from the Paraopeba River are the principal source of food. Villagers bathe and wash their clothes in its waters.

But after a tailings dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine burst upstream, burying communities and turning the river's once-clear waters a muddy brown, the 80 or so residents of the Pataxo-Hahahae village of Nao Xoha say they are unsure if they will be forced to uproot their families.

While there were no Pataxo-Hahahae among the 65 confirmed dead or 279 disappeared, the disaster, they fear, could be the end of their way of life.

"On Thursday, I was here washing my clothes, bathing with my children, and now I can't even touch the river," said Sot de Ionara Pataxo Hahahae, holding back tears.

"Our hearts are so sad knowing that nothing can be done."

The Pataxo-Hahahae's plight comes as Brazil's current government, which took office earlier in January, has signalled it wants to cut mining regulations and shrink protections currently afforded to indigenous communities. For critics, the dam burst reveals the danger of both policies.

Brazil's indigenous affairs agency Funai said it is committed to helping Nao Xoha, by ensuring potable water among other measures.

But in the wake of the disaster, trust in the authorities here is low.

"You think some mining company is worried about this? Do you think some mayor is worried about this area?" asked Sot de Aigoho Pataxo Hahahae. "They only love money - and mining."

(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto and Adriano Machado; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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By Amanda Becker and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citizenship for 'Dreamer' immigrants will not be on the table as lawmakers try to negotiate a compromise on border security to keep federal agencies open beyond Feb. 15, the No

By Amanda Becker and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citizenship for "Dreamer" immigrants will not be on the table as lawmakers try to negotiate a compromise on border security to keep federal agencies open beyond Feb. 15, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Tuesday.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he did not think Democrats would consider the issue in exchange for funding for a wall that President Donald Trump wants along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I don't expect that to be part of the negotiation," Hoyer told reporters.

He added that he expected to bring a separate bill to the floor in the "near future" on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme that currently protects from deportation the "Dreamers," immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children.

The Trump administration said in September 2017 it would rescind DACA, but it remains in effect under court order.

A committee of Republican and Democratic lawmakers has scheduled an initial, public meeting for Wednesday to begin border security negotiations following the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.

During the 35-day shutdown, some 800,000 federal employees were furloughed or worked without pay. As a result, the U.S. economy lost about $11 billion, but could recover about $8 billion of that now that the government has reopened and employees will receive back pay, the Congressional Budget Office said on Monday.

The negotiating committee is trying to reach a compromise on the $5.7 billion down payment Trump has sought for his promised wall along the border. The committee will likely have to wrap up its work around Feb. 10 to meet the Feb. 15 deadline. Hoyer said he would like to see a deal by a week from Friday.

The chairman of the House Democratic caucus, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters that Democrats do not support a border wall "from sea to shining sea," but said some physical border barriers may be acceptable.

"We are willing to support fencing where it makes sense, but it should be done in an evidence-based fashion," Jeffries said. He noted that Democrats have supported some border fencing in the past.

Trump has said that if lawmakers do not come up with a deal he likes, he will either let the government shut down again or declare a national emergency to divert funds Congress has approved for other purposes to build a wall.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated his opposition to an emergency declaration in remarks to reporters on Tuesday. He also said he would support bipartisan legislation that would make government shutdowns more difficult.

"Im certainly open to it," McConnell said.

By excluding DACA from the negotiations, Democrats are taking away a major bargaining chip Trump could dangle in exchange for wall funding.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer urged Trump on Tuesday to step back from negotiations and "let Congress do its job."

"When the president stays out of the negotiations, we almost always succeed," Schumer told reporters.

Democrats have long sought legislation to end the threat of deportation for "Dreamers."

But they appear to be manoeuvring to keep the negotiations focussed on two things - finding a way to fund an array of federal agencies through Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year, and bargaining over how much money will be dedicated to border security for the rest of the fiscal year and how that money will be spent.

(Reporting by Amanda Becker and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

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Two weeks after overwhelmingly rejecting Mays Brexit deal, parliament backed a proposal intended to send her back to Brussels with a stronger mandate to seek changes that were more likely to win their support. However, Brussels has repeatedly said it does not want to reopen a treaty signed off by the other 27 EU leaders.

London: British lawmakers on Tuesday instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the European Union to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement  and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.

Two weeks after overwhelmingly rejecting Mays Brexit deal, parliament backed a proposal intended to send her back to Brussels with a stronger mandate to seek changes that were more likely to win their support.

At the same time, they rejected a proposal to give parliament a path to prevent a potentially chaotic no-deal exit by making May ask Brussels for a delay if she cannot get a deal through parliament.

With two months left until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies have urged the government to clinch a deal to allow an orderly exit from the club it joined in 1973.

"Tonight, a majority of honourable members have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop," May said, only two weeks after her divorce deal was crushed in the biggest parliamentary defeat in modern British history.

"It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in the house for leaving the EU with a deal," May said, adding she would seek "legally binding changes."

The Irish backstop is an insurance policy that aims to prevent the reintroduction of a hard border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, a crucial part of a 1998 peace deal that ended decades of sectarian violence, and preserve frictionless trade.

However, critics said it could bind the United Kingdom to the EUs rules indefinitely.

The proposal, put forward by influential Conservative lawmaker Graham Brady and passed by 317 votes to 301, called for the backstop to be replaced with unspecified "alternative arrangements", and said parliament would support Mays Brexit deal if such a change was made.

'Reneging on commitments'

However, Brussels has repeatedly said it does not want to reopen a treaty signed off by the other 27 EU leaders.

Speaking immediately after the vote in parliament, a spokesman for European Council president Donald Tusk said the backstop was part of the withdrawal deal and not up for negotiation, a stance echoed by the Irish government.

"This is a deal which was negotiated with the UK, by the UK, signed off by the UK and the prime minister  and now it looks as though this evening, essentially, there is a row-back and a reneging on the commitments that were made," said Irish European Affairs minister Helen McEntee.

French president Emmanuel Macrons office said there could be no renegotiation and demanded a "credible" British proposal.

If the British parliament cannot find a majority for a way forward, the United Kingdom will leave the largest global trading bloc without any deal, a scenario that businesses fear will bring chaos to the worlds fifth biggest economy.

Neither May nor her ministers spelt out what compromises she would seek from the EU, but suggestions include securing a time limit to the backstop or allowing a unilateral exit clause  elements that defeat its purpose, according to the EU.

Hardline pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers made clear that their support for May on Tuesday was conditional on her securing a deal they approved of. "The backstop is not going to get through this parliament," Steve Baker, a leading member of the group, told Reuters.

"Change the backstop, fix the date of the end of the implementation period, and agree on a plan C."

'May will be rebuffed'

However, EU diplomats played down Mays chances of being able to present a substantially different deal to the British parliament in a decisive vote expected to take place on 13 February.

"May will now come back to Brussels and be rebuffed," one diplomat said. "The House of Commons will have to vote again mid-February on plan C. And it will have to be plan A all over again, but with even more pressure of no-deal Brexit looming."

Members of parliament (MPs) on Tuesday rejected two amendments that set out a clear path for parliament to prevent a no-deal exit if May cannot get a deal passed next month. However, they did later approve a symbolic proposal calling on the government to stop a potentially disorderly no-deal exit, sending a signal that a majority oppose such a departure.

It provided no mechanism for preventing a no-deal Brexit, but kept open the option that members of parliament could try to take the initiative in the amendable vote that May has promised for Feb. 14 if she cannot get a deal approved.

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would meet May to find a sensible Brexit solution that works for the whole country, listing changes that Labour wanted to see, but that May has shown no sign of supporting.

Sterling, which recently hit a two and a half month high of $1.3218 on hopes that a no-deal Brexit would be avoided, fell about 0.8 percent.

"This isnt a good night for the country," Labour lawmaker Wes Streeting tweeted.

"The prime minister voted against her own deal to go back to Brussels for something shes said is impossible. MPs voted against 'no deal'  but also voted to make 'no deal' more likely. Well be back for another round of Groundhog Day soon."
Authorities arrested five people on Tuesday in connection with the collapse of a Brazilian mine dam, while the death toll rose to at least 84 and the carcasses of fish floated along the banks of a river downstream that an indigenous community depends on for food and water.

Brumadinho: Authorities arrested five people on Tuesday in connection with the collapse of a Brazilian mine dam, while the death toll rose to at least 84 and the carcasses of fish floated along the banks of a river downstream that an indigenous community depends on for food and water.

The dam that held back iron ore waste, owned and operated by big mining company Vale SA, collapsed Friday, burying a company cafeteria and other Vale buildings and inundating part of the small southeastern city of Brumadinho.

Grieving relatives buried some of the victims in Brumadinho and rescue teams continued a delicate search through swaths of muck for more victims or survivors.

Lieutenant Flavio Godinho of the Minas Gerais state civil defense agency said Tuesday evening that the number of confirmed dead had risen to 84 from 65. He said the number of missing stood at 276.

The dead fish and trash were seen by a reporting team for The Associated Press about 18 kilometers downstream from the dam along the banks of the Paraopeba River.

The Pataxo Indians living alongside the river who use it to fish, bathe and gather water for the plants they cultivate as food were told by Brazilian environmental officials that they should no longer do so, said Hayo, the village chief who goes by one name.

"We used the river to take baths, to fish, to water our plants and now we can't do any of that," said Hayo, wearing a large feathered headdress and a red and black-beaded necklace. "We can't even water our plants because they say it damages the soil."

Two agents with the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the country's environmental enforcement agency, took water samples and talked with tribe members but said they were not authorised to speak about their findings.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Tuesday, the agency said it had asked Vale to "remove the dead fish, which are having an impact on the indigenous population".

The statement gave no details about the water tests and did not say whether tribal members had been told the water was unhealthy.

The signs of possible ecological consequences came as the arrests of company workers with links to the dam were made in Sao Paulo and in the state of Minas Gerais.

Three of the arrested worked for Vale, the company said, adding that it was cooperating with investigating authorities.

A German company that has inspected the dam said two of its employees were arrested. The Munich-based TUEV Sued company declined to specify whether the arrested staff were from its German headquarters or its Brazilian branch.

In ordering the arrests, Minas Gerais state judge Perla Saliba Brito wrote that the disaster could have been avoided.

It's not believable that "dams of such magnitude, run by one of the largest mining companies in the world, would break suddenly without any indication of vulnerability," the judge wrote in the decision, according to news portal UOL.

Authorities said the five will be detained for 30 days while officials investigate possible criminal responsibility.

At a cemetery in Brumadinho, 15 freshly dug graves awaited the remains of some of those killed.

Wailing in grief at the cemetery was the wife of Edgar Carvalho Santos, one of the mining company's workers whose body has been found.

"He did not deserve this, he did not deserve it!" she sobbed.

Friends and family members prevented reporters from approaching the woman.

One woman told Santos' wife that "this was not a tragedy, it's a crime." It was a sign of the growing anger directed at Vale over the disaster.

Vale is the world's largest producer of iron ore, which is the raw ingredient for steel.

The company is one of Brazil's largest businesses and a key employer in Brumadinho, but many residents have complained that a siren which should have gone off to warn people to evacuate never sounded Friday.

Military police Colonel Evandro Borges told reporters that most of the people missing were Vale employees.

Many employees were eating lunch when the dam collapsed, burying a cafeteria and other company buildings.

The company's American depository shares on the New York Stock Exchange were up 3 percent on Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, to $11.54 each, after falling nearly 18 percent on Monday.
Asia Bibi, 47, is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday, when the apex court threw out a petition seeking to review its verdict of acquitting the victim of a blasphemy charge

Lahore: Over 90 members of hardline religious groups have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan's Punjab province for holding demonstrations against the Supreme Court's decision to reject a review plea against the acquittal of Christian woman Asia Bibi in a blasphemy case.

Punjab Police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar said that most arrests have been made from Lahore, Gujranwala and Ralwapindi.

"Police have arrested more than 90 activists of different religious parties mostly Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Tuesday and Wednesday for creating law and order situation," Ghazanfar said.

She said three protests were held in Lahore, one each in Gujranwala and Rawalpindi but timely action' by police thwarted them and arrested the participants.

Bibi, 47, is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday, when the apex court threw out a petition seeking to review its verdict of acquitting the victim of a blasphemy charge.

"On merit, this review petition is dismissed," pronounced Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa after hearing out for almost 90 minutes advocate Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa who represented the petitioner Qari Muhammad Salam, the prayer leader who had lodged the original FIR against Asia Bibi in 2009.

On 31 October, the SC reversed the judgements of the Lahore High Court as well as the trial court, thus setting aside the conviction and the death sentence awarded to Bibi.

The apex court's decision in October last to overturn her conviction sparked nationwide violent protests and death threats from hardline Islamist groups. The protests subsided when the government allowed the protesters to file a review petition against Bibi's acquittal.

Later, a nationwide crackdown had been carried out against the TLP and all of its central leadership including its chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi had been put behind bars.

Meanwhile, Bibi may leave the country shortly as there are threats to her life. Her two daughter had already shifted to Canada. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws.

Bibi's case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws.

A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad.

The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence.
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tech2 News Staff

It isn't every month, year, or even every generation that a brilliant scientist gets wrongfully accused of something as huge as spying on his/her own country, then arrested and released, apologised to, and lastly, awarded a Padma Bhushan and Rs 75 lakh in compensation for the trauma to health and reputation.

On India's 70th Republic day last week, Narayanan was among 112 people that were awarded the Padma awards.

"Troubling" the scientist

"It was an honour for his government to confer the Padma Bhushan on Nambi Narayanan...More than two decades ago, a hardworking and patriotic ISRO scientist was implicated in a false case, just because a few United Democratic Front leaders were settling political scores. Imagine, for their own politics, they damaged national interest, troubled a scientist," Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reported to have said at the awards ceremony.

Nambi Narayanan said he was glad his work in the Indian space arena was recognised after long last.

Scientists are rarely controversial, but when they are, things can get very bizarre.

There's no better example in recent times of a massive science goof-up than Chinese researcher Dr He Jiankui's newest experiment: toying with human genes in unborn babies. While Jiankui appears to be convicted rightfully of breaking laws on many different levels, there are others that have been wrongfully accused.

Few Indian researchers have been caught in controversy, and fewer wrongfully over the years. Some of these cases  like IISc Prof Giridhar Madras's #MeToo allegation  have been career-ending. Others have had their careers and reputations dragged through the dirt in political controversy and he-said-she-said without even being the real guilty party in the crime.

Indian scientist Nambi Narayanan's story was, until recently, an example of just such an injustice.

Crime, punishment and the overdue chappal-slap

In November 1994, Kerala Police had arrested a Maldivian woman for overstaying well beyond her visa's expiry. She had noted down a contact number for ISRO scientist Sasikumaran, which made the cops suspicious. The cops ultimately arrested Sasikumaran, Rashida, a Maldivian friend of Rashida's and two Bangalorean businessmen. They were all charged with conspiring and selling drawings of ISROs Vikas engine and cryogenic technology to Pakistan.

Narayanan, scientist, aerospace engineer and director of ISRO's cryogenic engine project at the time, was also taken in by the cops. He was subjected to a tough interrogation by officers from the Intelligence Bureau.

"Narayanan got agitated, explaining how ludicrous the charge was...He started worrying that he might be killed. The interrogators wouldnt reveal their identities. They were committing a crime, he told them, and he would make them pay," the Economic Times reported. Over the course of the interrogation, the report claimed that one of the intelligence officers said, We are doing our duty, Sir. If what you are saying is the truth and you are vindicated, you can slap us with your slippers.

Compensation, 25 years later

Well...its been twenty-four years since he heard the words, but Narayanan hasn't forgotten about his punishment, nor the slipper-slap he owes, the report says.

After CBI's investigation, the resulting report declared the case against Narayanan "baseless" and "unfounded". It also listed many lapses committed by Kerala's police officers with some recommendations for action against them.

The Kerala High Court chose not to charge the police officers responsible for the illegal arrest, but Narayanan chose to challenge the issue in the Supreme Court. In 2017, the SC began reviewing his case and said it is considering a Rs 75 lakh-compensation and some additional repairs to his reputation.

Narayanan continues his fight despite many close friends and colleagues (including ISRO colleague and former President APJ Abdul Kalam) advising him to not waste what remains of his life on the case.

In an interview with ET, Narayanan had said, "My age is weighing on me now...Its not easy to keep going to Delhi and is not a pleasant task  being in court. But I know I can't afford to stay silent. I have fought for justice, and I am getting it.
tech2 News Staff

A state-owned company, Israel Aerospace Industries, has tied up with a leading German space company to help the European Space Agency's moon mission reach its destination.

The Israeli company will develop a lunar lander similar to Beresheet  an earlier spacecraft it built in partnership with Israeli non-profit venture SpaceIL, which is due to launch next month from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

ESA's German contractor OHB will manage scientific instruments that will be fitted on the lander as well as operations of the lander with the ESA, the Jerusalem Post reports.

IAI is proud to partner with a leading global satellite company and cooperate with the German and European space agencies. We are proud to continue leading the Israeli space industry to new heights and are looking forward greatly to the launch of Beresheet to space and its journey to the moon next month, Nimrod Sheffer, CEO of IAI, told the Post.

While no financial details were disclosed, the agreement could be worth tens of millions of dollars, the report says.

Collaborative missions like these are part of ESA's in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) project, through which the agency is exploring ways to produce water or oxygen on the moon. The ESA has set itself a target to find a strategy to do this by 2025.ESA's ISRU mission involves sending landers to the moon to test technologies that produce oxygen, water and other raw materials from lunar soil, and analyze samples of the moons terrain.

In the view of many space agencies including the ESA, these technologies are crucial to human settlements sustaining themselves on the moon, Mars or any astronomical body that isn't Earth.
Reuters

A US judge rejected Yahoos proposed settlement with millions of people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen in the largest data breach in history, faulting the Internet services provider for a lack of transparency.

In a Monday night decision, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, said she could not declare the settlement fundamentally fair, adequate and reasonable because it did not say how much victims could expect to recover.

Yahoo, now part of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc, was accused of being too slow to disclose three breaches from 2013 to 2016 that affected an estimated 3 billion accounts.

The settlement called for a $50 million payout, plus two years of free credit monitoring for about 200 million people in the United States and Israel with nearly 1 billion accounts.

But the judge said the accord did not disclose the size of the settlement fund or the costs of the credit monitoring, and the proposed class may be too big because the number of active users that Yahoo disclosed privately to her was far lower.

Koh also said the maximum $35 million of fees for the plaintiffs lawyers may be unreasonably high, saying the legal theories of the case were not particularly novel.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.

Verizon said: While preliminary approval of the settlement was not granted, were confident that we can achieve a viable path forward.

Yahoo revealed the full scope of the breaches after having agreed in July 2016 to sell its internet business to Verizon for $4.83 billion. The revelations prompted a cut in the purchase price to $4.48 billion.

US prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers in connection with one of the breaches in 2017. One hacker later pleaded guilty.

Koh contrasted her decision with her approval last August of health insurer Anthem Incs $115 million settlement over data breaches affecting about 79 million victims.

The judge said Anthem, unlike Yahoo, timely disclosed the breaches, offered free credit monitoring even before settling, and committed to upgrading its data security.

Yahoos history of nondisclosure and lack of transparency related to the data breaches are egregious, Koh wrote.

Unfortunately, the settlement agreement, proposed notice, motion for preliminary approval, and public and sealed supplemental filings continue this pattern of lack of transparency, she added.

The case is In re: Yahoo Inc Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-md-02752.
Reuters

China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States, and are more aligned than they have been in decades as they target the 2020 presidential election and American institutions to expand their global reach, U.S. intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday.

The spy chiefs broke with President Donald Trump in their assessments of the threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Syria. But they outlined a clear and imminent danger from China, whose practices in trade and technology anger the U.S. president.

While China and Russia strengthen their alliance, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. policies on security and trade. The directors of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies flanked Coats at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. They described an array of economic, military and intelligence threats, from highly organized efforts by China to scattered disruptions by terrorists, hacktivists and transnational criminals.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways - to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure, Coats said.

Moscows relationship with Beijing is closer than its been in many decades, he told the panel.

The intelligence officials said they had protected the 2018 U.S. congressional elections from outside interference, but expected renewed and likely more sophisticated attacks on the 2020 presidential contest.

U.S. adversaries will use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine alliances and partnerships, and shape policy outcomes, Coats said.

The intelligence chiefs assessments broke with some past assertions by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections and democratic institutions, the threat Islamic State poses in Syria, and North Koreas commitment to denuclearize.

Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat.

Coats also said Islamic State would continue to pursue attacks from Syria, as well as Iraq, against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States. Trump, who plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, has said the militant group is defeated.

The intelligence officials also said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, even though Tehran has threatened to reverse some commitments after Trump pulled out of the deal.

Senators expressed deep concern about current threats.

Increased cooperation between Russia and China - for a generation that hasnt been the case - that could be a very big deal on the horizon in terms of the United States, said Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

CHINA BIGGEST COUNTERINTELLIGENCE THREAT

The officials painted a multifaceted picture of the threat posed by China, as they were questioned repeatedly by senators about the No. 2 world economys business practices as well as its growing international influence.

The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

He said almost all the economic espionage cases in the FBIs 56 field offices lead back to China.

Coats said intelligence officials have been traveling around the United States and meeting with corporate executives to discuss espionage threats from China.

He said China has had a meteoric rise in the past decade, adding, A lot of that was achieved by stealing information from our companies.

Tuesdays testimony came just a day after the United States announced criminal charges against Chinas Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, escalating a fight with the worlds biggest telecommunications equipment maker and coming days before trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Coats also said Russias social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities and criticizing politicians perceived to be anti-Russia.

Senator Mark Warner, the panels top Democrat, said he was particularly concerned about Russias use of social media to amplify divisions in our society and to influence our democratic processes and the threat from China in the technology arena.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of several congressional panels, along with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, investigating whether there were any connections between Trumps 2016 and Russian efforts to influence the election.

Russia denies attempting to influence U.S. elections, while Trump has denied his campaign cooperated with Moscow.

Coats declined to respond when Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked whether Trumps not releasing records of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin put U.S. intelligence agencies at a disadvantage.

To me from an intelligence perspective, its just Intel 101 that it would help our country to know what Vladimir Putin discussed with Donald Trump, Wyden said.
Reuters

Sony Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd are expected to score strong quarterly earnings this week, as the Japanese gaming giants battle through the next stage in the lifecycles of their consoles.

At Sony, analysts estimate operating profit grew 10 percent in September-December versus the same period a year prior to 388 billion yen ($3.55 billion), with its games segment supported in recent quarters by a string of exclusive hit titles such as Marvels Spider-Man.

However, with Sonys PlayStation 4 (PS4) console approaching its sixth year on the market, hardware sales have crested with the gaming units sales expected to peak in the current financial year ending March.

That has left investors eager for any hint from Sony, which announces its quarterly earnings on Friday, about a successor console seen by many analysts as hitting the market in late 2020.

The PS4 is an absolute smash-hit and destroyed Sonys direct competition, Microsoft, in this console generation, said Serkan Toto, founder of Tokyo-based game industry consultancy Kantan Games, referring to Microsoft Corps Xbox.

Everyone is waiting for the PS5 now, he said.

Sony has said it is planning a follow-up device but has not provided details such as a name or timing.

Meanwhile there are signs Microsoft is planning a counter-attack with its growing focus on cloud gaming, where content is streamed to users.

That is seen by some in the industry as the future of video games and an area in which Microsoft has the advantage as a major cloud computing player.

Switching gears

At Kyoto-based Nintendo, analysts estimate an almost 30 percent rise in operating profit to 149 billion yen, its highest third-quarter result in nine years and its second consecutive third-quarter rise.

While its hybrid home-portable Switch is only approaching year three of its lifecycle, a weak games pipeline last summer and a bullish company sales forecast of 20 million consoles for the current financial year ending March has fed scepticism about the prospects for the device.

However it received a boost with the December release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which has sold nearly 3 million copies in Japan alone, according to industry magazine Famitsu. Market researcher NPD Group said it was the United States best-selling game in December, helping the Switch outsell the PS4 to become 2018s biggest-selling console in that country.

Its not just Smash Bros. but the attractiveness of both the Switchs software and hardware that is driving growth, said Ace Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda.

That momentum in software, supported by incoming titles such as Pokemon and Animal Crossing, has helped lift Nintendo stock 13 percent this year. Shares in Sony are down 0.7 percent.

Investors want Nintendo to do more to cushion itself from the vicissitudes of the console lifecycle, particularly in mobile where it recently scored a modest hit with role-playing game Dragalia Lost developed with CyberAgent Inc.

Mobile and online games will form 20 percent of Nintendos sales by the year ending March 2023, showed estimates from Morningstar researcher Kazunori Ito.

Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at IHS Markit, said Nintendos biggest challenge this year will likely be in bolstering its range of lower-priced devices beyond the current Switch model, which retails in the United States for $299.99.

There needs to be something in... the $100-200 range to replace its aging 3DS handheld device, he said.
Reuters

Japanese electronics maker Sharp cut its full-year outlook, citing U.S.-China trade frictions and weaker demand from a major unnamed client.

Sharp, an Apple Inc supplier, said it now expects an operating profit of 107 billion yen ($979.1 million) for the full-year through March, less than its previous forecast of 112 billion yen.

The company also cut its annual sales forecast to 2.50 trillion yen from 2.69 trillion yen expected earlier.

Sharp did not name Apple, but said a major customer had adjusted inventory. It also cited trade friction between the United States and China.

Sharp last year had raised its full-year outlook amid a turnaround under the ownership of Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd.

Other Japanese manufacturers such as precision motor maker Nidec Corp have given similar warnings. Camera and printer maker Canon Inc said on Wednesday it expected a 5.2 percent fall in annual operating profit.
tech2 News Staff

The Redmi Note 7 has made an appearance in China earlier this month and it looks like the device will be making its way to India by March. Now we are hearing rumours of the Note 7 Pro also about to be unveiled soon.

Lu Weibing, CEO of Redmi, which recently split from the parent company Xiaomi has been asking to fans on Weibo as to what they would like out of the Redmi Note 7 Pro. A fan did say to skip the 3 GB RAM + 32 GB storage variant and straight on offer the 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage and 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variants. This comment was reposted by Lu Weibing which makes us believe that these may be the two variants that can be launched.

Apart from that, the phone is quite likely going to include he notched 6.4 screen and the 4,000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 4 capabilities. A Snapdragon 660 or 670 processor is being considered as an option for the Redmi Note 7 Pro given that the Note 5 Pro and Note 6 Pro both had the Snapdragon 636 chipset. As of right now, there has been no announcement on the official release date of the phone, however, we can be sure that the device will be making its way to India.
Reuters

Intel Corp will receive a grant of about $1 billion from the Israeli government for its latest investment plan to expand its chip manufacturing operations in the country, Israels finance minister said on Tuesday.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said late on Monday he was informed by the chip giant, already one of the biggest employers and exporters in Israel where many of its new technologies are developed, that it would invest about 40 billion shekels ($11 billion) in a new factory.

California-based Intel said it would submit a business plan for continued investment in the companys Kiryat Gat manufacturing site in central Israel, but did not disclose details, including the schedule, costs and technologies.

The moment the company comes to Israel and invests $10 billion, and it receives a grant of 9 percent, that means 91 percent of it stays here, Kahlon said in an interview on Army Radio. There are always such discounts, there are always incentives.

This is in addition to a 700 million shekel grant the company will get in return for a separate $5 billion expansion of its production operations in Israel.

Last month Intel said it had begun plans for site expansion projects in Ireland, Israel and at its U.S. plant in Oregon starting in 2019 as it looks to diversify its products for a broader set of customers, such as auto safety and wireless connections for mobile phones.

Kahlons spokesman told Reuters the government and Intel had agreed on the size of the grant after talks regarding the new factory had intensified over the past year. He noted that grants were crucial for Israel to compete with for investment with countries such as Ireland.

The expansion is expected to add 1,000 new employees to Intels workforce of nearly 13,000 in Israel, the spokesman said.

Economy Minister Eli Cohen said it was the biggest investment of its kind ever in the country, adding it would strengthen the economy and employment in Israel.

Intels exports from Israel rose by $300 million in 2018 to $4 billion, while it bought $1.7 billion of products from local companies. The company, along with Israel Chemicals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, accounts for close to half of Israels industrial exports.
Reuters

Huawei Technologies Co Ltds chief financial officer, the central figure in a high-stakes dispute between the worlds two largest economies, made her first appearance in a Canadian court in more than a month on Tuesday as Ottawa weighs extraditing the Chinese executive to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the Chinese telecommunications companys founder, attended the hearing in British Columbia Supreme Court during which Justice William Ehrcke approved her request for a change in who is financially responsible for her bail.

Canada arrested Meng on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States, which on Monday brought sweeping charges against Huawei and Meng that paint the company as a threat to U.S. national security. Meng was charged with bank and wire fraud to violate American sanctions against Iran.

I can confirm that the United States has filed a formal request with my department for the extradition of Ms. Meng, Justice Minister David Lametti told reporters in Ottawa.

Canadas government now has a month to decide whether the U.S. extradition request is strong enough to be presented in the British Columbia court. Lametti, asked whether a decision could come sooner than 30 days, said officials will take the time that they need to make an enlightened decision based on the evidence in front of them.

Neither Lametti nor Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland gave any hints on whether Canada would back the extradition request. Freeland told reporters Meng has been afforded access to Canadas impartial and objective judicial system.

Ehrcke on Dec. 11 approved Mengs release on C$10 million ($7.5 million) bail, and she has stayed at a family residence in Vancouver. Canadas government agreed to her request concerning bail at Tuesdays hearing, which the judge granted. Ehrcke also postponed Mengs next scheduled court appearance by a month, to March 6, which comes after the 30-day extradition decision deadline.

Before the hearing, Meng, who is fighting extradition, spoke with her lawyer David Martin, holding a notepad.

Her arrest further aggravated U.S.-Chinese tensions at a time when the two economic powerhouses are locked in a trade war. President Donald Trump said in December he could intervene in Mengs case if it would serve U.S. national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

Following Mengs arrest, China arrested two Canadians on national security grounds. A Chinese court later retried a Canadian man who had been jailed for drug smuggling and sentenced him to death. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday fired his ambassador to China, who had said Meng could make a strong argument against being sent to the United States.

A HOSTAGE

In a previous sworn affidavit, Meng said she is innocent and would contest the allegations at trial in the United States if she is extradited. Her lawyer Reid Weingarten said Meng should not be a pawn or a hostage in complex Sino-U.S. relations.

Huawei is the worlds largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones. It derives nearly half of its total revenue outside China.

In Ottawa, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canadas decision on whether to ban Huawei from supplying equipment to 5G networks is some ways off into the future.

Goodales comments were the most specific indication yet from Ottawa on the timing of the politically sensitive announcement. Officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. The United States and other Canadian allies have already imposed restrictions on Huawei equipment, citing the risk of espionage.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday he expected significant progress in Washington trade talks with Chinese officials, set for Wednesday and Thursday. Mnuchin said the U.S. security concerns raised by the Huawei case were separate from the trade issue.

Chinas foreign ministry has urged the United States to drop the arrest warrant against Meng and end unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies. China has demanded the executives immediate release.

Huaweis global reach has come under attack from the United States, which is trying to prevent U.S. companies from buying Huawei equipment and is pressing allies to do the same. U.S. security experts are worried the gear could be used by Chinas government for espionage, a concern Huawei calls unfounded. U.S. intelligence and national security officials expressed fresh national security concerns about Huawei during a U.S. Senate committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers the lines between the Chinese government and ostensibly private companies are blurred if not totally erased and especially the lines between lawful behavior and fair competition and lying and hacking and cheating and stealing.
tech2 News Staff

Google launched its UPI-based payments app called Tez back in September 2017. Rebranded as Google Pay in August 2018, the app has now reached a commendable landmark of 100 million installs on the Play Store.

With a tailor-made app for India, the tech giant's aim at launch was to capitalise on the country's digital payments and commerce market, and this milestone certainly suggests that Google did a reasonably good job at achieving its target.

Google Pay also offers language support for English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu, which helped further its footprint in regional markets. A major feature of Google Pay in India has also been its rewards program which includes daily and weekly cashback offers for users.

However, as pointed out in a report by Android Police, pre-installs may have played a major role in reaching the 100 million mark with a number of manufacturers including HMD Global (Nokia) including the app out of the box. But with an average rating of 4.5 stars and more than 1.6 million reviews on the Play Store, it does seem that the millions of installs aren't just a milestone achieved through pre-installs.
Portrait of Isaac Errett - provided by Ionia First Christian Church





The religious tradition of which I am part was founded on the vision of pursuing the unity of Christians. Thomas Campbell spoke of the divisions among Christians that marked the American frontier as a horrid evil. He called it anti-christian, as it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ; as if were divided against himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of himself. Campbell goes on to call it anti-scriptural and anti-natural. Despite that vision of unity, the movement that emerged on the frontier and linked to the ministries of Thomas Campbell, as well as that of his son Alexander, and Barton Stone, has managed to divide several times. It seems we cant agree on the basis of unity. The religious tradition of which I am part was founded on the vision of pursuing the unity of Christians. Thomas Campbell spoke of the divisions among Christians that marked the American frontier as a horrid evil. He called it anti-christian, as it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ; as if were divided against himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of himself. Campbell goes on to call it anti-scriptural and anti-natural. Despite that vision of unity, the movement that emerged on the frontier and linked to the ministries of Thomas Campbell, as well as that of his son Alexander, and Barton Stone, has managed to divide several times. It seems we cant agree on the basis of unity.





My thoughts on this issue spring from a series of conversations that have taken place on a list-serve discussion group (yes email discussion groups still exist). The participants mostly come from the branch of the Stone-Campbell Movement known as the Churches of Christ, along with a healthy number from the group known as the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (or Independents). I am one of the few participants that come from the third branchthe Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Recently the name Isaac Errett came up. Errett has a direct link to my congregation as he was the pastor of the Disciples church in Detroit in the early 1860s. At the time, Errett, who was a second-generation Disciples leader, came under fire in certain quarters for embracing the so-called pastor system. That is, he referred to himself as pastor and even accepted the title Reverend, something Disciples were loath to do. Heres why I bring up Errett: depending on which branch of the movement you might find yourself in, Errett is either hero of villain. My thoughts on this issue spring from a series of conversations that have taken place on a list-serve discussion group (yes email discussion groups still exist). The participants mostly come from the branch of the Stone-Campbell Movement known as the Churches of Christ, along with a healthy number from the group known as the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (or Independents). I am one of the few participants that come from the third branchthe Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Recently the name Isaac Errett came up. Errett has a direct link to my congregation as he was the pastor of the Disciples church in Detroit in the early 1860s. At the time, Errett, who was a second-generation Disciples leader, came under fire in certain quarters for embracing the so-called pastor system. That is, he referred to himself as pastor and even accepted the title Reverend, something Disciples were loath to do. Heres why I bring up Errett: depending on which branch of the movement you might find yourself in, Errett is either hero of villain.





In the course of my research (not too deep, but deep enough), both the Disciples churches and the Churches of Christ congregations in Metro-Detroit trace their ancestry to the same family  the family of Thomas Hawley, who gathered a group of like-minded people in his home in 1841. They formed the foundation of the Disciples communities in Detroit, ebbing and flowing with time. Then in around 1861, Errett arrived in Detroit, having planted churches in Muir and Ionia, two small communities near Lansing. Both churches still exist and are the oldest continuing Disciples churches in Michigan. It appears that not everyone in the Detroit church appreciated the vision that Errett brought to the church in Detroit, as a division emerged. Errett located the Detroit church at the corner of Jefferson and Beaubien. There seems to be evidence that Errett might have also introduced, among other things, instrumental music, but that is speculation. In the course of my research (not too deep, but deep enough), both the Disciples churches and the Churches of Christ congregations in Metro-Detroit trace their ancestry to the same family  the family of Thomas Hawley, who gathered a group of like-minded people in his home in 1841. They formed the foundation of the Disciples communities in Detroit, ebbing and flowing with time. Then in around 1861, Errett arrived in Detroit, having planted churches in Muir and Ionia, two small communities near Lansing. Both churches still exist and are the oldest continuing Disciples churches in Michigan. It appears that not everyone in the Detroit church appreciated the vision that Errett brought to the church in Detroit, as a division emerged. Errett located the Detroit church at the corner of Jefferson and Beaubien. There seems to be evidence that Errett might have also introduced, among other things, instrumental music, but that is speculation.





After his departure it appears that two congregations emerged, one of which was the foundation of what became Central Christian Church and later Central Woodward Christian Church. The other church came to be known as the Plum Street Church of Christ. This congregation no longer exists, but it gave birth to a number of other churches in the area. I was able to find a history of the Plum Street Church, and the author, writing in 1906, at the time the Churches of Christ were listed separately from the Disciples, had little good to say about Erretts ministry. He spoke of it as the New Measures. These included such things as instrumental music and the pastor system.





This factious movement was consummated under the direction and with the full concurrence of Isaac Errett, who became "the pastor" of the "New Interest" for the two succeeding years. Mr. Errett was in a measure responsible for introducing and inculcating these "New Interest" views -"new" indeed to all who derive their views from the New Testament Scriptures alone. But his responsibility was fearfully augmented by the encouragement which he gave to the division which followed. [G.G. Taylor, A History of the Plum Street Church of Christ, Detroit, Michigan, (1906),p. 19].





By twenty-first century standards Errett wasnt a liberal, but his views contrasted enough from a portion of that congregation that division ensued. By 1906, there were two very different streams existing within a movement founded on the premise that division is a horrid evil. These two streams were represented by two congregations, one Disciple and one Churches of Christ, both of which trace their origins to one family. The family of Thomas Hawley.





There are other interesting elements to the story. There would be Hawleys on both sides of this divide. The same would be true of other families. This includes the Gray family. John Gray was an elder of the Plum Street Church of Christ, and his father had been an elder of the earlier church. Gray would serve as the first president of the Ford Motor Company. His son, Philip Gray, who inherited a portion of his fathers largess from selling his shares of Ford, was a leader in Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Philip Gray would be the key to bringing Edgar DeWitt Jones to Detroit in 1920. Jones would lead Central into a merger with other Detroit area churches to form the congregation I now serve.

There is much more that I would like to know about that period in the 1860s when Isaac Errett came to town, even as I have already done some research about the coming of Edgar DeWitt Jones. In reflecting on all of this, I wonder whether division/schism is inevitable within religious communities. Might this be even more true of faith communities that invite people to interpret sacred text for themselves. Will we not differ in our interpretations, and might these differences lead to separation? As I wonder about all of this, I havent given up my commitment to unity within the Christian community. I am chastened by these realities, but I still want to talk!




Reuters

A Canadian government decision on whether to ban Huawei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment to 5G networks is some ways off into the future yet, a top official said on Tuesday.

The comments by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to reporters were the most specific indication yet from Ottawa on the timing of a politically sensitive announcement.

Officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. Some Canadian allies have already imposed restrictions on Huawei equipment, citing the risk of espionage.

Its some way off into the future yet ... its certainly beyond weeks, Goodale said when asked about the timing.

Canada and China are involved in a separate diplomatic dispute over the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou last month in Vancouver on a U.S. arrest warrant.
'Shashi Tharoor has made a statement which tantamount to a religious slur. This has been done with the tactical support of Congress party and the question needs to be asked to Rahul Gandhi who strategically wears a janeu only when there are polls,' said Smriti Irani

New Delhi: Union Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday mounted a scathing attack on Congress while asserting that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's alleged defamatory statement on Kumbh and Hindu beliefs was made with the tactical support of the Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking to media, Irani said, "It is appalling that a Congress MP, with the tactical support of his president Rahul, has indulged in smearing of the Kumbh. Crores of Hindus across the world consider Kumbh not only as a part of their faith but they throng to Prayagraj, as Sanatan Dharm tells us that Kumbh is a place where tapasvis (sage) come for the betterment of mankind."

"Shashi Tharoor has made a statement which tantamount to a religious slur. This has been done with the tactical support of Congress party and the question needs to be asked to Rahul who strategically wears a janeu only when there are polls. He must be asked as to why he has allowed this attack on the beliefs of millions of Hindus across the world," she further added.

Intensifying her attack on the Congress president, she further said that Rahul's silence on the issue was an evidence that it was done at his behest only.

"The fact that Rahul chooses to be quiet and the Congress party representative continues his attack on Hindu traditions and faith are an indication to the entire community that this attack on Kumbh has been mounted at the direction of the Congress president," Irani stated.

BJP's criticism comes a day after the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram posted on twitter, "Ganga bhi swachh rakhni hain, aur paap bhi yahi dhone hain. Iss Sangam mein sab nange hain. Jai Ganga Maiya ki!" (Ganga has to be kept clean and sins also have to be washed there. In this Sangam everyone is naked. Hail Goddess Ganga!).

Earlier in the day, BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli had also stated that such comments on Hindu practices by an educated person like Tharoor is very unfortunate."This is very unfortunate. An extremely educated and respected person like Tharoor always comes up with such kind of comments related to practices of the Hindu religion," Kohli said.
When a frustrated Kumaraswamy began to sidestep Siddaramaiah and established his own direct channel of communication with Rahul and central leaders of Congress, things took a turn for the worse. This made Siddaramaiah feel he was dispensable, and he did the only thing he could do from his point of view: he began to prove he was indispensable by stoking dissidence

As Karnataka plunges into crisis after crisis, threatening the Congress and Janata Dal(Secular) coalition government and the state's own so-called mahagathbandhan against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), what comes to mind is an ancient Sanskrit saying: vinashe kale, viparita buddhi. This means that when one nears one's doom, one gets bizarre ideas.

In Karnataka's case, these ideas and the threat of doom for Congress originate from one single man with mind-boggling regularity: former chief minister Siddaramaiah.

Rahul Gandhi has all along known how important Siddaramaiah is but the Congress chief is unsure of what to do with the backward Kuruba caste leader. Rahul gave Siddaramaiah an unofficial license to take complete charge of the party's affairs in Karnataka, but takes it away from him and returns it as and when the former chief minister wishes. With no clue as to where he stands in the party, Siddaramaiah makes and unmakes troubles.

As this goes on, the result is a continuing mess in Karnataka Congress. Barely had the coalition government recovered from the BJP's yet another attempt to destabilise it two weeks ago, the alliance went headlong on Monday into yet another crisis that threatens its existence, months before the Lok Sabha elections. It's difficult to even imagine that Rahul doesn't notice how things are getting from bad to worse for his party in the southern state.

Once again we have Siddaramaiah letting everybody know how indispensable he is for Congress and how he alone is the key to the coalition's fate. Once again, we have chief minister HD Kumaraswamy threatening to quit. Karnataka's own mahagathbandhan looks as though it is going to implode, just the away it did in Andhra Pradesh where the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party have decided to fight elections separately.

But what's new in Karnataka's nataka, where the alliance has been crisis ridden from day one, getting sucked into the quicksand of a greedy power and ego war deeper by the day?

For the first time, Siddaramaiah allowed four associates on Sunday to publicly affirm loyalty to him, declare he would have been a better chief minister and make caustic remarks against Kumaraswamy's performance. Though Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao was quick to serve a show-cause notice on one of them, but the damage was done. So far, it has only been whispered and speculated that Siddaramaiah is the man rocking the boat. Now it's out in the open. That's what is new.

And that has made Kumaraswamy jumpy like never before, and he was prompt in threatening to resign as chief minister.

But what's new about Kumaraswamy making noises about quitting, you might ask. In the past, Kumaraswamy wept in public, threw up hands in despair over heading an uneasy coalition, said he was drinking poison "like Lord Shiva", said he had been reduced to being a "clerk" and, of course, said he would resign and go home if necessary. But in the past, it was just a threat in passing. On Monday, Kumaraswamy spoke at length when as he brought up his resignation.

It looks unlikely at the moment that Kumaraswamy will make good on his threat and sacrifice power. Yet at the same time, if the situation is allowed to continue in this fashion, the possibility of the JD(S) leader deciding that the struggle to keep his job is not worth the trouble can't be completely ruled out.

Siddaramaiah's problem

When the Karnataka coalition was stitched together in a hurry eight months ago to keep the BJP out of power after the Assembly elections, Siddaramaiah was forced to accept Kumaraswamy as the chief minister. The trouble wasn't simply that JD(S) had only half as many Assembly seats as Congress. The real problem, or at least a good part of it, is the fact that Kumaraswamy is the son of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, Siddaramaiah's one-time mentor and current arch rival.

For public appearances, Siddaramaiah had no choice but to accept Kumaraswamy's choice, because Rahul sang paeans to the coalition. Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and admirers of the Congress hailed it as a precursor to a magnificent pan-India mahagathbandhan and even began to write Modi's political obituaries.

Rahul may have thought it was a political masterstroke on his part when he appointed Siddaramaiah as the head of a coordination committee which was meant to ensure the coalition functioning was smooth. Rahul even let it be known that he took decisions always in consultation with the former chief minister. Siddaramaiah used his exalted status in the party to provide one pinprick after another to Kumaraswamy as well as his rivals within Congress, notably deputy chief minister G Parameshwara and minister DK Shivakumar.

When a frustrated Kumaraswamy began to sidestep Siddaramaiah and established his own direct channel of communication with Rahul and central leaders of Congress, things took a turn for the worse. This made Siddaramaiah feel he was dispensable, and he did the only thing he could do from his point of view: he began to prove he was indispensable by stoking dissidence.

Siddaramaiah has another problem: the belief he has in himself as a leader and the lack of it in others around him make it impossible for him to be part of any political arrangement of which he is not its autocratic head.

Dealing with a complex party like Congress, which has leaders at each other's throats always, needs a leader who is either strong or who has the skill to walk the tightrope-or both. Rahul has proved he is neither. The Congress president may have heard of politics making strange bedfellows, but he should also know that certain old enmities in politics, especially of the kind that exists between Siddaramaiah and the Gowda family, die hard. He should learn to spot daggers drawn behind veneers of cosy appearances.

To begin with, Rahul must come to grips with the fact that it's Siddaramaiah's bruised ego which is at the epicentre of the trouble and he must deal with it accordingly-or let others who can deal with it do that job.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday responded to Manohar Parrikar's letter criticising him for lying about their meeting in Goa on Wednesday. 'Pressure has forced Parrikar to take the unusual step of demonstrating loyalty to the prime minister and cronies by attacking me in an uncharacteristic manner,' Rahul alleged

Rahul Gandhi on Thursday responded to a letter that Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar reportedly wrote accusing the Congress president of lying about their meeting in Goa on Wednesday.

According to reports, Parrikar, in the letter (tweeted by ANI) addressed to Rahul, had accused him of lying about the content of their meeting, claiming that it was not at all related to the Rafale deal, as mentioned by Rahul later in his public speeches on Tuesday.

However, now Rahul has hit back at Parrikar, claiming that the former defence minister is "acting under pressure".

"I empathise with your situation; I understand the immense pressure you are under after our meeting yesterday," Rahul said in a letter to Parrikar, which the Congress president tweeted out on Wednesday evening.

"...Pressure has forced Parrikar to take the unusual step of demonstrating loyalty to the prime minister and cronies by attacking me in an uncharacteristic manner," Rahul alleged.

I totally empathise with Parrikar Ji's situation & wish him well. He's under immense pressure from the PM after our meeting in Goa and needs to demonstrate his loyalty by attacking me. Attached is the letter I've written him. pic.twitter.com/BQ6V6Zid8m  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 30, 2019

The Congress chief also said he is "disturbed" to hear about a letter which Parrikar has supposedly written to him, "but instead leaked to the press before I have had a chance to read it".

Wishing the former defence minister a speedy recovery once again, he said that he was forced to write back to Parrikar to clarify his position on the issue as the former defence minister's letter to him has created an "unfortunate and unnecessary controversy".

Rahul has also claimed that he did not share any details of the meeting in Panaji, which according to him was personal in nature, and undertaken to visit the ailing Goa chief minister. He also clarified that he only referred to what is already in the public domain on the Rafale deal in his speeches after the interaction.

Earlier on Wednesday, Parrikar had claimed that he met Rahul for five minutes and didn't discuss anything related to the Rafale deal, accusing him of using his visit for "petty political gains".

With inputs from PTI
Parrikar, a senior BJP leader, is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February, 2018.

Panaji (Goa): Rahul Gandhi is a "compulsive liar," Prasanna Karthik, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Goa chief minister, said on Wednesday while commenting on the Congress chief's claim that Manohar Parrikar had denied any involvement in finalisation of the Rafale fighter deal.

Rahul met ailing Parrikar in Panaji on Tuesday to "wish him a speedy recovery".

Hours later, he said at a party workers' meeting in Kerala, "Friends, the ex-defence minister clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani."

The chief minister's OSD slammed Rahul for making such a claim, terming it as "disgusting".

"This guy is a compulsive liar. He came saying he wants to convey his and his mothers wishes for a speedy recovery. The chief minister met him out of decency. Now he shamelessly lies about him - a person who is fighting cancer without compromising on his commitments to his people. Disgusting," Karthik tweeted.

Parrikar, a senior BJP leader, is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February, 2018.

Significantly, Rahul paid a visit to Parrikar, a day after demanding action against him for allegedly being in possession of files related to the Rafale fighter deal.

"30 days since the Goa Audio Tapes on Rafale were released. No FIR or enquiry ordered. No action against the Minister either! It's obvious that the tapes are authentic and that Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar is in possession of explosive Rafale secrets, that give him power over the prime minister," Rahul tweeted on Monday.

Interestingly, senior Goa Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar had said on Wednesday that the meeting between Rahul and Parrikar lasted five minutes and the issue of 'Rafale audio tapes' was not discussed.

The Congress, earlier in January, had released an audio clip claiming that Parrikar possessed all files related to the deal.

Congress party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala had claimed that the audio clip had the voice of Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane speaking to another person about the deal.

According to the Congress claim, Rane, in the audio, said Parrikar, who was the Defence Minister when the Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between India and France, had "all files related to the deal in his bedroom."

Later, Rane hit back at the Congress, asserting that the audio tape was doctored and Parrikar made no mention about Rafale deal and its documents.

"The audio tape is doctored. Congress has stooped to such a low level to doctor a tape to create miscommunication between the Cabinet and chief minister. Parrikar has never made any reference to Rafale or any documents. I have asked him for a criminal investigation into the matter," Rane had told reporters.
West Bengal has a history of political violence dating back to the pre-Independence times. It was seen during the Congress rule, taken over by the Left and now, the Trinamool Congress appears to be using the same tactics.

"Talibani Didi"  this is the tag BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra gave West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee after clashes between workers of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the saffron party on Tuesday. Violence broke out in Kanthi in East Midnapore district after BJP president Amit Shah's rally. TMC accused BJP workers of vandalising a local party office, which the BJP accused TMC workers of attacking their buses parked at the venue.

Although it might be a stretch to liken the situation, or any leader, as "Talibani", it would not be an exaggeration to state that violence is entrenched in the politics of West Bengal. This has only worsened in the recent months, with both sides accusing each other of "unleashing terror" in the state and trying to disrupt peace.

West Bengal has a history of political violence. It dates back to the pre-Independence times. There were peasant movements against Congress-backed landlords that led to clashes with Communist cadre. The ultimate fall of the landlord system helped the Communist Party of India (Marxist) sow its seeds in Bengal, leading an often violence anti-landlord movement.

The Congress was accused of rigging the Assembly elections in 1972 using the state machinery to target the Opposition, beginning a trend that every following West Bengal government has been accused of. After the fall of of the Congress government in West Bengal in 1977, the Left formed a powerful panchayati raj system, which has since played a vital role in state politics and is essential to implement government policies.

The bloodshed we see in Bengal is different from the religion- or caste-based crimes we hear of from North India and the anti-Naxal movement in its neighbouring states.

The political structure in Bengal helps give an idea of why the state is often plagues by political violence. A senior CPM member Barddhaman explained to the Hindustan Times: "Bengal's panchayats are not from the 73rd amendment, they are from the Panchayat Act."

"While this allowed for a highly participatory system, in reality, the panchayats became a powerful tool to implement party/state policy at the village level," the report said. "The logic of the system implied that all citizen access to the party and state would be channelled through the panchayat  effectively requiring total territorial control of West Bengal's villages for large-scale policy implementation."

This would explain the wide-scale violence reported ahead of, during and even after the 2018 panchayat elections in West Bengal, a state where panchayat polls are a measure of local power, not popularity. The BJP had claimed that 52 party workers were murdered in the run-up to the elections, while the TMC had claimed 14 of its workers had been killed. The BJP also alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led party had won 34 percent of the gram panchayat seats unopposed because it had prevented Opposition candidates from filing nominations.

Moreover, political loyalties are as important to the West Bengal youth as a social identity. This is evident in the field of student politics, which is not immune to clashes among the impassioned youth either.

The violence here has never been one sided. Both the BJP and TMC accuse the other of capturing booths or instigating violence as a means of political intimidation (on the TMC's part) and to attempt to grow in West Bengal (for the BJP). With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, there are bound to be reports of clashes at campaign rallies and a continuous blame game. This is why it may be safe to say that the courts were right to back the West Bengal government in denying the BJP permission to hold a rath yatra in the state, as it would have surely led to bloodshed, one way or another.
Besides a one-time loan waiver, the other promises being considered by the Congress for farmers for the Lok Sabha polls include a new crop insurance scheme and promotion of food processing, Congress' farmers' welfare department head Nana Patole said.

Hyderabad: Besides a one-time loan waiver, the other promises being considered by the Congress for farmers for the Lok Sabha polls include a new crop insurance scheme and promotion of food processing, Congress' farmers' welfare department head Nana Patole said on Tuesday.

"We will stop this Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. We will bring a scheme on how a farmer gets maximum benefit for the crop damage," he told reporters here in reply to a query on what will be his party's promises for farmers for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Observing that the Congress government in Chhattisgarh has started purchasing paddy from farmers for Rs 2,500 per quintal, more than the support price, Patole said the party would like to firm up its promise on the price to be offered to farmers for their crop after consultations with them.

The Congress would implement a one-time loan waiver to farmers all over the country but it would like to promote food processing so that jobs are created for children of the poor and the farmers, he said.

Alleging that the BJP made light of the comments on setting up of food processing units, he said it was due to the efforts of the Congress that the country made giant strides in progress in 70 years of Independence though doubts were raised even by the British after the country became independent.

Patole, who attended a meeting of Kisan Congress (farmers' welfare cell) of the Congress from southern states in Hyderabad, said the party would organise a protest at Raj Ghat in Delhi on Wednesday to "remind the assurances" made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress would hold protests all over the country in support of farmers if the NDA government fails to respond to the protest on Wednesday, he said.

Patole alleged that BJP has made a "B group" comprising the likes of AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, Prakash Ambedkar and BSP chief Mayawati. "Already, they have been given the contract to divide the Congress votes. They are working accordingly," he said in his speech earlier at the meeting.

He said the Congress has safeguarded the Constitutional systems in the country after Independence and alleged that the NDA government, on the other hand, "hurt" Constitutional institutions.

The Kisan Congress was working to unite the farmers of the country under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, he said.

The deliberations of the Kisan Congress meeting on Tuesday would be included in the party manifesto towards doing justice to every farmer, he said.
In an apparent dig at the Gandhi-Nehru family, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday said those who made the country tremble and turned it into jail are now making rounds of courts

Taking a dig at the opposition leaders, including the Gandhi-Nehru family, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that those who made the country tremble and turned it into jail are now making rounds of courts.

Speaking at a youth conclave in Surat, he said no one had thought that a 'chaiwallah' would challenge them. "Char-char peedhi raj karne waalon ko chaiwala chunauti de raha hai," he said.

PM Narendra Modi in Surat: There used to be rapes in this country earlier too, it is a shame that we still hear about such cases. Now, culprits are hanged within 3 days, 7days, 11 days & a month. Steps are being taken continuously to get daughters justice & results are evident. pic.twitter.com/eA1SBipQUH  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

PM Narendra Modi in Surat: Terrorists attacked Mumbai, what happened after it? In our goverment, Uri happened, what happened after it? This is the change. The fire that was in the hearts of our jawaans, it was in the heart of the PM too, Surgical Strike was the result. pic.twitter.com/dc0CJAotRJ  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

"You are aware that they are out on bail, right? Those from their 'darbaars' (their courtiers) are making rounds of courts. I am confident, I have the blessings of the 125 crore people. Court ke chakkar kitne bhi laga lein, ek din jail jana hi padega; desh ka jis jis ne loota hai vo lautana hi padega (no matter how many rounds of courts they make, one day they would have to go to jail. Those who have looted the country will have to return it)," Modi remarked hitting out at the Opposition.

Virtually launching a campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said his government brought about a "change" replacing "disappointment with hope".

"Terrorists attacked Mumbai on 26/11. What happened after that? During our government's tenure, Uri (terror) attack took place. What happened after it? This (contrasting reactions) is the change," Modi said. Modi also pointed out that many terror attacks happened during Congress's tenure but now under his leadership terrorism has been contained till Kashmir.

Modi also said that even though jawans are getting killed fighting terrorists, nobody is able to come and attack them unprepared while they are sleeping.

He credited voters for ensuring that this "change" came about in 2014.

"Your vote is the reason behind this change. It kept me busy for five years. Your one vote inspires me to do something for the country and as the time passed the hope replaced disappointment," he added.

Hitting out at the previous governments, Modi said the 10-year rule of the Congress-led coalition was marred by corruption, which had eaten into the system like "termites" and listed cases such as alleged coal scam and 2G spectrum.

"Three lakh companies closed down after demonetisation and nobody said anything because those who would otherwise make noise are themselves steeped in corruption," Modi alleged.

"And you know up to where the 'G' goes," he said, attacking the Gandhis in a veiled manner.

When the NDA government came to power, the Indian economy was at the 10th position in the world, now it is ranked 6th, the prime minister said.

"That day is not far when our economy will be ranked fifth," he added.

Culprits in rape cases are now hanged quickly after a speedy trial, he asserted.

He said his government is countering the Opposition's "negativity" with "positivity". The opposition tried to underplay me and pin me down but failed," Modi remarked.
Mere months before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP seems to have unleashed their oldest lethal weapon in the form of a writ petition in the Supreme Court requesting it to release the 'excess vacant land' around the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site, something that puts the Congress on the backfoot.

The temple is the centre of all of the BJP's poll promises. The idea is implicit that for as long as there is an Ayodhya issue there is a ready plank on which the BJP can hinge its election campaign. Mere months before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP seems to have unleashed their oldest lethal weapon once again in the form of a writ petition in the Supreme Court requesting it to release the "excess vacant land" the government had acquired around the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Uttar Pradesh. The move not only satisfies beleaguered allies like the Shiv Sena who have accused the BJP of moving away from its Ram Temple promise, it also puts the Congress  riding high on the entry of Priyanka Gandhi in a distinct poll-driven role  on the backfoot.

The BJP government's move, seeking to restore 67 acres of "undisputed" land surrounding the disputed 0.333 acres in Ayodhya to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas organisation and others who owned and occupied the land before it was taken by the government, comes a day after Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked why the Supreme Court was not acknowledging the urgency of the Ayodhya hearing.

The BJP, that came to power in 2014, looks finally ready to tackle the Ayodhya problem head on after having left the issue for its hardliner right-wing allies in the Sangh Parivar to rally behind for the longest time. The Shiv Sena, for one, has been forever trying to draw focus to the Ram Temple and accusing the BJP of moving away from its promise on editorials of its party mouthpiece, Saamana. The fractured family now has a solid opportunity to appear as one, at a time when it crucially needs to, to consolidate votes.

It is thus no surprise that the Congress should question the timing of the petition.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi was quoted by PTI as having said that a 2003 order by the Supreme Court had clearly stated that status quo be maintained on the "undisputed" land. "What is important is that this application is moved on 29 January, 2019, 16 years afterwards, in a matter of 2003 where the main writ of 2003 is pending," he told reporters.

"This status quo has been continued for 16 years. Suddenly and suddenly... you know it better, whether it is because of election or some other reason, we do not know... So, you judge for yourself, but ultimate judge is the Supreme Court," Singhvi said.

In the past few years, the Congress has been making a scattered effort to harness the Hindutva zeal for itself. On the same day when the BJP filed the Supreme Court petition, the Congress's Bihar unit was finding itself in a sticky situation after photos emerged on social media of a party poster showing party president Rahul Gandhi as Ram. The BJP's national spokesperson Sambit Patra lost no time in ridiculing the "sycophancy" of Congress workers.

         ..       ..      TV   debate  ..    .. pic.twitter.com/ogi5fhVwEG  Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) January 29, 2019

Rahul may not be Ram but he has, in the past, tried to peddle a line of "soft Hindutva" that has seen him visit sacred sites of Hindu worship, pitch himself as a Shiva devotee and show off his sacred thread. A priest at the Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, who presided over the puja offered by Rahul early in January 2019, claimed that the Congress president had told him that his gotra (clan) was 'Duttatreya' and he is a Kashmiri Brahmin.

On 29 January itself, the Madhya Pradesh government headed by veteran Congress leader Kamal Nath, announced that it would be setting up 1,000 gau shalas (protective shelters for cows) in the next four months that would accommodate around one lakh stray cows, reported Indian Express. Cow shelters were also part of Nath's assembly poll promise.

That the party is conscious of the apparent failure of its soft Hindutva stance is evident from the recent Assembly elections in Rajasthan, where NDTV reports that it fielded more than a dozen Muslim candidates in a gamble that seems to have paid off with the victory of seven. The question, however quite late for the Congress to revert back to its forgotten promise of a fundamental secularist approach.

But to add to the Congress's concerns over the party's return to a fundamentally secular approach, not all minority bodies have reacted to the Centre's plea with anger. Waseem Rizvi, the chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board Waseem Rizvi, a votary of the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site welcomed the move. "Its a very good initiative," Rizvi told Hindustan Times.

"We all know that a grand Ram temple has to be built in Ayodhya. If the SC releases this land which is not disputed, construction work on a temple can immediately start..," he added.

Interestingly, the land that the BJP has sought to "return" was acquired by PV Narasimha Rao's Congress government. In January 1993, it was the Congress government that had brought an ordinance for the Ram Temple.

The ordinance was brought only a month after the Babri Masjid was brought down by kar sevaks participating in a movement led by the VHP and aided by the BJP.

The Congress government planned to build "a Ram temple, a mosque, amenities for pilgrims, a library, museum and other suitable facilities" in Ayodhya.
Congress win in Karnataka 2018 elections gave the party a new lease of political life but the party also scripted a future (for the state) with an unlikely coalition which is at the epicentre of the current political crisis in the state.

Soap-opera-level drama is unfolding in the southern state of Karnataka and it is showing no signs of ending anytime soon. Congress win in Karnataka 2018 elections gave the party a new lease of political life but the party also scripted a future (for the state) with an unlikely coalition which is at the epicentre of the current political crisis in the state.

Two weeks ago when rebel Congress MLAs were rounded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a bid to topple the seven-month-old JD(S)-Congress government, the crisis deepened.

Remember last year's post-election drama in Karnataka involving the Congress, the JD(S) and the BJP? What ensued two weeks ago was Round 2 of the drama. Three influential Congress MLAs were found in a Mumbai hotel where a few BJP leaders were also camping.

Irrigation, Kannada and culture minister DK Shivakumar alleged that BJP was indulging in horsetrading. But he was confident that the BJP would not succeed.

Meanwhile, Sadananda Gowda, a BJP leader and former Karnataka chief minister, said the Congress should keep its house in order. He said the Congress wasn't able to keep its MLAs in Karnataka together and was "simply pin-pointing" at the BJP.

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said the MLAs travelled to Mumbai after informing him, and that he was in constant touch with them. He also said he knew whom the BJP was trying to contact  and what was being offered. If they manage to crack the rocky coalition, the BJP will have a significant chance of getting the lead in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

However, after troubleshooting mechanism of Congress went overboard to handle the crisis, a wider rift from within the government came to the forefront. Unnamed Congress and JD(S) leaders were quoted by several media reports as saying that the entire fiasco was fomented due to Congress' internal politics. Buoyant by internal squabble, the BJP accelerated its 'poach MLAs' plan and called it the 'Operation Lotus'.

Mutually Assured Destruction

In the 224-member Assembly, Congress has 80 MLAs and JD(S) has 37. One BSP MLA and two independents are also part of the coalition but they have withdrawn support to the government. The BJP, on the other hand, has 104 MLAs. For the government to collapse, BJP needs at least 11 MLAs from other parties to resign before it can stake claim to form the government.

If that should happen, the senior leadership of both the JD(S) (Kumaraswamy) and the Congress (Siddaramaiah) won't have anyone else but themselves to blame for it.

What is unfolding in Karnataka can be described as the mutually assured destruction. MAD is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons.

Siddaramaiah, the former Karnataka chief minister who holds considerable clout in the new coalition (he has unofficial license from the party leadership to take complete charge of the party's affairs in Karnataka) was unequivocally against the merger with JD(S) but swallowed the bitter pill in bid to keep BS Yeddyurappa and the BJP out. The strains have started to show as talks of seat sharing have begun ahead of Lok Sabha elections. The decision to make Kumaraswamy was not a magnanimous gesture, but a pragmatic deal. But now, Siddaramaiah clearly is having problems dealing with the situation.

The Karnataka government is fire-fighting on multiple fronts: The Opposition BJP believes that it was robbed of its mandate and is looking to win over some of the MLAs of the Congress to topple the government; Congress members, especially those owing allegiance to Siddaramaiah, who argue that the chief ministership should not have been handed over to the junior partner, the JD(S); and the leadership of the JD(S) that tries to assert itself within the alliance and expand the party's base at the Congress' expense.

What the two unhappy allies aren't realising that even though it is not an advantage BJP, this display of their disagreement will cost the Congress and the JD(S) dearly. The internal politics will force them to lose a crucial state months before the Lok Sabha elections.

Analysts have argued that the former chief minister is driving his own independent agenda and in a few instances has even bypassed the chief minister after which Kumaraswamy fired a scathing salvo at the Congress members and said that he is willing to step down if the party does not control its legislators from criticising its work. Unsettled issues like shared portfolios and internal criticism are forcing the coalition to crumble.

It has been an uneasy alliance from the very start, but in December after the cabinet reshuffle there was considerable discontent among the JD(S) ranks when several big names were left out of the expanded cabinet. JD(S) leaders have since claimed they had not been consulted before the appointments, further undermining the regional partys role in governance, especially considering its seats were crucial in forming the ruling coalition.

The Congress has only six berths to fill. By releasing eight names, it has hinted that two of its ministers will be dropped. This is likely to fan discontent in party ranks, beginning with senior leader and former state home minister Ramalinga Reddy. His daughter and MLA Sowmya Reddy has lashed out at the party, calling the decision "unfortunate".

Kumaraswamy versus Siddaramaiah

Earlier in 2018, Kumaraswamy's remarks regarding his coalition partner unleashed a tirade of criticism. In May, 2018, the chief minister said that he was at the mercy of the Congress. "The people of the state rejected me and our party... I had requested people to give me a mandate that prevents me from succumbing to any pressure other than you. But today, I am at the mercy of the Congress. I am not under the pressure of the 6.5 crore people of the state," Kumaraswamy said.

Later in July, Kumaraswamy said while his partymen are happy that their 'Anna or Thamma' (brother) has become the chief minister, "let me tell you that I am not. I am swallowing my pain, which is nothing more than poison... Im not happy with the situation."

Once Kumaraswamy was done with his share of drama and display of his plight, it was Siddaramaiah's turn.

After the MLA poaching drama quelled certain Congress MLAs criticised the Kumaraswamy government by saying that no development work has taken place in the last seven months. Congress MLA ST Somashekar said, "It is seven months since the coalition government came to power, but development work has not yet taken off. Had Siddaramaiah got another five-year term, we would have seen real development." Siddaramaiah endorsed the comments and said that he would have completed the development work if he had got another term as chief minister.

That was the proverbial nail in the coffin or at least beginning of what a few people are calling a crumbling coalition. Analysts felt that a statement of one MLA which created such flutter in the ranks spoke volumes about the instability of the government. So far, it has only been whispered and speculated that Siddaramaiah is the man rocking the boat. Now, the rift is for everyone to see.

As argued by this article on Firstpost, the trouble wasn't simply that JD(S) had only half as many Assembly seats as Congress. The real problem, or at least a good part of it, is the fact that Kumaraswamy is the son of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, Siddaramaiah's one-time mentor and current arch rival.

Sadananda Gowda said, "Siddaramaiah, who is pretending to be a peacemaker in the JD(S)-Congress coalition, has also been trying to destabilise the government. The current political drama has led to instability in state politics. People don't know what the chief minister is doing, and the development of the state is at stake. However, the situation is in favour of chief minister HD Kumaraswamy."

It won't be shocking if because of Siddaramaiah, BJP manages to cosy up with JD(S) (even though the parties are ideologically poles apart) and force a situation where Congress is kicked out of the government. However, it will not be easy for the BJP to just walk over and form the government with JD(S). Kumaraswamy and Congress came to power on the promise that they would keep "communal" BJP out of the state and that the coalition of Congress and regional parties could pose a formidable challenge to the BJP on the national level.
The Makkal Needhi Maiam was launched by actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan on 21 February, 2018 from his hometown of Tamil Nadu's Rameswaram.

Chennai: Actor Kamal Haasan is all set to officially launch his party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) in Puducherry on Wednesday. Haasan is expected to brief the media after the launch event which will take place in the party head office in Chennai.

"After almost a year of Makkal Needhi Maiam partys Journey with the people, Makkal Needhi Maiam is happy to announce its launch in the Puducherry Union Territory. Following the launch, Makkal Needhi Maiam party president Kamal Haasan will address the media," read a circular issued by the MNM on Tuesday.

MNM was launched by Haasan on 21 February, 2018 from his hometown of Rameswaram. As part of the launch of his political faction, Haasan toured Tamil Nadu extensively to interact with locals in different villages of Tamil Nadu.

The actor-turned-politician had said he would contest the Lok Sabha elections this year. He had also said that the MNM was open to forming a single-minded alliance in the parliamentary elections.
Speaking in Surat, PM Narendra Modi credited demonetisation for making housing affordable for the youth in India

Addressing a rally in Surat Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said demonetisaton made housing affordable for India's youth and claimed that his government achieved in just one term what previous governments would have accomplished in 25 years.

Modi said, Black money was circulated rampantly in the real estate sector, but with the note ban and Real Estate Regulatory Authority Act, the youth can afford homes.

Lauding the UDAN scheme which aims at improving regional connectivity, Modi laid the foundation stone for the new terminals extension at Surat airport. The project will cost around Rs 350 crore and will raise the airports peak handling capacity to 1,800 passengers.

He also told the audience that 1.3 crore homes were constructed during the National Democratic Alliance rule, as opposed to the 25 lakh houses built during the United Progressive Alliance tenure.

Recalling Surats role in Mahatma Gandhis Salt Satyagraha, Modi said he will be inaugurating a memorial today in Dandi that commemorates the historic event.

The prime minister went on to appreciate the rate at which Surat is progressing. Citing a report, he said that in the next 10 to 15 years, all of the top 10 cities in the list of the worlds fastest developing cities will be from India.
On 28 January, Kumaraswamy had threatened to step down over adverse comments by a Congress MLA, prompting the coalition partner to swing into damage control mode

Bengaluru: Amid strains in Congress-JD(S) ties, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Wednesday again threatened to quit if Congress leaders continued to take

potshots at him. "Yes, I had said I would step down if Congress leaders continue to take potshots at me.

If they repeatedly make such statements, how many more days can I tolerate such stuff? Power is ephemeral. What is permanent is you (party workers) and six-and-a-half crore people of this state," he said addressing the National JD(S) Convention in Bengaluru.

On 28 January, Kumaraswamy had threatened to step down over adverse comments by a Congress MLA, prompting the coalition partner to swing into damage control mode. Congress general secretary KC Venugopal and in charge of party affairs in the state said the party high command has full faith in Kumaraswamy and the State government.

On Sunday, Congress MLA ST Somashekhar had demanded that Siddaramaiah be made chief minister again. Somashekhar had claimed that development works had come to a grinding halt here and other parts of the state.

Addressing the convention Wednesday, former Prime Minister and JDS supremo HD Deve Gowda also said the chief minister has been hurt by some Congress leaders taking potshots at him. He also referred to Siddaramaiah's alleged ambitions to become chief minister in 2006-2007. "Back then, Siddaramaiah had told me that if I had put pressure on Sonia Gandhi, he would have become chief minister, instead of Kumaraswamy. Siddaramaiah is nursing pain and he should be seeking an answer from Sonia Gandhi about it," Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said amid alleged bid to topple his government, it was becoming difficult for him to direct his officials to address people's problems. "They (BJP and some Congress leaders) are giving threats of dislodging my government by Shankranthi or Rajyotsava Day, besides during assembly session beginning 6 February.

Amidst these media leaks, how shall I ask my officials to address people's problems? Just think of the situation I am in? However, I should be grateful to my legislators who have stood behind me," he said. Kumaraswamy also appealed to farmers not to get carried away with some leaders portraying him as "anti-farmers." "There is another message being circulated in WhatsApp that I brought down prices affecting milk farmers.

During Siddaramaiah's rule, milk farmers were getting Rs 27 per litre, and I brought it down to Rs 20. I request farmers not to get carried away by this. I am continuing as the chief minister because of you," he said. Kumaraswamy also asked party chief Deve Gowda to prepare the list of appointments to various boards and corporations to avoid any confusion in running a coalition

government. "... In 2006, I committed a mistake by not heeding to my father (Deve Gowda) and was unable to make appointments to boards and corporations. I do not want to repeat the same

mistake while running the present coalition government," he added.
Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said the party mourns the death of the National Statistical Commission and will remember its valiant fight to release 'untainted' GDP data and employment data

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday accused the Modi government of destroying yet another institution after two members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) resigned and said one more venerable institution has died due to the government's "malicious negligence".

Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said the party mourns the death of the National Statistical Commission and will remember its valiant fight to release 'untainted' GDP data and employment data.

His colleague Ahmed Patel said the resignations serve the government's objective to "black out" all data and statistics of its "mis-governance", while party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi wondered if this has come in the wake of the "very embarrassing" jobs data and whether the NSC was "being forced" by government to do more data doctoring.

The attack on the government came in the wake of two independent members of the NSC  P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi  resigning on Monday over disagreement with the government on certain issues. Mohanan was also acting as the commission chairperson.

"One more venerable institution died on 29 January, 2019 owing to malicious negligence by the government," Chidambaram tweeted.

"We mourn the death of the NSC and remember with gratitude its valiant fight to release untainted GDP data and employment data. May the NSC rest in peace until it is re-born again," he said in another tweet.

Patel said the resignation of all non-government members from the National Statistical Commission has rendered yet another public institution "defunct and toothless".

"It also serves the government's larger objective to black out all data and statistics of its mis-governance since last 5 years," he said.

"Government must immediately release the unemployment report which it is trying to withhold. The report and the Commission which prepares such reports belong to the people of India and not to any political party. Government has no business to sit on it because the findings don't suit them," Patel tweeted.

Singhvi also said statisticians have quit the government over differences in "job data in actuality and being projected by government in the election season". "Modinomics is all about ModiStats," he charged.

"Another venerable institution national statistical commission victim of BJP Modi achievement of destroying institutions. Was it because jobs data very embarrassing, hence national sample survey report withheld by government as stated by resigning chairman? Or was NSC being forced by government to do more data doctoring," he said on Twitter.

"NSC joins distinguished institutions led to wreck and ruin by Modi BJP: RBI, CBI, CVC, CBDT, ED, IT. Self respecting professionals cannot stand this government's pressure nor attempts to doctor data. But pliable bureaucrats can be used for vendetta politics. Latter should learn from former," he tweeted.

With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members  Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

In November, 2018, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of UPA years. NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.
BJP president Amit Shah mocked the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi as a Congress general secretary and said the party had become '3G' from '2G' now, a play on the 2G scam that emerged during the UPA regime.

Kanthi: BJP president Amit Shah mocked the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as a Congress general secretary on Tuesday and said a government run by a dynasty could not serve the people, but could only provide a "majboor" (helpless) government.

The Congress had brought the "third G" into the fray after the "two Gs  Sonia G and Rahul G"  to indulge in more corruption, he told a public rally in Kanthi in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

Referring to the 2G scam that dogged the Congress-led UPA-2 regime, Shah said the Opposition party wanted to indulge in more corruption now with the induction of the "third G  Priyanka G".

"I am here to tell you that during the 10 years of the UPA rule under (then prime minister) Manmohan Singh, there were only two Gs  Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. We had then witnessed the 2G scam of Rs 12 lakh crore. Now, if the third G joins the '2Gs', what will be the amount of the scam?

"The Congress has made a long-term plan of indulging in corruption by joining the 2Gs and the third G," he said.

Shah's comments came in the backdrop of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra being appointed the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East by her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi last week.

Stating that the Congress and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal were both sides of the same coin as both parties were run by dynasties, the BJP chief said like Rahul was there to take over his party's reins from his mother Sonia Gandhi, in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had her nephew Abhishek Banerjee to take charge of the TMC after her.

"Dynasties cannot serve the country well. The dynasts say the country needs a majboor (helpless) government, but the BJP says it needs a majboot (strong) government. Only Narendra Modi and the BJP can provide a majboot government at the Centre," he said.

Asking the people whether the country needed a "leader" or a "dealer", Shah said only the saffron party could provide a government headed by a leader and the Opposition wanted to throw up a government led by "dealers and brokers".

Launching his party's Lok Sabha poll campaign in West Bengal, Shah had held a rally in Malda last week, where he had scoffed at the efforts of the Opposition parties to forge a grand alliance.

He had said the proposed grand alliance, the leaders of which had recently attended a pubic rally convened by the TMC in Kolkata, was driven by the "greed for power" with nine potential prime ministerial candidates in its ranks.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry into active politics has caused quite a stir in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with various party leaders taking pot shots at the newly appointed AICC general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry into active politics has caused quite a stir in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with various party leaders taking pot shots at the newly appointed AICC general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Among the attackers is BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh Surendra Singh, who is no stranger to making controversial statements. Comparing Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to Raavan and Priyanka to the demon's sister Surpanakha, Singh was quoted as saying: "You all are aware that when the war was about to start between Lord Ram and Raavan in which Lanka was won over, Raavan had first sent his sister  Surpanakha. It appears that in this war, Rahul is in the role of Ravana and Modi is playing the role of Lord Ram. Rahul, who is Raavan, has fielded his sister Surpanakha in the battle  now let us assume that Lanka is won this time as well."

Meanwhile, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, also infamous for not mincing words, accused Priyanka of suffering from bipolar disorder and said she physically abused people. "The name of that disease is bipolarity, which reflects her violent character and overall image," he claimed, in a statement to ANI.

Many of the BJP leaders' attacks on Priyanka were also based on her physical appearance.

Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Saturday said Congress was fielding "chocolaty" faces in Lok Sabha polls as it has a dearth of strong leaders. "A Congress leader demands that Kareena Kapoor should be fielded from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Sometimes others talk about fielding Salman Khan from Indore. Likewise, Priyanka (Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) was also brought into active politics," Vijayvargiya told reporters.

Vijayvargiya's comments came amid controversy over senior BJP leader and Bihar minister Vinod Narain Jha's remark that Priyanka had no other quality except being "very beautiful" and the Congress should remember that beauty did not garner votes.

BJP MP Saroj Pandey joined her colleagues in attacking Priyanka as well. According to a report from NDTV, Pandey asked the Congress whether it was unable to find any other woman in the party who could be a general secretary. "What they found is a homely woman from the Gandhi family," she said.

Analysts have claimed that the decision to introduce Priyanka Gandhi ahead of Lok Sabha elections shows Congress' desperation. Congress has essentially shown its hand in the run-up to the polls, political analysts have said.

Congress hits back

Congress leader Sajjan Kumar Verma was one of the first to come out in Priyanka's defence, and lashed out at Vijayvargiya for his remarks: "We humans are the creation of the God and people should praise each and every one. It is not Priyankas fault if God has made her pretty. BJP should praise beautiful faces. By using such words for Priyanka, Vijayvargiya has lost respect and even disgraced his own party."

He also hit back at the BJP and said that the party uses actor and politician Hema Malini's cultural performances to earn votes. "The BJP has no nice and attractive faces. People dont even praise the faces that the BJP has. It has only one good face of Hema Malini, whom the party makes dance on the classical songs to woo voters. Thus, Hema gives appealing dance performances to earn votes for the party."

Meanwhile, JD(U) MLC Ashok Choudhary condemned Jha's remarks and said: "This is definitely not a remark we would approve of. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has an undeniable charisma and aura which may or may not bring desired results in the elections. But the way she has been spoken about does not appear to be in good taste."

Congress MLA from Benipatti constituency Bhavna Jha remarked sarcastically, "Vinod Narayan Jha was defeated by me  an ordinary party worker  in the last Assembly polls. It is natural for him to feel scared of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. He may be upset with Priyanka's beauty since he himself is not bestowed with good looks."

With inputs from agencies
Former MLA Sheikh Abdul Rasheed said his Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) will show black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 3 February visit to Srinagar to protest the Centre's 'colonial mindset' and 'looting' of Jammu and Kashmir's resources

Srinagar: Former MLA Sheikh Abdul Rasheed on Wednesday said his Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) will show black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his 3 February visit to Srinagar to protest the Centre's "colonial mindset" and "looting" of Jammu and Kashmir's resources.

He also expressed concern over a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between the Centre, state government and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) for starting work on the 850MW Ratle Power Project.

"We will receive Narendra Modi with black flags in Srinagar on his upcoming visit to protest against the colonial mindset of New Delhi and against looting resources of the state," Rasheed said in a statement here.

"While the (Jammu and Kashmir) State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) is competent enough to construct Ratle or any other power project, New Delhi seems to be adamant to loot our resources and is always utilising services of NHPC like East India Company," the former MLA said.

Rasheed alleged that though GVK Power and Infrastructure had started work on Ratle power project, the company left the project midway after realising that the state power development corporation will not allow it to fulfil its selfish designs.

He said there was no justification for bringing companies from outside the state for constructing power projects as the JKSPDC had successfully commissioned 900 MW Phase-I and Phase-II, thus making an annual turnover of more than Rs 1,500 crore.

Rasheed claimed that on the directions of the Prime Minister's Office and the Union power ministry, the Jammu and Kashmir government has prepared a draft to construct the Ratle Project through joint investment between NHPC and JKSPDC.

"While NHPC will be investing and owning 51 percent of the total project cost, JKPDC will get just 49 percent shares. As per the agreement the project will be handed over to the state government after 25 years and for the first 10 years, the state is going to get nothing out of the said project after being commissioned," he said.

In the agenda of an alliance between PDP and BJP, the state was supposed to get power projects back from NHPC, it is "shameful that New Delhi is misusing governor's office and position to loot the resources of the state", he alleged.
What happened in Kanthi on Tuesday is just a prevue of political violence that may increasingly rock West Bengal as BJP gears up to challenge TMCs hegemony in West Bengal

What one saw at Kanthi in East Midnapore district on Tuesday is just the prevue of political violence that may increasingly rock West Bengal as BJP gears up to challenge Trinamool Congress exclusive hegemony over the state. With Lok Sabha polls looming large, the pace may quicken. Power has always been synonymous with violence in West Bengal, and each political shift has been accompanied by a spell of escalating brutality and bloodshed, right from the 1960s to this day. The interludes of calm have never been a victory of democracy, but the scrupulous and utter domination of a single party. The price of peace has always been a subversion of democracy in favour of totalitarian control.

Given this backdrop, it isn't difficult to understand why BJP and Trinamool Congress workers clashed soon after Amit Shahs rally in Kanthi on Tuesday. The BJP is fast rising as the chief opposition party to the ruling TMC, though the term chief opposition can be misleading in the context of West Bengal politics. When political power means control of territory through violent, extremist tactics and annihilation of rivals to the point of their extinction, even a nominal rise in BJPs strength would translate into a threat for the incumbent.

The BJP might still be a distant second in terms of political influence, vote and seat share in the state but its rising profile  and the fact that it has consolidated its strength at the expense of a fast-disappearing CPM and Congress  present a challenge for Mamata Banerjees party. The TMC is also aware that BJP will focus exclusively on Indias eastern seaboard states in the upcoming General Election to Lok Sabha to shore up its numbers that it is sure to lose in the Hindi heartland. That places West Bengal, with 42 seats, at the centre of BJPs attention. The saffron unit has targeted 22 seats from West Bengal. While that may be an exaggerated estimate, there is no question that Shah is desperate to push BJPs tally into double digits from the two seats that it won in 2014.

Shah had chosen his venue well. Kanthi, the domain of TMCs Adhikary family who exercises control over the territory through a feudal power structure that mirrors West Bengals quasi-democratic feudalism, had seen BJP posting a 23 percent rise in vote share in the 2017 Contai (South) Assembly by-election, almost subsuming CPM and Congress vote shares.

Shahs fiery lecture, where he targeted Mamata for subverting democracy, siphoning off Centres money to syndicates (a euphemism for TMC-controlled groups who allegedly regulate sale of land and construction materials for infrastructure projects through coercion), bomb-making units, lack of industry and letting chit fund operators buy her paintings was unlikely to go down well with the ruling party.

What ensued is still unclear. The BJP has claimed victimhood, but it is unlikely that its workers were innocent of the violence though it is possible that its karyakartas suffered the major brunt of it. Reports say that minutes after Shah left the podium, several vehicles through which BJP workers have been ferried to the venue were damaged, vandalised or set on fire. BJP has claimed that 200 of its workers were injured among which 50 are battling serious injuries while the TMC has claimed that 12 of its cadres were hurt.

#WATCH West Bengal: Vehicles parked near Amit Shah's rally venue in East Midnapore, vandalized. BJP's Rahul Sinha has alleged that TMC is behind the attack. pic.twitter.com/N5lVGHjNT3  ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2019

The politics of violence used by the TMC is an evidence of the fear of the BJP that has gripped Mamata & the rest of the opposition in the country. A shameful act by the ruling party workers in Kanthi today. #MamataScaredOfBJP @sambitswaraj @BJP4India @BJYM @AsansolBjp pic.twitter.com/XW6DYCQ4yo  Babul Supriyo (@SuPriyoBabul) January 29, 2019

What is reasonably clear is that a local TMC office was attacked, and vehicles carrying BJP workers were vandalised, buses stoned, a motorcycle set ablaze while the police failed to act and the Rapid Action Force (RAF) had to be called in.

The situation also triggered an angry exchange of words between Rajnath Singh and Mamata Banerjee. The Union home minister called up the Bengal chief minister and expressed serious concern over reports of large-scale violence and arson against people who attended BJPs political rally".

HM spoke to West Bengal CM, Ms Mamta Banerjee and expressed serious concern over reports of large scale violence and arson against people who attended BJPs political rally in East Midnapore district today. He asked CM that those who indulged in violence should be brought to book   , HMO India (@HMOIndia) January 29, 2019

Mamata, in return, reportedly asked the home minister to control your leaders and supporters". The tit-for-tat exchange continued with the TMC later serving a legal notice to Amit Shah for alleging Mamatas paintings were bought by chit fund operators.

Interestingly, while TMC leaders Madan Mitra accused BJP of orchestrating the vandalism and arson by hiring hooligans from Jharkhand, his party colleague Suvendu Adhikari claimed BJP workers attacked our party offices and this led to retaliation by our workers. If our party office is attacked are we going to offer sweets?

Not to be cowed down, BJPs general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has "warned" the state government that "BJP workers will neither be scared nor will bow down. This will cost Mamataji, according to ANI.

The Kanthi incident  the last word of which hasnt been heard yet  presents a microcosm of the culture of violence that lies at the centre of West Bengals electoral politics. The infamous Sainbari massacre occurred in 1970 where two brothers, known to be Congress supporters, were brutally hacked to death in Burdwan, and their mother, a witness to the crime, was made to eat rice soaked in the blood of her murdered sons. The murder accused  Benoy Konar, Nirupam Sen and Anil Bose  went on to occupy ministerial positions in the CPM government. Or, take the killing of nine villagers in Netai hamlet in Lalgarh. These are just two random incidents from a litany of such examples. Violence has become a tool of political control.

A Partha Sarathi Banerjee writes in EPW, While during the 1972-77 period, the Congress imposed its exclusive rule in West Bengal by using the police and its goons, the CPM exercised its exclusive power by skilful utilisation of its base among the poor combined with a disciplined party organisation. The counter exercise by the TMC follows the latter pattern but with a weaker organisation."

It is likely that West Bengal is staring at another wave of violent upheaval. The tremors will be felt mostly in the rural hinterlands where the ruling party and the government become one  a hegemonic force desperate to retain control as the challenger seeks to defy its writ. Beware of the ides of March.
BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha asked BJP supporters and workers to come armed with sticks at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Bengal, in the aftermath of violence near the venue of the rally of BJP chief Amit Shah at Kanthi in East Midnapore.

BJP national secretary and West Bengal leader Rahul Sinha on Wednesday asked party supporters and workers to come armed with sticks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in the state on 2 February. He made the statement in the aftermath of violence near the venue of BJP chief Amit Shah's rally at Kanthi in East Midnapore district on Tuesday.

Speaking to News18, Sinha said, "Those in the other states don't know how bad the situation is in Bengal. When the BJP has rallies, Mamata Banerjee closes down shops so that BJP workers cannot drink tea and have no access to water. To protect themselves, our karyakartas need to arm themselves with sticks when they come to future BJP rallies."

Bengal BJP workers are set to hold protest rallies across the state on Wednesday, Times Now reported.

Meanwhile, Governor of West Bengal Keshari Nath Tripathi spoke to the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the violence at Shah's rally. He has sought a report on the matter from the West Bengal government, News18 quoted sources as saying.

On Tuesday, the BJP had alleged that buses in which party workers were returning from Shah's rally were vandalised and set on fire allegedly by Trinamool Congress (TMC) activists. The TMC, on the other hand, claimed that BJP workers had attacked a local party office in Kanthi and vandalised it.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh had called Mamata on Tuesday and expressed serious concern, asking that those who indulged in violence be booked. News18 reported that Rajnath had also called the Bengal governor on Tuesday night.

West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said on Times Now that the state government had asked the owner of the land adjoining Shah's rally venue to lodge a complaint against the BJP alleging that he had been unable to use the field for agriculture.

"The additional district magistrate posted there, who wanted to perform his duty, was transferred the day before," Ghosh claimed, adding that under Mamata Banerjee, "Bengal had become a Pakistan".

#WATCH West Bengal: Vehicles parked near Amit Shah's rally venue in East Midnapore, vandalized. BJP's Rahul Sinha has alleged that TMC is behind the attack. pic.twitter.com/N5lVGHjNT3  ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2019

Earlier in the week, the BJP had shifted the venue of Modi's rally in North 24 Parganas district's Thakurnaga, purportedly after the TMC booked their decided venue for week-long religious festivities. The BJP, however, cited security concerns as having been behind the decision to shift the rally to a nearby ground, reported PTI.
On the face of it, West Bengal's political scene seems to have been thrown into a cauldron over the past two days

On the face of it, West Bengal's political scene seems to have been thrown into a cauldron over the past two days. On Monday, Mausam Noor, the Congress MP from the Malda North constituency, joined the Trinamool Congress and on Tuesday, BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting in East Midnapore district that was both significant and tumultuous.

Let's begin with Shah's rally, after which violence between the BJP and TMC broke out. What seems to have happened is that TMC supporters attacked and set on fire vehicles being used by BJP supporters, while the latter vandalised a TMC office. Both sides also attacked the police. Each side accused the other of initiating these unsavoury proceedings. Later Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh called West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee seeking a report on the violence and was told he should ask party cadres not to indulge in hooliganism.

Which side cast the first stone cannot, obviously, be ascertained at this juncture, but it is clear that both parties were guilty of lawlessness. It is equally clear that the administration should have been better prepared to stamp out any attempt at disturbing the peace. As far as Singh's call is concerned it cannot be gainsaid that it is within his jurisdiction to make inquiries. It would be interesting to find out, however, how often and with what kind of alacrity, the Union home minister has made such inquiries when violence has broken out in states ruled by his party.

That said, politically, the more interesting part of the story is Shah's speech at the meeting. We can safely leave out the rhetorical parts of it and focus on one theme Shah took pains to belabour. His focus was on the raft of Ponzi schemes that had been uncovered in Bengal. Shah was bold in his declaration that while 2.5 million people in Bengal had lost their savings to the operators of theses schemes, Mamata had done nothing to put the unscrupulous people behind bars and return the lost money to defrauded investors. Only the BJP could do that, he claimed.

Along the way, he did not fail to mention the issue of Mamata's paintings, that he claimed had been bought by owners of 'chit funds' for crores and crores of rupees. Chandrima Bhattacharya, head of the TMC women's wing, promptly sent a defamation notice to Shah for the remarks about the paintings, challenging him to produce evidence, which he had not.

Let us examine these propositions. To begin with, it is true that Shah has never produced any evidence that Mamata's paintings were bought for crores and crores by operators of Ponzi schemes, nor has any other BJP leader. If BJP leaders had such evidence, it would be fair to assume that proceedings would have been initiated against her, just as cases have been launched against some of her party colleagues, and in myriad other cases, against a number of Opposition leaders.

If we dismiss the paintings issue as part of the standard hit-and-run political tactics of smear and hope, there remains the larger claim that only the BJP can put Ponzi scamsters in prison and return the money defrauded by them to millions of defrauded investors. Let us examine this. The Saradha scam broke in 2013. In its aftermath, the owner of the Saradha group, Sudipto Sen, who had run, was arrested from Srinagar, by the state police.

Mamata pledged to return the money to investors and set up a fund with that purpose in view. Part of it was raised by levying extra cess. A commission headed by a retired judge was set up in 2013 to oversee the process of the disbursal of monies, which was followed by a one-man committee comprising another retired judge, set up by a division bench that is overseeing the entire process of processing applications. According to people following the matter, progress is being made and disbursals will start soon.

Shah's contentions are, therefore, false, which, of course, is par for the course. The Bengal government started the ball rolling by tracking Sudipto Sen, apprehending him and putting him behind bars. It has also made arrangements for the compensation of defrauded investors.

In May 2014, the Supreme Court intervened. It transferred the investigation into the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), because the Ponzi issue had assumed interstate ramifications; issues of money laundering and other knock-on effects had also come into play. Since then, the CBI has made progress in its probe. A number of people, including political leaders, have been arrested and/or questioned. Many Ponzi schemes in various states have been unearthed. In recent months, reports say, a number of Mamata's paintings have been seized.

On 24 January, the CBI arrested an influential film producer and distributor based in Kolkata, for possible involvement in a Ponzi scheme engineered by a company called Rose Valley, also based in Kolkata. But it is nowhere near completing its investigations. And for sure, the Central government hasnt fallen over itself setting up any machinery to even start returning money to poor, defrauded investors.

Shah's claims are, in other words, completely bogus. But that is not all. While Shah is stepping on the gas with respect to TMC corruption, the CBI has also suddenly become proactive again, which reminds us of 2014 and 2016, both election years in Bengal. It would not be far-fetched to argue that the election syndrome is doing the rounds again. The point, however, is that the BJP failed to achieve anything concrete in either year. Two Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and three Assembly seats in 2016 were all it could harvest.

Given the political realities of Bengal, 2019 is predominantly likely to produce the same kind of results: a couple of Lok Sabha seats perhaps, never mind Shah's brave but preposterous prognosis that his party will win 23 seats. Make that two or three.

Into this mix comes the Noor story. That the young MP would sooner or later move to the TMC was an expectation that had been in the air since the Bengal panchayat results were released. It was a question of when, not whether. BJP leaders are gloating for some inexplicable reason. Some state BJP leaders and some commentators have been suggesting that a split in the Muslim vote in Malda between the Congress and the TMC gives the party a good chance of picking up the two seats in the district. Muslims comprise over 50 percent of the population in the district.

Let us examine this expectation. First, the numbers. In the 2018 panchayat elections, the TMC won the Zilla Parishad comfortably. It also won nine Panchayat Samitis, the BJP two, the Congress one and others, not including the Left Front, three. It also swept the Gram Panchayats. Voting percentages are not available. Malda used to be a Congress bastion, but that is no longer true, especially because leaders and cadres have, like Noor, migrated from the Congress to the TMC in large numbers. Add to this the fact that the fact that the large Muslim electorate is unlikely to vote in a manner that will enable the BJP to pick up a Lok Sabha seat in the district.

The only thing that might constrain the TMC is the fact that the main political family of the district, that of ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury, is now a house divided. Ghani Khan's niece, Noor, is now with the TMC, while one of his brothers, Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury, the Malda South MP, is still with the Congress, as is his son, an MLA, who is likely to be the Malda North Congress nominee.

But the fact that the Congress does not have much heft left, clocking in third behind even the BJP, makes these calculations rather insignificant. The overwhelming likelihood is that the TMC will win both seats and the BJP will fail to make inroads that are significant enough. In other words, although it may appear that the Bengal political scene has been ruffled, not much has really changed.
About seven kilometres into a detour from the busy National Highway 37 in Assams Jagiroad, at a place called Dayang Belguri, colourful tents and a tall Ferris wheel adorn the horizon in preparation for a 500-year-old indigenous fair. Held since the early 17th century (some accounts place its origin in the 15th century), the Jonbeel festival is a three-day annual festival organised by the Tiwa tribe in Assam and Meghalaya. Touted to be the only regular event on the planet where the barter system is still practised, the Jonbeel festival attracts people in large numbers from the Tiwa, Karbi, Khasi, Rabha and Jaintia communities living in the border villages of Meghalaya and Assam. Unsurprisingly, a lot of fresh produce and local poultry is on display during the festival, including some vegetables that are seldom sold commercially, but none of that is stuff money can buy.

The Jonbeel Mela is also an event that has kept the relevance of tribal kings alive and features the Gobha king's visit on the final day when he holds a durbar and listens to his people's complaints. It is a time when the Tiwa community, which has split into Hills Tiwas and Plains Tiwas over the years, all come together to celebrate the harvest through community fishing, cockfights, dance and music. This years Jonbeel festival  which also featured undertones of the popular opposition to the newly passed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 that multiple tribes have already voiced their antipathy to  saw all of that, and some more.

Groups of families from a particular hill town or village hire a truck to make the journey to the venue. It is often not an easy ride, as they have to fit all essentials and food supplies for three days, in addition to everything they intend to sell at the fest.

The much-awaited exchange of vegetables at the Jonbeel Mela begins hours before sunrise on the second day, just as the last Garo families make their way to the venue with sacks in their hands and infants on their backs. By 4.30 am, the marketplace is bustling with people from over six different tribes and across age-groups, all trying to find a spot to set up shop. Tiwa and other tribespeople from the hills bring with them ginger, turmeric, taro, chillies, wild fruits, berries, among other things that grow primarily in higher altitudes. Very often, vegetables on display are never spotted even in the local markets, the vendors confirmed. Although most food items grown in the plains are now available in the hills as well, the barter system here features items representing the harvest in lower climes  pitha and other items made from rice flour, roasted rice flour, different breeds of sticky rice, rye and a variety of dried fish.

As Laichong Mithi prepares her tomato gravy for an early lunch on the first day of the festival, she says that coming to the Jonbeel Mela was never a ritual before she got married to Phulbor, whose Tiwa family has been partaking in the annual barter for generations. Hailing from Balikunji, a hill town four hours away, Phulbor has been coming to the fest all his life, first accompanying his father and later his wife, to sell ginger, turmeric and chillies that grow in his backyard. Both Phulbor and Laichong agree that the Mela has changed face over the years, with the inclusion of many people who are neither from the hills nor the Indian plains.

The Jonbeel Mela this year saw participation from outside the North East as well. Mithilesh Chowa (right), who hops from festival to festival selling fabric, reluctantly admitted that he hails from Siwan in Bihar. It is my first time here, but I tell people that I live in Jagiroad. You never know who will get angry at the mention of Bihar, he said.

On the second day of the Mela, members from every Tiwa family and dozens of other communities in the region come out to catch freshwater fish at the beel (lake). Other than children and the occasional reporter, everyone has a fishing net in their hand, a bag tied to the waist to carry the fish, and a song on their lips. It is a day when everyone comes out to have some fun, knowing fully well that the lake is highly unlikely to have fish for all of them.

Without warning, groups of 30 to 40 people jump into the freezing water with their nets, searching the shallow lake for small fish. As their songs get louder, so does their xenophobic cursing aimed at the fisherfolk clad in lungis.

It is a difficult day to be a fisherman with a beard (or a lungi), given the consistent Go back to Bangladesh chants one gets to hear from the advancing crowd of amateur fishermen. This gentleman (in the picture) remained on his makeshift seat for over two hours, patiently dipping his net back into the water every time it failed to catch fish, and occasionally lifting his gear out of the water to make way for the fishermen on foot.

The Tiwa tribe is said to have one of the richest cultures of folk songs and dance in the region, a glimpse of which was on display during the festival as well. About ten separate groups from both Hill and Plain Tiwa communities performed in traditional attire on the second day, stressing on the need to preserve some half-forgotten customs.

Another item in the list of traditional events that the Jonbeel Mela boasts of keeping alive is the local cockfight, held on the second day of the fest. Although raising fowl for fighting is an ancient practice in the region, cockfights have not always been a regular feature in the Mela, according to participants at the venue.

Gobha king Deep Sinh Dewari is a young leader of the Tiwa community of Assam and Meghalaya. I would prefer it if you didnt record. Im not too good on camera, the young, camera-shy king says as he prepares to oversee the conduct of yet another Jonbeel Mela. The festival is now bigger than it ever was before, partly because of its growing popularity outside our region and partly owing to government help, the Gobha king said. The magnitude of the fest is only a reflection of multiple other customs that have evolved, including the graduation from an elephant to a car as the kings preferred mode of transport. The present king is also the first one to be a son of another king. Until his fathers turn, the Tiwa tribe observed the unique custom where the son of the kings sister succeeded the ruling leader. But that hasnt made his job any easier. Being made king at the age of six, after his fathers demise, the Gobha king has had to follow a long list of traditions to win the respect of his people, including several restrictions, such as not having a day job.

Smoked pork, smoked local chicken, smoked shrimps and smoked crabs. Over fifty food outlets spread across the venue served these traditional smoked meats all day, along with bottles of the very popular homemade rice beer and other ethnic dishes.

By nightfall every day, the festival changed its character and transformed into what is more typically understood by the term mela. Magic shows (in the picture), cotton candy stores, mini carousels and a large Ferris wheel replaced everything traditional that was seen in the mornings, and the transformation brought with it huge crowds from the nearby Assamese towns. All photographs have been taken by the author.
Men are conditioned to react and behave a certain way through years of exposure to misogynistic attitudes and tropes. Young boys see the same in the media, in the world around them and learn these behaviours and think them normal.

Offence. It's everywhere.

People lose the ability to listen to rational, well-argued points because they're "offended" before they even hear the argument  be it a conversation about racism, gender, LGBTQ issues, people with disabilities, religion, you name it. And this isnt a "conservative problem". Everyone does this: If you belong to a certain group and youre criticised, you get defensive. Its instantly What! How can you demonise a whole group for the acts of a few! Were all not ______. It doesnt matter if youre ally to one cause. That very rarely stops you from being completely myopic to another (especially where your identity is involved).

Which brings us to the recently released Gillette Ad. Gillettes We Believe: The Best Men Can Be commercial takes on toxic masculinity; it says toxic masculinity exists and men should challenge other men in order to change the world.

I agree with the ad, in principle. The problem does exist and men are the only ones who can drive other men to be better. Do I believe Gillette is the best brand to be putting this out? No. For decades, their ads have sold how perfect, chiselled, shaved men get the girl. Those guys dont look like us, everyday dudes. So, its kind of like Fair and Lovely asking me to own my dark skin tone. Is it possible the company is trying to make an about face on decades of stereotypical advertising? Sure. But Im going to wait till I hail them for being the new face of Feminism. But does that take away from the ad's core message? No.

Reactions to the ad have been mixed: one school of thought believes the ad recognises the status quo and acknowledges a problem. Others feel the ad demonises all men. Does it though?

It says bullying, sexual assault, sexual harassment, catcalling etc exist. Men have the power to talk to other men about this and make them aware that certain actions and behaviours need to change.

Google 'masculinity' and this is what comes up:

masculinity

/maskjlnti/

qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men.

"Handsome, muscled, and driven, he's a prime example of masculinity"

synonyms: virility, manliness, maleness, vigour, strength, muscularity, ruggedness, toughness, robustness

Now, just for a second, look at the synonyms: strength, muscularity, ruggedness, toughness; nothing about sensitivity, charisma, empathy, communication or kindness. Because these arent considered manly traits? There is a very stereotypical, entrenched view of manliness and its a social construct. There is also a rejection in these tropes of anything resembling femininity. You couldnt be seen to have any semblance of the softer traits lest it affect the social understanding of being a man.

In Roger Horrocks Masculinity in Crisis: Myths, Fantasies and Realities, the author talks about redefining masculinity in the modern era as men try to realign themselves to a world where traditional gender roles arent as set in stone. Theres also a whole section on how men are trapped by the stereotype of machismo and how theyre conditioned to reject emotions and feelings in order to embrace aggression which is inherently self-destructive.

What are some things men (and some women) do to feed the narrative?

Here, Id like to talk about rape culture. According to Marshall University Womens Centre report, this is defined as an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalised and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of womens bodies, and the glamourisation of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards womens rights and safety.

Just a few examples of rape culture:

Blaming the victim (She asked for it!)

Trivialising sexual assault (Boys will be boys!)

Sexually explicit jokes

Tolerance of sexual harassment

Inflating false rape report statistics

Publicly scrutinising a victims dress, mental state, motives, and history

Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television

Defining manhood as dominant and sexually aggressive

Defining womanhood as submissive and sexually passive

Pressure on men to score

Pressure on women to not appear cold

Assuming only promiscuous women get raped

Assuming that men dont get raped or that only weak men get raped

Refusing to take rape accusations seriously

Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

Can you tell me that as men, we havent seen instances of at least half these situations in our lives and everyday conversations? This isnt saying all men rape. Its saying theres a series of behaviours that allow rape to happen. Our reactions to the #MeToo movement indicate where we fall in the spectrum. In the face of tens of thousands of womens stories from around the world, do you still doubt sexual harassment is rampant and systemic? The normalisation of unacceptable behaviours under the guise of boys will be boys, or thats the way it is is a real problem. And this behaviour is everywhere.

Ill reiterate: This isnt behaviour all men showcase. But its just as bad when you see it and dont say anything. In Bengaluru a couple of years ago, there was a news report of a New Years celebration gone terribly wrong. Around midnight, hundreds of men went around groping and assaulting women on the street. The outrage across the country questioned what the police on the scene were doing. My question was, what were the thousands of men who were witnessing this in silence doing?

I met a young man recently who told me that he wanted to win a girls affections who had a boyfriend. And when I asked him what made him think he had to win her, he said the movies of course. How else do you get the girl? Men need to challenge men when they see negative behaviours. And sure, it can be uncomfortable but thats alright. We fight every day against very deeply rooted cultural stereotypes, the media and just bad people.

In my opinion, the Gillette ad got its message right. Men are conditioned to react and behave a certain way through years of exposure to misogynistic attitudes and tropes. Young boys see the same in the media, in the world around them and learn these behaviours and think them normal.

Men need to hold other men accountable. But dont take my word for it.

Read on Firstpost: Gillette's controversial ad essentially asks men to be better  and then sets the bar really low

A womans perspective on the Gillette ad

Jackson Katz, author of The Macho Paradox, conducts this exercise with college students in the US: First he asks the men  What steps do you take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Katz reports the question is usually met with an awkward silence, some stunned looks, a smattering of nervous laughter, pithy retorts like I stay out of prison. Then Katz poses the same question to the women, and this is what their list looks like:

(Unless youre a woman yourself) its incredibly difficult to understand what a woman feels on encountering a group of men, especially in an environment she perceives as hostile or belligerent.

The responses to the Katz experiment are mostly similar, allowing for some variations among women living in rural, urban and suburban areas. I presume the lists of Indian women  whether from rural or urban areas  would begin with I ensure Im fully covered up; always wear a shrug or a dupatta around my neck, even when the temperature is at 40 degrees C.

A month ago, having travelled to Blagaj, Bosnia, to see the famous dervish house, I had to walk a substantial distance to take a 5 pm bus to my next destination. I was lost in contemplating the beauty around me  until I heard the roar of an engine ahead of me, and saw a group of men roll down the windows of their vehicle, all of them holding cans of beer. Instinctively, my shoulders stooped, my steps quickened, I frantically began to assess the time it would take to make it to the bus stop, clutching my keys to jab wildly if someone came close. A group of men represented a collective  that had greater power to hurt.

Two years ago in Prague, I got into an elevator with three men (one of them inebriated) and survived the most excruciating one minute of my life, berating myself for not being hyper-vigilant, for having walked into a building that didnt have lights in the courtyard, for having forgotten to pay attention to the little window that was selling beer and for having been stupidly happy. I always took the stairs after that  no matter how insurmountable they seemed, or how tired I felt.

The host of the #Resist podcast Danielle Muscato started a Twitter thread not too long ago that asked women a question: What would you do if all men had a 9 pm curfew?

Women, non-binary people, gender nonconformists answered:

I would go running in the park at night, after work, I would book any goddamn place that I liked on AirBnB and not worry about the streets being poorly lit, I would finally jog with my ear phones on, and listen to music, I would wear a plunging neckline and go hit the bar, I would stop looking over my shoulder.

I would finally go back to taking the elevator.

When in Split, Croatia, my AirBnB host asked me (with a natural curiosity about India): Why do men rape in groups? One man rapes because he is sick, he has no morals But how does it happen in a group? Here in Croatia, youre very safe in group  even if one man is sick, other men stop him! The question got me thinking about the moral latitude of a group of men. Shouldnt more numbers imply greater chances of moral rectitude?

But men have historically displayed an astonishing lack of intervention when they witness misbehavior, an insinuation, a lewd or derogatory remark, an inappropriate touch. Often, it becomes a question of fraternity  Let him have his fun, its innocuous. As a man, you allow him to catcall, comment on the hotness of a co-worker, pursue a woman despite her incessant nos  simply because nobody has told you otherwise; because social conditioning, the movies and even literature, have created a sort of cultural complicity.

A woman shouldnt have to be molested or raped, to finally elicit a response or a movement.

Every raised eyebrow, every expression of disapproval and every gesture of reproach, from one man to another  which is what the Gillette ad asks men to do  goes a long way.

Watching from the sidelines  which the Gillette ad asks men not to do  is tantamount to condoning the act (however harmless it may seem in the hetero-normative male-centered rhetoric). Locker room banter eventually reaches the corridor of consent and propriety; look at how #MeToo spawned baffling responses like: Okay whats really acceptable to a woman anymore? Can I tell her shes wearing a nice dress or not? Thats taboo too? Lets just do away with women at workplace  figuring this out is way too stressful! Can I sit at the same lunch table, or am I violating her right to consent? These reactions would have been silly, if it were not for their prevalence.

Boys had gone on being boys for so long that it seemed it was difficult for them to be anything else.

Until #MeToo, men hadnt really understood scale; until the Katz experiment, men hadnt really understood the myriad checks and balances a woman wedges into her every day to keep herself safe. Because its almost impossible for a man to fathom this fear that crawls under a womans skin, the multi-layered assaults on her everyday freedom. Because a man has rarely if ever had to look over his shoulder, quicken his steps, have his heart leap into his mouth, when hes caught in a deserted parking lot  with a group of women.

Lets hope that amid the noise surrounding the Gillette ad, what is not lost is the chance to have a real conversation.

Srikanth Suvvaru is a marketing, HR and employer brand specialist, working to promote responsible allyship and LGBTQIA+ inclusion at the workplace. Aishwarya Sampath is a diversity and inclusion trainer, solo traveller and writer.
Today, with six novels, four collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry in his folio, Perumal Murugan is not only a crucial voice in Tamil literature, but also a professor of the same.

Few writers have the kind of journey that Perumal Murugan has had. Born into a family of farmers in the Kongu Nadu region in western Tamil Nadu, he couldnt have been further removed from literary pursuits. But the 53-year old author was drawn to writing from a very young age. From an aunt in a nearby town who used to subscribe to weeklies, Murugan would access reading material that was outside his schoolbooks. And he would also listen to the radio. Growing up in a village allowed him to meet many people on a daily basis, from whom he would draw more material to write about. He even managed to send his writings to the local radio channel that aired it as part of their childrens programme. Clearly, he was destined for a future beyond the fields.

Today, with six novels, four collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry in his folio, Murugan is not only a crucial voice in Tamil literature, but also a professor of the same. However, of all the things he must have been prepared for in his literary journey, the controversy surrounding his bestseller, One Part Woman (Madhorubhagan), proved too much for the writer in him to endure. The book tells the story of a childless peasant couple and how the wife is cajoled by fellow villagers to enter into a sexual union with a stranger to beget a child, according to a temple ritual. Set in a village close to the Namakkal region, which is Murugans hometown, the novel spurred outrage five years after it was published in 2010. In 2015, after being forced to withdraw his book by local right wing activists, Murugan announced his death as an author on a Facebook post. Hereafter, only P Murugan, a teacher will live, he wrote.

Despite his promise not to resurrect, the author and poet, much to the relief of his readers and followers, did so, following a verdict by the Madras High Court a year later, that upheld his right to creative freedom. It was a period of 18 months, from the time he announced he wont be writing again till the court verdict. While Murugan, admittedly, isnt entirely over the trauma, he has returned to the pen with renewed confidence and also a new style. The first three months [of my exile] I didnt write anything, not even for myself. And then, I started writing poetry, which was not meant for publication at that point, he told Firstpost. The otherwise reticent writer has been attending literary festivals in India and abroad for two years now, and participated in the just-concluded Zee Jaipur Literature Festival 2019.

His first novel post-exile, Poonachi, Or The Story of A Black Goat, is already turning out to be a bestseller, and has been translated into eight languages. Caste and identity politics form the essence of Murugans work, and this novel is not being seen as an exception, although the writer has maintained that it is just the story of a goat. Having grown up in a farmers family, Murugan knows cows and goats only too well. In the current milieu, since cows are best left untouched, the author says he picked a goat to tell a story. As he began to end his writers exile, his words, however, came out in verses initially. I have been writing poetry for a long time and I see myself as a poet first. Its a very personal form of expression for me, so, when times were hard, I naturally turned to poetry for solace, Murugan said. In the case of Poonachi though, he thought of it as a short story at first, but it kept growing from there. The writer doesnt like to compartmentalise the poet and author in him, even though, his poetry is always in first person, and his prose isnt. Sometimes when I am writing poetry, the prose writer in me intervenes, and while I write prose, the poet might have something to say. So its a fluid process, he says.

If theres something positive that came out of the controversy, it is in how it put Murugan on the global literary map. Readers outside Tamil Nadu have been accessing his work through translations and mainstream publishing houses continue to be instrumental in the process. Murugan, however, doesnt agree with terms as regional or mainstream. One should call it Indian literature. Because if this is regional, what is mainstream? He continues, Publishers approach towards translations is healthy now as compared to how it was earlier. And its improving. Indian English publishers are showing a lot of interest in translated works of fiction and non-fiction. What should a publishers stance be, in times of controversy, we ask. They should always stand by the art, Murugan says.

Unlike most of his counterparts, Murugan never worries about being lost in translation. He says, When I have a plot in mind, only 50 percent of what I think is expressed in my actual writing, which for me is a great achievement. Now, when there is so much loss in that process, yes, there can be some loss in translation. But, it is not always loss in translation. There can also be gains in translation. Sometimes, my words can come out even better when translated. So, both possibilities are there, and thats the reason why I dont worry about losing anything in the process, the writer says.

He is also an avid reader of works of translations. I am greatly influenced by writings in Bangla, Kannada and Russian, among others. Post the controversy, he admits to have become more cautious. I dont regret writing the book, but I felt sad that our society still doesnt have the correct attitude towards reading and engaging with a book. But having been pushed in a corner has taught him a lot and he is happy with the writer that has emerged on the other side of it. This is not a continuation of the erstwhile P Murugan. He tells us his next book will be about his mother. I am trying to write in a new style. More than being conscious of censorship, my focus has now shifted towards how to overcome it. Censorship will be there, but I am trying to build on techniques to beat that challenge, he signs off.
Anasuya is one of the Chaste Women of Hindu mythology  so pious, she became kind of magical in her own right.

It all boils down to sex in the end, doesn't it? How much you want it, how much you don't want it, how you want it, where you want it, why you don't want it, it's humanity's endless question, everyone's curious about everyone else's sex lives, about what it would be like with so-and-so, even the gods were not immune to this experimenting. Which brings us to Anasuya.

Anasuya is one of the Chaste Women of Hindu mythology: a group that famously includes Ahalya (accidentally slept with Indra thinking it was her husband), Draupadi (five husbands but loyal to all of them), Kunti (impotent husband, so she slept with gods in order to give him sons) and Tara and Mandodari (both of whom married their dead husband's brothers). Anasuya stands a little apart from these women though, because she was so pious, she became kind of magical in her own right. In the Ramayana, where she makes a cameo appearance when Ram and Sita appear at her husband's ashram in the Chitrakuta forest, she gives Sita a magic ointment to make her beautiful forever  a Forest Essential as it were.

Anasuya was born to sacrifice. Her dad, Kardama, was a famous sage, said to be one of Brahma's mind babies  born out of that god's head, in a similar fashion to the Greek goddess Athena rising from Zeus. Meanwhile, the first man Manu and the first woman Satarupa were searching for a match for their daughter Devahuti, which I guess is hard to do when you are the only people on the planet?

Sidebar: but I'm not sure how all those people came out of just two people, just like I'm not sure what happened with Adam and Eve in the Bible either. One day, there are only two people and they have babies, I can do the math, but... what happens after that? Where do all the other new people come from? (Is it the obvious answer? Please don't let it be the obvious answer.) You'd think all these creators would have thought about genetics and tossed another few people in there to mix up the gene pool.

Anyhow, Kardama was all for this marriage (with Devahuti) because he had really wanted Vishnu to be born to him as his son, and for that, he needed a lady  and said lady happened to be really beautiful and devout and not too high maintenance, just what you need for an ashram hang. Kardama was not so far gone that he didn't impose a condition on his marriage though: as soon as the Vishnu-son was born, Kardama would leave them all and go off and meditate. At least it was in the pre-nup.

Anasuya was born from this marriage  nine daughters before that one son  and her sisters and she were married off to various sages, going their separate ways. Anasuya's husband was the sage Atri, who is credited with writing large parts of the Rig Veda, but Anasuya's story is less academic. While her husband was writing and praying, she attracted the attention of the holy trinity: Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, and there are two versions of a story where they try to seduce her.

The first version is much gorier: they all approach her, and make bawdy remarks, she rejects them, even though she's a little afraid of saying no to the gods. For good reason too: after the rejection, they violate her anyway. She curses them all: Shiva will only be worshipped as a lingam, Brahma as a head and Vishnu as feet. Also, they have to be reborn as her sons, so she can have some power over them, I guess?

In the second version of the story: the gods' wives are driven into a jealous frenzy by that sage-troublemaker Narada, who goes on about how beautiful and virtuous she is. So they tell their husbands to go and make her break her wedding vows, which the husbands gladly do. They appear as three brahmins and ask Anasuya for a meal. Now because of the old rules about guests being gods and all of that, Anasuya had to follow all their requests, which in this case was that she had to serve them lunch in the nude. Anasuya then puts a spell on them, turning them into babies who had to be collected by their wives later, and the gods agreed to be born to her for real.

One last Anasuya story, since I have become slightly obsessed with her during my research: there was once this guy who fell in love with a prostitute, despite having a really lovely and charming wife. (Women of Ancient India! Ditch those useless men!) The prostitute dumped him after he got leprosy (which I think was really syphilis) and his wife took him back  more fool her. But! This ungrateful man  Kaushik, his name was  couldn't stop thinking of the prostitute and asked his wife  his wife  to help him see her again, which again, she agreed to, making me judge her a little bit. On the way there, he tripped over a sage who was impaled on a spike (tl;dr  was mistaken for a thief) and the sage cursed him, as sages do, to die before the next sunrise. The wife was so upset, she stormed the heavens so that the sun wouldn't rise, Anasuya came to the rescue, restored the sun and that Kaushik fellow making for a happy ending. Well, for almost everyone; I imagine the wife (who remains unnamed in this story) had to once again deal with her husband's philandering ways.

She stormed the heavens, she denied the gods, she brought a river down to earth, and all the while she cooked and cleaned (Please. Like Atri was going to do it himself), raised their kids and stayed in the background: I think we should all talk more about Anasuya instead of leaving her forgotten in the margins of the myths.

Read more from the 'Mythology for the Millennial' series here.

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of several books, including The One Who Swam with the Fishes: Girls of the Mahabharata. She tweets @reddymadhavan
The US ODNI intelligence singling out India, warning communal violence ahead of General Election to Lok Sabha, may indicate a certain bias, but a global rise of hate only makes that threat more serious, not less

A rather alarming report emerged from within the secretive portals of the US intelligence community. Apparently, the US intelligence community assesses that India is in for a period of communal violence just prior to the General Election to Lok Sabha, particularly in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That's a serious enough forecast to worry most right-thinking Indians. There are other assessments, but this is probably the most serious, and the most unusual. It's not everyday that a US intelligence body focuses on communal issues with regards to India.

The report itself is an assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) provided by law, to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Essentially, it is a broad examination of the threats that face the US government and its interests globally, as befits a country that is  as yet  the top dog in terms of sheer military power. Its an impressive document, and this year the fact that many of its findings contradicted the position taken by US president Donald Trump, testifies to its independence in assessment. Thats as it should be. No intelligence body worth its dossiers should kowtow to political expediency as however they often do. There is, however, a downside. The ODNI was created post 9/11 with the intention of ensuring unity in intelligence, and creating a true "intelligence community".

This rosy picture of spooks sitting around a table and amicably sharing intelligence over a cup at Starbucks, however, has hardly come to pass. The top guys in the business like the CIA, keep their files shut as does the FBI, and will only share minimally with the ODNI, which comes a far, far third. Even so, however, a report from this body, particularly since its a public document, needs to be analysed with interest and some caution.

The first few references to India are fairly standard, even if annoying in terms of the unchanging mindset in non-proliferation circles. The section on nuclear threats, as before, couples India and Pakistan as countries locked into a nuclear competition with each other. This is an unrealistic assessment, ignoring as it does that the vastly more capable Chinese nuclear holding. It does, however, call out Pakistans rising capabilities across the triad of air-, land-, and sea-based weapons. Its nearly there, but not quite as much as Islamabad likes to make out.

An assessment related to terrorism will gladden Indian hearts. The prosaic statement that Pakistans "narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperationusing some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistan  almost certainly will frustrate US counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban" will be backed by most, including most Pakistanis themselves. Apparently, the US intelligence community know the Pakistan Army better than its civilian leaders do, despite claims by the top political leadership of their commitment to peace in Afghanistan. Clearly, US frustration is set to continue.

It's the third assessment that is worrying. The report baldly warns of communal violence prior to elections if BJP leaders continued to stress "Hindu nationalist themes". Further, it notes, "Hindu nationalist state leaders might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters. Increasing communal clashes could alienate Indian Muslims and allow Islamist terrorist groups in India to expand their influence." Theres a lot to worry here, especially given some trends.

First, no one can deny that hate crimes in India have increased.

Data-based analysis by reputable sources has brought out, for instance, that cow-related violence has climbed significantly from one in 2012 to 31 incidents in 2018. Of the total 124 such incidents, 74 were in BJP-ruled states, and the majority of those wounded (296) or dead (46) were from minority communities. The database also records other hate crimes such as intimidation, sexual violence, and abductions among others.

All record a common factor in terms of a rise in such incidents with the difference that about 12 percent of the perpetrators in an overall examination were also from minority communities. Another 18 percent of crimes were by persons of unknown ethnicity. There are other sources to support the rising trend of such crimes, so this can hardly be denied.

It is also equally clear that far-right Hindu leaders are milking religion for all it is worth. Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modis admonition against vigilantism in July, the trend continues with recruitment of 5,000 'religious soldiers', issues like 'love jihad' dividing even a usually peaceful state like Kerala, and the Ram Mandir towering over elections in the north. One might say that with this and other pointers like attacks on cultural events, an intelligence assessment is hardly necessary.

But heres something else that needs to be factored in.

Data indicates a sharp rise in hate crimes in the US and a doubling in the United Kingdom in the context of terrorist attacks and Brexit. In the UK, police recorded 94,000 hate crimes in 2017, most of them racially motivated. The trend is similar in much of Europe, fuelled primarily by an economic downswing and resultant unemployment. As the world economy plummets, things are likely to get worse.

The "Global Risks Report" of the World Economic Forum highlights threats like climate change on the top of concerns of leaders, and related crises like water availability, loss of arable land, and spread of disease, all of which is already evident in India and elsewhere. Related to this are security trends of 2019, which include a rise in authoritarian or far-right leaders and large refugee and migration movements among others.

Historically, as the size of the purse decreases, incidents of societal violence and perception of the 'other' increases. The Holocaust is only the most well known in a host of examples where societal stress has led to the majority turning on the minority. Along with this comes the terrorist groups, waiting to build upon resentment and discrimination. The threat is real and it's not just in India. This is not whataboutery. The ODNI intelligence singling out India may indicate a certain bias, but a global rise of hate only makes that threat more serious, not less. Meanwhile, in India its likely to remain about politics as usual. Intelligence can only warn.
With the swine flu numbers going up, the health ministry recently held a meeting with the states and asked them to strengthen their surveillance for early detection. It also asked them to keep beds reserved in hospitals to deal with acute cases.

New Delhi: The toll due to swine flu in the country has soared to 169 this year, while 4,571 people have tested positive for the virus, with Rajasthan accounting for over 40 percent of the cases.

According to data issued by the government, Rajasthan recorded 1,911 cases and 75 deaths till Monday, followed by Gujarat with 600 cases and 24 deaths.

Delhi reported the third highest number with 532 people being infected with the H1N1 virus. No death has been reported due to the flu in the national capital, so far.

Punjab has reported 27 deaths and 174 cases, followed by eight deaths and 372 cases in Haryana. Maharashtra has recorded 82 cases and 12 deaths till Monday.

With the numbers going up, the health ministry recently held a meeting with the states and asked them to strengthen their surveillance for early detection. It also asked them to keep beds reserved in hospitals to deal with acute cases.

The official said states have not made any demand yet regarding drugs, diagnostic kits and other wherewithal to deal with the issue.

"There is sufficient stock of swine flu drug Oseltamivir and no scarcity of N95 masks and diagnostic kits. Further, states have been asked to issue advisories to people mentioning the dos and don'ts ," a senior health ministry official said.

Delhi government also has issued an advisory in view of the rising cases of swine flu.

The advisory states that seasonal influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, air borne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated by the act of coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission like telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, door bells, pens, toys etc) and close contact, including hand shaking, hugging and kissing.

The dos and don'ts mention covering nose and mouth with disposable tissue or handkerchief while coughing or sneezing, washing hands with soap and water frequently, avoiding crowding places, maintaining isolation, drinking plenty of liquid and consulting doctor.

As per the advisory, one should not touch eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands or hug, kiss and shake hands while greeting, or spit in public places, dispose of used napkin or tissue paper in open areas or smoke in public places.

Last year, the country reported 14,992 cases and 1,103 deaths due to the flu.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has come under fire from the BJP for his 'everyone in naked in this Sangam' jibe at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath's holy dip in the Sangam at Prayagraj on Tuesday.

New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has come under fire from the BJP for his "everyone is naked in this Sangam" jibe at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath's holy dip in the Sangam at Prayagraj on Tuesday.

Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said such comments on Hindu practices by an educated person like Tharoor are very unfortunate.

"This is very unfortunate. An extremely educated and respected person like Tharoor always comes up with such kind of comments related to practices of the Hindu religion" Kohli said referring to the tweet posted by Tharoor on Tuesday.

The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram had posted on Twitter, "Ganga bhi swachh rakhni hain, aur paap bhi yahi dhone hain. Iss Sangam mein sab nange hain. Jai Ganga Maiya ki!"

Translated, it means, "Ganga has to be kept clean and sins also have to be washed there. At this Sangam everyone is naked. Hail Goddess Ganga!"

Venting his anger at Tharoor, Kohli further said, "One will never find his tweet related to beliefs and practices of Islam, Christianity or any other religion. Why does he do so? If somebody goes to Kumbh to take a holy bath in river Ganga, will they dress in a suit, tie etc? Yogi ji along with other ministers took a dip at Sangam Ghat on an auspicious day. Tharoor must show respect for other people too."

Kohli also pointed out that even Congress party president Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Prayagraj soon to take the holy dip.
Amethi farmer Yogendra, 65, had surrendered 100 bighas of land in 1984. The Uttar Pradesh government had paid him Rs 5,000 per bigha as compensation and provided him a job in the manufacturing unit of Samrat Bicylces private Limited. Two years later, the factory ceased operations, and salaries were stopped. Since then, he has been living in penury.

Amethi: Sitting under a tree outside his humble dwelling in Amethi, frail-looking Yogendra Pathak is a picture of despair. While gossiping with neighbours who hang out at his bicycle repair shop, Yogendra thinks back to the good old days when he was a zamindar (landlord) of sorts. He was counted among the few landowners who commanded respect and awe in not just his village but in the neighbouring areas, as well. Today, he barely manages to eke out a living by fixing punctured cycle tubes.

Not far from Yogendra's shop, Lallan Pathak is perched cross-legged on a stool in his wooden kiosk and spreading choona-kattha on betel leaves, while a couple of paan-lovers and tobacco fans scratch their heads over what will happen in the Lok Sabha elections four months away. Quite like Yogendra, Lallan, too, was once a proud owner of a large piece of land on which he grew seasonal crops and made money. However, he is in dire straits at the moment.

Yogendra, 65, had surrendered 100 bighas of land in 1984. The Uttar Pradesh government had paid him Rs 5,000 per bigha as compensation and provided him a job in the manufacturing unit of Samrat Bicylces private Limited. Two years later, the factory ceased operations, and salaries were stopped. Since then, he has been living in penury.

During his heydays, Lallan, 62, used to distribute fruits and wood free of cost to his village folk, but he now runs a paan ki dukaan.

Yogendra and Lallan are just two of the 192 farmers who had pledged their lands to the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial and Development Corporation (UPSIDC) in 1984 on just one appeal from the then newly-elected Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv had swept to power riding on the sympathy wave in the aftermath of his mother Indira Gandhi's assassination.

The land the farmers had given up on the promise of compensation and employment was meant to set up Samrat Bicycles' manufacturing unit that would have provided employment to local residents. Though some of the farmers who had handed over their land had been given compensation and jobs, the matter slipped into oblivion as hardly any production took place at the factory and the owners stopped paying salaries.

Governments came and went; several Assembly and parliamentary elections were held. In the process, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, too, came and went, but no one bothered to listen to the grievances of the farmers. The result  whenever Rahul visits Amethi now, the Congress chief is faced with protests by farmers, especially those who were cheated in the name of land acquisition and employment. The farmers have been demanding that their lands be returned so that they can take up farming for their livelihood once again.

All that Yogendra seeks now is some ready cash so that he can set up a proper shop to earn a decent livelihood. "With no money and no regular source of income, how can I hope of a better living? I regret having surrendered my land," he said. "We have appealed to political leaders to help us get our lands back, but no one seems to be bothered about our plight."

Lallan echoes the same despair. "We now realise that surrendering our lands was a big mistake. But we had no option then, just as we have no option now," he said. "During the elections, political leaders come to seek votes and make promises, but once the elections are over, they simply forget all their promises."

According to Umashankar Pandey, an advocate and former BJP district president, there is a basic anomaly that has not been addressed by all the parties involved in the matter. "Land acquired by the government for industrial purposes should be put to industrial use only and not given to any private trust or organisation, he pointed out.

Pandey raised the issue vociferously so many times over the years that in the 2014 parliamentary elections, he gave BJP leader Smriti Irani a stick with which to attack the Congress. To put pressure on Rahul, Irani has been drumming the issue at every rally she addresses in Amethi, but to no avail.

It may be recalled that in 1984, the state government had acquired 65.57 acres in the Kauhar industrial belt to set up a manufacturing unit of Samrat Bicycles owned by Sanjay Jain. According to documents on record, UPSIDC had registered 65.57 acres on 8 August, 1986.

Since the factory ceased operations after two years, nearly three decades later, on 24 February, 2014, the land was auctioned for Rs 20.10 crore. After the auction, the land was transferred to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, which paid Rs 50,000 as stamp duty. Strangely, a few months later, UPSIDC declared the auction invalid and illegal, and the matter went to the Gauriganj sub-divisional magistrate's court, which ordered Samrat Bicycles to return the land to UPSIDC.

Defending the sale of land to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, Congress district president Yogendra Misra said, "The trust lawfully bid for the land and acquired it. If at all there was any bungling or unlawful transaction, UPSIDC, the Amethi administration and Samrat Bicycles should be held liable, not the Rajiv Gandhi trust."

Calls made to Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Raj Babbar went unanswered. However, senior lawyer and judicial activist Krishna Kanhaiya Pal said: "I don't know why people are lingering on the issue. As per the law, if the purpose for which the land was acquired by the government becomes infructuous, the land should be restored to the original owners. In this case, if the cycle factory was set up or ceased operations after some time, the land should be returned to the farmers in keeping with the principles of natural justice."

Amid the tussle over land ownership, the issue remains that the rightful owners were deprived of their land, which is now lying unused when it could have been cultivated. The factory infrastructure, too, is in a state of neglect when some productive projects could have been set up for the benefit of the local populace.

With the Lok Sabha elections coming up, the BJP and other parties will again use this issue to corner the Congress and the Gandhi family. Just last week, when Rahul visited Amethi, farmers protested and demanded that their lands be returned to them. However, the farmers' protest did not cut much ice with the resurgent Congress president, who has his sights set on things bigger than getting embroiled in petty local matters.

Meanwhile, the Jains at the centre of the whole controversy are happily running their cycle manufacturing businesses on a pan-India scale.
A Bihar court on Tuesday framed charges against former MP Shahabuddin and seven others in connection with journalist Rajdev Ranjan's murder case

Muzzafarpur: A Bihar court on Tuesday framed charges against former MP Shahabuddin and seven others in connection with journalist Rajdev Ranjan's murder case. The case will be next heard on 12 February.

Ranjan, the Siwan bureau chief of Hindi daily Hindustan, was shot dead in May 2017. He was gunned down by motorbike-borne criminals near the busy Station Road at Siwan in north Bihar.

Ranjan's widow Asha Ranjan had sought direction for the registration of FIR against RJD leader Shahabuddin and Tej Pratap Yadav for "conspiracy and harbouring and sheltering the proclaimed offenders" in the murder case.

In 2017, the CBI took custody of Mohammad Shahabuddin, whose name had cropped up as an accused in the investigation. However, in March 2018 the Supreme Court had closed proceedings against Tej Pratap in connection with this case.
The protestors, around 20 in number, raised slogans against Manik Sarkar on Tuesday on National Highway-8 in the district, asking him to 'go back'

Agartala: A group of 'unidentified miscreants' had blocked the highway in Tripura's Dhalai district to stop Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Manik Sarkar from attending a party meet, a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

The protestors, around 20 in number, raised slogans against Sarkar on Tuesday on National Highway-8 in the district, asking him to "go back", he said.

"The miscreants, who had lifted the highway blockade after police intervention, gathered outside the CPI(M) office at district headquarters Ambassa later in the day to lodge their protest," Superintendent of Police Sudipta Das said.

Sarkar was convening a meeting of party workers at Ambassa, he said. The reason behind the protest wasn't clear as yet, but it seems the agitators did not have any political affiliation, Das said, adding that the group dispersed as soon as the police arrived.

Condemning Tuesday's incident, the CPI(M), in a statement, termed it as "an attack on the democratic rights of people".
The 24 January meeting of the selection committee had remained inconclusive. The meeting, held at the prime minister's official residence, was attended by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

A day before ousted CBI director Alok Verma's term is to end, the high-powered selection committee  led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi  is scheduled to meet on Wednesday at 6.30 pm to decide a name for the post.

On 24 January, the select committee meeting to zero in on a candidate remained inconclusive. "A list of eligible officers along with their dossiers was shared with the panel members. But no decision has been taken so far," an official had told PTI.

The meeting, which was held at the prime minister's official residence, was attended by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Kharge said names of officers were shared. "There was discussion on the names. There was no mention of their career details including relevant experience. We (him and Gogoi) have asked them to provide all the necessary details," he said.

Verma was removed as the CBI director on 8 January following months of conflict with CBI special-director Rakesh Asthana and was reinstated the following day on the orders of the Supreme Court. However, the selection committee voted 2:1 and removed Verma from the post on 11 January and appointed M Nageshwar Rao as his interim replacement.

On separate occasions last week, Gogoi and Justice AK Sikri recused themselves from hearing a case in Supreme Court against the appointment of Rao as the interim CBI chief. Sikri, who had attended one of the selection committee meetings, held his ground, saying he had "his own predicaments".

After being removed from the post of CBI director, Verma was named as the Director General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards  a less significant portfolio. Verma did not accept the offer and wrote to the government, saying he should be considered as deemed superannuated as he has completed 60 years age of superannuation.

The entire controversy and Verma's resignation letter triggered a political slugfest, with the Opposition parties, mainly the Congress, accusing the central government of alleged interference in public institutions.

Among the strongest contenders for the post of the CBI director are Haryana director-general (state vigilance bureau) Parminder Rai, home ministry's Rina Mitra, Director General of National Investigation Agency YC Modi, and chief of National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences Javeed Ahmed.

With inputs from agencies
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and heads of other top American intelligence agencies appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on their worldwide threat assessment.

Washington: The militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to conduct terrorist attacks in both India and Afghanistan, America's spymaster has said.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also said Pakistan's "narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperation  using some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistan  almost certainly will frustrate US counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban."

"Militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, including against US interests," Coats told the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats and heads of other top American intelligence agencies appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on their worldwide threat assessment. Prominent among them included CIA director Gina Haspel, who has just returned from a trip to India; FBI Director Christopher Wray and Defense Intelligence Agency director Robert Ashley.

The comment on South Asia is part of US intelligence community's assessment of worldwide threats in 2019 and was presented in the form of a written document to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Coats.

Coats said that the challenges facing South Asian states will grow in 2019 because of Afghanistan's presidential election in mid-July and the Taliban's large-scale attacks, Pakistan's recalcitrance in dealing with militant groups, and Indian elections that risk communal violence.

"We assess that neither the Afghan Government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year if coalition support remains at current levels," he said.

Afghan forces generally have secured cities and other government strongholds, but the Taliban has increased large-scale attacks, and Afghan security suffers from a large number of forces being tied down in defensive missions, mobility shortfalls, and a lack of reliable forces to hold recaptured territory, Coats said.
Petitioner ML Sharma claimed that ousted CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthanas name is in the list of names that will be considered for the post

On the day that a high-powered committee will meet to decide a name for the post of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director, petitioner ML Sharma claimed that ousted special director Rakesh Asthana's name is in the list of those who will be considered for the post.

Sharma also sought an early hearing of his petition, which challenged Asthanas appointment which came even after the Delhi High Court did not quash a FIR against the latter over bribery allegations. The court had also given a deadline of 10 weeks to complete investigation into the case.

Advocate ML Sharma had filed a petition in the Supreme Court on 23 January calling the appointment of Asthana as Director General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) on 18 January a contradiction to the law. The petition had demanded that since Asthana be suspended since he had a pending investigation against him.

The petition also sought that the PM not be a part of the Selection Committee, owing to conflict of interest. "Instead of suspension, Asthana's appointment as BCES Chief on 18 January is a clear case of personal interest of Narendra Modi in favour of Asthana and against Alok Verma. Therefore, Modi has no legal and moral right to sit as member of the committee in which Asthana versus Verma case has been decided," it said.

The committee for selection of the CBI Director comprises of the PM, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge. Among the top contenders for the CBI director's post are Parminder Rai, YC Modi and Rina Mitra.

On 23 October, 2018, then CBI director Verma and Asthana were divested of their powers and sent on forced leave after the two exchanged accusations of corruption. This came after the CBI registered a case against Asthana claiming criminal conspiracy, corruption and misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

On 8 January, Verma was reinstated as CBI director by the Supreme Court, only to be removed from the post two days later. Two days later, M Nageshwara Rao was appointed the interim CBI chief.

The apex court then revoked Vermas suspension and set aside Raos appointment on 14 January. After this order, the selection committee again sacked Verma, reinstating Rao.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial at Dandi in Gujarat on Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary on Wednesday.

Ahmedabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial at Dandi in Gujarat on Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary on Wednesday. During his day-long visit to the state, he will also lay the foundation stone for extension of the terminal building at Surat Airport.

Tomorrow, on Bapus Punya Tithi, I will be in Dandi, the place from where Bapu challenged the might of colonialism. In Dandi, the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial will be dedicated to the nation. This is a tribute to Satyagrahis led by Gandhi Ji, who worked for Indias freedom. pic.twitter.com/bJ5YgHZlr5  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 29, 2019

"Modi will go to Dandi in Navsari district where he will dedicate the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial to the nation on Bapu's death anniversary," an official release said. "The memorial has statues of Mahatma Gandhi and 80 Satyagrahis who had marched with him during the historic Dandi Salt March. It also has 24-narrative murals depicting various events and stories from the historic 1930 Salt March," it said.

Before visiting Dandi, the prime minister will lay the foundation stone for extension of the terminal building at Surat Airport. He will address a public meeting later, it said.

The Salt Satyagraha March, better known as Dandi March, was a landmark event in the freedom struggle. As part of the civil disobedience movement against the British rule, 80 Satyagrahis led by Gandhi marched 241 miles from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the coastal village of Dandi and made salt from seawater, thus breaking the Salt Law imposed by the British.

Modi will also inaugurate Smt Rasilaben Sevantilal Shah Venus Hospital in Surat. Upon his return to Surat from Dandi, he will interact with participants at the New India Youth conclave.

This will be Modi's second visit to Gujarat this month. He had visited the state on 19 January to dedicate the Armoured System Complex at Hazira besides attending the Vibrant Gujarat Summit on 17 and 18 January.
A junior officer attached to Special Branch and a Mumbai Police driver were arrested Tuesday for allegedly abducting a lottery centre owner and extorting money from him, police said Wednesday.

Mumbai: A junior officer attached to Special Branch and a Mumbai Police driver were arrested Tuesday for allegedly abducting a lottery centre owner and extorting money from him, police said Wednesday.

The alleged incident occurred on 24 January, when the accused police sub-inspector Ram Jadhav (55), who is posted at Special Branch (SB), and Arvind Andhare (52), who works as a driver of Motor Transport division of the Mumbai Police, posed as crime branch sleuths and "raided" an "illegal" lottery centre at Cotton Green in Central Mumbai, a police official said.

They forced the centre owner Hanumant Kamble to accompany them in a van, saying senior officers wanted to talk to him, he said.

However, the duo took Kamble to an isolated spot along P D'Mello Road and took Rs 10,000 from him, he said quoting the complainant.

They later forced Kamble to withdraw Rs 10,500 threw his ATM card and thrashed him, before fleeing.

On 25 January, Kamble filed a complaint with Kalachowki police station, following which a case of robbery and kidnapping was registered against the policemen, the official said.

The duo were identified with the help of CCTV footage of the ATM centre and arrested, he said.

A court has remanded them in police custody till 1 February.
Amid the controversies surrounding the post of Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) director, the high powered selection committee led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet on Wednesday to discuss probable candidates and pick a name for the coveted post.

Amid several controversies surrounding the post of Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) director, the high-powered selection committee led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet on Wednesday at 6.30 pm to zero in on name for the coveted post. The meeting will be attended by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi or his nominee and Leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

On 24 January, the panel's talks remained inconclusive after meeting at the prime minister's residence. Reports had said that the panel had a list of 12 names shortlisted for the post of CBI head. However, four of these names are said to be the strongest contenders as the government intends to give the job to an experienced hand at a time when the agency's image has taken a beating following the bitter spat between former CBI director Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana.

The government has shortlisted these names based on their seniority, integrity, experience in investigating anti-corruption cases and most importantly, their experience of working with the CBI or handling vigilance matters. "The government does not want to take a chance this time, that's why they have shortlisted as many as dozen officers," a senior officer in the Prime Minister's Office told NDTV.

Among the officers, whose name are being discussed at the meeting, are JK Sharma and Parminder Rai from the 1982 batch  the senior most IPS officers but lacking experience in the CBI. Also in the list of front-runners is woman IPS officer Rina Mitra of the Madhya Pradesh-cadre. Here is a list of candidates who are most likely to be picked for the coveted post in India's premier investigating agency.

Parminder Rai

Parminder Rai, a Haryana-cadre officer is the Director General, State Vigilance Bureau, which makes him eligible for the post. His experience with the job will help him take over the reigns of CBI which is tasked with probing high-profile cases, alongside cases of corruption and fraud by central government officers. Rai is one of the senior most IPS officers in the country and he is set to retire on 31 January, 2019. However, if picked as the CBI chief, the current regulations mandate that Rai will complete the entire term in the office.

Rina Mitra

Special Secretary (Internal Security), Home Ministry, Rina Mitra of the 1983-batch is another strong contender for the post of CBI director. If picked, Mitra will be the first woman to head the CBI. She served in the CBI for five years and had a long tenure in Madhya Pradesh state vigilance where she handled serious corruption cases.

Mitra headed the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, an organisation tasked to combat organised wildlife crime, in its early years, they said, adding that if chosen, she would become the first woman chief of the CBI.

The Telegraph reported that Mitra's chances to land the job are particularly bright as she has a clean record, a non-controversial image and has experience of working in the CBI. That elevating her would shatter the glass ceiling is a big plus. A CBI officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper that government might want to "extract political capital" by appointing the first woman to lead the CBI.

YC Modi

YC Modi, a 1984-batch IPS officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre, is considered to be another favourite in the race to the top post in the CBI. He is currently the Director General of National Investigation Agency. He was part of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team which probed the 2002 riots in Gujarat from 2010 to 2012. The SIT had cleared Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of the state.

Modi was also part of the CBI team that probed the murder of former Gujarat minister Haren Pandya and arrested 12 accused. But the evidence was rejected by the Gujarat High Court which acquitted all the accused. Sources told NDTV, the Modi's chances were also bright because he is affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Javeed Ahmed

Current chief of National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences Javeed Ahmed, a 1984-batch IPS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, is amid the top contenders as he is one of the most experienced IPS officers in the fray. He has served the CBI for 13 years  starting as an SP and going up to the rank of DIG from 1994 to 2002 and as joint director from 2009-14.

He could not be promoted to post of Additional Director, CBI, as the then Home Secretary Anil Goswami had not cleared the empanelment file of the entire 1984-batch IPS officers till his term came to an end. Goswami was forced to resign for trying to stall the arrest of a former Union minister in a case, sources in the government told PTI.

Ahmed was posted as Uttar Pradesh DGP and he led many initiatives like Twitter outreach campaign, UP100 and special help line for women.

Other contenders

Amid other contenders are OP Galhotra, former Rajasthan DGP, who is the second most experienced officer in CBI on the list. Closely following Ahmed in terms of experience, Galhotra has served in the agency for 11 years  as an SP from 1996-2000 and as a Joint Director from 2008-15, the officials said. HC Awasthy, Galhotra's batchmate from the UP cadre, also served in the agency for over eight years, they said.

Director General of CISF Rajesh Ranjan, a 1984-batch Bihar cadre officer, has served in the agency for nearly five years and also in Interpol. He was never inducted into the CBI after 2011 as there were "vigilance issues", officials told PTI but didn't expand on the matter.

BSF Director General Rajni Kant Mishra, a 1984-batch officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre is also being considered a front-runner for the post of the CBI Director. He is retiring in August, 2019 and had served for nearly five years in the agency.

Another contender DG Indo-Tibetan Border Police SS Deshwal has five years' experience of working in the CBI, they said.

Arun Kumar, a 1985-batch officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, who led the first CBI team that probed the Aarushi case, is also in the race. The report prepared by him indicting three servants of the Talwars in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case was rejected by the then CBI chief Ashwani Kumar as he was not convinced by the evidence.

Other contenders from the 1985-batch include Rishi Raj Singh and Loknath Behera from Kerala cadre who have around 6 and 10 years' of experience in the CBI respectively. Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik has also been shortlisted but he lacks experience in the agency, the government sources said adding that experience in the vigilance unit of the state compensates it.

With inputs from PTI
The MEA said the Foreign Secretary 'underscored that by this action Pakistan has confirmed yet again that it officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities.

New Delhi: India on Wednesday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over its Foreign Minister's phone call to Kashmiri separatist Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as its High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood was summoned by Indian Foreign Secretary and told to desist from such actions.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told the High Commissioner that Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's phone call to Farooq amounted to "direct interference" in India's internal affairs.

Qureshi called up Mirwaiz on Tuesday, in first direct contact by the new Pakistan government with the Kashmiri separatist leadership.

He reportedly told Farooq about Pakistan's "efforts" to resolve the Kashmir issue.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of Indias condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert Indias unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister," a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said tonight.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed that this deplorable act has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistans own standards," it said.

"The Pakistan Foreign Ministers actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour," the statement added.

The MEA said the Foreign Secretary "underscored that by this action Pakistan has confirmed yet again that it officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities.

"It has exposed to the entire international community Pakistans duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other."

The Pakistan High Commissioner"Pakistan High Commissioner was categorically told by the Foreign Secretary that the Government of India "expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions," the statement said.

"He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," the MEA said.

It underlined that India's position that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India, and that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matters related to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, has been made clear again to the High Commissioner of Pakistan.
Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh appealed to the people not to panic over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, even as a 24-hour general strike has been called from Wednesday midnight demanding withdrawal of the bill

Imphal: Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh appealed to the people not to panic over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, even as a 24-hour general strike has been called from Wednesday midnight demanding withdrawal of the bill.

The apprehensions of the people need to be removed first and the Centre will be urged not to let the bill impact the state, he told reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Imphal.

The recently formed Manipur People Against Citizenship Amendment Bill (MPACAB), with representation from 66 organisations, has called the general strike demanding the controversial bill be withdrawn.

The chief minister said the government is trying to clear doubts regarding the Citizenship Bill from the minds of the people.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on 8 January, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim nationals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India.

Biren Singh said he will be attending a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states "probably day after tomorrow."

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress slammed the government for indulging in "delay tactics" and reiterated that the bill must not be passed under any circumstance.

Former chief minister O Ibobi Singh told reporters that state legislators were not been able to take a firm stand on the bill unlike the Nagaland cabinet.

The Nagaland cabinet has rejected the bill following pressure from various tribal organisations and student bodies.

Ibobi Singh said a Congress team is leaving for the national capital to oppose the passage of the bill in the Rajya Sabha.
A local Congress leader in Wayanad has been booked for allegedly raping a minor tribal girl for nearly a year, police said on Wednesday

Wayanad: A local Congress leader in Wayanad has been booked for allegedly raping a minor tribal girl for nearly a year, police said on Wednesday.

A case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Section 376 (rape) and under the SC/ST Act after the girl's parents complained that their daughter had been allegedly raped for a year by OM George, former general secretary of Wayanad DCC, who had threatened and blackmailed her several times. George is absconding, police said.

Acting swiftly, the Kerala PCC President, Mulapally Ramachandran, announced the suspension of George on Wednesday. The pending inquiry, George has been suspended. The party will not protect any accused, Ramachandran said.

The 17-year old girl's parents were working at George's house and she used to accompany them on some days. The incident came to light a week ago after the girl's parents heard George threatening their daughter on phone. She also attempted to commit suicide by cutting her veins, the girl's father told television channels. The parents approached the Childline and a case was registered under POCSO Act. The girl's statement has been recorded, police said, adding she had been exploited since February 2018.

Wayanad DCC President, IC Balakrishnan, said the party has asked for a report from block and mandal presidents regarding the incident. The girl's parents also alleged a local Congress leader had tried to put pressure on them to withdraw the case and offered money.
The 200-kilometre march, where protestors were demanding a liquor ban in Karnataka, was held under the banner of the Madya Nisheda Andolana, a women-led anti-alcohol movement. It started from Chitradurga on 19 January.

A 12-day march in Karnataka, seeking a complete ban on alcohol in the state, will come to an end on Wednesday. More than 2,000 people, mostly women, will march towards the Vidhana Soudha and stage a silent protest.

After covering 200kms by foot, more than 2000 people from rural Karnataka, mostly women, march to Vidhana Souda today demanding state-wide liqour ban.@CNNnews18 @news18dotcom pic.twitter.com/dlox3PCJWl  Revathi Rajeevan (@RevathiRajeevan) January 30, 2019

The 200-kilometre march under the banner of the Madya Nisheda Andolana (MNA), a women-led anti-alcohol movement, started from Chitradurga on 19 January. On Sunday, they stayed at Kulavanahalli village near Nelamangala on the outskirts of Bengaluru, The Times of India reported.

Renukamma, a 60-year-old woman and construction labourer from Raichur taking part in the march, died of injuries in an accident when the protestors reached Nelamangala, The News Minute reported. She was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the road, the news portal added.

On their journey to the state capital, the protestors spread the message of the ill-effects of alcohol in the villages they passed through. According to The Times of India, the protestors made their way through Kyadigere, Hosuru, Nityananda Ashram, Javagondana Halli, Tavara Kere, Sira, Chikkanahalli, Dodda Alada Mara Cross, CB Temple, Darga Bellavi Cross, Tumakuru, Siddaganga mutt, Adichunchanagiri mutt and Kulavanahalli villages.

However, The Hindu quoted some participants as saying that although the padayatra has nearly come to a close, no elected representative has addressed their concerns. They also claimed that Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy had called some participants but had not given any assurances.

The women called for the march because alcohol addiction is resulting in violence against women in many villages and also causing poverty, The Hindu quoted protestors as saying. "It is difficult to make ends meet for the household when men spend a large chunk of the money on alcohol. As a result, children do not get adequate nutrition and are left malnourished," Sharada Gopal, a womens rights activist, said.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday alleged a Rs 2,000 crore farmers' loan scam during the previous 15-year-old BJP rule and vowed strict action against those involved in falsifying the list of beneficiaries.

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday alleged a Rs 2,000 crore farmers' loan scam during the previous 15-year-old BJP rule and vowed strict action against those involved in falsifying the list of beneficiaries.

Kamal Nath on Wednesday met some farmers who have never taken a loan, but their names have allegedly figured as beneficiaries. The list also included the names of farmers whose loans had allegedly been waived.

"This is a big scam, it is expected to be of more than Rs 2,000 crore. We will take strict action," the chief minister said.

Congress leader Shobha Oza said, "A Rs 2,000 crore loan scam happened during the 15-year rule of BJP and the Kamal Nath government will take the issue to its logical conclusion. No one will be spared."

Last week, a farmer in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district died due to cardiac arrest after getting to know that he had a huge amount of debt pending. His family claimed he had not even been able to secure a loan.

The deceased, identified as Mukundi Adivasi, was a resident of village Sardai Nayanagar. Mukundi came to know that he had a loan of approximately Rs 5 lakh against his name as this was what was written in a list posted at the local cooperative body office in the district.

According to one of his family members, Mukundi was scared after getting to know about the loan and his condition deteriorated on Wednesday. He was immediately taken to a hospital but was declared brought dead by doctors.

A local bank in the area had published a list containing the names of farmers who have taken loans, as part of the process initiated by the Congress-led Madhya Pradesh government to waive the loans of farmers amounting up to Rs two lakh per head, as was promised by the party during the state assembly elections in 2018.

During polls campaign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had announced waiving farm loans within 10 days after being voted to power.

Apart from Mukundi, there are other farmers as well who have alleged that their names have been included in the farm loan waiver list even though they have never taken out a loan.
Storybooks in tribal languages are an excellent tool for primary education in those languages. This is where an online platform like StoryWeaver  developed by Pratham Books with support from Google  comes in.

Last month, West Bengal announced that English medium education will be introduced in about 65 state-run schools at the primary and secondary levels. In Karnataka, the chief minister is firm on introducing English in state government schools for the academic year 2019-2020. Other Indian states too have passed similar decisions in favour of promoting English language instruction, sparking concerns about the sidelining of indigenous languages.

University education in India has largely been delivered in English for the past 150-odd years. And the usage of English in delivering primary education is increasing day by day, says Dr Ganesh Devy, the literary critic and activist who led the Peoples Linguistic Survey of India which is credited with discovering about 780 Indian languages.

Dr Devy adds that schooling often leaves tribal children culturally uprooted. Books in tribal languages are an excellent tool for primary education in those languages, he adds. This is where an online platform like StoryWeaver  developed by Pratham Books with support from Google  comes in. The platform was launched in 2015 and today it hosts more than 10,000 storybooks and has about a million readers online. It brings together readers, authors, illustrators, and translators to create stories for children via an open source technology where all content is freely accessible and downloadable any number of times.

StoryWeaver is a collaborative platform that attempts to address the scarcity of multilingual, joyful reading material for children, says Purvi Shah, who heads Digital Initiatives for Pratham Books. StoryWeaver does this by empowering communities to create storybooks in their own languages, she explains.

Yogini Acharya  parent to a 10-year-old; assistant director, Directorate of Tribal Welfare, Government of Goa; and frequent StoryWeaver visitor  says the platform hosts stories that cover a variety of themes in the simplest of ways. She provides an example: Theres a story called Appukutan Ko Gussa Kyu Aaya and its a beautiful story about dealing with anger-management.

On the languages front, the platform has about 130 in total, ranging from Hindi to Konkani and Bhoti, Sanskrit to Surjapuri, Occitan and Southern Kurdish. Amna Singh, the associate language editor for Pratham Books, says that tribal and under-served tongues comprise 30 percent of the languages on StoryWeaver.

Organisations that work with tribal communities have found the platform to be of great help. Kirsty Milward, the founder of one such organisation  Suchana  says that StoryWeaver has enabled quick content creation methods. Suchana has been working with tribal children in Birbhum, West Bengal, for the last decade, and Milward says, Our educator-translators, once trained in basic computer skills, have been able to translate 79 books to Kora and Santali using the Bengali script.

It is important to note that in six Kora villages where Suchana is working, the language was never printed before.

Santali kids now have access to books in their own language and this is making them particularly interested in the books, says Kamala, a Santali, and Adivasi support officer and teacher for the Integrated Technology in Education Project at Suchana.

The other noteworthy beneficiary of the StoryWeaver platform is the Gond-speaking tribal community which resides across seven states in India and therefore faces a unique problem  they are unable to converse with each other because each of them speak a dialect of Gondi that is influenced by the state languages (Andhra Adivasis speak Telugu-influenced Gondi, Maharashtra Adivasis speak Marathi-influenced Gondi, and so on).

The StoryWeaver team, along with CGNet Swara, an organisation which has been working with the Gond community since 2014, organised a workshop where over 20 Gondi speakers from three different states worked together to translate 350 storybooks from Hindi to Gondi. The aim was to create a repository which could be distributed to schools, and also gather sufficient data to pilot a machine translation tool.

We are currently working with the Chhattisgarh state government and the NCERT [National Council of Educational Research and Training] to print these books and distribute them across schools, says Devansh Mehta, the head of business development at CGNet Swara.

These books will help children see the value in their own mother tongue, Dr Devy opines, adding: Radio programmes in these languages is another way to go. I hope Pratham also launches radio service in these languages.
Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, in a written statement to the US Senate Select Committee, said that BJP policies during Prime Minister Narendra Modis first term have deepened communal tensions in some BJP-governed states, and Hindu nationalist state leaders might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters.

India may face communal violence in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections if the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continues stressing its Hindu nationalist agenda, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told US lawmakers.

Coats made the statement as he, along with heads of other top American intelligence agencies, appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to present their worldwide threat assessment. Among the attendees was CIA Director Gina Haspel, who has just returned from a trip to India, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Defence Intelligence Agency Director Robert Ashley.

In a written statement to the Senate Select Committee on Tuesday, Coats said: "BJP policies during (Prime Minister Narendra) Modis first term have deepened communal tensions in some BJP-governed states, and Hindu nationalist state leaders might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters."

According to the report, the increase in communal clashes could "alienate Indian-Muslims", and will also give Islamist terror outfits room to expand their influence.

India's ties with Pakistan, China to remain tense

Coats wrote that factors such as cross-border terrorism between India and Pakistan, the Lok Sabha elections, and Islamabad's "perception of its position within the United States relative to India" will cause ties to remain tense.

"Despite limited confidence-building measures  such as both countries recommitting in May 2018 to the 2003 cease-fire along the disputed Kashmir border  continued terrorist attacks and cross-border firing in Kashmir have hardened each countrys position and reduced their political will to seek rapprochement."

Relations between India and China are also expected to remain tense this year, despite the efforts of Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping to improve ties between the two nations.

"Misperception of military movements or construction might result in tensions escalating into armed conflict," Coats warned.

He also noted India and Pakistan's growing nuclear strength and said that this increases the risk of a nuclear security incident in South Asia. "While Pakistan continues to develop new types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical weapons, sea-based cruise missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, and longer-range ballistic missiles, India this year has conducted its first deployment of a nuclear-powered submarine armed with nuclear missiles," he told lawmakers.
Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) leader Puja Shakun Pandey decided to 'celebrate' the occasion by shooting at an effigy of Gandhi from a toy gun.

On Mahatama Gandhi's death anniversary on Wednesday, Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) general secretary Puja Shakun Pandey decided to 'celebrate' the occasion by recreating the assassination of the father of the nation.

According to a report in India Today, the ABHM celebrated Gandhi's death by shooting at an effigy of Gandhi from a toy gun. The right-wing group also marked the 'martyrdom' of his assassin Nathuram Godse on 'Martyr's Day' in Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh, according to the report.

Before Pandey shot at the effigy, chants of "Mahatma Nathuram Godse amar rahe (Long live Mahatma Nathuram Godse)" were also heard at the event.

Watch: Hindu Mahasabha recreates Mahatma Gandhis assassination; shoots Gandhi's effigy pic.twitter.com/jhCKmvjAMe  Afroz Alam (@AfrozJournalist) January 30, 2019

After Pandey shot at the effigy, fake blood was seen oozing out of it as per a video clip posted on Twitter. In fact, another organisation member also shot at the effigy after Pandey, as per the clip.

The Times of India further reported that the ABHM leaders also garlanded Godse's statue and distributed sweets.

The newspaper also quoted Pandey as saying that she started a new tradition by recreating the entire incident on 30 January, the day Gandhi was assassinated. She also compared her shooting at the effigy to the burning of Ravana's effigy on Dussehra.

In May 2018, ANI reported that ABHM requested the central government to replace the picture of Gandhi on Indian currency with Veer Savarkar.

ABHM chief Swami Chakrapani even demanded the Bharat Ratna for Savarkar. The ABHM said Savarkar played a great role in India's freedom movement and hence, the country should respect him by featuring him instead of Gandhi on the currency.

With inputs from ANI
In a controversial move, a Gujarat minister has written to rape-convict Asarams ashram lauding them for celebrating 14 February, popularly known for Valentines Day celebrations, as Matru-Pitru Divas.

Gandhinagar: In a controversial move, a Gujarat minister has written to rape-convict Asarams ashram lauding them for celebrating 14 February, popularly known for Valentines Day celebrations, as Matru-Pitru Divas.

Gujarat education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama has written in Gujarati to the Motera unit of Asaram's ashram commending it for organising the Matru-Pitru Divas or worship your parents day and called it a noble act.

"One who takes care of the mother, father and guru himself is respected. Your organisation has started a new initiative to celebrate Matru-Pitru Divas (Mother-Father Day) on 14 February, 2019, which is commendable, Chudasama wrote.

I wish that this initiative becomes a huge success, and makes boys and girls and young men and women understand their responsibilities towards their parents. I convey my best wishes to your organisation for such a noble act," the letter stated

In April 2018, Asaram was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of raping a minor girl in Manai village near Jodhpur on 15 August, 2013.

The judicature had also sentenced two other accused, Shilpi and Sharad to 20 years each in jail, in connection with the same case.

The self-styled godman was found guilty under various sections of the IPC, including trafficking, wrongful confinement, outraging modesty, rape, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy and some sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Mahatma Gandhi is arguably the only individual, after the Buddha, who provides a measure of mans potential to cultivate a rich inner life and attain self-transformation

How much can you transform yourself? How much can you change from within, on your own  without any aid from any external agency, like a guru? Mahatma Gandhi is arguably the only individual, after the Buddha, who provides a measure of mans potential to cultivate a rich inner life and attain self-transformation. Gandhi is a man of many parts: mass leader, social reformer, visionary politician and so on. He is also a model for self-formation. If you are looking for ways to change your life, Gandhi can provide you a few useful tips.

To say that perfection is not attainable on this earth is to deny God, he writes to Esther Faering, a Danish missionary with whom he had a long correspondence. In the midst of the Champaran satyagraha, he found time to pen this missive from Motihari on 13 January, 1918: We do see constantly men becoming better under effort and discipline. There is no occasion for limiting the capacity for improvement.

He is echoing one of his favourite authors, Henry David Thoreau, who writes in Walden: If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

So, effort and discipline turned the shy, diffident youth (with much to be diffident about) who landed in Durban in 1893 into the accomplished visionary with radical ways and mass following and the epithet of Mahatma, who arrived in Bombay in 1915. For those seeking change from within, it is easier to identify with Mohandas in his 20s  not much different from you and me  than to take as models those messiahs and messengers who claim to be already chosen and thus did not have to face inner resistance that we have to.

If we wish to explore his path beyond effort and discipline, we can follow his commendation of the Bhagavad Gita as his spiritual diagnostic tool (nidan granth), or dip into the Bible which helped him in South Africa to put together his moral framework, and follow him onward in his eclectic mixing of religious and spiritual traditions  a journey well put together by JTF Jordens in Gandhis Religion: A Homespun Shawl (Indian edition: OUP, 2012).

For a serious seeker of transformation, however, the challenge is how. We read the Gita (usually in English translation like Gandhi first did); evangelically distribute copies of the Bible, or gift the Dhammapadas to friends, hoping their life would be immediately changed for the better after turning the last page. But sacred books have been sitting on shelves for ages with their wisdom intact: unless we learn how to read them, and more importantly how to put the lessons into practice, books themselves are not going to change much in the world. And it is here, in the how part of self-formation, that Gandhi, a man not much different from us in our daily grind, can be our most helpful friend, philosopher and guide.

Even in this age of viral life hacks, Gandhis seemingly humdrum daily practices have much depth to offer. But before that, a brief detour.

In recent decades, a set of thinkers have been calling for a different conception of philosophy. Philosophy is not merely scholarly study, classroom teaching, seminars and so on  as has been the case for centuries. For the ancient Greeks and Romans (and also for ancient Indians), philosophy was a way of life. It was less a matter of textual analysis and more an exploration of the perennial question: How to live.

French philosopher Pierre Hadot explains how philosophy was a mode of life, the art of living, for the ancient philosophers. For the ancients, the mere word philo-sophia  the love of wisdom  was enough to express this conception of philosophy. (...) Philosophy was a method of spiritual progress which demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individuals way of being. Thus, philosophy was a way of life, both in its exercise and effort to achieve wisdom, and in its goal, wisdom itself. For real wisdom does not merely cause us to know; it makes us be in a different way. (Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, Blackwell, 1995.)

As KP Shankaran, who taught philosophy at St Stephens, once pointed out, philosophy as a way of life still exists, as demonstrated by Gandhis life and teachings. Gandhi was alive to this aspect, as he wrote to a correspondent: All our philosophy is dry as dust if it is not immediately translated into some act of loving service. Forget the little self in the midst of the greater you have put yourself in. You must shake yourself free from this lethargy.

The model sage of philosophy as a way of life, according to Hadot, is Socrates, who did not deliver lectures in classrooms or write any book but lived life more purposefully. Socrates was of course one of Gandhis heroes, in life and more so in death. One of his earliest books, a pamphlet actually, is a Gujarati paraphrase of Platos 'Apology' of Socratic speech (1908).

Hadot especially points to Stoic philosophers as the true-blue practitioners of life-oriented philosophy. Gandhi read at least one book on Stoicism, as far as we can say from records, a thick volume titled Seekers After God by Frederic William Farrar, during his incarceration in Yervada (1922-24). An inspiring book, he noted in his diary.

British philosopher Richard Sorabji writes, It was noticed by Gandhis learned secretary, Mahadev Desai, that his ideals were sometimes remarkably similar to theirs [stoics] (Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values, OUP, 2012).

Following Hadots lead, more famous French philosopher Michel Foucault in his final years turned to the related theme of the Care of the Self. I became more and more aware that there is in all societies, I think, (...) techniques which permit individuals to perform, by their own means, a certain number of operations on their bodies, on their own souls, on their own conduct, and this in such a way that they transform themselves, modify themselves, and reach a certain stage of perfection, of happiness, of purity, of supernatural power, and so on.

If one cant think of Gandhi while reading these lines, here is a more explicit reference connecting the technology of the self with politics: ... I think we may have to suspect that we find it impossible today to constitute an ethics of the self, even though it may be an urgent, fundamental and politically indispensable task, if it is true after all that there is no first or final point of resistance to political power other than in the relationship one has to oneself.

What these parallels show is that Gandhi was as much inspired by the Gita and the Bible as by Socrates and Stoics. In Hind Swaraj, he defines true freedom, Swa-Rajya, as the self-rule in the sense of rule over the self. In his journey towards this goal, he innovated and developed many practices of the self which happen to resonate with ancient secular wisdom.

So, can we understand Gandhis self-practices or spiritual exercises in the light of the ancient wisdom? Hadot calls such practices spiritual exercises. His list, gleaned from ancient Western philosophers, include research (zetesis), thorough investigation (skepsis), reading (anagnosis), listening (akroasis), attention (prosoche), self-mastery (enkrateia), indifference to indifferent things, therapies of the passions, and the accomplishment of duties.

In modern times, people like Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin and Henry David Thoreau turned to such practices, and following in their footsteps was Gandhi, whose life is an example of Philosophy as the Art of Living.

Writing  and writing the self

Foucault says, Writing was also important in the culture of taking care of oneself. One of the main features of taking care involved taking notes on oneself to be reread, writing treatises and letters to friends to help them, and keeping notebooks in order to reactivate for oneself the truths one needed. In this light, the 97 volumes of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG) is nothing less than an exercise in self-formation. Think of his correspondences, beginning with naive questions to spiritual mentor Srimad Rajachandra to his replies to various people giving detailed advice on reading the Upanishads and maintaining brahmacharya. We should also add, to the CWMG, his alter ego Mahadev Desais diaries running into several volumes.

The autobiography is also a purely spiritual exercise for Gandhi: I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography. (For more on this, see the introduction to the critical edition of the autobiography, prepared by Tridip Suhrud, Penguin, 2018)

Notably, writing as a way of self-fashioning is not something one finds in Indian religious/spiritual tradition.

Reading

Citing Philo, Hadot considers reading as an exercise in itself. As with writing, Gandhis sadhna is inconceivable without reading: the Gita, the Bible, pamphlets. In the autobiography, he declares three modern men (ancients not included) who influenced him most: Raychandbhai (Srimad Rajchandra), Tolstoy and Ruskin. In a letter to Premabehn Kantak in 1931, he also adds Thoreau to this list. He repeatedly claimed in letters, lectures and interviews that if his life was most dramatically changed by anything, it was by reading Ruskins book, Unto This Last.

Friendship

Hadot writes that Epicureans emphasise the role of friendship in ones spiritual development. This puts in perspective Gandhis special relationship with some key companion, notably Hermann Kallenbach  the two of whom indulged in a series of spiritual exercises together.

Community

Hadot says, All philosophical schools [in ancient Greece and Rome] engaged their disciples upon a new way of life, albeit in a more moderate way. The practice of spiritual exercises implied a complete reversal of received ideas: one was to renounce the false values of wealth, honors, and pleasures, and turn towards the true values of virtue, contemplation, a simple life-style, and the simple happiness of existing. Gandhis ashrams seem closer to this conception of community engagement in self-practices than to those ashrams of ancient India.

Among other self-practices with obvious Gandhian counterparts are taking care of the body, silence, retreat, listening to the self for the truth within (inner voice...), moral purification, and parrhesia (speaking truthfully, especially the ethical obligation to speak a difficult truth to the powerful).

And philosophy as training for death  the art of dying. As the world witnessed on that day 71 years ago.

The author is the editor of Governance Now.
On the direction of a court here, police registered a case against the policemen and doctor on Tuesday for not taking appropriate action on the complaint related to dowry harassment and torture made by the daughter of a retired police sub-inspector

Kurukshetra: Six police personnel, including a DSP, have been booked for allegedly failing to take appropriate action in a dowry complaint, an official said on Wednesday.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Raj Singh was station house officer (City) in Thanesar, in 2018 when the complaint was lodged. Besides the policemen, a government doctor has also been booked in the case, the official said.

On the direction of a court here, police registered a case against the policemen and doctor on Tuesday for not taking appropriate action on the complaint related to dowry harassment and torture made by the daughter of a retired police sub-inspector, he said.

It was alleged that the police officers ignored the affidavits submitted by the woman alleging dowry demands and being beaten up by family members of her in-laws.

The Kurukshetra police have registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the six police personnel and the doctor. The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Natasha Sharma ordered registration of the case under IPC sections 166, 167 and 217.

These sections relate to public servant disobeying law with intent to cause injury to any person, framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury and disobeying direction of law with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture.

Those booked are DSP Raj Singh, the then SHO (City) in Thanesar; Inspectors Parteek and Jaspal Singh. the then Krishan Gate Chowki in-charge, Sewa Singh; Jyotisar chowki in-charge, Sahib Singh and Assistant Sub-Inspector Raj Kumar, and Dinesh, a doctor at the civil hospital.

The woman had filed a complaint in April 2018 against five members of her in-laws family, including her husband Raj Kumar, under the Dowry Prohibition Act. She had alleged that she was beaten up for not meeting dowry demands. However, according to the complainant, police had allegedly made only her husband an accused, and left out the others named in the complaint.

The woman later filed a complaint on 16 October, 2018, against 11 persons, including Raj Kumar, claiming she was beaten up by them at her husband's house in Saudagara Mohalla when she went to condole someone's demise.

Police acted against her husband Raj Kumar and brother-in-law Udham Singh, the woman had alleged. The woman also claimed she had complained to the superintendent of police on 22 October, 2018, but no action was taken.

Later, she filed a complaint before the court here. Superintendent of Police Surinder Pal Singh said Wednesday that as per the court's directions, DSP Tania Singh has been directed to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

However, when contacted, Dinesh, the government doctor who has been accused of colluding with police and giving a wrong medico-legal report about the nature of the victim's injuries, on Wednesday denied the allegations against him. He termed the allegations as baseless.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the AAP government to decide in two weeks the parole plea of Balwan Khokhar.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the AAP government to decide in two weeks the parole plea of Balwan Khokhar, who along with former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

Justice Najmi Waziri asked the Delhi government to treat former Congress councillor Khokhar's plea as a representation and to communicate its decision to him in two weeks.

With the direction, the court disposed off the petition seeking parole for a month to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the high court's December 17 decision.

The high court on 17 December, 2018 had set aside the trial court's verdict, which had acquitted Kumar in a case related to killing of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar Part-I area in Palam Colony in south west Delhi on 1-2 November, 1984, and burning down of a Gurudwara in Raj Nagar Part-II during that period.

The riots had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 31 October, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The high court, in its verdict, had also upheld the conviction and varying sentences awarded by the trial court to the other five  Khokhar, retired naval officer Captain Bhagmal, Girdhari Lal and former MLAs Mahender Yadav and Kishan Khokhar.

It had also convicted them for criminal conspiracy to burn down residences of Sikh families and a gurdwara in the area during the riots.

The trial court in 2013 had awarded life term to Khokhar, Bhagmal and Lal, and a three-year jail term to Yadav and Kishan Khokhar.

Following the high court verdict, life term of Khokhar, Bhagmal and Lal has been upheld and the sentence of Yadav and Kishan Khokar has been enhanced to 10 years in jail.

The high court in its judgment had said that the riots were a "crime against humanity" perpetrated by those who enjoyed "political patronage" and aided by an "indifferent" law enforcement agency.
Already delayed by many years, the Ministry of Defence is expected to discuss a proposal for acquiring heavyweight torpedoes for the nuclear submarine INS Arihant and the six Scorpene-class submarines being built for the Indian Navy.

New Delhi: Already delayed by many years, the Ministry of Defence is expected to discuss a proposal for acquiring heavyweight torpedoes for the nuclear submarine INS Arihant and the six Scorpene-class submarines being built for the Indian Navy.

"A high-level meeting of the Defence Ministry is expected to discuss the proposal to acquire heavy-weight torpedoes for the INS Arihant nuclear submarine and the submarines of the Kalvari-class of the Indian Navy. The Kalvari class are originally the Scorpene submarines of France built in India at the Mazagon Dockyards Limited (MDL)," sources in the navy told ANI.

The Defence Ministry is also likely to take a call on the tender to be issued by the navy for the heavyweight torpedos and also on the number to be acquired. The navy had issued a Request for Information more than a year ago and has been in discussion on the formalities with the vendors and the Defence Ministry acquisition wing. The DRDO is also developing a heavyweight torpedo as the next version of its light torpedoes for submarines and surface ships.

The proposal for acquisition of the torpedoes has been going on for more than 10 years now as an earlier proposal to acquire it from an Italian firm WASS was scrapped due to its alleged links with the scam-tainted AgustaWestland and Finmeccanica group of companies allegedly involved in the chopper scam.

The heavyweight torpedoes are the main weapons of any submarine operating underwater against both enemy submarines and surface warships.

At the moment, the Kalvari class and the INS Arihant are relying on the old torpedoes in the naval inventory for operations.

INS Arihant is the first indigenously-built and developed nuclear submarine of the Indian Navy, and the vessel completed its maiden operational deployment in the Indian Ocean Region a few months ago.

The strategic submarines are operated by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) and as per plans, the Navy will have a fleet of at least five nuclear submarines which can carry long-range ballistic missiles.

The Navy has already inducted one of the Kalvari class boats and is expected to induct the remaining five in the next four years.
Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb claimed that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, had not put the BJP on the backfoot in the Northeast even though ten political parties of the region, along with the JD(U) had unanimously decided to oppose the Bill a day ago.

Kolkata: Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb claimed on Wednesday that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, had not put the BJP on the backfoot in the North East.

Deb accused some organisations "with no support base" of portraying the North East as a troubled region for personal gains.

"The claims that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has caused trouble in the region and has put the BJP on the back foot is completely false and baseless. Had this been the truth, the BJP would not have won autonomous council elections in Assam," the saffron party leader said.

Ten political parties of the North East, along with the Janata Dal (United), had unanimously decided to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill after a meeting among representatives of the parties at Vivanta Taj in Guwahati on Tuesday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 19 of the 28 seats in the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, where elections were held on 19 January amid protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019. "The victory in the election means people are with us," the chief minister said.

The bill seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before 31 December, 2014, after six years of residence in the country.

The bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, has triggered protests across the region.

Asked about political and social outfits protesting against the bill, Deb said, "The organisations that don't have any base in the region want to portray the northeastern states as a disturbed territory. But we will not allow it to happen."

To a query whether he would implement the bill in Tripura, Deb said, "The state of Tripura is a part of India and we are part of the federal structure. This bill is applicable to all the states of the country."

Asked about BJP allies in the Northeast objecting to the bill, the chief minister declined any comment, saying every political party had its own policy and agenda. The BJP will win more than 20 out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region and over 300 seats across the country to form the next government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi again, he asserted.
It is alleged that Bhaben Mitra, Senior Manager Finance at HAL in Odisha, in conspiracy with other employees misappropriated amounts by committing forgery of documents, siphoning off Rs 13.28 crore from the coffers of the cash-strapped PSU between 2013 and 2017.

New Delhi: The CBI has registered five cases against employees of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Engine Division at Koraput, Odisha for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 13.28 crore to the public sector undertaking, officials said Wednesday.

It is alleged that Bhaben Mitra, Senior Manager Finance, in conspiracy with other employees misappropriated amounts by committing forgery of documents, siphoning off Rs 13.28 crore from the coffers of the cash-strapped PSU between 2013 and 2017.

The alleged cheating which started with Rs 13.11 lakh in 2013 touched a new height during 2017 when Rs 7.78 crore was siphoned off from the company using fake bills, they said. The agency registered five FIRs against Mitra and other employees of HAL, Koraput on Tuesday.

In October last year too, the agency had booked Mitra for alleged embezzlement of Rs 5 crore between January and August 2018 by submitting fake bills, work orders and invoices. The agency had carried out searches during which it found incriminating documents substantiating that the alleged fraud was going on for long in the government-run institute.

The HAL Vigilance Department had on Tuesday sent five complaints related to frauds committed from 2013 to 2017, they said.

Based on these complaints, the agency has registered fresh cases against Mitra, other staff members and private persons allegedly involved in the scam.
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday refused permission to a woman to terminate her 26-week-old pregnancy on the ground of possible abnormality since the foetus has already developed most of its organs, and that the mother's life is not at risk.

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday refused permission to a woman to terminate her 26-week-old pregnancy on the ground of possible abnormality since the foetus has already developed most of its organs, and that the mother's life is not at risk.

A medical board at the state-run SSKM Hospital has, in a report to the court, said the prognosis of the baby is likely to be better if it is delivered near term, i.e., the full term of pregnancy.

Refusing permission to terminate the pregnancy, Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty noted that the report said it does not appear that the petitioner's life will be in danger if her pregnancy is continued.

The medical board said test reports have suggested that the foetus is suffering from Down Syndrome, along with problems in the oesophagus, heart and abdomen.

Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder that involves birth defects, intellectual disabilities and characteristic facial features and it often involves heart defects, visual and hearing impairments and other health problems. The severity of all these problems varies greatly among affected individuals.

Passing the order, Justice Chakraborty observed that the rights of the foetus need to be considered vis a vis the mental trauma the woman will suffer in giving birth to a child with abnormality.

The woman had moved the high court on 22 January after several tests indicated these abnormalities in the foetus and doctors whom she consulted had advised termination of pregnancy, her lawyers Kallol Basu and Apalak Basu said.

According to the Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, permission of high court is required to end a pregnancy that is 20 weeks or more old.

The woman's lawyers submitted that there is a meagre chance of a healthy baby being born.

The couple already has a child born in 2004. While the husband works in a private firm, the woman is a housewife.

The lawyers submitted that the couple will be financially constrained given the cost of nurturing the baby if it is born with deformities.

Opposing the prayer, Additional Advocate General Abhratosh Majumdar submitted that it is not advisable to terminate the pregnancy at this stage since there is every possibility that the baby will survive.
BJP's West Bengal leadership has decided to inform the Election Commission (EC) about the clashes that broke out between workers of it and the TMC.

Kolkata: The BJP's West Bengal leadership has decided to inform the Election Commission (EC) about the clashes that broke out between workers of it and the TMC on Tuesday following a rally of BJP president Amit Shah in East Midnapore district.

The police arrested 11 persons for their alleged involvement in the violence.

"We will inform the Election commission about the clashes that took place yesterday at Kanthi. We will portray the real picture of the ground situation that prevails in Bengal," BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said in Kolkata on Wednesday.

He claimed that several party workers are yet to return home after the rally.

"We don't know what happened to them. They are missing. This is a dangerous situation," he said.

A TMC party office was ransacked, several workers of both the BJP and the TMC were injured, and vehicles ferrying BJP workers were set on fire in the violence at Kanthi, the parties claimed.

Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb, who accompanied Ghosh during the press conference, reminded her West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee that law and order is a state subject and she can't run away from her responsibilities by putting blame on others.

"I can sense a change coming in Bengal. There is a strong under current flowing in Bengal," he said.

The police said they have launched an investigation into the incident and have arrested 11 people.

Witnesses were being questioned and the police are also examining television footages of the violence.

The BJP Wednesday organized protest rallies in various parts of the state against the violence at Kanthi, known to be a stronghold of TMC leader Suvendu Adhikari, who is also state transport minister.
The Supreme Court came down heavily on activist lawyers for attacking judges and attributing political colours to judgments, calling it the contempt of gravest form.

The Supreme Court came down heavily on activist lawyers for attacking judges and attributing political colours to judgments, calling it the contempt of gravest form.

The apex court judgement authored by Justice Arun Mishra said that political motives can't be attributed to judges and judiciary. Complaints can be lodged against judges at a proper forum but they can't be attacked in the media over unfavourable judgments, the judgment said. "Lawyers shouldn't try to influence judgments through debates in the press," it read.

Recently, Mishra was targeted for delivering certain judgments in favour of the current dispensation.

"Whenever any political matter comes to the Court and is decided either way, political insinuations are attributed by unscrupulous persons/advocates. Such acts are nothing, but an act of denigrating the judiciary itself and destroys the faith of the common man which he reposes in the judicial system." the top court observed in its judgment quashing Rules 14A to 14D of the Rules of High Court of Madras, 1970.

According to the report, Mishra further observed that some advocates feel that they are above the Bar Council due to its inaction and they are the "only champion of the causes". "The hunger for cheap publicity is increasing which is not permitted by the noble ideals cherished by the great doyens of the bar, they have set by their conduct what should be in fact the professional etiquettes and ethics which are not capable of being defined in a narrow compass," he observed.

"The statutory rules prohibit advocates from advertising and in fact to cater to the press/media, distorted versions of the court proceedings is sheer misconduct and contempt of court which has become very common. It is making it more difficult to render justice in a fair, impartial and fearless manner though the situation is demoralising that something has to be done by all concerned to revamp the image of the Bar. It is not open to wash dirty linen in public and enter in accusation/debates, which tactics are being adopted by unscrupulous elements to influence the judgments and even to deny justice with ulterior motives," the bench said.

The bench said that it is for the Bar Council and the senior members of the Bar to rise to the occasion maintain the independence of the Bar. "It is to make the profession nobler and it is absolutely necessary to remove the black sheeps from the profession to preserve the rich ideals of Bar and on which it struggled for the values of freedom."

Mishra was a part of the bench that dismissed two PILs, that had questioned the role of former CJI Dipak Misra in the medical college admission scam, and sought an independent probe. His bench had earlier dismissed a petition for an investigation into Sahara-Birla diary and the alleged pay-off and also affirmed appointment of KV Chowdary as the CVC.
The police on Wednesday registered cases against 13 persons, including a woman leader of Hindu Mahasabha, in Aligarh for firing at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with an air pistol

Lucknow: The police on Wednesday registered cases against 13 persons, including a woman leader of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, in Aligarh for firing at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with an air pistol, a senior police official said.

Watch: Hindu Mahasabha recreates Mahatma Gandhis assassination; shoots Gandhi's effigy pic.twitter.com/jhCKmvjAMe  Afroz Alam (@AfrozJournalist) January 30, 2019

"Today on the occasion of the 71st death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, workers of Hindu Mahasabha fired at the effigy of Mahatma Gandhi.

"The incident took place in a house in Naurangabad locality of the city. Later, the video of the event went viral on social media," Senior Superintendent of Police of Aligarh Akash Kulhary told PTI.

After the video went viral, a case was registered against 13 persons associated with Hindu Mahasabha including Pooja Shakun Pandey, a woman leader, the SSP said, adding no arrests have been made so far.

The police are conducting raids to nab the accused persons.
According to the lawyers when they demanded to understand the situation, the UAE state security told that Saxena was already at the Dubai International Airport and for further query they should 'ask the Indian Government'.

After the extradition of 'middleman' Christian Michel in the AgustaWestland chopper scam on 4 December, 2018, now Rajiv Saxena, a co-accused in the case has been extradited to India on Wednesday.

According to sources, Saxena is likely to land in Delhi on Wednesday night.

In December, 2018, the UAE government had extradited Christian Michel in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal scam.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in December, 2018, in a reply to Dubai-based businessman Saxena's bail plea, had informed the court about the request for his extradition from Dubai as he had failed to join the investigation even after repeated reminders.

In October, a Delhi court had issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Saxena after the ED informed the court that he was not joining the investigation even after repeated summons.

Saxena's name figured in a chargesheet filed against his wife Shivani, who is currently out on bail after being arrested by the ED.
TCS said it would prepare for a strong growth this year too and could survive downturn concerns through operational discipline besides bringing in cost cutting measures.

Amid concerns of a global economic slowdown, tech major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has ruled out chances of any layoffs at the company and exuded confidence about a strong growth this year especially when predictions paint a rosy picture for IT firms in 2019, said a media report.

TCS said it would prepare for a strong growth this year too and could survive downturn concerns through operational discipline besides bringing in cost cutting measures, said a report in The Economic Times.

If suddenly theres a recession, then there will be certain projects that get terminated or come to a closure; new projects will not start. So, there will be movement from onsite to offshore. That doesnt mean that somebody loses his/her job, but the cost comes down, Ajoyendra Mukherjee, chief human resources officer at TCS, was quoted as saying by The Economic Times.

On 26 January, Tech Mahindra's managing director and CEO CP Gurnani said that the Indian IT sector faced global headwinds like Brexit but developments around Globalisation 4.0 and 5G technology would bring growth for the industry this year, reported PTI.

He also flagged currency risks but added that the domestic IT sector will benefit from investments in digital.

"Uncertainty and lack of clarity around the US shutdown and Brexit are risks for the IT industry. However, the IT sector is poised for future growth, with technology being the key enabler for Globalization 4.0," Gurani added.

"Technology is at the core of everything we do, be it solving the skill problem or sustainability issues," he said.

In December 2018, TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer of IT major Infosys, had said that India's IT services sector and startups together were expected to hire up to five lakh people in 2019 as demand for freshers was on the upswing.

Pai said that entry-level packages in the industry went up by as much as 20 percent in 2018, after stagnation in salaries for the past seven years.

"Growth is coming back to the Indian IT services industry," he said, talking about industry highlights in 2018 and prospects in the coming calendar year.

Pai said 2018 saw "H1B visa situation getting tougher," Indian companies focusing more on Japan and Southeast Asia, massive expansion of captives and buy-backs by big companies.

Hyderabad has become a hot destination, with many new age companies coming to the Telangana capital, thanks to good infrastructure, and "very good marketing" by KTR (KT Rama Rao, who served as IT minister in the previous TRS government), according to him.

 With PTI inputs
What SBI is doing is counterintuitiveit is plunging headlong into a crisis-ridden company.

State Bank of India (SBI), the quintessential public sector bank, has decided to convert a part of its Rs 8,000 crore loan by a syndicate of banks led by it to the beleaguered Jet Airways into equity thus acquiring a 15 percent controlling stake in it.

Jet defaulted in servicing its loan obligations on 31 December 2018 and the 90-day window before its loans are dubbed non-performing assets (NPA) ends on 31 March 2019. Hence this feverish activity at window-dressing lest it is dragged to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

SBI seems to have forgotten the bitter lessons it learnt from a similar conversion of debt into equity with another airline companyKingfisher Airlines Limited. History has repeated itself but it is not going to result in a farce but another tragedy for the SBI. Or has it forgotten history thus condemning itself to repeating it? Either way it should have known all along that equity stake is not a great honour nor is it a means to recouping its outstanding by sale of the shares in the market or to a strategic investor.

In 2011, SBI and ICICI Bank among others paid a whopping 60 percent premium over the then-prevailing market price of Kingfisher Airlines shares---about Rs 64 per share when the market quotation was about Rs 39. The group of banks thus came to control 23 percent equity in Kingfisher with SBI coming to own 5.6 percent and ICICI 5.3 percent on conversion of debt into equity but all have vaporized as future events have shownKingfisher has ceased to be a going-concern and its aircraft have been grounded.

Shares arent an elixir as they are mistakenly believed to be in some innocent quarters. The premium was justified as being necessary under the SBI preferential allotment route. Touche!

In 2005, Jet Airways made its initial public offering (IPO) at a whopping price of Rs 1,100 per Rs 10 share, i.e. at a mind-boggling premium of Rs 1,090 per share thanks to the licentious 100 percent book-building regime that permits even loss making companies to issue shares on IPO at a premium determined through the book-building process.

Its shares have been on the downhill path since then now quoting at around Rs 236. Even this is on the higher side given the accumulated losses and none-too-imminent prospect of recovery.

To be sure, loan agreements do contain two clauses among othersnominee directors and conversion. Nominee directors are appointed by a big lender at the first hint of trouble. The idea is to watch over its interest.

This is a harmless exercise for the lender though the borrower feels being snapped at the heels. But conversion is fraught. It is one thing for a small investor to exercise his conversion option under the terms of the issue of convertible debenture.

To wit, let us say a company with great promise issues convertible debentures of Rs 1,000 each with the option to convert 50 percent of it into equity at a predetermined price of Rs 20 per share of Rs 10 face value within three years.

It would make sense for investors to exercise this option if the share is steadily on the ascendant. So much so, if he exercises this option after two years when the market quotation is Rs 50 per share that should be hailed as a sensible decision even though it is entirely possible that in hindsight he may regret this decision should the fortunes of the company reverse for a variety of reasons.

But what SBI is doing is counterintuitiveit is plunging headlong into a crisis-ridden company. SBI is not an investment company. It is a commercial bank. It neither has domain expertise in managing an airline nor the patience to wait endlessly for its shares to zoom in a distant future and sell them so as to recover its outstanding loans indirectly. Etihad, Jets strategic partner, might ratchet up its stakes from 24 percent to 40 percent as reported but the two are not comparable.

Unlike SBI, Etihad is itself an airline company with tremendous financial muscle. It has a vital interest in Jet by way of filling its international flights emanating from its hub Abu Dhabi. Simply put, those flying to the US from India would have to first fly Jet to Abu Dhabi and from there Etihad to the US. SBI has no such business or strategic interest in Jet. In the event, the shares it is going to get might well turn into dud sooner than later as it happened with Kingfishers.

SBI should have dragged Jet to NCLT under IBC where Jets promoters would have been ousted from their smug perch by selling its equity to the highest bidder, may be Ethiad, and SBI paid-off partially. To be sure, it would entail heavy haircuts but isnt it better than sitting on dud shares in the vain hope of them bearing fruits someday?

(The author is a senior columnist and tweets @smurlidharan)

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Shares of DHFL fell by over 6 percent on Wednesday following the allegation by online portal Cobrapost.

Following the allegation by an online portal that Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) diverted Rs 31,000 crore of loans, the lenders of the firm have said that they had taken standard precautions while advancing loans, a media report said.

A State Bank of India (SBI) official told The Times of India that all due diligence was done prior to the disbursement. The report added that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is closely monitoring bank exposure to DHFL.

Shares of DHFL fell by over 6 percent on Wednesday following the allegation by online portal Cobrapost. In closing trade on Tuesday, shares of the company plunged 11 percent.

Cobrapost on Tuesday alleged that DHFL diverted Rs 31,000 crore of loans that the company raised from state-owned banks including SBI and Bank of Baroda, a charge the NBFC termed as mischievous with a mala fide intention.

According to a Cobrapost expose, Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) through layers of shell companies allegedly siphoned off Rs 31,000 crore out of total bank loans of Rs 97,000 crore.

DHFL in a statement said the company is a publicly listed housing finance company and is regulated by the National Housing Bank and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, amongst other regulators.

"This mischievous misadventure by Cobrapost appears to have been done with a mala fide intent to cause damage to the goodwill and reputation of DHFL and resulting in erosion in shareholder value," the statement said.

The real intent of this exercise appears to be to destabilise the company and the market equilibrium besides hampering to meet the on-going obligations, it said.

The exposes alleged that the scam has been pulled off mainly by sanctioning and disbursing astronomical amounts in secured and unsecured loans to dubious shell/pass-through companies, related to DHFL's own primary stakeholders Kapil Wadhawan, Aruna Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan through their proxies and associates, which have in turn passed the money on to companies controlled by the Wadhawans.

"The money has been used to buy shares/equity and other private assets in India and abroad, including in countries like the UK, Dubai, Sri Lanka and Mauritius," Cobrapost said.

DHFL is a responsible and law-abiding corporate citizen and all loans are disbursed in the normal course of business in accordance with industry-best practices and in compliance with all regulatory norms, the company statement said.

"The company's financial statements are submitted to the Stock Exchanges and are in the public domain. DHFL and its group companies are confident of meeting any scrutiny on any aspect of our operations and will pursue these frivolous allegations to its logical conclusion," the company added.

DHFL has a strong corporate governance regime and has received AAA credit rating from leading credit agencies. The company is fully tax-compliant and its books are audited by global auditors, it added.

Cobrapost said that the exposes claimed that by lending to shell/pass-through companies without due diligence, DHFL has ensured that the recovery of such dubious loans is impossible since the companies or their directors themselves do not own any assets.

This way the private assets acquired by the Wadhawans and their associates by using the funds from these dubious loans are completely ring-fenced from any recovery process that may be initiated by authorities under the SARFAESI Act or Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code of India, the portal claimed.

"Thus, the only losers in the process would be the public sector banks, such as State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda, with an exposure of over Rs 11,000 crore and Rs 4,000 crore, respectively, foreign banks and shareholders from among the public or investors of DHFL," it alleged.

With inputs from PTI

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If it is not challenged again, this opens the first major victory for the LM Mittal-run ArcelorMittal into the country

Ahmedabad: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Tuesday rejected the debt settlement proposal put forth by the shareholders of Essar Steel saying the offer violates Section 12A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

The Essar group hinted at challenging the verdict citing last week's Supreme Court order that upheld the August 2018 amendment to the IBC law by adding Section 12A which allows creditors to take the company out of insolvency proceedings and allows out-of-court settlement with an upfront payment of the dues.

If it is not challenged again, this opens the first major victory for the LM Mittal-run ArcelorMittal, which is the world's largest steel maker, to the country which is one the fastest growing markets for the alloy. His earlier attempts through joint ventures-Uttam Galwa and KS Petron ended up as failures.

The Ahmedabad bench comprising adjudicating authority Manorama Kumari and Harihar Prakash Chaturvedi said the Rs 54,389-crore bid by Essar Steel Asia Holding, which is much higher than the winning bid by ArcelorMittal's Rs 42,000 crore, is not maintainable as the only way to make a proposal is through Section 12A.

ArcelorMittal termed the verdict as "a positive development for both Essar Steel India and the country more broadly as the ruling protects the integrity of the IBC and ensures its legitimacy as a rules-based law. We now hope for a swift resolution to the case."

However, hinting at challenging the verdict, an Essar group statement maintained that it still continues to believe that its bid is the most compelling one, wherein no lender/creditor loses even a penny.

"We continue to believe our offer of Rs 54,389 crore is the most compelling proposal available to Essar Steel creditors. Our offer to repay all classes of creditors and fulfills the IBC's overriding objective of value maximisation that is established time and again by courts at all levels.

"We submitted the proposal under Section 12A and the recent SC judgement has established that the section's provisions are applicable retrospectively," it said.

"We will take a call on our next steps after going through the full order," the company said.

The NCALT earlier this month had given a deadline to the Ahmedabad bench to clear the case before 31 January.

The 10-million tonne per annum Essar Steel is one of the newest steel mill in the country and was the crown jewel for the Ruias after its sold the flagship 20-million tonne Essar Refinery last year to the Russians.

Essar Steel is one of the biggest 12 accounts that the RBI had in June 2018 referred to the NCLT. The original promoters owed more than Rs 49,000 crore to a clutch of lenders led by SBI.

Bidding through Essar Steel Asia Holding, which owns 77 percent in the crippled steel mill, was the second attempt by the Ruia brothers to wrest control of the company after their failed bid to do so with Numetal, a Mauritius based shell company promoted by Revant Ruia and others like the VTB Bank of Russia.

On the contention of Essar Steel Asia Holding that they have the Constitutional "right to own property", the bench made it clear that IBC overrides the said constitutional provision.

The bench also pointed out that the Supreme Court last week had upheld the Constitutional validity of the Section 12A of the IBC. It further said it does not find any illegality in the committee of creditors' decision to accept ArcelorMittal's bid which though is lower than the Ruias' bid.

The bench further observed that the present plea by Essar Steel Asia Holding, which is opposed by both the lenders and ArcelorMittal, is not made as per the provisions of the 12A, and this not maintainable.

The bench will from Wednesday proceed with the resolution plan application filed by the resolution professional, it added.

Earlier, the resolution professional had submitted a proposal to pay Rs 54,389 crore to the committee of creditors, led by the State Bank. As per resolution plan submitted by ArcelorMittal, it would pay Rs 42,000 crore to the secured lenders, while an additional Rs 8,000 crore will be kept aside for capital.

In the past hearings, lenders as well as the Lakshmi Mittal-led ArcelorMittal had opposed the debt settlement proposal made by Essar Steel Asia Holding, claiming that it is against the Supreme Court order as well as the IBC provisions.

The same stand was taken by the resolution professional today, saying it is "too late" for Essar Steel Asia Holding, which holds 72 percent shares in the Essar Steel.

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The government on Wednesday said that the members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), who resigned recently, had never expressed their concerns in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday said that the members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), who resigned recently, had never expressed their concerns in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months.

The statement comes in the wake of two independent members of the NSC, P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi, quitting the Commission over disagreements with the government on the back-series GDP data and delay in release of labour force survey. Mohanan was also the acting chairperson of the Commission.

Speaking to PTI last night, Mohanan had said, "I have resigned from NSC. We thought that the Commission is not very effective nowadays and we also thought that we are not able to discharge the Commission's responsibility".

However, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in a clarification stated, "these concerns were not expressed by the members in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months.".

The ministry, it further added, values the advice of NSC and takes appropriate action.

Referring to the issues concerning labour force survey, which is conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under MoSPI, it said "NSSO is processing the quarterly data for the period July 2017 to December 2018 and the report will be released thereafter."

It further said that in view India's strong demographic dividend and around 93 percent of the informal workforce, it is important to improve measures of employment through administrative statistics and complemented by periodic surveys.

"In this direction, MoSPI has started bringing out estimates of new subscribers and members enrolling in large social security schemes like the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF), Employees' State Insurance (ESI) Scheme and the National Pension Scheme (NPS)," said the statement.

The new members enrolling in these schemes are a good measure about the numbers in the workforce moving towards formalisation, it added.

As regards the back series data of the GDP, the statement said that NSC had itself advised the ministry to finalise and release it.

The official estimates of the back series of GDP were accordingly computed using the methodology adopted in the 2011-12 base year series and this was approved by the experts in the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, which is the appropriate body, it said.

The issue was later discussed in the National Statistical Commission, the statement said, adding that the methodology adopted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for the back series is available in public domain.

The back series GDP data generated controversy after it was revealed that the growth rate during Congress-led UPA government was not as high as it was estimated earlier.

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Traders' body CAIT has written to the government opposing any move to extend the 1 February, deadline for online marketplaces to comply with FDI rules, as such an action will compel small businesses to launch a national campaign which may have 'political repercussions'

New Delhi: Traders' body CAIT has written to the government opposing any move to extend the 1 February, deadline for online marketplaces to comply with FDI rules, as such an action will compel small businesses to launch a national campaign which may have "political repercussions".

The position taken by Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is in contrast to that of Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, who have sought an extension of the 1 February, deadline for complying with the revised FDI norms in e-commerce, stating that they need more time to understand the details of the framework.

The government in December barred online marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon from selling products of companies in which they hold stakes and banned exclusive marketing arrangements that could influence product price.

The policy would be effective from February 2019.

"We would like to mention that if any deferment or extension is given, the small traders -- both offline and online -- will be compelled to resort to a national campaign against any such move and which may also have political repercussions," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu.

The traders' body urged the government not to buckle under any pressure and continue with the implementation of the policy from 1 February, 2019, claiming that big e-commerce players were still lobbying hard for its extension or deferment.

CAIT also suggested to set up a Special Investigation Team to investigate the transactions made in the past two years by e-commerce players and called for stern action against them if found guilty under the law and reiterated its demand to set up a regulatory authority to enforce the policy.

The restrictions imposed on FDI in e-commerce should also be made applicable to domestic e-commerce firms to have a level paying field, it said.

The revised policy on foreign direct investment (FDI) in online retail, issued by the commerce and industry ministry, also said that these firms have to offer equal services or facilities to all its vendors without discrimination.

The revised norms are aimed at protecting the interest of domestic players, who have to face tough competition from e-retailers having deep pockets from foreign investors, the ministry had said.

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PHD Chamber on Wednesday pitched for cutting corporate tax to 25 percent, and raising income tax exemption limit for individuals to Rs 3.5 lakh per annum in the forthcoming Budget

New Delhi: PHD Chamber on Wednesday pitched for cutting corporate tax to 25 percent, and raising income tax exemption limit for individuals to Rs 3.5 lakh per annum in the forthcoming Budget.

In a statement, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Rajeev Talwar said it looks forward to a "dynamic, inclusive and pragmatic budget" on 1 February.

"At this juncture, the economy needs further bold measures to boost the investment environment and to trigger demand growth to the next level," Talwar added.

He said the time has come to rationalise the direct taxes, starting from reduction in Corporate Tax to a level of 25 percent.

"This will provide a boost to economic growth and would result in widening of the Direct Tax net, enhance collections and promote compliance further," Talwar noted.

The government lowered the corporate tax rate to 25 percent for businesses with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore in the Budget presented last year.

Talwar suggested that income up to Rs 3.5 lakh should be considered for tax exemption for individuals, instead of Rs 2.5 lakh at present.

"The maximum personal income tax rate should be towards 25 percent to increase the personal disposable income which will boost demand in the economy. The maximum marginal slab should also be raised to Rs 15 lakh instead of Rs 10 lakh," said Talwar.

He noted that consistent indirect tax revenue growth, along with a reduction in GST rates by the government, indicates that the tax base is widening and economic activity is rapidly expanding in the country.

Talwar, who is also the CEO of realty major DLF, said continuous reforms in the housing and construction sector would definitely create employment opportunities for millions of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workforce.

"Privatisation of railway and road transport on the lines on aviation industry is the answer for the future," he said.

Talwar also batted for continuous reforms in the agriculture sector to improve farm productivity and income levels.

Follow full coverage of Union Budget 2019-20 here

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There is an uptick in online searches by auto buyers, but instances of the exercise influencing their purchase is less as people switching brands is less, says a report.

Mumbai: There is an uptick in online searches by auto buyers, but instances of the exercise influencing their purchase is less as people switching brands is less, says a report.

A study commissioned by online advertising giant Google said 90 percent of the 4,000 respondents to the study were found to have used online search before making their final purchase decision.

Interestingly, the buyers seem to be very certain about the brands which they are looking for and instances of brand switching are rare, the report said Tuesday.

Only 7 percent of the respondents said they decided to switch their brands after the online research as against 11 percent in 2016, the report said.

Maintenance programmes leads with a 41 percent share of the searches being carried out by buyers, and reviews and recommendations at 32 percent trails locations of dealers and promotional offers at 37 percent and 35 percent, respectively, the report said.

Probably because of the cheap bandwidth available in the country, online videos follow with 80 percent of the respondents using them to arrive at their decision, it said.

The same number for videos had stood at 43 percent two years ago, it said, adding videos not only act as a platform for discovery but also as 'buyers' consulting zone' that allows them to explore the car from different perspectives.

Due to the increasing propensity of online searches by potential buyers, the auto dealers are also going digital, which is fast emerging as the primary touch point for buyers.

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Bajaj Auto's domestic motorcycle sales in the third quarter stood at 6,44,093 units compared to 4,66,431 units in the year-ago period.

New Delhi: Bajaj Auto on Wednesday reported 20.49 percent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,220.77 crore for December quarter 2018-19, on account of higher sales volume.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,013.16 crore in the same quarter of 2017-18.

Total income during the reported quarter went up 19.49 percent to Rs 7,879.34 crore as against Rs 6,595.22 crore in the year-ago period, Bajaj Auto said in a BSE filing.

Total sales volume stood at 12,59,828 units, up 26 percent as against 10,01,469 units in the same quarter of 2017-18, it said.

The company's domestic motorcycle sales in the third quarter stood at 6,44,093 units compared to 4,66,431 units in the year-ago period.

The Pune-based company said total exports were at 5,24,717 units in the reported quarter as compared to 4,24,915 units in the same period last year, an increase of 23 percent.

Shares of Bajaj Auto were trading 1.32 percent lower at Rs 2,533 apiece on BSE.

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By Shariq Khan and Vibhuti Sharma (Reuters) - Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc on Tuesday reported record quarterly growth in data center sales and projected revenue growth in fiscal 2019 above Wall Street expectations, sending its shares up 10 percent after the bell.

By Shariq Khan and Vibhuti Sharma

(Reuters) - Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc on Tuesday reported record quarterly growth in data center sales and projected revenue growth in fiscal 2019 above Wall Street expectations, sending its shares up 10 percent after the bell.

Investors were bracing for weak results from AMD after warnings from a host of other chipmakers about a slowdown in China that was triggered by a trade dispute with the United States.

Bigger rivals Nvidia Corp and Intel Corp both flagged stagnating growth in data center sales, a segment where AMD is beginning to get a foothold on the back of its server chips.

AMD said it expects revenue in 2019 to grow at a high-single digit percentage, while analysts were targeting growth of about 6 percent.

The company said despite near-term graphic headwinds and revenue falling short of analysts' estimates for the fourth and current quarters, it is banking on its newest graphics and data center chips to bolster growth for the year.

Stifel analyst Kevin Cassidy said AMD's results were not as bad as feared, especially compared to those by Nvidia.

Nvidia on Monday cut its fourth-quarter revenue estimate by half a billion dollars because of weak demand for its gaming chips in China and lower-than-expected data center sales.

AMD's fourth-quarter gross margin rose to 38 percent from 34 percent a year earlier. The company also said it expects adjusted gross margins to be more than 41 percent for 2019, its highest level in nearly eight years.

"The more resilient gross margin outlook provides some level of comfort to investors," said Kinngai Chan at Summit Insights Group LLC.

"AMD is well positioned to continue to gain market share from Intel in the high-margin server market especially in 2H19."

Sales at AMD's computing and graphics segment, which includes graphic chip sales to data centers, rose over 8.5 percent to $986 million, beating the analyst average estimate of $939 million, according to FactSet.

The chipmaker forecast current-quarter revenue to be at $1.25 billion, plus or minus $50 million, a drop of 24 percent from last year. Analysts were expecting revenue of $1.47 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Its quarterly revenue of $1.42 billion also missed expectations of $1.45 billion. Excluding items, AMD earned a profit of 8 cents per share, in line with the analysts' estimates.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan and Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
ATYRAU, Kazakhstan, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fircroft GATE LLP has established a strategic alliance with APEC Training Center to provide its Training & Competency Assessment Strategy and Curriculums as well as deliver both specialized and RoK statutory training in Russian and English.

APEC Training Center in Atyrau, Kazakstan is a premier training center with a strategy aimed at creating skilled workforce in Kazakstan.

Steven Guy, President of GATE Energy's Commissioning Group, said, "This partnership cements our commitment to excellence in the provision of skilled workforce in Kazakhstan by developing discipline specific competency and training curriculum to better the people of Kazakhstan and leave a legacy of talent and expertise."

The Fircroft GATE LLP joint venture offers engineering, commissioning, maintenance and recruitment services across Kazakhstan and the other CIS member states.

About Fircroft

Fircroft is an award-winning global leader in technical recruitment and workforce solutions. Providing an unparalleled full-service experience to the biggest names in Oil & Gas, Petrochemical & Chemical, ICT, Mining & Minerals, Power, Nuclear & Renewables, Infrastructure & Construction and Automotive with a truly global footprint spanning 45 countries, Fircroft has close to half-a-century of experience connecting people to power the world.

At the heart of Fircroft's approach to workforce solutions lies a deep commitment to innovation, integrity and quality. Fircroft proudly boasts several 'industry firsts' and has a strong track record of delivering original, bespoke solutions at scale.

About GATE Energy

GATE Energy provides scalable, fit-for-purpose services to the energy industry, including upstream to downstream oil and gas, power generation and chemical plant projects. With several locations in the U.S. and overseas, GATE Energy has supported projects across the globe both onshore and offshore. GATE Energy's expertise and knowledge is supported by subject matter experts, proprietary equipment and proprietary software across all the GATE Energy service lines: Well, Rig & Completions, Project Delivery & Engineering, Commissioning and Field Services & Operations.

GATE Energy is comprised of global market leaders: GATE, LLC., Viking Engineering, BlueFin, and PDI Solutions. As a uniquely positioned family of companies, GATE Energy integrates their energy expertise with their Client's desired outcome for safe and effective project delivery, working together with their Clients to make sure the project works right the first time. For additional information, visit www.gate.energy

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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 30, 2019) - IAMGOLD Corporation (TSX: IMG) ("IAMGOLD" or the "Company") today announced an updated Mineral Resource estimate on its 100% owned Diakha - Siribaya Gold Project, located in western Mali, West Africa. The estimate was completed in accordance with the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Definition Standards incorporated by reference in National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101").

The Mineral Resource estimate comprises 18.0 million tonnes of Indicated Resources averaging 1.28 grams of gold per tonne for 744,000 ounces and a further 23.2 million tonnes of Inferred Resources averaging 1.58 grams of gold per tonne for 1.2 million ounces.

Craig MacDougall, Senior Vice President, Exploration for IAMGOLD, stated: "Our delineation drilling program completed over the last two years has not only resulted in a significant increase in resource ounces, but a substantial conversion of Inferred Resources to an Indicated category. Our exploration success at Diakha, coupled with the recently announced results of our feasibility study across the border at our nearby Boto Gold Project in Senegal, continues to demonstrate the exploration upside of our very prospective land holdings in this region of West Africa. My congratulations are extended to the exploration teams on the ground for their outstanding discovery successes."

The Mineral Resource estimate for the Diakha - Siribaya Gold Project incorporates assay results from 474 diamond and reverse circulation ("RC") drill holes totaling nearly 73,000 metres completed at the Diakha deposit, and 702 diamond and RC drill holes, totaling approximately 94,000 metres completed at the Zone 1B and Taya Ko zones and along trend as previously estimated by RPA in 2015 (see news release dated February 9, 2016). The estimate was prepared using a block model constrained with 3D wireframes of the principal mineralized domains. Values for gold were interpolated into blocks using a 2-pass inverse distance cubed (ID3) interpolation method for the Diakha deposit and inverse distance squared (ID2) for the Zone 1B - Taya Ko deposits. A preliminary open pit optimization algorithm was run on the estimated grade block model to constrain the resource and to support the CIM requirement that Mineral Resources have 'reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction'. The resource estimate assumes a long-term gold price of US$1,500/ounce. Only mineralization contained within the preliminary pit shell has been included in the resource estimate.

The Mineral Resource estimate is summarized in the following table at cut-off grades ranging from 0.35 to 0.45 grams of gold per tonne. The effective date of this resource estimate is December 31, 2018. A supporting NI 43-101 Technical Report will be filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com within 45 days of this release.

Diakha - Siribaya Project - Mineral Resource Estimate

December 31, 2018

Deposit Indicated Resources Inferred Resources Tonnes g/t Au oz Au Tonnes g/t Au oz Au Zone 1B











Laterite 110,000 1.36 4,800 123,000 1.24 4,900 Saprolite 774,000 1.55 38,600 1,670,000 1.33 71,300 Saprock 952,000 2.21 67,700 1,996,000 1.64 105,500 Rock 266,000 2.05 17,500 305,000 1.84 18,000 Zone 1B Total 2,102,000 1.90 128,500 4,094,000 1.52 199,700













Taya Ko











Laterite





163,000 0.92 4,800 Saprolite





616,000 1.06 20,900 Saprock





101,000 0.95 3,100 Rock





2,000 1.56 100 Taya Ko Total





882,000 1.02 28,900













Diakha











Laterite





- - - Saprolite 446,000 1.01 14,500 241,000 0.99 7,700 Saprock 953,000 1.02 31,300 929,000 0.96 28,800 Rock 14,530,000 1.22 569,500 17,033,000 1.66 911,000 Diakha Total 15,929,000 1.20 615,300 18,203,000 1.62 947,500













Total 18,031,000 1.28 743,800 23,179,000 1.58 1,176,100

Notes:

CIM definitions were followed for classification of Mineral Resources. Mineral Resources are estimated at cut-off grades ranging from 0.35 g/t Au to 0.45 g/t Au. Mineral Resources are estimated using a gold price of US$1,500 per ounce. High grade capped assay values vary from 10 g/t Au to 20 g/t Au based on geological area. Bulk density varies from 1.55 g/cm3 to 2.67 g/cm3 based on deposit and weathering code. The resources are constrained by a Whittle pit shell. Numbers may not add due to rounding. There are no known legal, political, environmental or other risks that could materially affect the potential development of the mineral resources.

Next Steps

In 2019, exploration and evaluation activities will continue, with approximately 10,000 metres of diamond and reverse circulation drilling planned to target resource expansions at the Diakha deposit and to explore selected priority targets elsewhere on the large property holdings for additional zones of mineralization.

About the Diakha - Siribaya Project

The Siribaya project is wholly owned by IAMGOLD and consists of 8 contiguous exploration permits which cover a total area of 596.5 square kilometres, located in the Kedougou-Kenieba inlier of the West African Craton region of western Mali along the borders with Senegal and Guinea.

Gold mineralization is hosted within highly prospective, Birimian-aged metasedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rocks proximal to the Senegal-Mali Shear Zone. At Diakha, the largest deposit discovered to date on the property, gold mineralization occurs within an albitized and locally brecciated sandstone unit similar to that hosting mineralization at IAMGOLD's Boto gold Project located in Senegal approximately 10 kilometres to the north along strike. A recently completed feasibility study on the Boto Gold Project has demonstrated an attractive future development project (see news release dated October 22, 2018).

With completion of the updated Mineral Resource estimate described above, the project hosts current Mineral Resources comprising Indicated Resources of 18.0 million tonnes averaging 1.28 grams of gold per tonne for 744,000 ounces and Inferred Resources of 23.2 million tonnes averaging 1.58 grams of gold per tonne for 1.2 million ounces.

Technical Information and Quality Control Notes

The Mineral Resource estimate, including verification of the data disclosed, has been completed by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. ("RPA") and has been prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and CIM Estimation Best Practice Guidelines. The resource estimate was prepared by Tudorel Ciuculescu, P. Geo., who is a Senior Geologist with RPA. Mr. Ciuculescu is an independent qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this release.

The information in this news release was reviewed and approved by Craig MacDougall, P.Geo., Senior Vice President, Exploration for IAMGOLD. Mr. MacDougall is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

The sampling of, and assay data from, drill core and RC chips are monitored through the implementation of a quality assurance - quality control (QA-QC) program designed to follow industry best practice. Rock chips from Reverse Circulation drilling are collected at the rig site, at one metre intervals, under the direct supervision of IAMGOLD geologists and field technicians. Samples are riffle split to obtain two 3 kg samples. One sample is retained for reference purposes and the other sample is sent for assay.

Drill core (HQ and NQ size) samples were selected by the IAMGOLD geologists and sawn in half with a diamond saw at the project site. Half of the core was retained at the site for reference purposes. Drill core sample intervals are generally one metre in length.

The samples were assayed at the SGS Minerals Analytical Laboratory in Bamako, Mali, using a standard fire assay with a 50-gram charge and an Atomic Absorption finish (FAA505). All samples returning values greater than 10 g/t Au were re-assayed using a gravimetric finish (FAG505).

Forward Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding expected, estimated or planned gold production, cash costs, margin expansion, capital expenditures and exploration expenditures and statements regarding the estimation of mineral resources, exploration results, potential mineralization, potential mineral resources and mineral reserves) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "to earn", "to have', "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, failure to meet expected, estimated or planned gold production, cash costs, margin expansion, capital expenditures and exploration expenditures and failure to establish estimated mineral resources, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, changes in world gold markets and other risks disclosed in IAMGOLD's most recent Form 40-F/Annual Information Form on file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Cautionary Note to Investors Concerning Estimates of Measured and Indicated Resources

This news release uses the term "indicated resources". We advise investors that while that term is recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") does not recognize them. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves.

Cautionary Note to Investors Concerning Estimates of Inferred Resources

This news release also uses the term "inferred resources". We advise investors that while this term is recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the SEC does not recognize it. "Inferred resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an Inferred Mineral Resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of Inferred Mineral Resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, except in rare cases. Investors are cautioned not to assume that part or all of an inferred Resource exists, or is economically or legally mineable.

Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors

The SEC limits disclosure for U.S. reporting purposes to mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. IAMGOLD uses certain terms in this news release, such as "measured," "indicated," or "inferred," which may not be consistent with the resource definitions established by the SEC. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in the IAMGOLD Annual Reports on Forms 40-F. You can review and obtain copies of these filings from the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml or by contacting the Investor Relations department.

The Canadian Securities Administrators' NI 43-101 requires mining companies to disclose reserves and resources using the subcategories of "proven" reserves, "probable" reserves, "measured" resources, "indicated" resources and "inferred" resources. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not demonstrate economic viability.

A Mineral Resource is a concentration or occurrence of natural, solid, inorganic material, or natural, solid fossilized organic material including base and precious metals in or on the Earth's crust in such form and quantity and of such a grade or quality that it has reasonable prospects for economic extraction. The location, quantity, grade, geological characteristics and continuity of a Mineral Resource are known, estimated or interpreted from specific geological evidence and knowledge. A Measured Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics are so well established that they can be estimated with confidence sufficient to allow the appropriate application of technical and economic parameters, to support production planning and evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit. The estimate is based on detailed and reliable exploration, sampling and testing information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes that are spaced closely enough to confirm both geological and grade continuity. An Indicated Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics can be estimated with a level of confidence sufficient to allow the appropriate application of technical and economic parameters, to support mine planning and evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit. The estimate is based on detailed and reliable exploration and testing information gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes that are spaced closely enough for geological and grade continuity to be reasonably assumed. An inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade or quality can be estimated on the basis of geological evidence and limited sampling and reasonably assumed, but not verified, geological and grade continuity. The estimate is based on limited information and sampling gathered through appropriate techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes. Mineral resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

About IAMGOLD

IAMGOLD (www.iamgold.com) is a mid-tier mining company with four operating gold mines on three continents. A solid base of strategic assets in North and South America and West Africa is complemented by development and exploration projects and continued assessment of accretive acquisition opportunities. IAMGOLD is in a strong financial position with extensive management and operational expertise.

For further information please contact:

Indi Gopinathan, Investor Relations Lead, IAMGOLD Corporation

Tel: (416) 360-4743 Mobile: (416) 388-6883

Martin Dumont, Senior Analyst Investor Relations, IAMGOLD Corporation

Tel: (416) 933-5783 Mobile: (647) 967-9942

Toll-free: 1-888-464-9999 info@iamgold.com

Please note:

This entire news release may be accessed via fax, e-mail, IAMGOLD's website at www.iamgold.com and through Newsfile's website at www.newsfilecorp.com. All material information on IAMGOLD can be found at www.sedar.com or at www.sec.gov.

Si vous desirez obtenir la version francaise de ce communique, veuillez consulter le www.iamgold.com/French/Home/default.aspx.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42562
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 30, 2019) - M2 Cobalt Corp. (TSXV: MC) ("M2 Cobalt" or the "Company") is pleased to advise that following the agreed at market merger with Jervois Mining Limited (ASX: JRV) ("Jervois"), the companies will be jointly presenting at this weekends' Pre Indaba Conference held by Arlington, near Cape Town, from February 1st-3rd, and the 121 Mining Investment Cape Town immediately following on February 4th-5th.

For Jervois, Peter Johnston (Chairman) and Bryce Crocker (Chief Executive Officer) will be meeting investors from Friday February 1st to Tuesday February 5th inclusive. They will be joined by Simon Clarke (M2 Cobalt Chief Executive Officer) and Andy Edelmeier (M2 Cobalt Chief Financial Officer).

The presentation that will be given at these events is attached to this announcement for release to the ASX and is available on Jervois's website: www.jervoismining.com.au and M2 Cobalt's web site: https://www.m2cobalt.com.

Jervois has also been invited to the 28th BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference, held in Hollywood, Florida from February 24th-27th; Bryce Crocker (Chief Executive Officer) will attend on behalf of the Company.

Jervois Investors and analysts:

Bryce Crocker

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +61 3 9583 0498

Jervois media:

Nathan Ryan

NWR Communications

Tel: +61 420 582 887

M2 Cobalt Investors and analysts:

Simon Clarke

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +1 604 551 9665

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42561
Regulatory News:

Tikehau Capital (Paris:TKO), the alternative asset management and investment group, has been assigned its inaugural rating by financial rating agency Fitch. Supported by a stable outlook, this investment grade rating (BBB-) confirms the strength of Tikehau Capital's financial profile.

This inaugural rating is a new step for Tikehau Capital following its initial public offering in 2017, as well as an act of acknowledgement of the strength of both its business model and financial structure.

In its statement, Fitch highlighted the strength of Tikehau Capital's balance sheet and expressed its confidence in the group's ability to keep financial ratios at levels consistent with an investment grade profile as Tikehau Capital pursues its strategy.

Fitch also acknowledged the relevance of Tikehau Capital's strategy aimed at accelerating its development in alternative asset management activities, which are positioned on growing markets and benefit from a solid track record in fundraising.

Henri Marcoux, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Tikehau Capital said: "This rating is positive news for Tikehau Capital. It confirms that Tikehau Capital is founding its development on a solid balance sheet, with a high level of shareholders' equity and diversified financing sources. Combined with great financial discipline, these stand-out factors will allow the Group to continue rolling out its strategy of profitable and sustainable growth on the promising alternative asset management market."

The Fitch press release is available at www.fitchratings.com

About Tikehau Capital:

Tikehau Capital is an alternative asset management and investment group with 15.9 bn of assets under management (as at 30 September 2018) and shareholders' equity of 2.3 bn (as at 30 June 2018). The Group invests in various asset classes (private debt, real estate, private equity and liquid strategies), including through its asset management subsidiary Tikehau IM, on behalf of institutional and private investors. Controlled by its managers, alongside leading institutional partners, Tikehau Capital employs 260 staff (as at 30 September 2018) in its Paris, London, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, New York, Seoul and Singapore offices.

Tikehau Capital is listed on the regulated market of Euronext Paris, Compartment A (ISIN code: FR0013230612; Ticker: TKO.FP)

www.tikehaucapital.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005604/en/

Contacts:

Press:

Tikehau Capital: Julien Sanson (+44 20 3821 1001)

Finsbury: Arnaud Salla Charles O'Brien +44 207 251 3801

press@tikehaucapital.com

Shareholders and Investors:

Louis Igonet +33 1 40 06 11 11

shareholders@tikehaucapital.com
Paris, January, 30, 2019

AgroGeneration, announces today the signing of agreements for the sale of agricultural lands in the Zhytomyr and Ternopil districts, in western Ukraine.

These sales represent a total of 28,500 hectares of harvested lands (27% of the Group's total hectares) and a sale price of approximately 19m. This price includes land lease rights and biological assets whereas machinery and inventory will be part of a separate sale.

After the completion of these transactions, AgroGeneration will operate approximately 80,000 hectares of land in Ukraine with close to 10,000 hectares in the West (Lviv) and 70,000 hectares in the East (Sumy and Kharkiv).

Due diligence, which could lead to a price adjustment, should be finalized by the end of February 2019. A prepayment has already been made to AgroGeneration for approximately 15% of the total price and an equivalent amount will be placed into an escrow account for a maximum period of 9 months after completion of the due diligence.

In addition, while the company suspended its ORNANE program, end November 2018, after having drawn down  4 million out of a total of  20 million, the company will thus generate cash and reduce its operating financing needs.

In this regard, AgroGeneration has secured its 2019 crop financing from its historical banking partner Alfa-Bank Ukraine for a total amount of $ 23 million, and will top-up its financing with pre-payment agreements with its usual key trading partners. The company has already sown, under favorable weather conditions, 34,000 hectares of winter crops, out of a total of 77,000 hectares planned.

AgroGeneration is thus starting the year 2019 with confidence with a solid financial position and quality assets.

About AGROGENERATION

Founded in 2007, AgroGeneration is a global producer of grain and oilseed. Following its merger with Harmelia, the new group has become one of the top five producers of grain and oilseed in Ukraine, with close to 110,000 hectares of farmland. Through the high-potential farmland it leases, the group's ambition is to meet the food challenges of tomorrow as global consumption doubles in scale between now and 2050.

Find all information on AgroGeneration on our website: www.AgroGeneration.com

Receive all AgroGeneration's financial information by e-mail for free by registering at: www.actusnews.com



AgroGeneration

+33 (0)1 56 43 68 60

investisseurs@AgroGeneration.com

www.AgroGeneration.com Actus Finance

Guillaume Le Floch, Investor Relations

+33 (0)1 53 67 36 70

Anne-Pauline Petureaux, Investor Relations

+33 (0)1 53 67 36 72

Alexandra Prisa, Media Relations

+33 (0)1 53 67 36 90

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St Kitts and Nevis Foreign Minister Mark Brantley travelled to Dubai on 28 January to reconfirm the Citizenship by Investment Programme's integrity in the aftermath of allegations concerning the illegal undercutting of real estate investment requirements.

He underlined that St Kitts and Nevis provides the Platinum Standard of the citizenship by investment industry, with robust due diligence procedures standing as a striking example of the high standards being sought across the Programme's administration. Unsanctioned discounts for real estate are an anomaly, and those found guilty of proposing such markdowns can expect to face serious consequences. More specifically, the two proven cases of forgery associated with illegal price-cutting constituting less than 0.01 percent of the Programmes' annual business are now the subject of a police investigation.

Minister Brantley's audience consisted of a number of agents and economic citizens from the Middle East, who were demonstrably happy with his remarkable achievements in the realm of visa-free travel and diplomatic relations. Since taking office as St Kitts and Nevis' Foreign Minister, Minister Brantley has secured 19 new visa-free travel agreements and has initiated diplomatic relations with 30 foreign nations. It is not merely a matter of improving the value of St Kitts and Nevis citizenship, says the Minister, "this speaks volumes to the confidence that foreign countries have in St Kitts and Nevis." Giving his addressees even more cause for celebration, Minister Brantley indicated that they could look forward to St Kitts and Nevis offering the strongest passport in the Caribbean by June 2019.

Minister Brantley provided further, concrete evidence of his commitment to economic citizens by announcing that a St Kitts and Nevis Embassy would be opened in Abu Dhabi in 2019, with the goal of improving services for citizens living in the GCC and other Middle Easter nations.

Minister Brantley was accompanied on his Dubai trip by the Attorney General, Vincent Byron Jr.

- ENDS -

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005494/en/

Contacts:

Thomas Kohn

pr@csglobalpartners.com

+(44)2073184343

www.csglobalpartners.com
Transformational Health experts lead a webinar on the key growth opportunities and strategic imperatives for companies in 2019

SANTA CLARA, California, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Life Science industry is in a state of flux. While recent years have seen the advent of multiple novel technologies-such as cell and gene therapy, virtual clinical trials, liquid biopsy, pre-implantation genetic diagnostics (PGD) and health risk genetic testing -the industry today stands at a crossroads with challenges in scaling up and commercializing such technologies. The industry has now come to terms with new, path-breaking life science technologies that are helping make precision healthcare a reality.

Frost & Sullivan invites you to join our Transformational Health team, for the webinar "2019 Life Sciences Predictions: Decoding 5 incredible Growth Opportunities", on Wednesday, February 6, 2019, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM Eastern Time. Our global life sciences experts Unmesh Lal, Program Manager; and Khushbu Jain, Industry Analyst, will explore key industry trends and discuss top 5 predictions that will re-shape the industry in 2019 and why they matter. Barbara Gilmore, Americas Senior Consultant; and Fred Mao, China Executive Director will present a fireside chat with Nitin Naik, Global Vice President, to reveal the growth opportunities in the United States and Chinese markets.

For more information and to register for the webinar, please visit: http://frost.ly/32z.

"Frost & Sullivan thought leaders will detail out a clear strategy to win in the new digital era wherein precision healthcare is amplified. In this session, participants will learn the perspective of how business models will change as companies embrace new trends and disruptive technologies related to these growth opportunities," explains Naik.

Key benefits of attending this webinar:

Establish the leading factors that will influence the size and direction of the global life sciences market in 2019.

Build clarity on technology developments in the global life sciences market in 2018 that will have an impact during 2019.

Identify the business models used to commercialize and distribute novel life science solutions.

Discover the key growth opportunities and strategic imperatives for companies in 2019.

The event will also be recorded and available for on-demand viewing at http://frost.ly/1ti.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Press Contact:

Mariana Fernandez

Frost & Sullivan

+1 (210) 348 1012

mariana.fernandez@frost.com

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TORONTO, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

Arnold Kondrat, Maurice Colson and Philip Chen (the "Independent Directors"), as independent directors of Kuuhubb Inc. ("Kuuhubb" or the "Company"), announce that they object to certain actions taken by Kuuhubb management which were announced in the Company's January 29, 2019 press release.

Kuuhubb announced in its January 29, 2019 press release that: "a new director (the "New Appointee") was appointed to the Board to fill the board vacancy created by the previous resignation of Maurice Colson. The New Appointee however resigned shortly after his appointment to the Board."

The purported appointment of the New Appointee "to fill the board vacancy created by the previous resignation of Maurice Colson" was carried out by Kuuhubb's other three directors - Jouni Keranen (who is Kuuhubb's President and Chief Executive Officer), Christian Kolster (who is Kuuhubb's Executive Vice President) and Carl-Gustaf von Troil - over the objection of the Independent Directors and after a warning from the Independent Directors' legal counsel that this action would be subject to legal challenge. The position of the Independent Directors, after having consulted with legal counsel, is that (a) Mr. Colson has not resigned, and (b) all board resolutions purportedly passed by Messrs. Keranen, Kolster and von Troil which purport to exclude Mr. Colson from voting on the basis that he is no longer a director, are invalid under the Canada Business Corporations Act and the Company's by-laws.

"We are disappointed that Carl-Gustaf von Troil, a board member of publicly-listed United Bankers in Helsinki, Finland and well versed in corporate governance matters, would agree, in his position as an independent director of Kuuhubb, to support management's strategy to essentially hijack the Kuuhubb board of directors. In light of the Concerned Shareholders' requisition for a shareholders' meeting to replace the entire Kuuhubb board and such meeting having now been set for April 4, 2019, it begs the question as to why Kuuhubb management would attempt to change the composition of the board so close to the shareholders' meeting," said Arnold Kondrat.

The Independent Directors have retained WeirFoulds LLP as litigation counsel and are reviewing all available legal and regulatory avenues to challenge the actions of management, including potential oppression claims under the Canada Business Corporations Act.

Kuuhubb also announced in its January 29, 2019 press release that the Company has called an annual and special meeting of the Company's shareholders (the "AGM ") for April 4, 2019. The Independent Directors, none of whom will be standing for re-election at the AGM, support the calling of the AGM.

Arnold Kondrat, Phone: (416)366-7300
ROSEMONT, IL / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / BNP Media's AEC BuildTech Conference & Expo (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) is pleased to announce that Dr. Antony Wood, CEO of Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat will be a keynote speaker at the inaugural event taking place April 30 to May 2, 2019, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. On May 2, 2019 Dr. Wood will share his expertise on the multi-disciplinary aspects of sky-bridge connection between tall buildings with the audience of architects, engineers and contractors. In addition, a new general contracting track has been added to the educational programming.

'We are pleased to welcome Dr. Wood as a keynote speaker, to share his knowledge on the sustainable design of tall buildings with our attendees,' said Scott Wolters, Director, Tradeshows & Conferences, BNP Media, producers of the event. 'Now with six educational tracks, two keynote speakers and leading companies on the exhibit floor, AEC BuildTech will certainly be an important gathering for the industry to learn about innovations in building processes, materials and construction technologies.'

Dr. Wood, a Research Professor in the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a visiting professor of tall buildings at Tongji University Shanghai, explored the multi-disciplinary aspects of sky-bridge connections between tall buildings to receive his PhD. AEC BuildTech will also welcome Steve Jones, Senior Director of Industry Insights Research at Dodge Data & Analytics as a keynote speaker on May 1, 2019 at 9:15 am.

The Educational Advisory Board (EAB) has announced the addition of a sixth education track focused on General Contracting. Over the three days, attendees will hear from subject matter experts discussing such important topics as Using New Technology to Achieve the Best Safety Results; Multiple Sites, One Mission; Getting Value from Your Data Through Custom Software; Bridging Design-Build and Model-Based Coordination; and New Strategies for Fireproofing Jobsites.

Speakers in the General Contracting Track will include executives from Avalon Bay Communities, The Waldinger Corp., The Weitz Co., Baker Electric, PIVOTek, Clayco, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, FMI, JE Dunn, MC Industrial, Piersol Construction, CM Gilbane Inc., The Smith Consulting Group, Smartvi.io, Verizon Connect and others. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in sessions in five other education tracks focusing on Roofing, HVACR/Mechanical Systems, Plumbing, Flooring and the Building Envelope. For more information about the conference, visit https://www.aecbuildtech.com/agenda.

The AEC BuildTech exhibit hall will feature leading industry companies including Platinum Sponsors Oracle Construction and Engineering, and Procore; Silver Sponsor CMiC; and Bronze Sponsor Mestek Machinery. To learn more about exhibiting and sponsorship, visit https://www.aecbuildtech.com/Become-an-Exhibitor. More information about AEC BuildTech, can be found at www.AECBuildTech.com. To connect with the appropriate staff member of the show management team visit www.AECBuildTech.com/contact. Follow AEC BuildTech on Facebook and Twitter.

About BNP MEDIA

The event is owned by BNP Media, one of the country's leading business-to-business media companies serving industry professionals across 50-plus industries through magazines, custom media, e-newsletters, websites, conferences, events and market research. Visit BNP Media at www.bnpmedia.com .

For further information, contact:

Amy Riemer, Media Relations

978-475-4441 (office) or 978-502-4895 (mobile)

amy@riemercommunications.com

SOURCE: AEC BuildTech Conference

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533932/Antony-Wood-Chief-Executive-Officer-of-the-Council-on-Tall-Buildings-and-Urban-Habitat-to-Keynote-AEC-BuildTech-Conference-Expo
Seattle, Washington--(Newsfile Corp. - January 30, 2019) - CFN Media Group ("CFN Media"), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article discussing Cardiol Therapeutics' (TSX: CRDL) upcoming launch of its pharmaceutical CBD products, with the capacity to scale manufacturing to metric tonnes per year.





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In Canada, registered medical patients have been able to access cannabis-derived cannabidiol (CBD) oils since 2001, and the government's move to legalize cannabis in October 2018 opened the adult-use market. According to an article by CBC, the result has been a shortage of medicinal CBD, though opinions vary on exact reasons for the current lack of supply. According to James O'Hara, of the advocacy group Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana, "It's actually more than a supply issue. Really, it's something of a health crisis now. Unfortunately, there are no regulations in place to actually guarantee supply for the medical market."





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Source: New Frontier Data

The Canadian medical market is only expected to grow, with forecasts calling for more than $2 billion of spending by the end of 2020.

On the pharmaceutical front, as science catches up after years of prohibition, research indicates CBD may have a wide array of health benefits. Companies across the globe are advancing drug candidates to address conditions ranging from seizures to inflammation to cancer. The opportunity is tremendous. For example, Epidiolex, the only FDA-approved CBD drug, to treat a small family of rare illnesses, is estimated to generate $625 million in international annual revenue by 2022.

The questions underlying these trends are: Where will all the CBD come from? And more to the point, where will the pure pharmaceutical CBD, manufactured in Health Canada and FDA approved facilities that meet the strictest regulations, come from? Cardiol Therapeutics (TSX: CRDL) is providing these answers.

Partnerships Drive Capability

In 2017, Cardiol secured an exclusive agreement with Dalton Pharma Services, which at the time was the one of the very few Health Canada approved and FDA registered companies in Canada licensed to produce pharmaceutical CBD. The program was initially conceived so Cardiol could secure the supply needed to conduct its clinical trial program, with the two companies working together on the formulations required. Following the deal, Dalton's founder, Peter Pekos, took a seat on Cardiol's Board of Directors.

Since that initial agreement, the opportunity to manufacture and sell pharmaceutical CBD around the world became clear. Cardiol now has an exclusive global manufacturing agreement with Dalton for the supply of pharmaceutical CBD for commercial introduction.

To further boost capacity, Cardiol has engaged in an exclusive supply agreement with Noramco, a global leader in the development and manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients. This agreement covers the Canadian and Mexican markets and gives Cardiol a path to significantly scale its production to metric tonnes of CBD per year.

Canada's only GMP Manufactured, Pure THC-Free CBD

By partnering with Dalton and Noramco, Cardiol is assured of the highest quality product manufactured in the most advanced and regulated facilities.

Pharmaceutical CBD can provide the material for drug research like Cardiol's existing program. It can be sold on its own to medical patients in legal jurisdictions. It can also be the primary ingredient in any number of CBD products, ranging from edibles to creams, nutraceuticals to pharmaceuticals.

Looking Ahead

Cardiol Therapeutics plans on introducing its pharmaceutical CBD line in H2 2019. The company views this as a significant revenue opportunity that will financially support its clinical research. The clinical trial process is long and fraught with pitfalls, but the rewards are vast in terms of revenue potential. In the meantime, Cardiol Therapeutics is distinguishing itself from other researchers by providing a significant but related revenue stream. Stay tuned.

Please follow the link to read the full article and see the interview: https://www.cannabisfn.com/cardiol-therapeutics-introducing-major-supply-of-pharmaceutical-cbd-to-meet-supply-crunch/

About CFN Media

For Visitors and Viewers

CFN Media's Cannabis Financial Network (CannabisFN.com) is the destination for savvy investors and business people profiting from the worldwide cannabis industry. Viewers will see breaking news, exclusive content and original programming involving the people, companies and investments shaping the industry.

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CFN Media is a leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the cannabis industry. We help private, pre-public and public cannabis companies in the US and Canada attract capital, investors and media attention.

Our powerful digital media and distribution platform conveys a company's message and value proposition directly to accredited and retail investors and national media active in the North American cannabis markets.

Since 2013, CFN Media has enabled the world's preeminent cannabis companies to thrive in the capital and public markets.

Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/featuredcompany

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CannabisFN.com is not an independent financial investment advisor or broker-dealer. You should always consult with your own independent legal, tax, and/or investment professionals before making any investment decisions. The information provided on http://www.cannabisfn.com (the 'Site') is either original financial news or paid advertisements drafted by our in-house team or provided by an affiliate. CannabisFN.com, a financial news media and marketing firm enters into media buys or service agreements with the companies that are the subject of the articles posted on the Site or other editorials for advertising such companies. We are not an independent news media provider. We make no warranty or representation about the information including its completeness, accuracy, truthfulness or reliability and we disclaim, expressly and implicitly, all warranties of any kind, including whether the Information is complete, accurate, truthful, or reliable. As such, your use of the information is at your own risk. Nor do we undertake any obligation to update the items posted. CannabisFN.com received compensation for producing and presenting high quality and sophisticated content on CannabisFN.com along with financial and corporate news.

The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/

Frank Lane

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flane@cannabisfn.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42549
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 30, 2019) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MXR) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D1) ("MAX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce test sample results from five conglomerate trial pits, located within the Company's "Choco Precious Metals Project", 100km SW of Medellin, Colombia.

Map can be viewed at: http://maxresource.com/resources/MXR_Choco_Map_2019Jan30.pdf

Highlights

Free gold was observed in the test sample concentrates from each of the five hard rock conglomerate trial pits;

The objective was to process approximately 40kg of the 2,500kg of conglomerate collected from each of the 2m by 2m by 30 cm deep pits to gravity test for signs of free gold;

The initial test results suggest potential gold continuity throughout a surface area of approximately 8 square kilometers; open in all directions;

Identification of a conglomerate outcrop 1.5km south of Pit 5 indicates a vertical thickness of 12m; test samples are currently being processed;

The Company is developing a processing system to analyze the gold content of the 2,500kg of bulk sample collected from each of the five pits; additional samples are currently being processed; and

The on-going conglomerate test pit program continues to branch out further and further with the objective of increasing the lateral extent of the gold mineralization.

The exploration strategy is to determine the full lateral extent and gold content of the underlying hard rock conglomerate hosted gold deposits throughout the Company's 89 mineral license applications totaling 1,757 square kilometres in Western Colombia.

Brett Matich, MAX's President and CEO, commented: "Our initial exploration results support the historic reports of free gold contained within the underlying hard rock conglomerates which are potentially the source of the 1.5Mozs of gold and 1.0Mozs of platinum produced during historic surface mining."(Source: R.J. Fletcher and Associates (2011) Review of Gold and Platinum Exploration and Production in Choco Province Colombia Part 3. Private Report for Condoto Platinum Ltd)





Plate 1. -2mm Concentrates with Free Gold



To view an enhanced version of Plate 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/42540_d5e62a9c04c82bcd_002full.jpg



Sample weight (kg) -2mm (kg) Concentrate -2mm (g) Pit 1 0714 48.38 37.4 838 Pit 2 0718 32.5 28.3 265.08 Pit 3 0716 27.18 24.05 287.57 Pit 4 0713 52.61 45.4 962 Pit 5 0715 45.7 39.7 60

Table 1. Hard Rock Conglomerate Bulk Sample Detail

Table key: weight (kg) is the dry weight in kilograms of the conglomerate sample prior to processing; -2mm (kg) is the weight in kilograms of the -2mm fraction of the full sample after crushing and sieving; concentrate -2mm (g) is the weight in grams of the concentrate produced from the -2mm fraction of the full sample.

Exploration Program

The Company considers systematic bulk sampling at surface to be the most practical means of determining grade, processing characteristics and the lateral extent of the mineralization. Sampling the exposed face of outcrops will provide initial assessment of thickness, depth and gold content of this flat lying mineralized system.

The six 2m by 2m by 30cm deep test pits are excavated from surface by pneumatic hammer. A measured specific gravity of 2.2 indicates approximately 2,500kg to 3,000kg of hard rock conglomerate is collected from each pit.

The on-going exploration recently identified a 12m thick conglomerate outcrop approximately 1.5km south of the most southern test pit. Samples were taken down the face of the outcrop to determine gold distribution vertically through the conglomerate. Analytical results are pending.

Choco Precious Metals Project

MAX has 100% ownership of 82 and 50% of 7 mineral license applications, totaling over 1,757 square kilometres, located within Choco Department approximately 100km SW of the city of Medellin, Colombia.

Compania Minera del Choco Pacifico ("Choco Pacific") produced 1.5 million ounces of surface gold and 1.0 million ounces of surface platinum from the "Choco District" between 1906 to 1990, largely limited to an average depth of 8 meters or less.

MAX's Choco Precious Metals Project ("Choco Project") covers or is adjacent to much of Choco Pacific's historic exploration and production areas. Choco Pacific historic reports indicate the hard rock conglomerates underlying the surface production areas are gold-bearing, extensive, shallow and generally flat lying with thicknesses from a few metres to 20 metres. (Source: R.J. Fletcher and Associates (2011) Review of Gold and Platinum Exploration and Production in Choco Province Colombia Part 3. Private Report for Condoto Platinum Ltd)

MAX cautions investors it has yet to verify the historic information.

Sampling and Assay Methodology

Sampling integrity is essential. The conglomerate (hard rock) surface is cleaned and a 2m by 2m square is marked. A pneumatic hammer then chips and breaks the conglomerate outcrop to a depth of 30cm. The broken conglomerate is collected in pre-numbered rice bags; approximately 25kg per bag. Each pre-numbered bag is sealed by the geologist and transported to secure, locked storage at the Novita Camp, in Choco. Two bags per pit are then transported by Company personnel to the town of Istmina, where is the bags are transported to Medellin for processing.

Each approximate 50kg sample is first crushed to 2 millimetres (2mm). The -2mm and +2mm fractions are separated by sieving with each fraction subsequently pulverized. The -2mm fractions are concentrated by gravity pan and visually examined for free gold by MAX technical personnel. There has been no analysis conducted on the +2mm fraction.

Noble Transaction

As previously announced (see MAX press release January 28, 2019), MAX continues to pursue the acquisition of mineral rights and concessions in and around the Novita Project from Condoto Platinum Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Noble Metals Limited. Because MAX proposes to issue 26,665,896 common shares to Noble Metals on the closing of this transaction (constituting approximately 32.7% of the issued and outstanding shares of MAX after adjusting for the transaction), the transaction would constitute Noble Metals as a new 'control person' of MAX and requires both TSX Venture and shareholder approval. MAX has been working with TSX Venture in an effort to obtain conditional approval while simultaneously adjusting the transaction structure to remediate concerns developed over the course of its due diligence. MAX anticipates that it should be in a position to request shareholder approval in the near future. The transaction remains subject to TSX Venture approval.

About MAX Resource Corp.

MAX Resource Corp.'s focus is to explore and consolidate gold and platinum group mineral assets in the richly endowed Choco mineral district of Colombia and to explore the Gachala sedimentary copper hosted mineral belt of Colombia.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF MAX RESOURCE CORP.

"Brett Matich"

Brett Matich, CEO and President

Tim Henneberry, P. Geo (British Columbia), a member of the MAX Resource Corp. Advisory Board, is the qualified person who has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release on behalf of the Company.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.maxresource.com or the Company's profile at www.SEDAR.com

If you would like to be added to MAX Resources' news distribution list, please send your email address to info@maxresources.com

For more information contact:

Investor Relations

Tel: (+1) 604 365-1522

Info@maxresource.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed as "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements pertaining to completion of the Transaction and any approvals required in connection with the Acquisition. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include: changes in market conditions, unsuccessful exploration results, changes in the price of commodities (particularly copper), unanticipated changes in key management personnel and general social, economic or geo-political conditions. Mining exploration and development is an inherently risky business. Accordingly the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42540
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 30, 2019) - Walker River Resources Corp. (TSXV: WRR) ("Walker" or the "Company") is pleased to announce initial drill results from the late 2018 reverse circulation ("RC") drill program on the Lapon Canyon Gold Project, located approximately 60 kilometres southeast of Yerington, Nevada. RC hole LC18-29 returned 31.1 g/t Au (uncut) over 13.7 meters including 198 g/t (uncut) over 1.5 meters and 78.1 g/t (uncut) over 1.5 meters.

Key Highlights:

To date, mineralization has been discovered in a broad, altered, fractured and brecciated NE trending structural zone termed the Lapon Rose Zone. Anomalous gold values are denoted in many areas within this zone, and significant higher-grade mineralization over significant widths is located within sub vertical en echelon zones of intense alteration and gold enrichment.

The 2018 Drilling focused on infill and expansion drilling at the Lapon Rose zone, follow up drilling at the new discovery in Hole RC 17-19, (news release 11-08-17) as well as drilling other targets, including other fault alteration zones, which in some instances show evidence of previous workings.

Significantly, since the start up of drilling on the project, all holes drilled within the Lapon Rose zone returned gold values with the majority (80%) returning significant grades and widths in en echelon zones of gold enrichment.

Walker's initial geological mapping and prospecting on the Project demonstrated the potential for the emplacement of significant gold mineralization. Previous drilling in 2015, 2016, 2017 and now 2018 continue to confirm this potential.

Assay Table: Summary of Drill Results:

Hole Alt.

(m) From

(m) To

(m) Length*

(m) Assay (Au g/t)

Uncut Notes: LC 18-29 2580 12.2 25.9 13.7 31.1 Lapon Rose incl

15.2 16.7 1.5 198

incl

19.8 21.3 1.5 78.1



*True widths approx. 70%

The Lapon Rose Zone has now been drilled over a strike length of some 365 meters, width exceeding 150 meters and a height of over 200 meters. Furthermore, the discovery of new gold mineralization in RC 17-19; 18.6 g/t Au (uncut) over 6.1 meters (news release 11-08-17) is located 325 meters away and 200 meters higher than the last known gold mineralization. It is not known at this time if this is an extension of the Lapon Rose or an entirely new zone. With the discovery at this location, the vertical extent of gold mineralization now exceeds 400 meters.

The 2018 drill program was designed to expand gold mineralized zones discovered by the Company, to discover and delineate new gold mineralized zones. Further results from the 2018 drill program will be released as they become available.

Michel David, President states: "We are very excited and encouraged by these and past drill results which confirm the potential of the project. Most of the holes drilled in the Lapon Rose zone have returned significant gold grades and widths. We have also extended the strike length and width of the gold mineralization in Lapon Rose and have also shown that the gold mineralization is present over 400 vertical meters. The zone is also open at depth and strike. We will continue our exploration at Lapon and are excited about the future at this project."

About the Lapon Project

The Lapon Project consists of 96 claims (1,940 acres) situated in the Wassuk Range, easily accessible by secondary state roads from the main highway (25 kilometres). A state grid power transmission line passes within three kilometres of the Lapon Project. The Lapon Project is located within the Walker Lane shear zone, a 100-kilometre-wide structural corridor extending in a southeast direction from Reno, Nevada. Within this trend, numerous gold, silver, and copper mines are located, notably the historic Comstock Lode mines in Virginia City. Also, the past producing Esmeralda/Aurora gold mine, with reported production of some one million ounces and the Anaconda open pit copper mine in Yerington, Nevada.

The Lapon Project is cut by a series of steeply dipping cross fault structures cutting across the Walker trend, analogous to other cross fault structures responsible for many gold and base metal deposits in the world. These faults are heavily sheared and altered (sericite, iron oxides) with abundant silica, varying in width from 60 to 300 meters. Four of these structures have been discovered at Lapon, and at least two can be traced for over four kilometers.

Small scale high grade mining began on the project in 1914. Approximately 600 meters of drifts and raises were developed from two adits and a two-stamp mill was built. Further underground work was carried out, returning numerous assay values in the range of one ounce per ton, with a sample at the end of an adit returning 20.6 ounces per ton. (National Instrument 43-101, Montgomery and Barr, 2004). Additional work on the Project in the following years, included the installation of a ball mill and milling facilities.

Sampling Methodology, Chain of Custody, Quality Control and Quality Assurance

All sampling was conducted under the supervision of the Company's project geologists and the chain of custody from the drill to the sample preparation facility was continuously monitored. A blank or certified reference material was inserted approximately every tenth sample. The Lapon samples were delivered to ALS Minerals certified laboratory facility in Reno, NV. The samples were crushed, pulverized and the sample pulps digested and analyzed for gold using fire assay fusion and a 50g gravimetric finish. Higher grade samples used a 1kg screen fire assay with screen to 100 microns and 50g gravimetric finish

The scientific and technical content and interpretations contained in this news release have been reviewed, verified and approved by E. Gauthier, geol., Eng (OIQ) a director of the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Michel David"

_____________

Michel David,

Chief Executive Officer and Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Walker River Resources Corp.

Tel: 819 874-0030

Fax: 819 825-1199

Email: info@wrrgold.com

Website: www.wrrgold.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange Nor Its Regulation Service Provider (As That Term Is Defined In The Policies Of The TSX Venture Exchange) Accepts Responsibility For The Adequacy Or Accuracy Of This News Release.

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42532
Flexible SD-WAN to connect facilities across Europe, Asia and Latin America

Supports cloud applications through managed solutions and consulting expertise

Weener Plastics, a global supplier of innovative and value-added packaging solutions, has signed a five-year, managed SD-WAN agreement with Orange Business Services to support its global expansion. Rolling out Flexible SD-WAN across 24 sites in Europe, Asia and Latin America, Weener Plastics will increase agility and flexibility in its organization, as well as improve internal communication.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005268/en/

Weener Plastics offers standard, as well as tailor-made and innovative packaging solutions for its multinational customers. The company, which has expanded globally through acquisitions, needed an agile solution to support its rapid growth and access to cloud-based applications, such as Office 365 and ERP software. In addition, Weener Plastics wanted a managed solution to allow its teams to focus on their core manufacturing business.

To keep up with changing customer demands, it is important that Weener Plastics is physically present in its customers' countries of operation. Weener Plastics chose Orange Business Services because of its extensive experience with SD-WAN, but also for its strong local presence and homogenous portfolio of managed services and applications across all the countries and regions in which it operates.

"Because of our rapid global expansion, we were looking for a worldwide IT partner that could also offer local support and solutions for all of our sites throughout the world. The Flexible SD-WAN solution provides us with a reliable and agile network to support us during our next phase of business. Thanks to Orange Business Services, we can focus on the things we're good at: developing and producing innovative plastic packaging solutions," said Eric den Hertog, Global IT Director at Weener Plastics.

"We are delighted to support Weener Plastics in their global expansion. A migration to SD-WAN requires careful consideration and expertise in making sure the solution is adequately designed with steady state operations in mind. Through our deep knowledge and expertise with SD-WAN solutions, we are the perfect partner for Weener Plastics' international ambitions," said Fabrice de Windt, Senior Vice President Europe for Orange Business Services.

Flexible SD-WAN

Flexible SD-WAN by Orange is a global solution that is a fully automated, intelligent network with on-demand virtualized services, centrally orchestrated for end-to-end performance and control. It provides companies with a flexible and agile way to adapt the enterprise network to user needs, and is a future-proof solution completely integrated in Orange's SDN architecture. Through a simple interface, enterprises can use their network dynamically to anticipate and respond to changes in their business environment and migrate applications to the cloud.

Orange Business Services recently won Best Enterprise Service for Flexible SD-WAN at the World Communication Awards 2018. In addition, Orange Business Services was deemed a "Leader" in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communication Service Provider SD-WAN Managed Services 2018 Vendor Assessment.

About Weener Plastics

Weener Plastics is a full service global supplier of innovative and sustainable plastic packaging solutions. The company designs, develops and manufactures added value Caps, Closures, Bottles and Jars for the Personal Care, Food Beverage and Home Care markets, specializing in Deo Packaging, Nutrition Packaging and Aerosol Packaging. Headquartered in Ede, The Netherlands, the company employs more than 3,000 people and has 25 facilities in 16 countries worldwide.

About Orange Business Services

Orange Business Services, the B2B branch of the Orange Group, and its 25,000 employees, is focused on supporting the digital transformation of multinational enterprises and French SMEs across five continents. Orange Business Services is not only an infrastructure operator, but also a technology integrator and a value-added service provider. It offers companies digital solutions that help foster collaboration within their teams (collaborative workspaces and mobile workspaces), better serve their customers (enriched customer relations and business innovation), and support their projects (enriched connectivity, flexible IT and cyberdefense). The integrated technologies that Orange Business Services offer range from Software Defined Networks (SDN/NFV), Big Data and IoT, to cloud computing, unified communications and collaboration, as well as cybersecurity. Orange Business Services customers include over 3,000 renowned multinational corporations at an international level and over two million professionals, companies and local communities in France.

Learn more at www.orange-business.comor follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and our blogs.

Orange is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with annual sales of 41 billion euros in 2017 and has 261 million customers in 28 countries at 30 September 2018. Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005268/en/

Contacts:

Press contact:

Orange Business Services

Elizabeth Mayeri, elizabeth.mayeri@orange.com, +1 212 251 2086
Detailed experimental results were filed in a second provisional patent application for "Techniques for Promoting Neuronal Recovery."

Preparing for animal In-vivo efficacy experiments with its QS200 Candidate Product for treating Concussions and other Diffused Axonal Injuries.

MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / Qrons Inc. (OTC PINK: QRON) ("Qrons "or the "Company"), a preclinical biotechnology company developing advanced stem cell-synthetic hydrogel based solutions to combat neuronal injuries with a laser focus on treating traumatic brain injuries ("TBIs"), announced today that it had reached a milestone with the development of its two candidate products, QS100 for treating penetrating brain injuries and QS200, for treating concussions and other diffused axonal Injuries.

Both QS100 and QS200 integrate proprietary, modified mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and smart synthetic material. QS100 is an injury specific, 3D printable, implantable MSCs-synthetic compound, to treat penetrating brain injuries (such as gunshot wounds, motor vehicle accidents and falls) and QS200 is an injectable MSCs-synthetic compound for the treatment of diffused injuries commonly referred to as concussions.QS100 has demonstrated astrogliosis inhibition and induction of neuronal differentiation in in-vivo animal experiments while QS200 research was expedited and is near completion with further pre-clinical experiments scheduled to determine its efficacy for concussions and diffused brain injuries.

The Company believes that its latest advances provide a superior stem cells/synthetic hydrogel integration which will enable the precise, effective and controlled delivery of Qrons' proprietary modified stem cells.

As a result of its on-going research, the Company has filed a second provisional application for its patent - Techniques for Promoting Neuronal Recovery which was filed in April 2018 and includes further technological developments and data. The Company is working on filing additional patent applications to protect its intellectual property.

Ido Merfeld, co-founder and Head of Product stated "We have substantiated our previous pre-clinical studies with further in-vivo animal experiments. The foundation of our science has further led us to expedite the completion of the development of QS200, our candidate product to treat concussions. We are excited to be able to unleash the potential of our candidate products to a broader spectrum of traumatic brain injuries in the future".

Jonah Meer, co-founder and CEO remarked, "I am proud of the scientific achievements to date. We believe that the advances our researchers have made provide hope to those suffering a TBI and that our QS200 candidate product will provide solutions to deal with concussions and various other forms of TBI.

About Qrons Inc.

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, the Company is a publicly traded preclinical stage biotechnology company developing advanced cell-based solutions to combat neuronal injuries with a laser focus on traumatic brain injuries. The technology could potentially treat a wide range of neuro-degenerative diseases. The Company has 2 candidate products for treating TBIs, both integrating proprietary, modified mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and smart synthetic material QS100 an injury specific, 3D printable, implantable MSCs-synthetic hydrogel, to treat penetrating brain injuries and QS200 an injectable MSCs-synthetic hydrogel for the treatment of diffused injuries commonly referred to as concussions. The Company entered into a license and research funding agreement ("License Agreement") and related service agreements with Ariel University R&D Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Ariel University, based in Ariel, Israel. In consideration for payments under the License Agreement, the Company received an exclusive worldwide royalty-bearing license in Ariel patents and know-how to develop and commercialize products for neuronal tissue regeneration and/or repair, resulting from Ariel's research or technology or the Company's research funding. The Company entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement with Dartmouth College funding further research with Professor Chenfeng Ke and his team at the Chemistry Department, aiming to develop innovative 3D printable, biocompatible advanced materials. The Company is negotiating, a worldwide, royalty-bearing, exclusive license with Dartmouth for Professor Ke's 3D printable materials in the field of human and animal health. Please visit http://www.qrons.com .

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements concerning our future product development plans, other statements regarding future research, and any other statements which are other than statements of historical fact. These statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause the Company's actual operations, results and experience to differ materially from anticipated results and expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements. The Company has in some cases identified forward-looking statements by using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "hopes," "estimates," "looks," "expects," "plans," "intends," "goal," "potential," "may," "suggest," and similar expressions. Among other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements are the Company's need for, and the availability of, substantial capital in the future to fund its operations and research and development; successful development of clinical studies for any product we may develop, U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for any products developed, manufacturing of a commercially-viable version of our system and demonstration of safety and effectiveness sufficient to generate commercial orders by customers for any product we may develop. A more complete description of these risk factors is included in the Company's filings with theSecurities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to release publicly the results of any revisions to any such forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Contact:

Jonah Meer

212-945-2080

Email: jmeer@qrons.com

SOURCE: Qrons Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533953/Qrons-Completes-Successful-In-Vivo-Experiment-with-its-QS100-Candidate-Product-for-Treating-Penetrating-Brain-Injuries-in-an-Animal-Model
SANTA CLARA, California, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

Trianz, a global digital transformation consulting and technology services firm, has announced being featured in the 2019 Novarica Market Navigator Report on IT Service Providers for Insurers. Compiled by Boston-headquartered Novarica Inc, the report provides a detailed profile of IT services providers for insurer CIOs and their teams to learn about each provider's organization, market position, client base, and areas of service.

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Novarica Inc provides technology strategy research, advisory, and consulting services for property and casualty, and life and annuity insurers.

Trianz has been working closely with leading insurers for over 18 years, providing consulting and technology services across policy administration, claims, operations, distribution, agency, risk management, regulatory compliance, billing and accounting, underwriting, actuarial, disbursement and marketing. The firm's areas of expertise, for both Life and Annuity and Property and Casualty (P&C) insurers, include working with application development and maintenance, digital enablement, data analytics and reporting, data migration, IT security, QA and testing, and ongoing managed services. The firm's Property and Casualty (P&C) experience, on a standalone basis, covers working with data repositories, consolidation and core claims systems.

With regard to the insurance carrier market, Novarica Vice President of Research and Consulting, Paul Vancheri, commented, "Both Property/Casualty and Life/Annuity carriers have stressed the continued need for trusted IT service providers to augment and supplement the people and processes critical to their operations. Carriers are looking to companies, like Trianz, to provide services across digital, data and core capabilities."

Co-Presidents at Trianz, Rollen Roberson and Ganeshan Venkateshwaran, said in a statement, "At Trianz, we emphasize on outcome-focused execution to provide digital transformation results for our insurance clients. Being featured in the Novarica Market Navigator Report is not only a proud validation of how we empower our clients, but also motivates the team to continue leveraging forward-thinking methodologies and frameworks to spearhead digital evolution for them."

"Trianz' understanding of insurance products, expertise in developing industry-compliant solutions, and a proven transformation model combine to give us a leading edge. We thank Novarica team for this recognition," added Prashant Bhavaraju, Vice President of Marketing at Trianz.

Trianz' Insurance clients include the largest names in the Property and Casualty (P&C) and Life Insurance industry providing services that span Cloud & Infrastructure, Analytics, Digital and Security for implementation and managed services.

About Novarica:

Novarica helps more than 100 insurers make better decisions about technology projects and strategy through retained advisory services, published research, and strategy consulting. Its knowledge base covers trends, benchmarks, best practices, case studies, and vendor solutions. Leveraging the expertise of its senior team and of more than 300 CIO Research Council members, Novarica provides clients with the ability to make faster, better, more informed decisions. Its consulting services focus on vendor selection, custom benchmarking, project checkpoints, and IT strategy. More information at https://www.novarica.com.

About Trianz

Trianz simplifies digital evolutions through effective strategies and excellence in execution. Collaborating with business and technology leaders, we help formulate and execute operational strategies to achieve intended business outcomes by bringing the best of consulting, technology experiences and execution models. Powered by knowledge, research, and perspectives, we enable clients to transition to a digital enterprise by leveraging Cloud, Analytics, Digital, Infrastructure and Security paradigms. With offices in Silicon Valley, Washington DC Metro, Rosemont, Chicago, Austin, Boston, Denver, Irvine, Raleigh, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Dubai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, we serve Fortune 1000 and emerging organizations across industries globally. For more information, visit http://www.trianz.com.

Trianz Media Team

Media.Contact@trianz.com

+1-408-387-5800


DETROIT, January 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

Stratview Research announces the launch of a new market research report on Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Aircraft Type (Narrow-Body Aircraft, Wide-Body Aircraft, Very Large-Body Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, and Business Jet), by Platform Type (B737, B777, B787, B737Max, B777x, A320 Family, A330/A340, A350XWB, A380, A320neo Family, A330neo, E 175, A220, and Others), by Material Type (Metal Pressure Bulkhead and Composite Pressure Bulkhead), by Shape Type (Flat Pressure Bulkhead and Curved Pressure Bulkhead), by Manufacturing Process Type (Sheet Stamping, Resin Infusion Process, and Prepreg Layup), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2019-2024.

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This market report, from Stratview Research, studies the aerospace pressure bulkheads market over the trend period of 2013 to 2018 and forecast period of 2019 to 20224. The research report provides detailed insights on the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.

Pressure BulkheadsMarket in the Global Aerospace Industry: Highlights

Pressure bulkhead is an essential component of an aircraft that covers the front and rear end of a fuselage. It maintains the pressure required for the cabin of an aircraft; hence, it is considered very important for the safety of passengers and crew members. Front pressure bulkhead is located near the nose landing gear and maintains front cabin pressure, whereas rear pressure bulkhead seals the pressurized passenger compartment.

As per Stratview Research, the global aerospace pressure bulkheadsmarket is estimated to grow at an above industry growth rate over the next five years to reach an estimated value of US$ 505.5 million in 2024. The market is served by aircraft OEMs producing bulkheads in-house for some of their programs as well as independent suppliers/tier players producing bulkheads for different OEMs. Major OEMs, such as Airbus and Bombardier, are producing pressure bulkheads, generally front one, of some of their aircraft programs. Also, major tier players including Spirit AeroSystems and RUAG, are also present in the market, primarily producing rear pressure bulkheads. However, tier players also produce front pressure bulkheads for some aircraft programs.

The research's findings suggest that narrow-body aircraft is expected to remain the largest segment of the market during the forecast period, whereas wide-body aircraft is expected to experience the highest growth during the same period. Increasing commercial aircraft deliveries to support rising passenger and freight traffic, introduction of fuel-efficient next-generation aircraft, and rising commercial aircraft fleet size across regions are the key factors propelling the demand for pressure bulkheads in the segment.

Click Here and Browse the Detailed TOC of the Report

Based on the material type, metal pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the most dominant segment of the market over the next five years. Metal pressure bulkheads, generally aluminum, have an excellent strength-to-weight ratio and are easy to repair as compared to composite ones. Low cost is another key countable factor for its preference over composite bulkheads. However, composite pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the faster-growing segment during the forecast period. Rear pressure bulkheads of aircraft are more often made with composites compared to the forward ones. But recently, composites are also gaining traction in the forward location. Both the major commercial aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, have played a crucial role in the development of composite pressure bulkheads targeting further improvements in the safety of aircraft. They are highly corrosion resistant and offer high strength-to-weight ratio, low maintenance requirement, and contain reduced number of parts.

In terms of shape type, flat pressure bulkhead is projected to remain the most dominant segment of the market over the next five years. Pressure bulkhead structure is highly dependent upon the structure of an aircraft. Rear pressure bulkheads are generally curved, whereas front ones are flat; however, Boeing, in its major program B737, has replaced curved pressure bulkhead to flat one in the rear location in order to increase more cabin space and add more seats.

Register Here and Ask for a Free Sample on the Report

As per the study, North America is projected to remain the largest market during the forecast period as the region is the manufacturing capital of the aerospace industry with the presence of several large- to small-sized aircraft OEMs and tier players. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest CAGR over the next five years, propelled by several factors including upcoming commercial and regional aircraft, such as C919 and MRJ, and an opening of assembly plants in China by Boeing and Airbus

Major pressure bulkhead manufacturers are Airbus Group, Bombardier Inc., Spirit AeroSystems GmbH, RUAG Holding AG, Premium AEROTEC GmbH, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., and Aernnova Aerospace S.A. Development of lightweight pressure bulkhead, collaboration with OEMs, and formation of long-term contracts are the key strategies adopted by the major players to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Report Features

This report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:

Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis.

Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis.

Market trend and forecast analysis.

Market segment trend and forecast.

Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.

Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities.

Emerging trends.

Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players.

Key success factors.

This report has segmented the aerospace pressure bulkheads market in six ways, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. Following are the six ways in which the market is segmented:

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Aircraft Type:

Narrow-Body Aircraft

Wide-Body Aircraft

Very Large-Body Aircraft

Regional Aircraft

Business Jet

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Platform Type:

B737

B777

B787

B737 Max

B777X

A320 Family

A330 / A340

A350 XWB

A380

A320 neo

A330 neo

E 175

A220 (C Series)

Others

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Material Type:

Metal Pressure Bulkheads

Composite Pressure Bulkheads

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Shape Type:

Flat Pressure Bulkheads

Curved Pressure Bulkheads

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Manufacturing Process Type

Sheet Stamping Process

Resin Infusion Process

Prepreg Layup Process

Aerospace Pressure Bulkheads Market by Region

North America (Country Analysis: the USA , Canada , and Mexico )

Europe (Country Analysis: Germany , France , Russia , and Rest of Europe )

Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: Japan , China , and Rest of Asia-Pacific )

Rest of the World (Sub-Region Analysis: Latin America , the Middle East , and Others)

Stratview Research has number of high value market reports in the global aerospace & defense industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:

Click Here for Other Reports from Stratview Research in the Aerospace & Defense Industry

Some of our other premium market reports in the aerospace & defense industry:

Aircraft Fairings Marketby Aircraft Type (Narrow-Body Aircraft, Wide-Body Aircraft, Very Large-Body Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, and General Aviation), by Application Type (Wing-to-Body Fairing, Flap Support Fairings, Engine Cowls, Vertical Fin Fairings, and Others), by Material Type (Composite Fairings and Metal Fairings), by Manufacturing Process Type (Prepreg Layup, Stamping, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2019-2024.

Airborne Pods Marketby Aircraft Type (Combat Aircraft, Helicopter, UAV, and Others), by Pod Type (ISR, Targeting, Self-Protection/Countermeasure, and Others), by Enclosure Type (Composite and Metal), by Sensor Type (EO/IR, EW/EA, IRCM, and Others), by Range Type (Short, Intermediate, and Long), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2018-2023.

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Thermon Announces Record Revenues of $119 million

AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / Thermon Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: THR) (the "Company," "Thermon," "we" or "our") today announced consolidated financial results for the third quarter ("Q3 2019") of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019 ("Fiscal 2019").

Q3 2019 highlights, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2017 ("Q3 2018"), include:

Record revenue of $119.4 million compared to $92.7 million, an increase of 29% Fully diluted GAAP EPS of $0.29 per share compared to $0.02 per share Adjusted EPS of $0.40 compared to $0.35, an increase of 14% Adjusted EBITDA of $26.0 million compared to $21.6 million, an increase of 20%

"We are pleased to see strong growth in our installed base this quarter with Greenfield project revenues growing by 49% over the prior year. This, combined with strong growth in our US and Latin American MRO/UE (facility maintenance, repair and operations and upgrade or expansion) business, generated top line growth of 29% in the third quarter and positions us well to capitalize on future MRO/UE revenue streams from the installed base. Also, we are successfully leveraging our operating expenses on the incremental volume to drive EBITDA margin expansion within the business," said Bruce Thames, Thermon's President and Chief Executive Officer.

During Q3 2019, the Company generated revenue of $119.4 million versus $92.7 million in Q3 2018, an increase of $26.7 million or 29%. In Q3 2018, we acquired Thermon Heating Systems ("THS"). The contribution of revenue from our organic business and THS is as follows: organic (excluding THS) revenue was $95.8 million and $76.6 million in Q3 2019 and 2018, respectively, and THS revenue was $23.6 million and $16.1 million in Q3 2019 and 2018, respectively. Total revenues were negatively impacted by $2.2 million from foreign exchange translation.

During Q3 2019, organic Greenfield and MRO/UE activity accounted for 45% and 55% of revenue, respectively. This compares to an organic Greenfield and MRO/UE mix of 38% and 62%, respectively, in Q3 2018. Notably, our price realization in Q3 2019 improved over the prior period. Substantially all of the revenue contributed by THS would be considered MRO/UE.

Gross margins during Q3 2019 were 42.6% compared to 45.6% in Q3 2018. The high mix of Greenfield revenue was the key driver for the comparative gross margin decline. Greenfield sales include higher labor costs and third party buy-out components. While Greenfield projects deliver lower margins than MRO/UE product sales, the expanded installed base provides the opportunity for future MRO/UE revenue.

During Q3 2019, total orders were $105.7 million versus $105.3 million in Q3 2018, an increase of $0.4 million. Q3 2019 backlog was $135.9 million compared to $167.7 million in Q3 2018, a decrease of $31.8 million.

Q3 2019 net income attributable to Thermon and GAAP earnings per share ("EPS") were $9.7 million and $0.29 per fully diluted common share, respectively, compared to $0.6 million and $0.02 per fully diluted common share, respectively, in Q3 2018. After taking into account the impact of intangible amortization and costs related to the THS acquisition in Q3 2018 (see table, Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon to Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted EPS), the Company generated Adjusted Net Income in Q3 2019 of $13.3 million and Adjusted EPS of $0.40 per fully diluted common share compared to $11.5 million and $0.35 per fully diluted common share, respectively, in Q3 2018.

Adjusted EBITDA was $26.0 million in Q3 2019 as compared to $21.6 million in Q3 2018, an increase of $4.4 million or 20%.

During the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019 ("YTD 2019"), the Company generated revenue of $298.4 million compared to $206.0 million in the first nine months of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018 ("YTD 2018"), an increase of $92.4 million or 45%. Organic revenue was $237.1 million and revenue from THS was $61.3 million in YTD 2019.

YTD 2019 orders were $275.3 million compared to $233.0 million in YTD 2018, an increase of $42.3 million or 18%.

YTD 2019 net income attributable to Thermon and GAAP EPS were $16.0 million and $0.48 per fully diluted common share, respectively, compared to $5.9 million and $0.18 per fully diluted common share in YTD 2018. After taking into account certain one-time charges in YTD 2019, costs related to the THS acquisition in YTD 2018 and the impact of intangible amortization (see table, Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon to Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted EPS), the Company generated Adjusted Net Income in YTD 2019 of $28.5 million and Adjusted EPS of $0.86 per fully diluted common share compared to Adjusted Net Income of $21.4 million and Adjusted EPS of $0.65 per fully diluted common share during YTD 2018.

As of December 31, 2018, the Company had $226.4 million gross of outstanding debt and $30.2 million of cash representing net debt of $196.2 million. Based on our trailing twelve month Adjusted EBITDA of $84.4 million of the combined businesses, our net debt to trailing twelve month Adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.3 at December 31, 2018. This compares to a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 3.4 on October 30, 2017 when we completed the THS acquisition.

Outlook

Based on our strong performance during the first nine months of Fiscal 2019, we are increasing our previously reported full-year revenue guidance. We now anticipate total revenue for the combined business to increase to an estimated range of $396 million to $402 million for Fiscal 2019.

Conference Call and Webcast Information

Thermon's senior management team, including Bruce Thames, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jay Peterson, Chief Financial Officer, will discuss Q3 2019 results during a conference call today at 10:00 a.m. (Central Time), which will be simultaneously webcast on Thermon's investor relations website located at http://ir.thermon.com . Investment community professionals interested in participating in the question-and-answer session may access the call by dialing (877) 407-5976 from within the United States/Canada and (412) 902-0031 from outside of the United States/Canada. A replay will be available on Thermon's investor relations website after the conclusion of the call.

About Thermon

Through its global network, Thermon provides safe, reliable and mission critical industrial process heating solutions. Thermon specializes in providing complete flow assurance, process heating, temperature maintenance, freeze protection and environmental monitoring solutions. Thermon is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information, please visit w ww.thermon.com .

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Disclosure in this release of "Adjusted EPS," "Adjusted EBITDA," "Adjusted Net Income" and "Free cash flow," which are "non-GAAP financial measures" as defined under the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), are intended as supplemental measures of our financial performance that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). "Adjusted Net Income" and "Adjusted fully diluted earnings per share (or EPS)" represents net income attributable to Thermon before costs related to the consolidation of our operating footprint in Canada, amortization of other intangible assets and the income tax effect of any non-tax adjustments, per fully-diluted common share in the case of Adjusted EPS. "Adjusted EBITDA" represents net income attributable to Thermon before interest expense (net of interest income), income tax expense, depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, income attributable to non-controlling interests, and costs related to the consolidation of our operating footprint in Canada. "Free cash flow" represents cash provided by operating activities less cash used for the purchase of property, plant and equipment, net of sales of rental equipment and proceeds from sales of land and buildings.

We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are meaningful to our investors to enhance their understanding of our financial performance and are frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties to compare our performance with the performance of other companies that report Adjusted EPS, Adjusted EBITDA, or Adjusted Net Income. Adjusted EPS, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income should be considered in addition to, not as substitutes for, income from operations, net income, net income per share and other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with GAAP. We provide Free cash flow as a measure of our liquidity. Our calculation of Adjusted EPS, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income and Free cash flow may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. For a description of how Adjusted EPS, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, and Free cash flow are calculated and reconciliations to the corresponding GAAP measures, see the sections of this release titled "Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon Adjusted EBITDA," "Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon to Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted EPS" and "Reconciliation of Cash Provided by Operating Activities to Free Cash Flow."

Forward-Looking Statements

This release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws in addition to historical information. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding our industry, business strategy, plans, goals and expectations concerning our market position, future operations, margins, profitability, capital expenditures, liquidity and capital resources and other financial and operating information. When used, the words "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "budget," "continue," "contemplate," "could," "should" "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project," "will," "would," "future," and similar terms and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking statements in this release. Forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations regarding future events, results or outcomes. These expectations may or may not be realized. Some of these expectations may be based upon assumptions, data or judgments that prove to be incorrect. In addition, our business and operations involve numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could result in our expectations not being realized or otherwise materially affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Actual events, results and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of factors. Although it is not possible to identify all of these factors, they include, among others, (i) general economic conditions and cyclicality in the markets we serve; (ii) future growth of energy, chemical processing and power generation capital investments; (iii) our ability to deliver existing orders within our backlog; (iv) our ability to bid and win new contracts; (v) competition from various other sources providing similar heat tracing and process heating products and services, or alternative technologies, to customers; (vi) changes in relevant currency exchange rates; (vii) potential liability related to our products as well as the delivery of products and services; (viii) our ability to comply with the complex and dynamic system of laws and regulations applicable to domestic and international operations; (ix) our ability to protect data and thwart potential cyber attacks; (x) our ability to continue to generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy our liquidity needs; (xi) a material disruption at any of our manufacturing facilities; (xii) our dependence on subcontractors and suppliers; (xiii) our ability to obtain standby letters of credit, bank guarantees or performance bonds required to bid on or secure certain customer contracts; (xiv) our ability to attract and retain qualified management and employees, particularly in our overseas markets; (xv) the extent to which federal, state, local, and foreign governmental regulations of energy, chemical processing and power generation products and services limits or prohibits the operation of our business; and (xvi) other factors discussed in more detail under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 8, 2018. Any one of these factors or a combination of these factors could materially affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows and could influence whether any forward-looking statements contained in this release ultimately prove to be accurate.

Our forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results and future performance may differ materially from those suggested in any forward-looking statements. We do not intend to update these statements unless we are required to do so under applicable securities laws.

CONTACT:

Sarah Alexander

(512) 396-5801

Investor.Relations@thermon.com

Thermon Group Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations and Selected Balance Sheet Data (Unaudited, in Thousands except per share amounts)

Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended Nine Months Ended December 31, 2018 December 31, 2017 December 31, 2018 December 31, 2017 Sales $ 119,356 $ 92,660 $ 298,412 $ 206,027 Cost of sales 68,473 50,446 167,441 109,039 Gross profit 50,883 42,214 130,971 96,988 Operating expenses: Marketing, general and administrative and engineering 24,755 20,668 70,016 54,854 Acquisition related expense - 3,497 - 3,834 Stock compensation expense 1,041 895 3,130 2,627 Depreciation expense 2,313 2,191 6,866 5,774 Amortization of intangible assets 4,887 4,753 16,160 10,714 Income from operations 17,887 10,210 34,799 19,185 Interest income and expense, net (3,548 ) (2,367 ) (10,279 ) (3,390 ) Loss on extinguishment of debt - (376 ) - (376 ) Debt cost amortization (313 ) (259 ) (1,047 ) (433 ) Interest expense, net (3,861 ) (3,002 ) (11,326 ) (4,199 ) THS acquisition related foreign exchange losses* - (5,594 ) - (5,594 ) Other income (expense) (155 ) 102 73 31 Income before provision for taxes 13,871 1,716 23,546 9,423 Income tax expense 4,154 883 7,126 2,798 Net income 9,717 833 16,420 6,625 Income attributable to non-controlling interests (2 ) 234 432 769 Net income attributable to Thermon $ 9,719 $ 599 $ 15,988 $ 5,856 Net income per common share: Basic income per share $ 0.30 $ 0.02 $ 0.49 $ 0.18 Diluted income per share $ 0.29 $ 0.02 $ 0.48 $ 0.18 Weighted-average shares used in computing net income per common share: Basic common shares 32,595 32,448 32,556 32,409 Fully-diluted common shares 33,116 32,914 33,000 32,763

December 31, 2018 (unaudited) March 31,

2018 Cash $ $30,190 $ 33,879 Total debt 226,356 225,000 Total equity 337,747 340,853

* One-time foreign currency related losses include $3.3 million on a $200 million CAD option contract to hedge part of the THS acquisition purchase price and $2.3 million related to a derivative contract to hedge a $112 million long term intercompany loan between Canada and the United States for the acquisition of THS.

Thermon Group Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon to Adjusted EBITDA (Unaudited, in Thousands)

Three Months Ended December 31, 2018 Three Months Ended December 31, 2017 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2018 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2017 GAAP net income attributable to Thermon $ 9,719 $ 599 $ 15,988 $ 5,856 Interest expense, net 3,861 3,002 11,326 4,199 Income tax expense 4,154 83 7,126 1,998 Tax expense related to tax reform - 800 - 800 Depreciation and amortization expense 7,200 6,944 23,026 16,488 EBITDA (non-GAAP) $ 24,934 $ 11,428 $ 57,466 $ 29,341 Stock compensation expense 1,041 895 3,130 2,627 Consolidation of operating footprint in Canada - - 757 - Income attributable to non-controlling interests (2 ) 234 432 769 THS acquisition related foreign exchange losses - 5,594 - 5,594 THS acquisition related expenses - 3,497 - 3,834 Adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) $ 25,973 $ 21,648 $ 61,785 $ 42,165

Thermon Group Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Reconciliation of Net Income attributable to Thermon to Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted EPS (Unaudited, in Thousands except per share amounts)

Three Months Ended December 31, 2018 Three Months Ended December 31, 2017 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2018 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2017 Adjustment to: GAAP net income attributable to Thermon $ 9,719 $ 599 $ 15,988 $ 5,856 Consolidation of operating footprint in Canada - - 757 - Operating expense THS acquisition related expenses - 3,497 - 3,834 Operating expense THS acquisition related foreign exchange losses - 5,594 - 5,594 Other expense Tax reform related expense - 800 - 800 Income tax expense Release of deferred tax liability - (554 ) (554 ) Income tax expense Amortization of intangible assets 4,887 4,753 16,160 10,714 Intangible asset amortization Tax effect of adjustments (1,356 ) (3,188 ) (4,443 ) (4,884 ) Income tax expense Adjusted net income (non-GAAP)* $ 13,250 $ 11,501 $ 28,462 $ 21,360 Adjusted-fully diluted earnings per common share (non-GAAP)* $ 0.40 $ 0.35 $ 0.86 $ 0.65 Fully-diluted common shares 33,116 32,914 33,000 32,763



* Please note that the Company now presents Non-GAAP Adjusted Net Income and Non-GAAP Adjusted EPS to take into account the impact of intangible amortization. The impact of amortization (net of tax) to Non-GAAP Adjusted EPS was $0.11 and $0.35 per share during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2018, respectively, and $0.11 and $0.24 per share during the three and nine months ended December 31, 2017, respectively.

Thermon Group Holdings, Inc. and Subsidiaries Reconciliation of Cash provided by Operating Activities to Free Cash Flow (Unaudited, in Thousands)

Three Months Ended December 31, 2018 Three Months Ended December 31, 2017 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2018 Nine Months Ended December 31, 2017 Cash (used in) provided by operating activities $ 7,730 $ (1,068 ) $ 9,846 $ 11,475 Less: Cash used for purchases of property, plant and equipment (3,106 ) (1,295 ) (8,808 ) (6,182 ) Plus: Sale of rental equipment 133 292 678 461 Plus: Proceeds from sales of land and buildings 23 - 23 8 Free cash flow (used) provided (non-GAAP) $ 4,780 $ (2,071 ) $ 1,739 $ 5,762

SOURCE: Thermon Group Holdings, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533964/Thermon-Reports-Third-Quarter-Fiscal-2019-Results
Acquisition of High Security Lock Manufacturer Anticipated to be Completed in Q1 2019

OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Sargent and Greenleaf ("S&G") from Stanley Black Decker (NYSE: SWK). The transaction is anticipated to be completed in Q1 2019. Financial terms were not disclosed.

S&G is a leading brand in the specialized high security lock industry. Founded in 1857 and headquartered in Nicholasville, Kentucky, the business has approximately 120 employees globally with a vast distribution footprint that enables S&G to sell its products into more than 100 countries. S&G designs and manufactures innovative, high-quality mechanical and electronic locks for safes, vaults, safe deposit boxes and highly sensitive environments. Customers are varied across many segments including banking, cash transit, residential security, railroad utilities and government security segments. S&G is a pioneer in the high security industry, inventing several industry firsts, and has a leading innovation and digital platform that consistently brings new and improved products and features to the market. S&G was the winner of Security Magazine's "Security Products 2018 New Product of the Year," and "2017 New Product of the Year Award."

Andrew Nikou, OpenGate Capital's founder and CEO, commented, "We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement to acquire S&G from Stanley Black Decker. We have already started to review how our newly launched OGx capability can drive innovation into the business through technological enhancements as part of our full potential strategy and believe real growth can be achieved."

Matthias Gundlach, the Managing Director at OpenGate Capital responsible for leading the transaction, commented, "We are proud to partner with Stanley Black and Decker on this transaction. S&G represents in many ways the key hallmarks of an OpenGate Capital deal: it is a market leader, with a trusted brand, successfully competing on a global basis."

Paul Bridwell, the Managing Director at OpenGate Capital responsible for managing and supporting operations of the firm's investments in North America, stated, "We are excited to partner with the team at S&G and build upon their rich legacy of successful innovation. We look forward to accelerating the company's growth through strengthening S&G's commercial reach and applying new technologies to its broad and deep product line."

The acquisition of S&G is expected to be completed in Q1 2019.

About OpenGate Capital

OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, OpenGate Capital is headquartered in Los Angeles, California with a European office in Paris, France. OpenGate's professionals possess the critical skills needed to acquire, transition, operate, build and scale successful businesses. To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe. To learn more about OpenGate, please visit www.opengatecapital.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190130005156/en/

Contacts:

OpenGate Media Contacts

Alanna Chaffin

Email: achaffin@opengatecapital.com

Telephone: +1 (310) 432-7000

Mike Sitrick

Sitrick Company

Email: Mike_Sitrick@sitrick.com

Telephone: (310) 788-2850

OpenGate Business Development Contact

Joshua Adams

Email: jadams@opengatecapital.com

Telephone: +1 (310) 432-7000
Track record of continuous innovation, deep commitment to R&D and relentless customer focus propels Genesys ahead in highly competitive market

SANTA CLARA, California, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the North American hosted/cloud contact center market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Genesys with the 2018 North American Market Leadership Award. With cloud market share of 10.7 percent in 2017, and one of the broadest solution portfolios in the industry, Genesys is leading the market. The company continues to strengthen its position by identifying emerging areas of customer contact and developing innovative solutions to help businesses address those needs. For instance, it was one of the early movers to add cloud functionality to its product set and maturing technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to complement its contact center systems offerings.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/815042/Genesys_Award.jpg

Genesys orchestrates over 25 billion contact center interactions per year in the cloud and on-premises for its 11,000 customers in 120 countries. It generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and has attracted a large ecoystem of 1,200 partners worldwide. Keys to its success include continual infusion of capital into research and development to fuel innovation, along with a series of strategic acquisitions to quickly add capabilities to its portfolio. One of its most significant acquisitions, for example, was Interactive Intelligence, a key competitor and a market leader in its own right. This acquisition broadened its technology and cloud offerings to cover the entire market.

"The multi-pronged approach to growth that Genesys takes has helped it streamline the way products are acquired, implemented, and used. For instance, in 2016, it announced that Hellman & Friedman LLC, a leading private equity investment firm, acquired a substantial minority equity stake in the company. This partnership positioned Genesys as one of the most valuable private software companies in the world," said Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "In addition to its robust M&A strategy, the company has gradually built a vast and advanced portfolio that caters to customers' changing needs. It has also simplified its go-to-market and implementation strategy to drive adoption and invested in emerging technology areas to adapt to a dynamic marketplace."

The company now has three diverse offerings in its customer experience (CX) platform: PureCloud, an all-in-one cloud contact center and employee collaboration solution; PureConnect, an all-in-one multichannel customer engagement solution for both premises and (private) cloud deployments; and PureEngage, an omnichannel customer engagement suite. Its feature-rich solutions are backed by exceptional levels of support and attractive business models. For existing premise customers, the availability of subscription-based pricing as an alternative to perpetual licenses underscores the company's understanding of its customers' business needs. This pricing model provides numerous benefits to clients, including the ability to flex in capacity rather than overpay for peaks and valleys of usage.

"The company has demonstrated visionary innovation in incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) across every area of its portfolio to assist with customer service, sales, and marketing," noted Ms. Jamison. "The frequent product innovations Genesys delivers are often ahead of the curve, but introduced in a way that allow customer adoption at a pace they are comfortable with. Overall, its advanced, rapidly deployable, and risk-free solutions, along with novel pricing models and maintenance, have positioned it for further growth in a highly competitive market."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan bestows this award upon the company that demonstrates excellence in growth and customer value. Attaining loyal customers who became brand advocates allows the company to grow and achieve a market leadership position. By committing to the customer at each stage of the buying cycle and continuing to nurture the relationship, this award recognizes a company's increased market share over time.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Genesys

Genesys powers more than 25 billion of the world's best customer experiences each year. Our success comes from connecting employee and customer conversations on any channel. Every day, 11,000 companies in more than 100 countries trust our #1 customer experience platform to drive great business outcomes and create lasting relationships. Combining the best of technology and human ingenuity, we build solutions that mirror natural communication and work the way you think. Our industry-leading solutions foster true omnichannel engagement because they perform equally well across channels, on-premises and in the cloud. Experience communication as it should be: fluid, instinctive and profoundly empowering. Visit genesys.com on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and the Genesys blog .

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion .

Contact:

Bianca Torres

P: 1.210.477.8418

F: 1.210.348.1003

E: bianca.torres@frost.com
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / TriMetals Mining Inc. (TSX: TMI) (OTCQX: TMIAF), ('TMI' or the 'Company') announces that Mr. Eric Edwards has submitted his resignation as TMI's President and Chief Executive Officer and from TMI's Board of Directors effective January 31, 2019.

The Board of Directors of TMI are grateful for Mr. Edwards' achievements while at TMI. He joined TMI in January 2018 and was successful in streamlining and focusing the Company. In the past year, the Company has signed a divestiture agreement for the Escalones Copper Project in Chile, received the award notification regarding expropriation of the Malku Khota project in Bolivia for US$28 million (including interest), and has minimized administration and overhead costs. The Company no longer has any secured debt after having recently completed a conversionof US$1.7 million in secured debt into common shares.

Mr. Matias Herrero has been appointed as Interim Chief Executive Officer effective February 1, 2019. Mr. Herrero previously served as Chief Financial Officer of the Company from July 2012 through October 2017. Mr. Herrero is a CA, CPA, with 14 years of mining industry experience and was involved with TMI in the Malku Khota arbitration proceedings from the beginning.

Mr. Van Doorn, Chairman of the Company, stated: 'TMI welcomes Mr. Herrero back to the Company where his knowledge of our claim against Bolivia will be very valuable and we expect Mr. Herrero to be able to continue with the cost savings measures that Mr. Edwards has implemented.'

About TriMetals Mining Inc.

TriMetals Mining Inc. (TSX: TMI and OTCQX: TMIAF) is a growth-focused gold exploration company creating value through the exploration and development of the near-surface Gold Springs gold-silver project in mining-friendly Nevada and Utah, U.S.A.

The Company's Class B shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under 'TMI.B' and have no interest in the properties or assets of the Company other than the collective entitlement to 85% of the net cash, if any (after deducting all costs, taxes and expenses and the amount due to a third party that funded the costs of the arbitration), received by the Company from an award or settlement in relation to South American Silver's arbitration proceeding against Bolivia for the expropriation of the Malku Khota project in 2012.

TriMetals Mining Inc. Contact:

Robert van Doorn

Chairman

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements contained herein constitute 'forward-looking information' under applicable Canadian securities laws ('forward-looking statements'). Forward-looking statements look into the future and provide an opinion as to the effect of certain events and trends on the business. Forward-looking statements may include words such as 'shall', 'will', and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and entail various risks and uncertainties. Actual results may materially differ from expectations if known and unknown risks or uncertainties affect our business or if our estimates or assumptions prove inaccurate. Factors that could cause results or events to differ materially from current expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to, risks more fully described in the Company's Annual Information Form and continuous disclosure documents, which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements in this press release describe the Company's expectations as of the date hereof.

Contact information:

kruby@trimetalsmining.com

604.639.4527

SOURCE: TriMetals Mining Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533921/TriMetals-Mining-Announces-Board-and-Management-Changes
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / Auryn Resources Inc. (TSX: AUG) (NYSE AMERICAN: AUG) "Auryn" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has implemented an artificial intelligence program to assist in the targeting of high-grade gold mineralization at Committee Bay. Auryn is teaming up with Computational Geosciences Inc. (CGI) to employ their proprietary VNet segmentation deep learning algorithm.

Michael Henrichsen, COO & Chief Geologist:

"The Committee Bay belt represents a global opportunity for substantial gold deposits. As a technical team, we remain committed to discovering large-scale gold deposits and we will continue to use innovative techniques, such as machine learning, to improve our probability of success when working on a widely till-covered belt."

"The CGI machine learning platform will leverage our highly-disciplined and thorough approach to data collection with the deep knowledge of Auryn's technical team to produce the highest probability targets. We look forward to revealing our revised targets later this month."

About VNet:

VNet is a type of convolutional neural network (CNN) that can handle an arbitrary number of geoscience data inputs in either 2D or 3D. It is also sensitive to sparse or dense data areas, can detect multiple feature resolutions (ie. regional trends vs. local anomalies) and is scalable across large areas.

This style of deep learning for mineral exploration is an emerging technology that requires expertise in geoscience data processing, data interpretation, and artificial intelligence. The biggest advantage of a data-driven solution is to extract subtle correlations across multiple datasets over a large spatial area, all while reducing human bias. By generating targets with deep learning, and vetting them with an experienced geoscience team, the expertise of the human is still utilized but complemented by the power of the machine.

Committee Bay Application:

The CGI machine learning platform will generate additional targets across the 'Three Bluffs playing field' - a 1600 square kilometer area which includes the Three Bluffs Deposit and the 20 km shear zone hosting the Aiviq and Kallulik targets where significant gold mineralization has been encountered. The platform will process the vast amount of data (collected through extensive surface geochemical sampling, geological mapping, geophysical surveys, and drilling) from work Auryn and prior explorers have completed on the project.

To produce optimal results there needs to be extensive experience in the aforementioned fields of geoscience data processing, data interpretation, and artificial intelligence, and between Auryn and CGI, there exists a world-class team of experts across these disciplines.

Michael Henrichsen, P.Geo, COO of Auryn, is the Qualified Person who assumes responsibility for the technical disclosures in this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AURYN RESOURCES INC.

Ivan Bebek

Executive Chairman

For further information on Auryn Resources Inc., please contact Natasha Frakes, Manager of Corporate Communications at (778) 729-0600 or info@aurynresources.com.

About Auryn

Auryn Resources is a technically driven junior mining exploration company focused on delivering shareholder value through project acquisition and development. The Company's management team is highly experienced with an impressive track record of success and has assembled an extensive technical team as well as a premier gold exploration portfolio. Auryn is focused on scalable high-grade gold deposits in established mining jurisdictions, which include the Committee Bay and Gibson MacQuoid gold projects located in Nunavut, the Homestake Ridge gold project in British Columbia and a portfolio of gold projects in southern Peru, through Corisur Peru SAC.

Forward Looking Information and Additional Cautionary Language

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking information is information that includes implied future performance and/or forecast information including information relating to or associated with the acquisition and title to mineral concessions. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different (either positively or negatively) from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to the risks discussed in the Company's Annual Information Form and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2017 and subsequent continuous disclosure filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators available at www.sedar.com and the Company's registration statement on Form 40-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov.

The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Auryn Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/533994/Auryn-Applies-Machine-Learning-for-Targeting-High-Grade-Gold-at-Committee-Bay
The European Investment Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

The European Investment Trust plc ("the Company")

The Company announces that on 29 January 2019 it purchased the following number of its ordinary shares of 25 pence each on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

Ordinary Shares:

Date of purchase: 29 January 2019 Number of ordinary shares purchased: 15,000 Lowest price per share 781p Highest price per share 781p

The Company intends to cancel the purchased shares.

Following the above transaction, the Company has 40,956,269 ordinary shares in issue. Each of the Company's shares carries one vote. Accordingly, the total number of voting rights of the Company is 40,956,269.

30 January 2019

LEI: 213800QNN9EHZ4SC1R12

Enquiries:

Kenneth J Greig

Edinburgh Partners AIFM Limited

Tel: 0131 270 3800

The Company's registered office address is:

Beaufort House

51 New North Road

Exeter

EX4 4EP
America's largest social selling women's apparel retailer drives leadership amid U.K. expansion.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The largest American direct-sales women's fashion brand, cabi, will sponsor the Destined for Bigger Things women's conference taking place on International Women's Day, 8 March, in Windsor, United Kingdom. As part of their expansion across the U.K., this conference is seen as a perfect collaboration; designed to inspire, ignite, and empower women. Destined for Bigger Things seamlessly aligns with the personal growth ethos of the Los Angeles-based brand.

Having recently launched in the U.K., cabi is aligning with businesses that empower women in their careers, which perfectly syncs with their desire to provide women a flexible opportunity to be in control of their financial future through owning and running a fashion business while contributing meaningfully to the lives of women around the world.

The founding group of female entrepreneurs (called "Stylists", also known as the Pioneer Development Team) have successfully launched cabi in the U.K. and are now inviting entrepreneurial women to join them in styling women throughout the region. The Pioneer Development Team is a small, diverse group of women from England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland with a variety of professional backgrounds and experiences:

Deborah Richardson : She gave up a career in design to focus on her family. Yearning to be back in a career with complete flexibility, she joined the direct sales industry and has never looked back. Since cabi launched here in 2016, Deborah has developed a team of 12 cabi Stylists.

: She gave up a career in design to focus on her family. Yearning to be back in a career with complete flexibility, she joined the direct sales industry and has never looked back. Since cabi launched here in 2016, Deborah has developed a team of 12 cabi Stylists. Donna Taylor : She is a marketing professional with expertise in client engagement management. She has enjoyed exchanging her corporate 50-hour work week for a career with cabi, enabling her to accompany her daughter on the school run and set a great example for her as a business owner.

: She is a marketing professional with expertise in client engagement management. She has enjoyed exchanging her corporate 50-hour work week for a career with cabi, enabling her to accompany her daughter on the school run and set a great example for her as a business owner. Jo Perry : Originally from South Africa , Jo has lived in the U.K. since 1987. She has an Industrial Psychology & Economics degree and a diploma in Food & Wine. She loves the way cabi allows her to host events, entertain, and empower others.

: Originally from , Jo has lived in the U.K. since 1987. She has an Industrial Psychology & Economics degree and a diploma in Food & Wine. She loves the way cabi allows her to host events, entertain, and empower others. Mandy Noss : With a marketing, promotions, licensing, branding, and design-focused entrepreneurial background, she's always had highly relational roles. She loves being part of the PDT, growing cabi to its fullest potential here in the U.K. Mandy is passionate about family, friends, fashion, conversation, and music-in particular, country music!

: With a marketing, promotions, licensing, branding, and design-focused entrepreneurial background, she's always had highly relational roles. She loves being part of the PDT, growing cabi to its fullest potential here in the U.K. Mandy is passionate about family, friends, fashion, conversation, and music-in particular, country music! Helen May : A business graduate with over 13 years of experience in International Media Sales and extensive experience with charitable work in her local community, Helen loves the flexibility of cabi and the opportunity it has given her to empower women around the world.

: A business graduate with over 13 years of experience in International Media Sales and extensive experience with charitable work in her local community, Helen loves the flexibility of cabi and the opportunity it has given her to empower women around the world. Niki Martin : A creative, spiritual, and adventurous former oncology nurse and qualified counsellor, Niki is one of four girls and a mother of four daughters, making female empowerment high on her agenda. She is inspired to utilise her learned skills while developing new ones through her cabi career.

: A creative, spiritual, and adventurous former oncology nurse and qualified counsellor, Niki is one of four girls and a mother of four daughters, making female empowerment high on her agenda. She is inspired to utilise her learned skills while developing new ones through her cabi career. Sharon Sunley : She has more than 20 years of fashion experience and a lifelong interest in entrepreneurship. Sharon brings a wealth of experience with her and loves the flexibility her cabi career gives her to spend time with her family.

: She has more than 20 years of fashion experience and a lifelong interest in entrepreneurship. Sharon brings a wealth of experience with her and loves the flexibility her cabi career gives her to spend time with her family. Sue Gilmour-Jones : She has a degree in Human Biology and a background in Health Promotion. Sue discovered cabi when holidaying with friends in California and was excited to learn that cabi was launching in the U.K. just as she was looking for a new career that would give her the flexibility around family commitments.

"We are thrilled to have this outstanding group of smart, energetic, and fun women from different backgrounds leading cabi's expansion in the U.K. and identifying like-minded partnership opportunities in the market, like the 'Destined for Bigger Things' conference," said Lynne Cote, CEO of cabi. "Cabi's unique career opportunity, in which a woman is able to define her own success, has appealed to thousands of American women, and we look forward to supporting U.K. women as they develop their own fulfilling and lucrative entrepreneurial careers with cabi."

"In this highly challenged retail environment, U.K. cabi Stylists are bringing an unparalleled designer collection to women in a fresh and convenient way, whether it's through personal one-on-one appointments, curated pop-up boutiques in the home, or through cabi Tap, our cutting-edge app," said cabi President, Co-Founder & Chief Culture Officer Kimberly Inskeep. "For almost 20 years, 85 percent of U.S. Stylists return each season to serve their clients through personal styling. This loyalty to the brand goes beyond a Collection that perfectly fits each woman's unique style, it is also in large part due to the collaborative culture and company commitment to affecting lives through enduring relationships."

Since launching in the U.K., and amidst a challenging retail environment, cabi Stylists have been successfully impacting women's lives in powerful numbers:

Cabi is meeting the modern women's needs by bringing retail-or what is essentially 2,600 pop-up boutiques-directly to women in their home, which enables them to shop without the frustrations of going into a store.

pop-up boutiques-directly to women in their home, which enables them to shop without the frustrations of going into a store. To date, over 1,500 Hostesses help make cabi more accessible by partnering with the cabi Stylists to bring this unique experience to women across the U.K.

Hostesses help make cabi more accessible by partnering with the cabi Stylists to bring this unique experience to women across the U.K. U.K. cabi Stylists have funded 80 small business loans to women in developing countries through The Heart of cabi Foundation's innovative lending program, W. E. are cabi, which provides financing and mentorship to empower women to start their own business. These loans made directly to sister entrepreneurs, will ultimately fund five times the amount of loans, which enables hostesses and Stylists to impact women not only in their local communities, but also globally.

More and more women around the world crave a personalised experience when finding their own personal style and wardrobe, allowing them to fully embrace the woman they are. Cabi provides women across the U.S., Canada, and U.K. with a styling experience that does just that, by providing an ideal shopping alternative to the retail, online, and subscription experiences, all in the comfort of a home. For more information about cabi, visit www.cabionline.uk.

About cabi :

Launched in 2002, cabi provides a designer women's clothing collection and is the nation's largest social selling apparel company. The brand has since become known for its unparalleled quality provided through a unique shopping experience, and network of U.S., Canadian, and U.K. cabi Stylists who form a tight-knit community of collaboration. Cabi's shopping experience is filled with educational and personalised styling ideas and gives Stylists an opportunity to be entrepreneurs in a career that affords a lucrative income, flexible lifestyle, and rich relationships with like-minded women. With a firm foundation of success, cabi is poised to spread their creed "affecting lives through relationship" even further, transforming the lives of women across the globe through their business, and also through their W.E. are cabi Program, which provides small business loans for women in the developing world through Opportunity International.

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Groupe PSA designs unique automotive experiences and delivers mobility solutions to meet all customer expectations. The Group has five car brands, Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel and Vauxhall, and provides a wide array of mobility and smart services under the Free2Move brand. Its 'Push to Pass' strategic plan represents a first step towards the achievement of the Group's vision to be "a global carmaker with cutting-edge efficiency and a leading mobility provider sustaining lifetime customer relationships". An early innovator in the field of autonomous and connected cars, Groupe PSA is also involved in financing activities through Banque PSA Finance and in automotive equipment via Faurecia.

Carla Gohin, Vice President, Innovation of Groupe PSA , commented: "Obtaining the license for autonomous driving tests on open roads in China is a remarkable milestone for Groupe PSA, as China is the largest automobile market in the world and is witnessing the boom in the development of autonomous driving technology. This marks an important step for our AVA 'Autonomous for All' program, which aims to provide safe and intuitive autonomous cars for all customers. From this fresh start, we'll continuously bring our cutting edge technology to Chinese customers."

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The two brands join forces to innovate the rail industry with seamless mobile booking options, while travelers enjoy easy access to sought-after rail passes

HONG KONG, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Klook, a world leading travel activities and services booking platform, and Rail Europe, the leading distributor of European rail products representing over 50 railroads throughout Europe, are pleased to announce a game-changing global partnership. Marking an important milestone for Klook, the strategic partnership will augment the platform's rail offerings and provide travelers with all-encompassing travel in-destination services. At the same time, Rail Europe may now leverage Klook's cutting-edge mobile booking technology to connect with modern, tech-savvy travelers in more than 100 markets around the world.

Beginning in late 2018, users have enjoyed easy access to Rail Europe's convenient services through Klook's dedicated Europe Rail landing page . The comprehensive booking services include point-to-point train tickets as well as sought-after rail passes, such as Swiss Travel Pass, Eurail Pass, BritRail Pass, and German Rail Pass. Ensuring quality service and seamless online bookings globally, Klook's platforms support both e-ticket for users worldwide and physical tickets (via free mail delivery) to close to 20 markets. To better serve travelers on-the-go, Klook's newly launched point-to-point booking site, available first on its mobile web and app, supports real-time city-to-city booking for train tickets as well as seat reservations for rail passes.

"We're thrilled to partner with Rail Europe to further expand Klook's services in European destinations and develop our new rail product offering. This partnership, and the extensive services it provides to our customers, will further solidify our standing as one of the world's leading in-destination platforms with rail being a key pillar," said Eric Gnock Fah, Klook's COO and Co-Founder. "Seeing a tremendous success of Klook's rail experiences in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, we are excited to pioneer technological innovations in European rail services. These efforts reinforce our mission as a one-stop booking platform for travelers to discover and book in-destination experiences of all kinds."

"Our new partnership with Klook is a huge boon for Rail Europe," said Dau-Khoi Nguyen, President and CEO of Rail Europe SAS. "As a pioneer in the online travel and activities booking sector, Klook serves modern travelers around the world, covering over eight languages and 41 currencies. As a growing number of travelers seek more convenient, on-the-spot booking options, we believe Klook's innovative mobile services will make the beautiful train journeys of Europe more accessible than ever."

Click here to download multimedia assets.

About Klook

Founded in 2014, Klook is a world leading travel activities and services booking platform. Klook gives travelers a seamless way to discover and book popular attractions, tours, local transportation, best foods and must-eats, and unique experiences around the world on its website and award-winning app ('Best of 2015', 'Best of 2017' & 'Best of 2018' by Google Play and Apple App Store). With Klook's innovative technologies, travelers can book after arriving in their destinations and redeem the services by using QR codes or e-vouchers. Each day, Klook empowers countless travelers to indulge in their wanderlust and spontaneity through over 80,000 offerings in more than 250 destinations.

With a team of more than 1,000 across over 20 offices worldwide, Klook's services are available in eight languages, supporting 41 currencies. It has raised a total of US$300 million investment from world-renowned investors including Sequoia China, TCV, Matrix Partners, and Goldman Sachs. Get inspired by Klook at www.klook.com , the company blog or @Klook .

About Rail Europe

Rail Europe, in operation since 1932, is a European rail travel distribution company, and the dedicated source for planning and booking European train tickets, passes, and more. Owned by two shareholders, the French National Railroads (SNCF) through VSC Group, and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the company has grown to become the leading authority on European train travel worldwide, generating close to half a billion USD in annual sales. The company is headquartered in Paris, France, with offices in North and South America, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan.
SYDNEY, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NetComm today announced the launch of its new 5G Fixed Wireless self-installation technology that will super-charge the 5G Fixed Wireless market by enabling network operators to slash the time and cost of connecting customers to ultra-fast broadband.

Although Fixed Wireless has been suggested as one of the main drivers of early 5G deployments, its potential has been limited by the fact that some early pre-standard 5G launches have seen operators have to install an external antenna in order to connect customers.

The time and cost of connecting equipment at the customer premises threatens to stifle the 5G Fixed Wireless market by making services unprofitable when deploying at large scale.

However, the new NetComm 5G self-install platform offers operators a cost-effective plug-and-play model that will massively cut the time and cost of connecting homes and businesses to 5G Fixed Wireless services.

The NetComm 5G self-install platform allows end-users to get the best possible connection via an application on their phone that connects to their new modem and the 5G network and guides the end-user to the best position for their modem to be placed in the house.

Because of the varying characteristics of the 5G Fixed Wireless market -- with different spectrum bands and cell sizes being used -- NetComm has developed a portfolio of devices for the marketplace -- all of which support both sub 6GHz bands as well as mmWave.

Indoor desk mount: Can be installed anywhere in the home and is most suitable in locations close to the base station for homes that already have a decent signal strength

Can be installed anywhere in the home and is most suitable in locations close to the base station for homes that already have a decent signal strength Indoor window mount: Can be installed on the window to improve the signal quality and therefore the connection

Can be installed on the window to improve the signal quality and therefore the connection Outdoor wall mount: These devices also use directional antennae to allow for a longer reach and location further away from the base station. NetComm offers both a self-install outdoor wall mount as well one which requires engineer installation.

These devices also use directional antennae to allow for a longer reach and location further away from the base station. NetComm offers both a self-install outdoor wall mount as well one which requires engineer installation. Outdoor roof mount: Installed on the roof and use high quality directional antennas to allow for an extra reach from the base station with good connectivity.

Els Baert, Director of Marketing & Communications at NetComm said:

"NetComm is delivering the missing piece of the jigsaw that will help enable mass market 5G Fixed Wireless take-up."

"No new technology can succeed unless there is an easy way to deploy it and our self-install platform is a game-changer for the economics of 5G Fixed Wireless."

"It is great for end-users as they don't have to stay home waiting for a technician to turn up - they can get online in minutes once they have plugged in their hardware."

"We have worked to make sure that our 5G Fixed Wireless platform delivers an exceptional connection quality on a level with what end-users have come to expect from fixed-broadband services delivered over fibre or cable."

David Kennedy, Practice Leader at global telecoms consultancy Ovum said:

"Our research at Ovum clearly shows that installation costs have a significant impact on the business case for Fixed Wireless access."

"In some cases, these installation costs can be prohibitive to Fixed Wireless services actually being launched."

"Therefore, new technologies that lower installation costs will help to expand the potential customer footprint for Fixed Wireless and improve scale economics -- helping to build a business case for Fixed Wireless investment."

About NetComm

NetComm (ASX: NTC) is a global developer of solutions that bridge the gap between fibre and the home, device or machine. In a world where everyone's connected life matters, Fixed Wireless broadband, wireless M2M/Industrial IoT and Fibre to the distribution point (FTTdp) solutions are specially engineered for challenging deployments. At NetComm we understand that no one-solution fits all. Every operator, carrier and enterprise is different, so we build the right VDSL, Gfast, 4G and 5G solution to meet specific network, market and geographic conditions worldwide. Established in 1982, NetComm is a globally renowned innovator of world-first data communications technologies. www.netcommwireless.com

Media resources: Dropbox link to images below

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mxphngisz6xf985/AAAzsyLROD3oQrMCfXiVVOFla?dl=0

Media contact:

Tony Brown

Head of Corporate Affairs, NetComm

Phone: +61 419 77 55 09 or email: tony.brown@netcommwireless.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/814742/Els_Baert_5G_Device_Landscape.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/737282/NetComm_Logo.jpg


NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ("Goldman Sachs" or the "Company") (NYSE: GS) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and indexed under 18-cv-12084, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise acquired Goldman Sachs securities between February 28, 2014, and December 17, 2018, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants' violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Goldman Sachs securities between February 28, 2014, and December 17, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until February 19, 2019, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in New York, New York. The Company operates as an investment banking, securities, and investment management company worldwide, serving corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals.

According to 2016 data compiled by Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs has "worked on $18.8 billion of Malaysian mergers and acquisitions over the past five years, making it the top foreign adviser with a 20.5[%] market share." Goldman Sachs's business in Malaysia included, inter alia, raising funds for 1Malaysia Development Bhd. ("1MDB"), a Malaysian state-owned investment fund set up in 2009, four months after Najib Razak ("Razak") became Prime Minister of Malaysia. 1MDB was initially established to finance infrastructure and economic deals in Malaysia.

In 2012, officials from 1MDB met with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong to discuss a bond deal. Goldman Sachs subsequently raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB, earning approximately $600 million in fees.

Since early 2015, 1MDB has been the subject of international criminal and regulatory investigations for suspected fraud and money laundering after missing $11 billion in payments owed to banks and bondholders.

On June 18, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "Fund Controversy Threatens Malaysia's Leader," detailing how 1MDB indirectly funded Razak's 2013 election campaign. A probe into 1MDB subsequently followed.

On July 2, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published another article, entitled "Investigators Believe Money Flowed to Malaysian Leader Najib's Accounts Amid 1MDB Probe," reporting how Malaysian investigators traced nearly $700 million in deposits to what they believed to be Razak's personal bank accounts.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, high-level 1MDB officials and their associates misappropriated an estimated $4.5 billion from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014. Implicated in the 1MDB scandal were two former Goldman Sachs managing directors- Tim Leissner ("Leissner") and Ng Chong Hwa, also known as Roger Ng ("Ng").

Leissner was Chairman of South East Asia and Vice Chairman of the Investment Banking Division in Asia Ex-Japan (i.e., Asia, excluding Japan) for Goldman Sachs. Ng was a former Goldman Sachs banker, managing director, and deputy to Leissner. Ng most recently was the head of South-East Asian sales in Goldman Sachs's fixed-income, currencies, and commodities unit.

The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Goldman Sachs participated in a fraud and money-laundering scheme in collusion with 1MDB; (ii) the foregoing conduct, when revealed, would foreseeably subject Goldman Sachs to heightened regulatory investigation and enforcement; and (iii) as a result, Goldman Sachs's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 7, 2016, Bloomberg News published an article entitled "Ex-Goldman Banker to Malaysia Fund Said Subpoenaed in U.S. Probe," reporting that the U.S. Justice Department had subpoenaed Leissner in late February in connection with a probe linked to 1MDB. Goldman Sachs has since been the subject of investigations by the U.S. Justice Department regarding the multibillion-dollar fraud and money-laundering scheme involving 1MDB, for which Goldman Sachs was the primary bond underwriter. Following this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell $3.75 per share, or 2.41%, to close at $151.60 on March 8, 2016.

On November 1, 2018, U.S. federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York ("E.D.N.Y.") unsealed indictments against Leissner and Ng related to the 1MDB probe, explicitly describing them as "agents acting within the scope of their employment on behalf of" the Company "with the intent, at least in part, to benefit" Goldman Sachs. That same day, the United States Attorney's Office for the E.D.N.Y. announced that Leissner's guilty plea was unsealed for "a two-count criminal information charging Leissner with conspiring to launder money and conspiring to violate the FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] by both paying bribes to various Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials and circumventing the internal accounting controls of the Financial Institution while he was employed by it." The U.S. Attorney's Office also stated that, "[a]ccording to court filings, Leissner has been ordered to forfeit $43,700,000 as a result of his crimes."

On November 8, 2018, a report by Bloomberg News detailed the personal involvement of Goldman Sachs's then-Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"), Lloyd Blankfein, in a meeting to establish ties with Malaysia and its new sovereign wealth fund that was referenced in the court documents unsealed the prior week. In a November 8, 2018 article entitled "Goldman's Blankfein Said to Have Attended 2009 1MDB Meeting," Bloomberg News noted that "Blankfein was the unidentified high-ranking Goldman Sachs executive referenced in U.S. court documents who attended a 2009 meeting with the former Malaysian prime minister," and that "[t]he meeting was arranged with the help of men who are now tied to the subsequent plundering of the 1MDB fund[.]"

On this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell by $9.00, or nearly 4%, closing at $222.65 on November 9, 2018.

On November 12, 2018, Malaysian government officials denounced Goldman Sachs's role in the 1MDB scandal. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stated that "[t]here is evidence that Goldman Sachs has done things that are wrong" and "[o]bviously we have been cheated through the compliance by Goldman Sachs people." Meanwhile, the country's Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said that Malaysia would seek a "full refund" of the approximately $600 million in fees that the Company earned in connection with 1MDB's $6.5 billion bond deal.

Following this news, Goldman Sachs's stock price fell $16.60 per share, or nearly 7.5%, to close at $206.05 on November 12, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - January 29, 2019) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against four public companies for failing to maintain internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) for seven to 10 consecutive annual reporting periods. Two of the charged companies also failed to complete the required evaluation of the effectiveness of ICFR for two consecutive annual reporting periods.

According to the SEC's orders, year after year, the four companies disclosed material weaknesses in ICFR involving certain high-risk areas of their financial statement presentation. As discussed in the SEC orders, each of the four companies took months, or years, to remediate their material weaknesses after being contacted by the SEC staff. One of the companies is still in the process of remediating its material weaknesses.

"Adequate internal controls are the first line of defense in detecting and preventing material errors or fraud in financial reporting," said SEC Chief Accountant Wesley Bricker. "When internal control deficiencies are left unaddressed, financial reporting quality can suffer."

Melissa Hodgman, an Associate Director in the SEC's Enforcement Division, added, "Companies cannot hide behind disclosures as a way to meet their ICFR obligations. Disclosure of material weaknesses is not enough without meaningful remediation. We are committed to holding corporations accountable for failing to timely remediate material weaknesses."

Without admitting or denying the findings, each of the four companies agreed to a cease and desist order making certain findings, requiring payment of civil penalties, and requiring an undertaking for one of the companies as detailed below:

Grupo Simec S.A.B de C.V. disclosed material weaknesses in its annual filings for 10 consecutive years, from 2008 to 2017. In both 2015 and 2016, its management failed to complete the required ICFR evaluation. The company did not make significant progress in devising a control structure and remediating material weaknesses until after the SEC staff contacted it. The company continues to have material weaknesses that are being addressed through remediation. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B) and Rules 13a-15(a) and 13a-15(c), thereunder, payment of a $200,000 civil penalty, and an undertaking requiring retention of an independent consultant to ensure remediation of material weaknesses, including those involving related party transactions.

disclosed material weaknesses in its annual filings for 10 consecutive years, from 2008 to 2017. In both 2015 and 2016, its management failed to complete the required ICFR evaluation. The company did not make significant progress in devising a control structure and remediating material weaknesses until after the SEC staff contacted it. The company continues to have material weaknesses that are being addressed through remediation. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B) and Rules 13a-15(a) and 13a-15(c), thereunder, payment of a $200,000 civil penalty, and an undertaking requiring retention of an independent consultant to ensure remediation of material weaknesses, including those involving related party transactions. Lifeway Foods Inc. disclosed material weaknesses in each of its Forms 10-K for a period of nine years, from 2007 through 2015, and significant deficiencies that in the aggregate constituted a material weakness in 2016. In both 2013 and 2014, company management failed to complete the required ICFR evaluation. Lifeway did not fully remediate its material weaknesses and conclude that ICFR was effective until its fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. Lifeway's failure to address its material weaknesses was compounded by three announced restatements since fiscal 2012, including two restatements announced during fiscal 2016. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), 13(b)(2)(B), and Rules 13a-1, 13a-15(a) and 13a-15(c), thereunder, and payment of a $100,000 civil penalty.

disclosed material weaknesses in each of its Forms 10-K for a period of nine years, from 2007 through 2015, and significant deficiencies that in the aggregate constituted a material weakness in 2016. In both 2013 and 2014, company management failed to complete the required ICFR evaluation. Lifeway did not fully remediate its material weaknesses and conclude that ICFR was effective until its fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. Lifeway's failure to address its material weaknesses was compounded by three announced restatements since fiscal 2012, including two restatements announced during fiscal 2016. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), 13(b)(2)(B), and Rules 13a-1, 13a-15(a) and 13a-15(c), thereunder, and payment of a $100,000 civil penalty. Digital Turbine Inc . disclosed material weaknesses in each of its Forms 10-K over a period of seven years, from fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2017. The company did not fully remediate its material weaknesses until the end of fiscal year 2018, as disclosed in its Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2018. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B) and Rule 13a-15(a), thereunder, and payment of a $100,000 civil penalty.

. disclosed material weaknesses in each of its Forms 10-K over a period of seven years, from fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2017. The company did not fully remediate its material weaknesses until the end of fiscal year 2018, as disclosed in its Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2018. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B) and Rule 13a-15(a), thereunder, and payment of a $100,000 civil penalty. CytoDyn Inc. disclosed material weaknesses in each of its Forms 10-K over a period of nine years, from 2008 through 2016. CytoDyn included in its public filings the same, nearly boilerplate, disclosure of material weaknesses for nine consecutive years. CytoDyn remediated its material weaknesses and determined that ICFR was effective as of May 31, 2017. The Commission's settled order includes violations of Exchange Act Section 13(b)(2)(B) and Rule 13a-15(a), thereunder, and payment of a $35,000 civil penalty.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by members of the Division of Enforcement's Financial Reporting and Audit Group (FRAud Group) including John Archfield, Yolanda Lavery, Tonya Tullis, and Juan Migone, and supervised by Margaret McGuire, Chief of the FRAud Group, and Ms. Hodgman.
Nawazuddin On His Role Ganesh Gaitonde

The actor concluded filming the Africa schedule of the second season and the team will be having their final week-long schedule in Mumbai. About his character, the actor Nawazuddin told Mid-day, "I have left no stone unturned to absorb the nuances of Ganesh Gaitonde."

This Season Will Be The Baap Of The First One

The actor revealed, "This season will be the baap of the first one. Even if people know Ganesh Gaitonde, they won't know what to expect from him. We shot extensively across Mombasa (Kenya), Cape Town and Johannesburg."

When Did He Realise The Impact Of The Show?

He further added, "I realised the impact of the show when I was shooting in Rome, a week after its release. People came up to me to click pictures. My team would show me the memes that were doing the rounds on the Internet."

On His Collaboration With Anurag...

Regarding his association with Anurag Kashyap (director), the actor told the leading daily, "When Anurag is working with me, he is constantly pushing me to break my own boundaries. It comes from familiarity and my ability to go on a rollercoaster with him. As an actor, I am someone who enjoys twirling myself up."
Bigg Boss 12 contestant Karanvir Bohra detaines in Moscow; Here's Why | FilmiBeat

Bigg Boss 12 contestant Karanvir Bohra flew to Moscow on Tuesday afternoon to attend the MacCoffee Bollywood Film Festival, but was detained at the Moscow airport as his passport was damaged. He took to social media to express his anger. The actor tweeted, "So bummed... waiting at #moscowairport coz my passport is a little damaged. They contemplating to deport me back to India. @IndEmbMoscowRus @IndEmbMoscow i wished you would have told me that prior to issuing me the visa. feeling bad for @IndianFilmsRus."

His wife Teejay too tweeted in support of the actor. She wrote, "Indian authorities need to resolve these legal issues before a citizen to leaves India. Other countries are often strict with security protocols. What is one supposed to do after landing in a foreign country?"



Ashok Patel, the representative of Indian students in Russia replied to Karanvir, "Don't worry sir our embassy will sure help you."

His tweet was also noticed by the Indian embassy in Moscow, who replied through their official Twitter handle as, "Embassy officials are in touch with Russian authorities regarding the issue."

According to a source, the damage wasn't caught at the Indian airport. The source was quoted by IANS as saying, "Hence after Karanvir reached Moscow, it was noticed by the Russian immigration officials. While Karanvir has been at the airport for the last four hours, we hear that the Russian embassy, the Indian embassy and a lot of other people are working towards getting the issue sorted and having Karanvir enter the country and attend the festival he was originally there for."

As per the latest report, Karanvir has been issued a temporary passport. He thanked External Affairs of India Sushma Swaraj and Indian Embassy in his tweet. He wrote, "I have no words to thank the @IndEmbMoscow 4 helping me get a brand new temporary passport and a visa.celebrity or no celebrity, I know one thing for sure, we Indians are in very safe hands when we travel abroad... thanks to @SushmaSwaraj and the #IndianEmbassy for their help." (sic)

Most Read: Expect The Unexpected From Ganesh Gaitonde! Nawazuddin Says Sacred Games 2 Is Baap Of Season 1!
Dhruvans Exit

Dhruvan, the Queen fame actor was initially roped in to play a pivotal role in Maamaangam Reportedly, it was the lead actor Mammootty, who suggested Dhruvan for the role. The actor underwent a total image makeover for his role and was also learning Kalarippayattu, as a part of his preparations. According to the actor, it was a production controller who informed him that he's expelled from the project. The team later announced Dhruvan has been replaced by Unni Mukundan.

Sajeev Pillais Take On The Issue

The director of the project, Sajeev Pillai was not informed by the team about Dhruvan's exit. The director later clarified that there have been some minor issues between him and the producer Venu Kunnapilly, due to creative differences. Even though he refrained from commenting on Dhruvan's exit from Maamaangam, the director stated that the young actor had worked hard for his role in the movie, and was just perfect for the character.

The Directors Allegations

Shockingly, Sajeev Pillai later alleged that some members from the production team threatened him to back out from Maamaangam, and even tried to attack him physically. The director later went on to file an official complaint to the DGP of Kerala Police and Chief Minister against the production team of Maamaangam.

Rasool Pookutty Comments On The Issue

The Academy Award-winner who expressed his deep shock over the Maamaangam controversy stated that it is a shame to the entire Malayalam film industry and its creative members. According to Rasool Pookutty, Maamaankam has one of the best screenplays that he came across in 2018. He feels that the project has the potential to take Malayalam cinema to the international standards.

M Padmakumars Entry

Later, it was officially confirmed that Sajeev Pillai has been expelled from the project, and has been replaced by M Padmakumar. Initially, the senior director was reluctant to take up the offer due to the controversies. But later, he was convinced by the members of FEFKA and Producers Association. Recently, there were rumours that M Padmakumar had served as a ghost director in the Mohanlal flick Odiyan, after director VA Shrikumar Menon failed to meet the expectations of the production team.

Producer Venu Kunnappillys Official Statement

Venu Kunnappilly, the producer of the project released an official statement about what went wrong between him and Sajeev Pillai, recently. According to the producer, even though the screenplay is excellent, Sajeev Pillai's lack of experience as a director had badly affected the big budget venture. During the 10-days long test shoot which was held in Mangalore, the director lacked command over his craft and shot a lot of excess footage, which lacked quality.

Cast & Crews Complaints

The team began to complain after the director refused to take suggestions, even from the experienced actors and technicians. According to Venu Kunnappilly, Sajeev Pillai had admitted that he is unable to handle the project and wanted to recruit two experienced associate directors. Later, the team took the footages shot by Sajeev to renowned editor Sreekar Prasad for quality check. But the senior editor confirmed that footages are not usable, as they were of bad quality and extremely slow-paced.

Sajeev Refused To Work With Padmakumar

Later, the team decided to rope in M Padmakumar as the creative director of the project, while retaining Sajeev Pillai as the director. However, the Sajeev refused to work with Padmakumar and insisted on recruiting lesser-known associate directors. When the production team refused to give in, the director himself decided to quit the project. Currently, the team is busy with the second schedule of the project, is planning to complete the shoot by April 2019 with Padmakumar as the sole director.
'I Had Shot Some Beautiful Scenes But Nothing Has Been Retained'

Mishti told Spotboye, "More often than not, every actor's scenes are edited, it's never that everything of everybody is retained. But as an actor, I need to know what I am doing in the film.

I remember refusing Manikarnika on my first meeting with Kamal Jain (producer). I was very hesitant but Kamal Jain told me that it's a great role and my character would be very important in Rani Laxmibai's character (played by Ranaut). He promised me that I would have a lot of promising scenes.

I got convinced, largely due to Krish who was directing the film. I know Krish's body of work and I had been wanting to work with him since a long time. Aur end mein, director bhi nahin raha, role bhi nahi raha (laughs).

I had shot some beautiful scenes but nothing has been retained. I really didn't want to be an insignificant part of a significant film. I may not have a strong presence in Bollywood but I am doing some very good work in films of other languages."

'I Would Have Probably Not Done Manikarnika If I Knew Kangana Would Direct'

"I am not very well-connected in the industry. I really don't know what happened. I did speak to Krish after he gave you an interview, though. I learnt that Kangana had become the decision-maker.

But don't I have a choice of whom to work with and whom to not work with? If I was told from the beginning that Kangana will be the director, I would've probably not done Manikarnika."

'Kangana Could Have Been A Great Director'

"She could have been a great director. But now, listen. Actors are known to be self-obsessed. But if I am directing a film, I would think of myself as an actor wouldn't I?

That's natural and I am not blaming her for that. It's just that I wish that I had been informed about what all was happening. She has made a great movie and acted well."

'Kangana Told Me, "You Are Like My Sister'

"I had allotted dates to a film down South, when Kangana came to me and told me: You are like a sister to me in the film, my best friend. You can chose to not give me dates but it's an actor's loss on your side".

Pray, what does that mean? And you know what! Kamal Jain called me to say that he had decided to increase my role in the film."

'I Cannot Be Happy With Two Close-Ups & A Song'

"Later when I saw the film, I was shocked. I came to the conclusion that they needed extra dates from me to shoot insignificant scenes and they can chop the important scenes they had shot with me earlier, and match it up accordingly. It was like they needed my dates for patchwork.

I am an actor. I don't want my clothes and shoes to be talked about. I cannot be happy with two close-ups and a song. I want my acting to be talked about. Lekin yahan toh, not just my acting scenes but even my fighting scenes were chopped."

Does She Regret Being A Part Of Manikarnika?

To this Mishti said, "I can't say it was a mistake. The film was about a great leader, Rani Laxmibai. But haan, I deserved much better in Manikarnika as an actor.

This film is from history. Every hero or heroine from history has other unsung heroes or heroines around him/her. You need to tell their story too, their interactions with the protagonist.

Moreover, if you're showing history, you need to sketch other characters clear. Okay, consider the scene where Manikarnika is giving me her child. Why is she giving me her child if I have not been established as an important person in the film, there's no bonding shown between the two of us?

Mujhe kyun bachcha de rahio, kisi maid ko de doh, it just wasn't justified. Still, I will not take away the fact that there are brilliant moments in the film and there are no two opinions about that."

'You Cannot Be Obsessed On Only One Character If You Claim To Be A Director'

An actor can be obsessed with him/herself. I think it is in fact necessary for an actor to be obsessed so that he tries to outdo others.

But a director? If you claim to be a director, you certainly cannot be obsessed and concentrate on only one character, you have to be unbiased."

'Kangana Just Did The Patchwork & The Chopping Part'

Mishti further revealed, "According to me, Kangana did just the patchwork and the chopping part.Patchwork and the editing part (laughs). But I can't be sure on that as I was not there in all the scenes. But I still know for a fact that Krish had shot a major part of the movie.

Aur haan, I was not even informed that Kangana will start directing and Krrish won't any further.

I came to know it from outside. I spoke to Jain about it and he took it very funnily, saying, "Kya aapko koi problem hai?" Now if you change the director midway, agar actor ko problem nahin hoga to kisko hoga?"
Power couple Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli celebrated their anniversary in Perth last month, and are currently in New Zealand for the ongoing India-New Zealand ODI series. In a clip from an interview, which has now gone viral, Virat talks about the little things that they do together, which keeps their bond strong. He said that they love to do normal things like going for walks and spending time away from the public eye. He said it's the simplest things that give them joy.
Gov. Jim Justice, somewhat belatedly, has come around to admit that the states vaccination effort has hit a wall and that, at its current pace, we will not reach herd immunity anytime soon.
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.
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British businesses that wish to place a new pesticide on the EU market in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit will need to make a separate application to the EU, a process which could take up to three years.

New government guidance has been issued this week by Defra which encourages the pesticides industry to prepare for the possible event of a 'no deal' EU exit.

Businesses that produce pesticides will need to take different actions to be able to supply new pesticides to the UK and EU markets in the event of such a scenario.

However, Defra has highlighted how the 'high scientific standard' to which decisions on the use of pesticides are made will not change.

"We will continue to be guided by the most up-to-date scientific assessment of the risks to animals and the environment," the department said in a statement.

If the UK leaves the EU on 29 March without a deal, pesticides currently available in the UK at the point of exit will continue to be so, allowing products to be marketed and used as normal.

Future Plant Protection Products (PPPs) applications for use and renewals in the UK will continue to be considered by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), on behalf of Defra and the devolved administrations.

The format and data requirements for new applications will remain the same as they do now.

However, yhe key change would be that if a business wishes to place a new pesticide on the EU market they will need to make a separate application to the EU, a process which could take up to three years.

If the UK leaves the EU with a deal there will be an Implementation Period (IP) during which the UK will continue to follow decisions made by the EU on pesticide approvals and Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).

The key difference for businesses is that, during the IP, the UK will not be able to act as a leading authority under the EU regime and the HSE will be unable to conduct active substance or MRL evaluations.

Therefore, businesses wishing to supply new pesticides to the UK and/or EU markets would need to make an application to a competent authority in an EU Member State.
Maximus, Inc. provides business process services (BPS) to government health and human services programs worldwide. It operates through three segments: U.S. Services, U.S. Federal Services, and Outside the U.S. The U.S. Services segment offers various BPS solutions, such as program administration, appeals and assessments, and related consulting works for U.S. state and local government programs, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, child support programs, Preadmission Screening and Resident Reviews, and Independent Developmental Disability assessments. This segment also provides program eligibility support and enrollment; centralized multilingual customer contact centers, multichannel, and digital self-service options for enrollment; application assistance and independent health plan choice counseling; beneficiary outreach, education, eligibility, enrollment, and redeterminations; person-centered independent disability, long-term sick, and other health assessments; and specialized consulting services. The U.S. Federal Services segment offers centralized citizen engagement centers and support services; document and record management; case management, citizen support, and consumer education; independent medical reviews and worker's compensation benefit appeals; Medicare and Medicaid appeals; and federal marketplace eligibility appeals. This segment also provides modernization of systems and information technology infrastructure; infrastructure operations and support services; software development, operations, and management services; and data analytics services. The Outside the U.S. segment offers BPS solutions for governments and commercial clients outside the United States, including health and disability assessments, program administration for employment services, and other job seeker-related services. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.

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I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

Puxin Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides K-12 and study-abroad tutoring services in the People's Republic of China. Its K-12 tutoring services offer result-oriented educational services in various forms, such as classroom-based after-school tutoring, full-time tutoring for preparation of university entrance exams, and art college admission exams, as well as online courses in a large-class setting to help students enhance their academic results through group class and personalized tutoring courses; full-time tutoring services to high school students preparing for university entrance exams and art college admission exams; after-school tutoring services in group class settings and through personalized sessions; personalized K-12 tutoring courses to adapt to each student's learning pace, pattern, and approach; and extracurricular courses, such as painting, calligraphy, and science. The company's study-abroad tutoring services helps students to prepare for admission tests and applications for high schools, universities, and graduate programs primarily in English-speaking countries through study-abroad test preparation courses and study-abroad consulting services. It also provides web-based platforms and mobile apps for K-12 tutoring services; and cloud-based products and services for K-12 tutoring and study-abroad tutoring services. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 407 learning centers, which include 328 K-12 and 79 study-abroad learning centers. The company offers its products under the Puxin, Puxin-Lingxian, Puxin-YESSAT, Puxin-Fubusi, and ZMN Education brands, as well as operates franchised schools under the Global Education brand. Puxin Limited was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.

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The following companies are subsidiares of CIT Group: 1143986 Ontario Limited, 1244771 Ontario Limited, 3918041 Canada Inc., 544211 Alberta Ltd., 555565 Alberta Ltd., 555566 Alberta Ltd., Baliardo Limited, C.I.T. Leasing Corporation, C2 Aviation Capital LLC, CBG LJB 21 LLC, CCERU Finance LP, CFHE Funding Company LLC, CIT Aerospace (Australia) Pty Ltd, CIT Aerospace Asia Pte Ltd., CIT Aerospace Belgium Sprl, CIT Aerospace Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, CIT Aerospace Holdings (France) SAS, CIT Aerospace International, CIT Aerospace International (Aruba) A.V.V., CIT Aerospace International (Australia) Pty Ltd., CIT Aerospace International (Bermuda) Limited, CIT Aerospace International (France) Sarl, CIT Aerospace International Leasing II, CIT Aerospace LLC, CIT Aerospace Sweden AB, CIT Asset Management LLC, CIT Aviation Finance I (France) Sarl, CIT Aviation Finance I (Ireland) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance I (UK) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance I Ltd., CIT Aviation Finance II (France) Sarl, CIT Aviation Finance II (Ireland) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance II (UK) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance II Ltd., CIT Aviation Finance III Ltd., CIT Bank N.A., CIT CBK Funding Company LLC, CIT CBK Funding Inc., CIT CLO Holding Corporation, CIT CLO I Blocker Inc., CIT CLO I LLC, CIT CLO I Ltd., CIT Canada Finance LP, CIT Canada Finance ULC, CIT Capital Aviation (UK) Limited, CIT Capital Finance (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Capital Securities LLC, CIT Capital USA Inc., CIT Cayman Coconut Palm Leasing Ltd., CIT Cayman Sandy Keys Leasing Ltd., CIT Communications Finance Corporation, CIT Credit Group USA Inc., CIT Equipment Finance (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT FSC Eighteen Ltd., CIT FSC Nineteen Ltd., CIT Finance & Leasing (Tianjin) Corporation, CIT Finance & Leasing Corporation, CIT Finance LLC, CIT Financial (Alberta) ULC / Services Financiers CIT (Alberta) ULC, CIT Financial (Barbados) SRL, CIT Financial (Hong Kong) Limited, CIT Financial II (Barbados) Srl, CIT Financial Ltd./Services Financiers CIT Ltee., CIT Financial USA Inc., CIT Funding (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Funding Company LLC, CIT Funding LLC, CIT Funds LLC, CIT Group (Hungary) Financial Servicing Limited Liability Company "under voluntary dissolution", CIT Group (NFL) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group (NJ) LLC, CIT Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd (In Members' Voluntary Liquidation), CIT Group (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group Finance (Ireland), CIT Group Holding (Germany) GmbH i.L., CIT Group Holdings (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group Holdings B.V., CIT Group Inc., CIT Group Italy Srl in liquidazione, CIT Group SF Holding Co. Inc., CIT Healthcare LLC, CIT Holdings (Barbados) SRL, CIT Holdings B.V., CIT Holdings Canada ULC, CIT Home Lending Securitization Company LLC, CIT Insurance Agency Inc., CIT Leasing (Bermuda) Ltd., CIT Leasing (Germany) GmbH i.L., CIT Lending Services Corporation, CIT Lending Services Corporation (Illinois), CIT Loan Corporation, CIT Malaysia One Inc., CIT Maritime Leasing LLC, CIT Mezzanine Partners of Canada Limited, CIT Millbury Inc., CIT Rail Holdings (Europe) SAS, CIT Rail LLC, CIT Railcar Funding Company LLC, CIT Small Business Lending Corporation, CIT Strategic Finance Inc., CIT TRS Funding B.V., CIT TRS Holdings B.V., CIT TRS Subsidiary B.V., CIT Technology Financing Services Inc., CIT Trade Finance Funding Company LLC, CIT Transportation Holdings B.V., CRE CT 21 OTHER LLC, CRE CT 27 OTHER LLC, CRE FFBC LLC, CRE LJ 21 OTHER LLC, CRE LJ 27 OTHER LLC, CRE LJ 4800 Riverside LLC, CRE LJ CA 2 LLC, CRE LJ CA LLC, CRE LJ CP ESCONDIDO LLC, CRE LJ TX LLC, Canadian Income Partners I Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners II Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners III Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners IV Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners V Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VI Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VII Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VIII Limited Partnership, Capita Corporation, Capital Direct Group Inc., Centennial Aviation (Bermuda) 1 Ltd., Centennial Aviation (France) 1 SARL, Centennial Aviation (France) 2 SARL, Centennial Aviation (Ireland) 7 Limited, Direct Capital Corporation, Direct Capital Funding III Company LLC, Direct Capital Funding V LLC, Education Loan Servicing Corporation, Emerald Funding (Netherlands) C.V., Emerald Holdings C.V., Financial Freedom Acquisition LLC, IMV 11 PALM LLC, INDYMAC VENTURE LLC, Jessica Leasing Designated Activity Company, MEX CIT SERVICIOS S. de R.L. de C.V., Madeleine Leasing Designation Activity Company, Memphis Peaking Power LLC, Millennium Leasing Company I LLC, Millennium Leasing Company II LLC, NACCO (U.K.) Limited, NACCO GmbH, NACCO Rail Ireland Limited, NACCO S.A.S, Nacco Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Newcourt Financial Espana S.A., North Romeo Storage Corporation, ONEWEST VENTURES HOLDINGS LLC, OWB REO LLC, OneWest Bank N.A, OneWest Investments II LLC, OneWest Investments LLC, OneWest Resources LLC, PL Servicing LLC, Rita Leasing Designated Activity Company, The CIT GP Corporation III, The CIT Group Securitization Corporation II, The CIT Group/Business Credit Inc., The CIT Group/Commercial Services Inc., The CIT Group/Corporate Aviation Inc., The CIT Group/Equipment Financing Inc., The CIT Group/Equity Investments Inc., The Capita Corporation do Brasil Ltda, The Equipment Insurance Company, and Worrell Capital Limited.
When you have temps that are dipping in the minus category and have to go to work or have little ones, it's enticing to turn the car on, she said. You may do it five or six times and get away with it, but you are creating an opportunity for a criminal. Your car may be stolen.
Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. In 1999, her groundbreaking, award-winning novel Speak opened the door for a national dialogue about rape culture and consent. Now, 20 years later, she reveals her personal history as a rape survivor in a searing new poetic memoir, SHOUT (on sale March 12, 2019).

Anderson will kick off her nationwide book tour for SHOUT at the Fairfield University Bookstore Downtown, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield, (203) 255-7756 on Monday, March 11, at 7 p.m. This event is ticketed; for details, please visit www.fairfieldbookstore.com. Discounted rates are available for students with a current ID. This event is for mature audiences only; children under 13 will not be admitted.

An iconic and seminal work of literature, Speak garnered countless awards and accolades, including a National Book Award finalist citation and a Printz Honor. It was later adapted into a movie starring Kristen Stewart. It remains revered and controversial, appearing on high school curriculums across the country and on the American Library Associations most-banned-books list.

In SHOUT, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that shes never written about before, including her own experience with sexual assault and her steps to healing.

The Fairfield University Bookstore, located in the heart of downtown Fairfield, is operated by the Follett Higher Education Group and proudly serves the Fairfield Community, Fairfield University and beyond. For more Bookstore events please visit us at www.fairfieldbookstore.com, www.facebook.com/FairfieldUBookstore and on Instagram & Twitter at @FairfieldUBooks.

Happiness Club to meet Feb. 14

The next presentation is: The Power Of Happiness! By Lionel Ketchian. Attend this meeting and you will acquire the knowledge and skills for being happy.

Happiness Can Benefit All Of Us. Come and take part in getting valuable tools and techniques for making your life the best it can be. Suffered enough? Do you really need to suffer anymore? Are you ready to learn to Be Happy? Being Happy will help you, suffer less and evolve spiritually. Master these strategies to lessen your suffering. External events are difficult for us. Without the right tools to deal with the turbulence you experience unhappiness in life. Your happiness will empower you and keep you on track. You now have the opportunity of learning to keep your happiness no matter what.

Date & Time: Thursday, Feb. 14, from 7-8:45 p.m.

Place: the Fairfield Public Library, 1080 Old Post Road.

Everyone is welcome; admission is free. Meet some wonderful people using happiness in their lives. Learn to have the peace of mind you need and experience happiness now.

For further info e-mail PrintLRK@aol.com, call 203-258-7777 or www.HappinessClub.com.

Book Talk & Signing

The Historical Society of Easton welcomes back author and historian Marty Podskoch on Sunday Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. to present his newest book, The Connecticut 169 Club: Your Passport and Guide to Exploring Connecticut at the Easton Public Librarys Community Room, 691 Morehouse Road, Easton. His new travel book encourages travelers to visit all of the towns and villages of our beautiful and unique state.

Marty Podskoch was a teacher in the Catskills before moving to Connecticut in 2005. Doing research for a previous book, Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: History, Memories & Legacy of the CCC which was published in 2016, he traveled to over 100 towns in CT. As he traveled throughout the state he marveled at the great diversity of villages, cities, rivers, lakes, mountains, and seashores. He realized that most of the residents of the state had not traveled as widely as he had and he wanted them to explore this beautiful state.

He created a book to be a guide and a passport. Podskoch contacted someone from each town to write a short description highlighting their towns location, history, and interesting places to visit. Podskoch did this because local residents knew more about their town than he. The book has a space for travelers to journal about their experiences and a place to get the book stamped or signed by a resident or business. Travelers will get to know the locals and perhaps learn about a good place to eat or an interesting local attraction. In this way they get to know a lot about Connecticut and its residents.

There is no membership fee, just a desire to experience all of Connecticut. Adults and children of all ages can be members.

After Podskochs talks he and some of the writers and co-writers of the book will be available for a book signing. The hard cover 8.5 X 11 book has 376 pages with hundreds of photos & maps and sells for $24.95. All are welcome to attend the talk.

While the lecture is free to all to attend, donations are always welcome and greatly appreciated to support the Historical Societys efforts and future events. For more information please visit the website: www.historicalsocietyofeastonct.org, phone: 203-292-3533, and email: hseastonct@gmail.com.

Scout Troop Supper

Fairfields Scout Troops 88 & 188 will host their fundraising supper, Saturday, February 9, 6 to 8 p.m.

Location: Fairfield Grace United Methodist Church, 1089 Fairfield Woods Road, Fairfield.

Enjoy an all-you-can-eat feast of spaghetti or penne with marinara and our homemade, Italian-style meatballs, along with bread, salad, drinks and dessert, all crafted and served to you family-style by your favorite Scouts.

Adults - $15; Seniors & Children (aged 5 to 12) - $10; Children under 5 - free

Proceeds from the event subsidize Scout activities throughout the year.

Reservations requested, contact: Sharol Harwood, 203-526-4315, sharols@aol.com
STAMFORD  Trinity Catholic High School held a ceremony to dedicate its new facilities Wednesday.

Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport went to Trinity to bless the schools new classrooms, labs, offices and media center and a new statue of the Virgin Mary which will be placed in the foyer. Caggiano went around the new areas of the school to bless them during an hour-long ceremony that was broadcast on Facebook Live via cameras placed around the school.

Attending the ceremony were nearly 500 students, administrators and guests who watched the blessing occur on a big screen broadcast in the auditorium. A youth choir from the Catholic Academy of Stamford sang and students read prayers and other readings.

Trinity is indeed proud of its glorious past, said Trinity Catholic Head of School Pat Brady. But today, we look to the future and reimagine an even greater impact than ever before.

The $5 million renovation project was completely recently after two years.

erin.kayata@stamfordadvocate.com
STAMFORD  The bench trial of a man charged with felony misconduct with a motor vehicle began Tuesday with the husband of the woman killed in the accident taking the stand.

Rafael Escobar-Acosta said after he and his wife were struck by a Ford Explorer on Hope Street, the driver of the Ford, Victor Medina-Fajardo, 37, of Stamford, jumped out of the vehicle and came running over to him.

Under questioning by Medina-Fajardos defense attorney, Darnell Crosland, Escobar-Acosta said he never even saw the car that hit him at about 7:30 a.m. on Oct., 18, 2014.

After striking Escobar-Acosta, the Ford Explorer also struck his wife, Angela Lopez, pinning her against a food truck the two were filling with gasoline.

Right after the accident, Escobar-Acosta testified that Medina-Fajardo got out of the Ford screaming and holding his face saying, What did I do? What did I do? I killed somebody.

Escobar-Acosta, 32, explained he and his wife had run out of gas while heading northbound and pulled the food truck over on Hope Street, as far to the right as he could. He then got gas and, with his wife, was about to refuel the truck when the accident happened.

According to the Stamford police departments Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad, Medina-Fajardo said he was working an overnight shift delivering newspapers. He said while driving southbound  he thought on Hope Street  he was getting too close to the vehicles on the right and moved over a little as he came up to where the crash happened at the intersection of Hyde Street.

But that did not explain why Medina Fajardo went so far over the double yellow line and into the northbound lane. Under further questioning, Medina-Fajardo said he remembered seeing the food truck, but did not remember hitting it.

Then Medina-Fajardo said he may have actually fallen asleep at the wheel. He said he had been working since midnight and he usually sleeps a few hours before his shift. But on the night before the crash, he was talking to his wife by telephone in Peru and did not get any sleep, according to Medina-Fajardos arrest affidavit.

Walking through the scene, the investigating officers found a large amount of body fat and body material on the ground near the impact between the two vehicles. The force of the impact between the two vehicles was enough to tear or rupture the flesh enough that body fat or other bodily material from below the skin was expelled in the surrounding area, the affidavit said.

Lopez, 34, was pronounced dead at Stamford Hospital two hours after the crash.

Medina-Fajardo was released following his arrest after posting a $5,000 court appearance bond.

The trial, which does not involve a jury and is being decided by Judge Richard Comerford, continues Wednesday. Senior Assistant States Attorney Mitchell Ruben is prosecuting the case for the state.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
STAMFORD  Board of Education members have criticized central office staff for lacking transparency following a disagreement over a movie contract.

At a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday night, Superintendent Earl Kim mentioned the district was in discussion with its legal team to craft an agreement to potentially allow a Norwalk film crew in to make a documentary about Stamford Public Schools.

The announcement was met with displeasure from some school board members who previously had expressed concerns over a lack of editorial control on the product and student privacy.

When the topic was first broached in November, board members asked administrators to wait on allowing the crew in until they got more information. But at the meeting this week, Kim said he was speaking with the legal team about an agreement that would account for board members reservations, but not need their approval.

Im concerned this is still proceeding, said board member Betsy Allyn, who initially expressed concerns about the project. My understanding at the end of that meeting was it was not proceeding. We expressed a lot of discomfort with it. I dont even know how were still having meetings without the approval of the board.

Allyn said the project proceeding  even with the boards concerns in mind  is symbolic of a larger problem of school board members being kept out of the loop on important topics. The issue was something previously addressed in Kims evaluation from September in which it was suggested the superintendent be more transparent especially when it comes to finances.

Im very disappointed, Allyn said. This goes back to what I feel is a lack of transparency coming from Mr. Kim and central office. We continually get blinded by this team, Mr. Kim specifically and his central office team. It wouldve been nice to have a conversation  it shouldve just been clear.

Allyn was not the only board member with thoughts on the contract, which isnt official and is still open to discussion. Jackie Pioli, who had been elected to the board at the time of the November discussion but not yet sworn in, was not offered the chance to give input on the arrangement.

My concern is I dont know what guidance was sent to legal, she said.

On the flip side, board member Antoine Savage said he was contacted after the November meeting and asked for his input.

I dont feel anything was withheld from us as a board, he said.

This was not the first time this month board members have been caught off guard by a new school program. Earlier in January, it was announced to the board that Stamford High School and Westhill High School would be switching to four-period daily block scheduling. Once again, it was Allyn who spoke out about the lack of board involvement in the decision.

It was disappointing to some of our board members to have you this far down the road before this came back to the board and get our feedback, Allyn said at the time. For any change to be really successful, you have to get the voice of those people the change is going to be (affecting) and get their buy-in. Do you think youve done that and do you think youll be able to do that by the first day of school? To me, sitting here, that makes me a little anxious.

erin.kayata@stamfordadvocate.com; (203) 964-2265; @erin_kayata
BRIDGEPORT  A new city school bus contract remains in limbo after one school board member  upset with restrictions the pact placed on drivers  got up and abruptly left a meeting, leaving his colleagues without a quorum and unable to seal the deal.

Board member Chris Taylor objected to wording in the contract that would prohibit the hiring of school bus drivers who have been convicted of certain crimes or faced civil judgments for actions that suggest they are litigious, irresponsible, lacking in moral character, or would not be appropriate for working with minors in a school environment.

Although the language was inserted into the contract by the city attorneys office and is aligned with state law, Taylor called it a deal breaker for him.

This is just giving them the right to disqualify anybody they dont want to work for them, Taylor said. It is racism at its best and this board is going to let that go?

The language essentially applies existing standards used for school employees to school bus drivers hired by We Transport, which has had the districts school bus business since 2010.

The main objective is to keep individuals guilty of crimes against children off buses.

Taylor said he has no problem with that but as an ex-offender himself  he has three past misdemeanor convictions  he wants others with criminal histories to get the chance at decent paying jobs.

Other urged passage of the three-year contract extension while clarification from the city attorneys office could be sought.

Board member Maria Pereira called the negotiated price amazing. The contract cost increases a total of 3.96 over three years, adding about $718,000 to the $18 million contract. In exchange the district has been promised 15 new buses in the first year, and 25 new buses in each of following two years of the contract.

The negotiated deal is less than what We Transport bid on the contract.

At no additional cost, We Transport agreed to provide a van with car seats to transport students and their children to the new early childhood program at Harding. It was reportedly a request from Schools Superintendent Aresta Johnson.

Chief Financial Officer Marlene Siegel urged the board to approve the contract because the new buses the district is to receive for 2019-20 will include wheelchair units and could take months to be delivered.

With no vote could delay the process, she said.

As she spoke however, Taylor started collecting his things and left the meeting, leaving the board with just four members. Five is required for a quorum.

Board Chairman John Weldon asked Johnson and Siegel if the contractor could be told the board agrees with the rates but needs a minor clarification of the contract language. Without a quorum, the board could not vote.

Earlier in the evening the board also delayed action on a contract extension for Delta T which provides special education aide substitutes.

The issue there were not the terms of the deal but a new, voluntary survey presented to the board that showed how well school principals liked the service. Of 25 principals surveyed, only six responded.

Taylor suggested if the survey came from the superintendents office and not the contractor, more principals may have all filled it out.

Do we know principals even received it, said Board Member Joseph Sokolovic.

While others suggested that could be something to do going forward, the board voted 5-to-1 to wait until Feb. 11, to hear from more principals.
GREENWICH  When the Rev. Monsignor Alan Detscher officially retires as pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Church on Wednesday, he will miss many things about his 23-year tenure at the Riverside parish.

But one stands out above all others  the people.

Its a privilege, said the 73-year-old priest. I get to share in the most intimate parts of peoples lives  the times of joy and the times of sorrow. The parish has become my family.

Detscher celebrated his last Mass as pastor on Sunday, then a concert and reception were held in his honor with many of the 2,200 families who worship at the church. In recent weeks  as he packed his things for his move to Queen of Clergy residence for retired priests in Stamford  Detscher had time to reflect on his legacy to the faithful.

Born in Greenwich, the middle child of three, Detscher attended Byram Elementary School and Greenwich High School. In addition to his studies, he spent many hours working in the family business, Detschers Variety Bakery, a Greenwich mainstay for more than 40 years.

Yes, I worked there, he said. Thats where I learned Lava soap and bleach gets your fingers clean.

While in high school, he dreamed of studying biology and medicine. But Detscher also served Mass regularly and felt he had a calling to the priesthood.

I wanted to be a surgeon actually, but I finally got won out, he said with a smile. My mother was a Methodist, but she was happy. She said, We only want you to do what will make you happy.

Ordained a priest in 1971, he spent a year as associate pastor of St. Peter Church in Bridgeport before becoming a longtime secretary to the bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, then the Most Rev. Walter Curtis. Over the years, Detscher held leadership roles in several diocesan parishes in Stamford, Fairfield and Bridgeport.

He later spent 11 years in Washington, D.C., holding national posts, such as executive director of the Secretariat for Liturgy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Along the way, Detscher traveled to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome to earn two of his three degrees in liturgy, a topic he holds dear.

Its fitting, Detscher said, that he eventually found his home leading a parish because of his love of the profound beauty of the Mass. When asked about his legacy at St. Catherine, hes quick to mention the fine music program and the thoughtful way the priests approach the liturgy.

Because of my background, thats important to me the liturgy. That we do it well, said Detscher, who has authored and edited many publications on the topic. And Ive also tried to be welcoming to people. I cant change church laws, but I can be welcoming.

I try to follow the example of Pope Francis: I deal with people as individuals, not as members of a group.

The Rev. William Platt, who will be installed as the eighth pastor of St. Catherine on Feb. 3, said Detscher is a priests priest.

He is a model of what it is to be a priest, Platt said. Hes there for people 24/7. If hes asked to do something for the church, he has no regard for his own personal expense or investment. He immediately responds to the need.

Hes a very humble man, but his accomplishments are great.

Over the years, Detscher has presided over the construction of a chapel and the renovation of all six parish buildings. Though he was well trained in theology and church history, the seminary doesnt teach its students much about the day-to-day goings on at a parish. Along the way, hes learned a thing or two about building a staff, budgeting and other more earthly concerns.

Detscher credits his fellow priests, the parish advisory group, staff, finance council and parish trustees for helping to keep the busy parish on an even keel. He has also forged bonds with other houses of worship in town, learning and sharing with clergy of different faiths.

Hes just a good and loving man. Hes a brilliant liturgist and an extremely fine homilist, said Jean Marie Baker, a parish trustee since before Detscher arrived at St. Catherine. But we often forget a pastor has to be a good manager. Hes managed it beautifully, and it couldnt have been easy.

Detscher said he is retiring in part because arthritis in his neck is affecting his balance. Im doing what I like doing, but Im not doing it as well as I like, he said.

In retirement, he expects to continue his liturgical studies, and he hopes to assist parishes when hes needed and celebrate Mass from time to time. After nearly 50 years of serving others, there will be one difference.

If I need to, I will have the freedom to say no, he said.
STAMFORD  John Mallozzi, the citys former Democratic Party chief, was arrested Wednesday on charges of absentee ballot fraud in the 2015 municipal election. He allegedly forged ballots for relatives, Spanish-speaking residents and Albanian-Americans new to the election system, according to the States Attorneys Office.

Mallozzi was charged with 14 counts each of filing false statements and second-degree forgery. He turned himself in to Stamford police on the charges, both Class D felonies punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000 per count.

Bail was set at $50,000.

Mallozzi, a longtime figure in city politics, chaired the Stamford Democratic City Committee from 2012 to 2016, and was a member of the Democratic State Central Committee. He played a key role in Mayor David Martins 2013 election victory.

Investigators with the States Attorneys Office in Stamford allege that Mallozzis handwriting matched that of signatures on 14 absentee ballots assigned to voters who said they never requested them.

According to the arrest affidavit, the town clerks office wrote Mallozzis initials on 34 ballot applications to indicate they went to him. A state forensic scientist determined that 14 of the resulting ballots were fraudulent, the affidavit states.

States Attorney Richard J. Colangelo Jr. said the probe was limited to the one election, in which Stamford voters chose city representatives and members of the finance and school boards.

We investigated the 2015 election, Colangelo said Wednesday. Anything prior to that, there were no records for us to look at.

Good faith

Mallozzis attorney, Stephan Seeger, said his client is taking the allegations very seriously.

Mr. Mallozzi has fully cooperated, honoring all of the states attorneys requests for assistance in the investigation, Seeger said by email. He has been an active participant in community politics for three decades, and has faced these allegations head-on from the outset, because he believes in the system and its inherent fairness.

Allegations of election irregularities in our current political climate stir up deep-seated emotions, Seeger said. Accordingly, this case could easily be misunderstood as one involving an attempt to skew election results, or gain an unfair advantage. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Rather, Mallozzis conduct was cloaked in good faith, Seeger said.

That is why any irregularity for which he has been charged does not rise to the level of criminal conduct, he said. If you take a look at the whole picture, it becomes clear that absentee ballot procedures lend themselves to what might be referred to as procedural complacencies.

Mallozzi will plead not guilty to the charges and will continue to work with Colangelos office toward a fair resolution, Seeger said.

And if there is a silver lining in any of this, the absentee ballot procedures will be revisited and tightened, rules with oversight will lead toward increased election integrity instead of suspicion, he said.

Good friend

Martin, a Democrat, said in a statement that Mallozzi has been his good friend for 35 years.

I do not know  and it is not my place to say  if John is guilty of the charges against him; I leave that responsibility to the state and the judicial process, the mayor said. I can only hope  for the friendship Ive had with John and for the sanctity of our citys elections  that these charges are not true. Voting is one of the most sacred processes in our democracy and I hope these charges will lead to renewed faith in our societys belief in democracy and justice.

Josh Fedeli, who succeeded Mallozzi as the head of the Democratic City Committee, said the party cooperated fully with the investigation by Colangelos office.

This is not a systemic problem within the party, Fedeli said. There was never a time when the Democratic Party was in question, or when the party as an entity was found to have done something wrong. This was the result of the actions of one individual. Any and all wrongdoing should be brought to our attention, and we hold the rights of voters to be most paramount in the democratic process.

Since the investigation came to light, the party has had training sessions to ensure that members understand the proper handling of absentee ballots, Fedeli said.

We put processes in place in subsequent elections to ensure there were no issues. We implemented them in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 elections, he said.

The 2015 election was strictly municipal. Stamford voters cast ballots to fill five open seats on the Board of Representatives, five on the Board of Education, and three on the Board of Finance. Only 20 percent of Stamford voters showed up at the polls.

Absentee effect

Information from Stamfords registrars of voters shows that 708 votes were cast by absentee ballot in the 2015 election. They accounted for 6 percent of the total 11,858 votes.

But, because turnout was so low, the small number of absentee ballots had the potential to influence individual races.

In the Board of Representatives races, for example, Democratic incumbent Michael Briscoe of District 17 was declared the winner, defeating Republican Jon Hoch by one vote. A recount, however, declared Hoch the winner by one vote.

On the Board of Finance, Democrat David Kooris beat the next-highest vote-getter, Republican Dennis Mahoney, by 99 votes. The difference in their absentee-ballot votes, 351 for Kooris and 242 for Mahoney, was 109  enough to turn the race.

Fritz Blau, chairman of Stamfords Republican Town Committee, said he looks at the bigger picture.

Lets see where the investigation goes, and if theres a trial. It has to go through the process, Blau said. But if people are going to put their trust in the democratic process, they cant have this overriding concern that their vote doesnt count because someone came in and did something illegal.

Voted twice?

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, the alleged fraud was uncovered when Stamford Republican Registrar of Voters Lucy Corelli contacted the State Elections Enforcement Commission to report that a Stamford man, Shkadran Hoti, had voted twice in the 2015 election  once by absentee ballot and once at the polls.

Hoti told investigators that on Election Day 2015 he was rejected at his District 8 polling place in the Cove by a monitor who told him the record showed hed already voted by absentee ballot. Hoti said he had not. The monitor allowed Hoti to vote after Hoti filled out a form attesting that he did not vote by absentee.

Donna Loglisci, the town clerk at the time, checked and found an absentee ballot application and a ballot in Hotis name, but the signatures on those did not match the signature on Hotis voter registration card.

State Elections Enforcement Commission officials investigated, and in May 2017 contacted the States Attorneys Office in Stamford to report that Mallozzi orchestrated the submission of possibly 29 fraudulent absentee ballot applications and 26 fraudulent absentee ballots to the town clerks office, the arrest affidavit states.

Inspectors with the states attorneys office sent the documents with Hotis signature to the states Division of Scientific Services Laboratory, where an analyst determined that the signatures on the ballot package were not Hotis.

Initial tags

Using state voter registration records, inspectors found another Stamford man, Isen Hoti, who was reported to have voted by absentee ballot but claimed he had not. Isen Hotis signature also did not match the signatures on his absentee ballot package.

Inspectors found that the town clerks office had written initials on the ballot applications and on the ballots for both Hoti men indicating they were given to Mallozzi, according to the affidavit.

Inspectors requested all ballot sets with Mallozzis initials on them. Loglisci found 34 applications and 27 ballots.

Loglisci then gave a sworn statement saying Mallozzi told her sometime before the 2015 election that several Stamford voters had asked him to deliver their absentee ballot applications to her office, then bring them ballots. Once the applications were processed and the ballots were prepared, Mallozzi told Loglisci either he or his representative would pick up the ballots and deliver them to the voters, according to the affidavit.

Loglisci, a Republican, agreed. In 2017 sources close to the investigation told Hearst Connecticut Media that Loglisci routinely provided blank absentee ballots to political-party workers. State law requires that the ballots go directly to voters. Loglisci, who failed in her 2017 re-election bid for town clerk, has not been charged.

Writing samples

According to the affidavit, Mallozzi refused to cooperate with state election officials, but hired Seeger and agreed to be interviewed by the states attorneys office.

Of the 34 applications investigated, seven were in Spanish, five were for members of Mallozzis family and 22 were for Stamford residents of Albanian descent, most of whom were recently registered voters, according to the affidavit.

Many of the signatures (on the ballot applications) appear to be a similar style of writing, the affidavit states.

Twelve people told investigators they did not complete a ballot application, receive a ballot or even vote in the 2015 election.

In March 2018, Mallozzi and his attorney went to the states attorneys office to provide handwriting samples, according to the affidavit.

On Jan. 10 a state forensic science analyst determined that signatures on 14 absentee ballots share common authorship with the handwriting samples provided by Mallozzi, according to the affidavit. None of the 14 voters whose names were on the ballots had requested them, the affidavit states.

Mallozzi is scheduled to be arraigned in Stamford Superior Court Feb. 11.

acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296.
The Serbian Ministry for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure has allocated funds to subsidise the launch of ten new routes from Nis Constantine the Great Airport. The Serbian government will adopt new regulation tomorrow for the introduction of Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights from the south-east Serbian city. Furthermore, the government will determine ten European points which will be linked with Nis under the PSO contract, after which it will launch tender procedures for each, with airlines to be invited to submit their bids. "We expect for Air Serbia to take part in the public call, which will be open to all airlines", Zoran Ilic, the Assistant Minister for Transport, said.





Public Service Obligation flights are applied throughout the European Union and are imposed on routes which are vital for the economic development of the region they serve but are essentially loss making. If no carrier is interested in operating a particular service, the state may restrict access to the route to a single air carrier and compensate its operational losses. The EU stipulates that the operator must be chosen through a public tender. Within the former Yugoslavia, Croatia has PSO contracts in place for several domestic routes. The ten new services from Nis Airport are expected to be launched this year.





Nis Airport is currently served by three airlines - Wizz Air, Ryanair and Swiss International Air Lines - which maintain flights to ten destinations. All three carriers have signed contracts with the airport until 2021 and 2022, which include a low three euro fee for handling, landing and passenger services. On March 31, Ryanair will discontinue its flights between Nis and Weeze, while Wizz Air will resume operations to Malmo on April 17 after suspending the service earlier this month. According to the Egyptian Embassy in Belgrade, a local Egyptian carrier is set to launch flights from the Egyptian coast, tipped to be Marsa Alam, to Nis in May. Last September, the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, said Air Serbia was in talks over the opening of several routes from Nis Airport. "We are talking and negotiating with Air Serbia over the introduction of several international routes from Nis. I am convinced that this will be very important news in the coming period", the President said at the time.
Though the Talibans refusal to meet with the Kabul government in Afghanistan remains a genuine obstacle to peace  ideally, surmounted before U.S. withdrawal  the insurgencys agreement with the United States to not allow its territory to be used by terrorists is a promising development.

That agreement represents much of why the United States intervened in Afghanistan in the first place. Recall that following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S., with allies, invaded that country because the Taliban had been harboring al-Qaida. That terrorist group, under Osama bin Laden, was responsible for the attacks on U.S. soil.

But that goal was, in practical terms, achieved long ago, prompting the question of why this countrys troops have now been in Afghanistan for 17 years, longer than World War I, World War II and the Korean conflict combined. There have been about 1,800 U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan.

The answer has been a reluctance to abandon the Kabul government because it is viewed as a local and regional bulwark against the spread of extremism. And another goal was to topple the Taliban. Technically, thats been achieved, but the Taliban still controls large swaths of the country and many fear it could regain power if the U.S. is absent. But, as a practical matter, the U.S. should be asking whether the circumstances that keep the Kabul government weak will ever change and if there are better ways to stymie extremism.

The U.S. has spent billions to train and equip Afghan troops, and yet the Kabul government is still unable to effectively govern and control the entire country. U.S. troops are theoretically not in operational command, but Kabul remains deeply dependent on them and U.S. funding.

President Donald Trump recently got a good deal of pushback after he announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and 5,000 of the 14,000 from Afghanistan. The announcement on Syria is seen as leading to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resignation.

We agree that withdrawal from Syria is premature because ISIS has not been fully defeated and could resurrect itself, because withdrawal plays into the hands of the brutal government of Bashar Assad and his Russian enablers and, importantly, because it would leave our Kurdish allies vulnerable to Turkey. But Afghanistan and Syria are not a precise comparison.

It would be best if the Taliban and Kabul negotiated directly, including talks on what a future government might look like. In other words, would it have Taliban representation? Kabul wants those talks, the Taliban has not and its unclear if it ever will.

As an ideal, the U.S. should continue to insist that the talks happen. But practicality has a place in this discussion as well. That government in Kabul is rife with corruption, and it is clear that both taxes from its own populace and U.S. funds are diverted before they reach their intended destinations. And it is an open question on whether the Afghan people prefer this corruption or the Taliban, though there is much to fear, for women in particular, if it regains power, and the countrys poppy trade feeds the U.S. and global opioid plague.

So, one good practical question is whether the U.S. can actually fix Afghanistan. This countrys nation building has  to put it charitably  had mixed success in recent history and is problematic in a region famously dubbed the graveyard of empires.

But this is the kind of discussion needed  not just whether U.S. withdrawal is tantamount to abandonment. And this discussion should also occur in the halls of Congress, which has effectively abrogated its war powers to presidents for several administrations now.

The Taliban says the U.S. is talking withdrawal with it. This agreement on terrorist use of Taliban territory is a good backdrop for that discussion.

But as these discussions continue in Congress and elsewhere lets also talk about why we should persist in doing what weve been doing for 17 years and expect different outcomes. And if were staying  indefinitely  whats doing something differently look like?
The chill is coming from a piece of the polar vortex, an area of frigid air and low atmospheric pressure over the North Pole (theres another one over the South Pole) that is normally confined to that region. But when a surge of warmer air pushed its way over the North Pole last month, it caused the polar vortex to split, sending pieces of it intruding into parts of Europe, Siberia and now the United States.
You could argue that the month of January has very modestly raised the odds that Donald Trump will not finish his term as president.

First, the government shutdown has demonstrated that Trumps own incompetence suffices to cost him support in the polls and in the Senate  an indication that a larger crumbling of his political firewall might be possible.

Second, the indictment of Roger Stone, based on his lies to Congress about outreach to WikiLeaks, keeps the possibility of future revelations of conspiracy implicating Trump himself.

Finally, there has been a burst of media interest in impeachment  an Atlantic cover story by Yoni Appelbaum prodding Democrats to take the plunge and a more cautious essay by my New York Times colleague David Leonhardt putting the option on the table.

Im open to these arguments; indeed, I have to be, since Im on the record urging this presidents removal from office using the unusual remedy of the 25th Amendment. But there are several difficulties with the current briefs for impeachment, which suffice for now to keep a Pence presidency out of reach.

The first is the gulf between the democracy-subverting powers that the briefs ascribe to Trump and the actual extent of his influence. In Appelbaums essay, the president is charged with nothing less than having trampled on the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. But many of his examples feature Trump failing to actually trample anything. He did his best to enact a Muslim travel ban (the actual ban was limited and upheld by the Supreme Court), he has called for the firing of political enemies (with little discernible result), he has made efforts to impede the Mueller investigation (which continues apace), and so on down the list of outrages that exist primarily on his Twitter feed.

Much of the case for trampling, then, is a case against Trumps rhetoric. And one can acknowledge that rhetorics evils while doubting that the ranting of a president so hemmed in, unpopular and weak is meaningfully threatening the Constitution.

Especially because of the second problem with the case for impeachment is that little about his rhetorical excess, his penchant for lies and insults or the seaminess of his courtiers was hidden from voters on the campaign trail in 2016, in an election that by the Constitutions standards Trump legitimately won.

The electorates foreknowledge of a politicians sleaziness doesnt preclude impeachment. But it means that there is, at least, a quantum of sleaze that the presidents supporters voted to accept. And the closer we get to a new election  including another primary campaign  the stronger the case for asking voters to retract that endorsement, instead of pre-empting their judgment from on high.

The rebuttal here is that the danger of keeping Trump in office is too great, but Im more doubtful about the policy dangers that are supposedly evident right now.

Appelbaum, for instance, analogizes Trumps race-baiting to Andrew Johnsons efforts to impede Reconstruction in the late-1860s South. But when he was impeached, Johnson was literally using his veto to abet the possible restoration of white supremacy. Whereas Trump is conspicuously losing a fight over some modest border fencing, and his last race-inflected policy move was  a criminal justice reform supported by many African-Americans. The president may be a bigot, but the policy stakes do not remotely resemble 1868.

Then there are the geopolitical risks of Trumps alleged Russian loyalties. After the Stone arrest, Appelbaums Atlantic colleague David Frum deemed these too severe to wait even for Robert Muellers verdict.

But in the absence of Mueller-stamped evidence, what we have to prove that peril is Trumps actual foreign policy, which is erratic but frequently quite unfriendly to Moscow  with the administrations effort to subvert the Russian-aligned Maduro regime in Venezuela just this weeks example.

Which makes it entirely reasonable to wait to see whether Mueller vindicates the various uncorroborated scoops about a conspiracy hatched in Prague or the Ecuadorean Embassy, rather than trying to impeach Trump for, say, his private griping about NATO.

If you want Trump gone, the existing case for impeachment will not do it. You must either prove him  not Stone or some other hanger-on, but him  guilty of conspiracy, or accept that he will depart only when he is beaten at the polls.
In 1994, only 3 percent of U.S. classrooms offered access to the internet. Researchers like me coined the term the digital divide to acknowledge the emerging disparities between the technology rich and the technology poor.

Since then, schools have been in a virtual arms race to acquire more technology. By 2005, 94 percent of instructional classrooms offered access to the internet. Today, students in lower-income schools are just as likely as their counterparts in more affluent schools to see computers, the internet and a wide range of software applications in their classrooms.

As the pressure to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in schools continues to intensify, the acquisition of technology has increased, too. Tech companies such as Google and Apple are in an epic battle to shape STEM learning and control the classrooms of tomorrow.

A few years ago, a team of graduate students and I went to a high school to study how schools integrate technology into the curriculum. Many of the educators that we met equated providing students with technology to providing them with richer learning opportunities. But a new reality is forming that questions the logic that technology is a certain pathway to better learning futures.

During our time in the school we saw evidence of what some researchers call technology-rich, curriculum-poor classrooms. These are schools that have invested substantial financial resources into hardware and software but have not figured out how to build curriculum that prepares students for a society and economy undergoing steady change.

Students practice basic computing skills such as search, word processing and creating slide presentations, but those arent the most important skills. The most important skills in todays economy involve being able to use technology in smart and novel ways. For example, we rarely saw students learning how to code or use technology to work with information in creative ways or to solve problems.

Schools aim to produce students who are college ready or career ready. But this too is problematic. Data from the U.S. Department of Education suggest that only a small percentage of students graduate from college in four years. And the notion of a career  steady and long-term employment with one employer  is steadily fading in the so-called gig economy. Most millennials and Generation Z people will work several jobs in their lifetimes, and not necessarily in their particular fields of study.

Rather than focus exclusively on college-ready or career-ready skills, schools should also develop future ready skills. What does it mean to be future ready? It means rather than preparing students for the jobs in todays economy, our schools should be preparing them to be flexible enough to find or create work in tomorrows economy. Future readiness suggests that the ability to think creatively, practice lifelong learning, grapple with uncharted problems and use technology in novel ways will be some of the primary skills of tomorrow.

Even as many schools across the country invest in more technology, Silicon Valley parents are opting to send their young children to schools that do not provide screen technologies in the classroom. And while these parents certainly operate from a position of privilege, the decision to limit their kids exposure to screens highlights something that we found in our research: In the economy of tomorrow, the ability to use creative, critical and problem-solving skills will be just as important as the ability to use technology.

Future-ready schools prepare students to perform tasks that computers cannot perform, such as asking novel questions, solving uncharted problems, or working with and analyzing data in creative ways. Developing these skills does not require an abundance of technology. What they do require, however, are well-trained teachers, carefully calibrated curricula and a vision of education that is relevant in our knowledge-driven economy.

Importantly, future-ready schools understand that technology is a tool to help create better learning futures and not, by itself, an indicator of better learning.

S. Craig Watkins is a professor in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies young peoples social and digital media behaviors.
Pressure has been building on colleges to stop chasing the same small subset of privileged, highly test-prepped applicants and start admitting needier kids. But new research suggests that the particular form this pressure has taken  including popular rankings based on Pell enrollment  has been at least partly backfiring.

In fact, at some of the schools most celebrated for providing opportunities for poor students, admissions and financial aid offices appear to be worsening their neglect of the low- and middle-income kids we want them to help.

For decades, U.S. News & World Report rankings distorted schools decisions about which students to admit and how to allocate their scarce aid dollars (often throwing them at richer kids with higher test scores).

Then, a second generation of rankings came along, one intended to measure how hard schools were working to enroll high-potential, low-income students who could benefit most from a college degree.

Publications such as the New York Times and Washington Monthly published their own rankings, emphasizing admission and outcomes for Pell Grant-eligible students. U.S. News & World Report eventually introduced a social mobility measure, also pegged to Pell-eligible students. And, in 2017, a team of top-tier economists produced a college report card based on intergenerational mobility. Using tax data, they calculated which schools launched the most low-income students into higher income percentiles than their parents.

Thanks to this public scrutiny, the share of Pell-eligible students has indeed been rising at a number of top schools. Which, in isolation, is a good thing.

But these well-intended new rankings have also produced some unintended consequences. In particular, colleges appear to be gaming the Pell-based benchmarks to which they know the media and policymakers are paying attention.

Stanford University professor Caroline Hoxby and University of Virginia professor Sarah Turner have found that the schools that have made the most progress in increasing their numbers of Pell-eligible students appear to be doing so partly at the expense of other low-income students  specifically, those whose families make just a few too many dollars to qualify for Pell grants.

Members of that latter group  virtually indistinguishable from their counterparts barely on the other side of that arbitrary federal Pell threshold  get substantially less generous school-awarded financial aid. Their representation on these campuses has also fallen over the past few years as that for the Pell-eligible kids has risen.

Meanwhile, rich students remain very much overrepresented.

Popular economic opportunity measures can cause other distortions, too  especially if tied to public funding.

For instance, public flagships in states whose populations are relatively low-income would be rewarded for enrolling large numbers of poor kids, even though poor, academically qualified kids are still underrepresented on their campuses. The reverse is true for schools in states that are relatively affluent yet still manage to enroll a disproportionately high share of poor students.

Intergenerational mobility rankings can also penalize schools in states where theres a lot of income equality.

By national standards, for instance, Wisconsin has few people who are either very poor or very rich. As a result, the University of Wisconsin looks bad on national income mobility rankings, even though it enrolls a lot of students from the lower end of the states own income distribution.

Its easy to nitpick other peoples metrics, of course. Coming up with a better alternative is harder.

In an article for the scholarly journal Education Next, Hoxby and Turner propose the following: Look at the pool of students from which a college could plausibly draw, based on its academic mission and location. Then measure how well the relevant pools income distribution is actually represented on campus.

For flagship public schools, this is relatively straightforward. For other schools, such as selective private institutions that draw applicants from around the country, its more difficult but not impossible. Especially if schools are transparent about what their mission is and what their standards are supposed to be.

The goal is not to produce a sexy new ranking; in fact, Hoxby and Turner explicitly say their aim is not to rank all universities, since different schools have different missions. Rather, the goal is to give educators, and policymakers, better tools to hold schools accountable  to the public and to themselves.

crampell@washpost.com
WASHINGTON - Navy Vietnam veterans elated by a federal appeals court ruling that they say rights a 50-year-old wrong descended on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, pressing Congress to expand benefits to more service members suffering from illnesses associated with Agent Orange.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday ruled overwhelmingly for so-called Blue Water Navy veterans, concluding that they are entitled to the disability benefits that Congress intended for them in the Agent Orange Act in 1991.

The government has routinely denied those benefits, requiring proof that service members had boots on the ground in Vietnam or operated along an inland waterway. The ruling will affect an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Navy veterans.

Now the veterans want legislation that will require the Department of Veterans Affairs to award benefits for veterans who were stationed in Guam, South Korea, the Philippines and other military installations where dangerous herbicides were used as defoliants.

We kicked some VA butt, said John Wells, a former Navy commander who represented the sailor who won the case. We are moving like greased lightning.

For subscribers: Congress considers benefits for Navy veterans exposed to Agent Orange exposure

Tuesdays 9-2 decision reverses that administrative decision, benefiting an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 veterans who served offshore in Vietnam.

Writing for the majority, Judge Kimberly A. Moore said that all available international law includes coastal waters when referring to the Republic of Vietnam.

By using the formal term Republic of Vietnam, Congress unambiguously referred  to both its landmass and its territorial sea, she wrote.

The ruling means that veterans will be presumed eligible for tax-free disability benefits up to $2,000 a month if they have any of 14 diseases linked to Agent Orange, including cancers, diabetes and heart ailments.

The case was brought by Alfred Procopio Jr., who served offshore in Vietnam aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid in the 1960s.

Wells, a lawyer with Louisiana-based Military Veterans Advocacy, met with members of Congress on Wednesday urging swift passage of legislation that writes the court ruling into law and includes veterans that it does not cover.

Agent Orange legislation that passed 382-0 in the House last year provided benefits for the Navy combatants and also covered children of veterans who served in Korea and Thailand.

But that bill was unexpectedly derailed in the Senate after Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie testified that it would cost billions of dollars, saddle his agency with burdensome administrative duties and establish a precedent for awarding benefits absent clear proof of harm.

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Veterans advocates also are pressing Congress to pass legislation ordering benefits for Guam veterans claiming cancers, heart ailments and other afflictions from exposure to herbicides at Andersen Air Force Base, a key U.S. installation since the mid-20th century.

With few exceptions, the VA has denied those compensation claims, telling veterans that no records of Agent Orange use or storage on Guam can be located.

We are now center stage, Brian Moyer, a former Marine who heads the advocacy group Agent Orange Survivors of Guam, said on Capitol Hill.

Michael Thompson, 68, of San Antonio, who was a Navy jet mechanic in Vietnam, said the court ruling will help the forgotten and the excluded of the Vietnam War.

Thompson, who has suffered from esophageal cancer and diabetes, said the appellate decision paves the way, in conjunction with the new legislation, to force the VA to pay everybody.

Richard Shafer, 70, of Crosby, is among Navy veterans celebrating. In Vietnam, he was a radarman on a destroyer and guided missile cruiser that anchored in Da Nang Harbor. He has suffered from prostate cancer, systemic heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, but the VA denied his disability claim, as did an appeals board.

Shafer fought back, writing letters to the White House and members of Congress and waging a social media campaign highlighting what he regards as the governments failure to live up to its responsibility.

I dont know that I helped much, but Im just glad those in front of me kept up the fight, he said.

He believes that the strength of ruling will discourage that the Department of Veterans Affairs from petitioning the Supreme Court for review. The agency has not said what it intends to do.

Im hoping theyll just lick their wounds and not drag their feet, he said.

blambrecht@express-news.net
Were in the middle of a much-needed reassessment of how this country handles crime and punishment. Part of that discussion involves what rights we restore to ex-convicts when theyve done their time.

Less than three months ago, Florida voters approved a ballot initiative that restored voting rights to an estimated 1.4 million formerly incarcerated residents of the state. It passed with help from an unlikely coalition of progressive activists and a Koch Brothers-funded conservative group called Freedom Partners.

We live in a country that says that when the debt is paid, its paid, Demetrius Jifunza, the driving force of the Florida initiative campaign, said last October during an appearance on HBOs Pod Save America. So why does that not apply to those that have completed whatever sentence they have been given?

Its a question whose implications stretch beyond the issue of voting rights. After all, if youve fully paid your debt to society, shouldnt you have your full citizenship rights restored? And if that means the right to cast a vote, shouldnt it also mean the right to be a candidate for political office?

If, for example, you were convicted on a cocaine possession charge at the age of 19, should that bar you for the rest of your life from attempting to serve on your local city council or school board?

By pure coincidence, two San Antonians are testing the state law on this issue at the exact same time.

Walter E. Perry Sr. is the only candidate to file so far in City Council District 2 and Steve Huerta is one of five hopefuls in the special-election race for Texas House District 125.

Both men are convicted felons, apparently putting them at odds with the Texas Election Code, which prohibits anyone from seeking public office if theyve been finally convicted of a felony from which they were not pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities.

The resulting disabilities phrase is where things get murky. It could be interpreted to apply merely to those who remain under confinement or could be seen as a reference to anyone with a felony on their record. But a 2004 memo from the Texas secretary of states office concluded that, short of a pardon or judicial clemency, felons cannot run for office in this state.

That doesnt mean this legal interpretation is actually enforced. Last year, the city of Austin allowed a convicted felon named Lewis Conway Jr. to remain on the ballot when he filed to run for city council.

Perry, 43, sees his San Antonio council campaign as the culmination of what Conway started.

An East Side community activist who has worked with the East Side Promise Neighborhood and San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside (SAGE), Perry spent more than seven years behind bars on a charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

On the night of Feb. 10, 1993, Perry, then 17, and two other young men pulled up to an Exxon station near the intersection of San Pedro Avenue and Jackson Keller Road, according to a San Antonio Police Department report.

Perry and a friend, who was wielding a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol, approached a man putting water in the radiator of his 1979 Pontiac Firebird. Perrys friend demanded that the owner of the Firebird hand over his car keys, and Perry and his friend drove off in the stolen car. They were busted on their way to the East Side.

Perry completed his sentence 18 years ago and believes he has every right to run for public office. Early this month, he faced questions from city officials over his eligibility to seek an interim appointment for the District 2 seat but was allowed to apply for the position.

Like I told City Council, my community is never going to believe they can change, unless they see somebody who went through what they went through get the opportunity to change their lives, Perry said.

Huertas history was examined in a Tuesday Express-News article by Brian Chasnoff. Huerta, a Democratic Party activist, was busted in 1999 for possession of less than a gram of cocaine. In 2001, he was sentenced to six months in jail.

Huerta, 50, told Chasnoff he didnt believe he needed a pardon to be eligible for the Texas House race.

A piece of paper from the governor, he said, isnt going to change who I am.

Huerta carries considerable baggage beyond his drug conviction, including a court complaint alleging that he took $500 from the mother of an Iraq War veteran to help with her sons criminal case and offered minimal assistance, and questions about whether he resides in the Texas House district where hes running.

Putting aside Huertas personal attributes, however, its hard to justify legally barring someone from a ballot over a two-decade-old drug possession charge.

Unless someone (usually a political opponent) legally challenges a candidates eligibility, they tend to stay on a ballot. And the eligibility issue never gets resolved.

The Perry and Huerta cases might be pushing us to the point where we get some real legal clarity.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
John MacCormack, a staff writer for 27 years at the San Antonio Express-News, has received a rare award for a reporter, an induction into the Texas Institute of Letters.

The honor society, founded in 1936 and boasting members who have won the Pulitzer Prize, the Academy Award, the Tony Award and the MacArthur genius grant, among others, named MacCormack and 16 other writers Wednesday as new members.

Membership is based on literary accomplishment and is granted only through an election by current members.

A bilingual gringo born in 1949 in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in upstate New York, MacCormack has written thousands of stories about San Antonio, South Texas and Mexico, crafting richly-reported tales of corruption and Texas weirdness that required precision and humanity.

He gained notice in the late 1990s for his indefatigable search for Madalyn Murray OHair, the outspoken atheist, who had gone missing. Writing about 100 stories on the case, MacCormack broke the news that she had been kidnapped and killed. He and a private investigator working with the Express-News essentially solved the mystery of what happened to her long after law enforcement agencies and other reporters had given up.

My first job was at the North Coast Times Eagle in Wheeler, Oregon, a weekly paper, recalled MacCormack of his pre-internet days. I got paid $80 a week, when there was money. At times, we collected beer bottles and turned them in for five cents each to help pay for running the press.

After five years at the Miami Herald, he came to Texas in 1985 to be the San Antonio bureau chief for the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald. He was hired by the Express-News in 1992 when there was still raging competition with the now also-departed San Antonio Light.

MacCormack, respected among his peers for giving as much grace and energy to an octogenarians obituary as a saga about corruption in Crystal City, describes his calling as delivering yarns from the outback - places in Texas often overlooked.

Texans are by and large not afraid to talk to a reporter once they understand what you are up to, he said.

At 69, invigorated by lunch hour swims and his grandchildren, MacCormack shows few signs of slowing down.

Reporters know that only in those rare moments of true inspiration do we rise to the level of creating literature, MacCormack said when asked about his new, exalted status among big time writers.

Most of the time were grinding sausage and just trying, in the short time we have, to add a little spice, insight and pathos.

Bruce Selcraig is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read his stories on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | BSelcraig@express-news.net
The Archdiocese of San Antonio, along with its counterparts across Texas, on Thursday will release reports on priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors dating to 1940.

It promises to be the most complete public accounting the Catholic Church in Texas has ever offered to describe the scale, and possibly the details, of a scandal that has hounded American dioceses since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops first tried to respond to it in 2002.

The revelations in Texas are part of a national wave of reports ordered by bishops after the findings of a Pennsylvania grand jury last August jolted Catholic leaders and the Vatican by identifying more than 300 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 minors as far back as 1947. A number of other states added to the pressure by announcing their own investigations.

The San Antonio archdioceses report will include not just the names of priests credibly accused but all known allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors in the archdiocese since 1940, archdiocese spokesman Jordan McMorrough said via email.

Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller is expected to address the people of the archdiocese at 2 p.m. live on Catholic Television of San Antonio, Cable Channel 15, at the same moment the report is published on the archdioceses web page, www.archsa.org.

More Information Address to the archdiocese What: Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller will address "the people of the archdiocese" on its report on priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. When: 2 p.m. Thursday On TV: CTSA, Cable Channel 15 Live-stream: CTSA's Facebook page, Today's Catholic's Facebook page and the archdiocesan Facebook page. Online report: Archdiocese's web page, www.archsa.org See More Collapse

Garcia-Sillers remarks also will be live-streamed on archdiocesan social media channels, including the Facebook pages of CTSA and the archdioceses newspaper Todays Catholic, McMorrough said.

This is a big step moving forward for the church and for our community, said Gloria Urrabazo, vice president of mission and ministry at Our Lady of the Lake University.

The transparency is necessary to heal the brokenness, said Urrabazo, who has worked at Catholic institutions for 40 years, including 25 years as a member of a religious order.

We have to begin now as a community to heal, she said. We all have that responsibility. Each one of us can be an active part in the healing process of those who have been abused and those who have abused.

No one is exempt. All of us have a role in this.

An independent commission that audited the archdioceses case files on accused priests going back to 1940 will release its own report two hours after the archdiocese makes its findings public.

The seven-member independent commission, led by Catherine Stone, retired chief justice of the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals, was formed in October to review the archdioceses records and recommend improvements to its procedures for responding to sexual abuse allegations against clergy.

In the archdiocese report, a few cases in which allegations were deemed not credible will be identified only by a number, without naming the accused priest, McMorrough said.

The archdiocese will present a full, transparent account of clergy sexual abuse of children from 1940 to the present, he said.

Garcia-Siller will speak from the archdiocesan headquarters on West Woodlawn Avenue and is scheduled to take questions from news media immediately afterward.

Church leaders have been guided since 2002 by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the U.S. bishops conference in response to news reports of cover-ups in Boston and elsewhere.

But many bishops have refrained from publicizing older accusations and acknowledged newer ones only when they resulted in lawsuits or criminal charges. Church critics have continued to question bishops willingness to take responsibility for accused priests serving in their parishes.

The Pennsylvania report named several priests who ended up in San Antonio after their crimes were known to church leaders in Pennsylvania.

Since 1940, the San Antonio archdiocese has had more than 3,000 priests in ministry, both diocesan and from various religious orders. The archdiocese currently has 365 priests on duty.

The 3,000 number includes priests who served in parishes now part of the dioceses of Victoria and Laredo before they were created in 1982 and 2000, respectively, McMorrough said.

In October, Garcia-Siller promised the archdioceses fullest disclosure ever of accusations of sexual abuse of children by priests. It came on the same day that all the states dioceses made similar announcements, vowing to release reports Jan. 31.

In September, in a meeting chaired by Garcia-Siller, bishops of 15 Catholic dioceses in the state and the Houston-based Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter gathered in Austin and decided to the release the names of clergy.

All dioceses agreed to make public their reports by Jan. 31.

Elaine Ayala covers religion and minority affairs in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eayala@express-news.net | Twitter: @ElaineAyala
People are blaming President Donald Trump for the government shutdown. No, I am sorry there are two Democrats in Congress who unfortunately have been given positions of authority and think that they are more important than the president. Blame them for the shutdown. Cities like Baltimore and Chicago average at least a killing a day. These two Congresspeople arent the least bit concerned with the violence going on in our cities. They are too busy going one up on the president. They have bodyguards and live in gated communities void of all the violence. If it were me, I would not be showing my face and saying we won. This should not have been a fight with a winner and a loser. It should have been all hands on deck to resolve a very serious issue confronting our nation. We have more than 300 million people living in the United States We cannot house everyone who wants to come here.
Vanuatu turns the Corner LETS USE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE
The power of a gavel kept Lamar Smith in Congress for 32 years, and losing it was his motivation to leave.

Since 1987, Smith, who did not seek re-election last year, represented parts of South Central Texas in the 21st District, spanning six presidential administrations. It was a tenure he said he never expected.

When I first ran for Congress, I thought I might be there six or eight years and then come back and resume practicing law in San Antonio, Smith said in a recent interview. But what happened was, after eight years, the skies opened, the sun shone and the Republicans were elected a majority in Congress. Suddenly, I became a subcommittee chair  and who wants to give up the gavel?

OnExpressNews.com: State hedges on claim that 100,000 Texas voters aren't citizens, faces federal lawsuit

It wasnt the only leadership position Smith would hold. As he begins a life after Congress, Smith, 71, leaves a legacy as one of San Antonios longest-serving representatives, quietly wielding power as chair of three House committees since the turn of the century.

He was also one of the chambers most ardently conservative advocates, adhering to principles in line with a district that changed drastically over the years but never lost its conservative ethos. Smith sometimes took provocative positions  especially on climate change  but he rarely forsook his gentlemanly demeanor.

For Republicans in Bexar County, he also evokes the small cadre of organizers who built a GOP resurgence here in the 1970s.

Lamar has been the grand champion for all these things and did not seek, nor did he receive, the amount of praise he should have gotten over the years, said Jim Lunz, one of those early Republican reformers. He did what he wanted to do and he did it in style.

After chairing the House science committee for the last six years, Smith reached his GOP-imposed term limit last year. He said there are four words to sum up his decision to retire: term limits, Ramsey and Calder  his two grandchildren.

I felt like Id be wandering the halls aimlessly, Smith said, subject to the sympathetic stares of colleagues, and I just didnt want to be in that position.

Young reformers

Soon after Smith graduated from Southern Methodist Universitys law school in 1975, he walked into the Bexar County GOPs headquarters and said he wanted to contribute.

Someone in the office advised him to run for precinct chair. Whats a precinct chair? Smith asked.

He served stints as the county GOPs executive director and chair, and his political career took him briefly to the Texas House and then to the Bexar County Commissioners Court before Congress.

Those are happy memories, just because there were only about a half-dozen of us who were sort of the young reformers in those days, Smith said.

The group included former state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, now a judge; former County Judge Cyndi Taylor Krier, who also was a state senator; longtime judge Tom Rickhoff; and Joci Straus, among others.

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Jocis son, former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, ran Smiths first congressional campaign in 1986, guiding him through a crowded primary of six Republicans.

I think he was certainly prepared and acted quickly when Tom (Loeffler) decided to run statewide, the younger Straus said. Smiths predecessor, the first Republican to represent the district, unexpectedly left Congress to run for governor.

Karl Rove, a consultant on the campaign, helped coin Smiths slogan, according to Straus: Leadership for the Reagan Era.

Straus didnt work for Smith again after that, but he remained his constituent. He said he has immense respect for the congressman and his legacy. When he would visit Washington, Straus said, it was clear Smiths colleagues held him in similar esteem.

It was always refreshing to see that the most liberal Democrat really liked and admired him, Straus said.

Conservative champion

Those who know him say the sheer length of Smiths tenure is a testament to his efficacy.

Wentworth, one of those original GOP crusaders who served for decades in the Texas Legislature and is now a Bexar County Justice of the Peace, has known Smith since childhood, and the men are close friends. He described Smith as a principled and honest man who kept those qualities in Congress.

He was kind of the model that you would like in a congressman in the sense that he never got on the cocktail circuit, he didnt use his office to become rich on his own, Wentworth said, adding that Smith was essentially scandal-free for 32 years, a remarkable feat in todays political environment.

Smith moved further to the right over time, Wentworth said, but he was no Freedom Caucus member.

He is not over there on the wacky, right-wing fringe, Wentworth said. Hes more an establishment Republican, the kind that I support.

Charlie Gonzalez served with Smith for 14 years in the House, and his father, Henry B. Gonzalez, served with Smith before that. Smith has strong convictions, Gonzalez said, but he was always cordial, and he represented his district well.

San Antonio was well-positioned many times because of the positions Lamar held, Gonzalez said.

In Congress, committee chairs are the gatekeepers  decided by seniority  who select which hearings are held and which legislation is advanced. No San Antonio representative has held more of those positions than Smith, who chaired three House committees over his career: Ethics; Judiciary; and Science, Space and Technology.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee in 1996, he was the primary House author of the countrys last major immigration reform. The law dramatically increased the number of Border Patrol agents and made it easier to deport immigrants who committed misdemeanors or felonies, among other provisions.

When he took the helm of that committee in 2011, Smith passed the America Invents Act with Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. Smith said they worked for six years to pass that legislation, the first modernization of patent laws in at least half a century. Some observers have called that a singular achievement.

And as head of the Science Committee, Smith said the panel expanded the definition of STEM  science, technology, engineering and math  to include computer science, passed a reauthorization for NASA and spotted the governments troubling use of software from the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab.

But Smiths views on climate change received perhaps the most attention and scrutiny. He often used his chairmanship to cast doubt on scientific conclusions and to target Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

In regard to the EPA, what we were trying to do was to make sure that the EPA relied upon good science, not politically correct science, Smith said.

The congressman said he believes climate changes is occurring (as it has, by the way, for 100 years), and he believes humans play a role (there are a lot of variables), but he doesnt think the solution will spring from regulation.

I think ultimately, the solutions are going to be technological breakthroughs, and I think they are going to be more effective than regulations, Smith said.

For many, though, the depth of his stance was confounding.

That always surprised me, said Gonzalez, his Democratic and San Antonian colleague. He did many things during his career, but I think the most significant will be his vociferous opposition to the theories around climate change.

End of an era

OLene Stone covered Smiths early career for the San Antonio Light. Later, she became the congressmans district director for 14 years.

In that role, she helped guide Smiths constituent services, which the congressman said was a source of pride on par with any legislation.

In all the years I covered him, and then watching him from the inside, I never once knew Lamar to do anything or vote any way for any other reason than he thought it was the right thing to do, Stone said. I cant fault somebody for that.

Smith has joined the Akin Gump law firm, and he said he will continue splitting his days between D.C. and San Antonio, though the new schedule allows for more time with the grandchildren.

The longtime House fixture doesnt have much in the way of regrets. He said he has gleaned three main lessons from his life in politics. The first two are the values of commitment (Do what you say youre going to do) and persistence, which he said is more important than IQ.

The third, apparently borrowed from the Navy SEALs, is his favorite: The answer is yes, now what was the question?

Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness
High stacks of papers cluttered behind the window of the clerks desk Tuesday at San Antonios Immigration Court.

The hallways buzzed with questions between lawyers and court staff before the mornings hearings: Is the master calendar really in full swing? Were the interpreters notified? When will lawyers clients get their rescheduled court dates?

The record 35-day government shutdown, caused by a dispute over President Trumps demand for border wall funding, ground operations to a halt. The seven immigration judges handling cases here were furloughed, thousands of hearings were canceled, and lawyers, left in the dark, scrambled to submit motions, petitions and other filings.

After the shutdown ended Friday, judges returned to work with stacks of files on their desks and dozens of canceled hearings to add to their already over-booked schedules. Everyone from security, to the clerks, to the judges themselves were attempting to get the system back online.

OnExpressNews.com: State hedges on claim that 100,000 Texas voters aren't citizens, faces federal lawsuit

More than 86,000 hearings across the country were canceled during the shutdown, further jamming an already clogged system, according to an estimate by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research program at Syracuse University. About 10,000 of those were in Texas.

More than 800,000 cases are pending nationwide, according to TRACs November data. For comparison, only 223,809 cases were pending a decade ago.

Juggling all those cases are about 350 judges in 58 immigration courts across the country. The administration has set a quota for each judge to complete 700 cases a year  with fewer than 15 percent of their decisions appealed  to receive a satisfactory performance rating. Immigrant advocates expressed concerns that judges will rush to deport immigrants that have a valid claim to asylum.

Judges and lawyers are expecting the shutdown to affect the courts for years. Simon Azar-Farr, a local immigration and criminal defense lawyer, says the system is at the breaking point.

The system has collapsed, theres no question about it, he said.

A surge of Central Americans around 2014 clogged an unprepared immigration system, which has yet to recover. The Trump administration began cracking down on immigrants with little or no criminal convictions other than illegal entry, augmenting the backlog as more immigrants were pushed through the courts.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions also issued a directive last summer removing the ability of immigration judges to administratively close cases if immigrants could qualify for certain visas  such as one for victims of crimes  so they could be removed from clogged dockets. Now the courts have to hear all of the cases.

OnExpressNews.com: Lamar Smith - a GOP lion in San Antonio - reflects on three decades in Congress

Immigration lawyer Linda Brandmiller said that means more immigrants in court, with a limited number of lawyers to represent them.

On Tuesday, the dockets posted outside courtrooms mostly listed unrepresented immigrants. One judges morning schedule listed 24 people, with three represented by lawyers. On another, only nine of 20 immigrants had lawyers, and nearly half were being represented by the same lawyer.

Children flowed in and out of the courtrooms, some just months old. In one room, a baby was gurgling loudly, making it hard for lawyers to hear the judge. At one point, a 7-year-old girl who was seeking asylum accidentally sat in the lawyers chair, and then later almost left her jacket in the courtroom.

The canceled hearings hurt some immigrants more than others.

For those who had little hope of winning their cases, it bought them time before they were forcibly returned home.

Lawyer Juan Angel Gomez said clients who are escaping violent countries but dont fit into the legal framework for asylum lucked out.

Thats more time here. And another year is another year of life, he said.

But for others, postponed trial dates keep them languishing in legal limbo.

Those lives are unsettled by the delays, which can cause an emotional and financial drain on the families, said Azar-Farr.

There are people who have every opportunity to obtain their residency, but they cannot. And until they obtain it, they cannot travel out of the country, they cannot visit ailing parents, he said.

Tuesday also marked the start of a sweeping new deterrence policy that forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico as their claims are processed.

Alberto Bermudes, 32, drove about five hours from outside Mercedes in South Texas to San Antonio to appear before court on Monday. But because the Department of Justice wasnt fully open yet, he was turned away and told that he would get a notice in the mail for a new date to appear.

He took a photo of the clerks office, in case anyone questioned whether or not hed showed up. Next to the window was a notice that read All master calendar hearings will be reset. A new hearing notice will be mailed. Thank you for your patience.

If they tell me its closed, its closed. What else can I do? Theyre the rule-makers, the Mexican native said.

A staffer checked with him to make sure his mailing address was correct and told him to go back home.

The sacrifices just get greater, the longer I wait, Bermudes said. Im just trying to get through the days.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFF
In a Head Start classroom at Sun Valley Elementary School, about 15 prekindergarteners sat in a circle around teacher Lori Montes, who was nonchalantly holding a snake.

The 4-year-olds stroked Sydney the corn snake, some tentatively. They studied its scales through a magnifying glass. It doesnt have teeth, Neveah Calbillo informed a frightened classmate.

When Montes put the snake on the rug to show how it moves, a rare hush fell over the room.

I love the way yall are being scientists right now, Montes said. Youre listening and watching.

As Montes swapped the now-caged snake with a terrarium containing a tree frog, Neveah said, Sydney, I love you.

The children were getting the science lesson as part of the free, full-day pre-kindergarten program they qualified for under state and federal laws. But Principal Veronica Cuenca-Wilson can think of at least a dozen families she turned away this year because they didnt meet the criteria.

Southwest Independent School District trustees voted this month to change that, creating the PreK 4 All program and making it a budget priority. Starting next school year it will offer free, full-day prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds living in the district.

That action placed Southwest in the company of several area school districts that have taken it upon themselves to expand early learning opportunities beyond whats legally required, embracing the universal prekindergarten movement gaining traction across the country.

We try to hear the voices of our families, and we think its time to go ahead and take this leap and put our funds behind early childhood education and open it up even greater, Southwest ISD Superintendent Lloyd Verstuyft said. We want to help our kids achieve a better quality of life and educational experience.

The move will bring San Antonio a little closer to the citywide, high-quality prekindergarten that was the goal of former mayor  and current presidential candidate  Julian Castro when he pushed voters here to create the city-run Pre-K 4 SA program.

Southwest ISD leaders have talked for years about making free district-wide prekindergarten available  and how to pay for it, Verstuyft said.

Weve kind of kicked that can down the road and kicked that can down the road, he said.

Meanwhile, research on the benefits of pre-kindergarten has accumulated, Verstuyft noted. As recently as Monday, the University of Texas at San Antonios Urban Education Institute released study results showing local students who attended public prekindergarten programs performed better on third-grade standardized tests than those who didnt.

Students who start school earlier build stronger literacy skills and could lessen the school districts remedial education costs, Verstuyft said.

We honor the fact that school readiness is extremely important, he said. Its kind of a little gamble, but we think that if we do this right, all students will have a better starting point.

Southwest now has 28 prekindergarten classes at its 11 elementary schools, Verstuyft said. Of those, 22 are partially funded by the federal Head Start program and six are partially funded by a grant from Pre-K 4 SA.

Based on comparisons between prekindergarten and kindergarten enrollment, the district estimates the expansion will serve 220 additional 4-year-olds, the equivalent of one more classroom per elementary school.

It will cost $1 million  money the school board is committed to finding as the process of writing next years budget begins.

Were prepared to do the work, Verstuyft said. Im sure that we can find a way to move (expenditures) that we may be doing at another level of our district into early childhood education, and kind of put the horse before the cart.

As the legislative session kicks off, the district also is lobbying state lawmakers to fund full-day prekindergarten, but isnt banking on it, Verstuyft said.

Southwest ISD is a growing district, and Sun Valley, on Loop 410 near Medina Base Road, is one of its fastest-growing schools. New subdivisions are still being built in the area, said Cuenca-Wilson, who has directed the Southwest ISD transportation department to add new streets to its bus route map. This year, Sun Valley has almost 60 prekindergarteners in three classes, each staffed by a teacher and an aide.

We have a lot of new parents, Cuenca-Wilson said. I know definitely Ill be able to fill another classroom.  I know that all of the kids could benefit. We want to give the kids that foundation.

Almost 14,000 students attend school in Southwest ISD, which stretches from denser neighborhoods near Sun Valley to rural areas outside the city limits and ultimately to the Atascosa County line. They are 91 percent Hispanic and 82 percent economically disadvantaged, a label applied to those who qualify for school meal subsidies  and free prekindergarten  based on federal income thresholds.

The state gave the district a C grade last year, but it has won recognition for its stable board of trustees and use of educational models that benefit underserved students.

Everyone in Montes class was offered free prekindergarten based on laws that provide it to low-income or foster children, or those with certain military connections. A class next door was full of Spanish-speaking children who qualify under the same rules.

Montes had borrowed Sydney, the snake, and the anonymous tree frog from the Region 20 education service center on the East Side. They were part of her outdoor learning curriculum that takes the children outside  sometimes to a playground exclusively for them  to collect leaves, write and do other activities.

I think that most of our kids dont have the opportunity to go outside and play like we did when we were kids, said Montes, who has taught for 17 years, all at Sun Valley. We can no longer do it anymore because its just no longer safe.

Neveah said touching the snake made her happy. She liked its smooth feeling. She wanted to know why its head was so small.

I like to learn about the snake, she said. I love class.

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the Alamo Colleges District in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
AUSTIN  Texas lawmakers have filed more than a dozen bills that would further restrict abortion rights, including an outright ban on abortion and legislation that would forbid Texas cities from contracting with Planned Parenthood - possibly the next step in pulling government funding from the womens health group thats also an abortion provider.

While top state officials say theyre largely swearing off divisive social issues this legislative session in favor of focusing on school funding and property tax relief, advocates on both sides of the abortion debate are getting ready for the next round.

Texas is one of the leading states in the nation for curtailing access to abortion. Both the governor and lieutenant governor have reiterated their support for protecting the unborn in the past week. Newly appointed House Speaker Dennis Bonnen has a sterling record of supporting anti-abortion legislation.

We cant just rest on our laurels, said Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the advocacy arm of the organization.

More than 55,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2015, according to the most recent data available. Thats down from around 77,500 abortions in 2010. One in five abortions are performed within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, the latest data show.

More Information Texas abortion laws in the courts The last U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding Texas abortion restrictions came in 2016 when the high court ruled 5-3 that Texas cannot require abortion providers to obtain hospital admitting privileges, or force their facilities to adhere to the same regulations as ambulatory surgical centers. The court found the restrictions - which led to closure of half of the state's abortion clinics - too burdensome and made access to the procedure unconstitutionally difficult for women. Shortly after the ruling, Texas lawmakers went on a new tack by mandating the burial or cremation of aborted fetal and embryonic matter. Lawmakers in 2017 also banned a common second-trimester abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation, although doctors say the procedure is the safest for women. On another front, Texas is trying to kick Planned Parenthood out as a qualified Medicaid provider for non-abortion related health care services for low-income people. All three cases are awaiting action in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. See More Collapse

Several thousand people who marched outside the state Capitol last weekend want that number down to zero. Attendees at the Texas Rally for Life stressed that nothing short of a total ban on abortion will do. That group included Freddy Romo, 55, who took a nine-hour bus trip to attend the event from his home outside of Midland in West Texas.

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Though two of the most recent abortion restriction laws adopted in Texas are on judicial hold pending legal challenges, Romo says the Legislature cant back down now.

I think that those are just tactics of modern-day government, said Romo, who wore a cross necklace around his neck and scoffed that lawmakers that he says come out in force to such events before elections, but seldom make appearances at other times. We put things on a back burner, we dont confront the issues.

Still, some abortion opponents say its too early for an outright ban on abortion - not even as two new justices nominated by President Donald Trump are expected to shift the U.S. Supreme Court further to the right.

We are not convinced there are enough votes on the Supreme Court at the moment to repeal Roe v. Wade or even scale back Roe v. Wade, said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, referring to the landmark ruling that originated in Texas that found women have a constitutional right to the procedure.

Hes urging the Legislature to pass less sweeping bills, such as banning cities, counties and other municipalities from doing business with abortion providers like Planned Parenthood and their affiliates.

Pojman said he is not advising lawmakers to pass a bill to ban abortions of fetuses with diagnosed abnormalities after 20 weeks gestation because he does not believe it could survive a court challenge.

But a competing anti-abortion group is making that bill a priority.

If we believe in a pro-life movement that all life has an inherent value, then we need to tackle this now in Texas, said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for Texas Right to Life.

Political analysts expect the Republican-dominated Legislature to keep pressing.

Abortion is still a meaty gold standard for conservative Republicans, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. It is not going away. It is too central to the organizing and the politics of the Republican Party  they cant avoid it because it will be seen as complete abdication of Republican Party principles.

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In the Texas House, any abortion bills would likely go through Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican and the new chairman of the State Affairs Committee. He has a stellar anti-abortion voting record, according to Texas Right to Life. The majority Republican committee is made up of 12 men and 1 woman. More than half of the members have at least a 90 percent voting recording with the anti-abortion group.

But while he says hes not trying to dictate the actions of the committee, Phelan doubts that an outright ban of abortion would be passed into law.

I dont see us passing legislation thats unconstitutional at this point in time. Passing something that will not stand up to a constitutional challenge, I dont think thats in the best interest of the Texas House, Phelan said.

Democrats, who picked up 12 seats in the House in the November election, say voters dont want to see lawmakers emphasize abortion policy this year.

I think the people of Texas sent a signal last year that theyre tired of some of this stuff, said Rep. Chris Turner, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, about attempts to curtail access to abortion. I hope that there will be a shift away from those bills.

Guiterrez, of Planned Parenthood, said she fears a hostile legislative environment. As abortion bills pass through a welcoming committee, she is afraid lawmakers will have blinders on instead of listening to testimony from doctors and women who oppose the legislation.

Despite lawmakers pledges to focus on issues like schools and property taxes, lawmakers are going to feel pressure when youve got Right to Life down your throat saying this bill needs to move out of committee, said Gutierrez. When do we ever take anyone for their word?
Any large-scale home renovation means overwriting the work of the person who originally designed the space, at least to some degree. But when John Grable was tasked with rethinking much about the Alamo Heights home of Ben and Kate Cardinale, he likened the experience to tiptoeing among giants, those giants being architects Ken Bentley and John Kell, who had worked under the legendary ONeil Ford.

Still, Grable and architectural project manager Matthew Martinez didnt let that keep them from making the home  built in 1968 on a sloping, treed hillside  bright, airy and modern.

Move the master bedroom from one end of the house to the other, and jettison a loft space to bring more light into the main living area? Sure. Just be sure to maintain the original influences, such as the double-brick walls, sloping shed roofs and Douglas fir detail and millwork connections.

The house was very open-plan for the time, said Grable who, after 18 years with Lake | Flato, founded his eponymous architectural firm in 2004. We wanted to reinforce the best of it and also move it into the future.

While the Cardinales live in the house, the legal owner is Kates son, Emil Peters, who lives in London and is the president of a medical information system company. He bought it in 2016 and invited them to live there in his absence and oversee the 21-month renovation.

He made us an offer we couldnt refuse, said Ben, a writer who used to build houses. Peters mother, an Incarnate Word High School grad, is an interior designer and former Hollywood set decorator. Her credits include Boyz n the Hood, George of the Jungle, Devil in a Blue Dress and the Steve Martin-Goldie Hawn version of The Out-of-Towners.

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Originally, about half of the front of the house was windows, the rest a solid wall that limited the amount of light into the interior. In the back, a pair of French doors book-ended the large brick fireplace, which also obstructed the light.

The house was perfectly sited, but the interior had turned its back to the outdoors, said Grable. He wanted someone standing in the alley above the backyard to be able to see through the house all the way to the street below. We wanted to let the light flow through the house.

The first step was to remove the entire master suite, which had only an 8-foot, oppressively low ceiling, according to Grable. Along with that went the open loft above. Accessed by a narrow, difficult-to-navigate spiral staircase, the loft also blocked much of the light coming from the clerestory windows that run just under the 19-foot ceiling.

We tried keeping the loft because, after all, its square footage, Grable said. Matt even drew four or five different spiral staircase designs. But it really boxed in and darkened the central living area so we eventually decided it had to go.

With the master suite and loft removed, the 42-foot long living area is now bright and airy, with tree-filtered light able to stream in from virtually any angle. All that glass, combined with an endless pool installed at the outside base of the front windows, earned the house the nickname Water Glass.

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We feel one with nature, calm and relaxed. Its like being on vacation every day, Kate said.

The now-gone master suite was moved to a back portion of the house that sits at a 90-degree angle from the rest of the structure. Here, a second living area with another low, 8-foot ceiling was transformed into a luxurious and airy master suite, complete with a bath area carved from what had been the maids quarters.

The house also has what Grable calls a playfulness thats reflected in the bar area built into a corner of the main room. Peters is a World War II aficionado, particularly of D-Day. He imagined  and Grable created  the bar with a cutout that resembles a gun bunker on the beaches of Normandy and Omaha.

While Peters and the Cardinales declined to disclose the budget for the renovation, Peters said, Vision and imagination took control with such a good foundation from the previous owners. In other words, Kate added, Budget went out the window!

Behind the bar area, Grable designed a small powder room, the centerpiece of which is the sink. Made by the Spanish company Porcelanosa, it is a stunning, 800-pound work of art made from a single piece of solid white Carrara marble carved at abstract angles.

That was Kates idea, Grable said. She knew the company that supplied it from her days in Los Angeles as an interior designer.

One thing the architects didnt do after dismantling the master suite and loft was redo the flooring. Instead, they left the brick flooring that traces the original public area footprint, while exposing the concrete foundation to the master suite that previously had been carpeted.

The result is a floor with a distinctly warehouse feel.

Many designers would want the floor to be all the same, said Kate, who still does interior design consulting work. But not in this case. I like the idea of telling the story of the renovation. You can see where things were.

Another way Grable brought light into the home was by widening the opening from the living room into the large kitchen. Originally, there were three standard-width doorways in the double brick wall separating the rooms. Grable expanded the central doorway, making it 11 feet wide, leaving the two on either side in place.

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I left the two there because the segmented arches above them are reminiscent of Roman architecture, and I used to live in Italy, he said. Theyre also reflected in a similar arch above the the fireplace.

Grable and Martinez said they paid special attention to maintaining the feel of Kell and Brantleys design which has definite echoes of many of ONeil Fords best works, such as the campuses of Trinity University and the North Side University of Texas at San Antonio, the Tower of the Americas and at least 30 residential homes in San Antonio.

He helped create a sense of place for this region and brought clarity to what Texas was, Grable said. He really put Texas on the map architecturally.

I tell people he was the Frank Lloyd Wright of Texas, Martinez said.
How, exactly, fideo made it to the Americas may be a mystery, but this much is clear: By the time the noodles migrated to South Texas, things had gotten a little crazy  or loco, if you will.

Fideo loco, at its most basic, is a stew of vermicelli pasta in a savory and slightly thickened broth studded with ground beef and pinto beans. Sometimes flavorful picadillo stands in for the plain beef, or it might be served topped with cheese, or any other number of variations. Its surprisingly mild-mannered despite its evocative name, rarely served spicy.

The dish is an undeniable household staple for many San Antonians, and its been that way for years.

The recipes have been passed down from generation to generation and everybody swears that theirs is the best, said Roxanne Quintero, founder of the annual Fideo Loco Festival.

Quintero, 40, is a lifelong San Antonian who can trace her lineage back to the Alamo defenders. Her familys recipe dates to at least her great grandmother, and she still swears by it today.

Fideo is, in all likelihood, an import from Spain. The word can refer to pasta dishes in general in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world, but points specifically to short pieces of vermicelli in Spain proper.

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Fideos are prepared in myriad ways around the globe. In Mexico, one might find the noodles served in a thin soup called sopa de fideo packed with tomato, chile and lime. In the Philippines, a dish of that same name, sopa de fideo, might contain ground pork, soy sauce, mung beans and other nods to Asia. Back in Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, look for the noodles to stand in for rice in a paellalike dish called fideua.

However its prepared, this much is clear: Fideo is comfort food. But attitudes toward that, Quintero said, are evolving.

Oh, fideo again? It wasnt that Happy Meal with a toy inside we wanted when we were growing up. It was cheap, affordable stuff that fed a lot of blue-collar families, Quintero said. But where her generation sees it as a comfortable but unceremonious affair, younger people are embracing it as a cultural and familial totem.

What Ive noticed with the millennials is its a cool thing to like fideo. Kids today like it, she said. They didnt get to try their great grandmothers, and probably werent even born yet, but it connects them to her.

Pete Rios can testify to the same. Rios and his family have long owned and operated Petes Tako House. The restaurant moved into a larger space at 502 Brooklyn Ave. several years back, and Rios started expanding the menu at that time.

On ExpressNews.com: Review: On San Antonios River Walk, a tale of three Mexican restaurants at Acenar

One addition, his grandmothers fideo loco, proved such a hit he now serves the typical lunch or dinner dish all day long, more than a few orders going out to breakfast customers. Photos of his and other versions of the dish found on menus in San Antonio are scattered across social media sites, and regularly garner enthusiastic sentiments of nostalgia.

Its something people here can relate to, Rios said. Its full of sensations and memories.

This week were here to help celebrate old memories and maybe even make some new ones with a batch of recipes that celebrate several different ways to enjoy fideo. So get in the kitchen, throw a few noodles at the wall and see what sticks.

Recipe: Mexican Noodle Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

Recipe: Fideua (Spanish Fideo)

Recipe: Roxanne Quinteros Fideo Loco

Recipe: Baked Fideo Casserole (Sopa Seca)

Paul Stephen is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pstephen@express-news.net | Twitter: @pjbites | Instagram: @pjstephen
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In many prisons, inmates now have a chance to get a GED (General Equivalency Diploma) or high school diploma, and these programs are strongly praised by criminal justice expert, Paul Brakke, who has written and published seven books on the subject through American Leadership Books. His latest books which focus on or have chapters on prison conditions are Crime in America and The Costly U.S. Prison System.

As Brakke points out, about 70% of all inmates never graduated from high school, but these programs give them a chance to get either a GED or high school school. Having this degree plays a major part in getting hired for a job and opens the door to further education and better jobs and business opportunities in the future.

As an example of these successful programs, Brakke points to the Lockhart Correctional Facility, a minimum-security women's prison in Central Texas. The prison has one of the high school programs in Texas prisons. After the inmates leave prison, teachers at the prison help the ex-cons find jobs

According to Brakke, these programs help reduce costs of imprisonment and recidivism, contribute to a reduction in crime, and strengthen families by helping prisoners get the skills they need to better get a job when they come out. As a result, they are less apt to return to crime. A reason these programs are so valuable is that about 70% of American prisoners have not completed high school, though they need that diploma to get many jobs or pursue a higher education.

"Minimally," Brakke says, "they should get a GED, which is equivalent to a high school diploma, although not equal, since it only teaches prisoners the basic reading, comprehension, writing, and math skills. It doesn't offer classes on specific subjects, such as history or geography, so the prisoner who gets a GED doesn't learn all of the subjects someone would take in a regular high school. At least it helps in getting a job upon release, and it opens the door to getting a higher education after prison."

As Brakke states, "Getting this education is really important for prisoners who haven't graduated from high school, since education offers an opportunity for social and economic mobility after release from prison. This education also saves the state and nation a huge pot of money, because most of these ex-cons go straight when they leave with a degree that helps them get a job and reconnect with their family. Then, they have much less incentive to return to crime once they are working again."

To provide an example of this cost savings, Brakke cites what the state of Maryland spends on education and incarceration. "It costs around $12,000 per year per public school student from K-12. But the state spends around $37,000 a year for each person they incarcerate - about three times as much. Just think how much the state could save by putting this money into helping prisoners get a high school or GED degree, so there would be fewer incarcerated individuals, due to less recidivism as a result of less crime."

Thus, as Brakke points out, providing a GED or high school education for those who don't have it, makes economic sense. For instance, a 2016 RAND Corporation study found that individuals who participated in any kind of educational program while in prisonere 43% less likely to return to prison. Plus other research has consistently shown the benefits of getting an education in prison -- among them an increased personal income, lower unemployment, greater political involvement and volunteerism, and better health.

"The big reason for these differences is being better able to get a job after prison," says Brakke. "Ex-cons with a limited education often find they don't have financial resources or a social support system after they get out of prison. So they are more likely to commit a criminal act rather than becoming reintegrated into their community. The financial numbers show the need for this high school GED education even more, since taxpayers will generally save four to five dollars that Would be spent on incarceration for every dollar they spend on prison education, according to a March 2018 article on "Educating Opportunities in Prison Are the Key to Reducing Crime" published by the Center for American Progress."

Finally, another perk is that since ex-cons are more likely to be employed, they pay more in taxes and have more purchasing power, and by becoming more self-sufficient citizens, they are less reliant on government programs. "So it's a win-win for both the individual and society," says Brakke. "For example, Missouri saved approximately $25,000 per year for every incarcerated individual who didn't return to prison. Thus, if a high school diploma or GED can help to keep released inmates from returning to prison, let's go for it. Let's provide the funding to make these programs happen."

Brakke brings to his advocacy for high school and GED programs in prisons an extensive background in criminal justice research. He has now written seven books on criminal justice topics, which include most recently Crime in America and the soon to be released Prisons in America. In writing these books and working as a consultant, Brakke brings to the table a unique conservative approach to crime and criminal justice. That's because usually liberals discuss ways to reform the system through more of a social welfare approach. But Brakke's approach is based on an economic business model of doing what works most efficiently to both cut down costs and create more productive citizens.

Since publishing Crime in America, Brakke had 35 videos made featuring highlights from the book which are available on the American Leadership Books YouTube channel at https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCfHgXXiW3jgODnaypgcYZFw/videos/upload

To learn more, you can get a copy of Crime in America, which is now available through Amazon, Kindle, and major bookstores. It is currently available on Kindle at reduced price during its special KDP Select Promotion at https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Conservatives-Approaches-Criminals-ebook/dp/B07MKZG84Z. Also, free copies are available for government officials who are seeking ways to reduce crime and fix the criminal justice system and for members of the media at www.crimeinamericathebook.com

For media copies of the book, more information on American Leadership Books and Paul Brakke, and to set up interviews, please contact:

Jana Collins

Jones & O'Malley

Toluca Lake, California

jana@jonesomalley.com

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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

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Hi! My name isand I am an audit supervisor for the King County Auditors Office , in Washington State. We conduct independent performance evaluations of county programs and agencies. Prior to working for King County, I worked for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and find that I still look to their online resources to help inform my work.GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. Their research spans topics that the federal government is involved in  which are many and varied  and they have resources online that can help inform you on key topics, methodologies, and criteria for evaluations.GAO has lots of great resources to help inspire and inform evaluations.The American Evaluation Association is celebratingwith our colleagues in the. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our Govt Eval TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
In the moments that preceded Blacks unfortunate and sudden death from a congenital heart defect, Greensboro police officers did what is expected of a professional law enforcement officer in 2019. They responded to a citizens call for help. After locating the persons thought to be involved in a possible kidnapping, they began a brief investigation to determine what, if anything, happened. The subject of that brief investigation, Black, fled from officers before the suspicion of the citizen caller could be confirmed or dispelled. While Black did resist being taken into custody, little force was used by police officers. The officers involved demonstrated a caring and sensitive attitude to Black and his family. Once it became apparent that Black required emergency medical care, officers summoned an ambulance and began CPR.


Ongoing Brexit uncertainty is the background to wealthy Europeans with homes in the UK deciding to move away, new research suggests.An international removal firm has reported an 82% rise in the number that moved from the UK in 2018, saying that the majority are European Union citizens moving with their families and also retirees concerned about Brexit.'Brexit uncertainty is persuading a growing number of people to leave London for overseas, with favoured destinations including Paris, Brussels, Zurich, Geneva, southern France and Majorca. The timing suggests a reaction not so much to Brexit itself but the handling of the negotiations, said Anthony Ward Thomas of Anthony Ward Thomas Removals.Meanwhile, the UK has cancelled the fee for EU citizens who can now start to register for settled status. They had been due to pay 65 for adults and 32.50 for children under 16 to be eligible to stay after 30 June 2021.The application process is online and via an app where applicants will be asked to prove their identity, their residence in the UK and will be asked whether they have criminal convictions in any overseas country.The European Parliaments chief Brexit official welcomed the move. Guy Verhofstadt, the head of the EU Parliament Brexit steering group, said it had been a key demand for the EU legislature all along.The hospitality sector in particular has welcomed the decision. Scrapping the fee for settled status is a welcome and positive Government decision, providing peace of mind for many EU citizens working in the UKs hospitality sector planning for their futures, said UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls.It will save the hospitality sector, workers and their families an estimated 20 million and is a gesture that rightly highlights the hugely valuable contribution EU workers make to the UK economy, particularly in hospitality. It is encouraging that the government has heard our concerns, she explained.Now we need the Government to outline its course of action, to find a solution that minimises disruption to businesses, which need a better idea of what lies ahead. Parliament needs to settle on a decision, preferably avoiding a no deal Brexit, and give UK businesses a chance to prepare for the future, she added.There are 3.5 million EU citizens currently living in the UK and most will have to apply via the scheme if they want to continue living in the country after June 2021. Many EU citizens have been upset by what they see as being asked to apply to stay in a place they regard as their home having lived in the UK for many years.Non-EU nationals in the UK with an EU spouse, civil partner or unmarried partner also need to apply for the settlement scheme, and are advised to apply at the same time as them while those not planning on staying in the UK beyond the transition period do not need to apply for the scheme.But EU nationals who plan to remain for several years but not settle in the UK permanently are still advised to apply for settled or pre-settled status and experts point out that it is likely to be cheaper and simpler than other visa options.
UPDATE  0900 31/01: Reflecting mixed expectations for the Brexit-ridden Pound Sterling, Wednesdays session saw the GBP mixed against peers.

A broadly weakened US Dollar (USD) in the wake of dovish Fed releases saw the GBP/USD exchange rate spike sharply.

Early Thursday saw Cable dip sharply but retain the majority of the post-fed gains and was last seen trading at $1.31245.

Against the Euro, Wednesday saw the GBP/EUR exchange rate trading relatively flat, drifting marginally lower towards support at 1.14. The cross was last seen at 1.1414.

Overnight saw the latest GfK consumer confidence release, which while having a muted market impact, highlighted continued Brexit uncertainty as a thorn in the side for consumer sentiment.

A static release of -14 saw the index remain at its lowest level since July 2013, while expectations for future economic conditions declined to their weakest level since December 2011. GfK executive Joe Staton commented, Consumers, companies and corporations thrive on certainty, which is in short supply just two months before the planned date for the UKs EU exit.

GBP Rates Remain Supported Despite Growing Odds of No-Deal Brexit Outcome

Following Tuesday session's sharp decline in Pound Sterling (GBP), the Brexit-ridden pound saw a partial recuperation of losses against peer currencies in Wednesdays session.

Rebounding from a session low of $1.30645, the Pound-to-Dollar exchange rate was last seen trading at $1.31013.

The Pound-to-Euro exchange rate also ticked higher from a Tuesday session post-parliament low of 1.1417 to the current level of 1.1461.

Despite continued Brexit uncertainty and marginally elevated expectations of a no-deal Brexit outcome (Goldman Sachs projections for a no deal outcome saw an upwards revision to 15%), many institutional forecasts still consider the GBP to be severely undervalued.

BNP Paribas advised clients to maintain GBP long positions in anticipation of an extension to the article 50, March 29th, deadline.

In a note, BNP Paribas analysts wrote, The can has merely been kicked down the road. MPs will have to decide again on 14 February whether to accept the deal on the table, leave with no deal, or extend Article 50. We think the latter will prevail.

Chief Europe economist, Sarah Hewin, of Standard Chartered concurred, stating, The market is still giving a very low probability to a no-deal chances of an extension to Article 50 are rising, adding in relation to the recent GBP sell-off, The market is taking the view that as long as Brexit uncertainty persists its going to be difficult for the BoE to raise rates. As we are now in the realm of extending Article 50, it means uncertainty is also extended and thats the rationale behind the pricing.

Nevertheless, other institutional research suggests the GBP is a short in the making. Among these, Swissquotes Vincent Mivalez puts forward the banking groups Brexit-based Pound-pessimism given very low expectations that the EU will budge from their stance opposing the reopening of withdrawal agreement negotiations to alter the Irish backstop provision.

Mivalez wrote, We dont see how GBP can maintain its strength. Too much uncertainty UK Prime Minister Theresa May says shell return to Brussels to convince the European Council to remove the Northern Ireland backstop. Yeah, right.

Yesterdays parliamentary session saw MPs back an amendment which, while not legally binding, reasserts pressure on the Prime Minister to seek changes to the current withdrawal agreement with specific regards to the included Irish backstop provision which, while proposing measures to avoid a hard border in Ireland, has come under cross-party fire amid fears the UK could be trapped in a customs union with the EU indefinitely.

Despite incessant reiterations that the EU will not reopen negotiations therefore casting doubt on the PMs ability to secure such changes, Mivalez noted, This risk of no deal does not seem to stop GBP traders buying long positions.

Mivalez added, The key question remains: why would UK MPs require May to go back to Brussels if the odds are clear? As the Council wont accept any amendments, it will probably accept a conditional extension of the March deadline constrained by a second referendum or general elections, or it will force certain UK MPs to vote for remaining within the EU customs union. Time is running short to the mid-February deadline.
UPDATE: The Pound to Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) touched a fresh one-week low on Thursday, hitting 142.380 as investors flocked to the Yen in the wake of a dovish policy meeting by the Federal Reserve.

Potentially extending these gains at the end of the week will also be the release of Japans latest employment figures, with a potential slide in the domestic jobless rate in December limiting any upside potential in the Yen.

UPDATE: The Pound-to-Yen exchange rates remained under pressure throughout Wednesdays session with the Japanese currency lifted sharply by boosted safe-haven demand in the wake of dovish Federal Reserve commentary.

GBP/JPY was last seen trading at 142.756, at the floor of the overnight range and in the vicinity of the weekly low.

Continued US-China trade negotiations in the US could be a source of fluctuating risk-appetite through Thursdays session with JPY crosses particularly susceptible to shifts in sentiment.

Danske Bank analyst, Aila Mihr, commented, The US-China high-level trade talks continue today. Look out for any statements from the two sides tonight when the negotiations conclude. We believe we will see some progress in areas like intellectual property rights and technology transfer.

GBP/JPY Exchange Rate Steady, US-China Trade Talks in Sight

UPDATE: The Pound to Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) remained range-bound on Wednesday afternoon trading at 142.237 as Sterling stabilises following heavy losses overnight on Tuesday. However the Yen remained poised to rally later in the US trading session, should safe-haven demand surge as high-level trade talks between the US and China get underway in Washington.

No-Deal Brexit Fears Knock Pound Sterling Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) Exchange Rate

Investors sold the British Pound to Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) exchange rate overnight, pushing the pair even lower after safe haven demand dragged the pair down at the beginning of the week. Hopes that the formal Brexit date will still be delayed despite Tuesdays UK Parliament vote helped the Pound to rebound slightly on Wednesday morning.

A strong US Dollar and hopes that a No-deal Brexit could be avoided left GBP/JPY surging last week, and the pair climbed from 141.31 to 144.70. While GBP/JPY has fallen since then, the pair only hit a low of 142.83 last night and trended closer to the level of 143.28 at the time of writing on Wednesday.

GBP/JPY has sustained most of last weeks strong gains, as investors remain generally hopeful that a No-deal Brexit can be avoided despite Tuesdays news.

The Japanese Yen was able to take advantage of Sterlings brief selloff due to market demand for safe haven currencies, but mixed Japanese data has limited the currencys appeal.

Pound (GBP) Exchange Rates Steady after Selloff on Fresh No-Deal Brexit Fears

Tuesday saw another day of Brexit debate in UK Parliament, but the debates and amendments werent as productive or influential regarding the Brexit process as some investors expected and as a result the Pound tumbled overnight.

Investors had been hoping that enough amendments could be supported to offer some clarity over what the next steps of Brexit could be.

Instead though, the MPs voted against amendments calling for more control over Brexit from Parliament, as well as voting against an amendment to pressure the UK government into delaying the formal Brexit date.

Instead, MPs simply voted to change the controversial Irish backstop, leading the government to attempt to reopen negotiations with the EU  even though the EU has said its negotiation stance will not change.

Markets are not expecting any major boost in support for Prime Minister Mays Brexit deal, but despite this analysts are still confident that the formal Brexit date will be delayed. According to Yukio Ishizuki, Senior Currency Strategist at Daiwa Securities:

It is difficult to tell what's next for the Pound. But the March 29 Brexit deadline will likely be extended, and the focal point is on when and how such an extension is decided upon,

Japanese Yen (JPY) Exchange Rates Slip Back amid Weaker Japanese Data

Demand for the Japanese Yen was strong for the first half of the week, as the currency benefitted from global market demand for safe haven currencies.

Concerns that the US could see another government shutdown within weeks, combined with fears that US-China trade tensions are worsening again, left the Japanese Yen a preferred safe haven option, over its rival the US Dollar (USD).

Investors have been avoiding riskier investments in recent sessions and this has been the primary cause of Japanese Yen strength so far this week.

The Japanese Yen also found some support during Wednesdays Asian session, as Japans December retail sales results printed better than analysts expected.

Monthly retail sales rose to 0.9% rather than the expected 0.4%, while yearly retail sales slipped to 1.3% rather than the expected drop to 0.8%.

However, the Pound to Yen exchange rate was able to more easily rebound during the European session thanks to some weak Japanese consumer confidence data. The figure fell further than expected, to 41.9, in Januarys print.

GBP/JPY Exchange Rate Forecast: Brexit Developments and Japanese Production Stats in Focus

As the UK government heads back to Brussels to attempt another round of UK-EU Brexit negotiations, will there be any changes to the government Brexit deal? Analysts doubt it.

Still, if there is any sign that the EU could change its tune on the Irish backstop issue to be more accommodating towards its UK critics, this would certainly boost Pound demand and soft Brexit hopes.

Any signs that a UK could formally delay the Brexit process would also make the Pound much more appealing.

Japanese Yen investors, on the other hand, will be watching US-China trade negotiations over the coming days as any surprises here could influence market demand for safe haven currencies.

Thursday mornings Japanese industrial production and housing starts, as well as anticipated comments from Bank of Japan (BoJ) officials, could also influence the Pound to Japanese Yen exchange rate tomorrow.
MADISON, Wis. -- Lager beer is cold, crisp, dry -- and worth about half a trillion dollars worldwide.

Behind the world's most popular alcoholic beverage is a yeast adapted to the cold, and hungry for the sugars it will transform into bubbles and booze.

That yeast is a hybrid, an amalgamation of the domesticated baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a recently discovered wild species, Saccharomyces eubayanus. Hundreds of years ago, the two species combined their strengths into a cold-fermenting strain that readily produces the crisp, light taste that came to dominate the beer market in the centuries that followed.

In a pair of new papers, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Genetics Chris Todd Hittinger, his graduate student EmilyClare Baker and others show how modern lager yeast adopted the cold-loving and sugar-hungry traits essential to their success.

In one paper, to be published Feb. 1 in Science Advances, the team demonstrates that when the cold-loving S. eubayanus donated its mitochondria -- the power-generating portion of the cell -- to the new hybrid, it conferred cold tolerance on the strain. Today, all industrial lager strains retain the S. eubayanus mitochondria and ferment at cold temps.

In a second paper, Baker and Hittinger investigated the ability of S. eubayanus to ferment all the sugars in wort, the barley malt extract that ferments into beer. Most strains of S. eubayanus cannot ferment maltotriose, the second-most common sugar in wort. But the researchers were able to evolve a brand-new protein capable of transporting maltotriose into the cell, revealing a potential path to more aggressive fermentation of all available sugars, a key trait in producing a dry, crisp beer. The paper was published on the pre-print server bioRxiv ahead of publication in the journal PLOS Genetics.

The new research is the first to identify the genetic underpinnings of how two of the most defining features of lager production -- cold tolerance and complete fermentation -- evolved in S. eubayanus and its hybrid offspring. Hittinger and Baker have applied for patents based on their work, which could provide new opportunities for altering both the temperature range and sugar metabolizing ability of industrial lager strains.

In 2011, Hittinger was part of the team that first isolated S. eubayanus in the wild from forests in Patagonia. Since then, his lab has worked to uncover how S. eubayanus combined with the bread-and-ale yeast S. cerevisiae some 500 years ago to kickstart the behemoth lager beer industry. Their partners in the brewing industry and the UW-Madison food science department helped them zero in on researching the origin of two key traits: growth in the cold and churning through all the sugar in wort.

One clue to lager yeast's cold preference came from a slate of recent studies showing that temperature tolerance in a wide range of species could be linked, at least partially, to mitochondria. These cellular components generate the bulk of the energy that cells rely on and have their own genome, albeit a small one with just a handful of genes.

Baker and Hittinger had previously shown that lager yeast inherited their mitochondria from S. eubayanus. To see if these mitochondria helped lager yeast thrive at cold temperatures, Baker treated S. eubayanus or S. cerevisiae strains with a chemical that broke down the yeast's mitochondrial DNA.

"Some yeasts are able to dispense with their mitochondrial genome," says Baker, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oregon. "As a result, you can get this blank slate strain without a mitochondrial genome and use that for crosses."

By making crosses between the two yeast species with or without their mitochondria intact, Baker produced two sets of hybrids: one had mitochondria from S. cerevisiae, the other from S. eubayanus. Other than the origin of their mitochondria, the hybrids were identical.

When Baker tested the growth of these hybrids at different temperatures, the differences were immediately apparent. The yeast with S. eubayanus mitochondria tolerated cold but wilted in the heat; strains with S. cerevisiae mitochondria couldn't handle the cold.

"At the most extreme temperatures, it's basically the difference between growing and not growing," says Hittinger, who is also a member of the Department of Energy-supported Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center headquartered at UW-Madison.

"For the first time we can remake custom lager strains that have the S. cerevisiae mitochondrial genome. And when you do that you get shifted temperature preferences," says Hittinger. "This is a new category of brewing strains that right now is not in anyone's arsenal. And we think it very well could have novel properties in beer production."

Cold-loving lager yeast take a long time to ferment and require refrigeration, which makes lager production more expensive than brewing ales. Hittinger and Baker believe that shifting lager production to slightly warmer temperatures with tailored mitochondria could produce huge cost savings -- as long as the distinctive lager taste is preserved.

But some brewers are looking to move beyond the traditional lager. Since S. eubayanus was discovered in 2011, brewers have tried to brew beer with the wild yeast in hopes of creating a new market. Heineken has released a limited-edition S. eubayanus beer and the Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona, Wisconsin, is trying to do the same in partnership with the Hittinger lab.

However, S. eubayanus cannot ferment all of the sugar in wort. Most strains of the yeast lack the ability to transport the sugar maltotriose into the cell to digest. Because maltotriose is the second-most common sugar in wort, brewing with S. eubayanus can result in an overly sweet beer.

So Baker and Hittinger tried to evolve better use of maltotriose in S. eubayanus strains. Over several months, the researchers grew S. eubayanus with plenty of maltotriose and a dash of other, digestible sugars -- just enough to let the yeast slowly reproduce. Then they looked for any yeast that gained the ability to transport and ferment maltotriose.

More than 2,000 generations later, they found a single strain that could grow on the sugar. When they looked at the yeast's genome, they found a new gene. The yeast had combined chunks of two genes capable of transporting maltose -- a sugar related to maltotriose but smaller and easier to transport.

"And that was particularly interesting because neither of these genes was able to transport maltotriose by themselves, but this new chimeric gene was," says Baker.

By reconfiguring existing genes, the yeast strain was able to quickly evolve a new trait without having to accumulate many slow, random mutations.

"We're hopeful that this will provide a way to reduce the sugar content in the final product," says Hittinger. "It'll make pure S. eubayanus beers less cloying and drier, more like a conventional lager, but will still retain some of the wild character that you expect from this wild, cold-tolerant strain."

Hittinger's office boasts empty bottles of Heineken's S. eubayanus beers and he's looking forward to seeing more of the wild beers available. His group is now working with brewers to test the new yeast strains under realistic conditions.

"This is a really interesting basic science story about how you take the different capabilities of two species that diverged from one another millions of years ago, hybridize them together, and get the best of both worlds to eventually create a multibillion-dollar industry," says Hittinger.

###

--Eric Hamilton, (608) 263-1986, eshamilton@wisc.edu

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Hatch project no. 1003258), the National Science Foundation (grant no. DEB-1253634), the Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE BER Office of Science; nos. DE-SC0018409 and DE-FC02-07ER64494) and the National Institutes of Health (grant no. GM080669).

CONTACT: Chris Todd Hittinger, cthittinger@wisc.edu; EmilyClare Baker, emilyclare@me.com
Researchers from the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Konstanz close a research gap in the field of genetic switches -- development of the first inducible system for C. elegans to switch on genes

With their first ever RNA-based inducible system for switching on genes in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), two researchers from the University of Konstanz have closed a significant gap in the research on and usage of genetic switches. The new approach was developed as part of a joint research project carried out by Dr Martin Gamerdinger (Department of Biology) and Professor Jorg Hartig (Department of Chemistry) within the University of Konstanz's Collaborative Research Centre 969 "Chemical and Biological Principles of Cellular Proteostasis", which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). By sharing their respective expertise in the area of C. elegans and the development of RNA-based genetic switches, the researchers were able - for the first time - to successfully induce a gene in the animal model using an RNA-based genetic switch. They were further able to establish a novel inducible disease model for Huntington's disease which opens up new opportunities for research and application.

Their paper "A tetracycline-dependent ribozyme switch allows conditional induction of gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans" is published on 30.01.2019 in the online journal Nature Communications.

The nematode C. elegans is widely used for research in cell and developmental biology and as a model system to study human diseases. This research animal model enjoys particular popularity because its anatomy is extremely simple, because its transparency allows live cell microscopy and because many of its genes are evolutionarily conserved in humans. "However, what I found quite frustrating is that we did not have an inducible system for this animal model allowing us to switch on genes at will", explains Dr Martin Gamerdinger, initiator of the research collaboration and project leader in CRC 969 "Chemical and Biological Principles of Cellular Proteostasis" at the University of Konstanz. As a result of the close collaboration with the Chemical and Synthetic Biology of Nucleic Acids team led by Professor Jorg Hartig, Gamerdinger and his colleagues were able to establish a particularly convenient and efficient system for inducing a gene in the C. elegans animal model.

Professor Hartig's team, which also includes Dr Lena Wurmthaler, first author of the paper, investigates unusual structures and characteristics of nucleic acids, particularly catalytically active ribozymes and so-called riboswitches, which can be used to switch individual genes on or off. A main purpose of RNA (ribonucleic acid) in biological cells is to translate genetic information into proteins; as mRNA it serves as an information carrier. Introducing self-cleaving ribozymes to mRNA molecules leads to mRNA decay and, ultimately, gene deactivation. However, the ribozyme's activity - and thus gene expression - can be controlled by means of ligand-dependent ribozymes. The researchers' inducible system is based on the ligand tetracycline, which belongs to the group of antibiotics. Tetracycline binds to the RNA molecule via a so-called RNA aptamer and inhibits ribozyme activity. This, in turn, stabilizes the mRNA, which is then translated into protein. As a result, the desired gene can be switched on. "What's so fabulous about the new genetic switch is that it can be used in all developmental stages of C. elegans, i.e. across all larval stages and in the adult animal, which was not possible until now", explains Dr Lena Wurmthaler. Among the major advantages of this new approach is that no additional regulatory proteins are required to regulate gene expression: All that is needed to switch on the gene is to insert the ribozyme along with the aptamer (aptazyme or ligand-dependent ribozyme) into the mRNA and to feed C. elegans tetracycline. Lena Wurmthaler: "We need very little coding space and no additional expressed protein factors at all. In a single step, we can convert any gene of interest in a tetraycycline-inducible gene".

Supported by doctoral researchers Monika Sack and Karina Gense, Martin Gamerdinger and Lena Wurmthaler were able to verify their new system by switching expression of the red fluorescence protein mCherry in various cell types of C. elegans. "Having such a simple and highly effective inducible system is a major step forward for the entire C. elegans field", concludes Gamerdinger. The two researchers expect their new system to be relevant in a range of contexts, especially in medical research. By successfully switching on a mutant gene that encodes the Huntingtin protein (Htt) and causes Huntington's disease in humans, a neurodegenerative disease of the brain, they were able to establish and investigate a new inducible disease model as part of their study.

As opposed to a healthy gene, the Huntingtin gene variant used in the study encodes an abnormally extended polyglutamine sequence. For their experiment, the two researchers created a particularly aggressive disease model with 109 sequential polyglutamines (Htt109Q). Demonstrably, feeding the worms tetracycline led to increased Huntingtin aggregation in C. elegans, which caused paralysis and, when targeted specifically to neurons, severe loss of motor coordination, which documents the neurotoxicity of the induced gene. Using this approach, Martin Gamerdinger and Lena Wurmthaler were able to establish the first inducible model of Huntington's disease in C. elegans. Since it is now possible to induce toxic proteins such as Huntingtin at will, it will be possible in the future to generate and investigate additional disease models that are based on extremely toxic proteins.

###

Facts:

Original publication: Lena A. Wurmthaler, Monika Sack, Karina Gense, Jorg S. Hartig, Martin Gamerdinger: A tetracycline-dependent ribozyme switch allows conditional induction of gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08412-w. Nature Communications, 30 January 2019.

Researchers from the University of Konstanz develop a new genetic switch for the nematode C. elegans.

Using the first inducible RNA-based system for gene activation in C. elegans, it is now possible to switch on a particular gene at will.

Development of a new disease model for C. elegans that may open up new perspectives on Huntington's disease.

The study is the result of a joint research project carried out by Dr Martin Gamerdinger (Department of Biology) in collaboration with Professor Jorg Hartig (Department of Chemistry) within the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 969 "Chemical and Biological Principles of Cellular Proteostasis" at the University of Konstanz.

Note to editors:

Pictures are available for download here:

Picture 1: https:/ / cms. uni-konstanz. de/ fileadmin/ pi/ fileserver/ 2019/ Bilder/ Neuer_Genschalter_entwickelt_Schaubild. jpg

Caption:

Left: How the ribozyme-based genetic switch works. A self-cleaving tetracycline-dependent ribozyme results in mRNA decay and down-regulation of gene expression. Adding tetracycline inhibits ribozyme activity, which stabilises the mRNA and induces gene expression. Right: Application of the genetic switch in the animal research model C. elegans. Tetracycline-induced expression of the fluorescence (mCherry)-tagged Huntingtin protein (Htt) with an abnormally long polyglutamine sequence that causes Huntington's disease in humans. Htt aggregates, which are typical of Huntington's disease, can be observed to form in the animal model.

Copyright: L. A. Wurmthaler, M. Gamerdinger, J. S. Hartig

Picture 2: https:/ / cms. uni-konstanz. de/ fileadmin/ pi/ fileserver/ 2019/ Bilder/ Neuer_Genschalter_entwickelt_Portraet. jpg

Caption:

Dr Lena Wurmthaler (left) and Dr Martin Gamerdinger (right)

Copyright: University of Konstanz

Contact:

University of Konstanz

Communications and Marketing

Phone: + 49 7531 88-3603

Email: kum@uni-konstanz.de
URBANA, Ill. - For farmers, Miscanthus represents a big up-front investment. The large perennial grass must be established from vegetative pieces at great cost to farmers, but it promises a decade or more of massive biomass yields, starting in year two or three. If a cold winter happens to strike in the first year, however, all bets are off.

The cold-sensitivity of the crop has limited its adoption in northern climes, but new research from the University of Illinois shows a way forward for would-be Miscanthus growers in cold regions.

"Farmers are playing a game of chance: Will there be a severe winter or not? If they get poor establishment from winter die-back, they've lost out on their investment," says Erik Sacks, plant geneticist in the Department of Crop Sciences at U of I and co-author of two new studies published in Global Change Biology Bioenergy. "We wanted to find Miscanthus genotypes that could withstand the cold."

The majority of Miscanthus currently being grown for biomass is a single, cold-sensitive genotype, known commercially as 'Illinois' for the location of its introduction to the United States. For years, Sacks and other plant breeders around the world have been making crosses and exploring the native region of Miscanthus, trying to find and develop novel cultivars with more desirable agronomic traits.

In one of the new studies, Sacks and his colleagues planted 13 of these cultivars the May before an unusually cold winter in Urbana, Illinois. Most of the same cultivars were also planted further south in Dixon Springs, Illinois, and in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

"We had put out a bunch of new Miscanthus x giganteus hybrids that summer, most of them experimental crosses, but some from collections in southern Japan. We were looking for yield and other performance traits. But as it turns out, the 2013-2014 winter was extremely cold here in Urbana," Sacks says. "If you get lemons, you make lemonade, so we evaluated winter-hardiness."

In the spring of 2014, it was clear that first-year 'Illinois' plants had been decimated in Urbana, though there was little obvious damage to any of the plants in Dixon Springs or Jonesboro. In fact, most of the first-year cultivars were hit hard in Urbana that winter. However, one hybrid stood out.

"The 'Nagara' hybrid didn't know there was a winter in 2013-2014. It was perfectly fine. And in Dixon Springs, its yields were high and not significantly different from 'Illinois,'" Sacks says. "Here in the north, I'd say something like 'Nagara' is a much safer bet for a farmer."

Hongxu Dong, lead author on the studies and former doctoral student in Sacks' research group, adds that experimental hybrid '10UI-032.004' and one of its parents, M. sacchariflorus 'Bluemel,' were comparable to 'Nagara' in terms of first-winter survival in Urbana.

"This is remarkable considering that the other parent, M. sinensis ssp. condensatus 'Cabaret', was the least hardy entry in this study," he says.

The researchers also noted that mature plants in other trials in Urbana had much less winter damage and recovered fully by late spring. That observation told them that first-year Miscanthus plants are much more susceptible to damage from cold winters than mature, established plants. The researchers continued to monitor the plants, including their survival rate and biomass yield until the spring of 2015.

Sacks notes, "The take-home lesson is that winter-hardiness is something we need to be very concerned about in the Midwest and New England and anywhere else with a harsh winter. We need to be selecting for hybrids that farmers don't have to worry about each time they plant. We already have an immediate solution to that problem here, 'Nagara,'and there are others coming along from my research group."

In the second study, the researchers evaluated the effect of Urbana's 2013-2014 winter on mature Miscanthus plants. The three-year-old plants were crosses between an ornamental Miscanthus variety originally collected in mild coastal regions of southern Japan - Miscanthus sinensis ssp. condensatus 'Cosmopolitan' - and one of three others collected in far-flung regions across Asia, from southern Japan to remote areas on the border between China and eastern Russia.

Even though the plants were already mature, many of them were badly damaged or dead by spring of 2014, except the cross between 'Cosmopolitan' and the Russian variety, Miscanthus sacchariflorus 'Robustus.' Like 'Nagara,' these crosses didn't seem to notice there was a winter at all. They all survived and were highly vigorous in the following growing season.

The researchers created genetic maps for the plants and were able to identify a number of candidate genes correlated with winter-hardiness. They are now working with those genes to create hybrids that represent the best of both worlds.

"Genetic mapping to identify candidate genes associated with valuable traits is a critical step to enable marker-assisted selection, which can be especially valuable for breeding perennial crops like Miscanthus that have multi-year selection cycles," Dong says.

Sacks adds, "A main takeaway was if we cross something really non-hardy and something really hardy, their progeny survive here. That means we could take advantage of the high yield potential in the subtropical or tropical materials and combine it with the cold hardiness from the lower-yielding northern materials. Take extremes, combine them, and you've got something to work with. That was a good lesson."

Both papers, "Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (I): Overwintering ability and yield of new Miscanthus  giganteus genotypes in Illinois and Arkansas" [DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12588] and "Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (II): Genetic mapping for overwintering ability and adaptation traits in three interconnected Miscanthus populations" [DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12587] are published in Global Change Biology Bioenergy. The research was supported by the Energy Biosciences Institute, the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the US Department of Energy.

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A network of very fine blood vessels that connects bone marrow directly with the blood supply of the periosteum that was previously overlooked has now been discovered by Dr. Anika Gruneboom, a young researcher who is now working at Universitatsklinikum Erlangen. She made this groundbreaking discovery while working on her doctoral thesis at Universitat Duisburg-Essen (UDE) with Prof. Dr. Matthias Gunzer. Researchers from Universitatsklinikum Essen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg (FAU) and research institutes in Jena, Berlin, Dresden and Bern were also involved in the study.

Although bones are very hard organs, they also have a dense network of blood vessels inside them where the bone marrow is located as well as on the outside that is covered by the periosteum. This is why bone fractures often cause serious bleeding. However, new blood cells can also leave the bone marrow via this system of vessels and enter the body.

'As with every organ, bones need a closed bloodstream for these functions. While fresh blood is transported into organs via arteries, veins transport the 'used' blood back out again. The precise structure of this closed bloodstream in long bones was not clear up to now', explains Dr. Anika Gruneboom, Department of Medicine 3 - Rheumatology and Immunology at Universitatsklinikum Erlangen.

Over one thousand blood vessels in some places

The group of researchers have now found thousands of previously unknown blood vessels in the bones of mice that traverse perpendicularly across the entire length of the compact bone, the so-called cortical bone. The researchers have named them 'trans-cortical vessels' (TCVs) for this reason. Furthermore, they were able to demonstrate that the majority of both arterial and venous blood flows through this newly discovered system of vessels. This means that the system is a central component for supplying bones with oxygen and nutrients.

In addition, the researchers discovered that the newly-discovered system of vessels is used by the immune cells in bone marrow to reach the bloodstream. In the case of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, it is especially important that immune cells reach the source of the inflammation quickly. 'This network of blood vessels in the bone is similar to an underground train system that is able to successfully transport large numbers of passengers quickly and directly through barriers', explains Dr. Gruneboom.

Lead researcher Prof. Gunzer adds: 'The previous concepts only described a few single arterial canals and two venous canals in bones. This is completely inaccurate and does not reflect the actual situation at all. It is quite surprising that we can still find new anatomic structures in the 21st century that are not found in any textbooks.' The discovery was possible due to a unique combination of modern imaging methods explains Prof. Gunzer: 'Many of these methods were used for the very first time by us such as so-called light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and ultra high-resolution 7 tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging and x-ray microscopy in collaboration with the ERC Synergy Grant 4D-nanoSCOPE team under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Silke Christiansen and Prof. Dr. Georg Schett'.

In future, studies are planned to investigate the role of trans-cortical vessels for normal bone remodelling and in conditions such as osteoporosis or tumours that metastasise in bones. The work at FAU was funded by collaborative research centre 1181 as well as the ERC Synergy Grant 4D nanoSCOPE.

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A study carried out in Bajondillo Cave (in the town of Torremolinos, in the province of Malaga) by an international team made up of researchers from Spain, Japan and the U.K. revealed that modern humans replaced Neanderthals 44,000 years ago. This study, published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution and in which University of Cordoba and University of Granada scientists participated, demonstrates that replacing Neanderthals for modern humans in southern Iberia is an early, not late, occurrence, in the context of Western Europe. That is to say it happened 5,000 years before previously thought up until now.

Western Europe is a key area for dating when modern humans replaced Neanderthals. The first ones are associated with Mousterian industries (named after a Neanderthal archaeological site in Le Moustier, France), and the second ones with Aurignacians (named after another French archaeological site in Aurignac) that followed. To date, radiocarbon dating available in Western Europe dated the end of this replacement around 39,000 years ago, even though in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula Mousterian industries (and for that matter, Neanderthal ones) continued to exist and would until 32,000 years ago. In this area there is no evidence of the early Aurignacians that is documented in Europe.

The new dating from Bajondillo Cave (Torremolinos, Malaga) has narrowed down the replacement of Mousterian industries for Aurignacian ones to a range between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, which raises questions about the late continued existence of Neandertals in southern Iberia.

New research will be necessary to determine if indeed these new dates show an earlier replacement of Neanderthals in the entire southern peninsula, or if they show more complex scenarios of a "mosaic" coexistence between both groups for millennia.

However it occurred, the dates revealed in the Nature Ecology and Evolution article, in which University of Cordoba Professor Jose Antonio Riquelme is a coauthor, prove that the establishment of modern humans in Bajondillo Cave are separate from phenomenons of extreme cold (known as Heinrich events), since they occurred before the closest one, Heinrich event 4 (39,500 years ago).

Francisco J. Jimenez-Espejo, a researcher at the Andalusian Earth Science Institute (the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Granada) and one of the coauthors of the article, points out that "Heinrich events represent the most intense and fluctuating climate conditions in Western Europe on a millenium scale, even though in this Mediterranean coastal region, they do not appear to be involved in the transition from Mousterian to Aurignacian."

The location of Bajondillo indicates that coastal passages were favorite routes in the dispersal of the first modern humans. In this sense, the researchers maintain that finding such an early Aurignacian in a cave so close to the sea strengthens the idea that the Mediterranean coastline was a route modern humans took to get to Europe, reinforcing those dates that prove that more than 40,000 years agos Homo sapiens had spread rapidly throughout a considerable part of Eurasia.

Lastly, seeing as the relevance of coastal areas abounds, the authors of this study suggest that the evidence in Bajondillo Cave has revived the idea that the Strait of Gibraltar was a potential dispersal route for modern humans leaving Africa.

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An early Aurignacian arrival in southwestern Europe

Miguel Cortes-Sanchez1,2, Francisco J. Jimenez-Espejo*3,4, Maria D. Simon-Vallejo1,2, Chris Stringer5, Maria Carmen Lozano Francisco2, Antonio Garcia-Alix4,6, Jose L. Vera Pelaez2, Carlos Odriozola Lloret1,2, Jose A. Riquelme-Cantal7, Ruben Parrilla Giraldez2, Adolfo Maestro Gonzalez8, Naohiko Ohkouchi3, Arturo Morales-Muniz9

Nature Ecology and Evolution (2019) DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0753-6
Professor Sungho Jo (KAIST) and Kyu-Jin Cho (Seoul National University), a collaboration research team in Soft Robotics Research Center (SRRC), Seoul, Korea, have proposed a new intention detection paradigm for wearable hand robots. The proposed paradigm predicts grasping/releasing intentions based on user behaviors, enabling the spinal cord injury (SCI) patients with lost hand mobility to pick-andplace objects. (The researchers include (KAIST) Daekyum Kim & Jeesoo Ha, (Seoul National University) Brian Byunghyun Kang, Kyu Bum Kim & Hyungmin Choi)

They developed a method based on a machine learning algorithm that predicts user intentions for wearable hand robots by utilizing a first-person-view camera. Their development is based on the hypothesis: user intentions can be inferred through the collection of user arm behaviors and hand-object interactions.

The machine learning model used in this study, Vision-based Intention Detection network from an EgOcentric view (VIDEO-Net), is designed based on this hypothesis. VIDEO-Net is composed of spatial and temporal sub-networks, where the temporal sub-network is to recognize user arm behaviors and the spatial sub-network is to recognize hand-object interactions.

An SCI patient wearing Exo-Glove Poly II, (Video of previous version ) a soft wearable hand robot, successfully pick-and-place various objects and perform essential activities of daily living, such as drinking coffee without any additional helps.

Their development is advantageous in that it detects user intentions without requiring any person-toperson calibrations and additional actions. This enables the wearable hand robot to interact with humans seamlessly.

>> Professor Sungho Jo

Sungho Jo received the B.S. degree in school of mechanical & aerospace engineering from the Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1999, the S.M. in mechanical engineering, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA, in 1999 and 2006 respectively. While pursuing the Ph.D., he was associated with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Laboratory for Information Decision and Systems (LIDS), and Harvard-MIT HST NeuroEngineering Collaborative. Before joining the faculty at KAIST, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT media laboratory. Since December in 2007, he has been with the department of computer science at KAIST, where he is currently (tenured) Associate Professor. His research interests include intelligent robots, neural interfacing computing, neuromorphic computing, and wearable computing etc.

>> Professor Kyu-Jin Cho

Professor CHO Kyu-Jin is the director of the Soft Robotics Research Center in Seoul National University. He received the IEEE RAS Early Career award in 2014 for his achievement in the field of soft robots and bio-inspired robots. In 2015, He developed the water strider robot published in the journal Science. In 2016, he presented the Exo-Glove Poly, a glove-like soft robot that helps people with disabilities in their daily lives, at the AAAS Annual Convention. In April of the same year, he won the Soft Robot Challenge with the robot named 'SNUMAX' which was held in Pisa, Italy for the first time.

Q: How does this system work?

A: This technology aims to predict user intentions, specifically grasping and releasing intent toward a target object, by utilizing a first-person-view camera mounted on glasses. VIDEONet, a deep learning-based algorithm, is devised to predict user intentions from the camera based on user arm behaviors and hand-object interactions. Instead of using bio-signals, which is often used for intention detection of disabled people, we use a simple camera to find out the intention of the user. Whether the person is trying to grasp or not. This works because the target users are able to move their arm, but not their hands. We can predict the user's intention of grasping by observing the arm movement and the distance from the object and the hand, and interpreting the observation using machine learning.

Q: Who benefits using this technology?

A: As mentioned earlier, this technology detects user intentions from human arm behaviors and hand-object interactions. This technology can be used to any people with lost hand mobility, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, cerebral palsy or any other injuries, as long as they can move their arm voluntarily.

Q: What are the limitations and future works?

A: Most of the limitations come from the drawbacks of using a monocular camera. For example, if a target object is occluded by another object, the performance of this technology decreases. Also, if user hand gesture is not able to be seen in the camera scene, this technology is not usable. In order to overcome the lack of generality due to these, the algorithm needs to be improved by incorporating other sensor information or other existing intention detection methods, such as using an electromyography sensor or tracking eye gaze.

Q: To use this technology in daily life, what do you need?

A: In order for this technology to be used in daily life, these devices are needed: a wearable hand robot with an actuation module, a computing device, and glasses with a camera mounted. We aim to decrease the size and weight of the computing device so that the robot can be portable to be used in daily life. So far, we could find compact computing device that fulfills our requirements, but we expect that neuromorphic chips that are able to perform deep learning computations will be commercially available.

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New tech paves way for more sustainable chemical manufacturing industry, one of the globe's biggest energy users

New technology that harnesses sunlight to drive chemical reactions is paving the way for a more sustainable chemical manufacturing industry, one of the globe's biggest energy users.

RMIT University researchers have developed a nano-enhanced material that can capture an incredible 99% of light and convert it to power chemical reactions.

As well as reducing the environmental impact of chemical manufacturing, the innovation could one day be used to deliver technologies like better infrared cameras and solar-powered water desalination.

Published today in ACS Applied Energy Materials, the research addresses the challenge of finding alternative energy sources for chemical manufacturing, which accounts for about 10% of global energy consumption and 7% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

In the US, chemical manufacturing uses more energy than any other industry, accounting for 28% of industrial energy consumption in 2017.

While photo catalysis - the use of light to drive chemical reactions - is growing in the industry, efficiency and cost remain significant obstacles to wider take-up.

Lead investigator Associate Professor Daniel Gomez said the new technology maximised light absorption to efficiently convert light energy into chemical energy.

"Chemical manufacturing is a power hungry industry because traditional catalytic processes require intensive heating and pressure to drive reactions," Gomez, an ARC Future Fellow in RMIT's School of Science, said.

"But one of the big challenges in moving to a more sustainable future is that many of the materials that are best for sparking chemical reactions are not responsive enough to light."

"The photo catalyst we've developed can catch 99% of light across the spectrum, and 100% of specific colours.

"It's scaleable and efficient technology that opens new opportunities for the use of solar power - moving from electricity generation to directly converting solar energy into valuable chemicals."

Nano-tech for solar power

The research focused on palladium, an element that's excellent at producing chemical reactions but usually not very light responsive.

By manipulating the optical properties of palladium nanoparticles, the researchers were able to make the material more sensitive to light.

While palladium is rare and expensive, the technique requires just a miniscule amount - 4 nanometres of nano-enhanced palladium is enough to absorb 99% of light and achieve a chemical reaction. An average human hair, for comparison, is 100,000 nanometres thick.

Beyond chemical manufacturing, the innovation could be further developed for a range of other potential applications including better night vision technology by producing more light-sensitive and clearer images.

Another potential use is for desalination. The nano-enhanced material could be put in salty water then exposed to sunlight, producing enough energy to boil and evaporate the water, separating it from the salt.

Gomez, who leads the Polaritonics Lab at RMIT, said the new technology could significantly increase the yield in the emerging photo-catalysis sector, with leading firms currently producing about 30kg of product each day using light as the driving force.

"We all rely on products of the chemical manufacturing industry - from plastics and medicines, to fertilisers and the materials that produce the colours on digital screens," he said.

"But much like the rest of our economy, it's an industry currently fuelled by carbon.

"Our ultimate goal is to use this technology to harness sunlight efficiently and convert solar energy into chemicals, with the aim of transforming this vital industry into one that's renewable and sustainable."

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The research, with collaborators from CSIRO, the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication and University of Melbourne, is published in ACS Applied Energy Materials (DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.8b01704).

A paper demonstrating similar technology using gold nanoparticles will be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal ACS Photonics.
The relief was palpable last Friday when President Donald Trump finally capitulated and agreed to end the longest federal government shutdown in history. Yet this shameful episode, which the president is threatening to put the country through again next month, held 800,000 federal workers and millions more employees of federal contractors hostage, as they suffered a slew of foreseeable harms from which some may never recover. Families faced mortgage defaults, missed rent and car payments, and were forced to make terrible choices between buying groceries, medicine and other daily necessities as they tried to cope without the income on which many depend every month to make ends meet. Contractors employees went without wages they may never recoup  some losing jobs altogether  as small businesses lacked the cushion to weather this blow.
Scientists have charted the environment surrounding a stellar-mass black hole that is 10 times the mass of the Sun using NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload aboard the International Space Station. NICER detected X-ray light from the recently discovered black hole, called MAXI J1820+070 (J1820 for short), as it consumed material from a companion star. Waves of X-rays formed "light echoes" that reflected off the swirling gas near the black hole and revealed changes in the environment's size and shape.

"NICER has allowed us to measure light echoes closer to a stellar-mass black hole than ever before," said Erin Kara, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, College Park and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who presented the findings at the 233rd American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. "Previously, these light echoes off the inner accretion disk were only seen in supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of solar masses and undergo changes slowly. Stellar black holes like J1820 have much lower masses and evolve much faster, so we can see changes play out on human time scales."

A paper describing the findings, led by Kara, appeared in the Jan. 10 issue of Nature and is available online.

J1820 is located about 10,000 light-years away toward the constellation Leo. The companion star in the system was identified in a survey by ESA's (European Space Agency) Gaia mission, which allowed researchers to estimate its distance. Astronomers were unaware of the black hole's presence until March 11, 2018, when an outburst was spotted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI), also aboard the space station. J1820 went from a totally unknown black hole to one of the brightest sources in the X-ray sky over a few days. NICER moved quickly to capture this dramatic transition and continues to follow the fading tail of the eruption.

"NICER was designed to be sensitive enough to study faint, incredibly dense objects called neutron stars," said Zaven Arzoumanian, the NICER science lead at Goddard and a co-author of the paper. "We're pleased at how useful it's also proven in studying these very X-ray-bright stellar-mass black holes."

A black hole can siphon gas from a nearby companion star into a ring of material called an accretion disk. Gravitational and magnetic forces heat the disk to millions of degrees, making it hot enough to produce X-rays at the inner parts of the disk, near the black hole. Outbursts occur when an instability in the disk causes a flood of gas to move inward, toward the black hole, like an avalanche. The causes of disk instabilities are poorly understood.

Above the disk is the corona, a region of subatomic particles around 1 billion degrees Celsius (1.8 billion degrees Fahrenheit) that glows in higher-energy X-rays. Many mysteries remain about the origin and evolution of the corona. Some theories suggest the structure could represent an early form of the high-speed particle jets these types of systems often emit.

Astrophysicists want to better understand how the inner edge of the accretion disk and the corona above it change in size and shape as a black hole accretes material from its companion star. If they can understand how and why these changes occur in stellar-mass black holes over a period of weeks, scientists could shed light on how supermassive black holes evolve over millions of years and how they affect the galaxies in which they reside.

One method used to chart those changes is called X-ray reverberation mapping, which uses X-ray reflections in much the same way sonar uses sound waves to map undersea terrain. Some X-rays from the corona travel straight toward us, while others light up the disk and reflect back at different energies and angles.

X-ray reverberation mapping of supermassive black holes has shown that the inner edge of the accretion disk is very close to the event horizon, the point of no return. The corona is also compact, lying closer to the black hole rather than over much of the accretion disk. Previous observations of X-ray echoes from stellar black holes, however, suggested the inner edge of the accretion disk could be quite distant, up to hundreds of times the size of the event horizon. The stellar-mass J1820, however, behaved more like its supermassive cousins.

As they examined NICER's observations of J1820, Kara's team saw a decrease in the delay, or lag time, between the initial flare of X-rays coming directly from the corona and the flare's echo off the disk, indicating that the X-rays traveled shorter and shorter distances before they were reflected. From 10,000 light-years away, they estimated that the corona contracted vertically from roughly 100 to 10 miles -- that's like seeing something the size of a blueberry shrink to something the size of a poppy seed at the distance of Pluto.

"This is the first time that we've seen this kind of evidence that it's the corona shrinking during this particular phase of outburst evolution," said co-author Jack Steiner, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge. "The corona is still pretty mysterious, and we still have a loose understanding of what it is. But we now have evidence that the thing that's evolving in the system is the structure of the corona itself."

To confirm the decreased lag time was due to a change in the corona and not the disk, the researchers used a signal called the iron K line created when X-rays from the corona collide with iron atoms in the disk, causing them to fluoresce. Time runs slower in stronger gravitational fields and at higher velocities, as stated in Einstein's theory of relativity. When the iron atoms closest to the black hole are bombarded by light from the core of the corona, the X-ray wavelengths they emit get stretched because time is moving slower for them than for the observer (in this case, NICER).

Kara's team discovered that J1820's stretched iron K line remained constant, which means the inner edge of the disk remained close to the black hole -- similar to a supermassive black hole. If the decreased lag time was caused by the inner edge of the disk moving even further inward, then the iron K line would have stretched even more.

These observations give scientists new insights into how material funnels in to the black hole and how energy is released in this process.

"NICER's observations of J1820 have taught us something new about stellar-mass black holes and about how we might use them as analogs for studying supermassive black holes and their effects on galaxy formation," said co-author Philip Uttley, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam. "We've seen four similar events in NICER's first year, and it's remarkable. It feels like we're on the edge of a huge breakthrough in X-ray astronomy."

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NICER is an Astrophysics Mission of Opportunity within NASA's Explorer program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space utilizing innovative, streamlined and efficient management approaches within the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas. NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate supports the SEXTANT component of the mission, demonstrating pulsar-based spacecraft navigation.
According to Weiskopf, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (MPI CBS), "...the most important questions for us were: Can we conduct our studies with tattooed subjects without hesitation? What restrictions may exist? At the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, part of Queen Square Institute of Neurology at University College in London, where I started the study in 2011, there were increasing numbers of volunteers with tattoos. At the time, there simply was not enough data to determine the likelihood of tattoo-related side effects arising from MRI examinations." His former colleague in London, Martina Callaghan, completed the study after Weiskopf left London to become director at the MPI CBS in Leipzig. "Based on our investigations, we can now state, on the basis of meaningful numbers, that if a tattooed individual is scanned under the conditions tested in the study, the risk of side effects is very small." the physicist explains.

Indeed, millions of people with tattoos are scanned every year in hospitals and research facilities without any side effects. Until now there has not been a systematic prospective study on how safe it is to be scanned in an MRI scanner with a tattoo. Reports of adverse reactions are usually based on individual cases and describe two different reactions. It is possible that the pigments in tattoos can interact with the static magnetic field of the scanner. Why? The tattoo ink can contain pigments that are ferrous and therefore magnetic. The strong magnetic fields involved in the procedure can interact with these small particles, which in turn can lead to a pulling sensation on the tattooed skin. However, it is another potential interaction which may represent, from the experts' point of view, a far greater risk. Many of the color pigments are also conductive. This is an issue because in MR imaging, high-frequency magnetic fields are used to generate the images by effectively labelling protons. "High-frequency fields usually have a frequency of a few hundred megahertz. That happens to correspond to the resonance lengths of conductive structures similarly sized as tattoos. In this case, the tattoo may absorb much of the energy of the high-frequency field, which would normally be spread out more widely. It can then happen that the tattoo heats up. In the worst case, this can lead to burns", says Nikolaus Weiskopf.

Together with his colleagues at University College in London, he examined 330 study participants before and after the MRI scan and tested a total of 932 tattoos. The team systematically collected information about their participants' tattoos - how big they were, where they were located, and what colors were used. The country of origin was also recorded with most arising in Europe, but also from America, Asia, Africa and Australia. The majority of the ink used was black, but various colors were also registered.

"We found that the majority of the participants did not notice any side effects with tattoos", says Weiskopf. "There was one specific case where the study doctor found that side effects - a tingling sensation on the skin - were related to scanning. However, this unpleasant feeling disappeared within 24 hours without the affected person having required medical treatment."

In order to ensure the participants safety (from potential burns) not just anyone could be scanned for the study - exclusion criteria concerned the size and number of tattoos. For example, a single tattoo was not allowed to exceed twenty centimeters and no more than five percent of the body could be covered by tattoos.

The MRI scanners used in the study had a static magnetic field strength of three Tesla, as is common in many clinics today. By comparison, the magnetic field of a rather weak 0.5 Tesla MRI model is ten thousand times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. These MRI scanners usually have a radiofrequency body coil, which stimulates the proton spins for imaging. The high frequency field of a body coil extends not only over the head, which was scanned in this study, but also the upper body area of the participants and thus on frequently tattooed areas. According to Nikolaus Weiskopf, the results of the study not only provide information on safety guidelines for research, but can also be helpful for clinical environments. The existing recommendations on how to scan people with tattoos are always based on weighing the risk against the actual benefit of diagnosing a disease. While it should be noted that the results are limited to specific configurations and scanner types, this study adds to the positive safety record of MRI.

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Nearly one-third of younger women without a known cancer risk receive the screening before breast reduction surgery, a test that can do more harm than good

Each year, thousands of younger women with no known risk of breast cancer get mammograms before having breast reduction surgery.

Patients receive the exam, often at the suggestion of their doctors, when the best recommendation says to avoid routine mammograms before elective breast surgery unless a specific concern exists.

Although the pre-surgical screening has been a longtime practice among physicians, no professional society recommends routine screening until a woman turns 40.

Erika D. Sears, M.D., M.S., a Michigan Medicine plastic surgeon who studies appropriateness and efficiency in health care, wondered how often the practice takes place.

Her new study published in JAMA Surgery found that nearly one-third of women younger than 40 underwent mammography before breast reduction surgery. Health services researchers culled the records of 52,486 women of all ages being evaluated for breast reduction between 2009 and 2015.

Few may realize the unnecessary screenings come at a price -- and not just a monetary one that adds to the nation's health care bill, Sears says.

"Altering screening mammography for patients younger than 40 years in the setting of evaluation for breast surgery has a risk for subsequent tests and invasive procedures," says Sears, also an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Michigan.

Testing only when necessary

In recent years, medical organizations have asked their members to identify tests and procedures commonly used in their field whose necessity should be questioned and discussed.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons is one of those groups. It stated in 2014 that women undergoing elective breast surgery should not have additional screening beyond existing guidelines unless there was a concern based on their medical history or a physical finding.

But it can be hard to help doctors stop doing something they have done for years.

The recent JAMA Surgery study showed 30 percent of women ages 30 to 39 had mammograms before breast reduction surgery, a rate five times higher than that of other women their age.

About 4 percent of women ages 29 and younger received mammograms as they considered breast reduction -- compared with 0.2 percent of the population of millennial women.

The young women in this study probably wouldn't have had the screenings otherwise.

The reason: None of them had a reported breast cancer risk.

When performing the analysis, researchers had excluded women whose medical records indicated a personal or family history of breast cancer, genetic predisposition or prior benign breast disease -- although there's a chance the risk existed but wasn't noted in their records.

When screenings become harmful

Reduction mammoplasty is done by removing breast tissue and skin to help a woman achieve a breast size that is in proportion to her body.

Breast reduction can also alleviate discomfort such as neck and back pain associated with overly large breasts.

Having a battery of medical tests before such surgeries may seem like a good idea. But there has been no conclusive study connecting breast size to a woman's odds of developing breast cancer.

Beyond wasting time and money, the screenings can lead to unnecessary follow-up tests and treatments.

Among the women in their 30s who had mammograms before breast reduction surgery, 14 percent went on to have an MRI, ultrasonography or a biopsy in which breast tissue or fluid is removed for laboratory testing.

Cancer was found in only 0.5 percent of the women, the study showed.

That finding could help shift the conversation on both sides.

"I think that if there's more awareness among patients, they may be motivated to have a conversation with their doctor about whether screening mammography is right for them," Sears says. "It's also about education on the provider's part about the downstream impact of future testing that women may experience."

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A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of Cyprus reveals details of a way the dangerous brain tumors called glioblastomas resist the effects of antiangiogenic drugs designed to cut off their blood supply. In their report published in PNAS, the researchers describe how the tumors can spread along existing blood vessels in normal tissue, a process called vessel co-option that can lead to compression of those vessels, reducing the oxygen supply to adjacent tissues and actually stimulating angiogenesis.

"The treatments designed to starve tumors by pruning away blood vessels have provided little or no survival benefits to patients with glioblastoma, says Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology in the MGH Department of Radiation Oncology and senior author of the PNAS report. "Because of its ability to circumvent a tumor's need to develop a new blood supply, vessel co-option can confer resistance to antiangiogenic therapy. Unfortunately this mode of tumor progression is difficult to target because the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood."

To get a better understanding of how cancer cells interact with the vasculature during co-option, Jain and his team followed tumor progression in mouse models of glioblastoma. Using advanced imaging technology they found that treating existing glioblastomas with the antiangiogenic drug cediranib increased the spread of tumor cells along existing blood vessels and away from the primary tumor mass. They also presented evidence that this process causes the compression of co-opted vessels by tumor cells, which can trigger hypoxia-induced angiogenesis.

Using the data from these experiments and from previous studies, the investigators developed a mathematical model that takes into account the biological and physical events driving the process of tumor growth and response to antiangiogenic treatment - from the earliest stages of vascular modification, through vessel co-option to secondary angiogenesis. Designed to integrate events from the cellular and subcellular levels with overall tumor growth, the model's predictions matched the results of several published studies of vessel co-option and further suggested that tumor progression can be more effectively inhibited by combination therapies that block both angiogenesis and co-option.

Jain notes that the possibility that glioblastoma progression can only be stopped by combination therapies has important clinical implications. A previous study from his team identified a specific pathway - the Wnt signaling pathway - as a regulator of vessel co-option in glioblastoma, suggesting that drugs inhibiting that pathway could block co-option. The new model also predicts that targeting co-option before using antiangiogenic drugs would be a better strategy than administering both drugs simultaneously.

"With a number of agents that block Wnt signaling in clinical trials, our work provides the rationale for testing the proposed combination for glioblastoma, a uniformly fatal disease," says Jain, the Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology (Tumor Biology) at Harvard Medical School.

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Triantafyllos Stylianopoulos, PhD, of the University of Cyprus is co-corresponding author of the PNAS paper. The co-lead authors are Chrysovalantis Voutouri, PhD, University of Cyprus, and Nathanial Kirkpatrick, Steele Labs. Additional co-authors are Euiheon Chung, Lance Munn, PhD, and Dai Fukumura, MD, PhD, Steele Labs; Fotios Mpekris, PhD, University of Cyprus, and James Baish, PhD, Bucknell University. Support for the study includes National Cancer Institute grants P01 CA080124, R01 CA126642, R01 CA115767, R01 CA096915, R01 CA085140, R01 CA098706, R35 CA197743, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute grant R01 HL128168; European Research Council Grant 336839 and support from the National Foundation for Cancer Research, the Ludwig Center at Harvard and the Jane's Trust Foundation.

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with an annual research budget of more than $900 million and major research centers in HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, genomic medicine, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, photomedicine and transplantation biology. The MGH topped the 2015 Nature Index list of health care organizations publishing in leading scientific journals and earned the prestigious 2015 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service. In August 2018 the MGH was once again named to the Honor Roll in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."
WOODS HOLE, Mass.-- Spontaneous recovery from spinal cord injury is almost unheard of in humans and other mammals, but many vertebrates fare better. The eel-like lamprey, for instance, can fully regenerate its spinal cord even after it's been severed: Within 3 months the lamprey is swimming, burrowing, and flipping around again, as if nothing had happened.

In a new study, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) scientists report that lampreys recover and regenerate just as impressively after a second complete spinal cord injury at the same location. The study opens up a new path for identifying pro-regenerative molecules and potential therapeutic targets for human spinal cord injury.

"We've determined that central nervous system (CNS) regeneration in lampreys is resilient and robust after multiple injuries. The regeneration is nearly identical to the first time, both anatomically and functionally," said senior author Jennifer Morgan, Director of the MBL's Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering.

Morgan's lab has been focusing on the descending neurons, which originate in the brain and send motor signals down to the spinal cord. Some of these descending neurons regenerate after CNS injury in lamprey, while others die.

"We are beginning to isolate individual descending neurons and look at their transcriptional profiles (gene activity) to see if we can determine what makes some of them better at regenerating than others," Morgan said.

"The 'good' regenerators, for example, may express molecules that are known to promote growth during development. That's one hypothesis," she said.

Observing how the descending neurons respond to a second CNS injury can help the team tease out the factors required for repeated, resilient regeneration, which could have implications for designing better strategies for treatments aimed at promoting CNS re-growth after injury or disease.

This study was conducted by first author Kendra L. Hanslik and other former research assistants in Morgan's lab.

"These are all young scientists, many who have since gone on to graduate school," Morgan said. "This paper was their labor of love. To go through two rounds of regeneration in the lamprey -- that's nearly 6 months of waiting before they could collect the [spinal cord] tissue and begin the analysis. I'm really proud of their heroic efforts in pulling off this work."

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Video: https:/ / vimeo. com/ 314092587

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery - exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
With today's (January 24, 2019) start of the TITANIUM field labs, the practical phase of the EU project TITANIUM begins: For a period of several months, selected European police authorities test new software to better fight Darknet crime. The starting point are the crypto currencies as the common means of payment for anonymous illegal cyber activities. One of the 15 project partners is the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT); its Center for Ap-plied Legal Studies (ZAR) stands for the legal conformity of the software tools developed in TITANIUM.

The Darknet - that part of the Internet in which users effectively con-ceal their identity using special browsers and networks - is consid-ered the "seedy underbelly" of the web: on the one hand, where public debates are suppressed, it can be a protective space for the free expression of opinion. On the other hand, it offers virtually ideal conditions for serious criminal activities, such as arms and drug trafficking, child pornography, and contract crime. To disclose such acts is an enormous challenge to the police and the judiciary.

This is where the research and development project TITANIUM (Tools for the Investigation of Transactions in Underground Markets) comes in. In TITA-NIUM, which is launched by the European Commission and coordinated by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), 15 research institutions, IT companies, and police authorities from seven European countries are working on developing new forensic technologies for investigating and researching cybercrime in Darknet. On the German side, the Federal Criminal Police Office, the KIT, and dence GmbH are involved. The aim of the three-year project, which started in May 2017, is to develop software to sup-port police investigations in the Darknet. The focus is on pro-cessing criminal transactions using blockchain-based crypto curren-cies such as Bitcoin, ZCash, or Monero. Here, the TITANIUM part-ners develop software to support elementary investigation steps, which are to generate evidence for the courts. A second focus is on the analysis of Darknet platforms used for illegal activities.

In the context of TITANIUM, KIT's Center for Applied Legal Studies (ZAR) ensures that legal and ethical guidelines are adhered to, both in the context of research and development and operationally, i. e. when deployed by the police authorities. "When developing soft-ware, it is becoming increasingly important to implement complex legal requirements at an early stage on a technical level, for exam-ple in the form of 'privacy by design'. Data protection aspects have to be considered and implemented already during the basic concep-tion of software", says Professor Franziska Boehm, head of ZAR research group "Information Law for Technical Systems and Legal Informatics" and division manager "Intellectual Property Rights" at FIZ Karlsruhe, Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure. Accord-ing to Franziska Boehm, this requires in-depth interdisciplinary co-operation, which needs not only legal expertise but also a compre-hensive technical understanding and outstanding English language skills of the legal staff. "At ZAR, these competencies are effectively bundled so that they can be integrated into important international projects such as TITANIUM," Boehm says.

Over the entire span of the project, the ZAR team, in cooperation with the Federal Criminal Police Office, Interpol, Trilateral Research Ltd., and the University of Innsbruck, steers and evaluates the legal-ethical dimension of the new investigation software. ZAR project coordinator Thilo Gottschalk explains that since the processing of Darknet data regularly constitutes an encroachment on the funda-mental rights of the data subjects, it is crucial that such encroach-ment only takes place in justified cases and on a legal basis. "The TITANIUM tools," Gottschalk says, "contain a variety of protective measures to guarantee appropriate and lawful data processing." In addition to analyzing the legal requirements, KIT is also in contact with various interest groups as part of a "Privacy Impact Assess-ment Plus" in order to effectively include external views of risks and concerns in the development process.

First versions of the TITANIUM software will be made available to the police authorities for testing purposes from January 24, 2019. Within the framework of these field labs, around 60 cybercrime ex-perts will be informed about the project's developments and intro-duced to the handling of the new tools. The field labs take place in Germany, Finland, Austria, and Spain and are going to last several months. In regards to legally critical areas, the project team also provides synthetic, i.e. artificially generated, data, so that there can be no unjustified interference with the fundamental rights of people affected. The TITANIUM partners hope that the police testing will provide valuable feedback on the usability, functionality, and effi-ciency of the software. A second field lab phase for testing further software is scheduled for the end of 2019. The ZAR team is also involved in these practical phases in order to monitor compliance with international and country-specific legal requirements and to establish them at technical level.

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Read more about TITANIUM:
The global population aged 60 or over is growing faster than all younger age groups and faces the tide of chronic diseases threatening their quality of life and posing challenges to healthcare and economy systems. To better understand the underlying biology behind healthspan -- the healthy period of life before the first chronic disease manifestation -- the scientists from Gero and MIPT collaborated with the researchers from PolyOmica, the University of Edinburgh and other institutes to analyze genetic data and medical histories of over 300,000 people aged 37 to 73 made available by UK Biobank.

The study published today in Communications Biology was lead by Dr. Peter Fedichev and Prof. Yurii Aulchenko. It shows that the most prevalent chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, dementia, and some others apparently share the common underlying mechanism that is aging itself.

According to Gompertz mortality law, the risk of death from all causes increases exponentially after the age of 40 and doubles approximately every 8 years, explains Peter Fedichev, founder and CSO of Gero. By analyzing the dynamics of disease incidence in the clinical data available from UKB, we observed that the risks of age-related diseases grow exponentially with age and double at a rate compatible with the Gompertz mortality law. This close relation between the most prevalent chronic diseases and mortality suggests that their risks could be driven by the same process, that is aging. This is why healthspan can be used as a natural proxy for investigation of the genetic factors controlling the rate of aging, the "holy grail" target for anti-aging interventions.

To find out genetic factors associated with human healthspan, the researchers studied the genomes of 300,477 British individuals. Overall, 12 genetic loci affecting healthy life expectancy were discovered. To confirm that these results hold true for other ethnicities, they used genetic data of UK Biobank participants with self-reported European, African, South Asian, Chinese and Caribbean ancestry. Of the 12 SNPs, 11 increased risk both in discovery and in replication groups. Three of the genes affecting healthspan, HLA-DBQ, LPA, and CDKN2B, were previously associated with parental longevity, a proxy for overall life expectancy.

At least three genetic loci were associated with risk of multiple diseases and healthspan at the same time and therefore could form the genetic signature of aging. HLA-DQB1 was significantly associated with COPD, diabetes, cancer, and dementia in this study and was demonstrated to be associated with parental survival earlier. The genetic variants near TYR predict death in the prospective UKB cohort and are involved in the earlier onset of macular degeneration. The chromosome 20 locus containing C20orf112 was not associated with the incidence of any of the diseases at the full-genome level, and yet was affecting the healthspan of studied individuals.

Five healthspan-associated SNPs were also associated with a number of complex traits such as skin cancer, color of skin, eye and hair, tanning and freckles, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, cholesterol and glucose levels, BMI and type 2 diabetes. The researchers also found strong genetic correlations between healthspan and conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, and sociodemographic factors including parental age at death, smoking and education level.

The studies of longevity genetics are complicated due to the limited availability of datasets containing clinical data of genotyped individuals who already reached the end of lifespan. Healthspan as a target phenotype offers a promising new way to interrogate the genetics of human longevity by untapping the research potential of large cohorts of living individuals with rich clinical information such as UK Biobank.

The inevitable aging of global population calls for longevity research to focus on understanding the pathways controlling healthspan. Our study highlights the potential of GWAS methodology to delineate genetic architectures of healthspan and lifespan. We hope that our work will eventually help to produce novel diagnostic tools in the field of genetics of aging and to shape the target space for future therapeutics against aging. At the end of the day, healthspan, not lifespan, is the ultimate goal of future life-extending interventions!, concludes Peter Fedichev, the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Gero.

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About Gero

Gero is a data-driven longevity company developing innovative therapies that will strongly extend the healthy period of life also known as healthspan. Having a pipeline of longevity therapeutics in development, Gero is also providing health and mortality risk assessment models for life & health insurance, healthcare, and wellness industries.

Gero R&D team led by Dr. Peter Fedichev applies methods from dynamics systems and physical kinetics to produce predictive models of aging process for anti-aging targets and aging biomarkers identification. Recent results include experimental therapies reducing biological age in mice, newly identified compounds extending life in other model animals, and application of deep convolutional neural networks for identification of biomarkers of aging and frailty from wearable devices. The team has also introduced free iOS application for healthspan prediction from intraday physical activity of smartphone users.

Gero is a partner of Longevity Therapeutics 2019 (January 29-31, San Francisco) that will bring together the leading biotech drug developers, academics, investors and pharma companies endeavoring to develop innovative therapies targeting age-related conditions. Peter Fedichev's talk Hacking Aging: A Data-Driven Approach to Healthy Life Extension will open the session Supporting Discovery in Aging Research With Big Data on January 30, 2019. Meet us there.
PARIS and GENEVA - January 30, 2019 - Marketing authorization of fexinidazole for the treatment of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), more commonly known as sleeping sickness, has been granted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This approval paves the way for the distribution of fexinidazole in endemic countries this year, with another submission planned in Uganda.

Sleeping sickness is usually fatal without treatment. Transmitted by the bite of a tsetse fly, it causes neuropsychiatric symptoms; including aggression, psychosis, and a debilitating disruption of sleep patterns that have given this neglected disease its name. About 65 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk.

"I have a personal connection to sleeping sickness. Growing up in East Africa, my mother was always worried that sleeping sickness would impact us as a family," says Ameet Nathwani, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Sanofi Medical. "The approval of fexinidazole in the Democratic Republic of Congo gives me great hope for our efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness by next year."

The current treatment option for sleeping sickness, while effective, was burdensome for patients and health workers - requiring logistical challenges of hospitalization, especially challenging for people living in remote areas.

Fexinidazole is approved in the DRC as a 10-day once-a-day treatment for T.b. gambiense sleeping sickness (the most common form of the disease, found in West and Central Africa). Importantly, fexinidazole is the first all-oral treatment that works both for (i) the early stage of the disease as well as the (ii) second stage of the disease in which the parasites have crossed the blood-brain barrier, causing patients to suffer from neuropsychiatric symptoms. Fexinidazole could, therefore, eliminate the need for patients' systematic hospitalization.

On 16 November 2018, The European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive scientific opinion of fexinidazole - a result of clinical trials led by the non-profit research and development organization, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and an application submitted by Sanofi.

"We look forward to the implementation of fexinidazole as a first-line treatment and welcome this rapid approval of fexinidazole in the DRC very shortly after the EMA opinion, a testament to the dedication of the DRC Government through the Ministry of Health to eliminate HAT as a public health problem by 2020," says Dr Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases at DNDi. "This shows the value of Article 58, an innovative regulatory mechanism intended for the review of new medicines destined for use outside of the European Union."

Sanofi had submitted a regulatory dossier to the EMA under Article 58 of Regulation 726/2004 in December 2017. By allowing for the participation of endemic countries (DRC and Uganda) and of the WHO in the evaluation of the fexinidazole regulatory dossier, approval under Article 58 also facilitates and could accelerate future national product registrations and patient access.

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About sleeping sickness

The majority of sleeping sickness patients live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 85% of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense sleeping sickness cases were reported in 2017, followed by the Central African Republic, Guinea and Chad. The latest data released by the WHO in July 2018 confirm a sustained decrease in the number of new cases. Only 1,447 new cases were reported to the WHO in 2017, compared to 2,164 cases in 2016 and 9,870 cases in 2009. But the history of sleeping sickness is marked by resurgence, interspersed by decades where the disease has seemed largely under control. In its roadmap on neglected tropical diseases published in 2012 and supported the same year by the London Declaration, the WHO included sleeping sickness, and targets its elimination as a public health problem by 2020.

About DNDi

A not-for-profit research and development organization, DNDi works to deliver new treatments for neglected diseases, in particular human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, filarial infections, mycetoma, paediatric HIV, and hepatitis C. Since its creation in 2003, DNDi has delivered eight treatments. Fexinidazole is the first new chemical entity to be successfully developed by DNDi.

DNDi's fexinidazole programme is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA; UK aid, UK; Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), The Netherlands; Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through KfW, Germany; French Development Agency (AFD), France; German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, Germany; Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), France; Medecins sans Frontieres; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of Norway's in-kind contribution to EDCTP2; Republic and Canton of Geneva, International Solidarity Office, Switzerland; Spanish Agency for International Development and Cooperation (AECID), Spain; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland; UBS Optimus Foundation, Switzerland; Brian Mercer Charitable Trust, UK; Stavros Niarchos Foundation, USA and other private foundations and individuals from the HAT campaign.

About Sanofi

Sanofi is dedicated to supporting people through their health challenges. We are a global biopharmaceutical company focused on human health. We prevent illness with vaccines, provide innovative treatments to fight pain and ease suffering. We stand by the few who suffer from rare diseases and the millions with long-term chronic conditions.

With more than 100,000 people in 100 countries, Sanofi is transforming scientific innovation into healthcare solutions around the globe.

Sanofi, Empowering Life

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Sanofi Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates regarding the marketing and other potential of the product, or regarding potential future revenues from the product. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "plans" and similar expressions. Although Sanofi's management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays, or government regulation generally, that could affect the availability or commercial potential of the product, the absence of guarantee that the product will be commercially successful, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including future clinical data and analysis of existing clinical data relating to the product, including post marketing, unexpected safety, quality or manufacturing issues, competition in general, risks associated with intellectual property and any related future litigation and the ultimate outcome of such litigation, and volatile economic conditions, as well as those risks discussed or identified in the public filings with the SEC and the AMF made by Sanofi, including those listed under "Risk Factors" and "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in Sanofi's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2017. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements.
BINGHAMTON, NY - Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC) recently chose a team of researchers from Binghamton University and Purdue University to lead a new multimillion dollar research center. The Center for Heterogeneous Integration Research in Packaging, or CHIRP, will help to define the future of electronics packaging in the United States and globally for the next decade.

Moore's Law -- the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years -- held steady for 50 years. Due to increased integration, along the way, consumers became accustomed to steady reductions in the cost of computing. That trend cannot continue without some significant changes in thinking; transistors simply can't get much smaller than they already are.

That's where CHIRP comes in.

Bahgat Sammakia, vice president for research and a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Binghamton, developed the winning proposal with Kanad Ghose, professor of computer science at Binghamton, and Ganesh Subbarayan, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue. Sammakia and Subbarayan will serve as co-directors of the center, whose research will address issues in global interconnects, efficient power delivery, system design, thermal management, novel materials, reliability and other topics.

Heterogeneous integration of many microchips into single packages will be essential to technology ranging from cell phones to mainframe computers for at least the next decade, Sammakia said.

"Anywhere you have chips that benefit from small transistors, we're heading toward heterogeneous integration," he explained. "It's really the only solution available for the next five to 10 years. There's an increasing challenge to shrink transistors much further. Other approaches, like quantum computing, are at least a decade away."

Binghamton and Purdue have a history of collaboration that stretches back nearly two decades. Roughly a dozen faculty members in engineering and computer science at the two institutions will participate in the center's research. The center expects to expand in faculty participation as SRC initiates additional projects. "For more than 50 years, transistor scaling has enabled advancements in computing, mobile devices, automotive and medical electronics, while reducing the cost per transistor," Subbarayan said. "However, as we approach the limits of Moore's Law promise of doubling transistor performance and energy efficiency by shrinking feature size, we must look in new directions for continued gains."

Semiconductor Research Corp., a world-class technology research consortium, promotes collaborations among academic institutions, technology companies and government agencies. It will provide $1.8 million to the center in the first four years; another $1.8 million will come from the campuses, the State University of New York and other sources.

Kwok Ng, senior director at SRC, said he's excited to partner with the Purdue-Binghamton team. "They have a successful track record of working with the semiconductor industry," he said. "CHIRP will capitalize on this heritage and will partner with SRC to address industry needs."

CHIRP will enable the Binghamton and Purdue researchers to expand their existing work, much of which has been federally funded, into products and applications.

The founding members of SRC's CHIRP are ARM, IBM, Intel, NXP, Texas Instruments and Samsung, which will guide the research at Binghamton and Purdue.

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Modern agriculture's large monoculture fields grow a lot of corn and soybeans, planted annually. The outputs from row crops can be measured both in dollars paid in the market and also in non-market costs, known as externalities. Soil, nutrients, groundwater, pollinators, wildlife diversity, and habitat (among other things) can be lost when crop yields are maximized.

Now it appears that prairie strips have an extraordinary power to change this pattern.

A prairie strip is much what it sounds like: a strip of diverse herbaceous vegetation running through a farm's rowcrops. In the American Midwest, chances are the soil that now supports crops was once covered in prairie before cultivation. Prairie plants are a mixture of native grasses, wildflowers, and other stiff-stemmed plants. They have deep roots that draw water and nutrients from far below the surface. They are perennials, returning to grow each spring.

"Research shows that areas of native prairie planted in the right places in a farm field can provide benefits that far outweigh losses from converting a small portion of a crop field to prairie," said Lisa Schulte Moore of Iowa State University. "For example, when we work with farmers to site prairie strips on areas that were not profitable to farm, we can lower their financial costs while creating a wide variety of benefits."

Schulte Moore is a team member with STRIPS: Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips. STRIPS showed that converting just 10% of a row-cropped field to prairie strips:

reduces soil loss by 95%,

reduces overland water flow by 37%, and

reduces the loss of two key nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from the soil by nearly 70% and 77%, respectively.

It also leads to greater abundance and diversity of beneficial insects, pollinators such as bees and monarch butterflies, and birds. Going from zero to 10% prairie provided far more than a 10% increase in the measured benefits.

"Some of these benefits can impact our pocketbooks but are not accounted for by typical financial markets," said Schulte Moore. These include ecological benefits such as flood control, cleaner water, and carbon from the atmosphere stored.

Market benefits also exist: more productive soil in the fields can, in time, translate into better yields, fiber and honey production, forage for livestock, and hunting leases.

The STRIPS research began in Iowa in 2007. Because of promising scientific results, five years later the researchers began working with farmers to introduce prairie strips onto commercial farms. While the research results have been more variable in these more complicated settings, the findings are encouraging and cooperating farmers are liking what they see.

The plantings require a modest investment in site preparation and seed planting. Maintenance tasks include some mowing in the establishment years and spot treatment for weeds. So far, the researchers have not seen competition between the prairie plants and crops that impact yield.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts through the USDA's Farm Service Agency can greatly reduce the cost of establishing prairie strips. Overall, Schulte Moore said, this is one of the most economical best-practice conservation steps farmers can take.

Still, lack of stable financial rewards for establishing and maintaining prairie strips is a barrier to widespread adoption. "Finding ways to return economic value to farmers and farmland owners is crucial," Schulte Moore said. She is now focused on developing marketable products from prairie strips, such as renewable energy sources from prairie biomass. That would help make what is already a solid investment into a can't-lose proposition.

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Schulte Moore presented this research at the November meeting of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America in Baltimore, MD. This research has been funded by a consortium of funders; a full list can be found here.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has also declared her candidacy, has come up with the most detailed proposals to date. She wants any corporation with revenue over $1 billion to obtain a federal charter of corporate citizenship requiring company directors to consider the interests of all relevant stakeholders -- including customers, employees, and the communities in which the company operates.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- Stroke risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and smoking are common and on the rise among Native Americans with clot-caused stroke, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

"All of us need to be aware of risk factors like high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes that can lead to stroke. Identifying increases in risk factors in ethnic groups with health and socioeconomic disparities can help us target these risks to reduce the stroke burden going forward," said Dinesh V. Jillella, M.D., lead author of the study and a vascular neurology fellow at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio.

It has been previously reported that Native Americans have a higher incidence of stroke than other racial groups in the United States. In this study, researchers used the Cerner nationwide database of electronic health records from 700 hospitals to identify 4,729 Native Americans (46 percent male) diagnosed with ischemic (clot-caused) stroke between 2000 and 2016.

They found that many risk factors were common in those with stroke, including:

high blood pressure (66.6 percent);

diabetes (38.8 percent);

coronary heart disease (23.4 percent);

smoking (21.6 percent);

heart failure (12.3 percent);

atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat (10.5 percent); and

atrial flutter, an abnormally fast heartbeat (1.4 percent).

When researchers analyzed changes in the risk factors over time, they found that all risk factors, except for diabetes, rose significantly between 2000 and 2016.

"It was alarming to find a significant increase in modifiable risk factors like smoking and high blood pressure. Clinicians should aggressively target modifiable stroke risk factors in the Native American population," Jillella said.

The researchers are currently comparing how common these risk factors are in Native American stroke survivors with those from other racial groups who have a lower incidence of stroke. They are also analyzing the prevalence of risk factors in Native Americans with hemorrhagic or bleeding strokes.

Because this study used an electronic medical record database, it has the advantage of a large sample size, but also the limitation that errors in coding by health professionals may have occurred.

The department of neurology at the University of New Mexico funded this project.

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Co-authors are Ken Uchino, M.D.; Lauren Hatcher, M.D. student; Caity Vigil, B.S. student; Andrew Lin, M.D.; Asad Ikram, M.D.; Mudassir Farooqui, M.B.B.S., M.P.H.; Syed A.Q. Quadri, M.D.; and Atif Zafar, M.D. The authors report no disclosures.

Note: Scientific presentation is 5:30 p.m. HT/10:30 p.m. ET, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ stroke-risk-factors-on-the-rise-in-native-americans?preview= 4be02b4f8ae74f242b16d2fb99d545af

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- The risk of pregnancy-related stroke is much higher among black women than among white women, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

Stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death and a major cause of long-term disability in the United States. Women are more likely than men to have a stroke and to die as a result, and pregnancy increases the risk. In addition, blacks are at greater risk than whites.

To find out if stroke risk differs by race during and after delivery researchers studied records from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a publicly available database of hospitalizations, from 1998 to 2014. These records comprised nearly 68 million delivery hospitalizations and 1.1 million post-delivery hospitalizations for women between 15- to 54-years-old.

Of the nearly 68 million delivery hospitalizations, 8,241 women were diagnosed with stroke during delivery. Of the 1.1 million hospitalizations after delivery, 11,073 women were readmitted for stroke. After studying the deliveries, they found:

Black women were at 64 percent higher risk for stroke during delivery and 66 percent higher risk for stroke during postpartum admissions than white women.

Black and Hispanic women with pregnancy-related , such as preeclampsia, were twice as likely as white women to have a stroke during delivery.

Postpartum stroke hospitalizations for Hispanic women did not differ from white women.

"Further research is needed to better understand if these high-risk groups would benefit from a more aggressive blood pressure control," said Maria Daniela Zambrano, M.D., study lead author and fellow in vascular neurology at Columbia University in New York. "It is also important to carefully look at all of the modifiable risk factors that could help prevent stroke in these groups."

Modifiable stroke risk factors include lifestyle changes, controlling high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight, diabetes and healthy eating, smoking cessation and physically activity.

"We have to identify our obstetric patients at higher risk of cerebrovascular complications and develop an individualized prenatal care plan after considering all their predisposing factors including race," Zambrano said.

The study used information from a national registry, which does not always record patients' race and ethnicity.

###

Columbia University funded the study.

Co-authors are Alexander M. Friedman, M.D.; Amelia K. Boehme, Ph.D.; YongMei Huang, M.D., Ph.D.; and Eliza C. Miller, M.D.

Note: Scientific presentation is 6:30 p.m. HT/11:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ pregnancy-related-stroke-more-common-among-black-women?preview= 484c05ee41780f882ce07f4014b51f05

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- The opioid epidemic is fueling a steep rise in infection-related stroke hospitalizations, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

This study will also be simultaneously published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.

"Our findings add to the urgency of addressing the underlying opioid epidemic in the United States and suggest that people need to be more aware that stroke can be a devastating complication of injecting opioids," said Setareh Salehi Omran, M.D., lead author of the study and a fellow in vascular neurology at the Weill Cornell Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

Injecting opioids, such as heroin, can introduce bacteria into the body which travel through the bloodstream to infect and inflame heart valves, a condition called infective endocarditis.

"The incidence of opioid-related infective endocarditis has been increasing over the past 20 years, particularly among younger patients," Omran said.

Infective endocarditis can lead to stroke if clumps of the infected tissue break off and travel to the brain's blood vessels and block them. This is the first study to examine trends in the incidence of stroke as a complication of opioid-related heart infection.

Using a national hospital inpatient database, researchers identified U. S. residents who were hospitalized 1993 through 2015 with the combination of opioid abuse, infective endocarditis and any type of stroke. They found:

5,283 patients were hospitalized with stroke from opioid-related infective endocarditis.

Hospitalizations for stroke from opioid-related infective endocarditis increased from 2.4/10 million people in 1993 to 18.8/10 million people in 2015.

There was no significant increase in the rate of stroke hospitalization between 1993 and 2008, but between 2008 and 2015 the rate of stroke hospitalizations significantly increased by 20 percent per year, coinciding with the worsening of the opioid epidemic.

The increases included both and strokes.

Annual rates of stroke hospitalizations increased most dramatically in non-Hispanic white patients in the northeastern and southern United States.

While stroke hospitalizations increased across ages and genders, the greatest increases occurred in women and those younger than 45 years old over the past decade.

"The rise in hospitalizations for infective endocarditis-related stroke associated with opioids parallels the rise in heroin overdose-related complications and deaths, which tripled between 2010 and 2015. I believe efforts to minimize prescription opioid abuse are important in addressing this public health problem, since the highly addictive nature of opioids can lead some people to turn to cheaper alternatives, such as injectable opioids like heroin," Omran said.

The study relied on an administrative database, which carries the possibility that diseases may be misclassified and that a person hospitalized more than once each year for the same condition may be counted twice.

###

Co-authors are Abhinaba Chatterjee, B.S.; Monica L. Chen, B.A.; Michael P. Lerario, M.D.; Alexander E. Merkler, M.D.; and Hooman Kamel, M.D.

Note: Scientific presentation is 7 a.m. HT/12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ opioid-epidemic-fueling-a-ri se-in-infection-related-stroke?preview=11ffa3532fca655e5f438a25e3661896

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- Women diagnosed with an infection during delivery had a much greater risk of stroke after delivery, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

"Even though it is rare, maternal stroke has been increasing in the United States," said Eliza C. Miller, M.D., study lead author and assistant professor of neurology in the Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York. "Women who have infections at the time of delivery should be counseled about the signs and symptoms of stroke, such as severe headache, vision changes, speech difficulty or sudden weakness, and the need to seek immediate medical attention if they experience these symptoms."

Researchers examined more than 3.5 million delivery hospitalizations from the 2013 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project National Readmissions Database, which compiles information on hospital care throughout the United States. Out of 79,656 women who were readmitted to the hospital within one month after delivery, 225 were readmitted for stroke.

Researchers found:

A strong relationship between infections, including bladder infections, pneumonia, and sepsis (a serious blood infection) during hospitalization for delivery and stroke within the following month.

Women with an infection during delivery hospitalization were more than five times as likely to be readmitted to the hospital for stroke.

Women readmitted for stroke were more than three times as likely to have had an infection during their delivery hospitalization, compared with women readmitted for other reasons.

The increased stroke risk occurred regardless of whether women had pregnancy-related .

"These results reflect the diversity of the United States and are widely generalizable to the U.S. population of women of childbearing age," Miller said. "At the same time, the number of stroke readmissions was small, so it's important not to draw the conclusion that everyone who has an infection is going to have a stroke. The study shows an association but does not prove that the infection caused the stroke."

Information on hospital care could not provide details about other potential stroke risks, researchers noted.

Earlier work by these researchers linked infections, especially of the bladder, to stroke risk during delivery hospitalization and among women with pregnancy-related high blood pressure, or preeclampsia. Since the majority of pregnancy-related strokes occur after delivery, often after women are sent home from the hospital, the current study focused on the period after delivery.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel to the brain either becomes blocked by a blood clot or bursts, preventing blood and oxygen from reaching the brain. Without immediate treatment to restore blood flow, the affected part of the brain dies. In the United States, stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death and a primary cause of long-term disability. Women are at higher lifetime risk than men, and pregnancy is an additional risk factor.

###

Co-authors are Jessica Medina; Alexander M. Friedman, M.D.; Mitchell S. Elkind, M.D., M.S.; and Amelia K. Boehme, Ph.D.

The National Institutes of Health and the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Foundation funded the study.

Note: Scientific presentation is 5:35 p.m. HT/10:35 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ infection-during-delivery-linked-to-greater-risk-of-stroke-after-delivery?preview= 4f3f67922dbc40ae98c53abf4e95384c

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- Flu-like illnesses are linked to an increased risk of stroke and neck artery dissections, according to two preliminary research studies to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

In the first study (abstract 189), researchers found that having a flu-like illness increased the odds of having a stroke by nearly 40 percent over the next 15 days. This increased risk remained up to one year.

Researchers estimated the odds of hospitalization for ischemic stroke after hospitalization for a flu-like illness. They identified 30,912 patients who suffered an ischemic stroke in 2014 in a review of patient records from the 2012-2014 inpatient and outpatient New York Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS). Study participants were 49 percent male, 20 percent black, 84 percent urban and average age 71.9 years old.

Researchers compared each patient's "case window" - the time preceding stroke - to the time window for a set of control periods using the same dates from the previous two years. The analyses were stratified by urban and rural status based on residential zip code, sex and race.

"We were expecting to see differences in the flu-stroke association between rural and urban areas. Instead we found the association between flu-like illness and stroke was similar between people living in rural and urban areas, as well as for men and women, and among racial groups," said Amelia K. Boehme, Ph.D., the study's lead author and assistant professor of epidemiology in neurology for Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City.

There are many proposed mechanisms behind the flu-stroke link, but no definitive reason has been described to explain the association. Researchers suspect it could be due to inflammation caused by the infection.

In a second study (poster WMP49) from the same institution, researchers found an increased risk of tearing neck arteries within one month of battling a flu-like illness. Non-traumatic cervical artery dissection is a leading cause of ischemic stroke in patients 15- to 45-years old.

Researchers reviewed 3,861 cases (average age 52 years, 55 percent men) of first non-traumatic cervical artery dissection within the New York State Department of Health Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (2006-2014). They found 1,736 instances of flu-like illness and 113 of influenza during the three years preceding cervical artery dissection.

Patients were more likely to suffer a flu-like illness within 30 days prior to cervical artery dissection compared to the same time one and two years before.

"Our results suggest that the risk of dissection fades over time after the flu. This trend indicates that flu-like illnesses may indeed trigger dissection," said Madeleine Hunter, B.A., the study's lead author and a second-year medical student at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City.

Hunter said the strength of the research comes from using a dataset collected by the New York State Department of Health, which records diagnoses in non-federal, state-licensed facilities, enabling the researchers to amass a large sample size.

"An important limitation of using an administrative dataset is that we had to rely on billing codes to determine who had cervical artery dissections, influenza and flu-like illnesses. If a diagnosis was not coded or miscoded, we could not capture it," Hunter said.

###

Co-authors for abstract 189 are: Trevor Alvord, M.P.H.; Erin R. Kulick, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Michelle Canning, M.P.H.; and Mitchell S. Elkind, M.D., M.S.

Co-authors for poster WMP49 are: Yeseon P. Moon, M.S.; Amelia K. Boehme, Ph.D.; Erin R. Kulick, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Trevor Alvord, M.P.H.; and Mitchell S. Elkind, M.D., M.S.

Boehme's study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Hunter's study was funded by National Institutes of Health and the Giordano Family Foundation.

Note: Scientific presentation for 189 is 9:09 a.m. HT/2:09 p.m. ET, Friday, Feb. 8, 2019.

Scientific presentation for WMP49 is 5:30 p.m. HT/10:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ flu-flu-like-illnesses-linked-to-increased-risk-of-stroke-neck-artery-tears?preview= 19e5b99fa68c88867483731243a6e541

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- Using e-cigarettes increases your odds of having a stroke, heart attack and coronary heart disease, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

In 2016, 3.2 percent of U.S. adults and 11.3 percent of high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the preceding 30 days. Its use among young people increased by 900 percent between 2011 and 2015.

In the largest study to date examining e-cigarettes and stroke, researchers tapped a database of 400,000 respondents. That database, the 2016 behavioral risk factor surveillance system (BRFSS) survey, collected data from residents in all 50 states about their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions and use of preventive services.

"Compared with non-users, e-cigarette users were younger, had a lower body mass index and a lower rate of diabetes," said Paul M. Ndunda, M.D., the study's author and an assistant professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Kansas in Wichita.

Some 66,795 respondents reported ever regularly using e-cigarettes. The control group was the 343,856 respondents who reported having never used e-cigarettes. Odds ratios were calculated using logistic regression analysis. Researchers found compared with non-users, e-cigarette users had:

71 percent higher risk of stroke;

59 percent higher risk of heart attack or angina;

40 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease; and

Double the rate of cigarette smoking.

They also found 4.2 percent of e-cigarette users reported having suffered a stroke. However, the study data did not show deaths attributable to e-cigarette use.

The American Heart Association cautions against the use of e-cigarettes, stating that e-cigarettes containing nicotine are tobacco products that should be subject to all laws that apply to these products. The Association also calls for strong new regulations to prevent access, sales and marketing of e-cigarettes to youth and for more research into the product's health impact.

###

Coauthor is Tabitha Muutu, M.D. Researchers reported no funding for this study.

Note: Scientific presentation is 7:12 a.m. HT/12:12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news release are on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ e-cigarettes-linked-to-higher-risk-of-stroke-heart-attack-diseased-arteries?preview= 1217dd515a48f12e78a2d0fa3b1ad741

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 -- Stroke survivors have better quality of life three months after their stroke if the clot that caused the stroke was mechanically removed even hours beyond the ideal treatment window compared to those treated with drugs alone. This preliminary research will be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

Researchers have found that mechanically removing a clot in stroke patients, called endovascular therapy, can limit disability from stroke. While the therapy is most effective when performed within six hours of symptom onset, it can also reduce functional deficits in patients up to 24 hours after stroke symptoms start.

In the DEFUSE 3 trial, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers studied whether stroke survivors who were treated with endovascular therapy in the late six-to-16-hour time window might have better quality of life than people treated only with standard drug therapy. They examined a subset of ischemic stroke patients who had salvageable tissue visible on brain imaging.

Researchers surveyed patients 90 days after stroke about their mobility, ability to participate in social activities, cognitive (or thinking) function and depression.

Based on results from 136 patients who completed all or some of the surveys, people treated with endovascular therapy had superior quality-of-life results in all four domains, compared to those who had medical therapy alone.

"In addition to improved functional outcomes, endovascular therapy six to 16 hours after onset preserves mental health and social capabilities critical to patients' quality of life," researchers said.

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This study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Laura Polding, B.A., medical student, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Note: Scientific presentation is 7:48 a.m. HT/12:48 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

Additional Resources:

* Downloadable multimedia related to this news brief are on the right column of the link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ clot-removal-beyond-normal-treatment-time-still-improved-quality-of-life-after-stroke?preview= c082520c08a384cab8ef86aab894e9b7

* For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19.

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
DALLAS, January 30, 2019 -- Rising temperatures stemming from global climate change may increase the number of infants born with congenital heart defects (CHD) in the United States over the next two decades and may result in as many as 7,000 additional cases over an 11 year-period in eight representative states (Arkansas, Texas, California, Iowa, North Caroline, Georgia, New York and Utah), according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

"Our findings underscore the alarming impact of climate change on human health and highlight the need for improved preparedness to deal the anticipated rise in a complex condition that often requires lifelong care and follow-up," said study senior author Shao Lin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., professor in the School of Public Health at University of Albany, New York. "It is important for clinicians to counsel pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant on the importance of avoiding extreme heat, particularly 3-8 weeks post conception, the critical period of pregnancy."

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect in the United States affecting some 40,000 newborns each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Our results highlight the dramatic ways in which climate change can affect human health and suggest that pediatric heart disease stemming from structural heart malformations may become an important consequence of rising temperatures," said the leading author Wangjian Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Albany.

The projected increase in children with congenital heart disease will pose greater demand on the medical community caring for newborns with heart disease in their infancy and well beyond.

While previous research has found a link between maternal heat exposure and the risk for heart defects in the offspring, the precise mechanisms remain unclear. Studies in animals suggest that heat may cause fetal cell death or interfere with several heat-sensitive proteins that play a critical role in fetal development, the researchers say.

The estimates in the current study are based on projections of the number of births between 2025 and 2035 in the United States and the anticipated rise in average maternal heat exposure across different regions as a result of global climate change. The greatest percentage increases in the number of newborns with CHD will occur in the Midwest, followed by the Northeast and South.

In their analysis, the researchers used climate change forecasts obtained from NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. They improved the spatial and temporal resolutions of the forecasts, simulated changes in daily maximum temperatures by geographic region and then calculated the anticipated maternal heat exposure per region for spring and summer. For each pregnancy and region, they defined three exposure indicators: 1) the count of excessively hot days (EHD) as the number of days exceeding the 90th (EHD90) or 95th (EHD95) percentile for the same season of the baseline period at the same region; 2) the frequency of extreme heat events (EHE) as the number of occurrences of at least three consecutive EHD 90 days or two consecutive EHD 95 days; and 3) the duration of EHE as the number of days for the longest EHE within the 42-day period.

To obtain a parameter for congenital heart defect (CHD) burden projections, the investigators used data from an earlier study, also led by Lin, which gauged the risk of congenital heart defects based on maternal heat exposure for births occurring between 1997 and 2007. The researchers then integrated the heat-CHD associations identified during the baseline period with the projected increases in maternal heat exposure over a period between 2025 and 2035 to estimate the potential changes in CHD burden.

"Although this study is preliminary, it would be prudent for women in the early weeks of pregnancy to avoid heat extremes similar to the advice given to persons with cardiovascular and pulmonary disease during heart spells," said Shao Lin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., associate director of environmental health services, University at Albany, State University of New York.

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Other investigators included Tanya Spero, M.S.; Christopher Nolte, Ph.D.; Valerie Garcia, Ph.D.; Ziqiang Lin, Ph.D.; Paul Romitti, Ph.D.; Gary Shaw, Ph.D.; Scott Sheridan, Ph.D.; Marcia Feldkamp, Ph.D.; Alison Woomert, Ph.D.; Syni-An Hwang, Ph.D.; Sarah Fisher, M.P.H.; Marilyn Browne, Ph.D.; and Yuantao Hao, M.D., Ph.D. There were no author disclosures.

This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with partial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Additional Resources:

Available multimedia located on the right column of the release link: https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ climate-change-may-increase-congenital-heart-defects?preview= f9d168ef92d192dbb1155b3bad30ac8f

For more information visit: https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ health-topics/ congenital-heart-defects

Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a leading force for a world of longer, healthier lives. With nearly a century of lifesaving work, the Dallas-based association is dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all. We are a trustworthy source empowering people to improve their heart health, brain health and well-being. We collaborate with numerous organizations and millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, advocate for stronger public health policies, and share lifesaving resources and information. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.
Longitudinal data from adolescents and young adults show no evidence that social media use predicts later depressive symptoms, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. However, the findings do show that relatively higher depressive symptoms predicted later social media use among adolescent girls.

This research stands in contrast with recent claims that adolescents' use of social media may lead to depression, claims based primarily on studies that examined associations between average social media use and average well-being measured at a single point in time.

"You have to follow the same people over time in order to draw the conclusion that social media use predicts greater depressive symptoms," says lead author Taylor Heffer of Brock University. "By using two large longitudinal samples, we were able to empirically test that assumption."

Beginning in 2017, Heffer and coauthors surveyed 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in Ontario, Canada once a year for two years. The researchers also conducted annual surveys of undergraduate participants, beginning in their first year of university over a span of 6 years.

To measure depressive symptoms, the researchers used the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for the young adults and an age-appropriate version of the same scale for the adolescents. All participants answered two questions about their average daily hours spent on social media - one measuring weekday use and the other measuring weekend use. The participants also answered questions about other screen time, such as watching TV, and non-screen activities including doing homework and exercising.

Heffer and colleagues analyzed the data separately for each age group and gender.

The results showed that social media use did not predict later depressive symptoms among adolescents or college undergraduates. Rather, greater depressive symptoms predicted more social media use over time, but only among adolescent girls.

"This finding contrasts with the idea that people who use a lot of social media become more depressed over time. Instead, adolescent girls who are feeling down may turn to social media to try and make themselves feel better," says Heffer.

Overall, the research suggests that the fear surrounding social media use and its impact on mental health may be premature.

"When parents read media headlines such as 'Facebook Depression,' there is an inherent assumption that social media use leads to depression. Policymakers also have recently been debating ways to tackle the effects of social media use on mental health," says Heffer.

Evaluating whether fears about the impacts of social media have merit requires prospective longitudinal studies that allow researchers to examine whether it is social media use that predicts depressive symptoms (rather than the other way around), while controlling for other potential influences. As Heffer and colleagues note, individual differences in personality, motivation, and current well-being are likely to play a critical role in the relationship between media use and future well-being.

"There may be different groups of people who use social media for different reasons," Heffer explains. "For example, there may be a group of people who use social media to make social comparisons or turn to it when they are feeling down, while another group of people may use it for more positive reasons, such as keeping in contact with friends."

Examining the role that these differences play will help clarify the ways in which social media interacts with mental health, with implications for parents, policymakers, and healthcare professionals alike.

###

Coauthors on the research include Marie Good of Redeemer University College and Owen Daly, Elliott MacDonnell, and Teena Willoughby, all of Brock University.

T. Willoughby received funding for this study from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

For more information about this study, please contact: Taylor Heffer at th10ww@brocku.ca.

The article abstract is available online at https:/ / journals. sagepub. com/ doi/ full/ 10. 1177/ 2167702618812727

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Longitudinal Association Between Social-Media Use and Depressive Symptoms Among Adolescents and Young Adults: An Empirical Reply to Twenge et al. (2018)" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, founding director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering and the Sackler Center for Biomedical, Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences at the University of Connecticut, is the winner of the 2019 Philip Hauge Abelson Prize, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

An eminent biomedical engineer and orthopedic surgeon, Laurencin is being honored for his unique contributions to the advancement of science. The Abelson Prize recognizes his global leadership in biomedical technology innovation, public service in shaping United States technology policy and invaluable mentorship to a generation of minority scientists.

"Prof. Cato T. Laurencin is the foremost scientist-biomedical engineer in our country today and a national and international leader in science and technology innovation," Kazem Kazerounian, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Engineering, wrote in the award nomination. "Dr. Laurencin is a towering figure in science and technology."

Laurencin's seminal papers and patents have had wide-ranging impacts on human health, launching the use of nanotechnology in musculoskeletal regeneration and ushering in a new era in orthopedic therapies. His research inspired the development of biocomposite interference screws, which fix bone to soft tissue and are used in at least 25% of the more than 500,000 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgeries performed worldwide each year.

Likewise, the soft tissue implants that Laurencin has developed -- the STR graft for rotator cuff regeneration and the Laurencin-Cooper (LC) Ligament for ACL regeneration -- have been declared breakthrough technologies. The rotator cuff graft lessens pain and speeds up recovery time following shoulder surgery, and the ACL device, expected to play a similar role in knee surgeries, has been implanted in patients as part of a large clinical trial in Europe. National Geographic named the LC Ligament one of its "100 Scientific Discoveries that Changed the World" in 2012.

Laurencin has also used his authoritative voice to guide national technology policy. Because of his successful experience serving on the Food and Drug Administration's orthopedic device panel, Laurencin was appointed to the National Science Advisory Board to help revamp the agency and its mission of providing scientifically based evidence to support the approval of devices, drugs and biologics. He has served on numerous advisory boards for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and was the faculty leader in the development of the Bioscience Connecticut Initiative for the State of Connecticut. Bioscience Connecticut now serves as a model for government-academic innovation partnerships around the country.

In addition to his pioneering research and policy work, Laurencin has provided invaluable mentorship to a new generation of minority STEM professionals. Eight of his 125 former minority mentees now hold tenured or tenure-track faculty positions in biomedical engineering. "Considering that only a handful of African Americans hold tenure-track appointments in biomedical engineering nationally, it is difficult to overstate the impact that Dr. Laurencin has had on diversity in this field," said Yolanda George, former deputy director of AAAS Education and Human Resources, in presenting him with the 2012 AAAS Mentor Award. Laurencin also serves as editor-in-chief of Springer Nature's Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Laurencin has received many other awards, including the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from former President Obama. He is a peer-elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers named him one of its 100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.

The AAAS Board of Directors established the Abelson Prize in 1985 to recognize individuals who have "made signal contributions to the advancement of science in the United States." It is given annually to either a public servant, in recognition of sustained exceptional contributions to advancing science, or to a scientist whose career has been distinguished both for scientific achievement and for other notable services to the scientific community. The award consists of a commemorative medallion and an honorarium of $5,000. It was inspired by the late Philip Hauge Abelson, long-time senior adviser to AAAS, editor of Science and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who died in 2004 after more than 60 years of service to science and society.

Laurencin will receive the award during the 185th AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 14, 2019.

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About the American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The nonprofit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

For more information on AAAS awards, see http://www. aaas. org/ awards .

AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, dedicated to "Advancing science; Serving society."
The scooter companies make customers sign an agreement before riding, agreeing to follow certain rules, such as wearing a helmet. You also arent supposed to ride if you are under 18. Lime warns riders on its website not to perform stunts on the scooters, while Bird tells riders to keep both feet on the vehicle at all times. Riders are also told to be aware of road obstructions or uneven surfaces. But clearly self-regulation is not working. Take a peek on the streets any given day, and just about everyone speeds around helmet-free, hair blowing in the wind. Do we really expect people to carry around helmets in case they spontaneously decide they want to hop on a scooter? Teenagers and younger kids have also been sighted zipping around despite their age.
Five scientists who made central contributions to the founding and development of the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East laboratory, an institution that has established an unprecedented level of scientific cooperation between political adversaries in a region formerly lacking a major international research center, have been selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to receive its 2019 Award for Science Diplomacy.

Officially inaugurated in May 2017 at its facility in Allan, Jordan, SESAME is the first major international scientific center in the Middle East. The project's establishment and ongoing success would not have been possible without the efforts of the five awardees: Hebrew University of Jerusalem particle theorist Eliezer Rabinovici, Jordan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Khaled Toukan, Sabanci University (Istanbul) biophysicist Zehra Sayers, former Hamburg University experimental physicist Herwig Schopper, and former University of Oxford particle theorist Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith.

"SESAME is a remarkable example of how scientists can unify in the pursuit of knowledge, even among nations with longstanding political tensions," said AAAS CEO Rush Holt. "The scientific enterprise in and of itself can promote peace and foster international collaboration." SESAME's current members are Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.

Synchrotron light sources generate an intense light beam that can reveal the atomic structure of matter, making them a prized tool in biology, chemistry, archaeology and more. The month before SESAME opened its doors, for example, a synchrotron light source at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California revealed new details about the structure of proteins that regulate blood pressure, a discovery that could lead to better hypertension treatments.

This potential for innovative research in diverse fields makes a synchrotron light source the ideal basis of the Middle East's first major cooperative scientific facility. At SESAME, teams of researchers from all member states have begun carrying out experiments, which has the potential to promote the development of varied scientific fields in their home countries.

"In recent years, there is hardly a more shining example of science diplomacy than SESAME, which demonstrates the power of science to build bridges in the face of geopolitical tensions," said Mahlet Mesfin, deputy director of the AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy. "The dedicated leaders we are recognizing with this award played a critical role in overcoming many hurdles -- diplomatic and otherwise -- to bring the research facility to life."

The idea of an international science effort in the Middle East was born in the mid-1980s, when physicist Abdus Salam, a Pakistani Nobel Laureate, suggested establishing a synchrotron radiation facility in Bahrain. Politicians in the region were enthusiastic about the idea, but it lost momentum over the next decade.

A resurgence of optimism followed the 1993 Oslo Accords, when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat in front of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Rabinovici, one of the AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy recipients, and the late theorist Sergio Fubini, both then working in suburban Geneva at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) -- the world's largest particle physics laboratory -- brought colleagues together to found an organization called the Middle Eastern Scientific Cooperation group.

Soon after its formation, MESC hosted an international physics conference in the town of Dahab, on the Sinai Peninsula. The meeting took place in November 1995, a few weeks after Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabinovici went on to be instrumental in the formation of SESAME, securing Israeli participation in the endeavor, and he is a current member and former vice president of the SESAME Council, its governing body.

Sayers and Toukan, two of the other awardees, also played invaluable roles in obtaining support for SESAME from their respective countries, Turkey and Jordan, and providing scientific leadership. Sayers chaired the organization's scientific advisory committee for many years, and Toukan now serves as SESAME's director.

The final awardees, Schopper and Llewellyn Smith, are both former directors of CERN and former presidents of the SESAME Council. Serving as the first chair of a MESC steering group, before SESAME had a name, Schopper led the creation of a framework for cooperation among the countries involved. By the end of his term as SESAME Council president, the project had an established structure for cooperation with a site in Jordan, a training program for researchers and engineers from member states, and some of the components for an accelerator.

Like his predecessor, Llewellyn Smith played a pivotal role in guiding the project through political obstacles. In 2010 alone, a number of incidents threatened to upend the initiative's progress. In that year, Iran's government accused Israel and the U.S. of involvement in the killing of two Iranian scientists connected to SESAME, and there was a violent clash between Israeli commandos and a Turkish-owned ship off the coast of Gaza. Thanks to the interventions of SESAME Council delegates, under Llewellyn Smith's leadership, the project continued.

Likewise, faced with the potentially crippling electricity costs of running such a high-power laboratory, Llewellyn Smith helped secure support from the European Union to build a solar plant. In 2019, SESAME is expected to become the world's first solar-powered accelerator.

Asked in 2017 what inspired him to push for SESAME's success, Rabinovici pointed to string theory, which posits that there are many possible universes. "I must say that personally, I always wanted to visit some of these other universes, just to see how things are there," he told The New York Times. "I actually got to live in a universe where Arabs, Israelis, Iranians, Pakistanis work together for the same cause for their own people, for humanity. And that definitely feels good."

The AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy was established in 1992 as the AAAS International Scientific Cooperation Award. It recognizes an individual or group in the scientific and engineering or foreign affairs communities making an outstanding contribution to furthering science diplomacy. The award consists of a commemorative plaque and an honorarium of $5,000, which this year's recipients have decided to use to help fund the work of a young scientist at SESAME.

The awardees will receive the prize during the 185th AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 15, 2019.

###

About the American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The nonprofit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

For more information on AAAS awards, see http://www. aaas. org/ awards .

AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, dedicated to "Advancing science; Serving society."
2019-01-30

Maeci

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, is attending the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the EU Countries (so-called Gymnich meeting) in Bucharest, on 31 January and 1 February, organised by the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council.

The meetings agenda places special attention to the situation in Venezuela and its developments over the past few weeks. In this respect, it should be recalled that last 26 January, all of the EU Member States undersigned an ad hoc joint declaration. The Ministers have also scheduled several sessions of debate to update the situation in the Middle East, China, the so-called EUs Eastern Partnership and other topical foreign policy issues. One of the Plenary Session meetings will be opened to include the presence of the Foreign Ministers of the EU Accession Countries.

As is customary, the EU Council meeting will also give the opportunity of scheduling several bilateral meetings between Minister Moavero and his colleagues. The Ministers agenda includes meetings with the Foreign Minister of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, of France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, of Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov, and of Spain, Josep Borrell.
The rifts created by the demolition of the Babri masjid and the subsequent riots still remain to be bridged. But for any healing to begin requires not merely the direct and impartial intervention of the concerned authorities, but also a sincere and concerted effort to inculcate among diverse communities, acceptance of their differences and to promote areas of integration.

The demolition of Babri masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, does not symbolise the extinction or abridgment of the right of the Muslims to freedom of worship, which they have continued to enjoy before, during and after the event even in Ayodhya. The event rather exposed the fragile state of rule of law in the country, wherein the majoritarian composition and attitudes of the police and security forces, and whose subservience to the political executive made it function as a partisan force in the service of kar sevaks. Earlier in 1990 under a direction from the then chief minister, the same PAC used excessive force against kar sevaks in the process of protecting the mosque. This illustrates the observation made by the Dharam Vira National Police Commission (1978-81) that the police in India is not organised for impartial law enforcement; it is rather a subordinate body for enforcement of the policy of the government of the day, which is generally based on cynical calculations of players of the power game. It is a great pity that the district administration perceives its role in terms of providing maximum satisfaction to the political executive even during intergroup conflict situations making it function on occasions in a partisan manner disregarding law, as did happen in Ayodhya. Because of this lack of independence of the police and the district administration from the politically motivated directions of the government, the pious resolution of the National Integration Council of the 1960s, reiterated in the prime ministers 15-point programme for minorities (1983), that the D M and S P should be held responsible for prevention and timely control of riots can never get implemented.

The judiciary which is the only source of hope for the weak and vulnerable groups, has miserably failed to come to their rescue ever since December 1949-January 1950, when a one-sided attachment order was passed without removing the idols of Shri Ramchandraji surreptitiously and wrongly put inside the (Babri masjid) as reported by constable Mata Prasad and testified by the deputy commissioner of Faizabad, J N Ugra, in the written statement filed in the court on April 24, 1950 on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Muslim worship however came to a stop, and their dispossession was legally sanctified under the plea of apprehension of breach of peace under Section 145 of the Cr P C and Hindu parties were allowed limited right of worship under a subjectively defined status quo. On this judicial activism the BJPs white paper on Ayodhya1 makes the following observation: The law could not help the Hindus for more than 60 years, from 1885 to 1949. But when they physically occupied the structure after the idols of Sri Rama appeared on December 22-23, 1949, the same law okayed it, and the same law enforcing court  the district court in 1950 and later in 1955 the high court  granted to the Hindus the right to worship and injuncted against removing the idols.

The following critique of the Supreme Court judgment in the Ayodhya case in 1994 by Soli J Sorabjee also needs attention. Referring to the legal sanction given in the majority judgment to the post-demolition makeshift temple with limited rights, on the ground that (for whatever reason) the worship in the mosque had come to a stop since December 1949, Sorabjee notes with distress that, The majority judgment overlooks that the reason why the worship in the mosque had come to a standstill was the surreptitious entry into the mosque and placing of idols there in a clandestine manner. Indeed that was the unequivocal admission of the state of UP in its written statement solemnly affirmed in the suit. Sorabjee, the present attorney-general, concludes thus: The distressing part is that the majority judgment countenances a situation which was the outcome of an act of national shame. The minority community is understandably disappointed with the majority judgment.2

Regarding the court order for opening the locks of the gate in 1986, the BJPs white paper on Ayodhya notes with satisfaction that within three days of the munsif court order, the district court passed an order directing the government of Uttar Pardesh to unlock the gate... and that within hours of passing of the above order, the temple was unlocked and even the Doordarshan cameramen were present to cover the occasion which was widely telecast all over India. The white paper raises the question How did this case move at this speed? How did the government acquiesce in this case? How did the Faizabad district court allow the appeal ordering the opening of locks in a matter of two days when the Hindus had been pleading for nearly 37 years? How did the Doordarshan cameras click the opening of the locks within an hour of the court orders? All these questions have only one answer  when the government is not against, such things can, and do, happen. Even the courts respond.3

The impression that the course of law in Ayodhya in 1986 was not an independent act of the judiciary based on merits of the case gets further strengthened by Swaroopananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Dwarka and Jyotishpeeth, claiming during Kumbh mela that it was at his behest that prime minister Rajiv Gandhi got the lock opened for political considerations.4

The statements which are based on the perceived complicity of the judiciary with the executive and its acting under pressure, have not so far attracted the penal provisions under the law of the contempt of court. This perception of the role of the judiciary has contributed to the climate of impunity to the extent that VHP leaders have proclaimed their intention of enforcing their majoritarian will by force, disregarding the law, and have decided to go ahead with temple construction according to a schedule prepared by the dharm sansad (religious parliament) held during Mahakumbh in Allahabad in January 2001. The forcible entry of VHP leaders into the prohibited area in Ayodhya on October 17, 2001 marks the beginning of the schedule which is planned to reach a climax on March 12, 2001. The parivar feels confident that as nothing happened when the structure was demolished with the active connivance of the executive, nothing will happen again, if the Ram temple is built. They have been reassured in this regard by no less a person than justice (retd) Devki Nanda Agarwal, a VHP stalwart.5

The incident of forcible entry of VHP leaders into the prohibited area in Ayodhya on October 17, this year also violated the law, in spite of the firm resolve of the NDA government as expressed by the prime minister in his Musings from Kumarakum on January 1, 2001 when he urged not to remain silent spectators or adopt delaying tactics but to uphold the rule of law, should any organisation attempt to disturb the status quo. This statement cannot be taken as an isolated case of mere lapse of the security personnel on duty, it rather neatly falls into the pattern political blessing, official connivance and police partisanship and impunity seen from 1949 to 1992.

The prime minister who might well be feeling let down, as well as all the other players of the political game who are making an issue of the incident of October 17, should realise that irrespective of pious intentions, the institutional machinery for impartial, effective and humane law enforcement for prevention and speedy control of any inter-community violent conflicts simply does not obtain in the country. The fragility and malfunctioning of institutions of rule of law in India, has led to a denial of equal protection of the laws to all poor citizens and weak and vulnerable groups. It has been, however, most blatantly denied to Muslims especially in Ayodhya and related cases from 1949 till date including during major riots in 1980s and 1990s that have occurred since the Meenakshipuram conversions, which gave impetus to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other wings of the Sangh parivar to mobilise Hindu solidarity, towards all of which Indira Gandhi lent a helping hand. In his deposition before Liberahan Commission L K Advani has admitted that their late entry in the Ram temple campaign owed itself to their realisation of its potential for mobilisation of Hindu nationalism, which was lately being capitalised upon by the Congress.6 This phase of competitive Hindu nationalism within the Hindu ruling spectrum of varying shades, has brought untold misery to minorities, which has also been aggravated by the absence of an independent and competent impartial law-enforcement institutional mechanism.

It is distressing to note that during the last two decades while one finds human rights groups and individuals committed to secular humanist values taking pains to document and expose failure of the police and the political executive, the bureaucracy and the media during communal conflicts and violence, no sustained effort has been made by them to reform the system  setting attainable goals. Legal administrative measures and policies that need to be adopted for prevention and control of communal conflicts have been suggested by the National Integration Council (1961), National Police Commission (1978-81), prime ministers Fifteen Point Programme on Minorities (1983), the IOS 1993, the Citizens For Democracy and Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism (1994), and the Minorities Council (1996), and even by the National Commission For Minorities, (1999). Studies by N C Saxena (1983) and V N Rai, Human Rights Watch/Asia and the Amnesty International have also been publishing reports and recommendations.7

Remedial Measures

Two common recommendations of all these studies and reports relate to adequate numerical representation of minorities in the police and paramilitary forces, all the wings of law-enforcement machinery (like collection of intelligence and prosecution of cases) and training of the officers and personnel of the police to include a component on eradication of communal prejudices. The third area of reform relates to humane methods of prevention and control, not using lethal weapons for controlling any unarmed mob at the initial stage for deterrence and only for teaching people a lesson, as is being done under the riot control scheme in most states.

At present Muslims continue to be underrepresented at all levels and ranks of the police. In spite of periodic official directions for special recruitment of minorities, no appreciable progress has been made in this regard. V N Rai, (I G, B S F) and justice Tarkunde8 hold the opinion that the objective of adequate representation of minorities in the present circumstances cannot be achieved without fixing a quota. It needs to be kept in view that in certain states like Uttar Pradesh, the numerical ratio of Muslims in the police was reduced under unstated official policy (once the late Nikhil Chakravarty told me that the PAC, notorious for its anti-Muslim bias, was designed by then UP chief minister G B Pant to deal with the Muslims from whom he apprehended trouble after partition). The issue of adequate presence of minorities, especially Muslims, in the law-enforcement has not been addressed by the human rights movement, nor by the secular political class, because of secular-communal fixation. Whatever opinion one may hold about how to ensure the fair share of minorities in other sectors of the public life, their presence in the police is required to enable it to more impartially enforce law, by neutralising its own biases, and by inspiring greater confidence in the communities that it wants to serve. It needs to be noted that in the UK without fixing any ethnic quota departments, especially those involved in policing, have been given targets spread over periods of three, five and ten years, for adequate recruitment of ethnic minorities.

It needs to be noted that one of the thrusts of the recent Durban Declaration and Programme of Action is for states to create a diverse police force free from discrimination and intolerance, recruiting personnel from all groups including minorities in the entire criminal justice system.

The issue of quota reservation for minorities in the police and other wings of law-enforcement system should be addressed as part of the broader issue of democratic governance and rule of law for ensuring to minorities security of life, property and places of worships, delinking it from what is perceived as communal reservation in public services. Such reservation, though may have legitimacy for integrating backward minorities like Muslims into the national mainstream and their modernisation by expanding the space available to them in the common national domain. Greater the opportunities for participation of Muslims in the common national domain, greater their sense of belonging and stakes in its stability.

The other human rights issue that needs attention is that of ending impunity, being enjoyed by perpetrators of massacres which is universally acknowledged as a source of recurrence of violence, which makes victims seek desperate remedies, taking on occasions recourse to terrorism. This chain of violence and counter-violence has been testified by justice Sri Krishna who gave his definitive opinion about the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993 that they were a reaction to the totality of events in December 1992 amd January 1993 in Ayodhya and Mumbai by angry, frustrated and desperate young Muslims keen to seek revenge for the perceived injustice done to and atrocities perpetrated on them or to others of their community. Justice Sri Krishna noted that, the Muslims perhaps felt that the government and the police, instead of protecting their interests, had actually acted against their interests by joining hands with communal elements which took a lead in the riots. A large number of Muslim youths came to entertain this firm belief.9

The issue of impunity being enjoyed by perpetrators of communal violence, cannot be delinked from the general issue of the reform of the criminal justice system and rule of law. However the course of law in Ayodhya from December 1949 till date deserves to be reviewed as a case apart. It is not only a case of delay, but there is also a perception of distortion and lack of fairness and even of will to deliver speedy justice, which has caused what the apex court itself called an act of national shame.

Human rights groups like PUCL, PUDR and the Peoples Human Rights Commission, which have thoroughly documented the failure of the political, administrative and police departments of the law-enforcement system, need to subject to critical scrutiny the role of the judiciary collectively in the Ayodhya-related cases, with a view to ascertaining what has made the VHP, Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena bold enough to claim that they can defy law with impunity. If the issue is not urgently addressed, the threat of the Sangh parivar to arm millions of kar sevaks and gradually build pressure through periodic celebratory Hindu mass mobilisations, is likely to be countered by terrorist acts from desperate, frustrated and misguided youths from among the victim minority groups.

Not by Force Alone

Having taken note of the failure of law-enforcement and justice delivery system, and having pointed out what needs to be done to get the system repaired, it needs to be affirmed that communities in a traditional society do not live by law alone. They need to evolve a code of conduct and a mechanism for prevention of conflicts, especially when there is likelihood of conflict causing periodic feuds and blood-letting. What is the nature of the issue/issues in Ayodhya and who are the parties? Conflict in Ayodhya is avowedly over competitive political Hindu nationalism as testified by L K Advani, the greatest beneficiary of the Ram mandir movement, before Liberhan Commission. But the symbol of Ram is widely shared by non-political Hindus. Ram could easily have acquired the status of an Indian national hero, if he was treated only as an ideal king or a hero of the Indian classical epic, and not as an incarnation of god whose idol is to be ritually worshipped. If a temple is to be built with his idol for devotees, it cannot be treated as fulfilment of even Hindu national aspirations, or even of an Indian national urge, because there are large sections of Hindus who do not worship idols or are not his devotees. Among worshippers of Ram, there has been Gandhi and other Gandhians, and large sections of non-political sanatan dharmis whose reading of history does not make them hate Muslims and seek revenge for the supposed sins of their supposed fathers. Then there is the Sangh parivar which has politically appropriated Ram  envisioned as a warrior king  to avenge its sense of historical hurt and humiliation from the supposed descendants of Babar. Muslims cannot be expected to enter into any dialogue with a group of political Hindus who are not ready to treat them  their history, religion and culture  with respect.

The very reason for their insistence on building the Ram temple at the very site where the Babri masjid stood, lies in their basic motivation of revenge. There is therefore no chance of any dialogue over Ayodhya with any credible Muslim section if the Hindu religio-cultural space continues to be wrongly monopolised by the Sangh parivar. The problem with non-Sangh Hindus has been that they do not seem to know their mind, or at least are not ready to clearly spell out what they would like Muslims to do. The only time one such Hindu i e, Rajmohan Gandhi, advised Muslims to relocate the masjid, Muslims did not respond  for the reason that secular politicians had developed a stake in Muslims taking a hard line. The only time three wise Muslim intellectuals offered to talk to Advani over Ayodhya, the latter backed out of his call for dialogue over only one temple, instead of three (a letter was sent to Advani in this regard by Badr-ud-din Tyabji, colonel B H Zaidi and Saiyid Hamid on August 23, 1990)10 which remained unanswered.

Any Ayodhya cell in the cabinet secretariat, or secret talks with stray Muslim individuals or even groups is not going to yield any result. The solution lies in non-Sangh Hindu community leaders and intellectuals and enlightened Muslims  from among the ulema as well as intellectuals  to take the initiative for dialogue in a spirit of mutual respect and goodwill. Both groups should be so intellectually equipped as to be aware of the history of Hindu-Muslim discord over ethno-religious issues, and its adverse impact on community relations. They should also have the right vision of a harmonised Hindu-Muslim relations under a plural cultural set-up wherein legitimate communitarian values are accommodated and civilisational aspirations of the two fulfilled without any clash. I am sure it lies in the realm of the possible. Those taking initiative for such a dialogue should be men and women with the courage of conviction to be able to take apparently unpopular decisions over all contentious issues including cow and Bande Mataram in the larger interest of the communities and the country.

The government, especially the present one led by the BJP, cannot assume the role of the promoter of dialogue. It can and should take measures for reform of the system, as pointed out above, with a view to assuring the minorities that their security would not be under threat. It should also make minorities, especially Muslims, develop greater sense of belonging by expanding avenues and opportunities of their participation in the national life. Such appeasement of minorities is a necessary condition for creating an atmosphere conducive to a fruitful dialogue over Ayodhya and other issues. The enlightened sections of the Sangh parivar should have the vision and insight to understand that such confidence building measures (CBM), like Urdu script getting its due recognition and the communitys right to separate family laws, cannot undermine those Hindu interest that they are seeking to protect and promote.

A necessary component of CBM is destigmatisation of Muslims for imagined sins of the past including partition, and their consequent negative stereotyping and treatment as a suspect community, all be replaced by their treatment as normal Indians. This would require a commitment to educate and sensitise the average Hindu for inculcation of positive humanist attitudes. Muslims will have to reciprocate by de-stereotyping the kafir and treating Hindus as normal humans and fellow countrymen, with whom best of relations are recommended by Islam, thereby ruling out any perpetual confrontation including armed struggle, howsoever desperate they might feel on occasions.

The role of facilitators and promoters of dialogue has to be played by the statutorily empowered Community Relations Commission (CRC) as proposed in the NCM report on Communal Riots: Prevention and Control (1999), which has found acceptance of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. The CRC is envisaged as a body comprising eminent social scientists, jurists, and experts in community relations and conflict resolution along with distinguished publicists entrusted with the responsibility of prevention and resolution of all inter-community conflicts through dialogue. In the event of failure of dialogue the CRC will be empowered to initiate legal action against all hate speech and actions. The CRC will function in liaison with the civil societys organisations at district, state and national level.

One such organisation named Inter-Community Peace Initiative (ICPI) has already been constituted, whose mission statement includes commitment to cultural pluralism, upholding rule of law and promoting dialogue between communities on divisive ethno-religious issues.

Let the CRC be established with such eminent members whose integrity and sagacity is unquestionable, and who enjoy the confidence of minorities. The CRC in liaison with bodies like the ICPI may be in a position to bring about conciliation of the communities without any sense of humiliation or unfairness to the either party. Those involved in law and law-enforcement will not be abdicating their role. There may be complementarity of roles on an issue like Ayodhya. There may be appointed a tribunal or arbitration council by the consent of the parties.

It all depends on whether the political parties in the government and the opposition and the non-Sangh Hindus and non-political Muslims, especially enlightened ulema and intellectuals feel the urge to take bold initiatives for a peaceful and just order in India wherein the rightly prioritised interests of all communities may be protected.

It is rather depressing to see non-Sangh Hindus, especially Gandhians, not playing an organised active role. It is no less depressing to see Muslim community obsessed with legalism of a variety which will not yield any positive results in terms of their cultural and religious rights or economic, social and political rights even if they win the legal battle in the long run (very very long run). Will those who stand for genuine Hindu religious values and civilisational aspirations, as creatively interpreted by Vivekananda and others, get activised? Will Muslims develop a better sense of history and rightly prioritise their own collective goals and interests? Can they be inspired by a more inclusive vision of their own future in India than mere second rate legalists are capable of?

Notes
I was born near Denver, later moved to Selah, Washington and then attended the University of Kansas, graduating in May 2017. Prior to Enid News, I interned with the Yakima-Herald Republic and wrote arts and features for the University Daily Kansan.

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Cars travel across one of Forrest Street bridges Monday. Work to remove the bridges is expected to begin next month, which will force detours and potential travel headaches for Athens residents.
I grew up in Baltimore and he has been an icon in this town since 1959, and directed one of the largest choirs in the city. He was one of our premier musicians and was looked up to. He was a model for us, Mr. Britt said.
BREAKING: Postal workers to strike again

The Communication Workers Union has announced postal workers on the Isle of Man will go on strike for three days next month.



Following strike action taken in December, the Union has allowed the employer a period of calm in the hope that common sense would prevail. Instead, the CWU has received no reply to its submission on the 4th January of a pragmatic programme for the future of the Isle of Man Post Office.



The business has decided to attempt to consult with our members on an individual basis rather than working through the CWU proposal in line with the process that had been agreed with the assistance of the Isle of Man Industrial Relations Officer.



Commenting on this announcement, Terry Pullinger, CWU Deputy General Secretary (Postal) said: Our members clearly see managements approach as an underhand and deliberate attempt to undermine the collective bargaining process.



This has caused further and unnecessary stress to the members of the Union and has hardened their collective determination.



We have received excellent support from the public and we genuinely hope they understand that our action is a legitimate protest to the ridiculous nature of these negotiations. We hope that they can see that the involvement of management, board members and government officials show that there are far too many fingers in the pie, making it almost impossible to make progress in these discussions.



These talks feel increasingly as though the government is seeking to achieve precedence that could apply more widely to the rest of the public sector rather than developing an agreed vision for the Isle of Man Post Office in the best interest of loyal post workers, postal services in general and the commercial and social fabric of the Isle of Man.

The industrial action is due to be held on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of February 2019.
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Elkhart, IN (46516)

Today

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
El Salvador, Jan 30 (efe-epa).- Carlos Calleja, scion of one of El Salvador's leading business dynasties, is running for president on the argument that his lack of political experience should be seen as a virtue.

Representing the right-wing Arena party, the 42-year-old is currently second in the polls with a few days left before the Feb. 3 election.

Calleja was born in San Salvador, but moved an early age to the United States, where he graduated from Middlebury College before getting an MBA from New York University.

The candidate promises "work for all" and vows to stand up to corruption.

His opponents in the presidential race have dismissed his pledge of full employment as utopian, pointing out that joblessness persists even in the most advanced economies.

The other major theme of Calleja's campaign is "zero tolerance" for corruption. He says that his main rivals - Hugo Martinez of the ruling center-left FMLN and Nayib Bukele of the conservative GANA - are tainted by the corruption of their respective parties.

At the same time, he insists that he cannot be connected to past misdeeds by Arena.

Calleja never mentions the last president from Arena, Tony Saca, who is serving a prison sentence for embezzlement and money laundering during his 2004-2009 administration.

"Don't look at the past. Look at me, a candidate without a political past, with no connection to what happened in the party before, because I was not there," he says.

With no record in public life, the candidate defines himself as "an honest, hardworking person" and points to his work as executive vice president of Grupo Calleja, a retail, real estate and financial services conglomerate founded by his grandfather.

Calleja says that his success in managing the group and its more than 12,000 employees shows he is ready to govern El Salvador.

Critics, however, suggest that because he spent his formative years in the US, Calleja lacks a firm grasp of El Salvador's problems, notably poverty and crime.

The Arena candidate said that he is running to make real his dream of "uniting all Salvadorans who believe in freedom and democracy, regardless of political colors, to leave confrontation behind and together build the El Salvador we want and deserve."
Bogota, Jan 29 (epa-efe).- Colombia's foreign minister said Tuesday that Washington has not asked Bogota for permission to send US troops to the country amid the crisis in neighboring Venezuela.

"They have not suggested it," Carlos Holmes Trujillo said at a press conference when asked if at any time the US government has raised the possibility to Colombia of increasing its military presence in that country.

The question came a day after television cameras captured the phrase "5,000 troops to Colombia" on a legal pad held by US National Security Adviser John Bolton during a White House appearance to announce new sanctions against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The image of the notebook caused a stir in Colombia, where all sorts of speculation broke out about whether the notation was related to the crisis in Venezuela.

On that subject, the foreign minister insisted that the government of President Ivan Duque "doesn't know the reason or the significance of that mention of Colombia on that notebook."

Trujillo recalled that the dialogue between Bogota and Washington is constant and ongoing.

"I am not going to get ahead of myself on anything, especially not on such a sensitive matter, and I simply reiterate that nothing is known regarding the reason or significance of that mention on the notebook of Mr. John Bolton during the ... press conference," he said.

During the White House briefing, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced sanctions against Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and its US subsidiary, service station chain Citgo.

Colombia is one of numerous Latin American countries that have joined the US in recognizing the leader of Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the country's acting president, dismissing Maduro's victory in the May 2018 election as illegitimate.

Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom have given Maduro an ultimatum to call new elections within eight days or see Madrid, Berlin and London recognize Guiado.

Maduro enjoys support from Russia and China, while Mexico and Uruguay have offered to mediate between the parties in Venezuela.

Bogota is Washington's closest ally in Latin America and over the last 19 years, only Israel and Egypt have received more US aid than Colombia.
Thank you for rising to the challenge and working together with us to stop the 50 percent increases in insurance rates to instead achieve lower rates for the first time in a decade and to protect the coverage of hundreds of thousands of Marylanders.
Havana, Jan 30 (epa-efe).- Nearly 5,000 people are still displaced in Havana three days after a powerful tornado took the Cuban capital by surprise, killing four people, injuring 195 others and damaging more than 1,900 homes.

About 4,780 of the displaced people are staying with relatives and 164 are in shelters, according to official figures published Wednesday in Communist Party daily Granma.

More than 70 injured people are still receiving treatment in capital hospitals, with four of them listed in serious but stable condition.

According to initial reports, although the initial tally was 1,238 homes damaged by the tornado, which on Sunday brought winds of up to 300 km/h (186 mph) to five districts of the Cuban capital, but the count has risen now to more than 1,900 houses.

The loss of these buildings, many of which were good condition before the tornado hit, highlights the delicate housing situation in Cuba, where there is a deficit of almost 1 million units.

Three days after the tornado, the first to strike Havana in 80 years, the clearing away of rubble, cars and poles littering the streets continues with the help of hundreds of soldiers deployed to aid in the monumental task.

Dozens of volunteers are also assisting residents trying to salvage bricks and pieces of wood that can be used in reconstructing their homes.

More than 136,000 people remain without electricity, down from nearly 500,000 who were left without service on Sunday.

About 22,500 Havana residents received water in tankers due to ruptures in pipes.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel has called for accelerated government efforts to ensure that housing is made available and he asked officials responsible for finding solutions in the wake of the disaster to handle the matter with "sensitivity."

"An organized society, a planned economy, a socialist government, will always have reserves so that no one is left homeless," Diaz-Canel wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

On social media, while Cubans both here and abroad are praising the state's response to the tragedy, others harshly criticized the decision to hold, as planned, the traditional huge parade to honor independence hero Jose Marti on the day after the catastrophe.
Ronald E. O'Dell, 60, of Altamont, died at 1:08 p.m., Sunday, June 13, 2021 at home surrounded by his family. Graveside services will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Sidener Cemetery, rural St. Elmo with Robert O'Dell officiating. Visitation will be from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m., F
After campaigning on the expansion of preschool and other early-childhood programs, many of the nations newly elected governors are following through with budget proposals that include money to support children from cradle to school entry.

One of the largest proposals is from California, where Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is in the enviable position of having a budget surplus projected at more than $20 billion. He has floated the largest proposal from a governor thus far, aiming to spend $1.8 billion on an array of programs including expansion of full-day kindergarten, free preschool for children from low-income families with the aim of making the program universal, and increased subsidies for child care, among other initiatives.

In Colorado, newly elected Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, used his State of the State address to advocate for more than $200 million that would allow all of Colorados school districts to offer full-day kindergarten. The state currently reimburses districts for about a half-day of instruction; districts may choose to offer just a half day of programming, but others offer full-day programs by charging parents tuition, through local tax revenue, or through their own general budgets. Polis also wants to expand the state-funded preschool program in order to offer slots to 8,000 additional children, up from about 21,000 3- and 4-year-olds currently enrolled.

Our states strong economic growth means we have the power to do all of this right now without taking resources away from other areas of the budget, Polis said at his Jan. 10 speech. As Uncle Ben once said to Spider-Man, With great power comes great responsibility. I know that together we can fulfill this responsibility, which many of you have been working on for years: free kindergarten now.

Mike DeWine, the new Republican governor of Ohio, created a state office for childrens initiatives immediately after he was sworn in on Jan. 14. During his campaign, DeWine said he would expand access to home-visiting programs for pregnant women and young children, as well as create more slots for children to attend high-quality state-funded preschool.

In New Mexico, early-childhood advocates have long supported taking some money from the states Land Grant Permanent Fund to pay for preschool, and they have a supporter in Michelle Lujan Grisham, the new Democratic governor. Lujan Grisham, in her address to state lawmakers, said she supports taking a responsible pinch of additional money from our Permanent School Fund, ensuring we can deliver an education system that works for every child and every family in this state.

On the Bandwagon

And its not just the new governors who are taking action on early childhood. Several governors who were re-elected are continuing their work in this area.

For example, Democrat Gina Raimondo, who was re-elected in Rhode Island, is advocating for a phased expansion of universal pre-K in her state. And Republican Kay Ivey of Alabama plans to continue her embrace of early-childhood programming as part of the Strong Start, Strong Finish initiative started in 2017.

Clearly, our students are making significant gains through our high-quality pre-K program, however, now our challenge is to continue building on that success, Ivey told a meeting of Alabama early-education professionals at a conference this month.

All the movement at the state level suggests that the creative thinking and sizable investments in early childhood are bubbling up from the states and in some cases large cities like Philadelphia and New York, which have their own programs.

Thats a turnaround from the years of the Obama administration. It sent hundreds of millions of dollars to states for spending on early-childhood programs, but the federal government was fairly prescriptive on how that money could be spent.

Congress preserved one policy initiative from the Obama years: the $250 million preschool development grant program. But the renewed program, which granted money to 45 states and localities in January, can be spent on children from birth through age 5. Thats a change from the legacy program, which was more narrowly aimed at preschool.

Also, Congress has intentionally taken a more hands-off approach in the renewed grant program; for example, the old program had requirements around the length of a preschool day and teacher qualifications; the new program has none of those mandates.

I think right now its unrealistic to expect a big push for pre-K from the federal government, said Aaron Loewenberg, a education policy analyst with the think tank New America, who has been following governors actions in the early-childhood arena.

For the first time you see governors and gubernatorial candidates not only having early-childhood issues as part of their platform, but highlighting them on the campaign trail, Loewenberg said. One reason, Loewenberg said, is that candidates see early childhood as a winning issue. It doesnt seem to have a lot of downside, he said.

And the governors also are getting into granular details and looking at early childhood as a whole, not just as one program, such as preschool.

The California initiative proposed by Newsom is unique in just how comprehensive it is, said Kim Patillo Brownson, the vice president for policy and strategy for First Five LA, which supports program for young children in Los Angeles County. Also what is noteworthy and unique is there is a clear focus on disparities between rich and poor. Equity is a part of this agenda.

Legislative Support

Newsoms ambitious plans are complemented by a state legislature that is also interested in programs for children, Patillo Brownson said. Previous increases in early-childhood spending have been difficult, she said.

The prior governor never opened the new year with a package investing in young children, she said. The two primary branches of government that need to move together are coming from a similar frame in wanting to invest in the next generation.

In Ohio, DeWines focus on home-visiting as one of his early-childhood priorities is noteworthy, said Shannon Jones, the executive director of the advocacy group Groundwork Ohio. Home-visiting programs provide trained counselors to work one-on-one with vulnerable parents and young children, sometimes for multiple years.

DeWine has proposed tripling the number of children served in home visiting programs in the state, which currently pays for more than 7,000 children through state funds. (An additional 2,000 are served through federal money that is distributed to states.) He has also proposed increasing state spending on early-childhood programs from $250 million to about $400 million annually.

You can imagine why were so excited about such a strong stance there, Jones said.

In Colorado, Polis has proposed a financial plan that would address two issues for parents of young children. He would increase the states contribution to school districts so that they would receive the same amount of funding for kindergarten as they do for other grades. Currently, the state pays only a little over half of a kindergarten day. However, 80 percent of the states kindergartners are in a full-day program. The additional cost is paid for through tuition from parents, or through local tax dollars.

Its a quintessential example of how your ZIP code determines your opportunity, said Bill Jaeger, the vice president of early childhood and policy initiatives for the Colorado Childrens Campaign. You might be fortunate enough to live in a community that offers free full-day kindergarten, but you know that theyre pulling from somewhere else to offer that.

The state also funds some state preschool slots, which some districts use to pay for a full kindergarten day. Polis plan to pump more than $200 million money into kindergarten would mean freeing up money that can be used for preschool.

Shifting those dollars, plus adding about $13 million for more preschool slots, should create about 8,000 spots for preschool, enough to eliminate the current waiting list for children whose parents would like to get them in the program.

Preschool and free, full-day kindergarten have been on the policy agenda in Colorado for decades, Jaeger said. Right now, the legislature and the governors office appear to be aligned in a way to support those goals, he said.

The economy and the revenue is going to open the door to getting this done, he said.
The push to boost teacher pay was a big factor in the flood of money states pumped into school districts in recent years, but much of that money has been soaked up by competing school budget priorities, rather than landing in teachers pockets.

Thats drawing the ire of a growing number of teacher activists across the countryand frustrating governors and legislators who are looking to deliver on campaign promises they made to make statewide teacher pay increases.

Since the end of the recession in 2009, many states have increased K-12 spending. Last year, for example, states provided more than $294.8 billion in K-12 dollars, a 4 percent increase from last year. But the average teacher pay in 39 states declined between 2010 and 2016, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank that pushes for more education spending.

In the vast majority of states, new money that comes from the state is mostly subject to district officials discretion.

In many cases, chief financial officers, superintendents, and school board members have decided to use the extra cash to pay down pension obligations, backfill support staff laid off during the recession, or hire more teachers to decrease class sizes. Districts can ill-afford to give teachers across-the-board raises, administrators in states including Washington and Wisconsin, have told teachers.

There are a lot of news stories and a lot of buzz around teacher pay, and many state policymakers have been wanting to jump on that, said Michael Griffith, a senior school finance analyst for the Education Commission of the States. But when they put more money into education, theyre not seeing a jump in teacher pay. Or theyre seeing it in some districts and not in others. In most instances, you supply the money to districts and hope they spend it the right way.

A Sticking Point

Teachers across the nation have staged massive protests to demand that states spend more money on textbooks, technology, school construction, and reducing class sizes. But increasing teacher pay has proven both costly and difficult to achieve.

Negotiations between teacher groups and district officials have turned especially hostile this year in states where governors last year gave hundreds of millions more dollars to schools, earmarked in some casesat least rhetoricallyfor teachers.

See Also: Teacher Pay: How Salaries, Pensions, and Benefits Work in Schools

Teachers in seven Washington state districts went on strike at the beginning of this year after district administrators said they couldnt afford to deliver on Democratic Gov. Jay Inslees promise to boost teacher pay with the $1 billion in extra money provided by the state to end a long-standing lawsuit that was partly over teacher pay.

In California, where districts mostly have free rein to spend state money as theyd like, thousands of Los Angeles teachers walked off the job last week after district officials refused to bump their pay by 6.5 percent, decrease class sizes, and add nurses, librarians, and counselors. California has, since the recession, provided districts with more than $19 billion in extra money, though the states K-12 spending has yet to reach pre-recession spending levels.

And teachers in Chicago and Denver last week threatened walkouts over their pay. Both Illinois and Colorado provided districts with hundreds of millions more dollars last year.

In Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey spared his re-election bid and ended a five-day statewide strike last year after he said hed set aside more than $644 million to boost teachers pay by an average of 20 percent by 2020. Teachers, he said, would receive a 10 percent raise this fall.

Where's the Money? Even if governors and state lawmakers promise pay raises to teachers, local school boards and district administrators often have competing priorities that keep some of that money from finding its way into teachers pockets. Arizona:

After a five-day teachers strike, Gov. Doug Ducey last year promised to provide teachers with a 20 percent pay raise by 2020, with teachers receiving a 10 percent raise this school year. But some estimates show that many of the raises across the state were uneven with some teachers only getting 5 percent raises this year while others received a 15 percent raise. Ducey this year proposed to put much of a $900 million surplus into savings, while many teachers across the state have said districts need even more money to stave off a teacher shortage. California:

California slashed dozens of spending requirements when it created a new funding formula in 2013, allowing the states many school districts to effectively spend money from the state however administrators would like. The state also required that districts by 2020 pay up to 19 percent of its pension contribution. Because of rising fiscal demands across the state, many districts have put much of the $20 billion in extra spending on pensions and other obligations. Teachers in Los Angeles have demanded a 6.5 percent raise, smaller class sizes, and more support staff. The district says it cant afford all those things and Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has proposed to pay part of the districts pensions to stave off other cuts. Washington:

Teachers in seven districts went on strike earlier this school year when district administrators refused to provide teachers with the sorts of pay raises they envisioned when the state provided $1 billion more over the next four years as part of a court ruling involving teacher pay. Many of the districts are going to voters this spring to ask for more money to avoid having to make millions of dollars in cuts. Source: Education Week

But that money, all of which was placed in districts general funds, was spread out in uneven ways, with teachers in various districts receiving anywhere from no raise at all to, in one instance, an 18 percent raise, according to an analysis by the states department of education. Many finance experts fear that sort of uneven pay schedule across the state could exacerbate the teacher shortage in the states most rural areas.

Some Arizona districts have told their teachers they wont be able to afford to give them 20 percent raises by 2020.

We knew when he created this proposal that it was just a promise that was going to create problems and inequity down the road, said Rebecca Garelli, a 6th grade science teacher at Sevilla West Middle School in Phoenix. Garelli received a 5 percent, one-time pay bump, about $87 in each paycheck, which the district could rescind next year, she said. What he gave was more of a promise than a reality.

Flush With Revenue

A large portion of states this year are flush with cash as revenue from natural resources and property and sales taxes have rebounded.

Some governors, such as in Arizona, California, and Colorado, have said in recent weeks that they want to place much of that surplus money into savings. Others, including in Arkansas, Missouri, and Virginia, have said they want to spend much of the surpluses on their public school systems.

Seventeen states, according to the ECS, have statewide pay scales, which, if adjusted, can assure that teachers across the board will receive pay raises. That includes Oklahoma and West Virginia, where statewide strikes last year led to the states entire pay scale being adjusted by thousands of dollars. (Most states have a minimum pay amount that districts cant go under.)

Last week, legislation was proposed in Texas, which has a statewide pay scale, that would provide every teacher in the state with a $5,000 raise. It would cost the state $3.7 billion over the next two years.

But in the rest of the states, districts can mostly spend money however theyd like, a staple of Americas local control mantra.

Perhaps aware of the issues sensitivity and complexity, governors in their state of the state addresses have been especially careful when describing how theyll increase teacher pay. And they have been quick to point out that teacher pay is outside of their control.

Indianas Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb said last week that he will use $140 million of his budget to pay down the districts pension debt and then heavily suggested that local school boards, which decide teacher pay, should use the saved money in pension costs to give their teachers a $1,200 pay increase.

Just like paying off your mortgage frees up money in your personal budget, this state investment will save all local schools $140 million over the biennium with continued savings thereafter, he said in a statement.

Some governors have gotten creative in order to bypass the messy district negotiation process and dodge the political heat over pay. Some states, such as North Carolina, have tried to issue bonus checks directly to teachers, and others, like Arizona, have published pay increases on state departments website in order to spur public accountability.

In 2012, the Washington state supreme courts McCleary ruling said that the state was not holding up its end of the deal to provide students with a constitutionally adequate education. The court ordered that the state provide all-day kindergarten, expand access to pre-Kand increase teacher pay.

While the state managed to accomplish the first two tasks relatively quickly, it took years to pull off the teacher pay order.

Last year, after threats from the states supreme court to shutter the states schools, Washington scrapped its statewide teacher pay scale, instituted a new carbon tax, and rejiggered the states local property taxes in order to provide schools with $1 billion in new funds.

It was a political victory for Inslee, who recently announced that he will run for U.S. president. But it caused havoc in the states 294 districts, all of which this summer went into negotiations with local unions.

What kind of pay raises are possible? the states union said in a press release distributed to its members last spring. For certificated staff, 15 percent or more. For classified education support professionals, pay increases as high as 37 percent. Thats rightdouble-digit pay raises are possible for all of Washingtons K-12 public school employees.

The union incorrectly said in the press release that the funds were earmarked for teacher salaries. District administrators pointed out that the funds were actually placed in general funds and if they provided even 20 percent raises for its teachers and certified staff, the districts would go into debt.

Continued Tensions

At the beginning of this school year, teachers in seven districts in the state went on strike, delaying the start of school.

With the McCleary decision, we felt it was now time to get the raises, and not try to spread them out in three years, said Lynn Maiorca, the president of the Vancouver Education Association, referring to the Vancouver, Wash., districts original proposal to teachers.

While the union managed after the four-day strike to land a raise for its teachers, the district said it now faces an $11 million shortfall this fall and will have to go to voters in the spring to ask to raise taxes or risk program cuts and layoffs. Negotiations with the districts support staff are ongoing.

Even after the McCleary investments, the state continues to underfund K-12 education, Steve Webb, the superintendent of Vancouver said in a statement directed at the districts staff. Now is the time for us to come together to put pressure where pressure belongswith our elected leaders in Olympia.
I appreciate the fact he is standing up on climate change, that he is standing up nationally, Glendening said. He is not going to succeed, though, if we continue to build more and more roads and add more emissions to the system, Glendening said.
By Jim Keen

In December, the Senate introduced legislation called the Kittens in Traumatic Testing Ends Now (KITTEN) Act, the companion to a bipartisan House bill of the same name targeting outdated food safety experiments at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). As Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) explained to CNN when he introduced the bill, "The USDA breeds up to 100 kittens a year, feeds them parasite-infected meat in order to have the parasite's eggs harvested for use in other experiments, and then kills the kittens. This bill would essentially stop this process." To date, the project has consumed $22 million tax dollars and taken the lives of 3,000 kittens.

I was disturbed, but not at all surprised, when I read about the experiment, because for two decades, I worked as a veterinarian and researcher at the USDA's Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) in Nebraska, the world's largest livestock research center. When I finally blew the whistle on the extensive government waste and animal abuse I witnessed at the USDA, it destroyed my career, and ultimately, my marriage. But I would do it again.

As I explain in Natalie Portman's recent documentary, Eating Animals, soon after starting at MARC, a colleague sought my assistance with a "downed cow" unable to stand on her own. The young heifer was corralled with six bulls in a sexual libido experiment. Libido is typically measured by placing one bull with one cow in heat for 15 minutes. However, the bulls continuously mounted the heifer, immobilized in a restraint device so she could not escape, for hours. Her back legs were broken. MARC denied me permission to euthanize her. She died hours later from her severe injuries.

Sadly, this extreme "research project" was not an anomaly.

MARC uses more than $22 million taxpayer dollars and 35,000 animals annually, focusing on science and technology to make red meat production more efficient and profitable. In addition, MARC performs heavily taxpayer-subsidized targeted research on behalf of livestock commodity groups. USDA in-house agricultural research receives a total of $1.2 billion annually from taxpayers, and MARC is just one of 36 total USDA livestock animal research facilities. Precise figures for USDA animal research investments and attendant waste are impossible to ascertain, in part because the government obfuscates financial and animal use data.

According to the USDA's website, "[MARC] research will be used to develop technologies that can be implemented into production programs which will reduce production costs and improve carcass merit." In lay terms, their quest is to boost livestock industry profits. In the process, MARC researchers undertake all manner of senseless experiments, and scientific and fiduciary malpractice that cost animals and taxpayers dearly.

For instance, cows usually have one offspring. In nature, less than 2 percent have twins. MARC scientists decided to try and double production efficiency by increasing twinning frequency. From 1981 until 2011, MARC raised one herd's twinning rate to over 50 percent using intense genetic selection. However, twinning in cows is unnatural; evolution so decided over millions of years. Twinning cows and their offspring suffered from sickness, congenital defects and early death. After 30 years and countless tax dollars, MARC abandoned the project. There is no market for twinning cows. In fact, most farmers cull cows birthing twins due to the well-known associated health problems.

I supported intensive livestock farming and research for decades. However, I gradually turned against factory farming, in part from the alternative example of sustainable, environment- and animal-respectful practices I observed on my daughter Hannah's small organic farm. So after decades of witnessing and facilitating MARC's indefensible projects, in 2014, I went to The New York Times to share evidence of these abuses.

One experiment I reported was the so-called "Easy Care" sheep project designed to resurrect the dying US sheep industry. The goal was to create a new sheep breed requiring minimal human labor via brutal neo-Darwinian selection. From 2002 to 2017, countless sheep birthing twins or triplets were kept year-round on isolated pastures without shelter or shade. Shepherds were prohibited, by experimental protocol, from intervening to care for ewes or lambs in need. Predictably, human-dependent domestic sheep treated like wild sheep fared poorly. Over 15 years, countless lambs died from coyote predation, starvation, exposure, abandonment, difficult birth and disease. The research failed completely, squandering untold tax dollars.

For going public with my concerns, I was surveilled by law enforcement and interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a possible "eco-terrorist." I was banished from MARC, "interviewed" by University of Nebraska (a MARC partner) police, called "the most evil person on the planet" by the MARC director, and eventually transferred 100 miles away.

Whistleblowing placed an enormous strain on my personal and professional life. I incurred large legal and medical expenses. My career suffered, but survived. Sadly, my 32-year-long marriage did not. I knew the risks and I am responsible for my actions and their consequences. However, as an American taxpayer, veterinarian sworn to protect animals, and federal employee who was a steward of public dollars, I felt obliged to expose this government waste and abuse.

For its part, the USDA essentially received a few slaps on the wrist, and evidence uncovered last year shows that major animal welfare problems persist at MARC and other agency facilities. In addition to the kitten testing mentioned above, inspection reports from several USDA facilities show that in 2017, more than a dozen ducks died of dehydration, 38 turkeys died of starvation, and dozens of quails were found dead in a lab with a temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit when a heating system failed and there was no warning system in place to alert staff of the temperature change.

I believe most Americans and even livestock producers would be hard-pressed to support some experiments the USDA is doing or has done on their behalf and with their money. A 2018 national poll of 1,000 Americans commissioned by the taxpayer watchdog White Coat Waste Project found 68 percent of voters want to reduce taxpayer-funded research intended to benefit agribusiness.

I put my career and family on the line to expose USDA waste and abuse. Congress must now act to protect animal welfare and prevent further misuse of American tax dollars on cruel and unnecessary research. Supporting the bipartisan, common sense KITTEN Act to get cats out of the USDA's horrific labs is a great start.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Jim Keen, DVM, is a veterinarian with 25 years of research and field experience in livestock health and production medicine, veterinary public health, zoonotic infections and biomedicine. He is a faculty member in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
The hosts of three major late night talk shows found President Donald Trump's most recent tweet on climate change so laughable that they devoted bits to it on their shows Tuesday night.

With temperatures in the Midwest predicted to plunge to life-threatening lows, Trump repeated his favorite cold-weather tradition early Tuesday morning by tweeting climate denial.

"What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!" he wrote.

While scientists and journalists jumped in to point out his mistake, Trump also got a schooling from a less traditional group: comedians. On Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday, the talk show host invited two children to explain the basics of climate science to the president.



Eight-year old Apollo and ten-year-old Kaitlynn broke down the workings of the greenhouse effect with helpful illustrations.

"And even though it's cold where you are, that doesn't mean the globe isn't heating up," Apollo said. "What you are experiencing is weather. Weather is what happens today. Climate is what happens over the long run."

You can watch the full segment here:

Kids Explain Climate Change to Donald Trump www.youtube.com

Not to be left out, Seth Meyers also addressed the president's remarks on the Late Night with Seth Meyers by using Trump's confrontational temperament as an object lesson in the difference between weather and climate, The Huffington Post reported.



To demonstrate weather, he showed a one-off clip of Trump saying he respected Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 election, for her persistence.

"See that was weather. A quick, one-time thing," Meyers said.

"Now this is climate," Meyers continued, introducing a montage of some of Trump's most offensive remarks. "And that's what's going to get us all killed," the comedian concluded.

Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, addressed the fact that climate change might actually be the cause of the extreme cold threatening the Midwest this week.



"These temperatures are actually caused by 'global waming,' sir," the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert said in his opening monologue, mocking the president's typo. "Polar vortex breaks up and dips south, it's all predicted."

What The Hell Is Going On With 'Global Waming?' www.youtube.com

Indeed, the Union of Concerned Scientists explained that a weaker polar vortex, the name for the cold air that usually circulates around the poles, means colder temperatures in Northern Eurasia and the Eastern U.S. That vortex has been weakened by accelerated Arctic warming and the melting of Arctic sea ice. Temperatures in some Midwest cities are colder now than parts of Antarctica, The New York Times reported Tuesday.



But perhaps the most elegant, though unintentional, takedown of the president's climate ignorance came earlier in the day from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On Tuesday morning, NOAA Climate.gov tweeted a cartoon showing how warmer oceans can add more moisture to the atmosphere, actually increasing snowfall.

"Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening," the tweet read.

NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen told The Hill that the tweet was not a veiled dig at the president.



"With the blast of severe winter weather affecting the US, we often get asked about the relationship between cold weather and climate change. We routinely put this story out at these times," Allen said. "Our scientists weren't responding to a tweet."
U.S. opinion on climate change is still highly polarized, with 82 percent of Democrats and only around 25 percent of Republicans ranking it a "very serious" problem, according to a November poll from Monmouth University. However, that divide is weakening. The same poll found that 64 percent of Republicans now acknowledge that it is happening, compared to 49 percent three years ago.

Now, a report released Tuesday explains that Republican attitudes have good reason to shift. The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program looked at the data and found that many Republican-leaning states and districts are actually more likely to suffer the impacts of climate change than many so-called blue states.

"Drill down on the political geography of climate damage and it becomes clear that in much of the country Republicans are voting for people who are opposed to climate policy even as they are most exposed to climate impacts," report authors David G. Victor, Mark Muro and Jacob Whiton wrote.



The report relied on data from the Climate Impact Lab predicting the county-by-county economic costs of climate change in the U.S. through the end of the 21st Century. It found that many traditionally red states would be disproportionately impacted. Part of this is because sea level rise and more extreme coastal storms like hurricanes will cause especial damage to the Southeast and Florida. States like Texas and Arizona also stand to see heavy losses. Overall, Republican-leaning counties could see their income fall by as much as 28 percent by 2100 if no action is taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

On the other hand, many Democratic-leaning regions like the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest, the Interior West and New England could actually see economic gains by the end of the century.



Looking specifically at the 2016 Presidential election, the report authors found that nine of 10 states that stand to lose the most from climate change voted for Trump, while nine of 17 states that could benefit from climate change voted for Hillary Clinton.

A similar discrepancy was apparent at the county level during both the 2016 Presidential and 2018 Congressional elections:



Along these lines, we estimate that counties that voted for President Trump in 2016 will experience on average a nearly 5-percent loss of GDP compared to the smaller 3.3 percent loss borne by counties that voted for Hillary Clinton. Similarly, congressional districts that in November voted Republican face a 4.4 percent GDP tax from climate change compared to the smaller 2.7 percent loss projected for districts that voted Democratic.

Muro, Victor and Whiton used their findings to recommend a new strategy to environmental activists looking to convince Republican voters.

"Activists who want to change the political equation can derive a clear strategy from the harm data: Work in the reddish swing states by focusing spotlights and cost accounting on the severe economic effect wrought by climate change," they advised. "Party attitudes on climate change could shift quickly there as people are confronted with climate reality. That's exactly what happened in other areasfor example, gays serving in the military or state-sanctioned gay marriagewhen political attitudes were forced to confront new realities around the Thanksgiving dinner table and on television."

Correction: This post has been revised to correct a misspelling in the name of author Jacob Whiton.
By Jessica Corbett

In a decision deemed by critics unsurprising but also "absolutely unconscionable," the Trump administration's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reportedly plans to refrain from regulating a pair of toxic chemicals linked to kidney and testicular cancer, even though they are contaminating millions of Americans' drinking water.

Sources familiar with an unreleased draft plan approved last month by acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told Politico that the chemicals PFOA and PFOS will remain unregulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning that "utilities will face no federal requirements for testing for and removing the chemicals from drinking water supplies, although several states have pursued or are pursuing their own limits."

The chemicals "have been used for decades in products such as Teflon-coated cookware and military firefighting foam, and are present in the bloodstreams of an estimated 98 percent of Americans," Politico pointed out. That means, given that they have "contaminated groundwater near hundreds of military bases and chemical plants," any intensive regulation of them would force companies such as 3M as well as the Defense Department to spend billions of dollars on cleanup efforts.

"If these sources are right, the EPA is essentially telling the more than 110 million Americans whose water is likely contaminated with PFAS: 'Drink up, folks,'" warned Environmental Working Group senior scientist David Andrews, Ph.D. "The most efficient and equitable way to remove these chemicals from the nation's drinking water supply is to use the agency's authority to set legal limits ... It's a national problem, and it needs a national solution."

"It is absolutely unconscionable for the Trump administration to refuse to even start the process of setting a limit on these poisonous chemicals," declared Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "Communities around the country need swift, meaningful action from the government. Punting responsibility to the private sector and states is a total abdication of EPA's role in protecting the American people."

"Sadly, it's no surprise the Trump administration is failing to protect Americans from these dangerous chemicals," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement.



"It's time for state governments and Congress to step up, since it's obvious we can't rely on Andrew Wheeler and Trump's EPA to protect us from dangerous chemicals in our drinking water," she added, calling on federal lawmakers to enact the Water Accountability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act.

"More than ever, we need strong federal legislation to protect drinking water," Hauter said. The WATER Act "would upgrade our aging infrastructure and help keep vital water systems under local public control. But it would also provide funding to help keep drinking water safe from toxins like PFOA and PFOS, in spite of this administration's failure to act."

The news out of the EPA on Monday came after the agency and White House blocked the release of a federal study on PFOA and PFOS last year over concerns that it would produce a "public relations nightmare." The move was widely condemned by public health experts, reporters, and American lawmakers, with critics charging that then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was "more worried about journalists than poisoning millions of Americans."

Noting that decision and, more broadly, the federal government's failures to protect the American public from industry pollution during the Trump era, Hauter concluded, "This administration prioritizes corporate profits over public safety, pure and simple."

Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.


During bouts of extreme weather, we always turn to our beloved meteorologists to analyze, forecast and report these events.

So you know it's really cold outside when trusted weather experts, like Minneapolis's Chris Shaffer of WCCO-TV, dedicate The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face" to Mother Nature amid temperatures that feel like the negative 30s, 40s and 50s.

As the deadly polar vortex grips much of the U.S., cities are clocking temperatures lower than most of Antarctica, Insider reported.

For instance in La Crosse, Wisconsin, temperatures dropped to -30F at 5.20 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the local National Weather Service (NWS), and it may be the office's "all-time coldest record."

Meanwhile in the South Pole, AccuWeather data showed that only one weather station had a lower temperature than La Crosse around the same time, Insider noted. All the other weather stations on the continent recorded much warmer temps.

Sure, Antarctica is in the southern hemisphere, meaning it's in the middle of its summer. But cities like Chicago are forecast to be in the 25-below range on early Thursday, so it could be colder than the North Pole and Alaska, USA Today reported.

"The Arctic Oceanincluding the North Polewill probably be around 20 below," said weather.us meteorologist Ryan Maue, according to USA Today.

Meteorologist Jen Carfagno, the host of AMHQ at The Weather Channel, noticed that it's so cold that NWS Lincoln ran out of colors for its weather map.

WDRB meteorologist Rick DeLuca of Louisville, Kentucky chimed in with a big "NOPE!" about the -60F wind chill in Grand Forks, North Dakota on Tuesday.



"But at least it's a dry cold," NWS Twin Cities joked back.

DeLuca also tweeted a photo of a shirt that literally froze from Louisville's blistering wind chill.



Andrew Buck Michael, meteorologist for Good Day Columbus, reminded us that many Midwesterners would probably rather be in Florida right now, where it feels 131 degrees warmer in Key West compared to Park Rapids, Minnesota.

Jokes aside, these snow squalls and wind chills can be very dangerous. Meteorologist John Kassell of Akron, Ohio shared a recent warning from NWS Des Moines telling residents that the weather will be "the coldest air many of us will have ever experienced" and for people to "avoid taking deep breaths, and minimize talking" while outdoors.

Unfortunately, many Americans will continue to freeze for the next few days. Air temperatures in parts of the continental U.S. could break all-time record lows for Jan. 30 and 31, NASA wrote in a blog post on Tuesday, adding that at least 90 million Americans could experience temperatures at or below zero degrees Fahrenheit, citing data from the NWS.
The U.S. Air Force is refusing to comply with the state of Michigan's request to expand cleanup of PFAS contamination near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, MLive reported.

PFAS, or poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of controversial chemicals that includes PFOA, PFOS and GenX. The substances can be found in a vast array of products, from non-stick cookware to firefighting foams, and may have found its way in the drinking water for up to 110 million Americans nationwide.

In Michigan, there are 40 known sites, including active and former military bases, that have confirmed PFOA and PFOS in groundwater. Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) became aware of PFAS contamination at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base way back in March 2010 after sampling confirmed its presence at a fire training area on the base.



So in October as MLive's Garret Ellison reported, the MDEQ issued a violation notice to the U.S. Air Force for "far exceeding the 12 nanograms per liter PFOS water quality standard" in areas near Clark's Marsh, which borders the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base where personnel had used PFAS-containing firefighting foam for fire training exercises.

The Air Force's response? They wrote back in a Dec. 7, 2018 letter saying the state that doesn't have the authority to regulate federal facilities.

A senior Air Force official said MDEQ "lacks the jurisdictional authority" to force compliance.

The federal government "has not waived sovereign immunity with regard to the state regulation on which the (violation notice) is premised," the official continued, adding that the Air Force "is hereby informing you that it will not be taking any new remedial actions at this time."

Basically, as Ellison tweeted, "The Air Force is telling Michigan to take its 12-ppt regulatory limit on PFAS in surface water and shove it."

This exchange is the latest in a years-long saga between Michigan and the Air Force ever since PFAS was detected at Wurtsmith in 2010.

The chemicals have since spread to ground and surface water, Clark's Marsh, the AuSable River and is now threatening Lake Huron, according to The Detroit News.

Although the Air Force has installed filtration devices and monitoring wells around the area, it has been slow to take full responsibility of the contamination, the publication said.

PFAS exposure has been linked to linked to "adverse human health effects," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says, adding that tests have showed they can cause reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals.

The news comes as Trump administration reportedly refuses to limit such toxic chemicals in drinking water.

The Air Force has not issued a comment on the reports from MLive and The Detroit News.

MDEQ spokesperson Scott Dean told MLive the agency is aiming for a "full remedy" in Oscoda.

"The slow response by the Air Force to the Wurtsmith contamination is having an increasingly negative impact on the people, wildlife and environment in Oscoda," he said. "Although Michigan seeks to work cooperatively with the Air Force, slow response to PFAS contamination is not acceptable."
This session, we will also be working to implement the framework of policy recommendations to improve our public schools  referred to as the Kirwan commission. While the governor has said the recommendations are too expensive, we cannot afford to overlook a generation of public school students who are the future of Maryland. While we applaud the governors desire to increase funding to build new schools in the state. We must improve the quality of education inside those buildings as well: without an engine, a shiny, new car wont go anywhere. The Kirwan commission found that Maryland students are underperforming in reading and math; only about a third of high school graduates are college and career ready; over half of Maryland schools have a significant population of poor students; and, average salaries for teachers are 25 percent below comparable professions.


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The Motorola Razr -- once the hottest flip phone available -- is being revived as a smartphone with a foldable screen, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It will be offered exclusively through Verizon in the United States, possibly in February, although the device is still being tested and the launch date is not firm.

Its starting price reportedly will be US$1,500.

"We can't comment on rumors and speculation about our manufacturing partners," Verizon spokesperson George Koroneos told TechNewsWorld.

That statement could indicate Lenovo is producing the foldable Motorola Razr for Verizon on an OEM basis instead of using carriers as distributors.

That might be wise, as "Lenovo has mostly been playing in the mid range and occasionally going higher with its own flagship devices," remarked Ramon Llamas, a research director at IDC.

Unlike Apple and Samsung, Lenovo may not have the chops to push a $1,500 smartphone, Llamas told TechNewsWorld. He's "a little skeptical."

Lenovo likely has been working on the Motorola Razr with a foldable screen for more than a year. At the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona last February, CEO Yang Yuanqing hinted that such a device was in the works.

New Razr's Likely Makeup

Motorola submitted a patent application for a folding phone with two screens to the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016.

The patent, granted in March of 2018, was for "an electronic device having at least a three-part housing foldable between multiple use positions."

It also has a flexible display that extends at least along portions of the first and second housing parts, and across the movable coupled sides. The third housing part can be moved relative to the second housing part to cover at least a portion of the flexible display selectively.

Eye-Popping Prices

Consumers can pick up a laptop for between $230 and $2,200 at Best Buy, which raises the question of whether the rumored Razr might be overpriced.

"$1,500 is quite a bit, and rivals some people's mortgages," Llamas observed.

However, "I would have argued 15 years ago that people wouldn't pay much over $500 for a phone, and we have more than doubled that," Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.

At $1,500 the revived Motorola Razr "is in the same neighborhood as Apple's iPhone XS Max -- $1,449 with 512 GB," noted Ken Hyers, a research director at Strategy Analytics.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy 'F' foldable smartphone "will be in the $2K range," he said.

Foldable display smartphones "will be very expensive into the early 2020s," Hyers told TechNewsWorld. "The foldable display technology is new. Manufacturing is extremely complex, and yield rates on the displays are not high."

Due to their cost and limited supplies, foldable display smartphones "will not be mass market products in 2019," he predicted.

"Barely over 1 million foldable display smartphones will ship this year, and less than 10 million in 2020," Hyers said. "Foldable display smartphones will be the ultimate unobtanium in smartphones for the next two years, and consumers who can get their hands on one will pay the high prices they command."

Yen for Foldables

"The foldable display smartphone is the first significant major change to take place in smartphone design in a decade," Hyers said.

Manufacturers gearing up to release smartphones with foldable screens this year include Royole, Apple, Huawei and LG.

Foldable displays can be used on smartphones, tablets, and "in certain configurations, small notebook PCs," Hyers suggested.

They "will cut across multiple categories, helping to justify [their] high price," he said."They are a genuine Swiss Army knife of mobile devices" that will appeal to both consumers and business users.

Release Date Speculation

The Motorola Razr might be introduced in February, but "I'd peg the release date as 1H 2019 -- and maybe 2H 2019," Strategy Analytics' Hyers said. "Motorola won't be able to source enough displays in Q1 2019 to support sales of the device in February or March 2019, and possibly beyond."

Also, Samsung "has a near monopoly on foldable displays and will take the lion's share of these for its Galaxy F," Hyers pointed out.

The timing of the announcement itself is fraught with hazards.

"A February announcement would align with a Mobile World Congress announcement, especially if Lenovo wants to take this global," IDC's Llamas noted. "But look at how Samsung's already doing its own Unpacked event in February. That may take the wind out of Lenovo's sails a bit."

On the other hand, waiting until September would pit Lenovo against Apple.

Market Reception

"Consumers that want a foldable display smartphone will not be brand loyal, particularly given the limited number of devices available," Hyers suggested.

That will make the Motorola Razr a threat, but Samsung "is somewhat safe as they'll have their own foldable display smartphone, the Galaxy F, and it'll be first to market and available in greater quantities than foldable from all other vendors combed in 2019," Hyers said.

Apple "is in more danger, as they won't have a foldable for several years yet," he pointed out. "Put another way, I use an iPhone, but if someone handed me a Razr, I'd switch."

The original Razr "was iconic," said Llamas, "and for many, it was the aspirational mobile phone to move towards. Unless the new smartphone can replicate that aspirational feeling, it may end up getting overlooked."

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.




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The Samsung Galaxy S10, scheduled for launch on Feb. 20, likely will incorporate a cryptocurrency wallet.

Samsung last month filed applications in the EU for trademarks on three terms:

Blockchain Key Store

Blockchain Key Box

Blockchain Core

Samsung also filed applications in Korea for the same three terms.

Live images of the Samsung Blockchain Keystore app running on the Galaxy S10 were posted on Sammobile. The app is in the phone's "Biometrics and Security" portion of the S10 "Settings" menu.

The wallet setup screen shows that users can import an existing wallet or create a new one. The wallet supports the Ethereum cryptocurrency, but it reportedly also will support Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and ERC20 (derived from Ethereum).

There will be a cold wallet for saving digital currencies and public and private keys, and for signing private keys for transactions. There also will be a crypto wallet for viewing account information, transfers, and transaction history, according to Sammobile.

"Samsung has a long history of throwing everything it can think of, technology-wise, into its flagship Galaxy S series smartphones," remarked Ken Hyers, research director at Strategy Analytics.

"The reviewer guide Samsung sends out with their latest releases to document all the features are often well over 50 pages long," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Hyers "would not be surprised to find that Samsung adds a crypto wallet to the Galaxy S10, even if 99.9 percent of people who buy the phone never use it," he said, noting that the majority of users "never use, or are even aware of, all -- or even most -- of the capabilities of their Galaxy S smartphones."

Samsung is expected to announce the three main Galaxy S10 phones and a foldable smartphone, all with 5G support, at the Unpacked press event in San Francisco on Feb. 20.

The cryptocurrency applications also might be on the coming Galaxy A30 and A50, according to Dutch e-zine Galaxy Club.

Size Matters More Than Pole Position

Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC became the first company to launch a device that supports cryptocurrency, with its Exodus 1, which hit the market last month.

However, Samsung's release is likely to have more of an impact on the market.

"Samsung is the segment leader," noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

"If they do something, every other smartphone vendor will certainly consider following," he told the E-Commerce Times. That said, "whether they actually follow will likely have a lot to do with how safe cryptocurrency looks when the decision is made."

Crypto and Security

Hackers have stepped up attacks on crypto sites. A record-setting number of crypto crimes took place last year, according to Chainalysis, including the following:

Etherum-based scams fluctuating with crypto prices;

Darknet markets, which show resilience against market trends; and

Hacks carried out by professional organizations with distinct tactics and methods.

Two hacker groups stole about US$1 billion last year -- at least 60 percent of all publicly reported hacks, according to Chainalysis. They took about $90 million per hack on average.

Cryptomining malware took the top four places on Check Point Software's December Top 10 Most Wanted Malware list, and accounted for a fifth.

Cryptocurrency-related malicious activity will increase dramatically this year, Proofpoint has predicted. Many banking Trojans and information thieves have built-in coin mining modules and wallet-stealing capabilities.

Hackers already have begun targeting smartphones to mine cryptocurrencies, through a technique called "cryptojacking," which involves the installation of cryptocurrency mining malware via an infected or malicious app. Games are a favor attack vector because of their popularity.

"If you put enough resources on anything you can breach it, and cryptocurrency has been a very attractive target for some time," Enderle said, "but you'd expect full encryption [from Samsung], and that it would likely use the technology they have in Knox and the technology they've licensed from BlackBerry."

The large number of expected breaches may reduce the lure of Samsung's crypto support as a marketing tool.

"Before the breaches, [a cryptocurrency wallet] could have been the killer app for the Samsung Galaxy line," Enderle said. "Now there's a lot of concern and fear surrounding this technology, which has undoubtedly eroded its attractiveness to the average smartphone user."

Crypto and E-Commerce

The impact a crypto wallet in smartphones might have on e-commerce is not yet clear.

"Cryptocurrency is about what you can do with it," Enderle said. "Uses are pretty limited, but you'd think it would play well with pot stores, which likely would be the ideal retail target for this wallet."

The carriers "may or may not allow Samsung to include [a crypto wallet] on the devices sold through carrier channels" in the United States, observed Strategy Analytics' Hyers.

On the other hand, if Samsung includes a crypto wallet in the international version of the new Galaxy smartphones, he said, "buyers of unlocked Samsung smartphones would have access to it."

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.


In 2018, over half of the Democratic candidates for the state legislature and Congress who won their primary and went on to the general election in Michigan were women. When you talk about women finally getting parity in terms of high elected office (or ANY elected office, for that matter), theres only one political party who is even close to making that a reality: Democrats. And nowhere were they more profoundly successful in 2018 than in Michigan.

Our new state leaders are all women. Gretchen Whitmer, a veteran leader of the state legislature is now our governor, replacing a man who had never held elected office before becoming governor. Dana Nessel, a household name for anyone who cares about marriage equality in this country, is our Attorney General, replacing one of the most odious homophobes in America. Jocelyn Benson, a woman who literally wrote a book about state Secretaries of State and is a leader in campaign finance and election reform, is now our Secretary of State. These three women could not be a more radical departure from their predecessors.

But more important than the fact that Michigan government is largely run exclusively by women, these women have done something rarely seen in Democrats: after winning an election and retaking power from Republicans, they have hit the ground running in ways many of us never anticipated. Instead of sitting around wondering what to do next once they got elected, something Democrats have an amazing talent for, Whitmer, Nessel, and Benson are getting straight to the business of governing. Though Republicans still control the state legislature, this team is shrewdly using their new power in smart and impressive ways.

Gretchen Whitmer

Straight out of the chute on her second day in office, Whitmer formally asked Nessel to look at the legality of a tunnel for Enbridges Line 5 to be built under the Straits of Mackinac. The decision to create an organization to oversee the tunnel was rushed through with little discussion or debate during the 2018 Lame Duck session. Although Nessels legal opinion is still pending, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality went ahead with issuing the required permit last week anyway. Given that this was Whitmers first move, its unlikely that this is the end of this story.

But that wasnt all Whitmer did on Day Two. She also signed an executive directive requiring any state employees who become aware of an imminent threat to public health, safety or welfare [to] immediately report it to their department director or agency head in a effort to prevent any further disasters like the Flint Water Crisis.

Before a full week had passed, Whitmer went on to sign a whole array of significant executive directives:

In addition to this, when signing another executive directive regarding the involvement of state departments in writing legislation, she made a clear and bold statement about the Republican tactic of adding appropriations to controversial bills to make them democracy-proof (not subject to a citizen referendum): I intend to veto legislation that circumvents the right to a referendum.

Dana Nessel

In addition to eagerly agreeing to review the Line 5 deal struck by Rick Snyder and his Republican allies in the state legislature on their way out the door in 2018, Dana Nessel has also begun exerting her new power:

Jocelyn Benson

Although she hasnt quite as visibly busy as her two colleagues, Jocelyn Benson has been working on an action that has huge ramifications for ending the scourge of gerrymandering in our state. She has announced that she intends to settle a an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the state by redrawing at least 11 state legislative districts before the 2020 election. The remaining legislative and congressional seats will be redrawn after the 2020 census.

Benson has also asked Nessel to review the legality of a new Republican-passed law that makes it harder than ever to put things on our ballot. Restricting the right of Michiganders to participate in the political process is a serious subject matter, Nessel said in a statement. Public Act 608 puts a limit on the peoples voice and that is cause for great concern  something a rushed Lame Duck Legislature failed to regard in passing this law.

These moves are, of course, not going unchallenged. After Whitmer signed the executive directive to help ensure equal pay for women, Senate Republican Leader Mike Shirkey told Michigan Advance that anyone affected by the directive should just ignore it:

Whats Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkeys message to state contractors regarding Gov. Gretchen Whitmers new equal pay directive? Dont worry about it, the Clarklake Republican said in an interview with the Michigan Advance. During a 20-minute interview last week in the new Senate majority leaders Capitol office, Shirkey called Whitmers new executive directive to halt inquiries into applicants past salaries confusing and said current and would-be state contractors should ignore it. Shirkey also said he does not believe a pay gap exists between men and women in the first place. I dont. I have no evidence of such, Shirkey said. I have both a staff here and a staff at home in my for-profit world filled with highly qualified, highly skilled women. And I dont see any differences in how theyre treated.

Last week, Republican senators moved to stop Benson from her efforts:

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday continued their effort to slow down Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson from settling a federal lawsuit alleging gerrymandering in several of the states congressional and legislative districts. The GOP-led Senate passed Senate Resolution 6, sponsored by Sen. Ken Horn (R-Frankenmuth), allowing state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) to seek legal counsel and file a motion on behalf of the legislative body. The move by the Senate comes just one day after lawyers representing other GOP lawmakers in Michigan filed court documents seeking to halt the settlement in the case, League of Women Voters. V. Benson.

Pushback notwithstanding, Whitmer, Nessel, and Benson are rising to the challenge of statewide elected office and showing the state and the rest of the country how it looks when Democrats dont waste time after they regain the reins of power in government, even if they arent in control of the legislative branch. Its impressive and largely unprecedented, at least in Michigan.

Finally, its worth noting that these three powerful Democratic women arent the only ones getting things done. Shortly after Kelly Tebay and Brianna Scott joined the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, they were instrumental in getting John Engler fired as the universitys interim president for his noxious comments about the survivors of Larry Nassar. Add to that Democratic State Supreme Court justice Bridget Mary McCormack was unanimously chosen to be the courts Chief Justice.

Men have run this state and this country almost exclusively since the beginning and today we find ourselves all too often led by ineffective or at least less-than-effective leaders. As Democrats in Michigan are leading the way in ensuring women are finally and appropriately represented in our government, Gretchen Whitmer, Dana Nessel, and Jocelyn Benson along with all of the women in our State House, State Senate, and in so many other leadership positions are setting an example for the rest of the country.

Gretchen Whitmer photo by Anne C. Savage, courtesy of the United Auto Workers
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How to prepare for a three-month trip to Thailand

Thailand attracts many tourists of all ages due to its gorgeous beaches, culture, delicious food, and its relaxed approach to life. Thailand is a popular destination for vacations and backpacking adventures that provide the trip of a lifetime. For whatever reason you are visiting this picturesque country, it is essential that you are prepared before your trip so that you can enjoy it as much as possible when you get there. If you are looking to spend a fun-filled few months away from home, here are a few tips on how best to prepare yourself.

Plan Ahead

Flights to Thailand can work out pretty expensive, so make sure that you shop around for the best prices and book your main flights early! It is essential that you check that your passport is valid for while you are away and for up to six months after your return date. Make sure that you sort out any visas you may need for your stay and that you fully understand all the requirements and conditions of your VISA. You should also book an appointment with your doctor before you go as you will most likely require some vaccinations. This depends on where you are visiting but it is best to double check before you fly. Be sure to get this done well before you travel though as sometimes the vaccinations can require follow up appointments. It is recommended that you see your doctor around 6-8 weeks before you are due to leave for Thailand. Make sure you do this, as yellow fever will be sure to interrupt your trip!

Get Insurance

It is an absolute necessity that you get travel insurance before you leave for exotic parts of the world like Thailand. Your trip to Thailand has the potential to be amazing, so make sure that any potential mishaps wont ruin the trip for you without some form of coverage or protection. Thailand is not covered by any domestic insurance cover and if you do end up needing treatment while you are there, a Thai hospital may ask for your travel insurance details. You can tailor your travel insurance to suit your needs and it is the most important thing you will purchase before you go away. Find out more about what is covered by travel insurance here.

Do Your Research

In order to make your trip away more enjoyable, it would be advisable to do your research into Thailand and any cultural customs, thoroughly before you go. When visiting stalls or markets in Thailand, it is normal for you to barter for your items. This may feel a bit strange for you, but this is what is expected, so just be friendly and agree on a price you are happy to pay. Dont feel pressured into paying over the odds for something! Researching acceptable etiquette is also an essential part of preparing for your trip away. While it may be acceptable to make the odd comment or joke about those in politics or the monarchy in many countries, it is highly advised to not insult the King or the royal family while you are in Thailand. Thais are quite respectful of their King and an ill-worded comment may end up in a fairly awkward situation. It would be a good idea to try and pick up a few Thai phrases to help you communicate while you are out and about. For example, sawat-dee means hello/goodbye. This could really help you out during your trip away.

Your three-month trip to Thailand will require a lot of preparation, but the experiences you will have when you get there will be nothing short of amazing. It is really important that you prepare before you go, which will allow you to relax knowing that everything is taken care of.
Just a handful of senior commanders live in the city, according to the addresses they provided when filing ethics disclosure forms with the city. Only 10 of 53 leaders, ranked captain or higher, in city salary records as of June 30 listed a city address. Filings for four officers were not available.
Where are the best places to shop? Who gives the best haircut? Who cooks the best burger? Join our readers in selecting the "Best of Windham."

Make your picks!
Everyone who was left on the lower part of Fels Lane moved up to Hilltop, said former resident Tyrone Tyler. The construction of Hilltop was seen in the community as a civil rights victory, he said, and former residents still hold Hilltop reunion parties. The 94-unit housing complex also drew a mixture of black and white families from other areas, said June Makle, another former resident.
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Louth suckler farmers are encouraged to apply for the new Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot an Exchequer funded scheme that is aimed at further improving performance and efficiency in the beef suckler herd.

The scheme will target the weaning efficiency of suckler cows and calves - measuring the live weight of the calf at weaning as a percentage of the cow's live weight.

Commenting on the announcement today that the scheme will receive 20 million funding in 2019, Dundalk councillor John McGahon said:

Prior to the Budget I made continued representations to the Department on behalf of Louth farmers and I am very pleased my Fine Gael colleague Minister Creed has responded showing his understanding that this sector is under terrible financial pressure.

Participating farmers will also get detailed feedback on the performance of individual animals and this will allow them to identify the most productive cows in their herd.

Building on the success of the Beef Data and Genomics Programme, the data collected will also be a valuable addition to Ireland's already impressive cattle breeding database.

Breeding improvement through the Economic Breeding Index is identifying the most efficient animals for grass based production system.

Cllr McGahon continued: I am very conscious that 2018 was a very difficult year for beef farmers in Louth, in terms of weather, fodder issues and market volatility.

This is the sector most exposed to Brexit, given its reliance on the UK market. The BEEP is designed to provide an injection of investment at a critical time for farmers navigating the challenges ahead, while delivering in real terms on our climate objectives.

I would encourage all beef suckler herd owners in Louth to apply for the scheme, applications will be accepted by the Department of agriculture between 4 and 22 February 2019."

Application forms are available on www.agriculture. gov.ie/beep

The Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot was announced in Budget 2019 as part of the 78m Brexit package for the agri-food industry.
"I can't believe we're out here picketing for the same reason 20 years later."

These were the frustrated words of nurse and chair of the Dundalk INMO branch, Collette Vize, as she walked the picket line outside the Louth County Hospital this morning along with 30 of her colleagues.

The Examiner newspaper clipping from 1999 which shows Dundalk nurse Collette Vize on strike with her son Oisin IMAGE: Tia Clarke

The Louth nurses are on a 24-hour work stoppage in solidarity with the 35,000 INMO nurses and midwives across Ireland involved in a dispute which centres around pay and staff shortages.

Collette recalled, with a sense of deja vu: "I was out here on strike 20 years ago with my 11-month old son in my arms. There was a picture of me and Oisin in The Examiner. He's a 21-year-old student in DkIT now.

"We went on strike in 1999 over safe staffing levels. It just shows you - things haven't changed that much. The population in Ireland has increased greatly since then so the demand for services is much higher.

"Nurses are under a lot of pressure. They are doing 12-hour shifts with no breaks. And when a nurse finishes up at 8, they don't clock off then, you have to stay until the job is done.

"We're doing night shifts, holidays and weekends to claim the premium hours and earn more because the wages are bad."

However, Collette says that the nurses are being encouraged by the amount of local support to the strikes:

"There's been plenty of support since 8 this morning. The local Maxol garage is sending teas and sausage rolls down and passing cars are beeping away. We had a few local politicians down too to lend their support too - Green Party Cllr Mark Dearey, Anne Campbell and Ruari O'Murchu from Sinn Fein, and Ged Nash from the Labour Party.

"We'll be out here until 4pm today. And if it's not resolved we'll be back out next Tuesday and Thursday."

"We don't want to be out here. We'd rather be in there [the Louth hospital] doing what we're paid to do. It takes a lot to get nurses out on strike, the last strike was 20 years ago. But 95% of us voted in favour of today's strike action. We've had enough."

The INMO have said that five other 24-hour strikes could take place in February if the dispute is not resolved. The dates for the potential work stoppages are February 5, 7, 12, 13 and 14.

An INMO spokesperson has said that members will strike but "life-saving" and "emergency care" services will still be provided.
Around 30 nurses are currently braving the freezing January temperatures this morning at The Louth County Hospital to strike in solidarity with approximately 30,000 INMO nurses and midwives across Ireland. The dispute centres around pay and staff shortages.

In Dundalk, there is a groundswell of support for the nurses who have been on the picket line since 8am. Local cars and trucks are showing their solidarity by honking their horns loudly as they pass the hospital gates.

The nurses also give a shout out to the local Maxol garage on the Dublin Road who are providing free teas, coffees and sausage rolls to those on strike.

A large portion of the nurses on strike are currently on their day off and will operate on two-hour shifts until 4pm today. Theatre and day services and clinics will be closed in the Louth hospital today. However, a number of nurses told the Democrat that while there is a reduced number of staff on the wards they will still be delivering care. There are also a number of midwives on strike at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda.

Speaking to the Dundalk Democrat chair of the local INMO branch Collette Vize said: "The main focus of the strike is for nurses and midwives to have pay parity with other allied healthcare professionals.

"When nursing students qualify, they're on less money than newly qualified physios and people in a lot of other healthcare professions. It's a recruitment and retention issue. The number of student nurses leaving Ireland is huge."

Collette says that the working conditions are another huge source of frustration for Irish nurses.

She adds: "The working conditions are another issue. There isn't a good patient to staff ratio. The number of patients is too high, it's not safe. Nurses are doing 12-hour shifts with no breaks."

"We'd rather be in there working, doing what we're paid to do. It takes a lot for nurses to strike. Our last full strike was in 1999. 95% of us were in favour of today's strike. We've had enough."

Standing on the picket line beside her colleagues, local nurses and Union representative, Emma Ross added: "We want to secure the future of nursing for students coming into the profession. Everyone is focusing on the pay aspect of the strikes but it's to do with nurses having parity with other health professionals working in Ireland. Nurses are currently at the bottom of the pay scale.

"The Irish Government are paying huge amounts of money to train these student nurses and then they are forced to leave. When they student nurses are on their placements they only get E6.50 an hour and they will have to take on a second job in a nursing home to cover their costs such as accommodation and living expenses.

"The Louth hospital is a very busy hospital. We want to be able to recruit for here, but nurses need incentives."

Fiona O'Reilly, a nurse from the injury unit who was braving the weather to walk up and down the picket line with a large flag told the Democrat: "We're here for the careers of future nurses. We have a big problem with retention of staff at the moment. It's very frustrating."

Her colleague. Gwen Weigang-Landy adds: "The nurses are saying they would love to stay here but they are being forced to go abroad. We're at a different stage in our careers, but if I was young, I'd be away to Australlia. You just can't deliver the same level of care you can here than you can in other countries."

Fiona adds: "We really hope it's resolved. There has to be a compromise. We want a resolution so that we can get back to our jobs."

Moira Murtagh, a disability services nurse with St. John of God's told the Democrat: "There is a lot of older staff out here today - we're here for the young nurses who are coming along.

"They do a degree for four years and get nothing at the end. They are working 35 hours a week, plus study time and many are working second jobs to support themselves.

"For ourselves, this is only the second time we've gone on strike. We're a caring profession, and that will be the downfall of us."

"This is the moment where I drop the mic," Moira laughs.
Carrickmacross native Matt Carthy has announced that he will contest the upcoming European elections in May this year.

Carthy, who is the Sinn Fein MEP for the Midlands-North West constituency has also been selected to run in the Dail for the Cavan/Monaghan constituency and was not expected to contest the European elections this year.

His decision to seek election in Europe could mean that Carthy would be potentially elected to Europe before vacating his seat early in the first year term if he is elected as a TD for Cavan/Monaghan.

In a statement issued by Carthy he stated that he would be seeking his partys nomination at an upcoming selection convention taking place in Cavan on Sunday 3rd of February.

His statement said: "The May elections could be the most important EU contests ever for our country.

"Brexit will continue to dominate. With the potential loss of northern representation in parliament it is vital that we send representatives from an all-Ireland party, a party that has a proven track record of inserting Irish concerns into the heart of the Brexit process, we need representatives that won't be beholden to either the Brussels establishment or the Irish government.

"In essence we need MEPs who will fight for Ireland. That has been my role and I wish to continue that work in the new term."

Mr Carthy was first elected to Carrickmacross Town Council as a 21-year-old in 1999 and he served on Monaghan County Council from 2004 until 2014.

He became an MEP in the 2014 European elections with his constituency office based in Carrickmacross Co. Monaghan.
"Mr. Rouse was very forward-thinking, establishing a brand new community whose social concepts were well ahead of their time given that Columbia was founded in the mid-1960s," says Milton W. Matthews, president and CEO of Columbia Association. Matthews is black. His wife, Barbara, is white. "He called on developers to be color-blind when it came to the individuals who wanted to live in Columbia. For Mr. Rouse, it was crucial that individuals of any race, including those in interracial relationships, would feel welcome in Columbia."
ADA [ndash] Wanda Lee Brewer, 91, of Ada, Oklahoma passed away Sunday, June 13, 2021, in Ada. Services for Wanda will be held Thursday, June 17, 2021, at 10 a.m. at the Estes-Phillips Funeral Home Chapel, with Bro. Roger Arter officiating. Interment will follow at New Bethel Cemetery. For up
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Although Kennedy admits her son had a drug problem, she also knows her son was a caring person who loved his family.

Paxton would have given his shirt off his back to help anyone, Kennedy said. He loved life, and he loved his family. We just feel cheated. I lost the most precious gift a mother could lose -- her child. His brother lost not only his big brother, but a friend. Our lives will never be normal again. Paxton lost his life for doing something he shouldnt have been doing  drugs. Any of these four people could have stopped this from happening at any time before that trigger was pulled, but they didnt. Thats what I really dont understand. These four individuals are in their 40s and Paxton was 23 years old when he was killed. Every one of them involved has children of their own. Some of their children may even be Paxtons age. How could they do this to someones child?

Although Kennedy deals with the pain of losing her son daily, she is extremely grateful for the love and support she has received from her younger son, Braxton.
The administrator of the estate of a man killed by a Dothan police officer at the citys animal shelter has filed an appeal in a federal civil suit against the city and the officer.

Christopher Cantu served as the administrator of Robert Earl Lawrences estate in a federal civil lawsuit filed in December 2016. The suit argued that Lawrences Fourth Amendment civil rights were violated when Dothan officer Adrianne Woodruff fired a lethal shot into his abdomen following a scuffle outside the Dothan City Animal Shelter in December 2014.

The confrontation began after Lawrence refused to produce a drivers license as he attempted to leave a stray dog at the animal shelter. Providing identification is a part of the shelters operating procedure.

Federal district judge Emily Marks ruled in November that Woodruff had acted within the scope of her duties during the confrontation, giving her qualified immunity from the lawsuit. During the scuffle two attempts at using a Taser from Woodruff and fellow officer Alan Rhodes failed to subdue Lawrence, and Lawrence grabbed a Taser from Woodruff.
Eufaula Carnegie Library will host author and photographer Glenn Wills, who will discuss his books Forgotten Alabama and More Forgotten Alabama, and offer a presentation of his work. This event will take place in the library auditorium on Tuesday, February 5, at 6:30 p.m.

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Wills is an Alabama native who has made a career of his passion for documenting Alabama's past. As a videographer working in television news, Wills spent years traveling the state. In his journeys, he began to notice abandoned old houses, decrepit stores and billboards, derelict bridges, and other remnants of the state's past. Eventually he felt compelled to document them before they disappeared completely. To date he has driven close to 50,000 miles and taken around 40,000 photographs, and the results are his book Forgotten Alabama and its sequel, More Forgotten Alabama.
A warming station will open tonight for those who need shelter from the winter weather.

According to John Belcher of Christian Mission, the shelter will open tonight as temperatures begin to dip into the 20s. It is located at 321 Geneva Highway.

Anyone who may need to use the shelter can come by or contact Belcher at (334) 470-0349.

The shelter is being opened in coordination with the City of Enterprise. Additional shelter is available if demand is great enough, Belcher said.

The shelter will also accept various donations including food, blankets and pillows. Those wishing to donate should also call Belcher.

Temperatures are expected to be in the 20s overnight and into Wednesday morning. Below freezing temps should last from around 10 p.m. to 9 a.m., according to the Coffee County Emergency Management Agency.
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China accuses US of mobilising state power to 'blacken' its firms

China has accused the US of mobilising state power to blacken some Chinese companies in a bid to strangle fair and just operations.

We strongly urge the United States to stop the unreasonable crackdown on Chinese companies including Huawei and treat Chinese companies fairly and justly, said a spokesperson of the foreign ministry in Beijing on Tuesday.

The Chinese government sees strong political motivation and manipulation behind Americas bid to tarnish these companies. The government would firmly defend Chinese companies facing problems with the US, said the spokesperson added.

Huawei also denied that it had committed any violations; the US government accuses it of lying to banks, stealing technology and violating trade sanctions.

The company denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations of U.S. law set forth in each of the indictments, the company said.

The US Justice Department has charged Huawei Technologies and Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of its founder, who is also the CFO of the group, for conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran by doing business through a subsidiary.

Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver last month, following which China arrested two Canadians on national security grounds. Wanzhou has filed for bail.
Jet aircraft grounded, cancels several flights: reports

Jet Airways, which is embroiled in a financial crisis, cancelled more than a dozen flights on Wednesday after the grounding of six Boeing 737 aircraft because of non-payment of lease rentals.

While the airline has not confirmed the reports about the cancelled flights, airport sources have said flights have been cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday by the airline following the grounding of its aircraft.

The airline has not been able to pay its lease rentals resulting in the lenders cracking down on its operations.

Jet Airways is negotiating with its partner Etihad for the infusion of additional funds. The airline is also seeking shareholders approval for converting loans into shares of other securities. It has called for a meeting of shareholders on February 21.

There were reports on Wednesday of State Bank of India, a major lender, considering the possibility of acquiring a 15-per cent stake in the airline if the debt-for-equity swap is cleared.

Lenders, who would be able to nominate directors on the board, could also end up controlling a 30-per cent stake in the airline. Etihad Airways could also raise its stake to 40 per cent from 24 per cent. The airline has debts touching $1.15 billion.
Petz had to plunge twice. He had made a pact with his colleagues he would go under water. When he and his son ran in, Kyle got up to his belly button and was done, so Petz carried him out.
Instead of just looking at the percentage of students who are proficient, Green School principal Kate Primm said she focuses on the average PARCC scores of students, and judges the achievement gap from that perspective. This better reflects how many students are right on the cusp of scoring as proficient, she said, versus how many are still a ways away.
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SEATTLE  The Washington State Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting about the Montlake Boulevard Market.

The event will take place 5:30-7:30 p.m. today at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, at 2100 Boyer Ave. E.





. . .
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Wall Street analysts have given Invesco BulletShares 2022 Corporate Bond ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Invesco BulletShares 2022 Corporate Bond ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Highlights:

Spec sheet of the upcoming Xperiz XZ4 has leaked online.

The phone is expected to feature a 21:9 display aspect ratio.

Details about Sony's upcoming flagship smartphone continue to leak before the company's anticipated announcement of it at MWC in Barcelona. What we have with us this time around is a leaked specifications sheet of what appears to be the Sony Xperia XZ4, thanks to sumahoinfo.com. Since we can't confirm if the spec sheet really does belong to the Xperia XZ4, we recommend you take this news with a touch of salt. If the information from the spec sheet's screenshot holds good, it means what we've learnt about the new flagship so far is correct.

Assuming the model in the leaked spec sheet is the Sony Xperia XZ4, we see that it has a 6.4-inch OLED display with an unusually tall 21:9 aspect ratio. The display is said to have support for HDR and a maximum resolution of 3360 x 1440 pixels. The display should be protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 5. The Sony Xperia XZ4 is expected to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset with 6GB of RAM onboard. Internal storage is expected to be 128GB in capacity with support for expandable storage using microSD card.

The leak suggests that the Sony Xperia XZ4 will measure 167mm in height, 72mm in width, and 8.2mm in thickness. It also suggests it'll weigh 191g, which is on the heavier side. Like its predecessor, the Sony Xperia XZ4 is expected to be IP68-certified, which means taking it into the shower shouldn't be a worry. The phone has been rumoured to come in a dark purple colour, apart from the usual black. The Sony Xperia XZ4 is assumed to ship with Android Pie running right out of the box. It's also assumed to feature a big 4,400mAh battery inside it. Unfortunately, there's now information available on the phone's optics or pricing in the leak.

Online tipster Ice universe recently shared the video of a mock demo, in which they'd simulated video-watching on the Sony's tall 21:9 display. The tipster had uploaded the video on YouTube and had shared it on Twitter. The video doesn't tell us much but gives us an idea of the length of the display when the phone is held in landscape mode. We expect to learn more about Sony's upcoming flagship in the coming days.

Related Reads:

Sony Xperia XZ4 video renders, screen protector, and Antutu benchmarks leaked online

This is how video-watching is on Sony Xperia XZ4's 21:9 display
Xiaomi and Redmi are now separate brands, but the latter still comes under Xiaomis umbrella, just like Poco. The first phone to launch with the standalone Redmi branding was the Redmi Note 7( 10800 at amazon), which became official in China on January 10. The phone is now headed to India and both Xiaomi and Redmi have been teasing the devices 48MP camera setup on their Indian social media handles. Last week, the Redmi Note 7 teasers promised market disruption, hinting at a highly competitive pricing for the device. Now, just a couple of days after Samsung launched its new budget and mid-range Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20 smartphones in India, Xiaomi and Redmi are once again teasing the imminent launch of the Redmi Note 7 in India. Only this time, it looks like the teaser takes a jab at the new Galaxy M series.

The head-turning teaser posted by Xiaomi and Redmi states - Good things come to those who wait. Since the text is inverted, the W in wait is highlighted to look like an M. The teaser image is accompanied by the words 48MP, referring to the 48MP camera setup on the Redmi Note 7.

Multiple comments on the teaser tweeted out by Xiaomi and Redmi suggest that the Redmi Note 7 could launch in India on February 14. Xiaomi could also unveil the Redmi Note 7 Pro alongside the Redmi Note 7 in India. If that is the case, the Feb 14 Valentines Day launch could be possible since Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 5 Pro in India on the same date last year. In fact, the launch of the Redmi Note 7 Pro was tipped to happen in February and a recent report had even claimed that the Redmi Note 7, Redmi Note 7 Pro and Redmi Go will all be launched in India in the first quarter of 2019.

Redmi Note 7 Specs

Given its China pricing, the Redmi Note 7 is the the most affordable 48MP camera smartphone. It features a 6.3-inch LCD panel with a waterdrop notch and a resolution of 2340x1080 pixels. The phone gets a 2.5D curved glass chassis and a fingerprint sensor at the back. The phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC and in China, it is offered in 3GB, 4GB and 6GB RAM variants with 32GB or 64GB storage options.

As mentioned, the phone comes with a 48MP sensor at the back, combined with a 5MP secondary sensor for portrait shots. Redmi claims the 48MP sensor helps take better shots in low-light as well as poster like HD photos.

On the front, the Redmi Note 7 has a 13MP shooter with AI enhancements for face beautification and portrait mode. A 4,000mAh battery powers the device.

Redmi Note 7 Price

The Redmi Note 7 starts at 999 Yuan in China, which roughly converts to Rs 10,000 for the 3GB+32GB variant. The 4GB+64GB variant is priced 1199 Yuan (approx Rs 12,500) and the 6GB+64GB variant retails for 1399 Yuan, which is approximately Rs 14,500.
And speaking of Yul Brynner: The recent death of Carol Channing reminded me of the time (1976) someone stole the Broadway legends full-length white mink coat from her Baltimore hotel room, and that reminded me of the time (1984) Brynners handmade shoes were stolen from a Japanese restaurant on Charles Street. After the closing sellout performance of The King and I at The Lyric, Brynner and his wife went to Shogun  now Cazbar  and the couple removed their shoes, per custom, as they entered a private dining area. During dinner, someone  police suspected an autograph-seeking fan who had been rebuffed by Brynner  got off with his $850 custom-made leather shoes. While police recovered Channings $30,000 mink, no arrest was ever reported in connection with the theft of Brynners handmade John Lobbs, size 11. But the upscale clothier, Bernard Hill, sent him a new pair before the actor left town.
Highlights:

Google brings voice assistant support on Google.com for Android

The search field now has a grey microphone icon.

Google has been working a lot to provide a hands-free experience on its services by integrating its AI-powered virtual assistant with them. The company has now expanded the Google Assistant voice support to Google.com on Android. The development was first spotted by 9to5mac and now users can tap on the microphone on the Google.com search field to initiate voice searches. Previously, users could do a voice search on mobile with the Android keyboard microphone.

The microphone icon is generic and grey instead of the one on desktop web, which has the symbolic four Google Assistant colours. The search works like it does on any other service. Once you tap on the microphone to carry out a voice search on mobile, you are greeted with a full screen interface with Speak now followed by Listening once an audio is detected with live transcription on the screen.

Before asking for a query, Google will ask for certain permissions to input queries. Once you have input your search query, it is processed like it usually does on other services. If you ask direct questions, Whats the temperature, it will give you focused answers. If you ask generic questions like, Redmi Note 7, it will return with the results from various sources. Users can also exit the page by tapping the x located on the top right corner of the full-page white screen.

At CES 2019, Google introduced new features of the Google Assistant. This includes integration with Google Maps, Interpreter Mode, Flight check-in and Google Assistant Connect platform. With this new platform, the device manufacturers can now integrate the Assistant into their products. The platform uses Googles existing smart home platform to expand to new device types.

Related Read:

Google Photos is the latest app to get Material Design

Google Maps added to list of apps with new Material Design
Sara Ali Khan's White Churidaar Is A Stunner And So Is The Price Tag On In!

Spotted and smitten  thats the emotion we felt when we saw Sara Ali Khans pictures from the Singapore International Indian Expo 2019. With a great month in December after delivering two films, one of which continues to break records all over, Sara is making a statement with her sartorial sense, her personality and her humility. The best part  she rocks almost everything shes styled in and we, like the several other followers of hers on Instagram, love how she carries herself. Theres beauty, brains, and a lot of style packed in this 25-YO. In a promotional interview before her last release, Simmba, Sara had said that she looks the best in a white churidaar kurta  we agree - not that she hasnt proven her versatility in fashion already, but theres a simplistic sophistication to the Indian traditional wear that may not be too easy for everyone to flaunt. Dont you agree?

At the recent event, Sara wore a white anarkali with gota patti on the border, with a churidaar in the same shade. The dupatta she carried had a blend of gota patti (or gota handwork) and intricate embroidery. The suit set has been designed Sukriti and Akriti Grover, while Sara was styled by Tanya Ghavri. The juttis Sara paired with this beautiful outfit are from a collaboration collection between ace designers Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla and NeedleDust. The juttis called Darpan cost Rs 7800 and you can get the complete look for approximately Rs 40000.

Sara rocked the airport look too as she was spotted in the same outfit at Mumbai airport upon her return from Singapore.

Take a look at the pictures below and tell us tweet to us what you loved most about Saras most-recent look.

View this post on Instagram @saraalikhan95 x @sukritiandaakritiofficial  A post shared by Tanya Ghavri (@tanghavri) on Jan 25, 2019 at 3:10am PST

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MANTUA, Box Elder County  Mantua Police Chief Shane Zilles was arrested Tuesday afternoon for investigation of DUI.

Zilles was driving a Mantua police patrol car on state Route 91 about 5 p.m. when a Utah Highway Patrol trooper spotted his vehicle traveling at a "high rate of speed" without any emergency lights or sirens, said UHP trooper Nick Street.

The patrol car was going fast enough that it caught the trooper's attention, he said. The driver was also having a hard time staying in his lane, Street said.

The trooper first spotted Zilles near the county line between Box Elder and Cache counties and pulled him over about 7 miles later in Cache County, he said.

Several troopers assisted in the traffic stop. Zilles was cooperative, according to Street. After performing filed sobriety tests, troopers arrested him for investigation of DUI.

Street said investigators believe Zilles was under the influence of prescription medications. It was unknown Wednesday if Zilles had been prescribed those medications. Street said troopers did not suspect alcohol or illegal drugs were involved.

Zilles was taken to a local hospital to be checked for an undisclosed "medical condition," Street said. Troopers issued Zilles a citation and let the hospital take over from there.
SALT LAKE CITY  A Florida man who prosecutors say forced a Delta flight to make an unscheduled landing in Salt Lake City because he was being unruly, now faces a federal criminal charge.

Aaron Justin Hanson, 37, of St. Augustine, Florida, was charged in U.S. District Court Wednesday with interference with a flight crew.

A Delta Airlines flight from San Francisco to Atlanta made an emergency landing in Salt Lake City about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. Witnesses said Hanson was "being loud, disruptive, yelling obscenities and not following flight attendants' orders," the charges state.

One passenger told investigators that Hanson "started off being loud as the flight took off. He then fell asleep. When he awoke he was belligerent to the passenger next to him," according to the charges.

Hanson attempted to use the bathroom while the plane was experience turbulence, and "was very sloppy and falling exiting his seat into the aisle," the indictment states.

While moving down the aisle, Hanson allegedly hit a woman in the face.

That woman told police she was in her seat watching a movie when "all of a sudden he fell and smacked her in the face," according to the charges. A witness said he "hit her pretty hard."

One passenger told investigators that Hanson appeared to be "very drunk and high" and that other passengers could "easily smell it," the charges allege. Another noted that Hanson "could barely stand."

A flight attendant then saw Hanson's pants were "halfway off" and that Hanson stated he had to urinate, according to the charges. The flight attendant "had to hold Hanson's pants up for him as he walked because Hanson would not do it for himself."

While in the bathroom, the flight attendant advised the plane's captain of the situation. In the bathroom, Hanson could allegedly be heard "singing and saying profanities."

After a cease and desist order was handed to Hanson by the flight attendants, the man became "louder and more belligerent," the charges state.

Two passengers  including an off-duty police officer  were then asked to assist the flight attendants in placing "tuff cuffs" on Hanson and then sit with him for the rest of the flight.

In a police affidavit, officers said Hanson claimed he'd had "two shots and two beers" prior to boarding.

If convicted, Hanson could spend a maximum of up to 10 years in federal prison.
SALT LAKE CITY  A judge in Monticello has affirmed the election of a Navajo Democrat to San Juan County's governing board after his Republican challenger sued to remove him from office.

Attorneys for unsuccessful GOP candidate Kelly Laws argued that Willie Grayeyes lives across state lines in Arizona, invalidating his election to the County Commission. Grayeyes said he has a trailer and girlfriend in Arizona but no permanent home there.

Grayeyes, a member of the Navajo Nation, is a Utah resident registered to vote in the county since 1984, 7th District Judge Don Torgerson wrote in a Tuesday order. The judge said Laws waited too long to challenge his opponent's eligibility for office, missing deadlines in state election laws.

"It was the correct decision," Grayeyes' attorney, Steven Boos, said Wednesday. His client, 71, is "a very forgiving and laid-back guy in general. I imagine he just wants to get on with his work as a county commissioner," Boos said.

Laws had known of concerns about Grayeyes' residency since neighborhood caucuses in March but waited until after the election to sue, Torgerson wrote.

Laws' attorney, Peter Stirba, said his client "wishes the judge had come out with a different ruling than he did" and is evaluating a possible appeal.

Grayeyes has maintained a residence on Paiute Mesa, where he stays 60 percent to 80 percent of the time, often with his daughter or sister, the judge found. Grayeyes' home is reached by a rugged road that dips into Arizona, and he gets his mail and driver's license in the neighboring state because services there are closer, the judge wrote.

Grayeyes' livestock also graze there and he doesn't need to have one single house to be a resident, the judge indicated.

Torgerson also acknowledged Grayeyes' home in Navajo tradition, noting his umbilical cord is buried there and his family identifies it as their place of origin.

A federal judge previously required the county to put Grayeyes on the ballot after finding a county clerk falsely backdated a complaint about his residency, but the judge didn't rule on where Grayeyes lives.

The new commissioner's swearing-in earlier this month tipped the three-member commission to a Navajo majority. His fellow commissioners are Kenneth Maryboy, also a Navajo Nation member and Democrat, and Bruce Adams, a Republican. Navajo residents make up the majority of the county's population.

The November election was the first after a different federal judge found San Juan's old voting districts were illegally based on race and created new ones.

Correction: An earlier version referred to Torgerson as an 8th District Court judge. He is actually a judge in Utah's 7th District Court.
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyoming  A family flying a small plane from Nebraska back to Heber City on Monday evening found themselves in trouble when they ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing in a freezing, remote area of Wyoming.

The pilot, Eric Holt, his wife and their children  2-year-old twins and a newborn baby  were flying in a Piper Archer single-prop engine fixed-wing airplane when they encountered an "unexpected strong headwind" on the way to refuel in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

"I thought we had enough fuel. Literally three minutes from the airport, the engine started going out," Holt said.

"My wife asked me over the head set, she asked, 'Are we going to make it to the airport?' And I said, 'No,'" he recalled Tuesday, speaking as he returned to the site of the accident.

About 5:30 p.m., while at an altitude of approximately 8,500 feet, the plane's engine sputtered and died, according to a news release from the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office in Wyoming.

"There was just the training that kicked in," Holt said, and he successfully made an emergency landing.

The Holt family touched down in a remote desert area with "no apparent means to escape." The temperatures were frigid and the wind chill was estimated at below zero, the news release states.

The pilot was able to contact aviation authorities, who reported the situation to emergency dispatchers. Deputies learned from GPS coordinates that the plane had landed about 3 miles southeast of Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport, officials said.

The rescue effort began. Because it would take search and rescue crews several hours to reach the remote location, an Intermountain Life Flight helicopter was diverted to pick up the family and take them to a hospital for evaluation at about 8:45 p.m., according to the release.

"From that point, we knew we were going to be OK," Holt said.

Cody Nish, Intermountain Life Flight pilot, was already in the area on an unrelated call to transport a patient in a Rock Springs hospital when he learned of the stranded family. Another helicopter from Ogden had been dispatched to help, but that crew was 50 minutes away.

"So we said, 'Well, we're right here. We've got our night vision goggles and we can take the flight, as long as the hospital's OK with it,'" Nish recalled.

Holt had turned on the position lights on his downed plane, so when the Life Flight crew left the hospital, night goggles enabled them to see the beacon "clear as day, so we were able to fly right to the airplane," Nish said.

He said when he got to the plane, "I could see (the pilot's) tracks right in the snow. And I mean, good on him. He did an amazing job. That airplane landed right in the snow just as it should  he did a really, really good job putting that thing on the ground."

The family was "super cold," Nish said, but uninjured. "So for them to stay there and use their body heat in that small space was the best thing to do."

He said he believes the family watched a movie on an iPad while rescuers tried to reach them.

Holt said, "It's been an absolutely amazing 24 hours. We're just so thankful to be alive and for the kindness everyone has shown us."

Sweetwater County Sheriff John Grossnickle thanked his deputies and other staff members for their "dedication, diligence and selflessness" and said that the actions of all involved in the rescue brought "this potentially tragic event to a positive conclusion."
SALT LAKE CITY  On Wednesday night, Gov. Gary Herbert gave the annual State of the State address to the Utah Legislature.

Read Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's State of the State address

There goes the chimes for Day 3. Floor time is starting soon in the House #utpol #utleg pic.twitter.com/ZKczdXcWOL  Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) January 30, 2019

Other issues expected to be discussed at the Statehouse during the day include:

 The creation of an electronic driver's license. The Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Energy and Technology Committee is scheduled to hear SB100, which would be the first step to allowing Utahns to carry their license on their phone.

READ MORE: Proposal would make digital license an option for Utah drivers

 Why teachers are leaving their careers. Members of the House Education Committee will consider HB130, which would require exit surveys of school employees.

READ MORE: Bill calls for surveying teachers about why they're leaving the profession

 Water conservation. The Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee is looking at two bills: SB52 concerning secondary water metering; and SB17 that looks at amending extraterritorial jurisdiction that allows cities to control watersheds not within their borders.

READ MORE: Senate committee takes up watershed management bill, study of water banking

 Opioids. The House Health and Human Services Committee will discuss HB58, which would create the position of an opioid fatality examiner within the Office of the Medical Examiner as well as an Opioid and Overdose Fatality Review Committee within the Utah Department of Health to address problems with prescription drugs.

READ MORE: House panel endorses bill that would create committee to review drug overdose deaths

Here's what happened on Jan. 29, the second day of the 2019 session:

A bill to limit regulations on reselling event tickets passed unanimously through the Senate Business and Labor Committee Tuesday.

The House Government Operations Committee considered several bills dealing with campaigns and lobbyists, including HB129 allowing the use of campaign funds for child care and HB64 establishing limits for a lobbyist's expenditures on a local official or education official. The committee voted to advance a bill that would allow candidates to use campaign funds to pay for child care during their bids for office.

SB96, pitched by proponents as a more financially responsible way of expanding Medicaid coverage than the voter-approved Proposition 3, is headed to a vote by the full Senate.

READ MORE: Replacement for voter-approved Medicaid expansion passes first test in Senate

Up now in #utleg Senate: SB96, the Senate GOP leadership's replacement for Prop 3 Medicaid expansion #utpol  DNews Politics (@DNewsPolitics) January 30, 2019

Senate President @JStuartAdams says final vote on SB96 will be tomorrow -- or Friday if needed, to wait for fiscal note. Says has to move quickly so waiver process can start #utpol #utleg  DNews Politics (@DNewsPolitics) January 30, 2019
President Spencer W. Kimball was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1895. His service as the 12th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued a powerful legacy of leadership in the church.

His two grandfathers, Heber C. Kimball and Edwin D. Woolley, both served the church for decades in important callings. The Nauvoo, Illinois, homes of his paternal grandparents, Heber C. Kimball and Ann Alice Gheen, are still extant.

Spencers father, Andrew Kimball, was called to replace Christopher Layton (after whom Layton, Utah, was named) as president of the St. Joseph Stake in the Gila Valley of southeastern Arizona. That calling necessitated a move to Arizona when Spencer was 3 years old. The home that the Kimball family built in Thatcher is still extant with an interpretive plaque on the property.

Spencer was baptized in a hog-scalding tub on his eighth birthday. However, some wondered if the baptism was valid because the baptizer was not in the water with him. Spencer was baptized a second time to make sure all was done properly (see "Spencer W. Kimball," by Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball Jr., page 33).

Locals perpetuate the tradition that a canal that runs close to the former Kimball home is the Union Canal of Spencer's day, the site of the second baptism.

As a child, Spencer lost several siblings to death. Even that could not prepare him for the shock when, as an 11-year-old boy, Spencer was taken out of school and informed by his bishop that his mother had passed away. No longer could he walk in the house and call for his Ma, just to know that she was home (see "Spencer W. Kimball," page 46-48).
SALT LAKE CITY  A bill pitched by proponents as a more financially responsible way of expanding Medicaid coverage than the voter-approved Proposition 3 is already headed to a vote by the full Senate.

Members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 6-2 Tuesday to advance SB96, sponsored by Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, after a 1 1/2-hour hearing before a standing-room only audience.

"The bottom line is we are expanding Medicaid," Christensen said just before the vote advancing the bill to the Senate floor. "We are doing as Prop. 3 voters wanted in a fiscally, financially responsible way and getting it done."

He said he remained "philosophically opposed" to Medicaid expansion, available under the Affordable Care Act to provide health care to those earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty rate that's about $12,000.

But Christensen said because voters passed full Medicaid expansion last November, he put together a bill that covers a portion of that population along with a new work requirement and other changes that will all require federal approval.

A so-called bridge plan would be put in place starting April 1 at a lower 70-30 federal funding match than full expansion  again, requiring a federal waiver  while the state seeks permission for a permanent program with a 90-10 match.

SB96 has the backing of Senate GOP leadership. During a closed-door Republican Senate caucus before the hearing, a majority of senators said they supported the bill, according to Senate Majority Whip Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City.

The two Democrats on the committee, Senate Minority Whip Luz Escamilla of Salt Lake City and Senate Minority Assistant Whip Jani Iwamoto of Holladay, voted against the bill after questioning funding assumptions made about full expansion.

Another Senate bill that would simply repeal the full Medicaid expansion set to take effect on April 1 without legislative action was not considered by the committee. Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi, the sponsor of SB97, said that was not his decision.

Vickers said that Anderegg's bill was not discussed in the caucus meeting. "I'm pretty confident in saying at this point there is no appetite at all to repeal the proposition," the majority leader said.

Christensen's bill expands Medicaid only to those earning less than 100 percent of the poverty rate, relying on the existing subsidized insurance already available to take care of some 41,000 Utahns earning between 100 and 138 percent of poverty.

It also requires recipients to seek employment, imposes potential enrollment caps, and adds $30 million, including a $15 million hospital tax, to the 0.15 percent sales tax increase approved by voters in Proposition 3.

But in order for the state to receive the 90-10 federal funding match available for full Medicaid expansion, the Trump administration will have to agree to a waiver. A similar request was not granted last year for a more limited expansion program.

Christensen said he has been "virtually assured" the needed waivers will come through. Under the worst possible scenario, he said enrollment in the bridge program would have to be capped.

Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, who helped present the bill to the committee, acknowledged a waiver will be needed even for the temporary bridge plan. He said it should be in place by April 1.

Many in the audience signed up to testify at the committee hearing, but only a few were allowed to speak.

"Voters knew what they were doing," Stacy Stanford, an analyst with the Utah Health Policy Project, told the committee after describing how she lost her job and health care insurance nine years ago after being seriously injured in a car accident.

Then, Stanford said, she fell into the so-called coverage gap, earning too much to receive Medicaid but too little to qualify for subsidized insurance, and racked up some $250,000 in debt.

She said voters approved full Medicaid expansion by nearly 70,000 votes statewide.

But Heather Williamson of the Utah Chapter of Americans for Prosperity called Medicaid expansion a "catastrophe" for states around the country, preventing some people from getting the care they need because costs rose beyond forecasts.

David Hesington, who has served as a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said there's a burden when the state doesn't deliver on needed services for people in need.

He said while the poor "sleep on city streets," lawmakers are saying they can't afford full Medicaid expansion and, at the same time, talking about at least a $200 million tax cut and paying for a new state office building at the Capitol complex.

Before voting against advancing Christensen's bill, Escamilla said she hoped the Legislature would respect the voice of the voters.

"I don't know what the hurry is," she said.

There was only one outburst during the hearing, when someone testifying said he was there representing the 53 percent of voters who approved full Medicaid expansion and members of the audience burst into applause.

They were quickly admonished by the committee chairman, Sen. Ronald Winterton, R-Roosevelt.
If the remarks sounded familiar, that may be because they were strikingly similar  verbatim, at times  to those Hogan gave at an event in Baltimore on Jan. 8, when he also cited the shootings of the Hayes sisters in describing the need to bring 200 law enforcement officers into the city as part of a new strike force to fight crime.
SALT LAKE CITY  A bill to limit regulations on reselling event tickets passed unanimously through the Senate Business and Labor Committee Tuesday.

Sen. Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork, said SB69 is meant to ease restrictions on consumers that prevent them from transferring or reselling tickets, or dictate specific ticket platforms for resale. Henderson said this is a discriminatory behavior that is not consumer friendly.

"(The bill) requires ticket issuers to issue freely transferable tickets, prohibits ticket issuers from penalizing consumers who elect to transfer their tickets on the ticket website or through the methods of their choice (and) provides a specific set of exemptions to allow flexibility to ticket issuers while continuing to protect Utah fans," Henderson said.

Venues would still be able to enforce restrictions on age, conduct and purchase limits.

A representative from StubHub said the company is supportive of the bill, as did a representative from Ticketmaster, who noted that he had not yet fully vetted an amendment that narrows the scope of who it applies to.

A similar bill proposed last year passed the Senate but did not make it into the House for a vote on the last day of the session.
SALT LAKE CITY  In the middle of her campaign for Utah County Commission last year, Teri McCabe gave birth to her baby boy, Thomas.

Thomas wriggled in his mother's arms while she sat in front of a row of lawmakers on Tuesday, telling of how she and her husband worked hard to juggle her campaign while caring for a newborn.

"Since his birth, I brought him with me to campaign events several times," McCabe told the House committee. "My husband would have to rearrange his work schedule to care for Thomas so I could go to campaign events."

Though she made it work, McCabe said she would often hear from other women who wanted to run for public office but couldn't because they had no one to watch their kids.

"We're missing out on having these wonderful citizens run for office and serve their communities," McCabe said.

Tuesday, the House Government Operations Committee voted to advance a bill that would allow candidates to use campaign funds to pay for child care during their bids for office.

At the beginning of the 2019 session, Utah Reps. Craig Hall, R-West Valley City, and Stephanie Pitcher, D-Salt Lake City, independently opened bills to approve child care as an allowable campaign expense. Tuesday, both lawmakers told the House committee they'd join forces on the same bill, the version sponsored by Hall.

The bill, HB129, gained unanimous support from the House committee, sending it to the House floor with a favorable recommendation.

The vote came after Elizabeth Payne, a mom of four, told of how she ran into some unique challenges during her campaign to join the Murray School Board last year.

Payne said she found it odd she was able to use campaign funds to travel to Washington for a candidate training, and yet she couldn't use the same funds to pay for a baby sitter. Instead, her husband had to use vacation days so she could go.

"I believe that allowing parents to use campaign funds for child care, we will see a more diverse field of candidates, single parents, stay-at-home parents and parents of young school-age children who can speak to the issues that families are experiencing in our great state," Payne said.

Hall and Pitcher said the aim of HB129 is to help increase candidate opportunities and create more "family friendly" campaign laws. Currently, the state code is ambiguous about whether child care is an allowable campaign expense.

Pitcher noted that a recent Federal Election Commission decision determined that New York congressional candidate Liuba Grechen Shirley could use her campaign funds to pay for a baby sitter.

"We're not the first ones to consider this issue," said Pitcher, who is also a mother of three.

Hall noted the bill is "gender-neutral" and allows mothers or fathers to use the funds for child care  but specifies the candidates can only use the funds while on the campaign trail.

Rep. Patrice Arent, D-Millcreek, sympathized with candidates tasked with running a campaign while also caring for children.

"I was there," she said, noting she was nursing her youngest child when she first started campaigning. "I think this is long overdue."
SALT LAKE CITY  Utah asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to deny the Utah Republican Party's petition to hear its case against the state's controversial political candidate nomination law.

The Utah Attorney General's Office argued in a 36-page brief that there is no reason for the high court to take the case because lower courts are not split over whether states may prescribe party nominations by primary election.

"For nearly 50 years, this court has repeatedly recognized the states' power to prescribe political party nominations by primary elections. Not once has this court or any other court  cast constitutional doubt on that practice," according to the brief.

The Utah GOP sued the state over the 2014 law passed as SB54, which allows candidates to bypass Utah's traditional caucus and convention system by gathering signatures to get on the primary election ballot. The party contends the law threatens the First Amendment rights of not only political parties but other organizations, including religious institutions.

A federal judge upheld the law but the party appealed.

The Utah GOP went to the Supreme Court after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the law "strikes an appropriate balance" between protecting the interests of the state in managing elections and allowing the party and individuals to express their preferences in a democratic fashion and to form associations protected by the First Amendment.

In its brief Tuesday, the state argues that the 10th Circuit correctly applied previous Supreme Court rulings in its decision.

"Concluding otherwise would require overruling or disavowing a host of this court's cases from the past five decades, imperiling every state's election laws in the process," according to the brief.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, earlier this month asked Gov. Gary Herbert in a Facebook post to stop defending the law. He wrote there is "no good reason" for the state to oppose the Supreme Court hearing the case.

"For the love of the Constitution  and for the good of all political parties  please stop defending SB54. It's unconstitutional," Lee wrote.

"I suspect that the Supreme Court will agree, assuming it grants review in this case," the senator wrote. "But either way, this is the kind of case that should be decided finally and on the merits by the Supreme Court."

Lee, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and 19 current and former state lawmakers have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the effort to overturn the law, as have several political and religious organizations.

At least one Utah legislator plans to introduce a bill repealing SB54 in the current legislative session.
SALT LAKE CITY  Utah may be able to put its money where its mouth is and get the chance to try to prove locals can manage a forest better than the U.S. Forest Service.

The Legislature this session will consider using $20 million toward the purchase of Tabby Mountain in Duchesne County, picking up a 28,000-acre chunk of land that is premier habitat for elk, deer and big game.

Ashley Green, assistant director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said the property northwest of Duchesne is owned by the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which is accepting letters of interest from potential buyers.

Open space conservation, such as the acquisition of Tabby Mountain, water law reform and tackling air pollution are among the top environmental issues likely to surface during the legislative session that kicked off Monday.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert is recommending the purchase of Tabby Mountain in his budget and creating Utah's first state forest.

Top GOP leaders in the state have long complained that federally owned overgrown forests are at the root of increasingly catastrophic wildfire seasons that could be mitigated if Utah could manage those lands.

Lawmakers may also pursue buying 2,000 acres of former mining lands in Big Cottonwood Canyon after the current owners indicated a willigness to sell.

Aside from the possible "first forest" for Utah, the state is poised to dive headlong into another first  a law requiring secondary metering of water  if Herbert and Sen. Jacob Anderegg's efforts prove successful.

Anderegg, R-Lehi, is running legislation that would require the metering of all new secondary water connections after July 1, 2019, and for existing users by 2030.

Herbert is recommending $22 million to support metering, more informative billing practices and other water efficiency projects

Anderegg's bill, SB52, would require the state Board of Water Resources to make available $10 million in loans each year through 2030 to water delivery systems transitioning to secondary water metering.

"The status quo is untenable when it comes to the growth factor that we totally anticipate will happen in the next 20 to 25 years," he said. "What we have been doing to this point is not sustainable."

Some communities already meter secondary water use. Washington Terrace, Anderegg said, saw its consumption rate drop by 38 percent.

In Saratoga Springs, which also implemented pricing to reflect "true cost" of delivery, secondary water consumption decreased by as much as 58 percent, Anderegg said.

The move to secondary water metering gained momentum in Saratoga Springs in 2015 after city officials witnessed high irrigation water usage coupled with a rapidly growing population.

David S. Johnson, city spokesman and economic development director, said the trend was not sustainable.

"We knew we had to address this now and get ahead of the curve," Johnson said, adding that the behavioral hurdle was more difficult to overcome than the technical implementation of the system.

"Culturally, here in Utah, we have used secondary water in an unlimited fashion."

State lawmakers are also expected to take up a trio of controversial bills dealing with surplus water contracts, extraterritorial jurisdiction and a proposal to amend the Utah Constitution to give cities more flexibility over their water supplies.

Dozens of volunteers from cities, state agencies, water providers, attorneys and others worked together over the summer in meetings to fine-tune the proposals that may result in some of the most significant changes to water law in more than a century.

Utah residents can also look for new money and possibly new laws in the arena of air pollution, where Herbert has recommended $100 million infusion of one-time money to tackle the problem.

As part of this spending package, Herbert wants Utah state government to pursue implementation of an "action plan" for employees on days when air pollution is moving into the unhealthy, or yellow zone.

Such a plan would allow employees to modify normal work routines in favor of telecommuting, mass transit or carpooling.

For fiscal year 2019, as a jumpstart, the governor wants $60,000 for the Utah Department of Administrative Services to pilot a teleworking program for employees with physical workspaces in the Utah State Office Building.

There are a number of ways that $100 million, if approved, could be spent. Those include more funding for a replacement program for dirty wood-burning stoves and fireplaces.

According to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, there have been more than 1,500 wood-burning stoves and fireplaces in Cache, Utah and Salt Lake counties replaced so far, and there is a waiting list of 2,000 households.

About 12,000 people are on the agency's list to change out gas-powered lawn mowers and snowblowers for electric tools.

HEAL Utah, a local advocacy organization, would like to use some of that money for a three-year pilot project for free-fare days on Utah Transit Authority mass transit during a set number of days.

Jessica Reimer, a policy associate with the group, said the $1.2 million program would compensate UTA for the lost revenue and track ridership to see if free mass transit is enough to incentivize people to leave their vehicles parked.

The pilot program would take funding from participants like the Utah Legislature, local government and organizations like UCAIR.

"If the data shows it is not actually benefitting anything, you go back to the drawing board."

Rep. Steve Handy, R-Layton, is taking another swipe at providing some state funding to help pay for upgrades to freight switchers in local rail yards.

Tearing down and rebuilding one switcher with more pollution-reducing components would result in an 89 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide  a precursor to fine-particulate pollution, and an 88.5 percent reduction in PM2.5, according to an analysis by the Utah Division of Air Quality.

Handy wants $2 million to leverage against federal funding and motivate railroad companies to make the change, which is a significant investment.

His bill, HB98, echoes a similar effort he pushed during last year's legislative session and would resurrect a popular program that has not had a steady stream of funding since 2015.

The Legislature will also entertain a concurrent resolution urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update its regulations of the freight switchers. Utah has no authority to regulate the rail yard-related emissions and must depend on voluntary efforts by railroad companies.

Rep. Patrice Arent, D-Millcreek, wants to revisit a 2012 law approved in response to an anti-idling ordinance passed by Salt Lake City, eliminating the restrictions lawmakers imposed on cities.

"This is a different world than in 2012 when this passed," she said. Gutting those restrictions, such as the requirement motorists receive three warnings before police could issue a citation, gives cities greater flexibility, she added.

In other pollution matters, Rep. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, is proposing to take Utah where no state in the United States has gone before in the adoption of a carbon tax.

The measure is promoted as revenue neutral, assessing a $10 per metric ton of carbon dioxide on polluters, i.e., power plants, and in turn cutting the sales tax on grocery store food, elimination of the sales tax on electricity and home heating fuels, and elimination of the corporate income tax on mining and manufacturing businesses.

The tax would generate $500 million for the state, of which $50 million would go toward local air quality programs and to boost economic development in rural counties.

According to the Carbon Tax Center, no U.S. state has implemented a carbon tax, and Utah is characterized as "very challenging" for its carbon tax readiness.

But economist Yoram Bauman, who spearheaded the Washington state carbon tax ballot initiative in 2016, said Utah has a chance to lead out on the greenhouse gas measure and set an example as it jockeys to host the 2030 Winter Olympics.

Bauman, who moved to Utah from Washington, is part of the Citizens Climate Lobby pushing the tax.
SALT LAKE CITY  A Duchesne County man has been ordered to at least 15 years and up to life in prison in the 2016 shooting death of his father.

A jury earlier this month found James Hudson Main Jr. guilty of murder, a first-degree felony, and a judge sentenced him Monday in Duchesne's 8th District Court. His attorney said he plans to appeal the conviction.

"We respect the jury's decision," his lawyer, Jonathan Nish, said Tuesday without elaborating. "We're disheartened by it."

Main, now 36, was arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado, in October 2016 after he led officers on a pair of high-speed chases, according to police.

The 56-year-old James Main Sr. had called police to report his son had stolen his gun and disappeared into the mountains near his home. Police later found the father deceased with two gunshot wounds, court documents say.

Prosecutors had filed additional gun and kidnapping charges against Main but later removed them.

Main's family has previously said he suffered from mental illness and they sought to get him help from police and hospitals in the days before the slaying.

Main was originally charged with aggravated murder, which carries a possible death sentence if convicted. But a judge declined to move the case forward on that charge after a preliminary hearing, reducing it instead to murder.

Main will serve a consecutive sentence of five years and up to life on a conviction of assaulting another person while in jail, a third-degree felony.
SALT LAKE CITY  A Delta flight traveling from San Francisco to Atlanta was diverted to Salt Lake City early Tuesday so an unruly passenger could be removed, according to police.

Aaron Justin Hanson, 37, of St. Johns, Florida, was arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of intoxication.

Salt Lake police were called to the airport about 2:30 a.m.

"Officers met the plane at the gate and arrested Aaron Hanson  for intoxication and resisting arrest. The FBI was notified of the incident," according to a police report.

The arresting officer further noted in a jail affidavit that Hanson "attempted to urinate in the aisle of the aircraft," and then after he was removed from the plane "repeatedly attempted to hit his head against the ground and walls. He stated 'I am going to hurt myself so that I can sue someone.'"

Hanson claimed he'd had "two shots and two beers" prior to boarding.

Hanson was being held in the jail Tuesday on a "federal detainee interstate agreement" with Florida. Police records do not indicate if the federal hold is for the incident on the airline or another charge.
PARK CITY  Until September 1987, Sarfraz Manzoor considered himself a Top 40 radio kind of guy.

For the then-16-year-old, who was born in Pakistan and grew up in the Bury Park district of Luton, England, pop music was about escapism. It allowed him to escape the struggles and challenges of his day-to-day life. And it allowed him to momentarily forget about his tense relationship with his father, who wished Manzoor would pay his familys Pakistani culture more mind.

And then along came Bruce Springsteen  or rather, a friend who was a diehard Springsteen fan.

He was just devoted to the point of (being) pathological about it, and I could not understand what he was (going) on about because he was Sikh, he was wearing a turban and I (asked him), What (is it) about this (Springsteen)? Hes a white middle-aged guy in his 30s who wears checkered shirts. What are you listening to him for? Manzoor told the Deseret News.

Manzoors incredulousness didnt faze his new friend.

(He said), Bruce Springsteen is the direct line to all that is true in this world, and if you dont realize that, youre an absolute fool. But Im going to save you. Here are some cassettes. Listen to them and it will change your life, Manzoor recalled.

His friend wasnt wrong.

I was listening to music which wasnt about escapism but which was about confrontation, Manzoor said. It was actually telling stories  with real characters, and I just became absolutely entranced by the idea that music could be something  useful in terms of your own life.

Thats pretty much the story that unfolds in the film Blinded by the Light, which premiered to a packed auditorium of Springsteen fans at the Sundance Film Festival Sunday, Jan. 27. Following that enthusiastic premiere, Blinded by the Light was acquired by New Line Cinema for $15 million  one of the most expensive deals of this year's Sundance Film Festival, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

It landed in theaters nationwide Friday, Aug. 16.

The film  directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) and inspired by Manzoors 2007 memoir Greetings From Bury Park  tells Manzoors story through the eyes of a British-Pakistani teenager named Javed, played by newcomer Viveik Kalra.

For Javed and his Springsteen-obsessed friend, the musician isnt just The Boss  hes the boss of the soul. As Javed comes to find himself in Springsteen, his hair gets taller, he rips off the sleeves of his plaid shirt, he puts on a denim jacket and wears a red bandana. He also has an uncanny ability to slip the lines to Born to Run into regular conversation.

That obsession isnt too far-stretched for someone like Manzoor, whos seen Springsteen in concert 150 times. But the film doesnt just poke fun  albeit endearingly  at the Springsteen fixation; it shows how the storytelling quality of Springsteens music inspires Javed to fight for what he wants, develop his voice and, in the end, understand and appreciate his family.

The only thing that mattered was that Bruce liked it.

Thats the kind of story Manzoor believed Springsteen would appreciate.

Gurinder said to me that the most important thing that mattered more than anything else wasnt if the script was approved by the financiers or the producers, Manzoor said. The only thing that mattered was that Bruce liked it. Because if he didnt like it, we wouldn't get the music, and if we dont get the music, it aint going to happen.

Having been an obsessive fan of 30 years, I kind of feel like I know (Springsteens) preoccupations and the things that interest him, Manzoor continued. And I know  he's not driven by egos, (and) a film that was just about how great he was wouldn't be important or relevant to him. But I think he's somebody who is interested in the idea of what music  can do to a character and to a life. So this is a story about how music can change a character rather than just about how great (Springsteen) is as a person.

More specifically, its Manzoors story. The British journalist still vividly recalls his teenage years struggling in what he considered a grim industrial town, and how the last line of Thunder Road  Its a town full of losers and Im pulling out of here to win  seemed to be written just for him.

And then there was the song My Fathers House. Those piercing lyrics  I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart/will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts  eventually led Manzoor to reassess his relationship with his father.

When youre 16, you dont really think about your dads side of the story often, Manzoor said. Youre kind of absorbed in your own world. When I listened to that song,  that actually made me think, If Springsteen can empathize with his dad, maybe I can try and think about the world from (my dads) point of view.

That evolving father-son relationship is at the heart of Blinded by the Light, although the feel-good film gives Manzoor a little more closure than he got in reality, as his dad died of a heart attack when Manzoor was in his early 20s.

I kind of got stuck as an early-20-something self-absorbed person who didnt really see the other side, he said. Writing (my memoir) and making this film is my way of having a conversation with my dad in his absence, and to try and honor him in a way that I wasnt able to do when he was alive.

So theres this wisdom in the story  theres this wisdom that my character has that I didn't have when I was 16, but which I have now, he continued. Even if its not absolutely factually true, emotionally (the film) is completely bang on the money. Everything is emotionally autobiographical.  It aint fake. Thats something I learned from Bruce.

And as Manzoor had hoped, it was something Springsteen appreciated. At a Q&A following the film's premiere, Chadha  also a diehard fan of The Boss  recounted how nervous she was showing the near-completed film to Springsteen. His approval meant everything. As he watched her movie, Chadha inched closer and closer to the musician so she could see his reactions. At times he smiled. At other moments, he laughed. And then there were moments when he looked genuinely surprised.

But when all was said and done, the words The Boss uttered were simple: Thank you for looking after me so beautifully.
Its too early to tell if Howard Schultz deserves a seat in the White House, but he is starting the right kind of conversations that voters and lawmakers should have ahead of the 2020 election.

Schultz, American billionaire and former CEO of Starbucks, made news Sunday by announcing on 60 Minutes hes seriously considering a 2020 run for president as a "centrist independent." Liberal pundits pounced at once to decry his decision, predicting he would siphon off Democratic votes and clear the path for President Trump. Conservative voices have largely been silent on the matter.

But whether the numbers add up or whether hes running to appease an ego are the wrong questions for the country right now. The focus ought to be on his reasons for exploring a run  putting principles before politics.

Schultz told correspondent Scott Pelley on Sunday that both parties are consistently not doing whats necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged every single day in revenge politics.

That sentiment will likely resonate with millions of Americans, especially as the country pulls out of its longest partial government shutdown. The mood during the 35-day crisis was that politics  the winner-loser kind of toxic partisanship  stood in the way of any meaningful progress.

Indeed, a consistently pitiful amount of Americans approve of Congress job performance. That may explain why independents outnumber those who affiliate with either the Republican or Democratic parties. The latest data from Gallup show 39 percent of Americans reject both major parties, while only 25 percent identify as Republicans and 34 percent as Democrats. With few exceptions, this trend has held steady since 2004.

Schultz is banking on that logic to win if he runs as an independent. However, the bigger takeaway is that Americans would prefer to see the country governed issue by issue rather than through the oiled machines of political parties.

Americans would prefer to see the country governed issue by issue rather than through the oiled machines of political parties.

Bipartisan criminal justice reforms from December show what that kind of governing looks like. Republican Sen. Mike Lee from Utah teamed up with an unlikely crew  Cory Booker, D-N.J., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.  to make the first substantive changes to drug-related offenses since the 1990s. Despite fissures within their own parties, the group found like-minded people and pushed forward without regard for partisanship.

Naturally, there are good people of principle in both parties, noted Schultz at an event on Monday, but those members are unable to do what they think is right because of the prospect of losing their next primary, he said.

Why should the promise of winning be a prerequisite for injecting good ideas into the public debate? That needs to change.

No party is entitled to an unobstructed path to the presidency. Nothing in the Constitution says the country should huddle around two sets of ideas. America is at her best when thoughts flow freely and everyone has a chance to chime in.

Maybe a third-party candidate could build the right connections to make coalition governing the new norm. More realistically, however, it will take voters who accept accountability for their role in the democratic process. Siding with a party because it encompasses your way of thinking is one thing, but choosing one party simply because its less worse than the other is not a solution.

Gathering like-minded people across the political spectrum should be possible, and it needs to happen more frequently if the country wants the real debate and progress its calling for.
SALT LAKE CITY  Promising to listen to what residents have on their minds, Jenny Wilson took the oath of office as Salt Lake County mayor on Tuesday.

Wilson, a Democrat, knocked on hundreds of doors while campaigning for U.S. Senate last year and called many voters during the mayoral race. She said meeting people at their homes was more meaningful than a decade on the County Council and working on congressional staffs in Washington, D.C.

"The thing that impacted me the most are those doorstep conversations, and thats what this government is all about," she said. "If we forget about the people at the door and what theyre feeling, the stress that theyre feeling, many of them, were not doing our job."

Salt Lake County Democrats chose Wilson over three other candidates Saturday to fill the remaining two years of former Mayor Ben McAdams' term after he was elected to Congress last November. Wilson intends to run for election to a full four-year term in 2020.

"I am going to be a mayor who's out there. I'm going to go out to communities," she said.

Wilson told a packed council chamber that she's "humbled" to move forward with her own vision for the state's largest county.

Residents, she said, are worried about continued growth threatening their way of life, they want full Medicaid expansion and are "craving clean air."

"One of the things I hear over and over recently is we want our air cleaned up, and to me that means everybody has to give," Wilson said.

The county in the past year had an "aha moment" over housing. Young people, she said, are having a challenge finding housing, even with low unemployment.

"We're going to need somebody in this role to drive solutions for affordable housing and, frankly, housing affordability," she said.

Homelessness also remains a challenge, Wilson said, adding she will continue to build on what McAdams did in that area.

Wilson's election as mayor opens up her at-large seat on the County Council. Salt Lake County Democrats will meet in 30 days to fill the vacancy.
SALT LAKE CITY  As religious practice declines and support for LGBT rights rises in the U.S., faith-based schools may be at risk of becoming better known for controversial campus policies than academic strengths.

That threat was evident earlier this month when Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen Pence, announced her new part-time job teaching art at Immanuel Christian School in Virginia. Some Americans were outraged about the school's opposition to same-sex marriage and transgender identity, and debates broke out on social media over whether it's an appropriate place for Pence to work.

"There is growing hostility to a lot of Christian schools," said Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

Kevin J Worthen, president of Brigham Young University, describes this hostility as one of the "external pressures" faith-based schools face today. It's hard to stay true to traditional religious beliefs when accrediting bodies, lawmakers and a growing group of everyday people are all calling for more acceptance of LGBT rights and other changes, he said.

"If you look at the history of higher education, the clear trend has been to start off as religiously affiliated and after some time, decades or centuries, look just like secular universities. We have to keep reminding ourselves of our mission," he said.

Worthen and leaders from around 100 other faith-based colleges and universities are gathering in Washington, D.C., this week to do just that. The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities' annual Presidents Conference is an opportunity to explore why the work of religious schools still matters in a rapidly changing world, said Shirley A. Hoogstra, the council's president, in an email.

"All of us who are persons of faith need to constantly be making the case for the ways in which persons and institutions of faith benefit society at large and why society needs our voices, our graduates and our contributions," she said.

Top challenges

The legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide in June 2015 and state-level efforts to increase protections for gay, lesbian and transgender Americans since then have complicated the work of faith-based schools. Many of these institutions still outlaw homosexual activity, regardless of marital status, in campus conduct codes and teach that gender is set from birth.

"These (policies) are based on Christian teachings that go back 2,000 years," Wehner said.

But conservative interpretations of biblical teachings on sexuality have become less popular over time, which makes religious colleges and universities vulnerable to lawsuits, a loss of funding and interference from accrediting bodies. In recent years, California lawmakers considered barring conservative religious schools from receiving state education grants, and a Christian college in Massachusetts was asked by state officials to review its campus conduct policies.

Additionally, near the end of President Barack Obama's time in office, his administration announced that federal laws against sex discrimination also barred sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. Faith-based colleges and universities had to request controversial exemptions in order to be allowed to enforce certain campus policies.

President Donald Trump's election brought some relief for religious schools. His administration rejects Obama's broader interpretation of sex discrimination, meaning it won't go after schools with a conservative approach to LGBT rights.

However, religious colleges must still worry about the public relations ramifications of their stance on LGBT rights, Wehner said. As the recent Karen Pence drama illustrates, many Americans have no sympathy for schools that want campus policies to match their conservative, religious beliefs.

"If Christian colleges and universities don't change their attitudes on sexual ethics, then do those institutions become essentially persona non grata?" Wehner said.

This week's conference will include sessions on navigating an increasingly hostile culture. Participants will learn from experts inside and outside the world of academia about protecting institutional reputation and reducing political and economic polarization.

"Our sessions this year cover a variety of important topics that we know are top of mind for our campuses  everything from racial reconciliation to crisis management to civic pluralism to the value of global experiential education to uniting our divided country," Hoogstra said.

Speakers include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Senate Chaplain Barry Black and Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The challenges up for discussion aren't all unique to religious schools, Hoogstra noted. Participants will also explore problems that are familiar to leaders of secular schools, like reducing costs, the textbook industry and the need to keep evolving.

"The need for innovation and increased collaboration has led us to explore a variety of new initiatives at the CCCU, including an innovative consortium that enables CCCU institutions to share online courses across a common platform," she said.

Stronger together

The Council on Christian Colleges and Universities' annual Presidents Conference is not just a time for working through concerns. School leaders will also celebrate what makes them unique and plan for the future, participants said.

"Most people worldwide and still in the United States belong to some religious group. Religion is core to who they are and how they see the world," Worthen said. Faith-based institutions "are a great benefit to those who believe."

Conferencegoers can also participate in group devotions and network over shared meals. One of the goals of the event is to help school leaders gain strength by working together, Hoogstra said.

"The job of a college president is very unique and so the ability to collaborate and learn from peers helps these colleagues sustain their leadership," she said.

This year's pool of peers also includes leaders of non-Christian schools. The final conference panel, which is on misunderstandings about faith and the positive contributions religion makes to society, features speakers from Jewish and Muslim schools.

"We'll hear from college and university presidents representing the Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, Protestant and Muslim faith traditions," Hoogstra said.

In this way, the conference challenges the notion that people who disagree on political or religious issues can't work together, Worthen said, noting it's a lesson all of society needs right now.

"Interaction among schools from different faiths can provide a model or a way of thinking about how to cooperate and have dialogue and help one another even when you disagree about things on a fundamental level," he said.

Wehner, who is moderating the interfaith discussion, hopes the panel, and the conference in general, highlights reasons for optimism amid current challenges. He believes faith-based colleges and universities produce smart, thoughtful adults who can help end polarization and increase religious understanding.

"Religious universities can be on the forefront of creating a culture where religious expression is valued and understood," he said.
He then suddenly began punching the teacher in the face, knocking him onto the ground, where he continued to strike the teacher in the face and torso, according to the release.
SALT LAKE CITY  Parking at the Capitol can be a nightmare when the Legislature is in session.

But members of public, legislators, staff members, lobbyists and media representatives can rest assured of making it to a meeting or rally on time with the Utah Transit Authority's Capitol Connector.

The transit agency is offering 15-minute frequency service on Route 500 to the Capitol Mondays through Fridays throughout the 45-day session.

The Capitol Connector was first designed and introduced in 2016 to help alleviate limited parking around the Capitol complex and encourage visitors to help reduce air pollution during a time of year when the Salt Lake Valley typically experiences its heaviest inversions.

Route 500 is located in UTA's Free Fare Zone and connects to all TRAX lines at the Courthouse Station and to FrontRunner at the North Temple Station.
SALT LAKE CITY  A new bill proposed to the Utah Legislature would allow a public body to conduct a closed meeting to get advice from its attorney.

The Standard-Examiner reports the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act already lists reasons why state or local government boards can go into closed session, such as discussing potential property transactions, collective bargaining or litigation.

But Rep. Stephen Handy's proposal, HB74, would allow special service districts, such as sewer and water boards, to go into closed session to receive legal advice from their attorneys.

But the Utah Media Coalition opposes an exemption for legal advice.

Salt Lake City media attorney Jeff Hunt says district representatives say they will try to craft a narrower exemption, but so far nothing has been offered.

Handy, R-Layton, says if a compromise can't be reached, he will consider dropping the bill.
OGDEN  Weber State University Special Collections will presents the Whistle Stop Tour, a series of lectures and exhibits dedicated to sharing the 150-year history of the transcontinental railroad coming through Ogden.

Held in collaboration with the Weber County Library and Union Station, the tour will examine the history of the transcontinental railroad.

In addition to lectures, the tour will include two exhibits. The first will feature photographs and stories about the impact of the railroad on Ogden. The exhibit will be available throughout February at the Weber County Library Southwest Branch, 2039 W. 4000 South, Roy.

The second will highlight photographs of the transcontinental railroads 50th anniversary celebration parade held in Ogden in 1919. This exhibit will be on display March-April at WSUs Stewart Library, and throughout May at Union Station, 2501 Wall Ave., Ogden.

The schedule of the lecture series will be as follows:

 Rising from the Rails: The Story of the Pullman Porters, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 7 p.m., Weber County Library Pleasant Valley Branch , 5568 Adams Ave., Ogden: Debra Daniels and Sarah McClellan will share their families experiences working on the railroads.

 How Ogden Became the Junction City and Why Salt Lake Never Forgave Us, Monday, March 11, 7 p.m. WSU Hurst Center Dumke Legacy Hall, and Tuesday, March 12, 7 p.m., Weber County Library Southwest Branch, 2039 W. 4000 South, Roy: Historian Val Holley will share stories and insights into the train coming to Ogden and the impact the railroad had on the citys development from 1869 to 1900.

 Iron Ladies of the American Railroad, Wednesday, March 13, 7 p.m., Weber County Library Main Library, 2464 Jefferson Ave., Ogden, and Tuesday, March 19, 7 p.m., Weber County Library Southwest Branch, 2039 W. 4000 South, Roy: Sarah Singh, WSU Special Collections curator, and Holly Andrew, Union Station museum and program director, will share stories of the women who entered the world of railroading as clerks, laundresses, engineers and more.

 The Train Comes to Ogden, Thursday, March 28, 7 p.m., Weber County Library Ogden Valley Branch, 131 S. 7400 E., Huntsville: Former Standard-Examiner columnist Charles Trentelman will discuss the impact of the railroad on Ogdens history and expansion.

 Building Tracks to New Beginnings: Japanese Railroad Workers in the West, Wednesday, April 24, 7 p.m., Weber County Library North Branch, 475 E. 2600 North, Ogden: Judge Raymond Uno and Lorraine Crouse, University of Utah photograph curator, will examine the stories of Japanese men who came to the United States to help build the railroad and ended up staying and establishing Japantowns across the West.

 Chinese Migrants and the Transcontinental Railroad, Tuesday, May 7, 6 p.m., Ogden Union Station, 2501 Wall Ave., Ogden: Shelley Fishkin, Stanford University English professor, will discuss her research regarding Chinese railroad workers who helped build the transcontinental railroad.

 Rails and Ales: Hell on Wheels, Friday, May 10, 7 p.m., Union Grill, 315 24th St., Ogden: Dick Kreck, retired Denver Post reporter, will discuss his book Hell on Wheels: Wicked Towns Along the Union Pacific Railroad, which inspired the AMC series Hell on Wheels.
WEST JORDAN  The Western Stampede Committee is looking for volunteers to help plan the 65th annual rodeo.

To learn more about opportunities to serve on the Western Stampede Committee, email events@wjordan.com or call 801-569-5160.
SALT LAKE CITY  Who cuts your grass?

When it comes to any kind of large-scale tax reform, messaging is vital. Utahs legislative leaders might be able to persuade the public if they could sit down with each person for an hour and go through details and philosophy, but no one has time for that. Instead, it comes down to simple phrases.

And sometimes those miss the mark.

Like when it comes to who cuts your grass.

On Monday, the first day of the 2019 legislative session, leaders in both the House and Senate tried to explain the need for extending the sales tax to more services. Senate President Stuart Adams said 40 or 50 years ago, people used to buy tools to do things they now pay others to do for them. He used lawns as an example.

We used to buy our lawn mower, he said. Now we have our lawns mowed. Mowing of the lawn doesnt have a sales tax related to it. But buying a lawn mower does.

Therefore, the state should begin requiring lawn-mowing services to charge and collect sales taxes.

I suppose this is one of those things that depends on where you live. A colleague who lives in Salt Lake City told me many of her neighbors hire lawn services. I live in the suburbs and proudly mow my own grass on summer weekends.

Many of my neighbors do, too. Admittedly, I have seen how some people on my street hire a young man to do it for them, but that raises another question. If the state begins requiring lawn-mowing services to charge tax, would that include teenagers with initiative who go around their neighborhoods looking for ways to make extra money?

When I asked House Speaker Brad Wilson that, he said, Were sure working on the details, meaning no one yet has answers to such a question.

So, lawn mowing may not be the best bumper sticker explanation for what Republican lawmakers are trying to do with sales taxes. But then, what would be?

The need to charge sales tax when you visit the doctor? How about when you take your next Uber ride? Your next haircut? The tax preparation service you hire an accountant to do? Having your rain gutters cleaned by the neighborhood handyman?

The truth is, there probably is no easy bumper sticker explanation for this. That doesnt mean its a bad idea.

Lawmakers and the governor say the state used to tax about 70 percent of transactions in the economy. Now its down to 40 percent. This isnt just because some of us hire people to do our lawn. We stream movies rather than go to the theater. We dont buy records or CDs anymore. We stream them through services such as Amazon Prime. The list goes on.

The economy has changed in profound ways, and that has left the state vulnerable. Most of its general fund money comes from sales taxes. If the trend continues, the state eventually would have trouble fixing roads and providing other essential services.

In addition, recessions hit the sales tax hard as people quickly stop buying things. Spreading the tax to more services would reduce that blow a bit.

But the grand goal of all this tax reform is to extend the tax so far and wide that the state could lower its sales tax rate in addition to giving what might amount to $200 million or more in an overall tax cut.

That would mean paying less sales tax for everything thats taxed.

That would be a great bumper sticker, right? A big tax cut is short and easy to understand.

Except that, if you suddenly have to pay a sales tax, even at a reduced rate, when someone cuts your grass, it wont seem like a tax cut at all. It will seem more like a tax hike.

Senate President Adams summed it up well. As you make any type of tax changes, this will be tough, he said.

That is certainly true with sales tax reform, and it will be especially so as people show up to hearings to argue why taxing them would be bad for the economy.

Too bad there isnt an easy way to explain it to them.
New Revenue Will Fund Parks, Mental Health Services, College Affordability and Healthy Food for Kids

DENVER  The City and County of Denver, working with its partners in the community and members of City Council, is creating the infrastructure for the four initiatives passed overwhelmingly by Denver voters last year. Below is a description of each one including next steps, like establishing special revenue funds, filling board positions, community engagement and input, and timelines for delivering services.



Measure 2A (parks sales tax):

This measure will provide a projected $37 million per year for parks construction and maintenance.

First steps:

The Department of Finance will establish a special revenue fund with approval from City Council.

Per the ballot measure, Department of Parks and Recreation is developing a framework for a five year plan, using Game Plan for a Healthy City as a guide for the work, with community outreach and input being gathered through April.

Timeline: City Council will likely consider the Special Revenue Fund request in February. If the five-year plan is approved by City Council, residents could start to see projects funded by this measure before the end of the year.

More information: Department of Parks and Recreation

Initiated Ordinance 300 (college scholarship fund sales tax)



The measure will provide a projected $12 million per year for scholarships for Denver students who qualify to attend a public or not-for-profit college, university, community college or technical school in Colorado. The measure also creates a tax-funded nonprofit organization to provide oversight.

First steps:

The Department of Finance will establish a special revenue fund with approval from City Council.

A seven-member Board, acting as the decision-making body on the distribution of funds to organizations, will be established by the Mayor and City Council: Six community members appointed by the Mayor and approved by City Council One City Council member, selected from the body



Timeline: City Council will likely consider the Special Revenue Fund request in February. The Mayor and City Council will seat the Board. Reimbursement from the Denver College Affordability non-profit to various organizations will happen first quarter 2020.

More information: Office of Childrens Affairs

Initiated Ordinance 301 (mental and behavioral health sales tax):

This initiated ordinance will provide a projected $37 million per year for mental health services and addiction services for children and adults.

First steps:

The Department of Finance will establish a special revenue fund with approval from City Council.

Funding will be allocated to a non-profit (501c3) that will then distribute funding to various organizations working on addressing mental health.

A 13-member Board will be established: Six ex-officio members appointed by the Mayor (executive director of Public Health and Environment, executive director of Human Services, City Attorney, the CEO of Denver Health, the CEO of the community mental health provider, and the District Attorney or their respective designees) Two members appointed by the District Attorney Five community members appointed by the President of City Council



Timeline: City Council will likely consider the Special Revenue Fund request in February. The Mayor, City Council and District Attorney will seat the Board. The non-profit will develop a strategic plan to determine funding priorities. Funds are estimated to be available to agencies in late 2019 to early 2020.



More information: Department of Public Health and Environment



Initiated Ordinance 302 (healthy foods for kids sales tax):



This initiative will provide a projected $12 million in the first year to Denver organizations working to provide more healthy food to children in low-income families.

First steps:



The Department of Finance will establish a special revenue fund with approval from City Council.

A 13-member Denver Food Commission will be established to determine the allocation of funding: 11 community members appointed by the Mayor Two community members appointed by City Council



Timeline: City Council will likely consider the Special Revenue Fund request in February. The Mayor and City Council will seat the Broad.



More information: Department of Public Health and Environment

Applications to apply for one of the board positions appointed by the mayor can be submitted here. For positions appointed by Denver City Council or the Denver District Attorney, please contact their respective offices.
DALTON LAFERNEY can be reached at 940-566-6882 and via Twitter at @daltonlaferney.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881 and via Twitter at @phwolfeDRC.
An investigation into Bonsall has finished and new charges against him, associated with allegations that he continued to have contact with the girl, will be filed within the next week, York County senior deputy prosecutor Kara Bowser said in court Monday, according to The York Daily Record.
SUBMITTED PHOTO

Michael Chambers is seen in this police photo, apparently posing with what police believe is the firearm he used to shoot a victim in the back during a robbery.
Editor of Town Talk, News & Press of Delaware County

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courts

Chester woman gets prison time for supplying fentanyl in fatal OD
Ben Curren, CEO of Green Bits, a tech platform used by cannabis dispensaries, said: There is a cruel irony that the people hit hardest by the war on drugs are often hit a second time by not being able to get a job in the legal cannabis industry. Ms. Mosbys decision is a great step forward for the city of Baltimoreand for the state of cannabis in this country.
A meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing is going to be the last major engagement between New Delhi and the communist country before the parliamentary elections in India.

Swaraj will visit Beijing next month to take part in a meeting of the RIC (Russia-India-China) foreign ministers. She will hold a bilateral meeting with Wang on the sideline of the RIC meet, sources in New Delhi said.

Swaraj-Wang meet in Beijing is likely to be the last high-level engagement between the two neighbouring nations before the Lok Sabha polls in India. New Delhi and Beijing had a series of engagements in 2018 to mend the ties, which had hit a new low over the military face-off at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan in June-August 2017.

External Affairs Minister will also hold a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sideline of the multilateral meet.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday decried the practice among lawyers to criticise judges in the media and give political colours to their judgements, which is nothing less than the gravest form of contempt.

Whenever any political matter comes to the court and is decided, either way, political insinuations are attributed by unscrupulous persons/advocates. Such acts are nothing, but an act of denigrating the judiciary itself and destroys the faith of the common man which he reposes in the judicial system, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran said.

The court said that unfortunately, some advocates feel that they are above the Bar Council due to its inaction and they are the only champion of the causes.

Justice Mishra has himself been in the eye of storm as activist lawyers targeted him for various cases having far reaching consequences were marked to him for adjudication, including Justice B H Loya death case. He had recused from hearing the judge Loya case after four senior-most judges, including present CJI Ranjan Gogoi, addressed a press conference on January 12, 2018 protesting against sending cases to select benches.

It is unfortunate without any rationale basis the independence of the system is being sought to be protected by those who should keep aloof from it. Independence of each system is to come from within. If things are permitted to be settled by resorting to the unscrupulous means and the institution is maligned by creating pressure of any kind, the very independence of the system would be endangered. Cases cannot be decided by media trial, Justice Mishra in a 73-page judgement.

The top court quashed the Madras High Court rules on a writ petition by advocate R Muthukrishnan, which allowed the principal district judge to debar a lawyer from appearing in courts on misconduct like taking money in the name of judge, browbeating or abusing the judge.

The court said the circumstances may be grim, but the autonomy of the Bar Council in the disciplinary matters cannot be taken over by the courts.

Fair criticism of judgment and its analysis is permissible. Lawyers' fearlessness in court, independence, uprightness, honesty, equality are the virtues which cannot be sacrificed, the court said.

However, the court said, it was not open to wash its dirty linen in public and enter in accusation and debates, which tactics were being adopted by unscrupulous elements to influence the judgments and even to deny justice with ulterior motives.
More than 2,000 women from various parts of Karnataka are taking out a padayatra and 'jail bharo Andolan' from Malleshwaram to Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday demanding a ban on the sale of liquor in the state.

Protest started from Malleshwaram towards Freedom Park @DeccanHerald pic.twitter.com/rl6x2wS2ZH  Darshan Devaiah B P (@DarshanDevaiahB) January 30, 2019

The decision to hold a rally was taken during a huge public convention held at Siddaganga Matha on January 26.

The reasons for the protest against the sale of liquor is domestic violence happening to the women in rural areas. Around 3000 women had participated in the movement which started from Chitradurga on January 19, said Abhay, an activist.

On 30th January 2019, the day Mahatma Gandhi was martyred, women will march towards Bengaluru and lay siege to Vidhana Soudha. People's movement, organisations, students groups and youths thinkers have joined hands with the organisers to strengthened their struggle. Women want liquor to be banned in the state and they don't mind going to jail for this. It is indeed very heartening to see women walking with their children in the hot sun and old people too are walking with them, said Prasanna an activist.

It is very shameful that none of the elected representatives has come to visit the padayatra till date, he added.

I request Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to ban liquor by October 2 Gandhi Jayanti, the movement will not stop till the women get justice," said freedom fighter H. S. Doreswamy.

"I request @CMofKarnataka @hd_kumaraswamy to ban liquor by October 2 Gandhi Jayanthi, the movement will not stop till the women get justice" said freedom fighter H. S. Doreswamy.@DeccanHerald pic.twitter.com/6kRbwXSsOK  Darshan Devaiah B P (@DarshanDevaiahB) January 30, 2019

Theatre personality Arundhati Nag also joined the protest.
South Korean tech giant Samsung Monday launched its Galaxy M smartphones in the country, a series that has been designed to ground up in India, as it looks to re-capture its pole position from rival Xiaomi.

Samsung has launched two models - M20 and M10 - priced at Rs 7,990 onwards that will be available online from February 5.

"Today's millennials want a smartphone that is lighting fast, runs longer and comes loaded with latest innovations. Meaningful innovation and customer-centric approach form a part of our very DNA and the new Galaxy M series is an embodiment of that commitment," Asim Warsi, senior vice-president of Samsung India, said.

Earlier, Warsi had said the company aims to clock double-digit growth in the Indian market this year, and the new Galaxy M series would play an important part.

Citing GfK data, Warsi had said the company exited the December 2018 quarter with a 40 per cent value share of the market.

However, reports from other research organisations such as IDC and Counterpoint have positioned Xiaomi to be ahead of Samsung (in terms of units shipped) for many quarters now.

According to Counterpoint, Xiaomi led the smartphone market in India in 2018 with 28 per cent share, followed by Samsung (24 per cent). The hyper-competitive Indian smartphone market witnessed the fastest growth among major markets, expanding by 10 per cent in 2018 over the previous year to over 145 million units, it added.

The Chinese player had entered the Indian market through online channel, and has been focussed on aggressively expanding its offline presence over the last many months.

The M10 features a 6.2-inch display, 3400 mAh battery and 13-megapixel+5MP rear and 5MP front camera. It will be available in 2GB RAM/16GB internal memory and 3GB RAM/32GB memory versions.

The M20, on the other hand, includes a 6.3-inch display, 8MP front camera and 5,000 mAh battery.

It will start taking steps this year to replace plastic packaging materials with paper and other environmentally sustainable elements, Samsung said.

The packaging used currently for Samsung's products and accessories like mobile phones, tablets and home appliances "will be substituted with environmentally sustainable materials like recycled or bio-based plastics and paper".

"To revamp product packaging, Samsung Electronics has formed a task force involving design and development, purchasing, marketing and quality control for innovative packaging ideas," it added.

By 2030, Samsung aims to use 500,000 tons of recycled plastics and collect 7.5 million tonnes of discarded products (both cumulative from 2009), the statement said.
Moscow: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he was ready to hold negotiations with the US-backed Opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.

I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the Opposition so that we could talk for the good of Venezuela, Maduro told the Russian news agency in an interview.

He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised him more economic and military support during phone talks last week.

Most modern arms supplies will reach Vene-zuela, he said, adding such supplies were arriving every month.

There is cooperation every month. This is normal, nothing extraordinary about this, he added.

Venezuela is a rare Moscow ally in Latin America. The two countries have a long history of ties and Maduros predecessor Hugo Chavez, known for his tirades against the US, was a welcome guest at the Kremlin.

The US, a dozen Latin American nations and Canada recognised Gua-ido as interim president, while China and Russia urged non-interference.
Moscow: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused Donald Trump of ordering neighbouring Colombias government to kill him, but said he was open to the possibility of talks with the US leader and his own domestic foes.

In an interview with Russias RIA agency, Maduro rejected calls for an early election, said an order to arrest his rival Juan Guaido had not yet been given, and promised Caracas would honour debts to Russia and China.

Facing the biggest challenge of his six-year rule, the 56-year-old socialist leader also said his armed forces remained loyal and President Vladimir Putin was firmly behind him.

Maduros comments were published on Wednesday as the fight for control of Venezuela escalated with the government preparing a probe into self-declared interim president Guaido, and new street protests planned.

Venezuela plunged further into turmoil last week after the US recognised Guaido, 35, as acting president, while Russia, which has lent Caracas an estimated $17 billion since 2006, continued to back Maduro.

Donald Trump has without doubt given an order to kill me and has told the government of Colombia and the Colombian mafia to kill me, Maduro told RIA.
London: British MPs have voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit, but backed Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to renegotiate the divorce agreement already struck with the EU, setting up a new showdown with the 28-member bloc after it ruled out any change.

In a series of votes on Tuesday, lawmakers rejected a no-deal Brexit by 318 votes to 310, undermining the government's argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the EU without an agreement.

However, the vote is not legally binding - meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date of March 29. Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the European Union.

With just 59 days to go until Britain leaves the EU, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek "alternative arrangements" to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit. May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an "emphatic message" of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

"We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the House's views," May said in a statement after the vote. To succeed, May must secure concessions within weeks on issues that have been raked over for months. The EU showed no sign of giving in to the UK. A spokesman for Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, insisted that the Brexit deal "is not open for renegotiation."

"The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union," the spokesman said. Dublin also rejected any attempt to re-open the Brexit deal.

"The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation," the Irish government said in a statement. Earlier, the Commons had voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour Party MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes. If passed, the amendment would have secured time for MPs to vote on a draft bill that sought to hand Parliament the power to request an extension of the Brexit negotiations if Theresa May failed to secure backing of her Brexit plans by February 26.

The votes came as part of changes sought to the British PM's current proposals before she seeks a re-negotiation of an agreement with the EU, which she will hope is more acceptable to a deeply divided UK Parliament.

The House of Commons on Tuesday also rejected a bid by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labour's Brexit plans. Corbyn's call for more time to be given for MPs to consider alternatives to the Brexit deal was the first in a series of amendments being put to the vote on Tuesday evening.

Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29 and there is a scramble to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to all sides before that deadline to avoid a chaotic no-deal crashout of the UK from the economic bloc.

Different Brexit factions have tabled amendments to Theresa May's exit plan, which she was forced to bring back to the Commons on Tuesday after MPs had overwhelmingly rejected her Brexit deal earlier this month.
Senior US official made the remarks as the members met in Beijing (File Photo)

Beijing: The United States called for more transparency on Wednesday as it accused Russia and China of not fully reporting their nuclear programmes amid US threats to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.

A senior US official made the remarks as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- all of them nuclear-armed powers -- met in Beijing for talks on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Andrea Thompson, US under secretary for arms control and international security, said there were "uneven results" in efforts to advance transparency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"We previously agreed to set (a) format for reporting, but the gap between the reports of the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, is great," Thompson said in her opening remarks.

"I cannot overemphasise the value of transparency," she said. "We look forward to discussing how we can enhance transparency with a view to reassuring others of the very real steps we are taking to ensure full and verifiable compliance with our arms control non-proliferation and disarmament commitments and obligations."

Officials from Russia, China, France and Britain -- countries under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty -- also attended the meeting, which will continue on Thursday. The talks come after months of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

US President Donald Trump has promised to walk away from the agreement while President Vladimir Putin has threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

Earlier this month, talks in Geneva between senior diplomats from both countries fell through as Washington and Moscow blamed each other for pushing the INF treaty to the brink of collapse.

Last week, Russia unveiled its missile system in a bid to reassure foreign officials that its weapon was in compliance with the INF treaty. But Washington has said the missile system should be destroyed in a verifiable manner if Moscow wants to keep the INF alive. At Wednesday's conference in Beijing, deputy Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed at "the spread of unilateral attitudes" as a threat to nuclear non-proliferation.

"Many issues continue to be unsettled due to the lack of political will," he added, and said that there is an "evident lack of mutual trust" between the five NPT states. "This (NPT) regime is being loosened, which is fraught with serious and negative impacts for nuclear non-proliferation," he said.
Sydney: Hundreds of thousands of fish have died in drought-stricken Australia in the last few days and more mass deaths are likely to occur, the authorities warned on Tuesday.

Locals around the Darling River were confronted with a sea of white, as dead fish carpeted the waters near the southeastern Outback town of Menindee.

Just weeks after up to a million were killed  with scientists pointing to low water and oxygen levels as well as possibly toxic algae  another mass death occurred in the key food growing region.

Inspectors from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries have visited the site and said they found that hundreds of thousands of fish have died. Further fish deaths in the Darling River are anticipated as a significant number of fish have been observed under stress, the department said in a statement.

The Darling River is part of the Murray-Darling River system that stretches thousands of km across several states. With temperatures expected to rise and no rain forecast, there remained a high risk of further fish kills over the coming days and week, officials said.

While the federal government has blamed the deaths on a severe drought, experts and locals say they stem from the systemic depletion and pollution of the river.

The inspectors added that the latest bout of kills were likely linked to critically low levels of dissolved oxygen caused by a sharp drop in temperatures after an extended period of hot weather.

NSW regional water minister Niall Blair, who visited Menindee Tuesday, told broadcaster ABC his government was out of options, with installing aerators in rivers only a band-aid solution.

Its not a case of not being able to spend money on something, there just isn't any other alternative that anyone has offered up, Blair said.

The only thing that will really change these conditions at the moment is fresh water coming through the system and there is just no possibility of that at the moment.
Washington: The US Justice Department on Monday unveiled sweeping charges against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in two cases likely to ratchet up tensions between the two superpowers  including that of a top executive arrested in Canada on a US warrant.

The department unveiled 13 charges against Huawei Technologies, its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou  the daughter of the companys founder who is currently out on bail in Canada  and two affiliates related to violating US sanctions on Iran. Mengs case has sparked a major crisis between Beijing and Ottawa.

The indictment was unsealed as Chinas top trade negotiator arrived in Washington for high-stakes talks with US officials, possibly complicating the discussions ahead of a March deadline to avert a deepening of their trade war. In addition, 10 US federal charges were filed against two Huawei affiliates for stealing robot technology from T-Mobile. Both sets of charges expose Huaweis brazen and persistent actions to exploit US companies and financial institutions, and to threaten the free and fair global marketplace, said FBI director Christopher Wray.

China reacted furiously, saying there were strong political manipulations behind the case against Huawei. In a statement, Huawei denied that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations of US law set forth in each of the indictments.

The firm is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms Meng (Wanzhou), and believes the US courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion, it added.

Late on Monday, Canadas Justice Department confirmed that officials had received a formal extradition request from the US, reported Canadian broadcaster CBC, with a hearing set for February 6.
Isaac was one of two men fatally shot on New Years Day in Baltimore. He was shot in the 4900 block of Frederick Ave. at about 4:25 p.m. and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.
n Theres no shortage of oil right now as global supplies hit a record last summer.

Washington: The US announced sanctions against Venezuelas state oil company on Monday in a coordinated effort with the main Opposition leader to cripple embattled President Nicolas Maduros power base.

The measures against state-owned PDVSA were presented as a way of preventing the Leftist strongman from looting the coffers in his economically ruined country before he is replaced by the man Washington says is the rightful interim president  Opposition leader Juan Guaido. The purpose of sanctions is to change behaviour, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at the White House. So when there is a recognition that the company is the property of, the rightful rulers, the rightful leaders, then indeed that money will be available to Guaido.

Guaido, who heads the National Assembly legislature and has named himself acting president, issued a statement, saying he was taking orderly control of our republics assets abroad to prevent a departing Maduro from trying to empty the coffers.

Venezuela was once a Latin American success story and has the worlds largest oil reserves, but has been driven into the ground during years of hardline Leftist rule.

With millions short of food and other basic resources, there is widespread discontent. How-ever, so far, Maduro has retained the backing of the powerful armed forces, as well as support from Russia and China.

Washington has moved decisively to seek the exit of Maduro by recognising Guaido and urging the military to switch loyalties.

President Donald Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton, called for security forces to accept the peaceful, democratic and constitutional transfer of power.

Weve seen Venezuelan official and military personnel heeding this call, he added, citing the defection this weekend of the countrys military attache to Washington.

Bolton also would not rule out the use of US troops.

The President has made it clear on this matter that all options are on the table, he told reporters.
Remarks by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats came as he and heads of other top American intelligence agencies appeared on Tuesday before the Senate (Representational Image)

Washington: Militant groups supported by Pakistan, which uses some terror outfits as "policy tools", will continue to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, according to America's top spymaster.

Remarks by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats came as he and heads of other top American intelligence agencies appeared on Tuesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on their worldwide threat assessment.

Coats said Pakistan's "narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperation-using some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistan-almost certainly will frustrate US counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban."

"Militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in India and Afghanistan, including against US interests," Coats told the members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats Prominent among them included CIA Director Gina Haspel, who has just returned from a trip to India; FBI Director Christopher Wray and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Robert Ashley.

The comment on South Asia is part of US intelligence community's assessment of worldwide threats in 2019 and was presented in the form of a written document to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Coats.

Coats said that the challenges facing South Asian states will grow in 2019 because of Afghanistan's presidential election in mid-July and the Taliban's large-scale attacks, Pakistan's recalcitrance in dealing with militant groups, and Indian elections that risk communal violence.

"We assess that neither the Afghan Government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year if coalition support remains at current levels," he said.

Afghan forces generally have secured cities and other government strongholds, but the Taliban has increased large-scale attacks, and Afghan security suffers from a large number of forces being tied down in defensive missions, mobility shortfalls, and a lack of reliable forces to hold recaptured territory, Coats said.
On Monday, the United States announced criminal charges against Huaweis Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and the Chinese technology firm.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday he expected to see significant progress in trade talks with Chinese officials this week and that US charges against telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd were a separate issue.

Those are separate issues, and thats a separate dialogue, Mnuchin said in an interview with Fox Business Network. So those are not part of trade discussions. Forced technology issues are part of trade discussions, but any issues as it relates to violations of US law or US sanctions are going through a separate track.

Chinas Vice Premier Liu He is leading a delegation for high-level trade and economic talks in Washington this week, including a meeting with US President Donald Trump.

On Monday, the United States announced criminal charges against Huaweis Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and the Chinese technology firm. But Mnuchin said he did not expect the issue to be part of the economic talks.

Meng, who is the daughter of Huaweis founder, was arrested in Canada in December and is fighting extradition to the United States.

Mnuchin said the US security concerns raised by the Huawei case were separate from the conversation on trade and forced technology.

There are two different issues. One is an issue of state subsidies regarding Beijings subsidies, he said. The other, he added, was a national security issue focused on US infrastructure and cybersecurity.

These are separate issues and shouldnt be confused, Mnuchin said.

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Meng was charged with bank and wire fraud to violate American sanctions against Iran. (Photo: AP)

Huawei Technologies Co Ltds chief financial officer, the central figure in a high-stakes dispute between the worlds two largest economies, made her first appearance in a Canadian court in more than a month on Tuesday as Ottawa weighs extraditing the Chinese executive to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the Chinese telecommunications companys founder, attended the hearing in British Columbia Supreme Court during which Justice William Ehrcke approved her request for a change in who is financially responsible for her bail.

Canada arrested Meng on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States, which on Monday brought sweeping charges against Huawei and Meng that paint the company as a threat to US national security. Meng was charged with bank and wire fraud to violate American sanctions against Iran.

I can confirm that the United States has filed a formal request with my department for the extradition of Ms Meng, Justice Minister David Lametti told reporters in Ottawa.

Canadas government now has a month to decide whether the US extradition request is strong enough to be presented in the British Columbia court. Lametti asked whether a decision could come sooner than 30 days, said officials will take the time that they need to make an enlightened decision based on the evidence in front of them.

Neither Lametti nor Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland gave any hints on whether Canada would back the extradition request. Freeland told reporters Meng has been afforded access to Canadas impartial and objective judicial system.

Ehrcke on Dec. 11 approved Mengs release on CUSD 10 million (USD 7.5 million) bail, and she has stayed at a family residence in Vancouver. Canadas government agreed to her request concerning bail at Tuesdays hearing, which the judge granted. Ehrcke also postponed Mengs next scheduled court appearance by a month, to March 6, which comes after the 30-day extradition decision deadline.

Before the hearing, Meng, who is fighting extradition, spoke with her lawyer David Martin, holding a notepad.

Her arrest further aggravated US-Chinese tensions at a time when the two economic powerhouses are locked in a trade war. President Donald Trump said in December he could intervene in Mengs case if it would serve US national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

Following Mengs arrest, China arrested two Canadians on national security grounds. A Chinese court later re-tried a Canadian man who had been jailed for drug smuggling and sentenced him to death.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday fired his ambassador to China, who had said Meng could make a strong argument against being sent to the United States.

In a previously sworn affidavit, Meng said she is innocent and would contest the allegations at trial in the United States if she is extradited. Her lawyer Reid Weingarten said Meng should not be a pawn or a hostage in complex Sino-US relations.

Huawei is the worlds largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones. It derives nearly half of its total revenue outside China.

In Ottawa, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canadas decision on whether to ban Huawei from supplying equipment to 5G networks is some ways off into the future.

Goodales comments were the most specific indication yet from Ottawa on the timing of the politically sensitive announcement. Officials are studying the security implications of 5G networks, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. The United States and other Canadian allies have already imposed restrictions on Huawei equipment, citing the risk of espionage.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday he expected significant progress in Washington trade talks with Chinese officials, set for Wednesday and Thursday. Mnuchin said the US security concerns raised by the Huawei case were separate from the trade issue.

Chinas foreign ministry has urged the United States to drop the arrest warrant against Meng and end unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies. China has demanded the executives immediate release.

Huaweis global reach has come under attack from the United States, which is trying to prevent US companies from buying Huawei equipment and is pressing allies to do the same. US security experts are worried the gear could be used by Chinas government for espionage, a concern Huawei calls unfounded.

US intelligence and national security officials expressed fresh national security concerns about Huawei during a US Senate committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers the lines between the Chinese government and ostensibly private companies are blurred if not totally erased and especially the lines between lawful behaviour and fair competition and lying and hacking and cheating and stealing.

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The Commission called on Facebook to provide more clarity on how it uses its tools to fight fake news and told Google to expand its actions to more EU countries.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla must do more to combat fake news as Europeans head towards an election or the companies will face the threat of regulatory action, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Companies and trade bodies representing the advertising industry signed up to a voluntary code of conduct in October to ward off more heavy-handed legislation. Critics say not enough has been done since they signed up.

The European Unions executive said signatories to the code of practice had taken steps to remove fake accounts and limit sites promoting fake news but said more was needed.

Now they should make sure these tools are available to everyone across the EU, monitor their efficiency, and continuously adapt to new means used by those spreading disinformation. There is no time to waste, EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said.

European Parliament will hold elections in May while Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine all go to the polls in coming months.

Russia has faced allegations - which it denies - of spreading false information to influence the US presidential election and Britains referendum on European Union membership in 2016, as well as Germanys national election in 2017.

The Commission called on Facebook to provide more clarity on how it uses its tools to fight fake news and told Google to expand its actions to more EU countries.

It said Twitter should provide more details on its measures while it said Mozillas online browser should have more information on how it would limit details about users browsing activities.

The Commission also lamented the absence of advertisers signing up to the pact.

Google said it had announced several measures such as disclosing whether political organisations or political issue advocacy groups were paying for European parliamentary election advertisements and setting up a library with these details.

Googles Project Shield would help protect campaign groups and journalists from cyber-attacks, it said.

Facebook said: The battle against false news is an ongoing one, and we need to work together with others in the technology industry, public authorities and governments to make continued progress.

Twitter said in a statement it had made several changes including enhanced safety policies, better tools and resources for detecting and stopping malicious activity, tighter advertising standards, and increased transparency to promote better public understanding of all of these areas.

Mozilla had no immediate comment.

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It would not be an exaggeration to say that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not born a saint but achieved it through readings and by leading a disciplined life.

Several political leaders and true Gandhians will gather today at Rajghat to pay floral and prayerful tribute to the Father of the Nation. As long as I was in Delhi, I used to be a part of the multi-religious prayer meeting that takes place at the samadhi of the great Indian saint. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhis assassination, it is instructive to remember what Albert Einstein said on Gandhis 70th birthday. Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

What really shocked the world then and continues to remain a paradox even today is that a powerful advocate of peace and non-violence should have met such a violent end. Gandhi had once said, I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. His martyrdom brought to fore the result of unrestrained hatred.

While much has been written on and about the Mahatma and his own profound thoughts and inspirational writings make for commendable readings, the question is, if the lapse of 71 years after he last pronounced Hey Ram has blurred or even blocked our minds and hearts to his noble teachings?

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not born a saint but achieved it through readings and by leading a disciplined life. Gandhi was greatly influenced by Leo Tolstoy, through his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You, the title from Lukes Gospel and his essay on Christianity and Patriotism.Tolstoys ideal of simplicity of life and purity of purpose influenced Gandhi deeply. In that book, Tolstoy speaks of the principle of nonviolent resistance when confronted by violence, as taught by Jesus Christ. When Christ says to turn the other cheek, Tolstoy asserts that Christ means to abolish violence, even the defensive kind, and to give up revenge. Three other important persons who influenced his life were John Ruskin through his book, Unto this Last; his personal relationship with Raychandbhai and Gopal Krishna Gokhle, whom Gandhi considered as his teacher.

Gandhi once told Millie Polak, a pastor friends wife in South Africa: I did once seriously think of embracing the Christian faith, The gentle figure of Christ, so patient, so kind, so loving, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck

The Mahatmas life continues to inspire and challenge us even today. His appeal to be truthful and to work for peace and to preserve the multi-religious fabric of Indias proud civilisation that he wrestled with till his last breath remains an unfinished task worth pursuing for all of us.
Speaking the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Ahmedabad last week, and addressing the creme of Indian and foreign businessmen and political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Reliance Industries boss Mukesh Ambani, the richest and most powerful corporate leader in the country, made an unexpected and unusual demand to the government. Mr Ambani said that data is a new oil and new wealth, and therefore must be controlled and owned by Indian people  and not by corporates, especially global corporations.

He added: Gandhiji led Indias movement against political colonisation. Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonization For India to succeed in this data driver revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India  in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian.

Brave words that sound as if they are coming from a left-wing radical and not the man who controls a large telecom enterprise. If we examine what is likely and what would remain a challenge for Indian corporates, a more complex picture emerges.

What is more feasible is for Reliance Industries is to roll out its online shopping platform that will take on both Amazon and Walmart Incs Flipkart. Reliance plans to take on the worlds largest retailers by combining its Jio telecom service, mobile devices and a vast physical retail network of grocery, electronics and other stores. The Indian conglomerate will join Amazon and Flipkart in aggressively trying to capture a larger share in the worlds fastest-growing major e-commerce market.

Reliance has begun trials of the companys new e-marketing venture in six cities, including the big metros. It also plans to enlist small neighbourhood shops as delivery centres. It also has long years of experience in getting the governments support to change policies to benefit it. Last month, India tightened the rules that would disallow foreign-owned online retailers from selling products via companies in which they own equity. These are expected to affect the operations of Amazon as well as its rival Walmart, and are expected to benefit local enterprises such as Reliance.

With its vast monetary resources and managerial skill at its disposal, there seems little reason why the company cannot become a major player in the e-commerce space. The problems arises when we consider data which is a new oil and new wealth, and therefore must be controlled and owned by Indian people  and not by corporates. First, it is not clear how this hidden wealth, based on the ordinary persons life and preferences, can be owned and controlled by such a person. This valuable data is gleaned by sophisticated mathematical algorithms from what the person sees or wants from the Internet. Big Internet giants like Google or Facebook offer their services for free and make money by offering their findings for a fee to those  whether corporations or governments  who want it either to market their wares or to corner a part of the popular vote during elections.

They consider this information to be very valuable since their profits and influence are based on it, and they would not want competitors to get hold of it. That is the main reason why this is stored in secure servers in their home countries. Google and Facebook are among the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world, more so even than Reliance, and have resisted the Indian governments attempts to keep the data on Indian users on servers in India, where the government or its agents could access it.

Facebook has been involved in campaigning for the BJP and for Mr Narendra Modi since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and now has an expert team of its executives in India preparing a campaign of news feeds for the BJP to discredit the Opposition parties. Facebook has in recent years supported six right-wing parties around the world.

Bloomberg reports: In India, the company helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who now has more Facebook followers than any other world leader. In the Philippines, it trained the campaign of Rodrigo Duterte, known for encouraging extrajudicial killings, in how to most effectively use the platform. And in Germany it helped the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD) win its first Bundestag seats. Other leaders that Facebook has supported include the Scottish National Party, Argentine President Mauricio Macri, and Polands nationalist President Andrzej Duda, who has presided over a crackdown on press freedom in the country.

Bloomberg further adds: India is arguably Facebooks most important market, with the nation recently edging out the United States as the companys biggest Since his election, Modis Facebook followers have risen to 43 million, almost twice Trumps count. As Modis social media reach grew, his followers increasingly turned to Facebook and WhatsApp to target harassment campaigns against his political rivals.

Now Google, which is much bigger than Facebook, promises to start searching for political ads and is likely to follow Facebook in a bid to influence politics. Despite his wealth and political influence, Mr Ambani is not likely to outgun Facebook or Google, and hence his concern over data colonisation.
This week the Narendra Modi government is in the dock over data.

What does the Narendra Modi government not want you to know? With the 2019 general election inching closer, this is now a hotly debated question across the country. Get ready for slugfests over data.

Data has always been a politically sensitive issue. Wily politicians across the world use data as a weapon to make a rhetorical point, rather than information that might inform policymaking. In democracies, citizens step up to the plate and challenge them when they do that. In the United States, President Donald Trump is routinely blasted for twisting government data to suit the political moment.

This week the Narendra Modi government is in the dock over data.

The acting chairman of Indias National Statistical Commission (NSC) and another member have quit their jobs because they felt the commission was being bypassed on several issues. With the resignations of P.C. Mohanan and J.V. Meenakshi, the countrys apex advisory body on statistical matters has lost two important members. This leaves the NSC with just chief statistician Pravin Srivastava and the Niti Aayogs Amitabh Kant as members.

What prompted their exit? Mr Mohanan, who was, till recently the acting chief of the NSC, has gone on record accusing the Central government of bypassing the commission during the finalisation of the controversial back series GDP data.

Last year, the Modi government had released GDP growth estimates for the previous years based on an entirely new method of calculation. All too predictably, the new data sparked a furore with the Opposition as well as independent economists questioning the new methodology which lowered the GDP growth during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) era and made the current regime look good by showing better economic performance since Mr Modi came to power.

The other major grouse of the statisticians who have quit the commission is the delay in the release of the new National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) employment survey data. This was already vetted by the NSC, they said, but it has not been made public yet. No official explanation has been given either.

The jousts over what prompted top statisticians to quit their jobs comes when a former Union finance minister has gone on record about his deep distrust over government data. I dont trust the figures given out by the government anymore, Mr Yashwant Sinha told members of the Indian Womens Press Corps recently.

This is a very strong statement coming from a man who was not only a top Indian bureaucrat, being a member of the IAS, but also twice Indias finance minister (under Prime Ministers Chandra Shekhar and Atal Behari Vajpayee), as well as a senior BJP leader till recently. Mr Sinha quit the party in April 2018.

Mr Sinha explained in detail the reasons for his concerns. One big worry was about the back series of GDP data. He pointed out that the government had constituted a committee headed by eminent economist Sudipto Mundle, but when the report presented some UPA years in a better light, it was quickly withdrawn.

Then the Niti Ayog came out with a new report to show that this governments growth numbers were better than both NDA-I and UPA, Mr Sinha said.

Another key concern. A report given to a parliamentary standing committee by the agriculture ministry on the impact of demonetisation on the agricultural sector showed it in a poor light. That report was quickly withdrawn after criticism, Mr Sinha told the journalists.

In recent days, there has also been loud speculation about why the Modi government has not yet released the National Crime Records Bureaus Crime in India Report. The NCRB report, released annually since 1953, offers important statistics on a range of crimes in the country such as crimes against women and children, SCs/STs and OBCs, human trafficking, etc. But the NCRB has not published the report for two consecutive years  2017 and 2018.

At a time of deep agrarian distress, there is also no comprehensive official data on farmer suicides.

Is the government trying to bury reports with politically unpalatable data about the job situation in the country and other inconvenient truths in the run-up to the parliamentary elections?

The questions will be asked, and not only by the BJPs political rivals.

Mr Modi came to power with the promise of creating millions of jobs for young Indians. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that data about jobs is a hot topic in the country. The governments sunny view about its record in job creation is not universally shared.

That India has been going through a period of jobless growth over the past two decades is not a matter of perception. Youth unemployment was a major political plank in the recent Assembly elections, and will continue to be one for the upcoming general election, said Himanshu, an associate professor at New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University and visiting fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, in a recent commentary piece in a national newspaper.

When 25 million people apply for 90,000 railway jobs, we have a real job problem, former Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan pointed out, not too long ago.

One of the things we have to focus on is job creation, I dont think we have been very successful in creating enough jobs even with a growth rate of 7-7.5 per cent, Gita Gopinath, an Indian-American and the International Monetary Funds chief economist, said recently.

You dont have to be a top economist to know we have a jobs crisis. Many ordinary Indians that this columnist has spoken to in recent weeks are worried about the job situation and law and order in the country. Even those who are employed say they are holding on to their money, delaying expenditures, because of uncertain job prospects in the immediate future.

The Modi government has maintained that more than a lack of jobs, the issue is a lack of data on jobs.

The jousts over data have begun, and will gather momentum.

Mr Modi speaks about good governance. To walk that talk, his government needs to come clean on data on crucial issues. Without access to reliable data, there can be no evidence-based policymaking nor good governance.

The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies. She can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com
Hyderabad: TRS-backed candidates won about 60 per cent of the seats in the panchayat elections that were held on a non-party basis, just months ahead of the general elections.

The TRS had won the Assembly polls winning 88 out of 119 seats.

After the third phase of polls on Wednesday, TRS-backed candidates and won 7.648 sarpanch seats out of the 12,732 on offer. Congress supporters had won 2,674 panchayats as per information available at 9.30 pm.

BJP-supported candidates won 162, Telugu Desam 82, CPI 50 and CPM had 72 panchayats. Others won at 1,804 places in all the three phases. While some panchayats did not get nominations, in others all nominations were rejected.

In the third phase of elections for 4,102 panchayats, 573 were declared unanimously elected.

According to information available, TRS supporters won in 2,409 panchayats, Congress 919, TD 12, BJP 58, CPI 19, CPM 20 and others won 485 panchayats.

The panchayat raj and rural employment commissioner has notified February 2 as the date for the first meeting of the gram panchayats where elections were held.

The commissioner said the date for panchayats where elections were not conducted or those whose term had not ended would be notified later.
His simplicity, his humbleness has to be really admired by all the Indians and the Goans, said Deputy Speaker and BJP MLA Michael Lobo. (Photo: ANI)

Panaji: Congress president Rahul Gandhi's simplicity, humbleness should be admired by all Goans and people across the country, said Deputy Speaker and BJP MLA Michael Lobo.

"Rahul Gandhi ji, who is the president of the Indian National Congress, is a leader in India and across the world. We are happy to receive him in this august House, Goa Legislative Assembly. He came on a very special visit to greet our ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. His simplicity, his humbleness has to be really admired by all the Indians and the Goans," Lobo said.

Rahul Gandhi paid a visit to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday morning.

"He is a very simple person and leaders like him are required in Goa and in India," the Goa MLA said.

"During his private visit to Goa, he especially came in the legislative assembly to meet our honourable Chief Minister who is unwell. He greeted him and wished him a speedy recovery. Wished him good health. So all Indians and Goans have to look at the tall leader for his simple and very humble gesture what he has shown as a leader. I really thank him for coming here," Lobo added.

Rahul and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi arrived in Goa on January 26 on a private plane and are residing in a five-star resort.

Parrikar is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February 2018.
While Teare and Marquadt survived their injuries, Dilda, who was in the back seat at the time of the crash, died while being treated at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
Hyderabad: The state government will once again be faced with a huge shortfall in the budgeted revenue and expenditure for the current financial year 2018-19.

Though the Andhra Pradesh government has availed of the overdraft facility every day except on holidays, the Telangana government has scrupulously observed fiscal discipline and avoided overdraft from the Reserve Bank of India.

The state government authorities are preparing the vote-on-account budget as well as the memorandum to the 15th Finance Commission to get higher quantum of funds from the Centre in view of the Commissions visit to the state in the second week of February.

The state government requires huge funds to continue to fulfil its promises made during the 2014 elections and also to implement the new promises made during the recent Assembly polls.

When the 14th Finance Commission visited Telangana the ruling Telangana Rashtriya Samithi government presented a surplus revenue whereas the Andhra Pradesh government presented the deficit revenue and succeeded in getting almost Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 12,000 crore from the Centre as revenue gap funding for the five years.

Sources in the finance department pointed out that though the state government is performing well, funds from the Centre are not coming in and the state is not getting the budgeted central funds.

During the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh state four years ago, it was decided that the Centre has to devolve the share of revenue in the ratio of 58:42 between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and that was one of the reasons Telangana got a lesser share than AP, though it has been recording considerable growth for the past 49 months.

Telangana achieved 14.1 per cent growth rate (GSDP) in 2017-18 and recently Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced that Telangana is a role model for the cause of farmers and is at the top in Gross State Domestic Product in the country with revenue growth of 29.93 per cent for the financial year 2018-19.

Mr Rao while holding a review with finance and senior officers in the backdrop of the visit of the 15th Finance Commission to the state, recently instructed officials of the finance department to prepare a memorandum highlighting Telanganas requirements.
Special Court for CBI cases on Wednesday framed fresh charges against former Union cabinet minister Dayanidhi Maran, his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran of Sun TV network and five others in connection with more than decade old illegal telephone exchange scam case.

Chennai: Special Court for CBI cases on Wednesday framed fresh charges against former Union cabinet minister Dayanidhi Maran, his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran of Sun TV network and five others in connection with more than decade old illegal telephone exchange scam case.

All the seven accused - Dayanidhi Maran, Kalanidhi Maran, former BSNL general manager K. Brahmanathan, former deputy general manager M. P. Velusamy, Dayanidhi Marans private secretary Gauthaman, Kannan and Ravi - Sun TV staff, appeared before the special judge for CBI cases R.Vasanthi on Wednesday morning. The judge read out the charges framed against them and asked them to respond.

Denying the allegation in the tiny crowded court hall, emotionally charged Dayanidhi Maran submitted that he had not committed any irregularity in obtaining telephone link.

And, the links were not used for Sun TV network and there was no proof to substantiate the allegation. This was a false case registered due to political vendetta. In the chargesheet filed in December 2106, the prosecution alleged that the telephone bills for both the houses came upto Rs 8.47 lakh. But, as a Union minister he was entitled to use telephones upto Rs 9 lakh.

Kalanithi Maran also denied the charges and said, "The CBI filed 6,000- page charge sheet citing 120 witnesses. None of the witnesses mentioned about my involvement. There is difference between me and others accused in the case. The case was foisted to harass me and eliminate Sun TV network. "I have been running the Sun TV since 1994. Whereas my brother was central minister from 2004 to 2007", he said.

Later, the judge posted the matter to 3 pm for passing order. When the case was taken up by the court in the afternoon, the judge registered charge sheet against all the seven accused and posted the matter to February 19 for commencement of trial.

According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran, during the check period of June 2004 to December 2006 when he was Union minister for communication and Information Technology, misused his office and installed a private telephone exchange at his residences in Chennai and used it for business transactions involving Sun Network, owned by Kalanidhi. The CBI said Dayanidhi Maran allegedly caused a loss of Rs 1.78 crore to the exchequer. More than 700 telecom lines had been installed in Maran's residences initially in Boat Club and later at Gopalapuram the agency alleged.
New Delhi: Accusing Congress leader Shashi Tharoor of insulting Hinduism by ridiculing the ongoing Kumbh with tactical support of party president Rahul Gandhi, the BJP on Wednesday said the former Union ministers comments were tantamount to religious slur.

Union textiles minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani said Mr Tharoor has often made comments targeting Hinduism.

The Congress MP had tweeted yesterday: Ganga has to be kept clean and sins are also to be washed here. Everyone is naked in this Sangam. Hail mother Ganga on a photograph of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet colleagues taking a dip at Sangam in Kumbh and apparently took a dig at them.

Attacking the opposition party after Mr Tharoor tweet, Ms Irani accused him of ridiculing the religious congregation.

Noting that Kumbh is a festival of faith and a biggest symbol of Hindu beliefs, Ms Irani said that Mr Tharoors comments were tantamount to religious slur as she accused him of ridiculing the religious congregation.

It is appalling and he has done it with tactical support of Rahul Gandhi, she said, claiming that the Congress presidents silence amounted to his support to Mr Tharoors insult of the Hinduism.

Hitting out at Mr Gandhi, the minister said he allows his party leaders to attack the beliefs of Hindus but strategically wears janeu (holy thread) when elections are round the corner.
New Delhi: Exhorting the BJP cadre to continue successfully challenging political opponents, who only promote casteism, corruption and dynasty, party president Amit Shah on Wednesday mocked the opposition parties for not naming a joint prime ministerial candidate and said if at all the opposition parties manage to form a government there will a different Prime Minister every day of the week.

Addressing booth-level party workers in Lucknow and Kanpur, Mr Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modis only motto is development and follows four Bs  Badhta Bharat and Banta Bharat (an India on the move), the opposition camp too has these Bs bua (aunt), bhatija (nephew), bhai (brother) and behen (sister).

The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is, said Mr Shah, addressing a meeting in Kanpur.

If the gathbandhan (alliance) takes shape, Mayawati will be the Prime Minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M.K.) Stalin on Saturday, and Sunday will be a holiday, he told party workers and mocked They are out to bring change and do not have a leader.

Narendra Modi is the only one who can give a strong government. They do not want a government which is run by a leader but by a dealer, Mr Shah said, addressing a similar meeting in Lucknow.

He said the BJPs win in the Lok Sabha elections should be such that it stops the heartbeat of the opposition. He said none of the Congress leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.
Clothes in the stalls set up at the exhibition being burnt to ashes. (GANDHI)

Hyderabad: The Exhibition Society, which organises the All India Industrial exhibition, had paid the fire brigade `20 lakh to station is personnel at the Numaish venue in Nampally.

Mr D. Mohan, an organiser with the society, said, We paid the fire brigade to maintain the fire tenders. There was no water even in the mobile tankers which were kept in the grounds.

The society members met with police officials and it was suggested that the exhibition will not be opened on Thursday. A final decision is yet to be taken.

Meanwhile, the wives of traders from Kashmir collected at the Exhibition Society and began crying as they were not able to locate their husbands. They said that the menfolk had helped them out of the stalls and rushed back to save their goods. The men were still missing, they said. The families were later reunited.

The Agra Food Court stall opened its doors for traders to have food free following the fire. Pista House sent 2,000 plates for the traders.

Pollution masks were distributed to fire fighters and the volunteers inside the exhibition.
Kochi: The High Court on Wednesday asked the state government to submit an explanation on the charges that Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran has intervened in the purchase of ticket vending machines by the KSRTC.

The court questioned the propriety of the minister issuing a letter to the managing director asking him to take special care of a particular company taking part in the tender process for the vending machines.

The court made the observation while considering a petition filed by a firm named Micro Effect. The court asked the circumstances that warranted the intervention of the minister and the reason for the special interest shown by him in the matter.

Although the counsel for the government submitted that the letter was issued as a routine matter, the court was not impressed. It has asked the government to submit an explanation and posted the matter for the next hearing after 10 days.
Hyderabad: Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, E.S.L. Narasimhan, in his address in the AP Assembly on Wednesday, accused the Centre of not resolving the problems arising out of state bifurcation. The same governor in his address in the Telangana assembly on January 19 accused combined AP for neglecting Telangana.

The Governor in his address said that even after four-and-a-half years, many commitments made by the Centre in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, and other assurances given by the then Prime Minister, have not been fulfilled.

Countless requests made by the state to the Union government for financial and infrastructural handholding, to bring the infant state onto a level playing field with neighbouring states, have literally fallen on deaf ears, the Governor said. He termed shocking the decision of the Centre to take back `350 crore credited to the state exchequer for developmental works for the year 2017-18 in the seven backward districts of the state, despite NITI Aayog certifying that utilisation certificates had been submitted. The Governor said that despite not getting support from the Centre, the state has come out of all adversities and become a role model. This is not only commendable but is a testimony of the performance of my government, he added.

In his address to the Telangana Assembly 11 days ago, Governor Narasimhan had said that taking into consideration the dimension of the neglect of resources and culture in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, the government of the new state had commenced its well planned journey in right earnest. He said steps have been initiated to restore the confidence of the desperate farmer by revitalising the agriculture sector, something that had been considered a waste of effort by governments of the united Andhra state.
Mumbai: Ignoring the state governments pleas, social activist Anna Hazare began a hunger strike on Wednesday over non-fulfilment of assurances by the Centre and the Maharashtra government on the appointment of Lokpal and passage of the Lokayukta Act in the state.

Mr Hazare offered prayers at the Padmavati Temple in his village Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district in the morning. He then went in a procession, accompanied by students, youths and farmers, to the Yadavbaba Temple and sat near it to begin his hunger strike.

Though he welcomed the State Cabinets decision to bring the office of state chief minister under the jurisdiction of Lokayukta, he vowed to continue the agitation.

The strike will continue till the government fulfils promises they made before coming to power about passage of Lokayukta Act, appointment of Lokpal and to tackle farmers issues, he said.
A woman leader of Hindu Mahasabha firing at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with an air pistol on Wednesday.

Lucknow: The police on Wednesday registered cases against 13 persons, including a woman leader of Hindu Mahasabha, in Aligarh for firing at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with an air pistol, a senior police official said.

Today on the occasion of the 71st death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, workers of Hindu Mahasabha fired at the effigy of Mahatma Gandhi.

The incident took place in a house in Naurang-abad locality of the city. Later, the video of the event went viral on social media, senior superinte-ndent of police of Aligarh Akash Kulhary said.

After the video went viral, a case was registered against 13 persons associated with Hindu Mahasabha including Pooja Shakun Pandey, a woman leader, the SSP said, adding no arrests have been made so far. The police are conducting raids to nab the accused persons.

Puja Shakun Pandey, the national secretary of the Hindutva organisation, distributed sweets to commemorate the assassination.

Godse had shot Gandhi dead in Delhi on January 30, 1948.

The day is observed as Martyrs Day.

The Hindutva outfit has held Gandhi responsible for Indias partition.

Eight people, including Nathuram Godse, faced trial in court in connection with the Mahatma Gandhi murder case. Out of the five remaining accused, three of them  Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa and Vishnu Ramakrishna  were sentenced to life imprisonment, while two of them  Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte  were sentenced to death. Godse was hanged to death on 15 November 1949 at Ambala jail.

Meanwhile, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation on Wednesday in paying tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at his 71st death anniversary.
The heinous 26 November 2008 attack on Mumbai ten years ago by a group of terrorists of Pakistans Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, who came by the sea route without being detected, exposed many weaknesses and lacunae in Indias coastal security. The attack shook the government into realising the urgent need to greatly tighten the security of Indias long coastline of 7,600 km, including its island territories and 2,000,000 square km of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The then home minister was changed and a beginning was made by the ministries of defence and home affairs having meetings to discuss and decide on long overdue raising/enhancing coastal police, providing them equipment, stepping up coastal patrolling, joint tactical exercises and multi-dimensional expeditions to explore and familiarise the armed forces personnel with stretches of India s vast seaboard.

In February 2009, the government designated the Indian Navy as the authority responsible for overall maritime security, which includes coastal and offshore security, assisted by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), state marine police forces and other central and state agencies. The ICG was additionally designated as the authority responsible for coastal security in territorial waters including areas to be patrolled by the coastal police. Further, to ensure that assets are optimally deployed and there is synergy between the two organisations, the Navy was assigned to control all Navy and Coast Guard joint operations.

Coastal security is complex construct since it involves activities both at sea and at land. The targets of the terrorists could be well inland. In the aftermath of 26/11, a holistic government approach to maritime security was adopted and a large number of measures were taken by a host of stakeholders. The National Committee on Strengthening Maritime and Coastal Security (NCSMCS) with cabinet secretary at the helm was established to review important matters pertaining to coastal security and for effective centre-state coordination. The same committees were established at state and district level. Also, joint operations centres (JOCs) of the Navy and coastal security operations centres of the Indian Coast Guard were set up.

A multi-tier patrol and surveillance mechanism with focus on technical surveillance and augmenting maritime domain awareness (MDA) through the coastal radar chain and other systems was adopted. Real-time information sharing through the national command, control, communication and intelligence (NC3I) network; greater intelligence and operational coordination were made the focus areas. Security initiatives were initiated in fisheries, offshore, ports and shipping sectors.

However, apart from the Navy and the Coast Guard, implementation of the multifarious actions involved by other ministries/departments was slow or incomplete.

Ten years after 26/11, the Indian Navy coordinated the largest-ever coastal defence exercise off the Indian coast on 22-23 January 2019, codenamed Sea Vigil. The first ever of its kind, this exercise was undertaken along the entire 7,516.6 km coastline and Indias EEZ involving all nine coastal states and four union territories along with all maritime stakeholders and facilitated by the ministries of defence, home affairs, shipping, petroleum and natural gas, fisheries, customs, state governments and other agencies of the Centre/state as well as the fishing and coastal communities.

The scale of the exercise was unprecedented in terms of the geographical extent, the number of stakeholders involved, the number of units deployed, and in terms of the objectives to be met. Planned in two phases, Phase I commenced with the deployment of personnel and seagoing units of all stakeholders. 150 ships and 35 aircraft of the Navy and Coast Guard were deployed for the exercise. This when added to sea-going assets of other stakeholders like the state police, CISF, Customs, etc, reached an astonishing 500-600 craft at sea. This layered defence provided almost unbroken surveillance along the entire coast of India and outlying islands. This was further enhanced by the chain of radar stations set up along the coast as part of the coastal surveillance network (post 26/11, all 46 lighthouses along Indias coastline are radar stations). All this was fed back to the JOCS set up by the Navy at Mumbai, Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair for monitoring, analysis and response. The uniform and technical surveillance network was further augmented by the fishing communities along the coast as the eyes and ears of the nations coastal security construct.

Phase I also saw an intensive audit of all measures put in place since 26/11 to improve the measures of efficiency and effectiveness of coastal security. This was undertaken by multi-agency teams deployed to check and audit important landing points including fish landing centres, vulnerable areas and important installations along the coast as well as in the hinterland.

The entire coastal security apparatus was thereafter shifted to Phase II commencing at 8 p.m. on 22 January. This phase saw attempts to penetrate and land dummy explosives by designated RED forces comprising teams drawn from the Navy, Coast Guard, police and Central Industrial Security Force. These teams were given a free hand to commandeer fishing vessels, merchantmen etc and attempt to reach the coast. Around 8-10 teams were deployed in each state and it is to the credit of all participating agencies that only a few attacks were successful. Many attacks were allowed to go-through to test the robustness of police check-points which were found to be very effective throughout the exercise. The customs department also undertook rummaging of visiting ships at anchorage and in harbours.

Phase II involved the exercising of various contingencies on land after an assumed landing.

The National Security Guard was also called in to tackle hostage situations in two-three vital installations. Contingencies including hijacking of ships, bomb disposal in malls, attacks and responses on places of worship etc were also exercised and tested for effectiveness. Crisis management groups of states were also activated to deal with such situations.

This first and largest ever in scale and extent coastal defence exercise is to be institutionalised and conducted every alternate year in addition to the states-focussed Sagar Kavach series of exercises. Also Ex Sea Vigil is a build-up towards the major theatre level tri-service exercise TROPEX (Theatre-level Readiness Operational Exercise) which the Indian Navy conducts every alternate year.

While this exercise is a long overdue and necessary measure, the whole gamut of Indias coastal security in view of terrorist threats and other crimes/problems/liabilities, this whole apparatus put together must function effectively and consistently, as there have been instances of breaches in coastal security after 26/11.

According to GKToday, in 2011, two years after 26/11, three massive vessels entered Mumbai which included a container ship named MV Wisdom, loaded with 7025 tonnes of deadweight, and MV Pravit containing 1000 tonnes of materials, which escaped the huge set-up of surveillance. In the latter case, the information of the drifting was given by fishermen, but the response was received only after 14 hours.

These are merely some examples. Although so many items of security infrastructure are in place there is a discrepancy in their use. Patrol boats are under-utilised, there is a shortage of manpower and huge amount of funds remain unspent.

The lack of integration of the marine police in the system is also a root cause of the problem.

The NCSMCS, which coordinates the coastal security activities of the maritime agencies, is reportedly merely an ad-hoc arrangement, which has not been backed by the enactment of the Coastal Security Bill. There have been some disagreements in the functioning of the surveillance systems. While the security agencies have preferred active tracking of individual fishing boats through onboard transponders for e-surveillance, the state maritime board officials seek a satellite tracking system. When a Coast Guard team during a security exercise some years ago enacted the entry of the 26/11 Pakistani terrorists from the sea opposite Badhwar Park, it succeeded  that is, they entered and proceeded ahead undetected/unchallenged.

Any lacunae or drawbacks still persisting in the coastal security system must urgently be made good in order to avoid a repeat the 26/11 in any part of India. And that possibility cannot and must not be ruled out, all the more so because of the frustration and desperation of Pakistans anti-Indian agencies which have faced great reverses in Jammu & Kashmir in 2018.

The writer, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi
Its something you knew was wrong when you were there, she said about schools culture. I was definitely in the midst of the really intense time when it was really visibly evident. Some of my friends the next year after I left, they were pretty open about the relationships that they were having.
Delhi: It is not uncommon to come across news reports of child abuse and child sexual abuse (CSA) on a regular basis from across the country. India is home to about 19 per cent of the world's children and according to official Government data, four children in India are sexually assaulted every hour.

A digital campaign aimed at CSA prevention is trending currently across social media platforms that aims at making adults aware of the various aspect of CSA and empower them to protect children from this evil pandemic. This campaign has already caught the attention of celebs like Shabana Azmi, Sandhya Mridul and Anupam Kher, which further highlights the need to always be mindful in regards to CSA, especially if you are a parent or have a child under your care.

An initiative by ActionAid India, JoinTheDots, was launched digitally recently. It opens with a mothers narrative showcasing a strong bond with her son, threaded together by their intimate and candid moments. The campaign further highlights subtle signs of behaviour change in the child that parents unintentionally tend to ignore, considering it normal.

The video points out that the behavioural signs of a sexually abused child can be very similar to the signs caused due to other conditions or stress, physical or mental. It emphasises on the need for adults to notice even the most subtle changes in the behaviour of children that can occur due to sexual abuse and address the situation in time. The campaign encourages adults to address such violence with a call to action to See, Listen and Act.

Parents and guardians must encourage a culture of regular communication with their children, so that they are well acquainted with all the aspects of their life. JoinTheDots is unique as it approaches the issue of CSA not only from a informative but practical perspective as well. The campaign video leads to a Conversation Starter Tool on the website: www.jointhedotsnow.com. The tool is an active conversation box, which enables an interesting conversation that should take place between a responsible adult and the child in her/his care ideally.

Through this tool, the child can speak about the various different worlds she/he inhabits and talk about her/his every day life. The conversation box also helps the child learn about the emotions and feelings of the adult and this two-way communication process is truly empowering for the adults, helping them recognise as well as prevent CSA.

Elaborating on the campaign, Sandeep Chachra, Executive Director, ActionAid India said, Over the years we have worked with allied organisations, the administration and policymakers to bring change on the ground for the protection, nutrition, and education of children. Childrens vulnerability will remain till children in all contexts are recognised as equal citizens. In the family, this calls for children being listened to and their interests being considered as equal, if not of paramount interest. Through the JoinTheDots campaign, we want to help adults see, listen and act in the best interests of children.


New Delhi: The finance ministry on Wednesday clarified that the forthcoming national budget will be an Interim Budget.

The main Opposition party, the Congress, had said it would strongly oppose the presentation of a full budget by the BJP-led NDA government as it has no electoral legitimacy and would go against set precedents and Parliamentary traditions.

Ex-finance minister Yashwant Sinha had also said that it would be entirely improper and unconstitutional if the government presents a full budget ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Mr Sinha had said there is no precedence of an outgoing government doing so.

It would be entirely improper and unconstitutional on the part of this government to present a full budget, he said, adding that the government should not table the Economic Survey, which is generally presented a day before the budget, nor present the Finance Bill.

Last week, railway minister Goyal was given additional charge of the finance ministry as Arun Jaitley was in the United States for medical treatment. Mr Jaitley as the Finance Minister has presented five Budgets.

It is usual practice that a Vote on Account, or approval for essential government spending for a limited period, is taken in an election year and a full-fledged Budget presented by the new government.

There was speculation in political circles that going against tradition, the Modi government may present a full-fledged Budget on Friday.

The Budget is widely expected to contain concessions for farmers and the middle class with Lok Sabha elections in April-May. This Budget will be called Interim Budget 2019-20, said a finance ministry official.

This last Budget of the present National Democratic Alliance government is likely to be presented by interim finance minister Piyush Goyal.

Last week, railway minister Goyal was given additional charge of the finance ministry as Arun Jaitley was in the US for medical treatment.

P. Chidambaram had presented the previous UPA governments Vote on Account in February 2014, with Arun Jaitley presenting the full Budget in July that year.

The Narendra Modi-led government had scrapped a colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February.
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Although Democrats want Medicare to directly negotiate prices and Republicans prefer free-market approaches, they seem united in their disdain for the industry's pricing. At the White House, President Donald Trump, who once accused drugmakers of "getting away with murder," has backed multiple regulatory actions that include approving more generic drugs and an experiment to use lower international prices to save money for Medicare.
Dual admission offers students seamless training as they will be able to begin taking classes in Marylands program at the same time they are completing their associate degree. Those Maryland courses also will be paid for through a gift from Bill and Joanne Conways Bedford Falls Foundation.
For me, Beethovens Ninth Symphony is a revolutionary piece, Alsop said in the release. Its a piece that changed the history of classical music certainly, but its a piece that also pushed the envelope. That sense of rebellion and that sense of relevance has always struck me as being unique. Having an opportunity to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth by reimagining his symphony  I think he would have loved it.
Champion, which has grown to seven offices and 200 associates since its founding in 1987, will operate under the Long & Foster brand, with some locations set to merge over the next several weeks.
Miller, 60, who organized the protests, said she doesnt know the exact reasons for the delays. But the six-to-eight-hour waits arent just an economic problem for truckers. Once theyre in line on the terminal, she said, those truckers cant get out to go to the bathroom.
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Its been 10 years since Virginias oldest beer trail  The Brew Ridge Trail  was founded in Nelson County by five breweries and the Nelson County Department of Economic Development and Tourism. Since then, the number of breweries, wineries and cideries along Virginia 151 has grown.

On Feb. 9, the breweries along the Brew Ridge Trail will kick off a weeklong celebration of the 10-year anniversary with the Brew Ridge Trail Festival.

Mandi Smack, co-founder of Blue Mountain Brewery and Barrel House, said when she and her husband, Taylor, first founded the brewery in Afton, they were the only one on Virginia 151 for one or two years.

When we first bought the land to build on, everyone thought we were crazy, Mandi Smack said.

Mandi Smack said the wineries in the area always have helped business, but when breweries such as Devils Backbone Brewing Company came along in 2008, they gained more traction with tourists.

It was rough here. There just wasnt the big beer scene there is now, she said.

Now, 10 years later, its obvious to the Smacks and other members of the Brew Ridge Trail they made the right move developing along Virginia 151.
Master Charles Cannon, the founder of the Faber-based Synchronicity Foundation for Modern Spirituality, died Jan. 24 at his foundation residence.

Cannon, 73, was born in Syracuse, New York. He studied Vedic Indian mysticism and meditation as a youth and as an adult. In 1983, he founded the Synchronicity Foundation, where he developed different meditation techniques and lifestyle guidelines and built a community of monks and followers in Nelson County and around the world.

Cannon had been diagnosed with what he termed a rare blood disease that could not be cured. He chose to stop treatment to spend his last days with others at the foundation, according to foundation Facebook posts.

We at the Synchronicity Foundation extend our appreciation for everyone in our international spiritual family who have been aware of and [are] participating in this process over the past brief period, the foundation posted on its website.
A former University of Virginia police officer pleaded guilty in Albemarle County Circuit Court on Wednesday to a 2018 domestic assault.

Justin Eugene Bryant, 29, pleaded guilty to felony assault and battery and preventing a call to 911. As part of a plea agreement, Bryants initial charge of malicious wounding was downgraded to assault and battery.

Bryant was sentenced to 12 months in jail with six months suspended for the assault charge, and 12 months in jail, all suspended, for preventing a 911 call.

Amanda Galloway, assistant commonwealths attorney for Albemarle, said evidence in the case showed Bryant assaulted his then-girlfriend and accused her of infidelity after reading some of her text messages.

The assault left the woman with two black eyes, a fractured nose and a concussion, Galloway said.

When his girlfriend tried to call the police, Galloway said, Bryant took her phone and then slammed her head into the wall, leaving a dent in the wall.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. The company offers products in hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, and immunology therapeutic classes. Its products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor indicated for the reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis, as well as reducing signs and symptoms in pediatric patients with active polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a solvent-free protein-bound chemotherapy product; mpliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma; and Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia. In addition, it offers Onureg for the continued treatment of adult patients with AML; Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Vidaza for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome subtypes; Baraclude, an oral antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B; and Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The company sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. It has collaboration agreements with Pfizer, Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nektar Therapeutics; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Huyabio; and DarwinHealth, Inc. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But youve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead.

Versum Materials, Inc. develops, manufactures, transports, and handles specialty materials for the semiconductor and display industries in the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Europe, and rest of Asia. The company operates through two segments, Materials, and Delivery Systems and Services (DS&S). The Materials segment provides specialty chemicals and materials used in semiconductors, as well as specialty gases used in the semiconductor manufacturing process, including high purity process materials for deposition, metallization, chamber cleaning, and etching; chemicals mechanical planarization slurries; organosilanes; organometallics and liquid dopants for thin film deposition; and formulated chemical products for post-etch cleaning primarily for the manufacture of silicon and compound semiconductors, and thin film transistor liquid crystal displays. The DS&S segment develops, designs, manufactures, and sells bulk gas, specialty gas, and specialty chemical cabinets and systems, which are used to manage the delivery of key materials into the semiconductor manufacturing process; and flow and temperature control systems and analytical systems to capture data. It is also involved in the project management for installation and startup of the gas and chemical delivery systems, and inventory management; and provision of spare parts, equipment upgrades, equipment maintenance, and training services. In addition, this segment offers on-site services to assist customers in managing the inventory of gases and chemicals comprising ordering, product changes and monitoring, quality assurance, operation of delivery systems, and managing the bulk gas and specialty gas operations. Versum Materials, Inc. was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.

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SEACOR Holdings Inc. engages in transportation and logistics, risk management consultancy, and other businesses in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Ocean Transportation & Logistics Services, Inland Transportation & Logistics Services, Witt O'Brien's, and Other segments. The Ocean Transportation & Logistics Services segment owns and operates a fleet of bulk transportation, port and infrastructure, and logistics assets. It operates carriers for the United States coastwise for trade of crude oil, petroleum, and chemical products; and dry bulk vessels. This segment provides deep-sea vessels docking, ocean towing, and oil terminal support and bunkering services; liner, short-sea, rail car, and project cargo transportation and logistics solutions; door-to-door solutions; and technical ship management services, as well as operates pure car/truck carriers. The Inland Transportation & Logistics Services segment offers river transportation equipment for moving agricultural and industrial commodities and containers, and petroleum products; and owns and operates multi-modal terminal locations. It also provides management services related to barge and towboat operations. The Witt O'Brien's segment provides crisis and emergency management services for the public and private sectors. It serves markets in the areas of critical national infrastructure, including government, energy, transportation, healthcare, and education. The Other segment designs, develops, and maintains alternative energy and power solutions; and offers liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas fuel supply and logistics to commercial, industrial, agricultural, and transportation customers. This segment also engages in the selling, storage, and maintenance of aviation; agricultural commodity trading and logistics businesses; and trading and merchandising of sugar and other commodities. SEACOR Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 1989 and is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Roche: 454 Life Sciences, Adheron Therapeutics, Adheron Therapeutics Inc., Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ariosa Diagnostics, Ariosa Diagnostics Inc., Arius Research, Ascur Versicherungsvermittlungs GmbH, BINA Technology, Bina Technologies Inc., BioImagene, BioVeris, BioVeris Corporation, Biopharm AG, Boehringer Mannheim, Borean Pharma, Chemical Manufacturing and Trading Company Limited, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Disetronic Holding AG, Dutalys GmbH, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd / Jordan P.S.C., FLLC "Roche Products Limited", FMI Germany GmbH, Flatiron Health, Flatiron Health Inc., ForSight Labs, ForSight VISION4 Inc., Foundation Medicine, Foundation Medicine Inc., Foundation Medicine Securities Corporation, Galenus Mannheim Pharma GmbH, GeneWEAVE, GeneWEAVE Biosciences Inc., Genentech, Genentech Inc., Genentech P.R. Inc., Genentech USA Inc., Genia Technologies, Hoffmann - La Roche Ltd, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., Hoffmann-La Roche Limited, Hoffmann-La Roche Products Limited, I5 Surviving Corp., IGEN International Inc., IGEN LS LLC, IQuum, IQuum Inc., Ignyta, Ignyta Inc., Inflazome, Infogenetik Molekuler Bilgi Hizmetleri Anonim Sirketi, Institut Roche SAS, InterMune, InterMune Holdings Limited, InterMune Inc., InterMune International AG, Jecure Therapeutics Inc., Kapa Biosystems, Kapa Biosystems (Pty) Ltd, Kapa Biosystems Inc., Limited Liability Company Roche Diabetes Care Rus, Limited Liability Company Roche Diagnostics Rus, MTM Laboratories, Marcadia Biotech, Medingo Ltd., Medingo Medical Solutions, Memory Pharmaceuticals, Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp., Mirus, Museum Tinguely AG, N.V. Roche S.A., P.T. Roche Indonesia, PVT Probenverteiltechnik GmbH, Phaor AG, Piramed, Productos Roche (El Salvador) S.A. de C.V., Productos Roche (Honduras) S.A., Productos Roche (Nicaragua) S.A., Productos Roche (Panama) S.A., Productos Roche Dominicana S.R.L., Productos Roche Guatemala (Sociedad Anonima), Productos Roche Interamericana S.A. (PRISA), Productos Roche Quimica Farmaceutica S.A., Productos Roche S.A., Productos Roche S.A. Quimica e Industrial, Productos Roche S.A. de C.V., Produtos Roche Quimicos e Farmaceuticos S.A., Promedior, Rabbit-Air Ltd, RoDiagnostics Egypt for Trading S.A.E, Roche (China) Holding Ltd., Roche (Hellas) S.A., Roche (Hungary) Ltd, Roche (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Roche (Philippines) Inc., Roche (Shanghai) Pharmaceuticals Consulting Co. Ltd, Roche (Shanghai) Pharmaceuticals Trading Co. Ltd., Roche - Moscow Ltd., Roche AB, Roche Algerie SPA, Roche Austria GmbH, Roche Bangladesh Limited, Roche Beteiligungs GmbH, Roche Biomedical Laboratories Inc., Roche Bolivia SRL., Roche Bulgaria EOOD, Roche Cameroun SARL, Roche Capital Market Ltd, Roche Capital Services Ltd., Roche Catalyst Investments Ltd., Roche Chemische Unternehmungen AG, Roche Chile Limitada, Roche Cote dIvoire SARL, Roche DC Japan K. K., Roche DC Mexico S.A. de C.V., Roche Deutschland Holding GmbH, Roche Diabetes Care (Switzerland) Ltd, Roche Diabetes Care Argentina S.A., Roche Diabetes Care Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Roche Diabetes Care Australia Pty Limited, Roche Diabetes Care Austria GmbH, Roche Diabetes Care Brasil Ltda., Roche Diabetes Care Deutschland GmbH, Roche Diabetes Care France SAS, Roche Diabetes Care GmbH, Roche Diabetes Care Inc., Roche Diabetes Care India Private Limited, Roche Diabetes Care Italy S.p.A., Roche Diabetes Care Limited, Roche Diabetes Care Middle East FZCO, Roche Diabetes Care Nederland B.V., Roche Diabetes Care Polska sp. z o.o., Roche Diabetes Care South Africa Proprietary Limited, Roche Diabetes Care Spain S.L., Roche Diagnostica Brasil Ltda., Roche Diagnostics (Hellas) S.A., Roche Diagnostics (Hong Kong) Limited, Roche Diagnostics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Roche Diagnostics (Shanghai) Ltd., Roche Diagnostics (Suzhou) Limited, Roche Diagnostics (Switzerland) Ltd, Roche Diagnostics (Thailand) Limited, Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Roche Diagnostics Australia Pty. Limited, Roche Diagnostics Belgium NV, Roche Diagnostics Corporation, Roche Diagnostics Deutschland GmbH, Roche Diagnostics France SAS, Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Roche Diagnostics Hematology Inc., Roche Diagnostics India Private Limited, Roche Diagnostics International Ltd, Roche Diagnostics K.K., Roche Diagnostics Korea Co. Ltd., Roche Diagnostics Limited, Roche Diagnostics Ltd., Roche Diagnostics Middle East FZCO, Roche Diagnostics NZ Limited, Roche Diagnostics Nederland B.V., Roche Diagnostics Norge A/S, Roche Diagnostics Operations Inc., Roche Diagnostics Oy, Roche Diagnostics Polska Sp. z o.o., Roche Diagnostics Proprietary Limited, Roche Diagnostics S.L., Roche Diagnostics S.p.A., Roche Diagnostics Scandinavia AB, Roche Diagnostics Turkey Anonim Sirketi, Roche Diagnostics a/s, Roche Ecuador S.A., Roche Eesti OU, Roche Egypt LLC, Roche Egypt for Manufacturing and Trading SAE, Roche Farma (Peru) S.A., Roche Farma S.A., Roche Farmaceutica Quimica Lda., Roche Finance Europe B.V., Roche Finance Ltd, Roche Financial Investments Ltd., Roche Financial Management Ltd., Roche Financial Services Ltd., Roche Forum Buonas Ltd, Roche Georgia LLC, Roche Glycart, Roche Glycart Ltd, Roche Health Solutions Inc., Roche Holding (UK) Limited, Roche Holdings Inc., Roche Hong Kong Limited, Roche Innovation Center Copenhagen A/S, Roche Innovatis, Roche International Ltd., Roche International Ltd. (Montevideo Branch), Roche Intertrade Limited, Roche Ireland Limited, Roche Kazakhstan LLP, Roche Kenya Limited, Roche Korea Company Ltd., Roche Laboratories Inc., Roche Latvija SIA, Roche Lebanon S.A.R.L., Roche Long Term Foundation, Roche Makedonija DOOEL, Roche Molecular Systems Inc., Roche Myanmar Company Limited, Roche Mustahzarlari Sanayi Anonim Sirketi, Roche Nederland B.V., Roche NimbleGen, Roche Norge A/S, Roche Operations Ltd., Roche Oy, Roche PVT GmbH, Roche Pakistan Limited, Roche Palo Alto LLC, Roche Pars Co. (Ltd.), Roche Pharma (Switzerland) Ltd, Roche Pharma AG, Roche Pharmaceuticals (Israel) Ltd., Roche Pharmaceuticals Middle East FZCO, Roche Pharmholding B.V., Roche Polska Sp. z o.o., Roche Privacy GmbH, Roche Products (India) Private Limited, Roche Products (Ireland) Limited, Roche Products (Mauritius) Ltd, Roche Products (New Zealand) Limited, Roche Products (Proprietary) Limited, Roche Products Ghana Limited, Roche Products Inc., Roche Products Limited, Roche Products Ltd., Roche Products Pty. Limited, Roche Products Saudi Arabia LLC, Roche R&D Center (China) Ltd., Roche Real Estate Services Mannheim GmbH, Roche Registration GmbH, Roche Registration Limited, Roche Romania S.R.L., Roche S.A., Roche S.p.A., Roche SAS, Roche Sequencing Solutions Inc., Roche Services (Asia Pacific) Sdn. Bhd., Roche Services (Europe) Ltd, Roche Services Americas Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Roche Services Holdings Ltd., Roche Servicios S.A., Roche Servicios de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Roche Singapore Pte. Ltd., Roche Singapore Technical Operations Pte. Ltd., Roche Sistemas de Diagnosticos Sociedade Unipessoal Lda., Roche Slovensko S.R.O., Roche TCRC Inc., Roche Thailand Limited, Roche Tunisie SA, Roche Ukraine LLC, Roche Vietnam Company Limited, Roche a/s Medicinalvarer og Kemikalier, Roche d.o.o., Roche d.o.o. farmaceutsko drustvo  Roche Ltd. Pharmaceutical Company, Roche farmacevtska druzba d.o.o., Roche mtm laboratories AG, Roche s.r.o., Santaris Pharma, Sapac Corporation Ltd., Seragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals Limited, Signature Diagnostics GmbH, Spark Therapeutics, Spring Bioscience Corp., Stratos Genomics, Syntex Corporation, Syntex Pharm AG, Syntex Pharmaceuticals International Limited, Syntex Puerto Rico Inc., Tanox Inc., Tavero AG, Tensha Therapeutics, Tensha Therapeutics Inc., Therapeutic Human Polyclonals, Therapeutic Human Polyclonals Inc., Trophos, Trophos SA, Tusk Therapeutics, Tusk Therapeutics Limited, UAB Roche Lietuva, Ventana Medical Systems, Ventana Medical Systems Inc., Verum Diagnostica GmbH, Viewics, Viewics Inc., Viewics India Private Limited, mySugr, mySugr GmbH, and mySugr Inc..
Robert Half International Inc. provides staffing and risk consulting services in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through three segments: Temporary and Consultant Staffing, Permanent Placement Staffing, and Risk Consulting and Internal Audit Services. It places temporary services for accounting, finance, and bookkeeping; temporary and full-time office and administrative personnel consisting of executive and administrative assistants, receptionists, and customer service representatives; full-time accounting, financial, tax, and accounting operations personnel; and information technology contract consultants and full-time employees in the areas of platform systems integration to end-user technical and desktop support, including specialists in application development, networking, systems integration and deployment, database design and administration, and security and business continuity. The company also offers temporary and full-time employees in attorney, paralegal, legal administrative, and legal secretarial positions; and senior level project professionals in the accounting and finance fields for financial systems conversions, expansion into new markets, business process reengineering, business systems performance improvement, and post-merger financial consolidation. In addition, it is involved in serving professionals in the areas of interactive media, design, marketing, advertising, and public relations; and placing freelance and project consultants in various positions, such as creative directors, graphics designers, Web content developers, Web designers, media buyers, brand managers, and public relations specialists. Further, the company provides business and technology risk consulting, and internal audit services. It serves clients and employment candidates. Robert Half International Inc. was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

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Principal Financial Group, Inc. provides retirement, asset management, and insurance products and services to businesses, individuals, and institutional clients worldwide. The company operates in Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Global Investors, Principal International, and U.S. Insurance Solutions segments. The Retirement and Income Solutions segment provides a portfolio of asset accumulation products and services for retirement savings and income. It offers products and services for defined contribution plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, defined benefit pension plans, nonqualified executive benefit plans, employee stock ownership plans, and pension risk transfer services; individual retirement accounts and payroll deduction plans; investment only products; and mutual funds, individual annuities, and bank products. The Principal Global Investors segment provides equity, fixed income, real estate, and other alternative investments, as well as asset allocation, stable value management, and other structured investment strategies. The Principal International segment offers pension accumulation and income annuity products, mutual funds, asset management, and life insurance accumulation products, as well as voluntary savings plans in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, India, and Southeast Asia. The U.S. Insurance Solutions segment provides specialty benefits, such as group dental and vision insurance, group life insurance, and group and individual disability insurance, as well as administers group dental, disability, and vision benefits; and individual life insurance products comprising universal, variable universal, indexed universal, and term life insurance products in the United States. It also offers insurance solutions for small and medium-sized businesses and their owners, as well as executives. Principal Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1879 and is based in Des Moines, Iowa.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Dominion Energy: 96WI 8me LLC, Alamo Solar LLC, Align RNG Grady Road LLC, Align RNG LLC, Align RNG North Carolina LLC, Align RNG Utah LLC, Align RNG Utah-Milford LLC, Align RNG Virginia LLC, Align RNG Virginia-Waverly LLC, Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Azalea Solar LLC, BrightSuite Distributed Solar Holdings Inc., BrightSuite Home LLC, BrightSuite Inc., BrightSuite Solar LLC, Buckingham Solar I LLC, CEA Americus LLC, CEA Clovis LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Colorado LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Georgia LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Nevada LLC, CEA Dairy RNG New Mexico LLC, CEA Greely LLC, CEA Mason LLC, CID Solar LLC, CNG Coal Company, CNG Power Services Corporation, Carolina Gas Transmission Corporation, Catalina Solar 2 LLC, Clean Energy Asset USA LLC, Clean Energy Enterprises Inc., Clipperton Holdings LLC, Consolidated Natural Gas Company, Correctional Solar LLC, Cottonwood Solar LLC, Cove Point GP Holding Company LLC, Cove Point LNG Limited, DE Fluvanna Solar LLC, DE Hanover Solar LLC, DE King William Solar LLC, DE Powhatan Solar LLC, Dairy RNG Holdings LLC, Dominion ACP Holding Inc., Dominion Alternative Energy Holdings Inc., Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Dominion Bridgeport Fuel Cell LLC, Dominion Brine LLC, Dominion Capital Inc., Dominion Cogen WV Inc., Dominion Cove Point Inc., Dominion Cove Point LLC, Dominion Energy BTM Inc., Dominion Energy Carolina Gas Services Inc., Dominion Energy Carolina Gas Transmission LLC, Dominion Energy Cove Point LNG LP, Dominion Energy Field Services Inc., Dominion Energy Fuel Services Inc., Dominion Energy Gas Distribution LLC, Dominion Energy Gas Holdings LLC, Dominion Energy Generation Marketing Inc., Dominion Energy Inc., Dominion Energy Kewaunee Inc., Dominion Energy Marketplace LLC, Dominion Energy Midstream GP LLC, Dominion Energy Midstream Partners LP, Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut Inc., Dominion Energy Overthrust Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Payroll Company Inc., Dominion Energy Questar Corporation, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline Services Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings II Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings Inc., Dominion Energy Services Inc., Dominion Energy Smart Home LLC, Dominion Energy Solar CA LLC, Dominion Energy Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy South Carolina Inc., Dominion Energy Southeast Services Inc., Dominion Energy Technical Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies II Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies Inc., Dominion Energy Terminal Company Inc., Dominion Energy Transmission Inc., Dominion Energy Wexpro Services Company, Dominion Equipment III Inc., Dominion Equipment Inc., Dominion Fairless Hills Inc., Dominion Fowler Ridge Wind LLC, Dominion Gas Projects Company LLC, Dominion Gathering & Processing Inc., Dominion Gathering?& Processing Inc., Dominion Generation Inc., Dominion Greenbrier Inc., Dominion High Voltage Holdings Inc., Dominion High Voltage MidAtlantic Inc., Dominion Investments Inc., Dominion Iroquois Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline Holdings Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline LLC, Dominion MLP Holding Company II Inc., Dominion MLP Holding Company II LLC, Dominion MLP Holding Company III Inc., Dominion MLP Holding Company LLC, Dominion Modular LNG Holdings Inc., Dominion Mt. Storm Wind LLC, Dominion North Star Generation Inc., Dominion Nuclear Projects Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration & Production Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration?& Production Inc., Dominion Person Inc., Dominion Privatization Florida LLC, Dominion Privatization Georgia LLC, Dominion Privatization Holdings Inc., Dominion Privatization Kentucky LLC, Dominion Privatization South Carolina LLC, Dominion Privatization Texas LLC, Dominion Privatization Virginia LLC, Dominion Products and Services Inc., Dominion Projects Services Inc., Dominion Resources Capital Trust III, Dominion Retail Gas Holdings Inc., Dominion Solar Construction and Maintenance LLC, Dominion Solar Gen-Tie LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings I LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings II LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings III LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings IV LLC, Dominion Solar Projects A Inc., Dominion Solar Projects B Inc., Dominion Solar Projects C Inc., Dominion Solar Projects D Inc., Dominion Solar Projects I Inc., Dominion Solar Projects II Inc., Dominion Solar Projects III Inc., Dominion Solar Projects IV Inc., Dominion Solar Projects V Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VI Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VII Inc., Dominion Solar Services Inc., Dominion Solar?Gen-Tie ?LLC, Dominion State Line LLC, Dominion Voltage Inc., Dominion Wholesale Inc., Dominion Wind Development LLC, Dominion Wind Projects Inc., Eagle Holdco Solar LLC, Eagle Solar LLC, Eastern Shore Solar LLC, Enterprise Solar LLC, Escalante Solar I LLC, Escalante Solar II LLC, Escalante Solar III LLC, Farmington Properties Inc., Four Brothers Solar LLC, Fremont Farm LLC, Granite Mountain Holdings LLC, Granite Mountain Solar East LLC, Granite Mountain Solar West LLC, Greenbrier Marketing Company LLC, Greenbrier Pipeline Company LLC, Greensville County Solar Project LLC, Hecate Energy Cherrydale LLC, Hecate Energy Clarke County LLC, Hope Gas Inc., Imperial Valley Solar Company (IVSC) 2 LLC, Indy Solar Development LLC, Indy Solar I LLC, Indy Solar II LLC, Indy Solar III LLC, Innovative Solar 37 LLC, Iron Springs Holdings LLC, Iron Springs Solar LLC, Iroquois GP Holding Company LLC, Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas, Maricopa West Solar PV LLC, Moffett Solar 1 LLC, Moorings Farm 2 LLC, Mulberry Farm LLC, Mustang Solar LLC, NE Hub Partners L.L.C., NE Hub Partners L.P., NiCHe Storage Solutions LLC, Niche LNG LLC, North Star Generation LLC, PSNC Blue Ridge Corporation, PSNC Cardinal Pipeline Company, PSNC Southgate LLC, Pavant Solar LLC, Phone House, Pikeville Farm LLC, Prairie Fork Wind Farm LLC, Public Service Company of North Carolina Incorporated, QPC Holding Company, QPC Holding Company LLC, Questar Corporation, Questar Energy Services Inc., Questar Field Services LLC, Questar Gas Company, Questar InfoComm Inc., Questar Southern Trails Pipeline Company, Questar White River Hub LLC, RE Adams East LLC, RE Camelot LLC, RE Columbia LLC, RE Columbia LLC, RE Columbia Two LLC, RE Kansas LLC, RE Kent South LLC, RE Old River One LLC, Rev LNG SSL BC LLC, Richland Solar Center LLC, Ridgeland Solar Farm I LLC, SBL Holdco LLC, SCANA, SCANA Communications Holdings Inc., SCANA Corporate Security Services Inc., SCANA Energy Marketing Inc., SCANA Energy Marketing LLC, SCANA Pharmacy LLC, SCANA Services Inc., SRFI LLC, Sappony Solar LLC, Scana Corporation, Scott-II Solar LLC, Scott-II?Solar LLC, Seabrook Solar LLC, Selmer Farm LLC, Siler Solar LLC, Somers Solar Center LLC, South Carolina Electric?& Gas Company, South Carolina Fuel Company Inc., South Carolina Generating Company Inc., Southampton Solar LLC, Summit Farms Solar LLC, TA - Acacia LLC, TA ? Acacia LLC, TWE Myrtle Solar Project LLC, The East Ohio Gas Company, Tioga Properties LLC, Tredegar Solar Fund I LLC, VP Property Inc., Virginia Electric And Power Company, Virginia Power Fuel Corporation, Virginia Power Nuclear Services Company, Virginia Power Services Energy Corp. Inc., Virginia Power Services LLC, Virginia Solar 2017 Projects LLC, Wakefield Solar LLC, Wexpro Company, Wexpro Development Company, Wexpro II Company, Wilkinson Solar LLC, Wrangler Retail Gas Holdings LLC, and roquois GP Holding Company LLC.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Austria ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Austria ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Just as Adams warned, Leftists judges are now ordering the prison TORTURE of political opponents in America

Talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh opened his program Monday discussing reaction he received from a monologue he gave last week decrying the New York Senates passage of a bill allowing for the murder  yes, murder  of viable unborn babies up to full term, as well as outside the womb if they happen to survive the abortion procedure.

Limbaugh particularly noted his disgust  and the disgust of tens of millions of Americans  to the chambers reaction when the bill passed: Cheering. And not only did Satanic Democrats cheer passage of the bill, but Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who gleefully signed it, ordered lights on New Yorks tallest buildings illuminated in pink as a celebratory gesture.

This, he said, is the modern Democrat Party that many conservatives and Republicans fail to recognize: Literally the party of suffering, the party of murder, and the party of death, and that would include supporters of POTUS Donald Trump if they could get away with it.

Case in point: The actions of an Obama-appointed judge, Amy Berman Jackson, who was assigned to hear the case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

As you may recall, Manafort was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in February 2018 for secretly lobbying on behalf of a foreign government without registering as a lobbyist, the Washington Post reported. At the time, the charges struck Mueller opponents as extremely odd if not vindictive, given that the Obama Justice Department investigated Manafort for the same thing  acting on behalf of the government of Ukraine  in 2014 but did not find enough reason to charge him.

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Over the course of hearing his cases, Jackson has been abnormally abusive to Manaforts legal team as well as to Manafort himself.

In November 2017, she issued what was basically a gag order limiting public statements about the cause by lawyers involved and by the defendants, Politico reported. In February 2018, she scolded Manafort and his legal team over a statement issued by Manaforts spokesperson that maintained his innocence despite guilty pleas by a longtime aide, Rick Gates, that had been issued earlier.

The collapse has already begun

I can understand the impulse to not let that go by without stating your innocence, [but] in issuing that statement about the prosecution, I believe its contrary to the order she initially issued, she said in court. Why would she object to Manafort doing what every defendant does  publicly declare their innocence?

At one point following that court exchange, Mueller requested, and Jackson granted, that Manafort be placed in solitary confinement. Bernard Kerik, a former NYPD commissioner, described the conditions Manafort was placed in:

Its basically a deathtrap. A 12? x 8? solid steel or concrete box with a metal bed, stainless steel sink and toilet, and if youre lucky, a small concrete or metal writing table and stool. On the solid steel metal door, there may be a 4 x 24-inch window that gives the inmate a slight view of the outside corridor, that can be blackened out by the correction staff at a moments notice.

Mind you, the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, which should have applied here; Manafort is, at worst, a white-collar criminal, not a hardened murderer or serial rapist. Putting him in this kind of environment was cruel and unusual.

And all for the crime of backing the wrong presidential candidate  Donald Trump.

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, predicted this in a column this week. Noting that the U.S. justice system has been completely co-opted by the Democrat-aligned Deep State, we should expect round-ups soon of independent media and patriots followed by a rapid collapse into Venezuela-style police state tyranny, complete with secret torture gulags run by Democrats

With Manaforts jailing and the FBI Gestapo-style raid of Roger Stones estate on Friday, its clear this collapse has begun.

Read more about how our governing institutions are collapsing into tyranny at Tyranny.news.

Sources include:

NewsMax.com

WashingtonPost.com

Politico.com

NaturalNews.com
Ingersoll Rand Inc. provides various mission-critical air, fluid, energy, specialty vehicle and medical technologies in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through four segments: Industrial Technologies and Services; Precision and Science Technologies; Specialty Vehicle Technologies; and High Pressure Solutions segments. The company offers air and gas compression, vacuum and blower products, fluid transfer and management equipment, loading systems, power tools and lifting equipment, displacement pumps, liquid and precision syringe pumps, and compressors, as well as as well as aftermarket parts, consumables, and services. It also designs, manufactures, and markets golf, utility, and consumer low-speed vehicles, as well as integrated systems. The company's products are used in medical, laboratory, industrial manufacturing, water and wastewater, chemical processing, drilling, hydraulic fracturing, well servicing applications, precision irrigation, energy, food and beverage, agriculture, and automated liquid handling end-markets, as well as various manufacturing, industrial facilities applications, and other activities. It serves to various industries and sectors. The company sells its products through an integrated network of direct sales representatives and independent distributors under the Ingersoll Rand, Gardner Denver, Club Car, CompAir, Nash, Elmo Rietschle, Robuschi, Thomas, Milton Roy, ARO, Emco Wheaton, and Runtech Systems brands. The company was formerly known as Gardner Denver Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Ingersoll Rand Inc. in March 2020. Ingersoll Rand Inc. was founded in 1859 and is based in Davidson, North Carolina.

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I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

At Landsec, we strive to connect communities, realise potential and deliver sustainable places. As one of the largest real estate companies in Europe, our A11.8 billion portfolio spans 24 million sq ft (as at 30 September 2020) of well-connected retail, leisure, workspace and residential hubs. From the iconic Piccadilly Lights in the West End and the regeneration of London's Victoria, to the creation of retail destinations at Westgate Oxford and Trinity Leeds, we own and manage some of the most successful and memorable real estate in the UK. We aim to lead our industry in critical long-term issues A- from diversity and community employment, to carbon reduction and climate resilience. We deliver value for our shareholders, great experiences for our customers and positive change for our communities.

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Merck & Co., Inc. operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health segments. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, diabetes, and women's health, as well as vaccine products. The Animal Health segment provides discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a range of veterinary pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and health management solutions and services, as well as a suite of digitally connected identification, traceability, and monitoring products. The company has collaborations with AstraZeneca PLC; Bayer AG; Eisai Co., Ltd.; and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. It serves drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals, and government agencies; managed health care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and other institutions; and physicians and physician distributors, veterinarians, and animal producers. The company has an agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to co-develop and co-commercialize long-acting investigational treatment combinations of Lenacapavir and Islatravir in HIV; and a collaboration agreement with Amathus Therapeutics to develop treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. It also has a collaboration with Biomed X Gmbh for building on ongoing research projects in the fields of oncology (DNA damage response and RNA splicing) and autoimmunity (intestinal epithelial barrier in autoimmune diseases). Merck & Co., Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey.

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Ad Legacy Research 4,273 Interested This Week

[URGENT] MAJOR BUY ALERT

Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.
Ad Legacy Research 2,770 Interested This Week

Man Who Picked Tesla, Bitcoin Makes Next Pick of the Decade"

Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade months (even years) before his peers will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. Its not 5G, artificial intelligence, EVs, or clean energy. The answer will surprise you.
Imperial Oil Limited explores for, produces, and sells crude oil and natural gas in Canada. It operates through three segments: Upstream, Downstream, and Chemical. The Upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil, natural gas, synthetic oil, and bitumen. As of December 31, 2020, this segment had 138 million oil-equivalent barrels of proved undeveloped reserves. The Downstream segment is involved in the transportation and refining of crude oil, as well as blending, distribution, and marketing of refined products. It also transports crude oil to refineries by contracted pipelines, common carrier pipelines, and rail; maintains a distribution system to move petroleum products to market by pipeline, tanker, rail, and road transport; and owns and operates fuel terminals, natural gas liquids, and products pipelines in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. In addition, this segment markets and supplies petroleum products to motoring public through approximately 2,400 Esso and Mobil-branded sites. Further, it sells petroleum products, including fuel, asphalt, and lubricants for industrial and transportation customers, independent marketers, and resellers, as well as other refiners serving the agriculture, residential heating, and commercial markets through branded fuel and lubricant resellers. The Chemical segment manufactures and markets various petrochemicals and polyethylene, such as benzene, aromatic, and aliphatic solvents; plasticizer intermediates; and polyethylene resins. The company was incorporation in 1880 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Imperial Oil Limited is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation.

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First BanCorp. operates as the bank holding company for FirstBank Puerto Rico that provides a range of financial products and services to retail, commercial, and institutional clients. The company operates in six segments: Commercial and Corporate Banking, Mortgage Banking, Consumer (Retail) Banking, Treasury and Investments, United States Operations, and Virgin Islands Operations. The Commercial and Corporate Banking segment offers commercial real estate and construction loans, floor plan financing, and cash and business management services. The Mortgage Banking segment engages in the origination, sale, and servicing of various residential mortgage loan products and related hedging activities; and acquisition and sale of mortgages in the secondary markets. The Consumer (Retail) Banking segment provides auto, boat, and personal loans; credit cards; lines of credit; deposit products comprising interest bearing and non-interest bearing checking and savings accounts, individual retirement accounts, and retail certificates of deposit (CDs); finance leasing and insurance services. The Treasury and Investments segment engages in the treasury and investment management activities, such as funding and liquidity management. The United States Operations segment offers savings, checking, and money market accounts, as well as retail CDs; and residential mortgages, home equity loans, lines of credit, and term loans, as well as Internet banking, cash management, remote data capture, and automated clearing house transaction services. The Virgin Islands Operations segment is involved in the consumer, commercial lending, and deposit-taking activities. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 73 branches in Puerto Rico, 11 branches in the U.S. Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands, and 10 branches in the state of Florida. First BanCorp. was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

Thomson Reuters Corporation provides business information services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in five segments: Legal Professionals, Corporates, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Reuters News, and Global Print. The Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics to law firms and governments. The Corporates segment provides a suite of content-enabled technology solutions for legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, and IT professionals. The Tax & Accounting Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on tax offerings and automating tax workflows to tax, accounting, and audit professionals in accounting firms. The Reuters News segment provides business, financial, national, and international news to professionals through desktop terminals, media organizations, and industry events, as well as directly to consumers. The Global Print segment offers legal and tax information primarily in print format to legal and tax professionals, governments, law schools, and corporations. The company was formerly known as The Thomson Corporation and changed its name to Thomson Reuters Corporation in April 2008. The company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Thomson Reuters Corporation is a subsidiary of The Woodbridge Company Limited.

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Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade months (even years) before his peers will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. Its not 5G, artificial intelligence, EVs, or clean energy. The answer will surprise you.

MPLX LP owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure and logistics assets primarily in the United States. It operates in two segments, Logistics and Storage, and Gathering and Processing. The company is involved in the gathering, processing, and transportation of natural gas; gathering, transportation, fractionation, exchange, storage, and marketing of natural gas liquids; transportation, storage, distribution, and marketing of crude oil and refined petroleum products, as well as other hydrocarbon-based products; and sale of residue gas and condensate. Its pipeline network located throughout the United States and Alaska; storage caverns consist of butane, propane, and liquefied petroleum gas storage with locations in Neal in West Virginia, Woodhaven in Michigan, Robinson in Illinois, and Jal in New Mexico; and marine business owns and operates boats and barges, including third-party chartered equipment, as well as a marine repair facility located on the Ohio River. The company also transports light products, heavy oils, crude oil, renewable fuels, chemicals, and feedstocks in the Mid-Continent and Gulf Coast regions. In addition, its refining logistics assets operates 619 tanks with a storage capacity of approximately 56 million barrels; and 32 rail and truck racks, 18 docks, and gasoline blenders. Further, the company operates terminal facilities for the receipt, storage, blending, adultization, handling, and redelivery of refined petroleum products located throughout the continental United States and Alaska. MPLX GP LLC acts as the general partner of MPLX LP. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in Findlay, Ohio. MPLX LP is a subsidiary of Marathon Petroleum Corporation.

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Citigroup Inc., a diversified financial services holding company, provides various financial products and services to consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions in North America, Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company operates in two segments, Global Consumer Banking (GCB) and Institutional Clients Group (ICG). The GCB segment offers traditional banking services to retail customers through retail banking, Citi-branded cards, and Citi retail services. It also provides various banking, credit card, lending, and investment services through a network of local branches, offices, and electronic delivery systems. The ICG segment offers wholesale banking products and services, including fixed income and equity sales and trading, foreign exchange, prime brokerage, derivative, equity and fixed income research, corporate lending, investment banking and advisory, private banking, cash management, trade finance, and securities services to corporate, institutional, public sector, and high-net-worth clients. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 2,303 branches primarily in the United States, Mexico, and Asia. Citigroup Inc. was founded in 1812 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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Some people binge watch Netflix Huluor HBO shows. And some people turn their downtime into cash. James made $2,275 in just 19 minutesall thanks to something called The 15 Minute Workday. The average trade makes 12% in just 5 days (factoring winners and losers) which is out of this world.

The Boeing Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, sales, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight and launch systems, and services worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment provides commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as fleet support services. The Defense, Space & Security segment engages in the research, development, production, and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems; strategic defense and intelligence systems, which include strategic missile and defense systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber and information solutions, and intelligence systems; and satellite systems, such as government and commercial satellites, and space exploration. The Global Services segment offers products and services, including supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance and modifications, upgrades and conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics and digital services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment offers financing services and manages financing exposure for a portfolio of equipment under operating and finance leases, notes and other receivables, assets held for sale or re-lease, and investments. The company was founded in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

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The Boeing Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, sales, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight and launch systems, and services worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment provides commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as fleet support services. The Defense, Space & Security segment engages in the research, development, production, and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems; strategic defense and intelligence systems, which include strategic missile and defense systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber and information solutions, and intelligence systems; and satellite systems, such as government and commercial satellites, and space exploration. The Global Services segment offers products and services, including supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance and modifications, upgrades and conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics and digital services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment offers financing services and manages financing exposure for a portfolio of equipment under operating and finance leases, notes and other receivables, assets held for sale or re-lease, and investments. The company was founded in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares Edge MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Edge MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Fortis Inc. operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 433,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 98,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,233 megawatts (MW), including 59 MW of solar capacity. The company also sells wholesale electricity to other entities in the western United States; owns gas-fired and hydroelectric generating capacity totaling 65 MW; and distributes natural gas to approximately 1,048,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in British Columbia, Canada. In addition, it owns and operates the electricity distribution system that serves approximately 572,000 customers in southern and central Alberta; owns 4 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 225 MW; and provides operation, maintenance, and management services to five hydroelectric generating facilities. Further, the company distributes electricity in the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador with an installed generating capacity of 143 MW; and on Prince Edward Island with a generating capacity of 130 MW. Additionally, it provides integrated electric utility service to approximately 67,000 customers in Ontario; approximately 270,000 customers in Newfoundland and Labrador; approximately 31,000 customers on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and approximately 15,000 customers on certain islands in Turks and Caicos. The company also holds long-term contracted generation assets in Belize consisting of 3 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 51 MW; and the Aitken Creek natural gas storage facility. It also owns and operates approximately 91,000 circuit Kilometers (km) of distribution lines; and approximately 49,500 km of natural gas pipelines. Fortis Inc. was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in St. John's, Canada.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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Ad Resource Stock Digest 1,640 Interested This Week

Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years?

See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share.
The following companies are subsidiares of Archer-Daniels-Midland: ADM (Shanghai) Management Co. LTD, ADM (Thailand) Ltd, ADM Ag Holdings Ltd, ADM Agri-Industries Company, ADM Agriculture Limited, ADM Agro Iberica S. L. U., ADM Agro Indust Latur and Vizag Pvt Ltd, ADM Agro Industries India Private Limited, ADM Agro Industries KOTA and AKOLA Pvt. Ltd., ADM Agro SRL, ADM Agroinvestimentos LTDA, ADM Alliance Nutrition of Puerto Rico LLC, ADM Americas S de RL, ADM Andina Peru SRL, ADM Antwerp NV, ADM Arkady Ireland Limited, ADM Asia-Pacific Trading Pte. Ltd., ADM Australia Holdings I PTY Limited, ADM Bio Science And Technology (Tianjin) Co Ltd, ADM Bioproductos SA DE CV, ADM CZERNIN SA, ADM Caribbean Inc, ADM Chile Comercial LTDA, ADM Clinton Bioprocessing Inc, ADM DO Brasil LTDA, ADM Direct Polska SP. ZO.O, ADM Dominican Holdings Inc., ADM Dominicana SA, ADM Edible Bean Specialties Inc, ADM Europe HoldCo SL, ADM European Holdings LLC, ADM European Management Holding GMBH, ADM Export Co, ADM Food Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ADM France, ADM Germany GmbH, ADM Grain River System Inc., ADM Hamburg Aktiengesesllschaft, ADM Holding (Thailand) LTD, ADM Holdings LLC, ADM Hungary Agro Trading LLC, ADM Industries Centers Ltd, ADM International Holdings Inc, ADM International SARL, ADM Interoceanic LTD, ADM Investments LTD, ADM Investor Services Inc, ADM Investor Services International LTD, ADM Ireland Receivables Company Limited, ADM Israel, ADM Japan Ltd, ADM MALBORK SA, ADM Mainz GMBH, ADM Medsofts Sarl, ADM Mexico Inc, ADM Mexico SA DE CV, ADM Milling Co, ADM Milling LTD, ADM New Zealand Limited, ADM Olomouc S.R.O., ADM Paraguay SRL, ADM Protexin Limited, ADM Pura Limited, ADM Receivables LLC, ADM Rice Inc, ADM Ringaskiddy Unlimited Company, ADM Romania Logistics SRL, ADM Romania Trading SRL, ADM Specialty Ingredients - Europe BV, ADM Spyck GMBH, ADM Szamotuly SP Z O.O, ADM Trading Australia Pty. Ltd., ADM Trading Co, ADM Transportation Company, ADM Trucking Inc, ADM Vietnam CO. LTD, ADM WILD Europe GmbH and Co. KG, ADM WILD Ingredients GmbH, ADM WILD Nauen GmbH, ADM WILD Valencia S.A., ADM Wild Netherlands BV, ADM Worldwide Holdings LP, ADMIS Holding Co Inc., ADMIS Hong Kong LTD, ADMIS Singapore Pte Limited, AOR, AT Holdings II Company, Agri Port Services Investments Ltd., Agri Port Services LLC, Agricolas Madagascar SARLU, Agrinational Insurance Co, Agriserve, Agrograin LTD, Alfrebro LLC, Alfred C Toepfer International Netherlands BV, Alimenta USA, American River Transportation Company LLC, Ameriseed, Amylum Bulgaria EAD, Amylum Nisasta Sanayi Ve Ticarek Anonim Sirketi, Archer Daniels Midland (UK) Limited, Archer Daniels Midland Asia Pacific Ltd., Archer Daniels Midland Erith LTD, Archer Daniels Midland Europe BV, Archer Daniels Midland Europoort BV, Archer Daniels Midland Nederland BV, Archer Daniels Midland Singapore PTE LTD, Arinos Unlimited, Aston Foods & Food Ingredients, Balanceados Nova SA Balnova, Barbados Mills Limited, Bela Vista Bio Etanol Participacoes LTDA, Bern Aqua, BioPolis SL, Biopolis, Campa Sued GmbH & Co KG, Cattleman's Choice Loomix LLC, Chamtor, Ci ADM Colombia Ltda., Controladora ADM Sa De Cv, Crosswind Petfoods Inc., Daavision BV, Eaststarch, Eatem Corporation, Eatem Foods, Elstar Oils, English River Pellets Inc., Epicore Bionetworks INC, Epicore Networks (USA) INC, Erich Ziegler GmbH, Evialis France, Fasco Mills Co., Filozoo SRL, Florida Chemical, Florida Chemical Company LLC, GP Blanching Inc., Global Cocoa Holdings LTD, Golden Peanut Company LLC, Golden Peanut and Tree Nut Seed SA (PTY) LTD, Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts SA, Group Lysac, Guyomarc'h - VCN Company Limited, Guyomarc'h Vietnam CO LTD, HFR Shipping Company Ltd, HRA Shipping Company Ltd, HTI Shipping Company Ltd, Harvest Innovations, Hilltop Grain and Feed, Holding P and A Asia Company Limited, Hubei Meiweiyuan Biotechnology, Ilitchevskiy Maslo Extractionniy Zavod (IMEZ), Invivo NSA Asia PTE LTD, Invivo NSA Philippines Inc, Jamaica Flour Mills Limited, Julius Meijer-Alpharma BV, LLC ADM Ukraine, Liquid Feed Commodities, Malta Industries SA de CV, Malta-Texo De Mexico SA de CV, Master Mix of Trinidad LTD, Medsofts Investment Co, Medsofts L.L.C., Medsofts Trading Co, Mepla Comercio e Navegacao Ltda, NRG Inc, Naviera Chaco SRL, Neovia, Neovia Latina SL, Neovia Nutricao E Saude Animal LTDA, North Star Shipping S.R.L., P and A Marketing SA, PJSC ADM Illichivsk, PT Wirifa Sakti, Pancosma (Shanghai) Feed Additives CO LTD, Pancosma France SAS, Pancosma SA, Premiere Agri Technologies of Mexico Inc, Pura Foods LTD, Rodelle Inc., Schokinag-Schokolade-Industrie Herrmann, Sermix, Setna Nutricion SA, Societe Industrielle Des Oleagineux, Southern Cellulose Products Inc, Soy Investors LLC, Specialty Commodities, Specialty Commodities LLC, Sul Mineira Alimentos LTDA, SzSzV Kft, Toepfer International, Toepfer International Trading (Shanghai) Co. LTD., Vantage Corn Processors LLC, WILD Amazon Flavors Ltda, WILD Flavors, Wild Flavors Inc., Wild Flavors International GmbH, Wild Flavors Singapore Pte. Ltd., Wild Intermare GmbH, Wild Russia LLC, and Wisium SA (PTY) LTD.
General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company worldwide. The company's Power segment offers heavy-duty and aeroderivative gas turbines for utilities, independent power producers, and industrial applications; maintenance, service, and upgrade solutions to plant assets and their operational lifecycle; steam power technology for fossil and nuclear applications, including boilers, generators, steam turbines, and air quality control systems; and advanced reactor technologies solutions comprising reactors, fuels, and support services for boiling water reactors. This segment also applies the science and systems of power conversion to provide motors, generators, automation, and control equipment; and drives for energy intensive industries, such as marine, oil and gas, mining, rail, metals, test systems, and water. Its Renewable Energy segment provides various solutions for its customers through combining onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, solar, and grid solutions, as well as hybrid renewables and digital services offerings. The company's Aviation segment designs and produces commercial and military aircraft engines, integrated engine components, electric power, and mechanical aircraft systems; and provides aftermarket services. Its Healthcare segment develops, manufactures, markets, and services magnetic resonance, computed tomography, molecular imaging, x-ray and high-frequency soundwave systems, clinical monitoring and acute care systems, enterprise digital, artificial intelligence applications, consulting and command center, and complementary software and services; and researches, manufactures, and markets imaging agents. The company's Capital segment offers aviation leasing and financing, and working capital services; financial solutions and underwriting capabilities; and insurance and reinsurance for life and health risks, as well as annuity products. The company was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Whirlpool: 1900 Holdings Corporation, ADC, Aeradriatica S.p.A., Airdun Limited, B. Blend Maquinas e Bebidas S.A., BUD Comercio de Eletrodomesticos Ltda., BWI Products Limited, Bauknecht AG, Bauknecht Hausgerate GmbH, Bauknecht Limited, Beijing Embraco Snowflake Compressor Company Limited, Bill Page Orchestra, Bill Page Orchestra Inc., Brasmotor S.A., Brunson Place Properties, Brunson Place Properties LLC, CNB Consultoria Ltda, Cannon Industries Ltd., Centro de Desarrollo Tecnologico e Innovacion WHM S. de R.L de C.V., Comercial Acros Whirlpool, Comercial Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Consumer Appliances Service Limited, Ealing Compania de Gestiones y Participaciones S.A., Elera Delaware, Elera Delaware Inc., Elera Holdings Corporation, Embraco Europe S.r.l., Embraco Eurosales S.r.l., Embraco Industria de Compressores e Solucoes em Refrigeracao Ltda., Embraco Luxembourg S.a r.l., Embraco Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Embraco Mexico Servicios, Embraco Mexico Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Embraco North America, Embraco North America Inc., Embraco RUS LLC, Embraco Slovakia S.r.o., Everest Campus, Everest Campus LLC., General Domestic Appliances Holdings Ltd, General Domestic Appliances International Ltd., Guangdong Whirlpool Electrical Appliances Co., Guangdong Whirlpool Electrical Appliances Co. Ltd., Haceb Whirlpool Industrias S.A.S., Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Electric, Hefei Whirlpool Enterprise Management Service Co. Ltd., Hoover Comercial Limitada, IRE Beteiligungs GmbH, Indesit Argentina S.A., Indesit Company, Indesit Company Beyaz Esya Pazarlama A.S., Indesit Company Beyaz Esya Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Indesit Company Ceska S.r.o., Indesit Company Domestic Appliances Hellas Mepe, Indesit Company International Business S.A., Indesit Company Luxembourg S.A., Indesit Company Magyarorszag Kft, Indesit Company Nordics AB, Indesit Company Polska Sp. zo.o., Indesit Company Singapore Pte. Ltd., Indesit Company UK Holdings Ltd., Indesit IP S.r.l., Indesit International ZAO, Indesit Ireland Ltd., Indesit Middle East FZE, Indesit Ukraine LLC, Industrias Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Industrias Acros Whirlpool S.A. de C.V, Jackson Appliances Ltd., Joint-Stock Company Indesit International, KitchenAid, KitchenAid Australia Pty Ltd, KitchenAid Australia Pty Ltd., KitchenAid Delaware Inc., KitchenAid Europa Inc., KitchenAid Global, KitchenAid Global Inc., KitchenAid Inc., KitchenAid Korea Limited, KitchenAid Promotions, KitchenAid Promotions LLC, KitchenAid Trading Co., KitchenAid Trading Co. Ltd., LAWSA S.A., MLOG Armazem Geral Ltda., Maytag Corporation, Maytag Limited, Maytag Properties, Maytag Properties LLC, Maytag Sales, Maytag Sales Inc., Maytag Worldwide N.V., Merloni Domestic Appliances Ltd., Nineteen Hundred Corporation, Polar S.A., Qingdao EECON Electronic Controls and Appliances Co., Qingdao EECON Electronic Controls and Appliances Co. Ltd., South American Sales Partnership, THC Assets Corporation, Up Points Servicos Empresariais S.A., Vitromatic S.A. de C.V., WCGP Nova Scotia Co., WHirlpool EMEA Finanace S.a r.l., Whirlpool (Australia) Pty. Limited, Whirlpool (B.V.I.) Limited, Whirlpool (China) Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (China) Investment Co., Whirlpool (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (Hefei) Trading Co., Whirlpool (Hefei) Trading Co. Ltd, Whirlpool (Hong Kong) Limited, Whirlpool (Japan) Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (Thailand) Limited, Whirlpool ASEAN Co., Whirlpool America Holdings Corp., Whirlpool Argentina S.r.l., Whirlpool Asia B.V., Whirlpool Asia Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Asia Inc., Whirlpool Asia LLP, Whirlpool Belux N.V./S.A., Whirlpool Bermuda Euro Ltd., Whirlpool Beyaz Esya Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S., Whirlpool Bulgaria Ltd., Whirlpool CIS Ltd., Whirlpool CR, Whirlpool CR spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool CSA Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada Co., Whirlpool Canada Co. (post 9/1/05 amalgamation company), Whirlpool Canada Holding Co, Whirlpool Canada Holding Co. (post 4/18/06 amalgamation company), Whirlpool Canada Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada LP, Whirlpool Canada Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Chile Limitada, Whirlpool Colombia S.A.S., Whirlpool Comercial Ltda., Whirlpool Company Polska Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Company Ukraine LLC, Whirlpool Croatia Ltd., Whirlpool EMEA S.p.A., Whirlpool Ecuador S.A., Whirlpool Eesti OU, Whirlpool El Salvador, Whirlpool El Salvador S.A. de C.V., Whirlpool Electrodomesticos S.A., Whirlpool Eletrodomesticos AM S.A., Whirlpool Enterprises, Whirlpool Enterprises LLC, Whirlpool Europe B.V., Whirlpool Europe Coordination Center, Whirlpool Europe Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Ev Aletleri Pazarlama Ve Ticaret A.S., Whirlpool Finance B.V., Whirlpool Finance Center Corp., Whirlpool Finance Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Finance Overseas Ltd., Whirlpool Financial Corporation, Whirlpool Financial Corporation International, Whirlpool Floor Care Corp., Whirlpool France Holdings SAS, Whirlpool France SAS, Whirlpool Germany GmbH, Whirlpool Global B.V., Whirlpool Global Investments B.V., Whirlpool Greater China Inc., Whirlpool Guatemala, Whirlpool Guatemala S.A., Whirlpool Hellas S.A., Whirlpool Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool Home Appliances B.V., Whirlpool Home Appliances Limited Liability Company, Whirlpool Hungarian Trading Limited Liability Company, Whirlpool India Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Insurance Company, Whirlpool Insurance Company Ltd., Whirlpool Internacional S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool International GmbH, Whirlpool International Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool International Manufacturing S.a r.l., Whirlpool Ireland Appliances Limited, Whirlpool Ireland Limited, Whirlpool Italia Holdings S.r.l., Whirlpool Italia S.r.l., Whirlpool Japan Co. Ltd., Whirlpool Japan Inc., Whirlpool Kazakhstan LLP, Whirlpool Latin America Corporation, Whirlpool Latvia S.I.A., Whirlpool Lietuva UAB, Whirlpool Ltd Belgrade, Whirlpool Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Ventures S.a r.l., Whirlpool MEEA DMCC, Whirlpool Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Whirlpool Management Services S.a.g.l., Whirlpool Maroc S. a r.l., Whirlpool Mauritius Limited, Whirlpool Mexico Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool Mexico S.A. de C.V., Whirlpool Mexico Ventures LLC, Whirlpool Microwave Products Development Limited, Whirlpool NAAG Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool NAR Holdings, Whirlpool NAR Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Nederland B.V., Whirlpool Nordic, Whirlpool Nordic A/S, Whirlpool Nordic AB, Whirlpool Nordic AS, Whirlpool Nordic OY, Whirlpool Oceania Inc., Whirlpool Overseas Holdings, Whirlpool Overseas Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Overseas Hong Kong Limited, Whirlpool Overseas Manufacturing S.ar.l., Whirlpool Peru S.R.L., Whirlpool Polska Appliances Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Polska Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Portugal, Whirlpool Portugal S.A., Whirlpool Product Development (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Whirlpool Properties, Whirlpool Properties Inc., Whirlpool Puntana S.A., Whirlpool R&D S.r.l., Whirlpool RUS LLC, Whirlpool Realty Corporation, Whirlpool Romania S.r.l., Whirlpool S.A., Whirlpool SSC Limited, Whirlpool Slovakia Home Appliances spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool Slovakia spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Whirlpool Southeast Asia Pte, Whirlpool Sweden Aktiebolag, Whirlpool Taiwan Co. Ltd., Whirlpool Technologies LLC, Whirlpool UK Appliances Limited, Whirlpool UK Pension Scheme Trustee Limited, Whirlpool Ukraine LLC, Whirlpool WW Holdings B.V., Whirlpool do Brasil Investements B.V., Whirlpool do Brasil Ltda., Whirlpool of India Limited, Whirlpool Osterreich GmbH, Whirlpool Osterreich GmbH, Xpelair, Xpelair Ltd., Yummly, Yummly Canada Ltd., and Yummly Inc..
I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

WestRock Company manufactures and sells paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through Corrugated Packaging and Consumer Packaging segments. The Corrugated Packaging segment produces containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated packaging, and preprinted linerboards for sale to consumer and industrial products manufacturers, and corrugated box manufacturers. It also provides structural and graphic design, engineering services and custom, and automated packaging machines; offers a machinery solution that creates pouches to replace single-use plastics, including bubble mailers; distributes corrugated packaging materials and other specialty packaging products, including stretch films, void fills, carton sealing tapes, and other specialty tapes; operates recycling facilities that collect, sort, grade, and bale recovered paper; and provides lithographic laminated packaging products, as well as contract packing services. The Consumer Packaging segment manufactures and sells folding cartons that are used to package food, paper, beverages, dairy products, tobacco, confectionery, health and beauty, other household consumer, and commercial and industrial products; and express mail packages for the overnight courier industry. It also offers inserts and labels, as well as rigid packaging and other printed packaging products, such as transaction cards, brochures, product literature, marketing materials, and grower tags and plant stakes for the horticultural market; and secondary packages and paperboard packaging for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. In addition, this segment manufactures and sells solid fiber and corrugated partitions, and die-cut paperboard components principally to glass container manufacturers, producers of beer, food, wine, spirits, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and the automotive industry. WestRock Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

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17 hours ago

| June 19th | 2021 10:00 PM

The 3 secrets you need to know to cope with work stress

The day I went to work at the company they welcomed me with a smile. They guided me to my place, showed me my desk, my chair, my computer and even gave me a white mug with my name printed in orange. In the desk drawer I found a dark, heavy and circular object that I immediately made my own, seeking to fulfill the expectations that I believed others had of me.
Dril-Quip, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, sells, and services engineered drilling and production equipment for use in deepwater, harsh environment, and severe service applications worldwide. The company's principal products include subsea and surface wellheads, subsea and surface production trees, mudline hanger systems, specialty connectors and associated pipes, drilling and production riser systems, liner hangers, wellhead connectors, diverters, and safety valves, as well as downhole tools. It also provides technical advisory services, and rework and reconditioning services, as well as rental and purchase of running tools for use in the installation and retrieval of its products; and downhole tools comprise of liner hangers, production packers, safety valves, and specialty downhole tools that are used to hang-off and seal casing into a previously installed casing string in the well bore. The company's products are used to explore for oil and gas from offshore drilling rigs, such as floating rigs and jack-up rigs; and for drilling and production of oil and gas wells on offshore platforms, tension leg platforms, and Spars, as well as moored vessels, such as floating production, storage, and offloading monohull moored vessels. It sells its products directly through its sales personnel, independent sales agents, and representatives to integrated, independent, and foreign national oil and gas companies, as well as drilling contractors, and engineering and construction companies. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

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I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

Direct Line Insurance Group plc provides general insurance products and services in the United Kingdom. It operates through Motor, Home, Rescue and Other Personal Lines, and Commercial segments. The company offers motor, home, rescue, travel, creditor, and pet insurance products, as well as insurance for mid-to-high-net worth customers; and commercial insurance for small and medium-sized enterprises. It also provides management, motor vehicle repair, insurance intermediary, support and operational, legal, and breakdown recovery services. The company sells its insurance products directly through price comparison Websites and phone, as well as through partners and brokers under the Direct Line, Churchill, Green Flag, Direct Line for Business, DLG Partnerships, NIG, Privilege, Shotgun, DLG Legal Services, Darwin, and DLG Auto Services brands. The company was formerly known as RBS Insurance Group Limited and changed its name to Direct Line Insurance Group plc in February 2012. Direct Line Insurance Group plc was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Bromley, the United Kingdom.

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I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

Crown Holdings, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells packaging products and equipment for consumer goods and industrial products in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. It offers products for consumer goods, including steel and aluminum cans for food, beverage, household, and other consumer products; glass bottles for beverage product; and metal vacuum closures and steel crowns through its sales organization to the soft drink, food, citrus, brewing, household products, personal care, and various other industries. The company also provides products for industrial products, such as steel and plastic strap consumables and equipment, paper-based protective packaging, and plastic film consumables and equipment to metals, food and beverage, construction, agricultural, corrugated, and general industries. In addition, it offers aerosol cans and ends; and promotional and specialty packaging containers with various lid and closure variations. Further, the company provides industrial film and other related products; transit protection products, such as airbags, edge protectors, and honeycombs; and equipment and tools, such as manual, semi-automatic, and automatic equipment and tools used in end of line manufacturing applications to apply consumables. Crown Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1892 and is headquartered in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

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British MPs have voted to reject a chaotic no-deal Brexit, but backed embattled Prime Minister Theresa Mays bid to renegotiate the divorce agreement already struck with the EU, setting up a new showdown with the powerful bloc which ruled out any more concessions. In a series of votes on Tuesday, lawmakers rejected a no-deal Brexit by 318 votes to 310, undermining the May Governments argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the 28-member EU without an agreement on March 29.

However, the vote is not legally binding  meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date in less than two months.

Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the EU. With just 59 days to go until Britain leaves the EU, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek alternative arrangements to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit.

May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an emphatic message of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the Houses views, May said in a statement after the vote.
Archdiocese of Bhopal in collaboration with other denominations celebrated week long prayer service held for unity of all the Churches. Pope Leo XIII suggested praying eight days for the unity of the Churches during the feast of Pentecost in the year 1894.

Later the prayer started in the year 1908. Since then the prayer is being carried out with zeal and enthusiasm all over the world.

In Bhopal this year the prayer was held in Eternal Life AG Church- Kolar, The Zion Church- Kolar, St Josephs Church- Idgah Hills, Hallejujah Church Near PGBT, Christ the King Church Bairagarh, Holy Redeemers Church-East Railway Colony, Sacred Heart Church- Ratanpur and concluded at Assumption Church-Arera Colony.

On concluding day Archbishop Leo Cornelio SVD and CNI Bishop Manoj Charan were present to grace the occasion. Archbishop said in his address that Jesus is like a tree and we are its branches. Without tree there are no branches and without branches there is no tree.

We are all called to be in union with Christ, so that we all may be one he added.

The CNI Bishop said in his address that unity is not uniformity but unity and diversity that take place if only when we accept each others customs, traditions and the way of worship. The concluding day began with welcome address by Fr Anthonius Toppo the Parish Priest of Assumption Church followed by lighting the lamp- by different dignitaries. Pastor CP Singh presented an introduction on the universal topic Justice and only justice you shall pursue.

The penitential rite and the intentions were presented by the representatives of different Churches beside breaking the word of God by Pastor Keshav Pradhan.

The Prayer service ended with blessings from Archbishop Leo Cornelio SVD followed by exchange of peace with one another.

Pastors Vijay Nathanial, Sameer Khimla, James Bond, SL Sona, Sanjay Masih and Fathers- Mathew VC, the VG of Bhopal Archdiocese, Jose Prakash, Shaji, Preetam, Kapil and many more priests, sisters and faithful were present.

Fr Maria Stephen the PRO and Secretary for the commission dialogue and ecumenism suggested to have similar gathering once in three months to promote unity and brotherhood among Christians.
Opposition parties in Jharkhand have unanimously asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to transfer all State officials serving a particular position for over three years and directly or indirectly involved in conducting electionsin a bid to ensure fair polling during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The parties floated their concerns during a closed door meeting with a five-member team from the ECI in a Ranchi hotel on Wednesday.

There are many officials who are loyal to the ruling government. It wont be fair to conduct elections under the supervision of such loyalists, so we have asked the ECI to transfer any official holding a particular position for over three years, said Congress Lohardaga legislator Sukhdeo Bhagat.

The ECI team met political parties separately and noted down their concerns. Sources said that a maximum of three representatives from each political party were allowed to meet the ECI team.

The opposition parties also demanded a single window system to simplify campaigning for the elections. Till now, the parties had to separately seek permissions for vehicles, sound and venue. The single window system, they said, will allow an easy, one-step solution to their campaigning needs.

Besides Bhagat, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) spokesperson Vinod Pandey and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) spokesperson Manoj Kumar met the ECI team with their respective partys demands. Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Radha Krishna Kishore represented the BJP in a separate meeting with the ECI team.

The BJP requested the ECI not to club polling booths as it causes inconvenience to voters from the far off villages. It also claimed that the elections will be more peaceful this time since the NDA government has eradicated left wing extremism from many areas of Jharkhand.

The opposition parties expressed concern over possible malfunction of EVM machines and asked the ECI to put the EVM machines under scanner. The visiting ECI team, however, assured that Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) will be used during the polls, so there was no question of EVM tampering or malfunction, sources said.

The opposition parties asked the ECI to increase the expenditure submission deadline of each candidate from 30 days to 60 days, said Manoj Kumar of RJD. He added that the RJD has separately requested the ECI to conduct the election in one phase.

The last Lok Sabha election for the 14 constituencies in Jharkhand was conducted in three phases. The ruling BJP won 12 of 14 seats and JMM bagged the remaining two in the 2014 polls.

Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) requested the ECI to put a scanner on the use of black money during elections by the bigger political parties.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has demanded public holiday on the day of polling.
As a mark of protest for incidents of violence against doctors in Korba and Bhilai regions, on appeal of Indian Medical Association (IMA), Chhattisgarh Chapter, Out Patients Departments (OPDs) in all the private hospitals and nursing homes of the State remained shut on Wednesday.

All the OPDs in private hospitals and nursing homes remained closed between 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and only emergency services were continued.

Later a delegation led by Dr Mahesh Sinha met Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel at state Congress Headquarters Rajiv Bhawan in the afternoon and demanded protection of the doctors.

The IMA had also decided to meet the Director General of Police D.M. Awasthi on Thursday to urge him to sensitize policemen towards the laws prevailing in the state for protection of doctors.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over dilapidated primary school buildings in Etawah and has given four weeks to the Chief Secretary to file a reply.

A NHRC communique released on Wednesday, said it had taken suo motu cognisance of media report that 209 primary school buildings in Etawah were in dilapidated condition due to which the students were forced to attend their classes in the open fearing for their lives.

It said the school managements had reportedly made several verbal and written complaints to the authorities in Education department but the repairs had not been done, apparently due to shortage of funds.

The NHRC observed that the contents of the media reports, if true, amounted to gross violation of human rights of the students and teachers. It said dilapidated buildings were definitely threats to the lives of students, teachers and other staff of respective schools.

Accordingly, the NHRC issued notice to UP Chief Secretary to submit a detailed report along with statistics within four weeks, addressing the issues raised in the news report, giving details about action being taken or proposed to be taken by the state government to tackle the situation.

The NHRC also observed that it was the duty of the state to ensure that there be no hurdle for students and teachers in the process of imparting education.

It said after amendment in the Constitution by way of 86th Constitution Amendment Act, 2002, Right to Education has now become a fundamental right under Article 21A of the Constitution of India and providing proper atmosphere at the time of imparting education was a constitutional obligation of the state and any inaction on its part amounted to infringement of right to dignity and equality to students, which are their basic human rights.

On Wednesday, media reports said that UP Education department had conducted a survey which revealed that there were 1,238 primary and 537 junior schools in Etawah district out of which 209 were in very bad condition. The schools situated at Naurangabad, Pansaritola, Police Lines, Chhipaiti, Pakka Talab and Katra Shamsher Khan were found to be in very bad shape.

Headmistress of Pakka Talab junior high school reportedly requested for construction of concrete roof in the school. She also stated that the school building was in a dangerous state due to which classes were being conducted in the open.

District basic education officer of Etawah stated that funds were not provided in 2011 due to which repairs could not be taken up.

Meanwhile, the NHRC also took suo motu cognisance of media reports that three labourers died and two others were injured due to electrocution while fixing poles in Bareilly district. The contractor had no permission from Power department for the work. The labourers were engaged for laying Reliance Jio 5G cable on the poles.

The NHRC observed that going by the contents of the reports on Wednesday, there was gross negligence on part of the contractor. It said right to life, which was one of basic human rights, of the deceased labourers and the injured were violated and the incident also put a question mark on the working of authorities concerned, who could not stop illegal work being done by the contractor.

Accordingly, it issued a notice to the Chief Secretary, seeking a detailed report along with relief and rehabilitation provided to the family members of the deceased and injured in the mishap. It also sought details of medical treatment being provided to the injured and legal action taken against officials and the contractor responsible of the mishap. The detailed report has been sought within four weeks.
The Delhi Police has arrested a man for allegedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor girl in East Delhis Madhu Vihar area on Tuesday. Police suspect his involvement in three previous cases of rape in Kalyanpuri, Ghazipur and Pandav Nagar area.

According to police, the accused has been identified as Manish Chadda, a resident of East Delhi. On Tuesday, the accused allegedly kidnapped a minor girl and sexually assaulted here. While trying to flee, he reportedly left his scooty behind.

During investigation, police recovered the identity and address of the accused. He was arrested from Shakarpur area on Tuesday evening.

According to sources, during questioning the accused confessed to his involvement in previous cases of rape in Kalyanpuri and Ghazipur area. It is alleged that he is the culprit in a year old rape case of Pandav Nagar.

The modus operandi in these cases were identical, sources said, he would allegedly coax minor girls aged 7-12 with treats and forcefully take them to the roof and rape them. Further investigations are underway, police said.
BJP Legislature Party Leader KV Singh Deo on Wednesday resigned from the Assembly Committee on Privileges in protest against a notice issued to OTV director Jagi Mangat Panda to depose before the committee.

I hereby tender my resignation from the Committee on Privileges for 2018-19 constituted by you on the issue of Privilege Motion raised by the Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati on a news item telecast by OTV on November 20, 2018, Singh Deo mentioned in his resignation letter.

Bahinipati had stated that the OTV Ltd had breached the privilege of the House through its authorized persons and undermined the dignity of the House through a programme telecast on its TV channel. Nowhere had he mentioned that the Managing Director of the channel be summoned.

While the Speaker has the authority to constitute a committee, there has never been precedence of summoning owners of the media houses. At best editors/ reporters have been summoned. But in this case, OTV Director Jagi Mangat Panda was summoned. Moreover, she is an established and reputed woman entrepreneur of the State. She has been humiliated and harassed publicly which shows the anti-woman attitude. Such action by the Chairman smacks of political vendetta. It is clear that she was summoned to be harassed for political reasons, agued Singh Deo.

Under the circumstances it is untenable on my part to be a part of the committee, which should work independently and without bias. My resignation may please be accepted with immediate effect, mentioned Singh Deo.
Launching a scathing attack on the proposed mahagathbandhan of opposition parties, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Wednesday said that there would be a new prime minister everyday of the week if the grand alliance came to power.

Shah said this while formally kicking off BJPs poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh by addressing meetings of booth-level party workers in Lucknow and Kanpur on Wednesday.

The BJP chief said that the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party tie-up represented corruption, casteism, family rule and crime.

The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is. If the mahagathbandhan takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and MK Stalin on Saturday and Sundays will be holiday, Shah said with sarcasm.

Lashing out at the BSP-SP alliance, the BJP chief said, Mayawati wants a majboor sarkar (helpless government) while the BJP is for a majboot (strong) government.

The alliance government will be run by dealers while a strong leader will run the BJP government. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, a strong foundation was laid, in 2017, a building was constructed and in 2019, it would be strengthened further. The alliance claims to bring a change but they do not have a leader, Shah quipped.

People say that the way to Delhi is possible only through Uttar Pradesh. Yes, this time too, the route to Delhi will go through UP. People talk about mahagathbandhan, bua-bhatija, but I say let them all unite. They are coming together because of your power, your fear. Today, criminals are surrendering because of fear of police. Earlier, the police were afraid of criminals, the BJP chief said.

The BJP has four Bs  Badhta Bharat and Banta Bharat. Similarly, those forming an alliance have four Bs  bua (aunt), bhatija (nephew), and bhai (brother) and behen (sister), Shah said, accusing the opposition of dynastic politics.

Training his guns at the Congress, the BJP chief mocked at the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as Congress general secretary and said that a government run by a dynasty could not serve the people, but only provide a majboor sarkar.

On Ram temple issue, Shah lashed out at the Congress, saying that the party does not have the right to speak on Ram Janmabhoomi.

The BJP wants temple at Lord Rams birthplace. But whenever the case comes up for hearing, Congress lawyers create obstacles. They raise questions on judges and advocates and seek another date. (Narendra) Modi has done a great job by deciding to file petition before Supreme Court seeking the transfer of 42 acres of undisputed land to Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas. The BJP is committed to building a Ram temple in Ayodhya and it is not a political issue for us, he said.

Shah asked party cadre to ensure that the party gets 50 per cent of the votes at every booth to win 74 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In the 2014 polls, BJP and its allied had won 73 seats.

The BJP chief also exhorted party workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in Lok Sabha polls.

Listing the achievements of the National Democratic Alliance government, Shah said that the BJP had given legal status to National Backward Class Commission and had also given 10 per cent reservation to the poor among the upper caste.

Soon, UP will become number one state in the country under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The quantity of wheat the BJP government has purchased in two years, other parties have been unable to do in 22 years. Earlier, Congress used to give only Rs 3.30 lakh crore to UP, but Modi gave Rs 10.27 lakh crore to the state every year. If Modi is voted back, then India will become one of the most powerful nations, Shah said.

Wednesdays twin addresses by Shah are the first two of the six regional booth-level meets planned in UP. For these meeting, the BJP has given the slogan Mera Booth Sabse Majboot (my booth strongest), to pump up the cadre.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP state chief MN Pandey and Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma were also present and spoke in the meetings.
In its collective bid to end stigmatisation of women and children who are victims of sexual violence, the Dignity March, comprising survivors of rape and sexual violence, arrived in Bhopal on Monday after striding through Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Ranchi, Bihar and Lucknow.

With its arrival in Bhopal, the 10,000 kilometre March is gaining strength as thousands of participants proceed towards ending the culture of shame and fear among victims, urging citizens to psychologically support the victims.

The Dignity March is rooted in a national online survey conducted by Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan.

The survey, 'Speak Out!' was conducted to determine the intensity of sexual .violence against women and children and to bring out the voice of the survivors.

The survey revealed that an alarming number of people have faced sexual violence, but 95% of the incidents of sexual violence against women and children are not reported, and the 'victim' is shamed and is under constant fear of stigmatization by the society. Especially, in case of children, most crimes go unnoticed and there is negligible conviction which leads to impunity among culprits.

The survey also reveals that the government data of incidents of sexual violence against women and children is less valid as only 2% of incidents have been reported to the Police.

On its arrival in Bhopal, Dignity March organized an event to discuss the situation around Sexual Violence and Rape against children and women in Madhya Pradesh and India.

During the event, Ashif Shaikh, Convenor, Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, Dignity March along with survivors of rape and sexual violence, highlighted the important role of reporting cases and further advancing the cause.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, comedian-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann is once again in the driver's seat. Accepting the responsibility once again, Mann made it clear on Wednesday that his stand on the drug issue against some leaders is still the same.

Mann had stepped down from the post of AAP's Punjab unit president in March 2018 protesting against the party supremo Arvind Kejriwals infamous apology to SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia for drug allegations.

In the run-up to 2017 State Assembly polls, Kejriwal and other AAP leaders in Punjab had alleged that Majithia was a drug lord, and was patronising the rampant drug trade in the State. Majithia, in turn, filed a defamation cases against AAP leaders including Kejriwal.

Even as Mann made it clear that he was satisfied with Kejriwals reasoning for his apology to Majithia, AAP's new State chief declared that the party would continue its fight against the drug issue in the State.

Our stand on the issue is still the same. Drug problem in Punjab is because of SAD-BJP and their support to the mafia and drug lords, said Mann, after formally taking over the party reins in the presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who is also Punjab party affairs in-charge.

Mann maintained that AAP's Punjab unit still stand on the allegations against Majithia for which Arvind Kejriwal had sought apology...AAP leader Sanjay Singh is still facing cases in the courts for these allegations.

Also party MP from Sangrur, Mann had recently met Kejriwal before once again taking over the State party unit, during which the AAP national convener had clarified the circumstances in which he had sought the apology from Majithia.

I am satisfied with Kejriwal as far as his apology is concerned. He would have remained busy with these defamation cases against him if he has not sought apologies. And Majithia was not the only one from whom Kejriwal has sought apology, said Mann.

Facing over two dozen defamation cases against him across 22 States, Kejriwal went on an apology spree, saying sorry not only to Majithia, but also Union Ministers Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari, besides former Union Minister and Congress leader Kapil Sibal and his advocate son Amit Sibal.

At the same time, he accused the Congress-led Punjab Government of slow-pedalling on the drug issue, especially acting against the big-fish. Congress Government is deliberately delaying the probe and not even gathering evidence against Akali leaders involved in drug cases, alleged Mann.

Accusing Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and the Badals of being hand-in-glove, Mann said that the Badals had driven the state youth into drug addiction by conniving with drug lords in the State.

Capt Amarinder is also following their footsteps, and backed out on the poll promises he had made to the people ahead of the elections, said Mann adding that even the Congress party MLAs had been urging the Chief Minister to initiate action against the Badals and the drug mafia so that they could visit their constituencies without any fear of being targeted.

He said that the people of the State were sick of subsequent anti-people Governments and they see AAP as the only hope on the vast political horizon.

AAP in Punjab would go the whole hog to reach out to the remotest village and every household with the Delhi model of governance, he said adding that he would try hard to take the party forward on the path of progress for which he sought everybodys help.

AAP leaders, led by Sisodia, formally reinstalled Mann as the Punjab unit chief at a simple ceremony in the presence of MLAs, zonal presidents, district presidents, area presidents and other whos who of the party.

SISODIA DUCKS QUERY ON SYL

Ducking the query on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday maintained that the decision on the same would be taken by the partys State unit core committee.

Delhi would be benefitted with the construction of the SYL canal, which the Punjab has all along been opposing it. The matter is currently subjudice.

The decision on the water issue is to be taken by the partys Punjab unit core committee, said Sisodia without clarifying partys stand on the issue.

Mann, on the other hand, said that both the BJP-SAD and the Congress party had been politicising the sensitive issue to gain political interest. They never took the trouble to resolve the issue in spite of the fact that the stakeholders had their Governments in Punjab, Haryana and at the Centre, said Mann while declaring that AAP would take the issue to a conclusive end.

On the issue of rebel leaders and MLAs, Sisodia said that the party would not suffer from the departure of the leaders who were greedy for posts, without naming anyone.

Meanwhile, Principal Daljit Singh Bhagta from Bathinda joined the AAP, after Mann took over as AAPs State unit chief.

Bhagta was allegedly insulted by some supporters of an Akali Minister. He holds 14 post-graduate degrees, said Mann.
Sanjay Sachdev, the founder of NGO Love Commandos who earned his spurs for ostensibly protecting couples from harassment and honour killing, has been arrested for allegedly confining, intimidating and extorting money from the couples, residing in his shelter home in Paharganj.

Sachdev was arrested on Tuesday after a woman approached the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Monday and levelled the charges against him, the Delhi Police said on Wednesday.

An FIR under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 384 (theft), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (insulting modesty of woman) and 34 (act committed by several persons) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered at Paharganj police station.

Elaborating on the incident, the DCW said there were four couples residing in the shelter home and all of them are below the age of 25.

DCW officials, including chairperson Swati Maliwal, inspected the shelter home on Tuesday. Eight men and eight women were forcefully confined in the home. Their documents were taken, and they werent allowed to leave the premises. The NGO extorted money from them, physically assaulted the couples and even forced the men to consume alcohol, said Maliwal.

They also misbehaved with the women residents. Our team immediately contacted Central district DCP Mandeep Randhawa and an FIR was lodged and the Love Commandos founder was arrested, she said.

Meanwhile, the DCW said the couples were forced to pay around `15,000-`20,000 as fees to Sachdev. They were forced to do household chores and odd jobs and the girls used to feel very uncomfortable as they had to always go through the room of the owner to access the toilet and kitchen, the DCW said.

The residents also informed the DCW that if they tried to leave, they would be threatened and made to believe they will be killed. The owner would allegedly also threaten to leak their whereabouts to their family. In order to frighten the residents, the staff would unleash dogs on them, they said.

According to the DCW, the residents disclosed that the NGO founder would often get drunk at night and would misbehave with the girls and would force the boys to drink alcohol with him.

If anyone was suffering from any illness, the staff refused to take them to a doctor. A boy, who contracted typhoid thrice in his stay at the home, informed us that he was not given proper medication, the DCW said.

One of the couples mentioned that their family has been trying to get in touch with them and is ready to have them back home but the owner wouldnt let them leave the shelter home, the DCW chairperson said.

The couples facing the threat of honour killing in our nation undergo immense trauma. For an NGO to abuse these vulnerable young persons in the name of helping them is extremely shameful and tragic. I am happy that DCW intervened in the matter and rescued these young adults from the horrific abuse. We shall provide all necessary assistance to them and will support them throughout Maliwal said.
Its ironical that the military is treated as an appendage by those very institutions that ascended to power post-Independence after collaborating with the British

On July 5, 1943, at the Padang (Square), Singapore, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who had just arrived and taken over as the head of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, or the Provisional Government of Free India, and commander-in-chief of the Azad Hind Fauj, formally reviewed his Army. In his address to the troops, he exhorted them: Give me your blood and I will give you freedom. He concluded by raising the Delhi Chalo slogan. It took over 71 long years for independent India to finally fulfill his pledge and formally bestow on four veterans, representatives of that Fauj, the honour of being escorted in a procession to the ramparts of Delhis Red Fort during Republic Day. Undoubtedly, it was a red letter day for the members of the Indian National Army (INA) and recognition of their immense sacrifice to Indias freedom.

That it took the Modi Government the better part of five years to take this initiative is indeed surprising as there is little doubt that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and its business empire, the Indian National Congress, would have never allowed such an initiative to go through. That this initiative as well as the premature commencement of celebrations of Mahatma Gandhis sesquicentennial birth anniversary were organised on the eve of the forthcoming general election, in which the Prime Minister found his chair threatened by a resurgent Congress, is certainly no coincidence. It is obviously unadulterated politics as it should be, given the fact that both Gandhiji and Netaji were politicians first and statesmen later. What is indeed fascinating is that Modi has been able to skillfully weave two opposing ideologies together  one promoting ahimsa and the other violence  to enhance his own appeal as a nationalist.

Also, by their inclusion in the parade, an event organised by the armed forces, the military hierarchy has finally been forced to recognise and accept the contributions of the Azad Hind Fauj in the independence movement, something that has actively been denied all these years. We must remember that of the 43,000 men and women, who volunteered to join the INA, a vast majority of them were members of the British Indian Army. They were taken prisoners during the fall of Singapore and the retreat from Malaya and Burma. It is not surprising that their shift of allegiance from loyal subjects of the king-emperor to opposing him was considered as an act of treason by our British masters. This thought was drilled into the minds of the 2.5 million Indians, who served in the British Indian Army, Navy and Air Force.

This perception of the Azad Hind Fauj soldiers being disloyal and untrustworthy as promoted by the British was unquestioningly accepted by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his cabal at the time of Independence. That Nehru saw in Netaji and those who had joined him, a likely obstacle to his own political ambitions and aspirations must certainly have been an important factor in his actions that ensured that the senior hierarchy of the INA was left out in the cold after Independence. Thus those who had served the British loyally found themselves at the helm of the military and it was in their interest to perpetuate this perception subsequently  a view that continues to be accepted by some to this day.

In fact, Modis initiative has been criticised by some who believe that this will further politicise the military. Critics suggest that by condoning the indiscipline of the INA, a precedent is being set and incidents of mutiny over time can also be justified on similar grounds  a comparison that is wholly ridiculous and illogical given the vast difference in circumstances; unwilling subjects of a colonial power versus armed rebellion against a legally elected Government in a democracy. Interestingly, while they may have fostered this narrative for their own advantage, the British didnt fall for it as they became increasingly convinced that as the exploits of the INA came to be known, there would be increasing disaffection within the British Indian Army. Documentary evidence suggests that this distrust of the military led to rapid disengagement and departure.

Finally, one cannot help but point out that among a vast number of institutions, forces and constabularies that the British Empire established to keep control over their dominion, it was primarily only the soldiers who willingly took on them by force, despite being aware of the consequences of our fight for independence  be it the Vellore Rebellion, the First War for Independence or the actions of the Azad Hind Fauj. Ironically, it is the military which finds itself disempowered and treated as an appendage by those very institutions that ascended to power after Independence by having collaborated with the British.

(The writer is a military veteran, a consultant with the Observer Research Foundation and Visiting Senior Fellow with The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai)
Afghanistans election authorities concluded that 3.6 million out of 34 million people in the country voted in a recent Parliamentary round.

The results are good, bad and ugly.

The election of 2018 opened a maverick chapter in the democracy of Afghanistan.

The good news is that there were a little over 800 candidates from Kabul, including 108 female candidates, contesting nine seats. I was one of the 108 candidates.

Another piece of good news was the strong engagement from the international community, with ambassadors visiting polling sites and the United Nations and other major organisations monitoring the elections. Another positive aspect was that, despite multiple attacks on the days of voting, voters showed immense courage, patience and resilience.

The bad news is that I was robbed of my ability to serve the public, not due to a lack of votes, but because of the inauthenticity of the election. Even from a distance, it was obvious that the votes were not counted in a transparent way. I will not declare this election a sham as that would dishonor myself, my team and my voters, all of whom faced life-threatening situations in the campaign and election days, but I will label it as unfair.

The good side of the election was that despite the huge difficulties, numerous women participated. (Photo: Reuters)

There were numerous security incidents that killed several candidates, including my brother. I also struggled with bribery demands from within the Independent Election Commission (IEC). Financial relationships between the contending candidates and election officials will haunt the democracy of this nation.

The unquestionably ugly side of this election was that the people of Afghanistan were exhausted by the disorganisation and technical failures. This vote was the first to introduce biometrics, but the machines had no capability of getting online  they produced only print-outs  and the time it took each voter to register was estimated around 20 to 30 minutes on average.

The list of registered voters was missing and due to this, the election was extended for another day.

This is when the gates for fraudulent activities opened.

Why is this so ugly? The constellation of alliances that line up around this behavior will only increase the current problems.

Aside from the national public feeling exhausted by the incapability of the election commission, the international community showed no further interest in transparency. There were public calls for the commissioners to be removed, but what difference would it make if they were removed after the announcement with their bank accounts secured, to live in serenity?

Gula Jan Abdul Badi Sayad, chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan. (Photo: Reuters)

Another major aspect one should reflect on is the presidential decree during President Hamid Karzais era in which all commissioners would retain their status if removed, which means they would have security protection, armored vehicles and VIP status.

The ugly thus on a personal level.

This election was at a great cost to the people of Afghanistan.

The successful conclusion of the election, despite such major democratic failures, was a result of the stoicism of the people of Afghanistan and their collective decision to vote.

As we approach the presidential election of 2019, I wonder if the government and election commission have learned any lessons from the pyrrhic parliament victory. I want to be clear about three things: when people go out to vote, dont manipulate them for personal financial incentives or political gain.

No one should be scared of serving their own people. (Photo: Reuters)

Second, if the freedom and right to vote is tampered with, then you have destroyed the democratic hopes of the Afghan people.

Finally, assess the conditions for holding elections, test the equipment, monitor sites and try not to shatter the hopes of the Afghan people.

No one should be scared of serving their people.

Although I was not announced in the preliminary list, when opportunities present themselves, I still encourage the women of Afghanistan to participate. Run for a political party, committee, anything  but make sure the race is clean and transparent.

Run because we will have pressing questions and dont want to be victims of repression.

Also Read: Why US-China trade war wont work
Newspapers suggested the report, the first since 2011-12, would reflect job losses in the wake of Narendra Modi's shock demonetisation scheme in 2016

A top Indian statistics official has quit in protest at a government delay in the publication of a report many expect will show rising unemployment under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Such findings, coming ahead of elections due by May, would be highly damaging to Modi, who came to power in 2014 promising to create millions of jobs.

P V Mohanan, acting chair of the National Statistics Commission (NSC), told AFP that he quit on Tuesday along with a colleague, saying that the NSC had approved the report in early December.

"We have resigned because I felt we were not taken seriously. Our decisions have not been implemented... The commission was not playing an effective role," he said.

Newspapers suggested that the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report, the first since 2011-12, would reflect job losses in the wake of Modi's shock demonetisation scheme in 2016.

That surprise move saw 86 percent of Indian banknotes become unusable overnight.

It was aimed at bringing the vast informal economy out of the shadows, but critics said it was badly managed and caused unnecessary suffering to millions of India's poor.

"The 2017-18 job survey did not present a good picture on the employment front. This is most likely the reason for holding it back," the Indian Express daily quoted an NSSO source as saying.

India's statistics ministry issued a "clarification" on Wednesday saying that Mohanan and his colleague did not express their "concerns... in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months."

Modi's government, which has complained about the lack of reliable jobs data, decided to make the NSSO survey an annual exercise starting 2017-18.

Its statement on Wednesday said that the NSSO was reviewing data for the period July 2017 to December 2018 and that the report would be "released thereafter".

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent think-tank, the jobless rate increased to 7.4 percent in December, the highest in 15 months, while 11 million jobs were lost in 2018 due to demonetisation.
"The leadership should be an example for the Madagascan people," Rajoelina said, demanding "rapid results" from the new government

Madagascar's new President Andry Rajoelina on Thursday unveiled his first government, a streamlined cabinet that he said would help the poor Indian Ocean state tighten its belt.

The lineup includes 21 ministers and one deputy minister, compared with a 30-strong team in the previous government.

"This measure was taken with a view to austerity and a reduction of public spending," Rajoelina told reporters. "The leadership should be an example for the Madagascan people."

He demanded "rapid results" from the team to be led by Prime Minister Christian Ntsay, who headed an interim unity government for six months in the runup to the December election.

Rajoelina, 44, said the government's work would be evaluated in six months. "And in a year, we will determine who has met the challenges and who has failed."

Among the cabinet picks, Tianarivelo Razafimahefa was kept on as interior minister despite accusations of fraud by Rajoelina's campaign rival Marc Ravalomanana.

Billionaire media tycoon Naina Andriatsitohaina will be Ntsay's foreign minister.

Rajoelina regained power in the Indian Ocean by winning a second-round vote in December against Ravalomanana after polls in which both sides alleged ballot fraud.

Rajoelina first ruled from 2009 until 2014 after he was installed by the army when then president Ravalomanana was ousted following violent protests.

In his inaugural address Rajoelina pledged to fight corruption in a country where politics and business are widely seen as beset by graft.

The former French colony is well known for its vanilla and precious redwood, yet is one of the world's poorest nations, according to World Bank data, with 76 percent of people living in extreme poverty.

The island, which is also famed for its unique wildlife, is dependent on foreign aid and has a long history of coups and unrest.
Frozen 2 is set for release in November and already the cast is getting together to celebrate it.

The top stars from the Disney film, including Kristen Bell (Anna), Idina Menzel (Elsa), Josh Gad (Olaf) and Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), were pictured side by side in Instagram photos shared on Wednesday.

And in Gad's Instagram note he hinted Dwayne The Rock Johnson may voice the character of Sven the reindeer.

Reunited: Frozen 2 is set for release in November and already the cast is getting together to celebrate it. The top stars from the Disney film, including Kristen Bell (Anna), Idina Menzel (Elsa), Josh Gad (Olaf) and Jonathan Groff (Kristoff), were pictured side by side in Instagram photos shared on Wednesday

Four for the road: Menzel posted as well. On her Instagram page she is seen with the actors. Her caption read, 'Just a little morning Arendellian love'

Disney has yet to confirm the casting.

Johnson has already worked with the studio before on the animated hit Moana.

In Frozen, Sven did not have a voice as his owner, Kristoff spoke on his behalf in a funny voice.

In one photo Had made a kissing gestures at a stuffed Sven doll. 'Soon enough...' the actor wrote.

Sister fun: Frozen came out in 2013 and was a smash hit, yielding the hit songs Let It Go and Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?

Trouble in the north: The plot: When the newly-crowned Queen Elsa accidentally uses her power to turn things into ice to curse her home in infinite winter, her sister Anna teams up with a mountain man, his playful reindeer, and a snowman to change the weather condition

Gad also tagged Santino Fontana (who played Hans) and he tagged Johnson as Sven.

Frozen came out in 2013 and was a smash hit, yielding the hit songs Let It Go and Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?

The plot: When the newly-crowned Queen Elsa accidentally uses her power to turn things into ice to curse her home in infinite winter, her sister Anna teams up with a mountain man, his playful reindeer, and a snowman to change the weather condition.

Hope he likes carrots: And in Gad's Instagram note he hinted Dwayne The Rock Johnson may voice the character of Sven the reindeer. Seen on Monday in Sundance

A tough reindeer: Sven does not talk in the movie as he helps his owner Kristoff

It was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen and won two Oscars.

Menzel posted as well. On her Instagram page she is seen with the actors. Her caption read, 'Just a little morning Arendellian love.'

Frozen 2 will also star Evan Rachel Wood from Westworld and This Is Us' Sterling K. Brown.

Plot details have not been released yet, but it is known that the team has to leave Arendelle to solve a problem.
She was just in snow Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival.

But Emma Roberts couldn't have looked any happier enjoying a day hiking in the sunshine with gal pal Kristen Stewart on Wednesday.

After spending some time in the cold weather, the actress, 27, certainly seemed in high spirits as she took in the warm Southern California weather in Los Feliz.

Take a hike! Emma Roberts couldn't have looked any happier enjoying a day hiking in the sunshine with gal pal Kristen Stewart on Wednesday

The actress was practically beaming with joy as she hiked down the hilly incline.

It seems the feeling was mutual, as Kristen also looked elated to take in the fresh air during an hour of girl time.

The ladies truly seemed to be in a good mood during their fun day in the outdoors.

Kristen, meanwhile, sported grey sweatpants, a black top, and hat for her invigorating jaunt outdoors.

Double trouble: The ladies could not stop smiling as they enjoyed the warm winter weather

Walk and talk: The stars caught up as they strolled through the neighborhood

Emma kept her cool for the day wearing a tattered white shirt, black leggings, and sweatshirt tied around her slim waist.

It seems Emma as though had quite the social day.

After her hike, the Scream Queens actress was seen grabbing sushi with a pal in Los Feliz.

Sporty: Emma kept her cool for the day wearing a tattered white shirt, black leggings, and sweatshirt tied around her slim waist

Casual cool: Kristen, meanwhile, sported grey sweatpants, a black top, and hat for her invigorating jaunt outdoors

The actress cut a quirky figure in a fluffy pink sweater, jeans, lace-up boots and clear sunglasses.

Emma seemed absolutely delighted to be spending the lunch hour with her pal.

It seems some sunshine was in order for Emma, after spending a few days promoting Paradise Hills at the Sundance Film Festival.

Lunch fun: The American Horror Story actress also grabbed lunch with a pal in Los Feliz

Emma stars opposite Milla Jovovich in the fantasy film about a mysterious boarding school in the future that reforms women should they fail to abide by society's standards.

'This move is super wacky,' Emma explained during a sit-down chat with IMDB. 'It takes place in the future, hopefully not a real future. But in this future, if girls, young women don't comply to kind of the image that society or their family wants for them, they are sent to a finishing school to be fixed.'

The film was released on January 29.

Pink lady: The star looked quirky and cool in a fluffy pink sweater
A second man - aged 19 - has been questioned by police over the nightclub attack on Strictly Come Dancing dancer AJ Pritchard and his brother Curtis at Christmastime.

The case has remained cold for weeks after an initial suspect, aged 20, was previously detained and released under investigation.

The second man, from Crewe, voluntarily attended an interview - as AJ, 24, tells MailOnline that he is not letting the lack of an arrest anger him, or make him bitter.

Developments: A second man - aged 19 - has been questioned by police over the nightclub attack on Strictly Come Dancing dancer AJ Pritchard and his brother Curtis at Christmastime

He said: When it comes down to seeing if someones been arrested I am just letting [the police] do their job.

Both the NHS and police were fantastic to us when it happened. There is just no point in me wasting energy channeling this into anger - I would rather channel it into positivity.

Anger is not worth it. That would be them winning.

A month on from the incident, AJ admitted that it affected me more than I thought it would.

Not holding grudges: The second man, from Crewe, voluntarily attended an interview - as AJ, 24, tells MailOnline that he is not letting the lack of an arrest anger him, or make him bitter

Back to work: A month on from the incident, AJ admitted that it affected me more than I thought it would

He went on: Its a sad situation. It was senseless violence. But I feel better now.

It affected me more than I thought it would. But its been good to open up about it and highlight a situation that you feel like is never going to happen to you. Its been helpful to talk about it, like when we went on This Morning.

AJ is, instead, channeling my energy into my job.

He said: Its a new year. I dont want to reflect on it. Curtis has had surgery - hes fit and healthy and done a little bit of dancing. Hes had physio to strengthen his muscles.

AJ said: Its a new year. I dont want to reflect on it. Curtis has had surgery - hes fit and healthy and done a little bit of dancing. Hes had physio to strengthen his muscles'

In the family: He is going back to Ireland to do Dancing With The Stars,' AJ revealed of Curtis

He is going back to Ireland to do Dancing With The Stars.

A spokesperson for Cheshire Constabulary told StokeonTrentLive on Wednesday: 'As part of the investigation a 19-year-man from Crewe voluntarily attended Crewe Police station on Friday, January 25 where he was interviewed under police caution.

'The investigation remains ongoing at this time and officers are currently following a number of lines of inquiry.'

MailOnline has contacted Cheshire Constabulary for comment.

Both AJ and younger brother Curtis, 22, have chosen to defy the thugs that jumped the pair at Nakatcha in the days between Christmas and the New Year.

Always smiling: Both AJ and younger brother Curtis, 22, have chosen to defy the thugs that jumped the pair at Nakatcha in the days between Christmas and the New Year

While Curtis is easing himself back into work, AJ is currently performing on the 2019 Strictly tour and prepping for his first ever solo venture.

Called Get On The Floor!, AJ insisted to MailOnline that there are 'no limits' to his own show - which runs from March 3 - March 12 across the country.

'I want it to be challenging to me, too. I am not an expert in all types of dance. And I will definitely be mixing,' he revealed. 'It's my first tour on my own, so it's nerve-wrecking. But it's amazing to have that creative freedom. And this show is fresh with new young talent.'

The dancer held open auditions last week in London for the show, where he had a mammoth turn out of over 80 men and 80 women. The auditions saw AJ cut down the flurry of hopefuls to just two of each.
She's the younger sister of supermodel Kate Moss.

And Lottie Moss showed off her own fashion credentials as she led the glamour at the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on Wednesday.

The model, 21, looked effortlessly chic in a long burgundy leather trench waistcoat, which she layered with a black polo neck jumper underneath.

Chic: Lottie Moss led the glamour at the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on Wednesday

Paying homage to Dior, she accessorised her look with a black belt, which had the brand's initial in gold on it.

Lottie also carried a matching black clutch bag, with the letter D in gold, and wore a pair of elegant black heels.

The 21-year-old styled her newly dyed blonde locks into a sleek sweptback hairdo, she added a slick of make-up.

Work it: The model, 21, looked effortlessly chic in a long burgundy leather trench waistcoat, which she layered with a black polo neck jumper underneath

Details: Paying homage to Dior, she accessorised her look with a black belt, which had the brand's initial in gold on it

Elegant: Lottie also carried a matching black clutch bag, with the letter D in gold, and wore a pair of elegant black heels

Bold look: Nicola Roberts made a bold fashion statement in a pink, purple and orange ombre effect shirt dress with flute sleeves by House of Holland

Also attending the star-studded fashion event was Nicola Roberts, Rachel Johnson, Anais Gallagher and Lady Mary Charteris.

Nicola made a bold fashion statement in a pink, purple and orange ombre effect shirt dress with flute sleeves by House of Holland.

She teamed the item of clothing with a matching high-neck pink top with purple writing on it and dark purple flared trousers.

The Girls Aloud star, 33, styled her fiery auburn locks and fringe into a sleek curly blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of copper make-up.

Funky: She teamed the item of clothing with a matching high-neck pink top with purple writing on it and dark purple flared trousers

Stunning: The Girls Aloud star, 33, styled her fiery auburn locks and fringe into a sleek curly blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of copper make-up

Chic: Nicola later posed next to some of the collection within the exhibition on Wednesday night

Rachel looked chic in a plunging navy blue jumpsuit with a black belt, scarf and heeled boots.

Lady Mary Charteris paid homage to her Scottish roots and Christian Dior in a red and black pleated kilt.

The socialite, 31, teamed the item of clothing with a black crop top and a cropped black leather jacket.

Strike a pose: Rachel Johnson looked chic in a plunging navy blue jumpsuit with a black belt, scarf and heeled boots

Scottish roots: Lady Mary Charteris paid homage to her Scottish roots and Christian Dior in a red and black pleated kilt

Edgy: The socialite, 31, teamed the item of clothing with a black crop top and a cropped black leather jacket

Accessorising the ensemble, Lady Mary added a pair of black sheer cropped tights, a Dior choker and PVC platform ankle boots.

She styled her pink locks into a sleek straightened hairdo, she added a slick of make-up.

Anais Gallagher ensured she joined the trendsetting elite as she too attended the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Monday.

The daughter of Oasis rocker Noel and Meg Matthews, 19, fit in perfectly alongside the fashion set, wearing a high-necked burnt orange silk dress.

Fashionista: Anais Gallagher ensured she joined the trendsetting elite as she attended the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Cool girl: The daughter of Oasis rocker Noel and Meg Matthews, 19, fit in perfectly alongside the fashion set, wearing a high-necked burnt orange silk dress

The model's floor-length number featured lace panels, and was clinched around her waist with a chunky black belt.

She kept it casually cool with a pair of platform converse, while carrying her essentials in a patchwork-style bag.

Anais opted for a natural pallet of make-up, while wearing her blonde locks in loose beachy waves.

Strike a pose: The model's floor-length number featured lace panels, and was clinched around her waist with a chunky black belt

Outfit change: Anais later layered her look with a denim jacket which was embroidered with David Bowie on the back

Retro-chic: Maddi Waterhouse, whose sister is Suki, rocked a retro chic ensemble at the star-studded event

Stylish: Quentin Jones looked stylish in a long red velvet dress with a black and white heart print fur coat

Wow-factor: Josephine De La Baume looked incredible in a black crochet dress with a detailed neckline

Line-up: Also attending was Tanya Burr who looked sensational in an off-the-shoulder nude pink sheer corset-style dress

Dapper: Actor Christian Cooke looked dapper in a navy blue and burgundy ensemble

Lace: Mabel McVey and Anna Brewster both looked elegant in lace dresses (L-R)

The teenager has been working hard to step out of her father's shadow and has recently been announced as a contributing fashion editor at Tatler and enrolled at Camberwell College of Arts in South London.

The fashion maven recently revealed to Tatler about her rise up the socialite ranks in London, and accepting her place as part of London's exclusive Primrose Hill Set's 'next generation'.

The group - named after the affluent London district - originally formed in the 1990s when a number TV and film actors, including Jude Law, Rhys Ifans and Ewan McGregor, lived close by and featured in each other's projects.

Chic: Laura Jackson looked chic in an all-black ensemble for the star-studded evening

Pretty in pink: Jackie St Clair wore a sheer and chiffon pink shirt dress for the event while Leonie Hanne stunned in an off-the-shoulder white dress with a black patterned skirt (L-R)

Historic: Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior

Anais' mother Meg was also a notable member, and the young star explained that it's now just another part of her life as she's grown up with friend Rafferty Law, who is the son of Jude and Sadie.

Of the infamous group, Anais said: 'I've learned now, you've got to embrace it. We all still live there, we've grown up together and are relatively close.

'There's a deep connection with these friendships because they've been there our whole lives..'

A highlight of the exhibition, Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress, designed by Christian Dior in 1951 - and which she would later refer to as her favourite dress of all - is on display for the first time in many years.

Wow: It is the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015

Nude ambition: Tanya Burr looked astonishing in a strapless lace dress which was embossed with a floral decorative pattern

Stylish flare: Always known for pulling off bizarre ensembles, Nicola Roberts didn't disappoint in her quirky outfit at the V&A

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: 'Combining our unrivalled couture collections with the House of Diors own remarkable archive  this is a defining moment for fashion at the V&A.

'There is a long history of shared knowledge between the V&A and Dior, from the late 1950s to the present day, and it has been an honour to collaborate with the House of Dior on the development of this exhibition. '

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior  the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015.

From 1947 to the present day, the exhibition traces the history and impact of one of the 20th centurys most influential couturiers, and the six artistic directors who have succeeded him, to explore the enduring influence of the fashion house.

Mane attraction: Cheryl's BFF made quite the fashion statement in her neon blouse and clashing purple trousers

Fashion: From 1947 to the present day, the exhibition traces the history and impact of one of the 20th centurys most influential couturiers

Taking a leaf out of Kate's book! Lottie proved her good looks and stylish ways run in the family as she pulled off another fashionable look

Breathtaking: Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior
He famously doled out a crisp $1million in cash while filming the music video for God's Plan in 2017.

And Drake seemed to be in a giving mood once again on Tuesday during a late night fast food run to a Los Angeles McDonald's.

During his visit, the Nice For What rapper, 32, decided to give two female employees $10k each in cold, hard cash.

When money is no object... Drake gave away $20k in cash to two McDonald's employees during

First hand account: 'Just saw Drake in McDonalds crazy. And he gave two female employees $10,000 each in cash,' a USC student who saw the whole thing unfold tweeted

Just saw Drake in McDonalds crazy. And he gave two female employees $10,000 each in cash,' a USC student who saw the whole thing unfold tweeted.

Their sneak shot of the star shows the Hotline Bling rapper in a dark jacket, chatting up one of the ladies behind the counter.

Drizzy, birth name Aubrey Graham, was flanked by two burly men wearing clothes from the Canadian rapper's own OVO label.

It was unclear if he actually ordered anything or was simply stopping by.

Later the star posted his own Mickey D's shot from the evening, but there was no mention of his absurdly generous tips in the curiously well-lit photo.

He's lovin' it: The star posted his own Mickey D's shot from the evening, but there was no mention of his absurdly generous tips in the curiously well-lit photo

It's not like the rapper is hard up for cash.

Drake recently signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with Las Vegas nightclub XS inside the Wynn hotel and casino.

And in 2018 the rapper's worth was estimated to be $100m.

Drake's new deal requires the Sicko Mode feature rapper to play 10-shows over the next several years for which he is guaranteed to earn more the $10million for, according to insiders who spoke to The Blast.

High roller: Drake (above in December 2018) recently signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with Las Vegas nightclub XS inside the Wynn hotel and casino

Graham confirmed the news with an Instagram post on Tuesday, writing 'New home' with a photo of him performing at the Wynn-based nightclub.

Before official news broke, Drake teased the residency while performing at XS for Consumers Electronics Show last week.

There he was heard telling the crowd: 'I'll be back here at XS all year. You'll have a lot of chances to see me.'
She's dealing with a colicky, sleepless baby.

So Hilary Duff appreciated having her daughter snooze on her chest on Wednesday morning, even if it wasn't easy getting to that stage.

'Baby screamed so much today it actually made her sleep, wrote the smiling mother, who sat patiently holding little Banks Violet.

Hilary Duff's baby snoozes on her chest after Banks 'screamed so much it actually made her sleep'... before the two wake up for music class

Hilary has been open with fans about her struggles to help her daughter, who she says has colick - a severe pain in the abdomen caused by wind or obstruction in the intestines.

But despite the tearful morning, the pair eventually made it out of the house, with Hilary taking three-month-old to a mommy and me class.

Hilary was seen arriving at the class in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, her daughter bundled into a stroller.

Good effort: Despite the tearful morning, the pair eventually made it out of the house, with Hilary taking three-month-old to a mommy and me class

Despite still adjusting to life as a mother of two, the 31-year-old looked remarkably well put together, in a stylish outfit of black jeans and sweater, and brown pixie boots.

But while she looks the part, Hilary has made no pretense that it is easy having a baby in the home.

Indeed the actress admitted life has been a little chaotic since she and boyfriend Matthew Koma welcomed Banks.

This week was the first time she'd had to cope with the baby and six-year-old Luca - who she has with ex-husband Mike Comrie - alone on a 'school morning' and though things didn't quite go according to plan, she accomplished everything she needed to.

Baby's day out: The two attended a class with other moms and babies in Los Angeles

She wrote on Instagram: 'Ok a few thoughts. Real talk this is the first day I had two kids on my own on a school morning.

'Breastfeeding and making breakfast, getting 2 kids and myself dressed and packed and out the door while tripping over 4 dogs and feeding the damn fish was not easy. But I did it. And I'm proud of myself!'

The former Lizzie Maguire star went on to praise other mothers for keeping their households running every day.

Just about coping: HIlary is juggling her babies needs with caring for her son, age six

She continued: 'Im proud of every mom out there who MAKES IT FREAKIN HAPPEN. All day! Everyday! You are the s*it! Bad ass, super goddess, world taker oner and you deserved to be praised.'

But Hilary admitted she wouldn't have achieved her morning goals if she hadn't done some careful planning the night before - and she was still hit with a curveball just as she thought she had some time to relax.

She added: 'ps laying outfits out for me baby and Luca was essential lol I even got 5 minutes to do some make up ..... then turned around to see Luca had used my lipstick as warrior paint on his face.'
She's following in her mother's footsteps, taking the fashion world by storm.

And Anais Gallagher ensured she joined the trendsetting elite as she attended the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The daughter of Oasis rocker Noel and Meg Matthews, 19, fit in perfectly alongside the fashion set, wearing a high-necked burnt orange silk dress.

Fashionista: Anais Gallagher ensured she joined the trendsetting elite as she attended the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

The model's floor-length number featured lace panels, and was clinched around her waist with a chunky black belt.

She kept it casually cool with a pair of platform converse, while carrying her essentials in a patchwork-style bag.

Anais opted for a natural pallet of make-up, while wearing her blonde locks in loose beachy waves.

Cool girl: The daughter of Oasis rocker Noel and Meg Matthews, 19, fit in perfectly alongside the fashion set, wearing a high-necked burnt orange silk dress

The teenager has been working hard to step out of her father's shadow and has recently been announced as a contributing fashion editor at Tatler and enrolled at Camberwell College of Arts in South London.

The fashion maven recently revealed to Tatler about her rise up the socialite ranks in London, and accepting her place as part of London's exclusive Primrose Hill Set's 'next generation'.

The group - named after the affluent London district - originally formed in the 1990s when a number TV and film actors, including Jude Law, Rhys Ifans and Ewan McGregor, lived close by and featured in each other's projects.

Anais' mother Meg was also a notable member, and the young star explained that it's now just another part of her life as she's grown up with friend Rafferty Law, who is the son of Jude and Sadie.

Of the infamous group, Anais said: 'I've learned now, you've got to embrace it. We all still live there, we've grown up together and are relatively close.

'There's a deep connection with these friendships because they've been there our whole lives..'

Historic: Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior

Wow: It is the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015

A highlight of the exhibition, Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress, designed by Christian Dior in 1951 - and which she would later refer to as her favourite dress of all - is on display for the first time in many years.

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: 'Combining our unrivalled couture collections with the House of Diors own remarkable archive  this is a defining moment for fashion at the V&A.

'There is a long history of shared knowledge between the V&A and Dior, from the late 1950s to the present day, and it has been an honour to collaborate with the House of Dior on the development of this exhibition. '

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior  the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015.

From 1947 to the present day, the exhibition traces the history and impact of one of the 20th centurys most influential couturiers, and the six artistic directors who have succeeded him, to explore the enduring influence of the fashion house.
Just as The Biebs debuted his seemingly Yeezy inspired clothing line, Kanye West was spotted as he wrapped up a business meeting.

The 41-year-old rapper looked dapper as he headed to his car with some business associates in Calabasas, California on Wednesday.

Earlier, pop star Justin Bieber debuted images from his new Drew House clothing label that bared a striking resemblance to some items from Ye's own collections.

Hard at work: Kanye West was spotted as he left a business meeting in Calabasas on Wednesday after Justin Bieber debuted his new clothing line that looked might similar to Yeezy

The father of three stepped out in black slacks and black shoes with a bright yellow T-shirt.

On top he rocked a trendy putty colored shearling coat with a camel toned leather pocket detail on one side and toggle closures up the front.

Ye chatted with associates as the group left an early morning get-together.

Wife Kim Kardashian did not appear to be in attendance with her husband for the meeting.

Trendsetter: The father of three stepped out in black slacks, a bright yellow T-shirt and a trendy putty colored shearling coat with a camel toned leather pocket detail on one side

The rap mogul has yet to comment on Bieber's similar new clothing label that was released this week.

With gender-neutral designs, artfully fed up models, and a whole heap of beige, it could be an outtake from a Kanye West Yeezy campaign.

Back on Christmas Day, Bieber introduced the line to fans by posting a picture of his feet clad in Drew House slippers, tagging the brand.

Similar looks: Justin Bieber showed off designs from his new label Drew House on Wednesday that looked a lot like old collections from Kanye West

Throwback: Yeezy Season 3 from 2016 (seen her) appeared to particularly influence Bieber's brand

The slippers, which looked like plain hotel slippers but with the addition of a smiling face with the word Drew, instantly sold out.

The route from pop star to fashion designer is well trodden, with Bieber just the latest in a long line of musicians to turn their hand to design.

Meanwhile, Kanye recently launched a new venture of his own, a Sunday Service.

Kim and Ye recently revealed they are getting in touch with God by having a choir sing some of the rapper's songs at what they're dubbing Sunday Service.

Praise: Meanwhile, Kanye recently launched a new venture of his own, a Sunday Service - shots of which Kim has been sharing on social media

The Wests: Kim and Ye recently revealed they are getting in touch with God by having a choir sing some of the rapper's songs at what they're dubbing Sunday Service

Kim has been sharing videos on her social media showing Kanye leading a full choir as they sang his new and old tunes, including Heard 'Em Say, Father Stretch My Hands, Lift Yourself, Reborn and others.

Kim tweeted about the gathering, saying: 'Our new Sunday Service is starting. Check out the rehearsals on my Instagram stories.'

She didn't offer much more details as to what the 'Sunday Service' entails.
Netflix dipped into a familiar well for season two of it's stalker drama You.

The Haunting of Hill House star Victoria Pedretti has been cast as the female lead in the hit show's second season, the streaming giant announced on Tuesday.

Pedretti, 23, will be joining star Penn Badgley, 32, in You as the series moves to California.

You: Victoria Pedretti, of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, has been cast as the female lead in season two of the streaming network's drama You opposite Penn Badgley

The actress made a splash last fall in the chilling Netflix series the The Haunting of Hill House as Nell Crain, which was her first acting job.

She's now been cast in the sophomore season of You as Love Quinn, 'an aspiring chef working as a produce manager in a high-end grocery store.'

In a press release Netflix wrote: 'Love is uninterested in the world of social media, branding and self-promotion, focused instead on leading an interesting life. She is also tending to a deep grief  and when she meets Joe Goldberg, she senses a shared knowledge of profound, life-changing loss.'

Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley stars in the show as Joe, an obsessive book store manager who does everything in his power to be with the object of his affection.

Season two: Pedretti was cast as Love Quinn who will join Badgley's Joe as the series moves from New York City to Los Angeles, California

'It is very f**king cool that Victoria is playing this role,' You showrunner Sera Gamble told EW. 'I binged Hill House, and she was incredible.'

She continued: 'And then a couple of days later, [executive producer] Greg [Berlanti] sent an email asking, "Have you seen Hill House? Have you seen Victoria Pedretti, wouldn't she make a perfect Love?" Leave it to Greg to put that together.'

You is based on a series of books by author Caroline Kepnes and Love Quinn has been adapted from the second installment of the series.

Frightening: The actress made a splash last fall in the chilling Netflix series the The Haunting of Hill House as Nell Crain

Newcomer: Hill House was the 23-year-old's very first professional acting job

'Like her name, she's very warm and there is a carefree aspect to her spirit that really comes from the fact that she has constructed a life for herself that's about being in the moment and doing what she loves every day,' Gamble told EW.

Adding that she is different than season one's love obsession Beck.

'Beck had been quite aware of her social media presence, and Love is extremely disinterested in all of that,' the showrunner said.

The thriller was originally aired on Lifetime for season one but then picked up and streamed on Netflix. There, it gained massive popularity.

'Love is uninterested in the world of social media, branding and self-promotion, focused instead on leading an interesting life.'

Season two marks a move in networks and a move in plot as Joe has picked up and traveled from New York to Los Angeles.

'Joe is not moving to LA because he f**king loves the West Coast,' Gamble said of season two. 'He's a New Yorker and he has bought the party line on how terrible LA is and when he gets here, very little dissuades him from his initial opinion.'

Adding: 'But I personally have been in LA since I was a teenager and it's this beautiful patchwork city that I truly adore. This show is an opportunity to illuminate an LA that maybe a lot of people haven't seen that goes beyond the Hollywood sign and Love is part of that. She's a Los Angeles native. She has really absorbed the best of the city and she's really artistic with the way that she lives her life.'

Cult following: The thriller was originally aired on Lifetime for season one but then picked up and streamed on Netflix. There, it gained massive popularity

'It is very f**king cool that Victoria is playing this role,' You showrunner Sera Gamble told EW . 'I binged Hill House, and she was incredible.'

She also added that the second season will differ from season one in how the story is told.

'Season 1 was a particular kind of story that we could tell about the relationship between Joe and Beck and the moment that we did what we did in the finale, that's not repeatable,' Gamble said in her interview with EW.

'I will say that Love is a person he could only have met after what happened between him and Beck. And by the way, Joe is not out there looking for love. He's truly heartbroken by what has happened, and so what Love offers is a different kind of friendship and a different kind of relationship.'

A season two premiere date is yet to be announced.
She credited her beau Myles Stephenson for saving her life when she suffered an allergic reaction to pineapple juice.

And Gabby Allen was back to her best when she was the picture of confidence at The Big Lunch charity event at Chelsea's Bluebird, in London on Wednesday.

The Love Island bombshell, 26, looked nothing short of sensational in a knee-length checkered dress and chic boots.

All the stars: Love Island's Gabby Allen cut a ladylike figure in a classy checkered dress as she led the glamour at glitzy charity lunch in London on Wednesday

Celebrity Big Brother's Gabby gathered the dress at the waist with a belt to accentuate her gym-honed figure and ensure all eyes were on her frame.

A saucy split slashed at the back offered a look at the personal trainer's legs while sexing up the demure turtleneck number.

Bouncy icy curls sprung up around her face and she highlighted her good genetics with defining strokes of make-up.

Work that angle: The Love Island bombshell, 26, looked nothing short of sensational in a knee-length checkered dress and chic boots

Cold in the capital: As temperatures dipped to 3 degrees, Gabby wrapped up in style as she showcased the best of her winter wardrobe with a sandy faux fur lined coat

As temperatures dipped to 3 degrees, Gabby wrapped up in style as she showcased the best of her winter wardrobe with a sandy faux fur lined coat.

The Love Island star mingled with the stars including the likes of Nadia Essex when she attended the four course lunch prepared by the D&D chefs.

Live Your Lunch partner charities include The Felix Project, Women's Aid, Mental Health Mates, Rays of Sunshine and Pink Ribbon Foundation.

Astonishing: Celebrity Big Brother's Gabby gathered the dress at the waist with a belt to accentuate her gym-honed figure and ensure all eyes were on her frame

On the town: The Love Island star mingled with the stars including the likes of Nadia Essex when she attended the four course lunch prepared by the D&D chefs

Beautiful blonde: Bouncy icy curls sprung up around her face and she highlighted her good genetics with defining strokes of make-up

Fresh from her Thailand, Gabby was pleased to be back on home turf after she suffered from an allergic reaction to pineapple juice in the sunny country.

Gabby and Myles, who made their red carpet debut in September, saw in the new year while on holiday in Thailand.

Their love story blossomed after the fitness guru left the Celebrity Big Brother household over the summer.

Somber looks: Eyal Booker kept up with his social events when he headed out all in black

She's back: Nadia Essex looked fantastic in a polka dot green dress and long white boots as she headed out to the glamorous lunch

Gabby had become entangled in rumours that she was romancing married Dan Osborne, hearsay which they both vehemently denied.

The beauty shot into the spotlight on Love Island in 2017 where she found love with Marcel Somerville of Blazin' Squad fame.

Their romance came to a brutal end at the beginning of last year after it emerged he had cheated on her during their break to Mexico.

Two's company: Naomi Isted and Hayley Sparkes made for a delightful duo as they headed into the bash together, with Naomi looking pretty in pink whilst Hayley dazzled in a striped midi
Teresa Giudice is enjoying the perks of LA life as she spends time on the west coast this week.

Spotted out on Tuesday the reality star was photographed taking a hike up the popular Runyon Canyon trail in the Hollywood Hills in an eye-catching outfit.

Teresa, 46, put her gym-honed body on display in some gold leggings as she trekked up the hill with a pal.

Outdoorsy: Teresa Giudice was hard to miss on Tuesday as she went for a hike in the Hollywood Hills

Her tank top was just as attention-grabbing as it read 'Yasss queen' across the front.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey star has been living it up in Los Angeles where she's been since the weekend for Andy Cohen's baby shower.

Meanwhile, it's being reported that Teresa is already planning a solo reality career after her jailbird husband Joe is deported back to Italy.

'Teresa wants to have her very own Bravo spinoff show,' an insider told Radar Online revealing that the mother-of-four has already pitched the idea to Bravo execs.

The TV star is apparently hoping she can earn a better living with her own show.

Golden girl: The 46-year-old donned some spangly leggings for the outing showing off her gym toned figure

Hollywood life: The Real Housewives of New Jersey star wore a statement tank top with 'Yasss queen' on the front

'Her role on RHONJ just doesn't pay enough, and Teresa needs the extra cash to be able to buy Joe out of his portion of the ownership of their mansion,'

The spin-off would document Teresa's life as a mom to her four daughters, her fitness career and living life as a single woman for the first time since she was a teenager.

A network source told Radar, 'Teresa has held back a lot of intimate details about her personal life from viewers and is pitching Bravo that this project would allow her to be essentially reintroduced to the audience.'

She is apparently already getting her finances together in preparation and will apparently sign the new deal before her divorce from Joe is finalized.

'She has already had her accountant do the analysis of how much she is currently worth, and potentially what she will owe Joe.' the source dished.

West coast: The reality star has been in LA since the weekend when she attended Andy Cohen's baby shower at The Palm

Branching out: Teresa is planning on her own reality show when husband Joe gets deported after his prison time for fraud

'Endorsement deals, or any new projects beyond her reality show, wouldnt be signed until after the divorce is final because she doesnt want to give Joe any additional money,' they added.

Joe is serving 41-months in prison for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud and is due to be released in March.

Back in October it was revealed that a judge officially ruled that Joe, 46, must go back to his native Italy once his sentence is complete.

Single mom: Teresa wants her new spin-off to document her life raising her four daughters alone

And earlier this month Teresa told Bravo host Andy Cohen at a season nine taping that the couple would 'go their separate ways' if Joe leaves the country.

An insider told People:'Teresa told Andy that if Joe gets deported, she's not going.'

The source added: 'She said that she and Joe had talked about it over the phone, and that he understood.'

Teresa and Joe, who wed in 1999, are parents to four children: Gia, 18; Gabriella, 15; Milania, 14; and Audriana, 10.
Josh O'Connor has been pictured in character as Prince Charles as he shot new scenes for the upcoming hit series of Netflix's The Crown.

The British actor, 28 - who is taking on the role of the Royal between the ages of 16 to 22 - was seen in Primrose Hill, north London on Tuesday night as cameras rolled.

Clad in Charles' sailor outfit, the talented star was seen at night strolling with a co-star.

And action! Josh O'Connor, 28, has been pictured in character as Prince Charles as he shot new scenes for the upcoming hit series of Netflix's The Crown

Meanwhile, Josh recently described how he got into character as the future king - which involved learning to move like a 'tortoise'.

The Durrells star has also been busy perfecting his dialect and posture.

The third series, which hits screens later this year, covers 1964-1970, when Charles was between the ages of 16 and 22 - and as part of his research OConnor closely studied the young prince's body language from archive footage.

In character: The British actor was seen in Primrose Hill, North London on Tuesday night as cameras rolled

Portrayal: Josh is taking on the role of the Royal between the ages of 16 to 22

He told The Times: 'If you watch footage of the young Charles, theres this thing  when he turns, he doesnt turn with his body, he turns with his neck first, in a weird sort of Justin Timberlake-esque dance move.

'I like to think of Charles at the moment as a sort of tortoise, because he puts his neck out. Its not even that hes particularly slow, its more this idea of inquisitive head first.'

O'Connor, who shot to fame in God's Own Country, also described his joy at shooting scenes in stately homes up and down the country, joking: 'I feel like I'm on Antiques Roadshow a lot of the time.'

Shooting scenes: Clad in Charles' sailor outfit, the talented star was seen at night strolling with a co-star

Commitments: Josh recently described how he got into character as the future king - which involved learning to move like a 'tortoise'

Olivia Colman will play Queen Elizabeth II with Helena Bonham as Princess Margaret in series three of the hit drama, which will see the cast reenact pivotal royal moments over the past 50 years.

These include Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Emerald Fennell) flirting at a polo match in 1975, and the future king's investiture ceremony in 1969.

O'Connor currently stars in the new BBC adaptation of Les Miserables but is best known for his performance in 2017 film God's Own Country, a gay romance set in Yorkshire.
He plays a ruthless media tycoon for the first major TV role of his career.

And Richard Gere transformed into a troubled business man in the first official stills from upcoming BBC drama, MotherFatherSon this week.

The Pretty Woman actor, 69, looked stoic as businessman Max, as he stared into the distance in the tense scene, clad in a olive shirt and slate grey blazer.

First look: Richard Gere transformed into a troubled business man in the first official stills from upcoming BBC drama, MotherFatherSon this week (above with co-star Billy Howle)

The handsome star showed off his ageless good looks as he wore his silver locks in a coiffed quiff.

The Officer and a Gentleman star was joined in the scene by Billy Howle, who plays his son Caden in the drama.

Billy, 29, looked dapper in a powder blue shirt, pinstripe tie and black suit jacket for the scene.

Filming: Back in October, Richard was seen filming scenes in Seville, Spain, which had transformed into Mexico for the shoot

Richard and Billy star alongside Helen McCrory in MotherFatherSon - created and written by Tom Rob Smith (known for his work on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story).

The series is set to air on BBC Two and fans will see Gere take on the role of Max - a self-made businessman.

McCrory plays his estranged wife Kathryn following the breakdown of their marriage and the duo share a son Caden, 30, who is set to follow in his father's footsteps while running Max's UK newspaper.

However, the future of the family and its empire is threatened when Caden spirals out of control and causes devastating consequences.

Speaking about the series, Gere insisted he was 'so pleased' to be a part of it.

Happy couple: Richard's new project comes as the veteran actor is preparing to welcome his first child with third wife Alejandra Silva, 35 (pictured in May 2017)

MotherFatherSon is described as a political and psychological thriller that sits at the intersections of police, politics and the press (pictured, Richard Gere on set)

'It's been almost 30 years since I worked in television. I'm so pleased to be working now with the BBC on this extraordinary 8 hour project with such talented people and which resonates so much to the time we live in.'

Helen added: 'Tom Rob Smith has written the most astonishing script - completely original and full of surprises.'

Howle said of his role in the series: 'I feel humbled to be given the opportunity to portray such a complex role with such a specific set of challenges, for me as a person and an actor. I really hope that I can do it justice.

'And what better people to be collaborating with?! I can't wait to get going.'

Richard's new project comes as the veteran actor is preparing to welcome his first child with third wife Alejandra Silva, 35.

Richard Gere is playing a ruthless media tycoon in the first major TV role of his career in MotherFatherSon

The couple confirmed their baby news in September, with Alejandra sharing a photo of herself and husband Gere meeting the Dalai Lama - who put his hand on her bump to bless the unborn child.

Their baby news comes after screen icon Richard tied the knot with Alejandra in April, after four years together.

Richard has an 18-year-old son called Homer with former wife Carey Lowell.

They married in 2002 and split 14 years later. He had previously been married to first wife Cindy Crawford for four years between 1991 and 1995.

Gere met his future wife at a luxury Italian boutique hotel Alejandra bought with her former husband and was managing at the time.
Kevin Hart has been slammed on social media for his post telling Jussie Smollett to 'stand strong' after his homophobic and racist attack.

The 39-year-old comedian took to Instagram to post a snap of the 35-year-old Empire star with a lengthy message of encouragement.

The Ride Along star has recently been under fire for his homophobic jokes and tweets in the past which recently led to him dropping out as host of The Oscars.

Blasted: Kevin Hart - pictured in November 2018 - has been slammed on social media for his post telling Jussie Smollett to 'stand strong' after his homophobic and racist attack

Sad: The 39-year-old comedian took to Instagram to post a snap of the 35-year-old Empire star with a lengthy message of encouragement

Ouch: Many on social media took aim at Hart for his prior homophobic jokes and tweets including filmmaker and Sally Field's son Sam Greisman

Kevin wrote: 'Sending prayers your way @jussiesmollett .This is unbelievably sad.

'Why are we going backwards.this is disgusting. We as people have to do better. WTF is going on the world???? Why are we falling in love with hate???? God damn it people.Choose loveI repeatChoose love. I will forever choose love and I will continue to teach my kids how to do the same. Stand strong brother'

Before dropping out of the Oscars gig, Kevin had deleted some tweets including one from 2011 in which he joked about abusing his son if he were gay.

Television writer and host of Crooked Media podcast Keep It, Ira Madison, shed light on those posts as he wrote: 'This is why someones jokes about beating their gay son were never funny.'

'This is why': Kevin had deleted tweets including one from 2011 in which he joked about abusing his son if he were gay as Television writer and host of Crooked Media podcast Keep It, Ira Madison, shed light on those posts

'WAKE UP people': Jonathan Van Ness who stars on highly-popular Netflix series Queer Eye tweeted about Kevin's controversial appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show'

'Maybe it will be a roundtable discussion': Poet Saeed Jones also blasted both Kevin and Ellen

Filmmaker and son of Sally Field Sam Greisman wrote: 'But keep joking about beating up your kid for being gay, Kevin Hart!'

As Ellen DeGeneres supported Hart after dropping out of the gig, which created another controversy, many blasted the both of them for their posts.

Jonathan Van Ness who stars on highly-popular Netflix series Queer Eye tweeted: 'The hate crime that happened today is an attack on us all. Queer people of color need allies, queer people need allies. Kevin Hart so quiet right now. Where are the allies Ellen? Maga hat wearing people need to be checked - we gotta WAKE UP people, its going down.'

Poet Saeed Jones wrote: 'Given what weve seen so far, I fully expect the men who attacked Jussie Smollett to score a sit-down interview with Ellen at some point in the next few weeks. Maybe it will be a roundtable discussion with Kevin Hart.'

Unrelenting: Many in the Twitterverse went after Hart

Dozens of fans also chimed in blasting Kevin on both Twitter and Instagram over his past comments.

Several other celebrities also offered up their support on social media including Janet Jackson, Naomi Campbell, Lee Daniels, and John Legend.

Smollett, 35, was beaten, had bleach poured on him, and a noose tied around his neck by two white men in ski masks shouting 'this is MAGA country' at 2am on Tuesday in Chicago.

The actor, who came out as gay to Ellen in 2015, was jumped by two men as he walking from a local Subway sandwich shop and the two men started yelling homophobic and racial slurs including: 'Aren't you the f***ot 'Empire' n*****?'

Smollett suffered a fractured rib during the attack and is said to have put up a fight when he was beaten.

Not pleased: Many fans replied directly to the comedian's post as they criticized him, one even using the popular Spider-Man pointing meme

A noose was still around his neck at 2.42am when police arrived to the scene.

The actor then took himself to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he was treated then released on Tuesday.

He told CNN that he was shaken and angry following the incident.

Hart was named as the host of the 91st Academy Awards in December. He took proudly to social media afterwards to announce it but his elation was short-lived.

Sad: Smollett, 35, was beaten, had bleach poured on him, and a noose tied around his neck by two white men in ski masks shouting 'this is MAGA country' at 2am on Tuesday in Chicago

Incident: The actor, who came out as gay to Ellen in 2015, was jumped by two men as he walking from a local Subway sandwich shop and the two men started yelling homophobic and racial slurs including: 'Aren't you the f***ot 'Empire' n*****?'

The attacks are believed to be premeditated as Smollett received a cut out letter, that appears to be dated from January 18, stating that 'You will die black f*g'. Fox Studio received the letter on the 22nd and cops said it was laced with powder Tylenol

Smollett was jumped here in the upscale downtown Chicago neighborhood of Streeterville. Cops were unable to find any still images or video surveillance footage of the attack or the assailants

Within days, Twitter users had unearthed his old tweets and demanded that he be removed.

Among them were posts where he labeled people 'f**gs' and jokes about what he would do if his son came out as gay.

Despite the backlash, Hart refused to apologize and instead quit over the controversy, blindsiding the Academy and leaving them without a host.

He said the Oscars gave him an ultimatum; apologize or give up the gig. He chose the latter.

Moving on: Hart was named as the host of the 91st Academy Awards in December. He took proudly to social media afterwards to announce it but his elation was short-lived

Later, he appeared on Ellen where both he and she called for viewers to embrace growth and change.

During their interview, she revealed that she had even called the Academy to ask if Hart could still host the show and said she was told he could.

Ellen, who has long been an icon in the LGBTQ community, was lampooned for throwing her support behind the comedian afterwards.

Hart later came to her defense, saying: 'When did we get to the point where we forgot that we all learn, then we all have the ability to grow and with that growth comes a wealth of knowledge.

'You cant change without a understanding of what GROWTH means.'
Chloe Lewis has paid tribute to boyfriend Danny Flasher on his birthday, little more than a month after the couple celebrated their two-year anniversary.

The Only Way Is Essex star, 27, shared a snap of herself with stockbroker Danny on Wednesday morning, taken on a beach during a recent tropical holiday.

Captioning the shot, she wrote: 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY to this absolute dream! I hope you have a wonderful day & I cant wait to celebrate with you later. So proud your mine Love you Dan.'

For you: Chloe Lewis has paid tribute to boyfriend Danny Flasher on his birthday, little more than a month after the couple celebrated their two-year anniversary

Chloe later treated Danny to a slap up birthday meal at Spanish tapas bar Barrafina, from where she posted a snap of the popular restaurant's menu.

Danny's birthday comes just one month after Chloe celebrated their two-year anniversary in another sweet Instagram post.

The TOWIE star shared a throwback snap from the couple's recent holiday to the Maldives, which saw the attractive pair grinning into the camera while posing for a beach selfie.

Special day: Chloe later treated Danny to a slap up birthday meal at Spanish tapas bar Barrafina, from where she posted a snap of the popular restaurant's menu

Previously: Danny's birthday comes just one month after Chloe celebrated their two-year anniversary in another sweet Instagram post

Alongside the photo, Chloe wrote: 'The happiest 2 years to us. I dont know what Id do without you. I LOVE YOU.'

The brunette beauty slipped on a leopard print bardot crop top while cosying up to her shirtless boyfriend in another snap

The couple spent a week soaking up the sunshine at the envy-inducing Kandima Maldives resort on a pre-Christmas break earlier this month.

Say cheese: The TOWIE star shared a throwback snap from the couple's recent holiday to the Maldives, which saw the attractive pair grinning into the camera while posing for a beach selfie

Before heading to the Maldives for their relaxing break, Chloe and Danny enjoyed a few days in Dubai.

The brunette posted more holiday snaps from Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa as the couple unwound on the first leg of their winter trip.

Chloe and Danny met in December 2016, went public with their romance in early 2017, and moved in together in April.
She is gearing up for the launch of the second reality series which will air on Wednesday evening.

And Charlotte Crosby was getting in the party spirit as she prepared her lavish Sunderland home ahead of a bash celebrating new episodes of The Charlotte Show.

The former Geordie Shore star, 28, ensured her lavish abode was ready to host a glitzy party as workers were pictured rolling out the red carpet and building MTV banners.

Party time! Charlotte Crosby was getting in the party spirit as she prepared her lavish Sunderland home ahead of a bash celebrating new episodes of The Charlotte Show

Reality star Charlotte appeared to start glamming up her look hours before the party as she sported smoky brown eyeshadow and matte foundation.

The TV personality looked like she had just gotten out of the shower as she wrapped her physique in a black towel and went barefoot.

Taking her decorations to the next level, her huge garden was complete with a white 'The Charlotte Show' banner.

Earlier that day, the star was spotted blowing up a selection of pink, white and burgundy balloons in her home, as she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free.

Glitz and glam: The former Geordie Shore star, 28, ensured her lavish abode was ready to host a party as workers were pictured rolling out the red carpet and building MTV banners

Nearly there: Reality star Charlotte appeared to start glamming up her look hours before the party as she sported smoky brown eyeshadow and matte foundation

Preparations: The TV personality looked like she had just gotten out of the shower as she wrapped her physique in a black towel and went barefoot

Glamorous: Charlotte later changed into a sheer black and nude flared jumpsuit with a black leather waist belt for the glamorous event

Smitten: The 28-year-old couldn't resist posing with her boyfriend Joshua Ritchie inside her property, which was decorated with a collection of pink flowers and balloons

Wow: Taking her decorations to the next level, her huge garden was complete with a white 'The Charlotte Show' banner

The blonde beauty was clearly preparing for a spectacular party at her home as she took delivery of yet more balloons which took pride of place in her living room.

Charlotte cut a casual figure as she excitedly prepared for the evening's festivities, clad in a chocolate slogan hoodie, paired with black leggings which clung to her lean legs. She teamed this with tan boots with a fleecy lining.

Her caramel tresses were styled in a messy updo, letting her pretty features take centre stage.

Fun times: The reality star couldn't resist posing behind giant light up letter which spelt out 'The Charlotte Show'

Chic: Charlotte styled her blonde locks into a sleek sweptback hairdo with the front strands left loose, she added a slick of glamorous make-up

Loved-up: Joshua cut a casual figure in a black Dolce & Gabbana t-shirt with blue ripped jeans

Exciting times ahead: She is gearing up for the launch of the second reality series which will air on Wednesday evening

Glitzy: Her showbiz pals are set to come out in full force to celebrate her reality series

Decorations: Earlier that day, the star was spotted blowing up a selection of pink, white and burgundy balloons in her home, as she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free

Here we go: The blonde beauty was clearly preparing for a spectacular party at her home as she took delivery of yet more balloons which took pride of place in her living room

Festivities: Charlotte cut a casual figure as she excitedly prepared for the evening's festivities, clad in a chocolate slogan hoodie, paired with black leggings which clung to her lean legs

This comes after Charlotte revealed she plans to start a family with boyfriend Josh Richie, 24, ahead of turning 30 next year.

In recent weeks, the star has been hit with pregnancy rumours which she was grilled on during an appearance on Good Morning Britain.

Chatting on the show, the reality personality said: 'Next year, me and Josh. I would like a baby, Im 30 next year and ready to start a family. Josh is four years younger. We talk a lot about it, it seems he is on board.'

Impressive: As well as balloons and lights, Charlotte also had a giant MTV created out of pink flowers for the event

Party ready: The reality star posed with a glass of bubbly in front of the light-up letters in her garden

Details: Charlotte added height to her frame with a pair of black barely-there heeled sandals

Late last year, Charlotte and Josh set tongues wagging when images emerged showing the EOTB star cradling her stomach and leading to wonderment from fans.

The happy couple make no secret of their romance on social media and fans will watch their life unfurl on the upcoming second season of The Charlotte Show.

Charlotte revealed in May 2016 that she suffered an ectopic pregnancy, after falling pregnant with ex-flame and co-star Gary Beadle's child.
Rosie O'Donnell thinks becoming a grandparent is like 'having a baby times a million.'

The 56-year-old actress flew straight to Wisconsin in December when her daughter Chelsea Belle O'Donnell, 21 - who she adopted as a baby with ex-wife Kelli Carpenter - went into labour with her first child.

And though she missed the birth of Skylar Rose by just an hour, the star admitted that the feeling of becoming a grandparent for the first time is 'beautiful.'

Happy to have a big family: Rosie O'Donnell thinks becoming a grandparent is like 'having a baby times a million' when she stopped by Late Tonight with Seth Meyers

Her take: Though she missed the birth of Skylar Rose by just an hour, the star admitted that the feeling of becoming a grandparent for the first time is 'beautiful'

Speaking with Seth Meyers on Tuesday's Late Night, Rosie said: 'I flew right in... I just missed the birth but I was there right after.

'It was something really beautiful. It's very trite, but it's what everyone says - when you're a grandparent, it's like having a baby times a million. And that's what it felt like.'

Chelsea and her boyfriend Jacob Bourassa welcomed Skylar into the world just a day after director Penny Marshall - who directed Rosie in her first movie, 1992's A League of Their Own - passed away.

Joy: 'It was something really beautiful. It's very trite, but it's what everyone says - when you're a grandparent, it's like having a baby times a million. And that's what it felt like,' she said

Doing well: Chelsea and her boyfriend Jacob Bourassa welcomed Skylar into the world in December. Seen with her baby daddy

The child gave her grandmother a timely reminder about the beauty of the 'circle of life.'

She said: 'It was a big, big heartbreak when she died, and then my granddaughter was born the next day.

'So I got the call that she had passed, and then I got the call [about my granddaughter].

With her child: Rosie and Chelsea pose at the 2nd Annual Fran Drescher Cancer Schmancer Sunset Cabaret Cruise in 2016 in New York City

Big family: As well as Chelsea, Rosie also has Parker, 23, Blake, 19, and Vivienne, 16, with Kelli, and six-year-old Dakota with late second ex-wife Michelle Rounds

'It reminded me about the whole circle of life, and to remember every great thing that I had with her and that she really did give me a film career. I'll be eternally grateful.'

The SMILF star has taken great delight in seeing Chelsea - who she reconciled with last June following a long period of estrangement - settling down into her own 'contented' family unit.

She said recently: '[It's been great] to see my daughter so happy and so content, and this guy who loves her so much, loving that baby.

'I think a lot of adopted kids feel, until they have their own child, they don't have that unit, to look at someone who looks like them, to see genetically that they have their own kind of history. So it was really a very beautiful thing.'

As well as Chelsea, Rosie also has Parker, 23, Blake, 19, and Vivienne, 16, with Kelli, and six-year-old Dakota with late second ex-wife Michelle Rounds.
The lives of a Filipino teen and man depend on finding a stem cell donor match. They both each have two rare blood diseases.

A stem cell drive hopes to diversify the registered donor pool for two Filipino people - one is a teenager, Rosalind Mance, of Calgary. The other person is Martin Lintag of Richmond. Currently, the registered donor pool only has 26 percent with an Asian background and only one percent, Filipino.

The stem cell drive will take place at the Croatian Cultural Centre auditorium Feb. 2 and 3 from noon to 6 pm each day.

Mance had no matches from her immediate family members. The only cure for her two rare diseases is a stem cell transplant. Also, the cost of treatment is expensive.

The treatment for Aplastic Anemia is called Immunosuppressive Therapy (IST). The treatment which costs $54,000 each month. Rosalind's team of doctors applied for funding to the government for eligible drug therapy. No other funding options are available through the public or private system. The funding was not approved.

When Mance was 16, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition - her blood cell and platelet count was very low. After she was admitted to Alberta Childrens Hospital she was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia - a rare and serious disease in which the bone marrow fails to produce enough blood cells. This condition causes fatigue and tiredness, bleeding and bruising and increases the risk of infections.

A week later she was diagnosed with Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), which is another very rare, chronic and life-threatening disease of the bone marrow that affects the blood and major organs. PHN could lead to leukemia, thrombosis, and strokes.

For more information, visit www.match4roshlind.com
She will join a host of celebrities climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for Red Nose Day.

And Dani Dyer admitted she will get emotional at the prospect of being separated from beau Jack Fincham during an appearance on Wednesday's episode of This Morning.

The Love Island winner, 22, will join Little Mix's Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Ed Balls, Alexander Armstrong, Dan Walker, Anita Rani, Osi Umenyiora and Shirley Ballas on the February expedition, set to air in a one-hour BBC documentary Kilimanjaro: The Return.

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Tough: Dani Dyer admitted she will get emotional at the prospect of being separated from beau Jack Fincham during her Red Nose Day Kilimanjaro climb, as she appeared on This Morning on Wednesday

Miss you: Bar a brief split, the couple have gone from strength to strength since leaving the Love Island villa last summer

As the show aired a clip of the excited reality star in training, she opened up about being away from her hunky love when she jets to Tanzania.

She said: 'I'll be away for ten days and this is the longest me and Jack will be away from each other, I'll probably will have a little cry, I'll miss giving him a cuddle.'

Discussing how the tough conditions in Tanzania will impact on her beauty regime she said: 'I like having lashes but I'm gonna try and go as natural as possible.'

The brunette beauty added her actor father Danny Dyer had given her 'so much support' ahead of the climb.

Challenge: The Love Island winner, 22, will join celebs for the challenge set to air in a one-hour BBC documentary Kilimanjaro: The Return

Trepidation: As the show aired a clip of the excited reality star in training, she opened up about being away from her hunky love when she jets to Tanzania

Smitten: She said: 'I'll be away for ten days and this is the longest me and Jack will be away from each other, I'll probably will have a little cry, I'll miss giving him a cuddle'

Casual: Dani was seen at the Altitude Centre as her training got underway

Strut: The star looked casual in a teal furry jacket and black, red and scarlet leggings

Brunette beauty: The reality starlet looked excited ahead of her training

Kilimanjaro: The Return takes place 10 years after the original excruciating 19,000 ft climb up Africa's highest mountain led by Gary Barlow, which raised 1.5 million for Comic Relief.

Power hitmaker Leigh-Anne said: 'It's so amazing to be part of this challenge for Comic Relief. I can't wait to get to the top of Kilimanjaro and knowing that we are doing it for Comic Relief makes it incredibly special.'

Jade added: 'Leigh-Anne and I went to Liberia in 2014 for Red Nose Day and we have seen first-hand how much work this incredible charity does and how much it is needed. The nerves are certainly starting to kick in for the climb, but I'm lucky I will have Leigh-Anne up there with me and I can't wait to get stuck in with everyone!'

Star-studded: Dani will join Little Mix's Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Ed Balls, Alexander Armstrong, Dan Walker, Anita Rani, Osi Umenyiora and Shirley Ballas

Acclaimed: Kilimanjaro: The Return takes place 10 years after the original excruciating 19,000 ft climb up Africa's highest mountain led by Gary Barlow, which raised 1.5 million for Comic Relief

Chilly: Cheryl Cole, Fearne Cotton and Denise Van Outen posed in front of a glacier on the trek

Strictly alumni Ed said: 'It's an amazing group of climbers, I'm especially looking forward to dancing up the mountain with Shirley Ballas. My whole family are beyond excited that Jade and Leigh-Anne of Little Mix will be scaling Africa's highest mountain too.'

The intrepid team will face a gruelling eight-day trek battling altitude sickness, basic camping conditions and freezing night-time temperatures to raise money for Red Nose Day.

Celebrities including Cheryl, Kimberley Walsh, Denise Van Outen and Ronan Keating took part in the risky ascent in 2009

Cheryl and Alesha were both struck by altitude sickness, with the former Mis-teeq rapper crawling her way to the summit.

Red Nose Day 2019 will be broadcast live on Friday March 15 beginning at 7pm on BBC One.

Stars: Ben Shephard, Kimberley Walsh, Ronan Keating and Gary Barlow posed at the top of Kilimanjaro
She was forced to hit out at a troll who told her she is 'too thin'.

But Love Island star Laura Anderson, 29, put the negativity to one side on Wednesday when she slipped into a bikini to enjoy the rest of her holiday in Dubai.

Laura looked incredible wearing a striped bikini top in black and white with plain back bottoms, posting a couple of snaps on Instagram.

Doing her thing: Love Island's Laura Anderson shared some stunning bikini snaps while on holiday in Dubai... after hitting back at 'skinny shamers'

Bottoms up! Laura is currently on a girls' holiday in Dubai and appears to be having a great time

She shared another as she posed on a giant sun lounger with three of her girl pals.

Laura captioned the image with the words: 'Thank you @inside.lifestyle for our wee beaut @covebeachdubai ladies day! So much has changed in dubs, have I been away that long.'

The pretty blonde looked stunning in her ensemble, just a day after she slammed her critic and told them to 'get over themselves'.

In the picture which had caused the troll to comment, Laura had posed up a storm on her sun lounger in a white bikini, sipping a a drink in her luxury resort.

Fuming: Her latest posts come after a troll thought it appropriate to skinny shame Laura after she posted this picture of herself wearing a white bikini, leaving the star upset

However the follower wrote: 'U obviously no u look too thin yet ul still post it to make other young impressionable girls[sic].

'This is not the dream girls this is the prime example of what society wants u too be. Well done for being part of this fake generation.'

But Laura was quick to hit back, writing: 'Eek like sorry my body offends you I honestly dunno what to say to be accepted. Oh yeah I don't give a flying. This pic isn't about my body resembling anything.

'I'm having a fun day with my friend. When people read into everything and take life too seriously. Every human on this planet is beautiful and different. Get over yourself.'

Laura, who admitted that she had been upset by the comment, added: 'Also just because I'm fuming with this comment. This is what you call double standards.

'If I was bigger, curvier, fat, whatever you think is ok to call someone I'd be praised for showing off my body in a bikini. No1 is happy with there body.

'I'm skinny, I'd love to be curvier so yes you are a troll and currently upsetting me. No point. Just stop.'

Cross: Laura, who admitted that she had been upset by the comment, said: ''Eek like sorry my body offends you I honestly dunno what to say to be accepted. Oh yeah I don't give a flying. This pic isn't about my body resembling anything'

Many of Laura's followers jumped to her defence, including former TOWIE star, Mario Falcone, who wrote: 'Would you be as quick to jump on a picture of someone overweight?

'I mean that's extremely unhealthy. And would signify to 'impressionable girls' that's ok? How about live and let live and be happy in your skin.'

Showing off her humorous side, Laura joked about her pose in the caption, quipping: 'It's all glam until you gotta a wedge.... thank you @djchriswright @inside.lifestyle @ladiesday_dubai.'

On her Instagram Stories Laura shared videos of herself singing along to music with a friend and admiring fellow pool-loungers from the comfort of their VIP section.

Later she got into the tunes, showing off her moves in her skimpy swimwear.

She continued: 'I'm having a fun day with my friend. When people read into everything and take life too seriously. Every human on this planet is beautiful and different. Get over yourself'

Laura revealed her plans last week to have her 32E breast implants removed 11 years after she had a boob job.

The Scottish siren, who has previously discussed her cosmetic enhancements, insisted she needed a 'break' from her surgically-enhanced assets.

Laura wrote in the candid post: 'This is a bit random to do on social media but can anyone recommend a good surgeon in London.

'I need to get these big babilon baps removed that I've had for 11 years.' (sic)

Body confidence: Laura revealed her plans last week to have her 32E breast implants removed 11 years after she had a boob job

Laura joked in the caption with laughing emojis: '#TITSMCGEE needs a break.'

Since leaving the Love Island villa, the blonde bombshell has had a 'few tiny tweaks' to her appearance including cheek and lip fillers as well as a rhinoplasty.

In a historic interview with the Star magazine, the former air hostess praised her 'great' boobs and she shared how breast implants improved her sex life.

She said in 2009: 'I can barely walk down the street without someone saying how great my t**s are.

'The sex gets better the bigger your puppies are because you to try naughtier things.'
Piers Morgan was left in utter hysterics during Wednesday's Good Morning Britain, as co-host Charlotte Hawkins gave him the V sign in an unseen moment.

The broadcaster, 53, shared the hilarious exchange on social media after viewers saw him interrupting Charlotte during her news bulletin on the show, with the presenter saying he 'SO deserved it.'

It came in a show which also saw Piers announce that he and co-anchor Susanna Reid will be jetting to LA for the Academy Awards next month, hosting a special episode on February 25th with all the Oscars fallout.

Brutal: Piers Morgan was left in utter hysterics during Wednesday's Good Morning Britain, as co-host Charlotte Hawkins gave him the V sign in an unseen moment

Shocking: Piers shared a snap of the moment viewers didn't see on Twitter, with Charlotte replying he 'SO deserved it'

Sharing the moment viewers sadly never got to see, Piers wrote on Twitter: 'What the viewers DIDNT see this morning - Halo Hawkins finally snapping as I try to distract her during the news bulletin.'

Re-posting the message Charlotte then added: 'You SO deserved it @piersmorgan!!'

It came after viewers saw Piers up to his usual antics, trying to distract Charlotte while she delivered the news bulletin at the turn of the hour.

Trying to maintain her composure Charlotte cheekily gave Piers the hand, leaving his co-anchor Susanna Reid in hysterical laughter.

Opinionated: Charlotte's lewd gesture came after Piers tried to wind her up during the news bulletin, leading her to also give him the hand

Hilarious: Charlotte's cheeky response to Piers left his co-anchor Susanna Reid in hysterical laughter

Biting back: Luckily viewers did get to see Charlotte partially get her revenge on Piers, as she asked the crew to re-play the 8am introduction so the voice over named just her

But it was off-camera that the star offered a more lewd gesture, flashing the V sign at Piers.

Luckily viewers did get to see Charlotte partially get her revenge on Piers, as she asked the crew to re-play the 8am introduction so the voiceover named just her.

It came in a show when Piers and Susanna also announced that they would be jetting to Los Angeles in the coming weeks, as they prepare to host a post-Oscars special on Monday 25th February.

Naughty: Charlotte's snippy response left Piers in hysterics, though sadly viewers did not get to see it play out on-screen

Focus: As she tried to read out the news headlines, Charlotte tried extremely hard to get distracted by Piers

Back to work: It came as Piers also announced that he and Susanna Reid would be jetting to Los Angeles next month, to host a post-Oscars special on Monday 25th February

Piers and Susanna seemed delighted to share the news on the show on Wednesday morning - as they prep for the new take on the breakfast hit.

Susanna revealed: 'We have exciting news, we are going to cover the Oscars. We are going to be live in Hollywood covering all things fashion and stars...

'This is going to be fun! Were looking forward to this. Its going to be a big night after that we are going to hit Hollywood hard.'

Good Morning airs weekday mornings from 6am on ITV.

Chic: Charlotte also put on a stylish display as she hosted the morning favourite, sporting a royal blue shift dress with black pointed-toe heels
Friends fans have spotted a creepy shock gaffe in the background of a Season Four classic, where Rachel tries to pass of her sexy lingerie as a new dress.

The episode - which sees Rachel face an awkward encounter with boyfriend Joshua's parents - has a creepy moment when a pair of red eyes appear to glow in the background, before disappearing mere seconds later.

It comes as only the latest blooper to be spotted by die-hard fans of the sitcom as it is streamed on Netflix, after several fans also spotted actor Matt Le Blanc mouthing along with Jennifer Aniston's lines in a clip posted to Twitter.

Easy to miss: Friends fans have spotted a creepy shock gaffe in the background of a Season Four classic, in which the eyes of a mask glow red for a few seconds

Creepy: Viewers are still none the wiser as to why the eyes glowed red

In the episode, Rachel is planning the ultimate romantic evening with new love interest Joshua - played by Tate Donovan - but things go pear-shaped when he confesses to having a fear of farm birds.

Rachel's pals Joey and Chandler were of course parents to a pet chick and duck, leading the date to reconvene at Joshua's apartment.

Changing into a sexy negligee, Rachel is ready for her first night with her new man, but the pair are interrupted as Joshua's parents return early from their holiday.

As Rachel attempts to cover herself, a pair of glowing red eyes can be spotted in the background of the scene, but disappear mere seconds later.

It is something easily missed by many viewers as the scene revolves around Rachel trying to pass off her negligee as a designer frock.

Sinister: In a scene alongside love interest Joshua - played by Tate Donovan, Rachel wears a sexy piece of lingerie which she tries to pass off as a dress

'See, I work in fashion and this is a real dress. 'They're wearing it in Milan A part of my job is to wear the clothes and then I see how people respond and then I report back to my superiors at Bloomingdales.

'And obviously in this case, I'm going to report back ''USA, not ready.''

As Joshua's father then asks whether the pair have eaten, the eyes can just be seen coming to life in the background.

Naughty: After being caught by Joshua's parents in a revealing negligee, Rachel tries to pass it off as a designer dress in the hilarious scene

Actor Tate recently spoke about how difficult he found working with Jennifer on the show, as they had been going through a break-up while acting on-screen together after dating for two years.

He told US Weekly: 'I was just happy to be on the team. The only bummer was Jennifer and I were breaking up at the time.

'And so that was tricky to sort of act, and act like we are just meeting each other, and falling in love, or whatever, interested in each other, when we're sort of breaking up.'

Since Friends was finally released on Netflix last year, numerous fans have been quick to point out hilarious gaffes.

In the fourth episode of the cult show, Joey can be seen mouthing Ross's lines as he stands behind him after he was hit in the mouth by a hockey puck.

And in one of the most recent came in a clip posted to Twitter, he could be seen mouthing along to Jennifer's lines, as he stood behind her in a season six episode.

Raking in the dough: Meanwhile, last month, it emerged that the stars of Friends were set to land a colossal payday after Netflix paid a reported $100million to air the classic sitcom for another year  with their earnings being boosted to almost $22million per year from the show alone

Meanwhile, last month, it emerged that the stars of Friends were set to land a colossal payday after Netflix paid a reported $100million to air the classic sitcom for another year  with their earnings being boosted to almost $22million per year from the show alone.

Thanks to a back-end deal  which sees Jennifer, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt and Matthew Perry get two per cent of profits  their syndication earnings have been padded by a further $1.4million.

The stars of Friends: What's their net worth? Following the end of Friends, the stars have gone to enjoy lucrative careers in showbusiness with varying degrees of success. However, thanks in large part to their roles on the show that made them all household names, each screen star's net worth has remained at impressive levels  even by Hollywood's standards. Jennifer Aniston  $220million Courteney Cox  $120million David Schwimmer  $85million Matthew Perry  $80million Matt Le Blanc  $80million Lisa Kudrow  $70million Source: Thisisinsider.com Advertisement

Netflix had already been paying owners WarnerMedia $30million per year since 2015 to have the beloved series among its colossal catalogue, but fans were recently outraged when the show was set to expire from the streaming service on January 1.

However, within hours of the news breaking, the New York Times reported that bosses at Netflix had struck a new deal, which has proved to be decidedly lucrative for the already high-earning stars.

The stars' road to their big pay day has been a heavily documented one, with each of them earning a comparatively modest $22,500 per episode when the show made its debut on NBC back in 1994.

With the dawning of season two came a variety of salaries, with the newly-famous actors separately renegotiating their contracts, picking up between $30,000 and $40,000 per episode for their efforts.

A new precedent was set by season three, when the stars decided to band together for equal pay on the show. But this meant all were paid the same amount as the lowest earning cast member.

And while $75,000 per episode would be a windfall in most circles, it actually proved to be a pay cut for breakout stars Jennifer and David, who had won legions of fans through their respective portrayals of Rachel Green and Ross Geller.
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Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi have forked out $27million on a stunning new home in Montecito, California.

Bagging the jaw-dropping Balinese-influenced property for a bargain after it was up for sale for $40million, the talk show host, 61, and her Australian actress other half, 45, are set to live in style in the 8,188-square-feet of pure luxury.

Built in 2011, the house, which was listed by Suzanne Perkins of Compass, makes for private living as it comes with 8.24 acres of land - while the abode itself boasts five bedrooms and ten bathrooms for the celebrity couple - who are keen dabblers in the property market.

Impressive: Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi have forked out $27million on a stunning new Balinese-influenced property in Montecito, California

Splashing out: The talk show host, 61, and her Australian actress other half, 45, are set to live in style in the 8,188-square-feet of pure luxury

The home won't require much need for renovation as the previous owner spent a lot of time and money doing up the palatial home.

Boasting a number of exotic features, the home comes complete with bamboo ceilings, flamed black limestone, and distressed oak floors.

The spacious living room provides enough space for Ellen and Portia to entertain guests, who can enjoy the surrounding views of the property with easy access to the veranda.

Adding to the homely comforts, the veranda also features a fire-pit for those chillier winter nights, as well as an outside dining area to enjoy year round.

Amazing: Built in 2011, the house makes for private living as it comes with 8.24 acres of land - while the abode itself boasts five bedrooms and ten bathrooms for the celebrity couple - who are keen dabblers in the property market

Ready to go: The home won't require much need for renovation as the previous owner spent a lot of time and money doing up the palatial home

Homely: Boasting a number of exotic features, the home comes complete with bamboo ceilings, flamed black limestone, and distressed oak floors

Hostess with the mostess: The spacious living room provides enough space for Ellen and Portia to entertain guests

From the living room: Ellen and Portia who can enjoy the surrounding views of the property with easy access to the veranda

The property caters for more than two people, with an added guesthouse, complete with two en-suite bedrooms, a kitchen, and a detached office.

Catering to California's summer climes, there is a private cabana tucked away by the pool complete with gym and changing facilities.

Perfect for a dip, the property also comes with a coveted infinity pool which looks out to an incredible view of the local area.

Proving to be every girl's dream, there are a number of walk-in wardrobes, for the glamorous pair to stock their belongings.

California dreaming: Adding to the homely comforts, the veranda also features a fire-pit for those chillier winter nights, as well as an outside dining area to enjoy year round

Huge: The property caters for more than two people, with an added guesthouse, complete with two en-suite bedrooms, a kitchen, and a detached office

Working out: Catering to California's summer climes, there is a private cabana tucked away by the pool complete with gym and changing facilities

Perfect for a dip: The property also comes with a coveted infinity pool which looks out to an incredible view of the local area

A girl can never have too many clothes: Proving to be every girl's dream, there are a number of walk-in wardrobes, for the glamorous pair to stock their belongings

Time to cook! The stylish kitchen is complete with food furnishings and bar stools around the island

Bonus: There is also a pantry for the couple to stock their kitchen belongings and steer away from clutter

Portia and Ellen have been in a relationship since 2004 and were married in August 2008 at their home in Beverly Hills, California.

Ellen recently revealed to The New York Times that she has been considering leaving her long-running talk show.

The comedian said she been mulling over her plans for the future and whether to walk from The Ellen DeGeneres Show after her wife, Portia, encouraged her to 'tackle' other projects she is passionate about.

Where the magic happens: The bedrooms features plush beds with floor to ceilings windows for the natural light to shine in

Waking up to this: Each bedroom features a sensational view of the surrounding California climes

Spacious: The bathrooms have two sinks, allowing Portia and Ellen more than enough room to get ready in the morning

The 60-year-old hostess has branched out from her hit daytime show and is in the process of producing several upcoming films.

This includes Nancy Drew And The Hidden Staircase, hosts game shows like Ellen's Game of Games, and, on December 18, Netflix released her first stand-up comedy special in 15 years dubbed, Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable.

Ellen has led the talk-variety show since it first aired in September 2003. It has run for 16 seasons and is the highest-paid talk show host in the world currently.
She's documented her painful split from ex-fiance John Noble on TLC show The Break Up, after he was caught cosying up to a bevy of beauties in Dubai last November.

And Vicky Pattison has revealed her former partner blames her profession for his infidelity during Wednesday's Heart Breakfast show with Jamie Theakston and Lucy Horobin.

Moving on from the scandal, the former Geordie Shore star, 31, posted a defiant braless Instagram selfie and shared she's on the search to find love but has been 'waitlisted' on celebrity dating app Raya.

Shocking: Vicky Pattison has revealed her ex-fiance John Noble blames her profession for his infidelity during Wednesday's Heart Breakfast show with Jamie Theakston and Lucy Horobin

Moving on: The Geordie beauty posted a defiant braless selfie and shared she's on the search to find love but has been 'waitlisted' on celebrity dating app Raya

In November, the TV personality was left heartbroken after the businessman was caught cheating during his Dubai getaway.

Vicky previously confessed she was blind to their deteriorating relationship prior to his trip, and insists they were very much together, despite claims from John's side that they had broken up.

Detailing the moment she confronted him, the reality star told hosts Jamie, 48, and Lucy, 39: 'Essentially he blamed it on me.

'If I hadnt got the job I was in and wasnt in the position I am then he wouldnt have been set up. So essentially my career got in the way of his cheating', she shared.

'Essentially he blamed it on me': Detailing the moment she confronted him, the reality star told Heart Breakfast hosts Jamie, 48, and Lucy, 39: 'So my career got in the way of his cheating'

On her quest to find love, Vicky revealed she has since signed up to celebrity dating app Raya, but admitted she's been put on their waiting list.

Raya, also known as Tinder for A-listers, is a members' only app which charges a fee for use and access.

'Right, listen to this  I tried to get on, have yous heard of Raya? Its like this special one for people in the industry', she said.

'I heard Jeremy Piven was on it and I love Mr. Selfridge so I thought, Im gonna get meself on that, and get meself back out there. And they waitlisted us', a shocked Vicky shared.

Disappointment: In November, the TV personality was left heartbroken after the businessman was caught cheating during his Dubai getaway

'They waitlisted us': On her quest to find love, Vicky revealed she has since signed up to celebrity dating app Raya, but admitted she's been put on their waiting list

And Vicky certainly showed John what he was missing as she posed topless in a yellow power suit in a steamy Instagram mirror selfie on Wednesday.

With her cleavage on show, the television personality captioned the cheeky shot: 'BANANA VICCCCKKK!!!! Im obsessed... But what do you think?!'

The brunette beauty recently revealed she's received some crass advances from men in an interview with MailOnline.

Vicky said: 'I'm not ready for a boyfriend but I am ready to sit with a man and have some interest again. It would be nice if someone told me I'm pretty...

'I'm open to the idea of meeting someone and getting to know someone. My DMs are pretty lit! Mostly very strange d**k pics. I screenshot that and send it to my girls chat so FYI any lads out there sending me dick pics! All my girls see them!'

Vicky admitted she has been hitting the town more often, saying: 'When you're single you do go out more. I think that's natural and it was a nice distraction to be out and be around people, When your sad the devil does make idle work...

'I get sent LOTS of d**k pics!' The brunette beauty recently revealed she's received some crass advances from men in an interview with MailOnline

Moving on: 'I'm not ready for a boyfriend but I am ready to sit with a man and have some interest again', she shared (pictured with John in June 2017)

'I don't think about him': As well as her renewed love life, she lifted the lid of the current state of affairs with her

'I exhausted myself. I slept better when I was tired and I stood by what I believed in.'

As well as her renewed love life, she said of the current state of affairs with her former fiance: 'I don't think about him anymore. I don't know that man. He's rang me a couple of times since. Unfortunately we own a house together...

'He's very keen to get the money out of this house and have his ring back and just wanting to move on with his life. I think the ring is cursed, mate...

'I haven't wanted to see him, it's still very raw and very sore and the thought of sitting down with him to discuss our financials is making me very anxious and very stressed. I don't think I'm ready for that.'

Tune in to Heart Breakfast with Jamie and Lucy, weekdays from 6am  9am.
Delilah Hamlin and Gigi Gorgeous led the Hollywood glamour as YouTube blogger Amanda Steele launched her debut fashion line on Tuesday evening.

The pair joined an array of guests at Los Angeles cocktail bar Tenants of the Trees, where Steele unveiled the latest addition to her expanding portfolio.

Opting for a black, negligee styled dress with a thigh-skimming detail, Delilah, 20, caught the eye while posing for photos shortly after making her way inside.

Stepping out: Delilah Hamlin (L) and Gigi Gorgeous (R) led the Hollywood glamour as YouTube blogger Amanda Steele launched her debut fashion line on Tuesday evening

The daughter of actor Harry Hamlin and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna added to her look with a pastel pink coat, while white high-top trainers rounded things off.

Drawing attention to her naturally pretty features, the teenager selected her make-up from a warm colour palette.

With a single choker necklace proving to be her only visible accessory, Delilah was hard to miss while helping Steele promote her first foray into fashion design.

Striking: Opting for a black, negligee styled dress with a thigh-skimming detail, Delilah caught the eye while posing for photos shortly after making her way inside

Hard to miss: With a single choker necklace proving to be her only visible accessory, Delilah commanded attention while helping Steele promote her first foray into fashion design

Joining Delilah, Gigi, 26, proved to be an equally engaging sight in a PVC crop top that fully exposed her toned abs.

The transgender model and YouTuber added to her look with a pair of matching skinny trousers that drew further attention to her slender physique as she made her way inside.

Stiletto heels completed the look, while generous layers of foundation, bronzer and pink lipstick gave the overall look a dramatic flourish.

Looking good: Joining Delilah, transgender model and YouTuber Gigi, 26, proved to be an equally engaging sight in a PVC crop top that fully exposed her toned abs while posing for photos with model and LGBTQ rights activist Nats Getty

In attendance: America's Next Top Model star Krislian Rodriguez (L) and actress Lilimar Hernandez (R) also made an appearance at the event on Tuesday night

New venture: Amanda Steele has launched her first fashion line after previously lauching an exclusive sunglasses line with Quay Australia

Other guests at the event included model and LGBTQ rights activist Nats Getty, America's Next Top Model star Krislian Rodriguez and actress Lilimar Hernandez.

Dominican model Emily Tosta and actress Samantha Gangal also let their hair down at the celebration, which marked a new direction for Amanda.

The blogger and model, known for producing her own beauty and fashion related content online, has previously launched her own exclusive sunglasses range with Australian Quay in 2015.

say cheese: Gigi and Amanda posed for a sultry photo after rubbing shoulders at the celebratory event, held at Los Angeles cocktail bar Tenants of the Trees

Here they come: Actress Samantha Gangal (L) and American's Next Top Model star CoryAnne Roberts (R) posed for photos on the red carpet

Incoming: Dominican model Emily Tosta was also on hand to celebrate the new fashion launch

All mine: Amanda posed alongside a selection of designs from her new range on Tuesday evening

Three's company: (L-R) CoryAnne Roberts, Zahara Davis, and Krislian Rodriguez were in high spirits as they rubbed shoulders at the event




Good Morning Britain stars Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid have revealed they are headed to Hollywood to film a special episode for the Oscars.

To mark the 91st Academy Awards ceremony on 25 February, the hosting duo have vowed to 'hit Hollywood hard' to ring in the day, shortly before weighing in on the ongoing debate over who should host the annual ceremony.

After Kevin Hart's controversial removal from the bill, a question mark hangs over who will have the hosting job, with Piers pushing for Ricky Gervais to nab the role and shooting down 'hopeless and sycophantic' Ellen Degeneres as host.

Here come the Brits! Good Morning Britain stars Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid have revealed they are headed to Hollywood to film a special episode for the Oscars

Piers and Susanna seemed delighted to share the news on the show on Wednesday morning - as they prep for the new take on the breakfast hit.

Susanna revealed: 'We have exciting news, we are going to cover the Oscars. We are going to be live in Hollywood covering all things fashion and stars...

'This is going to be fun! Were looking forward to this. Its going to be a big night after that we are going to hit Hollywood hard.'

Aside from the arrival of the Brits, Piers also discussed the ongoing saga of the Oscars host and who will take the prestigious role.

Ahem! After Kevin Hart's controversial removal from the bill, a question mark hangs over who will have the hosting job, with Piers pushing for Ricky Gervais to nab the role and shooting down 'hopeless and sycophantic' Ellen Degeneres as host

Shocker: Susanna revealed: 'We have exciting news, we are going to cover the Oscars. We are going to be live in Hollywood covering all things fashion and stars'

Kevin made headlines after he was named as host of the 91st Oscars, but then stepped down just a few days later.

He stepped down from the prestigious role after a series of homophobic tweets resurfaced and he later refused to apologise.

There is still no official host for the Oscars telecast on February 24, with Variety reporting on January 9 that the Academy will televise the big event with no host, for the first time in nearly three decades.

Having a giggle: Piers and Susanna seemed delighted to share the news on the show on Wednesday morning - as they prep for the new take on the breakfast hit

Shocking: Amid speculation that Ellen may take the role, furious Piers said: 'Oh don't be ridiculous, she is a hopeless, hopeless host. Sycophantic'

Amid speculation that Ellen may take the role, furious Piers said: 'Oh don't be ridiculous, she is a hopeless, hopeless host. Sycophantic'.

It has now been rumoured that after the scandal surrounding Kevin, bosses are contemplating shunning having any host at all.

Insiders said: 'Producers will select a crop of A-listers to introduce various segments instead of relying on one marquee name to kick things off in a monologue filled with Trump zingers.'.
She's been hailed as one of the world's most beautiful women after becoming a successful model, while her daughter Amber Le Bon is following in her footsteps.

And Yasmin Le Bon, 54, showed just how good the family genes are on Tuesday, when she stepped out with her 29-year-old offspring for a gala celebrating the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

With Yasmin displaying a youthful visage, the stunning models looked like sisters as they stepped out in style for the exclusive star-studded dinner, with each showing off their chic style in black gowns featuring multi-coloured accents.

Gala: Yasmin Le Bon and her daughter Amber attended a gala celebrating the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition London's Victoria and Albert Museum on Tuesday

Yasmin  who celebrated 33 years of marriage to Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon, 60, on December 27  was resplendent in a full-length, short-sleeved dress, which boasted striped patterning along the top half of the skirt.

Standing tall in a pair of claret red suede heels, she staved off the winter chill with a brown fur jacket, while she accessorised with a pair of green chandelier earrings and a black Christian Dior handbag.

Wearing her glossy honey-hued tresses in a relaxed bun, the mother-of-three highlighted her natural beauty with a palette of impeccably-applied makeup.

Chic: The stunning models looked like sisters as they stepped out in style for the exclusive star-studded dinner, with each wearing black gowns featuring multi-coloured accents

Resplendent: Supermodel Yasmin was resplendent in a full-length, short-sleeved dress, which boasted striped patterning along the top half of the skirt

Not to be outdone, Amber stepped out in a gown with a similar silhouette, though hers featured mixed patterning along the high neckline, bosom and empire waistline, as well as along the cropped sleeves and skirt.

Teaming her flattering dress with mesh-style black heels, she contrasted her ensemble by toting a red leather embroidered handbag.

With her chestnut brown locks styled in a similar style to her mother's, save for wavy tendrils framing her face, the London-born beauty kept her makeup fresh and light.

Yasmin's striking appearance comes several months after she told Red magazine that the menopause has caused her to develop a 'layer of padding' all over her body.

Natural beauty: Wearing her glossy honey-hued tresses in a relaxed bun, the mother-of-three highlighted her natural beauty with a palette of impeccably-applied makeup

The supermodel opened up about her struggle with the menopause, saying it affected her memory and caused her to ache all over.

She said: The menopause is a bit s**t, actually. You ache all over, youre tired and fractious and you develop a layer of padding all over.

You cant remember to make that appointment to see the damn endocrinologist. You cant remember where you parked the car.

'Its important that you tell people this. I share this with my girls because I want them to be a bit more prepared than I was.'

Patterning: Not to be outdone, Amber stepped out in a gown with a similar silhouette, though hers featured mixed patterning along the high neckline, bosom and empire waistline

The likes of Jenna Coleman, Eddie Redmayne, Gemma Arterton, Olga Kurylenko, and Kristin Scott Thomas were also seen putting in appearances at the A-list event.

Before dinner was served, the Earl of Snowdon shared memories of his mother, Princess Margaret, in a heartfelt speech.

A highlight of the exhibition, Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress, designed by Christian Dior in 1951 - and which she would later refer to as her favourite dress of all - is on display for the first time in many years.

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: 'Combining our unrivalled couture collections with the House of Diors own remarkable archive  this is a defining moment for fashion at the V&A.

Bags of glamour: Teaming her flattering dress with mesh-style black heels, she contrasted her ensemble by toting a red leather embroidered handbag

'There is a long history of shared knowledge between the V&A and Dior, from the late 1950s to the present day, and it has been an honour to collaborate with the House of Dior on the development of this exhibition. '

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior  the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015.

From 1947 to the present day, the exhibition traces the history and impact of one of the 20th centurys most influential couturiers, and the six artistic directors who have succeeded him, to explore the enduring influence of the fashion house.

Rubbing shoulders: At the exclusive event, Amber was seen posing for a snapshot with Gemma Arterton, who looked equally glamorous in her flattering gown of choice

Over 500 objects and 200 rare Haute Couture garments will be on display, as well as accessories, fashion photography, film, perfume and personal items belonging to Dior.

Oriole Cullen, the V&A's fashion and textiles curator, said: 'In 1947, Christian Dior changed the face of fashion with his New Look, which redefined the female silhouette and reinvigorated the post-War Parisian fashion industry.

'More than seventy years after its founding, the V&As exhibition will celebrate the enduring influence of the House of Dior and uncover Diors relationship with Britain.'
Jaime King takes nothing for granted.

The 39-year-old actress-model took to Instagram on Tuesday with a post reflecting on a nuance of white privilege - and how she hopes to help eradicate it via spreading awareness.

In the post, the Hart of Dixie actress crossed the street about 10 feet in front of another pedestrian.

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Speaking out: Jaime King, 39, took to Instagram on Tuesday with a post reflecting on a nuance of white privilege - and how she hopes to help eradicate it via spreading awareness

'Its very strange walking across the street and .... how lucky we are, take for granted that we can just pass,' said King, who shares sons Leo Thames, three, and James Knight, five, with her husband, director Kyle Newman.

The Omaha, Nebraska native shared a series of shots from the walk, adding a text overlay to express herself in detail.

'The freedom to pass and walk across the street without being stopped in a f***ing gift,' King said. 'As each day passes every single small act becomes an overwhelming realization of how privileged I am as a white American.'

The Sin City star made clear that she's willing to do everything in her power to battle the inequity.

Out and about: The Omaha, Nebraska native shared a series of shots from the walk, adding a text overlay to express herself in detail

Strong statement: The Hollywood beauty said that 'the freedom to pass and walk across the street without being stopped in a f***ing gift'

'I will never pretend to know what it's like in other shoes,' she said, 'but I do d**n sure will do everything I can with what God gave me to take action to change it for others.'

King also addressed another inequity on Twitter this week, when she pledged to follow the advocacy organization Time's Up in their call to performers to work with a female director on a feature film over the next year-and-a-half.

'I fully support this and will work with as many females as possible this year and beyond!' she wrote.

Not a fan: King, a staunch advocate for gun control, was critical of street art she passed that downplayed the danger of firearms

Taking a stand: King also addressed another inequity on Twitter this week, when she pledged to follow the advocacy organization Time's Up in their call to performers to work with a female director on a feature film over the next year-and-a-half

King has also worn her heart on her sleeve when it comes to politics, frequently criticizing President Donald Trump on a number of fronts, including his past words and alleged actions when to comes to women.

Days after Trump's shocking victory in November of 2016, the actress held nothing back in a chat with Hollywood Life.

'Now, all of the sudden, we have to pretend we are going to accept this reality star bigot into our lives as president and somehow tell our children that this is okay,' she said. 'In the meantime, I will not allow my children to call this man President. I can't!'
Most brides opt to watch what they eat before walking down the aisle, to avoid potential wedding bloat.

But MAFS' Ning Surasiang enjoyed huge plate of pancakes on her big day.

On Wednesday night's episode of Married At First Sight, the 32-year-old hairdresser was surrounded by her bridesmaids, who watched her gobble down the carb-loaded breakfast.

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'I think it's sexy when women put things in their mouth': MAFS' Ning Surasiang devours a huge carb-loaded breakfast of pancakes moments before walking down the aisle

While getting ready in her inner-city hotel room in Sydney, Ning said: 'I'm getting hitched b**ch, what are you doing today?'

'I just love having an audience when I'm eating,' she said, adding, 'I think it's sexy when women put things in their mouths!'

After realising how tasteless her comment was, she turned to her friends and laughed with embarrassment.

'I just love having an audience when I'm eating,' she said, adding, 'I think it's sexy when women put things in their mouths!'

Awkward: After realising how tasteless her comment was, she turned to her friends and laughed with embarrassment

'I just said that out loud. Oh sorry!,' she said.

Speaking to the viewers, one of her bridesmaids admitted: 'I think Ning is going to be herself. She says what she's thinking, and sometimes she doesn't have a filter.

'Yeah, maybe that could come out the wrong way,' she added.

'I just said that out loud. Oh sorry!,' she said

Candid: Speaking to the viewers, one of her bridesmaids admitted: 'I think Ning is going to be herself. She says what she's thinking, and sometimes she doesn't have a filter'

The awkward moment comes after the mother-of-three revealed why she has been so unsuccessful with online dating.

Speaking to NW magazine on Monday, she said people often bombard her with bizarre questions about her body after seeing her profile picture online.

'I've had people ask me weird questions on there before I actually go on dates with them, like 'Are you 100 per cent female?' or 'Would you get your boobs done' and 'Do you actually look like your profile?' and I'm like, 'What do you mean?'' she told the publication.

Confession: The awkward moment comes after the mother-of-three revealed why she has been so unsuccessful with online dating, saying followers ask her with bizarre questions about her body

Meanwhile, Ning's TV 'husband' Mark has been billed as the lovelorn singleton was unable to settle down in the past thanks to his hectic schedule as an army serviceman.

Having swapped his military career for a quieter life as a Melbourne-based personal trainer, he hopes the MAFS experiment will bring him true love.

Married At First Sight continues Thursday at 7:30pm on Channel Nine
Being ill was no reason for Kylie Jenner not to have a good time Tuesday.

The 21-year-old reality star and lip kit icon fired up her Insta Stories to let her following in on her relaxing night at home.

She panned around her plush home cinema, boasting cozy couches, movie posters and plenty of snacks.

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Making the best of it: Being ill was no reason for Kylie Jenner not to have a good time Tuesday

She also flashed a glimpse of her bright pink Louis Vuitton slippers.

After chowing down on some salmon with lemon and celery juice, the mother of one could be settled in to enjoy a flick.

The meal was prepared by Kylie's gal pal Anastasia Karanikolaou, a 20-year-old model who goes by her nickname Stassie.

Kylie, who currently owns two homes, will be ringing in her infant daughter Stormi Webster's first birthday this Friday at the top of the month.

Goofing off: The 21-year-old reality star and lip kit icon fired up her Insta Stories to let her following in on her relaxing night at home

Pricey: She also flashed a glimpse of her bright pink Louis Vuitton slippers

She shares the baby with 26-year-old rapper Travis Scott, with whom she bought her Beverly Hills pad for a cool $13.5 million last year, according to People.

Despite months of pregnancy rumors, the cosmetics tycoon did not speak publicly about being an expectant mother until after her baby was born last year.

Kylie and her two older half-sisters Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian all welcomed new children within a four-month span last year.

Kim and her third husband Kanye West saw their daughter Chicago born via surrogacy in January, and Khloe gave birth to her daughter True in April.

True is Khloe's child by her allegedly unfaithful beau, Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson, whose cheating scandal broke less than 48 hours before the birth.

Mom: Kylie, who currently owns two homes, will be ringing in her infant daughter Stormi Webster's first birthday this Friday at the top of the month

Show off: She panned around her plush home cinema, boasting cozy couches, movie posters and plenty of snacks

Kim and Kanye are currently expecting their fourth baby, who will be their second child carried by a surrogate.

'Kim having another baby this year is heavily influencing her other sisters and their baby plans,' a source alleged to E! News at the start of this month.

'They all loved being pregnant at the same time and everyone wants all of the kids to be close in age. Everyone jokes about having another round of "triplets" all the time.'

Luxury: After chowing down on some salmon with lemon and celery juice, the mother of one could be seen enjoying a movie in her at-home cinema
She's called making the movie 'one of the best experiences of my whole career.'

And on Tuesday night, Demi Moore brought her star power to the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of the horror comedy Corporate Animals.

The actress, 56, posed for photos wearing a stylish white coat dress and lace-up chocolate brown boots.

New film: On Tuesday night, Demi Moore brought her star power to the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of the horror comedy Corporate Animals

She accessorized the monochrome look with several Anita Ko rings.

The film also stars Ed Helms, Jessica Williams and Karan Soni and is directed by Patrick Brice.

Moore plays a megalomaniac CEO who takes her employees, played by Williams and Soni, on a team-building expedition to caves in New Mexico.

They hire a guide, played by Helms, who turns out to be pretty useless and when the group gets trapped underground, they discover the caves are home to much more than they bargained for.

Looking good: The actress, 56, posed for photos wearing a stylish white coat dress and lace-up chocolate brown boots, as well as four Anita Ko rings

Scary and funny: Moore plays a megalomaniac CEO who takes her employees on a team-building expedition to caves in New Mexico. When the group gets trapped underground, they discover the caves are home to much more than they bargained for

Fun time: The film also stars Ed Helms who plays the hapless guide hired by Moore to take her and her staff through the caves

Corporate Animals generated some extra buzz on Monday after filmmaker Brice revealed that pop star Britney Spears make a cameo in the movie.

'The ghost of Britney Spears is in our movie,' is how he phrased it during a Los Angeles Times panel.

He explained: 'Through a series of connections we were able to get 10 minutes of [Britney's] time to record this, which was so awesome.'

'One of our characters  Calum Worthy's character, Aidan  is obsessed with Britney Spears, and there's a runner of him as he's going crazy thinking that Britney is speaking to him from the walls.'

Funny guy: Helms has shown off his comedy chops previously in TV's The Office and The Hangover series of movies

Supporting roles: Former The Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams, left, and Deadpool 2's Karan Soni, right, play Moore'e employees

Helmer: Corporate Animals is directed by Patrick Brice who revealed Monday that pop star Britney Spears make a cameo in the movie

Group shot: Castmembers Jessica Kim and Martha Kelly also attended the screening and joined in a cast photo

Buddies: Moore and Helms appeared to be having a great time

Last night, Stella Artois hosted the hottest party on Main Street for the cast of Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics And Men.

The space was packed with over 400 guests as RZA spun a set at the DJ booth and surprised everyone with a wrap session.

Guests in attendance included members of the Wu-Tang clan: Cappadonna, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Rza, and Masta Killa, as well as Tobey Maguire, Gerard Butler, Jessica Williams and more.

New SHOWTIME Docuseries "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics & Men" Celebrates At Stella's Film Lounge During The 2019 Sundance Film Festival

Lil Rel Howery and Rza performs onstage during the new SHOWTIME Docuseries "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics & Men" celebration at Stella's Film Lounge

Earlier that day, Stella Artois hosted the a panel with the cast of Fighting With My Family, which includes renowned actors such as, Vince Vaughn, Lena Headey, Stephen Merchant and Nick Frost.
Kylie Jenner's ex-boyfriend Tyga is thought to been enjoying a 'fling' with one of her friends - Australian Instagram model, Tammy Hembrow.

And on Wednesday, KIIS FM shock jock Kyle Sandilands shared his thoughts about the rumours of a relationship flourishing between Tyga and Tammy.

Kyle, whose girlfriend Imogen Anthony was once 'friends' with Tammy, said: 'Dating? You're using that word a bit loose?'

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'Dating? You're using that word a bit loose?': Shock jock Kyle Sandilands weighed in on rumours US rapper Tyga is 'dating' Tammy Hembrow during his radio show on Wednesday

'She might be pumping him. She's hung out with him the last two nights,' he added of of his opinion on the Sydney breakfast program.

Tammy, 24, apparently 'hooked up' with the U.S. hip hop star, 29, at the Rolling Loud Festival in Sydney on Sunday night, and was then spotted backstage at his Brisbane concert on Monday night.

Exclusive footage obtained by Daily Mail Australia from Sunday's festival shows Tammy dancing wildly in the VIP area next to Tyga, who appears less animated.

'She's hung out with him the last two nights': Tammy, 24, apparently 'hooked up' with the U.S. hip hop star, 29, at the Rolling Loud Festival in Sydney on Sunday night, and was then spotted backstage at his Brisbane concert on Monday night

An insider claimed that Tammy, who has two children aged four and two with her ex-fiance Reece Hawkins, 'was partying so hard she didn't seem to care what anyone thought'.

On Tuesday, Tammy's sister and spokeswoman Amy Hembrow told Daily Mail Australia that the model is not dating Tyga and 'everyone is just friends'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Tyga's management for comment.

Thing for blondes? Kylie Jenner's ex-boyfriend Tyga split with the model in 2017 after three years of 'on-and-off' dating

Despite being Australia's most famous 'Instagram model' and the owner of popular activewear brand Saski Collection, Tammy is perhaps best known for an incident involving Tyga's ex-girlfriend Kylie Jenner last year.

In August 2018, she was pictured being carried out of Kylie's 21st birthday party in West Hollywood face-down on a stretcher, making headlines across the world.

She later claimed she was suffering from exhaustion when she collapsed on the dance floor.

Despite the drama, Kylie and her famous family have supported Tammy, and she continues to work as a model for Khloe Kardashian's clothing brand Good American.

However, considering Tyga's turbulent history with the Kardashians, it is unclear how they will react to Tammy's fling with the rapper.
He's enjoying his break from work in Los Angeles with his family.

And Alec Baldwin proved on trend as he was spotted on a family stroll with wife Hilaria, 35, daughter Carmen Gabriela, five, son Rafael Thomas, three, and son Romeo Alejandro David, eight months in the tony neighborhood of Beverly Hills.

The 60-year-old veteran Hollywood actor cut a dapper figure in a classic black suit as his son Leonardo Angel Charles, two, was not present for the fun escapade.

Proud papa: Alec Baldwin, 60, was spotted on a family stroll in Los Angeles on Tuesday

Yoga instructor Hilaria looked every inch the fit mother as she carried the adorable Romeo on her chest.

Wearing a long dark coat and skintight leggings, Hilaria stomped the Big Apple in fuzzy slippers.

Rafael held onto her hand tightly as they made their way across the street.

Meanwhile, Alec pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment violation following a highly-publicized scuffle over a parking spot last fall on Wednesday.

Family affair: He was out with wife Hilaria, 35, daughter Carmen Gabriela, five, son Rafael Thomas, three, and son Romeo Alejandro David, eight months in the tony neighborhood of Beverly Hills

Yoga mom: Yoga instructor Hilaria looked every inch the fit mother as she carried the adorable Romeo on her chest

Alec appeared at New York City Criminal Court earlier that day, for a hearing on charges that he punched a man during a dispute over the spot in front of his Greenwich Village home.

The star agreed to take an anger management class, which he must finish by March, and pay a $120 fine.

The anger management program will only be one day, according to New York Daily News.

Shoe game: Wearing a long dark coat and skintight leggings, Hilaria stomped the Big Apple in fuzzy slippers

Dapper: Alec looked dapper in his all black ensemble

Prosecutor Ryan Lipes argued that he was offering Baldwin a lesser charge because he did not have a criminal record.

'We have had an opportunity to review video surveillance in this case, speak with the witnesses, review the medical records and speak with the [victim],' Lipes said.

'Given that Mr Baldwin does not have a criminal record we are prepared to offer a harassment violation in the second degree with the the condition that he completes the short anger management program.'

Hold tight: Rafael held onto her hand tightly as they made their way across the street

Judge Herbert Moses then asked Baldwin is he was 'pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty'.

'Yes,' he replied

Baldwin then declined an offer to speak before he was sentenced.

Pleading: Meanwhile, Alec pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment violation following a highly-publicized scuffle over a parking spot last fall on Wednesday

Alan Abramson, the actor's attorney, said the case would eventually be sealed.

'I've explained to my client that this is a violation, not a crime, and that the matter will be sealed by operation of law, and all photographs and fingerprints taken in this case will be destroyed,' he said during the hearing.

Baldwin and Abramson made no comments as they exited the court, and the actor looked downcast as he left.
He became an overnight viral sensation after being featured on Tuesday's episode of Married At First Sight.

But Jessika Power's 'hot brother' Rhyce soon discovered the downside of fame, taking to Instagram on Wednesday to address 'fake allegations' circulating about him online over the past 24 hours.

He shared a video of himself sticking out his tongue, alongside the caption: 'To all the FAKE allegations circulating about me, here's what I think.'

Speaking out: Married At First Sight's 'hot brother' Rhyce Power (far right) has denied 'fake allegations' being made against him. His sister Jessika is pictured second from left

It is possible Rhyce, 27, was referring to resurfaced claims on the gossip website The Dirty dating back to 2014, which were made by an anonymous source.

The carpenter actually responded to the allegations about his personal life at the time, leaving a comment below the article when it was first published four years ago.

He denied the hurtful accusations about his personal life, blaming an unidentified person for spreading false rumours about him.

'Haha that's me n I find it quite funny my [censored] has sent this in about me n trying to hurt my reputation,' Rhyce wrote.

Statement: It hasn't taken long for Rhyce to discover the downside of viral fame. He shared this Instagram post on Wednesday to address 'fake allegations' circulating about him online

Rhyce also addressed claims circulating on social media that he has a troubled past during an interview with The Kyle and Jackie O Show on Thursday morning.

'Someone's got a photo saying I've got VROs [Violence Restraining Order] against me and [that I'm violent] against women. Someone took a photo off Google [of a heavily bruised woman] and posted that I've done it,' he explained over the phone.

'It's pretty sad because the girl it actually happened to in 2015 messaged me crying her eyes out because she just got over it. Now this photo's gone viral about her.'

Unconfirmed gossip: It is possible Rhyce was referring to resurfaced claims on the gossip website The Dirty dating back to 2014, which were made by an anonymous source. Pictured in a promotional photo for male stripper agency Sydney Hotshots in 2012

Responding: The carpenter actually responded to the allegations about his personal life at the time, leaving a comment below the article when it was first published four years ago

Radio host Kyle Sandilands then asked: 'That's totally not true, is that what you're saying? It's just a fabrication?'

'It's not true at all,' Rhyce replied. 'Listen I've never been in a fight with a guy or [inaudible]'.

With his piercing blue eyes, muscular build and overprotective nature, Rhyce won the hearts of female viewers during Tuesday's episode of Married at First Sight.

'It's not true at all': Rhyce (left) also addressed claims circulating on social media that he has a troubled past during an interview with The Kyle and Jackie O Show on Thursday. Pictured right: Radio host Kyle Sandilands

He should be a groom! With his piercing blue eyes, muscular build and overprotective nature, Rhyce won the hearts of female viewers during Tuesday's episode of Married at First Sight

Many fans took to Twitter to express their admiration, with one person writing: 'Jessika's brother is going to be the best thing to come of this series'.

'Jessika's older brother is so hot but also very scary and both of those things have me weak at the knees,' another person tweeted.

One viewer seemed more interested in watching Rhyce than the actual wedding, writing: 'Let's just leave the camera on Jessika's brother'.

After Jessika's wedding aired on television, Rhyce gained a staggering 18,000 Instagram followers overnight. As of Thursday, his follower count stands at 38,000.
She regularly shares photos herself flaunting incredible physique in risque outfits.

And on Wednesday, Sahara Ray, 24, treated her legions of fans to another saucy snap of herself - this time wearing a lace bodysuit.

The Australian-born model posed in front of a mirror, showcasing her figure in the high-cut lavender lingerie.

If you've got it, flaunt it! Model Sahara Ray flaunted her incredible physique in a high-cut lavender lace bodysuit on Wednesday

Her ensemble also accentuated her ample assets as she held the pose in front of the camera.

In the caption she spruiked the outfit and tagged Melbourne-based brand Tigermist.

She teamed the look with a pink bob cut wig that complement her ensemble.

The stunner also took to her Instagram story to share a clip of herself in the lingerie.

Turning up the heat: The stunner also took to her Instagram story to share a clip of herself showing off her lingerie

Sahara, who is Justin Bieber's rumoured 'ex-fling', recently flaunted her pert derriere in a risque G-string swimsuit.

She shared a video of herself parading around in the bathroom while holidaying Paris with her barely-covered bottom in full view, before turning towards the camera.

Her long blonde locks were styled in a loose ponytail and a glimpse of the tattoo on her upper left arm could be seen.

'Midnight in Paris,' she captioned the video.

Va va voom! This comes after she recently flaunted her derriere in a risque G-string swimsuit. She shared a video of herself parading around in the bathroom while holidaying Paris with her barely-covered bottom in full view

Sahara first made headlines in 2016 when she was spotted with Justin Bieber in Hawaii, and now regularly wows her 1.3 million followers on Instagram with her smouldering hot snaps.

As well as catching the eye of the Sorry hitmaker, Sahara has been romantically linked to Cody Simpson and Jordan Barrett.

The blonde beauty is the daughter of famed Australian surfer Tony Ray.
Her ex-husband Chris Pratt just got engaged to Katherine Schwarzenegger after a whirlwind romance.

And Anna Faris's relationship with her cinematographer beau Michael Barrett also seems to be going from strength to strength.

The actress was seen walking hand-in-hand with Barrett as they enjoyed a stroll together on Tuesday morning.

Close: Anna Faris and boyfriend Michael Barrett were seen walking hand-in-hand as they enjoyed a stroll together on Tuesday morning in Los Angeles

The couple have been dating for more than a year after meeting on the set of the Overboard remake.

Their romance started after Faris and Pratt announced their separation in August 2017, after eight years of marriage.

The Hollywood couple's divorce was finalized in October with a stipulation that they will live no more than five miles from each other for roughly five years as they continue to co-parent their son Jack, six.

The youngster was seen with Faris and Barrett, riding a scooter as Barrett helped steer.

Serious: The couple have been dating for more than a year after meeting on the set of the Overboard remake

Blended family: Faris's son Jack, six, whom she shares with ex-husband Chris Pratt, joined them on the walk, riding his scooter as Barrett helped steer

Recently, Faris opened up about her co-parenting relationship with Pratt and credited their new partners for making it easy.

'Chris and I work really hard cause we have Jack,' she explained. 'That is sort of the long game idea and making sure Jack is really happy, which makes us really happy.'

'We have sort of the luxury of circumstance. You know, we are both in other loving relationships.'

The exes remain so close that the Jurassic World star even texted her after proposing to the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, and the Mom star offered to officiate at his wedding.

Moved on: The Mom star was married to Pratt for eight years before their split in August 2017. Their divorce was finalized in October and they share custody of their son
He hasn't made a film since stepping away from Justice League in 2017 following his daughter's suicide.

But on Tuesday Zack Snyder announced he is returning behind the camera to direct a new zombie horror thriller for Netflix.

The 52-year-old will helm Army Of The Dead, also producing with partner and wife Deborah under their newly re-branded production company Stone Quarry, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

Zack's back: Zack Snyder is to direct zombie horror Army Of The Dead for Netflix... his first time behind the camera since his daughter's suicide

The film is set amid a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, during which 'a man assembles a group of mercenaries to take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantined zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted'.

'There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one,' Snyder told the site, which claimed the budget could be as high as $90million.

Snyder was one of the architects of the DCEU, directing Man Of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and was guest director and executive producer of Suicide Squad.

He was halfway through Justice League when tragedy struck: one of his eight children, Autumn, took her own life, aged just 20.

Visionary: Snyder was one of the architects of the DCEU, directing Man Of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and was guest director and executive producer of Suicide Squad

'I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hands and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way,' he told THR.

While Snyder is most famed for his comic-book work  which also includes Watchmen and 300  Army will mark a return to his original craft: 2004's Dawn Of The Dead was his directorial debit.

'I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself though a genre,' he said.

'It will be the most kick-a**, self-aware  but not in a wink-to-the-camera way  balls-to-the-wall zombie freakshow that anyone has ever seen. No ones ever let me completely loose.'

He added: 'When the movie gets super big, you get pushed away from the camera; And in the last few years Ive had a reconnection with photography. This movie will be a chance to get the camera in hand.'
One day after the world premiere of his new film Big Time Adolescence, comes word that Pete Davidson will co-write and star in a new semi-autobiographical comedy directed by Judd Apatow.

So far Universal Pictures has not shared any details about a title or the plot.

One of the big looming questions many fans will be waiting to hear about: will Davidson's much-publicized romance with ex-fiance Ariana Grande be apart of the storyline?

Teaming up: Pete Davidson will co-write and star in a semi-autobiographical comedy directed by Judd Apatow;

Another storyline that could draw inspiration for the Staten Island native: the death of his firefighting father in the September 11 attacks in New York City in 2001.

He has said in the past that his father's passing has greatly influenced his work over the years, which includes his stand-up comedy career that began when he was just 16, according to Variety.

Davidson joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2014 at the age of 20.

Looming question: Will Davidson's much-publicized romance with ex-fiance Ariana Grande be apart of the storyline in his upcoming film?; pictured August 20. 2018 at the MTV VMAs

Silver screen star: Davidson's comedy, Big Time Adolescence, premiered on Monday

This will be Apatow's first film as a director since 2015's Trainwreck that starred Amy Schumer and Bill Hader.

Apatow has had huge success at the helm over his career with the likes of The 40-Yea-Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007) and This is 40 (2012).

His producing credits include hits: The Cable Guy (1996), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Superbad (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Pineapple Express (2008), Bridesmaids (2011) and The Five-Year Engagement (2012).

The 51-year old, who is married to actress Leslie Mann, has also been a writer and/or producer for TV on The Ben Stiller Show, Freaks and Geeks, The Simpsons, Girls and Crashing, among others.

Shooting for the Davidson/Apatow comedy will begin this summer in New York City.

He's back! The upcoming comedy will be Apatow's first film as a director since 2015's Trainwreck that starred Amy Schumer
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Randy Malayao was gunned down in Nueva Vizcaya on Wednesday.

According to a police report, Malayao was on board a passenger bus when the gunman got on board and fired two shots, which immediately killed the 49-year-old victim. The suspect then alighted the bus and rode a getaway motorcycle driven by a companion.

The NDFP represents the rebel group Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in peace talks with the government. The backchannel negotiations were supposed to resume in June 2018, but President Rodrigo Duterte postponed it for a review.

Commission on Human Rights said the timing of the killing of the activist is alarming, adding they will investigate his death.

"His death comes at a time when voices of opposition and human rights groups are tagged as enemies, making them possible subjects of assaults. As it is necessary to know the truth, CHR-Region II shall be investigating the case in recognition of the primacy of a persons right to life and in helping make perpetrators accountable for this crime," spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement.
Cindy Crawford was California chic in a flowing blouse when she was spotted stepping out in Beverly Hills this Tuesday.

The 52-year-old 1990s Supermodel slipped into a black and scarlet PAIGE blouse, clasping on a pair of necklaces and accessorizing with shades.

She showed off her shapely legs in a pair of fitted charcoal trousers, rounding off the look with open-toed shoes and a black leather handbag.

On the move: Cindy Crawford was California chic in a flowing blouse when she was spotted stepping out in Beverly Hills this Tuesday

Three days prior, she treated her nearly four million Instagram followers to a snapshot of herself wearing Bleu Salt on the Malibu Beach Pier.

Cindy has been married since 1998 to the hunky businessman Rande Gerber, who helped found the tequila brand Casamigos with George Clooney and Mike Meldman.

She was previously married to movie star Richard Gere, 69, who tied the knot with 35-year-old Spanish publicist Alejandra Silva last year.

What an ensemble: The 52-year-old 1990s Supermodel slipped into a black and scarlet top, clasping on a pair of necklaces and accessorizing with shades

Rande and Cindy share two children - Presley, 19, and Kaia, 17, both of whom have followed their mother's footsteps into the modeling business.

Presley was reportedly arrested for driving under the influence in Beverly Hills shortly before New Year's, according to TMZ.

Kaia has been busy in her modeling career, jetting out to Paris for Fashion Week this month and walking shows for brands like Valentino, Chanel and Givenchy.

Lounging: Three days prior, she treated her nearly four million Instagram followers to a snapshot of herself wearing Bleu Salt on the Malibu Beach Pier

Cindy told British Vogue last year: 'Kaia and I recently were having the conversation about how do you know youre in love... and Kaia said something very wise. She said they have to make her laugh. I said: "Yes, your dad makes me laugh."'

The mother of two recalled that Kaia also 'said: "You have to be interested in what theyre saying." Ive been married 20 years, so its a lot of dinners. If youre not interested in what theyre saying, it can get really old fast.'

She dished gamely: 'No matter how cool you are, youre still not cool to your kids. There is still one element where theyre embarrassed by you, and youre like: "Im not that embarrassing, really," but you still embarrass your kids.'
She was accused of abducting the hamster she co-parents with her new Love Island ex beau Wes Nelson.

And Megan Barton Hanson denied she had stole the furry critter as she finally broke her silence over the claims via her Instagram stories on Tuesday.

The Love Island star, 24, admitted she was missing the 'chubby' hamster when she posted a clip of the pet in the home she once shared with her former flame.

Missing my baby! Megan Barton Hanson DENIES kidnapping the hamster she co-parents with Wes Nelson as she revealed she is missing her 'baby'

She freely shared on social media: 'Missing my baby look at that chubby face!'

Pretty Little Thing ambassador Megan also took to Instagram to unveil her tattoo in the process of being removed from inside her wrist at The Rest Room in London.

The hummingbird tattoo was no longer clearly etched into her skin as she shared the fading inking on her wrist with her 1,800,000 Instagram fans.

She's no thief! The Love Island star, 24, admitted she was missing the 'chubby' hamster when she shared a clip of the pet in the home she once shared with her former flame

She wrote: 'At the @resetroom wrist tat is almost gone this guy is so quick and has best laser around.'

Elsewhere, Wes has been struck by more bad luck after he took a nasty tumble during training for Dancing on Ice on Tuesday.

The Love Island star - who is partnered with pro skater Vanessa Bauer - revealed he was in a 'lot of pain' following his accident.

Busy woman! Pretty Little Thing ambassador Megan also took to Instagram to unveil her tattoo in the process of being removed from inside her wrist at The Rest Room in London

Ouch! Wes has been struck with more bad luck, taking a nasty tumble during training for Dancing On Ice with his skating partner Vanessa Bauer on Tuesday afternoon

Taking to his Instagram Stories, the newly-single star wrote: 'Took a really bad fall today in training, don't miss dancing on ice on Sunday for the full slo mo footage (sic)'.

Sharing another worrying post, he continued: 'Still in a lot of pain praying i can train properly tomorrow'.

Wes also announced he had a cold, snapping selfies of him lounging around in sweats.

Accident: The Love Island star revealed he was in a 'lot of pain' following his accident

The newly-single star wrote: 'Took a really bad fall today in training, don't miss dancing on ice on Sunday for the full slo mo footage'

'Didn't wanna breathe through my nose anyway!' he typed, accompanying a photo of him looking pained.

MailOnline has contacted Wes' representatives for comment.

Wes has been pining for his hamster since Megan allegedly kidnapped the rodent.

The hunk was reportedly alarmed when he returned home and did not hear the sound of the hamster, who was the focal point of the couple's break-up announcement which was released on Saturday afternoon.

No pain, no gain! Wes lamented his cold and his injury on Instagram on Tuesday night, snapping selfies of him lounging around in sweats

Causing a (ham)ster! Megan is said to have kidnapped the hamster she shares with Wes

A source told The Sun: 'Wes knew something was wrong the moment he came home from a day on the ice and couldn't hear the squeak-squeak of Jon Snow's wheel.

'It turned out Megan had swiped the hamster and the cage and hit the road - days after asking for privacy for the hamster and promising they would be co-parenting the pet.

'Wes was shocked she'd just taken Jon Snow without saying anything after everything she promised.'

Despite this it seems Wes understands the scenario and that he knows she will 'take good care of the pet as he hasn't got much time to play with him due to his Dancing On Ice training.'

Heartache: A source told The Sun: 'Wes knew something was wrong the moment he came home from a day on the ice and couldn't hear the squeak-squeak of Jon Snow's wheel' (stock image)

Megan and Wes had been dating for seven months since appearing on Love Island together, and had moved in with one another.

Megan struggled with Wes' relationship with his professional skating partner Vanessa, but has said she wasn't the cause of their split.

She was mad that Vanessa didn't reach out to her, said she got the best of Wes due to his intense training schedule and said SHE wanted to be on the ice with him.

A source close to Megan claimed she and Wes split because 'their sex life was suffering' thanks to his grueling Dancing On Ice rehearsal regime.

Meanwhile, Megan said she had the 'worst day' of her life following the split. The Love Island star parted ways with her other half last week and admitted her anxiety has risen as a result.

Confrontation: A source said: 'The split isn't particularly friendly and he doesn't understand why she would come down to the show tonight'

But Wes isn't letting the break-up get to him as he shared a cryptic uplifting Instagram post on Monday about 'being happy'.

Sharing a snap of himself smiling at the beach, Wes wrote: 'Being happy is a way of life, not a destination.'

His upbeat outlook comes hot on the heels of Megan cancelling a scheduled radio appearance on Heart FM at the last minute.

Megan also shared several messages of support she has received from members of the public, commending her for being open about her prior battles with anxiety. She later shared another message thanking people again for their words.

The star has had a tough past week, with burglars raiding her home stealing thousands of pounds worth of goods before her relationship with Wes broke down.

Megan copied Gywneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's famous 2014 'conscious-uncoupling' announcement to reveal she had parted ways from her DOI beau.

Fans took to Twitter in their droves, labelling the move as 'iconic', after Megan swapped Gwyneth and Chris reference to their 'two incredibly wonderful children to asking her 1.8 million followers to respect their hamster's privacy.

'Decided to separate' The star, who found herself embroiled in an ongoing feud with his DOI partner Vanessa Bauer, took to her Instagram Stories on Saturday morning to confirm the news

She wrote: 'It is with hearts full of sadness that we decided to separate.

'We have been working hard for well under a year, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate.'

'We are, however, and always will be a family and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been. We are parents first and foremost to one incredibly wonderful hamster and we ask for his and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time.

Happy days: Megan copied Gywneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's famous 2014 'conscious-uncoupling' announcement to reveal she had parted ways from her DOI beau

'We haven't really conducted our relationship that privately and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and co-parent we will be able to continue in the same manner. Love Megan and Wes,' she continued.

Megan's problems with Vanessa started after Wes' debut performance two weeks ago where she accused the skater of 'tactfully' breaking up with her boyfriend Louis Nathaniel to gain headlines.

The blonde bombshell recently told the Loose Women panel that she stands by her belief that Vanessa's break-up was 'tactical'.
Britain's Top 100 Dogs Live

Rating:

Winterwatch

Rating:

Her Majesty has called for unity and an end to national divisions  so this probably isn't the right moment to point out that there will never be a telly show called Britain's 100 Favourite Cats.

Cats are great, of course. They're clever and companionable, elegant and intriguing. Lots of cat-lovers will tell you that felines are superior, and of course they are entitled to their opinion. But that doesn't make them right.

Dogs are best, the most loving, intelligent, playful, wise, gentle and protective creatures on earth. They bond us together like no other animals: every dog-owner knows that, when you meet a stranger out for a walk with their own pet, the two of you are instantly on friendly terms. You have something truly important in common.

Sara Cox and Ben Fogle presented Britain's Top 100 Dogs Live (ITV) like a couple of hyperactive Labradors

We discovered that Harry Redknapp (pictured) has Bulldogs called Lulu and Barney

A cat might be able to tell how you're feeling, but it rarely cares even if you're weeping buckets. A dog intuitively understands and shares your emotions.

This has been a Public Service Announcement on behalf of the Dog Party. Please vote Dog, and Make Britain Woof Again.

Sara Cox and Ben Fogle must be fully paid-up members of the Dog Party. They presented Britain's Top 100 Dogs Live (ITV) like a couple of hyperactive Labradors, bounding around the screen as they hailed every breed from Great Danes to Mexican Hairless Chihuahuas.

We discovered that Harry Redknapp has Bulldogs called Lulu and Barney while Penny Lancaster is besotted with her Cavapoo Bubbles. They do say dogs grow like their owners, and Harry is definitely the Churchillian type.

Penny is married to Rod Stewart, so she's used to diminutive drama queens with unmanageable hair. I've got a Cavapoo and she's a right little Rod Stewart.

Pictured: The top ten breeds viewers could vote for. Left to right, top: Border Collie, Springer Spaniel, German Shepherd, Cockapoo, Boxer. Left to right, bottom row: Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Cocker Spaniel, Labrador, Golden Retriever and a Mixed Breed

Ben Fogle, pictured with four-year-old Labrador Storm, presented Britain's Top 100 Dogs Live

Gemma Atkinson at home with her Sproodle Norman, right, and Cocker Spaniel Ollie, left

But who would guess that Olympic gold medallist boxer Nicola Adams owns a fluffy Pomeranian, named Bailey? She must have a secret softie side.

The countdown through dozens of breeds was fun, even if the top ten were a tad predictable. But the best part of this show was the unexpected doggie stories.

Some were daft: Dally the Jack Russell befriended a bad-tempered pony called Spankie and now loves to ride on his back, like a circus act. Others were truly moving. English Springer Spaniel Max helped his owner Ceri in the Lake District recover from a profound depression following a car accident: 'To try and explain the bond between a dog and a human  they look right into your soul and see everything that's going on,' he said.

Sara Cox with her two Maltese, Beano and Dolly

Millions of owners will understand what he means. If you still don't want to vote for the Dog Party and are feeling a bit wild, vote golden eagle, pine marten and salmon, as Winterwatch (BBC2) moves north to the Cairngorms National Park for a year in the Scottish Highlands.

This informative format, packed with unscripted moments of natural drama, really comes into its own with the three-week Springwatch special, once the weather warms up. Winterwatch is the prelude, introducing us to the landscape over four nights this week.

Earlier this month I chatted to presenter Chris Packham, who was worried that viewers might laugh at his layers of thermal padding. 'I do tend to over-tog,' he admitted.

'But we're standing still for ages, and it can get really cold. If I went for a walk, I'd probably melt.'

The discomfort is worth it, with some of Britain's rarest animals on show  what Chris calls the 'childhood exotics', the ones he has wanted to see since he was a boy. Me and the dog will be watching agog from the warmth of our sofa.
Newly-separated football player Sam Burgess has returned to his marital home to visit his newborn baby son.

Sam, 30, moved out of the Sydney home he shared with his estranged wife Phoebe and their two children, earlier last month.

Looking downcast, Sam arrived at the Maroubra house, in Sydney's east, on Wednesday morning where he spent an hour with his baby son Billy.

Sam arrived at the house first, before Phoebe and her mother Sarah Hooke arrived back with the baby for the visit.

The couple's toddler Poppy, who turned two last week, was not seen during the visit and is understood to be have been at day care.

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Visiting hours: Sam Burgess, 30, (pictured) returned to his former marital home as guest on Tuesday, where he spent time with his estranged wife Phoebe, her mother Sarah and his newborn baby Billy

At one stage, Phoebe's mother was spotted leaving the home, perhaps in an attempt to give the pair some time alone with their new baby.

Billy was born on December 9, and it is understood the couple split a few weeks later.

Sam stayed at the house for an hour, before Phoebes mother returned and he left, driving a new luxury black Range Rover Sport.

Earlier, an equally sombre-looking Phoebe, 29, was spotted outside the property with bags of groceries in hand.

Downcast duo: Following the short meeting, the Rabbitohs player (left) was spotted looked downcast as left the $3.8 million property. Elsewhere, an equally sombre-looking Phoebe (right) was spotted arriving at the property earlier with bags of groceries in hand

Casual: Sam cut a casual figure as he walked towards a parked car outside, donning a tight-fitting white T-shirt, blue shorts and a pair of grey running shoes

Precious cargo: At one stage, Phoebe's mother Sarah Hooke (pictured), who has temporarily moved in to lend a helping hand, was seen entering the home with baby Billy in her arms

The newly-single mother-of-two was dressed casually in a matching striped top and shorts with white sneakers.

Phoebe attempted to keep a low profile by obscuring her visage behind a pair of acetate-framed sunglasses.

Despite her heavy-duty eye-wear, Phoebe was unable to hide her downcast expression.

No ring: With no wedding ring in sight, the sportsman made his way down the driveway with a forlorn look on his face

Back for a visit: Sam moved out of the marital home he shared with estranged wife Phoebe and their two children last month, and has since been spotted visiting the property on one occasion

Leaving: Sam grasped his mobile phone as he hopped into the driver's seat of his black Range Rover

Interestingly, Phoebe also wore a prominent ring on her wedding finger, but it's unknown whether the sparkler was in fact her wedding ring.

Meanwhile, Phoebe's mother Sarah, who has temporarily moved in to lend a helping hand, was seen entering the home with baby Billy in her arms.

Like her daughter, Sarah covered her eyes with large sunglasses as she hurried inside.

Ring riddle: Interestingly, Phoebe wore a prominent ring on her wedding finger

Breezy: The newly-single mother-of-two was dressed casually, donning a matching striped top and shorts with white sneakers

Shaded: Phoebe attempted to keep a low profile by obscuring her visage behind a pair of acetate-framed sunglasses

Earlier this month, reports surfaced describing Phoebe and Sam's marriage split as 'pretty messy'.

A close friend of the former couple told The Daily Telegraph that 'things [had] been bad for a while'.

The insider explained that the break-up was particularly hard on Phoebe because Sam's mother, Julie Burgess was standing by her son.

'It would have been hard for Phoebe because Julie would have completely stuck by Sam... and there's talk she didn't offer Phoebe much support,' they claimed.

The couple first met at an Avicii concert in Sydney in January 2014, before marrying in December 2015.

Acrimonious? Earlier this month, reports surfaced describing Phoebe and Sam's marriage split as 'pretty messy'

Split: A close friend of the former couple told The Daily Telegraph that 'things [had] been bad for a while'
They tied the knot last summer but are rarely seen in public together.

But Felicity Jones was enjoying a date night with her husband Charles Guard at the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition dinner hosted at the V&A Museum in London on Tuesday.

The actress, 35, looked effortlessly elegant in a gorgeous Dior gown as she joined her movie producer partner at the glitzy event.

Stepping out together: Felicity Jones was enjoying a date night with her husband Charles Guard at the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition dinner hosted at the V&A Museum in London on Tuesday

Felicity donned a simple black gown with tulle detailing at the bust and a sheer bodice.

The sequin embellished number was perfectly complemented by a gold clutch bag and coordinating earrings.

She wore her brunette locks down loose and set off her look with pale, barely-there make-up.

Stunning: The actress, 35, looked effortlessly elegant in a gorgeous Dior gown

Date night: She was she joined her movie producer partner at the glitzy event

Felicity and Charles married after three years together last June.

The wedding took party at Sudeley Castle, near Winchcombe with the star reportedly opting to wear a 'budget' dress.

The couple's big day celebration had an impressive guest list, with A-list celebs including the bride's The Theory of Everything co-star Eddie Redmayne attending.

The movie director popped the question in May 2017 after just two years of dating.

Super chic: Felicity donned a simple black gown with tulle detailing at the bust and a sheer bodice

Golden girl: The sequin embellished number was perfectly complemented by a gold clutch bag and coordinating earrings

He is best known for the 2009 horror film The Uninvited, which he co-directed with his brother, Thomas Guard.

The gala dinner was celebrating the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at The V&A museum.

Before dinner was served, the Earl of Snowdon shared memories of his mother, Princess Margaret, in a heartfelt speech.

High profile event: The gala dinner was celebrating the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at The V&A museum

A highlight of the exhibition, Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress, designed by Christian Dior in 1951 - and which she would later refer to as her favourite dress of all - is on display for the first time in many years.

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: 'Combining our unrivalled couture collections with the House of Diors own remarkable archive  this is a defining moment for fashion at the V&A.

'There is a long history of shared knowledge between the V&A and Dior, from the late 1950s to the present day, and it has been an honour to collaborate with the House of Dior on the development of this exhibition.'
Janet Jackson has reportedly signed up to perform at Glastonbury in her first UK show in eight years, days after the 10th anniversary of her brother Michael's death.

The Billie Jean hitmaker died aged 50 on June 25 in 2009 and this year the Somerset-based music festival will run from June 26 until Sunday 30.

According to The Sun, the 52-year-old reportedly believes picking up the microphone at Worthy Farm will relaunch her career in a 'major way' in 2019.

Hitting the right notes: Janet Jackson 'has signed up to play at Glastonbury in first UK show in EIGHT years'... days after 10th anniversary of her brother Michael's death

A Glastonbury insider told the newspaper: 'Janet is relaunching her career in a major way this year and she thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

'She has never performed at Glastonbury but she knows what a massive deal it is.

'It is looking like she will perform on Sunday but her exact slot is to be confirmed. Organisers are still booking acts and arranging the schedule but she is really excited to be back.'

Get back on it! The 52-year-old is said to believe picking up the microphone at Worthy Farm will relaunch her career in a 'major way' in 2019 (pictured in September 2018, NYC)

Sorrow: The Billie Jean hitmaker died aged 50 on June 25 in 2009 (pictured in 1996) and this year the Somerset-based music festival will run from June 26 until Sunday 30

MailOnline has approached a representative for Janet Jackson and for Glastonbury for further comment.

Janelle Monae, Kylie Minogue and Stormzy are among the stars whom have landed the gigs at the biggest festival of the year.

Glastonbury's co-organiser Emily Eavis lifted the lid on the line-up as she explained it was '90% of the way there', with only '10% of confirmations' to go.

Also, she let slip that Arcadia  who were behind Glastonbury's legendary spider  are working on a completely new structure for this year's event.

Big star: Janet (pictured in Spain, November 2018) has had a flourishing career spanning more than three decades, with 38 UK Top 40 hits under her belt and 11 albums to her name

Emily told BBC Radio 6 Music Breakfast Show The Park will have a new area installed and Block9 will be a 'mind-blowing installation', placed in the field itself.

Janet has had a flourishing singing career spanning more than three decades, with 38 UK Top 40 hits under her belt and 11 albums to her name.

The musician last performed in the UK eight years ago for a three-night stint at the Royal Albert Hall, in Kensington, London in 2011.

Just weeks before she was due to return to the country in 2016, Janet pulled out of every single UK date amid claims there was a 'scheduling difficulty'.
Ozzy Osbourne has had to cancel the European leg of his tour after falling ill with the flu and bronchitis which doctors fear may develop into pneumonia.

The 70-year-old rocker initially announced that he would have to miss the first four dates of the 79-date tour just days ago after falling ill.

However after returning to his doctor for a second time, he was told he had a severe upper-respiratory infection, according to a statement obtained by People.

Sad news: Ozzy Osbourne has had to cancel the European leg of his tour after falling ill with the flu and bronchitis which doctors fear may develop into pneumonia

Ozzy is in the midst of his No More Tour 2 tour, after completing the first No More Tours Tour in 1992, when he decided he wanted to spend more time with his family - but then shortly changed his mind.

People reported that because of Ozzy's hectic schedule and the cold winter weather, doctors fear that it could develop into pneumonia.

In the statement he said: 'I'm completely devastated for having to postpone the European leg of my tour. It just seems that since October everything I touch has turned to s**t.'

What a shame! The 70-year-old rocker initially announced that he would have to miss the first four dates of the 79-date tour just days ago after falling ill

Referencing the staph infection he suffered last year, Ozzy said that was the first of his troubles before developing the flu and bronchitis.

He went on to apologise to his fans as well as his band and crew, as well as Judas Priest who he was set to perform with.

However he insisted that the tour was currently being rescheduled to start in September, no doubt once he was feeling better.

Ozzy was due to perform in Mountain View, California in October, but instead spent the evening recovering at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles after undergoing hand surgery.

Sickness: However after returning to his doctor for a second time, he was told he had a severe upper-respiratory infection, according to a statement obtained by People

Taking to his website and Instagram account, Ozzy put out an official statement about the postponed shows.

Ozzy also shared some photos on Instagram account of his recovery, including one of him indulging in an ice-cream cone.

'Feeling better after surgery. Ice cream helps,' he captioned with his right hand all bandaged.

His daughter Kelly Osbourne shared the same photo on her Instagram account for her 2.1 million followers.

'Thank you so much for your well wishes dad is doing so much better,' she updated fans.

'Nothing that some rest, antibiotics and of course his favorite ice cream can't cure.'

She also took to her Instagram Stories to share a photo of herself in his hospital room keeping him company.
He took to Twitter to apologise to his fans about the uncomfortable The Inbetweeners reunion special that aired on New Year's Day.

And star of the comedy James Buckley has discussed it once again, chatting on his podcast Completed It, Mate about how he felt like a 'f**king idiot' during it and can't bring himself to watch it back.

James - who played Jay Cartwright on the Channel 4 comedy - reflected on the chat show format of the one-off, which was hosted by Jimmy Carr.

'I looked like a moron!' James Buckley has discussed The Inbetweeners reunion once again, chatting on his podcast Completed It, Mate about how he felt like a 'f**king idiot' during it and can't bring himself to watch it back

The 31-year-old said: 'It became a thing that wasn't a celebration of this good thing I did in my life, it was me being taken the p**s out of for hours on end.

'I didn't have the personality or the intelligence to cope with it, especially when youre up against someone like Jimmy Carr, who's super quick and super funny. So I come across as a complete moron through the whole thing.

'I got caught where I was acting up as Jay because there was an audience there of Inbetweeners fans and I got caught in this spot between Jay and myself where myself was going, "Youre acting like a f**king idiot, youre being a moron, youre being a d**k". And there was this bit where it was like, "Well theyre all here and they want you to be Jay, so do it."

'When the audience was there, I didnt want to seem like a stick in the mud.'

Didn't go down well: Fans of the show - which was also made into a movie and its sequel - and critics blasted the reunion due to the format of it - with many hoping that it was to be a continuation of The Inbetweeners' story

Happy new year! The Inbetweeners Fwends Reunited 10th anniversary show was slammed by devoted fans following its New Year's Day airing

Fans of the show - which was also made into a movie and its sequel - and critics blasted the reunion due to the format of it - with many hoping that it was to be a continuation of The Inbetweeners' story.

'I didnt want to go, "Can we stop for a second because I don't know what the f**k's going on here  youre talking to me like Im Jay from The Inbetweeners. Im really not",' James went on. 'So that was another one of the reasons why it was a disaster.'

He appeared alongside his co-stars - Joe Thomas, Blake Harrison and Simon Bird - but the fact that they were flummoxed by the format made it seem like they didn't like one another.

'If we hadnt got on, The Inbetweeners wouldn't have worked. I dont ever want people to think those guys aren't my friends,' James added.

Not a fan: The 31-year-old said - 'It became a thing that wasn't a celebration of this good thing I did in my life, it was me being taken the p**s out of for hours on end'

On New Year's Day, furious fans flooded Twitter with a wave of vitriolic comments, in which they branded the programme 'toe-curling, painful, awkward and cringeworthy'.

And by Wednesday evening, actor James admitted that the harsh critiques left him feeling 'hated' as he wrote on the micro-blogging site: 'Feeling pretty hated right now. Im sorry to anyone who feels let down with last nights show.

'Im especially upset as it really is the fans that made the inbetweeners a success, it certainly wasnt me. I might do an explanation video on my YT [YouTube], or might just leave it & move on #sorry.' [sic]

His co-star Blake took a more dry-humoured approach to the furor, simply tweeting: 'So, 2019 off to a good start.'

So sorry: The star took to Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday evening to offer his apology

Dry humour: His co-star Blake Harrison took a more dry-humoured approach to the furore

Apologies: The Inbetweeners star apologised for his hit show's Fwends Reunited 10th anniversary special, after receiving a plethora of bad reviews

Way back when: Flooding Twitter with angry responses, viewers lashed out at the Jimmy Carr-fronted show, which saw stars Joe Thomas, Simon Bird, Blake Harrison and James Buckley (left-right) join together to run through a retrospective of the cult classic

Shocker: Fans were extremely upset with the show however some insisted the show should be given a chance

There was much fanfare over the reunion, however it seems the problems arose for fans due to confusion over the premise of the programme.

Twitter users penned: 'Jimmy Carr was an awful host & talked over everyone. The 4 of them looked like they didnt want to be there some of the time, and some of it was super cringe... painfully bad. Greg Davies shouldve hosted it...'

Another echoed this: 'The Inbetweeners reunion was toe-curling... The biggest disappointment of 2019 has already happened, Inbetweeners Friends Reunited, what is this s**t ffs...'

Here come the -boys! There was much fanfare over the reunion, however it seems the problems arose for fans due to confusion over the premise of the programme

Shocker: The show featured a host of inside facts and a glimpse at the first pilot

Critics also hit out at the show, with a review in The Telegraph branding the show: 'A shambolic mess that failed to do the show justice'.

Aside from upset at the episode, fans were excited to hear a host of inside details including the fact that Doctor Who star Matt Smith had tried and failed for the job of James' character Jay.

Additionally, it was revealed that in the original pilot, James had read for Blake's character however after hearing his behaviour off-screen, creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris realised he was better suited to Jay.

Cheeky: In May, James, who played foul-mouthed Jay, teased fans with the reveal of a reunion as he posted an image with his former co-stars

Shocker: Aside from upset at the episode, fans were excited to hear a host of inside details including the fact that Doctor Who star Matt Smith had tried and failed for the job of James' character Jay

In May, James teased fans with the reveal of a reunion as he posted an image with his former co-stars.

James posted a picture to Twitter with the caption 'series four pre-production meal' before sending fans into a frenzy - despite lead star Simon insisting that the show is over for good.

Speaking ahead of the return, he said: 'We are like family, and any excuse to get together well take. Thats why were doing this show  its just an excuse to meet up.'

Ahead of the return, Simon said: 'I get called briefcase w****r, which is obviously a classic. Bumder is a bit of a go-to. All the old favourites.'

Teaser: Speaking ahead of the return, he said: 'We are like family, and any excuse to get together well take. Thats why were doing this show  its just an excuse to meet up.

In October, James admitted he does not feel the show would be well-received if made now, due to the 'joke police' in modern comedy.

A decade after the show kicked off, he spoke to Digital Spy about the programme, which he insisted would be problematic to a modern audience.

He said: 'Nowadays, it feels very black and white with comedy. There's no in-between, it's just, 'This person said this on television - isn't that terrible? It's killing comedy... There seems to be a joke police, nowadays.'
Ariel Winter was seen for the first time since denying plastic surgery allegations.

The Modern Family star kept her 21st birthday very low-key as she was spotted on a solo outing in Los Angeles on Monday.

She looked dressed for comfort in a black T-shirt with matching leggings and low-cut Converse All-Star sneakers.

Chill: Ariel Winter kept her 21st birthday very low-key as she was spotted on a solo outing in Los Angeles on Monday

Ariel had her hands full with items including a bag of Snyders pretzels and small black leather Yves Saint Laurent bag.

Her raven-colored locks were pulled back in a ponytail as she let her natural looks show by going make-up free while exiting her Tesla Model X.

The outing comes just days after she had to deny plastic surgery allegations after a follower accused her of 'chopping up her body' on an Instagram post shared Saturday night.

The Modern Family starlet showed off her slim-lined figure in a grey jumpsuit for weekend festivities before telling one user that her body-shaming comments are 'not being supportive to women.'

Relaxed: the 21-year-old star was dressed for comfort in a black T-shirt with matching leggings and low-cut Converse All-Star sneakers

Ariel posted a series of images from a party Saturday night with the caption, 'When you see the zankou chicken on the left turn right, and then you'll be in Marina Del RAH. Happy 21st, Love you always. Couldn't ask for a better day 1 best friend.'

The fun came to an abrupt halt as one follower wrote in a rambling response, 'Nothing wrong with being honest and telling her we liked her better before 'the change' she was so beautiful before she started chopping up her body and if me saying so helps one gurl out there to feel beautiful who's thinking of PS then its worth it.'

Winter was not interested in the negative commentary and gave thanks to the user for 'wanting to help girls' before adding in her own two cents.

Strike a pose: Ariel recently had to deny plastic surgery allegations after a follower accused her of 'chopping up her body' on an Instagram post shared Saturday night; seen on Instagram

Not OK: Winter was not interested in the negative commentary and gave thanks to the user for 'wanting to help girls' before adding in her own two cents

Get low: The Modern Family starlet showed off her slim-lined figure in a grey jumpsuit for weekend festivities before telling one user that her body-shaming comments are 'not being supportive to women'

Friends: Ariel posted a series of images from a party Saturday night with the caption, 'When you see the zankou chicken on the left turn right, and then you'll be in Marina Del RAH. Happy 21st, Love you always. Couldn't ask for a better day 1 best friend'

'You are also kind of cutting someone (me) down which isn't what I think you were trying to do,' she questioned the commenter. 'I also didn't get plastic surgery.

'That is also not being supportive of women if you're just assuming something about the way the look.'

Winter regularly posts updates about her progress in the gym and isn't afraid to show off her hard-earned physique.

'You are also kind of cutting someone (me) down which isn't what I think you were trying to do,' she questioned the commenter. 'I also didn't get plastic surgery'; seen in January

Resize: In 2015, Ariel publicly discussed her decision to go under the knife for a breast reduction surgery after receiving too much unwanted attention at the age of 17; seen in 2017

In 2015, Ariel publicly discussed her decision to go under the knife for a breast reduction surgery after receiving too much unwanted attention at the age of 17.

'It made me feel really uncomfortable, because as women in the industry, we are totally oversexualized and treated like objects,' she told Glamour. 'Every article that has to do with me on a red carpet had to do with 'Ariel Winter's Crazy Cleavage!' or 'Ariel Winter Shows Huge Boobs at an Event!' That's all people would recognize me by.'

After admitting she 'wasn't feeling so happy' about herself, she told a few friends and family about her decision to schedule the surgery.

Reduced: After admitting she 'wasn't feeling so happy' about herself, she told a few friends and family about her decision to schedule the surgery; seen in 2016

'I didn't want to not tell anybody and then have another million stories [say], 'What happened to Ariel? She looks so different.' And I also think there's some good that can come from [telling] my story,' she said. 'It's something that I did to better my life and better my health, and I think that can benefit a lot of young girls. I have felt happier with myself than I ever have.'

She grew up in front of the camera, portraying the smart youngster Alex Dunphy for the nearly decade run of Modern Family.

Ariel has dated 31-year-old actor Levi Meaden for more than one year and the couple live together in Los Angeles.
Priyanka Chopra isn't the only one living a fairy tale princess life in her family.

The 37-year-old Quantico star treats her precious Chihuahua named Diana like royalty as she posted a snap of her pup in a designer bag on Tuesday.

Goyards 'Voltigeur' pet travel case retails for $2,070 as the wife of Nick Jonas captioned the pic: 'Thank you @mimi for Dianas new @goyardofficial travel home! She refuses to leave it!'

Diana has become used to the pampered life as her days as high-end fashion plate are chronicled on her own Instagram account #diariesofdiana.

She bundled up in a $560 hooded puffer dog vest by Moncler on a cold day last week.

And shes's been caught by shutterbugs daring to impress with a Tiffany & Co. pet collar that lists for $300.

No word yet if the diva doggie jetted off to North Carolina to join Priyanka and Nick at their third wedding celebration - this time at the Jonas family restaurant Nellie's Southern Kitchen.

The couple's signature NP logo was splashed throughout the venue with a sign posted 'Congratulations Nick and Priyanka.'

Nick's older brother Joe reportedly sang at the soiree, performing Cake by the Ocean with his band DNCE.

Bride: Her tea-length white dress was emblazoned with sparkling crystals and she donned a pair of silver strappy heels

Nearly two months ago, Nick and Priyanka tied the knot in a lavish wedding celebration beginning at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur on Dec. 1.

Following her cultural traditions, they were married yet again in an Indian ceremony at the palace.

'I love that our wedding was a religious mash-up,' Chopra told PEOPLE magazine. 'We took beautiful traditions that we both grew up with and personalized them in a way that made sense for us. It's been incredible to find the commonalities between our beliefs and figuring out how to blend them in a respectful and meaningful way.'
by Peter Zhao

The ceremony presided over by the vice president of the Council of Chinese bishops, Msgr. Yang Yongqiang, from Zhoucun. For the Vatican, Msgr. Jin has been the ordinary of the diocese since 2010 and Msgr. Zhu Baoyu is bishop emeritus. For the government, the former is coadjutor and the latter is the ordinary. Msgr Zhu passed from underground to official in 2010 and was installed by the government as the ordinary bishop of Nanyang at the age of 89.

Nanyang (AsiaNews) - This morning, in the cathedral of Nanyang (Henan) there was a ceremony for the recognition of Msgr. Peter Jin Lugang (photo 1) as coadjutor bishop of the diocese, in support of the ordinary bishop, Msgr Joseph Zhu Baoyu, 98 years old (photo 2). For the Holy See, Msgr Zhu has been bishop emeritus since 2010 and Msgr Jin, already ordained in 2007 as an unofficial coadjutor bishop, the ordinary.

The ceremony was presided over by Msgr. Yang Yongqiang, bishop of Zhoucun (Shandong), vice-president of the Council of Chinese bishops [a body not recognized by the Holy See because it lacks the presence of underground bishops]. Together with him, Msgr. Zhu and Msgr. Zhang Yinlin of Anyang (Henan), about 250 faithful, priests and nuns.

An AsiaNews source said that "everything went smoothly". Others say that there was tight security around the church : you could not carry cell phones or bags and all the guests were searched. A nun said she had not been warned about the ceremony, perhaps because "it was quickly set up in almost total silence".

The official statement reads that the coadjutor bishop will help the faithful "to respect the Chinese constitution, to safeguard national unity and social stability, to love the country and love the Church, walking in the direction chosen by the Catholic Church in China".

The recognition of Msgr. Jin Lugang hopes to heal a difficulty created in recent years. Until 2010 Msgr. Zhu was an underground bishop, who had spent many years in prison and in forced labor camps (re-education through work). He was ordained bishop in secret in 1995. In 2010, having turned 89, Benedict XVI accepted his resignation and appointed Msgr. Jin Lugang ordinary bishop, who had been ordained coadjutor bishop in 2007.

But immediately after his resignation, Msgr. Zhu asked - others say "was pressured" - to be recognized by the government. This happened, and the government installed him as an ordinary bishop, not taking into account his resignation to the Vatican. Some sources say that the move by Msgr. Zhu aimed to have more force in demanding the return of the properties of the Church, seized during the Cultural Revolution from the government.

Until today, Msgr. Jin Lugang was considered by the government to be a mere priest and often underwent restrictions in his ministry. Now he is coadjutor bishop, without taking into account that for the Holy See he has been the ordinary of the diocese of Nanyang for almost 10 years.
They keep their home life with their two children Luke and Iris out of the spotlight which Eddie Redmayne attracts as a huge Hollywood actor.

Yet the actor, 37, was outshone by his wife Hannah when they attended the star-studded gala dinner at The V&A museum in London on Tuesday.

The mother-of-two, 35, shimmered in a ballgown on the arm of her handsome husband as they celebrated the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition.

Dazzling diva: Eddie Redmayne's Hannah sparkled in a glitzy dress as she and her husband attended gala dinner celebrating the V&A's new Christian Dior exhibition

Sequins on Hannah's strapless dress glistened in the light which ensured she had the attention of the stars at the glitzy gala.

The glamorous PR accentuated her petite frame in the sparkling number which was gathered at the waistline.

Eddie didn't let his wife down on the style stakes as he looked dashing in a blue two-piece suit but he went without the tie for the occasion.

Before dinner was served, the Earl of Snowdon shared memories of his mother, Princess Margaret, in a heartfelt speech.

A highlight of the exhibition, Princess Margarets 21st birthday dress, designed by Christian Dior in 1951 - and which she would later refer to as her favourite dress of all - is on display for the first time in many years.

True love: The mother-of-two shimmered in a ballgown on the arm of her handsome husband as they celebrated the new Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition

Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A said: 'Combining our unrivalled couture collections with the House of Diors own remarkable archive  this is a defining moment for fashion at the V&A.

'There is a long history of shared knowledge between the V&A and Dior, from the late 1950s to the present day, and it has been an honour to collaborate with the House of Dior on the development of this exhibition. '

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in the UK on the House of Dior  the V&As biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015.

From 1947 to the present day, the exhibition traces the history and impact of one of the 20th centurys most influential couturiers, and the six artistic directors who have succeeded him, to explore the enduring influence of the fashion house.

Over 500 objects and 200 rare Haute Couture garments will be on display, as well as accessories, fashion photography, film, perfume and personal items belonging to Dior.

Looking lovely: Eddie didn't let his wife down on the style stakes as he looked dashing in a blue two-piece suit but he went without the tie for the occasion

Oriole Cullen, the V&A's fashion and textiles curator, said: 'In 1947, Christian Dior changed the face of fashion with his New Look, which redefined the female silhouette and reinvigorated the post-War Parisian fashion industry.

'More than seventy years after its founding, the V&As exhibition will celebrate the enduring influence of the House of Dior and uncover Diors relationship with Britain.'

Eddie and Hannah live happily together raising their children in their home on the outskirts of London, where Fantastic Beasts was filmed.

The Theory of Everything star admitted his wife was up for 'travelling' as he revealed she was more 'free-spirited' than himself.

He told USA TODAY in November: 'My wife is much more free-spirited in that way, so she was all up for traveling.

'But its wonderful to know with these films, if they continue to happen, that theres a kind of consistency where very couple of years there will be a period where our roots will be there.'
They're four of the world's most beautiful women.

And on Tuesday, Jasmine Tookes, Sara Sampaio, Jocelyn Chew and Chantel Jeffries joined forces for a coffee date in West Hollywood.

Jasmine, 27, led the head-turning quartet in sun and moon adorned workout gear.

Off duty beauty! On Tuesday, [L-R] Sara Sampaio, Jocelyn Chew, Jasmine Tookes and Chantel Jeffries [in background] joined forces for a coffee date in West Hollywood

The stunning Victoria's Secret Angel's ensemble gave an unfettered view of Jasmine's toned abs.

She insulated herself against the brisk winter's day with a black jacket and wore her raven tresses piled atop her head in a bun.

Jocelyn Chew also showed plenty of skin in black leggings and a skimpy crop top.

Her dark tresses were worn loose and cascading over the lithe beauty's shoulders.

Abs-olutely perfect: Jasmine, 27, led the head-turning quartet in sun and moon adorned workout gear

Bunhead: She insulated herself against the brisk winter's day with a black jacket and wore her raven tresses piled atop her head in a bun

Sara Sampaio, 27, dressed a little more modestly in jeans and a star-adorned sweater.

The Portuguese beauty shielded her eyes against the Californian glare with oversize dark shades and also wore her hair loose.

Sara, along with Jasmine and Jocelyn parted company with DJ-slash-model Chantel Jeffries after their coffee catch up.

The ex girlfriend of Justin Bieber wore her own raven tresses up in a high pony tail as she head to her vehicle.
She is the best advocate for her own swimwear range, taking frequent trips to sun-soaked destinations where she models her skimpy two-pieces.

And during Kimberley Garner's latest jaunt to Miami, she looked sensational in a tiny bikini as she flaunted her lithe physique as she strolled through the surf

The former-Made In Chelsea star, 28, opted for a triangle-style bikini top which barely covered her modesty and highlighted her ample cleavage.

Beach babe: During Kimberley Garner's latest jaunt to Miami, she looked sensational in a tiny bikini as she flaunted her lithe physique as she strolled through the waves

Looking every inch the beach babe, Kimberley teamed her tiny top with a pair of barely-there thong-style bikini bottoms.

The style of bikini bottoms Kimberley chose drew attention to her enviably peachy deteriorate as she frolicked on the shoreline.

Kimberley later added a vibrantly printed sarong around her lithe waist, as she enjoyed a delicious cocktail in the sun.

Peachy: Looking every inch the beach babe, Kimberley teamed her tiny top with a pair of barely-there thong-style bikini bottoms

Stunner: The former-Made In Chelsea star, 28, opted for a triangle-style bikini top which barely covered her modesty and highlighted her ample cleavage

The reality star sported a fresh faced look, highlighting her natural beauty, however some of her pretty visage was masked by a pair of rounded shades.

In keeping with her natural look, Kimberley wore her ombre blonde locks in beachy waves, which appeared salt-kissed following her dip in the sea.

During her swim, Kimberley made a new friend, as she patted a friendly pooch who swam towards her and a group of gal pals.

Wow: The style of bikini bottoms Kimberley chose drew attention to her enviably peachy deteriorate as she frolicked on the shoreline

Dreamy: Kimberley later added a vibrantly printed sarong around her lithe waist, as she enjoyed a delicious cocktail in the sun

Although the reality personality is a swimwear designer - but she is now following in her familys footsteps and venturing into high-end property development.

After extensive renovations, the former reality star is said to have increased the value of a house which she bought in 2013 for 1.2 million, by over 1 million.

The starlet's choice to go into property seems to be a a result of her London pad doubling in value over a five-year period.

Au natural: The reality star sported a fresh faced look, highlighting her natural beauty, however some of her pretty visage was masked by a pair of rounded shades

Woman's best friend! During her swim, Kimberley made a new friend, as she patted a friendly pooch who swam towards her and a group of gal pals

Kimberley recently split from her ex-boyfriend, who she kept very much out of the spotlight - something she doesn't plan to do with her next relationship.

Speaking to MailOnline, she said: 'When I take it to the next step and when I decide to be with someone forever I will be more than happy to have them in the public eye.

'It would be really cool to have my husband and babies in the public eye. It was nice to have a bit of privacy with my ex, but in the future I wouldn't mind.'

Speaking of her split with her mystery man ex, Kimberley said: 'We broke up for a year and got back together for a few months and broke up again. He's still lovely and we're really good friends.'

Kimberley shot to fame on the third series of Made In Chelsea back in 2012, where she was romantically linked to Richard Dinan and Spencer Matthews.'

Cute: In keeping with her natural look, Kimberley wore her ombre blonde locks in beachy waves, which appeared salt-kissed following her dip in the sea
A beautiful video has brought to life the dense beauty of Hong Kong's concrete jungle - making its buildings look like abstract works of art.

The images and footage were shot by Toby Harriman for his project 'The Block Tower' and range from close-ups of bee hive-like yellow towers to rainbow-coloured buildings standing side by side.

With an estimated 6,300 people per square kilometre, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

Tony Harriman from San Francisco travelled to Hong Kong to capture aerial footage of the city's tightly packed-in buildings

Tony called his video project 'The Block Tower'. Images range from close-ups of bee hive-like yellow towers to rainbow-coloured buildings standing side by side

More than seven million people live on 427 square miles of land, while around 29 per cent of Hong Kong's population lives in public rental housing estates.

Toby, 28, who is based in San Francisco, shot the project over four days in October 2018, only recently releasing the final works to the public.

He said: 'My goal through the video was to show the beautiful abstract patterns and colors some of them have.

'We mainly shot around sunset so we could get a nice warm sunset color versus harsh lighting during the day - although we did get some of that as well.

'Then, as the film goes on, I wanted to pull back showing the vast scale, density and the areas these towers are built in.'

Toby, 28, who is based in San Francisco, said: 'My goal through the video was to show the beautiful abstract patterns and colors some of [the buildings] have'

Toby shot the project over four days in October 2018. He said: 'Going to Hong Kong - that is a whole different world'

The project, Toby said, was inspired by past images of the city's density - however, he wanted to provide an aerial perspective.

Having grown up around nature in a mountain town in Colorado, the videographer later fell in love with cities and their makeups - an interest that also formed the backbone of this project.

As well as aerial footage Toby captured still images with names such as 'Sherbert Density', 'Patterned Living' and 'Little Boxes'.

Toby added: 'Going to Hong Kong - that is a whole different world.

More than seven million people live on 427 square miles of land in Hong Kong, making it one of the most densely populated cities on earth

'Everything is taller, denser and it felt like everyone lived in these types of housing projects.

'Being an artistic type, it's hard to not look at a city like this and just be in awe.

'When I am out creating, that is when I am happiest, so I don't really care what many people say.

'As much as I want everyone to like what I do, I understand I can't please everyone.

'Overall, though, the response has been pretty great.'
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What happens when a German butcher opens a hotel? A vegetarian's wurst nightmare.

There are pictures of sausages on the wallpaper, sausage-shaped pillows on the beds and bratwurst hanging from the ceiling. The room numbers are printed on butchers' knives and even the soap looks like sausage.

The 'Wurstaurant' downstairs serves a full range of sausage-related dishes, including sausage ice cream.

Meat and tidy: At this bold bed and breakfast, sausages appear everywhere, from the throw pillows to the wallpaper

Located just a 40-minute drive south of Nuremberg, the Bratwurst Hotel has done brisk business since opening in September - both international and European guests have popped in for a visit.

In a slope-roofed stone house, the BB&BB (which stands for Boebel Bratwurst Bed and Breakfast) is equipped with seven rooms and two conference spaces.

Behind the quirky initiative is a Hail Mary bid to keep the local butcher's shop - an institution in most towns that was once a pillar of Germany's 'Mittelstand' economy - alive in the face of big-box store competition and slacking meat consumption.

'This is the absolute bratwurst heaven and I love that,' said Claus Boebel, the butcher who opened the hotel in Bavaria.

An absolute banger: Sausage hearts decorate the rooms of what is quite clearly an audacious dream-come-true for owner Claus Boebel, a third-generation butcher

'I wanted to get a bit of holiday feeling in my house and... make the bratwurst attractive for the whole world.'

The Boebel family has produced and sold meats here since the 19th century.

'I want to show that small craftsman shops like mine can survive when you have clever ideas,' said Boebel, seated on a stool shaped like a tin of minced sausage.

'Plus I love life here in the countryside and, rather than leave, want to draw customers here to Rittersbach,' population 300, he added.

The exterior of the world's first and only sausage hotel only hints at its compelling culinary-themed contents

It's not the first time Boebel, 48, has got creative to promote his brand, beginning in 2003 with his 'wurstbrief', or sausage letter, featuring a vacuum-packed envelope with the meat and a postcard inside ready for mailing to friends and family.

And Boebel's bright green delivery car - matching the hotel's wooden window shutters and the striking facade of the butcher's shop - zips through the village's narrow roads as a 'wurst taxi' bringing meat to hungry customers.

He also launched a global online shop, sending his canned wares made from locally sourced livestock to a clientele in far-flung places like Hawaii and Jamaica.

But the hotel, in which he's invested around 600,000 (700,000 euros) to renovate, takes things to another level.

Claus Boebel, master butcher and operator of the Bratwurst Hotel (right), renovated the majority of his space to salute the lifespan of a sausage. Pictured left are pens on the slaughtering block in the guest book room

In the narrow lobby of the hotel, the word 'sausage' is emblazoned on the wall in the languages of the world including Russian (kolbasa), Japanese (soseji) and Greek (loukaniko).

The seven rooms all include breakfast, with a healthy helping of sausage, of course.

'What is special about the rooms is their comprehensive design,' he says, listing the assorted sausage-themed features of the decor, which also includes coat racks shaped like butchers' knives and giant pigs on the frosted glass doors to the bathrooms.

Older proprietors often can't find a successor when they retire, or they succumb to the stiff competition from big supermarket chains, discounters and even Amazon.

Fleshing out the details: Soap in the shape of a Landjaeger sausage at the Franconian guesthouse

Joerg Ruckriegel, 47, of the municipal tourism office, said businesses like the sausage hotel are helping to reverse the trend and put the Franconia region where the hotel is located more prominently on the tourism map.

'You have a lot of small villages with so much history - palaces and castles and beautiful landscapes, plus the regional cuisine,' he said.

'The small butchers' shops that still make their own products are a big part of that.'

Tourist Jovina Sperling said she felt 'right at home' at the Bratwurst Hotel.

'I'll go back to Nigeria knowing how to make sausage - danke Boebels!!' she wrote in the guest book.

The bratwurst-filled B&B chose to swap out traditional room service signs for some sausage-themed alternatives

Guests can take home souvenirs including canned minced sausage flavoured with beer, coffee and even chocolate.

Boebel and his wife Monika also offer workshops in making personalised types of wurst using a range of meats and spices.

Boebel wants to create an 'experience' for his customers, something that will lure them from the autobahn and into the heart of a Germany at once traditional and Instagrammably ultra-modern.

That includes offering beef sausage for Muslim and Jewish guests who don't eat pork.

'Sausage is what we in Germany are known best for, next to beer,' the father-of-two said with a smile.

'If that's what tourists are looking for, why not give it to them?'
It seems Facebook isn't the only one who has been operating a controversial app meant to monitor your internet usage.

Google has been quietly running a data collecting app called Screenwise Meter that pays users if they agree to have their activity tracked by the tech giant, according to TechCrunch.

Like Facebook's highly criticized 'research app,' Screenwise Meter shirks Apple's App Store rules by taking advantage of 'Enterprise Certificates' that let it install apps on users' phones.

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Google has been quietly running a data collecting app called Screenwise Meter that pays users if they agree to have their activity tracked by the tech giant. The app launched in 2012

HOW DOES GOOGLE'S SHADY 'RESEARCH APP' WORK? Users sign up on the Opinion Rewards program website. Google will send volunteers easy-to-install meters that track TV and router usage. Accompanying apps are then downloaded onto the users' smartphone to track their browsing and search history. From there, users are expected to 'go about [their] day as they normally would,' while Google collects data from them. Users can pause their meters at any time to stop the firm from tracking their activity. In exchange for participating, users can earn rewards like a $5 credit for Amazon. Advertisement

Google told TechCrunch that it has since disabled the Screenwise app.

'The Screenwise Meter iOS app should not have operated under Apples developer enterprise program  this was a mistake, and we apologize.

'We have disabled this app on iOS devices.

'This app is completely voluntary and always has been. Weve been upfront with users about the way we use their data in this app, we have no access to encrypted data in apps and on devices, and users can opt out of the program at any time,' the company added.

Screenwise Meter, launched in 2012, allows users to sign up and share their search history with Google in exchange for gift cards, such as a $5 credit on Amazon.

Like Facebook's app, users as young as 13 used to be able to participate in Google's program, but now they can only join if they're a part of a family group.

It has since been rebranded as the Google Opinion Rewards program and Cross Media Panel, which pays users if they install tracking systems on their smartphone, TV, the web browser on their PC, as well as their router, TechCrunch noted.

Screenwise Meter (pictured), launched in 2012, allows users to sign up and share their search history with Google in exchange for gift cards, such as a $5 credit on Amazon

A video published Google breaks down how the Opinion Rewards program works.

'Our goal is to understand how modern day TV and internet is accessed across all devices so we can help create better experience for people using Google products,' the video explains.

'...We'll send you what you need to share your internet and TV usage with us.

'Once setup, you can go about your day as you normally would earnings rewards along the way,' it continues.

In addition to tracking your search history, users who sign up for the Opinion Rewards program also share their browsing habits with the company.

This means Google can see what users are viewing in their browser, as well as what competitor apps they've installed on a certain device, such as Facebook or WhatsApp, according to the Telegraph.

In some cases, Google can also install additional software to track usage of these apps.

Compared to Facebook's since-banned app, called Onavo VPN, Google appears to be more upfront with users in terms of how the program works. When users download the Opinion Rewards program app, it warns them that it may give Google access to their data

Screenwise Meter, which has been rebranded to Google Opinion Rewards program, lets users share their search history with Google in exchange for gift cards, such as a $5 Amazon credit

Compared to Facebook's since-banned app, called Onavo VPN, Google appears to be more upfront with users in terms of how the program works.

For example, when users download the app, a notice appears on the person's screen that reads: 'Trusting [this app] will allow any app from this enterprise developer to be use on your iPhone and may allow access to your data.'

A notice on the Opinion Rewards page also states that volunteers have to consent to 'have their internet activities measured, and are rewarded for their participation.'

It goes on to say volunteers must have a 'clear understanding and agreement with Google' about how the arrangement works before participating.

Google notes in the video that users' 'privacy is important,' so it gives volunteers the option to pause the tracking meters during a session.

'When your meter isn't paused, your household's information can be combined with others across the country to help us understand what people like and don't like,' Google said in the video.

'[It] may not sound like a big deal, but it's this information that helps us make Google's products and services more useful to you.'

Facebook has admitted to paying young people to install a 'social media research' app which monitors their web activity, according to reports. Apple banned the app, formerly known as Onavo VPN, from the app store because it violated its data collection policies

WHY DID FACEBOOK'S RESEARCH APP GET BANNED BY APPLE? Facebook has been forced to kill off a controversial app after it admitted to paying young people to install the 'social media research' app which monitors their web activity, according to reports. The social media giant, which has been harangued for privacy breaches in recent months, recruited people aged from 13-35 to download the app on their devices. Apple decided to ban the app, formerly known as Onavo VPN, from the app store because it violated its data collection policies. But according to an investigation by TechCrunch, Facebook has sidestepped the App Store and paying users up to $20 a month, plus referral fees. Facebook later told TechCrunch it would shut down the iOS version of its Research app in the wake of the report - but that the Android version will continue. An Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch: 'We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization,' said a spokesperson. 'Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. 'Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.' App Store rules stipulate that apps 'should not collect information about which other apps are installed on a user's device,' according to Guardian Mobile Firewall's security expert Will Strafach. Advertisement

The Opinion Rewards webpage states that volunteers can earn up to $8 every month, or as much as $100 per year.

It's unclear whether Apple will take the same action against Google that it did for Facebook.

On Wednesday, the iPhone maker announced that it was banning Facebook's Onavo VPN app after it violated the company's data collection policies.

TechCrunch noted that apps related to Google's Opinion Rewards Program likely do, as they clearly sidestep Apple's rules with the Enterprise Developer Program.

An Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch: 'We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization,' said a spokesperson.

'Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple.

'Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.'
The US Air Force's X-37B unmanned space plane has passed 500 days in orbit as part of its fifth secretive mission.

The aircraft's latest trip, called the Orbital Test Vehicle-5 (OTV-5), started on September 7th 2017.

The craft was launched aboard one of Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Officials have revealed few details about the OTV-5 mission but there has been a suggestion it could be part of a push for a US Space Force.

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The US Air Force's X-37B unmanned space plane (pictured) is nearing one year in orbit as part of its fifth secretive mission

The space plane is 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 9.6 feet (2.9 metres) tall and weighs around 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms).

It is orbiting at around 200 miles (320 kilometres) high and is powered by solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.

Little is known about what it is carrying but on board OTV-5's payload is a US thermal spreader which will test the longevity of electronics and heat pipes in the space environment.

Known as the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-II, it was developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes for long-duration stints in the space environment.

According to the AFRL, the payloads three primary science objectives are to measure the initial on-orbit thermal performance, to measure long-duration thermal performance and to assess any lifetime degradation

In June last year, President Donald Trump announced that he is directing the Pentagon to a new Space Force as an independent service branch aimed at ensuring American dominance in space.

The president framed space as a national security issue, saying he does not want 'China and Russia and other countries leading us'.

One expert has suggested that this aircraft could already be part of an early US Space Force.

'Ironically, the X-37B is exactly the type of program  toward giving the U.S. flexibility of operations in space  that seems to be prompting the current push for a Space Force, yet are already underway,' said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, writes Space.com.

Four previous X-37B missions have been launched by United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.

Each time the unmanned space plane has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit.

The craft (pictured) was launched from Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida

WHAT IS THE X-37B SPACE PLANE? The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane looks similar to Nasa's space shuttle but is much smaller. The space plane is 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 9.6 feet (2.9 metres) tall and weighs around 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms). It is orbiting at around 200 miles (320 kilometres) high. The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane looks similar to Nasa's space shuttle but is much smaller. The space plane is 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 9.6 feet (2.9 metres) tall and weighs around 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms) Officials have revealed few details about the OTV-5 mission (the aircraft's fifth) but according to the Air Force, one on board OTV-5 payload is US thermal spreader which will test the longevity of electronics and heat pipes in the space environment. The craft is powered by solar cells with lithium-ion batteries. Four previous X-37B missions have been launched by United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets. Each time the unmanned space plane has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit. Advertisement

'The many firsts on this mission make the upcoming OTV launch a milestone for the program,' said Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office at the launch last year.

'It is our goal to continue advancing the X-37B OTV so it can more fully support the growing space community.'

'The fifth OTV mission continues to advance the X-37B's performance and flexibility as a space technology demonstrator and host platform for experimental payloads,' a spokesperson for the US Air Force said.

The previous OTV-4 mission was 718 days long.

The Boeing-built space plane blasted off in May 2015 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing.

The reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (pictured) returned in June after its fourth mission, concluding an almost two-year mission in orbit, according to the US Air Force

The X-37B, one of two in the Air Force fleet, conducted unspecified experiments during its lengthy orbit.

It was the fourth and lengthiest mission so far for the secretive program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

The Air Force said the orbiters 'perform risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies.'

The Air Force tweeted that the vehicle had landed safely, marking the conclusion of its fourth classified mission, which lasted more than 700 days

However, the exact nature of the mission and its cost is classified.

The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit group promoting the peaceful exploration of space, says the secrecy surrounding the X-37B suggests the presence of intelligence-related hardware being tested or evaluated aboard the craft.

The X-37B first flew in April 2010 and returned after eight months.

A second mission launched in March 2011 and lasted 15 months, while a third took flight in December 2012 and returned after 22 months.
A Chinese man has created the world's first AI-powered cat shelter.

Wan Xi, a computer engineer based in Beijing, devised the innovative concept after becoming concerned for the city's stray animal population.

The makeshift refuge provides felines with food and water, plus a temperature-controlled environment which keeps the mercury at 27C.

It is also able to identify 174 types of cat while flagging-up possible diseases via the use of a smart camera.

Innovative: Set in Beijing, the makeshift refuge provides felines with food and water, plus a temperature-controlled environment which keeps the mercury at 27 degrees Celsius

'At first, I just wanted to provide them with a warm place in winter with food and water that is not frozen,' Mr Xi told China Morning Daily.

However, his vision soon evolved into something more sophisticated after he worked with a team of animal welfare experts.

They provided him with detailed evidence which showed how many of China's 40,000 strays die within two years.

This is primarily because they don't get much-needed medical attention during the early stages of ill-health.

Fortunately, although self-powered, the AI shelter is also manned by a team of volunteers who are alerted to any welfare concerns by regularly-updated data, which is sent to their offices.

Feline good? A number of local cats take comfort in Mr Xi's tech-enhanced creation

Lacking care: Many of China's 40,000 strays cats die within two years

According to charity Animal Asia, it's estimated that 10 million dogs and 4 million cats - many of them strays - are slaughtered for their meat in China, each year.

Eating cat meat is not illegal in the country and features in a dish known as dragon and tiger soup, which was once popular in Guangdong province.

Most of the cat meat supply is sold there and Guangxi, south China.
Male farm animals are less valuable to farmers and scientists are now working on a way to stop the needless slaughter of these animals using gene-editing.

Researchers are hoping to use the powerful genome altering CRISPR tool to genetically modify animals so they produce more female offspring than males.

There is little demand for male cows and chickens, for example, as they do not produce milk or eggs and farmers are often unwilling to keep them.

Gene-editing is a controversial technique which received global attention when it was revealed a Chinese scientist used it on human embryos.

The birth of gene-edited twin girls was condemned by experts and the public and Dr He Juinkai was widely slammed by the scientific community.

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Researchers have proposed a solution to the routine slaughter of male livestock animals by genetically engineering them so they mostly produce female offspring. There is little demand for male calves who are killed shortly after birth because they do not produce milk (stock)

This practice is illegal in humans but permissible on animals, but the public remains resistant to genetically modified animals.

The new study could reduce animal suffering and improve farms profitability, they claim.

Researchers led by Dr Motti Gerlic and Professor Udi Qimron from Tel Aviv University have concocted a system that ensures that mostly females are born.

'The labor and associated costs of separation of females from males, as well as the massive killing of males, could be reduced by using a system that biases the sex of the progeny,' they wrote.

Although they conceded that they will face public opposition to genetically-modified organisms.

A PETA representative told MailOnline that we should be weaning ourselves off milk any way and strongly opposed 'convenience-bred' female calves and likened them to the women in Channel 4's The Handmaid's Tale'.

Although the researchers noted that the experiment is only a proof of principle; it was tested on mice, not on any livestock animals.

Like humans, female mice have two X chromosomes while males have one X and one Y.

The researchers used CRISPR- Cas9, an enzyme used to make precise edits to DNA, to automatically destroy Y-chromosomes in unborn embryos.

This causes them to abort at an early stage.

The team modified the genome of one group of mice to include the CRISPR Cas9, which cuts DNA in specified places.

The same is the case in chickens which are killed almost instantly after they hatch because they do not lay eggs. This practice is widely condemned by the public but the researchers' idea could reduce animal suffering and improve farms profitability (stock)

In a second group of mice, they added markers to three genes on the Y chromosome, making them a target for Cas9.

Each gene is essential for embryos to develop, so damaging even one of them would cause the embryo to abort.

The team said that in theory when the two groups of modified mice mated with each other, only female offspring should have been born.

They found that such crosses produced just three males for every 20 females, which proves the reliability of the method, but they may need to target more genes to be fully effective.

This was compared to a ratio of 23 males to 14 females in a control experiment, in which males were mated with unmodified females.

WHAT IS CRISPR-CAS9? Crispr-Cas9 is a tool for making precise edits in DNA, discovered in bacteria. The acronym stands for 'Clustered Regularly Inter-Spaced Palindromic Repeats'. The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut. The CRISPR/Cas9 technique uses tags which identify the location of the mutation, and an enzyme, which acts as tiny scissors, to cut DNA in a precise place, allowing small portions of a gene to be removed By editing this tag, scientists are able to target the enzyme to specific regions of DNA and make precise cuts, wherever they like. It has been used to 'silence' genes - effectively switching them off. When cellular machinery repairs the DNA break, it removes a small snip of DNA. In this way, researchers can precisely turn off specific genes in the genome. The approach has been used previously to edit the HBB gene responsible for a condition called -thalassaemia. Advertisement

While some experts say that the study is an important step and a 'proof of principle that the technology can work for mammals'.

But opinions are divided on the subject as there is strong opposition to genetically modifying animals and drinking dairy products in the first place.

Dr Julia Baines, Science Policy Advisor at PETA UK told MailOnline that we should be weaning ourselves off dairy products and not looking for more ways to exploit living things.

She also likened CRISPR-produced 'convenience-bred' female calves 'worse off than the women in The Handmaid's Tale'.

'CRISPR has produced animals with debilitating diseases, enhanced deadly mutations, decreased the effectiveness of animals' immune systems, and helped breed cows with stressfully high milk yields  which increases their susceptibility to chronic lameness and infection.

'Gene editing in animals actually increases their suffering. Cows who are genetically manipulated to produce only female offspring are still condemned to dark, dank sheds for much of their lives, only for their beloved babies to be torn away from them shortly after birth so that the milk nature intended for their young can instead be sold for human consumption.

'We don't need to rely on Frankenscience to spare the lives of unborn male or female calves  everyone can spare hundreds of animals' lives by switching to vegan milks.'

CRISPR-Cas9 was used by Dr He Juinkai of Shenzhen, China and claimed to used the method to make twins resistant to HIV from their parents.

The claims were widely slammed by scientists who said that gene editing on human embryos for reproductive purposes was 'unethical' and 'monstrous'.

The practice is banned in most countries, including China, and investigators say that Dr Jiankui faces serious punishment for forging ethical papers and 'acting on his own'.
A meteoroid which hit the moon during last week's stunning lunar eclipse had as much force as between 0.9 and 1.8 tons of dynamite.



As sky-gazers watched the super blood moon eclipse, they were also treated to the sight of a bright flash from a rogue space rock which impacted the lunar surface.

Now researchers have analysed the observations and found that the asteroid left behind a crater that could be up to 49 feet (15 meters) across.

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A meteoroid which hit the moon during last week's lunar eclipse, impacted it generated the same amount of energy as between 0.9 and 1.8 tons of dynamite. Sky-gazers watching the super blood moon eclipse were also treated to the sight of an asteroid impact (file photo)

The researchers, from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, looked at videos taken by amateur astronomers to reconstruct what happened.

They published their findings in the journal Icarus and posted on Cornell University's pre-print server.

'The impact happened in the region of the easily identifiable Byrgius crater to the southeast of Mare Humoris,' the paper reads.

Notably, the meteoroid that created the dent was probably no more than 1 to 1.6 feet (30 to 50 cm) in diameter.

They estimated to have been travelling around 30,890 mph (13.8 kilometres per second).

The moon's surface regularly suffers impacts from little space rocks like this; the surface acquires an average of 140 craters a year.

However, Earth has relatively thick atmosphere and most smaller rocks burn up when they attempt to career towards it.

The impact took place at around 11:41 p.m. ET and was captured in live-streams all around the world.

Astrophysicist Jose Maria Madiedo tweeted out footage of the incredible phenomenon not long after the eclipse.

The impact occurred during totality  when the face of the moon glowed an eerie blood red.

While it was over in the blink of an eye, telescopes from the MIDAS survey were watching all the while and documented the fleeting event.

Madiedo spotted it at 5:41 a.m. Spanish local time.

The so-called 'super blood wolf moon' was the first full moon of 2019, and brought the last total lunar eclipse we'll see until May 26, 2021.

At the time, the moon sat at the closest point to Earth in its orbit, causing it to appear massive in the night sky.

Researchers have analysed the observations and found that the asteroid left behind a crater that could be up to 49 feet (15 meters) across. Here, a woman stands watching the full Moon in the CityLife neighbourhood in Milan during the total lunar eclipse on Sunday night

The collision, which caused a tiny, bright flash, generated the same amount of energy as between 0.9 and 1.8 tons of dynamite. Here, a supermoon rises behind the downtown Los Angeles skyline on Sunday as star gazers around the world kept their eyes turned to the sky

January's full moon is already known as the Wolf Moon.

It wasn't just a stroke of good fortune that led researchers to document the meteoroid impact.

The MIDAS survey was designed to identify these flashes on the dark side of the moon  or the region not illuminated by the sun at any given time.

'By studying meteoroids on the moon we can determine how many rocks impact it and how often, and from this we can infer the chance of impacts on Earth,' Madiedo explained last year.

The rust-coloured moon is seen from Encinitas, California last week during the event. The so-called 'super blood wolf moon' was the first full moon of 2019, and brought the last total lunar eclipse we'll see until May 26, 2021

BEST TIME TO SEE THE BLOOD MOON TONIGHT Maximum eclipse will be visible at these times in our capital cities: Adelaide: 8.48pm. Melbourne: 9.18pm Sydney: 9.18pm Brisbane: 9.18pm Hobart: 9.18pm Canberra: 9.18pm Darwin: 8.48pm Perth: 7.18pm The moon will also be slightly closer to the Earth, causing it to appear brighter than usual, dubbed a Super Moon. These unique factors, when combined, result in a 'Super Blood Wolf Moon'. This graphic shows how a lunar eclipse occurs Advertisement

Lunar eclipses, such as the event last week, make it easier to spot potential impacts, as they further darken the surface, according to Madiedo.

The night-time eclipse, or Blood Moon, was visible Sunday night in many parts of the world, including all of North America, and parts of Europe and Africa.

Other regions, including the Middle East and the rest of Africa, were able to catch a glimpse of a partial eclipse at moonset.
The provision is inserted in the context of the campaign aimed at discouraging the possession of the animal. For religious, it is a symbol of the Western way of life and the era of the Shah. Five years ago a bill called for heavy fines and whipping for those taking dogs for a walk.

Tehran (AsiaNews) - The Iranian capital has banned dog walking in public spaces, in the context of a campaign launched by the public administration to discourage possession of the animal considered mans best friend. Owning a pet, especially dogs, and taking them for a walk has been controversial since 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution that brought to power the Ayatollahs led by Khomeini.

Already in the past dog owners have had their pet confiscated by public security authorities.

Tehran police chief Hossein Rahimi has confirmed that he has "received permission from the general prosecutor's office" and "measures will be taken" against those who "walk with dogs in public spaces". The provision also includes restricted areas "such as parks".

Speaking to the Young journalists Club news agency, the head of security in the capital says that the ban on dogs is due to the feelings of "fear and anxiety" that they generate among the public. Activists and ordinary citizens speak of a draconian measure, with an additional postillion: it will not be possible to drive with the dogs in cars.

"It is forbidden - underlines Rahimi - to take dogs around the city by car. In case of non-compliance with the law, heavy measures will be taken against offenders ".

Not only are dogs considered "impure" by the Iranian Islamic authorities, they also consider the possession of the animal as a symbol of the western lifestyle, characteristic of the monarchical era archived with the rise of religious leaders.

In 2010 the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic guidance forbade any form of advertising for products dedicated to pets. Five years ago in Parliament a bill was discussed that included heavy fines and even flogging for those who take dogs for walks.

The provision that encloses the animal in the home has not created a stir online and on social networks, where the question seems to have passed in silence. Among the few comments, that of a citizen on twitter who asked if, in the future, people will have to "walk their camels".
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A show-stopping Learjet limo has been unveiled, featuring a fully-custom design that has transformed a former plane into a nightclub on wheels.

The one-of-a-kind vehicle, which cost more than $1 million (760,000) to construct and can transport up to eight passengers, uses four 28-inch wheels attached to a wingless Learjet fuselage.

It is now available to anybody prepared to pay $5 million for the contraption.

Before it was debuted in 2018, the 28-metre (42ft)-long Limo-Jet was in the making for 12 years.

Impressive: The incredible hybrid craft - part car, part plane - is pictured inside a hanger located at Lakeville, Minnesota, USA

On thew runway: Although it looks like it could take off, the former jet plane is obviously grounded without its wings

Step inside: The hatch opens and reveals a row of neon-lit seats which can host up to eight passengers

Branded: The Limo-Jet has been a labour of love for the two men involved and is testament to their engineering skills

It was developed by the Illinois-based Jetsetter, Inc and the idea was conceived back in 2006 by Dan Harris and Frank DeAngelo and is based in Lakeville, Minnesota, USA.

The inside is packed to with lights, speakers, screens, and enough seating for a wedding party.

It is no longer powered by the original jet engine but a V8 internal combustion engine.

The old engine housings have been fitted with lights to provide a soft glow at night.

Exact dimensions of the so-called Learjet remain unknown but the mystery and intrigue is part of the appeal according to Mr DeAngelo.

'We've had people pull over on the side of the road, get out of the car and video tape the limo,' he said.

Work in progress! The former jet is seen in the middle of its dramatic transformation, complete with shrink-wrapped wheels

How to make an entrance: There's plenty of room inside for guests to recline without it feeling cramped

For your viewing pleasure: A TV is mounted on the interior of Frank DeAngelo's one-of-a-kind Limo Jet

Have wheels, will travel - in style! The Limo Jet, a 42ft-long GM Vortec V8-powered limo, proudly sits on the tarmac

All about that bass: Speakers are mounted on the rear bumper of the Limo Jet, a 42ft long limo built using a Lear Jet fuselage

Aesthetically pleasing: A luxurious red finish can be seen on the rims of the vehicle's alloy wheels

Driving seat: Monitors are mounted in the dashboard, which allows the designated driver to view throughout the interior

What's in a name? A Limo Jet logo can be seen on the side of Frank DeAngelo's 42ft long acquisition

Rear of the year: Neon lights illuminate the back of the 'club on wheels', which has literally stopped traffic

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? The unique engineering vision commands attention as it inhabits its hanger

The length and breadth of it all: Impressively, the Learjet measures a whopping 42ft-long

Men with a mission: Business partner Dima Kashevatsky (left) and owner of the Limo Jet, Frank DeAngelo (right)

Getting prepped with an undercoat: The old plane is given a base coat, before being daubed in metallic red

Humble beginnings: Looking like something from a sci-fi film, the Learjet in mid-metamorphosis

Prior to the paint-job: The rear of the Limo Jet during its arduous - and painstaking - 12-year construction phase

Then and now: The jet's engines prior to them being removed and reconfigured to host sound speakers

Back in the day: A collect photo shows the once-humble Limo Jet prior to its completion, circa 2010

Head-on: A direct view of the former cockpit, which is now a spacious front seat for one lucky driver

Man power: Business partners Dima Kashevatsky (left) and Frank DeAngelo (right) stand in front of their creation
Facebook has been forced to kill off a controversial app after it admitted to paying young people to install the 'social media research' app which monitors their web activity, according to reports.

The social media giant, which has been harangued for privacy breaches in recent months, recruited people aged from 13-35 to download the app on their devices.

Apple decided to ban the app, formerly known as Onavo VPN, from the app store because it violated its data collection policies.

But according to an investigation by TechCrunch, Facebook has sidestepped the App Store and paying users up to $20 a month, plus referral fees.

Facebook later told TechCrunch it would shut down the iOS version of its Research app in the wake of the report - but that the Android version will continue.

However, this came after Apple banned the app.

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Facebook has admitted to paying young people to install a 'social media research' app which monitors their web activity, according to reports. Apple banned the app, formerly known as Onavo VPN, from the app store because it violated its data collection policies

HOW THE BAN AFFECTS FACEBOOK As well as the research app, Apple has shut down Facebook's ability to distribute internal iOS apps. These include early releases of the Facebook app to basic tools like a lunch menu, according to The Verge. Early versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other pre-release 'dogfood' (beta) apps have stopped working, as have other employee apps, like one for transportation. Advertisement

An Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch: 'We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization,' said a spokesperson.

'Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple.

'Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.'

Although Facebook told MailOnline that less than five per cent of those recruited were teenagers and insisted that 'it wasn't 'spying' on users.

Instead, they have administered it through beta testing services Applause, BetaBound, and uTest.

Shortly after Apple forced its removal from the app store, Facebook started referring to the app as 'Project Atlas' and running ads on Snapchat and Instagram.

These advertisements did not mention Facebook, instead appealing to people to sign up to 'paid social media research study'.

The only mention of Facebook comes when users under the age of 18-years-old attempt to sign-up, as parents are required to fill out a consent form in this instance.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, left, has been openly critical of Facebook's data collection practices and their 'surveillance practices'. The company are said to be 'desperate for data on their competitors' after various blunders, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, have caused users to abandon the network altogether. Right, Mark Zuckerberg at the senate in April

Facebook admitted to TechCrunch that it had been running the program to gather data on usage habits.

The company are said to be 'desperate for data on their competitors' after it has been hit by security breaches which have caused users to abandon the network altogether.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal saw the data of 87 million users improperly accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy.

App Store rules stipulate that apps 'should not collect information about which other apps are installed on a user's device,' according to Guardian Mobile Firewall's security expert Will Strafach.

'If Facebook makes full use of the level of access they are given by asking users to install the Certificate, they will have the ability to continuously collect the following types of data: private messages in social media apps, chats from in instant messaging apps  including photos/videos sent to others, emails, web searches, web browsing activity, and even ongoing location information by tapping into the feeds of any location tracking apps you may have installed,' he told TechCrunch.

A company spokesperson defended the project to MailOnline saying 'key facts about the program are being ignored'.

'Despite early reports, there was nothing 'secret' about this; it was literally called the Facebook Research App,' they said.

'It wasn't ''spying''as all of the people who signed up to participate went through a clear on-boarding process asking for their permission and were paid to participate.

'Finally, less than 5 percent of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental consent forms.'

They said that they are ending the program with Apple and that Onavo was removed from the app store in 2018.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been openly critical of Facebook's data collection practices and their 'surveillance practices'.

Mail Online has contacted Apple for comment.
The Salvador Dali Museum has managed to (almost) bring the surrealist painter back to life.

An artificial intelligence-based recreation of Salvador Dali will be able to greet and communicate with guests who visit the Dali Museum, based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

It's part of an exhibit called 'Dali Lives: Art meets artificial intelligence,' which is slated to open in April 2019.

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The Dali Museum says the exhibit utilizes machine learning to 'create a version of Dali's likeness, resulting in an uncanny resurrection of the mustached master.'

A video of 'Dali Lives' shows just how realistic the AI version really is.

In the clip, Dali is sitting in front of an easel painting, then stands up and walks over to the viewer, where he discusses mortality and his own death.

'I do not believe in my death. Do you?,' Dali says, as he furrows his eyebrows and looks into the camera.

While the voice in the video is not Dali's own, his appearance and facial expressions are otherwise uncanny.

A video of 'Dali Lives' shows just how realistic the AI version really is. Dali is sitting in front of an easel painting, then stands up and walks over to the viewer, where he discusses mortality

While the voice in the video is not Dali's own, his appearance and facial expressions are otherwise uncanny. The Dali Museum said they created the lookalike Dali using AI

'Dali was prophetic in many ways and understood his historical importance,' Dr. Hank Hine, executive director at the Dali Museum, said in a statement.

'He wrote, "If someday I may die, though it is unlikely, I hope the people in the cafes will say, Dali has died, but not entirely."

Dali died in January of 1989 at the age of 84. Pictured is Dali on the S.S. Normandie

'This technology lets visitors experience his bigger-than-life personality in addition to our unparalleled collection of his works,' Hine added.

Dali died on January 23rd, 1989 at the age of 84.

'Dali Lives' takes a page from Dali's own work to generate a surreal resurrection of the artist.

The museum partnered with Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) to create the AI Dali.

GS&P used material from interviews, quotes and archival footage of Dali to train an algorithm to recognize aspects of his face.

They then identified an actor that had similar physical qualities as Dali.

From there, it was able to generate a version of Dali that matches the actor's face and expressions, according to the Dali Museum.

Dali will be able to tell visitors information about his life and philosophies and even comment on events that occurred after his death.

A visitor takes a look at Salvador Dali's 'The Persistence of Memory' at the Museum of Modern Art exhibit in Berlin, Germany. At 'Dali Lives' the artist will discuss his life and current events

This isn't the first time the Dali Museum has partnered with GS&P.

In 2014, they launched 'Gala Contemplating You,' which was inspired by Dali's own work of art titled 'Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln.'

The installation let museum guests upload a selfie, which would be transformed into one of Dali's paintings.

Another project in 2016, called 'Dreams of Dali,' allowed viewers to step inside a virtual reality recreation of one of Dali's paintings.
A team of scientists has discovered the ideal wing shape for fast flight - opening up the possibility of harvesting more energy from water.

The team, from New York University, conducted a series of tests on 3D-printed wings.

Now, they claim their findings could offer improved methods for harvesting renewable energy from sources such as water.

Leif Ristroph, an assistant professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, explained how the wing shape was determined using a form of biological evolution.

Visual: In a video released of the experiments conducted inside the lab, fluorescent dyes are used to show how flapping helps propel an object forward through flight

'We can simulate evolution in the lab by generating a population of wings of different shapes,' he said.

'We then have them compete to achieve some desired objective, in this case, speed, and then have the best wings 'breed' to make related shapes that do even better.'

To demonstrate this, the team created a set of 3D-printed wings that are flapped mechanically and raced against one another.

The winners are then 'breeded' via an evolutionary or genetic algorithm to create even faster flyers - and produce a more efficient means by which to gather renewable energy.

Professor Ritstroph explained: 'We view the work as a case study and proof-of-concept for a much broader class of complex engineering problems.

'Especially those that involve objects in flows, such as streamlining the shape to minimise drag on a structure. We think this could be used, for example, to optimise the shape of a structure for harvesting the energy in water waves.'

Their results showed that the fastest wing shape has a razor-thin trailing edge, which helps to generate strong vortices or swirling flows during flapping.

In a video released of the experiments conducted inside the lab, fluorescent dyes are used to show how flapping helps propel an object forward through flight.

As Professor Ritstroph found: 'This 'survival of the fastest' process automatically discovers a quickest teardrop-shaped wing that most effectively manipulates the flows to generate thrust.'

HOW CAN SCIENTISTS TURN SUNLIGHT INTO FUEL? Scientists have developed a way to transform sunlight into fuel that could lead to an 'unlimited source of renewable energy'. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have done this by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. They did this through using a technique called semi-artificial photosynthesis that is based on the same process plants use to convert sunlight into energy. Artificial photosynthesis has been around for decades but it has not yet been successfully used to create renewable energy. This is because it relies on the use of catalysts, which are often expensive and toxic. Researchers used natural sunlight to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen using a mixture of biological components and manmade technologies. Researchers reactivated a process in algae that has been dormant for millennia. They did this using hydrogenase, an enzyme present in algae that is capable of reducing protons into hydrogen. 'During evolution, this process has been deactivated because it wasn't necessary for survival but we successfully managed to bypass the inactivity to achieve the reaction we wanted  splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen', said Katarzyna Soko, first author and PhD student at St John's College. Ms Soko hopes the findings will enable new innovative model systems for solar energy conversion to be developed. Advertisement




Melting ice sheets caused by rising temperatures will put millions at risk of flooding, experts say

Sea levels could rise by more than three feet by the end of the century - putting millions of people at risk of flooding, according to a new study.

The latest forecast, announced at a major climate change conference in Copenhagen, is far higher than that earlier estimates from the UN.

Researchers said previous forecasts failed to take into account potential impact of changes in the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica.

Around ten per cent of the world's population, or 600 million people, live in low-lying areas near the coast.

Melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica caused by higher temperatures will contribute to sea level rises around the world. Millions could be at risk of flooding if the predictions are accurate, scientists warn

In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the maximum rise in sea level by 2100 would be around 59cm, or 23 inches.

However, Prof Konrad Steffen, from the University of Colorado, said the IPCC forecast was too conservative.



'I would predict sea level rise by 2100 in the order of one metre,' he told the conference at Copenhagen University.



'It could be 1.2 metres or 0.9metres. But it is one metre or more seeing the current change, which is up to three times more than the average predicted by the IPCC.'

Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, added: 'The sea-level rise may well exceed one metre by 2100 if we continue on our path of increasing emissions. Even for a low-emission scenario, the best estimate is about one metre.'

The last IPCC assessment concluded that it was 'very likely' that human activity, and not just natural changes in the climate, is causing global warming and that world temperatures are likely to rise between 1.8C and 4C by the end of the century.

That rise in temperature will increase sea levels, partly because of thermal expansion - the fact that water takes up more space as it gets warmer - and partly because a warmer world will lead to more water being released into the oceans from glaciers and mountain ice caps.



If temperatures rise dramatically, water locked up as ice in Antarctica and Greenland will melt and flow into the oceans, increasing sea levels further.

A huge iceberg breaks off the Antarctic peninsula. The Antarctic ice sheet holds 70 per cent of the world's fresh water

The 2007 IPCC prediction assumed very little water would come from these melting ice sheets. However, new studies published in the last 18 months suggest that far more melt water is being added to the oceans that was previously expected.

A three-foot rise in sea levels would submerge the Maldives and force countries such as Britain and America to spend billions of pounds on flood defences to protect cities like London and New York.

The conference heard that sea levels would rise faster than expected, even if emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are curbed in the next few decades.

Dr John Church, a researcher at the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Hobart, said rising oceans will lead to more frequent devastating floods in coastal areas.

The faster humans limit carbon dioxide emissions, the greater the chance to avoid the most extreme scenarios, he said.

'We could pass a threshold during the 21st century that can commit the world to metres of sea-level rise,' he said.



'Short-term emission goals are critical.'

Early reductions of emissions are much more effective than actions later in the century, the scientists said.

'With stiff reductions in 2050 you can end the temperature curve (rise) quite quickly, but there's not much you can do to the sea-level rise anymore,' Rahmstorf said.



'We are setting in motion processes that will lead to sea levels rising.'
Britain would have to pay billions to the EU even under a No Deal Brexit, the European Commission insisted last night.

A spokesman said all commitments taken by the 28 member states should be honoured by the 28 member states, adding: This is also true in a No Deal scenario, where the UK would be expected to continue to honour all commitments made during EU membership.

Theresa May has said the UK will honour its legal obligations under No Deal, a commitment repeated by No10 officials yesterday.

Theresa May (pictured at Prime Minister's Questions on Tuesday) has said the UK will honour its legal obligations under No Deal, a commitment repeated by No10 officials yesterday

The UK is facing a 39billion divorce bill but yesterday Brexit Minister Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Brussels would not get a penny pinch from the UK unless there was some give on the hated Irish border backstop.

Meanwhile, carmakers are on red alert as a catastrophic No Deal Brexit looms closer, industry chiefs have warned.

It is feared automotive firms will be battered if there is No Deal, with vital supply chains disrupted across Europe and thousands of jobs at risk.
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The deadly arctic deep freeze wreaking havoc across the United States has left at least seven people dead with record-breaking low temperatures halting postal services in the Midwest and cancelling more than 2,500 flights.

Two people died in Detroit, Michigan after temperatures started plummeting late Tuesday as forecasters issued grave warnings that one of the coldest spells in history would be life-threatening.

Police found a man's body across the street from his home in the Detroit area on Wednesday. He was not wearing a hat or gloves and wasn't dressed for below-zero temperatures. A 70-year-old man was also found dead in Detroit in front of a neighbor's home on Wednesday.

The polar vortex in the Midwest came on the heels of major Winter Storm Jayden that dumped up to a foot of snow on the region over the weekend and was to blame for at least five deaths.

A 55-year-old man froze to death in his Milwaukee garage after he collapsed shoveling snow, a man was fatally struck by a snow plow in Chicago, a nine-year-old died in an Iowa pile up and a young couple were killed when their SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana.

Officials have warned that the freezing temperatures will only become more life-threatening overnight on Wednesday. Forecasters advised against breathing deeply or talking while outside and warned that frostbite and hypothermia issues could occur within seconds.

And on Wednesday plummeting temperatures even caused Hell - a small town near Michigan - to freeze over, which prompted much commentary on social media.

The unincorporated community, which is unsurprisingly subject of meteorological and winter jokes, had temperatures below zero on Wednesday afternoon with wind chills temperatures that were even colder.

The highest temperature reached -4F, prompting some on social media to note that Hell had literally frozen over.

While the extreme weather event caused hell to freeze over, temperatures were still warmer there compared to the Windy City due to Lake Michigan, meteorologists reported.

Two people died in Detroit, Michigan after temperatures started plummeting late Tuesday as forecasters issued grave warnings that one of the coldest spells in history would be life-threatening.

The deadly arctic deep freeze wreaking havoc across the United States has left at least seven people dead. Record-breaking low temperatures causes ice to cover the Chicago River on Wednesday

Firefighters at the scene of a house fire on Wednesday in St Paul, Minnesota as temperatures plunged across the Midwest

Ice flows down the Allegheny River toward the Ohio River in Pittsburgh on Wednesday as dangerously low wind chills closed many area schools and government offices

Police found a man's body across the street from his home in the Detroit area on Wednesday. He was not wearing a hat or gloves and wasn't dressed for below-zero temperatures. A 70-year-old man was also found dead in Detroit in front of a neighbor's home on Wednesday.

The polar vortex in the Midwest came on the heels of major Winter Storm Jayden that dumped up to a foot of snow on the region over the weekend and was to blame for at least five deaths.

Plummeting temperatures even caused a small town called Hell to freeze over, which became a talking point on social media

Hell, which is in Livingston County, had temperatures which reached -15F but it will still warmer than the Windy City

Social media users posted plenty of memes decrying the freezing weather which litereally called 'Hell' to freeze over

A 55-year-old man froze to death in his Milwaukee garage after he collapsed shoveling snow, a man was fatally struck by a snow plow in Chicago, a nine-year-old died in an Iowa pile up and a young couple were killed when their SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana.

Officials have warned that the freezing temperatures will only become more life-threatening overnight on Wednesday. Forecasters advised against breathing deeply or talking while outside and warned that frostbite and hypothermia issues could occur within seconds.

Temperatures plunged to as low as minus 42F in Park Rapids, Minnesota, minus 31F in Fargo, North Dakota and minus 27F in Minneapolis. In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19F, breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966. Temperatures are expected drop as low as negative 28 degrees in Chicago as the day progresses. Wind chills in northern Illinois made it feel as cold as negative 57F.

In comparison, temperatures in parts of the Midwest were lower Wednesday than in Antarctica, where the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station hit negative 25F.

The extreme weather conditions triggered widespread closures of hundreds of schools and businesses from North Dakota to Pennsylvania.

Amtrak also axed all trains into and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday. Crews had to set rail tracks in fire to keeps trains moving smoothly on Tuesday.

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A satellite image of the continental United States shows the extreme cold weather phenomenon called the polar vortex over the U.S. Midwest and Great Lakes regions on Wednesday afternoon

More than 2,500 flights were canceled early Wednesday, largely out of Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway international airports, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

The U.S. Postal Service also took the rare step of suspending mail delivery to parts of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, the Dakotas and Nebraska on Wednesday because of the dangerous Arctic blast.

Sub-zero temperatures already blanketing parts of Canada began sweeping across the Midwest and towards the East Coast on Tuesday evening. The frigid winds were bound for the East Coast later on Wednesday into Thursday.

The National Weather Service forecast for Wednesday night predicted temperatures in Chicago as low as minus 28, with wind chills to minus 50. Detroit's outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 15, with wind chills dropping to minus 40.

Governors in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan have all declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.

'We need everyone to do your part and make sure you and your families are prepared,' said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south in North America than normal.

'These are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately,' Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. 'They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.'

The James Versluis breaks ice on the frozen Chicago River on Wednesday in Chicago

People walk along Lake Michigan's frozen shoreline as temperatures dropped to -20 degrees F on Wednesday in Chicago

Ice and snow builds up along Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday as the Midwest is gripped by one of the coldest spells in history

Ice forms along the shore of Lake Michigan before sunrise on Wednesday as record-breaking temperatures hit

Ice and snow builds up along Lake Michigan in Chicago as temperatures plunged to record lows on Wednesday

Ice is seen on the side of the Great Falls National Historic Park as a couple takes in the sights during a frigid winter day in Paterson, N.J. on Wednesday

Drivers navigate their way through downtown St. Joseph, Michigan on Wednesday as temperatures reached minus 40F

A warning sign is covered by ice at Clark Square park in Evanston, Illinois as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest

A firefighter walks past an ice-encrusted home after an early morning house fire on Wednesday in St. Paul, Minnesota

Ice floats down the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska on Wednesday where wind chill warnings were issued

Officials in large Midwestern cities including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit were desperately trying to get the homeless off the streets.

Minneapolis charitable groups that operate warming places and shelters expanded hours and capacity, and ambulance crews handled all outside calls as being potentially life-threatening, according to Hennepin County Emergency Management Director Eric Waage.

MetroTransit said it wouldn't remove people from buses if they were riding them simply to stay warm, and weren't being disruptive.

Emanuel said Chicago was turning five buses into makeshift warming centers moving around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold. About 160 warming centers were opened in the city.

'We're bringing the warming shelters to them, so they can stay near all of their stuff and still warm up,' said Cristina Villarreal, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Family and Support Services.

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that 'you're going to freeze or lose a limb,' said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Nineteen-year-old Deontai Jordan and dozens of others found refuge from the cold in the basement of a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

'You come here, you can take a nap, you can snack, you can use the bathroom, you might even be able to shower,' he said. 'And then they're feeding you well. Not to mention they give out clothes, they give out shoes, they give out socks.'

Hundreds of public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Closing schools for an extended stretch isn't an easy decision, even though most school districts build potential makeup days into their schedules, said Josh Collins, spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education.

'Many students, they might have two working parents, so staying home might mean they're not supervised,' he said. 'For some low-income students, the lunch they receive at school might be their most nutritious meal of the day.'

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. Many people on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas live in housing that's decades old and in disrepair, or in emergency government housing left over from southern disasters such as hurricanes.

'They aren't made for this (northern) country. The cold just goes right through them,' said Elliott Ward, the tribe's emergency response manager.

The extreme cold was 'a scary situation' for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, said Chris Fairbanks, manager of the northern Minnesota tribe's energy assistance program.

'We have many, many calls coming in. We're just swamped trying to get everybody what they need,' she said.

The cold was even shutting down typical outdoor activities. A ski hill in the Minneapolis area said it would close through Wednesday. So did an ice castle attraction.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

The unusually frigid weather is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase.

Nichole Mazola, 30, walks south on Sassafras Street near West 16th Street in Erie, Pa on Wednesday

First responders evacuate a person, found in sub-freezing temperatures, on the banks of Carter Lake, in Omaha, Nebraska on Wednesday

A man tosses hot water into the freezing cold air by Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday

The National Weather service says the temperature in Chicago (pictured is the Chicago River) dropped early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, which breaks the previous record low for the day that was set in 1966

The frozen Arctic winds brought record-low temperatures across much of the Midwest on Wednesday. Pictured above is Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday

Ice covers the Chicago River on Wednesday as the city copes with record-setting low temperatures

A man moves his luggage through the snow covered streets in Buffalo, New York on Wednesday

Pedestrians bundle up in sub-freezing temperatures on Wednesday on the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus

That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.

Minnesota's Xcel Energy reported that equipment failures on power poles has led to outages throughout the Twin Cities. The outages started around 5.40pm and more than 3,000 people were still without power at 11pm Tuesday evening, according to CBS Minnesota.

It's so cold in Minnesota they can't deliver beer without it FREEZING in trucks The deadly arctic deep freeze has prompted beer distributors to halt deliveries of beer in Minnesota. Distributors have stopped delivering in the Twin Cities, down south and out west until the weather improves. It comes after kegged beer froze while out for delivery on Tuesday, and temperatures fell as low as negative 26 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 53 below zero, in Minneapolis. Beer can freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on its alcohol content, and temperatures across the Midwest are currently much lower than that. Advertisement

The National Weather Service (NWS) Twin Cities reported that the area is experiencing the coldest temperatures since 1996.

'These are VERY DANGEROUS conditions and can lead to frostbite on exposed skin in as little as five minutes where wind chill values are below -50,' the NWS tweeted. 'Best thing you can do is limit your time outside.'

A wind chill of minus 25 can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the service.

The NWS have even warned that people should avoid taking deep breaths and talking outside to ensure lungs are protected from the severely cold air.

Temperatures in almost a dozen states stretching more than 1,200 miles from the Dakotas to Ohio were forecast to be the coldest in a generation, if not on record.

'One of the coldest arctic air mass intrusions in recent memory is surging south into the Upper Midwest before spreading across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country,' the NWS said.

'Expect frigid temperatures, bitterly cold and life-threatening wind chills, likely leading to widespread record lows and low maximum temperatures from the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.'

The NWS forecast temperatures between -10 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit by Wednesday across the Midwest, with wind chills making it seem as cold as -65 degrees Fahrenheit in one area of Minnesota.



In the northeastern and southern US, snow was falling. A cold emergency was declared in Washington, DC, with additional services put on for the homeless.

Drifting snow obscures a road near Mount Joy in Lancaster County, Pa. on Wednesday

City crews clear sidewalks in empty downtown St. Joseph, Michigan after a winter storm brought several inches of snow and subzero temperatures to the area

Dozens of cars were involved in a chain-reaction crash on a central Pennsylvania highway after a snow squall caused whiteout conditions on Wednesday

About 30 cars were involved in the crash on Route 222 near Wyomissing, Pa. and numerous ambulances were on the scene

Pictured above is a view of Lake Michigan from Kenosha, Wisconsin on Wednesday as a large swath of the Midwest is experiencing some of the worst cold weather conditions in decades

Pigeons huddle together in the snow during a winter storm in Buffalo, New York on Wednesday

Geese huddle in the waters as the sun rises in the harbor in Port Washington, Wisconsin on Wednesday morning

A lone pedestrian crosses the Chicago River early Wednesday as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures

In Atlanta, some 300 flights were canceled Tuesday.

Scientists say climate change is causing more extreme weather, and one theory for polar vortex chills is that arctic air currents usually trapped around the North Pole are weakened and dislodged by a warming climate.

WHAT IS THE POLAR VORTEX? The polar vortex is an atmospheric circulation pattern that sits high above the poles, in a layer of the atmosphere called the stratosphere. This structure can weaken as a result of abnormal warming in the poles, causing it to split off into smaller sister vortices that may travel outside of their typical range. The split higher up in the atmosphere could eventually cause a similar phenomenon to drip down to the troposphere  the layer of the atmosphere closest to the surface, where most of our weather takes place. A split in the polar vortex can give rise to both sudden and delayed effects, much of which involves declining temperatures and extreme winter weather in the Eastern US along with Northern and Western Europe. Advertisement

President Donald Trump used the occasion to again voice skepticism about climate change, tweeting: 'What the hell is going on with Global Waming? (sic) Please come back fast, we need you!'

But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates NWS, tweeted: 'Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening.'

The NOAA also linked to a 2015 explanatory article in their tweet.

In New York City, forecasters are expecting temperatures to drop to near 5 degrees on Thursday morning. The wind chill then will be between -10 and -20.

The MTA says they will more than likely activate warming devices throughout their system to keep switches warm on all Long Island Rail Road and Metro North Railroad lines.

LIRR stations will also keep waiting rooms open 24 hours a day Wednesday through Saturday, according to CBS.

In New Jersey, Gov Phil Murphy is warning residents to plan for icy roads and potential blackouts.

Forecasters in western New York are warning of blizzard-like conditions over the next few days with up to two feet of snow, plummeting temperatures and wind chills that can cause frostbite in minutes.

In advance of the Great Lakes-fed storm, authorities closed schools in Buffalo and surrounding districts for Wednesday and Thursday and the state announced a ban on tractor-trailers and buses from the New York State Thruway.

The ban between Rochester and the Pennsylvania border took effect at 8pm Tuesday.

Drifting bands of lake-effect snow are expected to drop one to two feet by the storm's end. The hard-to-predict bands can bury some areas, even as the sun shines a short distance away.

A Merl's Towing Service truck pulls a semi-trailer truck out of the snow along M-6 near exit 1 near Grandville, Michigan

Dashcam footage from a trucker taken outside Grand Rapids, Michigan gave a snapshot of hair-raising driving conditions. 'I about just got caught in a giant wreck; cars are into other pickups, there's people hurt. I gotta let you go.' Jason Coffelt said as his truck was forced off the highway

A ride sharing car waits for a passenger as a woman pushes a stroller during winter squall in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday

A sudden snowstorm in New York on Wednesday afternoon had pedestrians shielding themselves on the streets

Snow falls as a man inspects an overturned pickup truck in Manor Township, Pennsylvania on Tuesday

Rescue crews use a rope to safely assist an emergency medical technician as he descends down the embankment along Interstate 80 near Mifflinville, Pa. to assess the driver of a semitrailer who crashed during a snowstorm

A person sleeps at the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky in Covington, Kentucky on Wednesday
A Yellow Vest leader who suffered life-changing eye injuries when he was allegedly hit by a rubber bullet during a protest has spoken out after what a colleague described as a 'homicide attempt'.

Jerome Rodrigues was hit in the eye during a protest in Paris on Saturday and is likely to be handicapped for life, but the French government has insisted there was 'no indication' he was injured by a police projectile.

Speaking today the 40-year-old said many French police officers had sent him messages of support after his injuries.

Eric Drouet, another leading figure in the protest movement which has paralysed France in recent weeks, said police had 'aimed at the head'.

Jerome Rodrigues (left) wears an eye patch as he and Eric Drouet (right) give a press conference in Paris today, amid a row over Rodrigues' injury

Speaking to BFM-TV, Drouet called it a 'homicide attempt' and said: 'When we aim at the head, we try to kill. How should this weapon be used? We must not aim our head.'

Appearing on French-language television with an eye patch, Rodrigues thanked police who had sent him support, telling RT: 'The police have orders but I know there are men behind the armour.'

Rodrigues, a construction worker, was placed in an artificial coma after the incident at the Bastille monument on Saturday afternoon.

The 40-year-old, who has 50,000 followers on Facebook, was live-streaming the protest on the website when he was hit.

His lawyer said Rodrigues was struck in the eye with a 'flashball', referring to the 40-mm (1.6-inch) rubber projectiles used by French riot police.

But junior interior minister Laurent Nunez said there was 'no indication' that his injuries had been caused by such a projectile.

Rodrigues said he had agreed with Drouet to launch a 'call for calm' while at the same time pressing on and strengthening the protests 'without violence'.

'I will not stop, I will be back at the demonstrations as soon as my health permits me,' he said.

Jerome Rodrigues, one of the leaders of the the Yellow Vests movement, lies on the ground after he was injured in the eye during clashes between protesters and riot police

Yellow vest activist Mr Rodrigues was injured during Paris a protest and was bandaged up and taken to hospital

The devices - which are not used in most European countries - have been blamed for dozens of serious injuries at 'yellow vest' protests, leading to calls for them to be banned.

On Saturday, police using the weapons were for the first time deployed wearing body cams in a bid to increase transparency.

Rodrigues' lawyer insisted his client was not one of the 'hooligans' who have been joining the weekly protests to cause trouble for police.

Witnesses picked up the projectile that struck Rodrigues and police are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

The 'yellow vest' movement, which erupted in mid-November over fuel taxes, quickly snowballed into a widespread revolt over President Emmanuel Macron's pro-business economic policies and his aloof governing style.

Tens of thousands of people wearing luminous yellow road safety vests have taken part in nationwide protests on 11 consecutive Saturdays.

But their numbers have dipped in recent weeks after Macron announced a series of measures to assist pensioners and the working poor.
Democrats have zero money for President Donald Trump's border wall in their opening offer to avert another government shutdown despite his threat they are 'wasting their time' if they won't fund his barrier.

'If you're asking if there's any money for a border wall there is none,' Democratic Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard told reporters after the first meeting of House and Senate negotiators ended on Wednesday.

The 17-member bipartisan, bicameral panel held their first meeting to find a border security compromise under dueling threats: 1) a ticking clock that only gives them until Feb. 15 to come up with a plan that the president will sign to avoid another shutdown; and 2) a warning from Trump that if lawmakers are 'not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!'

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Chairwoman Nita Lowey (center) and Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (right) made it clear there was no funding for President Trump's border wall in their opening offer

The 17-member bipartisan, bicameral panel held their first meeting to find a border security compromise

House Appropriations Chair Nita Lowey appeared to brush aside Trump's threat.

'I raised three children and now I have eight grand children and I think it's best way of dealing with them is with facts and figures instead of threats,' she said when asked about the president's demand.

Lowey did offer a ray of hope when it comes to compromise.

'Everything is on the table,' she said. 'Today was a starting point.'

She also said the lawmakers charged with coming up with a hail mary pass over the next 16 days may take a trip to the border as part of their work.

'We've been talking about maybe taking a trip to the border but there is not much time,' she said.

And while Democrats wouldn't commit to a wall, Lowey conceded more money would likely end up on the table than the $1.3 billion Democrats originally offered for border security.

'We will expand on the $1.6 billion for border security-related programs that House Democrats have already passed in the last few weeks,' she said.

But there was little enthusiasm for the $5.7 billion Trump was demanded for his border wall. Democrats argued money was limited and could be put to other uses.

'Within the limited funding available in the bill, we will be fighting for balanced investments across the Department's mission areas. And we will be pushing for a strong, but smart, border security posture, one that does not rely on costly physical barriers,' Roybal-Allard said.

It was that showdown over $1.6 billion versus $5.7 billion that led to the shutdown. If the panel can't come up with a compromise Trump will sign by Feb. 15, funding is likely to lapse again for the departments of Transportation, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, State and Interior, as well as the IRS, National Science Foundation, FDA and EPA.

Republicans on the panel showed their support Wednesday for some type of border barrier to be used strategically.

Few lawmakers used the word 'wall' but talked about building barriers where it made strategic sense.

'All sides seem to agree that border security is important. That is a good start, but it cannot end there,' said Republican Sen. Richard Shelby in his opening remarks.

'Smart technology alone does not actually stop anyone from crossing into the U.S. illegally,' he noted as part of his argument for a border barrier. 'Our border patrol tells us that they need physical barriers to help them do their job. Not from coast to coast, but strategically placed where traffic is highest.'

He argued strategic barriers are part of a 'comprehensive solution.'

Republican Congressman Chuck Fleischmann did utter the word 'wall' but said he wanted one 'where barriers work' on the border.

The GOP pushed for lawmakers to focus on where they agree and argued portions of a border barrier are something both parties could back.

'People, technology and barrier and we've all voted for all three,' said Republican Sen. John Hoeven.

But Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose district sits on the Texas-U.S. border, dismissed the idea a wall is effective.

'Give me $100. I'll buy you a ladder and we'll take care of that wall quickly,' he said.

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby suggested strategically placed border barriers would be a good compromise

President Donald Trump hamstrung Capitol Hill negotiators as they began the first round of talks with a bipartisan panel of lawmakers to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year

Trump said that the legislators 'are wasting their time' if their solution doesn't include a border wall. He allowed that they could refer to it alternatively as a physical barrier

But, before lawmakers met Wednesday afternoon, Trump put his demand on the table.

'If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!,' he tweeted Wednesday morning.

The 35-day shutdown, the longest in American history, ended Friday after Trump signed a bill to reopen the government for three weeks, backing down from his demand that Congress give him $5.7 billion for his border wall before federal agencies get back to work.

Polls show people chiefly blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown.

Part of the agreement was the bipartisan panel of House and Senate lawmakers tasked with coming up with a border security plan both parties could support and Trump would sign.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who previously said there was no chance of Trump getting his wall, punted the issue to negotiators.

'I think a conference committee can reach a good result left to its own devices without interference from anybody else. I have confidence in the appropriators,' she told CNN Wednesday morning.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who pressured Trump last week to end the shutdown, warned the president against triggering another one or declaring a national emergency in order to get his wall.

When asked to describe a border security agreement he'd support, McConnell said: 'I'm for whatever works that would prevent the level of dysfunction we've seen on full display here the last month and also doesn't bring about a view on the president's part that he needs to declare a national emergency.'

Before negotiators met on Wednesday, Shelby was asked what would happen if the lawmakers came up with a plan that Trump would refuse to sign and a veto could be overridden.

'That'd be hard to do. Nothing is impossible,' he said.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders warned Democrats on Monday afternoon that they will 'get virtually nothing' if they put Trump in the position of having to solve the border wall fight by declaring a national emergency.

'If they don't come back with a deal, that means Democrats get virtually nothing. That will make the president, and force him, to have to take executive action that does not give Democrats the things that they want,' Sanders said in her first press briefing of 2019.

She said of an immigration reform framework and spending deal, 'This is a perfect time and the table has been perfectly set by the president in order for a good deal to come together where everybody gets a little something they're looking for.'

Meanwhile, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday the president is willing to shut down the government again in three weeks in order to secure the border.

Negotiators have until Feb. 15 to come up with a compromise on border security

'Yeah I think he actually is. Keep in mind he's willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border. He does take this very seriously,' Mulvaney said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation.'

Mulvaney refused to answer whether or not Trump would take less than the $5.7 billion he demanded as his original price to reopen the government - the amount he needs to build a border wall.

'This is not something where the president's married to a number, he's married to border security,' he said on 'Fox News Sunday.'
A furloughed federal worker with breast cancer was miraculously helped by Good Samaritans who helped pay for her rent and chemotherapy during the 35-day shutdown.

Quashawn Latimer, 43, was being treated for stage 2 breast cancer and was undergoing rounds of chemotherapy.

But when the shutdown denied her two paychecks, she was forced to make a choice between making her rent and paying for her final round of chemo.

I can't negotiate with my chemo, she told MSNBC last week.

That has to happen. If it's the chemo or the rent, chemo wins.

Quashawn Latimer, 43, was being treated for stage 2 breast cancer and was undergoing rounds of chemotherapy when the federal shutdown began

Because she was deprived of two paychecks, she needed to choose between paying rent and paying for her chemotherapy

When Good Samaritans learned of her plight on MSNBC, they decided to foot the bill for both the rent and the chemotherapy

Worst case scenario, we lose our home.

A concerned citizen watched the segment on MSNBC and decided to pitch in, according to NBC News.

The citizen, a Virginia resident who insisted on anonymity, contacted a member of Congress, who helped track down Latimer.

That person then footed the bill for the familys rent for the entire month of February.

That was amazing to me, Latimer said.

On Monday, Latimer, a resident of Millersville, Maryland, had an appointment for another round of chemotherapy.

Before the appointment, she received a telephone call from the hospital administrator.

A stranger just called and he zeroed out your balance, Latimer was told by the administrator.

It was a very scary moment for me, having to make a choice between what I'm not going to pay to keep me healthy, she said

He took care of your account. All of it.

She said: I was overwhelmed. I was literally in tears. It was an amazing moment.

The individual who paid for the treatment is an anonymous donor from Oregon.

Latimer, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, is an employee of the Treasury Department.

While she does have health insurance, her plan did not cover all of the costs associated with her chemotherapy.

It is blessings, and it is a bright side to this, and I thank God for it, Lattimer told WRC-TV.

On Friday, President Trump announced that he reached an agreement with Congress ending the shutdown and approving funding for the federal government for three weeks.

During the 35-day shutdown, 800,000 federal workers and more than 1.2 million contractors did not receive paychecks.

The announcement by Trump on Friday came as a relief to Latimer.

It was a very scary moment for me, having to make a choice between what I'm not going to pay to keep me healthy, she said.

I'm still apprehensive, she said.

I'm taking it day by day, trying to move forward.

I just want to thank all of the people that helped.

I thank everybody!

Humanity still exists!
The silent rally took place in the city of Kolhapur, where the Holy Cross Convent High School is located. Most of the students in the school for girls are Hindu. Some 3,500 Christians from every denomination, including nuns and lay people, took part in the event.

Kolhapur (AsiaNews/Agencies)  A silent rally was held yesterday in Kolhapur (Maharashtra) to protest against anti-Christian violence without any outcry or proclamations.

About 3,500 Christians from every denomination took part in the exceptional event to mark last weeks devastating attack by Hindu radicals against a Catholic school for girls run by Holy Cross Sisters.

The gathering was also an opportunity to speak out against all attacks on Christian places of worship and religious symbols in India.

The school involved in this case is Holy Cross Convent High School. The incident took place on 22 January around 1.30 pm (local time), during class time.

Members of the Yuva Sena, the youth wing of the Shiv Sena, an ultra-nationalist Hindu party that is allied with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), stormed the school.

Sr Bharati, primary section headmistress, said that the activists broke into the school shouting slogans against the school management.

They then ransacked the office, breaking windows and damaging religious symbols, including a cross and a statue of Our Lady.

Teachers and several students looked on, powerless, as the school was ransacked; many girls were in a shock.

Mgr Thomas Dabre, archbishop of Pune, slammed the ideologically-motivated attack, noting that most students at the Catholic school are Hindu and that the school serves especially the poor.

Yesterdays meeting started around 10.30 am in the square in front of the St Xavier's Church campus, in the Nagala Park area, near the school.

Protesters reached the office of Collector Avinash Subhedar to whom they submitted a memorandum, expressing concern over the increase in attacks against Christian schools and holy places.

The participants  sisters, laity, children, Christian leaders  marched without shouting, carrying placards and flags.

Their demands include immediate action by the administration against the guilty. Although several attackers are on the run, police now have 14 people in custody.
Distraught parents had to be held back by police as they tried to reach their sons lifeless body as it lay under a tarpaulin in the rain.

Witnesses said Nedim Bilgin, 17, was repeatedly stabbed with a large Rambo-style knife when a fight broke out on Tuesday evening after a row with a gang.

Wounded Nedim  who was just a few hundred yards from his home in Islington, North London  tried to stagger into a nearby shop before collapsing to the pavement.

Andrea Alexander said: Before the ambulance arrived there were three men trying to save his life, and his friends ran to his house to get his mum, who arrived soon after.

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A police officer lunges after a man - described by eye-witnesses as the young victim's father - after he ducked under police tape to reach the covered body of Nedim Bilgin

Nedim Bilgin's distraught parents were back by police after arriving shortly after his murder

Nedim's mother Remziye (pictured centre) at the scene in Islington this morning where her son was killed last night

Nedin Bilgin 'went out on his bike and never came back'

Ben Lynch, 18, a lifeguard who gave first aid to Nedim, told the London Evening Standard: I was at a bar across the road and heard a bunch of people screaming.

I sprinted across the road and saw blood all over the pavement and this boy bleeding out. I lifted up his shirt and started pressing down. I tried giving him CPR. I did as much as I could to help him.

Police confirmed Nedim was stabbed several times and that two knives were later recovered from the scene.

Witness Christopher Chambers-Russell saw Nedims mother and father arrive just over an hour after the stabbing outside a Ladbrokes bookmakers, and duck under the police tape cordon around their sons body.

Nobody but a mother could cry the way she was, he said. It was heartbreaking.

'A man I thought was his father pushed under the tape then the mother followed before they were stopped by police.

'The young guys body was just lying in the street under a sheet outside the shops, and they were wailing as they tried to get to him.

Three teens, aged 16, 17 and 18, have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Nedim is the second teenager, and eighth person, to be killed in the capital since the early hours of January 1 this year.

Emergency services in Islington responding to the stabbing on Tuesday night

Police said Nedim was pronounced dead at the scene. Pictured: Police at the scene

Forensic specialists at work in Islington, north London, yesterday investigating the killing

Police at the scene today, where it is thought two knives were discarded after the attack

Police closed off the road and have arrested three teenagers aged 16 17 and 18 over the attack

Nedim, who was out riding his bike, was set upon and stabbed with a giant 'Zombie' knife outside a betting shop he was passing, where flowers were laid for him today

The 17-year-old Londoner's friends visited the scene in Caledonian Road, Islington, where he was murdered

Nedims father, Nusret, said he had been told his son was stabbed with a big knife through his chest. Hes my lovely boy, my baby, he said. I got a missed call last night at about 7pm from his mum, she said something really bad has happened to him and hes been killed.

Nedim doesnt listen to me and he didnt listen to his mum. He had some terrible friends who were always problems  fighting and things. He was my baby.

While it was initially believed the stabbing came after Nedim refused to hand over his bike to muggers, police are now looking into whether it was gang-related.

A friend of Nedims insisted he was not involved in gangs. He said: He was a sweet guy, very popular in the area. There are gangs about but he was never part of one.

Nedim died on Caledonian Road, just yards from where teenager Alan Cartwright was murdered for his bike in 2015.
Child killer Levi Bellfield had a bizarre relationship with his mother who allegedly wiped his backside and shared a bed with him until he was 13.

Milly Dowler's jailed killer was treated like a toddler in his teens, his ex wife has revealed, as a documentary on the murderer is about to air.

Johanna Collings, known as Jo, revealed how Jean Bellfield and her son Levi were oddly close.

She said: 'She wiped his a**e and let him share her bed until he was 13 years old.'

'He called her every day and went round there all the time. He would stay there and she would lend him money whenever he wanted it.

'She was the female version of him. It's really bizarre how close Levi and his mum were.

'You know you get that feeling  no matter what he did he was never in the wrong.

'He could never do anything wrong in his mum's eyes.'

Ms Collings who has two daughters with Bellfield says she was raped and beaten by him, including when she was pregnant.

Joe Collings (pictured above) said that she played a major role in bringing down Levi Bellfield

The documentary looks at the sickening killer's past, and relationship with his mother

Ahead of a new Really documentary 'The Killer In My Family' Jo said Levi only killed blondes because his mother who died aged 81 in 2017 had brown hair.

In court he was backed by his mother and siblings, but Ms Collings gave evidence against him.

She tells the show: When we went to the Old Bailey it was really daunting.

Serial killer Levi Bellfield was eventually charged and convicted of the murders of Marsha McDonnell, Milly Dowler and Amelie Delagrange

Levis mum, sister, and brother were there. I used to be very close to one of his sisters and its a shame because she is a really lovely lady.

His mum was just a female version of him. Its really bizarre how close Levi and his mum was.

'You know you get that feeling and no matter what he did he was never ever in the wrong and he never do anything wrong in his mums eyes.

When she brought Bellfield to the attention of police in 2004, Ms Collings told officers how he was a violent man, who had a hatred of blonde women.

She said: There was a magazine  a Cosmopolitan or Vogue kind of magazine  and hed stabbed and slashed all the pictures of the blondes, no others, no dark hairs, no blacks, no brunettes, just the blondes.

Every girlfriend and everyone hes killed have all been blonde.'

Ms Collings also recalled the moment she led police to Yately Common Country Park in Hampshire, where Bellfield dumped Milly's body.

She said: 'Police questioned him about Yately and he told him hed never been to the area.

But Ms Collings had kept two pictures of Bellfield, both of which were taken at the Yately horse show.

Sick killer Levi Bellfield killed Milly Dowler in 2002 but was not convicted for many years

Ms Collings had kept two pictures of Bellfield, both of which were taken at the Yately horse show. He dumped Milly's body on Yately Common

Retired Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, Colin Sutton, told producers of the documentary he is still accused by the Bellfield family of 'setting up' Levi.

He added: Bellfied and some of his family still say that we - police and the criminal justice system  "fitted him up", in his words, that there was something crooked or wrong about the evidence.

But the evidence all stacked up, it fitted together.

But we know that the aura, the personality of Levi Bellfield was such that it could intoxicate others in some ways - maybe thats what happened with his family; they just cannot see him for what he is.

Bellfield, who owned a wheel-clamping business in west London, had a string of convictions for minor crimes prior to being arrested on suspicion of the murder of French student Amelie Delagrange, 22, in August 2004.

He was given three life sentences in 2008: one for the murder of Miss Delagrange, one for killing 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell, in Hampton in 2003; and one for the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in May 2004.

Despite having been a suspect in the 2002 killing of Milly Dowler it was not until 2011 he was brought to justice, receiving a fourth life sentence and second whole-life tariff.

Levi Bellfield flexing his muscles. The killer is accused of beating and raping his former wife

The Killer in My Family: Levi Bellfield is on Really at 10pm on Thursday 31st January
Jailed MP Fiona Onasanya could have her sentence increased after members of the public complained that it was too soft.

The ex-solicitor, who has been kicked out of Labour, was locked up for three months for perverting the course of justice after lying over a speeding ticket.

But the jail term is now being reviewed by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, the Governments chief law officer, under an unduly lenient sentencing scheme.

The ex-solicitor, who has been kicked out of Labour, was locked up for three months for perverting the course of justice after lying over a speeding ticket

Within 24 hours of Onasanyas jailing on Tuesday, his office received at least 20 complaints from members of the public who felt it wasnt long enough.

If Mr Cox believes she should have been locked up for longer, he can refer the case to the Court of Appeal to be looked at again. His spokesman said last night: We have received a request for the case of Fiona Onasanya to be considered. Law officers have 28 days from sentencing to consider the case.

At the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Mr Justice Stuart-Smith said the sentence of the Peterborough MP was the shortest I feel able to impose. He added: I make plain I will not treat you more severely because of your position as an MP and former solicitor.

There cannot be one law for those in positions of power, privilege and responsibility and another for those who are not.

In 2013, former Lib-Dem MP Chris Huhne was jailed for eight months for lying over a speeding ticket, having persuaded his wife to claim she was driving and take his penalty points for him so he didnt lose his licence.

Former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya arriving at the Old Bailey

Onasanya was jailed for perverting the course of justice after claiming she was not the person driving her speeding car in 2017.

Mr Justice Stuart-Smith said he did not accept the prosecutions case that Onasanya had hatched a conspiracy with her brother Festus to avoid the speeding ticket.

Instead, he said she stupidly chose to become involved at a later stage after her brother had filled in a notice of intended prosecution on her behalf, creating a serious mess.

Mr Justice Stuart-Smith said the offence was totally out of character. He praised Onasanya as a role model for many young black women who have been inspired by your attitude and achievements.

The 35-year-old MP, who is appealing against her conviction, has refused to quit Parliament and will continue to receive her 77,000 salary while behind bars.

Onasanya, who was once a trusted ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, became an independent MP after being kicked out of the party when she was found guilty. She would have lost her seat automatically if her jail term had been longer than 12 months.

Undated handout photo issued by the CPS of CCTV footage showing Fiona Onasanya speeding 41mph in a 30mph zone

However, she could still lose the marginal constituency if 10 per cent of the electorate there  around 7,000 voters  sign a petition calling for a by-election.

A petition can be started after the appeal process is complete. Her legal team has hinted that she is unlikely to contest an election.

Labour officials in the constituency said they would shortly be selecting a candidate.

The Conservatives are keen to win Peterborough back. Onasanya only won the seat by 607 votes after beating sitting Tory MP Stewart Jackson in 2017.

There has only been one by-election petition before. It was triggered last year when North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Jnr was suspended for failing to declare holidays paid for by Sri Lanka.

He narrowly avoided being recalled after only 9.4 per cent of constituents signed the petition.
GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence

Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN

Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018

Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case.

Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump.

He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.

And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.

GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT

Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller

Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.

Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to.

Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys.

GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES

Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018

Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.

GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018

Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank.

GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO

Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison

Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities.

GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN

Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release

Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012.

He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired.

GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN

Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019

Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration.

He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman.

Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named.

CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK

Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia

Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S.

He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team.

INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS

Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia

Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud.

Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S.

INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS

Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally.

Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal.

Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him.

Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government.

The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE

Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence

Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.

In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.

Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal.

'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation.

Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.'

CLEARED: GREG CRAIG

Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig.

Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there.

Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements.

The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Craig was cleared on September 9 2019.
Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd wants to become a citizen of Georgia to help block his extradition to the UK, his lawyer confirmed.

The web designer has started learning Georgian in his prison cell and claims he hopes he can persuade his estranged wife to join him in the former Soviet state with their child.

Shepherds wife disowned him after discovering he was on an internet date with Charlotte Brown, 24, when he killed her in his speedboat on the Thames.

His bid to achieve Georgian citizenship will not be granted immediately, however.

The web designer (pictured in court at an emergency extradition meeting yesterday) has started learning Georgian in his prison cell and claims he hopes he can persuade his estranged wife to join him in the former Soviet state with their child

The process takes five years and the request has to be signed off by the president.

During a court hearing on Tuesday, the killer spoke in a mixture of Georgian and English. He gave his name as Jack Sebastian Shepherdi, using the Georgian way of saying his surname.

The judiciary in Tbilisi is under pressure to send the fugitive back to Britain so he can serve his six-year sentence for the manslaughter of Miss Brown in 2015.

But Shepherds lawyer Mariam Kublashvili said yesterday: We will do everything we can to make sure Jack can serve his sentence here.

He wants to get Georgian citizenship. He wants to stay here and live here. He wants to be here as he feels safer here. He loves how friendly the people are, and that it is cheap to live here. Jack is worried that the public opinion in the UK is against him and that will make him a target if he goes to jail there.

Meanwhile, attempts to extradite him face further delays because his lawyers have still not received British court documents.

They are waiting for police interviews and evidence from the manslaughter trial to arrive in Georgia.

The lawyers are also waiting for police files about claims that Shepherd glassed a barman with a vodka bottle in a Devon pub last March.

Shepherds wife disowned him after discovering he was on an internet date with Charlotte Brown, 24, (pictured) when he killed her in his speedboat on the Thames

The extensive files then need to be translated before his Georgian legal team can work on his case.

Lawyer Tariel Kakabadze, who also represents Shepherd, said: We cant even start to build our case until we have these files.

I cant tell you what the main thrust of our extradition fight will be yet. We are still waiting for the documents. We need more time.

We are looking forward to getting more documents from the UK to understand his case fully.

Explaining the need to translate the documents, Mr Kakabadze said: Although I speak fluent English, these are complicated legal documents, and I want to make sure I understand them fully.

He said it is unlikely that Shepherd would appear at another extradition hearing in a Georgian court for almost three months.

And when that does happen, his legal team plans to use every means possible to prevent him from being sent back to Britain.

The delays come a day after Shepherd blocked attempts to extradite him swiftly.

His lawyers stopped the move by insisting that the killing of Miss Brown was not a crime under Georgian law  even though he has been found guilty of her manslaughter in a British court.

They also claimed there would be a serious chance he will be tortured and treated cruelly back in the UK.

Shepherd is being held at Gldani Number Eight maximum-security prison in Tbilisi.

After ten months on the run and following a Daily Mail campaign, Shepherd turned himself in to the Tbilisi authorities last week.
Australians only have until the end of the day to opt out before their medical records are uploaded online for thousands to read.

My Health Record aims to centralise medical records in one place so they are easily accessible by medical professionals, but there are privacy fears.

Dozens of records have already been accessed in an unauthorised fashion after a series of errors last year, including cases of Medicare fraud.

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By the end of this year, 17 million Australians will have their private medical records uploaded online as part of the My Health revolution - unless they opt out today (stock image)

The cut-off date to opt out of the $2billion scheme was originally last October but was extended until November 15 and then January 31.

The government decided to give people more time while privacy fixes worked their way through parliament before being implemented.

At least 1.1 million people had already opted out by early November, with so many people logging on in the last days before the deadline that the website crashed.

The system was billed as the biggest overhaul of Australia's health system in a generation - a long-overdue move that would make it easier for doctors to more accurately diagnose their patients.

The Government is talking up the benefits, but there are growing fears individuals' details could fall into the wrong hands - including the health histories of domestic violence sufferers being accessed by their abusers.

Under the new system, Australians will no longer need to contact their previous doctor every time they sign up with a new general practitioner.

Health Minister Greg Hunt (pictured) insisted it would be 'arguably the safest system in the world' but this week flagged five-year jail terms for illegally accessing My Health data

And for doctors, it will mean having a complete medical history of their patients with a simple password, giving them more scope to better prescribe medicines.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt insisted it would be 'arguably the safest system in the world'.

How to opt out of My Health The Australian Digital Health Agency's website has forms to opt out of My Health. Australians can follow the prompts or call the helpline on 1800 723 471. The website will ask for your Medicare, driver's licence, passport or proof-of-identity ImmiCard, issued by the Department of Home Affairs. The deadline to opt out is January 31. Visit - https://optout.myhealthrecord.gov.au Advertisement

'This is about giving people, for the first time, access to their own medical records when they need it, where they want to access it and importantly it's also about preventing misuse of medication,' he told 9 News.

Mr Hunt in November announced maximum five-year jail terms and fines up to $315,000 for illegally accessing My Health data.

But soon after, the Australian Digital Health Agency's annual report revealed 42 suspected cases of unauthorised viewing of e-health records.

One case included a child wrongly being given incorrect authorised parental access. Another two cases involved suspected Medicare fraud.

The chief executive of Medicare also identified 17 cases involving the Department of Human Services accessing e-health records to cross-check Medicare records.

Another 22 breaches involved unauthorised Medicare claims appearing in My Health records.

Domestic violence groups fear abusive husbands or boyfriends could illegally access a woman's My Health data so they could more easily control her (stock image)

Domestic violence groups have called for the government to suspend the system until serious privacy issues are addressed.

They are concerned that abusive husbands and boyfriends would be able use their knowledge of their partners' passwords to access confidential records and track down women.

Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia feared a domineering man could illegally access sensitive details about a woman's sexual history, pregnancy status, mental health, where she lived and any reports about violence.

My Health at a glance My Health is the digitisation of every Australian's medical record. It will enable doctors across Australia to access all details about their patients with a single password. Australians have until January 31 to opt out of the system. So far, 6.2 million Australians have a My Health record. By the end of 2018, that will jump to 17 million. Fines of up to $315,000 and five-year jail terms will be imposed for those illegally accessing the data. Sources: Australian Digital Health Agency; Health Minister Greg Hunt Advertisement

'The proposed My Health system presents an unacceptable safety risk for women and children experiencing violence,' it said in a submission to a Senate inquiry.

'We urge that the government suspend the system until these privacy concerns are addressed.'

The Sydney-based crisis counselling group said a doctor could also illegally access the data on behalf of a violent husband or boyfriend.

'The perpetrator may have access to his partner or children's log in details,' it said.

'He may be a health practitioner himself and have direct access to the system, or have a family member or friend who is a health practitioner and is willing to access the system on his behalf.'

The Gold Coast Domestic Violence Integrated Response feared a partner's ability to gain access to personal health records could even threaten the lives of women and their children.

'An abusive partner's knowledge about these tests, conditions or the admissions the victim has made to health staff about the abuse they have been subjected to, could result in further or an escalation of physical or verbal abuse towards and/or increase the risk of lethality for the victim and their children,' it said in its Senate committee submission.

The Gold Coast Domestic Violence Integrated Response feared a partner's ability to gain access to personal health records could even threaten the lives of women (stock image)

They also feared confidential records could be used in custody battles and be exploited to control women from culturally and religiously conservative communities if someone accessing her records discovered she wasn't a virgin.

Employers and health insurers would also be banned from accessing the information.

The minister also responded to concerns raised by domestic violence support groups by restricting the information held by the Australian Digital Health Agency in circumstances where 'there may be a risk to a person's life, health or safety'.
Ghirardelli has transformed its popular Chocolate Squares bags after it was sued for misleading customers with 'oversized' packaging.

The San Francisco-based company must now include a transparent 'window' in the signature bags to show customers just how much chocolate is actually inside.

Both Ghirardelli and Russell Stover, which are owned by Swiss chocolatier company Lindt & Sprungli, must also pay $750,000 in penalties for their packaging.

Ghirardelli has transformed its famous 'tent bags' (left) after it was sued for misleading customers with 'oversized' packaging. Chocolate squares are currently being sold in completely transparent plastic bags (right)

As part of the settlement, both brands also promised to implement improved packaging practices.

And it seems Ghirardelli is taking the settlement very seriously, going far beyond adding just a small window on each bag.

The company is now selling its famous chocolate squares in completely transparent plastic bags on its website.

Ghirardelli and Russell Stover reached a settlement regarding their 'oversized containers' after they were sued by district attorneys from the Fresno, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Shasta and Yolo counties in California.

Prosecutors claimed that the two companies packaged certain chocolate products in oversized containers that gave consumers 'the misleading appearance that they are purchasing more product than they are actually receiving'.

Both Ghirardelli and Russell Stover, which are owned by Swiss chocolatier company Lindt & Sprungli, must also pay $750,000 in penalties for their packaging

Ghirardelli also advertised one of its chocolate products as having more cocoa inside 'than it actually had,' claimed Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig.

The plaintiff in the complaint is listed as the 'People of the State of California'. The settlement was approved on January 9, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

'Consumers have the right to expect full value in their purchases and compliance with packaging requirements is an integral part of the process,' Reisig said.

'We will continue to aggressively monitor businesses and prosecute those that violate consumer protection laws.'
Champagne was invented by the English, the head of a prestigious French wine making firm has claimed.

Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, the boss of Taittinger Champagne, said the drink had come about accidentally when still wines were left in cold conditions on London docks.

The name of champagne is protected in Europe, referring to wines produced in the Champagne region of France.

The Interprofessional Committee of Champagne Wine argues that the French region which gives its name to the bubbly was the first to produce it 'on a regular basis'.

Champagne was invented by the English, the head of a prestigious winemaking house has claimed (stock photo)

Mr Taittinger said in an interview with Le Figaro: 'They created Champagne because of a mistake. Benedictine monks were supplying them with still wines from Champagne, red and white wine.

'The English left these cheap, still white wines on the docks in London and the wines got cold so they started undergoing a second fermentation.

'Like all great mistakes, it led to a great invention.'

However the official champagne committee says on its website: 'The fact that the French terms 'champagnisation' and 'methode champenoise' were appropriated by other vineyards from the 1830s onwards serves to remind us of where the wine and its techniques did actually originate.

'Quality considerations aside, a timeline based on documentary evidence clearly shows that Champagne is the first ever sparkling wine to have been made on a regular basis by producers in a specific region. And that region is Champagne.'

Champagne is exported to 190 countries and represents 13 per cent of global sparkling wine production, the committee says.

The name of champagne is protected in Europe, referring to wines produced in the Champagne region of France (stock photo)

However English sparkling wine has enjoyed a rise in recent years, rising more than 200 per cent in value in five years, according to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association.

In 2016 it became the fourth-most popular fizz in Britain behind Prosecco, Champagne and Cava.

The wine boss said he 'loved England' and called it a 'big market' for the luxury product.

The English claim is also backed up by a paper submitted to the Royal Society in 1662 which described how to make sparkling wine.

Taittinger launched its own English vineyard in 2015, planting 30 hectares of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in Kent.

The firm's first bottles of English sparkling wine are expected to be ready in 2024, according to its website.
A man has been arrested after he made his online dates fall for him before he scammed them out of money in Puerto Rico.

Wilfredo Ramirez Quinones, 35, had been wanted since October after he fleeced a woman out of $4,000 who he met on Badoo, an online dating site.

The suspect was finally apprehended Thursday in Cidra, a municipality in the center region of the island.

He was charged with illicit appropriation and fraud. A judge imposed a $1million bail bond.

Wilfredo Ramirez Quinones was arrested by the police in Puerto Rico on Thursday after scamming dates he met on Badoo, an online dating site

According to police reports obtained by various media outlets, Quinones used his charms on women in Rio Grande, a city in the northern coast, and in other towns along the eastern coast of the Caribbean island.

He tricked some of his victims and their family members into believing he had access to lavish cruise vacations. Quinones would then request payments to just cover the tax portion of the cruise tickets and would then vanish without a trace.

The con artist was living off a disturbing lie which his dates, without a doubt, were quick to fall for.

An unspecified amount of women were duped by a man in Puerto Rico who presented himself as a former member of the military and told the horrific sob story that his father died in the September 11 attacks at the Twin Towers and that he had been awarded a $5.5 million settlement

Quinones met a woman through Badoo and schemed her out of $4,000 on October 29, 2018. He promised to pay her and her stepfather back by purchasing a car for each of them

He presented himself as a former member of the military.

He then sold the horrific sob story of being the son of a man who perished in the September 11 attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City, and that he had been awarded a $5.5million settlement from a lawsuit.

Quinones would then seek unspecified amounts of money from the empathetic ladies he met through Badoo.

As soon as the money was in his pockets, the ladies' man would ditch them and completely disappear from their lives.

An October 29 scam was his undoing after scheming a $4,000 payment from a date in Rio Grande who undoubtedly fell prey to his deceiving tales.

He even promised to pay the woman and her stepfather back by purchasing a pair of cars for each of them with the millions he was set to received from the settlement before he disappeared on her, too.

A judge in Fajardo indicted him in absentia and issued a warrant for his arrest, setting a $45,000 bail bond after Quinones failed to present himself in court January 3.
Robert Mueller's prosecutors are charging that documents it shared with lawyers for 'Putin's chef' in a key election interference case were altered and published as part of a 'disinformation campaign' to target the Russia probe.

The government made the explosive charge in a filing for the case against Concord Management and Consulting, which prosecutors allege was funding an Internet troll factory behind election hacking.

Prosecutors say self-described 'hackers' published documents shared with the defense  and that the government consequently should be permitted to hold back information that might otherwise get revealed if shared.

Prosecutors say self-described 'hackers' published documents shared with the defense in the case against a Russian firm charged with running a St. Petersburg troll farm  and that the government consequently should be permitted to hold back information that might otherwise get out if shared

The company is owned by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's chef' for his close ties to the Russian President.

In making the case against further sharing of materials, the government revealed that documents shared by prosecutors and traceable to Mueller's office ended up getting released online  and altered.

'Nothing has occurred during the pendency of this litigation to ameliorate these risks. On the contrary, the government's concerns are only heightened by the apparent release and manipulation of information produced to Concord as 'non-sensitive' discovery in this case,' according to the filing.

In this Friday, Nov. 11, 2011 file photo, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, serves food to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, during dinner at Prigozhin's restaurant outside Moscow, Russia

In this Monday, July 19, 2006 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President George W Bush attend a working dinner with the other leaders of the G8 nations, as Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin stands on the right, in St. Petersburg, Russia

'In October 2018, one or more actors made statements claiming to have a stolen copy of discovery produced by the government in this case. The subsequent investigation has revealed that certain non-sensitive discovery materials in the defense's possession appear to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign aimed (apparently) at discrediting ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. political system,' according to the government's lawyers.

ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA - AUGUST 9, 2016: Concord Catering general director Yevgeny Prigozhin at a meeting of Russian and Turkish government officials and business leaders. Prigozhin runs top-end restaurants, has military contracts, and controls a mercenary firm

Special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors in a filing called out a 'disinformation campaign' that relied on documents shared with lawyers for a company charged as part of the election interference probe

In this Monday, Sept. 20, 2010 file photo, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, right, shows Russian President Vladimir Putin, second right, around his factory which produces school means, outside St. Petersburg, Russia. On Friday Feb. 16, 2018, Yevgeny Prigozhin along with 12 other Russians and three Russian organizations, were charged by the U.S. government as part of a vast and wide-ranging effort to sway political opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election

They revealed information about the breach, saying it 'demonstrate the risks of permitting sensitive discovery to reside outside the confines of the United States.'

The Russian company is fighting the charges in federal court in Washington D.C. and has maintained U.S. and Russian legal representation.

The firm's lawyer with Reed Smith did not return an immediate request for comment.

According to the filing: On October 22, 2018, the newly created Twitter account @HackingRedstone published the following tweet: 'We've got access to the Special Counsel Mueller's probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!'

The government said the information that got out was non-sensitive.

The published links included 'file folders with names and folder structures that are unique to the names and structures of materials (including tracking numbers assigned by the Special Counsels Office) produced by the government in discovery.'

The filing also states that a reporter 'contacted the Special Counsels Office to advise that the reporter had received a direct message on Twitter from an individual who stated that they had received discovery material by hacking into a Russian legal company.'

CNN reported on air that it had contacted the special counsel after receiving such a direct message.
At the general audience, Francis retraced the steps of the recent Panama World Youth Day. "As long as there are new generations capable of saying 'here I am' to God, there will be a future for the world". "People held up their children, saying, 'Here is my pride, here is my future!' How much dignity in this gesture, and how eloquent it is for the demographic winter we are living in Europe!

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  At the World Youth Day in Panama "all the flags parade together, dancing in the hands of the joyful young people is a prophetic sign, a mark against the current sad trend of conflictual nationalism that raises walls and is closed to universality, to the meeting of peoples. It is a sign that young Christians are a leaven of peace in the world". This is one of the memories of the Popes visit to the Central American country shared during the general audience, dedicated to the 34th WYD.

Speaking to seven thousand people present in the Paul VI hall, Francis underlined in particular the "strong Marian imprint" of a Day that had as its theme the words of the Virgin - "we called her the 'influencer of God" - to the Angel: I am the Lords servant. May your word to me be fulfilled (Lk 1:38). "It was strong to hear these words spoken by the representatives of the youths of the five continents, and above all to see them appear on their faces. As long as there are new generations capable of saying 'here I am' to God, there will be a future for the world ".

He recalled " People held up their children when the popemobile would pass by. It was if they were trying to say: 'This is my pride, this is my future.' They presented their children. There were many of them and the father and mother were proud of their children. I thought how much dignity there is in this gesture and how eloquent it is, especially during the demographic winter we are living in Europe. Demographic winter without kids, it's hard".

"This World Youth Day was preceded by the meeting of the young people of the native and African-American peoples: a beautiful sign, composed of five days of meetings: they opened the door to the Day. It was an important initiative that has shown the multifaceted face of the Church in Latin America even better. Then, with the arrival of groups from all over the world, the great symphony of faces and languages, typical of this event, was formed. Seeing all the flags parade together, dancing in the hands of the joyful young people is a prophetic sign, a mark against the current sad trend of conflictual nationalism that raises walls and is closed to universality, to the meeting of peoples. It is a sign that young Christians are a leaven of peace in the world ".

"Among the stages of the World Youth Day there is always the Way of the Cross. Walking with Mary behind Jesus carrying the cross is the school of Christian life: there you learn patience, silence concrete love ". "I like to do retrace Way of the Cross. I always have a pocket-sized Way of the Cross with me and when I have time I do it".

"In Panama, the young brought to Jesus and Mary the burden of the condition of so many suffering brothers and sisters in Central America and in the whole world. Among these there are many young victims of different forms of slavery and poverty. And in this sense the penitential liturgy that I celebrated in a Rehabilitation home for minors and the visit to the 'Good Samaritan' Family Home, which houses people affected by HIV / AIDS, were very significant moments ".

"The highlight of the WYD and of the journey were the Vigil and Mass with the young. In the Vigil, that field full of young people - they did the vigil, they slept there and in the morning at 8.00 took part in Mass - the vibrant dialogue with all the boys and girls was renewed, enthusiastic and even capable of silence and listening. I proposed Mary to them as the one who, in her smallness, more than any other, has 'influenced' the history of the world: we called her the 'influencer of God'. The beautiful and strong testimonies of some young people were reflected in her fiat. On Sunday morning, in the great final Eucharistic celebration, the Risen Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit, spoke again to the young people of the world calling them to live the Gospel today, because young people are not 'tomorrow', they are not the 'in the meantime', but they are the today of the Church and of the world. And I have appealed to the responsibility of adults, so that new generations do not lack education, work, community and family. And this is key right now in the world, because they are missing".

"The meeting with all the Bishops of Central America was a moment of special consolation for me. Together we let ourselves be taught by the testimony of the holy bishop Oscar Romero, to learn to 'feel with the Church' better - it was his episcopal motto  close to the young, the poor, the priests, the holy faithful people of God " .

"The consecration of the altar of the restored Cathedral of Santa Maria La Antigua, in Panama was of strong symbolic value. It has been closed for seven years for restoration. A sign of rediscovered beauty, for the glory of God and for the faith and the feast of his people. The Chrism which consecrates the altar is the same as the one used for anointing the baptized, the confirmed, priests and bishops. May the family of the Church, in Panama and in the whole world, draw new fruitfulness from the Holy Spirit ever, so that the pilgrimage of the young missionary disciples of Jesus Christ may continue and spread across the earth ".

Finally, in the greeting to the Italians, Francis recalled that "tomorrow we will celebrate the memory of St. John Bosco, father and teacher of the young. He was a good priest. Don Bosco knew how to make God's embrace felt to all the young people he met, offering them hope, a home, a future. His testimony helps us all to consider how important it is to educate the new generations to authentic human and spiritual values ".
A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloping the Midwest is so severe beer distributors have been forced to halt deliveries.

'Most of the folks up north are not delivering,' Mike Madigan, president of Minnesota Beer Wholesalers Association, told CNN.

'Most distributors are not delivering in the Twin Cities, down south and out west.'

This comes after kegged beer froze while out for delivery on Tuesday, and temperatures fell as low as -26F, with a wind chill of 53 below zero, in Minneapolis.

A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking low temperatures on Wednesday, prompting beer distributors to temporarily halt deliveries of beer in Minnesota. A weather map showing current temperatures across the US is shown

'There's a few [distributors] that have heated trucks,' Madigan said, regarding beer deliveries.

'But there's not many. You tend not to need heated trucks.'

Beer can freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on its alcohol content, and temperatures across the Midwest are much lower than that.

In another rare disruption of service, the USPS halted mail delivery on Wednesday in nine states.

Kegged beer froze while out for delivery on Tuesday, and temperatures fell as low as negative 26 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 53 below zero, in Minneapolis. Steven Willy of Minneapolis is pictured bundled up for a mile walk in the sub-zero temperatures that has also produced dangerous wind chills in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday

In another rare disruption of service, the USPS halted mail delivery on Wednesday in nine states. 'Due to the extreme weather conditions caused by Winter Storm Jaden, we have temporarily suspended delivery service in certain locations to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees,' a tweet from the official USPS account posted late on Tuesday read

'Due to the extreme weather conditions caused by Winter Storm Jaden, we have temporarily suspended delivery service in certain locations to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees,' a tweet from the official USPS account posted late on Tuesday read.

USPS said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years.

The latest update on USPS service disruption was posted at 8am Eastern on Wednesday.

USPS said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years. Postal worker Keith Caniff is pictured sorting mail while on his route in East Grand Rapids, Michigan on Monday, which is an area that has suspended service for Wednesday

The USPS motto states, 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.'

But the motto doesn't say anything about extreme cold, and the weather forecast including record low temperatures in eight states shut down postal operations on Wednesday.

'Weather forecasters are warning of dangerously cold conditions in parts of the nation. Some places could see wind chill readings as low as 60 below zero,' the service alert from USPS said.

'Weather forecasters are warning of dangerously cold conditions in parts of the nation. Some places could see wind chill readings as low as 60 below zero,' the service alert from USPS said. A weather map is pictured showing predicted wind chills for Thursday morning

The alert identified closure areas by the first three numbers of each area's zip code. The final two numbers in every 5-digit zip code precisely identify smaller areas within each zone, with all of those smaller areas included in each area beginning with that three-digit prefix

But elsewhere, mail delivery continued as usual, even with temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

IS YOUR ZIP CODE AFFECTED BY THE USPS DELIVERY HALT? The alert identified closure areas by the first three numbers of each area's zip code. The final two numbers in every 5-digit zip code precisely identify smaller areas within each zone, with all of those smaller areas included in each area beginning with that three-digit prefix Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns for the safety of USPS employees, the Postal Service is suspending delivery January 30 in the following 3-digit ZIP Code locations: Michigan: 486-491, 493-499 Indiana: 460-469, 472-475, 478, 479 Chicago: 606-608 Lakeland [Iowa]: 530-532, 534, 535, 537-539, 541-545, 549, 600, 602, 601, 611 Detroit: 480-485, 492 Central Illinois: 601, 603 - 605, 609, 613, 614, 616, 617 Northern Ohio (Cleveland and Lima areas): 441, 458 Ohio Valley (Cincinnati and Columbus areas): 452, 430-432 Northland [Virginia]: 540, 546-548, 550, 551, 553-564, 566 Hawkeye [Iowa]: 500-514, 520-528, 612 Dakotas: 580-588, 570-577 Eastern Nebraska: 680-689 Advertisement

In another part of Ohio for example, one postal worker told DailyMail.com, 'Just another day in Canton,' confirming that delivery of parcels and packages had been carrying on, as per usual.

In Canton, the low on Wednesday was negative four degrees Fahrenheit (negative 20 Celsius), warming up ever so slightly to negative one Fahrenheit (negative 18 Celsius) by 9am Eastern.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

Officials presiding over many government functions throughout the Midwest were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing.

Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago, where temperatures plunged to negative 19 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 28 degrees Celsius) early on Wednesday, breaking the previous record low for the day set in 1966.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.

In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

'These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately,' Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Tuesday. 'They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.'

A wind chill of negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

Officials presiding over many government functions throughout the Midwest were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. A wind chill of negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service. A weather map showing current wind chills is shown

The extreme cold hitting the US is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase.

That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, said.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.

Those concerned about their mail service can check back for service alerts on the USPS website.
Virginia's governor has drawn backlash after suggesting that a pregnancy could be terminated after the baby's birth, as the state debates a bill relaxing restrictions on third trimester abortions.

Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, made the shocking remarks in an interview with WTOP-FM on Wednesday, as he attempted to explain a Democrat delagate's earlier remarks.

Northam, a pediatric neurologist, described a hypothetical situation where a severely deformed newborn infant could be left to die.

He said that if a woman were to desire an abortion as she's going into labor, the baby would be delivered and then 'resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue' between doctors and the mother.

Governor Ralph Northam (seen last week), a Democrat, made the shocking remarks in an interview with WTOP-FM on Wednesday

Northam was responding to remarks made on Tuesday by Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran, video of which went viral, sparking fury.

In the video, Republican Delegate Todd Gilbert asks Tran whether her legislation would let a pregnant woman who is dilating request an abortion if a doctor certified that the woman's mental health was impaired.

'My bill would allow that, yes,' Tran said. On Wednesday afternoon, the bill was defeated in committee on a party-line vote.

Existing Virginia state law does not put an absolute time limit on abortions and Tran's legislation did not alter that.

Her legislation would reduce the number of doctors who would have to certify late-term abortions are needed from three to one.

It would also delete the requirement that doctors determine that continuing a pregnancy would 'substantially and irremediably' impair a woman's health. Instead doctors would only have to certify that the woman's health was impaired.

Virginia Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran (left) proposed a bill for abortions up until the moment of delivery to the Republican House majority leader on Monday

Supporters said the changes in law would help reduce the bureaucratic burdens women face when dealing with difficult decisions involving late-term abortions, which often involve serious medical complications.

'We must trust women and their health care providers,' Tran said at a Monday subcommittee hearing, where her exchange with Gilbert was recorded.

Opponents of the legislation, which has failed in both the state House and Senate, said it would give essentially allow for late abortions on demand.

Prominent Republicans and conservative media outlets helped spread the video exchange to a wide audience, with more than 2 million views as of Wednesday.

'This is insanity. Seems like advocating for Post Term Abortion AKA MURDER by any standard Im aware of,' Don Trump Jr said of Northam's remarks.

'What is happening in our country. This literally makes me sick to my stomach,' tweeted Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in response to the video.

Former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin said of Northam's remarks: 'Those who never imagined society would actually get there - state governments sanctioning infanticide - must logically understand what gets accepted next #deathpanels.'

The controversy came the same week that a new law in New York was passed allowing abortions up until birth.

Kentucky's Governor Matt Bevin was also motivated to tweet about the proposed legislation.

'First New York, and now a proposed Virginia bill that would legalize abortion up to the moment of birth... This is a sad commentary on the culture of death that continues to creep insidiously into the laws of our county...' Bevin wrote.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio also spoke out, tweeting that Northam is openly supporting legal infanticide.

Yheskel, the governor's spokeswoman, said Northam was only trying to describe the 'tragic or difficult circumstances' involved in a late-term abortion.

'Attempts to extrapolate these comments otherwise is in bad faith and underscores exactly why the governor believes physicians and women, not legislators, should make these difficult and deeply personal medical decisions,' she said.
The Spanish company contracted to build Sydney's long-delayed light rail system is set to receive another $600million because the project has proven to be harder than first thought.

Acciona is likely to receive the payment from the NSW Government after both parties were locked in a dispute over the amount of work required.

The light rail network to the city's CBD was supposed to be finished by March, but is running a year behind schedule and costs have ballooned to $3billion.

The Spanish company contracted to build Sydney's long-delayed light rail system is set to receive another $600 million because the project has proven to be harder than first thought

Acciona is likely to receive the payment from the NSW Government after both parties were locked in a dispute over the amount of work required

The light rail network to the city's CBD was supposed to be finished by March, but is running a year behind schedule and costs have ballooned to $3billion

The Spanish contractor has accused the government of not being transparent about the amount of work required to replace utility lines under George Street in the CBD, The Australian reported.

NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance did not confirm the potential settlement, saying only that talks with Acciona about the project were continuing.

'Over recent months, the civil contractor has turned the project around and good inroads have been made. Final touches are being made to the major civil work,' Mr Constance said.

'Transport for NSW continues to negotiate constructively. These negotiations will continue.

'I am pleased with the progress civil construction company Acciona has been making on the project in recent months.'

The Spanish contractor has accused the government of not being transparent about the amount of work required to replace utility lines under George Street in the CBD (pictured)

NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance did not confirm the potential settlement, saying only that talks with Acciona about the project were continuing

A conga line of tradies and labourers can be seen passing a single brick at a time from the start of the line down to the other end during the building of the light rail link to the CBD

His comments are a departure from those he gave in March after Acciona sent a letter to Transport for NSW threatening to take action against them in the Supreme Court.

'The NSW Government is very unhappy with your performance in relation to the construction of the Sydney light rail project,' Mr Constance wrote in response.

He said NSW was at first an 'unhappy customer' before becoming an 'angry customer'.

Commuters have repeatedly voiced their anger at the delayed project, which has caused disruption and turned swathes of the city into construction sites.

Retailers have also lost revenue or have been forced to close because of lost foot traffic as a result of the work.
Campaigners have welcomed a 'landmark' ruling by the UK's highest court which they say will benefit 'many thousands' of people whose old and minor criminal offences have to be disclosed when applying for certain jobs.

They called on the Government to carry out a review of the criminal records disclosure scheme in the light of a Supreme Court decision today that it was 'disproportionate' in two respects.

These are that all previous convictions should be disclosed - however minor - where the person has more than one conviction, and in the case of warnings and reprimands issued to young offenders.

The Supreme Court ruled in favour of four people who were convicted or received cautions who say their lives are being unfairly haunted by minor offences committed many years ago.

Today the Law Lords of the Supreme Court (pictured above) found the UK scheme requiring disclosure of spent criminal convictions to putative employers under certain circumstances to be 'disproportionate'

Charity director Christopher Stacey said the ruling was a 'crucial step forward' towards a fair and proportionate syetm

One of the litigants, a woman referred to only as P, shoplifted a 99pence book in 1999 while suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia. She believed the book was sending her messages, and then failed to answer bail.

The current rules mean she has to divulge those two convictions when applying for a job with vulnerable people and, in explaining the circumstances, reveal details of her medical history.

Christopher Stacey, co-director of Unlock, a charity for people with convictions, which intervened in the case, said: 'This is an important ruling which stands to affect many thousands of people with old and minor criminal records who have been unnecessarily anchored to their past.

'Today is a crucial step towards achieving a fair and proportionate filtering system that takes a more calibrated and targeted approach towards disclosing criminal records.'

He added: 'We strongly urge the Government to take prompt and considered action on the filtering system, as well as committing to carrying out a fundamental review of the wider criminal records disclosure regime.'

Enver Solomon, chief executive of Just for Kids Law, said the ruling will 'benefit thousands of children issued with cautions each year, a shockingly disproportionate number of whom are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds'.

History of the ruling The Supreme Court ruling upholds a 2017 Court of Appeal ruling, in the face of a challenge by the Home and Justice Secretaries. That 2017 decision by three appeal judges was hailed as a landmark that gave hope to many whose ambitions are said to have been dashed by mistakes in their past. The appeal ruling backed the High Court's 2016 finding that the scheme enforcing the revelation of prior minor offences was 'not in accordance with the law' within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to private life. The UK's Supreme Court building in London The appeal judges said the operation of the scheme as presently devised may in some cases have been disproportionate and therefore not necessary in a democratic society. The Supreme Court was asked to decide whether 'the statutory requirements in relation to the retention and disclosure of certain convictions and cautions to prospective employers' breaches Article 8. At the heart of the case was a 'multiple conviction rule' and disclosure of all previous convictions relating to certain specified offences. Following an earlier Court of Appeal ruling in 2013, the Government revised its disclosure scheme - which requires a person's criminal history to be disclosed in circumstances such as applying for work with children or vulnerable people - to introduce a 'filtering process'. The revised scheme no longer required disclosure of every spent conviction or caution, but still required such disclosure in a limited set of circumstances. These were where the conviction or caution was 'current', was in respect of certain specified offences, had resulted in a custodial sentence, or where the person had more than one conviction. The Supreme Court rejected the Government's appeal in the case of a woman, P, and an individual, G, arrested at the age of 11 for sexually assaulting two younger boys. However, the justices allowed the appeal in relation to an individual referred to as W, who had a conviction for assault as a juvenile for which he was given a two-year conditional discharge. Advertisement

He said: 'There is now an overwhelming view shared by the higher courts and MPs that the Government should act immediately to ensure no child who is given a caution ends up with a criminal record that stigmatises them for life.

'The Government should also now conduct a wide-ranging review of the entire criminal records disclosure regime for children and young people.'

Bob Neill MP, chair of the Justice Committee, said: 'Today's Supreme Court judgment is very welcome.

'The Justice Committee's inquiry ... found that the current disclosure regime is inconsistent with the aims of the youth justice system, with mistakes made as a teenager able to follow someone around for decades - creating a barrier to rehabilitation and preventing large numbers of people from gaining access to employment, education, and housing.

'Our report recommended a range of reforms.

'Following today's judgment, we look forward to hearing about the Government's proposals for ensuring all aspects of the regime are proportionate.'

Lord Sumption, explaining the background to the Supreme Court's ruling, said it involved four individuals who had all been convicted or received cautions or reprimands in respect of 'comparatively minor offending'.

He said: 'The disclosure of their criminal records to potential employers has made it more difficult for them to obtain jobs, or may make it more difficult in the future.'

In each case, the relevant convictions and cautions were 'spent' under legislation designed to enable ex-offenders to put their past behind them.

They had to be disclosed only if they applied for employment involving contact with children or vulnerable adults, he said.

All four challenged the statutory rules under which the disclosure of their records was required as being incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to respect for private and family life.

In the judgement today, the court dismissed appeals by the Home and Justice Secretaries against 2017 Court of Appeal rulings in favour of two individuals, but allowed an appeal in relation to a third person.

They also rejected an appeal by the Department of Justice for Northern Ireland in a fourth case.

A Government spokesman said: 'We have noted the Supreme Court judgment and will consider the ruling carefully before responding.'
Azealia Banks has fired back at the barrister who suggested she could be arrested for her racist outburst, claiming it is proof 'racism is alive and well'.

The 27-year-old rapper posted a long, rambling post on Instagram following Tomas McGarvey's comments that she could be arrested after calling Irish people 'f***ing ugly' when she stormed off an aircraft scheduled to fly from London's Gatwick Airport to Dublin, following a row with an Aer Lingus air stewardess.

A day later she then branded Irish people 'inbred', 'leprechauns' and asked if they 'had a famine to go die in' in a series of social media comments while out in Ireland.

Ms Banks said she was angry at the horrific racist abuse she had been subjected to online, and posted screenshots of some of the vitriolic hate she had received.

In her post, Ms Banks wrote: 'Racism at its finest. The eagerness to put a black woman in a cage. EL OH EL. If Im gettin arrested then we will have to go through my DMs and arrest each and every person who said racist things to me, which would mean youd basically need to arrest the entire country of Ireland.

Azealia Banks performs at KOKO in London on Sunday after her controversial remarks last week (left) and Tomas McGarvey (right)

'Im not sure what kind of point these folk are trying to prove but the racism keeps jumping out of them like vomit on a stomach virus. Literally cannot believe the kind of n****-hunt these folk are on about. Proof that racism is still alive and well in 2019.'

She went onto say that she would not be 'scared into submission' and would continue to call out the racist abuse which she had received through her Instagram Direct Messages from users.

She added: 'Who is Tomas McGarvey? The fact that these people think this should scare me into submission to let people say racist things to me so long as I dont say them back is hilarious.

'Arrest me and THEN do what? Tomas is trying to make me a national hero I see. 212 will shoot straight to the top of the charts and I will become a part of UK School curriculum, Feminist Theory, he will literally make me a HUGE star for arresting me. A blessing in disguise ... go right ahead and make me a Black Feminist Hero if you want to lol....'

The post was in reply to Mr McGarvey's tweet that implied Ms Banks could be prosecuted under the Communications Act 2003.

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr McGarvey said: 'In fairness she was obviously reacting to some of the horrific racist comments made about her following her initial remarks (on her Instagram feed).

'They comments were entirely shocking and unacceptable. There are racists in every country and she sadly attracted racist comments from a very small portion of people in Ireland.

'I assume she incorrectly associated those comments with my tweet and directed her anger at me. She clearly does not know me or what I stand for and has simply got things very wrong.

'I am not used to being verbally abused as I was in some of the comments but being a criminal barrister, I have very thick skin. I think Ms Banks needs to surround herself with people who will protect her from reckless online behaviour and help her to realise you simply cannot and should not behave as she did.'

Banks did not seem to let the latest controversy dampen her performance in London

Last week, Mr McGarvey tweeted: 'Hi #azeliabanks in light of your recent comments on #instagram about Irish women & Irish people generally, perhaps I can introduce you to the #CommunicationsAct2003 (s127) before you land in England. If you keep up the insults, you may end up with first hand experience.'

He included a screenshot of section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which listed a series of measures which Banks's tweets and recent outbursts could have broken.

Section 127 covers offensive and threatening messages sent over a 'public' electronic communications network. Since 2010 it has increasingly been used to arrest and prosecute individuals for messages posted to sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Barrister Tomas McGarvey suggested that Azealia Banks could be arrested under the Communications Act 2003 if she made the remarks while on tour in England

Earlier this week, Banks referenced the Great Famine of Ireland, from 1845-49, which saw one million Irish people die from starvation and disease, she wrote to one follower: 'Don't you have a famine to go die in?'

Responding to another follower in another offensive comment, she wrote: 'Because most of you can't talk or write lol.

McGarvey included section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 in his tweet, which covers offensive and threatening messages sent over a 'public' electronic communications network

'You lot are a bunch of prideful inbred leprechauns who have ZERO global influence and ZERO white privilege. The rest of the world's white folk don't want to associate with you lot at all and it's because you are barbarians.

Continuing her rant, she wrote: 'I'm happiest knowing the Irish are quarantined on an isle so they can continue to inbreed and keep their defective genes away from humanity.

In response to one comment saying: 'I'm still waiting to see a pretty Irish woman' she responded 'LOL'.

Banks flew back into the UK to perform at Manchester's O2 Ritz and is due to perform at London's Electric Brixton this Sunday.

Under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, the law states: 'A person is guilty of an offence if he (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character'.

It goes on to add: 'A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another.;

Azealia Banks' rabbling Instagram post in full 'Racism at its finest. The eagerness to put a black woman in a cage. EL OH EL. 'If Im gettin arrested then we will have to go through my DMs and arrest each and every person who said racist things to me, which would mean youd basically need to arrest the entire country of Ireland. 'Im not sure what kind of point these folk are trying to prove but the racism keeps jumping out of them like vomit on a stomach virus. 'Literally cannot believe the kind of n****-hunt these folk are on about. Proof that racism is still alive and well in 2019. 'Who is Tomas McGarvey? The fact that these people think this should scare me into submission to let people say racist things to me so long as I dont say them back is hilarious. 'Arrest me and THEN do what? .. Tomas is trying to make me a national hero I see. 212 will shoot straight to the top of the charts and I will become a part of UK School curriculum, Feminist Theory, he will literally make me a HUGE star for arresting me. A blessing in disguise... go right ahead and make me a Black Feminist Hero if you want to lol....' Advertisement

'A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.'

Last night Banks looked carefree as she performed at KOKO in London following her outburst.

She was seen smiling at the crowd as she worked her way through her setlist, before waving at her fans.

Rant: The 27-year-old rapper made her initial comments on her Instagram account, after storming off an aircraft scheduled to fly from London's Gatwick Airport to Dublin, following a row with an Aer Lingus air stewardess

Vile: And a day after offering a proverbial olive branch by dedicating her Dublin show to 'beautiful Irish women' on Tuesday, the musician branded Irish people 'inbred', 'leprechauns' and mocked the potato famine in a series of social media comments

The performance comes after Azealia begged Conor McGregor to 'help her' after she unleashed another vile social media rant aimed at Irish people.

Before the sickening outburst Conor McGregor had watched the rapper's Instagram story and messaged her saying, 'hahaha. See you soon.'

She then replied, pleading with the Irish MMA star to help her. She wrote: 'Conor they are bullying me. Help me :('

Taking the stage at The Academy  after completing her journey to Ireland by road and ferry  the New Yorker told the crowd: 'I want to dedicate this to all the beautiful Irish women that are here.'

The sold-out show appeared to be pleasing to her fans, many of whom shared gushing posts on Instagram about the star and her performance  before having their clips and snaps shared by the American musician herself.

On Wednesday morning, the 212 rapper took to Instagram to play down her teary display during her rant on Monday in which she made the inflammatory comments.

Next to a screenshot of Aer Lingus' statement confirming she had left the flight, Azealia wrote: 'People are so addicted to Azealia Banks trauma porn that they hop on ANY opportunity to try and make it seem like my life is all sad and horrible.

'Im FINE GUYS! I didnt get kicked off the plane. I got off the plane on my own. When I got off the plane they kept chastising me and saying they were gonna call the police (for no reason) and it made me cry.

'My Dublin show at the Academy is part of a series of joints to rebuild my profile in Ireland and the UK. I'm honestly so grateful the show went well!!!!

'Ive been really really missing all my friends across the pond and if I have to drive ten hours to a four hour ferry to preserve my peace of mind and be in the highest spirits to re-connect with my people then A b**ch has to do what she has to do!!!!!!!'

On Monday, an air passenger told how an Aer Lingus air hostess asked Banks Are you going to be trouble? when the star tried to put her bags in the overhead locker.

Rant: On Monday, Azealia broke down after claiming she had been banned from Aer Lingus flights, following a row with the airline's staff. In the midst of her rant, she made the slur

Banks asked for Conor McGregor to help her after she said she was being 'bullied'

Banks launched an extraordinary tearful rant at Aer Lingus staff after a row with a stewardess before a flight from Gatwick to Dublin.

The musician removed herself from a morning flight to Dublin, ahead of her sold-out gig at The Academy in the Irish capital on Tuesday.

The passenger told MailOnline: Azealia was sitting in front of me. It was a busy flight and there was not a lot of space.

She was right at the front. A male friend was putting her things in the overhead locker, but Azealia needed to get something from her bag.

She was stood in the aisle and preventing other passengers from boarding.

Then she turned to the hostess and said, Are you staring at me? Why are you staring at me? I didnt fill out an Air Lingus form to be stared at.'

The passenger, who asked not to be named added: To be honest with you I think the airline staff were a bit aggressive and confrontational with her.

They were asking Azealia if she was going to be trouble before we had even taken off, which only escalated the situation.

Azealia was at the front of the plane and the stewardess was trying to hurry her along.

Banks performing at KOKO London last night, dressed in a white corset

She said the attendants were harassing her and I think they were a bit heavy handed.

She claimed she had been 'banned' from the airline after leaving the flight, saying she had been 'treated like a wild animal' on what she called her 'travel day from hell'.

The airline has confirmed she left the 10.55am flight from Gatwick but declined to comment on her specific allegations.

Banks famously launched a foul-mouthed tirade at a flight attendant calling him a 'f***ing f***ot' when she was unable to get off a Delta plane in 2005.

Taking to social media, she said a stewardess had accused her of threatening to 'sort you out'.

The musician denied she had used those words, saying she was from New York and would not have used that turn of phrase.

The passenger who witnessed the row also denied Banks said 'I will sort you out' to an air hostess.

In a series of Instagram stories she said: 'Every time I come to the UK, they always make some s**t with these airline people.

'They are always starting s*** with me. I had my bags deep in the plane and the lady was asking me some questions.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Azealia for comment.
Sera Ulgar's swimwear range upset the Hindu cleric. The Goddess line also includes jackets and leggings

A London fashion designer has insisted she will not recall her new clothing line after incurring the wrath of a prominent Hindu cleric who branded it 'inappropriate'.

Sera Ulger used the Goddess Durga on items in her new range which depicts her 'journey with yoga and meditation' and celebrates women.

The 30-year-old from east London was trolled on social media after the release when the range which includes 395 jackets was criticised by US-based cleric Rajan Zed.

The use of the protective mother goddess in Hinduism by the Dalston-based designer caught the attention of the cleric, the Evening Standard reported.

He said: 'Goddess Durga is highly revered in Hinduism and meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines, and not to adorn one's buttocks and crotch.

'Hinduism is the third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled.

'The inappropriate usage of Hindu deities for commercial or other agenda is not OK as it hurts devotees.'

'Hindus are for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else, if not more. But faith is something sacred and attempts at trivialising it hurt the followers.'

Rajan Zed is a renowned campaigner who has won a number of battles with firms for using Hindu symbols and deities in marketing

Ms Ulger said she will not back down despite being targeted by trolls.

She told the Standard: 'I do want to sincerely apologise to the Hindu community for offending them without meaning to. I had no intention to hurt anyone during my design process.

'My brand is about girl power, woman power. It's about attitude with a lot of emotion to the print. So using the goddess went hand in hand.

'Not everyone loves it but that's okay with the creative industry, you either love it or hate it. It would cost me thousands of pounds to take it out of production, something I can't afford. I'm not a massive brand and I want to be able to express myself without someone telling me I can't.'

Rajan Zed led a campaign against the Tollgate Brewery over its Kalika IPA, which showed a picture of the goddess Kalika, also known as Kali.

The president of the Universal Society of Hinduism eventually ensure the beer was pulled from shelves.

Amazon also pulled products including a range of doormats with imprints of Hindu gods and goddesses on them after a boycott Amazon drive from Mr Zed.

Award-winning Cheshire Brewhouse promised to change their label which carried the sacred 'om' symbol after criticism from the Hindu cleric.
Chris Christie said one of the 'most loathsome, disgusting crimes' he prosecuted was against Jared Kushner's father in his latest shot against the White House adviser.

'I mean it's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was US attorney,' he told PBS Tuesday night, adding that he was the federal attorney in New Jersey 'so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there.'

Christie prosecuted Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, in 2004 when he was U.S. attorney for New Jersey and claims that was the reason the younger Kushner got him fired from heading Donald Trump's transition team after the 2016 election.

Chris Christie said one of the 'most loathsome, disgusting crimes' he prosecuted was against Jared Kushner's father

Christie prosecuted Jared Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, in 2004 when he was U.S. attorney for New Jersey

Christie Charles Kushner "It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted...and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey." Chris Christie talks about prosecuting Charles Kushner for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering. The former Governor of New Jersey has not been quiet expressing his belief that Jared Kushner is still angry with him for sending his father to prison. #FiringLineShowPBS Posted by Firing Line with Margaret Hoover on Tuesday, 29 January 2019

In his appearance on PBS' 'Firing Line,' Christie was asked if he could separate it if his father was put in jail from the prosecutor who put him there.

'If my father is guilty, I would. Mr. Kushner pled guilty. He admitted the crimes,' Christie said. 'And so what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor? I mean If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?'

It the latest salvo in a feud between Christie, a longtime friend of Trump, and Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

In his memoir, 'Let Me Finish,' the former New Jersey governor lets loose on Kushner. In addition to blaming him for getting him fired from the Trump transition team, he claims Kushner and Ivanka Trump kept him from being Trump's running mate and charged Kushner with being a political lightweight.

The feud, however, dates back to the 2004 prosecution of Charles Kushner, a real estate magnet.

The elder Kushner plead guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness, and another count of lying to the Federal Election Commission.

Charles Kushner's retaliation conviction had to do with a revenge plot against his brother-in-law William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors.

Charles Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera taped the encounter. That tape was then sent to Schulder's wife, who was Charles' sister Esther.

The Schulders, in turn, brought the tape to prosecutors, who tracked down the prostitute and threatened her with arrest. She turned on Kushner and revealed the plot.

Christie subsequently negotiated a plea deal with Charles Kushner.

The tawdry case not only put the elder Kushner in jail for two years, it caused great embarrassment to the Kushner family.

Jared Kushner, in a 2014 interview with real estate publication The Real Deal, talked about how his father's case affected him: 'My dad's arrest made me realize I didn't want to be a prosecutor anymore. The law is so nuanced. If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing. It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him. I just never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to, whether right or wrong. The moral weight of that was probably a bit more than I could carry.'

Charles Kushner (center) wades though the media with his legal team and wife to the U.S. District Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, in August 2004

Christie's memoir covers his time in the New Jersey gubernatorial mansion in addition to his work with the Trump campaign

Christie's slam of Kushner was his latest salvo against the president's son-in-law

In his memoir, for which Christie is in the mist of a book tour, he recounts how Jared Kushner badmouthed him to Trump in an April 2016 meeting while Christie was in the room.

'He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up,' Christie wrote. 'Just a lot of feelings  very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years.'

The former governor claims Kushner told Trump that it wasn't fair his father spent so long in prison - the elder Kushner served 14 months behind bars and the rest of his two year sentence in a halfway house.

Jared Kushner also insisted the sex tape and blackmailing was a family matter that should have been kept away from federal authorities: 'This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis,' Christie quotes Kushner as saying.
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A Denver couple has launched a mission to photograph every single Holocaust survivor in the United States.

John Pregulman and his wife Amy Israel Pregulman started out by helping a friend take pictures of Holocaust survivors in Chicago five years ago and it later turned into their life-long passion project.

John started out photographing 65 survivors over the course of three days in Chicago then turned his lens towards the rest of the nation, curious about the estimated 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in the U.S.

Since then, he and his wife have crossed 36 cities and documented 735 survivors.

John Pregulman and his wife Amy Israel are seeking to photograph every single Holocaust survivor in the U.S. So far they've snapped 735 survivors across 36 cities and they hang up their portraits in their Denver office (above)

In action: John Pregulman and his wife Amy pictured above snapping Holocaust survivor Estare Weiser and her husband David on January 9

'I became completely overwhelmed by these amazing, courageous people. But we're going to get as many as we can,' Pregulman said to the Denver Post.

'We have this feeling of: Why wait? Theres no time,' Amy said to the paper.

The photos will not go to any exhibit or gallery, in fact they only go to the survivors themselves.

The only other place where they're all displayed is Pregulman's personal office in Denver, where the walls are lined from top to bottom with the portraits.

For the couple, taking these touching photographs has a deep meaning - it's a chance for survivors to recount their stories and journeys into the States.

'Many of these people don't get the opportunity to be seen or heard,' Amy said.

'Their biggest fears are that they'll be forgotten,' John echoed.

And the couple have learned a lot during the journey. They've learned to go for small cameras as big ones can be intimidating and for color prints as black and white photographs look too eerie.

'I say what an honor it's been to take their photos. I tell them what remarkable and strong people they are,' John said on his methodology.

The couple's latest subject - and 735th photograph - was Estare Weiser, the mother of Colorado's new attorney general Phil Weiser.

She is the youngest Holocaust survivor the couple has photographed.

She was born in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany that was liberated just one day later on April 13, 1945.

Weiser said that her mother didn't realize she was pregnant until she was five months in and managed to send a message to the her father who was held at a men's camp.

'She said, "You have reason to live,"' Weiser said.

'I dont know how she did it. I dont know how she survived being pregnant. My mother always said, "The most important thing you need is luck." And there were a lot of lucky breaks that she had that she was able to survive,' she added.

After sharing her story she told the couple: 'I think I'm getting more out of this than I expected.'

'We havent had a true photo of us maybe since our kids were married. There's something really nice about having photographs and memories,' she said to the paper as she posed with her husband of nearly 52 years.

One of the most profound interviews for the couple was photographing a Holocaust survivor in Orlando, Florida.

That's where they realized the severe destitution so many survivors live in today. Today 30 percent to 35 percent of Holocaust survivors in America - about 35,000 people - live in poverty.

They give the photos to the survivors and save a copy for their Denver office, a myriad of portraits pictured above on the walls of their office

In 2015 they founded KAVOD, a nonprofit that provides emergency aid to Holocaust survivors living in poverty to help the 30 to 35 percent of survivors living in poverty in the U.S.

The Orlando woman John interviewed welcomed him into her home and offered him something to eat. Upon opening her fridge, John was shocked to find it practically empty.

'She told me, "This month I had to spend my grocery money to take care of a broken air conditioner,"' John said.

'We found that the survivors, when they don't have enough money, they do without food. Because that's what they've experienced,' he added.

To aid the staggering number of impoverished survivors, the couple founded KAVOD in 2015, a nonprofit that provides emergency aid to Holocaust survivors living in poverty.

'We came up with the name because "kavod" means dignity, honor and respect in Hebrew. We felt that any human being deserves to be treated that way,' Amy said.

The charity hands out gift cards to survivors for necessary goods like groceries and medicine, and 100 percent of the raised funds go directly to those in need.

'Its been a godsend for us. They are providing a service no one else is,' John Keyser, a spokesman for Jewish Family Service in Denver said.

For the Pregulman's, it's been a life changing experience photographing and meeting so many survivors scattered across the country.

The couple try to stay in touch with the people they document. John noted that several survivors have passed away since their photos were taken.

He says survivors he met who emigrated to America went on to pursue very different life trajectories. One became a Playboy bunny, another speaks in maximum security prisons helping inmates, and a 103-year-old from North Carolina sang opera for the king and queen of Holland.

'I'm just in awe. I'm blown away by these people,' Amy said on the stories they've heard.
Alianna DeFreeze was abducted as she walked to school then tortured, raped and killed in January 2017. Her school did not call her parents after she failed to show up in the morning

The family of a 14-year-old girl who was abducted as she made her way to school then raped, tortured and killed in an abandoned house are suing her school which did not tell her parents she was missing for 10 hours.

Alianna DeFreeze was abducted in January 2017 as she walked towards her charter school in Cleveland, Ohio, after getting off a school bus by 45-year-old sex offender Christopher Whitaker.

Whitaker was sentenced to death last year and is on death row.

On Monday, Alianna's parents, Damon DeFreeze and Donnesha Cooper, filed a lawsuit against him, her school and the City of Cleveland claiming wrongful death.

Crucially, they allege in their lawsuit that Alianna's charter school, E Prep & Village Prep Woodland Hills Breakthrough School, could have prevented her death by phoning her mother when she did not arrive at school in the morning.

Cooper did not learn that her daughter was missing until after 4pm when she failed to return home.

It was only when she phoned the school and was told that Alianna, who her mother said suffered a developmental disability, had never even made it to the campus that she realized she was missing.

In their lawsuit, Cooper and the girl's family say they could have saved her if they were told she was missing earlier in the day.

They say it was 'completely' out of character for the teenager to miss school and that the school should have known as much when she did not show up without any notice from either parent.

After being abducted, Alianna was tortured for hours then raped and killed. Her body was found three days later.

Christopher Whitaker, 45, followed the 14-year-old after she got off her school bus and snatched her from the street. He took her to an abandoned house then mutilated her and raped her before stabbing her to death. He is now on death row

Her parents are also suing the City in addition to the owner of the abandoned house for not keeping a closer eye on it but their wrath is directed mostly at the school.

'Alianna's absence should have raised serious red flags, especially since she suffered from developmental disabilities.

'They never contacted Ms. Cooper to inform her that Alianna did not make it to school.

'Because they did not receive any notice of Alianna's absence, they properly assumed that their precious daughter was safe,' the lawsuit reads.

'At 4pm, Ms. Cooper became extremely concerned about Alianna because she had not arrived home. She called E Prep and - for the first time - she was told that Alianna never arrived at school and was absent the entire day.

'She knew that missing school was completely out of character for her daughter so she urgently called the authorities.

'The search did not begin until the evening - ten hours after she had been abducted.

Alianna was found dead inside this abandoned home three days after she was missing

Alianna's parents, Damon (left) and Donnesha (right) say her school could have prevented her death

'It is well known that the first few hours a child goes missing are the most crucial in order to find them before they are harmed or killed.

'Defendants' complete and utter failure to notify Ms. Cooper and/or Mr. DeFreeze of their daughter's unexcused absence from school caused the police to be notified of her disappearance much later than they would have been if Defendants School System had given Ms. Cooper prompt and immediate notice that she never arrived at school that day,' it continued.

It is not clear exactly what time Alianna was killed.

In her parents' lawsuit, they say the final 'hours' of her life were spent being tortured by the man.

He used electric drills to mutilate her then stabbed her to death after sexually assaulting her.

The school did not call the 14-year-old's mother to tell her she had not shown up all day

'The last hours of Alianna's life were spent in excruciating, paralyzing, debilitating and unthinkable physical and mental pain as her body was desecrated before her life was snuffed out at the hands of Defendant Whitaker due to the negligence of Defendants,' the lawsuit said.

A representative for the school would not comment citing pending litigation but said: 'We cannot comment on pending litigation at this time other than to say, Aliannas death was a terrible loss to our entire school community and we have tried to stay in touch with the parents and be supportive to the parents along the way.'

Whitaker claimed during his trial that he was high on cocaine at the time and tried to use that as a defense so that he would not be held responsible.

He is awaiting execution on death row.
The embattled former chairman of Nissan has claimed his arrest over nearly 60m of alleged fraud was the result of a plot and treason against him by executives at the company.

Carlos Ghosn, 64, said he has no doubt that Nissan bosses who were unhappy about his plans for closer ties with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors were behind his arrest in Japan for alleged financial misconduct.

In his first interview since he was arrested on November 19, Mr Ghosn said he had spoken to Nissan chief executive Hiroto Saikawa about the plan to integrate the companies in September.

Carlos Ghosn, 64, said he has no doubt that Nissan bosses who were unhappy about his plans for closer ties with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors were behind his arrest in Japan for alleged financial misconduct (stock image from April 2018)

Mr Ghosn, who spearheaded the turnaround of Nissan two decades ago, said he wanted to include Mitsubishis chief executive Osamu Masuko in the discussions, but that Mr Saikawa had preferred the talks be one-on-one.

He said he ultimately wanted to ensure there would be autonomy under one holding company once the businesses were more closely integrated.

But this is understood to have ruffled feathers at Nissan - with Mr Ghosn claiming it eventually led to his arrest as opponents sought to block the plan.

Mr Ghosn forged an alliance between Renault and Nissan in 1999, and brought Mitsubishi on board in 2016.

The French-Brazilian businessman also denied accusations that his tenure at Nissan had been a dictatorship.

People translated strong leadership to dictator, to distort reality for the purpose of getting rid of me, he said.

Local publication the Nikkei Asian Review said it was able to talk to him in person for around 20 minutes.

Japanese authorities originally arrested Mr Ghosn on charges of under-reporting his income by 34ms and using 13m in company money to cover personal losses, though more charges have since been added.

Mr Ghosn forged an alliance between Renault and Nissan in 1999, and brought Mitsubishi on board in 2016 (stock image)

He also is accused of making an 11.6m payment to a Saudi businessman for a letter of credit to help him with the investment losses.

But in the interview, Mr Ghosn denied the accusations and claimed the executive in charge of the region signed [the approval].

He said the payment was made from his CEO reserve - a pot of money he was free to decide how to spend - and that four officers had to sign off the payment to Khaled al-Juffali.

Mr Ghosn, who spearheaded Nissans turnaround two decades now, has been held in a Tokyo detention centre since he was arrested.

He has been refused bail twice and deemed a flight risk, despite promising to pay for a private flat, security guards, an ankle bracelet and to surrender his passports so that he can be released during the investigation.

In the interview, he insisted he was not a flight risk.

I wont flee, I will defend [myself], he added. All the evidence is with Nissan, and Nissan forbids all employees to talk to me.

He has denied all the charges against him.

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Ghosns wife Carole has claimed he has received harsh treatment at the hands of the authorities since his arrest.

After his arrest he was quickly sacked as chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi, though he was initially kept on as chairman and chief executive of Renault.

The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance yesterday said its combined sales rose by 1.4pc to almost 11m units last year - meaning around one in nine of all cars and vans sold across the world were produced by one of the three companies.

It is unclear what the long-term prospect of the alliance will be if Ghosn is no longer at the helm.

A Nissan spokesman said: Nissans investigation uncovered substantial and convincing evidence of misconduct, resulting in a unanimous board vote to dismiss Ghosn and [Greg] Kelly as chairman and representative director.

Our investigation is ongoing, and its scope continues to broaden. In a recent interview, Nissans CEO Hiroto Saikawa refuted the notion of a coup.

Nissan remains steadfast in its commitment to the Alliance and will continue to support its partners in the best interests of shareholders, customers and employees.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

The decision to follow the new autocephalous Church comes after a community debate and vote. Priests are braking. Determinants of the wounds of the war: the son of a parishioner is a prisoner of the Russians. "We cannot remain in a church that blesses the Cossacks and those who kill Ukrainians".

Odessa (AsiaNews) - The parishioners of the church of St. Demetrius in the village of Puzhajkovo, near Odessa, recently decided to leave the Moscow Patriarchate to join the new Ukrainian autocephalous Church. Leading the initiative was one of the parishioners, Viktor Soroka, father of one of the sailors arrested in the Kerch Strait incident on 25 November, when some Ukrainian ships were blocked by the Russians. Soroka's son is still held in a Russian prison.

The passage of the church had become a matter of honor for Viktor: "We must understand that after five years of war, today we cannot remain in a Church that blesses the Cossacks and those who kill the Ukrainians," he told the press. The decision on the change of jurisdiction was decided by a majority of the parishioners assembly.

Another voter, Larisa Cheban together with her whole family noted: "The vote was very transparent, we collected the signatures and no one quarreled; I think everything went very well ". According to Larisa, only one resident of the village voted against the passage to the autocephalous Church, even though the parish priest tried to convince those present to remain with the patriarchate of Moscow, saying that he would not pass. "But he is young, does not realize how things are and what people want," said Larisa.

The priest is gone, and at the village they are waiting for Kiev to send a new parish priest. The church for prudence has been sealed and no ceremony takes place; the outgoing parish priest refused to make statements. Only the sacristan Mikhail, the only one to vote against, tells of the pressures of the promoters towards the assembly: "It all happened very quickly, within three days ... to take the initiative were the most influential parishioners and richer, who could afford to go around the houses to convince others, had more contacts than everyone else. We, on the contrary, were not very organized ".

Other parishioners, who refused to attend the assembly, were resentful with the group of promoters: "It was a real coup, they took the church without any discussion," said Natalia Petrova. She does not consider legitimate the new autocephalous Church, despite the concession of Tomos from Constantinople: "They did not even want to listen to the parish priest, they just told him to step aside", Natalia complains.

The group of promoters respond to the accusations showing the video of the assembly, in which everyone expressed themselves freely and without pressure in favor of the new Church. In their view, undue pressure is being exerted by the minority of pro-Russian parishioners. "Russian priests are always trying to scare people, it's their way of doing things, they know that they are losing their power and their churches here," warns Viktor Soroka.

According to Viktor, the four surrounding villages are also deciding to pass under the authority of Epifanyj of Kiev, and soon the respective parish assemblies will take place. The area of Odessa, a large port on the Black Sea immortalized by the famous film Battleship Potemkin, is one of the most affected by the conflict with Russia, but the reality is that the debate is raging in parishes throughout Ukraine.
A 300-year-old British coin has sold at auction for a world-record price of 845,000.

The five guinea 'Vigo' coin dates to 1703 and was made using gold seized by the British from a Spanish treasure ship at the Battle of Vigo Bay.

Just 20 of the coins were struck, in celebration of the victory, and they are now among the most collectable pieces of coinage in the world.

The Queen Anne Vigo coin was sold by London auctioneers Baldwin's of St. James's.

It was eventually bought by a phone bidder for a hammer price of 703,000. With fees added on the total price paid for it was 845,000.

The 20 five guinea Vigo coins were struck from gold plundered from a Spanish galleon, They were struck with a distinctive 'VIGO' mark

The whopping price is the highest ever shelled out for a British coin, smashing the previous record of 630,000 for an 1817 George III silver crown.

The series of Vigo coins were made out of 7.5lbs of gold captured from a Spanish galleon. After the British failed to capture Cadiz in October 1702, the fleet intercepted Spanish treasure ships laden with Aztec and Inca gold, coming back from America.

The British attacked the Spanish fleet in Vigo Bay and captured the gold and silver on board.

The booty was then returned to Britain where, desperate for gold, the Bank of England had it melted down and turned into coins.

The pieces feature a bust of Queen Anne on one side and coats of arms on the other.

Of the 20 coins struck 16 are known of. This coin spent many years with a private collector who decided it was the right time to sell it.

The obverse of the coin shows the date of its striking and includes a traditional Tudor rose as well as coats of arms of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland

Stephen Fenton, director of Baldwin's said: 'We figured it would get a very high price like this because the market is so strong the moment.

'These English five guinea coins are among the most desirable coins about and we had a lot of interest.

'The history of the Vigo coins really appeals to collectors and even brings in a whole different market from Spain.

'Because of the price there will always be a slight limit to how many people can buy them but on this occasion interest was incredibly strong.'

Mr Fenton added: 'The coin is in amazing condition and has been given the highest grading possible by an expert.

'It had been with a private collector but with the market as strong as it is at the moment, he decided it was the right time to place it in our auction.'

The price is vastly higher than similar sales in recent years. Two years ago a similar coin was sold at for just 225,000.

That Vigo, sold at Boningtons in November 2016 was at the time only the sixth example of its type to be offered for sale in the last 50 years.

Another example sold for 240,000 in Lewes in December 2012. And auctioneers Spink sold one in 2005 for 130,000 and an inferior example for 82,000 two years later.

The 'Vigo' coins are incomparably more valuable than equivalent coins from a similar period.

A two-guinea Queen Anne gold coin dating from 1713, which was similarly struck but without the Vigo mark, sold for just 5,400 in 2016.
John Michael Clare's son called the San Bernandino Sheriff's Department at approximately 4pm on Saturday to share that his father (pictured) fell at South Fork Trail

Sheriff's deputies in California found a 56-year-old man's body on Sunday, a day after he fell from an ice chute at the San Bernandino National Forest.

John Michael Clare's son called the San Bernandino Sheriff's Department at approximately 4pm on Saturday to share that his father fell at South Fork Trail in the area of Jenks Lake.

The San Bernandino Sheriff's Department confirmed the man's identity with the DailyMail.com.

Clare's son - named Scott - told authorities that he had to hike two hours from where his father fell, so that he could get cell reception, the department said in a release.

The South Fork Trail is located just a few miles from Highway 38 and starts at approximately 6,900ft.

Using night vision goggles and Forward-Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR), sheriff's helicopter crews searched for the man's body into the next day.

Clare's son - named Scott - told authorities that he had to hike two hours from where his father fell, so that he could get cell reception. The South Fork Trail is located just a few miles from Highway 38 and starts at approximately 6,900ft

San Gorgonio search and rescue were called in to hike to the location because the sheriff's couldn't find the man in their search.

The SAR team found Clare's body in a ravine at approximately 2.34am.

Ice and snow prompted the team to request a hoist recovery for the victim.

His wife, Melinda Clare, took to Facebook to share news of her husband's death and also offered insight as to what happened in the man's final moments

Melinda shared that her husband was not a fan of church funerals

Clare's body was then handed off to the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department for further investigation.

His wife, Melinda Clare, took to Facebook to share news of her husband's death and also offered insight as to what happened in the man's final moments.

She said: 'John lost his footing and fell in hard, icy snow and he started sliding and couldnt stop. He fell into a ravine estimated at 500 feet down.

The SAR team found Clare's body in a ravine at approximately 2.34am on Sunday

'Scott was able to yell and communicate with him but then had to leave him to get into cell range to get ems moving. He made it off the hill just as ems arrived.

Scott took to his Instagram to post a tribute to his father on Monday

Scott took to his Instagram to post a tribute to his father on Monday, and said: 'It is with a very heavy heart that I have to accept this reality so soon, but it brings me comfort knowing I was with you doing what we love to do. Im the luckiest son in the world to have had you as a father.

'Youve taught me many things in life but one of the biggest lessons I learned from you was that when life kicks you down, you get your a*s back up and kick that motherfu**r back. That advice holds true more than ever right now and although Im grieving harder than I ever have in my life, I hold my head high and proud in your memory. I love you pops.'

Melinda shared that her husband was not a fan of church funerals.
This rare footage shows a 20-strong group of dolphins swimming gracefully off the British coast.

Julian Northway, 32, spotted the pod as he was piloting his boat, the MTS Terramare, back to dock.

The captain in the merchant navy said he did not use any specialist equipment to film the dolphins - instead choosing to use a GoPro strapped to the end of a hook which he stuck in the water.

Julian Northway, 32, spotted the pod as he was piloting his boat, the MTS Terramare, back to dock

Mr Northway, from Teignmouth, Devon, failed six times to get a good shot before capturing the stunning footage on the seventh attempt

Mr Northway, from Teignmouth, Devon, failed six times to get a good shot before capturing the stunning footage on the seventh attempt.

He said: 'It came out a lot better than I thought, it took a lot of shots to get that.

'I saw the pod of dolphins approaching and went up the bow and slowly lowered the boat hook into the water with the GoPro attached to the end of it,

'I waited for a minute with it in the water, and then went back to the wheelhouse to see what footage I got but most times it was nothing or just white water.

'Each time I had to rush back down when I saw another pod approaching, it took about five hours in total.'

Mr Northway said he spotted the pod around 20 miles south of the Eddy Stone Lighthouse off Plymouth, Devon.

He said spotting dolphins was a rare occurrence but that it seemed to be happening more frequently.

Mr Northway continued: 'The pod was big - there was at least 15 to 20 all around the boat.

'It's becoming more common, we're getting more sightings than we used to.

'They seem to be around all year now.

The footage was shot on a GoPro that was attached to a stick and then put underwater

'I've tried to film them before but it didn't work - dolphins don't tend to hang around very long, especially on this boat - I think its too loud for them.

'While the weather was good on that day I thought I'd give it another go, and I'm glad I did.

'I was amazed at what I got, I had a massive smile on my face - I couldn't believe how well it came out.

'I'm not a techy guy and I thought, ' bloody hell, it worked'.'
An 18-year-old woman is the latest young person to die of a suspected party drug overdose.

Friends of Marli Cartmer-Congiu said she took GBH, otherwise known as liquid ecstasy, for the first time at a house party in Sydney's inner-east on Saturday night.

A short time later, she collapsed. Her friends called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital, but she couldn't be saved.

'Everyone is in shock. She had never done this before, it was the most one-off thing,' her school friend Zoe Koster told The Sydney Morning Herald.

'Most people get to learn from their mistakes, but she just made one mistake and that's it.'

Marli Cartmer-Congiu (pictured with former boyfriend Gully Thomas) died in hospital after a suspected overdose at a house party in Sydney in the early hours of Sunday morning

Friends of Ms Cartmer-Congiu (pictured) said she took liquid ecstasy, otherwise known as 'liquid G', for the first time

Ms Cartmer-Congiu finished her HSC at Brigidine College in Randwick last year - and had planned a gap year before studying nursing at university.

Her former boyfriend, Gully Thomas, was told of her death on Sunday.

'As hard as this is, I just want to say thank you for doing life with me. I know you didn't mean for this to happen,' he wrote in a heartfelt Facebook post.

'I wouldn't be the same person if it wasn't for you... I will miss you so much and will be thinking of you every day.

'Everyone is in shock. She had never done this before, it was the most one-off thing,' Ms Cartmer-Congiu's school friend Zoe Koster (pictured together) said

Ms Cartmer-Congiu's former boyfriend, Gully Thomas (pictured together), was told of her death on Sunday

'You were so beautiful, happy, fun, crazy, caring and just the most amazing girl to do life with. I have had so many memories with you that I will never forget.

'I know you are in heaven and I can't wait to see you again one day... We all will miss you so much. We will always be the dream team and I will never forget you.'

Another friend described Ms Cartmer-Congiu as a 'blessing' to those who met her.

'You touched so many lives with your contagious smile and bubbling personality, two of the many traits we'll miss,' they said.

'Thank you for all the great memories and playing a big part in my life.'

WHAT IS GBH OR 'LIQUID ECSTASY'? GHB is a drug commonly found around the dance and party scene. Its main risk is from an overdose, especially if it's taken with other depressant drugs, potentially leading to coma and death. GHB is a bitter or salty tasting liquid that may be odourless or have a slight odour. It is usually clear, but may be coloured bright blue. GHB can also be produced in powder or pill form. GHB is an abbreviation of the chemical name gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. It's also known as G, GBH (grievous bodily harm), fantasy, gamma G, blue nitro and liquid E. GHB is also called liquid ecstasy due to its effects, but it's not chemically related to the drug ecstasy (MDMA). Source: Health Direct Advertisement

'As hard as this is, I just want to say thank you for doing life with me,' Mr Thomas said of his former girlfriend (pictured together)

Another friend described Ms Cartmer-Congiu (pictured) as a 'blessing' to all who met her

The tragedy comes as debate rages over whether revellers should be able to test drugs at music festivals in the wake of five deaths in as many months.

Alex Ross-King died at the FOMO festival in Parramatta Park in Sydney on January 12 in what was the fifth fatality at an organised event in NSW since September.

The 19-year-old's grieving parents begged the state government to consider introducing pill testing.

Alex Ross-King (pictured) died at the FOMO festival in Parramatta Park, Sydney, on January 12

At the four-day Rainbow Serpent Festival (pictured) in near Ballarat, Victoria, 13 people were taken to hospital

'We are deeply grieving the sudden loss of our beautiful girl, Alex,' they said in a statement.

'We encourage government to courageously take all the active measures possible to reduce the risk, [for] in particular festival goers, through intensifying current initiatives, as well as implementing other harm reduction strategies.

'Pill testing is only one measure. There is no safe level of drug consumption - but - it is an opportunity for intervention.'

Over the Australia Day weekend in Sydney, 14 people were hospitalised between two music festivals, with 10 of the cases believed to be drug-related.

A screen in middle of dance floor rotated safety messages including 'don't risk your life with drugs' and 'protect your hearing' at the Hardcore Til I Die festival in Sydney on Saturday

At the four-day Rainbow Serpent Festival in near Ballarat, Victoria, 13 people were taken to hospital.

Festival spokesman Tim Harvey said Rainbow Serpent is no different to other events in Melbourne, such as the Spring Racing Carnival.

'We are a microcosm of what is going on in the public and the broader community faces the same challenges that we do,' he told ABC radio on Tuesday.

'I think the issue has been created by 30 years of failed drug policy - and we are waiting on the government to fix that.'
A Dutch historian has struck a chord with internet users for calling out billionaires who preach about philanthropy but avoid paying their taxes.

Rutger Bregman was speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the world's richest and most influential people convene every January to discuss 'improving the state of the world'.

Apparently unperturbed by an audience of powerful and wealthy business leaders, 30-year-old Bregman took aim at the billionaire elite and ultra-rich celebrities for pushing 'stupid philanthropy schemes'.

All they really need to do to solve inequality, the Dutchman said, is simply pay their fair share of taxes.

Historian Rutger Bregman's comments urging billionaires to pay their 'fair share' to solve inequality at Davos have gone viral

'I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then, almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share,' he remarked on Friday during 'The Cost of Inequality' panel discussion.

After pointing out that there was only one panel at Davos dedicated to discussing tax avoidance, Bregman said it felt like being at 'a firefighters' conference and no one's allowed to speak about water.'

'This is not rocket science,' he added. 'We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes.

'We can invite Bono once more. But come on! We've got to be talking about taxes. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is b******* in my opinion.'

Bregman was speaking on 'The Cost of Inequality' panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Friday

The remarks have received widespread acclaim online and a video of the moment posted on Twitter has garnered more than 6 million views.

The comments were even seized upon by U.S Senator Bernie Sanders, who contested the Democratic nomination for President in 2016.

Sanders tweeted the video of Bregman, writing: 'We have a rigged tax code that has essentially legalized tax-dodging for large corporations and the world's wealthiest individuals.

'It is time to end these egregious loopholes and make the wealthy pay their fair share.'

Bregman's comments were seized upon by U.S Senator Bernie Sanders who also tweeted the viral video

Bregman also noted the 'bewildering' irony of 1,500 private jets being chartered by those travelling to the Swiss Mountain town 'to hear Sir David Attenborough speak about how we are wrecking the planet'.

It was almost inevitable that some attendees felt inclined to hit back.

Ken Goldman, a former CFO of Yahoo, stood up to complain about the panel's focus on taxes.

The 30-year-old Dutch historian and author has become an online sensation and even Bernie Sanders has retweeted his comments

'I have to say, honestly, this is a very one-sided panel,' Goldman said.

'We've actually reduced poverty around the world  no one's talking about that at all.'

Goldman added that the U.S had an employment rate that was nearing record-lows.

He asked that the panel instead discuss what 'we really do to help solve inequality over time beyond taxes?'

This is not the first time the Bregman has achieved online attention for his ideas however.

His TED Talk 'Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash' was rated one of the top ten of 2017, and he was described by the media organisation as 'one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers'.

The Dutch historian has also published four books, including 'Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World', which has been translated into 20 languages.

His comments were well-timed, as just as the Davos summit was opening Oxfam released a global inequality report showing that just 26 billionaires own as much wealth as the 3.8 billion poorest people in the world.

But after causing such a stir on his first visit to the summit at Davos, it remains to be seen whether the Dutchman will be invited back next year.
A 51-year-old cold case involving the deaths of three women - including two who were pregnant - has finally been solved.

But just as Spokane County investigators were preparing to arrest suspect Duke Pierson, 85, they discovered he had died of natural causes just three days prior.

It is a devastating end to the stories of Dorothy Fielding, Rudy Lampson, and Pierson's wife Sandra, who were all killed within three months of each other.

On Friday detectives charged Pierson - a former Spokane County Sheriff's deputy with first-degree murder in the death of Fielding and planned to arrest him at his Alabama home.

But when investigators ran a search on Pierson online, they discovered that he had died on January 22.

Washington police finally solved a 51-year-old cold case involving the deaths of three women. But three days before they were to arrest suspect Duke Pierson (pictured when he was a deputy for the Spokane Sheriff's Office), he died of natural causes

The tragic tale surrounding the three victims begins in the summer of 1967, when Lampson, 47, was reported missing in June.

Lampson lived above the Falls View Tavern, where she was a regular. She had last been seen leaving the bar on June 6 with a 'much younger male'.

Her body was found four years later in a shallow grave near the 7-Mile ORV park.

The location was just 1.8 miles away from where investigators found the body of Fielding, who had disappeared just two months after Lampson, in 1968.

Fielding worked at Rosauers Supermarkets, where Pierson had taken a security supervisor job after mysteriously leaving the Spokane County Sheriff's Office in 1966.

Some co-workers were surprised by Pierson's resignation, while others believed he had been allowed to resign after he stopped showing up for work.

'Duke Pierson was clearly mentally unstable,' one former co-worker told investigators.

On Friday detectives charged Pierson with the murder of Dorothy Fielding (left), who he was having an affair with when she disappeared in 1967. They also suspect Pierson was involved in the death of his wife Sandra (right), who was found death a month after Pierson disappeared

Pierson had met Fleming after he was allowed to resign from his deputy position at the Spokane Sheriff's Office. Co-workers said he was 'clearly mentally unstable'. He is pictured here in 1960, six years before he resigned

'For some time after, he and other Sheriff's employees openly voiced concerns about Duke Pierson harming himself or others.'

Co-workers said that Pierson would threaten to shoot or kill them when they called him and asked why he wasn't coming into work.

He also reportedly made paranoid statements and believed people in the agency were 'out to get him'.

Fielding, 31, and Pierson started having an affair in February 1967 after they met at Rosauers.

Pierson was separated from his wife Sandra at the time and living in an apartment close to Falls View Tavern, where Lampson had disappeared from.

But the married couple reconciled after going to Hawaii together, and Pierson admitted to Sandra's cousin that he had gotten Fielding pregnant.

Pierson told the relative he was in a 'bind' because he wanted to fix his marriage with Sandra.

A week before her disappearance, Fielding began receiving flowers and notes in her car from a 'secret admirer' who confessed his love to her.

The flowers were Marigolds and Zinnias, which Sandra grew in her yard, and red and pink roses, which Sandra's mother grew and often brought to her daughter's home.

Fielding told friends that the notes and flowers scared her. She disappeared days later on August 19. Witnesses believe she was 20 weeks pregnant at the time.

Pierson is also suspected to be behind the death of Ruby Lampson (pictured), who disappeared a month before Fielding. Their bodies were buried less than 2 miles away from each other

Days after she disappeared, Fielding's car was found at a local grocery store. There were fresh cigarette butts in the ash tray, despite the fact that Fielding didn't smoke.

In April 2018, while he was being interviewed by Spokane Detective Kirk Keyser, Pierson admitted he smoked cigarettes during the time frame of the murders.

He also admitted to dating Fielding until the time of her disappearance but claimed she had never told him she was pregnant.

Pierson also told Keyser that she had told him about the notes she was getting in her car and said she was 'proud of them'.

Eight months after she disappeared, Fielding's body was found in a shallow grave near the 7-Mile ORV Park. She was buried with her uniform and name tag.

Pierson's wife Sandra, 33, was found dead in their home on September 12, 1967, less than a month after Fielding disappeared. She was 20 weeks pregnant at the time.

Her body was found in the rear seat of a car inside the family's garage with a hose leading from the exhaust to a rear window of the vehicle. The ignition was on.

Investigators at the time ruled that her death was a suicide.

Sandra's grandmother had seen her just 45 minutes prior and said she had shown no signs of distress.

And Sandra's children believed there was no way their mother, who was 5ft 2in and 115 pounds, could have closed their malfunctioning garage door on her own.

Just months after Sandra's death, Pierson married a woman he had been dating on and off since 1964.

The woman told Keyser in a recent interview that, before the pair tied the knot, Pierson would talk about a girl from his work who went missing and 'kind of laugh about it'. He later admitted he had known the girl.

Before they got married, Pierson would also talk of wanting to get back together with Sandra and claimed she had fallen pregnant with another man's child.

Pierson admitted to Sandra's cousin that he had gotten his Fielding (left) pregnant. Both Fielding and Sandra (right) were 20 weeks pregnant at the time of their deaths

The woman told Keyser that everything changed in their relationship she moved into Pierson's home, where Sandra had died months before.

'She was unable to go anywhere or do anything without Duke's permission,' Keyser wrote in court doucments. 'Duke became both physically and verbally abusive to her.'

The woman called Pierson 'Jekyll and Hyde', saying he would turn angry and use violence to make her perform sexual acts. At time he also choked her.

'If I am done with you, I am done with you, but nobody else will have you,' Pierson once told her.

He also told the woman that if she ever tried to leave him he would 'make sure she didn't wake up. She wouldn't hurt, but she would be done'.

The woman also became suspicious of Sandra's death, telling Keyser that she did not believe Sandra would have been capable of moving the heavy garage door.

She also reveled that Pierson was involved in hypnotism and would 'regularly use her as a student to practice'.

Another woman who was married to Pierson (pictured in 1960) said he would turn angry and use violence to make her perform sexual acts. At time he also choked her

'She said he was very good at it,' Keyser noted. 'He could place her under hypnosis and have her do things she normally could not physically do, or would not be willing to do, sometimes the next day.'

The couple's problems worsened and they eventually separated. The woman filed a restraining order and said Pierson began leaving notes on her car that said things like 'I saw you...'.

The woman said Pierson's threats became increasingly violent. He told her something bad could happen to her horses if she didn't move further away from him, and even tried to pick up her younger sister from high school.

She moved further away from Pierson and the couple officially divorced in 1972.

Pierson's son described him as a 'narcissist who is a very scary guy' who once told someone that he 'did not know if he would be able to restrain himself from killing' his own son.

His children eventually cut off all contact with him.

Pierson pleaded guilty to helping smuggle drugs from La Paz, Bolivia to the US in a $15million cocaine ring from 1973 to 1974. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

The cold case into Pierson opened up against after someone called inquiring Fielding's murder investigation.

Keyser then discovered that Pierson was now living in Alabama and was married yet again.

During their April 2018 interview, Pierson said he would remember if he had killed anyone.

'If I had done anything bad like that, I'm sure that would have stayed in my memory,' he said. 'There's just no way I have ever done hurt anybody. I don't hurt people.'

Keyser wrote on the Spokane County Sheriff's Office Facebook that he is continuing to investigate all three deaths.

He is asking that anyone who dated Pierson or knew him, Sandra, Fielding, or Lampson around the time of their deaths call him at 509-477-6611.
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The husband of a newlywed female police officer allegedly shot dead in a twisted 1am game of Russian roulette with male cop was pictured at her funeral Wednesday.

Katlyn Alix, 24, was shot in the chest after taking turns pulling the trigger on Nathaniel Hendren's revolver while pointing it at each other, according to court documents.

Her husband Tony today joined mourners at the service at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis where she was given a police guard of honor.

He covered his eyes in dark sunglasses as her casket was carried into the church.

Katyln's father Ron and his emotional partner Tammy stood side-by-side with friends and relatives as her mother Aimee, who just a few months ago walked her down the aisle, wept as she clung onto other loved ones.

Her sister was also thought to have been at the service and followed her emotional mom Aimee as they entered the church.

Hundreds of friends, family and former colleagues gathered at the service as her casket was draped in an American flag was carried into the church by uniformed pallbearers.

Outside colleagues were pictured consoling each other after her body was transported in a gold hearse, and the steps of church were lined with officers as eight pallbearers carried her coffin to its final resting place.

Following her funeral her family broke their silence at a press conference, calling her 'the best child, the best person'.

Her mom, Aimee Chadwick said: 'Everybody that knew Katie loved Katie. Katies the best child, the best person.'

Ron Alix added: 'This world lost a lot, when we lost Katie we lost a lot.'

Hundreds of friends, family and former colleagues gathered at the service as her casket was draped in an American flag was carried into the church by uniformed pallbearers

The husband of a female police officer allegedly shot dead in a twisted 1am game of Russian roulette with male cop was pictured at her funeral Wednesday. Anthony, pictured center, joined mourners at the service in St. Louis, Missouri

Anthony, pictured right in sunglasses, watches on as his wife Katlyn is given a guard of honor by police colleagues

Katlyn's dad Ron Alix, right, and his partner Tammy, center, joined hundreds of mourners paying their respects to tragic Katlyn after Nathaniel Hendren was charged with manslaughter

Katlyn and Hendren were 'taking turns pulling the trigger on his revolver while pointing it at each other'. Pictured center is Katlyn's mom Aimee Chadwick

St Louis circuit attorney's office raise serious concerns over the police handling of Alix's death

According to a probable cause statement, Alix, left, who was off duty, went to the home of Hendren, right, sometime before 1am and the pair began taking turns pulling the trigger on his revolver

Newlywed Alix's husband, a fellow cop known only as Tony, has not been heard from since her death and it is not known where is was on the night of the 1am shooting

Hendren, charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action, has now been moved to a jail outside the city for his own protection.

The 29-year-old and his police partner were at his home early Thursday when they were reportedly on duty and supposed to be patrolling a neighborhood.

According to a probable cause statement, Alix, who was off duty, went to Hendren's home sometime before 1am and the pair began the deadly game.

Alix was shot in the chest and Hendren and his partner, also 29, rushed her to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The couple are thought to have got married in October last year and it is not known where Alix's new husband was during the incident. He is yet to speak out about her death.

But St Louis circuit attorney's office has raised serious concerns over the police handling of the incident.

In a letter to Chief John Hayden and Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards, prosecutor Kimberly M. Gardner also said the fact police labelled the incident an accident so soon after the shooting was 'particularly troublesome'.

Katlyn Alix, who was shot in the chest, was given a guard of honor by St. Louis police

Toxicology results for Alix could take 12 to 16 weeks, according to the St Louis medical examiner's office

In a letter to Chief John Hayden and Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards, Kimberly M. Gardner also said the fact police labelled the incident an accident so soon after the shooting was 'particularly troublesome'

Friends, family and former colleagues of Katlyn comfort one another at her funeral Wednesday after the newlywed was shot

Hendren was also hospitalized following the shooting after 'he headbutted the back window of a parked police SUV'

Katlyn pictured on her wedding day with her mom Aimee and dad Ron. She is thought to have got married in Oct. last year

Department policy requires immediate drug and alcohol testing for officers involved in shootings. Toxicology results for Alix could take 12 to 16 weeks, according to the St Louis medical examiner's office.

In her letter, Gardner wrote that there was 'probable cause at the scene that drugs or alcohol may be a contributing factor in a potential crime'.

She claimed that a police lieutenant erroneously told her office that a hospital would not honor a search warrant for the officers' blood.

The letter said the officers later took urine and breath tests, but not blood tests, which are more accurate.

Gardner also said that the tests were taken in a manner that may render them unusable in court proceedings.

She wrote that the testing 'appears as an obstructionist tactic to prevent us from understanding the state of the officers during the commission of this alleged crime'.

The prosecutor also faulted law enforcement officials for initially characterizing the shooting as an 'accident', which she said was an 'inappropriate' 'pre-disposed conclusion about the potential outcome of a case'.

Gardner said there were additional issues concerning the investigation that she would like to discuss with both officers.

Family and Friends attend the funeral of Katlyn, who is said to have gone to Hendren's home sometime before 1am. Pictured front center is the tragic cop's dad Ron and his partner Tammy

Alix was shot in the chest and Hendren and his partner, also 29, rushed her to hospital, where she was pronounced dead

Alix's family said they have hired legal counsel to 'ensure that a thorough investigation is performed'

The casket of police officer Katlyn Alix is carried into the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis for her funeral Wednesday

Hendren, charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action, has now been moved to a jail outside the city for his own protection.

The 29-year-old and his police partner were at his home early Thursday when they were reportedly on duty and supposed to be patrolling a neighborhood.

According to a probable cause statement, Alix, who was off duty, went to Hendren's home sometime before 1am and the pair began taking turns pulling the trigger on his revolver while pointing it at each other, according to court documents.

Alix was shot in the chest and Hendren and his partner, also 29, rushed her to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Hendren was also hospitalized following the shooting after he headbutted the back window of a parked police SUV at the hospital, sources told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

He reportedly broke the window and suffered minor head injuries. The booking photo released by police shows him with a blackened left eye.

But online there is speculation over why Alix was at his home on the night of the shooting, why Hendren and his partner were reportedly not working when they were supposed to be on duty and why they allegedly took Alix to the hospital instead of an ambulance.

One person wrote: 'I for one don't believe 'the story'. Not at all.'

Another added: 'They pulled the trigger two times and then again. I smell a rat.'

Alix's family said they have hired legal counsel to 'ensure that a thorough investigation is performed', saying there are 'a substantial amount of unanswered questions', according to the Post-Dispatch.

'Certainly, we're looking into all avenues... including, potentially, civil litigation,' attorney Scott Rosenblum said.

'The family is convinced that with Katlyn's training, both police and military, there remains a substantial amount of unanswered questions about the circumstances of the event.'

Katlyn's family have hired legal counsel and say there 'remains a substantial amount of unanswered questions about the circumstances of the event'. Toxicology results for Alix could take 12 to 16 weeks, according to the St Louis medical examiner's office.

Hendren's attorney declined to comment after his client's bail hearing on Monday but released a statement offering condolences to Alix's family. 'The death of Officer Katlyn Alix was a tragic accident that has unalterably impacted the lives of everyone involved,' he wrote

Hendren, 29, has been charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action. Alix and Hendren, pictured, had reportedly been taking turns pointing his revolver at each other and pulling the trigger while there was one bullet in the chamber

A St. Louis prosecutor is raising concerns about whether police tried to block drug and alcohol testing of two on-duty officers following the fatal shooting of Officer Katlyn Alix

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner wrote that the way the testing was performed 'appears to be an obstructionist tactic'

Hendren's bail was set at $50,000 on Monday, according to the St Louis Police Department. He made his first court appearance on Tuesday morning via video from jail.

Hendren was not present at the hearing Monday morning, where his attorney, Talmage Newton IV, asked the judge for a reduction in bail terms that would allow him to be freed after posting 10 percent of the $50,000.

A decision on that request is expected to be announced at a hearing later this week.

Newton IV declined to comment after Monday's hearing but released a statement offering condolences to Alix's family.

'The death of Officer Katlyn Alix was a tragic accident that has unalterably impacted the lives of everyone involved,' the attorney's statement said.

'I urge the public, as well as members of the police department, to wait until the investigation is complete, and all of the facts have been presented, before coming to any conclusions about what they believe happened that unfortunate morning.'

Both Hendren and his partner have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure any time an officer is involved in a shooting.

According to a probable cause statement, Hendren had pulled out a revolver, which was not his service weapon, and emptied the cylinder of rounds before replacing a single bullet in the weapon.

'He spun the cylinder and pointed it away and pulled the trigger,' Sgt R Hellmeier wrote in the statement.

When the gun did not fire on the first trigger pull, Alix took the weapon, pointed it at Hendren, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the affidavit states.

Investigators say that Hendren took the gun, pointed it at Alix, and pulled the trigger for a third time. The gun discharged, striking the female officer in the chest.

The affidavit says that Hendren's partner, a 29-year-old male who has not be named, claims that he protested that 'they shouldn't be playing with guns and that they were police officers.'

The partner said he was walking out of the room when he heard the gun go off.

Hendren had been on the police force for about a year. He faces three to 10 years in prison if convicted on the felony counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
The first trailer for the new Ted Bundy film, starring Zac Efron, sparked huge controversy over the 'hyper-sexualization' of the notorious serial killer.

Critics slammed the promotional clip for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile as 'romanticized' and a 'punch in the face' for the victims' families.

But one of Bundy's rare survivors says she doesn't mind Efron's 'hot take' on the murderer, seen for the first time on Friday after it aired at the Sundance Film Festival, and thinks the heartthrob is the perfect fit.

Kathy Kleiner Rubin was a 20-year-old sorority sister at Florida State University when Bundy crept into her dorm room at 3am on January 15, 1978, and beat her and her roommate with a club.

Critics have slammed the movie for over-emphasizing Bundy's charm and good looks, showing Efron with his shirt off and in a romantic clutch with his wife Liz Koefle, who is played by Lily Collins.

Movie fans slammed the 'hyper-sexualized' trailer for the new Ted Bundy (left) movie starring Zac Efron (right) Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

But Kleiner Rubin said she doesn't have 'a problem with people looking at it, and as long as they understand that what they're watching wasn't a normal person.

She told TMZ: 'I believe that in order to show him exactly the way he was, it's not really glorifying him, but it's showing him, and when they do say positive and wonderful things about him  that's what they saw, that's what Bundy wanted you to see.'

But she conceded that the movie 'does glorify him more than I think he should be.'

She added: 'I think everyone should see it and understand him as what he was, even when he was the perfect son.

'I think hopefully it will make... more women take care of their surroundings and be cautious.

'He had different tactics that he used to help people to help him get in cars or do things and in your gut if you feel like something doesn't feel right, just say no.'

Kathy Kleiner Rubin was a 20-year-old sorority sister at Florida State University when Bundy crept into her dorm room and beat her and her roommate with a club

But not everyone is happy with the portrayal of Bundy, who was executed in 1989 after he confessed to killing 30 women in seven states and escaped custody twice.

One person tweeted: 'That's exactly what Ted Bundy wanted. posthumous fame for his cruelties.

'You can count on Hollywood to make the worst human beings immortal.What's next?The Harvey Weinstein biopic?

'What a punch to the face for the victim's families after all these years.'

Some on Twitter complained heartthrob Zac Efron was the wrong actor to cast for the film

Others said the 90-second clip was disrespectful to the families of the women Ted Bundy killed

Another user referenced the way the star came off as attractive as he might have in other flick's he's famed for such as Baywatch in 2017.

'Can we not sexualize Ted Bundy? He raped, murdered, and decapitated women and had sex with their dead bodies.

'Not here for this hyper-sexualized Zac Efron film. I know the youth of twitter will obsess over him, and I'd prefer not to read thirst tweets about a serial murderer,' another account shared.

But some people disagreed and pointed out that former Disney star heartthrob was the correct casting for a motion picture about how Bundy was romanticized by the media as his slayings of the 70s were reported.

Social media users were appalled at how charming Efron looked in the 90-second clip

Some tweeters showed outraged over how the trailer appeared to glorify killer Ted Bundy

One person compared it to seeing real footage of the murderer in episodes of Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, which came out on Netflix this week.

'And in this moment, watching the ted bundy tapes, I realized just how spot on casting zac efron as ted bundy was this is unsettling,' Joanna wrote.

What some may not know is the documentary on the video-streaming website shares the same director, Joe Berlinger, as the new film.

Others jumped to the defense of the Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile movie-makers and explained that portraying Bundy as attractive was intentional.

But they didn't appear to understand the Efron's performance was to reflect the way Bundy was viewed at the time

But some saw how the choices made reflected the way Bundy was seen in the media and by his wife Liz Koefler (played by Lily Collins) in the 70s

The movie is currently being shown at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with actress Lily Collins (who portrays Bundy's wife Liz Kloepfer, doing the promotional rounds with Efron.

One person wrote: 'Psst, hey woke twitter, in real life Ted Bundy was romanticized by the media and everyone he knew. That's what the Extremely Wicked trailer is reflecting and what the movie will attach head on.'

Another added: 'I hope people know this movie isn't glamorizing/romanticizing ted bundy. This film is through the eyes of his girlfriend liz kloepfer who refused to believe he was anything but a good guy and that he never did anything wrong. That's why the trailer seems the way it does.'

Many more defended the portrayal in the Sundance film as being spot-on

At Sundance, the flick's director Joe Berlinger said it's likely to be received well at general release, judging by the reactions at screenings on Saturday and Sunday morning.

'Audiences are loving it, which is great. You could just feel it. People really seem to be connecting and getting something out of it,' Salt Lake City Tribune reports he said.

The helmer explained that by telling the story through the eyes of his devoted partner, it was important not highlight the horrifying details of his murders at the beginning stages of the motion picture.

'We're giving the audience the same experience Liz had in their encounter with Ted,' Berlinger explained. That experience being 'able to be deceived by somebody who's so believable and charismatic'.

'I certainly don't think we're glorifying him because he gets his due,' he said.

The flick's director Joe Berlinger said it's important to not show too many horrifying details early on in the film because it's through the eyes of his wife Liz

Bundy confessed to killing 30 women before he was executed but the number could near 100
A gunman went on a double-barrelled shotgun rampage, killing one person and wounding five others before turning the gun on himself following an argument after his dog bit a neighbour.

A police officer was among the injured when Joseph Orsoni opened fire mid-afternoon on Wednesday in Bastia, on the French island of Corsica.

The 65-year-old locked himself inside his house after the shooting and took his own life as law enforcement and the fire brigade tried to negotiate with him.

Joseph Orsoni went on a shotgun rampage yesterday afternoon, killing one and injuring five

A police officer who was shot in the neck was among the injured and is in intensive care

The 65-year-old attacker locked himself in his home and killed himself while police and firefighters tried to negotiate with him. Here, neighbours wait anxiously after the attack

The attack occurred at around 4.30pm yesterday afternoon in Bastia, the second largest city on Corsica - a French island in the Mediterranean Sea

The cause of the rampage seemed to stem from a long-running dispute over Orsoni's dog which had bitten his neighbour's partner, prosecutor Caroline Tharot said.

Orsoni first attacked the 23-year-old male neighbour outside the building with a cutter and then 'he went to fetch two double-barrelled shotguns with which he shot several people', she said.

He began shooting in the street around 4:25 pm, 'before retreating into the building where he lives', a prefecture spokesman said.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told the National Assembly in Paris the wounded policeman was in intensive care after being shot in the neck, but 'his life is not in danger'.

The perpetrator was known to the courts, having been convicted multiple times for gun offences

Orsoni was no stranger to Corsica's courts, having two previous convictions for armed offences, Tharot said.

The area was sealed off by police, while several residents remained in the building.

'When I arrived at the car park, I heard gunshots,' Pierre Masternak, a public housing office employee, told France Bleu RCFM radio.

'I didn't know where they were coming from, I saw traces of blood on the ground. I called my colleague, the caretaker... He joined me, we looked to see where the traces of blood led and that's when a man burst out behind us, aimed a shotgun at us and fired at us.'

'He got my colleague, who was hit in the leg. We both managed to leave the building and take refuge, my colleague behind a car, and the man continued to shoot at us,' he added.
A man caught on camera punching two women to the ground outside a Los Angeles nightclub over a row about hot dogs has been arrested after handing himself in.

Arka Sangbarani Oroojian, 30, turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday night and was booked for assault with a deadly weapon.

The LAPD said following Oroojian's arrest that he was 6'3" and 270 pounds.

His bail was set at $90,000.

Oroojian, of Sylmar in California, was filmed attacking the two women outside the venue in downtown LA on Friday night.

He was filmed punching the two women to the ground outside the venue in downtown LA on Friday night while queuing for hot dogs

The muscle-bound man repeatedly punched the women after they challenged him for being 'rude' to a street vendor while queuing at a hot dog stand outside the nightclub.

He is said to have flown into a rage and began bullying the employee after being charged $6 for a hot dog, boasting: 'I own the streets of LA'.

Multiple people in the video can be heard laughing and cheering as Oroojian pummeled the women.

He hurled one of the women to the ground and then punched her friend in the face as she confronted him.

Onlookers cheered as the floored woman managed to stand back up before being immediately punched to the ground again.

Oroojian was filmed dropping the second woman seconds later as she tried to defend herself.

Multiple people in the video can be heard laughing and cheering as Oroojian pummeled the women. He hurled one of the women to the ground and then punched her friend in the face as she confronted him

Police put out an appeal for the suspect after he fled the scene by running into traffic. He was arrested Tuesday night and his bail for set at $90,000

Police put out an appeal for the suspect after he fled the scene by running into traffic.

One of the victims, who is a nursing student, was left with a concussions and bruises to her jaw.

She told NBC that another vendor had offered the man a free hot dog in an attempt to diffuse the situation, but when that failed she and her friend decided to intervene.

'He gets up in the hot dog vendor's face and is like saying 'I own the streets of LA'. We said something like just leave the guy alone, what's your problem? Just go, you're getting the free hot dog. The next thing that I remember is he hits my friend.

'I ran up to him and told him to not touch her, to not touch my friend, and he hits me.

'People were laughing and cheering, like as if it were a show. We can't believe that nobody did anything.'
The Armed Forces hold on the countrys political institutions remains a serious issue. Aung San Suu Kyis party wants to set up a joint committee of parliament to tackle it. A motion to that effect was adopted two years after the assassination of Ko Ni, a constitutional consultant for Suu Kyis party.

Naypyidaw (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Myanmars parliament has given the green light to discuss a proposal to set up a committee to reform the countrys military-drafted constitution.

National League for Democracy (NLD) Upper House Member U Aung Kyi Nyunt submitted a proposal on Tuesday to form a joint committee of the two houses of parliament to work on amending the 2008 charter. The unelected military representatives (pictured) are unanimously opposed.

Constitutional reform is a key part of the platform of the NLD-led government, together with the promotion of the rule of law and the end of armed conflict in the country.

The proposal to set up a joint committee is the first official step undertaken by the NLD in that direction since it took office in 2016.

Modifying the charter to remove the armed forces from parliament is one of the most serious issues afflicting the country, which for the past few years has been trying to emerge from almost half a century of harsh military rule.

The debate on constitutional reform was put on hold in 2017 following the murder of Ko Ni, a lawyer and constitutional consultant for the NLD. It is no coincident that yesterday was the second anniversary of his death.

The 2008 Constitution prevents NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president because it bans candidates with a foreign spouse or child. Suu Kyis late husband was British, as are her two children.

The military also set aside for itself a quarter of all seats in the 440-member lower house (House of Representatives) and 56 in the 226-seat upper house (House of Nationalities) as well as several important ministries, like Defence, Interior and Border Affairs, giving it a de facto veto on constitutional change and control over security issues.

At present, Suu Kyis party holds 58 per cent of all seats, whilst changing the Constitution requires a 76 per cent majority.

During yesterday's joint session of parliament, before a secret ballot was called on whether to debate the proposal, tensions between 150 military legislators and the speaker U T Khun Myat was palpable.

General Maung Maung complained that the creation of the committee was in breach of established procedures, noting that the parliamentarians should not resort to deceit.

When U T Khun Myat rejected the complaint, all the military stood up, which is their usual way of showing displeasure towards NLD motions.

Among those present, the motion received 394 yes votes, 17 no votes and three abstentions. Those who boycotted were likely military lawmakers and their allies in the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

The debate on forming the committee is scheduled for early next month.
A Denver man has been arrested for allegedly raping four women, whom police say he targeted by offering them ride home from local bars over the span of nearly two years.

Byron Whitehorn, 50, has been charged with four counts of felony sex assault, and police in Denver are trying to determine if there are more victims.

According to a press release from the Denver District Attorney's Office, on four separate occasions between April 2017 and December 2018, Whitehorn approached young women outside drinking establishments in the LoDo neighborhood and offered to take them home.

Byron Whitehorn, 50, has been charged with four counts of felony sex assault stemming from attacks that happened in Denver in 2017 and 2018. One of the victims helped police create a composite sketch of the attacker (right)

Whitehorn is accused of sexually assaulting four women after approaching them outside bars and offering rides home

He would then sexually assault them in his 2005 Audi A4 sedan before ultimately taking them to their destinations, the statement read.

DNA evidence collected from the most recent attack on December 14, 2018, was found to match evidence in three previous rapes.

According to Whitethorns arrest warrant cited by 9News, shortly before 1am on December 14, a woman exited the Ginn Mill on Larimer Street, where she had been drinking with her roommate, who stayed at the bar.

The victim ordered an Uber to pick her up and take her home, but before the ride-sharing car arrived, officials say Whitehorn pulled over and asked the woman if she needed help.

The warrant states the woman told Whitehorn she was waiting for her Uber, at which point the man took away her phone, cancelled the service and offered to take her home himself.

According to the document, the victim said she was drunk and does not remember much of what happened that night.

The latest attack took place on December 14 and involved a patron of the Ginn Mill in the LoDo section of Denver

At some point, however, the victim said she woke up to find Whitehorn raping her inside his car, the warrant said.

Following the assault, Whitethorn drove the victim to her apartment in Lakewood. As she was calling her boyfriend to tell him what happened, Whitehorn allegedly took away her phone a second time, entered his phone number and first name into her contact list and told her, 'Lets do this again.'

The woman later called the police to report the attack and went to a hospital to have a rape examination performed on her.

DNA collected from the Lakewood woman later matched evidence from three other attacks that occurred on April 9, 2017, October 14, 2017 and January 28, 2018.

In each case, the victims told police they were approached by a man while they were drunk, either inside or outside bars in LoDo.

They later awoke to find the man raping them inside his white sedan, according to the affidavit. One of the women described the vehicle having tan-colored cloth seats  same as in Whitehorns Audi.

On October 14, 2017, a woman walked out of Jackson's bar and said she was approached by a man believed to be Whitehorn, who offered her a lift in his white Audi

Two of the attacks, dated April 9, 2017, and January 28, 2018, involved women who had been drinking at LoDo's Bar and Grill

The victim in the December 2018 attack was able to provide a description of the attack that was used by an artist to create a composite sketch of the suspect, which was found to resemble Whitehorns Facebook profile picture.

When on January 3 a detective called Whitethorn on the number he had allegedly entered into the phone of the fourth victim, the man denied raping anyone.

Whitehorn was asked to provide saliva samples, which came back a match to the DNA evidence in each of the four attacks, leading to his arrest.

Whitehorn is being held in jail on $500,000 bond pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for February 26.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz vowed he will not be the person who reelects President Donald Trump and said he must be doing something right if Democrats are so outraged at the thought of him making an independent bid in 2020.

I will 'never put myself in a position where I would be the person who re-elects Donald Trump, but that is not what I believe today,' he told CNN on Wednesday.

And when asked his thoughts on President Trump, Schultz replied: 'Despicable.'

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz vowed he will not be the person who reelects President Donald Trump

There are fears an independent candidate would siphon off Democratic votes and return President Trump to the White House for a third term

The former Starbucks magnet has been weighing an independent bid in 2020 as he promotes his new book 'From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America.'

His threat to run outside of the party system have united Democrats: against him.

They fear such a move would result in Trump reelected to a third term. Third-party contenders tend to peel votes away from major-party candidates, splitting the support from one side in a way that benefits the other.

'I've talked to six dozen Democrats, and the overwhelming sentiment is that he will be pushed out by this incredible wave of disgust and disdain rolling his way,' a party operative told Axios.

'The bottom line is: Nobody thinks this is sustainable,' the person said.

And Jim Messina, who was President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign manager, said Schultz could 'seriously damage' Democrats' ability to defeat Trump.

'He can't win, and he could seriously damage our ability to beat Donald Trump. He should either run as a Democrat, or spend his time and money doing something that won't ruin the world,' he said.

Schultz, 56, down played talk Democrats will push him out.

'I must be doing something right to create so much interests and backlash from the Democratic Party,' he said Wednesday on 'Morning Joe.'

'I mean, some of it is a surprise, but I think we expected to see some of the level of vitriol, but not to the extent it's been,' the billionaire businessman added.

And he told Fox News: 'I think the Democrats need a little bit less caffeine right now.'

I think they've over-rotated completely because it's very possible that if I run for president as a centrist independent that more lifelong Republicans will come my way than Democrats. So I think the whole thing is just an overreaction in 24 hours, he said Wenesday.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who weighed an independent bid in 2016 but ultimately did not run, fired a warning shot at Schultz on Monday.

'In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. That's a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can't afford to run it now,' he said in a statement.

'We must remain united, and we must not allow any candidate to divide or fracture us. The stakes couldn't be higher,' said Bloomberg, who is considering running for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

Schultz said he believes Bloomberg probably regrets not running in as independent in the last presidential campaign.

'I respect Mike Bloomberg, but he's not the proxy for what's doing to going to happen in 2020. And if he would have run in 2016, he might be the president today. He probably regrets that,' he told MSNBC.

Howard Schultz told MSNBC: 'I must be doing something right to create so much interests and backlash from the Democratic Party'

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinksi asked Schultz the price of cheerios, which he did not know

Schultz, a former Democrat who's donated thousands to the party, said his candidacy would be one that would appeal to centrists disenfranchised by the left and the right.

'What if Republicans and Democrats, lifelong, are looking for a home. They're not going to vote for left wing Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris candidate. They don't want to re-elect Donald Trump. But what if there's a new person?,' he argued.

He said he left the Democratic Party because its become too liberal.

'I would have to be disingenuous to run as a Democrat because I do not believe in what the Democratic Party stand for,' he said on MSNBC.

He also highlighted his personal story, talking about how he grew up in the Bronx.

'I've also been criticized for being a billionaire. Let's talk about that. I'm self-made. I grew up in the project in Brooklyn, New York. I thought that was the American's dream, the aspiration of America. You're going to criticize me for being successful when in my company over the last 30 years, the only company in America that gave comprehensive health insurance, equity in the form of stock options, and free college tuition? And Elizabeth Warren wants to criticize me for being successful?,' he said.

On Tuesday, the liberal senator from Massachusetts criticized Schultz as a billionaire trying to buy the presidency.

'What's ridiculous is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else. The top 0.1%, who'd pay my #ultramillionairetax, own about the same wealth as 90% of America. It's time for change,' Warren wrote on Twitter.

Schultz also revealed healthcare is an important issue to him because, when he was a young boy, his father fell and was fired from his job and it left the family without insurance.

'Do you know that when I was seven years old my father came home. He was a truck driver delivering cloth diapers. Fell on a sheet of ice. Was fired,' he told MSNBC.

'I experienced, as a seven-year-old boy, what happened when there was no workmen's compensation, no health insurance and we were completely destitute. We had Jewish family services delivering food to our apartment. We were out of luck. So I experienced the shame and the fear of no health care. That is why I built the kind of company my father never got a chance for and put health care in the place for Starbucks,' he added.

And Schultz told CNN he would consider a woman or a Republican as a running mates if he ultimately tosses his hat into the ring.

'I think it's the most important thing to do is to have the highest qualified person and if that's a woman that would be wonderful,' he said. 'But I haven't thought about it.'

Asked if he would consider a Republican, Schultz responded: 'I think that would be interesting and certainly demonstrate a centrist position, which I believe in.'

The former Starbucks magnet has been weighing an independent bid in 2020 as he promotes his new book 'From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America'

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who weighed an independent bid in 2016 but ultimately did not run, warned Schultz not to do it

After grilling him on his desire to be in the Oval Office, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinksi changed to a different line of questioning.

'How much does an 18 ounce box of Cheerios cost?,' she asked.

'I don't know. I don't eat Cheerios,' Schultz replied.

He added: 'Ask me anything you want. I don't eat Cheerios, I'm sorry.'

'It's $4,' Brzezinksi noted.

'That's a lot,' Schultz said.

Brzezinksi urged him to give them a try.

'You need to try Cheerios. I love Cheerios,' she said.

'Okay,' Schultz said.

'They're really good,' she told him.

'I'm a yogurt guy,' Schultz replied.

Schultz has caused tumult within the Democratic Party since Sunday, when he said on '60 Minutes' that his frustration with America's two-party political system has him 'seriously thinking of running for president' as an independent.

'I will run as a centrist independent outside of the two-party system,' he said, speaking in what-if terms.

'We're living at a most fragile time,' Schultz said. 'Not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president, but also the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what's necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged every single day in revenge politics.'

President Trump could benefit in 2020 from a third-party or independent challenger who peels votes away from the Democratic Party's nominee

Trump dared Schultz on Monday to challenge him, tweeting that he 'doesn't have the "guts" to run for President!'

President Trump fired off a tweet on Monday seemingly designed to bait Schultz into committing to a presidential campaign.

He seized on Schultz's acknowledgement on '60 Minutes' that he's 'not the smartest person in the room' and has succeeded by surrounding himself with talented advisers.

'Howard Schultz doesn't have the 'guts' to run for President! Watched him on @60Minutes last night and I agree with him that he is not the 'smartest person'.'

'Besides, America already has that!' Trump bragged. 'I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!'
Human traffickers used an inflatable speedboat to smuggle illegal immigrants across the English Channel but were being secretly watched by police, a court has heard.

The alleged criminal gang are accused of taking four Vietnamese men to the Kent coast in a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) in August last year.

Prosecutors said the three alleged smugglers - Thomas Mason, 36, Hoa Thi Nguyen, 49, Chi Tan Huynh, 41 - made trial runs in the 2,100 speedboat as they conspired to bring the migrants to Britain illegally.

But undercover police recorded their trip and stopped them after they arrived in Britain, jurors at St Albans Crown Court were told.

The rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) allegedly used to transport Vietnamese migrants across the English Channel is pictured in what prosecutors said was a failed test run from Whitstable

Prosecutor Wayne Cleaver told the jury: 'You will be aware that the UK can be an attractive destination for those wanting to come from overseas, but who cannot obtain a visa or other permit allowing them to do so.

'They seldom do so alone and without the connivance of criminal gangs whose primary interest is financial profit rather than any more noble motive of wanting genuinely to help the desperate or dispossessed.

'This case concerns the activities of one such organised criminal gang. They operated for several months leading up to early August 2018 wholly oblivious to the fact that their movements were under police surveillance.

'A small boat was purchased and then deployed on test runs out into the Channel.

'The operation culminated in the successful landing of four Vietnamese men onto a Kent beach in the early hours of 3 August 2018.

'Unbeknownst to the criminal gangs, officers of the Serious Crime Squad were waiting, and the conspiracy between them was foiled.'

Thomas Mason, 36, of Eyeworth, Bedfordshire; Hoa Thi Nguyen, 49, of Walthamstow, east London; and her partner Chi Tan Huynh, 41, of Hoxton, east London, all deny conspiracy to facilitate the illegal entry of foreign nationals into the UK.

Hoa Thi Nguyen also denies acquiring criminal property - relating to luxury items: clothing, handbags and jewellery seized from her home.

This picture allegedly shows the moment the boat is bought for 2,100 in Exmouth, Devon. Prosecutors say it was used to bring migrants to the UK illegally

Mr Cleaver said Mason was central to the enterprise, having paid 2,100 in cash for the boat in Exmouth, Devon, on June 26.

Over the next few weeks it is alleged that Thomas Mason launched the boat from the Kent coast.

The prosecutor said: 'These journeys were not just days out for the fun of it. They were intended to test the capabilities of the boat, negotiate and familiarise themselves with the Dover Straits and to investigate the best vantage points for landing people unobserved.

'What they did not know, of course, is that they were being observed by a team of surveillance officers.'

Prosecutors claim Mason took the boat out to sea from Whitstable on July 13 in a failed bid to pick up migrants from Belgium.

Twelve days later the boat landed on Deal Beach with only Mason on board, the jury was told.

Messages between the alleged conspirators are said to have referred to him 'coming back empty handed.'

Shortly after 1am on August 3, surveillance officers the sound of a boat engine at sea near Deal, Mr Cleaver told the jury.

The boat is seen on an alleged test run from Whitstable. The three alleged smugglers are accused of bringing four Vietnamese men across the Channel in August last year

He said: 'Four adults were seen walking from the sea and onto the beach having just been landing.

'The location of the landing was relatively inconspicuous to the extent there was little or no lighting, no people and on that stretch of coastline there were no buildings overlooking that part of the beach.

'The conspirators had found the perfect landing spot.'

He said the four people left the beach and got into a silver Audi but were stopped by police in Walmer, near Deal.

The four passengers were male Vietnamese migrants, who could not speak English and were taken into custody as illegal immigrants, the court heard.

The prosecution says Mason was found with a life-jacket, mobile phone and walkie-talkie, and carrying his passport and maps with a route from Kent to Europe.

Mr Cleaver said co-defendant Hoa Nguyen is a Vietnamese speaker with overseas contacts. The prosecutor said Chi Tan Huynh was Hoa Nguyen's partner.

The three defendants deny the charges against them.

The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, continues.
Domonique Cordero Smith broke into Hill Watson Peoples Funeral Service at and had anal sex with a woman's corpse on February 9, 2015

A homeless man pleaded guilty on Monday to breaking into a Georgia funeral home in 2015 and having sex with a woman's corpse.

Domonique Cordero Smith, now 29, broke into Hill Watson Peoples Funeral Service at 2919 Hamilton Road and had anal sex with a woman's corpse on February 9, 2015.

The man had been seen on surveillance footage walking into the room where the body was located twice.

He was even seen taking a pair of underwear from the body that he then stashed in his backpack, the Ledger-Inquirer reports.

Police eventually found the man at around noon in a vacant Columbus home on the 500 block of 23rd Street.

Judge Ron Mullins had sentenced the man to 20 years in prison with 15 to serve for first-degree burglary and necrophilia.

The man had been seen on surveillance footage walking into the room where the body was located twice

But Assistant DA George Lipscomb made the distinction that Smith should have been charged with second-degree burglary. First-degree often applies to residential break-ins.

On Tuesday, Smith was re-sentenced to 15 years in prison with 12 to serve and three on probation.

Smith was found competent to stand trial but it was revealed that he suffered from a mental illness, which he revealed during the sentencing.

'I think all of us would agree he's got some issues,' Lipscomb added.

Three psychological evaluations were conducted to determine if he was competent to stand trial. Two conducted at the West Central Georgia Regional Hospital found him to be competent while a private one did not.
The father of a three-year-old boy who was sprayed in the face with sulphuric acid sent a message to his friend hours after the attack reading 'Nailed It', a court heard.

The 40-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is one of seven people currently on trial after his son was targeted at a Home Bargains store in Worcester.

The man sent a moving image known as a GIF to co-defendant Jabar Pakita, 41, after his son was injured on July 21 last year, jurors were told at Worcester Crown Court on Wednesday.

Jurors in court heard the 'cowardly' attack was organised by the boy's father as part of a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife.

The child screamed out in agony after being covered in the substance by Adam Cech, 27, as he shopped for a birthday present with his mum, jurors were told.

CCTV of three men believed to be Cech, Dudi and Pulko at the Home Bargains store was used as evidence

Three men were seen on CCTV closely behind the mother and her child in Worcester

In the hours that followed the Afghan father from Wolverhampton sent a 'sticker' image to a friend showing a blonde woman wearing an apron with the caption 'Nailed It' following the incident.

The father is on trial with alongside five men and a woman charged with conspiring to unlawfully or maliciously cast or throw sulphuric acid with intent to burn, maim, disfigure, or disable or cause grievous bodily harm.

Solvakians Cech, Jan Dudi, 25 and Martina Badiova, 22, all of Handsworth along with Norbert Pulko, 22, of Tottenham, North London, Saied Hussini, 41, of Harlsden, West London, and Paktia, of Wolverhampton, deny the charges.

Six men and one woman were in the dock at Worcester Crown Court over the acid attack

The attack took place in Worcester inside a shop when the boy was at the centre of a custody battle

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC showed a map of Cech, Dudi and Pulko's movements on the day of the attack to a jury .

He also described messages sent by Pulko to another person, in which he admits 'I done it all' and added 'I'm stupid, I know I'm going for a minimum of 15 years'.

Mr Rees said: 'The father had sent Paktia an image of a deer comforting a fox with it's head in it's hands and a follow up message of a woman with the caption 'nailed it' at 9.15pm.

'The route taken by the mother and the trio were all captured by CCTV.

'It also captures the three defendants following the mother and her children into the Home Bargains just a minute apart.

Norbert Pulko was captured on CCTV after what the jury was told was an earlier 'aborted acid attack'

The prosecution said at the trial at Worcester Crown Court hat Norbert Pulko, pictured, was one of a gang of three staking out the primary school on July 13 last year, eight days before the acid attack

'In the early hours of the following Sunday morning at around midnight to 1am there was contact between Badiova, Cech, Dudi, and Pulko.

'At 2.28am on the Sunday, July 22 the father was arrested.

'The interrogation of Pulko's mobile handset threw up some of the internet history which shows he accessed news websites regarding articles about the incident at Home Bargains. '

Pulko also sent a message which said: 'I'm stupid, I know I'm going for a minimum of 15 years.' If I go I'm going to kill myself before they get me.

'The person replies: 'Why you texting me this, you know it makes me upset, to your little sis. Why did you do this?'

'Pulko: 'I done it all.'

'The person: 'What was your reason?'

'Pulko: 'Just leave it - I'm going to turn off my phone.''
The Florida man whose wide neck and mugshots turned him into an internet sensation is back behind bars for the third time in two months.

Charles Dion McDowell - who now refers to himself as 'Wide Neck' - was arrested on Tuesday night in Pensacola.

McDowell's management team shared news of the arrest on his official 'damnwideneck' Instagram page.

'He didn't get arrested on any new charges, the judge revoked his bond from his original charges,' the statement read.

Charles Dion McDowell, who became an internet sensation after his wide neck and mugshots went viral, has been arrested for the third time in two months. He's pictured here in his most recent mugshot

'Now he has to sit in jail until his case is over with.'

It remains unclear why McDowell's bond was revoked.

McDowell's team said he appreciated 'all the love and support from everyone in the past two months'.

'Charles' life has changed for the better for himself and his family. When all this is over with this last case, you have his word that he'll never go back to jail again!'

The statement concluded with the hashtag '#freewideneck'.

McDowell, 31, first became an internet sensation after he was arrested in November.

McDowell (pictured here in his November 21 mugshot) was not arrested on any new charges on Tuesday but had his bond revoked

McDowell, 31, first became an internet sensation after he was arrested on November 13 (pictured) on multiple drug and eluding police charges

He was charged with fleeing/eluding police, possession of meth with intent to sell/manufacture/deliver, possession of cocaine with intent to sell/manufacture/deliver, possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, and possession of drug equipment.

The Escambia County Sheriff's Office posted about McDowell's arrest on Facebook, sharing a picture of his mugshot - which quickly went viral.

McDowell's mugshot was shared nearly 300,000 times and received more than 260,000 comments as people tried to one-up each other's neck puns.

'I hope they notified his Necks of kin,' one commenter wrote.

'What neck of the woods was he caught in?' another one asked.

McDowell's management team shared news of his arrest this week on his official 'damnwideneck' Instagram, along with the hashtag #FreeWideNeck

McDowell's neck may be wide but his rap sheet is long. Pictured are various mugshots he's had to take through the years

'What they charge this guy with? Neckless Endangerment?' yet another quipped.

Just weeks later, McDowell was arrested yet again after he tried to flee a patrol car in Alabama.

McDowell was charged with reckless driving, driving with a revoked license, improper lane usage and a second-degree possession of marijuana charge.

'You have his word that he'll never go back to jail again,' one of McDowell's representatives said following the second arrest.

While that may not be the case, McDowell is clearly enjoying his newfound fame.

But McDowell has made the most of his internet fame, even pairing up with David Samuelson Jr, better known by his social media personality 'Daddy Long Neck'

In November he created an Instagram account, which now has 1.3 million followers, and dubbed himself the 'CEO of Wide Neck Gang'.

McDowell also paired up with David Samuelson Jr, better known by his social media personality 'Daddy Long Neck'.

Together the pair have made a number of videos about their very different necks, even creating a song together called 'NECKST UP'.

The music video features a woman licking both of their necks while they wear T-shirts emblazoned with the words 'All Necks Matter'.
Russian boxer Sergey Kovalev is being sued for $8 million by the woman who accused him of brutalizing her and her dog after she declined his advances in Big Bear, California last June.

Kovalev, 35, was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon on June 9 after reportedly leaving the woman with a broken nose, a concussion, and displaced disc in her neck. He has since denied the accusations on Instagram, warning his followers 'not to make hasty conclusions on the situation.'

Following his arrest, the former unified light heavyweight champion pleaded innocent to the charges. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted, according to TMZ.

The accusations against Kovalev were not made public until earlier this month.

Kovalev's accuser, Jamie Frontz, identified herself publicly in a recent Instagram post in which she detailed some of the alleged assault.

Russian boxer Sergey Kovalev is being sued for $8 million by the woman who accused him of brutalizing her and her dog after she declined his advances in Big Bear, California last June

Kovalev's accuser, Jamie Frontz (pictured), identified herself publicly in a recent Instagram post in which she detailed some of the alleged assault. She claims Kovalev also kicked her dog

'I hear that he is denying on his social media that he punched me in the face,' she wrote in Tuesday's Instagram post. 'I'm curious as to how he explains the fact that I suddenly wound up with a shattered nose, an open head wound, a concussion and two spinal injuries when he was standing 3 feet away from me in the living room of my own cabin (infuriated because I wouldn't have sex with him, so much so that he had just viciously kicked my dog Annie), and there's an eye witness who saw the whole thing.

'Nice try, Krusher,' she continued, referring to Kovalev's nickname. 'Fortunately, he's facing felony assault charges and I'm also suing him for $8 million, so one way or the other I suspect the truth will come out. Sadly, I know all to (sic) well what its (sic) like to get punched in the face by Kovalev, only when he hit me he wasn't wearing gloves.'

Neither Kovalev's spokesperson nor Frontz immediately responded to the Daily Mail's request for comment.

According to her Instagram profile, Frontz is a model, blogger and influencer.

According to Frontz's Instagram account, she attended a 'casino night' at a club on June 9, presumably before she was allegedly assaulted by Kovalev. Frontz (center) works as a model

Kovalev's accuser, Jamie Frontz, identified herself in a recent Instagram post in which she detailed some of the alleged assault. The 35-year-old Kovalev denies the allegations

According to the court filing, the dog Annie (pictured) attempted to intervene when Kovalev shoved and kicked it before punching Frontz in the face with a closed fist

She reportedly rejected the married Kovalev's advances at a party before he and a friend followed her to her cabin, where she was allegedly assaulted.

'At one point, Kovalev pinned Jamie to the couch, leaning over her with his hands on either side of her shoulders, such that she could not move away,' read court papers obtained by TMZ.

According to the court filing, the dog attempted to intervene when Kovalev shoved and kicked it before punching Frontz in the face with a closed fist.

He and his friend then allegedly left, at which point she called the police. Kovalev was arrested later that night.

Frontz claims she was treated in the emergency room for a broken nose, a concussion, and severe back and neck injuries.

According to Frontz's Instagram account, she attended a 'casino night' at a club on June 9, ostensibly before she was allegedly assaulted by Kovalev.

Kovalev is expected back in court in March to face the charge, according to TMZ.

On Saturday Kovalev will have a rematch with Colombia's Eleider Alvarez (left), who upset the former light heavyweight champion in their previous meeting. Kovalev (right) wrote on Instagram that he finds it strange that 'the incident happened in June of last year, and they announced it on the eve of my rematch against Alvarez?'

On Saturday Kovalev will have a rematch with Colombia's Eleider Alvarez, who upset the former light heavyweight champion in their previous meeting.

'Doesn't it seem strange to you that the incident happened in June of last year, and they announced it on the eve of my rematch against Alvarez?' Kovalev asked on Instagram.

Like Kazakh and former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Kovalev frequently trains in Big Bear, which hosts many boxers throughout the year.

Kovalev (32-3) reached the pinnacle of his career when he earned a pair of fights against American light heavyweight champion Andre Ward, but he ultimately lost a controversial decision to Ward in 2016 before falling by TKO in 2017.

During the lead-up to the rematch, Kovalev drew criticism for making tweets that included racist and homophobic slurs.

The Russian former champion is known for his power as a remarkable 28 of Kovalev's 32 wins have come by knockout.

Kovalev reportedly has a wife, Natalya, and a young son, Aleksandr. It is unclear exactly how much the former champion is worth, but he previously was paid over $1 million for his two fights against American Andre Ward, both of which he lost.
Special education teacher Alexandra Reiner, 30, has been charged with sexually assaulting one of her male students

A special education teacher at a southern New Jersey high school has been arrested for allegedly having sex with a male student.

Burlington County prosecutors say Alexandra Reiner was taken into custody on Tuesday and charged with second-degree sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

The 30-year-old Eastampton resident has taught at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly since 2011.

According to a statement from the prosecutor's office, school district officials notified them last week about a potentially inappropriate relationship between Reiner and a student.

A subsequent investigation revealed that Reiner had 'contact' with the student in December in Mount Holly and Lumberton.

Details about the alleged victim have not been released, including whether he was in any of Reiners classes.

All information about Reiner has been expunged from the Rancocas Valley Regional High School's website, but an online search reveals that she graduated from the school in 2006.

Reiner has taught at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, New Jersey (pictured), since 2011

This undated photo shows Reiner dancing at Rancocas Valley, which is also her alma mater

She then went on to earn a Bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers University in 2010, followed by a Master's degree in education from Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

In a statement to The Cherry Hill Courier-Post addressing Reiner's arrest, Schools Superintendent Chris Heilig said the teacher has been banned from the campus.
Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson both spoke about their distaste for music producer Lukasz Gottwald in depositions given during the ongoing lawsuit between the man better known as Dr Luke and Ke$ha that have been obtained by DailyMail.com.

In her deposition, Gaga alternated between sobbing and angrily responding to questions about rape and the sexual assault of women, including one about fellow pop star Katy Perry.

Gaga confirmed to lawyers for Dr Luke that she and Kesha had been told by Interscope Chairman John Janick that Perry was sexually assaulted by the producer, an allegation that Perry herself later denied under oath.

Meanwhile, Kelly Clarkson made it very clear how little she cared for Dr Luke in her deposition, saying she found him to be 'bullying' and 'demeaning.'

She also detailed how she told him off back in 2008 during the third and final time she was forced to work with the producer.

Ke$ha publicly alleged that Dr Luke drugged and raped her when she was 18 while trying to get out of her contract with the producer and parent company Sony, a bid that was denied by a judge in 2016 but is currently being appealed by the singer.

The two are also still in litigation over a lawsuit that Dr Luke filed against the pop star for breach of contract, with the producer denying he ever assaulted the singer.

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Lukewarm about Luke: Lady Gaga (left) sobbed through her deposition about Dr Luke in 2017, while Kelly Clarkson (right) recalled telling him off

Praying: Clarkson and Gaga were deposed in the ongoing legal battle between Ke$ha (above in 2016 leaving court) and Dr Luke

At the start of Gaga's deposition, her lawyer made an announcement on the record.

'I just want everyone to understand that, as she has publicly stated in other contexts, as a sex abuse survivor, and I know this from my own personal experience with family members, there are trigger events, and this deposition has proved to be a trigger event for Ms. Germanotta, and she has experienced in the past few hours some PTSD reactions which is causing some trauma and emotional reactivity,' said the attorney.

'So she is crying now the record will reflect. That doesn't mean she is unable to testify truthfully and competently, and she is prepared to do so, but I just want the record to reflect that she is in a state of emotional upset and may need, from time to time, even though we all share the interest of getting this deposition done as expeditiously and efficiently as possible, may need to just take some breaks.'

It was also revealed at the start that Dr Luke was listening to the deposition remotely.

Gaga said early into her deposition that Janick told her the rumor about Perry and Dr Luke while the pair were having a conversation about bringing Ke$ha over to their record label, Interscope.

'[Janick] was there to be supportive to her, and I had a conversation with him and her about what we can do to speak with Sony about potentially maybe bringing her over to Interscope, and that I would look after her,' said Gaga.

Lawyers for Dr Luke then began to ask questions of Gaga that appeared to suggest there was a sinister or vindictive motive to the comments she and KeSha had made about the alleged assault involving Perry.

DR LUKE'S BIGGEST HITS Since U Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson) Behind These Hazel Eyes (Kelly Clarkson) Who Knew (Pink) Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne) I Kissed A Girl (Katy Perry) My Life Would Suck Without You (Kelly Clarkson) Party In The USA (Miley Cyrus) Tik Tok (Kesha) California Gurls (Katy Perry) Teenage Dream (Katy Perry) Magic (B.o.B) Your Love Is My Drug (Ke$ha) Take It Off (Ke$ha) Part of Me (Katy Perry) Wide Awake (Katy Perry) Advertisement

Gaga was very quick to shoot that down, stating: 'I was really and truly trying to be supportive of her and listen to her. It is my personal opinion with rape survivor that it's very difficult to come forward, and if she hadn't come forward or if she hadn't told me herself or I hadn't seen anything, I would never make an assumption like that as someone that works in that space and that advocates for women who are sexual assault survivors.'

She added: 'I was speaking with Kesha in a very casual personal way so that I can help her feel not alone.'

Gaga said she would run into Ke$ha from time-to-time when the were starting out in the industry and they had grown close as a result.

She also recalled running into the singer at Dr Luke's home studio once, where Ke$ha was 'in the back in her underwear on a bed.'

The deposition then grew intense as questions started to arise about the damage Ke$ha's rape allegations had on Dr Luke.

Gaga remained remarkably composed for the start of that round of questions, but tensions quickly began to rise.

As lawyers for Dr Luke focused in the rights of the accused, Gaga at one point stated: 'And when this happens in this industry, it is kept extremely secret, and it is compounded by contracts and manipulative power scenarios that actually include this very situation that we are all in right now.'

Dr Luke's lawyer responded by asking: 'But, again, there are people that are falsely accused of rape, aren't there? You think there has never been a false accusation of rape?'

Gaga was advised at that point to stop responding but ignored the advice of counsel, saying: 'You - how about all of the women that are accused of being liars and how she was slut shamed in front of the world, how about that?'

The singer was then asked to answer a theoretical question about her father being accused of rape and whom she would believe in that instance.

The lawyer for Dr Luke said she would believe her father, to which Gaga fired back: 'How would I know my father didn't do it?'

She later added during the same line of questions: 'If my father did it, then he did it.'

Gaga then cut to the chase and informed the lawyers that she 'believed' Kesha, saying: 'Why on earth would this girl tell the entire world that this happened? Why on earth? Do you know what it's like for survivors? Do you know what it's like to tell people?'

She then lashed out at the lawyer, saying: 'Don't you roll your eyes at me. You should be ashamed of yourself.'

Rumors: Lady Gaga also confirmed that Interscope Chairman John Janick told her and Ke$ha that Dr Luke (left) had raped Katy Perry (right), an allegation Perry later denied

A recess was called after that, and the deposition once the parties returned did not break any new ground.

The focus became her tweets and texts with Ke$ha, which Gaga defended despite arguments that suggested they were part of a vicious campaign against Dr Luke.

'My external postings are not meant in any way to damage anyone's reputation. All of my postings, all of my retweets were in the spirit of informing young women around the world, of giving a voice to somebody that needed a voice, because she is a sexual assault survivor, and she deserves to have a voice,' said Gaga.

'It was in service of not only the music industry community but of the sexual assault survivor community, and I was steadfastly passionate about making sure that she never felt alone.'

Clarkson's deposition was far less combative, unlike her relationship with Dr Luke.

The two first worked together on Since U Been Gone, then Behind These Hazel Eyes before their third and final song, My Life Would Suck Without You.

That third session is when Clarkson went off on Dr Luke.

'He walked up to me, and I was standing with my manager Narville Blackstock, not to be confused with my husband, who is also named Narville, but he goes by Brandon,' explained Clarkson.

'He is my father-in-law, it's very incestual. But he was standing next to me, my manager, we were talking. And Dr Luke attempted to come up, or he didn't attempt. He came up and said, "hey, you know, I don't know like what the problem is, you know, between us."'

Clarkson, who has never been much for artifice, did not let Dr Luke explain any further, she told lawyers.

'And I just cut him off and said, "man, you know exactly what the problem is between us. You know, like things that have gone down behind the scenes." And, you know, via my label, via people telling me at my label like things he said and just his way of like having arguments with my fans and having like just his person,' said Clarkson.

'Like I was like, "you know I don't like you. And it's cool like I don't have to like you, you don't have to like me. There's plenty of people in the world like and, you know, I hope you're successful in your ventures. I'm going to be successful in mine. We don't have to work together. You know why I'm here; I have to be." I was like so there's no -- I'm like, "I'm not mad about it, I'm not angry, I just don't want you in my life." So... '

When asked how Dr Luke responded to that, Clarkson recalled: 'He said, I mean, well, he was in disbelief, which is pure Dr Luke fashion when he does something that isn't nice.

'And then is like "what" and he just kind of chuckled and laughed and walked off.'

Clarkson was then asked: 'Did you have any interactions with Dr Luke after that?'

To that The Voice host quickly responded: 'Not one.'

Clarkson also revealed during her deposition that she was one of many women in the industry who did not enjoy working with Dr Luke.

'I have heard, I think it's P!nk and I have heard like doesn't like working with him. I have been told,' said Clarkson.

'I was not told this via P!nk. I was told via my label because they're like, you know, we're having a hard time with him working with other people. And then they said, actually almost every female at our label doesn't like working with him.'

She said that a big reason she did not care for the producer was because he falsely took credit for her work, leading to a tense meeting with music legend Clive Davis.

'I was told by my label executive, it was a really rough meeting, Clive Davis, where first of all, he told me I was a s****y writer and that I shouldn't -- I should just shut up and listen to the producers. And then he said, and I said or he said something about hits. You should just take the hits and just sing them or something to that extent,' said Clarkson.

'And I said, well, I'm a writer on these. I mean, I wrote on Miss Independent. I wrote on like Hazel Eyes. I wrote Because Of You myself. Like I wrote, like I'm like, and then he proceeded to say that I did not.

'Well, he told me I was lying. That Dr Luke told him that he had written Hazel Eyes. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I went through a real s****y relationship. Can I say s****y? those situations. And especially to label heads who just look at a lot of women as a piece of ass selling music. So, you know, it was, I was pretty mad about it.'

The entire incident was all the more difficult because of the work Clarkson was putting into her music.

'To write those lyrics, you know. So it was kind of, it's pretty, I mean, I'm known for being a singer. So it's hurtful whenever you try so hard and you have been accomplished in a certain area. And then somebody just lies about their part in a song. And I said, well, we definitely did collaborate. But I can pull out the lyrics from a notebook piece of paper that I still have. I was like, what?' said Clarkson.

'So it just, you know, and I wasn't there when Dr Luke apparently had a conversation with Clive but. And then there was another circumstance, and I'm not remembering it right now, but there were a couple of circumstances. That was the main one. That really frankly pissed me off. A. Because he was demeaning -- he was, as a writer, he was undermining me. And it's like, well, I mean, I'm aware I have a good voice, but I'm also a good writer. And for somebody that's trying to make it so hard in an industry like himself at the time because he had not had success before Since U Been Gone. So you'd think that person would understand how important credit is in.'

KeSha has been in litigation with Dr Luke since 2014, and in 2016 said in an open letter: 'All I ever wanted was to be able to make music without being afraid, scared, or abused. This case has never been about a renegotiation of my record contract  it was never about getting a bigger, or a better deal.

'This is about being free from my abuser. I would be willing to work with Sony if they do the right thing and break all ties that bind me to my abuser.'

Shortly after she posted that message Adele acknowledged her legal troubles at the Brit Awards in London, choking up as she said; 'And I would like to take this moment to publicly support Kesha.'

Adele is by far the most profitable living artist signed to Sony.

Taylor Swift donated $250,000 to Kesha, and Gaga, Clarkson, Miley Cyrus, Fiona Apple and Ariana Grande were among hundreds who posted messages on Instagram and Twitter to the fast-growing #FreeKesha campaign.

Kesha filed a suit against Dr Luke in Los Angeles in October 2014 alleging he had drugged her with a 'sober pill' and raped her shortly after her 18th birthday in California and threatened to take away her publishing rights.

In their countersuit filed last year, Sony actually compared Kesha to Adele, saying that the singer could have a comeback and become just as big as the British chanteuse, adding they had invested $11million into her career and she had collected $3million in royalties during her time at Sony.

Kesha responded to this at the time by saying; 'I love Adele, and this has nothing to do with her or any other artist. I never wanted to have a "comeback" because I never wanted to go away.

'Making these comparisons is Sony's way of trying to put a positive spin on a horribly abusive situation they are supporting.'

Dr Luke meanwhile claims that not only did he not rape Kesha, but that the two never even had sex.

Court documents seen exclusively by DailyMail.com chronicle a decade of alleged abuse and exploitation that left Kesha 'broken, damaged and traumatized.'

She 'lived in a prison of abuse, suffering a psychological and physical fallout so severe as to be described as "life-threatening", requiring her to check into rehab.'

She broke down in court after hearing the judge's ruling back in 2016 before sending out a message to her fans thanking them for the outpouring of support.
The mother of 15-month-old Evie Crandle who died of sepsis last April wept in court today as the coroner recorded a verdict of death from natural causes contributed to by neglect.

Fifteen-month-old Evie Crandle died on April 16 2018, two days after her parents Samantha McNeice and Phil Crandle took her to Whiston Hospital, Merseyside.

Doctors at Whiston hospital failed twice to put Evie on a course of treatment which might have saved her and didn't listen to her parents' warnings that she was extremely ill until it was too late.

Samantha McNeice and Phil Crandle have slammed a Merseyside hospital after their daughter Evie died from sepsis two days after she was sent home with Calpol

Liverpool Coroner's court heard that Evie died from multiple organ failure and severe invasive group A streptococcal infection after medical staff failed to spot her symptoms of sepsis.

Ms McNeice even told staff she feared her little girl had a blood infection, but a series of failures by staff meant the family were packed off home with medicine they could have bought at a supermarket - calpol and ibuprofen.

Yesterday assistant coroner Julie Goulding said Evie arrived at Whiston Hospital on April 14 after her parents became worried about her condition. Evie was lethargic and had been vomiting.

Ms Goulding said that a triage at Whiston should have been alerted to the possibility of sepsis due to Evie's symptoms.

The court heard that Evie had a high temperature, and a fast heart and respiratory rate. Ms Goulding said that Evie should have been placed on the sepsis pathway at this point, a procedure in place to identify the killer disease.

However that did not happen.

Evie died despite her parents specifically raising their fears about sepsis to hospital staff

Ms Goulding said the failure to urgently administer fluids and antibiotics was a 'missed opportunity'.

Evie, from Whiston, was sent home at around 4.30pm after she was given medicine to reduce her temperature. Staff suspected that she had a urinary infection.

But Evie's parents brought her back to Whiston hospital just after 6.30pm because she was not getting better.

When Evie was re-admitted to hospital she had a heart rate of around 169, which should have led to a 'review into her condition.' Ms Goulding said that Evie needed antibiotics.

Again the coroner found that a blood test should have been carried out, and that antibiotics should have been administered. She said this was yet another opportunity to put her on the sepsis pathway.

The missed chances to save little Evie 11.30am, April 14 - Evie is brought to Whiston hospital. The coroner found that staff should have been alerted to the possibility of sepsis due to her high temperature and fast heart rate. She should have been placed on the 'sepsis pathway' and administered fluids and antibiotics. 4.30pm - Instead of being treated, Evie was sent home after being given medicine to reduce her temperature. 6.30pm - Evie's parents brought her back to Whiston hospita again because she was not getting better. She now had a heart rate of around 169, which should have led to a review of her condition, a blood test and antibiotics, but instead her parents were again left waiting. 9.30pm - A doctor at Whiston administered an antibiotic cream, but Evie was not seen again by a doctor for another two hours. 2.45pm - More than 15 hours after Evie were first brought in, she is finally given her first full dose of antibiotics. April 16 - Evie tragically dies after being transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital. Advertisement

At around 9.30pm a doctor at Whiston administered an antibiotic cream, but Evie was not seen again by a doctor for another two hours. At 2.45am in the morning Evie received her first full dose of antibiotics.

The coroner said that a consultant saw Evie at around 4am, but 'failed to recognise how poorly she was.'

She was transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital where she was treated in intensive care. Evie died the next day.

In summary the coroner said: 'There had been a failure at the time to recognise how ill Evie was, a failure to complete the sepsis assessment tool and to place Evie on the sepsis pathway (twice) or for a senior doctor to say why it was appropriate to deviate from the pathway.

'There were also failures to initiate appropriate treatment in a timely manner, to undertake appropriate observations of vital signs, to communicate effectively between staff and to complete fundamental documentation.

'There were delays and failures to summon appropriate senior and consultant level assistance in a timely manner in addition to which Evie's mother asked doctors if Evie could have sepsis, one of those times being at about 00.30 hrs on 15/04/2018 and at the time the doctors did not think it was, the working diagnosis being that of infection.

'Insufficient notice was taken of Evie's parents, not only did mum ask explicitly whether Evie could have sepsis but both parents expressed their concerns about her changed behaviour and how different she was from her usual bright, playful self.'

The coroner also said that St Helens and Knowsley NHS Foundation Trust had agreed to an action plan to prevent a future death of this type. She said that she had written to the trust to enquire how the action plan would be implemented.

A spokesperson St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: 'The Trust offers its sincere condolences to Evie's family for their devastating loss, and has unreservedly apologised for the shortfalls in her care.

Her devastated parents said of the youngster: 'She was the centre of our universe'

'When Evie first attended A&E it was not anticipated that her condition would deteriorate so seriously. Sepsis is a rare and difficult condition to diagnose with symptoms similar to those of many childhood illnesses.

'Following Evie's death, an immediate and thorough investigation was carried out. The Trust accepted that Evie's care could have been improved and shared those finding with Evie's parents.

'Action plans have been implemented to ensure lessons have been learned.'

Evie's mother slammed the hospital's failures today after the coroner's verdict that neglect had contributed to her death.

Ms McNeice told the BBC: 'Although it was a relief that someone's listening to you finally, and they've understood what happened wasn't right, it was not nice to hear that she was so badly neglected.'

Assistant coroner Julie Goulding ruled: 'If intravenous antibiotics has been given earlier, on balance, it was likely to have made a difference to the outcome.'

Earlier this week, Mr Crandle and Ms McNeice told an inquest how their 'beautiful' baby girl had been 'let down in the worst possible way' by medical staff.

Ms McNeice told Liverpool Coroner's Court: 'Our lives were built around Evie. She was the centre of our universe. We have lost our daughter and have to face the fact we knew what was wrong with her.

The NHS trust in charge of Whiston Hospital has apologised to the family after today's ruling

'We took her to hospital straight away and asked over and over about sepsis. I remember saying 'are you sure this isn't sepsis?'

'I was petrified but stupidly allowed myself to take comfort from the fact that a medical professional was telling me 'it could be but it's most likely a urine infection'.

'I feel like I failed Evie in the worst possible way. We put all our trust in the medical staff and thought there was no way they would let our beautiful 15-month-old down.'

After coroner Julie Goulding found 15 different failures at the hospital in connection with Evies death, Miss McNeice said NHS staff needed to be better prepared to listen to parents who know their children best.

Miss McNeice, 31, said: We had seen the campaign. We were asking from the moment we got to the hospital if it was sepsis. We put our trust in the doctors and nurses and they let us and Evie down so badly.

Mr Crandle, 35, added: They didnt listen to us.

Ruling that Evie died of natural causes, contributed to by neglect, Miss Goulding said there was no doubt the failure of nurses to complete a sepsis assessment tool meant Evie was denied the antibiotics which would have saved her.

After the hearing Evies parents, who are both operations managers at a childrens charity, described their daughter as a perfect, wonderful little girl.

Commenting on the Coroner's verdict of neglect following Evie Crandle's inquest, medical negligence lawyer Diane Rostron said: 'Sam and Phil were very clear that their 15-month-old daughter Evie was showing signs of sepsis. They knew this as soon as they arrived at Whiston hospital and repeatedly alerted medical staff to this throughout that day. They have been failed by no less than six medical staff on the day and have unnecessarily lost their little girl.

'The Trust's internal investigation following Evie's preventable death was flawed and found limited failings in the care provided. The Trust only revised their report into the incident after being challenged. It has been very disappointing and concerning that throughout the inquest the NHS staff still believed that they gave Evie the right level of care.

'Evie was in the care of Whiston Hospital for no less than 16 hours. She was showing signs of sepsis at triage and should have been given antibiotics within one hour of admission in line with national guidelines which the Trust chose to ignore.

'Evie Crandle could and should have been saved with a simple, and timely, course of antibiotics. The Trust failed to provide adequate levels of patient care and have since admitted liability for Evie's avoidable death.'

The inquest has heard how the couple took their usually 'playful' daughter Evie to the hospital after she had been vomiting, had blue lips, cold hands and feet and a temperature of 39.9C.

Two paediatric nurses who saw Evie - Kay Archer and Penny Hartley - both told the court how they had 'forgotten' to fill in sepsis documentation following their observations and had since had more training.

A report into the death found there was a delay in medical assessment of Evie, who was only seen more than three hours after she was seen in triage by Mrs Archer.

Further failings in recording observations, escalating her case to a senior doctor, communication between staff, administering antibiotics and carrying out blood tests were also outlined.

The court heard how the potentially life saving sepsis tool was only half filled in by Mrs Archer and not at all by Mrs Hartley.

This meant that when Dr Jennifer Hale saw Evie before she was discharged, she only had Mrs Hartley's notes which had no suggestion of sepsis.

Dr Hale told the court 'I didn't feel that she presented as a septic child, she was alert, drinking and interacting with her parents'.
President Duterte traces the last moments of life of the couple. From the local media the hypothesis that before the attack they had been sighted in a terrorist training camp. The silence of the population makes investigation difficult and the administration could offer rewards. In Zamboanga, unknown people throw grenade inside a mosque: two dead and four wounded.

Manila (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The authors of the January 27 suicide bombing on the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo (Sulu) were a married couple. This was revealed by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, adding that "there is no doubt" about the fact that Abu Sayyaf, an armed group that has sworn loyalty to the Islamic State (IS) is behind the explosions.

Meanwhile, 14 year old Chienly Camille Tabas Rubio's death in hospital brings the number of people who died in the jihadist attack to 21; among these there are several bodies not yet identified. 112 people are injured, 54 of whom need continuous medical assistance.

In these hours, another episode is likely to ignite Mindanao. Early this morning, unknown people threw a grenade into the Kamahaldikaan mosque in Zamboanga City, killing two people and injuring four others. Army spokesman Col. Gerry Besana says that the first investigations are under way to determine if the action is linked to the January 27th attack.

Two days ago, the Philippine president went to the scene of the tragedy (photo) and visited the injured at the hospital. Citing intelligence sources, Duterte yesterday retraced the last moments of life of the two bombers, confirming for the first time in an official capacity that the terrorists have committed the suicide attack.

The woman, wearing a showy cross around her neck, entered the church and in the middle of the 8 o'clock function detonated the improvised explosive device (IED) she carried with her. As a female, the terrorist "did not raise suspicions" among the security personnel, the president says. Instead, the husband remained outside the cathedral, near the entrance. Outside the church, after the first explosion policemen and soldiers rushed to the scene and did not search him, allowing him to trigger the second explosion.

Duterte declares that the bombers "may be foreigners" (perhaps Indonesians), but "the reports of the security forces on the matter do not agree" on their nationality. Local media put forward the hypothesis that the two had been spotted in a Abu Sayyaf training camp four days before the attack. The president states that "it is certain that for two years foreign terrorists have trained in Jolo", a historical Islamist stronghold in the area of the island of Mindanao. For this, he had already sent a whole battalion of soldiers there.

Delfin Lorenzana, secretary of the Defense of Manila, reveals that Duterte ordered the military and police to crush the militants of Abu Sayyaf"by any means". The minister adds that the president is thinking of imposing a cut on the couple's accomplices. "We hope - says Lorenzana - to be able to convince the locals to work with us to identify these people. It is difficult to trace them because it is just as difficult to get information. Local people do not talk to people who are not familiar ".
This is the moment a pensioner was dramatically rescued from the River Thames  while London temperatures plummeted during Britain's deep freeze.

The man in his 60s was seen thrashing about in the water as he struggled to stay afloat against the strong current.

Wearing a red hoody, he grabbed onto a rope that was flung to him by a man on the Harbour Master's boat who came to his aid.

He was hauled out of the icy cold river and seen lying on the back of the blue vessel with water pouring from his shoes.

This is the moment that a pensioner was dramatically rescued from the River Thames  while London temperatures plummeted today during Britain's deep freeze

The man in his 60s was seen thrashing about in the water as he struggled to stay afloat against the strong current. Wearing a red hoody, he grabbed onto a rope that was flung to him by a man on the Harbour Master's boat who came to his aid

A passer-by told MailOnline: 'I was walking by the London Eye on London's Southbank when I saw a fully-clothed man attempting to swim against the current. He looked like he was a strong swimmer using breast and back stroke but he was struggling against the strong current'

The dramatic rescue took place in front of a river cruise just next to the top tourist spot London Eye.

The man rushed to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where he was treated for shock but otherwise unharmed.

A passer-by told MailOnline: 'I was walking by the London Eye on London's Southbank when I saw a fully-clothed man attempting to swim against the current at just before 2pm.

'He looked like he was a strong swimmer using breast and back stroke but he was struggling against the strong current.

'I saw two police officers reporting the incident on their radios before a Port of London Authority boat quickly pulled him out of water by using a rope.

'A lifeboat then took him to shore.

'I have no idea how he ended up in the water in the first place. I cannot imagine how cold and how difficult it must have been swimming in the Thames on a wintry day like this.'

An RNLI spokeswoman said: 'The Port of London Authority were first on the scene before he was transferred to an RNLI station where he was warmed up and given a change of clothes.

Two police officers reported the incident on their radios before a Port of London Authority boat quickly pulled him out of water using a rope

The man was hauled out of the icy cold river and seen lying on the back of the vessel with water pouring from his shoes

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that the man in his 60s was treated for shock at Whitechapel's Royal London Hospital

'He was then transferred to an ambulance and taken to hospital.'

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that the man in his 60s was treated for shock at Whitechapel's Royal London Hospital.

London's temperatures dropped to just five degrees centigrade today  while the BBC Weather Centre claimed the cold meant it felt more like a chilling two degrees centigrade.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: 'We were called today to reports of an incident at Victoria Embankment.

'We sent an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and a single responder in a car to the scene.

'We treated a man at the scene and took him to a major trauma centre as a priority.'
Pennsylvania man John VanHorn, 49, was arrested on Wednesday after his wife was found with her ankle shackled to the underside of the front passenger seat of his car. Cops said he allegedly cuffed her to the car to prevent her from cheating

A Pennsylvania man has been arrested for allegedly handcuffing his wife to his car so she wouldn't cheat on him.

John VanHorn, 49, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with false imprisonment after someone spotted his wife stuck in his vehicle and called the cops.

Officers who arrived at the scene found a middle-aged woman with a 'metal device locked to her ankle that was secured to the underside of the front passenger seat', according to the Bethlehem Police Department.

And it turns out this wasn't the first time.

The woman told cops her husband attached her to the car to 'keep her there' and had done so multiple times over the past six months.

According to authorities, he allegedly locked her up because he was worried she was cheating on him.

He was arrested on the 900 block of Jennings Streets (above)

Police found Vanhorn driving a borrowed vehicle nearby.

He was found with the keys to his wife's shackles as well as two realistic looking BB gun, cops said.

The woman was released from the shackles and connected with family members.

He was remanded at Northampton County Prison in lieu of $50,000 bail and was later released after posting bond, according to ABC.
Iceland is the world's safest country while the Philippines is the most dangerous, according to a new study.

Global Finance Magazine considers war and peace, crime rates and the risk of natural disasters in working out its Safety Index Score for each nation.

Iceland came top due to its tiny crime rate, with under 400,000 residents - and although the island contains active volcanoes - there is a low risk to life.

The US was one of the exception's to the rule for economically developed countries - placing 65th - in large part due to its homicide rate.

The most safe countries on the left, with Iceland top and the most dangerous countries on the right, with the Philippines at the top

Reykjavik in Iceland - the country has a population of under 400,000 and is considered to be the safest in the world by the magazine

Iceland has prevalent gun ownership but has a tiny per capita murder rate which is dwarfed by the United States

Global Finance magazine included 128 of the 193 states recognised by the UN on its list, with notable absences including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is not clear why such states - which regularly rank among the most dangerous in the world - did not feature in their calculations.

According to the FBI there were 5.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2017, this is more than double most of its European economic counterparts.

On the other hand, Iceland is said to be filled with guns but had just a single murder in 2009, according to the BBC.

Many believe the low per capita murder rate in Iceland is down to lack of a class system, which prevents jealousy and also low drug usage.

As well as America's high homicide rate the continental mass of North America puts US citizens at more risk of natural disaster than their European cousins across the Atlantic.

Japan was also an anomaly among the top economies for that reason, placing 43rd, due to their high risk of natural disaster with earthquakes in the region.

America's high homicide rate is one of the main reasons for it falling well below its economic counterparts in the list of the safest countries

Residences leveled by California wildfires last year - another reason for the US falling below Europe is due to a higher prevalence of natural disasters on the colossal continent

European countries scored particularly well, accounting for seven countries out of the top ten and 15 out of the top 20.

Global Finance attribute the scores to developed economies and healthcare systems which protect people from dangers such as undernourishment and disease.

The UK placed 38th, coming after Romania and Kuwait on the safety index. Australia was ranked 18th.

Yemen, which is a violent famine-ridden war zone, placed second-bottom on the list, with the Philippines found to be the most dangerous place to live.

Although Yemen is an active war zone, and people face a greater military and security risk, the magazine deemed the risk from natural disasters in the Philippines to be so grave it takes its score higher.

A member of Yemeni pro-government forces fires a heavy machine gun during a fragile ceasefire in the port city of Hodeidah, Yemen last week, the country is the second most dangerous in the world according to the study

A house is flooded in the typhoon-hit province of Camarines Sur, Philippines earlier this month

The Ukraine and Russia placed far down the list compared to other European countries.

This is due to a civil war raging in the Ukraine, in which Russia is playing a part.

Meanwhile the magazine said that Russians face disproportionate levels of violent crime and the dire economic situation puts them at a further security risk.

They used data from the World Economic Forum and the Global Institute for Peace to create their list.
Matthew Toole, 32, pleaded 'no contest' to two charges in the rape of a three-month-old girl on Monday in Calhoun County, Michigan

A Michigan man accused of raping a three-month-old girl has pleaded no contest to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Matthew Toole, 32, entered the pleas in Calhoun County court on Monday to avoid going to trial after the prosecution motioned to add a witness in his case.

Toole is one of four people allegedly involved in an child pornography ring who police say had each sexually assaulted their own child, as well as others.

In exchange for pleading no contest to the two charges, Toole will have nine other counts dismissed, including child abuse and production and possession of child pornography.

He could face a minimum of 25 years and maximum of life in prison for each charge when sentenced on March 11.

Toole and his girlfriend, 33-year-old Talia Furman, were arrested in August on multiple charges for raping the three-month-old girl and a three-year-old boy.

Authorities said they seized videos of the alleged assaults, which took place between October 2017 and May 2018 in Springfield and at a campground in Marcellus.

The counts against Toole involved oral sex and intercourse with the infant girl.

Furman's trial on 11 charges including criminal sexual misconduct and child abuse is slated to begin in March.

Toole is one of four people allegedly involved in an child pornography ring who police say had each sexually assaulted their own child, as well as others. He is pictured in court Monday

Toole (left) and his girlfriend Talia Furman, 33, (right), were arrested in August on multiple charges for raping the three-month-old girl and a three-year-old boy

The alleged assaults were revealed in an investigation by the Michigan State Police that began in May after authorities received a tip that Toole, Furman and a 19-year-old woman named Jayme LaPointe had recorded videos of themselves assaulting children.

During that investigation, police discovered conversations between the three suspects and 37-year-old David Bailey about a plot to kidnap a young child from a public place, then torture and sexually assault the child until their death, then dispose of the body.

They had allegedly talked about targeting county fairs in Branch, Calhoun and Jackson, parking lots of Walmart and Meijer stores without security cameras and a few parades.

The same investigation that uncovered the alleged assaults by Toole and Furman also revealed that the pair had hatched a plot with Jayme LaPointe, 19, (bottom left) and David Bailey, 37, (bottom right) to kidnap, rape, torture and murder a young child. Conspiracy charges filed against all four defendants in September 2018 are pending in Branch County

The four suspects were arrested before they were able to carry out the plot.

Conspiracy charges filed against each of them in September 2018 are pending in Branch County, according to the Detroit Free Press.

State Police Computer Crimes Unit Detective Sargent Gerald Yott, who led the case, said each member of the group had been abusing their own child as well as others.

'They committed acts on their own children and were making sexually abusive material,' Yott told The Battle Creek Enquirer.

'They were all sharing and exploiting their own children and other children.'

Yott described the foursome as 'one of the most heinous groups of monsters that we've dealt with'.

'These are the worst of the worst people,' he said. 'We like to think that this can't happen here, and it does. It happens here all the time.'

Two weeks before the group was charged in the kidnapping plot, LaPointe was charged with criminal sexual conduct after she confessed to police that she and her husband had filmed themselves performing sexual acts on a one-year-old girl, who the teen babysat.
Theresa May has set out how the Irish border backstop could be changed as she prepares to head to Brussels on her latest Brexit mission.

The Prime Minister has just two weeks to secure concessions. She is starting talks today with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and EU Council President Donald Tusk and is thought likely to fly to EU capitals as soon as next week.

There is continued frustration in Europe there is still not a specific demand from Britain. The PM held talks today with Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit and will have further meetings with Tory MPs to find out what would be acceptable to them.

EU leaders have rushed to say they will not reopen the divorce deal - suggesting Mrs May's mission could have failed before it even begins.

A backstop with a sunset clause

Securing a time limit or sunset clause has been a key demand of Brexiteers and the DUP.

They were furious when Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said the plan as drafted could last indefinitely, despite promises it would be temporary.

Getting a sunset clause of three years would mean the backstop could last no longer than the end of 2025 in any circumstances, even if transition was extended to the maximum of two years, to the end of 2022.

A backstop with a unilateral exit for the UK

The other main option to reform the current backstop is to ensure the UK has the right to leave the backstop unilaterally

Currently the backstop can only end if the EU also agrees the new rules in place - either via a full trade deal or 'alternative arrangements' - avoid a hard border.

Brexiteers say any member state can leave the entire EU with two years notice so making exit a bilateral decision is unfair.

The 'Plan C' backstop

Many Brexiteers have long said the current backstop should torn up and replace wholesale.

Under the so-called Malthouse Compromise they proposed a system they insist could be a 'front stop' that is the basis for a permanent solution. They say technology could track goods and people crossing the border.

This plan would mean any necessary checks would be done where goods are made instead of at ports and borders.

Britain repeatedly suggested a technical solution during the negotiations but it was rejected by the EU because the necessary technology has not been invented yet.

A managed no deal

If no deal can be reached, both sides will aim for side deals to limit the worst effects.

The Malthouse plan suggests paying the EU for a transition period where all current rules stay the same but without other parts of the divorce deal, including the backstop and the full 39billion divorce bill.

If the EU refuses to accept this, an even more pared back series of bilateral agreements - on for example flights and lorry permits - would be needed to keep people and goods flowing.

Even if such deals were struck, there would likely need to be customs and VAT checks at the UK-EU borders

Why will MPs vote on February 14?

Theresa May has promised that whatever happens, MPs will vote again on Valentines Day.

She wants this to be a vote on her revised deal but if that is impossible, there will be a repeat of Tuesday nights drama as MPs will be allowed to table their own ideas for votes.

In the absence of a deal, time is so short MPs' choices by mid-February could be a managed no deal or delaying Brexit.

Could there be an election?

Possibly but time is rapidly running out. The very last point at which an election campaign could be started in time for Brexit would be February 21, 25 working days before Thursday, March 28.

For that to happen at its fastest pace there would have to first be a vote of two thirds of MPs in favour of an election.

Even then, there would in practice need to be a few days for uncontroversial legislation to be rushed through before polling day.

Exit day on March 29

Unless there is a change in the law before hand, the exit date is set down in both UK and EU law, exactly two years after Britain triggered Article 50 to start the negotiations.
A triple stabbing has left three men in hospital and seven men in custody following a violent mass knife fight in Croydon.

The latest horror stabbing to hit the capital happened shortly before 1pm today near Gravel Hill tram stop in south London.

Police were called after a large group of men began fighting in broad daylight and raced to the scene along with paramedics to find three with knife wounds.

A triple stabbing has left three men in hospital and seven men in custody following a violent mass knife fight in Croydon. The latest horror stabbing to hit the capital happened just after midday today near Gravel Hill tram stop in south London (file image of tram stop)

The trio were stabbed in the mass brawl and police have cordoned off the area while they investigate how the incident started.

The seven have been taken to a south London police station for questioning.

MP for Croydon Central Sarah Jones responded to the violence on Twitter.

The Shadow Housing minister wrote: 'I am in touch with police about this dreadful news. Anyone with any information should please report it to the police.'

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: 'Police were called at around 12.50hrs on Wednesday, 30 January to reports of a fight involving a large group of males near Gravel Hill tram stop in Croydon.

MP for Croydon Central Sarah Jones responded to the violence on Twitter. The Shadow Housing minister wrote: 'I am in touch with police about this dreadful news. Anyone with any information should please report it to the police'

'Officers attended along with the London Ambulance Service. Three males suffered suspected stab injuries.

'They have been taken to hospital and we await an update on their conditions. Seven suspects were arrested near the scene on suspicion of GBH and taken to a south London police station.

'Enquiries continue. Officers remain in scene. If you have any information about this incident, call 101 quoting 3199/20jan or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.'

More follows
A high-profile atheist vlogger has made a plea for money so he can raise enough funds to leave Egypt after he was accused of blasphemy.

Sherif Gaber wants to escape his homeland after he renounced Islam and began discussing science in online video posts.

As a result of his atheist messages, the Egyptian state security stopped him from leaving the country.

He set up a crowdfunding page called 'Help Me Escape Egypt' to help him buy another nationality so he can override the exit ban.

The video appeal collected over $12,000 in pledges in just 24 hours, after it was launched yesterday.

Sherif Gaber renounced Islam and posted videos online discussing science, which angered the Egyptian authorities

Gaber says he needs $100,000 to obtain nationality from a place such as the Caribbean island nation of Dominica.

Obtaining a second nationality and renouncing the Egyptian one has been a tactic used successfully in the past by defendants seeking to leave the country.

Gaber, who addresses atheism and science to his 212,000 followers on YouTube, says that although he has no criminal record, Egyptian security agents have prevented him from leaving the country.

Despite several attempts over the years to leave, his passport was confiscated without giving a reason on his last bid for freedom last October.

He has not been added to any no fly lists legally, he said via a blog post.

Gaber wrote on his page: 'Some asked me to try and legally remove my name from the 'Banned from leaving' list.

Gaber pleaded in a YouTube message for money to help him buy a nationality to another country so he could escape from Egypt

'National Security is the one which banned me ... not the court. And the court has no authority over National Security.'

Gaber has been repeatedly detained by authorities accusing him of blasphemy, which is sometimes prosecuted in Egypt under laws against 'insulting religion'.

His videos, in Arabic with English subtitles, sometimes use comic formats.

Gaber faces multiple blasphemy charges, and says his impassioned plea is something he knows brings the risk of facing further charges for 'intentionally defaming Egypt, like anyone who tries to express what he feels about this country.'

But it's a risk he's willing to take as a last resort.

He said: 'I've blamed myself for every moment I spent in this country, I blamed myself for every second I had the chance to leave this place but chose not to ... for having chosen this county over my freedom and sense of security.'

Gaber faces multiple blasphemy charges, and says his impassioned plea is something he knows brings the risk of facing further charges for 'intentionally defaming Egypt'

In the months leading up to his video message, Gaber posted a series of tweets detailing his struggles against the Egyptian authorities.

He wrote: 'I've changed my place in the last 3 years (til May 2018) 6 times because it was always not safe where I live. But since the day I got arrested back in May I've changed it 8 times. I keep changing it more often since I got banned from leaving Egypt and I don't know when I'll stop.'

Gaber also claimed he had been charged with eight felonies, including blasphemy, insulting Islam, contempt of religion, supporting homosexuality, shaking the peace of the society and religious extremism, which can carry a prison term of 15 years each.

He could not be immediately reached for comment, and Egypt's national security agency does not respond to such requests.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has overseen an unprecedented suppression of free speech in the country since he came to power in 2013

Egypt has undergone an unprecedented suppression of free speech under general-turned-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who came to power after overthrowing an elected but polemical Islamist president in 2013.

Since then, authorities have jailed thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also prominent secular activists, including many of those behind Egypt's Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Egypt has also been accused of arbitrary detention, disappearances and torture, and has silenced most independent media.

The crackdown has extended to those who contravene cultural norms, with edgy comedy shows being shut down and people seen as supporting LGBT rights arrested or heavily sanctioned.
St Louis police officer Nathaniel Hendren is accused of killing a colleague during a twisted game of Russian roulette. The 29-year-old is seen in his mugshot (above) with a black eye reportedly sustained headbutting a police vehicle after the fatal shooting

The St Louis circuit attorney's office has raised serious concerns over the police handling of the death of a female officer allegedly killed by a male colleague in a twisted 1am game of Russian roulette.

Prosecutor Kimberly M. Gardner questioned whether cops tried to block the drug and alcohol testing of on-duty Nathaniel Hendren and his work partner, who has not been named, following the death of 24-year-old fellow officer Katlyn Alix last Thursday.

In a letter to Chief John Hayden and Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards, Gardner also said the fact police labelled the incident an accident so soon after the shooting was 'particularly troublesome'.

Department policy requires immediate drug and alcohol testing for officers involved in shootings. Toxicology results for Alix could take 12 to 16 weeks, according to the St Louis medical examiner's office.

In her letter, Gardner wrote that there was 'probable cause at the scene that drugs or alcohol may be a contributing factor in a potential crime'.

She claimed that a police lieutenant erroneously told her office that a hospital would not honor a search warrant for the officers' blood.

The letter said the officers later took urine and breath tests, but not blood tests, which are more accurate.

Gardner also said that the tests were taken in a manner that may render them unusable in court proceedings.

She wrote that the testing 'appears as an obstructionist tactic to prevent us from understanding the state of the officers during the commission of this alleged crime'.

The prosecutor also faulted law enforcement officials for initially characterizing the shooting as an 'accident', which she said was an 'inappropriate' 'pre-disposed conclusion about the potential outcome of a case'.

Gardner said there were additional issues concerning the investigation that she would like to discuss with both officers.

Newlywed Alix's husband, a fellow cop known only as Tony, has not been heard from since her death and it is not known where is was on the night of the 1am shooting

Kimberly M. Gardner questioned whether police tried to block Hendren and his partner from undergoing drug and alcohol after the death of Katlyn Alix, pictured. Katlyn is said to have died in a twisted 1am game of Russian roulette

A St. Louis prosecutor is raising concerns about whether police tried to block drug and alcohol testing of two on-duty officers following the fatal shooting of Officer Katlyn Alix

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner wrote that the way the testing was performed 'appears to be an obstructionist tactic'

Hendren, charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action, has now been moved to a jail outside the city for his own protection.

The 29-year-old and his police partner were at his home early Thursday when they were reportedly on duty and supposed to be patrolling a neighborhood.

According to a probable cause statement, Alix, who was off duty, went to Hendren's home sometime before 1am and the pair began taking turns pulling the trigger on his revolver while pointing it at each other, according to court documents.

Alix was shot in the chest and Hendren and his partner, also 29, rushed her to hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her funeral takes place today.

Hendren was also hospitalized following the shooting after he headbutted the back window of a parked police SUV at the hospital, sources told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

He reportedly broke the window and suffered minor head injuries. The booking photo released by police shows him with a blackened left eye.

But online there is speculation over why Alix was at his home on the night of the shooting, why Hendren and his partner were reportedly not working when they were supposed to be on duty and why they allegedly took Alix to the hospital instead of an ambulance.

One person wrote: 'I for one don't believe 'the story'. Not at all.'

Another added: 'They pulled the trigger two times and then again. I smell a rat.'

It is not known where Alix's new husband, a fellow officer known only as Tony, was during the incident. He has so far not spoken out about the incident.

Alix's family said they have hired legal counsel to 'ensure that a thorough investigation is performed', saying there are 'a substantial amount of unanswered questions', according to the Post-Dispatch.

'Certainly, we're looking into all avenues... including, potentially, civil litigation,' attorney Scott Rosenblum said.

'The family is convinced that with Katlyn's training, both police and military, there remains a substantial amount of unanswered questions about the circumstances of the event.'

Online there is speculation over the Russian roulette story as sleuths question its credibility

Alix was shot in the chest and Hendren and his partner rushed her the hospital, where she was pronounced dead

Hendren, 29, has been charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action. Alix and Hendren, pictured, had reportedly been taking turns pointing his revolver at each other and pulling the trigger while there was one bullet in the chamber

According to a probable cause statement, Alix, who was off duty, went to Hendren's home sometime before 1am and the pair began taking turns pulling the trigger on his revolver

Hendren has been charged with manslaughter and armed criminal action in Alix's death. The 24-year-old military veteran, who married a fellow police officer in October, is pictured above

Katlyn's family have hired legal counsel and say there 'remains a substantial amount of unanswered questions about the circumstances of the event'. Toxicology results for Alix could take 12 to 16 weeks, according to the St Louis medical examiner's office.

The funeral of St. Louis Officer Katlyn Alix in St. Louis Missouri

Police tape is pictured at the scene of the shooting at Hendren's St Louis home on Thursday

Hendren's bail was set at $50,000 on Monday, according to the St Louis Police Department. He made his first court appearance on Tuesday morning via video from jail.

Hendren was not present at the hearing Monday morning, where his attorney, Talmage Newton IV, asked the judge for a reduction in bail terms that would allow him to be freed after posting 10 percent of the $50,000.

A decision on that request is expected to be announced at a hearing later this week.

Newton IV declined to comment after Monday's hearing but released a statement offering condolences to Alix's family.

'The death of Officer Katlyn Alix was a tragic accident that has unalterably impacted the lives of everyone involved,' the attorney's statement said.

'I urge the public, as well as members of the police department, to wait until the investigation is complete, and all of the facts have been presented, before coming to any conclusions about what they believe happened that unfortunate morning.'

Both Hendren and his partner have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure any time an officer is involved in a shooting.

Hendren's attorney declined to comment after his client's bail hearing on Monday but released a statement offering condolences to Alix's family. 'The death of Officer Katlyn Alix was a tragic accident that has unalterably impacted the lives of everyone involved,' he wrote

According to a probable cause statement, Hendren had pulled out a revolver, which was not his service weapon, and emptied the cylinder of rounds before replacing a single bullet in the weapon.

Alix's family have raise questions about the Army veteran's death

'He spun the cylinder and pointed it away and pulled the trigger,' Sgt R Hellmeier wrote in the statement.

When the gun did not fire on the first trigger pull, Alix took the weapon, pointed it at Hendren, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the affidavit states.

Investigators say that Hendren took the gun, pointed it at Alix, and pulled the trigger for a third time. The gun discharged, striking the female officer in the chest.

The affidavit says that Hendren's partner, a 29-year-old male who has not be named, claims that he protested that 'they shouldn't be playing with guns and that they were police officers.'

The partner said he was walking out of the room when he heard the gun go off.

Hendren had been on the police force for about a year. He faces three to 10 years in prison if convicted on the felony counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
Amanda Knox seemed to be in celebratory mood as she was pictured goofing around with her fiance at the Sundance Film Festival.

The 31-year-old from Washington posted a photo on Instagram of her posing in sun visors with beau Christopher Robinson while recording her podcast 'The Truth about True Crime' in Park City, Utah.

She was also pictured trying on a $3,000 'civil war jacket' in one of the city's many boutiques as the famous Sundance festival gets into full swing.

It comes just a week after it was announced that Knox, who spent four years in an Italian prison after being convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2007, was to be compensated by the Italian government for human rights abuses during the police investigation.

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Knox was pictured wearing a sun visor with her novelist fiance Christopher Robinson as she recorded an episode of her podcast

She also posted a picture of herself wearing a 3,000 'civil war jacket' she found in a shop in Park City, Utah

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Italian police failed to provide legal help and a translator when questioning Knox after Ms Kercher's murder in Perugia, Italy back in 2007.

American Ms Knox was convicted, but later cleared, of the murder of her British roommate, following years of legal battles in Perugia, Italy.

Ms Knox and her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, spent four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial before finally being exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.

Since her release Ms Knox has been making up for lost time by becoming the host of her own podcast, which debuted in October last year.

She also started dating Mr Robinson in 2015 and became engaged to the novelist at the end of last year after being together for three years.

Knox (pictured in custody in 2011, left) was twice convicted and twice acquitted of murdering English student Meredith Kercher (right) in Italy

Murder scene: The house is pictured in November, 2007, shortly after Ms Kercher's body was found in her bedroom

After settling in Seattle, Knox has taken part in a Netflix documentary about her case and has written books and articles advocating for people wrongfully convicted of crimes.

Knox previously traveled to New York City to film interviews for the Vice talk show series The Scarlet Letter Reports, which she was tapped to host in May.

The body of Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old exchange student, was found by police in the flat she shared with Ms Knox and three other girls on November 2, 2007.

Officers discovered her throat was slashed and she had been sexually assaulted.

Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito were arrested, accused of killing Ms Kercher in a sex-game-gone wrong and later convicted of murder and sexual assault in 2009.

Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito (right), were accused of murdering Kercher during a sex-game-gone-wrong

Rudy Guede leaving with penitentiary police after a court hearing in Perugia in September 2008. He is serving a 16-year sentence for Ms Kercher's murder

The couple maintained their innocence, insisting that they had spent the evening together at Mr Sollecito's home watching a film, smoking marijuana and being intimate.

Two years later, the Perugia Court of Appeal acquitted the pair of the more serious charges, but upheld Ms Knox's conviction for malicious accusation.

After three years in custody, Ms Knox was released and left Italy for the United States.

Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian, is serving a 16-year sentence for Ms Kercher's murder.

Guede was tried separately in a fast-track procedure and in October 2008 was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher.
A row between a university law lecturer and his landlords turned violent as his lawyer wife threw buckets of water over them and he drove at them in his car, a court heard today.

Dr Peter Orji, 43, allegedly threatened to 'torch' the 400,000 detached house they were renting after their landlord was given a court order forcing him and his wife, Chinenye, to move out.

A court heard landlord Navraj Singh and his brother Sukhdip, a police officer, then turned up to change the locks but when Dr Orji and his wife arrived to collect possessions he tried to run the Singh brothers over.

Dr Peter Orji, 43, (left) allegedly threatened to 'torch' the 400,000 detached house they were renting after their landlord was given a court order forcing him and his wife, Chinenye, to move out. They are seen today outside Southampton Magistrates Court

The following day, prosecutors say the Orjis returned to the four bedroom house in Southampton, with Dr Orji knocking Sukhdip to the ground after running at him 'like a rugby player'.

As that happened, Mrs Orji allegedly armed herself with a foot-long metal pole and struck the Singhs' friend Martin Conlon on the head before slapping Navraj's iPhone from his hand as he tried to call the police.

Dr Orji currently teaches law at the University of Brighton, East Sussex, specialising in property and e-commerce law, and has also taught at Kingston University in London.

His wife studied law at the University of Benin, before working as a lawyer for the education support company she and her husband founded.

Southampton Magistrates' Court today heard the Orjis became enraged when they arrived at the house they had been renting to find their former landlords changing the locks.

Prosecutor Harrison Willis told the court on March 25, last year, Dr Orji told his landlords he would burn down their house in Southampton, Hants, before trying to run them over.

A day later, the prosecutor said the law lecturer's wife threw buckets of water over the Singh brothers and their friends.

It was heard Mrs Orji also hit one of the Singhs friends with a metal pole and slapped Navraj's 700 iPhone from his hand, smashing it.

Opening the case, Mr Willis said: 'Both defendants were former tenants who had been given notice to be removed from the property by March 20, last year.

'When Navraj and Sukhdip went to the house, it appeared the property had been left in quite a state.'

Giving evidence today, Sukhdip, a police officer for 11 years, told the court Dr Orji and his wife were 'aggressive' and had left him fearing for his life.

He said: 'We had previous dealings with the Orjis. They had been hostile and aggressive to my brother.

'On March 25, last year, we went into the house. Immediately, there was this stench of rotting food. I also noticed the smell of gas from a hob being left on.

'Whilst on the phone to a locksmith, Mr Orji pulled on to the driveway in a silver Renault Megane. He revved the car, which startled me.

'He came onto the driveway at speed - if I had stayed where I was I would have been hit.'

Sukhdip said when the couple left he heard Mr Orji mutter 'I will torch the place' before getting into their car.

The PC continued: 'He also said 'stay where you are', which I didn't understand at first. But then he revved his engine and drove directly at me.

'He then reversed and drove at my friend and then at my brother. If my friend Amrit had not moved, he would have had broken legs.

'The following day, my brother said Mr Orji and his wife's cars were back at the property.

'As we tried to secure the house again, because they had broken a door lock and smashed a window, they returned.

'I could see Mr Orji was looking to assault one of us. He looked like he wanted to hurt somebody and he just came barraging [sic] towards me like he was a rugby player. I couldn't hold him back and we fell to the ground.

'He was trying to fight me and my friend Martin Conlon came to help using reasonable force.'

The 400,000 detached house the couple were renting in Southampton, where the alleged incidents took place

Sukhdip said Mr Orji's wife then tried to attack his brother while he was on the phone to the police.

'She was charging towards him,' he said. 'I then recall hearing a clunking that made me feel sick to my gut and could see Mrs Orji had picked up a metal pole and had hit Martin over the top of the head.

'I was on the phone to the police and a bucket of murky water was thrown over me.

'I was drenched and feared I may catch a disease because I had seen the state of the house and didn't know where the water had come from.'

Navraj Singh told the court he had no option but to seek a court order forcing the Orjis from the house because they had stopped communicating with him and even changed the lock on the front door without telling him.

When he turned up on March 25 to arrange for a locksmith to come out, the lawyers also arrived and a blazing row began.

Mr Singh said: 'They had refused to communicate with me for some time. I would send them texts or call, but they would not respond.

'The day after we first turned up, they came back as we were trying to secure the property. I tried to tell them what we were doing, but Mr Orji just tried to push past.

'Mrs Orji got hold of a metal pole. I had my hands up and she hit my forearms with it. She also hit our friend Martin over the head with it.

'I was then pushed by her and she punched me in the face. There was some force. I had a swollen cheek.

'She also broke my iPhone when she knocked it from my hand.'

Former police officer Martin Conlon, who was allegedly struck with the pole, added: 'Mr Orji had hold of Sukh's collar and at that point I thought it was getting out of control.

'I stepped forward to try to restrain Mr Orji. Next thing, I received a heavy blow to the back of my head which put me down on my knee, I was disorientated. I saw Mrs Orji had a metal bar in her hand.'

Dr Orji denies two count of using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear and one of assault by beating, theft and criminal.

His wife denies three charges of assault by beating, and one of theft, using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear, criminal damage and obstructing a police officer.

Dr Orji denies two count of using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear and one of assault by beating, theft and criminal damage.

His wife denies three charges of assault by beating, and one of theft, using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear, criminal damage and obstructing a police officer.

The trial continues.
by Sumon Corraya

The Xaverian missionary has been working in the Diocese of Novaliches for 13 years. Language and the relationship with tribals were among his greatest challenges. The great number of Catholics in the Philippines is also a challenge to evangelisation.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Fr Polash Henry Gomes, a Xaverian priest from Bangladesh, was sent as a missionary to the Philippines after his ordination because missionaries "bear witness to Jesus Christ among the nations".

Currently, he is parish priest at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the Diocese of Novaliches, happy about his life as a missionary. Speaking to AsiaNews, he said that All Christians are missionaries from baptism".

In the Philippines for the past 13 years, he has learnt the language and adapted himself to a "different cuisine". Yet, he remembers how "the issue of food emerged at the beginning of my priesthood.

When I was ordained, a Xaverian asked me if I wanted to go to Africa, but then he warned me that the food there was very different from Bangladesh. I replied: 'I will work for Jesus everywhere'."

His vocation was born at an early age, when he attended St Francis Xavier Parish in Golla, Archdiocese of Dhaka. "I was very devoted to the saint who inspired me to become a missionary."

At the beginning, life in Philippines was not easy. "I had a hard time understanding the language. Sometimes even the tribals do not speak it."

Another challenge was the number of Catholics. "In Bangladesh, a diocese has about 60,000 members; in the Philippines, a single parish has the same number. This is why the work of catechesis and evangelisation is very difficult."

Catholics are the majority in the Philippines, which is the most Catholic country in Asia. However, it is not immune from the crisis of religions.

For instance, "many faithful in my parish are no longer coming to Mass on Sundays, Fr Gomes noted. This is why we visit Catholic homes, bless them and encourage people to come to Church. This big responsibility falls on parents."

In Bangladesh Italians make up the bulk of the missionaries of the Pious Society of St Francis Xavier. But for the Xaverian clergyman, the decline in religious vocations in the West, "the time has come for us [from the developing world] to give missionaries [to the universal Church].
Ben Fogle has blasted presenter Nihal Arthanayake for not inviting him on his show as their feud over Staffie dogs continues.

Earlier today Fogle posted a picture of himself at BBC Radio Five with the caption 'Yay @therealnihal @bbc5live', after arriving at the studio.

This was followed by a series of tweets from Fogle which stated that he wouldn't actually be on Arthanayake's show, but that he would be appearing on Tony Livesey's drive time show this evening, which runs between 4pm and 7pm.

Fogle said: 'Not exactly a direct right of reply but happy to be talking to @tonylivesey on 5 Live Drive this evening between 4:00pm and 7:00pm. @therealnihal @BBC5live. Fogle had previously tweeted that he would have been happy to appear on Arthanayake's show, after he said that 'staffie gate' was still making headlines.

Ben Fogle (pictured above) posted a picture of himself outside the BBC Radio 5 studio

Ben Fogle also posted a series of tweets regarding his appearance on BBC Radio Five

The argument started between the pair after Arthanayake called Fogle a 'wrong 'un' live on air over a row about dangerous dogs which Fogle insisted was a case of mistaken identity.

BBC Radio Five Live host Nihal Arthanayake told his listeners Fogle harbours a grudge against Staffordshire Bull Terriers and alleged Mr Fogle had once warned his own child against Staffies in front of the radio host's family on a day out in London.

Despite Fogle having yesterday tweeted that he had 'calmed down' following the spat, he today urged Arthanayake to listen to the show this afternoon.

Nihal Arthanayake (left) faces the prospect of a defamation lawsuit after an on-air comment sparked a bitter Twitter dispute between him and Ben Fogle (right)

Earlier in the day Arthanayake tweeted: 'I always find it odd when someone accuses a radio presenter of loving the sound of their own voice. We talk for a living.'

In response Fogle said: Im sorry you werent able to have me on your show. Im sure you had more important things but glad I was able to chat to @tonylivesey on @BBC5live. You should have a listen'.

During his radio show earlier this week Arthanayake said there had been a well known TV presenter who had 'once been quite rude about my staffie in public'.

Ben Fogle (pictured above) had threatened to sue the BBC and radio host Nihal Arthanayake for an 'untrue and libellous' statement

He said: 'My wife is in Queens Park, right? And shes with our kids, and our staffie.

'And this fella, has his kid, and goes up to his kid, and says: "Don't go near that dog. Theyre nasty dogs. Or, theyre dangerous dogs."

'My wife is there, with our kids, and with the dog. And he says it so loudly that she can hear him saying it.

'And from that day on Ive just been like "nah, that guy is a wrongun

'Im not going to tell you it was Ben Fogle.'

Mr Arthanayake's co-host then broke the news that Mr Fogle was due to present the ITV run-down, to which he replied: 'Youre kidding me. He was so rude.

'My wife came back to me and said, "this guy!". My wife was very upset.'

The comments the day before Fogle presented ITV's Britain's Top 100 Dogs Live 2019.

In immediate response to his comments a spokesperson for Mr Fogle said the TV presenter was 'absolutely incensed at this uncorroborated, hurtful and false allegation'.

She added: 'Apart from the fact that he has never been to Queen's Park in his life, more importantly there is not a breed of dog on this earth that he does not love.

'No-one who knows Ben would believe this absolute rubbish'.

On Twitter the TV star went further, promising legal action. In a Tweet he wrote: 'I have just been sent a recording from @TherealNihal show on @bbc5live earlier in which a caller made an untrue and libellous accusation about a fictions encounter. I have never even visited Queens Park. I will be seeking legal action. I LOVE all dogs especially Staffies #woof'

The tweek Ben Fogle sent after having received the recordings from the show

He added: 'Dear @bc5live and @TherealNihal why did you broadcast an unsubstantiated, untrue story about me without even asking? I have never even been to Queens Park. I LOVE staffies and grew up surrounded by them in my fathers veterinary surgery. Not cool.'

In a later Tweet is warned the Corporation would be 'hearing from his lawyers'.

After Mr Fogle hit back on Twitter the row deepened, with Mr Arthanayake accusing Mr Fogle of calling his wife a liar.

Arthanayake accused Fogle of calling his wife a liar over the claims

Arthanayake added: 'She swears it was you and in fact she came home and told me about it straight away. it was around nine years ago.

'She was incensed at the time as she was with our two very small children. Why would she lie about it being you?'

The former Castaway star replied pointing out that timeframe would have meant one of his children was just two months old and the other not yet born, adding 'Mistaken identity? I dont know. But it WASNT ME. I LOVE staffies mate.'

In a later tweet he added: 'Im saying its a case of mistaken identity. Not all posh sounding people are me.'
Longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone has warned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe is 'coming for' the president and compared it to a 'speeding bullet' headed toward his head.

And Stone is continuing to keep a high profile  dining out at high-end D.C. restaurants and granting interviews as he pushes back on prosecutors and the FBI who say he lied about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks.

Stone, who pleaded not guilty to a seven-count indictment in federal court Tuesday, blasted the Russia probe and the FBI and warned Trump that he will be next.

'This isn't about me. It's about the president. They're coming for him,' he told conservative website Breitbart News.

'The president needs to wake up. This is a speeding bullet heading for his head, not me. I am just a small collateral damage compared to him,' he said.

OUT AND ABOUT: Longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone dined out Monday evening hours before his arraignment in federal court

Stone, who has repeatedly said he is not seeking a presidential pardon for himself, is keeping himself in the media spotlight, even as a federal magistrate judge he did so at his own risk.

He also spoke to conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, where he disputed the characterization that he threatened the therapy dog of witness Randy Credico, amid conflicting testimony about outreach to WikiLeaks during the campaign.

Stone also kept a high-profile Tuesday after posing in his famous Nixon Salute outside the courthouse. He lunched at the Palm, a longtime high-end steakhouse in Washington. He dined at the Hamilton, a restaurant just blocks from the White House.

'There was no celebration. As you can see in the photos, he looked concerned. Why wouldn't he be?' said Christopher Alberto, a former prosecutors who spotted Stone.

Twitter users identified of the men pictured with Stone as Jacob Engels, a contributor to the InfoWars conspiracy site. Engels penned an article in July calling former CIA director and Trump critic John Brennan a 'radical muslim convert.'

Stone made a similar claim during his comments to Ingraham. Stone called Brennan 'a certified psychopath  a man who converted to radical Islam. Who lied to congress about the Steele dossier.'

Engels appeared to confirm he was there in his response to Twitter user Cleo Fields who identified him.

Stone is continuing to blast the FBI's early morning Friday raid on his home as excessive, and going after FBI Director Christopher Wray.

'The president needs to wake up. This is a speeding bullet heading for his head, not me,' Roger Stone said in a Tuesday night interview

Stone is continuing to blast the FBI's early morning Friday raid on his home as excessive, and going after FBI Director Christopher Wray. Here he leaves the U.S. District Courthouse after his arraignment in Washington, United States on January 29, 2019

A fellow customer snapped an image of Stone huddling with associates at the Hamilton, located in downtown D.C., before his court appearance. Stone also dined out for lunch at the Palm during his D.C. trip

'They have to have spent half a mill dollars [on the raid]. Who approved this?' He called Wray a 'a deep -tater he didn't' vote for Donald trump he doesn't' support Donald Trump ... Why is this guy the FBI director? I don't really get it.'

Ingraham quizzed Stone about the apparent inconsistency of him saying the FBI frightened his own Yorkshire terriers during the raid, yet according to the indictment he threatened the pet of associate Randy Credico in an email that prosecutors allege is part of a witness tampering scheme.

'Number one, Randy Credico's dog is not registered in New York as a therapy dog. Number two, he wasn't feeding the dog perhaps because he was spending his money on other things, and that was the context,' Stone said, suggesting that he was trying to help the animal.

'Once again, you take something out of context, and it has a different meaning. You can go to 'The Daily Caller' and read the articles I have written about animal welfare and ending the inhumane medical testing on dogs and cats,' he added.

According to the indictment, Stone wrote 'Person 2'  Credico  telling him: 'You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.'

He also said he would 'take that dog away from you.'

Stone says his legal costs could hit $2 million as he defends himself, and says he was sleeping in his 'Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong' t-shirt, which he is selling, during the early Friday raid.

He also said his Sunday-show comments that he would be willing to testify truthfully to prosecutors were being misunderstood and didn't mean he would be a cooperating witness.

'I think that my comments on ABC may have been misconstrued. What I meant was, Im not going to bear false witness against anybody. Im going to tell the truth under oath and to the investigators if they have questions  subject, obviously, to the advice format-wise of my attorneys.'

'But Im not going to do what Michael Cohen has done. Im not going to make up lies or bear false witness against Donald Trump or anyone else,' he said. Cohen, Trump's longtime lawyer, has admitted to lying to the FBI but says he is telling the truth in testimony about things Trump directed him to do.

Mueller's prosecutors and the U.S. attorneys office for the District of Columbia didn't seek a gag order for stone, although Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who will oversee the case, has imposed them in other cases she is handling.
A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking low temperatures on Wednesday, prompting the US Postal Service to take the rare step of suspending mail delivery to nine states in the region.

'Due to the extreme weather conditions caused by Winter Storm Jaden, we have temporarily suspended delivery service in certain locations to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees,' a tweet from the official USPS account posted late on Tuesday read.

USPS said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan, as the National Weather Service forecast plunging temperatures from one of the coldest air masses in years.

The latest update on USPS service disruption was posted at 8am Eastern.

A deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking low temperatures on Wednesday, prompting the US Postal Service to take the rare step of suspending mail delivery to a large portion of the region. United States Postal Service letter carrier Keith Caniff is pictured sorting mail while on his route in East Grand Rapids, Michigan on Monday, which is an area that has suspended service for Wednesday

'Due to the extreme weather conditions caused by Winter Storm Jaden, we have temporarily suspended delivery service in certain locations to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees,' a tweet from the official USPS account posted late on Tuesday read

The USPS motto states, 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.'

But the motto doesn't say anything about extreme cold, and the weather forecast including record low temperatures in eight states shut down postal operations on Wednesday.

'Weather forecasters are warning of dangerously cold conditions in parts of the nation. Some places could see wind chill readings as low as 60 below zero,' the service alert from USPS said.

'Weather forecasters are warning of dangerously cold conditions in parts of the nation. Some places could see wind chill readings as low as 60 below zero,' the service alert from USPS said. A weather map is pictured showing predicted wind chills for Thursday morning

The alert identified closure areas by the first three numbers of each area's zip code. The final two numbers in every 5-digit zip code precisely identify smaller areas within each zone, with all of those smaller areas included in each area beginning with that three-digit prefix

But elsewhere, mail delivery continued as usual, even with temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

IS YOUR ZIP-CODE AFFECTED? The alert identified closure areas by the first three numbers of each area's zip code. The final two numbers in every 5-digit zip code precisely identify smaller areas within each zone, with all of those smaller areas included in each area beginning with that three-digit prefix Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns for the safety of USPS employees, the Postal Service is suspending delivery January 30 in the following 3-digit ZIP Code locations: Michigan: 486-491, 493-499 Indiana: 460-469, 472-475, 478, 479 Chicago: 606-608 Lakeland [Iowa]: 530-532, 534, 535, 537-539, 541-545, 549, 600, 602, 601, 611 Detroit: 480-485, 492 Central Illinois: 601, 603 - 605, 609, 613, 614, 616, 617 Northern Ohio (Cleveland and Lima areas): 441, 458 Ohio Valley (Cincinnati and Columbus areas): 452, 430-432 Northland [Virginia]: 540, 546-548, 550, 551, 553-564, 566 Hawkeye [Iowa]: 500-514, 520-528, 612 Dakotas: 580-588, 570-577 Eastern Nebraska: 680-689 Advertisement

In another part of Ohio for example, one postal worker told DailyMail.com, 'Just another day in Canton,' confirming that delivery of parcels and packages had been carrying on, as per usual.

In Canton, the low on Wednesday was negative four degrees Fahrenheit (negative 20 Celsius), warming up ever so slightly to negative one Fahrenheit (negative 18 Celsius) by 9am Eastern.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

Officials presiding over many government functions throughout the Midwest were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing.

Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago, where temperatures plunged to negative 19 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 28 degrees Celsius) early on Wednesday, breaking the previous record low for the day set in 1966.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.

In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

'These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately,' Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Tuesday. 'They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.'

A wind chill of negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

Officials presiding over many government functions throughout the Midwest were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. A wind chill of negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 32 degrees Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the National Weather Service. A weather map showing current wind chills is shown

The extreme cold hitting the US is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase.

That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, said.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.

Those concerned about their mail service can check back for service alerts on the USPS website.
Dramatic footage shows a cat sliding down a 91-ft dam into the arms of rescuers who were waiting on a boat.

Mr. Vanjie had been missing for two weeks when fishermen spotted him stranded on top of the dam at J. Edward Roush Lake reservoir in Indiana, US.

Police Officers were not able to rescue the feline so US federal agency Army Corps of Engineers were called and its volunteers shut off the water supply to the dam.

Mr. Vanjie had been missing for two weeks when fishermen spotted him stranded on top of the dam at J. Edward Roush Lake reservoir in Indiana, US

The Army Corps of Engineers team headed to the bottom of the dam on a boat in an effort to coax him down and as it reached the bottom of it it - the cat plunged down the dam

As he reached the bottom of the dam the cat was grabbed by one of the rescuers who pulled him onto the boat

Mr. Vanjie, is pictured safe after its ordeal. He had been missing for two weeks before making his dramatic slide down the dam

The Army Corps of Engineers decided to try and coax him down so headed to the bottom of the dam on a boat.

Footage shows the cat plunge down the dam as the boat arrives at the bottom of it.

After reaching the bottom, he was grabbed by one of the rescuers who pulled him onto the boat.

Heidi Greving-Stutvoet, owner of the feline who miraculously escaped uninjured, said: 'Mr. Vanjie is safe and sound!

'I'd truly like to thank the Huntington County Sheriff Department and the rescuers from the Army Corp of Engineers who saved our beloved cat!

'He is an inside-outside cat we took in when he landed on our doorstep a little over a year ago. We are very thankful to have him home! He is exhausted!

'He is an inside-outside cat we took in when he landed on our doorstep a little over a year ago. We are very thankful to have him home! He is exhausted!'

Huntington County Sheriff Department added: 'Sheriff Newton received a phone call from a individual that was fishing at the spillway off of State Road 5, in regards to a cat that had become stranded on the spillway.

'In the one picture you can see the cat in the very center. It is unknown how the animal got there, as there is no way to access that area, it is possible it had fallen off of SR 5 or was thrown off.

'The cat was clearly in distress and retreated to the very top of the spillway area and lodged itself in the metal structure. There was not anyway to gain access to the animal, short of taking a boat out and hoping we could coax it down.

'It was decided it was worth a shot to attempt the help the cat versus doing nothing.

'The Army Corp of engineers were on the scene and advised that they would get a boat and get permission to shut the flow of water off in an attempt to get the animal.'
Ex-Barclays director Richard Boath (pictured today) joked that the bank gave a 'bung' to Qatari investors who bailed it out - but later said he believed it was a legitimate payment

A former director of Barclays insisted a 322million payment to Qatari investors was legal despite joking with lawyers that it was a 'bung', a court heard today.

Richard Boath, 60, is accused of conspiring with ex-CEO John Varley, 62, and colleagues Tom Kalaris, 63, and Roger Jenkins, 63, to organise a secret bail-out from the Middle East.

Prosecutors allege that the gang of bankers secured 11.8billion in fundraising during the 2008 credit crunch by sending the Gulf state additional payments through a fake contract that they were not obliged to disclose to their own shareholders.

The full extent of the deal - which allowed the bank to avoid a taxpayer bailout - was allegedly covered up by the bankers to protect their enormous bonuses.

The path to the deal was smoothed by a bogus agreement that allowed an extra 322million to be paid to the Middle Eastern investors, the prosecution has said.

The four senior bankers who later picked up 65million  colluded to pay hidden commission fees to Qatari investors to avoid a Government bailout and preserve their 'very large bonuses', it is claimed.

If they had failed to secure the deal, it was understood that senior bosses would lose their jobs and the bank would be 'f*****', the jury heard.

Rather than paying the Qataris the standard commission or so-called 'subscription fee' for their investments, it is alleged that the defendants hid extra payments in what were supposedly entirely separate deals for advice and consultancy services.

Boath, the former head of the bank's European capital group, joked with senior in-house lawyer Judith Shepherd that the 'corrupt payment' would be uncovered by journalists.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court today heard how Boath told Judith Shepherd: 'My worry is every journalist gets it and says, this is you know... Well, I hate to use the phrase so I'm not going to use it.'

Ms Shepherd replied: 'No, no, no, because we don't even think that phrase, it's just words that never come across our lips' - 'It begins with a 'B',' replied Boath.

Prosecutor Ed Brown, QC, told how during a police interview, the defendant was asked what that 'B' word was.

He added: 'Mr Boath said that the 'B' word was probably 'bung.'

Ex-ceo John Varley, left, and Roger Jenkins, right, who had the nickname 'Big Dog', are among four Barclays bankers accused of colluding to pay hidden commission fees to Qatari investors

'When asked what his understanding of the meaning of the word bung was, Mr Boath said that it meant a corrupt payment.'

The former Barclays Capital head of European Financial Institutions Group told police that he believed that the deal was legal because he had been assured by the bank's lawyers.

He explained that the so-called 'advisory agreements' had been linked to the Qatari investment but that he believed them to be legitimate because the bank was genuinely expecting to get something in return for the massive payments.

Mr Brown explained: 'Mr Boath stated that Ms Shepherd, in her advice to him and the others, was genuinely trying to create something which was defendable and commercial in relation to which Barclays was going to get value.

Tom Kalaris, the bank's former chief executive of wealth management, was paid 20.7million in the period when the alleged crimes took place

'The fact that it came out of a request for additional fees did not matter because they were going to be bona fide genuine agreements where Barclays would get value.'

Investigators asked Boath: 'How much of the 42m fee was calculated in relation to services?'

'It wasn't, it was calculated based on the subscription,' replied the former executive.

Boath was asked why he had joked with some of the other defendants about going to prison, to which he replied: 'Because I didn't like the look of it, didn't sound proper'.

During a discussion with Kalaris, Boath told his co-defendant that he didn't want to send a copy of one of the agreements via email.

'I knew this was a mechanism that had been considered and discussed for the payment of those additional fees,' he told investigators.

'I felt uncomfortable about it.

'I'd been assured that all the seniors [senior staff] had the full picture, but even so, I was nervous about having that document circulated on email.'

Jurors heard how the additional payments to Qatar had been placed in these advisory agreements and, as such, they did not require the same degree of disclosure as payments that were officially earmarked as commission for investments.

When asked in interview whether the point of these new contracts was to hide the full extent of the deal, Boath replied: 'Well, not necessarily. I mean the, erm err, I I think the, err, the issues regarding disclosure were quite complicated legal issues, and bear in mind the bank did disclose the Advisory Services Agreement in the June, in the June prospectus.

'So whether they were going to make reference to this arrangement or not was a very nuanced discussion and I wouldn't accept that the arrangement was sought in order to avoid disclosure.

'I think the arrangement was sought in order to find a way of giving the Qataris the additional value that they wanted.'

Asked about the legal advice, Boath told investigators: 'I don't think there were any lawyers working on it that didn't know there were additional fees, but they had persuaded themselves that provided we get value for services, we're able to enter into a separate agreement with the Qataris.

'Provided we could get value for services, it was legal,' explained Boath.

Asked what he meant by 'persuading themselves,' the defendant replied: 'The issue around disclosure, materiality and all that stuff, was a matter for the lawyers. So when I say they persuaded themselves that it was acceptable, I think they felt that it was legal, it was the right side of the, it was the right side of the line, legally.'

Boath denied that it was his responsibility to ensure that the bank would receive adequate advice and services from the Qatari's in return for the cash, saying: 'Whether the bank would obtain value for those services was not, I repeat not, my responsibility. And nobody at the bank, I think, would suggest that it was.'

Instead, he suggested, it was the responsibility of Roger Jenkins, Barclay's top banker in the Middle East.

The prosecutor told the jury: 'Mr Boath went on to say that it was Roger Jenkins job to get value for those services. He said he had only one conversation with Roger Jenkins about obtaining valuable services from Qatar.'

Jenkins received a 25m bonus for his role in securing the deal, but left the bank less than a year after the frenetic negotiations after suffering a heart attack.

During a previous hearing, jurors heard how Varley had suggested that the advisory agreements would have worked had Jenkins remained at the bank.

Prosecutors allege that the defendants knowingly hid a total of 322m in fees, paid in return for the Qatari investment to avoid looking weak and triggering a loss of confidence in the bank.

A loss of confidence could have threatened the company's future as an independent bank, requiring direct government intervention, which would likely have led to the dismissal of Barclays top brass.

Varley, of Notting Hill, Jenkins, of Malibu, California, Kalaris, of Knightsbridge, and Boath, of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, deny fraud by false representation in relation to Barclays' June 2008 capital raising.

Varley and Jenkins deny a second like charge of fraud by false representation in relation to Barclays' October 2008 capital raising.

Jenkins is a former executive chairman of investment banking and investment management in the Middle East and North Africa, Barclays Capital.

Boath is former Barclays Capital head of European Financial Institutions Group.

Kalaris is former chief executive of Barclays wealth management.

The trial continues.
A British ex-soldier had his throat slashed with razor blades by Islamic State terrorists after being thrown in a Somalian prison.

Antony Cox, who served as a commander in the French Foreign Legion, had his throat cut by two ISIS extremists wielding improvised bladed weapons.

The 48-year-old was being held at the notorious Gaal Shire Prison in the capital, Mogadishu, when he was attacked on Sunday.

He survived the slashing but it is feared there could be further attempts to kill him while he recovers in a prison hospital.

According to a statement by the prison warden, Mr Cox sustained minor injuries on the neck and was treated at the prison compound by physicians called to help to him.

Antony Cox (right) had his throat slashed by ISIS extremists armed with razor blades at a prison in Somalia

Mr Cox was being held at the notorious Gaal Shire Prison in the capital, Mogadishu, when he was attcked

He had been working in the war-torn country as a security contractor and counter terrorism expert when he was arrested at Mogadishu's Aden Adde Airport.

Police accused him of 'carrying explosive material' while trying to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight.

Mr Cox was held for three days by a district court after his arrest, according to Somali media.

The prison, which holds around 1,000 inmates, is full of suspects linked to extremist groups such as Al Shabaab and Deash as well as other criminals, many on death row.

Online his job was listed as deputy country security manager at Somali Risk Management and that he lives in Avignon, France.

Before leaving the company, Mr Cox's duties included 'crisis management', intelligence gathering, as well as working with UN and EU agencies.

Antony Cox served in South America, West and Central Africa, Eastern Europe and South East Asia as a commander for the French Foreign Legion before becoming a security contractor in Somalia

He said on his LinkedIn profile that while at the Foreign Legion he was: 'Based out of South America, West and Central Africa, Eastern Europe and South East Asia.

'I have served on all continents, in all climates and stood proudly shoulder to shoulder with over 100 different nationalities, making up the ranks of the Legion.'

Mr Cox had been working in Somalia as a security contractor and counter terrorism expert

He has previously worked as a personal trainer in London and Essex, as well as a guide for the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Somalia's Ministry of Defence cut ties last April with Dubai-based security firm SKA International, which ran a security arm called Somali Risk Management.

The Somali government not confirmed if further measures had been taken to ensure Mr Cox's safety, reports MenaFN.

SKA confirmed to the Sun that Cox had quit his job on January 5, two weeks before he was arrested at the airport.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed officials are 'in contact with the family of a British man and are assisting his family'.

Fluent French speaker, Mr Cox is originally from London and went to school in Wandsworth, but has family in Redruth, Cornwall, and a home in France, where he lives with wife Amanda.
Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation's largest utility company, is trying to keep their $130million bonus program for employees despite declaring bankruptcy.

The utility company has requested that the judge allow them to keep the cash performance pay for work during 2018, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court records.

PG&E wrote: 'PG&E believes the short-term incentive program awards incentivize strong employee performance and are critical to ensuring that employees stay motivated and reach higher performance standards.'

But the request has been labelled 'shameful' by critics after the November wildfires in California which claimed dozens of lives and destroyed thousands of homes.

Sen. Jerry Hill told The Mercury News: 'It's shameful that PG&E would ask for this and it would be shameful if the court approves this.

'They can give out $130 million but can't pay fire victims. This is an affront and an abuse of our system if these bonuses are approved.'

Jamie Court, president of Consumer Action, added: 'PG&E says it's too poor to pay fire victims but has enough money to pay $130 million in bonuses. A company that does that is unworthy of the support of Gov. (Gavin) Newsom, the Legislature and the PUC.'

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A firefight surveys burnt out vehicles near a fallen power line on the side of the road after the Camp fire tore through the area in Paradise, California, in Novermber 2018. Pacific Gas & Electric has declared bankruptcy in the wake of the fires

PG&E is facing billions of dollars in potential liabilities over its role in the deadly wildfires

PG&E has said some managers but no top-level executives would get the bonuses requested, according to reports.

A spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'We are seeking authority to pay employees the STIP Awards earned for 2018. We are specifically NOT requesting authority to pay STIP Awards to any officers.'

The official cause of the Camp fire - the deadliest in the state's history which claimed 86 lives and razed 15,000 homes in Paradise - has not been determined but speculation is rife that PG&E, which had reported power line problems in the weeks before it started, may be to blame.

The company cited hundreds of lawsuits from victims of that blaze and others in 2017 and 2018 when it announced this month that it planned to file for bankruptcy.

That Camp Fire catastrophe has already sharpened questions about whether a company with a troubled history has put profit ahead of safety.

PG&E, whose shares have fallen 72 percent over the last year, could face huge liabilities if investigations reveal its equipment was directly responsible for the fire.

The company is committed to providing safe and reliable electricity throughout the bankruptcy and to work for 'an orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of its liabilities resulting from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires,' it said in a statement.

The company listed assets of $71.39billion and liabilities of $51.69billion and also asked for a $5.5bn bank bail out to continue operating as lawsuits play out

Attorneys Tobias Keller, left, and Jane Kim, representing Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., arrive at a Federal Courthouse in San Francisco Tuesday

One line of inquiry for investigators is over what role a damaged 115,000-volt line at one of PG&E's towers reported by the company just moments before the fire may have played in the conflagration.

Documents provided to AFP by the operator said the power line, called 'Caribou Palermo,' was put into service in the 1920s by Great Western Power Company, which was acquired by PG&E in 1930.

'It is clear that the Camp Fire resulted from PG&Es willful and conscious disregard of public safety,' according to a lawsuit filed by Butte County against the utility, which said the company failed to properly maintain vegetation growth near its electric lines.

'They don't need to control Mother Nature,' said John Fiske, an attorney representing more than 1,000 victims. 'What they need to control is their own assets.'

The remains of residences leveled by the Camp wildfire in Paradise in 2018

The bankruptcy filing immediately puts a halt to the wildfire lawsuits and consolidates them in bankruptcy court, where legal experts say victims will likely receive less money.

Wildfire victims have little chance of getting punitive damages or taking their claims to a jury in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Instead, they will have to tussle with PG&E's creditors, including bondholders, for a payout from the company.

Consumer activist Erin Brockovich, who famously took on PG&E in the 1990s, had urged California lawmakers not to let the utility go bankrupt because it could mean less money for wildfire victims.

Legal experts say the bankruptcy will likely take years to resolve and will result in higher rates for PG&E customers.

The company provides natural gas and electric service to 16 million people over a 70,000-square-mile area in Northern and central California.
El Chapo's wife has given an 11th hour interview where she paints him as a loving father and doting husband as he prepares to spend the rest of his life locked up in an American prison.

Closing arguments begin at the drug lord's Brooklyn trial on Wednesday and will continue into Thursday before a jury retires to decide his fate.

They will deliberate 10 separate charges which include criminal enterprise, use of guns, drug money laundering and internationally distributing more than 40 tones of cocaine.

The trial, which has lasted three months, has included testimony about how El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman, has ordered countless murders, buried people alive and run an unimaginably violent drug enterprise for decades in Mexico.

But in her interview and accompanying photo-shoot with The New York Times, his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, says he is nothing like the man prosecutors have painted him to be.

'I dont know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as. But rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one that I married,' she said in Spanish.

The publication of the interview coincided with the prosecution's closing arguments where they pleaded for the jury to use 'common sense' and accept the 'avalanche' of evidence against Guzman to put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

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Emma Coronal Aispuro (left outside her husband's trial on Wednesday morning) has told in an interview how they met when she was 17 and he was on the run after breaking out of prison in Mexico in 2001. He is shown, right, being extradited to the US in 2017

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg invoked the graphic testimony of one witness, who described how Guzman shot two men in the head and threw their bodies on a bonfire after beating them and swearing at them for working for a rival cartel, to make her point.

'The cartel's engines were corruption and violence,' she said, adding that Guzman was able 'to impose his will on anyone who got in his way.'

Goldbarg spent much of her closing argument walking jurors through what she called an 'avalanche' of evidence, including testimony by cooperators and intercepted phone calls and texts that she said made in clear that Guzman called the shots.

Of the 14 cooperators who took the witness stand, 11 testified that they took orders from the defendant, she said.

She also laid out evidence including bags of drugs and rifles, walking past it calmly to illustrate her point.

The prosecutors told jurors if they had any doubt Guzman was guilty, they should ask themselves why he acted the way he did: why he had bodyguards, hid out in the Sinaloa mountainside, had a mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) tunnel dug to break out of prison and used spyware on his wife and two girlfriends.

'The questions could go on and on. The answer is common sense,' she said.

Dismissing his defense that he was not the main cartel organizer she said: 'The government does not have to prove that he was the boss, or the only boss, or even one of the top bosses,' though she said he was 'one of the top bosses, without a doubt.'

She added that the witnesses' testimony was backed up by cell phone data and text messages written by Guzman himself.

'These witnesses were criminals. The government is not asking you to like them.

'[But] You know these cooperating witnesses are telling the truth because you heard the same thing from the defendant's own mouth.

'He's the one who decides who lives and who dies,' she said of the defendant.

In her interview, Coronel, who has attended every day of the proceedings, also spoke about their fiercely protected twin daughters - Emali and Maria Joaquina - and how Guzman, 61, adores them.

Coronel, pictured with the couple's twin daughters,Emali and Maria Joaquina in October, said they are their father's 'adoration'

'He always was a father very present to the attention of our daughters.

'They are] the adoration of their father and he is the adoration of them,' she said.

She and Guzman married when she was 18 in a 'simple ceremony'. They had met a year earlier, when she was underage and he was on the after pulling off his first of two prison escapes.

He was in his 40s at the time but the age difference did nothing to stop them becoming close.

Coronel described the start of their relationship as a 'lovely friendship'.

'With the passing of months we became girlfriend and boyfriend. And when I turned 18 years old, we married in a very simple ceremony with family and only close friends,' she said. She gave birth to the girls in her early 20s.

Coronel, a beauty queen, was born in California but raised in Mexico. She described her own family as 'unified' and spoke gushingly about her siblings.

Over the last three months, she has been in Brooklyn while her daughters are cared for in Mexico.

The girls have been the only visitors permitted to see their father in the undisclosed location where he has been held since he left the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan at the start of the trial.

They had not lived as a family for years beforehand. El Chapo broke out of prison - allegedly with his wife's help - for a second time in 2015.

He hid out in the Sinaloa mountains until he was finally arrested in 2016.

Coronel, shown outside court on Wednesday, has attended every day of her husband's trial

Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, who plays El Chapo in Narcos: Mexico, returned to court on Wednesday to hear the prosecution's closing arguments

Defense attorney Angel Eduardo Balarezo and William Purpura arrive at the courthouse on Wednesday morning. The defense took just 30 minutes to make their case on Tuesday

El Chapo has not been pictured since he was taken into US custody in January 2017. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom. He is depicted above in an artist's sketch from Monday's proceedings

THE CHARGES EL CHAPO'S JURY WILL DELIBERATE Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was charged with 10 criminal counts, including: Drug trafficking Most of the counts in the indictment allege that Guzman trafficked more than 40 tons of cocaine, marijuana and heroin internationally and domestically. Criminal enterprise He is accused of leading a continuing criminal enterprise responsible for importing into the United States and distributing massive amounts of illegal narcotics between January 1989 and December 2014. Money laundering His money laundering charges relate to the bulk smuggling from the United States to Mexico of more than $14 billion in cash proceeds from narcotics sales throughout the United States and Canada. Weapons offenses He is also charged with using firearms in relation to his drug trafficking. Advertisement

Coronel said of their prolonged separation: 'I dont consider myself a single mother.

'More so, a mother who in this moment doesnt have the support of her husband, but trusts that the family will be well.

'Obviously, our life changed.'

She has spent her time in New York keeping a low profile and going to bed early most nights, she said.

Asked if she liked the nightlife in Manhattan, she said: 'I prefer to sleep'. She was heard 'rejoicing' at the end of one week because it was Friday which meant she could sleep in the following day and not have to wake up early to go to court.

El Chapo's defense team took just 30 minutes to make their case on Tuesday before the jury was sent home for the day.

They called just one witness - a retired FBI agent who they questioned about a report he wrote on a debriefing of one of the cooperators who testified against Guzman.

On Wednesday, the prosecution, which called 50 witnesses throughout the trial, will summarize its case.

Guzman's lawyers will give their closing arguments on Thursday before the jury is sent away.
A young woman has shared screenshots of a creep who urged her to 'kill herself' after she refused his advances.

The unwanted admirer demanded more pictures and, when she refused, called her fat before telling her to commit suicide.

The man, known as 'Dan', involved in the disturbing exchanges appears to have targeted several other women in a similar manner and frequently changes his social media details.

The exchange started when the man left the comment 'filthy' under this picture of the woman posing in front of a mirror dressed in her underwear

The student, from Birmingham, posted the screenshots on Wednesday last week of a series of increasingly perverted messages which ended with: 'Kill yourself.'

It started when the man left the comment 'filthy' under a picture of the woman posing in front of a mirror dressed in her underwear.

He asked her to send him more pictures directly.

When she refused he replied: 'Just send me a few pics I won't tell anyone lol. Just one will do then. Send one or I'll ruin your relationship. Plus you don't live in brum so lol at you.'

The man turned nasty when he realised his cajoling was not working.

He wrote: 'You are fat though, actually are fat.

The creep asked her to send him more pictures directly and grew angry when she refused

And when she asked 'could you tell me how you came to that conclusion?' he replied: 'Kill yourself.'

After going public with the exchange, the man messaged again with the threat: 'Delete the convo or I'll send your family screenshots of the tie up stuff.'

She replied: 'What's weird is asking a girl for nudes then telling her to kill herself when she said no.'

Dan then responded: 'I'll give you five minutes because you're f****** out of order.'

Among those to reply online was a user called @poppyl, who said she too had been approached by Dan.

Among the messages was the comment: 'You defo look older than 18, at least 20.' @poppyl said: 'Lol he's a weird uno.'

The man grew even more nasty when he realised his cajoling was not working and eventually said 'kill yourself'

Another girl, @hol0801, said she too was also sent a message by a man with a very similar Twitter handle and the same profile picture. The man told her 'You're insane' and added a 'love eyes' emoji.

@hol0801 said: 'He sent me this to start with, then asked me to send pictures and then I blocked him.'

Responding to the original post by the woman from Birmingham, @twhtx said: 'My God, this is why I cannot stand being a guy sometimes.'

@jamiedurnberger commented: 'What a complete f****** idiot! This is awesome though, you got him to run away the pussy.'

Another woman (top) posted a message from the same man, while other Twitter users slammed his behaviour

@zxmbieLxdy commented: 'Wowie. That was a roller coaster from start to finish.'

@brookeluce2 said: 'Ok I know I don't know you, but I did report him for you because that was really disgusting behaviour on his part.'

Dalton Bell commented: 'To be harassed by someone with an obviously inflated sense of self is disgusting.
President Donald Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about 15 minutes in Buenos Aires without a U.S. translator or government notetaker present.

The White House acknowledged the November meeting but called it 'informal.' The Financial Times reported, citing a Russian government official, that there was substance on the table.

They spoke about a tense international incident where a Russian coast guard vessel fired on Ukrainian ships trying to pass through the Kerch Straight to reach the Azov Sea. They also spoke about Syria  and area of complex competing interests, and when the two men would have a formal bilateral meeting  another charged subject.

President Donald Trump (C) shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin next to US First Lady Melania Trump (L) ahead a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. The two men also met privately in Buenos Aires  with only Putin's translator and Melania Trump present

Trump told the Russian strongman it was impossible to say when they might be able to meet, and Putin reassured him he was 'not in a hurry,' according to the account. They met for 'several minutes' following an event at the historic Teatro Colon opera house in Bunos Aires, according to the FT.

Trump was accompanied only by First Lady Melania Trump, who speaks multiple languages but has none of the formal training or note-taking responsibilities that an official State Department scribe or translator would have.

Putin's translator was present at the meeting, which followed a November 2018 NATO conference.

PRIVATE TIME: President Trump met privately with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Buenos Aires, accompanied only by Putin's translator and First Lady Melania Trump

President Donald Trump has repeatedly met in private with Putin despite the optics of meeting without other senior officials present

The two leaders met privately for two house in Helsinki in July 2018

There were no senior aides present for one of the meetings

According to the FT, Trump and Putin spoke about Syria and other tense areas during their private meeting. The two men also met in Hamburg in 2017 (above), where according to the Washington Post, Trump took possession of a note-taker's notes

Disclosures about the meeting are just the latest in a series of revelations about Trump and Putin's unusual private contacts, which might draw less scrutiny were it not for Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

The two men also met privately in Hamburg in 2017. According to the Washington Post, Trump told a government note-taker not to discuss what came up with other administration officials, and took away the person's notes.

The two men also held a summit in Helsinki in July 2018 where they met privately for two hours with only translators present. In the days afterward, senior administration officials said they had not been briefed on what happened, and congressional investigators talked about compelling the translator to testify about what she knew.
For the local migrant community, the pontiff's visit constitutes "encouragement and a recognition" of their value. A "multinational and multicultural" Church of people is "united under the same sky". There is a "beautiful climate" in the Emirates. Muslim media have been paying close attention to the visit, which will boost interfaith dialogue.

Abu Dhabi (AsiaNews)  Pope Franciss visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country where most migrant workers are Catholic from different Asian countries, is an "encouragement and a recognition of their existence and value, this according to Paul Hinder, Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia (United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen).

Speaking to AsiaNews on the eve of the first papal trip to a Gulf country, the prelate notes that "His presence shows the unity among us, in spite of tensions and differences that characterise a multinational and multicultural Church, which is united under the same sky."

"It is a community of active members. They are not 'slaves' or second-class at all, but Christians who actively take part in the life of society and the local Church, "said Mgr Hinder amid phone calls, appointments, and scores of more things to iron out.

"We are a lively migrant reality. With this visit, this is the message we want to send to the worlds Catholic community, as well as to governments and institutions: look at migrants as an active reality."

"The pope's presence is a source of encouragement also for those among us who work hard but are less well-off. For the vicar to Arabia, Francis cares about these people. he is also coming for them to encourage them ... We shall see what hell say."

The pontiff will be in Abu Dhabi from 3 to 5 February for an international interfaith meeting on Human Brotherhood. For the first time, a Roman pontiff will travel to the Arabian Peninsula at the invitation of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the local Catholic Church.

The Emirates are among the few countries in the Middle East that can boast of a certain stability. Still, it also has some dark spots, such as domestic repression and its involvement in the Yemen War.

However, as UAE Tolerance Minister Sheikh Nahyan Ben Mubarak Al Nahyan pointed out, the Pope is considered "a builder of bridges", a description that is also found in the visits preparatory message, together with the Franciscan prayer make me an instrument of your peace".

"The pontiff, noted Mgr Hinder, is not afraid to cross borders and get closer to others, looking first at the human being, not stopping at ideology, faith or ethnicity. This is the most important thing." In the Emirates one can breathe "a beautiful climate".

"I expected it," he said, speaking about the visit. It is long overdue. Already a year ago there was talk about it. Many Christians and Muslims were saying, "let's hope he comes". Now "It is also nice to see all this attention, even in the Muslim media.

The Pope's visit should have a positive effect on the area. Francis is well liked by Muslims and his presence in the Emirates is a source of pride. The visit will have significant influence on interfaith dialogue and many people hope that it will somehow help end some of the regions bloody conflicts."

Francis speaks the language of peace, which can have some positive effects on ongoing crises in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen and the broader Middle East. In the Emirates, he could be an example for others."

For the prelate, "What the Pope will bring to the Arabian Peninsula will bear fruit for us as a Church, in relation to Muslims as well as religious freedom."

This message will be also heard by those countries in the region where, even today, religious worship is subject to severe restrictions.
A 26-year-old man has been rushed to hospital after he was hit in a drive-by shooting.

The man was shot in his leg about 10.10pm on Wednesday out the front of a home on Lomond Street in Guildford West, about 30km west of the Sydney CBD.

His attacker allegedly fled the scene after firing the shot, in a car police say could be a white Audi R8.

A 26-year-old man was shot in the left leg outside a home in Lomond Street in Guildford West (pictured) on Wednesday night

Paramedics were called to the scene and the man was taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Images from the scene show him being lifted into the ambulance with thick bandaging around his left leg.

He was escorted to Westmead Hospital by police, while other officers established a crime scene.

The shooting is believed to be targeted, and no arrests have yet been made.

If you have any information, contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.
A 13-year-old 'Cinderella' schoolgirl who ran away from home before she was found hanged in a hedgerow was ordered to 'wash every pot in the house' and told she couldn't celebrate her birthday because of bad behaviour, an inquest heard.

Amber Peat ran away from her home in Nottingham, when she was ordered to clean out a cool box after returning from a family holiday to Cornwall.

The inquest at Nottingham Coroner's Court has previously been told Amber's mother and stepfather didn't report her missing for almost eight hours, and heard claims from teachers that she 'didn't get as much attention at home as would be considered normal'.

Today Joanne Robinson, a multi-agency team (MAT) manager at Derbyshire County Council also gave evidence, saying that Amber had been referred to have one-on-one meetings between with a youth worker.

Amber Peat (pictured above) hanged herself after fleeing home after a row with her stepfather

Daniel Peat (right) Amber's stepfather, left Nottingham Coroner's Court today after saying he had comforted Amber during a school meeting

The inquest heard that shortly after the sessions ended, in around April 2014, Amber ran away from home following an argument and eventually ended up at her school, Tibshelf Secondary, at 9pm at night. Her Head of Year, David Wallace, was contacted by a caretaker and called Amber's family  but they couldn't come to fetch her 'because their dog was in labour'.

Mr Wallace caught up with Amber at school the next day, it was said, with the youngster claiming her parents had 'grilled' her over what she had told him. But they couldn't come in to discuss the matter with staff because they had 'been awake all night with the dog'.

Shortly afterwards, the MAT team received a case note from the school regarding a number of concerns about Amber.

The inquest heard these included a fear she would slip through the net when the family moved house, the fact they had stopped calling the police when she ran away, and the failure to collect her when she turned up at school at night.

It also referred to an occasion when she was made to wash every pot in the house  and said Amber had claimed she couldnt celebrate her birthday this year because of her behaviour.

Today contrasting images of Amber were revealed at an inquest into the 13-year-old's death.

School support manager Emma Dunn described her as 'pleasant, bubbly and enthusiastic girl, a lively character,' although she 'struggled to concentrate.'

Amber's mother Kelly Peat (pictured above)

She compared that with Amber's behaviour when called into a meeting with her mother Kelly and stepfather Daniel Peat.

In a statement read at the hearing, Miss Dunn said that it 'left her with an uneasy feeling.' At the inquest at Nottingham Council House, Miss Dunn said that Amber was 'quiet and withdrawn.'

She said: 'Amber was very different with how she presented.'

Amber's stepfather Daniel Peat told the hearing that he comforted Amber during the meeting in school.

'I put my arms around her, saying that it's going to be all right,' said Mr Peat.

He told the inquest that a mentor was identified for Amber to 'contact one to one.'

The school meeting took place a year before Amber was found hanged in bushes on June 2, 2015. She walked out of her home three days before.

Today's sitting revealed:

- Amber had previously ran away but her parents had been too busy to look for her as their 'dog was in labour'

- Amber had seen a doctor several times with her mother Kelly, in regards to her relationship with her stepfather Danny Peat

- It was also revealed that Mr Peat is said to have had mental health issues

- On the night that Amber vanished she had been arguing with her stepfather

- The family had previously visited Daniel Peat's mother, and while at the house amber was made to sit in the corner and not speak to anyone

Amber (pictured above) was a pupil of Tibshelf Community School

The meeting at the school had been intended to start a formal assessment of the teenager because of concerns about her behaviour. This was not completed because her pregnant mother felt ill and had to leave.

Assistant Coroner Laurinda Bower asked whether this was 'a missed opportunity to do something more for Amber.'

Miss Dunn said it was decided to 'continue to monitor Amber while she was in school.'

At the time, Amber was a pupil of Tibshelf Community School. Soon after she moved to Queen Elizabeth School in Mansfield, making it the eleventh time the teenager had moved house in her life.

Miss Dunn said: 'She didn't want to move. I think she was settled, whether they were her words or not.'

The coroner asked: 'Was there concern for Amber, to use the phrase, 'falling through the cracks?'

Miss Dunn replied: 'The changes were upsetting as it was. She did not say why she was going.'

The coroner asked: 'During your time with Amber, was there a mention of self-harm, suicide, anything of that nature?'

Shaking her head, Miss Dunn said: 'None at all.'

Ms Robinson also said that a team of professionals including education, health and children's workers  became involved with Amber's family in January 2014, 16 months before her death, following a referral from the teenager's GP.

The family did not report Amber missing until they had 'been to Tesco and had their tea'. Pictured above the missing poster which was put up once it had been reported that Amber was missing

Volunteers from the local community (pictured above) pitched in during the search for Amber

She'd been to see the doctor with her mother, Kelly Peat, about a number of concerns surrounding her behaviour and relationship with stepfather Danny.

The coroner, when asking Ms Robinson questions, summarised a list of issues that had been discussed at the GP appointment, including Amanda's stepfather Danny having 'mental health issues.'

MAT staff went to visit the family  but the inquest heard an assessment that could have provided a better picture of what was going on in the home wasn't carried out, and information wasn't sought from other agencies, including adult mental health services.

There was also no thought given to observing the 'family dynamics' at the address, something that was flagged up by the GP, with a 'focus on housing needs' instead.

And the only action taken was a series of one-to-one meetings between Amber and a youth worker, coroner Laurinda Bower was told.

On the second day of the inquest, there was evidence that Amber was twice thought to have run away from school. On one occasion, she was found in the school library.

A post mortem said there was no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved.

On the night Amber vanished from home, the family had returned from a holiday in Cornwall. She got into trouble for drinking Cherryade without permission. Later the door slammed and she left. Her family searched and alerted police officers five hours later.

Earlier this week, DC Gilfoyle said that while Amber was missing, police interviewed a 'child witness' who revealed how she had 'been in trouble quite a lot' during the half-term break.

Amber had also told teachers at her school she felt 'very put upon' and 'had lots of jobs to do' at home and that she felt her siblings had an easier life.

The officer told the hearing: 'There had been arguments and Amber had been prevented from going to the beach.

'Together with a cousin she had written a 'runaway list' on a laptop. It was quite a childish list with a wig, torch and rope. The cousin thought it was a joke.

'There had been an apparent incident in the car on the way home where Amber had taken some Cherryade without asking and had been scowling at Danny Peat, and had been told to sit in the back of the Zafira.

'Danny Peat said if she scowled at him again he was going to hit her.

'She (the witness) said Amber was only allowed sandwiches and not nice things as a result of her behaviour, because she had been misbehaving and cheeky.

As a punishment when she got home she had to clean the car out, the family are then said to have gone about their daily businesses, picking up the pets and visiting the home of Danny Peat's mother, where Amber was apparently told to sit on a chair in the corner and not talk to anyone.

'They eventually go home and Amber is told to clean the cool box out that they had their sandwiches in. She was not happy about it and objected to it. 'She is reported as complaining and trying to get her mum's attention, and so her mum shuts the door, leaving Amber alone in the hallway. A short while later the door slams and Amber is gone.

'They went intending to look for Amber but could not see her. They went to Tesco and did some shopping and had their tea.'

The inquest heard it was likely Amber died shortly after she was seen by a member of the public entering hedgerow at around 5.50pm that day. But her body wasn't discovered for 72 hours.
An epileptic teenage boy recalled how prison guards beat him because he wouldn't cry.

Jickson Rodriguez, 14, relived the harrowing nightmare he encountered during his week-long imprisonment after the Venezuelan National Guard arbitrarily arrested him while participating in a civil protest against President Nicolas Maduro.

'I was the one who was beaten the most because I did not cry. The guards, most of them women, hit me and beat me,' Rodriguez recalled Tuesday afternoon, moments after he was released from a courthouse in Puerto Ordaz, a city in the state of Bolivar.

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Jickson Rodriguez recounted the terrible experience he encountered at a prison cell in Venezuela after he was arrested the night of January 23 when he participated in a peaceful protest which called for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

The 14-year-old boy (third from left to right) was joined by his sister (second from left to right) and his mother Romelis Guilarte (fourth from left to right). He spent six days in a prison cell after the National Guard accused him of looting a market

According to Venezuelan news outlet Correo de Caroni, the schoolboy asked the guard what was there reasoning for beating him if he was already detained.

Then answered by slapping him.

Rodriguez, along with six other young men, was tossed in a jail cell the night of January 23 when residents answered to the opposition government's national call to protest Maduro's mandate by participating in a 'cacerolazo' or the loud banging of pots and pans.

The military members showed up in droves and tangled with the dissidents before ultimately placing them in handcuffs under their own terms.

Rodriguez and the other residents were falsely accused of looting a market located in a town far away from their neighborhood, according to his mother Romelis Guilarte.

The youngest of four siblings said the situation unraveled as soon as he arrived at the detention facility in Villa Bahia.

'They beat me with a stick and also hit me in the head,' Rodriguez recalled.

Guilarte (right) visited Rodriguez (left) on Sunday night to provide him with the necessary medicine after the epileptic boy was refuse treatment during his week-long imprisonment. He suffered three convulsions

'I told them, 'no, I can't receive head blows because I suffer epileptic attacks,' and they told me, 'shut up, you are a prisoner.'

Rodriguez suffered three convulsions during his imprisonment and was denied the necessary medical attention.

It wasn't until Sunday, when he had been transferred to the courthouse, that his mother was able to give him his treatment.

The courthouse released Rodriguez on bail and required him to present himself every 30 days.

At least 200 people have been processed by courts in the state of Bolivar since Venezuelans took to the streets last week to protest against Maduro's regime.
A mother could be facing criminal charges for encouraging her daughter to brutally beat another teenage girl outside their school.

Shocking cell phone footage shows the mom, whose name has not been released, setting up the brawl after classes at the Isabel Flores School in the municipality of Juncos, Puerto Rico, on Monday.

Her daughter can then be seen slapping, punching and holding the hair of the girl as she struggles on the ground in front of a cheering group of students.

A mother (pictured right) incited a fight between her daughter (pictured left) and a girl at a school in Juncos, Puerto Rico. She accused the teenage girl of showing up in her neighborhood last Thursday looking to pick a fight with her daughter

A neighborhood confrontation between two girls erupts into a wild fight outside a school in eastern central Puerto Rico which has generated a lot of controversy after videos of the brawl were posted on social media sites

The irate parent sparked the bloody confrontation by showing up outside the school gates, just days after the other girl had allegedly walked into her neighborhood with a group of girls and was looking to pick a fight.

Students crowded around as the mother started speaking to the girl and urged no one watching to get involved.

'She doesn't look for problems in the neighborhood and you are here,' the angered mom said.

'I saw you on Thursday looking for trouble with your little group [of friends]. I'll just unleash her on you. Nobody is going to get involved.'

Classmates circled around the girls, who according to Puerto Rican news outlet Primera Hora, are in the 10th and 11th grade.

The upset mother's daughter then charges at the other teenage girl, swings her fist and punches her to the ground.

An upset mother spreads her arms out as her daughter (pictured in the center of the image) places another girl in a headlock during a disturbing after-school fight

A male spectator (pictured with the red shirt points his finger at one of the girls involved in the school brawl before he yelled, 'oh, I saw her bleeding'

The video shows that the daughter had the upper hand from the start.

The other girl can be seen on the floor trying to protect herself from the blows.

The girls tussle and roll around on the street pavement while the mother keeps the crowd back and makes sure that they aren't tempted to step in.

Her child then continues to pummel her classmate while grabbing her hair.

One of the men in the crowd can then be heard shouting that he could see one of the girls bleeding.

Approaching sirens can then be heard in the background.

A police officer is then seen running into the circle to break up the pair.

The teenage girl was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Her mother also filed a police report.

The parent who staged the fight was not arrested, but she could now face criminal charges after the video surfaced online.

Both students will also have to present themselves at a juvenile court hearing on February 5.
Have you ever regretted queuing up for a thrilling theme park ride at the very last minute?

Visitors at a Chinese scenic spot have been offered a chance to change their mind in midair after the machine starts.

For the faint-hearted, they can now chicken out before workers launch a massive swing with ropes as long as 60 feet from the edge of a 1,000-foot-tall clifftop.

A tourist struggles to face the ride as she is being pull up to heights by the giant swing in China

The park in Chongqing has allowed tourists to change their mind in midair as long as they pay

The terrifying swing is situated at the Wansheng Ordovician Theme Park in south-western China's Chongqing city.

Tourists are allowed to say 'stop' after their seat is pulled back to the highest point but before they are catapulted over the deep valley at a high speed, according to a spokesperson.

The spokesperson told MailOnline that in the past the park had not allowed the ride to be stopped halfway. However, a female tourist recently cried and desperately begged staff to halt the ride, and this inspired the park to set up the service 'much needed by some people'.

On a busy day, visitors would have to queue for four hours to enjoy the ride.

The park also has a glass-bottomed bridge which juts from a cliff face above a 390-foot drop

The park has branded the service as 'regret medicine'. Staff will give a 'regret pill' to the tourist who begs them to stop the machine. The pill is said to be a normal vitamin tablet.

The spokesperson explained that a dose of the 'regret medicine' could be purchased by donation and tourists could pay whatever amount they wish.

'Most people give 10 yuan (1), some people give five yuan (60p). But if they really don't have change and are desperate to leave, we would also allow.'

The spokesperson said the 'regret medicine' had proven to be popular.

The exhilarating swing opened to the public in May last year.

The rocking seat is attached to a beam measuring 59 feet - the equivalent to a six-storey building.

It's the fifth extreme swing in the Wansheng Ordovician Theme Park.

In the peak season, up to 4,000 people flock to the park to take a ride on the unique swings, according to a spokesperson.

The swings are said to be one of the two most popular attractions at the theme park.

The other one is the glass-bottomed bridge which juts from a cliff face above a 390-foot drop.

The transparent walkway extends more than 262 feet from a cliff face above a vertigo-inducing 390-foot drop.

The impressive A-shaped bridge, which cost 40 million yuan (4.5 million) to build, has overtaken another observation deck in Chongqing to become the world's longest cantilevered glass-bottomed walkway.

No more than 30 visitors are allowed to stand on the bridge at any one time.

The admission to the park is 180 yuan (21) which allows the tourists to enjoy all attractions and ride the swings.
Jill Blackstone, 56, was half-naked and implied she knew her sister was already dead when paramedics arrived, according to a witness

The former 'Jerry Springer' producer charged with killing her special-needs sister was half-naked when ambulances arrived at the scene, a witness has revealed.

David Jaureguy, a paramedic with the LA City Fire Department, said Jill Blackstone, 56, 'was dressed from the waist up, naked from the waist down' when he arrived at her Los Angeles home.

Testifying at a court hearing yesterday, Mr Jaureguy added: 'She told me that the dogs were in the garage with another body  that of her sister. I believe there was a comment about them being dead.'

He made the comments at the hearing that will decide if there's sufficient enough evidence to put her on trial for the murder of her 49-year-old sister Wendy, the New York Daily News reported.

Jill was arrested in April last year for after her deaf and partially blind sister was found dead in the garage in what was initially thought to be a suicide pact gone wrong.

Investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department believe Jill Blackstone carried out the deadly attack because she was frustrated at the emotional and financial hardship of having to care for her.

Wendy (pictured) was found dead in a garage in March 2015 after inhaling carbon monoxide fumes

A coroner later determined that Wendy died of smoke inhalation and an overdose of the sedative alrazolam. The woman also had traces of Xanax in her blood.

Jill also suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, which required her to be treated in a hospital for two days.

At first it appeared that Wendy had killed herself by inhaling fumes from a barbecue grill.

An unnamed police source reportedly said that Jill - who was arrested after her sister's death but was released two days later without a charge - originally denied knowing Wendy was suicidal.

However, investigators believe that Jill wrote a suicide note left by Wendy.

It was previously reported that Jill had allegedly made a suicide pact with her sister, but got cold feet at the last minute and called a friend for help - who then told the police.

When paramedics arrived at the home in North Hollywood on March 14, 2015, Wendy and two of her three dogs were dead, while Jill was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Investigators believe Jill (pictured) wrote a note left by Wendy to stage it as a suicide

Daily Mail Online reported in 2015 that Jill owed Wendy $122,000 and was in $1.4million of debt.

After Jill's release in 2015, the LAPD confirmed that Wendy's death was still 'an ongoing murder investigation'.

Neighbors speculated that the sisters  who ran the Thumping Tails Animal Rescue Center together out of their home  had entered into a suicide pact.

Stephanie Cohen, 60, who lived across the street from the sisters, said at the time: The police were here for 12 to 14 hours on Saturday. We were told they were investigating a double suicide, an attempt, and one of the people died.'

Testifying at a court hearing yesterday, David Jaureguy, a paramedic with the LA City Fire Department, said Jill was naked from the waist down when he arrived at their home (pictured)

She added: [Jill and Wendy] were having a hard time finding a new home because the sister that died was very ill - she couldnt see, she couldnt hear, she was housebound, she was very ill. So she needed to find a house that could accommodate her sister with the illness and the dogs.

'Evidently the pressure was intense on them, but nobody expected this to happen.

As a producer, Jill worked on Jerry Springer, Sally Jessy Raphael, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Dr. Drew On Call, The Real, and The Osbournes.

For confidential support in the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
The parents of a one-year-old boy who allegedly was struck and killed by his father have been arrested and charged with felony murder.

Police say 20-year-old Jaimie Howard 'chose to look away' as her boyfriend A'kym Henderson, 21, repeatedly punched their son King in the head.

Howard then brought the baby to a hospital in Macon, Georgia, early Friday morning and claimed that she found the boy unresponsive.

The baby was pronounced dead and there were no visible signs of abuse, but an autopsy determined he'd suffered a head injury.

Henderson was arrested the same day when an investigation revealed that he'd hit the boy, according to the Bibb County Sheriff's Office.

When investigators interviewed Howard on Tuesday morning they learned that she was present at the time of the fatal strike but failed to act, police say.

'Howard did not seek medical attention for the infant after the incident, until the infant became unresponsive,' a statement from the sheriff's office said.

The mother was subsequently arrested and charged with felony murder.

Akym Henderson, 21, and Jaimie Howard, 20, are facing felony murder charges in the death of their one-year-old son on Friday in Macon, Georgia. Henderson (left) was arrested the same day after an investigation revealed that he'd fatally struck the child on the head, according to police. Howard (right) was arrested four days later when investigators learned that she was present at the time of the murder but failed to act until the boy was unresponsive

Howard (above with King) reportedly told family members she wants to have the baby cremated so she can wear his ashes in an hourglass necklace around her neck

According to an arrest warrant, Howard is accused of 'acting in concert' with Henderson as she 'attempted to cover up this incident by initially stating she was only woken up by the victim struggling to breathe'.

She stuck to that account when first questioned by the police but later changed her story.

The warrant says Howard admitted that she witnessed Henderson punch the boy in the head multiple times and she 'chose to look away'.

King suffered multiple complex skull fractures, scalp hemorrhages and a swollen brain, according to the warrant.

Coliseum Northside Hospital, where baby King was pronounced dead, is pictured above. Howard's half brother said the mom wants a private autopsy on the child because she doesn't believe Henderson is guilty

The baby's uncle and Howard's half-brother, Aaron Beaver, told the Macon Telegraph that his sister wants a private autopsy on the child because she doesn't believe Henderson is guilty.

Beaver described Howard and Henderson as devoted parents who stopped going out at night and partying to care for their child, who turned one on January 20.

'They gave all that up when King was born,' Beaver said. 'She and Akym put that baby on a pedestal.'

He said Howard has been 'the sweetest little girl since she was 10' and 'wouldnt harm a butterfly'.

Beaver couldn't explain what happened to King but said his sister is 'heartbroken'.

Howard reportedly told family members she wants to have the baby cremated so she can wear his ashes in an hourglass necklace around her neck.

Both Howard and Henderson are currently being held at the Bibb Law Enforcement Center.

Bail amounts and hearing dates were not listed in jail records for either suspect as of Wednesday morning.

Investigators have asked anyone with information about the incident to contact the Bibb Sheriffs Office at 478-751-7500, or call Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
A woman who was slammed into a concrete wall during the Bourke Street Massacre has told a court about her horrific ordeal in which she felt her bones being crushed.

Melinda Cleland was about to meet her friend for lunch in Melbourne's CBD when drug-driver James Gargasoulas ploughed into pedestrians, killing six and injuring seven in 2017.

Gargasoulas has been in court this week for a plea ahead of his sentencing where victims had a chance to say how the massacre has affected their lives.

Melinda Cleland was out ready to meet her friend for lunch on January 20, 2017 in Melbourne's CBD, when she was driven into and smashed into concrete wall

James Gargasoulas is accused of driving his car along the footpath through a busy pedestrian intersection while in a drug-induced psychosis, which killed six and injured several others

Gargasoulas is in court this week for his three-day plea where victim impact statements are read or tendered in court (pictured is the car driven by Gargasoulas)

Ms Cleland attended the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday and recounted the terrifying moment she thought she would not survive, reported Perth Now.

'I often wish I had no memory of the event,' she told the court.

Jess Mudie, 22 (pictured), was one of the women hit during the rampage

'(I remember) the sound of my bones crunching inside me as I bounced off a concrete wall.

'I have physical injuries that remind me daily that life has changed.'

The court also heard from the family of Jess Mudie, one of the women intentionally hit during the rampage.

Her family made it clear they are still coming to terms with the loss.

'I sometimes forget (she died),' twin sister Emily said through tears.

'I go to message her about what she's having for dinner or how her day was.'

Her mother Robyn was so distraught her statement was read on her behalf. In it, she told Gargasoulas: 'You will never be forgiven'.

Yosuke Kanno, 25, was the first victim of the terrifying attack as the Japanese student was killed instantly outside the Royal Arcade.

His devastated father Masayuki said he and his wife lamented allowing their son to study in Melbourne.

He said the pair found it impossible to hold back their anger towards Gargasoulas.

An unmoved Gargasoulas reportedly sat motionless in the dock as the statement was read out in front of him.

Yosuke Kanno, 25 (pictured), was the first victim of the terrifying attack as the Japanese student was killed instantly outside the Royal Arcade

Mathew Bryant and Nawwar Hassan-Bryant (pictured right and left) recalled the final moments with their three-month-old son who was killed in the Bourke Street rampage

The court also heard from Mathew Bryant and Nawwar Hassan-Bryant who lost their three-month-old son and injured his sister Zahra.

Zachary Matthew Bryant was left brain dead after the pram he and his sister Zahra were lying in was struck by Gargasoulas' stolen car on January 20, 2017.

His father, Mathew Bryant, described his desperation to hang on to something to remind him of his son - how he felt, his smell or his expression. Anything.

'I listened to his heartbeat and held him for the last time,' Mr Bryant said.

The next time the brokenhearted father held his son was to prepare him for burial.

A jury last November found Gargasoulas murdered Zachary, along with Tahlia Hakin, 10, Jessica Mudie, 23, Yosuke Kanno, 25, Bhavita Patel, 33, and Matthew Si, 33.

Gargasoulas was found guilty of six counts of murder and 27 counts of reckless conduct endangering life in November

His barrister Theo Alexander has previously argued that his client should be assessed based on his mental illness with the opportunity for parole.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested his intelligence chiefs should 'go back to school' and lectured their 'naive' assessments on Iran after they sharply contradicted his foreign policy claims, particularly on North Korea and ISIS.

The president's response to his chiefs testimony before the Senate a day earlier was an unprecedented Twitter dressing down of America's top intelligence officials, where he called them 'extremely passive and naive,' said they were flat out 'wrong' on Iran, and suggested 'Intelligence should go back to school!.'

He railed against FBI directory Christopher Wray, CIA director Gina Haspel, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who painted a different picture of America's relationship with its foreign partners when they testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump defended his foreign policy initiatives on Wednesday

He attacked his intelligence chiefs as 'extremely passive and naive'

He suggested they go back to school

Trump did not hold back in his fury and insults.

'The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but....,' he tweeted.

He added: '....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!'

The president spent the morning in a defensive twitter storm about his foreign policy initiatives after Coats argued North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons - in contrast to the president's claim of success after his summit with Kim Jong-Un - and CIA director Gina Haspel warned ISIS was still dangerous after Trump claimed they had been beaten.

Additionally Coats, in his testimony, had a different take on one of Trump's key assertions on Iran - that it had cheated on the spirit of the 2015 nuclear agreement. The president has argued Iran is still a nuclear threat.

Coats appeared to contradict that when he said Tehran was complying with the deal - even after Trump announced America's withdrawal from it in May - and isn't taking any steps toward a nuclear weapon.

'We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device,' he said.

In The Senate, John Thune, the second most senior Republican as majority whip, told CNN: 'I prefer the President would stay off Twitter - particularly with regard to these important national security issues where you've got people who are experts and have the background and are professionals.

'I think we need to trust their judgment.'

Former CIA Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic who had his security clearance revoked by the president, retweeted Trump's criticism and told the president: 'All Americans, especially members of Congress, need to understand the danger you pose to our national security.'

'Your refusal to accept the unanimous assessment of U.S. Intelligence on Iran, No. Korea, ISIS, Russia, & so much more shows the extent of your intellectual bankruptcy. All Americans, especially members of Congress, need to understand the danger you pose to our national security,' he wrote on Twitter.

Trump's early morning defense of his foreign policies particularly focused on Iran and North Korea.

FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel; and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on 'Worldwide Threats'

Trump started Wednesday morning defending his policies on Syria

He was particularly defensive of his work with North Korea

The president's early morning Twitter focus was on world affairs after his intelligence chiefs sharply contradicted his claims

Trump touted his foreign policy work after his intelligence chiefs offered a different assessment

Former CIA Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic who had his security clearance revoked by the president, fired back in the defense of the intelligence chiefs

'When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting..,' Trump wrote in a series of tweets that came before he insulted his intelligence chiefs.

'Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization...,' the president noted.

He added: '...Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!'

The positive notes from Trump came after Haspel warned ISIS was still dangerous and Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Kim is unlikely to give up his nuclear stockpiles.

'We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,' Coats said in his opening statement as the three intelligence chiefs testified on Tuesday.

'Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization,' he added.

Coats' conclusions run counter to the claims Trump made after his June summit in Singapore with Kim, when he argued North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat.

Trump plans to meet with Kim again 'shortly,' as he said in his Wednesday morning tweet but no agenda, venue or date have been announced.

The White House has said the sitdown will be around the end of February.

Additionally, in the annual 'Worldwide Threat Assessment' released on Tuesday, it was revealed Kim is wooing China and South Korea to support its push for Washington to loosen sanctions pressure without making significant nuclear concessions.

'Kim has also sought to align the region against the U.S.-led pressure campaign in order to gain incremental sanctions relief, and North Korean statements have repeatedly indicated that some sanctions relief is necessary for additional diplomacy to occur,' the report said.

The 42-page report released by Coats noted North Korea had not conducted any nuclear or missile tests in over a year and had declared its support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang had also 'reversibly dismantled' parts of its infrastructure for weapons of mass destruction, the report said.

The report also noted that in his 2019 New Year's address, Kim pledged that North Korea would 'go toward' complete denuclearization and promised not to make, test, or use nuclear weapons.

Contradiction: Dan Coats (right), the Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee, that Kim Jong Un still wants nuclear weapons so his regime can survive. Coats testified beside (from left) Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, and Gina Haspel, the CIA Director

Another summit: After this meeting in Singapore in June 2018, Trump said that Kim Jong Un had committed to full denuclearization but was contradicted Tuesday by his own Director of National Intelligence

However, it said Kim made it conditional on 'practical actions' by the United States and added that Pyongyang had - in the past tied - the idea of denuclearization to changes in diplomatic ties, economic sanctions, and military activities.

And CIA director Gina Haspel told the Senate panel on Tuesday that Kim's regime 'is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.'

The threat report also found that the United States' trade policies and 'unilateralism' - central tenants of Trump's presidency - have strained relationships with foreign partners.

In addition to the focus on the North Korea, both the report and the chiefs' testimony examined relationships with Iran, Afghanistan and Syria plus warned of possible cyber attacks in the next presidential election.

Missing from the report was any mention of threats at the U.S-Mexico border where Trump is demanding a border wall for security reasons.

The report stated the Islamic State group 'remains a terrorist and insurgent threat' inside Iraq, where the government faces 'an increasingly disenchanted public.'

In Syria, where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of U.S. troops, the government of Bashar Assad is likely to consolidate control, with Russia and Iran attempting to further entrench themselves in Syria, the report claimed.

And Haspel said of ISIS: 'They're still dangerous,' adding that they still command 'thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.'

Last month Trump claimed 'we have won against ISIS; we've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly.'

The intelligence assessment of Afghanistan projected a continued military stalemate.

Without mentioning prospects for a peace deal, which appear to have improved only in recent days, the report said, 'neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year' if the U.S. maintains its current levels of support.

Trump has ordered a partial pullback of U.S. forces this year, although no firm plan is in place.

Coats also told the committee that Russia and perhaps other countries are likely to attempt to use social media and other means to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

'We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections,' the intelligence report said.

The White House is planning another meeting between Kim and Trump after their first summit in Singapore in June

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is unlikely to give up his nuclear stockpiles

The report specifically warned about Russia, which U.S. intelligence agencies determined had interfered in the 2016 election to sway voters toward Trump.

'Russia's social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities, and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians,' it said.

'Moscow may employ additional influence toolkits - such as spreading disinformation, conducting hack-and-leak operations, or manipulating data - in a more targeted fashion to influence U.S. policy, actions, and elections.'
A 33-year-old man has been charged after he allegedly stole a 42-kilogram saltwater crocodile skull from a museum.

The skull, which has been on display at Kununurra Museum, Western Australia, for 15 years, was stolen sometime between Friday and Tuesday.

The bizarre theft was flagged with local authorities and a speedy investigation ensued.

The stolen skull (pictured) was returned to the museum after police assisted in the investigation

The skull, which has been on display at Kununurra Museum, Western Australia, for 15 years, was stolen sometime between Friday and Tuesday

Police allege the Kalumburu man smashed the front door of the museum and stole the skull from a display unit inside the building.

In a Facebook post, the local museum praised the efforts of the authorities for returning the treasured possession.

'Thanks to the hard work of the Kununurra Police our salty skull was found and is now back at Kununurra Museum! Great result - Thanks guys!' the museum wrote.

The skull was mostly intact but suffered a few injuries following the ordeal.

'Unfortunately the lower jaw mandibles have split open a little more than they were and now has a slight dead smell odour emanating from there,' the museum commented on their post.

'I still have to pick up the only missing tooth which Police do have! Other than that still looks good.'

The museum had previously shared a desperate call-out to help find the missing skull

The accused has been charged with burglary and stealing and is due to face Kununurra Magistrates Court on February 15 (pictured: Kununurra Museum)

The museum had previously shared a desperate call-out to help find the missing skull.

'Sadly we lost an iconic display that has been enjoyed by thousands and thousands of visitors to Kununurra Museum in the past 15 years and to people of Kununurra for nearly 50 years!' the museum said.

'Over the long weekend some incredibly self-centred, irresponsible selfish young fool(s) have stolen our 16+ foot Saltwater Crocodylus porosus skull.'

The post urged members of the public to report suspicious behaviour to authorities in a bid to return the skull home to the Kununurra Museum.

The accused has been charged with burglary and stealing and is due to face Kununurra Magistrates Court on February 15.
Trump's national security advisor warned of 'serious consequences' if any harm comes to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Washington has recognised Guaido as the South American country's acting president (File Photo)

Washington: US President Donald Trump's national security advisor warned on Tuesday of "serious consequences" if any harm comes to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

"Let me reiterate -- there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," Trump advisor John Bolton tweeted.

Washington has recognised Guaido as the South American country's acting president and says that strongman President Nicolas Maduro should leave power.

Bolton's warning followed a request by the Maduro government's attorney general for the Supreme Court to bar Guaido from leaving the country and to freeze his assets.

That followed the United States' decision to hand control of Venezuela's US bank accounts to Guaido, barring Maduro from accessing the funds.

Guaido said on Monday that the US maneuver would stop Maduro from emptying the "coffers" if he is removed from office.
Police in Illinois say they have arrested Elsa from Disney's Frozen due to the freezing weather, but some were not impressed with pictures.

The cops in McLean County - where temperatures are currently -29C - posted snaps of an actress dressed up as Elsa being hauled into a police car.

But observant Facebook users noticed that the pictures they had used in their post were actually taken from a police force in South Carolina who had pulled the stunt in 2015.

McClean County Police Department posted these snaps along with the message that they had arrested Elsa with 'NO BOND'

But Facebook users were delighted in pointing people towards news articles from three years ago when police in South Carolina had performed the stunt

One user on Facebook commented that the pictures showed police in Hanahan, South Carolina - far from the frigid air in Illinois

McLean County Police wrote in a Facebook post: 'ATTENTION: Due to the EXTREME COLD weather, all criminal activity and acts of stupidity and foolishness has been cancelled.

'Even Elsa has been placed under arrest with NO BOND until further notice. Thank you for your attention and understanding to this matter. Respectfully, the McLean Police Dept.'

The police department is yet to respond to the claims they have stolen the images in their Facebook post.

Some users made mention of the fact they could be prosecuted for using the professional photos without permission, while others said it was just a bit of fun.

Elsa is a Disney character with the power to create ice and snow in their 2013 hit movie Frozen.

McLean police made the post as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures Wednesday, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and prompting the US Postal Service the rare decision to suspend deliveries.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south than normal.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.

At least four deaths were linked to the weather system on Tuesday, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

Elsa is a character in the Disney movie Frozen, who has the power to turn temperatures icy cold

The cold is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole.

A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase.

That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.
Former Ohio governor John Kasich has been shamed for stealing another passenger's first class seat on an Alaska Airlines flight after being bumped out of his own to make room for a pilot.

Kasich, 66, was flying from JFK in New York to San Francisco on January 16 - two weeks after handing over the governorship and his access to state planes to Mike DeWine - when he took comedian Julie Klausner's seat.

According to Klausner, who shared details of their run-in on Twitter and later in a podcast, Kasich had been behaving 'like an a**hole' long before they even boarded the plane and was talking obnoxiously on his cell phone in the airline's first class lounge.

He got on the plane first and, according to Klausner, was told that he could not sit in his seat because it had been given to a pilot who had been scheduled to fly at the other end of the journey at the last minute.

To make sure the pilot would get enough sleep during the 6 hour flight before he had to commandeer his own aircraft, he was given Kasich's more comfortable seat and the politician was told he would have to sit in the premium economy cabin.

He was bumped out instead of anyone else because, according to Klausner, he paid the least for his ticket.

Comedian Julie Klausner uploaded this photograph of Kasich in her seat as she stood at the front of the plane, discussing with flight attendants how to proceed, on January 16. Kasich sat in it while it was empty after being kicked out of his own to make room for a pilot. He had been told to go to premium economy, according to Klausner, but refused

Klausner tweeted about the incident immediately after it happened on January 16 then discussed it on her podcast

But instead of moving down a cabin, the Republican politician moved into Klausner's seat, thinking it was empty.

He then allegedly made a phone call to a friend where he 'complained' about the pilot while he was in earshot.

By the time Klausner got on on the plane, Kasich had settled in and, she claims, did nothing as she and the airline staff stood in front of him trying to find a solution.

Unaware of who he was, Klausner offered to take a later flight because, she said, she did not want the airline staff to confront Kasich again and 'make a stink'.

'I am standing at the front and John Kasich is sitting there, either talking on his cell or on his cell phone.

'He knows I'm standing right in front of him because that's my seat. Finally a ticket agent comes on the plane and looks and sees that John Kasich is sitting there and he shook his head and he says, "This guy was downgraded and he refused to go into the seat he was newly assigned and he sat in yours and that's your seat,"" Klausner said in her podcast.

'Instead of saying, OK I'm going to go sit in 12C which has the extra legroom, she said it was premium and not economy, he got really mad and was a total d**k to the staff and sat in my seat instead.

'That is what was told to me,' she added.

The staff told her that to remain standing at the front of the plane until everyone had boarded, she said, and vowed to resolve it once the doors were closed - something she did not want to

'I pulled the flight attendant aside and I said, "Listen, I can tell this guy is an a**hole and he is going to make a stink if you make him move so if it will make things easier, I will go on a later flight,' she said.

It was only then that she texted a friend a photograph of Kasich and learned who he was, she said.

Julie Klausner, the comedian, took a later flight instead of insisting that Kasich get out her seat. She then tweeted about it and discussed the incident on her podcast

She then put a photograph of Kasich sitting in her seat on her Instagram story and promptly took to Twitter to relay the whole debacle to her fans.

Kasich, a Trump opponent and staunch pro-lifer, was served as the Governor of Ohio from 2011 until 2019.

He endorsed his replacement, Rep. Mike DeWine, last year. Since leaving office, he has taken a position as a senior political commentator at CNN.

According to Klausner, when he was talking on the phone in the airline lounge, he said, 'loudly': 'The people at CNN were so nice.'

Speaking on her podcast, she said she assumed he was a 'douchebag businessman' who wanted people to hear that he had been at the network.

'I was in the lounge and I noticed this guy with grey hair who was just a f***** asshole. He was talking on his cell phone really loudly in the middle of the lounge and he said, "The people at CNN were so nice."

'And he said that so loudly that,"I was like I'm going to remember that." Just clocking that there's a douchebag near me,' she said.

Kasich, who served two terms as the Governor of Ohio and is now a CNN senior political commentator, has not commented. The incident happened two weeks after he left office and turned over his access to state aircraft

Until two weeks before the incident, Kasich had use of Ohio's state aircraft which included a Beechcraft King Air 250 (pictured)

When she got on the plane and saw him in her seat, she recognized him as 'that a**hole'.

She later described him as a 'f****** piece of s*** a**hole' and claimed the airline staff 'vented' to her for '15 minutes' about how much they hated him and people like him.

'They were basically saying, we just say that guys like this push people around and they get what they want,' she said.

Kasich, who ran against President Trump in the 2015 Republican nomination race, did not respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Wednesday morning and he has not commented on the incident since it happened.

An Alaska Airlines spokesman would not confirm all of the details of her account but told Cleverland.com: 'Were very appreciative to Ms. Klausner for helping diffuse an awkward situation by voluntarily giving up her seat.

'We made sure to take care of her on another flight.'
Corina D'Andrea, 49, is charged with first-degree domestic violence and attempted murder for the Pinson attack

An Alabama mother was detained on Monday for allegedly hacking at her 18-year-old daughter with a machete so severly, that she almost severed the young woman's hand.

Corina D'Andrea, 49, is charged with first-degree domestic violence and attempted murder for the Pinson attack.

Deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office were called to the 4400 block of Woodland Hills Road at approximately 2.45pm, AL.com.

First responders found the 18-year-old girl with gashes on her arms, hands and skull.

According to Sheriff's Capt. David Agee, the woman's hand was almost severed and she told authorities that her mother had attacked her with a machete.

Deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office found the woman's 18-year-old daughter with severe cuts to her arms, hands and skull

The victim was taken to UAB Hospital's Trauma Center where she was listed as being in critical but stable conditions.

Agee said that the dispute appeared to be over stolen money.

'It shouldn't have resulted in this level of violence,' Agee said. 'I know we've got some great doctors at UAB and I hope they'll be able to help this poor girl.'

Corina is currently being held at the Jefferson County Jail on a $30,000 bond.
A 33-year-old Maryland man who repeatedly gave heroin to a 15-year-old girl in exchange for sex will not have to go to jail.

David Knox pleaded guilty to lesser charges at Montgomery Circuit Court on Monday and was sentenced to four years of supervised probation.

Knox will also have to register as a sex offender. He will not be required to serve any prison time unless he violates his probation.

'I'm not here to brand you for life, but I am here to protect the community,' Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Margaret Schweitzer said during the sentencing.

'I would have thought at age 32, you would have exercised better judgement.'

Knox and the 15-year-old girl first met after he responded to an ad she wrote on the social media app Whisper in July 2017. It read: 'Will f**k for dope'.

David Knox, 33, will avoid any jail time after he repeatedly gave heroin to a 15-year-old girl in exchange for sex

Knox delivered one gram of heroin to the teen from that month until September 2017. In return, the troubled 15-year-old girl had sex with him.

Prosecutors argued that Knox 'took advantage of a young girl with a drug problem'.

'He was a full participant, knowing full well she was underage,' they added.

The girl began struggling with depression when she was 11 years old. By 15, she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

She soon turned to drugs, saying she was 'just trying to be happy'.

'Waking up every day was a chore,' the girl, who identified herself by the pseudonym 'Libseth', told WJLA in October 2018. 'The only thing stopping me from killing myself was that my family and friends were begging me not to.'

In just months Libseth had tried 33 different drugs, including crack, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine, oxycodone, morphine, fentanyl, PCP, and Xanax.

But it was heroin, she said, that was her 'first love'.

'I shot up every day, like multiple times a day,' she added. 'I could be sitting in a sewer and I could be bleeding to death, but then you shoot up some heroin and you're the happiest person in the world.'

After finishing her freshman year of high school, Lisbeth ran out of money and desperately tried to find a way to continue getting her fix.

So she went on the app Whisper and offered sex in exchange for drugs.

Knox responded to the ad as did Kevin Burdette, a 32-year-old who is the father of three children. Lisbeth said she had sex with Knox in his own home.

The teen (pictured) and Knox first met after he responded to an ad she wrote on the social media app Whisper in July 2017. It read: 'Will f**k for dope'

Both Knox and Burdette were charged with sexual offenses as was 22-year-old Antonio Gilham, who Lisbeth had met through mutual friends.

'They were manipulative. They're not good people,' Lisbeth said. 'Clearly what they're doing is ruining someone's life. They ruined my life.'

Knox blamed his actions on his own struggle with drugs.

'A lot of my actions, I believe, were controlled by my drug addiction,' Knox said in court, according to WJLA. 'I hope the victim can get better from this and bounce back.'

Christopher Wheatcroft, Knox's defense attorney, said drugs had been 'squandering his life'.

'He made terrible choices, this being the worst of them,' Wheatcroft added. 'He is determined to not make future mistakes. His sobriety is important for keeping his eye on the ball.'

Wheatcroft said Knox, who spent 120 days in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility before trial, has since moved back into his parent's home near Atlanta and applied for a job at Sam's Club.

Prosecutors said there will be a restitution hearing at a later date, noting that the victim's family has paid more than $50,000 in medical bills.

Lisbeth has shuffled through psychiatric hospitals, substance abuse centers, and numerous counseling sessions.

Her parents, who live in an upper middle class suburban division, said their savings have been completely wiped.

'She was such a good child. She was on the honor roll and spoke multiple languages,' Lisbeth's mother said.

'We didn't suspect anything, but parents really have to look for the warning signs. Who could do this? It's disgusting to be sleeping with and taking advantage of a 15-year-old girl.'

Lisbeth's mother said she and her husband hope to one day retire to a Colorado ranch and help find a cure for bipolar disorder.

As for Lisbeth, she said it has been a 'relief' to finally find a path to sobriety.

'I had three suicide attempts and I had two overdoses where I did lose my life and they did bring me back,' she said. 'I honestly thought I'd be doing drugs for the rest of my life. I honestly didn't think I would be able to get out of it.'

'But once I realized that I didnt have to live that way anymore, it was such a relief.'
Jeremy Corbyn accused Theresa May of 'running down the clock' on Brexit tonight after he finally sat down for face to face talks.

The Labour leader said the talks were 'serious and exploratory' and his spokesman hinted Mrs May had signalled a climbdown on a customs union with the EU.

No 10 sources rubbished the claim tonight and insisted Mrs May had done no more than 'ask questions' about the Labour policy for a bespoke UK-EU customs union.

Mr Corbyn and Mrs May have agreed to meet again soon to discuss the details further as the PM scrambles to find a way to break the impasse with the EU.

The Labour leader told Sky News: 'The whole process looks like it's running down the clock by saying, well, it's either the problems and the difficulties of no deal or support a deal that's already been rejected by the House of Commons.

'I'm suspicious there is a programme of running down the clock here.'

Aides to the Labour leader said the encounter was 'cordial', adding there was a 'useful exchange of views' during the 45-minute meeting over tea and biscuits.

The Prime Minister has always insisted a customs union with the EU after Brexit is impossible because it rules out doing trade deals.

Mr Corbyn was filmed walking through Parliament on the way to the rendezvous- although it took place in private, depriving him of the chance to strike a pose outside the famous No10 door.

Earlier, Mrs May and Mr Corbyn brutally laid into each other in a particularly bad-tempered Commons session - with each accusing the other of scuppering the chances of a deal with the EU.

At one point as they traded blows, Mr Corbyn jibed that he was 'looking forward' to their talks later.

And when he accused her of refusing to compromise, Mrs May retorted: 'He's a fine one to talk about coming together when it was only last night when he agreed to actually meet me to talk about these issues.'

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured tonight on Sky News) accused Theresa May of 'running down the clock' on Brexit tonight after he finally sat down for face to face talks

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn brutally laid into each other in a particularly bad-tempered PMQs session today

Mrs May scolded the Opposition leader today for waiting two weeks to agree to a meeting

Jeremy Corbyn was filmed walking through Parliament on the way to the rendezvous - although it is taking place in private, depriving him of the chance to strike a pose outside the famous No10 door

Mr Corbyn was finally forced to climb down over his refusal to hold talks with Mrs May after an humiliating set of Commons votes last night.

In a dire night for Mr Corbyn, 14 of his own MPs voted against a proposal he backed to keep Britain in the EU beyond March 29 if no deal is agreed by the end of the month.

Brexit minister warns UK will REFUSE to pay 39bn divorce bill unless EU agrees to PM's backstop plan Ministers ramped up tensions with the EU today in the wake of Theresa May's historic Commons victory - warning that the 39billion divorce bill could be axed if it does not compromise. Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Brussels would not get a 'penny pinch' from the UK unless there was 'some give' on the hated Irish border backstop. The threat came as the PM braces for 'trench warfare' with the EU after leaders flatly dismissed calls to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. She is due to speak by telephone to EU council president Donald Tusk and Irish PM Leo Varadkar later. Mrs May hailed her new 'mandate' from MPs last night after dramatically seeing off a Remainer bid to delay the Brexit date and getting her own plan passed in a series of high-stakes votes. The House endorsed an amendment supported by the PM to replace the backstop with 'alternative arrangements' to avoid a hard border in Ireland. Mrs May was only able to win through by bringing Brexiteers including Boris Johnson and the DUP back onside with promises that there will be fundamental changes. But the new push was immediately rebuffed by the EU, with Mr Tusk insisting there will be no changes to the core text. Irish deputy PM Simon Coveney said Mrs May was effectively threatening to 'jump out of a window' unless Brussels bowed to her demands, while French president Emmanuel Macron said the current package was 'non-renegotiable'. It is still not clear exactly what concessions the PM will be seeking - with competing calls for the backstop to be ditched altogether, loosened, expire after certain period, or the UK to have unilateral exit clause. Advertisement

Most of the rebels represent constituencies that voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.

An amendment pushing Labour's Brexit policy was then roundly defeated, before Mrs May's plan for returning to Brussels and renegotiating the Irish backstop was passed - with support from seven Labour MPs.

Mr Corbyn only ended up on the winning side in a non-binding vote against a no deal Brexit.

A series of frontbenchers did not register a vote on the Cooper plan to delay Article 50, including Melanie Onn, Mike Kane, and Gloria de Piero.

MailOnline understands none of them had permission to be absent. Tory sources confirmed that they were not 'paired' with other MPs - the mechanism for balancing out votes when people cannot attend the Commons.

Speaking at PMQs today, Mr Corbyn said: 'I'm looking forward to meeting the Prime Minister later on today.

'Because I want to put forward Labour's alternatives which could command a majority in this House and are about protecting jobs and people's living standards across this country.'

He complained that Mrs May seemed to be putting her faith in technology to solve the Irish border issue.

'So can the Prime Minister be very clear what technological advances is she expecting to be made in the next 58 days?' he sniped.

Mrs May shot back: 'Last night a majority in this House voted to maintain the commitment to no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

'To leave the European Union with a deal. And to set out to the European Union what it will take to ensure that this House can support a deal.

'That is a change to the backstop. That is what I will be taking back to the European Union. That is what we will be doing to ensure that we can avoid no deal.'

She added: 'He stands up regularly and says he doesn't want no deal.

'I'm working to ensure we get a deal.

'He has opposed every move by this Government to get a deal. He's the one who's risking no deal.'

Jeremy Corbyn finally agreed to Brexit talks after the Prime Minister navigated a minefield of votes in the Commons last night (pictured)

A diagram showing how Graham Brady's amendment - calling on Theresa May to renegotiate the Irish backstop - won the support of the House of Commons
Mark Shortt, 45, from Birmingham, deliberately targeted teenagers living in Canada in a bid to keep his sick fantasies secret from police in the UK. Pictured in an undated police file photo

A British paedophile who preyed on young girls living abroad has been jailed for more than three years after he was caught by the Canadian Mounties.

Mark Shortt, 45, from Birmingham, deliberately targeted teenagers living in Canada in a bid to keep his sick fantasies secret from police in the UK.

But he was nailed when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police discovered he was contacting young girls when the mother of a victim alerted them.

She found out her daughter had been contacted online by Shortt who was posing as a 24-year-old man.

The Mounties launched a joint investigation with West Midlands Police and Shortt was arrested at his home in Quinton.

Shortt admitted a string of offences, including causing girls under 13 to engage in sexual activity, sexual communication with a child and causing a child to look at sexual images.

He was jailed for 40 months at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register for life.

Who are the Mounties? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Canada's federal police force. Founded in 1873, it was at first called the North West Mounted Rifles, but renamed to the North West Mounted Police after the USA became worried about the idea of an armed unit patrolling near its northern border. The force later changed to its present name and was given the 'Royal' prefix by Edward VIII in 1904 in recognition of its services to Canada and the British Empire. Their reputation has led to a popular adage that the Mounties 'always get their man'. The phrase is thought to have been popularised by Hollywood. Advertisement

Detective Constable Hazel Steer, from West Midlands Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team, said: 'Shortt thought he was going to get away with these disgusting crimes by targeting children living abroad.

'However, there are no hiding places, we are committed to tracking down sexual predators wherever they are and will work with other forces both in the UK and overseas to do so.'

Shortt admitted two counts of causing a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual communication with a child under 13, one count of attempting to cause a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, two counts of causing a child under 13 to look at an image of sexual activity and one count of attempting to cause a child under 13 to look at an image of sexual activity.
Police in south-east China are looking for a couple who sold their toddler son to a stranger a year ago when they were splitting up.

The boy, nicknamed Hao Hao, was only two years old when his birth parents decided to sell him to another couple for 120,000 yuan (13,600) in January last year. The unmarried couple split the money before going their separate ways, according to Chinese reports.

The boy's grandparents, who had been taking care of the child, eventually called police in Jinjiang, Fujian province in December after they couldn't find the boy themselves.

The boy, nicknamed Hao Hao, was only two years old when his birth parents decided to sell him to another couple for 120,000 yuan (13,600) in January last year.

Hao Hao is finally reunited with his grandfather after police saved him from a couple

The 55-year-old grandfather, surnamed Feng, told Quanzhou Evening News that the boy's parents took him away from their home on January 14, 2018.

The grandparent got worried after Hao Hao went missing for three days. He tried asking his son about the child's whereabouts but the man refused to say anything.

Later in the year, the boy's father went to prison for drug trafficking. During a visit, the man finally admitted to Feng that he sold the baby boy to a couple at a park on January 17 last year.

The couple, surnamed Su, told authorities that they decided to buy a baby because they couldn't get pregnant for years. Police finally reunited the boy with his grandfather

Footage shows the emotional moment the grandfather reunites with his grandson on Tuesday

A desperate Feng finally sought the help of authorities on December 25 after failing to locate the boy himself.

Police tracked down the couple's address in Anhai town, about 12 kilometers (seven miles) away from Jinjiang and staged a raid on January 16 to rescue the boy.

The couple, surnamed Su, told authorities that they decided to buy a baby because they couldn't get pregnant for years.

Footage released by Pear Video shows the emotional moment the grandfather reunites with his grandson on Tuesday.

Police tracked down the couple's (pictured) address in Anhai town, about 12 kilometers (7 miles) away from Jinjiang and staged a raid on January 16 to rescue the boy

'I can't believe my son and daughter-in-law could do something so brutal,' Feng told police

'My grandson is my entire life,' the grandfather said, in tears. 'When he was taken away, my entire body went numb.'

'I can't believe my son and his girlfriend could do something so brutal,' he said, holding his grandchild tightly in his arms.

The couple have been arrested and are currently under investigations. Police are currently looking for the boy's birth parents, according to the report.

Under Chinese law, trafficking and selling women and children is punishable by five to 10 years in prison, but life sentences or death penalties can also be issued.
Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus, and said it intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers rather than the manufacturing workforce the project originally promised.

Announced at a White House ceremony in 2017, the 20-million square foot campus marked the largest greenfield investment by a foreign-based company in U.S. history and was praised by President Donald Trump as proof of his ability to revive American manufacturing.

Foxconn, which received controversial state and local incentives for the project, initially planned to manufacture advanced large screen displays for TVs and other consumer and professional products at the facility, which is under construction.

It later said it would build smaller LCD screens instead.

Ground breaking deal: Trump and then Wisconsin governor Scott Walker (left) and Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, took part in a ceremony in June 2018 at the Mont Pleasant campus. Now plans to build TVs there are being ditched and job projections slashed

Cheaper in China: Foxconn - known formally as Hon Hai Group - operates factories such as this one in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It said it would make TV screens in China and assemble them in Mexico rather than Wisconsin

Now, those plans may be scaled back or even shelved, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn chairman and chief executive Terry Gou, told Reuters.

He said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high.

'In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,' he said in an interview. 'We can't compete.'

When it comes to manufacturing advanced screens for TVs, he added: 'If a certain size of display has more supply, whether from China or Japan or Taiwan, we have to change, too.'

Rather than a focus on LCD manufacturing, Foxconn wants to create a 'technology hub' in Wisconsin that would largely consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations, Woo said.

It would also produce specialized tech products for industrial, healthcare, and professional applications, he added.

'In Wisconsin we're not building a factory. You can't use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment,' Woo said.

Earlier this month, Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple Inc., reiterated its intention to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but said it had slowed its pace of hiring.

The company initially said it expected to employ about 5,200 people by the end of 2020; a company source said that figure now looks likely to be closer to 1,000 workers.

It is unclear when the full 13,000 workers will be hired.

But Woo, in the interview, said about three-quarters of Foxconn's eventual jobs will be in R&D and design - what he described as 'knowledge' positions - rather than blue-collar manufacturing jobs. Foxconn is formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

Rather than manufacturing LCD panels in the United States, Woo said it would be more profitable to make them in greater China and Japan, ship them to Mexico for final assembly, and import the finished product to the United States.

He said that would represent a supply chain that fits with Foxconn's current 'fluid, good business model.'

Alliance: Trump praised Foxconn's chairman and CEO Terry Gou last June and said: 'Today's groundbreaking is only one part of the exciting story playing out across our nation'

Heavily criticized in some quarters, the Foxconn project was championed by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican who helped secure around $4 billion in tax breaks and other incentives before leaving office.

Critics of the deal, including a number of Democrats, called it a corporate giveaway that would never result in the promised manufacturing jobs and posed serious environmental risks.

The companys own growth projections and employment goals suggest the taxpayer investment would take at least 25 years to recoup, according to budget think tank the Wisconsin Budget Project.

Foxconn CEO Gou plans to meet with Wisconsin's new Democratic governor, Tony Evers, a past critic of the deal, later this year to discuss modifications of the agreement, according to the source familiar with the company's thinking.

Evers could not be reached for comment.

Currently, to qualify for the tax credits Foxconn must meet certain hiring and capital investment goals. It fell short of the employment goal in 2018 - hiring 178 full-time jobs rather than the 260 targeted - failing to earn a tax credit of up to $9.5 million.

The company may be prepared to walk away from future incentives if it is unable to meet Wisconsin's job creation and capital investment requirements, according to the source familiar with the matter. (Reporting by Jess Macy Yu in Taipei and Karl Plume in Wisconsin; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Paul Thomasch)
Michael Bloomberg has claimed California Sen. Kamala Harris' plan to abolish private health insurance in favor of 'Medicare for all' would bankrupt the country.

The former New York City mayor - who is considering running for the Democratic presidential nomination - rejected the idea endorsed by his 2020 rival, which is gaining traction in the party.

'I think you could never afford that. Youre talking about trillions of dollars,' Mr Bloomberg said during a political swing in New Hampshire, where the nations first primary will be held next year.

Michael Bloomberg (pictured at a political swing in New Hampshire yesterday) has claimed abolishing private health insurance in favor of 'Medicare for all' would bankrupt the country

The former New York City mayor - who's considering running for the 2020 presidential election - said the move would cost trillions of dollars. He proposed providing it only to those currently uninsured

'I think you can have "Medicare for all" for people that are uncovered, but to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time.'

While Bloomberg is considering running on a centrist position, Harris carved out a liberal platform on Monday night, telling an audience of Iowa Democrats that the United States should 'eliminate' all private plans and move everyone to a single-payer system.

'We need to have Medicare for all. That's just the bottom line,' Harris said during a CNN town hall event, declaring that she feels 'very strongly' about it.

'The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require,' she explained, concluding that private insurers should not be part of the system.

Senator Kamala Harris of California made her first town hall appearance as a Democratic presidential candidate on Monday, saying she wants to abolish private health insurance

Harris spoke with reporters at Drake University on Monday night after the town hall event, hosted by CNN's Jake Tapper

'Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on,' said Harris.

Republicans were quick to mock what they typically call socialized medicine, something that has become more mainstream in the Democratic party since the early part of the 2016 presidential campaign cycle.

GOP spokesman Michael Ahrens tweeted a dig at Harris that also doubled as a jab at former president Barack Obama's frequent promises about his namesake health law.

'Dems in 2009: If you like your plan, you can keep it,' Ahrens mocked. 'Dems in 2019: If you like your plan, we're eliminating it.'

Harris is advocating a 'Medicare for all' platform that would put government agencies in charge of health coverage; that's an approach that goes further than the Obamacare system, and had Bernie Sanders as its main advocate in 2016

Harris also defended other positions she took as California's attorney general that are unpopular with some Democrats, saying at the Drake University event in Des Moines that they reflected her duty as the state's top law enforcement officer.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked her about prosecuting death penalty cases, and about legislation requiring her office to investigate all fatal police-related shootings.

Harris, who was attorney general from 2011 until she became a U.S. senator in 2017, said she enforced the death penalty despite opposing it.
Devastating pictures have revealed the decline of a talented history teacher and mother-of-two who became addicted to drugs after her marriage collapsed and is now a fugitive county lines cocaine dealer.

Former private school student Angela Davey, 38, was pictured in 2014 looking happy and fresh faced on a night out with her family.

But by February 2017 a police mug shot showed her drawn and gaunt as she gazed vacantly at the camera.

Drug use left the History graduate unable to keep up her successful life as a teacher at a special school, and in July 2017 she sold her three bedroom, semi-detached house in Norwich and ended up homeless and living in a camper van.

Davey was most recently seen last week sleeping in a shop doorway, according to her father, David Wilkes, who made an emotional appeal for her return. 'We feel she could die, she has become a statistic,' he said.

Angela Davey, 38, went on a rapid decline after becoming addicted to drugs. She is seen on the left with her family in 2014, and on the right in a July 2018 mug shot

Davey, who attended 14,562-a-year Norwich High School, is said to have turned to hard drugs after beginning a relationship with a man she met on dating app Tinder.

The talented artist was arrested for dealing cocaine last February and posed for a police mugshot, revealing her ravaged and drug addled features.

Graduate: Angela Davey celebrating her degree in 2003

Davey admitted dealing cocaine at a hearing at Norwich Crown Court on October 15 when she was living in a tent, but she then absconded.

Norfolk Constabulary released her mugshot when she was named as one of the force's ten most wanted people last November.

Davey was still on the run last Monday when three people associated with the gang she had links to were jailed for a total of 11 years.

Her father David Wilkes, 65, from Wymondham, Norfolk, pleaded for her to give herself up and receive help.

He said: 'We feel she could die. She is now a statistic. The last time my daughter was seen, she was sleeping in a shop doorway on her own in Norwich last week, but the police can't find her.

'From the family's point of view it is extremely distressing. We feel very much that we are on our own.

Happier times: Talented history teacher and mother-of-two Angela Davey is pictured before her drug addiction took hold and drastically altered her appearance

'She is a bright girl and her whole life has been totally destroyed. It is not all of her own doing. She is a victim, and she is not the first.

'It's desperate that she gets the help that she needs, and gets off the street, and hopefully she will be able to make use of whatever resources there are.'

Mr Wilkes told the Eastern Daily Press: 'The Angela that is out on the street is not our Angela. She hasn't been our Angela for a very long time.

'I just want to know that she is safe, and that hopefully we can rebuild what we once had. She has made some poor decisions but we are here for her if she wants us to be.'

'When her marriage broke down she was absolutely devastated,' added Mr Wilkes. 'Her whole world crashed down around her. We believe she was vulnerable at the time all this happened.

'Angela is a very compassionate person. That's why she ended up in teaching and wanted to go into work with children with special educational needs. She decided that is where her passion lay - with disadvantaged children.

'Angela has always been very trusting, and she would always try and look for the good side in people, which may have made her more vulnerable.'

After her father lost contact with Angela, her mother 'desperately' kept in touch to stay close to her daughter and grandchildren.

A childhood friend also issued a heartfelt plea for her to give herself up and salvage her life by getting clean of drugs and accepting her sentence.

The 39-year-old friend, who asked not to be named, said: 'If she continues in this lifestyle she will die.'

Describing her as 'bright' and 'incredibly intelligent', the friend said: 'It is a real waste, an absolute waste.

'To us she is a very ill, very vulnerable woman who was not brought up into this lifestyle.

'She was a normal person, a mum, career focused. She was not who you would imagine taking this path in life.

'Police have told me they offered her help, and we have all offered her help. Then we found out there was a warrant for her arrest.'

The friend added: 'We see that being in prison could potentially be her only way out of her current situation and her only chance at being well.

Davey is said to have turned to hard drugs after beginning a relationship with a man she met on dating app Tinder. She is seen left on a night out in 2017 and right in February 2018 after being arrested for dealing cocaine

'There are so many people left broken hearted by this. If she continues in this lifestyle she will die, and there has got to be something that can salvage her.

'There has got to be something she can do. If this can happen to her in two years there has got to be a way back out of it as well.

'I am angry with her but I still love her, and I am desperately worried that one day we will hear she is dead.'

The friend recalled how Davey earned a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the University of East Anglia and trained as a history teacher at the Hewett School in Norwich.

She later taught at the Clare School, a specialist 'physical and sensory' complex needs school in Norwich. But a school newsletter dated July 2015, stated she was 'moving on to pastures new'

Davey sold her three bedroom semi detached house in Wall Road, Norwich, for 280,000 in July 2017 before she ended up homeless and living in a camper van.

The new occupant of the house said Davey had left artwork and memorabilia at the property, alongside drug paraphernalia and needles.

The 40-year-old who asked to remain anonymous said she thought Davey was a 'victim' of drugs and her new relationship.

She said: 'By the time we moved in everything had been stripped. There was rubbish everywhere and they had abandoned their cats.

Davey was arrested during a 90 day undercover Norfolk Police operation codenamed Cultivate which targeted county lines dealers between March and June 2017. David Teixeira, 19, from London; (left) and Jack Parrish, 26, have already been jailed for their parts in the operation

'I just sobbed my eyes out when I saw what had happened to her life... Seeing all the children's stuff among all the other things from her life made me so upset. To think a life could go downhill so quickly.

'We could see she did really love her kids because she made them so many things, but it is hard to feel sorry for her when you see the things she left in the house my child could have found.

'I think she was a vulnerable person and she was taken advantage of, I see her as a victim.

'It is just a tragedy of a life gone. In the end, she made the choices she did.'

The woman said Davey and her partner had three cats when they left.

'We caught one and gave it to the RSPCA, but the other two disappeared,' she said.

'I think she originally had the house with her husband, but she bought him out after they split up so she just had it herself

'I think she was in arrears when we bought it, but she would still have been left with a big cash sum, maybe around 100,000.

'There was documents left behind suggesting that she wanted to use the money to buy a cave house in Spain, possibly somewhere in Andalucia, an earn a living as an artist.'

Davey was arrested during a 90 day undercover Norfolk Police operation codenamed Cultivate which targeted county lines dealers between March and June 2017.

David Teixeira, 19, from London, who was described in court as being the 'branch manager' was given three years in a young offenders' institution at Norwich Crown Court on Monday.

The teenager was aged just 17 when he was helping to transport drugs from London to Norwich.

Jack Parrish, 26, of Norwich who carried out street dealing on a regular basis as the most heavily involved local drug user was jailed for five years.

Tara Kelf, 35, who allowed her flat in Suffolk Square, Norwich, to be used as a base and acted as a driver to pick up drugs to fund her own habit was jailed for three years.

Tara Kelf, 35, who allowed her flat in Suffolk Square, Norwich, to be used as a base and acted as a driver to pick up drugs to fund her own habit was jailed for three years

All three admitted conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

Judge Katharine Moore said the trio had all played a 'significant' role in the operation.

She added that there was evidence that the phone line used to peddle drugs had sent out bulk text messages to hundreds of users.

Teixeira was found to be carrying crack cocaine with a street value of 5,000 when he was arrested with Kelf on the A11 at Besthorpe, Norfolk.

Gavin Cowe, defending Teixeira, described him as a courier, bringing drugs to Norwich.

Jonathan Goodman, defending Kelf, said she had a full-time career until she got involved in Class A drugs which led her into getting drawn into the operation.

Mr Goodman said she had been vulnerable and was badly beaten at one point when she tried to stop others using her flat for dealing.

But he said she was now free of drugs and living with her family and doing voluntary work.

Mark Roochove, defending Parrish, said that he had become addicted to heroin but had now kicked his addiction and had made good use of his time on remand.

Police say Davey is also wanted for breaching a court order imposed by magistrates on August 9 last year.

She also has links in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, or may have travelled to London.

Anyone who may have seen or knows of her whereabouts, should contact Norfolk Police on 101. Alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Up to 10,000 children as young as ELEVEN are trafficking drugs along more than 2,000 'county lines' each worth up to 1million, bombshell report reveals

By Richard Spillett, Crime Correspondent

Criminal gangs are exploiting children as young as 11 to run lucrative 'county lines' drug networks each worth up to 1million a year, a new report warns.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) believes there are now more than 2,000 individual deal line numbers in operation in the UK - more than double the number previously identified.

The organisation estimates up to 10,000 children in the UK involved in or working for the drugs gangs, which traffic heroin and crack from big cities to smaller towns and rural areas.

Analysis by the NCA found an individual line can yield annual profits in excess of 800,000.

The number of people involved in county lines gangs has more than doubled in the last year

Routes are now well-established around the country, working out of London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool

Some are estimated to generate thousands of pounds from a single daily delivery trip.

County lines is a drug distribution model which typically involves city gangs branching out into smaller towns or rural areas to sell heroin and crack cocaine.

They deploy children and vulnerable people as couriers to move drugs and cash between the new market and their urban hub.

The name given to the scheme stems from the phone lines used by dealers.

In its fourth annual assessment on the activity, the NCA said the supply of class A drugs through the county lines business model is a 'significant, national threat'.

The area covered by the Metropolitan Police has the highest percentage of individual deal lines, with 15%, followed by the West Midlands Police (9%) and Merseyside Police (7%) force areas.

Analysis suggests there are currently more than 2,000 individual deal line numbers in the UK - up from 720 in the last assessment.

The resident of the property in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was forced to live on the streets after being kicked out by a county lines gang

Commenting on the increase, NCA lead for county lines Nikki Holland told the Commons Home Affairs Committee: 'This doesn't necessarily indicate a worsening of the problem.

'What it actually indicates is an increasing awareness of law enforcement and our partners as to the scale of the problem.'

The agency's report said the county lines business model thrives on the exploitation of vulnerable adults and children to move and deliver drugs.

Data from 2018 indicates an age range of 11 to 56 for potential victims.

Teenagers between 15 and 17 are believed to make up the bulk of the vulnerable people involved in county lines  with some raking in 5,000 a day.

Officers highlighted how offenders establish contact and build relationships with subjects before exploitation takes place.

Thai Carlyle (left), 18, from West Bromwich, and Niall Mclean (right), 19, from Birmingham, were both sentenced to six years in a youth detention centre in a county lines case last week

The analysis said: 'This means that children may have been approached before the age of 11 in some cases as offenders seek to build a relationship that they can later exploit.'

A quarter of the child drug slaves are trafficked or criminally exploited as they are made to cut and bag drugs, sell them on the street and collect debts.

Many are also forced to live in drug users' homes, with no payment or even food, the report found.

Gangs often target youngsters who are from poor backgrounds, have been excluded from school, or have previous involvement in crime.

But children from 'seemingly stable' backgrounds or without a criminal footprint are also targeted, according to the assessment.

Odain Miller was the first juvenile in the UK to go on trial charged with modern slavery. He enslaved two 16-year-old girls to sell drugs

It said offenders carry out recruitment both face-to-face and via social media, offering payments and material possessions victims would be unable to obtain through legal means.

'This is enhanced by offenders' use of social media, on which images and videos of cash, designer clothing, luxury cars and other high value goods are posted, creating a misconception that involvement in crime is rewarding,' the report said.

It also flagged up an 'emerging trend' around the use of app-based taxi services to transport offenders and potential exploitation victims to supply areas.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Duncan Ball, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for county lines, emphasised the importance of tackling drugs markets 'from a user perspective'.

He told the Home Affairs Committee: 'If we were able to collectively reduce the size and demand from that drugs market, then you would find there was no longer as much money for the criminal networks, and as a consequence you would expect the amount of county lines activity, violence and exploitation to then reduce.'

Last year the Lord Chief Justice cited problems related to county lines as he called on wealthy drug users to consider the 'huge social damage' linked to their actions.

In the last week a national crackdown led to over 600 arrests. More than 600 children and 400 vulnerable adults were rescued  with 40 potential victims of modern slavery.
The handset has passed through Chinas 3C where it has received its official certification.

At MWC 2019, HMD Global will take to the stage to show off the highly awaited Nokia 9 Pureview. While most details of the handset have already leaked, a new and interesting titbit about the handset has surfaced. The Nokia 9 Pureview has passed through the Chinese 3C for its official certification and while no details about the handset have been divulged, it will come with an 18W charger that supports quick charge in the box, a report by GSMArena states.

The report states, The adapter itself is rated for 5V @ 3A, 9V @ 2A, or 12V @ 1.5A. Based on these ratings, it looks like the adapter can support both Qualcomms Quick Charge and possibly USB-Power Deliver up to 15W via the 5V @ 3A current. The phone is rumoured to have a 4,150 mAh battery.

The Nokia 9 Pureview has recently made an appearance in a leaked promotional video and it lines up with leaked images that have been floating around. With it, we learn about some interesting features that the handset will boast. Firstly, the handset will run on Android 9.0 Pie and secondly, it will feature a 5-camera layout with Zeiss Optics. The device once launched will have an edge-to-edge 5.99-inch 2K HDR PureDisplay and sport an in-display fingerprint.

The Nokia 9 PureView will also be Qi compatible which means that it will support wireless charging. The handset is powered by a Snapdragon 845 SoC, the same one used in the current crop of flagships from Samsung, OnePlus and LG. Paired with the SoC will be 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage. As of now, this looks like the only configuration it will be available in.
Joshua Gardner, who originally avoided jail for swinging a zombie knife at a motorist, has today been sent to prison by appeal judges

A thug who brandished a zombie knife at a motorist in a road rage attack has finally been sent to prison after originally walking free from court.

Joshua Gardner, 18, was caught on camera brandishing the enormous blade on a busy south London road and threatening a 19-year-old driver, who got out and ran away.

But there was fury among Londoners and many police officers when he was only given a suspended sentence for the shocking attack.

Today, three appeal judges reviewed the case and decided Gardner should have been jailed. They handed him a three and a half year prison term and he will be taken into custody in the next 24 hours.

The ruling comes after widespread public outcry over his original sentence, with serving police officers having said they were 'speechless' at how he initially managed to avoid jail.

Ruling the original suspended sentence was 'unduly lenient' today, appeal judge Sir Brian Leveson: 'One of the challenges facing society is the common-place carrying and use of knives.'

Joshua Gardner initially avoided jail for this shocking road rage attack with a zombie knife

Today's judgement took place in one of the few courts in Britain to be fitted with a camera so its decisions can be broadcast. Appeal judge Sir Brian Leveson delivered the judgement

The appeal judge continued: 'There can never be any excuse for carrying a weapon of the type which this offender carried on this day. Purported self-defence all too frequently becomes an offence and results in fatal injuries, particularly to teenage boys, almost on a daily basis.

'Public concern is obvious and inevitable. It falls to the court to demonstrate that such behaviour must result in substantial and effective custodial sentences.'

Gardner was originally given a suspended jail term and 150 hours of community service after claiming he was scared of being kidnapped.

It later emerged that Gardner is part of a 'drill' music gang, who rap about shootings and 'slashings' in music videos filmed in south London.

Gardner, pictured after his arrest, had a previous conviction for attempting to rob a schoolboy of his mobile and wallet at knifepoint

Gardner is said to be known to the Met Police's gang unit and has appeared in drill videos produced by the so-called 'GLane' gang.

He had a previous conviction for attempting to rob a schoolboy of his mobile and wallet at knifepoint and was convicted of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent over the road rage incident.

The court heard there had been bad feeling between Gardner and the victim, Levar Gilbert, before the attack, which happened in London Road, Croydon, in May.

Mr Gilbert panicked when he spotted Gardner on a bike beside him and tried to drive away through traffic, but crashed and was left stationary in the road.

Gardner then produced the terrifying knife from his clothing and began a 40-second assault on the car, which was captured on another vehicle's dashcam.

It showed the then 17-year-old repeatedly trying to smash the car windows, before finally succeeding and thrusting the blade in towards Mr Gilbert.

The victim was not hit and managed to get out of the car, before running away.

After his conviction it emerged Gardner was a member of the 'GLane' drill gang (pictured)

Judge Anuja Dhir QC (left) originally allowed Gardner to walk free. Appeal judge, Sir Brian Leveson (right today) decided the originally punishment was 'unduly lenient' and jailed him

Who are the G-Lane drill gang? GLane, also known as CR7, are a gang which operate in Thornton Heath, which is near Croydon, south London. They are thought to be named after Green Lane, a road which runs through the district. The gang's drill music videos have become popular among followers online. In the videos, members often wear skull masks or bandanas over their faces. One song is called 'Splash Man Down', a slang reference to someone having been stabbed. It includes the lyrics: 'Bro's holding a smoke, I'm holding my knife. See them at KFC, they was never gonna see us.' In August last year, members of a rival gang, CR0, from Croydon stabbed schoolboy Jermaine Goupall to death because they wrongly believed he was from the CR7/GLane gang. Advertisement

Gardner pleaded guilty to affray and possession of an offensive weapon and was convicted by a jury of attempted GBH.

He was given a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, at the Old Bailey in November.

The case was back in court today after a reference by solicitor general, Robert Buckland QC, on the basis that the term was too soft.

Mr Buckland said Gardner had a previous conviction for attempted robbery, during which he had threatened a younger boy with a blade.

'The judge erred in her overall assessment of the seriousness of the case,' he argued. 'In addition, there was too much weight given to the limited personal mitigation that was available to him.'

But for Gardner, barrister Mark Stevens argued that the sentence was justified, particularly given the teenager's difficult upbringing.

He grew up without a father figure and an older brother had died, while his mum had done all she could to keep him on the straight and narrow.

The incident itself was short-lived, a 'complete overreaction' to the situation, he told Sir Brian, Mr Justice Nicol and Sir Brian Keith.

Gardner, of London Road, Croydon, claimed he had the knife for protection after he was detained and made to work against his will earlier last year.
Police have been called into investigate after several Turkish flags were hung outside two Armenian schools in Los Angeles.

The AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park and Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School in Encino were targeted early on Tuesday in what police are treating as a possible 'hate crime'.

'It is the equivalent of putting a Nazi swastika on the side of a Jewish school,' Paul Koretz, a city councilman, said at a news conference.

'It is outrageous, and we are not going to stand for it as a city.'

Two Turkish flags were hung on the railings outside the Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School in Encino early on Tuesday

The hanging of the flags in Encino has been recorded by LAPD as a hate crime, while the Canoga Park incident has been called a hate crime.

Fox News reported that members of the Armenian community were dismayed after the flags were hung.

They reportedly believe the intention was to intimidate the community and discredit the Armenian Genocide, which saw as many as 1.5 million Armenians rounded up and killed by the Ottoman Turkish government beginning in 1915.

The flags were removed on both campuses by the time students arrived, the Los Angeles Times reported.

'It came as a complete shock and surprise in the sense we weren't expecting it,' said Arpi Avanesian, principal of AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park, where Turkish flags were found.

'I don't know what this person was thinking about. Why today? What set them off to do this? What doesn't shock me is they did it.'
A British man has been ordered to pay over $20,000 for the jet fuel wasted after his drunken antics forced an emergency landing at Calgary.

David Young, 44, broke into locked bathroom while the seat-belt sign was still on as the WestJet plane heading to London began its ascent on January 4.

He ignored the flight attendants' requests for him to remain seated and became wildly aggressive with staff and another passenger.

An image taken by a fellow passenger shows David Young, 44, in a grey hoodie being escorted off the plane

He was swearing and telling people he did not care about the other 260 passengers on board, CBC reported.

When it became clear that the situation could not be resolved the pilot made the decision to ground the plane back at Calgary for the safety of everyone on board.

The WestJet plane was laden with fuel for its transatlantic flight and this meant the pilot was forced to dump nine tonnes of it before landing, which involved circling around for 45 minutes.

Video footage taken by Tracy Joyce shows Young being escorted from the plane by multiple police officers.

WestJet wanted $65,000 from Young after they claimed they had lost in excess of $200,000 due to redirecting the jet.

The prosecutor Lori Ibrus told the court it was not the Crown's intention to bankrupt Young, but that he had inconvenienced many passengers and caused damage to the plane.

Young claimed he was a recovering alcoholic and that the six drinks he had were the first for 18 months.

He spoke of his deep regret in a letter to the court and of the embarrassment he had brought to his family, particularly his children.

Young pleaded guilty to one count of failing to comply with safety instructions and another for resisting arrest.

WestJet (file photo) will now have to seek civil action if they want more money out of Young after the judge ordered he pay over $20,000

His defence lawyer Michelle Parhar said that his conviction meant he was essentially barred from entering Canada again and would not be able to visit his mother in British Columbia.

He spent a week in the Calgary Remand Center before his court appearance.

Provincial court Judge Brian Stevenson told Young that he had calculated the $21,260.68 he owed to WestJet based on the value of the fuel dumped, the Calgary Herald reported.
Ten young children have been kidnapped and murdered in southern Tanzania, and their organs harvested for 'witchcraft rituals', officials say.

The victims, aged between two and ten, had all been kidnapped from their homes in the south-western Njombe region since the beginning of the month.

The children had a number of body parts removed, including ears, tongues, teeth and sexual organs.

Wave of murders: The ten children found dead in Njombe had been kidnapped and murdered, and their bodies mutilated to harvest body parts for 'witchcraft rituals'

'So far, we have found ten bodies, and most of their private parts and teeth had been removed,' Tanzania's deputy health minister Faustine Ndugulile, told CNN.

'These murders are linked to witchcraft practices because that is the trend for such crimes, where herbalists ask people to get these human parts for money rituals,' he added.

In Tanzania, albinos are often kidnapped and their body parts hacked off for use as charms and magical potions in the belief that they bring wealth and good luck.

However, officials said the children kidnapped and murdered in Njombe had not been albino.

The ten victims, aged between two and ten, had all been kidnapped from their homes in the Njombe region in south-western Tanzania since the beginning of the month

Police have arrested one person in connection with he murders, a close relative of three of the victims, who all hailed from the same family, BBC reports.

The United Nations has today condemned the murders, and offered its condolences in a statement.

'The United Nations in Tanzania offers its deepest condolences to the families and communities of children who have been brutally murdered in Njombe over the last few weeks,' read a statement.

'As the UN, we stand ready to support the government in their efforts to address the issue,' said Alvaro Rodriguez, the UN's resident coordinator in Tanzania.
Wei 'Bill' Chen, 28, and his passenger, Su Po Hsu, 32, died on Monday night

The close-knit Taiwanese community in Sydney remains in mourning following the death of two friends.

Uber Eats workers Kuan Wei 'Bill' Chen, 28, and Su Po Hsu, 32, died after bus driver Luis Rojas, 49, allegedly crashed into their scooter.

Seconds after the impact, Mr Chen was pushed into the path of an oncoming car and was killed instantly in Kingsgrove on Monday.

Kuan Wei 'Bill' Chen (pictured) was killed instantly on Monday after he was thrown in front of a 4WD in Sydney on Monday night

Su Po Hsu (pictured) was the passenger on a scooter which was hit by a bus on Monday in Kingsgrove in Sydney's south

The shattered scooter (pictured) following the crash on Monday night in Kingsgrove - both occupants died at the scene

New South Wales Police are still investigating the circumstances of the crash as they are unsure exactly what happened (aftermath of the crash, pictured)

Mr Hsu also passed away at the scene. Sydney resident Ming-Ju Ou is still coming to terms with the tragedy.

'I'm shocked, I can't believe what's happened,' he said.

'This is really bad, the two of them are really (dead).'

Another man, who knew both men well, told the Daily Telegraph his friends were in disbelief after they were told the news.

'Su Po had got to Australia last year. I was roommates with Bill in 2013. We worked together in Melbourne,' he said.

'I got news from a Facebook group that two (Taiwanese) people had been killed, the names on the post looked familiar.'

Kuan Wei 'Bill' Chen (pictured) has been remembered as a 'nice and polite man' in the Taiwanese community in Sydney

Kuan Wei 'Bill' Chen (pictured) was driving the scooter on Monday hit by a distracted bus driver - he died instantly when the collision saw him thrown in front of oncoming traffic

Bus driver Luis Rojas, 49, was charged with dangerous and negligent driving occasioning death, using a mobile phone and not properly wearing a seat belt.

Police will allege Rojas did not brake before the collision.

He will re-appear in court on March 26.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Corboy said the scooter crash was 'tragic'.

He said: 'It appears that while stationary, the two people on the scooter - a rider and a pillion - were struck from behind and unfortunately the rider was thrown in the path of another vehicle and was killed instantly.

'The passenger died a short time later. As a result of that, we have interviewed the bus driver, there has been some CCTV from on that bus, and we will be alleging that that bus driver was on his mobile phone as well as not wearing his seat belt at the time.'
Cold callers tricked an elderly woman into buying a massive pile of power tools, including 12 chainsaws, 11 generators and seven power washers.

The cruel doorstop traders conned the vulnerable lady into paying an 'extortionate' price for the huge haul.

Their elderly victim, who lives alone, handed over cheques to pay for tools she did not want or have a use for.

The cheques were luckily cancelled before being cashed in, and Gardai police officers have launched an investigation into the 'heinous crime' in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland.

A group of doorstop sellers are thought to have hounded the woman into paying for the tools, which have now been recovered and are being retained as evidence.

Cold callers forced an elderly woman into buying this massive pile of power tools - including 12 chainsaws, 11 generators and seven power washers

A photograph was posted on Gardai's Facebook page yesterday showing the huge pile of power tools the woman was tricked into buying.

The scam has prompted a stark warning to residents from Gardai, who have asked locals to raise awareness with elderly and vulnerable relatives.

Speaking at Anglesea Street Garda Station, crime prevention officer, Sgt Tony Davis, urged people to keep an eye on vulnerable neighbours.

He said: 'This is a heinous crime that was committed as it targets the more vulnerable members of our communities.

'If you have elderly or vulnerable neighbours and see or hear about bogus traders doing the rounds, let them and ourselves know so we can put out additional patrols.'

Gardai are urging residents to be vigilant and have issued advice to help people spot potential rogue traders after the elderly woman in Bantry, County Cork, was conned

Police are urging residents to be vigilant and have issued advice to help people spot potential rogue traders.

Sgt Davis added: 'If you suspect that anyone who calls to your door selling goods or services is not who they say they are, tell them you are not interested and call the gardai immediately.'

'Genuine tradespeople won't be offended by any queries the gardai may make.

'If you are answering the door to cold-callers, apply the chain or door limiter before opening the door.

'I would also ask that If anyone feels like they, or someone they know has been a victim of being sold goods for extortionate prices, or paid for a service that was not carried out, to call any Garda station and report the matter.'
Brown University is under fire for using live pigs in emergency medical training.

A prominent physicians' group has now asked federal regulators to investigate Brown's medical school, arguing it is violating the law by using the live pigs.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Tuesday asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to investigate animal use at the Warren Alpert Medical School at the Ivy League university.

A medical school spokeswoman said she didn't know about the complaint and didn't immediately respond to questions about the use of pigs . The school's website says its residency education includes hands-on animal labs.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has called for federal regulator to investigate Brown University over claims its medical school uses live pigs for emergency medical training (file image)

The committee advocates for eliminating the use of live animals in any medical training and promotes the use of human-body simulators instead. Proponents of animal research argue it is crucial to scientific breakthroughs and for furthering medical science

More than 90 percent of emergency medicine residency programs in the United States and Canada use only human-based training methods, such as medical simulation or cadavers, according to the committee. The nonprofit represents more than 12,000 doctors.

Brown, in Providence, violated the federal Animal Welfare Act because alternatives to animal use exist, so using pigs for emergency medicine training is not justified or unavoidable, said Dr. John Pippin, director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee.

He also contends the school's animal care and use committee does not properly oversee the use of pigs for the training, which would also violate the act.

'The purpose of all of these training programs, including at Brown, is to produce the best possible physicians in the field of emergency medicine.

Everyone agrees on that,' said Pippin, a cardiologist in Dallas. 'What I'm claiming, and I think I can prove, is the best way to do this does not include the use of animals.'

It asked the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to investigate the matter, arguing the Warren Alpert Medical School at the Ivy League university is violating the law

Simulators allow repetition, so if residents err when putting a chest tube in, for instance, they can do it again, Pippin said.

The models also do a better job at representing human anatomy, he said. A pig's skin is thicker and the trachea far deeper than on a person, so a resident could not cut a hole for a blocked airway on a person in the same way they would on a pig, for example, Pippin said.

There are 16 programs the committee knows of that still use live animals, and most of them use pigs. Pippin said he has reached out to all 16.

When Pippin first contacted Brown's medical school in the fall, he said, he was told by the residency director she wouldn't have time to consider the matter for six months. He contacted her boss and the dean of medicine, he said, but got nowhere and drafted the letter.

Pippin said the committee is not looking for the university to be penalized in any way, rather they're hoping to motivate Brown to pay attention to the information the committee provided.
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An incredibly moving photograph album of a grieving familys pilgrimage to the Western Front a decade after the First World War has been uncovered.

In 1928 the British Legion organised the Great Pilgrimage to mark the 10th anniversary of the end of the war which saw thousands of families from Britain travel to France and Belgium.

Included on this trip was Horace Turner, who returned to Bethune Town Cemetery to visit the grave of his brother Harold, whose life he was unable to save 12 years earlier.

The two siblings, of the Hertfordshire Regiment, fought side-by-side in the trenches, with Harold, 19, vowing to his parents to take care of his younger brother when the pair first volunteered in 1914, after war was declared.

Yet it was 17-year-old Horace who ended up cradling his dying brother in May 1916 in the Festubert trenches after he was mortally wounded by a German sniper on the lookout for the slightest of movements.

The brothers were in the area outside Bethune, France, where they had been involved manning frontline trenches for a number of months. They had previously taken part in the battles of Festubert and Loos in May and September 1915.

The album has recently been dug out of the Turner family archive and loaned to Herts at War, a Lottery-funded project in Hertfordshire, which aims to tell untold stories from the First World War.

One of the most emotional black and white pictures is of war veteran Horace Turner in 1928 as he stands over the grave of his older brother Harold whose life he was unable to save 12 years earlier. The British Legion organised the Great Pilgrimage to mark the 10th anniversary of the end of the war which saw thousands of families from Britain travel to France and Belgium

Attending the graveside at Bethune Town Cemetery along with Horace were his grieving parents, Frank and Jemima. For them, this was a trip worth documenting as it was the first time they'd be visiting their loved one's final resting place

Dressed in all their finery, whole families were often eager to pay their respects to their lost soldiers, with Horace and his parents being joined by his brother-in-law as they stood together at the memorial placed within the cemetery

Wanting to experience what their son's would've gone through, the family also visited the frontline trenches at Vimy Ridge, which is where Horace was likely to have fought during the German attack. On May 21 Germany began an offensive that lasted several hours. The bombardment was one of the heaviest of the Great War with 70,000 shells fired in four hours

The brothers arrived on the Western Front in 1915 when Harold (left) was aged 19 and Horace was 17. They fought together at Festubert and Loos before Harold was shot in May 1916. The apprentice watchmaker was shot as he helped to repair a comrades timepiece in the trenches

The Hertfordshire Regiment, with Horace pictured top right, posed next to a British tank outside Ypres railway station. The group first fought in the area in 1914 before returning their in 1917. Horace is said to be lucky to have survived as his battalion took many casualties

Horace's mother Jemima (front left), visited the old frontline trenches at Vimy Ridge, where her sons fought, while Horace (right) was captured amidst the Ruins of the Ypres Cloth Hall during their trip. The main market building was destroyed after artillery fire devastated Ypres during the First World War. It lead to the destruction of many unique art works and stood as a symbol of the devastation before being fixed up in the 1930s

Crossing the boarder once more between France and Belgium, the men of the Hertfordshire Regiment (Horace standing far right) made sure the incredible moment was captured on camera. Most the soldiers hadn't crossed into the country since returning home in March 1919

For most, like Horace (pictured third from left) and his Hertfordshire regiment comrades, photographed in Amiens in northern France, this would be the first time they had come back to the Western Front since the First World War battles and were keen to document their return in the places they had visited as soldiers

Veterans (pictured left) also visited the ramparts of the Ypres which connected to tunnels, passageways, and rooms - built during the French occupation in the 1680s - that acted as shelters and accommodation, as well as medical dressing stations, for British and French soldiers (pictured right, Horace at Vimy Ridge)

In October 1918, the Herefordshire Regiment were involved in the final battles in the Ypres area. The town signified the end of the war for many, and became an important part of the trip for the men (pictured in Ypres), as they were positioned in the area until the Armistice on 11 November. Many Herefordshire names can be found on the memorial to the missing at Tyne Cot cemetery in the town, with their bravery there winning plaudits from army commanders

Pictured standing in front of a gun outside the Ypres railway station, the Herefordshire Regiment fought in the Fourth Battle of Ypres. The German's attacked with the objective of capturing the town and the battle comprised seven phases. But having started in early April, the allies eventually won with the German's terminating their effort on April 29

Not only was the trip significant for the British soldiers, but also for French troops who had the chance to once again meet those they had likely fought alongside. Horace and his comrades were sure to capture the iconic moment when they stood side-by-side with the French soldiers in Amiens

While visiting the monumental areas from the First World War, the veterans and their families also made the most of the occasion to travel. For instance, the brothers' father was spotted enjoying a beer outside a French cafe in this photograph

Making the most of the sea and sunshine during their emotional trip, Frank was captured with his trousers rolled up as he enjoyed a paddle in the English Channel with his family before they headed home

The album contains two moving images of Horace and Harold (pictured) in their army uniform stood next to their father, who is wearing military uniform thought to be a home defence-type for the Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers unit, before they went off to war. Families often ensured they had a family portrait commissioned before leaving for battle in fear that their loved ones might not return
Investigators claim a woman jailed for murdering her husband on a yacht nine years ago was not capable of killing him and was wrongly convicted.

Sue Neill-Fraser is in jail for the killing of her Bob Chappell in Tasmania on Australia Day in 2009.

The couple spent their last day together on the yacht before Mr Chappell decided he would stay aboard overnight while his wife returned home on a dinghy.

The morning after, the yacht was discovered half-submerged and Mr Chappell was missing, presumed dead.

Although his body was never found Mrs Neill-Fraser was found guilty of attacking Mr Chappell and dumping his body in the River Derwent.

Neill-Fraser was convicted for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell on Australia Day in 2009

The grandmother and mother-of-two is currently serving a 23-year jail sentence at Risdon Women's Prison in Tasmania.

The case has been labelled a 'horrendous miscarriage of justice' by some of the country's top police and legal minds who are now claiming they have uncovered compelling new evidence proving Neill-Fraser's innocence.

Former Victoria Police detective Colin McLaren told A Current Affair he does not believe there was a legitimate, objective investigation carried out.

Mr McLaren has joined forces with former Victoria Police detective Charlie Bezzina.

The pair have spent years analysing evidence, uncovering police mistakes and have discovered missing items they say are crucial.

Former Victoria Police detective Colin McLaren said he does not believe there was a legitimate, objective investigation carried out

The prosecution alleged Mrs Neill-Fraser killed her husband with a wrench in the cabin then winched his body up to the deck and disposed of it.

They said she wanted out of the relationship and stood to gain financially.

But McLaren and Bezzina point out that no wrench was ever found and say she was not strong enough to lift his body.

'We have got an innocent woman still in jail,' said legal analyst Robert Richter QC.

They claim that two other people tried to burgle the boat that night - Meaghan Vass and her boyfriend.

They claim the DNA of then homeless 16-year-old Vass found on the deck of Four Winds.

She denied ever being on the yacht and the prosecution said that her DNA was on board due to 'secondary transfer'.

But this was rejected by the Victorian Police Forensic Office, which stated in a report that 'there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the DNA detected was the result of a secondary transfer'.

There were also rags covered in vomit found on the boat were never tested for DNA. The defence is now claiming the rags have gone missing.

Mr Bezzina said the evidence suggested Vass vomited that night after witnessing something horrific.

'The crime scene tells you a story and the story that crime scene told me did not fit the scenario put up by the investigators,' Mr Bezzina said.

Another homeless person, a man with a criminal history, was allegedly on the yacht at the time of incident.

But Paul Row was only interviewed by police three years after Mr Chappell's disappearance and a year after Neill-Fraser's conviction.

Soon after the questioning, Mr Row left Tasmania.

The day after Australia Day, 2009, Mr Chappell's yacht was discovered half-submerged and he was missing, presumed dead

The day before the murder, the couple had spent the day together on the yacht when Mr Chappell decided he would stay overnight aboard the yacht while his partner returned home on a dinghy

The mother and grandmother maintains her innocence as she serves a 23-year jail sentence in Tasmania. Right to left: Bob Chappell, Susan Neill-Fraser, Neill-Fraser's daughter Sarah Bowles (nee Fraser-Meeker) and son-in-law Mark Bowles

Robert Richter QC said there was enough evidence to show that the conviction was completely unsafe and unsatisfactory

Neill-Fraser and her family have adamantly denied she committed the crime.

She has lost multiple attempts to overturn the conviction, she and her family maintain her innocence.

Her most recent appeal is based on a new legislation and is still underway.

Mr McLaren and Mr Bezzina are now calling for a Royal Commission.

Robert Richter QC said there was enough evidence to show that the conviction was completely unsafe and unsatisfactory. He said Neill-Fraser should be acquitted.
A British holidaymaker was drugged by a Thai woman who lured him to a hotel for sex after targeting men wearing gold.

Kam Pakham waited on the streets of Pattaya before luring foreigners with 'gold valuables on show' back to a hotel with the promise of sex.

But the femme fatale's scam came to light after British holidaymaker, Daniel Booth, woke up the morning after with his watch and phone missing.

The 27-year-old told police he had spent the night with the Thai woman on Saturday after meeting her on the street outside his hotel.

Kam Pakham (far right wearing a white face mask) lured British tourist Daniel Booth (far left wearing Adidas shorts and t-shirt) to a hotel with the promise of sex before drugging him

When investigators searched Pakham's room police found more than 10 luxury brand watches and smartphones

He took the Thai woman up to his room for a 'party' but has little recollection of the events after two drinks.

Police began searching for the suspect from hotel CCTV and found her walking suspiciously on nearby streets, she then fled when officers approached her.

The 48-year-old was captured three days after her encounter with Mr Booth outside bars on the busy Soi Buakhao Road, where she was scoping out rich male tourists.

Pakham told police she chose men with gold chains and expensive watched on show before offering them sex.

She admitted her scam, saying that it was not her first time and was detained at Pattaya police station for legal proceedings.

Pakham said: 'I've done this three or four times now. I will look for men wearing expensive accessories, join them in their room, and put sleeping pills in the drink.

Kam Pakham (wearing a mask and black dress) waited on the streets of Pattaya before luring foreigners with 'gold valuables on show' back to a hotel with the promise of sex

She told police she had committed the same scam three or four times on foreign holidaymakers and targeted men wearing gold jewellery

'Then, I will steal watches, phones, and some money before I leave.'

Investigators searched her room and found more than 10 luxury brand watches and smartphones.

Police chief Apichai Krobtech said: 'My team will always protect tourists and catch criminals quickly.

'This thief believed she would be successful, but the police found her. 'We will attempt to trace her victims so they can have their stolen property back.'

Pakham faces a fine of between 20,000 to 100,000 THB (Thai baht).
Called Attain, the Apple Watch app will reward Aetna customers for meeting activity goals and fulfilling recommended tasks.

. But what is new and significant about the Attain app is the use of personal health data held by Aetna to provide customised goals and recommendations.

CVS Health Corps health insurer Aetna on Tuesday said it is working with Apple Inc on a new health app for Apple Watches that uses an individuals medical history to set personalised health goals.

Called Attain, the Apple Watch app will reward Aetna customers for meeting activity goals and fulfilling recommended tasks, such as getting vaccinations or refilling medications, with a subsidy toward the cost of an Apple Watch or gift cards for US retailers.

Several insurers have offered such subsidies for using wearable devices to meet generic activity goals such as a number of steps in the past. But what is new and significant about the Attain app is the use of personal health data held by Aetna to provide customised goals and recommendations.

That health history data is tightly regulated by the US government, and Apple and Aetna had to enter into what is known as a business associate agreement in order for Aetna to share it with the Apple.

Access to regulated data is necessary for some of the functions of the app, such as recommending age-appropriate exercise or a lower-cost option for scheduled lab tests or MRI imaging tests. Aetna said the program is voluntary and that data gathered will not be used for premium pricing or coverage decisions.

We understand that you dont need to be a personal trainer or work out several hours a day to be healthier, Alan Lotvin, executive vice president for transformation at CVS Health, said in a statement.

For Apple, the Aetna partnership continues a push into regulated areas as the company dives further into health features with its wearable device launched in 2014.

Last fall, Apple announced a watch with the ability to take an electrocardiogram, an electrical measure of heart activity that can detect heart problems. The feature required clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Aetna users can opt to share their information anonymously with Apple. Apple will use techniques such as machine learning to fine-tune the app, such as detecting the users are more likely to follow up on tasks if they notified midday rather than in the morning.

As we learn over time, the goal is to make more customised recommendations that will help members accomplish their goals and live healthier lives, Jeff Williams, Apples chief operating officer, said in a statement.
Angel Poole, 25, from Birmingham, Iowa was jailed for 10 years on Friday

A young mother has been jailed for starving her baby so badly that it died weighing less than when it was born.

Angel Poole, 25, from Birmingham, Iowa, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last week after an autopsy found her son had been 'markedly malnourished' by the negligent mother.

Two-month-old Judah Wessels tragically died in July 2016 weighing just 5lbs (2.3kg) - half the weight of a healthy infant of the same age and 2lbs less than his birth weight.

Eight days after he was born, doctors found baby Judah was healthy and well-fed during an examination.

But the court heard how over the following weeks, Poole missed several appointments with medical staff and told police she 'never got round to it'.

Weeks after his birth, Poole called 911 reporting that Judah was struggling to breathe - and he was pronounced dead in hospital shortly afterwards.

A photo posted on Facebook by Judah's father showed him looking gaunt shortly before his death (left). Right: An ultrasound before he was born

An autopsy found that Judah was 'markedly malnourished' and died as a result of starvation and dehydration.

A shocking picture posted on his father's Facebook account showed the baby lying on the floor looking underweight shortly before his death.

Poole admitted child endangerment resulting in serious injury in court on Friday.

Prosecutors dropped the more serious charge of child endangerment resulting in death - which could have resulted in a 25-year sentence for Poole.

In October last year, Poole shared a post on Facebook promoting 'Baby Loss Awareness month and said she was 'remembering my babies'.

Poole's son was found to have been 'markedly malnourished' by the negligent mother in the weeks before his death

While in July she appeared to blame her baby's death on a brain injury and said the charges against her should be dropped.

She wrote: 'Got some good news today.

'The new prosecutor in my case may have found exculpatory evidence while speaking to the Dr. that examined Judahs brain, he notified my lawyer of it a few days ago

'So now we just have to get the pathologist into depositions. I think this is all finally coming to an end. Please continue to pray for me, God is listening!'

Her partner Ed Wixom replied backing her up, writing: 'All of that stupid s*** they are trying to charge you with she be dropped everyone knows that your a good mother and the ones that are talking s*** and saying that your not a good mother is someone that has some other Vendetta.'
Sally Ann Kelly, chief executive of the Aberlour Child Care Trust (pictured) said it had failed to offer enough support to victims of a prolific sex offender who had been employed as a housefather

The boss of a children's charity yesterday admitted that parents of youngsters molested in its care were not told about their 'horrendous' sex abuse ordeal.

Sally Ann Kelly, chief executive of the Aberlour Child Care Trust, also said it had failed to offer enough support to victims of a prolific sex offender who had been employed as a housefather.

In addition, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) heard that strict rules on corporal punishment were broken and children were publicly humiliated by a former boss of the Aberlour Orphanage in Moray.

Mrs Kelly was confronted about the trust's 'appalling omission' over informing parents at an SCAI hearing in Edinburgh.

It was told the aim of the trust had been to provide 'something akin to a normal family home' for vulnerable children.

Mrs Kelly was asked about a housefather in the 1960s, Eric Lee, who had subjected ten boys to 'sadistic' sexual abuse.

The inquiry had previously heard claims from a former staff member that Aberlour bosses had been 'hell-bent' on keeping the scandal quiet.

Mrs Kelly  who has been in post since 2014  was questioned about alleged organisational failings yesterday.

James Peoples, QC, senior counsel to the inquiry, said boys at the orphanage in the care of the paedophile housefather must have lived in a 'dreadful atmosphere'.

Mrs Kelly said: 'Yes, absolutely, it must have been a horrendous situation for those boys.'

Mr Peoples said records of the incidents, which led to Lee being convicted in 1963 of sex offences against children aged eight to 12 and jailed for six years, had been scant and Press coverage had been limited.

Mrs Kelly argued that by the standards of the time the home had conformed to best practice by alerting the police, something which may not have happened in other homes.

But she admitted there was no record of a special meeting to discuss the sex abuse controversy, which Mr Peoples said was 'one of the darkest periods in Aberlour's history'.

Pictured: Aberlour Orphanage in Moray where several cases of abuse allegedly took place

The QC said the inquiry had heard parents of some of those abused had not been told about their ordeals, which he suggested was an 'appalling omission' and 'indefensible'. Mrs Kelly said: 'Absolutely.'

Lee's abuse was discovered only when a staff member overheard boys discussing being targeted.

The inquiry has heard evidence from a former Aberlour worker, using the name Catherine, who blew the whistle on Lee.

She claimed managers were determined to prevent governors finding out what had happened.

The inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues.
Emmanuel Franklin, 19, was arrested on Sunday in Sumter, South Carolina, after authorities say he faked his own kidnapping and extorted $130 from his mother by making her believe he'd be killed if she didn't pay up. Franklin is pictured above in his mugshot

A 19-year-old in South Carolina has been accused of faking his own kidnapping and extorting $130 from his mother by making her believe he'd be killed if she didn't pay up.

Emmanuel Franklin was arrested on Sunday and charged with blackmail, according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office.

Franklin's mother told deputies she received a call from her son and an unknown man using a private number on Friday, and the man demanded that she put $130 in a neighborhood mailbox or else he would kill him.

Authorities say the teen later admitted to making the story up to get money from his mother.

The mailbox allegedly belonged to Franklin's father.

It is unclear whether Franklin is in custody as of Wednesday as jail records are not currently available.

The mother's name was not disclosed by the Sumter County Sheriff's Office.
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A drunk 'coaxed into a false confession with whisky', two 'framed' robbers and a cheating wife accused of killing her husband. These are the grisly photographs from British crime scenes from the early twentieth century - where people were savagely murdered and the perpetrators hanged for their crimes.

The extremely rare images give an insight into what the detectives at the time had to work with to solve these crimes. But most shockingly of all, there is still a debate surrounding some of the condemned who were hanged in the gallows for these murders and whether they were guilty or not. The death penalty was abolished in Britain in 1965, however arguments still rage to this day about its use as a punishment.

But do you think these early 20th century murderers were guilty?

Each photograph in this collection tells the story of a fascinating real-life British murder case - many of which still haunt and perplex true crime fans today.

The living room where Frances Levin was murdered in Manchester on July 19th, 1933, pictured is blood-soaked pillow that Levin was using to rest on.

The body of Beatrice Rimmer lies in her hallway (left) in the houss she lived inm in Wavertree, Liverpool (right) on the 20th August, 1951

The Dorset home of Frederick and Charlotte Bryant. Charlotte was hanged for the murder of her husband in 1936

The alleged false confession that led to the hanging of Manchester vagrant, William Burtoft

William Burtoft was a Manchester vagrant who was hanged for the murder of wealthy widow Frances Levin.

On a hot summers day on July 19th, 1933, Frances Levin took a nap in her living room after lunch.

At 2.30pm her maid Freda Phillips retired upstairs to complete her chores, leaving the back door open for air.

When she returned to the kitchen two hours later she made a grisly discovery. An iron bar lay on the floor with a bloodied shirt used to wipe it thrown on the table.

William Burtoft, a local vagrant, who was hanged for her murder of Frances Levin. Burtoft was arrested soon after the crime was reported

The back door of Frances Levin's house where the assailant entered and subsequently murdered her in Manchester on July 19th, 1933

Some say that William Burtoft (left and right) was coaxed into a false confession by the police and subsequently hanged for the murder or Frances Levin

The kitchen at the home of Frances Levin. The kitchen is complete with wooden furniture and crockery displayed on shelves

Frances Levin was murdered in her living room (pictured above) and the blood soaked pillow can be seen on the sofa (right)

Her employer Mrs Levin was found in the front room, shed been brutally bludgeoned and left for dead.

The investigation focussed on a man the maid had spotted exiting the house. Eight days later detectives intercepted a 47-year-old one eyed local William Burtoft who was arrested and according to detectives, quickly confessed.

At Manchester Strangeways prison on the 19th of December 1933, he was hanged. The case was decided solely on Burtofts confession obtained by the police when they intercepted him.

However, at the trial Burtoft pleaded not guilty and never gave evidence, leaving some to question the judgment.

The police allegedly coaxed him with whiskey to admit to the crime. Burtoft was of no fixed address and had serious drinking issues.

The murder of Beatrice Rimmer and the case against Edward Devlin and George Alfred Burns

On the Sunday evening of 19th August, 1951, a widow named Beatrice Rimmer in her early fifties had been visiting her son Thomas Rimmer.

She returned to her house in Wavertree, Liverpool around 10.10pm and was tragically found by her son Thomas the following day.

Thomas looked through the letterbox of his mothers house and saw what he thought was a bundle of clothes. Alarmed he went to the back of the house and found the kitchen window pane had been broken, yet strangely the glass shards were on the floor of the yard, outside the house.

A crime scene photo dated 20th August 1951 which shows Beatrice Rimmer's house in Liverpool where she was brutally murdered

Police investigated the house in Liverpool (left) where Beatrice Rimmer (right) was found dead by her son Thomas

Edward Devlin (left) and Alfred Burns (right) were convicted and hanged for the murder of Beatrice Rimmer, however reports stated that there had only been one attacker at the property

Beatrice Rimmer died in her home (pictured above) from a severally brutal attack, two men were later hanged for the murder

Alfred Burns and Edward Devlin had claimed that on the night of the murder they had been carrying out a robbery at a warehouse in Manchester

He climbed in through the broken window and found his mother in a large pool of clotted blood, just behind the front door.

The widow had died from an extremely violent attack that had left her with fifteen wounds.

The police were baffled by the motive behind the crime, because nothing had been taken from the house, and even the gas metre was untouched.

A team of detectives worked around the clock but Liverpool police soon reached a dead end. This was until Chief Superintendent Herbert Balmer suddenly claimed that a man serving time for a burglary at Walton Prison had told him who had committed the murder.

They were two Mancunian men; George Alfred Burns, aged 21, and 22-year-old Edward Devlin. The men both claimed that on the night of the murder they were carrying out a robbery at a warehouse in Manchester. However, they were found guilty at their trial and hanged in April 1952 at Walton Prison.

Modern day investigators have flagged worrying aspects of the case. One forensic investigator claims that there was only one attacker and not two.

Whilst a pathologist suggested that the prosecutions belief the murder was carried out with a kosh was not correct - and he believed it was actually carried out with an axe.

The 'scarlet woman' who was hanged after being condemned for the murder of her husband

Other photos details the house where Charlotte Bryant lived with her husband Frederick. Charlotte Bryant was hanged at Exeter Jail on Wednesday July 15th, 1936, after being condemned for the murder of her husband Frederick.

Charlotte had met Frederick in Northern Ireland, when Frederick was serving there as a military policeman.

Illiterate and ill-educated, Charlotte was a well-known fraterniser with soldiers from the barracks and had been threatened with tarring and feathering by Irish Republicans for her behaviour.

The marital bed of Charlotte and Frederick Bryant (pictured above). Charlotte had apparently previously also moved her lovers into the marital home

Charlotte Bryant (left) had become bored of village life in Dorset with her husband Fredrick (right) and spent her days drinking

Charlotte Bryant (pictured above with one of her children) in her younger years

Charlotte moved to Dorset, England with Frederick where village life became boring for her and spent her days drinking and occasional prostitution.

Frederick was indifferent to his wifes behaviour, so much so that when one of her lovers Edward Parsons moved into the marital home he would go drinking with his wifes lover.

During 1935 Frederick was taken ill on numerous occasions until December 23rd when he was admitted to Sherborne hospital and died.

A post-mortem revealed 4.09 grains of arsenic in his blood and police searched Charlottes home where she lived with her children.

Amongst the items recovered was a burnt tin which had contained an arsenic-based weed killer. Charlotte was subsequently arrested and charged with murder.

During the trial damning evidence was given against Charlotte, including by a lesbian lover who told the court Charlotte had said she would get rid of the week killer tin and that she hated Frederick.

In 1936 the fact that Charlotte had brazenly committed adultery was utterly shocking and she was painted as a scarlet woman - something that probably bore considerable weight with the jury.

Despite the circumstantial evidence being strong the science behind the weed killer tin was flawed.

It is difficult to say how much bias there was against an illiterate and immoral woman and how it may have affected the outcome.
More than 400 schools in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, have been shut for the rest of the week due to increasing concern over dangerously unhealthy air pollution.

The countrys prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered for the closure of 437 schools after officials said the toxic smog would continue until next Monday.

It comes as the Public Health Ministry said people should refrain from outdoor activities and exercise, and look instead for indoor venues.

More than 400 schools in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, have been shut for the rest of the week due to increasing concern over dangerously unhealthy air pollution. Pictured: A young boy wears a protective mask as he's picked up from school in the city

Many commuters and pedestrians have begun wearing face masks to combat the buildup of particles in the atmosphere from still air and heavy traffic.

Police Gen. Asawin Kwanmuang, the city's governor, also declared the area a 'pollution control zone,' allowing authorities to take legal measures to combat the threat.

Violators of orders to curb pollution, which could include limits on diesel exhaust, outdoor burning and construction activities, could face up to three months in prison.

Bangkok's cityscape is covered in thick smog with air quality in the city currently hovering at unhealthy levels

The countrys prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has ordered for the closure of 437 schools after officials said the toxic smog would continue until next Monday. Pictured: Students wear masks as they wait to be picked up after classes were cancelled

Residents celebrating next week's Lunar New Year holiday were also urged to curb the use of incense and fireworks to help the effort.

Air quality in Bangkok is currently hovering at unhealthy levels as the amount of hazardous dust particles known as PM 2.5 exceed the safe level in 41 areas around the capital, according to the Department of Pollution Control.

PM 2.5 is a mixture of liquid droplets and solid particles that can include dust, soot and smoke, one of the main measures of the Air Quality Index (AQI).

Meanwhile, Asawin said: 'We decided to eliminate the problem by closing down the schools. We're afraid that it can be dangerous for the children.'

Many commuters and pedestrians have begun wearing face masks to combat the buildup of particles in the atmosphere from still air and heavy traffic

Wearing protective masks due to the high levels of city air pollution, parents pick up their children from school in Bangkok

Efforts to reduce the pollution level in Bangkok by hosing down roads and spraying water in the air have been criticised as ineffective

Technical colleges are included among the closed institutions but universities are still considering what to do.

Mongkolsak Lajina, the father of a five-year-old student, suggested that closing schools was a token gesture.

'I don't think it will help much. It helps that students do not have to commute to schools,' he said. 'But we need better measures to effectively deal with this problem.'

Aek Pongpairoj, a doctor living in Bangkok, added: These measures will help only temporarily.

Residents celebrating next week's Lunar New Year holiday were also urged to curb the use of incense and fireworks to help the effort

Police Gen. Asawin Kwanmuang, the city's governor, also declared the area a 'pollution control zone,' allowing authorities to take legal measures to combat the threat

'If we want a long-lasting solution, all sectors must be involved, not just government agencies; for example, the private sector involving construction. There are so many construction sites and I can see that preventive measures aren't enough.'

Pollution levels also rose elsewhere in Thailand, bringing a heavy haze to Chiang Mai and other northern areas.

This was well ahead of the annual 'smoky season' that normally begins in late February, when farmers burn agricultural waste and dry weather allows airborne particles to accumulate.

Efforts to reduce the pollution level in Bangkok by hosing down roads and spraying water in the air have been criticised as ineffective.
Jean-Claude Juncker made clear the EU is playing hardball on Brexit today - flatly dismissing Theresa May's plan to overhaul the Irish border backstop.

As the wrangling intensified, the EU commission president delivered a stinging rebuke to calls from the PM to rework the insurance policy - saying it 'cannot be removed' from the divorce package.

He also dismissed the idea that the other states will abandon Ireland for fear of damaging their own economies, saying solidarity 'goes to the heart of what being a member of the EU means'.

'Ireland's border is our border,' he said.

But speaking in the European Parliament, Mr Juncker also admitted the threat of no deal Brexit is rising. Michel Barnier joined in the tough talk by complaining that the 'blame game' against the EU in the UK was 'hard to accept'.

EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured left in the European Parliament with Michel Barnier today) delivered a stinging rebuke to calls from the PM to rework the insurance policy - saying it 'cannot be removed' from the divorce package

Mr Juncker was greeted warmly by former Ukip leader Nigel Farage in Brussels today, despite their differences over Brexit

Mr Coveney said Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street today) was desperately trying to 'accommodate' the right wing of her party despite it undermining her own position

The intervention came as Cabinet ministers played down the wall of rejection from the EU following Mrs May's triumph in a series of Commons votes last night.

One told MailOnline that everyone needed to remain 'calm' as 'noise' from Brussels was only to be expected.

'This is just what the EU does. It never makes any kind of deal until the last moment,' they said.

'We are inevitably going to get all sorts of dire warnings and blank denials.

'It is just a lot of noise. People just need to stay calm and let the PM work.'

In a glimmer of light for Mrs May, the Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki revealed he had phoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel to urge her to find a way through the impasse.

Speaking after Mr Juncker and Mr Barnier in the European Parliament, former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the prospect of a no-deal Brexit had increased because of the attitude of Brussels 'fanatics' who refused to compromise.

He said Mrs May now realised the mistake made in agreeing to the backstop, adding: 'She signed up to something that no country - unless it had been defeated in war - would have signed up to.'

There was now an 'appreciation in Britain that unelected bureaucrats in Brussels have been talking down to and humiliating the Prime Minister of our nation, and we don't like it'.

He added: 'Many will say we are simply dealing with fanatics who are not prepared to be reasonable and make any sense of compromise.'

Mrs May has hailed a new 'mandate' in talks after a majority of MPs last night approved her deal on the condition that she can replace the backstop with 'alternative arrangements'.

A Remainer bid to delay the Brexit date was also rejected, although the Commons did pass a symbolic motion opposing a no-deal departure.

The premier is now preparing to enter 'trench warfare' with Brussels to get more concessions - with just two months to go until the UK is due to leave the bloc.

However, a slew of leaders have popped up to reject the idea of reopening the Withdrawal Agreement.

Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney claimed Mrs May's new tactics were like saying 'give me what I want or I'm jumping out the window'.

He said the PM was desperately trying to 'accommodate' the right wing of her party despite it undermining her own position.

He insisted Ireland would continue to hold Britain to promises made during the two year Brexit negotiation about the border in Northern Ireland.

EU Council President Donald Tusk will speak to Mrs May tonight to start what is expected to be a frenzied fortnight of diplomacy.

She is also speaking to Irish PM Leo Varadkar.

Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney (pictured in Dublin on Monday) claim Brexiteers new tactics were the equivalent of a saying 'give me what I want or I'm jumping out the window' today

EU Council President Donald Tusk (pictured in Brussels last week with Jacinda Adern) will speak to Mrs May later today to start what is expected to be a frenzied fortnight of diplomacy

Guy Verhofstadt and Michel Barnier (pictured laughing today) led crisis talks this morning (pictured) - but are standing firm saying the deal will not be reopened

Despite the tough talk from EU leaders, there were also signs that cracks could be emerging.

Polish PM tweeted: 'I spoke today with Chancellor Angela Merkel about Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Acting together, with all EU members states, we should do our best to avoid hard Brexit. We are waiting for Theresa May's government to present their proposals to the EU.'

Mr Coveney told Ireland's RTE today: 'There is a wing in the Tory party, who in my view, want a different Brexit and she is having to accommodate those people by taking a tougher line and fundamentally undermining her own position.

'Surely the responsible thing for the Irish government to do is to hold the British government to its word.'

What happens next after MPs backed Plan B? Later this week: Theresa May is expected to return to Brussels to ask for changes to the Irish backstop, after MPs backed an amendment calling for 'alternative arrangements'. Her office has not yet confirmed when she will travel to meet EU leaders, who have already said they will not renegotiate the deal. February 13: If no new deal has been reached, Mrs May will address MPs again on this date and her Government will put a further motion before the House of Commons. MPs would then be able to vote on further amendments, potentially on February 14. March 29: Brexit day. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act of 2018 fixed 11pm on March 29 as the time and date when Britain will leave the EU. If no agreement has been reached by then, the UK - in spite of the Commons vote against a cliff-edge Brexit last night - will leave without a deal. Advertisement

He accused the Britain of saying 'either you give me what I want or I'm jumping out the window'.

European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt said this morning: 'The Irish backstop is an insurance element of Theresa May's Brexit deal which must remain'.

While chief negotiator Michel Barnier said simply: 'The position of the European Union is very clear. The EU institutions remain united, and we stand by the agreement that we have negotiated with the UK never against the UK'.

German foreign minister Heiko Maas said today that the EU's current Brexit deal is 'best and only solution'.

Mrs May's ministers ramped up tensions with the EU today in the wake of Theresa May's historic Commons victory - warning that the 39billion divorce bill could be axed if it does not compromise.

Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Brussels would not get a 'penny pinch' from the UK unless there was 'some give' on the hated Irish border backstop.

Mr Juncker met the European commissioners this morning to discuss new plans for dealing with a no-deal Brexit.

Last night Commons voted by 317 to 301 in favour of the backstop changes - which Mrs May said showed there was a means of securing a 'substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal' and vowed to seek a new agreement with Brussels.

Theresa May smiles last night after securing a rare Commons victory last night as she goes head to head with the EU over the dreaded backstop

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) finally agreed to Brexit talks with Theresa May last night after the Prime Minister navigated a minefield of seven votes on Plan B
A manhunt has been launched for the driver of a 4WD, who allegedly tried to abduct a teenage girl not far from where a 21-year-old woman was raped and murdered.

The man is accused of pulling off a highway in Cairns and trying to lure the girl over just after 6pm on January 23.

He then allegedly tried to pull the 19-year-old into his vehicle, but she was able to break free.

Police say the man is slim, and appears to be aged in his 50s or 60s, with pale skin, and greying brown hair.

After the alleged failed abduction, the man drove along the grass, before turning and continuing to drive on the footpath.

A man allegedly tried to pull a 19-year-old girl into his car in far north Queensland last week

The man, believed to be in his 50s or 60s, was driving along Captain Cook Highway in Kewarra Beach, just 17 kilometres from Wangetti Beach, where Toyah Cordingley (pictured) was found raped and murdered in October

Authorities have launched a campaign to find the man and his car, a 1989-1999 model Suzuki Vitara that is dark in colour.

The terrifying incident took place off the Captain Cook Highway in Kewarra Beach, just 17 kilometres from where the body 21-year-old Toyah Cordingley was found on the morning of October 22.

Ms Cordingley had been raped and murdered while walking her dog along Wangetti Beach late last year, and her naked body was discovered by her father Troy.

So far, Queensland Police have not made any arrests in relation to the horrific crime, but Acting Assistant Commissioner Brian Huxley told 4CA Radio extra resources had been deployed in recent weeks.

Police are seeking information about the car, its driver, and their whereabouts

The person who killed Ms Cordingley, 21, is yet to be determined, though police say more resources have recently been given to the case

Mr Huxley said there was an 'enormous amount going on behind the scenes' and officers from the Brisbane homicide squad were working to bring Ms Cordingley's killer to justice.

He said while he understood locals were becoming frustrated at the lack of information, constant disclosure could jeopardise the police investigation.

'It is at a sensitive stage of the investigation so I would ask peoples assistance in understanding we are not at liberty of discussing the details of where we are at,' he said.

'But we do have a number of persons of interest that we are following up on, and at this stage we are focusing on the forensic component of this job in a lot of detail.'

If you have any information about the attempted abduction, call Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000
Jeremy Corbyn today denied giving MPs from Leave seats a free pass to rebel in key Brexit votes - as he made clear he will not sack shadow ministers who helped save Theresa May's plan.

More than a dozen Labour MPs defied orders to vote with the Tories, cancelling out a rebellion in Mrs May's own ranks on votes to frustrate a no deal Brexit.

And a series of shadow ministers went missing in the crucial vote despite being ordered to vote Aye to the plan tabled by Labour MP Yvette Cooper.

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn - who had a reputation as a hardline Eurosceptic before becoming leader - played down the prospect of anyone being forced off his frontbench.

They said whips would consider each case 'on its own merits' - and denied the leader's office had given a 'nod or a wink' to MPs from Brexit-supporting constituencies that they could safely defy orders.

Furious Remain-backing colleagues accused the rebels of 'riding to the rescue' of the PM by propping up her Brexit policy. There were even calls from some Corbyn allies for veteran left-wingers including Dennis Skinner to be deselected.

The shadow ministers who appeared to defy him by skipping the vote on the Cooper plan to delay Article 50 included Melanie Onn, Mike Kane, and Gloria de Piero.

MailOnline understands none of them had permission to be absent. Tory sources confirmed that they were not 'paired' with other MPs - the mechanism for balancing out votes when people cannot attend the Commons.

In the wake of the blows in the House last night, Mr Corbyn was embarrassingly forced to climb down over his refusal to meet Mrs May for talks on a way forward.

The leaders are due to hold talks this afternoon after clashing at the weekly PMQs session.

In a dire night for Mr Corbyn, 14 of his own MPs voted against a proposal he backed to keep Britain in the EU beyond March 29 if no deal is agreed by the end of the month. Most of the rebels represent constituencies that voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured leaving his London home today) finally agreed to Brexit talks with Theresa May after losing a series of Commons votes

This chart shows how MPs voted on the Cooper amendment to delay Article 50, with 14 Labour rebels defying their party's whip to reject the plan

Melanie Onn (left) and Gloria de Piero (right) were among the shadow ministers absent for the Cooper amendment vote last night

Shadow minister Mike Kane was also absent for the crucial vote in the Commons last night

An amendment pushing Labour's Brexit policy was then roundly defeated, before Mrs May's plan for returning to Brussels and renegotiating the Irish backstop was passed - with support from seven Labour MPs.

Mr Corbyn only ended up on the winning side in a non-binding vote against a no deal Brexit.

Labour MEP Richard Corbett named and shamed the 14 Cooper amendment rebels on Twitter, branding them 'disgraceful' - although he later deleted the tweet after being criticised by other politicians.

Who were the Labour rebels on the Cooper amendment? Ian Austin, Dudley North Kevin Barron, Rother Valley Ronnie Campbell, Blyth Valley Rosie Cooper, West Lancashire Jim Fitzpatrick, Poplar and Limehouse Caroline Flint, Don Valley Roger Godsiff, Birmingham Hall Green Stephen Hepburn, Jarrow Kate Hoey, Vauxhall John Mann, Bassetlaw Dennis Skinner, Bolsover Laura Smith, Crewe and Nantwich Gareth Snell, Stoke-on-Trent Central Graham Stringer, Blackley and Broughton Advertisement

Supporters of Mr Corbyn including commentators Paul Mason and Owen Jones called for the seven MPs who voted for the government-backed Brady amendment to be deselected.

The rebels included left-wing firebrand Mr Skinner. Mr Mason tweeted: 'Thanks for making this really easy: withdraw the whip, expel from the Labour party and select socialists instead of xenophobes.'

Senior MP Chuka Umunna said he was 'angry' at the way his colleagues had behaved.

'There is no point claiming you are opposed to a 'no deal' Brexit if you are not prepared to will the legal means to stop it happening,' he said.

'Non-binding motions are not the same as legally binding laws. The Cooper and Grieve amendments addressed this. A bad day for Parliament.'

In the aftermath of the votes, Mr Corbyn performed a U-turn and agreed to see her in Downing Street - just two weeks after he rejected the invite.

Mr Corbyn told MPs: 'Now that the House has voted emphatically to reject the No Deal option the Prime Minister was supporting could I say we are now prepared to meet her to put forward the points of view from the Labour Party of the kind of deal we want from the European Union.

'To protect jobs, to protect living standards and to protect rights and conditions in this country.'

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner tried to put a brave face on the shambles today, insisting Labour had never demanded the Prime Minister 'physically' remove the threat of leaving without a deal.

Labour Brexiteer Kate Hoey (left) and Birmingham Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff (right) voted in favour of the Graham Brady amendment backed by Theresa May's Government

Kevin Barron (left), John Mann (centre) and Ian Austin (right) were among the Labour MPs who voted for the Graham Brady amendment in the House of Commons last night

Labour MPs Graham Stringer (left) and Gareth Snell (right) were among 14 backbenchers to rebel against Yvette Cooper's amendment to delay Brexit

Laura Smith (left), Ronnie Campbell (centre) and Stephen Hepburn (right) voted with the Government to reject Yvette Cooper's amendment

Labour MPs Jim Fitzpatrick (left) and Rosie Cooper (right) opposed Cooper's amendment

A diagram showing how Graham Brady's amendment - calling on Theresa May to renegotiate the Irish backstop - won the support of the House of Commons

He told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'Jeremy always said that all she needed to do at this stage, she didn't need to actually physically remove it, she didn't need to pass legislation, she just needed to accept that that was the will of the House and that would be what happened.'

He added: 'Parliament yesterday explicitly said that they did not want no deal to happen and the Prime Minister, when it came to the summing-up after the debate, accepted that that was the will of the House.

'She has said she will be coming back in two weeks' time, she hopes, with something from Europe, but there will be another opportunity at that stage if she has run down the clock further, for a legislative vehicle to then be put in place by Parliament to avoid no-deal.'

Amid remarkable scenes, the Labour leader lost a series of amendments thanks to a string of rebellions by backbenchers, many of them in Leave seats.

It meant the Commons voted 321 to 298 against the main proposal, tabled by senior Labour MP Yvette Cooper, which would have seen the UK staying in the EU beyond March 29.

Mr Corbyn had confirmed at lunchtime that his party would be supporting a delay of three months, saying it was important to avoid a No Deal Brexit and ensure there was time for renegotiation. But 14 Labour MPs rebelled, giving the Government a majority of 23 against the extension of Article 50.

They included serial Corbyn opponents such as John Mann and Ian Austin along with hard-Left supporters of the leader, such as Dennis Skinner. And not enough rebel Tory MPs  just 17  voted with former Conservative minister Nick Boles, who had also advocated the delay.

Miss Cooper's plan would have allowed MPs to call for a delay to Article 50 if no deal had been approved by February 26.

But Mrs May said the amendment was 'deeply misguided' and warned of the constitutional dangers of seeking to 'usurp' the Government.

Labour had been cautious about officially throwing its weight behind the plan, with the party's leadership nervous about alienating Leave-supporting voters in some of its heartlands.

But Mr Corbyn told the Commons: 'The Labour Party will back that amendment tonight because to crash out without a deal would be deeply damaging for industry and economy.'

He added that he was 'backing a short window of three months to allow time for renegotiation'.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said the plan 'will allow Parliament to fill the void of leadership left by the Prime Minister'.
A 22-year-old high school teacher has been forced to resign after a 17-year-old boy claims she invited him to a group game of 'naked hide and seek.'

Kelsie Schmidt, a teacher at Beululah High School in North Dakota, allegedly sent the teenager nude pictures of herself over Snapchat.

Police said one of the pictures shows the maths teacher naked from the waist up with her hair partially covering her breasts.

Kelsie Schmidt, 22, (left and right) has been charged with the felony of luring a minor by computer or other means

Schmidt allegedly sent the messages to the 17-year-old between August and September last year

They said another image was of bare legs, with the strap-line: 'Get a group and play naked hide and seek,' the Dickinson Press reported.

The 17-year-old told a police officer he had been sent images that could 'get the math teacher in trouble,' court documents said.

The police reported that she had sent the student three or four racy snaps, Lailas News stated.

The boy claimed Schmidt sent him the photos in August and September.

Before her resignation on January 25, the North Dokota paper had reported that she had been placed on administrative leave by Beululah High.

Schmidt with a golden retriever on her graduation in 2017, she became a maths teacher shortly afterwards

Beululah High School in North Dakota confirmed she had been placed on administrative leave before her resignation on January 25

According to her Facebook, she was a graduate of St Mary University - a private Catholic college which charges $8,400 a semester.

She was in her first year of teaching and her attorney told reporters that this was, 'a very unfortunate situation for everyone.'

She has been charged with the felony of luring a minor by computer or other means.
The widow of the beloved Melbourne cafe icon who was murdered during the Bourke Street terror attack has broken her silence.

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, as he ran to help what he thought was a car crash victim on November 9.

His widow Vicky Malaspina has thanked the public for the outpouring of love and support her family has received since the tragedy.

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, as he ran to help what he thought was a car crash victim on November 9

She told 9News the upcoming street party to honour the legendary cafe owner was the perfect way to remember him.

'Sisto would be rapt, he loved a party, he loved to entertain, and if there's anything to do with a party he'll be right here.'

The street party will be held in March, at the end of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

The Italian-themed event, which will be held on Crossley St near Mr Malaspina's cafe, has been organised by some of the top restaurateurs across the city.

Mr Malaspina's son David told The Herald Sun his father would be at the party in spirit.

'He'd be the loudest part of it,' he said.

The widow of the beloved Melbourne cafe icon who was murdered during the Bourke Street terror attack has broken her silence. Vicky Malaspina has thanked the public for the outpouring of love and support her family has received since the tragedy

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, as he ran to help what he thought was a car crash victim on November 9

Food and wine festival chief executive Anthea Loucas Bosha said it seemed only fitting to celebrate Mr Malaspina's life with a street party.

Mr Malaspina died after he was fatally stabbed by Somali immigrant Hassan Khalif Shire Ali during a terror attack.

Two other people were injured during the attack, which saw Ali die after being shot in the chest by a police officer.

Mr Malaspina was given a state funeral, which was held at St Patrick's Cathedral on November 20.

Hundreds gathered to celebrate his life, sending an outpouring of love to his family.

'When I was leaving the church and I saw everyone there clapping for Sisto, it gave me strength,' Mrs Malaspina told 9News.

Hundreds gathered at St Patrick's Cathedral for the state funeral of Sisto Malaspina, 74, who was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali

'I feel love from so many people, not just my friends who are close to me, but basically the general public.'

There has been talk that Crossley St, near Mr Malaspina's cafe, should be renamed in his honour.

However, Lord Mayor Sally Capp has indicated it was unlikely to happen due in large part to the extensive process and cost associated with it.

She said they were considering other ways to memorialise Mr Malaspina's contribution to the city.

Tickets for the party will cost $75, with $5 from each ticket going to the Salvation Army.

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali. His funeral was held at St Patrick's Cathedral last year
The family members rushed Dixits body to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him dead on arrival.

Mumbai: The Oshiwara police registered a case of accidental death after a 28-year-old aspiring television actor, identified as Rahul Dixit, was found hanging from ceiling fan on Wednesday. The police said that the deceased took the extreme step due to unknown reasons however, he was emotionally distressed.

The incident came to light after his family members found his body in his bedroom Wednesday morning. Dixit resided with his family at Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri. The police said that he allegedly ended his life in the early hours of Wednesday using a bed sheet.

The family members rushed Dixits body to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him dead on arrival. The hospital informed the police which searched the house but did not find any suicide note there.

An officer from Oshiwara police station said, Dixits father wrote a message on the page of his social networking website. The message was tagged to his son stating Iss duniya ko kyun chhod kar chala gaya Rahul(Why did you leave this world Rahul). He cannot commit suicide. It is only because of Rupa/Priya, said an officer of the Oshiwara police station.

The police will record the statements of family members to get clarity on the reasons for emotional distress faced by Dixit. The police has registered an accidental death report and is further probing the incident.
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Theresa May played hardball with the EU today as she put off travelling to Brussels until next week after Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the Brexit deal was the 'best possible' and could not be renegotiated.

Cabinet ministers dismissed the EU's scramble to reject Mrs May's demands on Brexit today as 'just what the EU does'.

European Commission president Mr Juncker and negotiator Michel Barnier led the 'noise' from Europe and warned last night's showdown votes in the Commons 'do not change' the divorce terms.

British ministers stayed cool in the face of the rush to condemn last night's showdown votes in Parliament that handed Mrs May a mandate to renegotiate the backstop plan for the Irish border.

They told MailOnline the EU 'never makes any kind of deal until the last moment' and today's 'blank denials' were just 'noise'.

In response, the Prime Minister is expected to hold off face-to-face talks for days as she undertakes a frantic round of phone diplomacy.

Senior government sources told MailOnline Mrs May still has meetings booked in Whitehall tomorrow, and is due to be in her constituency on Friday.

The waiting tactic emerged as ministers ramped up tensions with the EU in the wake of her Commons victory - warning that the 39billion divorce bill could be axed if it does not compromise.

Speaking in Brussels today, Mr Juncker described the Agreement reached after 18 months of negotiation last November as 'the best and only deal possible'.

And he told MEPs in the European Parliament: 'The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

'The Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated.'

Cabinet ministers dismissed the EU's scramble to reject Theresa May's demands on Brexit today as 'just what the EU does'. Pictured are EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels today

In response to the wall of noise from Brussels, the Prime Minister (pictured today at PMQs) is expected to hold off face-to-face talks for days as she undertakes a frantic round of phone diplomacy.

Senior government sources told MailOnline Mrs May still has meetings booked in Whitehall tomorrow, and is due to be in her constituency on Friday

Instead of flying to Brussels, Mrs May held talks with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today at PMQs) about the way forward on negotiating a Brexit deal

The Prime Minister will tell Brussels next week the only way to get a deal past MPs is a radical overhaul of the Irish border backstop plan

The waiting tactic emerged as ministers ramped up tensions with the EU in the wake of her Commons victory - warning that the 39billion divorce bill could be axed if it does not compromise

French President Emmanuel Macron said the Withdrawal Agreement was 'not renegotiable', while a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that reopening the deal was 'not on the agenda'.

Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said: 'Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Ireland's side. We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.'

Irish deputy PM Simon Coveney said Mrs May was effectively threatening to 'jump out of a window' unless Brussels bowed to her demands, while French president Emmanuel Macron said the current package was 'non-renegotiable'.

Meanwhile, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: 'The position of the European Union is very clear.

'The EU institutions remain united, and we stand by the agreement that we have negotiated with the UK never against the UK'.

One Cabinet minister told MailOnline that everyone needed to remain 'calm' as 'noise' from Brussels was only to be expected.

'This is just what the EU does. It never makes any kind of deal until the last moment,' they said.

'We are inevitably going to get all sorts of dire warnings and blank denials.

'It is just a lot of noise. People just need to stay calm and let the PM work.'

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the prospect of a no-deal Brexit had increased because of the attitude of Brussels 'fanatics' who refused to compromise.

He said Mrs May now realised the mistake made in agreeing to the backstop, adding: 'She signed up to something that no country - unless it had been defeated in war - would have signed up to.'

There was now an 'appreciation in Britain that unelected bureaucrats in Brussels have been talking down to and humiliating the Prime Minister of our nation, and we don't like it'.

He added: 'Many will say we are simply dealing with fanatics who are not prepared to be reasonable and make any sense of compromise.'

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage (pictured with Mr Juncker in Brussels today) said the prospect of a no-deal Brexit had increased because of the attitude of Brussels 'fanatics' who refused to compromise

The European Parliament (pictured today with Nigel Farage and Jean-Claude Juncker taking part) discussed the latest Brexit developments

Meanwhile, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: 'The position of the European Union is very clear'

Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Brussels would not get a 'penny pinch' from the UK unless there was 'some give' on the hated Irish border backstop.

The PM is bracing for 'trench warfare' with the EU after leaders flatly dismissed calls to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement.

She is due to speak by telephone to EU council president Donald Tusk and Irish PM Leo Varadkar later.

Mrs May hailed her new 'mandate' from MPs last night after dramatically seeing off a Remainer bid to delay the Brexit date and getting her own plan passed in a series of high-stakes votes.

The House endorsed an amendment supported by the PM to replace the backstop with 'alternative arrangements' to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

Mrs May was only able to win through by bringing Brexiteers including Boris Johnson and the DUP back onside with promises that there will be fundamental changes.

But the new push was immediately rebuffed by the EU, with Mr Tusk insisting there will be no changes to the core text.

It is still not clear exactly what concessions the PM will be seeking - with competing calls for the backstop to be ditched altogether, loosened, expire after certain period, or the UK to have unilateral exit clause.

After PMQs she held talks on Brexit with Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon. He had snubbed an invite to join cross-party discussions, but caved in last night after suffering a series of humiliating defeats in the Commons.

Aides told MailOnline the EU had already 'fired the starting gun' on the 'trench warfare' over rehashing the deal.

A diagram showing how Graham Brady's amendment - calling on Theresa May to renegotiate the Irish backstop - won the support of the House of Commons

Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng insisted Brussels would not get a 'penny pinch' from the UK unless there was 'some give' on the hated Irish border backstop

Mr Kwarteng increased the temperature by suggesting the divorce bill was back on the table.

'The final deal will have to have some give on the backstop from the EU,' he told the BBC.

What happens next after MPs backed Plan B? Later this week: Theresa May is expected to return to Brussels to ask for changes to the Irish backstop, after MPs backed an amendment calling for 'alternative arrangements'. Her office has not yet confirmed when she will travel to meet EU leaders, who have already said they will not renegotiate the deal. February 13: If no new deal has been reached, Mrs May will address MPs again on this date and her Government will put a further motion before the House of Commons. MPs would then be able to vote on further amendments, potentially on February 14. March 2: Brexit day. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act of 2018 fixed 11pm on March 29 as the time and date when Britain will leave the EU. If no agreement has been reached by then, the UK - in spite of the Commons vote against a cliff-edge Brexit last night - will leave without a deal. Advertisement

'We have to look at new arrangements, technology to try and sort out those differences.'

'They want a deal, we want a deal, both sides are going to have to compromise...

'If there is a no deal they won't get a penny pinch from us.'

Downing Street said this afternoon Mrs May had always been clear Britain would meet its international obligations.

Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay flanneled this morning when asked what the PM would be seeking from the EU.

He said she would be 'exploring in terms of the use of technology... looking at things like the time limit' to deal with the backstop.

He added: 'There are a number of options, there are issues in terms of having time limits, issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology and this will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union in the coming days.'

The DUP's Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said it was 'perfectly possible' that Mrs May would be able to negotiate a revised deal without a backstop. Mr Wilson told Sky News: 'What she sold to us last night was that she is going to go back to the EU and ask for the Withdrawal Agreement to be reopened, she is going to have the backstop removed and she will come back with a legal guarantee that Northern Ireland won't be separate from the rest of the UK.

'I believe it is perfectly possible for her to deliver.'

But Mr Coveney warned that the UK was 'running out of road'.

'There are currently no alternative arrangements, which anybody has put forward, which achieve what both sides are determined to achieve - to avoid a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks or controls, and protect the all-island economy, North-South co-operation and the Good Friday Agreement,' he told a conference in Dublin.

'Believe me, this has been explored endlessly in the negotiations over the last two years.

'We have seen no alternative arrangements that meet this essential threshold. We need a backstop or insurance mechanism based on legal certainty, and not just wishful thinking.'

Labour civil war escalates amid fury at MPs who helped May pass her Plan B Labour plunged deeper into civil war on Brexit today in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn's Commons humiliation - as it emerged some frontbenchers dodged key votes. More than a dozen rebel MPs who helped Theresa May pass her plan and see off an attempt to delay the UK's departure date were branded a 'disgrace'. Furious Remain-backing colleagues accused them of 'riding to the rescue' of the PM by propping up her Brexit policy. There were even calls from some Corbyn allies for veteran left-wingers including Dennis Skinner to be deselected. Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn is under pressure to take action against a handful of shadow ministers who appear to have defied him by skipping the vote on the Cooper plan to delay Article 50. They included Melanie Onn, Mike Kane, and Gloria de Piero. MailOnline understands none of them had permission to be absent. Tory sources confirmed that they were not 'paired' with other MPs - the mechanism for balancing out votes when people cannot attend the Commons. Advertisement

The Commons voted by 317 to 301 in favour of the backstop changes - which Mrs May said showed there was a means of securing a 'substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal' and vowed to seek a new agreement with Brussels.

But in a statement, Mr Tusk's spokesman said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

'The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.'

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the controversial backstop arrangement remained 'necessary' despite the vote, while the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said there was 'no majority to re-open or dilute' the Withdrawal Agreement.

And French President Emmanuel Macron also said the agreement was 'not renegotiable', in comments just moments before MPs voted.

While Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the Conservatives had shown they 'can and will come together in the national interest', signs of division in the party remained as Tory former minister Anna Soubry said she finds her 'party drifting to the right'.

The Commons approved a cross-party amendment, tabled by Midlands MPs Caroline Spelman and Jack Dromey, rejecting a no-deal Brexit by 318 to 310.

The vote is not legally binding on the Government but will impose massive political pressure on the Prime Minister to delay Brexit from its scheduled date of March 29 if she cannot secure a new deal from Brussels.

Mrs May told MPs: 'I agree that we should not leave without a deal. However, simply opposing no-deal is not enough to stop it.

'The Government will now redouble its efforts to get a deal that this House can support.'

There was uproar in the chamber as she said: 'There is limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. But in contrast to a fortnight ago, this House has made it clear what it needs to approve a withdrawal agreement.'

Mrs May said she would seek 'legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border'

Mrs May (pictured leaving Downing Street today) is forging ahead with her efforts to get concessions from the EU

This chart shows how MPs voted on the Cooper amendment to delay Article 50, with 14 Labour rebels defying their party's whip to reject the plan

Mrs May clashed with Jeremy Corbyn (pictured top centre) in the Commons yesterday as he called for Article 50 to be extended by three months

And she told MPs: 'If this House can come together, we can deliver the decision the British people took in June 2016, restore faith in our democracy and get on with building a country that works for everyone.

'As Prime Minister I will work with members across the House to do just that.'

Tuesday's votes were triggered by the overwhelming defeat of Mrs May's Brexit Plan A by 230 votes earlier this month.

Mr Corbyn, who boycotted cross-party talks after that vote, said that he was now ready to meet the Prime Minister to discuss a 'sensible Brexit solution that works for the whole country'.

Mr Corbyn said: 'Tonight Parliament has voted to remove the immediate threat of crashing out without a deal on 29 March. After months of refusing to take the chaos of no-deal off the table, the Prime Minister must now face the reality that no-deal is not an option.'

Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford said the Conservatives had 'effectively ripped apart the Good Friday Agreement'.

But the Democratic Unionist Party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, whose party backed the amendment tabled by Tory grandee Sir Graham Brady, said it was 'utterly reckless to talk in those terms'.

Mr Dodds said: 'This is a significant night because for the first time the House by majority has expressed what sort of deal will get through and will have a majority, and we will work with the Prime Minister to deliver the right deal for the United Kingdom.'

MPs also rejected two proposals to delay Brexit by extending the two-year Article 50 negotiation process if Mrs May was unable to secure an acceptable agreement by February 26.

And they voted down a plan by former attorney general Dominic Grieve for a sequence of 'indicative votes' to establish MPs' preferred Brexit outcome.

The pound dipped sharply after the failure of the attempts to delay Brexit, losing around 0.7 per cent against both the US dollar and euro, though there were indications later that it may be rising.
Dr Natalia Bogatcheva leaving her tribunal hearing in Manchester

A Harley Street doctor faces being struck off for dating a patient from her private practice and falling pregnant with his child.

Dr Natalia Bogatcheva allegedly met the property developer at work-organised soirees and the pair later had a son, moved in together and got engaged.

The 40-year-old doctor was caught accessing her boyfriend's medical records after she became suspicious of his ex-girlfriend moving into one of his apartments.

Dr Cristiana Romete, managing director at the Roc Clinic in London, discovered the 5am checks and raised concerns about 'analysis of electoral records.'

Bogatcheva, who went to the 54,000-a-year Bellerbys Independent School in London, referred herself to the General Medical Council on the advice of NHS England.

She is accused of having an 'improper emotional relationship' with her fiance, referred to only as Patient A.

The doctor, who is due to marry the man later this year, has denied the allegations at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester.

Bogatcheva admits getting into a relationship with Patient A, but denied it happened during the time he was her patient. She could be struck off if found guilty.

Dr Natalia Bogatcheva allegedly met the property developer, who was a patient at the Roc Clinic in London (pictured), and the pair later had a son, moved in together and got engaged

Dr Bogatcheva, who qualified at the Royal Free Hospital School Of Medicine in London, worked as a general clinician at The Roc Clinic.

The trial heard how the couple met in 2016 after the man became a patient of Dr Romete six years earlier.

He and Dr Bogatcheva had various medical consultations between February 25 and May 19, 2016 after Dr Romete temporarily left the practice.

Patient A told the hearing Dr Romete was his parents' doctor, and described her as a 'friend' who invited him to soirees.

He said he was 'a martial arts expert, avid skier and horse rider' and went to the doctors 'to make sure nothing was wrong.'

He added: 'On 19th May I had a missed call from the practice who mistakenly believed I called them to arrange an appointment. I called Natalia back as I had her number.

'We confirmed that nothing was amiss. I went away to France to visit my daughter then I came back at the end of June and I sent her a text message and asked if she would like to go out.

'I accept that a doctor and patient cannot see each other but in my opinion, I had not seen her as a patient for some considerable time, I was not at that practice anymore so I didn't see any harm in changing the tone of conversation.

'She never gave me encouragement to ask her out. We went out for coffee round the corner from her practice. Dr Romete then asked if I would like to attend a concert.

'We then had dinner and I called Natalie the following day with the purpose of courting. This then led to our son being born, buying our house and getting married. I believe Dr Romete knew about me meeting Natalia for coffee.'

Patient A said he and Dr Bogatcheva went on holiday to Sicily together in September 2016.

'Dr Romete called whilst we were there and wanted advice about leasing a property. We had an argument over a friend of mine who was staying at one of my properties.

'Natalia had my best interests at heart. My friend needed a place to stay so I offered her one of my properties, she probably did overstay and was taking advantage of it.

'Natalia called me out on it, and she was quite right. I'm aware she accessed my medical records. I called up the next morning and asked Dr Romete if she could get me an appointment with Natalia as she wasn't answering my calls or texts.

'I don't think it was inappropriate for her to be looking at my medical records, it's an attachment thing, or a reminder. There was no issue. When Natalia became pregnant with my son, it was the most fantastic thing that could have happened to me.

'Since then my relationship with Natalie has flourished, my life has flourished and my work life has been getting better and better. I didn't feel trapped by it, I was accepting of it.

'We are going to get married this year and I plan to remain together until I die.'

Dr Bogatcheva admits getting into a relationship with Patient A, but denied it happened during the time he was her patient

Lawyer for the General Medical Council Emma Gilsenan told the hearing Dr Bogatcheva started an inappropriate relationship with Patient A six weeks after her last consultation with him in May 2016.

She added: 'Less than three months after her last consultation with patient A, she accessed Patient A's medical records inappropriately on three separate occasions.

'At the time the doctor was engaged in a sexual relationship which allegedly began in August 2016.

'On one of the days where the records were accessed, this occurred at 5.25am. The evidence of Dr Bogatcheva accessing Patient A's medical records was the same day as the alleged disagreement between Dr Bogatcheva and Patient A regarding his ex partner.'

Dr Bogatcheva, from Crouch End in north London, denies misconduct. The hearing continues.
A Christian woman who won her final battle against a long-running blasphemy conviction faces a race against time to flee Pakistan from powerful Islamist hardliners who want her dead.

Asia Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and was on death row for eight years until her acquittal last year.

Yesterday the Supreme Court threw out a petition seeking a final appeal in the case against her acquittal.

But she faces a perilous 48 hours as a secret operation gets under way to spirit her out of Pakistan as furious extremists immediately called for nationwide rallies which threaten to spiral into civil unrest.

A source close to Mrs Bibi told the Mail: 'The fact is, she is not safe until she gets out of Pakistan.

'There is huge corruption there, within the government, within the military, and there are powerful people who want her dead. She does not know who to trust.

'The next 48 hours are going to be critical. If the Islamists whip up a storm and block the roads to the airport, it is going to be hard for her to leave.

Activists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan protest against the Supreme Court decision to reject an appeal against the acquittal of Asia Bibi in a blasphemy row

The daughters of Mrs Bibi pose with an image of their mother while standing outside their home in Pakistan in 2010

'We are really worried. Yes, she is grateful to all the people who have helped her, and to the court's decision, and yes of course she is looking forward to hugging her children and being free.

'But right now, she isn't, and it would not be correct to say she is feeling intense happiness. She is just very anxious and hoping and praying it all works out.'

Hafiz Ehtisham Ahmed, an Islamist activist linked to the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad, said Mrs Bibi may not be safe wherever she goes.

'She deserves to be murdered according to Sharia', he said.

'If she goes abroad, don't Muslims live there? If she goes out of Pakistananybody can kill her there.'

And Mohammad Shafiq Amini, the acting chief of the hardline Tehreek-i-Labaik party, sent a video message to followers branding the court's verdict 'cruel and unjust' and calling for mass protests.

Small demonstrations were held in some cities yesterday evening, but the leaders of the Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party - the Islamist group which has led the protests - were detained weeks ago in a government crackdown.

Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa (left) the lawyer for a cleric who lodged blasphemy complaint against Asia Bibi, speaks to journalists during an appeal against her acquittal, in Islamabad

Pakistani security officials stand guard outside the Supreme Court as the court hears an appeal against the acquittal for Mrs Bibi yesterday

'We cannot compromise on the honour of the Prophet,' the group said in a statement released late Tuesday, calling on its supporters to demonstrate.

'Muslims, today is the time, and if you don't wake up today... then wait for your death and your tears, because then you and your generations will be weeping.'

The 53-year-old Christian woman has been in protective custody under military guard since and the government refused to reveal her whereabouts for fear of her being targeted by vigilante death squads.

Christian mother Asia Bibi spent eight years on death row after being accused of blasphemy

After winning her final appeal she can now begin a new life in Canada with her daughters who have already been given sanctuary in the country.

To quell violent demonstrations in Pakistan, Imran Khan, the prime minister and former cricketer and London playboy, had promised hardline mullahs that Mrs Bibi would not be allowed to leave the country until there was a review of the case by the Supreme Court.

Mrs Bibi's ordeal began on a hot day in 2009 when she brought water to fellow farmhands who refused to drink from the same container as a Christian woman.

Two of her fellow farm workers argued with Bibi and later accused her of insulting Islam's prophet.

The judges who ruled in her favour have bravely risked their lives to uphold Mrs Bibi's aquittal.

Mrs Bibi's case has already seen senior officials murdered for supporting her. In 2011, the Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was gunned down by his own bodyguard.

Two months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, paid for his outspoken support for Mrs Bibi by dying in a hail of bullets as he drove through Islamabad.

Dismissing the petition by extremist leaders to overturn the Bibi verdict and send her back to prison for execution, Pakistan's Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who led the panel of judges, said: 'The image of Islam we are showing to the world gives me much grief and sorrow.'

Activists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan protest against the Supreme Court decision yesterday. The group said

Islamist protesters (pictured protesting her in November 2018) have called for the 53-year-old to be lynched. One said: 'She deserves to be murdered, according to Shariah'

Amnesty International said Mrs Bibi should be free 'to reunite with her family and seek safety in a country of her choice'.

Zoe Smith of Open Doors, which campaigns against Christian persecution around the world, said: 'We are overjoyed that justice has prevailed and are praying that this heralds a new era of equal rights for Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan.'

Mrs Bibi has not seen her two children for 10 years during her blasphemy case

She added: 'Asia and her family's safety remains of paramount importance. Many Christians will still be praying for their safety.'

Although no protesters had yet gathered, a heavy contingent of police could be seen today at a junction connecting Islamabad with neighbouring Rawalpindi, where an anti-blasphemy sit-in in 2017 paralysed the capital for weeks.

Calls for demonstrations came hours after the Supreme Court upheld its earlier decision to acquit Bibi in a case which drew worldwide attention to religious extremism in Pakistan.

Mrs Bibi, a labourer from central Punjab province, will be reunited with her two daughters, Eisham and Esha, who earlier fled to Canada where they were granted asylum.

'Is this the face of Islam that we want to show to the world?' Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa asked a packed courtroom in Islamabad as he delivered the decision, expressing frustration at the furious reaction by an extremist minority.

Blasphemy remains a massively inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings.

Pakistani police officers arrest a man at a protest against the acquittal of Mrs Bibi yesterday

Protesters call for Mrs Bibi to be hung during protests in October last year. Yesterday's decision likely means she will be able to seek asylum in Europe or North America

Many cases see Muslims accusing Muslims, and rights activists say blasphemy charges are frequently used to settle personal scores.

Minorities - particularly Christians - are often caught in the crossfire, while mere calls to reform the colonial-era laws against blasphemy have also provoked violence.

A friend quoted Mrs Bibi last night as saying: 'I am really gratefully to everybody, now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters.'

A source close to Mrs Bibi said: 'She is not safe until she gets out. There are powerful people who want her dead'.

The ruling has infuriated Islamist protesters who say the 53-year-old 'should be murdered' for her crimes.

They have warned the mother she won't be able to escape, as there are 'Muslims everywhere who want to kill her'.

Her former lawyer, Saiful Mulook, said yesterday: 'I think at this time she is here (in Pakistan) - but by tonight, I don't know.'

He told reporters outside the court that he thought she should flee in the face of danger from the extremists.

'She deserves to be murdered according to Shariah,' Hafiz Ehtisham Ahmed, an Islamist activist linked to the extremist Red Mosque in Islamabad.

'If she goes abroad, don't Muslims live there? If she goes out of Pakistan... anybody can kill her there.'

Mr Mulook, who returned to Islamabad after fleeing the country amid death threats, called the decision a victory for Pakistan's constitution and rule of law.

The three-judge Supreme Court panel had 'insisted on very strict proofs of blasphemy' and found none, Mr Malook said.

A supporter of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a hardline religious party, stands over an image of Mrs Bibi as they protest her acquittal last November

Pakistan's Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa who led the panel of judges dismissed the petition filed by radical religious leaders.

The extremists had petitioned the court to overturn its acquittal and send her back to prison for execution.

He said in court that Mrs Bibi's accusers were guilty of perjury and if the case had not been so sensitive, they should have been jailed for life.

'The image of Islam we are showing to the world gives me much grief and sorrow,' Mr Khosa said.

The Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party, which led violent protests demanding Bibi's execution after her acquittal, called for its members to be ready for action in a message sent to journalists.

But most of its leaders remain in detention after a government crackdown, and few protesters could be seen at the court in Islamabad, where security appeared as normal.

That did not prevent those who did show up for the hearing from calling for violence against mother-of-two Bibi, however.

Mrs Bibi was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed when she rejected calls from Muslim women to convert to Islam

'It's neither in accordance with Supreme Court's former verdicts nor in accordance with law, it will be dismissed Allah willing,' Mulook said.

Bibi, a Roman Catholic from Punjab province, was sentenced to death in 2010 in what swiftly became Pakistan's most infamous blasphemy case.

Blasphemy remains a massively inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings.

Many cases see Muslims accusing Muslims, and rights activists say blasphemy charges are frequently used to settle personal scores.

Minorities - particularly Christians - are often caught in the crossfire.

The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women accused her of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under Pakistan law.

The mother-of-two was harvesting fruit with a group of Muslim women when a row broke out over a bucket of water.

The mother-of-two (pictured) was harvesting fruit with a group of Muslim women when a row broke out over a bucket of water. The women said that because she had used a cup they could no longer touch it, because her faith had made it unclean and a row over religion ensued

The women said that because she had used a cup they could no longer touch it, because her faith had made it unclean.

Prosecutors alleged that in the ensuing row the women said Mrs Bibi should convert to Islam.

It was claimed she made offensive comments about the Prophet in response.

At her home she was given a beating, during which her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy. Police arrested her and she was sentenced to death.

Bibi has denied the charges, and her prosecution rallied international rights groups, politicians and religious figures.

Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor Pope Francis.
Hillary Clinton's former campaign chief insists she will not challenge Donald Trump for the Presidency in 2020.

John Podesta says he 'takes her at her word' after the former Secretary of State told him she had no plans for a third run at the White House.

A number of Democrats have already stepped into the limelight in recent months hoping to solidify their chances of a successful challenge to Trump.

Then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her then campaign chairman, John Podesta, arriving in the Capitol to meet with Senate Democrats in July 2016

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then candidate Donald Trump during their second presidential debate in St Louis, Missouri in October 2016

Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and John Podesta before addressing a conference in 2011

Podesta told CNN: 'She's not running for president. We've got a lot of great candidates out there right now, and I think the Democratic primary is going to be a spirited one with a lot of great ideas coming forward.'

He added that he wished she were the president, 'but that's in the past,' and said there were some excellent candidates lining up for the DNC.

If Clinton were to run again she would have to go up against stiff opposition from a number of women hoping to become America's first female president.

Those in the lineup include Democrat Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Kamala Harris of California; and Republican Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

However, CNN did report that despite Podesta's comments there were murmurs that Clinton was having thoughts of running in the wake of the Roger Stone arrest and other indictments in the Mueller investigation.

Hat in the Ring: Senator Kamala Harris speaks during the the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing

Challenger: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, meets with residents at the Pierce Street Coffee Works cafe, in Sioux City, Iowa

Podesta was Clinton's campaign manager through her historic bid for the presidency in 2016 when she became the first female nominee of the two major parties.

She fought a ferocious campaign against Trump whose sloganeering of 'lock her up' and referring to her as 'Crooked Hillary' hung heavily after devastating email leaks painted her as a corrupt Washington elitist.

Despite winning the popular vote by more than three million, she was unable to defeat him in the Electoral College.

Whoever does face Trump in the campaign for the 2020 election will be wary of Clinton's shock loss to him in 2016 and the ruthless style which typified his campaign.

Podesta told the broadcaster that Clinton was on a visit to Puerto Rico to meet with those who President Trump had 'abandoned.'

Last week Senator Warren went to the US territory as part of her efforts to win the hearts of American voters, a visit to Puerto Rico is now seen as an obligatory step on the campaign trail for hopefuls.

The Clintons are currently visiting Puerto Rico as part of their charity work to visit a people who John Podesta says President Donald Trump has 'abandoned'

Democrat Hopeful: Senator Elizabeth Warren told crowds on a recent visit to Puerto Rico that Trump was cruel and his wall was 'dumb'

On the weekend the former Secretary of State landed in Puerto Rico with President Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, to carry out charity work for the President's charity.

On Monday, the Clintons met with Gov. Ricardo Rossello and toured parts of the island still struggling in the hurricane's aftermath.

They also met with farmers, fishermen and small business owners in the southeastern part of the island, which is struggling to emerge from a 12-yearlong recession as its government tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load.
German police have arrested three Iraqi citizens on Wednesday on suspicion that they were planning an Islamist-motivated attack.

Federal prosecutors said Iraqis Shahin F. and Hersh F., both 23, and Rauf S., 36, were taken into custody in an early morning raid by a police SWAT team in the area of Dithmarschen, near the border with Denmark.

One of the suspects had allegedly spoken of wanting to target the largest possible group of 'non-believers, but not children', Spiegel Online said.

The three men were refugees who arrived in Germany in the autumn of 2015, according to the German publication.

German police (pictured during a raid in the village Meldorf) have arrested three Iraqi citizens on Wednesday on suspicion that they were planning an Islamist-motivated attack

A police officer stands in an entrance of an apartment building during a raid in the village Elpersbuttel, Germany

This was the year that the country opened its borders to over 1million refugees, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisting: We can do it.

At the time, Merkel said she had decided to admit migrants fleeing turmoil in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan because the situation was 'extraordinary'.

The two younger men are suspected of preparing a bomb attack and violating weapons laws, and Rauf S. is alleged to have aided them.

It is believed that they wanted to use fireworks to build an explosive and had ordered a detonator from Britain. Its delivery, however, was stopped by British law enforcement agencies.

Federal prosecutors said Iraqis Shahin F. and Hersh F., both 23, and Rauf S., 36, were taken into custody in an early morning raid by a police SWAT team in the area of Dithmarschen (pictured), near the border with Denmark

One of the suspects had allegedly spoken of wanting to target the largest possible group of 'non-believers, but not children', Spiegel Online said. Pictured: Police officer in front of at building during a raid in the village Meldorf, Germany

The three men were refugees who arrived in Germany in the autumn of 2015, according to the German publication

The trio would have reportedly considered using a weapon, however the Makarov 9mm pistol on offer from a man identified as Walid Khaled Y.Y. proved too expensive for them.

Instead, one of the three men was undertaking driving lessons in preparation to use a car for their attack.

According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, the men first practised black powder from New Years Eve rockets.

The group are thought to have received help from an unknown person via encrypted telegrams, while local media reports also suggest the trio downloaded a bomb construction guide from the internet.

'According to the findings to date, the suspects had not yet selected a specific target for their attack,' the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Prosecutors allege Shahin F. and Hersch F. decided in late 2018 to carry out an attack motivated by Islamic extremism in Germany.

There are indications that they sympathized with Islamic State, but a direct link to the extremist group or others is currently under investigation.

In the only mass-casualty Islamic extremist attack in Germany, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck in 2016 and drove it into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin (pictured), killing 12 people and wounding dozens

The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the 2016 attack (pictured)

The arrests are said to have been preceded by months of investigations involving the Federal Criminal Police Office.

In addition, searches were carried out of residences in two other states of people linked to the three but not currently suspected of any crime.

The surnames of the men werent provided in line with German privacy rules.

The involvement of several asylum-seekers in extremist attacks or plots has helped boost support for the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party.

In the only mass-casualty Islamic extremist attack in Germany, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck in 2016 and drove it into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and wounding dozens. The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility.
DJ Paul van Dyk has been awarded 9.6million ($12.6million) in damages three years after he fell through a hole on stage during a music festival in the Netherlands and ended up in a coma.

The 47-year-old German dance music icon broke his back and suffered brain injuries when he fell 33ft through a concealed gap during his set at the A State Of Trance festival in Utrecht in February 2016.

Van Dyk, whose real name is Matthias Paul, initially fell into a coma, and needed three months of recovery in a Dutch hospital.

Bass drop: DJ Paul van Dyk is seen moments before his fall, having stepped out from behind the decks and onto the front of the stage at A State Of Trance in Utrecht in February 2016

Fall: Video shows the DJ as he falls through a concealed gap and plunges 33ft to the ground

Video footage of the the EDM icon's set at A State Of Trance shows him walking out from behind the decks and across the stage - and suddenly disappearing.

The DJ fell nearly 33ft, through a gap in the stage which had been concealed with fabric.

He suffered substantial brain and spinal injuries, and temporarily required a wheelchair before learning to walk again.

The accident saw him unable to return to touring until June that year and caused a 'significant delay' to his next album, which was subsequently released in 2017.

Van Dyk sued A State Of Trance organizers ALDA Events B.V., and won $12,588,643.45 (9,617,031.22) in damages this week, The Blast reports.

The 47-year-old German DJ, whose real name is Matthias Paul, initially fell into a coma, suffering serious spinal and brain damage, and needed three months of recovery in hospital

Van Dyk, pictured in 2017, was unable to resume touring until later in 2016, and sued A State Of Trance organizers ALDA Events B.V., and won $12.6m (9.6million) in damages this week

The court found that the events company had not designed the stage to be safe to stand on, but had not communicated this to Van Dyk 'despite knowing he had a rowdy set'.

The $12.6m (9.6m) includes $2m (1.53m) for future medical expenses and $1.2m (920,000) for lost profits in the years immediately after the incident.

He was also awarded $2.475m (1.89m) for losses in the next decade and an additional $5.5m (4.2m) for 'other damages'.

Van Dyk is one of the most famous and successful DJs in the world, and is one of the few to be named World's Number One DJ twice - in 2005 and 2006.

The veteran electronic music artist and producer is best known for such songs as 'Another Way,' ''Talking in Grey' and 'Face to Face.'
Scoot Air passengers were forced to stay on a grounded plane for five hours with no air conditioning and rationed food before their flight was eventually cancelled.

Ivy Teng was travelling on the flight from Melbourne to Singapore last Sunday and claims the delays and poor conditions made her sick.

Ms Teng said two hours of being on the runway, passengers were told they would need to be transferred to a new flight.

Ivy Teng (pictured) was travelling on the flight from Melbourne to Singapore last Sunday, and claims the delays and poor conditions made her sick

Scoot Air passengers were forced to stay on a grounded plane for five hours with no air conditioning and rationed food before their flight was eventually cancelled

But she says only the business class, elderly and families with children were initially told to leave the plane, leaving many others stuck in their seats.

After four hours, the pilot ordered the distribution of water bottles and snacks, but there weren't enough to go around and Ms Teng claims she missed out.

Ms Teng described the situation as extremely stressful and said the plane became 'chaotic' after the air-conditioning was turned off.

She said people were shouting at the crew and demanding better conditions.

'Some demanded to get off the plane, some changed seats and sat in the business class section (as that area was empty) and protested to confront the pilots,' she told Yahoo7.

Five hours into the experience, Ms Teng was finally allowed off the plane.

She had been experiencing sickness and dizziness and immediately sought the help of medical officers, but was told the facility was closed until the following day.

Ms Teng said she was one of the lucky passengers, and was transferred to a Singapore Airlines flight on the same day.

Ms Teng said she was one of the lucky passengers, and was transferred to a Singapore Airlines flight on the same day

Immediately after she touched down in Singapore she was forced to rush to the doctor.

She said she was suffering from heart palpitations, cold sweats and had started to lose her vision.

'My breathing shortened and I had numbness all over my body, I felt as if no air could get through my nose or mouth. Also with an empty stomach, it made me very uncomfortable,' she said.

Scoot released a statement explaining the number of events that impacted Ms Teng's experience, claiming they did their best to recover the situation after an initial delay.

'We will review how our communications with our customers could have been better. Scoot sincerely apologises for the inconvenience and disruption caused to our customers' travel plans.'
MSP Ross Greer who rose to Twitter notoriety after claiming Sir Winston Churchill was a white supremacist has previously tweeted to say Britain was 'happy' with Hitler

The young Scottish politician slated for calling Sir Winston Churchill a 'white supremacist mass murderer' has now compared to him to Joseph Stalin in a bid to defend his claims.

MSP Ross Greer, 24, was branded a 'ginger turd' by TV host Piers Morgan after his controversial tweet caught his attention and he was invited to debate him live on air.

Newly uncovered social media posts from when Mr Greer was 17 reveal he wanted to see 'Buckingham Palace burnt to the ground' and planned on celebrating the death of the late Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Defending his views in an article in The Scotsman today he likened Churchill to Russian dictator Stalin, saying they 'both defeated Nazism'.

The brutal Soviet leader is believed to be responsible for the deaths of as many as 20 million Russians throughout his 40-year reign.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler killed up to 17 million people during the Holocaust, including six million Jews, with millions more ethnic Poles, Slavs and Soviet citizens.

Mr Greer's stance is likely to further enrage Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, who received the support of MP Sir Nicholas Soames - one of Churchill's grandsons and an ex-Armed Forces minister.

Mr Greer wrote in the newspaper today: 'History is far more difficult than myth, especially when it's our own.

'Learning it uncovers uncomfortable truths and makes the simple narratives we've told ourselves much more complex.

'My tweet about Churchill has certainly made some uncomfortable and others apoplectically angry.

'It was a simple point - he was a white supremacist and mass murderer.

In newly uncovered tweets from when Green Party MSP Ross Greer was a 17-year-old, he also claims that 'imperial Britain was happy to live with Hitler'

He also said 'nothing would thrill him more than for Buckingham Palace to burn to the ground'

'Churchill has become a sacred cow for many people in Britain.

'We're told the story of his defeating Nazism and single-handedly delivering us from evil, a gross oversimplification.

'Stalin defeated Nazism too. We don't pretend that absolves Stalin of his terrible crimes against humanity.

'The problem with Churchill is that fewer people in the UK seem to even know about his crimes than know about Stalin's.

'Like it or not, Churchill was intensely racist, even by the standards of the time.

'He described Indians, for example, as a 'beastly people' with a 'beastly religion' and affirmed his belief that the 'Aryan race will triumph'.

'Fellow Tories, including future Prime Minister Anthony Eden, didn't trust him because of this.

'He told a Royal Commission that there was nothing wrong with what the 'higher grade' white race had done to Native Americans, Aborigines and black Africans. Textbook white supremacy.

'When the Bengal famine struck and four million died, for which he was significantly to blame, he said it was their own fault for 'breeding like rabbits'.

'Actually, it was his fault for taking their food away to stockpiles, which didn't need it, destroying their boats and denying aid for months until photos of the corpses of starved children hit British papers.

'Add to that his use of concentration camps in Kenya, poison gas against Russians, Kurds and Arabs, Black & Tans paramilitaries in Ireland, his fierce advocacy of 'terror bombing' civilians and plenty more and we should stop pretending that crimes of this scale can be excused for any man.

'Surely British identity is not so fragile that facing up to this threatens it?'.

In one Twitter post from seven years ago, he gleefully sneered that 'nothing would make [him] happier than to see Buckingham Palace burn to the ground'.

Another tweet, sent months before the death of former Tory leader Thatcher, revealed that he planned to arrange a party 'in the hope she goes soon'.

In a further tweet sent as an 18-year-old, he said: 'We're selling the Falklands when Thatcher dies' may have been chanted outside a Tory fundraiser in Glasgow yesterday to welcome them warmly.'

Greer said that his critics were uneducated about Churchill's 'shameful history

After a heated exchange on Twitter over the weekend, Piers challenged Mr Greer to a live TV debate yesterday morning.

Speaking on the show, he demanded to know why Mr Greer had written the inflammatory tweet.

Mr Greer said Churchill was a 'racist because he hated Indians with a passion and branded them a beastly people with a beastly religion'.

He also claimed the former PM 'advocated using poison gas against uncivilised tribes' in Africa, as well as using hateful rhetoric against people in Afghanistan and Kurdistan.

But when he accused the late, great Churchill of being 'responsible for the Bengali famine of 1943', Piers was unable to control his emotions.

He said: 'That is a complete and utter lie.

'In the middle of the Second World War Churchill is seen in the papers to be very concerned about the famine in Bengal, going to Canada, Australia and Franklin D. Roosevelt in America, beseeching world leaders to help the Bengalis.

'What you're saying isn't just offensive, it's a downright lie.

'I get enraged by this, because if it wasn't for Winston Churchill you would be speaking German and goose-stepping your way to Holyrood.'

Mr Greer was responding to a Conservative party tweet from January 24 marking the anniversary of Churchill's death calling him 'the greatest Briton to have ever lived'.

Greer, who at 24 is Scotland's youngest MSP ever, was accused of 'attention seeking' after saying: 'Once again for the old people at the back: Churchill was a white supremacist mass murderer'.
An Anglican minister has pleaded with lawmakers to introduce pill testing after leading a moving funeral service for a teenager who died of a suspected drug overdose.

Father Rod Bower, of Gosford Anglican Church, said he led the service for Alex Ross-King, 19, which was attended by 'her devastated family and 500 of her closest friends'.

Fr Bower said the group did something 'no one should have to do'.

'We stood beside a coffin containing the body of a 19-year-old person who had the potential for a long and fulfilling life,' he wrote in a moving post about the funeral.

The priest, who is known for the progressive signboards that sit outside his church in Gosford on NSW's north coast, used the moment to push the government to embrace pill testing as a means of saving the lives of young people.

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Pictured; Alex Ross-King, 19, died after a suspected drug overdose at the FOMO music festival on Saturday. Anglican minister Father Rod Bower (right) said 'no one' should have to farewell a loved one who is so young, and used the moment to push for pill testing

'Conservative commentators say 'Don't do drugs', 'take responsibility for your actions', 'pill testing is not the answer': and they are right,' he said.

'They will continue to be right, while young people continue to die.'

Alex Ross-King died at the FOMO festival in Parramatta Park, Sydney, on January 12.

She was the fifth young person since September to lose her life after taking drugs at a music festival.

Her grieving parents made a statement to media shortly after the young woman's death, begging the state government to consider introducing pill testing.

'We are deeply grieving the sudden loss of our beautiful girl, Alex,' the statement read.

The young woman was remembered as a 'remarkable person' who impacted the lives of everyone she knew

'We encourage government to courageously take all the active measures possible to reduce the risk, [for] in particular festival goers, through intensifying current initiatives, as well as implementing other harm reduction strategies.

'Pill testing is only one measure. There is no safe level of drug consumption - but - it is an opportunity for intervention.'

The family also announced they would be asking to sit down with Premier Gladys Berejiklian to discuss ways the government could intervene to stop more unnecessary deaths.

The 19-year-old, who lived on the Central Coast, was rushed to Westmead Hospital about 6pm on Saturday, but died later in the evening.

Friends remembered her as a 'remarkable human being, who had a positive impact on every single persons life that she walked into', while family shared their grief and broken hearts on social media.

'My heart is broken and [I'm] lost for words,' her cousin Rhys Ross-Clark wrote.

'This world is cruel and unfair. Love you my beautiful cousin.'

Ms Ross-King had attended the festival with friends, one who shared her shock over the tragic turn of events in an emotional Facebook post.

'You were always full of life and a genuine person with such a big heart and quite easily one of the funniest people I've ever met, you were the life of the party always,' Tayla Brookhouse wrote.

'You'll be very missed by way too many people. Heaven's gained another angel, rest easy and don't stop partying.'

Friend Brooke Farr said Alex was 'such a lively, happy girl', who had a big impact on her childhood.

'She taught me how to have confidence and helped me through some tough times,' she said. 'I'm forever grateful because it all helped me be a better version of who I am.

'She truly was beautiful, inside and out.

'I will always continue to ask myself why this life takes the best people so early.'

Father Rod Bower said lawmakers needed to start putting human lives above what they thought was necessarily 'right'

Kiarra Harrison said the young woman was a kind of soulmate, and said there were 'no words' to describe her sorrow.

'You understood me completely, no matter the situation no matter what I did you were always there to pick me up or tell me to stop being an idiot,' she said.

'Your kind heart will never be forgotten by anyone that it touched.

'I am so broken and confused, this world is such an unfair place.

'I love you with my whole soul Al, forever. Shine bright up there.

Father Rod Bower said those in power needed to stop looking at what was necessarily 'right', and start focusing on what would keep the nation's young people alive.

He asked: 'When will we love our kids more than we love being right?'
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has appeared in an interview with Stephen Colbert, downing shots of tequila as he boasted he'd have made a better president than Trump.

Christie appeared on Colbert's Late Show on Tuesday night, promoting his new book Let Me Finish, which details the backstabbing that led to his ejection from Trump's transition team.

After dropping out of the Republican presidential primary, Christie was the first major figure to endorse Trump's candidacy - but asked by Colbert if he'd have made a better president, the former governor replied simply: 'Yes.'

Colbert pressed Christie on his friendship with and support for Trump, saying, 'he'll throw anybody under the bus.'

'You think I don't know?' Christie replied to laughter from the audience. 'I got fired from the transition.'

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Christie (left) appeared on Colbert's Late Show on Tuesday night, promoting his new book Let Me Finish. The Republican former governor insisted on doing tequila shots with Colbert

Christie took three shots during the interview while Colbert reluctantly downed one

According to Colbert, Christie 'wanted a cocktail' for the interview, and so produced a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses.

The comedian pointed out that it was Casamigos, the 'liberal' tequila brand owned by George Clooney.

'I'll tell you something, if it gets me loaded, I don't care. Liberal, conservative, who cares,' Christie replied.

Christie took three shots through the course of the interview while Colbert reluctantly downed one.

In the interview, Christie said he had personally discussed the recent government shutdown with Trump in the White House residence, and urged him not to proceed without a strategy to end the standoff.

'The president blew it,' Christie said of the shutdown.

'I said this to him, like, listen, if you're going to do this, you better have an exit plan because sometimes in politics, things don't go the way you expect. And so if it doesn't go well in the first couple of days, you gotta have a way to get it back open,' Christie said.

'The president blew it,' Christie said of the shutdown, saying he had urged the President not to get into the standoff without a clear exit plan

He continued: 'I just said to him, 'It's okay. It's a power you have and if you want to do it but you have to have a plan so you accomplish something by it and then reopen it.' And I don't think, given that it went 35 days, we had a plan.'

Trump on Friday caved on his demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funding and reopened the government for three weeks without gaining anything from Congressional Democrats.

Despite it all, Christie was adamant that he did not regret backing Trump in the 2016 election.

Pressed on the issue, Christie pulled out the bottle of tequila and poured a shot before offering a fairly straightforward explanation.

'I made a decision at the time that he was going to win the nomination after I dropped out, and that I preferred him to Hillary Clinton,' Christie said.

'And that's why I made the decision. It wasn't a whole lot more complicated than that. And I still agree with what his policies are, more than I agree with Hillary Clinton's.'
Marathas should have titled backward long ago, says panel.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission, which was given the task of studying the social, educational and economic condition of Marathas, has accepted in its report that Kunbis and Marathas belong to the same community as claimed by various Maratha organisations. The commission also said that as with Kunbis, Marathas also should have been categorised as a backward class long ago.

The nine-member commission headed by retired Justice M.G. Gaikwad has drawn a comparison between Kunbis and Maratha, and  with the help of data  it has reached the conclusion that Marathas are behind Kunbis in many fields.

The commission stated that adoption of modern home appliances and their appropriate use is also found to be comparatively scarce among Marathas  25.19 per cent compared to 33.31 per cent Kunbis.

The report has stated that the Marathas are not incapable of affording personal tap water connections. The report also endorsed the lack of social sense of hygiene, cleanliness and protection from health hazards among the community.

Taking past events into consideration, the commission said that the then-government of Bombay had issued a government resolution (GR) in April 1942, in which the Maratha community was included in the list of backward classes. The GR had included the Maratha caste as intermediate class only for the purpose of education. However, in 1950, the Central government prepared a list of Scheduled Castes, Sche-duled Tribes and Other Backward Communities. The caste, Maratha, which was appearing in the 1942 list disappeared from the list of Other Backward Communities, read the report.

As the Kunbis and Marathas are same and the First National Commission (the Kelkar Commission) identified them as backward classes, the Maratha caste should be included in the list of Other Backward Classes, the report said.

According to the report, the commission collected material to define exceptional circumstances and extraordinary situations, after which it identified Marathas to be socially, educationally and economically backward.

According to the commission, the Maratha caste and other castes people engaged in and depending on agriculture are the victims of natural calamities. Except Mar-atha, other castes have already been included in the list of backward classes, said the commission adding, So the Maratha caste should not have been an exception thereto.
Attendant refused a request for drink discount and was then allegedly assaulted

Police are hunting a man who allegedly assaulted a service station attendant after he refused to give him a discount.

The alleged incident was on Monday in Kingston, in Brisbane's south.

The man is described as Caucasian, aged in his late 20s to early 30s, approximately 182cm with a stocky build, dark hair with a distinctive rats tail.

The man (pictured right), who remains at large, allegedly assaulted a service station attendant who refused to give him a discount on a cold drink

Just after 5.20pm on Monday, the man entered the store before grabbing a drink from the fridge.

He then asked for a discount and when his request was refused, police allege the man became aggressive before verbally abusing the attendant.

The man then kicked the door as he left the store.

About 20 minutes later, the attendant walked out of the store and was allegedly punched in the face.

The service station attendant was taken to hospital with a number of fractures to his cheek and jaw.

He required surgery and also had a number of titanium plates inserted.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

The man enters the service station in Brisbane's south, where he allegedly assaulted an attendant
An ice addict who was found with a pair young girl's underpants in his bag by his friends was chained to a dog kennel by his neck and wrists and tortured for four days.

The 23-year-old man from Adelaide's northern suburbs was staying with a friend, who appeared in court this week over the incident.

He continued to use ice while staying at the house in Adelaide's north with the friend, his partner and their two young children in September 2017.

An ice addict who was found with a pair of young girl's underpants in his bag by his friends was chained to a dog kennel by his neck and wrists and tortured for four days (stock image)

The friend's partner found the underwear in his bag along with pornography. When the man's friend was told he snapped, repeatedly punching the 23-year-old, according to Adelaide Now.

After the man was chained to the dog kennel, other people arrived at the house over the next four days and assaulted him.

One man started a chainsaw and held it to the man's leg, gashing two of his toes, the court heard.

In another incident two men broke into the house and hit the man with a sledgehammer.

Eventually the man was taken to Lyall McEwin Hospital where he was found to have a fractured eye socket, broken nose, three stab wounds, cuts and bruises.

The friend who chained him to the kennel was this week sentenced to 16 months home detention after already spending six months in prison.

Two men also accused of false imprisonment in regards to the case will go to trial later this year, while the friend's partner has pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment and three counts of aggravated causing harm with intent.
A British-Australian sailor accused of intentionally sinking his yacht and killing his wife has apologised to her family - saying he made 'poor decisions'.

Lewis Bennett, 41, was sailing around the Caribbean with his wife Isabella Hellman in May 2017 when their ship sunk and his wife disappeared.

Bennett escaped on an emergency raft laden with food, water and a suitcase full of tens of thousands of dollars worth of coins.

Once his wife had presumably fallen overboard Bennett failed to set off a distress flare and he never turned around to look for her.

In August 2017 Bennett was arrested and charged with second degree murder, which he denied. But he later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

On Wednesday, more than 12 months after his initial arrest, Bennett read a letter of apology before a packed Florida court.

British-Australian sailor Lewis Bennett (left) has apologised to Isabella Hellman's (right) family after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter

In a letter read in court on Tuesday, Bennett says he's sorry for the 'unimaginable pain' they've been through 'as a result of my actions'

Lewis Bennett, 41, was sailing around the Caribbean with his wife Isabella Hellman in May 2017 when their ship sunk (pictured) and his wife disappeared

'First and foremost, I would like to express my deep and heartfelt apologies to Isabella's family,' his letter, a transcript of which was obtained by Nine News, reads.

'I know that they have been through unimaginable pain as a result of my actions and for that I am truly sorry.'

Bennett, 41, was found guilty for his wife's death and is now awaiting sentencing

Bennett maintains he fell asleep one night with his wife still on the deck. He claims he only awoke when the boat hit something and she was gone.

But the FBI says the catamaran had open portholes below the waterline and damage to both sides of the hull was caused from the inside.

The investigation found that Bennett was guilty for his wife's death, with the man charged with second degree murder in August 2017.

That charge was later downgraded to involuntary manslaughter, which he pleaded guilty to and is now awaiting sentencing.

His former wife's family has written to the court, saying the murder charge should be re-invoked.

Ms Hellman's (pictured) family pleaded with a judge to upgrade Bennett's charge to murder

Bennett (right) told a court his only 'desire' is to raise his daughter Emelia as a free man

'That Lewis Bennett is being allowed to plead to involuntary manslaughter is outrageous to us,' the letter read.

'After all, he did nothing to look for Isabella and actually took affirmative action to sink his own boat. His only apparent efforts were to save himself and the stolen coins that he had in his possession.'

A sentencing hearing will be held in May 2019.
Police want to speak to a woman who allegedly tried to steal a child from a pram.

The horrific incident took place in Gippsland, in Melbourne's east, on Monday afternoon.

The woman is described as being approximately 165cm tall, with long blonde hair.

A hunt is underway for a woman (pictured) who allegedly tried to steal a child from a pram in Gippsland, in Melbourne's east, on Monday

She was said to be wearing denim shorts, a white T-shirt and sneakers at the time of the attack.

Crime Investigation Unit detectives from Latrobe have since released a public image of a woman.

Police said the mother was with her two children when the female stranger attempted to pull the pram from her hands about 2pm, the Herald Sun reports.

Despite her distressed state, the mother hit the woman in the face, causing the attacker to flee the scene on foot.

The brave mother and her kids were uninjured, but police are still looking to locate the offender, who remains at large.

Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A man is behind bars after stalking a woman on Instagram and threatening to send a video of her using a vibrator to her mother.

Mark Riley, 33, met the 21-year-old woman at a Melbourne bar where he worked but his attempts to start a relationship were not reciprocated.

Riley was jailed for 10 months in the County Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to stalking the young woman.

Judge Frank Gucciardo described the offence as having 'aspects of cruelty and meanness'.

A man was sentenced to ten months behind bars after pleading guilty to stalking a young woman on social media (stock image)

The judge said the woman felt uncomfortable by Riley's actions the first time they met but agreed to meet him again until he made advances, which she rebuffed.

He continued to ask her out and invite her over, but his messages were more often ignored than answered.

Riley visited the woman at her work, and later asked her to send photos of her breasts.

On February 6 2018 the woman received 12 messages from an Instagram account containing her full name, Medicare number, bank and employment details and a claim the stalker had a video of her using a vibrator.

She blocked the account but the following day received 20 messages from another with a comment that it would be awkward if her mother saw the videos and that '$3000 to $5000 seems fair'.

The woman left her home and went to stay with friends, asking contacts on other social media websites for help.

Riley was jailed for 10 months in the County Court (pictured) on Wednesday after pleading guilty to stalking the young woman

Judge Gucciardo said Riley offered to meet her, claiming to have a friend who may be able to track down the person responsible.

'You exploited this cry for help,' he said.

Instagram and IP details later linked Riley to the accounts.

He denied responsibility when interviewed by police, but later expressed some remorse to a psychologist.

'You describe your conduct as ''a stupid game which was sickening'', as ''a practical joke which was a mistake'',' Judge Gucciardo said.

Mark Riley, 33, met the 21-year-old woman at a Melbourne bar where he worked but after meeting again, his attempts to start a relationship weren't reciprocated (stock image)

He said the victim told police the 'sadistic' behaviour had impacted on her life and forced her to move, and it could be reasonably inferred she was traumatised by the 'offensive and intrusive' messages.

'(Stalking) is a sadly prevalent and pernicious offence which has aspects of cruelty and meanness, clearly lacking in any empathy for the subject, focused on the perverse pleasure gained often - as indeed in this case - out of a sense of a rejection or entitlement or to punish a rebuff of a relationship which in your own mind was on foot ... but was not reciprocated at all by the complainant,' the judge said.

Riley, a pathological gambler with a history of dishonesty-related criminal offences, who is already serving a prison term for unrelated matters, won't be eligible for parole until February 2020.
Russia made a secret offer to North Korea last year to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a nuclear power plant, it has been revealed.

The deal was proposed last autumn as a potential solution to an ongoing diplomatic impasse between the US and North Korea over Pyongyangs nuclear and missile arsenal, The Washington Post reported.

Under the deal, the Russian government would operate the plant and transfer all byproducts and waste back to Russia.

This was supposed to reduce the risk that North Korea would use the power plant to build nuclear weapons, while providing the impoverished country a new energy source.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (right) in Pyongyang on May 31, 2018, but it is not known what was discussed by the men

Talks between the United States and North Korea have made progress with the announcement of a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, planned for late February.

Victor Cha, a former White House staffer, told The Washington Post: 'The Russians are very opportunistic when it comes to North Korea, and this is not the first time theyve pursued an energy stake in Korea.'

Cha, who was last year considered as the nominee for US ambassador to South Korea, added: 'Previous administrations have not welcomed these Russian overtures, but with Trump, you never know because he doesnt adhere to traditional thinking.'

On Tuesday, a new U.S. intelligence assessment of global threats concluded that North Korea is 'unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.'

The intelligence community has long had a more pessimistic outlook than Donald Trump and his administration on the nuclear talks.

The State Department, the White House, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Russian Embassy in Washington declined to comment on Russias secret proposal.

Kim Jong-Un inspects the successful test-fire of the intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 at an undisclosed location

It is unclear whether the offer is still under negotiation or if it has affected the discussions between Washington and Pyongyang.

Russias offer to North Korea, in October, came as negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang remained in deadlock over when the North should disclose an inventory of its nuclear program.

Since Trump met Kim for a high-level meeting in Singapore in June, the State Department has been meeting with North Korean officials to negotiate details of a deal that would see Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons and abandon its ballistic missile program.

The negotiations have yielded few visible results, however, and North Korean state media recently said that Pyongyang wouldnt give up its nuclear weapons without some major concessions from the U.S.

Kim Jong-un shakes hands with Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Pyongyang in May, 2018

North Korea is determined to have international sanctions lifted in exchange for getting rid of some of its nuclear weapons.

Last year, U.S. officials accused Russia of helping North Korea violate international sanctions.

Shortly afterwards, Russia announced it would begin deporting North Korean guest workers so they would stop sending money home to support the country's nuclear weapons development.

Last week Trump defended himself against against complaints that his negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have yielded few steps toward denuclearization.

Kim Jong Un (right) is due to meet Donald Trump at a summit again in February to discuss North Korea's steps toward denuclearization

He said ahead of a potential second summit that he saw 'much potential' for progress.

'The Fake News Media loves saying so little happened at my first summit with Kim Jong-un. Wrong!,' he wrote in a pair of tweets, listing off accomplishments like sustained diplomatic relations with the isolated nation.

He also praised North Korea for pausing its nuclear and missile tests. He said: 'No more Rockets or Ms being fired over Japan or anywhere else and, most importantly, no Nuclear Testing.

'This is more than has ever been accomplished with North Korea, and the Fake News knows it. I expect another good meeting soon, much potential!.'




A woman who suffers from vision and hearing impairments was refused entry to a cafe because she had her guide dog with her.

PhD student Ellen Fraser-Barbour, from Adelaide, attempted to enter the Little NNQ cafe with her dog Inka on Sunday, when they were refused entry.

'The server said no we cant sit inside because I have a dog. I explained its a guide dog, its working [and] they still said no,' Miss Fraser-Barbour told Daily Mail Australia.

'Then they were joined by a second staff member who stuck up for their colleague and said no.'

Ellen Fraser-Barbour (pictured together) was refused entry because of her guide dog and said more education was needed to prevent further incidents

After leaving the NNQ cafe Miss Fraser-Barbour returned home and lodged a written report to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

She said she did not wish to boycott the restaurant and wasn't looking to target them unfairly.

'Im not targeting little NNQ personally, I really want people to understand this is really the tip of the iceberg,' she said.

NNQ group owner Jennifer Crawford told Daily Mail Australia that the company takes full responsibility for the incident and agrees they were in the wrong.

'It was the wrong decision and we take full responsibility, it was 100 per cent our fault,' she said.

Miss Crawford said the company's restaurants have never had a problem with allowing service dogs inside but were of the false impression that all guide dogs must be wearing vests.

Miss Fraser-Barbour said it wasn't the first time she's been refused service while with her dog Inka (pictured)

'Since this has happened we have spoken with the Royal Society of the Blind and they have educated us on that,' she said.

She said the restaurant and the company as a whole had received backlash, including unpleasant comments on social media, in the wake of the incident.

'Which I don't really feel is fair after we have taken responsibility for it and agreed we were in the wrong,' she said.

Miss Fraser-Barbour has accepted NNQ's apology but said more needed to be done to educate the wider community about the laws around service animals.

NNQ (pictured) Jennifer Crawford told Daily Mail Australia that the company takes full responsibility for the incident and agrees they were in the wrong.
A debate has erupted over whether it should be illegal for 'bin bandits' to rummage through other people's rubbish for recyclable cans and bottles that can be redeemed for money.

Radio and television personality Carla Bignasca was on the Today Extra show on Wednesday when she revealed she has fallen victim to the practice and finds it infuriating because 'it's my waste'.

'Last night was rubbish night, people go through our bins picking out cans and bottles, they go through all hours of the night. It hurts me because that's my money if I want to make it,' Ms Bignasca said.

Radio and television personality Carla Bignasca told the Today show she was strongly opposed to other people going through her bin because 'it's my waste'

Poll Do you mind if people go through your bin for bottles and cans? Yes No Do you mind if people go through your bin for bottles and cans? Yes 250 votes

No 379 votes Now share your opinion





Others on the panel seemed to feel less strongly about the issue, with hosts Sonia Kruger and David Campbell saying if people want to take their rubbish they are welcome to it.

Northern Beaches Council recently clarified that anyone going through other people's bins and taking recyclables could be charged with theft.

The warning was issued after local residents complained on social media of being woken in the night by people dragging bags of bottles and cans down the street.

The council has said that collecting bottles from bins fell under common law and was considered theft from the homeowner if the bin is on private property and theft from the council if the bin is on the kerb.

Every eligible container earns a 10-cent rebate as part of the NSW Government's return and earn scheme.

The scheme was introduced in December 2017 with NSW becoming the second state in the country to introduce the rebates after South Australia.

So far 800 reverse vending outlets have been established across the state where keen recyclers can deposit bottles and cans one by one for a refund.
The destruction of signature trees and driving off-road during the partial government shutdown have led park officials to believe that it could take 300 years for Joshua Tree National Park to fully recover.

Earlier this month the park, which is located in Southern California, temporarily shut down.

Closure of the vast desert park allowed staff to address sanitation, safety and resource protection issues that have occurred since the government shutdown on December 22.

The destruction of signature trees (pictured) and driving off-road during the partial government shutdown have led park officials to believe that it could take 300 years for Joshua Tree National Park to fully recover

Earlier this month the park, which is located in Southern California, temporarily shut down. Closure of the vast desert park allowed staff (right) to address sanitation, safety and resource protection issues. A tree was illegally cut down in the park (left)

The park's former superintendent, Curt Sauer, said : 'What's happened to our park in the last 34 days is irreparable for the next 200 to 300 years.' Pictured is graffiti sprayed on a rock in the park

'While the vast majority of those who visit Joshua Tree National Park do so in a responsible manner, there have been incidents of new roads being created by motorists and the destruction of Joshua trees in recent days that have precipitated the closure,' the National Park Service said earlier this month.

The statement did not describe the extent of damage to the crazy-limbed trees with clusters of green spikes.

The park's former superintendent, Curt Sauer, told Business Insider: 'What's happened to our park in the last 34 days is irreparable for the next 200 to 300 years.'

John Garder, a senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), also told Business Insider that some damage may be permanent.

'Some damage can be repaired, but some things can be lost forever,' Garner said. Garner said there is concern that historical sites were vandalized.

Like other national parks, Joshua Tree remained accessible despite the government shutdown and problems of human waste, trash and damage began to occur as staffing was cut and visitor centers closed.

Park supporters, members of local communities who depend on visitor traffic and even some visitors stepped in to help with some basic cleaning of restrooms and trash.

The National Park Service said that assistance has been significant.

Like other national parks, Joshua Tree remained accessible despite the government shutdown and problems of human waste, trash and damage began to occur as staffing was cut and visitor centers closed. Park employees are seen loading trash on a truck earlier this month

Park supporters, members of local communities who depend on visitor traffic and even some visitors stepped in to help with some basic cleaning of restrooms and trash (pictured)

Rubbish collected from Joshua Tree National Park is loaded onto a truck

Park officials are also concerned with the damage done to trees.

Several trees were illegally cut down in the park. The trees play a key role in Southern California's ecosystem.

They provide support to birds, bats, and insects, among other forms of wildlife.

Mojave Desert Land Trust Director of Plant Conservation Programs Madena Asbell told The Desert Sun that 'when a mature tree is cut down, an ancient organism has been killed, and it could be centuries before another takes its place'.

'The desert is a slow landscape that takes a long time to grow and a long time to recover from damage,' Asbell said.

Joshua Tree sprawls over nearly 800,000 acres of the Mojave and Colorado deserts about 140 miles east of Los Angeles.

In 2017, it set a new attendance record with visits by more than 2.8 million people, an increase of nearly 340,000 over the previous year's record.

It is most popular between October and May, when temperatures moderate from fierce and sometimes dangerous summer heat.

Visitors are advised to have a gallon of water per day per person, and double that for hikers and cyclists.

Several trees were illegally cut down in the park. The trees play a key role in Southern California's ecosystem. They provide support to birds, bats, and insects, among other forms of wildlife. A volunteer is seen picking up trash in Joshua Tree Park

Mojave Desert Land Trust Director of Plant Conservation Programs Madena Asbell told The Desert Sun that 'when a mature tree is cut down, an ancient organism has been killed, and it could be centuries before another takes its place'

A sign placed by staff is posted on a temporary barricade at a closed campground at Joshua Tree National Park
An alleged Islamic State supporter who stabbed a man in his Sydney neighbourhood said he was going to kill him as he aimed repeated blows at his head, a jury has been told.

Ihsas Khan, 25, is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to committing a terrorist act and wounding with intent to murder over the attack at Minto, in Sydney's southwest, in 2016.

Khan is not disputing he stabbed Wayne Greenhalgh but is fighting the charges on the grounds of mental illness.

Mr Greenhalgh gave evidence on Wednesday that Khan said 'I'm going to f***ing kill you ... Allah Allah' during the incident which occurred as he was walking near Khan's home.

Ihsas Khan (pictured) is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after he was charged with engaging in a terrorist act and wounding with intent to murder.

Wayne Greenhalgh (pictured) was on his way home when Khan, then 22, allegedly came out of his house and confronted him face-to-face, before he attacked him with a hunting knife.

Mr Greenhalgh was on his way home when Khan, then 22, allegedly came out of his house and chased the victim with a hunting knife, stabbing him in the doorway of a hair salon.

Crown prosecutor Caroline Davenport SC said during her opening address the alleged victim was walking near his house when Khan attacked him with a knife.

When police arrived the former alleged self-radicalised Muslim was heard to say 'Allahu Akbar' and 'I want to die today', the court heard.

Mr Greenhalgh was left with permanent damage to his hands (pictured) and other injuries

Justice Geoffrey Bellew said on Tuesday he didn't anticipate there would be any debate that Mr Greenhalgh was stabbed with a knife on the date in question.

But when the 24-year-old fronted the court on Tuesday, the jury heard he has pleaded not guilty to both charges on the grounds of mental illness.

The trial is expected to take about three weeks.
He burst into limelight after the railway strike in 1974.

Mumbai: On just his one call, he had the powers to bring the entire financial capital of the country to a grinding halt. Mumbai, a city that never stops, used to come to standstill on his directives. Such was the charisma and command George Fernandes possessed at the peak of his career as a trade union leader.

Though he was born in Mangalore, it was Mumbai, which catapulted Mr Fernandes to prominence at the national politics. From here, he burst into the limelight when as a firebrand trade unionist he organised a railway strike. The city also earned him the title of a giant killer, who defeated Congress stalwart S.K. Patil in the 1967 Lok Sabha elections.

Mr Fernandes was one of the very few politicians, who was truly considered as a Lokneta, a peoples leader. During his heydays, he had a huge impact on the social and political happenings of the country. The externment of the Union leader Placid DMello from Mumbai paved the way for Mr Fernandes to enter the labour movement. Mr DMellos decision to bring him into the Union gave birth to countrys most popular Union leader.

It was the railway strike in 1974, which saw Mr Fernandes emerge as a prominent leader on the national stage. Before that, he led a successful municipal workers strike in Mumbai. He was also instrumental in ensuring the daily functioning of the Mumbai municipal corporation be carried out in Marathi and not in English.

It is believed that the charismatic Union leaders character in the Marathi film Sinh-asan, based on journalist Arun Sadhus two po-litical novels, was insp-ired by Mr Fernandes.

Riding on the strong labour movement in the industrial sector, civic body and small businesses known as gumasta, Mr Fernandes stood up for the workers of the civic body, BEST (Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport) undertaking and gumasta workers and fought for their rights. All major Unions of the civic body, BEST and small businesses in Mumbai were set up by George Fernandes. It was the labour support, which helped him to win in the 1967 Lok Sabha polls.

In the Lok Sabha polls, Mr Fernandes caused a huge upset when he defeated S.K. Patil, who was then called as the uncrowned king of Mumbai, from the Mumbai South seat. During the campaign, he painted the walls with a simple message: Patil can be defeated.

Mr Fernandes had also shared a close relationship with Shiv Sena sup-remo late Bal Thackeray. He was among the very few to call the Sena pat-riarch Bal. The former defence minister passed away at the age of 88 in Delhi on Tuesday following a prolonged illness.
An ocean acoustics recorder that may have picked up MH370's crash into the sea missed 25 vital minutes of data which could help unravel the mystery of the doomed plane, researchers claim.

A network of underwater microphones called hydrophones, used by militaries to identify submarines and warships, operate in oceans around the world.

Two of them were positioned in the Indian Ocean when the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 jet vanished with 239 people aboard while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Researchers at Cardiff University have analysed the data that sound recorders (station HA01 and HA08) picked up on the night of the crash and suggested two new possible crash routes - one towards the west of Australia (route one) and one towards Madagascar (route two)

An acoustics recorder positioned to pick up MH370's impact with the Indian Ocean missed 25 vital minutes of data which may have unravelled the mystery of the doomed plane, researchers claim

One known as HA01 was off Cape Leeuwin on the Western Australia coast, while the second known as HA08 was at a US military base in Diego Garcia, just south of the equator in the heart of the Indian Ocean.

Researchers at Cardiff University have analysed the signals they picked up the day the plane went missing and suggested two new possible crash areas - one towards the west of Australia and one towards Madagascar.

According Usama Kadri - a lecturer in applied mathematics and engineering at Cardiff University - the recorder off Australia, which analyses waves generated by an impact, provided some reliable data.

But the information picked up by the device in the US base was distorted - and 25 minutes is missing.

'[The signals] were distorted by noise which is believed to have been caused by a military exercise in that side of the ocean,' he wrote in The Conversation this week.

'Unfortunately, on top of the noisy recorded signals, 25 minutes of data from HA08 is missing.'

But despite the noise from military action and the missing data, Kadri said enough was taken from the recordings to identify two possible routes that the plane took before it crashed.

A map of the hydrophone signals recorded on March 7 and 8 2014. It shows two new possible routes in orange and two new crash locations

One of the possible crash sites is further north in the Indian Ocean than was initially believed, while a potential alternate flight course would have taken MH370 closer towards Africa.

Earlier this month, Malaysian authorities confirmed plane debris washed up on a beach in Madagascar was 'most likely' from the doomed plane.

How does hydroacoustic technology work? Hydroacoustic technology allows sea craft like boats or submarines to monitor the distance between objects in the water, and goes by the well-known term Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR). As a sound wave is emitted through the water it reflects off objects such as icebergs and shoals, so sea vessels can determine distance. Hydroacoustic monitoring records the changes in the water that are brought about from the sound waves. The technology focuses on one particular layer in the water, where sound travel is slower, but more efficient. Advertisement

Kadri said he recommended that all signals recorded by the devices between 11pm on March 7 and 4am on March 9 be analysed.

He said his recommendations were sent to the MH370 Safety Investigation Team in Malaysia, Australian Transport Safety Bureau and other relevant authorities.

The idea of analysing acoustic waves to help solve the enduring mystery was first proposed by Kadri and his colleagues at Cardiff University in 2017.

Since the initial proposal, scientists have gained a better understanding of hydroacoustic waves and have called for authorities to renew the investigation.

Hydroacoustic technology allows sea craft like boats or submarines to monitor the distance between objects in the water, and goes by the well-known term Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR).

As a sound wave is emitted through the water it reflects off objects such as icebergs and shoals, so sea vessels can determine distance.

Hydroacoustic monitoring records the changes in the water that are brought about from the sound waves.

The technology focuses on one particular layer in the water, where sound travel is slower, but more efficient.

Earlier this month, Malaysian authorities confirmed plane debris washed up on a beach in Madagascar was 'most likely' from the doomed plane. Pictured: A similar plane to the one that disappeared

Retired pilot Randy Ryan believes 'hijacked' MH370 should be centred on around the area of Madagascar

On Sunday a retired pilot called for the search for missing flight MH370 to centre around Madagascar over fears it was hijacked.

Ex-US Air Force and United Airlines captain Randy Ryan believes the plane was bound in that direction before it crashed into the sea or was landed on dry land.

A mammoth search effort ensued but all that has been found of the missing jet was bits of debris.

Mr Ryan said he thinks the transponder was deliberately shut down as there was 'zero possibility' it could have been switched off accidentally.

The former Boeing pilot told the Daily Star Online the manoeuvre allowed the supposed culprit to fly the plane off-radar, leaving air traffic controllers wondering what had happened.

Mr Ryan said he thought the captain did everything normally during pre-flight before the plane was hijacked after take-off.

Rusli Khusmin, 42, a fisherman from Indonesia, shows his GPS navigator which he used to record the co-ordinates of the spot where he believes MH370 went down

Malaysia president Dr Jacob George shows the co-ordinates of where the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to have crashed

'So far what little debris that has been found was all found on the westerly route and I am suggesting it was flown there,' he said.

'Yes, I know it sounds sinister and they did find a part of the wing that was damaged when, or if, it hit the water but remember where it was found (east of Madagascar).

'Again along the route I believe it was flown, and not to the southwest of Australia where they spent so much time searching.

'If anybody still has the money to search for the plane this is where I think they should search.'

Indonesian fisherman Rusli Khusmin, 42, recently claimed he and his crew members were eyewitnesses to the disaster and has handed over the co-coordinators to investigators to the spot where he said it crashed into the Sumatra sea.

He recorded the information on a GPS device and held up a map to show reporters earlier this month.

Mr Khusmin at a news conference in Subang Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur where MH370 took off, said he remembered seeing a damaged aircraft and thick black smoke.

Fishermen claim this is the location the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 ditched into the Malacca Strait near Sumatra, Indonesia

'I saw the plane moving from left to right like a broken kite,' he said. 'There was no noise, just black smoke as a result of fires before it crashed into the water.'

But he failed to explain why it had taken him almost five years to get in touch with the authorities with the information.

The Malaysian government halted the investigation after drawing a blank and are still at a loss as to what happened to the airplane.

Various theories have abounded with conspiracists linking both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to its disappearance.

Recent debris discovered on the African island believed to be 'likely' from the missing jet.

Meanwhile, a flaperon understood to be from MH370 was found on Reunion Island back in 2015, around 425 miles east of Madagascar.
A Melbourne paramedic suffered facial injuries when she was pulled into a headlock and repeatedly bashed in yet another sickening and violent attack by a patient.

Paramedics were called to Reynard Street in Coburg in the city's north on Tuesday night following reports of a drug-affected man in his 20s knocking on doors and behaving erratically.

Ambulance Victoria chief executive Tony Walker said the patient initially cooperated with the two paramedics and allowed them to take his blood pressure in the ambulance.

'As the crew prepared to take the man to hospital, he became physically aggressive and attacked our female paramedic, who was pushed in her chest, put in a headlock and punched in the face,' he said.

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Victoria paramedics were subjected to yet another violent attack by a patient on Tuesday night (file picture)

The paramedic's male colleague was also injured in the attack as a bystander came to their aid while waiting for police to arrive.

There are reports the man had been on a five-day bender after attending the Rainbow Serpent music festival over the Australia Day weekend, 3AW reported.

Ambulance Employee Union general secretary Danny Hill told Daily Mail Australia he has since spoken to the female paramedic who was left 'very shaken' by the traumatic ordeal.

She's believed to be aged in her early 30s with 10 years experience.

Ambulance Victoria was called to a job in Reynard Street (pictured) in Coburg and had to call for back up after a patient attacked two paramedics

'Her face is very swollen and bruised,' Mr Hill said.

'The physical injuries will heal but it's more than likely the emotional trauma will take some time to get over.'

Mr Hill described the attack as mean and nasty.

'It was unprovoked and happened without warning as the patient was conversing well with the paramedics,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

The two injured paramedics are now recovering at home following the terrifying ordeal

A second paramedic crew sedated the patient and transported him to The Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he remains in a stable condition.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the man will be interviewed at a later time.

The injured paramedics are recovering at home and being supported by their friends, families and Ambulance Victoria.

'What happened last night is unfortunately not new to us, and forces us to reiterate that aggression and abuse towards paramedics is completely unacceptable,' Mr Walker said.

Ambulance Victoria chief executive Tony Walker described the attack as brutal and sickening

'No one comes to work expecting to be harmed and we have zero tolerance for violence, threats or abuse.'

Ambulances were plastered with protest graffiti last year after a spate of alleged attacks on Victorian paramedics.

An #itsneverok hashtag went viral social media as ambulance officers and the community pledged their support for paramedics.

The social media campaign prompted the Victorian government to pass tough new laws in June, where courts now have to impose a custodial sentence and can't sentence anyone found guilty of attacking emergency workers to a community correction order or other non-custodial outcome.

Ambulances were plastered with protest graffiti after a spate of alleged attacks on Victorian paramedics

'Paramedics are exposed to physical and verbal abuse and are spat on a daily basis,' Mr Hill told Daily Mail Australia.

'There's already a lot in place to protect paramedics. But we will continue to push hard for stronger laws. It's not just about the physical injuries. The emotional scars are often career ending.'

Mr Hill had this plea for the community.

'Paramedics are called out to jobs to assist people,' he said.

'Don't touch them and let them do the important job they've got to do.'
Teacher, Margaret Wolthers, 48, allegedly whistled in the ear of a child who wore earphones protecting him from noised and locked children up in the bathroom

A teacher and two aides at a Florida school for autistic children have been arrested and charged for allegedly punishing autistic children.

It's alleged that the trio would lock children up in a dark bathroom or blow whistles in their ears as punishment.

The antics only came to light after another aide who was so disturbed by the repeated abuse at the Silver Sands School in Fort Walton Beach that she reported it to a school police officer, sparking an investigation, the Okaloosa Sheriff's office said.

The students were aged between 8 and 10-years-old.

Okaloosa Sheriff Larry Ashley said that police learned of the abuse towards the end of 2018 but that it had been going on for some time and believe there may be other victims.

Teaching aides, Diana LaCroix, left, and Carolyn Madison, right, are also accused of abusing three autistic children which included locking them up in the bathroom

The Sheriff said teacher Margaret Wolthers, 48, and aides, Diana LaCroix and Carolyn Madison could have called the principal, the school resource officer or even the children's parents when they became difficult to handle.

Instead, children were places alone in a pitch black bathroom on at least three occasions and were 'intentionally and maliciously' punished.

'Classroom aides who witnessed the incidents say the victims would scream and cry when placed in the bathroom, and that one was contained for up to 90 minutes,' Ashley said. 'They considered it an acceptable practice,' he said.

Wolthers and the aides are alleged to have placed three students 'on separate occasions, individually,' into her classroom bathroom, turned the lights off and closed the door.

Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley, left, speaks during a press conference on Monday where he announced the arrest of three Okaloosa County School District employees on child abuse charges

Okaloosa County (Florida) School Superintendent Marcus Chambers was recently appointed as superintendent by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

According to a witness, the children would 'scream and cry' when placed in the bathroom.

If the victims turned the lights on or opened the door the teachers would then extend the time the child had to stay in the bathroom.

One child had a loud whilst blown in his ear despite the youngster wearing headphones specifically to protect him from loud noises.

The whistle blowing 'was done while holding the victim's arms down' so that the child could not protect himself by covering his ears, the arrest report as seen by nwfdailynews states.

'We in the School District will not tolerate actions like these nor inaction where it impacts the health, welfare and safety of our students,' School Superintendent Marcus Chambers said.

The alleged abuses took place at the Silver Sands School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida

Wolthers, LaCroix and Madison also threatened the child with the whistle 'to correct his behavior,' the reports said. The child was able to verify witness accounts, they said.

The teachers and aides have been with the school system ranging from 13 to 21 years but have now been placed on been on paid administrative leave since the allegations surfaced.

Wolthers is the wife of an Okaloosa County deputy.

The first-degree felony charge Wolthers, LaCroix and Madison are facing carry a maximum prison sentence of 30 years and a fine of up to $10,000.
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A series of photos has revealed the intriguing daily life of the upstate Muslim enclave of Islamberg, which has recently been the target of an alleged bombing plot.

About 150 miles northwest of New York City, Islamberg was thrust into the news last week with the arrest of four suspects in a plot to massacre residents of the isolated hamlet.

The suspects were arrested in Greece, New York, about 200 miles away, and although they had never visited Islamberg, police say the suspects believed that the community is an Islamic terrorist training ground.

To the contrary, police and counterterrorism experts say there is nothing to support that theory, and neighbors say that they have had no problems with the members of the enclave.

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Peacefully praying: Men pray at the mosque at Islamberg in 2017. The enclave just west of the Catskills has been the target of a recent bombing plot

Women in Islamberg engage in a religious gathering in this undated file photo. The community was founded by black Muslims in Brooklyn who sought a life away from the crime and temptations of the city

The Islamberg community gathers for an outdoor celebration in this undated file photo

State troopers walk with community leaders during a 2017 goodwill visit to Islamberg. The enclave was founded in the early 1980s by mostly black Muslims from New York City who sought to escape the crime and vices of city life

A girl studies for school while a man chops wood in the Muslim enclave of Islamberg in Tompkins in 2017

This map shows the locations of the Muslim enclave of Islamberg as well as Greece, where four were arrested last week

Islamberg was founded around 1980 by followers of Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarik Gilani.

Mostly African-American Muslims from New York City, the residents who settled in Islamberg sought to escape crime in the city, as well as distractions from religious life.

They settled on the plot of about 60 acres of private land in Tompkins, New York near the Pennsylvania border.

The entrance to Islamberg is seen in a file photo. The community in upstate New York has about 200 residents

Today, the community has about 200 residents, and boasts its own grocery store, bookstore and school.

The community also includes homes, a mosque, and land to raise livestock and crops.

Residents of Islamberg were stunned to learn last week of the arrest of four people accused of plotting a deadly attack against the enclave.

Brian Colaneri, 20, Andrew Crysel, 18 and Vincent Vetromile, 19 were arrested after police in Greece, New York recovered three explosive devices and 23 weapons from the suspects' homes, police said. A fourth unidentified suspect, aged 16, was also detained.

It is unclear how the suspects knew each other, although the three men were in Boy Scouts together, and two attained the rank of Eagle Scouts.

Family members said that Colaneri and Crysel have Asperger's Syndrome, a 'high-functioning' disorder on the autism spectrum.

Suspects (left to right) Brian Colaneri, 20, Andrew Crysel, 18 and Vincent Vetromile, 19 were arrested last week in Greece, about 200 miles from Islamberg, after allegedly plotting a gun and bomb massacre in the Muslim enclave

A pickup truck stops at a security post for the Muslim enclave of Islamberg in Tompkins, New York in 2017. The community was recently the target of an alleged bombing plot by four suspects who believed it was a terrorist training camp

Muslim schoolboys stop to drink from a pipe carrying well water at Islamberg in 2017. The community was founded around 1980 by followers of Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarik Gilani

Community members are seen engaged in religious activities in Islamberg in this undated file photo

Men in Islamberg engage in study and prayer in this undated file photo. The community was rocked by a recent bomb plot

A Muslim ceremony is seen inside the Islamberg mosque. Four suspects allegedly planned a massacre in the community

Hussein Adams, chief executive of The Muslims of America, talks during an interview at Islamberg in Tompkins in 2017

The four were arrested after a comment the 16-year-old made to fellow students in the lunch room, police said.

The student showed others a photo of someone on his phone, saying he 'looked like the next school shooter', which the other students reported to adults.

In the course of investigating, police discovered the alleged plot. The person in the photo was also questioned, but did not appear to be related and was released.

Court papers say the men had multiple, cylinder-shaped explosive devices and mason jars wrapped in duct tape and were plotting to attack Islamberg.

The Muslims Of America, a group based in Islamberg, released a statement strongly condemning the alleged plot.

'It is beyond tragic that our nation continues to fester with Islamophobia, hate and religious intolerance,' the group said.

'To bring justice and properly deter similar terrorist plots against our community, we are calling for the individuals charged, as well as their accomplices, to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'

Residents of Islamberg join a community gathering in an undated file photo. The hamlet is located on about 60 acres of private land in Tompkins, New York near the Pennsylvania border

A store that sells Muslim products is shown at Islamberg in 2017. People in the Muslim enclave say they are frustrated by repeated accusations that their community is a breeding ground for terror

Islamberg resident Rashid Clark discusses his Muslim community while standing outside the enclave's mosque in 2017

A resident of Islamberg shows off his plate of food during a community celebration in this undated file photo

Young men of Islamberg gather for a community event in this undated file photo

Two young girls run down the dirt path in Islamberg in this undated file photo

Neighbors made this sign in support during the 2016 rally to oppose a biker group's protest of Islamberg

The latest arrests are not the first time someone has been arrested for plotting an attack on Islamberg.

In 2017, Tennessee man Robert Doggard was sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison after he was convicted of planning an attack on Islamberg.

Conspiracy theorists who believe the community is a terrorist training compound often point to the 2017 arrest of 64-year-old Ramadan Abdullah, who stole ammunition from a store in nearby Johnson City.

The investigation led police to a cache of high-powered weapons in a storage locker. Abdullah was sentenced to four years in prison on weapons charges.

The group has also drawn scrutiny over the founding cleric, Gilani, who also founded the violent militant group Jamaat ul-Fuqra.

In addition to this Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was on his way to interview Gilani in Karachi over his alleged ties to shoe bomber Richard Reid when the journalist was abducted and later beheaded, but Gilani's involvement in the kidnapping was never proven.

A woman makes her way through the snow in Islamberg in 2011 (left) and a child plays in the snow (right). The community is located west of the Catskills

Residents of Islamberg celebrate a birthday in this undated file photo. The community has about 200 residents

However, state police and terrorism experts say there is little to fear from Islamberg.

'They are law-abiding,' Maj. William F. McEvoy, the State Police commander in the region, told the New York Times. 'They are positive, solid members of the community.'

'They believe in education,' McEvoy said. 'They believe in hard work. They believe in raising their children with those goals in mind.'

A 2008 analysis published in the CTC Sentinel, a journal published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, concluded that there was no evidence proving Islamberg was part of a covert training operation.

'It should also be mentioned that neither the presence of weapons (or even arsenals), nor weapons training are particularly unusual phenomena in rural America,' the authors wrote.

Islamberg residents turn out to support their town ahead of a planned motorcycle protest against the African-American Muslim community on Sunday, May 15, 2016

Bikers who rode past the town in protests were outnumbered by hundreds of cheering Islamberg supporters who gathered to defend the community from charges that it is an 'Islamic jihad training camp'

Neighbors also say that, despite initial uneasiness when Islamberg was first founded, they have come to view the community as good neighbors.

'We've never had a problem,' Nancy Furdock, who has lived in nearby Hancock for nearly two decades, told the Times.

The three recently arrested suspects in the plot against Islamberg all face three counts of first-degree criminal possession of a weapon and one count of fourth-degree conspiracy.

Under the state's new Raise the Age laws, the teen will be adjudicated as an adolescent offender. However, he could still serve state prison time if convicted of felony charges.

Crysel was released on bail from the Monroe County Jail last week.

Vetromile and Colaneri remained in jail on Friday in lieu of $50,000 cash bail or $100,000 bond. The teen was remanded to custody in lieu of $1,000,000 bail.

The teen is expected back in court on January 30, and the three men are scheduled to appear in Greece Town Court on February 5.
Kurmelovs, 18, murdered him, then ransacked his flat and stole 900 in cash

Frank Lennon invited Daniel Kurmelovs to his flat and asked him to strangle him for 'masochistic pleasure'

Daniel Kurmelovs, 18, from Middleton, will be in his 40s before he can be considered for release

A teenager posted selfies on Facebook and boasted of having a 'sick night' after torturing and killing a man during a sex game.

Daniel Kurmelovs, 18, was yesterday jailed for life for the murder of Frank Lennon, 53.

Kurmelovs was ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years and will be in his 40s before he can be considered for release.

Manchester Crown Court heard that Mr Lennon invited Kurmelovs to his flat and asked him to strangle him for 'masochistic pleasure'.

But Kurmelovs, from Middleton in Manchester, went further and murdered him.

He then spent around five hours in Mr Lennon's Collyhurst flat, ransacking the property and stealing 900 in cash, watches, jewellery and hundreds of cigarettes.

Kurmelovs squirted cleaning products and toothpaste onto Mr Lennon's body in a desperate bid to cover up the murder and destroy evidence.

Kurmelovs, who had never met Mr Lennon before, left with his loot and spent the next few days boasting about his crimes to his friends.

At 2.51am on July 26 last year, he wrote: 'Chilin' in London, box it in lads.' At 9.18am, he posted a picture from a nightclub, with the caption: 'Had a sick night.'

Two minutes later, Kurmelovs posted a topless picture with the status: 'Just woke up.'

Later that day he uploaded another selfie, with the caption: 'On my way home.'

He also dramatically altered his appearance by shaving his head in a bid to evade capture.

Kurmelovs killed Mr Lennon then spent the next few days boasting about his crimes to his friends. At 2.51am on July 26 last year, he wrote: 'Chilin' in London, box it in lads.' At 9.18am, he posted a picture from a nightclub, with the caption: 'Had a sick night.'

Frank Lennon (pictured above) had been out with his siblings before meeting Daniel Kurmelovs

Kurmelovs was arrested days later in Middleton after he told a woman he had 'killed someone' for the cigarettes he was trying to sell on.

At trial, Kurmelovs admitted manslaughter and claimed the death was an accident.

But a jury saw through his lies, convicting him of murder after less than an hour of deliberations.

Kurmelovs had only been free for nine days when he murdered Mr Lennon following a spell at a young offender institution after being convicted of robbery.

He stole from a 78-year-old woman at knifepoint in her own home.

Kurmelovs was convicted of murder

Kurmelovs will serve at least 25 years for murder - and will only be released if the Parole Board deems it safe.

Sentencing, Judge David Stockdale QC said: 'Frank Lennon derived gratification from being strangled.

'When he invited you to his flat his purpose was to ask you to strangle him. It was not in order that he would suffer significant injury, and certainly not so he would die.'

The judge said Kurmelovs saw the invitation as a 'heaven sent opportunity' to steal from his victim.

'Lying face down on his sitting room floor, he could not have been more vulnerable,' he added.

'He was at your mercy. You took your opportunity and you strangled him. Your purpose was to rob him, and that's exactly what you did.

'You revelled in your appalling crime. The murder of Frank Lennon was a foul, wicked act.

'You ruthlessly killed a vulnerable man in his own home for the sole purpose of taking his money and his valuables.'

Manchester Crown Court heard that Mr Lennon invited Kurmelovs to his flat and asked him to strangle him for 'masochistic pleasure'.

The judge also paid tribute to Mr Lennons' loved ones in court for their 'patience' and 'forbearance' during the week long trial.

His brother Alan said: 'He [Mr Lennon] would have a way of making you smile, we all desperately miss that.'

Alan said his brother had been hit hard by the recent passing of his partner.

They were due to go on holiday a few days after Mr Lennon's death to celebrate his 54th birthday

'The frustration that someone could take Frank away from us is heartbreaking, and now I just want justice for Frank,' Alan added.

The trial heard that Kurmelovs had bumped into Mr Lennon in the Gay Village on Friday, July 20 last year.

Unknown to his family at that time, Mr Lennon had been regularly meeting a man who he would pay to choke or strangle him for pleasure.

He had planned to meet the man that night, but a text Mr Lennon tried to send did not go through.

After spending the afternoon with two of his siblings drinking, they left and he went to the The Eagle bar.

Kurmelovs was being thrown out for being too drunk. Mr Lennon, who was described as being 'tipsy', was just arriving.

He asked Mr Lennon for money, but was refused.

Mr Lennon told Kurmelovs that if he was still outside the bar later, he would give him some money.

Kurmelovs, who said he was bisexual, later said he had gone into the Gay Village 'for a good time'.

He said he couldn't go home because he was too intoxicated after a drugs binge.

He said he had asked 'some homeless guy' to inject him with drugs.

CCTV footage showed the pair meeting again later that night, speaking to each other and at some points 'linking arms', before getting in a taxi.

They arrived at Mr Lennon's flat in Collyhurst at about 10pm, the last sighting of him alive.

Kurmelovs left the property at about 3.30am.

After failing to get hold of Mr Lennon that day, his concerned siblings visited his flat on Sunday, July 22. They found Mr Lennon dead in the flat.

His usually immaculately tidy home had been ransacked, and his loved ones noticed valuables were missing.

As well as the compression to his neck, Mr Lennon had suffered broken ribs, and cuts to his right ear which were found to have been inflicted after he died.

Kurmelovs later said he decided to cut Mr Lennon's ear to check if he was still alive.

He told officers that he had strangled Mr Lennon about five or six times 'on and off' while he was lying face down on the floor, first using his hands then a scarf.

In a police interview, Kurmelovs, from Middleton, said: 'I was strangling him then letting go.

'I didn't realise I had gone too far. He just hit the floor.

'He weren't moving. I checked his pulse and he was dead.'

Defending, Andrew O'Byrne QC said Kurmelovs had suffered abuse as a child, and sustained a brain injury after contracting meningitis.

'He is a young man who will have a long long time to consider how he has behaved,' Mr O'Byrne said.

In a statement released after the hearing, Mr Lennon's family said: 'Frank was much loved by all his family and friends and had much life ahead of him.

'Frank was taken from us in July in completely unnecessary circumstances.

We cannot express how devastated we are that his life has been stolen from him.

'Frank is missed every minute of every day. Today his killer has been sentenced, and justice has been served.

'We can try to repair our heartache although no matter how long the sentence is, it will not bring Frank back or make our loss any easier.

'We need to attempt to move on and hopefully today will now provide closure for our pain over the last few months, however, we will never forget Frank or the many memories he has given us.

'We would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the past few months.'

The Eagle bar on Bloom Street (pictured above) where Mr Lennon and Kurmelovs met

Senior Investigating Officer Bob Tonge, of GMP's Major Incident Team, added: 'Kurmelovs brutally murdered Frank in his own home.

'Not satisfied that he was dead, he even took some scissors and cut Frank's ear - an attempt, he claimed, to see if he was alive.

'Frank also suffered fractured ribs at the hands of Kurmelovs who undeterred by his actions, set about ransacking his flat and stealing his possessions which he brazenly tried to sell just days later.

'Kurmelovs tried to suggest that his actions were accidental and eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter but thankfully the jury were able to see through that excuse and today convicted him of murder.

'My thoughts remain with Frank's family who have had to sit through the agony of a trial and the suffering of Kurmelovs' excuses but I hope today can provide them with some comfort, knowing the man responsible is locked away where he can't harm anyone else.'
A 15-month-old baby who died from sepsis was delayed in getting treatment after a catalogue of failings by medical professionals - a court heard.

Evie Crandle died on April 16, two days after she was taken to Whiston Hospital, by her concerned parents Samantha McNeice and Phil Crandle.

The 15-month-old baby girl was sent home with ibuprofen and Calpol, Liverpool Coroner's Court heard on Tuesday, after medical professionals said she had a urine infection.

A report carried out by St Helens and Knowsley NHS Foundation Trust revealed how there was a 'missed opportunity' in early sepsis diagnosis.

Evie was first brought to hospital by her devastated parents on April 14, at around 11.30am.

The couple told the court how their usually 'playful' daughter had been vomiting, was lethargic, had blue lips, cold hands and feet and a temperature of 39.9 degrees C - more than 2 degrees C over the average.

Two paediatric nurses - Kay Archer and Penny Hartley - failed to correctly fill in a sepsis pathway tool - a procedure in place to identify the killer disease.

The report, following an investigation, outlined how there was a delay in medical assessment of Evie, who was only seen more than three hours after she was seen in triage by Mrs Archer.

Evie Crandle, pictured, died on April 16 last year, two days after her parents - Samantha McNeice and Phil Crandle, pictured - took her to Whiston Hospital.

Further failings in recording observations, escalating her case to a senior doctor, communication between staff, administering antibiotics and carrying out blood tests were also outlined.

The court heard how the potentially life saving sepsis tool was only half filled in by Mrs Archer and not at all by Mrs Hartley.

This meant that when Dr Jennifer Hale saw Evie before she was discharged, she only had Mrs Hartley's notes which had no suggestion of sepsis.

Yesterday Dr Hale told the court 'I didn't feel that she presented as a septic child, she was alert, drinking and interacting with her parents'.

No action was taken regarding the two factors that were outlined by Mrs Archer on the sepsis screening tool, on her first admission.

In evidence today, Dr Ijaz Ahmad told Liverpool Coroners Court how on Evie's return to hospital her symptoms were believed to be that of a 'severe kidney infection' and 'did not correlate' to that of sepsis.

The family's lawyer, Vanessa Cashman, told how Evie had a number of 'red flags' which were included on the sepsis pathway tool.

Parents Sam and Phil, from Whiston, told the court how they 'repeatedly asked about sepsis' but were 'let down in the worst possible way'.

And in court today Doctor Graeme Inkster said if the sepsis pathway had been followed Evie's case 'would have been escalated'.

On Monday, her devastated parents told an inquest how their 'beautiful' baby girl had been 'let down in the worst possible way' by medical staff.

In a heartbreaking statement Samantha, who is expecting her second child in six weeks' time, said she was 'broken beyond repair'.

Through tears, 31-year-old Ms McNeice told Liverpool Coroner's Court: 'Our lives were built around Evie. She was the centre of our universe.

'We have lost our daughter and have to face the fact we knew what was wrong with her.

'We took her to hospital straight away and asked over and over about sepsis. I remember saying 'are you sure this isn't sepsis?'

'I was petrified but stupidly allowed myself to take comfort from the fact that a medical professional was telling me 'it could be but it's most likely a urine infection'.

'I feel like I failed Evie in the worst possible way.

'We put all our trust in the medical staff and thought there was no way they would let our beautiful 15-month-old down.'

Liverpool Coroner's Court heard how Sam and Phil arrived at Whiston Hospital with their daughter at around 11.30am.

The couple told the court how their usually 'playful' daughter had been vomiting, was lethargic, had blue lips, cold hands and feet and a temperature of 39.9 degrees C - more than two degrees over normal body temperature.

Two paediatric nurses who saw Evie - Kay Archer and Penny Hartley - both told the court how they 'forgotten' to fill in sepsis documentation following their observations and had since had more training.

In medical notes taken by paediatric nurse Kay Archer, Evie's heart rate was recorded as 204 beats per minute - the average for a child of 15 months is 100 to 150.

Meanwhile her breathing rate was 44 - the average is 25-35.

The court heard how both symptoms appear as flags on the medical septic screening tool guidelines.

Evie's parets were initially tld to take little Evie home and treat her with ibroprofun and Calpol. Paediatric nurse Penny Hartley told the court she 'forgot to fill in the sepsis tool in an oversight'

Mrs Kay told the court how she believed the symptoms Evie was presenting showed a 'possible water infection' and requested a urine sample be taken.

When asked by lawyer Vanessa Cashman, who is representing the family, did Mrs Archer remember the family asking her 'could this be sepsis?' she said 'I don't remember the family asking that'.

Mrs Archer was also asked why she did not fill out the sepsis pathway, on the triage forms.

Mrs Archer said: 'I regret not filling in that and since this incident I have had further training and I have learnt from my mistakes.

'Evie did not present to me as a seriously unwell child, she presented as unwell but not seriously unwell.

'My focus was on bringing down her temperature which can bring down the heart rate and respiratory rate.'

Evie was also seen and had observations taken by Paediatric nurse Penny Hartley, who told the court she 'forgot to fill in the sepsis tool in an oversight.'

Evie's mother Samantha, originally from Warrington, told the court how she and her partner were 'pretty well educated on sepsis ' and knew the signs and symptoms.

Partner Phil, from Whiston, added: 'We asked about sepsis straight away and even sat under a poster in the waiting room, but we were told its more likely a urine infection by a band 6 nurse and felt such relief despite still feeling such fear.

'They could never let a 15-month-old down. But they did.

Evie's mother Samantha said she was 'broken beyond repair' at the loss of her daughter

'If I could go back knowing what I know now I would've screamed the place down until she was treated, but I can't and this fact fills my mind with guilt and regret. But what more could we do?

'We had told all professionals all of her symptoms and asked regularly 'is this sepsis?'

The court heard how the family were discharged at 4.30pm with ibuprofen and Calpol, but Evie's parents brought her back to hospital just two hours later because they were so concerned.

Dr Jennifer Hale saw Evie on her return to hospital, but despite there being two indicators on the septic screening tool, told the court 'I didn't feel that she presented as a septic child, she was alert, drinking and interacting with her parents'.

And it was only 15 hours later, following her first admission that Evie was given IV fluids, on the request of Dr Hale.

Evie died two days later at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, where she had been transferred following an admission into critical care.

Dr Hale told the court: 'I wasn't asked the question by her family if it could be sepsis. If I had it would have been an amber warning to me, if I had been asked that question.

'I have since had one to one training about sepsis, have completed a documentation course online and attended a sepsis summit.'

In a letter sent to Evie's parents, St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals Trust said it 'apologised sincerely that we did not meet the standards expected while Evie was under our care.

'I would like to assure you that by sharing the concerns raised during this process, practice has improved Trust-wide and lessons have been learned.'

The inquest continues.
A man arrested after a 16-year-old girl was found hanged in a derelict building has been released without charge.

Sarah Goldman was found dead in a derelict building at about 9.45am in Kersal, Salford, on Monday.

Greater Manchester Police initially got involved when the girl was reported missing, but 20 minutes later family members called to say a body had been found.

A 41-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after she was found but has since been released and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said there will be no further action taken.

The force also said it was no longer treating the death as suspicious.

A post mortem is due to be carried out to establish the cause of death.

Sarah attended King David High School, a mixed Jewish Orthodox school in Crumpsall, Greater Manchester.

The teenager's body was discovered inside this building in Kersal, Salford on Monday

The teenager was reported missing on Monday and police later said they had found a body

Tributes were paid to the 'lovely, bright, intelligent and well-mannered' schoolgirl.

The school paid tribute to her in a statement from the chair of governors Joshua Rowe.

It read: 'Sarah was a lovely, bright, intelligent and well-mannered pupil and she will be hugely missed by everyone at school.'

It is understood police have been told she was last seen at about 5.30am on Monday. She is thought to have told her family she was going to school early to use the gym.

The empty property where Sarah was found is separated from her family home across a plot of rough land

One neighbour said: 'They're a Jewish family and I knew the girl to say hello to. They're a nice family. I think she had four or five brothers and she was the only girl.

'The police have been outside all night. My neighbour told me she'd been found dead and I couldn't believe it. We're all really shocked by it.'

Another said: 'God save us all. I don't know anything about what happened but it's very sad. We're all rubbing our eyes and the whole community will support them.

'They're a fantastic family. It's the biggest shock in the world and we're hoping it's not real and we're going to wake up. We're all there to support them.'

The cause of death has yet to be established. Police have roped off the scene to investigate

The empty property where Sarah was found is separated from her family home across a plot of rough land.

Greater Manchester Police said they were keeping an 'open mind' about the circumstances of the girl's death.

Superintendent Caroline Hemmingway said: 'We are currently investigating the tragic death of a 16-year-old girl in Kersal, and it is our top priority to find out exactly how she died.

'We have arrested a man in connection with the girl's death however we are still keeping an open mind and will be exploring all avenues.

The investigation is 'still in its early stages and a scene remains in place', police have said

'The investigation is still in its early stages and a scene remains in place in the building near to Brookside Drive.

'We would like to hear from anyone who heard or saw anything unusual this morning around Brookside Drive to get in touch as soon as possible.

'We are trying to piece together this puzzle and help give the girl's family the answers they deserve.'

Anyone with any information is asked to contact police on 0161 856 8172, by calling 101 or the through Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Ugur Hallacoglu (pictured) has been sent to jail for a minimum 10-months over a fatal car crash from 1990

A man who fled Australia after killing two teenage girls in a high-speed car crash has not had his jail sentence increased, despite finally being caught 28 years later.

Ugur Hallacoglu, 47, avoided prison for almost three decades after a police bungle meant an arrest warrant dating back to 1992 was not issued correctly until last week.

The father-of-three had fled back to his homeland Turkey in 1992 just days before he was sentenced to a minimum 10 months imprisonment, after pleading guilty to two counts of culpable driving causing death.

Hallacoglu - who was just 18 at the time of the 130km/h car crash - was shocked to find police at his family home in Merrylands, in Sydney's west, on January 24 where they arrested him.

At the Criminal Court of Appeal on Wednesday, Hallacoglu received the exact same prison term he should have served in the early 1990s.

Hallacoglu (pictured with his wife) fronted the Supreme Court of NSW on Wednesday and was given the exact same sentence he should have received in 1992. Days before he was due to be sentenced he fled Australia for Turkey and was only arrested by police last week - 28 years on.

Hallacoglu's legal aid lawyer told the NSW Supreme Court (pictured) her client understood he needed to be sentenced again and that her client had 'no opposition' to the re-sentencing

Hallacoglu's legal aid lawyer told the court her client understood that he needed to be sentenced again and that her client had 'no opposition' to the re-sentencing.

'Mr Hallacoglu, in accordance with the judgement in the Court of Criminal Appeal you are now to be sentenced,' Supreme Court Justice Clifton Hoeben told Hallacoglu.

'Therefore the sentence this court will impose is a non-parole period of 10-months.'

Hallacoglu was convicted of two counts of culpable driving causing death over a car crash that took the lives of two teenage girls in 1990, when he was just 18.

He was originally sentenced to two-years periodic detention but when prosecutors appealed, the teen fled home to Turkey and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

But the warrant was issued incorrectly and never enforced - allowing Hallacoglu to return to Australia in 2005 without question.

The bungle meant that for the past 14 years Hallacoglu has lived freely with his wife and three kids in Sydney and gone to work each day as manager of a busy Carpet Call store.

Hallacoglu's shocked wife told Daily Mail Australia her husband had no idea police were set to arrest him when they knocked on his door on Thursday.

She claimed that on his return to Australia, he had checked with a lawyer about outstanding warrants and was told he was in the clear.

'We knew that they could charge him and he could go to jail, but he went to a lawyer and was told no-one was looking for him about the car crash,' Mrs Hallacoglu said on Friday through her English speaking daughter.

'We thought everything was fine. He worked at Carpet Call and had a normal life, we had no idea the police would come.

'When police came he just said: "They're going to take me to court". But now we don't know what's going on, we haven't heard from him and don't know where he is.'

An arrest warrant was initially issued incorrectly, meaning that when Hallacoglu returned to Australia in 2005 he was allowed to enter without question. Since arriving back in Australia,he has been living a normal life and even managed a prominent Carpet Call franchise (pictured)

A bungle with the arrest warrant meant Mr Hallacoglu had lived freely in Australia since 2005 until police knocked on the door of his family home (pictured) at Merrylands on Thursday night

Court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia show the warrant for his arrest was not entered properly by police.

The mistake was only fixed as checks were being done on Hallacoglou after he applied for Australian citizenship two years ago.

MR HALLACOGLU'S GREAT ESCAPE: May 14, 1990: Ugur Hallacoglu hires a red car for a night of celebrations with his older brother, who is turning 21 - He picks up friend Adam Humphries and two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15 - About 3.40pm he speeds through a roundabout, loses control of the car and crashes into a power pole - killing the two girls in the back seat June 8, 1990: Hallacoglou is charged with manslaughter over car crash 1991: The 19-year-old's charges are downgraded to culpable driving causing death December 20, 1991: Mr Hallacoglou is sentenced to two years periodic detention September 1, 1992: After an appeal by prosecutors, Hallacoglou has conviction increased to 10 months jail September 1, 1992: Having fled the country, a warrant is issued for Hallacoglou's arrest 2005: Mr Hallcoglou returns to Sydney from Turkey without question January 24, 2019: After living freely for 28 years, Mr Hallacoglou is arrested at his Western Sydney home in front of his shocked wife and children Advertisement

'(The) warrant wasn't originally entered in the court system until recently, after the accused had applied for citizenship,' the documents state.

On May 14, 1990, Hallacoglu - a P-Plate driver - hired a red car with the intention of taking his brother out for a night of celebrations for his 21st birthday.

Biding time before his brother arrived home from work, Hallacoglu organised with three friends - a boy, 15, and two girls aqed 14 and 16 - to go for a joyride at 3pm.

But close to 40 minutes into their trip the car was detected travelling at an estimated speed of 130km/h through a 60km/h zone.

Witnesses reported seeing the car cross onto the wrong side of the road in an effort to overtake two cars, at which point Hallacoglu lost control.

After fishtailing down the suburban street the car slammed into a power pole, killing one of the girls instantly, while the other died in hospital two days later.

On June 8 1990, more than three weeks after the fatal crash, Hallacoglu was charged with two counts of manslaughter.

The charges were later downgraded to culpable driving causing death, and the case was heard before the NSW District Court in 1991 - where Hallacoglu pleaded guilty.

On December 20, 1991, Hallacoglu was sentenced to two years periodic detention.

In sentencing, the magistrate took into account the fact Hallacoglu did not have a criminal record, had not been drinking alcohol prior to the crash and that the car's brakes were slightly faulty.

Mr Hallacoglu's wife (left) told Daily Mail Australia her family was shocked when police came to their house and claims her husband (right) was previously told he was in the clear over the crash

Hallacoglu (left, pictured with his son) was seen driving at an estimated 130km/h in a 60km/h zone in May 1990, before losing control of the car and crashing - killing two teenage girls who were in the backseat

But the prosecution appealed the leniency of the sentence, and in September 1992 the Court of Criminal Appeal increased his sentence to a minimum 10 months full-time imprisonment.

However Hallacoglu was not in court to hear of his increased sentence, having fled to his homeland Turkey eight days earlier. A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest.

For the next 13 years the convicted double killer lived in his homeland, before returning to Australia in 2005.

He has remained in Australia since then, working at a busy Carpet Call store.

His wife said that when police arrived at their door this week he was in their backyard watching his children swim in the pool.

She claimed that on the rare occasion her husband talked about the crash, he was always very remorseful for his actions.

'He was very young, only 18. When he did talk about it he was sorry,' Mrs Hallacoglu said.

'He is now in his 40s, he shouldn't have to be punished and judged on what he did as a young boy.'
The ISIS murderer who killed 38 tourists including 30 Britons in Sousse, Tunisia took an illegal drug to deaden his emotions before carrying out his atrocity, it has emerged.

Yesterday as the trial of 17 people accused of complicity in the massacre reopened in the Tunisian capital of Tunis, the judge revealed the results of an autopsy performed on gunman Seifeddine Rezgui, 23.

Judge Rached Sebii and five colleagues confirmed Revgui had taken one drug to enhance physical endurance and another to reduce emotional response, The Times reported.

The drugs were not specified but the Associated Press reported the judge said Rezgui's post-mortem showed the presence of an illegal drug as well as medication.

On June 26, 2015, Rezgui walked on to the beach of the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Sousse armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and started shooting at tourists sunbathing in lounge chairs.

It emerged at the trial that mass-murderer Seifeddine Rezgui, 23,was on illegal emotion-suppressant drugs when he killed 38 holidaymakers in Sousse in 2015

Several defendants admitted ties to Chamseddine al-Sandi, the ISIS planner believed to have masterminded the atrocity

The young Tunisian, who had trained with Islamic militants in neighbouring Libya, then continued on to the hotel pool before throwing a grenade into the hotel.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

Around half an hour passed between Rezgui's first shots and his being killed by police. Six policemen are among the defendants on trial, charged with potentially criminal negligence and delay.

In February 2017 at a London inquest Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith branded the officers' actions 'at best shambolic and at worst cowardly'.

In total 26 people are on trial but only 17 appeared on court, the remainder - including all the police officers - having elected not to contest the charges or to submit evidence in writing. All the defendants deny any direct role in the attack.

The trial has been postponed several times at the lawyers' request. It reopened yesterday more than three and a half years after the attack.

Some of the defendants face potential capital punishment sentences for charges including premeditated murder, threatening state security and belonging to a terrorist-linked group; although Tunisia has had a moratorium on the use of the death penalty since 1991.

Some of those who testified acknowledged ties to the man considered the orchestrator of the attack, Chamseddine al-Sandi, an ISIS planner who is believed to have fled Tunisia shortly after the attack.

Thirty Britons were among the 38 victims of the 2015 terrorist outrage for which 17 people are now in court. The gunman was shot dead at the scene

Some defendants accepted al-Sandi asked them to case the area ahead of time.

One said he sent al-Sandi photos via the internet of potential targets, including foreign businesses based in Tunis.

Wassim Sassi, a student from Tunia, said he had been recruited by al-Sandi, and attended an ISIS camp. When he returned from Libya to Tunisia he was pressured to provide disposable phones that were used to co-ordinate the massacre.

Defendant Mahmoud Kachouri admitted yesterday he was a classmate of Rezgui's and they used to have coffee together, but insisted 'he never talked to me about the operation he was planning.'

The defendants in the court and their co-accused are among a total of 40 people suspected of involvement in the attack, according to defense lawyer Hanene Khemiri, who alleged some of the defendants were tortured by police.

The court is expected to rule on February 6.
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Theresa May is ready to butt heads with the EU over the Irish backstop and will now return to Brussels to demand concessions after her dramatic Commons win revived her Brexit deal.

The Prime Minister will start her charm offensive by speaking to Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar first thing this morning before jetting to see European leaders 'once the dust settles' later this week.

She will also meet with Jeremy Corbyn after PMQs today to discuss Brexit after the Labour leader was humiliated after MPs rejected Labour's bid to keep Britain in the EU past March 29.

But Mrs May faces an uphill battle with the EU after European Council President Donald Tusk said her proposal to reopen negotiations was not 'credible' within minutes of her big win while Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also told her yesterday she is wasting her time.

Today Eurocrats held crisis talks led by chief negotiator Michel Barnier and European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt, who said this morning: 'The Irish backstop is an insurance element of Theresa May's Brexit deal which must remain'.

Last night the prime minister secured an extraordinary victory keeping her deal alive and kill off delaying Brexit and relied on fourteen Labour MPs from leave-backing constituencies for her triumph.

Theresa May leaves Parliament last night after her big win - but now she has a fortnight to win a new deal with the EU

Guy Verhofstadt and Michel Barnier led crisis talks this morning (pictured) - but are standing firm saying the deal will not be reopened

A diagram showing how Graham Brady's amendment - calling on Theresa May to renegotiate the Irish backstop - won the support of the House of Commons

Hundreds of MPs who inflicted a historic defeat on her withdrawal plan earlier this month last night voted by 317 to 301 to give her 'Plan B' their backing  provided the Irish backstop is replaced.

The Prime Minister said there could now be a 'substantial and sustainable majority for leaving the EU with a deal' with Tory sources suggested Mrs May might return to Brussels to seek concessions by the end of this week.

But she is now on collision course with European leaders, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying the divorce deal was not up for renegotiation within minutes of her Commons win.

What happens next after MPs backed Plan B? Later this week: Theresa May is expected to return to Brussels to ask for changes to the Irish backstop, after MPs backed an amendment calling for 'alternative arrangements'. Her office has not yet confirmed when she will travel to meet EU leaders, who have already said they will not renegotiate the deal. February 13: If no new deal has been reached, Mrs May will address MPs again on this date and her Government will put a further motion before the House of Commons. MPs would then be able to vote on further amendments, potentially on February 14. March 29: Brexit day. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act of 2018 fixed 11pm on March 29 as the time and date when Britain will leave the EU. If no agreement has been reached by then, the UK - in spite of the Commons vote against a cliff-edge Brexit last night - will leave without a deal. Advertisement

Labour defections helped Mrs May to triumph in the Commons and win backing for her plans to seek an alternative to the Irish backstop.

But there are growing calls from members of Jeremy Corbyn's Momentum group to deselect them with critics calling them 'traitors'.

14 Labour MPs rebelled against Jeremy Corbyn last night to sink the party's plan to delay Brexit and send Theresa May back to Brussels with a stronger hand.

Backbench rebels including veteran left-winger Dennis Skinner joined the Conservatives in the division lobbies to vote down Yvette Cooper's amendment but were accused of 'letting the party down'.

Seven of the Labour rebels also joined the Government in backing the Graham Brady amendment, supported by Theresa May, which gives the PM a mandate to renegotiate her Brexit deal.

Last night's votes were a crushing rejection for Jeremy Corbyn who switched labour's official position to seeking a Brexit delay in a bid to defeat Mrs May.

The Cooper plan, which was backed by Mr Corbyn, called for an extension of Article 50 to keep the UK in the EU until the end of the year in order to reach a deal.

It was supported by the Labour frontbench as well as Tories including Nick Boles, but was defeated by 321 votes to 298 last night.

The Labour MPs who voted against it were Ian Austin, Kevin Barron, Ronnie Campbell, Rosie Cooper, Jim Fitzpatrick, Caroline Flint, Roger Godsiff, Stephen Hepburn, Kate Hoey, John Mann, Dennis Skinner, Laura Smith, Gareth Snell and Graham Stringer.

Theresa May smiles last night after securing a rare Commons victory last night as she goes head to head with the EU over the dreaded backstop

Veteran left-winger Dennis Skinner (left) and Don Valley MP Caroline Flint (right) were among the Labour MPs who rebelled against Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons last night

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) finally agreed to Brexit talks with Theresa May last night after the Prime Minister navigated a minefield of seven votes on Plan B

Mr Austin and Mr Mann are vocal opponents of Mr Corbyn's leadership while Ms Hoey has been one of the most prominent Labour Brexiteers.

Of the rebels, Ronnie Campbell, Roger Godsiff, John Mann, Graham Stringer and Dennis Skinner were also Leave supporters in the 2016 referendum.

Others including Caroline Flint in Don Valley and Kevin Barron in Rother Valley were pro-Remain in 2016 but represent very Leave-supporting constituencies.

Some Labour members have voiced fears of a backlash from voters if MPs were seen to be delaying or frustrating Brexit.

It is not yet clear whether there will be any punishment for the Labour rebels who defied the whip.

But the Prime Minister did not get everything her way.

MPs voted by 318 to 310 for a cross-party amendment rejecting the idea of a no-deal Brexit. Although the vote was only symbolic, it will put political pressure on the PM to avoid no-deal at all costs.

And Mrs May was forced to offer pro-remain Tories the opportunity for another attempt to block no deal on February 14. The move persuaded pro-Remain ministers including Amber Rudd and Richard Harrington to pull back from threats to quit.

It effectively means Mrs May now has two weeks to secure a Brexit deal against the odds before facing a fresh Commons showdown.

Last night's vote came exactly two weeks after MPs rejected Mrs May's Brexit deal by a record 230 votes. It followed efforts by Tory grandee Sir Graham Brady to bring the party together around a single amendment.

Mrs May's leadership rival Boris Johnson, one of dozens of Eurosceptics who switched sides last night, immediately came back onboard, saying: 'The Prime Minister now has a clear and unambiguous mandate from parliament that the backstop, which kept us locked in a customs union, has to be kicked out. I hope our friends in Brussels will listen and make that change.'

The results started flowing in at around 7.15pm tonight - with the government comfortably winning the first four contests

On a day of high drama at Westminster:

A humiliated Jeremy Corbyn said he would now agree to hold Brexit talks with Mrs May without preconditions.

A Labour-backed bid by Yvette Cooper to seize control of parliament and force the Government to delay Brexit until the end of the year was comfortably defeated, with a string of Labour Mps rebelling against their leader.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the Brexit deal was 'not renegotiable' and warned EU leaders to prepare for the possibility of no-deal.

The Irish government also ruled out renegotiating the Withdrawal Agreement

German MEP Manfred Weber, a close ally of Angela Merkel, said reopening the Brexit deal could see the UK asked to increase the 39 billion divorce payment or even surrender control of Gibraltar.

Pro-Remain Tory ministers dropped their threat to quit after Mrs May pledged Parliament would get another chance to debate and vote Brexit strategy on February 14.

Former cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin warned that Labour could be in power for generations if the Tories oversaw a chaotic no-deal Brexit, adding: 'We will not be forgiven for many years.'

And former Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke warned of growing public 'contempt' at parliament's failure to resolve Brexit, adding: 'if this shambles goes on much longer I hate to think where populism and extremism will take us next in this democracy.'

Who were the Labour rebels on the Cooper amendment? Ian Austin, Dudley North Kevin Barron, Rother Valley Ronnie Campbell, Blyth Valley Rosie Cooper, West Lancashire Jim Fitzpatrick, Poplar and Limehouse Caroline Flint, Don Valley Roger Godsiff, Birmingham Hall Green Stephen Hepburn, Jarrow Kate Hoey, Vauxhall John Mann, Bassetlaw Dennis Skinner, Bolsover Laura Smith, Crewe and Nantwich Gareth Snell, Stoke-on-Trent Central Graham Stringer, Blackley and Broughton Advertisement

Last night's Commons victory followed a high-stakes gamble in which the PM promised to tear up the Brexit deal negotiated with the EU in order to tackle Tory concerns about the Irish backstop, which critics fear could keep the UK locked in a customs unions against its will.

In a significant climbdown, Mrs May told MPs the scale of her opposition to her deal meant that the 585-page Withdrawal Agreement signed with Brussels would have to be reopened  an idea she rejected just two weeks ago when she said: 'This is the best deal possible  it's the only deal possible.'

In comments designed to reassure Tory Eurosceptics and the DUP that she is serious about delivering on their concerns she said: 'What I'm talking about is not a further exchange of letters, but a significant and legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement. It will involve reopening the Withdrawal Agreement.'

Mrs May appealed directly to MPs to 'give me the mandate I need' to go back to Brussels and try to renegotiate the Brexit deal.

EU leaders last night ruled out the possibility of reopening the deal.

In a prepared statement the European Council President Donald Tusk said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the EU. The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.'

Mrs May acknowledged there was only 'limited appetite' in the EU to reopen the deal. Her chief Brexit negotiator Oliver Robbins is said to have warned her privately that it is not even worth trying to persuade the EU to remove the backstop from the deal.

But last night No 10 said Mrs May would press ahead regardless.

A Downing Street source said: 'We always knew the next 24 hours would be a firefight. Brussels will just say no, no, no. Let's see what happens after that.

'It's a positive day but only the start of what is going to be an incredibly challenging process.'

One Cabinet source told the Mail: 'We've got a chance. We have seen a shift in terms of the EU, and we have seen a shift in terms of the Irish. The question is whether you can take that and turn it into something meaningful on the backstop.'

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw said it was 'disappointing' that Labour defectors had voted with the Tories.

He said: 'Labour whipped the right way. A handful of colleagues let us down.'

But his colleague Lucy Powell said: 'All this talk of 'recriminations' and being 'cross' with colleagues who voted differently tonight is deeply unhelpful.'

This chart shows how MPs voted on the Cooper amendment to delay Article 50, with 14 Labour rebels defying their party's whip to reject the plan

Labour Brexiteer Kate Hoey (left) and Birmingham Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff (right) voted in favour of the Graham Brady amendment backed by Theresa May's Government

Kevin Barron (left), John Mann (centre) and Ian Austin (right) were among the Labour MPs who voted for the Graham Brady amendment in the House of Commons last night

Labour MPs Graham Stringer (left) and Gareth Snell (right) were among 14 backbenchers to rebel against Yvette Cooper's amendment to delay Brexit

Laura Smith (left), Ronnie Campbell (centre) and Stephen Hepburn (right) voted with the Government to reject Yvette Cooper's amendment

Labour MPs Jim Fitzpatrick (left) and Rosie Cooper (right) opposed Cooper's amendment

The rebellion against Mr Corbyn's whips helped to cancel out 17 Conservative defections, as Tories including Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke backed the proposed delay.

Ms Cooper and Mr Boles had sought to postpone Brexit to prevent a no-deal departure on March 29.

The two members said they were 'deeply concerned that there is no safeguard in place to prevent a cliff edge in March 2019'.

In a statement the pair said Britain was 'running out of time' to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

The Brady amendment, which was backed by the Government, called for 'alternative arrangements' to the much-maligned Irish backstop.

The Commons voted by 317 to 301 in favour of the backstop changes - which Mrs May said showed there was a means of securing a 'substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal'.

Seven Labour MPs backed the amendment: Ian Austin, Kevin Barron, Jim Fitzpatrick, Roger Godsiff, Kate Hoey, John Mann and Graham Stringer.

Several other Labour MPs including Ms Cooper and Ms Flint did not vote on the Brady amendment.

The backstop seeks to prevent a return to border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

But it is widely disliked by Tory MPs, who helped inflict a record defeat on Mrs May - 432 votes to 202 - when her deal was first voted on earlier this month.

The Commons also approved a cross-party amendment, tabled by Midlands MPs Caroline Spelman and Jack Dromey, rejecting a no-deal Brexit by 318 to 310.

The vote is not legally binding on the Government but will impose further pressure on Mrs May as she tries to secure a new deal.

Mrs May said she would seek 'legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border'.

But she earned an immediate rebuff from Brussels, where European Council president Donald Tusk insisted that the Withdrawal Agreement struck last November was not open for renegotiation.

Theresa May (pictured in the Commons ) told MPs the Withdrawal Agreement will be reopened, as MPs backed her plan to go to Brussels and demand changes to the backstop

Yvette Cooper, left, and Conservative MP Nick Boles, right, backed an amendment to delay Brexit but the plan was voted down by the House of Commons

In a statement, Mr Tusk's spokesman said: 'The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

'The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.'

Another cross-party amendment, tabled by Labour's Rachel Reeves, which would have required the Prime Minister to seek an extension of Article 50 if no deal had been reached by February 26, was also defeated.

However MPs issued an order to Theresa May to prevent a no-deal Brexit as they passed an amendment which rejects the UK leaving the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement.

The cross-party plan, headed by Tory Dame Caroline Spelman and Labour's Jack Dromey, won by 318 votes to 310, majority eight.

Earlier, MPs rejected a bid by Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labour's Brexit plans.

Mr Corbyn, who had earlier boycotted cross-party talks, said he was now ready to meet the Prime Minister to discuss a 'sensible Brexit solution that works for the whole country'.

How May snatched a surprise victory from jaws of defeat as Commons BACKS her to return to Brussels for new talks on the Irish border backstop

By Tim Sculthorpe, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline

Theresa May claimed there was a 'way forward' on Brexit last night after snatching a surprise victory from a minefield in the Commons.

The latest showdown over Brexit dawned with the Prime Minister facing the prospect of humiliation at the hands of MPs for the second time in a fortnight.

Mrs May pleaded with her party for support and ordered them to rally round a plan by Sir Graham Brady, the influential chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs.

But she had issued her orders just minutes after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the shop steward of Tory Brexiteers, had told MPs to do the opposite.

The Prime Minister made her first move as she gathered her Cabinet in Downing Street on Tuesday morning.

She told ministers she was ready to demand Brussels reopens the Withdrawal Agreement to seek legally-binding changes to the backstop.

Theresa May claimed there was a 'way forward' on Brexit last night after snatching a surprise victory from a minefield in the House of Commons

The U-turn - which Mrs May has repeatedly warned against for fears it would risk British success in the negotiations on Gibraltar and fishing - was a key demand of Brexiteers.

Mrs May also set a new deadline of February 13, telling her Cabinet that there would either be a new vote to approve her deal or another round of votes on what to do instead.

It was a crucial concession to Remain ministers such as Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd who had threatened to resign to vote in favour of blocking no deal.

The moves combined with the surprise emergence over night of a new Brexit compromise between Mr Rees-Mogg and Remainer Nicky Morgan built a basis for last night's success.

It was not all one way traffic: shortly after Cabinet broke up, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn finally clambered off the fence and announced he would back the amendments against no deal.

The move was a huge boost to the plan tabled by Labour MP Yvette Cooper to tear up the Commons rules and try to change the law next week.

Her amendment would have scrapped the decades-old rule that only ministers set the timetable of the Commons and given MPs the chance to pass a law saying if there was no deal by February 26, the PM must delay Brexit.

If the Cooper amendment carried, Mrs May's hopes of getting a renegotiation in Brussels would have been bleak.

With Labour votes, Tory Remain rebels were confident they could use Parliament to seize control of the Brexit process to prevent no deal and significantly soften Brexit.

A crucial moment came when Speaker John Bercow selected all of the main plans at the start of the debate - ending fears he would ignore the Brady plan favoured by No 10.

It meant when Mrs May arrived at the Despatch Box at 1.51pm this afternoon both main amendments - Brady and Cooper - were in with a fighting chance when the votes came at 7pm.

In her speech, Mrs May repeated her promises to Cabinet about demanding the Brexit deal was reopened and told MPs: 'I will never stop battling for Britain, but the odds of success become much longer if this House ties one hand behind my back.'

She tells Parliament the Brady amendment 'will give the mandate I need to negotiate with Brussels'.

The PM used her appearance to support the apparent 'Plan C' from Mr Rees-Mogg and Ms Morgan - saying it was a 'serious proposal'.

The efforts of Tory whips appeared to be working - even Boris Johnson said he would vote for the Brady plan if Mrs May was sincere about reopening talks on the divorce deal

Behind the scenes, Tory whips pressed MPs hard to vote down the no deal plans and instead endorse Mrs May's hopes of renegotiating.

The effort appeared to be working - even Boris Johnson said he would vote for the Brady plan if Mrs May was sincere about reopening talks on the divorce deal.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds also spoke up in favour of the PM's new position, while Mr Rees-Mogg thanked Mrs May for her shift.

Again there were blows against Mrs May - with Tory Remain supporters Sarah Wollaston and Ed Vaizey insisting they could not vote for renewed talks on the backstop.

After more than five hours of debate, Mr Bercow finally called the Commons to order at 7pm.

Amendments from Mr Corbyn and SNP leader Ian Blackford were both dispatched with ease - 327 MPs filed into the Government lobby both times, enough to win any vote.

The third vote was crucial as a plan from Tory MP Dominic Grieve - to hand MPs the power to debate and vote on Brexit every Tuesday until there is a deal - was tested.

Fifteen Conservative MPs rebelled - the usual Remain rebels including Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry - but they were cancelled out by 14 Labour MPs.

The Labour group included Brexit supporters like Kate Hoey and Dennis Skinner, and those from Leave-voting areas like Caroline Flint.

It meant the Government won again - 321 to 301 - and by a bigger margin than many had expected.

It set the stage for the Cooper amendment to fail in the fourth vote of the night. This time 17 Tories rebelled but again they were cancelled out by the same bloc of 14 Labour MPs.

Ms Cooper's plan lost by a slightly larger margin of 321 to 298 - a majority of 23 and a clear signal the Commons would back Mrs May to renegotiate the deal.

A fifth vote on an amendment from Rachel Reeves - to make a political statement saying the same as Ms Cooper's proposed law - was seen off 322-290.

The sixth vote on Dame Caroline Spelman's amendment tarnished the night for Mrs May.

The amendment set out a statement that a no deal Brexit would be unacceptable - but made no effort to change the law or force the Government to do anything.

The same 17 Conservative MPs rebelled to support the motion but this time only three Labour MPs went the other way.

Government whip Craig Whittaker read out the seventh and crucial vote on the Brady amendment at 8.40pm, ending a successful day for the Prime Minister as she bought herself more time to get a Brexit deal

It meant the rebels won 318 to 310 - a symbolic blow to Mrs May that could encourage the EU not to give ground in any new negotiations.

But it did not stop Mrs May securing the most important victory of the night when the Brady amendment was finally called to a vote at 8.26pm.

The motion carried 317 to 301, with just eight Tory rebels voting against sending Mrs May back for a final push on the border backstop.

Seven Labour MPs voted the other way, joining forces with all 10 DUP MPs and three Independents to get Mrs May over the line.

She told the Commons: 'A fortnight ago, this House clearly rejected the proposed Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration with just 202 members voting in favour.

'Tonight a majority of Honourable Members have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop.

'Combined with measures to address concerns over Parliament's role in the negotiation of the future relationship and commitments on workers' rights, in law where need be, it is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal.

'We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.'
He also equated the Congress with the Trinamul Congress over practising dynasty politics.

Kolkata: Tearing into the Congress over dynasty politics, BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday claimed that the Grand Old Party has turned into 3G from 2G with the entry of Priyanka Gandhi to political life, which would only ensure more corruption in the future.

Addressing the BJPs Save Democracy Rally at Contai in East Midn-apore, he alleged, Frien-ds, Rahul Baba often co-mes on a visit here. The UPA government was in power for ten years. So-niaji and Manmohanji w-ere at the helm then. That was a 2G government 0f Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

Mr Shah wondered, Th-at government of only 2-Gs was involved in corruption of `12 lakh crore. Now what will be figure of corruption with the entry of the third G? No-w Priyanka didi has com-e. Adding the third G with the 2G the Congress has planned to indulge in more corruption.

He also equated the Congress with the Trinamul Congress over practising dynasty politics. The BJP chief observed, And the Congress and Trinamul Congress are two sides of the same page. The Congress adheres to dynasty politics. First there was Jawaharlal Nehru followed by Indira Gandhi and then Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Continuing his tirade, he said, Later Sonia Gandhi came. Now there is Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. In West Bengal also, Mamata Banerjee is there. She is followed by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. Do you agree with this dyna-sty culture which can not develop the country?

He added, They call for the next government to be a majboor (weak) one. But we demand a mazboot (strong) government which only the BJP can offer.
Security cameras and TV screens have been installed over shelves of baby formula in an attempt to slow down frenzied shoppers.

A Coles in Sydney's north was pictured with the drastic security measures, designed to enforce the restrictions on how many tins each customer can purchase.

A spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia, the cameras were installed a while ago to try and counteract people 'doing the wrong thing'.

A Coles supermarket in northern Sydney has taken drastic action to enforce baby formula restrictions by installing security cameras and monitors directly above the shelves

Australian mothers have complained of a baby formula shortage as frenzied Chinese shoppers exported it in droves

'While the large majority of our customers do the right thing, it's not fair that a small number of people get away with doing the wrong thing,' the spokesperson said.

Supermarkets around the country were forced to implement strict restrictions on how many tins of formula customers could buy at a time. Woolworths limits patrons to two tins per transaction while Coles' policy is eight tins.

'Like a number of retailers, we work with police to reduce shoplifting. There are also trained covert security officers in our stores nationally and they're catching hundreds of thieves every week and reporting them to police.

'Electronic article surveillance tags and CCTV are some of a range of security measures we have in place to reduce theft from our stores.'

An image from October showed customers of Asian appearance lining up with boxes full of formula, supermarket attendants appearing to disregard the limit per customer

The spokesperson said the cameras directly over the shelves would also be rolled out in other stores.

Demand for Australian baby formula is at an all-time high after new research revealed tins sell for as much as $80 to desperate Chinese mothers.

The mass exportation of the manufactured baby product is a result of approximately 54,000 Chinese babies being hospitalised in 2008 due to contaminated local formula.

Videos of customers of Asian appearance lining up with boxes full of the formula have gone viral online, leading some to question whether the policy is even enforced.

Demand for Australian baby formula is at an all-time high after new research revealed tins sell for as much as $80 to desperate Chinese families

While many have been quick to blame those exporting the formula for a shortage, one Australian businessman has advised against it.

Founder of the Australia China Daigou Association Dr Matthew McDougall said it was the Australian manufacturers duty to be able to provide to all their customers' needs.

'Daigou (overseas surrogate shopper) fundamentally understand they can't continue to source baby formula from shelves en masse but their options are limited.'
Britain is in the grip of a surge in violent crime. No neighbourhood or individual is immune from its cruel impact  not even an MP, as I have recently found to my own cost.

One evening last summer, I was assaulted by a number of men while travelling through the Lake District town of Ambleside near my Barrow constituency in Cumbria.

The incident was unnerving, though I am prevented, on legal grounds, from writing more about it due to the impending trial of one of the alleged assailants.

Even though I am a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, the experience brought home to me the reality of the soaring crime wave taking hold of our society.

Scourge

Only last week, the latest figures on crimes recorded by the police showed violent offences were up by 19 per cent in the year to September 2018. Robberies rose by 22 per cent and the number of homicides increased from 649 to 739 over the same period.

Barrow MP John Woodcock, pictured, was assaulted last year in his Barrow constituency. Private security workers in the area are now being used to detain violent criminals due to a shortage in officer numbers

Robberies rose by 22 per cent and the number of homicides increased from 649 to 739 over the same period (stock image)

That great democrat George Orwell wrote in 1941 that the gentleness of English civilisation is perhaps its most marked characteristic.

Almost 80 years on, his words couldnt sound less true.

In the face of this scourge, the police are struggling to cope. And in my own North-Western region, the local constabularies are grossly over-stretched. As a result, drastic action is now being taken to make up for the forces lack of capacity.

In one alarming measure, reported by this paper yesterday, private security guards at bars and clubs in parts of the Lake District are using handcuffs to detain violent assailants while waiting for the police to arrive.

The shocking initiative made clear just how little confidence many have that the police will be there when needed.

South Lakeland  where the measure has been taken  is roughly the size of Greater London. Yet cuts to forces in sparse rural areas like this mean that generally only a handful of officers are on duty at any one time.

Even if the police officers on duty wanted to attend every call, it would be impossible.

To be honest, when I was assaulted last summer, I might have welcomed the assistance of security guards licensed to detain my assailants.

But I am also profoundly concerned by this development, which could threaten the entire tradition of policing in this country.

For almost 200 years, ever since home secretary Sir Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan Police, our constabularies have been the widely respected guardians of law enforcement.

Their success  long admired throughout the world  is based on their determination to avoid arbitrary punishment, personal bias or political oppression.

Abuse

But their ability to maintain public order in an impartial and rigorous manner will be lost if the Lake District experiment is repeated too widely.

In such circumstances, the polices unique role as the upholders of law will become diluted by the welter of private security firms and contractors, which, under the guise of public protection, will be able to take the law into their own hands.

It is not the route that a civilised society should follow: it is a recipe for vigilantism and abuse. Given the occasional tendency of bouncers to exhibit aggressive behaviour, many will rightly wonder whether providing security guards with handcuffs will end badly.

And what will be the next group applying to carry out their own police work? Hospitals with drunk tanks staffed by nurses wielding tasers? Cyclists and pedestrians given the right to impound the vehicles they consider dangerous?

Tragically, such fragmentation could happen if the crisis in policing is allowed to sink further. And with police funding being relentlessly cut, this looks increasingly likely.

Due to cuts, Government funding has fallen by 30 per cent in real terms since 2010/11. As a result, police numbers across the country have been reduced by 22,000 and neighbourhood policing has been eroded by a fifth.

It is no wonder, in this context of cutbacks, that instances of court action are down by 26 per cent over the past three years. The number of arrests have also fallen  from 17 arrests per 1,000 of the population in 2014/15 to 14 per 1,000 in 2016/17.

But the bigger issue is that officers are being diverted from doing genuine police work. Today, police are having to act as mental health support workers for vulnerable people who have had their local services scrapped. And with paramedics themselves hopelessly overworked, they are also having to drop people at A&E units.

No wonder private companies have spotted the gap in the market and security guards are being drafted in as reinforcements.

On top of all that, there is an explosion across the country in county lines activity, with urban gangs using children as drug mules in rural areas. The latest estimate by the National Crime Agency released this week shows a trebling in the number of cross-county operations.

Combating these requires time and resources  neither of which police in Cumbria have in abundance.

Before order breaks down and people lose confidence in the ability of the authorities to keep them safe, far more needs to be invested into policing.

That means more funding  not just for the fight against organised crime but also for community policing.

On top of all that, there is an explosion across the country in county lines activity, with urban gangs using children as drug mules in rural areas (stock image)

Decline

When the police are understaffed and resources are limited, more also needs to be done to stop crime taking place in the first place.

Thats why its just as important that other parts of public life  such as health, education, youth work and social services  are also given sufficient support.

I am happy to say that, in contrast to the dispiriting handcuffs tale, the Cumbria constabulary is trying to focus on grass roots measures to help restore public confidence.

In Egerton Court, an estate in my constituency which recently recorded 1,364 crimes in the space of five years, a community hub has opened this week where police and health support workers can help decent residents take back control of their area.

But a traditional hands-on approach to policing and community support needs to be sustained in the longer term.

Bluntly, the Government must reverse the years of financial decline in the public sector. We have to invest in the basic local services that keep our kids off the streets and our communities together.

If we fail to do that, we may see far more worrying examples of private security initiatives than security guards brandishing handcuffs.
Police have threatened to ban the Rainbow Serpent Festival if organisers do not stamp out drug use after seven people overdosed on Australia Day weekend.

Victoria Police Superintendent Jenny Wilson said she was looking for assurances that 'future events will be run differently'.

It came after several youths aged in their 20s faced the Ballarat Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, The Herald Sun reported.

Victoria Police Superintendent Jenny Wilson said she was looking for assurances that 'future events will be run differently' (Rainbow Serpent Festival pictured)

Police say they will ban the popular festival if organisers do not make moves to stamp out drug taking (police searching cars for drugs, pictured)

After the long weekend festival saw 'seven drug overdoses, two sex assaults and violent attacks on revellers and police' authorities decided to speak out

The long weekend festival also saw two alleged sexual assaults and violent attacks on revellers.

Supt Wilson said the event had been 'hijacked' by rampant drug use and said it was a worrying sign.

'There is no such thing as a safe illicit drug, yet we have a number of people willing to profit off others while putting them at risk,' Supt Wilson said.

'Every year police deal with serious crimes at this event such as sexual assaults and drug trafficking.'

She said police would not tolerate any behaviour that would put law-abiding patrons in harm's way.

'This kind of behaviour puts a lot of people at risk and is completely unacceptable.

'We want people to come to this event and enjoy it for what it is - a celebration of culture, music and arts.

Superintendent Jenny Wilson told the publication that the event had been 'hijacked' by rampant drug use and said it was a worrying sign

Victoria Police released figures outlining the offences and charges laid during the weekend long festival including 12 arrests for drug trafficking

'However the behaviour of some individuals shows that there are still some people out there willing to put themselves and others at huge risk.'

One female reveller is still fighting for her life in hospital after a suspected drug overdose at the festival.

Victoria Police released figures outlining the offences and charges laid during the during the course of the event.

They included two sexual assaults, two assaults, 12 people arrested for drug trafficking, 54 people given cautions or diversions for drug possession and 45 people returning positive drug-driving tests.

One female festival goer is still fighting for her life in hospital after a suspected drug overdose at the festival

Figures also showed there were drug overdoses on every single day of the festival, with one on Friday, four on Saturday, one on Sunday and another on Monday

Police said there were drug overdoses on every single day of the festival, with one on Friday, four on Saturday, one on Sunday and another on Monday.

The publication reportedly spoke to one reveller who said they travelled to the festival on a bus full of people, none of whom were searched by police before entering the event.
Here in Babel we had a five-hour gymkhana of babble and blether as anti-Brexit backbenchers considered asserting themselves.

You might as well ask a gaggle of Mediterranean gravy waiters to bring a jumbo jet in to land at Heathrow. Left a bit, right a bit, keep straight  prrrrrrrang.

Prang it they duly did, and the evening ended well for the Government. All but one vote went their way, and the lost one was non-binding.

Tory Remainer Heidi Allen was wearing her sad, pouty face. Justine Greening blinked back tears after some (unsuccessful) pressure from Tory Whips.

Corbyn appeared to be blown off course during his speech by his own backbenchers

She and her fellow Europhiles Antoinette Sandbach and Stephen Crabb just sat on their backsides, glowering as Chief Whip Julian Smith spoke to them. It had been like that much of the day. Voices, voices, raised and infuriated, bellowed as they told each other how to do it.

Peak madness was reached during Jeremy Corbyns astoundingly bad speech. I have never known such prolonged tumult or seen an Opposition Leader so lose hold of the House.

Even crazier, Mr Corbyn was blown off-course by his own side. Angela Smith (Lab, Penistone & Stocksbridge) repeatedly tried to intervene on her leaders speech. He wanted nothing to do with her  shes a Blairite. Ms Smith held her arms wide like the Angel of the North. Conservative MPs shouted behind you! at Mr Corbyn.

Then he said he wanted to stay in a customs union. Theresa May leapt up to inquire what parts of a union he could accept. He hadnt a clue! He turned to Sir Keir Starmer, his Brexit spokesman, for help but Mrs May spotted that and mocked it.

Not that she herself was much cop when she opened the debate just before 2pm. Stuttery, prosaic, she boasted that the Commons had recently renewed its confidence in Her Majestys Government. A more honest way of saying that might have been: I scraped through a no-confidence vote.

As she plodded through her speech, up popped the usual suspects, wearisome minnows whose worn routines make any sane onlooker yearn to clang them over the nut with a copper bedpan.

Here, along with later speakers such as legal osh-gosh-gobbler (sorry, senior lawyer) Joanna Cherry of the SNP, suavely disingenuous Ed Vaizey, and of course the bent goblin Bercow overseeing it all from his discredited Throne, was the so-called cream of our representative politics. And these over-proud jobbernowls want to run our nations affairs, turning themselves into an executive.

The Cooper woman wobbled her head and talked to us like a nursery matron giving us potty drill. The Letwin man, all twirly mannerisms as he fnarrred about constitutional process, fretted about his partys share of the vote  and then said he would vote with Labour.

Doddery Vince Cable came over all Corporal Jones and spoke of panic if Brexit was not diluted. Dominic Grieve was his usual odd mix of oil and vinegar, a French Legion dHonneur dressing.

Nick Boles (Con, Grantham & Stamford), who had joined with La Cooper to try to delay Brexit, spoke of his conscience and insisted he did not wish to prevent Leave. Just as well he wasnt on oath when he said that.

Amazing that its the Eurosceptics  the ones actually trying to honour the referendum vote  who are spoken of as ultras.

Theresa May addresses the house of Commons Parliament during the debate on Britain's Brexit European Union Withdrawal Act

Frank Field (Ind, Birkenhead) thought the day should be shortened to prevent Parliament doing itself damage. Too late, Frank. So many of these voices busied themselves in self-promotion, in scorning their foes and in dissing the democratic vote. Hyperbole by the hundredweight.

Yet part of me rejoiced at it, for with each such set-to in our citadel, voters discern ever more clearly the bankruptcy of so much in the stinking parade.

Come the votes, that Labour lad from Sheffield Hallam sauntered round in black T-shirt and jeans. Boris Johnson and David Davis, beside each other, nodded like mafia dons as they heard the defeat of the Cooper-Boles delay gambit. Chief Whip Smith and his deputy, Pincher, conspired in a corner. Someone should paint those two.

And the Brady amendment was passed, significantly, with a heftier majority than the non-binding Spelman effort.

Brexit feels closer, a little safer. That it has even been in doubt is the disgrace.
A teenager from Arizona uncovered a bug that turns iPhones into eavesdropping devices while trying to play a game of 'Fornite' with his friends.

Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old high school student in Tucson, wanted to chat with friends when he discovered a major bug in Apple's popular Group FaceTime feature.

Thompson called his friend Nathan using FaceTime, but Nathan didn't pick up on January 19.

Thompson then swiped up and added another friend, a move that instantly connected him with Nathan, whose phone was still ringing.

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Michele Thompson (pictured) said her son told her he had discovered a bug in Apple's 'Group FaceTime' feature that allows callers hear and see those they are reaching out to on iPhones

Michele Thompson said she had tried repeatedly to contact Apple about the privacy glitch from the time her son discovered it

The youngster had discovered a bug that allowed him to force other iPhones to answer a FaceTime call, even if the other person doesn't take any action.

Apple has since disabled the 'Group FaceTime' feature, and a software update to fix the bug is expected to be released.

The bug is triggered when callers add themselves to the same call to launch a group chat. That makes FaceTime think the receiver had accepted the chat.

It lets people hear and even see those they are reaching out to on iPhones using the video calling software, sparking privacy fears.

Michele Thompson said she spent days trying to alert the tech giant to the glitch before it announced it was disabling the feature on Tuesday

Thompson said that she hoped her son might be able to claim a bounty for discovering the bug

Grant's mother Michele, a lawyer, said she had tried repeatedly to contact Apple about the privacy glitch from the time her son discovered it to the company announcing that it was disabling the feature on Tuesday.

Thompson said she tried everything she could think of to get Apple's attention. She emailed, called Apple and tweeted CEO Tim Cook and even faxed a letter on her law firm's letterhead.

'It was very frustrating getting them to respond. I get it. I'm sure they get all sorts of kooks that try to report things to them,' she told CNN Business.

A freshman in high school, Grant told CNN Business he's 'pretty into technology and stuff' and thinks it would be cool if Apple acknowledged his find.

The glitch affects devices using versions iOS 12.1 or later. Apple has taken its Group FaceTime feature offline following the discovery of the bug (file photo)

'We tested a few more times and found out we could get people to force answer FaceTime calls,' Grant told CNN Business.

'After we confirmed that it worked, I went and told my mom.'

Apple has a bug bounty program that offers financial rewards for some discoveries.

The program, launched in 2016, pays up to $200,000 for detecting bugs, but some third-party companies will offer more.

Thompson said that she hoped her son might be able to claim a bounty for the bug but that the process required technical knowledge she didn't have.

Although she said they didn't report the issue for a reward, she believes Apple should acknowledge her son.

'Apple should reward people for reporting things of this nature, not just reward the developers or the people who are savvy with tech,' said Thompson. 'I think just thanking him would be great,' she said.

The bug, demonstrated through videos online , comes as an embarrassment for a company that is trying to distinguish itself by stressing its commitment to users' privacy.

The glitch emerged publicly on Data Privacy Day, which Apple chief executive Tim Cook (pictured) had tweeted about and called for 'vital privacy protections'

'This is a big hit to their brand,' said Dave Kennedy, CEO of Ohio-based security firm TrustedSec. "

'There's been a long period of time people could have used that to eavesdrop. These things definitely should be caught prior to ever being released.'

There is no longer a danger from this particular bug as Apple disabled group chats, while regular, one-on-one FaceTime remains available.

It's hard to know if anyone exploited the bug maliciously, said Erka Koivunen, chief information security officer for Finnish company F-Secure.

He said it would have been hard to use the bug to spy on someone, as the phone would ring first - and it's easy to identify who called.

Apple said Tuesday that a fix will come in a software update later this week. Apple declined to say when it learned about the problem.

The company also wouldn't say if it has logs that could show if anyone took advantage of the bug before it became publicly known this week.

Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the 14-year-old's discovery of the problem 'just tells us a lot about reporting security bugs depends on knowing the right person.'

Galperin said Apple should develop a better process for fielding reports about potential security flaws.
An alarming photo shows inmates shoveling snow in their jumpsuits just ahead of Chicago's record-breaking cold snap.

The image of inmates from the Cook County Jail was shared on Facebook by La Villita, Chicago, on Monday.

'They got the inmates cleaning with no real winter gear,' the caption of the photo read.

Though the photo was blurry, it showed at least six inmates in their orange jumpsuits shoveling snow outside the jail as officers monitored them.

An alarming photo shows inmates shoveling snow in their jumpsuits just ahead of Chicago's record-breaking cold snap. The image (above) was shared on Facebook on Monday

Though the photo was blurry, it showed at least six inmates in their orange jumpsuits shoveling snow outside the jail as officers monitored them. The photo was then shared by the Chicago Community Bond Fund (above)

The sheriff's RENEW program 'aims to reduce neighborhood blight in distressed suburbs while also providing vocational training to a targeted group of inmates', but the program has its critics (above)

The photo was then shared by the Chicago Community Bond Fund which tweeted that the men appeared to be shoveling 'without proper winter weather attire'.

According to the fund, the inmates were 'paid $2 for their labor as part of the Sheriff's RENEW program'.

'We commented on their working conditions & the absurd idea that this was workforce training,' the fund tweeted.

The sheriff's RENEW program 'aims to reduce neighborhood blight in distressed suburbs while also providing vocational training to a targeted group of inmates'.

'We hope the Sheriff's Office will provide the public with information about what is going on here and how these folks are being treated,' the fund tweeted.

Cara Smith, chief spokeswoman for the sheriffs office, told the Chicago Tribune that 'the situation was entirely and intentionally misrepresented'.

Smith said that the inmates were given insulated jumpsuits, gloves, hats and boots.

She said there was also a van nearby for warming.

The inmates were 'paid $2 for their labor as part of the Sheriff's RENEW program'. Pictured is the Cook County Jail

A low of -7F (-21C) was forecast in Chicago on Wednesday

But with the wind chill factored in, temperatures will feel as low as -50F (-46C) at times in the Chicago area and northern Illinois through to Thursday, the National Weather Service reported

Smith told the newspaper that workers in the program do not if temperatures dip below 20 degrees.

On Monday, temperatures in Chicago reached a high of 35F and a low of 9F.

But Sharlyn Grace, the co-executive director of the Chicago Community Bond Fund, questioned how shoveling snow helps inmates upon graduation from the RENEW program.

'I dont think that anyone is seriously suggesting that shoveling snow is a skilled form of labor thats going to lead to job opportunities upon release,' she told the Tribune.

Officials warned Chicago residents, accustomed to chilling winters, to expect an unusually deep and dangerous freeze.

A low of -7F (-21C) was forecast in Chicago on Wednesday.

But with the wind chill factored in, temperatures will feel as low as -50F (-46C) at times in the Chicago area and northern Illinois through to Thursday, the National Weather Service reported.
Its marketing claims it is the official food of everything. And it appears Dominos Pizza is living up to that title after it sold 12 pizzas every second on the Friday before Christmas.

The delivery firm shifted more than half a million pizzas on December 21, the busiest-ever day for the company, as the country indulged itself over the festive period.

Festive demand helped the groups UK division rake in almost 313million in sales in the 13 weeks to December 30  a 4.5 per cent rise on a year ago.

Dominos Pizza is living up to its 'official food of everything' title after it sold 12 pizzas every second on the Friday before Christmas

David Wild, of Dominos Pizza UK, said: Many families decided to kick off the festive season with a Dominos.

The UK market for delivered food is vibrant and we estimate that it will grow at a rate of 8 per cent a year to 2022.
A man has been arrested after police found highly venomous snakes, an array of illegal drugs and a replica gun hidden at his home.

Officers from NSW Police found the reptiles after they were called to an alleged domestic violence incident at a property in Berala in Sydney's west on Tuesday afternoon.

During a search, Auburn Police Area Command seized a replica pistol, a slingshot, and substances believed to be cocaine and ice.

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A man has been arrested after police found highly venomous snakes (pictured) at his Sydney home

They also found 13 living and deceased snakes, including red-bellied black snakes and potentially deadly tiger snakes.

The 26-year-old, who has not been named, was refused bail and is due to face Burwood Local Court, in inner west Sydney, later on Wednesday.

Police will allege the reptiles did not have adequate heat or water and were kept in enclosures that were too small.

The snakes have since been seized by authorised wildlife handlers.

A total of 13 living and deceased snakes (pictured) were found in the home, including red-bellied black snakes and potentially deadly tiger snakes

The man faces at total of 11 charges, including two counts of destroy or damage property, and one count of stalk or intimidate intend physical harm.

He also faces other charges for the items uncovered at his home, including: possess unauthorised pistol, deal in or attempt to deal in protected animal and three counts of possess prohibited drug.

A further three charges relate to the replica firearm, including: use prohibited weapon contrary to prohibition order, acquire pistol subject to firearms prohibition order, and possess or use a prohibited weapon without permit.
A plan to invest more than $1billion to address the impacts of climate change has been slammed by One Nation, with the party claiming that scrapping the scheme would slash power costs.

The party said New South Wales' Climate Change Fund is contributing to soaring electricity bills, and has promised to attempt to drop it if state parliament candidate and former Labor leader Mark Latham is elected to parliament.

The NSW Climate Change Fund will see the state government invest $1.4billion to address the impacts of climate change.

The party said New South Wales' Climate Change Fund is contributing to soaring electricity bills, and has promised to attempt to drop it if candidates including former Labor leader Mark Latham (pictured) are elected to parliament

In a statement, One Nation said investing in renewable energy was inefficient, and that dropping the Climate Change Fund would result in an $85 reduction in power bills (stock image)

Mr Latham told Daily Mail Australia investing in renewable energy was inefficient, and that dropping the Climate Change Fund would result in an $85 reduction in power bills.

'[The Climate Change Fund] is making it harder for people to pay their bills. It's failing to achieve the results it set out to,' he said.

'It's money wasted on shopping centre tree canopies and these sort of things.'

Mr Latham said NSW should be looking to 'diversify' its energy sources and advocated for the use of nuclear power.

'It's a delusion . . . [the NSW Government] wants to put all their eggs in the renewables basket,' he said.

'I think we need a more practical approach to energy policy. Going down the nuclear path will be sustainable.'

He said it was 'very hard for a state government' to have a significant impact on combating the effects of climate change.

In a statement, One Nation said renewable sources of energy were expensive due to their 'intermittent nature'.

'When the wind doesn't blow (or blows too hard) there is no wind power. When the sun doesn't shine, there is no solar power,' the party's statement said.

'Countries overseas must be laughing at Australia. We are the world's most resource-rich nation, yet we have some of the highest electricity prices in the world, a dead weight on economic growth.'

One Nation called the Climate Change Fund the 'equivalent of a Green Tax on electricity'.

'The CCF has specialised in wasteful spending, such as local government and university studies, re-education propaganda programs, sea-wall audits and even the development of shopping centre ''tree canopies'',' One Nation said in a statement.

One Nation called the Climate Change Fund the 'equivalent of a Green Tax on electricity' (stock image)

'At a time when many households are struggling with their weekly budget, the best contribution the NSW Government can make is to abolish the CCF and give electricity consumers relief from record-high prices.'

Mark Latham tweeted about his party's proposal on Wednesday, calling the Climate Change Fund 'useless'.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has claimed climate change is not caused by humans and previously said 'the science isn't there' regarding its existence.

The NSW Government Climate Change Fund's key investments include $49.9million for energy-saving 'upgrades' in social housing, $22.9million for discounts to replace inefficient fridges and televisions and $37million towards an initiative to plant five million trees in Sydney.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the Climate Change Fund will lower energy bills for households in the state.

'We are doing everything we can to help families and businesses take control of their power bills,' she said in August.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson (pictured with Latham) has claimed climate change is not caused by humans and previously said 'the science isn't there' regarding its existence

'Cutting energy bills is a top priority for my Government.'

NSW Minister for Primary Industires Niall Blair said $35million spent on energy-efficient equipment upgrades would help manufacturers save $80,000 per year on average in power costs.

'Not only will this benefit individual businesses but also the wider economy as it means business owners will have more money to invest in growing their firms and employing more workers,' Mr Blair said.

'High energy users like NSW's manufacturing businesses will particularly benefit from these cost savings, which will enable them to invest in measures that better equip them to compete on the global stage.'
Mrs May yesterday enjoyed her best night by far since she became Prime Minister two and a half years ago.

She saved the Tory party from splitting. She headed off the concerted attempt by Labours Yvette Cooper and Tory MP Nick Boles to seize back control for Parliament.

And she gained a majority in the House for her desperate last-ditch strategy of tearing up the Withdrawal Agreement she negotiated with Europe last November.

In a series of dramatic late-night votes she was only defeated on one relatively minor issue when MPs supported an amendment by Tory Caroline Spelman to rule out the possibility of a No Deal Brexit.

Theresa May yesterday enjoyed her best night by far since she became Prime Minister two and a half years ago

But Mrs May will surely be able to live with that defeat. The Spelman amendment, after all, is not legally binding.

There has been a great deal of talk in recent weeks that Parliament itself would take control of the Brexit process from Theresa May and Downing Street.

Last night the exact opposite happened. Theresa May took back control of Brexit from Parliament. As a result, she looks more secure in her job than she has done for a very long time.

Nor was that vital strategic win the only matter for Downing Street celebration. As Tory MPs united behind Mrs Mays deal, Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party split wide open as a dozen Labour rebels defied a three-line Labour whip over the Cooper amendment and thereby saved Mrs Mays skin  just.

But I would warn against too much exultation in Downing Street. The Prime Minister has paid a price for her victory in terms of personal reputation and credibility.

Lets not forget her new strategy involves going back to the deal she defended for so long  one she agreed with the 27 other nations of the EU less than two months ago.

Before Christmas, Theresa May signed up for the so-called Irish backstop. This gave a guarantee that there would never be border controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

But the plan was hated by Brexiteering Conservative MPs because they feared the European Union would use the backstop as a device to keep Britain in the European customs union for ever.

After days of frantic backstairs plotting, Mrs May has won their support by promising to ditch the backstop. She will now ask to open negotiations with Europe for so-called alternative arrangements.

Theresa May headed off the concerted attempt by Labours Yvette Cooper and Tory MP Nick Boles to seize back control for Parliament today

By doing so, shes kept Britain on course to leave the European Union on March 29, just 58 days from now. However  and I say this with a heavy heart as a supporter of the PM  last nights victory has come at the cost of a pretty dramatic U-turn from the PM.

She has only secured her survival by scrapping a deal which she personally agreed to barely eight weeks ago. Back then, remember, she insisted that the backstop was unchangeable.

Now she appears to believe that it can be rewritten after all. What is more, Mrs May seems to think that she can do this in the next two weeks, having promised to come back to the Commons by February 13 for a second meaningful vote.

To many this looks like dreamland, for many in Brussels will take a dim view of Britains decision to renege on a deal that was struck last year  and go back demanding changes.

It needs to be said that Mrs May is not the only one who has shifted their position. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is equally guilty.

He hypocritically opposed Mrs Mays proposal last night, even though he was actually against the backstop in the first place!

Last night, Mrs May criticised Mr Corbyn for facing both ways over Brexit. So what next? What follows in the coming days is essentially an almighty act of brinkmanship.

Earlier in the evening, President Macron warned that there would be no renegotiation on the backstop

The Prime Minister must now set herself directly at odds with the European Union.

Essentially, she is making the brutal calculation that the EU leaders will dump the backstop by renegotiating the agreement.

Last night, all the indications were that they would refuse to do so.

Earlier in the evening, President Macron warned that there would be no renegotiation on the backstop. His words were endorsed shortly after the vote by the EU president Donald Tusk, who announced that the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.

This means we have entered terrifyingly unpredictable territory.

The possibility of a No Deal Brexit has suddenly become far more likely, with all the potentially catastrophic consequences of economic meltdown it involves. No wonder sterling was falling in value last night.

Mrs May has opened herself to the charge of putting the Tory party before the country. Perhaps she will not mind that too much.

Dont underestimate the depth of the fears that the party could split in two between hardline Brexiteers and the rest as a consequence of Brexit. That outcome has now been postponed, though not put off altogether.

So Mrs Mays triumph is far from complete. With less than ten weeks to go till Brexit Day, there is still a great deal to be achieved. What if the EU keeps to its word and refuses to budge?

There may yet be a mighty arm-wrestle to come. There will be celebration in Downing Street today, but I predict it wont last long as minds turn to the battle ahead.
BJP president Amit Shah was at Kanpur addressing a meeting of BJP's booth-level workers ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Kanpur: In a dig at the proposed 'mahagathbandhan' of the opposition parties for not disclosing its prime ministerial candidate, BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday said there will a new prime minister every day of the week if the grand alliance comes to power. "The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is," Shah said addressing a meeting of BJP's booth-level workers in Kanpur ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

"If the 'gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sunday will be a holiday," he said.

"They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added.

"The BJP has four Bs -- 'Badhta Bharat' and 'Banta Bharat'. Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs -- 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," Shah said, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic politics.

"Their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government. Only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he asserted.

The BJP president exhorted the workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in the parliamentary polls. "It is also important for the country that BJP wins these elections... the win should be such that it shakes the opposition parties," Shah said.

He also lashed out at the Congress and said none of the party's leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. "I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that BJP is committed to ensure that a grand temple is made at the Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said.

"The Congress government had acquired 42 acres of land of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas... Nyas has asked that it be returned... we hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said.
Molly Russell, 14, took her own life after accessing horrific images online

Youngsters should be banned from social media sites if the web giants cannot clean up their act, England's Children's Commissioner has said.

Anne Longfield demanded technology firms finally take responsibility to protect teenagers from the blight of vile posts promoting self-harm and suicide.

Her intervention comes as ministers consider legislation to impose on the companies a statutory 'duty of care' online.

In a letter to sites including YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat, Mrs Longfield said the tragic case of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life after accessing horrific images online, should be a moment of reflection.

'I would appeal to you to accept there are problems and to commit to tackling them - or admit publicly that you are unable to,' she wrote.

At the weekend, 30 families accused social media companies of contributing to their children's deaths by failing to remove distressing posts that are easily accessible online.

The growing problem was highlighted last week when father Ian Russell accused Instagram, the social network owned by Facebook, of playing a part in the suicide of his daughter Molly.

Mrs Longfield said the cases showed more than ever why the technology giants should heed her calls for the establishment of a digital ombudsman, financed by the firms but independent of them, to ensure dangerous content is removed quickly.

She also renewed her demand the sites are bound by a 'legal obligation to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of children' using their platforms.

Whitehall officials last night confirmed they were looking at the possibility of introducing a statutory duty of care as part of draft legislation due to be published within weeks.

Anne Longfield demanded technology firms finally take responsibility to protect teenagers from the blight of vile posts promoting self-harm and suicide

A source said: 'Ministers are clear that the White Paper will set out responsibility for social media firms, how they should be met, and what happens if they do not.'

In her open letter, Mrs Longfield called on the technology firms to finally take the action they have promised to tackle the problem of harmful content or admit they are powerless to do so.

He wrote: 'The tragic suicide of Molly Russell and her father's appalled response to the material she was viewing on social media before her death have again highlighted the horrific amount of disturbing content that children are accessing online.

'I do not think it is going too far to question whether even you, the owners, any longer have any control over their content.

'If that is the case, then children should not be accessing your services at all, and parents should be aware that the idea of any authority overseeing algorithms and content is a mirage.'

The Commissioner said none of the platforms 'regularly used by vast numbers of children were designed or developed with children in mind, and for some children this is proving harmful, whether that is due to addictive in-app features, inappropriate algorithms or a lack of responsibility for the hosting of dangerous content.'

Ian Russell, pictured, accused Instagram, the social network owned by Facebook, of playing a part in the suicide of his daughter Molly

She added: 'Over the last few years, I have had dialogue with many of the big social media companies over how best to make sure children have the resilience, information and power they need to make safe and informed choices about their digital lives.

'I have been reassured time and time again that this is an issue taken seriously. However, I believe that there is still a failure to engage and that children remain an afterthought.'

She went on: 'The potential disruption to all user experiences should no longer be a brake on making the safety and wellbeing of young people a top priority. Neither should hiding behind servers and apparatus in other jurisdictions be an acceptable way of avoiding responsibility.

'The recent tragic cases of young people who had accessed and drawn from sites that post deeply troubling content around suicide and self-harm, and who in the end took their own lives, should be a moment of reflection. 'I would appeal to you to accept there are problems and to commit to tackling them - or admit publicly that you are unable to.'

She concluded the letter: 'With great power comes great responsibility, and it is your responsibility to support measures that give children the information and tools they need growing up in this digital world - or to admit that you cannot control what anyone sees on your platforms.'

Ministers pledged last May to 'address the Wild West elements of the internet through legislation' and officials have been meeting with industry as they finalise legislative proposals.

A Government spokesman said: 'This winter we will publish a white paper, setting out new laws to tackle the full range of online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe.'
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been mocked over a photo of himself in the kitchen that was shared to his own Twitter account.

As children prepare to return to school in the coming days after a lengthy summer break, the Labor leader wrote online that 'back to school means back to making school lunches'.

But while his white shirt came perilously close to a knife spreading Vegemite, the Labor leader's culinary skills weren't what had people talking.

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Labor Leader Bill Shorten has been mocked for this picture posted to his Twitter

People were quick to lay into Mr Shorten about the burn mark over his left shoulder

Over Mr Shorten's left shoulder, a black burn mark above the stove stood out in stark contrast to its cream-coloured walls.

Online commenters were quick to point out the cooking mishap, with many wondering who was at fault - Shorten or his wife Chloe.

'Well, now I just have to know: Who burnt the back of the stove?'

Another made reference to his political campaign, questioning whether the incriminating mark was an indication Mr Shorten was going to leave things on the 'back burner'.

'Looks like the hot plate got a little too hot Bill,' wrote another.

A stark black burn mark on Mr Shorten's kitchen walls grabbed commenter's attention

Mr Shorten (pictured with his family) lamented that back to school meant 'back to making school lunches' for his kids

The kitchen picture isn't the first run-in with food Mr Shorten has had over the years.

Back during the 2016 Federal Election, the politician was mocked widely for how he ate the customary post-vote sausage sizzle.

Tucking into the sausage and bread, Mr Shorten elected to bite it through the middle, as opposed to starting at one of the ends.

At the time, one critic wrote: 'If Bill Shorten loses this election how much will it be because he ate a sausage sandwich sideways.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was also left red-faced after posing with a radio personality crafting a crude word with his mug.

The white mug held by host Shad Wicka has the letters U, N, T written in pink - and the curved handle is pink too - which when combined creates an explicit word.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was also left red-faced after posing with a radio personality crafting a crude word with his mug

Despite the awkward photo the Labor Opposition finds itself ahead 53 per cent to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis in the latest Newspoll.

Published by The Australian on Tuesday, the Liberal government increased its primary vote by two points since the last poll in December, which had Labor leading 55 per cent to 45 per cent.

However, Mr Morrison's approval rating continues to plummet, despite leading Opposition Leader Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister at 43 per cent compared to 36 per cent.
A Washington state woman who repeatedly stabbed and slashed her boyfriend with a samurai sword after she thought he was cheating on her on Tinder, has pleaded guilty to the attack.

Emily Javier, 31, will face up to 20 years in prison for attempted first-degree domestic violence murder and will be sentenced March 11.

According to The Columbian, the prosecution will recommend a 20-year prison sentence for Javier.

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Emily Javier, 30, accused of attacking her boyfriend with a samurai sword has pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of her boyfriend. She could now face up to 20 years in jail

Alex 'Biggie' Lovell, 30, picture sitting up in a wheelchair in the hospital after being slashed with a samurai sword, credits his survival to his training as a competitive video game player

Lovell said he takes comfort that he was able to defend himself from a 'samurai wannabe crazy lady with hate in her heart'. He shared a pic of his fingers that were almost completely cut off

The grisly attack drew national and international headlines last year, both because of Javier's choice of weapon as well as her boyfriend's easygoing attitude about the whole episode.

Alex Lovell, 30, crediting his survival against his jealous girlfriend to his training as a competitive video game player - and his passion for Kung Fu movies.

Lovell was rushed a hospital suffering from life-threatening injuries that police said were inflicted on him by his girlfriend of two years.

Javier told police she attacked Lovell with the sword after discovering the dating app Tinder on his phone, in addition to a few other clues that suggested her boyfriend had been unfaithful to her.

At the time, the pro gamer said he was faithful to Javier, left, but had no energy to show her affection because of his gaming regimen. Lovell maintained his sense of humor - even one day after the attack he jokingly asked for his picture of the two of them to be cropped

Javier told how she waited for Lovell to fall asleep before carrying out her savage attack which left him seriously wounded with life-threatening injuries

His index, middle and ring fingers were nearly lopped off at the base, though doctors managed to reattach them.

His right foot sustained a clean cut, and his left knee suffered a laceration that required a metal plate to repair some of the bone. His right wrist was put in a cast. He suffered minor lacerations on his torso, a 'decent cut' on the left side of his head, as well as bruising on his neck.

The affidavit states that Javier told officers, 'I was trying to kill him for cheating. That was my purpose.'

Though he has faced months of recovery, Lovell has remained positive.

'I was able to wing chun my way to survival,' he said, referring to a traditional Chinese martial art that focuses on close-range combat.

'I've been preparing my whole life for something like this,' he said to OregonLive.

Emily Javier, left, told police that she thought her boyfriend was cheating on her on Tinder

After hacking Lovell with the weapon all over his body and nearly lopping off several of his fingers, Javier made a frantic call to police and summoned help for him, which he says likely saved his life.

Speaking to The Oregonian and BuzzFeed from his hospital bed at the time via social media, Lovell explained that he had a low sex drive in recent months because he was spending more than 12 hours a day playing and training for a competitive video game called PlayerUnknown's Battleground.

'I barely had time to hang out with my girlfriend, let alone another girl,' he told The Oregonian.

Lovell said he was too physically exhausted to show Javier the 'affection' that she deserved.

But the woman apparently interpreted his lack of interest in her as a sign that he was cheating on her with another woman and hatched a plan to exact bloody revenge on Lovell.

The man claims it was his special training as an 'Ethlete'  a slang term for a person who plays video games professionally - and a lifetime of watching martial arts films that helped him gather his strength and eventually restrain his girlfriend, despite his severe injuries.

'I was able to Wing Chun my way to survival,' Lovell said, referring to a traditional Southern Chinese Kung Fu martial art specializing in close range combat.

Eventually, Lovell was able to get Javier into a bear hug, but the woman still tried to grab his genitals and 'rip them off,,' he told BuzzFeed.

In another picture, labelled 'thankful', Lovell appears to be surrounded by family and friends while he recovers from the multiple sword wounds

'I saw the look in her eyes, and it scared the living poop out of me,' he said. 'I told her I loved her, and she was killing me. She needed to call police, or I was going to die.'

Javier heeded his pleas and dialed 911, telling an emergency dispatcher: 'I just stabbed my boyfriend.

'I think he's dead. You need to hurry.'

When police arrived at their Camas, Washington, home, they found Lovell curled into a ball with multiple stab wounds and was took him to a hospital. Javier was booked into jail on a first-degree attempted murder charge.

After her arrest, Javier told police she wanted to kill Lovell as punishment for infidelity after discovering the Tinder app on his phone, as well as strands of red hair in the shower drain.

Lovell, however, is adamant that there was no one else. He says the red hair possibly came from his reddish beard, or from his dog, and that he had not used Tinder since he and Javier got together.

Although Lovell remains in the hospital being treated for his 'gnarly' injuries and has a long road to recovery ahead, having nearly lost his ring, middle and index fingers, he takes comfort from the fact that he was able to defend himself.

'I was just so proud for beating this samurai wannabe crazy lady with hate in her heart,' he said,

On a chilling audio of Javier's 911 call the woman can be heard crying hysterically and repeating 'he's dead' over and over again.

The dispatcher asked Javier where she stabbed Lovell.

'Everywhere! Everywhere!' she replied.

'Where is the knife?' the dispatcher asked, to which Javier responded that: 'I used a sword!'

The dispatcher repeatedly asked Javier to go into the bedroom where Lovell was lying, bleeding, to check if he was still breathing and help tend his wounds.

But Javier wasn't able to bring herself to check on him.

'I cant go in there, I can't go in there!' she told the dispatcher. 'There's too much blood!'

Javier, who began screaming incomprehensibly and begging the 911 dispatcher to 'please help him' became so emotional that the dispatcher had to ask her to take a breath and keep calm before the cops and first responders arrived.

'I need for you to try and stay calm for me,' the dispatcher said. 'They're on their way as fast as they can.'

The incident happened at the couple's home on Northeast Garfield drive in Camas, Washington, in the early hours of Saturday morning. The street is pictured

Officers found a gruesome scene in the bedroom where blood was splattered up the walls and Lovell curled up in a ball with life threatening injuries.

There were so many slash wounds, police can't say for sure how many times he was cut.

Javier told police that she'd planned the attack for a week after finding Tinder on his phone.

According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Oregonian, other signs that he was cheating included scratches on his back and the red hair in the shower, she said.

The woman said that after making the discoveries, she went to the mall to purchase the weapon.

Lovell survived and his girlfriend has pleaded guilty to first degree attempted murder

On Saturday, March 3, at around 9pm, he came home and ignored her, she said.

They went to bed and once the lights were out, she reached for the weapon which she had taped to her side of the bed along with two other knives.

Javier told police she brought it down on his throat in an effort to murder him.

'I was trying to kill him,' she said.

During her police interview, she said she wanted to kill her boyfriend in his sleep and that in addition to his suspected cheating, she disliked how much he played video games.

In the days following the attack, Lovell shared photos of himself sitting up in a wheelchair, surrounded by his friends and family.

'Got to go on a small adventure outside today! Six days after attack and I'm able to stand and sit (with a little help). Let's goooo!' he wrote on Facebook.

He even joked he was getting ready to 'drop some hot bars' about Samurais.

A GoFundMe campaign that has been launched to help Lovell with his medical expenses has so far drawn more than $8,400 in donations.
'Kick me' tattooed on the back. 'Spank me' inked on someone's backside.

A drunk tattoo is one of the few - and costly - mistakes that stays with you after a night out.

Though leading top surgeon Dr Laith Barnouti wants to change that and has called for an overhaul of tattoo parlours.

The Sydney-based surgeon is pushing for a ban on drunk tattoos as he is fed up of removing them.

Though leading top surgeon Dr Laith Barnouti wants to change that and has called for an overhaul of tattoo parlours

A drunk tattoo is one of the few - and costly - mistakes that stays with you after a night out

'Many say they did it at a time they were intoxicated, high and were not fully in the right frame of mind,' he said.

'They popped into a tattoo parlour on a Saturday night after having few drinks and thought it was good idea to have it done.

'Not only were they not thinking straight but they were not able to provide full consent.

'They literally were not realising what they were doing.'

From tattooing the name of an ex-partner to silly cartoons, Dr Barnouti has seen it all.

But not only can a tattoo be embarrassing, it can be costly as well in the long run.

On top of paying up to $100 to get the tattoo, regrettable customers can fork out hundreds for its removal.

WHAT ARE THE RULES ON TATTOOS? Anyone under the age of 18 must provide written consent from a parent or guardian to get a tattoo. In the written consent, the style of the tattoo must be clearly explained and the location of the design pointed out in detail.

While some schools and workplaces may ban tattoos, a person cannot be disciplined if the tattoo has cultural, racial or religious significance. If they do, the school or workplace could face discrimination charges.

A tattoo in Australia can range anywhere from $125 to $1,500 depending on the size of the design.

Tattooing businesses must be registered with their local council under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.

While there are no laws preventing an inebriated person from getting a tattoo, experts warn against it for numerous reasons. Not only can it lead to regret later on, but alcohol things the blood, which leads to excessive and prolonged bleeding during the tattoo process.

Laser cannot remove all types of tattoos and some people may need to receive cosmetic surgery. This can leave behind scarring that can stay with you for the rest of your life. Advertisement

Dr Barnouti charges between $150-$450 per tattoo-removal session. And that's depending on the size of the tattoo as well.

'Some of these tattoos can't be removed by laser and need surgical removal, which leaves behind a scar,' he said.

The concerned cosmetic surgeon said in some cases he has had to turn people back because the removal surgery would be too damaging.

'I had a lady who came and said her mother in law had been telling her to get rid of a tattoo she got when she was young.

'The tattoo was on her neck and it was so big that I would've had to have removed the skin and put a skin graft on it. I didn't want to do that to her.'

Though as he pointed out, it can leave his patient more than just out of pocket.

'Just last week I saw another successful Emirate airline attendant applicant requesting to remove the tattoo from her foot, as she will be subjected to exam prior signing off for the job, and the condition is that she should not have any tattoo in her body covered or not.'

Dr Barnouti said in any other surgery a patient would have to be clear-headed, consenting and sober.

So he can't see why the same rule shouldn't apply to tattoo parlours.

'Tattoos are essentially an invasive medical procedure. The process breaks the skin and injects a fluid into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment.

Dr Barnouti said in any other surgery a patient would have to be clear-headed, consenting and sober

He flagged three important changes: a customer must not be intoxicated, they must provide full written consent, and go through an official cooling off period for 48 hours

'It comes with risk and it is permanent. It can only be removed through a surgical procedure that leaves permanent scarring or multiple sessions of lasers. Some can not be removed at all.'

He flagged three important changes: a customer must not be intoxicated, they must provide full written consent, and go through an official cooling off period for 48 hours.

'More rigorous laws will not only place greater responsibility on all parties, it will reduce the risk of any health issues and reduce the incidence of people getting tattoos when they are not in the right frame of mind.'

While there is no specific law prohibiting an inebriated person from getting a tattoo, experts warn against it.

Besides the obvious reason of possible regret later on down the track, alcohol is a blood thinner that can lead to excessive bleeding during the tattoo process.

By law, it is illegal for a tattooist to ink anyone under the age of 18, unless they have written consent from the minor's parent or guardian. Even then, the consent form must detail the design and exact location of it on the body.
A popular beachhas taken the title of Australia's top ocean-side Tinder hotspot.

Users of the dating app in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, get more matches than any other beach in the country.

The 3km strip is the only Gold Coast beach to make the top ten locations for the most active users, new Tinder data analysis reveals.

Main Beach in the northern NSW town of Byron Bay and Sydney's Bondi Beach followed closely in second and third place respectively.

Beach-goers in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, are catching dates as well as waves  more so than Tinder users anywhere else in the country (stock image)

Cronulla beach, south of Sydney's CBD, came in at number four, with Main Beach in Noosa, south of the Sunshine Coast, ranked fifth.

Cottesloe Beach in Perth took sixth place, followed by Mindil Beach in Darwin.

Sydney's Manly Beach ranked eighth.

Mereweather Beach in Newcastle, NSW, placed ninth, with St Kilda Beach in Melbourne rounding out the top ten.

The 3km strip is the only Gold Coast beach to make the top ten locations for the most active users, new Tinder data analysis reveals (stock image)

Three Sydney beaches have been ranked in the top ten, including Bondi, Cronulla and Manly

'There's a lot of people here so I'm pretty sure it's easy to meet people,' a Surfers Paradise beachgoer said.

'I think it'd be easier [to find a Tinder match] here than in America,' one U.S. tourist said.

Surfers Paradise is also known for its party hotspot on Cavill Avenue.

Main Beach in Byron Bay (pictured) and Sydney's Bondi Beach followed closely in second and third place, respectively
A mother screamed obscenities in a courtroom after being sentenced to 18 months in jail over the death of her daughter in Ohio.

Tierra Williams, 23, had left daughter, Wynter Parker, with the girls father when she went out February 2, 2018.

But when she returned home two hours later to the Akron home, she found the little girl 'frozen' on the porch on what had been a freezing cold day, authorities claimed.

However Tierra reacted angrily when Summit County Judge Alison McCarty sentenced her to 18 months in jail, Akron Beacon Journal reported.

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Tierra Williams (left) and former partner Dariaun Parker (right) received jail sentences after pleading guilty to child endangerment over the death of their daughter Wynter, 2,

Wynter Parker (pictured) died after being found unresponsive outsider her home on February, 2, 2018

'That is so f****d up,' Tierra Williams, 23, shouted as a Summit County sheriffs deputy put handcuffs on her wrists.

'Im so f*****g mad,' she screamed.

Tierra and her ex-boyfriend, Dariaun Parker, 25, pleaded guilty to child endangering in November for Wynter Parker's death.

Parker, who received two years in jail, pleaded guilty last November to child endangering, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. Both were hoping for probation, while prosecutors urged prison time.

Judge McCarty told told both that she will consider releasing them early.

Williams found her daughter, Wynter Parker, unconscious outside the familys Willow Run apartment and made a frantic call to 911.

'Shes frozen! Shes frozen,' Williams told the dispatcher.

Williams, who was pregnant at the time, told police that she left Wynter with Dariaun Parker for about two hours while she was out with their 4-year-old son.

Parker lost track of Wynter on a day when Akrons temperatures never rose higher than 19 degrees.

Despite being rushed to a nearby hospital, Wynter, who hadnt been wearing warm clothing or a coat, died from severe hypothermia.

Both parents were emotional when Summit County Judge Alison McCarty handed down her sentence on Tuesday

Williams (left) screamed 'I'm so f*****g mad' as the judge handed down her sentence. Parker (right) said he accepted full responsibility for what happened to Wynter

The parents broke up after Wynters death, though they have been splitting custody of their two other children under the supervision of Summit County Children Services.

Angela Williams, Tierras mother, begged McCarty to give her daughter probation. She said her daughter is a good mother who made 'one bad decision' and has suffered enough.

'We need to heal as a family and not be pulled apart with her being gone from her kids and her family,' Angela Williams said.

After sentencing Parker said he wanted 'to take full responsibility for what happened' to his daughter.

'I can't tell you how sorry I am about what happened, it was a tragic accident, Akron Beacon Journal reported.

Wynter, who hadnt been wearing warm clothing or a coat, died from severe hypothermia

Parker and Williams (pictured) broke up after Wynters death, though they have been splitting custody of their two other children under the supervision of Summit County Children Services

Assistant Prosecutor Dan Sallerson claimed that it wasn't the first time that Akron police had been called to this couples apartment because their children were outside unattended.

He said Parker was up all night, and the family had breakfast on the morning of Wynters death before Williams left with their son.

'This is a dangerous situation that didnt need to happen,',he said. 'It shouldnt have come to that.

'We do have a young child who died as a result. We do think prison is the appropriate sentence.'

Williams attorney acknowledged that she made a mistake when she left Wynter alone with Parker, knowing that he hadnt gotten any sleep

McCarty claimed that the couple were in a a dysfunctional situation, as Parker was up all night night recording music in a studio for a career for which he wasnt yet being paid.

Williams had to work during the day, cutting clients hair at their homes and was unable to take two young children with her.

'That needed to be resolved,' the judge said. 'Thats an untenable situation.'

Wynter was found unresponsive outside the familys Willow Run apartment

McCarty said taking care of children should be their most important duty, but this wasnt the situation in the family home.

She said 2-year-old children who are left unattended can get into lots of dangerous situations, like walking into a pool and drowning or drinking something poisonous.

'There can be potential danger everywhere. You two did not have eyes on. Not a lack of love, a lack of attention.

'Not all of the time, but some of the time, which put both of the children at risk.'

Kani Hightower, Williams attorney, admitted that she had made a mistake by leaving Wynter alone with Parker, knowing that he hadnt gotten any sleep.

But in her defense she did all she could to help her daughter when she found her outside.

She said Williams wrapped her daughter in blankets, called 911 and cooperated with police and later prosecutors.
The body of a 20-year-old Indian man was pulled from a popular swimming spot in Sydney after he disappeared hours before.

Emergency services were called to Wattamolla beach in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney, about 6.15pm on Tuesday.

Hot conditions along New South Wales' coast have attracted thousands of people to the idyllic lagoon to cool off.

Emergency services were called to Wattamolla beach (pictured) in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney, about 6.15pm on Tuesday

An Indian national was swimming with two friends when he disappeared, Nine News reported.

Unsure if he'd wandered off or slipped under the water, the friends called authorities for help.

NSW Police and the Westpac Life Saver Rescue Helicopter immediately launched an air and ground search.

Due to low-light conditions the helicopter was called off but police continued to search the area.

Divers found and retrieved the man's body from the water about 1.30am, just a short distance from where he was last seen.

The news comes just two months after a 20-year-old man also drowned in the same waters.

Two other men, aged 21 and 19, were also swimming and had to be rushed to hospital after they came close to drowning.

Police are urging tourists to be careful when swimming and only to enter the water if they're confident.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton announced dozens of projects Tuesday aimed at helping Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands recover from a deadly 2017 hurricane season as part of a two-day conference in the U.S. territory organized by his foundation.

The announcement comes as the region struggles to rebuild more than a year after hurricanes Irma and Maria caused billions of dollars in damage in Puerto Rico, Dominica, Antigua, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other spots.

'Our work is far from over,' Clinton said. 'The work is not for those with short attention spans.'

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Clinton at the Miramar Convention Center, in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Tuesday this week for the conference

Damage caused by Hurricane Maria in Roseau, Dominica, on September 20, 2017 in one of the deadliest hurricanes of the 2017 season

Bill and Hillary Clinton during a visit on Sunday to a local farm set up in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico in the wake of the hurricanes

With over 3,300 estimated deaths, 2017 was the deadliest season since 2005.

It was also the most costly for the developing nations of the region, with some experts estimating that the storms caused over $280billion worth of damage.

More than 550 people representing over 400 organizations attended the conference of the Clinton Global Initiative, which Clinton created to help raise attention and money for causes worldwide.

Those at the conference included nonprofits that pledged to help provide clean water in the event of another disaster, build a hurricane resistant, solar-powered library and launch an in-home therapy pilot program, among other projects.

Many in the private sector promised to deliver several solar projects, including one that would make the Puerto del Rey marina in the island's northeast completely solar powered and another that would provide solar panels and a battery bank to the emergency management office in the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, which is still running on generators more than a year after Maria.

More than 550 people representing over 400 organizations attended the conference of the Clinton Global Initiative, the former President's foundation

From left, Minister Francine Baron from Dominica, Mark Okerstrom, CEO of the Expedia Group, Chef Jose Andres, Patricia Scotland, from The Commonwealth of Nations and Bill Clinton

The Clintons spent time during their visit to Puerto Rico to visit local people affected by the natural disasters

Another project includes improving technology to help governments across the Caribbean better prepare for natural disasters and their aftermath.

The pledges follow dozens of others made last year in previous conferences that include rebuilding schools, distributing solar lanterns and providing medical care and equipment. Overall, Clinton said more than 50 commitments have been made so far this year.

Clinton arrived in Puerto Rico on Sunday along with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, the foundation's vice president. On Monday, the Clintons met with Gov. Ricardo Rossello and toured parts of the island still struggling in the hurricane's aftermath. They also met with farmers, fishermen and small business owners in the southeastern part of the island, which is struggling to emerge from a 12-yearlong recession as its government tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load.

'One of the things that a storm of this magnitude does ... is lay bare and make more acute already existing challenges,' Bill Clinton said.

Clinton and US former secretary of state Hillary Clinton plant a tree during a visit to the Las Cabezas de San Juan natural reserve
Kalvin Hawkins, 42, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison Tuesday

A Louisiana man has been sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison in the 2016 death of his wife, who was thrown to the ground while clinging to a pickup truck he was driving.

The Advocate reports 42-year-old Kalvin Hawkins was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty in October to conspiracy to commit negligent homicide.

The Baton Rouge man and his wife, Shadelle Hawkins, were arguing when she climbed into the driver's seat. He pulled her out and began driving away.

Shadelle Hawkins grabbed the pickup's driver-side door as her husband tried to pry her hands loose. Police say he abruptly stopped after driving about 300 feet (about 90 meters), and his wife was thrown down.

Coroner's officials say she died from a traumatic brain injury caused by blunt impact to the head.

Kalvin Hawkins left the area after realizing she was unresponsive, a police report states.

District Judge Beau Higginbotham told Hawkins: 'The tragedy could have been avoided by you,' adding that his behavior was 'so below the standard of care' of a reasonable person.

'You had no regard for anybody's safety,' the judge said.
A pop-up bar named after infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar has launched a controversial burger featuring a line of white powder and a rolled-up fake $100 note.

Pablo's Escoburgers in Prahran, Melbourne, is named after the former Colombian cartel leader known for supplying at least 80 per cent of the cocaine smuggled into the USA in the late 1980s.

In an attempt to 'take the p*** out of Pablo Escobar', nicknamed the 'King of Cocaine', the bar offers 'The Patron Burger' - featuring a line of white garlic powder on top of the bun. The burger also comes with a rolled up fake American $100 note and a clear plastic bag filled with more garlic powder and a spoon.

The Patron Burger (pictured) is topped with a line of white garlic powder that resembles cocaine and a rolled-up fake $100 note

The meal also comes with a clear plastic bag filled with more powder and a spoon (pictured)

Speaking to 3AW host Tom Elliot, bar co-owner Vaughn Marks said the menu item is just 'a bit of a joke'.

'That's just the way most Australians see it,' he said.

Mr Elliot argued the burger store was 'veering on the side of glorifying drug use'.

The Patron burger has also caused a stir online, with scores of social media users accusing the bar of idolising the drug lord.

'You are so naive. I hope you one day actually talk to a Colombian and realise how offensive your restaurant is,' one user wrote.

'Who the f*** idolises a drug lord and sticks a rolled up dollar bill in a burger?' another wrote.

The Patron burger has also caused a stir online, with scores of social media users accusing the bar of idolising the drug lord

However, many users gave the store's sense of humour the thumbs-up.

'Looks like we might have to have some nose burgers tomorrow night!' one user joked.

'A line worth waiting for,' another wrote.

In a written statement, the bar owners admitted Escobar was a 'horrible man who destroyed the lives of thousands of Colombians'.

'We do not condone, idolise or promote Pablo Emilio Escobar or his actions in anyway,' it read.

'We are however Australian and know how to have a laugh about a good play on words. Hard not to offend someone in 2019.'

In a written statement, the bar owners admitted Escobar was a 'horrible man who destroyed the lives of thousands of Colombians' (pictured)

Escobar's time as head of the cartel saw Colombia become the world's murder capital

The staff at Pablo's Escoburgers said they won't be changing the name despite backlash from the public, including members of the Colombian community living in the area.

'All publicity is good publicity. We're happy with the name, we have seen a lot worse.'

Escobar's time as head of the cartel saw Colombia become the world's murder capital.

The drug lord hired hitmen to target police and ordered hundreds of killings.

He was shot dead in 1993.
Three other convicts  Prabhat Bodo, Jayanti Basumatary and Mathura Brahma  will be released after they pay a fine imposed by the court.

Guwahati: A special CBI court here Wednesday sentenced National Democratic Front of Bodoland chief Ranjan Daimary and nine others to life imprisonment for the 2008 serial bomb blasts, in which 81 people were killed and 470 others injured. The NDFB has called a 12-hour Assam bandh on Thursday in protest against the court order.

The special court had earlier held Daimary and 13 others guilty in the case. Special CBI judge Aparesh Chakraborty pronounced the quantum of punishment for Daimary, George Bodo, B. Tharai, Raju Sarkar, Anchai Bodo, Indra Brahma, Loko Basumatary, Khargeswar Basumatary, Ajay Basumatary and Rajen Goyary.

Three other convicts  Prabhat Bodo, Jayanti Basumatary and Mathura Brahma  will be released after they pay a fine imposed by the court.

The bail of NDFB chief Ranjan Daimary, who was present in the court, was cancelled immediately after his sentencing, and he was arrested, while the 14 others were already in judicial custody.

The courts verdict came over 10 years after the blasts took place on October 30, 2008, around noon, with at least 11 bombs going off almost simultaneously at three places in Guwahati and in Bongaigaon, Barpeta and Kokrajhar. The CBI, which probed the case, had claimed RDX, ammonium nitrate and Trinitrotoluene (TNT) was used to trigger the blasts.

Two accused  Mridul Goyary and Nilim Daimary  were acquitted in the case. There were a total of 22 accused, out of which 15 faced trial. Seven others remain absconding while two of them are believed to be dead, said T.D. Goswami, the special public prosecutor engaged by the CBI for the trial.

The family members of the accused, who were present in court, said they would challenge the special courts verdict in a higher court.

The Union home ministry has, meanwhile, clarified that the government will not withdraw heinous crimes cases against members of militant groups even if they are now engaged in the peace process. Saying that the government has committed that it would withdraw the cases which are not heinous in nature, but only after a recommendation by district and state-level panels, security sources said the ground rules for the peace talks had a provision for scrutiny of cases only after the signing of peace pacts, not during the period of talks between the government and the militant groups. In case of heinous crimes, the sources said the law would take its own course.

Asserting that if adequate evidence was not found in such cases, the accused may be acquitted by the court but the government would not interfere with the judicial process.
Nearby bystanders helped the man from the water using an extension cord

The elderly couple had been watching the sunset together for 20 minutes

by hauling himself out of the half-open car window

A grandmother drowned after her husband sent car plummeting into the ocean

A group of good Samaritans saved a grandfather from drowning after he accidentally drove his car into the ocean with his wife trapped inside.

Dramatic footage shows several fishermen standing nearby rush to the 81-year-old man's aid moments after his car sank off South Mole at Fremantle, Western Australia, on Monday.

Ken Forsey narrowly escaped death after he managed to clamber out of the sinking car through the half-open driver's window, Perth now reported.

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The 81-year-old survived by hauling himself through the half-opened driver's seat window - however, his wife Barbara sadly drowned (pictured: Ken and Barbara Forsey)

Another good Samaritan extended a helping hand to the visibly shocked man and helped him climb over the rocks to safety (pictured, dramatic rescue)

In the video, the bystanders gather around the bedraggled man as one of them pulls him out of the water and onto the rocks with an extension cord.

Another good Samaritan extended a hand to the visibly shocked man, helping him climb over the rocks to safety.

While the group managed to save the man from drowning, they were sadly unable to save his wife Barbara Forsey.

Bystanders said it would have been too dangerous to dive into the ocean as the waves were crashing against the rocks.

Alana Newman, who ran to the man's aid, said at one point the woman's cries for help suddenly stopped.

'Then she just looked at us and gave us a smile and the car was gone,' she said.

Mr Forsey and his wife had been enjoying the sunset from their car, which was parked near the embankment, before tragedy struck.

As the couple tried to leave, Mr Forsey accidentally reversed the Mitsubishi Magna over the kerb and the back wheels rolled onto the rocky edge.

Terrified onlookers then watched the car plunge into the water.

'He was stopped up on the rocks and was close to going over but he wouldn't have if he'd gone forward,' another bystander, Rhys Wells, said.

Mr Forsey and his wife (pictured) had been enjoying the sunset from their car, which was parked near the embankment, before tragedy struck

'In the movies you see cars float for five minutes and then go down but it wasn't like that... within 20 or 30 seconds it was gone,' Mr Wells recounted.

He said after they managed to wrap the rescued man in a blanket and seat him in a car, all Mr Forsey could say was: 'My poor wife ... she won't stand a chance with the waves.'

Major crash Detective Senior Sergeant Steve Potter said it seemed to be a tragic accident.

He said investigators would speak with Mr Forsey and bystanders and examine the car to officially determine the cause of the accident.

Mrs Forsey's body was recovered from the water and the car retrieved. Mr Forsey is in a stable condition at hospital.
Sir David Attenborough has called for a more collaborative approach to tackle global issues, urging squabbling politicians to learn from scientists and the 'marvellous ideals' in the Antarctic Treaty.

The 92-year-old broadcaster spoke at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on Tuesday, a stone's throw from the House of Commons where MPs remained stuck in a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement quagmire.

Sir David used the 1959 Antarctic Treaty as a model for how collaboration between nations has brought progress in learning about the effects of global warming.

He told the MailOnline: 'I don't wish to paint scientists as saints - they too have their feuds and their quarrels and their arguments.

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Sir David Attenborough (pictured) has called for a more collaborative approach to tackle global issues, urging squabbling politicians to learn from scientists and the 'marvellous ideals' in the Antarctic Treaty

'But what is happening in the Antarctic is a very admirable example of how intelligent people can get together and sort out problems.'

Stressing the need for nations to come together in the same way as those scientists, Sir David said: 'The political dimensions of climate change have to be reckoned with.

'The world has to get together if they're going to do things and science can be a very good model of that - better than many politicians.'

But the naturalist did paint an optimistic portrait of Britain's ability to affect change outside of the European Union, ahead of its impending exit on March 29.

Asked whether he thought Britain leaving the EU would set the climate change cause back, he said: 'No, I don't think it will as Europeans on both sides of the channel have an informed insight into what is happening in the world climatically.

'Whether we're in the European Union or outside, I hope that we'll have sensible policies which take account of what is happening - such as with plastic, or with rising temperatures - and behave in a way that pays regard to our obligation to future generations.'

The broadcaster, whose most recent wildlife series Dynasties averaged just under six million viewers each week, also expressed frustration at President Trump's mockery of the impact of climate change.

Asked about a recent tweet in which the president called for global warming to 'come back' amid the United States' extreme cold weather conditions, Sir David said he was 'sorry' Trump does not have a 'greater grasp, or a better perspective on the world.'

Under The Antarctic Treaty, signed by 12 countries in December 1959, it was agreed that the continent (file photo) should be used for peaceful purposes

In a key note speech delivered to a room of academics, politicians and those working in the science community, Sir David discussed the formation of the treaty and how explorers and scientists set an example for those in politics to follow.

He explained the Antarctica had been a 'kind of free-for-all' but said scientists had come together to ensure the continent was used for peaceful purposes.

Describing how many nations were interested in Antarctica six decades ago, including Norway, France, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina, he said countries had worked together with an 'urge to take a scientific approach'.

He said: 'Living down there, researching down there is hard enough... let us get together and make a treaty, in which there will be a series of idealistic commands.

'We will stop squabbling among ourselves and different nationalities, we will establish bases and will welcome anybody from any other base to our base to see what we are doing.'

Under the Antarctic Treaty, signed by 12 countries in December 1959, it was agreed that the continent should be used for peaceful purposes, military practices were prohibited and scientific collaboration was encouraged.

Sir David said the treaty had no end and would 'go on for eternity', adding: 'Marvellous ideals make the pulse quicken in this day of squabbling that we have got going on in the world today.'

He said there are no similar treaties anywhere else in the world and it is nice to think the continent is 'leading the way'.

Earlier this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sir David urged business leaders and governments to come up with 'practical solutions' to address environmental issues (pictured alongside Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge)

Earlier this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sir David urged business leaders and governments to come up with 'practical solutions' to address environmental issues.

Pressed on whether more can be done or if the damage to the planet is irreparable, he said: 'We have to do whatever we can to rescue what we can, we aren't going to recover, we are going to have great difficulty, and it seems very unlikely that we may even be able to maintain the status quo.

'The temperatures are rising and we simply have to restrict it as far as we can.'
A deaf couple from California claim they were discriminated against by a Delta Air Lines employee who allegedly refused to communicate with them in writing.

Socorro Garcia and Melissa Yingst were traveling to Los Angeles from Detroit Metro Airport on Sunday when they tried to ask a Delta gate agent about getting seats together.

The couple, co-founders of Alma de Muxeristas, a group of Hispanic feminist activists with hearing issues, say they wrote down their request on paper.

But they claim the Delta agent threw away the paper they were writing on and rolled her eyes.

Melissa Yingst, left, and Socorro Garcia say they were discriminated against by Delta Air Lines

Watch the video below

The "infamous" Deaf airport discrimination experience happened to us tonight with Delta Air Lines, Delta airlines at... Posted by MELMIRA on Sunday, 27 January 2019 =68.ARDXryKLGJ0O9KwQRImHx1nfUSzTKMqrAg4oXuNeg3k1oEZkPBTD92EAs-RgRkOR7XU_IHFgf_7EkWPnsl_XJ7iS1xy0hfBOyJ8tF7rn_W1llHLdaKDrBhzELXC8wza2ALcfxQigUqIq9h4IEdJ6Mvw5zWq1IQOem2JqvcOoDREAqAfFbP0z2dGn4O-pUJXYuNq7yAYvozGNusyKF_Tzx5NrXLNxl1Ze84pWcELVm41EQ-HWX9c0Wd1beMLHlrX4Gj_mHF4Bvho4MOgxxwp1h1WwpbdHIr6mZM8MYwatGjC7ITABhpDx0OAEXpaios23bQbZm71JhlMcMBJ8wXrLqB3I6USpoA&__tn__=C-R]

The airline said there were conflicting views of the incident but that it was investigating.

Garcia said the agent 'kept talking to us without writing anything down,' and, after being told they would be seated together, the women were informed their seats were apart.

Garcia said Yingst took out her cellphone to write a question to the agent about the seating.

'The gate agent rolled her eyes at us,' Garcia told NBC News. 'Melissa asked for her to write. After few moments, she finally wrote on a piece of paper and said the flight is full and can't book us together.'

The deaf couple say the Delta gate agent refused to communicate with them in writing

Garcia says she tried to write a reply, but the agent allegedly crumbled up the paper and threw it away, according to a Facebook post.

Garcia also accused the agent of pushing her when she tried to get the paper from the garbage.

'Melissa was stunned and took out her iPhone to take a video of her,' Garcia said. 'I was shocked and asked for a paper and pen to communicate. She still refused and called the police on us.'

'Loss for words,' Garcia said in sign language on the video. 'What did we do wrong?'

Garcia, left, said she was at a 'loss for words' after the incident at Detroit Metro Airport Sunday

The couple added that the Delta Air Lines gate agent threatened to call the police on them

The couple was ultimately denied boarding and booked another return flight through a separate airline.

'This really isn't about us not being able to sit together but how they handled communication and refused to provide us access to the needs we asked for,' Yingst said in sign language, according to a transcript of her remarks posted on Facebook.

The agent discarded the paper because she thought the conversation was over, according to Michael Thomas, a spokesman for Delta.

Yingst co-founded Alma de Muxeristas, a group of hearing impaired Hispanic feminist activists

The airline says there are conflicting views of the incident but that it is investigating

The agent felt threatened because Garcia knocked into the agent's leg when she aggressively went behind the ticket counter, which isn't permitted, Thomas said.

'To be completely candid, there are very conflicting versions of events based on initial reports from both sides,' he said.

Delta said it's reviewing the issue and will work with the passengers to learn more about what happened.

'As always, we take situations like these seriously and we are using this as an opportunity to learn and improve,' Thomas said.
A group calling itself 'the IRA' has claimed the bomb attack on a Londonderry courthouse.

In a statement provided to local paper the Derry Journal, the group said it placed the car bomb in the pizza delivery vehicle which detonated in Bishop Street shortly after 8.10pm on January 19.

The statement read: 'We also caution those who collaborate with the British that they are to desist immediately as no more warnings will be given.

The group added that it will 'continue to strike at crown forces and personnel and their imperial establishment'.

'All this talk of Brexit, hard borders, soft borders, has no bearing on our actions and the IRA won't be going anywhere. Our fight goes on.'

The bomb and subsequent security alerts in the city were initially linked to a group called the New IRA, and police said investigating this group would be their 'main line of inquiry'.

The wreckage from the car bomb moments after it exploded outside the court house on Bishop Street

Days after the car bombing, the PSNI released CCTV footage that showed a group of young people pass the car shortly before it exploded in the city centre street.

Officers described it as a 'miracle' and 'sheer luck' no one was harmed.

Police were given a 15-minute warning to evacuate the area before the bomb went off - which was reportedly given via the Samaritans in the Midlands.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said that at around 7.55pm officers on patrol in Bishop Street spotted a suspicious vehicle.

The scene of the blast in Londonderry last night after what was reported to be a pizza delivery van was hijacked nearby

Forensic officers arrive at the scene of the car bomb in Londonderry today after the explosion on Saturday night

Local residents, including those in a sheltered housing complex for elderly people, were evacuated.

The days that followed saw a number of security alerts in the city where two vehicles were hijacked at gunpoint, a third was stolen and abandoned outside a school, and hundreds of residents were evacuated from their homes.

Political leaders called the explosion an 'act of terror' and warned that the 'dark days of the past' could return to the province, as police pointed the finger at the New IRA, a dissident republican group they called 'small and unrepresentative'.

DUP leader Arlene Foster called the blast a 'pointless act of terror' while the Alliance party said it was 'an attack on everything we have worked towards over the past 20 years'.

CCTV footage released today by police in Northern Ireland shows the terrifying moment the hijacked vehicle explodes outside a court house

The remains of a car after a suspected car bombing in Londonerry, Northern Ireland yesterday

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said in the wake of the attack the 'New IRA' was believed to be behind the attack.

He said: 'Our main line of inquiry is against the New IRA.

'The New IRA, like most dissident republican groups in Northern Ireland, is small, largely unrepresentative, and determined to drag people back to somewhere they don't want to be.

'Fortunately it didn't kill anybody and fortunately it didn't cause widespread damage, but clearly it was a very significant attempt to kill people in the local community.'

Five men arrested on suspicion of the car bombing have all been released without charge.
A prominent lawyer who identifies as a 'radical feminist' has claimed that transgender activism and ideology is actually a 'men's rights movement'.

Lawyer Kara Dansky, a spokeswoman for the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF), condemned the transgender rights movement on Monday.

'This is a men's rights movement, this is really a men's rights movement,' Dansky declared as she spoke at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank, in Washington DC.

Hacsi Horvath, who once identified as transgender and presented as a woman for several years, claimed that women have been 'overwhelmingly' resisting transgender activism.

'It's really shocking how many men on the internet are defending the whole trans thing,' Horvath, another speaker on the Heritage panel, said.

Scroll down for video

Lawyer Kara Dansky, a spokeswoman for the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF), condemned transgender activism and called it a 'men's rights movement'

'This is a men's rights movement, this is really a men's rights movement,' Dansky declared as she spoke at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank, on Monday

'Straight men are all about the trans, and you have to wonder what the heck is going on.'

Hovarth said he refused to use transgender people's chosen pronouns, saying he doesn't 'play along' with it.

'I don't say transwoman, I don't say she, her [when speaking about a male],' he said. 'I don't care if it hurts their feelings. This is reality and it gaslights everybody else.'

Dansky specifically denounced the Equality Act, which aims to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in the likes of employment, housing, and education, among other services, as she spoke on Monday.

The Equality Act would specifically add both sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which currently bans discrimination on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.

Rep Nancy Pelosi has stated that passing the act will be a priority in the Democrat-controlled House this year.

Hacsi Horvath, who once identified as transgender and presented as a woman for several years, claimed that women have been 'overwhelmingly' resisting transgender activism

Dansky spoke specifically of her belief that the term 'gender identity' would cause women's rights to 'utterly disappear'.

WoLF sued the Obama administration in 2016 after it issued a recommendation stating that Title IX protected the rights of transgender students to use restrooms that match the gender they identify with.

Under Title IX, schools that receive federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of sex. The Obama administration ruled that sex also includes 'gender identity'.

Dansky claims this was an 'unmitigated disaster' for women and girls and would mean they 'no longer exist as a coherent category worthy of civil rights protection'.

'Title IX's intention is specifically to protect women and girls in the educational arena,' she said.

'Feminists and other women fought very hard to get Title IX enacted into law in 1972. It's specifically to protect women and girls.'

Dansky specifically denounced the Equality Act, which aims to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in the likes of employment, housing, and education, among other services

'If sex is construed to mean "gender identity", what that means is nearly all sex-segregated spaces - colleges, sports, dormitories - and women's rights in general will utterly disappear,' she claimed.

'It is not possible to both enshrine gender identity in civil rights law and protect women and girls as a distinct legal category.'

WoLF received a $15,000 donation in support of the lawsuit against the Obama administration from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been classified as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The case was dismissed after the Trump administration rescinded the protections for transgender students.

Monday's panel also featured Julia Beck, a lesbian who claimed she had been kicked off Baltimore's LGBTQ commission for 'stating biological facts'.

Beck was removed from the commission because she used male pronouns while referring to a transgender woman.

The panel also featured Julia Beck, a lesbian who claimed she had been kicked off Baltimore's LGBTQ commission for 'stating biological facts' after using male pronouns for a trans woman

'I got kicked off the Baltimore mayor's LGBTQ commission - as the only lesbian - simply for stating biological facts,' she said.

'I was found guilty of "violence". My crime? Using male pronouns to talk about a convicted male rapist who identifies as transgender and prefers female pronouns.'

Beck said she was removed from the commission after referring to Karen White, a British transgender woman who was convicted for raping two female inmates after she was moved to a woman's jail, as a 'he'

Beck appears to be referring to the case of British transgender woman Karen White, who was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to raping two female inmates after she was transferred to a woman's jail due to her declared gender change.

'It doesn't matter that he sexually assaulted two women in a women's prison after being transferred there on account of his "gender identity"', Beck said.

'Oh no, it is far more criminal for me to call a male rapist "he" than it is for him to rape.'

Beck also hit out at the president of the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, a transgender woman that she repeatedly referred to as a 'man'.

'The man who led my inquisition also identifies as "transgender,"' she said mockingly.

'He is the president of the Baltimore Transgender Alliance and claims to be a lesbian. I find that almost funny because everything he does makes life for women, girls, and lesbians worse.'

'The meeting made one thing crystal clear: Inclusivity means all voices are welcome, except women's, except lesbians,' she claimed. 'Everything is about the T now, entirely eclipsing the L, G, and B.'

'The T is diametrically opposed to the first three letters in the acronym, and especially to the L.'
A new mother has revealed how she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease while still on maternity leave.

Nikki Blackwood, an investment bank manager from Sydney, was only 35 when she received the shocking news in August last year.

The mother-of-one said she knew something was wrong when her toes started curling involuntary.

Now, she's spoken of her battle with Parkinson's, revealing how she copes with the 'terrifying' degenerative disease.

A mother has shared her horror at being diagnosed with Parkinson's at 35

'I was completely blindsided - I knew nothing about Parkinson's at the time other than people get tremors and it's an old person's disease,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's terrifying to be told you have a chronic degenrative disease.'

At the time of her diagnosis, Nikki's son Brodie was barely one year old.

Raising a toddler and balancing the startling news was a challenge - one she has so far undertaken without the aid of medication.

'My symptoms are manageable at the moment and I've made a choice not to start medication yet but, yes, it definitely hinders my day-to-day life,' she said.

'I have lost dexterity in my right hand (and unlucky for me I am right handed) so most things are now a struggle - writing, typing, doing my hair and makeup, changing nappies.

Nikki Blackwood (left) says she was 'completely blindsided' by the diagnosis, which came while she was on maternity leave for son 14-month-old Brodie

'I'm told exercise and rest and two of the best things we can do, neither of which I'm very good at but I'm trying to do both more.

'Medication I will try further down the road.'

Parkinson's disease, commonly known as 'PD', is the second most prevalent neurological disorder in Australia behind dementia.

'I'd had a brain MRI which was normal so I was somewhat lulled into a false sense of security and expected the neurologist to tell me I had a trapped nerve,' Ms Blackwood said.

'I thought my symptoms would get better after the appointment because I'd get treatment.

'With Parkinson's, the harsh reality is they will only continue to get worse.'

The investment bank manager says it's crucial not to view the diagnosis as a death sentence and instead remember that 'things could be much worse'

Ms Blackwood's story comes as Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt prepares to announce $30million in funding for the Parkinson's Disease Mission.

The funding will allow the Garvan Institute of Medical Research to combine clinical trials and genomics research.

But despite the monumental pledge, lead researcher and neurologist Professor Simon Lewis says finding a cure isn't a guarantee.

'We may not find a cure but we will be closer to one because of this effort,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Dedicated research into the neurological disease has been conducted since the early 1960s.

Even still, the causes of Parkinson's are relatively unknown and current treatment plans only mask symptoms for sporadic periods of time.

Mr Hunt says the need to identify drugs that will either slow down or stop the disease is crucial.

Her story comes as Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt (pictured) announces more than $30million in funding for research of the neurological disease

About 1000 patients will be involved in the research program over the course of five years.

'Many of us have watched Parkinson's disease wreak its havoc on our loved ones,' Mr Hunt said.

'We know first-hand how critical the search for a breakthrough cure or treatment is and that's why research is so important.'

Professor Lewis and Garvan Institute's Associate Professor Antony Cooper will begin recruiting participants to the initial trial in the latter half of 2019.

For Nikki, she has one message for others in her situation.

'Message for others would probably be "you're not dying".

'It's a horrendous thing to be told you have something like PD, especially at my age, but its not a terminal illness and things could be so much worse.

'I can't change the fact I have this illness but I can choose how I deal with it.'
A woman stranded in the Australian Outback for six days has shared the desperate measures she took in the hope that others can learn from her extraordinary story of survival.

Brooke Phillips lived through five nights with little water, no phone signal and just her dog and cat for company after her four-wheel drive got bogged while travelling to the remote Western Australian Aboriginal community of Blackstone in October 2018.

The Mount Gambier mother also revealed she hasn't lost her sense of adventure and has been on another remote road trip since her miraculous survival.

'I thought there was no way I would be stranded out there for so long,' Brooke Phillips (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia

'Looking back it wasn't a bad thing but it was definitely a learning experience,' Ms Phillips, 40, told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's amazing that so many people still want to hear about how I survived.'

Ms Phillips learned valuable lessons from her Outback ordeal and now keeps at least 20 litres of water in her car, regardless of where she's going.

She has even since taken another Outback road trip to Uluru and remote Queensland since her ordeal.

'It hasn't stopped me,' she said.

Ms Phillips was near the end of the 2500km, 33-hour drive to Blackstone near the borders of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory with her cat Shadow and dog Bank when disaster struck 30km from the nearest town.

'I took a wrong turn and after an hour-and-a-half, finally realised something wasn't right so I turned the car around and 45 minutes later, got bogged when a tyre became stuck in sand,' Ms Phillips said.

'I thought someone was bound to come past. But no one did for six days. I thought there was no way I would be stranded out there for so long.'

Brooke Phillips (middle) was relieved to be rescued by police and community members after she was stranded in the Western Australian Outback for six days when her car became bogged

She had just 500mL of water with her, which didn't last long.

Luckily, Ms Phillips also had pasta sauce, coconut cream, tinned tomatoes, lemon juice and red cordial which kept her and the pets going for several days as temperatures soared beyond the mid-30s.

When that ran out, Ms Phillips drank windscreen wiper water and her own urine to remain hydrated.

'We got some rain one night, where I managed to get 100mm of fresh water in the cat's bowl, Ms Phillips said.

'I got desperate after five days so I drained out the water from the windscreen wiper container. At that stage, I went into survival mode and did whatever I could. But I understand that not everyone could do what I did.'

Ms Phillips' cat Shadow and dog Bank also survived the six-day Outback ordeal

Ms Phillips began to fear the worst as the sixth night approached.

'I'd had enough by that stage, was getting tired and began to wonder whether anyone was actually looking for me,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I didn't know whether I was going to get through another night and was praying that someone would finally come.'

Family members and friends weren't initially concerned that they hadn't heard from Ms Phillips and didn't report her missing until the fifth day.

Brooke Phillips (pictured) considers herself one of the lucky ones. Five people have been found dead in the Western Australian Outback in the last three months

Western Australia Police then launched a public appeal and a land and air search involving officers and community members.

She was eventually found as night approached the next day, after which she was immediately reunited with daughter Imogen, 16, who was part of the search effort.

'I originally didn't see them until my daughter opened the door as they came from behind,' Ms Phillips said.

'I was shocked and stoked at the same time.'

Brooke was on the final stretch after setting out from Mt Gambier when she took a wrong turn and became bogged between the communities of Jameson and Blackstone

She was driven back to Blackstone in WA's Goldfields-Esperance region 1,700 kilometres north-east of Perth, where she was found to be in good health.

The animals also survived the ordeal.

'I was very lucky, given other people since been found dead in the middle of the bush in WA,' Ms Phillips told Daily Mail Australia.

'When we arrived in Blackstone, the nurses were amazed at how healthy I was. I'm glad my story is a good one after all the other sad cases recently.'

Shadow the cat survived on his owner's supplies, windscreen wiper water and urine

Five people have been found dead in the Western Australian outback in the last three months.

Lawyer Kismatul Muzahid collapsed and died of suspected dehydration during a hike in the Kalbarri National Park north of Perth in October.

Motorcyclist Daniel Price died from heat exposure in the remote Kimberley region, while the body of elderly prospector Ronald Potter was found in bushland near Coolgardie in November.

The body of a woman, 32, was found near a bogged vehicle on a remote access road north of the remote community of Jigalong in the Pilbara region last month.

Mother of two Felicity Shadbolt, 36, was also found dead in the Pilbara region earlier this month three days after going on a bushwalk.

Family members and friends weren't initially concerned they hadn't heard from Ms Phillips for several days and didn't report her missing until the fifth day. Pictured is the photo WA Police released during the public appeal to find Brooke

Western Australian Police urge motorists and hikers travelling through the Outback to carry at least three days' worth of water for all people on the journey and take a personal locator beacon or satellite phone with them.

'Make sure you let people know we're you're going,' Ms Phillips added.

But her most important tip?

'Always stay with your car.'
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A pair of heroes tell DailyMailTV how they risked their lives to rescue more than 40 horses from the deadly wildfires that ravaged Southern California last November.

Multimillionaire property tycoon Steve George, 55, and ranch manager Dean Solomon, 58, made repeat trips into areas threatened by the deadly Woolsey Fire to bring horses, goats and mules to safety.

George housed many of the equine evacuees on his 100-acre ranch in Somis, California, and cared for them, at a cost of $300 a day, until they could return home.

And while all of the horses have now gone, George and wife Michelle have given a permanent home to three alpacas whose burned out owner could no longer look after them, saying its the best thing he has ever done.

Ranch manager Dean Solomon (left) and ranch owner Steve George with Graham, one of the quarter horses they rescued. Graham has now been returned after his owner rebuilt his stable

Into the inferno: Dean Solomon (left) and Steve George (right) at the Legacy Ranch truck and 50-foot trailer they used to rescue animals from the Woolsey Fire in Southern California

Seen here on November 9 last year, the Woolsey Fire tore through Agoura Hills, Southern California. Legacy Ranch owner Steve George headed into the blaze to save horses

George told DailyMailTV: Were not the most experienced horse guys so we had a little help with the loading and unloading just so we didnt lose our teeth from one of these horses rearing up.

It was just the right thing to do and Id do it again by all means. It felt good. I built this place for animals and [the rescue] worked. It worked.

Father-of-three George described how he first saw the smoke from the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed more than 150,000 acres, from the ranch which sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific.

Although the Legacy Ranch wasnt threatened by the wildfires last year, George had invested in fire equipment when he bought the property three years ago  including purchasing trucks and commercial trailers to evacuate the horses if necessary.

Horses at a ranch in Agoura Hills, California as the Woolsey Fire blazed nearby on November 9, 2018. Legacy Ranch owner Steev George and ranch manager Dean Solomon went into this area to save 40 horses

Horses are terrified by the Woolsey Fire on November 9 last year in Agoura Hills, Southern California. Legacy Ranch owner Steve George and Dean Solomon saved 40 animals there

The Woolsey Fire reached the ocean along Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California on November 9 last year. About 75,000 homes were evacuated due to the blaze

Legacy Ranch manager Dean Solomon and ranch owner Steve George came across many burned out stables like this one close to Agoura Hills, California. The pair rescued 40 homeless horses in the days after the Woolsey Fire which tore through the area in November last year

After hearing on the news that people were desperately trying to save their animals by riding them away from the blaze, he called ranch manager and childhood friend Solomon, and together, they decided to help.

The smoke was horrible, George said. It looked like Armageddon was setting in slowly throughout that day.

It started getting dark  it was glowing  and our phones started going off, emails started pinging off.

Weve got a pretty tight network of third party service providers that we work with, people that haul horses, people that bring the hay and so on who needed help.

Social media started kicking in and thats what we picked up. We were sitting around going, jeez, we have all this fancy equipment  maybe we should do something with it.

The two men attached a 50-foot trailer to their Ford F450 Lariat truck and headed out towards the burn area  getting so close to the blaze at one point they met a fire truck coming the other way.

Legacy Ranch owner Steve George with Smudgy, one of a trio of alpacas adopted after the Woolsey Fire rescue. 'Adopting them has been the best thing Ive ever done', George said

As the fires roared nearby, the pair briefly got trapped on a dirt track after taking a wrong turn in the dark.

They were forced to back a mile down the road in pitch black, causing $6,700-worth of damage to the truck in the process.

George said: Once we got out of there, we got focused and got to the destination and picked up what we set out to. From there, I think we got horses and goats.

Solomon added: We got three horses, a mule that didnt want to load. It took like five of us to get that thing in.

The goat was really good. He just hopped right in, sitting right there next to the horses.

After dropping the animals off at a safe place, the men returned for repeat rounds of rescues  eventually getting home at 4am.

(L-R) Newly-adopted alpacas Dusty, Smudgy and Sammy enjoy life at Legacy Ranch in Somis, California

They slept for two hours before getting up and driving to Agoura Hills  a Los Angeles suburb badly affected by the Woolsey Fire  to rescue more horses.

Both said the flames were so bad, the heat could be felt inside the truck and left char marks on the paintwork.

George said: Everything was burning on both sides of the road for a good five miles and my good friend here, he starts opening the window and just the whoosh of heat was coming through the window.

It was very smoky and everything was burning, all the way up to the road itself. I just thought Id never seen anything like that.

This time, George and Solomon brought the animals back to the Legacy Ranch  filling every stall with evacuated animals.

The men also erected temporary stalls for more animals and housed some of their burned out owners in horse trailers on the property.

We just wanted to do what was right, George said. There were a lot of heroes, people that did a heck of a lot more than we did.

We experienced a lot of people helping people, we had people sleeping here in our trailers which arent five star accommodation, let me tell you.

But other horse people were bringing food and blankets and bridles and halters and lead ropes for them because for a lot of people and horses who ended up here, everything burned.

Their entire barn burned to the ground and theres nothing left. I still feel bad there were horses we couldnt get to.

Solomon added: We just tried to help out. A lot of other people were doing the same thing as we were doing.

Although all of the horses rescued by George and Solomon have now gone home, three alpacas have become permanent residents at the Legacy Ranch, after their owner was burned out and couldnt take them with him when he relocated to Northern California.

The trio of five-year-olds  Smudgy, Dusty and Sammy  have now become popular members of Georges menagerie, which also includes chickens, pigs and goats, although he says they remain traumatized from their ordeal.

Property tycoon turned ranch owner Steve George (right) and ranch manager Dean Solomon (left) braved the deadly Woolsey Fire last November to save animals from the Woolsey Fire. 'Id do it again by all means,' George said

We didnt rescue the alpacas but we did end up adopting them and theyve just been a joy of an addition to the ranch, George said.

Adopting them has been the best thing Ive ever done. Theyre still a little skittish  it was traumatic for them to go through that I think.

I go up there every day for at least an hour, feed them carrots and try to love them  make them feel a little bit more at home. Theyre wonderful animals.

Despite the danger, Solomon and George say they have no regrets and would leap into action again in future if needed.

If there was another fire, yes we would do the same thing again, George said. We would probably be a little bit better set up to do it, wed probably bring a little bit more gear just in case we did get into a pickle.

But without hesitation, we would. Not only is it the right thing to do, we have the equipment to do it and its pleasing to be able to participate and just help animals out.

Theyre helpless and they cant jump in a car and drive away. You have to put them in a trailer and drive them away. So of course we would help them if it happened again.
A 13-year-old boy has been charged with attempted armed robbery after he entered a service station armed with scissors.

Police say the teenager entered a Caltex service station on Main Road in Moonah, Tasmania about 10.30 on Wednesday night.

A Caltex staff member said the boy attempted to jump over the shop counter and demanded cash.

Police say the teenager entered a Caltex service station on Main Road in Moonah, Tasmania about 10.30 on Wednesday nigh

'He had a small pair of scissors,' the staff member told Daily Mail Australia.

'We have things and barriers in place to stop people from jumping over the counter.'

The staff member said the boy then 'got scared' and ran away from the scene.

Police caught the boy a short time later and he was charged with attempted armed robbery.

A Caltex staff member said the boy attempted to jump over the shop counter and demanded cash (stock image)

He is due to appear in court in Hobart on Thursday afternoon.

The service station attendant was not harmed during the alleged attempted robbery.

Tasmania Police said CCTV footage of the incident would not be released due to laws regarding the protection of minors.
Taxpayers in New South Wales have been slogged with more than $160 million in parking fines this year with an undisclosed number of them being issued in error.

'1,304,202 fines were issued in NSW in the past year, amounting to $164,099,281 in revenue' a spokesperson from Revenue NSW told Daily Mail Australia.

The problem is that 'Revenue NSW is unable to provide the number of parking fines issued in error,' he explained.

'This would require each and every penalty notice that was No Actioned to be manually checked on the system as penalty notices can be No Actioned for many different reasons not just for issued in error' he added.

Taxpayers in New South Wales have been slogged with $164,099,281 in parking fines this year

'Parking fines are issued to help manage parking turnover,' said a City of Sydney spokesperson

1,304,202 parking fines had been recorded across NSW in 2017 with an undisclosed number of them being issued in error

'126,792 review requests have been received by Revenue NSW in the past year.' said the spokesperson

Most fines were upheld (92,558), with a further 24,425 cautioned, 9513 'no actioned', and 296 'not yet determined'.

According to a City of Sydney spokesperson reached by News, only one per cent of all the fines issued by city rangers were withdrawn by Revenue NSW on appeal.

Government of NSW has already taken measures to minimize errors, with city rangers responsible for issuing fines going through different training and auditions.

They also explained that parking fines are issued to help vehicle turnover.

Data shows that Sydneysiders collected the most parking fines, with the CBD alone accounting for 282,762 of the notices issued by the city's council rangers.

Council rangers are now labelled as 'predators' after they slapped a $108 fine on a car while its driver went to print out a ticket to allow him 30 minutes free parking in Rozelle.

On February 20, Shane McCarthy was issued a fine on Darling St for 'park without current ticket displayed' at 10.59am. The ticket he got from the parking machine shows that it was printed at 10.58am.

Data shows that Sydneysiders collected the most parking fines, with the CBD alone accounting for 282,762 of the notices issued by the city's council rangers

The City of Sydney council says it has checks and balances in place to minimise errors, including extensive training and auditing of staff responsible for issuing fines

Anyone who receives a fine they think has been issued incorrectly can challenge it through Revenue NSW

For the 2015-2016 financial year, data from Revenue NSW show that more than 97,600 parking fines were issued by the pre-council merger councils of Leichhardt, Marrickville and Ashfield.

A total revenue of $13,3 million for the NSW state.

But these errors do not apply only to Sydneysiders.

On December 11, Reese Gerhard, who lives in the Sunshine Coast, was slapped with a $94 fine on his car  which was parked in his own driveway.

Mr Gerhard, who lives in the suburb of Birtinya, was issued the ticket for 'restricting access to the driveway,' and was then told by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council he must pay the fine or dispute it in court.

Sydneysiders aren't the only people complaining. Last May, Queensland residents claimed they had been wrongfully issued with illegal parking fines

Aside from rangers errors, NSW residents are being targeted by scammers. NSW Revenue issued a warning about a phone and email parking fine scam

Aside from rangers errors, NSW residents are also being targeted by scammers.

In October, NSW Revenue issued a warning about a phone and email parking fine scam.



'You may have received an email advising they owe money for a fine which provides the details of an infringement number starting with AA,' the warning read.

'You may have received an outbound call received on Sunday, 8 October with the caller stating they are from SDRO and that outstanding debt totalled over $7K.'

NSW revenue warned the community concerned to 'not open its attachments, click any links, or download images'.

They advised recipients to 'delete it (and) please refer to the latest advice on www.staysmartonline.gov.au'.
The proposed Gaushalas or cow shelters will provide care to nearly one lakh stray cattle in rural and urban areas in the state.

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath has rolled out the plan to establish 1000 cow shelters across the state in coming four months at a cost of Rs 450 crore, ahead of March-April Lok Sabha elections.

The decision was taken by a high level official meeting chaired by the chief minister here late on Tuesday evening.

The proposed Gaushalas or cow shelters will provide care to nearly one lakh stray cattle in rural and urban areas in the state.

The move will not only help end the stray cattle menace but also generate employment for youth in the state, an official spokesman told this newspaper on Wednesday.

Funds for setting up the Gaushalas would be mobilised from the anti-poverty MGNREGS and allocations made to MPs and MLAs under the Local Area Development scheme, the spokesman said.

The state government was also mulling to invite private participation in the project, to be run on the basis of own-operate-manage, generating employment opportunities for local unemployed youths.

There are total 614 Gaushalas operating in the state under private management. But, not a single cow shelter is run by state government, the chief minister told the meeting.

Opposition BJP however saw in the move a design by the ruling Congress to harvest votes in the name of cows in the upcoming LS elections in the state.

Scores of cattle in the countrys only cow sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh have perished due to starvation and biting cold. Around 40 cattle died in the last few days in the sanctuary for want of food and lack of protection from winter.

But, the state government has announced to set up cow shelters across the state. This is nothing but publicity stunt by the state government keeping in view the forthcoming parliamentary elections, a spokesman of BJP here said.
'A miscarriage of justice on the scale of Lindy Chamberlain': Family of woman jailed for murdering her partner aboard his yacht say DNA evidence must force a retrial



Susan Neill-Fraser was convicted for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell on Australia Day in 2009

The mother-of-two was sentenced to jail for 23 years for the murder of the Hobart man

It is believed she murdered him aboard his yacht, the Four Winds, on Tasmania's Derwent River

But Dr Robert Moles says she is 'obviously innocent'



Susan Neill-Fraser is behind bars for a crime she and her family adamantly claim she didn't commit.

But now legal experts have thrown their support behind the innocence plea, saying that her murder conviction of killing partner Bob Chappell on Australia Day in 2009 is 'a serious miscarriage of justice'. They even went as far as saying the case is the 'worst injustices in Australian history'.



The grandmother and mother-of-two is currently serving a 23-year jail sentence for the murder of the Hobart man whilst aboard his yacht - the 'Four Winds' - on Tasmania's Derwent River.

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Susan Neill-Fraser with her partner Bob Chappell, daughters Sarah Bowles and Emma Fraser-Meeker Neill-Fraser was convicted for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell on Australia Day in 2009

Neill-Fraser was jailed for murdering Mr Chappell - her partner of 18 years - on the Australia Day weekend five years ago and has since been held at Risdon Women's Prison in Tasmania.

The day before the murder, the couple had spent the day together on the yacht when Mr Chappell decided he would stay aboard overnight while his partner returned home on a dinghy.

The morning after, the yacht was discovered half-submerged and Mr Chappell was missing - presumed dead.



Although his body was never found, the prosecutor told the court that Neill-Fraser attacked Mr Chappell and dumped his body in the River Derwent.



While Neill-Fraser has lost two attempts to overturn the conviction, she and her family maintain her innocence.

And so do the legal experts, reporte d 60 Minutes.

They likened the accusations of Neill-Fraser to Lindy Chamberlain's murder conviction of her baby.



The day after Australia Day, 2009, Mr Chappell's yacht was discovered half-submerged and he was missing, presumed dead

The day before the murder, the couple had spent the day together on the yacht when Mr Chappell decided he would stay overnight aboard the yacht while his partner returned home on a dinghy

Dr Robert Moles ranked the Neill-Fraser case to be the worst injustices in Australian history.

Daughter Sarah Bowles, who continues the fight to free her mother, says her faith in the Australian justice system has shattered

'The fact of the matter is, the case was carefully tailored to fit a particular outcome and the preferred scenario,' he said on the program which aired on Sunday night.



'It didn't take into account all the other factors.'

They include the mystery DNA of then homeless 16-year-old Meaghan Vass found on the deck of Four Winds.

She denied ever being on the yacht and the prosecution said that her DNA was on board due to 'secondary transfer'.

But this was rejected by the Victorian Police Forensic Office, which stated in a report that 'there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that the DNA detected was the result of a secondary transfer'.

Dr Moles believes this is enough to warrant a retrial.



'You don't have to establish that Sue Neill-Fraser is innocent, you don't have to establish that Meaghan Vass is guilty of anything,' he said.

'You just have to show that the case put to the jury was incorrect and that would be in itself sufficient to warrant a retrial.'

Another homeless person, this time a man with a criminal history, was allegedly near the yacht at the time of incident.

The mother and grandmother maintains her innocence as she serves a 23-year jail sentence in Tasmania

But Paul Row was only interviewed by police three years after Mr Chappell's disappearance and a year after Neill-Fraser's conviction.

Soon after the questioning, Mr Row left Tasmania.

Another one of the prosecution's claims was criticised by lawyer and former police officer Barbara Etter.

While the court was told that a Four Winds dinghy had been covered with Mr Chappell's blood, Ms Etter said an independent expert had verified there had been 'none' of his blood in the boat.

Ms Etter believes the murder case wasn't thoroughly investigated.



'We're seeing the same error that was made in Lindy Chamberlain over 30 years ago,' she said.

Yet new evidence is not admissible on appeal in Tasmania, like most of Australia.



Daughter Sarah Bowles said her faith in the Australian justice system has been shattered.
When residents of the brand-new Meadow View estate bought their homes, they assumed the properties would be fit for the 21st century.

Yet families there are now struggling with internet speeds slower than some developing countries.

Some say their internet is so poor, it can take an hour to send a few emails and an afternoon to download a film.

The homeowners in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, are among thousands across the UK to buy new properties, only to later discover that they are lumbered with a terrible broadband connection.

One in eight new homes has internet speeds that are slower than the Government's target minimum connection of 10 megabits per second - enough to make a good-quality video call

This month, the Daily Mail reported how one in eight new homes has internet speeds that are slower than the Government's target minimum connection of 10 megabits per second (Mbps)  enough to make a good-quality video call.

Meanwhile, four in ten homes are being built without fibre optic broadband  the fastest available connection that delivers speeds up to 300Mbps and which ministers say should be the standard in all homes.

Property developer Harron Homes describes Meadow View as a development of 'luxurious' two-bedroom bungalows and three and four-bed homes.

'Each new home . . . showcases the very best that new homes have to offer, from high-end finishes to impressive contemporary kitchens and stylish bathrooms,' it says.

But families on the 167-home development have told Money Mail there is nothing contemporary about their broadband speed. Many say it can be as low as 1.2 Mbps  slower than the average broadband speed in Papua New Guinea, Sudan and Bangladesh.

'It takes hours to download a film'

The average speed in the UK is 18.5 Mbps, compared with 9 Mbps across the world, according to comparison site cable.co.uk.

Yet Samantha Ward, 44, who lives on the Meadow View estate says the broadband speed can often be as low as 1.2 Mbps. Samantha and her husband Ian, 51, moved into their new 256,000 four-bedroom home on the development in October.

She says that when they lived in an older property in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, they had a broadband speed of more than 100 Mbps.

Now, it can take a couple of hours to download one television show.

Samantha says: 'I haven't had broadband this slow for 12 years. If I want to watch a movie, I have to start downloading it at lunchtime. If I had known the internet would be this slow, I would probably have thought twice about buying the property.'

Samantha, a risk and compliance consultant, who often works from home, and Ian, a vehicle technician, pay 48 a month for a TV, broadband and landline package with Sky.

The majority of Britain's broadband infrastructure is owned by Openreach, which service providers such as Sky, BT and TalkTalk use to supply individual households.

Then there are other networks such as Virgin and CityFibre, which lay and own their own cables.

Fast connection: From next year, providers will be required to provide high-speed broadband of at least 10 Mbps to anyone who requests it  regardless of where they are in the country

When building new housing estates such as Meadow View, it is up to developers to ask Openreach or another provider to lay a network of either copper or fibre optic cables.

Fibre broadband is the fastest internet available. Yet it is understood that Harron Homes directed Openreach to lay the slower, cheaper copper cables when the estate was built in 2014.

Openreach says at the time, 'faster, more reliable connections weren't widely available'.

'I'm forced to rely on mobile data'

Samantha's neighbour, Alan Apolakiatis, 25, now spends nearly twice as much on his mobile phone bill because the broadband at his new 237,000 home is often unusable. He owns a small recruiting business and sometimes works from home.

But he always has to use his smartphone's internet connection as a 'hotspot' for his laptop because his broadband is too slow. He says his home often gets just 2 Mbps  meaning it could take him more than an hour to send emails.

'It is 2019  we shouldn't be having these problems,' says Alan. 'To be honest, I don't trust online banking on my laptop with the broadband, so I only do it on my phone, using mobile data.

'Whenever I've tried to log into my account on my laptop, it's taken a long time to load, so I'd worry a transaction wouldn't go through if I did use the broadband.'

His monthly mobile phone bill is now 46 a month  up from 25. Alan also pays 22 a month to Plusnet for his landline and broadband.

Residents who live in developments with bad broadband have found their phone bills have increased significantly as they are forced to use their mobile data to use the internet

He moved onto the development with his partner, Alan Jones, 35, in December 2017.

He says it doesn't make sense that fibre optic cables weren't installed before building was finished  and that roads might need to be dug up for new cables to be installed.

'From a development point of view, it seems the wrong way of going about things,' he adds.

The government announced last year that access to fast broadband will be a legal right from 2020.

So, from next year, providers will be required to provide high-speed broadband of at least 10 Mbps to anyone who requests it  regardless of where they are in the country.

This speed is considered the bare minimum needed to cope with a family's modern-day internet needs  including downloading films and using video-streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

700,000 homes missing out

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom warns there are nearly 700,000 'forgotten homes' across the UK that are without broadband fast enough to meet a typical family's needs.

It says 2 per cent of homes and offices  around 677,000 properties  cannot access speeds of at least 10 Mbps.

Meadow View residents James Marshall, 32, and his fiancee, Angela Brown, 36, say they are stuck with speeds as low as 3.4 Mbps.

They now spend 104 a month on phone bills after increasing their internet data allowance to make up for the slow internet, on top of the 11 a month they pay Sky for their broadband connection.

James says: 'In today's age, fast internet is everything. People pay good money for these houses and they should have installed fibre optic to begin with  if you're going to do a job, do it properly.'

Extra bills: Meadow Views James and Angela have to buy additional data on their phones to make up for slow broadband. They say they are stuck with speeds as low as 3.4 Mbps

James, a production manager, and Angela, who works for the local council, bought the new-build for 215,000 in 2017 to house their family.

James says: 'We didn't ask about the broadband when we moved in because it wasn't something that crossed our minds.'

The couple have a daughter aged 13 and a boy and girl, both ten.

But the painfully slow broadband speeds mean if the children are playing online games, James and Angela cannot even watch a video on Facebook with their smartphones.

In its recent Connected Nations report, Ofcom said rural families were more likely to be left behind, with 73 per cent of those 'forgotten homes' in the countryside.

Meadow View lies in the Lundwood area of Barnsley, a former industrial town of around 240,000 people between Leeds and Sheffield.

Carly and Neil Mann, 39 and 41, also say their broadband is not fast enough to cope with their family's needs.

The couple, who have two sons, aged five and seven, moved to Meadow View from nearby Monk Bretton.

Now, when their boys want to download new games on their Xbox, they have to travel a mile to Monk Bretton, where Neil's mother lives  and has far faster internet.

Carly, who works in social care, says: 'We get around 3 or 4 Mbps. We have never lived anywhere else where the internet has been so bad.'

She also says it's not unusual for the internet to suddenly cut off without warning.

She spends 40 a month on an online educational service, which her sons use to help further their skills in maths and other school subjects. But the internet is often too slow for them to use it.

Alex Neill, managing director of home products and services at consumer group Which?, says: 'It is unacceptable that some property developers don't seem to be treating broadband as a priority, leaving families across the country struggling with sluggish connections after they move into a brand-new home.

'The government should act to ensure that new homes have the necessary infrastructure built in as standard, so all homeowners have access to the good-quality broadband they need to carry out a wide range of important everyday tasks.'

'Our family won't come to visit'

Industry experts and MPs have called on the Government to force developers to put fibre optic broadband in every new home to 'future-proof' our internet network.

It is already available to 95 per cent of UK properties, and the government recently consulted on plans to make it mandatory in new-builds.

But sales manager Bob Atherton, who also lives on Meadow View with his partner, Helen Scott, says the poor internet speed is the talk of the community.

Bob says: 'When new people move onto the estate, they sometimes ask on Facebook: 'Is anyone else's broadband down?' Someone says: 'No, that's just the way it is.''

Bob, 52, and Helen bought their new-build for 220,000 because they wanted more space to entertain their two families.

He says: 'We get 5.5 Mbps usually, so it's quite low. At Christmas, I tried to download a one hour high-definition show and it took just over 40 minutes.

The slow speeds have even put off would-be houseguests: 'Helen's niece is in the IT industry and was planning to come up and stay with us for a week.

'But, when she realised how slow our broadband was, she couldn't because she wouldn't be able to work.'

New properties are still being built on the estate  yards from Bob's home. He says: 'I've heard they won't do anything about the broadband until the estate is finished.

'You'd have thought they could get at least half way through and think: 'Right, let's get everyone connected up to the internet properly', before building more homes.'

Snail-like speeds blighting the UK

Meadow View's residents are not alone. New-build homeowners up and down the country have been complaining of poor broadband speeds.

Estates affected include some built by major developers Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.

Anthony Guffick, 66, says his broadband speeds reach a maximum of just 4 Mbps.

The retired IT worker paid 246,000 for his three-bedroom detached property in Hartlepool, County Durham. He says: 'I thought all new-builds would be built with the latest technology.'

Accountant Mark Goodwin, 31, told the Mail this month of speeds of around 2 Mbps in his new 200,000 home in Cannock, Staffordshire.

New-build homeowners up and down the country have been complaining of poor broadband speeds. Estates affected include some built by developers Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey

The residents of the Taylor Wimpey development campaigned for 18 months to get fibre installed through an Openreach scheme.

A spokesperson for Taylor Wimpey said: 'As a responsible housebuilder, it is our priority to deliver excellent standards of customer service. As soon as we became aware of this issue, we contacted BT and are committed to working with them to assist in the provision of faster broadband to all residents on the development.

'BT is now in the process of resolving this issue as soon as possible.'

Meanwhile, engineer Kevin Pratley, 54, says only one person can use the internet at a time in his new 185,000 detached Persimmon home and it is 'impossible' to download films.

A Government spokesman says: 'Too many homes are built with slow, or no, connections. This needs to change. We've recently consulted on making full fibre mandatory for new-builds and will outline next steps in due course.'

Openreach now offers fibre free of charge to developers building sites with more than 30 homes and has reduced rates for smaller sites, too.

A BT Openreach spokesman says: 'Meadow View was registered in 2014 when faster, more reliable connections weren't widely available for new-build sites from network providers such as Openreach.

Superslow broadband? Have you had problems with broadband in a new-build home? Write to us at broadband@daily mail.co.uk and leave your name and contact number.

'We would be keen to talk to the residents, developer or management company to help find a more future-proof broadband solution through our Community Fibre programme.'

Openreach's Community Fibre Partnership allows groups of residents to bring the fastest broadband to their street.

The cost is shared between Openreach and the community, but government grants are available.

A Plusnet spokesman says: 'All our customers are able to find out the speed they can expect when they sign up and, if they don't receive that speed, they can leave without a fee.'

A Home Builders Federation spokesman says: 'House builders recognise fast broadband connection is hugely important when purchasing a home and strive to ensure it is available from move- in day.

'We continue to press the government for an open-access market, which would see broadband connections open to all suppliers and negate the need for more than one set of infrastructure having to be installed.'

A Harron Homes spokesman says Openreach was appointed to provide telephone and broadband to the development in 2014.

She adds: 'We would kindly advise any customers experiencing issues with their broadband to contact our customer services team, who will be happy to provide assistance.'

Additional reporting: Francesca Washtell
Thousands of people are being forced to wrangle with their insurer for months over who should pay for boiler repairs

Millions of us pay hundreds of pounds a year for home emergency cover so we won't be left without heating or hot water if our boiler breaks down in the middle of winter.

But a Money Mail investigation exposes how this type of cover  sometimes costing as much as 900 annually  can often be an expensive waste of money.

Today, we can reveal how:

Complaints have soared by nearly two-thirds in 12 months.

Customers are being left without heating or hot water for weeks on end.

Insurers are hiking prices for loyal customers by as much as 20 per cent a year.

Firms are using obscure clauses buried in small print to reject claims.

One insurer took so long to fix a boiler that it was ordered to pay for thermal clothing.

Home emergency cover is supposed to provide the peace of mind that, should you have a problem with your heating or hot water, a trusted tradesman will come out to fix it within a few hours.

Basic policies typically cover you for issues with your central heating, but include the immersion heater, hot water cylinder and radiators. Others cover just the boiler.

However, our research suggests that thousands of people are being forced to wrangle with their insurer for months over who should pay for the repairs.

In the six months from April to September last year, the Financial Ombudsman received 1,449 complaints about boiler cover  a 63 per cent rise on the 888 it got for the same period in 2017. Almost half of these (45 per cent) were upheld in favour of the customer.

Separate research reveals how policies are riddled with exclusions that could make it hard to claim.

Some exclude features such as heated towel rails and underfloor heating. Others do not cover damage that's caused by limescale, rust and 'sludge'.

Most policies will only cover emergency repairs, with fewer than half (48 per cent) paying cash towards replacing a failed boiler.

Insurers will typically refuse to replace a boiler if it is older than six years  and, even then, most will only pay out between 250 and 500, according to data analysts Defaqto.

With a new boiler costing up to 2,500, it means that householders face a huge shortfall.

Meanwhile, if they fail to shop around each year, loyal customers are unknowingly being hit with enormous penalties.

Insurers will typically refuse to replace a boiler if it is older than six years  and, even then, most will only pay out between 250 and 500, according to data analysts Defaqto

One Money Mail reader was told in an annual renewal letter from British Gas that the price of her policy was rising by a fifth, from 358 to 433. Another customer saw their premium hiked from 750 to 895.

British Gas says some premiums are higher because older boilers are more likely to break down, so carry a higher level of risk.

A ccording to the consumer group Which?, the average cost of insurance plus a regular service is 242 a year, while the average boiler repair costs 194.

But, since the most reliable boilers break down just 1.4 times every six years, this means that even if you pay for your own boiler service once a year, at an average cost of 75, it is still better value than taking out insurance.

An examination of complaints to the Ombudsman between 2016 and 2018 reveals thousands of customers are battling to get insurers to pay up.

In one case, a grandmother living with her husband and young grandchild, both of whom have asthma, was left without heating or hot water for three months.

The woman claimed on her British Gas central heating insurance policy when her hot water stopped working last June, the Ombudsman was told.

An engineer was called out and said a new part was needed  but then accidentally broke the bolt with their hammer.

Check policy limits Some policies may restrict the number of claims you can make to one or two each year. There may also be a cap on the size of your claim. Most insurers wont cover boilers that are older than 15 years. Some wont insure it if its more than seven years old. Check whether your home insurance policy already includes boiler cover so that you dont pay unnecessarily. Most plans will not allow you to claim for up to 30 days after you buy the policy. This is to deter people from taking out a policy after their boiler has already broken. Policies wont cover all types of property: mobile homes and bedsits are often excluded.

British Gas said the bolts were no longer available, so the entire boiler would have to be replaced.

It offered 500 for the 'error' and a 900 discount towards a new boiler, but said it would not pay more for a replacement because the bolt broke due to 'heavy corrosion and rust'.

The Ombudsman ruled that British Gas must pay 75 per cent of the cost of a new boiler, plus 400 to acknowledge the 'considerable inconvenience' caused by not having hot water or heating, 'especially with young children in the house'.

In another case, a woman called Aviva to make a claim on her home emergency insurance policy when her boiler broke in August 2016.

But a host of complications, including needing scaffolding to reach a first-floor flat, plus a leaking radiator, meant her boiler was not fixed until December  more than three months later.

The woman was forced to have showers at the gym for weeks and to take time off work for 13 separate appointments.

When the customer complained to Aviva about the length of time it had taken to provide her with a working boiler, she was offered 250 compensation and 30 for a missed appointment.

The Ombudsman ordered Aviva to pay a further 1,000 and another 28.49 towards thermal clothing and a temporary heater that the woman was forced to buy to keep herself warm.

In a further case, a family was left with no heating or hot water for a fortnight in December 2016 while their son was recovering from major surgery.

The parents maintained that, under their policy, they were entitled to 1,000 for alternative hotel accommodation while their boiler was out of action.

The insurer and the couple disagreed over what constituted 'uninhabitable', but the Ombudsman found in their favour.

He ruled that they were entitled to the 1,000 because 'their son's illness and recovery from surgery would have made living in these conditions exceptionally difficult'.

James Daley, the founder of consumer group Fairer Finance, says: 'If insurers want to create policies with dozens of caveats, they need to make these crystal clear to customers at the time they buy the policy.'

A spokesman for Aviva says: 'Complaints are taken very seriously by Aviva and we are committed to providing an excellent service for all our customers.'

moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
Lloyds Banking Group has confirmed it is axing 270 more jobs, in a move blasted by trade union Unite as 'appalling.'

The job cuts are being made across the group's support and operational teams as part of a 3billion three-year plan aimed at transforming the business.

According to a statement on Unite's website, staff affected by the latest round of job cuts are based at sites in Fareham, Birmingham, London, Halifax and Chester.

Job cuts: Lloyds Banking Group has confirmed it is axing 270 more jobs

In a statement, Lloyds said that where staff cannot be redeployed elsewhere, they will go down the route of voluntary redundancies and only use compulsory redundancies as a 'last resort.'

The high street lender has announced nearly 10,000 job cuts since the Government sold off its stake in the lender to take it fully private in May 2017.

But, the bank announced this will be offset by the creation of around 8,000 new roles in November.

The lender wants to cut its operating costs to less than 8billion in 2020, down from 8.2billion in 2017.

Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio last week told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that it was conceivable there would be further job losses at the bank.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said: 'The loss of a further 270 committed and hardworking staff from Lloyds Banking Group is appalling. Unite is seeking urgent clarification about the future of the remaining workforce at the impacted sites.

More job cuts? Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio last week told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that it was conceivable there would be further job losses at the bank

'Unite has strongly objected to the reductions in sites and job roles announced today, especially against the backdrop of the continual use of agency staff and contractors. Unite is demanding that LBG cease the job cuts and closures in order to fully review the number of temporary and contract staff within the company.

'The bank's major restructuring plans have already led to hundreds of bank branches, offices and departments being closed or merged with thousands of staff losing their jobs.'

Lloyds' statement on latest job cuts A spokesperson for Lloyds said: 'The new roles, and the significant upskilling of our colleagues, form part of the 3 billion commitment we have made over the course of the next three years to invest in technology and people. 'This is our biggest ever investment in our people and involves increasing training hours to 4.4 million hours per year. 'The group's policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group. 'Since 2011, over 90% of role reductions have been achieved through a combination of natural attrition, redeployment and voluntary redundancy. 'Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, we will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort. 'Today's announcement involves making difficult decisions and we are committed to working through these changes in a careful and sensitive way.'

While today's job cuts affect support and operational staff, a string of Britain's banks, including Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and HSBC, have been closing bank branches up and down the country in a bid to cut costs amid the growing popularity of online banking.

In figures published by consumer group Which? in November, it was revealed that the UK has lost nearly two-thirds of its bank branches in the past 30 years, from 20,583 in 1988 to 7,586 today.

Shares in Lloyds are up 2.16 per cent or 1.23p to 58.07p today. Lloyds is publishing its full year results on 20 February.
A dog-eared staple beloved by 1970s and 80s petrolheads, Auto Trader has come a long way since its creation over 40 years ago by entrepreneur Sir John Madejski.

Realising early on that the future of publishing was digital it invested heavily online, dropping the print edition in 2013.

Today it is one of the world's premier car sites with a market worth of 4.2billion, a valuation that might just stick in the craw of the Guardian Media Group, which netted a 'mere' 600-700million from the sale of its 50.1 per cent stake back in 2007.

Autotrader is one of the world's premier car sites with a market worth of 4.2bn. In the last shares have advanced around a quarter in value

In the last year, the shares, up 0.3 per cent, or 1.5p, to 454.4p, have advanced around a quarter in value, while those investors lucky enough to buy ahead of the company's float four years ago are sitting on a 94 per cent profit.

As of last Friday, Auto Trader was ranked as the UK's 99th largest stock market business. It will be promoted to the FTSE 100 automatically if it can clamber past the likes of Direct Line and Severn Trent.

Any chance of that happening? Perhaps, according to a handful of brokers, including Peel Hunt, which values the business at around 500p a share.

The only potential threat is Facebook and/or Amazon coming into the market.

'So far we have seen little impact from both companies,' said Peel Hunt in a recent note.

The index of blue-chip stocks was on the rebound as it ignored the latest Brexit twists and turns to advance 86.93 points to 6833.93. 'The British equity benchmark has lagged behind its continental counterparts lately, and the stability in the commodity space helped it outperform,' said David Madden of CMC Markets.

Stock Watch - CVS Veterinary chain CVS saw nearly 40 per cent wiped off its value after a profit warning amid a shortage of vets. Shares fell after its underlying earnings for the 12 months to the end of June this year are set to be lower than expected as it faces surging costs for locums to cover vet and nurse vacancies. The company is now cutting costs across the group and overhauling its employment tactics for locums. CVS shares tumbled 38.5 per cent, or 251.5p, to 401p.

Also bouncing back was British American Tobacco, which led the blue-chip index.

The shares advanced 5.7 per cent, or 135p, to 2510p after the broker Piper Jaffray upgraded its call to 'overweight', suggesting the stock had been oversold.

A year ago it was changing hands for more than 4700p but tumbled amid worries over a potential ban on menthol cigarettes. Rival cigarette firm Imperial rose 2.1 per cent, or 50p, to 2411.5p in BATS' wake.

British Airways owner IAG (up 3 per cent, or 18.4p, at 641.4p) took flight after it looked to have dodged a bullet in its pursuit of Norwegian Air after the latter launched a 270million cash call.

Rounding off the profit warnings was Imperial Leather soap maker PZ Cussons, which fell 14.8 per cent, or 31p, to 178.6p as it blamed subdued consumer spending in Nigeria for its woes.

Providing an antidote to the gloom was Crimson Tide (up 24.4 per cent, or 0.5p, to 2.55p), which said its profits would be ahead of market expectations.

Following its savage sell-off on Monday, after putting itself up for sale, Utilitywise bounced back 27.4 per cent, or 0.44p, up at 2.05p.

There was some good news for the struggling drug developer Midatech Pharma which rose 2.4 per cent, or 0.1p, to 4.2p. It has received an 8million cash injection that will give Chinese billionaire Lam Kong a 77 per cent stake.

Investors tucked into the shares of JKX Oil & Gas after the company gave an update on a well in Ukraine.

The shares rose 28.6 per cent, or 9.6p, to 43.2p. African Oil & Gas gushed 14.3 per cent, or 1.35p, to 10.8p after it found a 56-metre oil column.

Finally, Tomco Energy, was friendless after it said work had begun on its Holliday block in Utah. The shares ended the day 25.9 per cent, or 0.7p, down at 2p.
Norwegian Air shares plunged after the budget airline asked investors for 270m of emergency funds.

It comes days after British Airways owner IAG ruled out another bid for the airline.

Norwegian plans to raise the money by issuing discounted shares to investors next month and will redirect its focus from growth to profitability.

Budget airline Norwegian plans to raise the money by issuing discounted shares to investors next month and will redirect its focus from growth to profitability

This will involve cutting costs, selling aircraft and postponing the delivery of new aircraft it has bought.

It has expanded rapidly and aggressively led the charge to lower the cost of long-haul flying  but the speed of expansion has put pressure on costs.

The terms of the rights issue, including the subscription price and the number of shares that will be issued, will be proposed on or around February 18.

Norways richest man, billionaire investor John Fredriksen, is among those who have said they will underwrite the issue.

Preliminary results show Norwegian made an operating loss of 340million in 2018.

This week, the company lost more than a fifth of its value when IAG said it would sell its 3.93 per cent holding. Shares fell 11 per cent at 125.50 krone.
Two damning new reports reveal that dire state of the underage vaping epidemic, underscoring the need for updated laws and policies to keep kids from getting hooked on nicotine.

E-cigarette use has increased by 75 percent among middle and high school students between 2017 and 2018, and 3.6 million of them now use the devices, a new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report found.

The American Lung Association's annual State of Tobacco Control report found a 'disturbing failure of the federal government and states to take action to prevent and reduce tobacco use,' the association's president and CEO, Harold Wimmer said.

The AAP said its findings suggest that the recent surge in teen vaping threatens set us back 'five decades of public health gains,' and the Lung Association said the FDA plays a direct role by not interceding.

The vast majority of the US allows people under 21 to purchase tobacco products - including e-cigarettes - earning these states failing grades (gray) for smoking prevention from the American Lung Association's new report

An estimated one in 20 middle school students and one in five high school-age children use e-cigarettes in the US.

Even as he's described teenage vaping as an 'epidemic' the FDA's commissioner Scott Gottlieb and his agency have stopped short of passing a number of laws that medical and health associations believe could curb the alarming trend.

Fewer teens than ever are smoking combustible cigarettes, but amid the vaping crisis, that is little comfort to the AAP and the American Lung Association, both of whom include e-cigs in their analyses of tobacco use.

E-cigarettes pose a number of unique challenges to public health officials trying to keep them out of the hands of teenagers and children.

For one, the sweet flavors their e-liquids come in make them enticing and approachable to young people.

The most popular type of e-cig, the Juul, which dominates 70 percent of the market, uses e-liquid pods with extremely high nicotine contents.

Each pod contains about as much addictive nicotine as a full pack of cigarettes, and the sleek devices are easily concealed from parents and teachers, a feature indicative of the fact that the company is 'brazen in producing and marketing products squarely aimed at kids,' wrote Dr Wimmer in the State of Tobacco Control report.

And not nearly enough is being done by counteract these marketing efforts, the report claims.

'This year's report was a big wake up call,' Thomas Carr, Director of National Policy at the American Lung Association, told Daily Mail Online, referring to the high rates of youth e-cig use and holes in smoking prevention policies.

'I think more action needs to be taken about that and there have been some decisions by the FDA that have contributed to [the problem].'

Chief among them was the FDA's 2017 decision to delay regulation of e-cigarettes.

That means that there is no pre-market review of the contents of their contents, 'so we really don't know what's in them,' Carr said.

'That leaves a lot of flavored tobacco products on the market.'

He and the American Lung Association and the AAP are both calling for the FDA to reverse their decision and review e-cigs before they are brought to market, and to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products.

Carr further underscored the need to more states to pass tighter anti-smoking laws, such as prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to anyone under 21 and allocating more funding to cessation programs.

The AAP called for the same bans and higher taxes on tobacco products, and urged the FDA to 'act immediately to regulate e-cigarettes like traditional cigarettes to protect public health.'

In response, Commissioner Gottlieb defended his agency's work and made a vague promise that it will ramp up its efforts against the vaping epidemic.

'The #FDA has taken unprecedented steps to address kids' use of e-cigs while maintaining access to currently addicted adult smokers,' he said on Twitter.

'But these points are received. The agency must - and soon will - be doing much more to firmly address this mounting epidemic.'
E-cigarettes are nearly twice as effective as nicotine gum or patches at helping people quit smoking, a landmark trial found.

The NHS-funded study identified vaping as six times more effective than trying to kick the habit alone.

Officials last night called for health professionals to start recommending the devices far more widely.

They said staff at stop-smoking services have been too reluctant to endorse e-cigarettes, because they have been cautious about the evidence behind them.

E-cigarettes are nearly twice as effective as nicotine gum at helping smokers quit (stock)

Martin Dockrell, who is in charge of tobacco control at Public Health England, said: This landmark research shows that switching to an e-cigarette can be one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, especially when combined with face-to-face support.

All stop smoking services should welcome smokers who want to quit with the help of an e-cigarette.

Other experts, however, were far more critical.

Doctors from the US - where experts have tended to be more cautious about e-cigarettes than those in Britain - pointed out that even with e-cigarettes 82 per cent of people failed to give up smoking.

And of those who did kick the habit, 80 per cent were left hooked on e-cigarettes instead, which raises concerns about the impact of long-term vaping.

The research of 900 smokers, led by experts at Queen Mary University of London, found 18 per cent of people stopped smoking a year after taking up e-cigarettes.

Only 10 per cent of those who tried nicotine patches, gum or sprays managed to quit - along with just three per cent of those who attempted to give up smoking unaided.

Professor Peter Hajek said: This is the first trial to test the efficacy of modern e-cigarettes in helping smokers quit.

E-cigarettes were almost twice as effective as the gold standard combination of nicotine replacement products.

Although a large number of smokers report that they have quit smoking successfully with the help of e-cigarettes, health professionals have been reluctant to recommend their use because of the lack of clear evidence from randomised controlled trials.

This is now likely to change.

All participants in the study, which was funded by the NHS National Institute for Health Research and published in the respected New England Journal of Medicine, also had weekly face-to-face support.

Dunja Przulj said: The UK specialist stop smoking services will now be more likely to include e-cigarettes among their treatment options, and health professionals will feel more comfortable in recommending e-cigarettes as a stop-smoking intervention.

This may ultimately further accelerate the reduction in smoking and in smoking related diseases. Other British researchers also backed the findings.

Professor Robert West of University College London, said: This study is of huge significance.

It provides the clearest indication yet that e-cigarettes are probably more effective than products such as nicotine gum and patches.

But he added: Given that ecigs may cause some harm when used over many years I would encourage users to think of them as a stop-gap, but they are far better than smoking - ex-smokers should not stop using them if they are worried they may go back to cigarettes.

E-cigarettes form the core of Public Health Englands stop-smoking strategy, with TV adverts, health campaigns, and researchers championing the technology.

But critics have repeteadly warned that the UK is way out of step with the rest of the world in its approach to the devices.

The World Health Organization is concerned about cancer-causing chemicals in the devices and the EU believes e-cigarettes may act as a gateway to tobacco.

Earlier this month the head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb, said he was so concerned about teenage use of the devices that he is considering the radical step of banning them completely.

Last night US experts at Boston University reiterated their caution - and said smokers should only be given e-cigarettes if they have failed to quit using other methods.

Writing in an editorial to accompany the New England Journal of Medicine research, Boston professors Belinda Borrelli and George OConnor said: While e-cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes, they are not without risks.

Evidence of effectiveness must be balanced against the short-term and long-term safety of e-cigarettes.

E-cigarette vapour contains many toxins and exerts potentially adverse biologic effects on human cells... although toxin levels and biologic effects are generally lower than those of tobacco smoke.
The NHS could run out of medicine and face staff departures if the country crashes out of the EU without a deal, a hospital chief executive has warned.

Dr David Rosser, who runs the University Hospitals Birmingham trust, one of the biggest in the UK, warned a no-deal Brexit could trigger 'unprecedented' problems.

He said hospital trusts could quickly run out of 'vital' medicines despite attempts to stockpile and there could be 'severe and widespread risks to patient safety'.

Dr Rosser also warned more staff may leave the country if the atmosphere becomes more hostile in the country and the pound becomes less valuable.

Parliament yesterday voted against delaying Brexit, meaning the UK is on course to still leave in March, whether Theresa May has secured a trade agreement or not.

Dr David Rosser, CEO of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, warned vital medicines could run out 'quickly' if the UK leaves the EU without a deal

UHB  which runs the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham (pictured)  is one of the biggest NHS trusts in the UK and treats more than 2.2million patients each year

University Hospitals Birmingham is one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK and treats more than 2.2millon patients per year.

Dr Rosser has been chief executive at the trust since September and has worked there since 1996.

In a memo to the UHB's board of directors last week, he said: 'In terms of the potential for major operational impact and severe and widespread risks to patient safety, by far the greatest concern is the availability of medicines, devices and clinical supplies.'

He added the Department of Health and Social Care had identified potential supply shortcomings but its findings had not been shared with individual hospitals.

Trusts could face a 'completely unprecedented challenge' if they are suddenly hit with shortages of medicines and supplies, he warned.

He had drawn up the memo after being aked to set out how the trust was planning to cope with a no-deal Brexit.

Dr Rosser said: 'It is assumed that a significant proportion of the medicines and consumables we use at UHB on a daily basis may be at risk.'

He also raised concerns about more departures among the hospitals' approximately 1,200 staff from the European Union.

AT LEAST 80 COMMON DRUGS ALREADY IN SHORT SUPPLY Eighty drugs are now so low in stock the Department of Health is, in some cases, paying a price 45 per cent higher than usual and racking up thousands in added costs. Among them are blood pressure pills and anti-inflammatories, and some patients are being told to go back to their doctor to ask for something different. Global demand, the cost of ingredients and new regulations are all possible reasons why pharmacies are struggling to get hold of certain medications. And there is disagreement between experts over whether uncertainty about Brexit is worsening the situation, which has been called 'a threat to patient safety'. A monthly list of drugs in short supply is managed by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC). BBC analysis revealed the number of medications on the list for December was six times higher than it was three years ago. Advertisement

Some 262 of the trust's doctors are Europeans, as well as 375 nurses and midwives.

He wrote: 'Whilst we have not seen large scale departures so far, it is quite likely that an even more hostile public atmosphere towards Europe in the event of no deal, combined with a further fall in sterling against the euro and other currencies, would affect staff morale and potentially decisions to stay and work in the UK.

'It is difficult to prepare detailed predictions or plans for such unpredictable concerns, however it is difficult to see any scenario whereby a no deal or other chaotic Brexit does not significantly impact our ability to safely treat our patients.'

The warning comes just a day after another Brexit-related health scare, when the NHS said it would stop blood donations in Folkestone and Dover in the weeks surrounding Brexit.

NHS Blood and Transplant said it would suspend donation sessions in March and April to avoid traffic expected to build up around the port of Dover.

But the Department of Health last night overruled this and said donations would continue as normal in Kent.

The move, only publicised by the NHS for a few hours before being shot down by the Government, had been branded 'reckless' and 'irresponsible' by MPs.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'The Department does not agree with this course of action.

'Weve discussed this issue with NHSBT and confirmed blood donations will continue as normal.

'Were grateful to all lifesaving blood donors who make an important contribution.'
Tyson Foods is recalling more than 36,000 pounds of chicken nuggets because they may be contaminated with rubber.

The news comes after two recalls of nuggets from another top brand, Perdue - first 68,000 pounds that may contain wood chips, then 16,000 pounds that may contain undeclared milk.

The US Agriculture Department says customers complained about finding the material in five-pound packages of Tyson White Meat Panko Chicken Nuggets.

There are no confirmed reports of adverse reactions.

The packages have a best if used by date of Nov. 26, 2019 and the case code 3308SDL03. The establishment core P-13556 is inside the USDA inspection mark.

The nuggets should be thrown out or returned to the place of purchase.
The Centre claimed that only 0.313 acre plot, on which the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid structure stood, is disputed.

New Delhi: In a move that is big on optics ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led Central government on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to hand over 67.390 acre of non-disputed excess land adjacent to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid area to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas or the trust overseeing the Ram temple plan.

Seeking modification of the apex courts 2003 order for maintaining status quo on the entire 67.7 acre land, including the disputed 2.77 acre site, the government asked the top court to carve out the exact extent of land necessary to access the disputed area and allow it to give the excess land back to the Janmabhoomi Nyas as they want to build a temple there.

In its application, the Centre also said that the entire 2.77 acre premises, within which the disputed structure stood before its demolition on December 6, 1992, cannot be termed as disputed. The Centre claimed that only 0.313 acre plot, on which the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid structure stood, is disputed.

The 33-page application, filed on Monday, showcases the BJP-led governments commitment to the Ayodhya cause as rightwing groups intensify their campaign for a temple at what they believe is the birthplace of Lord Ram. Even if the Centre fails to get any relief from the Supreme Court, the move is likely to earn the Narendra Modi government brownie points in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls for attempting to address concerns of rightwing groups. Union minister Prakash Javadekar said that the plea before the Supreme Court is a legal decision taken in sync with the BJP stand for building a Ram Mandir at the disputed site.

Mr Javadekar clarified that the government has not touched the disputed land at the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya.

Today the government has taken a very important in-principle decision to return the excess land which was acquired in 1994 to the original land owners. One of the land owners of 42 acres, out of 67 acres, is Ram Janambhoomi Nyas. The government wants to return the land to its original owners and they want to build the Ram temple there, Mr Javadekar told

After the destruction of the Babri mosque, the then Congress government acquired 67.703 acres, including the land measuring 2.77 acres, through a legislation in 1994.

The 67.703 acre land, mainly belonging to Hindus, is vested with the Centre as its custodian under the Acquisition of Certain Area in Ayodhya Act of 1993.

Referring to the earlier order of March 31, 2003, the Union home ministry said in the application filed on Monday that instead of confining the order of status quo to the disputed land the Supreme Court had extended the restraining order to adjacent acquired land as well.

The Centre also referred to the Supreme Courts verdict in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case, saying the top court had observed that if the Centre wants to

return the acquired land to its original owners then it may do so.

Through its petition the Narendra Modi government has asked the Supreme Court to modify its March 2003 decision in the case of Mohd. Aslam alias Bhure, who had filed a writ petition challenging some aspects of the acquisition.

In the Bhure case, in an interim order on March 14, 2002, the court had also ruled that no religious activity of any kind by anyone either symbolic or actual including bhumipuja or shila puja, shall be permitted or allowed to take place in 67.7 acres of the land.

The Supreme Court was to hear the Ayodhya title suit on Tuesday but the hearing was cancelled because one of the judges, Justice S.A. Bobde, was not available for medical reasons.

There is a growing pressure on the BJP-led NDA from the Sangh parivar for early construction of the temple, a highly emotive issue. The VHP, which is running a campaign for the temple, welcomed the Centres move, saying the step was in right direction.

If the apex court grants permission to return the excess land, sources disclosed, Nyas and other groups could initiate some construction on the non-disputed site.

The Ram mandir issue is top of the agenda of the ongoing Dharam Sansad of saints and seers at the Kumbh in Prayagraj, which BJP president Amit Shah is also expected to visit.

The ruling BJP has been under pressure from right-wing groups, its own members as well as allies like the Shiv Sena to bring an ordinance to enable the temple construction.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, said in an interview earlier this month that the government would wait for the judicial process to get over. Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever will be our responsibility as the government, we are ready to make all efforts, he said in an interview to news agency ANI.

Alleging that the Centres application in the Supreme Court was aimed at appeasing the Sangh Parivar ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the CPI(M) said it was a devious effort on the part of the government to pre-empt the decision of the Supreme Court.

Dubbing the Centres move as an insidious attempt, AIMIMs Asaduddin Owaisi accused it of trying everything in their capacity to prevent a fair and independent adjudication of the Babri Masjid dispute.

Threatening the judicial process like this is another (failed) attempt to save BJP from their rapidly diminishing political fortunes, he tweeted.

Fourteen appeals have been filed in the apex court against the 2010 Allahabad high court judgment, delivered in four civil suits, that the 2.77-acre land be partitioned equally among three parties  the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  Solo parents can now enjoy meals in Quezon City restaurants for a cheaper price.

The Quezon City government posted Quezon City Ordinance SP No. 2766, S-2018 on their Facebook account Wednesday, requiring all restaurants to implement a 20% discount for solo parents and their children in the city.

The discount applies to all solo parents who present a valid ID upon a purchase not exceeding P2,000 for single or accumulated receipts in a food establishment. Solo parents cannot avail of the discount if their bills exceed P2,000 in the same restaurant on the same day. The discount can be availed every first and last Sundays of the month, the post said.

The solo parent's ID must be issued by the Quezon City Social Services Development Department.
It could last indefinitely until an infrared light is used to break down the mixture

A male contraceptive could be on the horizon as scientists believe they can stop sperm getting out of the testicles with an injection.

The therapy, proven to work in mice, was inspired by alcoholic cocktails which form separate layers in a glass.

Scientists inserted a concoction of layered chemicals into a tube coming out of the testicle of the rodents to plug it. It stopped them impregnating female mice.

By shining the testicles under a special light, the chemicals were then mixed and the contraceptive was stopped, proving it to be reversible.

If it works in humans, the technique could be a ray of hope for millions of men who want their own form of birth control.

Scientists at Nanchang University say a layered selection of chemicals could block the tube between the testicles and penis and stop sperm from being ejaculated

Researchers from Nanchang University in China developed the method using gold particles and two types of chemicals to create a four-layered cocktail.

It includes a hydrogel, which acts as a physical barrier to the sperm trying to leave the vas deferens  the tube which carries them from the testicle to the penis.

This is separated with a layer of gold particles from a chemical called EDTA (short for ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), which kills sperm and later breaks down the hydrogel when the contraceptive is finished with.

Sperm which do not get ejaculated out of the testicles are stored for a while then broken down and reabsorbed by the body.

To make the man fertile again, a near-infrared light is used to heat the gold particles which makes them move and the chemical mixes up and washes away to 'unplug' the sperm tubes.

When tested in mice the mixture successfully stopped them impregnating female mice for two months until the heat was used to break it down.

Professor Xiaolei Wang and colleagues hope they can create the world's first medium-term male contraceptive.

Currently the only options are short-term  condoms  or permanent  vasectomies.

A survey published in the US earlier this month suggested nearly 40 per cent of men want a long-term but reversible form of contraception.

The survey, done by pharmacy website Singlecare, found a hormonal daily pill would be the preferred method.

Past attempts to develop contraception for men have been cut short.

A trial of an injection found to be 100 per cent effective was ended in 2016 because of side effects  men reported depression and pain and in one case a man developed an irregular heart rate, the New Scientist reported at the time.

The National Institutes of Health in the US announced in November it was funding a clinical trial of a hormonal skin gel which reduces sperm production to almost zero.

And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Dundee University, in Scotland, more than 700,000 to screen existing medications and chemicals to see if any could work as a contraceptive.

The Chinese researchers who have developed the cocktail method say more tests are needed to confirm the ingredients are safe to use in humans.

Their research was published in ACS Nano, a journal run by the American Chemical Society.
A healthy nurse has been praised by hundreds of people online after she spent the day with a nasal gastric tube - just so she could better empathise with her patients.

Dorcas Boamah, 27, often has to insert nasogastric (NG) tubes into her patients' noses, which go down the back of their throats and into their stomachs.

Patients often find this daunting and ask Ms Boamah what it is like - with her being unable to give them an honest answer.

Determined to be more truthful with her patients, Ms Boamah - who works at Royal Free Hospital - had a colleague fit the invasive tube on January 7.

Ms Boamah then wore the tube all day before catching two trains and a bus home, and even went out for dinner - attracting cruel stares from strangers.

After posting a picture of herself with the NG tube on Instagram - which has got nearly 800 likes - 'the incredible nurse' claims it has helped her be better at her job.

Dorcas Boamah has been praised by hundreds of people online after she spent the day with a nasogastric tube - so she could better empathise with her patients. Ms Boamah is pictured on January 7 - the day she had the tube fitted - in an Instagram post that has attracted 196 likes

Ms Boamah often has to fit nasogastric tubes and was unable to answer nervous patients honestly when they asked her what it felt like when the apparatus is being fitted. Since spending a day with the tube, Ms Boamah believes she can better empathise with her patients

Ms Boamah's post has been heaped with praise from social-media users, with one - feedingtube.fitness - calling her 'amazing' and adding she was 'grateful for nurses like her'

Speaking of why she had the tube fitted, Ms Boamah said: 'I just wanted to see how it felt. Now I know so I can go back to my patients and tell them what they can expect.

'I wanted to put myself in my patients' shoes. Often patients old and young will need an NG tube, and many of them are nervous.'

NG tubes are fitted to deliver liquid food, as well as fluids and medication, if it is unsafe for the patient to take them via the mouth.

WHAT IS A NASOGASTRIC TUBE? A nasogastric (NG) tube may be required if it is unsafe for a patient to take in liquid food, fluids or medication via the mouth. The tube passes through the nose, down the back of the throat and into the stomach. The end of the tubing on the outside of the body is then attached to the cheek via tape. Having a NG tube fitted may be uncomfortable but should not be painful. The process take just a few minutes. Once the tube is fitted correctly, it should be quite comfortable. Not having a NG tube fitted when one is needed runs the risk of malnutrition. Source: Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Advertisement

Ms Boamah now feels she can answer patients honestly when they ask what the tube feels like when it is being fitted.

'[Before] I could say "yes it will be a little bit uncomfortable" but I didn't actually know,' she said.

'Now I do. It has definitely made me a better nurse.'

Although Ms Boamah felt 'quite anxious' while having the tube fitted, she found taking a deep breath and trying to start calm helped make the process run smoother.

'Now I really understand how taking an extra few moments to chat and relax the patient can make such a difference,' she said.

Ms Boamah also understands how daunting it can be going out and about with the tube fitted, something many patients are forced to do.

'It did make me feel quite isolated and tearful,' she said.

'[And] I found eating was quite uncomfortable.'

Instagram user stone_somaro praised Ms Boamah for setting a 'good example'

Nakeysha_king called the post 'powerful' and wished other nurses were as 'empathetic' as Ms Boamah. She added she had to have tube fitted in two weeks and was 'scared to death'. Ms Boamah responded it was a 'common procedure' and doctors would 'reassure her'

Ms Boamah later posted a photograph of herself with the tube on Instagram in an attempt to 'normalise' NG tubes.

'A lot of people live their lives with them and there is no reason to hide,' she said.

'It's a very physical thing you can see on your face, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't live your life.'

Impressed by her brave 'experiment', social-media users flocked to praise the 'incredible nurse'.

The user feedingtube.fitness said: 'oh my gosh!!!! you're so amazing!!! wow! proud of you. i am so grateful for incredible nurses like you in the world!!!'

And nakeysha-king said: 'THIS IS SOOOO SO POWERFUL ****** THANK YOU..******IF ONLY ALL DRS NURSES ETC COULD BE MORE EMPATHETIC IT WOULD TRULY RESULT MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

'[I] WILL HAVE TO HAVE A PEG TUBE PLACED IN TWO WEEKS AND I'M SCARED TO DEATH.'

Ms Boamah took the opportunity to reassure nakeysha-king, writing: 'It is a common procedure and I am sure your medical team will reassure you'.

While the post on her Instagram page has attracted 196 likes, it got 'regrammed' by the campaigners NHS Million, gaining a further 599 likes.

After Ms Boamah's post was 'regrammed' by the health service campaigners NHS Million, the praise kept coming in, with Instagram-user dogheadedd calling the 'NHS lot incredible'
Global warming could mean more children are born with potentially deadly heart defects.

Being exposed to unusually high temperatures during pregnancy increases the chance of damage to the internal organs, scientists say.

Research predicts there could be 7,000 extra cases of heart defects between 2025 and 2035 in eight US states with a combined population of approximately 110million people.

Scaled up to the global population, this suggests climate change could contribute to around 40,000 congenital heart defects per year.

American researchers suggested 7,000 extra cases of congenital heart disease could appear in a population of around 110million across eight states between 2025 and 2035 as a result of rising global temperatures

Researchers at the University of Albany in New York made their predictions using forecasts of the number of births and heat increases over the 11-year period.

They used data from the US states of Arkansas, Iowa, Texas, California, New York, North Carolina, Utah and Georgia.

They aren't sure exactly why increased heat makes a baby more likely to have heart problems.

But animal studies suggest exposing a foetus to temperatures outside the mother's normal experience may trigger cell death or damage proteins used in development.

To make their predictions, the New York scientists considered the number of excessively hot days during a woman's pregnancy, the frequency of heat waves lasting three days or more, and the length of heat waves.

'It would be prudent for women in the early weeks of pregnancy to avoid heat extremes, said Dr Shao Lin, director of environmental health sciences at Albany.

Dr Wangjian Zhang, the study's lead author, added: 'Our results highlight the dramatic ways in which climate change can affect human health.

'And [they] suggest that pediatric heart disease stemming from structural heart malformations may become an important consequence of rising temperatures.'

The study was published in JAHA: The Journal of the American Heart Association.

The research comes after health experts this month warned global warming will kill far more people than the World Health Organization predicts.

WHAT IS CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE? Congenital heart disease is a general term for a range of birth defects that are present at birth. The most common heart defects include: Septal defects: When there's a hole between two of the heart's chambers, which is known commonly as a 'hole in the heart'. Coarctation of the aorta: Where the main large artery of the body, is narrower than normal Pulmonary valve stenosis: When the pulmonary valve is narrower than the normal. This valce controls the flow of blood from the heart to the lungs. Transposition of the great arteries: When the pulmonary and aortic valves and the arteries they're connected to have swapped positions. Advertisement

Sir Andrew Haines, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, and the University of Washington's Professor Kristie Ebi gave their warning in the New England Journal of Medicine.

They said the WHO's estimate of 250,000 extra deaths per year because of soaring temperatures was too 'conservative'.

As well as deaths from heat stress and malaria caused by burgeoning mosquito populations, there are other factors the WHO didn't take into account, they said.

Extreme poverty, lung conditions caused by worse air quality, reduced access to clean water, smaller farm yields, and violence triggered by migration will all add to the deaths, Sir Andrew and Professor Ebi warned.

Congenital heart defects are development problems which happen while a baby is in the womb and stop the heart from working properly.

They are among the most common birth defects, affecting around 40,000 babies per year in the US and eight in every 1,000 babies in the UK.

Defects include holes in the heart, narrowing of the largest arteries, constricted valves, or an underdeveloped heart.

Signs a baby could have congenital heart disease include a rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, swelling of the legs or stomach, and extreme tiredness and fatigue.
A woman who became jealous and paranoid that her ex-boyfriend was chatting to other girls in fact had a rare brain condition that left her psychotic.

Evie Moore, 23, said she became 'animalistic' while in hospital, hallucinating that she was 'the Messiah' and even forgetting who her parents were.

She was diagnosed with encephalitis, a condition which causes the body's immune system to attack healthy brain cells.

In the months leading up to her diagnosis at the end of 2015, the council worker, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, became 'totally disorientated'.

She was rushed to hospital when she had a seizure in her parents living room, leading to doctors putting her in an induced coma, fighting for her life.

Miss Moore's relationship broke down during her nine week stay in hospital, whereby she gained six stone from steroid medication to reduce the inflammation in her brain.

Evie Moore, 23, of Gloucestershire, said she became 'animalistic' while in hospital in 2015, hallucinating that she was 'the Messiah' and even forgetting who here parents were

In the months leading up to diagnosis, Miss Moore became 'totally disorientated' and paranoid that her ex-boyfriend was chatting up other women. Her relationship ended while she was in hospital. Pictured, after steroid medication which led her to six stone of weight gain

Encephalitis is rare and affects approximately 4,000 people in the UK each year, according to Brain and Spine Foundation.

Despite not being religious, Miss Moore was convinced she was 'a messenger from God'.

She said: 'I remember lying on the floor next to my hospital bed and creating the sign of the cross.

'Then, when the junior doctor came to see me, I'd say, "Hello, I'm a messenger from God and I've been sent from heaven".'

WHAT IS ENCEPHALITIS? Encephalitis is an uncommon but serious condition in which the brain becomes inflamed (swollen). It can be life-threatening and requires urgent treatment in hospital. Anyone can be affected, but the very young and very old are most at risk. Encephalitis sometimes starts off with flu-like symptoms, such as a high temperature and headache, but these don't always occur. More serious symptoms develop over hours, days or weeks, including: confusion or disorientation, seizures (fits), changes in personality and behaviour or loss of consciousness. Dial 999 for an ambulance immediately if you or someone else has these more serious symptoms. It's not always clear what causes encephalitis, but it can be caused by viral infections. Several common viruses can spread to the brain and cause encephalitis in rare cases, including the herpes simplex virus (which causes cold sores and genital herpes) and the chickenpox virus. Source: NHS Advertisement

Before September 2015, when she was struck down with encephalitis, Miss Moore was a fit and healthy 20-year-old woman, who ate well and visited the gym regularly.

She was happily living with her then boyfriend, who she does not wish to named, in Stroud, and working as a customer service assistant at an energy company.

For a few months before the attack, Miss Moore started experiencing out-of-character feelings of jealousy and paranoia.

She said: 'In the three months before encephalitis hit me, I was becoming paranoid and was getting worked up about things that wouldn't normally bother me.

'For no reason at all, I was getting really worried about my boyfriend at the time speaking to other girls, which never used to bother me before.

'And looking back now, that was clearly the beginning of it.'

Her condition deteriorated rapidly, and at the end of September 2015, Miss Moore was confined to her bed with flu.

At home on her own while her boyfriend was out one evening, she called her parents who immediately sensed something was wrong.

Her father, Ivan, 53, an orthopaedic engineer, immediately drove to her house and brought her back to the family home in Tetbury, 11 miles (17km) away.

Before September 2015, when she was struck down with encephalitis, Miss Moore was a fit and healthy 20-year-old woman, who ate well and visited the gym regularly. Pictured in 2014

Miss Moore, pictured before she became ill, was living with her ex-boyfriend, who she does not wish to name, when the signs of her illness started to show

Miss Moore was struck with the flu before having a seizure in her parents living room. She was rushed to hospital and put in an induced coma. Pictured in 2017 while recovering at home

Miss Moore said: 'Mum and Dad knew something wasn't right with me, as I was very distressed and out of sorts.

'It was becoming apparent that this wasn't just flu. They were on tenterhooks.'

Then suddenly, Miss Moore started having a seizure in their living room, her eyes rolling back into her head and her mouth foaming.

Frantic and unable to bring her out of the seizure, her parents called an ambulance.

Paramedics immediately defibrillated her once she was in the ambulance to kick-start her heart and bring her back to consciousness.

Miss Moore was rushed to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital 20 miles (32km) away in Gloucester, where she was put into an induced coma for 48 hours to reduce the damage to her brain caused by the seizure, which doctors were unsure of the cause of.

She said: 'My memory from then has all pretty much gone and I've had to piece it together from what my parents and younger sister Ruby, 19, have told me.

'But I do remember coming to and looking at the catheter bag at the end of my bed, thinking, "How strange, I wonder what could have happened?" and then feeling a horrible pain from where I'd bitten my tongue during the seizure.'

Totally disorientated, when her family came to visit her she did not recognise them and was barely able to form sentences.

Gradually, over a week in hospital, her memory and faculties returned with the help of steroids to reduce the brain inflammation.

Miss Moore, pictured on her 21st birthday, was given steroid treatment to reduce the inflammation in her brain. She ballooned from 8st to 14st within ten months

Pictured with her two dogs, Miss Moore was worried she would never find love again after her ex-boyfriend broke up with her because he could not cope with her psychosis

Miss Moore met her current boyfriend, George Moore, 25, in February 2017

Miss Moore was allowed to return to the flat she shared with her then boyfriend, having never been given confirmation of what had prompted her mysterious seizure.

Still confused, she was advised to have someone with her for the first two weeks. She could not leave the flat without quickly becoming so overwhelmed.

Miss Moore said: 'I started becoming delusional. Once, I was watching the news on TV completely petrified, as I thought that I was there in the war zone that they were reporting on.'

Things came to a head a week after going home when, lying in bed beside her boyfriend one night, she was suddenly struck by the thought that her mother Alison, 52, who works at a dry cleaners, was dead.

She recalled: 'I sat bolt upright and was totally convinced she had died, as if someone had just told me, and started getting ready to leave the flat and go to my parents' in the middle of the night.

'It was clear then that I needed to be back in hospital again.'

Miss Moore was diagnosed with psychosis, a common symptom of encephalitis, which usually develops a few weeks after the initial seizure.

'I became animalistic,' recalled Miss Moore, who was eventually diagnosed with encephalitis after two weeks back in hospital at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, under observation.

'I had no knowledge of who I was anymore. The medics put me in a room on my own and I could see the birds flying outside and thought that I could, too.

'I was desperately trying to jump out of the window and fly and my dad using all his force to pull me back.

'I turned around and just shouted "F*** off", and I remember seeing him tear up at those words.'

Despite the sudden change in Miss Moore's behaviour and personality, her parents tried to be as comforting and helpful as they could, visiting her every day and humouring her often incoherent conversations.

Unfortunately, her relationship did not survive, as two weeks before the end of her nine week stint in hospital, her boyfriend confessed he could not cope with the change in her.

'The illness had really altered who I was, and I think for a young relationship that was too much of a strain,' Miss Moore said.

'He came to visit me and started crying and we both decided it wasn't right any more. He left and I closed my curtains and just started sobbing my eyes out.

'After the breakdown of my last relationship, I stopped looking for love because I was worried that my illness would mean we just broke up again.'

When she was finally discharged, Miss Moore moved back in with her parents and, while her psychosis diminished, she could not work for 18 months because of exhaustion and disorientation.

'For a long time I had to rely on my mum to help me get dressed in the morning and put my make-up on,' said Miss Moore.

She ballooned from 8st (50kg) to 14st (89kg) within ten months because of steroid treatment.

Miss Moore said about her boyfriend: 'He's really tried to change things for me and help me to recover. That has been so important in getting over this nightmare'

Pictured on World Encephalitis Day last year, Miss Moore said although she feels back to normal, encephalitis has left her with some personality changes

She said: 'I felt so tired all the time, but my parents were amazing in getting me up and doing things so that I didn't just sit around and wallow. And that really helped me get off my feet both emotionally and physically.'

At first taking a part-time job as a shop assistant, in November 2017, Miss Moore was able to go back to working full-time as a sales consultant at travel agent Thomas Cook.

Then, in February 2017, despite vowing not to get involved with another man, she met sales assistant George Moore, 25, who had gone to her school.

Miss Moore said: 'I told him all about my encephalitis and what had happened to me on that first date.

'He was brilliant and really encouraging. I fell in love with George and he made me feel so much better.

'He's really tried to change things for me and help me to recover. That has been so important in getting over this nightmare.

'Sometimes I might seem a little strange, but he just said how brilliant he thought I was to have come through it all, and that made me feel really good in myself.'

Miss Moore believed encephalitis changed her personality, as although some people will make a good recovery, it can cause persistent problems.

Miss Moore said: 'It's very upsetting, because I feel like I am better and I am back to normal, but I know that something has changed and my mum and dad sometimes comment on things that I might say that before I wouldn't have done.

'Now that I am recovering and have George at my side, I am completely comfortable in myself again.'

To find out more about encephalitis and World Encephalitis Day on February 22, visit www.encephalitis.info.
KFC is testing a new crispy chicken sandwich stuffed with Cheetos at select stores, and the news is proving to be pretty mouthwatering for social media users.

Since KFC's customers are hardly placing 'healthy' at the top of their dinner checklist when they stop for a meal at the chain, it seemed inevitable that there would be huge demand for such a dish.

As of yesterday, customers at select locations can get their hands on the sandwich, which includes fried chicken smothered in Cheetos-flavored sauce, a layer of mayo, and a helping of actual Cheetos snacks packed between the buns.

Nom nom: KFC is testing a crispy chicken sandwich stuffed with Cheetos at select locations

Here for it! Twitter users have expressed excitement over the sandwich, which is only at some locations in North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia

'Both KFC and Cheetos have dedicated fan bases loyal to each new creation,' said a spokesperson according to Delish.

'It only made sense to merge these two iconic brands together to provide an irresistible and flavorful sandwich that gives the best of both worlds.'

Since it's just a test run, though, the dish is only available at a handful of franchises.

Cheeto enthusiasts will have to travel to Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina, Roanoke and Richmond, Virginia, and Greenville, Georgia to order it.

Hot turkey! For Thanksgiving in 2017, Reynolds Kitchens published a recipe for a turkey covered in Flamin' Hot Cheetos

In demand: The Bagel Nook in Freehold, New Jersey debuted a bagel flavored with Flamin' Hot Cheetos in 2017

It's a must-have! California pizza chain Ameci made snack fans swoon in 2016 with its Flamin' Hot Cheetos-topped pizza

Cheetos have come to be an incredibly popular topping for trendy eateries over the past few years.

In 2017, Reynolds Kitchen promoted a Thanksgiving recipe for a turkey covered in crushed Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

That same year, The Bagel Nook in Freehold, New Jersey made waves on social media when it debuted Flamin' Hot Cheetos bagels.

And California pizza chain Ameci made snack fans swoon in 2016 with its Flamin' Hot Cheetos-topped pizza.
A bar of soap? I cant remember the last time I used one. My bathroom always has a liquid hand wash and lotion by the sink, and the thought of washing my body with anything but shower gel just feels plain wrong.

But it turns out that, after decades of being shunned in favour of hand washes and shower gels, the good old-fashioned bar of soap is officially back.

Last year, sales rose by 2.9 per cent, with shoppers spending 68.3 million on bars of soap, compared to 66.4 million the year before. Barred soap sales are now growing faster than both liquid soaps and shower products.

Its something that Britain hasnt seen since well before the Nineties, when liquid soap, with its plastic bottles and pumps, became popular on the mass market.

Fears around germs and hygiene led consumers away from soap bars.

Radhika Sanghani explored the shift in consumer preferences from liquid washes back to soap bars (file image)

But things are now changing, and Tim Nancholas, a strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, which compiled the data, isnt surprised.

He believes its part of a new trend whereby environmentally conscious customers want to avoid plastic toiletries and so are opting for more natural products. The nostalgic, aesthetic and environmentally friendly facets of barred soap seem to resonate strongly with the public, he says.

It could be why brands such as Yardley, which has been around since 1770, are seeing an increase in sales, and other high-end names, including Jo Malone and Chanel, are launching soap bars.

Mr Nancholas acknowledges that these luxury brands are part of the reason why shoppers are opting for the experience of using a quality soap bar, rather than a plastic bottle.

Bar soaps are now slightly more indulgent than they have been in the past, he explains, as there is now a much bigger opportunity for a premium offering.

While I do love the sound of a product that is both luxurious and good for the environment, I just cant believe that the answer is a bar of soap.

Growing up, we never used them at home, as my mum didnt think they were hygienic. She instead stocked our bathrooms with Oilatum bath oil and Sanex shower gel, to be extra kind to our young skin, and, for guests, Molton Brown liquid hand soap.

I became so used to squeezing bottles for soap that if ever I came across a bar version, I would pick it up with disgust: was I really meant to wash myself with a bar that someone else had already used?

Dermatologist Dr Anjali Mahto, advises having your own personal soap instead of sharing bars with other people (file image)

In recent years, though, various studies have proved it is a myth that using barred soap will transfer bacteria. While germs and bacteria do live on soap in bathrooms, it is unlikely this will transfer on to a persons hands and cause any kind of sickness or infection.

Dr Anjali Mahto, dermatologist and author of The Skincare Bible, says it is hygienic to use bars of soap, but advises taking extra care if you have sensitive skin or a condition such as eczema, where the skin barrier is weaker, as you could be at an increased risk of infections. What kind of soap you use comes down to personal preference, she says. But if you do use a bar, do it properly. Try not to leave it in a hot, wet bathroom. The ideal would be to keep it under a ventilated window.

Wash it well before you use it and rinse it off as soon as you have a lather  you dont want it sitting on your skin indefinitely.

If you can, try to have your own personal soap, instead of sharing bars with other people.

With these tips under my belt, I decide to put my mistrust to one side and spend a week trying out five of the most popular soap bars on the market today . . .

BEAUTY BAR

Dove, 80p, boots.com

Dove's beauty bar (pictured) is one of the most popular soaps in the UK, however Radhika rated it just 2/5 as it doesn't contain any essential oils needed to keep skin moist

This is the most-bought soap brand in the UK and is on sale for just 80p in Boots. Its nothing fancy to look at  just a simple white bar wrapped in paper  but it is made up of one-quarter moisturising cream and promises to hydrate.

Melinda Coss, a consultant working with soap companies and author of The Handmade Soap Book, warns that if a bar doesnt have the word soap on it, but instead is calling itself a beauty or cleansing bar, this could mean it is a synthetic detergent that could dry the skin.

Instead, Melinda suggests opting for botanical, handmade soap products or super-fatted soaps with olive oil, shea butter and other plant-based oils. This Dove bar doesnt have any essential oils and this could be why, personally, I find that, after a weeks use, my skin is drier than usual. It does the job in terms of cleanliness but, bar the lack of plastic, theres no clear advantage for using this over a shower gel. 2/5

LUXURY LATHER

Floris White Rose Luxury Soap, 23 for three, florislondon.com

Radhika gave Floris White Rose Luxury Soap (pictured) a score of 3/5 for its indulgent feel and creamy moisture

The British perfumer Floris has been making soap since 1780. Its pack of three soaps arrives in gorgeous navy packaging with gold tissue paper.

Im excited to place my cream embossed bar in my new 15 soap dish on the side of my sink. Washing my hands does now feel like an indulgent experience and I really notice the creaminess and moisture that comes from the triple-milled shea butter  my hands dont need any lotion afterwards.

The only downside is that, after a weeks use, the bar has become a bit grey and there is dirt inside the floral embossed letters.

I do like it as an option for my hands  so long as I manage to keep it clean. 3/5

GO GREEN

Lush Avocado Wash Naked Shower Gel, 8.95, uk.lush.com

Radhika was impressed with Lush Avocado Wash Naked Shower Gel (pictured) for it's concentration of oils

This bottle-shaped soap is kitsch in every way, from the bright green colour, to its avocado theme, but I cant deny it smells amazing, too, and feels as good on my skin.

It has double the concentration of oils  avocado, bergamot and a shrub called litsea cubeba  than Lushs liquid alternative, which means it lasts twice as long.

To my surprise, I love everything about it, bar the fact that my white bathroom is now splattered with green! This easy-to-use moisture-packed, packaging- free soap is definitely a rival for my liquid staples. 5/5

FRUITY FOAM

Pink Grapefruit Soap, 2.50, thebodyshop.com

The Body Shop's Pink Grapefruit Soap (pictured) is made from sustainable ingredients, Radhika rated it just 2/5 as it left her legs feeling drier than usual

This vegetable-based bar, made up of sustainable palm oil and pink grapefruit seed oil, is at the cheaper end of the market. I decide to use it to shave my legs.

While it does the job, creating enough lather for my razor to slide easily along, when Im done my legs feel drier than usual.

Its a simple, basic option for people who want to minimise plastic packaging but, if youre looking for a more moisturising soap, there are better alternatives. 2/5

CLAY CLEANSER

Herbivore Pink Clay Cleansing Bar Soap, 10, spacenk.com

Radhika says Herbivore Pink Clay Cleansing Bar Soap (pictured) gently cleansed her skin without leaving dryness, but she wouldn't continue using it on her face

This soap is specifically for people with sensitive or dry skin and can be used on the face and body  it features French pink clay, to draw out impurities, geranium essential oil, to balance the complexion, and no artificial fragrances.

It feels like one of the most natural options on the market.

Even so, its strange reaching for this soap instead of my normal liquid face wash. Dr Mahtos advice rings in my ears: Generally, facial soaps arent great for most skin types  if you use them for a long time, theyll strip out the fats in your skin.

This soap does gently cleanse, and doesnt leave me with any dryness, but it still feels wrong to rub it on my face after it has been sitting out in the open next to the toilet.

I do love its texture, and would happily use it on my body, but I wont be giving up my liquid face wash anytime soon. 4/5
For red wine drinkers, the news that there's a bottle of vino that could actually be good for your health is likely to be music to their ears.

Camy wine, which retails at 14.99, has gone on sale in the UK for the first time - and promises a tipple packed full of heart-healthy antioxidants.

The wine's makers, Domaine Laougoue, says the secret to the boosted levels of compounds procyanidins and resveratrol is all down to the particularly thick skin of the grapes used to make it.

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Available for the first time in the UK, the 14.99 bottle of Camy, made in South West France, claims to be the world's healthiest wine, thanks to its high levels of antioxidant compounds

The tannat grape which the wine is made from has particularly thick skins, while the average glass of red contains 30-40mg of procyanidins, this has over 120mg, around four times the amount (file photo)

Dubbed the 'world's healthiest red wine', the drink is produced in Madiran, South West France, and has been scientifically proven to have the highest concentration of procyanidins and resveratrol compared to any other type of wine in the world.

The Tannat grape has particularly thick skins, while the average glass of red contains 30-40mg of procyanidins, this has over 120mg, around four times the amount.

Nutritionist Rick Hay commented: 'Very high levels of numerous phytonutrients, found in this wine, that can help reduce LDL cholesterol levels.

'These red pigments can help with cardiovascular health and the digestive process, acting as potent antioxidants to fight free radical damage and promote cellular health. Research also indicates that they have the potential to improve diabetes and cognitive health.'

UK supplier, Wanderlust Wine, says people are increasingly looking for wines that are without stabilising sulphites and going for more organic tipples

The wine, which is also vegan, is available in the UK via Wanderlust Wine. The company's founder said they're bringing it across the Channel because of demand.

Richard Ellison said: 'Consumers of today are not only demanding healthier alternatives in everyday life, but they are also wanting to be educated so that they can make more considered lifestyle choices.

Moderation is our message here; we want to encourage people to make smarter, mindful choices when it comes to selecting wine. Often the cheap mass made wines on the supermarket shelves is given much less attention during the winemaking process due to sheer volumes produced.

Furthermore, often it's shipped over in large vats and bottled here in the docks of East London, meaning higher levels of suplhites and nasties to keep it stable.'
A transgender model has criticised Victoria's Secret for 'discrimination' after being picked to be the face of a major lingerie campaign.

Activist Munroe Bergdorf, who also works as a DJ, has starred in her first ever underwear shoot since she had her gender reassignment surgery.

Following the campaign, the 31-year-old has hit out at lingerie giant Victoria's Secret after the brand said last year they would not use trans models in their world famous annual catwalk.

Victoria's Secret chief marketing officer Ed Razek later apologised for his 'insensitive' comments and said trans models would be considered.

Transgender model Munroe Bergdorf has criticised Victoria's Secret for a lack of diversity after starring in her very first lingerie campaign

Munroe, who was born biologically male named Ian, said she was proud to model in the LoveYourself campaign for lingerie brand Bluebella - her most revealing shoot yet.

The East Londoner said: 'It's a big shame Victoria's Secret decided not to be inclusive of trans women within their shows or campaigns.

'Lingerie should be something that all women can enjoy.

Munroe was born a biological male named Ian (pictured as a teen while living as Ian) before she began her transition at the age of 19

'It's something personal, beautiful and intimate that is a celebration of femininity, something that every woman should have the option of being included in.

'True diversity is the future, let's leave any form of discrimination or exclusion in the past.'

MailOnline contacted Victoria's Secret who declined to comment.

Munroe, who began her transition as a 19-year-old and has previously revealed how she was bullied at school, is now calling for greater race and LGBTQ+ diversity within the fashion industry.

Bluebella's campaign champions women from all walks of life in a bid to redefine sensuality - with model and fire eater Sophie Lee, 23, who was horrifically burned and albino student Joanne Dion, 21, also starring in the saucy snaps.

Munroe added: 'What's so amazing about lingerie is that it can really emphasise your own femininity.

'I'm proud to be part of a campaign that is encouraging all women to feel empowered and sexy in their own ways, on their own terms.

Munroe stars in Bluebella's latest campaign, her most revealing modelling shoot yet

Munroe is now calling for greater race and LGBTQ+ diversity within the fashion industry

'I've never felt so sure of myself or as empowered as a human being as I do now. It has taken a long time to get to this point where I just feel calmness.

'In the early stages of transition I was scared of the masculine parts of my body but it has changed so much during the process.

'I'm now in a position where I don't care about other people's opinions on my appearance.

'I care about the opinions of the people that matter to me, but not so much of people walking down the street.

The model says that she is 'proud to be part of the campaign' and that she has never felt so 'empowered'

Bluebella chose Munroe to star in the campaign because she 'has proven herself to be a brave and bold voice'

'If someone knows I'm trans I don't feel ashamed of that any more. I think it's something to celebrate and it's a part of me.'

Emily Bendell, owner of Bluebella, whose underwear is designed by women for women, said: 'We chose Munroe to front our LoveYourself campaign because she has proven herself to be a brave and bold voice, an icon in an age of increasing social awareness.

'She has used her profile to advocate for a fairer world and to empower individuals to fight for positive change.'
The Duchess of Sussex opted for head-to-tie peach as she arrived at the national Theatre in London earlier today - but it was her rather shiny legs were competing for attention with her outfit.

While it's royal tradition to wear nude tights, Meghan Markle, 37, flashed a rather glossy-pair of pins and seemed to be completely bare.

It was a stark contrast to the flesh-coloured tights she opted for back on May 22, when she attended Prince Charles' 70th birthday - her first event as a fully-fledged royal following her marriage to Prince Harry.

And according to celebrity make-up Lisa Little, the new shiny look is likely down to Meghan using a skin-enhancing beauty product that effectively mimics the effect of tights.

Referred to by some as 'air stockings', the products essentially give legs a similar appearance to that of nude tights, but without the constricting feeling of actually wearing them - and with a slightly more natural finish that lasts all day.

Meghan Markle showed off shiny, and apparently bare legs on Wednesday, prompting one celebrity make-up artist to suggest she is wearing 'air stockings', instead of traditional tights

Meghan wore flesh-coloured tights to attend Prince Charles' 70th birthday celebrations on May 22; the tights were very different to the look she stepped out in on Wednesday

There are a number of options available on the market, but Lisa believes Meghan is - understandably - relying on one of the more high-end versions.

'It looks like Megan has used a product such as Vita Liberata Body Blur, this is a must have product for a superior finish,' she told FEMAIL.

'It offers a natural coverage with a slight skin tint to mask any blemishes or imperfections. It contains light reflecting particles, hence why she has a beautiful sheen.

'It is a very similar product to "air stockings", or spray-on tights. They mask imperfections and hydrate the skin, giving a subtle glow.

'The air stocking is waterproof and lasts all day. As a celebrity make-up artist, these two products are a must for anyone baring their legs.'

And that's not the only thing that Meghan may have been using on her legs.

'I also think she has added a liquid highlighter down the centre of her leg which adds an additional glow,' Lisa noted.

Meghan who is around six months pregnant, donned a 1,728 Brandon Maxwell mini dress with a matching 2,004 blazer, 440 Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch - and instead fashioned a rather glossy-pair of pins.

Meghan wore a 1,728 Brandon Maxwell dress, a 2,004 blazer, 440 Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch for her first visit to the National Theatre since becoming its patron

During her visit today, the mum-to-be will learn more about the work of the institution and meet staff and apprentices working behind the scenes during the royal engagement

A royal favourite. Today Meghan teamed her cream ensemble with 440 Aquazzura pumps. They were the same shoes she wore for her engagement phoshoot with Prince Harry in December 2017

The Aquazzura shoes were the same pair she wore for her engagement photocall in December 2017, when it was announced that she and Harry were tying the knot.

The nude-coloured ensemble Meghan opted for also closely resembled the outfit she wore when she stepped out at animal welfare charity centre The Mayhew back on 16th January in North West London.

There, she paired her bespoke Armani coat worth 2,000 ($1,556), which she had worn previously on a visit to Sussex, with a Stella McCartney bag and 24.99 ($32) polo neck dress from high street store H&M's maternity range.

During her visit today, Meghan learned more about the work of the institution and meet staff and apprentices working behind the scenes during the royal engagement.

The duchess has an affinity with theatre after spending a decade working as an actress in television, where she was best known for her role in the hit US legal drama series Suits, playing lawyer Rachel Zane.
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Princes Margaret's daughter Lady Sarah Chatto enjoyed a glimpse of the exquisite gown her mother wore on her 21st birthday, as she toured a new Dior exhibition at the V&A in London.

Lady Sarah, 54, the daughter of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, attended a gala dinner to celebrate the opening of Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, which runs until July and houses the largest collection of the designer's couture ever seen in the UK.

The royal took time to admire the detail on the stunning sequinned gown and pearls, which is the exhibition's standout piece, that her mother wore for her official birthday portrait taken by Sir Cecil Beaton in 1951.

Lady Sarah Chatto, pictured with her husband Daniel Chatto, attends a preview of the largest ever Christian Dior exhibition in the UK at the V&A museum in Kensington today. Lady Sarah, 54, took time to admire the stunning Dior gown her mother, Princess Margaret, wore for her 21st birthday in 1951

Joining Lady Chatto and Daniel Chatto at the gala dinner celebrations were Serena Armstrong-Jones, Countess of Snowdon pictured second from left) and David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon (far right)

The standout piece of the collection is undoubtedly this sequinned Christian Dior gown, worn by Princess Margaret as she celebrated turning 21 back in 1951

She wore the dress in 1951 for her official 21st birthday portrait (pictured) by royal photographer Cecil Beaton. Princess Margaret is said to have formed a strong bond with the designer after meeting him in 1949

Princess Margaret is said to have formed a strong bond with Dior after meeting him in 1949, and bought many of his pieces over the years.

Lady Sarah, looked suitably chic in a black satin a-line skirt with a cream cardigan and an extravagant set of pearls as she toured the exhibition with her husband, who donned a tuxedo for the event.

Dresses worn by the likes of Margot Fonteyn and Jennifer Lawrence are set to go on display at the UK's largest ever Christian Dior exhibition.

The iconic pieces will be shown as part of the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibit at the V&A museum in south Kensington, London, from February 2.

Sumptuous dresses line the walls of the retrospective which has 11 different sections, including one dedicated to the fashion designer's love of England.

Dior, who died in 1957, once said: 'There is no other country in the world, besides my own, whose way of life I like so much.

'I love English traditions, English politeness, English architecture. I even love English cooking.'

A gala dinner officially opened the exhibition, which will welcome in the general public on the 2nd February (Pictured: Nicholas Coleridge, Daniel Chatto, Lady Sarah Chatto, Serena Armstrong-Jones, Countess of Snowdon, David Armstrong Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowden and Georgia Metcalfe)

Princess Margaret's 21st birthday dress next to a photograph of her wearing it in 1951: the white gown has been discoloured by time

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, at the V&A museum in Kensington, London, is split into 11 sections

Pictured: the Diorama corridor, which features magazine covers on one side and miniature dresses on the other

One of the sections in the exhibition, which is the UK's largest ever dedicated to the designer, is dedicated to Dior's love of England

Dior once said: 'There is no other country in the world, besides my own, whose way of life I like so much. 'I love English traditions, English politeness, English architecture. I even love English cooking'

The Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition will run from February 2 until July 14, 2019

Pictured: more colourful miniature clothing items and accessories in the Diorama corridor

Another highlight of the incredible exhibition is the section dedicated to ballroom gowns, featuring dresses over a 70-year period

The exhibition is based on Christian Dior: Couturier du Reve, organised by the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, curated by Olivier Gabet and Florence Mller

Oriole Cullen, fashion and textiles curator at the V&A, curated this exhibition and added the section focussing on Dior's love of England

Pictured: a mannequin in a sumptuous ballgown holding a Christian Dior fan

The exhibition also explores Christian Dior's extensive travel in his lifetime

Pictured: sketches and designs alongside shoes at the exhibition in south Kensington, London

A gallery assistant poses with some of the designer pieces on display at the exhibition

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is the V&A's biggest fashion exhibition since Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2015

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams will run at the V&A from February 2 until July 14, 2019.
The tenure of Mohanan and Meenakshi was to end in June 2020.

New Delhi: Two independent members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), chairman P.C. Mohanan and J.V. Meenakshi, have resigned over disagreement with the government on certain critical issues, an official said Tuesday.

According to reports, the two key reasons cited for resigning from the NSC were  withholding the publication of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)s employment survey for 2017-18 and a lack of consultation with the commission before releasing the backdated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) series last year.

Expressing disappointment over the treatment being meted out by the government, Mr Mohanan, who was the acting chairperson, was quoted in a report as saying, We have resigned from the NSC. Over the months, we have been feeling that we were not been taken seriously and being sidelined by the government. Recent decisions of the NSC were not being implemented.

The immediate trigger for the resignation, reports said, was the delay in releasing the NSSOs first series of the household survey, known as periodic labour force survey, for 2017-18. Sources said the NSC had approved the survey report in its meeting held on December 5 in Kolkata and it was supposed to be released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, as per convention. The report was approved and should have been released immediately, but was not the case. I thought I should not watch silently what was happening, Mr Mohanan said. However, almost two months after the approval, the report hasnt been made public. A former member pointed out that the government was uncomfortable with the findings of the NSSOs latest household survey.

The NSC, under the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI), is to have seven members, as per its website. Already, three posts were vacant. And now, with the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members, and none of them external  chief statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

The tenure of Mohanan and Meenakshi was to end in June 2020. They joined as members in June 2017.

In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of the UPA years.

NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar and chief statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.

The NSC was essentially meant to bring about a sense of credibility to the data put out by the National Statistical System and if the NSC feels that it is not being permitted to carry out its functions then it is entirely appropriate that it resigns, Pronab Sen, who was the chairman of NSC between 2013 and 2016, said.
It's been a pretty stellar start to 2019 for Richard E Grant.

After receiving his first ever Oscar nomination for his role in film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the 62-year-old has now shared a sweet note he received from screen legend Barbra Streisand after he shared on Twitter a letter that he'd sent to her at just 14.

Posting a photo of himself outside his idol's Hollywood mansion on Tuesday, Grant also posted the 47-year-old letter that had seen the aspiring actor offer Streisand, 76, a holiday in then Swaziland, the African country where Grant grew up.

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'Overcome with emotion': Richard E Grant revealed he was left in tears after receiving a tweet from Barbra Streisand thanking him for a letter he sent her 47 years ago

Support: The tweet that prompted Grant's tears saw Streisand thanking him for his 'wonderful letter' and congratulating him on his Oscar-nominated role alongside Melissa McCarthy

Fan: On Tuesday, the 62-year-old actor shared an image of himself smiling happily while posing for a picture outside 76-year-old Streisand's home in Los Angeles

'You don't know me yet...' While sharing the image of himself posing outside of the actress's home, Grant also posted a copy of the letter he sent to Streisand when he was just 14

While Streisand did not reply at the time, she finally responded on Tuesday, congratulating him on his role alongside Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?.

For the second time in two weeks, Grant was left in floods of tears when Streisand told him: 'Look at you now!' and saying: 'you're terrific in your latest movie'.

She wrote on Twitter: 'Dear Richard What a wonderful letter you wrote me when u were 14 ! and look at u now! You're terrific in your latest movie with Melissa congratulations and love Barbra.'

Yesterday, he also shared his tearful reaction after the tweet from the Funny Girl icon was read out to him.

In the erstwhile letter, Grant offers a 'two-week holiday, or longer' at his family's home in Swaziland, Africa, where he was born.

He assures Streisand, one of the most successful performers of all-time, with Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony award wins to her name, there was 'no chance of being mobbed' because no-one would know who she was in the African country, which is now called Eswatini.

Streisand, pictured left in 2016, penned a sweet Twitter response to Grant's kind letter, which would have been sent when she was 28, not long after she starred in Funny Girl (right)

Overjoyed: Grant thanked Streisand for her sweet response, and joked that he was grateful she didn't have him arrested for spending time taking pictures outside her home

The reply was too much for Withnail & I star Grant, who was moved to tears.

He posted a picture of the moment to Twitter, showing him red-eyed while holding a phone and receiving news of Streisand's tweet.

Alongside the picture, Grant wrote: 'My pal Nicole Wilcox took this photo as my daughter read me @BarbraStreisand 's tweet/response to a letter I sent her 47 yrs ago.

'Am completely crinkle faced & overcome with emotion. My 'Message in a bottle' miracle.'

Grant's big break came as an out-of-work actor with delusions of grandeur in 1987 cult film Withnail & I.

His role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? has earned him critical acclaim, as well as his first Oscar nomination in the supporting actor category.

Emotional: Shortly after the Oscar nominations were announced, Grant shared a photo of himself celebrating with his daughter Olivia, admitting he was 'red-eyed' after the news

Critical acclaim: The Spice World actor, 61, recently revealed he burst into tears after he was nominated for his first ever Oscar for his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? with McCarthy

In the film, Grant plays the best friend of McCarthy's character, a celebrity biographer who turns to forgery when her career stalls.

Last week, Grant took to his Twitter account to express his joy after receiving the happy news, and shared a video shot in front of the first bedsit he ever lived at in London.

He said: 'I'm absolutely overwhelmed, 36 years ago I rented this bedsit here which was one room in Notting Hill Gate which was 30 pounds a week, about 50 dollars, and I cannot believe that 36 years later I'm standing here as nearly a 62-year-old man having an Oscar nomination.'

In the accompanying tweet he wrote: 'Am levitating at this astonishing news. Thank you to @TheAcademy for this nomination in such incredible company.

'Im indebted to so many people but most of all @melissamccarthy & Marielle Heller.'

Grant later shared a photo of himself sitting in a restaurant with his daughter, Olivia Grant, toasting his nomination with a glass off fizz, while admitting in his tweet that he was slightly 'red-eyed' after finding himself overcome with emotion at the news of his nomination.
For those of you who don't know, I took on the role of Commonwealth Youth Ambassador at CHOGM last year.

And, nearly 12 months into the job, I can honestly say I feel more passionate than ever about the huge opportunity we have here:

To empower young people across the Commonwealth, you who are here in this room today, and the millions around the world who are part of this global collective of change makers.

Some may say it's our responsibility, but I see it as our privilege, to equip you with the tools and the platform you need  to continue your cause driven work at the highest level  driving positive and effective change.

What has struck me the most is that you're changing behaviours every day by the way that you're choosing to live, and therefore the example you are proudly setting.

You are rejecting old hierarchies, antiquated systems and biases; you are looking at the world with fresh eyes, and breaking rules and boundaries that no longer apply to enable a better future for everyone.

You are authentic in your passion for social change, you genuinely care about preserving the environment and you focus your lives on working within your communities for the betterment of those around you.

What you are doing day in and day out is nothing short of outstanding. And I applaud your tremendous efforts.

My wife and I spent the last few months travelling across the Commonwealth from Tonga and Australia to New Zealand and Fiji, and I recently visited Zambia at the beginning of December.

In all of these places, it's been incredibly humbling to see how young people like yourselves are creating innovative and clever solutions to the diverse challenges you face  whether it be better mental health for everyone, eradicating extreme poverty and improving access to education for girls, or highlighting the very real effects and daily battles of climate change.

It's clear to me that the 1.4 billion youth of the Commonwealth are the most valuable advocates.

The power of connected and informed young people is difficult to ignore.

However  it is our duty to make sure you have the tools and the support to rise above the red tape, the naysayers, the challenges you face  and to operate to the best of your ability, because when you come together  the whole world benefits.

As I have spoken to young people on my travels, one of the recurring themes is the lack of mental health support for those under 30 and the remaining stigma and absence of services available.

And while this may seem streamlined, and even niche to some, what I have come to understand so deeply is that all health is interconnected  our mental health, our planet's health, the health of our communities. We do not survive, and certainly do not thrive without the acknowledgment and understanding that in addressing one problem, we are paradoxically solving another. That is the power you hold in your hands.

Lord Ahmad has spoken about the four themes of CHOGM  and if I may, I'd like to highlight the theme that, for me, makes all the others possible  and that is sustainability:

'Sustainable development is defined as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. '

This echoes exactly what I was just saying  that it's all interconnected. That WE are all interconnected. That in tackling the core issue, we solve a multitude of challenges. This applies to education, stigmatisation, and our greatest asset  the environment.

There is now, more than ever, a pressing urgency to saving the planet  the clock, as you all know, is ticking.

You are all already doing the work and it is our job to ensure that your views are being heard and acted upon, at the highest levels.

Not tokenistic where one could say 'yes, yes we heard from the youth,' but to actually listen, process, and action policy change to reflect tangible needs and quantifiable results  from you.

You are working to secure your own futures  and those who hold the levers of change are starting to recognise the enormous, relatively untapped value in what you are doing.

This year, as we mark the 70th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth, and with the theme: 'A Connected Commonwealth', there is a great opportunity to harness the talent, energy and intellect of young people as an overwhelming force for good.

As someone who is about to become a father, I am acutely aware of our shared responsibility to make this world more resilient and its inhabitants more accountable for the next generation.

The only way to see real progress is not by chance, it's by change. Let's get to work.
She was the star of one of the most popular reality shows on TV but Camilla Thurlow has returned to her humanitarian roots as a new documentary reveals.

What Camilla Did Next sees the former Love Island star, 29, return to Cambodia to revisit her previous career in mine disposal with the HALO trust.

It also gives viewers a glimpse into her cosy life in the UK with her boyfriend and fellow Love Island contestant Jamie Jewitt.

The 60-minute show will see Camilla arrive in Cambodia to meet victims of landmine explosions, joined by her old friend and translator.

What Camilla Did Next sees the humanitarian, 29, revisit her previous career in mine disposal, as she returns to Cambodia to clear mines

She is reunited with Chaom Tauv who lost his leg in an explosion at just seven months old.

Now an adult, and working as a farmer, Chaom meets Camilla with his mother who recalls the day her son almost died.

Speaking in the documentary, she says she was not far from home and heard a noise.

She heard her baby crying, and discovered that there was a hole in the hammock where she had left him. Finding him unconscious, she went in search of help.

Half of the farmer's land has now been cleared of mines, but the workers still use some of the uncleared areas out of desperation.

Camilla shared this picture of mine-victim Choam (centre) with his mother (left) and translator (right). Her work with the Halo trust has helped to clear the mines in his village

Chaom shared the story of how a land mine caused him to lose his leg at just seven months old which left Camilla highly emotional

Camilla listened to Choam's story and said she hopes to help clear landmines in Cambodia

Before she left, Camilla showed Jamie her manual for how to clear mines in Cambodia

Clearly emotional, Camilla then tells the camera it's 'not okay' and 'it's just such a hard life'.

She adds: 'What do you say to people who've gone through that and still living in an area where they aren't safe? At what point do you say that the world is fair?'

'It's just this continual impact over generations' she continues. 'It makes you ask some pretty big questions about who you are as a person if you can listen to that and then walk away'.

The programme also sees Camilla return to her role in a mine disposal unit, helping locals make the land safer.

After a day of de-mining she says: 'I'm hot and I'm knackered and I really had forgotten how difficult and how hard work de-mining is.

The show also sees Camilla talking viewers through how to clear a mine, and how to detect them

The Love Island star shared this image to Instagram, saying it was one of her favourite behind the scenes shots from the show

Camilla is hoping to raise awareness for the plight of Cambodians and boyfriend Jamie has since agreed to go back with her

'I just have the utmost respect for these guys doing it day in day out.'

Camilla then returns to her hotel where she finds a sweet note reading 'I love you so much!' hidden by Jamie in her bag.

She adds that 'losing everything' would be okay if she still had Jamie.

The first half of the episode focuses on her life in the UK and her relationship with her boyfriend of 18 months, former male model Jamie Jewitt.

As she prepared to leave the UK for her humanitarian trip she visits her parents in Scotland and discusses press speculation that her relationship is 'on the rocks'.

Camilla also revealed woes at being in a public relationship, saying: 'I'm someone who doesn't always feel comfortable in social situations, so it's great being with someone who does.'

However, she admits she find it upsetting to be told she's 'not attractive enough' or 'too boring' for her partner by trolls.

But her boyfriend clearly doesn't think the same with the episode ending with him agreeing to take a trip to Cambodia with Camilla.

What Camilla Did Next airs tonight on ITVBe tonight at 9pm.
Every family has them: affectionate, often comical pet names - and the Windsors are no exception if the rumours are true.

From the Queen herself to the royal family's bit-part players including Kate's sister Pippa Middleton, no-one is apparently safe from a fun-poking moniker.

And hilariously, William and Kate's names have evolved with their relationship.

According to royal sources, when the pair were in the first flushes of romance back in 2001, the Duke of Cambridge, 36, was named 'Big Willy' by his wife-to-be, 37.

Fast-forward 18 years and now Kate's pet name for her husband appears to be 'Prince Baldy' referring to his thinning crown.

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What japes! Prince William was apparently nicknamed 'Big Willy' by his wife-to-be when they first started dating. Now, 18 years after they first met, his pet name has evolved to 'Prince Baldy'

Meet 'DoD': Kate doesn't get away lightly either, apparently the pet name offered to her by Prince William is the 'Duchess of Do-little'

Tungsten and Flash! Meghan, due to give birth in spring, is said to have been called Tungsten, a strong metal, by Prince Charles because of her mental toughness. Meanwhile Harry has seen a variety of nicknames thrown at him over the years including 'Flash', thought to be a reference to fictional army lothario Harry Flashman

William's riposte? Apparently Kate is called 'DoD', the 'Duchess of Do-little', a little unfair considering the amount of charity work the royal regularly undertakes.

While the couple already have nicknames for Prince George too; when she was pregnant Kate referred to him as 'our little grape' while the five-year-old is now occasionally known as PG Tips or just 'Tips' after the brand of tea.

Elsewhere? The Queen, 92, has perhaps the most unlikely name; with Prince William calling her 'Gary' when he couldn't pronounce grandma as a youngster. The hard-to-believe nickname has apparently stuck.

Prince George, it was revealed by his mother, called the Queen 'gan-gan' when he struggled to also say the word grandma.

Meanwhile, royal new-comer Meghan, 37, has been reportedly called 'Tungsten' by her father-in-law in reference to the strong metal.

Prince Charles has apparently given the Duchess of Sussex the name based on her 'toughness'.

THE ROYAL FAMILY'S PET NAMES THE QUEEN: Gary, 'Gan-Gan' PRINCE WILLIAM: Big Willy, Prince Baldy DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE: 'DoD', the Duchess of Do-little' PRINCE CHARLES: Fred PRINCE HARRY: Flash, Gromit, Potter THE DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: Tungsten PRINCE GEORGE: PG Tips PIPPA MIDDLETON: Squeak Advertisement

Not your average Gary: The Queen was called 'Gary' by Prince William when he was a tot and couldn't pronounce grandma - and the name has stuck

A new generation of pet names: Prince George is called PG by his parents, apparently, which has evolved into PG Tips, after the tea, and is sometimes shortened to just 'Tips'

Right said Fred: Camilla is rumoured to call the Prince of Wales by the rather pedestrian first name of Fred

And Prince Harry? Nicknames have followed the 34-year-old was dubbed 'Flash' in his wilder days, thought to be a reference to fictional army lothario Harry Flashman.

Other, more endearing names for Harry include 'Potter', after J K Rowling's boy wizard and 'Gromit', referring to Nick Park's animated canine creation.

Kate's sister Pippa Middleton was known as 'squeak' at school, after Pippa became Pipsqueak which eventually arrived at 'squeak'

Perhaps William's love of a pet name comes from his mother. In 2007, the Prince told NBC's Matt Lauer that Princess Diana used to call him 'wombat'.

He regaled: 'When we went to Australia with our parents, and the wombat, thats the local animal. So, I just basically got called that. Not because I look like a wombat, or maybe I do.'

Earlier this week, Prince George took control of his own nickname, telling a passer-by his name was 'Archie'.

The young prince was walking with his grandmother, Carole Middleton, near her home in Berkshire, when he struck up a conversation with a stranger.

The five-year-old started talking to the woman while stroking her dog after playing with his younger sister, Charlotte, in a stream.

The woman was told not to take pictures of the royal children by a police protection officer.

She made small talk with the prince, who is third in line to the throne, when he told her his name was actually Archie.
The first episode of the new series of Winterwatch saw new regular presenter Gillian Burke offered a reception as frosty as the Cairngorms air by viewers - as they still mourn the absence of fan favourite Martin Hughes-Games.

Broadcasting from a new base in Scotland, veterans Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan were also joined by a new line-up; Kenyan-born Burke, 42, and 56-year-old naturalist Iolo Williams.

Shortly after the programme aired, many took to social media to cry 'bring Martin back', saying they missed the 62-year-old's 'enthusiastic' input on the show and couldn't get used to the new Winterwatch line-up.

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The first episode of the new series of Winterwatch saw Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan joined by presenter Gillian Burke, who has been a regular on the show since Martin Hughes-Games announced his role had been scaled back in 2016. Viewers expecting to see Martin feature took to Twitter to express their disappointment

Biology graduate Burke, 42, and naturalist Iolo Williams, 56, joined the regular presenters in the Cairngorms but many viewers felt like Burke's predecessor Hughes-Games, should have been acknowledged on air for his contribution to the show

As it was: In 2016, Hughes-Games said he felt his role was being pared down so the show could be more diverse. After not appearing on Springwatch in 2018, he was also absent from last night's first episode of the new series of Winterwatch

Others admitted they'd tried to like the format without him - he didn't appear on Springwatch or Autumnwatch - but were still unimpressed, while some said the programme should have acknowledged his contribution - of 14 years - on air during last night's programme.

@barnowlsandbats wrote: 'So happy to see #Winterwatch back- its my fave thing but wouldve been nice if the show had honoured Martins departure officially. Its the v least he deserves considering after taking 30 secs saying he would not be around for last year's S-watch hes not been mentioned again.'

@AnneGor90599905 pleaded: 'Miss Martin Games-Hughes! Bring him back!#winterwatch'

@AndrewRCushing agreed, writing: 'I have to say I miss Martin Hughes-Games. No disrespect to all the other presenters but his unadulterated enthusiasm really bought the show to life.'

@__fyi_ added: 'Its been a year. Ive said it before and Ill say it again, nothing against her but im just not feeling it for Gillian. Sorry #winterwatch'

The 42-year-old said before the show aired that she was delighted to be part of the team for the seventh series of the show. She said: 'I cannot wait to get going and bring the best of British wildlife from our new home in the Cairngorms!'

...but viewers weren't impressed with the new line-up...and didn't hold back on Twitter

New year, new team...the trio will be introducing viewers to some of the wildest animals living in the UK

This year's Winterwatch sees the team looking at the inhabitants of the Cairnsgorms, one of the wildest landscapes in Scotland

His replacement may be struggling to win over viewers, but Burke is equally qualified for the job; she graduated from Bristol with a degree in biology, as did Hughes-Games.

At the time his departure was announced, she responded to the idea that she had ousted him with shock, saying: 'Can you imagine the horror for me of apparently busting into the party and being blamed for breaking it up?'

The show airs over four nights, during which time, the quartet will focus on the animals living in one of the UK's wildest areas including mountain hares, white-tailed eagles and pine martens.

Winterwatch, Tuesday-Friday, 8pm (except Wednesday, 9pm), BBC2
Victoria Beckham has praised Meghan Markle after the duchess was pictured wearing her designs on Christmas Day.

The former Spice Girl turned fashion designer, 44, appeared on American talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan this week, and admitted it came as a very pleasant surprise to see pregnant Meghan wearing an entire outfit from her line.

Victoria, who is pals with Meghan, 37, attended her wedding to Prince Harry last May, wearing a dress from her own collection.

And while Meghan previously claimed she couldn't pull off Victoria's dresses due to her 'short torso', she proved her solidarity with her new home over Christmas when she opted for an outfit by the British designer for her appearance at Sandringham.

Victoria Beckham, seen in New York this week, has praised Meghan Markle after the duchess was pictured wearing her designs on Christmas Day

Meghan opted for a navy ensemble at Sandringham on Christmas Day, choosing British designer Victoria Beckham, and wearing a coat, navy jumper dress, boots and a bag from her collection

Speaking on the talk show, Victoria described The Duchess of Sussex's decision to choose her designs at Christmas as an honour.

The mother-of-four said: 'She looked so beautiful. It was such a lovely surprise to wake up to on Christmas morning.

'You know, I think she's such a beautiful, strong and wonderful woman  so it was a huge honour!'

Meghan stepped out wearing a top-to-toe navy ensemble, opting for a 1,250 v-neck knitted sweater dress from Victoria's Pre-Fall '18 collection, and following the designer's online recommendation to pair it with boots.

The former Spice Girl turned fashion designer, 44, appeared on American talk show Live with Kelly and Ryan this week, and admitted it came as a very pleasant surprise to see pregnant Meghan wearing an entire outfit from her line

The duchess teamed it with a pair of classic knee-high boots from the range, priced at 1,250 and competed the look with a quirky box bag complete with internal mirror, costing 1,550.

Warding off the cold, Meghan completed the look with a matching 2,250 coat from the collection.

Modest Meghan previously told Glamour that she avoided certain shapes, because she felt she doesn't have the 'long torso' they require.

Speaking in the past interview, Meghan, who is 5ft6ins, said she felt her waist wasn't long enough to wear certain dresses.

Last month celebrity stylist Lucas Armitage told FEMAIL that the changes Meghan's body is going through during her pregnancy means she is able to wear pieces she previously would not have felt comfortable in

One Tuesday Meghan opted for a 1,250 knitted sweater dress from Victoria's Pre-Fall '18 collection, seen, which is currently on sale for 876

The duchess teamed it with a pair of classic knee-high boots as recommended by the designer, opting for a pair from the range, priced at 1,250

Meghan competed the look with a Victoria Beckham box bag complete with internal mirror, costing 1,550

Talking about how she chooses her outfits, she said at the time: 'What I'm starting to learn is, even though things look amazing on the hanger, it doesn't mean they're going to look amazing on me.

'For example I love Victoria Beckham dresses, but I don't have the long torso to support that silhouette.'

But following her appearance in the designer's clothes, celebrity stylist Lucas Armitage told FEMAIL that the changes Meghan's body is going through during her pregnancy means she is able to wear pieces she previously would not have felt comfortable in.

Meghan counts Victoria as one of her close friends, and the designer was seen attending her wedding to Prince Harry alongside David Beckham earlier this year, sporting one of her own designs.
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The Duchess of Sussex met staff at the National Theatre on London's South Bank today in her first official visit since succeeding the Queen as its royal patron.

Meghan, who is six months pregnant, wore head-to-toe peach, teaming a 1,728 Brandon Maxwell mini dress with a matching 2,004 blazer, 440 Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch.

Her hair was styled in a high chignon with a sleek side parting, as she arrived to learn about the work of the institution and meet staff and apprentices working behind the scenes.

The duchess has an affinity with theatre having spent a decade working as an actress in television, where she was best known for playing lawyer Rachel Zane in the hit legal drama series Suits.

During her visit Meghan, 37, joined a workshop with members of the Pericles production before meeting apprentices working as technicians in different departments from carpentry to metalwork and painting.

The Duchess of Sussex arrives at the National Theatre on London 's South Bank for her first official visit since succeeding the Queen as its royal patron. Meghan, who is six months pregnant, wore head-to-toe peach

Guest of honour: The National Theatre uploaded footage of the Duchess of Sussex arriving at their London headquarters this afternoon showing her being greeted by the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Lambeth (left) and meeting Percy, Blessing and Sharong from the Pericles Public Acts company (right)

Meghan arrives at the National Theatre in London this afternoon. The Duchess, who is six months pregnant, is set to learn about the work of the institution and meet staff and apprentices working behind the scenes during today's engagement

The Duchess arrives at the National Theatre. During her visit Meghan, 37, will join a workshop with members of the Pericles production before meeting apprentices working as technicians in different departments from carpentry to metalwork

Shortly after arriving, Meghan spoke to technical apprentices Olivia and Kelsey, and former apprentice Tamykha, who were working on some chandeliers for Tartuffe in the Assembly Area.

Before returning to Kensington Palace this afternoon, she watched a performance inspired by War Horse, by children working with the National Theatre's primary school programme.

Pericles was the National Theatre's first production of 2018 from its award-winning participatory programme, Public Acts.

The Emily Lim-directed show brought over 200 people of all ages from across London together with six professional actors to breathe new life into the Shakespeare classic in a musical version.

Although Meghan spent ten years working in television, her background is in theatre; as well as a double major in theatre and international relations from Northwestern University, she volunteered at a performing arts after-school programme for children in underprivileged school districts in Los Angeles.

The Duchess joins a workshop during her visit today with members of the Pericles Company, which was the National Theatre's first public Acts production in 2018. She wore a Brandon Maxwell blazer and matching skirt for the engagement

Back to her acting roots: Before returning to Kensington Palace this afternoon, Meghan watched a performance inspired by War Horse, by children working with the National Theatre's primary school programme

Making friends: Shortly after arriving, Meghan spoke to technical apprentices Olivia and Kelsey, and former apprentice Tamykha, who were working on some chandeliers for Tartuffe in the Assembly Area (pictured)

One of the elaborate chandeliers for Tartuffe. Before returning to Kensington Palace this afternoon, Meghan watched a performance inspired by War Horse, by children working with the National Theatre's primary school programme

The Duchess of Sussex speaks to staff at the National Theatre in London today. Although Meghan spent ten years working in television, her background is in theatre; she holds a double major in theatre and international relations

Royally stylish! Meghan, who is around six months pregnant, wore head-to-toe peach, teaming a loose-fitting blazer with a v-neck flared hem dress, Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch for her visit to the National Theatre today

Perfect role: The duchess has an affinity with theatre having spent a decade working as an actress in television, where she was best known for playing lawyer Rachel Zane in the hit legal drama series Suits

Private tour: Before returning to Kensington Palace this afternoon, Meghan will watch a performance inspired by War Horse, by children working with the National Theatre's primary school programme

Meghan waves to onlookers as she arrives at the National Theatre to mark her new patronage. Each year, the National Theatre puts on a range of productions that play in London, on tour around the UK, on Broadway and across the globe

Earlier this month, following weeks of speculation, Meghan was officially announced as patron of the National Theatre, a post previously held by the Queen for 45 years.

The duchess has previously spoken of her passion for using the arts to bring people from different backgrounds together, and her visit today will focus on the work that the NT does, as well as meeting some of the talented teams and apprentices working behind the scenes.

Each year, the National Theatre puts on a range of productions that play in London, on tour around the UK, on Broadway and across the globe.

In 2017 and 2018 alone, it staged 19 productions at the South Bank, ten across the UK, three in the West End and six internationally.

Its UK-wide learning and participation programme supports young people's creative education through performance and writing programmes like Connections, New Views and Let's Play.

New role: The Duchess said she was 'delighted' to be named as the National Theatre's new patron ahead of her visit today (pictured). The NT first had its home at the Old Vic theatre, but relocated to its current home on the South Bank in 1976

Meghan opted for one of her go-to designers for today's engagement. She teamed 1,728 Brandon Maxwell mini dress with a matching 2,004 blazer,  440 Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch at the National Theatre in London

The NT extends its reach through digital programmes including NT Live, which broadcasts the best of British theatre to over 2,500 venues in 65 countries, and the free streaming service On Demand In Schools, used by nearly 60 per cent of UK state secondary schools.

Founded by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1963, the NT first had its home at the Old Vic theatre, but relocated to its current home on the South Bank in 1976.

Meghan is also patron of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the world's first and oldest international university network representing higher education across all 53 Commonwealth countries.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, Prince Harry in his role of Commonwealth Youth Ambassador will meet young people from across the Commonwealth at a roundtable discussion at Lancaster House.

Talking about her own acting experience today, Meghan said: 'It's unbelievable to be out on stage, that whole sense of self that comes out...just so wonderful.'

Today was her first public visit to the National Theatre but she revealed she'd been in secret last month to watch a special performance of primary school pupils performing WW1 inspired pieces - and the kids had never known.

Good hair day: The Duchess of Sussex's tresses were styled in a high chignon with a sleek side parting, as she arrived to learn about the work of the institution and meet staff and apprentices working behind the scenes

As she entered one of the theatre's rehearsal rooms, Meghan told pupils from Edith Neville Primary School in Camden: 'You guys did an amazing job when I saw you perform right before Christmas.

'I snuck in and watched. It was great, I didn't want to leave. It was fantastic... I recognise some of these faces. You guys did an amazing job when I saw you perform right before Christmas.

'So this will be like a take two. But you're much quieter than when I was last here!'

The pupils then performed a short five-minute performance of their take on War Horse - with them recreating the WW1 trenches, historic Christmas Day football match and the end of the war.

Kroni Pacolli, 10, chatted to Meghan afterwards and told her he never expected to perform for royalty.

She laughed and went over to shake his hand. Kroni said: 'We didn't know who was coming, just that it was a VIP.

'I thought maybe it was the Duke of Edinburgh or George Ezra. But then when they said it was a female VIP I thought 'Yes! Rita Ora!

'I never thought I'd perform in front of the Royal Family and meet a royal! I've only ever seen her on TV. I'm speechless. She came and shook my hand and I'm never going to wash this hand again!'

Bye for now! The Duchess of Sussex is waved off by Rosi Prescott, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Lambeth, following her first official visit to the National Theatre since being appointed as its new royal patron earlier this month

The Duchess leaves the National Theatre following her first visit as patron. Meghan is also patron of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which represents higher education across all 53 Commonwealth countries

Fellow pupil Tahmina Begum, 10, said: 'Meghan knows how it feels for us as she used to be an actress, so I hope she was impressed by what she saw.

'We didn't know Meghan was coming, I thought it was maybe another actress - Emma Watson.'

Meghan also reminisced about theatre trips with Harry, before they were married, as she was briefed by Executive Director Lisa Burger on the theatre's nationwide schools programme.

Told that the NT had visited 60 schools with their production of A Curious Incident of a Dog in the Nighttime, she said: 'Oh I loved the book and that production which I saw a couple of years back.'

Earlier she met apprentices from metalwork, carpentry and painting who work on the theatre's back-stage props and scenery.

Talking to Sophie Naylor, 19, and Camille Walter-Wright, 22, she told them how she'd studied theatre design and scenery at university in Chicago.

Complimenting them on their crafts, she said: 'From all diverse technical backgrounds, you are all coming together to make one thing. It's so wonderful.'

And talking about her own acting experiences, she said: 'that whole sense of self comes out on stage.'

Pretty in pink! Meghan, who is six months pregnant, wore head-to-toe peach in London today, teaming a 1,728 Brandon Maxwell mini dress with a matching 2,004 blazer, 440 Aquazzura pumps and a Carolina Herrera clutch

Meghan is all smiles as she leaves the National Theatre today. Although Meghan spent ten years working in television, her background is in theatre and she holds a double major in theatre and international relations from Northwestern University

The Duchess of Sussex (pictured leaving the NT in London today) has a longstanding interest in theatre; she once volunteered at a performing arts after-school programme for children in underprivileged school districts in Los Angeles

She also went into one of the theatre's rehearsal room to watch a performance from Public Art workshop, which encourages ordinary Londoners who've never acted to perform at workshops and then at a performance in the theatre's South Bank headquarters.

Last year the 200-strong group performed their take on Shakepeare's play Pericles, turning it into a musical - with ages ranging from four to 80.

Meghan looked thrilled as some of the group did one of their warm-ups and then watched as individual cast members recited their lines. She then met some of the cast, including 13-year-old Blessing, who was in a wheelchair.

Bending down so she could speak eye-to-eye with the school girl Meghan asked her about the company's next performance.

Told it was another Shakespeare - As You Like It - Meghan exclaimed: 'Oh that's so exciting.'

Talking about the appointment, Rufus Norris, director of the National Theatre, said: 'It is incredible. The duchess is a very dynamic, new member of the Royal Family so there's a lot of interest around her. But particularly because this relationship makes absolute sense for us and for her.

'The Duchess obviously with her background is a very natural fit for the organization [but also] in the areas she is very passionate about, in terms of the education work we do, the participatory work and the nationwide work we doShe is passionate about the impact that the arts can have  such as community building. So we talked a lot about that, the infectious nature of people getting involved in the arts. It is absolutely related to her career.'

'We had a very, very good relationship with Her Majesty the Queen and are massively grateful of the work she has put in to support this organisation since she became our royal patron in 1974, but I think time moves on and if a change is going to happen we couldn't be more delighted in the way that it's gone.'

Asked when Meghan would be returning to the theatre its director replied: 'Absolutely a matter for Kensington Palace' before joking 'obviously she's got her own production coming up.'

The Duchess kept her makeup neutral and opted for a smart side bun. During her visit Meghan, 37, joined a workshop with members of the Pericles production before meeting apprentices working as technicians in different departments

The Duchess leaves the National Theatre on Wednesday afternoon. During her visit Meghan, 37, joined a workshop with members of the Pericles production before meeting apprentices working as technicians in different departments

He revealed that Meghan had told in about a hitherto unknown passion for Greek tragedy, which she studied at university.

Speaking about the children she met, he said: 'She was very encouraging to them to them and asked them what it was like to revisit the piece of work, whether it was easy to remember their lines and how it was to work together.

'That certainly is something at the forefront of Public Act participatory project, but it is also at the forefront of what she sees the value in the arts as being  as an opportunity for people from all backgrounds to come together in the shared endeavor of making theatre.

'We are completely delighted to have the duchess as our patron and look forward enormously to working with her and to seeing her as often as she's got time for.'

Lisa Burger, executive director of the National theatre, added: 'Certainly the Duchess's profile will mean that people who wouldn't otherwise be aware of the National's mission to make excellent theater for everyone will be made apparent to a lot more people.'

Sir Damon Buffini, chairman of the National Theatre said described Meghan as "delightful". 'The children got a lot of confidence from her being in the room and listening,' he said.
Flight attendants are expected to take pride in their appearance in the air.

And according to insiders, some airlines are strict in their guidelines, requiring staff to possess picture-perfect skin.

One anonymous source told The Daily Telegraph that a bad pimple could result in someone being grounded, and prevented from doing their job.

Other airlines are also said to have strict weight and body-fat ratios.

The secrets of flight attendants: How something as simple as a PIMPLE could mean staff are banned from doing their job

They also told the outlet that some airlines require their staff to maintain a certain weight and body-fat ratio.

It comes after former international flight attendant Belinda shared details about life in the air, in an interview with FEMAIL.

Belinda revealed the unwritten rules that she always wished people would adhere to on board.

The travel blogger encouraged flyers to not complain to flight attendants about turbulence.

'As much as I wish I could summon the powers of the earth, I cannot predict nor change the inclement weather happening in the atmosphere around us,' she explained. 'We don't know how long turbulence will last.'

Belinda also suggested passengers not complain if their food choice isn't available.

Strict: Insiders told The Daily Telegraph that a flight attendant with a pimple or bad acne could be banned from flying

'It might be annoying not getting your first choice, but remember, we're doing our best to make 300 people fed and happy,' she said. 'When we run out of chicken, we run out of chicken.

'While you might not get your first preference, if you chuck us a smile, we might even throw you something from our secret stash for being so understanding.'

Belinda added that it's not okay to hog the bathroom.

'We all know funny things can happen when you're flying at 35,000 feet, and we also experience them too,' she joked.

'However it's a shared space, so please try your best to be quick and efficient in the lavatory.'
Trying to revive blonde hair with a green tinge after swimming in a chlorinated pool can be challenging - and expensive.

But a mother-of-three has found a surprising solution to restore sun-bleached, chlorine-damaged blonde hair by using a condiment you already own in your kitchen pantry.

Jessica Roberts, from Melbourne, squirted tomato sauce on her daughter Scarlett's head to strip the green chlorine stains from her hair ahead of back to school.

Jessica Roberts, from Melbourne, squirted tomato sauce on her daughter Scarlett's scalp to restore sun-bleached, chlorine-damaged blonde hair after swimming in a pool

The mother-of-three found a surprising solution to restore the blonde colour by using a little-known condiment you already own in your kitchen pantry

The surprising things you didn't know your tomato sauce could do Clean saucepans with brown tarnish

Face mask

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Taking to Instagram, the mother, who runs one-half of Modern Day Mumma, shared a picture of herself proudly pouring the ketchup directly on her scalp.

'It's a blonde thing!!! Day before school. This is how every blonde finishes their summer holidays when growing up!!! Blonde hair + chlorine = Green,' the 28-year-old mother said.

'Nothing like good old trusty tomato sauce to strip the green out!'

To prepare the home remedy, all you have to do is coat your hair with sauce, let it sit for up to 30 minutes, then rinse off with shampoo and conditioner.

The natural treatment works because the redness of tomatoes combats the green copper sulphate commonly put in pools to kill algae.

While some believe the red colour in the ketchup works to counteract the green in the hair - others insist it's the highly acidic tomato juice that cuts through the green oxidisation to get rid of the green in your hair.

With her children headed back to school, Jessica managed to save her daughter's blonde hair (pictured with her three kids - River, Scarlett and baby Jagger)

The mother asked fellow parents whether they have used the same home remedy on their children, with many revealing they were unaware of the trick.

'I didn't realise that was a thing!! You learn something new every day,' one said.

Another commented: 'Never heard of this! Thats such a great trick.'

One woman wrote: 'Seriously never knew this! Wow! Suffered the green growing up!'

And another posted: 'This is the best idea ever. I was that kid that went to school with green hair lol so embarrassing.'

Last December, Australian radio star Mel Greig (pictured) revealed she used tomato sauce after her hair turned green following a dip in a chlorine-filled pool in Bali (Left: With green hair and right: After the hack trick)

That's the secret! Mel used tomato sauce in her hair for 30 minutes in order to take the green out, sharing a snap of herself covered in the condiment

Last December, Australian radio star Mel Greig revealed she used tomato sauce after her hair turned green following a dip in a chlorine-filled pool in Bali.

'So as you can see my hair is very, very green... I'm going to do what the majority of people suggested and put some tomato sauce in it,' she said.

After leaving the sauce in her hair for 30 minutes, she reported to her fans the trick actually revived her blonde locks.

'It actually kind of worked, my hair is definitely less green,' she added.
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An unassuming warehouse in Newtown, New South Wales, has been transformed into a modern home with seven bedrooms and a stunning Roman-inspired courtyard.

Having been used as a clothing factory in the 1920s, the space was purchased by Sydney couple Bob and Gay Miller just over 24 years ago for $650,000.

Now with a market value of $6.5 million, the two-level warehouse is available for purchase as either a home or office space.

Interiors feature high ceilings, timber beams and louvre windows, with a centre Roman-style courtyard and swimming pool as the main talking point.

Unassuming: A former clothing factory in Newtown has been converted into an incredible $6.5 million home

Functional: The two-level warehouse is available for purchase as either a home or office space

Originally a bakery, the space was then converted into a clothing factory until the late 1980s, and was later purchased by the couple.

Purchased for $650,000 by the couple, the property was listed for sale in May 2018, with a market value of $7.5 million.

The property has a market value of $6.5 million as of January 2019.

Entertaining space: Inside the dual level property lies a Roman-style courtyard, complete with an in-ground swimming pool

What are the unique features of the property? * Unassuming facade * Open plan layout * Roman-style courtyard with swimming pool * Contemporary interiors Advertisement

While the facade is unassuming with its concrete walls and graffiti on one side, inside lies an incredible, contemporary space.

Covering 530 square metres on a corner block adjacent to a local park, the space features seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, an office and storerooms.

Louvre windows from floor to ceiling lead out into a stunning Roman-style courtyard, complete with an in-ground swimming pool.

Interiors take on a contemporary feel with an open plan layout, high ceilings, timber beams and white-washed walls.

McGrath real estate agent Alister Barrett told FEMAIL on Wednesday there has been 'fabulous interest' in the property.

'There has been fabulous interest in the property, with perhaps more inspections made out of curiosity. However, others have been more serious about the space, with a mix of people looking at it in terms of a home or office.'

History: Originally a bakery, the space was converted into a clothing factory until the late 1980s, and was later purchased by Sydney couple Bob and Gay Miller

Design: Interiors take on a contemporary feel with high ceilings, timber beams and white-washed walls
India Ratings backs direct cash transfer to farmers; warns of financial stress to governments.

It said that the levels are significantly lower than the amount conceptualised under the universal basic income scheme for the poor proposed in the Economic Survey 2016-17.

New Delhi: The roll-out of income support as a core centrally-sponsored scheme is a better option than debt waiver, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said on Tuesday.

The ratings agency said that there is likelihood that the Union government may announce a relief package for farmers while presenting the vote on account for 2019-20 in line with the Rythu Bandhu scheme of the Telangana government.

Ind-Ra said that in case the FY20 interim budget announces an income support of Rs 8,000 per acre per annum for marginal and small farmers, a marginal farmer and a small farmer would receive Rs 7,515 and Rs 27,942 per annum on average, respectively.

It said that the levels are significantly lower than the amount conceptualised under the universal basic income scheme for the poor proposed in the Economic Survey 2016-17.

It said that the support would cost the union government exchequer Rs 1,46,800 crore (0.70 per cent of GDP). However, if it is rolled out as a core centrally sponsored scheme, the cost would be split between the union and state governments.

The cost to the union government exchequer would be 0.43 per cent of GDP, while the cost to the combined state government exchequer would be 0.27 per cent of GDP.

Either way, it is not an easy option," it said.

Besides the Union government, the states whose finances will come under pressure if it is rolled out as a core centrally sponsored scheme are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, MP, Odisha, Telangana and UP. Only Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have some fiscal space to accommodate such expenditure, it said.

In addition to the fiscal challenge, Ind-Ra believes that the implementation of such a scheme will depend on a proper land record. The government of Telangana was able to successfully implement the Rythu Bandhu scheme because the state had such records.

Ind-Ra said that the agrarian distress is not new for India and the governments in the past have responded to such a situation in a variety of ways including by increasing public spending in rural areas, increasing minimum support price (MSP), enhancing agricultural credit, launching the rural employment guarantee scheme and giving loan waivers.

It said that in view of the upcoming general elections, Ind-Ra believes the focus of both union and state budgets 2019-20 would be on measures to address farmers woes.

Last week brokerage firm Anand Rathi had said that roll-out of a pure Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme in the interim budget next week would be prohibitively expensive costing Rs 22 lakh crore or 11 per cent of the GDP.

In its most extensive form, UBI entails unconditional (no quid pro quo), universal (no targeting), periodic (not one-time), cash (not in kind/coupons) payments to individuals (not per family).

However, its impact could be softened and yet target poorest segments by bringing it into the DBT (direct benefit transfer) scheme with the use of JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar and mobile), the report had. This and consolidation of existing subsidies and welfare schemes would reduce the fiscal impact to Rs 4-4.5 trillion, said the report.
A woman has revealed that she wants a plastic surgeon to build her a 'pigskin corset' to hold up her 2,000cc breast implants that are sagging and causing her back pain.

In a preview clip for Wednesday night's episode of the E! reality series Botched, Tina, an Australian native who lives in Las Vegas, opens up about her strange request for Dr. Terry Dubrow, one half of the show's plastic surgery team.

'I'd really like Dr. Dubrow to build me a pigskin corset,' she says in her testimonial.

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Sharing her story: Tina, an Australian native who lives in Las Vegas, appears on Wednesday night's episode of the E! reality series Botched

Yikes! n a preview clip, she says she would 'really like' Dr. Terry Dubrow to build her a 'pigskin corset' because her 2,000 breast implants are sagging and causing her back pain

'One of the unfortunate consequences of having 2,000cc breasts is I have back pain, and I have noticed that my breasts sag.'

Tina says she grew up in Brisbane, Australia, where 'there is a lot of emphasis on having a beach body all of the time.'

As a teen, she felt insecure about her breast size and would do whatever she could to temporarily give her bust a boost.

'Me and my sister Johanna were always really close as kids. I was two years above her, but she had bigger boobs than me!' she explains.

Throwback: Tina says she grew up in Brisbane, Australia, where 'there is a lot of emphasis on having a beach body all of the time'

Boost bust: Tina admits her younger sister (far left) always had 'bigger boobs' than she did, and she felt so insecure about her breast size that she 'used to buy a lot of padded bras'

'So I used to buy lots of padded bras, chicken fillets that would pad you out.'

Tina was just 20 years old when she went under the knife and got her first set of breast implants, and she admits she wasn't the most knowledgeable patient.

'I didn't even understand CCs when I went in for my first consult or why you needed to know them,' she says. 'You don't really.'

Tina says she opted for 550cc of 'solid silicone' because her doctor assured her it would stop her implants from rupturing, which was her greatest fear.

Start of it all: Tina says she opted for 550cc of 'solid silicone' when she got her first pair of implants at the age of 20

Say what? Tina was 'very excited' about her first set of implants, but she struggled with an unusual side effect in the Australia heat: they started to smell like burnt rubber

Although she was 'very excited' about her first set of implants, she struggled with an unusual side effect in the Australia heat.

'I'd notice after spending time in the sun that there was a funny smell coming out of my implants. This was like burnt rubber,' she recalls.

Although it was clearly a warning sign, Tina shrugged it off and convinced herself that everything was fine.

'I didn't know anyone else with solid silicone implants,' she explains.

'So I thought perhaps it just was normal, even though deep down I knew it wasn't and I just ignored it.'
The Bachelor star Amanda Stanton has come under fire for her parenting techniques this week after taking her six-year-old daughter to get highlights.

On Monday, Amanda, 28, shared several photos and videos in her Instagram Stories of a trip she took to the salon with her little girl, Kinsley.

But Kinsley wasn't just tagging along while her mom got her hair done: The first grader was there to get highlights in her own hair for the first time, which some social media commenters found upsetting.

Getting their hair done: The Bachelor star Amanda Stanton took her six-year-old daughter Kinsley to get highlights this week

Proud: She announced on Instagram that it was the little girl's first time getting highlights

Fuel: She also shared some video from the salon, which set off her commenters

The pair dropped by Habit Salon in Gilbert, Arizona, where a pair of stylists added dye to the little girl's hair.

Afterward, Amanda shared a photo of the two of them smiling and showing off their new 'dos.

'Babes first highlights,' she captioned the snap.

Quickly, the floodgates opened, with commenters debating whether it is OK for a child so young to get highlights.

While plenty of commenters said Kinsley looked adorable and told Amanda to do what she wanted, there were a fair number of people who were horrified that a six-year-old would get her hair dyed.

For the most part, their criticism seemed to bet that Amanda was sending the wrong message to her daughter, teaching her from a young age that looks are incredibly important and she needs to improve her own.

'So terribly sad. Why on earth would you do that?! You should be teaching your girls how beautiful they are inside and not that looks arent everything. Setting a bad example and setting them up for so much insecurity,' one wrote.

They don't approve! Critics called out Amanda for putting too much stress on how her daughter looks at such a young age

'Everyone parents differently, but just be conscious that these choices affect her long term. She should not be exposed to feeling the need to be anything but her natural self at such a young age,' wrote another.

'It's always good to start them young being obsessed with their looks,' snarked a third.

'When she is in therapy or the plastic surgeons office at 13 for not feeling good enough about her looks in this ridiculously shallow insta-world, Mama might be regretting some of the choices she made for her. As the mother of an 18 year old and 15 year old girl..trust me, I know!' yet another wrote.

Some were less harsh but still made their opinions known.

'I want to start by saying that...I really do think you guys are the cutest little family,' wrote one. 'But if Im being honest, this kinda bummed me out to read. Shes so little and is beautiful just the way she is...she shouldnt have this kind of pressure on her yet.

'She deserves to be little and carefree from the pressures of ones appearance. I think it sets her up and opens doors to all kinds of future anxieties and insecurities (possible disorders). We as women already have to fight so hard as it is with what the the worlds idea of what beautiful looks like. I dont think its just her hair thats being set up for damage....and thats heartbreaking.'

Good time! Kinsley had a 'girls' day' and is seen posing with some friends at the salon

Happy kid: She also shared some pictures and videos from the salon while the little girl got her hair done

Relax! Amanda hit back with a message for her critics in her Instagram Stories

Still, though, there were plenty of commenters who rushed to Amanda's defense.

'As a little girl who loved pink but wasnt allowed to wear pink because of overly strict parents, Im glad Amanda is letting her kids express their style and personality,' wrote one. 'Im confused why everyone is so obsessed with following influencers for style and beauty when we somehow think that wanting to put on makeup or wanting to have cute clothes or getting a few highlights is somehow a bad thing.

'Okay yall... A few highlights isnt gonna kill the kid. Also its 2019. I think its time for mom shaming to stop!!' wrote another.

Eventually, Amanda chimed in with a reply of her own. Via People: 'When I posted... about getting Kins hair (HARDLY) highlighted, I knew it would trigger the trolls. But I did it anyway... so in a way I was trolling the trolls!

'Of course I got some messages saying she's too young etc... but I got a lot more saying "I'm so glad you let her and din't care what anyone negative had to say."

'So, moral of the story is. Not everyone is going to agree with everything you do... & that's okay! We all are entitled to our own decisions and opinions and thoughts on parenting etc and not everyone is going to agree with you and that's OKAY [sic].'

Standing up for herself: In December, Amanda Stanton (pictured at The Bellagio in Las Vegas) hit back at body-shamers who called her too skinny

Meanwhile, just last month, Amanda clapped back at body-shamers who accused her of being too skinny.

In December, the Bachelor alum took to Instagram and first thanked everyone for the 'kind messages' she received for a previous workout post.

But then she hit back at 'nasty ones' as well, insisting: 'I do not have an eating disorder and I am naturally skinny. I've gotten skinnier throughout the years since having kids.

'That happens sometimes as people age. Everyone has different body types and everyone is beautiful exactly the way they are.

'Our differences and flaws are what make us unique. If you see someone making an effort to be healthy and take care of themselves, why hate on that?

Her girls and her beau: She is currently dating Bobby Jacobs, 32. her daughters daughters Kinsley and Charlie are from her previous relationship

'And for anyone that comments about how I looked "healthier" and better on the Bachelor, it may have LOOKED that way. But I am 100x healthier now that I was then,' she continued.

'I was drinking wine and mimosas every day and not working out whatsoever. I am healthy and happy and whatever number it says on the scale isn't an indicator of that.

'I encourage everyone to love themselves just the way they are and to be proud of yourself if you're making an effort to be healthy and strongerregardless of what that looks like for you on the outside.'

Amanda came fourth in the 20th season of The Bachelor in 2016 and also appeared in Bachelor In Paradise the same year.

She shares daughters Kinsley and Charlie with ex-husband Nick Buonfiglio, to whom she was married from 2012 to 2015.

Now she's dating pro-beach volleyball player Bobby Jacobs, 32.
If you daydream about ditching the nine-to-five grind, and switching grey buildings for rolling hills then one of these singletons might just be for you.

Six countryside-based Brits who have thus far been unlucky in love are on the hunt for their perfect partner.

Looking for romance in rural Britain can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, so these men and women have turned to Sara Cox for help in a new series of BBC Two's Love in the Countryside.

Starring in the second season, Katy, David, Martin, Victoria, Kerry and Eoin are hoping to find Mr or Mrs Right.

With one admitting they choose dogs over men, and another saying she wants a partner to look at her the way calves do at feeding time, there are plenty of interesting characters ready to be taken out on a date.

Here Femail meets the rural singles. . .

Sheepdog trainer Katy, from Cumbria, says she's chosen dogs over men in the past - but now she's looking for someone to share her life with

Katy

Age: 57

Occupation: Sheepdog trainer

Hobbies and interests: Travelling and eating out

Lives: Cumbria

Looking for: Male

Katy has spent the last 16 years training sheepdogs and raising her daughter, Henrietta.

Having 'chosen dogs over men' in the past, Katy is finally ready to find somebody special to share her life with in the beautiful Cumbrian countryside.

Katy is looking for 'a big man with a big heart, somebody who's strong' who she can have fun with.

Being a dairy farmer is in David's DNA, but it hasn't helped him in his quest for love. He said: 'It does make it harder as a gay farmer, because there aren't many of us around here!'

David

Age: 35

Occupation: Dairy farmer

Hobbies and interests: Singing and socialising with friends

Lives: Cumbria

Looking for: Male

Being a dairy farmer is in David's DNA, having been the family business for many generations.

Although he briefly spent time working in the retail industry, he quickly realised his heart lies in farming.

Having struggled with dating in the past, David is now looking for Mr Right. As someone who is incredibly close with his family, David is hoping to meet someone who will embrace that.

David added: 'It does make it harder as a gay farmer, because there aren't many of us around here!'

Martin, from Doncaster, is on the hunt for his soulmate, and would 'love to have a family and pass the farm over to [his] kids'

Martin

Age: 43

Occupation: Dairy farmer

Hobbies and interests: Country walks with his two Welsh sheepdogs

Lives: Doncaster

Looking for: Female

For the past few years, Martin's main focus has been the family dairy farm, focusing on developing the business and adding a new milking parlour.

Now, with a little more time on his hands, Martin is ready to find his soulmate.

Martin's farm has been in the family since 1952, and he would 'love to have a family and pass the farm over to [his] kids'.

He's looking for someone who he can have an intellectual conversation with and to share in both his successes and failures.

Equine dentist Victoria, from Somerset, has struggled to find a suitable man in her small social circle but now she wants to find 'the one'

Victoria

Age: 35

Occupation: Equine dental technician

Hobbies and interests: Horse riding, baking and going on holiday

Lives: Somerset

Looking for: Male

Equine dentist Victoria loves her life, but feels she's missing that special somebody to share it with.

Having struggled with the small pool of available men in her social circle, Victoria is looking for 'the one' she can settle down with.

Her ideal man would be 'traditional, chivalrous, kind, funny' who is 'a bit of a snappy dresser'.

Victoria is also an avid cook, her specialities being cake and steak.

Dairy farmer Kerry, from Gloucestershire, is looking for somebody 'who looks at me the way the calves look at me at feeding time just without the dribble'

Kerry

Age: 29

Occupation: Dairy farmer

Hobbies and interests: Watching rugby, walking her dog and cattle showing

Lives: Gloucestershire

Looking for: Male

Kerry, a self-confessed country bumpkin who loves the open air and space in rural Gloucestershire where she lives with her dog, works on a large dairy, beef and arable farm.

She doesn't think she's ever been in love, but she's looking for that heart-warming, butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling when she meets the right man.

Kerry is looking for somebody 'who looks at me the way the calves look at me at feeding time just without the dribble'.

Her ideal man is someone that's genuine, down to earth with a good sense of humour and if he's a rugby player then that's even better.

Sheep farmer Eoin is looking for an 'honest and trustworthy' girlfriend and 'somebody who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty' to join him the farm

Eoin

Age: 28

Occupation: Sheep farmer

Hobbies and interests: Loves dogs

Lives: Derry

Looking for: Female

Eoin, took over the running of the family business a year ago and is the seventh generation of farmers in his family.

He works incredibly hard, spending half his time in Northern Ireland and half in Scotland.

Now approaching 30, he wants to make time in his life to find somebody special he can settle down with.

Energetic Eoin is looking for an 'honest and trustworthy' girlfriend and 'somebody who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty' to join him the farm.

His ideal date would also have a good personality and can get along with his large family.

If you'd like to apply to date any of the above singletons, click here.
With back to school on the agenda this week, parents across the country are prepared and ready to send their children off for the start of a new term.

Rural Queensland mother Tracey is no exception.

The mum of six - whose children range between five and 18 - shared with FEMAIL her back-to-school tips for large families - and how she keeps the costs down.

These include storing her bulk bought groceries in a shipping container, shopping for groceries online and stocking up on specials she knows she'll use later.

Tracey has six children - excluding three who no longer live at home. She and her husband both had three children each when they got married and had a further three together

BACK-TO-SCHOOL

When it comes to back to school, Tracey said she begins her shopping when the final term wraps up.

'We start as soon as I get the book list, otherwise it just gets too chaotic and it isn't fair on the kids,' she told FEMAIL.

'We just buy it bit by bit, and they pick their bits and pieces. I involve the kids. That makes it easier.'

She said the key factor to new term success is organisation.

However it can be an expensive feat. She said in public school uniforms alone she has spent $1,000 - excluding shoes, socks and underwear.

She said for shoes she buys 'good' brands for the children and this can cost anywhere between $100 and $150 per child.

'The older kids need a few pairs - formal and sport - so it all adds up,' she said.

She does have a trick to keeping costs down - buying everything in bulk.

'I buy more now than we need - for example if they need 100 pencils we will buy 150. The more you buy, the cheaper it is,' she said.

The stay-at-home mother said she will also buy items during the year if they are on sale, particularly once school goes back and prices drop even further.

She has a cupboard at home dedicated to school supplies and it is where she stores items she buys during the year.

Conquering back-to-school: 'We start as soon as I get the book list, otherwise it just gets too chaotic and it isn't fair on the kids,' she told FEMAIL

MEAL PLANNING

However that is not where Tracey's organisation skills end - she also plans the family's meals during term time using a planner.

'Once a week I do a meal plan for the week ahead and see what we have on,' she said.

'If we're not home until 7pm, then it is a pasta.'

She meal plans breakfast, lunch and dinner and for school lunches she uses bento boxes.

'Basically twice a week I get out a whole bunch of containers and cut up a whole watermelon, a whole rockmelon, carrots - I cut up everything,' she said.

'In the mornings it is really just a procession line. I put it all out, I know who eats what and fill up each section.'

She also makes fresh sandwiches daily for her children.

Big family bliss: The oldest child who lives at home is 18 while the youngest is just five

GROCERY SHOPPING

Tracey gets her groceries delivered to their home instead of going into the store.

'We go to the markets for fresh fruit and vegetables,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

She said they only buy fresh produce that is in season so that makes it cheaper.

'For meat we go to the butcher and for the older bulk food we get it delivered once a week because if we go into the shop I spend more money,' she said.

'Whereas if I have a meal plan I go onto the supermarket's website and I only order what is needed for that. I also always look to see what is on special as we do stock up.'

She said that they have a shipping container with shelving to store their groceries that they buy on bulk and on sale - often many of these items are used for the children's lunches.

Using the container has helped her to shave 'loads' off the weekly shop, as she always has supplies she can turn to that she has bought for a lot less.

Delivery: Every week Tracey said she spends $350 per week at a grocery store, $60 on fruit and vegetables and with top ups on items such as bread and milk it brings her overall total to $450

She said that they have a shipping container with shelving to store their groceries that they buy on bulk and on sale

'It has a bit of everything really. We have a normal stacked pantry inside and then a few back up of almost everything in the container,' she said

'It has a bit of everything really. We have a normal stacked pantry inside and then a few back up of almost everything in the container,' she said.

The family also have 30 chickens and some cows on the property.

Every week Tracey said she spends $350 per week at a grocery store, $60 on fruit and vegetables and with top ups on items such as bread and milk it brings her overall total to $450.

'I will not pay top dollar for something just because I want it,' she said.

'We don't buy cheap brands, we like what we like and we don't want the kids to miss out on eating good food because we have made the decision to have a big family.'

BUDGETING

Her number one tip is organisation, as it helps avoid stress and creates a better life at home.

'Even our money - I list everything. We have a list with our yearly bills, monthly bills and weekly bills. We organise everything into categories,' she said.

For instance, Tracey and her husband are taking their children to Thailand next month - a holiday they booked in July 2018.

'We book it so far in advanced so we don't feel it,' she said.

'You know what bills you have. You know Christmas and birthdays are coming. So we basically categorise our money and divide everything up into smaller portions.'

She said if it is possible get yearly bills divided up into monthly or fortnightly payments.

Key tip? Her number one tip is organisation, as it helps avoid stress and creates a better life at home. 'Even our money - I list everything. We have a list with our yearly bills, monthly bills and weekly bills. We organise everything into categories,' she said

'It is easy to find $100, but harder to find $1,500,' she said.

'Don't get me wrong there is always little things - like something will go wrong with the car.'

However budgeting and organising your money for expenses you know are coming up, for instance putting items on lay buy in the middle of the year for Christmas time.

She said it is also important not to buy things simply because it is on sale, it has to be useful as well.

'You basically have to think a month from now, not today,' she said.

'It's taken a few years to work it out though.'

She said there are moments where it isn't always smooth sailing, and one point had seven children under nine under one roof. 'But it was wonderful and if we didn't want to have that, we never would have had the kids,' she said

OVERALL

She said people wouldn't believe the amount of negative comments they get as a larger family.

'But truthfully we also have many lovely people who stop and have a conversation and ask how we do things,' she said.

She said there are moments where it isn't always smooth sailing, and one point had seven children under nine under one roof.

'But it was wonderful and if we didn't want to have that, we never would have had the kids,' she said.

'It's different and it's not everyone's life dream but I wouldn't trade it.'

You can find Tracey's Instagram account here.
Few can imagine the pain the parents of Molly Russell (pictured) have endured

Few can imagine the pain the parents of Molly Russell have endured. Their daughter was found dead, aged 14, in her bedroom in November 2017.

She had shown no obvious signs of severe mental illness  yet her family later found she had been viewing a variety of self-harm and suicide images on social media.

Her father, Ian, is in no doubt these played a big part in encouraging Molly to take her life and is working to raise awareness of the issue, calling for an independent regulator to monitor harmful or distressing online content. I have nothing but respect for his efforts.

But trying to get social media giants to voluntarily take responsibility for content they host is like dropping your wallet in Wormwood Scrubs and expecting it to be there when you go back for it.

The internet is devoid of all morals, and the sooner parents and politicians understand this basic fact, the safer we will all be.

You wouldnt sit happily on your sofa of an evening, knowing your child is buying drugs in their bedroom, would you? Or let them wander round a red-light district at night? Or talk to strangers four times their age in bars? Yet you might as well. So long as children have free and unfettered access to the internet, they could be doing any or all those things, and worse.

Many parents think because they restrict their childs screen time, the dangers dont apply to them.

But it doesnt work that way. Its not how long kids spend online; its what they do, who they follow and where that takes them.

This is the challenge that faces us all in this internet age. And having lived through all this myself with my two, I have come to the conclusion that if we are genuinely serious about protecting our young people from harmful content online until they are of an age when they can cope, we need something far more radical than a watchdog or regulation.

Many parents think because they restrict their childs screen time, the dangers dont apply to them (stock image)

Quite simply, ban smartphones for anyone under 16.

Impossible! I hear you cry. But why? The internet is like drugs or alcohol or sex: not suitable for minors.

We restrict alcohol and cigarette sales to youngsters. Why should smartphones  which I believe are just as toxic to their mental health  be any different?

I grew up without a mini super-computer glued to my hand, and I survived. As did millions before me. What harm could it do, save put a dent in the profits of the likes of Apple and Facebook?

The beauty of this idea is that, from a parental point of view, there would be no arguing. Yours will not be the one child singled out for an embarrassing brick phone, since everyone their age will have one. And theyll be forced to talk to each other on the bus, rather than stare at their screens.

Who knows, deprived of their smartphones, they may even go back to actually doing stuff, instead of gaping slack-jawed at others doing it on YouTube.

Im not deluded, it wouldnt solve all our problems. But it might protect future generations from an adult world they dont yet have the maturity to understand.

Spare us the hospital selfies

Weve had snowkini poseurs, morning faces, gym selfies, thigh gaps  you name it, the list of incredibly annoying trends coming from Instagram is endless.

But is there any more annoying than the hospital selfie  aka posting a picture of yourself looking miserable and poorly from your sickbed?

Latest offenders: Piers Morgan (stomach bug), Nicky Campbell (kidney stones), Kate Beckinsale (ovarian cyst) and now Andy Murray (hip surgery).

Of course, its never nice being in hospital; but why the rest of us have to suffer, I dont know. Nurse!

On her sickbed: Kate Beckinsale this week. Is there any more annoying than the hospital selfie?

Why Spanx really are hot stuff

Helen Mirren is the latest high-profile woman to be Spanx-shamed, having been spotted at some red carpet do with her shapewear showing.

The implication is that wearing these sorts of garments constitutes some kind of sartorial faux-pas.

Rubbish.

Shapewear not only has the advantage of smoothing the silhouette, its also jolly good at keeping you warm, which, when youre obliged to wear a skimpy dress and sandals in the middle of winter, makes it the only practical choice.

Helen Mirren is the latest high-profile woman to be Spanx-shamed, having been spotted at some red carpet do with her shapewear showing

Hugs aren't for everyone

Annie Lennox waxes lyrical in a magazine interview about the importance of ditching stoic reserve in favour of more hugging. All very modern, Im sure.

But sadly no amount of hugging would have made much difference to my grandfather, who, as a Chindit deployed to Burma at the end of World War II, experienced things no man should ever have to witness.

For him  and for many like him  maintaining a stiff upper lip was the only way to stop themselves from falling to pieces completely. On the rare occasions he did let go, the desolation was terrifying.

Of course, people must feel able to open up about their feelings. But there is a time and a place, and it upsets me when people dismiss the older generation as emotionally repressed: many had very good reasons for their stoicism.

Leaving the EU without a deal would be, as civil servants like to say, distinctly suboptimal.

But Im not sure the prospect of lettuce shortages is going to frighten MPs much. Disruption to claret imports, on the other hand

Prince Philip has finally caved in and written to the woman who broke her wrist during his recent car crash, saying he is very sorry.

But what purpose does such an apology really serve? It was a car accident: unfortunate, unpleasant, frightening  but certainly not intentional.

All this apology does is give his victim  who, it seems to me, has milked her ordeal to the very last drop  a smart letter from HRH to frame and hang on her wall.

If the Duke wants to apologise for anything, it should be driving two days later without wearing a seat belt. Now that really was unforgivable.

Feminist equality? Fat chance

A Swedish study spanning two decades found that women in stressful jobs are 54 per cent more likely to end up overweight than their male colleagues. The authors attribute this in large part to womens double workload, juggling work with family commitments.

Even worse, higher levels of cortisol  the stress hormone  mean that the extra weight is likely to gather around the middle, aka the type that causes diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

Something tells me that wasnt quite what the great feminist thinkers had in mind when they envisioned the future for women.

They wanted us to have more rights and freedoms; but in practice many of us have simply added the pressures of being breadwinners to the stresses of looking after a family.

Dont get me wrong, Im not suggesting that we return to the Fifties. But until we recognise this uncomfortable paradox and work out how to resolve it, feminism  in the practical sense at least  will continue to be just another stick with which to beat ourselves.

Bono (net worth around 532 million) lectures assembled trillionaires at the World Economic Forum in Davos about the amorality of capitalism. Coming soon: Sir Philip Green delivers a TED Talk on the moral importance of #MeToo.
As per 2018-19 budget projections, the Centre is likely to finance Rs 75,000 crore of fiscal deficit from small savings.

As a last resort, government will go ahead to monetise its holdings in SUUTI thats valued at Rs 55,000 crore. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: Interim dividend from RBI, monetization of SUUTI holdings, unused compensation cess on GST and national small saving fund may come handy for finance minister Piyush Goyal to meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent for current fiscal.

Sticking to deficit targets may still be possible notwithstanding the less-than-expected increase in direct tax revenues, shortfall in mop-up through disinvestments and about Rs 7 000 crore shortfall in monthly GST collections.

Goyal may explore retaining just 50 per cent central share of unused compensation cess that was consented to during monsoon session of Parliament. Finance minister may even take GST Council on board while retaining the Centres share of cess on GST.

Sources said slippage in GST revenue could be a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore that has already been factored in by Goyal. Meeting targeted disinvestments and mopping up Rs 80,000 crore through stake sale in state-run companies also looks difficult given that only Rs 35,000 crore has been garnered so far.

RBI dividend worth Rs 40,000 crore and tapping Rs 75,000 crore from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) that has a corpus of over Rs 1 lakh crore may be considered to meet the fiscal deficit targets.

As a last resort, government will go ahead to monetise its holdings in SUUTI thats valued at Rs 55,000 crore. Officials divulged that offloading blue chip companies stake in SUUTI can be considered to also meet the FRBM target, added officials.

Government would also roll over subsidies  fertilisers and foodto trim the expenditure, sources said.

With nod from the GST Council, the government also has the option to retain 50 per cent of GST compensation cess that stands at Rs 60,000 crore.

If required, Centre has the option of digging into NSSF to meet the deficit targets given that borrowings have been scaled down unilaterally during this fiscal.

Over the years, the government's dependence on NSSF has increased significantly. Last year, small savings fund bailout to Food Corporation of India, National Highway Authority of India and Air India was a humungous Rs 1 lakh crore.

As per 2018-19 budget projections, the Centre is likely to finance Rs 75,000 crore of fiscal deficit from small savings.

The government reduced its gross market borrowing by about Rs 70,000 crore and increased its draw down from small savings. Simultaneously, it cut back on bond buybacks by Rs 25,000 crore. Indications are that government could reduce the buybacks further to make up for lower gross borrowing. This implies that Centre has maximum buybacks worth Rs 46,941 crores to be done in next two months. The government had lowered its gross market borrowing to Rs 5.35 lakh crore and net borrowings to Rs 3.87 lakh crore.

The Centre in consultation with RBI had finalised its borrowing calendar for first half of 2018-19. It had budgeted for 2018-19 Gross G-Sec borrowing of Rs 6,05,539 crore.

Last February then finance minister Arun Jaitley had hoped to stick to the fiscal deficit of Rs 6,24,276 crore that translates to 3.3 per cent of GDP. But, during April -November 2018, the government had already run a fiscal deficit of 7,16,625 crore, or 114.8 percent of targeted fiscal deficit, raising doubts on the final deficit figures.
Paul Kirby is a reporter for the Freeman, covering Kingston politics. He has been at the Freeman since August 1996.
Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
KINGSTON, N.Y.  Ulster County Executive Michael Hein believes politics might be holding up the release of a report about allegations that his office and that of county Comptroller Elliott Auerbach hacked each others computer files.

During an interview Tuesday at the Freeman office that was streamed live on the newspaper's website, Hein suggested the report was being held back to protect Auerbach.

- Advertisement -

One of the challenges is this: There are some in the Legislature who would do anything in their power to shield the comptroller from any bad press, said Hein, who is leaving county government soon to become commissioner of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Administration. Im not confident that there were some in the Legislature who wanted the report given."

In September 2018, after weeks of allegations by Hein and Auerbach that each had gained unauthorized access to the others computer files, the county Legislatures Ways and Means Committee paid $38,900 to EisnerAmper LLP, of New York City, to investigate the allegations and review county policies and procedures.

That report was given to lawmakers in October, but the Ways and Means Committee has, to date, declined to make the document public, saying it still is in draft form.

When all the information is right there, and the company comes forward to issue the report and that report is stopped in an executive session ... one can only wonder why, Hein said.

Legislator Richard Gerentine, who was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee at the time, said he expects the report to be made public once legislators finish reviewing it.

We are waiting for the consultant to get back to us with the answer for some various questions we want answers to, said Gerentine, R-Marlborough.

He said that while there has been some back and forth between legislators and EisnerAmper over concerns and questions about the report, I can assure you, from all I have seen, there is no manipulation of the document.

Gerentine, who was replaced last week by Legislator Lynn Archer, D-Accord as head of the Ways and Means Committee, said he doesnt know how the committee will proceed with the report or when it will be released.

Hein, the county executive since January 2009, has said will step down when he is confirmed by the state Senate for the commissioner's job. He will be succeeded on an interim basis by his chief of staff, Adele Reiter, and then a special election must be held within 90 days of Hein's departure.

The job will be on the ballot again in November because 2019 is a county executive election year. The winner of that race will serve a four-year term.
Ethos is a nationally recognized, award-winning independent student publication. Our mission is to elevate the voices of marginalized people who are underrepresented in the media landscape, and to write in-depth, human-focused stories about the issues affecting them. We also strive to support our diverse student staff and to help them find future success.



Ethos produces a quarterly free print magazine full of well-reported and powerful feature stories, innovative photography, creative illustrations and eye-catching design. On our website, we also produce compelling written and multimedia stories.



Ethos is part of Emerald Media Group, a non-profit organization thats fully independent of the University of Oregon. Students maintain complete editorial control over Ethos, and work tirelessly to produce the magazine.



Since our inception as Korean Ducks Magazine in 2005, weve worked hard to share a multicultural spirit with our readership. We embrace diversity in our stories, in our student staff and in our readers. We want every part of the magazine to reflect the diversity of our world.
Staff reports

The Daily American

Car strikes tree

Mary Ann Fritz, 45, Rockwood, sustained possible minor injuries when the vehicle she was driving on Water Level Road south of Gebhart Road in Milford Township on Jan. 23 traveled off a curve and struck a tree, according to state police. She was transported by ambulance to Somerset Hospital.

Registration plate stolen

State police are investigating the theft of a dealer registration plate from a vehicle parked along Alwine Road in Jenner Township Monday afternoon or evening. The Pennsylvania plate is K49290K.

Anyone with information is asked to contact state police at 814-445-4104 and refer to incident number PA19-117423.

Vehicle overturns

Bradley Trent, 24, Berlin, was not injured when he lost control of his truck while driving on snow- and slush-covered Stutzmantown Road near Weigle Road in Stonycreek Township Jan. 19, according to state police. Trents truck struck a ditch and flipped onto its passenger side, police said. The Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department assisted at the scene.

Two-vehicle collision

A 17-year-old Somerset male was driving west on Route 31 with two passengers, ages 12 and 14, when state police attempted to stop him for a traffic violation on Jan. 19.

Shannon Hause, 47, Friedens, saw the emergency lights and attempted to pull to the right side the roadway. The 17-year-old failed to stop behind Hauses vehicle. The youths vehicle struck a guardrail and the rear of Hauses vehicle, according to state police.

The youths were not injured. Hause may have sustained an injury, police said.

Minor injuries reported

Weijian Zeng, 20, Johnstown, was not injured when his vehicle struck a snowdrift on New Centerville Road east of Vought Road in Milford Township on Jan. 20, causing the vehicle to spin into the oncoming lane, where it struck a vehicle driven by Randy Barkley, 57, according to state police. Jonathan Oswald, 33, White Oak, and a 2-year-old boy, West Newton, were passengers in the second vehicle.

Zeng was not injured. The three others were transported by ambulance to Somerset Hospital for possible injuries, police said.

Both vehicles sustained disabling damage from the crash.
JUDY D.J. ELLICH

judye@dailyamerican.com

A 23-year-old Johnstown man who has committed at least a dozen retail theft crimes, mostly at Walmart, since 2016 is now an inmate in the state prison system.

Somerset County President Judge D. Gregory Geary sentenced Benjamin Schmidtetter Monday to 16 to 36 months in prison for retail theft, a third-degree felony. He was given credit for seven days of time served.

The charge is a felony because of Schmidtetters habit of taking merchandise from a store, namely electronics, and not paying for it.

The prison sentence is followed by four years of supervised probation.

The judge noted that Schmidtetter was serving probationary sentences in other counties for retail theft when he stole from the Walmart in Somerset Township on July 25, July 30 and Aug. 2. Police said he took merchandise worth nearly $6,000. He was charged with the crimes Aug. 12.

According to court documents, he was sentenced for a felony retail theft on May 21 in Allegheny County to 18 months probation; in Blair County on April 7, 2017, to five years probation; in Cambria County on Jan. 8 to nine to 23 months in the Cambria County Prison; and in Somerset County on Oct. 5, 2017, to 16 days to 23 months in jail followed by three years probation. He is facing another case in Cambria County involving retail theft.

Schmidtetter meets the criteria for placement in Pennsylvanias Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive program, which gives nonviolent offenders an opportunity to get out of prison early if they comply with a host of requirements and behave while behind bars. The program is designed to reduce an offenders risk of reoffending, according to Geary, who told Schmidtetter that his alternative minimum date for release is 12 months.

Geary ordered Schmidtetter to pay the costs of prosecution and supervision. He must submit to DNA testing and pay the $250 DNA detection fee. He also must pay $5,922.94 in restitution to Walmart.
LOVINA EICHER

The Daily American

Twenty-three years ago today, Jan. 24, we were blessed with our second daughter, Susan. Susan is now a wife and mother. Time goes too fast for me! Happy 23rd birthday, Susan!

Today is also my sister Lizs 50th birthday. Liz is a little over two years older than I am. I am not looking forward to seeing that big 50 when I get there. But why complain if we have good health? Happy 50th, Liz!

Lovina, 14, and Kevin, 13, are on their way to school after having the day off yesterday. We had freezing rain and ice everywhere. There were so many accidents. I wish all the best to anyone who had an accident or fall during those few days.

Last weekend we received almost eight inches of snow so the children had some fun sledding. Kevin wasnt too happy that he had to watch from inside the house. Hes not allowed to get his cast wet, so there was no going out in the snow for him.

Sons-in-law Tim and Mose, Dustin (Lorettas special friend), husband Joe and sons Benjamin and Joseph dressed the big beef on Saturday that we gave to Tims and Moses for their Christmas. It is hanging out in the cold pole barn.

Tomorrow plans are for Tim, Elizabeth and children, Mose, Susan and Jennifer to come here and cut up the beef. The girls are bringing their pressure cookers and canning jars, freezer bags, and other supplies.

We will process and package all their meat in the heated part of our pole barn. It will be nice for them to have the mess all out there.

Joe, Tim, Mose and son Benjamin are all off work tomorrow. Dustin isnt working either so Im not sure if he will come to help. In any case, we will have plenty help.

Baby Timothy will be six weeks old on Monday. He is nine pounds now and 21 inches already  two pounds heavier and two inches longer than when he was born. Abigail is starting to love her little brother Timmy. She loves to help Elizabeth take care of him.

On Friday evening our family all gathered at daughter Susan and Moses house in honor of Jennifers first birthday. Pizza casserole, cottage cheese, sliced cheese, grilled deer steaks and pork chops, pudding, brownies and cupcakes were on the menu.

Jennifer enjoyed her first chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting as we sang Happy Birthday to her. She loved getting to eat a whole one but mostly licked the frosting. Needless to say, she needed a bath afterward! When we arrived at Mose and Susans, there wasnt any snow on the ground. By the time we left, there were quite a few inches and it was snowing hard all the way home. The wind made for some pretty huge drifts.

On Saturday while some worked on the beef, some cleaned out our driveway and sidewalks. Elizabeth and baby Timothy didnt come along on Saturday. Abigail was excited she could still come with Daddy.

She was all bundled up when Tim brought her in through the snow. Of course the girls and I had fun having her here. Daughter Susan and Jennifer came with Mose and spent the day here also.

This morning I will go to the hospital to have some tests done. Im hoping that wont take too long so we can do our laundry when I get home. Tomorrow we will be busy working on the beef.

Kevin seems to be doing okay with his casted leg and foot. Being stuck in his wheelchair does irritate him. Hes had a few tumbles out of the wheelchair from leaning too far forward trying to reach for something. He doesnt like to ask us to get something for him; he wants to fend for himself. Thats a good thing, I guess. He has four more weeks until his appointment at the hospital in Ann Arbor. We are hoping they will remove the cast and put on an air cast.

I must get busy. My work doesnt do itself, so I had better get with it. Stay safe and healthy! A reader requested the following recipe. Gods blessings to all!

Shoestring Apple Pie

2 cups shredded apples

1 (9-inch) pie crust, unbaked

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 heaping tablespoons flour

2 eggs, well beaten

23 tablespoons butter, melted

Cinnamon

Place shredded apples in unbaked pie shell. Mix sugar, water, flour and eggs. Pour over apples. Drizzle with melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes. Turn down to 325 F and bake just until set. Best if you let it set or refrigerate for at least 6 hours before eating.

(Lovinas Amish Kitchen is written by Lovina Eicher, Old Order Amish writer.)

, cook, wife and mother of eight. Her newest cookbook, The Essential Amish Cookbook, is available from the publisher, Herald Press, 800-245-7894. Readers can write to Eicher at P.O. Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply){&semispace}or email LovinasAmishKitchen@MennoMedia.org and your message will be passed on to her to read. She does not personally respond to emails.)
Kankakee, IL (60901)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. High 87F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening followed by occasional showers overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 62F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
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GBP/ZAR Exchange Rate Rangebound as May to Return to Brussels after Brexit Vote

South African Rand Euro (ZAR/EUR) Exchange Rate Flat as Chinese Economy Entering Slowdown

GBP/ZAR Forecast: Poor South African PPI Figures could see Sterling Rise

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The Pound South African Rand (GBP/ZAR) is rangebound today and is currently trading at RA17.7970 on the inter-bank market.Sterling (GBP) steadied against the South African Rand (ZAR) today after last nights parliamentary vote on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit withdrawal agreement, which saw the Brady amendment passed by a majority in the House of Commons, effectively breaking the Brexit deadlock.Pound traders are, however, remaining cautious as the EU has previously ruled out renegotiations particularly on the issue of the Irish backstop.Theresa May now has to return to Brussels to secure the new deal between the UK and the EU.Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, commented:'We are ready to talk about the future but now is the time to agree on the conditions of the separation.'The withdrawal agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.'Today saw the publication of the UK mortgage approvals figures for December which decreased against last month to 63.793K, although this exceeded expectations.ZAR sentiment was also hit today after the publication of the South African Reserve Banks private sector credit growth figures for December, which decreased to 5.10%.The South African Rand has failed to gain on the Euro today, even though the US has begun trade talks with China, despite ongoing tensions between the two nations over recent statements regarding the prosecution of Chinese tech giant Huaweis Chief Financial Officer.Jacob Kierkegaard, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics commented:Its clear that the tariffs are beginning to hit home in China and thats having significant ripple effects Chinas been the global growth locomotive or many years If theyre entering a slowdown, thats a really big deal.ZAR has continued to suffer from risk-aversion with China being one of South Africas biggest trading partners.GBP investors will be looking ahead to see how Theresa May handles her renegotiations with the EU in the coming weeks.Any signs that the EU will reject Mays deal is likely to see the Pound fall against the South African Rand.Tomorrow, meanwhile, will see the publication of UK Gfk consumer confidence figures for January which are expected to decrease.ZAR traders will also be awaiting the publication of South Africas PPI figures for December tomorrow which are expected to fall, potentially seeing the GBP/ZAR exchange rate benefit.

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Funeral services for Joe Delano Ozbolt, 88, of Eva, will be at 12 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at Hamby's Chapel United Methodist Church with Bill Stone and Charley Brown officiating; burial at Hamby's Chapel Cemetery. Visitation will be from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. prior to service. Cullman Heri
In this August 1, 2018 photo, Fairview High School Principal Chris Gambrill speaks with incoming freshman Morgan Lindsay during the schools Freshmen Bootcamp. Fairview High saw the biggest improvement for area schools on the state report card. After having the lowest score in the county last year, with a 68, the county school improved by 20 points this year to 88.
MADISON  When resident William Richmond visited Hammonasset Beach State Park recently, he found much more than the trash he was there to pick up.

And while what he found was a young seal as cute as can be, and Richmond decided to share photos of the little pinniped, he also wanted to offer advice for beachgoers: remember that wildlife shares the beach and dont leave trash there. (he picked up his share of trash during the visit as shown in one of the photos he shared.)

More than a million people visit the park each year, (its the states largest shoreline park) according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and there are plenty of trash receptacles available.

Seals are regulars at Hammonasset and folks have been known to flock there with binoculars to catch a glimpse of them on rocks just offshore. There also are regular commercial seal-watching cruises that take the intrepid out onto Long Island Sound, starting in March.

Mystic Aquariums Animal Rescue Program received a call to its hotline alerting the team to the seal and a member of the programs first responder volunteer force (trained volunteers who respond to reports to assess animal health and well-being) determined this seal was healthy and simply hauled out - a normal occurrence for seals as they tend to sun themselves or rest on beaches and land, Stevi Bramich, public relations coordinator for Mystic Aquarium said in an email. Members of the Animal Rescue Team believe this healthy seal made its way back to the water on its own.

The Mystic Aquariums Animal Rescue Program, just down the coast, also is known for its care of seals that become lost, injured or stranded. Just recently, aquarium experts released Laysan, a young harbor seal in Rhode Island that was the last of rehabilitated seals rescued during the programs 2018 season, according to a release.

Laysan was rescued in Falmouth, Maine, by the Marine Mammals of Maine and was transferred to the Aquariums Animal Rescue Clinic at the start of May, the release said. Laysan was considered to have been abandoned shortly after birth and was also believed to be premature, arriving at the Aquarium as an approximately one week old pup.

If you decide to visit Hammonasset to view wildlife, or simply go for a walk in a natural setting, make sure to give animals room and dispose of trash.
NORWALK  With temperatures set to plummet, police, senior advocates and health care officials are providing tips to keep people and pets safe this week.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in the area will drop to a low of 4 degrees overnight Wednesday into Thursday, with wind chill values between 5 below and 15 below. Thurday should have a high of just 15, and a low overnight of 7 degrees. Friday could have a high of 21, and an overnight low of 14 degrees.

Its all because of a huge arctic air mass that has surged southward into the U.S. It is expected to affect two-thirds of the nation.

Theresa Argondezzi, health educator at the Norwalk Health Department, said that as temperatures drop, people should make sure their home heating system is working properly. Those who use a portable generator should keep it far from the home to prevent carbon monoxide from entering, she said. The health department also advises people to avoid caffeinated beverages because they cause the body to lose heat quickly.

The Norwalk Police Department recommends that people limit their time outside, wear layers of warm clothing and cover exposed skin.

Remember that cold weather can be very dangerous, even deadly in certain situations, said Norwalk police spokesman Lt. Terry Blake.

He advised bringing pets inside and calling 911 if a person appears to be sleeping or staying outside in the cold.

If you are able, check in on your neighbors, especially older adults who are more at risk in extreme cold, he said.

According to the National Institute on Aging, older adults can lose body heat faster than when they were young. Changes in the body that come with aging can make it harder for elders to be aware of the cold.

Being outside in the cold or being in a very cold house can lead to hypothermia so we recommend that folks stay away from cold places and they pay attention to how cold it is where they are, said Beatrix Winter, executive director at Norwalk Senior Center. Theres a couple steps people can take to avoid getting hypothermia and staying warm.

Set the heat to at least 68 to 70 degrees, she said. Seniors with lower incomes may turn the heat down to save on energy costs but Winter said health is more important.

Its important when they go to sleep they wear long underwear under pajamas, use extra covers and even wear a cap or a hat.

She recommended eating enough food to maintain a healthy weight and body fat. Skip the alcohol because alcohol can make you lose body heat, she added. During power outages, elders should stay with a relative or a friend.

Those looking for information on heating centers should call 211 or their local senior center, said Marie Allen executive director of the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging. Contact information for senior centers is listed on the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging website.

Public spaces such as libraries and retail stores can provide a safe haven for those trying to escape the cold. Like in any other emergency, call 911 immediately if affected by the cold.

Pet owners should check their dogs paws frequently for signs of cold weather damage such as cracked paw pads or bleeding. If the pet is shivering, anxious, slow moving or starts looking for warm places to burrow, the American Veterinary Medical Foundation recommends getting them back inside quickly, because they are showing signs of hypothermia.

tatiana.flowers@thehour.com
Kitchens are hazardous spaces. Beyond the sharp knives and cramped environs, commercial and home kitchens alike are rife with scalding substances and dangerously hot surfaces. So its no surprise that burns are one of the most frequent injuries in the restaurant world.

Cannabis is gaining a reputation as an efficacious remedy for burns and scald injuries, which is why I tell all of my chef friends that every kitchen first-aid kit should contain a cannabis topical. As a veteran of legal marijuana and founder of a leading Colorado cannabis brand, I might be biased, but my restaurant and home chef friends tell me about the soothing relief and accelerated healing of burns they experience with marijuana topicals -- a.k.a. non-intoxicating infused lotions, balms or salves applied directly to the skin.

Researchers have found cannabis has many healing properties that relate to burns suffered in the kitchen, along with numerous anecdotal reports of cannabis topicals helping with sunburns, chemical burns and radiation burns from cancer treatments. But first, some important caveats and cautions:

For major burns, always consult with a medical professional, and especially in the case of a third-degree burn, call 911 or head to the nearest urgent-care center or ER. Whats the difference between a minor burn and a major burn, you ask? According to Urgent Medical Center of Florida, first- and second-degree burns are considered minor if the skin is unbroken and the affected area is smaller than three inches. Its advised to seek medical treatment for any burns to the face, hands, buttocks, groin or feet, and any that affect major joints.

Cleanliness and cooling are key for a burn. Experts at the University of Arkansas Dermatology Clinic caution strongly against ever putting butter or other greasy ointments on a fresh burn. Cooling helps stop the damage, and substances like butter and oils slow the release of heat from the skin. So definitely dont reach for your homemade cannabutter. Also, do not apply icethe best way to release heat from the skin is with cool water. Rinse until the pain is reduced. If needed, cover the burned area with a nonstick, sterile bandage.

Once youve cooled the skin, that's the time to tap into cannabis topicals. The chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant, called cannabinoids, hold many skin-soothing and healing properties.

Related: Concentrates, Edibles, or Topicals: Which Business is Best for You?

How cannabis helps a burn.

Even minor burns can hurt like hell for quite a while as nerves in damaged skin transmit pain signals and inflammation creates added sensitivity. Extensive scientific research has shown cannabinoids are analgesic, meaning they stop you from feeling pain. In a sweeping review of 10,000 cannabis studies conducted since 1999, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine reported there is conclusive evidence that cannabis provides pain relief - and thats a game-changer for those experiencing any kind of pain. In addition, cannabinoids have been shown to suppress your bodys inflammatory response, according to a research review in Future Medicinal Chemistry.

Infection is a major risk when it comes to burns, and a growing body of research shows cannabinoids have antibiotic properties. Researchers from Italy and the United Kingdom teamed up for a 2008 study on how cannabinoids interact with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a potentially deadly staph infection. The study found that five different cannabinoids were all effective in killing six different strains of MRSA. While we need more research into cannabinoids antibiotic potential, the researchers were enthusiastic about their findings: The most practical application of cannabinoids would be as topical agents to treat ulcers and wounds in a hospital environment, decreasing the burden of antibiotics, said Giovanni Appendino, a professor and co-author of the study.

Related: Here's the Medical Cannabis Super Bowl Ad CBS Refused to Run

Cannabis topicals provide targeted relief.

While consuming cannabis in other forms such as smoking, vaporizing or eating an edible can also decrease pain and inflammation, topicals have several significant advantages when it comes to burns.

Cannabis topicals allow for direct targeting of the afflicted area, as opposed to waiting for cannabinoids to enter the bloodstream and reach the receptors at the site of the injury. Also, cannabis topicals do not get you high and wont cause you to fail a drug test, so kitchen workers can use them for relief without ending up stoned at work.

While theres always room for more study, current research findings point toward cannabis topicals as a safe, non-intoxicating form of relief for minor burns -- making it a natural inclusion for your kitchens first-aid kit.

Related:

Hot Stuff! Why Cannabis Topicals Belong In Every Kitchen First Aid Kit

This Week in Weed: There's No Cannabis in Football!

Here's the Medical Cannabis Super Bowl Ad CBS Refused to Run



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OXFORD  The Connecticut State Police resident troopers office in Oxford is looking to identify a male and female accused of stealing more than $1,000 worth of items from a town store.

The two were caught on surveillance footage on three separate occasions, stealing baby formula and disposable razors from the Market 32 grocery store in Oxford, state police said. The unpaid items were valued at an estimated $1,103.18, state police said.
HARTFORD  The phones to Gov. Ned Lamonts office were ringing off the hook Wednesday with calls from constituents upset over the idea of adding a sales tax to groceries, which are now exempt.

Lamont has until Feb. 20 to present a two-year budget to the General Assembly, but his administration floated a trial balloon earlier this week.

Connecticut residents care about their state, and their willingness to share thoughts about this and other important issues is critical to getting us back on track and growing again, said Maribel La Luz, Lamonts communications director.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said hes not willing to take any ideas off the table this early in the legislative process.

We should hear them all. We should have the public hearing, Aresimowicz said.

He said he could easily find fault with a grocery tax. At the same time he also sees the fairness issue.

How is it fair that I drive down to McDonalds and pay the sales tax there, but I pick up the same hamburger and I cook it at home from Stop & Shop and I dont pay sales tax, Aresimowicz said.

House Majority Leader Matt Ritter said Lamont hasnt even prepared a budget yet.

Ritter said he doesnt understand why everyone is getting so fired up.

Maybe I should do a press conference every time I see a bill that I dont like, Ritter said.

Aresimowicz said 5,000 bills likely will be introduced and only half will get a public hearing.

If the governors not turning over every stone, then hes not doing his job, Ritter said.

The same philosophy applies to the concept of regionalizing school districts.

Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, proposed a bill that would force school districts in towns with less than 40,000 residents to consolidate with a neighboring district.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff and Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, have submitted a bill that would require any school district with a student population of fewer than 2,000 students to join a new or an existing regional school district so that the total student population of such new or expanded regional school district is greater than 2,000 students.

Ritter said if people have issues with legislation, they should be contact the lawmakers who proposed it.

Ritter said he doesnt know why hes getting calls about regionalization of schools.

Why are you emailing me? Ritter said.

Osten is the first selectman of Sprague and the one to propose the bill calling for smaller school districts to join existing regional school systems.

Neither bill has been raised yet by the Education Committee for a public hearing.

However, Aresimowicz said the time for the carrot may have passed and now its time for the stick.

If you dont want to regionalize and you dont want to do it in the most efficient way, then you pay for it, Aresimowicz said.

Aresimowicz said he voted for tax increases in the past, a majority of which were to keep the municipalities whole.

An estimated $5 billion of the $20 billion state budget is given to municipalities.
BRIDGEPORT  Police Capt. Roderick Porter, until recently Bridgeports highest ranking black officer and a recent finalist for chief, has filed a complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities over a colleagues racist rants.

More specifically, Porter has challenged the citys handling last year of comments by white Capt. Mark Straubel, a close aide of Police Chief Armando Perez, aimed at black officers in general and Porter in particular. Straubel retired Aug. 13 amid the controversy.

Porters attorney, Thomas Bucci, told Hearst Connecticut Media, His claim is he was the victim of these racist remarks, and the city did not thoroughly investigate those issues under the federal Civil Rights Act.

Instead, Bucci said, The city took the easy way out and said, He (Straubel) retired. Were terminating our investigation.

Perez placed Straubel, a member of Bridgeports Finest for more than 20 years, on paid administrative leave last July after another officer filed a complaint in June with the citys Office of Internal Affairs. That officer, Ken Kubel, a retired Bridgeport police sergeant, intercepted Straubels Facebook messages to a white woman who also worked for Perez and turned them over to internal affairs.

In one of the Facebook messages obtained by Hearst, Straubel allegedly wrote that he had asked an officer of color if he had seen (the film) Planet of the Apes. He saidyes. I asked him if it made him homesick.

In another message, Straubel stated that African-Americans are a cancer and he hopes for a race war.

In still another message, Straubel allegedly complained about having to march in an unnamed parade that he claimed involved mostly black people, and used a racist term to describe the event.

No question he was directing many of those remarks against Capt. Porter, Bucci said. Any employers obligated under the Civil Rights Act to promptly and thoroughly investigate those comments and remarks.

Bucci said he has seen a copy of the internal affairs report on Straubel and believes the case was stopped short when Straubel left the job last August.

Hearst for months has been seeking the report from the city under the state Freedom of Information Act. An initial request was filed on Sept. 12 and denied on the grounds that the Straubel controversy was at the time under review by Bridgeport States Attorney John Smriga at the request of NAACP leaders.

The NAACP wanted Straubel prosecuted for hate crimes. Smriga in late October concluded, The content of the statements and the manner in which these were communicated clearly provided a basis to fire Straubel immediately. But despite their reprehensible nature, these statements do not constitute a violation of any Connecticut criminal statute.

Following Smrigas decision, Hearst filed a new FOIA request for the Straubel report on Oct. 29. That is still pending.

Surfaced during search

The Straubel controversy erupted during a national search for a Bridgeport police chief, launched by Perezs good friend Mayor Joe Ganim, who promoted Perez from captain to acting chief in March 2016.

In late October, Ganims office revealed three finalists for top cop: Perez, New Haven Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova and Porter. Ganim announced his choice of Perez in early November and the City Council approved the chiefs five-year contract in December.

Bucci, asked if Porter is alleging that the Straubel case in some way affected his bid for the chiefs position, said, Not at this point.

Porter appears willing to move on from Bridgeport, where he currently oversees the police departments community services unit and the school resource officers. He was a finalist in a chief search in Albany, N.Y., last year.

But Porter said leaving the Bridgeport Police Department was not a certainty.

People who stop aspiring, dreaming or attempting to achieve goals become less effective and valuable to an organization. So Im always aspiring, dreaming and trying to achieve those goals, Porter told Hearst this week.

He declined to comment on his CHRO complaint.

Perez in a recent interview acknowledged rumors that Porter was looking at positions outside of the city. He said Porter is likely looking to apply somewhere he could be a chief or assistant chief.

Hes an extremely, extremely bright man, Perez said. For me, if he left, it would be a great loss of not only a friend, but a great officer.

Perez, however, suddenly reassigned Porter last March from his job running the detective bureau. The move came soon after one of the men Porter supervised  Detective Bureau Lt. Stephen Shuck  was arrested in mid-Feb. 2018 for allegedly abusing the payroll and overtime system. Perez at the time insisted it was just coincidence.

Were Porter to leave, the department would be back to having just one black captain. Sgt. Lonnie Blackwell is being made captain as part of a pending legal settlement resulting from his suing the city in federal court for discrimination.
DERBY  More than a century of Italian family history will be on display Monday night during an episode of American Pickers filmed last summer in a former downtown market.

The show follows pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz as they scour properties across the country to find valuable antiques in places like junkyards, garages, barns and basements  then haggle with the owners over a fair purchase price.

Stratford resident Matt Catalano said the pair struck paydirt in their hunt at a former Italian grocery store once run by his great-great uncle, Antonio Voccia, in a converted barn on Derbys Hawkins Street dating back to the late 1800s.

The neighborhood was once a vibrant Italian enclave in downtown Derby, with some vestiges still intact, like Altimaris Little Italy nearby on Elizabeth Street.

Catalano said someone forwarded him an ad the show put in the Connecticut Post saying they would be filming in the area. He replied with a note saying he was a fan and that the former store still contained a treasure trove of potential finds.

The store closed in 1954, but Catalanos great aunts lived in a space above the former store until last year, when his last surviving aunt died.

They never touched anything, so basically everything in the house goes back to the 1880s, just about, Catalano said. It was a very unique space. Basically the store became their basement.

I said This is a honey hole. The store is literally as it was the day it closed, Catalano said. On the counter there was a New York Post from Oct. 22, 1954 just sitting there, pristine. The place was a buried time capsule.

The pickers showed up one day in late June  and filmed for 16 hours, Catalano said.

While he cant yet talk specifically about the bargains he struck with Wolfe and Fritz, he said the two pickers were blown away by a lot of the stuff.

They could have bought more, in my opinion, Catalano joked. At one point, they accused me of being too agreeable. I said Look around, Im not keeping this stuff for another 100 years. 

We had a great time. They were great guys, the crew was great and we had a lot of fun, he said.

Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan said he stopped by the shoot to introduce himself and thank the pickers for showcasing a part of the citys history.

The city helped the production crew with logistics, he said.

They called up and we coordinated to get a place for them to park their vehicles, Dziekan said. They wanted to keep it low-key.

Catalano said the filming process was pretty straightforward.

What you see (on the show) is what it is, Catalano said. By and large they just run tape and its happening. It was a 16-hour day and they took a ton of film. Im just dying to see how it got cut into a half-hour.

The episode, titled A Pickers Dozen, is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. on the History Channel.

ethan.fry@hearstmediact.com
The P&O Oriana will become the Piano Land this fall and debut in her new China Travel Services and COSCO role from the port of Xiamen, Cruise Industry News can reveal.

China Travel Group and COSCO have come together to form Well Star Travel Cruise, a joint venture that will operate and market the 1995-built ship.

P&O UK announced last June that the vessel would be leaving its fleet in August 2019, not naming a buyer. It was later revealed the 1,822-guest ship was heading for a new life in China.

The ship will conclude its P&O program with an 18-day sailing roundtrip from Southampton to Norway and Svalbard; ending on August 9. A first cruise from Xiamen could happen as soon as mid-October.

The transfer of the Oriana to a new Chinese brand marks the second phase of home-grown brands in China. Following the demise of SkySea, only two local one-ship brands remain in Bohai Ferry and Diamond Cruise, which each operate a single 838-guest vessel.

The Piano Land will thus be the largest local vessel in the market.

Later this year, China State Shipbuilding Corporation will take delivery of the Costa Atlantica for its joint venture domestic brand aligned with Carnival Corporation.
MSC Cruises has named Ken Muskat as Executive Vice President Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. market in a newly-created role, as Muskat returns to the company after a brief hiatus running SkySea Cruise Line out of Shanghai.

Gianni Onorato, CEO of MSC Cruises, commented: We welcome Ken back to the MSC Cruises family. With his joining in this newly-created role, which will bring directly under him all key trade and consumer-facing functions in the U.S. market, we are looking to take our commitment especially to our travel agent partners to the next level.

In this role, Muskat will report to Roberto Fusaro, president, North America, and will manage directly all travel trade-facing functions as well as hotel operations, contact center, revenue management, marketing and communications, the company said.

Onorato added: This has specifically been designed to ensure that all key levers of our U.S. product are in the hands of the manager responsible for delivering against the MSC Cruises brand promise and experience within the context of the U.S. marketplace.

The addition of Muskats role will now allow for the Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve project and its go-forward ongoing management as well as the recently-announced development of a new, dedicated MSC Cruises terminal at PortMiami to move directly under the management of the local team.

Onorato continued: North America is quickly becoming our most important source market, thanks to the investments made in new hardware as well as infrastructure to meet growth in demand for our product by guests from across the U.S. and the overall region. This started with the deployment to PortMiami of the award-winning MSC Seaside, which was specifically designed with Miami and the Caribbean in mind and will be followed by other highly-innovative MSC Cruises vessels.

Wanting to ensure that especially the Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve gets the necessary attention from our local team to guarantee it meets and exceeds the expectations of North American consumers and travel agent partners made this the next natural step. We have also included the development of our new groundbreaking terminal at PortMiami, recognizing the importance of this key element of the guest experience.

Roberto Fusaro and Ken Muskat together with Rick Sasso, Chairman North America, will be based out of MSC Cruises USA headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Independentreview

Volunteers bring missing dogs home

cbonelli / Courtesy image One of The Retrievers' fliers indicates a missing female Blue Heeler in Litchfield. The Retrievers share her information via social media to spread awareness and get information from residents who see her about the missing dog's location if sited.

They say dog is mans best friend. But sometimes man is dogs best friend.

As much could be said about The Retrievers, a growing team of Minnesota volunteers who started in the metro with the mission of helping dog owners bring home runaway canine companions. They are aiding in the search for missing dogs in Hutchinson and Litchfield with volunteer search hours, signs and Facebook posts with the dogs name, picture and a number to call if the dog is seen. The Retrievers advise those who see the missing animals not to yell or chase after them.

All of the founders were volunteering for Retrieve a Golden Midwest, said Devon Treadwell, a co-founder of The Retrievers.

The mission of Retrieve a Golden Midwest is to re-home golden retrievers and golden mixes in need. Sometimes the team would be called in for missing dogs.

I noticed every time a dog went missing, we were scrambling and re-inventing the wheel each time, Treadwell said. So I suggested we make a team for when that happens. We gathered people together, and we had a SWAT team for lost dogs with the rescue.

The team developed live traps and methods to gain the trust of runaway dogs that started to become successful.

Treadwell said the group realized that when others outside Retrieve a Golden began to ask for help, finding lost dogs was a mission onto is own.

The Retrievers was founded as a nonprofit in 2014. The groups mission has spread primarily through word of mouth and on social media platforms such as Facebook.

People hear about a lost dog and they tag The Retrievers, Treadwell said. Almost all of our cases come that way.

The Retrievers reach depends on the proximity of trained team members. Typically the reach is an hour away from the closest volunteer.

We have a real strong presence in the Twin Cities, Treadwell said. We are always trying to recruit more in the outstate area.

The Retrievers case managers offer training and mentoring to teams looking for a missing dog and provides support and guidance to families wondering what to do.

They can show how to make the most effective signs and flyers, Treadwell said.

Intersection signs have turned out to be key in the search for lost dogs. The Retrievers also have ground support coordinators, who can be more hands-on if they are in the area.

We are here to support rather than take over, Treadwell said. We need family and friends to pitch in.

In Litchfield, volunteers are searching for a 48-pound female blue heeler with black--and-white fur. The 1 1/2-year-old may be hiding under porches and decks or around sheds and window wells. A flier provided by The Retrievers asks area residents to search around their property and call 320-290-1094 if they find anything. Do not yell, approach or chase the dog.

Searches involve coordinating with communities, neighborhoods and landowners to get permission to search on property and setup equipment. By following up on leads and sightings, tracking, setting out food and installing cameras, The Retrievers narrow down where a dog may be hiding or roaming. Video and photo evidence and eaten food help to bring the dog home.

The Retrievers prefer the dog to come voluntarily. When there is a sighting, if the owner is nearby, they ask the owner to come and sit quietly, to not act loudly or quickly and not call out. The plan is to see if the dog will simply come on its own. If the dog is too skittish, The Retrievers use traps baited with food to assist in getting the dog home.

The traps are large cages that can be folded out to the right size. They have a magnetic door that closes when a sensor is activated. The traps are left out to make the dog more comfortable but not engaged unless there is a team member or volunteer is ready.

We caught a dog [Jan. 28], Treadwell said. The dog was taking shelter under someones porch. We warmed the trap until the homeowner went to bed then re-armed in the morning. Then the dog came by and was captured. Many pet owners who love their dogs may hope their companion, once found, will come right back but that is not always the case.

In many cases, the dog hasnt bonded with the owner yet, theyre new dogs, Treadwell said. Some cases the dog is aloof or skittish by nature. Out on their own ... they go into survival mode. Thats when a human being would be considered a threat. Dogs are predators, and they understand the language or predators.

Treadwell said that the dogs are not necessarily dangerous, but when someone is staring at them and approaching them, dogs read it as a predator move.

Thats why they run, Treadwell said.

Many times, when the owner arrives, sits down and relaxes and turns away, the dog has a chance to relax and catch their scent.

We call it a lightbulb moment, Treadwell said. You let the dog come to you.

Last year, The Retrievers had more than 600 cases with a success rate between 75-80 percent. With a search driven by data, most dogs are found within a few days to a week.
Litchfield Township, MN (55355)

Today

Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. High 71F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 49F. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph.
The Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank, recently made a stop in Hutchinson to discuss critical race theory and education. Critical race theory is an academic movement that examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism. How do you feel about critical race theory being taught in schools? Tell us in this week's online reader poll.

You voted:
I will be as the dew unto Israel (Hosea 14:5).

The dew is a source of freshness. It is nature's provision for renewing the face of the earth. It falls at night, and without it the vegetation would die. It is this great value of the dew which is so often recognized in the Scriptures. It is used as the symbol of spiritual refreshing. Just as nature is bathed in dew, so the Lord renews His people. In Titus 3:5 the same thought of spiritual refreshing is connected with the ministry of the Holy Ghost--"renewing of the Holy Ghost."

Many Christian workers do not recognize the importance of the heavenly dew in their lives, and as a result they lack freshness and vigor. Their spirits are drooping for lack of dew.

Beloved fellow-worker, you recognize the folly of a laboring man attempting to do his day's work without eating. Do you recognize the folly of a servant of God attempting to minister without eating of the heavenly manna? Nor will it suffice to have spiritual nourishment occasionally. Every day you must receive the renewing of the Holy Ghost. You know when your whole being is pulsating with the vigor and freshness of Divine life and when you feel jaded and worn. Quietness and absorption bring the dew. At night when the leaf and blade are still, the vegetable pores are open to receive the refreshing and invigorating bath; so spiritual dew comes from quiet lingering in the Master's presence. Get still before Him. Haste will prevent your receiving the dew. Wait before God until you feel saturated with His presence; then go forth to your next duty with the conscious freshness and vigor of Christ.

--Dr. Pardington

Dew will never gather while there is either heat or wind. The temperature must fall, and the wind cease, and the air come to a point of coolness and rest--absolute rest, so to speak--before it can yield up its invisible particles of moisture to bedew either herb or flower. So the grace of God does not come forth to rest the soul of man until the still point is fairly and fully reached.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease:

Take from our souls the strain and stress;

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the pulses of desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, its beats expire:

Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,

O still small voice of calm!





Purchase your own copy of this devotional.

Or, catch up on Streams in the Desert in our Archives.


Some people only walk this earth for a short time. Their departure reminds us that angels are watching over us. Last week, Aggie Reed rejoined her heavenly family and gained her wings. Agnes Lee "Aggie" Wilson-Reed passed away unexpectedly in Cookeville on June 11, 2021, at the age of 83. Ag
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Editors Note: The companion pass offer on the Southwest cards mentioned below has expired.

If you live in a cold climate like I do, getting through the winter is rough going.

But it helps if you can break up the winter with a long weekend in a warmer climate or even make plans for a spring vacation that you can dream about during those dreary days.

Right now, Southwest Airlines has the best offer Ive ever seen to get their coveted Southwest Companion Pass. The Southwest Companion Pass, unlike other airline companion passes, is not a one-time use. Rather, you can bring someone to fly free with you (aside from mandatory government security fees, which in the U.S. are $5.60 per way) for the life of the pass.

Through Feb. 11, 2019 you earn a pass good through the end of 2019 by signing up for any of their three personal credit cards, which include the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card, the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card and the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card, and meeting a $4,000 minimum spend within three months. Theyre also throwing in 30,000 Southwest points that you can use to book flights after meeting the minimum spend.

With that in mind, here are five amazing warm weather destinations that you can escape to this winter or spring and take your companion with you on Southwest Airlines for free.

See related: Winter destinations: 4 exotic islands you can visit on points

Grand Cayman

Last year, my family flew to Grand Cayman for spring break for approximately $260 per person, using our Companion Pass. We loved it!

We had 80-degree days all week, enjoyed the ability to just walk to the water nearly anywhere on the island to snorkel, swam with stingrays and couldnt get enough sunny days on the beach with a tropical drink. Grand Cayman also has a fantastic dining scene with many great affordable restaurants that are also kid-friendly.

You can usually find extremely cheap flights to Grand Cayman from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, often as low as $59 per way. Keep in mind, however, that mandatory security fees returning to the U.S. are higher and average around $80 per person from the Caribbean.

Cuba

Hop a Southwest flight to Cuba and bring your favorite companion along to explore this beautiful island before the rest of the world heads there and it becomes overrun with tourism.

One of my GoToTravelGal.com readers, Stephanie Antin of San Diego  who writes the Almost Free Family Travel blog  and her husband visited Cuba via Southwest recently and recommend renting an Airbnb for cheap. She said for a few extra dollars the host will often cook you a full breakfast.

There are many cultural things to experience in Cuba, from exploring architecture to watching a musical performance to meeting local artisans. And theres plenty of beachgoing and snorkeling, as well.

See related: Its time to start planning your summer vacation using rewards points

San Diego

One of our favorite destinations, with year-round 70-degree temperatures, is San Diego. If you love the outdoors, get your fill in San Diego with its many beaches, parks and outdoor activities.

When we visited in December (yes, it was still 70 degrees), I took an electric bike tour of the gorgeous La Jolla area, once the home of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, and rode to the top of Mount Soledad for incredible 360-degree views of the area where we could see all the way to Mexico.

Theres also the famous San Diego Zoo and the classic Hotel Del Coronado. And dont miss a delicious Italian meal in Little Italy.

Costa Rica

Adventure lovers should consider flying to Costa Rica, where activities abound, from zip-lining to spotting wildlife to exploring the rain forest. The country has many national parks, is home to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites and has about 5 percent of the worlds animal species.

Southwest flies into both San Jose and Liberia. You can fly nonstop to San Jose from Houston, the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, or Ft. Lauderdale and from Liberia nonstop from Houston or Baltimore/Washington. Prices are as low as $82 per way. Add a companion for free and youve got a heckuva deal!

See related: 10 ways to maximize delayed trip and bag reimbursements

Ft. Lauderdale or Hollywood, Florida

We like this area of Florida as a warm weather and spring break destination. Gone are the days of Ft. Lauderdale packed with teenagers partying til they drop on the beach every April. We like Hollywood Beach, which is known for its broad walk that runs alongside the beach and features lots of shops and eateries.

Weve stayed at both The Diplomat (a Hilton Curio Collection property bookable with Hilton Honors points) and Margaritaville Hollywood Beach resorts and enjoyed both.

Youll find lots of expansive pools, great options for dining within both properties and access to the beautiful blue waters of the Atlantic. Its also easy to catch an inexpensive flight out of Ft. Lauderdale even further south to other Southwest destinations like Belize, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos or the Bahamas.

Finally, with a little luck, we may be able to book a Southwest flight to Hawaii sometime this year. The airline says it was in the final stages of approval from the federal government; however, that was put on hold during the recent government shutdown.

I know Im looking forward to the chance to use my Companion Pass for a flight to Hawaii.

Stay warm out there!
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30) - Prosecutors from the Office of the Ombudsman filed a motion ordering former Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. to pay back the national treasury millions of pesos from the pork barrel scam.

The 15-page motion for execution of judgment on the civil liability of Revilla was filed at the Sandiganbayan on January 28, signed by Deputy Special Prosecutor Manuel Soriano Jr., Acting Director Prosecution Bureau I Mariter Delfin-Santos, and Assistant Special Prosecutor III Reza Casila-Derayunan.

Revilla  who is running for senator in the midterm elections  was acquitted by the Sandiganbayan on plunder and graft charges in the controversial case on December 7.

The court's first division said the prosecution failed to prove he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt for plunder through benefitting from the use of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

Pursuant to Article 100 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), the court said "accused are held solidarily and jointly liable to return to the National treasury the amount of one hundred twenty-four million, five hundred thousand pesos (124,500,000.00)."

Prosecutors: Revilla has to pay

Prosecutors said if the court wanted to exclude Revilla from returning the money, it could have simply named Napoles and Cambe and would not have used the term "accused" collectively.

"In the third paragraph, however, without any qualification, the Majority held that the accused  referring to Revilla, Cambe, and Napoles who underwent trial," the prosecutors said.

The motion filed also states while Revilla was acquitted, it was merely because his guilt could not be established beyond reasonable doubt," and not due to the absolute failure of the prosecution to prove his guilt."

"The quantum of proof required in criminal prosecution (beyond reasonable doubt) is greater than that required for civil liability (mere preponderance of evidence)," it said.

This was similar to what Abdiel Fajardo, the president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the national organization of lawyers, said in a statement after Revilla's release in 2018. "Conviction on the criminal charge requires proof beyond reasonable doubt, while a judgment of liability on the civil charge requires only a preponderance of evidence," Fajardo said.

The motion also states, while Revilla may have been acquitted of the criminal charge, this does not mean he is necessarily "civilly free."

"It bears stressing that Article 100 of the RPC does not provide that only those who are criminally liable are civilly liable. Thus, a person may still be held civilly liable, if there is basis to hold him/her so," the motion states.

In December, Revilla's lawyers said he was excluded from doing the same because only his co-accused had civil liability.

Revilla's camp: What shall he return?

Estelito Mendoza, the lawyer of Revilla, released a statement Tuesday referring to the dispositive portion of the Sandiganbayan decision.

"Revilla did not receive, directly or indirectly, rebates, commission, and kickbacks from his PDAF. What, then shall he return?" Mendoza said.

He added since Revilla is not criminally liable, the third paragraph of the dispositive portion would not refer to him, but only to the ones found to be so, namely Janet Lim Napoles and Richard Cambe.
Leading cosmetics and personal care event in-cosmetics Global returns, promising to be the most interactive yet with unrivalled networking opportunities and an unrivalled preview of the latest innovative ingredients and technologies launching to market.

in-cosmetics Global returns to Paris from 2-4 April for its 30th edition at the Porte de Versailles. The worlds leading personal care ingredients event promises to be the most interactive yet. The show will host a wide range of areas across the show floor with unrivalled networking opportunities, exclusive industry insights and plenty of learning opportunities.

The fast-moving beauty industry continues to grow, consistently reinventing itself. In 2017, the industry had estimated sales of $200bn,[1] demonstrating the prominence of cosmetic products. Its crucial that beauty professionals are up to date with current trends in order to develop new innovations that attract consumers. in-cosmetics Global helps visitors gain exposure into industry insights and attend a range of networking and educational events. As well as seeing the return of show favourites, the 2019 event will launch new initiatives.

The Indie Trail will premiere at in-cosmetics Global 2019 and promises to be an exciting new programme. The growth of indie brands has forced change in the industry, and this emerging sector must not be overlooked. The Trail will help brands overcome the challenge of sourcing suppliers that provide smaller quantities of ingredients by providing a guide listing potential supplier partnerships. The guide will be shared among indie brand visitors to help them navigate the event, aiding them in forging connections necessary for their business.

Meanwhile, the Innovation Zone, sponsored by Ashland, is one of the shows most popular areas and will return to showcase some of the most innovative formulations recently launched. It provides visitors with a first look at the newest product developments, helping to inspire them to stand out in the beauty sphere with their next innovations. Selected exhibitors will invite visitors to test their creations and learn how the products were made. Demonstrations will be held in the area by the Mintel team, where attendees can try out finished products.

Also returning to in-cosmetics Global in 2019 is the acclaimed free-to-attend education programme, which offer invaluable information into upcoming trends, the latest developments and cutting-edge technologies.

Including Technical Seminars and a range of Marketing Trends sessions, the programme demonstrates its suitability for cosmetics professionals. Industry leaders will share their expertise on subjects, such as new product developments, giving attending businesses a competitive edge as they get a look into the future direction of the market.

A host of other exciting features complete the line up for in-cosmetics Global 2019, including the Make-Up Bar, Formulation Challenge and Lab Zone, alongside a series of informative paid-for workshops.

in-cosmetics Global takes place at the Porte de Versailles in Paris from 2-4 April 2019. Register for your place at https://www.in-cosmetics.com/register.
David Langham Horace, 44, passed away June 9, 2021 in Lufkin. Viewing will be held on Friday, June 18, 2021 at Emanuel Funeral Home of Crockett from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Funeral will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Antioch Baptist Church in Pennington at 12 p.m. with burial to follow in A
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01/30/2019

Photo via Twitter For Yahoo, its back to square one. A motion to settle a lawsuit stemming from its series of data breaches has been swatted down by a California judge.

The plaintiffs in the case, who sued Yahoo after they said their personal data was stolen from Yahoo servers and sold on the dark web, had reached agreement with the tech giant on terms of a settlement.

But U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh rejected the agreement because she said it didnt resolve the underlying issues. She complained that Yahoo had not committed to spend more money on security and charged the company with a lack of transparency in the wake of the incidents.

A spokesman for Verizon, Yahoos parent company, declined on comment on pending legal matters.

One billion user accounts

In December 2016 Yahoo confirmed that more than 1 billion user accounts had been compromised, a significant increase from the 500 million it disclosed three months earlier. It also said that it believed the first breach occurred as early as 2013.

Affected accounts contained names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and security questions and answers. At the time Yahoo said it believed the breach was carried out with forged cookies, small files are generally used to store small amounts of data about specific clients or websites. In this case, hackers used forged versions to access users account data without needing a password.

In 2017, Judge Koh ruled that a class action suit against Yahoo could move forward. Last March she ruled that Yahoo users could sue the company.

The case centers around users charges that Yahoo took too long to report the data breaches. In her March ruling Koh said customers may have taken measures to protect themselves against identity theft and fraud had they known about the breaches sooner.

Critical of Yahoo

In rejecting the motion for a settlement, Koh was highly critical of Yahoos handling of the breaches and questioned its commitment to making things right.

Yahoo has only committed to the $50 million in settlement funds and hides the total settlement fund amount, she wrote.

Koh, who has presided over the case from the start, also said Yahoo has been vague about what steps it has taken to secure its network systems in the aftermath of the breaches.
01/30/2019

Photo (c) Deagreez - Getty Images As expected, cases of the flu increased in January. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, influenza A(H3N2), and influenza B viruses continue to co-circulate.

The percentage of specimens testing positive for flu viruses in the nations clinical labors rose for the week ending January 19. So far, the CDC says influenza A viruses have made the most people sick since the beginning of the flu season in October.

Breaking it down, the CDC says influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses have dominated in most areas of the country; however, influenza A(H3) viruses have been most common in the southeastern U.S. All 10 regions for the U.S. report elevated flu activity.

The good news is nearly all the viruses respond to some drug. Most show susceptibility to oseltamivir and peramivir. All influenza viruses tested showed susceptibility to zanamivir.

Walgreens flu monitor

Walgreens is also monitoring flu cases and reports outbreaks in January have been centered in Texas and Kentucky. The Walgreens Flu Index is an unofficial gauge, but it is compiled using the drugstore chains weekly retail prescription data for antiviral medications used to treat the illness.

Based on that data, Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska led the nation in flu prescriptions in the middle of January, followed by Louisville, Ky., and Tyler-Longview, El Paso, and Dallas, Texas.

Walgreens also tracks increases in flu medication prescriptions to give health authorities a heads-up on where an outbreak is gaining traction. In mid-January, cases were on the rise in Kentucky, Nebraska, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho.

Spreading quickly in 36 states

According to the CDC, the flu was spreading quickly in 36 states, suggesting this flu season is somewhat severe. The hospitalization rate is not particularly high, at 14.8 per 100,000 people. The highest rate, as it is most years, is among adults 65 and older, one of the most vulnerable population groups.

At the same time, the CDC says the proportion of deaths linked to pneumonia and the flu registered above the system-specific epidemic threshold in the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Mortality Surveillance System during the middle of January.

Arkansas reports at least 17 deaths so far this flu season. State health officials say influenza A is by far the most common type.
Time is running out. ConservativeHome is told that after mid-February it will be very hard indeed for Parliament to pass a Bill to effect a Brexit deal  even if both chambers sit through nights and weekends. The task will become impossible if Labour or the European Research Group or pro-Remain Conservative MPs are determined to oppose such a Bill, or make substantive changes to it. The middle of next month is very close to February 13, by which date, Theresa May told the Commons yesterday , if we have not brought a revised deal back to this Housewe will make a statement and, again, table an amendable motion for debate the next day. So the House will have a further opportunity to revisit this question of leaving without a deal.

In other words, in the event of no revised deal being agreed with the EU within a fortnight, Yvette Cooper will be back, as will Dominic Grieve, as perhaps will Caroline Spelman  whose amendment declaring in effect that No Brexit is better than No Deal was carried yesterday evening. Pro-Soft Brexit and Remain Tory Ministers are waiting in the wings  Amber Rudd, Philip Hammond and others in the Cabinet; Richard Harrington, Tobias Ellwood and others outside it. The Prime Minister therefore has two weeks both to agree changes to her deal with the EU and get a revised version of it through the Commons It follows that she won less a victory yesterday evening than a reprieve.

It may not feel that like this morning. After all, May has proved that she can turn a loss into a win in a fortnight  moving from the biggest Government defeat in modern Commons history earlier this month to yesterdays admittedly less emphatic victory. The European Research Group has proved it can see the wood through the trees, and stay together in backing the Government. The Chairman of the 1922 Committee has pulled off a personal triumph, as has the Chief Whip. The emergence of the Malthouse Compromise has demonstrated that pro-Soft and Hard Brexit Tories can work together. Above all, Grieve and Cooper have found that opposition to extension and revocation among Labour MPs can be at least as decisive as support for either among Conservative ones.

None the less, the price that the Prime Minister paid for her win was the tearing-up of yet another commitment  in this case, not to seek changes to the deal that she had agreed. She will now go to the EU armed with a Commons vote which seeks the replacement of the backstop with alternative arrangements  a phrase used by Michael Barnier, among others, as Graham Brady pointed out on this site yesterday. The former legitimised these recently by suggesting them himself  thus leaping on to what the EU had previously dismissed as a unicorn. However, neither the EU nor the Irish Government are at all likely to climb down from the backstop by agreeing to scrap it: the loss of face for both would be too great.

May knows this well. Hence the form of words that she deployed in the Commons after yesterdays votes  that the Government will now seek legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement. That sounds less like either the Malthouse Compromise or the Brady amendment, both of which would seek a replacement for the backstop, than a time limit (as also supported by the Bew Plan) or a unilateral right to leave, both of which propose a supplement to it. It is just possible to imagine that politics will trump theology within the EU, and that the Commission and the EU27 settle for a compromise along these lines  for a codicil or annexe or protocol or something of that kind. If it does, the Prime Minister risks the ERG and other Leavers opposing such a change as not providing watertight legal protection.

And if it doesnt, it will be the Tory Soft Brexiteers and Remainers who will face their moment of decision. They are fundamentally opposed to No Deal  the default setting. Sixteen of them went into the lobby with Spelman yesterday. There will be more in a fortnight, in the event that no change to the backstop is agreed with the EU by then and No Deal still looms. Rudd will return to pressing for free votes. If these arent forthcoming (and they should not be), Harrington and Ellwood will have to decide whether or not to put their resignations where their mouths are. So will Rudd herself, as well as other Cabinet Ministers: Greg Clark, David Gauke, Philip Hammond, perhaps even David Lidington.

Mays Brexit priority since she became Prime Minister, increasingly visible as the long months have dragged on, has been keeping herself in Downing Street and her Party in one piece. So if she is unable to gain a compromise with the EU in a fortnight (and the odds must be that she will not), it follows that she will seek to kick the can down the road again  even if the road no longer exists. Yes, everything we know about her suggests that she will do then what Jeremy Corbyn did yesterday: namely, seek an extension to Article 50 rather than risk more resignations. She will try, in the nicest possible way, to muddy the waters, hinting to her Partys Soft Brexiteers that she will never accept No Deal, and saying to its harder ones that a new deal is almost there: it just needs a little bit more time. What will happen then?
January 30 8.30am Mike Blanchards daily e-mail reports this morning the following Labour abstentions on the Cooper amendment:

Tracy Brabin

Judith Cummins

Gloria De Piero

Yvonne Fovargue

Mike Kane

Emma Lewell-Buck

Jim McMahon

Melanie Onn

Ruth Smeeth

John Spellar

Stephen Twigg.

Now one must be very careful with absentions, since one cant tell whether an MP who has abstained did so deliberately or, say, was ill (as is Paul Flynn, who can be added to the list above. Still, the names are suggestive enough to report.

21.15 Heres the list of Labour MPs who voted for the Brady amendment. All of them voted against the Cooper amendment.

Ian Austin

Sir Kevin Barron

Jim Fitzpatrick

Roger Godsiff

Kate Hoey

John Mann

Graham Stringer.

21.00: Elsewhere on this site, Mark Wallace is listing Conservative MPs who voted against the whip on important amendments. Here is a list of 14 Labour MPs who defied their own on the Cooper amendment.

Iain Austin.

Sir Kevin Barron.

Ronnie Campbell.

Rosie Cooper.

Jim Fitzpatrick.

Caroline Flint.

Roger Godsiff.

Stephen Hepburn.

Kate Hoey.

John Mann.

Denis Skinner.

Laura Smith.

Gareth Snell.

Graham Stringer.

With the exception of Fitzpatrick and Hoey, all represent midlands and northern seats. Most of these are in Leave-voting heartlands, though Godsiffs Birmingham Hall Green seat plumped for Remain in 2016.

Godsiff is also on record recently as favoring a second referendum. But the moral of this particular story is that Jeremy Corbyn should  as he is well aware  handle pressure for another poll with extreme caution.

Support for one among London Labour may catch the eye and command media coverage. None the less, theres a lot of resistance to a second referendum on his backbenches  and front bench too.

20.45: Earlier today, we wrote that if the Cooper amendment falls and the Brady amendment passes, a signal will be sent to the EU that the Commons wants substantial changes to the backstop, and that the Government has re-established a degree of control over Brexit policy, at least for the moment.

And so it has proved. The amendment passed by 317 to 301. Thats impressive Tory discipline again. And it will be worth looking out for the names of Labour MPs who abstained.

All in all, Mays gamble has paid off in whipping for the Brady amendment. She can now seek to go to Brussels armed with a Commons vote for something, and perhaps with the new Malthouse Plan that is winning support across her Party.

But a happy morning will be followed by a problematic tomorrow. The EU will be quickly out of its traps to rubbish Malthouse, Brady  and May. As the psalm doesnt put it: joy may last through the night, but weeping comes with the morning.

20.30: The Spelman amendment passes by 318  310. Its declaratory only  but the division lists will tell us which Conservative MPs have signalled clearly that they ultimately prefer No Brexit to No Deal.

20.15: The Cooper amendment fell by 321 votes to 298  a majority of 23. We dont have the division figures yet, but its clear that the role of Labour MPs was crucial.

For this result to have happened, a sufficient number of Labour MPs in pro-Brexit seats, worried that backing the amendment would be seen as a betrayal of the referendum, must have either voted with the Government or abstained.

The amendment would have allowed for a Bill to seek the extension of Brexit  and, rightly or wrongly, extension will be read by many as a preparation for revocation.

Conservative discipline looks  for once?  to have held up well. Not a bad evening for Theresa May so far. If the Brady amendment succeeds, it will become a good one.
Gareth Bacon is the Leader of the Conservative Group on the London Assembly.

Sadiq Khan is fast approaching the last year of his term in office. What has he achieved so far? He is consistently behind his own affordable housing targets. He has driven TfL into financial crisis. Violent crime continues to be on our front pages on a daily basis. Crossrail will open at least 18 months late and nearly 2 billion over budget. Meanwhile, he has increased the number of bureaucrats at City Hall by a staggering 37 per cent and spent a large amount of time and resources attempting to overturn Brexit.

Londons Mayor is overseeing an administration typified by virtue signalling, financial incompetence, and wasteful spending. For example, it is laughable that when London faces such significant challenges in crime, housing, and transport a Mayor could choose  as Sadiq Khan did  to spend over 400,000 on a beach party and 10 million for police officers to take a test designed to assign their personality a colour. To give another example, he has decided to freeze TfL fares for his term in office  a choice that will cost TfL 640 million, and a policy that TfL has identified in their latest business plan as impossible to continue with if he is re-elected.

Sadiq Khan presented his draft budget for the next financial year to the London Assembly last week, and we are concerned that some of his proposed spending decisions do not stack up with the real priorities of Londoners.

Crime is a top issue for Londoners and Khan should be taking every possible action as Mayor of London to tackle this epidemic. Violent crime in London has been on the rise for some time now: the murder rate has increased by 23.3 percent over the past two years and knife crime has increased by 32.1 percent over the past three years.

The Mayor has endlessly claimed that violent crime is a direct result of government cuts to police budgets and that he has done everything in his power to keep police numbers as high as possible.

But this simply isnt true.

The reality is that the Mayor has choices available to him, but has made the wrong ones. Characteristically, in his draft budget, Khan has yet again prioritised PR over police officers and show over substance.

In response to Sadiq Khans draft budget, the GLA Conservatives submitted a balanced and fully costed amendment which cuts waste and inefficiency at City Hall, whilst reducing some of his more bloated budgets back down to the levels they were at when he first entered office. With our plan, Khan could fund 1,378 extra police officers funded by savings of nearly 83 million in other areas. On top of this, our proposal would provide enough extra money to freeze the non-policing tax precept, (which Khan intends to increase by 2.99 per cent)  a real terms tax cut for millions of Londoners.

Amongst other proposals, we have suggested that the Mayor could reduce his vastly increased staffing budget, withdraw the 13 million annual contribution that he gives to London and Partners (the Mayors PR company), and reduce the amount that TfL pays for employees to work on union duties, which has increased from 4.9 million to 10.8 million over the course of his mayoralty.

There is a cross-party consensus in the Assembly that the Metropolitan Police needs more resources and we do not disagree. However, in spite of this, the Labour, Green, and Lib Dem Assembly Members collectively dismissed our amendment and voted it down. We are disappointed that opposition parties decided to oppose extra police officers for London, but we hope that the Mayor reconsiders and includes our proposals before he finalises his budget at the end of February.

Sadiq Khans term of office has so far been characterised by a great deal of boasting but very little in the way of real achievement. It is dismal record from a man who last week publicly described himself as a brilliant Mayor. In reality, this is a Mayor who has taken his eye off the ball. This is a Mayor who isnt listening to Londoners about their priorities. This is a Mayor who is more interested in pontificating about Brexit  an issue over which he has no control  than concentrating on the day job.

It is time he started focusing on what Londoners expect their Mayor to be doing. He can start by accepting our amendment and putting another 1,400 bobbies on the beat.
Among the changes brought about by yesterdays series of amendment votes, the shift in Labours position has been under-remarked upon. By whipping in favour of the Cooper amendment, Jeremy Corbyn has effectively changed his Partys policy to delaying Brexit.

Thats quite a sizeable move. While the pro-EU wing of Labour is still demanding more, in the form of cancellation or a second referendum  as they always will  we shouldnt be in any doubt that the practical effect of the amendment would have been to obstruct Brexit.

While Cooper herself denied it, that was certainly the open intention of many of those promoting her amendment, including the rebranded Remain campaign, which funded online adverts promoting the amendment ahead of the vote.

Formal denial but practical support for such obstruction is entirely in keeping with Labours established policy of constructive ambiguity, in that it allows a change of policy to take place without MPs officially having to change their position. They are still, according to their statements, committed to honouring Brexit  its just their actions which creep closer to doing the opposite.

Despite the cover of that carefully nurtured ambiguity, it was notable that on this particular vote the Labour leadership failed to bring its whole Parliamentary Party with. Fourteen MPs rebelled to vote against the amendment while a further 11 abstained.

The reasons are not simple. Some  like Dennis Skinner, who some Corbynites are now demanding be deselected for disloyalty  are rather Brexity generally. Some are frustrated with Corbyn, and do not trust the leadership strategy to successfully stay on this tightrope forever. Some represent Leave-voting constituencies and have found what they feel to be the limit of what their constituents will put up with, in terms of ignoring the result. All evidently felt there were greater prizes in not doing what their leader wanted than in being obedient.

It is notable that unhappiness about supporting this amendment extended to the Labour frontbench. Of those 11 abstainers, no fewer than six were shadow ministers  effectively getting as close to outright rebellion as they can while (maybe) keeping their jobs.

The strategy of ambiguity has served Labour well so far, bolstered as it is with careful use and the devoted faith of many of Corbyns personal following. However, it is now starting to be tested much more fiercely than before. Theoretical discussions can be filled with blather, and negative votes against a Governments policies are habitual for Opposition MPs, but as Brexit Day approaches we are moving into a period of meaningful votes, and competing proposals for what to do, rather than what not to do.

The Cooper vote proved a sharp test, and pushing ten per cent of Labours MPs did not vote with their Leader on it. As the deadline draws closer, and the stakes escalate, that number could easily rise, particularly if Corbyn and his colleagues misjudge things, or public pressure on MPs in Leave-voting seats intensifies.
MAS warns against fraudulent websites soliciting cryptocurrency investments

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued an advisory warning members of the public not to be misled by fraudulent websites that solicit investments in cryptocurrencies.

These websites have used fabricated information attributed to the Singapore government, falsely claiming that Singapore is adopting a cryptocurrency as its official coin. They also claimed that a firm has been appointed exclusively to market this cryptocurrency.

Screenshot of fraudulent website. Image courtesy: MAS

The sites asked readers to provide their personal and financial details to purchase the cryptocurrency.

"This is a scam and members of the public should avoid providing any financial or personal information on the forms linked from the websites," MAS said in a press statement.

The regulator also advised that putting money in cryptocurrencies or digital tokens is highly risky. MAS and the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) have issued several advisories in the past to warn the public of the risks of such investment offers.
Ashwini Devare: Creating history with "Lost at 15, Found at 50"

Ashwini Devare author of Lost at 15, Found at 50 flanked by High Commissioner of India to Singapore, Jawed Ashraf to her left and ex-diplomat Ambassador Krishnasamy Kesavapany Photo: Connected to India

Ashwini Devare has been a front-row spectator to various political developments and upheavals over the years. Born in Moscow at the height of the Cold War during her Indian Foreign Service(IFS) officer father's first posting, Ashwini has lived in various countries.

She was constantly playing the "new girl" in schools across US, Myanmar, Korea, and Switzerland as she moved across six countries in the first sixteen years of her life. At the same time, her nomadic childhood dabbled and dealt with historical events, through her diplomat father  from USA mired in the Vietnam War, death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent, to Sikkim in the midst of a pro-democracy movement that would overthrow the monarchy, India during turbulent times, and South Korea, where student demonstrations convulsed the country.

Ashwini Devare was born in Moscow during the height of Cold War. Courtesy: From the book 'Lost at 15, found at 50'

In her autobiography, "Lost at 15, Found at 50" launched at the American Club, Ashwini gives an interesting account of her life connecting these events. The memoir is an engaging, delightful read that offers rich insights into Ashwinis nomadic life, that later, since 2002, found home on this sunny island in Southeast Asia, Singapore.

The book was unveiled by the High Commissioner of India to Singapore, Jawed Ashraf, and ex-diplomat Ambassador Krishnasamy Kesavapany. Ashwini is an ex-journalist who has worked with CTV News in the US, BBC Singapore, and CNBC India. Her first book, Batik Rain was released in 2014. A collection of short stories.

We caught up with the NRI author at the book launch to get a first-hand account on her second book, the process, and her takeaways. Watch the interview here:
Danville, IL (61832)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.
Columbia, MO (65201)

Today

Mostly sunny. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low near 65F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
With temperatures dropping below zero, many Penn State students have expressed their frustration at the university for not cancelling classes on Wednesday or Thursday.

hey again @penn_state either cancel classes or get me a ski mask I dont wanna lose my nose thx xoxo  lily (@lwmurray98) January 30, 2019

President Barron should cancel classes today before we all riot at Old Main  Bang Shang Train (@BangShanghai) January 30, 2019

*Thursday: 2 snowflakes*Penn State: Classes are CANCELLED*Today : negative wind chill, high winds, Emergency alerts on phones* Penn State:  Chad (@Csbarker12) January 30, 2019

hey penn state im not into the whole frostbite thing so how bout we just ~cancel classes~  megh (@MeghanChicano) January 30, 2019

However, Penn State takes many factors into mind when determining whether or not to cancel class.

L. Reidar Jensen, Penn State's assistant director of internal communications, said safety is at the forefront of all decisions to cancel class. Decisions to cancel class are made on a campus-by-campus basis.

In making decisions, Jensen said the university consults officials such as meteorologists, the Office of Physical Plant, PennDOT, Pennsylvania State Police, the National Weather Service and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

The university's decisions are based on the forecast, roads and sidewalks.

"At University Park, consultation among a core contingent of senior decision-makers begins when we learn inclement weather is approaching," Jensen said via email. "Forecasts of course can shift, so individuals regularly monitor them from a number of places and attempt to make a reasonable decision as early as possible for our campus community."

Jensen added that, while classes may be cancelled, the university never truly closes. For example, dining halls must stay open, livestock must be fed and emergency services like the Penn State Police must remain on patrol.

According to Accuweather, temperatures will drop below zero Wednesday evening and will remain there until Thursday morning.

A wind chill advisory for State College is in effect from 1 p.m. on Jan. 30 to 12 p.m. on Jan. 31.

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In recent years, the new popularity of Netflix has transformed the television and streaming industry. Business Insider said for the first time in 2017, the number of United States Netflix subscribers overtook the number of American cable television subscribers.

Along with its popularity, Netflix has undergone many changes  originating as a DVD rental company until they became out of date. Now, Netflix has advanced to also showcasing their own originals on their service, starting their original content in 2010 and debuting House of Cards in 2013.

Laura Fiorini is a big fan of the Netflix original debut, House of Cards, for its strong production value and content.

I think it was really well done and it probably out-competes anything else on the network, Fiorini (senior - immunology and infectious disease) said.

House of Cards, along with a few other Netflix originals such as Stranger Things, Orange is The New Black, Black Mirror and more are praised for their quality and script. But for some, Netflix originals are not considered great quality.

Arianna Dipalma said that some Netflix originals dont have outstanding acting, such as some of its romantic comedy movies like The Kissing Booth. But, she enjoys some shows like A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Last Kingdom  shows based off of books she read as a child.

There were parts of The Kissing Booth that I thought Netflix could step up with, but it was cute, Dipalma (freshman  civil engineering) said.

Jennifer Gomez said she enjoys some Netflix originals, especially its documentaries such as the recent show The Ted Bundy Tapes. This is a documentary show covering the murders and life of serial killer Ted Bundy.

I think documentary styles are better for Netflix than their other shows and movies, Gomez (freshman - computer engineering) said.

Brian Hobbs enjoys the original, Bloodline, saying it was the best show hes seen on Netflix. Netflix took well-known actor Kyle Chandler from Friday Night Lights, another popular show, and gave him a starring role in Bloodline.

Because of its popularity, Hobbs thinks that Netflix will start cracking down on account sharing and keep increasing the price in their future.

They could start incorporating live shows and sporting events, I think thats the one thing they dont have, Hobbs said.

Tony Cappellino said he enjoyed the new Netflix movie Birdbox, featuring famous actresses Sandra Bullock and Sarah Paulson. He said it could have been a movie released in theaters or produced outside of Netflix.

I think they will continue to make more original content, especially since Hulu makes a lot of content and it saves them a lot of money, Cappellino (freshman  business) said.

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Cappellino was accurate in that Netflix pays a sizable amount of money for streaming rights compared to their own production. The company paid $100 million for exclusive streaming rights to the classic show Friends, for only one more year, according to the New York Times. In comparison, producing their individual episodes is around three to five million dollars per episode, according to CAA TV literary agent Peter Micelli.

Christina Grist gave another example of quality versus bad production in the shows Stranger Things compared to the Miranda Sings show, Haters Back Off.

I think most of them are really good but if they arent, they are really, really bad, Grist (freshman  civil engineering) said.

Netflix has had a long journey in its transformation from a rental to streaming service. Most recently, Netflix original Roma, became the first Netflix movie to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars.

In correlation to recent original success, Netflix does not look like it is going to slow down in producing original content, upping their production budget to thirteen billion in 2018, according to Forbes.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday he was ready to sit down for talks with the country's opposition and open to the possibility of third countries mediating, Russia's RIA news agency reported.

RIA released his comments as the struggle for control of Venezuela intensified with the government preparing an investigation that could lead to the arrest of opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido, who has called for new street protests.

Venezuela was plunged into political turmoil last week after the United States recognised Guaido, 35, as acting president, while Russia has continued to back Maduro.

"I am ready to sit at the negotiation table with the opposition for us to talk for the benefit of Venezuela, for the sake of peace and its future," RIA quoted Maduro as saying.

Maduro made the comments in an interview to Russia's RIA news agency in Caracas released on Wednesday.

Asked about the possibility of third countries mediating in the standoff, Maduro was quoted as saying: "There are several governments, organizations globally, which are demonstrating their sincere concern about what is happening in Venezuela, they have called for a dialogue."
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro (L) speak at a bilateral meeting on September 3, 2015 in Beijing, China. Sasha Mordovets | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A new front in geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Russia has opened in Venezuela, with both now declaring their support for rival leaders President Nicolas Maduro and the self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido. Experts are now drawing parallels between the contest for influence over Venezuela's political and economic future with the battle over regime change in Syria in recent years. Russia gave its military, financial and diplomatic support to controversial President Bashar Assad in a complex civil war that started in 2011. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its Western allies backed regime change and various rebel groups looking to oust Assad from power  although all sides were fighting in an uncomfortable alliance against the so-called Islamic State. The civil war in Syria was largely seen as a battle for influence in the Middle East, with Russia keen to not see another regional ally come under America's sphere of influence. Russia is now largely credited with keeping Assad in power. Now, there is a battle for the leadership in oil-rich Venezuela with the U.S. backing regime change under opposition leader Guaido, who declared himself president last week, and Russia supporting socialist dictator Maduro.

Military conflict?

"You're so right to bring up the Syria example," Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick on Tuesday. "That became a frozen conflict once the Russians intervened, but they had a (military) base there (in Syria) and so that was a key strategic, military asset that the Russians wanted to protect," she said. "The question here is whether Venezuela constitutes the same type of asset for the Russians," Croft said. "Apparently they've sent their military contractors down there, they've lent Venezuela a tremendous amount of money  I would argue that the Russians will be critical ... how much financial support do they give to Maduro going forward?," she said. The prospect of a military conflict in Venezuela has also been raised after reports that the U.S. and Russia were both sending reinforcements to shore up both claimants to the presidency. On Monday, a photo emerged of U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton's notebook which had a written message to send 5,000 troops to Colombia, which borders Venezuela. The Kremlin also denied Monday that it had sent as many as 400 private military contractors to Venezuela to back Maduro.

National Security Advisor John Bolton with that notebook as he listens to questions from reporters during a press briefing at the White House January 28, 2019 in Washington, DC. During the briefing, economic sanctions against Venezuela's state owned oil company were announced in an effort to force Venezuelan President Maduro to step down. Win McNamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Croft didn't think a military conflict was wanted by either side. "Trump talks a big game in terms of U.S. power but does he really want to get caught in a military conflict in Venezuela? Sanctions are the first step ... but they've certainly left the door open to something more serious."

Regime change

Last week, Guaido named himself interim president after street protests against Maduro. The U.S. recognized that claim and has been encouraging support for regime change in the country. Meanwhile, Maduro found allies in Russia, China, Syria and Iran, as well as Turkey and Mexico, who rejected Guaido's claim to power. Experts say the Venezuelan situation underscores "divisions between world powers." "Not only did Venezuela's transformation into a country with two presidents set the stage for civil conflict; it also underscored growing divisions between world powers," analysts at the Washington-based ClearView Energy Partners said in a note Monday. "While it may be too soon to view these globally bifurcated support bases  capitalists and conservatives vs. strongmen and socialists  as preliminary team rosters of the next great conflict, it does seem appropriate to ask when and how the confrontation within Venezuela might end," they noted. Maduro's staying power, and the continuing loyalty of military leaders, seems likely to be a direct function of the regime's ability to maintain funding for government operations, the analysts noted.

Hitting where it hurts
A U.S. Treasury employee pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of leaking highly confidential documents to BuzzFeed about suspicious financial transactions involving ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort and others.

Yet court documents show that federal prosecutors and lawyers for the defendant, Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, are discussing a possible deal to resolve the case without taking it to trial.

Edwards, a 40-year-old senior advisor in Treasury's financial crimes enforcement network, was arrested last October.

A complaint accuses her of two counts of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports, or SARs, related to Manafort, former Trump campaign official Richard Gates, Russian agent Maria Butina, the Russian Embassy in Washington, and a suspected Russian money-laundering entity.

SARs are used to alert authorities about financial transactions that may be related to criminal conduct, such as money laundering. Edwards' division, FinCEN, manages the collection of SARs. It is illegal for a government employee to disclose a SAR or its contents outside of the scope of their work.

Edwards, during her arraignment Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, waived her right to have the case be presented to a grand jury for possible indictment. Such a waiver is common when a plea deal is being discussed.

She is next due in court on April 2, and remains free on a $100,000 non-secured bond.

The complaint against Edwards said she began leaking "numerous SARS in October 2017" to an unidentified reporter, and continued doing so until October 2018.

Edwards, a resident of Quinton, Virginia, had "hundreds of electronic communications" with the reporter, "many via an encrypted application," the complaint said.

After Edwards began leaking the documents, the journalist wrote articles which mentioned the details of those reports, the complaint said.

Articles cited in the complaint carry the bylines of Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, two BuzzFeed News reporters, as well as other journalists at the same outlet.

The articles cited documents transactions pertaining to Manafort and Gates, both of whom later pleaded guilty to financial crimes related to their consulting work for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Mueller's office, in a rare statement, denied a report by Cormier and Leopold in BuzzFeed News that had claimed President Donald Trump had told his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about details of an aborted plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

When Edwards was arrested, prosecutors said she "was in possession of a flash drive" that appeared to be the same device "on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed" SARs.

Also in her possession was "a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted [SARS] and other sensitive government information" illegally, prosecutors said.

"When questioned by law enforcement officials [Tuesday], Edwards confessed she has provided [SARS] to [the reporter] via an encrypted application, though falsely denied knowing that [the reporter] intended to or did publish that information" through a news organization, the complaint said.
Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom talks to the journalists in the Europa Building during the European Council Summit in Brussels, Belgium on December 13, 2018. NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May faces the unenviable task of reopening Brexit talks with Brussels, after lawmakers in Westminster backed a proposal for her to renegotiate the current deal. She is due to return to her European counterparts in the next couple of days to renegotiate a controversial part of the Brexit deal she struck with them. However, the EU has already told Britain it will only look at the deal again if the U.K. "evolves" its stance on a future relationship with the bloc.

A 'moment of theater'

In January, the majority of the U.K. Parliament rejected the original Brexit deal, also known as the "Withdrawal Agreement." But on Tuesday evening, MPs (Members of Parliament) voted on seven amendments that had been tabled by lawmakers in an effort to change the course of Brexit. MPs passed two amendments, including one which sought to replace the controversial "Irish backstop" with unspecified "alternative arrangements."

This backstop is something of an insurance policy in the event of the U.K. and EU failing to agree a trade deal in a 21-month transition period (which itself only happens if there is a withdrawal agreement) after Brexit. It's designed to prevent a "hard" border on the island of Ireland, and could mean Northern Ireland (which is part of the U.K.) remained closely aligned to EU rules for an indefinite period, an unpalatable prospect rejected by many politicians. MPs also supported an amendment that states the U.K. will not leave the EU without a deal although the departure date remains the same, and the vote is not legally binding. May said after the votes that she would return to Brussels to see if she can persuade the EU to amend the backstop part of the deal  something that both she and the EU have previously ruled out. There has been criticism that the U.K. is just wasting precious time as the departure date draws near. Gabriel Felbermayr, the director of the Ifo Center for International Economics at the Ifo Institute, told CNBC that the votes Tuesday evening had done little to change the situation. "We had this moment of theater again yesterday in the (House of) Commons and it was very entertaining to watch, but not very enlightening at all. We've heard the relatively negative responses out of Brussels  they are not going to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement  and we did not see what exactly the British Parliament really wants," he told CNBC's "Capital Connection." "They want a technical solution to make the border in Ireland soft but what this could be is not clear so we're still at a loss. Of course, we need a compromise to make this deal possible and to avoid both sides losing economically  We do not have any further information that could calm our nerves that has come out of the British parliament yesterday."

No negotiations?

The EU has shown little appetite for renegotiating its original deal. After the parliamentary votes Tuesday evening, a spokesman for European Council President Donald Tusk said the EU welcomes the U.K.'s "ambition to avoid a no-deal scenario" but said "the backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation." However, it was suggested the EU could shift its position "if the U.K.'s intentions for the future partnership were to evolve." "The EU would be prepared to reconsider its offer and adjust the content and the level of ambition of the political declaration," the statement said, also reiterating that the EU would consider any "reasoned request" for an extension to the departure date. French President Emmanuel Macron said the current deal on offer is the "best possible" and "not negotiable" and the Irish government rejected any renegotiation of the backstop. Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney tweeted that it was a "necessary" insurance policy. Tweet:

Stay away from sterling

Sterling fell 0.6 percent to $1.307 Tuesday evening after one of the amendments put before Parliament  which proposed to give the government more time to reach an agreement with the EU  was defeated. The Cooper amendment (named after the MP that tabled it) would have pushed the departure date to December 2019, lowering the chances of a no-deal Brexit.
Tesla reported its second consecutive quarterly profit Wednesday and better-than-expected sales, but its fourth-quarter earnings fell short of analysts' expectations and sent its shares south after the markets closed. CEO Elon Musk also announced a major change to the electric carmaker's executive ranks with the retirement of long-time Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja. Tesla's shares, which rose 3.8 percent during the regular session, fell by about 5 percent in after-hours trading. Ahuja is being replaced by Zach Kirkhorn, previously the company's vice president of finance, Musk told analysts at the end of a conference call announcing the results.

Not as bad

The electric car maker's results and outlook for 2019 were not as bad as some had feared, but the automotive segment, which still comprises the majority of Tesla's business was less profitable than some had expected. This is Tesla's fourth profitable quarter overall since it went public in 2010, and the first time Tesla has reported back-to-back profitable results. Musk said last year that he expected Tesla to be sustainably profitable beginning in the third quarter of 2018. Earnings were hit on a number of fronts, the company said, citing a decline in revenue from the sale of regulatory credits, higher import duties on parts from China as well as lower prices on the Model S and Model X in China and a lower-priced midrange version of the Model 3. "Last year was definitely the most challenging year in Tesla history, but also the most successful," Musk told analysts on a conference call.

Mixed bag

Executives said the company's main priorities in 2019 include reducing costs, shipping as many cars as possible until more tariffs hit, getting Tesla's Shanghai factory running and improving service in North America. "This release was a mixed bag," CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson told CNBC. "The company generated strong free cash flow, which should ease balance sheet-related concerns, which is the biggest positive from this release in our view. Vehicle sales guidance for 2019 was a bit short of expectations, but not nearly the doomsday scenario some had expected resulting from the federal EV credit step-down." Here's how the company did compared with what Wall Street expected: Adjusted EPS: $1.93 versus $2.20, according to average estimates compiled by Refinitiv

Revenue: $7.23 billion versus $7.08 billion, according to average estimates compiled by Refinitiv

Revenue beat

On an unadjusted basis, Tesla made $139.5 million, or 78 cents a share, compared with a loss of $675.4 million, or $4.01 a share, during the last quarter of 2017. It generated $7.23 billion in total revenue, more than double its $3.29 billion in revenue during the same quarter in 2017. It also beat analysts' average sales estimates of $7.08 billion. Tesla said its cash position substantially improved by $1.45 billion, despite spending $230 million to repay convertible bonds during the quarter. The company should see higher revenues in 2019 as it substantially ramps up production and deliveries this year, aiming for 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries, about 45 to 65 percent more than its deliveries in 2018. Musk predicted its deliveries will grow 50 percent in 2019, "even if there's a recession."

Tax credits

Investors have been paying close attention to how profitable Tesla's cars are, particularly the Model 3 sedan. The federal tax credit on every Tesla vehicle sold was cut in half to $3,750 at the beginning of the year, after Tesla sold its allotted 200,000 units that qualified for the full credit. "That 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles is within the band of what the street was expecting, and I think there were fears that would be significantly worse given what we saw in North America with the EV tax credit," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC. Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds' executive director of industry analysis, sees a tough year ahead for Tesla. "Things really aren't going to get any better for Tesla in the U.S. than they did at the end of 2018," she told CNBC on Wednesday. "Turning a profit, creatively addressing production challenges and getting the Model 3 to the masses were huge milestones, but keeping up this momentum is going to be virtually impossible."

She said its product line is starting to get stale and it faces new competition from Audi, Porsche and Jaguar.

Purgatory

"Tesla's in an awkward purgatory between being a start-up and a mainstream automaker, and the biggest open question heading into 2019 is where the company really goes from here," Caldwell said. "Tesla is used to owning the spotlight, but for the next year we might see a lower-key Tesla as the company takes baby steps to keep things moving along while it plans for the future." Eyes are watching whether Tesla needs to raise any more capital in the short term, especially given the fact that it needs to pay off $920 million in debt due March 1. Bondholders can convert the debt into equity if the shares trade at or above the strike price of $359.87. But below that price, Tesla would likely have to pay off the notes with cash. The company assured investors that it has "sufficient cash on hand to comfortably settle in cash our convertible bond that will mature in March 2019." Read Tesla's results here.
With the help of tech start-up Yondr, San Lorenzo High School in California has banned cellphone use during the school day.

Since the last school year, students have been required to keep their phones in Yondr's locking pouches from 8 a.m. until school lets out at 3:10 p.m.

Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni was inspired to create the pouches after noticing that people at some concerts he was attending were more absorbed with their phones than with the music. Performers have flocked to the concept, with comedians such as Dave Chappelle, Jack White and Chris Rock using Yondr at their shows.

More educators are taking note, and Yondr says it has partnerships with thousands of schools in the United States, Canada and Europe. The pouches cost $15 to $30 per student annually depending on school size, and about $2 per head for large performances.

Hear from teachers and students about their experience with a phone-free school day.
Mohammed bin Salman Will Oliver | Pool | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Saudi Arabia has wrapped up a long-running corruption probe that captured the market's attention in 2017 after the kingdom detained dozens of prominent princes and businessmen. The Saudi Royal Court on Wednesday said the kingdom has retrieved more than 400 billion Saudi riyals  or about $106 billion  in cash, real estate and other assets. The wave of arrests in November 2017 caught the world by surprise and turned the Ritz-Carlton in the capital city of Riyadh into a gilded prison for the scores of Saudis swept up in the campaign. The kingdom cast the detentions as part of a crackdown on entrenched corruption, while some observers said the detentions were orchestrated to consolidate power under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the next in line to King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Prince Mohammed chaired the corruption committee.

Allegations of abuse and reports that detainees were being asked to exchange their assets for freedom rattled the market at a time when Saudi Arabia was accelerating its bid to attract foreign investment. The arrests came just days after the Saudis hosted an inaugural international investment summit in Riyadh. Among the prominent detainees were Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Saudi Arabia's most prominent investor, and Prince Mutaib al-Saud, the former head of the country's National Guard. Concerns about Prince Mohammed's rule following the arrests were compounded one year later when Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi went missing after entering a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. After initially denying any responsibility, the kingdom admitted Saudi agents had killed Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident, inside the consulate. The Saudis say the killing was the act of rogue operatives, but the CIA has reportedly concluded the slaying was premeditated and Prince Mohammed was likely complicit. The Khashoggi crisis led many companies, including CNBC, to drop out of the second annual investment summit in Riyadh in November. While the killing has raised questions about foreign direct investment into Saudi Arabia, a recent Saudi bond sale attracted heavy international interest.
Crude is on the move.

The commodity has surged more than 20 percent this year and is on pace for its best month since 2016 and its best January ever. Despite the gains, oil prices are still far from their multiyear highs after falling precipitously in October. According to one energy, expert the rally may have already hit a ceiling.

"We're now growing at an annual pace of over 2 million barrels a day, year over year, when demand only grows at 1-1.5 million, so something has got to give there," said Mike Kelly, head of E&P research at Seaport Global.

Crude's resurgence has been fueled by the latest bout of OPEC production cuts, as well as newly imposed sanctions targeting Venezuela's top oil producer. While the pullback in supply has lured oil investors back into the market of late, Kelly warns that it may not be enough to offset the production boom in the U.S. market.

"The world's swing producer, which is now us here in the U.S., ... they have to temper their growth a little bit," he warned on Tuesday on CNBC's "Futures Now." "There's a reason why OPEC's had to cut  it's because we've grown at a pace here that a year and a half ago people would've thought was ludicrous."

Kelly adds that a potential slowdown in demand could also send crude back down near $40 a barrel  a level not seen since the December market lows. Crude prices have fallen more than 29 percent from its intraday 52-week high of $76.41 last year.

To keep the upside momentum, Kelly said the potential combination of both Venezuelan and Iranian oil pulling out of the market could "give you a spike here over 70."

Kelly also noted that investors are now holding oil companies' "feet to the flames" to increase cash flow amid the surge in U.S. production.

"Historically they've all out spent their cash flow with their capex budgets," he said. "So that could potentially get you down to a more reasonable level of U.S. growth, and I think at that point you see more of a bid for crude."

West Texas Intermediate crude was trading higher on Wednesday, at around $54.70.
The bill's reintroduction marks the 10th anniversary of President Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , which overturned a Supreme Court decision that limited the time period in which employees could file an equal pay lawsuit related to pay discrimination.

"When women succeed, America succeeds," said Pelosi at the introduction of the conference. She said she hopes President Trump will sign the bill by April 2, which is Equal Pay Day.

The proposed bill , which Democrats have tried to pass for 20 years, would add protections to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act in an attempt to close the gender wage gap. It would ban salary secrecy, increase penalties for employers who retaliate against workers who share wage information and allow workers to sue for damages of pay discrimination. The bill would also provide more training for employers on collecting pay gap information and eliminating pay disparities.

Ledbetter, the plaintiff in that landmark discrimination case, attended today's event alongside House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, and other Democratic Reps, including Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Bobby Scott of Virginia, Jackie Speier of California and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

"The consequences of pay discrimination, they last your entire life," said Ledbetter. "We cannot subject another generation of women, our daughters, our granddaughters, to this injustice."

The measure is unlikely to resonate in the Republican-controlled Senate. Since 2012, House Republicans have voted at least four times to block the act from consideration. The GOP has argued the bill would make it too easy for workers to sue firms over pay inequality allegations and lead to unnecessary lawsuits.

Republicans have also called the bill unnecessary, since gender discrimination is already illegal, and have said that bill's regulations would only discourage companies from hiring women.

Women working full-time earned 80 percent of what men earned in 2018, according to commonly-cited U.S. Census Bureau data. "I cannot tell you how difficult it has been to break through on something so simple  that men and women in the same job deserve the same pay," DeLauro said.

Ocasio-Cortez said the bill would force employers to make salaries transparent and stop them from asking about pay history.

"It is time that we pay people what they are worth and not how little they are desperate enough to accept," she said. "And that has nothing to do with their history, it has everything to do with what they are worth today."

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Don't miss: There's a gender pay gap for congressional staffers  and it's worse among Republicans
Mueller's filing Wednesday objects to Concord's request that the special counsel be compelled to disclose documents he has deemed "sensitive" to the defendant and its employees as it prepares for trial.

The special counsel charged Concord Management last year with funding a multimillion-dollar social media disinformation campaign to bolster the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Mueller made that allegation in a court filing in his criminal case pending against Concord Management and Consulting, a Russian company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the oligarch who is known as "Putin's chef."

Special counsel Robert Mueller claimed Wednesday that evidence in one of his criminal cases related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign was recently used in an online disinformation campaign, apparently to discredit Mueller's investigations.

Concord wants to be able to send that information to Russia for review by company officers and employees. But Mueller said in his filing that doing so "unreasonably risks the national security interests of the United States."

The special counsel said that Concord should not be given such sensitive material because of alleged misuse in October by an unknown party of "non-sensitive" materials already in Concord's possession as a result of the normal discovery process that litigants use to share information during a court case.

Mueller said that "sensitive" materials identifies individuals and entities that have not been criminally charged, but whom "the government believes are continuing to engage in operations that interfere with lawful U.S. government functions like those activities charged in the indictment."

The special counsel's office said that the online account used to publish the discovery materials was registered by a user with an internet address who resides in Russia. The FBI has found no evidence that U.S. government servers, including ones used by Mueller's office, had been hacked.

But, 'the subsequent investigation has revealed that certain non-sensitive discovery materials in the defense's possession appear to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign aimed (apparently) at discrediting ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. political system," Mueller's filing said.

"One or more actors made statements claiming to have a stolen copy of discovery produced by the government in this case."

The special counsel said that on Oct. 22, a newly created Twitter account, @HackingRedstone, began sending direct messages to members of the media, "promoting a link to the online filesharing webpage using Twitter.

And then on Oct. 30, the same account publicly tweeted: "We've got access to the Special Counsel Mueller's probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!'"

The IRA, or Internet Research Agency, is a Russia-based firm whose top officials have been indicted by Mueller on charges of defrauding the U.S. The HackingRedstone account since has been suspended.

Mueller noted that the names and other details on that webpage "significantly match the non-public names and file structure of the materials produced in discovery."

That, "and the fact that over 1,000 files on the webpage match those produced in discovery, establish that the person(s) who created the webpage had access to at least some of the non-sensitive discovery produced by the government in this case," Mueller said in his filing.
Shares of Microsoft stock fell as much as 4 percent Wednesday after the company issued its fiscal second-quarter earnings report with slightly lower revenue than expected.

Here are the major numbers:

Earnings: $1.10 per share, excluding certain items, vs. $1.09 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

$1.10 per share, excluding certain items, vs. $1.09 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv. Revenue: $32.47 billion, vs. $32.51 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Revenue increased 12 percent year over year in the quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, Microsoft said in a statement.

While Microsoft again declined to disclose exact revenue for the Azure cloud business that's contributed to the company's success in recent years, Microsoft did say Azure grew 76 percent, which is flat sequentially from the previous quarter.

Given comments from Intel, Juniper and other companies related to spending on infrastructure, Microsoft investors had reason to be concerned about what that means for Azure, said Brent Bracelin, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets who has a "buy" rating on the stock. Bracelin had predicted around 74 percent growth, or $2.85 billion in revenue.

Microsoft said it collected $9 billion in revenue from its Commercial Cloud category, which includes the Azure public cloud, commercial subscriptions to the Office 365 productivity software bundle, the Enterprise Mobility and Security products and commercial LinkedIn services.

The unit was up 48 percent, reflecting a sequentially higher growth rate from 47 percent one quarter ago. Bracelin had estimated it would rise 44.8 percent this time around. The gross margin for Commercial Cloud held steady sequentially at 62 percent.

Azure is second to Amazon Web Services in the market for cloud infrastructure, which lets companies offload their computing and data storage. Bracelin predicted Azure would contribute $2.85 billion in the quarter, implying around 74 percent growth, down sequentially from the prior quarter. Amazon, which publishes results tomorrow, is expected to report AWS revenue of $7.3 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.

"Within the next five years I don't envision Azure catching up," Bracelin said in an interview this week. He said that within 10 years, Azure could be bigger if AWS is still part of Amazon.

"The debate becomes at some point, do Amazon.com's ambitions limit the opportunities for AWS because of the competitive aspirations they have, that just limits the ability for AWS to grow," Bracelin said.
McDonald's reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue Wednesday as its modernized restaurants boosted international sales, but U.S. same-store sales were weaker than expected as the company tries to keep customers interested while it upgrades its American stores.

Shares rose less than 1 percent in trading midday Wednesday.

"We continued to transform our business by making substantial progress on modernizing our restaurants and offering more convenience, choice and value to our customers," President and CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a statement.

Net sales dropped 3 percent to $5.163 billion, but still beat Wall Street's expectations of $5.162 billion, helped by strong international sales. Its international lead segment saw same-store sales increase by 5.2 percent, topping analysts' estimates of 4.67 percent, with the U.K., Germany and Australia posting strong performances. Easterbrook credited the modernized restaurants in those countries for boosting sales.

Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $1.97, adjusted, vs. $1.89 expected

Revenue: $5.163 billion vs. $5.162 billion expected

Global same-store sales: 4.4 percent vs. 3.9 percent expected

But U.S. same-store sales fell short of estimates, with the company reporting growth of 2.3 percent during the quarter. Analysts had been expecting a 2.4 percent gain. Last year, U.S. sales at stores open at least a year rose 4.5 percent.

"Within the U.S., the pressure is particularly acute and is resulting in more disgruntlement and frustration among franchisees," GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders said in a note. "The central problem is that cost growth is being outpaced by sales growth and returns are diminishing."

The company has been remodeling its U.S. stores with high-tech upgrades like self-serve kiosks. In November, it pushed its deadline for the renovations from 2020 to 2022, but it still expects a substantial number of projects to be finished at the end of 2020. Franchisees who choose to finish their renovations after 2020 will receive a smaller contribution for the project from the company.

McDonald's is planning to spend nearly $1 billion in 2019 on upgrading about 2,000 U.S. locations. In 2018, it spent $1.4 billion to remodel around 4,500 restaurants, with 10 reopening per day.

Closing stores for the upgrades had taken a toll on its same-store sales, not to mention that many franchisees have been less than pleased with the return on investment. Franchisees formed an independent advocacy group, the National Owners Association, last October. Easterbrook told analysts on the conference call that he met with some franchisees in Louisiana and Georgia recently.

The fast-food giant has been looking to promotions and new breakfast items to whet customers' appetites as U.S. sales slow. Menu prices also increased around 2 percent for the quarter.

In November, McDonald's began a limited-time offering of Triple Breakfast Stacks. The meaty breakfast sandwiches were inspired by customers' special orders. The following month, it brought back its 2 for $5 Mix & Match deal. The meal deal represents McDonald's move away from discounts like its Dollar Menu as it tries to raise the average check price to make up for declining foot traffic.

Additionally, the company said that its delivery business has reached $3 billion worldwide. In France, the U.S. and the U.K., delivery sales growth reached the high double-digits. In Canada and Russia, delivery sales increased by even more.

Globally, the fast food giant plans to add 750 restaurants in 2019.

The company attributed the 3 percent decline in revenue to the impact of its refranchising initiatives in the U.S., China and Hong Kong. The initiative is also why the company did not issue forecasts for sales and earnings in 2018.

In its earnings statement, the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $1.42 billion, or $1.82 per share, up from $698.7 million, or 87 cents per share a year earlier.

Excluding items, McDonald's earned $1.97 cents per share, beating the $1.89 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

However, on Wednesday, the company reiterated its long-term, average annual financial targets starting in 2019. It is forecasting earnings per share growth in the high-single digits and sales growth of 3 to 5 percent.

Chief Financial Officer Kevin Ozan named currency fluctuations, labor and commodity costs and depreciation costs related to the store upgrades as headwinds for 2019.

McDonald's is forecasting commodity costs to increase by 1 to 2 percent in the U.S. and 2 percent in key international markets.
Economist Larry Summers has advised Democratic presidents, but he's not ready to jump behind Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax.

Warren, of Massachusetts, is a prominent voice in the party's liberal wing and is exploring a run for president. Her proposal, which she is calling an ultra-millionaire tax, would apply to Americans with more than $50 million in assets.

However, Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and as director of the National Economic Council for President Barack Obama, told CNBC on Wednesday he'd rather investigate other changes before moving "into whole new areas of taxation."

"The places I would look first are to closing shelters, broadening the base, increasing compliance, equalizing upwards the rates on capital income, fixing the estate tax loophole. Those things I think have very large potential," he said on "Squawk Alley."

Warren is looking to raise about $2.75 trillion over 10 years with her plan, which would impose a 2 percent tax every year on households with assets over $50 million. That rate would raise to 3 percent on households with assets over $1 billion.

Summers said it's too early to reach any definite conclusions yet and urged more research on the topic.

"We do need to study pretty carefully why it is that most of the European countries, who usually are more progressive than we are and had wealth taxes, have decided over the last 15 or 20 years to eliminate those wealth taxes and why almost none of them get anything like the kinds of revenue that Sen. Warren is aspiring to get," he said.

Warren isn't the only one in the Democratic Party targeting the rich. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently floated a 70 percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million.

The announcements have made the GOP  and the rich  jittery. Former Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Republican who represented Texas from 2003 to 2019, said Tuesday on CNBC, "I am fearful of it because in America we do not traditionally vilify success. We celebrate success."

It's also resonating with more centrist politicians. Former Starbucks CEO and possible independent presidential candidate Howard Schultz cited Ocasio-Cortez's ideas as one of the reasons he could never run as a Democrat.

However, polling has generally supported higher taxes on the wealthy, an issue that is becoming one of the most crucial of the nascent 2020 election campaign.

A recent Hill-HarrisX survey of 1,001 registered voters found that 59 percent supported Ocasio-Cortez's proposal. And a Fox News poll published last week found that 70 percent of registered voters backed hiking taxes for families making more than $10 million a year.

 CNBC's Matt Belvedere contributed to this report.


When Jason Boehmig was in law school at Notre Dame in 2012, he decided he really wanted to be in technology. So he sent a cold email to Ted Wang, who was one of Silicon Valley's most prominent lawyers, having represented Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Square and Spotify.

Boehmig asked Wang for a 15-minute meeting to pitch him on his idea to bring intelligent software to the legal world. Wang agreed to hear him out, so Boehmig hopped on a plane from Indiana to meet with the lawyer in the Bay Area.

"Wouldn't it be great if you could have associates who could code and automate their own jobs and would make the firm more efficient?" Boehmig recalled asking Wang, who was a partner at Fenwick & West. Wang liked the idea enough that he ended up hiring Boehmig for a two-year gig helping out on start-up work.

"He came and helped us deliver a higher-quality service to our clients," said Wang. "So we could make their experience better, the work product was more accurate, and it was cheaper to the client."

Seven years later, Boehmig and Wang are still working together on that idea.

Boehmig is co-founder and CEO of Ironclad, a start-up focused on automating the flow of contracts and other paperwork. Wang, who joined investment firm Cowboy Ventures in 2017, put some money into the company.

Ironclad has since caught the attention of the best-known start-up investors. The company said Wednesday that it's just closed a $23 million financing round, led by Sequoia Capital.

The fresh money is "really around intelligence as the future of our software," Boehmig said in an interview.
A high speed production line of insulin is pictured at the factory of Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company, in Chartres.

Democratic leaders sent letters Wednesday to three major pharmaceutical companies asking for the "root causes" of rising insulin costs, the latest attempt by Democrats to tackle high health-care costs in the U.S.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr, D-Nj, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette, D-Co, sent letters to Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi on Wednesday requesting information on insulin prices and the obstacles to providing more affordable medication. The Democrats are requesting answers from each of the companies by Feb 13.

"When patients go without insulin  or ration their doses  there can be tragic consequences," Pallone and DeGette wrote in their letters. "As one of the few manufacturers of insulin in the United States, your company is well-suited to shed light on these issues and offer potential solutions."

CNBC reached out to Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi for comment.

A spokesperson for Sanofi confirmed the company received a letter and said it will work with the committee on their request for information.

Earlier this month, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he sent letters to 12 drugmakers seeking detailed information and documents about the companies' pricing practices. Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi were among the 12 which received letters.

Democrats, who regained control of the House this month, listed lowering prescription drug costs as one of their top priorities. Spending on prescription drugs in the U.S. increased to $333.4 billion in 2017, according to the latest data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Additionally, the annual cost of insulin for people with type 1 diabetes in the U.S. nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016 to $5,700 from $2,900.

Democrats have placed their focus on the pharmaceutical industry, which sells drugs at higher prices in the U.S. than abroad.

The Trump administration has also vowed to lower drug costs, and President Donald Trump has indicated he's willing to work with Democrats to do so.

In a brief exchange between Rep. Mark Meadows and Cummings at a hearing Tuesday, the North Carolina Republican said Trump wanted Cummings to know Trump's "serious about working in a bipartisan way to lower prescription drug prices."

Pharmaceutical companies say price increases have been modest and argue lowering drug profits would hinder the industry in making investments towards new and innovative cures.


Hong Kong came in first in an annual ranking of the world's most "economically free" countries, topping the chart for the 25th straight year, according to a U.S. think tank.

That's a "remarkable achievement," said Edwin Feulner, founder of The Heritage Foundation, which co-published the 2019 Index of Economic Freedom with The Wall Street Journal.

An economically free society is defined as an environment where individuals can work, produce, consume and invest in any way they please, and governments allow workers, money flows, and goods to move freely.

Hong Kong's achievement is even more impressive considering the fact that the city has come under increasing political pressure from Beijing in recent years.

As a special administrative region of China, Hong Kong operates under the "one country, two systems" framework which allows the territory to enjoy a certain degree of autonomy not seen on the mainland.

But since the pro-democracy protests of 2014, which saw tens of thousands march through the streets and paralyze parts of the financial hub for weeks, Hong Kong has seen more and more protests against Chinese interference. That's in turn prompted Beijing to harden its stance on dissent in the territory.

Hong Kong is still "clearly number one," Feulner told CNBC's Akiko Fujita on Squawk Box Monday. "It is the only country in the world that scored above 90 in our index  a 100 being perfect  and it's 90.2."

"I mean here is one country, two systems  Hong Kong number one, China 100," Feulner said, highlighting the territory's independence from the mainland.
Google admitted Wednesday that one of its apps violated the same policies as a Facebook app that landed the social network in hot water with Apple.

Apple revoked Facebook's enterprise certificates after a TechCrunch report revealed that the company had been secretly distributing a Facebook Research app to members of a program that allowed the firm to collect data on how they used their devices.

Enterprise certificates make it possible for users at a company to install and use apps directly, without going through Apple's tightly controlled App Store. But Apple's rules dictate that these kinds of apps can only be used by employees at a company.

Google distributed its app, Screenwise Meter, in the same way. That means Apple could have revoked its enterprise licenses, as it did to Facebook, which could have prevented Google employees from using certain internal apps, including test versions of iPhone apps. Like Facebook's app, Google's Screenwise Meter app collected everything participants did on their phones, in exchange for money.
With the Trump Cabinet's revolving door continually spinning, organizations looking for an inside glimpse into the administration have increasing options  but they come with increasingly higher price tags.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking engagements, according to seven people with knowledge of the arrangement, who spoke on condition of anonymity because such quotes aren't made publicly available. Engagements outside the United States could cost considerably more, these people said.

In her October resignation letter, Haley said she would be taking a "step up" into the private sector after leaving the U.N. At the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than $1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years of public service, according to a public financial disclosure report based on 2017 data.

Haley's spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail, text and call seeking comment.

But it may raise questions if she decides to re-enter the political fray. Haley's lucrative fee propels her into a league populated by U.S. presidents, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, former first lady Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Charging roughly $225,000 apiece, Clinton brought in nearly $22 million from a wide range of engagements between leaving office in 2013 and running for president in 2015, according to an Associated Press investigation. That led to criticism from opponents who claimed she was influenced by special interests and calls for the event transcripts to be published.

Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Insight, said there is nothing inherently wrong with getting paid to tell one's story, but the question for former federal officials is what their motive and intent are in doing so.

"When they come into public service, are they truly working in interest of the public or are they more focused on cashing in on opportunities when they leave?" Amey said.

Upon leaving the U.N. post at the end of the year, Haley signed with the Washington Speakers Bureau, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The going rate to book McMaster and Kelly could not be confirmed but was quoted to people inquiring in ranges at less than half of Haley's rate  a fact that underscores the perceived value of her future political viability and her remaining in Trump's good graces.

Kelly is advertised as a speaker at the Skybridge Alternatives Conference in May, the annual investing summit hosted by short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.

The Washington Speakers Bureau, which does not list the three officials on its website, did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.

Haley said she would support Trump in his 2020 re-election but did not rule out a run of her own after that. Her resignation was announced from the Oval Office with Trump by her side, while McMaster and Kelly departed relatively quietly after months of clashing with the president.

Nels Olson, who advises federal officials transitioning to the private sector, said it's normal for Cabinet officials to hit the speaking circuit while they are household names before settling into a new full-time role.

"There's sort of a half-life to these things," said Olsen, vice chairman and global government affairs leader at Korn Ferry. "There's usually demand for the first six months to a year [after exiting the White House], but then it tapers off."

It's unclear which organizations have agreed to pay the rate Haley's agency is quoting. Former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, leveraging his former Wall Street experience, also charges $200,000 and up for speaking engagements, three people familiar with the fees said.

Cohn has accepted gigs at the National Multifamily Housing Council, a Miami conference for Context Capital Partners, and a corporate event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Cohn's representatives at the Harry Walker Agency declined to comment on his fees, citing client policy.

The White House, which has panned former West Wing officials for profiting off books chronicling their White House tenure, did not respond to a request for comment.

 CNBC's Stephanie Dhue contributed reporting.
George Papadopoulos, former campaign adviser for U.S. President Donald Trump, walks out of federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018.

George Papadopoulos, the first advisor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign to plead guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, has landed a new role on the board of advisors at a pro-Trump medical marijuana company.

Papadopoulos was released from a 12-day stint in federal prison in December as part of the plea deal he struck with Mueller after admitting he lied about his contacts during the 2016 election.

A month later, he joined the advisory board of C3 International, manufacturer of a "concentrated cannabis extract" that claims to offer an analgesic alternative to opiates and narcotics.

C3's website boasts that its pill, called Idrasil, is the "first standardized form of medical cannabis." A case of 24 bottles of Idrasil costs $12,000, or $500 apiece for a 30-day supply.

"I believe that having a prescription cannabis pill can be a big part of the solution because it is prescription-only, it is safe, and a non-addictive way for patients suffering from pain and other ailments," Papadopoulos said in a statement to CNBC. "It's revolutionary and I am honored to be on the Board of Advisors."

The California-based company's CEO, Steele Smith, said he started the company years after his own bout with an addiction to opioids that he was prescribed to treat a rare form of Crohn's disease. He said he first started a medical marijuana dispensary, but eventually developed the doseable, prescribable cannabis pill that he hopes will disrupt the pain medicine market.

Smith praised the Trump administration, and expressed a desire to contribute to it, in an interview.

"The president has established an opioid commission that has within it a group of folks studying cannabis so that the president can make learned policy decisions related to cannabis," Smith said. "And I want to be on that panel."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CEO said he first crossed paths with Papadopoulos through LinkedIn. The 31-year-old foreign policy aide, who was photographed sitting alongside Trump and other campaign officials at a March 2016 campaign meeting, brings the company "access, primarily," Smith said. "And he's a conservative Republican, like me."

Asked whether C3 has made contact with the Trump administration, Smith referred CNBC to Papadopoulos. The former Trump campaign advisor did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether he reached out to the administration.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts during the 2016 presidential election.

After joining the campaign in 2016, Papadopoulos met with a Russia-tied professor who told him the Kremlin had "dirt" on Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, including "thousands of emails," according to the special counsel's court filings. But Papadopoulos falsely told investigators that he met with that professor before learning of his role in the campaign.

Mueller's team is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as possible Trump campaign collusion with the Kremlin and an inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Papadopoulos was sentenced to be incarcerated for two weeks in prison, pay a $9,500 fine, serve 200 hours of community service and stay under supervised release for a year. But he was released from federal custody in Oxford, Wisconsin, after just 12 days because he received credit for two days he spent in jail earlier after his arrest in the case.

After flirting with a possible appeal of his sentence, Papadopoulos decided against the legal challenge in "hopes to move on with his life," his lawyer said in a statement at the time.

Smith said he "absolutely" was initially uneasy with Papadopoulos' highly publicized persona as a target of the Mueller probe who had just been released from custody. But Papadopoulos has "shown that he's not a shrinking violet or a weak individual. He's got morals and values and character," Smith said.

Marijuana, especially when used for recreational purposes, has long maintained an association with the liberal counterculture movements of the mid-20th century. Recent polls show that younger Americans and Democrats are more likely to say pot should be legal than older generations and Republicans, respectively.

Smith said that people are often surprised to find a conservative Trump supporter at the head of a medical marijuana company.

"I think that's kind of a cool thing in a way, because we get to define what the new conservative looks like," Smith said. "We understand that there's been a reefer madness that has been perpetrated upon us, and that needs to end. And I think we're the people to do that."
E-cigarettes were nearly twice as effective as nicotine patches, gums and similar therapies in helping people stop smoking cigarettes, a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

Researchers at the Queen Mary University of London conducted a randomized clinical trial on 886 participants who were attending the U.K. National Health Service's stop-smoking services. People were divided into two groups and were told they could use either an e-cigarette or nicotine-replacement products of their choice, with options including nicotine patches and gums. Both groups received weekly one-on-one sessions with local clinicians.

One year later, researchers invited people who said they stopped smoking to come in for a carbon monoxide test to confirm their answer. They found 18 percent of people in the e-cigarette group had stopped, compared with 9.9 percent in the nicotine-replacement group.

Doctors have been wary of recommending people use e-cigarettes as a way to wean themselves off conventional cigarettes, citing both the lack of evidence showing they work and lack of data on the long-term health effects of using the products. The new study may quell some of those concerns. However, the study is also likely to receive some pushback because it was conducted in the United Kingdom, which has embraced and even encouraged e-cigarettes as an alternative for adult smokers.

In an editorial accompanying the study, professors from the Boston University School of Medicine urged doctors to use caution when recommending e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. They said doctors should only recommend e-cigarettes when an FDA-approved treatment fails, and that if doctors do suggest e-cigarettes, they should manage their use like they would with other products.

"While e-cigarettes are 'safer' than traditional cigarettes, they are not without risks," Boston University professors Belinda Borrelli and George O'Connor said in a statement.

They also pointed to the finding that at the one-year mark, 80 percent of people in the e-cigarette group were still using the devices. So while people stopped smoking cigarettes, they were still using e-cigarettes. The study's authors also noted this finding, saying it "can be seen as problematic if e-cigarette use for a year signals ongoing long-term use, which may pose as-yet unknown health risks."

Huge numbers of teens using the products  particularly one brand, Juul  have soured perceptions about e-cigarettes in the U.S. Even Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who has championed the devices as a way to help adult smokers, says the industry is at a tipping point.

Ray Niaura, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at New York University, said the study's results are "encouraging." They also suggest researchers can find ways to keep more people cigarette-free longer, said Niaura, who was not involved in the study.

At the six-month mark, 35 percent of people in the e-cigarette group were still cigarette-free. That dropped to 18 percent at the one-year mark.
ROME - Over 90,000 signatures have been collected to nominate the Riace municipality for the Nobel Peace Prize.



The announcement was made during a Rome press conference in which the former mayor of the Calabria town, Mimmo Lucano, took part.

Some of those involved in the campaign for the collection of signatures includes the Left magazine and Rete dei Comuni Solidali, as well as 2,750 university professors, dozens of MPs and 1,250 associations. On Thursday the reasons for the candidature and the signatures will be sent to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo.

''This collection of signatures is news that pleasing to me in a period of overriding bitterness,'' Lucano said. ''I would like to share this with all the refugees of Riace and those of the entire world,'' he added, ''including those of San Ferdinando, in the Gioia Tauro plains, where on February 1 we will be holding a demonstration to shed light on the very serious situation there.''

''They arrested me for a crime of humanity,'' Lucano had said on October 3, after he was arrested for aiding and abetting clandestine migration. After 20 years of working in migrant reception, Lucano had made Riace into a model to be followed around the world, taking on symbolic value for a welcoming Italy.
J. P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has "no problem" paying higher taxes, as long as government spends that money wisely.

In a statement to CNBC, Dimon said "I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more, and I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society."

He added, "However, we need to ensure that our tax dollars are going where they can be most effective  like expanding the earned income tax credit and other programs that support the people and communities who really need it."

The comments come amid a debate about whether the wealthiest Americans should shoulder higher taxes, a proposal supported by newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and established Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both Democrats.
China tested the world's most powerful naval gun earlier this month and it's expected to enter China's arsenal by 2025, according to sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.

The warship-mounted electromagnetic railgun was first seen in 2011 and underwent testing in 2014.

The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.

Amanda Macias

WASHINGTON  China tested the world's most powerful naval gun earlier this month, and it is expected to be ready for warfare by 2025, according to people with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.

China's railgun was first seen in 2011 and underwent testing in 2014, according to the people, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.

Between 2015 and 2017, the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished. The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.

The development comes at a moment when tensions between China and the U.S. are already high, underscored by crucial trade talks that were scheduled to move to Washington on Wednesday.

Railguns use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder to propel rounds, and China's is capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second, according to the people who have knowledge of the intelligence report. For perspective, a shot fired from Washington could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds.

Railguns have long appeared on Russian, Iranian and U.S. military wish lists as cost-effective weapons that give navies the might of a cannon with the range of a precision-guided missile.

The rounds used in China's railgun cost $25,000 to $50,000 each, according to the intelligence assessment. Though not an exact comparison since the weapons have different technologies, the U.S. Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile has an estimated price tag of $1.4 million each.

The U.S. Navy's railgun, which is years away from being operational, remains a classified system still in development under the Office of Naval Research.

China's sprint to develop a weapon of this magnitude, coupled with coastal defense systems, represents a significant addition to Beijing's military arsenal in one of the most contested regions of the world: the South China Sea.

In May, CNBC learned that China quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its fortified outposts west of the Philippines in the sea, a move that allows Beijing to further project its power in the hotly disputed waters.

Home to more than 200 specks of land, the South China Sea serves as a gateway to global shipping routes where $3.4 trillion of trade passes annually.

The numerous overlapping sovereign claims to islands, reefs and rocks  many of which disappear under high tide  have turned the waters into an armed camp. Beijing holds the lion's share of these features with about 27 outposts.

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Chinese sailors form an honor guard during a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 6, 2012.

Between 2015 and 2017, the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished. The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.

China's railgun was first seen in 2011 and underwent testing in 2014, according to the people, who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON  China tested the world's most powerful naval gun earlier this month, and it is expected to be ready for warfare by 2025, according to people with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.

The development comes at a moment when tensions between China and the U.S. are already high, underscored by crucial trade talks that were scheduled to move to Washington on Wednesday.

Railguns use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder to propel rounds, and China's is capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second, according to the people who have knowledge of the intelligence report. For perspective, a shot fired from Washington could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds.

Railguns have long appeared on Russian, Iranian and U.S. military wish lists as cost-effective weapons that give navies the might of a cannon with the range of a precision-guided missile.

The rounds used in China's railgun cost $25,000 to $50,000 each, according to the intelligence assessment. Though not an exact comparison since the weapons have different technologies, the U.S. Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile has an estimated price tag of $1.4 million each.

The U.S. Navy's railgun, which is years away from being operational, remains a classified system still in development under the Office of Naval Research.

China's sprint to develop a weapon of this magnitude, coupled with coastal defense systems, represents a significant addition to Beijing's military arsenal in one of the most contested regions of the world: the South China Sea.

In May, CNBC learned that China quietly installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its fortified outposts west of the Philippines in the sea, a move that allows Beijing to further project its power in the hotly disputed waters.

Home to more than 200 specks of land, the South China Sea serves as a gateway to global shipping routes where $3.4 trillion of trade passes annually.

The numerous overlapping sovereign claims to islands, reefs and rocks  many of which disappear under high tide  have turned the waters into an armed camp. Beijing holds the lion's share of these features with about 27 outposts.

WATCH: Russia and China developing 'destructive' space weapons
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping need to reach a deal to end their trade war because the U.S. demands are actually beneficial to both economies, said Robert Kuhn, a longtime advisor to the Chinese government and state-owned companies.

"I talk to Chinese economists who tell me privately many of the things the U.S. demands is actually better for China; intellectual property protection, not putting state subsidies for state-owned enterprises. The irony is what the U.S. is forcing China to do in the short term will be good for the U.S., in the long term it's better for China," Kuhn told CNBC on Wednesday.

Kuhn appeared on "Squawk on the Street" as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer opened two days of trade talks at the White House with a delegation from China. "Trade deficits started the conversation, but nobody really talks about that seriously," he added.

Kuhn said the major five issues facing negotiators  Trump and Xi agreed on Dec. 1 to a 90-day tariff cease-fire that expires in March  are U.S. demands around opening Chinese markets, intellectual property, cyberspying and cybertheft, forced technology transfers through mandatory joint ventures, and the Chinese government's subsides of state-owned enterprises.

"Some of these, China has made real progress, and needs to be given credit for that," said Kuhn, a columnist for the South China Morning Post and a prolific author whose books include "How China's Leaders Think."

"China wants Shanghai to be a world center of business like London and New York, and maybe the first among equals. And for that to happen, however many years in the future, they must protect intellectual property," he said. "I have visited the Shanghai intellectual property court. There are some very tough judges."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has announced that he's considering running for president in 2020 as an independent candidate, failed an infamous litmus test on Wednesday.

After Schultz assured the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he's in touch with the average American because he "has walked in their shoes" and has been "on both sides of the equation," Mika Brzezinski asked him how much an 18-ounce box of Cheerios costs. The billionaire didn't answer. "I don't eat Cheerios, I'm sorry," he said.

An 18-ounce box of Cheerios, America's most popular breakfast cereal, costs around $4, or nearly what you can expect to pay for a grande-sized drink at Starbucks. When told the Cheerios cost, Schultz looked surprised and said, "That's a lot."

Schultz is far from the first wealthy American to have trouble with such a question. Supermarket prices have tripped up politicians and plutocrats for decades.

In 1992, former then-President George H.W. Bush caught flak after admitting in a debate that he didn't know the price of a gallon of milk. That same year, he took a trip to a grocery store, which The New York Times covered in a story, titled, "Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed."

"This is for checking out?" Bush asked, gesturing to one of the price scanners.

"I just took a tour through the exhibits here," he later told grocers. "Amazed by some of the technology."

Similarly, Mitt Romney praised the "amazing" touch screen menus at Wawa during his 2012 presidential campaign. (He also repeatedly referred to the popular convenience store as "Wawas.")

President Donald Trump, too, has made comments that have led some to wonder whether he's familiar with grocery stores. "If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID," he said at an event at Florida State Fairgrounds in 2018. "You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture."

And during the shutdown, he implied that furloughed workers could ask their grocers to "work along" with them, if they didn't have enough money to buy food.

On an episode of "The Ellen Show" last year, Bill Gates admitted to host Ellen DeGeneres that he hasn't been in a grocery store in a "long time." He guessed that a bag of frozen pizza rolls might be $22 and that artichoke dip would have to be at least $10. Both usually cost much less.

"He's so out of touch with regular people he should run for President," someone joked in the YouTube comment section.
Visitors crowd the Huawei stand at the 2016 CeBIT digital technology trade fair on the fair's opening day. Sean Gallup | Getty Images

"Indian companies have found that Chinese-made equipment is the key to their ability to provide the services they do at the prices that are, perhaps, the lowest in the world," echoed Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation, in a note earlier this month. Modi's government plans to replace the current 4G network with fifth generation technology  5G for short  by 2020. New Delhi plans to auction 5G spectrum to telcos in the second half of 2019 but domestic carriers such as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel want the government to delay auctions until 2020. If other emerging markets open their doors to Huawei's 5G equipment while more Western nations close theirs, there could be a scenario where the developing and developed world have different 5G standards, according to Joshi. That means the world would effectively be re-bordered into two technological spheres, he said.

Potential US pressure on India

"India will not be unaffected by the technology war between America and China," C. Raja Mohan, nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India, said in a recent note. "As Washington goes after Huawei, the crown jewel of China's technology companies, Delhi's own exposure to the company will come under scrutiny." India is a major U.S. security ally as well as a crucial player in Washington's Indo-Pacific blueprint, which many political analysts interpret as Trump's way of containing Chinese dominance in Asia. The U.S. has defined Indo-Pacific as the region "from the United States to India, from Japan to Australia, and everywhere in between." Palit believes the Indian government is "best placed to make its own choices" on matters of domestic economic development "regardless of what it might mean for some other countries." But New Delhi also has its own concerns regarding Huawei, which has been operating in the South Asian state since 1999. In 2014, India launched an investigation into allegations that Huawei was hacking into state-run telecoms carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam  claims that Huawei India denied. That came after New Delhi in 2010 blocked domestic carriers from importing Chinese telecoms equipment on fears that spying technology was embedded into hardware from China. "Amidst the new global pushback against Huawei and India's own plans to introduce 5G mobile technology, Delhi might have to revisit the old arguments and take a fresh look at its relationship with the Chinese tech giant," said Mohan.

Watch: What is 5G?
The FBI has accused a second Apple employee of attempting to steal trade secrets from the company regarding its secretive self-driving car program, according to a recently unsealed affidavit. NBC's Bay Area affiliate first reported the news.

This is the second employee in six months to be accused by the FBI of stealing trade secrets from Apple's self-driving car unit. In July, federal agents accused former Apple engineer Xiaolang Zhang of allegedly stealing proprietary information about the project and trying to bring it to XMotors, based in China.

Jizhong Chen was hired by Apple in June 2018 as a hardware developer engineer on the autonomous vehicles project, according to the sworn affidavit by an FBI agent that was originally filed on Jan. 22. The agent alleges an employee reported Chen after seeing him "taking wide angled photographs of the Project in the Building, which the employee found 'suspicious.'" Apple then allegedly asked to look at all of Chen's personal devices, according to the affidavit, and found Chen had backed up his work computer onto a personal hard-drive, violating Apple's policies.

Apple's review found about 100 photos taken inside Apple's building that housed the project on his personal devices along with "over two thousand files containing confidential and proprietary Apple material, including manuals, schematics and diagrams," according to the affidavit.

Chen allegedly told Apple he backed up the work to his personal devices "as an 'insurance policy' to support his job applications after being placed on a PIP," referring to the Performance Improvement Plan the agent claims Apple placed Chen on in December 2018. Apple allegedly found confidential and proprietary information on Chen's devices collected prior to his placement on the improvement plan.

While Chen allegedly told Apple he was applying for internal jobs, the company later learned he had applied for two external jobs, one of which was at a China-based direct competitor to Apple's autonomous vehicles project, according to the affidavit.

Apple suspended Chen without pay after speaking with him on Jan. 11, the affidavit says.

In a statement, Apple said, "Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our IP very seriously. We are working with authorities on this matter and are referring all questions to the FBI."

Chen's lawyer, an FBI spokesperson and a spokesperson from the Northern District of California U.S. Attorney's Office all declined to comment.

Apple's self-driving group has faced recent headwinds. Last week, CNBC reported that the company had dismissed over 200 employees from Project Titan, as the initiative is known.

-CNBC's Josh Lipton contributed to this report.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Watch: Do nothing for now with Apple, says #1 Apple analyst Toni Sacconaghi
There's a free tool that can help all job hunters give their careers an important boost: email. While unemployment is currently low, competition is always tougher at top companies and for any role considered a "dream job." Getting into the inbox of the right people can help you create important relationships and stand out among a sea of talented applicants. Furthermore, some of the most successful leaders and entrepreneurs have proven that the right emails can yield some surprising results. Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey once cold emailed a dispatch company in New York as a college student in Missouri. He found a bug in the company's web site and also mentioned he wrote software. The CEO wound up talking to Dorsey and eventually offering him a programming job, according to a 2011 article in Vanity Fair. Emails can also expand networks and get important conversations started. Birchbox CEO Katia Beauchamp had no experience in tech or beauty before launching her startup in 2010. "I cold-emailed every CEO of the beauty industry you can imagine," Beauchamp said in 2017. "And it worked." Emails that get results have key features, according to Beauchamp. They have compelling subject lines, a simple message and ask for favors that are hard to say "no" to. Those basics, coupled with these expert-approved templates for some of the most common situations, can ensure you're writing job hunting emails that get opened.

1. When you want to email your dream company

This email's four-point structure is simple and can be adapted for a range of purposes. If you're writing this email, you'll cover the following: Prove you have three tangible skills that the company needs. Establish three ways you are mission-aligned with the company (possibly by sharing any relevant work or volunteer experience). Explain that while researching your field, you came across their company and realized you could do more together. Request an opportunity to talk or meet. Dev Aujla, the CEO of recruiting firm Catalog and the author of 50 Ways to Get a Job, calls this the "magic bullet" email. Preparing for this email forces you to do some essential thought work that will help you better understand what companies and jobs you should apply for. It can also help shape future answers in interviews. Most importantly, the research helps you understand what you want and how you will fit into this company. Those steps will set you apart and make results more likely. Dear [NAME], I've noticed that [COMPANY OF INTEREST] has been a nominee for Best [NAME OF CATEGORY] for the past five years straight. I'm interested in that level of excellence and finding out more about [DEPARTMENT OR JOB YOU ARE INTERESTED IN]. I have [NUMBER] years of experience working with [RELATED SKILL], [RELATED SKILL] and [RELATED SKILL]. I am hoping to learn about [WHAT TO LEARN] from some of the best in the industry, and in my research, I came across [COMPANY OF INTEREST]. Our goals and interests are so aligned, I think we'd both accomplish more if I took my research and resources to your company. Here is my LinkedIn profile [INSERT PROFILE LINK]. I'd love for an opportunity to meet and talk further about how we may work together.

Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

2. When you want to tap your network for an introduction

It's smart to tap your network for introductions, but do your legwork first. Be sure you can explain why you're a good fit for a connection. You don't want to make your contact feel foolish for making the effort. Give your contact context for your request. In the event you're a recent graduate and don't have a lot of work experience to discuss, reference the years you've spent studying your area of interest and the people or internships that stoked that interest. Also, include your LinkedIn Profile, advises Jessica Miller-Merrell, CIO of Workology, a recruitment and HR resource. It can help update your contact on your most recent experience and make a connection more likely. Dear [NAME], Earlier this month, I made the decision to begin looking for a new career opportunity. It's been a great [NUMBER] years working at [COMPANY NAME] as their [JOB TITLE]. I'm looking for a new company to challenge me and grow my skill set in [SKILL NAME], [SKILL NAME] and [SKILL NAME]. I wonder if I can get an introduction by email or phone to [NAME OF PERSON] for [THIS REASON]. Please include my LinkedIn Profile in your introduction [LINKEDIN PROFILE LINK]. Thank you so much for your assistance. Let me know how I can help you. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

3. When you need to email someone you don't know

When emailing someone you don't know, research is just as key, says Aujla. Study that potential contact's online presence, career highlights and any recent newsworthy career moves or developments. Then, craft an email that shows you share some common ground. For instance, you might explain that you're both alumni of the same school or belong to the same professional organization. Your connection might even be as simple as liking the same article on Twitter or LinkedIn, but make sure make that link clear. Dear [NAME], My name is [YOUR NAME], and I noticed your work experience with [NAME OF COMPANY]. I follow you on [SOCIAL MEDIA SITE] and noticed and we're both are interested in [TOPIC]. I find your posts insightful and helpful. I've been a [JOB TITLE] for the past [NUMBER] years, and I'm looking to get an introduction to [COMPANY NAME] where I want to learn more about [SKILL NAME], [SKILL NAME] and [SKILL NAME]. I wonder if I can get an introduction to [NAME OF PERSON] for [REASON]. Here is my LinkedIn Profile [LINKEDIN PROFILE LINK] for you to include in your introduction. If you would prefer to speak to me before making an introduction, I am at your disposal on [DAYS] next week from [TIME SPAN WITH TIME ZONE]. You can email me at [EMAIL ADDRESS] or by phone at [PHONE NUMBER]. Thank you. Best, [YOUR NAME]

4. When you want to keep the conversation going

This technique was dubbed the "Closing The Loop" email, by Ramit Sethi, the New York Times best-selling author and founder of "I Will Teach You to Be Rich." The technique creates a reason to stay in touch follow up with a person of influence you care about. Your email should let your contact know you are grateful for any advice and are keeping this person "in the loop" about something you'd discussed. Hi [NAME], Just wanted to thank you again for speaking with me earlier. I'm definitely going to follow up and reach out to [NAME OF PERSON] like you recommended. I'll keep you in the loop, and of course, please let me know if there's anything I can do to repay the favor. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

5. When you want an informational interview

Asking for an informational interview borrows from some of the same techniques as other cold email templates, as this template from "I Will Teach You to Be Rich" shows. While you'll do the basics (stating who you are and what you want while asking for a convenient time to meet) composing this email requires you to know enough about someone's career that you can demonstrate why you respect them and why their advice is important to you, adds Aujla. Dear [NAME], My name is [YOUR NAME]. I'm a [YEAR] grad from [NAME OF SCHOOL]. (I know you were a few years before me), and I came across your name on our alumni site. I'd love to get your career advice for 15-20 minutes. I'm currently working at [COMPANY], but many of my friends work in consulting and each time they tell me how much they love their job, I get more interested. Most of them have told me that if I'm interested in consulting, I have to talk to someone at [NAME OF COMPANY]. Do you think I could pick your brain on your job and what motivated you to choose [NAME OF COMPANY]? I'd especially love to know how you made your choices after graduating from [NAME OF SCHOOL]. Would it be possible for us to meet? I can work around whatever works for you. Thank you. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

6. When your first email got ignored

If you haven't heard back after one cold email, don't lose hope. Wait two weeks before following up and craft a new email. In your new email, make a point to mention a topic this person discussed during a meeting you both attended or a news article that might have quoted this person. You might even send an update on a topic you think this person might find interesting. Write the email as if you're continuing an ongoing conversation. Repeat your request, whether it's for an in-person meeting or news on a job interview. Most people don't follow up on an email that has been ignored once, and doing so you will make yourself stand out from the crowd, says Aujla. If you haven't heard anything after attempt three, move on. Dear [NAME], I was so excited after meeting you at the [EVENT] at [LOCATION] where you spoke about [TOPIC]. I'm making a point to learn more about [TOPIC] as well and have been reading this fascinating book [TITLE] by [AUTHOR]. Would love to fill you in and hear your thoughts over coffee. Would it be possible to meet for 20 minutes? I can work around whatever works for you. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

7. When you want to let your friends know you're looking

Select five close friends to email, people who are connectors or work in the industry or type of job you're considering. Let them know you're looking for opportunities, suggests Aujla in his book "50 Ways to Get a Job." The email will enhance your job prospects through leads and introductions. It will also kickstart your job hunt and expand the types of opportunities you might consider for yourself. Dear [NAME], I'm looking for my next gig at the intersection of [TYPE OF INDUSTRY] and [TYPE OF INDUSTRY]. I haven't left my job yet, but I'm ready to wrap up my time at [COMPANY] doing [JOB]. Would love to chat with you and fill you in on what I'm thinking about and hear the latest from you.



Here is my LinkedIn profile [INSERT PROFILE LINK]. It would be great to catch up. Best, [YOUR NAME]

8. When you want to say "thank you" after an interview.

Keep the "thank you" email short. And make sure to send it soon  within two hours of the interview, recommends Sethi. Swiftness shows you're responsive, courteous and know how to take action. Keep in mind that the email should be specific enough to trigger the hiring manager's memory. Make sure to mention something you spoke about  whether it's the company ethos or a common interest, like the fact that you're both competitive triathletes. Hi [NAME], Thanks for taking the time to chat today. I especially enjoyed talking about [SPECIFIC TOPIC]. I really think this is a great fit for the both of us. Hope to hear from you very soon. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

9. When you want to let a recruiter know you applied

HR recruiters get flooded with emails, so it's important to find common ground to gain their attention, says Miller-Merrell. Research the recruiters' or hiring managers' online presence, so you can mention a post they published on LinkedIn that you enjoyed or a sports team that you both follow. It also helps to use multiple platforms. Most of us get email fatigue. If you emailed your job application, use LinkedIn to follow up, and make sure your email requests a time and date to schedule a call and talk about the position. Dear [NAME], I recently applied for a job opening at [COMPANY NAME] for the position of [POSITION NAME] on your online career site. The position fits perfectly with my experience in [EXPERIENCE], [EXPERIENCE] and [EXPERIENCE]. You can learn more about me by viewing my LinkedIn Profile [LINKEDIN PROFILE LINK]. I recently followed you on [SOCIAL MEDIA SITE] and appreciate the valuable resources you are providing for job seekers and interact with candidates. Also, I'm a fan of [COMMON INTEREST] too. I'd love to set up a time to schedule a call and talk about the position and my experience. I have some availability on [DAYS] next week from [TIME SPAN WITH TIME ZONE]. You can email me at [EMAIL ADDRESS] or by phone at [PHONE NUMBER]. I look forward to scheduling some time with you. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME]

10. When you need a reference

To get a reference that will help land you the job, Sethi suggests you give the person from whom you're requesting the reference the right ingredients to not only articulate why you're a good fit for the position but also get excited to give you that reference. Make sure to share why you're interested in the new company. Even if someone knows your work intimately, don't hesitate to give specific talking points. Dear [NAME], The hiring manager for [COMPANY] might be calling you to do a reference check. If they do, they'll probably contact you in the next few days wanting to chat about our relationship and my use of [SPECIFIC STRENGTH in YOUR CHOSEN FIELD]. I'm applying for [POSITION] at [COMPANY] because [LIST REASON]. Here's a few achievements from my career (something for you to work off of):  [ACHIEVEMENT 1]  [ACHIEVEMENT 2]  [ACHIEVEMENT 3] If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. Thank you. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME] P.S. I've attached my resume to this email for easy reference and here's a link to the job description [JOB DESCRIPTION LINK].
"Providers who receive a greater volume of bookings from our Marketplace have benefited the most from this flat fee structure," CEO Oliver Kharraz wrote in the letter. "However, it has been a less sensible economic decision for the many providers who received fewer bookings via our Marketplace  particularly those in less densely populated rural and suburban markets or sub-specialized areas of medicine."

The booking fee will apply even if patients don't show up to their appointment. Zocdoc describes itself as a "marketing" platform for doctors to grow their practices, meaning that it doesn't offer any guarantees.

Some physicians were concerned that they could get in trouble for paying a booking fee to Zocdoc because of state and federal laws that prevent doctors from paying third parties for referrals. Kharraz said that the model complies with the law, though he said the company will stop admitting Medicare and Medicaid patients in New York "until we have affirmative confirmation that it's okay."

Here's the letter that Zocdoc sent to doctors in New York:

For the first time since 2012, Zocdoc will update its pricing for all providers in New York starting this spring. Our team will be in touch shortly with detailed information, but I first want to share some context behind this decision.

When we founded Zocdoc in 2007, we chose New York both as our headquarters and our first market to launch. I personally visited hundreds of doctors' offices across the city. I wore out the soles of multiple pairs of shoes going door to door, sharing our vision for a platform that would deliver a digital, instantly accessible healthcare experience for patients. To those of you who took an early chance on Zocdoc and everyone who has joined us since, thank you for helping make that vision a reality.

Over a decade later, I am proud of what we have built here together. In New York today, we estimate that one in five new patient-doctor relationships is established through Zocdoc. That's because thousands of providers  across independent practices and leading health systems alike  participate in Zocdoc's Marketplace. Together, we've helped millions of New Yorkers access care.

However, as we have grown, we have realized that our flat subscription fee is a financial barrier that excludes too many providers from participating in Zocdoc. Importantly, it also limits patients seeking care from finding providers.

On Zocdoc, the total number of patient bookings a provider receives varies widely, but a flat subscription fee does not account for that. Providers who receive a greater volume of bookings from our Marketplace have benefited the most from this flat fee structure. However, it has been a less sensible economic decision for the many providers who received fewer bookings via our Marketplace  particularly those in less densely populated rural and suburban markets or sub- specialized areas of medicine. The flat fee has limited our ability to sign up providers across these areas, which has hindered the development of a robust Marketplace for patients seeking care.

To lower the barrier to entry for more providers, Zocdoc's new pricing model will shift from a flat fee to one that fairly reflects the number of new patient bookings each provider receives. We estimate that half of our current participating providers in New York will pay the same or less under this new pricing model.

We have already implemented this new pricing model in five states, and the results have exceeded our expectations. In our first state, we have grown overall provider participation on Zocdoc by more than 80 percent, dramatically improving patients' choice and access to care.

These changes will take effect in New York starting on April 1, but you can remain on your current plan until your existing contract is up for renewal. You are also welcome to opt in to this

new pricing starting on April 1, if you so choose. The team here at Zocdoc will email you shortly to share personalized details for transitioning your account to this new pricing.

I recognize this is an important change for the patients and providers we serve, and I am confident that our new pricing model will benefit more providers and ultimately improve choice and access to care for patients across New York state.

Thank you again for being part of our platform. Together, we're helping New Yorkers have the healthcare experience they expect and deserve.

Best,

Oliver Kharraz, M.D. Zocdoc founder & CEO
ISTANBUL - A total of 1,076 members of the Turkish armed forces have been purged in the last seven months for suspected ties to the network of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey claims orchestrated the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.



The majority of those removed from the military, a total of 624 soldiers, were ground troops.



An additional 345 were kicked out of the air force and 107 from the navy, according to CNN Turk, based on defence ministry information.



Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar, who was chief of the general staff during the attempted coup, vowed to "continue with determination" in the fight against infiltration by the Gulen network and "do everything necessary" to uproot it.

On Wednesday a new operation against suspected infiltration took place in the armed forces.



The Ankara prosecutor's office issued 48 arrest warrants on Wednesday morning for air force pilots, 46 currently on active duty, according to Anadolu news agency.



It said there are also 15 civilians among those wanted, accused of being directors in the organisation.
Apple's many haters are at a loss for negative things to say about the company now that its first-quarter earnings came in less awful than many feared, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday.

"The issue for those who hate Apple? Sorry, guys. No more new ammunition," Cramer, host of "Mad Money," said after the iPhone maker's report.

Apple's first-quarter results were slightly above Wall Street expectations, with earnings beating analyst estimates by 1 cent and the top-line revenue of $84.3 billion beating consensus estimates of $83.97 billion. Revenue for the iPhone came in slightly below projections, in line with Apple's early January warning about its first-quarter results.

Yet before the report, the negativity was near-deafening, said Cramer, whose charitable trust owns shares of Apple. People were worried about Apple's service revenue weakening, which didn't happen, or a slowdown in Apple Watch sales, which also didn't seem to pan out.

"The news simply wasn't horrible enough to sate the bears. In fact, the stock is trading in after-hours above the pre-announcement price," Cramer said.

Does the longtime Apple bull think the stock is back? Perhaps, if the United States and China are able to make a trade deal. Greater China is Apple's third-largest market by revenue.

"We get a trade deal? I think you've got a $180 stock, up $20 from here," he said. "There just isn't that much risk now after we got the high sign on the January numbers."

Apple's stock ended Tuesday down 1 percent ahead of its earnings report. The stock popped about 5.5 percent in after-hours trading following the release.
Clinton, IA (52732)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Storms could contain damaging winds. High 76F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 59F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Online resources

For the FBIs resources on protecting houses of worship, including information about free trainings and webinars, visit bit.ly/2SgsFE9.

To see the FBIs reports and videos on active shooter incidents, violence prevention and developing emergency plans for schools and houses of worship, visit bit.ly/2DJVAIE.

For information about the I Love U Guys Foundations free trainings, visit Iloveuguys.org.

For information about Texas State Universitys Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, visit alerrt.org.

For information from the National Counterterrorism Center about recognizing extremist indicators, visit bit.ly/2GbmomU.

For the Federal Emergency Management Agencys Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Houses of Worship, visit bit.ly/2RW1qzB
ROME - The number of migrants who died in the central Mediterranean went down by more than half in 2018 in comparison to 2017, but the death toll at sea rose significantly on routes from Libya to Europe, according to a report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) titled "Desperate Journeys".



The report said one person died at sea for every 14 who arrived in Europe on routes from Libya to Europe in 2018.



In the western Mediterranean on the route to Spain, the number of deaths quadrupled in 2018 compared to 2017.



Due to increased Libyan Coast Guard activity, 85% of migrants rescued or intercepted at sea in the so-called Libyan Region of Search and Rescue (SRR) were brought to Libya, where they faced "appalling conditions inside detention centres", the report said.



As a result, a higher number of migrant boats have tried to avoid the Libyan SRR and the Libyan Coast Guard by taking a route towards Malta or Italy.
Are you thinking about listing your property for short-term rental through a company like Airbnb or Vrbo? The popularity of short-term rentals through these type of commercial services has become extremely popular.
TUNIS - The next hearings in trials over the terrorist attacks at a Tunisian beach resort in Sousse and at the Bardo Museum have been postponed to February 5 and February 1, respectively, following a hearing on Tuesday in Tunis's 5th criminal court, according to court spokesperson Sofiene Selliti.



Selliti said there are 27 defendants in the Sousse trial, 18 of whom are currently incarcerated and nine not in jail.



Six of those currently not in jail include Tunisian police officers accused of negligence.



The Sousse attack took place on June 26, 2015 when Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire with a Kalashnikov on a beach near the Imperial Marhaba Riu resort in Sousse-Port El Kantaoui, killing 38 people, many of whom were tourists from the UK.



ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, in which Rezgui was killed by police.



The attack on the Bardo Museum took place on March 18, 2015, killing 24 people, including four Italian tourists: Orazio Conte, Francesco Caldara and Antonella Sesino of Piedmont; and Giuseppina Biella of Lombardy. In a hearing on January 25, the judges heard the first depositions from the defendants in that case.



There are 25 defendants (including two women), 22 of whom are currently incarcerated and three not in jail, and about 30 in absentia.(ANSAmed).
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  For "Otso Diretso"  the opposition's Senate ticket  the race to get a seat will be an uphill climb, Liberal Party president Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan said on Wednesday.

"Definitely, we are the underdogs here. But it's a battle worth fighting. We need to have a strong Senate, an independent Senate," he told CNN Philippines' The Source.

Of the Otso Diretso bets, only former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Senator Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV usually end up in the so-called Magic 12 in pre-election surveys.

Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, former Deputy Speaker Erin Tanada, former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, former Bangsamoro Transition Commission member Samira Gutoc, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal and De La Salle University College of Law founding dean Chel Diokno have been lagging in the surveys, which are dominated by bets aligned with the administration.

Pangilinan, who serves as Otso Diretso's campaign manager, said they have to face this reality, hoping the tide will change during the campaign period which begins on February 12 for senatorial candidates.

He is also hopeful their Senate bets would be able to pull off a so-called Cinderella finish, with more members of the opposition ticket taking over opinion polls as election day draws near.

"Ang kalaban namin, maraming pera, maraming billboard the whole backing of the machinery of the government, of the executive department. Kami, walo, parang kaming David, in that sense. Pero hinahapan namin maliit na bato na kapag sapul, eh talagang sapul na sapul," Pangilinan said.

[Translation: Our opponent has so much money and lots of billboards  They have the whole backing of the machinery of the government, of the executive department. Us, we're eight, we're like David in that sense. But we're trying to find the small rock which, if it hits, it would hit hard.]

Otso Diretso would challenge the Senate ticket endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte, who enjoys high approval ratings nearly three years into his term.

The opposition would also have to deal with those aligning themselves with the administration, which include the ruling party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan, the lineup to be endorsed by the Nationalist People's Coalition, and the ticket endorsed by Hugpong ng Pagbabago, the regional party of the President's daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.
ABC/Randy HolmesJason Mraz, Colbie Caillat and Rick Springfield will play a benefit concert February 10 at California's Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in the wake of the November 7 shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks. The massacre left 12 dead and many injured.

Proceeds from the Music Strong: Borderline Victims Benefit Concert will go to local charities to help victims' families and survivors. Other acts on the bill including Rita Wilson, aka Mrs. Tom Hanks, and '70s soft-rockers Pablo Cruise, best known for their hits "Whatcha Gonna Do?" and "Love Will Find a Way."

Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster.

On January 13, REO Speedwagon, Richard Marx, Five for Fighting and Eddie Money held a benefit for those affected by the deadly Woolsey and Hill fires, as well as by the Borderline shooting. It raised over $360,000, according to Billboard.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Suspicious vehicle, Pearl Road: On Jan. 18, bank employees called police after observing a running gray Chevy Equinox in the parking lot. She was unsure if there was someone in the car or not.

An arriving officer located the Chevy, which had a sleeping driver behind the wheel. The man said he fell asleep while waiting for the bank to open. He was advised the bank was open for business.

Fraud, Blazey Trail: On Jan. 18, a Blazey Trail resident came to the police station to report her husband fell for a scam and gave out their banking information.

The woman cancelled the accounts before any fraudulent activity could take place. The wife asked the officer for advice on how to protect their computers from future incidents.

Theft, Southpark Center: On Jan. 18, police were dispatched to Bar Louie after two drunk people walked out on the bill. An arriving officer was told the dine-and-dash couple were in a car.

The officer did pull over a PT Cruiser; however, it was the wrong vehicle. The occupants had just left a movie and weren't intoxicated. Police are investigating.

Suspicious vehicles, Pearl Road: On Jan. 18, police were dispatched to the Strongsville Historical Society regarding two suspicious vehicles. An arriving officer located the Ford and Mercedes.

It turned out both drivers were a part of a train club visiting the building.

Theft from auto, Walkingstick Way: On Jan. 18, Walkingstick Way residents called police about a man attempting to enter numerous cars on the street.

An arriving officer was told the suspicious character had fled the area on foot. Police were unable to find the man; however, it turned out he didn't steal anything.

Stolen vehicle, Brushwood Lane: On Jan. 18, police were dispatched to Brushwood Lane after a homeowner discovered someone stole their black Chevy Malibu from the driveway.

An arriving officer did find a footprint believed to have belonged to the car thief. Police are investigating.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio -- The city will lose about $750,000 a year in income tax revenue once Medical Mutual of Ohio vacates its Strongsville office building in 2020, according to city Finance Director Joe Dubovec.

However, city officials are already working with the building's owner, Carnegie Management Group, to find a new tenant once Medical Mutual leaves, said Brent Painter, Strongsville's economic development director.

"We're on top of it," Mayor Thomas Perciak said during a recent City Council budget hearing.

Medical Mutual is preparing to consolidate some of its offices in the former American Greetings building in Brooklyn. Painter said those offices -- in addition to the one at 15885 W. Sprague Road in Strongsville -- include sites in Beachwood and Copley Township in Summit County.

On Tuesday, Medical Mutual, attributing an unnamed company spokesman, said, "Our office consolidation brings cost efficiencies and added collaboration in a newly remodeled space."

At the budget hearing, Dubovec told council that Medical Mutual's departure will leave a "big hole" in terms of city income tax revenue.

Dubovec later told cleveland.com that Medical Mutual ranks third when it comes to income tax revenue in Strongsville. Painter said the insurer is one of Strongsville's top 25 employers by worker head count.

But Painter said the city recently refilled Medical Mutual's former Strongsville office -- on Royalton Road across from SouthPark Mall -- with Foundation Software, a seller of software and payroll services targeting the construction industry. Medical Mutual moved out of that three-story, 125,000-square-foot building in 2016 and into the 88,000-square-foot West Sprague office.

"Foundation Software is one of the fastest-growing companies in Northeast Ohio," Painter told cleveland.com in an email. "(It's) currently building out the Royalton Road office building for their new headquarters and will continue to occupy their current Strongsville building (on) Foltz Parkway."

In November, council awarded Foundation Software a Job Creation Grant for relocating its headquarters while staying in Strongsville. The company, which now employs 300, plans to add 40 to 50 new fulltime jobs by the end of this year.

The grant, given annually for 10 years, will equal 30 percent of Foundation Software's new payroll.

"Similar to the Royalton Road reuse, we look forward to backfilling the current Medical Mutual space (on West Sprague) once it is vacant," Painter said.

At the budget hearing, Perciak indicated that the city hopes to find a tenant with high-paying jobs for the West Sprague building.

"If (the landlords) decide to put a telemarketing company in there, we'll be lucky if we get a third of (the income tax revenue) we have in there (now)," Perciak said.

Medical Mutual's headquarters is in the Rose Building on East 9th Street in Cleveland. The company also has offices in Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo.

Crain's Cleveland Business reported in June that the city of Brooklyn has given Medical Mutual financial incentive to locate there. In exchange for bringing 750 jobs and at least $57 million in payroll to the former American Greetings building, Brooklyn will give the firm between $1.3 million and $5 million over six years.

This story has been updated to include a comment from Medical Mutual.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Abortion opponents have new hopes a bill banning the procedure when a fetal heartbeat is detected will become law, now that Ohio Right to Life supports the measure and Gov. Mike DeWine has said he'll sign it.

Ohio Right to Life last month announced it was moving from neutral to support of a heartbeat bill. DeWine was sworn in earlier this month.

Additionally, abortion opponents hope, Ohio could play a key part in overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing abortion.

Fetal heartbeats can be detected as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women know they're pregnant.

Ohio Right to Life's support, which was described Tuesday with its 2019-2020 legislative agenda, is concerning to abortion rights supporters, who note that President Donald Trump appointed people to the U.S. Supreme Court believed to oppose abortion rights.

"Ohioans could lose access to safe, legal abortion care," said NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland in a statement.

Jameison Gordon, an Ohio Right to Life spokeswoman, said that it is hoped an Ohio law would go before the high court.

"It's the most conservative (court) it has been in a long time and the most originalist," she said. "We passed our dismemberment bill (banning the dilation and evacuation abortion procedure) in December and looked at the landscape of the pro-life movement, and seeing a conservative court is obviously very promising."

Anti-abortion groups hope that the Ohio General Assembly will pass the heartbeat ban, DeWine will sign it and abortion rights groups will sue over it in federal court. With appeals, the case would end up before the relatively conservative Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, which would possibly uphold it. If the federal circuit courts had split decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court could take the decision and potentially overturn Roe v. Wade.

Gordon, however, notes that the plan is theoretical and contains many steps that could result in decisions unfavorable to the anti-abortion movement.

If the heartbeat bill sounds familiar, that's because it was just before the Ohio General Assembly.

In December, lawmakers sent to the bill to then-Gov. John Kasich, who vetoed it - as he did a similar measure in 2016. Legislative leadership called lawmakers back to Columbus after Christmas in an attempt to override the bill. The House had enough votes, but the Senate missed the veto override threshold by one vote.

This time, Ohio Right to Life will be leading the lobbying efforts for the bill, instead of sitting on the sidelines in a neutral position. It has recruited Republican Sens. Kristina Roegner, of Hudson, and Peggy Lehner, of the Dayton area, to sponsor the legislation. Co-sponsors include Senate GOP leaders, including Senate President Larry Obhof of Medina, and Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Peterson of Washington Court House and Majority Whip Matt Huffman of Lima.

But Copeland of NARAL Pro-Choice warned of reverberations from "extreme" legislation.

"Doctors will flee Ohio, deepening our OB/Gyn shortage," she said in a statement. "Young people will leave the state too, which will be detrimental to our state's economy. The wealthy will be able to travel to access the care they need, while low-income people will be forced to carry pregnancies against their will or be shut out from the abortion care they need and deserve. This is morally wrong and the wrong direction for our state's future."

Ohio Right to Life backed 21 abortion prohibitions that Kasich signed into law in the past eight years.

Among other measures it wants to see in the 133rd Ohio General Assembly:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to give federal employees a 2.6 percent raise, counteracting a Dec. 28 order by President Donald Trump to freeze federal pay for civilian employees.

The measure passed in a 259 to 161 vote, with unanimous Democratic backing and support from 29 Republicans, including Ohioans Anthony Gonzalez of Rocky River, Dave Joyce of Bainbridge Township, Bill Johnson of Marietta and Mike Turner of the Dayton area.

The bills sponsor, Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, said it would give civilian employees the same pay raise members of the military received in 2019, and in the wake of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, it would show federal employees that we in Congress appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices they make.

I strongly supported passage of the Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019 in the House today. Civilian federal employees go above and beyond to serve our country and our community. They have earned our support. My full statement: https://t.co/6e3XZwa2cE  US Rep. Mike Turner (@RepMikeTurner) January 30, 2019

Civilian federal employees go above and beyond to serve our country and our community, said a statement from Ohios Turner, whose congressional district has more than 15,000 of them. "They have earned our support.

American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. said the pay raise was overdue. Even before the month-long shutdown that delayed pay for 800,000 federal employees, Cox said federal workers endured years of financial uncertainty and strain due to pay and hiring freezes, pension cuts, unpaid furloughs, and other government shutdowns. He said they earn nearly 5 percent less today than they did at the start of the decade, and have incurred over $200 billion in cuts to their pay and benefits since 2011.

Champaign County, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan argued that federal workers already get paid more than similarly qualified private sector employees, and said such a raise would end up giving tax money from lower-paid private sector workers to people who make more money than they do.

Government employees already make more money than folks in the private sector.



And now Democrats want to give them a pay raise using YOUR taxpayer dollars. Hows that fair? pic.twitter.com/CdEBfHVHOz  Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 30, 2019

Jordan also objected to a provision in a separate Democratic voting access bill that would let federal workers take up to six days of paid leave to serve as poll workers, which he said would pay them to work on campaigns. Another provision in that bill, which would make Election Day a paid holiday for federal workers, is not where we need to be" and disrespects taxpayers, Jordan argued.

A group of Democratic U.S. Senators introduced a similar pay raise proposal for civilian federal workers on Tuesday, but its unclear that it will go anywhere in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. A spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, David Popp, said he could provide no scheduling announcements or guidance on the matter.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Democrats looking to win the White House in 2020 would have better luck focusing their attention on states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin than states in the South, according to a new analysis from the non-partisan Brookings Institution think tank.

The authors of the study released Wednesday examined last years midterm election results to gauge whether the party would be better off picking a candidate with greater appeal to the voters who hold the balance of power in Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest instead of one who would energize the diverse coalitions characteristic of the South and Southwest.

They aggregated the results of each states U.S. House of Representatives races as well as examining results of statewide gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races to see where Democratic candidates fared better than they did in 2016.

The Brookings Institution examined 2018 results in northern states to determine the best 2020 election strategy for Democrats seeking the White House.

They found Democrats regained the ground they lost in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 2016 while winning important races in Iowa and Ohio.

By contrast, attractive Sunbelt candidates failed everywhere except Arizona, the study said. These data suggest that if Democrats must choose, a Midwestern strategy has a higher probability of succeeding.

Their findings buttress arguments that a candidate with an appeal in the industrial Midwest like Minnesotas Amy Klobuchar or Ohios Sherrod Brown, who launches an exploratory tour of Iowa on Wednesday, might give Democrats the best chance to defeat Republican President Donald Trump in 2020.

Our analysis suggests that reclaiming Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin offers Democrats the path of least resistance," the study said. "The 2018 election results show that Donald Trumps victory in these states did not mark their permanent realignment into the Republican column and that Democrats attuned to the electorates of these states can prevail. There is good reason to believe that a suitable Democratic nominee could replicate this result in 2020.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A California comedian is using social media attention over her unpleasant experience sharing an airplane with Republican former Ohio Gov. John Kasich to, ironically, raise money for Planned Parenthood in Ohio.

Klausner wrote on Twitter that she began receiving random criticism and insults on social media on Wednesday after Fox News picked up her airplane story, which has been reported on by cleveland.com and other media outlets.

She responded by turning the tables on her conservative critics, saying she would donate $1 to Planned Parenthood of Ohio for each comment she received on Twitter and Instagram. She also launched a GoFundMe page, which she named Trolls for Planned Parenthood.

I cant believe you didnt donate any money to womens reproductive freedom this morning, Susan! NOT! Thanks for the contribution. https://t.co/4GXXgv3B0P  Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 30, 2019

Kaisch is opposed to abortion, and has signed a number of laws restricting abortion access in Ohio (although shortly before leaving office in January, he vetoed a bill that would outlaw abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected) while Klausner, a political liberal, says she supports womens right to choose to have an abortion.

Klausner subsequently posted PayPal receipts showing donations shed sent to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.

Thanks to all of your mentions-- from trolls and supporters alike-- I've raised and donated just under 3K this morning for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. I'll continue to donate one dollar for each hateful tweet I get going forward. Thank you, and John Kasich sucks. pic.twitter.com/NxGqD1atrC  Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 30, 2019

In total, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Sarah Inskeep said, the organization believes Klausner and her story have resulted in almost $5,000 being donated to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, as of Wednesday afternoon. The organization is having a difficult time tracking the exact amount because some is going to the national Planned Parenthood organization while some has been sent to the Ohio affiliate, Inskeep said.

The active Go Fund Me page has been live only a few hours and is trending positively, raising thousands of dollars for our health centers, she said in an email.

To recap, Klausner first wrote of her interaction with Kasich on Jan. 16, when she posted on social media about Kasich getting her seat on an Alaska Airlines flight. As she told it, Kasichs seat had been taken by a co-pilot at the last minute, and rather than moving out of first class, Kasich took her seat. Klausner said she then agreed to take a different flight rather than prolong the confrontation.

Kasich has said through a spokesman that there was confusion after the airline assigned a pilot to his seat, and that hes sorry that someone lost a seat.

Klausner described the story in greater detail on Friday, using colorful and sometimes profane terms to describe Kasichs behavior, in her personal podcast. Cleveland.com summarized the Kasich story, as told on her podcast, in a story on Monday.

Since that story published, it has been the second-most popular article on cleveland.com, as of Wednesday afternoon. Much of that traffic has been driven by shares on social media.

Republicans and Democrats alike seem to be enjoying the negative attention Kasich has received. Among those who have shared the story is Bob Paduchik, an Ohio political operative and Kasich critic who left a top position with the Republican National Committee in January to join President Donald Trumps 2020 re-election campaign.
CINCINNATI, Ohio  A doctor is not required to ask a pregnant patient if a Down syndrome diagnosis is the reason she wants an abortion, a state attorney told federal appeals judges Wednesday.

Benjamin Flowers, the Ohio deputy solicitor general, told a three-judge panel on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that a doctor has no obligation to inquire about a womans reason for an abortion. Therefore, Ohios new Down syndrome abortion ban does not pose an undue burden to women and isnt unconstitutional, he said.

Flowers and attorneys representing abortion providers who sued the state over the ban argued before Chief Judge R. Guy Cole, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and Judges Bernice Bouie Donald, who also was nominated by President Barack Obama, and Alice Batchelder, who President George H.W. Bush nominated, over whether a lower courts preliminary injunction blocking 2017s House Bill 214 from going into effect was correct or incorrect.

H.B. 214, called the Antidiscrimination Law, seeks to stop what the anti-abortion movement describes as discrimination against unborn children with Down syndrome. Physicians performing or attempting to perform an abortion who know a womans decision was partially or entirely because of a genetic test indicating the fetus may have Down syndrome face a fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a $15,000 fine, and a loss of an Ohio medical license.

Attorney Jessie Hill, who represents the abortion providers who sued over the law  including Preterm Cleveland -- acknowledged H.B. 214 doesnt require physicians to inquire why a woman is getting an abortion.

However, the evidence in the record indicates that doctors often, if not almost always, know when this is the case because of how these patients come to them, she said. Theyre generally referred after counseling and meeting with an internal fetal medicine specialist, for example.

Hill argued that the panel should instead focus on U.S. Supreme Court decisions making it clear that the state lacks any interest banning abortion before a fetus is viable, she said.

We mean that the Supreme Court has been extremely clear that this is at the very core of the privacy right, she said. This is one line that the state cannot cross, is to take the ultimate decision away from the woman. It can encourage women, it can inform women, it can persuade women. It cannot take the ultimate decision away from the woman.

Flowers, representing the Ohio Department of Health and two Medical Board of Ohio officers who would be responsible for revoking violating physicians licenses, said the state is not banning abortion but regulating it.

And the state has an interest in fighting against discrimination, Flowers said, which Hill disputed since Ohio hadnt enacted other types of bills to help the Down syndrome community.

If women are selecting children with Down syndrome for abortion, if doctors are negatively counseling their patients to abort children when they have a Down syndrome diagnosis, the message that sends not only to children or people carrying a child but to people who are 30 years old is that if you have Down syndrome your life is not worth as much, Flowers said. And that is the interest Ohio wants to protect.

Donald asked attorneys for both sides several questions about the law and its relation to Roe v. Wade and other landmark abortion decisions.

Cole noted the 7th Circuit has put on hold a similar law in Indiana.

Would we be creating a conflict in the circuits if we accepted your argument? Cole asked.

You would, your honor, but I think thats why we have various circuits throughout the country, is sometimes one circuit gets it wrong, Flowers said.

The panel is expected to make its decision in the coming months.

The judges can decide that the lower courts injunction blocking the Down syndrome law was correct or incorrect. But either way, the case will return to court to determine whether there should be a permanent injunction.
OLMSTED FALLS, Ohio -- According to Common Sense Media, teens spend an average of nine hours a day online, while tweens are just behind them at nearly six hours daily.

In an effort to educate parents about the dangers facing kids today, the Olmsted Falls PTA is hosting Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force's "Is It Worth The Risk?" program at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at Olmsted Falls Middle School.

"We're always in conversations with our parents and our members regarding things they're concerned about," Olmsted Falls PTA Council Treasurer Kelly Walker said. "Internet safety and things like screen time always seem to pop up."

The free presentation is geared towards educating parents and guardians of today's internet connected youth about the dangers of the internet, mobile apps, sharing personal information and online interactions. Due to the subject matter, Walker said parents are asked to keep their students at home.

"The district is very proud to be able to once again support our PTA's effort to bring another quality information night into our community to support our parents and how they can better understand the pros and cons of kids using social media," Olmsted Falls City School District Superintendent Jim Lloyd said.

Olmsted Falls PTA was one of 25 schools -- and the only one in the Buckeye State -- to receive a $1,000 grant from the National PTA with funds supporting a Smart Talk Conversation event in celebration of Safer Internet Day during the week of Feb. 5.

"In addition to the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force's speaker, we'll also be presenting The Smart Talk, which is presented by LifeLock," Walker said. "It's a program that is designed for parents then to go back home and start a conversation with their children about safety on the internet.

"It'll give parents prompts and guidelines to start a discussion on how to be safe online, password protected, what apps you should stay away from, screen time and guidelines on whether or not kids should charge their phone in their room overnight. It's designed to help parents come up with a contract with the students."

One parent concerned about internet safety is Olmsted Falls PTA Council Inclusion and Diversity Chair Heather Hetchler, who has four children currently enrolled and two having graduated from the school district.

"When a parent gives their child access to the internet either via smart phone or device, they also give the world access to their child," Hetchler said. "It's a parent's responsibility to create guidelines for usage and teach their children about internet safety.

"Many parents feel overwhelmed on how to create those guidelines and talk to their kids. This Smart Talk presentation will equip parents with the tools they need and share why they need them."

The National PTA grant funds will be used to pay for the speaker fees, as well as a second related event scheduled for later in February

"We're planning to bring in documentary film 'Like,' which is about social media and smart phone addiction," Walker said.

These events are a part of the Olmsted Falls PTA Council's four-part speaker series, which began last fall with the screening of anxiety-related documentary "Angst." In fact, the same filmmakers are behind both "Angst" and "Like."

"We had 250 in attendance for 'Angst' split between the two showings," Walker said. "We were very pleased with the showing and are hopeful that we'll see a similar kind of turnout for 'Like.'

"In general, the mission of the PTA is to provide information to the parents so they give them the knowledge they need in order to tackle some of the issues that they find important."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Extreme cold will continue into Thursday, but some Northeast Ohio colleges will slowly start to reopen in the afternoon.

A wind chill warning will remain in place for northern Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania through Thursday afternoon. Winds will put temperatures near -20 in both Cleveland and Akron at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. Wednesdays extremely cold temperatures prompted most Northeast Ohio colleges to cancel classes to protect students and staff.

Here are the schools that have announced cancellations thus far:

Case Western Reserve University is closed until 7 p.m. on Thursday.

John Carroll University will reopen at noon on Thursday.

Kent State University will close on Thursday.

Baldwin Wallace University will cancel class until 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Lakeland Community College will close on Thursday.

Youngstown State University will cancel class on Thursday.

Cuyahoga Community College will close Thursday.

Notre Dame College will reopen at noon on Thursday.

Lorain County Community College will close Thursday.

Cleveland State University will close Thursday.

Cleveland Institute of Art will close Thursday.

University of Akron will close Thursday.

This post will be updated as more information comes in. For a full list of closings, trash pickup delays and more, click here.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Big Time Adolescence, the new movie starring BFFs Pete Davidson and Machine Gun Kelly, is earning promising reviews after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday.

The movie stars Davidson as a college dropout who mentors a suburban teenager on the keys to life, for better and worse, in what has been described as a modern coming of age tale. The movie currently has an 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Thats counting just four reviews. The real measurement of success will come if and when Big Time Adolescence is picked up by a major studio for distribution.

Still, the trip to Sundance has already been a win for the cast, especially Davidson who is now set to star in a semi-autobiographical project to be directed by Judd Apatow.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The Cuyahoga County Jail warden violated the countys nepotism policy when he supervised his wifes boss for two months, according to the countys inspector general.

Warden Eric Ivey improperly supervised his wifes boss in September and November, Deputy Inspector General Sicily Woods wrote in a Dec. 20 report. The report also says Ivey provided the inspector generals investigators with inconsistent information about who his wifes supervisor directly reported to during those months.

The investigation stemmed from a separate inspector general investigation into the jail, the report says.

Despite continuing efforts to re-structure the department, there remain issues arising inherently from Warden Iveys oversight of all jail operations, Woods wrote. Because Warden Ivey has responsibility for the safety and security of persons who work in the jail, there remains the perception of nepotism as well as the potential for future inappropriate supervision.

The inspector general recommended the reassignment of Ivey or his wife, Corporal Kathy Ivey, who works as a supervisor in the jails visitation area, to remove her from his chain-of-command. They also recommended the county implement a fail-safe plan to ensure that it doesnt happen again.

Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said Kathy Ivey is still employed as a corporal but is no longer under a chain-of-command that leads up to her husbands control.

Eric Ivey, who makes $95,000 per year as the warden, has come under increased scrutiny after a scathing 55-page U.S. Marshals report that described the conditions as deplorable and that said inmates civil rights had been violated.

The U.S. Marshals report says Ivey personally ordered guards to deprive inmates of food as punishment, that he failed to make required weekly checks of inmates held in isolation or segregation and failed to oversee the departments Special Response Team that threatened inmates.

Ivey came to supervise his wifes boss after Sgt. Phillip Christopher was promoted to associate warden.

The report does not name Christopher, but he was one of three associate wardens hired on Sept. 4 and was the sergeant in charge of visitation at the time.

Christopher was Kathy Iveys direct supervisor and as a sergeant, reported directly to then-jail director Ken Mills, who was one level above the warden.

When Christopher was promoted to associate warden, he came under Eric Iveys direct supervision. Christopher continued to supervise his old departments, including visitation, where Kathy Ivey worked, until a new sergeant was promoted on Nov. 7 to fill Christophers old job.

Eric Ivey signed off on Christophers mid-year evaluation during that timeframe, the report says. He told the inspector generals office on Sept. 28 that Christopher reported directly to Mills, however, Christopher told the inspector general that he reports to Eric Ivey.

He told the inspector generals office that he never exerted authority over his wife or anyone in her chain-of-command, the report says. He also said he takes a hands-off approach in regards to his wifes work area, according to the report.

The report also says that Ivey was removed from his wifes chain-of-command after a 2012 inspector generals report. The report said it was an inadvertent ethics violation and that Kathy Ivey was reassigned.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Cleveland man, who once spent 10 years in prison for stabbing a pregnant woman, is charged in connection with the strangling and stabbing death of his 82-year-old father.

Edward Thomas Jr., 57, is charged with aggravated murder in the Oct. 17, 2013 death of his father, Edward Thomas Sr.

Thomas Jr. is not in police custody and a warrant was issued Wednesday for his arrest.

Cleveland police officers that day went to check on the older Thomas after someone called and said they hadnt heard from him in days, according to police reports.

An officer went to the home on East 145th Street, just south of St. Clair Avenue, and spoke with Thomas Jr., who was standing outside the home.

The officer, believing it was the person they were supposed to check on, told dispatchers to call family members to let them know he was okay, police reports say.

The dispatcher, however, radioed the officer back and said that he spoke with the son and they were hoping to check on Thomas Sr.

Officers returned to the home and Thomas Jr. was gone, police reports say. The officers asked the fire department to break in the door to check on the elder Thomas. They found him dead inside, according to police.

Police believed at the time that Thomas Sr. died of natural causes, according to police reports.

Thomas Jr. stole $50 from his fathers house before fleeing, according to court records.

But the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner later ruled Thomas Sr.s death a homicide by neck compression with blunt and sharp force injuries. A medical examiner spokesperson was off Wednesday due to the extreme weather conditions and could not say how long it took the office to rule the death a homicide.

Police officials have not said what linked Thomas Jr. to his fathers death after more than five years of the case being unsolved.

Thomas Jr. was released from prison in 2003 after serving a 10-year prison sentence. In that case, he stabbed a woman on Oct. 1, 1992 who was seven months pregnant in East Cleveland.

The stab wound penetrated the womans stomach and sliced into the fetus causing a premature birth, according to court records. Court records do not say if the baby survived.

Thomas Jr. pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to serve between eight and 25 years in prison.
FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- Student and staff at Gilles-Sweet Elementary School now have a tasty reason to look forward to Fridays at the W. 220th Street building.

Special Needs Teacher Kerry Sheldon said her five students are the popular kids at school with their successful Smoothies on the Go business, which every Friday serves flavorsome treats.

"I wanted to do some type of student-run business," Sheldon said. "At first I thought about doing like a coffee cart, but we don't want the kids to get burned serving hot items, so we went with something that was more safe for them."

Every Thursday teachers throughout the school take student orders for smoothies, which include six different flavors -- very berry, blueberry, strawberry, strawberry-banana, chocolate mocha and a flavor of the month. Then on Friday morning, each of Sheldon's students has their own job.

"They have to follow a recipe, so that works on their sequencing of steps," Sheldon said. "They have to read the recipe, which is helping them with their comprehension skills. They use the measuring cups, which helps learning about fractions.

"I have a parent come in on Friday who pulls one student each week working with the money. The biggest thing is the students with their communication skills are getting to talk with people directly. A lot of them are shy and don't want to speak loudly, so this really gets them into the classrooms and having more confidence."

Smoothies on the Go started out eight weeks ago and averages roughly 40 drinks a week. The operation even includes a smoothie member card where students can buy six smoothies for $10.

"Normally it's $2 a smoothie, so with the card it's like they get one free," Sheldon said. "The kids have to punch the cards."

Fifth grader Brianna Wick said she enjoys delivering the smoothies to teachers she normally wouldn't see during the day.

"I love tasting them and cutting the bananas," said fourth grade student Cohen Cepulo.

Fifth grade student Randah Mustafa added, "I like the smoothie business because we have fun doing it. We work hard and get a smoothie for our work."

Gilles-Sweet Elementary School Principal Barbara J. Brady said Smoothies on the Go has been an excellent way for Sheldon's students to use and apply the social skills they are working on at school in a real-life scenario within a safe comfortable environment.

"They're so enthusiastic about delivering their smoothies every Friday," Brady said. "However, I think our staff is even more excited to interact and visit with them during their delivery time."

At the end of the year, Sheldon said any profit will go toward a student field trip to a local smoothie business, as well as to purchase donations to be given to a local food bank.

While this year's Smoothies on the Go business runs until May, Sheldon said the plan is to bring it back next school year.

"It's so funny, the students say it's hard work, but they love it," Sheldon said. "It's fun to see the excitement in them."
EUCLID, Ohio -- A man was found dead in the freezing cold Wednesday morning in Euclid, according to police.

The 59-year-old man was reported missing about 2 a.m. from the Willow Rehabilitation Center on the 1500 block of East 191st Street, Euclid police spokesman Lt. Mitch Houser said.

Staff noticed the man was missing during a routine check. It appeared that he left the building through an open bedroom window, Houser said.

A security guard found the man around 8:30 a.m. in front of Euclid Preparatory School on the 23000 block of Euclid Avenue, Houser said. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

A Willow Rehabilitation Center employee identified the man as the person who went missing from the facility, Houser said.

Police did not release the mans identity, pending family notification.

UPDATE: Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner identifies 59-year-old man found dead in freezing cold

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office will determine the cause of death.

Temperatures plunged below 0 degrees Tuesday evening as the polar vortex descended upon the region.

Wind chill values on Wednesday are hovering between 25 to 35 degrees below zero, and could dip as low as 40 below. The National Weather Service describes such conditions as potentially deadly.

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AKRON, Ohio -- An Akron man is in serious condition after being shot in the back during an attempted carjacking late Tuesday, police said.

A 27-year-old man was shot as he ran from two robbers just after 10 p.m. on East Archwood Avenue near Inman Street, according to a police report. An ambulance took him to Summa Akron City Hospital for treatment.

No arrests have been made in the case, police said.

The man was sitting in his 2002 Buick Century when two men got into the car and pointed a gun at him. The robbers demanded the mans money and car, the police report says.

The man handed over $360 in cash before he got out of the car and ran away. One of the robbers fired a shot that struck the man in the back, the police report says.

The man ran to a nearby home on Inman Street, where a resident called 911.

The robbers ran away before police officers arrived at the scene. Officers found several bullet casings inside the mans car, police said.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Akron Police Departments detective bureau at 330-375-2490.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Toledo-area man was indicted on federal charges Tuesday, following his arrest in December for what federal authorities said was a plan to carry out a mass shooting at a synagogue in the name of the Islamic State.

Damon Joseph, 21, of Holland is charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS, attempting to commit a hate crime and possessing firearms in furtherance of a crime a violence.

The FBI arrested him Dec. 7 after he grabbed a duffel bag with two disabled semi-automatic rifles from the car of an undercover agent. Following his arrest, he detailed his plans for the attack and his intent to cause mass casualties in support of ISIS, according to an affidavit written in December by FBI agent J. Troy Amundson.

Authorities have not named the synagogue Joseph targeted.

Joseph is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The FBI said Joseph was radicalized and went by the name Abdullah Ali Yusef. He shared photographs of guns and knives on social media, as well a pictures originally distributed by ISISs media arm, according to the affidavit. He also produced his own videos, authorities say.

The FBI became aware of his social media postings in May, and an undercover agent started talking with him in September, court filings show.

In October, following a mass shooting in Pittsburgh in which a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Joseph told the agent that my opinion is the Jews are evil and they get whats coming to them, according to the affidavit.

I don't feel bad at all considering what they're doing in Palestine, Joseph continued, according to the affidavit.

He said he admired the shooter and said he could see himself carrying out a similar attack, because authorities in Northwest Ohio wouldnt even expect it," the affidavit said.

Joseph said over the next month that he wanted to commit an attack. He said he planned to escape after the attack, not die in martyrdom. He narrowed the target of his attack down to two area synagogues and said he would choose based on the number of people, the time and day, the affidavit said.

Go big or go home, Joseph said, according to the affidavit.

Joseph continued to research the attack until his arrest on Dec. 7, according to the affidavit. He wrote down the name and address of the synagogue he planned to attack for an undercover agent and detailed how he wanted the attack to go down, officials said.

A message call left for Josephs attorney was not immediately returned.

The news of Josephs arrest, as well as the Pittsburgh mass shooting, were among the reasons the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, the U.S. Attorneys Office and the FBI were set to host an event on Wednesday about safety in places of worship.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio  A federal judge in Cleveland again pushed back a trial in which four Northeast Ohio governments are seeking to hold drug companies responsible for the havoc wreaked by the opioid epidemic.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said in an order Tuesday that the trial for claims made by the cities of Cleveland and Akron and Cuyahoga and Summit counties will begin Oct. 21. It was set to begin on Sept. 3, and before that March 18.

The judge also pushed back other deadlines to complete expert reports and motions prior to trial. Attorneys for the governments and the drug companies requested the delay last week, writing in a filing that discovery is ongoing despite exhaustive efforts.

The accusations against drug manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma and distributors such as Ohio-based Cardinal Health include claims that the companies knew about the problems surrounding opioid addiction, yet took no meaningful steps to help.

The Ohio cases are set to be the first in a series of "bellwether trials," or test cases that give attorneys an idea of how future cases may play out, be it through a judge's decision, a jury verdict or a settlement. The cases are generally chosen because they are similar and representative of other lawsuits filed in what is known as multi-district litigation.

Polster, a who has been on the bench since 1998 and likes to resolve cases without trials, has pushed both sides to settle the federal lawsuits from Ohio and the rest of the country, which now total more than 1,500. Settlement talks have proceeded alongside trial preparations.

However, both sides have filed motions to chip away at each others cases. Attorneys for several drug companies sought sanctions against Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, then the state attorney general, and other lawyers for an interview they gave on CBS 60 Minutes. Polster declined to issue sanctions though expressed his displeasure with what the attorneys discussed about potential monetary damages and characterizations of drug data collected by the federal government.

The governments also asked the judge to throw former U.S. Attorney Carole Rendon and her employer, the Cleveland-based BakerHostetler law firm, off the litigation. Rendon represents the drug company Endo, and the governments say shes using her previous intimate involvement in law enforcement and advocacy against the opioid epidemic to her advantage in defending Endo.

Rendon and BakerHostetler say theres nothing unethical about her representation of Endo, the maker of Opana and Percocet. Polster will hold a hearing Feb. 6 on whether to disqualify her and the firm.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Violent crime and serious property crimes in Cleveland dropped nearly across the board in 2018 for the second consecutive year, Cleveland police statistics show.

Serious property crimes such as burglary and theft were down 23 percent from 2017 and about 30 percent from 2016. About 19,030 property crimes were reported in 2018.

Violent crime was 18.6 percent lower in 2018 than in 2016 and about 15.3 percent below the 2017 level. About 5,520 crimes were reported in 2018.

The police department tallied the numbers in preparation for an upcoming meeting with Cleveland City Councils Safety Committee.

During an interview with cleveland.com, Police Chief Calvin Williams attributed the declines to three factors:

More officers on the street and better enforcement.

Greater levels of engagement by officers, leading to a better relationship with residents.

Expanded programs for youth and the stationing of counselors in rec centers to address trauma and stress that can affect behaviors and lead to crime.

The numbers show a decline in seven of eight offenses classified as Part I crimes  homicide, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.

Rape cases increased 6.6 percent in 2018, with nearly 600 cases reported. It was the second consecutive year that rape cases have increased and the third time in four years.

But the cases for all other violent crimes  homicide, robbery and felonious assault -- declined for the second consecutive year:

Homicides, down nearly 8 percent from 2017.

Robbery, down more than 25 percent from 2017.

Felonious assault, down nearly 9.5 percent from 2017.

The decline in Part I property crimes was greatest in arson cases, which were down more than 40 percent from 2017.

The three other property crimes also dropped for the second consecutive year. Heres a breakdown:

Burglary, down more than 21 percent from 2017.

Theft, down more than 26 percent from 2017.

Motor vehicle grand theft, down more than 11.5 percent from 2017.

In 2015, Cleveland entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, agreeing to make reforms to law enforcement in the city, including the implementation of new policies on use of force and crisis intervention.

The agreement also covers improvements in community policing, staffing and recruitment and a review of the effectiveness of the Office of Professional Standards, which investigates citizen complaints against officers.

Building relationships between police and residents cannot be underemphasized, Williams said.

Always, always, we are trying to reach out to the neighborhoods for their help as we try to drive crime down, Williams said. Weve been able to make progress.

Sometimes neighborhoods provide one key detail that helps solve a case.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Michaels confirmed this morning that all Pat Catans stores will close, although up to 12 will be rebranded as Michaels with plans to reopen later this year.

After a comprehensive review, we have made the difficult decision to close the Pat Catans retail stores," said Chuck Rubin, chairman and CEO of the Michaels Companies, in a statement. "We expect to rebrand and reopen up to 12 stores as new Michaels stores in fiscal 2019, and we will continue to maintain a support center and distribution center in Strongsville, Ohio to support our growing wholesale business. We believe these changes will provide more value for customers and shareholders by enabling us to leverage a more consistent merchandise assortment and eliminate duplicative retail operating expenses.

Irving Texas-based Michaels did not immediately confirm what will happen to the current Pat Catans employees, and employees at the Bedford location said they have not heard any details about when the stores are expected to close. Employees said they were only told to direct media to Michaels' Texas headquarters. However, Rubin offered a statement in the press release.

This was not an easy decision, and I am grateful for the contributions of our Pat Catans Team Members," he said. "As we work through the closing process, we intend to provide employment opportunities or transition support for all Team Members.

In February 2016, the locally founded, family-run crafts and decor retailer, was acquired by Michaels Companies Inc. for $150 million. Michaels Companies Inc. is the largest arts and crafts retailer in North America, based in Irving, Texas.

At the time of the acquisition Michaels said Lamrite West, the name of the company Pat Catanzarite founded in 1954 to supply craft supplies, would keep its team and headquarters in Strongsville. And unlike what often happens after mergers, Pat Catan's arts and crafts stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia would continue to operate independently under Michaels. A spokeswoman also said employees at the company, as well its wholesale business, called Darice Inc. would all keep their jobs. At the time of the merger Lamrite West had about 1,600 employees.

Michaels owns and operates more than 1,200 stores in 49 states and Canada under the brand.

Rubin said in the release that Michaels is making progress on its long-term strategy to increase market share and expand its leadership position within the arts and crafts industry.

"In support of this strategy, in 2016 we acquired Lamrite West, a privately-held company in Ohio with a wholesale division, a small sourcing office in China and a small retail chain called Pat Catans Arts & Crafts Stores, which was operated as outlets for the wholesale business, Rubin said.

Over the last three years, we have delivered value through the significant expansion of our China-based sourcing team and the growth of our wholesale business. However, the Pat Catans retail business has struggled in the face of industry headwinds.

Pat Catans fiscal 2018 net sales are projected to be about $111 million. The company expects the one-time after-tax cost of implementing restructuring changes will be in the range of $44 million to $48 million, consisting primarily of costs associated with the termination of the remaining lease obligations, the write-off of fixed assets, costs associated with liquidation, and employee-related expenses.

Pat Catan's has 16 stores in Northeast Ohio, including locations in Akron, Amherst, Austintown, Bedford, Boardman, Cleveland, Cuyahoga Falls, North Canton, North Ridgeville, Painesville, Parma, Strongsville, Warren, Westlake, Willowick, and Wooster.

Aaron Moore, 49, of Maple Heights was shopping at the Bedford location when he heard about the store closings. He said hes disappointed.

I really dont think that they should close, Moore said. I shop here for the Hell Raisers Motorcycle Club. We do a lot of outreach in the community and you can find anything you need here for crafts, like baskets, wood crafts, and paints. Its like a mini Walmart for crafters.

Several shoppers expressed negative sentiments about the closings, using descriptions like sad and a huge loss for the community.

Sedonia East, of Maple Heights, called the news of closing Pat Catans devastating, because the store has great prices and a vast selection of crafts and supplies.

Im a fashion designer and Im really crafty so Im always shopping in here. Ive probably only been in a Michaels store once, but I love Pat Catans and I also shop at JoAnn Stores."

Why buy them if youre just going to close the stores?
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Andrew Zimmerns latest video love letter to Cleveland aired nationally on Saturday, embracing West Side Market, Saucisson butcher shop in Slavic Village, Edwins at Shaker Square, Michael Symons Mabels BBQ on East Fourth Street, and Jonathon Sawyers Trentina in University Circle.

Never mind, for the moment, that Trentina is now closed. This Travel Channel production of The Zimmern List marks at least the fourth time that the traveling writer and foodie brought cameras and acclaim to the city. In a particularly dark season of the year, the show cast great gobs of flattering sunshine our way, and reminded us of the potency of our food scene. Zimmern is a true fan.

By design, he comes off as a fan of just about every city he features, but this one carried a little extra love, especially his visit to the 106-year-old West Side Market.

I started coming here with my dad a long time ago, he said, touring one of the great food halls of the country.

Really? Did he live here between prep school in New York City, college at Vassar, detox and full re-blossoming in Minneapolis? Or did his dad travel here a lot, bringing young Andrew along with him? We wanted to know more, but Zimmern was not available for interviews this time around.

The Cleveland episode is already up on youtube.com, and its a shame its only a half hour. Not to be an ingrate but his hour-long programs have a lot more time for local flavor, especially longer interviews with proprietors and the cozy, real-time speed that makes you feel youre getting to know a place.

But what a half-hour:

 A trip to Mabels BBQ where he squirts Michael Symons brown-mustard-based barbecue sauce right into his mouth, digs into life-changing kielbasa and ultra-tender beef rib (look at that bark on there).

 Stops at West Side Market stands for a Franks Bratwurst (doesnt matter what time of day) and a Steves Gyro, a spot often blessed with such a long line it comes with a list of sandwich-ordering dos and donts.

 A look at the urban revitalization at Saucisson, where a new set of butchers took over an old shop in a struggling neighborhood and are producing cuts of fresh meat, sandwiches, salads, and a pork and pistachio terrine in all its quivering, gelatinous beauty.

 A walk through Shaker Square to Edwins, a restaurant and successful training facility for those re-entering society from prison. Zimmern reflects on how food and restaurant life healed me when it needed it most.

 And, finally, Trentina, where the host and camera have a holy moment over a pasta dish with foraged mushrooms, among other dishes. If you told me this would be this would be the last solid food Id ever eat, Id be okay with that, said Zimmern. Its a perfect little restaurant.

Its closed now. Owner Jonathon Sawyer has said elsewhere that the economy is to blame, and theres certainly been a lot of turnover in University Circle. But the show makes you wonder whether the city was too small for such a big idea (interpreting northern Italian cuisine with Northeast Ohio ingredients), or whether too many of us failed to notice.

Good television like this asks good questions.
(ANSA) - Bologna, January 30 - Norbert Feher alias 'Igor the Russian' told a Bologna court via video link from custody in Zaragoza Wednesday that he had fired on two of his Italian victims "because for me they were cops and I had to drop them".

Serbian Feher was referring to his alleged murder of volunteer environmental aid worker Valerio Verri on April 8 2017 and his attempted murder of a local policeman who was on patrol with Verri near Ferrara that day, Marco Ravaglia, who was seriously injured. The court ruled against a psychiatric assessment for Feher and said final arguments would be heard on March 25.

Feher added: "I have a code, I'll never betray my friends" referring to the people who had helped him on the run.

"I had to crush everything in my way," Feher added.

"I went back to Spain for my Bible".

Feher was indicted last April for the murders of barman Davide Fabbri and Verri near Bologna and Ferrara respectively in April 2017.

In the indictment request, Feher was cited as using at least six aliases.

He has been charged with 11 crimes including murder, judicial sources said.

Feher is in jail in Zaragoza in Spain where he has been indicted for another three murders committed before he was arrested there in December 2017.

Feher alias Igor Vaclavic confessed to two murders in Italy and three in Spain before a Spanish magistrate in mid-December 2017.

But he refused to answer Italian prosecutors' questions, exercising his right to remain silent.

Feher, 37, was captured on December 15 2017 after a shoot-out in which three people, including two members of Spain's Guardia Civil police, were killed.

Feher, who was born in Serbia in 1981, said he had used 18 different identities in eight States.

He said he arrived in Spain in September 2017 and agreed to be tried in Italy for the crimes he is accused of there.

Spain has said he will not be extradited to Italy until he has answered for the crimes he committed in Spain.


AVON, Ohio - Out of 1600 art submissions to the 49th Lorain County Regional Scholastic Art Exhibit only 550 that made it into the show are on display in the Stocker Arts Center at Lorain County Community College through February 12.

Avon High School and Middle School students won a total of 13 Gold Key Awards, 14 Silver Key Awards and 17 Honorable Mentions.

The art competition was held throughout Lorain County in grades 6 through 12, from Avon Lake to Vermilion.

The exhibit draws from public, parochial, and private middle and high schools from Lorain, Erie, and Huron Counties. Entries were encompassed by all art forms in the visual arts including drawing, painting and sculptures.

There were at least 10 judges for the contest including former teachers and others with an art background. No current teachers judged the students' submissions.

Avon High School art teachers who had student entries in the competition included Karen Busch and Maria Petrulis. Avon Middle School art teachers are Stacy Cislo and John Yagoda.

Avon High School: 11 Gold Key Awards went to:

Leland Starwalt, Senior, (six Gold Keys)

Hanna Dilik, Senior (two Gold Keys)

Nicole Gordish, Senior

Sarah Fisher, Senior

Katie LeHoty, Junior

In addition to the Gold Key Award winners, senior Leland Starwalt won five Silver Keys, senior Hanna Dilik won two, seniors Nicole Gordish and Madison McSweeney each won one silver and there were twelve Honorable Mention awards presented.

Avon Middle School: Two Gold Key Award winners were:

Olivia Eavenson, grade 8

Clare O'Malley, grade 7

Silver Key winners, all in grade 8, included: Nadia Benninghofen, Olivia Bogna, Amy Klimkowski, Julia Laforet, Carl Wible and five Honorable Mention awards were presented.

The Gold Key students are invited to the Gold Key Awards Ceremony on Sunday, February 10 at the Stocker Arts Center.
A bill to extend the statute of limitations on child molestation to give victims more time to seek justice is expected to easily pass the New York legislature Monday.

The scheduled vote on the Child Victims Act in the Democrat-led Senate and Assembly comes after years of unsuccessful efforts to pass the legislation. While its been endorsed by the Assembly repeatedly, the act was blocked by Senate Republicans. Democrats won control of the chamber last fall, however, and say passing the act is one of their top priorities for 2019.

The gates to our courts and to justice will soon finally swing wide open to the survivors of child sexual abuse who have been silenced for so long, said Manhattan Democrat Linda Rosenthal, the Assembly sponsor of the bill. Those days are now behind us.

Current law gives victims until age 23 to file civil cases or seek criminal charges. Under the act, victims could file civil suits until age 55 and seek criminal charges until age 28.

The one-year litigation window for past claims now barred by the statute of limitations has been the sticking point, with large private institutions such as the Catholic Church warning that it could cause catastrophic financial harm to any organization that cares for children. The church had also opposed a loophole in the law that they said would have unfairly shielded public schools.

The church supports the extension of the statute of limitations going forward, however, and recently dropped its opposition to the overall bill after the sponsors agreed to make it apply equally to public and private institutions.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo supports the bill and has said he will sign it into law.

Flanked by eight child molestation victims, Cuomo said a state Capitol news conference held Monday morning that the legislation will offer the opportunity for justice to victims who have suffered what he called a horrendous violation in life.

Stephen Jimenez, a 65-year-old journalist who said he was molested by a faculty member at his Catholic elementary in Brooklyn in the 1960s, called the measures impending passage exhilarating.

This is a big, big step forward in terms of New York setting an example, Jimenez said.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Howard Schultz is on a tearand the media is tearing him apart. After announcing over the weekend that hes mulling a third-party presidential bid as a centrist independent, the former CEO of Starbucks has kept an aggressive media schedule, touting himself, in repetitious broadcast interviews, as a viable alternative for voters fed up with the Democratic and Republican parties. As Schultz has toured the studios, the progressive commentariat has screamed back, with one voice, Dont do it!

Coverage of Schultzs nascent run has been dominated by Democratic fears that he could be a spoiler in 2020, splitting the vote and putting Donald Trump back in the White House. In news coverage, that narrative has been boosted, variously, by Michael Bloomberg, himself no stranger to third-party flirtation, calling vote-splitting a risk we cant afford to run right now; Schultzs hiring of an ex-Obama aide who, in 2016, publicly warned against third-party voting in a Sacramento Bee op-ed; and a heckler yelling at Schultz, Dont help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire asshole. On the commentary side, most opinion columnists have echoed that sentiment. By flirting with such a risk, Schultz is demonstrating a level of megalomaniacal recklessness that is itself disqualifying, Michelle Goldberg wrote in The New York Times.

ICYMI: A brutal week for American journalism

Its not the job of journalists to clear the field for the Democratic Party going into 2020, but it is their job to examine candidates policy offerings. On this front, too, Schultz deserves tough interrogation. His early messaging has been short on substance. Beyond vague promises to fix problems everyone knows about, it was hard to spot a serious policy in a USA Today op-ed he published yesterday. The same has been true for his interviews, which rarely go deeper than catchphrases like silent majority and common-sense solutions. Yesterday, CBS This Mornings John Dickerson asked Schultz what his big idea was. The big idea is very simple: to unite the country. For us to come together. To do everything we can to realize that the promise of America is for everyone, Schultz said. But every politicians gonna say that, Dickerson countered, looking exasperated. To the extent Schultz has defined his putative candidacy, hes made it about what hes againstfor example, prominent Democrats proposals to raise taxes.

The reason Schultz merits tougher media scrutiny than most is that, unlike most presidential aspirants, he wont have to put himself or his ideas through an exhausting, and exhaustive, primary season. However stifling it can be at times, the party selection process often goes hand in hand with probing coverage. Schultz is not a scrappy insurgent struggling outside of the system; the media needs to remind the public that hes a billionaire with the resources to buy his way past the primaries, and the public profile to earn media attention.

This doesnt mean over-covering Schultz if he does decide to runwhile his campaign could be a significant variable in a close race, its unlikely to become a serious movement. So far, however, tough coverage of his intentions has been welcome. I must be doing something right to garner this much attention and this much interest, Schultz said on CBS yesterday. Most reporters and commentators would beg to differ.

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Below, more on Howard Schultzs rocky rollout:

Who invited you? The Timess Lisa Lerer asks whether theres a viable constituency for Schultzs economically conservative, socially liberal worldview. Voters with Mr. Schultzs profile are basically the equivalent of the Yangtze finless porpoise: They no longer exist in great numbers and are probably going extinct, Lerer writes.

The Timess Lisa Lerer asks whether theres a viable constituency for Schultzs economically conservative, socially liberal worldview. Voters with Mr. Schultzs profile are basically the equivalent of the Yangtze finless porpoise: They no longer exist in great numbers and are probably going extinct, Lerer writes. Lessons from Starbucks: Schultz has no political experience, so CNNs David Goldman dived into his record in business for clues about his views. While Schultz ran Starbucks like a haven for progressive ideals, Goldman writes, he also had several missteps along the way, including confrontations over race relations and gun laws.

Schultz has no political experience, so CNNs David Goldman dived into his record in business for clues about his views. While Schultz ran Starbucks like a haven for progressive ideals, Goldman writes, he also had several missteps along the way, including confrontations over race relations and gun laws. Lessons from the UK: In 2012, Starbucks attracted scrutiny in the UK after it emerged that it paid a pittance in corporation tax despite racking up $3 billion in sales over a 14-year period. Last year, Schultz defended his companys record in the country, saying it is very hard to make money in the UK.

In 2012, Starbucks attracted scrutiny in the UK after it emerged that it paid a pittance in corporation tax despite racking up $3 billion in sales over a 14-year period. Last year, Schultz defended his companys record in the country, saying it is very hard to make money in the UK. How Schultz got to maybe: The Washington Posts Michael Scherer reports that Schultz has been planning a campaign for months, commissioning more than six national polls and laying the groundwork for paid advertising.



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: The digital winter turns apocalyptic

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Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
Nearly a month into the first session of the 116th Congress, the jockeying for top spots is over, committee seats are assigned, and legislating is in motion. Most members of the New York delegation can breathe easy, having garnered plum seats and new chairmanships.

However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left two Democratic members holding their breath. Rep. Kathleen Rice was barred by a steering committee vote from sitting on the House Judiciary Committee, despite protests on her behalf from fellow New York representatives, according to Politico. While lawmakers are not guaranteed assignments of their choosing, this denial was largely viewed as a snub, presumably retaliation for the Long Island Democrats efforts to block Pelosi from ascending to the speakership following the Democratic takeover of the House. Rice, a former Nassau County district attorney, will instead sit on the House Homeland Security and House Veterans Affairs committees.

On the vets panel, Rice will be joined by a fellow outcast from New York, freshman Rep. Anthony Brindisi from central New York and the Southern Tier. Brindisi, who votes against Pelosi and who also clinched an Agriculture Committee assignment, was similarly blocked from his top committee of choice, the House Armed Services Committee. Armed Services would have been a boon, considering that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service  a Department of Defense agency and one of the largest employers in the region  is located in his district. (Brindisi told the Syracuse Post-Standard after meeting with Pelosi that this was not payback, though he notably was not in attendance at the speakers swearing-in ceremony.)

The rest of New Yorks freshman class got committee assignments corresponding to their expressed interests and that of their districts. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which, with five other members, has the largest representation of legislators from the Empire State. Reps. Max Rose from Staten Island and southern Brooklyn, Antonio Delgado from the upper Hudson Valley and the Catskills, and Joseph Morelle from the Rochester area also landed their preferred assignments.

Rose joins the committees on Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, which will allow him to keep emphasizing his military service and to represent the interests of the many law enforcement officials and first responders, such as firefighters, in his blue-collar district. Delgado will sit on the Agriculture and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, which will be relevant to his mostly rural district. Morelle got Education and Labor in addition to Rules, the committee where he sat during his long tenure in the state Assembly. As the son of a life-long Plumbers and Pipefitters union member and the husband of a retired teacher, I bring a unique perspective informed by those on the front lines of the labor and education fields, Morelle said in a press release.

New party control in the House means new leadership for every House committee, and longtime New York Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Nita Lowey, Eliot Engel and Nydia Velazquez were among those rewarded with chairmanships. For his part, Nadler has expressed his desire to target Trump with his new subpoena power, telling Roll Call hell dig into the circumstances surrounding the ousting of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who faced backlash from the president after recusing himself from the Russia investigation. The Democrat serving the West Side of Manhattan also intends to investigate the sexual assault allegations against Trump appointee U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And one delegation member will remain in no-mans land. Republican Rep. Chris Collins, formerly of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will not sit on a committee this session, following his ouster by then-Speaker Paul Ryan last year, as a response to his indictment on charges of insider trading and lying to authorities. The congressman from the Buffalo suburbs will stand trial in February 2020.
In recent weeks, Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Assembly have passed legislation in lockstep with one another  whether it was voting reforms, reproductive rights or increasing access to higher education for undocumented students. This coordination has allowed Democrats to pass a series of bills that had long been stalled by the previous Republican state Senate majority. But on on property taxes, the Assembly and Senate have thus far gone separate ways.

The state Senate passed a bill last week that would make the 2 percent cap on property tax increases permanent, but their counterparts in the Assembly have yet to make a serious effort to take up the legislation.

While Democratic leaders in the Assembly have not said whether they will take up the legislation  which prevents property tax increases of more than 2 percent annually  the issue may give Assembly leaders leverage in upcoming budget negotiations. According to several Democratic lawmakers, such talks could be tied to renewing and expanding rent control  an issue that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and swing-district senators have championed.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has not addressed the issue directly, recently saying that the two legislative chambers will not always be synchronized.

We are both Democratic houses, but we may not be always on the same schedule, so I dont think anybody should have any notice or concern if they pass a bill first or we pass a bill first, or vice versa, Heastie said, according to New York State Public Radio.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, told City & State that the conference was in no rush to take up the legislation.

I am thinking that it will not come up soon in the Assembly, Peoples-Stokes said. I really do kind of see it as a stand-alone issue and I really think that it should stay that way.

Limiting property tax increases has been a pet issue for Cuomo since championed the cap in 2011. With the current law expiring next year, it has become a critical issue for state Senate Democrats, many of whom come from districts in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island where property taxes are among the highest in the nation. By making the tax cap permanent, suburban Democratic senators might improve their odds of keeping their seats  and retaining the partys majority  in future elections when the national climate might be friendlier to Republicans than this past election. The Senate bill to make the cap permanent was proposed by state Sen. Jim Gaughran, a Long Island Democrat, and passed the chamber on Jan. 23 by a 58-2 margin.

The reluctance of the Assembly to consider the bill was highlighted on Jan. 28, when Democrats shot down a proposed amendment by Republican Assemblyman Edward Ra that would have inserted the Senate bill language into unrelated legislation. We know the Assembly majority has never been fully support of the property tax cap, he told City & State after the amendment failed. Its always been an effort to drag the majority along with the bill.

A proposal by Republican Assemblyman Colin Schmitt to make the tax cap permanent has also gone nowhere in the Assembly, but the majority in the chamber may not be able sit on the bill forever.

Cuomo included the measure in his executive budget proposal and holds significant power over the states spending process. An April 1 deadline is looming, and it has added urgency this year because lawmakers pay raises depend on passing the budget on time. But it has not escaped the notice of some political watchers that the Senate  by passing the tax cap  has surrendered political leverage on the issue to the Assembly, where a greater share of members have New York City constituents who are not affected by the tax cap, which only applies outside the city.

With rent regulations set to expire in June, Democratic lawmakers say that they are open to the idea of finding a deal that would lead to passage of the tax cap and new rent protections, a pairing made in 2011. If such a deal is reached, then lawmakers might end up doing more this year to expand tenant rights than enacting the proposals in Cuomos budget to end vacancy decontrol, abolish preferential rent and curtail landlords ability to raise rent through capital improvements. The current rent laws only allow for rent control in New York City and adjacent areas, but new lawmakers like state Sen. Julia Salazar campaigned on universal rent control.

Several members of the Assembly told City & State that they are open working out a deal, likely through the budget process, that would use the tax cap as leverage to secure new tenant protections. With the two issues already in Cuomos budget, it is likely that there will be action on both the tax cap and rent control by April 1.

In any case, they say they are ready to hear a right offer come their way. If theres a deal to be made that will be fair and improve the quality of life all around, and have a positive impact on the upstate residents, said Assemblyman Nick Perry, thats a deal that Im sure we would consider.

Meanwhile, the governor has doubled down on the issue. "At the end of the day, the property tax cap is probably the most politically potent issue," Cuomo said in a recent radio interview. "People care about it, it matters. It matters on Long Island, it maters upstate, especially with the new SALT federal provision. Teachers union is against it. The Assembly stopped it. The Assembly doesnt have a property tax cap in New York City, so they werent doing it for their constituents in New York City. If not their constituents, then who?"
Now that Democrats are ascendant in Albany, they have kicked off the year by passing a string of high-profile bills that had long been blocked by Republicans in the state Senate. But single-party control doesnt always result in neat and tidy outcomes.

Already, a number of Republicans have joined Democrats in passing key legislation, and at least one Democrat  state Sen. Joseph Addabbo  has diverged from the party line on a major bill, the Reproductive Health Act.

Going forward, there are other bills in the works that are sure to expose divisions within the Democratic Party, from Gov. Andrew Cuomos congestion pricing proposal to help fund public transit upgrades to a controversial measure to legalize recreational marijuana.

Earlier this week, we asked our readers to weigh in on which of the major Democratic bills might backfire. As of Tuesday evening, the most common response (41 percent) was that none would, while 28 percent picked the DREAM Act from the choices provided. Readers also selected single-payer health care (40 percent) as the biggest policy fight looming this year, followed by congestion pricing (36 percent).

Now, in this weeks Ask the Experts feature, we turn to three Albany observers to dig deeper into the issues: Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor and director of the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz; John McArdle, a Republican consultant and former communications director for the Senate GOP; and Tunisha Walker-Miller, a senior vice president at Capalino+Company.

Which Democratic bill is the most important, politically speaking?



Gerald Benjamin: The package of bills to expand the electorate has the greatest potential long-term political significance. It may lock down Democratic control of state government for a generation. This is a case in which Chicago Democratic Mayor Richard Daley's aphorism is undoubtedly true for his New York co-partisans: Good government is good politics. The reformers get their long delayed wins. Meanwhile Democrats know that in New York each new or newly registered voter who turns out is far more likely to vote Democrat than Republican. The key, of course, is to get them out. Recently expansions of the New York electorate have not automatically produced greater turnout.

John McArdle: Senate passage of the bill to make the property tax cap permanent. While first proposed and passed by Senate Republicans, Governor Cuomo embraced the tax cap early on and helped enact it into law. Its past extension has been tied to rent control laws for New York City and that linkage will likely continue. Opposition by the teachers union could be a problem, however teacher evaluation and school funding make for obvious trades during the budget or before they adjourn. Property taxes on Long Island and other suburban areas are first foremost among issues affecting voters and the tax cap has helped keep them in check. Securing its permanent adoption would be a huge victory.

Tunisha Walker-Miller: The Senate Democrats under the leadership of Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins have done a great job with keeping their promise to pass key bills and putting them on the governors desk for signature. I commend both the Assembly and the Senate for passing early voting, the Dream Act, reproductive health and gun control laws, but there are still several bills that need to be passed. The Legislature needs to come up with an affordable housing plan that will provide rent reform laws that will be beneficial to both tenants and landlords. This debate will bring forth many challenges for both sides of the aisle and will impact both upstate and downstate.

Is there any piece of legislation Democrats have passed or are likely to pass this session that could backfire politically?



Tunisha Walker-Miller: The piece of legislation that could backfire politically will be the legalization of marijuana. Members on both sides of the aisle have not put together the true details on how retail establishments will obtain permits and how the taxes will be distributed. Many members have also expressed that they want past criminal records expunged for those arrested for using the drug. Minority businesses that are looking to get into the retail space of distribution and agriculture would also be able to benefit from the passage of this bill. If the details of this bill are not done right, New York state will have missed out on an opportunity to increase revenue for the state.

Gerald Benjamin: Legalization of recreational use of marijuana and its attendant issues have to be be handled carefully. Skepticism is arising and push-back is developing in unexpected places, like The New Yorker magazine. The old gateway drug argument does not stay dead. Undoing the consequences of past enforcement  a highly charged aspect of the matter  will be tricky, certainly politically, possibly legally. The issue is ripe for the creation of a crime wave.

John McArdle: Anything that makes it easier for a Democrat to compete in a primary in New York City. Prior to last year, low turnout and party support virtually guaranteed re-election to a seat in the Senate and Assembly. Primaries were rare as were general election opponents. That went out the window with AOC's stunning upset of Joe Crowley in June and most of the IDC in September. Grass-roots party activists are emboldened and not in the mood for compromise or the give and take that's necessary to govern. More primaries are inevitable and more incumbents will be targets. The move to a June primary could also disrupt the end of session, resulting in other unforeseen problems.

What will be the biggest budget fight this session, and why?



John McArdle: Historically, health care and education are the most contentious issues as they consume most of the spending. Now, budgets tend to be held up over policy matters unrelated to traditional battles over taxes and spending. Congestion pricing could be an issue that holds up the budget. The MTA needs funding and congestion pricing's political costs may be too high for outer borough and suburban New York City legislators to bear. School aid funding will likely be contentious as the fight over formulas, shares and the distribution of state dollars becomes more pronounced with Democrats in control. In the end, the biggest fight will likely be whatever the governor decides he needs the most.



Tunisha Walker-Miller: From a political perspective, congestion pricing will be the toughest bill to get passed in both the Assembly and the Senate. The idea of putting a toll on cars coming into certain area of Manhattan has raised a lot of questions for local businesses that receive deliveries and also for commuters that have to take taxi cabs/black cars and Ubers to work in the zoned toll area. This bill could also backfire politically if they pass the bill with set tolls and the money collected from the tolls is not spent on capital improvements for the MTA. If the money received does not go to the capital improvements, subway commuters will be faced with additional subway fare increases, more train delays and overcrowding issues.

Gerald Benjamin: Congestion pricing and more generally finding the capital to rehabilitate mass transit in New York City in the context of redefining MTA governance.
On Jan. 22, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its major first case dealing with gun rights since 2010, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York. The outcome of the case will not have a huge impact on either public safety or the rights of gun owners in New York. But how the court decides the case could have a major long-term impact on Second Amendment rights across the country. It could affect both existing gun control regulations in states such as New York and prevent states from passing such measures going forward.

This case will determine the constitutionality of a New York City regulation that prevents licensed handguns from being taken outside the city, even if they are unloaded. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the regulation. According to the courts opinion, the regulation would not significantly inhibit their ability to utilize training facilities to obtain and maintain firearm skills, let alone that the Rule operates as a substantial burden on the right to keep and use firearms for self-defense in the home. Because the gun owners could maintain handguns in their homes for self-defense, had access to at least one firing range in each of New York Citys five boroughs, and could rent or borrow a firearm for practice at a firing range outside of the city, the court reasoned that the law did not infringe on the core Second Amendment right to keep a weapon for personal protection or to become sufficiently proficient in using the weapon as to make the handgun practical as a tool of self-defense.

Because the New York City regulation is unique and does not affect many people inside the city, the immediate stakes of the decision are limited. The regulation is not a severe burden on the rights of gun owners, and by the same token striking down the law would not have a large impact on the safety of people residing in New York. But this doesnt mean that the courts decision to take the case is inconsequential  far from it. The decision could provide an important signal of how a more conservative Supreme Court will interpret the Second Amendment going forward. And the most likely outcome is that the court shows an intention to limit the ability of states to enact gun control measures, ultimately leading to more gun-related violence.

The Supreme Courts 2008 opinion in D.C. v Heller was a landmark case because it held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individuals right to bear arms from undue burdens imposed by the federal government. In 2010, this right was applied in McDonald v. Chicago to also protect individual gun ownership rights against state governments and their subdivisions, such as cities and counties.

And yet the scope of the decisions were modest. While striking down the ban on handgun ownership in the District of Columbia, the court left many questions about the nature of the individual right unanswered and gave state, local and federal governments substantial leeway to regulate firearms. Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited, declared the court in Heller. (N)othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Weapons that can be reasonably be deemed dangerous and unusual can also be banned. As a result, the precedents set in Heller and McDonald have not been used by lower courts to overturn many gun regulations. For example, New Yorks SAFE Act included a number of relatively stringent gun regulations, among them a broad assault weapons ban and virtually none of it  except for one small provision concerning a limit on the number of rounds of ammunition that a gun can hold  has been ruled unconstitutional by any court.

Since McDonald, the court has been biding its time. But the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who authored the courts relatively narrow opinion in Heller, and Anthony Kennedy, who may have had a moderating impact on the 5-4 opinions, are no longer on the court. The Roberts court, with Donald Trumps very conservative nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh firmly in place, may be ready to more aggressively expand the Second Amendment, starting with this case.

It is possible, but very unlikely, that the court took the case to uphold the ban and lend its concurrence to a lower courts judgment in a minor case. The smart money would be that the court took the case so that it could strike down New York Citys regulation. Assuming the court does so, how the court strikes it down matters.

It is possible that the Supreme Court will overturn the Appeals Court and throw out the law with a broad, aggressive opinion establishing a standard of judicial review for gun control laws that would threaten a substantial number of common gun regulations, including many of those that already exist in New York and some of the bills Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to soon sign into law, such as a prohibition on school employees carrying guns in schools.This would be a devastating blow in a country in which gun control laws are already far too lax.

But probably the most likely outcome is that the court strikes down the law with a minimalist opinion focusing on the specific facts of the case without necessarily doing much to clarify the scope of the Second Amendment as it might apply to future cases. The regulation under review is unusual, as most regulations apply either to keeping firearms out of the hands of people unfit to carry them or to particularly unsafe weapons, which would not be directly threatened by a narrow ruling applying to the specific facts of this case. This would still be significant as gun right advocates would press more cases and lower courts increasingly filled with young, reactionary judges appointed by Trump would then have more ammunition to push the envelope.

The challenge to New York Citys idiosyncratic gun regulation, then, may ultimately just be a footnote in the ongoing battle over gun control. But it may also be remembered as the case that announced the Supreme Courts war on states like New York that want to regulate firearms more than the rest of the nation.
(ANSA) - Vatican City, January 30 - The recent World Youth Day celebrations in Panama were a "counter-current sign with respect to today's sad tendency to conflictual nationalisms, that raise walls, and close themselves to universality, to the meeting between peoples," Pope Francis said Wednesday.

The pope said he had been heartened by "seeing all those flags fluttering together, dancing in the hands of young people who were filled with joy at meeting each other".

This, he said, had been a "prophetic sign...a sign that young Christians are the yeast of peace in the world".

Francis was speaking at his weekly general audience about his recent trip to WYD in Panama City.


Florida, FL (34429)

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Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 85F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

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A. There needs to be a traffic light there instead.

B. A roundabout will work just fine in that location.

C. Roundabouts are confusing and terrible. It shouldn't happen.

D. That intersection is not a priority for change, so just leave it the way it is.

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An internationally recognized startup program with a track record for nurturing entrepreneurs who are successful in raising money and creating jobs is opening a location in downtown Houston.

Boston-based MassChallenge announced Wednesday that it's launching a boot camp-like business accelerator program in GreenStreet, a four-block mixed-use development in the center of downtown. It's seeking startups that have generated less than $1 million in revenue over the past year and have raised no more than $500,000 in equity-based funding.

"Houston just has all the right ingredients for making it an amazing innovation ecosystem," said Mike Millard, managing director for MassChallenge in Texas. "... Everything is here in place, and it's just a matter of execution."

A matter of execution that Houston has been chasing for years, with increasing announcements in recent months. Rice University, for instance, is transforming the former Sears building in Midtown into an innovation hub. It detailed the project's timeline and design on Wednesday.

MORE: Rice University unveils plans for former Sears building

"As I said last year when the idea was unveiled, we have to leap, not stroll, into the economic frontier," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement.

MassChallenge will provide in-person training, mentoring and community building from about 5,000 square feet of space at Main and Clay. The nonprofit will also provide virtual classes from Austin, where it offered its first accelerator program last year and has helped 79 companies. Those startups have generated $20 million in revenue, raised $30 million in funding and created 524 jobs.

Entrepreneurs selected for the six-week program don't have to pay, and MassChallenge does not take equity in startups. Houston's first cohort of students, up to 25, will begin this summer.

The model has been successful in Boston. When looking at startups admitted into MassChallenge with similar ones not admitted, those that went through the accelerator program were 25 percentage points to 50 percentage points more likely to receive at least $500,000 in funding.

They were also 30 percentage points to 33 percentage points more likely to hire at least 15 employees, said Daniel Fehder, who researched MassChallenge while earning his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At HoustonChronicle.com: Deal boosts medical device innovation in Houston

Fehder, now an assistant professor at University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, recalled telling MassChallenge founder and CEO John Harthorne that the study would publish no matter if the results were good or bad. And Harthorne replied that if MassChallenge wasn't having an impact, he'd rather quit and focus his energy elsewhere. Harthorne was receptive to measuring the quality of MassChallenge, Fehder said.

"That's not always true in entrepreneurship programs," Fehder said, "and it says something about the tenor of its leadership."

Internationally  with locations in the U.S., Israel, Mexico, Switzerland and the U.K.  MassChallenge has helped 1,900 startups raise more than $4 billion in funding, generate more than $2 billion in revenue and create over 120,000 total jobs.

MassChallenge ranks among the country's top 10 accelerator programs based on the number of startups that have gone through its programming, said Ed Egan, the former director for Rice University's McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

"They solicit a very large number of startups and are quite selective about which startups they take, which is good," Egan said.

MassChallenge also tends to be selective about mentors. Egan, however, is concerned that the nonprofit may not find enough high-quality mentors in Houston. Having MassChallenge enter the market is a positive thing, though he would have preferred seeing a for-profit that brings its own talent to Houston to mentor startups.

At HoustonChronicle.com: In latest reboot, startup hub Station Houston becomes nonprofit

MassChallenge says it always looks for local mentors, but its startups have access to a global network of mentors, too.

And Harthorne, the MassChallenge CEO, said its nonprofit status has been key to the accelerator's success. As a nonprofit, the organization is neutral. It doesn't have economic incentives that distract it from assisting startups.

In Houston, specifically, he said this model can help connect the ecosystem's various entities  entrepreneurs, the government, corporations, investors, universities and the military  and encourage collaboration.

"Houston has strength in all of those areas, but it hasn't yet congealed into a startup ecosystem," he said. "... When we connect all of them together, everybody wins."

Bob Eury, president of the Downtown Redevelopment Authority, which agreed to provide a $2.5 million economic development grant to the company, said MassChallenge's reputation and global visibility will bring a level of prestige to Houston and downtown. The funds will be paid out five years.

The grant, which will come out of funds from the area's tax increment reinvestment zone, required MassChallenge to be downtown.

It's logical for the company to be in the city center, Eury said.

"Investment banking firms, venture capital firms ... a lot of the assets you need in an innovation ecosystem is here in downtown," Eury said. "It makes sense for MassChallenge to be right in the middle of that."
This house in Las Vegas will blow your mind. It isn't built to sustain a nuclear attack, but it is built 26 feet underground. And the subterranean structure is designed to make residents feel as if they're in a normal home with a yard, grass, swimming pool, trees, and murals painted to look like landscaping and the horizon.

It comes with an equally mind-bending price: $18 million. The price seems a bit aggressive, considering that the property last changed hands in 2015 for $1,150,000.

Did the current owners remodel it? Did they add secret spy gear? Or is the price simply a typo?

It's nothing of the sort, according to listing agent Stephan LaForge of BHHS Nevada Properties.

"The price reflects the price to rebuild," he explains. If an enterprising builder wanted to replicate this one-of-a-kind property in 2019, it would be nearly impossible.

LaForge says it would cost at least $18 million to dig a third-of-an-acre hole and reinforce it with a half-mile of solid-steel I-beams. Then you must factor in all the other features and amenities the bunker contains.

Lawn realtor.com

The property's current owners paid cash for the acre lot a little over four years ago. It has a five-bedroom, six-bathroom house (with pool!) underground, and a small townhouse above ground.

They've added some essentials, including repeaters that allow cellphone reception, cable, and internet below ground. They also replaced all eight air-conditioning units (you need to have plenty of fresh air down there!) and added a 1,000-gallon water tank, among other infrastructure improvements.

Front entry realtor.com

Still, the retreat isn't ideal for a prepper paradiseif the outdoor air is contaminated, the air below ground will be as well. And there isn't much in this world strong enough to protect you from a nuclear bomb, should one land in your vicinity.



Watch: We're Crazy for This Detroit Home's Insane Decor



Although it isn't completely disaster-proof, what the property does offer is more than 15,000 square feet of underground space.

The space is dotted with artificial trees, faux rocks, and hand-painted murals of lifelike scenery. The lights below ground can be adjusted to reflect the sunlight at different times of the day, and there are twinkling stars on the ceiling to approximate the night sky.

Kitchen view at "night" realtor.com

Lifelike mural realtor.com

For fun, there's a four-hole putting green, two hot tubs, a sauna, dance floor, bar, barbecue (should you be bold enough to use it), and the aforementioned swimming pool.

Pool realtor.com

The main residence has two bedrooms and three bathrooms, and just about everything a typical '70s-era house would have, including a built-in bar and a pink-accented kitchen.

Looking from the outside in realtor.com

Bar realtor.com

Kitchen realtor.com

You don't need a garage underground, but there is an additional casita for guests. There's plenty of room to park on the surface, and the underground level is then reached by elevator or stairs.

Casita realtor.com

Above-ground house and parking realtor.com

So who's responsible for this fascinating property? Jerry Henderson, a businessman and philanthropist who was a director of Avon Products, built it in 1979, and since then the period decor of the underground area has been well-preserved.

Henderson was a noted underground living enthusiast, and sponsored an Underground Home exhibit at the New York World's Fair.

Pool realtor.com

When Henderson died in 1983, his wife no longer desired the subterranean life. She had a townhouse built on the property's surface, where she lived until she died in 1989. The property changed hands a time or two and eventually wound up in foreclosure.

View of the pink bedroom realtor.com

Along came the Society for the Preservation of Near Extinct Species, a secretive group with the goal of promoting human life extension. An underground bunker seemed like a perfect fit for the group.

Society President Mark Voelker, who lives above ground in the townhouse, told LaForge the property has become quite the tourist attraction. The property's website, UndergroundHouse.Vegas, also helps to whip up interest.

Authentic lighting realtor.com

So if the property won't protect against a full-on attack on Vegas, what will a new owner do with the place? LaForge has some ideas.

He suggests a new owner could iron out zoning issues, build a parking lot on top, and then use it for a special events location.

"You could have a rave down there and no one would hear you," he says. He adds it would be perfect as a home for people who are allergic to sunlight or people who want the ultimate in privacy. Even so, "It's more like a novelty," he says, "an attraction."

Overhead view of the lot realtor.com

And although Las Vegas is full of attractions, this one, located only about 2.5 miles from the Strip, would certainly be unique. We've never seen anything like it!

The post Digging Deeper Into the $18M Underground House in Las Vegas appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
When Bernard Demczuk does diversity and cultural awareness training with police, he gives a history lesson. Call it: Why black people distrust police.

He uses a timeline, starting with the role of slave catchers in the United States in 1706 to police black bodies to the enforcement of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws passed during the 19th and 20th centuries to restrict African-American freedoms.

He notes the role of law enforcement post-emancipation in supporting the system of convict leasing, which provided prisoner labor mostly made up of black men. Finally, he connects those early efforts in policing - through official and unofficial channels - to today's "stop and frisk" policies and the disproportionate use of deadly force toward African-Americans.

"What I do in my class, I say to police, 'Guys and gals, you have been on the wrong side of history for 310 years,' " Demczuk said. "You may be trying to do the right thing, but if you don't know the history, you might not know what the right thing is."

For the past year, Demczuk, who holds a doctorate in African-American history from George Washington University, has been teaching these lessons at the Metropolitan Police Academy in Washington. More than 2,000 officers have been through the program, and another 2,100 are scheduled to take the class. In February, he said, officers from Anne Arundel County, Hyattsville and Cheverly will be visiting his class to learn more about his training model.

He recently offered his services to the town of Greensboro, which continues to roil from a police-involved death last September of an unarmed black resident. The town has a four-man police force, including the chief. But when it comes to friction between black people and law enforcement, the size of the police department doesn't matter.

In September, police received a call about a man "dragging an unidentified 12-year-old down a street." When an officer responded, Anton Black, 19, said he and the young boy were brothers. They were not.

Both ran from the officer. He pursued and was joined by two off-duty officers from a neighboring town and a civilian on a motorcycle.

Video taken from the Greensboro police officer's body camera was released last week.

Black was "schizophrenic," one of the officers radioed in during the chase. They found Black hiding in a parked car, and a struggle ensued. Black was wrestled to the ground on his stomach. One person held him by the head, another held his feet, a third lay across his back while a fourth put his knee on Black's shoulder.

A few minutes later, Black's body went limp. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

"Nothing we could do," one of the officers was heard saying on the bodycam video. "He had superhuman strength. It scared me."

That reasoning is part of a familiar pattern, Demczuk said. It was used to justify the beating of Rodney King by four officers in Los Angeles in 1992. It was used by New York police officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in 2014. And it was used to explain the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, also in 2014, Demczuk said.

"We have been predisposed to see black men as predators for over 400 years," Demczuk tells the officers in his classes. "Part of white supremacist ideology is that the black man could be killed with impunity because white women needed to be protected from them."

Demczuk resides in Caroline County, Maryland, where Greensboro is located. So his offer to help the Police Department is both professional and personal.

"I want to help my local police departments," he said. "We can learn to confront implicit bias and find new ways to confront suspects that de-escalates the chance of violence rather than make the situation worse."

The Greensboro Town Council is expected to vote soon on whether to bring in a diversity trainer. Some, including a few of Black's relatives, still don't quite understand what good that will do.

"Why do you need to teach four grown men how to act like decent human beings?" said LaToya Holley, Black's sister.

The way Demczuk sees it, even decent men will embrace police culture without realizing how much racial baggage they've taken on.

"One of the questions that police ask about the Anton case is, why did he run?" Demczuk said.

Set aside the fact that the first officer to confront Anton had been videotaped kicking a black suspect in the face at his previous job. In his classes, Demczuk looks at the cumulative effects of racist policing.

Police officers enforced laws backing segregation, often with excessive force and violence. Historically, they did little to stop or investigate the thousands of lynchings throughout the United States.

"And you ask, 'Why did he run?' " Demczuk asked.

The purpose is not to guilt-trip the police, he notes, but simply to let them know where the mistrust comes from and the police behaviors that perpetuate it.

"We can't change the past," Demczuk said. "But if we understand it, we can change the future."

Milloy is a columnist for The Washington Post.
We have an officer down! Those words, like no other, can jolt us into the reality of the dangers police officers can face on any given day.

That day arrived Monday for five Houston narcotics officers wounded and injured in a hail of gunfire that erupted during a drug bust at a Pecan Park home. A man and a woman suspected of selling black tar heroin were shot and killed.

This was no fantasy cop show on TV where the stars never get hit. Television news coverage of the aftermath reminded viewers that real lives are at stake when officers find themselves dodging bullets. These officers will likely have scars, visible and invisible, that will never let them forget. .

Trouble was expected when the undercover officers arrived to serve a search warrant at a suspected drug house in the 7800 block of Harding Street. They used a ram to bust down the door only to be greeted by a pit bull that was shot after it reportedly lunged. Killed in the ensuing exchange of gunfire were a husband and wife who police believed were heroin dealers  Rhogena Nicholas, 58, and Dennis Tuttle, 59.

One officer shot in the shoulder was released Monday night from the hospital. Two officers wounded in the face remained in the hospital Tuesday. So did a fourth officer, who injured his knee.

Dr. Michelle McNutt, chief of trauma surgery at Memorial Hermann Hospital, said the family of the fifth officer had requested that the hospital not disclose any information on him. Police Chief Art Acevedo described that officer as being in a fight for his life. The chief encouraged prayer for the officers recovery.

The entire city should find ways to show appreciation not only for these brave officers but for all the men and women who have taken a pledge to put themselves in harms way to protect and serve the public. Thank an officer for his or her service. Contribute to a relief fund. Visit the police officers memorial in Buffalo Bayou Park. Or, offer a token of gratitude  as Kenny & Ziggys did Tuesday with free meals for uniformed officers.

Seeing their fellow officers taken to the hospital on stretchers, not knowing how, when or whether they will recover from their wounds can be emotionally trying. So, it was understandable but regrettable when Houston Police Officers Union President Joe Gamaldi suggested the officers shooting was grounds for some type of vendetta.

We are sick and tired of having targets on our back, Gamaldi said. We are sick and tired of dirt bags trying to take our lives when all were trying to do is protect this community and our families. Enough is enough. If youre the ones out there spreading the rhetoric that police officers are the enemy, well just know weve all got your number now. Were going to be keeping track on all of yall, and were going to make sure to hold you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers.

Gamaldi started his career as a cop in New York 14 years ago, so he doesnt need to be lectured about the job. He knows the task is often thankless. He knows there are neighborhoods overtaken by criminals where residents fear cooperating with the police could be a death sentence. But he also knows most people in those embattled neighborhoods are glad the police come when they need them.

In fact, it reportedly was a tip from a neighbor who noticed strange comings and goings that led to the police raid.

What this city needs now is solidarity in support of the good guys trying to keep us safe. Divisive words may harm hard-earned trust between police and community partners, and could send the message that legitimate complaints wont be handled fairly.

We agree that the sacrifices of police officers deserve greater acknowledgment and admiration.The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund says more than 21,500 officers have been killed in the line of duty since 1791, including 47 fatally shot last year. Such dedication should demand respect. And that is more easily inspired by words of unity.

Words like Chief Acevedo used to describe Houston the night of the shooting: Ive never seen such a loving relationship between police and a city.

With five police officers trying to recover from wounds and injuries suffered in a gunfight, Houston should take a moment to reflect on those officers willingness to walk into a house knowing they might not come out alive because a neighborhood had asked them for help. The cops did their jobs. The city should be thankful, and as Acevedo suggested, remember them in prayer.
(ANSA) - Rome, January 30 - The fate of the 47 rescued asylum seekers on the Sea-Watch NGO ship is still unclear on Wednesday, following an hour-long midnight meeting between Premier Giuseppe Conte, Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio of the 5-Star Movement (M5S) and Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the League at Palazzo Chigi on Tuesday.

Two questions are pending: a safe port of disembarkation for the Sea-Watch, which the Italian government has denied as part of a policy of refusing access to Italy's ports to NGO-run search-and-rescue ships; and an examination and subsequent vote in the Senate over whether to remove Salvini's immunity from prosecution in the Diciotti case.

Conte on Tuesday said he "accepts full political responsibility for what was done" concerning the Diciotti.

The M5S is reportedly divided over the vote.

Last Thursday, Catania's court for ministers requested authorization to proceed with the case, in which Salvini is accused of kidnapping for refusing to allow over 100 migrants saved by the Coast Guard to get off the Diciotti ship during a 10-day stand-off with the EU in August. The request was made even though prosecutors in the Sicilian city had requested the case be dropped.

The Senate committee tasked with examining the question will begin that process on Wednesday.

The process could last up to two months, with a vote by the end of March at the latest.

Salvini has openly declared himself guilty of stopping the Diciotti's disembarkment.

"Salvini said he wants to be prosecuted, so M5S won't disrespect him in that," Di Maio said, adding that "it was a decision by the government".

Regarding the current situation on the Sea-Watch, five countries - Germany, France, Portugal, Romania, and Malta - have offered to take in some of the 47 migrants aboard.

The ship has been anchored for five days off the coast of Siracusa, Sicily, due to hazardous weather conditions at sea.


Rep. Richard Raymond is fighting for Texans right to party on Sundays.

Raymond, D-Laredo, has introduced legislation that would toss out one of Texas age-old blue laws and allow liquor stores to be open seven days a week. Beer, wine and booze still would not be available before noon on Sundays, but the bill would increase the legal hours of operation for liquor stores to 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

I think its just common sense, Raymond said. Its one of those instances where I dont government has any business telling a small business owner that they cant open.

For years, legislators have attempted to repeal the Sunday liquor ban, citing economic freedom for small businesses. Last session, Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, introduced legislation that would allow Sunday sales, but the bill was never given a committee hearing.

This session could be different. Last year, the Sunset Advisory Commission declared that the laws governing alcohol sales, and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission that enforces them are in serious need of modernization, encouraging legislators to take a closer look at the matter. Also, the Texas Republican Party included repealing Texas blue laws in its party platform last year.

For subscribers: Lawmakers shame DPS leaders for driver license office wait times

The Distilled Spirits Council, a national trade association that represents liquor manufacturers, is also calling Texas laws outdated, including the ban on Sunday sales of liquor.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code is filled with outdated and often-contradictory provisions that serve no purpose than to restrict competition and protect entrenched special interests, Dale Szyndrowski, vice president of the council, said in a press release. From protectionist and unconstitutional ownership restrictions for package stores and murky trade regulations to antiquated blue laws banning the retail sale of spirits on Sundays, Texas laws remain severely outdated and need reform.

A number of issues at TABC will be under the microscope this session, including licensing, regulation and overall transparency of the commission, something Raymond hopes will open a lane for his bill.

Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Raymond says his bill would erase unfair restrictions on businesses.

The government is picking winners and losers and saying You can, but you can only go to these businesses and not those businesses, Raymond said. Ive always thought the law was kind of dumb.

The Texas blue law was passed in 1961, banning a number of Sunday sales that have almost all been rolled back in the years since. The only remnants are a mandate that car dealerships can only be open one day on weekends and the Sunday ban on liquor sales. Forty-two states allow the sale of liquor on Sundays, and alcohol can already be sold by many other business in Texas on Sundays, including bars and restaurants.
More than $4 billion that was supposed help low-income and moderate-income Texans improve their Hurricane-Harvey-damaged homes is mired in bureaucratic red tape with little hope of getting to the state in time for the next storm season, which starts in June.

The state has been waiting for almost a year for the money, and some state officials like Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush are fed up and calling on President Donald Trump to intervene.

This continued delay is resulting in homeowner distress, community degradation and increased costs to the federal government due to subsequent damaging events, Bush said in a letter to Trump on Wednesday. This is unacceptable.

Bush also told Trump that by not moving quicker the federal bureaucracy is slowing recovery in Texas from Harvey.

The money is intended for mitigation work to better prepare homes and neighborhoods against futures storms like Harvey. That could include raising homes higher or improving drainage in neighborhoods notorious for flooding.

Bush said the problem is somewhere between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Office of Management and Budget, which are supposed to set guidelines on how the funding can be used. Bush told the Texas Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday that when he tries to track down the latest on the rules, the two agencies essentially blame each other for the delay.

The White House responded Wednesday with a statement from spokesman Judd Deere.

The administration is encouraged by the overall recovery made in Texas from Hurricane Harvey and recognizes there is more work ahead, he said. Senior administration officials recently met with local leaders to further streamline recovery efforts, and we will continue to implement a robust plan to ensure hardworking taxpayer dollars help make Texas stronger than before the storm.

Next week will mark the one year anniversary of congressional authorization of the $4.3 billion for Texas, yet Bush said he still has no idea when Texas will see the money.

Were frustrated, Bush told the the Texas Senate on Wednesday.

For subscribers: Houston region finally poised for influx of billions in Harvey housing funds

Members of Congress are equally frustrated. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said the delegation was promised the holdup would be resolved in early December, but clearly that did not happen. She said since then its been hard to track down anyone at the two federal agencies to explain why Texas is still waiting for money that was promised almost a year ago.

All we want is someone to answer the phone, Jackson Lee said.

She said turnover of employees within the two agencies is complicating the process.

Despite the delays, Jackson Lee said the delegation will keep pressing.

We are going to get that money, she said.

The Houston delegation in Congress has drafted its own letter to send to the administration similarly asking the federal government to hurry up. Last month, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn spoke on the telephone with HUD Secretary Ben Carson making a similar request.

Bush said hes growing more concerned as the state gets closer to another hurricane season.

At this pace, we wont be able to get these dollars before this hurricane season, Bush said.

Making matters worse is the partial federal government shutdown. HUD was one of the agencies shuttered for over a month.

Bush said he sent letters earlier to Carson and the then-director of OMB, Mick Mulvaney, who is now Trumps acting chief of staff. But he said neither has responded, forcing him to write directly to Trump.

Show us the dignity of a response, Bush said. Send me back a letter. Call me.

Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Texas has already collected another $5 billion through HUD that was approved in June 2018. That included $1.1 billion for Harris County and $1.2 billion for Houston. Another $2.7 billion went to the other 48 counties hit by Harvey.

State senators also vented on Wednesday about the slow pace of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is charged with making repairs to dams and reservoirs. More than $17 billion was sent to the Army Corps, but Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said he worries that not enough is happening.

Weve got to know where to go, Bettencourt said. Im through guessing at it. I dont want to know where the money could be. I dont know where that $17 billion is.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com
Monday's shooting was the most violent attack on Houston police officers in at least the last decade.

Four officers were shot while serving a warrant in a southeast Houston neighborhood. Another officer suffered a leg injury, while two suspects died from returning gunfire from police.

RELATED: 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured

Since 2008, Houston police have been involved in 349 shootings that left 103 suspects dead and another 152 wounded, according to data on the city's website. Despite a continual downtown in the number of Houston police-involved shooting since 2012, the department recorded a slight uptick in 2018, when the number of such shootings jumped from 16 to 20.

From 2008 to 2019, three officers have died in the line of duty with dozens more injured, according to the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) report.

Some of the most violent shootings in the last decade involved officers who were serving a warrant or investigating suspicious activity. Those incidents left up to two officers wounded. A shooting of four officers is a far rarer occurrence.

The Houston Police Officer's Union history, which is available on its website, highlights an incident in December 1975 that resulted in four officers wounded by gunfire. The four officers survived serious injuries and returned to duty six months later.

Their treatment after the shooting was a major factor in the police association's formation, the website says.

Chron.com compiled a list of some of the most violent days for Houston police officers in recent history in the slideshow above.

The list is based on data from the city's website, case details on the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted report, and data from the Texas Justice Initiative.

Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
A suspected drunk driver was traveling the wrong way down Heights Boulevard when a train hit her car, police said early Wednesday.

Metro Video reported the woman drove onto Heights Boulevard from Washington going northbound in the southbound lanes around 12:30 a.m.
Democrats Christina Morales and Melissa Noriega are headed to a runoff in the special election to fill state Sen. Carol Alvarados seat in the Texas House.

Morales, a city planning commissioner and the CEO of an East End funeral home, led Noriega Tuesday by several percentage points with all precincts reporting. The unofficial tally showed Morales falling well short of the 50 percent threshhold needed to avoid a runoff for the House District 145 seat.

Republican Martha Fierro finished third among the eight candidates.

Though voters were slow to cast their ballots during early voting, turnout spiked on Election Day, producing more than half the votes. Ultimately, about 5 percent of the districts 73,000 registered voters turned out, according to unofficial results.

Noriega, a former Houston City Council member, is seeking the seat she briefly filled in 2005, when her then-husband and the seats occupant, Rick Noriega, was deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the Texas Army National Guard. Noriega, then a special projects manager for Houston ISD, filled in under a state constitutional amendment allowing legislators to designate their replacements when called to active duty.

During the abbreviated campaign, she has emphasized her experience in politics and education, arguing that she is best suited to join the fray in Austin amid an ongoing legislative session. She said she would continue to run a campaign focused on kitchen table issues during the runoff.

This is really about the issues facing the families of House District 145, Noriega said. Thats school funding, thats affordable health care, thats career opportunities for the workforce.

Morales, meanwhile, has reprised much of Alvarados campaign team from the special election for Senate District 6, which overlaps with the House district. She ran on her deep ties to the community, telling voters her family has now lived in the district for five generations.

Im so proud of our campaign, Morales said. Im a first-time candidate, and I surprised myself with how much money I was able to raise and how many leaders in the community are behind me.

Asked what separates her from Noriega, she said, I think I understand the district better than any candidate.

Noriega, answering the same question, highlighted her unique set of experiences serving in a range of roles at HISD. She noted that education funding, a focus of this years legislative session, also drew a sharp focus when she served there.

Fierro, a precinct chair for the Harris County Republican Party and the lone GOP candidate, had sought an upset victory in the blue-leaning district after also coming up short in the Senate District 6 election. She narrowed Noriegas lead by the end of the night, but finished short of second place.

Five other candidates  Elias De La Garza, Oscar Del Toro, Ruben Gonsalez, Clayton Hunt and Alfred Moreno  also ran for the seat, combining for about 8 percent of the vote.

The district runs from the Heights through downtown, along Interstate 45, to parts of Pasadena and South Houston.

Now, it is up to Gov. Greg Abbott to schedule a date for the runoff.

The race marks the last in a string of elections triggered by former U.S. Rep. Gene Greens retirement from Congress last year. U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, won the open race for Greens seat, leaving vacant her seat in the Texas Senate. Alvarado won that position in December, prompting Tuesdays special election for her seat in the lower chamber of the Legislature.

jasper.scherer@chron.com

twitter.com/jaspscherer
Lina Hidalgo wants the behemoth that is Harris County government to work more efficiently. The county judge wants the criminal justice system to be fairer. She wants flood control projects to benefit rich and poor neighborhoods equally. She wants to organize her administration to best accomplish these goals, and is willing to hire outside experts to help her get there.

Hidalgo on Tuesday defended the cost of hiring a quartet of New York-based consultants  two at more than $400 per hour  to help with her transition and launch of a massive community engagement effort. Commissioners Court agreed to pay HR&A Advisors up to $115,000 through the end of February. Of that sum, $100,000 would cover labor and $15,000 would be available to cover the consultants travel expenses between New York and Houston.

Echoing her campaign last fall, she said the county has been stuck in old ways of thinking for decades and could use fresh perspectives.

Im not going to sit here and come up with the best ideas by myself, Hidalgo said. And the folks that have been here 10, 20, 30 years arent going to either.

Hidalgo is eager to tackle a policy portfolio ranging from broad goals, such as improving the countys public transit system, to the more narrow, like cutting the cost for jail inmates to place phone calls.

County employees and commissioners describe her energy as limitless. In an interview in her downtown office Tuesday afternoon at the end of a seven-hour Commissioners Court meeting, Hidalgos enthusiasm had not waned. The room remains sparse, as if she has yet to give a single thought to its decoration, and instead devotes most of her waking hours to pondering the countys vexing problems.

Its easy for us to do good work right now, because there are so many low-hanging fruits, because nobody was coming with a critical eye, she said. Now imagine if you had a trained, critical eye.

The two highest-paid HR&A consultants will bill the county at $420 an hour; the remaining two are paid $315 and $145 per hour. Converted to an hourly wage, Hidalgo earns $91.76 per hour as county judge and commissioners earn $87.77, excluding benefits.

These were not the most expensive ones, Hidalgo said of the firm. We went with people whose values aligned with my values, and who in that world of consultants were a reasonable price.

In an unrelated discussion during the court meeting, Hidalgo criticized the county for paying as much as $600 per hour for outside attorneys to fight a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the countys cash bail system. She said in an interview she did not believe a comparison could be made between this cost and the HR&A consultants.

The Harris County attorneys office, she said, could have handled the bail suit in-house, whereas the HR&A consultants are a one-time, fixed cost who can propose solutions to problems previous county administrations have failed to solve.

Hidalgo first hired HR&A in November and paid the firm using her campaign funds. Commissioners Court on Tuesday shifted that cost onto the countys books . Hidalgo will pay the firm, which also assisted New York City mayor Bill de Blasio with his transition, out of the county judges budget.

Hidalgo said HR&A has allowed her to carefully fill senior positions in her administration. She said as a politician in her first elected office, she wanted to seek expert advice on hiring. After a vetting process that included examining more than 1,000 resumes, Hidalgos staff said they are preparing to announce hires for communications director, legal counsel and community engagement director.

During Tuesdays meeting, Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle asked Hidalgo whether hiring a firm that previously worked for her campaign would be proper, and court members unanimously agreed to direct the county attorney to review the arrangement.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack said in an interview Hidalgo has the right to use her budget to hire whomever she chooses, but wondered about the message it sends to county residents wary about her inexperience.

If she feels she needs to spend that kind of money importing people into town, it seems she needs that kind of help, Radack said.

Hidalgo, in an interview, dismissed grousing from commissioners as nit-picking and a distraction from the work her office is trying to accomplish.

zach.despart@chron.com
State officials on Tuesday acknowledged widespread errors in their list of 95,000 Texas voters flagged as potential non-citizens, reinforcing the concerns of advocates who say the states effort amounts to illegal voter suppression.

In Harris County alone, officials said, more than 60 percent of nearly 30,000 names on a list the state supplied last week are being removed after new guidance from state officials. Voter registrars in several other counties reported getting similar calls Tuesday from the Texas Secretary of States office, which last week said its review showed that 95,000 registered voters did not appear to be U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the League of United Latin American Citizens sued Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking for data used to develop the original list. The disclosure that many of those on the states list had been found to be U.S. citizens intensified the concerns that prompted the suit.

The lawsuit accuses Whitley and Paxton of violating federal election laws. It says the initiative, announced last week by Paxton and Whitleys office, is a method of voter suppression seen around the country and a witch hunt meant to instill fear primarily in Hispanic voters.

Thats all theyre doing, said Luis Vera, LULACs national general counsel. Theyve done it in Florida; theyve done it in Arizona and other states. Its voter intimidation, voter threats.

Zenen Perez, the advocacy and communications director for the Texas Civil Rights Project. said the secretary of states office should rescind the entire advisory.

In announcing the list last week, Whitley and Paxton hailed the effort as part of a fight against fraudulent voting. Conservative Texas leaders, along with President Donald Trump, have alleged that illegal voting and voter fraud are serious problems that justify voter identification laws and other policies seen by advocates as voter suppression strategies.

In response to reports about the removal of names from the states list, the secretary of states office said in an emailed statement that it was continuing to provide information to the counties to assist them in verifying eligibility of Texas voters.

This is to ensure that any registered voters who provided proof of citizenship at the time they registered to vote will not be required to provide proof of citizenship as part of the counties examination, the statement read.

On Tuesday, officials in Harris County and several other counties were told to remove from their lists names of people who registered to vote at Texas Department of Public Safety offices. Harris County officials also were advised to remove those who registered to vote at a naturalization ceremony, said Douglas Ray, a special assistant county attorney who specializes in election issues.

With the new criteria, Harris County was able to remove more than 60 percent of the names off the nearly 30,000-voter list it was sent. Only about 11,000 names remain.

Our experience with these mass lists from the secretary of states office is that theyre very questionable, so we have to treat them very carefully, Ray said.

Cheryl Johnson, Galveston county's tax assessor-collector, said her office started sending letters Monday asking people on the list to verify their citizenship or risk expulsion from voter rolls. But on Tuesday, Johnson said, the secretary of state's office notified her that some on the list had been verified as citizens.

"We managed to retrieve the second batch of letters that we were going to mail today," said Johnson. "The ones we sent yesterday, we're going to go back and check those."

Johnson said 837 Galveston County voters were flagged by the state, and her office sent letters to 92 registered voters on Monday with plans to mail more on subsequent days. The letters ask that the recipients provide a U.S. passport, birth certificate or citizenship papers to her office within 30 days, she said.

Johnson said she realized by Tuesday afternoon that more than half of the letters sent Monday matched a source code the secretary of states office said to check. She plans to send a letter to those affected on Wednesday. Ten letters that were supposed to be mailed out on Tuesday were also pulled, but her office still planned to send out 77 letters to registered voters in the area.

"We're not going to infringe on anybody's right to be a registered voter," Johnson said. "What we are trying to do is ensure the integrity of the voter roll for all citizens of Texas and all the citizens and voters in my county."

In Fort Bend County, John Oldham, elections administrator, said roughly 8,035 voters in his county were flagged by the Secretary of State's office. But in a call Tuesday morning, Oldham said, his office was advised not to send letters to those on the list "until you review a little more."

The secretary of state's office mentioned the same DPS code issue explained to other county voting officials, Oldham said. He said his office would thoroughly review each flagged voter's record before sending any letters.

Travis County registrar Bruce Elfant said he was confident that the list of 4,500 voters his county received will drop by a significant amount after review. Bexar County officials said the lawsuit had a freezing effect on any action they might take on the issue.

In Waller County, Christy Eason, the elections administrator, had also not sent out any letters to potentially ineligible voters yet. She said the secretary of states office advised her office Tuesday to check for names with the DPS source code.

"We'll definitely be very proactive about it and probably do more so than is required to do to make sure that we're not canceling someone that clearly should be registered," said Eason.

Authorities in Jefferson, Orange and Hardin counties each confirmed that they had received notice from the state that some of the flagged voters did not belong on the list of potential noncitizens. About 300 people had been flagged in Jefferson County and fewer than 100 in Orange County.

Voter registration officials in Collin and Williamson Counties got similar calls Tuesday from the secretary of state's office, the Texas Tribune reported.

Reporters Guillermo Contreras, Dylan McGuinness and Erica Apodaca contributed.
(ANSA) - Milan, January 30 - Premier Giuseppe Conte said Wednesday that the 47 asylum seekers aboard the Sea-Watch NGO search-and-rescue ship will be allowed to disembark within hours after an agreement was reached with other EU States. "In a few hours we will start the operation of disembarkment of the Sea-Watch," Conte said on the fringes of a meeting with Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala. "Luxembourg have come in too and I thank them. There are seven of us, Italy included". The government had been refusing to let the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean 11 days ago to land on Italian soil, as part of a policy of refusing access to Italy's ports to NGO-run search-and-rescue ships.

Conte said Tuesday that five countries - Germany, France, Portugal, Romania, and Malta - had offered to take in some of the migrants aboard.


Houston-area survivors of Hurricane Harvey, some of whom have camped in their damaged homes for more than 17 months, finally are within weeks of getting some of the unprecedented $2.3 billion in federal recovery aid now poised to pour into the region.

Houston City Council is expected to hire a group of housing repair contractors at its Wednesday meeting, the last significant step to put $1.2 billion in recovery funds to use inside city limits. And Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved a plan that will, over the coming weeks, turn on the $1.1 billion spigot of Department of Housing and Urban Development help for Harris County flood victims outside the city boundaries.

That help must reach storm victims faster than it did after Hurricane Ike, the regions last catastrophic storm. Congress, in approving disaster recovery funds in the weeks after Harvey, required that recipients spend the aid within two years, though it gave HUD the ability to extend that to six years, which it did, agency spokesman Brian Sullivan said.

In most contexts, of course, six years is hardly is an aggressive timeline.

Houston, Harris County and other local governments across the Texas Gulf Coast, however, do not expect to have fully spent the aid they got after Ike by the time that storms 11th anniversary arrives this September.

Of the $1.6 billion set aside for housing after Ike, nearly $100 million remains unspent, or even allocated to specific projects, according to data from the Texas General Land Office. The same is true of about $11 million of the $1.3 billion in infrastructure funds approved after that storm.

The city and county's Ike home repair programs essentially are done, and their remaining infrastructure projects  drainage improvements in Houstons Fifth Ward and Near Northside, and street reconstructions in the Cloverleaf area near the Ship Channel  are expected to wrap up this year.

The city still has six apartment projects pending, however, three of which are early in their development; the county has two.

The Houston Housing Authority also has opened a new development in Independence Heights built with Ike funds, but has another roughly $20 million that has yet to be allocated to specific projects.

Houston Housing Authority President Tory Gunsolley said he expects to use his remaining Ike funds by the end of the year.

The six-year Harvey deadline concerns him, he said, in part because the clock started ticking last August, when the GLO inked its deal with HUD to begin implementing the statewide recovery. Houston and Harris County sought and won more control over their funds, and have spent the last few months completing an additional round of paperwork, delaying the arrival of funding.

My main concern is how do we make sure we're spending this money as quickly as possible to meet the six-year deadline. That's the biggest challenge here, said Daphne Lemelle, director of the countys Community Services Department. That would really be my goal, just making sure we're helping people as quickly as possible who have been sitting there for this long.

Tom McCasland, director of the citys Housing and Community Development Department, said he is optimistic the deadline can be met.

In the immediate years after Ike, the city was not in control of its destiny on those funds. It is now. Thats what is going to make the difference, he said. We got our allocation, we set up our programs, we decided how the money is going to get distributed.

When Ike hit, local governments and their potential partners  developers and nonprofits  had not prioritized affordable housing enough to develop the partnerships or expertise that would have been necessary to spend the Ike funds efficiently, said Mercedes Marquez, who played a key role in the Ike recovery as HUD assistant secretary from mid-2009 to mid-2012.

You cant absorb that kind of capital if you dont have large capacity in your city, in the agency and outside the agency. You have to have partners, said Marquez, who consulted with the city early in the recovery process. The city has embraced that they cannot succeed and serve their community without quality collaboration. Thats the key to spending money.

One way to make the recovery more efficient is to communicate clearly with residents, said Chrishelle Palay, executive director of the HOME Coalition. A lack of communication after Ike led some residents to apply for every program available in the hopes of securing help, bogging down the process.

Still, Palay said advocates remain most concerned about how and where  not how quickly  the money will be spent.

A lot of times theres so much focus on hurrying up and getting the money out but its not in a strategic way, or the talking points represent that it will be strategic, but the actual implementation in most cases is not. We need to approach this in a very comprehensive manner. Theres great opportunity here.

Ranjan Bhattacharjee, whose Briar Forest condo took on three feet of water during the storm, will be watching the application process closely.

The Mumbai, India native not only plans to apply for assistance  he also will shepherd fellow Houstonians through the process. He has landed a temporary job in one of the citys housing recovery centers, having been laid off from an office furnishings company last spring, when orders tanked after Harvey and never recovered.

Bhattacharjees wife also lost her job after the storm shuttered the daycare center where she worked, pushing their household income below 80 percent of the citywide median, the threshold most aid recipients will need to meet.

Bhattacharjee said he hopes the funds will help him repay the friends, relatives, banks, credit unions  even a loan shark  from whom he cobbled together the funds needed to make repairs. The flooding warped his front door shut, he has been unable to replace most of his flooded appliances, and lingering moisture in the walls is making the paint peel in some spots near the water line.

I have a positive thought that theyre going to help everybody, theyre going to help me and theyre going to help other people who need the funds, he said. I dont expect it will happen overnight, but it will eventually happen and well be able to repair our home; we wont have to borrow any more money.

Throughout the recovery, local housing officials will direct storm victims first to brief online surveys  one for city residents and one for county residents  to ensure residents do not start formal applications for programs that may not best meet their needs, triggering arduous federal requirements unnecessarily.

As of Monday, the city had collected 3,500 responses from potentially eligible families. Staff now are sifting through the filings to identify eligible families with especially low incomes or with elderly or disabled relatives or children living in the home, and plan to mail those families applications as early as this week. Repairs and checks could move by late February.

The city also is looking for families who have recovered largely with their own savings, hoping to guide them into a program that would reimburse them for a portion of their repair bills. Many of these families likely will earn more than 80 percent of the area median income which will mean only a portion of their expenses will be eligible for reimbursement.

More than 1,000 families have visited the countys online portal. Commissioners Court still must hire a vendor to conduct outreach and companies to tackle home repairs, Lemelle said, ahead of an expected program launch in mid-March.

mike.morris@chron.com

twitter.com/mmorris011
(ANSA) - Roma, January 30 - Finance police seized nearly 650 kilograms of cocaine in the port of Livorno on Wednesday, sources said. The cocaine was found in 23 bags hidden in a shipping container of coffee on a Portuguese ship that originated in Honduras and was headed for Madrid.

Finance police said it was one of their most important drug seizures in the last 10 years.

It came as a result of increased checks on high-risk shipments, in particular those from countries in south and central America.


With only about 130 students ranging from 18-months-old to sixth grade, Christ Community School in Shenandoah already serves a small population of families who have enrolled their children in faith-based private education.

However, the school has started addressing the needs of an even smaller population  students with learning disabilities, dyslexia, speech disorders or those with autism.

Christ Community School Head of School Sonya Meldahl said school officials began their Instructional Support Program this past September with only five students.

In many cases, students are highly successful with specialized interventions, Meldahl said.

In the program, teachers, parents and students work together to make minor adaptations to lesson plans and the class environment, while providing tutoring and intervention for the students who have specific needs.

Related: Learning takes unique turns at Woodlands-based academy

Bridget McDaniel, who Meldahl knew from their previous careers working in public education, was brought on as the programs coordinator. McDaniel came out of retirement to develop the program after three decades of experience in the type of environment Christ Community School officials wanted to create.

This touched my heartI could see that we could develop a program to be flexible and meet those needs, McDaniel said.

After identifying the students who need the support, McDaniel either works directly with them or provides support in the special classes, such as art or Spanish, in addition to in the lunch room and on field trips. McDaniel focuses on behavior and social development in these settings.

Were inclusive of all students. Why shouldnt they be able to have a Christian education, if thats what their family is wanting? McDaniel said.

Andy Chi is the father of a fourth-grader in the program. While his son had been homeschooled prior to enrolling at Christ Community School, the family decided to enroll him in the school and its program because he is on the mild side of the autism spectrum.

We hadnt found an environment before that suited his needs, but this has worked out very well for him, Chi said. He loves school, and he feels like he has friends.

The program hasnt just altered the school day for the kids involved, though. Meldahl said the other students are learning how to work with children who are different.

Ive seen them reach out and embrace the opportunity, inviting and including students who they otherwise wouldnt, Meldahl said.

The unique model, Meldahl explained, also balances student support with teacher training.

Rather than putting an aide in the classroom to hover around the students, its about (McDaniel) coming in and walking alongside the teacher, modeling appropriate strategies and building independence in the child, Meldahl said.

McDaniel holds trainings with the schools teachers to instruct them in ways how to provide accommodations in the curriculum for students who learn differently.

In the future, Meldahl said she wants to see the program grow along with the entire school.

jane.stueckemann@chron.com
The Oak Ridge North City Council on Monday made moves to bring the city up to date with Texas laws about sex offender residency and moved toward a future with less traffic congestion.

After brief discussion, the council unanimously approved an updated sex offender residency requirement, derived from state law, that prohibits a registered sex offender from living within 1,000 feet of any place where a child would gather  including parks, schools and public pools.

Shenandoah passed the same ordinance in October  the two general law cities are subject to state law and Texas House Bill 1111, introduced by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson in the 85th Texas Legislature, gave cities the ability to more specifically control the locations of where convicted and registered sex offenders live inside city limits, up to and including a maximum 1,000-foot restriction.

Oak Ridge North City Manager Richard Derr said the change wasnt triggered by any one situation, but was a proactive move in the event any convicted sex offender try to move into the city in the future. The original law, passed in May 2015, established a 300-foot restriction from public gathering place where children might convene.

The police department was concerned we get it in place and get it updated, Derr said.

According to a state database, only one sex offender currently lives within the city limits of Oak Ridge North. The man, who is not being identified by The Villager, was convicted of sexual assault of a child in 2006. He will be grandfathered into the new law, Derr said.

Related: Robinson Road project plods along as design phase continues

In other business, work on the Robinson Road project was discussed at the meeting, with the council approving a $210,000 payment to RPS/Klotz for engineering and production of a 95 percent complete drawing of the proposed four-lane road from Patsy Lane to the railroad tracks and work on right-of-way acquisition. The 100 percent complete drawing is expected in February.

We dont want to move ahead with a contract until we have the right-of-ways, Derr said.

mrincon@chron.com
To cap off January, a month dedicated to human trafficking awareness, the Glade Arts Foundation and Cultural Center is hosting an event Jan. 31 at 6:30 p.m. titled Human Trafficking AwarenessCoyote Zone, the event will feature two keynote speakers in an effort to deliver the message that human trafficking happens in this area.

Dragos Tapu, the foundations co-founder, said this is the first time they are promoting the issue.

The reason were hosting it and driving awareness is because art is a healing element in the process for these victims. In conjunction with therapy, it can (give) some hope, Tapu said.

As a fine arts organization, Tapu said officials wish to provide classes and healing programs to various members of the community, such as human trafficking victims, who need help.

Tapu said there are about 100 people who are signed up to attend the event. Tickets cost $35, and there are still spots available.

Related: Spring nonprofit works with regional groups to help human trafficking victims

All funds raised from tickets are set to be donated to Freedom Place, the Spring-based Arrow Child and Family Ministries residential recovery center for underage female victims of child sex trafficking.

Debi Tengler, Arrow Ministries chief relations officer, is scheduled to present statistics and case studies on human trafficking in addition to sharing solutions and tips on how to protect community members.

The other keynote speaker, Kathryn Lane, is an author and activist who lives in The Woodlands. She was invited to speak because her book, Coyote Zone, is about a child in Mexico who goes missing because she was trafficked.

Its fiction, but fiction can also educate. When I found out how serious the issue of sex trafficking of minors is in the greater Houston area, I was really motivated to write a book about it, Lane said.

Lane said she had to do research about sex trafficking of minors to write the book. Since she wrote the book, she said she has traveled from Pennsylvania to Arizona giving presentations about both her book and what she learned about human trafficking, including the facts, statistics and laws.

We all know sex trafficking and human trafficking exists, but I sometimes have men and women who have no clue because they havent given it much thought, Lane added.

While Tapu said attendees will receive a copy of Lanes book and enjoy appetizers and refreshments, the goal of the night is to show what the north Houston community struggles with when it comes to human trafficking.

The night is purely to deliver the message that this is right here today, Tapu said.

jane.stueckemann@chron.com
Computer programming isnt just for computer programmers anymore.

Since its inception in 2016, The Woodlands-based Coder Kids has taught more than almost 2,000 Texas children the fundamentals of the Scratch and Python programming languages through private in-home and after school programs.

Coder Kids Founder Jeff Ward comes from an educational background  after years of managing after school robotics and chess clubs, he said, he wanted to take his coding skills directly to children.

I thought it was this cool outlet for kids that was fun and creative, Ward said. I thought it was so much fun to see kids in a different element  not in the classroom.

Ward said the curriculum is based around the individual student, with each course progressing from easy to more difficult programming tasks, and students work to build their own programming language project throughout the course.

Instructor Matthew Holiman said what each project looks like, Holiman added, is entirely up to the individual student.

Some days theyre building a maze or a dance party  or even a harder one like a Pac-Man game, Holiman said. Its up to them to make sure it looks good and functions correctly.

For students, the benefits are multi-fold, Holiman said. Computer science is a fast-growing, already prevalent field, and learning the skills early is a major asset as they grow into higher education and the workforce.

More Information Learn more at www.coderkidstx.com. See More Collapse

Its important for (students) to understand from a young age what technology can do, Holiman said. It makes them more efficient and its very good exposure to a lot of different areas.

Ward said training in coding and computer programming early also helps to develop childrens critical thinking skills. Most children catch on quickly, but learning to code can get more challenging as a child grows older, he explained.

Theyre not going to get as frustrated as if they started earlier, Ward said. Its like starting a foreign language at age 6 or age 17  you just have so much more time to practice and gain skills.

Coder Kids is fairly prevalent in the Houston area already, Ward said, with 70 community partners, like churches and schools, 31 instructors and more than 600 students enrolled for the spring semester from The Woodlands to Katy and seven schools in Dallas partnering to bring coding into their classrooms as an extra-curricular activity. Registration for their summer camps opens Feb. 1.

That expansion is far from enough, though, he added  Coder Kids is always looking for more teacher and school partnerships across all of Texas.

Were keeping busy, Ward said. Its easy to grow and expand when you have a teacher as a partner.

mrincon@chron.com
Protesters rallied outside the Fort Bend County Courthouse on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day against plans to re-locate the remains of 95 convict prisoners found at a historic grave site in Sugar Land. Last April, the skeletal remains of 95 African-Americans were discovered during construction of a new vocational high school scheduled to open next August. Protesters argue its disrespectful to move the bodies from their original resting place.

Attorneys for Fort Bend ISD are seeking permission from District Court Judge James Shoemake to re-locate the remains to the Old Imperial Farm Cemetery, which is owned by the city and holds the graves of 33 former state prisoners and prison guards.

FBISD has neither the resources nor the expertise necessary to establish and maintain a perpetual care cemetery on any school-owned property, attorney Jonathan Branch argued in court documents. Changing the building plans to keep the grave site undisturbed could increase construction cost as much as $18 million, according to Fort Bend ISD chief operating officer Oscar Perez.

Members of the Convict Leasing and Labor Project, the organization that organized the protest, say an important historical site shouldnt be destroyed.

The convict-leasing system was used in Fort Bend County and other parts of the South in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Historians say the system targeted mainly black Americans who were arrested for offenses such as petty theft, vagrancy or flirting with white women. These men were then leased by the state to private businessmen and forced to work on plantations or on other state or municipal projects.

The 95 bodies discovered at the construction site were between the ages of 14 and 70 years-old and are believed to have worked on Sugar Lands sugar cane plantations from 1878 to 1911.

Reginald Moore, a local historian and community activist who once worked as a prison guard in Sugar Land, was among the protesters.

We are looking for an apology from the city, the county and the state, Moore said. These were crimes against humanity and these people deserve the fair treatment they didnt when they were free people who were re-institutionalized when the old plantations became prisons and the old plantation owners became wardens. I want to make sure they are recognized properly.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Human lives were not of value

Last November, Fort Bend ISD officials filed a petition asking to move the remains, but in a preliminary ruling District Court Judge Shoemake instead appointed Richmond attorney Michael Elliot to work as a mediator and delayed a final ruling until sometime in March.

Do I have some bone to pick with Fort Bend ISD? No. You didn't ask to uncover bodies at a site where you wanted to put a school. But pay attention. Those bodies didn't ask to be uncovered. You uncovered them, Shoemake told Fort Bend ISD attorneys at a hearing in December. I don't know if there was anything on the surface of the land that would have told you anything. But I'm telling you that we've got to go through this process. And as painful as it is to Fort Bend ISD financially to go through it, maybe even emotionally to go through it, I can't help that.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Judge delays decision on reburial of Sugar Land 95

In court records, History professor and author Naomi Carrier urged Judge Shoemake to keep the bodies where they were found and said the discovery should be used as a learning opportunity for students interested in archaeology and anthropology.

Why would such a school not be a prime location for the study of forensic anthropology and mortuary science? Moreover, the history of Sugar Land, the etymology of the City's name; the key figures associated with its history are all reasons that this new Fort Bend ISD school is being constructed on a site the US National Park Service would deem a prime location for 'Teaching with Historic Places. Carrier wrote in documents submitted in court. This opportunity for STEAM education, science, technology, engineering, arts and humanities, history and math, is obviously in collusion with a desire to hide history, obstruct truth, and remove bodies from the site of a proposed parking lot.

Court documents also include a statement signed by 222 historians, including Dr. W. Caleb McDaniel of Rice University, supporting Judge Shoemakes initial ruling.

The lessons of this history also have continued relevance as Americans today confront and debate topics such as prison privatization, mass incarceration, immigrant detention, convict labor, and the public memorialization of the Civil War era. Unfortunately, despite being well-known by scholars, the history of the convict leasing system is still insufficiently understood by many Americans. The discovery of the "Sugar Land 95" therefore represents an unprecedented opportunity for public education and memorialization about this history, especially since no other burial ground of this scope and significance has ever been found on land where convict leasing occurred, the statement read.

On HoustonChronicle.com: New details emerge about remains found at Fort Bend ISD construction site

Swatara Olushola, who served on both the Sugar Land task force and the Fort Bend ISD advisory committee, remains critical of the district.

Fort Bend ISD has been everything but honest, everything but transparent regarding this situation despite what they are trying to make people feel and think, she said at a chat recently hosted by FBISD Concerns, a community Facebook page that boasts over 15,000 members. Its a shame we have to beg for basic decency through the same so-called justice system that victimized and exploited these men in the first place.

Terri Collins, also a member of the Convict Leasing and Labor, said she hopes district officials will reconsider their plans.

We shouldnt be fighting about decency. We shouldnt be in court fighting about peoples humanity. Im sorry but if the bones were a different color we wouldnt be fighting, she said at the FBISD Concerns gathering.

Related: Fort Bend ISD officials urge reburial at city-owned cemetery

Although the burial site remains undisturbed for the time being, construction has resumed on the campus and district officials recently began accepting applications from students who plan to attend the new high school next year. Meanwhile, the skeletal remains of the 95 convict prisoners await the judges final decision in a storage container near the grave site.
The city of Willis is conducting an ongoing salary survey.

The council approved a list of 10 cities, during a special meeting this month, that mirror the population of Willis and different disciplines within the city such as the police department, public works, administration, and municipal court, City Administrator Hector Forestier said.

The cities on the list include Navasota, Jasper, Hillsboro, Manvel and others within a reasonable distance with comparable departments and disciplines.

Forestier, who has served as the city manager since 2009, said the city has not had a survey in a few years and at least since his role began with the city.

Sometimes its good to have a study of that nature to make sure that we include all the different things and that we are competitive in the market with other cities, Forestier said.

Employees filled out the survey provided by the company in November and were pending the councils approval of the list. Forestier anticipates that more information about the survey will be received by March to report back to the council.

Charter review

During the regular meeting this month, the council discussed 12 propositions for charter review and one propositions regarding sales tax. The council passed all but two of the propositions which were related to compensation expenses and quorum to further discuss with the city attorney who was not present at the meeting.

Among the items approved, included allowing the sales tax to be reallocated from street repairs to the general fund. While the item was unanimously approved, Councilman Thomas Luster shared a word of advice noting three or four streets he was aware of has been paid by the funds being in the account for streets.

Dont forget we streets to maintain as well and that is just as important as water and sewer, Luster said. I dont want the streets to be forgotten.

Councilman farewell

The Willis City Council and other city officials and community members recognized longtime Councilman Bill Van Alstyne, who recently resigned, for his 30 years of service to the city.

The mayor and city officials thanked Van Alstyne for his dedication and reflected on memories of not only his time on the council, but as an educator and citizen. Then, he was presented with keys to the city.

As one of very few people to receive the honor in the city, Van Alstyne stood humble, grateful, and shared a message that emphasized the importance of civic engagement.

mellsworth@hcnonline.com
Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack stood his ground Tuesday on grant funds being used to create a new position within the county by getting fellow court members to agree to revisit the action in future meeting.

Along with Noack, County Attorney J D Lambright and Assistant County Attorney B.D. Griffin both expressed concerned about the action they said could easily run afoul with supplanting funds. Lambright said federal law prohibits the use of federal money, like grants, for state, local or agency funds. He said grant funds must be used within the scope of a grant.

There is a significant issue and everyone must fully and completely understand what this person can do so we dont run afoul, Lambright said.

In an initial 4-1 vote Tuesday, the court approved a request from Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director Darren Hess to allow his department to create a deputy director position and fund it through a Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grant awarded to the county for the buyout of flooded homes. Hess said the position would be funded at $137,601. Noack was the lone nay vote.

However, Noack, who was vocal about his opposition to the action, brought the issue back at the end of the courts meeting moving to revisit the issue and place it on a future agenda for more discussion. The court agreed to that motion 3-1 with County Judge Mark Keough the nay vote. Precinct 1 Commissioner Mike Meador was not present during the second vote.

CDBGDR funds are for buyouts, Noack said. Im certainly not going to vote to take $137,000 away from a flood victim to pay for another employee. This does not have my support.

Budget Officer Amanda Carter told the court while the grant allows for the funding of a position to manage the grant program it is optional. He added those fund could be used for buyouts instead of used to fund a staffing position.

Noack pointed out during the county budget sessions, the position of a deputy director was discussed but was not funded.

Hess, who noted his department has no second in command position, explained that the grant allows for the funding of a position to administer the grant which is for the buyout of flooded homes. Currently, the department has six staff members

There is no clear line of succession for my position, Hess said adding during disasters, the office is in operation 24 hours a day for as many days is needed. We need this individual to step in those roles in times of disasters.

Keough and Meador supported Hess agreeing the action made sense.

Noack pointed out the grant allows for funds to be used to hire someone to administer the grant, not a deputy director whose duties would be outside the scope of the grant. He said if the court wanted to create the deputy director position, then it should do so through its county budget to avoid the risk of supplanting.

Its a misuse of funds, Noack said.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley, who did not audibly vote on the issue making him a yes vote, said he had concerns as well.

Im not crazy about this but gotta get him some help, Riley said.

The court did not say when they would revisit the issue.
Newly seated 284th state District Judge Kristen Bays got the approval to renovate her courtroom but wont see those changes until the next budget year.

In a 4-1 vote Tuesday, the Montgomery County commissioners agreed to speed $41,000 to remove existing building in furniture to expand the space for the attorneys and expand the jury box. Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack was the nay vote.

The key feature of the remodel is to bring the 284th into current times in two ways, Bays said noting one important part of the project is to make the jury box American with Disabilities Act compliant. There is no room for a wheelchair in the jury box.

Bays called the effort to expand the jury box an easy fix but removing the build in furniture.

Additionally, the expanded space will allow for there to be three large tables for attorneys. Currently, she said, there are only two and only two attorneys can sit there.

Its going to help with court when we have cases involving multiple parties, she said. Its important to have that.

Noack, who did not explain why he voted against the remodel asked county staff about a timeline on the project.

Its not going to be any time soon, said Building Maintenance Director Tim Stewart adding next budget cycle would be the earliest the project could begin.

Stewart said Bays was aware of the timeline.

I just wanted that on the record that you have a long list of items in front of it and it may take a little time to get to it, Noack said.

The project will be funded through the countys capital improvement budget.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
A Spring couples eighth wedding anniversary this week was marked by a murder trial in which the husband is accused of fatally shooting his wife.

Rafael Leos-Trejo is the defendant in the fatal shooting of his wife Jessica Torres Leos.

The 33-year-old Leos-Trejos testimony continued Tuesday as the defense worked to prove that he accidentally shot Torres Leos, 28, in the face with his AR-15 on Feb. 16. During cross-examination in a packed Conroe courtroom, defense attorney Joe Ray Rodriguez addressed evidence in which the defendant was romantically texting two women. One was a married woman and an old acquaintance who lived on the border with Mexico.

In text conversation, Leos-Trejo told Torres Leos he was texting up to six other women, but insisted in testimony he was joking. Another was a 19-year-old he met through social media and who he was texting in frustration up until an hour before his wifes shooting.

She was playing me, he said about her.

He said in testimony he felt this woman was likely a catfish, or someone who takes on a fake persona online. He said he was unsure if he was even talking to a woman.

The defense tried to contrast allegations made in prior testimony by Torres Leos 12-year-old daughter, who described Leos-Trejo as abusive and reckless.

Brought into evidence were photos of Leos-Trejo and his step-daughter sharing time together, some images captioned papi novio or daddy boyfriend. Leos-Trejo explained he spanked her as an 8-year-old after he spat on him and argued he was encouraged by Torres Leos to apply discipline to the girl so she would respect him.

He also said the testimony the girl shared about him hitting her mother in the bathroom was a misinterpretation on her behalf, contending he and Torres Leos were horse playing.

Rodriguez showed the jury a lengthy transcript of text conversations between Leos-Trejo and Torres Leos to demonstrate their marriage was happy, highlighting a Jan. 22, 2018 exchange where the couple appear to be joking about separating amidst talk anticipating their upcoming anniversary. Leos-Trejo stressed there was never any serious discussion about divorcing.

The text transcript also showed Torres Leos, whose $96,000 annual earnings was nearly twice as much as Leos-Trejos, was concerned with Leos-Trejos unsteady income as a vehicle transport driver. Leos-Trejo said Torres Leos failed to understand his transport of vehicles was limited to the company he worked for, saying she would see new vehicles being transported by other makers and asked why he was not at work, too.

When the text transcript reached a Feb. 8 conversation related to laxative use, Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon objected to the proceedings on relevancy. Presiding Judge Patty Maginnis agreed, leading Rodriguez to skim through the remainder until reaching the date his wife died. Torres Leos mentions in conversation that day with Leos-Trejo that she was contemplating removing her contraceptive device, a choice he expressed support for.

At the close of Rodriguezs questioning, Torres Leos appeared most moved as he was asked about his wifes demise.

I still love her with all my heart, he said, his voice shaking. Ill take her place.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

twitter.com/jrgzztx
Harris County Flood Control District is asking the community for their feedback and opinions on the Barwood, Tower Oaks Meadows and Bernadine Estates Subdivision Drainage Improvement Project.

Tonight, Jan. 30, HCFCD will hold a community engagement meeting at Arnold Middle School to receive public comments concerning future work on the White Oak Bayou watershed.

The projects will improve drainage systems and infrastructure to reduce the impact of flooding on neighborhoods by routing water to bayous and major drainage channels, according to HCFCD. On Aug. 25, the HCFCD had their $2.5 billion flood control bond passed for flood mitigation projects.

The projects for the White Oak Bayou watershed projects include the Barwood, Tower Oaks Meadows, Tower Oaks Plaza, Bernadine Estates, Cypress Crossing Mobile Home Park, Ravensway South, Westgate and Wortham neighborhoods.

The meeting will function like previous HCFCD meetings, with an introduction by HCFCD officials followed by consultants providing comments and an open house where citizens can provide feedback, ask questions and see mockups of planned projects, according to the HCFCD listing for the event.

Previously, HCFCD officials said public comment is valuable to their research and planning for the more than 200 projects HCFCD has planned.

We meet very, very, very early on with affected land owners and try to show them what we're doing and try to make adjustments to try to minimize impacts, or avoid impacts if we can, said Matt Zeve, director of operations for HCFCD. But, sometimes some of the landowners, and I understand where they're coming from, don't want to cooperate, or they don't want their land to be part of the project.

The meeting will occur from 6:00 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Arnold Middle School, 11111 Telge Road, Cypress. The last meeting being held by HCFCD in this series of engagement meetings will be Feb. 12 from 7 p.m. tp 8 p.m. at Memorial Hills Community Improvement Association, 2225 Briarcreek Blvd., Houston.

Related: METRO seeks input for public transportation plans in NW Harris County

chevall.pryce@chron.com
Ms. Toni,

I believe I have received wrong information from my friends who suggested that I enroll in Medicare Part A which I did by going online and delaying my Medicare Part B for a later date.

Now I have a problem. I own a small law firm with a small group plan of two employees, me and my assistant, who is now covered under her husbands group health plan and is no longer in the group plan. Since there is only one person left on the group plan, it is being turned into an individual plan and I must now enroll in Medicare Part B.

I turn 65 on March 6 and because Ive delayed my Medicare Part B, I have no idea of how to now let Medicare know that I need to enroll in Part B with a March 1 effective date. What do I do?

John from Tucson, AZ

Hi John:

You are not alone because enrolling in Medicare confuses most Americans especially when friends and even Social Security or Medicare can give you inaccurate information. This is how the Toni Says Medicare consultation was born because someone received inaccurate Medicare enrollment advise from a Social Security agent from over the phone which cost him over $10,000.

Enrolling in Medicare Part A when someone is turning 65 and receiving their Social Security check at 65 is automatic because Social Security knows you have turned 65 and your Medicare Part B will be included when you receive your Welcome to Medicare kit. This is not your situation John because you were not receiving your Social Security check, so Medicare did not know that you were turning 65. You have now enrolled in Medicare Part A but delayed your Medicare Part B. You need to enroll in Medicare because you are no longer on an employer health plan. Now you are in an individual health plan.

Here is my advice to what you should do:

Since you have delayed your Part B, you will need go online to www.ssa.gov and print a Medicare Special Enrollment form CMS L564 Request for Employment Information..Fill this out and have it signed by your HR or office manager and take the form to your local Social Security office in person.

Explain in person to the Social Security agent, your story about enrolling in Medicare Part A and that you delayed your Medicare Part B but you want Medicare Part B to begin March 1.

Turn in your Request for Employment signed form and ask the Social Security agent to fill out CMS-40B Application for enrollment in Medicare Part B with a March 1 effective date by Feb. 28.

Lets discuss the various scenarios of enrolling in Medicare Part A when turning 65:

Turning 65 with employer health benefits: You now have a choice of enrolling or not enrolling in Medicare Parts A and/or Part B because you are covered under an employer health plan. Always discuss your Medicare decision with your companys HR or email Toni at info@tonisays.com with your Medicare enrollment questions.

Turning 65 with individual health insurance: It would be wise to enroll in both Medicare Parts A and B to avoid the famous Medicare Part B penalty.

Turning 65 with an HSA: If you enroll in Medicare Part A, then you can no longer fund your HSA.

Medicare workshop

West Houston/Katy Medicare Workshop  6-8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, at Spring Creek BBQ-Katy in the Banquet Room (dinner not provided), 21000 Katy Freeway, Katy, TX 77449 Please RSVP 832-519-8664.

Toni King, author of the Medicare Survival Guide is giving a $5 discount on the Medicare Survival Guide Advanced book and bundle packages for the Toni Says newspaper article readers at www.tonisays.com.
The Houston Zoo quietly welcomed a newborn lemur just before Christmas Eve, as well as a second ring-tailed lemur just last week.

Monday Jan. 21, a "tiny (and we mean TINY) baby ring-tailed lemur was born to experienced mom, Cairrean," a zoo spokesperson said in a press release.

"At an estimated three ounces at birth, the unnamed baby will cling to Cairrean's chest for a couple of weeks before moving to her back and then will stay clinging to mom until he or she is several weeks old."

ON HoustonChronicle.com: Need an indoor activity? Grow succulents

Just weeks before, on Dec. 23, a male Coquerel's sifaka baby was born to mom, Zenobia. He was named Dionysius by zookeepers. This species is known for its vertical leaping. "While upright, they bounce through the trees using the strength of their hindlegs," a zoo representative explained.

The lemurs are on display at the Wortham World of Primates in the center of the zoo. Guests can learn more about the species and the efforts made to protect lemurs in Madagascar's forest.

"The Houston Zoo is dedicated to saving animals in the wild, including endangered lemurs. Native only to the small island of Madagascar, lemurs are threatened by deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and hunting," a spokesperson said. "In finding solutions that benefit the people and animals, they ensure long-term sustainability and success."
The time is now to provide opinions on the Northpark Drive expansion project, according to Kingwood officials.

In a press release addressed to Kingwood residents, Houston City Council Member Dave Martin announced that people have until Feb. 28 to send in their thoughts about the $86.2 million development to the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

The goal of the project is to improve traffic flow and safety along Northpark Drive, Martin said. The Northpark Drive expansion project would provide Kingwood residents with an all-weather evacuation route, elevating Northpark Drive above the 500-year floodplain at Ben's Branch.

The project currently does not meet the ranking requirement for funding. However, residents comments can impact this, Martin said in the press release. He also mentioned that, out of 60 projects, Northpark Drive expansion is currently in 29th place and approximately 10 projects will receive funding.

The expansion takes Northpark Drive from a four-lane roadway to a six-lane thoroughfare. It also includes a bridge built over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

A design simulation is available on YouTube.

Comments can be submitted in three ways  mail (H-GAC, P.O. Box 22777, Houston, TX 77227-2777), online (www.h-gac.com/2018-call-for-projects/submit-comment.aspx?id=197) and over the phone (toll-free number 855-363-2516).

In the January meeting between members of the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone 10, who oversee projects in the region, the are waiting for clearance on the interlocal agreements approval and debt authorization.

They were also introduced with a tentative calendar on the bond-selling process, which can last five months.

nguyen.le@chron.com
The day after four Houston police officers were shot while serving a search warrant in southeast Houston, Chief Art Acevedo once again called on lawmakers to find ways to reduce gun violence.

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"I would express my personal frustration at lawmakers that know we have a public health epidemic in this country we call gun violence," Acevedo said at a news conference Tuesday morning related to the shooting. "It doesn't just impact law enforcement. It crushes communities, tears apart families, cuts lives short, every single day."

Veteran narcotics officers broke down the door of a suspected drug den, armed with a warrant and hoping to arrest heroin dealers operating out of the Pecan Park home. They were met by a hail of gunfire, instead, as one of the suspects inside unleashed a barrage of bullets that wounded four officers, two critically.

There are 3,353 gun deaths per year in Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 609 children in Texas are killed or injured by guns each year, per the Department of State Health Services.

RELATED: 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth also injured

This is far from the first time that Acevedo has spoken out urging policymakers to reform gun policies.

After the Santa Fe shooting in May 2018, which killed 10 people and wounded 13 others, the police chief took to Twitter, excoriating elected officials for failing "to enact common sense statutes & policies & continue to fail our families & especially our children."

His statements were soon refuted by the National Rifle Association, and Acevedo ended up engaging in arguments with the NRA's Dana Loesch and Grant Stinchfield via Twitter.

"@ArtAcevedo plays the part of a police chief ... he says he wants to go after criminals, but for him apparently the easiest way to do that is to make new criminals that are easy to catch  make criminals out of law-abiding gun owners," NRATV tweeted last May.

READ MORE: Chief Art Acevedo battles NRA in heated exchanges after Santa Fe massacre

Acevedo told the Houston Chronicle last year that the nation needs a "comprehensive approach" to rein in gun violence, including a national standard for background checks before all sales  including at gun shows. He also called for "real consequences" for buyers and sellers trying to circumvent such checks, strict mental health requirements to notify law enforcement agencies if someone is a potential threat, and stricter requirements for storing firearms.

"Gun violence is preventable. There are proven policies that work," Texas Gun Sense, an advocacy group for reforming gun violence, stated in a press release Monday. "Texas Gun Sense is at the Texas Legislature right now advocating for common sense, evidence-based policies that protect Texans from gun violence."

Back at Memorial Hermann Hospital Tuesday morning, Acevedo told elected officials to save their prayers.

"I appreciate your prayers, but frankly, we've got a community to pray for us," he said. "The question is, what are policy makers willing to do besides prayers to address a public health epidemic?"

MORNING REPORT: Get the HoustonChronicle.com's top headlines delivered to your email

Staff writer St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
Houston Heights-area residents can now shop in their new 92,000-square-foot, multi-level H-E-B.

The grocery store opened today, Wednesday, Jan. 30, at 2300 N. Shepherd Drive and is just the second multi-level H-E-B in the Houston area.

It offers a large variety of beer and wine options, fresh produce, Texas-made goods and H-E-B Meal Simple and H-E-B Organics products. Some other features include a colorful floral department, a coffee shop called The Roastery, a bakery and both seafood and meat markets. Shoppers can also take advantage of the stores Curbside Pickup and home delivery options.

Its been very exciting for all of us. Weve really been focused on bringing the community a very unique store that speaks to the culture and the needs and desires of the Heights customers and community, said Winell Herron, H-E-B group vice president of public affairs, diversity and environmental affairs.

H-E-B FAVORITE: The Roastery Coffee Kitchen opens second cafe

Area residents have been incredibly happy about the arrival of the new store, Herron said, noting that a video posted recently by H-E-B promoting the opening garnered hundreds of positive responses and only one negative one.

A special Sip + Stroll event held at the store on Tuesday, Jan. 29, brought out members of H-E-B leadership and community influencers. Scott McClelland, president of H-E-B in Houston, said he had long coveted a store in the Heights and was thrilled about building new relationships in the area.

I dont know that Ive ever been more excited about a store opening than this one because this one truly is a community effort because if it wasnt for you, I wouldnt be here right now, he said. This one took you all helping us pass the alcohol ordinance because without out that, we couldnt have built. And what we promised was if you passed it, we would give you a store that you would be very proud of.

The new ordinance allows the new store to sell beer and wine.

Herron said the multi-level store was designed to provide an extensive inventory on a relatively small property of just 3.5 acres. Parking is on the first level, and special escalators and elevators allow customers to get their shopping carts up and down from their vehicles.

SEAFOOD GRAB AND GO: H-E-B's first-ever seafood venue opens in Houston

In a special Heights touch, shoppers can marvel at 13 sweater-wearing chicken sculptures created by a local artist as they approach the second level. Also, large letters spell out Heights without the I because customers themselves create that letter, McClelland said.

Being active in the communities H-E-B serves is important to the San Antonio-based grocer. In recent months, the H-E-B Heights team has been out at events like Lights in the Heights, helping out with Kids Meals and providing meals at the Heights Manor Apartments.

H-E-B also presented two $5,000 checks to the animal shelter Friends for Life and to HITS Theatre, which provides arts education to Houston children.

Really when I think about this, were here before in the community, and were going to be long after the store opens, Herron said. Thats what our commitment is all about.

After months of effort by not only H-E-B but members of the Heights community, the new store was celebrated with toast before the Sip + Stroll guests went inside the store to explore.

Id say in the 28 years Ive been with H-E-B, this is the first time that weve ever done an alcohol toast at a store opening, McClelland said with a smile. Youve got to start somewhere, so lets start in the Heights. This store wouldnt be happening if it wasnt for whats in this glass. Heres to a successful new store and heres to the Heights. Drink up.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
A 15-year-old La Marque High School student is behind bars after allegedly calling in a bogus bomb threat to his school Monday morning.

The phony phone call forced the evacuation of La Marque High School for hours as law enforcement swept the building for explosives.

They eventually found no threat to the students and faculty, who were let back into the school shortly after noon Monday.

ATASCOCITA: 2-year-old Life Flighted to Memorial Hermann after being found in pool

The student was arrested Tuesday, according to Texas City ISD officials. He will likely face a state-jail felony for the alleged threat.

"The hours that were spent making sure that our students and staff were safe and that our building was not compromised is incredible," Texas City ISD Superintendent of Schools Dr. Rodney Cavness said. "We take every threat seriously and we will not stand for anyone threatening our students and staff and creating havoc on our campuses. We will not tolerate threats."

The district said it encourages parents and guardians to speak with their children about the dangers of similar threats and how they can land their children in prison.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message
The ability to buy a gun at a gun show without a background check may become a thing of the past if legislation proposed by State Rep. Ron Reynolds comes to fruition.

House Bill 195 would make it a crime to sell a gun if a background check has not been completed per the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

"I am proud to announce the filing of House Bill 195, which would close the notorious gun show loophole," Reynolds said in a news release. "Current law requires that no gun can be sold by a licensed gun dealer without a criminal background check. Unfortunately millions of guns are sold by unlicensed sellers at gun shows with no background checks."

The penalty for selling a gun without the appropriate background check would be a Class A misdemeanor. In Texas, a Class A misdemeanor carries up to a year in county jail and a fine up to $4,000.

REYNOLDS: State Rep. released from Montgomery Co. Jail after serving nearly 4 months

In submitting the legislation, Reynolds cited mass shootings at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe and Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

"Of the 10 deadliest shootings in the U.S., five have taken place in the past three years," Reynolds said. "Our parents should be safe at church, our children should be safe at school. I am fighting to make that happen."

Reynolds went on to say, "as the law currently stands, felons and the dangerously mentally ill are able to access high-powered automatic assault rifles at gun shows without a criminal background check or a proof of purchase. This is unsafe and unacceptable for our community."

Reynolds represents Texas House District 27, which encompasses communities of Fort Bend County. Reynolds currently serves as a member of the House Committees on Defense and Veterans' Affairs and Environmental Regulations.

rkent@hcnonline.com
A Mexican national who has been deported from the United States twice since 2013 was arrested in Montgomery County early Wednesday.

A deputy with the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constable's Office was patrolling along the U.S. 59 feeder road near FM 1485 around 6 a.m. when he pulled over a Jeep Liberty for a minor traffic offense, according to the constable's office.

As the deputy walked up to the SUV, he found Marvin Yovani Mejia Ramos, 50, inside the vehicle.

Mejia Ramos allegedly gave the deputy a fake name to try and hide the fact that he was in the country illegally, police said.

But a quick on-site fingerprint scan revealed the convict's true identity, which includes several prison stints for child sex crimes and perjury in California.

After serving about eight years in prison, he was deported to Mexico in 2013, according to the constable's office. He illegally returned to the United States and was caught driving while intoxicated in the Houston area in 2015.

He was again deported after that DWI arrest, police said, but returned to the country sometime after.

Mejia Ramos was turned over to federal authorities, where he will likely face deportation proceedings.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message
Deer Park City Council Position 1 incumbent Sherry Garrison is seeking re-election to a seat she has held since 2013, saying she wants to be part of preparing for challenges such as natural disasters and aging infrastructure.

A retired school teacher who has served three consecutive terms on the council, Garrison, 72, says she is proud of what the council has accomplished, including the citys AAA bond rating and last years opening of a new City Hall.

Other points of pride, she said, include the pending opening of a new city animal shelter, park improvements throughout the city and a focus on historical preservation.

It is a privilege to be a part of the decision-making process that makes Deer Park such a special city, she said.

Also seeking re-election on May 4 are Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr., Position 2 Councilman Thane Harrison and Position 3 Councilman Tommy Ginn. As of Jan. 30, no challengers had registered as candidates, with Feb. 15 as the last day to file

Those seats are up for election in odd-numbered years, and the other positions are open for election in even-numbered years.

Garrison believes challenges will most likely come from weather threats such as Hurricane Harvey.

I wish Harvey hadn't created so much rain and caused flooding in our city, she said. However, it did and we must continue to find ways in addressing these problem areas. The city continues searching for solutions and there are plans in the future. I think Hurricanes and storms will always be challenges that we will face in the future.

Other challenges (we face) will include replacing infrastructure as our city ages, Garrison said. Council and staff will be conducting a day-long, five-year strategic planning retreat in March. Together we will brainstorm ideas of what we need to implement over the next five years.

It's important for me to serve the city of Deer Park because I have a vested interest in this city, she said. I have lived here for 46 years, watched my children and three of my grandchildren graduate from Deer Park High School, been involved with many community organizations, made lifelong friends and watched with pride as Deer Park has grown into a great place to live.

Being on council, Garrison said, has enabled her and other council members to look after the history and heritage of the city, which has trademarked the term, The Birthplace of Texas.

I guess anyone who knows me understands that I'm a history buff, she said. One of my most favorite things that I do is serving as chair of the historical committee. I have really enjoyed working with my fellow committee members as we have dedicated ourselves to researching, collecting and preserving Deer Park history.

Garrison said that she is always available to hear residents concerns and ideas and consider them fairly.

The one thing I want voters to know is that I will always listen to their ideas, be honest in my response, look at both sides of an issue, and make decisions that are in the best interest of all of our city, she said.

Those wishing to file as candidates can contact the city secretary at 281-478-7248 for information on requirements, filing fees and a schedule of the election process. For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2Rs0RYY.
Oil prices vaulted above $54 a barrel, the highest since November, as a steep drop in U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia showed OPEC putting its supply cut plans into action.

Futures in New York rose 1.7 percent after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said domestic crude stockpiles rose by about 920,000 barrels last week, less than forecast by industry and private analysts. Imports from Saudi Arabia fell by more than half from the previous week to 442,000 barrels a day, the second-lowest in data going back to 2010.

"There's a lot of good in here, if you're a market bull," said Rob Thummel, managing director at Tortoise, a Kansas-based money manager with $16 billion in energy investments. "OPEC's made it very clear: lower exports of oil are coming to the U.S."

EXPANSION: Oil majors prepare refineries for more West Texas crude

The decline in shipments from Saudi Arabia offered some of the first tangible evidence that OPEC, Russia and other top producers are having an impact with their pledge last year to siphon barrels out of an oversupplied global market. Prices were already surging Wednesday as political turmoil imperiled crude exports from Venezuela and earnings reports from Apple Inc. and Boeing Co. eased fears about the global economy.

After trading sideways for much of the last two weeks, West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery added 92 cents to close at $54.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest level since Nov. 21.

Brent for March settlement gained 33 cents to reach $61.65 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, and traded at a $7.42 premium to WTI.

PRODUCTION: Saudis pledge deeper oil cuts in February under OPEC+ deal

In an encouraging sign for demand, the EIA said gasoline supplies fell for the first time in nine weeks. That defied forecasts for an increase during a time when the weather and refinery maintenance usually slow consumption. The spread between gasoline and oil futures, a rough measure of refiners' profit margin, jumped 15 percent, though at just under $5 it's still near the lowest in a decade.

"Consumers do respond to low gasoline prices and low oil prices by driving more," Thummel said. "We're in a growing economy and that bodes well for demand."

In Venezuela, owner of the world's largest oil reserves, President Nicolas Maduro offered to hold talks with his political opposition, as the U.S. and other countries continued to press him to resign.

Investors are waiting to see if Caracas decides to declare force majeure in response to new American sanctions -- a move that could affect almost 12 million barrels of exports next month, according to a loading program seen by Bloomberg. Force majeure protects a party from liability if it can't fulfill a contract for reasons beyond its control.

Traders are also waiting for any signs of progress in negotiations between the U.S. and China to resolve a trade dispute. The two countries will sit down in Washington on Wednesday for two days of high-level discussions after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Fox Business Network that he expected "significant progress" in the talks.

--With assistance from James Thornhill, Sharon Cho and Grant Smith.

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Port Houston reported record operating revenue in 2018 as its container volume reached a new high.

The port handled handled 2.7 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, a common industry measurement for containers, last year. That's up 10 percent from 2.46 million TEUs in 2017.

Operating revenue increased 10 percent to $366 million, Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther said Tuesday during the monthly meeting of the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority.

Looking forward, he highlighted improving the Houston Ship Channel as a top priority.

Also from Tuesday's meeting: Shipping companies decry proposal to limit biggest vessels

"The No. 1 thing on our plate, I believe for everyone in this room, is to push for a wider and deeper channel," he said.

A four-year plan detailing the future of the channel is supposed to come out in October. Port Houston wants the Army Corps of Engineers to widen it through Galveston Bay

The Corps is recommending that just 40 percent be widened and has said Port Houston would have to find money for the other 60 percent if it wanted to widen the Ship Channel

Port officials are looking at alternatives, and plan to conduct a feasibility study to examines how a wider ship channel could allow for two-way traffic and help the its booming petrochemical business. They're also going to directly ask for funding and project approval from Congress and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.
Pundits across the political spectrum seem to agree on at least one aspect of the recent and, quite possibly, future government shutdown  namely, its exceptional nature. There is a widespread conviction that we have lurched into an era without historical parallel.

But maybe we simply haven't gone far enough back in time to find a precedent to our present-day predicament. No book offers a better guide to our own day than the Book of Job. In an age of intense polarization, Job has the right credentials: We know next to nothing about when, where and by whom the book was written. As a result, none of us can reasonably claim the author as one of us.

What is relevant, though, is the pickle in which Job finds himself. As a result of a wager between God and the Adversary  aka, SatanJob is stricken by a series of catastrophes. His property is destroyed. His children die. His body is covered with boils. When the dust and ashes quite literally settle, he finds himself sitting in the company of three friends who, shockingly, tell Job it is all his fault.

What makes Job's plight not just heartrending, but downright disturbing, is that he is utterly blameless. No need to take it from me on this score: the Big Guy says so himself before unleashing the Adversary on his faithful servant.

That sense of blamelessness should feel familiar for the 800,000 federal workers, 1 million contract workers and millions of other Americans who had been directly or indirectly stricken by the government shutdown. Of course, Job's experience reminds us that not all afflictions are equal. What he suffers seems beyond human endurance. Yet, the story also reminds us that no one else, especially those untouched by such suffering, can justify the afflictions that struck either Job or the millions of innocent Americans.

Among the many administration officials who forgot this rule was Kevin Hassett, the chairperson of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers. Furloughed government workers, Hassett declared, should welcome the shutdown as a free vacation with back pay.

How similar to Eliphaz, who reassures Job by stating that "happy is the man" who suffers as he has. After all, Eliphaz explains, God will pay you back handsomely in the future for all you are now suffering: "You shall know that your tent is peaceful, and find nothing amiss in your home."

Of course, Eliphaz makes no mention of defaulting on mortgage or rent payments.

Moreover, Job's friends and Trump's defenders both reveal our all-too-human inability to accept a world where there seems to be no pattern or logic to events.

An all-powerful and all-benevolent god simply could not have punished Job without reason. As Job's buddy Bildad blurts, "Would God pervert justice, and pervert what is right?"

Trump's defenders rival this ancient instance of bad faith by declaring that the wall on the Mexican border  the impetus behind the shutdown  is also reasonable, indeed essential to our national security.

Just as Bildad blindly insists that Job must have done something, anything, to earn God's wrath, so too do administration officials insist that there are good reasons for the wall. It will, they assert, "secure the border" even though studies reveal a wall as the least efficient and most expensive means of preventing illegal immigration and drug trafficking. As with the absurdity of Job's punishment, so too with the absurdity of Trump's wall: We prefer fairy tales to brute facts.

But the most unsettling parallel is that between the Voice from the Whirlwind and the Tweeter from the White House. After Job repeatedly demands an explanation to his scandalous predicament, God finally appears and fails to offer one. Instead, he delivers a rambling monologue which is all about...himself. Does he not, God thunders, make it rain on lands where no man lives, send lightning bolts on their way and readies the raven's prey when its young cry out for food? So, too, does our president thunder on about himself, all the while failing to answer the questions of those baffled by his actions.

Most notably, God speaks about his Leviathan  a massive, uncanny creature that seems to amaze even his creator. "When he rears up, the gods are frightened/When he crashes down, they cringe."

In those lines it is hard not the hear the leviathan of populism, the roar of Trump supporters when he invokes the wall at his rallies  a political movement that seems to scare even those who helped create it.

We can only hope that, in three weeks time when our president again threatens to wreak destruction, the Republican Party will not do as Job did by putting their hands over their mouths and say nothing.

Zaretsky teaches at the Honors College, University of Houston and is the author of "Catherine & Diderot: The Empress, the Philosopher, and the Fate of the Enlightenment."

Sign up for the Gray Matters newsletter. Almost as good as reading the Bible.


Out of 11,000 college applicants surveyed by the Princeton Review, a whopping 98 percent said financial aid would be necessary when it comes to paying for school.

To help guide applicants, the education services company studied which domestic campuses, all four-year schools, offer the best return on investment for students.
Reginald DesRoches believes that engineers make excellent problem-solvers. He thinks engineers are so good at thinking critically and working together that this country would be better off if there were more of them. That's why, he says, it's crucial to get kids excited about studying engineering.

"Even if kids don't pursue careers in engineering, just having an engineering background will provide them with the necessary skills to solve problems," said DesRoches.

He would like to see engineers occupy all types of jobs and even serve as elected officials. Engineers, he explained, know how to work collaboratively in solving problems and can see the impact that public policy can have on the environment. They are also able to communicate technical information to a nontechnical audience.

DesRoches knows the benefit of engineering. Little more than a year ago, he was named dean of Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering. He came from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

DesRoches is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute and specializes in research on the design of resilient infrastructure systems under extreme loads and the application of smart and adaptive materials. He served as the key technical leader in the United States' response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Almost as soon as he arrived at Rice, DesRoches decided to expand the School of Engineering's outreach programs. He assigned Yvette E. Pearson, an associate dean who previously organized the Engineer Big, Dream Big, Lead Big program as part of Engineers Week. It brought 45 middle school students to the Rice campus to solve engineering design challenges while simultaneously learning about the importance of working in teams and applying their leadership skills.

During Mathematics Awareness Month in April 2017, the School of Engineering hosted a private screening of "Hidden Figures," a movie about three brilliant African-American women at NASA who were the brains behind the operation to launch the first astronaut into orbit. A group of 70 middle school students from Houston-area schools was invited to watch the film, participate in a robotics demonstration and engage in conversations with minority scientists and engineers from NASA, the National Science Foundation and Rice.

"The event was designed to provide students with role models who look like them or came from similar backgrounds," Pearson said.

Last fall, the dean's office began offering tours of the engineering facilities to high school students. During the tours, students learn about the different disciplines in engineering and attend demonstrations about robotics, neuromechanics, haptics, diffraction and chemistry.

Targeting the disadvantaged

To expand the outreach programs, Pearson is forming a team that includes students, faculty, staff and representatives from industry and government who will plan and organize activities to attract students to engineering. The programs will specifically target students of color, students with disabilities, and students from low-income families and women.

"I would love to see us involved in a program similar to what they had at Georgia Tech, which brought underrepresented minorities to campus for three to four weeks during the summer to learn about engineering," said DesRoches.

In the Georgia Tech program, students were required to build a project from scratch. One group made a sleeping bag for the homeless, which had a solar panel to provide heat during the cold weather. Another group created a robot. "These projects really help in developing leadership and communication skills," DesRoches said. "It builds confidence and a can-do attitude."

DesRoches and Pearson also want to start a program that will increase the number of transfer students from community colleges to Rice to study engineering. Very few students transfer into the School of Engineering from community colleges, DesRoches said. He would like to increase the number to 10 a year. DesRoches said the program will provide scholarships, academic support and professional development for the students.

The focus of another strategic initiative is to bring more students of color and women to Rice to pursue advanced degrees in engineering and science through a partnership with the National GEM Consortium, which provides fellowships to minority students seeking graduate degrees in STEM disciplines. Pearson is the Rice campus representative for GEM, and she plans to work with universities in Texas to host a GEM GRAD (Getting Ready for Advanced Degrees) lab to inform undergraduate students about opportunities that advanced degrees have to offer.

Role models' pipeline

Under DesRoches' leadership, Rice is partnering with Texas Southern University and the University of Houston to establish a program that will help minority Ph.D. candidates and postdoctoral scholars in engineering and computational sciences successfully pursue careers in academia. The ultimate goal of the program is to increase the number of minority faculty, said DesRoches. "It is critically important that people of color hold faculty positions because they will, in turn, attract more students of color to study engineering."

DesRoches said he knows firsthand the feeling of isolation of attending a school in which there are no role models to emulate. He received three degrees  a B.S. in mechanical engineering, a master's in civil engineering and a Ph.D. in structural engineering  from the University of California at Berkeley, where 200 professors taught engineering and not one was African-American.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, DesRoches grew up in the New York borough of Queens. His father was as an accountant; his mother a nurse, and together they raised four children, all of whom graduated from college. In high school, DesRoches was recruited by Berkeley, a university he had never heard of, but when the school flew him in for a visit, he fell in love with the place. He chose to major in mechanical engineering simply because it sounded like the right thing to do.

"The biggest challenge I faced was not knowing anyone in my community who was an engineer. For a kid, that makes you think that maybe this is something not in reach," he said. "That's is why it is so important to have as many people of color and women studying STEM fields."

***

David D. Medina is the director of multicultural community relations at Rice University.

For comments or to pitch stories for this blog, write to Olivia P. Tallet.
It was a fairy tale come true for KENS 5 anchor Sarah Forgany as she and new husband said "I do" earlier this month. The morning anchor shared details from her intimate wedding with mySA.com.

Forgany says it all started with a romantic marriage proposal. Her early morning work schedule ruined the proposal he had been planning so he improvised.

"He surprised me at my home. I was in my PJs, half asleep when he knocked on the door. When I opened, he was dressed up in a nice suit holding roses and a diamond ring," she said. "Of course I knew what he was doing and started crying. He took my hands, got on one knee, and after some heartfelt words he asked me to be his wife."

READ MORE: Past, present San Antonio TV personalities take on the 'how well did you age' social media challenge

The two didn't wait long to tie the knot, getting married within weeks of the proposal.

When Forgany went to choose her wedding dress the process was just as quick and stunned everyone at the bridal shop.

"I walked in and everyone at the store thought I had the wrong date because it was just weeks away. They told me they can't order a dress that soon. I said no worries, I'll see what you have on the rack," she said. "I was in and out, in one hour with a dress."

The anchor's mother did all the alterations, turning the gown into perfection.

The couple got married on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with only 24 guests. The location was dream come true for Forgany.

"I always wanted a beach wedding. Fort Lauderdale had great weather and great beaches," she said.

During their two-week long honeymoon, the newlyweds visited Iceland, then flew to Uganda and Rwanda in East Africa.

In Iceland, the couple spent several days touring the country.

READ MORE: San Antonio news director dubbed 'La Dancing Jefa'

"We are huge Game of Thrones fans so we visited some of the locations where the show is filmed. We went glacier hiking at Vatnajokull National Park, one of Europe's largest glaciers and went inside naturally formed Blue Ice Caves. It was magical," Forgany said.

The couple then flew to Uganda, where Forgany said they wanted to live their dream seeing the rare Mountain Gorillas in the wild. It can only be done in three countries.

The adventures continued for the newlyweds.

"We hiked in the jungle of Africa at Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest for more than five hours.

We came face to face with a gorilla family of 11 including a silverback," she said. "It was truly an absolutely incredible experience."

Forgany knows many may not think hiking the jungle to see gorillas, hippos and lions is romantic, but for her and her husband it was.

The couple concluded their honeymoon in Rwanda.

"We visited their capital Kigali and Volcanoes National Park, where Dian Fossey lived for many years to study gorillas," Forgany said. "If you've seen Gorillas in the Mist, you'll love this place."

The morning anchor, who has now traveled to 28 countries, said she can't wait to travel to more places with her new man.

"We both love to travel the world and learning what it has to offer .... but doing it together is even more special. I can't wait to share many more together," she said.

Candice.Garcia@express-news.net | Twitter @_candicegarcia
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  Four men seen in a surveillance video during the bombings in Jolo, Sulu voluntarily reported to authorities on Wednesday to deny involvement in the deadly attack.

The Sulu police said two of them came forward earlier in the day followed by the two others in the afternoon. No names were provided, but the first two came from Kalingalan Caluang town in Sulu.

"It was a good decision for them to do na magpunta dito sa himpilan (to come here in the headquarter) maybe because they also trust us. That's why they came to us and submitted themselves for questioning," Sulu Provincial Police Director SSupt. Pablo Labra said.

"They are telling na they are the ones in the CCTV. Pumunta po sila dito to tell us na hindi sila masamang tao (they are not bad people). Gusto nilang sabihin na hindi sila masamang tao, nagkataon lang na nandoon sila (They want to say they are not bad people. It just happened that they were there)," Sulu Provincial Police Spokesperson CInsp. Kris Conrad Gutierrez told reporters in Jolo.

The closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage released by officials show four men running away from the blasts site, then one of them in a blue-green jacket hands over an item to his companion with a red backpack, and runs back to the area of the bombings.

Gutierrez said the first two men admitted they were the ones seen in the closed-circuit television (CCTV) clip wearing a green jacket and white t-shirt with a red bag. One of them was first thought to be a certain "Alias Kamah," brother of a slain Abu Sayyaf leader, but Labra said this appears to be a mistake. Labra said the two were actually a Grade 11 student and a school teacher who were supposedly out to do errands that day. They are now cleared of any offense, Labra said, adding that they expressed willingness to cooperate if summoned again by investigators.

When asked if the police should apologize for suspecting them of involvement in the blasts, Labra said "But we are investigating, Sir. There is an incident we have to solve. We need to do anything we need to do to solve this."

Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano earlier said the four men seen in the CCTV footage are believed to be members of "Ajang Ajang," a subgroup of the local terror group Abu Sayyaf.

Authorities are also looking into eyewitness accounts that a man and a woman may have carried out the twin blasts in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on Sunday.

About 5,000 soldiers are now pursuing possible suspects. The blasts left 21 people dead, including civilians and soldiers, and wounded more than a hundred others.

CNN Philippines senior correspondent David Santos contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - The mysterious delay of a $4.5 billion liquefied natural gas facility on the Louisiana coast has turned a case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission into the subject of a Washington guessing game, raising fears that what had been a predictable approval process for the nations booming natural gas exports is becoming mired in partisan politics.

Following the death of Commissioner Kevin McIntyre this month, FERCs commissioners are split 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans. Typically, that is not a problem for the independent commission, which has the reputation for bipartisanship. But suspicions were piqued last month when, without explanation, FERC pulled from the agenda of its Dec. 20 meeting a final decision on the Calcasieu Pass LNG facility, funded by the Virginia private equity group Venture Global LNG, and then left it off again at their next meeting Jan. 22.

That is incredibly uncommon. It was an indicator they didnt have the necessary votes for an approval, said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the trade group Center for Liquefied Natural Gas. The fact the projects havent gotten a vote are indicative the politics have changed. Thats the only logical conclusion you can draw.

Investment in U.S. LNG facilities has taken off in recent years, driven by a glut of cheap domestic natural gas and increasing global demand for a cleaner burning alternative to coal. Should the impasse on Calcasieu Pass continue, it will raise questions not only about that project, but a dozen other LNG terminals slated to come before the commission in the years ahead, including projects in Freeport, Corpus Christi, Port Arthur and the Rio Grande Valley.

Earlier this month, the co-CEOS of Venture Global, Robert Pender and Michael Sabel, wrote to FERC urging them to take action at their January meeting, warning unexpected delays could turn off investors.

Related: Final investment decisions expected on three LNG projects

Financial markets are acutely aware of, and dependent upon, the transparency, reliability, and predictability of the commissions regulatory process and time frame, they wrote.

The cause of the delay is unknown. As is their practice, FERC and the commissioners have declined to comment on the Calcasieu Pass project, citing the ongoing case before them.

But that has led to rampant speculation about what is holding up the decision, with theories ranging from hardening political lines to worsening climate change forecasts, which in turn has raised concerns that getting approval for LNG projects could become more difficult. Much of the attention is focused on Cheryl LaFleur, a Democrat and former executive vice president of the utility National Grid, who has the reputation as the swing vote on the commission.

It looks like Commissioner LaFleur has changed her opinion, because she had been approving projects, Riedl said. What we dont know is what she wants to see done. She hasnt shared that publicly.

But reading LaFleurs thinking on greenhouse gas emissions is a fraught undertaking.

She has criticized the commissions Republican majority for adopting a policy that says FERC will no longer consider greenhouse gas emissions on pipeline applications unless contracts with power plants or other customers are already in place, to allow for an exact accounting of how much gas was sold and the associated greenhouse gas emissions. LaFleur argues that emissions from pipelines can be estimated without contracts in place and the FERC policy violates federal law, which requires officials take climate change into account in their decision making.

On LNG projects, however, she has downplayed climate changes relevance. In a hearing last month, she raised a 2016 court case in which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it was the Department of Energy, not FERC, which is responsible for considering greenhouse gas emissions from LNG exports.

That has implications for the scope of our environmental review, she said.

Political pressure is building on Democrats to take a stand on climate change, with politicians nationwide calling for a rapid shift away from fossil fuels and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocking natural gas pipelines through his state.

Projections on climate change are growing increasingly dire, with the United Nations scientific panel on climate change issuing a report last year warning that if greenhouse gas emissions went unchecked, the planet would see devastating droughts and wildfires, inundated coastlines and the mass-killing off of coral reef as soon as 2040. A federal government report in December found that the climate change is accelerating and its effects could drain hundreds of billions of dollars from U.S. economy every year, starting in the second half of the century.

In the worst case scenario, the report said, the costs could reach 10 percent of the nations annual economic output  which today would equal about $2 trillion.

I am not gifted with the ability to look into Commissioner LaFleurs mind, said Gillian Giannetti, an attorney with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. But FERC has been wrestling with the need for pipelines and how to quantify and consider greenhouse gas emissions indirectly caused by pipelines and affiliated projects like LNG.

Related: 2019 will see flurry on LNG activity

Democratic pressure on FERC is only likely to increase in the years ahead, with politicians as diverse as the self-described democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York and billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg calling for a Green New Deal through which the federal government invest in carbon-free energy projects  though with heated debate on the timing and details.

The shift is evident among even Republican appointees on FERC. FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee, a former chief of staff to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, wrote a Facebook post from a vacation in Cancun last year worried about a mass of algae on the beach, the rapid growth of which in the Caribbean Sea has been linked with climate change.

Climate change is real. Man has an impact, Chaterjee posted. We must take steps to mitigate emissions asap while being sensitive to communities that get hurt during the transition. Please lets all be rational and work together. Im ready.

Likewise, when McIntyre reopened FERCs policy on new gas pipelines last year, he asked for input on how climate change and other environmental issues should be considered.

So far, the debate around greenhouse gas emissions has been largely theoretical, with FERC continuing to approve pipelines at a swift pace despite their contribution to climate change, said Jonathan Peress, senior director of energy market policy at the Environmental Defense Fund.

They have different perspectives about the scope and depth of the greenhouse gas analysis, but it has had virtually no impact on the actual permitting of pipelines, he said.

The commission is not scheduled to meet again until Feb. 21, and the agenda for that meeting is not scheduled to be released for two weeks. In the meantime, Riedl, the executive director of the LNG trade group, said he was urging the White House to nominate a fifth FERC commissioner to replace McIntyre and break the deadlock, though he admitted the ongoing trade war and border wall fight were making his work more difficult.

They have been tight-lipped, he said. But the reality is this administration has greater fires burning than a new FERC commissioner.

james.osborne@chron.com

Twitter: @osborneja
Hidden Treasures: Edouard Vuillard and his muses

Edouard Vuillards portraits of musician Misia Natanson and society beauty Lucy Hessel reflect a 40-year preoccupation with depicting different elements of Paris society. On 27 February paintings of both muses will be offered as part of the Hidden Treasures sale

Edouard Vuillard never married, yet he was captivated by two women, the pianist Misia Natanson and the society belle Lucy Hessel. On 27 February, two sumptuous paintings of his muses are offered in the Hidden Treasures sale at Christies. When Vuillard painted La femme au fauteuil (Misia et Thadee Natanson) in 1896 he was in love with its subject, the mesmerisingly beautiful Misia Natanson. Misia was married to the convivial journalist and tireless supporter of the Nabis group, Thadee Natanson. The pair made a glamorous couple, and the artist quickly fell in with their bohemian world. Sensual and remote, Misia was the perfect muse for Vuillard, who depicted her in a luxurious, tightly patterned interior. In fact, so intricately decorated is the room that the decor appears to float free of the walls, and the fashionably dressed pianist almost vanishes into the background to create a rich, startling original canvas.

Vuillards devotion continued unrequited until Misia left her husband for the wealthy publisher Alfred Edwards. Bereft, the artist found support from the celebrated society hostess Lucy Hessel, wife of his art dealer Jos Hessel. Her milieu was the elite Paris of the fin-de-siecle era: a world of aristocratic salons and society doyennes who bewitched the cultural aesthetes that came calling. Vuillard was entranced, and painted Lucy within the utopia he so desired. Through his patrons, Vuillard gained access to this cultivated circle and became a much sought-after portrait painter  not that he ever considered himself as such, once declaring, I do not paint portraits, I paint people in their surroundings.

Vuillard remained devoted to Lucy Hessel, whom he described as his guiding light



Like his literary contemporary Marcel Proust, Vuillard was consumed with the task of documenting this privileged world from the perspective of an outsider, imbuing even his most intimate paintings with a certain detachment. Interieur, la dame en noir is a fine example of this. Lucy, in a fashionable black dress, is depicted adjusting her hat. The room in the rue de Rivoli is luxuriously furnished and the pictures on the wall reflect the Hessels taste for the most radical artists of the time.

The post-Impressionist and fellow symbolist Maurice Denis Legende de chevalerie, painted in 1893  which sold at Christies in March 2018 for a record 703,500  hangs above Lucys head, next to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrecs Femme de maison-Pierreuse. Two paintings by Paul Cezanne can also be identified: Cinq baigneueses, above the door frame, and the partially visible Portrait de Madame Cezanne, on the far right of the painting. This is the home of a thoroughly modern couple.

Lucy Hessel and her husband Jos were prolific collectors of the most modern artists of the day, as can be seen by the paintings that adorned the Hessels salon, as depicted by Vuillard in the present work. Clockwise from top left: Maurice Denis, Legende de chevalerie, 1893 (above Lucy Hessels head). Sold at Christies in Paris in March 2018. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Femme de maison-Pierreuse, 1894 (right of Lucy Hessels head). Norton Simon Museum Pasadena. Photo  The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock photo. Paul Cezanne, Portrait de Madame Cezanne, 1885-1886 (partially hidden, far right). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo  Philadelphia Museum of Art. Paul Cezanne, Cinq baigneueses, 1877-1878 (above the door frame). Private Collection

But what about the artist painting it? There are few clues to Vuillards personality. He was a bachelor who lived with his seamstress mother until his sixties, but he was also, quite clearly, a man about town. Even Proust struggled to define him  the Zen-like character Elstir in Remembrance of Things Past is thought to be a depiction of the shy but free-spirited artist when he was mutely besotted by Misia.

After the First World War, Vuillards paintings were seen as nostalgic  a depiction of an innocent world now lost. Yet this ignores Vuillards infinitely radical approach to painting. As a symbolist and member of Les Nabis group of artists, Vuillard sought to free colour, using it to express his ideas and emotions.

Lucy Hessel in the salon of La Terrasse, a rented villa at Vasouy near Honfleur on the fashionable Normandy coast, 1904. Gelatin original silver print. 8.4 x 8.6 cm. Photo: Archives Vuillard, Paris

He had a tendency to conflate his sitters with their surroundings, creating flat, decorously patterned scenes that had a theatrical quality to them. His attention to design and fabric was perhaps a legacy of his mothers profession as a dressmaker, while the stage-like interiors were inspired by his time as a set designer. As an admirer of Ibsen and Strindberg, he recognised that a domestic scene, with its stifled emotions and unspoken grievances, could be just as powerful as an act of aggression.

Edouard Vuillard and Lucy Hessel at Amfreville in Normandy, 1907 (detail). Gelatin silver print. 8.5 x 8.5 cm. Vuillard Archives, Paris

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Megachurch pastor takes his own life after struggle with mental illness

Jim Howard, lead pastor of the Valencia campus of the more than 6,000 member Real Life Church in California fatally shot himself at home Wednesday after a protracted battle with mental illness.

"It is with a heavy heart that I can confirm we suffered a tragic loss on our church staff this week. On Wednesday, January 23, 2019, Jim Howard  a beloved pastor here at RLC  took his own life," Rusty George, lead pastor of Real Life Church began in a statement released on Facebook last Thursday.

"As all of us who knew Jim can attest, he was a wonderful man with a deep love for Jesus and a passion for sharing the grace of God with anyone he met. He was also a tornado of energy, always looking for new challenges and opportunities to minister to others," George said.

Detectives told The Signal that they began investigating the death of a person found in the backyard of a Valencia home on Wednesday.

Shortly before 3:40 p.m., paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were dispatched to the home on North Sunny Creek Drive and police were called in to investigate.

In his statement on Thursday, George noted that Howard had been battling with mental illness for a while and had even spoken publicly about his struggle with the disease. Howard had reportedly also served at Real Life Church for more than three years.

"Sadly, Jim suffered in private with mental health challenges  some of which he bravely discussed in public  and was wrestling with some personal issues in recent months. This week he made the tragic decision to end his pain. He will be deeply missed by his family, friends, the RLC family and all those who were blessed to know him," George said.

He further urged church members who are struggling and need help to call the church.

The Jared Monroe Foundation a California nonprofit dedicated to fostering awareness, understanding and support for Bipolar Disorder also urged those suffering with mental illness to reach out for help in the wake of the pastor's suicide.

"Our deepest condolences to Pastor Jim Howard's family, friends and RLC family. Mental health challenges affect EVERYONE. Don't suffer alone. Reach out if you need to talk. You don't have to suffer alone," the foundation said in a statement on Friday.

Other members of the Valencia community who knew Howard also shared their grief at his passing with Hometown Station.

"Jim Howard was a class act," KHTS owner Carl Goldman told the outlet. "He was passionate about our valley. We worked closely on the candlelight vigil for the Santa Clarita victims of the Las Vegas shootings, as well as many Halloween events at Real Life Church. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and everyone he touched. He will be missed."

"There are no words anyone can say that will make the griever feel better," Sharon Brubaker, a local advanced certified grief recovery specialist said. "The biggest thing we can do is be there and support. Don't try to fix it, we can't fix it."

"Some people are going to want to talk right now, and the most amazing thing is that we are actually talking about suicide and death by suicide," said Brubaker. "It's not a stigma anymore and we have to talk about it day in and day out."

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline (US) on 1-800-273-8255 or the Samaritans (UK) on 116-123



Courtesy of The Christian Post
In North Korea, Christian radio is taking the Gospel where missionaries cannot

While North Korea continues to bar missionaries from entering the country, the Gospel is instead being carried across the border through the airwaves.

Christian evangelist Dr Billy Kim told BBC World that radio is the 'next best thing' to spread the Gospel so long as the communist country remains closed off to missionaries and other outsiders.

He is chairman of FEBC, a radio ministry that broadcasts Christian programmes from Seoul in South Korea.

'They don't allow us to come in - any missionaries or preachers,' he said.

'So the next best thing would be the AM radio wave to send the Gospel to North Korea.'

In addition to airing Christian radio programmes that can be picked up in the North, radios are smuggled across the border with China.

There are severe penalties for North Koreans caught practising the Christian faith, including execution, torture or imprisonment in hard labour camps.

Dr Kim told BBC World that for Christians listening to FEBC's programmes from North Korea, the radio station 'is their church'.

He said that some people who had escaped the isolated country told him that 'under the blanket they are listening'.

FEBC radio presenter and North Korean defector Ju Chan-yang told BBC World she used to listen to the Christian radio shows when she was still inside North Korea and that she hopes her old friends are listening.

'They just say personal love and cares and free and human rights. That was very - yes, that was our hope and dream,' she said.

North Korea is ranked number one on Open Doors' World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christians suffer the most for their faith. It has topped the World Watch List for the last 18 years in a row.

Open Doors said that renewed diplomatic efforts between North and South Korea have not lessened the persecution against Christians.

'In fact, reports indicate that local authorities are increasing incentives for anyone who exposes a Christian in their community,' it said earlier this month.

'If Christians are discovered, not only are they deported to labor camps or even killed on the spot, their families to the fourth generation share their fate as well.

'Communal worship is non-existent. Daring to meet other Christians for worship is a risky feat that must be done in utmost secrecy.

'Yet Open Doors estimates the number of Christians in North Korea to be 300,000 strongbelievers who are defying the unjust regime and following Jesus.'
Foreign secretary launches Christian persecution review: 'Freedom of worship cannot be taken for granted'

Freedom of worship is 'the invisible line between open and closed societies', according to the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt was speaking at the launch of the review to be conducted by the Bishop of Truro, Philip Mounstephen. He referred to Sunday's bombing of the Philippines cathedral in which 20 people died, saying: 'This was a vivid reminder of the terrible truth that freedom of worship cannot be taken for granted.'

Hunt referred to the recent Open Doors report which found that a quarter of a billion Christians worldwide faced persecution, warning that in China and India this was becoming a 'much bigger issue'.

He said that though Britain was not a 'superpower', it was 'well connected' and could 'give a voice to those who don't have a voice'. Those suffering for their Christian faith, he said, were among the poorest in the world. He told his audience, which included representatives of agencies working with the persecuted church: 'We can't do everything you want, but we will do everything we can.'

Hunt commissioned the review of Britain's approach to the persecution of Christians in December. The review will map Christian persecution in key countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, analyse British support and recommend a comprehensive policy response.

Speaking at the launch, Mounstephen  formerly head of Church Mission Society and with a wide experience of global Christianity  said the review would ask 'tough questions' and come up with 'ambitious policy recommendations', though he warned that it would not be possible to achieve everything that was desirable.

He said that because the Christian faith today is concentrated in the global south, it was primarily found among the global poor and the review had nothing to do with 'white Western privilege'.

He stressed that 'persecution is global because Christianity is global', and is not limited to Islamic countries. 'This is not a stalking horse for Islamophobes,' he said. He also said it was not a question of 'special pleading' for Christians but was 'making up for a specific deficit. One minority is on the receiving end of 80 per cent of persecution.'

He concluded: 'The Christian faith has always been subversive, a challenge to absolute power. "Jesus is Lord" was the earliest Christian confession. Saying "Jesus is Lord" meant that Caesar was not. The Christian faith will always challenge those who make absolutist claims for themselves. The challenge to absolute power is a legitimate concern of any democratic government.'
Philippines cathedral bombed, at least 20 dead; govt vows to crush godless criminals

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A Roman Catholic cathedral in the Philippines was bombed on Sunday, resulting in approximately 100 injuries and about 20 dead. The government has vowed to bring the guilty party to justice.

Two explosive devices went off at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral, also known as the Jolo Cathedral, in the Mindanao region. The international Islamic terrorist group ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Philippines spokesman Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo explained in a statement that the first bomb went off in the cathedral, with a second going off nearby as soldiers came to help, as reported by CNN.

Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana said in a statement released Sunday that people should remain calm and avoid spreading panic in our respective communities to deny terrorism any victory.

As we convey our sincerest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and offer our sympathy to the peace-loving people of Sulu who are severely affected by this dastardly act, we assure our people that we will use the full force of the law to bring to justice the perpetrators behind this incident, continued Lorenzana, according to CNN.

The attack came days after the predominantly Muslim region overwhelmingly approved a referendum for greater autonomy with the hopes of expanded economic opportunity resulting.

President Rodrigo Duterte, known for making his share of anti-Catholic statements to the press, visited the cathedral, with his spokesperson Salvador Panelo saying that they will crush the perpetrators.

The enemies of the state have boldly challenged the capability of the government to secure the safety of the citizenry in that region, stated Panelo, as reported by Al Jazeera.

The armed forces of the Philippines will rise to the challenge and crush these godless criminals.

Philippine authorities suspect that the cathedral bombing was done by Abu Sayyaf, a domestic terrorist group connected to ISIS and has a history of violent activities in Mindanao.

For his part, Pope Francis took to his official Twitter account on Sunday to express his condolences to the victims of the terrorist attack at the cathedral.

Let us pray for the victims of the terrorist attack on the Cathedral of Jolo, in the Philippines. May the Lord, Prince of Peace, convert the hearts of the violent, and grant the inhabitants of that region a peaceful coexistence, tweeted Francis.

Earlier this month, the persecution watchdog group Release International issued a statement in which they predicted an increase in Christian persecution in 2019.

[British Foreign Secretary] Jeremy Hunt has ordered a review into an estimated 215 million Christians who face violence and discrimination. According to official figures, violence against Christians is rising, with 250 killed each month, reported Release International.
Ex-Jakarta governor jailed for blasphemy released, plans to wed ex-wife's 21-Y-O aide

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The former Christian governor of Jakarta, who was jailed on false charges of blasphemy has been released from prison, intends to marry his ex-wifes former aide, who is half his age.

Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known by the name Ahok, was released from prison last week after serving most of a two-year sentence on charges that he insulted the Indonesian majority religion of Islam.

According to The Guardian, Purnama walked out of the Mako Brimob detention facility in West Java a free man on Thursday morning. He was released three months early as he was rewarded remissions for good behavior.

Purnama was jailed in May 2017 after he was found by a judge to have legitimately and convincingly conducted a criminal act of blasphemy. In Muslim-majority Indonesia, blasphemy is a crime punishable by a maximum five years in prison.

As Jakartas first Christian governor, Purnama was in the middle of a close re-election campaign in 2016 when he was wrongly accused of insulting Islam during a speech to residents of the Thousands Islands regency that September.

However, the allegations of blasphemy stemmed from a video of his speech that was doctored to make it seem like he was insulting Islam. The video was shared online and enraged thousands of Muslims who took to the streets to call for Purnamas arrest. The man who doctored the video even admitted to doing so and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Despite this, Purnama was forced to serve the majority of his two-year sentence.

If we could go back in time and someone asked which would you choose [Going to prison or winning the election] I would say I choose to be imprisoned at Mako to study for two years, so that I could maintain self-discipline for the rest of my life, Ahok wrote in a letter posted to his social media page before his release, according to The Guardian. If I were re-elected, I would have become more arrogant, rough, and I would have hurt people.

While in prison, however, Purnama filed for divorce from his wife, Veronica Tan, who he accused of having an affair with another man. More details of her affair with a married businessman emerged in court filings last year.

Following his release from prison, the 52-year-old Purnama confirmed rumors that he soon plans to marry again.

According to The Jakarta Post, Ahok was asked in a meeting with the leader of Hanura Party on Friday if the wedding rumors are true. The video of the meeting has gone viral on YouTube.

"Yes, because my mother said 'Hok, I can't take care or live with you any longer, Purnama reportedly responded. She also said 'Your wife should be my replacement to cook, make cakes, and take care of you. That last one didn't want to.

Purnama added that his wife-to-be is a 21-year-old former policewoman named Puput Nastiti Devi. Puput was also featured in the viral video.

"She knows there's somebody to take care of her son, Puput was quoted as saying. She trusts me."

Purnama explained that his future wife has been helping his mother cook for a long time now and that his mothers mental health has improved because of it.

Purnama stated that they first met when he was given police protection in 2016.

A friend of mine came and said that I should marry somebody with 'the same palm lines, Purnama explained. My ex-wife, in Chinese beliefs, could not accept her luck and that is why we parted. It doesnt mean [my future wife] has to have the same lines on her palms as I do, but it means that our fate is the same.

After the talk with his friend, Purnama arranged to meet with Paput, who was at the time his ex-wifes aide, according to The Jakarta Post. As it turned out, Paputs palm lines matched those of Purnamas.

A wedding between the two may already be planned. Jakarta City Council Speaker Prasetio Marsudi allegedly told Tempo.co that Ahok and his bride-to-be planned to get married on Feb. 15.

He [Ahok] will be married in Jakarta, and I will be a witness for them, the speaker reportedly said.
Christian unity advancing despite pockets of mutual rejection, Vatican official says

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Unity among the many denominations within Christianity is making progress despite a few holdouts of mutual rejection and contention among some, according to a Vatican City official.

Irish Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, had a column published last week by United Kingdom-based Catholic publication The Tablet regarding the state of Christian ecumenism.

Bishop Farrell argued that there were undeniable signs of continuing progress in relations between the divided churches despite some signs of frustration and even retrenchment.

Pockets of mutual rejection and contention remain, but most of the world's Christians have come to recognise one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, united in a common baptism, and giving a common witness in serving the needs of suffering humanity, wrote Farrell.

Farrell noted as examples that in recent times there have been several interdenominational dialogues on theology as well as international meetings organised by the World Council of Churches and the Global Christian Forum and other ecumenical associations.

Rightly, the churches continue to commit important human and financial resources to theological dialogue, because every serious ecumenical advance involves overcoming remaining substantial doctrinal differences, Farrell continued.

This dialogue continues in the 14 bilateral theological dialogues with other Christian bodies in which the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity is involved, and in numerous other regional or multilateral meetings, conferences and studies.

One of the challenges to this ecumenical movement that appeared last year, according to Farrell, was the much-publicized decision by the Russian Orthodox Church to sever its ties to the global Orthodox Church community.

At issue was the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinoples decision to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as independent from Russian control, amid the political tensions between the two Eastern European countries.

Whether and how the Dialogue Commission can effectively and usefully continue its work in the present situation is now an impelling question, explained Farrell. The challenge will be on the agenda of the meeting of the Coordinating Committee due to be held towards the end of the current year.

Farrells column was published during the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, held Jan. 18-25, between the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul on the liturgical calendar.

The Week of Prayer featured worship materials, such as liturgy, developed in cooperation between the International Committee of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Fr. Tom Orians, SA, associate director of the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute, which helps to distribute Week of Prayer materials, told The Christian Post in an earlier interview that the theme for 2019 was "Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, taken from Deuteronomy 16:20.

This years theme, which finds its origins in Deuteronomy, was chosen for its powerful message of promoting truth, equality and unity, said Orians.

It was prepared by a group of representatives from different parts of Indonesia, including the Communion of Churches in Indonesia and the Indonesian Catholic Bishops Conference who felt it spoke powerfully to their situation and needs, and recognized this common need throughout the world.
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The eyes of the nation widened with shock when New York announced that its new abortion law  the Reproductive Health Act (RHA)  would allow a baby to be aborted up until the day of birth. This progress as New York sees it doesnt even recognize a human being as a person until he or she is out of the womb!

It is only natural that Planned Parenthood would applaud this travesty. As evidenced by its annual report released just last week (which we comment on here), the organization celebrates a culture of death in the womb. Yet the extreme view of abortion shared by Planned Parenthood and the state of New York is out of touch with the majority of Americans who believe that there should be restrictions on abortion. According to a recent Marist poll, 75 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be limited to within the first three months of pregnancy. This number also includes more than six in 10 (61 percent) who identify as pro-choice on abortion.

According to New Yorks abortion report, there were 82,189 abortions performed on New York residents in 2016. Out of the 47,718 total reported pregnancies experienced by non-Hispanic black women, almost half  49 percent  ended in abortion, and 47 percent made it out the womb alive. Thats more black babies aborted than born alive in New York.

Now under this law, that disparity will increase. This begs the question: Do black lives really matter?

It is only fitting that Planned Parenthood is celebrating such barbarianism, seeing that its founder Margaret Sanger started her first family planning clinic in New York  known as the American Birth Control League (ABCL)  in 1921. The ABCL changed its name to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. Soon after, she initiated what was called the Negro Project, notoriously saying [w]e do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.

Consider this: Today, Planned Parenthood is the nations largest abortion provider and operates nearly 80 percent of its facilities within walking distance of minority communities. According to the latest census data, just over 12 percent of the U.S. population is African-American, and yet over 30 percent of all abortions are committed on black babies.

Can we imagine the horror of what abortion is doing to the African American and Hispanic communities? In a time where our nation seems more focused on diversity than ever before (and at times rightly so), this should make us all shudder. In the disguise of feminism or reproductive progress, it seems like only well-to-do lives matter.

New Yorks previous abortion laws forbid abortions after 24 weeks, the point at which a baby can live outside of the womb. Now, babies old enough to cuddle in your arms will be aborted. This is a tragedy, not progress. But we must not give up the fight.

British abolitionist William Wilberforce spent 45 years of his life fighting to end the slave trade in Great Britain. From Harriet Tubman to Fredrick Douglass, to Abraham Lincolns emancipation proclamation, to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., others have carried the torch. Thank God these people did not give up. Let us fight the good fight with endurance. This is one of those appropriate times to remember the famous saying, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Patrina Mosley is the Director of Life, Culture and Women's Advocacy at the Family Research Council.
God sent a bear to protect missing 3-y-o boy, aunt says; church celebrates rescue

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Three-year-old Casey Hathaway was missing for more than two days before he was found tangled in vegetation last week. Family members say he was protected by a bear.

The community at New Haven Church rushed the gates of heaven in prayer on Tuesday after discovering that Hathaway went missing after playing outside of a relative's home in Craven County, North Carolina, with two other children last Tuesday.

According to WTVD, the boys grandmother and others looked for him for 45 minutes before they officially reported him missing.

We went through the woods  through the thicket and the briars, volunteer Donna Harris told WTVD. We did it for three-and-a-half, four hours and it was bad. It was really bad out there. As it got darker, it was scary out there. I just cant imagine a 3-year-old being out there.

Shelley Lynch, a spokesperson for the FBI Charlotte field office, announced Hathaways rescue on Thursday night. EMS Captain Shane Grier and another rescuer found him in the woods as he was calling out for his mother.

"Somebody looked after him," Grier said. "That was God at work."

Breanna Hathaway, who identified herself as the boy's aunt, testified of his rescue on Facebook.

Casey is healthy, smiling, and talking. He said he hung out with a bear for two days God sent him a friend to keep him safe, she wrote. God is good God. Miracles do happen.

She later shared that Hathaway's sister credited Jesus for finding her brother.

Hathaway was treated at Carolina East Medical Center and was reportedly in good health despite not being dressed properly for the cold and rainy weather, Lynch stated.

New Haven Church held a welcome home celebration on Friday night and they celebrated the miracle finding with songs of praise.
Shameful and demonic: 5 pastors, faith leaders condemn NY abortion law

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Pastors, evangelists, and Christian leaders shared their dismay after the New York Senate passed a bill, later signed into law by Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowing women to abort their unborn babies up to birth.

The passing of the so-called Reproductive Health Act on January 22 coincided with the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It removes abortion from the penal code and legalizes abortion until birth for the mother's "health," which is not defined and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include any reason.

While hailed as a victory by those in the pro-choice camp, the passing of the law was widely condemned by the pro-life community. Faith leaders from across denominations and traditions were some of the most vocal opponents, taking to various social media platforms to condemn the decision.

Here's a list of five responses from various leaders in the Christian faith.
Hispanic pastors praise Trump for work on border security as president touts growing support

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A group of Hispanic pastors praised President Donald Trump for his work on border security and pushing to build his controversial wall at a meeting at the White House Friday, as the New York billionaire touted a recent poll showing his growing support among Latinos.

They have tremendous congregations of pastors and ministers anywhere in this country. And theyve been talking to me for a long period of time. And you probably saw we went up 19 percent  I saw that just a little while  with the Hispanic population. Part of it is the jobs because theyre doing record-setting jobs right now. But part of it is what we talk about  the wall and security, Trump said in his meeting with the group.

Waco pastor Ramiro Pena delivered a letter he said was endorsed by 150 Hispanic evangelical leaders expressing thanks for the presidents good faith efforts to work with Democrats on border security.

Youve done a very good job and been the leader we need you to be in extending a hand to them to come to the table. And we want to say thank you for doing that, and we want to say thank you for doing everything you can to get aid, in a humanitarian way, for this crisis where its needed most, securing our borders, and providing for law enforcement and the Border Patrol everything they need  all the tools and resources that are needed, Pena said.

One thing you have not done, Mr. President, is manufacture a humanitarian crisis. Its real. And although many people began to declare repeatedly this is a manufactured crisis  being a pastor from Texas, I can tell you the human suffering thats been going on for many decades has hit a fever pitch. And Im grateful that you have shown leadership to recognize it, to call it out, and to actually do something about it, he added.

The meeting came the same day Trump agreed to sign a continuing resolution to reopen the federal government through February 15, after 35 days of demanding $5 billion to fund the controversial border wall.

Were here to support you, Mr. President. You know, theres misconception in the public, thinking that Spanish community is for illegal immigration. Theres a misconception also that we want open borders, Pastor Guillermo Maldonado of King Jesus Ministry in Miami said.

Dealing with people every single day, I see that our community support what youre doing. We dont want open borders. Ive been in 70 countries, preaching the Gospel, and every country has laws and order. And every country we go, America has been so gracious, opening the doors and opening the doors for every person that comes, he continued.  Were here to support you, and what youre doing is great. The lowest unemployment for Spanish people  4 percent  thats incredible.

President Trump in his remarks promised to work with Democrats to negotiate funding for the border wall but insisted that if they couldnt make a deal he will declare a national emergency.

Were going to work with the Democrats. Were going to see. And if we cant do that, then well do  obviously were going to do the emergency, because thats what it is. Its a national emergency, said Trump.

These are Hispanic pastors and reverends and ministers, and they understand better than anybody, its an emergency. Its a humanitarian emergency. And we are going to take care of our border. Its going to be done. And crime is going to go down throughout our whole country, not just at the border. The border is the least of it. Its what comes in through the border and permeates throughout the whole country, the president said, pointing to the drug trade.

Youre going to see drugs drop way down, because a big percentage come in through the border. You will see drugs way down. Youre going to see crime go way down. So were going to do it, and were doing well. And I really appreciate you being here, he added.

Last Tuesday, President Trump touted a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll result, highlighting that his approval rating among Latinos rose to 50 percent.

Marist/NPR/PBS Poll shows President Trumps approval rating among Latinos going to 50%, an increase in one year of 19%. Thank you, working hard! he noted in a tweet.

An analysis by PBS however explained that as part of the survey, 1,023 people were asked: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?

It noted that while the president is correct in that saying that 50 percent of the Latinos who were questioned in the survey approved of his work as president, only 153 Latino Americans were interviewed for the poll.

The small sample size of Latino respondents had a wide margin of error of 9.9 percentage points, meaning that the 50 percent approval rating among Latinos the president cited could range from 40 percent to 60 percent.

A statistically significant poll of Latino Americans it further noted would have a much larger sample size, a lower margin of error and would be conducted in English or Spanish. The interviews in the PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll were conducted only in English.
Va. Democrat defends abortion for women in labor: While 'she's dilating?' 'Yes'

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Outrage mounted to a fever-pitch Wednesday as conservatives voiced opposition to a new bill proposed in the Virginia legislature that would've allowed abortions up to 40 weeks of pregnancy and permit abortions outside of a hospital during the second trimester.

Virginia Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran, who proposed the currently defeated bill, explained in a viral video during a subcommittee hearing last week that the bill would also allow women to decide if they want to have an abortion as they dilate ahead of giving birth.

In the video, chairman of the subcommittee, Delegate Todd Gilbert asked Tran, How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion?

Tran explained to him that the bill, Virginia House Bill 2491 known as the Repeal Act, would eliminate current restrictions on late-term abortions and allow abortions up until 40 weeks.

Through the third trimester. The third trimester goes all the way up to forty weeks ... I don't think we have a limit in the bill, she responds pointedly.

Where its obvious a woman is about to give birth? Gilbert asked. Even when she has physical signs that she is about to give birth? Shes dilating?

My bill would allow that, yes, Tran said.

The bill will not move forward out of the subcommittee, Gilbert told Live Action.

The video, which has been making the rounds on social media, drew swift condemnation from conservatives such as Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

What is happening in our country. This literally makes me sick to my stomach.... #AdoptionIsAlwaysAnOption, she tweeted Tuesday with a clip of the exchange between Tran and Gilbert.

Denny Burk, associate professor of biblical studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who also serves as associate pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, called the proposal an atrocity

If you are pro-choice and this shocks you, you need to know that Roe v. Wade and its companion decision Doe v. Bolton make this kind of atrocity into a constitutional right, he noted on Twitter.

In addition to allowing abortions up until 40 weeks, The Repeal Act would have eliminated all the procedures and processes, such as the performance of an ultrasound, required to effect a woman's informed written consent to the performance of an abortion. Informed written consent, however, would still be required for an abortion.

The bill also wouldn't have required more than one physician to certify that a third trimester abortion is necessary to prevent a woman's death or impairment of her mental or physical health.

When asked if he supported the measure, in a WTOP interview Wednesday morning, Virginias Democrat Governor Ralph Northam defended it.

I certainly cant speak for delegate Tran but I would tell you, this is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians and the mothers and fathers that are involved. When we talk about third trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of the mother, obviously, with the consent of the physician, more than one physician by the way, Northam said.

And its done in cases where there may be severe deformities, where there may be a fetus thats not viable, so in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable. It would be resuscitated if thats what the mother and the family desired and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother. So I think this was really blown out of proportion, he continued. Then again, we want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions. We want the decision to be made by the mother and their providers. And this is why legislators  most of whom are men, shouldnt be telling a woman what she should and shouldnt be doing with her body.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat noted studies on Wednesday, however, showing that most third-trimester abortions are not performed due to threats to the health of the mother or unborn child.

Worth noting while watching the moderate governor of Virginia using his reassuring voice to discuss letting born-alive infants die comfortably that most third-trimester abortions are not performed for reasons of fetal or maternal health, he tweeted, and linked to a 2013 report by Guttmacher Institute.

Responding to Northams support of the bill Wednesday, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission said it was horrifying.

This is nothing short of horrifying, a shock to any functioning conscience. My oldest son was born at 28 weeks, fighting for life and with severe health issues, in a Russian village. I thank God every day his birthmother did not share the ghoulish view of his worth and dignity that we are hearing today, he wrote in a series of tweets.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who sponsored the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, had a similar response in comments to National Review.

This is morally repugnant, he said. In just a few years pro-abortion zealots went from safe, legal, and rare to keep the newborns comfortable while the doctor debates infanticide. I dont care what party youre from  if you cant say that its wrong to leave babies to die after birth, get the hell out of public office.

Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Northam responded to the backlash, stating, No woman seeks a third trimester abortion except in the case of tragic or difficult circumstances, such as a nonviable pregnancy or in the event of severe fetal abnormalities, and the governors comments were limited to the actions physicians would take in the event that a woman in those circumstances went into labor. Attempts to extrapolate these comments otherwise is in bad faith and underscores exactly why the governor believes physicians and women, not legislators, should make these difficult and deeply personal medical decisions.

Virginias abortion bill comes in the wake of the New York state Legislature passing a bill last Tuesday that made it legal for abortionists and other health care professionals to perform abortions up to birth for any reason.
Principal bans teacher from attending church event; superintendent steps in after legal pressure

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A school superintendent in the midwest has overturned a principals decision to forbid a teacher from attending a church event during nonschool hours because the event was also to be attended by two students.

Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal group that advocates for First Amendment right, says that it has come to the defense of a teacher at an undisclosed high school in the United States after she was told by the school principal that she could not attend an event organized by her own church.

According to the legal group, the principal in question told the teacher in December that attending a church event in which two students at the school would also be present would violate some sort of fraternization policy.

The two students were attending the church event because they also attend the same church as the teacher.

At the beginning of the month, a representative of the Orlando-based nonprofit called the school district asking for the principals policy to be tossed out. The legal group explained that the policy is unconstitutional on grounds that it prevented the teacher from exercising her religious freedom rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The names of the school, teacher and principal involved in the matter have been left undisclosed by Liberty Counsel to protect the privacy of the teacher.

It makes no sense to have a policy like that, Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver told The Christian Post in an interview Tuesday. Lets say a teacher is attending a church and students decided to also attend the same church; does that mean that the teacher has to leave that church and go someplace else?

Staver noted that in some communities, it could be hard for a teacher to find a church where there are no students included in the congregation. He also asked how teachers are supposed to know whether or not students will be at an event they plan to attend.

What if you go to a Christmas event in December, for example, or some other event or even church service on a Sunday or a choir? he posed. It makes no sense and it is unconstitutional to impose that kind of rule.

Staver asserted that teachers have a First Amendment right both on campus and off campus.

During nonschool hours outside of school, they have the same rights as any other citizen, he stated. They can engage in First Amendment-expressive activity, especially in church, without the schools intervention. This is actually government interfering in the free exercise of religion and speech and the free association guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Staver said that Liberty Counsels correspondence with the school district led to a prompt reversal of the principals policy.

The superintendent correctly reversed the principals decision to ban teachers from attending the same church events as students, Staver said in a statement. Teachers acting in their individual capacity after school have the same rights as any others who are not teachers.

This is not the first time that Liberty Counsel has come to the defense of that teacher.

About a year ago, the same principal tried to prevent the teacher from leading an after-school Bible club that had the approval and permission of parents of the students who wanted to take part. Even without the teacher, one student offered to lead the group as a student-led club. But that idea was also rejected by the principal.

The teacher eventually contacted Liberty Counsel, which sent a demand letter to the school superintendent on her behalf. The principals decision, in that case, was also overruled by the superintendent.

I think the first time we could give the [principal] the benefit of the doubt and that the principal acted out of ignorance and misinformation when she said the teacher couldnt be a part of a Bible study even though parents provided permission, Staver said.

As wrong as it is and unconstitutional as it is, maybe the [principal] had good intentions. But when it happens again within a year and it involves something that is common-sense wrong yet alone constitutionally impermissible to impose, I now believe that this principal has some animus toward religion and Christianity in particular.  I think the principal has some other kind of motive that is hostile to Christianity.

Staver, who has in the past represented high-profile clients such as controversial Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, warned that actions like the ones taken by the principal could have led to a lawsuit if they were not addressed by the superintendent.

Some people might not be willing to do a demand letter before they file suit, Staver said. The school might find themselves a defendant in a lawsuit over this principals actions. Now it is a recurring pattern and they need to do something to hold her accountable.

Recently, Liberty Counsel intervened in a Nebraska school district after an elementary school principal sent out instructions telling teachers to stay away from using Christmas-related messaging and activities in the classroom. The teacher even warned that teachers could not give out candy canes, asserting that they symbolize Jesus.

After Liberty Counsels intervention, the principals guidance was overturned, she was placed on administrative leave and eventually resigned.
Democrats plan to strike God from oath for House Committee

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Correction appended

House Democrats are looking to strike the phrase so help you God from the oath taken in a committee, prompting one prominent Republican to label them "the party of Karl Marx.

A draft of the proposed rules for the House Committee on Natural Resources that was recently made public showed certain changes for the rules in red and items to be deleted put in brackets.

For the oath witnesses are supposed to take, the proposed rules remove the phrase so help you God while adding the phrase under penalty of law.

The proposed rules also add gender inclusive edits, changing chairman to chair and on multiple occasions replacing his or her with their.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican who is part of the Committee, denounced the proposed rules in an interview with Fox News.

They really have become the party of Karl Marx, said Cheney. It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority.

Headed by Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the Committee on Natural Resources seeks to help preserve the environment and defend the rights of indigenous populations.

Many federal oaths include the phrase so help me God. For example, the oath for United States Senators concludes with the phrase.

However, the oath of office for the President of the United States does not include the phrase, but rather figures taking the oath have often unofficially added it in by tradition.

According to a report by the Pew Research Center from earlier this month, the percentage of self-identified Christians in the 116th Congress is 88 percent, or 3 percent smaller than the 115th Congress.

Sixty-three members of Congress, including two Republicans and 61 Democrats, state that they do not identify as Christian. This includes the first Muslim women elected to Congress, Democrats Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

For the past several years, many pundits and political experts have accused the Democratic Party of having a "God problem," or being too secular in their tone and views on religion.

At their 2012 convention, Democrats garnered controversy over not including a reference to God in their party platform and then adding in a reference following three voice votes that had a questionable result.

However, some, including journalist Amy Sullivan, defended the Democratic Party at the time, having a column published by the New Republic in 2012 noting the many examples of pro-faith expression at the convention.

"The Democratic National Convention opens and closes each day's session with prayers, just like the Republican National Convention did," wrote Sullivan.

"The 2012 Democratic platform has a separate section on 'Faith' that includes the lines, 'We know that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires.'"

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Liz Cheney as being a representative of Wisconsin. Cheney serves Wyoming, not Wisconsin.
7 states already allow abortion up to birth  not just New York

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New York isnt the only state that allows abortion up to birth.

Before New York lawmakers voted last Tuesday to remove gestational limits on abortion, seven states and Washington, D.C. already had laws allowing third-trimester abortions.

Similarly, all states that have laws banning late-term abortion still allow exceptions under certain circumstances, as noted by the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that advocates for abortion rights worldwide. Such exemptions include babies with physical anomalies, and the health of the mother, which can include mental health, according to the pro-life group Operation Rescue.

The seven (now eight) states that have no gestational limits on abortion are: Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, along with Washington, D.C.

Despite abortion up to the time of birth being legal in several states and the nations capital, there are only five clinics nationwide that perform late-term abortions. Two are in states that allow abortion up to birth and three are in states that prohibit late-term abortion but allow exemptions (California, Maryland and Ohio).

Among the states that have no abortion limits, so far only Colorado and New Mexico have clinics that will perform abortions up to 32 weeks and later on a "case by case basis." Those clinics are the Warren Herns Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, and Curtis Boyds Southwestern Womens Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which The Christian Post has reported on in the past (here and here). And at least one clinic in Washington, D.C. offers abortions up to 36 weeks.

Other clinics in states with unrestrictive abortion limits have set their own caps. A clinic in New Jersey performs abortions up to 25 weeks, Oregon at 24 weeks, New Hampshire up to 17 weeks, and Alaska and Vermont up to 16 weeks, Operation Rescue has found.

In New York, which has 87 abortion clinics according to Operation Rescues 2018 clinic survey, 60 only perform abortions up to 14 weeks gestation. There were 17 clinics that limited abortions to 23 weeks or under. Ten clinics were willing to abort through 24 weeks, or the end of the sixth month of pregnancy, the organization noted.

The abortion bill signed into law by New York's Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week not only allows abortion at any time to protect the "patient's health," but it also says, An abortion may be performed by a licensed, certified, or authorized practitioner within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy  This allows health care practitioners who are not doctors to perform abortions.

In response, Operation Rescue President Troy Newman likened the law to having "a phlebotomist take out your gall bladder."

"There is no way a nonphysician would be qualified to conduct a third trimester abortion," Newman said. "Third trimester abortions require specific training, and even then, they are far from safe. If unqualified nonphysicians try to do third trimester abortions, there is no doubt that even more women will die.

There are fewer than 10 abortionists in the United States who will perform late-term abortions, which take three to four days to complete, due to liabilities and risks to the mothers life, says Operation Rescue.

Three men who performed late-term abortions are now either in prison (Kermit Gosnell) or have had their medical licenses revoked (James Pendergraft and Steven Brigham).

Lawmakers in Rhode Island have also introduced two bills in the state Legislature to make abortion legal up to birth, CP reported last week. The states Democrat Gov. Gina Raimondo has already said that, if passed, shed sign the Reproductive Health Care Act into law.

In Virginia, Democrat delegate Kathy Tran has introduced a bill in the House of Delegates that would legalize abortion up to birth, "even at the very end of pregnancy when a woman was going into labor," National Review reported Tuesday (watch video here).

While the number of independently operated clinics that perform second- and third-trimester abortions has declined, Planned Parenthood has been increasing its number of clinics that offer abortions at 20 weeks and later. Two years ago, 18 Planned Parenthood clinics performed late-term abortions; now that number is at 37, according to Operation Rescues 2018 Abortion Clinic Survey of abortion clinics nationwide conducted from Nov. 26 through Dec. 14, 2018.

Planned Parenthoods new president, Dr. Leana Wen, has said numerous times that she believes abortion is a basic human right and she's going to "fight for that every day."

Last year, abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide increased to 332,757  an increase of 11,373 abortions over the previous years report.

As the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics increased, their adoption referrals "decreased by 1,000 last year" to around 2,800, "which means that Planned Parenthood clinics performed 118 abortions for every one adoption referral," The National Review noted.

Although Wen has touted Planned Parenthood as a major provider of womens health care, in 2016 CP reported that its clinics were turning away pregnant women who wanted to carry their baby to term. Employees at several clinics told CP that the only service some clinics might provide to pregnant women is to dispense a packet of prenatal vitamins, but nothing else.

In an investigative report released in 2017, the pro-life group Live Action found that among 97 Planned Parenthood clinics it called nationwide, 92 said they didn't provide services to pregnant women unless they wanted an abortion. Five clinics, however, said they do provide prenatal services to pregnant women.
1,000 educators to discuss struggles, trends facing private Christian schools

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Over 1,000 teachers and leaders from private Christian schools worldwide are gathering in Texas this week to collaborate and identify innovative ways to address the challenges and opportunities facing their institutions in an increasingly secular world.

Looking to reshape the movement and continue offering distinctive Gospel-centered education, the second-ever Global Christian School Leadership Summit begins Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio.

The three-day gathering is sponsored by eight Christian school associations, which represent over 25,000 Christian schools in 100 countries and serve more than 6 million students. With over 700 attending the first-ever GCSLS in 2017, the biennial event is becoming known as one of the premier networking conferences for Christian-based secondary and primary educators.

This years summit we are focusing on innovation, said GCSLS Chair Lynn Swaner, who is also the chief strategy and innovation officer at the Colorado-based evangelical accrediting agency Association of Christian Schools International.

Our hope is that participants will take away a fresh hope and bright ideas for how to innovate in their settings and also connect with colleagues who are innovating from around the world.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Swaner said the goal is to position Christian schools to develop the best answers in all of education in order to address the changes that have emerged in the education field over the last several decades and also figure out ways to incorporate the latest technology in truly meaningful and efficient ways in the classroom.

As believers, what we have to offer should be the most innovative and the best of what is out there, Swaner told CP. If you think about Daniel in Babylon or Joseph in Egypt, those are men of faith. They knew and obeyed God but they were also highly competent Spirit-led leaders who impacted their society for the good of all. As they were doing that, Gods name was glorified.

One area of focus for the summit will be technology and how Christian schools can equip and use various forms of technology appropriately. One presenter during a technology work session will be Mitch Salerno, the headmaster of Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, California.

According to Swaner, his school was the first in the nation to be an iPad demonstration school.

One of the trends that I am seeing is that schools everywhere have been fairly quick to try to invest in technology and have that available to their students or they want to have a one-to-one policy, Swaner explained. They want to enable students to have the technology in their hands. Now that technology is ubiquitous, I think we are able to really ask some of the deeper questions about how we are able to not just physically have technology in the classroom but how do we use it in authentic ways to deepen and improve students' learning and to make teaching more effective.

Many Christian schools are asking questions about what kind of policies they should be putting in place and how they can help teachers best navigate the use of technology in the classroom, according to Swaner.

The summit will also feature a panel on hybrid and online learning.

Many of our Christian schools are beginning to offer classes or entire programs online, Swaner said. That will be a panel that will be talking about best practice in that area.

Another trend occurring in Christian schools, Swaner explained, is the desire to make their institutions more culturally diverse.

Walter Strickland, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, will present on how to move beyond secular solutions and apply a biblical worldview so schools can become agents of reconciliation.

The summit will also feature a discussion touching on how schools can grow their diversity programs. Swaner said she is seeing more Christian schools launching special programs or hiring specialists to help foster greater cultural diversity.

That is really a trend in Christian schools that I have seen over the past few years, just the development of specific programs or hiring of specific staff to actually create a community that welcomes diversity, that welcomes the tough conversations that come around living in community, Swaner detailed. That is definitely a trend and we will have quite a few of those folks at the summit.

Helping Christian schools serve those in their communities that have special learning needs, whether they are academic, mental or emotional, is another issue that will be addressed.

According to Swaner, a family with three kids is likely to have at least one child with some sort of special need. The need for inclusive education is seen throughout the education field in both the public and private school setting.

We are seeing more students with learning needs who are coming to our schools, she said. That is not a trend that is unique to Christian schools but that certainly something that our schools are recognizing that they want to be able to serve their communities well.

As with other private and even public schools, many Christian schools are facing budgetary and financing issues. Swaner stressed that these issues might stem from things like demographic changes or resurges and declines in elementary school children in certain parts of the country.

Schools everywhere are learning on the fly how to become leaner, more focused, more efficient and at the same time having to invest in things like new technology and good salaries. I think that is the challenge that schools everywhere are really struggling with.

The GSCLS is sponsored by the Association of Christian Schools International, Association of Christian Teachers and Schools, the Council on Education Standards & Accountability, Christian Schools Australia, National Christian School Association, Christian Schools International, International Christian Accrediting Association and the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools.

The summit will also feature a presentation from Beth Green, a senior fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus. Cardus puts out an education survey about every two years that focuses on the impact that Christian school graduates have made on their communities in both the U.S. and Canada. Green will share some initial insights from the unreleased 2018 survey.

Previous generations of the Cardus Education Survey have demonstrated clearly that in comparison with their counterparts in publicly-funded schools, Christian school graduates have things like stronger families and are more involved with their communities, Swaner recalled.
In debt, Resonate Church to shut down a week after founder Davey Blackburn resigns

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A week after Pastor Davey Blackburn of Resonate Church in Indiana announced his resignation to answer Gods newest call on his life, church officials revealed Sunday that the congregation was tens of thousands of dollars in debt and would be shutting down.

Amy Smith, sexual abuse survivor advocate, highlighted a dissolution plan presented to the congregation by John Berry, interim pastor since Blackburns resignation. It was tweeted by Twitter user Pink Haired Devil who was present at the church during the unveiling on Sunday.

The plan showed that the church had liabilities of $73,817.97 and cash totaling only $38,154.48. To offset the deficit of $35,663.97 the church will sell off its worship, production, and other valuable equipment owned by the ministry. Any funds remaining from the sale is expected to be donated to a church or nonprofit that is yet to be determined.

Resonate Church officials did not immediately respond to a request for an interview Monday but other sources who did not wish to be identified in this report told CP that approximately 75 people showed up for the presentation and they were allegedly very angry at Davey.

There were a lot of unneeded large purchases  audio and video equipment, TVs, etc, according to John Berry. John Berry, at the end of service, took questions, people were angry, asking if there was a misuse of funds, the source said.

Berry reportedly told the congregation that their review of the accounts did not show any misuse of funds and Blackburn would not be taking any responsibility for the debt since he has resigned from the church.

Blackburn and his late wife Amanda Blackburn moved to Indianapolis in January 2012 to plant Resonate Church. Prior to that, he had spent four years on staff at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina, under then Pastor Perry Noble.

After Amanda was murdered in their home in November 2015 while Davey was away at the gym, Blackburn recast the vision of his church.

She believed nothing was wasted and anything could be restored into a treasure. Now the vision of Resonate has taken on a deeper level and reach. We now spend every waking moment following Jesus in His plan to restore this tragedy into something beautiful. We've seen hundreds of people give their lives to Jesus as their personal savior since Amanda's death, the church says on its website.

We're on a mission to turn Indianapolis upside-down for Jesus and we believe it is only just the beginning of our story. Our story is played out in the light of a greater Story  Jesus Story. Scripture tells us in Jesus story that Nothing is Wasted, even the most tragic of situations."

Earlier this month, Blackburn said God had called him and his new wife, Kristi, to move on.

Its with a heavy heart, a nervous apprehension, a trusting spirit, and yet an excited anticipation for the future that I must announce that Kristi and I are stepping away as the leaders of Resonate Church. We are doing this in order to answer a call God has placed on our lives to help people from all over the world find purpose in their pain through Nothing is Wasted, Blackburn said.

Blackburns first wife was fatally shot during a home invasion on Nov. 10, 2015. He found love again with Kristi less than a year later and wed at the end of 2017.

As he grieved his wifes passing, Blackburn tried to make sense of the death, saying, God didn't cause this to happen but he allowed it to happen in such a way, he allowed the breath of Amanda to come out of her so that the breath could be breathed into you and into me so that we could advance the Gospel in a way that history books have never even told."

"And I believe it is going to come out of this house. I believe it is gonna come out of our house in Indianapolis. I believe in this region, God's gonna do something from the crossroads of America that's gonna scatter across America, and we're going to see a revival like we have never seen before," he added.
During International Justice Missions earliest days, founder Gary Haugen was parked in front of a Safeway grocery store one evening crying, worried that his fledgling nonprofit would not make payroll for its half-dozen employees. This is how the dream dies, he told himself, before phoning some friends for extra gifts that helped IJM through.

Two decades later, the $74 million organization has a lot of friends. Consider: A small group of donors paid to fly nearly 1,000 staff from around the globe to a conference in Dallas last September, where they joined 4,000 supporters to celebrate IJMs 20th anniversary. Hundreds of international employees were welcomed with $50 Target gift cards and sent on chartered buses to spend them.

Donors believed in what we were doing, believed that it was right to pause to thank and worship God for all that hes done in the last 20 years, said Sean Litton, IJMs president.

Litton has witnessed nearly all of IJMs rapid growth to become what it calls the largest international anti-slavery organization in the world. Littons time at IJM has taken him from the Philippines to Thailand and eventually to overseeing the organizations day-to-day operations from its Washington, DC, offices. CT managing editor Andy Olsen, who himself formerly worked with IJM, sat down with the youth-pastor-turned-lawyer to talk about the evolution of IJM and the modern abolitionist movement.

You joined IJM in 2000. The organization was just a couple of years old, and combating modern-day slavery was only emerging as a Christian cause celebre. Whats changed since then?

The world has clearly woken up to the problem. Its ...

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Democrat Admits: Her Bill Would Allow Abortion during Labor Share Tweet

A Virginia Democratic House member acknowledged under questioning this week that her bill would legalize unrestricted abortion through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, even if the woman is dilated and in labor.

The bill, HB 2491, was defeated in committee, but not before its sponsor, Delegate Kathy Tran, answered detailed questions in a video that has gone viral. The bill would have removed most restrictions to late-term abortions.

Trans bill permitted third-trimester abortions if a pregnancy threatened a womans life or impair[ed] the mental or physical health of the woman. At least one doctor would have to certify those conditions. The bill would have removed the current requirement that three doctors agree that late-term abortion is required.

Such loopholes have been interpreted broadly by courts to permit abortion for virtually any reason.

How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated it would impair the mental health of the woman? GOP Delegate and committee chairman Todd Gilbert asked Tran.

Through the third trimester, Tran responded. The third trimester goes all the way up to 40 weeks.  I dont think we have a limit in the bill.

Gilbert then pressed her: Where it's obvious that a woman is about to give birth  she has physical signs that she's about to give birth. Would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion?  She's dilating.

Dilation is one stage of a womans labor.

Mr. Chairman, Tran responded, that would be a decision that the doctor  the physician  and the women would make at that point.

I understand that, Gilbert said. I'm asking if your bill allows that.

My bill would allow that. Yes, Tran answered.

Heartbreaking... This isn't in New York, this isn't in California, this happened just this week right here in Virginia. @VAHouseDems proposed legislation to provide abortions up to just seconds before that precious child takes their first breath. Watch for yourself. pic.twitter.com/AxgPVyI6kU January 29, 2019

The pro-life group Live Action said Tran did not want to acknowledge the bills ramifications.

Its obvious from the video that Tran is uneasy admitting that the bill would allow a woman to request an abortion while she is in active labor with a viable baby, the Live Action said. Perhaps thats because she knows as well as anyone else how absolutely horrific and inhumane  and utterly and wholly unnecessary  that would be.

R. Albert Mohler Jr. president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary tweeted: God, help us. Virginia bill would legalize abortion up to birth. This is the most chilling testimony from a legislator I have ever seen.

After New York passed its law removing abortion restrictions, OB/GYN Dr. Omar L. Hamada made headlines by asserting third-trimester abortions are never necessary.

I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt. Im a Board Certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies, he wrote. Theres not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third-trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no.

Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.

Photo courtesy: Julie Johnson/Unsplash
Bill that Allows States to Boycott Companies Boycotting Israel Moves Forward Share Tweet

The U.S. Senate is pushing forward a Middle East bill that would put in place new sanctions on Syria.

The bill would allow state and local governments to stop doing business with companies who are boycotting Israel.

"The Senate will once again move to take up our bill to support Israel, give local and state governments the right to boycott BDS and punish human rights abuses in Syria," tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, who introduced the bill to Congress. "Democrats said they were blocking it until [the] shutdown ended. So, no excuse not to move to it now."

Rubio says the bill allows for the U.S. to stand strong with our allies.

At its core, the linchpin of it is helping Israel defend itself, he said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, however, called the bill absurd.

"It's absurd that the first bill during the shutdown is legislation which punishes Americans who exercise their constitutional right to engage in political activity," he tweeted earlier in January.

Said Sen. Dick Durbin: "I oppose it because it limits the right of individuals to express themselves. I don't think it's anti-Semitic [to vote no] It's because of the Bill of Rights."

The bill also reaffirms cooperation with Jordan on defense operations and says it will provide humanitarian assistance to allies in the Middle East struggling because of the Syrian civil war.

It tells our ally Israel that our commitment to its security is ironclad. It tells our partners in Jordan that we have their backs as they grapple with the flow of refugees and other ongoing effects of the Syrian crisis, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the chamber floor.

And it makes a crystal-clear statement to the Syrian regime and those who abet it, your brutality needs to end, he added.

Photo courtesy: Pixabay
3. Historical cases of wall building shows that they can and do work

Daniel Horowitz of the Conservative Review points to Israels double-layered wall as an example of how the wall on our southern border can be successful. He said, Nowhere is the case for the double-layered security-style fence more compelling than with the Israel security fence. Between 2000 and 2005, suicide bombers infiltrated Israel almost on a daily basis. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed and countless thousands wounded  the equivalent of 42,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands wounded in America if extrapolated from the population size.

The situation was desperate.until they built their security fence, he added. After construction of the fence, a double-layer barrier with a security zone in the middle  similar to the San Diego fence, suicide attacks perpetrated by Arab terrorists declined by well over 90%, the Senior Editor argued.

U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter pointed out the effectiveness of San Deigos double layered border wall as an example of how the U.S.-Mexico wall can work.

He said in an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, One of San Diegos greatest assets is the double-layered border fence that extends inland from the Pacific Ocean. Fencing and infrastructure alone are by no means enough to stop illegal crossings, but the presence of physical impediments at the border, when supported by manpower and technology, create barriers that make entry increasingly more difficult and sometimes impossible.

Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Ilia Yefimovich/Stringer
Over 1,000 teachers and leaders from private Christian schools worldwide are gathering in Texas this week to collaborate and identify innovative ways to address the challenges and opportunities facing their institutions in an increasingly secular world.

Looking to reshape the movement and continue offering distinctive Gospel-centered education, the second-ever Global Christian School Leadership Summit begins Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio.

The three-day gathering is sponsored by eight Christian school associations, which represent over 25,000 Christian schools in 100 countries and serve more than 6 million students. With over 700 attending the first-ever GCSLS in 2017, the biennial event is becoming known as one of the premier networking conferences for Christian-based secondary and primary educators.

"This year's summit we are focusing on innovation," said GCSLS Chair Lynn Swaner, who is also the chief strategy and innovation officer at the Colorado-based evangelical accrediting agency Association of Christian Schools International.

"Our hope is that participants will take away a fresh hope and bright ideas for how to innovate in their settings and also connect with colleagues who are innovating from around the world."

In an interview with The Christian Post, Swaner said the goal is to position Christian schools to "develop the best answers in all of education" in order to address the changes that have emerged in the education field over the last several decades and also figure out ways to incorporate the latest technology in truly meaningful and efficient ways in the classroom.

"As believers, what we have to offer should be the most innovative and the best of what is out there," Swaner told CP. "If you think about Daniel in Babylon or Joseph in Egypt, those are men of faith. They knew and obeyed God but they were also highly competent Spirit-led leaders who impacted their society for the good of all. As they were doing that, God's name was glorified."

One area of focus for the summit will be technology and how Christian schools can equip and use various forms of technology appropriately. One presenter during a technology work session will be Mitch Salerno, the headmaster of Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, California.

According to Swaner, his school was the first in the nation to be an iPad demonstration school.

"One of the trends that I am seeing is that schools everywhere have been fairly quick to try to invest in technology and have that available to their students or they want to have a one-to-one policy," Swaner explained. "They want to enable students to have the technology in their hands. Now that technology is ubiquitous, I think we are able to really ask some of the deeper questions about how we are able to not just physically have technology in the classroom but how do we use it in authentic ways to deepen and improve students' learning and to make teaching more effective."

Many Christian schools are asking questions about what kind of policies they should be putting in place and how they can help teachers best navigate the use of technology in the classroom, according to Swaner.

The summit will also feature a panel on hybrid and online learning.

"Many of our Christian schools are beginning to offer classes or entire programs online," Swaner said. "That will be a panel that will be talking about best practice in that area."

Another trend occurring in Christian schools, Swaner explained, is the desire to make their institutions more culturally diverse.

Walter Strickland, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, will present on how to move beyond secular solutions and apply a biblical worldview so schools can become agents of reconciliation.

The summit will also feature a discussion touching on how schools can grow their diversity programs. Swaner said she is seeing more Christian schools launching special programs or hiring specialists to help foster greater cultural diversity.

"That is really a trend in Christian schools that I have seen over the past few years, just the development of specific programs or hiring of specific staff to actually create a community that welcomes diversity, that welcomes the tough conversations that come around living in community," Swaner detailed. "That is definitely a trend and we will have quite a few of those folks at the summit."

Helping Christian schools serve those in their communities that have special learning needs, whether they are academic, mental or emotional, is another issue that will be addressed.

According to Swaner, a family with three kids is likely to have at least one child with some sort of special need. The need for "inclusive education" is seen throughout the education field in both the public and private school setting.

"We are seeing more students with learning needs who are coming to our schools," she said. "That is not a trend that is unique to Christian schools but that certainly something that our schools are recognizing that they want to be able to serve their communities well."

As with other private and even public schools, many Christian schools are facing budgetary and financing issues. Swaner stressed that these issues might stem from things like demographic changes or resurges and declines in elementary school children in certain parts of the country.

"Schools everywhere are learning on the fly how to become leaner, more focused, more efficient and at the same time having to invest in things like new technology and good salaries. I think that is the challenge that schools everywhere are really struggling with."

The GSCLS is sponsored by the Association of Christian Schools International, Association of Christian Teachers and Schools, the Council on Education Standards & Accountability, Christian Schools Australia, National Christian School Association, Christian Schools International, International Christian Accrediting Association and the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools.

The summit will also feature a presentation from Beth Green, a senior fellow at the Canadian think tank Cardus. Cardus puts out an education survey about every two years that focuses on the impact that Christian school graduates have made on their communities in both the U.S. and Canada. Green will share some initial insights from the unreleased 2018 survey.

"Previous generations of the Cardus Education Survey have demonstrated clearly that in comparison with their counterparts in publicly-funded schools, Christian school graduates have things like stronger families and are more involved with their communities," Swaner recalled.

Courtesy of The Christian Post
Measles outbreak is now a state emergency; Many local kids are not protected against the virus
When to take down Christmas decorations is something thats always been up for debate. Most people nowadays though believe that they should not be left up past the first week of January but Queen Elizabeth II actually keeps hers up much longer.

More than a month after celebrating the holiday the Christmas decorations at the royal familys Sandringham estate are still up and theres a reason for that. Heres why they have not been taken down yet and when staffers will have the green light to get started on that.

When the decorations are put up

The Sandringham estate sits on 20,000 acres of land is located in Norfolk about 100 miles outside of London. Because of Queen Elizabeths love for dogs and horses, the Sandringham property is known for both its dog and horse breeding programs.

Each year, the queen travels there by train a few days before the holiday. The rest of the family including Prince Charles, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle meet her there on Christmas Eve, which is when they open their presents.

Upon Her Majestys arrival, the home is already decorated for the festive season but while some royal residences are decked out with 20ft trees and twinkling lights everywhere, the Christmas decorations there are much more subtle.

When the decorations will be taken down

Although some people actually think its bad luck to leave Christmas decorations up for too long, Queen Elizabeth certainly doesnt believe in those superstitions as hers remain up into February. Yes, you read that correctly.

So why does she choose to keep them up for that long?

The reason they stay up till then

The reason the decorations are left up until early February is because the queens father, King George VI, died at the Sandringham estate on Feb. 6, 1952. The king passed away in his sleep at the age of 56.

At the time his death Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, were on a tour in Kenya. When they were told the news the pair returned to England and Princess Elizabeth flew back home as Queen Elizabeth.

The kings death hit his daughter hard but she explained that she was thankful he passed away peacefully in his sleep and that her mother and sister really helped her during the grieving process. My mother and sister have been wonderful, for they have lost so much  I do have my own family to help me, she said.

Since King Georges passing, the royals have spent many holidays at the Sandringham house and the queen stays there for several weeks after the rest of the family goes home to mark the anniversary of her fathers death in private. Once she leaves, the Christmas decorations come down.

Read more: How Many Children Do Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip Have and How Old Are They?

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It seems like everyone these days is on social media. Influencers, teens, adults, bloggers, celebrities even animals have impressive followings. So why cant members of the royal family join the 21st century and maintain their own Twitter accounts?

Theres a good reason why royal family members arent permitted to have social media accounts  plus why there are some notable exceptions to this rule. Read on to find out which princess has an Instagram and isnt afraid who knows about it.

Do any royals have social media accounts?

First, a disclaimer: the British royal family adheres to certain rules that other countries dont follow. Princess Olympia of Greece has a public Instagram. So does Princess Madeleine of Sweden (shes the one Queen Elizabeth once wanted to set up with her grandson, Prince William).

But when it comes to British royalty, those accounts arent nearly so numerous. Most royal social updates come through one of three social media accounts which cover all royal happenings: @TheRoyalFamily, @ClarenceHouse (for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall) and @KensingtonRoyal (for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge plus the Duke and Duchess of Sussex). These accounts are not run by the royals themselves, so youd never find any selfies of Meghan Markle making an egg white omelet, for example. But theyre better than nothing.

Which royal family member does post updates on social media? Princess Eugenie (Prince Andrews daughter, Queen Elizabeths granddaughter) has an Instagram account. Shes allowed to have one since shes not technically a working royal; Princess Eugenie doesnt make appearances on behalf of the royal family. Therefore, shes permitted to have her own Instagram and post whatever she wants. Her sister Princess Beatrice has a Twitter account and does the same.

Why cant working royals have social media accounts?

The biggest reason royal family members like Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle cant have their own social media accounts is simple: its all about image.

Royal family members cant make any public declarations of political affiliations, either. The royal family has a strictly imposed set of rules that dates back centuries and is unlikely to change their policy anytime soon. Even though Meghan Markle was active on social media before marrying Prince Harry, she deleted her account one month before their wedding and hasnt looked back. Shes also gone quiet on social issues she used to speak out about.

Do royal family members wish they were on social media?

But theres another factor at play: many royal family members dont even want social media accounts. With so much of their lives available for public consumption, the break from sharing every tidbit probably comes as a small relief. Kate Middleton spoke with students about the harmful effects of social media and how it can cause depression or even become addictive. The Duchess of Cambridge made it clear during her talk that she didnt feel deprived by not having social media accounts.

There is some speculation that the royal family members may have secret, private accounts out there. But for anyone whos not a member of the inner circle, we likely wont find out about them anytime soon.
Rehab addicts have a new show to add to their watchlist. On HGTVs Windy City Rehab, Alison Victoria restores vintage homes in historic Chicago neighborhoods. Heres what you need to know about Victoria and her plans to revitalize old houses in Americas third-largest city.

HGTV viewers will recognize Victoria

If youre a regular HGTV viewer, youll recognize Victoria as the host of Kitchen Crashers. While that show focused on rehabbing kitchens, Windy City Rehab takes things to a whole new level. Viewers follow along as Victoria and her team complete top-to-bottom fixes of homes in Chicago neighborhoods like Bucktown, Lincoln Square, and Ukrainian Village.

Victoria  whose real name is Alison Victoria Gramenos  is a native of Chicago. Shes said its her dream to renovate homes in the city. But working there comes with certain challenges, like brutal winters, permit delays, and tough real estate market.

Its my dream to flip houses in my hometown of Chicago, she told HGTV, but renovating homes in this price point leaves a ton of money on the line. These are high-stakes projects that could spiral out of control at any minute. Its big risks and big rewards.

She owns her own interior design firm

Victoria owns her own interior design firm, Alison Victoria Interiors, which has offices in both Chicago and Las Vegas. Victoria graduated from the University of Nevada Las Vegas and still splits her time between that city and her hometown. Projects shes worked on include the Trump Hotel Chicago and Silverton Hotel and Casino Las Vegas.

On the show, Victoria makes a point of using period-appropriate details in the homes shes rehabbing. I find artifacts from the original time and bring them into the build, make them look like theyve been there for over 100 years, she told the Los Angeles Times.

Shes clashed with the neighbors

Not everyone is thrilled when Victoria shows up to renovate a home on their block. The people living next door to one of her rehabs objected to the size of an addition that was being put on the home, which they told Block Club Chicago was ruining the character of the block. They also complained the crew created hazardous conditions when working on the home, the Chicago Tribune reported.

For her part, Victoria says her goal is not just to be another developer who is more focused on profit than the character of a neighborhood. Shes said the renovation of her own home in the Bucktown neighborhood reflects her commitment to preserving the citys unique architectural character.

(People stop) to take pictures of the house because I was able to bring the beauty back, and I knew I wanted to do that forever, she told the Tribune. I wanted to be able to put my stamp on the city because so many other developers were just building things that werent being true to what the citys known for, and every single home that were doing is achieving just that.

Windy City Rehab airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on HGTV.
Teen Mom was an MTV reality television series that first aired in 2009. It has since had multiple spin-offs and has been host to some interesting characters. While teenage pregnancies are difficult situations, many of these women had even more serious things going on in their lives. Fans everywhere can agree that some (not all) of the moms who starred on the show were not fit to be parents, regardless of their age.

These young moms got into a lot of trouble  some of which was caught on camera, some of which occurred later. But which of the many young ladies have gotten in the most trouble?

Jenelle Evans for the win

Jenelle Evans wins the title of Teen Mom in the most trouble. Evans appeared on Teen Mom 2 between the years of 2011 and 2017. Although the 27-year-old is now married to David Eason, with whom she has one child, she was previously (during the show) married to Courtland Rogers. Evans also has a child with her ex-husband.

Although Evans may have cleaned up since her last arrest was in 2015, she has a rap record including an incredible fifteen incidents. Most of them werent simple charges, either. The first, for example, was a breaking and entering charge where Evans was also charged with drug possession. This took place in North Carolina in October 2010.

In March of 2012, Evans was arrested for an outstanding warrant revolving around cyberstalking. Then, in August of 2013, Evans had a bunch of charges laid against her. It included possession of heroin, possession of drug paraphernalia, and simple assault. Her last known arrest was for driving without a license in February of 2015.

Amber Portwood

Amber Portwood appeared on both 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. Portwood has two children. The first, Leah, she had when she was eighteen  which is how she ended up on the shows in the first place. It was an incident with Leahs father that led to Portwoods biggest legal issues. Her second child, James, as born in 2018 post-prison.

Although Portwood hasnt been arrested as many times as Evans has, her crimes are much more serious. While still on the show (and with the camera crew filming) Portwood and her boyfriend of the time, Gary Shirley, were involved in an incredibly violent domestic violence incident. Portwood was the main aggressor in the situation, although neither was innocent by any means.

With the whole thing on tape, Portwood pled guilty to her charges, which included two felony counts of domestic assault, one felony count of neglect of a dependent, and one misdemeanor domestic assault. Although originally offered drug rehabilitation in lieu of prison, Portwood chose prison.

In 2011, Portwood violated her parole but did not have to return to prison. When she violated parole for a second time in 2012, however, she was sentenced to two additional years. Also, Amber Portwood and her previous boyfriend, Gary Shirley are not allowed to be around one another when their daughter is present.

Farrah Abraham

While Farrah Abraham can only be confirmed to have been arrested once, she is worth mentioning on this short-list because of the many, many other troubles she has caused. As for the arrest, Abraham received a DUI in Omaha, Nebraska in March of 2013.

As for the rest of her troubles, well, lets just say she is one of the least liked Teen Moms in a cast full of catty women. Abraham has also come under fire for her parenting (or lack of). This includes giving her daughter detox tea, allowing her daughter to snap chat with total strangers, and giving her young child the power to hire or fire people at will.
Meghan Markle may have just married into the British Royal Family, but the Duchess of Sussex has come through like a hurricane. Sharp and dedicated, Markle has worked tirelessly to carve out a path for herself as a royal. From honing in on her royal patronages to speaking to and connecting with various charities, the pregnant duchess hasnt missed a beat.

Unfortunately, Markles determination to put her best foot forward in her new life hasnt always been seen as a positive thing. This is why shes being called too independent.

Why is Meghan Markle being called too independent?

Though she was a famous actress who was used to the public spotlight, being a royal brings very different pressures. An insider told the Daily Mail, Even though [Meghan] was a famous actress, she could still do what she wanted in the way of getting around freely, But in her current role she cant go anywhere without her protection team, and thats a massive constraining force on an individual like her.

Duncan Larcombe, who covered the royal family for Londons The Sun explained, As an actress, Meghan expects perfection, But when youre in the royal family, you have to learn that its not about you, its about what you represent.

Is Meghan Markle feuding with her royal staff?

In the short time Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been married, several of their royal staff members have resigned. Unfortunately, many people are blaming Markle for the mass exodus. Daily Mail reported, It is said palace staff have never experienced anything remotely like Meghans formidable work ethic, matched only by the incessant stream of ideas about how to shape her role. Though the aides see her enthusiasm as well-meaning, her up and at em West Coast energy is an uncomfortable fit with the more formal ethos of some of the palace staff.

Is Prince Harry stressed?

With his wife having some struggles adjusting to her life in the British Royal Family, Prince Harry is doing his best to ease her concerns. However, the change has also caused a great deal of strain on the typically easy-going redhead. Larcombe told Page Six, Harry wants to be protective of Meghan. If shes getting frustrated and stressed, he is the one reading the riot act to the staff and doing the demanding on her behalf. But you cant blame Meghan, shes gone into her biggest role yet and shes put her heart and soul into it. Yes, she is firing off e-mails to staff at 5 a.m., but shes super-keen and Harry is taking his lead from her. He is under a lot of pressure behind the scenes.

Luckily, with a new baby on the way, news about Markles independence or Prince Harrys bouts of frustration will soon be a think of the past. Change can be extremely stressful, but focusing on their baby will make all of the dukes and duchess current irritations seem insignificant.
Watching The Office can do even more than tickle your funny bone. Week after week Michael Scott and the Dunder Mifflin crew entertained scores of people, featuring the beloved characters adventures and misadventures.

While millions tuned in for a good 30-minute laugh-fest, recent news showed that The Office also delivered some useful messages. Most messages were delivered with considerable humor but resonated throughout the years. Here are five ways the show taught us some very important health lessons and even helped to save a life.

Own up to head lice

Nobody wants to fess up to giving someone lice, but when you have small children, it can be a fact of life. Lice is so common, up to 12 million children get the nuisance scalp issue, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Although it is common, Pam should have come clean that CeCe was the one who transmitted it to her, which then spread to the entire office. Instead of owning up to the outbreak, Pam let everyone in the office think Meredith was the culprit. As a result, Meredith ends up shaving her head to stop the lice from spreading. Eventually, Pam is outed and Meredith was bald.

Obviously, shaving your head if you get lice is not the answer. The CDC recommends washing all fabrics you come into contact with and using special shampoos to remove the little offenders.

Visit your dermatologist

Michael Scotts birthday is a huge deal. So much, that he cant help being annoyed that Kevin is more focused on his skin cancer test results on Michaels big day. In fact, no one but Dwight is concerned with Michaels birthday and instead worried about Kevin.

When Kevin finally learns his the skin cancer test was negative, he is thrilled, but Michael is upset. Michael thinks negative means Kevin has skin cancer. It is a good idea to visit your dermatologist every year. More than 5.4 million nonmelanoma cases are detected each year and skin cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers.

Look for personality changes after a head injury

When Michael burns his foot on his George Forman grill it was Dwight to the rescue in his carwhich he crashes into a pole. Worried about his head injury, the rest of the office tends to Dwight and not Michael. As Michael scrambles to prove to his co-workers that his injury is just as serious, Pam notices a huge personality change in Dwight. Instead of being condescending and grumpy, Dwight is delightful and sweet. Very un-Dwight like. Eventually, Dwight goes to the hospital and Pam is sad. She knows Dwight will transform back into a grump when his head concussion is resolved.

The Office makes a good point about blunt force trauma. In addition to personality changes, you can also experience memory problems, dizziness, and vomit, according to the Mayo Clinic. Behavior changes, like what Dwight experienced, require immediate medical attention.

Dont worry about being a little stitious

Sometimes you should listen to your gut, especially when things go so wrong. During one episode of The Office, Michael hits Meredith with his car, Pam gets a computer virus, and Angelas cat dies. Thankfully, Michael takes Meredith to the hospital as they learn not only is her pelvis fractured, she has rabies too. At this point, Michael thinks the office is cursed even though he claims to not be superstitious (only a little stituous).

The episode ends with Michael too in the hospital due to dehydration, so it is always good to get medical treatment. In addition to broken bones, rabies can be deadly. Although rare, rabies can be a fatal disease if left untreated, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Remember to sing Staying Alive

After Stanley has a heart attack, Michael suggests that everyone learn CPR. The episode results in a power struggle between Dwight and Michael, but one Arizona man learned something. When Michael was giving the dummy CPR he chanted the Bee Gees song Staying Alive. The catchy tune remained in Cross Scotts head and it probably saved another motorists life, the Arizona Daily Star reports.

Scott never performed CPR in his life but saw an unconscious motorist. Two other drivers came to the scene and called 911. Meanwhile, Scott smashed the unconscious motorists window and performed CPR on her until help arrived. He recalled The Office episode and the tune Michael used to perform it on the practice dummy. Scott sang along as he performed CPR on the unconscious woman.

Once medics arrived, the woman started breathing. The Arizona Daily Star reports the woman was shortly released from the hospital. If you dont do CPR, that victim will die, Courtney Slanaker, executive director of the Red Cross Southern Arizona chapter said. Dont be afraid to act. Whatever you do will help that victim and hopefully prevent a death.

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Lee University will host approximately 160 students, representing 15 high school choirs throughout eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia, to participate in the annual Honor Choir on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 8-9. Over the course of the weekend, students will rehearse a variety of choral works in preparation for their performance on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the Conn Center.

The students, who have been recommended by their high school choral directors, will form three choirs.

There will be Womens Choir, conducted by Dr. William Green, and Mens Choir, conducted by Dr. Joshua Cheney. These two choirs will also combine into a larger, mixed choir.

I'm so thankful that Lee University offers this amazing opportunity for students to come together to experience the joy that is singing in an honor choir, said Tina Holcombe, director of the Hilger Higher Learning Choir and Chattanooga Home School Band. The conductors from Lee are outstanding and so very kind to the students which makes the entire weekend memorable. As a choral music educator, I love for my students to be under the direction of another conductor who will reinforce the concepts of good vocal technique.



The Mens and Womens choirs will each perform three pieces selected by their conductors. The combined choir will perform two additional pieces, one chosen by each conductor.



In addition to the three honor choirs, Lee Universitys Choral Union and Chorale will perform at the Saturday concert. These choirs are the required ensembles for all vocal music majors at Lee, and their performance will showcase the schools accomplishments in choral music.



Dr. Green serves as the dean of the Lee University School of Music, where he oversees a variety of graduate and undergraduate music programs. He conducts the Festival Choir and Chorale, as well as teaching graduate conducting. Dr. Green is currently active as a guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician. He has worked with choirs nationally and internationally, most recently in Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and South Carolina.



Dr. Cheney is an assistant professor of choral music at Lee University. He teaches conducting, choral rehearsal techniques, and choral literature and manages the graduate choral conducting program. In addition to teaching, Dr. Cheney conducts Choral Union and the new Mens Choir. Cheney is currently a member of the Atlanta-based professional choral ensemble, Coro Vocati.



Saturdays concert will be free, non-ticketed, and open to the public.



For more information, contact LuAnn Holden by phone at 423 614-8259 or by email at lholden@leeuniversity.edu.


The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld two death sentences for the man who murdered two people in their home in Bartlett, Tn, in 2003.







Henry Lee Jones appealed his convictions and sentences after a jury found him guilty of the premeditated murder of both victims, Clarence and Lillian James. This trial was the second time Jones had been tried for these murders, after his original convictions were reversed and the case was remanded for a new trial. At the conclusion of the penalty phase in his second trial, the jury again sentenced Jones to death on the first degree murder convictions. The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the convictions and sentences on appeal.

The Supreme Court, which is required to review all death penalty cases, also considered other issues on appeal, including whether the defendant was unconstitutionally denied the right to counsel, whether the trial court properly admitted the former testimony of a witness upon a determination that the witness was unavailable, whether the evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to convict the defendant, and whether the trial court erred when it denied the appointment of a mitigation expert. The Court also conducted a required review of Jones death sentences.

The Court held that the trial court did not err in denying the defendants motion for mistrial based upon Jones own ineffectiveness in representing himself or in denying Jones motion to appoint a second attorney. Furthermore, the Court found no error on the part of the trial court on a number of evidentiary issues raised by Jones. Next, the Supreme Court determined that the evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to support Jones convictions for the premeditated murder of both victims.

Under the Courts mandatory review of Jones death sentences, the Court determined that the evidence presented by the State supported all of the aggravating circumstances applied by the jury. Additionally, given that Jones waived any presentation of mitigating circumstances, the Court agreed with the jury that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstance in this case. Finally, the Court determined that the death sentences were not disproportionate to sentences imposed in other similar cases.





Oral arguments for this case were heard as part of the Courts S.C.A.L.E.S. (Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students) project at Lipscomb University during the American Legion Auxiliary Volunteer Girls State program. To read the majority opinion in State of Tennessee v. Henry Lee Jones , authored by Chief Justice Jeff Bivins, and the concurring opinion by Justice Sharon G. Lee, go to the opinions section of TNCourts.gov . In her concurring opinion, Justice Sharon G. Lee agreed with the Courts outcome, but stated she believed that when reviewing whether a death sentence is disproportionate to similar cases, the Court should not limit its review solely to cases in which the death penalty was imposed, but should review all first degree murder cases in which life imprisonment or a sentence of death was imposed. Using that analysis, she also concluded that the defendants sentence of death was not excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.
Senator Lamar Alexander on Wednesday cosponsored a bill to restore congressional approval of tariffs for national security reasons.

Senator Alexander said, Tariffs are the constitutional responsibility of Congress. If a president decides that tariffs are necessary for national security reasons, this legislation requires Congress to approve that decision within 60 days.

In general, steel and aluminum tariffs put in place for national security purposes are a big mistake. No state is likely to be more damaged by these tariffs than Tennessee, because in many ways we are the nations number one auto state. One third of the manufacturing jobs in Tennessee are auto jobs. We have more than 890 automotive suppliersalmost all of which use aluminum and steelin 88 of our 95 counties.

Just last year, the largest employer in Springfield, Tn.Electrolux, which makes home appliancesput a $250 million expansion on hold. Electrolux buys all of its steel from U.S. suppliers, but, of course, when you raise the price on imported steel, the price of U.S. steel also goes up, and Electrolux concluded that it could not be competitive in the U.S. market with these higher prices. Now, if we were moving toward a policy of reciprocitydo for us what we do for youthere would be zero tariffs, and the people of Springfield would have a $250 million plant expansion and the jobs that come with it instead of a 25 percent tax on the U.S. steel that Electrolux buys.

Senator Alexander cosponsored legislation introduced by Senators Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) that would require congressional approval of tariffs proposed by the president under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to address threats to national security.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress authority to regulate trade with foreign nations and to impose tariffs. In 1962, Congress delegated some of this authority to the Executive Branch. This legislation restores Congresss ability to approve certain tariffs if the president believes they are necessary.
Local thoracic surgeon Dr. Rob Headrick was recognized with the Key Contact of the Year award earlier this week at the Society of Thoracic Surgeons 55th annual meeting.



It is a great honor to receive this award and recognition, said Dr. Headrick. Im very passionate about advocating for funding and research to help people within our reach beat lung cancer.



"The annual meeting, which took place Jan. 27-29 in San Diego, is the preeminent educational event in cardiothoracic surgery," officials said. "The meeting provides an excellent networking opportunity within the medical profession, but also includes hands-on sessions and venues to view the latest products and services promoting thoracic surgery.



"The STS Key Contact program engages physician champions with members of the congress and senate to find solutions to health care issues affecting the specialty and the patients it serves. Each year the STS recognizes one of its members who have made an impact not only in Washington, but at a state level."

This year we were advocating for more research dollars to be spent on understanding the relationship between female gender and their increased risk for lung cancer. Through this process, Congressman Fleischmann became an important cosponsor of the bill, said Dr. Headrick. Meeting with members of Tennessees delegation gave me the opportunity to share the compelling stats about lung cancer across our state. Tennessee is literally ground zero for lung cancer among smokers and non-smokers alike. There are tremendous opportunities to promote lung cancer awareness. Im committed to making a difference in the number survivors of this disease. Lung cancer can be cured if we can catch it in its earliest stages. My message to our delegation remains the same today as it was during my visit to DC: lung screening saves lives. Now lets find a way to provide them throughout every region of our state and our nation.



Dr. Headrick is a local thoracic surgeon who leads a team responsible for providing care throughout the region. He also serves as assistant professor of surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga. In this capacity, Dr, Headrick is responsible for resident education in thoracic surgery; designs and implements clinical rotation for fourth year general surgery residents; supports didactic conferences and research projects; and mentors residents planning to pursue a thoracic surgery fellowship. He was awarded the Health Policy and Leadership Scholarship ACS/STS in 2017, the UTCOM Resident Teaching Award in 2014 and the STSA Physician Inspiration Award in 2013.



Dr. Headrick earned his MBA from the University of Tennessee; completed his thoracic surgery residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, completed his general surgery residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, earned his MD From the University of Tennessee College of Medicine and earned a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University.
Kicking off the 2019 season, Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga will present the musical "Side Show" by Bill Russell and Henry Krieger.

Side Show was a cult favorite, though short lived, musical from the 1996 season on Broadway. It follows the lives and loves of the famous Siamese Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The Hilton Twins, conjoined only by a link of flesh near the hips, were staples of the Side Show Circuit in Europe, Australia and America from their childhood. Their talents, along with several manipulative managers and wards, propelled them from the side show into vaudeville and then eventually into motion pictures. The musical, Side Show, takes a biographical perspective of the sisters rise to fame.



On the surface, this is a simple show about the complex lives of these two women. But theres a deeper message that is explored within the show that specifically appealed to me, said show director Garry Lee Posey. As a society, there is a tendency to marginalize and push people to the fringe for one reason or another. I think its deeper than gender, race and sexual identity. It is almost as if everyone is a freak to someone, freakishly attractive or freakishly devout or freakishly loyal, and so on.

"While the setting of the musical starts in the tents of the side show, we start to see how the sisters found ways, though not always easy, to assimilate into a society that wasnt always welcoming.



I watched a documentary about the sisters, called 'Bound By the Flesh,' and at the end of the documentary it described the last few years of Daisys and Violets lives. The tragic ending of their story, which isnt really touched upon in text of the musical, I found to be both heartbreaking and inspiring.

"The last manager of the twins booked them on a gig in North Carolina, an appearance and autograph signing at a screening of their film 'Freaks.' He abandoned them, penniless. They managed to find a job at a local supermarket in North Carolina where they continued to be an attraction for the locals, sharing their stories while weighing produce. While both succumbed to a serious flu epidemic, Daisy died a couple of days before Violet. After not showing up to work, the police were summoned and discovered the twins dead.

Imagining those hours of sitting alone, not able to move, sick with the flu and mourning the death of your conjoined twin, had a powerful impact on me and gave new meaning to the shows final number.



As with most of their work, ETC has added its unique brand of storytelling to this production. It will be the largest production we have attempted to date, said Senior Producer Casey Keelen. "With over 20 in the cast and an orchestra of 11, ETC is hoping to continue raising the bar for live theatrical experiences in the Chattanooga area. We have made a commitment to contributing and enhancing the cultural landscape in Chattanooga, we want to continue making good on that commitment.



"Side Show" will play for six performances at the Barking Legs Theatre, 1307 Dodds Ave. in Chattanooga, opening Friday, Feb. 8 and closing Saturday, Feb. 16. Performance times are Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 10 at 2:30 p.m., Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices are general admission tickets are $20, senior citizen tickets are $17 and student tickets are $17 and can be found online at www.ensembletheatreofchattanooga.com, by calling 423-987-5141 or by visiting their Facebook page. The show carries a PG-13 rating.

The show is directed and production designed by Garry Lee Posey, with music direction by Terry Sanford, choreography by Maggie Williams and is stage managed by Joel Sanchez.


This years State of Tobacco Control report from the American Lung Association finds Tennessee earned failing grades on its efforts to reduce and prevent tobacco use. The American Lung Association calls on Tennessee officials to restore funding for statewide tobacco control programs in order to save lives.



"The need for Tennessee to take action to protect youth from tobacco is more urgent than ever, with youth e-cigarette use reaching epidemic levels due to a 78 percent increase in high school e-cigarette use from 2017 to 2018, according to results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)s 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey," officials said. "This equals one million additional kids beginning to use e-cigarettes, placing their developing bodies and lungs at risk from the chemicals in e-cigarettes as well as a lifetime of addiction to a deadly product. This has caused the U.S. Surgeon General to declare e-cigarette use among young people an epidemic in an Advisory issued in December 2018."



In Tennessee, our smoking rates remain at 22.6 percent. Tobacco use is a serious addiction and we need to invest in the proven measures to prevent and reduce tobacco use outlined in State of Tobacco Control," said American Lung Association Advocacy Director Shannon Baker. The report provides a roadmap on how to save lives, but much work remains to be done in communities across Tennessee to prevent and reduce tobacco use.



The 17th annual State of Tobacco Control report grades states and the federal government on policies proven to prevent and reduce tobacco use, and finds that elected officials must do more to save lives and ensure all Tennessee residents benefit from reductions in tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke:



 Funding for State Tobacco Prevention Programs  Grade F

 Strength of Smokefree Workplace Laws - Grade D

 Level of State Tobacco Taxes - Grade F

 Coverage and Access to Services to Quit Tobacco - Grade F

 Minimum Age of Sale for Tobacco Products to 21  Grade F



The American Lung Association encourages Tennessee to restore and fully fund tobacco control efforts at levels recommended by the CDC.



"If Tennessee would restore funding for tobacco control programs, they would have a powerful opportunity to help further reduce and prevent tobacco use, including supporting communities that still use tobacco at higher rates and who have been targeted by the tobacco industry," officials said. "An investment in prevention is especially important given the skyrocketing number of youth who are using e-cigarettes. Despite Tennessee receiving $422,000,000 from tobacco settlement payments and tobacco taxes, the state does not fund tobacco control efforts at levels recommended by the CDC."



This year marks the 20th anniversary of the largest legal settlement in U.S. history  the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Tennessee receives millions of dollars every year from this settlement, and we believe the funds should be used to support the health of our communities, and to help smokers quit and prevent tobacco use, said Ms. Baker.



'State of Tobacco Control' 2019 provides a blueprint that states and the federal government can follow to put in place proven policies that will have the greatest impact on reducing tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke in the U.S.," officials said. "The real question is: Will lawmakers in Tennessee end their failure to act and take this opportunity to achieve lasting reductions in tobacco-related death and disease?


Chattanoogas first and largest plastic surgery group marked a new milestone with Dr. Todd Thurston receiving board certification from the American Board of Plastic Surgery. The group is now lead by six board-certified surgeons.

Dr. Thurston joined the group in 2017 and his practice includes cosmetic surgery of the face, breast and body. In addition, he has a special interest in the care of children with cleft and craniomaxillofacial anomalies as well as interests in research and quality improvement initiatives to ensure that patients receive the most appropriate, affordable and highest quality medical care available.



A graduate of the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Dr. Thurston was a co-founder of the Equal Access Clinic, providing indigent care in the Birmingham area. He later completed a residency in integrated plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center and completed a craniomaxillofacial fellowship at The University of Michigan.



Along with his work at the Plastic Surgery Group, Dr. Thurston also serves as the Director of Pediatric Plastic Surgery for Erlanger Childrens Hospital. Dr. Thurston is the regions only craniofacial surgeon.



Dr. Thurston is a member of multiple medical societies including The American Cleft Palate Craniofacial Association and the American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeons. He is published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Laryngoscope and the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery.

Dr. Jason Rehm, The Plastic Surgery Groups Managing Partner said, Wed like to congratulate Dr. Thurston on this well-earned certification by the American Board of Plastic Surgeons. At the Plastic Surgery Group, we emphasize and prize dedication of our medical professionals. Not only does this certification show Dr. Thurstons commitment to the technical mastery of the surgeries he performs, it also shows the discerning aesthetic eye it takes to blend skills. We value the shared commitment to the highest levels of care Dr. Thurston adds to our practice.

Dr. Thurston and his wife reside on Signal Mountain with their three children. In his spare time he enjoys time with his family, sailing, mountain biking and photography.


College recruits do not always drive their cars to campuses they want to visit. In Catoosa County, one group of future talent, not old enough drive, traveled by school bus to tour Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) as part of the Catoosa County School Systems Career Exploration program.

The brand new program, geared towards high school freshman, is in its pilot year at Ringgold High School. More than two dozen ninth-graders from the program took a first-hand look at GNTC Jan. 23. In addition, if the school systems plan continues to grow, these underclassmen wont be the last looking so far into the future, so early in their high school careers.

In Catoosa County Public Schools, we believe we have a responsibility to help students prepare for college and career, said Catoosa County Schools Communications Specialist Marissa Brower. Its more than just walking across a stage to receive a high school diploma these days. Its about what happens tomorrow. So, we need to do our part today to make sure students are prepared to continue their post-secondary education or credentialed to enter a career.

GNTC specialists spoke with the students about their collegiate future during their visit with the regions largest college. Students learned about recruitment, dual enrollment, and future career possibilities available through a GNTC education. The students also took a tour of some of the GNTC Catoosa County Campus facilities during their visit.

This will be the cornerstone for how we market our College and Career Academy to students, said Ms. Brower. Students in the From HERE to CAREER exploration class take the YouScience aptitude and interest assessment to identify careers that are a good fit. The pilot will be refined, and this will be a required class for all ninth graders in the fall. The Catoosa County School system currently works with GNTC through Dual Enrollment. Also, the system will open a College and Career Academy in August 2022. It would be built upon nearly five acres of land donated by the county to the school system in 2018.

Young people need to begin thinking about professional options earlier in their academic careers, said GNTC Associate Vice President of Special Projects Dr. Ginger Mathis. Every student has special skills and abilities that would serve them well in specific fields. This Career Exploration program is a valuable tool that will allow Catoosa County students, at a younger age than usual, to begin considering their strengths and matching them to a potential path in the future. It will also help parents and families to look at things such as dual enrollment which would allow students to get college credit at no cost.

Local entrepreneur Jonathan Connell spoke with the students and administrators before their tours to share his story about coming from Northwest Georgia and finding a career path that not only suited him, but also made him very successful along the way. I learned to live on half of my paycheck at a very young age, Mr. Connell told the students. Doing that, I was able to save enough money to begin my own business and begin my own future. Mr. Connell is a Dade County native and United States Marine Corps veteran who has owned multiple businesses throughout the past two decades. After selling most of them, he is currently the owner of MedSTAT Medical Supply Company; Xenon Group, LLC, Real Estate; and JTalks LLC which provides training, education, and motivational speaking services.
An investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Cumberland County Sheriffs Department, the 13th Judicial District Attorney Generals Office and the Tennessee Highway Patrol has resulted in the arrest of a second person, Doneal Clark, 35, charged in a Cumberland County homicide.

At the request of 13th District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway, on Jan. 19, TBI agents joined investigators from Cumberland County and the District Attorneys Office in investigating a shooting that occurred that night at a home on Cherokee Trail in Crossville.

A resident of the home, Linda Damewood, 74, died as a result of her injuries. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement officers identified Kirk Clark, an acquaintance of the victim, as an individual responsible for her death. He was arrested Jan. 22 and charged with first-degree murder. As the investigation progressed, officers developed information that indicated Clarks wife, Doneal. Clark, was also responsible for the homicide.



On Tuesday, Ms. Clark was arrested and charged with one count of first-degree murder. She was booked into the Cumberland County Jail, and has a $2,000,000 bond.

Two other persons were also shot.
Timeless Jazz, a weekly radio series produced from 1987 to 2002 by jazz journalist and collector Ken Dryden from his personal jazz library, will return to WUTCs broadcast schedule beginning on Sunday, from 3-5 p.m.

Mr. Dryden, who retired after 26 years as the development director for the station in 2015, began collecting jazz recordings as a Tulane undergraduate in 1972. He has been an active jazz journalist for 31 years, having contributed to The New York City Jazz Record, Hot House, AllMusic.com, All Music Guide to Jazz, AllAboutJazz.com, Cadence, Jazz Review, the Chattanooga Times Free Press and other publications.

He has also written liner notes for numerous CDs, including releases by Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Jaki Byard, Gerry Mulligan, Mel Torme, George Shearing, Hal Galper and Ellis Marsalis, among others.

Programs will cover a variety of topics, including surveys of a single artists work with an interview, styles, record labels, individual instruments and more. Some shows may include vintage interviews from past broadcasts, along with some which have never been aired.

Mr. Dryden has also collected many rare, hard-to-find LPs and CDs to share with listeners. The program can be heard in the greater Chattanooga area at 88.1 FM, as a webcast live at WUTC.org , along with a separately scheduled airing on the station's HD2 signal, at a time and day TBA.
The City Council was told Tuesday that three community members helped in the process for selecting a new manager for events at the 21st Century Waterfront.

Bonnie Woodward, city purchasing director, said the city previously did not have a process that allowed such citizen participation, but does now.

She said the community members did not have a vote in the selection.

The city staff recommended that Chattanooga Presents! get the contract in place of Friends of the Festival, which has handled the events for a number of years.

Chip Baker, executive director of Friends of the Festival, said its bid was $55,000. The city staff is recommending that Chattanooga Presents! be paid its bid of $70,000.

Friends of the Festival also operates the Riverbend Festival in early June each year.

The City Council on Feb. 5 is to consider the new contract.

It is a one-year term with the option to renew for two more years.

Carla Pritchard has long headed Chattanooga Presents! Her group handles the Nightfall Concert Series at Miller Plaza as well as Pops on the River.

A Nashville firm also submitted a proposal.

Councilman Chip Henderson asked if all the electrical facilities at the waterfront belong to the city or if some are the property of Friends of the Festival. Travis Kazmierzak, city director of open spaces, said some may belong to Friends of the Festival. However, he said there would be no need for the city to spend more money on electrical equipment.

He said all who took part in the selection process felt Chattanooga Presents! offered "the best value."

Councilman Henderson also asked if any of the community members had divulged any information about the selection process. Officials said they were told that it was a confidential process.
Police Chief David Roddy on Tuesday told members of the City Council that he has taken steps to tighten up on review of officer actions after a case when "it didn't go right."

He referred to an incident last March in which a black man was hit repeatedly by a white city police officer after the man came out of a vehicle and held his arms in the air, then stretched them out on his car. A video from a police camera recently surfaced on the incident.

District Attorney Neal Pinkston has asked the TBI to investigate the incident in which Fredrico Wolfe was struck a number of times. All charges against Wolfe were dismissed.

Chief Roddy said a sergeant has been assigned duties of reviewing video of incidents in use of force cases and in vehicular pursuits.

He said another sergeant has been added to Internal Affairs so the time will be shortened for carrying out officer investigations.

Chief Roddy also said he is open to ideas from the City Council and others on improving the Administrative Review Committee that was set up during the administration of Chief Jimmy Dotson.

He said the department is one of a small number of police forces with such a review panel. He said, "We're doing it. We just need to do it better."

The chief said some of the same members have been on the panel for a lengthy time and there may need to be a term limit set.

Asked about diversity and inclusion, he listed a number of programs officers are involved in. He also said minority hiring is up.

He said, "Our credibility has taken a hit, but it does not mean that we are not making this a priority."

Chief Roddy said he believes the department has a good matrix set up that charts actions of misbehaving officers and that can lead to their termination.

He said when an outside agency is assigned a probe of a city officer, then his department has to drop its own investigation.

Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod said she believes the review agency ought to be more independent of the police department.

Councilman Darrin Ledford said, "I am encouraged by what we've heard at this table. I think we have better days ahead of us."

Councilman Chip Henderson, who heads the council's public safety committee, said making improvements in curbing the actions of rogue officers will be a continuing process. He said there will be another meeting with Chief Roddy soon.

He opened the meeting by saying, "We need a professional approach, not an activist approach. This is not a Get Chief Roddy meeting."
David M. Harrison, hearing loss support specialist, will be presenting a free workshop on dealing with hearing loss among seniors on Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 1 p.m. in the theater of the Ashwood Square Retirement Community, 7683 Shallowford Road in Chattanooga.

"One out of every three seniors over 65 years old suffers from hearing loss or tinnitus," organizers said. "Untreated hearing loss can lead to depression, maybe misinterpreted as being uncooperative, confused and unresponsive, because they do not hear well.



"A number of seniors have hearing aids and still have trouble comprehending speech. We will offer solutions that will be beneficial for all hard of hearing."



Although there is no cost for the workshop, an RSVP is required in order to know how many are coming. To make a reservation, call 423-308-6899.



This workshop will be hearing accessible with an FM hearing device for the hard of hearing. The entire workshop will be captioned for the deaf and the hard of hearing. The public is welcome to attend.
Roxanne Anderson Venable, 64, went home to be with her Lord early Sunday morning, January 27, 2019.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Roxanne was an avid organizer of backyard theater and a graduate of Banks High School. Upon receiving her bachelors degree from Auburn University in Journalism and English, she moved to Switzerland where she served as a Journeyman with the Southern Baptist Mission Board. After two years of writing letters to Robert (Bob) Venable, Jr., whom she had met at Auburn, she returned to the States and became a reporter with the Opelika Auburn News.

A few years later, she and Bob married, and she spent the next 37 years in her favorite vocation: wife, homemaker, and mother of three wonderful children. She fought a valiant fight against Breast Cancer for 17 years and never complained once.

She filled her life with service, volunteering as a member of the Junior League of Chattanooga, Memorial Hospital Auxiliary (earning her 500 hour pin!), and the Friends of Cloudland Canyon Georgia State Park. She was active in several congregations during her life - South Roebuck Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, First Presbyterian Church and Calvary Chapel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Grace Community Church in Trenton, Georgia.

She delighted in having native flowers in tiny vases on every windowsill, the songs of frogs at dusk, collecting rocks on favorite hikes, and dancing whenever she had the chance.

Together with a vast community of friends and neighbors, the family remembers Roxanne for her courage in the face of profound challenges, her tremendous kindness, her steadfast companionship, and her infectious and vivacious love of life.

She is survived by her husband, Bob Venable, Jr; children, Laura Ruth Venable, Joseph (Susanna) Venable, and Marianne (James) Dillon; as well as her father, Roy Anderson; sisters, Rachel Anderson Harden and April (Johnny Blue) Craig, and beloved granddaughter Davey Jean Venable (Joseph and Susanna).

Her family is grateful for the many nurses and doctors at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga and in Fort Oglethorpe, and Hearth Hospice as well as all those who supported along the way with homemade meals, cards, prayers, and love.

A Celebration of Life Service will be held on Thursday, Jan. 31, at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 535 McCallie Ave., Chattanooga, Tn. 37402. A visitation at the church will be held from 10 a.m. until the hour of the service. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Helen Ross McNabb Center, https://www.mcnabbcenter.org/ or to Friends of Cloudland Canyon State Park, https://www.friendsofcloudlandcanyon.org/

You may visit www.heritagechattanooga.com to view the memorial tribute and also share special memories of Roxanne with her family.



The family will receive friends on Wednesday, Jan. 30, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Heritage Funeral Home, 7454 E. Brainerd Road, Chattanooga, Tn. 37421.


CMA agrees wage pact with unions

30 January 2019

Members of the Cement Manufacturers' Association (CMA) of India and the federation of major trade unions have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a wage pact that could raise gross pay, dearness allowance and service weightage.



Some 21 cement companies in India accounting for 60 per cent of the cement capacity authorised the CMA to negotiate with the trade unions on their behalf. The current MoU from 1 April 2018 -31 March 2022 allows INR5000/month (US$70.22) gross pay of cement employees (paid in two instalments).

Published under
Pakistan's cement sector contracts by 1% in 1QFY19

30 January 2019

The State Bank of Pakistan on Tuesday released its first quarterly report on the State of Pakistans economy for FY19. According to the report, the overall macroeconomic environment remained challenging during the first quarter of FY19 as suggested by the preliminary data. It pointed out that the 6.2 per cent target for real GDP growth seems unachievable with the policy focus now tilted towards macroeconomic stabilisation.



The cement sector's output contracted by 1.4 per cent in 1QFY19 against a sizeable growth of 12.4 per cent during the same period last year. The decline came despite the fact that the sector's capacity grew from 49.4Mta to 54.2Mta during the review period. A slowdown in cement dispatches in the midst of capacity enhancements led to a four per cent drop in capacity utilisation to 80 per cent in 1QFY19.



For the last few years, robust domestic demand had helped cement manufacturers increase their capacity utilisation significantly, thereby ensuring healthy margins for the cement industry. However, in 1QFY19, the domestic sales witnessed a decline of 0.4 per cent on a YoY basis, putting considerable pressure on the utilisation levels.



Encouragingly, however, exports grew remarkably, as they did in previous expansionary phases as well. In volume terms, the manufacturers exported 39.1 per cent more cement during 1QFY19, which was in stark contrast to the last year's decline of 16.7 per cent.



Cement exports surged 58.6 per cent YoY to US$77.6m. With additional capacity coming online in the south in 2HFY18, firms in the region have been aggressively marketing to foreign buyers. That said, initial customs data as well as market intelligence suggests that clinkers, instead of finished (Portland) cement, drove the volume increase in exports in 1QFY19. Pakistani firms are said to be more price-competitive in clinker production instead of cement, and are exporting clinker to countries such as Bangladesh and Kenya.





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YSRCP Boycotts AP Assembly Sessions:- YSRCP, the major opposition party of Andhra Pradesh boycotted the state's Assembly today after they announced the launch of second phase of campaign against TDP to highlight the unfulfilled promises of Chandra Babu Naidu. The campaign began on the day the Assembly sessions started and will go on till February 8th. Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu is expected to present a vote-on-account on February 5. The opposition party YSRCP decided to boycott the Assembly sessions today after ESL Narasimhan addressed the house today.

YSRCP has been demanding the disqualification of defected MLAs Adinarayana Reddy, RV Sujay Krishna Ranga Rao, N Amarnath Reddy and Bhuma Akhila Priya. YSRCP launched the first phase of Ninnu Nammam Babu which received good response. YS Jagan is keen on announcing the candidates soon so that they would be busy campaigning in their respective constituencies. The Assembly and Parliament elections are scheduled to take place during summer this year. TDP, YSRCP and Janasena are said to have a neck to neck fight in the polls.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  China has established a "maritime rescue center" in the West Philippine Sea, state-run media said Tuesday.

Quoting China's Ministry of Transport, Chinese news outfit Xinhua reported that the rescue center was opened Tuesday in Fiery Cross Reef or Kagitingan Reef, one of the Beijing-occupied artificial islands in the Spratlys in the disputed South China Sea.

"The center will offer better support to maritime rescue operations in the southern part of the South China Sea," Xinhua said, quoting the Chinese government.

China on January 1 also launched ecological protection facilities to restore coral reefs in Fiery Cross Reef, as well as Mischief (Panganiban) and Subi (Zamora) reefs. The Chinese ministry also placed marine observation stations on the reefs, which offer regular information services such as marine forecasts and disaster warnings to passing ships.

READ: China to restore Spratlys' reefs destroyed due to island-building

Prof. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, then said China's move only legitimizes the establishment of its military bases in the area.

"It is trying to mask its militarization of the area by higlighting possible civilian benefits/public goods provided by their artificial islands," Batongbacal told CNN Philippines.

Beijing has built structures on Fiery Cross Reef since it occupied the feature in 1988. In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that China violated its obligations under international law to protect and preserve the marine environment by its massive reclamation work and other island-building activities in Fiery Cross Reef and other contested areas in the Spratly group of islands.

The landmark decision also recognized the Philippines' sovereign rights in areas being contested by China within Manila's 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, or the West Philippine Sea. China rejects the arbitral ruling and stands by its sweeping claim to almost the entire South China Sea.
Photo: The Canadian Press Bruce McArthur is shown in a Facebook photo. Toronto police say a significant development is expected in the case of an alleged serial killer accused of preying on men who disappeared from the city's gay village.

A serial killer who preyed on men from Toronto's gay village has pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder.

Bruce McArthur, who had been set to stand trial next year, entered the guilty plea during a hearing in a Toronto courtroom.

The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper was arrested in January 2018.

Police eventually charged him with first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

The victims went missing from the gay village between 2010 and 2017.

The LGBTQ community had long said someone was targeting men who were vanishing from the city's gay village.

In November 2012, police launched Project Houston to investigate the disappearances of 42-year-old Faizi, 40-year-old Navaratnam and 58-year-old Kayhan. They closed the probe in April 2014 after being unable to identify a suspect in their disappearances.

In the summer of 2017, police launched a separate investigation known as Project Prism into the disappearances of 49-year-old Kinsman and 44-year-old Esen. Within months, McArthur came on the police radar, according to court documents.

On Jan. 17, 2018, investigators uncovered evidence alleging McArthur was responsible for both Kinsman and Esen's deaths, along with the deaths of other unidentified people.

The next day, police arrested McArthur at his apartment and charged him with the murders of Kinsman and Esen. They brought cadaver dogs the following day to a property nearby where McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, stored his equipment, court documents said.

Over the next three months, investigators made several grisly discoveries at the residential property in midtown Toronto, eventually finding the dismembered remains of seven men in large planters.

The remains of an eighth man were found in a large compost pile in a ravine behind the home, police said.

Partway through their investigation, police also made the rare decision to release a heavily edited photograph of a dead man in a bid to identify him. A month later they said the man in the photograph was Kanagaratnam.

Lead investigator Insp. Hank Idsinga said the McArthur probe was the largest forensic examination in the force's history.

Forensic officers spent four months scouring McArthur's apartment they seized 1,800 exhibits and snapped more than 18,000 photographs of the scene. They also searched more than 100 properties where McArthur worked across the Toronto area.

The force's cold case squad is currently investigating a series of homicides in the 1970s related to men with ties to the gay village, but Idsinga has said they've found nothing to link those to McArthur.
Arch Insurance in North America hired a former Travelers executive to lead a newly created business unit. Great American Insurance Group named a new executive as divisional vice president of its Environmental Division. Lloyds of London appointed a former U.S. senator to join the body that supervises the Lloyds market.

***

A former Travelers executive is joining Arch Insurance North America to lead a newly created business unit.

Eric Boquist is the companys new executive vice president, Retail Energy, and he is based in Houston, Texas.

Boquist will lead the newly created business unit focused on providing comprehensive admitted middle-market products and services to energy companies in North America. The team will also bring together additional Arch specialty products to meet the needs of energy clients and brokers. This unit will complement Archs current energy offerings underwritten in the U.S., Bermuda and London. Boquist will report to Rich Stock, chief underwriting officer of Large Account Casualty and Surety.

Boquist was previously at Travelers, where he most recently served as president of Travelers Oil & Gas unit in Houston. Before Travelers, he held a number of senior insurance roles focused on the energy sector in the U.S. and European markets.

***

Great American Insurance Group hired Rick Ringenwald as divisional vice president of its Environmental Division. In this role, Ringenwald will serve as a member of the Executive Underwriting team where he will work with and support the overall strategic business of the division.

Previously, Ringenwald was with Willis Tower Watson, where he served as executive vice president and regional team leader in its Environmental Practice Group.

Great American Insurance Groups Environmental Division provides a comprehensive portfolio of environmental insurance products to a broad array of industries. All products can be customized to address the specific risks and exposures of the client.

***

Lloyds appointed former United States Senator John E. Sununu as a new member of its Council for a three-year term, beginning Feb. 6, 2019.

The Council of Lloyds is the body that supervises the London-based Lloyds Market. While Sununu is American, half of Lloyds global premiums are from the U.S. and Canada, it noted.

Sununus appointment to the Council is designed to ensure Lloyds has U.S. political and regulatory experience to draw from and to help it tap into new digital opportunities.

During his tenure in the Senate as a Republican senator of New Hampshire, Sununu served on the Senate Banking Committee, where he actively prioritized insurance issues, and the Senates subcommittee on Science, Technology and Innovation.

He is now a senior policy adviser for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, an international law firm headquartered in Washington, and holds office as a non-executive director for the publicly traded companies Boston Scientific Corporation and Afiniti Inc. He holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his master of business degree from Harvard University.

Sources: Arch Insurance, Great American Insurance Group, Lloyds of London
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Indian Railways has called for filling 50 vacancies to the post of Supervisors (Hospitality) through a 'Walk-In-Interview' process to be recruited/posted in the IRCTC's East Zone comprising Northeast States, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, or at any of IRCTC's work stations in India. The 'Walk-In-Interviews' are scheduled from 05 February 2019 to 20 February 2019 at the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) in Kolkata, Guwahati and Hajipur, respectively.

Candidates will be recruited on a Contractual basis for a period of two years, to be extended further based on IRCTC's requirement and candidate's performance in the interview.

Also Read: IRCTC Recruitment 2019 For Supervisors (Hospitality); Earn Up To INR 25,000/- Per Month

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Supervisors (Hospitality) East Zone Organisation Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Educational Qualification B.Sc. in Hospitality & Hotel Administration Experience 2 years in the relevant field/trade Job Responsibilities As detailed in notification Skills Required Medical fitness as prescribed by IRCTC Job Location India - Northeast States, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand Salary Scale Rs. 25,000/- per month. Industry Railways/Catering/Tourism Application Start Date January 16, 2019 Application End Date February 20, 2019

Age Criteria And Fees

Candidates applying for the post of Supervisor (Hospitality) through IRCTC Walk-In-Interview must not have exceeded 30 years of age as on 01 January 2019 , with a relaxation (upper age limit) by 5 for SC/ST candidates and 3 years for OBC categories, with a further relaxation of 10 years for PWD candidates.

For details regarding payment of fees, if any, refer to the detailed advertisement given below.

Educational Criteria And Experience

Candidates interested in joining as Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Walk-In-Interview must have a B.Sc. Degree in Hospitality & Hotel Administration from a Government of India/NCHMCT AICTE/UGC recognised Institution/University.

He/she must have at least 2 years of experience in Food and Beverage (F&B) Industry (service/operations/production, etc.) units possessing FSSAI certification.

Selection And Pay Scale

Selection of candidates as Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Walk-In-Interview will be done based on the candidate's academic qualification and performance in the personal interview.

Candidates selected as Supervisors (Hospitality) for East Zone will be paid an emolument in the scale of Rs. 25,000/- per month.

Also Read: Assam Police Recruitment 2019 For Sub-inspectors (Communication) In APRO

Walk-In-Interview Details: Date And Time

Candidates applying for the post of Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Walk-In-Interview must attend the 'Walk-In-Interviews' along with the filled application forms and supporting documents at the following venues:

Institute of Hotel Management (IHM): P-16 Taratala Road, Kolkata-

700088 on 5 & 6 February 2019 from 10.00 am onwards.

Institute of Hotel Management (IHM): Upper Hengrabari, Chachal,

Barbari, Opposite Doordarshan Quarters, Guwahati - 781036 on 12 & 13 February 2019 from 10.00 am onwards.

Institute of Hotel Management (IHM): Hajipur, National Highway

19, Hajipur, BR 844101 on 19 & 20 February 2019 from 10.00 am onwards.

Candidates must attend the interview along with their filled in application forms in a prescribed proforma, attested copies of supporting/relevant documents and three recent passport size photographs.

For detailed notification about IRCTC Walk-In-Interview For Supervisors (Hospitality) East Zone click here
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of the Indian Railways has called for 'Walk-In-Interviews' for filling 50 vacancies to the post of Supervisor (Hospitality) to be appointed/posted in the regions of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, & Chhattisgarh, or at any of IRCTC's duty stations in India. The 'Walk-In-Interviews' are scheduled on 16 February 2019 in Hyderabad, Telangana and 19 February 2019 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

Candidates will be recruited on a Contractual basis for a period of 2 years, extendable further based on the requirement and performance of the candidates.

Also Read: PPSC Recruitment 2019 For Senior Assistants In Cooperation Department; Apply Before 20 February 2019

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Supervisors (Hospitality) Organisation Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Educational Qualification B.Sc. Degreee in Hospitality & Hotel Administration Experience 2 years in relevant field/trade Job Responsibilities As detailed in notification Skills Required Medical fitness as prescribed Job Location India, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh Salary Scale Rs. 25,000/- per month. Industry Railways/Catering/Tourism Application Start Date January 22, 2019 Application End Date February 19, 2019

Age Criteria And Fees

Candidates interested in applying for the post of Supervisor (Hospitality) through IRCTC Recruitment 2019 must not have exceeded 30 years of age as on 01 January 2019 , with a relaxation in the upper age limit by 5 and 3 years for SC/ST and OBC candidates, respectively, and 10 years for PWD candidates.

For details regarding fee payment, if any, refer to the detailed notification given below.

Educational Criteria And Experience

Candidates interested in joining as Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Recruitment 2019 must possess a B.Sc. Degreee in Hospitality & Hotel Administration from an NCHMCT/Government of India//UGC/AICTE recognised University/Institution.

He/she must have at least 2 years experience in F&B Industry (service/production/ operations, etc.) units with FSSAI certification.

Selection And Pay Scale

The selection of candidates as Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Recruitment 2019 will be done based on the candidate's academic credentials and performance in the personal interview.

Candidates selected as Supervisors (Hospitality) will be paid an emolument in the scale of Rs. 25,000/- per month.

Also Read: IOCL Recruitment 2019 For Junior Engineering/Technical Assistants In Multiple Trades

Walk-In-Interviews: Date And Time

Candidates applying for the post of Supervisors (Hospitality) through IRCTC Recruitment 2019 must attend the 'Walk-In-Interviews' at the following venues:

Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) F - Row, Vidya Nagar, DD Colony, Hyderabad, Telangana 500007 - 16 February 2019 from 10.00 am to 01.00 pm (Saturday) and

Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Near Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), V.S.S. Nagar, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751007 on 19 February 2019 from 10.00 am to 01.00 pm (Tuesday)

Candidates need to fill the application form provided in the advertisement in a prescribed format and carry it along with the attested copies of supporting documents and three recent passport size photographs to the interview venues.

For detailed notification about IRCTC Recruitment 2019 for Supervisors (Hospitality) click here or http://www.irctc.com/displayServlet
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https://www.aish.com/jw/id/Israel-Sends-Huge-Rescue-Team-after-Brazil-Dam-Collapse.html

130-strong delegation using advanced technology in effort to locate survivors.

An Israeli search and rescue team which flew to Brazil after a dam collapsed in the south east of the country, has recovered tens of bodies following the disaster at the Corrego do Feijao mine around 400 km east of Rio. The disaster sent a sea of muddy debris into mine, destroying several villages.

Aish.com spoke to Major Rivkah Cohen (31) of the IDF Search and Rescue Unit in Brazil about its preparations and efforts to locate the several hundred people still unaccounted for.

Within hours we were packed and ready to go

The dam burst at midday Friday. As soon as we received the mission, things moved very quickly, Cohen said. By Saturday evening we had all gathered to prepare our equipment, and our flight to Brazil left in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Searching for survivors

The 132-strong Israeli team containing both regular and reserve soldiers includes Search and Rescue units, the Navys Underwater Missions Unit, engineering experts, doctors, and firefighters as well as several dogs and their handlers from the IDFs elite canine unit, Oketz.

An entire plane load of supplies, including rescue vehicles, equipment and medical supplies made the 14 hour flight with soldiers given vaccinations and briefed at the airport on what to expect.

Technology helps locate cellular signals

After being met at the airport by their military counterparts in Brazil, the team got to work.

We immediately met with the fire department, the company which operates the dam and local rescue teams, Cohen said. We are working in teams in the worst affected places, according to where the Brazilians need us most. Each team is equipped with drones, sonar equipment and crucially, advanced technology able to detect the location of cell phones.

Being briefed at Ben Gurion airport

When we reach a new rescue site, we use an advanced technology which can detect cellular signals, Cohen explained. If we get a positive reaction, the dogs go in and then we start digging. She added In flooded areas, divers from the navy lead the search with sonar equipment.

On Monday the Israeli teams retrieved 15 bodies and several more on Monday, sadly none of them alive. We are hoping to find more, and we are doing everything we can, Major Cohen said. The death toll rose to 65 and is expected to rise.

Of course its difficult - its a terrible tragedy and emotionally hard. We meet together at the end of each day and there are mental health support staff here if we need.

Warm Welcome

Major Cohen has served for 13 years in the Home Front. In Brazil she is tasked with maintaining close ties with civilians and local emergency services who she says are deeply appreciative.

Yesterday I was with some people from one of the villages affected and I heard the same message from everyone I met, they are deeply grateful and have given as a very warm welcome. She added, I tell them, we are here for them and will do whatever we can to help.

Israeli soldiers and divers search for survivorsThe mission has also prompted an outpouring of thanks on social media. One Brazilian from Sao Paulo wrote, Thank you Israel! We will never forget what you are doing for us. Another posted, You have no idea how much it means to us. I hope this is the beginning of a great friendship between our peoples.

Although the team are a little far away from the nearest Jewish community, they were nevertheless delivered a hot meal on their arrival from Chabad in Brazil.

Proud to be representing Israel

There is an overwhelming feeling of pride among the Israeli delegation here, Major Cohen said. It is a terrible tragedy for these villages but I cannot emphasize enough how honored and privileged we feel to be representing Israel helping another nation in need. She continued to stress the close connection with the Brazilian teams they are working alongside. We are so proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Brazilian people and let them know that we are here for everything that they need. We know that back home the Israeli people feel the same.

This is not the first time Israel has dispatched its humanitarian search and rescue teams abroad to assist in natural disasters. Among many mission, in 2010, Israel sent an emergency response team to the earthquake in Haiti and building field hospitals to treat the injured. In 2015, a team of search and rescue and medical staff were sent to Nepal following the powerful earthquake which struck the country and over 70 soldiers were sent to Mexico to help rescue bodies from collapsed buildings after the powerful September 2017 earthquake.
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The last concerted effort to keep ACT petrol prices in line with those in other capitals was back in the 1990s. The late, and much missed, Terry Connolly was the relevant ACT minister. Since then, reams of official verbiage notwithstanding, the industry here has done much as it has pleased. Government has lazily parroted the claim that higher prices just reflect a lack of competition, perhaps forgetting that its actually governments duty to promote competition and curtail price gouging. In reality, with or without assistance from the feds, the ACT government could act to tie petrol prices here to a reference price  something like no more than 5 a litre above the NSW average. It seems to have no qualms about imposing price controls on ACT landlords. It could enact a super-normal profits tax or threaten to raise licensing fees on ACT fuel outlets that charged over the odds. The ACT government could also release new ACT sites to noted discounters such as Costco. Government also appears unwilling to front Coles (trading as Coles Express) about the way it uses its considerable market power in the ACT petroleum market. Coles has a significant proportion of ACT sites and its market presence is boosted by related commercial tie-ins. The ACCC website lists Coles Express as among the highest price petrol retailers nationally. Tellingly, the gap between prices here and elsewhere seems to have widened to now about 25 a litre just after Woolworths left the national retail petroleum market in November 2018. A coincidence? Maybe. If the ACT government doesnt want to legislate tocontrol prices or act toencourage new market entrants, then it should at leasttell Coles that that new$69million development it wants in Dickson wont begoing anywhere fast until ACT petrol prices start to looka lot more like those inAustralias other mainland capital cities. Bob Bennett, Wanniassa Various matters on Australia Day were thought provoking, but two have lingered. The rewarding read about Meredith Atilemile, voluntary guide at the Australian War Memorial (Voluntary work reveals family history, p20) underlined the valuable resource the AWM is. Then the sobering wonder about where our priorities are was brought into sharp focus in observing two men at a local suburban shopping centre on the same Australia Day, selling lottery tickets to help support enlisted and retired service personnel, victims of the scourge of PTSD and or worse still, suicide. The director of the AWM said he was not embarrassed about getting nearly half a billion dollars for an extension that will involve demolition of an award-winning building. Perhaps he is right, as after all if you dont ask, you wont get. Equally those who agreed that this was an appropriate allocation of scarce resources and signed off on it should not be embarrassed either.No, they should be bloody well ashamed. Ann Darbyshire, Hughes If the ACT government truly cared about improving time-poor Canberrans quality of life as stated in The Canberra Times on January 27, how about they start by taking seriously the real life feedback Bonython residents have given them about the negative impact delivery drones have had on their everyday lives? Hundreds of us under the flight path of these aircraft have had our basic right to the peaceful amenity of our homes and suburb destroyed. Cant go for a walk in peace, its too noisy. Cant lie down and rest if youre ill during the day because the drones keep waking you up. I work from home and have my thoughts interrupted all day by the noise of the drones. My children find it hard to concentrate on school work because of the invasive nature of the high-pitched drone noise. Dogs in the suburb are so distressed by the buzzing of the drones that there is endless barking. What sort of quality of life does my family have with delivery drones? None. I. Kolak, Bonython Thanks, Neville Exon, for your letter (Letters, January 26) challenging the notion that it is somehow tech-savvy and smart to deliver pizzas and coffee by drone to Canberra suburbs. The slogan you suggest, Canberra: the Drone Capital, offers an opportunity for local politicians to really think about what smart means. If the ACT government is serious about introducing a wellbeing index, it should do all it can to ensure noisy and invasive commercial drones over Canberra suburbs are banned. They are quality of life destroyers. Murray May, Cook Why do Metro employees have carte blanche over all and everything to do with roadworks on Northbourne Avenue, and further along the track, during this tedious stretch of light rail work? Each day of the week you will see witches hats blocking off parts of lanes north and south, with visibly no workers working within the confines of the hats. Why is this so and why is this allowed to bring peak hour traffic, AM and PM, to what appears to be a totally unnecessary gridlock? Is it fair that this work behaviour is tolerated and not commented on or acted upon by the ACT government? This is another issue being disregarded and tolerated by commuters up and down Northbourne, including the Federal Highway and Flemington Road. And will this continue through until April? I have no doubt it will given the disregard shown to date since the works began. Angela Walker, Lyneham Thank you to the ACT government for the best new bicycle track in town: the light rail corridor from Gungahlin to the city. Features include a smooth concrete riding surface, its own traffic lights, cyclists separated from road traffic, easy passage across intersections (no gutters), floodlit at night and no tolls or fares. Enjoy the panoramic views of Canberras new and prestigious boulevard. Even if the trams start, theyll be infrequent and easy to dodge. Watch out, however, for phone-distracted pedestrians crossing and falling limbs of brittle gums. John Mungoven, Stirling Recent days have seen pious sanctimoniacs telling us how offensive January 26, 1788, is to our Indigenous people. Two facts are immutable: the date marks the first day of a neolithic peoples journey into modernity, and, so far, none have demanded a regression. Bill Deane, Chapman What do renewable energy, pill testing and hydrogen power have in common? All are loved by the left but lack the technology to do the job and look like staying that way for decades. Knowing that, I will vote accordingly. Doug Hurst, Chapman Re: Building defects a crisis (January 28, p1). The observation that structural and design flaws would exist in most new high-rise developments in the nations capital should alert government to a serious problem, surely. Given the factors cited by the experts this problem is not restricted to new buildings, the crisis has existed for decades. That flaws in design and construction are showing up in normal usage, under normal loads such as gravity, wind, temperature and rain, begs the question of what will happen the next time the ACT is shaken by a strong earthquake. There is nothing like a good shake to find the flaws in buildings and if they werent designed and built for normal environmental loads then how well were they designed and built for earthquake loads as they are required to be under the Australian Building Code? How many certifiers in the ACT are experienced enough to check that seismic design features are incorporated in the building and its foundations during its construction. Government is the first responder after disasters such as earthquakes but without engineers how will the ACT government respond? To whom will they outsource response and recovery? We seem to have learnt nothing from the earthquake disaster in Newcastle in December 1989. Kevin McCue, Aranda. Former president Australian Earthquake Engineering Society Reading the article in The Canberra Times Forum section on Saturday Corporate largesse  and whats behind it (January 26, p6) I realised how much the public service has changed since I occupied a junior clerical position in the arts department in the 80s. I was part of a team administrating a taxation scheme aimed at promoting the Australian film industry. It was mainly a routine processing job based on tax office legislation. However film producers were, understandably, always in a hurry to find out if their film qualified. At the end of one application process I was able to tell a happy producer that the minister had approved her film for taxation assistance. Some days later I received a modest box of chocolates from the producer. Naturally I consulted my section head to find out what I should do with the chocolates. After some deliberation and discussion with the assistant secretary I was told I could accept the chocolates as long as I shared them with the rest of the section and informed the producer what I had done. Timothy Walsh, Garran R Salmond (letters, 17/1) claims that zero tolerance ... hasnt been tried and that it would reduce use of illegal drugs. If we ignore the past ineffectiveness of tougher, stricter drug laws, we could look at the success, or lack thereof, of the many nations that have zero tolerance. Many have the death penalty for drug dealing and hefty imprisonment for drug use. One nearby countrys president even encouraged extrajudicial killings of drug users, which police have started. And yet the drug use in these countries continues, and in many cases even increases, or at least the damage to the community does, as the zero tolerance drives practices more underground. It may help fill our jails (which is good for the private prison industry) and create an underclass who would be more willing to go into crime with their exposure to it through prisons (all of which is happening in many of the zero-tolerance jurisdictions). The evidence is that zero tolerance appeases only those with a vindictive sense of justice. Overall it is bad for the community. Brendan Dobson, Macgregor Bruce Porter (Letters, January 21) cries wolf and defies logic in comparing the PAYG system with dividend imputation refunds (DIRs). PAYG still means paying tax (which might include getting a refund if your PAYG contributions are greater than your final net tax liability). And if you manage to finish up with minus zero tax liability you will still only get back the amount you have paid through PAYG (or thats what I assume, because I have never been in that happy position). On the other hand, the DIR system, allows some people who have not paid tax, PAYG or otherwise, to get a refund. And think for a moment, what does the word refund mean? Logically, you cant get a refund on zero. Furthermore, this exists, not in order to create greater equity, but simply because it was an opportunistic cash-splash by the Howard government. The bottom line is, how is it fair when some are able to get such refunds while others are not, and especially when the cost is borne by those who do pay tax? Eric Hunter, Cook Kelly ODwyer quit for one reason as far as I can see. And that is, her family can afford for her to. How very nice for her, unlike many other women who miss out on the joys and key moments of their offsprings lives because they cant afford not to work. Call me cynical, but I dont see any virtue in such resignations, particularly at times when they affect the political landscape. These are not the only family-conscious people  most of us are. Its all very well to contemplate womens working situations, but lets save our empathy for lower paid females in the workplace. Maybe no parliamentarian should be allowed to quit before an election loss or retirement age until we have a more equitable society and others can also comfortably leave behind their long working days to enjoy their kids key moments. After all, it isnt an ordinary job and so shouldnt be for ordinary people seeking to maximise benefit from their position. Its not a private enterprise but seems to operate as such on so many levels. Reese Purnell, Queanbeyan, NSW The media should stop giving Clive Palmer the oxygen he feeds on. The man is just a rich, bored loudmouth who has always had riches beyond what we, the great unwashed, can only dream of. D.J. Fraser, Currumbin, Qld SCOMOS SKEWED HISTORY Tell ScoMo the first circumnavigation of Australia was by Matty Flinders (British) and Bungaree, an Australian. When Cook mapped the east coast it was known as New Holland. The Dutch had been here a long time before James. It was known to the British at first as New South Wales. It became Australia on January 1, 1901. Peter Best, Weetangera COLD COMFORT ON TV There should be a law that when it reaches 34 degrees, one TV station must show interesting programs. Steve Thomas, Yarralumla RIVERS OF CEMENT To take Max Browns logic further (Letters, January 29), we could concrete the entire land surface of Canberra to increase the amount of rainfall running off to assist river health and farmers downstream. The ACT governments planning rules seem designed to do this anyway. Robyn Coghlan, Hawker FAMILIES OF CONVENIENCE Its amazing how important politicians families become to them when they realise their government has become a sinking ship. Gordon Fyfe, Kambah SCIENCE VERSUS POLITICS Mr Shortens request for the Australian Academy of Science to investigate the causes of the mass fish kill in NSW is to be commended. Science should always prevail over ideology. As expected, the Liberals have called this a stunt. They dont believe in science but they do believe in playing politics. Ray Armstrong, Tweed Heads South, NSW LABORS EASY PATH The closer the next federal election comes, the less is Labors need of a drovers dog  present indications are that it could be led to victory by a headless chook. M.F. Horton, Adelaide, SA LOSING FORMULA So John Howard is the secret weapon in the NSW governments election campaign.Is it the same formula they road tested in Wentworth recently? Good grief. Linus Cole, Palmerston CLUTCHING AT STRAWS Scott Morrisons prediction Australia will go into recession under Labor is a drowning mans desperate attempt to clutch a straw. Sankar Kumar Chatterjee, Evatt VIRGINIA DIVES DEEP Two men share Australian of the Year for volunteering for a dangerous rescue and saving 17 lives. Virginia Haussegger intends to use her title of ACT Australian of the Year to include men [in] gender inequality discussion. Seems fair to me, I will even pay for her SCUBA lessons. John Coochey, Chisholm Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message eld, not as an attached le. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).

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Construction giant Geocon wants to trigger a planning clause to allow it to raise the height of another building at its $400 million WOVA development, promoting community concerns about the project's "continual upward creep". The ACT Greens said it was "extremely disappointed" by the new push, amid fears it could leave the area "feeling dark, cold and unsafe". In September, the developer won ACT government approval to build an 800-unit complex on the former Woden Tradies Club site, including a 24-storey tower and buildings of 16, 13 and 12 storeys in height. Its original proposal included buildings of 24, 16, 16 and 10 storeys in height, but those plans were revised after residents raised concerns about the development's height, scale and potential for overshadowing of nearby properties. A total of 109 submissions were made to the initial plan for the prominent Phillip site. The most significant amendment, according to Geocon, was to reduce the height of the building fronting Melrose Drive from 16 to 12 storeys, changes ACT chief planner Ben Ponton described as an "excellent outcome for the community and the developer". But the developer has now sought permission from the government's environment, planning and sustainable development directorate to raise the height of the Melrose Drive building back to 16 storeys. Planning rules for the area allow one 24-storey "marker" tower per multi-building complex, with the other buildings restricted to 12 storeys. However, one of those buildings can be increased by an additional four levels. The approved WOVA plan already includes one 16-storey tower, meaning Geocon is attempting to use the extra-four-level height clause a second time. Details of the developers proposal have not been made public, and the directorate has only notified, and sought feedback from, those who made submissions to the original proposal. Feedback was originally due on January 4, however that deadline has now been extended to February 1. Woden Valley Community Council chair Fiona Carrick said residents welcomed development in the area, but were concerned about the "continual upward creep" of the WOVA project. Ms Carrick said raising the height of the building fronting Melrose Drive from 12 to 16 storeys would block out morning sunlight to the adjacent Bellerive Retirement Village. She was also perplexed as to why Geocon's application had not been released for wider public consultation. The community council's preference is for eight storey buildings fronting Melrose Drive, rising up to 12 storeys at the heart of Woden Town Centre. Caroline Le Couteur, the ACT Greens' planning spokeswoman and chair of the ACT Assembly's planning committee, said she had been concerned about the WOVA development for some time. Ms Le Couteur said Geocon's bid came despite the recommendations of the committee, and broader community concern about new building height limits in the precinct. "Late last year I was pleased to table a petition of more than 500 signatures calling on the Government to reduce these building heights," Ms Le Couteur said. This reflects concerns from the community, and especially residents of the nearby Bellerive apartments, that this area would be significantly overshadowed, leaving the area feeling dark, isolated and unsafe." A spokeswoman for the directorate said the territory's planning and land authority said as part of its assessment of the developer's "reconsideration application", it would consider if the extra storeys were suitable in the context of the wider development. If the proposed changes are rejected, Geocon would be allowed to proceed with its approved plan, the spokeswoman said. When contacted by The Canberra Times, a Geocon spokesman said the matter related to "a condition of the original approval". The spokesman said it would not comment further while the application was under assessment. Geocon bought the Woden Tradies Club for $16 million in 2017. It's plan for the 10,194 square metre site includes 1160 car parking spaces and 2650 square metres of commercial space. Geocon managing director Nick Georgalis said last year the WOVA development would energise the Woden Town Centre, create new jobs and lifestyle opportunities. Construction work was expected to start this year.

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January 30, 2019 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

The health, safety and security of our diplomatic staff and their families remain our priority. The Canadian government continues to investigate the potential causes of the unusual health symptoms experienced by some Canadian diplomatic staff and their family members posted in Havana, Cuba. To date, no cause has been identified.

Following the last confirmed case of unusual health symptoms in November 2018, a number of Canadian diplomatic staff posted to Havana underwent additional medical testing. These tests confirm that an additional employee has symptoms consistent with those of previously affected employees. This brings the total number of affected Canadian employees, spouses and dependents to 14. All affected people will continue to receive medical attention, as required.

In addition to revised security measures already initiated by the Canadian government, we have decided to reduce by up to half the number of Canadian staff posted to Havana.

Canada will continue to have an embassy in Havana, Cuba, headed by an ambassador. Full consular services will be available to Canadians in Cuba. However, some other programs may be adjusted in the coming weeks.

There is no evidence that Canadian travellers to Cuba are at risk. Canadian travellers should continue to consult the Government of Canadas Travel Advice and Advisories for the latest updates. Consular assistance continues to be provided from Havana, Varadero and Guardalavaca.

Canada has a positive and constructive relationship with Cuba. We have had close cooperation with the Cuban authorities since the health concerns of our employees posted in Havana first surfaced in the spring of 2017.


Kurds Are Not Ready for Democracy, They Are Ready to Rule

It's been over a year since the Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) independence referendum where over three million people voted overwhelmingly in favor of separating from Iraq. Much like their Iraqi brethren, Syria's Kurds have also benefited handsomely from the civil war, now controlling cantons in northeastern Syria. Presently, both regions are seen as models for democracy in the Middle East, and the Kurds enjoy a level of autonomy and freedom of which their ancestors could only dream. But this freedom is a privilege afforded to few. For years, major Kurdish political parties and their associated militias have relied on repressive governance to maintain and expand power in their respective regions. Kurdish authorities in Iraq and Syria aren't ready for democracy, they're ready to rule, and there's a stark difference between the two.

Since the early 1990s, the Kurds of Iraq have made impressive strides in their self-administered region, assembling a dedicated police force called the asayish and a 111-seat Parliament. Now the Iraqi Kurdish people are finally exercising the kind of freedoms that they've dreamt of for decades under the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein. In Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) used the Syrian government's retreat from the northeast of the country as an opportunity to move in and provide services such as water, sanitation, and most importantly, security.

The Kurdish governing authorities in Iraq and Syria are not aligned, in fact they are far from it. The PYD in Syria is closely linked to the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization led by the long-imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq, led by the Barzani family, openly condemns the PKK and opts instead to maintain a Western-friendly public image, and it has carefully crafted an image of a democratic Kurdistan. Where the two leaderships converge, however, is in their governance. Neither respect a free press, both value loyalty, often at the expense of democratic processes, and both see nonalignment as a punishable offense.

In late 2017, for example, two ethnic Assyrian mayors, Faiz Jahwareh and Basim Bello in the towns of Alqosh and Tel Keppe in northern Iraq, were forcibly removed from office. In July 2017, Jahwareh was deposed (AINA 2014-06-16) by the local Nineveh Provincial Council (3/4 of which is comprised of KDP members) on baseless charges of corruption that were later dismissed by an Iraqi federal court, and replaced him with KDP member Lara Yousif. In the predominantly Assyrian town of Tel Keppe, Mayor Basim Bello was removed from office on August 3, 2017 (AINA 2018-08-08), by the very same KDP-dominated Nineveh Provincial Council. Many believe that Jahwareh and Bello's vocal opposition to Kurdish annexation was the reason for why they were targeted. Both ousters came on the heels of the September 2017 Kurdish independence referendum and seemed like an attempt by the KDP to remove their critics from positions of power. Assyrians in northern Iraq are largely resistant to Kurdish annexation and prefer to remain under Iraq's central government's jurisdiction. This, of course, has not stopped the KDP from seeking out Assyrian Christian patrons who can advocate for and encourage more support for the Kurdish independence cause.

Assyrians are hardly the only victims of the KDP's tyranny. On March 25, 2018 , teachers and healthcare workers protested across the Kurdish region over unpaid wages, resulting from an austerity measure. The KRG has been paying civil servants reduced monthly salaries for three years. Kurdish asayish in Akre, Dohuk, and Erbil responded by arresting and detaining eighty-four protesters and fifteen journalists. Several detainees claimed that they were not allowed to contact their families or seek legal counsel, violating due process. Worse still, officers allegedly demanded that detainees provide them with the security passcodes to their phones and their Facebook passwords. Also, they allegedly demanded that detainees refrain from protesting in the future. It is indeed a curious democracy if it seeks to silence dissent--rather than encourage--the expression of free speech.

In northeastern Syria it's much of the same. In mid-August 2018 , the PYD forced the closure of several Assyrian schools in the towns of Derik and Malikiyyah, citing their curriculum was not approved by the local administrative authority. Prior to the incident, the school's administrators refused to teach the PYD's proposed curriculum, which they felt was compromised with unnecessary glorifications of PKK leader Ocalan and a skewed curriculum in favor of Kurdish history. When Assyrian-Syrian journalist Souleman Yousph spoke out against the forced closures on Facebook, he was arrested and detained without charge on September 30, 2018.

Commentators and policymakers in and out of Washington are imploring the international community to give the Kurdish people the sovereignty they seek--that their regions are bastions for democracy in the Middle East. In a recent interview, famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama even went as far as to say that the KRG has been more successful at creating democratic institutions than have the Iraqi people. An interesting comparison, considering that Iraq, since its first post--Ba'ath government formed in 2005, has had four peaceful transitions of power while Masoud Barzani's KDP have dominated the KRG since 2005. The cohesive society that Fukuyama credits for the Kurdish region's democratic success is merely a facade built on a carefully painted public image, millions of dollars of patronage, and the constant subjugation of those who would speak out against their government. The Kurdish people and the thousands of Assyrians, Arabs, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minority groups that live in these regions deserve a representative, democratic government. Those in power have consistently proven unable and unwilling to deliver on this.

Rosemary Youhana is the 2018 Human Rights Fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP). Previously, Youhana worked as an advocacy associate at the Assyrian Universal Alliance Americas Chapter where she collaborated with civil society organizations based in Iraq, Syria and Turkey on human rights issues facing ethnic and religious minorities. She holds BAs in International Relations and French from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Master's in International Affairs with a focus on human rights and global governance from American University's School of International Service.
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A new Irish company based in Dublin has announced that it will create 1,100 jobs through the 1bn development of 89,000m of data centres with a total capacity of more than 180MW.

Echelon Data Centres Limited is owned by Aldgate Developments, a UK and Ireland-based property development company. The company is working to a Triple 5 strategy  the development of 500MW of capacity, in five countries, by 2025.



The 1,100 jobs being created consist of 460 construction jobs and 100 operational positions in Clondalkin, and 450 construction jobs and 90 operational positions in Arklow.

The companys jobs and investment plans were announced in Dublin this morning at an event attended by the Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation, Heather Humphreys, as well as senior representatives from the data centre industry and global technology companies.



Echelon is to construct data centres of 44,000m (477,000 sqft) in Clondalkin, Dublin, and 45,000m (484,000 sqft) in Arklow, Co Wicklow, with respective capacities of up to 84MW and 100MW. The capacity available across the two wholly-owned facilities is the equivalent of approximately 34% of all operational capacity currently available in Ireland and 15% of that either planned or in development.



Speaking this week, CEO of Echelon Data Centres, Niall Molloy said, "Were thrilled that work to build Echelons first data centres has commenced. Between our two sites in Clondalkin and Arklow, and other sites that we are in the process of identifying and acquiring in Ireland, the UK and Europe, Echelon will become one of Europes biggest data centre providers. What this major investment means for Ireland is the creation of many high-quality jobs."

He added, "The development and operation of these two sites alone will provide employment for 1,100 people through a capital investment of 1bn which will enhance and support Irelands growing tech ecosystem."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The real estate markets in Ahwatukee Foothills and the rest of the Phoenix Metro region have
Euro zone economic sentiment fell by more than expected to a two-year low in January as all components except consumers and the construction sector became more pessimistic about the bloc's prospects at the start of the year.

Euro zone economic sentiment slipped to 106.2 points in January from a slightly revised 107.4 in December, the European Commission said, marking the seventh consecutive monthly fall and the lowest level since November 2016.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a less sharp decline to 106.8, with a depressed mood among retailers providing an extra shove down.

The worse-than-expected sentiment numbers come a day before Eurostat's release of its first estimate for economic growth in the 19-member euro zone. It is seen holding at a modest 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter in the last three months of 2018. This would match the four-year low of the third quarter.

Sentiment in industry fell to 0.5 points in January from 2.3 in December, in line with market expectations.

The mood of consumers picked up to -7.9 after December's steep fall to -8.3.

However, retail trade sentiment slipped to -1.9 points in January from -0.1 in December.

Sentiment in services, a sector which produces two thirds of the euro zone GDP, went down to 11.0 points, almost matching expectations of a 11.1 reading.

A separate business climate indicator, which helps point to the phase of the business cycle, also decreased in January to 0.69 from 0.86 in December, below expectations of a drop to 0.75. This was the lowest reading since January 2017. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The sudden resignations of two non-government members of the National Statistical Commission - an autonomous body supervising statistical reporting by the government - brings into sharp focus the Central government's persistent attempt to suppress inconvenient truth about high unemployment in the country.

The resignations are being seen as a protest against non-publication of NSSO's survey on employment and unemployment situation in India for 2017-18, which is believed to have presented a grim scenario. This is not surprising. The sixth annual Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS, 2016-17) of the Labour and Employment too have been withheld as it reportedly shows the unemployment rate shooting up to 3.9 percent from 3.7 percent in 2015-16.

Also Read: In the age of automation, AI, companies focus on hiring people with soft skills: report

Suppression of unemployment survey data, howsoever unpleasant, is not only undesirable, it is counter-productive. Periodic data not only provides timely insights into the workings of the job markets and brings out different dynamics at play; it also helps in making intelligent policy and strategic decisions to overcome the situation. Political expediency should be the last consideration when it comes to the livelihood of millions.

Sharp rise in Unemployment

Even in absence of official data, it is widely known that unemployment has risen sharply in the past few years because of decisions like demonetisation and shoddy implementation of a badly designed GST, apart from factors that may be beyond the government's control.

The ILO's World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018 report paints a gloomy picture. It says unemployed in India is expected to rise from 18.3 million in 2017 to 18.6 million in 2018 and 18.9 million by 2019. But the numbers are likely to be far worse because its estimates are based on an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent, while the withheld EUS 2016-17 reportedly shows that it has gone up to 3.9 percent. Even the fifth EUS of 2015-16 had shown an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent - much higher than that of ILO's.

That is not all. ILO report also says a very high number of the employed (72 percent) are in "vulnerable employment" - own-account workers and contributing/unpaid family workers - for 2017, 2018 and 2019. UNDP's Human Development Indices and Indicators 2018: Statistical Update puts the number even higher at 77.5% for 2017.

More shocking revelations have been made by the CMIE's survey, which said 11 million jobs lost in one year between Dec 2017 and Dec 2018, when employment fell from 408 million to 397 million. Earlier, it had said about 1.5 million jobs were lost in the first four months of 2017 - January-April 2017 - because of demonetisation.

Government's response disappointing

Having promised to create 10 million jobs every year before coming to power, the current dispensation has miserably failed to live up to it. Several of its employment-generating programmes have turned non-starters.

For example, the MUDRA loan scheme (started in 2015) was touted as a big initiative to generate self-employment, but closer scrutiny reveals that it is a mere re-routing of existing small loan schemes relying largely on the priority sector shortfall. It has neither improved credit flow to the MSMEs nor able to deploy funding available to it (with 40 percent lying idle in its accounts in 2016-17 and 2017-18).

Also Read: Indian sovereign bond yield touches 7.6% ahead of Budget 2019: report

The Start-up India scheme was announced with lofty claims of setting aside Rs 10,000 crore for boosting capital flow to start-ups and SMEs in 2014. Nearly five years down the line, the official data shows only 72 start-ups were "sanctioned" Rs 605 crore. There is no mention of how much of fund has actually been disbursed. Knowing how the governments function, there could be a huge gap between the two. Interestingly, this data was last updated in September 15, 2017.

The Skill India programme is now a forgotten slogan, having failed to address the skilling needs of industries or jobs to the skilled. So is the case with the other big-bang initiative, Make in India. Industrial production (IIP) has remained low and fluctuating. The growth rate in eight core sectors (coal, crude oil, steel, cement etc.) was 4.9 percent in 2014-15, went down to 3 percent in 2015-16, went up to 4.8 percent in 2016-17 and fell to 4.2 percent in 2017-18. Capacity utilisation of the manufacturing companies has been fluctuating since 2014-15 and the first quarter of 2018-19 witnessed a sharp decline.

In sheer desperation, the government started peddling EPFO numbers as evidence of new job creation, forgetting that this data is part of its job formalisation drive called Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) - the government paying full employers' contribution of 12 percent towards Employees' Provident Fund and Employees' Pension Scheme for new employees since April 2016. This is not the same as new jobs as people switch jobs, duplicating EPF numbers. The data is unreliable and are regularly revised downwards as newspaper reports have periodically highlighted.

Old employment guarantee scheme, NREGA, which was disdainfully dismissed as a living monument to UPA's failure in Parliament, is the only saviour, continuing to provide 40-50 days of work to 4-5 crore households every year.

Why job data is necessary

A reading of the quarterly reports on employment scenario (QES), which too have been discontinued by the government, provides several insights into the job market.

For example, such reports from 2009 to 2017 shows that certain sectors like construction and IT/BPO which were providing a bulk of employment for years stopped doing so in 2016 and 2017. Similar is the case with labour-intensive sectors of leather, gems and jewellery, transport and handloom.

On the other hand, more jobs are being created in health, education, trade, accommodation and restaurant sectors.

What the government should be doing

What the government has not denied is that 12.8 million youth are joining the labour force every year. So, ideally, new livelihood opportunities should be created to that extent. But how to do that continues to remain a big challenge.

The signs of desperation among the unemployed are already there. For example, in March 2018, 25 million applied for 90,000 railway jobs. There have been similar reports of 9.7 million applying for 12,000 class III government jobs in Gujarat or 3,700 PhDs applying for 62 peon jobs in Uttar Pradesh in August 2018.

In such a scenario, what should a prudent government be doing?

It should release the job data, carry out even more studies and surveys relating to employment-unemployment to gain as much insight into the workings of the job markets as possible. In the next stage, findings of such studies should be widely debate and all possible stakeholders be consulted so that appropriate policy responses could be framed and strategies could be worked out to address the issue of growing unemployment.

Also Read: SEBI plans to relax norms for REITs, InvITs to increase investors' access
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday credited his government's demonetisation decision for bringing down prices of houses and making them affordable for the aspiring youth.

He also said that if the previous governments had to do the work that he has done so far, they would have needed "25 more years" for it.

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The prime minister was addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for extension of the new terminal at Surat airport in Gujarat.

"I was asked what has been the benefit of note ban decision. You should ask it to the youth, who could buy residential homes at affordable rates after the decision. Black money used to be parked in the real estate sector, but with decisions like note ban and RERA, we put a check to it," Modi said.

He lauded the Civil Aviation Ministry's 'Udaan' (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme - a regional connectivity scheme that makes flying affordable for masses, saying it will boost development of the country's aviation sector.

The prime minister also said that during the last four years of NDA rule, his government constructed 1.30 crore houses while during the previous UPA rule, 25 lakh houses were built.

He also stated that for the last 30 years, the country had a "hung Parliament" due to which progress was affected. "But four years ago, people voted to give full majority after which the country is progressing rapidly," he said.

Also Read: In the age of automation, AI, companies focus on hiring people with soft skills: report

Also Read: Indian sovereign bond yield touches 7.6% ahead of Budget 2019: report
LIC Housing Finance Wednesday reported 25.5 per cent jump in December quarter profit at Rs 596.31 crore, mainly due to higher interest income.

The company's profit was Rs 475.1 crore during the third quarter of 2017-18.

Also Read: Indian sovereign bond yield touches 7.6% ahead of Budget 2019: report

As per a stock exchange filing, the company's total income stood at Rs 4,439.21 crore in the reported quarter.

Interest income increased to Rs 4,414.15 crore from Rs 3,586.74 crore in the year-ago period.

Total expenses too widened to Rs 3,579.62 crore from Rs 2,907.90 crore in the third quarter of 2017-18.

The company's stock closed at Rs 434.15 on BSE, down 4.24 per cent from the previous close.

Also Read: SEBI plans to relax norms for REITs, InvITs to increase investors' access

Also Read: In the age of automation, AI, companies focus on hiring people with soft skills: report
Foreign borrowing of Indian companies nearly trebled from the year-ago period to USD 3.81 billion in December 2018, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India.

Of the total fundraising during last month, USD 3.77 billion was mobilised through external commercial borrowings (ECBs) in the foreign markets, while USD 37.04 million was through rupee-denominated bonds (RDBs), showed the RBI data on ECB for December 2018.

Also Read: Indian sovereign bond yield touches 7.6% ahead of Budget 2019: report

The domestic firms had raised USD 1.31 billion through the ECB route in December 2017.

In the ECB category, USD 3.30 billion was raised through the automatic route and the rest of USD 473.56 million was mopped up through the approval route.

Among the major borrowers, Indian Oil Corporation raised USD 1.3 billion as a working capital loan; Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd USD 125 million for refinancing of earlier ECB; and Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd USD 195.83 million for power projects.

NTPC and Hindustan Petroleum Corp raised USD 300 million each for power projects and working capital needs respectively; PNB Housing Finance borrowed USD 265 million for on-lending and Bharat Petroleum Corporation USD 450 million for its working capital requirements.

Mortgage lender HDFC was the only borrower to raise the USD 473.56 million loans under the approval route of ECB.

Those who issued RDBs, or the masala bonds, in foreign markets included Avas Financiers that raised USD 28.28 million for on-lending and Roserve Enviro Pvt Ltd which mopped up USD 7.78 million for rupee expenditure.

Also Read: SEBI plans to relax norms for REITs, InvITs to increase investors' access

Also Read: In the age of automation, AI, companies focus on hiring people with soft skills: report
With the rise of automation and artificial intelligence in the job market, 92 per cent of global hiring managers agree that candidates with soft skills are increasingly important to the success of a company, a report said Wednesday.

According to LinkedIn annual Global Talent Trends 2019 report, four key trends -- soft skills, work flexibility, anti-harassment, and pay transparency -- are impacting the future of human resources (HR) and the recruiting industry, in India as well as globally.

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Soft skills include personal attributes that enable effective and harmonious interpersonal communication.

In India, 87 per cent of respondents believe that candidates with strong soft skills will be increasingly important to the success of their organisations. However, only 53 per cent say their companies have a formal process for assessing soft skills.

The report further said, 67 per cent of talented professionals in India agree workplace flexibility -- the option for employees to work when and where they would like -- is extremely important in shaping the future of recruiting and talent.

On the importance of anti-harassment policies, 87 per cent of talented professionals in India agree that harassment prevention is a very important trend for the future of hiring and HR, compared to just 71 per cent globally.

Regarding pay-parity, around 71 per cent respondents in India agree that the top benefit of sharing salary ranges is fostering greater job satisfaction for employees. That said, 78 per cent also fear that this will create salary disputes among current employees.

"On the one hand, developing markets like India, Mexico and Brazil assign greater importance to soft skills in shaping the future of recruiting and HR. On the other, developed European and American counterparts assign greater importance to the role of work-flexibility in shaping the future of the industry," the report said.

This report combines a survey of over 5,000 talent professionals in 35 countries (including more than 400 non-staffing professionals in India).

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Commerce minister Suresh Prabhu Wednesday said the government will release the new e-commerce policy soon which is awaiting approval from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

"The new e-commerce policy, initially drafted by industry stakeholders, is currently waiting for clearance from the DIPP," Prabhu told PTI without elaborating.

Also Read: In the age of automation, AI, companies focus on hiring people with soft skills: report

Speaking on sidelines of an event organised by the Federation of Gujarat Industries, he said, "although the government is willing to listen to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the policy will be prepared by us."

The minister also said the new industrial policy, which aims at boosting manufacturing, promote foreign technology transfer and attract overseas investments, is also is awaiting the Cabinet approval.

Elaborating on the policy, Prabhu said, it will replace the 27-year-old existing policy, aims to resolve bottlenecks arising from inadequate infrastructure, restrictive labour laws and complicated business environment.

He also informed that the government is creating 'sub-national'- ease of doing business parameters which will be measured at the district level because that is where the local industries are flourishing.

Prabhu said countries like Russia, Japan, Korea, and Sweden have expressed interest in investing in projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and smart cities besides the railways, and public transport.

Also Read: SEBI plans to relax norms for REITs, InvITs to increase investors' access

Also Read: Indian sovereign bond yield touches 7.6% ahead of Budget 2019: report
After revising the guidance for Apple's fiscal 2019 first quarter to $84 billion (approximately) in revenue and approximately 38 per cent gross margins earlier this month, the Cupertino giant has announced the results for the first quarter. For fiscal ending December 29, 2018, the company posted quarterly revenue of $84.3 billion, a decline of 5 per cent from the year-ago quarter.

According to the company, the iPhone revenues declined 15 per cent from the prior year, whereas the total revenue from all other products and services grew by 19 per cent. Services revenue reached an all-time high of $10.9 billion, up 19 per cent over the prior year. Revenue from Mac and Wearables, Home and Accessories grew 9 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively, and revenue from iPad grew 17 per cent.

"While it was disappointing to miss our revenue guidance, we manage Apple for the long term, and this quarter's results demonstrate that the underlying strength of our business runs deep and wide," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.

During the earnings call this morning, Cook highlighted the four factors that impacted Apple's results to be the different iPhone launch timing from a year ago, FX headwinds, supply constraints on certain products, and macroeconomic conditions in emerging markets. He says, "One of those factors, weak macro conditions in some emerging markets, was significantly more severe than we originally foresaw, especially in Greater China. As our letter noted, that challenge was compounded by quarterly iPhone upgrades that were lower than we anticipated."

Apple's revenue in Greater China was down by $4.8 billion from last year with declines across iPhone, Mac, and iPad. Most of the shortfall relative to the original guidance and over 100 per cent of worldwide, year over year revenue decline was driven by Apple's performance in Greater China. Apple says that despite iPhone upgrades being lower than anticipated, the business grew outside of China including new records in the America, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and rest of Asia Pacific segment. Apple had record performance in large markets including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Korea.

A few factors resulting in slowing down sales of iPhones have been customers holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer than in the past, iPhone subsidies are becoming increasingly less common, and foreign exchange, as the relative strength of the US dollar has made Apple products more expensive in many parts of the world.

However, Apple's total active installed base of devices has grown from 1.3 billion at the end of January 2018 to 1.4 billion by the end of December, reaching a new all-time high for each of the main product categories and for all five of geographic segments. "That's a great testament to the satisfaction and loyalty of our customers, and it's driving our services business to new records thanks to our large and fast-growing ecosystem," added Cook.
SBI likely to own 15% stake in cash-strapped Jet Airways

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SBI likely to own 15% stake in Jet Airways, Etihad 40%, say reports



Jet Airways creditor State Bank of India is likely to own 15 percent of the airline if the cash-strapped carrier's plan for a debt-for-equity swap is approved, Indian TV channels reported on Tuesday. With debts of about $1.14 billion, Jet has been hit by fierce competition from other low-cost carriers, a weaker rupee and high oil prices. It owes money to banks, pilots, vendors and lessors, some of whom are considering taking back aircraft, sources have told Reuters.



Korean car maker Kia starts trial production in India; SP2 to hit the road by early July



Korean car maker Kia Motors has started the trial production at its first Indian plant in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. With an investment of around $1 billion, the manufacturing plant has an annual production capacity of three lakh vehicles. To tap the fastest growing segment in otherwise a muted market, company will start rolling out the first mid-segment SUV, the SP2. The cars are expected to hit the road by early July of this year.



2 non-govt National Statistical Commission members resign over delay in release of NSSO data



Two non-governmental members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) have resigned as they were reportedly disappointed over the way the government had sidelined them. Though, as per the NSC website, their tenure was supposed to end in 2020, but they resigned from their posts on Monday.And now, the NSC is left with Amitabh Kant, NITI Aayog chief, and Pravin Srivastav, chief statistician, as its members, while there is no non-governmental members in the statistical body.



India improves its global corruption ranking in 2018: Study



India has improved its ranking on a global corruption index in 2018, while its neighbour China lagged far behind, according to the annual index released by an anti-graft watchdog on Tuesday. India rose by three points to 78 in the list of 180 countries in the world, while China ranked 87 and Pakistan 117 in 2018



Reserve Bank to infuse Rs 37,500 crore through OMO in February



The Reserve Bank of India Tuesday said it will inject Rs 37,500 crore into the system through the purchase of government securities in February to increase liquidity. The OMO for the month is indicative and the RBI retains the flexibility to change it, depending on the evolving liquidity and market conditions, it said further.



Jet Airways decides to cancel 15 flights on Wednesday; six Boeing 737 planes on ground



Crisis-ridden Jet Airways has decided to cancel 15 flights on Wednesday following grounding of six Boeing 737 planes due to non-payment of lease rentals, according to sources. The airline, which is grappling with acute financial woes, cancelled around 20 flights on Tuesday as three more Boeing 737 aircraft were grounded



Yes Bank co-promoters agree to nominate one director each on board



Yes Bank promoters Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur have agreed to nominate one representative director each on the bank's board as part of truce being under the works, the private lender said Tuesday. The bank in November had said that efforts were underway for mutual resolution and truce between Rana Kapoor group and Madhu Kapur and her family, the two co-promoters groups of the private sector lender. The two new appointed directors will be announced at the next scheduled Board meeting in April 2019.


















A month before Narendra Modi government announced its flagship national health insurance programme Ayushmann Bharat in September 2018, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana, a health assurance scheme claimed to cover more persons than what would have been covered under the Central scheme. Earlier this month, Odisha said it is rolling out yet another welfare measure, to ensure inclusive and flexible income support system to the small and marginal farmers, landless labourers and sharecroppers of the state. The timing of the implementation of Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) Scheme is also interesting as in every likelihood, it may just be preceding Modi government's plans to announce its own version of direct income support to farmers.

To be fair, Odisha was not the first state to have thought of these schemes. In the case of health insurance, both Odisha and the Centre had looked at an existing model of health assurance that was being successfully run by the Telangana state government. In the case of farm income support too there is a successful example - at least it helped Telangana Rashtra Samiti romp back home for a second term with a higher peoples' mandate. Telangana was the first state to announce Rs 4000 per acre for every farmer in the state as income support for the purchase of seeds, fertilisers and other investments in the field during every crop season (i.e. twice a year). The biggest criticism against the scheme was that the income support was available to the land owning farmer and not persons farming on leased land or landless labourers. The Odisha model of farm income support builds on the Telangana experiment to minimise such criticisms. It provides financial assistance of Rs 25,000 per farm family over five seasons to small and marginal farmers, Rs 12,500 to each landless agricultural household for agricultural allied activities like for small goat rearing unit, mini-layer unit, bee-keeping, etc and a sustenance assistance of Rs 10,000 per family each to landless agricultural labourers. The state government has estimated that the total cost of the programme, intended to benefit 92 percent of Odisha cultivators, will be over Rs 10,000 crore till 2020-21.

What will be Modi government's response?

The Telangana model will have its own challenges as the government will have to face the ire of a much weaker and vulnerable section of Indian farming community. Even the landowning farmers will have a problem as India's land records are hardly updated in terms of ownership on a countrywide basis. The Odisha model may look more inclusive, but will be an implementation nightmare as the government may not be able to commit massive payouts without tinkering with existing subsidies it provides as minimum support price for crops, fertiliser subsidies or near free electricity for irrigation in many states.

The announcement, however, will not wait.

Firstly because, Modi government can get away with a lofty plan that needs to be implemented by the next government that takes charge after the general election is due in a couple of months from now. Second, as in the case of Ayushmann Bharat, the income support scheme for farmers will also be something where the cost is shared between the Centre and the States. In the case of health, it is in a 60:40 ratio for every large state. The income support too cannot be much different. The states too can play smart by making such announcements well before the Central announcement, as any eventual merger of the two schemes would mean burden sharing with the Centre.

For now, optics is important, and no political party will shy away from it.
Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty Wednesday ended flat as cautious investors refrained from taking any bets ahead of January derivatives expiry, US Fed policy outcome and upcoming Union Budget.

The BSE Sensex ended marginally lower by 1.25 points and the NSE Nifty closed with a negligible loss of 0.4 point.

Heavyweights ICICI Bank and Tata Steel-both rising over 5 per cent-saved the day for the Sensex. Also, mixed trading pattern in global shares as US-China trade talks kicked off earlier in the day made domestic investors even more cautious.

After opening over 200 points higher, the 30-share Sensex swung 359 points to finally settle 1.25 points lower at 35,591.25.

Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty ended 0.40 points down at 10,651.80.

Sectorally, metal and banking stocks rallied the most, while FMCG and realty stocks came under selling pressure.

Broader indices, however, outperformed benchmark indices with BSE Smallcap index jumping 0.78 per cent and BSE Midcap index rising 0.22 per cent.

On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net of Rs 354.36 crore Tuesday, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 81.27 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.

Global investor sentiment was mixed as American and Chinese negotiators started two days of high-level talks aimed at settling a six-month trade war that has weakened both sides, shaken financial markets and clouded the outlook for the global economy, experts said.

Domestic investors turned cautious ahead of futures and options expiry of January series contracts and the upcoming interim budget, to be held on Friday.

Market is also awaiting the outcome of the US Federal Reserve's meeting later in the day, they added.

Among the Sensex pack, ICICI Bank was the top gainer, rallying 6.05 per cent, ahead of its quarterly earning scheduled for release later in the day.

Shares of Tata Steel soared 5.14 per cent after S&P Global Ratings said the company's plan to sell majority stake in its Southeast Asia business will help the company reduce debt by about 3 per cent without impacting its business position.

Axis Bank shares also jumped 4.56 per cent after the third largest private sector lender Axis Bank reported a 131 per cent surge in net income for the December quarter.

Other gainers include HCL Tech, Bajaj Finance, SBI, L&T, Coal India and Vedanta, gaining up to 2.82 per cent.

On the other hand, Bajaj Auto, Kotak Bank, HDFC, Yes Bank, Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, ITC, RIL, HDFC Bank, HUL, ONGC and Sun Pharma were the top losers, shedding up to 2.65 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.40 per cent and Korea's Kospi surged 1.05 per cent; while Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.07 per cent and Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.52 per cent.

In the eurozone, Frankfurt's DAX slipped 0.21 per cent, while Paris CAC 40 rose 0.53 per cent in late morning deals. While, London's FTSE jumped 0.94 per cent.

The Indian rupee, meanwhile, depreciated marginally against US dollar at 71.15.

The benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.16 per cent to USD 61.30 per barrel.
Private sector lender Yes Bank on Tuesday said that its promoters Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur have agreed to nominate one representative director each on the bank's board, ending their difference after a nearly decade-long dispute.

Cheering the news, shares of the bank gained as much as 5.40 per cent in early deals to touch a high of Rs 213.55 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange, after making a positive start at Rs 210 against previous closing price of Rs 202.60.

In a similar trend, stocks of the lender were trading up 1.48 per cent to trade at Rs 205.90on the National Stock Exchange.

Earlier on November 20, 2018, Yes Bank had stated that efforts were being undertaken for mutual resolution and truce between Rana Kapoor Group and Madhu Kapur and family, the two co-promoter groups of the bank.

"This is intended to ensure better coordination and support by the two promoter groups with the new MD & CEO and the board of directors of the bank," Yes Bank said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

"The two new appointed Directors will be announced at the next scheduled Board meeting in April, 2019."

Also Read: Dewan Housing Finance stock falls 9.73% amid Rs 31,000-crore fraud allegations by Cobrapost

The Mumbai-headquartered bank further said that its select senior board of directors had also interacted with Madhu Kapur and family, recently.

According to media report, talk between the two groups started after the Reserve Bank of India cut short Rana Kapoor's term and directed him to step down from his position after January 31.

The board of directors of the bank held a special board meeting on Tuesday, to finalise on the delegation of powers for transition management in the interim period commencing from February 1, 2019 until Ravneet Gill assumes office.

The board also approved and recommended to the RBI for its approval, a senior Board Director for temporarily holding the office as 'Board Director on Interim Special Duty (MD & CEO's responsibilities)' from February 1, 2019, till such date Ravneet Gill assumes office in March 2019, the bank said in the exchange filing.

Last week, the bank appointed Ravneet Singh as the next Managing Director and CEO of the bank, who will replace founder Rana Kapoor for the top job at the private lender. Gill presently heads Deutsche Bank India.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar
State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, is likely to own at least 15 per cent in debt laden Jet Airways (India) if Naresh Goyal-owned airline gets approval to convert a part of its loan into equity as part of a restructuring package, say media reports.

As part of the new rescue proposal, cash-strapped Jet Airways plans to convert some debt into equity to help keep ill-fated carrier alive and safeguard about 23,000 jobs. As a result, founder and Chairman Naresh Goyal's stake would fall below 20 per cent from existing 51 per cent, Bloomberg reported.

Jet Airways creditor SBI may end up acquiring as much as 30 per cent if it injects more equity in the carrier, TV channels reported.

According to the report, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which currently holds a 24% stake in the airline, is expected to infuse additional funds to take its holding to more than 40%.

In a similar incident in 2010, SBI ended up owning 25 per cent stake in Vijay Mallya-led Kingfisher Airlines, before losing out when it was eventually grounded.

Jet Airways, which had a net debt of about Rs 8,000 crore($1.14 billion) as on September this year, failed to pay money to pilots, lessors, banks and vendors.

Also Read: Debt laden Jet Airways grounds 6 Boeing planes, cancels 15 flights amid rising dues

However, the final decision hasn't been taken as a deal is still being negotiated.

Jet Airways has called an extraordinary general meeting on February 21 to seek shareholders approval to increase its authorised share capital by issuing equity and preferred shares.

Goyal has been making all possible efforts to seek funds to keep the airline afloat, which is facing the pinch of high fuel price and intense global competition in the aviation sector. In its hunt for an investor, the Goyal-led company talked to several international airlines for potential fundraising.

Reacting to the news, shares of the carrier declined as much as 3.17 per cent in early deals to touch an intra-day low of Rs 235.05 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange, after making a flat start at Rs 242.55 against previous closing price of Rs 242.75. In a similar trend, stocks of the firm were trading 0.66 per cent lower at Rs 241.50 on the National Stock Exchange.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar
Jet Airways creditor State Bank of India is likely to own 15 percent of the airline if the cash-strapped carrier's plan for a debt-for-equity swap is approved, Indian TV channels reported on Tuesday.

With debts of about $1.14 billion, Jet has been hit by fierce competition from other low-cost carriers, a weaker rupee and high oil prices. It owes money to banks, pilots, vendors and lessors, some of whom are considering taking back aircraft, sources have told Reuters.

Jet said on Monday it would seek shareholder approval next month to convert debt into equity, increase its share capital and allow lenders to nominate a director on its board to help resolve its financial problems.

Its lenders, including SBI, could end up owning as much as 30 percent, while shareholder Etihad Airways could see its stake rise to more than 40 percent from 24 percent if it injects more equity in the Indian carrier, TV channels reported.

The airline's founder and chairman Naresh Goyal is likely to see his stake cut to below 20 percent from 51 percent.

Also Read: State Bank of India officials allege Aadhaar data misused, UIDAI dismisses charge

Jet, which controls a sixth of India's booming aviation market, did not respond to a request comment, while SBI and Etihad also did not reply to emails seeking a response.

Indian banks in 2010 undertook a similar debt for equity swap to try and save Kingfisher Airlines, founded by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, and ended up owning nearly a quarter of the airline, before losing out when it was eventually grounded.

Jet defaulted on a debt payment to a consortium of Indian banks, lead by SBI, this month, prompting a downgrade by ratings agency ICRA. The airline has to make large debt repayments over the next few years, starting with about 17 billion rupees ($242 million) by the end of March, ICRA said on January 2.

The Economic Times reported on Tuesday that Jet's lenders want to repossess some planes and have forced the airline to ground five aircraft, including its new fuel-efficient Boeing 737 MAX planes, leading to flight cancellations.

"Information regarding the grounding of the Jet Airways' MAX aircraft and consequent cancellations is factually incorrect," a Jet Airways spokesman said on Tuesday.

Jet was scheduled to add 11 737 MAX planes to its fleet by March 31, but has taken delivery of only five and will not add more until a resolution plan is agreed, Reuters has reported.
In a step to ensure that the driver partners are secure during their job, Uber has launched its Driver Safety Toolkit, a set of in-app safety features. They have also further strengthened their community guidelines. As mentioned in a press statement, users below a certain minimum rating will lose their access to the Uber app. There will be multiple notifications regarding the same before the user is barred from using the app.

For the uninitiated, as one gives stars to the Uber driver partner after a trip, the driver partner also rates the passenger. The company said that India was the first market where the emergency button was launched, which will be part of a larger Safety Toolkit in the app. It will allow driver partners access to all possible protective measures under the shield icon.

There are three parts to the safety updates by Uber. Like passengers, the driver partners can now share their trip details with loved ones. One can keep a track of the trip with that feature. There is the aforementioned emergency button that allows drivers to connect with law enforcement during an emergency situation. There is also the speed limit feature that will allow the driver partner to keep a tab on the speed limit, allowing them to drive at a safe pace.

Prabhjeet Singh, Head of Cities, India & South Asia said that there can be no Uber without the driver partners, who are at the centre of the cab-hailing service's business. "There can be no Uber without driver partners - they are at the centre of Uber's business. The national roll-out of an emergency button and the 'share trip feature' reiterates our commitment to their safety," he said.

"The updated guidelines extend the same behavioural standards to the riders that Uber has for the driver partners... these guidelines will help us to foster mutual respect between riders and drivers," Singh further added.

Singh said that they are also notifying a small number of riders who have been consistently rated poorly. "We are notifying a small number of riders, who have consistently been rated poorly by drivers over a prolonged period of time, to improve their behaviour. If that doesn't happen, a handful of riders could lose access to the Uber application," he added.

He also mentioned that while this change will not affect many riders, it will, however, remind a select few what is expected of them.

(Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya)

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The government is working on a proposal for a museum that would depict India's educational history and tradition that go thousands of years back, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said Wednesday.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) minister said the government was working on a policy to bring a change in the nomenclature of "deemed universities" to get rid of the word "deemed".

"Museums and memorials will also become important for invoking pride in our history, tradition and heritage. They are also a major part of our success," Javadekar said.

"It is 10,000 years of history. How did people study earlier and how we progressed later. There was a time when universities of Nalanda, Takshashila and other Indian institutes were in the position where American universities are today, attracting students from all over the world. Earlier, India was the destination and students would come here for knowledge. This is our heritage," he said.

The HRD minister made the remarks during the inauguration of the new building of the National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology in Noida in presence of Union Culture Minister (independent charge) Mahesh Sharma.

"During years of freedom movement, leaders such as (Bal Gangadhar) Tilak and (Madan Mohan) Malviya opened colleges and schools so that by the time the country achieved freedom, people should be prepared with education," he said.

"We have such huge, rich history of education, so we are also working on a proposal that national museum of educational history should also be made and India should be proud of its educational tradition," he said.

Javadekar, who turned 68 on Wednesday, said in Narendra Modi, the country has for the first time got a prime minister who is interested in working for the heritage and assets of the land.

"This is the first time that we have got a prime minister who is passionate about heritage and assets and intends that the people should take inspiration from it and work for the betterment of society," he said.

The minister said several museums and memorials dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, the 1857 uprising, Jallianwala Bagh incident, have been made by the present government, while some such as the War Memorial and a Police Memorial are under-construction.

"New technologies have been used along with heritage works and assets in these museums. This not only enriches people's knowledge but also fills them with a deep respect for our history," he said.

Javadekar exhorted people to engage with art, culture, nature and history and not only run after money.

"Only earning money and spending it is not life. The meaning of life is realised when engaged with books, art, culture, and nature. This is a meaningful life because if you don't read books, don't visit museums, or zoo or engage with nature, that life is incomplete," he said.

"There have been debates and discussions on whether or not to write "deemed to be university". There are legal aspects involved. But soon we will have a policy to make sure that a university is called university. We will work for that and come out with a solution," he said.

On the new campus of the National Museum Institute, the HRD minister said it would be an impetus to quality in the field and the museum will also be worth visiting.

"History of Art, Conservation and Museology are important subjects dealing with the understanding of history and heritage and about conservation and maintenance of heritage and artefacts. There is a demand world over of people skilled in these fields," Javadekar said.

At present, there are 250 students in the institute and the number is likely to double up in the near future, he said, adding that some new courses will also be introduced here and the institute would be imparting knowledge on conserving the country's heritage.

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Hundreds of women walked over 400 kms to reach the state capital Wednesday demanding a blanket ban on the sale and consumption of liquor in Karnataka.

Beginning their march from Raichur on January 19, the women under the banner of Madya Nishedha Andolana converged to the city via Peenya and gathered at the Malleswaram ground here.

The police, however, prevented them from going to the Vidhana Soudha, the seatof power.

"We chose this day, the January 30, to remind the government that Mahatma Gandhi sacrificed his life for this nation.

His wish was to see a liquor-free society.

It's sad that the government considers liquor as a source of income and not as a social evil," said Papamma, a women activist from Kolar while addressing the crowd.

Taking a jibe at the people at the helm, Papamma said that it is surprising that the educated policymakers have no clue to the ill effects of liquor which even an illiterate person is well aware of.

Former MLA B R Patil said he wholeheartedly supported the prohibition demand.

He pointed out that he had raised this issue with the then chief minister Siddaramaiah but that no action was taken to this effect.

Speaking on the occasion, theatre artist Arundhati Nag highlighted that the Bihar government had to bow to the people's demand for imposing ban on sale of liquor.

The Karnataka government cannot ignore this demand, she said.

In a tragic incident, one of the participants Renukamma from Khairavadagi village was killed in a road accident on Monday near Bengaluru.

A Lingayat seer Swami Panditaradhya said the "indifferent" state government has chosen to turn a blind eye to the demand.

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NSA Ajit Doval's son Vivek Doval Wednesday completed recording statement in his defamation plea against 'The Caravan' magazine for an alleged defamatory article and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh for using that content.

Doval told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that all the allegations levelled by the magazine and later repeated by Ramesh at a press conference were baseless and false and damaged his reputation in the eyes of family members and professional colleagues.

The court has posted the matter for February 11 when the statement of other witnesses will be recorded.

Besides Vivek Doval, there are two other witnesses -- his friend Nikhil Kapoor and business partner Amit Sharma -- who will record their statements in support of the criminal defamation complaint.

Doval in his complaint had said that the magazine and Ramesh had attempted to "deliberately maligne and defame" him to "settle scores with his father".

The Caravan in its January 16 online write-up titled 'The D Companies' had said that Vivek Doval, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government demonetised all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".

According to the complaint, Ramesh had held a press conference on January 17 reiterating the "baseless and unfounded facts" as narrated in the article.

He had alleged that the contents of the article present "no illegality" on his part, but the entire narration has been presented in a manner, which suggests "wrongdoings" to the readers.

With regard to Ramesh, the complaint said that the press conference addressed by him went "beyond the mere narration in the article" and that he was already geared and armed to launch an attack, "merely waiting for the publication of the article", which could then provide a "smokescreen to the otherwise targeted and deliberate attack on the reputation of the complainant and his family".

It said the article has been used as a political tool to "foster in unscrupulous hands" to "seek vendetta and wreak vengeance".

It also said that the very act of setting up and launching of a hedge fund, whether in the Cayman Islands or any other place in the world, is not by itself an illegal and unlawful act.

"However, the same, even without explicitly so stating, has been portrayed in a manner that leads to the very setting up and launching of the hedge fund being perceived as an unlawful act," it said.

The complaint alleged that "a web of conjectures and surmises has been devised by selective and careful nitpicking of random facts in respect of the complainant, his brother and his father the facts being completely unrelated to one another and presenting them in a manner that hints at deep rooted conspiracies between the family members, in carrying out laundering of black money, by rerouting of funds into India through the Cayman Islands, in the post-demonetization era".

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Vitamin D supplements may promote greater insulin sensitivity, lowering glucose levels and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a study claims.

The benefits of vitamin D in promoting bone health are already well known, researchers said.

Other recent studies have shown a clear relationship between vitamin D and glycemic control, suggesting that vitamin D increases insulin sensitivity and improves pancreatic beta-cell function, they said.

The study, published in the journal Menopause, involved 680 Brazilian women aged 35 to 74 years, to evaluate the possible association between vitamin D deficiency and increased glycemia.

Of the women interviewed, 24 (3.5 per cent) reported using vitamin D supplements.

Vitamin D supplementation was found to be negatively associated with high glucose levels, researchers said.

Habitual exposure to the sun also provided the same association, demonstrating that vitamin D deficiencies are associated with high blood glucose levels, they said.

"Although a causal relationship has not been proven, low levels of vitamin D may play a significant role in type 2 diabetes mellitus," said JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

"Vitamin D supplementation may help improve blood sugar control, but intervention studies are still needed," Pinkerton said.

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Vice President Venkaiah Naidu will unveil Mahatma Gandhi's 'Grand Wall Mural' here Thursday to mark his 150th birth anniversary year, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission said.

The nation remembered Mahatma Gandhi on his 71st death anniversary Wednesday.

The 150 square meters clay mural of Mahatma Gandhi is made of 'Kulhads' by 150 village potters, who assembled to make it at Morbi in Gujarat the birthplace of Gandhiji, the KVIC said in a statement.

"With the co-operation of these 150 highly-skilled potters from all over the country, we have made this 150-square-metre (15 x 10 metres) wall mural, using their Kulhads," KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena said.

He said the potters had brought clay from their respective regions to produce Kulhads for the mural.

As many as 3,870 all-weather proof Kulhads were used in the final design.

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Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar assumed charge as Vice Chief of the Naval Staff Wednesday, according to a statement.

Kumar, an alumnus of Sainik School, Amaravathi Nagar and the National Defence Academ (NDA), Khadakwasla in Pune, was commissioned into the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy on July 1, 1982.

He has held various crucial staff and command assignments during his naval career spanning more than three decades.

After completing his specialisation in navigation and direction at Kochi in 1989, Kumar served as the Navigating Officer of the Indian Naval Ships Beas, Nilgiri, Ranvir and Vikrant, the statement said.

His other sea tenures include Commanding Officer of INS Kulish and Ranvir and Executive Officer onboard INS Brahmaputra.

In the rank of Vice Admiral, he has been the Commandant of the NDA and the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, it said.

Kumar is a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and has attended the Army Higher Command Course at Mhow as well as the Expeditionary Operations Course at Quantico, Virginia, US.

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As many as 39 firms, including six foreign players, Wednesday put in 145 bids for 24 out of the 25 oil and gas fields on offer in the second round of bidding for discovered small fields in India, with mining giant Vedanta placing offer for the maximum 21 fields.

At the close of bidding for the second round of Discovered Small Fields (DSF), state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) placed bids for 10 fields each while Indian Oil Corp (IOC) bid for 3, according to upstream regulator DGH.

British company Soco International made its foray into India, bidding for one field while little known Arch Softwares put in bids for 15 fields.

Vedanta, which had walked away with 41 exploration blocks of the 55 on offer in a separate open acreage licensing round last year, bid for 21 fields in DSF-II. It was the sole bidder in one field.

The 25 contract areas on offer covered 59 discovered oil and gas fields, spread over 3,000 square kilometers with a prospective resource base of over 190 million tonne (MT) of oil and oil equivalent gas, DGH said in a statement.

"Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) received 145 e-bids for 24 out of 25 contract areas under the DSF Bid Round-II by the deadline of 1200 Hours on January 30, 2019," it said.

Out of the total 145 e-bids received, 103 were received for onland contract areas and 42 for offshore contract areas.

"As many as 39 companies (individually or as a member of the bidding consortium) have participated in the bid round. The response to the DSF Bid Round-II has been overwhelming as compared to the last round of DSF in 2016. Out of 25 contract areas on offer, 15 are onland and 10 are in shallow offshore areas," DGH said.

All the 15 onland contract areas received bids while 9 out of 10 offshore contract areas have received bids.

"Six foreign companies have also submitted the bids. This bid round saw more than anticipated participation from new entrants from India and foreign countries like the US, UK, Australia, Singapore and the UAE," it said without giving details.

The fields would be awarded by end of February 2019, so as to expedite the monetisation of the hydrocarbon production from these fields, it said.

In 2016, the government brought in a new DSF policy wherein 'idle' small discovered fields of ONGC and Oil India were taken away from them and auctioned to private players on liberalised terms including marketing and pricing freedom and lower taxes.

ONGC and OIL say they have not been able to develop the fields due to their small size, and the current capped prices are making their development unviable. Private companies will, however, get full pricing and marketing freedom.

Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had last month told Parliament that ONGC had spent Rs 12,826 crore and OIL another Rs 224.27 crore on the 115 oil and gas discoveries that were taken away from them by the government for auctioning to private companies under DSF bid rounds.

Under the DSF bid round-I in 2017, 67 discoveries were mostly of ONGC.

ONGC and OIL are not compensated for the amount they had spent on discoveries of these oil and gas reserves. Unlike state-owned firms, the private players are allowed pricing and marketing freedom to make these discoveries viable. The two PSUs have previously stated that they could not produce from the discoveries as they are uneconomically at current cap prices.

The 67 discoveries under the DSF bid round-I are estimated to have in place reserves of 86 MT of oil and gas equivalent.

In the DSF round-I, a total of 134 bids were received for 34 blocks out of 46 on offer.

"The production from areas offered in DSF-I is likely to start as per contract timelines in 2019-20 and now DSF-II areas follow, as a continuum, to add up to the domestic production and increasing the numbers of oil and gas operators in the country," DGH said in the statement.

DGH officials said the main features of DSF-II include a single licence for exploitation of both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon, prior technical experience not a pre-qualification criterion, no upfront signature bonus and full pricing and marketing freedom. Royalty rates have been reduced to 7.5 per cent from 10 per cent for offshore blocks.

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The US has delegitimised the Afghan government by negotiating with the Taliban without its involvement, a former American diplomat has said as he described as "surrender" the Trump administration's framework of a deal with the terror outfit.

Remarks by Ryan Crocker, who served as America's ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, came after Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said an "agreement in principle" has been reached on the framework of a deal with the Taliban.

Under the framework, the Taliban would guarantee Afghan territory is never used by terrorists and bring an end to the 17-year-old war.

"I was ambassador to Afghanistan. This deal is a surrender," Crocker, a foreign service officer who served as country's ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, besides several other ambassadorial postings, said in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

Crocker, who has kept a close a watch on the region, said that the current peace talks with the Taliban bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War.

"Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we were just negotiating the terms of our surrender. The Taliban will offer any number of commitments, knowing that when we are gone and the Taliban is back, we will have no means of enforcing any of them," he said.

Noting that the framework of the was reached without the involvement of the Afghan government, Corker said that the Taliban has said all along that it refuses to negotiate with the government, considering the government the illegitimate puppet of the US occupation.

"By acceding to this Taliban demand, we have ourselves delegitimised the government we claim to support," Corker asserted.

The former American diplomat said that the US could announce that talks won't proceed beyond the framework, to matters of substance, without the full inclusion of the Afghan government.

"Right now, the inclusion of the Afghans is only theoretical. We could also note that unless some other solution is found, US troops will remain in Afghanistan as long as the current government wants them, protecting the United States' national security interests and defending core values, such as women's rights, that we have fostered there since 2001, Corker said.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan Monday called the ongoing negotiations between the United States and the Taliban encouraging and said they might pave the way for more serious planning for a gradual draw-down of US troops in Afghanistan.

"The talks were encouraging. We have to give people time," Shanahan told reporters during an off-camera conference at the Pentagon.

Shanahan said that there's been no change to the 4R-plus-S plan.

"Realign, reinforce, regionalize, reconcile -- I think that's what we're seeing now, the reconcile piece -- and then, obviously, sustainment. I just emphasize no change to the 4Rs-plus-S," he said.

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The United States called for more transparency Wednesday as it accused Russia and China of not fully reporting their nuclear programmes amid US threats to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.

A senior US official made the remarks as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- all of them nuclear-armed powers -- met in Beijing for talks on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Andrea Thompson, US under secretary for arms control and international security, said there were "uneven results" in efforts to advance transparency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"We previously agreed to set (a) format for reporting, but the gap between the reports of the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, is great," Thompson said in her opening remarks.

"I cannot overemphasise the value of transparency," she said.

"We look forward to discussing how we can enhance transparency with a view to reassuring others of the very real steps we are taking to ensure full and verifiable compliance with our arms control non-proliferation and disarmament commitments and obligations."



Officials from Russia, China, France and Britain -- countries under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty -- also attended the meeting, which will continue on Thursday.

The talks come after months of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

US President Donald Trump has promised to walk away from the agreement while President Vladimir Putin has threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

Earlier this month, talks in Geneva between senior diplomats from both countries fell through as Washington and Moscow blamed each other for pushing the INF treaty to the brink of collapse.

Last week, Russia unveiled its missile system in a bid to reassure foreign officials that its weapon was in compliance with the INF treaty.

But Washington has said the missile system should be destroyed in a verifiable manner if Moscow wants to keep the INF alive.

At Wednesday's conference in Beijing, deputy Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed at "the spread of unilateral attitudes" as a threat to nuclear non-proliferation.

"Many issues continue to be unsettled due to the lack of political will," he added, and said that there is an "evident lack of mutual trust" between the five NPT states.

"This (NPT) regime is being loosened, which is fraught with serious and negative impacts for nuclear non-proliferation," he said.

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The Uttar Pradesh government invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on Wednesday to ban any strike in all services related to the secondary board for the next six months.

Sources said the decision had been taken as the state board examinations would start soon and any strike might affect its smooth functioning.

"In public interest, any strike in services related to secondary board has been banned for six months," an official release said.

The ban has been imposed under Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1968.

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BJP Tinsukia district president Lakheswar Moran received minor injuries on Wednesday when some unidentified persons attacked him and clashed with RSS activists here in upper Assam, police said.

Some people attacked Moran when he was on way to attend a public meeting here organised by the RSS to discuss the Citizenship Amendment Bill, as per three separate FIRs filed by the Tinsukia district BJP president, BJP Yuva Morcha and BJP Kisan Morcha in Tinsukia Police Station.

Moran was rushed to hospital where he was administered first aid and his condition is stated to be stable, police said.

Eye witnesses said that some people shouting slogans and waving black flags attacked Moran.

Meanwhile, the BJP Assam committee in a press release has strongly condemned the attack on their district president and demanded arrest of the culprits.

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The Delhi High Court has termed as "unacceptable" that the facial recognition software adopted by the police has not helped in cracking any missing children case, as over 5,000 kids who disappeared from the national capital in last three years remain untraced.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Manoj Kumar Ohri said such a large number of children going missing from Delhi and that too in a span of three years, was "a matter of grave concern".

It also termed as "most unacceptable" that the facial recognition software (FRS) adopted by Delhi Police after due diligence "has not borne any results" as it has "not helped in cracking any missing children case".

"We are told that use of facial recognition software has not helped in cracking any case of missing children so far, which comes as a surprise. It is most unacceptable that the software adopted by the Delhi Police after due diligence has not borne any results," the court said.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the Crime Branch, represented by Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra, had earlier told the bench that of the 19,916 children who went missing from the national capital in the last three years, 14,756 have been traced and reunited with their family.

It had also said that the remaining 5,160 children remained untraced.

Referring to the submission, the bench said, "It is a matter of concern that out of a total number of 19,916 cases of missing children, only 14,756 children have been traced and reunited with their family members whereas, 5,160 children are yet to be traced. Such a large number of children going missing in Delhi and that too in three years, is a matter of grave concern.

"These are voiceless children primarily belonging to the economically distressed strata of society with hardly anyone to take up their cause. The situation becomes more serious when the parents of such children who do not have the financial backup or any wherewithal, are left to run from pillar to post in search for their missing children."



The court also noted that the draft standard operating procedure (SOP), laying down the steps to be followed to trace missing children and reunite them with their families, did not carve out categories of different age groups and the procedure to be followed in respect of each category.

It said that a "uniform application of the SOP across all age groups could result in considerably delaying the recovery process".

Senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing for NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, told the court that Delhi Police has not complied with its earlier orders to ensure presence of one exclusive officer in the Special Juvenile Police Unit stationed at every police station.

He also said that the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) was not monitoring the SOP required to be followed in cases of missing children.

Phoolka further told the court that the missing children cases were not being analysed to understand the pattern, motive and groups behind kidnapping of kids for ransom, child trafficking, maiming them and other illegal activities.

Delhi Police, meanwhile, told the bench that it has made efforts to segregate its law and order division from crime and investigation in various police stations.

It told the court that out of the 180 police stations in Delhi, necessary steps have been taken to establish two divisions -- one for law and order and other for crime and investigation -- in 30 of them on a pilot basis.

Taking note of the submission, the bench said, "Once, segregation between the two divisions takes place in all the police stations in Delhi, a dedicated team for tracking the missing children under the Crime and Investigation Division can be constituted at all the police stations."



"After segregation of the divisions, officers investigating such cases need to be equipped with adequate facilities besides imparting training, so that steps to trace the missing children can be initiated at the earliest, particularly, in the case of those who have a footprint in the social media.

"Where the missing children do not have any presence in social media, necessary alternate tools need to be identified for tracking them expeditiously," the bench added.

It also suggested to Delhi Police to establish in each station in each district, a 'missing persons desk' to "simplify procedures and cut red tape".

The central government was directed to try and simplify the procedure prescribed on its website -- www.trackthemissingchild.gov.in -- for tracing missing kids, as the court was told parents were unable to access the portal or get proper assistance.

The bench asked Mehra to hold a meeting of all the stakeholders, collate the inputs and to update the court about the progress made on the next date of hearing on February 25.

The directions and observations of the court came while hearing a man's plea seeking directions to the police to trace his minor daughter, who went missing in July, 2014.

The then 13-year-old girl went missing on July 21, 2014 and after she could not be traced for more than two-and-a-half years, the father moved the high court in May, 2017 and during the proceedings, the court also looked into the larger issue of kids going missing from Delhi.

The court had, subsequently, transferred the probe in the missing girl's case matter to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the Delhi Police's Crime Branch. The girl is yet to be traced.

The bench has directed the AHTU "to continue taking concrete steps to trace the missing girl".

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British Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday warmed up for their long-awaited meeting to discuss the way ahead on the UK's divorce deal with the European Union by clashing in the House of Commons.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Corbyn repeatedly urged May to rule out a no-deal Brexit and to ditch her "red lines" in any upcoming talks with Brussels.

May hit back by saying that Corbyn "has no plan for Brexit".

The two leaders will meet privately later to seek common ground on Brexit, less than two months before the UK's formal divorce from the 28-member trading bloc.

Corbyn agreed to the meeting because MPs voted against the idea of a no-deal Brexit on Tuesday. He had previously ruled out such a meeting unless May ruled out a no-deal Brexit herself.

At the Prime Minister's Questions, he said May may have succeeded in "temporarily uniting her very divided party" in Tuesday's votes on amendments to her plan but she had to make "more important compromises" to "unite the country".

May said Corbyn was a "fine one to talk about coming together", when he had only now agreed to meet her, after MPs took part in a series of votes on possible changes to her Brexit plan.

She said the majority of MPs had identified the Irish backstop as the main sticking point preventing them from backing her deal, whereas Corbyn's Brexit proposals had been rejected.

"He has no plan for Brexit, no good plan for our economy and no plan for our country," she told MPs.

Lawmakers voted 317 to 301 in favour of changing the backstop plan - the section of May's deal with the EU designed to avoid the return of Northern Ireland border checks.

Corbyn asked May whether, if she did not agree a deal with Brussels that MPs would support, she would back Labour's proposals for a "a strong single market, comprehensive customs union and the guaranteeing of rights and protections rather than the alternative she has been threatening - to crash out with no-deal".

Prime Minister May told him: "You cannot just vote to reject no deal, you have to support a deal."



It was a message she repeated to Labour MP Jack Dromey, who together with Tory MP Caroline Spelman, got MPs to back a non-binding amendment rejecting a no-deal Brexit on Tuesday.

May said she will speak to Irish premier Leo Varadkar later on Wednesday.

"It is important for us to work with the Irish government on the arrangements that will be in place in the future," she added.

Both the UK and EU have to meet their commitments to avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, she told MPs.

Currently, the UK is due to leave the European Union on March 29, with or without a deal.

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British MPs have voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit, but backed embattled Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to renegotiate the divorce agreement already struck with the EU, setting up a new showdown with the powerful bloc which ruled out any more concessions.

In a series of votes on Tuesday, lawmakers rejected a no-deal Brexit by 318 votes to 310, undermining the May government's argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the 28-member EU without an agreement on March 29.

However, the vote is not legally binding - meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date in less than two months.

Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the EU.

With just 59 days to go until Britain leaves the EU, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek "alternative arrangements" to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit.

May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an "emphatic message" of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

"We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the House's views," May said in a statement after the vote.

The UK and the EU negotiated their withdrawal agreement deal over the past 18 months but it needs to be backed by MPs for it to come into force. Earlier this month British MPs voted against the plan May had proposed by 432 votes to 202.

May said that, after taking Tuesday's votes into account and talking to the EU, any revised deal would be brought back to the Commons "as soon as possible" for a second "meaningful vote".

In Brussels, the EU said it was "united" over the negotiated Brexit deal after Prime Minister May said she wants to reopen it.

The bloc's chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday said the EU stood by the existing withdrawal agreement.

"The EU institutions remain united and we stand by the agreement we have negotiated with the UK," he said.

Various EU leaders have made it clear that there will be no revisions to the Brexit deal, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying: "The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement, and the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation."



French President Emmanuel Macron also said the agreement was "not renegotiable".

Dublin also rejected any attempt to re-open the Brexit deal.

"The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation," the Irish government said in a statement.

Earlier, the Commons had voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour Party MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes.

If passed, the amendment would have secured time for MPs to vote on a draft bill that sought to hand Parliament the power to request an extension of the Brexit negotiations if Theresa May failed to secure backing of her Brexit plans by February 26.

The votes came as part of changes sought to the British PM's current proposals before she seeks a re-negotiation of an agreement with the EU, which she will hope is more acceptable to a deeply divided UK Parliament.

The House of Commons on Tuesday also rejected a bid by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labour's Brexit plans.

Corbyn's call for more time to be given for MPs to consider alternatives to the Brexit deal was the first in a series of amendments being put to the vote on Tuesday evening.

Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29 and there is a scramble to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to all sides before that deadline to avoid a chaotic no-deal crashout of the UK from the economic bloc.

Different Brexit factions have tabled amendments to Theresa May's exit plan, which she was forced to bring back to the Commons on Tuesday after MPs had overwhelmingly rejected her Brexit deal earlier this month.

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Two persons were killed when a tractor trolley fell into a gorge in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district Wednesday, officials said.

The incident happened on Gauchar-Ranau Bamoth Motor Road this morning when the tractor trolley, engaged in road construction work, fell into a 50-metre-deep gorge, the District Disaster Management Office said.

Both the driver and his assistant, who hailed from Haridwar, were killed instantly, it said.

The bodies have been recovered and sent to the Karnaprayag Government Hospital for postmortem examination, it said.

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Two police constables were injured when their motorcycle was hit by another two-wheeler at the Marine Drive in south Mumbai, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday night at B D Somani Chowk when the constables were patrolling the area, a police official said.

Additional Commissioner of Police Pravin Padwal, who was taking a walk, witnessed the incident and alerted police, following which both were rushed to hospital, he said.

A 19-year-old collegian who was riding another motorcycle has been arrested, the official added.

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A junior officer attached to Special Branch and a Mumbai Police driver were arrested Tuesday for allegedly abducting a lottery centre owner and extorting money from him, police said Wednesday.

The alleged incident occurred on January 24, when the accused police sub-inspector Ram Jadhav (55), who is posted at Special Branch (SB), and Arvind Andhare (52), who works as a driver of Motor Transport division of the Mumbai Police, posed as crime branch sleuths and 'raided' an 'illegal' lottery centre at Cotton Green in Central Mumbai, a police official said.

They forced the centre owner Hanumant Kamble to accompany them in a van, saying senior officers wanted to talk to him, he said.

However, the duo took Kamble to an isolated spot along P D'Mello Road and took Rs 10,000 from him, he said quoting the complainant.

They later forced Kamble to withdraw Rs 10,500 threw his ATM card and thrashed him, before fleeing.

On January 25, Kamble filed a complaint with Kalachowki police station, following which a case of robbery and kidnapping was registered against the policemen, the official said.

The duo were identified with the help of CCTV footage of the ATM centre and arrested, he said.

A court has remanded them in police custody till February 1.

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Turkey's official agency says a Turkish citizen who worked as a translator for the US Consulate in Adana was convicted on terror charges but will be freed from prison.

Anadolu agency said a Turkish court on Wednesday convicted Hamza Ulucay of "knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terror organisation."



The court sentenced Ulucay to 4 years in prison, but released him with credit for the nearly two years he spent in detention.

Ulucay was arrested in February 2017 for alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants.

The top American diplomat in Ankara, Charg d'Affaires Jeffrey M. Hovenier, attended Wednesday's court hearing along with other US officials.

Two other local consular employees are under investigation in Turkey.

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President Donald Trump is lashing out after top US national security officials told Congress that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal as promised.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the relationship with North Korea "is the best it has ever been with the US."



He points to a halt in nuclear and missile tests by North Korea, the return of some US service members' remains and the release of Americans once detained there as signs of progress.

Still, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats told Congress on Tuesday that intelligence information doesn't support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (kim jawng oon) will get rid of his nuclear weapons.

Kim committed to denuclearization after meeting with Trump last year. A second Trump-Kim meeting is expected in February.

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US Donald upped the public row with his own intelligence services Wednesday in tweets slamming them as "naive" on and in need of schooling.

The broadside was a riposte to a far more sober but equally emphatic rejection by the intelligence community during congressional testimony Tuesday of many of Trump's claims to foreign policy successes.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of They are wrong!" tweeted. "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"Insisting that Iran's nuclear program remains dangerous, said his intelligence advisors -- who believe is largely abiding by an commitment to shelve nuclear weapons ambitions -- need to be more realistic.

It was hardly the first time Trump has openly criticized his own intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

However, the extent and vehemence of the criticism and the intensely public way Trump expressed his anger, showed how deep the split is between the and some of the country's most respected security officials.

The broadside, including tweets in which Trump touted the success of his policies in and North Korea, followed testimony Tuesday by top intelligence chiefs that was widely seen as contradicting the president's rosy assessments.

In a hearing on global threats at the Senate Intelligence Committee, the top officials took issue with Trump's assertion that the Islamic State militant group has been defeated, and that can be convinced to forego its nuclear weapons.

They also challenged the president's claim that is actively seeking nuclear weapons, the justification Trump gave for withdrawing last year from the multilateral treaty on

They underscored again that they believe meddled deeply on Trump's behalf in the 2016 -- which he has repeatedly denied -- and can be expected to do the same in 2020.

The Senate hearing took place weeks after Trump cited a victory over Islamic State to justify his sudden announcement of an immediate pullout from Syria, a move that alarmed the US defense establishment and allies in the

And it came just weeks before Trump plans a second summit with North Korean leader to negotiate a hoped-for denuclearization of the deeply isolated state.

Trump has put great store by his personal relationship with Kim and insisted again Wednesday that there is a "decent chance" of giving up its nuclear weapons.

But in the intelligence community's annual joint report, the view on was that its leaders still "view nuclear arms as critical to regime survival."



Trump also doubled down on his claim that the Islamic State group, or ISIS, which used to control large parts of and Syria, will "soon be destroyed," something "unthinkable two years ago."



In his testimony Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that " still commands thousands of fighters in and .. and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses."Closer to home, Trump has described illegal immigration by poor Central Americans as a national security crisis that he likens to an invasion and can only be stopped by building border walls.

The issue dominates his domestic agenda and has pushed him into a debilitating row with Congress, which so far has refused to provide wall funding.

Tellingly, the intelligence agencies' group assessment on Tuesday referred to migration and cross-border crime, but did not mention any need for a wall.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called US intelligence chiefs "extremely passive and naive" and advised them to go back to school after they contradicted him on threats posed by Iran, North Korea and ISIS during congressional testimony.

The heads of the various American intelligence agencies including National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Ara during a Senate hearing on world-wide threat assessment differed with the president on many issues including Iran, North Korea and ISIS.

They told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the nuclear threat from North Korea persists and that Iran is not taking steps towards making a nuclear bomb, conclusions that contrasted starkly with Trump's assessments of those countries.

Asserting that Iran's nuclear programme remains dangerous, Trump tweeted, "The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!



When I became President, Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict, Trump said in a series of foreign policy tweets.

They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school! he said in his harshest criticism of the powerful intelligence community of the country.

Trump said when he became the president, ISIS was out of control in Syria and running rampant.

Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago, he asserted.

North Korea's relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned, he said, adding that there is a decent chance of denuclearisation.

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen, he said.

Now that is a whole different story, said the US President who is scheduled to meet the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February.

I look forward to seeing Kim Jong-un shortly. Progress being made-big difference! Trump asserted.

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/ -- Integrated Power Transmission and Distribution Company, Transrail Lighting Limited is celebrating 35 glorious years of being in the business. On the occasion of the coral anniversary, Transrail encouraged its vast pool of employees to come up with an interesting logo for its 35th anniversary. More than 100 employees participated, and the best designed logo was chosen which will be present on all Transrail collaterals for the year.

The INR 1,900 crore EPC major, Transrail started with a humble beginning as Transrail Engineering Company (TEC) - a partnership firm, which commenced business with the first Foundation on 132 kV Ode - Anand Transmission Line for Dodsal / GEB. It quickly scaled up and got converted into a private Company in 1986. In the year 1993 one more Company was established under the name of Associate Transrail Structures Limited (ATSL) and the Tower Manufacturing business started. After establishing an impressive performance track record, India's leading civil construction company, Gammon India Limited acquired stake in TECL and ATSL. The merger of TECL and ATSL followed and ATSL further grew exponentially by executing massive projects on one hand and launching newer and bigger factories from time to time. It started another tower plant at Nagpur's Butibori in 2004, conductor manufacturing plant at Silvassa in 2007 and 3rd Tower manufacturing unit along with Tower testing station at Deoli in 2009.

In 2009, ATSL got merged in Gammon India Limited. Later in 2010 GIL floated a company under the name of 'Transrail Lighting Limited' for the pole manufacturing business. Latter in 2016 under the restructuring of Gammon group, the T&D business of Gammon India Limited got merged into Transrail Lighting Limited and Gammon sold its 75% stake to a new investor. From 2016, the company has seen next phase of growth and have further diversified into railways and sub-station businesses. Over the years, Transrail achieved many milestones to become a leading turnkey solutions provider in Transmission & Distribution lines and lighting solutions with operations spanning across 37 countries.

Transrail celebrated 35th anniversary in a grand gala in Nagpur where the company commemorated all the stakeholders including past and present employees, business partners, suppliers, contractors and bankers. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. D C. Bagde, Managing Director, Transrail Lighting Limited said, "Transrail has 35 years of legacy and I am very proud of the milestones that the company has achieved. From the very beginning, we have led the transformation in the T&D sector by setting benchmarks, with most relevant technologies and world-class quality manufacturing. Over the years, we have constantly redefined ourselves, remaining contemporary in a changing market landscape and constantly upgrading our technology in the process. I congratulate as well as thank all our stakeholders who have contributed to Transrail's growth and success."



"During our tenure of 35 years, we have supplied over 800,000 tonnes of galvanized steel towers, including supplies to our overseas clients. We supplied over 100,000 Kms of conductors in both local and international markets. We have constructed around 25,000 circuit Kms of transmission lines up to 1200 kV and have proto-tested more than 315 different towers from all across the globe. We have designed, supplied and installed masts at 18 stadiums, more than 200,000 high-masts and street lights in India and abroad," added Mr. Bagde.

About Transrail Lighting Limited



Transrail Lighting Limited (Transrail) is a leading EPC company with over three decades of experience in providing comprehensive solutions on the turnkey basis globally. Transrail has presence across Power Transmission and Distribution, lighting infrastructure, substations and railways. The company has in-house manufacturing facilities for towers, conductors and poles. Transrail's solutions range from design, testing to fabrication, supply of materials, erection, stringing and commissioning. Transrail's lighting infrastructure solutions business designs and installs engineered polygonal galvanised poles for power T&D, high mast, street lights and stadium mast, among others. Transrail caters to customers across India, Africa, Americas and Asia. To know more about Transrail, visit http://www.transrail.in.

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The Calcutta High Court Wednesday directed the Additional Solicitor General to explain whether a clause of negotiation between MSOs and LCOs in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) notification for revenue sharing is illusory or not.

The direction came on a TRAI prayer after the court on Tuesday stayed the implementation of its new tariff order and regulatory regime on a prayer by around 80 Local Cable Operators (LCOs).

TRAI had unveiled the new tariff order and regulatory regime for the broadcast and cable sector, which would pave the way for consumers to opt for channels they wish to view, and pay only for them.

It had said every channel should be offered a la carte, with a transparent display of rates on electronic programme guide. Although TRAI had prescribed a phased roadmap for customer onboarding by players, the pace for the same was sluggish at the beginning.

The LCOs, who provide cable television connection to subscribers, claimed that the tariff order was heavily loaded in favour of Multiple System Operators (MSOs), who are the distributors of tv channels, and would render their business financially unsustainable.

Justice Arindam Sinha Tuesday stayed the 2017 notification of TRAI till February 18 and asked it to see whether the terms and conditions can be revisited.

Seeking a recall of the order, ASG Kaushik Chanda Wednesday submitted that the MSOs and LCOs have the option of either entering into a revenue sharing agreement mutually or go for a TRAI-fixed norm.

The TRAI-fixed norm says that an MSO will get no more than 55 per cent of the revenue pie for MSOs and LCOs, while the cable operators will get no less than 45 per cent of the proceeds meant for them, with each having to provide certain facilities and services as mandated by the regulator.

Chanda also submitted that instead of giving a clear 48-hour time for moving a petition after serving notice, the petitioners' lawyer had moved the court on January 29 after the notice was received in Delhi a day before on January 28.

He submitted that TRAI was not represented in the court when an order was passed on its notification which will have a pan India-effect and is scheduled to be implemented from February 1.

The petitioners claimed that the terms and conditions are heavily titled towards the MSOs.

The matter will be heard again on Thursday.

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Three Indians were among five people arrested in Nepal for their involvement in drug trafficking, police said.

The Indians were identified as 21-year-old Mohmad Akramodin, 23-year-old Javed Alam and 21-year-old Shanti Devi Alam. All three of them are residents of Motihari in Bihar.

The trio were arrested from Hetauda area of Central Nepal's Makawanpur district, police said, adding that 40 kg of hashish were recovered from their possession.

The drug was hidden under the back seat of the car in which they were travelling.

Similarly, a Nepalese drug peddlar was arrested from Bharatpur area in Chitawan district and another from Birendranagar area in Sukrkhet district.

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In an apparent dig at the Gandhi-Nehru family, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday said those who made the country tremble and turned it into a jail are now making rounds of courts.

Speaking at a youth conclave here, he said no one had thought that a 'chaiwalla' would challenge them.

"You are aware that they are out on bail, right? Those from their 'darbaars' (their courtiers) are making rounds of courts. I am confident, I have the blessings of the 125 crore people, no matter how many rounds of courts (they make), one day they would have to go. Those who have looted the country will have to return it," he said.

Virtually launching a campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said his government brought about a "change" replacing "disappointment with hope".

"You have seen four generations, whose name would make the country tremble. Such was their power they turned the country into a jail. No one had thought a 'chaiwalla' would challenge them," he said.

"Terrorists attacked Mumbai on 26/11. What happened after that? During our government's tenure, Uri (terror) attack took place. What happened after it? This (contrasting reactions) is the change," Modi said.

He credited voters for ensuring that this "change" came about in 2014.

"Your vote is the reason behind this change. It kept me busy for five years. Your one vote inspires me to do something for the country and as the time passed the hope replaced disappointment," he added.

Hitting out at the previous governments, Modi said the 10-year rule of the Congress-led coalition was marred by corruption, which had eaten into the system like "termites" and listed cases such as alleged coal scam and 2G spectrum.

"And you know up to where the 'G' goes," he said, attacking the Gandhis in a veiled manner.

When the NDA government came to power, Indian economy was at the 10th position in the world, now it is ranked 6th, the prime minister said.

"That day is not far when our economy will be ranked fifth," he added.

Culprits in rape cases are now hanged quickly after a speedy trial, he asserted.

He said his government is countering the Opposition's "negativity" with "positivity".

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The lawyer of Dalit scholar-writer Anand Teltumbde Wednesday approached the court here, seeking anticipatory bail in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.

Teltumbde has approached the Pune sessions court seeking anticipatory or pre-arrest bail after the Supreme Court refused to quash the FIR filed against him by city police.

Rohan Nahar, his lawyer, argued Wednesday before additional sessions judge Kishor Vadane that police had no concrete evidence linking Teltumbde to the Maoists.

The prosecution claims that Teltumbde's name cropped up in some of the letters seized from those already arrested in the case, and they revealed his role in promotion of Maoist ideology, handling of funds and recruitment of students for the Maoists.

Advocate Nahar told the court that Teltumbde had written two articles criticising the government, which riled some people.

The prosecution does not have any concrete evidence against him, the lawyer argued.

Police have claimed that the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017 was backed and funded by the Maoists, and inflammatory speeches made there led to violence at the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial the next day.

Alleging that Maoists planned to incite Dalits against the government, police have arrested nine persons in the case, including activist Sudha Bharadwaj and writer Varavara Rao.

The arguments will continue Thursday.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  A barangay captain seeking a seat in Congress was killed in a shooting incident in Quezon City on Wednesday, police said.

According to an initial police report, Crisell "Beng" Beltran, village chief of Barangay Bagong Silangan, was shot to death along with her driver, Melchor Salita.

Police said they were aboard a white Ford Everest at around 11:30 a.m. when they were attacked by four unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants. Beltran and Salita were both declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Four other companions, including three minors, were injured, police said.

The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said the killing may be politically motivated, since Beltran was a candidate in the 2019 elections, hoping to represent the second legislative district of Quezon City.

"We will look into all angles to establish the motive behind the ambush in our investigation. However, we are also considering politics as among the motives since Beltran is seeking a seat in the 2nd Congressional District," QCPD Director Joselito Esquivel said in a statement.

A Special Investigation Task Group dubbed "SITG Beltran" has been created to investigate the killing.

The Quezon City local government has also offered a P3 million reward for information that could lead to the arrest of the perpetrators.

Acting Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte in a statement condemned the "heinous crime" and vowed to "make sure that our city will never become a hotspot for political violence."

This is a developing story. Please refresh page for updates.
The Taliban said Wednesday they are not seeking a monopoly on power in a future administration in Afghanistan but are looking for ways to co-exist with Afghan institutions the most conciliatory statement to date from the militants.

The statement came amid intensified US-led efforts to resolve the long-running Afghanistan war.

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad reported this week that there had been "agreements in principle" toward a framework for peace with the Taliban, who now control almost half of the country and carry out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting Afghan security forces and government officials.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman based in the Gulf Arab country of Qatar where the Taliban have a political office, said that once US forces withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban want to live with other Afghans, "tolerate one another and start life like brothers."



Shaheen's statement was provided in an exclusive audio message to The Associated Press.

"After the end of the occupation, Afghans should forget their past and tolerate one another and start life like brothers," Shaheen said.

"We believe in an inclusive Afghan world, where all Afghans can see themselves in it."



Shaheen said another round of talks with Khalilzad, the US envoy, is planned for February 25 in Doha.

Khalilzad, who held talks with the Taliban for six days last week in Qatar, said during a visit to Kabul on Monday that much more remains to be done but that there has been significant progress toward an agreement with the insurgents.

In turn, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani assured Afghans that no deals would be made without the Kabul government's awareness and full participation.

US troops invaded Afghanistan in November 2001 in response to the September 11 attacks and ousted the Taliban, who had harboured al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban, who had ruled Afghanistan since 1996, had imposed a harsh form of Islamic law.

Shaheen also said the US and the Taliban will establish joint technical teams to work out details of a future US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as ways of preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a haven for terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

Khalilzad, who was appointed last September, has stepped up efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan's protracted war that will allow an eventual withdrawal of US forces and bring to an end America's longest military engagement that has already cost Washington about USD 1 trillion.

President Donald Trump has also expressed frustration with the US continued involvement in Afghanistan, lending a greater urgency to an early settlement.

Despite intense negotiations with Khalilzad, the Taliban have refused to negotiate directly with Kabul and often refer to the Afghan government as puppets of the United States.

Khalilzad has also pressed Ghani's government, which is deeply divided, to cobble together a strong negotiating team.

Atta-ul Rahman Salim, deputy head of the Afghan High Peace Council which comprises top Afghan clerics and other prominent figures, said the only way to peace is through direct talks with the government.

"If the Taliban really want to join the peace process, the best and easy way to start is with direct peace talks with the Afghan government," he said, adding that "there is a big difference between what you say and what you do."



Despite the Taliban insurgents' refusal to negotiate with Kabul, Shaheen's message appeared directed at a wide array of stakeholders in Afghanistan possibly even Ghani's government who could work together to hasten US troop pullout.

"The withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan is a shared responsibility and a pride for all Afghans," Shaheen said.

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Delhi-based Samy Informatics on Wednesday introduced a 32-inch Android Smart TV, priced at Rs 4,999, which would cost a consumer around Rs 7,000 after shipping and installation costs of Rs 1,200 and a GST of 18 per cent.

Claiming it to be the cheapest LED TV in the market, Samy Informatics Director Avinash Mehta said the company is targeting the lower income family group besides other classes.

To cut the cost, the firm is introducing a revenue generating mechanism with the TV units, which it would sell in the market.

"Our plan is to generate revenue from this. Whenever the customer would switch on the TV, a commercial ad would run and we are trying to generate revenue from this model," he said, adding that "this could also be skipped by a viewer".

According to him, for the commercials, Samy has already received some proposals regarding it and has also selected few one from them.

The company would import the panel from South Korea and the rest would be assembled here through various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), with whom Samy has tie-up.

"The actual cost of the TV unit would be around 20 per cent more," he said, adding that "this would be between Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000" and that the revenue generated by it would subsidise it.

Currently, 32-inch screen size TVs are available in the market starting from around Rs 10,000.

Samy' TV would be available online only, where a customer would have a to fill a form available on its portal and then it would be delivered to them.

Samy Informatics, a start-up, was registered in 2016 and had started delivering the TV units from 2017 only.

The Indian TV market is around 12 million sets and is highly competitive in which around 70 brands are competing. Still, a large portion is controlled by three makers -- LG, Sony and Samsung.

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Meghalaya Home Minister James K Sangma Wednesday said the multi-agency operation to search for the remaining 13 miners trapped inside a 370-foot-deep coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district will continue, as per directions of the Supreme Court.

The apex court, which is monitoring the search operation on a weekly basis, has asked the state government to continue with it.

"The rescue efforts for the trapped miners will continue, as per direction of the Supreme Court. All efforts will be put in place to ensure that the operation continues," Sangma told PTI.

He said the Meghalaya government is yet to get details of the expenses incurred on the ongoing exercise, which has mostly involved dewatering of mines.

The multi-agency search and rescue operation had got a shot in its arm with the Army joining in the efforts Tuesday.

An Army team has set up tents near the incident site to allow uninterrupted operations by the Indian Navy, East Jaintia Hills District Deputy Commissioner F M Dopth said.

Nearly 200 rescue personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Navy, Odisha Fire Service and state agencies are involved in the search and rescue efforts.

Although two decomposed bodies of the miners have been found over 200 feet away from the bottom of the main shaft, only one of them could be pulled out and was handed over to family members in Assam.

Efforts are underway to retrieve the remains of the second miner, but the operation is taking longer as there are many obstacles like narrow tunnels and the turbidity of water, Dopth said.

On December 13, water from the nearby Lytein River flooded a network of tunnels in the illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills, trapping the 15 men and prompting the multiple-agency rescue attempt.

The owner of the mine, Krip Chullet, was arrested from his home on December 14. His accomplices are on the run.

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Germany on Wednesday slapped down Britain's hopes of persuading Brussels to rewrite the Brexit deal, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman saying re-examining the agreement was "not on the agenda".

"Opening the withdrawal agreement is not on the agenda," said Steffen Seibert, a day after British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would seek to revisit the pact she sealed with the 27 EU leaders at a summit last month.

British MPs late Tuesday voted through an amendment saying they would only support a divorce deal if a controversial "backstop" clause to keep the Irish border open was removed.

The German government has taken note of the British parliament's decision to seek "more clarity" on the border issue, said Seibert.

"It is now up to PM Theresa May to give concrete explanations on this issue to the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker," added the spokesman.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas earlier Wednesday said it remained unclear what the British government wants amended.

"It must now quickly say what it wants because time is short," said Maas. He stressed however that Germany and the EU stood firmly behind Ireland on the issue.

"We won't allow Ireland to be isolated on this question," he said.

Brexit hardliners from May's Conservative party think the backstop -- created to keep the border open with Ireland -- could see Britain indefinitely tied to EU trade rules.

The winning amendment calls for the backstop to be replaced with "alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border" -- vague wording that did not pin May to any specific approach.

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A newly formed political platform comprising of six indigenous political parties of Tripura Wednesday organised a protest rally against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and the police attack on Twipra Students Federation at Madhavbari on January 8.

The 'Committee for movement against Citizenship Bill' comprises of representatives from INPT, IPFT (Tipraha), NCT, ST cell of Congress and Tripura United Indigenous Peoples Council (TUIPC) and Joint Action Committee of Civil Societies.

The protesters burnt an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the rally



Tripuras royal scion, Pradyot Kishore Debbarman, was appointed the chairman of the newly formed committee, while Bijoy Hrankhawl, president of INPT will be the vice-president and Upendra Debbarma, former president of Twipra Student Federation the convener.

Addressing a rally of the tribals at Khumulwng, the headquarters of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous Territorial Council (TTAATC), Pradyot Kishore said, "the indigenous people of Tripura would not accept the bill as it would harm their interests. The bill must be scrapped or the movement would continue."



He said 16 MLAs belonging to Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), who were ally of BJP in Assam had resigned in protest against the bill.

"But it is surprising that not a single tribal MLA in the assembly in Tripura including the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), an ally of BJP in Tripura did not resign to protest against the bill. Those MLAs or the ministers might have forgotten the interests of the indigenous people of the state," he said.

He condemned the police firing at Madhabbari, in West Tripura district on January 8 when members of the Twipra Student Federation (TSF) were protesting in which six students received bullet injuries.

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Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail! Format for print or mobile USA/Africa: Paradigms of Foreign Intervention AfricaFocus Bulletin

January 30, 2019 (190130)

(Reposted from sources cited below) Editor's Note [In her new book Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War, Schmidts] aim is not to provide a comprehensive narrative or advance an explanatory theory, but to introduce a series of case studies, taking into account global narratives and common factors as well as the particularity and nuances of each case.  As Schmidt explains, global narratives are both essential and misleading in explaining the course and outcomes of intervention in specific conflicts. - AfricaFocus Editor William Minter This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains selected brief excerpts from the book, including from the foreword written by your AfricaFocus editor, from chapter 2 with an overview on the post-Cold-War context, and from chapter 12 on US Africa policy after the Cold War. Although the book includes a chapter focused on the role of the United States, the scope is far broader. Schmidt acknowledges the independent role of internal African actors, as well as of multiple external interveners. Multilateral as well as bilateral intervention came from both state and non-state actors. Eight regional case studies, each accompanied by a bibliographical essay with suggested readings, provide ample opportunity for readers to dig in more deeply. Like her earlier book on Foreign Intervention in Africa through the Cold War, this book is likely to be particularly useful for teaching. Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today, and available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs19/usa1901a.php, highlights the folly of identifying a single framework to analyze an administrations foreign policy towards Africa, taking as an example National Security Adviser John Boltons December speech stressing the U.S.-China rivalry. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on the USA and Africa, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/usa-africa.php To get Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War

Free download

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++ Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War by Elizabeth Schmidt Ohio University Press, October 2018 Foreword by William Minter Chapter 1

Outsiders and Africa

Political and Military Engagement on the Continent (19912017) Chapter 2

The PostCold War Context: Shifting Paradigms and Misconceptions Chapter 3

Identifying the Actors : Who Intervened and Why Chapter 4

Somalia: Conflicting Missions and Mixed Results (19912017) Chapter 5

Sudan and South Sudan: Conflicting Interests and Inadequate Solutions (19912017) Chapter 6

Rwanda: Genocide and the Failure to Respond (199194) Chapter 7

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Outside Interests and Africas World War (19942017) Chapter 8

Liberia and Sierra Leone: Regional War and License to Plunder (19902003) Chapter 9

Cote dIvoire : Civil War and Regime Change (200211) Chapter 10

The Arab Spring in North Africa: Popular Resistance, Backlash, and the Struggle for the Future (201117) Chapter 11

Mali and Nigeria : Military Intervention and Unforeseen Consequences (200917) Chapter 12

US Africa Policy after the Cold War (19912017) Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War by Elizabeth Schmidt Excerpts from Foreword by William Minter Elizabeth Schmidts earlier work, Foreign Intervention in Africa (Cambridge, 2013, https://bookshop.org/a/709/9780521709033), focused on the period 194591, with a brief concluding chapter on 1991 2010. This companion volume focuses on 19912017, with a final chapter highlighting the potential impact of the Trump presidency. Schmidts approach in the two volumes is similar. Her aim is not to provide a comprehensive narrative or advance an explanatory theory, but to introduce a series of case studies, taking into account global narratives and common factors as well as the particularity and nuances of each case. ... As Schmidt explains, global narratives are both essential and misleading in explaining the course and outcomes of intervention in specific conflicts. Thus the grand narrative of the "Cold War" between the United States and the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1991, was decisive for interventions in African conflicts insofar as it motivated perceptions and policy in Washington, Moscow, and other capitals. Cold War perceptions conflating radical African nationalism and communism affected policy makers, the media, and public opinion, not only in countries such as the United States and South Africa, but also in transnational networks and multilateral organizations. Even in this period, however, the Cold War paradigm was not fully hegemonic. The alternative framework of a united stand against Nazism, racism, and colonialism, linked to the common experience of World War II, was shared by Southern African liberation movements, governments and movements around the world, and among many in Western Europe and North America as well. An exclusive focus on the superpowers, moreover, ignores the distinct interests and roles of other external actors, including the European colonial powers and other communist states, most prominently Cuba and China. And finally, the interests of the African actors involved in conflicts, and the colonial and precolonial histories of specific countries, also shaped the outcomes. In some cases, African parties to conflict sought out foreign interventionsfor their own reasons. Unraveling the course of any specific intervention thus requires a high degree of granularity, at the risk of asking the reader to assimilate a potentially bewildering range of names and places. Political actors such as states, parties, and agencies are not unitary: each is made up of subgroups and individuals with distinct interests, ideologies, and analyses. Schmidt's clear writing style makes for a readable narrative that balances brevity with nuance. Readers who take their time and pay attention will be rewardednot with definitive answers, which the author does not promise, but with a solid basis for asking more questions and pursuing further research. In the postCold War period examined in this book, Schmidt identifies two distinct paradigms applied by policy makers. A specific intervention might fall primarily under the paradigm of a response to instability, some cases of which might also fit under the newly defined multilateral rubric of the "responsibility to protect." Alternatively, it might fit within the framework of the "war on terror." Or, as in the case of Somalia, both paradigms might be at work simultaneously. Characteristically, "war on terror" interventions were often counterproductive, increasing rather than decreasing the impact of movements defined as terrorist threats. Globally, these interventions were driven particularly by the United States, with accelerated militarization in Africa as well as around the world in the period following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Interventions in response to instability, including those of responsibility to protect, on the other hand, featured a far wider range of subregional, regional, and global actors. There was vacillation between indifference, leading to failure to respond in a timely way, and complex multiyear efforts in diplomacy and peacekeeping. The actors most consistently involved, for their own reasons, were neighbors of the countries beset by conflict, as well as African multilateral organizations such as the African Union and its subregional counterparts. And, as the cases considered in this book illustrate, the results, as well as the motives of outside actors, were decidedly mixed. The outcomes were difficult to evaluate, as were the possible alternative courses of action that might have produced different results (counterfactuals). While the United States was often a partner in multilateral efforts, consistent policy and commitment for multilateral engagement was in short supply. Despite the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the shift of paradigms justifying foreign intervention in Africa, there were many institutional continuities in the international order in the following period. The "Western alliance" continued, with prominent roles for NATO and the United Nations. The UN Security Council, with its five permanent members, continued to dominate international peacekeeping policy. Africa remained at the margins of foreign policy making for the United States and other powers outside the African continent, with the exception of the North African region, given its proximity to Europe and close links with the Middle East. Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War by Elizabeth Schmidt Excerpts from Chapter 2 Shifting Paradigms, Misconceptions, and Case Studies Africa after the Cold War ... The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed economically and politically. African conflict zones that were once Cold War battlegrounds were increasingly ignored, and dictators who were no longer useful to their Cold War patrons were rapidly abandoned. Across the continent, nations suffered the consequences of depleted resources, enormous debts, dysfunctional states, and regional wars over the spoils. Weapons left over from the Cold War poured into volatile regions and fueled new competition for riches and power. Countries already weakened by economic and political crises descended into violent conflicts that often transcended international borders. In some cases, popular movements or armed insurrections ousted dictators who no longer were sustained by outside powers. However, because war and repression had stymied organized political opposition in many countries, warlords and other opportunists often moved into the power vacuums. Unscrupulous leaders manipulated ethnicity to strengthen their drive for power and privilege, sometimes unleashing ethnically based terror. During the first postCold War decade, foreign intervention assumed a new character. Many Western nations that had been implicated in African conflicts during the Cold War turned their attention elsewhere. The United States, as the self-proclaimed Cold War victor, showed little interest in direct military intervention, and its economic assistance programs were severely reduced. However, in keeping with its call for African solutions to Africa problems, Washington initiated new programs to bolster African military capabilities and others that focused on free market economic development and trade. Recognizing that Africans enormous external debts, often incurred by Cold War clients, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic contributed to political and economic instability, the United States also introduced programs to address these problems. The policy shift meant that most military interventions during the 1990s were conducted by African countriessometimes to reestablish regional peace and security, at others to support proxy forces that granted access to their neighbors resources. Although extracontinental powers were less likely to intervene unilaterally during the 1990s, multilateral intervention by both extracontinental and African powers intensified and took shape under new auspices. The UN, OAU, and various subregional bodies intervened in response to instabilityto broker, monitor, and enforce peace accords and to facilitate humanitarian relief operations. Peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions were viewed positively by many African constituencies, although disparities in power meant that African agents had little authority over external forces once implanted on African soil. In a striking deviation from Cold War trends, the international community was sometimes castigated for not acting quickly or boldly enoughas in the case of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Liberian civil war that ended in 2003, and the Darfur conflict in Sudan that began in 2003. The UN Security Council, in particular, was reproached for its refusal to thwart the Rwandan genocide and to act more forcefully in Darfur. Under pressure from human rights and humanitarian lobbies and from African civil societies, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution in 2005 that held countries responsible for protecting their citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and granted the international community the right to intervene through UN Security Council-sanctioned operations if governments failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect (R2P). Appeals for humanitarian intervention in African affairs increased during the first decade of the twenty-first century; military intervention for other ends also intensified. The ongoing struggle to secure energy and other strategic resources and the onset of the war on terror brought renewed attention to the continent. Heightened foreign military presence, external support for repressive regimes, and disreputable alliances purportedly intended to root out terror resulted in new forms of foreign intervention in Africa. The continent, its people, and its resources again became the object of internal and external struggles in which local concerns were frequently subordinated to foreign interests. Paradigm 1: Response to Instability and the Responsibility to Protect The political, economic, and social upheavals that characterized the late Cold War and early postCold War periods resulted in severe instability in numerous African states and regions. Foreign powers and multilateral institutions took note when domestic turmoil was perceived to jeopardize international peace and security. In most instances, their involvement entailed brokering, monitoring, and enforcing peace agreements. Diplomatic and military interventions were often justified on the grounds that outside actors had both the right and the responsibility to guarantee international peace and security if individual states failed to do so. In such cases, intervention was authorized according to Chapters VI, VII, or VIII of the 1945 UN Charter. In instances where large civilian populations were at risk and refugee flows heightened regional tensions, the response to instability was bolstered by newer claims that the international community had a responsibility to protect civilian lives. In such cases, intervention was justified by a 2005 UN General Assembly resolution that bestowed on the international community the responsibility to protect civilians when their governments were unable or unwilling to do so. PostCold War intervention in African affairs has been characterized not only by the increased involvement of multinational bodies, but also by changing notions concerning the right to intervene. Since the mid-1990s, when the international community largely ignored appeals to thwart the Rwandan genocide, growing constituencies in Africa and in the West have called for humanitarian interventions to end human rights abuses and to protect civilians, with or without the consent of the states in question. Such interventions might include military force, sanctions, or the forcible delivery of humanitarian aid. Although the notion of humanitarian intervention has gained support, it remains controversial. External interference in a states domestic affairs challenges a premise of international law that has held sway for more than three and a half centuries. The contemporary system of international law is rooted in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, a series of treaties that concluded Europes Thirty Years War and laid the foundations for the modern nation-state. Enshrined in the treaties is the principle of national sovereignty, which granted monarchs control over feudal princes and inhabitants in their territories, as well as absolute power to maintain order within their realms and to protect the state from external forces. Deemed above the law, sovereigns were exempt from moral scrutiny.  The mass exterminations of European Jews and other populations during World War II challenged the principles of international law that had allowed such crimes to occur, and the impunity of national leaders was called into question. The Nuremberg trials (19451949), which held key individuals in Nazi Germanys political, economic, and military establishment accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity, paved the way for increased scrutiny of national leaders. The postwar order witnessed an expansion of democratic values and institutions. Universal principles of human rights were enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966). In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention), which required member nations to prevent and to punish genocide wherever and whenever it is found. Emergent human rights and humanitarian movements gave primacy to individual over states rights and emphasized the protection of minorities and other vulnerable members of society. National laws were no longer off limits for international investigation. Subject peoples in Europes African and Asian empires embraced universal human rights claims and demanded equal treatment under the law and national selfdetermination. In the 1950s and 1960s, their efforts culminated in widespread decolonization. The establishment of the United Nations in 1945 further undermined the seventeenth century notion that state sovereignty is absolute. Like the postWorld War I League of Nations, the UN was founded to promote international peace and security. However, the UNs mission, which was uniquely premised on respect for universal human rights and freedoms, led to a supplementary mandate. The UN was also charged with promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples.  The end of the Cold War brought additional challenges to the state sovereignty principle. The Soviet Union had disintegrated, and the United States and other Western powers no longer felt the same need for strongmen to protect their interests. Newly critical of their clients corrupt practices and human rights abuses, they withdrew their support from longstanding dictators and called for accountability in governance. These momentous political shifts provided opportunities for new ways of thinking, and a cadre of public intellectuals in the Global North and South began to argue for a fundamental reconceptualization of the premises of state sovereignty, one that harkened back to the social contract that sometimes had confounded sovereigns ability to wield their power with impunity. These thinkers charged that to legitimately claim sovereignty, a state must provide basic conditions for the well-being of its citizenry, including not only peace, security, and order, but also adequate food, clean water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, and employment. In some polities, dominant groups target populations whose race, ethnicity, or religion differs from those of those in power. In some cases, the state not only fails to protect vulnerable populations from gross human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, or genocide, but is complicit in perpetrating those crimes. According to the new paradigm, a state that is unable or unwilling to fulfill its foundational responsibilities forfeits the right to sovereignty over its territory and peopleand its exemption from outside interference. It was in this new context that the UN moved toward a broader definition of international responsibility for the protection of human rights. In June 1993, governmental and nongovernmental representatives from 171 nations met at the UN-sponsored World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, where they endorsed the claim that All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms. In theory, state failure to protect its citizens could warrant UN intervention. After the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the splintering of states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and challenges to others elsewhere produced millions of refugees and spawned untold numbers of armed insurgents who crossed borders and fomented instability. Because the UNs purpose is to maintain international peace and security, and because massive human rights violations have ripple effects that affect entire regions, rectifying such wrongs increasingly was understood to be within the UNs purview. However, UN actions did not keep pace with the expanded understanding of the organizations jurisdiction. Prioritizing their own domestic and foreign policy agendas, permanent members of the Security Council opposed measures that might have thwarted the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and ethnic cleansing in Sudans Darfur region in 20032004. Continued pressure from nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists pushed the UN General Assembly to pass the 2005 resolution that held countries accountable for protecting their citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and granted the international community the right to intervene through UN Security Councilsanctioned operations if governments failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect. Supported by 150 countries, the R2P resolution upended an understanding of state sovereignty that had been one of the fundamental tenets of international law since the seventeenth century. In theory, deference to state sovereignty no longer could be used as an expedient to allow ethnic cleansing, genocide, or other crimes against humanity to proceed unhindered. Once again, the reality was far more complicated. New principles of international intervention had been endorsed, but enforcement remained problematic. Governments were reluctant to set precedents that might be used against them in the future, and powerful members of the Security Council rarely committed the resources or personnel necessary to implement the R2P resolution. If a culpable state opposed external involvement, outside powers ordinarily persisted only if their own interests were at stake. Action was likely solely in the case of weak states without powerful allies on the Security Councilthat is, in states that could not effectively challenge foreign intervention. As calls for multilateral diplomacy evolved into appeals for military intervention under the mantle of responsibility to protect, there was sharp disagreement over the motives of those intervening, the means they employed, and whether the outcomes provided increased protection or insecurity for the civilian populations at issue. Some governments reacted to international scrutiny by invoking the old principle of national sovereignty. Others charged that international human rights laws were based on Western capitalist norms that give primacy to the rights of individuals over those of society and thus were not applicable to their cultures or conditions. They argued that Western claims to the universality of their human rights definitions were yet another of example of cultural imperialism and neocolonialism. Still others claimed that humanitarian intervention was simply a guise for Western powers pursuit of their own economic or strategic objectives and warned that Western countries were attempting to recolonize the Global South. In countries and regions affected by conflict, governments and citizens were divided on the merits of outside intervention, whether by international organizations, neighboring states, or extracontinental powers. Many remained skeptical of outsiders motives and their capacity to bring peace, even when their actions were part of an approved multilateral initiative.  Paradigm 2: The War on Terror If the roots of the first paradigm can be traced to postWorld War II reflections on the need for peace, justice, and human rights to ensure a stable international order, the seeds of the second paradigm can be found in the Cold War struggle between capitalism and communism. From the outset, the United States recognized the power of religion as a weapon against its atheistic opponents, and it mobilized conservative religious groups to fight the communist menace. In Europe, it supported Christian parties and organizations that opposed the Italian, Greek, and French communist parties that had gained strength during World War II and its aftermath. In the Middle East, it backed conservative Muslim organizations and regimes that sought to suppress both communism and radical nationalism. When the pro-Western Shah of Iran was overthrown in January 1979 and replaced by militants who embraced the Shia branch of Islam, Washington rallied extremists in the rival Sunni branch to counter Irans growing prominence. Saudi Arabia, a staunch American ally, promoter of fundamentalist Sunni teachings, and competitor with Iran for regional dominance, joined the United States in its patronage of Sunni militants. Most relevant for this study is the CIA-led multinational coalition that recruited, trained, armed, and financed Sunni militants from all corners of the globe to challenge the decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (19791989). After ousting the Soviets from Afghanistan, the fighters returned home, where they founded new organizations and spearheaded insurgencies, primarily against Muslim states they deemed impious. The Afghan veterans played prominent roles in most of the extremist groups that emerged in Africa and the Middle East in the decades that followed. . After the Soviet departure [from Afghanistan] , the foreign fighters carried their terror tactics and sophisticated weapons to new battlegrounds around the globe. Afghan War veterans were at the forefront of guerrilla insurgencies in Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank, Kashmir, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Philippines. They engaged in terrorist activities in Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, France, and the United States. CIA-backed drug lords and allies, including Osama bin Laden, funded the new networksjoined by Muslim banks and charities. One of the most significant terrorist networks was alQaeda (The Base), which was established from the database of fighters and other volunteers who had passed through Osama bin Ladins camps. Founded in 1989 with bin Laden as its primary organizer and patron, al-Qaeda advocated jihad against apostate Muslim regimes and their supporters worldwide.  The United Statesbin Ladens onetime allywould become an important al-Qaeda target. The First Gulf War also precipitated the 1991 transfer of al-Qaedas headquarters and training camps to Sudan, where the organization launched a network of cells and allied organizations that radiated into the Greater Horna geographic region that included Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. In May 1996, under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UN Security Council, the Sudanese government asked bin Laden to leave. He moved al-Qaedas headquarters back to Afghanistan, where the organization allied with the Taliban. Blaming the United States for his ejection from Sudan, bin Laden focused new attention on this distant enemy. In August 1996, he issued a declaration of jihad against U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia and called on all Muslims to expel Americans and Israelis from Muslim lands. Al-Qaedas September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. were preceded by a number of other assaults against American citizens and infrastructure. These included the 1995 World Trade Center bombing and thwarted attacks on New York bridges and tunnels and the UN and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters; the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; a failed attempt in 1999 to blow up Los Angeles International Airport; and in 2000, a successful attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole, which was docked in Yemen. Although al-Qaedas September 2001 attacks on the United States opened a new chapter in the war on terror, the United States had been fighting the terrorist organizations it had helped to create since the mid-1990s. Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War by Elizabeth Schmidt Excerpts from Chapter 12 U.S.-Africa Policy after the Cold War (19912017) Conclusion Although U.S.-Africa policy went through several transformations after the Cold War, the approaches of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations exhibited more commonalities than differences. All three presidents expected other states or multilateral organizations to assume the premier role in resolving African crises. All three touted the notion of African solutions to African problems, but in fact used African soldiers to implement American solutions to protect American interests. Only if U.S. partners and proxies failed, and American interests were threatened, did Washington reluctantly get involved. During all three administrations, political or military intervention as a response to instability or humanitarian crises was more likely in areas of strategic or economic concern or in those menaced by international terrorism. African crises were largely ignored during the first postCold War decade. However, the continent returned to the American radar screen after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, and the war on terror became a focal point of U.S.-Africa policy. During the second postCold War decade, American policy-makers increasingly viewed impoverished African nations with dysfunctional states as potential breeding grounds for violent extremism. Mimicking American Cold War strategies, they strengthened U.S.-African military alliances and reinforced African security enforcement capabilities. In choosing its partners, Washington focused primarily on countries that were endowed with energy resources or critical to the war on terroralthough these countries were often governed by corrupt, oppressive political and military elites. Despite rhetoric that promoted human rights, democracy, and accountable and responsive governance, American assistance frequently strengthened authoritarian, kleptocratic regimes. The failure of the counterterrorism approach was evident when Americantrained security forces targeted political opponents and civilians and staged coups against democratically elected governments. Blowback resulting from governmental abuse and foreign support for unjust regimes sometimes strengthened local insurgencies. After September 2001, the increasing securitization of American relief and development assistance blurred the lines between humanitarian and military endeavors, putting at risk the credibilityand sometimes the livesof foreign aid personnel. The expansion of extremist influence and the intensification of extremist activities in countries targeted by the United States and Western-led coalitions underscored the flawed premises of U.S.-Africa policy after the Cold War. As the Obama presidency drew to a close in 2016, the hope for a transformative Africa policy that stressed education, economic development and opportunity, government accountability, and respect for human rights was undermined by deepening American involvement in local conflicts in partnership with abusive governments. The election of the Donald Trump as president in November 2016 rendered the prospects for such a policy even less likely. AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at

africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org
People's Representation for Identity and Status of Mizoram (PRISM) party on Wednesday urged the chairman of Rajya Sabha to ensure that the citizenship bill is not introduced in the Upper House.

In a letter to Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu, PRISM said the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is against the principles of secularism and discriminates on the basis of religion.

"Passage of the bill in both houses of Parliament would result in mass illegal entry of foreigners in the country, especially in the north eastern region," it said.

The communication to Naidu also said that the party would vow to continue its opposition and appeal to the people of Mizoram to join the stir.

The bill, which was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, after six years of residence in India even if they do not possess any documents.

Protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill have rocked the north east, with those opposing it contending that it would harm the rights of the indigenous people.

On Tuesday, 10 political parties, most of which are members of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), along with the saffron party's key ally in Bihar, the JD(U), unanimously decided to jointly oppose the bill.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The preliminary document for the disinvestment of Air India's ground handling subsidiary AIATSL is likely to be issued in a week, a senior government official said Wednesday.

The official also asserted that the government is committed to supporting Air India, subject to efficiency-improvement parameters.

The Preliminary Information Memorandum for the disinvestment of Air India Air Transport Services Ltd (AIATSL) is expected to be issued in one week, the official said.

The AIATSL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India and was incorporated in June 2003.

Last year, the government's efforts to sell 76 per cent stake in Air India as part of strategic disinvestment did not take off as there were no bidders.

According to the official, the government would support Air India for it to continue as a functional airline, subject to efficiency-improvement parameters.

Parliament has approved a Rs 2,345-crore equity infusion into the debt-laden national carrier under the second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants 2018-19.

As part of efforts to revive the financial fortunes of the national carrier, the government has decided to transfer debt worth Rs 29,000 crore to Air India Asset Holding Company, a special purpose vehicle.

The airline has debt worth around Rs 55,000 crore.

Air India is staying afloat on a bailout package extended by the previous UPA regime. The carrier is to receive up to Rs 30,231 crore from the government, subject to meeting certain performance thresholds. The 10-year bailout package began from 2012.

Regarding Jet Airways, the official said the government is not involved in the airline's deal-making efforts.

"We are not interfering in any kind of deal-making," he said, adding that the ministry's role would come only if there are issues related to foreign direct investment or substantial ownership and effective control.

Jet Airways is grappling with acute financial woes and has also cancelled flights due to grounding of some aircraft.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Piyush Goyal will donate the 2018 Carnot Prize money of USD 25,000 (around Rs 18 lakh), which he received on Wednesday, to the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to institute an award for organisations working with children with special needs and the ones maximising use of solar energy.

"I dedicate the Carnot Prize to the lakhs of Indians engaged in the energy and mining sector and the visionary guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for transforming us from an energy-short nation to a power-surplus nation," Goyal said, after the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design formally presented the fourth annual Carnot Prize to him, in recognition of his contribution to the energy sector as Power Minister.

Goyal had previously been unable to accept the award in the USA, due to the Amritsar train tragedy in October last year.

International Solar Alliance (ISA) is a multilateral organisation with an objective to support massive deployment of solar energy in its member countries.

As part of its efforts to recognise exemplary efforts by organisations in India, the ISA is instituting the Diwakar Solar Award (Divyang Akshay-urja Puraskar).

"The Diwakar award will recognise every year an outstanding organisation that has been working for special children and maximising the use of solar energy. The union minister of railways and coal has decided that the award money received by him as part of the 2018 Carnot Prize be given to the ISA to institute the Diwakar Award.

"The award money will be utilised to create a perpetual corpus and the interest income received on the corpus be used for providing the award annually," a statement from the ministry said.

The Carnot Prize is the Kleinman Center's annual recognition of distinguished contributions to energy policy through scholarship or practice. The most prestigious award in the energy sector, Carnot Prize is named after French physicist Nicolas Sadi Carnot who recognised that the power of the steam engine would "produce a great revolution" in human development.

"We aim to see that India leads the world in tackling the menace of carbon emissions and climate change. The huge contribution that India is making in this regard is testament to Indian culture and ethos.

"To support PM Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Mission, we have conceptualised solar installations in the large tracts of land the Railways has throughout the country, leading to considerably lower emissions as well as increased revenues," Goyal said, while receiving the award from Dr Faith Birol, Executive Director International Energy Agency.

He also said that the Railways has embarked on the world's most ambitious electrification programme, where in the next four or five years the entire grid will be 100 per cent electrified.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Wednesday hit out at his detractors saying people with "negative mentality" had tried to stop Mahatma Gandhi from taking out the historic Dandi march and are now questioning him and his government for floating pro-people schemes.

Without taking any name, Modi said such people raised doubts on schemes launched by his government for the poor such as building toilets and providing free gas connections.

"When Mahatma Gandhi decided to take out the Dandi March (in 1930), some people objected to it as they had doubts (about the success of the agitation).

"But Gandhi was Gandhi... Gandhi continued with his plans as he knew the power of salt and also understood its attachment with each section of the society," he said.

Modi was speaking after dedicating the Salt Satyagraha Memorial and Museum at Dandi in Gujarat's Navsari district on Mahatma Gandhi's 71st death anniversary.

"What would have happened if Gandhiji came under the influence of such people and aborted his movement. Such negative mentality, unfortunately, still exists today. Moreover, it's now laced with vested interests," he said.

The prime minister said some people wondered how the schemes launched by the is going to change the lives of the poor and underprivileged.

He talked about the "criticism and ridicule" the government faced for its initiative such as construction of toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

"In the last four-and-a-half years, such people (having negative mentality) asked me many questions - 'What will change by building toilets? Is it the work of a prime minister to do the cleaning? How can gas connections change the lives? People will not forget such questions," he maintained.

It is necessary to tell such people that big change would come only by changing small habits, he said.

Claiming that his government has built over 9 crore toilets since 2014, Modi said petty-minded people would never understand how toilets have changed the lives of women.

ALSO READ: PM Modi blasts Congress for dragging his mother into petty politics

Enlisting steps his government has taken to revive khadi as well as other cottage and rural industries, Modi said the turnover of such entities, which was Rs 30,000 crore before 2014, had doubled in the last four-and-a-half years.

Referring to some critical views about the newly- inaugurated Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel in Gujarat's Narmada district, he said no French or US citizen had ever criticised their iconic monuments like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty.

"However, there are people in India who have criticised the Statue of Unity. But today, it has became a major (tourist) attraction, drawing over 5 lakh visitors every month," said Modi.

He exuded confidence that the Salt Memorial at Dandi would also become a major tourist destination and in turn help local residents in earning their livelihood.

The crowd loudly cheered Modi when he said even a 'chaiwala' (tea seller), along with other small vendors and auto drivers, would benefit from this memorial.

The memorial has statues of Mahatma Gandhi and 80 'satyagrahis' who had marched with him during the historic Dandi Salt March (also called Dandi March). It also has 24-narrative murals depicting various events and stories from the march.

Satyagraha, a form of non-violent agitation, means adherence to or insistence on truth.

As part of the civil disobedience movement against the British rule, 80 satyagrahis led by Gandhi marched 241 miles from Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the coastal village of Dandi and made salt from seawater, breaking the salt law imposed by the British.
Uttar Pradesh Minister Om Prakash Rajbhar Wednesday claimed not only seers, but also the people who wish that a Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya were angry with the BJP.

"Not only the seers, even the people who want construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya are also angry with the BJP. And, this is the reason that the government is having a tough time to make them feel happy," said Rajbhar, the chief of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, an ally of the BJP.

Attacking UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for taking a dip in the Sangam after holding a cabinet meeting in Allahabad, he said it would have been better if he had constructed a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

On Tuesday, Rajbhar took a dig at his cabinet colleagues for taking a dip in the Sangam, saying they had gone there to wash off their sins.

"The ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government had gone for a holy dip at the Sangam on Tuesday for washing their sins...going back on promises made to the public is also a sin and the ministers have tried to wash it through a dip in the Sangam," he had said.

Rajbhar, who had stayed away from the cabinet meeting, alleged that corruption in the present government was four times more than what it was during the SP and BSP governments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An organisation of Bodo women Wednesday expressed hope that the life sentence awarded to National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) chief Ranjan Daimary would not derail its ongoing peace talks with the government.

Ranjan Daimary and nine others were sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI special court on Wednesday in the 2008 Assam serial blast case that had claimed 88 lives.

"We appeal to the government that there is still time and that they give priority to peace process to ensure that it is not derailed," Bodo Womens' Justice Forum president Anjali Daimari, also sister of Ranjan Daimary, said.

How can the organisation carry on with the peace process when its president is in jail to serve a life term, Anjali Daimari asked.

The NDFB is under a ceasefire agreement with the Assam and Union Government since May 2005.

"He (Ranjan Daimari) was engaged in every talk (held earlier)," she told reporters outside the CBI court after her brother was sentenced to life.

Anjali Daimari said they will keep on fighting legally and move a higher court against this verdict.

Ranjan Daimary formed an outfit Bodo Security Force in 1986 and in 1994, changed its name to National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). Its objective was to secure a Bodoland state in the areas north of the river Brahmaputra in Assam.

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Patralekhaa is all set to make her Kannada film debut with the movie titled, "Where is my Kannadaka?"



She will star opposite Golden Ganesh in the action comedy.

The film will be helmed by debutant director duo, real-life couple Raaj and Damini.

Patralekhaa said she is looking forward to featuring in her maiden Kannada film.

"I am super excited to be working on it.

"While I can't reveal about the role right now, but I can definitely say that it's a kind of role that I haven't portrayed on screen so far and that makes it special for me," the actor said in a statement.

The film will go on floors in April and will also have a schedule in London.

The makers are eyeing a release later this year.

Patralekhaa made her debut with Hansal Mehta's 2014 film "CityLights". Her last film was "Nanu Ki Jaanu", which released in 2018.

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Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday inaugurated 11 welfare projects worth Rs 150 crore and laid foundation stone of a number of projects in the tribal dominated Mayurbhanj district.

The chief minister inaugurated 11 welfare projects worth Rs 150 crore, laid foundation stone of six developmental projects and made four major announcements to woo the people of district ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly election.

Assembly elections in Odisha are due along with the Lok Sabha elections



Addressing a Mission Shakti conclave at Chhau Padia here, Patnaik assured to revive the Urban Cooperative Bank here, the license of which was cancelled by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for financial crisis in 2014.

The chief minister said the state government will provide funds for revival of the bank and hold discussion with the Centre in this regard. The people are facing difficulties for closure of the bank.

Patnaik also announced construction of a ring road in the town for tackling flood situation and establishment of a research centre for Chhau Nrutya, a local folk dance form.

He also assured the people that the district's line Ayurved Mahavidyalaya will be developed into a government college.

At the conclave, Patnaik distributed Rs 15,000 each to 20,295 Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) as seed money. He also gave financial assistance of Rs 25 lakh for 26 block-level women group federations in the district.

As announced earlier, Patnaik also gave Rs 3,000 to each of the 39,418 women SHGs for digital empowerment of the women under the Mission Shakti programme.

Patnaik has planned to follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trail and address public meetings where the opposition BJP held congregations during the past few months, according to a BJD official.

Patnaik's Wednesday visit to Baripada came barely few weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the tribal dominated district.

Modi has visited Baripada on January 5 and launched a number of Ccentral government projects in Odisha worth more than Rs 4,500 crore.

Patnaik has addressed a public meeting at Amalipalli ground in Jharsuguda where Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 22 attended a BJP rally.

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Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood was Wednesday summoned by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale in connection with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's telephonic conversation with Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Mahmood was conveyed that Pakistan Foreign Minister's action was a brazen attempt to subvert India's unity and to violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the External Affairs Ministry said.

"The High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned by the Foreign Secretary tonight in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference," the MEA said.

It further said the "Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of India's condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert India's unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister.

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Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale Wednesday summoned Pakistan envoy Sohail Mahmood and categorically told him that Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's telephonic conversation with separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was a "brazen attempt" to subvert India's unity and violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Ministry of External Affairs, in a late evening statement, said the Pakistan High Commissioner was "cautioned" that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have "implications".

The Pakistan Foreign Office on Tuesday said Qureshi spoke with the Hurriyat leader and with him efforts of Pakistan government to highlight the Kashmir issue.

"The High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned by the Foreign Secretary tonight in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference," the MEA said.

It said Gokhale conveyed to the Pakistani envoy that the "deplorable act" has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistan's own standards and that Qureshi's actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of India's condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert India's unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister," the MEA said.

In the strongly-worded statement, it further said Gokhale underscored that the action has confirmed yet again that Pakistan officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities.

"It has exposed to the entire international community Pakistan's duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other," the MEA said.

"The Pakistan High Commissioner was categorically informed by the Foreign Secretary that the Government of India expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions. He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," it added.

The MEA asserted that the entire Jammu and Kashmir "has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India and that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matters related to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, has been made clear again to the High Commissioner of Pakistan."



The Pakistan Foreign office said Tuesday that Qureshi, during his conversation with Farooq, also mentioned the June 2018 report issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a report of the UK Parliament.

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Opposition Naga Peoples Front (NPF) has decided to boycott the Nagaland government convened consultative meeting on Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) scheduled for Thursday in Dimapur, a party leader said Thursday.

Addressing a press conference here Wednesday evening, NPF spokesperson Achumbemo Kikon said the core committee of the party held a meeting at the residential office of their president Dr Shrhozelie Liezietsu to discuss on the state government convened consultative meeting on CAB.

He said the core committee decided to boycott Thursday's consultative meeting called by the state government and has resolved to seriously re-examine the coalition status of NPF with BJP in Manipur following the passage of the Citizenship Bill in Lok Sabha.

The NPF spokesperson also announced that its Rajya Sabha MP from Nagaland, K G Kenye will go oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill if laid in the Upper House of the Parliament



Kikon said the core committee was of the view that NDPP-led PDA government in Nagaland has "not opposed" the bill when it was tabled in the Lok Sabha on January 6 last and NDPP MP in Lok Sabha also "failed" to oppose the bill.

Kikon said that NPF observed that "the NDPP-led PDA government has no moral right whatsoever to convene a consultative meeting either with the political parties or civil societies on this particular issue."



The NPF spokesperson said that the PDA government had been "fooling" the Naga people by stating that Nagaland is protected under Article 371(A) of the Constitution of India and the Inner Line Permit during the State cabinet meetings held on January 7 and 18.

"NPF as the oldest political party of the region dont need a certificate from NDPP or PDA government to support the interest of the Nagas and indigenous people of the North East," Kikon said.

The NPF stated that the intention of NDPP-led PDA government in convening the consultative meet is "nothing but an eye wash and to shift the blame to the political parties and civil societies.

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Premium handset maker OnePlus has said it does not have a contractual commitment with Amazon India, and it is its own "strategic choice" to sell devices exclusively on the online marketplace.

The comments come ahead of the February 1 deadline for online marketplaces to comply with FDI rules. In December, the government had announced new norms - under Press Note 2 - that bar online marketplaces with foreign investments from holding exclusive marketing arrangements.

"(We) Never really had the exclusive commitment to Amazon. It has been our choice that we want to sell exclusively but it is not because of any commitment that we have made contractually. So, the new regulations will not really have any impact," OnePlus India General Manager Vikas Agarwal told PTI.

He added that it was the company's "strategic choice" to be on one platform to make it easier for customers to buy its products.

The new rules are expected to hit Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon, the hardest. Both players have been lobbying hard - both directly and through associations - for extension in the February 1 deadline.

The two players have argued that they need more time to understand the details of the framework.

Agarwal said the company does not anticipate any major changes in its business model or operations because of the new regulations.

"...We will continue selling on Amazon, we do not plan to move to any other platform in the near future," he added.

The Chinese player cornered the largest share of the premium smartphone segment in India during the December 2018 quarter with 36 per cent share, ahead of rivals like Samsung and Apple.

OnePlus entered the Indian market in 2014 and started selling its devices through Amazon India. While initially the company had an invitation-based model, it opened up sales to larger public with subsequent launches.

Mobile phones and electronics account for a large portion of the sales on Flipkart and Amazon. With the new regulations barring any exclusive tie-ups, these online marketplaces are said to be exploring mechanisms to re-work their existing arrangements with brands to ensure compliance with the new regime.

Interestingly, All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) - claiming to represent over 2 lakh mobile phone retail stores - has written to the government urging that any extension in deadline will be adverse for the trade. They alleged that small traders were "struggling in the face of unethical and illegal practices" by the e-commerce giants.

Traders' body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has also warned the government of a national campaign with a political fallout, if it defers the February 1 deadline.

Last year, OnePlus expanded its distribution to brick-and-mortar retail in India and started selling through Croma and Reliance Digital stores.

Agarwal said a majority of OnePlus' business in India is still online as it has recently started selling through offline channels.

"So, overall offline is yet very small for us, it may pick up next year because offline response is also very good. But as of now, the overall share is still hugely online," he added.

While OnePlus also sells devices and accessories through its own website, the volumes are low.

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The NHRC Wednesday sent a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over reports that 209 primary school buildings in Etawah district are in a "dilapidated condition" due to which students are forced to attend their classes in the open.

The National Human Rights Commission observed that it is the duty of the state to ensure that there should be no hurdle for the students and teachers in the process of imparting

"The NHRC has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report that 209 primary school buildings in Etawah district are in a dilapidated condition due to which students are forced to attend their classes in open as they are scared to sit in the rooms," it said in a statement.

Reportedly, the school managements have made "several verbal and written complaints" to authorities in the state Department, but the repair work has "not been done, apparently due to the shortage of funds," the rights panel said.

Accordingly, the NHRC has issued a notice to the chief secretary, seeking a detailed report in four weeks, along with statistics, addressing the issues raised in the report, details about the action being taken or proposed to be taken by the state government to tackle the "grim situation".

The Commission has observed that the contents of the media reports, if true, amount to gross violation of human rights of the students and the teachers. The dilapidated buildings are definitely threats to the lives of the students, teachers and other staff of the respective schools.

After the amendment in the Constitution by way of 86th Constitution Amendment Act, 2002, the Right to has now become fundamental right under Article 21 A of the Constitution of India, it said.

"Providing proper atmosphere at the time of imparting education is a Constitutional obligation upon the state and any inaction on the part of the state may amount to infringement of right to dignity and equality to the students, which are their basic human rights," the statement said.

According to the media report carried Wednesday, the state Education Department had got a survey conducted, the rights panel said.

"Its report reveals that there are 1,238 primary and 537 junior schools in Etawah district, out of which 209 are in a very bad condition. The blockwise details of the schools have been mentioned in the report," it added.

The schools situated at Naurangabad, Pansaritola, Police Line, Chhipaiti, Pakka Talab and Katra Shamsher Khan have been found to be in very bad condition, it said.

The headmistress of the Pakka Talab Junior High School has reportedly made a request to make a concrete roof in the school, it added.

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The NHRC has sought a detailed report from the Uttar Pradesh government in connection with an incident in which three labourers were electrocuted to death while two others were injured while fixing poles of a private telecom company in Bareilly district.

In a notice to UP's Chief Secretary, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also sought the details regarding the relief and rehabilitation that has been provided to the families of the deceased labourers and to the kins of the those who have sustained grievous injuries in the incident.

"Reportedly, the contractor had no permission from the electricity department for the work. The labourers were engaged for laying Reliance Jio 5G cable on the poles," the NHRC said in a statement.

Going by the contents of the reports, the commission has observed that there was "gross negligence" on the part of the contractor.

"Right to life, which is one of basic human rights, of the deceased labourers and the injured, has been violated. The incident also puts a question mark on the working of the authorities concerned, who could not stop the illegal work being done by the contractor," the statement stated.

The commission has also sought to know the status of the medical treatment that is being provided to the injured and the legal action taken against the officials and the contractor responsible in the matter.

It has asked the government to submit its response within four weeks.

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The National Green Tribunal Wednesday imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh each on educational institutions in the national capital for failing to install rainwater harvesting systems.

It also rapped the Delhi government for its failure to install rainwater harvesting system in schools and colleges, asking them to complete construction work the system within two weeks.

The fine was imposed as per NGT's November 16, 2017 order which had said that any institution which fails to install the rainwater harvesting system within within two months would be liable to pay environment compensation of Rs 5 lakh.

"In furtherance of the aforesaid judgment, those institutions in which rain water harvesting systems are not operational even today, what to say in two months as directed, we direct such institutions to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each," the NGT said.

Irked at the lackadaisical approach of the officers in complying with their duties, a bench headed by Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore also imposed a cost of Rs 5,000 each on three officers of the department.

"We impose a cost of Rs 5,000 each on Binay Bhushan, Special Director Education, J P Aggarwal, Director, Higher and Geeta Kumari, Deputy Director (Primary), South Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is to be deposited with NGT Legal Aid Bar Association within a week from today," it said.

The tribunal's order came after perusing a status report from the director of education, according to which 424 schools do not have rain water harvesting system and in 505 schools, installation work is under progress.

Similarly, in respect of the colleges under Directorate of Higher Education, it has been submitted that nine institutions do not have rain water harvesting systems and in case of three institutions, they are said to be under construction, the order stated.

It further mentioned that as regards South Delhi Municipal Corporation, 106 schools do not have rain water harvesting system, as on date, which also includes 21 schools for which it is said that such system is not feasible and out of remaining (85) system in 23 schools is under construction.

"The aforesaid facts and circumstances leaves no room of doubt that the Judgment passed by the Tribunal on November 16, 2017 which had given a time frame for its compliance, has not been done till date. From the steps taken in this regard, a very sorry state of affairs is reflected from the status reports filed by Director of Education and Director of Higher Education," it said.

It directed the Directorate of Education, Directorate of Higher Education and SDMC to issue notice within a week to those institutions which have not been mentioned in the tabulation submitted to it today and give report in respect of functioning of rain water harvesting systems.

NGT directed Registrar, Delhi University, Directorate of Education, North Delhi Municipal Corporation, Directorate of Education, East MCD, New Delhi Municipal Council, Delhi Cantonment Board and Ministry of Human Resource Development, with regard Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya, to submit a list of total number of educational institutions under their jurisdiction in NCT Delhi.

It asked them to provide the number of such institutions where rain water harvesting system is not fully functional or not installed.

The list should be submitted within a period of two weeks, the tribunal said while posting the matter for hearing on February 21.

The tribunal's direction came on a plea filed by city resident Mahesh Chandra Saxena seeking implementation of the November 16, 2017 order of the NGT.

Despite the specific direction of the tribunal, they have not submitted the list of buildings, Saxena said.

He claimed that the government departments, educational institutions and residential societies have either not installed rainwater harvesting systems or have systems which are non-functional.

NGT had earlier directed schools and colleges to approach a committee constituted by it for inspecting the premises and granting permission to institutions for operating the system.

If it was not possible to install the rainwater harvesting system, the institution should have approached the committee, it had said.

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The National Green Tribunal has clarified that Anita Roy will continue to be part of the 3-member committee, headed by former Uttarakhand High Court judge Justice U C Dhyani, to oversee rejuvenation work of the Ganga river.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said in a clarification sought by Roy, a former IPS officer and IIT representative, that she will also be paid honourarium by the Uttarakhand government.

"It is clarified that Dr Anita Roy will continue to remain part of the committee for Segment A as well as Segment B for Phase I, i.e. from Gaumukh to Haridwar and Haridwar to Kanpur. It is, however, made clear that honourarium will be payable only from one State equal to the current basic pay of the corresponding post which was held by her last which works out to Rs 2 lakh per month," said the bench.

"The travelling allowances/expenses will be payable by States of Uttarakhand/ Uttar Pradesh depending upon the area of travel," it said recently.

Meticulous monitoring and systematic approach was required for cleaning Ganga from Haridwar to Unnao, the tribunal had earlier said.

The green panel has divided the work of cleaning the river in different segments Gomukh to Haridwar (Phase-I), Haridwar to Unnao (termed as segment B of Phase-I), Unnao to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal.

The tribunal had earlier said the water of the Ganga, between Haridwar and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, was unfit for drinking and bathing, and expressed anguish over the situation.

The green panel had said that innocent people drank and bathed in the river with reverence, without knowing that it may adversely affect their health.

It had directed NMCG to install display boards at a gap of 100 kilometres, indicating whether the water was fit for bathing or drinking.

Voicing dissatisfaction over the steps taken by the Uttarakhand government to clean the Ganga, the NGT had on July 19 said the situation was extraordinarily bad and hardly anything effective has been done to clean the river.

The green panel, in a detailed judgment, had passed a slew of directions to rejuvenate the Ganga, declaring as 'No Development Zone' an area of 100 metres from the edge of the river, between Haridwar and Unnao.

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A new film, which questions the narrative around Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of Nathuram Godse, hit UK screens on Wednesday, marking the 71st death anniversary of the leader of the Indian independence movement.

"The Gandhi Murder", described as a period film based on true events surrounding the killing of the Father of the Nation, will not be released in India at present due to alleged death threats faced by its co-producers.

"It is very sad that some extreme elements, without knowing the content of works of art, decide to attack it. This film does not demonise anyone, it is an attempt to analyse the historical facts," said Pankaj Sehgal, the film's writer and co-director.

"Gandhi belongs to the whole world and is being simultaneously released in many countries including the UK, US, Middle East, Canada, Russia, France and even Pakistan. Ultimately, the film will reach Indian audiences as well," he said.

Co-directed by Golden Globe nominated Algerian-Dutch director Karim Traidia and produced as the maiden venture of Dubai-based Nugen Media, the film explores the wider conspiracy around Gandhi's assassination by Hindu right-wing activist Godse.

It claims that the police and many Indian politicians were aware of the threat to Gandhi's life, and even knew of the key planners.

"The film demonstrates that the assassination was not an act of a single assassin, but a collective plan hatched within the corridors of power of the newly independent India," said Sehgal, who has been conducting research on the subject in historical archives over several years.

"Our intent is to show Gandhi's immense contribution to India post-Independence, which is something that very few people understand. They don't understand that his assassination was bigger than any of his other contributions... India was on the verge of a civil war," added Sehgal, who believes that the murder on January 30, 1948, silenced the communal frenzy that was threatening to further erupt in the aftermath of Partition the previous year.

The film stars Spanish actor Jesus Sands in the role of Gandhi and also marks the last film by Indian actor Om Puri, who passed away in January 2017 soon after completing the shooting on the project.

"Gandhi and his philosophy of passive resistance is well-known in Spain and, of course, we are all familiar with Ben Kingsley's portrayal in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi'. It was a massive task to take this on, said Sands, who is also a co-producer on the project.

The narrative follows three senior police officers in different parts of India, who, well aware of the intelligence that Gandhi's life is under threat, must take key decisions.

The film, with an international set of cast and crew from 34 different nationalities, sets out to question who really played a role in the murder and whether some conspiracy theories around the tragedy are indeed credible.

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A 59-year-old Nepalese citizen died after the car he was travelling in rammed into a truck in Rajasthan's Kota district, police said Wednesday.

The deceased, Maan Kumar Thapa, was a resident of Gulmi district in Nepal and worked as a security incharge at a cement factory in Modak town of Kota, the police said.

The incident occurred on National Highway 52 near Kamalpura village on Tuesday night when Thapa, along with his son and daughter-in-law, was returning home from Kota town after a medical check-up, said Modak police station incharge Nand Singh.

The driver of the car has sustained injuries and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. However, Thapa's son and daughter-in-law were unscathed, the officer said.

Initial inquiry revealed that the sudden slamming of breaks by the truck driver led to the accident. A case of negligent driving has been registered against the driver, who escaped from the spot along with the truck, the officer said.

The officer said the driver would be nabbed soon as the truck number was noted.

The body was handed over to the family after post-mortem, he added.

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The Nepal Government has declared 2,807 security personnel, killed during the decade-long Maoist insurgency, as 'martyrs', Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli said on Wednesday.

At a programme organised in the national capital on the occasion of Martyrs Memorial Day, Oli said that the meeting of the Council of Ministers had declared 2,807 security personnel of the Nepali Army, Armed Police Force Nepal, Nepal Police and National Investigation Department 'martyrs'.

The entire country on Wednesday paid tribute to those who made sacrifices in the past seven decades of democratic struggle.

Those killed while fighting with the Maoist guerillas include 1,448 from Nepal Police, 1,018 from Nepal Army, 318 from Armed Police Force and 23 from the National Investigation Department, according to government data.

"The peace process is finally coming to an end after a decade-long Maoist insurgency and another decade of political transition," said Oli.

"We can only move forward, not backward. It won't be wise to revert, inciting conflicts again," Oli said.

The Nepalese civil war known popularly as the Maoist Conflict or Maoist Insurgency was a ten-year armed conflict between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) and the government of Nepal, fought from 1996 to 2006.

The rebellion was launched by the CPN-M on February 13, 1996 with the main aim of overthrowing the Nepali monarchy and establishing a People's Republic.

It ended with the comprehensive peace accord signed on November 21, 2006.

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Giving his stamp of approval to the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that negotiations are "proceeding well" with the militant group to end over 17-year old war in Afghanistan.

Trump made the comment after US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad held fourth round of talks with the Taliban in Qatar last week, following which he said significant progress was made.

"Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting...," Trump said in a series of foreign policy tweets Wednesday.

...Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never-ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? Trump said.

Khalilzad held six days of intense negotiations with the Taliban representatives in Doha last week. After the talks, Khalilzad said that the US and the Taliban have drafted the framework of a deal which could pave the way for peace talks with Kabul.

Since being appointed in September last, Khalilzad has met with all sides in an attempt to end America's longest war in which the US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in more than 17 years.

The Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan, and are more powerful than at any time since the 2001 US-led invasion after the 9/11 terror attacks.

A day earlier, CIA Director Gina Haspel said "a very robust monitoring regime would be essential in Afghanistan and the US needed to retain the capability to act in "national interests".

It's very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups that are there and so if there were an eventual peace agreement a very robust monitoring regime would be critical and we would still need to retain the capability to act in our national interests if we needed to, Haspel said in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats, Director of National Intelligence said that his assessment is that neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year, even if coalitions support remains at current levels.

However, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan has said the US has de-legitimised the Afghan government by negotiating with the Taliban without its involvement. He described as "surrender" the Trump administration's framework of a deal with the terror outfit.

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The nation remembered Mahatma Gandhi on his 71st death anniversary Wednesday with President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the country in paying homage to the Father of the Nation.

Kovind, Modi and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu paid floral tributes at Gandhi's memorial at Rajghat here.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were among others who paid homage to the Father of the Nation at Rajghat, where an inter-religion prayer was held.

Mahatma Gandhi's favorite bhajan "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" was also played at Rajghat.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh also paid tributes to the Mahatma at his memorial.

Remembering Mahatma on his death anniversary, Modi tweeted, "...Remembering Bapu on his Punya Tithi. We reiterate our commitment to follow the path shown by him and abide by the values he stood for."



Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1948.

The prime minister also paid tributes to all those who laid down their lives for the country.

"We salute all the martyrs who laid down their lives for India. The country remains eternally grateful to them for their service and sacrifice," he said.

Several Union ministers and senior leaders paid tributes to the Father of the Nation.

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The Maharashtra government's decision to bring the office of Chief Minister under the ambit of Lokayukta was nothing but a "PR exercise" aimed at building the image of incumbent Devendra Fadnavis, opposition NCP said Wednesday.

The decision was taken by the Cabinet Tuesday at its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Fadnavis.

However, the anti-corruption ombudsman can't initiate an inquiry against a sitting CM.

Addressing a press conference, NCP spokesman Nawab Malik accused Fadnavis of "fooling" the people of the state by making such an announcement.

As per the Cabinet decision, a Chief Minister will face inquiry only after he demits office and after the governor gives permission for the probe, he said.

"When Fadnavis was opposition leader, he was in the forefront of demanding strengthening of the Lokayukta Act on lines of the Lokpal Act enacted at the Centre in 2013 which gives powers of policing, filing of chargesheet, seizure of property and arrest to the Lokpal.

"Even after four-and-a-half years, Fadnavis, as Chief Minister, has not acted on his earlier demand," Malik said.

The decision is nothing for but a "PR (public relations) exercise" aimed at boosting Fadnavis's image, the NCP spokesman said.

"We demand that amendment to the Lokayukta Act be with retrospective effect from October 31, 2014 (the day when the Fadnavis government took charge) so that we can file complaint about alleged irregularities in the Mumbai Development Plan and metro rail projects," Malik said.

When contacted, an official in the Chief Minister's Office said post amendment in the Lokayukta Act, a CM will face inquiry only after he demits office and not while on the post.

"The official statement about the Cabinet decision yesterday did not mention this," he added.

"At present, the Lokayukta can only file an inquiry report. The report will go to the Chief Minister who can even reject the report," Malik said.

The Lokayukta is a statutory body that has powers to probe complaints of abuse of position and corruption against public servants.

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: Mothers with their endosulfan-affected children began an indefinite fast in front of the Secretariat here, demanding speedy disbursal of compensation and implementation of the rehabilitation package.

Social Activist Daya Bai, who is leading the protest with the women, said she was 'aghast' that the government had not yet completed disbursal of the compensation to the victims and their families.

The families, who have come from the northernmost district of Kasaragod to the state's southern tip to make their woes heard, said they would not return without their demands being met.

A protest was held in front of the secretariat here last year also by the victims' families.

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Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga on Wednesday sent a condolence letter to the family members of former defence minister George Fernandes, who passed away Tuesday morning following a prolonged illness.

In his letter, Zoramthanga remembered him as "a great man and a rare personality who had done a lot of good for the people of Mizoram during his tenure as the defence minister", sources in the chief minister's office said.

"He would be remembered as a man of rare calibre and a great leader," the CM wrote in the letter.

Fernandes was India's defence minister in the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He also served as the industry minister under the Jan Sangh government, which defeated Indira Gandhi in 1977.

He was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and had recently contracted swine flu.

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Unidentified miscreants Wednesday looted gold ornaments worth around Rs 20 lakh from a jewellery shop in Rajnagar town in Kendrapara district, police said.

Police said the miscreants looted the gold ornament posing themselves as customers. After reaching the shop, they looted gold at gun point.

The youths fled away on a motor bike, police said adding that a special squad has been constituted to nab the criminals.

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Actor-politician Kamal Haasan Wednesday described as a "worthwhile dream" Congress president Rahul Gandhi's promise of minimum income for the poor but said implementing it would be very difficult.

Addressing reporters here after launching the Puducherry unit of his party Makkal Needhi Maiam, he also welcomed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's foray into active

"It is a great dream, nice dream. I would not say it is epiphany. But is a nice worthwhile dream. We'll pursue it. But to enact and actually bring it into force is very difficult. I hope he (Rahul) succeeds," Haasan said.

Addressing a 'Kisaan Abhaar Sammelan' in Raipur on Monday, Rahul Gandhi had promised Congress would ensure "minimum income guarantee" for every poor person if it comes to power at the Centre.

When asked about his opinion on Vadra being appointed Congress general secretary, Hassan said "Welcome sister."



On the Ram temple issue, the MNM leader said he stood for amity and unity of the country.

"My personal opinion, which I have said in 1993 or 94 as soon as Babri masjid was demolished. I was the single voice which rose from here. I still stand by it. I am very sure any sensible Indian would stand for amity and unity of India," he said.

Answering questions on alliances for fighting the upcoming general elections, he said the executive committee of his party had given him the authority to decide on it, but no time limit had been set to take the call.

"We are deliberating on it. It is very important to not carry other people's laundry," he said without elaborating.

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An "Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal", formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, would visit Tripura from February 2 to record evidence against two outlawed insurgent outfits.

The Home Ministry had imposed a fresh ban of five years on the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) on October 3, 2018 for their violent and subversive activities.

The government had set up the tribunal, headed by Delhi High Court Judge Suresh Kait, on November 15 last year for adjudicating whether or not the two Tripura-based militant outfits should be declared banned organisations under the law.

The tribunal had issued show cause notice to the two outfits on November 27, 2018 for submitting their objections or reply within 30 days.

"The NLFT and ATTF, if they wish, may represent themselves on February 2 and February 3 at 10:30 AM before the tribunal at Agartala by making a communication to the Registrar of the Tribunal well in advance," a press release issued by the state government said on Tuesday.

The NLFT was formed on March 12, 1989 with Dhananjoy Reang as its self-styled chairman.

Reang was later expelled from the NLFT in 1993 and Nayanbasi Jamatia became the leader of the faction.

In another split in 2001, a faction led by one Biswamohan Debbarma emerged, which is now the main active wing of the outfit.

The NLFT was outlawed in 1997 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and later under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

The ATTF was formed as All Tripura Tribal Force (ATTF) on July 11, 1990 by a group of former Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) under the leadership of Ranjit Debbarma.

Though the TNV surrendered arms as per a peace accord with the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988, the Ranjit Debbarma faction dissociated themselves and rechristened itself as ATTF.

The ATTF surrendered en masse in 1993 as per the ATTF Peace Accord but the Ranjit Debbarma faction continued insurgency activities till Debbarma was arrested in Bangladesh in 2012.

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MG Motor India Wednesday said it has roped in tech major Adobe to provide end-to-end digital solutions platform in India ahead of the launch of its SUV MG Hector.

As part of its digital transformation strategy, the company said Adobe will help MG India build and consolidate a common platform, including its brand website, dealer websites, and digital screens.

"With the implementation of Adobe Analytics, MG India will leverage insights derived from digital interactions between the brand and its customers across these channels, to further deliver personalised customer experiences," it added.

"With the car buying decisions of customers increasingly being influenced by digital media, it is imperative to provide a seamless yet not in-the-face customer experience at all instances during digital customer interaction," MG Motor India President and Managing Director Rajeev Chaba said.

With Adobe on board, he said the company can facilitate an experiential customer journey and map and monitor the entire digital customer journey, right from interest generation to the final purchase.

Adobe South Asia Managing Director Kulmeet Bawa said digital and the era of experience, are at the core of brands looking to thrive, especially in hyper-competitive sectors like automobile industry.

"This industry has an array of objectives, including appealing to a wide audience, establishing a deeper customer connection, and truly standing out from the pack," he added.

MG Motor India will launch its SUV Hector in the second quarter of this year.

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Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh appealed to the people not to panic over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 even as a 24-hour general strike has been called from Wednesday midnight demanding withdrawal of the bill.

The apprehensions of the people need to be removed first and the Centre will be urged not to let the bill impact the state, he told reporters on the sidelines of a programme here.

The recently formed Manipur People Against Citizenship Amendment Bill (MPACAB), with representation from 66 organisations, has called the general strike demanding the controversial bill be withdrawn.

The chief minister said the government is trying to clear doubts regarding the Citizenship Bill from the minds of the people.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim nationals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India.

Biren Singh said he will be attending a meeting of chief ministers of all northeastern states "probably day after tomorrow."



Meanwhile, the opposition Congress slammed the government for indulging in "delay tactics" and reiterated that the bill must not be passed under any circumstance.

Former chief minister O Ibobi Singh told reporters that state legislators were not been able to take a firm stand on the bill unlike the Nagaland cabinet.

The Nagaland cabinet has rejected the bill following pressure from various tribal organisations and student bodies.

Ibobi Singh said a Congress team is leaving for the national capital to oppose the passage of the bill in the Rajya Sabha.

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Union minister Maneka Gandhi has lashed out at the Odisha government over "non-utilisation" of the ICDS funds, saying malnutrition is a major cause of worry in the state because a large number of children are deprived of supplementary nutrition.

The Union Minister for Women and Child Development also said the decision to increase the remuneration of anganwadi workers was an "initiative of the Centre and not that of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's government".

"Recent CAG reports have pointed out non-utilisation of ICDS funds in Odisha. The obvious consequences are in the open: malnutrition is a major cause of worry in the state because a large number of children are deprived of supplementary nutrition owing to logistic mismanagement," Gandhi said in a tweet on Tuesday.

She said while the Centre approved the increase in honourarium of anganwadi workers in October last year, the Odisha government announced it in the state only in January this year.

"I would like my sisters working under ICDS in Odisha to understand that the increase in remuneration is an initiative of the Central government and not that of @Naveen_Odisha ji's government," she said in another tweet.

In September last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a hike in monthly honorarium for thousands of Asha and anganwadi workers across the country.

"The Union Cabinet under Narendra Modi ji had approved an increase of Rs 1500 per month for the anganwadi workers. This benefit was extended to all 1.45 lakh workers in Odisha," Gandhi added.

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A man wanted in a 2004 Surat murder case, was arrested from Pune after being on the run for 15 years, Mumbai police said on Wednesday.

According to police, Vikrant Patel, who is in his late twenties, was held on Tuesday night.

Patel was allegedly part of a six-member gang that had murdered a person in Surat in 2004. While five of the accused were arrested soon after the incident, Patel had gone absconding since then, police said.

Police stumbled upon Patel during their efforts to nab a convict in the case, who has jumped parole.

"On January 1, 2004, six men posing as staff of a gas company, had stormed into a bungalow in Surat and looted gold jewellery. In the process, the accused killed one of the members of the family and seriously injured others," an official said.

"After this, five of the six accused were arrested. A court in Surat had awarded death sentence to one of them, while four others were given life term," he added.

According to the official, an accused serving a life term was granted parole, but he did not return to jail.

The Surat police had sought help from the police across the country, including Mumbai police's crime branch, to track down the convict, who had jumped parole.

"After being approached by Surat police, we started looking for him. We recieved information that he was staying with a man named Vikrant Patel in Pune," he said.

"The crime branch sleuths went to Pune and got hold of Patel on Tuesday night. During his interrogation, it came to light that he was one of the absonding accused in the same murder case," the official added.

Accordingly, the Surat police were informed and Patel was handed over to them.

"However, the accused who has jumped parole, is yet to be arrested," he said.

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A 53-year-old man, accused in 37 criminal cases that include a stringent organised crime act, was arrested from southeast Delhi for allegedly selling stolen vehicles to drug peddlers, police said Wednesday.

Acting on a tip-off, the accused -- Sharafat Sheikh, a resident of Nizamuddin -- was arrested from the area on Sunday, the police said.

One of his associates, Piyush Verma (23), was arrested last Friday from a checkpoint when the police found that the scooter he was riding was stolen, said Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (southeast).

Verma, a son of a railways employee, disclosed that he was addicted to drugs and liquor. In order to meet his needs, he started stealing motorcycles and mobile phones from Nizamuddin area and sold them to Pappu alias Tabrez (33), Biswal said.

Pappu, who was arrested from Nizamuddin, revealed that he used to handover the stolen motorcycles and mobile phones to Shiekh after purchasing them from drug addicts. Sheikh gave these vehicles to drug peddlers so that they can leave them and run away in case of any possibility of arrest, the DCP said.

Another close aide of Sheikh, identified as Sheikh Hannan, was also arrested. Eighteen stolen mobile phones have been recovered, the officer said.

Sheikh and Hannan were booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act in 2005. Sheikh was in judicial custody since June 2006 on charges of being part of an organised crime syndicate and was released from jail recently, the police added.

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Former IAS officer Shah Faesal, who recently quit the service to join politics, Wednesday called for reviving talks with Pakistan to bring lasting peace in militancy-affected Jammu and Kashmir, his home state.

The 2010-batch IAS exam topper, while batting for "credible political solution" in the strife-torn state, said separatists and Kashmiri Pandits should be made part of the dialogue process to bring about peace in the Kashmir Valley.

Faesal, an MBBS degree holder, was here to inaugurate the 12th Kashmir Festival, organised by NGOs Sarhad and Arham Foundation.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, Faesal (35) spoke at length about his decision to resign from the elite civil services and join politics, his views on the Kashmir issue and future plans.

"Looking at the conditions in the Valley, there is a need to draw the attention of central government because, till the time the killings do not stop, the situation in the state will not improve," he said.

When a soldier dies in Kashmir during an anti-militancy operation and when his coffin reaches his home, an atmosphere of hate prevails, he said.

Similarly, when a youth from the Valley is killed and his coffin reaches his house, this hate multiplies, the former bureaucrat said.

"So peace cannot be attained through military or monetary solutions (financial packages), it can only be attained through a credible political solution," Faesal said.

"I think the central government should reach out to all the stakeholders of the state and start a political initiative through dialogue which was already there. There is a need to revive that dialogue process," he said.

Asked about the Centre's initiative of sending an interlocutor to hold talks with all stakeholders in an effort to find lasting peace in J&K, he said looking at the enormity of the issue, the solution should be at par with the problem.

Quizzed about Pakistan's foreign minister reaching out to separatist leaders in the Valley, he said whenever there has been talks between the two countries, the situation in the border state has improved.

"The lives of people became easy. The situation at LoC was also peaceful and the lives of soldiers also became comfortable...so there is a need to revive the SAARC concept and talks (with Pakistan) need to be resumed," he said.

The dialogue process should include all stakeholders, including separatists and Kashmiri Pandits, he said.

Asked about militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen warning the Kashmiri youth against supporting him, Faesal said there is a lot of distrust in the northern state.

"People in the state are not ready to believe anybody. When I say we can restore political rights of the people through democratic way, some stakeholders feel I am coming to create hurdles in their way," he said.

"They feel that I am coming to take the youth on the wrong path...so they do not have trust in leaders and this is very much expected. Looking at these issues, I can sense the enormity of the responsibility one leader has, who needs to deal with such apprehensions and mistrust," he said.

Asked about floating a political party of his own, Faesal said he has not thought about it yet though youths in the state want him to move in that direction.

Talking about his resignation, the former civil servant said, "Administrative services have a role...I can provide infrastructure like water, power, road but I can not restore the political rights of the people. That can be given only by political leaders and legislators.

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A major fire broke out at the exhibition grounds here Wednesday night, officials said.

At least two persons were admitted to a hospital due to suffocation, officials said, adding that around 35,000 people visited the stalls Wednesday.

The fire started at around 8.30 pm and based on preliminary information, it was revealed that the blaze might have started due to short-circuit at a private bank's stall which spread to nearby areas, triggering panic among visitors.

Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali said there was no loss of life and around 130 stalls were gutted in the incident.

A thorough inquiry would be conducted into the matter, he said.

Twelve fire tenders and as many water tankers were rushed to the spot to put out the fire and teams of disaster response force of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation were also pressed into service, the officials said.

The fire was brought under control by 11 pm, they said.

GHMC Commissioner Dana Kishore said the visitors were safely evacuated in a coordinated manner and the situation is under control now.

Mahmood Ali, GHMC Mayor B Rammohan, Kishore along with senior officials from police and other departments were present at the spot and monitored rescue operations.

Eye-witnesses, many of them businessmen, said they suffered heavy loss of property due to the fire and claimed they had taken loans to set up the stalls. They demanded the government to extend financial assistance.

The 45-day All-India industrial exhibition popularly called 'Numaish' started on January 1.

Organising Committee of the Exhibition Society had earlier said around 2,500 stalls of various products will be set up at the Nampally exhibition grounds.

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Vivek Doval Wednesday alleged before a Delhi court that 'The Caravan' magazine and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh ran a "malicious campaign" to target his father and NSA Ajit Doval by branding his family as "anti-national".

Vivek made the allegation in his statement recorded before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal in the criminal defamation complaint filed by him against the magazine and Ramesh.

"My family was referred as D-companies whereas we all know that in our country, the D-company refers to Dawood Ibrahim, who figures in the most wanted list. Question was thus raised on me and my family, specially on my father, who has dedicated his life for the service of this country, also fighting against Dawood. The article branded me and my family as anti-nationals...

"I was a soft target but in fact it was my family, specially my father, who was the target of the malicious campaign," Vivek told the court.

The comparison of Doval family with D-companies created an impression that we were doing anti-national and illegal activities which is the most preposterous charge, he said.

Vivek completed recording of his statement in the complaint and the court has now posted the matter for further hearing on February 11, when it is likely to record the testimonies of other two witnesses cited by the complainant.

The Caravan in its January 16 online write-up titled 'The D Companies' alleged that Vivek Doval, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government demonetised all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".

According to the complaint, Ramesh held a press conference on January 17, reiterating the "baseless and unfounded facts" as narrated in the article.

"The Caravan articles and Ramesh's press conference have been pieced by bringing in random facts, misfacts, misleading inferences to create an impression that illegal activities have been undertaken by the Doval family, including money laundering, round tripping of capital, knowing of demonetisation in advance which has tarnished my and my family image," Vivek further told the court.

He said that his family's image was further tarnished as the article and the press conference "invited comments from public terming me as 'Chota Doval', putting me in line with 'Chota Rajan' and 'Chota Shakil', who are hardened terrorists."



Vivek said the defamatory articles and press conference have tarnished his image as a professional globally and that it will be hard or impossible to recover from this setback, adding that his father had no connection with his or his brother's business.

With regard to Ramesh, the complaint said the press conference addressed by him went "beyond the mere narration in the article" and that he was already geared and armed to launch an attack, "merely waiting for the publication of the article", which could then provide a "smokescreen to the otherwise targeted and deliberate attack on the reputation of the complainant and his family".

The complaint said the article has been used as a political tool to "foster in unscrupulous hands" to "seek vendetta and wreak vengeance".

It also said that the very act of setting up and launching of a hedge fund, whether in the Cayman Islands or any other place in the world, is not by itself an illegal and unlawful act.

"However, the same, even without explicitly so stating, has been portrayed in a manner that leads to the very setting up and launching of the hedge fund being perceived as an unlawful act," it added.

The complaint alleged that "a web of conjectures and surmises has been devised by selective and careful nitpicking of random facts in respect of the complainant, his brother and his father the facts being completely unrelated to one another and presenting them in a manner that hints at deep rooted conspiracies between the family members, in carrying out laundering of black money, by rerouting of funds into India through the Cayman Islands, in the post-demonetization era".

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: Leaders in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry remembered freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi on his 72nd death anniversary Wednesday.

Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Chief Minister K Palaniswami, deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and Minister paid floral tribute to a decorated portrait of Gandhi near his statue on Kamaraj Salai here, an official press release said.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1948.

At a separate event, Palaniswami administered an oath against untouchability at the Secretariat coinciding with the death anniversary.

The event was attended also by state government officials, including Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanthan and the Secretariat staff.

In neighbouring Puducherry, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy paid homage to Mahatma at his memorial



Territorial Speaker V Vaithilingam, Deputy Speaker V P Sivakolundhu, Ministers, MLAs and heads of different organisations and officials garlanded the Mahatma's statue on the beach road.

Students of Puducherry government-run Bharathiar Palkalaikoodam, a multi-cultural institute, rendered patriotic songs on the occasion.

Silence was observed for a couple of minutes by those present at the venue.

Earlier, Puducherry Congress Committee president and PWD Minister A Namassivayam paid homage before the portrait of the Father of Nation at the party office.

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The Karnataka Cabinet Wednesday decided to implement a 2017 act on reservation in promotions for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, over which the Supreme Court had earlier orally advised status quo.

It has been decided to implement the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the post in the civil services of the state) Act, 2017, Rural Development and Panachayat Raj Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said.

The implementation will be in accordance with the set guidelines and procedures and the cabinet decision will be subject to the final outcome of the related cases before the Supreme Court, he told reporters here.

Karnataka had been providing reservation in promotions to SC/ST communities since 1978.

The Supreme Court in February 2017 had struck down all consequential promotions given to the employees belonging to SC/STs in the state, a decision which reportedly impacted at least 8,000 employees across 45 departments.

However, the previous Congress government later brought in the act to circumvent the Supreme Court order and ensure that the reservation remains intact.

But since the Supreme Court had orally advised to maintain the status quo in July, till now implementation of the law was withheld.

The SC/ST employees had been mounting pressure on the state government to implement the act.

Gowda said the government had recently sought legal opinion from senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing the government in the matter in the court.

In his written opinion, Rohatgi said he had told the Supreme Court that the state would go ahead with implementation of the law as it had been passed by the legislature and received the Presidential assent.

Rohatgi had also said the court had recorded his statement and had not given any "contrasting directions, the minister added.

"We will now have to prepare a seniority list and on the basis of it we will have to implement there are rules and procedures in the law that need to be followed, it will take some time, he said.

Replying to a question, he said Rohatgi had given a clear opinion that the question of contempt does not arise.

"We have accepted the advice of our legal counsel, he said, adding that the will of the cabinet was that the law had to be implemented without affecting anybody.

On reported dissent within the cabinet on the move, Gowda said, there was no opposition, but there was comprehensive discussion, and it was good to discuss on such matters.

The Minister maintained that the financial implication will be minor.

The cabinet also approved allocation of Rs 8,015 crore by the government for various development works for Bengaluru over three years from from 2018-19, to be taken up by the city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

This includes works on flyovers, construction of storm water drains, development of lakes and upgradation of foot paths, the Minister said adding the amount would be in addition to the BBMP funds.

The cabinet also gave its nod for Rs 78 crore funds for construction of new Karnataka Bhavan at Chanakyapuri in Delhi and for a draft bill regarding setting up of a university by the National Institute of Engineering-Mysuru.

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EU leader Jean-Claude Juncker warned Wednesday that the British parliament's decision to demand changes to the Brexit withdrawal deal had increased the risk of a messy "no deal" divorce.

"Yesterday's vote increased the risk of a disorderly withdrawal," the president of the European Commission told MEPs. "We need to be ready for all scenarios, including the worst."



Speaking at a debate on the crisis for European lawmakers, the EU Commission president reiterated the EU position that the withdrawal agreement already signed last year with Prime Minister Theresa May can not be re-negotiated.

And, while he said he would "work day and night" to head off the danger of a no-deal divorce, Tuesday's debate in the House of Commons had not changed anything and Europe remains united in support of the agreement.

He insisted that the so-called "Irish backstop", opposed by eurosceptic British MPs, must remain in the deal as an insurance against the return of a hard border on Ireland and against "slipping back into darker times past.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to India on February 11 on a day-long visit during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his second visit to New Delhi in just over a year.

Netanyahu visited India in January 2018 while Prime Minister Modi travelled to Tel Aviv in 2017, becoming the first Indian Prime Minister to tour the Jewish state.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu will be in India only for a day on February 11 and a meeting with Prime Minister has been confirmed. Other details are being worked out," informed sources told PTI.

Both the leaders spoke over the phone earlier this month when Israel's Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbath visited New Delhi. Ben-Shabbat also met Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

The Israeli prime minister is said to have expressed his desire to visit India again to which Modi is said to have consented, sources said.

His visit comes just ahead of the Knesset (parliament) elections on April 9.

Netanyahu, who hopes for a fourth straight electoral victory, has taken up many trip abroad recently to strengthen Israel's standing in the international community, something that his supporters have been using to project him as the only leader who can drum up support for Israel.

Israel has recently seen major diplomatic breakthroughs with Netanyahu visiting Oman, a country that doesn't have diplomatic ties with Israel, and Chad, an overwhelming Muslim country, restarting diplomatic engagement with the Jewish state.

The Israeli leader seems to be trying to convince his people that his country is not isolated in the global community and many more nations would be working with Tel Aviv, irrespective of a breakthrough on the deadlocked peace process with Palestinians.
Tehran says that China has slowed down working on its redesign of a heavy water reactor in Iran, following the U.S. withdrawal from Tehran's nuclear agreement with world powers.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's nuclear agency, was quoted by state-run agency IRNA as saying that "the Chinese side decreased the speed of cooperation with us despite their commitments." He says Iran has "alternative" choices if China cannot not fulfil its job. Salehi speculates that Beijing fears possible sanctions by the U.S. if it continues cooperation with Iran but did not elaborate further.

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement, experts from the United States and China were to help Iran redesign the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces as a byproduct.

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A wide range of activities will be organised across South Africa from next month to celebrate the 150th year of Mahatma Gandhi's birth, an official said, as local and expatriate community paid homage to him on the day marking his 71th death anniversary.

Hosted at Constitution Hill, guests showered flowers on a bust of Gandhi outside the venue after listening to a few addresses and renditions of the Mahatma's favourite devotional songs.

The Constitution Hill has a permanent Gandhi-Mandela audio-visual exhibition that was officially opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July 2018.

On the occasion, Consul General Dr K J Srinivasa said that there would be several activities this year across South Africa to remember Mahatma Gandhi.

"We will have many activities across South Africa this year, culminating in October on the Mahatma's birthday," Srinivasa said as he reminded the audience of the need in the world today more than ever to follow the Gandhian principles of truth and non-violence.

"It was here in South Africa that Gandhi ji perfected his Satyagraha philosophy to fight racism and oppression, which he then took to India as well," Srinivasa said.

The series of event would start with a commemoration in February.

"This will be followed by an India Week in Johannesburg from the end of March featuring Gandhi-related events that will include yoga, dance troupes, drama, music and food festivals and even textile exhibitions," he said.

"Colleagues in Durban and Cape Town were planning similar events in their cities as planning proceeds for a major event on October 2," Srinivas told PTI.

Echoing the sentiments expressed by Srinivasa, Gandhi's South African great-granddaughter Kirti Menon, a renowned academic, called on all South Africans to live the values of Gandhi in their daily lives for the betterment of the entire society.

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India remains one of the most important strategic partners of the United States, a top American senator said.

Mark Warner from the Democratic Party and Republican senator John Cornyn met the new Indian Envoy to the US, Harsh V Shringla, at the US Capitol here.

India remains one of our most important strategic partners, Cornyn said in a statement on Tuesday, a day after the meeting.

Warner and Cornyn are co-chairs of the powerful India Caucus, the only country-specific caucus in the Senate.

I'm glad Senator Warner and I were able to meet with the Ambassador to welcome him to his post and discuss ways in which our two countries can continue to work together toward advancing our common interests on issues like trade and global security, he said.

During the meeting, the senators discussed how to further strengthen the partnership between the two countries.

I appreciate the opportunity to meet Ambassador Shringla to talk about the issues bridging our nations, especially since Virginia is home to one of the largest populations of Indian Americans, said Warner, who is vice chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence



"The US and India have many shared economic and strategic interests, so I look forward to working with the Ambassador on these matters, the Virginia senator added.

Issues discussed in the meeting included areas of opportunity to deepen the strategic partnership, increasing international exchange programs between the two counties, and the implications of India's decision to require all payment system providers to store their data exclusively in India.

Shringla had presented his credentials to President Donald Trump at the White House on January 12.

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The government may again defer the deadline to impose retaliatory customs duties on 29 US products, including almond, walnut and pulses, by another 30 days till March 2, an official said.

In December 2018, the government for the fourth time deferred the deadline till January 31.

"As discussions are going on between India and the US for a proposed trade package, the commerce ministry has asked its finance counterpart to again defer the implementation of the notification till March 2," the official said.

The finance ministry is expected to issue a notification regarding this soon.

In June last year, India decided to impose retaliatory tariffs after the US imposed high customs duties on certain steel and aluminium products.

As part of the imposition of higher import duties, New Delhi has notified higher tariffs on several products. While import duty on walnut is to be hiked to 120 per cent from 30 per cent currently, duty on chickpeas, Bengal gram (chana) and masur dal will be raised to 70 per cent, from 30 per cent currently. Levy on lentils will be increased to 40 per cent, from 30 per cent.

Senior officials of India and the US are in discussions to finalise a kind of trade deal. Both sides are holding two track discussions -- to increase trade in short and medium term, and identify long-term trade potentials.

India is pressing for exemption from high duty imposed by the US on certain steel and aluminium products, resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under their generalised system of preferences (GSP), greater market access for its products from agriculture, automobile, automobile components and engineering sectors.

On the other hand, the US is demanding greater market access through cut in import duties for its agriculture goods, dairy products, medical devices, IT and communication items.

India's exports to the US in 2017-18 stood at USD 47.9 billion, while imports were USD 26.7 billion. The trade balance is in favour of India.

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu is expected to hold bilateral discussions here on trade issues with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on February 14.

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/ -- IMA (Institute of Management Accountants), the association of accountants and financial professionals in business, is launching its Student Leadership Conference (SLC) in Bangalore, India on February 2, 2019.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/510711/IMA_Logo.jpg )



"In the age of expanding automation and AI, career prospects are changing for many existing entry-level accounting jobs," said Hanadi Khalife, Director, MEA & India Operations at IMA. "The SLC is a formidable platform for students to network, connect, and learn about a progressive career in accounting and finance, the technological challenges that lie ahead and the tools and resources available to help them get ready for the changing finance function."



To join the conference, professors from IMA's partner institutions in India nominated up to five undergraduate students studying in the fields of commerce, accountancy, finance, or business administration.

"We encourage all students to explore the full breadth of the management accounting profession and to go back to their universities inspired and excited to pursue a well-rounded accounting and to focus on developing the 'human skills' of strategy, decision support, and critical thinking, that are not easily automated," added Khalife.

The conference will include several local and international speakers including Mihir Koltharkar, CEO and Founder at 24 Karat Training; Sumit Saxena, Marketing Manager at Shiv Nadar University; Paul Juras, CMA, CPA, Ph.D., Professor at Babson College, U.S. and Chair, ICMA Board of Regents; Guruprasad Varadarajan, CMA, ACMA, CA, Vice President at IMA Bangalore Chapter; Balaji Rangaswamy, Associate Director, Finance Global Initiatives at Ernst & Young; Gopinath Mallipatna, CMA, CFO and Director at SatSure AG; Narendranath Nair, General Manager, Finance at Wipro; and Subhasis Mishra, Talent Acquisition Leader at Amazon. All are eager to guide the students as they prepare to enter the workforce.

This by invitation only exclusive event will welcome 200 students from different universities in India for a chance to build their personal and professional network, engage with accounting and HR professionals from well-known companies, and understand the benefits of earning the CMA (Certified Management Accountant), IMA's certification for accountants and financial professionals in business. Students will also be able to enhance their LinkedIn profiles with a free professional photo. To learn more about the conference, please visit, http://bit.ly/2DHeGPH



About IMA (Institute of Management Accountants)



IMA, named the 2017 and 2018 Professional Body of the Year by The Accountant/International Accounting Bulletin, is one of the largest and most respected associations focused exclusively on advancing the management accounting profession. Globally, IMA supports the profession through research, the CMA (Certified Management Accountant) program, continuing education, networking and advocacy of the highest ethical business practices. IMA has a global network of more than 100,000 members in 140 countries and 300 professional and student chapters Headquartered in Montvale, N.J., USA, IMA provides localized services through its four global regions: The Americas, Asia/Pacific, Europe, and Middle East/India. For more information about IMA, please visit http://www.imamiddleeast.org.

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George Fernandes in handcuffs raising his hand in defiance is one of the most enduring photographs of the Emergency era and a portrait of that iconic image adorns a corner of a room at his home where his body lies in a glass casket.

The oil painting in black and white is surmounted by a board that bears the message -- 'A Leader for Every Indian - George Fernandes' -- while flower petals lay showered beneath that frame kept on a table.

A host of leaders and admirers sat next to that image to pen their tribute in words in a journal kept next to bowls of flower petals.

Padmanabh Shetty, who was one of the persons arrested, along with Fernandes, in what is known as the Baroda Dynamite case, was among the visitors, who streamed at his house in Panchsheel Park, to pay their tribute to the departed leader.

Pointing to the portrait, Shetty said, "George Fernandes in handcuffs raising his hand in defiance, while he was being produced at the Tees Hazari court in Delhi for the trial, is one of the most famous and enduring images of the Emergency era."



Emergency-era activists still recall the black and white photograph of him and the oil painting uses monochromatic hues to recreate that imagery in a new medium.

He was one of a kind, fearless leader and an avowed crusader for democratic rights. This portrait's placement in the room is very apt, Shetty told PTI.

In the living room, the glass casket has got buried in a mountain of wreaths and flower petals as a string of senior leaders, veteran politicians and admirers have paid tribute to the departed leader in the past two days.

Fernandes died Tuesday aged 88 at his residence -- Shanti Niwas - after prolonged illness.

Another portrait of Fernades is kept axially behind the casket with a flame next to it, where visitors also paid tribute to the former defence minister.

Multiple book shelves fill the room on both sides, with titles on subjects ranging from China, Afghanistan to Parliamentary debates, and multiple copies of a book on the Baroda Dynamite case.

Framed old photographs showing him with family, his swearing-in ceremony as a Union minster, playing with pet dogs, line up the decks of the book shelves.

His wife Leila Kabir points to a portrait gifted by someone from Japan.

"He loved his dogs. They all died one by one...There, he is holding a puppy in his hand in that portrait," she told PTI.

Kabir, also recalled his simple sartorial style and said he was "very comfortable in that wear".

She points to another portrait of Fernandes, in a coat and tie, adding that perhaps it is the only one of him in that avatar.

"Even in family functions, he preferred to wear kurta-pyjama, he was quite at ease in those clothes," she said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday stressed the need for a full-majority government at the Centre, saying "hung parliaments" stalled the country's progress in last three decades.

Addressing a gathering here, he also defended the government's demonetisation move, saying it brought down prices of houses and made them affordable for the young generation by checking black money in the real estate sector.

"As you all know, India witnessed instability for 30 years due to hung parliaments, as no party received a majority. This had stalled the country's development. And the country even regressed on some parameters due to that situation," Modi said.

"We are progressing today because the people applied their wisdom in casting votes (in 2014 elections). Their votes eradicated that 30-year-old illness called hung parliament and helped form a full majority government at the Centre," the prime minister said.

"You can ask me what I have done and I can give you answers because you voted for us unanimously. We have done what we have done because of the mandate we got. If we were a coalition government, then we could have given many reasons for not functioning properly," he said.

Modi was speaking after laying foundation stone for extension of the terminal building of Surat Airport.

The prime minister said his government in the last four and a half years constructed 1.30 crore houses, as against 25 lakh houses built under the previous UPA government.

"Just compare those 25 lakh houses with 1.30 crore. If the previous governments had to do the work we have done so far, they would have needed another 25 years," Modi said.

The prime minister also justified his government's decision to scrap old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in November 2016.

"I was asked what has been benefit of the note-ban decision. You should ask it to the youth, who could buy houses at affordable rates after the decision.

"Black money used to be parked in the real estate sector, but with decisions like note-ban and RERA (setting up of Real Estate Regulatory Authority) we put a check on it," the prime minister said.

The success of Mudra loan scheme, he said, too was possible only because his government enjoyed a full majority.

Out of over 15 crore persons who got loans under the scheme, around 4.25 crore were first-time entrepreneurs, Modi said. "We can say the country has received 4.25 crore new entrepreneurs.... It was made possible because you voted to power a full-majority government," he added.

Past governments at the Centre intentionally refused sanction for an airport in Surat when he was chief minister of Gujarat, Modi alleged.

"There was a time when people had to take to path of agitation to get an airport in Surat. Even I, as CM, wrote numerous letters to the Centre for that. But owing to some political calculations, the Centre tried to stall the approval," he said.

"Four lakh passengers used to travel (earlier) and we created a capacity to handle movement of 26 lakh passengers. We could foresee it but they could not see," he said.

While he and his government are trying to change the old system, some people are mocking his efforts, Modi said.

"Some people, who only cared for themselves and did not think about the country for six-seven decades, can not see a changing India. But we will move forward without paying attention to such people who have a negative mentality," the prime minister said.

Modi later inaugurated Smt Rasilaben Sevantilal Shah Venus Hospital in the city.

Speaking at the function, he said the NDA government showed courage in granting quota for the economically weaker section in the general category.

"The non-reserved classes were angry. They were having expectations. We have shown courage and amended the Constitution, without which, the 10 per cent quota was not possible," he said.

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Hugh Grant says he is unsure about making a cameo in Mindy Kaling's series version of "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

The actor, who had his breakout role in the 1994 British comedy film of the same name, said he has not been asked by Kaling to appear on the new show.

Similar to the film, the series will follow a group of friends as their lives intersect through the five events. Each season will centre on a different story arc.

"Well, they haven't asked me, I don't know, maybe not," Grant told ET when asked if he would be seen in the series.

The actor said he has met some in the new cast, which includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Nikesh Patel, Rebecca Rittenhouse and John Paul Reynolds.

The film, also starring Andie MacDowell and Kristin Scott Thomas, grossed more than USD 245 million worldwide when it was released in 1994.

Meanwhile, Grant and MacDowell will star in a new short film based on "Four Weddings and a Funeral", penned by Richard Curtis.

"One Red Nose Day and a Wedding" follows the same characters as the 1994 film and picks up from more than two decades later.

The special will mark the 25th anniversary of the movie.

Grant, 58, was tight-lipped about the plot and said the production team would "shoot him" if he gave away details.

"I'll tell you what, everyone who was asked from the original film said yes and turned up and we all look pretty ropy now, but we're all good sports. We did it," he added.

Original film's director Mike Newell is returning to helm.

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The call comes in the consultation response from Steve Webb, Director of Policy at Royal London, to the DWPs consultation on DB Benefit consolidation which closes on 1st February. At present DB member benefits can be hugely complex involving up to a dozen different tranches which may have different rules around things like indexation and revaluation and even the extent to which they are covered by the Pension Protection Fund. Before Christmas, Steve Webb joined forces with the Association of Consulting Actuaries to produce a policy paper on benefit simplification entitled: Simplifying Pension Benefits  is it time for the Pensions Pound? which argued that allowing schemes to simplify existing benefits without needing individual member consent could lead to substantial savings in running costs. It could also make it easier for members to understand the benefits they have, and could mean that consolidation of DB schemes into superfunds was more efficient. The paper also points out that DB schemes are already doing a lot of work on their member data in order to respond to the issues of GMP Reconciliation and GMP Equalisation and that this would be the ideal opportunity to do a more fundamental transformation of benefits. Commenting, Steve Webb said: We have a rare window of opportunity to do something radical that would simplify pensions for millions of people. With a Pensions Bill expected in this years Queens Speech, legislation could remove barriers to simplifying member benefits which would make it easier for members to understand their pension rights and cheaper for schemes and employers. In addition, given the current focus on the potential for DB consolidation, true consolidation would be much easier and more cost-effective if DB pension benefits could be standardised and harmonised. This is a rare example of a reform that could benefit members, pension schemes and employers, and I urge the DWP to seize the moment.
The extradition hearing for a top Huawei executive at the center of a diplomatic row between Ottawa and Beijing was pushed back to March, after the US unveiled sweeping charges against her and the Chinese tech giant.

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, was indicted along with Huawei and two affiliates in a US case related to alleged Iran sanctions violations that has inflamed tensions with China.

She was arrested at Washington's request on December 1 as she changed planes in Vancouver, and was later released on bail pending a decision on extradition to the US.

In Meng's first court appearance on Tuesday since being released, the judge moved the start of her extradition hearing to March 6, a month later than previously scheduled, in order to allow the defense time to review the evidence in the case.

Extradition cases can take months or years, noted David Lametti, Canada's new attorney general.

"By the time all the individual's rights are exhausted, they can actually take a long time," he told journalists in Ottawa.

At the end of the process, if a judge orders an extradition, the attorney general would have the "final say," he added.

The case has drawn Canada into an escalating diplomatic crisis with Beijing, which has detained two Canadians in what was widely seen as an act of retaliation for Meng's arrest.

Over the weekend, Canada sacked its ambassador to China after he said that he believed the US extradition request was flawed.

China reacted furiously to the US criminal charges, saying they were the product of "strong political motivations and political manipulations." The company also denied any wrongdoing.

Canadian officials have confirmed to AFP that they received a formal extradition request from the US.

The US Justice Department has announced 13 charges against Meng, Huawei and two affiliates.

The indictment was unsealed as China's top trade negotiator arrived in Washington for high-stakes talks with US officials, which could complicate efforts to avert a deepening of their trade war.

In addition, 10 US federal charges were filed against two Huawei affiliates for allegedly stealing technology from T-Mobile.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said both sets of charges "expose Huawei's brazen and persistent actions to exploit American companies and financial institutions, and to threaten the free and fair global marketplace."



But acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said there was nothing in the indictment that alleged Chinese government involvement in either case.

The Chinese foreign ministry accused Washington of using "state power to discredit and crack down on specific Chinese companies in an attempt to strangle the enterprises' legitimate and legal operations."



It renewed Beijing's demand for the US to drop its warrant against Meng and for Canada to release her.

The accusations against Meng allege that between 2007 and 2017, she, Huawei and subsidiaries sought to mask their business with Iran in violation of US and UN sanctions on the country.

Meng in particular "repeatedly lied" to bankers about the relationships between the companies, especially with Skycom, a Huawei affiliate in Iran, according to the charges.

That violated US laws, the Justice Department said, because the Iran business involved US-dollar transactions processed by banks through the United States.

Huawei and the affiliates also lied to US authorities, obstructing the investigation, they said.

The second case charged that Huawei made a concerted effort to steal technology related to a phone-testing robot dubbed Tappy from a T-Mobile USA lab in Washington state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AAP senior leader Bhagwant Mann said Wednesday that he was still hopeful of alliances in Punjab for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Sangrur MP, who was reappointed as party's state unit chief at a function here, said his party would go all out to reach out to the remotest village in Punjab.

"We are in talks with the SAD (Taksali) and the BSP. They are holding meetings with (AAP rebel group) Sukhpal Khaira group and we too have met them. We are hopeful that an alternative against the Congress and the SAD-BJP will materialise. We hope an alliance will come up," Mann told reporters here.

On speculations of an alliance with the Congress, Mann said, "that matter is clear, there will be no tie up".

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Leader of Opposition Harpal Cheema and many other AAP MLAs from the state were present at the function.

Mann had resigned as state unit chief in March 2018 following party supremo Arvind Kejriwal's apology to former minister Bikram Singh Majithia.

"It was a conspiracy to make Kejriwal busy in 34 defamation court cases (referring to other cases as well). But apology doesn't mean that Bikram Majithia has been given clean chit and absolved of all charges. It is now the responsibility of the ruling Congress to gather evidence and take the guilty to task," he said.

Majithia had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal and Ashish Khetan in May 2015 accusing them of tarnishing his image by alleging his involvements with drug trade.

Talking about Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who has also floated his own outfit, Sisodia said, "AAP is a party based on principles. More than any posts, interests of the people of the state are paramount. Those who work for Punjab's interests, we will stand with folded hands before him. But anyone who will work only to protect his post, we will not side with that person."



"People have high hopes from the AAP, we are working to bring the main issues facing people into national discourse," he said.

Replying to a question on saying no to liquor, Mann said some people with vested interests were hell bent on tarnishing his image by creating a perception that he was a drunkard.

Mann, who was often criticised by political opponents for "excessive drinking," had earned high praise from Kejriwal for giving up alcohol.

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In a major boost to agencies probing high-profile corruption cases, a Dubai-based businessman wanted in the VVIP choppers case and a corporate aviation lobbyist are being deported to India, officials said on Wednesday.

They said in the first case, Rajeev Shamsher Bahadur Saxena, was picked up by Dubai authorities early Wednesday in connection with the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers money laundering case.

He is expected to be handed over to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing his role under money laundering charges.

Saxena, who is also an accountant, is being deported by Dubai authorities on the basis of a non-bailable warrant issued by a court on the request of the ED, they said.

A co-accused and alleged middleman in this case, British national Christian James Michel was recently extradited from Dubai to India (in December last year).He is currently in judicial custody.

Saxena's lawyers alleged that no extradition proceedings were started against him in the UAE and he was not allowed to access his family or lawyers while being sent to India.

It is also understood that corporate aviation lobbyist Deepak Talwar, wanted by the ED and the CBI in a case of misusing over Rs 90 crore taken through the foreign funding route as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR), is also being deported along with Rajeev Saxena from Dubai.

Talwar has been charged with criminalconspiracy, forgery and under various sections of the FCRA for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore worth of foreign funds meant for ambulances and other articles received by his NGO from Europe's leading missile manufacturing company. His role in some aviation deals during the UPA government's regime is under scanner.

Talwar has been booked by the ED and the CBI in criminal cases of corruption, even as the Income Tax Department has charged him with tax evasion.

The ED had summoned Rajeev Saxena, a resident of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, multiple times in the case and had arrested his wife Shivani Saxena from the Chennai airport in July, 2017. She is now out on bail.

The ED had alleged that Rajeev Saxena, his wife and their two Dubai-based firms-- Ms UHY Saxena, Dubai and Ms Matrix Holdings -- routed"the proceeds of crime and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares among others".

The ED had said that its probe found that "Agusta Westland International Ltd, UK paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks through Gordian Services Sarl, Tunisia and IDS Sarl, Tunisia.

"These companies further siphoned off the said money/ proceeds of crime in the name of consultancy contracts to Interstellar Technologies Ltd, Mauritius, and others which were further transferred to UHY Saxena, Dubai and Matrix Holdings Ltd. Dubai and others," the ED had charged.

The ED had said Rajeev Saxena is "beneficial owner" of Interstellar Technologies Ltd and both his companies received proceeds of crime in their respective Dubai bank accounts from this firm.

It had said the couple have remitted/ transferred a "huge amount of money" through their Dubai-based companies to various other accounts.

The ED had named Rajeev Saxena in its charge sheet filed in this case and had got issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal.

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The Allahabad High Court Wednesday directed Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate to appear before it at 10 am Thursday to explain the ambiguity over ownerships of two plots of land in Noida that he has ordered to auction.

A bench of justices Vikram Nath and V K Srivastava summoned the DM on a petition by one Rupinder singh Gill, a director of private firm Votive Propbuild Pvt Ltd, who said his firm held the lease deed of one of the properties ordered to be auctioned by the district administration.

Gill in his petition said the district magistrate has put plots 8A and 18 in sector 127 of Noida on auction to realise some dues from realtor Three-C.

The plots were put on auction on a representation by Three-C that the plots belonged to it and the administration was free to realise its dues after auctioning them, he said.

But the two plots actually belonged to his firm besides another one - Hacienda Infoftech Pvt Ltd, which holds the lease deeds of the plot, he said in his petition.

The high court had earlier asked the Gautam Budh district administration to respond to Gill's plea, but in its reply to the court, the district adminstration had not been able to clarify the ambiguity over the ownerships of the two plots.

Accordingly, the bench summoned district magistrate to clarify the position.

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The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response of Enforcement Directorate (ED) on bail plea of journalist Upendra Rai, arrested in a money laundering case related to alleged extortion and dubious financial transactions.

Justice Mukta Gupta issued notice to ED and asked it to file a status report March 19 in response to Rai's application seeking bail.

A sessions court had last week declined to grant him the relief.

Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, appearing for the Delhi-based scribe, told the high court that investigative agencies, CBI and ED, were "playing with the liberty" of his client.

The lawyer said that the "vindictive approach" of the agencies was evident from the fact that he is being kept in custody even though his further interrogation was not required.

Central government's standing counsel Amit Mahajan, appearing for ED, opposed the plea.

Before the sessions court, ED had opposed Rai's bail plea on the ground that he may influence witnesses and hamper probe if released.

Apart from that, the agency had also contended before the lower court that he was influential and he may destroy evidence and flee from justice if he comes out of jail.

The journalist was arrested on June 8 last year by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at the Tihar jail here, moments after he secured bail in a Central Bureau of Investigation case related to alleged extortion and dubious financial transactions.

He had been earlier arrested by the CBI on May 3, 2018 for allegedly indulging in dubious financial transactions, getting an airport access pass made by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) by furnishing false information, alleged extortion and manipulation of an Income Tax Department case against a Mumbai-based businessman.

Rai, however, recently secured bail from the Delhi High Court in the CBI case.

The ED had registered the money laundering case against him based on the CBI FIR.

Rai has denied all the allegations levelled against him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madras High Court Wednesday quashed a government order mandating minority educational institutions to admit not less than 50 per cent of students belonging to the community every year to retain their minority status.

The state government does not have power to pass such order in connection with minority status of educational institutions under the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, Justice T Raja held.

He was allowing a petition by the Institute of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary seeking to quash last year's April 5 government order.

The petitioner contended that the government order imposed a burdensome and impractical condition, modifying the principles that have stood the test of time.

It suffered from executive mala-fide to indirectly deprive the minority status to the educational institutions established and administered by the minority community, the petitioner submitted.

There cannot be a common rule throughout the state to admit a minimum of 50 per cent minority students in the state, as condition precedent for minority status, while the Christian population was only 6.1 per cent in the demography of the state, it was contended.

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The Madras High Court Wednesday allowed an appeal filed by Tamil Nadu minister K T Balaji against a single judge's order, restraining him from speaking on adulteration of milk supplied to the public by private dairies.

A division bench, comprising Justices R Subbiah and R Pongiappan, which allowed the appeal, said, "The statement (that private milk products were adulterated) made by the minister against private milk dairies was in general and will not qualify the dairy companies to complain against the minister. They cannot say the statement intended to bring their reputation down, and therefore the minister must be gagged from making such a statement in the future," the judges said.

The minister, being an MLA, cannot be clipped off his duties to enlighten the public towards consumption of healthy and standardised milk and to caution and wean away from those who indulged in adulteration, the judges said.

"We do not find any negative campaigning by the minister through the statements," the judges said.

The judges made it clear that if there was any material to show that the minister's statement was only intended against the plaintiffs, it could be taken up in the trial court.

On the statement of the dairy companies, including Hatsun Agro products, Dodla dairy and Vijay dairy and Farm products Pvt ltd, that their businesses had been hit due to Balaji's statement, the judges said they had not furnished anything to indicate the exact losses suffered by them due to this.

The judges also rejected the contention that their businesses would suffer in the future due to the minister's statement and said they cannot anticipate suffering loss and seek to stop him.

"The minister's statement cannot be said to be the one pointed towards the plaintiffs as a whole. In such an event, the actual loss suffered by the plaintiffs cannot be measured," they said.

Besides, the dairies had filed a suit in the trial court for damages. If they succeeded, they could recover the losses that had occasioned to them in their business, the judges said.

"In a libel action, it must be shown that the imputation has in fact been made against a particular person and that such a person is capable of being identified. Only if prima facie was established, injunction can be granted," they said.

The companies submitted that the minister began his 'vitriolic campaign' against them on a private television channel show on May 24, 2017, which was reported in newspapers the next day under the caption 'Private Dairies Milk Hazardous'.

This affected their business, the companies said.

Balaji had filed an appeal on October 25, 2017 in the Madras High Court against the single judge's order, restraining him from issuing disparaging statements against the private milk producers without any proof.

The minister had alleged that the order issued by Justice C V Karthikeyan would amount to preventing a public servant from discharging legal and political duties.

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Social activist Anna Hazare Wednesday launched a fresh round of hunger strike in support of his demand for appointment of anti-corruption watchdogs at the Centre and in Maharashtra and resolution of farm issues as he declined to meet a state minister for talks.

Hazare in the morning offered prayers at the Padmavati Temple in his native village Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district of western Maharashtra. The octogenarian activist, a veteran of many a fast in the past, then went in a procession, accompanied by students, youths and farmers, to the Yadavbaba Temple and sat near it to begin his indefinite hunger strike.

Hazare is protesting "non-fulfilment" of assurances by the Centre and the Maharashtra government on the appointment of Lokpal and passage of the Lokayukta Act in the state.

The Army man-turned-activist has also been demanding appointment of Lokayuktas in states where such statutory anti-corruption watchdogs do not exist.

The anti-corruption crusader told PTI that he welcomed the Maharashtra Cabinet's decision to bring the office of state chief minister under the ambit of Lokayukta.

"However, the strike will continue till the government fulfils promises they made before coming to power about passage of Lokayukta Act, appointment of Lokpal (at the Centre) and to tackle farmers' issues," he said.

As a routine procedure, doctors conducted a basic health check-up of Hazare, a close aide of the activist said.

Later in the day, Hazare refused to meet government envoy and minister Girish Mahajan for negotiation over the issued raised by him.

Hazare made it clear he does not wish to discuss the Lokayukta issue with Mahajan anymore, said a close aide of the veteran anti-corruption crusader.

"I am not going to discontinue my fast until the government takes concrete decision on appointment of Lokayukta in Maharashtra," Hazare told reporters.

Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, Mahajan said, "I am confident Anna will listen to our side. We have communicated to him about the measures we have taken for implementation of Lokayukta as well as offering better price to farmers (for their produce)."



"I am hopeful of meeting Anna in a couple of days and finding some amicable solution to the issued raised by him," said Mahajan, a confidant of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Hazare had written a letter to Fadnavis Monday, saying he would launch the agitation in his village from Wednesday.

Apart from the appointment of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayukta in states, he has been demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations on ways to address agrarian distress besides some electoral reforms.

"It has been five years since the Lokpal Act was passed. Yet, the Narendra Modi government has not appointed Lokpal...Lokayukta Act has not been passed in Maharashtra for four years," Hazare observed in his letter dated January 28.

The activist said Fadnavis had mediated when he had launched the agitation at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi in March last year. Hazare said he had withdrawn that agitation after the Centre assured in writing it would fulfil his demands.

"Nine months have passed, yet the demands have not been fulfilled," he had said in the letter to the chief minister.

The Fadnavis Cabinet had on Tuesday decided to bring the office of chief minister under the purview of Lokayukta.

Hazare had welcomed the government's decision to set in motion the process to appoint Lokayukta.

"I thank them on behalf of the people for taking the decision towards appointment of Lokayukta through a constitutional process. But, that does not mean I will not stage hunger strike. The agitation will go on until the Act is in place," he had said.

The Lokayukta is a statutory body that is empowered to probe complaints of abuse of position and corruption against public servants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A court here on Wednesday sentenced three persons to life imprisonment till last breath for killing a 24-year-old man during the Jat quota agitation in 2016.

Mintu Gujjar, a resident of Lalpura village, was killed in a firing incident on February 22, 2016 in Hisar district's Dhani Pal village.

Additional District and Sessions Judge D R Chaliya had convicted Daljeet of Sisai village, Pawan alias Pona of Sonipat and Surender alias Chhinda of Dadri on January 25.

According to the prosecution, Daljeet, along with his aides, had indulged in arson, looting etc. in Dhani Pal village during the Jat reservation stir.

On the fateful day, Gujjar and his brother, Krishan, were visiting the village to meet a relative and they were attacked by a mob of about 70 people.

The brothers ran towards a field to save their lives and the assailants opened fire at them. Krishan was seriously injured in the firing and Gujjar's body was recovered from the field the next day.

After investigation, police arrested Daljeet, Pawan and Surender for Gujjar's murder. A case was registered against them under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act.

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Finance Minister Piyush Goyal will on February 1 present Narendra Modi government's sixth and final Budget, which will be an interim one, keeping up with established tradition.

The Budget will seek Parliament's nod for spending for four months till a new government is sworn-in.

Official sources said the Budget documents will contain revenue and expenditure projections for the entire 2019-20 fiscal year beginning April 1, but a 'Vote on Account' will seek Parliament nod for the expenditure side.

While it is widely expected that the interim budget may contain tax sops and a certain package for the farm sector, there will be no Economic Survey detailing the state of the economy.

The new government, elected after general elections due by May, is expected to present a full budget in July along with the Economic Survey.

With the ruling BJP looking to regain grounds lost in the recent assembly elections, it was speculated that the budget presentation on February 1 will be just like a full-fledged one with sops and announcements to woo voters.

The Lok Sabha website, however, in its Provisional Calendar referred to the event as an Interim Budget.

The Finance Ministry also denied having instructed its staff to refer to the upcoming Budget on February 1 as a 'General Budget'.

Confusion was created after the commerce ministry on Wednesday in a whatsapp message to media said: "do not refer Budget 2019-20 as interim Budget, it is officially referred as general Budget 2019-20".

However, the Finance Ministry later clarified that the Budget will be called interim Budget 2019-20.

There were confusion in political circle that the government may deviate from the practice of presenting interim Budget and come up with full Budget ahead of the general elections.

To this principal, opposition party Congress had said it will strongly oppose, both inside and outside Parliament, the presentation of a "full budget" by the BJP-led NDA government as it has "no electoral legitimacy" and the step will go against set precedents and Parliamentary traditions.

Adding to the speculations was the statement by Arun Jaitley from New York, days before he temporarily gave up the charge of Finance Minister to Goyal to undergo treatment.

In his address to an award function by CNBC TV18 through a video link, he had stated that: "Convention has always been that election year Budget is an interim Budget. The larger interest of the nation dictates what will be a part of the interim budget".

He suggested that issues confronting the farm sector will constitute one such challenge.

Last week, Railway Minister Goyal was given additional charge of the Finance Ministry.

Jaitley as the Finance Minister has presented five Budgets.

As per practice, a Vote-on-Account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in an election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government.

While P Chidambaram had presented the previous UPA government's Vote-on-Account in February 2014, Jaitley presented a full budget in July that year.

Last year, Narendra Modi-led government scrapped a colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February and it is now presented on February 1, so as to allow Parliamentary approvals to be completed before the start of the next financial year.

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Whilst the governments funding boost for police to use video evidence as part of a two-year road safety action plan is welcome, it cant be an excuse to cut police officer numbers.



King has written to the Police Federation to say that technology has a role to play with cameras and dashcams but that traditional roads policing will still be paramount.



Up to two thirds of cars in the UK are likely to be equipped with dashcams over coming months with a fifth (20%) of drivers already owning one while another half (51%) thinking about doing so, 16% seriously, according to an AA-Populus study.*



Drivers have often found difficulty in submitting dash-cam evidence of poor or dangerous driving to local police forces although in 2016, North Wales Police launched its Operation Snap dashcam video portal to accept such evidence. The scheme has seen a large number of fixed penalty notices, retraining courses and prosecutions take place as a direct result of this evidence and it has now been extended to cover the whole of Wales.



The chief reason for dashcam ownership is concern about establishing liability in the event of a crash (60%), or to protect against cash-for-cash fraudsters (25).



Edmund King, AA president, said: Previous Home Office research showed that the most serious motoring offenders were far more likely to be involved in mainstream crime. Hence, traffic police have a crucial role in making the roads safer and solving broader crimes. Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, was caught by an officer carrying out traffic duties.



 Camera technology in the form of speed cameras or indeed dashcams can help reduce or clear up crimes but not at the expense of traffic cops.



 Data is king in the event of a collision and dashcam footage provides proper, reliable evidence that can establish fault. Based on the Operation Snap evidence it does lead to prosecution of dangerous drivers.



However dashcams and speed cameras dont deter uninsured drivers or mainstream criminals so there is still a vital road for cops in cars using automatic number plate recognition.



Reasons for buying a dashcam (AA Populus poll of 21,341)

To use as evidence to prove fault in a possible collision is the overwhelming reason why people have bought one:

 60% overall (60% men; 68% women); with similar results across all age groups and regions

 West Midlands drivers are most likely to be concerned about possible cash for crash fraud attempts (29%) compared with 25% overall.

 Women are also slightly more concerned about potential cash for crash attempts (26% saying this compared with 25% of men).

Other reasons for buying a dashcam include:

 Reduce my insurance premiums (5%);

 because I like gadgets (1%);

 to record possible thieves or collisions while parked (3%)

 to record bad behaviour of other drivers and publish online (2%)


The Defence Ministry and the state-run Goa Shipyard have inked a pact for construction of two missile frigates for the Indian Navy at a cost of around Rs 14,000 crore, officials said.

The two Talvar-class warships will be constructed by the PSU in cooperation with Russia's state-run defence major Rosoboronexport.

"The ships would carry highly sophisticated and state-of-art weapon systems and sensors," said a senior defence ministry official.

India has already sealed a separate agreement with Russia for the project.

The first ship is scheduled to be handed over to the Navy by June 2026, while the second one will be delivered in December that year.

The ships are being constructed as part of the government's efforts to enhance operational capabilities of the Indian Navy.

The government has already approved induction of 56 new ships and six submarines to augment Indian navy's strength.

The 56 new ships will be in addition to 32 ships and submarines, which are presently under construction in Indian shipyards.

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A BJP minister in the Goa government Wednesday accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of "politicising" the courtesy visit paid by him to ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Tuesday by raking up Rafale issue.

State Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said one should not "capitalise" on such one-on-one meetings and make unwarranted statements.

Godinho's attack came a day after Gandhi met Parrikar at the Assembly Complex here and inquired about his health.

Hours after meeting Parrikar, Gandhi told party workers in Kerala that Parrikar has stated that he had nothing to do with the 'new (Rafale) deal' that was "orchestrated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani".

Parrikar, 63, has not been keeping good health since last year due to a pancreatic ailment. He couldn't attend his office due to frequent hospitalisations.

"Gandhi has not done the right thing. When we extend civil courtesies to each other, it should remain at that. We may belong to different political parties but one should not bring into such issues," the minister said.

Godinho, a former Congress MLA, also said, "one should realise that when you come to enquire about a person's health, it should be limited to that".

"He should not try to capitalise that and say something contrary, because when meetings between two persons take place, so many things can be said about each other," he said.

Gandhi has been relentlessly targetting PM Modi over the deal to purchase Rafale fighter jets from France.

The Congress had released an unverified audio tape last year in which Goa Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane purportedly told an unidentified person that Parrikar was holding the government to ransom because he was in possession of the Rafale deal files.

Both Parrikar and Rane had dismissed the tapes as fabricated.

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With the intention of making tourist hot-spots nuisance-free, the Goa government introduced a bill Wednesday which bans drinking and cooking in open spaces including on the beaches.

Tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar introduced the legislation in the Legislative Assembly.

The bill provides for a fine of Rs 2,000 for an individual and Rs 10,000 for a group of persons for violation of the law.

Interestingly, the bill, which amends the Goa Tourist Places (Protection and Maintenance) Act, 2001, puts the onus of ensuring that the new rule is observed on liquor vendors.

No person engaged in the business of sale of liquor "will allow its customer to carry bottles/cans containing liquor in tourist places", the bill says.

The introduction to the bill says its objective is to protect and preserve tourism potential of tourist places in Goa and keep them clean and free of nuisance.

Ajgaonkar also introduced an amendment to the Goa Registration of Tourist Trade Act, 2019, which makes it mandatory for hotels and other tourism establishments to register with the department if they want to provide services online.

The three-day assembly session will end Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar tabled Budget.

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Detained auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn believes his arrest and the charges against him are the result of a "plot and treason" at his former employer Nissan, he told the Nikkei newspaper Wednesday.

The Japanese business daily quoted Ghosn as saying he had "no doubt" that the charges against him were motivated by Nissan executives opposed to greater integration of the firm with its French alliance partner Renault.

This is the first press interview Ghosn has given since his stunning arrest on November 19 and it was conducted in the Tokyo detention centre where he has languished ever since.

The 64-year-old has been denied bail several times, with the court considering him a flight risk and concerned that he could attempt to destroy evidence.

But he again stressed that he "won't flee. I will defend (myself)", according to the Nikkei.

"All the evidence is with Nissan and Nissan forbids all employees to talk to me," he added.

Even his own lawyer has said it is unlikely he will be released before a trial, which could take up to six months to organise given the complexity of the case.

Ghosn faces three separate charges, all of which he denies.

He stands accused of under-reporting his income between 2010 and 2015 to the tune of five billion yen (USD 46 billion) and continuing to do so for a further three years.

He also stands accused of a complex scheme to try to pass off personal foreign exchange losses to Nissan and using company funds to reimburse a Saudi contact who stumped up collateral for him.

The executive, once feted for his turnaround of the struggling Nissan, has been removed as chairman of the Japanese firm as well as of Mitsubishi Motors. He resigned as chairman and chief executive of French company Renault.

He told the Nikkei that there was a plan to "integrate" the three companies but insisted it was intended to ensure there would be "autonomy under one holding company.

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A special PMLA court here has sentenced four persons, including two Malaysians, and a firm to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the convicts for money laundering linked to illegal possession of narcotic drugs, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Wednesday.

The court of special judge A C Joshi convicted Kirit Rasiklal Shah, Jagdish Vaidya, Gunasekaran Pillai, Ravindran Karapaya and the Sakha Organics, a Vadodara-based firm linked to them, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Pillai and Karapaya are Malaysian nationals.

The ED, in a statement, said the court had also ordered "handing over" of the confiscated assets, worth Rs 71 lakh, in the case to the Centre.

The agency had filed a case against the accused under the charges of money laundering, after taking cognisance of a complaint of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) that had seized methamphetamine (a recreational drug) from the four accused. The psychotropic substance was recovered from the factory premises of Sakha Organics.

The NCB had booked the five under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.

The ED said its investigation found that Shah had "availed a loan of Rs 66.70 lakh from the Gujarat State Finance Corporation (GSFC) by way of mortgaging the factory premises of Sakha Organics Ltd located in Vadodara".

"Major repayments were done in 2008 by procuring DDs from various banks/persons in lieu of cash paid to them. During the same period, another accused, Xie Jing Feng (Canadian national), had paid Rs 4 crore to Shah for the production and manufacture of methamphetamine," the ED said.

The agency had filed a chargesheet in the case in March, 2011.

The ED added that the trial against the Canadian national could not be conducted as he was "absconding".

"The special judge (for PMLA cases) has ordered for a separate trial to be conducted against Feng. The extradition proceedings against him are under process with the authorities in Hong Kong as he is reported to be lodged in a jail in that country," the agency said.

The PMLA was enacted in 2002 and implemented from 2005 in order to check the serious crimes of tax evasion and generation of black money.

There have been only about five convictions under the PMLA in the country till now.

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A property magnate turned fugitive spy was jailed for the third time in Vietnam on Wednesday after a court convicted him of corruption over murky land deals that cost the state millions of dollars.

Phan Van Anh Vu was convicted as Vietnam's communist government widens a corruption crackdown that has already seen dozens of former high-flying officials, executives and businessmen put behind bars.

The 15-year prison sentence is Vu's third since the property magnate who moonlighted as an intelligence agent was arrested in Singapore and returned to Vietnam last year to face several corruption-related charges.

He was convicted over improper land sales in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City that generated losses for the state worth almost USD 50 million, according to state-controlled VNExpress.

"The sentence is too harsh. The court did not consider several factors that could have reduced the sentence," Vu's lawyer Nguyen Huu The Trach told AFP, adding he would appeal.

Vu was sentenced alongside two former deputy ministers of public security, Bui Van Thanh and Tran Viet Tan, who were accused of aiding the deals or turning a blind eye to them.

Thanh got 30 months, while Tan was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

Two other lower ranking security officials got five years each, Trach confirmed.

Vu told the court Thursday that he felt "humiliated" but did not admit guilt.

"I don't think the two ex-deputy ministers are guilty," he said, according to footage broadcast on local websites.

Vu, who was a spy in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) before being dismissed in September 2017, was allegedly trying to flee to Europe when he was arrested in January 2018 with two passports on him -- one real and one fake.

His first conviction in July saw him jailed for nine years, later reduced to eight, for leaking state secrets.

In December he was sentenced again to 17 years for pilfering more than USD 8 million from a bank in a share-buying scheme.

Vu's fate shocked many in Vietnam because of his links to the powerful MPS, long believed to be untouchable.

But several other MPS-linked officials have been targeted as Hanoi makes good on a promise to clean up the graft-prone country with a campaign that observers say is politically driven.

According to Transparency International's corruption index, Vietnam ranks 117 out of 180 countries, behind Thailand and the Philippines.

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Former Bahujan Samaj Party president K K Sachan, who has also been an MLA from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, said he has joined the Congress along with his supporters Wednesday.

Sachan announced that he was "happy" with the manner in which the Congress was aggressively playing its role as an opposition party by highlighting issues concerning the public.

Sachan is a professor in the Kashi University in Allahabad and was keen to join the party.

He said he had joined the BSP in 1998. Prior to this, he had worked with the Bharatiya Kisan Union under Mahinder Singh Tikait.

Sachan said he has also been the former president of the BSP when the party was in power in Uttar Pradesh and held several key positions in the party.

The Congress has done some good work and its results have come out in the three states. The party has also given a lot of relief to farmers by waiving their loans, he said.

"Congress party is working for the betterment of the poor sand their welfare. Congress is such a party with an ideology that is working good for the betterment of the poor in the country. Keeping in view the Congress party's policies, I appreciated Rahul Gandhi and the Congress leadership.

"During my meeting with Gandhi, he told me that he will fix a date of his joining and I received a message only yesterday that I should join the party," he told reporters during his joining.

He, however, refrained from answering any queries on why he quit the BSP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

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Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Nabam Tuki has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reconsider the Centre's decision on introducing the citizenship bill, for the "greater interest" of the indigenous people of the north east.

In a letter to Modi, Tuki said the passage of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha and the developments relating to it in the north east states are a matter of "serious concern".

"The hurry in which the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in the wake of the ensuing Parliament elections, neglecting the rights, privileges and sentiments of the indigenous people of north east is something which was avoidable at this time," the Congress MLA said.

"The Union government should have been more sensitive to the people of north east due to their separate origin, identity, nature, culture and demography," Tuki pointed out in the letter addressed to the PM on Monday.

He said the protected tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and other north east states cannot be subject to "unrest and intimidation due to the largesses' of the government" without understanding the consequences and social, cultural and demographic imbalances, which would be detrimental to the existence of the region.

The bill, which was passed by the Lower House on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, after six years of residence in India even if they do not possess any documents.

On Tuesday, 10 political parties, most of which are members of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), along with the saffron party's key ally in Bihar, the JD(U), unanimously decided to jointly oppose the bill.

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Foreign actors, including and China, will likely attempt to interfere in 2020 US presidential elections, America's spymaster has said.

As such, election security has been and will continue to be a top priority for the intelligence community, Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, told members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Tuesday during a hearing on World Wide Threat Assessment for the year 2019.

We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 US elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in previous elections, Coats said.

Coat's testimony before the powerful Senate Committee assumes significance in view of ongoing investigations into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016

On the heels of our successful efforts to protect the integrity of the 2018 midterm elections we are now focused on incorporating lessons learned in preparation for the 2020 elections, Coats said.

Senator Angus King wanted to know if the intelligence community would let the candidates know if there was an attempt by foreign powers to interfere in US elections.

We would expect our foreign adversaries in the maligned influence space to keep adapting as well which is a source of concern, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

We have a fairly established protocol that we work through to try to determine whether or not we have information that is reliable enough and immediate enough and actionable enough to be able to notify a victim, he said.

King said his concern is it's one thing for the intelligence committee to know that this is happening but if they don't inform the people who are being victimized, who are being attacked ... he thinks that really blunts the effectiveness of the availability of the intelligence.

One thing we are worried about is deep fake which we've used but not defined. That's when they use technology to create essentially a false reality of an apparent speech by a candidate where different words are coming out of their mouth than what they actually said. Here's my question, King said.

If in the next two years and particularly in the year preceding the next election your agency determines that this is happening and that it's sponsored by a foreign entity, will you inform the candidates that are the victims of this, the committees? he asked.


Job Ads Grow by 8.6% in 2018

Sydney, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - SEEK's ( ASX:SEK ) ( OTCMKTS:SKLTY ) job ad data shows that 2018 was a strong year for the Australian employment market with new job ads up 8.6 per cent over the 12 months and in more good news for jobseekers, across all industries the average advertised salary up by 3.9 per cent.STATE OF THE NATION:- Calendar year 2017 to calendar year 2018o SEEK new job ads up by 8.6 per cento Average advertised salary up 3.9 per cent- Industries driving job ad growth over 2018: Trades & Services, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and HealthcareSTATE OF THE STATES:- New job ad volume in large employing states Victoria up 11 per cent, New South Wales up 5 per cent- Tasmania and Western Australia strongest growth rate in new job ads over 2018STATE OF THE NATION: REVIEWING THE 2018 AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT MARKETTrades and Services contributed to the greatest proportion of national job ad growth for 2018. Comparing to 2017, new job ads in Trades and Services were up 14 per cent. Double digit year to year growth in the industry was evident across all states except for New South Wales, whereby the industry job ad volume was only up 5 per cent.Nationally Mining, Resource and Energy was the star performing industry over 2018 with new job ads up 32 per cent, the fourth largest contributing industry to overall national job ad growth.ICT was the second strongest contributor to job ad growth across the country in 2018. Nationally job ads in the industry were up 12 per cent compared to 2017. Healthcare and Medical was the third strongest contributor to the employment market, job ads were up 12 per cent in 2018 when compared to 2017.Kendra Banks, Managing Director, SEEK ANZ comments: "It is good news for jobseekers that the 2018 employment market was stronger than the year prior. More encouraging is that growth in the employment market has come from a diverse range of industries. There is demand for candidates that can carry out highly technical roles to those who can support the frontline service needs of our population such as in healthcare roles".Commenting on employment across the board, Kendra says, it is interesting to see in our data indications of changes in the employment market as a result of what we've referred to at SEEK as a 'hollowing out of the middle' - we see increase demand for highly skilled, technology roles advertised across the ICT classification, along with demand for service sector roles advertised in the Healthcare & Medical classification. This reflects the demand for people in our labour market that can 'work on and with technology and AI' as well as those roles where technology and AI is less prevalent, such as high-touch variable roles such as nursing and aged care."December 2018 employment market reportNew Job ad volumes predictably dipped 1.2% in December 2018 when compared to December 2017.Commenting on December's data Kendra explains, "The slight decline in December is usually due to the quiet Christmas period. What's interesting from the December report is the 18% growth in Community services & Development job ads. We expect to see this continue for the first quarter in 2019 and potentially beyond".MEDIA NOTE: When reporting SEEK data, we request that you attribute SEEK as the source.About the SEEK Employment ReportThe SEEK Employment Report provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI), which is the first Australia aggregate indicator to measure the interaction between labour market supply and labour market demand.It also includes the SEEK New Job Ad Index which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.SEEK's total job ad volume (not disclosed in this report) includes duplicated job advertisements and refreshed job ads. As a result, the SEEK New Job Ad Index does not always match the movement in SEEK's total job ad volume.Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately.To view tables and figures, please visit:About SEEK Limited

SEEK Limited (ASX:SEK) (OTCMKTS:SKLTY) is a diverse group of companies, comprised of a strong portfolio of online employment, educational, commercial and volunteer businesses. SEEK operates across 18 countries with exposure to over 2.9 billion people and approximately 26 per cent of GDP. SEEK makes a positive contribution to people's lives on a global scale. SEEK is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, where it is a top 100 company with a market capitalisation close to A$6billion and has been listed in the Top 20 Most Innovative Companies Globally by Forbes, and Number One in Australia.
Fire broke out at the second floor of a multi-storied building in Salt Lake's business district of Sector V on Wednesday morning, a fire brigade official said.

No casualty was reported because of the fire in the SDF Building that was spotted around 10.15 am. Four fire tenders doused it around 11.30 am.

"The cause of fire is yet to be known. Nobody was trapped inside," the official said.

All employees were evacuated immediately, he said adding that hydraulic ladders were used by the fire brigade personnel to douse the blaze, he added.

Fire services minister Sujit Bose went to the spot and inspected the matter.

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The cremation of George Fernandes will be performed here on Thursday and his ashes will be buried at the Prithviraj Road cemetery the day after, the former defence minister's wife Leila Kabir said Wednesday.

Mourners continued to stream in at his residence -- Shanti Niwas -- in the city's upscale Panchsheel Park, a day after his death, to offer condolences to the bereaved family.

"There will be a prayer ceremony at our residence tomorrow at 11 am where people can come and pay their respects before his final journey. And, as planned the cremation is to be held at 3 pm at the Lodhi electric crematorium," Kabir told PTI.

"The ashes will then be buried the next day at the Prithviraj Road Christian Cemetery," she said.

The colonial-era cemetery is located in the heart of the city in Lutyens' Delhi.

Fernandes' body has been preserved in a casket after embalming as his son, Sean, is yet to arrive in Delhi from the US.

"Sean is travelling and his flight is expected to land in Delhi at around 2 AM. We are all waiting for him," Fernandes' younger brother Michael Fernandes said.

George Fernandes, a lifelong socialist despite his political adventurism that included Cabinet posts in two ideologically opposite governments where he ousted Coca-Cola in 1977 and oversaw the Kargil war in 1999, died Tuesday at his residence after prolonged illness. He was 88.

A number of leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajanth Singh, BJP president Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, had visited the bereaved family at their residence on Tuesday to pay their respects.

Several leaders, veteran politicians and his admirers, from Mangaluru to Muzaffarpur converged at the residence on Wednesday as well to pay tribute to the departed leader.

A pall of gloom continued to hang over his residence, while police security personnel kept vigil outside.

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The FBI has said it is investigating Chinese economic espionage in nearly all of its 56 field offices in America, underscoring the depth of the threat to the US.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told this to members of the Senate select Committee on Intelligence during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threat assessment.

"I think China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face. We have economic espionage investigations, for example--that's just one piece of it--in virtually every one of our 56 field offices," Wray said.

"The number of those has probably doubled over the last three or four years. And almost all of them, not all of them but almost of them, lead back to China, Wray said in response to a question from Senator Ben Sass who wanted to know about the threats that US faces from China and different Chinese actions inside the United States.

"I would certainly agree with you that as I look at the landscape today and over the course of my career--I still think of myself as a little bit young--that the Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of," said the FBI Director.

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Regional directors must extend required technical support to state agencies for the implementation of national programmes, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said Wednesday.

After inaugurating a three-day capacity building workshop for Regional Offices of Health and Family Welfare (ROHFWs) at Nirman Bhavan here, Sudan appreciated the role played by regional offices in coordinating with state authorities especially in the 2018 Kerala floods.

"Regional directors must extend requisite technical support to state agencies in implementation of national programmes and should focus on operationalising Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) under Ayushman Bharat," she said.

Sudan interacted with regional directors and asked them to involve themselves in state activities and become part of state conversations through specific groups of the health ministry.

While reviewing Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, she asked the regional directors to work on containment of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES).

The secretary also asked the officials to focus on immunisation in Uttar Pradesh, control and elimination of Kala-Azar in endemic districts of Bihar, and combating HIV/AIDS in Nagaland.

Director General of Health Services S Venkatesh, who was present at the workshop, highlighted the crucial role played by RoHFWs in the control of Nipah and Zika outbreaks in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively.

"Clarity in roles of regional directors is required for contributing effectively and efficiently to national programmes and new initiatives of Ministry of Health," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora Wednesday said the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) have been in use for nearly two decades and it cannot be tampered with.

"I had earlier said, and I once again say that these machines cannot be tampered with," he told a press conference here when asked about the concerns raised over EVMs functioning.

"No political party raised the issue during the meeting," said Arora, who met several stakeholders, including leaders of political parties during his team's two-day visit to Jharkhand.

The EVMs are in use for nearly two decades, the CEC added.

Asked whether there are any chances of simultaneous polls of the Lok Sabha and the Jharkhand Assembly, the CEC said there was neither formal nor informal information about it and he did not like to give an imaginary reply to the query.

Referring to Tuesday's incident in which five ultras of the PLFI were killed during an encounter in Jharkhand, Arora said after reviewing the overall law and order machinery it has been seen that crime is on the downward trend.

The CEC Wednesday said a C-Vigil App will be launched in Jharkhand before the Lok Sabha polls.

"C-Vigil App will be launched before the Lok Sabha elections, enabling any citizen to lodge complaint relating to violation of Model Code of Conduct. And the complaints will be solved within a time frame," he said.

EVMs, along with VVPAT, will be used in all the seats, Arora said.

Arora said the Election Commission has instructed to set up an all-women polling team in at least one assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency.

He said people can verify their names in the voter list through helpline number 1950 and nvsp.in and that the Commission has began "Go Verify" campaign.

For the first time, he said, "Accessibility Observers" will be appointed in the state and more attention would be given to the elders and differently abled voters.

Arora asserted the Commission is committed to conduct independent, impartial and peaceful polling.

Sharing his meeting with the representatives of different political parties, Arora said various political parties demanded security to candidates.

He said some political representatives asked simultaneous polling in the border districts of Jharkhand sharing with other states and transfer of officers who have been posted for more than three years.

Some other political parties asked to curb black money during elections and put a limit in election expenditure.

Yet some other parties asked to extend from 30 days to 60 days to file election expenditure and daily expenditure from three to five days, Arora said.

Some representatives of the political parties said in the Naxal-affected areas several polling centres are clubbed, making it difficult for voters coming from remote areas, and under these circumstances adequate security arrangements be made for them.

Arora said special efforts would be made in the Naxal-affected places and central police forces will be used to instill confidence among the people.

Flying squads, with GPS-fitted vehicles, will be set up to keep a watch on liquor, cash and other intoxicant items on border areas, the CEC said.

Income Tax officers will be posted at some places and CCTV will be installed at check posts, Arora said.

Jharkhand has a total 14 Lok Sabha seats.

The state has a total over two crore voters. There are over one crore males and one crore females, service polling constitute 35,219 and 307 voters of other genders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
European leaders moved Wednesday to head off British Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to rewrite the Brexit divorce deal, warning they will not budge.

Having thrown out the exit deal May negotiated with the EU, divided British lawmakers voted Tuesday to send her back to get an Irish border "backstop" clause removed.

May seized on this as a chance to prevent Britain crashing out of the European Union on March 29 without an agreement, vowing to return to Brussels to demand changes to the text.

But even she admits she faces a formidable challenge convincing Brussels to re-open an accord that took 18 excruciating months to conclude, and European leaders are so far united in dismissing any such manoeuvre.

"It's an extraordinary situation when a prime minister and a government negotiates a deal and then goes back and during the ratification process votes against their own deal," Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney told RTE radio.

"That's like saying in a negotiation, 'Well either you give me what I want or I'm jumping out of the window'." In Brussels, frustrated officials including Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier insisted the remaining 27 EU members were united and determined not to abandon the backstop clause they believe is key to maintaining peace on the border.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the European Parliament to push home the message that the withdrawal agreement would not be re-negotiated.

And he warned that the British vote had only "increased the risk of a disorderly withdrawal" and of Northern Ireland "slipping back into darker times past".

Echoing earlier warnings from French President Emmanuel Macron and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, German leader Angela Merkel's spokesman said reopening the deal was "not on the agenda". And Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar insisted "renegotiation is not on the table".

May's spokesman said she had been aware that "this wasn't going to be an easy process" but that: "What the vote has actually done is set out what parliament requires in order to be able to pass this vote." The "backstop" written into the negotiated deal is seen by EU leaders as an insurance policy against disrupting the Irish peace process.

It could legally lock the UK into EU trade rules indefinitely in order to keep the Irish border free-flowing.

Guy Verhofstadt, who heads the European Parliament's six-member Brexit steering group, said the backstop clause was "absolutely needed" and there was hardly room to change the deal.

Going further, group member Philippe Lamberts was scathing. "Saying you're against the backstop is like saying you're against bad weather. You might not like it, but you can't change it," he said.

But a British MEP, Ashley Fox of May's Conservatives, warned that after Tuesday's vote the backstop was more of a threat than an insurance policy. "The backstop will create a hard border, not prevent one," he said, arguing that British lawmakers would never accept the clause and so it would lead to a no deal Brexit and renewed border controls.

London stocks rallied and the pound rebounded slightly after suffering heavy losses on fears of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.

Carolyn Fairbairn, who heads the Confederation of British Industry lobby group, said: "Renegotiation is a throw of the dice. It must succeed or fail fast." Tuesday night's parliamentary amendment called for the backstop to be replaced with "alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border" -- vague wording that did not pin May to any approach.

Also Tuesday, MPs backed a non-binding measure that "rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a withdrawal agreement".

But they threw out another plan seeking to oblige May to request a delay to Brexit if no new deal with the EU emerges by February 26.

May said parliament's approval of the backstop amendment gave her a "mandate" to "seek to obtain legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement" and promised to give MPs a chance to vote on February 14 on what happens should she fail to win a new agreement.

On Wednesday, she met British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn for what her spokesman said were "serious and engaged" talks on the way ahead. May was due to talk to Varadkar and EU Council President Donald Tusk later Wednesday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
"Empire" star Jussie Smollett was attacked on Tuesday morning while leaving a restaurant in what Chicago police are calling a possible hate crime.

The 36-year-old actor was exiting a restaurant in Chicago when two men started shouting racial and homophobic slurs towards him before attacking Smollett, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

They punched him, poured an unknown chemical substance over him and one of the suspects even wrapped a rope around the actor's neck.

"Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime," police said in a statement to THR.

The police said the suspects were two males in black clothing. One of them was wearing a black mask.

Smollett, who was hospitalised for his injuries, told the police that the attackers yelled pro-"Make America Great Again" (MAGA) comments during the attack, such a "MAGA country!"



On the show, Smollett plays musician Jamal Lyon, the son of Lucious (Terrence Howard) and Cookie (Taraji P Henson). The character is gay so is the actor in real life.

The show's team has expressed shock and anger over the attack on Smollett.

"Empire" co-creator Lee Daniels said the actor did not deserve what happened to him.

"It's taken me a minute to come to social media about this because Jussie, you are my son. You didn't deserve, nor anyone deserves, to have a noose put around your neck; to have bleach thrown on you ... you are better than that. We are better than that. America is better than that. It starts at home. We have to love each other regardless of what sexual orientation we are," Daniels said.

Co-creator Danny Strong said, "I'm deeply horrified and saddened by the racist and homophobic attacks against @JussieSmollett. He is a kind and profoundly talented soul whom I respect with all my heart. The terror of racism and homophobia has no place in our society, it is the most indecent way to live. Whoever did this, do not forget that you are nothing but hate-filled cowards while Jussie's talent and activism will continue to shine a bright light on to the world for decades to come."



Brian Grazer, the executive producer of the show, said he was "disgusted and saddened by the attack" on Smollett, adding, "Hate and bigotry have no place in our society.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Netherlands' biggest amusement park will update a popular ride to change controversial African and Asian dolls that campaigners have branded racist, it said on Wednesday.

The Efteling park said the updates to the Carnaval Festival ride would give it an "appearance that fits better with the current era, traditional African costumes instead of nose rings for example".

Asian dolls featuring slanted eyes and long front teeth would also be changed on the 35-year-old ride, the theme park in the southern Netherlands said in a statement.

Negative reaction to the dolls came particularly from international visitors and media who "did not grow up with the attraction", NOS television's website quoted park spokeswoman Femke van Es as saying.

But the park had no plans to change another ride called Monsieur Cannibale, which features a black cannibal in the middle of a carousel with cooking pots.

Anti-racism campaigners have long called on the park to change both attractions and staged a protest there in 2016, NOS reported.

At the time, the Stop Oppressive Stereotypes group criticised both Carnaval Festival and Monsieur Cannibale as "offensive and extreme racist rides".

Efteling opened in 1952 and bills itself as one of Europe's largest amusement parks, attracting 5.18 million visitors in 2017, according to its website.

Widely seen as tolerant and liberal on issues such as cannabis, prostitution and euthanasia, the Netherlands faces pressure to change on a number of other social and cultural issues.

A blackface sidekick to Santa Claus known as Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) provokes an annual controversy over accusations that he is a racist stereotype.

Critics say Zwarte Piet's Afro hair, black skin, red lips and earrings are a reminder of the era when the Netherlands exploited slaves, notably in the south American colony of Surinam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior leaders, veteran politicians and admirers from various parts of the country Wednesday made a beeline here to pay their last respect to George Fernandes.

Former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Harivansh, former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, Union ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Ravi Shankar Prasad, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and Bihar JD(U) president Bashistha Narayan Singh, among others paid tribute to the departed leader.

Fernandes' former trade union comrades and colleagues came from places as far as Muzaffarpur and Mangaluru, and recalled the life and legacy of a man, who, they concurred, "epitomised simplicity" despite being a firebrand politician known for his fiery oratory skills.

Yashwant Sinha, reminisced the circumstances that led to his first meeting with Fernandes thanks to the Banka bye-polls in the 1980s in Bihar.

Fernandes' body has been preserved in a casket after embalming, as his son, Sean, is yet to arrive in Delhi from the US. At 88, he died on Tuesday at his residence after prolonged illness.

Sushil Modi, who travelled from Bihar to Delhi Wednesday to pay respect to the socialist leader, broke down after seeing the mortal remains of Fernandes.

"He symbolised simplicity. Once, I was travelling with him in a plane when he was the defence minister. And, instead of the Business Class, I found him sitting in Economy Class onboard, and that too in the last row of the seats. He was that simple," Modi told PTI.

The Bihar deputy chief minister also recalled the time when Fernandes had "refused to be a minister" in the Morarji Desai's cabinet of the government formed right after the end of the Emergency.

"Hordes of political workers had gheraoed him at the V P House here, asking him to join the cabinet, and he eventually did," he said.

Union minister Ram Vilas Pasawn and son Chirag Paswan also were among the visitors who came to his residence to pay their respect to the former defence minister.

"He was a crusader for the poor and the downtrodden, and masses used to be held in a thrall by his speeches. His simplicity was such that he used to wash his own clothes earlier. Wore a simple khadi kurta and a pyjama but lived by high ideals," Paswan told reporters.

Chirag said he was an inspiration for politicians and still is, and even for "young politicians like me". "I hope to imbibe his values in my life," he said.

The atmosphere at his residence was solemn yet many felt Fernandes was liberated from the excruciating pain after the Alzheimer's disorder had left him debilitated.

Trade union comrades and his former colleagues hugged each other, many teary-eyed, to bid goodbye to their leader and mentor.

His admirers came from Mangaluru to Muzaffarpur and Noida to Roorkee, at his residence -- Shanti Niwas -- on Wednesday, many recollecting stories and anecdotes associated with 'George Sahab', as he was affectionately addressed by many.

L Kalappa, 65, general secretary of Hind Mazdoor Kisan Panchayat's Karnataka unit, recalled the letters that Fernandes used to send to him in Kanadda.

"He was fluent in Kanadda, as he was born and raised in Mangalore. And, whenever, he visited Bangalore or interacted with workers, he spoke in Kanadda only. He spoke many other regional languages too that allowed him to connect to people in a much stronger way," he said.

People continued to stream in from morning till evening, and as twilight fell, the pall of gloom continued to hang over his residence, while police security personnel kept vigil outside.

A number of leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajanth Singh, BJP president Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, had visited the bereaved family at their residence in pscale Panchsheel Park to pay their respects.

In the living room, where his body has been kept, the glass casket got thickly covered with wreaths and flower petals, while the Emergency-era iconic image of him holding his chained hand up in air in defiance adorned a corner of the room with a board on top bearing -- 'A Leader for Indian - George Fernandes'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mocking opposition parties for not naming a joint prime ministerial candidate, BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday said there will a different PM every day of the week if their grand alliance comes to power.

Shah met booth-level party workers in Lucknow and Kanpur, putting them into election mode in Uttar Pradesh.

"The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is," Shah said, addressing a meeting in Kanpur.

"If the 'gathbandhan' (alliance) takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday, and Sunday will be a holiday," he told party workers.

"They are out to bring change and do not have a leader," he mocked.

"The BJP has four Bs -- 'Badhta Bharat' and 'Banta Bharat' (an India on the move), Shah said.

Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs -- 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," he added, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic

"Their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government. Only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he said.

Narendra Modi is the only one who can give a strong government. They do not want a government which is run by a leader but by a dealer," Shah said, addressing a similar meeting in Lucknow.

He said the win in the Lok Sabha elections should be such that it stops the hearbeat of the opposition.

He said none of the Congress leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.

"I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that the BJP is committed to ensuring that a grand temple is built at Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said, referring to the disputed site in Ayodhya.

He indirectly referred to the Centre's petition in the Supreme Court to allow the return of the surplus land around the site to its owners.

We hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party president called upon the workers to ensure that the party gets 50 per cent of the votes at every booth to win 74 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The figure is one more than what the party won in UP along with ally Apna Dal in the the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2014 elections a strong foundation for the BJP was laid, in 2017 a building was built on it and the 2019 election are an opportunity to saffronise' it, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


Quarterly Activities Report

Sydney, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited ( ASX:COB ) ( OTCMKTS:CBBHF ) provides the Company's Quarterly Activities Report.October to December 2018 - HighlightsTHACKARINGA PROJECT:- Strategic rationale.- Optimisation studies.- Drilling update.- Water supply confirmed.- Drilling campaign paused. Technical work programs continue.COBALT TRENDS:- Cobalt market update.CORPORATE:- COB withdraws from Thackaringa Joint Venture Earning Period Provisions.- Dilution provisions in the JVA increased COB's project beneficial interest from 70.00% to 93.68%.- Global technical visits.- Director changes.- Various dispute notices.To view the full report, please visit:About Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited

Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX:COB) is an exploration and project development company focussed on green energy technology. Work programs are advancing to enable an upgrade of the Mineral Resource at the Thackaringa Cobalt Project in New South Wales to include Measured Resources.

Cobalt is a strategic metal in strong demand for new generation batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries now being widely used in clean energy systems.

Potential to extend the Mineral Resource at Pyrite Hill, Big Hill, Railway and the other prospects is high. Numerous other prospects within COBs tenement package are at an early stage and under-explored.
Shares of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd continued to fall for the third consecutive day, falling nearly 5 per cent on Wednesday, after the company reported a 36.7 per cent decline in net profit for the December quarter.

Besides, an expose by Cobrapost portal on alleged diversion of loans by DHFL impacted trading sentiment.

DHFL stock plunged 4.97 per cent to close at Rs 161.60 on the BSE. Intra-day, it tumbled 9.73 per cent to Rs 153.50 -- its 52-week low.

On the NSE, shares fell by 4.86 per cent to close at Rs 161.45.

In last three days, its stock has plummeted by 22.75 per cent.

Housing finance company DHFL Friday reported a 36.7 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 313.60 crore for the third quarter ended December 2018.

The Mumbai-based company had posted a net profit of Rs 495.44 crore in the third quarter of last fiscal.

However, total income rose to Rs 3,255.9 crore during the quarter, compared to Rs 2,896.66 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago, DHFL said in a statement.

According to a Cobrapost expose, Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) through layers of shell companies allegedly siphoned off Rs 31,000 crore out of total bank loans of Rs 97,000 crore.

DHFL in a statement said the company is publicly listed housing finance company and is regulated by the National Housing Bank and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, amongst other regulators.

"This mischievous misadventure by Cobrapost appears to have been done with a mala fide intent to cause damage to the goodwill and reputation of DHFL and resulting in erosion in shareholder value," the company said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Neither the BJP nor Prime Minister Narendra Modi support derogatory statements against any "daughter of the country", Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma said on Wednesday.

His statement came after BJP MLA Surendra Singh, who represents the Bairia Assembly constituency of Uttar Pradesh, compared Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to Ravana and Surpanakha respectively -- the villains in Ramayana.

"The BJP is a party with discipline. If a person, be it an MLA or anybody else, makes any derogatory statement against any daughter of this nation, we do not support it," Sharma told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

"Neither the prime minister nor our government or our party president has ever supported such statements," he said.

However, Sharma hit out at the Congress for its culture of "political dynasty", which he said has only furthered with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking a plunge in active

"Now, the Congress has truly become a party of Maa, Beta aur Beti (it has become of party of mother, son and daughter)," he said.

The Lok Sabha MP also trained guns at Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) which have forged an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the general elections, in a bid to challenge the BJP juggernaut.

"This is an alliance of the opportunists and is hardly going to make any difference. Even if believe, that they are going to win 38 seats each in UP, considering they win on every seat, then also their total would be 76, while it requires at least 272 seats to form a government at the Centre. The SP and BSP cannot do it, they only want a weak government," he said.

Sharma also dismissed a US intelligence report suggesting a strong possibility of communal violence in India if the ruling BJP stresses on Hindu nationalist themes ahead of the Lok Sabha polls due in April-May.

"I am not ashamed to say that I am a Hindu nationalist, I am proud to say that. The second thing, whenever the BJP has governed any state or has been in power at the Centre, as we were under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now almost five years under PM Modi, has there been any communal statement?" the Union minister asked.

"There are people who have been using communalism as a political tool. They have been bringing this up because they have nothing else to say. Our leaders and our government do not believe in casteism or communalism," Sharma asserted.

He also trashed critics who have dubbed as "political gimmick" the Centre's decision to move the Supreme Court seeking permission to return the "surplus" land acquired around the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya to original owners.

"Lord Ram is the centre of faith for crores of people whose sentiments are attached with the temple. It is not an issue of but that of faith, and faith never changes," he said.

"Our party has always favoured a Ram temple in Ayodhya. Whatever obstacles crop up, our government is determined to pave the way for the temple and all possible solutions within the framework of the Constitution would be used," he added.

Sharma said the decision was taken in response to public sentiment.

People showed their anger in different ways over the "delay" in the Supreme Court's verdict in the case and our government responded by presenting the case before the top court again, he said.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar MP also lashed out at the Opposition for disrupting the Winter Session of Parliament and said it should play a constructive role in the upcoming Budget Session.

"This is going to be the last session, the Budget Session. The people always have some expectations and we are working towards fulfilling them. All our budgets have been focussed on the common man," Sharma said.

"The Opposition should play a constructive role, but it has been seen that they just disrupt the proceedings of the House without any issue," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of students from Manipur were detained Wednesday for protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Lutyens' Delhi.

According to the Manipur Students' Association Delhi, they staged a sit-in at Parliament Street, following which they were detained and taken to Mandir Marg police station.

They protesters claimed that their women colleagues were manhandled by police, a charge denied by the force.

According to a senior police officer, 50 people were detained.

"No women were detained. No one was injured. They were taken to Mandir Marg police station," he said.

The bill seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014, after six years of residence in the country.

The bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, has been met with widespread protests across the northeast region.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government will develop modern flower and poultry markets at Gazipur as the Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board (DAMB) passed its budget Wednesday.

According to a statement, the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) also held its budget meeting under the chairmanship of Development minister Gopal Rai.

The DAMB has also plans to develop a modern 'mandi' at Tikri Khampur.

"This is a flagship project (development of modern flower market at Gazipur) in the Delhi government.

"The detailed design and drawings for this project have been prepared and approved by all the civic authorities and a detailed project report is under preparation," it stated.

The statement said that this project has special features of development of exhibition centre for all varieties of flowers as per directions of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The tender for development of this 'mandi' will be called by February 19. A budget provision of Rs 1.2 crore has been kept in RE 2018-19 and Rs 10.0 crore in the the budget estimate 2019-20.

"All the drawings for development of poultry market have been prepared and approved by all the civic authorities. The tenders for this project have already been opened and are under the process for finalisation," the statement stated.

It stated that a budget provision of Rs 10 crore has been kept in revised estimate 2018-19 and Rs 80 crore in the budget estimate 2019-20.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Traders' body CAIT has written to the government opposing any move to extend the February 1, deadline for online marketplaces to comply with FDI rules, as such an action will compel small businesses to launch a national campaign which may have "political repercussions".

The position taken by Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is in contrast to that of Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, who have sought an extension of the February 1, deadline for complying with the revised FDI norms in e-commerce, stating that they need more time to understand the details of the framework.

The government in December barred online marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon from selling products of in which they hold stakes and banned exclusive marketing arrangements that could influence product price.

The policy would be effective from February 2019.

"We would like to mention that if any deferment or extension is given, the small traders -- both offline and online -- will be compelled to resort to a national campaign against any such move and which may also have political repercussions," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu.

The traders' body urged the government not to buckle under any pressure and continue with the implementation of the policy from February 1, 2019, claiming that big e-commerce players were still lobbying hard for its extension or deferment.

CAIT also suggested to set up a Special Investigation Team to investigate the transactions made in the past two years by e-commerce players and called for stern action against them if found guilty under the law and reiterated its demand to set up a regulatory authority to enforce the policy.

The restrictions imposed on FDI in e-commerce should also be made applicable to domestic e-commerce firms to have a level paying field, it said.

The revised policy on (FDI) in online retail, issued by the commerce and industry ministry, also said that these firms have to offer equal services or facilities to all its vendors without discrimination.

The revised norms are aimed at protecting the interest of domestic players, who have to face tough competition from e-retailers having deep pockets from foreign investors, the ministry had said.
The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the AAP government to decide in two weeks the parole plea of Balwan Khokhar, who along with former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

Justice Najmi Waziri asked the Delhi government to treat former Congress councillor Khokhar's plea as a representation and to communicate its decision to him in two weeks.

With the direction, the court disposed off the petition seeking parole for a month to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the high court's December 17 decision.

The high court on December 17, 2018 had set aside the trial court's verdict, which had acquitted Kumar in a case related to killing of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar Part-I area in Palam Colony in south west Delhi on November 1-2, 1984, and burning down of a Gurudwara in Raj Nagar Part-II during that period.

The riots had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The high court, in its verdict, had also upheld the conviction and varying sentences awarded by the trial court to the other five -- Khokhar, retired naval officer Captain Bhagmal, Girdhari Lal and former MLAs Mahender Yadav and Kishan Khokhar.

It had also convicted them for criminal conspiracy to burn down residences of Sikh families and a gurdwara in the area during the riots.

The trial court in 2013 had awarded life term to Khokhar, Bhagmal and Lal, and a three-year jail term to Yadav and Kishan Khokhar.

Following the high court verdict, life term of Khokhar, Bhagmal and Lal has been upheld and the sentence of Yadav and Kishan Khokar has been enhanced to 10 years in jail.

The high court in its judgement had said that the riots were a "crime against humanity" perpetrated by those who enjoyed "political patronage" and aided by an "indifferent" law enforcement agency.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The death toll from the sinking of two migrant boats off the coast of Djibouti has risen to 31, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday, with scores still feared missing.

Two vessels carrying migrants departed from Godaria on the Horn of Africa nation's northeast coast on Tuesday morning, but sank in heavy seas 30 minutes into the journey, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti Lalini Veerassamy told AFP the death toll had hit 31 on Wednesday.

"This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives," she said in a statement issued by IOM.

Sixteen people were recovered alive following the sinking, with one survivor telling Djiboutian authorities there were 130 people on his boat.

The number of passengers on the second vessel remains unclear, as do the nationalities of those onboard.

Located across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from Yemen and next to volatile Somalia and Ethiopia, Djibouti has in recent years become a transit point for migrants heading to find work on the Arabian Peninsula.

The region of Obock, from where the boat set off for Yemen, is unusual in that it sees people passing in both directions -- boatloads of Yemeni refugees fleeing war cross vessels carrying African migrants seeking better opportunities.

In 2017, 100,000 migrants arrived in Yemen, with many aiming to head north to find work in Saudia Arabia and its neighbours.

"The number of new arrivals arriving in Yemen has been continuously increasing since 2012, despite the deepened insecurity and violence following the war that erupted in March 2015," the IOM said in its 2018-2020 regional migration response plan.

"Arrivals peaked in 2016, when over 117,000 arrived in Yemen," it added.

This migration continues despite Yemen facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

UN officials say 80 per cent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine.

IOM said that most of the journey migrants take to Yemen is by foot, walking across the scorching desert regions of eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti and northern Somalia.

Once they arrive in Yemen they face torture, blackmail, sexual abuse or forced labour.

In 2017, some 2,900 people, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, fled the dire conditions they had found in Yemen back to Djibouti.

The sea crossing itself has repeatedly proven perilous.

Last year, at least 30 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia believed to be headed for Djibouti drowned when their boat capsized off Yemen amid reports of gunfire being used against those on board.

In August 2017, dozens of migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia died after human traffickers forced them off two Yemen-bound boats and into the sea.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Czech Republic's tax directorate has excluded Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from a tender worth over 20 million euros (USD 22 million), Czech media said Wednesday.

The broadsheet DNES daily said other government institutions were following suit after the country's cyber-security agency warned that Huawei software and hardware posed a threat to state security.

Huawei is facing trouble worldwide, the latest blow being two indictments announced by the US Justice Department on charges of stealing trade secrets, fraud, obstruction of justice and of a top executive accused of violating US sanctions on Iran.

It is also facing trouble in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Poland and elsewhere, while Germany has advocated caution saying evidence was needed first.

Huawei was the odds-on favourite of a Czech tender to build a tax portal containing sensitive personal data.

The tax directorate tweaked the conditions of the tender following the warning by the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency, which also named China's ZTE as a threat.

"China's laws, among other things, require private companies in China to cooperate with intelligence services, therefore allowing them into key state systems might present a threat," it said in December.

The warning came on the heels of a Czech intelligence report that warned Chinese diplomats have been engaged in increased espionage in the EU and NATO member state of 10.6 million people.

The tax directorate's spokesman, Petr Haban, told the daily that the warning was binding for his office, "so we must act accordingly.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A city court acquitted Sambia Sohrab on Wednesday of the charge of killing Air Force corporal Abhimanyu Gaud by ramming his car into him during the parade rehearsals for the Republic Day celebrations in January, 2016.

Gaud (21) was part of an Air Force contingent that was participating in the morning rehearsals on January 13, 2016, when Sambia drove his Audi Q7 SUV into him after breaching the guard rails on Kidderpore Road near the Army's Eastern Command headquarters at Fort William here.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Moumita Bhattacharya found Tausif Sohrab alias Sambia guilty of causing death by rash and negligent act, which attracts a maximum of two-year imprisonment.

Sambia was also found guilty of causing damage to government property, which also attracts a maximum jail term of two years.

Sambia, who was arrested on January 17, 2016, and has been in custody since then, has already undergone the maximum punishment for the said offences.

The judge directed Sambia to pay a compensation of Rs one lakh to Gaud's family and also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on him, which his lawyer Ashok Bakshi said would be deposited with the court treasury during the day.

Sambia's father Mohammad Sohrab, a former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA from the Burrabazar constituency here, was acquitted of the charges of harbouring his son, following the incident.

Two others, Shahnawaz Khan and Mohammad Noor Alam, who were also accused of harbouring Sambia, were acquitted by the court.

Sambia was charged by the investigators with killing Gaud and attempting to kill Captain Umesh Kumar, who was injured in the incident.

The court acquitted him of both the charges, observing that the prosecution could not prove the allegations.

The judge criticised the prosecution for not being able to provide evidence to prove the charges, observing that the 12-member investigating team of the Kolkata Police was more driven by emotion and could not prove the intent of the accused to kill Gaud and attempt to kill Kumar.

The judge was also critical of the doctor who conducted Gaud's post-mortem, observing that the medical practitioner was influenced by emotions in his report to establish the murder charge against the accused and not from actual findings.

Gaud, a budding IAF officer, belonged to Surat. He has left behind his parents and two brothers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the citizenship bill, party general secretary in-charge for Assam Harish Rawat said Wednesday.

Talking to reporters after separate meetings with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Rawat said the party is always concerned about Assam and the Northeast and it will continue to do so.

"As per the directive of the Congress president, the party will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the bill," he said, adding it will try to rope in like-minded parties



for support against the bill.

A Congress delegation comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia and Rawat besides others Wednesday met Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha.

The delegation apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and people's strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Terming the bill as "flawed", the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8. The Budget Session of Parliament will begin on Thursday.

The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill.

Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi government's decision to get Parliament's approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition... India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


Quarterly Activities Report

Sydney, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The Board of The BetMakers Holdings Limited ( ASX:TBH ) ( OTCMKTS:TPBTF ) (the "BetMakers" or the "Company") is pleased to provide the following overview on the quarterly activities for the period ending 31st December 2018 in respect of the Company and its subsidiaries ("Company Group").Highlights- Sale of retail assets to PlayUp Australia Pty Limited completed with all funds received- Performance of DynamicOdds and Global Betting Services exceeding management's expectations- Key agreements signed with wagering operators William Hill, Bet365, UniBet global and others- NTRC confirmed that agreement between neds.com.au & The Global Tote can proceed- Enhanced capabilities with appointment of two senior management personnel- Management reaffirms guidance for profitability during March 2019 QuarterTo view the full report, please visit:About Betmakers Technology Group Ltd

Betmakers Technology Group Ltd (ASX:BET) (FRA:T07) is an ASX-listed holding company and a global provider of online wagering products and services to both wholesale and retail markets through its various wholly owned subsidiaries. The Company operates a retail wagering business, offering consumers wagering, fantasy tournament and content products and services.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 29)  The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday decided to issue a show-cause order on Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to explain his refusal to attend hearings on alleged budget anomalies.

Camarines Sur Representative Rolando Andaya Jr., committee chairman, said Diokno refuses to answer inquires on the proposed 2019 national budget even as he himself is pushing for its approval.

Diokno had previously said he would not attend the hearings because he felt disrespected when he attended the chamber's "Question Hour" in December last year.

READ: House summons Diokno, to grill him about proposed 2019 budget

READ: House rude to Diokno? Just 'check and balance' says Suarez

Andaya accused Diokno of inserting 75 billion to the proposed 2019 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways without the knowledge of Secretary Mark Villar.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Malacanang will allow Diokno to decide on heeding the show cause order.

READ: Palace: Duterte ordered Diokno to skip House probe on 'insertions'

He, however, said the House order is premature if it was issued just because of Diokno's failure to attend previous hearings, which had valid reasons.

"Kung 'yung (If the) show cause is based on just because hindi lang sya naka-attend (he wasn't able to attend), valid naman ang excuse (when there is a valid excuse, eh premature 'yun (that's premature). But even then Secretary Diokno has the opportunity to respond," he said in a media briefing. "Kumbaga the Committee is just asking him to explain."

'Bloody' bicam meetings

Meanwhile, Andaya said the bicameral conference committee meetings will be "bloody" as its members have to resolve various issues on the proposed budget.

Andaya, who heads the House contingent in the committee, said he would not allow the proposed budget's immediate passage even if Congress is pressed for time as he vowed to scrutinize details in the budget bill.

CNN Philippines' Xianne Arcangel and Robert Vergara contributed to this report.
The Congress on Wednesday said Rahul Gandhi was not playing any over his meeting with ailing former defence minister Manohar Parrikar and the BJP leader was caught in a "catch-22 situation" over the Rafale deal.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi defended Rahul Gandhi after Parrikar, who is Goa Chief Minister, wrote to the Congress president accusing him of using his courtesy visit to "feed political opportunism".

"With all due respect to Manohar Parrikar ji, I think we should maintain the basic courtesies of reaching out to our opposition leaders at the time of their illness and in case Shri Rahul Gandhi who went on record to tweet for Shri Arun Jaitley's better health. So, I don't understand where politicisation comes into it," she told reporters when asked about Gandhi talking in public about his private visit to Parrikar.

The Congress spokesperson said Parrikar has often been "caught unawares" on how to respond to entire the Rafale deal.

"This is not once, twice or thrice that the then Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar was caught in a catch-22 situation in which he did not know how to respond to the entire Rafale deal being signed.

"He did not know how to respond to a courtesy visit to France being changed to a deal making visit to France. He could not respond as to why HAL was sidelined to give priority to Reliance Defence, he could not respond to why 126 aircraft were reduced to 36 aircraft and why Transfer of Technology was taken away," she said.

Chaturvedi said on multiple occasions Parrikar has been found to be "clueless" and claimed he has gone on record to state this that he was "not aware of the new deal" being worked out.

"This is where the Congress Party is bound to ask. Isn't it his responsibility as an Indian citizen first and as a Defence Minister later, to explain to the country as to why he is being forced, compelled to not answer the questions directly asked of him in the capacity of him being the Defence Minister then," she asked.

Earlier Rahul Gandhi while addressing a youth convention at Talkatora stadium said he met Parrikar on Wednesday.

"Parrikar ji had himself said that while changing the deal, the prime minister did not ask the defence minister," he said, without making it clear whether he was referring to Wednesday's meeting or earlier remarks by Parrikar.

BJP chief Amit Shah earlier hit out at Gandhi alleging that he is "insensitive" as he was "lying" in the name of a person fighting a disease and people are "disgusted with his reckless behaviour".

"Dear Rahul Gandhi, you showed how insensitive you are, by lying in the name of a person fighting a disease. The people of India are disgusted by your reckless behaviour. In his trademark style, Manohar Parrikar ji sets the record straight," Shah said on Twitter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Colombia's government barred entry on Wednesday to more than 200 people linked to the Nicolas Maduro "dictatorship" in Venezuela, the migration authority said.

The decision forms part of the "measures taken by the Lima Group" of 14 mostly Latin American countries that are "looking for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela," said Migration Colombia.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot Wednesday paid floral tributes to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi to mark the 71st death anniversary of the Father of the Nation at the assembly secretariat here.

"Mahatma Gandhi is not amongst us today but his teachings will continue to inspire generations to come. His principle of non-violence should be followed by everyone," Gehlot said.

Agriculture Minister Lalchand Kataria, chief secretary D B Gupta and others were present on the occasion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) Wednesday said the huge trade deficit between Bangladesh and India needed to be bridged for which more Indian investments are required by the neighbouring country.

Presently, Indian imports from Bangladesh is around USD 7 million, while exports to that country is USD 8 billion.

Chittagong port provides a vital gateway to the seven north-eastern states of India and more border trade was needed between the two nations, CCCI president Mahbubul Alam said.

Addressing a session at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry here, Alam said India had been given land for an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in Mirsarai near Chittagong where Indian investors could avail the opportunity of a 10-year tax holiday and repatriation of profits back for a similar period.

Similar zones were being set up by investors from China, Korea and Japan, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China has unveiled a draft foreign investment law, making provision for wholly foreign-owned enterprises with legal cover for overseas investments and technology - a key demand of US President Donald Trump to end the trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The draft foreign investment law will be submitted to the upcoming plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC), the rubber stamp parliament, scheduled to be opened on March 5.

The decision was made by the NPC Standing Committee on Wednesday at a closing meeting of its two-day session, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Once adopted, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures (or contractual joint ventures) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

The proposed law was expected to end forced technology transfer for foreign investors in China, which is one of the demands of Trump.

The foreign investment law will be a basic law in that field, and its drafting is an important move in implementing the strategy of further opening-up made by the ruling Communist Party of China, the report said.

The drafting of the foreign investment law is also necessary in help with China's efforts to attract more foreign investment, protect foreign investors' legitimate rights and interests, foster an environment favorable to doing business, as well as provide legal guarantee to opening-up at a higher level, according to the document.

"China will not close its door to the world; but will only become more and more open," said Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

Plans to bring about a foreign investment law was announced as Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is set to hold two-day talks with his American counterpart Robert Lighthizer on January 30-31 in Washington to work out a crucial deal to end the trade war. Liu is heading a 30-member delegation.

Trump has been pressing China to bring down USD 375 billion trade deficit in the bilateral trade, which he attributes to unfair trade practices by Beijing.

Officials said talks are expected to deliver specific commitments on Trump's demand that China to expand market access for US in China, improve protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and reduce the trade surplus with the US, but it would take time to reform state-owned firms another major source of friction.

Trump has set March 1 as the deadline for a deal. He has threatened to slap tariffs on all Chinese exports to US if the two sides fail to reach a deal.

Early this month, Elon Musk, the CEO of US electric carmaker Tesla, laid foundation to set up USD seven billion plant in Shanghai, becoming the first to benefit from a new policy allowing foreign carmakers to set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in China.

The new plant, Tesla's first outside the United States, is located in Lingang Area, a high-end manufacturing park in the southeast harbour of Shanghai. It is designed with an annual capacity of 500,000 electric cars.

China has softened its stand by offering a mix of concessions by resuming purchases of US soybeans, suspended punitive tariffs on imports of US cars and toned down its 'Made in China 2025' plan, which aimed at breaking the country's reliance on foreign technology and pull its hi-tech industries up to Western levels.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China plans to conduct its first seaborne rocket launch with a Long March-11 carrier rocket from the Yellow Sea in the middle of this year, said Jin Xin, the deputy chief commander of the rocket.

China has achieved a breakthrough in the key technologies for seaborne launches, Jin, of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told a press conference.

The Long March-11, with a length of 20.8 meters and a take-off weight of about 57.6 tonnes, is the only rocket using solid propellants among China's new generation carrier rockets. It has a relatively simple structure and can be launched in a short time, state-run Xinhua agency reported Wednesday.

After leaving port, the rocket could be launched within a week, Jin said.

The rocket can carry a payload of up to 350 kg to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700-km and 700 kg to a low-Earth orbit at 200-km. It is mainly used to carry small satellites, and can take multiple satellites into orbit at the same time.

A seaborne launch has many advantages over a land launch, Jin said. For instance, the launch site is flexible, and falling rocket pose less danger.

Using civilian ships to launch rockets at sea would lower launch costs and give it a commercial edge, said Jin.

It will also help lay the groundwork for developing reusable rockets and recovery technologies at sea.

The seaborne launch technology will help China provide launch services for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, he added.

Another three Long March-11 launches on land are also planned this year.

The Long March-11, which made its maiden flight on September 25, 2015, has so far sent 25 satellites into orbit in six launches with high reliability and good performance rates.

China recently successfully launched a lander and rover on the dark side of the moon, becoming the first country to attempt the complex manoeuvre. Also China plans to 30 plus space launches this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China, which has been opposing India's entry into the (NSG), on Wednesday said that there should be no double standards in enforcing the NPT, as five permanent members of the UN Security Council began two-day meeting here to discuss issues related to nuclear disarmament.

China has been opposing India's entry into the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on the ground that India is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) though the other P5 members including US and Russia backed its case based on India's non-proliferation record.

China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, the permanent members of the UNSC also known as P5 countries are meeting here to discuss issues related nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Answering a question on the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing that the NPT is the cornerstone for the international nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and important component of post war international security system.

"It has played important role in all the three aspects and China is committed to all three important goals of the treaty," he said.

"We believe that the international community should stick to multilateralism and promote progress the three pillar namely non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

"We believe we should conduct wide consultations and look for practical measures by opposing to double standards in enforcing the treaty," he said without directly referring to China's opposition to India's entry into the NSG which is multilateral export control regime.

"We believe we should enhance its authority and effectiveness, universality and do a better job in preventing nuclear proliferation," he said.

After India applied for NSG membership, Pakistan too applied for the same following which China, a close ally of Islamabad, called for a two-step approach which states that NSG members first need to arrive at a set of principles for the admission of non-NPT states into the group and then move forward discussions of specific cases.

The NSG is a group of nuclear supplier countries that seeks to contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through the implementation of guidelines for nuclear and nuclear-related exports.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A special CBI court here Wednesday framed charges against former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and five others in the alleged illegal telephone exchange case.

Judge R Vasanthi of the Additional Sessions Court for the CBI read out the charges against each accused, who were present in the court, individually.

The charges were framed under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating), and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

All the accused individually denied the charges against them.

The judge then posted the case to February 19, when the trial would begin with the examination of the witnesses.

On March 14 last year, the CBI court had discharged all the accused, holding there was no prima facie case against them.

But the Madras High Court on July 25 quashed the order, holding there was 'heaps' of materials against the Maran brothers and other accused to proceed.

The high court order was challenged by Dayanidhi Maran, grandnephew of late DMK president M Karunanidhi, in the Supreme Court which upheld it and directed him to face trial in the special court, following which the charges were framed.

According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran misused his official position as the then minister for communications and information technology in the UPA 1 government and got private telephone exchanges installed at his residences here which were used for business transactions of the Sun Network, owned by his brother Kalanithi Maran.

It has claimed that over 700 high-speed telecommunication lines were installed for which bills were not raised by the BSNL, causing the exchequer a loss of Rs 1.78 crore.

Besides the Maran brothers, the other accused are former BSNL general manager K Brahmanathan, former deputy general manager M P Velusamy, Dayanidhi Maran's private secretary Gauthaman and some Sun TV officials.

Replying to the charges read by the judge against him, Dayanidhi Maran, third accused in the case, submitted that all Union ministers were entitled to get required telephone connections and he had utilised the connections provided to him for official purposes only.

There was no documentary evidence to show that the telephone connections were used for the SUN TV, Dayanidhi Maran said.

He alleged that it was a foisted case and registered for political gains.

"There is no evidence to prove that the connections were given illegally and in violation of law," he said.

"I am again and again submitting that the telephone connections were utilised only for the official purpose of mine as a Minister and the Secretary, Telecommunications never furnished any document stating that I am not eligible to get the BSNL connections," he told the judge.

The former DMK MP said he had contested two elections after the case was registered and nothing had come from the Telecommunications Department that he owed dues to it.

He further submitted that officers from the low level to the highest level had signed papers for giving these connections and asked how the allegation of corruption or illegality can be made against him.

The former minister also said the expenditure for the connections had been shown as Rs 6.37 lakh and Rs 2.10 lakh for each of his two residences, respectively and as a minister he was entitled to Rs 9 lakh.

Kalanithi Maran, the seventh accused in the case, while denying the charges submitted he was running the TV media business from 1996 and never used the influence of his brother for the development of his group.

Though the CBI had listed 120 witnesses, none of them had deposed against him, not even mentioned his name, he claimed.

Besides, nowhere in the charge sheet his name was mentioned and in the last hour hurriedly and wrongly he had been arraigned as an accuse by foisting charges against him, the media baron alleged.

There was no prima facie case against him and the charge sheet filed by the CBI was based on assumptions, he claimed.

The two senior BSNL officials denied the charges against them and said they only implemented the orders received from the Ministry of Telecommunications.

The telephone connections were given in a transparent manner, they claimed, adding that the cheating and conspiracy charges were without any proof and evidence.

All the other accused also denied charges framed against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PHD Chamber Wednesday pitched for cutting corporate tax to 25 per cent, and raising income tax exemption limit for individuals to Rs 3.5 lakh per annum in the forthcoming Budget.

In a statement, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Rajeev Talwar said it looks forward to a "dynamic, inclusive and pragmatic budget" on February 1.

"At this juncture, the economy needs further bold measures to boost the investment environment and to trigger demand growth to the next level," Talwar added.

He said the time has come to rationalise the direct taxes, starting from reduction in Corporate Tax to a level of 25 per cent.

"This will provide a boost to economic growth and would result in widening of the Direct Tax net, enhance collections and promote compliance further," Talwar noted.

The government lowered the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent for businesses with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore in the Budget presented last year.

Talwar suggested that income up to Rs 3.5 lakh should be considered for tax exemption for individuals, instead of Rs 2.5 lakh at present.

"The maximum personal income tax rate should be towards 25 per cent to increase the personal disposable income which will boost demand in the economy. The maximum marginal slab should also be raised to Rs 15 lakh instead of Rs 10 lakh," said Talwar.

He noted that consistent indirect tax revenue growth, along with reduction in GST rates by the government, indicate that the tax base is widening and economic activity is rapidly expanding in the country.

Talwar, who is also the CEO of realty major DLF, said continuous reforms in the housing and construction sector would definitely create employment opportunities for millions of unskilled, semi skilled and skilled workforce.

"Privatisation of railway and road transport on the lines on aviation industry is the answer for the future," he said.

Talwar also batted for continuous reforms in agriculture sector to improve farm productivity and income levels.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expanding upon the vision with which the World Wide Web was created 30 years ago, British Council, in its latest initiative, has invited ideas that will address creativity, connection, culture and collaboration through digital media.

In the 3rd edition of British Council's Digital Open Call, a platform that seeks creative ideas and concepts that show art of tomorrow, the winners will get funding of up to GBP 40,000 (Rs 37 lakh approx) to launch their projects in 2019, Tom Birtwistle, Director North India, British Council, told PTI.

"The theme of this year is to celebrate 30 years of the World Wide Web and how it has silently changed the world. The project should broadly connect to the theme of celebrating the creation of the world wide web and address creativity, connection, culture and collaboration.

"It could be intended for an audience primarily in India but with the potential to reach beyond and explore how we can make the web more inclusive through artistic platforms," he said.

The theme for the open call also focuses on "equal economic access and access to digital connectivity for women and girls".

The initiative in previous years created "Saptan Stories" -- a crowdsourced storytelling project involving 2 million people, Mix the Body, Mix The Play, and Mix the City projects.

While the contest is a way to connect people through the arts and facilitate cultural exchange between the UK and India, it also encompasses the celebration of "diversity, inclusion, equal opportunity and freedom of expression.

"As the UK's cultural arm, we aim to increase the appreciation of contemporary UK culture in India and vice versa, in order to give greater focus, depth and relevance to the long-standing relationship between the UK and other countries.

"The Digital Open Call offers a blank canvas for anyone with brilliant creative, digital ideas to match our ambitions to excite and inspire young people with digital and mobile content and collaborations between the UK and India, Birtwistle said.

The project ideas that must be submitted by January 31, can involve digital platforms, mobile applications, movies, and websites, he added.

Talking about the Council's ongoing and future plans in the country, Birtwistle said that after being inspired by the creativity and talent of young people, they have signed MoUs with various state governments.

"We are inspired by the creativity and talent of young people, artists, musicians, teachers and have signed MoUs with various state governments (West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh) to promote cultural collaboration.

We have been working together with world-class cultural organisations to create new works and share new stories around the UK, India and online," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Managing Director, Andrew McLellan on Bluechiip enabled Labcon product marketing release, accelerating sales and production scaling



Open Briefing Interview with MD Andrew McLellan

Melbourne, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Bluechiip Ltd ( ASX:BCT ) provides the Company's Open Briefing Interview.In this Open Briefing(R), Andrew discusses:- Labcon's official release and marketing of Bluechiip enabled product- Accelerating sales and production scaling progress- Reader production status and approvals- Partner progress and cash positionRecord of interview:1. Labcon recently added Bluechiip enabled Coldpoint products to its website www.labcon.com/tubescryo.html. What customer testing did Labcon do before making this commitment and what feedback has Bluechiip received?MD Andrew McLellan:Labcon has recently commenced marketing their Bluechiip-enabled Coldpoint range including on their website, which is exciting to see. This comes after a period of extensive testing including with end customers. Manufacturing tooling is now primarily in place with the product line gaining the appropriate regulatory approvals. Importantly for Bluechiip, this is the commencement of continued and growing monthly supply of Bluechiip chips and readers to a customer that is servicing a very large consumables market.Initial due diligence testing began prior to our agreement, which was executed in 2017. When Labcon purchased a developer kit, they also conducted very extensive market research and identified a very large market opportunity. Throughout each phase the feedback has been very positive. As announced to the market last year, Labcon then stepped up with a very large, $US11.6M multi-year order & agreement for chips and readers.In conjunction with Labcon's testing, Bluechiip also commenced three evaluations with end customers in the quarter. These are progressing well, and the feedback is very positive. Our technology is highly differentiated with no other technology able to survive the severe conditions the cryogenic vials are subject to and the ability to sense temperature at extremely low temperatures is very important, especially with high value samples.2. Meeting Labcon's $US11.6m order for chips and readers, signed on 29 August 2018, will see a significant ramp up in revenues for BCT over the next 24 months. Can you tell us where you are in terms of expanding production and delivery of chips and readers to meet this order?MD Andrew McLellan:We continue to scale our capacity and transfer of our products into manufacture which is progressing well. December 2018 was the first month of supply under the expanded agreement with Labcon and there will be a significant ramp in revenues over the next 3 to 6 months as we deliver on the orders that we have in hand. That covers our readers and the chips themselves.We have been working diligently to scale our production capacity for the chips and readers. Our team has extensive experience in doing this successfully in the past through various roles, including in my previous role at Vision Biosystems.Starting with the readers, our partner Planet Innovation is scaling production of the multi vial readers, which are really critical to the end market. They are also commencing production of the handheld readers on an ongoing basis. In terms of chips, we're expanding our capacity to handle hundreds of thousands of chips a month over the nottoo- distant future.3. Late last year Bluechiip's multi vial readers were being produced as late stage prototypes. What is the status of development now, how many vials can they read at a time and what is the strategic importance of the multi vial reader base?MD Andrew McLellan:We are now moving into full scale production of the multi vial reader with relevant approvals including CE mark in final stage.This has a major strategic impact for us. The multi vial readers can read up to a hundred cryogenic vials at a time directly from cold storage through frost. The Labcon Coldpoint cryogenic range includes a 9x9 cryogenic box format so in this case our Multi Vial Readers read 81 vials at a time.The ability to identify full boxes at one read enables important productivity efficiencies especially for large cryogenic storage facilities who have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of samples in store.4. When are the next major trade shows at which both you and Labcon will be showing Bluechiip enabled products?MD Andrew McLellan:In the first week of February we have one of our major trade shows for the year in North America, called the Society of Laboratory Automation Systems (SLAS). Both Bluechiip and Labcon will be there demonstrating our range of products. As noted, Labcon has put their Coldpoint Bluechiip-enabled cryogenic vial range onto their website, and we expect this to be a driver of consumer interest in this product at the trade show. Tradeshows are important as they are the points at which we can put up our shopfront for attendees from all over the world.5. What is CE marking and why is it important to BCT's business? What stage are you at?MD Andrew McLellan:CE marking is a safety certification for electrical products in Europe with equivalent requirements in North America. It is really important for us that we have our CE mark and our US comparative marks to enable us and our partners to sell full commercial versions.We are at the final stage of testing to gain these approvals for our readers which we expect to finalise in the coming month.6. Labcon is the first of BCT's OEM relationships that has moved into full end customer production. Can you update us of the status of BCT's other OEM agreements and remind us how many developer kits, which are the precursor to an OEM agreement, BCT has in the market with potential OEMs?MD Andrew McLellan:We now have 32 developer kits and agreements in the marketplace with a multitude of different vendors. Three of these developer kits are now under full OEM agreement with Labcon being the most well progressed. Our other two are with Genea Biomedx and Planet Innovation.We are seeing a lot more traction and engagement with a multitude of potential OEM opportunities. This has been helped by this Labcon Coldpoint Bluechiip-enabled range moving into the marketplace. It has caused other OEMS to really take note.We have had a number of new enquiries over the last 2 to 3 months from parties in adjacent marketplaces for example in pharmaceutical vials and a range of suppliers of blood-based products such as blood bags.We expect the rate of engagement to continue to increase both through Labcon's partners and in adjacent markets.7. Looking at BCT's financials, R & D cash expense for the December quarter was $161,000 down from $269,000 in the September quarter. What ongoing level of R & D should we expect and will it decline as a percentage of operating costs as you scale production and grow revenues?MD Andrew McLellan:Variation between the December and September quarter R&D includes some timing items from a cash flow perspective. In terms of our future R&D spend, we will maintain a similar level of activity and may see it increase slightly in the short term. However, as a proportion of the operating cost it is expected to reduce so that the overall percentage spent on R&D will decrease as we scale.That said, there are R&D opportunities in the marketplace where we can continue to grow the value of Bluechiip, so whilst R&D will decline as a percentage of cost and sales, we will keep developing our product and patent base, and approach each opportunity as they arise.8. The 4C that BCT released to the ASX shows that as at 31 Decembr 2018 the company had $5.6m of cash and no debt and forecast cash outflows for the March quarter of $1.3m. As well as accelerating cash revenues in the coming quarters, what inflows can we also expect from R & D tax credits?MD Andrew McLellan:You are correct we have significant cash in the bank and no debt. We also expect to receive R&D tax refunds of just over $1.0m within the next 2 quarters for the 2017/18 financial year. Further R&D tax refunds of similar magnitude are expected for our current financial year with cash receipt in the following financial year. So, we are well positioned, and we expect an acceleration of our cash revenues.openbriefing.comThank you.About Bluechiip Ltd

Bluechiip Ltd (ASX:BCT) understands that every sample - stem cells, blood, eggs, sperm and other biospecimens - is critical, so our objective is to manage each one with optimal quality in the most efficient way. Bluechiip's advanced management solution is the only one that provides sample temperature with ID in cryogenic environments to. Most importantly, this delivers confidence in every sample.

Bluechiip's unique patented technology is a MEMS-based wireless tracking solution that contains no electronics. It represents a generational change from current tracking methods such as labels (hand-written and pre-printed), barcodes (linear and 2D), and Radio Frequency Identification. Bluechiip tags are either embedded or manufactured into storage products such as vials or bags. Each product can be easily identified, and critical information such as sample temperature, is detected by readers and stored in the Bluechiip software. In addition to functioning in extreme temperatures, the Bluechiip(R) Advanced Sample management solution can survive autoclaving, gamma irradiation sterilization, humidification, centrifuging, cryogenic storage and frosting.

Bluechiip's technology has applications in healthcare, including in cryogenic storage facilities (biobanks and biorepositories), pathology, clinical trials and forensics. Other key markets include cold-chain logistics/supply chain, security/defence, industrial/manufacturing and aerospace/aviation.

Bluechiip: Delivering confidence in every sample.
A Class 9 student who had gone missing from the city in 2015 had been traced to neighbouring Navi Mumbai nearly four years later, the police said Wednesday.

The police had registered a case of kidnapping after the boy went missing from Vasant Vihar locality here in March 2015.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Deepak Deoraj said it was a bank account which helped the police track down the boy.

After he went missing, his father had received a call on April 1, 2015, seeking a ransom of Rs 1 lakh for his release.

Police arrested three persons including a juvenile in the case for allegedly making the call, but the boy could not be found.

The boy's parents had also filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court, seeking a CBI probe. The high court was monitoring the police probe, the DCP said.

The police, in the course of investigation, questioned more than 250 persons and examined CCTV footage from hundreds of places and checked call records, the officer said.

A team led by senior inspector Ravindra Daundkar got a tip-off that an account in the boy's name had been opened at a nationalised bank at Nerul on January 22, 2019.

Taking help of the bank officials, the police traced the boy and reunited him with his parents.

The boy told the police that he fled from the house as he feared he was going to fail in Class 9 and would face rebuke from the parents.

He lived with a friend and worked with a caterer, the boy told the police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eight persons were killed and three others injured in an explosion in an apartment in Chinese city of Changchun on Wednesday.

The incident took place on the fourth floor of an apartment building in a downtown neighbourhood, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Firefighters, police and ambulances were rushed to the scene immediately after the incident happened.

The preliminary investigation shows the incident was caused by the improper use of gas by residents. Further investigation is underway, the state-run media said.

The injured have been admitted to a local hospital.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Wednesday predicted that the upcoming parliamentary elections will see the BJP repeat its performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2017 assembly elections in the state.

Addressing a meeting of booth chairmen of the party's Awadh unit here, which was also attended by BJP president Amit Shah, Adityanath said, "This is a Kumbh of party workers. The victory flag of the 2017 and 2014 elections will be hoisted in 2019 as well."



State BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said Uttar Pradesh had become backward due to the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party alternatively coming to power in the state.

"After the BJP came to power, Uttar Pradesh became the focus of national politics," he said.

Pandey claimed that in the 23-party anti-BJP alliance, there are 13 claimants for the prime minister's post.

He said the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will be a battle between public welfare and the opposition's dynastic

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma echoed Pandey's view.

"It will be BJP versus all in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The rival political parties are afraid of the BJP, whose flag is flying high. The BJP is getting support from every section of society," Sharma said.

BJP's Uttar Pradesh co in-charge Govardhan Jhadapia said the rival parties are joining hands as they are worried about their existence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP's West Bengal leadership has decided to inform the Election Commission (EC) about the clashes that broke out between workers of it and the TMC on Tuesday following a rally of BJP president Amit Shah in East Midnapore district.

The police arrested 11 persons for their alleged involvement in the violence.

"We will inform the Election commission about the clashes that took place yesterday at Kanthi. We will portray the real picture of the ground situation that prevails in Bengal," BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said here Wednesday.

He claimed that several party workers are yet to return home after the rally.

"We don't know what happened to them. They are missing. This is a dangerous situation," he said.

A TMC party office was ransacked, several workers of both the BJP and the TMC were injured, and vehicles ferrying BJP workers were set on fire in the violence at Kanthi, the parties claimed.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb, who accompanied Ghosh during the press conference, reminded her West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee that law and order is a state subject and she can't run away from her responsibilities by putting blame on others.

"I can sense a change coming in Bengal. There is a strong under current flowing in Bengal," he said.

The police said they have launched an investigation into the incident and have arrested 11 people.

Witnesses were being questioned and the police are also examining television footages of the violence.

The BJP Wednesday organized protest rallies in various parts of the state against the violence at Kanthi, known to be a stronghold of TMC leader Suvendu Adhikari, who is also state transport minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP as well as the ruling TMC in West Bengal Wednesday organised protests here and in other parts of the state against the violence that took place in East Midnapore district's Kanthi area following a rally by BJP president Amit Shah.

The saffron party's state leadership has decided to inform the Election Commission (EC) about the clashes.

The full bench of the EC led by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora is scheduled to arrive here in the night on a three-day visit to review the preparedness for the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.

They will also hold a series of meetings with officials of the state's chief electoral office and political parties on Thursday.

Following the clashes in Kanthi on Tuesday Home Minister Rajnath Singh had called up Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and expressed serious concern.

The Trinamool Congress took out a protest march in Kanthi during the day against the clashes



Senior BJP leaders Mukul Roy and Sayantan Basu took out a protest march from the party's state headquaters to Esplande in the city.

Shouting slogans against the state government, BJP workers carried placards and posters against the TMC government.

Incidently, senior TMC minister and party leader Partha Chatterjee, who was passing through Central Avenue also faced protests and was shown black flags by the BJP workers.

"We have called for the protest against yesterday's violence. The way our party workers were attacked was undemocratic," BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said.

The saffron party organised agitations in various parts of the state in protest against Tuesday's violence in which several persons were injured.

Later on the BJP activists staged a sit in at Esplanade in Kolkata following which the police removed them and detained some of them, party sources said.

The Bengal unit of the BJP has decided to inform the EC about the Tuesday violence.

"We will inform the Election Commission about the clashes that took place yesterday at Kanthi. We will portray the real picture of the ground situation that prevails in Bengal," Ghosh said here.

TMC leader and senior minister Suvendu Adhikari said "We have taken out a protest march in Kanthi town against the violence that BJP had let loose on us yesterday. The people have also come out in our support and joined the march."



As the general election is approaching, the hostility between the BJP and the ruling TMC has heightened in Bengal.

Saffron party is making a concerted efforts to gain politically in Bengal, the stronghold of the TMC.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Accusing the AAP of indulging in "dirty" vote bank politics, senior BJP leader Vijay Goel Wednesday said the Delhi government's decision to increase the remuneration of imams is aimed at attracting Muslim votes.

At a gathering of imams in the city, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last week announced the hike in their monthly remuneration from Rs 10,000 to Rs 18,000. He also hiked the monthly government grant to Muajjins from Rs 9,000 to Rs 16,000.

Protesting against this, the BJP led by Goel held a protest at Jantar Mantar.

"Kejriwal is playing dirty He has increased the imams' remuneration from Rs 10,000 to Rs 18,000 just to get the Muslim votes. The Delhi chief minister should not play this low level of politics," Goel said.

Earlier, only 200 imams used to get the remuneration but now they have included all 2,000 imams across Delhi, he said.

On the Ayodhya issue, Goel said "everyone wants Ram temple in Ayodhya but the Congress must clear their stand whether they want Ram temple or not".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Uttarakhand BJP performed a "bhumi pujan" at the Parade Ground here on Wednesday, ahead of the visit of party president Amit Shah, who is slated to formally launch the saffron party's Lok Sabha poll campaign in the state on February 2.

Shah is scheduled to address the booth level workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the venue named as "Trishakti Sammelan".

"Trishakti" refers to the three categories of booth-level party workers -- booth adhyakshas, booth palaks and booth-level agents.

"The bhumi pujan was in line with our age-old tradition of beginning every work on an auspicious note by invoking the almighty. It gives a fitting start to the party president's visit on February 2, when he will formally launch the party's campaign for the Lok Sabha polls in the state at the venue," state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt told reporters after the ceremony.

Shah's visit is aimed at galvanising the BJP cadre ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, in which the party faces the challenge of retaining all the five seats in the state against a resurgent Congress, which recently won the Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The BJP president's visit will be the first in a series of campaign programmes to be addressed over the next 10 days in different parts of the state by senior party leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his deputy Dinesh Sharma and Union minister V K Singh, state BJP media chief Devendra Bhasin said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP MLA Surendra Singh has compared Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Ravana and his sister Priyanka Gandhi to Surpanakha, prompting angry reactions from the local Congress workers and swift disapproval from Union minister Mahesh Sharma.

The Congress workers too lodged a complaint Wednesday with Ballia police against the MLA for making the remarks.

The Bairia MLA called Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ram, while likening the two Congress leaders to the villains in Ramayana.

"My Modi is in the role of Lord Ram and Congress president Rahul Gandhi is Ravana and his sister Priyanka Surpanakha," he said Tuesday.

"Ravana has put up his sister against my Ram, he said.

Rest assured that Lanka will be conquered," the Bharatiya Janata Party legislator said referring to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry into

"By appointing Priyanka as general secretary, Rahul has already proved his incapability to fight against Modi. Now the brother and the sister will fight together, he said.

How will they face the character and uprightness of Modi? It is a matter of honour that we have a leader like him, he said.

Singh called the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi a joke.

This is a democracy. How does the sister become a general secretary? Now the brother-in-law will also come into politics, the MLA said.

He said these people are not familiar with the Indian culture, which can be looked after only by someone with a personality like that of Modi.

Singh's remarks were swiftly disapproved by Union minister Sharma, who said neither the BJP nor Prime Minister Modi supports derogatory statements against any "daughter of the country".

"The BJP is a party with discipline. If anyone, be it an MLA or someone else, makes a derogatory statement against any daughter of this country, we do not support it," Sharma told reporters on sidelines of an event in Noida.

"Neither the prime minister nor our government or our party president has ever supported such statements," he said.

Priyanka Gandhi was recently inducted into active by Rahul Gandhi, who appointed her the party general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi falls in this region as do the Gandhi family bastions of Rae Bareli and Amethi.

The MLA claimed Modi was set to become the next prime minister as well.

Earlier, he had termed Modi a reincarnation of Lord Ram who along with party president Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would realise the dream of a Ram Rajya in the country.

Known for making controversial remarks, Singh had also said parents are responsible for the increasing cases of rape and should not let their children roam around freely.

Meanwhile, Congress workers led by Sewa Dal's Girish Kant Gandhi Wednesday lodged a complaint with Kotwali police station in Ballia against the legislator over the remarks.

He handed over a complaint to the Kotwali police station in-charge, Inspector Shashinmauli Tiwari, who said a complaint has been received and the action will be taken on it after an inquiry.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP hit out Wednesday at Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot over a purported warning to opposition party workers against a planned demonstration next week.

Deputy leader of the Opposition Rajendra Rathore called Gehlot's remarks arrogant. "Gehlot is referred to as the 'Gandhi of Rajasthan' and by uttering such words, he has denigrated the perception of Gandhi. It does not behove a person of the stature of the chief minister of state," Rathore told reporters here.

At a Congress party meeting here on Tuesday, Gehlot had purportedly said BJP workers should think twice before taking to the streets and courting arrest, adding it might be difficult for them to come out of jail.

The chief minister was referring to the proposed demonstration by the BJP workers on February 8 over demands of a full farm-loan waiver, unemployment allowance and implementation of the 10-per cent reservation to the "economically-weaker" sections in the general category.

Rathore alleged that by saying this, Gehlot had pointed to an undeclared emergency in the state. He recalled that Gandhi himself had launched the 'Jail Bharo' movement during freedom struggle.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP on Wednesday accused Congress MP Shashi Tharoor of insulting Hinduism by "ridiculing" the ongoing 'Kumbh' with "tactical support" of Rahul Gandhi.

BJP leader and Union minister Smriti Irani attacked the opposition party after Tharoor tweeted a photograph of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet colleagues taking a dip at 'Sangam' in Kumbh and apparently took a dig at them.

"Ganga has to be kept clean and sins are also to be washed here. Everyone is naked in this Sangam. Hail mother Ganga," the Congress MP had tweeted in Hindi Tuesday, drawing an angry response from Irani.

Noting that Kumbh is a festival of faith and a biggest symbol of Hindu beliefs, Irani told reporters that Tharoor's comments were tantamount to "religious slur" as she accused him of ridiculing the religious congregation.

"It is appalling and he has done it with tactical support of Rahul Gandhi," she said, claiming that the Congress president's silence amounted to his support to Tharoor's "insult" of the Hinduism.

Tharoor has often made comments targeting Hinduism, she said.

Hitting out at Gandhi, the minister said he allows his party leaders to attack the beliefs of Hindus but strategically wears 'janeu' (holy thread) when elections are round the corner.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


December 2018 Quarterly Report

Melbourne, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Bluechiip Limited (Bluechiip or the Company) ( ASX:BCT ) today released its quarterly cash flow report for the period ended 31 December 2018.ACTIVITIES REPORT FOR THE QUARTER ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2018Highlights during the quarter- Commenced monthly delivery of readers and chips to Labcon with sales revenue of $117k in the December quarter 2018 following Labcon's updated US$11.9m development and supply agreement in prior quarter.- Scaling to meet customer orders, including to Labcon.- Continued expansion of the pipeline with 32 developer kits and agreements in market.- Fully repaid $0.6m R&D Advance Facility.- Cash balance stands at $5.670m as at 31 December 2018 with no borrowings.Business Progress UpdateIn December the first of our ongoing monthly deliveries under the revised agreement with Labcon North America's (Labcon) purchase orders was made. This was following the updated development and supply agreement on 29 August 2018 for a three-year term to supply chips, readers, software and engineering services worth US$11.9m ($15.9m).Bluechiip has progressed transfer to production of the multi vial reader and hand-held reader and continued scaling the Bluechiip supply chain. With Labcon's Coldpoint Bluechiip Enabled Range moving into full production, deliveries are expected to accelerate over the coming 2 quarters.Bluechiip continued to progress and pursue partnerships with 32 developer kits and agreements with potential partners in North America, Europe and Asia increasing our pipeline of opportunities.To view the full report, please visit:About Bluechiip Ltd

Bluechiip Ltd (ASX:BCT) understands that every sample - stem cells, blood, eggs, sperm and other biospecimens - is critical, so our objective is to manage each one with optimal quality in the most efficient way. Bluechiip's advanced management solution is the only one that provides sample temperature with ID in cryogenic environments to. Most importantly, this delivers confidence in every sample.

Bluechiip's unique patented technology is a MEMS-based wireless tracking solution that contains no electronics. It represents a generational change from current tracking methods such as labels (hand-written and pre-printed), barcodes (linear and 2D), and Radio Frequency Identification. Bluechiip tags are either embedded or manufactured into storage products such as vials or bags. Each product can be easily identified, and critical information such as sample temperature, is detected by readers and stored in the Bluechiip software. In addition to functioning in extreme temperatures, the Bluechiip(R) Advanced Sample management solution can survive autoclaving, gamma irradiation sterilization, humidification, centrifuging, cryogenic storage and frosting.

Bluechiip's technology has applications in healthcare, including in cryogenic storage facilities (biobanks and biorepositories), pathology, clinical trials and forensics. Other key markets include cold-chain logistics/supply chain, security/defence, industrial/manufacturing and aerospace/aviation.

Bluechiip: Delivering confidence in every sample.
A group of "unidentified miscreants" had blocked the highway in Tripura's Dhalai district to stop Leader of Opposition and former chief minister Manik Sarkar from attending a party meet, a senior police officer said Wednesday.

The protestors, around 20 in number, raised slogans against Sarkar on Tuesday on National Highway-8 in the district, asking him to "go back", he said.

"The miscreants, who had lifted the highway blockade after police intervention, gathered outside the CPI(M) office at district headquarters Ambassa later in the day to lodge their protest," Superintendent of Police Sudipta Das said.

Sarkar was convening a meeting of party workers at Ambassa, he said.

The reason behind the protest wasn't clear as yet, but it seems the agitators did not have any political affiliation, Das said, adding that the group dispersed as soon as the police arrived.

Condemning Tuesday's incident, the CPI(M), in a statement, termed it as "an attack on the democratic rights of people".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bangladesh's Opposition renewed its demand for fresh polls in the country, alleging that the December elections were "farce and rigged" as Parliament's maiden session began on Wednesday after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League returned to power for the third consecutive term.

Former premier Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies said they would boycott Parliament and vowed to hold huge demonstrations unless fresh polls were held within six months.

Several hundred BNP activists rallied in the capital Dhaka to protest against the elections, demanding resignation of the new government to pave ways for fresh polls.

In the beginning of the first session of the 11th national parliament, Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury and Deputy Speaker Md Fazle Rabbi Miah were re-elected to their old posts.

President Abdul Hamid administered the oath of office to Speaker Choudhury who chaired the House during the previous ninth and 10th parliament as well.

The December 30 polls elected 300 lawmakers through direct votes reducing beleaguered BNP to just eight seats.

The ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers of the new government took oath of office headed by Prime Minister Hasina, 71, on January 7.

On the other hand, winning contestants of 73-year-old Zia's BNP declined to be sworn in, calling the polls a "farce" as Awami League secured 96 per cent of the vote.

The situation resulted in the emergence of former military ruler and President HM ERshad's Jatiya Party, which was a crucial ally of Awami League-led Grand Alliance in the past government as the main opposition in Parliament with 22 seats.

Acknowledging that criticism is important in a democratic process, Prime Minister Hasina speaking in Parliament assured that the Opposition will be able to make enough criticism of the government as no obstacle will be created to this end.

"We never did it (creating obstacle) in the past and will never do in the future," she said.

She said the people of the country have regained the trust and confidence in the government as the previous parliament was run in a good manner.

According to Bangladesh's Constitution lawmakers elect must take oath within 90 working days after the election result is announced otherwise they would lose their membership.

"It was a stolen election, massively rigged, and so we demand dissolution of Parliament and fresh elections, senior BNP leader Moudud Ahmed told reporters.

India and China immediately welcomed the new government congratulating Hasina after the stunning victory while most western nations endorsed the polls with caution noting the credible allegations of election irregularities.

Awami League and the Election Commission, however, have denied the allegations and the ruling party attributed the victory to Hasina's robust leadership that earned the country a record economic growth.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former MLA Sheikh Abdul Rasheed on Wednesday said his Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) will show black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his February 3 visit here to protest the Centre's "colonial mindset" and "looting" of Jammu and Kashmir's resources.

He also expressed concern over a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between the Centre, state government and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) for starting work on the 850MW Ratle Power Project.

"We will receive Narendra Modi with black flags in Srinagar on his upcoming visit to protest against the colonial mindset of New Delhi and against looting resources of the state," Rasheed said in a statement here.

"While the (Jammu and Kashmir) State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) is competent enough to construct Ratle or any other power project, New Delhi seems to be adamant to loot our resources and is always utilising services of NHPC like East India Company," the former MLA said.

Rasheed alleged that though GVK Power and Infrastructure had started work on Ratle power project, the company left the project midway after realising that the state power development corporation will not allow it to fulfil its selfish designs.

He said there was no justification for bringing companies from outside the state for constructing power projects as the JKSPDC had successfully commissioned 900 MW Phase-I and Phase-II, thus making an annual turnover of more than Rs 1,500 crore.

Rasheed claimed that on the directions of the Prime Minister's Office and the Union power ministry, the Jammu and Kashmir government has prepared a draft to construct the Ratle Project through joint investment between NHPC and JKSPDC.

"While NHPC will be investing and owning 51 percent of the total project cost, JKPDC will get just 49 percent shares. As per agreement the project will be handed over to the state government after 25 years and for the first 10 years, the state is going to get nothing out of the said project after being commissioned," he said.

In the agenda of alliance between PDP and BJP, the state was supposed to get power projects back from NHPC, it is "shameful that New Delhi is misusing governor's office and position to loot the resources of the state", he alleged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Criticising judges in the media by lawyers has become very common and attributing "political colours" to judgments amounted to "sheer contempt", the Supreme Court has said.

It said however that power of contempt with the court is a weapon like "Bhramastra", to be used sparingly.

The apex court also said that cases cannot be decided by "media trial" and the bar and bench have their own in-built machinery to deal with grievance and no outside interference can be allowed.

Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to the press or the media to ventilate their point of view, it added.

It said lawyers are not supposed to be "money guzzlers" and should not involve in influencing fair decision making process.

While referring to various attacks made on the judicial system from time to time, the court said a lot of sacrifices are made to serve the judiciary which is not less than call of military service.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran said that whenever any political matter is decided by the court either way, "political insinuations" are attributed by "unscrupulous persons/advocates".

The bench made these comments in its 78-page judgement dated January 28, while striking down certain amended Rules of the Madras High Court including the one to debar a lawyer from practising.

"It has become very common to the members of the Bar to go to the press/media to criticize the judges in person and to commit sheer contempt by attributing political colours to the judgments. It is nothing less than an act of contempt of gravest form," the bench said.

Dealing with the power of contempt, the bench said, "The court has the power of contempt and that lethal power too accompanies with greater responsibility. Contempt is a weapon like 'Brahmastra' to be used sparingly to remain effective. At the same time, a judge has to guard the dignity of the court and take action in contempt and in case of necessity to impose appropriate exemplary punishment too."



It said that act of attributing political insinuations on judges in cases of political importance "are nothing, but an act of denigrating the judiciary itself and destroys the faith of the common man which he reposes in the judicial system".

"In case of genuine grievance against any judge, the appropriate process is to lodge a complaint to the concerned higher authorities who can take care of the situation and it is impermissible to malign the system itself by attributing political motives and by making false allegations against the judicial system and its functionaries. Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to press or media to ventilate their point of view," the top court said.

While making it clear that corruption is intolerable in the judiciary, the bench said lawyers cannot go to streets or go on strike except when democracy itself is in danger and the entire judicial system is at stake.

"The judgment rendered by a judge is based upon the dint of hard work and quality of the arguments that are advanced before him by the lawyers. There is no room for arrogance either for a lawyer or for a judge," it said.

It said that for the protection of democratic values and to ensure that rule of law prevails in the country, no one can be permitted to destroy the independence of judicial system from within or from outside.

"A lot of sacrifices are made to serve the judiciary for which one cannot regret as it is with a purpose and to serve judiciary is not less than call of military service," it said.

The bench observed that if the bar fails to perform the duty independently and becomes a "sycophant", it ultimately results in denigrating of the judicial system and judiciary itself.

"Role of Bar in the legal system is significant. The bar is supposed to be the spokesperson for the judiciary as Judges do not speak," the bench said, adding, "It is the duty of the Bar to protect honest judges and not to ruin their reputation and at the same time to ensure that corrupt judges are not spared".

The top court said lawyers are not supposed to be "money guzzlers or ambulance chasers" and they should neither expect any favour from a judge nor involve in influencing the fair decision-making process.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Assam Government will build a museum after the name of the first ruler of the Matak Kingdom -- Sarbananda Singha -- to showcase the cultural, social, and spiritual heritage associated with the community.

Chief Minister Sarbanandna Sonowal announced the decision, after a meeting with five organisations belonging to the Matak community here on Wednesday.

The museum will come up at Chabua in upper Assam.

In the meeting, the organisations submitted a memorandum consisting of various demands, which the CM assured of fulfilling in phases.

Sonowal said that granting ST status to the Matak community is in advanced stage of implementation, and the state government will prepare a road map for the preservation of its heritage sites.

The chief minister also said that in acknowledgement of the role played by Rupahi Gavoru of the community, the Assam government would set up a woman skill development centre after her name.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Opposition Congress MLAs Wednesday wore black badges inside the Assam Assembly protesting against the removal of a child's black jacket allegedly on the instructions of security personnel at a function of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

The Congress legislators staged a walk out after the speaker turned down an adjournment motion to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, a video of a mother removing a black jacket of her crying three-year-old child allegedly on the instructions of security personnel before entering Sonowal's function in Biswanath district drew sharp criticism from the people, prompting the chief minister to order a police inquiry.

Most of the members of the Congress and the AIUDF also wore black clothes and termed Tuesday's incident as an attack on the freedom of expression.

Noisy scenes were witnessed in the assembly after the matter was raised in the Question Hour, prompting Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami to adjourn the House for 10 minutes.

When it reassembled, Goswami rejected two adjournment notices brought by Congress MLAs Abdul Khaleque and Rupjyoti Kurmi, saying the matter was not of "exceptional nature" and it can be discussed in other devices like the debate on the Governor's speech.

On this, the Congress legislators staged a walk out, saying that the matter is of public importance and urgent in nature.

Immediately, opposition All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) also walked out in protest against the "statement" by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, who gave logic against the admissibility of the adjournment motion.

Earlier in support of his notice, Khaleque said: "Nobody can snatch away the right to wear one's one choice of cloth or the colour. It is a Constitutional right. The police violated the freedom of speech and expression."



The Congress MLA, who came wearing a black shirt and coat, also said: "We condemn the action of the government. Will we now change the colour of our hair? To protest this action, we are wearing black today."



Kurmi, who was wearing black clothes and a black sun glass inside the House, said, "I am sure the Speaker is also hurt by yesterday's incident of the child. It is a shame! That is why, today I am wearing everything black inside and outside,"He also said various groups and the general public are protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and ministers are shown black flags where ever they are going.

Responding to the Congress's charges, Patowary said no such direction from the government has been issued to prevent wearing of black clothes and the chief minister has already ordered the DGP to enquire the child's incident.

"A design is going on to malign the government. It is being done to tarnish the image of the CM," he said.

Other opposition legislators who were wearing black clothes include former speaker Pranab Kumar Gogoi, Ilias Ali, Nandita Das, Sukur Ali Ahmed, Mamun Imdadul Haque Chawdhury, Roselina Tirkey, Sherman Ali Ahmed, Jakir Hussain Sikdar, Nurul Huda, Rekibuddin Ahmed, Anwar Hussain Laskar and Aminul Islam.

The Tuesday video has gone viral on social media and has also been aired by local TV channels.

Many adult male visitors at the chief minister's programme to lay foundation stone for an Eri spun silk mill were also seen in the video removing their black jackets and woollen pullovers.

The video comes close on the heels of security personnel deployed at Republic Day functions in the state frisking people from carrying black clothes to the events that were attended by ministers.

With massive protests going on in the state against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, black flags are being shown to ministers and senior BJP leaders. wherever they go during the last few weeks.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8 seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India even if they do not possess any document.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid stiff opposition in Assam against the citizenship bill, a Congress delegation from the state on Wednesday met Rahul Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha, sources said.

The delegation, comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia, party in-charge Harish Rawat besides others apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and people's strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The team requested Rahul to ensure that the Congress does not walk out of the debate on the bill in the Upper House and make sure that it is defeated with the help of like- minded parties, the sources said.

Terming the bill as "flawed", the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8. The Budget Session of Parliament will begin on Thursday.

The Congress president assured the delegation that he would give necessary instructions in this regard, the sources said.

The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill.

Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi government's decision to get Parliament's approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition... India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Maharashtra chief minister and sitting Congress MP Ashok Chavan is not likely to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election from Nanded constituency, his home turf, party sources said Wednesday.

Chavan is the Maharashtra unit chief of the Congress and sitting MP from Nanded Lok Sabha constituency.

He was one of the only two Congress party members who had won the 2014 general elections from Maharashtra, the other being Rajiv Satav, who had won from Hingoli.

Satav is currently the Gujarat Congress in-charge.

Chavan's wife Ameeta, who is the MLA from Bhokar constituency in Nanded, is likely to contest the upcoming LS polls, sources in the party said.

Party workers from Nanded had earlier urged Ashok Chavan to contest the Assembly elections scheduled later this year, instead of the Lok Sabha polls. However, he had told them that a decision regarding contesting elections will be taken by the party's central leadership.

The State Election Committee of the Congress, which met Tuesday, discussed the names of the probable candidates for 26 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Party sources said in most of the constituencies, three names have been listed for each seat. While only one name has gone for Solapur (Sushilkumar Shinde), Ramtek (Mukul Wasnik), Yavatmal-Washim (Manikrao Thakre), Mumbai South (Milind Deora).

MLAs K C Padvi and Nirmala Gavit are in the race to get nomination from Nandurbar, while party office-bearer Raju Waghmare and Srirampur MLA Bhausaheb Kamble are the probable candidates for Shirdi seat.

From Wardha, Maharashtra women's cell chief Charulata Tokas and social activist Shailesh Agrawal are in the list of probables. However, party sources said there is opposition to Tokas from the local party workers.

Meanwhile, the Congress and the NCP have reached a consensus on 44 of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra. The seats, which both the parties are yet to decide on are Ahmednagar, Raver, Aurangabad and Nandurbar.

While the Congress is claiming Ahmednagar and Raver which is in NCP quota, the latter is demanding Aurangabad and Nandurbar seats.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Alleging that much of the pending MGNREGA funds belonged to non-BJP ruled states, Andhra Pradesh Minister N Lokesh Wednesday demanded that the Centre clear dues of Rs 1,673 crore to his state.

He made the demand at a meeting with Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) wages need to be paid within 15 days. But payments have not been made in the last two-and-half months due lack of central funds, Lokesh said.

Lokesh, who holds the charge of IT, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Ministry in Andhra Pradesh, informed those in the meeting that the state has been implementing MGNREGA effectively and requested the Centre to release at least the wage component of Rs 498 crore out of the total dues.

Union Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, several Telugu Desam Party (TPD) MPs and central officials were present in the meeting.

"After the discussion, the minister (Tomar) assured releasing of Rs 150 crore to the state. However, I told him that this amount is not sufficient. Then, the minister said to use the state budget and assured of reimbursing it later," Lokesh told reporters after the meeting.

The central government was informed that the Andhra Pradesh government is facing a fund crunch as it has to implement various development schemes.

"I requested the minister to release at least the wage component (Rs 498 crore). The minister assured that he will do his best after discussing with his officials," he said.

Out of the Rs 1,673 crore pending amount under the MGNREGA, wages are Rs 498 crore, material is Rs 1,175 crore, Lokesh said, adding that the past pending amount of Rs 1,350 crore was also due.

After the meeting, a senior Rural Development Ministry official told PTI, "We have got an additional budget allocation of Rs 6,000 crore for MGNREGA. The Andhra Pradesh government's entitled liabilities will be settled. There is no issue. It is an ongoing process."



Under the scheme, the state government said it has provided 20.18 crore work days so far, and it will touch 27.5 crore works days by end of the fiscal, higher than 21.2 crore works days in the previous financial year.

MGNREGA labour is being used for constructing cement roads, anganwadi bhawans, crematoriums, gram panchayat offices among other development works of the state government.

In the meeting, Lokesh -- son of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu -- informed that as much as Rs 6,449 crore payment was pending under the scheme across the country."Of which, Rs 3,175 crore pending amount is towards West Bengal, Rs 1,840 crore to Andhra Pradesh, Rs 623 crore to Kerala. The maximum pending is in non-BJP ruled states," he said.

Lokesh added that it is not know if the Centre is doing partiality or not, but the pending amount is on record.

Asked about BJP accusing the TDP of diverting NREGA funds, the Andhra Pradesh minister dismissed the accusation and said, "We are not paying it to our workers, we are paying those working under the scheme."



The audit teams were sent twice to the state and they could not find anything. The centre has given several awards to Andhra Pradesh recognising its performance, Lokesh said.

"The drone audit is being done on a pilot basis in two mandals. The central government was surprised to see the audit measures being taken by the state and the details," he added.

Asked about alleged land allotment to a leading IT firms, Lokesh said, "Is it is wrong to allot land to HCL? As per the policy, I will give land at a lower rate. If it brings another 10 companies, I will give land to them at a lower rate."



The state IT Minister said he was wooing companies to invest in the state by competing with others by giving incentives so as to create employment.

"I will give the best incentives which no other states in India have given. I will give land at a lower rate to whichever company wants to set up in the state. I have given land to HCL, TCS, Reliance. I am creating employment. HCL will create 25,000 jobs. He is my client," Lokesh added.

The IT industry is coming up in the state because of the progressive policy and best incentives. The state government is allotting land as per the policy and there is no deviation in it, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Wednesday called for state-wide protests on February 1, when the central government will present the budget in Parliament, terming it a 'black day', an observation he retracted within hours.

He, however asked the public to stage protests in varied forms from February 1 to 13, demanding that 'justice' be done to the state by fulfilling all promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.

Earlier in the day, he had told the TDP leaders via a teleconference that February 1 the day the Centre presents the Budget to Parliament would be a black day for the state and called for state-wide protests.

Addressing a meeting of various groups, including some political parties, later in the evening, the Chief Minister asked everyone to desist from calling February 1 a black day.

"We have been carefully protecting our (states) brand. We should not spoil it in the name of black day," he told the meeting, that was boycotted by the main opposition YSR Congress, BJP, Congress and Jana Sena.

Though protests could be carried out with black flags and black badges, it should not be called a black day, Chandrababu added.

In his teleconference with Telugu Desam Party leaders, Chandrababu said the Centre cheated AP in the last five budgets.

"February 1 is a black day for the state. The BJP-led government at the Centre has discriminated against the state at every step. Unless BJP is trounced at the hustings, justice will not be done to Andhra Pradesh," the Chief Minister said.

He asked party cadres to observe peaceful protests, sporting black badges and black flags when the Centre presents the Budget for 2019-20.

He referred to reports in the China Global Times newspaper, saying the 'failures' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government were being publicised even in China.

"The country has been pushed into chaos under Modi's rule. There is widespread antagonism towards Modi due to unemployment. People are opposing the BJP," he said.

"Maharashtra has been given Rs 4,717 crore while Andhra Pradesh got only Rs 900 crore for drought relief. Andhra suffered extensive damage running into thousands of crores of rupees due to cyclone Titli. Cyclone Phethai also caused severe destruction, but the Centre did not grant even a rupee," Naidu lamented.

At the meeting of various groups, the Chief Minister said an agitation programme would be conducted in New Delhi on February 11, while a delegation of various leaders would meet the President.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Multi-year Contract Expands Speedcast's Relationship with Fred. Olsen into New Market



Wins Contract for Fully-Managed Communications with Fred. Olsen Windcarrier

Stavanger, Jan 30, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Speedcast International Limited ( ASX:SDA ) ( OTCMKTS:SPPDF ), the world's most trusted provider of remote communication and IT solutions, announced today that the company has been awarded a new multi-year, fully-managed communications contract with Fred. Olsen Windcarrier, an entity of Bonheur ASA providing jack-up vessels used for offshore wind farm construction.Speedcast serves Fred. Olsen related companies on a global scale in both the Cruise and Energy segments, and the two companies have been partners for over three years. This new contract will provide a unique communications solution onboard Fred. Olsen Windcarrier's two offshore assets, Brave Tern and Bold Tern, combining VSAT and 4G/LTE to deliver data and voice services for corporate, operator and crew welfare networks. In addition, Speedcast will deploy an SD-WAN solution integrating multiple carriers seamlessly to deliver the best available connectivity and maximum network efficiency at all times."We look forward to serving as the trusted communications provider on Fred. Olsen Windcarrier's jack-up installation vessels for the wind energy market," says Keith Johnson, Speedcast's EVP of Energy. "Our partnership has been strong in the Cruise and Energy drilling segments for years. We have made significant investments in our robust, multi-access network technology and performance optimization solutions and both will be used onboard these jack-ups to provide reliable, secure connectivity for both Fred. Olsen Windcarrier and other onboard operators' personnel. As one of our most valued global customers, we are proud to continue adding services throughout Fred. Olsen related companies diverse set of assets and building our customer base in other subsegments such as wind energy.""The Fred. Olsen related companies relationship with Speedcast is a critical component of our daily operations in multiple business segments," says Svein Bjrnstad, CIO Fred Olsen & Co. "We have worked together on IT solutions and fully-managed communications onboard our drilling vessels and cruise ships for a number of years, and Speedcast's trusted global network will now give us the multi-carrier solution we need in the dynamic, growing market where Fred. Olsen Windcarrier operates."For more information about Speedcast's global capabilities in the Energy sector, please contact marketing@speedcast.com.About Fred. Olsen Windcarrier:Fred. Olsen Windcarrier provides innovative and tailored services for the transport, installation, and maintenance of offshore wind farms.Building on 170 years of offshore and marine experience, Fred. Olsen Windcarrier was established in 2008 to service the growing offshore wind sector. The company now operates three class leading purpose-built jack-up vessels; Bold Tern, Brave Tern and Blue Tern, and owns a fleet of seven modern service vessels for transporting crew and equipment to and from offshore wind farms which is operated by Northern Offshore Services. In addition, the company is a majority owner (75.5%) of Global Wind Service, providing a team of more than 900 highly experienced wind turbine technicians.The Fred. Olsen Windcarrier vessels have installed more than 400 wind turbines offshore and gained extensive experience installing the latest generation offshore wind turbines on some of the world's largest wind farms. The company provides complete project management services and carries a vast engineering expertise in-house and is capable to provide complete turnkey installation solutions for offshore wind turbines with in-house personnel.Fred. Olsen Windcarrier is wholly owned by Fred. Olsen Ocean Ltd. employing over 1400 people in offshore wind. Fred. Olsen Ocean is wholly owned by the Norwegian stock listed company Bonheur ASA.The company has offices in Oslo - Norway, Fredericia - Denmark, Lowestoft - United Kingdom, Hamburg - Germany and Pieta - Malta.Lifting Offshore WindAbout Speedcast International Ltd

Speedcast International Ltd (ASX:SDA) is the world's most trusted communications and IT services provider, delivering critical communications solutions to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, Government, and Enterprise sectors. With more satellite capacity than any other provider, Speedcast enables faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport network with direct access to public cloud platforms. The company also integrates differentiated technology offerings that provide smarter ways to communicate and distribute content, manage network and remote operations, protect and secure investments, and improve the crew and guest experience. With a passionate customer focus and a strong safety culture, Speedcast serves more than 3,200 customers in over 140 countries. Learn more at www.speedcast.com.
Union Minister K.J Alphons on Wednesday praised Sikkim for development and creating infrastructure for promotion of tourism sector in particular.

"Sikkim has made commendable growth in creating tourist spots and activities in all corners to broadbase destinations for the visitors," the Union Minister of State for Tourism said at a function after inaugurating Swadesh Darshan Project here.

Alphons said that Sikkim was also an ideal place for promotion of wellness tourism in view of natural ambience.

He emphasised on development of trekking trails so that the people can experience nature from as close as possible.

Alphons, who had taken a walk on MG Marg Walkways last evening on his visit to the state after 38 years, appreciated the efforts of the State Government for maintaining cleanliness and hygiene, communal harmony and efficient administration.

"Sikkim is the best state in the North-East region," he said, referring to development, security and stability.

He thanked the department for hosting him and reminded the people that the way to move ahead was through dignity in life and asked them to be respectful and subservient towards each other, especially towards the underprivileged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Investment Authority will invest $200 million in through a primary equity issuance in the company.

" Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of has agreed to invest $200 million through a primary equity issuance in the company. The proceeds will be used to further reduce Airtel Africa's existing net debt," Airtel said in a statement.

With this fresh investment, the overall debt of will reduce to $3.5 billion.

The investment from QIA is in addition to the recent $1.25 billion investment by six leading global investors, including Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singtel, and International, in

Representatives from the six investors have already joined the board.

The fresh transaction with QIA will not involve any sale of shares by the existing shareholders, the statement said.

"We are excited to welcome the as a long-term strategic equity partner. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with QIA," Airtel Africa said.

Airtel Africa Ltd is a pan-African telecommunications company with operations in 14 countries across Africa.

"As a long-term global investor, we are delighted to invest in one of the leading telecommunication in Africa. QIA will look forward to supporting Airtel's vision in building a world-class business in the African continent," QIA said.

In 2013, Airtel received investment from the Endowment, a entity managed by the Qatar's royal family, which exited from the Indian telecom firm in November 2017 after selling stake for $1.48 billion.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government has decided to call for applications from eligible candidates for the post of chairman and members of anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal, officials said Wednesday.

A process in this regard has been initiated and an advertisement calling the applications from the eligible candidates is likely to be issued soon, they said.

The matter related to the appointment of Lokpal was discussed during a meeting of eight-member search committee, headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, Tuesday.

"The (search) Committee decided to call for applications/nominations from eligible persons to be considered for position of chairperson and members of Lokpal through an advertisement at the earliest," a statement issued Wednesday by the Personnel Ministry said.

The committee will meet again within a fortnight to carry on further deliberations, it said.

Tuesday's meeting was held days after the Supreme Court had set a February-end deadline for the search committee to send a panel of names who could be considered for the appointment as chairman and members of Lokpal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee.

The apex court had on January 17 asked the search committee to complete its deliberations and recommend a panel of names of candidates, who could be considered for the chief and members of the Lokpal, by the end of February.

The Lokpal Act, which envisages establishment of the anti-graft body Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants, was passed in 2013.

The search committee, formed in September last year despite concerns raised by the Congress, has former chief of State Bank of India Arundhati Bhattacharya, Prasar Bharati chairperson A Surya Prakash and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) head A S Kiran Kumar as members.

Besides them, former Allahabad High Court judge Sakha Ram Singh Yadav; former Gujarat Police chief Shabbirhusein S Khandwawala; retired IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre Lalit K Panwar; and Ranjit Kumar are the other members of the panel.

The Lokpal selection committee headed by the prime minister has as its members the Lok Sabha speaker, leader of the opposition in the lower house, the chief justice of India or a judge of the apex court nominated by him, and an eminent jurist who could be nominated by the President or any other member.

Upon the recommendations of the selection committee, President Ram Nath Kovind had nominated Mukul Rohatgi, former Attorney General of India as 'eminent jurist' member of the panel against the vacancy arising following the death of senior advocate P P Rao.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union minister Ananth Kumar Hegde, whose comments have often triggered controversies, on Wednesday called Congress president Rahul Gandhi a "hybrid breed", saying how can son of a "Muslim" father and Christian mother be a Brahmin.

He also hit out at Gandhi for his repeated allegations targeting the Narendra Modi government over the Rafale deal.

Addressing an event in Uttara Kannada district, Hegde said: "...they have no sense about religion. See how much they lie, father is a Muslim, mother a Christian, son is Brahmin. How did it come?"



"You cannot get such hybrid breed in any laboratory in the world, it is available in our country's Congress laboratory only," he said, attacking Gandhi.

A priest at the Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, who presided over the puja offered by Gandhi during the poll campaign there, had said that the Congress president's gotra was 'Duttatreya' and he was a Kashmiri Brahmin.

Hegde's comments come days after he said at an event at Madikeri that a hand that touches a Hindu girl's body should not be there.

On Monday, Hegde referred to Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao as "a guy who ran behind a Muslim lady" after he criticised the BJP leader's remarks.

Gandhi had criticised Hegde's comments and said, "This man is an embarrassment to every Indian. He's unfit to be a Union minister and deserves to be sacked."



Attacking the Congress chief over Rafale Wednesday, Hegde said there was a "limit to lying".

"Rahul Gandhi these day is uttering Rafale, Rafale... he doesn't know how many letters are there, he doesn't know the spelling. He thinks Rafale is a three wheeled cycle....," he alleged.

The Union minister also levelled corruption charges against Karnataka Revenue Minister and district in-charge of Uttara Kannada R V Deshpande, calling him "percentage Pande".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu government teachers and employees Wednesday called off their nine-day old indefinite strike and urged Chief Minister K Palaniswami to address their demands which includes reversion to the old pension sheme.

A day after the Chief Minister appealed them to resume work in public interest, the Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers' Organisation Government Employees Organisations coordinator Vincent Paulraj announced that the strike had been called off "temporarily."



"The Chief Minsiter should invite us for talks and look at the fairness of our demands and address them," he told reporters here.

He said the decision was taken toeing the Madras High Court's guidance, in the interests of students, considering the sentiments of parents and the Chief Minister's appeal.

Justice N Kirubakaran of the Madras High Court had on Monday appealed to government school teachers to suspend their strike and a division bench was also seized of a matter related to their demands and strike.

The JACTTO-GEO official appealed to the government to give up action against its members for participating in the strike and sought withdrawal of cases filed by the police.

A lot of employees were arrested across the state in connection with the stir and many of them got bail.

Scrapping of the contributory pension scheme and reverting to the old pension plan, payment of arrears and addressing anomalies in pay are among their key demands.

Even hours before the stir was called off, protest demonstrations were staged by government employees in multiple locations including at Chepauk and Teynampet here.

DMK president M K Stalin condemned the government for not holding talks with the employees and assured that as and when his party assumed power all their just demands will be fulfilled.

In his appeal, Palaniswami had cited factors like drought, drinking water scarcity and the adverse effects of cyclone Gaja that struck Tamil Nadu in November and asked the government employees to do their duty to the people rather than being "self-centric".

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On the potential peace agreement with the Taliban, CIA Director Gina Haspel said "a very robust monitoring regime would be essential in Afghanistan and the US needed to retain the capability to act in "national interests".

It's very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups that are there and so if there were an eventual peace agreement a very robust monitoring regime would be critical and we would still need to retain the capability to act in our national interests if we needed to, Haspel said in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

She was responding to a question from Senator Angus King, who asked whether the US could trust an agreement with the Taliban.

US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was quoted Monday as saying the US and the Taliban have drafted the framework of a deal which could pave the way for peace talks with Kabul.

Mr Khalilzad, our envoy to Afghanistan, has said that part of the basis of the current talks with the Taliban is that they would prevent Afghanistan from ever becoming a platform for international terrorist groups and of course that was the basis of our original intervention, King said.

"Do we believe them? Are they capable of that? Did they learn something from having given safe haven to Osama bin Laden? Do we believe that there is a mindset change that that could be an enforceable or at least a reasonable expectation? King asked.

Haspel said the peace talk is a result of Khalilzad's very intensive efforts over many months now but particularly over the last eight days in Doha where he has been engaged in talks with the Taliban to achieve a framework.

Haspel and other leaders of the American intelligence community appeared before the committee to testify on World Wide Assessment of Threats in 2019.

Earlier, Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence said that his assessment is that neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year, even if coalitions support remains at current levels.

However, current efforts to achieve an agreement with the Taliban and decisions on a possible withdrawal of US troops could play a key role in shaping the direction of the country in the coming years, he said.

Militant groups supported by Pakistan will continue to take advantage of their safe haven in Pakistan to plan and conduct attacks in neighbouring countries and possibly beyond, and we remain concerned about Pakistan's continued development and control of nuclear weapons, Coats said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 90 members of hardline religious parities have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan's Punjab province for holding demonstrations against the Supreme Court's decision to reject a review plea against the acquittal of Christian woman Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case.

Punjab Police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar said that most arrests have been made from Lahore, Gujranwala and Ralwapindi.

"Police have arrested more than 90 activists of different religious parties mostly Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Tuesday and Wednesday for creating law and order situation," Ghazanfar told PTI on Wednesday.

She said three protests were held in Lahore, one each in Gujranwala and Rawalpindi but timely action' by police thwarted them and arrested the participants.

Bibi, 47, is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday, when the apex court threw out a petition seeking to review its verdict of acquitting the victim of a blasphemy charge.

"On merit, this review petition is dismissed," pronounced Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa after hearing out for almost 90 minutes advocate Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa who represented the petitioner Qari Muhammad Salam, the prayer leader who had lodged the original FIR against Aasia Bibi in 2009.

On October 31, the SC reversed the judgements of the Lahore High Court as well as the trial court, thus setting aside the conviction and the death sentence awarded to Bibi.

The apex court's decision in October last to overturn her conviction sparked nationwide violent protests and death threats from hardline Islamist groups. The protests subsided when the government allowed the protesters to file a review petition against Bibi's acquittal.

Later, a nationwide crackdown had been carried out against the TLP and all of its central leadership including its chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi had been put behind bars.

Meanwhile, Bibi may leave the country shortly as there are threats to her life. Her two daughter had already shifted to Canada.

Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws.

Bibi's case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws.

A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad.

The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Christian woman Aasia Bibi, who was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court in a blasphemy case, has the right to travel anywhere inside the country or abroad, the Foreign Office said on Wednesday.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel threw out a petition seeking to review the apex court's decision to acquit 47-year-old Bibi on Tuesday.

Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said that Bibi can travel inside Pakistan or make a foreign visit as she has been cleared from all charges from the highest court of the law, Geo TV reported.

Bibi is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday.

"Based on merit, this review petition is dismissed," Chief Justice Khosa told a hearing at the apex court, which overturned Asia Bibi's death sentence for blasphemy last year.

Bibi may leave Pakistan shortly as there are threats to her life. Her two daughter had already shifted to Canada. She has been in protective custody and the government has refused to disclose her whereabouts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eight environmentalists accused of "spying" on Iranian military bases appeared in court Wednesday for a closed-door trial, the official agency IRNA reported.

"The environmentalists were summoned to the court," Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi, a representative of the accused, told IRNA. Aghasi, however, was not present in court as the state designated its own hand-picked lawyers to represent the defendants, IRNA reported.

"I, as the lawyer of Sam Rajabi, one of those accused in the case, was not invited to the trial," Aghasi was quoted as saying. Aghasi told AFP that he was "puzzled" by the court's decision since "the court should never oppose the lawyer chosen by the accused." Defendants he represents were told that they should change their lawyer, he said.

Four of the environmentalists were accused in October of "corruption on earth" -- a charge that can carry the death sentence in Iran. Another three defendants are accused of espionage and the last has been charged with "conspiracy against national security", according to IRNA.

The semi-official agency ISNA said the next session will be held on Saturday. Several environmentalists were arrested in Iran early last year on espionage charges Apart from the eight on trial, others arrested in the capital have been freed, Aghasi said, but "there are others charged with criminal activities out of Tehran".

One of the activists arrested last year, Kavous Seyed Emami, a 63-year-old renowned university professor with dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, allegedly committed suicide in prison last February, a fortnight after his arrest.

In September, the head of Iran's environment department, Isa Kalantari, called for clarification on the fate of the environmental activists. "We are not asking for their release or for their execution, we just want their fate to be clarified. This is part of their citizenship rights," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 32 Nepalese human rights activists, including nine women, were arrested on Wednesday in Kathmandu for staging anti-government protests.

The protest was organised by the Human Rights and Peace Society, Nepal demanding resignation of Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Rabindra Adhikari for his alleged involvement in wide body aircraft purchase corruption and fulfillment of demands of agitating senior surgeon Dr. Govinda KC.

According to a Parliamentary committee report, Rs. 4.5 billion loss was incurred while purchasing two air buses for state-owned Nepal Airlines and Tourism Minister Adhikari had allegedly made false statement on the issue in his explanation to the Parliamentary committee.

Dr. KC has been staging fast unto death for the past 20 days demanding sweeping reforms in the medical sector but the government last week passed a medical bill through majority vote in the Parliament without addressing his demands.

Those arrested include senior human rights activist Krishna Pahadi, president of the society Uttam Pudasaini, and central member Gita Timilsina.

They were carrying placards with the slogans 'Address demands of agitating doctor KC', 'Take action against those involved in aircraft purchase deal', 'Sack Tourism Minister Adhikari.'



On Tuesday, police detained 50 members of Nepali Congress for staging a protest in front of the Prime Minister's official residence to express solidarity with Dr KC.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jan 30, 2019 | By Thomas

American motor giant Ford is putting 3D printing technology to a variety of uses, resulting in vehiclesreal and replicaof the highest quality. The legendary car company uses 3D printing as a fast and cost-effective way to create prototype parts and experiment with a whole range of different designs in a short space of time. Now the company is claiming a record for the largest 3D-printed metal part for a working vehicle in automotive history. That vehicle is Ken Block's "Hoonitruck" Ford pickup.

The Hoonitruck is the star of Ken Block's latest Gymkhana 10 video. It is based on a 1977 Ford F-150 and has the same twin-turbo 3.5-litre V6 EcoBoost engine as the Ford GT, tuned to deliver more than 900 horsepower.

Yet this project would not have even been possible without some groundbreaking engineering by Ford Performance and researchers in Germany. Ford Performance engineers in the U.S. ran engine performance simulations and collaborated with a team of Ford research engineers based in Europe to design the part and conduct structural analysis. Working together with RWTH Aachen's Digital Additive Production DAP Institute (in cooperation with University of Applied Sciences Aachen - BMBF funding of strategic investments at universities of applied sciences), in Germany, the team built an intricate aluminium intake manifold that supplies air from the turbochargers to the engine's cylinders.

"We are fortunate to have access to incredible technology, but this was one project that pushed us  and our computing power  to the absolute limit," says Raphael Koch, engineer, Advanced Materials and Processes, Ford of Europe. "The manifold has a complex weblike structure that couldn't be made using traditional manufacturing methods. We ended up dissolving the support systems in acid."

3D printing offers design flexibility to help reduce weight and improve performance. Weighing almost 6 kilos (13 pounds), the manifold for the Hoonitruck took five days to print. Creating the complex shapes in one smooth piece would have been impossible without 3D printing, according to Mr. Block.

I think Ford did an exceptional job. This is my favourite part of the Hoonitruck. You could not have made it any other way, said Block.

Ford has previously won awards from the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers for 3D printed parts that went into Ford Ranger and Mustang vehicles.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Three alleged drug smugglers have been arrested in separate cases in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, police said Wednesday.

A police party saw two persons carrying two bags near the Ram Gali area in Reasi district, officials said, adding the two tried to escape after seeing the police.

After a brief chase, the personnel caught the them and recovered 4 kg of poppy, 2 kg of suspected heroin, 12 intradermal syringes, nine disposable syringes, 12 needles, two spoons, two lighters, one spatula, one roll of silver foil and portable weighing machine from them, they said.

They were arrested and a case was registered. The arrested have been identified as Shiv Nandan and Vikram Gupta.

In another case, the police arrested alleged narcotic smuggler Shubam Singh in Katra area and recovered 6 gram of heroin from his possession, officials said. Singh was going to deliver the heroin to some persons, they said. A case has been registered and further investigation in on.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A former boxer and a Nigerian national have been arrested for allegedly withdrawing money by fraudulent means, police said Wednesday.

The accused were identified as Arjun Rana, a resident of Madangir in Delhi and Emma Dozie Osiaku (40), the police said.

On Tuesday, the branch manager of a bank filed a complaint that one person came to the bank for withdrawal of Rs 9.50 lakh from the account of Arjun Rana Enterprises. Earlier, they have received a request from another bank for debit freeze, a senior police officer said.

Later, Rana has been apprehended while using forged identity at the time encashing the cheque, he said.

During investigation, police found that a group of hackers had transferred Rs 10 lakh fraudulently from a bank account in Ahmedabad and a case had already been registered there on January 7, police said..

Later, it was revealed that Osiaku used to look for people who were in dire need of money, police added.

Rana was a boxer and due to downfall in his career, he was lured by Osiaku, police said, adding 13 debit cards and five mobile phones had been recovered from their possession.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An 11-hour shutdown was observed in Western Garo Hills region of Meghalaya on Wednesday in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

The 11-hour shutdown, sponsored by several NGOs under the banner of the All Garo Hills Joint Action Committee (AGHJAC) in protest against bill passed off peacefully with no reports of any violence barring a few incidents of tyres burnt to block roads in the five districts, police said.

West Garo Hills district deputy commissioner Ram Singh said, "There have been no incidents of violence reported and office attendance stood at about 75 per cent (for WGH)."



Similar reports have also been reported from other parts of the Garo Hills region though the attendance in other districts in government offices was far lower.

In Shillong, a rally was held where leaders of the North East Students Organisations and several NGOs attended to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill which seeks to provide citizenship in India to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Another rally will be held Thursday where several pressure groups will also take part.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to visit India next month for a second meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a little over a year after his last visit to New Delhi, it is reliably learnt.

Though sources here were tight-lipped, they indicated that work was underway for the visit.

Netanyahu may arrive on February 11 but there was no official confirmation.

Netanyahu visited New Delhi on January 15 last year during the course of which India and Israel signed nine agreements, including in the areas of cyber security and oil and gas.

Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat recently visited India and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

During Ben-Shabbat's visit, Netanyahu spoke to Modi over the phone and planned the upcoming visit.

Meanwhile, Modi will also visit South Korea for a day on February 21-22 to receive the Seoul Peace Prize.

In October last year, it was announced that Modi would be conferred the Seoul Peace Prize, a biennial award instituted to crystallise the wishes of the Korean people for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Modi has been awarded "in recognition of his dedication to improving international cooperation, raising global economic growth, accelerating the human development of the people of India by fostering economic growth in the world's fastest growing large economy and furthering the development of democracy through anti-corruption and social integration efforts".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vivek Doval, son of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, on Wednesday recorded his statement saying that Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, The Caravan magazine and an author, through a defamatory article have raised questions over the integrity of his family, especially his father.

Vivek Doval told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that the accused persons have caused irreparable damage to his reputation and career through the defamatory article.

The article referred to his family as the D Companies, whereas the D company is a term coined for Dawood Ibrahim, India's most wanted criminal, he told the court while testifying as a complainant witness in the case.

He told the court that his father was a target of the malicious campaign led by the accused persons.

Vivek Doval also said that the accused persons with malafide intention made a defamatory statement on the basis of false accusation.

After recording his statement, the court listed the matter for February 11 for recording the statements of other complainant witnesses.

Vivek Doval, in his plea, has alleged that the article intended to harm his reputation and business and these were punishable under the Indian Penal Code.

The magazine had in its January 16 online journal titled, "The D Companies" had said that Vivek, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government demonetised all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".

Earlier Vivek Doval's counsel D.P. Singh told the court that a hedge fund cannot be set up overnight, or in a matter of days and the title of the article 'The D-Companies' itself is scandalous and it is creating prejudice in the minds of the readers against the complainant and his family.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
While Vitamin D helps in promoting bone health, a new study suggests that it may also promote greater insulin sensitivity, thus lowering glucose levels and the risk of developing Type-2 diabetes.

The study, conducted only on women, showed that vitamin D supplementation was found to be negatively associated with high glucose levels.

In addition, habitual exposure to the sun also provided the same association, demonstrating that vitamin D deficiencies are associated with high blood glucose levels, said the study, published in Menopause: The journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

"Although a causal relationship has not been proven, low levels of vitamin D may play a significant role in Type-2 diabetes mellitus. Vitamin D supplementation may help improve blood sugar control, but intervention studies are still needed," said JoAnn Pinkerton, Executive Director at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

Furthermore, a previous study has also found that vitamin D supplements can reduce the risk of potentially fatal lung attacks in some patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

For the study, the team from NAMS involved 680 women aged 35 to 74 years among which 24 (3.5 per cent) reported using vitamin D supplements.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that Vedanta's Sterlite copper smelting plant in Thoothukudi can't be allowed to operate as it was involved in a series of violations resulting in an alarming level of groundwater pollution.

"This is certainly not an industry that can be allowed to operate," senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan told a bench of Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Navin Sinha, counting the number of violations of water and air law resulting in acute environmental degradation.

Flagging the breach of several statutory provisions in the operations of the copper smelting plant, he pointed to a book recording violations of laws by the Vedanta throughout the world wherever its industries were located.

Vaidyanathan appeared for the TNPCB, whose May 28, 2018 order shutting down the plant was set aside by the NGT on December 15. The court is hearing the TNPCB's challenge to the NGT order.

Endorsing the position taken by the TNPCB, the Tamil Nadu government defended the decision to permanently close the Thoothukudi Copper Smelting Plant.

Defending the May 2018 order putting the plant under lock, senior counsel K.V. Vishwanathan said that the decision was based on sound reasons.

"The order to shut down the copper smelting plant was perfectly justified and was in line with the law of the land laid down by the Supreme Court," Vishwanathan, appearing for the Tamil Nadu government, told the court.

In fact, under the doctrine of public trust, as laid down by the top court in several cases, Vishwanathan said the government had a duty to step in whereever there was environmental degradation due to pollution.

He contended that the green tribunal did not consider the matter in proper perspective.

There are several errors in the NGT order asking the TNPCB to give an order of consent for the reopening of the plant.

The NGT had on December 15 directed the TNPCB to pass a fresh order allowing renewal of consent for the plant within three weeks.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivednra Singh Rawat has ordered a probe by the Special Investigative Team (SIT) into the alleged scams of some developmental works related to two key industrial estates in Kumaon region.

All these works were carried out during the previous Congress government, a senior government official said.

An audit report by the government in 2017 had found many irregularities in the works, the contracts for which were mostly given to a public sector enterprise (PSU) of the Uttar Pradesh government.

"We have been asked to set up a SIT to probe the alleged scams of the two industrial estates," said Ashok Kumar, the Director General of Police (DGP).

After the Congress government was formed in 2012, the Sitarganj and Kashipur industrial estates were set up.

The State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corp of Uttarakhand Ltd (SIDCUL), a state government enterprise which is credited for developing the mega Pantnagar and Haridwar industrial estates, had invested Rs 400-500 crore in Sitarganj and Kashipur industrial estates to develop the state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities.

The Sitarganj industrial estate had been officially christened as SIDCUL-Phase-II, which is spread over an area of 1,700 acres.

Under the mega industrial policy, the government had offered various sops including 50 percent rebate on the stamp fees, 1 percent relief in central sales tax (CST) and a host of other incentives.

Some industries have already set up units at Sitarganj.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Stepping his barbs at Congress leaders, firebrand Union Minister from Karnataka Anantkumar Hegde on Wednesday mocked its President Rahul Gandhi as a hybrid breed, born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother.

"Rahul Gandhi's father is a Muslim and mother a Christian and son is a Brahmin. How does it happen? You will not find such a hybrid breed anywhere," said Hegde in Kannada at an event at Karwar in Uttara Kannada in the state's northwest region.

Hegde, 50, is Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and a BJP Lok Sabha member from the Uttara Kannada constituency, about 530 km from Bengaluru.

Hegde's reference to Rahul's father Rajiv Gandhi as a "Muslim" is because the latter's father was Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi from Gujarat. Rajiv's mother was Indira Gandhi.

Accusing Congress leaders of having no sense of religion, Hegde told the gathering that they continued to lie.

"Rahul knows nothing about India and there is no question of he knowing anything about religion (dharma). Look, how they lie. You cannot get such a hybrid breed in world's any laboratory but in our country's Congress laboratory," said Hegde.

Hegde's remarks that Rahul is a "Brahman" is in the backdrop of a priest at Pushkar lake in Rajasthan ahead of its state assembly elections declaring that the latter's gotra was 'Duttatreya' and he was a Kashmiri Brahmin.

Hegde has been making controversial remarks since he became minister in September 2017, with the latest being on Sunday when he said at Madikeri in the state's southwest region that "a hand that touches a Hindu girl's body should not be there".

He was also locked in a Twitter war on Monday with Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao over their respective achievements.

Responding to Hegde's tweet that he knew Rao as "a guy who ran behind a Muslim lady", the latter retorted that it was sad to see the Central minister stoop to such "low levels as to bring in personal issues".

Rao, a Congress lawmaker from Gandhinagar assembly segment in Bengaluru central, is married to Tabu, a Muslim.

Demanding sacking of Hegde from the cabinet post, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that "this man is an embarrassment to every Indian. He is unfit to be a Union Minister deserves to be sacked".

--IANS

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Tunis, Jan 30 (IANS/AKI) In its first evacuations to Niger this year, the UN refugee agency has flown 130 people to Niamey from Libya, where they were held for months in detention centres in "very dire" conditions, the UN said on Tuesday.

"Those evacuated today exemplify once again the urgency of ending detention of refugees and migrants in Libya," said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean.

"Until that happens, evacuations will remain quite literally a life-line," Cochetel said.

People evacuated to Niger are hosted at UNHCR's Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niamey until they can be resettled, UNHCR said, appealing to countries to speed up their procedures to make available more place.

UNHCR said it has evacuated 3,016 people from turmoil-wracked Libya since December 2017 and has received a total 39,698 crucial places for vulnerable refugees in the 15 countries along the Central Mediterranean route in response to its call for 40,000 resettlement places.

Besides the evacuations to Niger, a total 93 refugees from Syria, Sudan and Eritrea have been flown from Tripoli to Timisoara, in western Romania, this year, with logistical help from the International Organisation for Migration, according to the UN.

--IANS/AKI

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A county in China's Qinghai province, which is adjacent to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, has banned Tibetan children from attending informal classes at local monasteries, Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday.

The ban, officially published last month, "violates a long list of basic rights, from education to cultural life", said HRW China Director, Sophie Richardson.

"Preventing Tibetan children from contact with monks and monasteries will only fuel Tibetan fears that China aims increasingly to restrict Tibetan culture and religion," she was quoted as saying by Efe news.

According to the report, the informal classes taught by monks have become popular in the areas inhabited by Tibetans during school holidays, especially to teach their language, which is used less and less in many public schools.

Nangchen County authorities banned these classes in December 2018, considering them illegal and describing them as "ideological infiltration among the young", "dangerous"' and "harmful".

The county authorities also called on local officials managing monasteries to "understand the harmful nature of monasteries running open schools" and prevent them from doing so and expelling monks organizing such sessions.

According to HRW, such bans were not applied outside Tibet and it believed that the regime suspected monks were using these classes to instill Tibetan religious or nationalist ideas among children.

"Treating voluntary study classes during the holidays and family visits to temples as 'dangerous' reflects Beijing's hostility towards Tibetans' rights. That's the real threat to Tibetans and China's other religious minorities," said the HRW China Director.

HRW said that China had ratified international conventions guaranteeing freedom of belief and included this right in its own Constitution. The country had also promised not to deny ethnic, linguistic or religious minority children the right to use their own language and practice their

"But in practice, authorities limit worship to what they define as 'normal' religious activities, which it says are legal only if carried out by certain state-sanctioned congregations and institutions," the non-governmental organization said in a statement.

"In regions with populations that overwhelmingly practice a particular faith, such as Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang or Buddhists in Tibet, restrictions are far more intrusive," it added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Thousands of people gathered in Meghalaya capital on Wednesday to participate in a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 even as various civil society groups threatened a "severe agitation" if the Bill is passed in the Rajya Sabha.

Urban Affairs Minister Hamletson Dohling and Meghalaya State Planning Board Chairman, Lambor Malangiang were also present at the protest rally at Motphran, which was supported by more than a dozen civil society groups.

"Northeastern states will burn if this Bill becomes a law," Dohling told the gathering as he appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh not to table the controversial Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

The Lok Sabha has already passed the Bill that seeks to remove hurdles in eligible migrants from six minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afganistan from getting Indian citizenship despite opposition by political parties including the Congress and Trinamool Congress.

"This Bill is an open invitation to these religious minority groups. This Bill is which will benefit only one political party. The Meghalaya government strongly opposes the Bill. This government (led by Conrad Sangma) is with the people of the state," Dohling said.

Urging the indigenous people of Meghalaya to stand united against the Bill, the North East Students' Organisation (NESO), the apex students' body of all the indigenous communities in the north-eastern region, said the Bill will jeopardize the identity of the local communities.

"The Bill will be detrimental to the people northeastern states, especially Meghalaya, as Assam shares a large portion of the border with Bangladesh. The intention of the Central government is to reduce the indigenous people of the North-East to a minority in their own land," said NESO supremo Samuel Jyrwa.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A war of words broke out between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday after Tharoor commented on a holy dip taken by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his ministerial colleagues at Kumbh in Prayagraj.

Tharoor took to Twitter to swipe at the UP BJP leaders and captioned an image of them bathing at the Sangam by saying : Ganga has to remain clean and sins are also to be washed. All here are naked. Jai Ganga Maiyya!

While many thought this was satirical, the state BJP reacted sharply to this on Wednesday with state government spokesman Siddhartha Nath Singh urging the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala to "also take a dip in the Ganga to atone for his sins".

"You are requested to take a dip as you all have done a lot of sins, maybe you can atone for them", the state's Health Minister said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three days after a 14-year-old boy was kidnapped in Bihar's Gopalganj district, the abductors have demanded a ransom of Rs 1 crore for his release, police said on Wednesday.

Kunal Kumar alias Bholu Kumar, a Class 8 student, was seized on January 27. His family lodged a missing case the next day. After the kidnappers demanded a ransom of Rs 1 crore, the family sought help to rescue him.

Gopalganj police officer Vinay Tiwary said the crime took place in Banaura village. Police said they have detained a suspect and several places have been raided.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
When it comes to hiring, soft skills, work flexibility, anti-harassment policies and pay transparency have emerged as the four trends that will gain momentum in India this year, Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn said on Wednesday.

The research revealed that soft skills have been assigned greater importance in developing markets like India that would play a crucial role in transforming the future of HR and the recruitment industry in developing countries, noted LinkedIn's "Global Talent Trends 2019" report.

With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation technologies, 87 per cent respondents in India believed that candidates with strong soft skills are becoming increasingly important to their organisations, while 53 per cent say their companies have a formal process for assessing soft skills to employees.

"Salary has always been a confidential topic in the workplace and now with salary information on sites like PayScale and LinkedIn, companies are facing more pressure to own the conversation on pay," the report said.

Around 71 per cent people in India agreed that sharing salary ranges is fostering greater job satisfaction for employees and 78 per cent people fear that this could create salary disputes among current employees.

The report also stressed that compared to the 71 per cent participants globally who believed that harassment prevention is a very important trend for the future of the hiring and HR industry, 87 per cent Indians agreed with the notion.

"In India, 50 per cent of hiring professionals say that companies talk about their harassment policies as part of their pitch to potential hires, nearly double the global average of 29 per cent," the report claimed.

For developed markets like the European and American counterparts, the report revealed work-flexibility as an important factor in considering a new job.

Even in India, 67 per cent employees gave a thumbs up on joining companies that gave them an option to work irrespective of their locations.

"With technology easing the way we work, 74 per cent respondents in India believe that the main benefit from allowing employees to work remotely, is enabling them to achieve better work-life satisfaction," the report said.

The report had over 5,000 professionals across 35 countries, including more than 400 participants from India.

The Microsoft-owned platform recently announced that it has touched the 50 million user-mark in India with 562 million global members.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Snowfalls and icy conditions have swept across the UK, with warnings in place for large parts of the country. The Met has said it expects rain and snow to last till Friday.

It said there was a "slight chance" that some rural communities could be cut off and a "small chance" that power cuts may occur and mobile phone coverage could be affected, the BBC reported.

It has issued four yellow warnings for snow and ice and has predicted up to 10cm of snowfall on higher ground. No services will run on Merseyrail until around 11 a.m. on Wednesday due to ice on the tracks.

A number of roads and schools were closed in Scotland, northern England and Wales on Tuesday, where heavy snow was exopected throgh Wednesday and Thursday. Forecasters expect the conditions to last until Friday.

The Liverpool Airport is also expecting delays due to snowfall. Customers travelling to the airport have been advised to check with their airline before setting off and to "allow plenty of travel time".

Police have been urging motorists to take extra care and plan ahead, the BBC said.

Police in Scotland told drivers to make sure they have sufficient fuel and supplies such as warm clothing, food and water "in the event you are delayed for several hours".

The force has also warned motorists to properly clear their vehicles of snow and ice. In Wales, cars have become trapped in snow.

--IANS

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A serial rapist from east Delhi who was allegedly involved in four cases of sexual assault on minor girls, has been arrested, Delhi Police said on Wednesday.

The accused, Manish Chaddha, 30, a resident of Shakarpur was arrested on Tuesday night. He was trying to sexually assault a minor girl, 6, on a terrace in Madhu Vihar area, but the victim resisted his attempts and raised an alarm.

"Some local residents tried to catch Manish Chaddha, but he managed to escape on a two-wheeler. The locals noted the registration number of the vehicle following which he was arrested from Madhu Vihar area," said a senior police officer.

"We have arrested Manish Chaddha from Madhu Vihar area," Additional PRO, Anil Mittal told IANS.

"During interrogation, Chaddha admitted that he was also involved in four cases of sexual assault on minor girls. The investigation is under way", he said.

"Chaddha told interrogators that he lured victims by offering chocolates, biscuits and candies and took them to isolated places on his vehicle, where he sexually assaulted them", said Mittal.

"The accused was previously involved in similar cases in east Delhi's Kalyanpuri, Ghazipur, Pandev Nagar and other areas. We are investigating these cases", he said.

--IANS

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A meeting of Hindu seers and religious leaders -- Param Dharma Sansad -- on Wednesday announced they would march to Ayodhya on Basant Panchami day and lay the foundation stone for a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya on February 21. Office-bearers of the organisation said the ceremony would be replete with all rituals.

The decision was taken on the last day of Param Dharma Sansad at Kumbh. Shankracharya Swami Swaroopanand said that for the Ram temple even if they have to go to jail or face bullets, they will willingly do it. "We will face everything but ensure that Ram temple is built at that very place," the seer said.

He warned that if any of "the three wings of power - executive, legislature and judiciary" tries to prevent them from doing so, the consequences will be grave.

"We will perform all the rituals," he said. Saying that the 'Param Dharma Sansad' had given adequate time to the government, after their meeting in Varanasi, for Ram temple construction "but there seemed an endless wait", which was not acceptable to the Hindu community.

Swamy Avimukteshwaranad who conducted the proceedings of the 'Sansad' said that the move by the government to request the Supreme Court to hand over the land acquired outside the 2.22 acre stretch of the disputed land, was unacceptable.

Acharya Mahamandaleshwar Swamy Prnavanand of the Nirmohi Akhada said that Shri Ram Janmabhoomi belonged to the Hindus and nobody could take it away from them. Many other seers like Swamy Anand Giri of the Juna Akhada said instructions of Shankracharya would be complied with.

--IANS

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The Supreme Court has dismissed the Special Leave Petitions (SLP) of NSEL Investor Action Group (NIAG) and the Maharashtra government, declining to interfere with the Bombay High Court order of releasing assets of 63 Moons (formerly known as FTIL) attached under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act.

The attachments of 63 Moons' assets were done through the notifications issued by the Maharashtra government in April 2018 under the MPID act.

Terming the state government's action prima facie "excessive, arbitrary and unreasonable", the Bombay High Court on October 24 last year passed an interim order staying the attachment of the company's assets under the MPID Act, which included bank accounts and properties.

The interim order stayed the attachment of ODIN software, its receivables and also stayed a corrigendum issued whereby accrued returns on investments will become available to 63 Moons.

As a result, the Company was allowed to receive periodically accrued benefits on its investments.

The Bombay High Court had observed that various government agencies, including the EOW-Mumbai and Enforcement Directorate, had attached properties worth over Rs 8,500 crore owned by the defaulters, promoters and former employees of NSEL till November 2017 as against a defaulted amount of Rs 5,600 crore.

This order was challenged by the State of Maharashtra and the NIAG in the Supreme Court and the matter was heard on Monday. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi represented 63 Moons technologies while NIAG was represented by senior advocate Shyam Diwan.

After hearing the arguments of both sides, the Supreme Court held that it was not inclined to interfere with the order of the Bombay High Court.

The Supreme Court stated that since this was a matter of importance, it was requesting the Bombay High Court to conclude the final hearing in February itself.

--IANS

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Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is planning to visit India next month in the wake of criticism by the international community over his handling of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the country's mission in Turkey last year, media reported on Wednesday.

Citing sources, the Nikkei Asian Review business journal reported from Riyadh that apart from India, Prince Salman is also likely to visit China and South Korea in February.

"The Crown Prince has drawn criticism from the international community, especially from the US and Europe, over his handling of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi," the report said.

"He apparently hopes to counter criticism from the US and Europe by deepening energy cooperation with Asia," it stated.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is a major energy security partner of India.

With the US imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia's rival Iran over the latter's nuclear programme, there have been concerns in New Delhi over India's energy security.

Washington's sanctions call for countries to stop importing oil from Iran.

However, the Trump administration has given a temporary relief to India on this matter.

Prince Salman is likely to further strengthen India-Saudi Arabia energy cooperation during the course of the proposed visit.

--IANS

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Bilal Gani Lone, brother of former minister and leader of his faction of the Peoples Conference (PC), on Wednesday changed the name of his party to end name-confusion with the PC.

Bilal's elder brother, Sajad Lone was also a separatist leader before he joined the mainstream to fight elections in 2014.

Sajad Lone has been working to cobble up a third front which could pose challenge to the Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP.

Ever since his brother joined mainstream politics, Bilal Lone has been criticized for holding on to the name PC while existing in the separatist camp.

Senior separatist leader, Miwaiz Umer Farooq made this announcement during a media conference here.

Bilal Lone is part of the moderate separatist group led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and has renamed his party as J&K Peoples Independent Movement.

Father of Sajad and Bilal, Abdul Gani Lone was killed by gunmen in Srinagar during a separatist rally on May 21, 2002.

"I have been very close to my father and just to avoid confusion in taking forward my father's legacy, changing the name of my party was inevitable.

"After taking my workers into confidence, I changed the name of my party", Bilal said.

--IANS

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Russians continued to top the list of foreign tourists to Goa in 2018, with British tourists ranking second, according to statistics tabled during the ongoing budget session of the Goa Assembly on Wednesday.

A total of 3.11 lakh Russians arrived in Goa from January to October 2018, Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar said in a written reply. Another 1.48 lakh tourists from the UK also landed in Goa during the same period.

Ukraine ranked third with 10,466 tourists. Overall, 6.04 lakh foreign tourists visited Goa from January to October 2018, Ajgaonkar said.

--IANS

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To celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between India and Bhutan, an exhibition of rare thangka paintings, sculptures and photographs associated with Guru Padmasambhava, an iconic Buddhist figure, opened here on Tuesday.

The exhibition that celebrates his life and legacy, brings to visitors traditional art created in the Himalayan regions, focussing on the sage, who was born to the royal family of Uddiyana in Swat (in present-day Pakistan) in the 8th century.

Many exhibits of visual depictions of the leader's 'eight manifestations', which come from various artists in India, Bhutan and Nepal, are a testimony of the iconography that he still inspires.

Photographs of monasteries related to him -- Lo Gekar (Nepal), Taktsang (Bhutan), and Hemis (Ladakh) -- also feature in the show, including an image of his footprint on a rock in Sikkim's Chungthang.

The carefully-curated show displays rare thangkas, paintings, sculptures and photographs contributed by the ruler of Bhutan, Tsurphu Labrang, Office of H.H. Gyalwang Karmapa (Dharamshala), Palpung Sherabling Monastic seat of H.E. 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, Delhi's Tibet House, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Dharamshala), Deb Mukharji and Tashi Lhendup.

Credited with having spread Buddha's message to the Himalayan belt -- Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet -- the Buddhist leader left his imprint in these regions as monuments, relics and folklore associated with his spiritual and religious activities.

"India and Bhutan have had a relationship at least from the 8th century, when Guru Padmasambhava travelled to Bhutan. This 50-year bubble of diplomatic relations must be seen in the larger context of these 12 centuries which bind us together," Arun Kapur, the director of one of the organisers of Centre for Escalation of Peace, told IANS.

The exhibition of rare artefacts is accompanying a two-day conference on the sage's life and legacy, often called 'Second Buddha', and brought together distinguished scholars from India, Nepal and Bhutan, who traced the contemporary relevance of his teachings and a rich, diverse tradition associated with the 8th century Rinpoche.

Calling him a 'timeless guru', President of Centre for Bhutan Studies Dasho Karma Ura highlighted the inclusive and cosmopolitan approach the revered figure had towards his disciples, who came from all racial backgrounds and ethnicities.

Conference sessions range from local contexts associated with Guru Padmasambhava, texts and commentaries, ritual practices, mandalas and iconography central to Vajrayana Buddhism.

The conference concludes Wednesday, and the exhibition on February 3.

--IANS

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A police officer and three journalists were arrested here on Tuesday midnight for extorting money from a call centre owner. Cash totalling Rs 8 lakh was recovered from the police officer's office, police claimed on Wednesday.

The police said that Manoj Pant, the Station House Officer (SHO) of the Sector 20 police station and his journalist facilitators -- Udit Goel, Raman Thakur and Sushil Pandit -- sought to extort money from the call centre owner against whom a case was filed in November 2018.

In order to provide relief to the call centre owner, a deal was reportedly finalized for "crores of rupees" and an advance of Rs 8 lakh was handed over to the SHO through the journalists who were caught red-handed by Senior Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Krishna, his spokesman Manish Saxena said.

Pant carried out the raid after being tipped off about the racket, the spokesman said.

Additional SHO Jagvir Singh, who was found driving a Mercedes car, was suspended, added the spokesman.

--IANS

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The elegance of Tabu and exuberance of Karan Johar in creations by couturier Gaurav Gupta couldn't steal the thunder of poetess Navkirat Sodhi who performed while suspended on an aerial harness at the Royal Opera House, which rolled out the red carpet for the opening show of the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Summer-Resort 2019 here.

Sodhi introduced the show with spoken prose, illustrating the designer's creative spirit as he embarks on his 15th year in the industry this year. She recited "Kill Pain With Couture" while performing mid-air in a dramatic, self-embroidered bustier worn over an elongated sheer skirt which lent more drama to the show.

The Delhi-based designer, who has made a comeback to LFW after four years, said it has been "very exciting" for him to be back in Mumbai for a show that has turned progressive and interesting.

"The poetess who was up... 20 ft above the ground, was my best friend for 20 years. It was emotional for me. Her poetry for me is the best poetry in the world... It is esoteric and so becoming," Gupta said.

His bespoke line is called Unfolding.

"It was unfolding with all the origamic structures, and then we did a lot of chikankari mixed with our techniques, and we used brocade. For me, it's an unfolding of a new chapter as I mark 15 years of my brand," Gupta added.

The audience, which included Diana Penty, Pooja Hegde, Mandira Bedi, Mohit Marwah and some other celebrities, witnessed the designer's vision of a glamorous, powerful spring 2019 through zardozi work, chikankari and handwoven brocade textiles with handcrafted, 3D flowers in organza and soft georgette, along with the sparkle of crystals.

The collection was a mix of playful dresses, pantsuits, sari gowns and evening wear.

"LFW is getting increasingly progressive every year, and becoming more interesting. Look at this magical place, and Tabu opening the show has been so beautiful for me. She is one of the most phenomenal artistes that we have in the country today, and someone who is so talented and is a timeless beauty. And as an individual, she is herself. So is Karan.

"That's why they're my perfect muses, because they are both breaking rules, living life by their own rules and setting new standards, setting new cultural definitions, and that for me is exciting. I resonate with that a lot," Gupta said after his show.

Tabu, riding high on the success of "AndhaDhun", looked ethereal in a grey off-shoulder ensemble, while Karan flaunted a red and black suit with panache. There was one thing common between them -- the happiness of walking the ramp at the iconic Royal Opera House.

LFW Summer Resort 2019 will begin from Wednesday, and will conclude on February 3.

--IANS

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Chef Ranveer Brar feels every country has an identity stamp and India holds the fort for its flavours which is distinct and authentic hence important to be showcased.

"Every country has an identity stamp and whether we like it or not our flavours are our distinct and authentic identity stamp and hence anything to do with our culture needs to be showcased because that's eventually our identity," Brar told IANS over an email when asked about emphasising on the importance of promoting local culture through food.

He was talking on the sidelines of the launch of Kellogg's India's new range of Corn Flakes -- Thandai Badam, Kesar Pista Badam and Rose Badam that have been created in consultation with Brar.

These variants are inspired by flavours that Indians have a strong cultural connect to, he said.

Talking about the memories growing up with these flavours, the popular chef said: "For me Lucknow has a lot to do with who and what I am today. Being a Punjabi also and when the medium is milk, it comes naturally to Indians in particular.

"Like I always say, Kesar Pista is a combination that has been ingrained in us as mithai. Similarly, chilled milk has been ingrained into our heads as Rose, whether its Falooda or Roohafza; and festive milk has been ingrained as Thandai, especially for most North Indians."

"For ingredients and flavours that have such a large time stamp and memories attached, it makes sense to evoke those instinctively natural flavours first," he said.

"These flavours cross all age barriers -- to the new generation they are still fascinating and to the older ones, they still evoke a sense of nostalgia -- these are flavours all of us connect with," he added.

Brar's television shows include "Breakfast Xpress", "Snack Attack" , "Homemade", "The Great Indian Rasoi" and "Thank God It's Fryday".

He was also one of the judges for Season four of "MasterChef India", based on the British competitive cooking game show, "MasterChef", alongside fellow chefs Sanjeev Kapoor and Vikas Khanna.

Talking about local cuisine that often gets affected according to the number of tourists or the western influence, he told IANS, "I think it's a natural balance that gets struck, I don't think we should force ourselves on food either way, because that's the worst thing you can do.

"So, if you are trying too hard to please non-Indians that's too bad and trying too hard to be Indian by not pleasing any non-Indian that's also bad."

"I think letting food evolve naturally, is the only way," Brar said.

And what about food being industralised on a global scale?

"With the kind of population growth that we have and the challenges that we are looking at it is only natural, we use science and technology to help us.

"At the same time, the involvement of a chef in that process is a must because there has to be some custodian of a cultural and flavour identity to guide you through the whole process," he told IANS.

(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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Former British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday pointed towards the opposition to globalisation and said the world is also facing four key challenges which are to be met in varied ways.

In his keynote address on the topic 'The New Geopolitics' at the K.S. Narayanan Centenary Oration here, Cameron said: "There is the backlash against free markets and concern that globalisation is not working."

He said the other challenges are how to handle the rise of great nations like India, meeting terrorism in the age of the internet and climate change.

Cameron said globalisation is opposed on the grounds of stagnation in wage levels and other things has resulted in rise of populist parties.

According to him, there can be course correction in globalisation.

The former British Prime Minister said he supports tax reduction and globalisation, and more investment should go in education and skill training of the people.

On the challenge of handling the rise of great nations, Cameron said they should be properly engaged with.

He also said there is nothing called good terrorist and bad terrorist. While military/police action is one way, one should also explain how the values of democracy and others are better than their values.

Cameron said all the four challenges including the climate change can be met with able leadership.

--IANS

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Congress Leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said the next meeting of the Select Committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be held on Friday to choose new CBI Director.

While talking to reporters, Karge, who is on the three-member panel of the Select Committee that includes Chief Justice of India as its another member, said the next meeting would be "held around 6 p.m. on February 1".

The Committee's last meeting was held on January 24 but it remained "inconclusive" as over 70 names of Indian Police Service officers of 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985 batches were reportedly put up for consideration by the government before the panel.

During the meeting, Kharge sought details of all eligible officers selected for the post of 29th CBI Director.

--IANS

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North Korea is unlikely to fully give up its nuclear weapons, a US intelligence report has said, weeks ahead of a proposed Kim-Trump meet.

North Korea remains "unlikely to give up" its weapon stockpiles and production abilities while it tries to negotiate "partial denuclearisation steps to obtain key US and international concessions", the Worldwide Threat Assessment report said.

Having nuclear weapons is seen as "critical to regime survival", the BBC quoted it as saying.

US President Donald Trump was expected to meet North Korea's Kim Jong-un in the second summit between the two countries by February-end.

Trump-Kim met in Singapore in June 2018, to discuss denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, but little progress has been made since then on the issue.

The report also said Iran was not making nuclear weapons, but that cyber threats from China and Russia were a growing concern, the BBC report. Both countries might be seeking to influence the 2020 election, it said.

National intelligence director Dan Coats and other intelligence chiefs presented the report at the Senate on Tuesday.

What the report highlights instead is a growing threat from China and Russia, which are "more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s".

Both countries have sophisticated "cyber espionage" capabilities, which they may try to use to influence the 2020 US presidential election, the BBC reported.

The report also said Iran was not currently making nuclear weapons, although it said the country's "regional ambitions and improved military capabilities" would probably threaten US interests in the future.

--IANS

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American author Andre Aciman, whose celebrated novel "Call Me By Your Name" (CMBYN) adapted onscreen by Luca Guadagnino won big at the Academy Award last year, says he hates stultifying facts and his writings are "obliquely biographical".

"My writings are always biographical, but sort of obliquely biographical. I elaborate and embroider them. It is because I hate facts as they are stultifying and don't allow imagination to broaden itself," Aciman, 68, told IANS on the sidelines of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet here.

He said he wants his writing to "allow me to become the person I am not" and wants to explore the self that "wants to exist but is afraid to do so".

"I am looking to reconcile, to find who I am and who I could never become. Because the way life and history move sometimes, they interfere with our own trajectory. So I have an emotional trajectory that goes its own way and my lived trajectory is this way. They don't necessarily correspond," said the man who was born in Egypt, learnt English at the age of five and grew up speaking French.

The coming of age novel about two boys, Elio and Oliver, was published in 2007.

Speaking about his work "Enigma Variations" that explores the journey of a boy's love life, he said: "All things are enigmatic, because the protagonist doesn't know, like most of us don't know what our sexuality is. To give it a name is to turn it into a fact, which I hate."

Somebody who has desires can have desires for a man or a woman; the next day it can switch and one day it can be for no man, only a woman, he said.

About handling erotic themes without crossing the line, the veteran writer said: "There was an ugly line in my book (CMBYN) I decided to remove but didn't. I am a very tame, chaste writer and that line goes against my nature, but I wrote it because it says it all. I wanted their sexuality to be explored accurately and didn't want to make it foggy."

That was Aciman's first novel and he wrote it in three months. Presently he is writing its sequel.

"I was not careful enough. I went very fast because I was carried away. That doesn't always happen to a writer because the book was writing itself. I was just the typewriter," he noted.

Even in the age of Tinder, he feels that "love happens only once and never goes away".

He said that he is trying "to avoid the use of Internet" in the sequel.

"Things happen very fast on the web and I don't want to go in that direction," the connoisseur of classics said.

Asked about the universal appeal of his writings, Aciman said: "As I am a foreigner, I have to watch myself. I am very fussy with the subjunctive (which almost nobody uses in English), so I have to be careful. I have to write sentences that challenge the very boundaries of English."

(Binita Das can be contacted at binita.d@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh has given its nod to set up 1,000 'gaushalas' or cow shelters in the state, one of the poll promises in its manifesto last year.

State government officials on Wednesday said the new cow shelters would come up in the next four months to accommodate around one lakh stray cows.

The official said that the decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Tuesday evening.

According to the official, the Rural Development department has been made the nodal agency for the cow shelter project. The official also pointed out that the government would seek help of gram panchayat, self-help groups, institutions empanelled with the State Board for Conservation of Bovine Animals, and the committed organisations selected by district-level committees.

The official said the Chief Minister has appealed to private organisations to participate in the project.

Currently, there is no government-managed cow shelter in the state. As many as 614 such shelters are managed privately.

The official said that the project would provide relief from stray cattle menace in urban and rural areas.

"This will also create employment opportunities in rural areas," he added.

--IANS

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Senior Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq wondered on Wednesday why the Pakistan Foreign Minister's telephone call to him had irked India.

Addressing the media at the event where another separatist leader, Bilal Gani Lone, renamed his faction of Peoples Conference (PC) as J&K Peoples Independent Movement to differentiate it from his brother Sajad Lone's faction of PC, Mirwaiz Farooq said: "What are they objecting to? Pakistan highlighting the human rights violations committed by Indian soldiers in Kashmir irks New Delhi the most.

"Should the world not know of it? If India cares so much about its image, let them walk their talk of being a democracy and resolve the dispute democratically through talks and hold the promised referendum.

"On the one hand India talks about Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat and Jamhooriyat but on the other hand India has unleashed the worst ever policy of repression under the garb of CASO (Cordon and Search Operation) by security forces wherein our youths are being killed mercilessly."

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "had only followed an iron fist military approach to suppress the voice of the people of Kashmir".

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday telephoned Mirwaiz Farooq to brief him about Islamabad's efforts to highlight the human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir blamed on India.

This is the first time that any Minister of the Imran Khan-headed Pakistan government has reached out directly to the Kashmiri separatist leadership.

--IANS

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Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prove that she took money selling her paintings.

Her reaction came a day after BJP president Amit Shah claimed that her works were bought by chit fund owners for crore of rupees.

Addressing a public rally in Birbhum, the Trinamool Congress supremo called the BJP leaders "uncivil" and said her party will soon file a defamation suit.

"Modi 'Babu'... Prove that I have taken a single penny for selling my paintings. They (BJP) talk like ill-mannered, uncivil people. They have no courtesy.

"Our party has already sent a notice... Soon a defamation suit will be filed," she said.

Shah on Tuesday accused the Bengal government of trying to protect the chit fund owners in the state as some of them bought Banerjee's paintings by paying whooping amounts.

Accusing the Centre of trying to run a "parallel administration" in the states run by non-BJP parties, Banerjee warned that her government also had a number of agencies to look into the economic offences and other crimes committed by BJP leaders.

"We also have a number of agencies to look into economic offences. We have the CID, the Special Task Force (STF). Do not think that we will tolerate everything."

She claimed the BJP should expire politically as it was edging closer to its "expiry date" -- a reference to the general elections.

"We are not dead. Your expiry date has been declared. Please expire politically. We will be very happy to see that."

Refuting Shah's claims that Durga Pujas and Saraswati Pujas were being obstructed by a certain community in Bengal, Banerjee claimed there were no impediments in holding religious festivities in the state.

She also challenged Shah and the BJP to prove their charges or leave

"I will quit if I am proven wrong," she added.

--IANS

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Make-up and prosthetics artists in Bollywood are now getting their due recognition and being considered a crucial part of filmmaking, says acclaimed British make-up artist Clover Wootton.

Using the magic wand of make-up design and prosthetics, Wootton has created the looks of characters played by actress Anushka Sharma in "Pari", Ranbir Kapoor in "Sanju" and the actors of "Zero", starring Shah Rukh Khan.

Asked about the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood when it comes to make-up design and the use of prosthetics, Wootton told IANS in an email interview: "In Bollywood, make-up design is being recognised as a crucial part of how the film will look, its function in supporting a narrative and bringing characters to life. This hasn't always been the case. Make-up artists are finally being appreciated for their creative inputs."

Wootton has collaborated with Indian make-up and hair artists too.

"Collaboration is the best way to learn and grow and to build a community of fellow artists around you who can share work, support and guide you when needed. Many Indian make-up students are training or working abroad, and many foreign artists come here for film projects so, there is a lot of opportunity for exchange and learning.

To what extent can make-up add to a film's narrative?

"When designing a look for an actor/actress, you not only think about who that person is, but also what their characters' journeys are. Are they ageing? Do they become a mother? Do they get a new job? How the characters change throughout their journey can be reflected by changes in their hair and make-up," she said.

Tantrums and big stars often go hand in hand in filmdom. Did she ever face any difficulty in convincing actors for a particular look?

"Actors have a brand image to maintain and in India in particular there are some actors who are known more for their star power than their acting ability. Pushing them to experiment beyond their normal image can be challenging. So you need to find a balance between the director's vision and the comfort level of the actor," she said.

Talking about challenges, Wootton shared: "'Pari' has been my most challenging film to date. There were a number of different looks and many prosthetics. Luckily, I had an actress who trusted me and was prepared to completely change herself."

She will be next lending her expertise to actress Deepika Padukone.

"My next project will be with Deepika Padukone in Meghna Gulzar's film. It's a sensitive subject and I'm very much looking forward to working with this team," she shared.

(Mamta Aggarwal can be contacted at mamta.a@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Madras High Court on Wednesday struck down the Tamil Nadu government order that said educational institutions would be granted minority status only if 50 per cent of the seats are allotted to people from such communities.

The government had issued the order in April 2018 which was opposed by about 140 educational institutions in the court.

Hearing the case, the court ordered that the state government cannot give minority status to educational institutions according to the rules of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions.

The court said a complaint against the schools can be made to the Commission if they fail to admit eligible students.

The petitioners contended that the government order negated the minority status for an educational institution set up and managed by a minority community.

--IANS

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Tech-savvy Karnataka would offer incentives to attract huge investments in rolling out electric vehicles (EV), generate jobs and opportunities for research in the e-mobility segments, said a state minister on Wednesday.

"Karnataka offers incentives to manufacture electric vehicles in the state, which has potential to attract investments worth Rs 31,000 crore in the sunrise sector, create over 55,000 direct jobs and provide opportunities for research and development (R&D) in electric mobility," said Karnataka Industries Minister K.J. George at a summit on EVs.

As the first state in the country to have a policy to encourage use of eco-friendly electric vehicles with zero emission, George said the state government would have single-window clearances to be a preferred destination for attracting investors in the EV segment.

Taiwan-based Teco Electric Company president George Lien said his firm would work with Karnataka government to bring in technology to make EVs as it was in the business of energy optimization in India.

South Korean Wevio president Calvin Yi said his global firm was signing an agreement with the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) for setting up a joint venture and exchange technology between Indian and Korean firms.

"We would like to help India in freeing its cities from air pollution from automobiles by encouraging Korean firms like Hyundai to make 300-km charging range EVs by this year-end in India," said South Korean Ambassador Shin Bong-Kil on the occasion.

ICC Director-General Rajeev Singh said the apex trade body would work with central and state governments across the country to attract investments and generate jobs in the EV sector.

"We plan to bring a delegation of EV and charging station makers from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which have a vibrant EV manufacturing ecosystem," added Singh.

As part of the summit, IBC Expo has organised a "EV 360" exhibition where automobile major Mahindra Electric, Sun Mobility, Ather Energy, E Trio, NRD Eco Motors, Jitendra Electrical Vehicle and Ampere showcased their technology and products in EV sector.

--IANS

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Actor Karanvir Bohra has been detained in Moscow due to passport damage. He says the Indian embassy in the capital of Russia is helping him to get the matter sorted out.

"So bummed... Waiting at Moscow airport because my passport is a little damaged. They are contemplating to deport me back to India. (Indian embassy in Moscow) I wished you would have told me that prior to issuing me the visa," Karanvir posted on Twitter on Wednesday.

His tweet was noticed by the Indian embassy in Moscow as they replied through their official Twitter handle: "Embassy officials are in touch with Russian authorities regarding the issue."

The actor flew to Moscow on Tuesday afternoon for the MacCoffee Bollywood Film Festival.

According to a source, the damage wasn't caught at the Indian airport.

"Hence after Karanvir reached Moscow, it was noticed by the Russian immigration officials. While Karanvir has been at the airport for the last four hours, we hear that the Russian embassy, the Indian embassy and a lot of other people are working towards getting the issue sorted and having Karanvir enter the country and attend the festival he was originally there for," said the source.

Karanvir was last seen in the show "Bigg Boss 12". He is now looking forward to the release of his film "Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna", expected to release later this year.

--IANS

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A fortnight after launching Rs 50,000 crore farm debt waiver scheme named as 'Jai Kishan Rin Maafi Yojana' in the state, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Wednesday claimed over Rs 3,000 crore farm debt scam had come to light during the process of his new scheme for the welfare of farmers.

The Chief Minister said an inquiry has been ordered and officials have been told to lodge complaint in police stations about irregularities.

Calling the farm debt as a "very big scam", Nath said the irregularities came out when "we started preparing a list of farmers who are under debt" as part of our 'Jai Kishan Rin Maafi Yojana'.

He said the procedure began on January 15 when he announced the farm debt waiver scheme.

"The irregularities came out one by one as the procedure of filing loan waiver forms was started to maintain a list of exact number of farmers whose farm loans should be waived. During the process, we came to know that there were various farmers who did not take loans but they were under debt. There is debt against those farmers who have died some ten years ago," Nath told reporters.

The chief minister said several complaints regarding farm debt have been received so far and the process is still on.

"Cooperative banks have sanctioned several forged loans. Most of the farmers have complained that they did not take loans from any bank, but they are under debt. Such farmers are on the list of debtors. This is a very big scam. There is Rs 2,000 crore to 3,000 crore scam in it. We never thought that such a scam would come out," Nath said.

Hailing his 'Jai Kishan Rin Maafi Yojana' a milestone, Nath said it would benefit 55 lakh small and marginal farmers.

Nath said the loan waiver forms would be submitted till February 5 and the farmers would start getting the benefits of the scheme from February 22.

--IANS

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Syrian affairs Alexander Lavrentiev have met in the Prime Minister's Office here.

The meeting on Tuesday focused on the ongoing involvement of Russia and Israel in Syria.

"Among the issues discussed were Iran and the situation in Syria," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the two discussed "strengthening the security coordination mechanism between the militaries in order to prevent friction", Xinhua reported.

Also attending the meeting were Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, and Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat.

Russia first sent forces to fight in Syria in 2015. Israel has carried out there hundreds of airstrikes over the past years, saying the attacks targeted Iranian sites in order to prevent the Islamic republic entrenching itself in Syria.

The recent meeting came in the wake of an agreement achieved earlier in January between the Israeli and Russian militaries to continue the coordination of their military actions in Syria.

Israel has become increasingly concerned over the expected withdrawal of the US forces from Syria, fearing it will expose the Jewish state to threats by Iran, which Israel considers as its biggest enemy.

--IANS

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The government on Wednesday said that the Hindon Air Force base in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district will be ready to host scheduled civilian flight operations by March.

According to a senior official, the Civil Enclave at the Air Force Station will be used to connect regional destinations to the national Capital.

A Civil Enclave is an area allotted at an airport belonging to the armed forces for providing civilian air transport services.

"Infrastructure work for the civil enclave will be completed by February-end and the enclave will be ready to host civilian flights by March first week," a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation said.

Earlier, the Ministry of Defence agreed to provide the Air Force base for flight operations under the second round of the Regional Connectivity Scheme -- Udan -- (RCS-Udan).

The Hindon Air Force Station is located around 30 km away from downtown New Delhi and is spread over an area of over 55 sq km, making it one of the largest air bases in Asia. It is operated under the Western Air Command.

--IANS

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Pitching for investments in diverse sectors in the hill state, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday urged companies based in Karnataka to extend their operations to the northern region.

"I would like Karnataka-based companies in IT, electronics, automotive, apparel, biotech, renewable energy and manufacturing to invest in our state and avail of the various benefits offered to investors," said Thakur at a roadshow on the global investors' meet in his home state at Shimla on June 10-11.

Addressing captains of industry at an interactive session, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) ahead of the 'Rising Himachal Global Investors Meet' in June, Thakur urged the tourism industry to invest in the picturesque Himalayan state, which is rich in flora and fauna.

"Since our government came to power in December 2017, we have put effort to improve the ease of doing business, as evident from higher ranking for our state by the Union government," said Thakur.

The federal government has recently ranked Himachal top among the fast movers category in ease of doing reforms.

The Baddi-Nalagarh industrial belt has emerged as a key manufacturing hub for diverse sectors and the region is known to be Asia's largest bulk drug manufacturing area.

"The global investors' meet will highlight our hill state as a place for investment and opportunities and to realise its potentiality. Your participation in the summit and its sectoral sessions will generate ideas for the development of the state," said Thakur.

Highlighting the tourism potential in the state, the BJP chief minister said as pure air and bio-diversity were the state's biggest assets, his government would strive to make Himachal a global sustainable tourism destination in the world.

"With road, rail and air connectivity under Udan across the state, Himachal is no longer at the periphery but at the centre of a vibrant and surging economy," said Thakur.

The state government is gearing up to attract investors across sectors like logistics and warehousing, aroma, food processing, biotechnology, automobiles and electric vehicles.

Himachal Industries Minister Bikram Singh said 337 reforms were taken under the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) to jump 28.37 per cent with 94.13 per cent score.

Himachal Additional Chief Secretary (Industries) Manoj Kumar said the state had 1,600 acres of land bank for industries like bulk drugs pharma park and biotechnology park in Solan, textile park in Una and industrial township in Kangra and Una.

The global investors' meet in June will showcase the state's capabilities and readiness to take on business challenges. It will guide the state to wider avenues of business possibilities by implementing technology, policies, practices and strategic investments.

The meet will focus on tourism, electronics, education, skill development, Ayurveda, manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics, power and renewable energy, agro business, pharmaceuticals and food processing.

CII Karnataka Chairman N. Muthukumar said Himachal had emerged as one of the progressive states in the country and adjudged recently the best in sustainable development goals by the United Nations.

--IANS

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Himachal Pradesh will provide all possible support to entrepreneurs interested in investing in the state, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said here on Wednesday.

Addressing industrialists, he said the state has prepared an industrial policy that aimed to establish state-of-the-art infrastructure and promote the manufacturing sector.

Inviting the entrepreneurs to participate in Himachal Pradesh Global Investors Meet to be held in Dharamsala on June 10-11, the Chief Minister said: "Himachal Pradesh was emerging as the next big growth story of the country, displaying a robust GSDP growth rate".

"The state is not only a Dev Bhoomi but also poised to emerge as industrial hub of the country."

He said the state has vast potential to invest in tourism, electronics and information technology, education and skill development, urban development, real estate, healthcare and ayush, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, power and renewable, agro and food processing sectors.

Thakur said the government was offering several incentives and concessions to the entrepreneurs, such as concession in stamp duty payable by industry and reduced change of land use charges.

"One of the biggest advantages in the state is the availability of quality power at most competitive rates in the country," he added.

He said the single window mechanism within the Himachal Pradesh Single Window (Investment, Promotion and Facilitation) Act reflected the strong commitment of the state to ensure efficiency and transparency in providing basic services to the citizens.

The event here was organised by the state in association with the Confederation of Indian Industries.

--IANS

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The Delhi High Court has rejected the Central Government plea seeking an interim stay on the arbitral proceedings commenced by Khaitan Holdings (Mauritius) Ltd against the Union of India in a matter related to the cancellation of 21 Unified Access Services Licences (UASL) in 2012, arising out of the 2G spectrum allocation case.

Justice Prathiba M. Singh on Tuesday rejected the government plea seeking an anti-arbitration injunction against the arbitral proceedings initiated by Khaitan Holdings in relation to the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between India and the Republic of Mauritius for the promotion and protection of investments.

Khaitan Holdings has moved the Arbitral Tribunal for seeking compensation for the cancellation of its Unified Access Services Licences in 2012.

The government has challenged the arbitration proceedings saying that the licenses was cancelled on the order of the Supreme Court. It also said that Khaitan Holdings is not a "genuine investor".

"...it is held that the question as to whether Khaitan Holdings is a genuine investor, based out of Mauritius, which can invoke the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal is a question to be determined by the Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the BIT Agreement," the court said.

The Supreme Court on February 2, 2012 cancelled all 21 UAS licenses granted to Loop Telecom taking account of the 2G spectrum case. Loop Telecom chose not to participate in the subsequent bidding process and sought a refund of the license fee paid by it from the government.

Later, the shareholding of Loop Telecom underwent changes from time to time. Kaif Investment, which held a substantial interest in Loop Telecom merged with Khaitan Holdings.

In the meantime, on December 21 2017, a special court acquitted all the accused including Loop Telecom and its promoters.

On September 30, 2013, a notice of arbitration under Article 8.2 of the BIT Agreement was issued by Khaitan Holdings on the ground that it held 26.95 per cent in Loop Telecom and being a company based in Mauritius, it is entitled to claim compensation.

"All the above grounds are those that can be dealt with and decided by the Arbitral Tribunal. The arbitration having been invoked in 2013 and the Tribunal having been constituted and being seized of the dispute, it is not for this court to adjudicate on these issues," Justice Singh said.

"The proceedings which are already underway cannot be termed as being oppressive, vexatious or an abuse of process at this stage. The prayer for ad-interim relief seeking stay of the arbitral proceedings commenced by Khaitan Holdings under the BIT, is accordingly rejected, at this stage."

--IANS

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi and ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar were engaged in a public spat on Wednesday after the BJP leader accused Gandhi of using his courtesy meeting with him for "petty political gains" and the latter writing a letter stating that he "empathised" with Parrikars situation and understood "the immense pressure" he was under.

Gandhi's two-page letter came hours after Parrikar, a former defence minister, wrote a letter stating that he felt let down by Gandhi's remarks attributed to him over the Rafale deal and that no such conversation took place.

The ailing Goa Chief Minister is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer.

Gandhi, in a speech at an event in Delhi on Wednesday, again raked up his meeting with Parrikar and said that former defence minister had said that while changing the Rafale deal, "the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) did not discuss it with the Defence Minister."

Gandhi had made similar remarks at Kochi on Tuesday.

In his letter to Parrikar, Gandhi said he was "disturbed to hear" about a letter "which you have supposedly written but instead leaked to the press before I have had a chance to read it."

"Parrikarji, I empathise with your situation. I understand the immense pressure you are under after our meeting yesterday. Pressure that has forced you to take the highly unusual step of demonstrating your loyalty to the PM and his cronies by attacking me in this uncharacteristic manner," Gandhi said.

He said his visit was strictly personal and "driven purely by my empathy for your situation" and added that he had also visited the BJP leader in the United States to enquire about his health.

"Parrikar Ji, regardless of my visit, I am a democratic representative, elected to serve the Indian people, and as such I reserve the absolute right to attack the corrupt PM on his blatant dishonesty in the Rafale deal."

"I have not shared any details of my conversation with you when we met in Goa yesterday. In my two speeches since we met, I have referred to what is already in the public domain," Gandhi said.

He said it is a fact that in April 2015, while Parrikar was inaugurating a fish market in Goa, Modi announced the Rafale deal in France.

"It is also a fact that you clearly stated to the press that you had no idea about the new deal engineered by the PM. This has been widely reported in all sections of the media."

Gandhi also referred to an alleged audio recording of Vishawajit Rane a cabinet colleague of Parrikar. "It is a fact that there is an audio recording of your own cabinet colleague, claiming you told ministers in a cabinet meeting that you have the Rafale papers in your "bed room", implying that you have power over PM Modi and his cronies."

The Congress chief said he would have normally refrained from this exchange. "Unfortunately, your leaked letter, has forced me to clarify my position on this unfortunate and unnecessary controversy."

Gandhi said he was again wishing Parrikar "a speedy recovery" and hoped to see him again in the near future.

He wrote "with much affection" while signing off the letter.

Parrikar, in his letter, denied having a discussion with Gandhi on the Rafale deal during the brief closed-door meeting at the state legislative assembly complex.

"In the five minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me. The inter-government agreement and the procurement of Rafale are as per defence procurement procedure," Parrikar said, adding that the fighter aircraft have been procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority.

"It is reported in the media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it. I feel let down that you have used this visit for your petty political gains," Parrikar said.

"Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself," Parrikar said in his letter.

Parrikar also said that he was fighting a "life threatening illness", but his "training and ideological strength" were helping him serve Goa irrespective.

"With deep disappointment, I write to you hoping you would put out the truth. Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism," Parrikar said.

--IANS

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The Leela Hotels acquisition by various suitors has taken a turn for the worse.

JM Financial has reportedly filed a suit in the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) last Thursday against the Nair brothers Vivek Nair (Guarantor) and Dinesh Nair (Guarantor) on the basis of a legal notice issued by Khaitan and Co on November 12 last year on behalf of its client SBI Cap Trustee Company against Hotel Leelaventure (Borrower), Leela Lace Holdings Pvt Ltd (Pledgor/Guarantor), Rockfort Estate Developers Pvt Ltd (Pledgor) and Leela Lace Software Solutions Pvt Ltd (Pledgor).

IANS tried contacting Anil Bhatia, MD of JM Financial Services, for a response but he failed to revert both on voice and text. On November 5, 2018, in another similar manoeuvre T Selvi Laxman, Advocate High Court on behalf of his client SBI, had filed a legal notice against Hotel Leelaventrue and various officials including Vivek Nair CMD and his brother Dinesh Nair co CMD.

The process calls for a two-week period before NCLT accepts the JMF petition for bankruptcy proceedings. In the interregnum, it is believed that JMF will try to pressurise the Nairs to sign with Brookfield. As explained in Tuesday's story on the race for Leela by IANS, the other two suitors - Rashid Al Habtoor and Thai Group Minor International - have been asked to cough up earnest deposit money which runs into hundreds of crores. Brookfield did not face this imponderable.

After the failure of its corporate debt-restructuring plan in 2014, the Mumbai-based hospitality company transferred loans from 14 creditors to Nimesh Kampani-owned asset restructuring firm JM Financial ARC (JMARC). In September 2017, it allotted over 160 million shares worth about Rs 275 crore to JMARC on conversion of debt to equity. JMARC owns 26% in Hotel Leela Venture.

After ARC JM Financial (JMF) took over the loan portfolio, it converted 26 per cent of the debt into equity and the balance 25 per cent equity is with the public and 49 per cent with the promoters Nair family.

Brookfield Asset Management of Canada pitched for its acquisition in 2018. However, the Kampanis rejected all the bids and retained only Brookfield in the fray who conducted due diligence for the said takeover. As part of this deal, a large parcel of land in Agra designated for another Leela Hotel will go to Brookfield along with four marquee properties.

--IANS

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Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday dubbed George Fernandes as one of the architects of the NDA and revealed that the socialist leader wanted to boycott the 1977 general elections and finally signed the nomination papers after former Prime Minister Morarji Desai intervened.

Jaitley, in a blog, remembered Fernandes as an extraordinary leader, a powerful trade unionist, a Parliamentarian that many would dread to face and above all a dissenter.

"With the passing away of the veteran socialist leader George Fernandes, India has lost a political colossus. George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position," he said.

He said that Fernandes entered Parliament and quickly made a mark as a Parliamentarian, a great speaker in at least seven languages. "A phenomenon very rare in India," he said.

The senior BJP leader recalled his jail days during the Emergency and said George Fernandes believed in militant opposition to it.

"Many felt that the idea of a militant opposition to the Emergency was misconceived but George was a man with his own mind. He believed that this was the only course. His opposition was shattered and, along with his colleagues, he was arrested and prosecuted," he said.

Jaitley said in 1977 when Indira Gandhi announced holding of the general elections a meeting of political prisoners took place where everybody except Fernandes favoured contesting the elections.

"George was a dissenter. He wanted to boycott the 1977 elections. He believed that this was going to be a make-believe farcical election through which Indira Gandhi would earn legitimacy and continue her dictatorship and hence the opposition by contesting must not give legitimacy to the elections," he said.

Jaitley said that George was chosen to contest from Bihar but he declined to sign the nomination papers.

"It finally took Morarji Desai, who came to the Tiz Hazari courts (where George used to come for his trials), with a set of nomination papers, to get George to sign them so that he could contest from the prison. George eventually yielded and signed the papers."

The Union minister said that Fernandes won the election by a huge margin but later declined to join the Morarji Cabinet.

Jaitley said Fernandes spent the rest of the next decade in opposition championing the issues of the farmers, trade unions and finally Bofors.

"He was one of the leading campaigners against corruption in the Rajiv Gandhi era. His attacks on the government were perhaps the most aggressive ones. He had built a reputation as being both a master of facts and languages," he said.

He said that in the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Fernandes as the Convenor of the NDA was one of the architects of the alliance.

"Even his worst critics would not attempt to level allegations of corruption against him. Yet twice as a Defence Minister, once during the Tehelka Tapes and second in relation to the CAG Report relating to the purchase of the Coffins, false allegations of corruption were levelled against him," he said.

He said a Commission of Inquiry in the Tehelka Tape issue vindicated him and the Coffingate Report was an absurdity.

"Metallic coffins were called costlier by comparing their costs with wooden coffins. Two unequal commodities do not cost the same," he said.

Jaitley said Fernandes was a born 'Lohiaite' and he died as one. "His anti-Congress moorings were never compromised," he added.

--IANS

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The interim budget to be presented in Parliament on Friday is expected to be a full-fledged budget of the Modi government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections that could include tax sops for the middle class and the corporates and a relief package that could address agrarian distress and the stressed small scale industry sector.

Piyush Goyal, who has been given charge of the finance portfolio in the absence of Arun Jaitley who is in the US for medical treatment, is widely expected to break tradition by going beyond a vote-on-account budget close to the elections by showering sops in various categories.

Minister without portfolio Arun Jaitley had already indicated as much when he said from New York that the interim Budget may go "beyond the traditional " vote-on-account as tackling agricultural challenges "can't afford to wait".

For the record, the government on Wednesday maintained that the budget will be called "Interim Budget 2019-20" after media reports described the coming exercise as "General Budget".

The income tax sops could include a rise in the threshold exemption limit for middle class tax payers, considered a big constituency of the BJP. The exemption threshold could go up from the present Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh per annum. The corporates have also been clamouring for reducing the peak rate from 30 to 25 per cent.

The agriculture sector is set to receive good attention from the government after the recent election defeat for the BJP in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on the back of stress.

Direct investment support upto Rs. 15,000 per hectare for small and marginal farmers on the lines of a mix of the Kalia scheme in Odisha and the Rythu Bandhu scheme in Telangana is widely expected to be announced in the budget along with interest-free loans and nominal premium on the crop insurance scheme.

Another option is to look at reworking the Bhavantar scheme, implemented by the erstwhile BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, under which farmers are compensated for the gap between Minimum Support Price and the market price. Cold chain and provision logistics for famers will get a push to benefit them in marketing their produce.

For the stressed micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, hit badly by the demonetisation decision of 2016 and GST implementation following that, the budget could contain incentives and easier flow of credit.

There are concerns that the expected giveaways could lead to ballooning of the fiscal deficit, especially in the wake of the shortfall in tax collections, particularly GST revenue.

This is expected to pose a major challenge to the government to meet its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of the GDP even as it has maintained that the shortfall would be made up by higher direct tax collections.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue, which crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark only twice this year - in April and October - has remained largely subdued for the rest of the year and in the range of Rs 94,000 crore to Rs 97,000 crore per month against the annual GST collection target of Rs 13.48 lakh crore, which translates to a monthly average target of Rs 1.12 lakh crore.

"After the failed budget promise of enhanced procurement of crops through a revised Minimum Support Price (MSP) formula in 2018-19, announcements to be made on February 1, 2019 will be the last opportunity for the government to woo a larger section of society through an interim budget, as against a vote-on-account, by altering both taxes and outlays on schemes," said a report last week by JM Financial Institutional Securities.

--IANS

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The Election Commission on Wednesday met political parties and Jharkhand officials here ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and reviewed the poll preparations.

When the Congress suggested to the EC not to go ahead with simultaneous general and assembly elections in the state, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora made it clear that the poll panel team was in the state only to decide about the Lok Sabha polls.

The party also demanded that officials who were posted for the last three years at the same place should be shifted before the elections, Congress General Secretary Kishore Sahdeo told IANS.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded that the elections in the Maoist-infested areas should be conducted in one day for both the Lok Sabha and the Assembly and the polling booths should not be changed.

The BJP said that the poll dates may differ for the rest of the state.

BJP MLA Radha Krishna Kishore said: "BJP is ready for polls. The Maoist incidents have declined in the state. There is no problem in conducting peaceful polls."

The Rashtriya Janata Dal demanded that the polls be conducted in a single phase.

The main opposition party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) demanded the the poll expenditure details submission period should be extended from 25 days to 60.

--IANS

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If you are an e-cigarette smoker and claim it to be 'safer' than combustible cigarettes, then take note. A new study warns that vapers are at risk of having heart attacks, strokes, and coronary heart diseases.

The study, conducted by the American Heart Association (AHA), found that heart attacks are nearly 60 per cent more common among vapers.

In addition, people who vape are twice as likely to also smoke traditional cigarettes as are those who do not vape.

"It's obviously quite concerning. This is a potential chip of the spear, of a wave of cardio-vascular disease, that may be coming in the future, especially since this has been so attractive to young users," Larry Goldstein, chairman of the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute, US was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.

E-cigarettes were often originally advertised as a cessation aid for smokers.

However, with increased research, it has become clear that 'safer' does not mean safe and that they are more likely to be an addition to, rather than substitute for, combustible cigarettes.

For the study, the team recruited 400,000 people among which 66,795 respondents who vaped had a 71 per cent higher risk of stroke.

The same group was at a 59 per cent higher risk of having a heart attack or angina.

Angina is a type of chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart.

In addition, they were at 40 per cent greater risk of developing heart disease.

The researchers could not, however, conclude that vaping kills.

Importantly, rates of e-cigarette use are highest among the young people suggesting that only 4.2 per cent of adults vape, as compared to 11.3 per cent of high school students, reported Daily Mail.

The public health officials must continue to push for a ban on sweet flavoured e-liquids that are so enticing to younger users, Goldstein suggested.

"It's hard to know what contribution this has to that, but it doesn't appear to be safer, or safe right now from the data that's available," Goldstein noted.

--IANS

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A total of 512 cases of Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) has been registered with no deaths reported in the national capital till Tuesday, the Delhi government said on Wednesday.

The government has directed all its hospital to make local purchases of logistics required to ensure a continuous supply of medicine, vaccine and kits.

"All government hospitals are equipped with the necessary logistics required for the management of Seasonal Influenza (H1N1)," the government said in a statement.

"Collection and compilation of confirmed swine flu cases from various reporting units and labs with complete line listing is being done at the state level. The compiled report is shared with districts for timely surveillance activities and preventive measure," the government said, adding that there had been 512 cases in Delhi so far of Seasonal Influenza till January 29.

According to the advisory issued by Delhi's Directorate General of Health Services, Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, airborne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated by the act of coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission like telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, doorbells, pens, toys) and close contact (including handshaking, hugging, kissing).

"The symptoms include fever and cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, difficulty in breathing. Other symptoms may include body aches, headache, fatigue, chills, diarrhea and vomiting and blood-stained sputum," it said.

The advisory also stated that children with mild illness but with predisposing risk factors, pregnant women, persons aged 65 years or older, patients with lung diseases, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, blood disorders, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer and HIV/AIDS, patients on long term cortisone therapy are under the high risk group.

--IANS

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Delhi Development Minister Gopal Rai on Wednesday said he will meet Union Agriculture Ministre Radha Mohan Singh this week, impressing upon him the need to implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee Report for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers.

"We will ask the Union Agriculture Ministre to support us in our drive to ensure the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report so that Delhi could act as a role model to other states, Rai told media.

Rai on Wednesday met farmers from Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana at his residence and sought their opinion.

"We want that the recommendations should be implemented not only in Delhi but across the nation so that farmers could get the money they deserve. We are sure that the Central government will help us in our initiative," he said.

Last month, the Delhi government formed an expert committee comprising a senior scientist from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), farmers' representatives and officials of the agriculture department for drafting the agricultural policy for Delhi.

--IANS

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday reiterated that if his party takes power, it will assure minimum income to the poor that will be directly transferred to their bank accounts.

Addressing the party's youth wing workers at the Talkatora stadium here, Gandhi said: "If we come to power, we will assure minimum income to all poor people of India. It will be directly transferred to their bank accounts."

He said this will be the first time any middle income country will be attempting such a major programme. "We will attempt this and succeed."

He was speaking at the culmination of 'Yuva Kranti Yatra' organised by Youth Congress.

Attacking the Modi government over the Rafale deal with France, Gandhi said: "Yesterday (Tuesday) I met (Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister Manohar) Parrikar, and he said that while changing the deal, the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) did not discuss it with the Defence Minister."

Gandhi met Parrikar in Goa on Tuesday. Parrikar was India's Defence Minister between November 2014 and March 2017.

Hitting out at Modi, Gandhi said: "He (Modi) spoke for over one and half hours in Parliament but he did not speak a single word on Rafale deal. We asked three or four questions on the deal, but instead of answering, the 'chowkidar' looked here and there."

He said the main difference between the Congress and BJP was that "we protect the truth and they proceed with lie".

"Modiji, I can understand that you cannot sleep at night. I know that you dream of an Indian industrialist, martyrs of Indian Air Force and you can also see the picture of the fighter planes. This is because of the Congress," he said.

Linking the transfer of ousted CBI Director Alok Verma to the Rafale deal, Gandhi said: "When the CBI wanted to inquire into the deal, Modi asks (BJP President) Amit Shah to stop this. And then late in night he was transferred."

Attacking the Rastriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the Congress leader said it was confused because its leaders think that they were bigger than India.

"They (RSS) think that they are the authority and source of knowledge in this country. It is absolutely wrong. There is only one source of knowledge in this country, the people."

--IANS

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Accusing the Congress of trying to put roadblocks in the way of an early solution to the Ram temple issue, Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Wednesday reiterated the commitment of his party for a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Addressing party workers in the state capital, the BJP President said while the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre has worked in this direction, the Congress is trying to derail the progress, pitching lawyers in the court to scuttle the efforts.

Shah also supported the Central government move seeking Supreme Court's nod for acquiring "undisputed land" in Ayodhya, leaving only 2.22 acres of disputed land where the 16th century Babri mosque once stood.

He appealed to party workers to make people aware about the welfare schemes rolled out by the Modi government for all sections of society, especially the poor.

Referring to the proposed defence corridor in the state, the BJP leader said this will create one lakh jobs for the unemployed youth in the state and spur development.

He accused Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati of furthering the interests of her family by promoting her nephew.

--IANS

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China's Chang'e-5 probe, to be launched by 2019-end, will undergo multiple flight phases before the mission is completed, the media reported.

China National Space Administration (CNSA) plans to launch the mission with the goal of collecting samples from the near side of the Moon. They would be the first samples to be retrieved since 1976, Xinhua news agency reported.

The probe will enter the Earth-Moon transfer orbit. It will slow near the Moon to enter the lunar orbit and descend and land on a pre-selected area for ground research work, including collecting lunar samples, Peng Jing, deputy chief designer from the China Academy of Space Technology said.

After finishing its work on the Moon, the ascender will rise from the lunar surface for rendezvous and docking with the orbiter flying around the Moon.

Then the returner will fly back to Earth via the Earth-Moon transfer orbit, re-enter the atmosphere and land at the Siziwang Banner (County) of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Peng said.

The lunar samples taken back by the probe would be sealed in a container and sent to labs for further analysis and research, he added.

The probe can be divided into 15 sub-systems, including structure, thermal control, antenna, sample collecting and sealing and propulsion. It is composed of an orbiter, a returner, a lander and an ascender, the report said.

Named after Chinese moon goddess "Chang'e", China's lunar exploration programme, which began in 2004, includes orbiting and landing on the moon and bringing samples back to Earth.

The programme has achieved five continuous successes, said CNSA, referring to Chang'e-1, Chang'e-2, Chang'e-3, a test craft for Chang'e-5 and the recent Chang'e-4, which realised the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the Moon.

The Chang'e-5 probe will be launched from Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Hainan Province.

The space agency is also working to carry out its first-ever Mars exploration mission around 2020.

These plans underscore China's ambitions in space at a time when the US is curtailing NASA's budget and increasingly handing over space exploration to commercial adventurers.

--IANS

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A man whose income tax account details were stolen by his wife and brother-in-law, who is a Chartered Accountant by profession, has moved the Delhi High Court seeking directions to lay down policies related to time-bound disposal of complaints against chartered accountants by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

The plea was filed by one Shekhar who has told the court that ICAI "is guilty of deliberately going slow" on the complaints cases filed against its members which is the prime reason for increasing pendency of cases against Chartered Accountants.

He has cited an RTI reply provided to him.

"In the RTI, it was revealed that ICAI has disposed off only 19 matters out of 662 cases lodged in 2017. While in 2016, ICAI has disposed off 147 out of total 460 cases registered that year," Shekhar's advocate Arpit Bhargava said.

He requested the court to issue directions to lay down and implement guidelines/policies in relation to time bound disposal of complaints/cases against chartered accountants which are pending disposal for a long time due to the lackadaisical attitude of the ICAI.

Admitting his plea, the Delhi High Court has issued notice to the ICAI and listed the matter for further hearing on July 19.

The man, in his plea filed by advocate Arpit Bhargava, apprised the court that ICAI regulates the profession of Chartered Accountancy and is responsible for licensing and regulating the financial audit and accountancy profession. The ICAI's members are subject to a code of ethics and professional standards and conduct.

He said that his brother-in-law Deepak Bhardwaj is guilty of professional misconduct as he has abused his position as a member of the ICAI. He has asked the ICAI to cancel Bhardwaj's membership with immediate effect.

He also told the court that his wife and CA Bhardwaj were chargesheeted by Delhi Police on January 22, 2018, under the provisions of the Information Technology Act.

The man told the court that he and his wife are embroiled in matrimonial litigation since 2016. His wife with the help of her maternal cousin Bhardwaj has extracted his financial information. He accused them of stealing personal information, making changes without permission, committing online fraud and professional misconduct in 2016.

He demanded that the ICAI take strict action against Bhardwaj.

However, the ICAI on July 4, 2018 closed the case without suspending the licence of Bhardwaj saying that the complaint was related to a family dispute and Bhardwaj was made a party to such disputes.

The man challenging the ICAI decision, in his plea, said: It was done without giving any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner (man). It is submitted that the Board of Discipline failed to consider the findings of the investigation conducted by the Police as mentioned in the chargesheet."

"ICAI failed to appreciate that Bhardwaj misused his position as a professional to hack and access into the online account of the petitioner and change the login details of the online income tax account," the plea filed by advocate Arpit Bhargava said.

He said the ICAI is shielding Bhardwaj despite the chargesheet clearly establishing that Bhardwaj illegally accessed details of the petitioner not only on June 5, 2016 but also on August 24 2016.

(Amiya Kumar Kushwaha can be reached at amiya.k@ians.in)

--IANS

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BSP leader Mayawati on Wednesday described as an "election stunt" the Modi government's proposal to the Supreme Court to return the undisputed land at Ayodhya.

In a statement, the Bahujan Samaj Party chief said this had been done to fan communal passions.

She asked the people to be on guard against the saffron camp as the central government was trying to "by force to intervene in the long-pending matter".

The BJP was resorting to "unfair means" after realizing that the coming together of the BSP and Samajwadi Party would hit the ruling party hard in the coming Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.

"The BJP government is doing everything now that is not expected of a government run on the basis of the Constitution," the 63-year-old said.

Claiming that the people were fed up with the BJP's false promises, the party was taking recourse to fanning communal passions, disturbing social harmony and desperately trying to stay afloat in the forthcoming general election.

The four-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh also said that any effort to put pressure on the ongoing legal process on the contentious issue was unacceptable.

--IANS

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Targetting Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday said he addressed him as 'sir' to satisfy his ego for the sake of the state.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief told an all-party meeting on the demand for special category status that he did everything possible in the hope that he will do justice to the state following its 'unjust' bifurcation.

"When I met then US President Bill Clinton, I addressed him as Mr. Clinton, not as 'sir'. Modi is my junior in But when he came (to power), I addressed him as sir 10 times. I did this for the sake of the state and to satisfy his ego in the hope that he will do justice to the state," Naidu said.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said even the poll alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 was for the sake of the state. "We would have got 10 seats more without the alliance with BJP."

Naidu, whose party pulled out of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre for its refusal to accord special status last year, said he took the step after reaching to a conclusion that Modi will not do justice.

Recalling that he was the first to demand resignation of Modi as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in the wake of the riots in that state, Naidu said this could be a reason for Modi's bias against Andhra Pradesh.

He alleged Modi government was targeting all the political rivals with cases by CBI, ED and other agencies. He claimed that a case against Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao was withdrawn after he 'compromised' with Modi.

YSR Congress, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Jana Sena and the Left parties did not attend the all-party meeting called by Naidu to mount pressure on the Centre for according special category status to the state.

Naidu assured the meeting that the government would withdraw the cases booked against those fighting for special status. A decision in this regard would be taken at the cabinet meeting to be held on Thursday.

Leaders of Pratyeka Hoda Sadana Samithi, which is fighting for special category status, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), other smaller parties and employees' groups attended the meeting.

This was the third all-party meeting called by Naidu and like in the past, major opposition parties stayed away alleging he is not sincere in achieving the goal.

--IANS

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The British pound dipped against major currencies as a much-anticipated amendment to postpone Brexit was rejected by the British Parliament.

The British House of Commons on Tuesday voted 321-298, with a majority of 23, against an amendment from Labor's Yvette Cooper for Brexit to be delayed by nine months if no deal is agreed by February 26.

The latest development came as British MPs voted on a series of amendments to modify Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan after it was voted down by a historic margin on January 15.

The pound fell by 0.7 per cent against the US dollar and 0.8 against euro while it was down by some 0.1 per cent against both currencies just before the parliament vote began, Xinhua news agency reported.

Out of the seven amendments, only two were passed. One is a non-binding call on the government to rule out no-deal Brexit and the other demands replacing Brexit backstop with "alternative arrangements".

The vote gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to say the Brexit deal is likely to win in the British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue. However, the EU has insisted that the Irish backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and is not open for renegotiation.

The pound has roared higher in recent weeks as investors discount the chances of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, said Luke Trevail, currency analyst at TorFX, before the vote, believing it was put to the test at the parliament vote on various amendments.

Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com, was quoted by the BBC as saying the pound's drop is "quite a comedown".

"(It) is showing how the pound remains intensely sensitive to Brexit news flow, and partially how the market had put some faith in the Remainers/soft Brexiteers forcing concessions from the government," he says.

The Backstop plan is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the Brexit deal.

It is designed to avoid border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is considered by some British especially Brexiteers to be a trap to retain Britain in a customs union with the EU and pragmatically delay their "divorce".

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British MPs have voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

The MPs were voting on changes to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan before she seeks a re-negotiation of it with the EU.

The Prime Minister has urged MPs to back another amendment that would propose "alternative arrangements" to the controversial Irish backstop plan.

The backstop is is the insurance policy in May's plan to prevent checks on goods and people returning to the Northern Ireland border, which some MPs fear could leave the UK tied to the EU's rules indefinitely.

It was a key part in seeing her original Brexit deal voted down in Parliament by an historic margin earlier in January.

May said she knew there was a "limited appetite" in the EU for changes to the deal, but she believed she could "secure" it.

She had phone calls with key EU leaders throughout the day ahead of the Commons votes and has already spoken to the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar.

But the EU has said it will not re-open negotiations and change the legal text agreed with the British PM.

The MPs were voting on an amendment put forward by Tory MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey with the aim of preventing a no deal Brexit

--IANS

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Comedian Bill Cosby was targeted by a drone while he was in the yard of his Pennsylvania prison last week.

Cosby's spokesman Andrew Wyatt confirmed that the drone was spotted over the prison SCI Phoenix in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, where Cosby has been locked up since September 2018 after he was sentenced for almost 10 years for his conviction on three charges of sexual assault, reports usatoday.com.

Amy Worden, a press secretary in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said the department does not discuss security matters.

"That said, the agency has installed drone detection systems as part of enhanced security measures at its prisons. Flying drones over prisons in Pennsylvania is against the law and the agency will work with law enforcement to prosecute perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law," Worden said.

--IANS

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Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.
The Bihar government on Wednesday lifted a ban here on the sale, storage and transportation of fish from Andhra Pradesh.

Earlier in January, the government banned fish from Andhra Pradesh in Patna after laboratory tests confirmed the presence of high content of formalin, a cancer-inducing chemical used in preserving fish.

After Bihar banned the fish in Patna, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu urged his counterpart Nitish Kumar to take steps to restore the fish trade in the larger interest of farmers and all those engaged in fisheries.

--IANS

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Arsenal, with goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, beat Cardiff City 2-1 in the first game of the Welsh team since the disappearance of Argentine striker Emiliano Sala.

Sala, who disappeared last week while flying from Nantes to Cardiff over the English Channel, was honoured at the start of the match on Tuesday with a floral offering and by Arsenal by adding him to their match programme in memory, reports Efe news.

In sporting terms, Cardiff deserved more in the first half but suffered from a lack of goals and paid for it in the second half when Aubameyang's penalty scored his 15th goal in this Premier League season and Lacazette added another in the 83rd minute.

The Welsh got one back in the 93rd minute through Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, but it was too late and they could not get anything positive out of the Emirates Stadium.

Neil Warnock's side remains in relegation with 19 points while Arsenal recovers from their FA Cup elimination against Manchester United with a balsamic win in front of their fans, which leaves them in fifth place of the Premier League standings with 47 points.

--IANS

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A very angry India told Pakistan on Wednesday to lay off on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir after a telephone conversation between Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood and conveyed New Delhi's condemnation in "the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert India's unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister", the Eternal Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed that this deplorable act has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistan's own standards," the statement said.

"The Pakistan Foreign Minister's actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour," it stated.

"Foreign Secretary underscored that by this action Pakistan has confirmed yet again that it officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities."

Gokhale said that it has exposed to the entire international community Pakistan's duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other.

Gokhale also told Mahmood that "India expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions".

"He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," the ministry statement said.

Gokhale made it clear that "Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India".

New Delhi's reaction came after Tuesday's conversation between Qureshi and Farooq in which the former spoke about Islamabad's efforts to "highlight" the situation in Jammu and Kashmir "internationally".

New Delhi-Islamabad ties are frosted after repeated cross-border terror attacks from Pakistan-based terror outfits.

--IANS

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Three hackers, including an international-level boxer, were arrested for fraudulently withdrawing over Rs nine lakh from Central Bank of India in south Delhi, a police officer said on Wednesday.

"An international-level boxer, Arjun Rana and his two accomplices later identified as Vishal Tokas and an Nigerian national, Emma Dozie Osiaku were arrested on Tuesday from Greater Kailash and Lajpat Nagar on separate raids," Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Kumar said.

"The incident occurred on Tuesday when Sunil Verma, a Branch manager of Central Bank of India at Greater Kailash, informed the local police that two persons, identified as Arjun Rana and Vishal Tokas, were trying to withdraw over Rs 9 lakh by using forged identity from the account of Arjun Rana Enterprises," Kumar said.

"During investigation, it was found that a group of hackers transferred Rs 10 lakh fraudulently from the 'Kankaria Mahinahar Nagarik Shahkari Bank Ltd' holding an account in HDFC following which a case was registered in Ahmedabad's Maninagar on Jan 7," he added.

"On interrogation, Rana and Tokas disclosed that they work for Osiaku. Police team later arrested him from his residence at Lajpat Nagar," he added.

"Rana was a bright international boxer but after a decline in his career, he was lured by the mastermind Osiaku," the DCP said, adding that 10 debit cards and three mobile phones were recovered from their possession.

--IANS

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A grenade attack on a mosque in the Philippine city of Zamboanga City killed two persons early on Wednesday, authorities said.

This comes just days after a deadly Catholic cathedral bombing and a vote backing Muslim self-rule, Channelnews Asia reported.

"A grenade was lobbed inside a mosque killing two persons and wounding another four," regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana said.

Besana said it was too early to say whether the mosque blast was in retaliation to the cathedral attack, adding police were hunting for those responsible.

The victims were sleeping inside the mosque at the time of the attack on the insurgency-plagued island of Mindanao, which is home to the Philippines' Muslim minority.

The blast came even as the island nation was on high alert after the cathedral bombing that killed 21 people at a Sunday mass on the remote Muslim-majority island of Jolo.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the cathedral blast.

Philippine authorities initially said it was not a suicide attack, but on Tuesday President Rodrigo Duterte contradicted them saying one of the bombers had blown himself up outside the cathedral.

--IANS

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A 10 month-old-leopard cub died after it was hit by an unidentified vehicle on the Gurugram-Faridabad Expressway, a wildlife department officer said.

The January 26 night accident left the big cat with severe head injuries.

"A passer-by informed police about the accident at Pali area of Faridabad district. The wildlife officer of Faridabad range rushed to the spot and recovered the carcass," said Shyam Sundar Kaushik, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Gurugram range.

"The post-mortem reveals multiple skull fractures and fractures on front legs," Kaushik said.

This was the second road accident on the Expressway where a leopard cub lost its life. Earlier, a seven-month-old leopard died in similar fashion on June 5, 2015.

"Leopards generally venture out at night to search food and water... It generally becomes blind when lights fall on its eyes," the official said.

"We can only assume the reason of the accident. It is a hit and run case," Kaushik said.

The Aravalli mountain of Gurugram and Faridabad all the way to Sariska in Rajasthan are known to house leopards.

The area around Mangar forest in Faridabad to Ghata village in Gurugram is dense forest and a natural habitat to wild animals such as hyena and wild pigs besides python and leopards.

Chetan Agrawal, a prominent Gurugram-based environmentalist, expressed grief over the death of the leopard.

"Stretches such as the four-lane Gurugram-Faridabad Expressway is bisecting the Aravalli mountain. The expressway provide high speed access to vehicles.

"Since leopards are frequently spotted in the area, we have demanded forest tunnels underneath the Expressway so that wild animals can get easy access to roam in their jurisdictions without coming on to the roads," Agrawal said.

A total of 10 leopards including this have died in the last four years.

--IANS

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Axis Bank's net profit rose 131.38% to Rs 1680.85 crore on 26.66% increase in total income to Rs 18130.42 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

Bank of Baroda's net profit rose 321.6% to Rs 471.25 crore on 12.2% increase in total income to Rs 14562.85 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

On a consolidated basis, HCL Technologies' net profit rose 2.8% to Rs 2605 crore on 5.6% increase in revenues to Rs 15699 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q2 September 2018. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

Mahanagar Gas' net profit rose 19.6% to Rs 148.32 crore on 29.5% increase in net sales to Rs 752.68 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

Coromandel International announced that a fire accident occurred on 28 January 2019, at the product godown in one of its manufacturing units at Sarigam, Gujarat. This unit manufactures crop protection chemicals. The fire has been brought under control and there is no loss or injury to human life. The company has insurance coverage for this and has informed the insurance company about the incident. There is likely to be no significant impact on the company's operations. The company has another unit manufacturing the product and has sufficient stock to meet the market requirements. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

Asian Paints announced that the commercial production of paints and intermediaries has successfully commenced at the Vishakhapatnam plant in Andhra Pradesh. The initial capacity of said manufacturing facility is 3 lakh kilo liter per annum (KLpa). The company had earlier announced setting up of paint manufacturing facility in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, with an ultimate capacity of 5 lakh KLpa to be implemented in a phased manner. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 January 2019.

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Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati said the 'dharam sansad', after a three-day meeting here, decided that foundation stone for the temple will be laid on February 21.

He said the saints and those mobilized for the effort would not be deterred by arrests or any other kind of obstacles.

The decision came a day after the government approached the Supreme Court for permission to restore the "excess" land surrounding the disputed portion in Ayodhya to Ram Janambhoomi Nyas.The government, in a petition, sought direction for releasing to the Nyas 67 acres, which it had acquired about two-and-a-half decades back, leaving untouched 0.313 acres of disputed.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar later said the government "wants to give the land back to Nyas to build Ram temple there".

He said the government expects the sanction to be given immediately as there has "too much delay" on the issue which is 70-year-old.

"The government has in-principle decided to restore the land" to the Nyas, Javadekar told reporters here, hours after the writ petition was filed in the top court.

"The land has to be given to the Nyas," he said, adding the Centre is not touching as of now 0.313 acres of land which is disputed.

The government move came against the backdrop of Ram Janambhoomi Nyas making an application to the government of India, demanding the return of the undisputed part of the land to it.

Government sources said its move is a part of the constitutional route that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have spoken about.

The sources said the petition was in pursuance to an earlier Supreme Court judgement by which the government was allowed to take a policy decision with regard to 67 acres of undisputed land.

In 1994, a five-judge Supreme Court bench had held that a mosque was not an "essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam" and that namaz could be offered anywhere and hence, "its acquisition (by the state) is not prohibited by the provisions in the Constitution of India".

The sources said the Government of India has exercised its right created by the court itself and has shown fairness by itself proposing - leaving - (with the view to give - the extent of land required).

The architecture created by the court in Ismail Farooqui case provides the government with a window to adopt such measure, they said.

"The central government was duty bound as per para 49-59 of the Ismail Farooqui judgement. The judgement says that the government can take a policy decision and there need not be any judicial scrutiny", according to the sources.

The sources also claimed that the Ismail Farooqui judgement is clear that the Muslims are not interested beyond the disputed area and do not lay any claim over the area acquired beyond .313 acres. It is also mentioned in para 49 of the judgment that the title of Hindus not in dispute.

Recently, the Prime Minister had said that any decision on an Ordinance on the Ram temple can be considered only after the judicial process gets over.

Significantly, the government filed the petition on a day when a new five-judge bench was to hear the Ayodhya case before it was cancelled due to unavailability of one of the judges Justice S A Bobde.

The apex court, on January 25, constituted a new five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice Abdul Nazeer, Justice SA Bobde and Justice DY Chandrachud to hear the Ayodhya case.

In 2010, the Allahabad High Court had divided the disputed land in Ayodhya into three parts for each of the parties - the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

Welcoming the government petition, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, "Now we must get permission to work on the undisputed land."

He said the petition is in favour of the country.

"The dispute has been going on for many years. My government has been saying this from the beginning. An application has been submitted by the Centre... We welcome this move of the central government. This was needed for the country's prestige," said Adityanath while addressing the media after holding a Cabinet meeting in Prayagraj, where the Kumbh mela is underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi while delivering a speech here, suddenly stopped as one of the cameramen fainted.

Prime Minister Modi had just inaugurated the new terminal building of Surat airport, when during his speech he was seen gesturing towards his officers and SPG personnel after he observed from the stage that a cameraman had fainted.

The PM told the officers to urgently arrange for an ambulance for the cameraman.

The cameraman, Kishan Ramolia had developed dizziness and fainted. He was immediately rushed to a hospital in a 108 Ambulance.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee's car was vandalised by miscreants on Wednesday.

As a mark of protest, TMC as decided to hold a public meeting under its state Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari on February 3 at the same place.

"(BJP president) Amit Shah and his brigade want to destroy democracy; these are their tactics. He has no support from this place," senior TMC leader Sishir Adhikari told ANI.

TMC on Tuesday alleged that the BJP hired goons to vandalise vehicles parked near the venue of Amit Shah's rally in East Midnapore.

TMC leader Madan Mitra said that the BJP hired goons to conspire against his party.

"Beginning of the end of BJP as a whole has already started. It has started in Bengal. BJP has hired some hooligans from Jharkhand. They are doing this because they have no other issues," said Mitra.

The vehicles used for ferrying audience for Shah's rally in East Midnapore on Tuesday were vandalised by some miscreants when these were parked outside the rally venue.

BJP supporters also staged a demonstration, condemning the attack. Police said the miscreants lobbed stones on the vehicles and also torched some vehicles.

BJP secretary Rahul Sinha alleged that the attack was the handiwork of TMC supporters. He alleged that the TMC supporters also attacked women travelling in these vehicles.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra in New Delhi accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata of unleashing 'terror' in the state and called her 'Talibani Didi'.

"We have seen as to how very worried Mamata Banerjee has unleashed the terror of TMC on the BJP and the ordinary people of West Bengal," Patra told the reporters.

"Workers of the BJP were pulled out of the buses and were beaten up by TMC goons. Is this democracy? Police were watching the whole unfortunate incident as a mute spectator. The BJP workers were beaten up by the supporters of Mamata Banerjee. She is behaving like Talibani Didi," he said.

Patra also claimed that Chief Minister Banerjee was capable of halting any event organised in the state to criticise Pakistan over Kashmir matter, fearing that the neighbouring country would get worried and the situation in West Bengal could get tense.

"Chief Minister Banerjee supports Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, and all those forces which are against India," said the BJP spokesperson.

Condemning the attack on the vehicles used to ferry the audience for Shah's rally, Patra said: "It is fearful Mamata Banerjee. It is Mamata Banerjee who very well knows that the vote share of BJP is consistently increasing in Bengal."

"That is the reason as to why she is behaving like this. We condemned this behaviour of Mamata Banerjee, which is undemocratic and also lethal for democracy," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval's son Vivek Doval on Wednesday recorded his statement before a court here in a defamation case he filed against 'Caravan' magazine for allegedly carrying a defamatory article and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh for using the magazine's content "without ascertaining the facts."

Vivek asserted that all charges made against him were "baseless and false" and references were made in "a demeaning manner" without trying to "ascertain the facts." He recorded his statement before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal.

The court at Patiala House here has fixed February 11 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

"I was livid after reading the article published about me in a magazine and the manner in which the events were narrated. My family was referred to as D-Companies whereas we all know that in our country the D-Company refers to Dawood Ibrahim, a known criminal, who figures in the most wanted list," he told the court.

"Questions were also raised on the integrity of my family, especially my father who has dedicated his life to the service of the nation and fighting against Dawood," Vivek further said.

Vivek, who obtained CFA from the US in 2006 and did CAIA from CAIA institute in 2010, said: "Allegations were levied about money laundering and converting the black money into white, without there being any basis."

"It was written that Rs 8,300 crore of black money has been round tripped to India thereby tarnishing my career and my venture GNY Asia Fund," he stated.

Calling himself a proud Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) and citizen of the UK, Doval also asserted that "the article branded him and his family as anti- "

Stating that Jairam Ramesh, a former Union Minister, had used the platform of the Indian Congress (INC) to propagate these charges, he said: "There were many derogatory comments spoken which raised numerous questions on the integrity of my family."

"Unpleasantness was bestowed upon me and my family based on falsehood and mala-fide. Without trying to ascertain facts, references were made in a demeaning manner," he said.

He also claimed that the repercussions of the article and press conference questioned his professional integrity, which is of critical importance for his career. "It has questioned my social standing as a fund manager. If I have dubious integrity, my career is over as a Fund manager."

On January 21, Vivek had filed a criminal defamation case against Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and two journalists, contending that they had caused "irreparable damage" to his reputation "through calculated insinuations and innuendos."

Vivek has contended that Ramesh and the two journalists "have committed the offence of defamation punishable under Section 500 of IPC (which provides for simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both) read with Section 120-B IPC (criminal conspiracy).

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Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar, AVSM, VSM assumed charge as Vice Chief of the Naval Staff on Wednesday.

An alumnus of Defence Academy at Khadakvasla in Pune, he was commissioned into the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy on July 1, 1982.

He is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College in Wellington and has attended the Army Higher Command Course at Mhow as well as the Expeditionary Operations Course at Quantico, Virginia, USA.

The Admiral has held various challenging Staff and Command assignments during his distinguished naval career spanning more than three decades.

After having completed his specialisation in Navigation and Direction at Kochi in 1989, he served as the Navigating Officer of Indian Naval Ships Beas, Nilgiri, Ranvir and Vikrant.

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that US sanctions on the state-controlled oil company PDVSA do not threaten the close ties his country shares with Russia.

"There are no (risks) because Russia is an independent and sovereign state. Russian enterprises are very powerful and they possess own engineering staff, finance, logistics. PDVSA is an enterprise of the sovereign state," Maduro told Sputnik.

"(Russia and Venezuela) are two sovereign states that do business, invest and implement huge oil production projects. Everything will be fine, it is protected by armour - business between Russia and Venezuela in oil and gas sector," he outlined.

On Monday, Washington announced a package of sanctions targeting Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), claiming that it would prevent "further diversion" of assets by "former president Maduro."

The fresh restrictions will freeze $7 billion in assets and cause more than $11 billion in lost export revenues throughout the next year

Russia is heavily involved in Venezuela's energy industry. Russian energy firm Rosneft holds a large stake in a subsidiary of PDVSA.

The US has called on all "responsible nations" to recognise self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate head of state.

US Vice President Mike Pence also plans to meet with Guaido's envoy to the United States soon.

Maduro has called Guaido a US puppet and accused Washington of attempting to organize a coup in Venezuela

The US has certified Guaido's authority to receive and control "certain" assets, held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S. insured banks, which are owned by the Government of Venezuela on Tuesday. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo mentioned that the certification would help Guaido in safeguarding those assets "for the benefit of the Venezuelan people".

Massive protests against Maduro, called by the National Assembly, have jolted Venezuela in the recent past. National Assembly President Guaido, on January 23, dismissed Maduro's status as President and proclaimed himself to be the leader of the nation - a move that was immediately supported by the United States.

The US support of Guaido's legitimacy has led to the deterioration of ties between the USA and Venezuela. All Venezuelan diplomats in the USA have returned home, according to Maduro, after he called for the severing of diplomatic relations with the nation.

Russia, on the other hand, has shown its support for Maduro's regime, slamming the United States for its interference in the sovereign affairs of Venezuela on various platforms, including the UN Security Council.

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Rahul Gandhi is a "compulsive liar," Prasanna Karthik, OSD to Goa Chief Minister, said on Wednesday while commenting on the Congress President's claim that Manohar Parrikar had denied any involvement in finalisation of the Rafale fighter deal.

Gandhi met ailing Parrikar here on Tuesday to "wish him a speedy recovery".

Hours later, he said at a party workers' meeting in Kerala, "Friends, the ex-defence minister clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit (industrialist) Anil Ambani."

The Chief Minister's OSD slammed Gandhi for making such a claim, terming it as "disgusting".

"This guy is a compulsive liar. He came saying he wants to convey his and his mother's wishes for a speedy recovery. CM met him out of decency. Now he shamelessly lies about him - a person who is fighting cancer without compromising on his commitments to his people. Disgusting," Karthik tweeted.

Parrikar, a senior BJP leader, is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February 2018.

Significantly, Rahul Gandhi paid a visit to Parrikar, a day after demanding action against him for allegedly being in possession of files related to the Rafale fighter deal.

"30 days since the Goa Audio Tapes on RAFALE were released. No FIR or enquiry ordered. No action against the Minister either! It's obvious that the tapes are authentic & that Goa CM, Parrikar, is in possession of explosive RAFALE secrets, that give him power over the PM," Gandhi tweeted on Monday.

Interestingly, senior Goa Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar had said yesterday that the meeting between Gandhi and Parrikar lasted five minutes and the issue of 'Rafale audio tapes' was not discussed.

The Congress party, earlier this month, had released an audio clip claiming that Parrikar possessed all files related to the deal.

Congress party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala had claimed that the audio clip had the voice of Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane speaking to another person about the deal.

According to the Congress claim, Rane, in the audio, said Parrikar, who was the Defence Minister when the Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between India and France, had "all files related to the deal in his bedroom."

Later, Rane hit back at the Congress, asserting that the audio tape was doctored and Parrikar made no mention about Rafale deal and its documents.

"The audio tape is doctored. Congress has stooped to such a low level to doctor a tape to create miscommunication between the Cabinet and Chief Minister. Parrikar has never made any reference to Rafale or any documents. I have asked him for a criminal investigation into the matter," Rane had told reporters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TechnipFMC (NYSE

To promote the importance of safe and drinking water, the company sponsored RO units in schools and colleges, an initiative of Chirang District Office in Assam. There are more than 163 million people in India without access to clean and safe drinking water. In such a scenario, the humanitarian initiative by TechnipFMC held on 26th January reinforces the responsibility of corporates to the sustainable development of local communities.

Honorable Minister of Tourism, Welfare of Plain Tribes and Backward Classes (WPT&BC), Sri Chandan Brahma attended the event as chief guest. The event was hosted by Deputy Commissioner and SP of Chirang, Mr. Gautam Talukdar and Mr. Sudhakar Singh respectively along with Asst. District Commissioner Mr. Souvik Bhuyan. India Operating Center of TechnipFMC Group is currently carrying out Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Commissioning (EPCC) contract for Prime-G EPC Project of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.(IOCL) in Bongaigaon, Assam.

Commenting on the activity, Swayantani Ghosh, India Communications, CSR & Sustainability Head said, "Making a sustainable impact in the communities where we live and work is TechnipFMC way of doing The company is present in India for almost five decades and committed to the three pillars of Sustainability: supporting communities, respecting the environment, and advancing gender diversity. Along with our contribution to enhance the performance of the world's energy industry, we are pleased to do our bit in the nation-building process under the aegis of our flagship CSR program, 'Seed of Hope' to celebrate this significant day in the history of Indian Constitution."

The company also partnered with an NGO to host an awareness session on 'Save Electricity Save Money' in Akhod Village, Dahej, Gujarat and distributed 250 LED lamps in pursuit of rural empowerment in India. The awareness session and LED lamps distribution ceremony were held in Akhod School on 26th January in presence of Village Panch and School Principal.

TechnipFMC has already been working on several CSR initiatives in Suva and Akhod villages of Dahej, Gujarat since 2015. The company is actively engaged in CSR activities related to education, health and employment generation for the local community in the villages near to their Modular Manufacturing Yard in Dahej.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Georgia Governor candidate Stacey Abrams on Tuesday confirmed her acceptance of an invitation to give the Democratic Party's response to President Donald Trump's upcoming State of the Union address, thus making her the first black woman to deliver the address.

Perceived as a rising star in the Democratic Party, her unsuccessful attempt to become the Governor of Georgia gained her national following, according to CNN.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday said he had discussed the prospects of Abrams' address around three weeks ago.

Abrams said that she is "honoured" to give the Democratic response.

"At a moment when our nation needs to hear from leaders who can unite for a common purpose, I am honored to be delivering the Democratic State of the Union response," Abrams tweeted.

"Her electrifying message of courage, perseverance and hope reinvigorated our nation and our politics, and continues to inspire millions of Americans in every part of the country. Stacey Abrams embodies the American Dream, and her powerful message of progress for all is deeply needed during this time for our country," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

"Stacey Abrams offers a welcome, stark contrast to President (Donald) Trump's of division and lack of leadership as American families are still feeling the impacts of his self-imposed shutdown. Stacey Abrams is a present and future leader in this country. She is a dynamic, moral leader; she delivered results on the issues that matter most to Americans; and she tirelessly pursues fairness and justice for everyone in her state," a statement from Chuck Schumer read.

The State of the Union is expected to proceed on February 5 after the government shutdown cast doubts over the date it would take place.

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Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to US President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges of false statements, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice on Tuesday (local time).

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, along with the US attorney for the District of Columbia, alleged that Stone gave false statements to congressional investigators regarding the Wikileaks' publication on stolen emails which were meant to dent Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016, CNN reported.

The indictment alleges that during the summer of 2016, Stone spoke to senior Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks "and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. Stone was contacted by senior Trump campaign officials to inquire about future releases by" WikiLeaks, which the document refers to as "Organization 1".

It states that Stone made "multiple false statements" about his interactions regarding WikiLeaks, and "falsely denied possessing records that contained evidence of these interactions", and "attempted to persuade a witness to provide false testimony to and withhold pertinent information from the investigations".

He is also accused of threatening a contact, whose congressional testimony about Wikileaks would be in contrast with Stone's.

There were no changes made to Stone's bail, which was set at USD 2, 50, 000 after his arrest on Friday. His travel is restricted to Florida, New York, Virginia, and Washington DC.

Stone will make his next appearance in court on Friday before District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing a number of the prominent Mueller cases, including the guilty plea of former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Stone has become the 34th person charged by Mueller, seven of whom have pleaded guilty, many of whom, especially the ones close to Trump, have agreed to help investigators. Twenty-six Russian individuals charged by Mueller have not appeared before US courts to enter pleas.

Just one other defendant, Russian firm Concorde Management and Consulting, is currently fighting Mueller's charges.

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The CBI on Wednesday moved an application in a Delhi court seeking consent for conducting polygraph test of accused Manoj Prasad and complainant Satish Sana Babu, in the high profile Rakesh Asthana bribery case.

The hearing of the case is scheduled to take place tomorrow.

Dubai based investment banker Manoj Prasad, allegedly a middleman in the CBI bribery case, is accused of taking a bribe on behalf of then Special Director Rakesh Asthana and was granted bail by a Patiala House Court on December 18.

Hyderabad based Satish Sana, who is facing a CBI probe in a corruption case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, had alleged to have met Manoj Prasad in Dubai. Prasad had apparently informed Sana about having 'very good connection' in CBI and assured Sana of helping in the case through his brother Somesh Prasad.

Sana's complaint was received by CBI on October 15 and an official FIR against Asthana was registered on October 21. Prasad was arrested on October 17 by the CBI for allegedly seeking Rs 5 crore from Sana for getting him relief from the CBI's summons.

Complainant Sana, in his letter to the CBI Director, had alleged that Manoj Prasad's brother, Somesh Prasad asked him to pay an amount of Rs 5 crore to get favour in the case from a CBI officer.

The complainant had further claimed that upon query about the CBI officer about whom Somesh was speaking, he showed him a WhatsApp profile picture of his contact which allegedly was of Special Director Asthana. Thereafter, the complainant alleged to have paid a sum of 2.95 crore to Somesh Prasad and one of his accomplice in two installments.

Sana had also alleged of later confronting Manoj Prasad about the previous payment and the promise of relief in the case, on which Prasad reportedly informed him that 'he had to pay the balance amount of Rs 2 crore to avoid issuance of further notices from CBI and get full relief from CBI'.

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Union Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday mounted a scathing attack on Congress while asserting that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's alleged defamatory statement on Kumbh and Hindu beliefs was made with the tactical support of the Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking to media, Irani said: "It is appalling that a Congress MP, with the tactical support of his president Rahul Gandhi, has indulged in smearing of the Kumbh. Crores of Hindus across the world consider Kumbh not only as a part of their faith but they throng to Prayagraj, as Sanatan Dharm tells us that Kumbh is a place where Tapasvis (sage) come for the betterment of mankind."

"Shashi Tharoor has made a statement which tantamounts to a religious slur. This has been done with the tactical support of Congress party and the question needs to be asked to Rahul Gandhi who strategically wears a 'Janau' only when there are polls. He must be asked as to why he has allowed this attack on the beliefs of millions of Hindus across the world," she further added.

Intensifying her attack on the Congress president, she further said that Rahul's silence on the issue was an evidence that it was done at his behest only.

"The fact that Rahul Gandhi chooses to be quiet and the Congress party representative continues his attack on Hindu traditions and faith are an indication to the entire community that this attack on Kumbh has been mounted at the direction of the Congress president," Irani stated.

BJP's criticism comes a day after, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram posted on twitter, "Ganga bhi swachh rakhni hain, aur paap bhi yahi dhone hain. Iss Sangam mein sab nange hain. Jai Ganga Maiya ki!" (Ganga has to be kept clean and sins also have to be washed there. In this Sangam everyone is naked. Hail Goddess Ganga!)."

Earlier in the day, BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli had also stated that such comments on Hindu practices by an educated person like Tharoor is very unfortunate.

"This is very unfortunate. An extremely educated and respected person like Tharoor always comes up with such kind of comments related to practices of the Hindu religion," Kohli said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rahul Gandhi is a "compulsive liar," Prasanna Karthik, Special OSD to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, tweeted on Wednesday dismissing the Congress president's claims on the Rafale deal after visiting the ailing Parrikar.

Rahul Gandhi, who met Parrikar on Tuesday, said during a meeting of booth level party workers that former defence minister Parrikar "clearly denied" any involvement in the Rafale fighter jet deal "orchestrated" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "benefit" Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani.

Karthik said that Rahul is lying about Parrikar.

"This guy is a compulsive liar. He came saying he wants to convey his and his mother's wishes for a speedy recovery. CM met him out of decency. Now he shamelessly lies about him - a person who is fighting cancer without compromising on his commitments to his people. Disgusting," Karthik tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Goa Minister for Animal Husbandry Mauvin Godinho said that Rahul Gandhi should not try to take political advantage out of personal meetings.

"One should realise that when you come to enquire about a person's health, it should be limited to that. He should not try to capitalise that and say something to the contrary. When meetings take place one-on-one between two people, so many things can be said about each other," Godinho told ANI.

At a meeting with party workers in Kochi, Kerala, late on Tuesday, Rahul said, "Friends, the ex-defence minister clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani."

He went on to say that as a result of this "crime," thousands of young Indians all across the country have been kept from getting high paying jobs with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

Rahul further attacked the Prime Minister over former French president Francois Hollande's statement last year, wherein he said that the Indian government gave Dassault Aviation no choice but to choose Reliance Aviation as the offset partner.

The Supreme Court on December 14 last year had dismissed all petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal with France, saying that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process. The top court said it was not its job to go into the issue of pricing.

The Congress party had, earlier this month, released an audio clip claiming that Parrikar possessed all files related to the deal.

Congress party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane was speaking in it to another person about the deal.

In the audio, Rane, as claimed by Congress, divulged that Parrikar, who was the Defence Minister when the Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between India and France, had "all files related to the deal in his bedroom."

Later, Rane hit back at the Congress, asserting that the audio tape was doctored and Parrikar made no mention about the Rafale deal or its documents.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A pedestrian and a US Secret Service agent on Wednesday sustained injuries following an accident involving a presidential motorcade while it was leaving the White House.

Local media reports suggest that the pedestrian is a protester and he approached the motorcade, with the situation escalating as a Secret Service agent intervened, Sputnik reported.

According to a report, the protester was arrested after he jumped in front of the motorcade near the 17th and Pennsylvania intersection.

While it was previously reported that the accident involved Trump's motorcade, it has been confirmed that the motorcade belonged to a Chinese delegation, Sputnik cited NBC News as reporting. Reports confirm that the motorcade was on its way out of the White House.

A Secret Service statement, shared on social media be an NBC News reporter, said that at "approximately 12:55 p.m. near 17th and F Streets NW, US Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers arrested one individual for Crossing a Police Line and Assault on a Police Officer after they attempted to impede the progress of a vehicular traffic in a temporarily secured area".

"The individual will be transported to MPD 2D for processing," the statement added.

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A special PMLA Court has convicted five accused in a narcotics-related money laundering case.

Principal District and Sessions Judge and Designated Special Judge (PMLA) Ahmedabad Dr. A.C. Joshi ordered for the conviction of the five accused, including a company ( M/s Sakha Organics, Vadodara) under section 3 and 4 of PMLA.

The Court awarded sentence to four accused - Kirit Rasiklal Shah,Jagdish Vaidya, Gunasekaran Pillai and Ravindran Karapaya - with rigorous imprisonment of seven years each and also imposed fine of Rs. 5 lakh each on all the accused including the company.

In case of default of the fine amount, each accused will further undergo simple imprisonment of 5 years, the court said.

The Special Judge also ordered for handing over of confiscated items to the central government as per Section 8(5) of PMLA.

Enforcement Directorate initiated investigations under PMLA for tracing out the proceeds of crime on the basis of a complaint filed by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Ahmedabad, with reference to recovery and seizure of methamphetamine, a psychotropic substance from four accused persons as well as from the factory premises of M/s Sakha Organics.

An investigation conducted by the ED revealed that Kirit Rasiklal Shah availed a loan of Rs. 66.70 lakh from Gujarat State Finance Corporation (GSFC) by way of mortgaging factory premises of Sakha Organics Ltd. at Vadodara. The major repayments were done in 2008 by procuring demand drafts from various bank/person in lieu of cash paid to them. During that period another accused Xie Jing Feng(Canadian National) had paid Rs. 4 crore to Kirit for the production and manufacture of methamphetamine.

The ED also observed that Kirit, without having a legal source of income, had purchased land at Vadodara in 2008 for Rs. 4.45 lakh in three cash installments, hence this property purchased out of the proceeds of crime, along with one car in the name of Jagdish Vaidya and deposits in bank totaling to Rs. 71 lakh were attached under PMLA.

On completion of the investigation, a complaint under section 45 of PMLA was filed before the Special Court, PMLA, Ahmedabad in 2011 against M/s Sakha Organics, its directors Kirit Shah, Jagdish Kumudchandra Vaidya, Gunasekaran Pakiam Pillai, Ravindran Karapaya, both Malaysian Citizens and Sh. Xie Jing Feng, a Canadian National with a prayer for awarding punishment to the accused and confiscation of attached property for their involvement in money laundering.

After the conclusion of the trial proceedings, the Special Judge convicted the accused and ordered for the confiscation of the properties. The trial against other absconding accused Xie Jing Feng, who was a Canadian National, could not be conducted.

The judge has ordered for a separate trial to be conducted against Xie Jing Feng. Extradition proceedings against Xie Jing Feng are under process with the Hong Kong Authorities, since, he is reported to be lodged in Hong Kong jail.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has been awarded the Carnot Prize for his contribution towards sustainable energy solutions by the University of Pennsylvania here on Wednesday.

Goyal, who was facilitated by the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, has donated the prize money to International Solar Alliance.

The Carnot Prize is given to the personalities who have revolutionised the understanding of energy policy.

Former Power Minister Goyal received the award for bringing in transformational changes in its power sector, including the fast-track electrification of nearly 18,000 villages in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the country.

Some of the other projects initiated by the Minister of Railways and Coal include rolling out a comprehensive power sector reform plan and the world's largest LED bulb distribution and renewable energy expansion programme.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar slammed Rahul Gandhi for claiming that he had denied any involvement in the finalisation of the Rafale fighter deal, saying that he felt let down that the Congress president used the courtesy visit to him for 'petty political games'.

Parrikar, the ailing former Defence minister, asserted in a letter to Rahul that the Rafale issue was not even mentioned during the five minutes that Gandhi spent at his office yesterday.

"Reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress. It is reported in the media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it," Parrikar wrote in the letter.

"The Inter Government Agreement (IGA) and the procurement of Rafale are as per the Defence Procurement Procedure. I have said this before and wish to reiterate it again in today's context too. The fighter aircraft are procured following all stated procedures keeping security as top priority," added Parrikar, who was the Defence minister when the Rafale deal was finalised between India and France in 2016.

Rahul, who was on a private visit to Goa, met the Chief Minister on Tuesday. He later claimed that during his meeting, Parrikar "clearly denied" any involvement in the new Rafale fighter jet deal "orchestrated" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "benefit" Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani.

"Friends, the ex-Defence minister clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," Rahul told booth level party workers in Kochi.

Rahul Gandhi is a "compulsive liar", Prasanna Karthik, Special OSD to the Chief Minister, tweeted on Wednesday dismissing the Congress president's claims on the Rafale deal after visiting the ailing Parrikar.

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Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has come under fire from the BJP for his "everyone in naked in this Sangam" jibe at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's holy dip in the Sangam at Prayagraj on Tuesday.

Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said such comments on Hindu practices by an educated person like Tharoor is very unfortunate.

"This is very unfortunate. An extremely educated and respected person like Tharoor always comes up with such kind of comments related to practices of the Hindu religion" Kohli said referring to the tweet posted by Tharoor yesterday.

The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram had posted on twitter, "Ganga bhi swachh rakhni hain, aur paap bhi yahi dhone hain. Iss Sangam mein sab nange hain. Jai Ganga Maiya ki!" (Ganga has to be kept clean and sins also have to be washed there. In this Sangam everyone is naked. Hail Goddess Ganga!)."

Venting his anger at Tharoor, Kohli further said, "One will never find his tweet related to beliefs and practices of Islam, Christianity or any other religion. Why does he do so? If somebody goes to Kumbh to take a holy bath in river Ganga, will they dress in a suit, tie etc? Yogi ji along with other ministers took a dip at Sangam Ghat on an auspicious day. Tharoor must show respect for other people too."

Kohli also pointed out that even Congress party president Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Prayagraj soon to take the holy dip.

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India on Wednesday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over it's Foreign Minister's phone call to Kashmiri separatist Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as it's High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood was summoned by Indian Foreign Secretary and told to desist from such actions.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Google told the High Commissioner that Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's phone call to Farooq amounted to "direct interference" in India's internal affairs.Qureshi called up Mirwaiz on Tuesday, in first direct contact by the new Pakistan government with the Kashmiri separatist leadership.He reportedly told Farooq about Pakistan's "efforts" to resolve the Kashmir issue.

"The Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of India's condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert India's unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister," a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said tonight. "The Foreign Secretary conveyed that this deplorable act has violated all norms for the conduct of international relations even by Pakistan's own standards," it said.

"The Pakistan Foreign Minister's actions are tantamount to direct interference in the internal affairs of its neighbour," the statement added.

The MEA said the Foreign Secretary "underscored that by this action Pakistan has confirmed yet again that it officially abets and encourages individuals associated with terrorism and anti-India activities. "It has exposed to the entire international community Pakistan's duplicity in professing their desire for normal relations with India on the one hand, while openly inciting anti-India activities on the other."

The Pakistan High Commissioner was categorically told by the Foreign Secretary that the Government of India "expects Pakistan to desist forthwith from such actions," the statement said. "He was cautioned that persistence of such behaviour by Pakistan will have implications," the MEA said.

It underlined that India's position that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall remain the integral part of India, and that Pakistan has no locus standi in any matters related to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, has been made clear again to the High Commissioner of Pakistan.

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Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is pursuing an amendment to a Middle East policy bill that would acknowledge the "al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to us here at home," a move in opposition to President Donald Trump's push for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria.

"It would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan," CNN quoted McConnell saying on Tuesday as he announced the amendment, which is currently being debated.

A timeline for the final voting for the amendment, which currently has bipartisan support, is yet to be ascertained.

"While it is tempting to retreat to the comfort and security of our own shores, there is still a great deal of work to be done, we're not the world's policemen, but we are the leaders of the free world," McConnell added.

On December 19, Trump ordered the withdrawal of troops from Syria, a move which garnered criticisms from both parties. He has since extended the initial 30-day deadline for the withdrawal to four months.

"I never said we're doing it quickly, but we're decimating ISIS," he said.

Earlier this month, National Security Advisor John Bolton said that the US will only withdraw its troops from Syria if Turkey gives assurances that it will not attack Kurdish allies there.

In a statement on January 11, spokesperson for the US-led coalition, Col Sean Ryan confirmed that the coalition "has begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria". He did not provide any further details.

In a landslide 74-19 vote on Monday, the Senate pushed for opening debates on a Middle East bill that includes new sanctions on Syria.

The Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act encompasses five bills in a package and includes fresh sanctions against Syria's central bank and individuals backing the Syrian government.

The Act also bolsters military support for Jordan and Israel, two US allies neighbouring Syria.

Earlier, Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that ISIS "has returned to its guerrilla warfare roots while continuing to plot attacks and direct its supporters worldwide".

He also underscored that the terror outfit remained prevalent in Iraq and Syria.

"ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria," he added.

At the same hearing, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said that ISIS has lost "99.5 per cent plus" of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq, adding that "within a couple of weeks it will be 100 per cent".

"ISIS is no longer able to govern in Syria, ISIS no longer has freedom to mass forces, Syria is no longer a safe haven," he said.

Shanahan's comments came in the wake of the US intelligence community releasing their Worldwide Threat Assessment, which found that "ISIS very likely will continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States".

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday said he is ready to hold talks with the US-backed opposition in the presence of international mediators.

Having previously dismissed all prospects of talks, the embattled leader told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that he changed his mind "for Venezuela's peace and its future," Al Jazeera reported.

He said talks could be held in the presence of other countries, proposing Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, the Vatican and, Russia as potential mediators.

Accusing US President Donald Trump of ordering his killing, Maduro said he was aware of the "orders" for Columbian government and the local mafia to carry it out. However, he did not provide any evidence to support his claim.

"If something happens to me one day then Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible for everything that is happening to me. At the same time, I am protected. We have a good system of defence in place and moreover, we have more significant protection - this is protection from God who will give me a long life," Maduro said.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Maduro's opponents must forego all preconditions in order for talks to take place.

"We call on the opposition to refuse ultimatums and to work together independently, guided only by the interests of the Venezuelan people," Lavrov told reporters.

Maduro has rejected calls for his resignation, saying it would amount to blackmail if he did.

"We do not accept the ultimatum from anyone in the world, we do not accept blackmail. The presidential elections in Venezuela were held, but if the imperialists want new elections, let them wait until 2025," he said.

However, he did support holding early parliamentary elections.

"It would be very good to conduct parliamentary elections at an earlier stage, it would be a good form of political discussion," Maduro said.

He further expressed confidence that he was in control of the country's armed forces.

"I am carrying out my duties as commander-in-chief according to the constitution consolidating the national Bolivarian armed forces and the Bolivarian armed forces are demonstrating a lesson in ethics, loyalty and discipline," Maduro said.

The beleaguered leader evaded questions on reports last week that Russian-lined private military contractors have been sent to bolster his security, saying he "cannot say anything about it".

In a tweet, Trump apparently suggested that Maduro's move to hold talks with Guaido came as a result of the US-imposed sanctions on the state-owned PDSVA oil company.

"Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice," Trump tweeted.

The sanctions were imposed in a bid to cut off financial resources to President Nicolas Marudo and redirect them towards the country's self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido. The Trump administration also announced that it will block assets worth USD 7 billion owned by PDVSA.

The situation in Venezuela, which has been struggling to overcome a political crisis amid the opposition's refusal to recognize last year's re-election of Maduro, significantly escalated on January 22 when the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared the president a usurper. The very next day, National Assembly Speaker Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela's interim president.

While dozens of countries, including the US and some of its allies, have recognized Guaido as the acting Venezuelan president, Russia has reaffirmed its support for Maduro as the legitimately elected head of state.

On Tuesday, Guaido called for Venezuelans to gather on the streets for two hours on Wednesday in the first mass mobilisation since last week's protests.

The UN human rights office stated that security forces in Venezuela apprehended over 700 people in a single day of the protests last week, which was the highest tally in the country for the past 20 years.

Over 40 people were reportedly killed during the violence during the mass protests.

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Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States of resorting to "psychological warfare" after US National Security Advisor John Bolton was seen holding a notepad with "5,000 troops to Colombia" written on it.

"This is a childish way to direct foreign policy from the White House," Xinhua quoted Maduro as saying.

"That's why I say nerves of steel, calm and level-headedness, confidence in our strength and maximum military mobilization," he remarked at a military exercise in Aragua, in north-central Venezuela, here on Tuesday. He has also accused US President Donald Trump of interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs to steal their oil.

Bolton was seen holding the notepad during the same conference where sanctions against Venezuela's state-controlled oil agency PDVSA had been announced.

"All options are on the table," Bolton said while referring to the crisis in Venezuela on Monday, in a reported reference to the deployment of military troops in Venezuela's neighbouring nations like Colombia.

Meanwhile, National Assembly President Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself to be the President of Venezuela on January 23, has been barred from leaving the South American nation by Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). The apex court has frozen all of Guaido's financial assets.

"We are requesting the TSJ the application of the following precautionary measures prohibiting departure from the country, of selling and mortgaging real and personal property and freezing bank accounts," Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab had said.

This is in line with the preliminary investigations against Guaido in response to "violent events that were incited in the country beginning on January 22," Saab noted.

In a related development, Maduro has told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that he is willing to meet with opposition leaders and international mediators to resolve the country's political turmoil.

The US was the first nation to support Guaido's claim as the interim President of Venezuela and has rallied for other nations to do the same. China and Russia have put their weight behind Maduro, slamming the United States for its interference in Venezuela's internal affairs.

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The Congress party in Karnataka will issue a fresh round of notices to four of its legislators who did not attend the recently-held Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meetings.

The party has also asked them to appear in person and explain the cause of their absence.

"Now they will have to come. They had not yet come and have only written letters," said Dinesh Gundu Rao, President, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). "They have to explain their absence during the crucial period and they have to give a very good explanation because if someone is absent for a couple of days then it's ok but they were absent for weeks and there seem to be some other issues behind their disappearance."

Four Karnataka Congress MLAs on January 18 abstained from the CLP meeting, which decided to move rest of the 76 legislators to a resort. The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculations that some of the party MLAs had switched over to the BJP.

The Congress, which shares power with JD-S, has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker. Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting held under the supervision of central leaders K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge.

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A city court on Wednesday acquitted Sambia Sohrab, son of a former RJD leader, of the charges of killing Air Force corporal Abhimanyu Gaud by ramming his car into him during the parade rehearsals for the Republic Day celebrations in 2016.

Sambia, son of MD Sohrab who was also with the TMC for some time, was arrested in January 2016 and has been in custody since then.

As per the city sessions court, the earlier charges were harsh in nature and have been quashed. Current charges on him are Section 304(A) and Section 427 which are rash driving and negligence, and damage to Government property, respectively.

The Quantum of punishment is yet to be pronounced.

The earlier charges against Sambia included murder and attempt to murder.

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The families of deceased men and women who lost their lives during the Assam Agitation have decided to return the honour conferred on their sons, husbands or daughters by the government.

Swahid Parial Samannayrakhi Parishad, an organisation of people who have lost family members in Assam Agitation have decided to return the mementoes in protest against the Centre's move to implement the contentious Citizenship (Amendment), Bill.

The organisation said, "The sacrifices made by the sons and daughters of this land will become meaningless if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed. We will return these mementoes to the Assam government through Kamrup (Metro) Deputy Commissioner."

The families of those who lost their lives in the agitation were given Rs 5 lakh and a memento each by the present government on December 10, 2016, at Khanapara Veterinary Ground in Guwahati.

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During the visit, the Army Commander was briefed by the Chinar Corps Commander Lt Gen AK Bhatt, at Badami Bagh Cantonment on the major operational, informational, logistical and administrative aspects pertaining to the Corps and about the current situation including recent counter-terrorist operations.

The Army Commander lauded the exemplary synergy amongst all security forces and complimented the troops for their relentless efforts and selfless service in bringing peace and tranquillity in the Valley.

Last year, the 15 Corps carried out intensive and most successful counter-terrorist operations in the valley as more than 310 terrorists were neutralised including over 250 kills.

The LoC operations were also successful as infiltration levels were controlled extensively.

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Three civilians got injured after terrorists lobbed a grenade towards a police station in Damhal Hanji Pora in Kulgam on Wednesday.

The terrorists missed the target and the grenade exploded on road resulting in injuries to the civilians. More details are currently awaited.

This comes days after terrorists attacked 44 Rashtriya Rifles camp at Ahgam. No loss of life or property was reported. The area was later cordoned off.

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United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday stated that US Intelligence is naive when it comes to Iranian threats.

Referring to Iran as "a source of potential danger and conflict", Trump said that the Gulf nation is testing rockets and much more.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but....a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge," he tweeted.

Further stating that the only thing holding Iran back is its crashing economy, Trump tweeted, "There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

In the thread, Trump also pointed out the "tremendous progress" against ISIS in Syria and talks with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan. He also stated that US-North Korea relationship is at its best.

"....Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never-ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization," Trump tweeted.

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Poking fun at the Opposition's 'mahagathbandhan,' BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday said if the alliance succeeded in forming the government, there will be a different Prime Minister on each day of the week with the country going on leave on Sunday.

Addressing a gathering here, Shah said: "If the mahagathbandhan makes the government then we will have different Prime Ministers on each day like Monday it will be Bhenji (Mayawati), on Tuesday Akhilesh, for Wednesday Mamata Didi will take charge, on Thursday it is going to be Sharad Pawar, on Friday Deve Gowda will become the PM and on Saturday Stalin will be the PM. On Sunday the country will be on leave."

Sharpening his attack on the opposition's alliance he said, "For us '4B' means 'Badhta Bharat', 'Banata Bharat' whereas for them '4B' is 'Bua', 'Babua', 'Bhai' and Behen.' This gathbandhan being formed against BJP is an alliance of crime, corruption and selfish This is basically done to stop our popularity amongst people."

Elaborating that the functioning of the government and the law and order in the state has improved, the BJP president added, "Before we came into power there was no law and order here, but today there is. This government under the leadership of PM Modi and CM Yogi in the state is going to progress further."

He also asserted that the party was committed to building the Ram Temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi spot.

Motivating his party workers Shah said, "We started the campaign for 2014 from Kanpur and the first meeting with booth president for the 2019 elections also happened here today.

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Dr Jawahar Surisetti and Religion of Youth kickstart a series of events under "Gandhi for Youth" (GfY) across the world through the launch of a video "Gandhiji, Give us a chance" today through a YouTube World Premier release at 5 pm on the YouTube channel Religion of Youth (ROY).

The concept Gandhi is the only single largest globally accepted phenomenon of leadership in the world. Across nations, he is respected for his clear vision and the democratic and non-violent way of leading a mass movement which could ultimately achieve us a Free India.

But the sad part is that we have reduced Gandhiji to be a symbol that is celebrated on particular days of the year. This is more so because of a burgeoning youth population born from parents who were born post-independence and did not identify too much with the freedom struggle except from what we read in history textbooks. So, for the past two generations not directly in touch with the freedom struggle and due to some political insinuations on the other side of Gandhi, the youth has lost touch of this great phenomenon that is highly respected the world over.

That is the reason in the 150th year since Gandhiji's birth, Dr Jawahar Surisetti brings forth the concept "GfY" signifying "Gandhi For Youth". He plans activities from the death anniversary of Gandhiji to his birth anniversary in 2019. He plans to repackage the concept called Gandhi as per the youth likes and dislikes to create a connect.

A good example is the Munnabhai franchise by Rajkumar Hirani which struck the chord with the young population with the Gandhigiri concept packaged beautifully to the current scenario. With 70% youth in the country, if they could be able to identify with Gandhism then the best known identification of India will be revived from just being the hero for a couple of days in the year.

Gandhiji in the form that we present today is not creating interest enough to gain attention of the youth. It has remained the domain of politicians alone. Yes to present Gandhi in a youthful way will need an image makeover which is not difficult because Mahatma Gandhi was much ahead of his time and relevant today too. Those who use Gandhi for vested interests will raise a hue and cry because they want to retain the age old image.

But what is the use of retaining a museum image of it does not rejuvenate the youth of today. Are we not wasting Gandhi? Mahatma is India's Bapu and while the whole world adores him and follow him even today, if we alienate our youth from this phenomenon it is the failure of the previous generations not to have been able to do so. Hence GfY by Dr Jawahar Surisetti and Religion of Youth.

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Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's defence began on Tuesday and was wrapped up in 15 minutes, with just one FBI officer taking the stand.

A "stipulation" from another witness, who was unable to appear in the court, was also read by the prosecution.

During the testimony, the lone FBI officer, agent Paul Roberts, discussed the notes he had taken while interrogating an informant in the case against Guzman. The stipulation provided testimony that a different informant had told investigators that Guzman was USD 20 million in debt, CNN reported.

On Monday, the prosecution rested its case after more than 50 witnesses were summoned. Tuesday was day 36 of the trial. The prosecution is scheduled to begin closing arguments on Wednesday.

After Tuesday's testimony, US District Judge Brian Cogan sent the jurors home and asked them to clarify if they can work out their schedules for deliberations to begin on Friday.

The defence is slated to make its closing arguments on Thursday morning, with the jury expected to receive its deliberation instructions later in the day.

Guzman is faced with a number of charges, including international drug trafficking, conspiring to murder rivals, gun charges, and money laundering.

His legal team asked the court on Monday to include in its jury instructions that the government's "proof at most establishes the existence of several separate and independent conspiracies" and not a single one. Prosecutors said that there are no grounds for multiple conspiracy charges.

The judge approved a prosecution motion to restrict the defence from claiming that Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who is believed to be one of the heads of the Sinaloa Cartel, paid the Mexican government to solely focus on Guzman.

"You can have two drug dealers, one of whom is paying off the government and one of whom is not. That does not mean the one who is not didn't do the crimes. I really have to stop you from making the argument because it's so misleading to the jury. It distracts them from the guilt or innocence of the defendant, which is what they have to determine," the motion quotes Judge Cogan's words from the second day of the trial.

The jurors have seen messages and listened to calls between Guzman and his associates, wherein he discusses drug trafficking and ordered executions.

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The Election Commission of India has taken an initiative to create awareness amongst voters through Radio.

Dr Rajath Kumar, Chief Electoral officer of Telangana on Wednesday organised a workshop for Radio Jockeys (RJs) of leading FM channels including All India Radio and various private FM channels in Hyderabad.

The workshop was conducted to explain the Radio jockeys about the various processes that the Election Commission follows to make the voters aware.

The workshop was organised to familiarise the Radio Jockeys with the election process so that they can help in wide and accurate dissemination of information to their listeners.

Around 20 radio jockeys attended a day-long interactive session and demonstration of the election machinery.

Dr Kumar told ANI, "The workshop is essentially to sensitise all people who are communicating with the citizens. These days Radio jockeys have a large audience. If the Radio jockeys are aware of the various processes that the election commission follows, then they can explain the same in their programs.

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Delhi Police on Wednesday arrested the owner of Love Commandos, an NGO that claims to help and protect couples from harassment and honour killings, for threatening and extorting money from a couple.

The case against owner Sanjay Sachdev has been registered under extortion and confinement sections. According to the police, four couples were at the NGO out of which one had complained to the Delhi Commission for Women stating that their documents were taken by Sachdev and he was extorting money and threatening them.

DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal took to Twitter to share details of the incident. She said, "DCW team inspected a shelter home run by NGO Love Commandoes and rescued 4 couples from there yesterday who were illegally confined in inhumane conditions and huge sum of money was extorted from them. We called police who have now filed an FIR in the matter and arrested the owner.

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The Congress party is the organisation that fought the British while the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders begged for mercy, said Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday.

Speaking here at the Yuva Kranti Yatra, Gandhi said, "The Congress party is the organisation that fought the British while the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders begged for mercy."

"The RSS is confused because they think that they are bigger than India. The RSS leaders think they are the authority and source of knowledge in this country. They are absolutely wrong. It's the people of this country who are the source of knowledge." he added.

Continuing his tirade against the BJP and RSS, Rahul said, "Both the RSS and BJP wanted Congress-mukt-Bharat, but, even the BJP leaders have told me that they want to join the Congress. Our party is not just an organisation, it is a representation of the country. The Congress party's history and BJP-RSS' history is very different. We protect truth and they protect the lie."

Speaking about the Congress' efforts in providing relief to the farmers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan by waiving off their loans, Rahul asserted, "I asked the chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan to waive farmers' loans within 10 days, however, the Congress governments did it just in two days."

"India has employment and agricultural crisis, and Narendra Modi has shown that he is not capable to solve this crisis. All the Modi government has done in the last five years is to divide the country," said the Congress party president while giving a message to the youth at the event.

"The Modi government caused riots in North East and Tamil Nadu. The Prime Minister brought in the demonetisation and GST to destroy jobs. When asked about jobs, Modi ji tells to make 'pakodas'," he added.

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British lawmakers on Tuesday voted in favour of an amendment that seeks to reopen negotiations with the European Union over the Northern Ireland backstop, an insurance policy to avoid a hard border with Ireland, in case the UK fails to secure a comprehensive Brexit deal with the EU.

According to CNN, MPs voted 317-301 in favour of the amendment, tabled by Conservative MP Sir Graham Brady, that "requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border; supports leaving the European Union with a deal and would therefore support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change."

Some in Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party are against the open-ended nature of the backstop, as it could see the UK being tied to a customs union with the EU even after the transitional period ends in 2020.

The UK is set to leave the EU on March 29.

May had urged lawmakers to vote in favour of the amendment in order to allow her to re-open negotiations with the EU for talks for securing a legally binding change in the withdrawal agreement.

However, a spokesperson for the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said that the UK's Withdrawal Agreement is beyond renegotiation.

"The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation. The December European Council Conclusions are very clear on this point," the spokesperson said.

His comments came minutes after the Parliament said it "requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements" for it to agree to May's deal.

Ireland has also dismissed prospects of reopening negotiations for the withdrawal agreement, saying, "The agreement is a carefully negotiated compromise, which balances the UK position on customs and the single market with avoiding a hard border and protecting the integrity of the EU customs union and single market".

The British Parliament also approved an amendment, tabled by Conservative MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey, dismissing the prospects of a no-deal Brexit.

Lawmakers voted 318-310 to approve the amendment in what is a symbolic defeat for the government and for a no-deal Brexit.

Speaking after MPs backed her bid to reopen negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland backstops, May said that it was "clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this house for leaving the EU with a deal".

She said that her focus would be shifted to deal with the issues stemming from the backstop, the insurance policy that will avoid a hard border between Ireland (which will remain in the EU) and Northern Ireland after Brexit.

"There is limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. But in contrast to a fortnight ago, this House has made clear what it needs to agree a deal," May said.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said his Labour Party has also agreed to meet May, after weeks of refusing the same and discuss the agreement it wants with the EU.

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Five engineers have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the collapse of a tailings dam as the death toll rose to 84.

According to Xinhua, the dam was owned by the mining giant Vale in Brumadinho in Brazil's southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

Two of the arrested are subcontracted engineers from German group TUD SUD and three others are direct Vale employees, including a geologist and two managers. They have been detained for 30 days.

The geologists and engineers had signed reports attesting to the dam's security, stated Judge Perla Saliba Brito, who ordered their arrests.

The reports for the dam security stated that the structure was following security procedures while the managers are directly responsible for the licensing and operations of the complex in which the dam is located, and thus they are the ones in charge of its monitoring.

According to Judge Brito, there is evidence that connects the accused to murdering the victims of the dam collapse, document fraud and environmental crimes.

Rescue operations are underway as 276 people are still missing and the chances for survival are thin. No one has been rescued since Saturday.

A total of 84 bodies have been recovered and 42 have been identified so far. Most of the victims of the structure that ruptured are Vale employees.

A few rescue teams are concentrating in an area where a Vale cafeteria is believed to be buried under the mud as about 100 workers were having lunch in the cafeteria when the dam collapsed.

The whole structure was carried further down the valley by the mud wave.

In November 2015, a tailings dam partly-owned by Vale had collapsed in Mariana which is located in Minas Gerais, destroying an entire community and killing 19 people, reported Xinhua.

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BESAFE'S Third Annual Conference on "Measurable Impacts of Behavioural Based Safety Implementation in Indian Industry" was held at the PHD Chamber of Commerce, New Delhi in collaboration with the Indo American Chamber of Commerce and VisionOSH, New Delhi.

The Forum for Behavioural Safety (BESAFE), Mumbai, a non-profit organisation has been spearheading the cause of fostering a safe and healthy work place in Indian industry.

Behaviour Based Safety (BBS) as an application of behavioural science has been widely accepted worldwide as an important tool of building a safety culture in industry, helping in achieving zero accident.

BBS has been successfully implemented in prestigious organisations such as GAIL, HPCL, IOCL, L&T, Vedanta, Tata Projects, Sterlite Power, Pidilite, Hindustan Construction, Afcons, Privi Organics, DCM, Galaxy etc.

Addressing the occasion, BBS India, Project Leader, Dr H L Kaila said, "The objective of BESAFE is to focus on ensuring zero unsafe behaviours which in effect would mean zero harm and zero incidence of accidents. This national conference would enable Indian industry to achieve zero harm criterion to save life as well as In this conference, the Indian companies that implemented BBS will share the results achieved towards zero harm mission".

Rajam Krishnamurthy, Lead EHS, Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, Devanahalli said, "focusing on safety measures, we plan to introduce new electrical and tool switches with 1/10th voltage, which is a very new technology innovation in India. This is a safety measure taken so that people can use safe and secure electrical equipment, particularly hand power tools. Kempegowda airport is pioneering several such safety measures."

Indian industry or workplaces would have accidents almost every day as behavioural compliance on an average is 70%. Most of the safety management systems have aimed at controlling unsafe conditions, whereas almost 100% of accidents are triggered by unsafe acts or behaviors. Globally, achieving zero accident at the workplace remains one of the major social and economic areas of concern. Every day, 6,300 people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases - more than 2.3 million deaths per year (International Labour Organization, 2013).

"BBS is a Total Employee Engagement approach to ensure a sustainable safe workplace through a safety cultural transformation. This is addressed by the identification of at-risk behaviors and mitigation by simple observation, intervention, interaction, and internalization process with an emphasis on positive reinforcement to usher in the change", said Shankar Rajagopalan, Global Brand Ambassador, BBS, VP Quality, SHE, Sustainability & Excellence, Tata Projects.

This Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) conference is an opportunity to understand, benchmark your own Company's safety culture with national and international practices and interactions with corporates. About 200 industry representatives participated to focus on behavioral aspects of safety as per ISO 45001 standards. Organizations that don't consider behavioral aspects of safety are safe only accidentally, as unsafe behaviour is the root cause of all accidents worldwide.

The Forum for Behavioural Safety (Besafe) emphasises that more and more we need to look at new approaches to achieving safe and healthy workplaces. We need to apply the learning from the many years of analyses of accidents and ill health because this will contribute to future prevention strategies and activities. Behaviour Based Safety (BBS) is an approach that the forum believes can be applied successfully; it is gaining more interest across industry sectors globally and has the great advantage of needing the involvement of the individual employee, in addition of course, to employer commitment. It is closely linked to company culture and values and, most importantly, when it works, it is an excellent tool to improve safety performance in the workplace.

The daylong session put the conference deliberations into a realistic perspective towards main theme of this national conference linking past, present and future of safety culture of Indian corporates.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan on Wednesday commended the state for its substantial achievements even as he put the blame on the central government for not responding to its financial and infrastructural requests, despite four and half years after bifurcation.

Addressing the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and Council before the budget session, which began on Wednesday, the Governor said, "Countless requests made by the state to the Union government for financial and infrastructural handholding to bring our infant state to a level playing field with its neighbouring States have literally fallen on deaf ears."

"Had the centre cooperated, our success rate would have been much better," he said.

The Governor said that many of the commitments under 'AP Re-organization Act' remained unfulfilled even after bifurcation of the state in 2014.

"The shocking decision of union government to take back funds of Rs.350 crore credited to the state exchequer for taking up developmental works for the year 2017-18 in the seven backward districts of the state despite NITI Aayog certifying the submission of Utilization Certificates (UCs), not only disturbs the continuity of works but also destroys the credibility of the Centre," the Governor said.

Narasimhan said the manner in which the state has overcome all adversities and became a role model, is not only commendable but a "testimony for the performance of my government".

"The state's growth performance averaging at 10.66 per cent (compared to all India growth rate of 7.3 per cent), the highest in the country during this period, only points to the spectacular performance cutting across sectors, despite non-cooperation and lack of support from the Centre," Narasimhan said comparing the growth of the southern state with level.

The Governor further said," We have charted Vision 2029, where we expressed our commitment to give a direction to the government and confidence to the people in the time of fear and insecurity, to be one among the best three states in the country by 2022, the best state by 2029 and one among preferred global destinations by 2050."

Referring to agriculture in the state, Narasimhan said "62 per cent of the population in the state still depends on the primary sector, we have allocated Rs. 81,554 crore in the budget in the last four years for agriculture and allied sectors and introduced a separate budget for this vital sector.

"Andhra Pradesh secured the first rank continuously for two years (2016 to 2017) in ease of doing business. The state has bagged the top rank in 2018 among states in the country followed by Maharashtra and Delhi in the ease of doing business," he said.

More than 30,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) units have been set up with an investment of Rs. 14,292 crore and providing employment to 3.3 lakh persons. Between 2014 and 2018, Rs. 82,097 crores have been disbursed as a credit to MSME sector both in organized and unorganized sectors, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
On his visit to Uttar Pradesh to kickstart BJP's poll preparations, party president Amit Shah took potshots at the previous UPA regime, the Congress Party and the Opposition's 'mahagathbandhan' while also reiterating his party's commitment to building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Addressing a gathering here, Shah alleged, "When the UPA government was in power, terrorists would kill our men just like that and go. But since Prime Minister Modi has come into power we have taken revenge by killing terrorists in their home Pakistan."

Training his guns at the previous UPA government he said that the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress party had no right to comment on the Ram Janmabhoomi matter.

"Congress should not say anything about Ram Janmabhoomi case. Whenever the court wants to hear that matter Rahul's lawyer does not let it proceed. The Modi government has decided to return the 42 acres of land that the Congress had acquired from the Ram Janmabhoomi trustee, but the party is opposing that decision also", he said.

Shah reiterated his comments on Priyanka Gandhi made at Tuesday's public rally in West Bengal, calling the entry of the newly inducted general secretary as the "third G". This was Shah's veiled reference to the 2G spectrum scam in the erstwhile UPA government, which the BJP leader said was guided by the two Gs-Rahul and Sonia Gandhi.

"When the country was governed by the Congress party then there were 2 G, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi; at that time there was a scam of Rs 12 lakh crore. Now the third G in the form of Priyanka has entered, so you can imagine what will happen."

Motivating BJP party workers said, "In 2014, the way to Delhi also began from Lucknow, in 2017 also it was the party workers who made us win the Uttar Pradesh polls."

Earlier today, the BJP president had addressed a gathering in Kanpur where he said there would be a new PM every day if the Opposition grand alliance comes into power.

"If the mahagathbandhan makes the government then we will have a different Prime Minister on each day like Monday it will be Bhenji (Mayawati), on Tuesday Akhilesh, for Wednesday Mamata Didi will take charge, on Thursday it is going to be Sharad Pawar, on Friday Deve Gowda will become the PM and on Saturday Stalin will be the PM. On Sunday the country will be on leave," Shah said.

Sharpening his attack on the Opposition's alliance he said, "For us '4B' means 'Badhta Bharat', 'Banata Bharat' whereas for them '4B' is 'Bua', 'Babua', 'Bhai' and Behen.' This gathbandhan being formed against BJP is an alliance of crime, corruption and selfish This is basically done to stop our popularity amongst people."

Elaborating that the functioning of the government and the law and order in the state has improved, the BJP president added, "Before we came into power there was no law and order here, but today there is. This government under the leadership of PM Modi and CM Yogi in the state is going to progress further.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After the culmination of all-party meet in the parliament annexe here on Wednesday, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan expressed hope that the last session of 16th Lok Sabha will get time to discuss maximum number of issues and most members will get time to speak.

Mahajan said, "We had a meeting with all party leaders. This is the 17th and last session of this 16th Parliament. There will be President's address tomorrow, the budget will be presented on February 1 and there will be about 8 days of session more. Today most leaders have given assurance of support. We will try that maximum issues are raised and most parliamentarians are provided with an opportunity to speak."

"I believe Parliament is for discussions and on every issue must be discussed but no one should feel like the decision should be taken as per their will," she added.

While answering a question she also opined in favour of Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also attended the meeting and said that his party will once again seek time for discussion on Rafale and other issues.

Kharge said, "We have presented a lot of issues in this meeting for the discussion. This being the last session, more time must be given for discussion on the President's address because less time will not allow more members to speak. Secondly, we have said that the full budget must not be presented in the name of the interim budget. The budget must be limited to vote on account. We also said that new facts have come out on Rafale issue and we want that it must be taken for discussion again."

"Time must also be provided for discussion on Issues of farmers, MSP, unemployment, attack on autonomous bodies such as CBI, RBI, CVC," he added.

He also expressed hope to see Priyanka Gandhi in the next term of Lok Sabha and said, "She is a big leader and from wherever she will contest she will surely win, hence she will be seen in next Lok Sabha."

Samajwadi Parliamentarian Dharmendra Yadav accused the government of failing on all fronts and said, "Today government has a lot of challenges and it has failed to fulfil its promises. Samajwadi party leaders will raise these issues in parliament and also will go to the public on these factors. We will seek discussion on farmer issues, the abolition of roster system and other public welfare issues."

RJD leader Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav stated that this being the last session of this term of parliament, the opposition must be given maximum time to hold a discussion on all important issues.

"The meeting was concerning upcoming Lok Sabha session. We raised some strong question on behalf of our party and want to have a debate in Lok Sabha on these issues. We believe that the government has taken a U-turn on all promises. Youth, farmers have been deceived. We are constantly demanding for caste-based census, roster system has been removed from the universities and needs to be looked into; also issue of Citizenship bill was raised. This is the last parliament session of this five-year term and we want that opposition must be given an opportunity for debate on all issues," said Narayan.

The Budget Session of Parliament will commence on January 31 and the interim Budget will be presented on February 1, officials said on Wednesday.

The session will commence with the customary address by President Ram Nath Kovind to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

The session, which will continue till February 13, will have 10 sittings, the officials said.

It will be the last session of the Lok Sabha before the general elections, which are due before May.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AgustaWestland chopper deal co-accused Rajiv Saxena and corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar were on Wednesday extradited from United Arab Emirates (UAE) for India in another breakthrough for the government which managed successful extradition of Christian Michel James in December last year, an official said.

Sources said an (ED) team headed by an Inspector General rank officer and senior officials of Ministry of External Affairs and other officials of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) were taking them to Delhi from Dubai in a special aircraft.

The flight carrying the accused will reach Delhi anytime, sources added.

Saxena was reportedly picked up by the UAE security authorities from his residence on Wednesday morning and extradited to India in the evening for his pivotal role in laundering the money received to pay kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland scandal.

The ED in its supplementary chargesheet had elaborated on how the bribe money paid to clinch the chopper deal was "layered" and projected as "untainted money" by creating "fictitious invoices."

In its chargesheet, the ED has mentioned how fictitious engineering contracts were created to hide the kickbacks allegedly paid by AgustaWestland to companies directly controlled by lawyer Gautam Khaitan, now under ED custody, and his associate Saxena, a co-accused in the case.

A local court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Saxena, a businessman in Dubai, after the ED informed the court that he had not joined the investigation despite repeated summons against him. Saxena's name was mentioned in a chargesheet filed against his wife, Shivani, who is out on bail now after being arrested by the ED.

Saxena was named only in the third supplementary complaint filed in July 2018. The same is also under challenge before the High Court by another accused in the case, Khaitan.

ALSO READ: Christian Michel seeks permission from court to contact lawyers, family

A statement of Saxena's lawyer Geeta Luthra and Prateek Yadav revealed that "there was no extradition proceedings started in the UAE" and that her client was not allowed to access his family or lawyers nor did he get his essential daily medicine.

"He (Rajiv Saxena) was on board a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai International Airport. When his lawyers asked to speak to UAE state security and demanded to understand what happened, they were told he is on the flight and can't be stopped. When they queried further, they were told "ask the Indian Government".

Besides Saxena, the agencies are also bringing alleged corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar to India as he fled to Dubai after the Indian agencies started probing his role for concealing income of more than Rs 1,000 crore as well as facilitating aviation contracts during the UPA regime.

ALSO READ: VVIP chopper scam: ED says Agusta kickbacks routed to multiple entities

On December 4, 2018 British and the middleman in the AgustaWestland case, Michel, 57, was brought to India following his extradition by the UAE. He is currently under ED custody.
India on Wednesday secured the extradition of Rajeev Saxena, an accused in multi-crore AgustaWestland chopper deal scam, and lobbyist Deepak Talwar from Dubai, UAE, which comes as a major breakthrough for the investigating agencies after Christian Michel's extradition in December last year.

According to sources, Saxena and Deepak are being brought in a plane of the Government of India. Enforcement Directorate (ED) will seek their custody from the court where the duo is likely to be produced on Thursday after they land here, said sources.

Talwar is being probed for allegedly concealing income of over Rs 1,000 crore and playing a role in aviation contracts during the UPA regime.

Saxena's lawyers, Geeta Luthra, and Prateek Yadav said that "Rajeev Saxena was picked up by the UAE state security from his residence on Wednesday morning at 9:30 am (local time) and illegally extradited to India at around 5:30 pm (local time). No extradition proceedings started in the UAE."

"He was not allowed access to his family or lawyers or essential daily medicine. He was on-boarded onto a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai international airport. When his lawyers were asked to speak to the UAE state security and demanded to understand what happened, they were told that he's on the flight and can't be stopped. When they queried further, they were told to ask the Indian government," Saxena's lawyers further said.

In December last year, the UAE government had extradited Christian Michel, a British and alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal scam. Michel was arrested on December 5 last year after being extradited to India from Dubai.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in December last year, in a reply against Dubai-based businessman Saxena's bail plea, had informed the court about the request for his extradition from Dubai as he had failed to join the investigation even after repeated summons.

On October 6 last year, a court here had issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Saxena after the ED informed the court that he was not joining the investigation even after repeated summons. Saxena's name figured in a charge sheet filed against his wife Shivani, currently out on bail after being arrested by the ED.

The role of Michel has also been suspected in other deals as well as the ED told a Delhi court on January 5, which sent the alleged middleman in AgustaWestland deal to judicial custody till February 26.

The AgustaWestland helicopter deal, finalised during the previous government headed by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, got mired in the allegations of kickbacks.

According to ED charge sheet, Michel had received kickbacks to the tune of 30 million Euros from AgustaWestland for the deal involving the purchase of 12 VVIP helicopters. The deal, signed in 2007, was scrapped in 2013 following the surface of bribery allegation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A US P-8A Poseidon plane, fitted to detect ships and submarines, has been detected flying along the Syrian coast by several aviation enthusiasts keeping an eye on flight radars on January 30. The plane made several passes along the Syrian maritime border flying at an altitude of 4.7km and then returned to its base in Sicily.

A similar P-8A Poseidon spy plane was seen near the Syrian coast on 15 December 2018 and even earlier on 8 December 2018, Sputnik reports.

Russia's Hmeymim air base and naval base in Tartus are located on the Syrian coast, and often patrolled by US reconnaissance planes. Such planes also fly along Russia's borders in the Kaliningrad region and circulate around Crimea.
At least five migrants were killed and 130 are missing after two boats overturned off the coast of Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement on Tuesday.

"More than 130 migrants went missing on Tuesday morning off the coast of Djibouti after two boats capsized. The tragedy occurred off Godoria, a locality in the Obock region of northeast Djibouti," the statement reads.

The local gendarmerie found two survivors and bodies of three people after arriving on the site upon alerts by the locals.

Eyewitnesses said that the vessel capsized half an hour after the departure, according to the IOM.

The search and rescue operation is underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dozens of migrants are still missing after two boats capsized near East African nation of Djibouti on Tuesday.

CNN quoted United Nations migration agency stating that by Wednesday morning the Djiboutian coast guard had recovered 30 bodies and found 16 survivors.

The local witnesses stated that the boats sank roughly 30 minutes after leaving the shore due to overloading and heavy swells. The boats sank off Godoria in the Obock region of northeastern Djibouti.

An 18-year-old survivor told the UN migration agency's staff that he had boarded one of the vessels with 130 people on it, including 16 women. The teenager further said he did not have any information about the second boat.

Search and rescue mission are still underway as dozens of people are missing. The migration agency divulged that its team was working together with the local officials to look for the survivors.

"This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives," Lalini Veerassamy, the migration agency's Djibouti chief of mission, said in a statement.

The drowned vessels were headed to Yemen taking an extremely dangerous route from Horn of Africa countries travelling to the Gulf of Aden in search of work.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Citizenship for "Dreamer" immigrants will not be on the table as lawmakers try to negotiate a compromise on border security to keep federal agencies open beyond Feb. 15, the No. 2 Democrat in the US House of Representatives said on Tuesday. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he did not think Democrats would consider the issue in exchange for funding for a wall that President Donald Trump wants along the US-Mexico border. "I don't expect that to be part of the negotiation," Hoyer told reporters. He added that he expected to bring a separate bill to ...
The ICICI Banks then board, which rushed to give a clean chit to its former Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar in March 2018 without any investigation, is liable and can be prosecuted for violation of various sections of the RBI, Sebi Act, whistle-blower policy, and the banks own code of conduct, according to corporate lawyers. On what basis did the ICICI Bank directors, including independent directors, give a clean chit to Kochhar? This was a clear violation of RBI and Sebi norms.

Dear Reader,

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Two bombs exploded yesterday in front of a police station in the city of Zahedan in southeastern Iran, causing minor injuries to three police officers, local officials said.

Head of Sistan-Baluchestan police Mohammad Qanbari said the first explosion was caused by a percussion grenade, IRNA reported.

According to him, a "suspicious package" was also found on the street and exploded before being neutralized by a bomb disposal unit, injuring three police officers.

Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group, claimed responsibility for the explosions. The group said it had targeted a police station with "two strong bombs", damaging a police car and motorcycle, Reuters reported.
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



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Bryan, OH (43506)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Storms could contain damaging winds. High 87F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
A delegation from Turkeys Defense Ministry will be in Russia to discuss latest developments in Syria, a Turkish security source said on Wednesday, Anadolu agency reported.

The delegation will visit Russia on Thursday, said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
Turkeys National Security Council on Wednesday discussed the latest developments in Syria and fight against terrorism.

In a statement after a five-hour meeting in the capital Ankara, the National Security Council said that Turkey will maintain its stance on preserving current status in Syrias Idlib, implementation of Manbij roadmap and deals east of the Euphrates River, Anadoly agency reports.

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was ready to take over the security in Syria's Manbij without delay during a phone conversation with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.

A statement from the Turkish presidency said Erdogan and Trump agreed to take joint measures to clear Daesh's remnants in Syria and prevent the group's resurgence.

The National Security Council renewed call for ending foreign support to terrorist groups and said the fight against all terror outfits will continue uninterruptedly.

The council emphasized on securing country's southern borders as part of counter-terrorism efforts.

It also stressed measures against terrorist organizations that are disturbing the country's peace.

The council said it is unacceptable that some countries are refraining from extraditing terror group members.
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Former District Attorney Charles Hynes passed away at a hospice-care center in Florida on Tuesday night, his son Sean Hynes told this newspaper. He was 83-years-old.

His specific cause of death has not been determined, but Hynes suffered from Lukemia and other health problems that forced him to undergo heart surgery in recent years, according to his son, who said the former top prosecutor died while away on vacation, surrounded by his loving family.

On Tuesday night we lost our hero, Sean Hynes said.

Hynes served as the boroughs top prosecutor for 24 years, taking office in 1990 and retaining the seat until 2014, after late District Attorney Ken Thompson defeated him in the 2013 Democratic primary, and again in that years general election  the first time in nearly 60 years that voters ousted a reigning district attorney.

Family and friends laid Hynes to rest following his Saturday funeral in Queens, where the Fire Departments Ceremonial Unit and Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Band kicked off the service with a tribute to the late leader, who also served as Fire Commissioner from 1980 to 1982.

The Flatbush-raised legal eagle  who began his career at the do-good Legal Aid Society, before joining the Brooklyn district attorneys office in 1969  leaves behind a legacy defined largely by his focus on domestic-abuse crimes, and his reputation as a champion for battered women, according to a former spokesman.

This was the driving force of his life, said Jerry Schmetterer, who served as Hyness communications director for 12 years. This is what he cared about the most.

Hynes, who often spoke publicly about the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of his father, created a special unit to prosecute domestic-abuse cases almost immediately after taking office  a novel move at the time, but has since become a standard practice for district attorneys offices nationwide, Schmetterer said.

It was just about the first thing he did when he became DA, and thats copied everywhere now, he said.

And in 2005, Hynes opened the Downtown-based Family Justice Center with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which offers counseling, child-care, and other services to thousands of domestic-abuse survivors each year. The city went on to dedicate the facility to Hyness mother, whom the late top prosecutor credited as the inspiration for his urge to protect women.

I am particularly grateful that the mayor has agreed to dedicate the Center in memory of my mother, Regina Drew, Hynes said back when the space opened.

Hynes enacted other lasting progressive reforms, too, including the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Program he instituted in 1990, which sentences defendants guilty of some felony drug charges to treatment instead of imprisonment, and remains a staple of Kings Countys justice system, according to a fellow Democrat.

His many innovations provide a template for DAs and future DAs throughout the country, said Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Frank Seddio.

But his legacy is complicated by a long list of controversies, including allegations that he wielded his authority to target political rivals and shield allies from prosecution, and a series of ethics scandals that dogged him well after he left the district attorneys office.

Hynes revealed himself as a ruthless political operator when he prosecuted rival attorney John OHara not once, not twice, but three times for voter fraud, which a jury convicted OHara of in 2000, making the lawyer the first New Yorker found guilty of the crime since legendary 19th-century suffragette Susan B. Anthony.

A judge sentenced OHara to 1,500 hours of community service, $20,000 in fines, and barred him from practicing law for nearly a decade, until he was reinstated to the bar in 2008.

The following year, a state judicial committee released a report calling Hyness prosecution of OHara baseless and politically motivated, and in 2017, a conviction-review unit Thompson established after Hynes left office exonerated OHara.

And in 2014, the citys Department of Investigation released a report alleging Hynes, in exchange for political work on his 2013 reelection campaign, paid a media consultant more than $219,000 using money seized from criminal suspects, prompting a federal investigation into the matter. But the Feds in 2016 declined to prosecute Hynes, citing a lack of evidence.

The former top prosecutor, however, did ultimately cop to some illegal campaign-related activities, including using his municipal e-mail account for campaign communications, leading watchdogs on the citys Conflict of Interest Board to slap him with a $40,000 fine last year  the largest the panel ever issued for such violations.
Latest News MyState brings back former broker chief as General Manager Banking Former broker chief will take over as new General Manager Banking

Understanding long-term interest rates in the US and Australia Is this a bubble, as Burry says, or sustainable growth?

The head of one of Australias largest aggregators has spoken out about the importance of brokers, tackling remuneration, customer service and roles and responsibilities, as the Royal Commission final report looms.

By David Bailey, CEO of Australian Finance Group Ltd.

One of the elements in last years Interim Report of the Financial Services Royal Commission that didnt gain much attention at the time centred on the role of the mortgage broking industry in Australia. Commissioner Hayne noted a lack of knowledge about the roles and responsibilities of mortgage brokers.

This dearth of information came despite mortgage brokers now arranging more loans than lenders directly. Brokers share of new home loans stands at more than 55% and is growing by the day.

The growth in mortgage broker numbers, in conjunction with deregulation, has led to more suppliers entering the market, especially smaller domestic and foreign lenders. Underlining the greater choice for consumers, AFG brokers are delivering about 40% of business to the non-major lenders.

As mortgage brokers, we are a significant industry in our own right, contributing almost $3billion in gross value added to the Australian economy annually and supporting the employment of more than 27,000 workers.

Taking up the Commissioners challenge on behalf of the industry, AFG launched a national advertising campaign to highlight some of the benefits mortgage brokers can deliver for customers.

The benefits flow on to the broader economy. The information campaign picked up Commissioner Haynes point as the sector believes there needs to be more education about what they do. You can see the campaign here: https://www.keepcompetitionalive.com.au.

The campaign created a groundswell of activity among Australias mortgage broking community. One of the areas where brokers became most energised is the issue of broker remuneration.

We all know the remuneration model is being looked at in the wake of the Royal Commission. This isnt new. It is something we, as an industry, have been reviewing for some time through the Combined Industry Forum.

In feedback to our campaign, there is strong consensus among brokers that the biggest myth surrounding the mortgage broking sector is the idea that brokers dont do anything after the home loan is established to earn their commission.

The common theme of feedback from brokers is that they are proud of the service they offer customers.

Every broker works with clients in a different way. After loans settle, many brokers check in with customers and lenders from time to time to ensure their client is still getting a good deal.

This often involves a dual approach. Firstly, a market appraisal element to see what is on offer and, separately, also checking in with clients to see if circumstances have changed.

Some brokers conduct this process using hi-tech software and programs with complex algorithms while others use set dates in the calendar to check in. For example, a notional 12-month anniversary of the loan could provide a prompt to touch base with the client, or similarly a birthday message provides a trigger to engage.

One broker in Queensland told how in the final quarter of 2018 she had saved her clients $40,000 by renegotiating rates on existing loans.

Another Brisbane-based broker posed the question to a Federal MP: just a point of difference, does your bank manager service you outside normal business hours or on a weekend? It is the service, flexibility and diversification of product suites that brokers bring to our clients that results in high productivity and competition.

This issue isnt easy. The Federal Department of Treasury acknowledges that we have to be very careful to balance responsibility and interests if any changes are made to the existing system.

At AFG, we have always that said the introduction of fees for service would entrench the oligopoly powers of the major banks because it would impose a clear disincentive for consumers to use the services of a mortgage broker. Consumers would also lose out through the loss of pricing benefits.

Additionally, the big four banks, which hold about 80% of Australias home loan market, have always been opaque about pricing. If service fees were introduced, there would be no guarantee the big banks would pass on savings to customers.

Dont just take my word for it. When the Productivity Commission looked at this, it found the fees-for-service paid by consumers would ultimately hurt competition.

The Productivity Commission concluded a lack of willingness to pay is likely to result in a smaller mortgage broking industry, and the greater damage would be to the lenders without branch networks. Given that many mid-size and smaller lenders rely on brokers to compete, competition in the home loan market would likely be weaker as a result.

Thats why regulators and policymakers are treading carefully in examining this issue in the lead-up to the final report from Commissioner Hayne.
Caracas: Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered on the streets of Venezuela's capital on Wednesday, waving their nation's flag and demanding Nicolas Maduro step down from power in a walkout organized by the nation's reinvigorated opposition to ratchet up pressure on the embattled president.

Protesters said they were heeding the opposition's call for another mass demonstration despite the heavy-handed response by security forces over the last week to quell anti-government protests.

"I'm going out now more than ever," said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63. "We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left."
The man charged with murdering his mother, Pyrhia Sarusi, and aunt, Australian academic Professor Lily Pereg, is on a hunger strike in an Argentinian prison.

Sources in Mendoza say that Nicolas Gilad Pereg is refusing to eat while he is on remand on charges of homicide and aggravated homicide for the deaths of his mother and aunt.

Gilad Pereg, the son of one of two missing sisters found dead in Mendoza, Argentina, is arrested. Credit:AP

Mr Pereg was arrested over the weekend in the South American city, two weeks after the sisters disappeared without a trace.

Investigators looking into their disappearances allegedly found DNA evidence on a t-shirt and a bag of cement connecting Mr Gilad to the murder of his mother and her sister.
The profound freeze in the US came as Australia contended with record heat in its summer.

Classes were cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday in many cities, including Chicago, home of the nation's third-largest school system, and police warned of the risk of accidents on icy highways.

Chicago: Frozen Arctic winds brought record-low temperatures across much of the US Midwest on Wednesday, unnerving residents accustomed to brutal winters and keeping them huddled indoors as offices closed and even mail carriers halted their rounds.

Paramedics were called to emergencies across Victoria in recent days, with the number of people suffering cardiac arrests and breathing problems increasing as the heat soared. Sydney is on track for its hottest January on record and a final burst of heat for the month could well have the data keepers updating their records.

The hot and cold extremes are a feature of global climate change, which drives more pronounced swings in weather and temperature.

In a rare move, the US Postal Service appeared to temporarily set aside its credo that "neither snow nor rain ... nor gloom of night" would stop its work: it halted deliveries from parts of the Dakotas through Ohio.

Temperatures in parts of the Northern Plains and Great Lakes plunged to as low as minus 41 degrees Celcius in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and minus 35 degrees in Fargo, North Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. The frigid winds were bound for the US East Coast later on Wednesday, local time, and into Thursday.
Lord mayor Sally Capp has confirmed that Melbourne City Council made a confidential payment to a female employee as a result of the behaviour of former mayor Robert Doyle.

The latest allegation to surface against Mr Doyle is the third accusation of inappropriate behaviour made by a female council employee or councillors.

Former lord mayor Robert Doyle: a city employee has been given a confidential payout as a result of his behaviour. Credit:Penny Stephens

Mr Doyle resigned last February following a series of sexual harassment allegations against him.

He was accused of sexual harassment by former councillor Tessa Sullivan, and later a second councillor, Cathy Oke, came forward. An investigation found these and other allegations against Mr Doyle proven.
Millionaire philanthropists Judith and Trevor St Baker have vowed to avoid funding the Queensland Children's Hospital in the future over its controversial name change.

Health Minister Steven Miles announced the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital at South Brisbane would be renamed in September last year, prompting outrage from the family of Lady Phyllis Dorothy Cilento.

The Lady Cilento Children's Hospital was renamed the Queensland Children's Hospital last year. Credit:Michelle Smith

It followed a campaign by doctors who argued parents were confused about whether it was a public hospital and it would be easier to raise money with the new name as "Lady Cilento" was not recognised internationally when presenting research.

Mr and Mrs St Baker were major funders of the Starlight Express Room, a haven for sick children at the hospital.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said he will hold a meeting with U.S. Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson in Beijing, where he intends to once again voice Russias position on the situation around the INF Treaty.

"A meeting (with Andrea Thompson) will take place, but concrete time has not been coordinated as of today," he noted.

"We will anyway state everything we consider necessary in the light of the developments," Ryabkov said when asked whether the situation around the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will be discussed at a meeting with Thompson.

"We have also paid attention to an interview of Ms Thompson with one of our radio stations, which inspires absolutely no optimism. Nevertheless, we will continue our focused and concrete work," TASS cited the diplomat as saying.
Maverick Liberal National Party backbencher Jason Costigan has been suspended from the party, after a complaint alleging he harassed a woman.

It is understood a complaint was made to the party on Friday and Mr Costigan was called in to explain himself at the weekend, before he was suspended.

Member for Whitsunday Jason Costigan has been suspended from the Liberal National Party. Credit:Facebook

A woman complained to the LNP that Mr Costigan allegedly harassed her 18-year-old daughter after she returned to her grandparents' home, where he was staying temporarily, and found him shirtless.

Mr Costigan had arranged to stay at the property while on a holiday. The grandparents had left early in the morning and Mr Costigan was alone at the home when the 18-year-old arrived later in the day.
Former LNP president Gary Spence has argued a Queensland ban on donations from property developers should be overruled because it flies in the face of an implied constitutional freedom of political communication.

The Palaszczuk Labor government passed laws last year - backdated until before the 2017 Queensland election - banning property developers from donating money to state and local government politicians and parties.

Former LNP president Gary Spence is fighting Labor's property developer donation laws in the High Court. Credit:LNP Queensland

Mr Spence, also the chairman of engineering consultancy PeakUrban, launched a challenge of the laws in the High Court in mid-2018 and in December resigned his position as LNP president.

He argued the laws prevented him from legally playing an active role in the leadership of the party ahead of the federal election due to his role in the property development industry.
Looking back, there is one conversation Kerry Doyle wishes she'd had with her father John after his first heart attack, one that could have saved his life.

Ms Doyle, chief executive of Heart Foundation NSW, believes if she had spoken to him about cardiac rehabilitation, he would not have slammed face-first onto a footpath and died from a second heart attack three years later.

Kerry Doyle, Heart Foundation NSW CEO, wants all heart attack survivors to attend cardiac rehab. Credit:Christopher Pearce

"Dad talked with me about every aspect of his treatment, but he never mentioned cardiac rehab. My feeling is he wasn't given a referral or its importance wasn't made clear enough," she said.

"Survivors who have gone to cardiac rehab are 25 per cent less likely to die from another heart attack [and] I feel that maybe if dad had gone he would still be around."
It was very frustrating to be in the Liberal Party and to see the benefits of the National Energy Guarantee, and then seeing that basically being used as a trigger to blow up the government. Ms Banks says she was angered by Health Minister Greg Hunt's actions during last year's Liberal Party leadership change. Credit:Andrew Meares She will continue her electorate work for constituents in Chisholm until the election is called and she launches her formal campaign for Flinders, where she now lives with her husband after spending much of her childhood there. Ms Banks said locals in Flinders felt they had been taken for granted by Mr Hunt and could not understand his decision to try to help Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton become Prime Minister last August. Theyre particularly angered at Greg Hunts role in the leadership spill, in him being Peter Duttons wingman and wanting to oust Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop, she said.

Mr Hunt was one of the cabinet ministers who voted for Mr Dutton in the first leadership ballot, on August 21, and then resigned in order to back Mr Dutton in the second ballot, on August 24, which was won by Mr Morrison. Ms Banks, a former lawyer and chief counsel at companies including George Weston Foods and GlaxoSmithKline, supports many of the Turnbull governments tax policies but breaks with the Morrison government on climate change policy. Loading She said she opposed Labor tax proposals including its changes to negative gearing on investment properties and its halt to cash refunds for shareholders who benefit from dividend imputation tax credits. This is a terrible proposal for people who arent necessarily high income earners but want to be self-sufficient, she said of the Labor changes to dividend tax rules.

In relation to negative gearing, I oppose those changes. I believe it will affect housing markets and, again, its not necessarily just high-income people who invest in the housing market. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video If elected and confronted with a hung Parliament where she must support either Labor or the Coalition, Ms Banks said she would make her decision on the context at the time rather than indicating beforehand which side she would back. Loading On preference deals ahead of the election, she said she wanted to issue an open ticket without advising voters to give their second preferences to one party or another, but she also said she would keep her options open to do the best for her campaign.
The full extent of the windfall for Catholic schools under Prime Minister Scott Morrison's funding "fix" last year has been revealed in documents that show the sector will receive more than $4.1 billion in additional federal funds over the next decade.

Official spending projections also show independent schools will gain $263 million in extra federal funding over the same period - in contrast to earlier fears they could lose up to $2 billion as a result of the changes.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Education Minister Dan Tehan in Canberra last year. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The main element of the package announced by Mr Morrison and Education Minister Dan Tehan in September adjusts the way a school's wealth is assessed, meaning it will now be determined by the income tax paid by its parental cohort.

That reform - for which the Catholic sector lobbied aggressively - will generate a $3.4 billion windfall for Catholic schools by 2029, according to Department of Education modelling.
The next federal election will be a more decisive test of Australian political will than any national contest in more than a decade - and Julia Banks helps explain why.

Banks is an outcast from the Liberal Party who goes to the election promising economic responsibility while being socially progressive and supporting action on climate change.

She voted for same-sex marriage and wanted the National Energy Guarantee to pass the Parliament before the conservative wing of the Liberal Party rose up to block the climate policy and topple Malcolm Turnbull.

Former Liberal MP Julia Banks quit the party last year to sit on the crossbench as an Independent. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

If she wins her campaign for Flinders, or comes close, it will be an earthquake for the Liberals after almost three years of anxiety, verging on nervous collapse, over who their base is and how they keep it.
The ACT government has ruled against one of the embassies in Canberra for breaking planning rules.

It has decided that the embassy of the United Arab Emirates cannot be designated as an embassy because it's in a residential area where embassies aren't allowed.

Unhappy neighbour. Mandy Harris in front of the embassy. She says it is not allowed in her residential street. Credit:Steve Evans

In its ruling, it says that the amount of traffic generated by the building could be dangerous for pedestrians, particularly those "with mobility issues".

And it has ruled that a high security fence and a cabin for security guards breach planning law.
A 1960 saltwater crocodile skull, with a quirky engagement story behind it, is back in safe hands after it went missing from Kununurra Museum on Sunday.

Museum curator Andrew Barker confirmed on Wednesday afternoon the 42kg skull was recovered by police in good condition.

The crocodile skull is believed to have survived in the 1880s. Credit:Kununurra Museum

"I can't believe it's back, I am beyond overjoyed," he said.

"To have it staring at me is to have history back.
Perth fencing contractors have been left in the lurch after waiting months for a popular product to be restocked only for it to be eventually discontinued.

James Hardies HardieFence is one of the main fencing products used in Western Australia, and its understood Perth contractors were told there was a city-wide shortage in September last year.

An ad for how to install Hardiefence. Credit:Bunnings Warehouse

However, after two months of waiting for the product, builders were told it had been formally discontinued on November 6.

As previously notified, due to a decline in demand James Hardie will be exiting the HardieFence product as of March 2019, a letter to customers said.
The Nature Conservancy and Murdoch University are assessing the ability of new shellfish 'reefs' to help filter pollutants in the Peel-Harvey Estuary.

Researchers say shellfish reefs are the country's most threatened ecosystem, greater than coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef.

Under new shellfish reefs, a safer ecosystem could be in play, with dolphins, crabs, fish living in cleaner water. Credit:Krista Nicholson

And 99 per cent of shellfish reefs  flat oyster reefs  in the Peel-Harvey Estuary are close to extinction, due to significant land use and historical oyster fishing since European settlement.

Murdoch researcher Alan Cottingham and his team will be attaching cages of blue mussels in a bed-like formation to the estuary's current reefs in 30 locations.
Russias Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministrys Second Asian Department Zamir Kabulov said that the Pakistani partners have confirmed their determination to closely cooperate with Russia both on bilateral issues and on the Afghan settlement.

"We are very satisfied by the recently held substantive consultations," he stressed.

According to Kabulov, at the meeting the sides discussed a whole number of events happening around Afghanistan. "In particular, the sides hashed over the U.S. delegations talks with representatives of the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) in Doha. Both Pakistan and Russia are not aware about the results of the U.S. talks with the Taliban, and the comments by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad do not give a full picture," he said.

"We are determined to play a constructive role in order to contribute to a speedy national reconciliation in Afghanistan and ending the civil war in that country," TASS cited the special presidential envoy as saying.

"Russia and Pakistan are also watching together the U.S. efforts to reach an agreement with the Taliban, including on withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. This would be a key step on a long path of establishing peace in Afghanistan," Kabulov said.
Harrisdale residents have been asked to stay cautious as the bushfire that approached the southern Perth suburb has now been contained.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services has changed its watch and act alert to advice for people living on or near Wright Road and Harrisdale Road. The homes are no longer at risk.

The department previously warned the bushfire was out of control and unpredictable.

The fire started near the intersection of Harrisdale Drive and Benalla Drive, near the Harrisdale Swamp, and was first reported about 9.40am.

Career Fire and Rescue Service firefighters are at the scene, patrolling and mopping up. Aerial support has been called in to help ground crews.
More than 15,000 visitors inundated the Twelve Apostles on Christmas Day, a record high for the Great Ocean Road tourist destination.

Vehicle counters tracked more than 3000 cars, 170 buses and 11 coaches at the attraction on the day. An estimated 242,000 monthly visitors in December was a 12 per cent increase from the previous year.

Hit the Road Tours founder Orlando Berne said the flood of Christmas Day visitors appeared to be mostly locals travelling in their own cars.

The Twelve Apostles is a popular Christmas Day destination for locals and receives an influx of foreign tourists over the Chinese New Year festival. Credit:Jen White/Illawarra Mercury

The international tourists go there seven days a week, based on weather forecast and availability, he said.
She said the justice system was flawed and she hoped changes were made to it. Zara and Zachary Bryant. Why did it take six people to die and over 50 injured and thousands affected before any action was taken? I have lost the feeling of safety I had once felt in my favourite city." Mrs Hassan-Bryant said that on the morning of her son's death she had organised a play date for her two children and they had spent the morning at the Melbourne Museum.

They took the 96 tram back into the city before she left the children with their nanny so she could run errands. Within minutes the sound of sirens rang out and she called to see what was going on. I was ready to hear her say anything else than what I heard. I heard the hysterics of a young lady describing a scene so unimaginable, she said. From the moment she picked up my call my living nightmare started. At the hospital, the Bryant family were faced with two injured children, Zach, who needed urgent surgery and Zara, then aged two, who needed scans.

The news that followed about Zach dug the deepest hole in my heart. I was told we had lost our beautiful perfect little baby, she said. My Zach was gone, my beautiful, innocent, perfect little baby. I can still feel the weight and warmth of carrying him, a gentle and calm soul that was always so easy to please." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Her surviving child has been left to live with serious facial burns, she said.

Zachs grandmother Judith Bryant described Gargasoulas' behaviour as evil. I cannot forget the last image of Zachary before the funeral, the tiny body in the middle of a big hospital bed being wheeled away flanked by police and the coroner. Zara survived but I fear for her that one day shell learn the true horror of what her and her baby brother endured. Matthew Si's family said they all still suffer unimaginable grief over the way the 33-year-old was killed, struck as he walked through the Bourke Street Mall just metres from where he lived. Matthew Si, with daughter Aria and wife Melinda Tan.

His widow, Melinda Tan, said she and her now three-year-old daughter had been robbed of a future with a brilliant and talented man who had just begun enjoying fatherhood. "Your words of sorry mean nothing to me, I wear the label of a widow and you a murderer, she said of Gargasoulas. You are a coward; you sat in the safety of a car and killed and injured innocent lives. May you suffer the consequences of your action and live in life in eternal fear. She now suffers from PTSD, as do many who spoke, and fears shell never again meet a man like Matthew, who she thought shed grow old with.

Aria was 18 months old when this happened ... and kept on calling for Matt when she was upset, wondering why he never came home," she said. On Fathers' Day when everyone is celebrating, we spend our day at the cemetery. Matthew Si (left) and Jess Mudie died when a car ran them down in Bourke Street, Melbourne. Credit:The Age Mr Sis father Kheng Si read his statement with his wife Siew Si standing by his side holding a large poster of their son. He said he was crushed that his eldest son would not be there to care for him as he grows old, a Chinese tradition that usually fills a child with privilege and pride.

Today the truth is I am not OK, deep in my heart I am not OK. I feel pain when I see a little girl happily playing with her daddy and mummy, he said. I will hate the day when my granddaughter will ask, 'Where is my daddy, when is my daddy coming home?' How should I feel when what I have got left of my son is an urn of ashes and a lock of hair in a locket. James Gargasoulas arrives at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Credit:AAP Police and emergency service workers also detailed their ongoing battles with the trauma from the day.

Career firefighter Andrew Picker was off duty and collecting a family member from the mall when the car struck. He said after the murders he left his work to seek solace at his parents' farm before escaping to the desert in Utah, US. Not a day goes by that I dont think about that day, it's burnt in the front of my mind, he told the court. I can't escape my thoughts so I swim for hours out into the sea, but I can't forget. Gargasoulas pleaded not guilty to killing three-month-old Zachary Bryant, Thalia Hakin, 10, Jess Mudie, 23, Matthew Si, 33, Bhavita Patel, 33, and Yosuke Kanno, 25.
Wild weather has lashed Melbourne with parts of the city battered by hailstones while a dust storm swept through Melton.

A severe thunderstorm warning was earlier issued for Melbourne, as heavy rain lashed the city.

Torrential rain forced cars to pull onto the side of the road on the Bass Highway, near Koo Wee Rup. Credit:Justin McManus

Rain hit the CBD about 5pm on Wednesday, but the Bureau of Meteorology is warning more storms, wild winds and possible hail may follow as a cool change sweeps across the city.

Melbourne reached a top of 38.1 degrees on Wednesday afternoon.
A man and a woman have been charged following a spate of armed robberies in Melbourne's north-west, including an alleged attempt to steal from a St Albans pokies venue before a heroic punter stepped in.

Police say the series of incidents took place over the last five years at gaming venues, a post office and a liquor store and included four armed robberies and one failed attempt.

Armed Crime Squad detectives arrested a 34-year-old Kings Park man and a 39-year-old Albanvale woman on Wednesday. Police could not confirm whether both were suspected to have been involved in all five incidents.

The man was charged with offences including armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, recklessly cause injury, assault with weapon and firearm-related offences. The woman was charged with armed robbery, theft, trafficking methamphetamine and cultivating cannabis.

Police also seized from two separate addresses imitation firearms, clothing, mobile phones, cannabis plants and a vehicle.
A teenager is fighting for life after a car with five male teens aboard rolled in the Gold Coast hinterland on Wednesday.

Three of them suffered significant injuries when it crashed about 5.40am on Beacon Road in Mt Tamborine.

The scene of the crash at Mt Tamborine. Credit:Jordan Fabris - Nine News Queensland

Police said the driver lost control as the car headed east, causing it to flip.

The road was closed and two medical helicopters were called to the scene.
The recent Queensland Audit Office report into digital hospitals released just last month, confirmed the digital hospital program is improving healthcare and patient outcomes, the acting Health Ministers spokesperson said. Acting Health Minister Mark Bailey. Credit:AAP Patient safety has markedly improved since the integrated electronic medical records was first rolled out. It has reduced the average length of stay, unplanned readmissions, and the number of serious falls and pressure injuries. Clinicians believe an electronic medical record is a valuable and powerful tool for doctors across the state, and one should be installed in Queensland hospitals.

However, since Queensland Health began the rollout of the Cerner software, clinicians and health bodies have repeatedly warned the state government the software is dangerously flawed. In documents dating from 2014 to the present, obtained by the Brisbane Times, health staff have detailed their concerns about the suitability of the software. Cerner was contacted for comment. The ieMR is being rolled out to hospitals in several stages, known as releases. The first "basic" release prepares the hospital for the software by establishing the core electronic medical record to scan data into the system.

The second "digital release" installs electronic ordering and pathology testing, plus clinical notes, and has the software installed into emergency, maternity and other key sectors of each hospital. The third, "advanced" release creates a fully digital hospital with electronic medication prescribing and management and anaesthetics operating on the ieMR. To date, nine hospitals have the ieMR operating, with Ipswich Hospital the latest to roll out the software in December last year. In 2014, Bushell & Cornish was contracted to assess impacts of the planned rollout of the software's second release on Queensland Healths pathology and radiology units. The final report, leaked to Brisbane Times, was deeply scathing in its assessment of the ieMR project and the risks associated with rolling out the software.

The scope of the 2014 Bushell & Cornishs Impact Analysis of ieMR changes for Pathology Queensland and Radiology Services Operations report focused on the "digital release" of the software and included assessing patient safety outcomes. Report author Christine Cornish was approached for comment. The report The Bushell & Cornish report warned other jurisdictions that had rolled out similar software had experienced catastrophic results, including "hospital morbidity rates had doubled following the ieMR implementation" at the Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh in the US. An academic study, cited in the consultants' report and published in the respected American journal Pediatrics in 2005, detailed the "unexpected" increase in child deaths at that hospital.

"We observed an unexpected increase in mortality coincident with [electronic medical record] implementation," the 2005 study concluded. In the Bushell & Cornish report, Ms Cornish wrote the Queensland Health project team did not provide key information deemed mandatory for performing the ieMR impact assessment. The Bushell & Cornish report warned that other jurisdictions that had installed an electronic medical record had seen serious cost blow-outs and patient safety consequences. Credit:Brisbane Times The highly detailed report raised concerns the project team in charge of the rollout had refused to give Bushell & Cornish unredacted internal reports for their assessment. It was noted that many of the issues and potential impacts, which had been identified by clinical stakeholders  had been removed, the Bushell & Cornish report found.

Bushell & Cornish also found lessons to be learnt from the 2013 Queensland Health payroll inquiry had not been addressed in the Queensland Health integrated electronic medical record project. Furthermore, it is not evident as to whether safety requirements have been adequately addressed, Bushell & Cornish found. There is no evidence that mandatory activities have occurred to ensure the safety of the ieMR solution being deployed into operations across the continuum of healthcare providers for electronic ordering and results reporting. The Bushell & Cornish report laid out a detailed impact assessment, including an "urgent" system issue with labels printed out by the Cerner Millennium ieMR software for blood test tubes. These tube labels were too big, forcing Pathology Queensland staff to either remove the label and breach protocol, or perform blood tests manually.

The Bushell & Cornish report warned up to 40 per cent of blood tests would need this manual intervention to fix the labelling issue if the software as it stood in 2014 was released into hospitals. In Queensland Parliament Estimates in July 2017, then-health minister Cameron Dick confirmed blood test labelling problems had occurred but denied it was a system issue, saying it was a process issue. Former health minister Cameron Dick said blood samples placed in wrong tubes was a "process issue". Credit:AAP Between January 2017 and June 2017, there were 71 wrong blood samples in test tubes at Princess Alexandra Hospital, 80 in Cairns Hospital, 36 in Mackay Hospital, 117 in Townsville and 16 in the Childrens Hospital, Mr Dick said. On the issue of user experience, the Bushell & Cornish report warned clinicians could find the system counter-intuitive and multi-layered to the point where it slows down their work.

Tests may be ordered for the wrong patient  it may be possible to order tests without sufficient information, the report found. Patient records or data could be lost in the integrated electronic medical record, the report warned. The cost of the digital hospital program was also raised in the Bushell & Cornish report, which warned "systemic problems" could cause headaches between Cerner and the department. Vendor management may become increasingly difficult and costly over time  this may lead to vendor performance problems and prolonged contractual disputes, the report found. As such, revenue invested in the ieMR solution may become both an economic and political point of contention.

The Auditor-General in late 2018 found the integrated electronic medical record project would cost $1.2 billion by 2025 for installation and maintenance. The correspondence In a series of emails dated 2014, obtained by the Brisbane Times, the general manager of Queensland Health Services Support Agency requested Ms Cornish amend her report to limit its findings as the report did not align with the scope of work. We now seek early rectification of the report to finalise the engagement, the letter, dated July 7, 2014, and signed by general manager Helen Little, said. Ms Cornish responded the demand would have seen more than 40 per cent of her report binned, including evidence from her research, and refused.

The ieMR project has the potential to result in significant adverse outcomes for the patient, as well as having the potential to severely impact the quality and cost of services for Pathology Queensland and Radiology Queensland, Ms Cornish wrote. The impacts of a failed ieMR Cerner implementation have already been evidenced in other jurisdictions including NSW emergency departments. In some jurisdictions throughout the world, outcomes have been catastrophic and morbidity rates have doubled. To this end, the duty of care which consultants must exercise when performing an assignment of this nature, which is funded by public monies, must be fully understood, particularly with respect to the law regarding professional liability and negligence. The final report included a compilation of research on electronic medical records around the world, many of which detailed critical failures.

Changes requested to the report by Queensland Health also included removing references to NSW Healths emergency department use of Cerner software, the subject of a critical Deloitte review in 2011. References to Denmarks highly successful implementation of an ieMR were also requested to be removed. The Bushell & Cornish report coincided with Queensland Healths change of pace in the ieMR rollout from an incremental approach recommended by Deloitte in 2006. In 2014 the department switched to a "big bang" approach, fast-tracking the software's rollout into hospitals. Ms Cornish also wrote twice to then-director-general of Queensland Health, Ian Maynard, making a formal complaint and raising her deep concerns about the risks involved in the rollout. I am writing to inform you that it is my firm professional opinion that the ieMR project has major systemic problems that will take considerable time and effort to address, she wrote.

... it seems highly likely that the ieMR R2 project, should it be released into live operations, will most surely result in adverse outcomes for patients. Ms Cornish also wrote that the report was based on indisputable evidence elicited through extensive data analysis and the key findings and recommendations were a matter of public interest and must be urgently addressed if patient safety is not to be adversely impacted. Failure to identify and appropriately address issues and risks identified in the  report has the potential to impact Queensland Health in a similar way to the payroll system, she wrote. Mr Maynard requested a copy of the report, and said he had arranged for Ms Cornishs invoice to be paid immediately. I am considering the matters you have raised and I am in the process of having the material you have provided appropriately reviewed, he wrote.
Gold Coast man Dan Shearin has been charged with stalking nine women over the course of 16 years.

Nine stalking charges were laid against the 45-year-old on Wednesday after a protracted investigation by Gold Coast detectives.

Dan Shearin has been charged with stalking nine women.

"During the investigation detectives spoke with multiple women about the information they had provided to police," police alleged, in a statment.

"It will be alleged between 1999 and 2014, the man stalked nine different women by sending them threatening, abusive and degrading text messages.
A grassfire halted trains on the Gold Coast lines in both directions on Wednesday afternoon.

Firefighters order Queensland Rail to suspend trains between Beenleigh and Helensvale as they battled a grassfire, about 4.20pm Wednesday.

Commuters could see the fire burning right next to the track. Credit:Snapchat

The fire broke out at Coomera and could be seen burning right next to the tracks, it has since been contained.

A Queensland Rail spokesman said shuttle buses were organised to ferry commuters between the two stations, about 30 kilometres apart.
A Sydney magistrate has vented his 'surprise' a prosecutor raised no concerns about community safety in releasing a millionaire pub baron who repeatedly attacked his girlfriend on bail.

Phillip De Angelis, 38, immediately lodged an appeal against Downing Centre magistrate Philip Stewart's decision on Wednesday morning to sentence the domestic abuser to a period of home detention.

Phillip De Angelis and Janelle "Nellie" Tilley. Credit:AAP

His solicitor, Rebecca McMahon, applied for De Angelis to be bailed until the March 28 District Court appeal, to which prosecutor Amay Tembe said he consented to the Bondi man's freedom, adding his only concern was about De Angelis not fronting court.

Mr Stewart then asked Mr Tembe whether or not he was worried about "the endangerment of the community?"
Russia is interested in eliminating the terrorist presence in Iraq, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Mohamed Ali Alhakim.

"We are pleased to note that the situation in Iraq has improved after most of the ISIS [the terror group outlawed in Russia] forces were defeated, though the task of eliminating the terrorist threat has not been accomplished in some parts of your country yet," the Russian top diplomat noted.

"We are interested in actively assisting you in the matter," TASS cited Lavrov as saying.
Randwick City Council has joined two neighouring Sydney councils in urging the NSW government to halt its plans to knock down Allianz Stadium, but ruled out joining a legal fight against the looming demolition.

The eastern suburbs council has echoed concerns from Waverley Council and the City of Sydney that legal advice suggested the state government had unlawfully approved its controversial demolition of the Moore Park stadium.

Early demolition works are under way at Allianz Stadium at Moore Park. Credit:Cole Bennetts

But with early demolition works on the stadium under way, Randwick's Labor mayor Kathy Neilson said the council would not pursue legal action being contemplated by Waverley Council due to the risk of significant costs arising from a lawsuit.

Cr Neilson said councillors raised concerns over the validity of the consent for the demolition after considering five sets of legal advice, which scrutinised the government's approval process, at a closed extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night.
The major parties in NSW have seized on parents' focus on getting their children back to school, announcing competing policies that they say prove their commitment to education.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Education Minister Rob Stokes on Wednesday announced they would employ "a record" 4600 additional teachers over the next four years on top of the 900 promised in last year's budget.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Member for Penrith Stuart Ayres and Education Minister Rob Stokes with students at York Public School in Penrith. Credit:Kate Geraghty

"Our figures show we will have 11,000 new teachers; 11,000 full time teaching roles will have been created by this government," Mr Stokes said at York Public School in the seat of Penrith, which the Liberals hold by a margin of 6.2 per cent.

He then took a swipe at Labor, claiming the last Labor government had only employed 1000 new teachers in its last five years in office.
Senior NSW Liberals will step up the party's fundraising efforts in key marginal seats as unions unleash a "vibrant and robust" campaign against the rising cost of living, privatisation and health after being unshackled from a cap on how much they can spend on political advertising.

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The High Court struck down laws that imposed a $500,000 cap on election advertising spending by unions and other third parties in the six months leading up to the state election.

A Liberal Party strategist said the "highly disappointing" High Court decision meant the party had to "up the ante". "Our message is very clear to MPs in our key seats, we have to keep fundraising and urging our supporters to get behind us because we are now severely disadvantaged," the strategist said.

"Most MPs are doing pretty well but we need to keep going and we have been on the phones all morning reminding them of that."
In the pantheon of terrible campaign slogans, its not quite on par with Morris Iemmas herculean effort in 2007 More to do but we're heading in the right direction and Malcolm Turnbulls Ianuccian effort with continuity and change.

But we hope NSW Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain hasnt actually shelled out any cash for Michael Daleys new election tagline Putting people first.

Labor's new slogan was first used by Bill Clinton in 1992. Credit:Shakespeare

Who was behind the slogan, unveiled this week, is unclear - we suspect advertising agency the Moss Group, headed by long-time Labor creative Darren Moss - but he really has reinvented the wheel  first introduced by Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992!

Moss became Labors go-to ad man after the party left Bill Shannon in 2014.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard has told overseas visitors to get health insurance if they want to come to NSW, in a bid to save taxpayers forking out $30 million a year for unpaid hospital bills.

On Thursday Mr Hazzard launched a media campaign targeting visitors who mistakenly believe any medical treatment they might need would be free to them in Australia.

NSW Minister for Health Brad Hazzard Credit:Dean Lewins

If uninsured visitors fall ill or have a serious accident, they can end up in one of our public hospitals for weeks or even months, leaving taxpayers with a substantial unpaid bill, he said.

About 16,000 Medicare-ineligible in-patients require hospitalisation each year in NSW, according to Mr Hazzard's office.
Our local town water supply, Chaffey dam, recently had a major upgrade, which almost doubled its capacity, reports Brian Harris of Tamworth. It is now down to 35 per cent which automatically triggers level 2 water restrictions. Ironically without the upgrade it would be at 62 per cent, with no restrictions in place at all. A case of dam lies and statistics? Sounds like a dry argument.

More collective nouns for our former prime ministers, with Coral Button of North Epping offering two: an obsolescence and/or a passe. Peter Craig of Alexandria suggests a 'conceit' of ex-prime ministers. I struggle, though, to include Julia Gillard within that conglomeration. She comports herself with admirable modesty and dignity. The bloke who started it all gets a shout-out from Sally Somerville of Merriganowry, who writes: Good to see a contribution from the central west, hello Richard Neate. The collective noun for a group of ex-prime ministers has to be Polygon (poli gone). And does Fee Kratovil of Randwick know something we don't when she suggests a "spill"?

You did well, Peter Hayes, to get a three-word-greeting on Australia Day (C8)," thinks Libby Stewart of Pearl Beach (aka Stewartown). "On our daily walk, we are finding the greeting is now reduced to one quick word, 'morning' as people hurry by."

"Grant Agnew himself is 'wrong again' (C8)," reckons Brian Jones of Gladesville. "Not so much with his history but perhaps the meaning of circumnavigate, which is 'to sail around'. Tasman sailed from Batavia down the West Coast of Australia, across the bight and South of the island named after him, then on to what he named New Zealand. Flinders actually sailed around Australia." Dave Beach of Cooyal adds: "Grant's proposition that Abel Tasman 'circumnavigated' Australia is a bit rich. It's like describing someone as having inspected the pitch at the SCG when they have merely walked around the outside of the stadium."

Whatever one's preference, some think it's time to take stock in Warringah. Peter Russell of Coogee thinks Jo Rainbow (C8) may be right, "but 'It's all downhill for Tony' as a headline seems a little understated. I was thinking more 'landslide', or continuing the skiing connotation  'an avalanche' might be a more canny prediction."
Retired fireman Geoff Zipper says children used to play in firefighting foam at staff Christmas parties at many stations around Newcastle and NSW as if it was snow.

"Many times. A lot of the retained staff used to splash it around at Christmas time," he said. "It looked like snow, so they used it. Of course it was. Children ran through it; we all ran through it."

Trainee firemen emerge from firefighting foam during an exercise in Canberra in 2008. Credit:Richard Briggs

Mr Zipper, 69, retired in 2006 with bladder cancer after working for Fire and Rescue NSW for 36 years.

He spent part of his career working at Hamilton Fire Station, in Newcastle, where PFAS contamination from firefighting foam has been found in the soil and groundwater.
After carefully analysing the Attorney-Generals proposed two division model for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission (CIC), and attending the consultation meeting with senior representatives from the Attorney-Generals Department last week, I have come to the somewhat bizarre conclusion that perhaps the government does not wish to win the next election.

I say this, as the intelligent, perceptive Australian community will see the commission for what it is: an attempt to protect parliamentarians, their staff and everyone in the public sector, except those in law enforcement or quasi law enforcement roles, from rigorous accountability, transparency and openness.

Putting the interests of ordinary Australians before those of the political class was one of the first promises made by Scott Morrison when he took over the leadership of the Liberal Party. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

If implemented in its proposed form, the commission will do nothing to bridge the trust deficit between members of parliament and those they represent. Indeed the reverse will be the case.

If I am right in my assessment, and it is difficult to see the commission model in any other light, the government is running the very real risk that the electorate will take its disenchantment with the proposed model to the ballot box. Addressing corruption has been an issue in the lead-up to state elections and may well also be the case in the federal election.
The new memorandum of understanding between the agencies had already led to a number of prosecutions, Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury said, and sent a clear signal that attacks would have consequences. But the government has ruled out building a separate remand centre, another key recommendation of the review, which urged it would help ensure "greater human rights compliance" at the prison. Mr Rattenbury said it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build a specialised facility when other concerns such as capacity and keeping people out of prison in the first place took priority. "Of all the things we need to work on, I don't think a remand centre is the most pressing thing on my list," he said. The Sentenced Section at the Alexander Maconochie Centre is meant to separate prisoners Credit:Jay Cronan

Overcrowding has been a near-constant issue at the prison since it began taking inmates in 2009, despite an expansion in 2016, with two detainees now crammed into nine-square-metre cells designed for one, and multiple sources confirming remandees are routinely bunking with sentenced prisoners. A record 507 prisoners were locked up at AMC in June last year, four inmates shy of capacity. As of January 25, 2019, 484 prisoners were on site. Of these, 38 per cent were being held on remand waiting for their case to be heard, or waiting to be sentenced. A government spokeswoman said detainees could be "relocated at any time as part of usual procedures to ensure the safety and security" of the prison but did not provide figures on how many remandees were accommodated with convicted prisoners. Loading

ACT Human Rights Commissioner Helen Watchirs said she had reminded the government that, under the law, remandees and sentenced detainees should only be housed together in exceptional circumstances such as an issue of safety. The commission said this right to separation reflected the presumption of innocence for detainees who have been remanded in custody but not found guilty of an offence, and protected them from the risks posed by sentenced prisoners, who could be locked up for violent offences. The commission was also closely monitoring general overcrowding at the prison, Dr Watchirs said, though it had not yet become an "inhumane or critical issue". At Legal Aid, Jane Campbell said it appeared the right to separation hadn't been tested in court before. A government spokeswoman said ACT Corrective Services agreed with a separation policy "where practicable and in the best interests of individuals".

But in a small jurisdiction where both male and female prisoners with multiple security classifications were housed in the one prison, issues preventing separation such as existing grievances and debts between detainees were especially tricky to navigate, she said. There were also circumstances when the "temporary placement of remand and sentenced detainees [together] may be beneficial for individuals for cultural, religious or other reasons", the spokeswoman said. New admissions to the jail are now placed under observation in a separate cell block for their first five to seven days. On Wednesday the government released a clear set of human rights principles to "formally clarify" how prisoners should be supported by corrections, from arrest to release. A spokeswoman confirmed the principles of legislation, which will be distributed widely to ACT prisoners and postered around the jail, had not been reviewed or changed but rather translated into new practical standards for staff and detainees - a first in an Australian prison.

"The AMC when it was launched was described as being a prison that was aspiring to be a human rights compliant jail and I dont think anyone ever really actually defined what that meant," Mr Rattenbury said. "This is about being transparent...and definitive about the standards we're striving to deliver." While the new principles stress a remandee must be treated in a way appropriate to their status as an unconvicted person, they do not mention the right to separation from sentenced prisoners, as outlined in the ACT Corrections Management Act. The Canberra Times understands work on major reforms for the ACT justice system is nearing completion, after a forum hosted by the government in December examined rehabilitation programs beyond the prison gates. It is understood a feasibility study into another expansion at the jail is still being considered by the government and Mr Rattenbury said work was underway "on a response" to the rising numbers of both sentenced prisoners and those on remand across the country.
Good morning, Canberra!

If, like us, you've become unhealthily dependent on your fan this week, the end is in sight. While we're heading for another top of 35 degrees today, tomorrow is shaping up to be a cloudy 26.

Give that fan a congratulatory pat and dive into today's main headlines:

Prison assault rate still high as overcrowding concerns grow
Moscow is interested in actively assisting Baghdad in eliminating the terrorist presence in Iraq, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Mohamed Ali Alhakim on Wednesday.

"We are pleased to note that the situation in Iraq has improved after most of the ISIL [the former name of the Islamic State terror group outlawed in Russia - TASS] forces were defeated, though the task of eliminating the terrorist threat has not been accomplished in some parts of your country yet, so we are interested in actively assisting you in the matter," the Russian top diplomat stressed.

Lavrov also pointed out that he would like to know the Iraqi foreign ministers view of "the current developments in Iraq, Syria and other countries of the region as far as the fight against terrorism is concerned."
Of course, having your parents separate is painful, sad, destabilising, scary and a logistical nightmare. Anyone in the "broken home" gang will recall the nasty, slinking presence of a parent as they go around the house taking items from shelves and out of cupboards before leaving the family home. We will all remember the sobbing adults on the stairs; grim weekends of enforced "quality time" with an estranged parent; the terrible, silent dinners. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin set the gentle divorce bar high. Credit:AFP But all that is, I would argue, far better than spending your formative years under house arrest with two people who loathe each other. Better to have a disorientating break while you're young, than to suffer years in the company of two people enacting a corrosive war of insults, screaming, lying, gaslighting, sulking, infidelity or violence, centimetres from where you're trying to do your homework. The idea that you are somehow protecting your children by exposing them to the most poisonous elements of human behaviour is laughable. It is also a heinous injustice for children to be made aware, either explicitly or unconsciously, that their parents are staying in a state of loveless misery "for their sake". As though the burden of responsibility is yours; that if you weren't around, these two people would have gone their merry ways years ago.

Luckily, my parents were so unmistakably incompatible that I never fell for this lie. I knew, for as long as I can remember, that they were caught in a web of fear, laziness and lust that had nothing to do with me. So when, during one of their separations, I was reassured by kindly adults - a teacher, a friend's parent - that this wasn't my fault, my answer was always: "I know. It's theirs." Loading The UCL study, published in the journal Social Science and Medicine, also reported that, on average, mothers experienced more mental health problems if they separated when children were older. This is, in part, because the financial impact of divorce is more severe for a woman the later it happens in a marriage - ie once your income, investments and belongings are as intertwined as a hedge full of bindweed. What this says to me is that if we really wanted what was best for our children then we would all, men and women, strive for an end to the gender pay gap, regulation of private landlords, free childcare  all the things that keep many couples stuck in loveless marriages and many children, like me, living in homes damaged by them. NO, there is no 'good time'. Jane Gordon says that, if she had her chance again, she'd have worked at it.

The seven adults, one child and a dog gathered around a table in a London pub last Sunday probably looked like the perfect multi-generational family. We were celebrating the birthday of my youngest daughter with a brunch that was, for me, as bitter as it was sweet. Because, despite the illusion of unity we gave off to the people seated at neighbouring tables, we are in fact a broken family. Divided some 15 years ago by divorce. It isn't, of course, either possible or desirable to turn the clock back to change the events that caused my ex-husband and I to part. The fact that we can all get together on special occasions and have fun is proof, I suppose, that we have achieved what some might call a "civilised" or "amicable" separation. But the truth is that divorce is rarely civilised and almost never amicable. The breaking-up of a family is always going to be painful and the idea that there is ever a "good" time to divorce is, I think, very misleading. It isn't, of course, either possible or desirable to turn the clock back to change the events that caused my ex-husband and I to part. But I do believe that if I had known then what I know now, I might have worked harder at holding our marriage together. Our breakdown was not a sudden thing but a slow moving apart. In the last few years, I was more absorbed in my children  then aged 21, 19 and nine  and my career, than I was in my relationship with my husband. While he, feeling increasingly isolated, switched off.

At the time, our problems seemed insurmountable  a future apart seemed preferable to a future together. But had someone told me the truth about divorce  explained to me exactly how, in the years ahead, it would impact on our lives and the lives of our children  perhaps we might still be together. Instead, we both bought into the idea that by divorcing we could achieve a "clean break" and a "fresh start". Neither of which, in the event, worked out. While we did move on to new relationships, they, too, broke down and today we are both single and, yes, sometimes lonely in a way that confirms my belief that divorce is never a good thing. And it doesn't mean you are going to be any happier than you would have been staying together. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes divorced when their daughter, Suri was turning seven. Credit:AP I do worry that telling parents it's better to divorce when the children are under seven will discourage them from working through the humps of unhappiness that any marriage goes through. Divorce, I now believe, can only ever be seen as a favourable option to marriage in the most desperate of circumstances. No marriage is ever perfect, but most are probably good enough.
Fast fashion brand Zara is no stranger to criticism over its manufacturing and waste issues. But a social media backlash brewing against the company today has come from a surprising source: typography pedants.

The biggest fashion brand in the world, owned by Spanish giant Inditex, has revealed a new logo featuring the four-letter brand in a more tightly kerned, overlapping design. And the people, most likely including a great many graphic designers, are not amused.

A screenshot from Zara's website showing the new logo. Credit:Zara.com

To understand the revolt, one needs to appreciate the conventions around kerning (the space between letters in print). As any newspaper subeditor (or reformed subeditor) will tell you, we are all guilty of "squeezing" a headline from time to time beyond the limit set. The idea, of course, is that the letters should be easy on the eye and not resemble some ink-blot drawing.

But Zara's latest effort has even those blessed with 20:20 vision reaching for the headache tablets. And the internet is asking: what's the point?
Canadian folk musician Ben Caplan plays the 'wandering Jew' narrator. Credit:Fadi Acra MUSICAL

OLD STOCK: A REFUGEE LOVE STORY 

Arts Centre Melbourne, until February 2 It was Holocaust Remembrance Day last Sunday and we shouldn't forget that the horror of the Nazis sprang from a long history of violent anti-Semitism. Pogroms in eastern Europe in the early 20th century prompted an exodus of Jewish refugees, many settling in the New World. Musical theatre might seem an unlikely choice to portray such subject matter  at least until you remember the enduring popularity of Fiddler on the Roof. This boutique musical from Canada is set in the same decade, but is less stippled with nostalgia and finds a finer balance between looking forward and glancing back than its Broadway cousin does.

Dani Oore and Mary Fay Coady. Credit:Prudence Upton The show follows an unorthodox romance between two Romanian Jews, Chaim (Dani Oore) and Chaya (Mary Fay Coady), who escape persecution in their homeland, disembarking on Canadian shores in 1905 where the trauma of the past lingers, before yielding to life in a new land. But the star of the show is Ben Caplan, playing a larger-than-life wandering Jew narrator. Hes an extraordinarily gifted performer  with vocal thunder, lightning-fast comic delivery and a beard any man might envy, who sings up an electrifying storm that encapsulates the immense vitality of Jewish culture and its adaptability. Youll hear the strict conjugal duties prescribed in the Torah, jauntily sung, but also a subversive patter-song that looks behind the stark commandments of the Bible to allow for the vicissitudes and complexities of life in the real world. Ben Caplan sings up an electrifying storm that encapsulates the immense vitality of Jewish culture.
Starting a new job can be daunting, but much less so when there are a few practice runs leading up to the big day. For the incoming cohort of beginning teachers, professional experience placements are helping prepare them for the start of careers in education. Isabella Levis, 24, joins the profession this year as a visual arts teacher at Sylvania High School. During her two-year Master of Teaching studies, Levis profited from in-school practical experience. In the first year of her degree studies, she completed an observation program where pre-service teachers observe a variety of lessons in different faculties for one day a week over eight weeks. Invaluable lesson: New teacher Isabella Levis is ready to go after in-school practical experience.

Professional experience placements (PEX) were completed twice in the first year, for three weeks each time, and then for five weeks in the final year. All PEX placements are reported on by a supervising teacher in accordance with the Australian Professional Standards for Teaching. The experiences, opportunities and support my supervising teachers provided me with has been invaluable, Levis says. I found that PEX was a reality check that places you in a safe environment where you can experiment with different strategies and begin to find your own identity as a teacher. When it came time to seek find employment, Levis says she was warned about the challenging jobs climate, particularly in her field of visual arts. She says she feels extremely lucky to have been offered a graduate position right away. In the fourth term of 2018, Levis worked as a casual teacher in a number of schools, some as a result of positive relationships built on PEX, others through direct contact with the school. My advice to soon-to-be-grads is to jump in, be professional, proactive and committed from day one, Levis says. I think its really important to approach your interviews as a professional, beyond university, not as a university student. In other words, prepare and seriously consider what you have to offer potential students.
A Senate report has called for the government to set a national target for the number of electric vehicles in commonwealth fleets to boost the uptake of EVs in Australia and bring EV racing to the nation to increase public support for electric cars.

However, the report's writers said it does not go far enough to accelerate EV uptake and warned Australia would be left behind the rest of the world.

The Select Committee on Electric Vehicles' report made sweeping recommendations on how Australia can attempt to catch up to other nations' electric vehicle industries and manage the risk of the transition from petrol to electric cars.

The report recommended the government build a 10-year EV manufacturing roadmap to boost the development and uptake of EVs in Australia. Credit:AP

Australian governments should prioritise the development of a national electric vehicle strategy, the report said.
Online homewares seller Temple & Webster expects to ride a demographic wave to riches as more digital-savvy-millennials reach an age where they invest in furniture for their homes.

Australia's largest online furniture retailer on Wednesday defied the slowing housing market and soft retail market to declare a maiden half-year profit, and said it was on track for sustained profitability after being loss-making since it listed on the ASX in late 2015.

Temple & Webster CEO Mark Coulter says the company is on track for sustainable profits. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Temple & Webster said its sales jumped 40 per cent in the six months to December 31, to $49 million, up from $35 million in the same period a year ago.

As millennials are getting older, theyre buying their first or second homes, or moving our of home, and its that demographic change thats trumped any kind of downturn in the housing market," said Temple & Webster chief executive Mark Coulter.
Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Getting a mortgage will be different. Getting financial advice will be different. It's likely that many financial planners and mortgage brokers will lose their livelihoods. Bankers will lose their bonuses. Returns to bank shareholders  including you and me, through our super  will be curtailed, at least in the short term.

Loading But the power and fury about to be unleashed by Kenneth Hayne on Australia's banking system will be a much-needed cleansing power. Because the cost of inaction  of leaving things as they are  is potentially even worse for shareholders. Banks have already shelled out $7.4 billion to make up for their poor behaviour, according to an estimate by Shaw and Partners banking analyst Brett Le Mesurier. Shareholder returns have been drained by $3.2 billion to refund customers who received poor advice, no advice, sham products or were overcharged on credit cards. Implementing these refunds has cost shareholders an estimated $1.8 billion, while other costs incurred to manage risk, compliance, regulation and litigation arising from the misconduct currently exceed $2 billion. Just how strong Hayne's final punch is remains to be seen. During the commission's hearing, he revealed his rather unique "iron-fist in velvet-glove" approach. And, in the end, the velvet was wearing pretty thin.

His 1000-page interim report certainly drew back the fist, concluding on the root cause of misconduct: Why did it happen? Too often, the answer seems to be greed  the pursuit of short-term profit at the expense of basic standards of honesty. How else is charging continuing advice fees to the dead to be explained? It's entirely possible Hayne's final report will recommend an end to bank ownership of financial and mortgage adviser networks, the banning of certain commissions, an overhaul of CEO pay and new powers and funding for regulators. In responding, its time for Labor and the Coalition politicians to put aside political bickering and commit to leading a sensible national conversation about the report's conclusions. A big ask, to be sure, on the eve of an election. But the political response to Hayne's recommendations will affect Aussie hip pockets long after the cardboard ballot boxes of this election are recycled into toilet paper. Having already promised to swallow the recommendations whole, there seems little point to Labors current blustering over Treasurer Frydenbergs decision to wait until Monday to release the report, which will be delivered to the Governor-General this Friday.

Loading Labor sat on the Ken Henry tax report for about three months before releasing it, along with its full list of responses to individual recommendations. So the Treasurer taking the weekend to read what promises to be the most radical reshaping of our financial system in living memory hardly seems unreasonable. The Coalition maintains it is still considering its position on whether to adopt all of Hayne's proposals. Amid widespread popular disgust at the misconduct revealed, it will be under considerable pressure to adopt most, if not all. But doing so will likely involve substantial budgetary cost to boost regulator funding, along with political pain from those whose livelihoods may be threatened, such as mortgage brokers. As they embark on their weekend reading, Coalition strategists must keep the national interest  rather than their own political interests  at the fore.
Harrisonburg, VA (22807)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sat with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires in late November without a translator or aide from his administration present, The Financial Times reported.

Trump was joined by his wife Melania Trump, but there was no note-taker or translator from the U.S. at the meeting. Putin was reportedly accompanied by a translator, with all four at a table.

A Russian government official said that the talk lasted about 15 minutes and included discussions about the Syrian conflict and a clash days earlier between Russian forces and the Ukrainian navy. Trump and Putin also talked about the potential for a formal meeting, the official said.

The White House previously acknowledged that Trump came together for an "informal conversation" with Putin during the summit, but did not disclose specifics. The White House did not provide comment about the report Tuesday.

Trump planned to meet formally with Putin at the G-20 summit, but scrapped those plans as he took off for Argentina, citing Moscow's military tensions with Ukraine at the time.
Two seat cushions have been found which are likely to have come from the plane carrying missing footballer Emiliano Sala, UK investigators have said.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) was advised by its French counterparts on Monday that part of a cushion was found on a beach near Surtainville on the Cotentin Peninsula.

A second cushion was found in the same area later that day.

The AAIB said in a statement: "From a preliminary examination we have concluded that it is likely that the cushions are from the missing aircraft."

It went on: "Since we opened our safety investigation on Tuesday 23 January, we have been gathering evidence such as flight, aircraft and personnel records, and have been analysing radar data and air traffic tapes.

"We have been working closely with other international authorities and have kept the families of those involved updated on our progress."

The AAIB has established a "priority search area" of around four square nautical miles and commissioned a specialist vessel to carry out a survey of the seabed.

Due to the weather and sea conditions, this is expected to start at the end of this weekend and could take up to three days.

If wreckage is found, a remotely operated vehicle will be used to examine it.

The AAIB said it is aware that a privately-funded search is also being conducted and is "liaising closely with those involved to maximise the chance of locating any wreckage and ensure a safe search operation".
European Council chief Donald Tusk insists he still does not have a clear idea of what the UK wants out of Brexit, following a phone call with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

He says the so-called "alternative arrangements" she wants to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland dont amount to a plan, and her withdrawal agreement's not open for renegotiation.
The original financial projections made by the Cork County Board for the redevelopment of Pairc Ui Chaoimh were overly ambitious, GAA director general Tom Ryan believes.

In his annual report launched today, Ryan countered Cork chairperson Tracey Kennedys claim made at last months annual county convention that the cost of redeveloping still stood at around 86 million and stated the costs will be much larger. GAA stadium director Peter McKenna told the Irish Examiner the final bill will 110m.
President Michael D Higgins was among the crowd at Cork Opera House last night for the first public screening of an episode of The Irish Revolution, a major documentary collaboration between UCC and RTE. Narrated by Cillian Murphy, the three-part adaptation of the hugely successful book, The Atlas of the Irish Revolution, begins on RTE One next Monday.

After the screening, President Higgins took to the stage as part of a panel discussion chaired by John Bowman. The President recalled his own father's involvement in the War of Independence as part of the IRA in north Cork, and praised the documentary for its approach to the period of 1916-22.
Russians who have hever visited Turkey will be able to learn more about the republic during the Year of Cultures of Russia and Turkey, Turkish Ambassador to Russia, Mehmet Samsar, told correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza.

Ambassador highlighted steady increase in popularity of Turkey as tourist destination among Russians. "Last year, about 6 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, and their number is growing every year. Russian tourists visiting Turkey learn about Turkish hospitality, Turkish cuisine and various cultural characteristics of our country. Considering the fact that Russia's total population is about 140 million people, 6 million visitors (or 4.3% of all Russians) is a very significant number," he said.

"In order to strengthen relations in cultural and tourist fields, it was decided to hold the Year of Cultures and Tourism in 2019. We're bringing Turkey to Russia for those who have never visited our country - we present our culture and art in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan. We hope that thanks to presentation of Turkish culture in Russia, number of Russian tourists will increase in the future," he noted.

"Russian side also presents its culture in Turkey. Of course, if visa-free regime will be introduced for Turkish side, number of Turkish tourists visiting Russia will increase. We invite all our Russian friends to events that will be held as part of the Year of Culture and Tourism," he concluded.
Two individual statues of musician Luke Kelly, one on either side of Dublin city, were unveiled today to mark the 35th anniversary of his death.

One is on South King Street, donated by the late Gerry Hunt and sculpted by John Coll.
A Dublin Castle security man who lost control and jumped on a colleague before repeatedly hitting him in the face in a workplace attack will be sentenced in April.

Griffith OKeefe, 46, with an address at St Patricks Avenue, North Strand, Dublin 3, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Office of Public Works employee Noel Redmond at Dublin Castle on February 27, 2018.

Father-of-two OKeefe, who has been a security man for 20 years, lost his job as a result of the incident.

Judge Dermot Simms said today, the court was concerned at the seriousness of the assault.

A lot of workplaces can be very stressful but society depended on a division of labour and people being able to work together in stressful situations, he said.

He was furnished with a probation report.

He adjourned sentencing to allow the defendant time to complete a restorative justice services programme.

Dublin District Court was told Redmond arrived at work and tried to get access to the that the door had been locked. control room with a swipe card. But he could not get in and believed the accused had deliberately kept the door locked.

After three or four minutes OKeefe took the lock off, Judge Dermot Simms was told.

Redmond went to his locker to take out some toiletries for the shower and commented to O'Keefe

During an exchange between the pair, Redmond told OKeefe there would a change in relation to his shift.

Redmond then turned to go down a set of stairs when OKeefe jumped on him and "straddled" him before hitting him six or seven times to his head and face.

During the attack he shouted, Youll not be getting on this f***ing unit and he then jumped off Redmond before heading to the canteen.

A victim impact statement and medical reports were handed into court.

Redmond told the court he had no hard feelings against OKeefe but he had been left out of pocket as a result of dental work.

Put to him by a defence solicitor that there was no mention of this in earlier medical reports, he claimed his dentist told him damage to his teeth was caused by the assault.

The defence asked the judge to note the dentist's report just stated it was possible it was caused by the attack.

OKeefe had no prior convictions and had not come to attention since.

Pleading for leniency, his solicitor referred to the early guilty plea and that he accepted it was a very serious offence.

He had no excuse and lost control and was very sorry, the court heard.

A medical report was furnished which referred to a condition he suffered from and which leads to some outbursts of anger.

He was a strong family man and it was out of character for him, the judge was told.

It had also caused him to lose a permanent pensionable job and has had financial difficulties.

The victim might be entitled to redress elsewhere because it was a workplace incident, the defence submitted.

OKeefe had also apologised in writing to Redmond, the court heard.

A conviction could be detrimental to his future, his solicitor said.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has rebuffed demands from British Prime Minister Theresa May to re-open the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, insisting it is the only viable option.

The Taoiseach and Mrs May spoke on Wednesday afternoon by telephone following the vote in the House of Commons which seeks to set aside the provision for a backstop in the case of a no-deal Brexit.

During the conversation, Mr Varadkar set out once again the unchanged Irish and EU position on the Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop, noting that the latest developments had reinforced the need for a backstop which is legally robust and workable in practice.

According to a note, the Prime Minister indicated that further consultations are taking place in London. The two leaders agreed to stay in touch over the coming period.

Earlier, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker described the agreement reached after 18 months of negotiation last November as the best and only deal possible.

And he told MEPs in the European Parliament in Brussels: The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

The withdrawal agreement will not be renegotiated.

Mr Juncker said he would stay in close contact with Mrs May and would listen to her ideas.

But he added: I will also be extremely clear about the position of the EU.

"Yesterdays vote has further increased the risk of a disorderly exit of the UK.

Tuesdays Commons vote demanded the replacement of the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs that no-one, on one side or the other, can say very clearly and precisely what form these alternative arrangements will take.

Insisting that the plan remains at the heart of the EUs efforts to protect the single market, Mr Barnier said: The backstop is part and parcel of the withdrawal agreement and this agreement will not be renegotiated.

The prime ministers spokesman said: The EU had said it was seeking clarity  there had been suggestions that the backstop was not the main issue of concern, which had originated in Brussels.
A man serving life for the murder of a van driver more than 20 years ago claims he should not have been transferred from an open prison back to a high security jail over a decision that he had taken drugs - which he denies.

Alan Lyons (38), formerly of Bonham Street, Dublin, says he was unwell from a blood disorder and not "stoned" as prison authorities believe.

He was jailed in 2000 for the murder of David Watson (21), a Liverpool man working as a van driver in Dublin, in a fatal stabbing during an attempted mugging on Thomas Street.

Mr Lyons has brought a High Court challenge to his transfer from Shelton Abbey open prison in Wicklow back to Wheatfield in Dublin for allegedly having taken drugs on two occasions in October 2016 and July 2017.

He wants the decision quashed as arbitrary, capricious or unjust.

Prison authorities said his speech was slurred and he was unsteady on his feet on both occasions.

He denied his speech was slurred but says he was unwell due to a disorder of iron overload in the blood, called Haemochromatosis.

He said he can appear similarly unwell to this day due to conditions that doctors are still investigating, including possible Lyme disease.

The court heard urine tests taken on both occasions, after he was sent back to Wheatfield, proved negative.

He claims the return to the high security prison has been detrimental to his mental health and disrupted the progress he has made while in prison. He has got an Open University honours BA in humanities and was attending a music course at a Bray college.

He has a relationship with a woman he knew before he went to prison and hopes to have a family when he gets out.

"My hope and stuff for the future nearly went out the window", he said in relation to how the transfer affected him.

In 2000, the Central Criminal Court heard David Watson, who lived in Dublin with his fiancee, had parked his employer's van at a junction in Thomas Street on the night of April 24. He had been drinking and was slumped at the wheel when a number of people leaving a pub told him to move the van.

Mr Watson moved it and a witness heard someone say "this would be an easy mug". When Mr Watson got out of the van to defend himself against three or four people who were attacking him, he collapsed having been stabbed.

Another witness said they heard Lyons say shortly afterwards: "I got rid of it", a reference to the murder weapon.

Mr Lyons, who denied murder but admitted manslaughter, was sentenced to life.

The High Court heard today that he became a model prisoner over the years and in 2016, the parole board recommended he be transferred to an open prison.

Shelton Abbey

Shelton Abbey's assistant governor, Patrick Corcoran, told the court he observed Mr Lyons unsteady on his feet on two occasions, both just weeks after he had come from Wheatfield.

He believed he was under the influence of drugs and for his own health and safety, and because there are only limited medical facilities in Shelton Abbey, he decided to transfer him.

Mr Lyons told the court he was not wobbling or falling down but was "unwell" and "a bit worse for wear".

He denied he was present when officers carried out a search of his Shelton Abbey room on the day of the second incident.

He agreed he had a smart mobile phone in his room, rather than a basic model which was all he was entitled to. He denied he put something into his mouth while officers were searching his room.

The case resumes next month before Mr Justice Charles Meenan.
A medical expert told the trial of a retired surgeon accused of groping a number of boys in his care that he was shocked by allegations of a teenager being masturbated during an examination.

Michael Shine (86) of Ballsbridge, Dublin has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 13 charges of indecent assault allegedly committed during medical examinations at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth and at two private clinics in Drogheda.

On the tenth day of the trial, Richard Stevens, a former consultant surgeon who currently teaches at the Royal College of Surgeons, gave evidence that he had examined the medical records of all seven complainants and was aware of the allegations they have made.

He told Cathleen Noctor SC, prosecuting, that he could not see a reasonable reason for examining the genitals of a patient who had had surgery on his finger as had been alleged that Mr Shine did to the first complainant.

Mr Stevens said that there could be no possible reason for a surgeon to masturbate a 13-year-old to ejaculation in order to check that his genitals were functioning as normal.

He described the allegations that Mr Shine had done so as incredible and said he was quite shocked by the whole thing.

He said it was quite normal to examine the testicles following surgery for testicular torsion, but that there was no reason to also the examine the penis as Mr Shine is alleged to have done. He added that it was unwise to examine a child in the absence of a parent and it always has been.

Mr Stevens said it was normal practice to ask patients to retract their foreskin for examinations and that there was no basis in medical practice for a doctor to masturbate a patient's penis.

He said there was no medical reason to fondle the genitals of a patient who had undergone knee surgery or a patient who had undergone surgery on his appendix, both of which Mr Shine is alleged to have done.

Mr Stevens told Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, that a normal examination of the testicles only takes a moment or two, quickly enough that neither the patient or the doctor becomes embarrassed.

The trial continues in evidence tomorrow before Judge Martin Nolan and a jury.
A father-of-one who crashed into the gates of the British Embassy was off his medication at the time of the collision, a court has heard.

Eric Hogan (33) with an address at Harbour View, Canal Side, Athy, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to criminal damage at the British Embassy, Merrion Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin, on June 9, 2018.

Garda Declan Dunne told Barry Ward BL, prosecuting, that on the night in question he was on duty outside the embassy when he saw a grey Peugeot car drive in front of and collide with the outer gates.

Gda Dunne said that Hogan was shouting when he drove into the gates but not making sense. He saw him exit the car and thought he was intoxicated due to slurring his speech.

The embassy's outer gates were knocked off their rails by the collision. The total cost of repairing the gates was 33,500 plus VAT.

Gda Dunne agreed with Pieter Le Vert BL, defending, that Hogan took umbrage at the suggestion that he had been drinking. He told gardai that he never drinks and drives due to his uncle having been killed by a drink driver when he was aged 22.

Mr Le Vert said his client was off his medication at the time of the incident and that he was grappling with psychiatric issues. He said Hogan did not know where he was when he was remanded in custody and thought he was in an asylum.

He said his client had a spotty memory of the crash and was mortified with his actions. Hogan has five previous convictions for public order offences and he lives with eight year old son for whom he is his sole carer.

Judge Pauline Codd ordered a psychiatric report and adjourned the matter for sentencing on April 12, 2019.
A Monaghan mechanic on trial for IRA membership was found to have a number of republican posters in his TV unit, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

James Joseph Cassidy (55) of Tullycollive, Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, has pleaded not guilty to being a member of an unlawful organisation styling itself as the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA, within the State on September 21, 2016.

Giving evidence at the non-jury Special Criminal Court today, Detective Sergeant Oliver Flaherty, of the Special Detective Unit, told the court that he was involved in the search of Mr Cassidys premises and adjoining lands on September 21, 2016.

Det Sgt Flaherty, told John Byrne BL, prosecuting, that he found a black metal pipe, about 40cm in length, with drilled holes in a shed. It was found on the floor in a small space between the rear of a vat or box and the wall. It would not have been visible to anybody walking into the shed, he said.

Detective Inspector William Hanrahan, of the SDU, gave evidence to Mr Byrne, that he had previously seen similar tubing in relation to "other IRA operations". It was a booster tube, the detective inspector said.

Det Sgt Padraig Boyce, of the SDU, gave evidence to Mr Byrne that he was present for the search and found a number of posters in a TV unit of the sitting room.

The posters contained a slogan which referenced the Police Service of Northern Ireland as well as the address of a website republicanunity.com.

Under cross-examination from Padraig Dwyer SC, for the defence, Det Sgt Boyce agreed that the group Republican Unity were not a proscribed organisation.

He said he didnt know if the group Republican Unity produced the posters but that their website address was on them.

The trial continues on Friday before Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding alongside Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Ann Ryan.

901164[/reamdore]

Opening the trial on Tuesday, Paul Greene SC, prosecuting, said gardai discovered a water booster tube during a search in and around Mr Cassidy's family home and sheds which he owned or had access to.

Mr Greene said there would be evidence of this device's similarity to one seized during another prosecution in Kilcurry, an area not very far away from where we are talking about.

He told the court that the Tullycollive area is an unusually remote part of Monaghan overlooking the border into Armagh and accessed by a minor road.

Counsel said gardai found the gated property to have had a high degree of security with a number of St Bernard dogs who behaved rather aggressively. He said investigators discovered extensive security lighting activated from the accused man's bedroom.

Mr Greene told the three-judge panel that gardai also found three mobile phones and items of Republican paraphernalia that would be exhibited in the trial.

He said there would also be evidence of Mr Cassidy's association with a number of convicted IRA members and people of a group called the Republican Network Unity (RNU).
Unrealistic price expectations among house sellers is the number one reason a sale falls through.

A new report by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) shows that demands for higher prices rank ahead of mortgage issues and buyers finding another property.

The report also found that nationally, house prices are expected to increase by 4% this year, while prices in the rental market are expected to rise by 5%.

Aine Myler, SCSI Director General, says a consistent increase in house prices over the past number of years has created unrealistic expectations.

"You can imagine that everybody has this anticipation that the following year their house is going to be worth more," said Ms Myler.

"But actually in a wider context we have had supplies start to come back into the market which provides more choice for buyers.

"We've also had the Central Bank macro-prudential rules coming more to the fore, in the last year in particular, which limits the amount that someone can borrow and necessarily then what somebody can pay."

Full room as @irishcongress general secretary Patricia King opens Raise the Roof conference, housing crisis is not normal and there are solutions that must be state-led, @labour policy agrees pic.twitter.com/3hFykeLDNl  Jan O'Sullivan (@JanOSullivanTD) January 30, 2019

Meanwhile, campaign group Raise the Roof says introducing a legal right to housing would be a good first step in tackling the accommodation crisis.

The alliance - which includes unions and charities - is also calling on the government to introduce a major social housing programme.

The campaign is holding a conference today in Dublin to discuss the issue.

Campaign spokesperson Macdara Doyle from Congress says introducing a right to housing would represent important progress.

"We are not saying that this is a silver bullet, that you can introduce this tomorrow and then homelessness ends and the housing shortages disappear magically," said Mr Doyle.

"That's not going to happen. But it is an important first step."
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had given Venezuela support on all fronts and that Caracas was grateful.

Maduro noted that "Putin is giving us support from Russia on all levels and we have received it with much pleasure and gratitude.

"What I asked President Putin is to keep in touch with us, to support us at the diplomatic and political level in the UN and to defend the truth of Venezuela internationally. During the conversation a few days ago, he told me that we would strengthen cooperation in the economy, trade, oil, gas, military affairs, in all areas," Sputnik cited the Venezuelan leader as saying.
Despite promises that no homeless person would sleep rough during this week's deep freeze, it has been claimed that 86 people were left on the streets of Dublin on Tuesday night.

The figure was revealed shortly before the Department of Housing released the December Homelessness Report which showed that there are 9,753 people in emergency accommodation. It includes 3,559 children.

There was an increase of 37 adults accessing emergency accommodation and a decrease in the number of families presenting to homeless services in Dublin.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has defended his Department's approach to the homeless in light of the sudden slump in temperatures after claims dozens of homeless people slept on the street while others in hostels were "turfed out" early the following morning.

As the cold snap began to descend on Ireland at the start of this week, Mr Murphy promised that no homeless person would be left without accommodation unless they refused the offer of help.

However, Anthony Flynn, CEO of Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH), said that ICHH teams made four attempts to secure accommodation for people only to be told that beds were not available.

"The ICHH teams assisted 86 people on their routes last night, 70 males and 16 females, so we are way under-resourced when it comes to bed availability," he said.

"With snow forecast this week we have grave concerns for the safety of people sleeping rough around the country and the Minister is clearly getting bad information from his team and the Council if he thinks there is a bed for everyone that needs it."

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald raised the matter in the Dail.

"People have contacted my office to say that those who were in hostels last night were turfed out into the cold first thing this morning and are now sitting around in tents near Heuston station," she said.

Mr Murphy responded by saying: "We have to be careful in addressing this situation with the cold weather initiative that is in place to make sure the information we are getting is accurate".

He added that in recent months the Government has put in place 200 extra "permanent new beds" for homeless people and 150 more emergency beds for those in need.

Reacting to the figures June Tinsley, Head of Advocacy at the childrens' charity Barnardos warned that any the decrease in child homelessness in December shoud be seen in the context of extended family and friends rallying round to ensure children dont have to spend Christmas in emergency accommodation.

"The number of children homeless in December 2018 is 42% higher than December 2016. Homelessness is not something any child should experience. It is not acceptable.

We know the harm being caused to children who experience homelessness. Last week Temple Street Childrens Hospital raised concerns it has over the number of children accessing its Emergency Department who were experiencing homelessness, many of whom presented with injuries or illness associated with their poor living situation.

"But there are many other hidden effects of homelessness on children. Even a short experience of homelessness will impact on a childs emotional, health and social wellbeing. What we are seeing unfold over the course of the housing crisis are children being faced with a highly stressful experience in their lives.

Government has within its gift the ability to solve this crisis and ensure these children dont spend another Christmas in homeless accommodation; the question is will they take the bold steps needed?.

In Cork, homeless charities are increasing the facilities available to rough sleepers to ensure that nobody is left out in the cold.

Cork Simon's 47-bed shelter was fully occupied on Tuesday night, with an additional nine people staying in common areas. The night light service, an additional facility in place as part of Cork City Council's winter initiative, also hosted an extra 17 people.

However, despite this, Paul Sheehan, communications and campaigns manager at Cork Simon, said that there was still a 'small number' sleeping rough.

"Our outreach team is in touch with them, constantly encouraging them to come indoors and avail of an emergency bed," he said.

"We continue to work closely with Cork City Council and other homeless services providers in Cork to make sure there's a bed for everyone that needs one."
Gardai are seeking the public's help in tracing the whereabouts of 16-year-old Samuel Milosiu who is missing from the Drogheda area since January 10.

He is described as being 5'8" with black hair, of slim build with brown eyes.
Oireachtas members will be asked today to resource schools and teachers to ensure students with Down Syndrome are given a level playing field.

Down Syndrome Ireland have today said without adequate provision, people with Down Syndrome are effectively been discriminated against.

After completing his Leaving Cert later this year, Yan OCarroll from Tralee is hoping to go to college and study home economics.

He will meet with TDs and Senators this afternoon and explain how they can support him and other people with Down syndrome.

His father Gerard OCarroll says while teachers are doing the best they can, it is time the Government played its part.

"We are asking the government to do their bit in allocating resources so that teachers can do their jobs better so that people like Yan and people who need that support get it in order to move on," said Mr O'Carroll.

July Provision excludes children with DS from an extra month of #education , that extra month can really make a difference! 



Please like, share & sign the petition to #makeadifference :https://t.co/uO6ct1iLiX #inclusionmatters#PersonFirst#TuesdayMotivation pic.twitter.com/hBrrs0tpcJ  Down Syndrome IRL (@DownSyndromeIRL) January 29, 2019

Down Syndrome Ireland says it is essential that the Government ensure that all people with Down Syndrome can avail of the July Provision, which extends the school year.

But right now only people with a severe learning disability or autism can apply for the support.

"The long summer holidays is a big issue for children with Down Syndrome who have issues with their learning, with their working memory, it can have a huge impact on them," said Fidelma Brady, National Education Officer with Down Syndrome Ireland.
The operator of Shannon Airport has urged the Government to financially support its efforts to secure flight connectivity to one of the EU's major airports after Brexit.

Shannon is already connected to Heathrow, but the effectiveness of that would change with the UK leaving both the EU and the customs union.

Shannon's management said it can help by presenting "a compelling proposition" to airlines, but Shannon Airport is specifically looking for the Government to establish a "connectivity fund" to help its cause.

The airport split from the Daa five years ago to come under the auspices of the State-backed Shannon Group - which also oversees Shannon Heritage and Shannon Commercial Properties, which targets business investment in the region.

Speaking on the back of the publication of strong 2018 figures - showing growth across each of its divisions - Shannon Group chief executive Matthew Thomas said Brexit is a concern for Shannon Airport and the west of Ireland as a whole.

"We need connectivity to key business markets. We're very well served into North America, but we need to replicate that into one of the key eastbound hubs; whether that's Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam," he said.

Shannon Airport boosted passenger numbers by 6.5% last year; its best year in a decade seeing more than 1.86 million people fly through it.

While still short of its 2.5 million passenger target by this point, Mr Thomas said the figures vindicate the separation from the Daa and said the numbers compare favourably to any Irish airport outside of Dublin.

Shannon Heritage visitor numbers jumped more than 4% last year, while Shannon Commercial Properties completed the 40m first phase of its investment programme.

Within that Shannon Free Zone has now more than doubled occupancy rates to 94% since 2013.

Car maker Jaguar-Land Rover took up space in the Shannon Free Zone last year. Mr Thomas said interest was being shown in the west of Ireland by a number of UK companies.

However, he said it was "hard to say" whether such activity was a direct effect of Brexit.

"As a primary catalyst for economic growth for the west of Ireland and beyond, we fully understand that our improved business performance stimulates economic benefits both regionally and nationally. Shannon Group's activities support 46,500 jobs annually. When we grow, the economy grows," Mr Thomas said.

"We are set on an ambitious course, investing aggressively in our businesses to drive further growth in the years ahead," he said.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that production of the W76-2 warhead in the United States lowers the threshold of using nuclear weapons and increases the risk of a nuclear conflict.

The Russian foreign minister stressed that this issue was already included in last years review of Washingtons policies in the nuclear sphere. "Already then we expressed serious concern the development of such low-yield warheads lowers the threshold of using nuclear weapons and increases the risk of a nuclear conflict," TASS cited him as saying.

"As far as we can see, that provision has now been translated into the language of practical action. Certainly, this by no means promotes security in the modern world," the Russian top diplomat noted.

According to him, Russia was expecting a response from the European countries to the production of the nuclear warhead in the U.S. "Europe intentionally or unintentionally supported or connived with previous unilateral actions by the United States. What I have in mind is the United States' unilateral pullout from the anti-ballistic missile treaty and the beginning of the deployment of a global US missile defense, including its NATO component in Europe. The same applies to the United States destruction of the INF Treaty, which happened with actual support from the North Atlantic Alliance," Lavrov recalled.
Mikael Holter, Luca Casiraghi, and Irene Garcia Perez

Norwegian Air gained the backing of Norways richest man, providing some stability to the struggling discount carrier as it searches for a new suitor following IAGs decision to abandon its eight-month pursuit.

The shares fell the most on record after Norwegian said it had raised 3 billion kroner (308m) in a rights issue underwritten by investors including shipping magnate John Fredriksen to avoid breaching financial covenants. While the stock declined, the bonds advanced as investors welcomed the cash infusion, which eases concerns over Norwegians viability.

"Ive known John Fredriksen for a long time, and we even have a CFO who has worked for Fredriksen, chief executive Bjorn Kjos told reporters in Oslo.

Were very happy to have the Fredriksen group as a part of that guarantee consortium

Norwegian found cover just days after Aer Lingus and British Airways parent IAG said it had broken off talks on a potential takeover.

Norwegian said its no longer in active discussions with suitors, freeing the company to address its balance sheet. But Mr Kjos indicated Norwegian is still open to other potential buyers.

Asked about Lufthansa, which held talks with Norwegian last year, and Ryanair, which has denied speculation of its interest, Mr Kjos declined to discuss specifics. I cant say who, I can only say that more than one interested party has contacted us, he said, while praising IAG as a very good company.

The carriers bonds recovered losses recorded last week after IAG pulled out. Its 250m of notes due December gained 13 cents on the euro to 96 cents.

IAGs decision to walk away from the talks had spurred concerns about Norwegians finances, with analysts widely predicting that a capital increase was likely though the rights issue is bigger than many had forecast. About 2.4bn kroner of the total will be guaranteed by DNB Bank, Danske Bank, and Mr Fredriksen, who last year pulled off the painful restructuring of his offshore drilling company Seadrill.

Mr Fredriksen, 74, has said hes looking at new opportunities as he continues to diversify his wealth, estimated at 6.9bn.

The Norwegian-born Cypriot citizen, made his fortune in shipping in the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time as he ventured into offshore rigs in 2005, he invested in salmon farming, a move that proved especially efficient in balancing his portfolio when the oil industry slumped a decade later.

An investment in Norwegian would be his first in airlines.

Bloomberg
Intel will receive grant aid of about $1bn (875m) from the Israeli government for its latest investment plan to expand its chip manufacturing operations in the country, Israels finance minister has said.

Finance minister Moshe Kahlon said that he was informed by the chip giant (which is already one of the biggest employers and exporters in Israel, where many of its new technologies are developed) that it would invest about 40bn shekels (9.5bn) in a new factory.

Earlier this week, California-based Intel said that it would submit a business plan to the government of Israel for continued investment in the companys Kiryat Gat manufacturing site in central Israel, but did not disclose details, including the schedule, costs, and technologies.

The moment the company comes to Israel and invests $10bn, and it receives a grant of 9%, that means 91% of it stays here

- Mr Kahlon said in an interview on Israels Army Radio.

There are always such discounts, there are always incentives, he said.

This is in addition to a 700m shekel grant that the company will get in return for a separate, $5bn expansion of its production operations in Israel.

Intel Plant, Leixlip, Kildare

Last month, Intel said that it had begun plans for site expansion projects in Ireland, Israel, and at its US plant in Oregon, starting in 2019.

Its is looking to diversify its products for a broader set of customers, such as auto safety and wireless connections for mobile phones.

Mr Kahlons spokesman told Reuters that the government and Intel had agreed on the size of the grant after talks regarding the new factory had intensified over the past year.

He noted that grants were crucial for Israel to compete for investment with countries such as Ireland.

The expansion is expected to add 1,000 new employees to Intels workforce of nearly 13,000 in Israel, the spokesman said.

Economy minister, Eli Cohen, said that it was the biggest investment of its kind ever in the country, adding it would strengthen the economy and employment in Israel.

Intels exports from Israel rose by $300m in 2018 to $4bn, while it bought $1.7bn of products from local companies.

The company, along with Israel Chemicals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, accounts for close to half of Israels industrial exports.

Reuters
Dublin City Council has refused planning permission to businessman, Harry Crosbie for a luxury boutique hotel for Hanover Quay in the city over a row concerning the public gaining free access to the waterfront at his planned hotel.

Mr Crosbie was planning to convert his own home at 9 Hanover Quay on Grand Canal Dock into a four-star 19 bedroom hotel with guest bars and dining areas along the floor-length windows on the waterfront.

The hotel - which faced local opposition - was to complement the planned U2 visitor centre for the adjacent site and that project received planning permission last week.

However, the city council has turned down planning permission after Mr Crosbie refused to countenance the public having free access to the waterfront at the planned hotel.

In a further information request last year, the Council requested Mr Crosbie to investigate the possibility of maximising public access to the quayside at his planned hotel.

In response, however, Mr Crosbie said in a letter that if the Council insists on an open quayside, then I would prefer to abandon the project and stay as we are now.

Mr Crosbie - who has helped transform Dublin's docklands over the years with the construction of the Point music venue, now the 3Arena and the Bord Gais Theatre - said: To allow free access would bring chaos and would be unsafe and attract anti-social behaviour in this very narrow strip. This behaviour can be unpleasant and nasty.

It would be impossible to run a business with huge crowds of young people regularly sunbathing right up against our windows as now regularly happens around the Basin on Summer days."

We have no problem with people using the quayside provided they enter through the main doors and we can control the numbers and the behaviour.

Now, the city council has refused planning on two grounds and its chief reason was that the proposed lack of access within the proposal is considered a lost opportunity for pedestrian engagement with the waterfront along Grand Canal.

As a result, the Council has ruled that the development would be contrary to North Lotts and Grand Canal Planning Scheme which has an objective to maximise public pedestrian access to all water body frontages.

In their ruling. the Council said: The proposed development would also create a precedent for similar type suboptimal development.

Mr Crosbies home, 9 Hanover Quay - bought for 18,000 27 years ago - is a protected structure and the Council also refused planning on the grounds that the proposal would seriously injure the special architectural character of the Protected Structure.

The Council said that the proposal is not compatible with the future long-term conservation of this historic building and would create an undesirable precedent for similar type development.

The Council refused planning after its planner in the case stated that while a sensitive and appropriate redevelopment may be welcomed in the future, the applicant has failed in this instance to address the issues and concerns expressed by the council.
The British Irish Chamber of Commerce has said that many businesses are spending a lot of time and money on contingency plans in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

It comes after British MPs gave their backing to a proposal endorsed by the British Prime Minister to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and replace the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border in Ireland last night.
GATINEAU, Ont. - Quebec Premier Francois Legault says his government wants to collect information on public servants wearing religious symbols to counter opponents who maintain proposed secularism legislation will lead to extensive firings.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault listens to a questions from reporters before attending a cabinet meeting in Gatineau, Que., on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

GATINEAU, Ont. - Quebec Premier Francois Legault says his government wants to collect information on public servants wearing religious symbols to counter opponents who maintain proposed secularism legislation will lead to extensive firings.

He says school boards and others have warned that people will lose their jobs when the government prohibits employees in positions of authority, including teachers, from wearing such symbols as the hijab, kippa and turban. The government asked them to provide numbers to see how many current employees would be affected.

Simon Jolin-Barrette, Quebec's Minister of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion, confirmed Monday that the government has approached school boards, the provincial police and its own Justice Department to ask about the wearing of religious symbols.

Speaking in Gatineau, Que. Tuesday, Legault defended the initiative, which has been criticized by school boards as a form of profiling. He insisted the government has not begun an inventory.

He reiterated that a bill on secularism will be tabled in the legislature at the start of its next session, adding that the Coalition Avenir Quebec government is respecting a promise made during the last election campaign.

The Quebec legislature resumes sitting Feb. 5.
LAVAL, Que. - A Quebec woman on trial for murder in the deaths of her two young daughters testified Tuesday that her children were the sole source of joy in her life.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Guy Poupart, right, and Pierre Poupart, lawyers representing Adele Sorella, leave a consulting room at the courthouse in Laval, Que., on Tuesday, January 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter McCabe

LAVAL, Que. - A Quebec woman on trial for murder in the deaths of her two young daughters testified Tuesday that her children were the sole source of joy in her life.

Adele Sorella took the stand in her defence, recounting to the jury how her life took a turn following surgery to remove a brain tumour, which left her with physical disabilities and began her on a path to mental illness.

Her testimony was difficult as she is deaf in one ear and was left with partial facial paralysis after the brain surgery. Her statements were interspersed with tears.

She said she was pregnant with her second daughter, Sabrina, when vomiting landed her in a hospital emergency room. The doctors detected a loss of hearing, she said, but fearful for the health of her unborn child, she refused the cortisone prescribed.

Doctors recommended brain surgery, but she said she preferred to wait until her child was born. After the operation, one eye would not close completely, her mouth was paralyzed and she would constantly lose her balance. She could not smile, and she could not take her daughters in her arms, she said.

"I had become a burden," she told the jury, adding that it was the beginning of her mental illness.

In 2006, police arrived at her home to arrest her husband, Giuseppe De Vito as part of a major anti-Mafia operation dubbed Project Colisee. Sorella told the court this was the first inkling she had that her husband was involved with organized crime.

"I told them, 'You've got the wrong person,' " she said. But it turned out her husband was not just out of town for a few days; he was a fugitive on the run.

It was the last straw, and her mental state deteriorated, she said. Between 2006 and 2008, she said she tried to take her own life three times. She said she felt guilty that she was unable to give her daughters a happy life, but she never tried to harm them.

Sorella, 52, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Amanda De Vito, 9, and Sabrina De Vito, 8. The girls were found dead in the family playroom on March 31, 2009, dressed in their school uniforms.

The cause of death was never established, but the girls were in good health, and Crown prosecutor Nektarios Tzortzinas has told the court the sisters could not have died from natural causes. He stated at the beginning of the trial that only Sorella had the opportunity to kill the girls.

Sorella's testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday.
MOOSE JAW, Sask. - A New Brunswick brewery has donated $25,000 to the cause of making a beloved Saskatchewan moose statue the tallest in the world once again.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/1/2019 (871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cans of Moosehead beer are seen in Halifax on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017. A New Brunswick brewery has donated $25,000 in order to make a Moose Jaw, Sask., moose statue the tallest in the world once again. Moosehead Breweries's vice-president of sales says it felt like a no-brainer for the company.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

MOOSE JAW, Sask. - A New Brunswick brewery has donated $25,000 to the cause of making a beloved Saskatchewan moose statue the tallest in the world once again.

Trevor Grant, with Moosehead Breweries, says it felt like a no-brainer for the company to help get Moose Jaw's Mac the Moose back on top.

Mac held the title of world's tallest moose statue for decades at almost 10 metres high.

Cans and bottles of Moosehead beer are shown in a handout photo. A New Brunswick brewery has donated $25,000 in order to make a Moose Jaw, Sask., moose statue the tallest in the world once again. Moosehead Breweries' vice-president of sales says it felt like a no-brainer for the company.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Moosehead Brewery MANDATORY CREDIT

But Norway recently erected a silver moose that edges out Mac by 30 centimetres.

Grant says a moose has been has been a part of the brewery's brand since 1933.

A $50,000 GoFundMe campaign has been launched to fund Mac's renovation and $12,000 had been raised before the Moosehead donation Wednesday morning.

"We've never been one to back down from a fight and we do recognize that same resilience and sort of fighting spirit in Mac the Moose," Grant said Wednesday.

Giving Mac bigger antlers is the most likely solution to make him taller. Adding an RCMP Stetson or stilettos are other potential modifications.

Mac weighs 9,000 kilograms and has been welcoming visitors from his perch along the Trans-Canada Highway since 1984. He won an award in 2013 for being Moose Jaw's best celebrity.

Jacki L'Heureux-Mason, Tourism Moose Jaw's executive director, said Mac is starting to show his age in some spots.

"So in some ways the timing on this couldn't have been better," L'Heureux-Mason said.

The moose battle has garnered international attention including being featured on late-night U.S. television.

 By Ryan McKenna in Regina.
CALGARY - A United Kingdom man who was removed from a WestJet flight after becoming disruptive has been ordered to reimburse the airline for the fuel used to bring him back to Calgary.

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CALGARY - A United Kingdom man who was removed from a WestJet flight after becoming disruptive has been ordered to reimburse the airline for the fuel used to bring him back to Calgary.

On Jan. 4, David Stephen Young was on a flight from Calgary to London when he was refused access to the aircraft washroom while the seatbelt light was activated.

He forced his way into the washroom and after returning to his seat became aggressive towards other passengers and the flight attendants.

The aircraft then returned to the Calgary International Airport where Young was arrested and charged with offences including causing a disturbance, criminal harassment and assaulting a peace officer.

Media reports say last week he pleaded guilty to Criminal Code and Aeronautics Act charges.

The aircraft had to dump fuel before it landed.

Young was ordered to pay $21,260.68 to cover fuel costs and sentenced to one day in prison for each of his offences.

His attorney says his client is a recovering alcoholic who had several drinks before boarding the aircraft. (CTV Calgary, The Canadian Press)
OTTAWA - Netflix should compensate the people of Lac-Megantic for using footage of the 2013 rail disaster there in fictional dramas, Canada's members of Parliament have agreed unanimously.

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Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que., Saturday, July 6, 2013. Canadian members of Parliament have passed a unanimous motion condemning Netflix for using images of the Lac-Megantic rail disaster in fictional dramas and are demanding financial compensation for the Quebec community for using the tragic images without consent.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

OTTAWA - Netflix should compensate the people of Lac-Megantic for using footage of the 2013 rail disaster there in fictional dramas, Canada's members of Parliament have agreed unanimously.

The motion they passed is non-binding, an expression of sentiment and not a law. But it's a stern rebuke from Canada's Parliament aimed at the online streaming giant, after footage from the rail explosion that killed 47 people in the Quebec town was used in the hit movie Bird Box and the series Travelers.

MPs are demanding that Netflix remove all images of the Lac-Megantic tragedy from its fiction catalogue  a plea that has also been made by Quebec's culture minister Nathalie Roy and Lac-Megantic Mayor Julie Morin.

Netflix has apologized, saying it was not aware of the source of the footage, and has agreed to take steps to avoid using it in future productions.

But the company has refused to remove the images from Bird Box, a disaster movie released late last year.

That's something NDP MP Pierre Nantel, who introduced the House of Commons motion this week, says he cannot accept.

"We know people are going to go and watch this film, and again these real images will be used," he said. "For people in Lac-Megantic, they saw images of their own downtown burning, and could imagine their own family members in it."

He noted the movie was produced by Netflix and exists almost exclusively online  so it's not a case of a production company trying to recall movies widely distributed to cinemas or to consumers on DVDs.

"It's online, it's their own and it's an image that is easy to switch out."

Netflix refused comment Wednesday, pointing only to a letter the company sent last week to Roy in response to her concerns. In it, the company's public-policy director Corie Wright says while Netflix "understands that many feel frustration and sadness at seeing images of this tragic event," the company cannot make changes to "finished content."

As for the demand from the House of Commons that Netflix pay compensation to the community of Lac-Megantic for using the rail disaster for entertainment purposes, the company had no comment.

Netflix has been a lightning rod of discontent in Quebec ever since it agreed to invest $500 million over five years in Canada as part of the federal government's cultural policy, which included a promise to set up a Canadian production facility.

Netflix committed to spend $25 million to develop French-language content, but the lack of a contractual obligation to produce and stream it came under heavy scrutiny in Quebec, where former federal culture minister Melanie Joly and her plan were pilloried and dismissed as naive. Joly has since been shuffled to Tourism, Official Languages and la Francophonie.

Nantel says he does not want to conflate the taxation and Canadian content concerns involving Netflix and other streaming services with this specific issue, but he did point out that if a traditional Canadian broadcaster had used Lac-Megantic footage in a similar way, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council could be called on to intervene.

"Like Ms. Roy said, you cannot leave your broadcasting system to be some sort of wild west where everybody is doing whatever they want," Nantel said.
OTTAWA - Members of Parliament are used to raising a political stink as part of their job.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on January 28, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - Members of Parliament are used to raising a political stink as part of their job.

But there was an odour of a different kind Tuesday coming out of the newly renovated West Block building that is now the temporary home of the House of Commons  the kind of smell that comes from water soaking freshly installed carpet.

A burst sprinkler pipe flooded several levels of the building, a day after members of Parliament started working there, including a section where the federal cabinet had met just hours before.

"I haven't seen it, but I can smell it," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as he left his office, near where water was pouring out of the broken pipe.

Rob Wright, the bureaucrat in charge of the recent West Block renovations, which took seven years at a cost nearing $1 billion, said the flooding appeared to be isolated to a single sprinkler pipe adjacent to a washroom.

But enough water poured out to cause the evacuation of a cafeteria two floors below.

Maintenance crews scrambled to mop up the mess, moving large barrels of brownish water out of the third floor meeting space, and bringing in industrial-style fans to try to dry the place out.

"It's, I think, growing pains in a new building," Trudeau said as he left the building to meet the premier of Prince Edward Island  in a different place, having been flooded out of the intended one.

"We're all going to adapt and adjust to the challenges of moving into new digs," he said, adding that his office wasn't directly affected.

On their first sitting day in West Block on Monday, plenty of members of Parliament took wrong turns and had to be directed to the House of Commons they're to use while Centre Block undergoes at least a decade of renovations.

Several people visiting the renovated building for the first time also noticed a display panel for one of West Block's elevators was installed upside-down. Some doorways that were in full use for getting around the corridors were also marked with "Emergency Exit" signs left over from the renovations.
A Russian lawmaker, who represents the North Caucasus republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Rauf Arashukov, was detained inside Russias upper chamber of parliament today.

Before the detention of the 32-year-old parliamentary member, the plenary session of the Federation Council had been closed for the media, and the entry to the session hall was blocked by officers of the Russian Federal Guard Service.

The upper house of Russian parliament, Federation Council, considered an application by the Prosecutor General, stripped Arashukov of his immunity and gave consent to his prosecution.

The Russian Investigative Committee has established the involvement of senator for the Karachay-Circassian Region Rauf Arashukov in two murders in 2010, Russian Investigative Committee Spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

"The investigators found that member of the Federation Council from the executive authority of the Karachay-Circassian Region Rauf Arashukov was involved in the specified crimes," she said.

After the Federation Council had studied the report submitted by the general prosecutor on January 30, the decision was made to strip Arashukov of immunity as a Federation Council member and give consent to his involvement as a defendant. Petrenko reiterated that these criminal cases are being investigated by the Main Investigative Directorate of the Russian Investigative Committee.

Arashukov has been charged with the murder of Karachay-Cherkessia public youth movements deputy chairman Aslan Zhukov, who was shot dead in March 2010 in the regional capital of Cherkessk, as well as the May 2010 murder of the republican presidents advisor Fral Shebzukhov, investigators revealed.

Arashukov was nominated by the local legislature and sent to the Federation Council in 2016 to become the youngest Council member at the age of 31.
VANCOUVER - A timeline of the Meng Wanzhou case, and rising tension between Canada and China.

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This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER - A timeline of the Meng Wanzhou case, and rising tension between Canada and China.

2018

Aug. 22: A New York court issues a warrant for the arrest of Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Dec. 1: Canadian authorities arrest Meng at Vancouver's airport while she is en route from Hong Kong to Mexico, after an extradition request from the Americans. The news becomes public on Dec. 5.

Dec. 6: China demands Canada release Meng and "immediately correct the mistake" officials made in arresting her. The Chinese also say they were not briefed on the reasons for Meng's arrest.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Meng's case is part of an independent legal process with no outside political influence.

Dec. 7: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada's envoy to China has briefed Chinese officials about Meng's case. She declines to comment on suggestions from analysts and former diplomats that China will likely retaliate by jailing Canadians.

In Vancouver, Meng appears in court, where allegations of fraud are laid out. The U.S. alleges Meng misled American banks in a bid to get around American sanctions on Iran.

Dec. 8: Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, is summoned to a meeting with China's assistant foreign minister so the country can register complaints about Meng's arrest. "China strongly urges the Canadian side to immediately release the detained Huawei executive ... or face grave consequences that the Canadian side should be held accountable for," the assistant minister, Le Yucheng, says in a statement.

Dec. 9: China summons the American ambassador to China to lodge similar complaints about Meng's case and demand the U.S. rescind the order for her arrest.

Dec. 10: Chinese authorities arrest two Canadian men. Michael Kovrig, who was on leave from Global Affairs Canada, and entrepreneur Michael Spavor. Kovrig's arrest becomes public on Dec. 11. Spavor's becomes public on Dec. 12.

Meanwhile, China's vice premier, with responsibility for the domestic economy, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talk about the ongoing tariff battle between the two countries.

Dec. 11: In the morning, Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, tells reporters it is "absolutely false" to assume a political motive behind the Meng's arrest.

Later in the day, Meng is released on $10 million bail. In an affidavit submitted for a bail hearing, Meng, 46, details a lifetime of health issues, including thyroid cancer, sleep apnea and high blood pressure.

The day ends with U.S. President Donald Trump telling Reuters in an interview that he would "certainly intervene" in Meng's case "if I thought it was necessary" to help forge a trade deal with China.

Dec. 12: China's foreign ministry says it has no information about Kovrig, but says the organization he worked with  the International Crisis Group  was not registered in China, making its activities in the country illegal.

The Liberals spend the day outlining how the extradition process will work, reiterating that it is an independent process. Trudeau reaffirms Canada's commitment to the rule of law, "regardless of what goes on in other countries." Freeland warns any comments made in the United States could be used by Meng's lawyers before Canadian courts, which would have to judge their relevance in deciding whether to follow through on the American extradition request.

Dec. 13: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer accuses Trudeau of taking a "naive approach" to China, leaving Canada without "the leverage that we might otherwise have" to resolve the situation. He calls on Trudeau to reach out to the highest levels of the Chinese government.

Earlier in the day, Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, says the arrests of the two Canadians were plainly a response to Meng's arrest: "That's the Chinese playbook and again the problem we always have with China is when we launch legitimate concerns over whatever it is, China comes back and does these kinds of actions."

China's foreign ministry says Kovrig and Spavor have been detained on suspicion of "endangering national security."

Dec. 14: Canadian officials are granted consular access to Kovrig, and McCallum meets with him in Beijing. Meng's case comes up during a meeting between Freeland and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with the two agreeing that no politics be injected into the extradition process. Pompeo publicly calls on China to release Kovrig and Spavor.

Dec. 16: Canadian diplomats in China are granted consular access to Spavor.

Dec. 19: Global Affairs Canada says a third Canadian has been detained in China. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government has no reason to believe the case is linked to the detention of Kovrig and Spavor. The next day, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying says the Canadian woman, Sarah McIver, received an administrative penalty for illegal employment.

Dec. 20: Indictments unsealed in the United States allege two Chinese citizens targeted companies in Canada and around the world as part of a years-long hacking campaign to steal data.

Dec. 21: Kovrig's employer, the International Crisis Group, says he has not been given access to a lawyer while in custody. A source familiar with the conditions of Kovrig's detention says he is questioned three times a day and kept in a room with the lights on continuously.

Freeland formally demands both men be let go, calling in a statement "for their immediate release." Similar statements come out from the United States, Britain and the European Union.

Dec. 22: During a visit to Canadian peacekeepers in Mali, Trudeau says countries around the world are "extremely disturbed" by China's detention of Spavor and Kovrig.

Dec. 24: China's foreign ministry calls out the U.S., Britain and EU, saying the trio should be condemning Canada for Meng's arrest. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying says Canada should "correct its mistakes" and stop acting at the behest of the United States. She says Kovrig and Spavor's rights are being respected in custody.

Dec. 27: Chinese state media bring up the case of a Canadian man charged with drug smuggling. The Global Times, an English-language publication of the official People's Daily, says Robert Lloyd Schellenberg appeal of his conviction will be heard on Dec. 29. Global Affairs says the case has been ongoing for several years.

Dec. 28: Global Affairs confirms that McIver has returned to Canada after being released.

Dec. 29: A Chinese court orders a retrial for Schellenberg, raising the possibility of a harsher sentence, including death. The Wall Street Journal reports Chinese authorities took the odd measure of inviting a number of news outlets to the appeal.

Dec. 30: Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne says in a statement that her government is "very concerned" about Kovrig's and Spavor's detentions. Earlier in the day, a group of 36 Australian academics demanded their government "call for the immediate release of these two detainees."

2019

Jan. 3: At a news conference, China's prosecutor general Zhang Jun says Kovrig and Spavor "without a doubt" violated Chinese law. He says the investigation is also following the rule of law, but doesn't provide more details about the allegations.

Jan. 7: The Prime Minister's Office says Donald Trump has affirmed his respect for judicial independence. In a summary of a phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the PMO indicated the leaders discussed the high-profile U.S. extradition request  though Meng was not named  and agreed on the importance of respecting the independence of judges and the rule of law.

Jan. 08: Canadian officials visit Spavor for a second time. Global Affairs Canada says it is also trying to arrange another meeting with Kovrig.

Jan. 9: China's envoy in Ottawa suggests Canada and its Western allies are white supremacists for calling for the release of two Canadians imprisoned last month by his country's communist government. Ambassador Lu Shaye makes the accusation in an op-ed in the Hill Times.

Jan. 10: Kovrig receives a consular visit for the second time since his arrest.

Jan. 14: Trudeau says he's very concerned to see China "acting arbitrarily" by applying the death penalty to a Canadian convicted of drug trafficking. He says Canada will do all it can to intervene on Robert Lloyd Schellenberg's behalf after a court in Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province announced it had given Schellenberg the death penalty after reconsidering his case.

Jan. 15: China expresses its "strong dissatisfaction" with Trudeau over his criticism of Schellenberg's sentence. Trudeau should "respect the rule of law, respect China's judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying says.

Jan. 16: The U.S. State Department says China's death sentence against Schellenberg is "politically motivated.'' A statement says Pompeo and Freeland spoke and "expressed their concerns about the arbitrary detentions and politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals."

Jan. 17: Ambassador Shaye says Canada's arrest of Meng was an act of "backstabbing" by a friend. Lu warns of "repercussions" if Canada bars the firm from its new 5G network for security reasons, as have three of its intelligence-sharing allies.

Jan. 18: Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says the government's decision on whether to ban Huawei from being used in Canada's next generation 5G wireless network will not be influenced by threats of retaliation from China.

Jan. 22: China demands the U.S. drop a request that Canada extradite Meng. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Meng's case was out of the ordinary and Canada's extradition treaty with the U.S. infringed on the "safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens."

Jan. 23: Ambassador McCallum says there are strong legal arguments Meng can make to help her avoid extradition to the United States. Speaking to Chinese reporters a day earlier in the Toronto area, McCallum listed several arguments Meng's legal team can make in her defence.

Jan. 24: Trudeau dismisses calls to remove McCallum following his comments to Chinese reporters, saying such a change wouldn't help the two Canadians detained by Chinese authorities get home any sooner. Later, McCallum says he "misspoke" when he suggested detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had a strong case to avoid extradition to the United States.

Jan. 25: McCallum tells StarMetro Vancouver it would be "great for Canada" if the United States drops its extradition request. "We have to make sure that if the U.S. does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the U.S. is highly aware of that," he told the Star.

Jan. 26: McCallum resigns as ambassador to China at Trudeau's request.

Jan. 28: The U.S. Department of Justice formally levels criminal charges against Huawei, two subsidiaries and Meng. The charges, contained in two newly unsealed indictments, allege that Huawei misrepresented its ownership of a Hong Kong-based subsidiary to circumvent American sanctions against Iran. Furthermore, they say Huawei stole telecommunications technology, trade secrets and equipment from U.S. cellphone provider T-Mobile USA. Meng is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit both. In a statement, Huawei denied committing any of the violations cited in the indictment.

Jan. 29: The Canadian government says it has received a formal request for the extradition of Meng, who appears in a Vancouver court to change the people who are providing her with some of the financial sureties for her release. China calls on the U.S. to "stop the unreasonable crackdown" on Huawei, saying it will "firmly defend" its companies.
OTTAWA - Canada's Department of Justice, through its International Assistance Group, helps Canadian and foreign police and prosecutors by extraditing people to face prosecution or sentencing in the country in which they are charged or convicted.

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OTTAWA - Canada's Department of Justice, through its International Assistance Group, helps Canadian and foreign police and prosecutors by extraditing people to face prosecution or sentencing in the country in which they are charged or convicted.

The Extradition Act provides Ottawa with the legal basis to extradite people located in Canada who are sought by an extradition partner. Those partners include:

 Countries, such as the United States, with which Canada has an extradition agreement (a bilateral treaty or a multilateral convention);

 Countries with which Canada has entered into a case-specific agreement; or

 Countries or international courts whose names appear in the schedule to the Extradition Act.

In all cases, the conduct for which extradition is sought must be considered criminal in both the requesting country and in Canada.

There are three key stages to the Canadian extradition process:

 The justice minister must first determine whether to authorize the start of extradition proceedings in the Canadian courts by issuing what's known as an "Authority to Proceed."

 Once an Authority to Proceed has been issued, the Canadian courts must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the person's committal for extradition. When someone is committed for extradition, the justice minister must personally decide whether to order the person's surrender to the foreign state.

 Someone sought for extradition may appeal their committal and seek judicial review of the minister's surrender order  a process that can play out for months or even years in the courts.

(Source: Canadian Department of Justice)
It took nearly eight decades, but a Canadian soldiers family had the opportunity to speak with the abandoned infant he found in an English field 77 years ago.

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This article was published 27/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Royal Canadian Artillery members Ernest (Ernie) Curtis, Bob Griffin and A.J. Bracket pictured with baby Mary Crabb. (Submitted)

It took nearly eight decades, but a Canadian soldiers family had the opportunity to speak with the abandoned infant he found in an English field 77 years ago.

Mary Crabb from Hertfordshire, England, only learned the name of the soldier who saved her less than a month ago.

The story of Crabbs birth was a thing of legend in the Curtis family.

Growing up hearing the story of a newborn baby girl her grandfather found in a field in England during the Second World War, Jodi Douglas and her family wondered what became of the infant.

After decades of waiting and wondering, they finally had the opportunity to speak with Crabb on Friday.

"Its incredible," Crabb said by phone on Tuesday. "I still cant believe it. I have to pinch myself sometimes."

A people person with a kind heart, Ernest (Ernie) Curtis would use a soft tenor tone while sharing the tale of the baby he found, said his wife, Winelda Curtis.

Winelda Curtis poses with a scrapbook commemorating the life of her late husband Ernie Curtis Saturday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

It was Douglas favourite story.

Royal Canadian Artillery sergeant Ernie, along with gunners Bob Griffin and A.J. Brackett, both from Regina, discovered the baby abandoned in a field on a cold September morning in 1941.

"They heard this squawking and they thought it was an animal, and when they went there, it was a baby," Curtis said.

Fresh to this world, doctors estimated Crabb could not have been more than two hours old.

The soldiers found the baby hidden away in some bushes in Horsell Common, an open park about 45 kilometres west of London.

"He (Ernie) was the first one to hold me when I was born," Crabb said. "That really does put a chill down my spine."

Visiting the bushes at the Common where she was found brought a lump to Crabbs throat. She said she was covered in "goose pimples."

In such a vast space, it was a miracle the soldiers found her.

Jodi Douglas, right, and her grandmother Winelda Curtis look at a scrap book featuring news clippings and photos of Ernie Curtis Saturday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

She was still covered in afterbirth with her placenta attached.

Thinking quickly, Ernie cut the umbilical cord, leaving it long in case of infection so it could be recut if needed. Doctors would later ask Ernie how he knew how to do this, and he credited his experience as a farm boy from Alexander.

"He (Ernie) took his water and washed the babys face  because she was lying on the ground," Curtis said.

Tying her up in clean underwear he had in his pack, Ernie and the gunners took the baby in an army truck to the nearest hospital.

The doctors were unsure if the tiny infant would live, as she was so cold she was turning blue.

Offering further support for the baby, the three soldiers and their regiment donated one days pay to her, Curtis said.

The infant was almost christened Alexandra Brandon Regina, honouring the hometowns the soldiers hailed from.

Marys biological mother was later found, discovered after she passed out that same day milking cows, and she was admitted to the same hospital. Unwed, Curtis said, the stigma surrounding that predicament would have led her to abandon the baby. Her father was married and had three children.

Winelda Curtis shows a scrap book celebrating the life of the late Ernie Curtis Saturday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

Crabb never met her biological parents and was instead placed with her grandmother, originally.

The grandmother assured the men the baby would be treated well, but about five months later the baby was put up for adoption.

"As far as he (Ernie) knew, he thought the grandmother was looking after her," Curtis said.

Ernie came home after the war and often wondered what became of the infant. He never went back to England.

Air Canada pilot Alex Wanlin, a friend of the Curtis family, was in England and went to find the baby on behalf of Ernie in the late 1960s.

At the time, they didnt even know her legal name.

"Ernie just wanted to know that she was all right and what had happened to her," Curtis said.

Unable to get any information due to confidentiality, at that point, Ernie stopped searching.

Jodi Douglas, left, and her grandmother Winelda Curtis read a scrapbook celebrating the life of the late Ernie Curtis. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

Never far from Ernies mind, the family has a scrapbook that contains the journal entry from the day Ernie found the baby, newspaper clippings and a photo of the three soldiers and Crabb.

Ernie died Sept. 7, 1995, at the age of 85, never knowing what happened to the baby.

Unlike the Curtis family, Crabb was unaware of her eventful entrance to the world until 12 years ago, and only recently learned the names of the soldiers who saved her.

Hearing about Ernie for the first time about three weeks ago, Crabb has been inundated with information, she said, creating a mix of emotions difficult to imagine.

The hunt for her rescuers launched when her nephew found a photo on the internet.

He couldnt believe what he found, calling Crabb on New Years Eve to share his discovery.

The picture was from a 1941 newspaper that announced Crabbs birth and the names of the soldiers.

"It was so lovely to see the three soldiers that saved me," Crabb said.

A photo of Royal Canadian Artillery sergeant Ernest "Ernie" Curtis. (Submitted)

She cried when she saw the photo.

Crabb hoped to connect with the families as soon as possible.

Getting to work Crabbs family read through obituaries from Canada, searching to find a connection to Brandon that could help her find her rescuers.

They discovered the obituary of Curtis son, Ken Curtis, which named his daughter from Brandon, Alyssa Reid.

Emailing Reid, she was able to identify Ernie, and the ball began to roll.

The photo also went viral online as Crabb searched for her saviours.

Douglas came across a post on Facebook looking to identify the three men who saved the baby.

She recognized her grandfather immediately.

"It was pretty cool when I saw the picture," Douglas said.

Curtis spoke with Crabb for the first time Friday  an emotional meeting nearly eight decades in the making.

"She is so happy to finally connect," Curtis said.

Not one for going on the internet, Crabb uses Skype to speak with her daughter in New Zealand and son in America.

Her daughter-in-law is going to help her set it up to speak with her newly found extended family.

"Then Ill be able to speak with her any time, it will be lovely," Crabb said.

Hoping to Skype so they can see each others faces, Curtis looks forward to the new relationship the family has with a now grown baby Mary.

"She said she wants to see a picture of (me)," Curtis said.

What was once a story of family lore has become an international phenomenon.

The story of baby Mary has been featured in news articles and videos from across the United Kingdom and in Canada.

Crabb has been overwhelmed by the attention.

Curtis doubts she will have a chance to meet Crabb in person, but Crabb insists she is coming to Canada to meet the family.

"Wouldnt it be lovely just to be near the people that knew all about me all those years?" Crabb said.

 ckemp@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has expressed grief over the death of head of the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund, United Nations` leading expert on global energy, doctor of political science, professor Togrul Bagirov, Trend reports.

Azerbaijani President offered his deep condolences to his family.
Turkish police detained 48 air force pilots in Ankara in an anti-terror investigation into the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

Four lieutenants, three colonels and four majors are among the detainees. The pilots are suspected of links to the group led by Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim preacher whom Turkey accuses of ordering the July 15 putsch attempt.

Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 63 suspects, most of them military pilots, allegedly linked to a 2016 failed coup attempt, the Ankara chief prosecutors office said.

Turkeys Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said earlier that 15,153 people were dismissed since July 2016 across Turkey.
Turkish Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim said he will leave his post.

Speaking to a private Turkish TV channel, Yildirim said he will leave the position of parliament speaker when he formally applies to run for mayoral elections scheduled for March 31.

"For me, the issue of being parliament speaker will be over as of February 18," Anadolu Agency cited him as saying.

Yildirim was nominated as candidate of ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party for mayor of Istanbul.
Just days after suffering the biggest humiliation in British political history, Prime Minister Theresa May was closer than ever Tuesday to finally reaching an elusive Brexit deal.

A handout photograph released by the UK Parliament shows Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May (C) smiling in the House of Commons in London on January 29, 2019, as members of Parliament vote on amendments to Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal bill. British MPs on Tuesday voted on a series of amendments seeking to show what they want as Brexit approaches on March 29, with Britain currently on course to crash out of the EU without a withdrawal deal. [Photo: VCG]

By 317 votes to 301, MPs in the House of Commons gave their backing to May's deal which they rejected earlier this month, providing changes are made to the so-called Irish backstop border issue.

The 16 majority for her deal gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to call for a re-opening of negotiations, and indicates that the Brexit deal is likely to win the critical final vote in British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue.

The victory for May's minority government was assured after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) backed tonight's move.

Immediately after the vote was announced, May said that two weeks ago MPs rejected the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement when only 202 MPs voted in favor.

"Tonight a majority have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop.

"It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority to leave the EU with a deal," she said, to loud cheers from the Conservative benches.

Veteran MP Sir Graham Brady has been hailed as the hero of the night by including a crucial addition to May's rejected deal. It says the deal requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border.

The words were enough to win over the DUP as well as Conservative politicians strongly against a backstop over fears it could tie Britain permanently to the EU.

May said the British government can look forward to obtaining legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement with regards to the backstop, allowing no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

May and her senior advisers are not waving victory flags at the moment, with the developments in London receiving a frosty reaction in Brussels and Dublin.

May admitted that winning over Brussels will not be easy. She said: "With changes to the backstop, plus assurances on workers' rights, it is now clear there is a route to passing a deal."

May said there was limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. "But MPs have now made it clear what it wants," she said.

The Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, said in a statement issued later in Dublin: "The withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

Referring to the withdrawal agreement agreed between EU leaders and May, Varadkar said it is a carefully negotiated compromise, which balances the UK position on customs and the single market with avoiding a hard border and protecting the integrity of the EU customs union and single market.

He said Ireland will continue its preparations for all outcomes, including for a no-deal scenario.

A spokesman for Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said: "The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and the withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation."

The Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who earlier in the evening, lost a vote that would have avoided a no-deal outcome, said he was now prepared to meet May to discuss Brexit.

The business world reacted to May's victory in the House of Commons.

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said another day had been lost while the clock is ticking. "Government and parliament are still going round in circles when businesses and the public urgently need answers," he said.

Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors said: "The prime minister clearly faces a difficult task in winning a compromise on the backstop. However, if the choice is between trying to change the deal and leaving without one, business will have to hope the EU can be flexible and consider whether any legal changes at all could further clarify that the backstop is not a permanent fixture."

May plans to discuss developments with the EU ahead of returning at a later date to the British Parliament for a meaningful date needed on a deal with Brussels.

Until now Brussels has insisted that a backstop must be part of the Brexit deal to avoid a hard border between EU member state Ireland, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
Azerbaijan-Slavic Youth Association has sent a letter of protest to the European Parliament over its biased approach.

"Armenias political party leader and political prisoner Mher Yeghiazaryan died in prison on January 26, after a 52-day hunger strike in Armenia. However, neither the PACE, the European Parliament, nor the OSCE, the US Senate, nor any other international organization have ever reacted to his death as a result of his hunger strike. Even this is not the case with the worlds popular media. The fact is that Yeghiazaryans arrest was purely political, and he died as a political prisoner in hunger strike," the letter reads.

"This is one of the indications that political landscape in Armenia is in chaos. International organizations are ignoring it. Why the Council of Europe, the US Senate, and other organizations, who make the arrests of Mehman Huseynov arrested for non-political reasons, or rather the issue of domestic affairs, declare him a political prisoner, and why they are silent about the political prisoner who died in Armenia? In general, international organizations are silent instead of adopting a relevant resolution condemning this terrible event in Armenia," the letter says.

"Family members of the party leader who died in prison have repeatedly appealed to international organizations and held a press conference on this issue. Nevertheless, there was no reaction to the incident. It was also confirmed that Yeghiazaryan was not a criminal and was arrested for political reasons. They repeatedly asked Pashinyan to intervene in this criminal case, but he didnt intervene in any form. All these processes have proven how politically motivated the case is, and if so, the silence of international organizations is simply a pity," the statement says.

"As a member of a civil society, we feel regrettable that a reputable organization such as yours applies dual standards, before its too late, we demand a legal and political assessment of the event for justice. Fairness is the fundamental principle of civil society," the letter added.
"Taghiyev's image is distorted in the press. Some cultural issues of pre-revolutionary Azerbaijan are distorted by separate historians. There is no objective approach. The government led by N. Narimanov singled him out among from the bourgeoisie, valued and respected him, because they were Taghiyev's contemporaries and knew him wide activities as an enlightener. The young leadership does not really know Taghiyev, only the slander which has leaked to the press,portraying him a predator and capitalist"...

These are lines from the letter of Sara Taghiyeva (Sarajeva), the youngest daughter of Azerbaijani millionaire and philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. Sara devoted her entire life to clearing her father's name. She wrote letters to the Chairman of the Presidium of the AzSSR Supreme Soviet, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, the Kommunist and Baku Worker newspapers, the Union of Soviet Writers, Azerbaijan State University named after S.M. Kirov, Akhundov Azerbaijan State Institute of Teachers, Lenin Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University.

The story of her parents, Haji Taghiyev and Sona Arablinskaya, is well known. Baku millionaire and philanthropist, known far beyond Azerbaijan, fell in love with the daughter of a Russian military commander, Lieutenant General Balakishi Arablinski from Derbent. They married there in 1896. People say that Sona was not tempted by Taghiyev's millions. Being married, she got the opportunity to enter high society of Baku and participate in charitable activities, help those in need. Sona gave Taghiyev five children, becoming his companion and soulmate.

Today, Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev would be called a self-made man, a man who managed to overcome life's obstacles and change not only his life, but also the lives of many other people whom he helped. His natural intelligence, working ability and cast-iron will helped him earn the money to spend for charity, not to buy "golden toilets."

Much has been written how and where the shoemakers son earned millions, what charity projects he promoted in Azerbaijan and other cities of the Russian Empire. These are just a few of them: the Muslim Benevolent Society in St. Petersburg, St. Nina's School for Girls, the repair of mosques of the Caucasus, including those in Dagestan and Astrakhan ...

Taghiyev sent talented young people to study at universities of Moscow, Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Europe. He invested money in theater and publishing. A small touch reflecting Taghiyev's views: having arrived at the first graduation ceremony in the women's school, he gave the girls the Koran, translated into Azerbaijani, the works of Lev Tolstoy, Pushkin and Lermontov. The authorities, recognizing the philanthropist's contribution to the development of education and culture, assigned him the title of state councilor.

Taghiyev also offered material assistance to the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Perhaps that's why, but, most likely, simply by acting on the patterns of the time, representatives of the new Soviet government nationalized his multi-million fortune. Taghiyev was left with just a cottage in Mardakan. They could take it away as well, they could even recognize the millionaire as the "enemy of the working people," but Taghiyevs authority (they called him "el atasy" - "father of the nation") was indisputable. He helped too much people, so the new authorities were afraid that such radical steps can lead to popular discontent. Nariman Narimanov, who studied at the expense of Taghiyev's benefits, despite further ideological differences with his sponsor, secured for him the opportunity to stay at the cottage under house arrest.

Although the shoemakers son did not fit into a generalized portrait of a burzhuin who made capital on enslaving ordinary people, they treated him and his family "in the spirit of the time" - Taghiyevs wife died of starvation, his son died in a psychiatric hospital

Perhaps Taghiyevs name would have remained forgotten or anathematized if not for his younger daughter Sara.

She was born in Baku in 1899, was fluent in Azerbaijani, Russian, German, French, played the piano. She had a diploma in languages of the Institute of Noble Maidens of St. Petersburg and returned to Baku, where she married and gave birth to a daughter. A few years after Taghiyev's death, Sara was forced to leave for the city of her youth. It was called Leningrad then. There, she somehow came under suspicion in connection with the murder of the secretary of the Leningrad regional party committee, Sergei Kirov. The murder of the mayor resulted in severe repression - some suspected of involvement in the crime were shot, others were thrown into prison. At first, it was announced that Kirov was killed by the White Guards  the enemies of the people, and they started to expel thousands of former nobles, policemen, gendarmes, officials and clergymen to Siberia and Central Asia.

It is unclear how completely apolitical Sara came under suspicion. Perhaps the evil tongues reported to the authorities whose daughter she is. But Sara was not expelled - she was thrown into a punishment cell and tortured. They beat out a confession, but she didn't crack up...

Coming out of prison, Sara met her second husband, Nikolai Sarayev, and when it began to seem like life was getting better, war broke out. Sarayev did not survive the war, but God saved Sara, perhaps because this woman was destined to do something that no one else could do. After returning to Baku after the war, she immediately started to clear her father's name. Sara gathered mountains of documents confirming Taghiyevs contribution to enlightenment, education, culture, construction and science; reviews of those who got an education and made their way in life thanks to her father.

"In 1955-1957, I worked as a librarian at the reading room of the Akhundov Institute. I worked to restore the truth about Taghiyev's progressive activities. He was regarded as a capitalist and for a long time was alienated from his progressive activities, which were attributed to other people. The administration of the institute warned me I should stop talking about the activities of the capitalist within the walls of the institute. However, despite the persuasions and warnings, I continued to tell the students and staff the truth, showing photos and documents of Taghiyev confirming his activities. This caused discontent and conflict with the administration. That's why I was dismissed. I could not find a job. All organizations had the same views, and the situation was the same," Sara wrote.

For many years, one could see an elderly woman with a huge portfolio in her hands on the steps of Baku state institutions, scientific institutes and newspaper editorial offices. She was not payed any pension, and all the money sent by her daughter she spent on paper, ink, envelopes.

At the beginning of the 2000s, the chief editor of the Baku-based Vyshka newspaper, Medina Hasanova, said: "When I first started working at Vyshka, a tall woman in a black dress and very beautiful thick hair often came to our editorial office. She always held a black purse full of various documents and papers. She went to the editorial offices and begged the journalists: "Write about my father. Why can not you write about him, don't you think my father has done enough for Azerbaijan? Tretyakov's name was gave to an art gallery in Moscow. Is there nothing to be done to give my father's name to at least one of the objects he built?"

Sara did not doubt for a moment that she will clear her father's name. She not only went places and asked people, she created a whole scientific base, which allowed to prove her rightness and rehabilitate Taghiyev.

In 1966, Sara Sarayeva presented her scientific work on the application of philosophical knowledge regarding the approach to the events of Azerbaijani history related to Taghiyevs activities to the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Institute of the Peoples of Asia and Africa. Only after three years of long disputes, the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR agreed with the conclusions made by the patrons daughter.

Sara died in Baku at the age of 92. Shortly before, in 1991, her daughter, the philanthropist's granddaughter Safia Taghiyeva, returned from Ashgabat to her homeland after half a century of exile. "My grandfather was a very lucky man. Wherever he dug, there was oil. With the same generosity that Azerbaijani land lavished him, Taghiyev spent these oil money on doing good... He always gave people a helping hand. That's why it is impossible to forget him ... We must live in this world and help people, so that a person's name and actions are not forgotten even after death," Safia said. In 1992, fulfilling the covenant of her famous grandfather, she created the Sara Taghiyeva Social Charity Foundation of Azerbaijani Citizens, which provided material assistance to the needy and refugees.

Today, the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan is located in Taghiyev's former mansion. And the fact that Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev took a worthy place in the history of the country and in the hearts of the people, undoubtedly, is the great merit of his daughter.


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Frances yellow vests suffered the first setback to their ambitions to contest Mays European elections after one of 10 candidates and their campaign director quit following a barrage of attacks from within the divided protest movement.

Reuters reports in its article France's 'yellow vests' suffer early European election setback that the withdrawals come less than a week after a small group within the movement announced its list in a move which exposed deep splits about whether and how to become a more organized political force.

Campaign chief Hayk Shahinyan said elections could present an opportunity for the yellow vests, whose anti-government protests have challenged President Emmanuel Macrons authority, provided the loose-knit movement prepared properly. But he expressed doubts over whether this was the case.

I have taken the decision to withdraw from my activities ... and take a week to analyze, reflect and prepare my next steps, Shahinyan wrote on Facebook.

One opinion poll last week showed the yellow vests could prove a disruptive force in the European elections, stealing votes from the far-right and so inadvertently help Macron, whose liberal economic reforms triggered their original protests.

But some activists have accused the candidates of betraying the movement.

One, Marc Dunoyer told the Journal du Dimanche paper that he was quitting the candidate list because of death threats over his support for Macron during the 2017 presidential race, even if he was now disappointed by the former investment banker.

The yellow vests, named after high-visibility vests French drivers must keep in their cars, began their protests in November against fuel taxes and the high cost of living.

The movement quickly morphed into a broader rebellion against the political elite and inequality, leading to some of the worst violence seen on French streets in decades.

But it is split along open faultlines: between radicals who want to oust Macron and moderates who back dialogue, and between those who wish it to remain a grassroots, apolitical movement and those who see an opportunity to break into politics.
PR Newswire

ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 29, 2019

ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, American Trucking Associations announced its new team of 18 professional truck drivers to the 2019-2020 class of America's Road Team. The drivers will immediately begin their service as the premier group of trucking industry ambassadors to the general public, elected officials and members of the media.

"These drivers represent the diverse experiences of the 3.5 million professional drivers across the country and will be able to bring their unique stories to new, critical audiences as part of America's Road Team," said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear. "ATA is very excited to begin working with this group of professional, respected drivers and see them continue spreading the positive image of the trucking industry. We are extremely proud of them, as are their companies and families."

America's Road Team is an outreach initiative that utilizes professional truck drivers to impress upon the motoring public, lawmakers, and media the importance of the trucking industry. Since it was established in 1986, America's Road Team has educated millions of drivers about the trucking industry's safety record, necessity, and professionalism.

"These Captains have dedicated their lives to spreading the message of safe driving while promoting a positive perception of the trucking industry. They are leaders in their communities, role models in their companies, and truly embody the professionalism and dedication that comes with the passion that they have for the industry," said ATA Senior Advisor and Executive Vice President of Industry Affairs Elisabeth Barna. "This new class represents everything we strive to promote about our industry and its professionals."

The Captains will have the opportunity to share their passion for trucking as they travel the country on behalf of ATA and the industry. They will share their experiences as professional truck drivers and the critical role the industry plays in the delivery of goods and services while also stressing the importance of a safety-first mentality. The drivers will continue to work full-time for their ATA member companies, appearing on behalf of ATA anywhere from 3-5 days per month. The new Captains will tour the country in ATA's Interstate One Image Truck, an American flag emblazoned Volvo VNL 760, featuring a state-of-the-art truck driving simulator and mobile classroom.

"Volvo Trucks is honored to continue our sponsorship of America's Road Team with a brand new Volvo VNL 760 and take part in this week's selection of the 2019-2020 Captains," said Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve. "America's Road Team is one of the most visible groups of professional truck drivers in the country, and we believe their hard work and dedication pays dividends for our industry. We want to thank the Captains for their strong engagement and being passionate ambassadors of this great profession. We congratulate the new class of America's Road Team Captains and wish them the best of luck as they carry out their mission over the next two years."

ATA held its final round of selections from January 27-29 in Arlington, Virginia. The drivers were judged on their ability to express their knowledge of the industry, their skills in effective communication about safety and transportation, and their overall safe-driving record. The panel of judges included trucking executives and trade press.

"I'm excited to start off 2019 by welcoming these new Captains to the America's Road Team family. America's Road Team is an important tool for our industry and I can't wait to see how they will continue to spread our message of safety and professionalism," said ATA Chairman and professional truck driver Barry Pottle, president of Pottle's Transportation. "Everyone introduced tonight has earned their spot on the team through their hard work and dedication to safety and their passion for trucking.

After receiving their signature navy blue America's Road Team blazers, the 2019-2020 Captains will immediately begin their work in improving public perception of the trucking industry. Trucking industry professionals can support America's Road Team's mission by following the team's two-year journey on Facebook and Twitter and interacting with the Captains at major industry events, conferences and community visits.

The 2019-2020 America's Road Team Captains are:

William C. Bennett III, UPS Freight, Maytown, PennsylvaniaSammy Brewster, ABF Freight, Powder Springs, GeorgiaJorge Chavez, Jetco Delivery, Houston, TexasTimothy Chelette, Big G Express, Murfreesboro, TennesseeJames Clark, Penske Logistics, Otter Lake, MichiganApril Coolidge, Walmart Transportation, Mint Hill, North CarolinaScott Davis, ABF Freight, Kearney, MissouriDouglas Frombaugh, FedEx Freight, Carlisle, PennsylvaniaWilliam Goins, Old Dominion, Cloverdale, IndianaBilly Hambrick, Werner Enterprises, Yoder, WyomingRussell James, YRC Freight, Bonner, MontanaGary Martin, FedEx Ground, Galt, CaliforniaWilliam McNamee, Carbon Express, Christopher, IllinoisTina Peterson, FedEx Ground, Blaine, MinnesotaTheldorine "Dee" Sova, Prime Inc., Sacramento, CaliforniaRonald Vandermark, UPS Freight, Delran, New JerseyNicolette Weaver, FedEx Freight, New Bloomfield, PennsylvaniaTodd Wilemon, ABF Freight, Fulton, Mississippi

To learn more about the 2019-2020 America's Road Team and view the team's biographies, visit the official America's Road Team webpage.

The America's Road Team, sponsored by Volvo Trucks, is a national public outreach program led by a small group of professional truck drivers who share superior driving skills, remarkable safety records and a strong desire to spread the word about safety on the highway. www.americasroadteam.com.

American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation's freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or on Facebook. Trucking Moves America Forward.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ata-introduces-2019-2020-americas-road-team-as-trucking-ambassadors-300786431.html

SOURCE American Trucking Associations
Republicans say consideration from Democrats has eroded in first week of legislature over carbon reduction

Republicans are saying a much-anticipated bill on a cap and trade policy is being kept in the dark and crafted by Democratic leaders as a way to get it passed quicker.v
Paris Achen: pachen@portlandtribune.com or 503-506-0067. Achen is a reporter for the Portland Tribune working for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group and Salem Reporter.
Reporter Claire Withycombe: cwithycombe@eomediagroup.com or 971-304-4148. Withycombe is a reporter for the East Oregonian working for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group, and Salem Reporter.
Reporter Claire Withycombe: cwithycombe@eomediagroup.com or 971-304-4148. Withycombe is a reporter for the East Oregonian working for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group, and Salem Reporter
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Design Indaba will once again be welcoming Dutch trend forecaster Li Edelkoort who will be presenting her 2019 trend seminars that will be held in both Johannesburg and Cape Town - at the Lisof: Fashion Design School & Retail Education Institute and the Artscape Theatre Centre respectively.

Dutch trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.  Edelkoort.com

The Goddesses of the past and present (Part 1) Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort presented her latest trend books for 2019, namely Goddesses (trends S/S 2019), On Safari (activewear S/S 2019) and Spiritual House (home and lifestyle 2019), as part of Design Indaba 2018 at Lisof in Johannesburg yesterday...

Cultural appropriation and colourphobia

This acclaimed speaker is arguably the world's most famous trend forecaster. Her Paris-based company Trend Union produces forecasts which are used by strategists, designers and marketeers at brands from Armani to Zegna in all price points from Zara to Prada.Edelkoort is also a publisher, humanitarian, educator and curator. She is also the dean at Parsons in New York where she has established New York Textile Month.This year she intends to discuss key topics like cultural appropriation in fashion and how to cure colourphobia in our interiors at the Design Indaba trend seminars.She has been named byMagazine as one of the Most Influential People in Fashion and byMagazine as one of the Most Influential People in Design.
In the 40 years since the worlds first IVF baby was born, over 8 million IVF babies have been born worldwide.

Infertility is a growing concern around the world. India has nearly 10-12% of married couples who suffer from the inability to conceive naturally. Among them, only 1% of couples have turned to IVF (in - vitro fertilization) or other infertility treatments for pregnancy. However the uptake of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) for conceiving is on the rise. In the 40 years since the worlds first IVF baby was born, over 8 million IVF babies have been born worldwide.

Dr. Parul Katiyar, Fertility Consultant at Nova IVI Fertility, Delhi said IVF is usually opted by couples who even after trying for several years are unable to conceive naturally. Often fertility treatments are recommended to patients having blocked or damaged fallopian tubes, male factor infertility, which also includes decreased sperm count or sperm motility, women with ovulation disorders or who have had their fallopian tubes removed, premature ovarian failure, uterine fibroids, unexplained infertility, etc. The treatment modalities for two patients are never the same, as each patient faces a different fertility issue. One patient may conceive undergoing a simpler treatment like medication or IUI (intrauterine insemination), while other may require multiple cycles of IVF or ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). Thus, it is very important to understand the reason of infertility for better treatment.

With the increasing trend in personalised medicine and healthcare services, IVF has witnessed a growing need for individualised protocols such as personalised embryo transfer (pET) and individualised ovarian stimulation to optimise treatment. ART has developed with multiple solutions to aid in finding a suitable treatment alternative for every infertile couple. Technologies like blastocyst culture, Magnetic Activated Cell Sorting (MACS) and reproductive genetics like Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS), Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), and Endometrial Receptivity Array (ERA) have helped to increase the success rate of IVF by significant percentages, said Dr. Parul.
GGH, Bengaluru has performed the highest number of liver transplants in Karnataka.

BGS Gleneagles Global Hospital is currently host to the busiest transplant program in Karnataka with 200 successful Liver transplants in 9 years. They currently average 2-3 liver transplants a month. Since inception, the team has also managed the most number of multi-organ transplants in Karnataka including 8 Liver-Kidney and 9 Kidney-Pancreas transplants. BGS Gleneagles Global Hospitals has an experienced team performing a high number of living donor Liver Transplants. In 2018, the team of doctors performed 29 transplants, including 14 living donor liver transplants, with a success rate of over 93%.

Commenting on the milestone, Dr Sanjay Govil, Senior Consultant and Head, Department of HPB Surgery and Liver Transplantation, BGS Gleneagles Global Hospitals, Bengaluru said, The transplant programme at Gleneagles Global Hospitals is the longest running liver transplant program in Karnataka. This has been possible because organ transplantation has been a core focus of this hospital group. Over the years, we have built our team and expertise in multi organ transplantations in order to serve this category of patients better. Being a community centric hospital, this program is predominantly for patients from Karnataka. From the onset, we have collaborated with Jeevasarthakathe to raise awareness on cadaver donations. Our transplant program is one of the few that has a healthy balance of living donors and cadaveric donors. We have worked tirelessly to reduce costs for low risk patients and help others raise funds to finance their transplants.

Dr Sanjay Govil leads a team of doctors with extensive experience in managing liver diseases and transplants. The team includes Dr Suresh Raghavaiah, Consultant, HPB & Multi Organ Transplantation, Dr Jayanth Reddy, Consultant, Multi Organ Transplants and Dr Sandeep Satsangi, Consultant, Hepatologist and Liver Transplantation.
For Immediate Release, January 29, 2019

Contact: Collette Adkins, Center for Biological Diversity, (651) 955-3821, cadkins@biologicaldiversity.org

Taylor Jones, WildEarth Guardians, (720) 443-2615, tjones@wildearthguardians.org

Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org

Lawsuit Targets Federal Wildlife-killing Program in Wyoming

CHEYENNE, Wyo. Conservationists sued the U.S. Department of Agricultures Wildlife Services program today over its outdated wildlife-killing plan for Wyoming.

The lawsuit, filed in Cheyenne federal court, seeks an updated environmental analysis of the program, which kills thousands of the states native animals every year. The program primarily kills carnivores like gray wolves and coyotes that are important for balanced ecosystems.

Wildlife Services cruel killing practices are ineffective, environmentally harmful and totally out of touch with science, said Collette Adkins, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney representing the conservation groups involved in the lawsuit. The science shows that nonlethal methods of addressing wildlife conflicts work. Were suing the agency to force a closer look at alternatives to its mass-extermination program.

Wildlife Services is a multimillion-dollar federal program that uses painful leghold traps, strangulation snares, poisons and aerial gunning to kill wolves, coyotes, cougars, birds and other wild animals. Most of the killing responds to requests from the agriculture industry.

In 2017 Wildlife Services reported killing more than 1.3 million native animals nationwide, including 5,645 coyotes, 52 wolves, 237 foxes, 1,023 ravens, 305 rabbits and thousands of other creatures in Wyoming.

Nontarget animals, including pets and protected wildlife like wolves, grizzlies and eagles, are also at risk from the programs indiscriminate methods. Last year two family dogs died near Casper, Wyo., after encountering deadly poisons, often used by Wildlife Services, called cyanide bombs.

Wildlife Services has long acted as the livestock industrys ecological hitmen, targeting native wildlife for extermination, said Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project. Its long past time to reform this rogue program in Wyoming and strip it of its most irresponsible, dangerous and ecologically destructive tools.

The National Environmental Policy Act requires Wildlife Services to rigorously examine the environmental effects of killing wildlife and to consider alternatives, such as those that rely on proven nonlethal methods to avoid wildlife conflicts.

But the environmental analysis for Wyoming is more than 20 years old. According to the complaint filed today, Wildlife Services must use recent information to analyze the impacts of its wildlife-killing program on the environment and Wyomings unique wild places.

Its past time for this archaic program to move into the 21st century and start using current science, said Taylor Jones of WildEarth Guardians. Our treatment of carnivores should reflect their key place in the ecosystem, not outdated fears and prejudices.

Todays lawsuit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians.
Editor's Note Since 2006, Stratfor has produced an annual cartel report chronicling the dynamics of the organizations that make up the complex mosaic of organized crime in Mexico. When we began, the landscape was much simpler, with only a handful of major cartel groups. But as we noted in 2013, the long process of balkanization  or splintering  of the groups has made it difficult to analyze them the way we used to. Indeed, many of the organizations we had been tracking, such as the Gulf cartel, imploded and fragmented into several smaller, often competing factions. Because of this fracturing, we changed our analysis in 2013 to focus on the clusters of smaller groups that emanate from three main geographic areas: Sinaloa state, Tamaulipas state and the Tierra Caliente region.



Surprisingly little has changed over the past year in terms of cartel dynamics. Various leaders and lieutenants have been arrested or killed, and additional splintering has continued for some already fractured groups, but by and large, 2018 was characterized by a stasis in the conflict zones of the assorted factions. In the past, periods of stasis often entailed that cartel groups were staying within their areas of control and that violence would be lower. However, in the current period, large and bloody struggles are continuing unresolved, and cartel groups remain locked in nasty turf wars. This environment means that most of these clashes will rage on well into 2019. This violence has been reflected in the murder statistics, as the homicide figure for 2018 hit 33,341  far surpassing the 2017 tally of 29,168. While Mexico's homicide rate of about 27 per 100,000 people is higher than that of the United States (which is expected to come in at about 5 per 100,000 people for 2018), it is still considerably lower than the rates for other countries in the region, including El Salvador (about 82 per 100,000), Honduras (about 56 per 100,000) and Jamaica (about 47 per 100,000). As for drug smuggling, synthetics such as methamphetamine and fentanyl continued to impact cartel dynamics heavily in 2018. The huge profits that can be reaped from manufacturing synthetic drugs dwarf those of traditional drugs. Trafficking cocaine has long been a lucrative criminal enterprise for Mexican criminals, but they must purchase the drug from Andean producers. By making methamphetamine themselves, however, they can reap the lion's share of the profits. Opium poppies are another profitable criminal enterprise in Mexico, whose heroin now accounts for more than 90 percent of the U.S. market for the drug. However, raising poppies and processing opium gum into heroin costs more and takes longer than producing fentanyl. The synthetic opioid is more profitable than heroin, which explains why criminals have been passing fentanyl off as heroin. Record levels of poppy planting and the low cost of fentanyl have led to a collapse in the price of opium gum. With Colombian coca production also running at historically high levels, Mexican cartels are likely to continue to traffic a wide variety of drugs to meet U.S. and domestic demand.



But drug trafficking is not the only criminal activity that Mexico's organized crime cartels engage in. The fracturing of the formerly powerful cartels has led not only to a record number of murders but also to heavily armed cartel gunmen becoming involved in a host of other criminal enterprises, from kidnapping and extortion to the theft of cargo and fuel. It is no coincidence that the pilfering of cargo and fuel have reached historically high levels as balkanization blossomed over the past half-decade. Tierra Caliente-Based Organized Crime Last year's forecast highlighted the powerful Valencia smuggling family as the driving force behind the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). This fact has not been lost on the Mexican and U.S. governments or their allies, who have continued to target the family. Despite efforts to cripple the group by going after its finance and logistics apparatus (the Valencia family), the CJNG has shown no signs of running short on cash or suffering any disruption in its operations due to the arrests of high-ranking members. Indeed, it remains the most aggressive cartel in Mexico, and its efforts to expand its area of control are largely responsible for the persistent wave of violence racking Tijuana, Juarez, Guanajuato and Mexico City.



But the past year also revealed some emerging problems in the CJNG camp. Nueva Plaza, a splinter group of former members led by Carlos "El Cholo" Enrique Sanchez, has begun to contest the CJNG for control of Guadalajara. The violence has resulted in significant bloodshed, including the high-profile murders of three art students who were mistaken for cartel members. Due to their aggressive nature, the CJNG and its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka El Mencho), remain at the top of the priority target list for U.S. and Mexican authorities. However, the Mexican government will have to be careful what it wishes for. Past operations to decapitate cartels such as the Guadalajara cartel, the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana have led to fracturing and greater violence. Sinaloa-Based Organized Crime The Sinaloa cartel weathered 2018 in pretty good shape  especially considering that one of its senior leaders, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, has been on trial in a Manhattan court for more than two months. Guzman Loera did not plead guilty and cooperate with the U.S. government, meaning that he is likely to spend the rest of his life in an American prison with no hope of escape. The witnesses called to testify against him have shed a great deal of light upon the logistics of the cartel's drug trafficking.



While the trial continues in New York, the work of operating a multinational logistics and manufacturing business continues in Sinaloa. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Guzman's sons, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, who are often referred to as Los Chapitos, have fended off several internal challenges to assume control of the lucrative illegal corporation that is the Sinaloa cartel. They have also been able to hold their own against the incursions of the CJNG in places such as Tijuana and Juarez, and their successful resistance is in fact a big reason for the current stasis in the battle lines. Both organizations have the resources to continue fighting for those cities through their local proxies for the foreseeable future. A significant crisis could weaken either and lead to victory for the other side. But until that happens, Tijuana and Juarez are likely to remain bloody. Tamaulipas-Based Organized Crime An array of Gulf cartel fragments is continuing to battle for primacy in Tamaulipas. Jose Alfredo Cardenas, aka The Accountant, has been able to consolidate control over the drug-smuggling corridor, known as a plaza, in Matamoros. He has also sent some of his forces to help his local ally in Reynosa, but they have been unable to take total control there. Despite heavy losses, including several leaders, the faction of Los Metros continues to oppose Cardenas. Some rumors hint that it is being kept alive through CJNG support, which would signal that group's entry into yet another struggle for control of a border plaza. At Nuevo Laredo, the Cartel del Noreste (CDN) is the remnant of the Los Zetas cartel that controls that important crossing  the busiest point of entry along the border and the one that leads directly up the Interstate Highway 35 corridor. The CDN is led by Juan Gerardo Trevino Chavez, also known as El Huevo; he is a member of the old-school Trevino smuggling clan, which has a long history in Nuevo Laredo  and in the Los Zetas cartel. The CDN is locked in a vicious fight against another Los Zetas remnant, the Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE)  the Old School Zetas  that is playing out across the state, but particularly in Ciudad Victoria.



For 2019, it appears that there is little hope that Cardenas will be able to impose any sort of pax mafiosa over Tamaulipas state and the wider region. Even if he and his allies are able to finally take control of Reynosa in 2019, they will still face significant hurdles from other Gulf cartel and Los Zetas remnants in the region. Implications Cartel violence in Mexico has affected almost every part of the country, including areas that are considered generally safe, such as upscale neighborhoods and tourist resorts and zones. Indeed, many cartel leaders live in upscale homes or apartment buildings, and this increases the risk of violence being dragged into such areas when rivals target them for assassination or when authorities go to arrest them. Most of the violence has been cartel on cartel or government on cartel, but with the cartels using automatic weapons and military ordnance, such as grenades and anti-tank weapons, bystanders are at considerable risk of injury or death. And as the cartel balkanization continues, so will their expansion into criminal activity unrelated to narcotics, such as extortion, kidnapping, and cargo and fuel theft. In light of these various risks, it is important for companies and organizations operating in Mexico to pay careful attention to shifts in cartel dynamics. Travelers and expatriates in Mexico should practice the appropriate level of situational awareness, even in areas considered to be generally safe. They should also be prepared to act if they are caught in a violent incident, and they should carry an emergency kit to treat themselves or others who may be injured.





Tracking Mexico's Cartels in 2019 is republished with permission from Stratfor Worldview, a geopolitical intelligence platform.
- Trademark application filed in multiple international markets.

- Likely to be a sub-brand or a modern-retro styled motorcycle.

- Could arrive by the end of this year.

Kawasaki has filed trademark applications for the Meguro name in the US, Europe, Australia and Philippines.

The Meguro brand name holds a significant importance in Japan as well as to Kawasaki. Founded in 1937, it participated in racing events and even supplied the police and military with motorcycles. It was also Japans second largest motorcycle manufacturer with a portfolio that included bikes ranging from 50cc to 500cc. In 1960, Meguro went bankrupt following which Kawasaki acquired the company and released bikes like the W1, the forerunner of the modern-day W800.

While details are still unknown, the Meguro is likely to be either a sub-brand that would consist of modern-retro bikes or a new bike itself. If it is the latter, the bike is likely to be a sub-500cc motorcycle based on the Z400 platform.
Reed Travel Exhibitions, organiser of the annual Arabian Travel Market (ATM) showcase in Dubai, has announced the launch of Arabian Travel Week  an umbrella brand comprising four co-located shows.



Taking place at the Dubai World Trade Centre from 27 April  1 May 2019, the event will comprise ATM 2019 and ILTM Arabia as well as Connect Middle East, India and Africa 2019  a new route development forum launching this year - and ATM Holiday Shopper, which is a new consumer-led event.



Danielle Curtis, exhibition director ME, Arabian Travel Market, said: The success of both ATM and ILTM Arabia has provided us with the platform to not only introduce two new events for 2019  but to create a travel week which encompasses the Middle Easts inbound and outbound markets for general leisure tourism and luxury travel as well as providing a dedicated networking forum for the regions top airline specialists, aviation authorities, tourism boards, airports and tour operators.



According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the direct contribution of travel and tourism to the UAEs economy is predicted to rise 4.1 per cent per annum to Dh108.4 billion ($29.5 billion) by 2028.



Building on these figures, we are confident Arabian Travel Week will be a key driver in bringing top international destinations to the attention of the Middle Easts travel trade and consumers and equally, marketing the Middle East to strategic overseas tour operators and travel professionals, Curtis said.



ATM, the annual leading global event for the Middle East inbound and outbound travel industry, will showcase over 2,800 products and destinations from around the world to over 28,000 buyers and travel trade visitors. This years show will place a spotlight on cutting-edge technology and innovation, integrating the theme across all show verticals, planned activities and seminars.



Taking place on April 30 and May 1, Connect Middle East, India and Africa will bring together airports, airlines and aviation suppliers in a format that offers formal one-to-one pre-arranged meetings, engaging industry seminars as well as social opportunities to cement relationships with existing clients and engage with new ones.



Also new for 2019, ATM Holiday Shopper will take place for one day only on April 27. The event will showcase over 30 travel and hospitality exhibitors from regional and international destinations who will be offering the very best travel and tourism discounts and deals exclusively for consumers attending the show.



And finally, now in its third year, the International Luxury Travel Market Arabia (ILTM) is an exclusive event for those looking to attract HNW travellers from the Middle East to their destination. Returning on the first two days of ATM, ILTM will allow international luxury suppliers and key luxury buyers to connect via one-to-one pre-scheduled appointments and networking opportunities.



Curtis added: Arabian Travel Week provides a renewed focus for the Middle Easts Travel and Tourism sector  under one roof over the course of one week  shining a spotlight on Dubai, the UAE, GCC and of course the wider Mena regions burgeoning hospitality industry.



Other highlights taking place over the course of Arabian Travel Week include the UNWTO Ministers Summit which will be held on April 28 on the Global Stage; the Hotel Industry Summit; The Global Halal Tourism Summit and a dedicated Saudi Arabia Tourism Session. - TradeArabia News Service


Call ahead to confirm events. Due to COVID-19, many events have been canceled but hosting organizations might not have updated their entries.

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Moncks Corner, SC (29461)

Today

Thunderstorms, accompanied by locally heavy rainfall at times. A few storms may be severe. High 86F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Low 72F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Hyatt Hotels has announced the entry of the Hyatt House brand into the Middle Eastern market with the opening of a new hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.



The opening of the Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street is a significant step towards increasing Hyatts brand footprint in the extended stay segment and growing Hyatts brand presence in the Middle East with innovative hospitality offerings in key locations and gateway cities.



The Hyatt House brand is rooted in extensive customer insights which indicate that guests seek casual and authentic hospitality, with purposeful service and seamless experiences that accommodate their lifestyles and familiar routines. This, coupled with a smartly designed, tech-forward and contemporary environment, allows guests to feel at home at Hyatt House properties, whether they are staying for a night or for an extended stay.



We are thrilled to announce the opening of Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street, marking the Hyatt House brands arrival to the region, said Zulkifl Bhatti, general manager of Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street. Our aim is to offer guests and families a comfortable stay in the heart of charming Jeddah and to provide the high-quality service standards for the Hyatt House brand is known.



Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street is conveniently located in the Al Salamah District, in close proximity to Madinah and Thaliaya Streets, which connects to the Corniche, Jeddahs coastal resort area. The 102-residentially inspired upscale guestrooms, studio and one-bedroom kitchen suites, along with restaurant, fitness centre and prayer rooms, provide the ideal home-away-from-home setting.



Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street offers;



 102 guestrooms, ranging from spacious studios to one-bedroom Kitchen Suites with fully equipped kitchens

 Gathering Rooms with more with more than 500 square feet (50-sq-m) of flexible meeting spaces

 Free wi-fi throughout the hotel and guestrooms

 H Lounge, a cosy space featuring a delicious selection of home comfort food

 Omelet Bar, a full hot breakfast served daily for guests from chef-inspired options that rotate daily, or guests can make their own custom creation

 The H Market meets the everyday needs of guests, from snacks and sundries to freshly prepared salads and sandwiches

 A 24-hour workout room equipped with TechnoGym cardio and strength training equipment, including treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, and free weights

 An outdoor, temperature-controlled rooftop swimming pool with stunning views of Jeddah, open 7:00 am  9:00 pm daily

 A 24-hour business centre equipped with computer workstations with wired and wireless internet access, as well as printers

 A game room available for all guests with different activities such as foosball, pool table and video games

 Three floors of shaded parking space dedicated to hotel guests

 Prayer rooms. - TradeArabia News Service
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Leftist-leaning demonstrators, including former Rep. Satur Ocampo (center, red shirt), protest the killing of Randy Malayao, a peace consultant of the Philippine communist insurgency, Jan. 30, 2019.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a consultant for the Philippine communist rebel movement inside a bus Wednesday, police said, in a killing that could potentially disrupt back-channel efforts to jumpstart a stalled peace process with the government.

Randy Felix Malayao, 49, was sleeping aboard the bus when he was attacked by unknown assailants before dawn, police said.

One of two motorcycle-riding assailants boarded the bus as it made a stop at a bus terminal in northern Nueva Vizcaya province then fired two successive shots at the victim, said local police commander Chief Inspector Geovanni Cejes.

Suspect immediately came down the bus then boarded his getaway motor vehicle together with his companion, Cejes said in his incident report.

Malayao was a consultant to the National Democratic Front, the political wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been waging one of Southeast Asias longest running insurgencies spanning half a century.

Malayao, a former leader of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, an alliance of campus newspapermen, attended formal peace negotiations in Europe and acted as one of the spokesmen for the National Democratic Front panel. He was a former political prisoner who allegedly suffered torture while in jail.

He eventually worked among farmers organizations in the north, but was arrested for his alleged participation in the killing of a former governor tied to the dictatorship regime of Ferdinand Marcos. He spent several years in jail but was eventually freed.

The communist leadership said it was outraged by the killing. They praised Malayao as an indefatigable worker in the service of the people.

Fidel Agcaoili, leader of the communists peace panel, said Malayao was one of its spokesmen during formal negotiations.

Asked how the consultants death might affect prospects of resuming peace talks with the government, Agcaoili said: We will have to assess the situation very carefully before making any firm decision.

President Rodrigo Duterte, a self-described leftist, had opened peace talks with the communist rebels shortly after taking office in 2016. He also freed detained communist rebels to join negotiations in Europe.

But he subsequently terminated the talks, accusing the New Peoples Army (NPA)  the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines  of violating a ceasefire pact and attacking government positions.

Duterte had also asked the justice department to designate the CPP-NPA a terrorist organization. The state has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists.

Karl Romano in Dagupan contributed to this report.
Investigators check the bodies of two men who died in a grenade blast at a mosque in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, Jan. 30, 2019.

The Philippine military launched air and artillery assaults Wednesday against Abu Sayyaf militant hideouts in the jungles of southern Jolo island, three days after bombs killed 21 people and injured scores more at a local church, officials said.

Also on Wednesday, a grenade explosion ripped through a Muslim mosque in the nearby city of Zamboanga, killing two men. The Philippine defense secretary said the attack likely was unrelated to the twin bombings that targeted the cathedral in Jolo town during Sunday Mass.

From a military camp on the island, the Philippine Armys Alpha Battery 8th Field Artillery Battalion fired canons targeting suspected jungle lairs of the Abu Sayyaf, authorities said.

We are utilizing all the military might against Abu Sayyaf, Army Brig. Gen. Divino Rey Pabayo said, adding that security forces had identified the lair of militants involved in the church attack.

Soldiers backed by policemen also raided the hideout of one of the suspects in the Jan. 27 bombings at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, said Pabayo, the Joint Task Force Sulu commander. A man identified as Omal Yusuf was killed in the raid but other suspects escaped, he said.

The target of the raid was a certain Kamah, who is believed to be a member of a youth gang with known ties to Abu Sayyaf.

As the policemen arrived at said place, the suspect drew his firearm and fired at government forces, which prompted them to return fire that resulted in his death, said Senior Superintendent Bernard Banac, spokesman for the national police. Unfortunately, alias Kamah was able to escape together with an unidentified person.

The military offensive was carried out on orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, who blamed Abu Sayyaf for Sundays attack targeting Philippine Catholics. But on Tuesday, citing an intelligence brief, the president disclosed that the attack could have been carried out by suicide bombers.

That revelation has thrown the investigation into disarray, with the military and police still sticking to the angle that the Jolo blasts were carried out by rogue militants allied with Abu Sayyaf.

Mosque attack

In Zamboanga city, unidentified men lobbed a grenade inside the mosque early Wednesday, killing two Muslim religious leaders and wounding four other people.

Before the explosion two men were seen in Talon-Talon, a village near the mosque, Army Col. Leonel Nicolas, head of the militarys Joint Task Force in Zamboanga, told reporters.

He identified the fatalities as Habil Rex, 46, and Bato Sattal, 47.

The perpetrators just left the scene on foot, said Senior Superintendent Thomas Joseph Martir, director of the Zamboanga City Police.

Investigators recovered fragments of the grenades lever, he said.

Regional Army commander Lt. Gen. Arnel Dela Vega called on the public to avoid speculating on whether the explosions in Jolo and Zamboanga were connected.

Let us not be divided by the recent incidents, he said, Instead, let us work as one for the perpetrators to be immediately identified and neutralized.

Muslim religious leaders condemned the mosque attack as devilish, irrational and inhumane, as they called on the public to remain calm in the face of the violence.

We share the grief of the families who lost their loved ones and sincerely extend our condolences to them in the most comforting manner that a human being may, the Ulama Council of Zamboanga Peninsula said in statement.

In Manila, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the government would ensure the publics safety.

The successive attacks on two different places of worship depict the ruthlessness and the godlessness of these mass murderers, Panelo said.

This latest act of murder, apart from the terrorists sowing terror in the Mindanao region, coming as it does in the wake of the Jolo dastardly bombing, is a taunting challenge to the capability of the government to secure the safety of the inhabitants in Mindanao, Panelo said.

Unlikely connection

In the Philippine capital, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the Zamboanga and the Jolo blasts were unlikely connected, noting that sectarian revenge attacks were not common in the Philippines.

The president has said in Jolo that the Christians and Muslims have been coexisting for a hundred years and there have never been revenge attacks, Lorenzana said, emphasizing that Abu Sayyaf could have executed the cathedral attack in concert with Islamic State.

The ISIS maybe wants to bring that to a higher level of religious war, but nobody wants to take that bait, not the Christians or even the mainstream Muslims, he said, using the other acronym for IS.

Sundays bomb explosions occurred in Jolo town, the capital of Sulu province where pro-Islamic State (IS) Abu Sayyaf militants are active.

Shortly after the attack, ISs East Asia Province claimed responsibility for it, according to SITE Intelligence, a U.S. group that monitors online communications among Muslim militant networks.

The Abu Sayyaf had opposed the ratification of a law granting full autonomy to mainly Muslim areas of the Philippine south.

The church bombings occurred two days after Philippine election officials declared that a majority of voters had cast ballots in favor of the law, via a southern plebiscite on Jan. 21. A majority of Jolo islanders, however, had voted against the law and Jolos inclusion in the autonomous Muslim region.

Froilan Gallardo and Mark Navales contributed to this report from Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, Philippines.
Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC) has registered a net profit of KD6.01 million ($19.78 million) for the third quarter ended December 31, 2018, a 10 per cent increase over KD5.47 million ($18.01 million) for the same period last year.



The net profit for the nine months ended December 31 stood at KD15.62 million ($51.42 million), against KD16.03 million ($52.76 million) for the same period last year, said a statement from the company.



Earnings per share (EPS) for the period reached 15.03 fils ($49.47 cents) versus 15.39 fils ($50.66 cents) during the same period last year.



Total assets stood at KD670.52 million ($2.21 billion) as at December 31, 2018, compared to KD 671.69 million ($2.21 billion) on March 31, 2018.



QPICs chairman Sheikh Mubarak Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah said: The achieved results affirm the ability of our companys diversified investment portfolio and business model to withstand the economic and political challenges facing the globe.



Furthermore, our company is actively seeking new local and regional investment opportunities that maintains the balance of its investments portfolio and meet our shareholders needs, he added.



QPICs vice chairman and chief executive officer Sadoun Ali said: The positive overall performance of our core investments has enabled QPIC to achieve these results.



In particular, our investments in the Petrochemical & Oilfield services companies played a key role in achieving these results despite the lower contribution from Saudia Dairy & Foodstuff Company (Sadafco), on account of the regional challenges the consumer Saudi market is facing, he said.



Nevertheless, Sadafco has been able to maintain its market share and leading position in Saudi Arabia, and we expect our core investments to continue its positive momentum and improve in the future, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Another day. Another 7pm News Special. Another near-farce. Two long hours of divisions to produce the parliamentary equivalent of a scoreless penalty shoot-out. Still, at least the Commons will be able to vote again in a fortnight - presumably after Brussels has simply caved in and offered the Mother of Parliaments what it wants - except that Parliament still doesn't know what it wants.

It only knows it doesn't want no-deal and doesn't like the current deal, which doesn't get us very far.

A PM who favoured Remain has taken us on a course of Leave.

A PM who agreed on no regulatory divergence between GB and Northern Ireland signed off on a deal accepting of such.

A PM who told us her deal was the "only deal and the best deal", until Parliament decided - in the biggest Government defeat ever recorded - that it wasn't.

And now a PM who accepted a deal with an unlimited backstop is going to Brussels to get the backstop changed or removed - committed to reopen the withdrawal agreement as if it is in her gift.

Laughably, Conservative MPs were whipped by their leader to demand a replacement to the backstop the same leader had agreed a few weeks ago.

So now the political leader who could barely beat Jeremy Corbyn in a general election is somehow going to schmooze and cajole 27 EU Prime Ministers into tearing up a treaty they have already signed, as if the binding withdrawal agreement was some kind of 'Not entirely satisfied?: Money back' offer.

At this rate the PM is in danger of making her predecessor look competent in comparison. David Cameron's hapless failure to prise much from the EU in his pre-referendum 'renegotiation' featured in BBC2's excellent Inside Europe: Ten Years Of Turmoil documentary on Monday. Clearly most Conservatives preferred to forget. Those with amnesia included their backbench chairman Sir Graham Brady. He might as well have tabled a Commons amendment demanding a redraw of Saturday's National Lottery, on the grounds his numbers didn't come up, as attempt a rewriting of the withdrawal agreement.

From the outset the EU has said it will support the Irish Government in what it claims it needs to maintain a seamless border. So it's no backstop, no deal. As Cameron failed, faced with an impossible Tusk, so will May. At least Cameron resigned.

That said, no-deal is problematic for the EU. The vexed question of how the EU will police its single market frontier has yet to be addressed. The grim vista of the Irish Government reinforcing partition - through no fault of its own - looms large.

For the DUP, there is at least the satisfaction at eliciting a change of tack from the Government, even if either no-deal or no backstop might be tantamount to a shipwreck.

The importance of the DUP's Westminster 10 was re-emphasised in the recent confidence vote in the Commons and the Dodds-May rapprochement - bolstered by cordial dinners and a conciliatory tone in debates - continues, at least until the next Brussels rebuff.

Whilst it is an oft-repeated truism that the DUP does not speak for all of Northern Ireland, as many businesses, farmers, nationalists and others will testify, more cogent is that the party provides 91% of Northern Ireland's active Westminster representation, and 100% of Theresa May's parliamentary majority.

So the UK Government, Conservative Brexiteers and the DUP will now try and move the seemingly immoveable. Carnivores asking for steak in a vegan restaurant. They will again be confronted by "the deafness of the EU institutions to change in those negotiations". Not my words. You'll find them on page 18 of the DUP's last election manifesto

Jon Tonge is Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool
It was billed as Super Tuesday. In this case, the process did not involve the razzmatazz of the US presidential primaries and the choice was not between possible candidates for the White House. Super Tuesday in the House of Commons concerned Speaker Bercow's selection of amendments (seven eventually) to the Government's so-called 'neutral motion' and the measure of their support amongst MPs. Normally such neutral motions are not subject to amendment. The EU Withdrawal Act is an exception to that rule.

It is worth recalling the context. On January 15, the Prime Minister's Draft Withdrawal Agreement was defeated in the House by 432 votes to 202.

As a result, the Government was required to report back on how it intended to proceed. Mrs May's statement was delivered on January 21. The motion yesterday therefore concerned only Parliament's consideration of that statement.

To most voters, this may all seem politically insignificant, procedurally marginal, merely an incidental scene in the larger Brexit drama at Westminster. Yet 'voices off' the Parliamentary stage gave a very different impression of the debate's importance.

As yesterday approached, two Professors of War Studies at Kings College London, David Betz and MLR Smith, called attention to research showing 'how a stable, essentially self-policing, productive society can turn into an ungovernable tumult roiling with rage' if the political class frustrates the popular will.

Cambridge Professor of History Robert Tombs reminded readers that the last time some MPs tried to take over the business of government in 1642 'it started a civil war'.

The normally measured Professor Vernon Bogdanor, claimed it 'would be unconstitutional' if MPs voted to 'take control' of the Brexit process.

I have to admit (rather sheepishly) that rather than the politics of societal breakdown, the history of the Long Parliament or the conventions constitutional procedure, what came to my mind was Bernard Cribbens comic song Right Said Fred.

Older readers will probably not thank me for reminding them of the tune (it was a hit in 1962). For the benefit of younger readers, the song tells the story of three removal men trying to manhandle an unidentified object (likely a grand piano). They 'tried to shift it, couldn't even lift it' and realised 'we was getting nowhere'. Despite removing bits of the object, taking off a door and knocking down a wall they still get nowhere. Finally, Fred goes up the ladder, takes a crowbar to the ceiling and, as Cribbens sings, 'half a ton of rubble landed on the top of his head'. In the end, the two remaining workmen go home and leave the thing where it is. 'You'll never get nowhere if you're too hasty' is the parting comment.

I am not suggesting that the issues at stake in yesterday's vote are not serious. Of course they are. I am suggesting that the lyrics of the song provide those outside the specialised world of parliamentary practice a perspective on the choices that are involved.

Take Mrs May's approach. If anything sums it up neatly it is the mantra of 'you'll never get nowhere if you're too hasty'. As far as Number 10 is concerned, the Withdrawal Agreement should be left where it is for now. If Parliament is not too hasty, if a little bit of the deal can be knocked off, if the Commons puts its weight behind it and the EU gives it a supportive nudge, we will get somewhere.

Take the Labour leadership's approach. It is happy to have another cuppa tea and not to act because any action could have unfortunate consequences. As the Conservative MP George Freeman joked last week, the opposition's position has been unambiguous: it is Leave in the north of England and Remain in the south. Freeman's joke captures the difficult challenge for Labour on Brexit, balancing voters and MPs in very different constituencies.

On the principle that governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them, why should Corbyn expose his party's divisions? Oppose 'no deal', yes, but let the Tories take a crowbar to their own walls and ceiling and bring half a ton of electoral rubble on top of their own heads.

What of those two amendments which had been flagged up in advance as key? Firstly, the amendment proposed by Labour's Yvette Cooper (above), Chair of Home Affairs Select Committee and supported by the former Conservative Minister, Nick Boles, had as its justification concern that another half a ton of rubble would fall on the British economy if the UK exits the EU on March 29 with no deal in place. On the one hand, its motivation was the need for haste - to avoid 'crashing out' of the EU and to enact a Bill (on February 5) to extend article 50 if the Prime Minister has not secured a deal by February 26. On the other hand, the purpose was to provide more time for Parliament to reflect at leisure rather than to repent at haste.

For this amendment to succeed, standing order No 14 of the House of Commons, which gives priority to government business, would need to be suspended (as another amendment by Dominic Grieve also required). It was this change that some thought unconstitutional. A week ago the position of the Prime Minister on extending article 50 was categorical. She ran together extending article 50, removing 'no deal', claiming the object was really 'no Brexit'. In other words, the Cooper amendment would be a betrayal of the referendum result. If this logic appears far-fetched, the People's Vote website, which advocates a second referendum, confirmed it. This partly explains the Cooper amendment's failure to get sufficient support.

Mrs May would have appreciated Bogdanor's judgment that the problem with timing is not constitutional but political: that MPs have failed 'to accept the logic of their previous decisions'. Having voted for a referendum in 2015, campaigned on manifestos accepting that result in 2017, invoked article 50 and passed the Withdrawal Act in 2018, they are avoiding the final step. Jeremy Corbyn, however, would have appreciated Bogdanor's conclusion. The way to change things should be by changing the government.

If there is a Long Parliament/Civil War reference, it is the saying about the argumentative backbencher: who know what they would not, but know not what they would.

The Prime Minister made the point yesterday: we know what this House doesn't want but we need to make clear what it does want.

Extending article 50 alone would not achieve that clarity - though the Prime Minister evaded an answer on any extension at any time.

Secondly, on Monday evening, the Prime Minister confirmed that she was backing the amendment of Sir Graham Brady, Chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs. The Brady amendment was a Right said Fred moment - 'one each end and steady as we go' - in this case, Conservatives here and DUP there. It did mean knocking off a bit of the existing Withdrawal Agreement to get things shifted - replacing the backstop with 'alternative arrangements' - in order to get the deal over the parliamentary line next month. It was a demonstrative amendment. Let's demonstrate that the Tory/DUP tribe, rather than Parliament as a whole, can unite around something. Let's demonstrate to the EU how close a deal really is. Let's see what happens.

Moreover, when the 'meaningful vote' was lost on January 15, journalists talked about the need of political 'ladders' for disaffected Conservative and DUP MPs to climb down. The Brady amendment was one such ladder. But to get both groups to step onto the first rungs it also required a ladder for the Prime Minister to climb up. Her announcement that she would seek to re-open the Withdrawal Agreement to get legal certainty on limiting the backstop was that ladder.

Lord Bew also provided an important intellectual shove, arguing in a Briefing for the think tank Policy Exchange, that 'the obligations of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement - which the backstop claims to protect - require that it can only be a temporary arrangement and this must be put in explicit, legally binding terms'.

The vote for the Brady amendment represents quite an ambiguous triumph for Mrs May. What a reversal of voting fortunes from two weeks ago. What a reversal of position on her original agreement.

So where are we today after yesterday? I know I have drawn out far too long the Right Said Fred analogy. We can say this perhaps: it has got us somewhere for the Prime Minister but 'got us nowhere' in settling relationships with the EU. After the voting theatre on the amendments the one and indivisible union - the European one - confronts a Union one and indivisible - the United Kingdom.

Unless there is an agreement between the EU and the UK, this (in my view) is not very good news for Northern Ireland.

But unlike Fred's mates we can't go home. MPs will be back next month for more political lifting and shifting.

Arthur Aughey is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Ulster University and author of The Politics of Englishness and The Conservative Party and the Nation: Union, England and Europe, both published by Manchester University Press
Prime Minister Theresa May speaking about the Government's Brexit deal, in the House of Commons, London.

It's a sign of how bad things are for the Government that yesterday was a good day at the office for Theresa May.

Only one defeat in seven votes, and a slim but significant majority behind her on the amendment that mattered.

Plan B was certainly a lot more palatable than Plan A to the House of Commons. That there was a ceasefire of sorts in the Conservative Party was also clear.

The DUP played no small role in convincing those on the extreme wing of the European Research Group to support Sir Graham Brady's amendment. Seeing the party in a peace-making and bridge-building role is not one to which its opponents in Northern Ireland are accustomed.

Last night must be judged a tremendous success for Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds.

It's only days ago that the Prime Minister was adamant on the absolute necessity of the backstop and the fact her deal couldn't be renegotiated. Now she is going back to the EU to do just that.

They will tell her to get stuffed, Remainers probably correctly say. The immediate response from European Council president Donald Tusk certainly didn't suggest that there's room to manoeuvre.

"The backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement, and the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation," he said.

But Brexiteers believe that despite the EU's hard line now, it will "evolve its position" as March 29 draws ominously closer. Don't judge the likelihood for compromise by Tusk's statement, they insist. This one will go to the wire.

Remainers are equally adamant that Brexiteer Tories and the DUP are wrong.

"They're living in cloud cuckoo land if they believe there will be any change from Brussels," a Dublin source said last night.

But, for the moment, Mrs May certainly has room to breathe. The EU's argument that there was no point dealing with her in terms of working out a compromise as she couldn't command a majority in the Commons has been weakened.

Last night's series of votes won't be an immediate game-changer in the Brexit battle, but they do mean that the Prime Minister can go back to Brussels with much more authority than she previously had.

The defeat of Yvette Cooper's amendment, which could have ensured a no-deal Brexit was blocked, was a key win for the Government. Although anything is still clearly possible, the appetite for a second referendum does appear to have lessened.

While the Spelman-Dromey amendment opposing no-deal was passed, only Cooper's was binding.

The Prime Minister has proven that she hasn't lost control of the Brexit process.

She just about remains in control, and for that she will be thankful. The Brexiteers had a positive result yesterday, but everything remains to play for.

It's over to team EU for now.
A retail company has been fined 450,000 after a girl was badly injured when a queue barrier toppled on to her.

The 10-year-old suffered a fractured skull in the incident at the Topshop store in Silverburn Shopping Centre, Glasgow.

Topshop owner Arcadia Group Ltd was fined at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Wednesday after it admitted breaching health and safety laws.

This was a foreseeable and avoidable accident which resulted in the severe injury and permanent disfigurement of a young girl.Alistair Duncan, Crown Office

Prosecutors said the girl was with her mother on a shopping trip in February 2017 when they went into the store.

As the mother returned a hat to the display, she heard a scream and turned round to see her daughter lying on the floor with the barrier on top of her.

Staff and members of the public removed the barrier from the girl and she was taken to the Royal Hospital for Children for treatment to a skull fracture, laceration and haematoma, prosecutors said.

The Crown Office, which revealed details of the case following the hearing, said an investigation found the firm had failed to ensure a safe system of work was implemented for the transfer of two queue barriers from its shop in Glasgows Argyle Street to the Silverburn branch.

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It also failed to ensure the queue barriers were properly secured to the floor, prosecutors added.

The group pleaded guilty to contraventions of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974.

Alistair Duncan, head of the health and safety division at the Crown Office, said: This was a foreseeable and avoidable accident which resulted in the severe injury and permanent disfigurement of a young girl.

Since this incident the company has introduced new procedures to control and document the transfer of fixtures, fittings and store equipment between stores.

Hopefully this prosecution and the sentence will remind other employers that failure to fulfil their obligations can have serious consequences and that they will be held to account for their failings.

An Arcadia spokeswoman said: The Arcadia Group remains saddened by the injury suffered by the young girl as a result of this incident and our thoughts are with her and her family.

The health and safety of our customers and employees is of the utmost importance to us.

The sheriff recognised that Arcadia has co-operated fully with Glasgow City Council and, at the first opportunity, pleaded guilty to a single charge brought under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Arcadia accepts that its system for the transfer of fittings between stores was not as robust as it should have been and this led to an unsecured fixture being present in the Silverburn store.

We apologise unreservedly for this.
Sandi Toksvig is to be made an Honorary Fellow by Girton College, Cambridge, as it marks its 150th anniversary (Ian West/ PA)

Great British Bake Off presenter Sandi Toksvig is to be made an Honorary Fellow by the Cambridge University college where she completed her degree as it celebrates its 150th anniversary.

Girton became the UKs first college for women when it was founded in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1869 in the face of great opposition.

It was relocated to the edge of Cambridge in 1873, taking its name from the nearby village of Girton.

News: To mark our 150th anniversary we are pleased to announce 5 outstanding Honorary Fellows: HIH Princess Hisako Takamado of Japan, Professor Dame Pratibha Gai, @sanditoksvig, Dr Suzy Lishman @ilovepathology & Dame @KarenPierceUN. Read more: https://t.co/fhhRDHr5wW #Girton150 pic.twitter.com/9cC6GCJu1K  Girton College (@GirtonCollege) January 29, 2019

The college is marking its 150th anniversary this year by electing five of its alumni as Honorary Fellows, including Toksvig, who gained a first-class honours degree in law, archaeology and anthropology at Girton.

The television personality and author, who has honorary degrees from five British universities and served as Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, began her comedy career in the Cambridge Footlights, where she performed in the first all-woman show.

The four other alumni who will be made Honorary Fellows by Girton are former president of the Royal College of Pathologists Dr Suzy Lishman CBE; Her Imperial Highness Princess Hisako Takamado, who is a member of the imperial family of Japan; Her Excellency Karen Pierce, DCMG, who is one of Britains most senior diplomats; and physicist and chemist Professor Dame Pratibha L Gai, FREng, FRS.

Thrilled to be awarded an honorary fellowship by @GirtonCollege and to be in such esteemed company. I will always be grateful to Girton for believing in me 33 years ago and for the knowledge and friends I gained there. https://t.co/9ZQacgudob  Suzy Lishman a (@ilovepathology) January 29, 2019

Professor Susan J Smith, 19th Mistress of Girton, said: An Honorary Fellowship is the highest distinction Girton can award, the warmest hand of friendship it can extend.

It is a great privilege to welcome these remarkable women into the college community.

We look forward to celebrating both the difference they have made in the world, and all that their election  their wisdom and experience  will do to enrich the life of the college.

Cambridge University began admitting women to their degrees in 1948, and Girton College went mixed in 1979.

The five Honorary Fellowships will be conferred individually during this year, in association with a series of special lectures and events.
Police Scotland plans deploying up to 400 officers to deal with Brexit (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Police Scotland is planning for up to 400 officers to be deployed to deal with the consequences of Brexit, Chief Constable Iain Livingstone has said.

He warned the additional police needed could threaten the financial stability of the force and he called for extra funding to be made available, as has been allocated elsewhere in the UK.

Speaking at a board meeting of police oversight body the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), Mr Livingstone said contingency plans are in place based on a reasonable worst case scenario for the UK leaving the EU.

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He said this could include public disorder, disruption at ports and airports in Scotland, and the need for Police Scotland officers to be deployed elsewhere in the UK under mutual aid agreements, likely to Northern Ireland.

He confirmed moves to recruit around 100 extra officers to deal with the issue and scrapping plans to cut 300 police, which had been expected to save 12.6 million.

The savings were part of a drive to reduce the SPAs deficit, which stood at 34 million last year.

The Chief Constable has decided to bring forward recruitment of more than 100 police officers in this financial year to ensure capacity and resilience is in place for the UK leaving the EU.  Police Scotland (@policescotland) January 30, 2019

Questioned if the 400 officers would be applied specifically to Brexit, Mr Livingstone confirmed they would.

But he warned: The financial sustainability that we need to establish will be threatened by some of the operational decisions I need to make around Brexit.

There is a significant risk that without additional funding, the budget will result in a larger deficit than previously stated if officer numbers are retained at current levels.

In this regard, it is important to publicly underline that the consequences of Brexit have not yet led to necessary additional funding being allocated to Scottish policing.

My key priority will remain ensuring the citizens of Scotland are effectively protected, policed and kept secure.

I understand UK Treasury funding has been made available to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in regard to their Brexit contingency funding, to policing and law enforcement in England and Wales.

He outlined concerns about the lack of additional resource, in light of the demanding plan to eliminate the deficit by 2021.

He added: While we remain focused on building a sustainable, financially disciplined service going forward, there is real acute imminent pressure on policing at the moment and I would really welcome some additional funding as some of my chief constable colleagues in other parts of the UK have already benefited from.

.#SPABoard asks SPA Chief Executive to write to Scottish Government & set out resource implications for @policescotland on #Brexit & case for equity of approach to other parts of UK on additional funding.  The SPA (@ScotPolAuth) January 30, 2019

SPA chairwoman Susan Deacon said her organisation shares his concerns and will write to the Scottish Government to quantify the funding required.

She said the letter will stress the hope and belief that it would be possible for additional contingency funding to be made available either from either the Scottish or UK Government.

She added: These provisions have been put in place in others parts of the UK and I think it is not unreasonable that we should look for the equivalent here.

In December, the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said up to 900 more police were needed in Scotland to cope with Brexit.
A network of groups has been created to help integrate refugees into communities across Scotland.

New Scots Connect will provide tools and information about organisations around the country which are supporting asylum seekers and people seeking refuge.

Launched by the Scottish Refugee Council, the initiative will also give groups access to a communications platform so they can work together and share their experiences.

It is the first of its kind in Scotland.

Today, we're excited about the launch of NEW SCOTS CONNECT - a network which will bring together groups from across the country who are working to support and welcome refugees into their communities! Find out more and get involved here: https://t.co/InGdUQQ2ou pic.twitter.com/N6YVNSgmW4  Scottish Refugee Council (@scotrefcouncil) January 30, 2019

Jewels Lang, communities manager at Scottish Refugee Council, said: There are many fantastic community groups and voluntary organisations doing great work right across Scotland to make their communities welcoming, to tackle prejudices, and to support refugees to build new connections and new lives through different activities, from befriending and language cafes to employability schemes.

The aim of New Scots Connect is to connect organisations to learn from each other, to share their expertise and to access support, in turn improving the social connections of refugees.

We want to ensure that refugee communities and receiving communities feel strong, informed, empowered, and that their voices are heard.

We hope that refugee and supporting communities across the country will connect with the network and, in turn, help to support integration in Scotland.

New Scots Connect is part of a larger project to support community integration in Scotland.

Almost all of the countrys councils have now resettled families and individuals in need of refugee protection.
Diyar Al Muharraq, one of the leading urban developers in Bahrain, has announced key infrastructure updates on its upcoming master-planned island city.



Striving to complete all the infrastructure work with high quality and in a timely manner, Diyar Al Muharraq recently completed three major roads within its development which will increase accessibility for visitors and residents alike, said a statement from the company.



Diyar Al Muharraq said it had spent BD27 million ($71.3 million) to build an integrated multi-lane highway network within the project that is approximately 17-km-long in total.



Furthermore, by the end of this year, the Bahraini developer will start building a bridge that will link the southern and northern islands of its development.



On its 2018 achievements, Diyar Al Muharraq said along with the developments integrated and advanced telephony and data services, it has laid 10 km of its overall fibre network in conjunction with Batelco to help provide faster connection to its residents.



On the sewerage networks, the developer said it was on course to completing the deep gravity sewer with a value of about BD18 million by the month end. The deep gravity sewer will be capable of serving 60,000 residents in the southern side of Diyar Al Muharraq.



CEO Dr Maher Al Shaer said: "On behalf of Diyar Al Muharraq, we are pleased to announce to the public our latest infrastructure work and achievements, which highlights our efforts in completing all the developments projects in a timely manner."



"It also reflects our endeavour in providing residents with the best infrastructure services, including telecommunications, roads, electricity and water, and sewerage networks. All these remarkable achievements contribute to the manifestation of our integrated vision for Diyar Al Muharraq day by day," he remarked.



"Diyar Al Muharraq has been a pioneer in the kingdom and the region, due to the diversity and abundance of residential and investment projects, which attracts Bahrainis, GCC citizens and foreigners alike. We therefore pay close attention to every detail of our work to emphasise on the high standards that the company incorporates in building a comprehensive infrastructure network that serves to fulfill residents different needs," he added.



On the project progress, Al Shaer said: "We have completed building and energising eight primary substations distributed throughout the development, and it is now serving the projects located on the southern side of the city."



"The primary power networks cost has reached BD50 million to date. Furthermore, the company is preparing to build the first primary substation in the northern island of Diyar Al Muharraq," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Exports to the EU saw the biggest growth in 2017 (Jane Barlow/PA)

Scotlands exports to the European Union grew by 1.7 billion in the year following the UKs referendum vote, according to official statistics.

Figures published by the Scottish Government indicate such exports increased to 14.9 billion in 2017, a 13.3% rise on the previous year.

It represented the highest area of growth for Scottish exports, with international exports (excluding oil and gas) increasing by 6.2% to 32.4 billion and exports to the UK increasing by 4.6% to 48.9 billion.

Trade with the UK made up 60% of the total exports from Scotland, with the rest of the world making up 22% and EU exports representing 18% of total exports.

Produced by Scotlands Chief Statistician, the figures provide estimates of the cash value of Scotlands exports of goods and services, by industry and destination in 2017.

The US was Scotlands top export destination country with an estimated 5.5 billion of exports, with the top five international markets (the US, Netherlands, France, Germany and Ireland) accounting for 14.3 billion (44%) of global exports in total.

The statistics highlight the food and beverage sector continues to be the largest industry for Scotland, with exports up by 455 million (8.4%) to 5.9 billion, with strong whisky exports (4.4 billion in 2017) underpinning this figure.

There was also a strong performance for the manufacturing sector, driven by growth in the export of refined petroleum and chemical products, with an increase of 915 million (35.6%).

Exports of computers, as well as electronic and optical products, was also up by 550 million (41.1%).

Economy Secretary Derek Mackay welcomed the figures as he said the Scottish Government would continue to seek further growth.

Its great news that Scotlands economy and international exports both continue to grow, Mr Mackay said.

Our manufacturing sector, including food and drink, is performing particularly well and it is encouraging to see increasing international interest in our service sector.

This welcome growth will be supported even further through our Export Growth Plan including substantial investment to maximise the value of Scottish exports.

The latest statistics show 60% of Scotland's exports were with the rest of the UK and were worth A48 billion. The size and scale of the UK matters for jobs and business. #DeliveringforScotland pic.twitter.com/ItcIK4Ho3w  UK Government Scotland (@UKGovScotland) January 30, 2019

The key risk to Scotlands economy continues to be the uncertainty associated with Brexit, and in particular, the risk of a no-deal Brexit.

Scottish Secretary David Mundell said the level of exports between Scotland and the rest of the UK must be maintained.

He said: The Scottish Governments own figures show that our trade with the UK is now worth 34 billion more than our trade with all 27 EU countries combined.

It is absolutely essential for Scotlands economy that trade within our UK internal market continues unimpeded.

Almost every day we hear fresh threats from the First Minister to call a second independence referendum yet these figures show the union is vitally important for jobs, businesses and prosperity across Scotland.

We will not allow the First Minister to put those at risk.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: These figures show the value of the rest of the UK to Scotlands economy, with the largest value of exports and the largest growth in that value.

It also shows the need for a sensible Brexit deal that ensures a strong relationship for the whole UK with the EU single market.

The integrity of the UK cannot be compromised in the deal. These figures show that recent calls from the SNP for a separate arrangement with the EU from the rest of the UK or their longstanding call for separation from the UK would withdraw us from any political or economic vote and voice in Scotlands biggest market, a market on which thousands of Scottish jobs depend.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: These figures demonstrate the colossal value of Scotlands membership of both the UK and EU single markets.

The Conservatives and SNP are both trying to put new barriers in the way of our working and trading with our neighbours.

The lessons of Brexit are the lessons for independence. Breaking up is hard to do. We dont need more chaos and uncertainty.
Theresa May welcomed MPs support for a Brexit amendment in the House of Commons (UK Parliament/MarkDuffy/PA Images)

Jeremy Corbyn is to meet Theresa May on Wednesday afternoon to discuss Brexit, after the Prime Minister succeeded in uniting her party behind a plan to renegotiate the Withdrawal Deal.

Having boycotted earlier cross-party talks, the Labour leader said he was ready to discuss a sensible approach to Brexit after MPs voted on Tuesday night to rule out no-deal.

But the prospect of a deal being secured by the scheduled departure date of March 29 appeared remote as the EU set its face firmly against reopening the Withdrawal Agreement it reached with Mrs May in November.

MPs voted by a margin of 317 to 301 to back a plan  the Brady amendment  which requires the PM to replace the Agreements controversial backstop with alternative arrangements to keep the Irish border open after Brexit.

But asked five times on BBC Radio 4s Today programme what this alternative involved, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay was unable to provide any specific explanation.

Mr Barclay said the UK was exploring in terms of the use of technology  looking at things like the time limit to deal with the backstop.

He added: There are a number of options, there are issues in terms of having time limits, issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology, and this will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union in the coming days.

Downing Street has suggested that the UKs position could involve a time-limit or exit clause to the backstop or swapping it for a free trade agreement, as proposed in the so-called Malthouse Compromise drawn up by MPs from the Tories Remain and Leave wings.

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There was no immediate announcement of any plan for Mrs May to visit Brussels, where MEPs were due to debate Brexit after an address from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

Mr Juncker met the European commissioners on Wednesday morning to discuss new plans for dealing with a no-deal Brexit, said a spokesman.

A spokesman for European Council president Donald Tusk announced that he will speak by phone with Mrs May on Wednesday evening.

Following Tuesday nights votes in the House of Commons, Mr Tusks spokesman said: The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.

Brussels chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters that the EUs position was very clear, while Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the backstop remained necessary and French President Emmanual Macron said the Withdrawal Agreement was not renegotiable.

The European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said there was no majority to re-open or dilute the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mr Barclay claimed that Tuesday nights amendments, two weeks after Mrs May suffered the heaviest parliamentary defeat in modern history over the meaningful vote, had overturned a defeat of 230 into a victory.

But there was concern from the business community, with CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn describing the Brady amendment as a throw of the dice and warning that firms were having to accelerate expensive no-deal preparations.

Tuesdays votes saw members of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, swing behind the Prime Minister to hand her victory just weeks after consigning her Brexit Plan A to a record Commons defeat.

While Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the Conservatives had shown they can and will come together in the national interest, signs of division in the party remained as Tory former minister Anna Soubry said she finds her party drifting to the right.

Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay on #r4today was just asked to explain the government's alternative to the backstop. He could not answer and replied it would "explore" different options. 58 days to go. This is a plan to keep the Tory Party together while trashing the country.  David Lammy (@DavidLammy) January 30, 2019

Mr Rees-Mogg made clear on Wednesday that he remains prepared to see the UK leave without a deal on March 29 if the EU refuses to reopen negotiations.

If (the EU) think the Withdrawal Agreement is non-negotiable then we will have to leave without an agreement, he told TalkRadio. Do they want the 39 billion, do they want an agreement  or us just to leave? Its up to them.

Labours Ian Murray, a supporter of the Best for Britain campaign for a second EU referendum, said: The PM is going to Brussels to demand alternative unicorns to the Northern Irish backstop but cant tell anyone what these alternatives are.

Thats because there isnt an alternative. Her only aim is to look after her party at the expense of the country.

MPs supported a cross-party amendment opposing a no-deal Brexit by 318 votes to 310. But while this will place political pressure on the Prime Minister, it is not legally binding on the Government, unlike the legislation which remains on the statute book naming March 29 as exit day.

Those determined to prevent no-deal or delay Brexit will have a further opportunity no later than February 14, when Mrs May has promised the Commons a further opportunity to vote on her plans.

There were recriminations on the Labour side after 14 MPs rebelled to vote against an amendment from Yvette Cooper which would have given Parliament the power to direct the Brexit process, potentially delaying withdrawal until the end of the year.

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Leading Labour Remainer Chuka Umunna said: There is no point claiming you are opposed to a no deal Brexit if you are not prepared to will the legal means to stop it happening.

Shadow cabinet minister Barry Gardiner insisted that Mr Corbyn has not backtracked by agreeing to speak with Mrs May while no-deal Brexit remains a possibility.

He told BBC Radio 4s Today: Parliament yesterday explicitly said that they did not want no deal to happen and the Prime Minister, when it came to the summing-up after the debate, accepted that that was the will of the House.

She has said she will be coming back in two weeks time, she hopes, with something from Europe, but there will be another opportunity at that stage if she has run down the clock further, for a legislative vehicle to then be put in place by Parliament to avoid no-deal.
Road sign for Customs and Excise close to the border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland (Liam McBurney/PA)

The Irish border remains a contentious issue for the Government as it tries to find a suitable remedy to the Brexit backstop  but technology has long been touted as a possible solution.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay reiterated on Wednesday that it was exploring the use of technology to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Last year, Chancellor Philip Hammond indicated blockchain technology could be used.

Initially created as the infrastructure for decentralised cryptocurrencies, it is effectively a digital list of records or transactions that are linked together in a public database.

Advocates of blockchain have long argued it could work by monitoring goods moving across the border in a non-disruptive way that would not breach the Good Friday Agreement.

Blockchain would do this by digitally recording goods transparently and would be updated by those using it.

Andrew Bird, chief executive of digital transformation firm GS Marketplace, said: In our opinion, the Northern Ireland border issue is a non-issue if you use technology, the whole thing just ceases to be a problem.

But someone needs to define what you want the border to look like  is it checking everything? I doubt it  thats against the Good Friday Agreement.

If its maintaining the current level of rigour, which I would assume is going to be acceptable, then absolutely Blockchain could do this relatively quickly.

Mr Bird said scanning devices could be used, saving drivers from needing to get out of their truck.

No need for queues, no need for the six-hour queues Philip Hammond was talking about, he added.

Critics of blockchain have described it as a wild card because they believe no-one really understands it.

If there are wonderful technologies that make borders near frictionless, why arent they being used elsewhere  or where are they being used? said Professor Vili Lehdonvirta, associate professor at the University of Oxfords Internet Institute.

So if were talking about a world first, especially at some kind of an accelerated break-neck speed, the chances of failure seem very high considering the track record of the UK government in large IT projects.

You have IBM and others who are obviously extremely excited about the prospect of selling a multi-billion-pound technological solution that is meant to be the magic bullet that makes the impossible mathematics of Brexit work and they are using the blockchain to refer to that technology, precisely because nobody exactly knows what blockchain means, so it could mean anything.
Commuters ditched their cars in favour of skis in West Didsbury, Manchester, on Wednesday (@CTizzle27/Twitter/PA)

More snow is on the way, forecasters have warned, bringing icy and treacherous conditions to the roads.

Temperatures could dip to minus 12C (10.4F) in parts of Scotland, particularly in areas that have already seen some snowfall, the Met Office said.

London could see its second dusting of snow of the winter as the mercury plummets, while this years record of minus 10.8C (12.6F) is also likely to be broken.

Yellow weather warnings for ice are in place in north-western Scotland and the northern and western isles, alerting travellers to be wary of slippery roads.

A similar warning is in place for north-west England, south-west England, Wales, Yorkshire and Humber.

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The Midlands, east of England, Greater London and the south of England should also beware of fog making driving on icy roads even more complicated on Thursday morning.

A yellow warning for snow is also in place across large swathes of England and is due to remain in place until late on Friday night.

Most of Scotland should also be prepared for snowfall.

Commuters are urged to check local forecasts and weather conditions before they travel.

#Ice will be a hazard for many tonight and tomorrow morning - Stay #weatheraware pic.twitter.com/sT9Q0u00iN  Met Office (@metoffice) January 30, 2019

Meteorologist Mark Wilson said: Potentially we could be as low as minus 12 tonight over snow cover across Scotland.

It will be exceptionally cold  what we need to beat at the moment is minus 10.8C. That was at Braemar on January 18.

I think there is still a very good chance that could happen  obviously its not a complete dead cert but I think its more likely than not that we will get colder than that. Definitely thats one to watch.

Even away from that its going to be a cold night across the board  temperatures widely below freezing and a pretty widespread and severe frost for many.

Mr Wilson said the Met Office still expected snow overnight into Thursday morning, but at this stage it was unclear where would see the most.

Some areas of higher ground could see as much as 10cm of snow  possibly a bit more than that over the highest ground in Wales, he said.

WOW, it is already around or below #freezing across the whole of the UK. A #cold night to come...ai pic.twitter.com/ldD427ofhX  Met Office (@metoffice) January 30, 2019

Even London could get in on the action.

Mr Wilson said: Theres definitely the potential for some accumulations in London  its a tricky one but theres a risk of a light covering at least for a time.

He said elsewhere in the south east could potentially get a bit more snow coverage  particularly across higher ground.

The deepest snowfall recorded by the Met Office at 9am on Wednesday was 11cm at Tulloch Bridge in Inverness-shire.

Depths of 9cm were also recorded in Thomastown in Co Fermanagh and Spadeadam in Cumbria.

Manchester and Liverpool airports were brought to a standstill on Wednesday morning, although a full service had resumed at Liverpool by 2pm and one runway was also opened at Manchester by midday.

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Several schools in the cities were also forced to close their doors because of the harsh conditions.

Councils have prepared for heavy snowfall, with more than 1.4 million tonnes of salt stockpiled, the Local Government Association said.
The controversial backstop will be on the agenda when Theresa May heads to Brussels after MPs backed an amendment to replace the plan with alternative arrangements.

This would mean a reopening of the Withdrawal Agreement thrashed out between the UK and EU as the parties bid to find a way of avoiding a hard border in Ireland.

However, European Council president Donald Tusk has said the agreement is not open for renegotiation.

What is the backstop?

EU27 has endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on the future EU-UK relations.  Charles Michel (@eucopresident) November 25, 2018

The term backstop only features once among the 599 pages of the draft Withdrawal Agreement struck between the UK and EU in November, referring to it being replaced by a subsequent agreement that establishes alternative arrangements for ensuring the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland on a permanent footing.

Put simply, it is an insurance policy to ensure border posts and checks on vehicles do not return to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland when Britain leaves the EU.

It would see the UK enter into a temporary customs union with the EU if no trade deal is sealed by the end of a transition period after Brexit, which lasts until December 2020 and could be extended to the end of 2022.

What did the amendment call for?

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Drafted by Sir Graham Brady, the amendment called for the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border. It passed by 317 votes to 301, a majority of 16.

Has the phrase alternative arrangements been used before?

Yes, in the 26-page political declaration which was published alongside the Withdrawal Agreement, both parties agreed to replace the backstop solution on Northern Ireland by a subsequent agreement that establishes alternative arrangements for ensuring the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland on a permanent footing.

How do you solve a problem like the Irish backstop?

The simplest, but probably most controversial, way of avoiding the issue of a backstop on the Irish border is a revocation of Article 50 and the UK remaining a member of the European Union.

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The second is if the UK sought to remain in the Customs Union post-Brexit, a move which would allow goods to travel freely between the UK, Ireland and the rest of the European Union.

Although the shape of any alternative arrangements were not spelt out in the Commons  shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer called them unspecified  a number of methods have previously been suggested.

One is adding a sunset clause into the backstop which would add an expiry date to the provision, which could allay fears of Britain permanently being locked into the customs union.

Another, which was mooted in November, was using technology to overcome the issue of the Irish border.

The political declaration referred to the use of facilitative arrangements and technologies (being) considered in developing any alternative arrangements for ensuring the absence of a hard border.

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This could see technology being used which would allow customs checks to take place away from the border  including potentially having declarations made online.

In November 2017, the head of Swiss customs Dr Christian Bock spoke about their solution at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and, when asked by Bob Stewart, said an effective but non-invasive border for Northern Ireland was possible.

He said: Yes, that is possible. What would you need to do? You need common patrols between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, staffed with the same people and with the common goal of finding irregularities.

Secondly, you need an intelligence strategy for what you are looking for.

You need control points not at the border but somewhere in the country.
Sinn Fein MLA Caoimhe Archibald at Queens University for the launch of a campaign to highlight the possible impact of Brexit on young people

The Irish Government cannot ignore the will of the people and their growing support for a united Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Sinn Fein has said.

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said "poll after poll" had demonstrated the majority of the public would support Irish unity if the UK crashed out of the EU, resulting in the possible re-emergence of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

"In the event of a hard Brexit, north and south, a majority of people are saying they want a referendum on unity, and the (Dublin) Government need to listen to them," Ms McDonald said.

"At the prospect of a hard border or crash Brexit, it's very clear now in opinion polling that the Irish people have a clear position. That comes as no surprise to us at all, but what remains very concerning is that the Government here continues to look away from that reality.

"To start planning for contingency of a border poll and Irish reunification in the event of a crash Brexit, that's the responsible thing to do.

"I don't think it's responsible for Leo Varadkar to have his head buried in the sand. It is time to look dispassionately and in the Irish interest at all contingencies necessary.

"Putting the constitutional question is now an obvious matter that the Government needs to consider and plan for."

In Westminster, amid a revolt among backbenchers and her DUP allies, Prime Minister Theresa May swung behind an amendment that would allow her to go back to Brussels and seek changes to the border backstop.

The amendment, proposed by Conservative MP Sir Graham Brady, was passed last night.

The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford claimed that the vote "ripped apart" the Good Friday Agreement, which drew an angry response from Nigel Dodds of the DUP.

Ms McDonald reiterated that the Irish Government should remain steadfast in its commitment to the backstop.

"The Taoiseach needs to remain absolutely firm," Ms McDonald (right) said. "There cannot be any renegotiation of the backstop."

The Taoiseach has previously said that raising the prospect of a border poll is "disruptive and destructive" to getting a Brexit deal ratified.

Deputy leader Simon Coveney previously said the issue could "create an even more divisive debate and atmosphere in Northern Ireland, which is the last thing we need".

A poll conducted by RTE programme Claire Byrne Live on Monday showed 86% in the Republic would opt for a united Ireland over a hard border.

Earlier, Sinn Fein launched a campaign to highlight the impact of Brexit on students and young people at Queen's University.

Caoimhe Archibald MLA said young people needed to make sure their voices are heard and their interests understood in the Brexit process.

She said: "The people of the north voted to reject Brexit, but young people did so overwhelmingly.

"Most young people are rightly horrified at the many ways Brexit will detrimentally impact their lives and opportunities.

"Potentially losing the automatic right to study and work across the EU, uncertain fee status, losing access to programmes like Erasmus plus and uncertain travel requirements.

"All of these things and more are under threat from Brexit, particularly in the event of a no-deal exit."

Ms Archibald said that the campaign was about "highlighting what stands to be lost and what must be protected in the time ahead".

"This is directly linked to the ability of Irish citizens in the north to access, exercise and enjoy their rights as EU citizens," she added.

She urged young people to contact their political representatives, students' union or trade union representatives bodies to make their views known on the issue.
Striking nurses from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) protest outside Naas General Hospital in Co Kildare in a row over pay and staffing levels (Niall Carson/PA Wire).

Thousands of nurses have taken part in a nationwide strike over pay and conditions for the first time in 20 years.

More than 30,000 nurses from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) took to picket lines in freezing conditions outside hospitals across the country on Wednesday after talks aimed at resolving the issue failed.

Nurses are calling for a pay increase of about 12% and for the Health Service Executive (HSE) to take steps to deal with recruitment and retention issues.

Nurses and midwives standing strong at St James', the Rotunda and Beaumont in Dublin, St. Finbarr's Cork, MWRH Nenagh, and Portiuncula

aiaiaiaiai#standwithnurses #standwithmidwiveshttps://t.co/ua8qW23Ea7 pic.twitter.com/1E7nmqUTnR  Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (@INMO_IRL) January 30, 2019

But the Government has said it is not in the position to borrow hundreds of million of euro to fund pay increases for nurses.

The INMO has scheduled five more 24-hour stoppages, while the Psychiatric Nurses Association is due to initiate an overtime ban on Thursday.

The HSE said thousands of people have had appointments or services cancelled due to the strike.

Those with intellectual disabilities, the elderly and the young were among those affected.

Emergency and planned essential services were continuing while residential care was exempted from the trade union action over pay.

Cancer surgeries have gone ahead.

The health authority said it expected further disruption on Thursday because some who have stayed away from emergency departments on Wednesday may present then.

On a normal day around 3,000 people are seen in the countrys emergency departments and 750 of those are admitted as inpatients.

Liam Woods, deputy director general of operations in the HSE, said: We are seeing delays and can expect further delays over the day.

Minor injury units are closed, which places extra pressure on emergency departments.

Speaking in the Dail the Taoiseach said that while he could justify borrowing to save jobs post-Brexit or for capital projects, he could not for nurses.

Leo Varadkar said: Were not in a position to borrow hundreds of millions of euros to fund pay increases.

I can justify borrowing hundreds of millions of euros for emergency measures to save jobs, if it comes to that in the next couple of weeks.

I can justify borrowing that money for one off capital projects that will be with us for 40 or 50 years but I think borrowing money and funding pay increases with borrowed money is bad policy.

Mr Varadkar added that he profoundly regretted the action and he was sorry for the disruption inconvenience caused to patients.

But the opposition accused the government of not making any genuine attempts to prevent the action.

The belated 11th hour activity that we witnessed over the last number of days was far too little, far too late.Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said: Theres been no proactive engagement from government in relation to this dispute with the nursing representatives.

The belated 11th hour activity that we witnessed over the last number of days was far too little, far too late.

Mr Martin accused the government of being in denial about the recruitment and retention issues within the health service, adding that agency nursing was costing 1.4 million per week and that the country was haemorrhaging nurses.

Mr Varadkar said he did not want to be put in a position where he would have to divert money that is earmarked for new medicines to pay for pay increases.

Bur Mr Martin said there was no limit to the budget of the childrens hospital and that it was wrong of the Taoiseach to suggest that if there was a deal reached with the nurses that it would be at the expense of medicines for patients.

Sinn Fein leader said the nurses were on the picket lines because of the governments absolute failure, not just in relation to the pay issue, but also the recruitment and retention crisis.

Mary Lou McDonald said nurses did not want a strike but they had been forced into it.

They feel failed, they feel let down, they feel they havent been listened to and theyve been backed into a corner, she said.

Ms McDonald added that Mr Varadkar had a duty as head of government to intervene in the matter rather than pass the buck.
Sam Hallam, speaking outside the Supreme Court in London after losing his fight for compensation.

A miscarriage of justice victim has called for a change in the law after losing his Supreme Court fight for compensation.

Sam Hallam was convicted of murder and served more than seven years behind bars before being cleared on appeal.

After being denied compensation he took his case to the UKs highest court, arguing that current legislation was incompatible with his human rights.

But, by a majority of five to two, seven Supreme Court justices dismissed his appeal on Wednesday.

This terrible law needs to be changedSam Hallam

Speaking after the courts ruling, Mr Hallam, from east London, said: I was released from the Court of Appeal in 2012 having spent seven and a half years in prison for a crime of which I am completely innocent.

In 2019 I am still having to fight to prove my innocence.

This is a very disappointing decision.

My lawyers will look at an appeal or what I can do next.

This terrible law needs to be changed.

Mr Hallam was sentenced to life as a teenager following his conviction at the Old Bailey in 2005 for the murder of a trainee chef.

His conviction was quashed in 2012 after the Court of Appeal ruled it was rendered unsafe by fresh evidence, including photographs found on his phone, which had been seized at the time of his arrest but not examined.

He brought his challenge together with Victor Nealon, who was given a life sentence after his trial at Hereford Crown Court and served 17 years in jail, 10 more than the seven-year minimum term, after he persisted in asserting he was innocent.

The former postman, who is in his 50s and originally from Dublin, was found guilty in 1997 of the attempted rape of a woman in Redditch, Worcestershire.

But his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2013 after new DNA evidence was unearthed.

Both men had applications for compensation rejected by the Justice Secretary.

Lawyers argued on their behalf that the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which governs compensation payments, was amended in 2014 in a way that violated Article 6 (2) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the presumption of innocence, because it required a person seeking an award to prove they were innocent.

Their compensation claims were rejected on the basis that it was not the case, as required by the Act, that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

The two men brought unsuccessful challenges at the High Court in 2015 and the Court of Appeal in 2016.

During a Supreme Court hearing in May last year, their legal teams said the UK was free to make its own decisions, as long as they did not interfere with the presumption of innocence enshrined in Article 6 (2).

But the Supreme Court declined to make a declaration that the Act is incompatible with the ECHR.

Lord Mance, giving the lead judgment, said such a declaration would be inappropriate.

In one of the dissenting rulings, which would have allowed the appeals by the two men, Lord Kerr said there would be many people charged with criminal offences who are truly innocent but unable to establish their innocence as a positive fact.
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, a leading financial institution in the region, has reported net profit of Dh4.840 billion ($1.32 billion) for the fiscal year 2018, up 13 per cent year-on-year, a media report said.



The robust performance is supported by record operating income, optimal management of cost of funds and lower impairment charges, reported state news agency Wam, citing an ADCB press release.



As a result of the Banks strong performance in 2018, the Board of Directors has recommended a cash dividend of Dh0.46 per share, translating to a pay out of Dh2.391 billion, equivalent to 49 per cent of net profit.



Eissa Mohamed Al Suwaidi, chairman said, "I am pleased to report a strong performance for the Bank in 2018. We have achieved this by adhering to our successful strategy that continues to yield solid results. Our long-term strategy remains consistent, clear and focused. As the introduction of a digital pillar last year shows, we regularly assess and review our strategic approach. Our five core pillars have served to build a resilient and innovative organisation with exceptional customer service and a strong brand."



He adds, "In 2018, despite continued headwinds, our net profit improved significantly year on year, our operating income rose to a record high, while all other significant metrics remained healthy. As we continue to grow, we transform the Bank to provide customers with greater choice of products and services and an outstanding banking experience. At the same time, our shareholders continue to benefit from the creation of long-term, sustainable value.



"We are now on the cusp of another significant moment in our history, as we prepare to merge with Union National Bank and together acquire Al Hilal Bank. This will create a more resilient, powerful financial services group, which will help to support our economy. This merger will be subject to the approval of shareholders and regulators."



As the new bank takes shape, it will also be vital for the new Board to oversee a disciplined approach to all aspects of the integration process. Capturing synergies and ensuring a smooth transition for customers will be critical components to create a robust new business in the coming months and years.



Alaa Eraiqat, Member of the Board and Group Chief Executive Officer said: "Driven by ambition and guided by discipline, ADCB has once again demonstrated the strength and the resilience required to deliver a strong return for our shareholders. I am pleased to report a strong set of results, with top and bottom line growth. Against the economic backdrop, we saw our full year net profit rise by 13 per cent, while our quarterly net profit surged 27 per cent over the prior year to a record high. The return on average equity increased to 16.3 per cent from 15.0 per cent in 2017, delivering stronger shareholder value."



He added that record operating income for the year was supported by high net interest margins, whist non-interest income was impacted by lower volumes and higher fee and commission related expenses. This was partially offset by a strong increase in trading income, a healthy pick up in card related fees, income from the merchant acquiring business and income from trade finance commission.



"Our balance sheet remains strong and healthy. At a time of rising benchmark rates, the Bank did not see any significant adverse impact on CASA deposits, which contracted only marginally and time deposits further increased to meet the LCR and the NSFR regulations. Loan to deposit ratio significantly improved to 94.2 per cent compared to 100.1 per cent last year.



"We continue to grow loans on a diversified basis across all sectors. Wholesale Banking loans grew 6 per cent driven by corporate lending, while our ongoing drive to de-risk the unsecured retail loan portfolio resulted in Consumer Banking loans to decreasing by 4 per cent year on year. This has resulted in a much improved cost of risk for the Bank at 0.57 per cent compared to 0.81 per cent in 2017," he noted.



"We remain well-capitalised, with a CET1 ratio of 13.40 per cent and a Basel III capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 17.26 per cent. The decrease in our CAR was primarily as a result of last years dividend pay-out, IFRS9 adjustments, an increase in credit risk weighted assets and part repayment of Tier 2 capital. Our liquidity remains strong, with a liquidity coverage ratio of 186 per cent, compared to the minimum of 90 per cent prescribed by the UAE Central Bank."



These results reflect the quality, stability and efficiency of our business model, which has successfully balanced our earnings generation across all business segments. Together with our vigilant approach to risk and our adherence to a world-class governance framework, ADCB remains well-protected against any economic headwinds.



In line with our clear and compelling strategy around digital development, we have embarked on a transformation programme across the Bank to help us expand and improve our services. In 2018, we further refined our digital platforms and launched a number of new apps to make banking more convenient for our customers.



Eraiqat remarked, "Our strategic investments in operational excellence and digital transformation have given greater flexibility to our customers, while securing long-term benefits for the Bank. These accomplishments were achieved through an increase of only 5 per cent in our operating expenses, whilst our cost to income ratio of 33.6 per cent remained comfortable within our target range.



"We go forward into 2019 with great confidence. Our merger with Union National Bank, and the combined bank's acquisition of Al Hilal Bank, represents a new dawn for ADCB. It brings with it new possibilities and exciting opportunities that we are well-placed to capitalize on.



Our deep expertise, positive culture and robust governance will serve us well as we move beyond our ambition to truly transform the banking sector across the UAE. They will enable us to deepen our engagement with our employees, better connect with our customers, create even more value for our shareholders, give more support for communities, and deliver an extremely powerful contribution to the next stage in the development of the UAE economy, Eraiqat concluded.
Two men who served years behind bars before their convictions were overturned have lost their fight for compensation at the UKs highest court.

Sam Hallam, who was convicted of murder, and Victor Nealon, who was found guilty of attempted rape, took their legal battle to the Supreme Court following defeats at the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

At a hearing in May last year, their legal teams said the UK was free to make its own decisions  as long as they did not interfere with the presumption of innocence.

But, by a majority of five to two, seven Supreme Court justices dismissed their appeals on Wednesday.

The court declined to make a declaration that the refusal to award them compensation was incompatible with their human rights.

Mr Hallam, from east London, served more than seven years after he was sentenced to life as a teenager following his conviction at the Old Bailey in 2005 for the murder of a trainee chef.

Mr Nealon, who is in his fifties and originally from Dublin, was given a life sentence after his trial at Hereford Crown Court and served 17 years in jail  10 more than the seven-year minimum term, after he persisted in asserting he was innocent.

They were both set free after appeal judges ruled that fresh evidence made their convictions unsafe.

Mr Hallams conviction was quashed in 2012.

Former postman Mr Nealon, who was convicted in 1997 of the attempted rape of a woman in Redditch, Worcestershire, won his appeal in December 2013.

But each had applications for compensation rejected by the Justice Secretary.

It is the link between the new fact and the applicants innocence of which the Secretary of State must be satisfied before he is required to pay compensation under the 1988 Act, not his innocence in a wider or general senseLord Justice Burnett

When their challenges against the Justice Secretarys refusal were originally aired at the High Court in 2015, they asked two judges to rule that UK law is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because it wrongly restricts compensation in miscarriage of justice cases.

Lawyers argued on their behalf that the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which governs compensation payments, was amended in 2014 in a way that violated Article 6 (2) of the ECHR  the presumption of innocence  because it required a person seeking an award to prove they were innocent.

Their compensation claims under the 1988 Act were rejected on the basis that it was not the case, as required by the Act, that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

Lord Justice Burnett, who later became the Lord Chief Justice, ruled when announcing the High Courts decision that the law does not require the applicant for compensation to prove his innocence.

He said: It is the link between the new fact and the applicants innocence of which the Secretary of State must be satisfied before he is required to pay compensation under the 1988 Act, not his innocence in a wider or general sense.

The two men took their fight to the Court of Appeal in 2016, but failed to persuade the court to overturn the earlier ruling.
The Irish Government has ordered a referendum on easing the country's divorce restrictions

The Irish Government has ordered a referendum on easing the country's divorce restrictions.

It will propose removing constitutional references to the minimum period an estranged couple must spend apart before receiving the permanent court decree.

Ministers want to shorten the waiting period from four years to two. They will legislate should change be approved by citizens this spring.

The public poll will be held alongside votes in the European and local elections in late May.

Culture Minister and former family lawyer Josepha Madigan said: "For future generations this is a really important day, it is really going to help a lot of people in Ireland who, for various different reasons, suffer marital breakdown.

"We have to show compassion and some humanity to them," she added.
Young cancer sufferers and their loved ones have harnessed the healing power of art to share their experiences at a unique exhibition in Belfast.

The works, which were displayed at the Charles Gilmore Fine Art Gallery to mark World Cancer Day next month, focused on the theme of change inspired by the tough journey undergone by the artists.

Organised by CLIC Sargent, the showcase included sculptures, photography and animation, depicting how young people and their relatives reacted to the impact of the illness.

Dungannon woman Ellen Nesbitt (22) submitted a sculptured series of orbs representing various stages of transitioning to life without her brother Peter.

The 21-year-old died in 2015 within 12 months of being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

"It is bitter-sweet to be involved with this exhibition," his sister said.

"Peter was always supportive of anything creative I did growing up and for this series in particular I worked with Peter's favourite colour, bright green."

The work was influenced by her counsellor, who used the image of an orb to describe grief to a distraught teenager.

"It was about learning that what I was experiencing through grief was normal and no matter the amount of time that passes or how life changes, that orb will always remain the same," Ms Nesbitt said.

The charity event also featured a reading by Caoimhe Wills (22), who wrote a poem about her diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was just 12 years old.

The "boredom and isolation" of her lengthy hospital stay gave her lots of time to reflect.

"My poem is about how change is not something we're always in control of and how it can break and heal in equal measure," she explained.

"Our perceptions of change are usually positive, but for someone like me they can be quite negative, and it's about trying to find a way of how not to be fearful of change.

"I want people to feel a sense of reality when they hear it, that it's not all about strength and soldiering on, that there's quite a bit of vulnerability there.

"It felt amazing to be able to perform the poem on the night, surrounded by so many supportive people."

The young Belfast woman also recalled having a "gut instinct" that something was wrong when she suffered a relapse in 2014, which led to gruelling chemotherapy treatment, full body radiation and a bone marrow transplant.

"It's almost as though my brain had prepared me to hear that the cancer was back," she said.

Fiona McCann, CLIC Sargent's senior fundraising engagement manager for Scotland and Northern Ireland, expressed pride in all the "amazing" young people who took part in the event to mark World Cancer Day.

She pleaded with people to help stop young lives being destroyed by purchasing a Band Against Cancer wristband from retailers including Morrisons stores and JD Wetherspoon pubs or online.

Further information about World Cancer Day on February 4 can be found at www.clicsargent.org.uk/WorldCancerDay.
Former Lord Mayor of Belfast Niall O Donnghaile has accused weather service Met Eireann of "amputating" Northern Ireland from weather warnings maps.

The Sinn Fein senator said that he would be writing to the Director of Met Eireann "seeking a meeting to discuss how they can better represent weather events occurring across the whole of the country."

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In the recent bad weather spell Met Eireann have left Northern Ireland out of a number of weather warnings posted on their online services, despite similar warnings being in effect.

Northern Ireland's weather warnings are issued by the Met Office, which covers the whole of the UK.

However, the weather forecast for Northern Ireland can be viewed on the Met Eireann website.

Mr O Donnghaile has raised the issue in the Seanad in the past, with the Irish government acknowledging that all-island weather planning needed to be improved.

It is a cause of great frustration when the north-east of Ireland is amputated from maps that are supposed to be about alerting people to adverse or emergency weather situations," the Sinn spokesperson on North-South integration said.

"Weather knows no borders; neither should strategies that are meant to be about communicating the very real dangers posed by emergency weather situations. Ireland works best when it works together.

Mr O Donnghaile said that while he accepted the Met Office and Met Eireann worked on "different standards", this should not prevent them from accurately presenting weather situations across the island.

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"Recently we have rightly seen many weather forecasters and broadcasters north and south take a positive initiative and accurately reflect the warnings in each part of the country, thereby improving information sharing and sensibly reflecting the status of weather warnings throughout our small island," he said.

"It makes sense to do this; it also helps keeps the maximum amount of us not only better informed but safer too.
Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has said that the UK Government would renegotiate the backstop if they found a ladder for the Irish Government to climb down.

Speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, he accused the Irish Government of taking a trenchant line on the backstop.

Mr Raab said that the UK Government made the right decision on Tuesday to vote in favour of changing the backstop plan.

Referring to negotiations while he was Brexit secretary, he said: What was clear to me in Dublin was that, politically, they were taking a very firm line on a deadline.

The Irish Government took such a trenchant line on the backstop, such a very political line.

We probably need to work with our Irish friends and partners in a way that not only deals with the practical operational issues, but is politically acceptable to them.

They are in a very difficult position now because of the particularly strong political position that was taken by the Taoiseach.

We want to retain a strong relationship with our Irish partners. You could argue they have the most to loseDominic Raab

He also claimed that some representatives in Dublin, Northern Ireland and in the European Commission saw the border issue as an opportunity to control the UK after Brexit.

It was reported to me through diplomats that there were voices to that effect, he said.

He added that it was possible that a big part of the problem surrounding the negotiations was that some people in Ireland and the EU do not believe Brexit will happen.

Lady Sylvia Hermon, MP for North Down, asked whether Mr Raab had read the Belfast Agreement.

He replied: I havent sat down and read it from the beginning. At various points of negotiations it was important to delve in and read parts.

Its not like a novel where you sit down and think its a cracking read.

Democratic Unionist MP Ian Paisley Jr raised comments made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar last week after he suggested that soldiers could return to the border if Brexit goes badly wrong.

Mr Raab, who stepped down as Brexit secretary last year, said he was surprised by the political approach from Dublin, and added: We want to retain a strong relationship with our Irish partners. You could argue they have the most to lose.

Some of that language has courted the very thing they want to avoid.

Mr Paisleys DUP colleague Gregory Campbell questioned whether the Irish Government or the EU discussed what a hard border would look like during the Brexit negotiations.

Mr Raab said a hard border, in terms of infrastructure or customs, was not raised but added that the troubles of the past were never far from our concerns.

He told the committee that he made it clear to Brussels chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier that the UK Government would not countenance a return to the hard border.

He added: I toured the border (last year) with the PSNI and looked at the police stations and the border and got a sense of what it looked like in practice and its beautiful, with rolling hills.

When asked by British Labour MP Conor McGinn, who is originally from south Armagh, why he did not stop to talk to people who lived in the border, Mr Raab said he was advised not to in order to avoid a political scrum.
Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly has called on the PSNI "to do more" to tackle the criminal activities of the east Belfast UVF following the brutal murder of Ian Ogle.

Mr Ogle (45) was viciously attacked by up to five men on Cluan Place in the east of the city at around 9pm on Sunday. He later died of his injuries.

Detectives investigating the murder arrested a 49-year-old man on Wednesday. He has been taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning. Two men, aged 31 and 45, and two women, aged 35 and 36, arrested in connection with the murder were released on Tuesday.

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Mr Ogle's daughter Toni has said her family had been living under threat from the east Belfast UVF for 18 months. She also revealed that her brother Ryan and father had been ordered to come forward to receive a "punishment attack" following an incident at a bar in 2017.

The UVF has denied any involvement in the killing, which it has "wholeheartedly condemned".

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A Sinn Fein delegation, including the party's policing spokesman Gerry Kelly, met with senior PSNI officers including the head of the paramilitary crime task force on Wednesday and raised Mr Ogle's murder and the criminal activities of the UVF.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Kelly said: "Sinn Fein condemned unreservedly Sundays brutal murder of east Belfast man Ian Ogle.

We called for appropriate arrangements to be put in place to ensure the safety of other members of this mans family, which has been the target of intimidation over a long period of time by people linked to the UVF.

The PSNI must do all in its power to wind up the UVF and other armed gangs, which have been involved in murder, pipe bombings, intimidation, arson, drug dealing and extortion over recent years. I said the PSNI must do more to tackle these gangs and other armed groups."

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Mr Kelly said senior officers told him tackling the criminal activities of the east Belfast UVF was one of a number of priority investigations for the paramilitary crime task force.

He added: "The murder of Ian Ogle is the latest in a line of attacks carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. That is wrong. It is unacceptable.

"There is also a huge responsibility on political leadership to challenge the very existence of these paramilitary groups more than 20 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

These organisations are a scourge on many communities. The violence, intimidation, extortion and drug dealing they are involved in needs to be confronted and condemned at every turn.

The leaderships of political unionism should be unequivocal in calling for the UVF and other paramilitary groups to disband immediately.

The PSNI has been contacted for comment.
Foyle Search and Rescue have asked the member of the public to get in touch. Credit: Foyle Search and Rescue.

Police have praised a member of the public as a "true hero" after raising the alarm when a person entered the River Foyle in Londonderry.

The man was walking along the path by the Londonderry Train Station and noticed a pair of shoes in the snow at around 9.22pm on Tuesday.

He walked over to the edge of the river and saw a person in the water below.

He raised the alarm and police and Foyle Search and Rescue (FSR) were on the scene in minutes.

One trained FSR volunteer entered the freezing and fast flowing river and brought the person to safety.

An officer, commenting on the PSNI's Foyle Facebook page, said: "Like a true hero, the man who spotted the shoes in the snow and raised alarm, slipped away in the commotion before anyone could thank him, after helping pull the person in the water and the FSR volunteer into safety.

"Talk about being in the right place at the right time! You know who you are and if you're reading this, thank you."

A spokesperson for FSR called on the man who alerted the emergency services to get in touch.

"FSR would like to acknowledge the member of the Public who called 999," the spokesperson said.

"The event you witnessed tonight would have been stressful and we would like to ensure you are Ok. Please message us on our FB page or contact us during office hours on 02871313800 where someone will speak to you."
Catherine McBennett with a picture of her daughter Niamh who died from suicide

It's a day her mum will never forget - but with the right help and support, each day since has gotten a little easier.

Niamh McKee (15) tragically died by suicide on November 21, 2005 sending shockwaves through Clonmore outside Dungannon.

Her death prompted her brave mum Catherine McBennett to start the Niamh Louise Foundation in a bid to help others.

Catherine co-founded the foundation with Niamhs step-father James, and Anne Donaghy, now Chief Executive of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.

Mum Catherine, in an inspiring message of hope has told of how she found the strength to acknowledge events like Christmas again.

Catherine never thought she would have decorations up in her home again.

But spurred on by Niamhs sisters Seanna (19) Caoimhe (15) and Aoibheann (9) they found a way to celebrate the festive period.

Niamh had her whole life ahead of her  and her death came completely out of the blue.

But now, looking back, Catherine knows there were signs  and is working to educate families around Northern Ireland about them.

She explained the early signs of anxiety that Niamh was showing.

She didnt want to go to school, she had sickness  and those are early signs of anxiety  for example, a sore tummy and a pain in their chest  and we know that now.

We got her to go to speak to someone but never in a million years did you think it would end up in suicide.

That never once crossed our mind.

While that day is etched in Catherines mind  she says as time goes on, it isnt something she thinks about every day, and it only comes to the fore at the anniversary of her death.

She believes the only way you can get to that point is by seeking out help.

She said: For families bereaved, it does take talking and at least a couple of years for the image and those horrific memories to fade.

But that is not something you can do in isolation.

The Foundation helped me, because I was able to speak to other people who had experienced a loss and with talking about it, and not being alone.

As Niamh died in November, Christmas and New Year is naturally a difficult time for the family.

And while Catherine initially wanted to shut down and have nothing to do with it  someone pointed out the need for her to continue Christmas for her other children.

She explained: When Niamh died in November, that very first Christmas my two older children were aged 6 and 2.

And I was like right thats it, no decorations are going up. I am not doing Christmas.

And someone said to me, Do you want your children to hate Niamh I was like what are you on about?

They said, if you dont do Christmas they will blame Niamh.

Catherine says while she herself hasnt put up decorations in 13 years  she lets her children do it.

They put the decorations up and whatever way they put it, thats fine by me.

I still cannot bring myself to get into that spirit.

Catherine makes sure for her other daughters that Niamh nor mental health is not a taboo subject in her home  and encourages open conversation.

And she believes its her duty to spread the message of hope.

She said: When Niamh was born, I got a package that said she needed to get an injection for this and that, watch out for meningitis, watch out for this illness  never once was there a leaflet or anybody who said, your child could develop a mental health problem and your child could die by suicide.

I would have educated myself if that was brought up in a positive fashion.

There is still the stigma with suicide and mental health that people are so scared to talk about it  but the more we talk about it in a positive way, it will encourage people to get help and you can recover from it.

We want to say look, you can recover with the right help. You cant do it on your own."

The Niamh Louise Foundation is working to educate in many areas about mental health and recently moved into universitys to speak with new teachers.

Catherine said: We have been invited by St Marys in Belfast to work with them on helping their teachers when they go out teaching.

She continued: You need the young teachers to be educated on mental health and how to deal with the child in the primary setting and post primary.

And in addition to that they hope that Stormont gets up and running soon in order to provide the care that everyone in Northern Ireland deserves.

She said: We can move forward and we can implement that growth but there is only so much we can do were a small charity.

There are so many people out there in need. Everybody in Northern Ireland deserves the proper high standard care.

The charity rely on donations and are in the first year of 520k funding from the Big Lottery Fund. Their long-term vision is to provide respite for families at risk of suicide or bereaved by suicide.

She added: Thankfully we have been able to secure that money but without the community we would not be in existence we have to really applaud the community for keeping us sustained.

Its a cliche  but every little helps.

She added: If we can save one person that was always our mission.

If we can help one person at least then Niamhs death didnt go in vain.
Northern Irelands restrictive abortion laws are set to be challenged in the High Court.

The challenge, taken by Belfast woman Sarah Ewart, comes after the Supreme Court found that abortion laws in the region are in breach of human rights legislation.

Ms Ewart says she was forced to travel to England for an abortion after being told her pregnancy had a fatal foetal diagnosis.

We're back in court this week supporting Sarah Ewart @MrsEtoB challenge to NI #abortion law. Amnesty is an intervenor in the case. Full info at the link below. Legal team @darraghmackin @PhoenixLawHR & Adam Straw @DoughtyStreet https://t.co/HwGnvMQuiR #NowForNI #ItsTime pic.twitter.com/B8g6wLQeI1  Grainne Teggart (@GTeggart) January 28, 2019

She said she hopes this is the last time she will have to go to court.

Time and time again Ive told my story to MPs, courtrooms and judges, she said.

Each time I re-live the trauma. I hope this will be the last time I have to go to court and prove that women like me should be able to access abortion services at home, without being forced to travel.

I hope this case can bring a ruling that helps end the suffering for us all.

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Ms Ewart is being supported by Amnesty International, one of five intervenors in the case.

In a Supreme Court judgment last June, five of the seven UK Supreme Court judges ruled that Northern Irelands abortion law breaches the UKs human rights obligations.

However, it concluded that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (the body that brought the case) did not have the power to bring the proceedings forward, as it was not itself a victim of any unlawful act.

Amnestys Northern Ireland Campaign Manager Grainne Teggart paid tribute to Ms Ewart for having bravely stepped up to be the individual who takes the case to the court.

Its a damning indictment on the UK Governments failure to prioritise womens rights and healthcare that women like Sarah are forced through the ordeal of the courts to have their rights vindicated, she said.

Last June, the UKs Supreme Court made clear that the UK was in breach of its human rights obligations, but the final judgment couldnt be made because an individual hadnt brought the case forward. Sarah has bravely stepped up to be the individual who takes the case to the court.

This hearing is our opportunity for an official judgment that Northern Irelands abortion law breaches the UKs human rights commitments.

Its a huge moment. People everywhere will have their fingers crossed with hope that the Belfast court rules in favour of womens rights and reproductive freedom.

There are four other intervenors in this case, including the Human Rights Commission, Humanists UK, Centre for Reproductive Rights and Precious Life.

Human Rights Commission chief commissioner Les Allamby also paid tribute to Ms Ewart for taking the case.

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Ideally, Sarah should not have had to take this individual case as the matter should have been resolved by the Westminster Parliament, he said.

It is completely unacceptable that women and girls continue to face being criminalised in what should be solely a healthcare matter.

We are intervening in todays case as we want the violations of Sarahs human rights to be addressed and the many other women and girls, who deserve better, to be protected in the future.

Catholic Candle-Light Rosary Vigil taking place this evening at 7.30pm outside the Royal Courts of Justice at Chichester Street, Belfast, before a Case being heard tomorrow. #PrayerCanChangeEverything pic.twitter.com/ZhHxTAezXj  Precious Life (@PreciousLifeCom) January 29, 2019

A candle-lit vigil had been due to take place outside the High Court on Tuesday evening by pro-life campaigners who are opposed to Northern Irelands abortion laws being changed.
A County Antrim man who failed to return a fuel card to his ex-employer and then racked up 480 fraudulent transactions amounting to over 37,000 was jailed yesterday

A County Antrim man who failed to return a fuel card to his ex-employer and then racked up 480 fraudulent transactions amounting to over 37,000 was jailed yesterday.

Mike Ajala, from Burnthill Road in Glengormley, was handed a 16-month sentence after he admitted a single count of fraud by false representation.

The 28-year-old was told by Judge Patricia Smyth that he will spend eight months in jail, followed by eight months on licence, after he appeared at Belfast Crown Court.

The court heard that Ajala was a former employed by Yodel Ltd, and was given a company fuel card in November 2016.

He left the company the following month, but failed to return the card and it later emerged that the card had been used fraudulently over a period from December 2016 to January 2018. The total loss amounted to 37,103.85.

Sentencing Ajala, Judge Smyth told him: "You described yourself to police as being disgusted in your behaviour, but this was not your first offence for fraud."
Police have carried out eight searches in relation to an investigation into the ill-treatment of patients at the scandal-hit Muckamore Abbey as it was revealed there have been 158 complaints about the hospital.

Last year a damning review into the Co Antrim hospital found catastrophic failings in the management of the facility and the treatment of patients. Report authors described a "culture of tolerating harm".

The report also found the lives of patients were "compromised", safeguarding procedures were not followed, a seclusion room at the facility wasn't monitored, and there was a likelihood that patients would be harmed by their peers. The Belfast Trust has vowed to act and there have been calls for a public inquiry.

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On Wednesday The PSNI carried out eight searches in counties Antrim and Down in connection with its investigation into allegations of abuse. Mobile phones and other items were seized.

Detective Chief Inspector Jill Duffie said: This demonstrates our commitment to delivering a full and thorough investigation.

"The safeguarding and protection of our most vulnerable is a priority for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. As of today there have been 158 incidents reported to police regarding Muckamore Abbey and we will continue to work through every report made to us to establish if criminal offences have been committed.

"We are very sensitive to the trauma and impact upon those families whose loved ones are at the centre of this complex investigation. From the outset we have been committed to working closely with them and will continue to keep them informed as much as we possibly can.

"As this is a live investigation it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this stage.
Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons, London. (PA Wire/PA Images)

Theresa Mays plan to renegotiate Britains Brexit Withdrawal Agreement has met a wall of resistance from the EU, with the continents most senior politicians and officials lining up to insist the deal cannot be unpicked.

In a dramatic night at Westminster on Tuesday, the Prime Minister succeeded in uniting her party behind a plan to rewrite the deal to address concerns about the Irish backstop.

But senior figures in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Dublin warned that the demand only made a no-deal Brexit more likely as the clock ticks down to the UKs scheduled departure from the European Union on March 29.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker described the Agreement reached after 18 months of negotiation last November as the best and only deal possible.

And he told MEPs in the European Parliament in Brussels: The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

The Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated.

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Mr Juncker said he would stay in close contact with Mrs May and would listen to her ideas.

But he added: I will also be extremely clear about the position of the EU. Yesterdays vote has further increased the risk of a disorderly exit of the UK.

In a telephone call, Irish premier Leo Varadkar warned Mrs May that recent developments underlined the need for a backstop that was legally robust and workable in practice.

The Prime Minister also spoke to European Council president Donald Tusk in what was described as an open and frank conversation, according to reports from Brussels.

Downing Street declined to comment.

Tuesdays Commons vote demanded the replacement of the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs that no-one, on one side or the other, can say very clearly and precisely what form these alternative arrangements will take.

#Brexit will take place in 2 months. Time is running out. We are ready to talk about the future but now is the time to agree on the conditions of the separation. The withdrawal agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it



a@NathalieLoiseau https://t.co/Ch3OxvsTmR  France Diplomacy (@francediplo_EN) January 30, 2019

Insisting that the plan remains at the heart of the EUs efforts to protect the single market, Mr Barnier said: The backstop is part and parcel of the Withdrawal Agreement and this agreement will not be renegotiated.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: The EU had said it was seeking clarity  there had been suggestions that the backstop was not the main issue of concern, which had originated in Brussels.

I think yesterday a clear message was given by the House of Commons that the backstop is the concern which MPs have, and that if we can find a way to address those concerns that there is a stable majority for getting support for the deal in Parliament.

Mrs May met privately with Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the way ahead, after clashing with the Labour leader at Prime Ministers Questions in the Commons.

Having boycotted earlier cross-party talks, Mr Corbyn said he was ready to discuss a sensible approach to Brexit after MPs voted on Tuesday night to rule out no deal.

Following the meeting, Mr Corbyn said he is suspicious that Mrs May is trying to run down the clock on Brexit.

He said the pair held serious talks which were exploratory on the issues and he set out the Labour case for a comprehensive customs union with the European Union in order to protect jobs in this country.

But he warned: The whole process looks like its running down the clock by saying well its either the problems and the difficulties of no deal or support a deal thats already been rejected by the House of Commons.

Im suspicious that there is a programme of running down the clock here.

In the Commons, Mr Corbyn demanded to know which of her red lines Mrs May was prepared to compromise on in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

It really is time that the Prime Minister acknowledged she has got to move on from the red lines she put down in the first place, he said.

But the PM told Mr Corbyn he had opposed every move by this Government to get a deal and he is the one risking no deal.

In dramatic scenes on Tuesday night, MPs voted by a margin of 317 to 301 to back a plan  the Brady amendment  which requires the PM to replace the Agreements controversial backstop with alternative arrangements to keep the Irish border open after Brexit.

But asked five times on BBC Radio 4s Today programme what this alternative involved, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay was unable to provide any specific explanation.

Mr Barclay said the UK was exploring in terms of the use of technology looking at things like the time limit to deal with the backstop.

He added: There are a number of options, there are issues in terms of having time limits, issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology, and this will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union in the coming days.

Downing Street has suggested that the UKs position could involve a time-limit or exit clause to the backstop or swapping it for a free trade agreement, as proposed in the so-called Malthouse Compromise drawn up by MPs from the Tories Remain and Leave wings.

But the suggestion that the deal struck between the Government and Brussels could be unpicked was rejected by senior figures across the EU. Mr Varadkar told the Irish parliament that the EU is not offering a renegotiation of the existing Brexit deal.

A renegotiation is not on the table, said the Taoiseach. Theres no plans to organise an emergency summit to discuss any changes to the guidelines. Nor is there any pressure to hold one.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the Withdrawal Agreement was not renegotiable, while a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that reopening the deal was not on the agenda.

FM @HeikoMaas on #Brexit: Germany and the entire EU will stand by Ireland on the backstop. We will not allow  to be isolated on this issue. pic.twitter.com/ELUrYJJQyN  GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 30, 2019

Germanys foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said: Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Irelands side. We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.

French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau said: The Withdrawal Agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.

Brexiteer ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg made clear on Wednesday that he remains prepared to see the UK leave without a deal on March 29 if the EU refuses to reopen negotiations.

If (the EU) think the Withdrawal Agreement is non-negotiable then we will have to leave without an agreement, he told TalkRadio. Do they want the 39 billion, do they want an agreement or us just to leave? Its up to them.

Conservative former Cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin said he did not think it was at all likely that Mrs May would succeed in getting changes to her Withdrawal Agreement.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: If you were a betting person, would you bet two weeks from now that she is going to come back with something that will obtain a majority? Id have to say, I wouldnt bet on it, no.
Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Pic: Commons/PA Wire

Sir John Gillen's review of the handling of serious sexual assaults in the Northern Ireland court system is yet another example of the need to restoring power sharing in Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister has said.

Theresa May was responding during Prime Minister's Questions to North Antrim MP Ian Paisley who asked if she would ensure any recommendations from the retired judge's subsequent report were implemented.

Sir John is in the process of completing his final report in the handling of serious sexual offences in the courts. It was commissioned after the high-profile rugby rape trial in Belfast last year.

He has said of his 220 recommendations, 36 would require a change in the law.

The Prime Minister told MPs that while the Executive departments had the powers to implement the necessary laws "that is not and cannot be a replacement for a functioning government".

"It's yet another reason for all us to work to get the devolved administration up and running," she added.

Later the Labour MP Carolyn Harris said domestic abuse survivors in Northern Ireland were victims of the political impasse due to lack of legislation on coercive control and stalking which is being debated at Westminster for new laws in England and Wales.
Flowers which have been left at the murder scene

The daughter of Ian Ogle says that her family had been terrorised for a year-and-a-half before his brutal murder.

Mr Ogle (45), known as 'Big O', was viciously attacked by up to five men on Cluan Place in east Belfast at around 9pm on Sunday. He died from his injuries in the Royal Victoria Hospital.

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The aftermath of the horrific killing was captured on camera by his daughter, Toni Johnston-Ogle, and broadcast live on social media, showing the victim lying in a pool of blood outside his home.

"We saw the masked men run, we saw the car they got into. I was told that they had got my daddy but we didn't know how bad it was. We came up the street and saw him lying there," she told UTV last night.

Mrs Johnston said her family have been living under threat from the East Belfast UVF for 18 months.

She also revealed that her brother Ryan and father had been ordered to come forward to receive a "punishment attack" following an incident at a bar in 2017.

Mrs Johnston said her father had given his life to save his family and believes the killers had come to attack his son.

She added: "We have been terrorised, threatened not to walk the Newtownards Road and other parts of east Belfast in general.

"These same individuals have used the UVF's name to instil fear and attempt to instil fear into us."

The East Belfast UVF has denied any involvement in the killing, which it has "wholeheartedly condemned".

Mrs Johnston said her family were hurt and insulted by the UVF statement about the murder and has urged them to stop.

"People want to live their lives, go to work and back. Stop it now. There's no need. It should have been stopped long ago. This could have been avoided," she said.

The local community has rallied round Mr Ogle's family and raised over 8,000 in two days to help pay for his funeral.

Scores of floral tributes to the community worker, along with Everton and Rangers FC flags and scarves, have been left at the cordoned-off murder scene.

Tonight, the close-knit community in Cluan Place will hold a vigil to show its support for the Ogle family.

The gathering will take place at 7.30pm and those attending have been asked to bring candles or balloons.

Meanwhile, police have revealed that those involved in the killing ran from Cluan Place to the Templemore Avenue area. There they got into a black Seat Leon car, registration number JGZ 7406, which travelled to Pitt Place.

Two men, aged 31 and 45, and two women, aged 35 and 36, arrested in connection with the murder, were released yesterday.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter McKenna has described the level of violence used against Mr Ogle as "barbaric" and has appealed for information.
Two south Belfast homes were targeted in separate burglaries on Monday evening.

Police have appealed for information after reports of burglaries in the Malone Lower and Upper areas.

A burglary in the Knightsbridge Manor area was reported around 8.30pm and a burglary in the Deramore Park South area at around 6.20pm.

A phone was stolen during the burglary in Knightsbridge Manor.

Detective Inspector Michael McDonnell is appealing for anyone with information, or anyone who witnessed suspicious activity, to contact detectives on 101 quoting reference 1357 of 28/1/2019.

Please protect your property and belongings by ensuring that all houses, sheds and garages are secured, particularly during the hours of darkness," Detective Inspector McDonnell said.

"Do not keep valuables or large amounts of cash in your home, and remember, safes are able to be removed.

"Do not leave any tools/ladders outside which can be used to access your property. Do not answer the door during the hours of darkness unless you are expecting someone or you have a security latch and can check identity first."

Detective Inspector McDonnell urged people to stay vigilant.

"Keep an eye on your property and please report to the police any suspicious callers or vehicles. This includes cold callers or services being offered at inflated prices," he said.

"If you do have CCTV systems, please ensure that they are working, and please look out for elderly/vulnerable neighbours and check on them regularly.

Information can be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.

If you would like further advice on home security you can contact your local Crime Prevention Officer on 101.

Report any suspicious activity/concerns to 101 and in the case of an emergency please call 999.
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
The Government has drafted its Domestic Abuse Bill "not with the victims of domestic violence in mind but their (DUP) partners in the coalition", a Labour MP has claimed.

Stella Creasy called on the Government to "Put DV (domestic violence), not the DUP, first", arguing the Bill "shows the human consequences for women across the UK of the confidence-and-supply agreement".

Home Office minister Victoria Atkins said there had been "no change" in the territorial application of the Bill compared with the proposals in the Government's consultation published last spring.

Read More

Ms Atkins told MPs in the Commons that the provisions of the draft Bill "expand to England and Wales only", in line with existing criminal law.

Her comments came after Ms Creasy (Walthamstow) asked an urgent question on the territorial extent of the draft Bill and the consequences for victims of violence across the UK.

Ms Creasy called on the minister to apologise and urged the Government to commit to going "back to the drawing board and coming up with a Bill that can protect every victim across the UK".

She said: "Can she stop hiding behind devolution and say sorry to Sarah Ewart for making her relive the trauma of what has happened to her all over again just because the Government needs those 10 votes of the DUP to stay in power?

"We saw that last night and I've no doubt we'll see it again. But this Bill shows the human consequences for women across the UK of the confidence-and-supply agreement.

"Minister, fight us fair and square on abortion rights in this place, not through backroom deals and bargaining, unless it will take a rape victim having to come to court to make this Government do the right thing and not block this change. Put DV (domestic violence), not the DUP, first."

The High Court in Belfast has been urged to find that Northern Ireland's abortion laws are incompatible with human rights legislation.

Ms Ewart's case comes after the Supreme Court ruled last year that abortion laws in the region were in breach of human rights legislation.

Ms Atkins said the "landmark" Bill was aimed at supporting victims and their families and pursuing offenders to stop the cycle of violence.

She said: "The Bill will cement a statutory definition of domestic abuse that extends beyond violence to include emotional, psychological and economic abuse."

The subject matter of the draft Bill, she said, was "devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland", adding: "We are currently in discussion with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland department of justice about whether they wish to extend any of the provisions of the Bill to Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

"She (Ms Creasy) has quite rightly highlighted the fact it applies at the moment only to England and Wales and the reason for that is ... that the underlying offences which would support prosecutions of domestic abuse are devolved."

Conservative former minister Anna Soubry welcomed the draft Bill, but added: "I am gravely concerned that this is, in effect, a way of stopping what should be happening - which is a fundamental reform of the laws in Northern Ireland so women in Northern Ireland have exactly the same rights as women in my constituency."

But Fiona Bruce, Tory MP for Congleton, said she wanted to "call out" an "orchestrated campaign" to change abortion laws in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, and replace them with "extreme proposals for which there is no public appetite whatsoever".

She said: "It is highly inappropriate for such campaigners to hijack the Domestic Abuse Bill in this way."

Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said migrant women have been "left behind" by the Bill in its draft form.

She added: "If we extend it to have immigration law in it, of course the extent of the Bill will be expanded."

DUP MP Jim Shannon (Strangford) said amending the Bill to change abortion law in Northern Ireland would "breach the devolution settlement", adding devolved government needs to be restored.

Labour's Liz Kendall (Leicester West) asked who decided to "exclude" Northern Ireland from the Bill and whether it was discussed with the DUP.

Ms Atkins said any Bill has to go through various committees of government, adding: "I do not know of any meetings she has talked about with the DUP."
The leader of a local Christian organisation has said people don't have to accept being gay if they don't want to as he announced the Belfast premiere of a film about a "former homosexual" reality TV contestant.

Last year the Core Issues Trust screened its so-called 'gay cure' film Voices Of The Silenced at Ballynahinch Baptist Church.

The event was picketed by protesters, who hit out at the movie's message about people "emerging" from homosexual lifestyles.

The film had previously been turned down for screening by Belfast's Queen's Film Theatre and The Vue in London.

Now the group has produced a second film featuring X Factor Malta contestant Matthew Grech, who Core Issues Trust leader Mike Davidson said "left homosexuality as part of his Christian testimony".

The film, Once Gay: Matthew And Friends, was funded and created by the trust.

It will be screened in Townsend Street Presbyterian Church on Valentine's Day, and Mr Davidson urged opponents to "come in and see the film" rather than protest outside.

"The film is being released around the same time as anti-conversion therapy film Boy Erased, starring Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, and it is expressing a different point of view," Mr Davidson said.

"When Matthew Grech entered The X Factor and mentioned he had left homosexuality as part of his Christian testimony, there was an immediate and quite ferocious response.

"I hope that people will see that they have options.

"It's not that they were born gay and that's the end of the story, (and) there's nothing they can do about it.

"We are not victims of sexuality, we have choices."

Mr Davidson said his Ballynahinch-based group "doesn't practise conversion therapy", describing its actions as "psychotherapeutic and counselling support for unwanted same-sex attraction".

He added: "They (homosexuals who had approached his group) can get help for it, it's not just that they are victims and they must knuckle down and be gay." Rev Jack Lamb of Townsend Street Presbyterian Church said he wasn't concerned about potential protesters at the premiere.

"I want there to be the opportunity for people to accept those who say they are ex-gay, that once they were in a homosexual lifestyle and now they have left, rather than suggesting that 'once gay, always gay'," he said.
An ovarian cancer patient from Larne has spoken of her hopes as a "ground-breaking" new drug has been approved for use in Northern Ireland for the first time.

Carol Bareham (46) was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in September 2015.

She's currently completing her third round of chemotherapy but is now eligible to receive niraparib on the NHS.

Mrs Bareham is hopeful the treatment will slow her illness down and help her avoid "hideous" chemotherapy for as long as possible.

"It's not going to cure me. The trick is living with cancer rather than dying from it," she said.

"Niraparib will hopefully give me scope to carry on living with this disease as long as I can, which could be months or years."

The medication is already available in England, Scotland and Wales.

Target Ovarian Cancer, who campaigned to introduce the drug here, say the "targeted treatment" effectively cripples cancer cells by stopping them from repairing themselves.

Official figures from the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry say an average of 221 local women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year.

Around 120 die each year from the condition, the equivalent of one every three days.

Mrs Bareham, who is married with two teenage children, is currently on sick leave from her role as a science technician in Larne High School.

"I still like to come in for a cup of tea and catch-up," she said.

"It can be quite a handful trying to juggle family life and my treatment."

One way she deals with pressure is with a blog of her experiences, with the fitting title 'Ovar reaction'.

She said the chance to avoid further chemotherapy would change her life.

"It's pretty horrendous to go through. You're lucky to feel good one week out of three," she said.

"I dread to think what it would have been like years ago without the steroids and anti-sickness drugs now available."

She continued: "Having this treatment is a huge deal for so many women here. Many of them have had no access to inhibitor drugs up to now. I won't know till I try it but it's better that I at least get a chance. I always hope for the best rather than wait for the worst."

Roisin Foster, chief executive of Cancer Focus NI, welcomed the news and said the development was of the "utmost importance" to women in NI.

"It means that there is another drug available to specifically target this type of cancer," she said.

"It potentially offers patients more precious time with their families, improves the quality of life and eases symptoms, which is a hugely valuable gift to anyone who has terminal cancer."

Rebecca Rennison, Target Ovarian Cancer's director of Public Affairs, said the announcement is a "game changer".

"Now that new drugs approved on the Cancer Drugs Fund in England have been made available here too, women in NI finally have parity with the rest of the UK," she said.

For more information visit www.targetovariancancer.org.uk
Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has accused Leo Varadkar of leaking details of a confidential meeting he held with an Irish minister.

Mr Raab also accused the Taoiseach of giving out inaccurate information about his Brexit proposals following his meeting with Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney last October.

The Telegraph and Financial Times reported Mr Raab had insisted Britain has the right to pull out of the Irish backstop after three months.

Speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Mr Raab said this information was leaked by the Taoiseach directly.

A spokesman for Irish government denied the allegation, saying: There is no basis to this allegation. Mr Raab should produce evidence to support it if he has any.

Mr Raab said on Wednesday: The conversation I had with him (Mr Coveney) was leaked to the media in terms which were not factually accurate, in terms of the proposal that I had put forward, privately and confidentially at his request.

It was leaked in an inaccurate and misrepresenting way by the Taoiseach directly.

I don't the know the conversation Simon Coveney had with the Taoiseach and I don't understand what motivation may or may not have beenDominic Raab

St Helens North Labour MP Conor McGinn said it was a very serious accusation to make against the Irish government.

Mr Raab added: Everyone in the UK Government knows the approach that I have been suggesting in relation to the Brexit mechanism, knows thats not what I have argued for within the UK Government let alone to my Irish friends.

He described his meeting with Mr Coveney as very constructive.

Mr Raab added: We both wanted to make this work, I found him a great interlocutor and I urged him not to rule out looking at some of the other opportunities and mechanisms in dealing with the exit from the backstop and we agreed, at his request, to keep the meeting confidential.

Check the media, I did not comment on it, it was only commented on not by Simon Coveney but by the Taoiseach, so ask the question of whether the account of what I was proposing was what the Taoiseach leaked to the media or presented to the media.

I dont the know the conversation Simon Coveney had with the Taoiseach and I dont understand what motivation may or may not have been.

All Im telling you is that is simply not what I discussed or what I was proposing and I have kept it confidential.
Sarah Ewart (centre) along with her mother Jane Christie (left) and Grainne Teggart of Amnesty International speak to the media on arrival at Belfasts High court for the beginning of her judicial review of Northern Irelands abortion laws (Brian LAwless/PA)

A court in Belfast has heard of one womans traumatic experience of seeking an abortion after receiving a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality.

Sarah Ewart, 28, who was refused a termination in Northern Ireland in 2013 due to strict laws, was harangued by anti-abortion protesters and felt like part of a conveyor belt when she travelled to a London clinic to end her pregnancy, Belfast High Court heard.

She has also contended that she was refused advice on how to seek a termination, and that her medical records were not sent to the clinic.

She described the experience as leaving her feeling vulnerable and humiliated.

Expand Close Sarah Ewart arrives at Belfasts High Ccourt for the beginning of her judicial review of Northern Irelands abortion laws (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sarah Ewart arrives at Belfasts High Ccourt for the beginning of her judicial review of Northern Irelands abortion laws (Brian Lawless/PA)

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that Northern Irelands abortion laws were in breach of human rights laws.

However, they concluded that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission  which brought the case  did not have the power to bring the proceedings as it was not itself a victim of any unlawful act.

Now Ms Ewart has brought a fresh legal challenge before the court.

aThe near-total abortion ban in Northern Ireland is a breach of womenas rights. Today weare hopeful that weall finally see a change to the law. a @GTeggart



Huge moment for Northern Ireland abortion rights today - landmark case in Belfast court #NowForNI pic.twitter.com/Hhutk7C3Oh  News From Amnesty (@NewsFromAmnesty) January 30, 2019

The case is being heard by Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan and is expected to conclude on Thursday.

There are two respondents in the case: Northern Irelands Department of Justice and Department of Health.

Northern Irelands Attorney General John Larkin is representing himself in the proceedings.

I respectfully invite this court to follow the lead of the Supreme CourtAdam Straw

Barrister Adam Straw, acting for Ms Ewart, argued that the law in Northern Ireland which prohibits abortion in fatal foetal abnormality cases is incompatible with human rights legislation.

I respectfully invite this court to follow the lead of the Supreme Court, he said.

Mr Straw outlined that there is compelling evidence of serious impact on women who carry a pregnancy with fatal foetal abnormalities to full term.

He referred to evidence given to the Supreme Court by Professor James Dornan, director of foetal medicine at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Service in Belfast, that there is a risk of sepsis to the mother and also significant risks to the mental health of a woman continuing a pregnancy knowing that the foetus could die at any moment.

Expand Close Sarah Ewart with her mother Jane Christie and Grainne Teggart of Amnesty International (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sarah Ewart with her mother Jane Christie and Grainne Teggart of Amnesty International (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Straw also referred to Ms Ewarts personal experiences of seeking a termination after learning her pregnancy had fatal foetal abnormalities.

He contended that the respondents, NIs Department of Justice and Department of Health, and the Executive Committee failed to amend the 1945 act  the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) which makes carrying out an abortion an illegal act.

An application to add the Executive Committee as a respondent was not successful.

Dr Tony McGlennan QC, acting for the two departments, argued they did all they could when it came to the question of new abortion legislation.

He outlined how following an NI Assembly debate in February 2016, a working group on fatal foetal abnormalities was set up to examine the matter.

The working group compiled a report, published internally within government in October 2016, which recommended a change in the law.

Expand Close Devolved government at Stormont collapsed before it could consider a working groups verdict on abortion laws (PA Archive) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Devolved government at Stormont collapsed before it could consider a working groups verdict on abortion laws (PA Archive)

He said the next step would have been the production of a common paper for the first and deputy first ministers.

Because of the political hiatus in 2017, these steps were never taken, he said.

He added: It has to be recognised we do not have a functioning legislature.

A fatal foetal abnormality (FFA) diagnosis means doctors believe an unborn child will die either in the womb or shortly after birth.

It is not grounds for a legal abortion in Northern Ireland. The procedure is allowed if the mothers life is in danger.

Expand Close Anti-abortion campaigner Bernie Smyth outside Belfasts High Court (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Anti-abortion campaigner Bernie Smyth outside Belfasts High Court (Brian Lawless/PA)

Both pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners gathered outside the High Court on Wednesday morning ahead of the hearing with placards and banners.

Some supporting Ms Ewart said Now it is time for Women in Northern Ireland  a reference to recent reforms in the Republic.

Those who favoured the status quo carried signs which said Life is a right, not a privilege.

Others said judges and politicians had a responsibility to protect that right.

Ms Ewart described the experience of returning to court as really nerve-wracking, but added: I am really hopeful that the High Court listens to what the Supreme Court has previously said  that women here who find themselves in the circumstances that I found myself in will get the help and the treatment that we need in our hospitals with our own medical teams.

Ms Ewart is being supported by Amnesty International, one of five intervenors in the case.

The others are the Human Rights Commission, Humanists UK, Centre for Reproductive Rights and Precious Life.

Bernie Smyth, from anti-abortion group Precious Life, said: We are saying this is barbaric, it is wrong and it should never be introduced here in Northern Ireland.

Amnesty campaigns manager Grainne Teggart said Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley should have moved to change the law before now.
A Belfast councillor allegedly mocked the Irish famine by posting a racist and sectarian tweet, the High Court heard today.

A judge was also told other complaints against independent representative Jolene Bunting centred on her categorisation of apparent anti-Islamic leaflets as "information".

Ms Bunting is appealing a decision by the Local Government Commissioner for Standards to suspend her for four months pending the outcome of an investigation.

The action, taken against her last September, was subsequently stayed until the legal challenge is determined.

She is accused of a number of breaches the councillors' code of conduct.

Ms Bunting contends that she has Article 10 freedom of expression protection under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Issues have also raised about the evidence required to establish a prima facie breach of the code.

Her suspension followed 14 complaints, some said to relate to public statements about the Islamic religion, her association with the far-right group Britain First, and a meme shared on social media.

Counsel for the Commissioner for Standards, contended that the "cumulative" incidents led to the sanction.

Gordon Anthony cited a cartoon meme tweeted last year as an example of alleged intolerance.

The post depicted two frogs - one larger and wearing a Union flag; the other smaller, apparently ill, wearing an Irish tricolour and with the words "Please be patient, I have famine".

Mr Antony told the court: "The complaint is that this is sectarian, racist (and) mocking the Irish famine, an event in which many people lost their lives."

According to the barrister the tweet contained prima facie evidence of a breach of the code.

Mr Justice Maguire also heard details of Ms Bunting's contributions to a Belfast City Council debate over leaflets distributed in the east of the city last April.

The flyers, which she is not in any way associated with, claimed British people will be a minority in the UK by 2066.

They also stated: "Our children's future will be a third world Islamic Britain if we do nothing."

Other councillors complained about Ms Bunting's contribution to a debate on the leaflets where she said "I believe they were information", adding that "people in this city need to know information about all faiths in society".

Mr Anthony questioned whether the flyers' contents are protected by Article 10.

But during exchanges the judge pointed out that Ms Bunting neither wrote nor distributed them.

Emphasising that he was in no way supporting any views she expressed, Mr Justice Maguire said elected representatives have "a lot of latitude" in what they say during the course of political debate.

Referring to the total 14 complaints brought against the councillor, he suggested: "Some of these cases are much more serious than others, and only some of them would require restraint under Article 10."

The appeal continues.
Referrals to Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Northern Ireland have increased by 21% in three years, it can be revealed.

Figures obtained by the Belfast Telegraph show that there were 13,439 referrals made to CAMHS in 2017/18 - up 2,363 from 2014/15.

The Northern Health Trust, which serves a population of more than 400,000, saw the biggest increase, with the number of young people being referred to mental health services more than doubling since 2014/15.

The Belfast Trust had the lowest increase in referrals at 5%, but the sheer volume of young people accessing services in the area - there were 4,916 referrals last year alone - meant that almost 200 had to wait longer than 18 weeks before receiving treatment for illnesses including anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

The Western and Southern trusts had a significantly lower number of referrals, with 2280 and 3030 in 2017/18 respectively, but both saw increases over the three years (18% and 27%).

However, it is feared that the true extent of the problem could be greater because of the stigma that is often attached to talking about mental health issues.

A 2016 survey by the Department of Health revealed that the majority of young people suffering mental health problems did not seek help.

The figures come after a damning report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) outlined that two years without a functioning Executive meant there had been "no real progress" in child health policy. Children and young people's mental health "remains at crisis point", the report warned, adding that the political stalemate at Stormont was putting children's lives at risk.

The RCPCH report also found that the Project Life 2 Strategy, a Department of Health suicide prevention initiative, remained in draft form and failed to adequately address the continuing crisis in young people's mental health.

Some 144 children and young people under the age of 19 have taken their own lives since 2009, according to figures from Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

Chief executive of Aware NI Karen Collins described the figures as very worrying.

"Research shows that mental health is a concern for young people today with around a third of 11 to 16-year-olds having had concerns or worries about their mental health," she said.

"We would urge young people to talk to someone they trust if they have concerns about how they are feeling or are experiencing suicidal thoughts."

DUP MLA Paula Bradley said: "The provision of adequate mental health services, particularly to such vulnerable young people, must be a top priority for us all.

"It is clear that we need to have an Executive and a Health Minister in place to drive forward the much-needed reform of our health service."

SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan said the impasse at Stormont meant that vital recommendations and updated models for children's health care have not been implemented.

He said: "These figures are a disgrace.

"It is unconscionable that politics here has allowed for a society where children's mental health is in decline, where demand for mental health services is higher than ever, but resources are not readily available.

"It is deplorable that Project Life 2 has sat gathering dust on a minister's desk. Now is the time to put the needs of the people ahead of politics."

Northern Ireland is now entering its third year without a functioning Executive and a series of talks to restore the institutions have stalled.

In 2017 the Assembly received 1 billion of additional funding as part of a deal by the Conservative Party to win support from the DUP to prop up Prime Minister Theresa May's minority Government. The DUP says it wants to see the Assembly and Executive restored immediately so that the mental health care issue can be addressed.
Amendment 1: Labours twin track approach

The official Labour amendment calls for MPs to be able to vote on options to stop a no-deal exit, such as a customs union with the EU, as well as the possibility of a new Brexit referendum. Mr Corbyn has been careful not to commit Labour to officially back such a poll, though.

for: 296

against: 327

lost by 31

Amendment 2: The SNP amendment

Ian Blackford's amendment, also backed by Plaid Cymru, calls for an extension to Article 50, the rejection of a no-deal Brexit and states that "the people of Scotland should not be taken out of the EU against their will".

for: 39

against: 327

lost by 288

Amendment 3: Grieve amendment

In a bid to prevent a no-deal Brexit, Dominic Grieve's motion would wrest control of Commons business from the Government for six days in the run-up to March 29 to help MPs reach a consensus on how to handle it. Mrs May said it and Yvette Cooper's amendment posed constitutional problems.

for: 301

against: 321

lost by 20

Amendment 4: Taking control

Jeremy Corbyn has backed a move by Labour ex-minister Yvette Cooper to delay Brexit in order to allow more time for a deal. If there's no deal by February 26, MPs would get a vote on delaying Brexit to the end of the year and preventing a no-deal exit.

for: 298

against: 321

lost by 23

Amendment 5: Extension if no deal

Another cross-party amendment, tabled by Labour's Rachel Reeves, would require the Prime Minister to seek an extension of Article 50 (without specifying for how long) if no deal had been reached by February 26.

for: 290

against: 322

lost by 32

Amendment 6: No to no deal

A cross-party effort headed by Tory Dame Caroline Spelman and Labour's Jack Dromey rejects the UK quitting the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement. But Mrs May told MPs: "Unless we're to end up with no Brexit at all, the only way to avoid no deal is to agree a deal."

for: 318

against: 310

passed by 8

Amendment 7: Brake on backstop

Mrs May has thrown Government support behind an amendment seeking to replace the backstop with unspecified "alternative arrangements" to avoid a hard border. Tabled by Sir Graham Brady, Mrs May said it would give her a mandate to demand changes to the Withdrawal Agree ment.

for: 317

against: 301

passed by 16
Fun fact, the German for a flag awareness course would be "Landerflaggensensibilisierungsfortbildungsveranstaltung".

That's according to the German Foreign Office which found itself throwing its weight behind the Cote dIvoire - or Ivory Coast - instead of Ireland in the ongoing Brexit crisis.

After the Commons voted to reject the backstop it tweeted its support for the African nation - and Twitter users were quick to point out the error of their ways.

"Were all confused by Brexit," said the account having realised its error.

"But at least we communicate like grown-ups," it replied to one foul-mouthed response.

It said it would not allow Ireland to be isolated on the issue, but would continue to forge close ties with Cote dIvoire.

Thanks to all our followers for spotting the mistake before we did. Fake news will never get past you guys 



We will not allow  to be isolated on this issue. And we will continue to forge close ties with CAte daIvoire! https://t.co/h8xU1D3mv2  GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 30, 2019

Yes, so we've been told  Also, in our defense, we got it right in the original German tweet: https://t.co/GbtXRaHNFC. Wrong flag, but our message remains the same: We will not allow IRELAND to be isolated on this issue.  GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 30, 2019

Fun fact: "flag awareness course" in German would be something like "LAnderflaggensensibilisierungsfortbildungsveranstaltung"   GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 30, 2019
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The European Parliaments chief Brexit official has hit out at the UK Parliaments handling of the process.

Guy Verhofstadt was speaking the day after Westminster debated seven amendments and then instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to go back to Brussels and seek a better exit deal.

What needs to stop is this: an amendment with 10 votes for, then an amendment with 10 votes against, an amendment that barely pulls through, one that failsGuy Verhofstadt

The 27 other EU nations and the European parliament have stood united in stressing that a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement they clinched with Mrs May is out of the question.

Mr Verhofstadt said: What needs to stop is this: an amendment with 10 votes for, then an amendment with 10 votes against, an amendment that barely pulls through, one that fails.

He was referring to Tuesdays Westminster session, which saw seven Brexit amendments of which two were passed.

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That is no way to build a future relationship with the EU, Mr Verhofstadt said.

Germanys foreign minister says Berlin is willing to continue talks with Britain but is emphasising the current Brexit agreement is the best one available.

Heiko Maas told the Funke newspaper group it is important that UK politicians have spoken out against a no-agreement departure from the European Union, saying that is in nobodys interest.

Welcome the UK Parliament's decision to reject a no-deal & the hope of cross-party talks on future relationship. We stand by Ireland & the Good Friday Agreement. There is no majority to re-open or dilute the Withdrawal Agreement in the @Europarl_EN including the backstop.  Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) January 29, 2019

But he called for clarity on how Britain wants to change the so-called backstop, the safeguard mechanism proposed to regulate the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit.

He said Germany is open to talks, but our position is clear: the withdrawal agreement is the best and only solution for an orderly exit.

Regarding the backstop, Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Irelands side.

We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.
Prime Minister Theresa May during the debate in the House of Commons in London on January 29, 2019.

Theresa May is to go back to Brussels to try to renegotiate the controversial Irish border backstop.

In a night of high drama at Westminster, DUP votes proved crucial in securing a proposal backed by the Prime Minister to reopen Brexit talks and replace the backstop with "alternative arrangements" to avoid a hard border.

But just minutes after the vote, EU leaders lined up to rebuff Mrs May.

They included Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who tweeted that the backstop "is necessary and tonight's developments at Westminster do nothing to change this".

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the votes of its 10 MPs had again made the difference and the House of Commons had now signalled what type of Brexit deal would command a majority.

But Brussels swiftly insisted that the Withdrawal Agreement would not be renegotiated regardless of how MPs voted.

The Irish government said the backstop couldn't be removed and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is expected to speak with Mrs May today to discuss the outcome of the vote.

The Prime Minister is to go back to the EU to try to renegotiate her Brexit deal after MPs gave their backing to proposals to replace the controversial backstop.

They voted by 317 to 301 in favour of a proposal from Tory grandee Sir Graham Brady - backed by Mrs May - to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and replace the backstop with "alternative arrangements" to avoid a hard border.

Mr Dodds tweeted afterwards that his 10 MPs' votes "make the difference... Again." SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the Conservatives had "effectively ripped apart the Good Friday Agreement".

But the DUP deputy leader said it was "utterly reckless to talk in those terms".

Mr Dodds said: "This is a significant night because for the first time the House by majority has expressed what sort of deal will get through and will have a majority, and we will work with the Prime Minister to deliver the right deal for the UK."

Mrs May said the result showed there was a means of securing a "substantial and sustainable majority in this House for leaving the EU with a deal" and vowed to seek a new agreement with Brussels.

But in a statement, European Council President Donald Tusk said: "The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the European Union. The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreementis not open for re-negotiation."

The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said there was "no majority to re-open or dilute" the Withdrawal Agreement.

He tweeted: "Welcome the UK Parliament's decision to reject a no-deal & the hope of cross-party talks on future relationship. We stand by Ireland & the Good Friday Agreement

The House of Commons earlier approved a cross-party amendment, tabled by MPs Caroline Spelman and Jack Dromey, rejecting a no-deal Brexit by 318 to 310.

The vote is not legally binding on the Government but will impose massive political pressure on the Prime Minister to delay Brexit from its scheduled date of March 29 if she cannot secure a new deal from Brussels.

Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann said: "After the votes in Westminster we still need to arrive at a deal that delivers for both the United Kingdom as a whole and Northern Ireland. We must now wait with interest to see what the EU says."

TUV leader Jim Allister said: "Parliament says the backstop must go. Good. Now let's have delivery. If there is no delivery, then, there must be no backsliding into accepting the Withdrawal Agreement still with the backstop. Instead, an unconditional exit on 29 March will be required if Brussels maintains its intransigence."

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood hit out at the Government's decision to "allow the dissolution of the Irish backstop" over the heads of people in Northern Ireland.

He said: "Tonight, London decided that the interests of the people in Northern Ireland were secondary to the needs of the Conservative Party. The rejection of the Irish backstop, the only viable mechanism to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, is an affront on the Good Friday Agreement.

"Let me be clear, the people of Northern Ireland did not consent to this. We will continue to engage with the Irish government to ensure that the backstop, as reiterated by Brussels, will not be undermined in the slightest."

Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said Parliament had voted to send Brexit down "a dead-end". He said: "Many people will be exasperated at a dysfunctional Parliament unable to process and work through the real choices facing the UK around Brexit. Thirty-one months on from the referendum there is still no coherent way forward.

"This is a pointless victory for the Government. The EU is rightly clear the backstop and the Withdrawal Agreement are not up for renegotiation, and have indicated as such once again today. So this represents a dead-end," Mr Farry added.
When she is not working to promote local artists in her day job Angela Warren is likely to be found locked away in her kitchen at home creating handcrafted scented candles for an ever growing clientele.

What started out as a hobby to make healthy candles to burn at home has now taken off as a busy cottage business after many hours of patiently experimenting with essential oils and soy wax.

It is only a year since she first attempted to make her own candles and now Angela devotes all day Saturday and Sunday to creating up to 50 a week.

Each candle in her carefully crafted Vintage Moon Candles range is soon snapped up by her social media followers and at local artisan markets where Angela has devoted repeat customers as well as those discovering her products for the first time.

Angela (39) is from Londonderry but now lives in Belfast after moving to the city to study at university when she was 19.

She completed a degree in psychology and then went on to study for a masters in communications, marketing and public relations, an area she made a career from.

For the past five years she has served as a press officer for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, a job she loves as she gets to meet so many other creative people.

Her long-term partner Phil Donaldson is also closely linked to the local arts scene as one of the businessmen behind the hugely successful Belsonic music festivals in Belfast.

It might seem a bit of a leap from studying psychology to entering public relations, but Angela doesn't agree. "The two disciplines actually are strongly linked. The analytical skills and ways of looking at things you learn in psychology do transfer over to PR," she says.

"I think at the age when you are taking a degree you don't really know what you want to do as a career. Sometimes I think that at some point I might go back to psychology, but I absolutely love my job with the Arts Council.

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"Working in the arts sector is such a privilege as you get to work closely with so many artists and organisations and in my own small way I get to help them.

"It is such a creative and varied role and it is a real treat to see the work of artists and the amount of talent there is in Northern Ireland is absolutely outstanding."

Her own hobbies all centre round the arts. She dabbles with playing music and her favourite night out is to catch a play.

"I love music. I never had the bravery to learn to play an instrument properly, but I do mess around with the harp, piano and guitar," Angela explains.

"It's a hobby, and a creative outlet, and you don't have to be amazing at it. It just gives you a little bit of escapism for a few hours. I love the Lyric as it is my favourite theatre and going there is a real treat."

Candle making though has become her main passion.

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She now devotes her entire weekend to crafting her hand poured soy candles which are selling like hotcakes.

While it means Phil has 'lost' her to her hobby, she says after 10 years together he is happy she is doing something she loves.

"Phil is great about it," she says. "As a businessman he has kept me right about working out my unit costs and overheads. I would look up to him a lot as a very sound businessman.

"I'm not doing it to make money and it will never replace my full-time job. It is a hobby and any money I get is put right back into making more candles."

It all started for Angela around this time last year. Like most of us she loved burning scented candles in her home, but became increasingly concerned about what she regarded as the unhealthy ingredients and chemicals in some factory made products.

It was this desire to find a toxin free candle which ignited her interest in making her own.

Angela works only with soy wax; a renewable and sustainable wax made from the oil of soybeans which burns cleaner and lasts longer than many other types of wax.

"I wanted to make healthy candles. A lot of fragranced candles are chemical based and to my nose they never smelt that pleasing," she says.

"Also the paraffin in ordinary wax candles comes from petrol and gives off chemicals which are not good for you.

"I use soy which is sustainable and healthy to breathe in.

"I started making them for myself and then giving them to family and friends. One day a friend's mum said to me 'you really need to sell these, they are really beautiful'. That word of encouragement gave me the confidence to have a go and for the past few months they have really taken off on social media and at the monthly Fine and Dandy craft market.

"I just wanted to create something that was natural and eco friendly and vegan and something beautiful that people would enjoy and that was healthy to have in the home.

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"Now every weekend I lock myself away in my kitchen. It is not a chore and the minute it becomes a chore I will stop. In a way it is therapy for me. I just switch off and forget anything that bothered me during the week."

Simplicity is the key to Angela's range and her candles are presented in beautiful glass apothecary style jars.

Creating her own signature fragrances has been very important and she has spent many hours developing scents through trial and error.

She jokes about her own sense of smell which she says has been strong since she was a child and has led to her colleagues labelling her 'the nose'.

"I have always had a very strong sense of smell and it has worked for me and sometimes against me," she says.

"At work they call me 'the nose' because I would pick up on smells no one else can.

"I have loved playing around with the essential oils and it has been a real learning curve working out what oils work well together. I always wanted to do my own thing and work it out for myself so that it would be more personal for the end user.

"I have developed my own blends. I have one which is lemon grass, basil and lime and it is really fresh, clean, zesty and uplifting.

"At Christmas I did a limited edition luxury range made with mandarin, geranium and palmarosa, which was beautiful and they proved so popular I now plan to do four 'seasonal' limited edition candles a year and am currently developing one for spring."

Honing her craft has taken many hours of labour but, as a true creative, Angela has enjoyed every moment of the process and would recommend anyone giving it a go.

"For me the morning will begin with melting the wax, then preparing the oils and jars," she adds. "It is very important to let the wax cool down to the right temperature before adding the oils as if it is too hot it can burn the oils off.

"The tricky point is getting the wick in the middle and making sure it stays there.

"There are a number of other challenges including getting the perfect burn so that people get value for money and the maximum use of the candle. I have worked that out and also spent a long time testing the fragrance load so that it continues until the candle is burned out. I love all that creativity and learning.

"I spend all day Saturday at it and just lose myself in the process and enjoy being creative.

"Then I spend Sunday labelling the jars and getting them packaged or I go off to the market selling them."

As well as planning to extend her range of luxury 'seasonal' candles, Angela also aims to get her own website up and running. But while her hobby has gone beyond anything she had planned, she still insists her candle making will remain a pastime only.

"I don't plan to grow it to the extent that it takes over my life, but I would like a website and that will take some work, not just to set up, but to figure out distribution and packaging and how best to present the product," she explains.

"It's just a pleasure to make the candles and I now have repeat customers coming back and that just makes my heart sing - the thought that someone loves something that I've created."

Angela will be bringing her natural candles to the Fine and Dandy artisan craft market in the Titanic Hotel on April 28 and you can also see her range on her facebook page - Vintage Moon Candles
Stephen Martin has stepped down as director general of the Institute of Directors (PA)

Stephen Martin has stepped down as director general of the Institute of Directors after less than two years, and just weeks ahead of Brexit.

The Brexit-voting business chief, who joined the IoD in February 2017, said that it is the right time for him to move on.

The business lobby group said he is stepping down to allow new leadership to oversee the next phase of the IoDs transformation programme.

Given the timescales involved, it makes sense to allow my successor an opportunity to take responsibility for implementing the IoDs vision for the future of the organisationStephen Martin

After a period of consideration, I feel that this is the right time for me to move on. Given the timescales involved, it makes sense to allow my successor an opportunity to take responsibility for implementing the IoDs vision for the future of the organisation, Mr Martin said.

While the search for a new director general is being carried out, Anna Daroy will act as director general for operations and Edwin Morgan will take up the role of director general for external affairs.

The IoD hit the headlines last year when its then chair Lady Barbara Judge resigned amid claims she bullied staff and made derogatory and racist remarks.

Mr Martin is thought to have played a part in her downfall.

Despite voting for Brexit, he has since urged the Government to reject protectionism and ensure that British businesses are not forced to operate under World Trade Organisation rules once the country leaves the EU.

The Northern Irishman has said that he voted to leave because of the amount of EU regulations and because he felt the country was crying out for change following the banking crisis.

IoD chair Charlotte Valeur said: Stephen leaves with our best wishes and thanks for the work he has done in his time as director general, throughout which he has displayed great commitment to the IoD and a passion for speaking up for our members.

He has been at the helm during a pivotal period for the organisation and indeed the country, but we accept his decision to allow new leadership to drive forward the changes the institute wants to make.
The deterioration of wastewater treatment works across Northern Ireland is threatening future housing and commercial development, a trade body has warned.

The deterioration of wastewater treatment works across Northern Ireland is threatening future housing and commercial development, a trade body has warned.

In an open letter to David Sterling, the head of the Civil Service, Construction Employers Federation boss John Armstrong said that the failure to fund the upgrades will hamper the recovery of the building trade, damage the economy and impact major infrastructure projects.

"This cannot be allowed to happen. The risk of halting development on such a scale will impact the deliverability of much-needed new housing, public sector works and commercial development," he said.

Mr Armstrong is managing director of the body, which represents more than 800 companies and three-quarters of the industry here.

He said 59 treatment works are currently at capacity, with another 21 close to their limits. East Belfast and Duncrue in the north of the city require significant investment, he added.

In the absence of an Executive, senior civil servants are currently drawing up capital budgets in the likelihood that Secretary of State Karen Bradley will once again be forced to set a one-year budget.

NI Water has been warning for some time about the funding deficit. Despite identifying more than 70 works where it's said capacity issues existed, it was given 60m in 2015 to upgrade just 19 by 2021.

"We started 2015 from a constrained capital expenditure position, with 990m against a requirement of 1.7bn. Further public expenditure cuts mean that around 55m of projects will not be delivered," said NI Water.

The organisation said it will need half-a-billion pounds to address capacity issues alone in its next investment planning period (2021-2027), as part of an overall spending profile likely to reach 2bn. It added that an initiative being developed for Belfast could significantly address sewerage issues for the next decade, but it needs 750m.

"Without adequate investment, there will be further impacts on service delivery, the local economy and the environment," it added.

Echoing those sentiments, Mr Armstrong warned that failure to invest in the wastewater system will "make it nigh on impossible" for councils to deliver on the economic aspirations within their local development plans.

He contended that other major infrastructure projects such as the A5 dual carriageway and the Belfast Transport Hub had been stalled and would be unlikely to require significant funding until late next year.
Steve Orr of Catalyst Inc with Bank of Irelands Ian Sheppard

A potential 80,000 future jobs and 3bn in gross value added (GVA) from Northern Ireland's tech firms could be in jeopardy if the sector does not receive proper support, according to a report today.

The annual report said our knowledge economy, which also includes pharma and advanced manufacturing firms, has enjoyed the second-fastest growth of the UK regions in 2018.

But Catalyst Inc, which runs hubs in Londonderry and Belfast for many of the province's major tech firms, said that with support, the knowledge economy could contribute another 80,000 jobs and 3bn in GVA by 2030.

To achieve the growth, we would need another 2,500 skilled people coming in - requiring a suitable immigration policy post-Brexit.

Major successes in the knowledge economy include tech firms like Kainos and Novosco. But the definition also encompasses pharmaceutical firms like Almac and Norbrook.

Jobs in the knowledge economy tend to be better paid than in other sectors, with firms likely to have stronger potential for economic growth.

Steve Orr, chief executive of Catalyst Inc, said politicians need to prioritise growth in the knowledge economy.

He said they had successfully joined forces with academia and government to secure a City Deal to help growth into Belfast and surrounding regions.

A similar push was now needed for the knowledge economy, he said.

"We must make Northern Ireland a place that attracts word class researchers, engineers, entrepreneurial talent and investment at the same time as helping create opportunities that are accessible locally across a range of skills levels," he said.

"We have seen government, academia and business successfully collaborating to bring in investment through the City Deals. Now is the time for our politicians to step up and ensure that whatever the final outcome of the UK exit from the EU, we are not disadvantaged."

The report is sponsored by Bank of Ireland and written by the Ulster University economic policy centre.

It said that the knowledge economy was likely to prove resilient post-Brexit, as just 20% of sales were made into the EU.

Ian Sheppard, managing director NI at Bank of Ireland UK, said: "In highlighting the significant potential contribution that the knowledge economy can deliver for Northern Ireland, the report heightens the need for a fresh injection of impetus by all stakeholders."

The report said that while there was growth in the number of businesses seeking investment through private equity and venture capital, the value of investments was falling. And firms were experiencing rapid growth for their first few years, with NI claiming the greatest proportion of firms hitting turnover of 1m in their first three years.

Mr Orr also said we could learn from the Republic, where the value of investment is 50 times more than here.
Irish food group Greencore - one of the world's biggest sandwich makers - is prepared to airlift key ingredients such as rocket and spinach to the UK in the event of a hard Brexit, according to chief executive Patrick Coveney.

He also said that the group will need to push the button on its Brexit battle plan within three weeks, if the Westminster government has not managed to get a deal through parliament that would prevent it from crashing out of the European Union.

Greencore, whose main market is the UK after the sale of its US business last year, manufactures more than 700 million sandwiches and food-to-go items every year.

Its customers include supermarket chains such as Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Mr Coveney, a brother of Irish foreign minister and Tanaiste Simon Coveney, also said he's less optimistic now about a Brexit deal being reached, but remains hopeful.

About 20% of Greencore's ingredients in terms of spend come from outside the UK.

Another 10% of ingredients are sourced within the UK but a significant component of that originates outside the UK.

Greencore has been stockpiling some ingredients such as prawns and tomato paste.

Mr Coveney said that a warning from the British Retail Consortium this week that a no-deal Brexit would leave supermarket shelves empty, "pretty accurately" sums up the potential outcome.

"For us, we won't be immune to that, but we think we'll be able to construct a solution that will have decent availability of some food, but there would certainly be some impact in terms of our business," he said, speaking after Greencore's annual general meeting in Dublin.

He said the issue would be whether suppliers and companies such as Greencore can find ways of importing ingredients to the UK without going through Calais. "The simple issue there is, would you be prepared to airfreight in fresh produce," he said. "We would require our customers to make a firm commitment to covering the cost of that difference if we were to do that."

He said the company has not made any specific plans yet to airlift produce to the UK.

"Over the next two to three weeks, we have to make a decision on some of those solutions if we were to go with that," he added. "But we'll only make that [decision] in conjunction with our customers."

He said Greencore has enough product stored to be able to deal with between one and three months' of disruption on the main shipping channels.

Some of the UK's biggest supermarkets and restaurant chains warned that nearly a third of food consumed in the UK came from the EU, and would be hit by delays at ports caused by a no-deal Brexit. That could result in shortages as a result of disruption to the supply chain, hitting retailers including Lidl, Marks & Spencer and Asda, he warned.

A letter to MPs ahead of Commons votes last night on the next steps for Brexit warned it could be "difficult to restock stores if the supply chain is disrupted".
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Ridge students take the stage for "Hamilton" cast

ksmolen / Photo Submitted Chestnut Ridge Students Ian Melius and Elli Leister performed for 2,800 fellow peers from across the state and the cast of Hamilton in Pittsburgh on Friday. Photo Submitted Sixty students at Chestnut Ridge High School were able to attend Hamilton last week in Pittsburgh for the price of a Hamilton, $10.

FISHERTOWN  A group of students and chaperones from Chestnut Ridge High School had the opportunity of a lifetime when they were one of the schools selected to attend a showing of the play last Friday for the price of a Hamilton, $10.

Nadine Glass, a learning support teacher with the district, said that her interest in the musical was first sparked when she noticed that the band students who she was spending time with after school before practice were listening to and singing the songs from the acclaimed Broadway show.

Isabelle Boyer, one of those students, said that she and many of her friends became obsessed with the musical like many young adults and would play the music for Glass and sing the songs while they would spend time with her after school.

She always said if she won the lottery, she would pay off all of her debts and then she would take us to Hamilton,  Boyer said.

Attending Hamilton with the students was something Glass had wanted to do but never thought would actually happen.

The students were so inspiring to me that I said You know, Im going to take you to Hamilton. If I could take you to Hamilton, Ill take you to Hamilton and little did I know, I actually had that opportunity, Glass said.

After spending time with her daughter who lives in New York and works on musical productions, Glass learned Hamilton would be coming to the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh and that the Hamilton Education Program would also continue with the road production.

In October 2015, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, The Rockefeller Foundation, the NYC Department of Education, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute announced an educational partnership to provide 20,000 NYC Title I public school students with the opportunity to see Hamilton on Broadway and integrate the show into classroom studies.

This educational initiative, now expanded to reach 250,000 students in Title Ieligible schools nationwide, will run through 2020, and is possible with support from national and local donors, including The Rockefeller Foundation.

A Venture Grant from the Chestnut Ridge Educational Foundation and financial support from the district helped fund the cost to send 60 students and 6 chaperones to the musical for $10 a ticket.

When she first applied last school year, Glass thought the school had no real chance in being accepted. In October, the school found out that they had been selected for the program after which the students that were interested in attending the show were required to complete a project through the education program.

The projects encourage students to channel their creative sides by writing songs, poems, raps or skits or other works that incorporate history but while also requiring the students to provide primary resources to documents used for research.

Students from 14 of the more than 40 schools in attendance had their pieces selected to be performed in front of 2,800 of their peers from across the state and in front of the Hamilton cast.

The students all performed their pieces at the school and teachers and trip chaperones selected the performance piece that they believed was the best which was then filmed and eventually selected to be performed before the musical.

Ian Melius and Elli Leister were selected to perform a piece called Thoughts of Hamilton and Burr which the teens said is a poem in which the two men share their feelings prior to the famous duel and continue with thoughts of what will happen next after the shot is fired.

It was really amazing for me because a lot of the schools that were going were the charter/performing arts schools that, along with the regular curriculum taught how to perform basically. So Im basically like this is cool. We get to work on a performance piece and one of our groups has a small chance to be chosen, Melius said, adding that he was in shock when he found out he and Leister had been chosen to perform. It was exhilarating. It was really amazing.

Leister said that while the project was stressful because she and Melius were in separate classes and at different points in the project and only practiced once before the performance, none of the experience sank in until Glass was filming the pairs performance.

It just didnt really sink in. It just seemed like something that was too good to be true and then when she video taped it, its like  its true, its happening and then when she told use we were chosen I was speechless, she said.

All of the students said Tuesday afternoon that the experience still didnt feel real.

Lindy Barefoot said she had tried not to be pessimistic but did not believe that the school would get selected.

Then (Glass) came down the hallway one day screaming, we got picked. Still didnt believe it. I still dont believe. It just doesnt feel real, she said.

The students added that while they knew the musicals music by heart, seeing the musical in person was a different experience.

I think before everyone sees Hamilton, you listen to the songs but listening to them you can appreciate them and whatever. But you get there and you see them acting them out and you see everything that goes into it, Devin Swope said. That just makes it 100 times more powerful.

Glass said that she was grateful to have this experience with so many students from the school that come from a variety of backgrounds.

It was an adventure from the start. I thought, Oh Im going to try and not be picked. Oh, we were picked.

Ill submit this and not be selected. Oh they were selected. I actually thought we would have seats way in the back where we could touch the ceiling but when I opened the envelope up and saw that our tickets were front row orchestra, I just couldnt believe it. It was an amazing situation, she said. I just really enjoyed working with the students and the teachers, I couldnt have done it by myself because it was all for them. It was an incredible adventure from day one until today.
Judge Brouck Jacobs ordered the Columbia-based University of Missouri to comply with a discovery request of its biojoint surgery records, according to the Columbia Tribune.

Five things to know:

1. In 2018, two patients sued two physicians at Missouri Orthopaedic Institute, which MU operates, after undergoing what they claim were failed Mizzou Biojoint surgeries.

2. The judge denied a motion for a protective order to prevent some discovery but granted the plaintiffs the opportunity to file an amended complaint. In the complaint, university curators allegedy violated the state's Merchandising Practice Act by falsely marketing the procedure.

3. MU attorneys fought the discovery request, which comprises 103 separate requests and 29 questions, claiming it presented an undue burden. The university is arguing by including the board of curators in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are evading state medical malpractice caps.

4. Per the judge's dismissal of MU's motion for a protective order, the plaintiffs have 30 days to file an amended complaint. "Attorneys for the plaintiffs will argue the curators do not enjoy sovereign immunity because the university had insurance to protect them from such claims," according to a motion to amend reported by the Columba Tribune.

5. The Mizzou Biojoint Surgery is trademarked by the university and uses bone and cartilage from organ donors to replace parts of the knee. The osteochondral allograft procedure is designed to be an alternative to knee replacement. The biojoint procedure at the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute allegedly uses significantly more tissue than other allograft procedures.
Healthcare workers at St. Vincent Indianapolis face job uncertainty as the system plans to buy out the minority owner of its microhospitals, the Indianapolis Business Journal reports.

St. Vincent is the majority owner of five "neighborhood" hospitals offering patients inpatient and emergency care services. The system reportedly has signed a letter of intent to buy out the hospitals from Houston-based Tandem Hospital Partners, the minority owner. The transaction is expected to close Feb. 1.

St. Vincent asked employees of the neighborhood hospitals who want to stay employed there to submit information to St. Vincent, according to the Journal.

"During the next 30 days, we will review the organizational structure, and this may or may not have implications to the initial job that you are hired into with St. Vincent," a Jan. 18 memo said. "Many of the functions at the neighborhood hospitals will continue to be needed, however we anticipate that some functions/positions will be supported by existing St. Vincent resources."

A St. Vincent spokesperson did not disclose the potential number of jobs affected to the Journal.

Tandem did not return the Journal's requests for comment.

St. Vincent Indianapolis is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ascension. Its Indiana neighborhood hospitals are in Indianapolis, Avon, Anderson and Plainfield.

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Orlando, Fla.-based Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies installed ballet bars in its hallways for pregnant women to use during labor, reports News 6 WKMG.

The hospital installed the bars in December 2018 to provide support for women who want to walk around between contractions.

"It can be a long 12 hours, 18 hours just laying [sic] there watching the clock," Debra Davis, MSN, RN, nursing operations manager at Winnie Palmer Hospital, told News 6 WKMG.

The bars can also help with balance and endurance for women who have been on bed rest and need to rebuild muscle.
The House and Senate held separate hearings Jan. 29 to address high drug prices, according to STAT.

Four takeaways from the hearings:

1. Both hearings covered a broad range of industry topics, including direct-to-consumer drug ads, the drug patent system and the role of pharmacy benefit managers. Lawmakers invited drug company CEOs to testify at both hearings, but none accepted the offer.

2. During the House Oversight Committee's hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, proposed cutting exclusivity periods granted for new drugs. He also accused House Democrats of launching an investigation into high drug prices as "an attempt to score political points," instead of an honest effort to find answers, according to STAT.

3. The publication noted the Senate Finance Committee's hearing was more subdued and policy-focused than the House's. Senators on both sides of the aisle agreed on the need to end "anti-competitive" drug company behavior and reform Medicare's prescription drug benefit. They proposed paying physicians a flat rate for drugs administered through Medicare Part B. At present, physicians receive a percentage of the drug's price, which could encourage them to prescribe more expensive medications.

4. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, also denounced drug executives' lack of attendance at the hearing and vowed to investigate the high price of insulin.

To view STAT's full report on the hearings, click here.
A woman has sued St. Barnabas Hospital in New York City, claiming she gave permission to withdraw life support for a stranger the hospital mistakenly identified as her brother, according to The Washington Post.

Six things to know:

1. In July, a St. Barnabas Hospital employee called Shirell Powell to tell her that her brother had been admitted to the hospital and was near death. She went to visit the man she believed was her brother, Frederick Williams, who was unconscious from an apparent drug overdose and had suffered brain damage.

2. When it became clear a few weeks later that he wasn't going to recover, Ms. Powell gave the hospital permission to withdraw life support, according to the lawsuit.

3. Ms. Powell is suing the hospital for unspecified damages after discovering her brother is still alive and that she gave the hospital permission to end life support for a stranger, according to The Washington Post.

4. Ms. Powell's real brother is in jail. He was arrested in July and has been jailed on Rikers Island in New York City. Ms. Powell and her family were unaware of the arrest.

5. The hospital allegedly mixed up two men with similar names. The error was discovered when the medical examiner performed an autopsy. Ms. Powell told the New York Post that the man she visited in the hospital looked like her brother. She thought the brain damage had caused his face to swell.

6. Regarding the lawsuit, a hospital spokesperson told the New York Post, "We don't feel there is any merit to this claim."

Access the full New York Post article here.

Access the full Washington Post article here.

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Stark Pharmacy will pay $9.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, which makes it a crime to make a false record or file a false claim about any federal healthcare program.

The lawsuit, U.S. ex rel. Barnes v. Stark Pharmacy, et al., accuses the Overland Park, Kansas-based pharmacy of improperly waiving or reducing patient copays, changing prescriptions without physician authorization, charging plans for a prescription that was different from what the patient received, and auto-filling prescriptions without patient consent.

The suit was brought by whistleblower Emily Barnes, a former pharmacist at Stark represented by the Graves Garrett law firm She will receive $1.5 million as part of the settlement.
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare completed the sale of its three remaining Chicago-area hospitals.

In July, Tenet entered into a definitive agreement to sell its three remaining hospitals in the Chicago area: Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago; Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Ill.; and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Ill. On Jan. 29, the company said the transaction had closed.

Tenet sold the three hospitals to Pipeline Health, a privately held hospital ownership and management company based in Los Angeles.

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Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina is seeking to buy four rural hospitals from Community Health Systems for $137 million, according to The Post and Courier.

The State Fiscal Accountability Authority granted MUSC Health permission to proceed with the purchase. The hospitals slated for acquisition are in Lancaster, Chester, Mullins and Florence, all in South Carolina.

"[The price] is not a final sale amount, more of an 'up to amount," said Patrick Cawley, MD, CEO of MUSC Health. "We remain on track in our discussions and negotiations and anticipate closing on this sale at the end of February."

Once the sale is finalized, CHS will have exited the South Carolina market entirely, having already sold two hospitals to Spartanburg (S.C.) Regional Healthcare System.
Seaford, Del.-based Nanticoke Health Services and Peninsula Regional Health System in Salisbury, Md., will sign a letter of intent to move forward with an affiliation.

Nanticoke decided to affiliate with Peninsula Regional after an 18-month search for a partner organization. The affiliation will allow both systems to improve access to services across the Delmarva Peninsula.

PRHS and Nanticoke look forward to exploring integration and how best to provide care to the communities we serve," said Steven Leonard, president and CEO of Peninsula Regional. "We are honored to have been selected by Nanticoke in this process. Peninsula Regional has a strong history of providing high quality care to the entire region. Our efforts have been focused on enhancing the quality of our complex, hospital-based services while improving access and the health of our communities. Our Board of Trustees, and our entire healthcare team, is looking forward to welcoming Nanticoke to the PRHS family."
Ernie Sadau is president and CEO of Irving, Texas-based CHRISTUS Health, which is composed of over 600 facilities and 45,000 employees across four states and four countries.

Mr. Sadau was promoted to president and CEO of CHRISTUS in 2011 after serving in leadership roles such as COO and senior vice president. He previously held a number of leadership positions at Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health.

Becker's Hospital Review caught up with Mr. Sadau to discuss the primary initiative he will focus on in 2019 and his view on healthcare innovation.

Editor's Note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: What one strategic initiative will demand the most of your time and energy in 2019?

Ernie Sadau: CHRISTUS has grown substantially in the last eight years, adding $3 billion to our assets under management. So lately we have been focused on continuing that growth and integrating our new ministries and partners to ensure the success of our system.

After all this focus on new growth, Ill be spending 2019 refocusing on the basics of healthcare, the simple "blocking and tackling" that's required to succeed in our industry and is unfortunately far from simple. I'll be ensuring that our community benefit commitments are on track, that our strategic approach to growth continues and that our clinical quality work brings us closer to our goal of zero harm, while at the same time being focused on our innovations.

Q: Healthcare takes a lot of heat for not innovating quickly. What's your take on this?

ES: I would agree. It's easy for many industry insiders to see why some are predicting that healthcare venture capital investing could hit an all-time high in 2019. Healthcare, which has at times focused on what's best for providers instead of patients, is ripe for disruption and innovation.

I welcome many of these changes, as they have the potential to drive all of us to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. I also understand, however, that they bring risk to our heavy investments in facilities and services that require intensive resources like our trauma services, and those other services we continue to support not because they are profitable, but because they are vital to the communities we serve. Its easy to see, therefore, that many health care leaders may be nervous about what their entrance means to our field.

But it's also easy to see that this kind of innovation can be better for those we serve, making healthcare more accessible and cost-effective. So while we look forward to working with those innovators who share our commitment to providing high quality care for all, I want to ensure that this collaborative spirit is alive and well on both sides.

Q: Can you share some praise with us about people you work with? What does greatness look like to you when it comes to your team?

ES: I cannot share enough praise about the people I work with. Our mission at CHRISTUS Health is "to extend the healing ministry of Jesus Christ," and I am humbled every day by the amazing Associates who make it a reality. I hear often about how they are saving lives during the day and then going to cut the lawn of the elderly woman who lives next to the hospital. Or pioneering first-of-their kind medical procedures in Latin America and serving on medical crews to fix the cleft palates of children in need. Or taking time out of their day jobs to mentor teenagers with disabilities, teaching them skills that will help them find jobs and gain independence. Or arriving late to their mothers funeral because they have stopped to help a woman on the side of the road in medical distress. There is not enough space or enough praise to summarize the amazing things our Associates do for our health system, our communities, and the individuals we are privileged to serve.

Those Associates and our support for them start with our team, where to me, greatness looks like trust. It looks like leaders I can trust, who will likewise extend umbrellas of grace to their coworkers when times are stressful or misunderstandings arise. Greatness looks like fun; we face many opportunities and many challenges, so we have to be able to laugh together. And finally, greatness looks like humility, understanding that our job is to serve our Associates as we support them in extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ as we find ways to provide care for all those who need us.
Odette Bolano, president and CEO of Boise, Idaho-based Saint Alphonsus Health System, addressed CMS' new price transparency rule in an op-ed in the Idaho Statesman.

The rule, which took effect Jan. 1, requires hospitals to publish their standard charges online. They must present the information in a machine-readable format that can be easily imported into a computer system and update the information at least annually.



In her op-ed, Ms. Bolano said that as a Catholic healthcare provider, Saint Alphonsus Health is "rooted in the conviction that mission-driven healthcare is a ministry of healing and is not in the business of selling a service or commodity."



She continued: "Buying healthcare is much more complicated than buying services or large items such as a car or home. It is a much deeper personal experience and decisions have lifelong consequences, not only for the individual, but also for family and loved ones. In Catholic healthcare, our focus is on the dignity of the patient, and we do not view patients as 'consumers or shoppers.'"



While Ms. Bolano said using a price estimator is a good first step for patients seeking more information on healthcare costs, she recommended patients call their insurance provider or hospital to get more personalized estimates.

To read the full op-ed, click here.



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Cash-strapped Sonoma Valley Hospital faces the same issues as many rural hospitals, including a disproportionate share of Medicaid and Medicare funding and a lower number of privately insured patients. But the California hospital is managing to defy gravity and remain open with some savvy strategizing, the North Bay Business Journal reports.

One cost-cutting move was closing the hospital's obstetrics department last October. The hospital also transferred ownership of home care service for free to Larkspur, Calif.-based Hospice by the Bay.

And an ad-hoc task force is studying a third potential cost-saving measure: whether to close its skilled nursing facility.

Outside of cost-cutting moves, the Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation announced in November that it would undertake a $20 million fundraising campaign to build an outpatient diagnostic center for the hospital.

On Jan. 14, Sonoma Valley Hospital CEO Kelly Mather told the Sonoma City Council that the foundation had raised $15.5 million, the Journal reported. The hospital projects the diagnostic center will increase net revenue by about $1.5 million annually partially because physicians won't have to refer patients to other locations for advanced diagnostic care.

In other efforts, Sonoma Valley Hospital last year finalized an affiliation with San Francisco-based UCSF Health to create an integrated health care network that will serve Sonoma Valley residents.

Access the North Bay Journal's full report here.

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Princeton (W.Va.) Community Hospital Association plans to develop an ASC.

What you should know:

1. The development will cost an estimated $75,000.

2. It will be located in Princeton, W.Va.

3. The West Virginia Health Care Authority issued a certificate of need for the project Jan. 17.
The North Carolina Department of Health denied Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health Care, Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Health System and Raleigh, N.C.-based WakeMed's ASC development applications, the Triangle Business Journal reports.

What you should know:

1. Five health organizations applied for approval to open ASCs. The state sought to fill six open operating rooms.

2. The state approved one-room ASC proposals from RAC Surgery and Raleigh-based OrthoNC, leaving four ORs available.

3. The state doesn't release its formal findings until five days after the denial.

4. A projection shows Wake County will need at least six more ORs by 2020 to meet growing demand, Triangle Business Journal reports.
Here are 21 ASCs that were opened or announced in January 2019:

The New York Public Health and Health Planning Council awarded OrthoNY, Albany ENT & Allergy Services PC and St. Peter's Hospital preliminary approval for their $11.5 million surgery center development. All locations are based in Albany, N.Y.

A group of Buffalo, N.Y.-neurosurgeons received preliminary approval for their $7.8 million surgery center from the Public Health and Health Planning Council's establishment committee.

The joint venture Champaign (Ill.) Surgery Center will open Feb. 4, replacing the older Champaign SurgiCenter.

Greenville, S.C.-based Jervey Eye Group opened a new facility for advanced intraocular surgery and eye care services.

Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina plans to open an ASC in a former mall.

Akron, Ohio-based The Orthopaedic Surgery Center is constructing a bigger, $7 million facility in Boardman, Ohio.

San Antonio-based Mission Trail Baptist Hospital opened a surgery center to accommodate an increase in surgeries.

The two-story Riverview Surgical Center in South Sioux City, Neb., is taking shape.

Phoenix-based OrthoArizona and Addison, Texas-based United Surgical Partners International moved into a new medical office building and ASC in Gilbert, Ariz.

Beaver, Pa.-based Heritage Valley Health System's medical neighborhood facility in Center Township, Pa., will feature a surgery center.

Melrose, Mass.-based Melrose-Wakefield Healthcare received state approval to build a $16 million ASC at Medford, Mass.-based Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Orthopedic Associates of Hartford (Conn.) opened a $30 million facility in Rocky Hill, Conn.

The Washington Department of Health approved Walla Walla (Wash.) Clinic's proposal to open its surgery center to community physicians.

Quincy (Ill.) Medical Group is developing a surgery center in the Quincy Mall.

Pardee UNC Health Care's planned $16 million ASC is part of the nonprofit hospital's strategy for adapting to healthcare consumerism.

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based HonorHealth began construction on its Sonoran HonorHealth Medical Center with an ASC as part of a campus expansion.

Nueces Clinic and Surgery Center will anchor a planned two-story development in Plano, Texas. The building will feature an ASC with four operating rooms, office space and a diagnostic area.

Kingsport, Tenn.-based Holston Medical Group is reopening an outpatient surgery center in January in Bristol, Tenn., after the facility shut its doors in August 2018.

The Denison Planning and Zoning Commission approved plans for a maxillofacial and oral surgery center near Denison, Texas-based Texoma Medical Center.

Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center is developing a 260,000-square-foot outpatient center in Katy, Texas.

Fairmont, W.Va.-based Valley Health System and East Mountain Health Physicians partnered to build a 40,000-square-foot ambulatory care center in Martinsburg, W.Va.
WASHINGTON  Former Texas Republican Party Chair Steve Munisteri, one of the architects of the state party's minority engagement efforts, said Wednesday that he is leaving his White House job to join U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's 2020 reelection campaign.

Munisteri, 61, will be returning to Texas after two years in the Trump administration, where he serves as deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison.

"I never planned to be a DC person," Munisteri said in an interview. "I truly love the state. So for me, it was always going to be a one or two year thing."

Munisteri will start February 9 as a senior advisor to Cornyn's campaign.

"I gained a great deal of respect for Steve when he successfully led our party to new heights as chairman of the (Texas Republican Party) and have been proud to work with him in Washington as he's served President Trump in the White House," Cornyn said in a statement.

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The campaign said Munisteri will serve a chief liaison to the state party and its "2020 Victory" effort. As party chairman from 2010 to 2015, Munisteri is credited with helping encourage minority outreach and increase the number of Republican office holders in the state by nearly 70 percent.

Cornyn is running for his fourth term in the Senate, where he has served as one of the top lieutenants in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's leadership team. With the early endorsements of Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Cornyn is not expected to face any significant primary challenge for his party's nomination.

No general election challenger has emerged, though some Texas Democrats are encouraging a run by former El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who is also mulling a 2020 White House run on the strength of his narrow loss to Cruz in 2018.

Despite Cornyn's seemingly clear path to a fourth term, Munisteri, like other top Republican Party officials, warned that the GOP cannot take Texas for granted. Elections going back a decade  including Cruz's closer-than-expected victory over O'Rourke  demonstrate that Republicans have work to do to maintain their generational dominance in the Lone Star State, he said.

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"Texas is not as solidly Republican as people think," Munisteri said. "You have to treat it like a swing state."

Munisteri left his state party post in 2015 to work on the presidential campaign of his longtime friend, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky. He joined the Trump administration in its early days after working as an aide to former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who briefly served as Trump's chief of staff.

Unlike Priebus and a host of other Trump staffers who were either fired or quit under pressure, Munisteri said he is leaving with no ill-will toward the president or his administration.

"I was treated well and fairly," Munisteri said, disclaiming any interest in a tell-all book.
When Elizabeth Ferrari spoke to her brother last week, he seemed fine. The 59-year-old Navy veteran was happy and, it appeared, life was good.

NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message

His neighbors had spotted him out and about walking the dog.

But, generally, he and his wife of 21 years kept to themselves.

They didn't seem like troublemakers.

Then on Monday, both Dennis Tuttle and his wife Rhogena Nicholas were killed in a shoot-out with police during a drug raid gone wrong.

A day later his family offered kind words for the five lawmen wounded in the drug bust.

"We are so sorry that this situation happened," Ferrari said. "My prayer is for the officers and their families."

READ MORE: Acevedo pushes elected officials for gun reform

But at the same time, Ferrari and others who knew the couple started asking questions: Had the quiet, Harding Avenue couple really gotten into heroin?

"I don't buy it at all," Ferrari said. "Not one hot minute."

The raid started around 5 p.m., when an undercover narcotics officer burst into the house with a shotgun and killed a pit bull that allegedly lunged at him, officials said.

At the same time, Tuttle ran around from the rear of the house with a .357 Magnum revolver and opened fire, hitting one officer in the shoulder.

When the shot lawman collapsed onto a sofa in the living room, a woman - later identified as 58-year-old Nicholas - reached over and allegedly made a move for his weapon, Houston police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday morning at a news conference at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

A backup officer shot at Nicholas and hit her, but the shoot-out continued. In the end, four officers were hit, including a 54-year-old, who officials identified as the case agent who breached the door while the first officers entered the house.

READ MORE: 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured

It's not clear how many shots were fired, or how many officers fired their weapons.

Afterward, authorities recovered marijuana and a white powder - possibly cocaine or fentanyl - along with two 12-gauge shotguns, a 20-gauge shotgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a second rifle. It's not clear whether the couple may have legally owned them, and police didn't specify what quantities of the suspected drugs were recovered.

The whole thing, officials said, came about as the result of an undercover drug sale before the raid. In that instance, police allegedly bought black tar heroin from someone at the home. It's not clear if there were repeated sales or who the alleged seller was, but police said they first learned of the alleged drug den from complaints by neighbors.

Police did not recover any heroin on Monday.

To those who knew the long-time couple, it all came as a shock.

"I can't believe she's dead," Monique Caballero, a friend of the couple, said, as she sobbed on the phone. "They were private people. They stayed at home. They loved their dogs; they loved their animals."

UPDATE: Acevedo says one injured officer is 'in a fight' for survival

She'd never gotten any indication the couple did or sold drugs, and forcefully questioned the official narrative.

"I cannot believe this; she's not like that. " Caballero said. "She's not a drug addict or dealer."

Instead, she said, officers killed "innocent people."

Other friends and relatives offered similar disbelief.

Nicholas grew up in Mississippi, and later moved to Texas where she got married in 1990. Her first husband, Bennie Valites, said Tuesday that he hadn't seen her in roughly a decade, but he had never known her to use drugs.

After the two separated, Nicholas remarried in 1998, this time to Tuttle. She only had one prior arrest in Harris County - a misdemeanor charge for a bad check. She paid restitution for the $100, and a judge tossed the case, court records show.

Tuttle doesn't appear to have any local criminal history at all, and his sister said he'd been honorably discharged from the Navy.

He took prescription pills for injuries stemming from his time in the service, but there was no indication of any hard drug use, Ferrari said.

"My brother was a fine human being," she said. "He was a kind human, it's just a sad, sad situation."

keri.blakinger@chron.com
State officials on Tuesday acknowledged widespread errors in their list of 95,000 Texas voters flagged as potential non-citizens, reinforcing the concerns of advocates who say the states effort amounts to illegal voter suppression.

In Harris County alone, officials said, more than 60 percent of nearly 30,000 names on a list the state supplied last week are being removed after new guidance from state officials. Voter registrars in several other counties reported getting similar calls Tuesday from the Texas Secretary of States office, which last week said its review showed that 95,000 registered voters did not appear to be U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the League of United Latin American Citizens sued Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking for data used to develop the original list. The disclosure that many of those on the states list had been found to be U.S. citizens intensified the concerns that prompted the suit.

The lawsuit accuses Whitley and Paxton of violating federal election laws. It says the initiative, announced last week by Paxton and Whitleys office, is a method of voter suppression seen around the country and a witch hunt meant to instill fear primarily in Hispanic voters.

Thats all theyre doing, said Luis Vera, LULACs national general counsel. Theyve done it in Florida; theyve done it in Arizona and other states. Its voter intimidation, voter threats.

Zenen Perez, the advocacy and communications director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the secretary of states office should rescind the entire advisory.

In announcing the list last week, Whitley and Paxton hailed the effort as part of a fight against fraudulent voting. Conservative Texas leaders, along with President Donald Trump, have alleged that illegal voting and voter fraud are serious problems that justify voter identification laws and other policies seen by advocates as voter suppression strategies.

In response to reports about the removal of names from the states list, the secretary of states office said in an emailed statement that it was continuing to provide information to the counties to assist them in verifying eligibility of Texas voters.

This is to ensure that any registered voters who provided proof of citizenship at the time they registered to vote will not be required to provide proof of citizenship as part of the counties examination, the statement read.

On Tuesday, officials in several counties were told to remove from their lists names of people who registered to vote at Texas Department of Public Safety offices.

Cheryl Johnson, Galveston countys tax assessor-collector, said her office started sending letters Monday asking people on the list to verify their citizenship or risk expulsion from voter rolls. But on Tuesday, Johnson said, the secretary of states office notified her that some on the list had been verified as citizens.

We managed to retrieve the second batch of letters that we were going to mail today, said Johnson. The ones we sent yesterday, were going to go back and check those.

Johnson said 837 Galveston County voters were flagged by the state, and her office sent letters to 92 registered voters on Monday with plans to mail more on subsequent days. The letters ask that the recipients provide a U.S. passport, birth certificate or citizenship papers to her office within 30 days, she said.

Johnson said she realized by Tuesday afternoon that more than half of the letters sent Monday matched a source code the secretary of states office said to check. She plans to send a letter to those affected on Wednesday. Ten letters that were supposed to be mailed out on Tuesday were also pulled, but her office still planned to send out 77 letters to registered voters in the area.

Were not going to infringe on anybodys right to be a registered voter, Johnson said. What we are trying to do is ensure the integrity of the voter roll for all citizens of Texas and all the citizens and voters in my county.

Authorities in Jefferson, Orange and Hardin counties each confirmed that they had received notice from the state that some of the flagged voters did not belong on the list of potential noncitizens.

None of the fewer than 300 flagged voters in Jefferson County, which includes Beaumont and Port Arthur, had yet been notified of any potential problem, Tax Assessor-Collector Allison Getz said. She said she did not know how many of those were wrongly on the list.

The notice didnt tell us whether or not it is under 300 total or for today, or this week, or this month, said Getz, who is also the county voter registrar. The way the voter registration works is on an honor system, trusting that you are telling the truth about your citizenship. My job is to make sure everyone follows the law.

Orange County Elections Administrator Tina Barrow said her office was notified of fewer than 100 people on the initial list and that a smaller number  probably not more than 20  did not belong there.

An employee who answered the phone in Hardin County confirmed that officials there had received notice of names that didnt belong on the initial list. The employee, who declined to be identified, did not provide additional information.

Brooke Lewis reported from Houston and Erica Apodaca contributed from Beaumont. Reporters Guillermo Contreras and Dylan McGuinness also contributed.
In February, Texans experienced forced rolling and extended blackouts ordered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas as demand for electricity spiked during a winter storm. On Monday, ERCOT took precaution to avoid blackouts by urging Texans to conserve power through Friday as summer temperatures continue to rise. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, and ERCOT officials said the outages were unexpected. Are you satisfied with ERCOTs oversight of the states electric grid?

You voted:
After years of planning and construction, St. Jude Thaddeus Church has revealed a colorful mosaic composed of almost 1 million minuscule pieces of glass from Italy.

The mural reaches almost three stories high on the wall behind the churchs altar. It depicts the 12 apostles of the Catholic faith along with four North American born saints, St. Juan Diego, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Katharine Drexel and St. Kateri Tekakwitha. In the center of the mural, a circle of light, symbolizing the tabernacle, frames a 9-foot statue of Jesus.

> > PHOTOS: Art within the architecture of Beaumont's buildings

The decision to put a mosaic on that wall came as a way to get back to the original theme for the church over 40 years ago, Father Tom Phelan said. That theme is completely built around Chapter 6 of Johns Gospel The Bread of Life.

A belief central to the Catholic faith holds that the bread served during Mass is transformed into the body of Christ, given up for the people as a means of forgiveness of sins.

Meticulous artistry

St. Judes 715-square-foot mosaic stands about three stories tall, covering the main wall behind the altar. It consists of hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of glass known as smalti tesserae, which are cut in Italy.

We went with a company called Cavallini Co. Inc. They helped design the picture and then sent it to Italy so that it could get cut. Once it came back to the U.S., it was installed here by their artists, Phelan said.

Cavallini is based in San Antonio and was founded in 1953. Beaumont is home to several pieces the company has worked on, including stained-glass designs in St. Judes chapel, stained glass in the McFadden Ward House and hurricane-resistant stained glass at St. Anthonys Cathedral.

The process of bringing the mosaic to St. Judes began near the end of 2017 when Phelan met with Cavallini owner and president Adrian J. Cavallini to develop the design.

After the approval of the design in February 2018, it was sent to Italy to be cut. In September, the unassembled mosaic pieces rode on a boat for almost six weeks in a voyage across the ocean back to the United States.

The biggest issue we had was trying to assemble the mosaic around the existing 9-foot tall statue of Christ, Cavallini said. It was by far the biggest mosaic I personally have ever worked on. We never would have completed the project on time if it werent for my son.

Cavallinis son, whom he described as a master of the artform, served as primary leader on the project.

Cavallini said the assembly of such an elaborate mosaic is exacting. As small but crucial a detail as too much or too little water in the mix as the pieces are set in place could ruin the whole thing.

Meaningful mural

The words I am the bread of life are inscribed on the mural between the two clusters of saints. At the top of the mural, in front of a space colored with shades of blue, red and yellow, a 6-foot crucifix is suspended.

The crucifix is transparent so that the swaths of color formed by the mosaic tiles behind it are visible.

The point of the crucifix is really to tie all of the aspects of Catholicism together without being overbearing and taking away from the main message of Christ being the bread of life, Phelan said.

Since the unveiling of the mosaic, the church has received positive feedback.

I got to see the piece at every stage of the process, said Kelly Broussard, a church parishioner. The first time I saw it was at night and I didnt have any words for how beautiful it was. But then I saw it again when the sun was coming through the windows and hitting it, and it brought tears to my eyes.

The idea for the mosaic originated with Phelan, who wanted to change the monochromatic feel of the church.

First he began using the original altar again. Then he removed the massive wooden cross that sat next to the statue of Jesus. The wooden cross is now being transformed into smaller crosses for parishioners, Broussard said.

Finally, Phelan pitched the idea of the mosaic, which was then drafted and set into motion.

In the Catholic faith, it is a tradition to tell the stories through art and the way the space is decorated, Broussard said. I believe the mosaic has really enhanced the sacred space of the church.
A Texas lawmaker wants to legalize casino gambling in some Texas counties and use some of the proceeds to provide relief to residents affected by future hurricanes and other storms.

Texas state Rep. Joe Deshotel, DBeaumont, filed the bill in December that would guarantee casino licenses in Harris, Galveston, Jefferson, Nueces and Bexar counties.

Three other licenses would be allotted for other counties along the state's Gulf Coast, according to the bill.

> > ALSO: Some of the most notable or unique bills filed in the Texas Legislature

The bill aims to place an 18 percent tax on casino revenue, about half of which would be allocated into the catastrophe reserve trust fund.

The bill also creates what Deshotel is calling the catastrophic flooding assistance trust fund, which is where the rest of the taxed revenue would wind up.

That fund would not be subject to the state's budget bill, but legislators would be able to put state money into the fund if it wanted to do so.

> > PHOTOS: Tour Beaumont's first poker club

Both funds could be used by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to provide emergency relief to flood or wind-damage victims of hurricanes and other severe storms throughout the state.

Even if the bill passes through the Texas Legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas voters will have a say in whether or not casino gambling will be allowed.

Casino gambling is currently barred by the Texas Constitution. Deshotel also filed a separate resolution asking for a constitutional amendment allowing the bill to take effect if passed.

That amendment, if approved by the legislature, would go to a statewide vote in November 2019.
A teen that allegedly participated in a man's murder by luring him to the scene on the promise of sex has been indicted on a murder charge, according to documents from Jefferson County.

Jaqiera Janay Alpough, 17, was indicted Wednesday by a Jefferson County Grand Jury for the murder of Kevon Jeffrey Washington last March at the Lakeview Palms Apartments in the 5200 block of Gulfway Drive.
An accused murderer has died after hanging himself in the Waller County jail, a sheriff's office official confirmed Wednesday.

Evan Lyndell Parker, 34, died a month after an inspection by regulators revealed that jailers didn't meet certain standards for frequency of observing prisoners  a deficiency also identified after the 2015 death of Sandra Bland in the same jail. Bland's suicide drew national attention and heightened the conversation about the treatment of African-Americans by police.

Parker died on Sunday, according to Shawna Willke, an administrative assistant in the sheriff's office. He had attempted suicide by hanging two days earlier.

"All I can say is, it's extremely unfortunate when it happens," said Waller County Judge Trey Duhon. "Even with the best of precautions, it is always possible that somebody intent on taking their life could be successful. All we can do is make sure we meet guidelines and do the routine checks. At this point, it looks like that was done."

The last known suicide at the jail was in July 2015, when Bland, then 28, was found dead from hanging in her cell three days after she was arrested during a traffic stop.

Bland's family in 2016 settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $1.9 million with Waller County officials and the state trooper who arrested Bland near Prairie View A & M, her alma mater. The trooper, Brian Encinia, was terminated from the Texas Department of Public Safety and cannot get another job in law enforcement as a result of the incident.

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Bland's death prompted investigations and eventually changed screening practices in jails across the state in an effort to prevent similar deaths. Waller County worked to make changes at its jail and is building a new one after a $39.5 million bond proposal passed.

Despite the changes, the most recent jail inspection report immediately available for Waller County, from December 2018, showed a violation similar to a finding after Bland's death.

FOR SUBSCRIBERS: HBO's Sandra Bland documentary makes her more than a statistic

Jailers are required to complete face-to-face observation of all inmates at least once per hour. The December inspection found that the Waller County jail staff exceeded the time limit by a little over two and a half hours.

Inmates who are known to be assaultive, potentially suicidal, mentally ill or who have demonstrated bizarre behavior are subject to more frequent observations  at least every half-hour. The report said Waller County jail staff exceeded this limit by up to 74 minutes.

In 2015, jailers had spoken with Bland via an intercom, rather than the required face-to-face observation, about an hour before discovering her hanging in her cell.

In the more recent inspection, the jail was also cited for four jailers lacking documented training for emergency situations for the third quarter of 2018. In addition, inspectors found that three inmates were not classified properly during their initial assessment.

Duhon referred comments about the violations to Sheriff Glenn Smith.

"They're certainly entitled to their opinions," Duhon said of jail critics, "but anybody who wants to come down to our jail and see all the changes and processes we've made since 2015 is welcome to do that. The self-checks are conducted with more frequency than ever before. We have medical staff. We spent a lot of time and money improving the situation at the Waller County Jail."

Brandon Wood, the executive director of the Texas Commission Jail Standards, said the agency was notified about Parker's death on Sunday.

Asked why information about Parker's death was not immediately released to the public, Duhon said the Texas Rangers office requested that all press releases come from its media office. He also said Parker's mother, now in a California penitentiary, had to be notified.

The sheriff's office posted a message to its Facebook page on Wednesday discussing the details of Parker's death. Parked died Sunday morning Memorial Hermann Hospital, according to the statement. It added that there had been "no indications of wrong doing or violations of policy with this event."

"There has been no indications of wrong doing or violations of policies with this event," the Sheriff R. Glenn Smith wrote.

Outside agency investigations including the Texas Rangers and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards are pending along with any autopsy results, the statement said.

"As with any tragedy of this nature, the Waller County Sheriff's Office encourages all investigations and any results from them," the statement said.

It was unclear what led to Parker's attempted suicide, which occurred in the early morning hours of Jan. 25, according to a statement posted on the Waller County District Attorney's Facebook page. Parker apparently was rushed to a hospital in Houston, where he was treated for injuries, the statement said. The FBI and Texas Rangers were asked to take over the investigation.

Parker was accused on Jan. 9 of killing 64-year-old Harry Parnell and critically injuring 36-year-old Jose Rangel. The three worked at Orizon Industries in Waller County.

It's unclear what led to the stabbing, although it is believed to have been work-related, deputies said. Parker fled afterward in a gray 2014 Nissan Versa. The charges against him were filed on Jan. 10.

Bland's death, meanwhile, continues to resonate in Houston and beyond.

An exhibit honoring her memory opened in 2018 at the Houston Museum of African American Culture. John Guess Jr., the museum's chief executive officer, who proposed the exhibit, said he wanted it to accurately depict Bland's personality and kindle a larger discussion about the fear African-Americans feel when they are stopped by law enforcement.

Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, attended the grand opening and was moved to tears. Even so, she told The Houston Chronicle last February she still did not have peace about her daughter's death.

"Absolutely not, because I still don't know how she left here," said Reed-Veal. "It gives me a sense of peace about the fact that it was necessary for me to participate in the carrying on of her legacy."

Samantha Ketterer and St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.


Harris County on Tuesday reached a settlement with the family and estate of man who was killed in 2015 by deputies at the county jail.

The $2.5 million settlement was approved by Harris County Commissioners Court, said Jeff Edwards, an Austin-based lawyer who worked on the case on behalf of the slain man's children.

Edwards hoped the payout would signal to county officials "that if someone is killed because of your practices, the amount of any settlement will be sizable."

"It will be noticed by sheriffs and law enforcement officials throughout the state  and frankly across the country," he added.

The Harris County Commissioner's Court could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday night.

Kenneth Christopher Lucas, 38, died in 2015 while deputies were restraining him.

Lucas had been in custody for a week on a child custody issue when he failed to hand over a piece of metal he had sharpened, the Chronicle reported at the time.

Deputies at the Harris County jail then reportedly handcuffed him, strapped him to a gurney, sat on his back and had a nurse administer a sedative.

In video of the killing, released by then-Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Lucas can be heard complaining of trouble breathing.

"I'm going to pass out," he shouts.

County jailers previously used a method to restrain people that was "akin to hog-tying someone," Edwards said.

The county changed those practices shortly after Lucas' death, according to Edwards.

"This wasn't just a case about officers employing deadly restraint," Edwards said. "It was a case of the sheriff condoning it and the county teaching people that this was the right way to do things."

Adrian Garcia, who now serves as a county commissioner, recused himself from the vote.
Art Museum of Southeast Texas will hold the 33rd annual Protege Competition and Exhibition, showcasing work by local high school seniors, on view February 21 through March 24.

Multi-disciplinary artist Joo Young Choi will be a juror for the competition. Selected artists will have to opportunity to attend a framing workshop, and prizes for winners include scholarships to Lamar University and funds for art supplies.
Manhattan, KS (66502)

Today

Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 99F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies and rain overnight. Low 63F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Tazewell County Sheriff Brian Hieatt held a press conference in Tazewell Monday afternoon relating to the search for two 14-year-old boys who ran away from their homes almost a week ago and believed to still be in the area. At left is Michael Trivett, step-father of Dakota Avery Crouse. The other juvenile is Ricky Sean Harrison.
Joseph Luiz can be reached at 395-7368 or by email at jluiz@bakersfield.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @JLuiz_TBC.
You can reach Sam Morgen at 661-395-7415 or smorgen@bakersfield.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @smorgenTBC.
Jason Barry is best known for his Dirty Dining Report which airs Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on CBS 5. He is also the storyteller behind CBS 5's Pay It Forward which airs every Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
A boy who was lost in the woods says a bear kept him company. No one can prove it didn't happen.
By Trend

As many as 1.174 million people have crossed the Bilasuvar customs checkpoint in Irans Ardabil province this Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), governor of Bilasuvar district of Ardabil province Hasan Gobadi said, Trend reports via IRNA.

Some 1.05 million people of this amount were tourists, foreign citizens, mostly Azerbaijani citizens, he noted.

He said that 85 percent of tourists (993,000 people) went on foot and 180,000 people passed the Bilasuvar customs checkpoint by using various transport means.

He added that 54,000 trucks, 2,000 buses and 17,000 cars entered Iran during this period.

In comparison with the same period last year, there was a 33-percent decrease in the number of trucks, 9 percent decrease in the number of cars and 7 percent decrease in the number of buses.

During this period, a total of 311,000 tons of products were exported from Bilasuvar customs checkpoint to Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia by 13,700 trucks, and this is a 107 percent increase over the same period last year, he said.

He added that 24,300 tons of goods were imported to Iran via Bilasuvar customs checkpoint by 1,113 trucks during the ten months of this Iranian year.

He said that ceramic, potatoes, various glassware and building materials, salt, bitumen and particle board are mainly exported, while cotton, various seeds, animal feed and artificial fiber are mainly imported.

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By Trend

The National Space Agency under the President of Turkmenistan has been reorganized into the Space Administration of the Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency (Turkmen Communication), Trend reports with reference to the Turkmen presidential decree.

The Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency is under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Ministry of Industry and Communication of Turkmenistan.

The document prescribed to ensure the preparation and approval of the draft regulation on the space administration of the Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency.

The decision to establish the National Space Agency under the President of Turkmenistan was made in May 2011. At the same time, the Turkmen Hemrasy CJSC (Turkmen Satellite) was established.

Turkmenistan launched its first telecommunications satellite TurkmenAlem 520E from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) in 2015 with the help of SpaceX, the US company, in order to start space research.

The first Turkmen satellite is equipped with three antennas, the coverage area of which includes dozens of countries in Europe and Asia, as well as countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The satellite has 38 active communication channels-transponders. Of these, 26 are used by Turkmenistan, the remaining 12 have been given on the long-term lease to Space Systems International-Monaco S. A. M. company.

TurkmenAlem 520E satellite is able to provide satellite telephony, data transmission and other types of communication between ground stations located at distances up to 10,000-15,000 kilometers from each other.

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By Trend

The center of the financial structure envisaged in the Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) mechanism may be located in France, head of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Mohammadreza Modoudi said, Trend reports via Tasnim news agency.

He said that the financial structure will be managed by Germany, while the UK will carry out its implementation.

He added that the financial line within the SPV will help develop banking relations with Iran.

There are reasons why France, Germany and the UK cooperate with Iran in the financial mechanism, he said. It is their commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Iran, and they will operate in a way that would make it difficult for the US to react to this financial mechanism.

He said that it is still unclear to what extent the financial mechanism will contribute to the joint operation of Iranian and European companies.

Following the US sanctions against Iran in November 2018, the EU intends to establish a SPV to safeguard financial ties with Iran within the JCPOA. This financial mechanism hasnt started operating yet.

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By Trend

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed a decree on the creation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection and the State Committee for Water Resources of the country, Trend reports with reference to the document.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, the State Committee for the Environmental Protection and Land Resources have been transferred to the jurisdiction of the new ministry.

The State Committee for Water Resources of Turkmenistan has been declared successor on water management issues of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources.

By a separate decree, the structures of the central office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan, as well as the State Committee for Water Resources, have been approved.

New structures, together with the Ministry of Justice, have been instructed within a month to prepare and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers proposals on introducing changes and additions arising from this decree to the legislation of Turkmenistan.

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By Trend

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed a decree on the establishment of the Ministry of Industry and Communication of Turkmenistan, Trend reports with reference to the document.

The Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Railway Transport, the Ministry of Road Transport, the Ministry of Communications, the State Service of Maritime and River Transportation, the Turkmenistan Airlines have been transferred to the jurisdiction of the new ministry.

According to a separate decree, provision on this ministry and the structure of its central office have been approved.

The document prescribed the Ministry of Industry and Communication, together with the Ministry of Justice, within three months to prepare and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers proposals on introducing amendments and additions arising from this decree to the legislation of the country.

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By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Pakistan Ali Alizade held a meeting with Pakistani Federal Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan.

The sides discussed issues related to the implementation of the Agreement on energy cooperation between the two countries, further development of economic and trade relations, highlighted the need to increase efforts to boost trade turnover.

The sides expressed satisfaction with the current state of the Azerbaijani-Pakistani relations and underlined the importance of the mutual support of both countries in the energy sector.

The participation of Pakistani oil and gas companies, managers and specialists in the traditional Caspian Oil and Gas Exhibition-Conference and the strengthening of cooperation in this field will contribute to the economic and trade relations between the two countries.

Energy ministries of both Pakistan and Azerbaijan had signed an inter-governmental agreement in February 2017 for the supply of a number of oil and gas products, including furnace oil, petrol, diesel and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

However, the documents of the deal turned into a shuttlecock between Pakistan State Oil (PSO) offices in Karachi and the Petroleum Division in Islamabad due to bureaucratic hiccups.

PSO and Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR are now expected to formally sign a commercial agreement for the supply of motor gasoline (petrol) against a 4-6 months credit facility of $100-150 million.

Pakistan signed government-to-government deals with Azerbaijan in various areas including supply of electricity, crude and refined oil products, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) on June 20, 2016.

The agreements were set to alllow the two countries to sign multibillion-dollar agreements for trading in oil and gas without going through the bidding process.

Pakistan has long been an importer of crude and refined oil products from Middle Eastern countries and is now exploring opportunities of importing LNG from other countries including Italy, France, China and Malaysia.

AzerbaijanPakistan relations are considered to be of "strategic partners" nature.

The strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Pakistan has contributed to the cooperation in economic, trade, military-technical, energy, tourism and other spheres.

There are about 300 Pakistani companies and businessmen working in our country. Also, there was a multiple increase in the number of tourists coming from Pakistan to our country. Work on the establishment of direct flights between the two countries is currently underway.

According to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $8.34 million in January-September 2018. Compared to the same period of 2017, trade turnover has increased by 22.46 percent. The bulk of the turnover fell on Pakistani exports to Azerbaijan.

Pakistan became the second country after Turkey that recognized the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991. The diplomatic relations between two countries were established on June 9, 1992.

Pakistan backed Azerbaijan during and after the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Pakistan fully supports Azerbaijan's fair position in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In 2012, Pakistan adopted a resolution strongly condemning the genocide against the civilian population of Khojaly, which was committed by Armenian armed forces. Then, in October 2013, the Senate adopted a document supporting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The military cooperation occupies a special place in Azerbaijan-Pakistan relations.

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By Leman Mammadova

The Southern Gas Corridor and its key elements have been discussed at the European Gas Conference in Vienna, Austria held on January 28-30.

The conference focused on the topics titled TAP and TANAP: Getting ready to receive gas and Developments of the Southern Gas Corridor.

Representatives of SOCAR and BP, as well as TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati are among the participants, AZERTAC reported.

The event was attended by representatives of the European Commission and various government officials, including OMV, Gazprom, Uniper, Eni, Total, Equinor, Fluxys.

Speaking at the event, TAP Executive Director Luca Schieppati emphasized that more than 84 percent of Trans Adriatic gas pipeline project (TAP), including engineering, procurement and construction, has been implemented to transport natural gas to Europe.

He noted that 97 percent of TAP pipes in Greece and Albania have already been defined. At the same time, Italy continues to work on construction of the terminal and micro-tunnel.

Earlier, Schieppati said that TAP has completed its $4.5 billion (3.9 billion euros) project financing, paving the way for construction to be completed for start-up in 2020.

The Southern Gas Corridor, $ 40 billion worth project, envisages the transportation of gas to Turkey and Europe through the pipeline, which will be operated within the second stage of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field project in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.

The Southern Gas Corridor consists of four projects: Shah Deniz 2, Expansion of South Caucasus Pipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum), the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). The projects have an estimated investment cost of approximately $40 billion.

TAP envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz-2 gas field to Greece and southern Italy across the Adriatic Sea through Greece and Albania, and involves designing, construction and operation of the natural gas pipeline.

TAP will be the first non-Russian gas pipeline to supply Europe since the Medgaz link, which started deliveries from Algeria to Spain in 2011.

In 2018, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved loans for the project. The rest of the financing has come from export credit agencies and a group of 17 commercial banks, which include Bank of China, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and UniCredit.

On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on the TAP project was signed by Albania, Italy and Greece in February 2013. The 878-kilometer-long TAP pipeline (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers) having connected to the TANAP on the Turkish-Greek border, will run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south.

In November, TAP and TANAP successfully completed their connection on the banks of the Merich River on the Turkish-Greek border.

The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of doubling it.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

The TAP project is one of the strategic objectives of the EU in the energy security and diversification of energy sources, chosen as the shortest and direct way to export natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European markets.

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By Leman Mammadova

The state oil company SOCAR has revealed the information on drilling, production and export figures in 2018.

During the year, SOCAR drilled a total of 160,000 meters (excluding operating companies and joint ventures), which is 16.6 percent more than the previous year's figure, the company told Trend.

In 2018, SOCAR production totaled 7.54 million tons of oil and 6.53 billion cubic meters of gas, 1.6 percent and 7.2 percent more, respectively, compared to the same period of the previous year.

Generally, 38.81 million tons of oil and 30.49 billion cubic meters of natural gas were produced in the republic in 2018. Thus, annual oil production was relatively stable and gas production increased by 6.6 percent.

SOCAR supplied the domestic demand with 11.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas last year, so company fully provided about 89 percent of its natural gas to meet the domestic demand.

Last year, SOCAR exported 23.88 million tons of crude oil, 1.8 million oil refineries and petrochemical products and 1.42 billion cubic meters of gas.

In 2018, the total export of natural gas in the republic amounted to 9.44 billion cubic meters, which is 11 percent more than in 2017. As much as 2.23 billion cubic meters of natural gas exported to the Turkish market, and 2.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Georgian market.

Moreover, SOCAR transferred 1.604 billion manats ($ 0.94 billion) to the state budget in 2018.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is one of the world's 50 largest oil companies. SOCAR's mission is to ensure the energy security of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Established in 1992, SOCAR aimed at manage Azerbaijan's oil resources on the basis of a single state policy, to improve the management structure of the oil industry and to ensure the development of fuel and energy complex.

Three production divisions, one oil refineries and one gas processing plant, a deep water platform fabrication yard, two trusts, one institution, and 23 subdivisions are operating as corporate entities under SOCAR. SOCAR has a significant position in a number of regional and international energy projects.

Currently, SOCAR is the only producer of oil products in the country, and also operates more than 370 filling stations in Switzerland, Georgia, Romania and Ukraine.

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By Trend

Azerbaijan-Slavic Youth Association has sent a letter of protest to the European Parliament over its biased approach, Trend reports Jan. 30.

Armenias political party leader and political prisoner Mher Yeghiazaryan died in prison on January 26, after a 52-day hunger strike in Armenia, reads the letter. However, neither the PACE, the European Parliament, nor the OSCE, the US Senate, nor any other international organization have ever reacted to his death as a result of his hunger strike. Even this is not the case with the worlds popular media. The fact is that Yeghiazaryans arrest was purely political, and he died as a political prisoner in hunger strike.

This is one of the indications that political landscape in Armenia is in chaos, the letter says. International organizations are ignoring it. Why the Council of Europe, the US Senate, and other organizations, who make the arrests of Mehman Huseynov arrested for non-political reasons, or rather the issue of domestic affairs, declare him a political prisoner, and why they are silent about the political prisoner who died in Armenia? In general, international organizations are silent instead of adopting a relevant resolution condemning this terrible event in Armenia.

Family members of the party leader who died in prison have repeatedly appealed to international organizations and held a press conference on this issue, reads the letter. Nevertheless, there was no reaction to the incident. It was also confirmed that Yeghiazaryan was not a criminal and was arrested for political reasons. They repeatedly asked Pashinyan to intervene in this criminal case, but he didnt intervene in any form. All these processes have proven how politically motivated the case is, and if so, the silence of international organizations is simply a pity.

As a member of a civil society, we feel regrettable that a reputable organization such as yours applies dual standards, before its too late, we demand a legal and political assessment of the event for justice, the letter says. Fairness is the fundamental principle of civil society.

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By Trend

Azerbaijans Research Association of Social Problems has sent an appeal to the European Union over the biased attitude towards Azerbaijan shown recently by MEPs, Trend reports Jan. 29.

"The harassment policy of invader Armenia against Azerbaijan continues for more than 30 years," reads the appeal. Twenty percent of the Azerbaijani territories are occupied by the Armenian armed forces. More than one million Azerbaijanis were expelled from their homelands in Armenia and in Nagorno-Karabakh region.

It surprises us that the European Parliament remains in the position of observer in the case of human rights abuses in Armenia, which has become a mono-ethnic country, reads the appeal. On the eve of the OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999, the murder of prime minister, the speaker of the parliament and other high level officials in the Armenian parliament and also the killing of prisoners, as well as opposition party representatives show the level of arbitrariness in Armenia.

We strongly demand to stop such a double standard approach and biased attitude against Azerbaijan from the European Union, says the appeal.

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By Trend

The Azerbaijan Public Union for Assistance to Municipal Development has appealed to the European Parliament, Trend reports on Jan. 29.

According to the appeal, protest in connection with the unjust policy of this structure was expressed.

"After the 52-day hunger strike, head of the website and deputy chairman of the Armenian Eagles - United Armenia party, political prisoner Mher Yeghiazaryan, died in a correctional facility, the appeal said. Yeghiazaryan was arrested for his political activity on the basis of false accusations and he went on a hunger strike as a sign of protest on Dec. 5, 2018.

Hundreds of political activists, members of parties, former servicemen were arrested immediately after the change of political power in Armenia.

Such a structure as the European Parliament focuses on the current processes in Armenia, the appeal said. The European Parliament, which sets the traditions of democracy and human rights as the main criterion, must not turn a blind eye on the incident.

According to the appeal, the European Parliament adopted a resolution regarding Azerbaijani blogger Mehman Huseynov on January 17.

"According to the resolution, Mehman Huseynov allegedly went on a hunger strike and an accusation was allegedly brought against him, the appeal said. All the claims were not confirmed and no new charges were brought against Mehman Huseynov."

The Azerbaijani public, civil society institutions expect the European Parliament to immediately adopt a resolution in connection with the political prisoner who died as a result of the hunger strike in Armenia.

"Otherwise, the Azerbaijanis will perceive the European Parliament as a biased structure, deviating from the principles of democracy and operating on the basis of double standards, the appeal said. Parliamentarians must not regard the death of the political prisoner in Armenia as an ordinary incident. We ask you, why are you silent?! Why does the European Parliament accuse Azerbaijan of an incident which has not occurred and adopt a resolution regarding it without delay? Why does the European Parliament ignore a more heinous incident in Armenia?"

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By Trend

Armenias demand on providing the Armenian community with privileged rights after it ethnically cleansed the Azerbaijanis contradicts all documents, Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev said in Baku on Jan. 29.

Hajiyev made the remarks at a meeting of the board of the Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region with the representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Hajiyev reminded the grave consequences to which the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has led, reminded the participants of the event the position of the international community in connection with the settlement of the conflict, the requirements of four UN resolutions.

He also spoke about the consistent policy pursued by the government of Azerbaijan to improve the living conditions of all internally displaced persons and refugees, as well as the care of President Ilham Aliyev to the families of martyrs.

Hajiyev said that the constructive work carried out in Jojug Marjanli, ensuring a safe return of internally displaced persons once again demonstrates the determination of Azerbaijan to restore all the territories that will be freed from occupation, to establish peace and development.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev spoke about the grave consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and stressed that hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who lived in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding areas were forcibly expelled from their homes.

Mammad-Guliyev stressed the importance of liberation of Azerbaijani territories within the settlement of the conflict and the return of internally displaced people to their lands.

He brought to the attention of the event participants the importance of restoring contacts and dialogue between the two communities of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Mammad-Guliyev also stressed the great importance of restoring the violated fundamental human rights of internally displaced people, including 80,000 people of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The head of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, Tural Ganjaliyev, noted that according to the OSCE resolution in Helsinki of 1992, the Azerbaijani community is an interested party in resolving the conflict. Ganjaliyev informed the event participants that the Azerbaijani community is ready to establish contacts and constructive dialogue with the Armenian community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Then the members of the board of the Azerbaijani community from Khojaly, Durdana Agayeva and Samir Huseynov, made a speech. They noted that before the occupation of the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly, they lived together with the Armenians in an atmosphere of prosperity and stressed that the peaceful Armenian population had become hostage to the aggressive policy of Armenia.

During the event, other members of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan addressed their questions to representatives of the diplomatic corps in Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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By Trend

The fourth meeting of the member countries of the Cooperation Council of the Turkic Speaking States on information and communication technologies (ICT) is taking place in Kazakhstans Almaty city, a source in the Azerbaijani IT market told Trend Jan. 30.

Azerbaijan is represented at the meeting by the delegation of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies.

The meetings agenda includes issues of cooperation between the parties in the field of e-government, cybersecurity, issues of mutual recognition of e-signatures between the countries participating in the meeting, the source noted.

Prospects of cooperation between the parties are also considered as part of the Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) construction project initiated by Azerbaijan.

Technical work on the mutual recognition of e-signatures is underway between Azerbaijan and Turkey. The work is planned to be finalized this year.

The mutual recognition of e-signatures between the countries will simplify the registration of goods during crossing borders, which is important for development of international trade relations and access to the global markets.

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By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Furniture and generally other household items are among the most demanded products in Azerbaijan. Today, there is very wide range of furniture choices, and one can found stores for every taste at every corner of the capital and in the regions.

Tables, chairs, wardrobes, beds  once a bulky share of all this items was brought to Azerbaijan from abroad, including from Turkey, Malaysia, Italy, Spain and Russia. However, the field began to steadily develop in Azerbaijan about ten years ago and now the country has more than 20 companies operating under the national brand.

Azerbaijan will begin to export its furniture under the Made in Azerbaijan brand to various European countries in 2020, director of the furniture factory Saloglu in Agstafa region Tajaddin Mustafayev said, Trend reports on January 30.

He made the remarks in Baku at the conference dedicated to the results of the implementation of the "State Program on Socio-Economic Development of the Regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018" held with the participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

He stressed that 2,500 jobs are planned to be created after expanding the production capacity of the factory, in which 400 people work.

"The construction of a new furniture factory with a total area of 17.5 square meters has been already launched, he said. The total cost of the project is 25 million manats."

He noted that a preferential loan worth 10 million manats was allocated through the state support for the implementation of the project.

A contract was signed with the German company HOMAG Group for the purchase of the most advanced technological equipment and it will be delivered to Azerbaijan soon.

The director of the company went on to say that the construction of a new furniture factory will be completed before the end of this year, and in the first quarter of 2020 it will begin exports.

"This will create conditions for providing people living in the region with jobs to increase the export potential of our region," he added.

Azerbaijan has been long regarded as a country which was largely dependent of the oil and gas industries,

An abundance of natural resources of hydrocarbons became a so-called obstacle on the way to diversification of the economy.

To resolve counted problems, diversify economy and make development embrace a country as a whole, the government proposed a state program of Socio-economic development of regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018.

The state program played irreplaceable role in realization of projects which involve enhancement of many economic indicators like development of this region as a whole, increase of employment, raise of non-oil sector and growth of export, especially in wood industry.

Furniture factory in Agstafa is just one example. Development of wood processing and furniture production in Agstafa is a result of accurate and proper analytical analysis of economic strength, weaknesses and opportunities of the region.

Today, the country eyes to diversify its economy, focuses widely on an export-led growth strategy and aims to expand the list of its foreign trade partners. Made in Azerbaijan is an initiative aimed at entering new markets.

President Ilham Aliyev signed the Decree on large-scale promotion of local non-oil products in foreign markets as Made in Azerbaijan on 5 October 2016.

This Decree includes nine different support mechanisms to stimulate exports and promote Made in Azerbaijan abroad.

Depending on the support mechanisms, the costs relating to their realization are fully or partially covered by the state budget. The strategic markets for Azerbaijan are also considered to be EU, the countries of the Persian Gulf, China, the CIS countries, Turkey and Russia.

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By Trend

The production of auto parts for Khazar cars will be launched in Azerbaijan by the end of 2019, Director of the Khazar Car Plant Emin Akhundov said.

Akhundov made the remarks in Baku at the conference dedicated to the results of the implementation of the State Program on the Socio-Economic Development of the Regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018, Trend reports.

The matter rests in the production of certain car parts in the country, he said.

Speaking about the results of 2018, Akhundov stressed that over 1,000 cars were produced during that period and 95 percent of cars were sold.

Thus 40 percent of cars were bought by the state structures, while 60 percent  by people, he said, adding that this testifies to the competitiveness of cars, he added.

The production of the first Peugeot cars will begin by the end of the year, Akhundov added. All necessary equipment has been already installed at the plant.

The Khazar car plant is located in southeast Azerbaijan in the Neftchala Industrial Site. All cars produced there comply with Euro 5 standards. Cars have been sold since summer 2018.

On Aug. 6, 2016, big Iranian automaker Iran Khodro and Azerbaijani company AzEuroCar, a subsidiary of AzerMash, signed an agreement to establish a joint automobile plant in Neftchala. The Azerbaijani side invested 75 percent in the plant, while the Iranian side invested 25 percent.

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By Trend

In 2018, over 4.25 million shipments with a total weight of about 365.4 tons were delivered from China to the transit center of Azerpoct LLC, Azerbaijans postal operator, the company told Trend Jan. 30.

The shipments were processed and sent to the US, the UAE, Germany, Austria, Belarus, the UK, the Czech Republic, France, Iran, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

In addition, in 2018, the postal operator received over 9.96 million internal shipments, which is 1.6 percent more than in 2017.

In 2018, over 99,700 letters and parcels were sent, which is 6 percent more than in 2017. Besides, the number of registered letters and parcels increased by 4.2 percent and reached almost 50,000 in 2018 compared with 2017.

The number of received international small shipments exceeded 1.26 million, which is 44.5 percent more than in 2017.

The number of domestic shipments in the form of parcels also increased. Their number grew 13.5 percent and reached 96,200.

In 2018, more than 15,700 international parcels were sent, which is almost 27 percent more than in 2017. The postal operator received almost 35,400 international parcels in 2018, which is 7.4 percent more than in 2017.

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By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Azerbaijan has reached its comparatively sustainable period of economic and business development having gone through the devaluation of 2015.

The situatian caused certain shock in different markets, including the real estate market. The consequences of manat devaluation still affect the secondary property market and make the players to take a waiting position. At the time, devaluation and deferred demand reduced the volume of sales transactions by about 13.9 percent. Currently, the real estate market is on its way to full recovery.

Property prices in Azerbaijan rose by 0.9 percent in December 2018, CEO of MBA Consulting Company Nusret Ibrahimov told Report.az.

The most recent shift of prices has occurred in December.

"Prices in the primary housing market in December increased by 13.9 percent to 1,337 manats per one square meter, prices on the secondary housing market increased by an average of 1.8 percent to 1,685 manats," he said.

Ibrahimov noted that last year the price increase was 6.8 percent.

Taking into account real conditions of the market, there are no monosemantic forecasts and this fact complicates the situation and shows that current unpredictability of the prices for property.

The unpredictability of prices is confirmed by the differing forecasts expressed in separate opinions of various experts.

For example, director of Azerbaijans Koneko Group appraisal company Vugar Oruj told Trend that the prices for apartments are expected to decline by 5-10 percent in Azerbaijan in the first half of 2019. He added that as a result of the implementation of social housing construction projects, we see an increase in supply in the market.

"Thus, supply is expected to increase in 2019, which will lead to low prices in the Azerbaijani real estate market. Presently, few deals are struck in the Azerbaijani real estate market but there is certain revival and sellers cannot sell real estate in the market in a short period of time," he said.

He also pointed to the fact that sellers cannot sell real estate in the market in a short period of time.

"We see such facts that after a certain period of time, there is a decline in real estate prices. This shows that the owners cannot quickly sell real estate in the market and are forced reduce the initial price," he said.

However, representative of the company "Garant Emlak" Bahruz Yusubov told Trend that real estate market is expected to grow by 20-30 percent in Azerbaijan in 2019, which will be conditioned by the growth of the purchasing power of the population.

It was right to tightly link this growth with the increase of purchasing power of population rather than affordability of the real estate.

Taking into account the large inflow of foreigners to Azerbaijan, we can conclude that there is intervention made by them in purchasing power of population, because people coming to our country, especially from Near East, has benign financial situation in common and consider purchase of property in Azerbaijan as a very sustainable, low-risk, stable investment. This is also one of the factors which pushes our construction companies to increase the prices.

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By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Azerbaijan has taken active steps to establish a car assembly to prevent currency outflows and meet the needs of the population and entrepreneurs in vehicles.

Cars, trailers and semi-trailers were produced in the country worth 106.6 million manats according to the results of 2018, which is 31 times higher compared to 2017, according to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan.

As many as 969 cars were produced in 2018, which is 32.4 times more than in 2017.

Such a sharp increase in the production of cars in the country was achieved by opening a joint Azerbaijani-Iranian factory Khazar in the Neftchala industrial park on March 29, 2018.

By the way, starting from the current year, Khazar cars are expected to be exported, first of all to the Russian market.

Meanwhile, there is a significant potential for establishing in the country of production not only cars. As many as 297 buses were imported into the country in 2018, which is 110 units, or 58.8 percent more than in 2017, according to the data of the State Customs Committee (SCC) of Azerbaijan.

In recent years, in the direction of the automotive industry development, there is an active cooperation with the manufacturers of vehicles not only in Russia and Iran, but also in Belarus. Thus, Belkommunmash will supply four large-capacity E321 electric buses to Azerbaijan to launch a pilot electric bus route in the Ganja city in 2019, Belkommunmash Holding Management Company OJSC reported.

In the future, on the basis of the Ganja Automobile Plant, it is planned to organize a joint assembly production. The parties signed an agreement on cooperation during the visit to the enterprise of the Azerbaijani delegation. Electricity savings in the operation of the electric bus compared with the trolley bus is 14 percent.

Since the beginning of cooperation, over 10,000 tractors of the Minsk Tractor Plant (MTZ) Belarus and over 3,500 trucks of the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) have been assembled in the shops of the Ganja Automobile Plant.

With the revival of the Azerbaijan economy, entrepreneurs significantly increased the purchase of equipment - last year 2,300 trucks were imported to the country, which is 1,073 units, or almost twice as many as in 2017. In this case, it is not only about trucks with a high load carrying capacity, but also light-duty trucks.

It is planned to launch a new truck assembly plant in the Hajigabul industrial quarter at the end of 2019 - the GAZel NEXT, GAZon NEXT Russian trucks, as well as GAZel Business and Sable Business and their all-wheel drive versions will be produced here.

GAZ Group and Azermash signed the corresponding agreement on September 3, 2018 in Sochi as part of negotiations between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia.

At the second stage of automobile plant development, the production of Vektor NEXT and LiAZ buses is envisaged.

The growth in population size and well-being, on the one hand, and the improvement of the business climate in the country on the other, create opportunities for the development of the automotive industry in order to meet primarily domestic demand for vehicles in the country.

According to the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, 28.88 million vehicles were imported from abroad according to the results of 2018. On imports of vehicles and spare parts in 2018 were spent $641.7 million, which is $219.6 million, or 52 percent more compared to 2017.

Over the past years, the minimum import of passenger cars was in 2016 - 5 million units. The maximum volume of imports of passenger cars fell in 2013 - 94.88 million units.

The Nakhchivan facility opened in 2010 and assembles eight models of Lifan passenger cars designed by Chinas Lifan Group, which provides all the necessary spare parts for cars to the plant so they may be assembled in Azerbaijan under the direct supervision of Chinese automotive specialists.

The Neftchala Automotive Plant produces four brands of cars, mostly Iranian: Dena, Runna, Soren, and Samand all belong to Irans Khodro Company. All vehicles are in line with Euro-5 gasoline standards, an obligatory environmental standard in Azerbaijan that regulates the content of harmful substances in exhaust gases.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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By Trend

In December 2018, the prices for land plots in Baku fell by 2.12 percent, Director General of MBA Group Nusrat Ibrahimov told Trend.

"But in general, during 2018, prices of land plots went up by 5.88 percent," Ibrahimov said.

Ibrahimov noted that he considers the fall in prices observed in recent months to be a seasonal phenomenon.

"With the onset of the rainy season and cold weather, interest in land plots weakens," he explained.

Ibrahimov stressed that a revival will be observed in the market with the onset of warm weather, which will lead to higher prices, and added that therefore, now is the right time to buy land.

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By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 24 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 30, Trend reports.

The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh will not agree to territorial concessions Azerbaijan in return for mere peace in the region, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday.

We cant even discuss the lands-for-peace formula, he told reporters in Yerevan.

In that regard, Pashinian rejected parallels drawn by his political opponents between his policy on the conflict with Azerbaijan and a conciliatory line on Karabakh that was favored by Armenias former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.

I think that our government is pursuing a policy on the Karabakh issue which no other government [of Armenia] pursued in the past, he said. Attempts to find parallels or similarities with any former political course are utter nonsense.

Ter-Petrosian was forced by his key ministers to resign in 1998 after strongly advocating a Karabakh peace plan put forward by the U.S., Russian and French mediators in 1997. The plan called for the liberation of virtually all districts around Karabakh that were occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. It envisaged no mechanisms for determining Karabakhs status, the main bone of contention.

Over the past decade, the mediating powers have advanced a similar settlement calling for Armenian withdrawal from those districts. In return, Karabakhs predominantly Armenian population would determine the disputed territorys internationally recognized status in a future referendum.

It is not clear whether Pashinian supports this peace formula in principle or has discussed it with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev. The two men have met for three times since the end of September, most recently in Davos on January 22.

The meetings with Aliyev were not negotiations, said Pashinian. They were informal contacts during which we simply exchanged thoughts.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin spoke of Russias developing relations with Armenia and a favorable international environment for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of a two-day visit to Yerevan on Wednesday.

Karasin said that he spent nearly half a day on Tuesday discussing bilateral ties with Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian. We have developed and will continue to develop our cooperation, he told reporters.

The Karabakh issue was also high on the agenda, Karasin went on, welcoming a recent series of high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations that have raised fresh hopes for the conflicts resolution.

It is now very important to have a predictable and calm international situation around Nagorno-Karabakh. We can note with satisfaction that such calm and predictability has existed in recent months and we need to keep it up, he said, arguing that Russia and Western powers agree that any attempts to end the conflict by force must be categorically ruled out.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Karasin and Mnatsakanian discussed a broad range of issues. Special attention was paid to the topics of security and stability in the Transcaucasus region, including the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, read a ministry statement.

The statement said Karasin also met Armenias Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian and a senior aide to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Karasin travelled to Yerevan more than a month after accusing the United States of meddling in Armenias internal affairs. We expect that the current leadership of Armenia  will have the courage to resist the unhidden external blackmail and pressure, he told the RIA Novosti news agency on December 19.

Karasin pointed to recent statements made by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton and Richard Mills, the former U.S. ambassador in Yerevan.

Visiting Yerevan in October, Bolton said that normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break historical patterns that have shaped its traditional foreign policy. He also indicated that Washington is ready to sell Yerevan U.S. weapons and thus reduce Russias excessive influence on Armenia.

Karasin also stressed on Wednesday the importance of predictability in Russian-Armenian relations. Moscow and Yerevan realize this, he said.
Venezuelas government-stacked Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday prohibiting National Assembly leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country, just hours after Attorney General Tarek William Saab requested that the court restrict Guaido's travel and freeze his financial accounts, the AP reports.

Details: The chief prosecutor announced a criminal probe into Guaido has been launched, but did not explain what for crimes the opposition leader  who has been recognized by the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries as Venezuela's interim president  is being investigated. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton denounced Saab's threats and vowed that "there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido."

Go deeper: U.S. sanctions Venezuela's state oil company in push for regime change
The U.S. has formally asked Canada to extradite Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on charges of financial fraud and violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, the Globe and Mail reports.

Why it matters: The extradition request comes one day after the Department of Justice unveiled a set of indictments against Meng and other individuals associated with Huawei. Meng is accused of attempting to circumvent sanctions in 2007 by lying about its ownership of the Iranian business Skycom and about selling its interest in the company. Canadian Federal Justice Minister David Lametti has until March 1 to decide whether to comply with the request, according to the Globe and Mail.

Go deeper: The Huawei charges are tangled up with U.S.-China trade talks
1 big thing: 2020 Dems show more climate cards

The last day or so has brought more hints of what the crowded field thinks about the topic and the policy response.

What's new: Sen. Kamala Harris has offered full-throated support for the Green New Deal, using phrasing that's less equivocal than prior statements from her office.

"I support a Green New Deal. Climate change is an existential threat to all of us, and we have got to deal with the reality of it," she said on Twitter late Monday night.

The tweet echoed her comments at a CNN town hall event in Iowa earlier that night.

Meanwhile, potential candidate Michael Bloomberg said in New Hampshire yesterday that regardless of whether he runs, "I've already begun working on putting together the details of what I believe is a Green New Deal."

NBC News reports that Bloomberg, who has long been active on climate and funded the Sierra Club's anti-coal work, laid out some basic principles in his speech...

"Comprehensive investment to create jobs and increase economic growth in coal regions and other areas."

Moving away from fossil fuels "as quickly as possible."

Helping state and local governments do more.

Quick take: Both of their remarks were fairly standard messaging. On CNN, Harris talked up the growth in renewable power jobs and hitting "policymakers who are in the pockets of Big Oil and Big Coal."

And there's something of a cart-before-the-horse aspect to all this, because right now the GND means basically whatever a given supporter wants it to mean.

But her support is nonetheless relevant for several reasons...

It's a sign that Harris and some other backers are comfortable weaving energy and global warming into the fabric of their economic pitches. Even the term is a nod to the left with its callback to FDR.

It also raises pressure on candidates as they begin to craft their actual policy platforms. Right now the plans of top-tier hopefuls who have entered the race like Harris, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are protoplasm.

Progressive activists looking to influence the primaries won't be happy  or quiet  if a candidates' specifics look like a climbdown from the big ideas that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has floated.

The intrigue: What's unclear is which candidates will embrace some of the biggest concepts in the AOC proposal, such as a federal job guarantee for people working in the low-carbon transition.
Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn is reconsidering its plans to manufacture flatscreen panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin plant that promised to bring in 13,000 jobs, Reuters reports.

Why it matters: Foxconn's 2017 pledge to build the plant, which drew billions of dollars in subsidies from state taxpayers, has been touted by President Trump as one of the largest manufacturing investments by a foreign-based company in U.S. history. A Foxconn representative told Reuters that steep labor costs at the Wisconsin plant would make it impossible to compete with manufacturers outside the U.S., and that three-quarters of the plant's eventual jobs will be in research and design  rather than "blue-collar manufacturing jobs."

The big picture: The change in plans comes as demand for Apple's iPhone and other smartphones  many of which are manufactured by Foxconn  is dipping as a result of a weakening Chinese economy, the U.S.-China trade war and other factors. As the Philly Inquirer's Joseph DiStefano also notes, "Foxconn has been the subject of several stories touting astronomical sums of future investment, none of which have come to pass."

These include $100 million-to-$1 billion investments the company has pledged, and later reneged on, in Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colorado, Louisiana and four other states, according to the Inquirer.

Go deeper: Corporations are fleeing global chaos
The Canadian government said Wednesday it will remove half its staff from its embassy in Cuba after another employee fell ill, bringing the total number of Canadian diplomats and their relatives affected by mysterious health symptoms since 2017 to 14.

The backdrop: In the past two years, 26 U.S. Embassy workers in Cuba have suffered dizziness, headaches and nausea associated with loud, painful sounds, prompting the State Department to cut the embassy staff by 60% in 2017. Doctors and researchers have been unable to identify the cause of the mysterious illnesses, and have pointed to sonic weapons, microwave attacks by Russia and even "mass hysteria" as possible explanations for the phenomenon.
Furious Democrats hope to pound Starbucks chairman emeritus Howard Schultz into an early departure from his exploration of an independent 2020 bid.

The state of play: These Democrats want to prevent the coffee king from siphoning anti-Trump votes and perhaps unintentionally helping re-elect President Trump. We're hearing threats of boycotts and social isolation, attacks on Starbucks, and emotional, insistent lobbying of his advisers.

One of Washington's best-wired party operatives told me: "I've talked to six dozen Democrats, and the overwhelming sentiment is that he will be pushed out by this incredible wave of disgust and disdain rolling his way."

"The flaw in Schultz's logic is that we're living in this massively abnormal moment," the operative continued. "When you're on the head of a pin, even 500 votes in the wrong place can be existential."

is that we're living in this massively abnormal moment," the operative continued. "When you're on the head of a pin, even 500 votes in the wrong place can be existential." "The bottom line is: Nobody thinks this is sustainable."

Bill Burton, a former campaign and White House aide to President Barack Obama, is enduring the skepticism of friends to serve as a message and communications adviser to Schultz.

"The good news is that presidential elections are not decided on Twitter," Burton said.

is that presidential elections are not decided on Twitter," Burton said. "His decision on whether or not to run won't be decided there, either."

on whether or not to run won't be decided there, either." "The level of certainty by the pundits about how this'll play out reminds me of the certainty that President Obama couldn't win or President Trump couldn't win."

But for many powerful Dems, this is personal. They view Schultz's dabbling as a dangerous gamble, indulgence and diversion. They told Axios:

Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager: "He can't win, and he could seriously damage our ability to beat Donald Trump. He should either run as a Democrat, or spend his time and money doing something that won't ruin the world."

Obama's 2012 campaign manager: "He can't win, and he could seriously damage our ability to beat Donald Trump. He should either run as a Democrat, or spend his time and money doing something that won't ruin the world." Philippe Reines, confidant of Hillary Clinton: "Howard Schultz is a jackass. ... He's arrogant and wealthy  and those people tend to not see the world as it is."

What's next: Schultz appears in Phoenix today on the tour for his new book, "From the Ground Up," then continues on to Seattle and other major cities.

Go deeper:
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MQB

SUV

Currently, there is another Skoda called Kamiq selling in China, but by comparing the two with the limited info available so far we can say theyre nothing alike.The Chinese Kamiq is built on the local PQ platform, the same that underpins the Rapid , while the European one will be based on the VolkswagenA0 platform. Visually, the Chineselooks like an incredibly bored (and boring) Tiguan , while the Euro-spec version, at least in these sketches, shows quite the attitude.The new Kamiq will mark several design premieres for the Czech manufacturer. The most important of them is the use of split headlights, with the daytime running lights located above.In our new Kamiq city SUV, weve implemented a completely new headlamp configuration. The two-part headlamps with daytime running lights above are a first for Skoda, said in a statement Oliver Stefani, the carmakers chief designer.They give the Kamiq a unique appearance and represent another interpretation of our successful SUV design language.Also a first for the Skoda SUV range, the logo usually found on the rear of the car has been replaced with teh Skoda lettering stretching on the tailgate, a feature otherwise previewed on the Scala last year.Other than that, the Kamiq presents itself as an aggressive SUV, just perfect for the ever-growing urban SUV segment. It shows a wide radiator grille, extra ground clearance, large wheels, and a stance other Skoda models usually have to fight to achieve.The Euro Kamiq will be shown at the Geneva Show in March, but we expect to see the car in full well before that.
The rather smart piece of mobile technology had had a great start, which soon turned into a disaster after it got globally recalled and then pulled back for good following a string of impromptu self-immolation cases.By pure coincidence, Samsung is Apple's biggest smartphone competitor, and the two companies have been at each other's throats for quite a few years now. You can probably guess that Samsung's fiery predicament was a fortunate stroke of serendipity for Apple, which by another coincidence was only days away from launching its jack-less iPhone 7, the phone that was supposed to put an end to the company's lagging smartphone sales. Plot twist, it didn't.The timing of the whole shebang spurted a bunch of strong opinions from technology pundits around the world, though, especially those who don't believe in coincidences. The situation obviously goes a bit deeper than that, and I'm already boring you with a subject that normally wouldn't be part of autoevolution's everyday coverage.Bear with me for a moment, though, because the point will start to emerge pretty soon. So, we are talking about Samsung and Apple, two massive companies with pockets so big that they can invest more in marketing and lobbying than others do in R&D. To put things in perspective, Apple Inc. had a net income of $59.531 billion in 2018 alone, while Samsung Electronics is not far behind regarding profits. They are two of the most prominent and most influential players not only in their fields but in the global industry as well.It's safe to say that, for the sake of argument, either of the two rivals would be a prime candidate for the job if someone would want to pull off a gargantuan conspiracy to bury a competitor.For an example of a much milder approach to intense feuds between two rival companies, you can probably have a look at the so-called Cola Wars between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.Do you know what other large corporations are also blessed with this kind of power? You guessed it, carmakers. Not exactly at the same level, but powerful enough. With great power comes great responsibility, as Uncle Ben would say, so in a perfect world, we wouldn't be able to talk about corporate espionage and other dirty tricks being employed by rival companies. That doesn't mean that it can't happen.The human brain is a pretty unusual organ, having a similar structure as the brains of other mammals, but with a cerebral cortex that is quite a bit more evolved, or so they say. Among other things, this default wisdom allows us to resort to a lot of mind tricks to manipulate other people into thinking differently, whether we're talking about individuals or masses. Strangely enough, if you know which buttons to push, masses are actually easier to manipulate than individuals.Edward Louis James Bernays, known among other things as the father of public relations and the nephew of Sigmund Freud, was of the opinion that a small, invisible government who understands the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, rules public opinion by consent. He was mostly not wrong, and we can extrapolate this to the masses' stance on certain brands, whether they are in the business of making phones, dishwashers, clothes or cars.Have you ever wondered why you are more drawn toward the products of a particular carmaker, no matter what the reviews are saying about them? Are you absolutely, positively sure that it is you who made the decision of being a Ferrari Tifosi instead of a die-hard Lamborghini fan?I know that I am more drawn toward certain brands instead of others, and I find myself sometimes fighting my own preconceptions about other carmakers. Who put those assumptions there in the first place? Knowledge and research? How did I obtain that knowledge if it wasn't handed to me in the first place?Media represents one of the most potent methods of crowd manipulation in existence, and with the advent of the Internet, you can even choose who you want to be manipulated by.If you're reading this, there's a pretty big chance that you have a Facebook account, or are at least aware of how the world's largest social media website works. What some of you aren't probably aware is that Facebook was once the vessel for one of the if not the largest ever mood manipulation experiment. It could still be, but other cases haven't been documented yet.For precisely seven days during January 2012, a team of data scientists had a job of distorting what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw on their News Feed when they logged into their accounts. For a whole week, part of those Guinea Pig users was shown predominantly happy and positive news stories or images, while others were bombarded with sadder than average content.Can you guess what happened next? A vast majority of the manipulated users were more inclined to post either positive or negative things on their Walls, depending on what they had been shown in the week prior.Can I absolutely prove that you became a BMW or an Audi fan because of a global conspiracy? Absolutely not, and I'm not trying to, either.What I want is to make you realize that as long as you pay attention to the news, commercials and other types of propaganda from a brand, be it a carmaker or a smartphone maker, your opinion about that brand may not be entirely based on your own choice, but helped toward a positive or negative conclusion. Heck, this whole diatribe could be an attempt at manipulation into either liking or hating autoevolution or certain car brands, who knows?
ECU

And the Audi S8 we're talking about, which belongs to the outgoing third generation of the car, had been taken down the aftermarket path.This is a pre-facelift member of the third-gen model (D4), which means its twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 delivers 520 horsepower. As for the custom work done to the engine, this involves a Milltek exhaust, as well asplay.Following the moderate trip to the gym, the S8 now reportedly allows the one behind the wheel to control 605 horsepower - this happens to be the same output as the one delivered by the S8 Plus that came with the revamped version of the D4.The hostilities took place on the TT Circuit Assen . And while the Dutch circuit might not be as good as a drag strip, it still allows the mechanical monster to stretch their legs.You see, the modded S8 duked it out with multiple competitors, which ranged from fellow German toys to a Ferrari 458 Italia. However, there's one battle that caught our eye.The fight we're referring to saw the Audi S8 going up against a Porsche 911 Turbo S . As far as we know, this Turbo S, which is a member of the 991.2 generation, hasn't been tuned. As such, this means that the supercar delivers 580 horsepower.In the end, we have to applaud the driver of the massaged Audi S8 for taking his machine to the said sprinting event and putting on a show. For one thing, this is an example of racing taking place at the track, not on the street.
Nevertheless, this time around the Sant'Agata Bolognese machine gets to drag race a stock incarnation of the 2019 Acura NSX. The two supercars got together at the Palm Beach International Raceway, engaging in a good old quarter-mile battle.Keep in mind that both the hybrid supercar and the Huracan, which is an LP610-4 model, come with all-paw hardware, so the starting phase of the battle is extremely exciting, with both beasts surging forward as if they had been shot out of a cannon. Oh, and by the way, here's a review of the said Lamborghini Huracan model.Cameras were installed on both the gas-electric supercar and the Italian exotic and, if we also factor in those present at the starting line, it's safe to say you'll get a complete view of the race.As far as the aural side of the fight is concerned, the naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 heart of the Raging Bull means this clearly dominates the scene.Note that the piece of footage documenting the run also includes the numbers delivered at the end of the 1,320 feet sprint.Now, before comparing these two go-fast tools, we have to keep in mind they play in completely different financial leagues. For instance, an aficioando could buy a brand new Porsche 911 Carrera for the pricing difference between the NSX and the Huracan.P.S.: Those of you who happen to be in a hurry and wish to skip directly to the sprinting action should know this awaits them at the 2:14 point of the video.
Back in August 2018, head of product development and purchasing, Hau Thai-Tang, declared at the J.P. Morgan Auto Conference in New York that Ford would bring the number of platforms down to five . The question is, what vehicle architectures is he talking about?In an interview with Automobile Magazine , the veteran executive explained that front-wheel-drive cars and crossover would rely on the C2. This platform was introduced in 2018 by the Focus Mk IV, and the Escape (a.k.a. Kuga) will get it too.All rear-/all-wheel-drive vehicles such as the 2020 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator rely on the CD6, a platform thats engineered for both hybrid and plug-in hybrid applications. Next up, theres the body-on-frame platform that underpins everything full-size, from the F-150 to the Lincoln Navigator.A fourth platform serves as the building block for commercial vehicles such as the Transit. The fifth and final vehicle architecture is for battery-electric applications, including the Mustang-styled Mach E electric crossover that Ford will reveal in April 2019 for the 2020 model year.Our goal is to migrate all our products onto those five flexible architectures. We dont want to proliferate orphan architectures going forward, said Hau Thai-Tang. By that, the executive refers to the S550 architecture of the Ford Mustang, which features IRS akin to the independent rear suspension of the Fusion.The Blue Oval found $25.5 billion in efficiencies throughout the automakers businesses, with $20 billion or 80 percent coming from the five-platform strategy. We want to make sure that our cost structure is robust so if industry demand falls, we are still profitable, concluded Thai-Tang.Although Ford is steering away from sedans and conventional-bodied cars in the United States to focus on crossovers and utility vehicles, look at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Kia. All of them continue to manufacture sedans in the United States, and these automakers also offer hatchbacks such as the Corolla Hatchback and Elantra GT.Only time will tell if this bet on the most popular segments pays off, especially if the price of crude oil bounces back to the historical high of $145.31 in July 2008.
WLTP

EV

The XC90 and V40 took second and third place, and this gets us to the compact hatchback thats also available as the V40 Cross Country. Dating back to 2012, the V40 was developed with input from the Ford Motor Company.Ford doesnt even use the Global C platform anymore in the Focus, transitioning to the C2 as part of the five-platform strategy detailed by development chief Hau Thai-Tang. Given these circumstances, Volvo is developing a replacement that wont come in the guise of a hatchback.With input from Geely, the Swedish automaker is tipped to use the Lynk & Co 04 as the building block for the next generation of the V40. The Chinese crosshatch will be assembled in Ghent, Belgium where the XC40  also based on the Common Module Architecture  is manufactured.Theres no denying the V40 will follow in the footsteps of the 04 as far as styling and size are concerned, expectations reassured by European head Lex Kerssemakers. Speaking to Automotive News Europe , the executive highlights two aspects about the V40.First is that people want to sit high and second is that if you launch a car, it needs to facilitate an electric variant. Kerssemakers also mentioned in the ballpark of 300 kilometers (186 miles;) for the V40, which is expected to share its underpinnings with the XC40 EV It appears the 40.2 Concept presented in May 2017 will offer styling influences for the real deal, a high-riding liftback sedan that shares a lot of its design with the 40.1 Concept that morphed into the XC40. These said, dont expect anything too outlandish from the 2020 Volvo V40 but something modern and appealing to first-time Volvo customers.


By The Art of Pics/Shutterstock.com By The Art of Pics/Shutterstock.com

People moving to Australia plan to become citizens and also feel that marking Australia Day is important for the nation and it also makes them feel welcome, a new survey has found.But most don't know the significance of the January 26 date and are unaware of sensitivities over the day among some indigenous Australians, according to the poll by migrant settlement agency AMES.The poll comes as the Immigration Minister Dave Coleman revealed that the number of migrants becoming Australian citizens continues to rise, with an 83% increase in citizenship applications finalised in the last six months of 2018 compared with the same period last year. Between July and December 2018, almost 73,000 citizenship applications were finalised. This is compared to almost 40,000 during the same period in 2017.'Australia Day is an opportunity for all Australians, whether they are citizens by birth or by choice, to unite as a nation and celebrate what's great about Australia. Citizenship is the common bond that unites all Australians while respecting diversity. It is a great privilege granted to those who support our democratic values, respect our laws and want to contribute to an even better Australia,' said Coleman.He revealed that a task force has been established within the Department of Home Affairs to focus on complex citizenship cases and $9 million is being invested in the recruitment and training of extra staff to ensure citizenship applications are managed as efficiently as possible.The AMES survey found that 68% of respondents will have marked the national day this year. But only 31% of those surveyed knew the significance on January 26 as being the day the First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson. And only 25% were aware of the recent controversy over Australia Day prompted by some indigenous groups calling it 'invasion day'.An overwhelming 89% said they planned to become Australian citizens and 61% said Australia Day would mean more them it they were citizens while 39% thought it would make no difference.Some 82% said they knew, or planned to learn more, about Australia's history and the reasons Australia Day is celebrated, the poll also found, and 55% said Australians should be proud of their national day.The survey found Australia Day events and the tone of publicity around the day helped new arrivals feel welcome. Some 75% said the day helped them to feel more welcome while 17% said it made no difference and 7% said it made them feel less welcome.Cath Scarth, chief executive officer of AMES Australia, said that survey results showed that migrants and refugees were overwhelmingly committed to becoming Australians and contributing to the nation.'It's our experience that almost without exception people who are newly arrived to Australia want to fit in and become part of the broader society. They want to learn about Australia's culture and history and they want to build connections,' she explained.New Australian citizen Hind Goga said that she finally feels connected to her adopted country and she spent Australia day with a small gathering of family and friends after becoming a citizen in December.'It's important to me and it is nice to say I have finally become an Australian. This country accepted me and I want to do everything I can to contribute to this country and show that I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given. Observing Australia Day, even in small way, makes you stop and think about those things,' she added.
A challenge lawyers face could be time, which is why attending events such as the masterclass could be a lifesaver.

It can be difficult for busy lawyers who practice in multiple areas of law, like general counsel, to stay on top of changes to different legislation and the outcome of various cases. The benefit of attending these types of seminars is that the relevant information is presented to attendees in a concise and comprehensive way, she says. Events like the Contract Law Masterclass are useful for legal professionals, as they provide a forum for the exchange of information, knowledge and ideas. It is a great opportunity for attendees to hear about legal changes and why they are important.

Edgar also advises organisations to be proactive, which could spell the difference between success and failure.

If in doubt, obtain legal advice. It is quicker, cheaper and easier to deal with potential legal issues upfront rather than seeking to defend borderline decisions or conduct after the event, she says.

The one-day Contract law Masterclass features a comprehensive schedule, which also includes sessions tackling ipso facto clauses and the right to terminate for insolvency, enforceability of click-wrap and browse-wrap agreements, and risks and opportunities of blockchain and smart contracts.
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is continuing its work for a global investment manager as it exits a majority position on an Australian ports and supply chain giant.

KWM is advising Corsair Infrastructure Partners (CIP), the global infrastructure investment business of Corsair Capital, as Dubai-based DP World regains a majority holding in DP World Australia (DPWA).

The stake is being sold by Gateway Infrastructure Investments, managed by CIP, to DP World and to new investment funds managed by CIP, which retain a substantial minority investment in DPWA.
But in-house legal departments are not necessarily the largest users of these services; 87% of large law firms surveyed say they are using ALSPs in at least one service category along with 81% of midsize firms and 57% of small firms.

Law firms say using ALSPs can help them scale their business, differentiate their services, and retain client relationships. Many corporates are using ALSPs through law firms as well as directly.

The most common uses of ALSPs for law firms are e-discovery, litigation and investigation support, and legal research.

The report also shows the rise of the Big Four with 23% of large law firms saying they have had a client use one of the Big Four for work that the law firm had expected to win.

The 2019 report captures the expanding influence of ALSPs on the global legal ecosystem, said Eric Laughlin, managing director of Thomson Reuters Legal Managed Services. Its not surprising to see adoption of ALSPs by both legal departments and law firms growing at a pace that has exceeded expectations. Their combination of specialized expertise, unique delivery models and use of cutting-edge technologies is rapidly disrupting the space.
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Of custody and crypto The normally staid world of custody banking is now having to embrace the wild child of global assets: cryptocurrency. And this is happening just as bitcoin, the poster child of cryptocurrency, seesawed from US$30,000 one week to $40,000 the next, shedding then recovering 30% of its value. Some bitcoin bulls are talking of $100,000 by year-end
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After a much delayed $50-million renovation and expansion, Dartmouth Colleges 65,000-object Hood Museum of Art at last reopened on Jan. 26 with six new art galleries, three new study galleries and three classrooms equipped with the latest object-study technology. The museums total area of 62,400 square feet represents an increase of over 50 percent and provides a 42% increase in gallery space (for a total of 16,350 square feet).

Below is the museums photo of its new contemporary art gallery, anchored by the Rothko that I had admired when I visited for the Wall Street Journal in 2012. Lilac and Orange over Ivory, 1953 (at center, below), was given to the museum by the late William Rubin, former director of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern art:

Early visitors to the contemporary art gallery at the new Hood

Photo by Robert Gill, courtesy of the Hood Museum

The Hoods completely reimagined facade is meant to be more inviting than its somber 1985 Charles Moore-designed entrance:

Former entrance of the Hood Museum

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

Surprisingly, the museum last week wouldnt provide me with photos of the new exterior and declined to explain why. Im guessing the reason was that it wasnt yet ready for its close-up, as evidenced by this shot taken on Jan. 17 for an article in the Valley News, West Lebanon, NH. The Hood is the gray building on the left, which appeared to still be a work-in-progress:

Reprinted with permission from Valley News, Lebanon, N.H.

Photo by James M. Patterson

Below is the photo that the museum did send me: a spiffy rendering of its new facade, which makes it appear much brighter than in the above photo. The north-facing vitrine on the right provides the only bit of visual interest in the otherwise stark frontage, described by the museum as off-white brick:

North facade of expanded Hood Museum, facing the Dartmouth Green

Rendering by MARCH

The truth is apparently somewhere in between: On Monday, the Dartmouth News (published by the colleges Office of Communications) included this actual photo of the new Hood, unobstructed by construction:

The new entrance of the Hood Museum

Photo by Eli Burakian 00

The reimagined museum is less ambitious in size and scope than what had been envisioned in 2012, after then director Michael Taylor had helped to choose Tod Williams and Billie Tsien as architects. (The role of Taylor, now deputy director and chief curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is unmentioned in the Hoods current informational materials.)

As I reported here, the original plan to renovate Wilson Hall (the red brick building on the left in the above photo), as part of the capital project, was rejected as too expensive, in the words of current director John Stomberg.

John Stomberg, Director, Hood Museum

Wilson Hall was to have had new galleries, new offices and new teaching classrooms in an add-on museum learning center, as Taylor had told me in this 2012 CultureGrrl Video about the plans.

Michael Taylor & curator Sarah Powers, his wife, having lunch with me at Dartmouth

Photo by Lee Rosenbaum

Canon-busting is a governing principle of the reinstallation, as Stomberg told Sarah Earle of the Valley News. We do still have a beautiful European gallery, but its no longer at the heart of the museum, he said.

According to Earles article:

Along with showing the range of the Hoods collections, curators wanted to highlight the museums strengths.They dedicated ample space to contemporary African, African Diaspora and contemporary Native American artall specialties for which the Hood is known. The museums European collection, on the other hand, is relegated to one room. Likewise, some of the museums most famous pieces, such as Pablo Picassos Guitar on a Table and Georgia OKeeffes Taos Mountain, New Mexico, get less prominent display space than some lesser-known but worthy pieces. We have lots and lots of things that everybody knows, but wheres the fun in that? said Stomberg, who came to the Hood Museum in 2016, the same year the renovations began [emphasis added].

I think theres plenty of fun in viewing key works by well known artists and Im not so sure that everybody knows those works when students arrive on campus. Justifiably boastful of having one of the largest and finest university collections in the country, the Hood has a responsibility to to familiarize interested undergraduates with key works from the canon, especially in the opening hang of its improved facility.

As it happens, Picassos Guitar on a Table, cited as one of the museums most famous pieces, is currently not on view, according to the museums website

CLARIFICATION: Stomberg later informed me that the Picasso was indeed on view, although the museums listing for it (and other works) on its website hadnt been updated when I checked it (and relied on it for this story). As of this afternoon (2:57 p.m., Feb. 8), its still listed as Not on view. It is the star of a gallery called Transatlantic Modern,' Stomberg told me, dedicated to the immense international impact the artist had on the art of his time. We start with the Picasso in the central spot and then follow through several permutations of his influence in the US and France. Other artists include Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, and Fernand Leger as well as Preston Dickinson, Oscar Bluemner and Stuart Davis. The gallery ends with the Surrealism of Kay Sage and Matta, leading to an amazing 1958 Jean Dubuffet.

Picasso, Guitar on a Table, 1912

Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Class of 1930

In comments to WBUR, Bostons public radio station, Stomberg said that the Hoods displays would lean toward social justice.Youll see a lot of socially engaged, politically engaged artworkthat addresses environmental concerns, racial concerns, gender identity.

Former director Taylor (who hasnt seen the expansion yet) said this to me when I asked him about the emphasis on topicality:

I think it reflects the global turn in the museum field that was already taking place when I was there.John and his team have done such a fabulous job with the new expansion and the Hood Museum of Arts collection must look amazing in those ample, beautifully designed gallery spaces.

The trend towards increased social consciousness seems to be the new normal at many art museumsnot only those at college institutions that are geared to young audiences, but also at traditional museums that aim for general audiences. But a drive for relevance shouldnt supersede the imperatives of quality and scholarshipespecially at a distinguished Ivy League institution like Dartmouth.

UPDATEDirector John Stomberg responds:
Scaffolding for the 5Pointz luxury apartment tower (built on the site of the now-destroyed street-art mecca) has moved into what Turrell intended as an unobstructed view of the sky in his Skyspace installation, titled Meeting, at the MoMA outpost in Queens. So the museum has agreed to his request to close the installation until the scaffolding is no longer visible.  Hyperallergic




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European aerospace expert ARTS will be returning to MRO taking place in Dubai from 10-12 February, 2019.

Last year ARTS concluded promising cooperations with numerous companies in the Middle East and we look forward to returning to MRO to highlight our services, said Middle East ARTS representative Mahmoud Zarif.

The ARTS portfolio includes aviation-specific MRO services, tool management services, integrated logistics services and industrial maintenance.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi in particular offer numerous opportunities and decisive locational advantages such as customer proximity and an excellently developed infrastructure. These are decisive factors in order to be able to optimally support customers in their challenges, added Zarif.
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Posted on: January 30, 2019 10:07 AM

The Church of the Province of the West Indies and the Anglican Church of Canada have confirmed the dates that their new Primates and Archbishops will be elected. The new Archbishop of the West Indies will be elected on Monday 27 May; while the new Archbishop of Canada will be elected on Saturday 13 July. Both will be elected during meetings of their Provincial Synods.

The new Primate of the West Indies will succeed Archbishop John Holder, who retired as Primate and Bishop of Barbados in February 2018. Under the canons of that province, the election of his successor as Primate and Archbishop could not take place until the election of his successor as Bishop of Barbados. On Saturday (26 January)  after a near-year-long election process  Bishop Michael Bruce St John Maxwell was consecrated as the 14th Bishop of Barbados during a special service at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium in St Michael, ahead of his installation in the islands St Michaels Cathedral on Monday.

The Bishops of the Church of the Province of the West Indies consecrate Michael Bruce St John Maxwell as the 14th Bishop of Barbados during a special service at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium in St Michael, on Saturday.

Photo: video grab from a Diocese of Barbados / Caritech Solutions live stream

(click here to watch the video)

It has now been confirmed that the Provincial Synod will take place from 24 and 31 May 2019 in Trinidad and Tobago. The election of a new Archbishop and Primate will take place at the Synod on Monday 27 May. Under the canons of the Church of the Province of the West Indies, the new Archbishop will continue to serve as a bishop of their diocese.

Meanwhile, the Anglican Church of Canada has published details of the process for the election of a successor to Archbishop Fred Hiltz, who stands down on 16 July  the last day of the Provinces triennial General Synod meeting. The Synod will meet from 10  16 July in Vancouver, British Columbia and will elect a new Primate. Under the canons of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Primate serves as a national Archbishop of Canada and steps down as a diocesan bishop.

The Canadian process of selecting a Primate comes in several phases. In the first, members of the National House of Bishops nominate bishops for the office. In the second, during a meeting of the House of Bishops in March, a series of ballots will take place to create a shortlist containing between three and five names.

The third phase involves a conversation throughout the whole Church, not only about the nominees, but about the nature of primatial ministry, Archbishop Fred said in a letter to the Church released yesterday (Tuesday). This leads to the fourth phase: the election of the new Archbishop and Primate in Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, on Saturday 13 July.

After a celebration of Holy Communion, the bishops of the Church will withdraw to a separate meeting, where they will pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit on the lay and clergy members of the Synod, who form the electorate. Once an election is declared, the bishops join the delegates in welcoming the Primate-elect, Archbishop Fred said.

In that short span of a couple days between the election and the installation, the new Primate will be asking for our prayers, he added. In my own experience, it is heartening to know that one is remembered daily by name and for need of grace, strength and wisdom in the exercise of this ministry.

I pray that for our new Primate such respect, good intent and care on the part of the whole Church will be a blessing beyond measure.

In his letter, Archbishop Fred also called on the Church to pray for those who wrestle with an invitation and for those who accept it during the first phase; and, in the second phase, for those on the shortlist, and for their families, and for their diocesan families.
Posted on: January 30, 2019 2:51 PM

The Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, has called for three days of prayer and fasting this weekend in the country ahead of a General Election which will take place in February and March. Archbishop Nicholas is calling on Christians to pray from Friday (1 Februar) to Sunday. The first round of voting is on 16 February with the final ballot on 2 March. Anglican churches in the country have been called on to organise joint prayer sessions in each parish throughout the three days.

The General Secretary of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Paul Dajur, circulated a message from the Archbishop, urging all Anglicans and Nigerians to join in the prayers for the Church and the nation, the Church of Nigeria said on its website.

Prayer resources provided for the three days lists a number of scriptures which can be used; including Psalms 32 and 51, which, the resource says, can be used to bring repentance and confessions of our individual, institutional, organisational, communal and national sins as a people in Nigeria.

It continues with a call to repentance over such sins as bribery, corruption, nepotism, tribalism, bloodshed, sexual perversion, oppression, injustice, general wickedness etc.

Amongst the intercessions in the guidance is a prayer for a spirit of sportsmanship to be poured upon all politicians in all the elections across the nation. All politicians to avoid acts capable of provoking violence and breach of peace in our communities and cities across the nation before, during and after the elections.
Posted on: January 30, 2019 8:55 AM

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Melanesia, Archbishop George Takeli, will stand down in March at the age of 60  the compulsory retirement age in the Province. The General Secretary of ACOM, Dr Abraham Hauriasi, confirmed that the Archbishop will retire on 25 March  his 60th birthday. He will have served as Archbishop for nearly three years and leaves the Church in good heart, Dr Hauriasi said.

Archbishop George served in the Solomon Islands Marine Division prior to ordination as a priest. After 20 years in ordained ministry he was consecrated to serve as Bishop of Temotu  a post he held for six years prior to his election as Archbishop and Primate.

Shortly after his installation he oversaw the first bishops training in the Diocese of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, highlighting the very close working relationship with the dioceses in that part of the Province. He also forged close relationships with important mission partners including the Melanesian Mission Trust Board, the Melanesian Mission UK, and the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, as well as other key partners both regionally and internationally.

In November 2017 he presided over the 14th General Synod in Port Vila, Vanuatu where he encouraged open discussions on issues including the ordination of women.

Last year, during a service in St Barnabas Cathedral in May, he re-launched the Decade of Evangelism and Renewal Programme, which will begin across the dioceses of ACOM next year.

Archbishop George said: I have worked to implement the vision God placed in my heart for this Church, to build ACOM and help the church grow and mature in all aspects of spiritual, socio-political, economic and cultural well-being.

The process of selecting the next Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Melanesia will begin following Archbishop Georges retirement.
Xiaomi has announced its very first Android Go smartphone, the Redmi Go. As most of you know, this phone was technically announced by the companys sub-brand, Redmi, as the company announced not long ago that Redmi is becoming a separate entity, kind of. Having said that, the Redmi Go is an extremely affordable smartphone, which comes with entry-level specifications, as expected for an Android Go handset.

Priced At Only 80

Lets get that price out of the way first, as that is one of the main selling points of this handset. The Redmi Go will be priced at 80 (approximately $92) in Europe, but it will not become available in the US, at least there are no plans for such a release anytime soon. The phone will become available in Europe in February, and the company also confirmed that the device will find its way to the Philippines, though the price tag for that country has not been confirmed just yet.

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Uninspired Design

Truth be said, the Redmi Go is not much to look at, but thats what was expected at this price tag, and the same applies for basically all Android Go phones. The device is made out of plastic, mostly, and its bezels are not exactly thin, it has considerable bezels above and below the display, and even on its sides.

The Redmi Go comes with a single camera on the back, and it does not offer a fingerprint scanner at all. If youre not a fan of capacitive buttons, well, you might want to stay away from this handset as well, as it comes with your standard set of capacitive buttons below the display, overview (multitasking), home, and back buttons, respectively. All of its physical keys are located on the right.

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Entry-Level Specifications

In terms of specs, youre getting the sheer basics. The phone features a 5-inch HD (1280 x 720) LCD display, while it is fueled by the Snapdragon 425 64-bit quad-core processor. The phone packs in 1GB of RAM, and it comes with 8GB of internal storage, which you can expand up to 128GB by utilizing the phones microSD card slot.

A 3,000mAh battery is included in the package, while you will find an 8-megapixel camera (1.12um pixel size, f/2.0 aperture) on the back of the device. A 5-megapixel selfie camera (1.12um pixel size, f/2.2 aperture) is also included, while Android 8.1 Oreo (Go edition) comes pre-installed on the Redmi Go.

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The Redmi Go comes in Black and Blue color variants, and it supports 4G LTE connectivity, both TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE, and if youd like to check for specific bands, one of the images in the gallery will reveal that info to you. Bluetooth 4.1 is enabled on this phone, while you will find a regular micro USB port on the bottom of the device, and the phone will allow you to utilize two SIM cards at once as well. The device measures 140.4 x 70.1 x 8.35mm, while it weighs 137 grams.

That is more or less everything we know thus far. This handset will be ideal for those of you looking for an entry-level phone with clean software, and we presume that some of you may get it as either a secondary smartphone, or perhaps a phone for someone whos not in need of a high-end device, like an elderly person or something of the sort. All in all, its good to have options.
Qualcomm announced its earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2019  ending December 30, 2018. In the earnings report, the company also mentioned that it has agreed with Huawei on an interim agreement for paying royalties to QTL, the chip-makers licensing arm.

QTL has been working with both Huawei and Apple to get agreements in place to get the royalties owed to them on sales of their products. While neither company uses Snapdragon chipsets, they do use other components from Qualcomm. Hence the royalties.

Huawei did give Qualcomm a $150 million payment for royalties due under the interim agreement, which was part of the earnings announced today. That was in addition to the $100 million that was received in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2018, from Huawei. These are partial royalties payments from Huawei, and the numbers Qualcomm announced today do not reflect the full amount due by the Chinese smartphone maker.

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Qualcomm also warned investors that if it does not reach an agreement before the interim agreement expires, Huawei may not make any other payments or make the full payment under the existing license agreement. That doesnt mean that Qualcomm wont be going after Huawei for those royalties, however.

Guidance for the second quarter also includes a $150 million royalties payment from Huawei, to QTL. Now this is just guidance, so it may happen, it may not. And would largely depend on whether or not a final deal is reached between the two companies.

Once Qualcomm is able to get a finalized deal with Huawei under their belts, the only company left to deal with is Apple. Who, arguably, started the whole thing for Qualcomm. Apple believes that Qualcomms double-dipping is not right and that it is paying too much on each iPhone sold. Qualcomm sells you the hardware (system-on-chips, modems, etc), but also charges you royalties for using that hardware and the features that come with it. Apple doesnt like that, and they shouldnt. Hence why Apple is fighting it.

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Outside of that interim agreement with Huawei, Qualcomm had a pretty decent quarter. Qualcomm brought in $4.8 billion in revenues, which is a 20-percent decrease from the same period a year ago. However, its income was $1.1 billion in the quarter, compared to a $6 billion loss a year ago. Earnings per share were $1.20 for the quarter. While Qualcomm beat on the bottom line, it did miss on the top line. However, that didnt keep its stock down. Its up two-percent in extended hours trading right now.

Interesting note on Qualcomms earnings is the fact that it shipped about 22-percent fewer chipsets than a year ago. Just 186 million shipped. In its forward-looking guidance, it does expect that it will ship less chipsets in the current quarter. Expecting 150 to 170 million being shipped. which shows how much the smartphone market has slowed, especially in the high-end and premium tiers. However, it does expect that its revenue will remain relatively the same, compared to the same period a year ago.

Qualcomm did see some rather large decreases across the board, in its earnings this quarter compared to a year ago. A big part of that is due to the smartphone market slowing. However, analysts expected this, and hence why its stock is trading up in after-hours trading this evening.
TIM JEAN/Staff file photoSurrounded by his family, Barry Finegold speaks to supporters during an election night celebration Nov. 6 at Andolinis restaurant in Andover.
For many of us, the ebook reader was the next best thing to happen since Gutenbergs printing press. The printing press made books widely available, and the ebook reader conveniently shrunk the same to such compactness that we can carry a thousand of them around wherever we go without discomfort. Such a concept would have been fantastic for someone born in the 16th century, but nevertheless, the idea did cross their mindsespecially the mind of Agostino Ramelli.

Agostino Ramelli was an Italian military engineer. As a young man he served under the famous Italian warlord, the Marquis of Marignano, and became trained in mathematics and military engineering. Ramelli had a knack for solving mechanical problems, and as his reputation grew he left for France to serve under the Duke of Anjou, who later became King Henry III. When Ramelli successfully engineered a mine under a bastion and helped breach a fortification during the Siege of La Rochelle, he became very popular with the commander, the Duke.

Agostino Ramelli didnt build a lot of machines, but he had a storehouse of ideas aimed at solving everyday problems, such as how to mill grains, or haul heavy objects, excavate a ditch, or defend a city. All his solutions involved some kind of a mechanical device. In 1588, he collected nearly two hundred of his best ideas and published a book entitled Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli, or The various and ingenious machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli. The book contained 195 full-page engravings accompanied by detailed descriptions of each mechanism in both Italian and French. Ramelli devoted half the book to various methods to raise water, such as water pumps, water wheels and wells. Other designs included cranes, bridges, fountains, cofferdams, screw jacks, hurling engines, and so on. One of the most famous designs from this book was the bookwheel.

The bookwheel was Ramellis attempt to solve the problem of reading or referencing several books at once. In those times printed works were typically large and heavy which made cross-referencing between them nearly impossible unless you laid them out in a large table and used your foot to consult different pages, which Ramelli remarked was very inconvenient for those who are indisposed and tormented by gout.

The bookwheel resembled a Ferris wheel typically found in amusement parks, with the riders replaced by slanted reading desks. A complicated arrangement of gears called epicyclic gearing, that had only previously been used in astronomical clocks, ensured the lecturns over which the books were laid open remain at the same angle no matter the wheel's position. The seated reader used either hand or foot controls to rotate the wheels and bring the desired book into position. According to Witold Rybczynski, gravity would have worked just as fine in keeping the lecturns level, as it does with a Ferris wheel, but Ramelli wanted to show-off his mathematical prowess resulting in an unnecessarily elaborate design.

Ramelli deliberately made his designs complicated in order to show the application and importance of mathematics and geometry in the field of engineering. In the preface of his book, Ramelli made no attempt to hide this fact. He wrote, On the excellence of mathematics in which is shown how necessary mathematics are for learning all the liberal arts.

Below are two examples of his overtly complicated machines. Both are devices for the simple task of drawing water from a well.

Ramelli never actually built any of the machine, but his illustrations had a great influence on future mechanical engineering. In the 1661 book Theatrum machinarum novum, German architect and engineer Georg Andreas Bockler copied eighteen of Ramelli's plates. Ramelli's influence can also be seen in the well-known works of Grollier de Serviere (Recueil d'ouvrages curieux de mathematique et de mecanique, 1719) and Jacob Leupold (Theatrum machinarum, 1724-1739).

One machine that actually got built was the bookwheel, but generations later in the 17th and 18th centuries. Dozens of bookwheels based on Ramellis design were built across Europe. At least fourteen of these survive till today.

A bookwheel manufactured in 1625 in the Herzog August Library, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Photo credit: Kerstin Namuth/Wikimedia
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," chanted delegates after they adopted a resolution in support of the BDS movement.

The Democratic Socialists of America, the political party closely associated with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for the elimination of Israel at its 2017 convention.

Daily Wire:

"The river in this formulation is the Jordan, the naturally occurring eastern border of Israel and of the West Bank; the sea is the Mediterranean to the west," The Daily Beast reported. "Uttered by advocates of the Palestinian cause for decades, the pithy slogan very pointedly makes no place for Israel. It evokes a strip of Middle Eastern land where Israel is no more, replaced by a unified Palestinian entity in the space it once occupied."

It isn't just the Democratic Socialists who have come out in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Dozens of radical Democrats also support BDS, and many also make plain their sympathy for the Palestinians.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) political party, the Democratic Socialists of America, voted in 2017 to adopt the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign



They called for the elimination of Israel, chanting: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" pic.twitter.com/2krBoMgPBm  Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 29, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez told Margaret Hoover in an interview on PBS that she believes that Israel is occupying Palestine.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is becoming a huge problem for the Democratic Party. In many ways, she is on her way to becoming the face of the Democrats. She can condemn anti-Semitism all she wants, but her statements about Israel tell a different story.

Her anti-Semitism  and that of numerous other Democrats  has some Hill veterans very worried. They have formed a new, pro-Israel group to counter the toxic anti-Semitism of many Democrats.

Jerusalem Post:

Mark Mellman, a veteran pollster who closely tracks US attitudes on Israel and voter priorities within the American Jewish community, will serve as CEO of the new organization, called the Democratic Majority for Israel, according to a statement from the group. The group will "focus its education and advocacy efforts first around the 2020 presidential and congressional elections," it said. "The organization will engage with grassroots activists, elected officials and Democratic candidates who promote progressive values to advocate for continued support of a strong US-Israel alliance based on shared values and shared interests." The goal of the group will be to assert the party's "majority pro-Israel" stance, just as some of the loudest Democratic freshmen lawmakers on Capitol Hill express a desire to break from Washington's traditional thinking on Israel policy. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries both welcomed the formation of the group, in a sign of the leadership's interest in preserving Democratic support for the state. "Democrats understand a strong US-Israel relationship is vital for our country and a key element of our party's agenda," said Hoyer of Maryland. "Knowing the leadership of Democratic Majority for Israel, I'm confident they will play a central role in ensuring our party remains steadfast in its support for our ally and fellow democracy, Israel." Pew Research polling has found an increase in hostility to Israel within the Democratic Party, but a historic overview of its data shows that support for the Jewish state has ebbed and flowed over time.

Whether it's been opposition to Israel's concept of borders, the settlements, or Israel's aggressive defense of itself, that "ebb and flow" in Democratic support never came close to advocacy for Israel's elimination. That's what's different this time, and Democrats had better wake up and smack down Ocasio-Cortez and her nauseating colleagues who support the Palestinians in their efforts to destroy the Jewish state.

Jews have been a reliable Democratic vote for decades. But even liberal Jews are troubled by calls for Israel's destruction and the blatant anti-Semitism demonstrated by Ocasio-Cortez and supporters of BDS.
"Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled  the successful establishing and the successful administering of it.

In 1861, President Lincoln confronted a section of the body politic that refused to accept his election. Instead of hunkering down and resorting to the ballot the next time around, they simply repudiated the entire electoral process and voted (with their feet and arms) for negation of the election results. Lincoln responded on July 4:

"One still remains  its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. "It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can no be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. "Such will be a great lesson of peace; teaching men that what they cannot take by an election neither can they take by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war." July 4, 1861: Address to Congress

No president since Lincoln has faced the prospect of an internal rebellion as has Trump. The departments of his own government are aligned against him. The Justice Department in no way answers his summons. The FBI uses overwhelming force to intimidate his supporters. The intelligence agencies conspire for his removal. The media, some of which appear to be merely part of the same apparatus, lie to the public in order to foment hysteria and create a popular clamor.

"... a monstrous usurpation, a criminal wrong, and an act of national suicide." The Chicago Times, on the Emancipation Proclamation

What is at stake, as in Lincoln's day, is not merely who is the occupant of the White House. It is the survival of our democracy itself.

The people voted for Trump in 2016. Immediately, calls were heard for the Electoral College to be unfaithful to the electorate and select someone other than the winner. There were cries that votes had been stolen (though the factual totals indicate that more fraudulent votes were cast for the opposition than for Trump).

There were efforts to get the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. Trump, like Lincoln, was lambasted as an incompetent who lowered the standards of the presidency by using tweets.

"His weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world. The European powers will despise us because we have no better material out of which to make a President[.] ... Take him from his vocation and he loses even these small characteristics and indulges in simple twaddle which would disgrace a well bred school boy." Salem Advocate, 1861

Like Lincoln, Trump was temperamentally unfit:

"He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis." Edward Everett in his diary

The reason for Trump's impeachment doesn't matter. If he hadn't committed treason (based on a phony dossier  shades of the Dreyfus case and its phony bordereau), then he was guilty of accepting unlawful emoluments while in office (because people stayed at his hotels).

Only the end result counted  that a duly elected president, chosen by the people, should not be allowed to hold office because one faction refused to accept the electoral result and was determined to replace him with a man (or woman) of its own choosing.

What's at stake in possible impeachment hearings, as well as the Mueller investigation, is no less than it was in Lincoln's day: do the people have the right to select their own government, or are their votes to count for nothing, and a faction, a gang, a cabal, or whatever name is given to it, be allowed a veto over the electorate to protect its own interests and purposes?

We are in a struggle no less significant than the Civil War, and testing the same principles, but the prize is worth the fight, if we can endure:
Technology cuts two ways

The explosion of an experimental nuclear bomb in New Mexico in 1945 made it blindingly clear that the Industrial Age was over. This event showed with terrifying clarity that scientific knowledge, mathematical skill, and engineering prowess can be used for unthinkable levels of destruction. The combined wonder and terror of this culmination of the Manhattan Project prompted its leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, to remark: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Intended or not, this line from Hindu sacred text (the Bhagavad-Gita) gave the event an appropriately sinister footnote. Most significantly, Albert Einstein remarked: "The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking[.] ... [T]he solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind." I'm sure I was not the only youngster whose mind that day was dramatically reset regarding the meaning of "progress." It shifted my mind forever regarding the use of technology to advance civilization.

How this profoundly disturbing event radicalized geopolitics is amply recorded in the history of the 20th century. I'll not go there. My intent here is to focus on that side of technology that cuts the wrong way, humanly speaking, a matter generally glossed over or altogether ignored. The drive to scientize reality has been an obsession of futurists since at least the Age of Reason. In the 20th century, it had the effect of making every new generation wake up to a sci-fi world that even Jules Verne or H.G. Wells could not have predicted. A tech race heated up in the 1960s that caught even contemporary futurists with their pants down. It surprised even me, who at that time was at the cutting edge of computer programming technology. By 1970, things were in fact becoming obsolete as fast as introduced. As high tech proceeded to fashion our sci-fi world, transistors in integrated circuits ("microchips") were becoming smaller than bacterial cells, and electronic circuitry was shrinking to microscopic size. Before long, you could buy a computer for your desk for a few hundred bucks that put to shame the room-filling computers of the 1960s and '70s costing thousands of dollars! The reduction of data  visual, aural, mathematical, linguistic  to patterned streams of zeros and ones that a computer could process at speeds approaching the speed of light triggered a revolution in just about everything you could name. I got an inkling of this tech "magic" in the 1960s as a data processing intern for the DOD. None of the predicted advances in technology surprised me, therefore, but how fast they would come and how far they would go did. It led me to wonder if the digital revolution had in fact opened a Pandora's box that would mess up the world faster than it could improve it. The philosopher in me asked the programmer in me: "Is digital really better than analog? (The musician in me quickly answered no.) Putting the question in a sort of graphic way, is digitally "pulverizing, then reconstructing things" better than "copying them from nature"? For the programmer, the answer was yes. Why would anybody want to keep banks, hospitals, power plants, auto makers, photographers, the wheels of industry, services, research etc., etc., etc. from rising above mechanics-based technologies and soaring to higher potentials of functionality? For the philosopher, the answer was that the drive to penetrate to  let's call it "atomic levels"  for human progress was ultimately dehumanizing and perilous beyond imagining when isolated from moral restrictions. It bothered me a lot that advances in virtually everything had slipped into mere "process," with little regard for what is genuinely valuable to human beings. The neglect of human value and disregard for moral imperatives in the calculations for progress really could mess up the world sooner than improve it. Technology is a tool, not a god. Crossing a threshold of potential evil that could not have been imagined in 1945 when, in the blink of an eye, thousands of boys, girls, women, babies, and men evaporated at Hiroshima, must give pause to the rush for unbridled technological progress. Today's radical interventions in natural processes like editing DNA, producing chimerical creatures, altering essential properties of almost anything you can name, at minutest levels of operation  all the products of this technology available to leaders wielding power over society  produces a good question that demands a good answer: are the innovators and movers of our society keeping their minds connected to their hearts? Graphic: Public domain.
Titled " Annual Energy Outlook 2019 ," EIA credits technological advances in domestic hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling since 2008 have resulted in the quadrupling of U.S. oil and natural gas liquids production and doubling of dry natural gas production. Over the next thirty years, EIA expects production of liquids to increase by another 50 percent, but the big change is predicting that dry natural gas production will triple.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency's long-term forecast predicts that the United States will be a net energy-exporter every year for the next three decades.

EIA's report came just days before the Chicago Weather Service warned on Tuesday:

A period of extreme bitterly cold weather will affect the region through Thursday. Daytime temperatures will remain well below zero Wednesday and will struggle to get above zero Thursday. Nighttime low temperatures of 20 to 30 below zero will be seen Wednesday night. The coldest wind chills will be in dangerous levels from 40 to 55 below zero Wednesday through Thursday morning.

Cold winters have historically been associated with huge spikes in natural gas demand and prices. A potential bitterly cold Polar Vortex-driven winter across the Midwest generated a September lede article in Barron's speculating that a lack of supply could quadruple the price for dry natural gas from $2.72 per thousand cubic feet (mcf). With gas pipelines disclosing that a severe demand spike could force emergency rationing under "Operational Flow Orders," the price of dry gas rocketed $4.84 mcf in December.

Despite a Polar Vortex freeze reaching down into the Midwest on Tuesday and the U.S. Weather Service predicting three more days of the coldest temperatures in 20 years and potentially the worst freeze since temperatures began to be scientifically logged in 1872, gas prices have plunged 8 percent since January 28 to a four-month low of $2.81 per mcf.

After 15 years of U.S. domestic production stagnating at about 53 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) and a price of over $18 per mcf, EIA issued a warning in 2005 that domestic dry natural gas production had peaked and was in permanent decline. EIA forecast that U.S. demand growth could be met only with increased renewables and a 1,000-percent increase in liquid natural gas (LNG) imports to 12 bcf/d in 2015 and 18 bcf/d by 2025.

A review of EIA Annual Reports reveals that domestic natural gas production doubled since 2005, dramatically outpacing EIA annual forecasts for each of the last 14 years. The biggest growth has come from East Coast production in the Appalachia Region that almost tripled from 13 bcf/d in 2013 to 31 bcf/d, and production in the Texas Permian Basin that more than doubled to 13 bcf/d since 2016.

Instead of being an importer, the United States has been exporting a net 6 bcf/d of domestically produced dry natural gas to Canada and Mexico for the last decade. With the U.S. having built 13 U.S. and one Puerto Rico LNG import terminals, three have been retooled for gas liquification and American LNG exports reached 2 bcf/d in 2018.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved ten new export terminals and issued multi-billion-dollar construction permits at five locations, as the Trump administration races to catch up with the spectacular natural gas production boom.

The long-term LNG comparative economic advantage for U.S. exports is overwhelmingly positive. The U.S. export costs is $5.15 per mcf, including $3 for dry natural gas, $1.10 to condense gas 450 times into a liquid, $0.70 for shipping, and $0.35 for regassification.

According to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's November 2018 "World Estimated LNG Landed Prices," selling price per mcf in Europe is $10.05, $10.03 in India, $10.13 in China, and $10.16 in Korea. That means that U.S. exporters of domestically produced dry natural gas are making about a 100-percent profit across the globe.

EIA reported that the U.S. energy boom over the last decade drove down America's energy trade deficit from ten times greater than the value of exports in 2007 to break-even in 2018 and expects increasing surpluses through 2050.

But EIA still forecasts that U.S. electrical production from wind and solar "renewables" will almost double from 18 percent of domestic supply to 31 percent over the three decades. Those estimates assume that consumers will continue paying big and politically challenging utility surcharges to support California-style "renewable portfolio standard" subsidies.

EIA has consistently underestimated growth of domestic oil and natural gas production and overestimated future market prices. With a new technological wave increasing hydraulic fracking efficiency and rapidly expanding distances for horizontal drilling, American oil and gas exports are positioned to continue outperforming EIA forecasts.
On Jan. 22, 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, the nuclear chief of the Iranian theocracy, acknowledged that Iran had fooled the 5+1 and IAEA group of foreign ministers  these were U.S. and European foreign ministers who negotiated the Iran deal  into signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. That was the deal President Obama signed with other leaders and touted to the U.S. public. President Trump scrapped it.

In an unprecedented confession, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the mullah regime's Atomic Agency, acknowledged that the mullahs had lied in nuclear negotiations with the five world powers at the Arak nuclear site and had in fact hidden some of the banned equipment.

"As for the tubes we had, the tubes through which the fuel passes, we had bought similar tubes before, but I couldn't declare them at the time. Only one person in Iran knew this," he said on Jan. 22 in an interview with the 4th Channel of State Television, IRIB, about uranium enrichment tubes that were blocked by cement in the presence of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors.

"Only the highest authority of the regime [Ali Khamenei] was aware of this and no one else[.] ... His Holiness [Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] had said that you should be careful with these people, they are not trustworthy and do not keep their promises. Well, we had to work smart, and not burn the bridges behind us. We also had to build a bridge that would allow us to move faster if we had to resume our nuclear activities," he admitted.

"It was a tube two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long[.] ... We had purchased the same quantity of similar tubes. We were told to butcher them with cement, so we poured cement into these tubes ... but we didn't say we had other tubes," explained the Iranian nuclear chief, before adding, "We will use them now."

These confessions reveal that during the nuclear negotiations with the 5+1 that led to the July 2015 agreement, Tehran's sole intention was to fool the world powers to buy time, without interrupting its nuclear arms race.

The concealment of unauthorized equipment at the Arak site is the latest in a long series of deceptions by the clerical regime in its nuclear projects that are being carried out under the control of the regime's leaders, in particular Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Islamic Republic, who was the main negotiator of Iranian nuclear power with the world powers. This is an issue that the Iranian Resistance has been raising since 1991, having warned against its threats.

Yes, the Iranian Resistance had most certainly warned these signatories.

Immediately after the signing of the JCPOA on July 14, 2015, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who leads the Resistance, warned that "this agreement does not close the mullahs' path to deception and access to nuclear bombs."

Earlier, on Nov. 24, 2013, after a temporary nuclear agreement with the 5+1, the president of the National Council of Iranian Resistance (CNRI) stated that "the Iranian regime's compliance with its international obligations depends precisely on the degree of determination and firmness of the world community towards the regime's bad intentions and its deceptiveness."

"Any indulgence, hesitation, and concession on the part of the international community will encourage Khamenei to turn once again to the manufacture of the atomic bomb by resorting to deception and cheating. The mullahs' regime has never volunteered to report its nuclear activities to the IAEA in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The Iranian Resistance was the first party to reveal the regime's clandestine installations and nuclear deception," the Iranian opposition leader added.

There have been precedents.

In his book National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, Hassan Rouhani, the president of the clerical regime, writes: "In 2002, activities took place in a calm atmosphere, but the Mujahideen [PMOI or, Persian, MeK] suddenly made much noise by making false accusations[.] ... Our Atomic Energy Organization has considered that the Natanz facility must be completed in order to confront the IAEA with a fait accompli[.] ... In 2000, the Atomic Energy Organisation promised the [Iranian] authorities that by March 2003, by using 54,000 centrifuges, they would be able to produce 30 tonnes of fuel enriched to 3.5%."

On March 5, 2006, the Sunday Telegraph revealed: "In a speech delivered at an in camera meeting of prominent Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rouhani, who led talks with the European Troika until last year, revealed how Tehran played for a long time and tried to fool the West after its secret nuclear programme was discovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002."
Sen. Kamala Harris of California renewed the party's debate over single-payer health care in a CNN town hall Monday , saying she's willing to end private insurance, which more than 170 million Americans use .

Just one day after she formally announced her presidential bid in Oakland to big crowds and applause, Kamala Harris is already on her back foot, flip-flopping on a major campaign stance right out the gate. Monday, she said this, causing a lot of murmuring among Democrats who distanced themselves from her sweeping pie-in-the-sky proposals. According to CNN :

"We need to have Medicare-for-all," said Harris. "Who of us has not had that situation, where you've got to wait for approval and the doctor says well, 'I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

Tuesday, she had some second thoughts. CNN reports:

As the furor grew, a Harris adviser on Tuesday signaled that the candidate would also be open to the more moderate health reform plans, which would preserve the industry, being floated by other congressional Democrats.

Oh. Maybe something like this was going on:

Looks like someone got a call from some big money donors saying to stop with the crazy talk or were pulling our dough.  DCL (@danlyons21) January 30, 2019

This makes her look pretty wretched and puppety. Did she actually think this "me as president" idea through?

Doesn't sound like it. You want to propose something crazy and sweeping, you'd better be prepared to defend the idea if you care about your credibility. Yet she backtracked on her proposal for single-payer health insurance one day after she made it, to say that, well, no, she didn't really mean to say everyone's health insurance should be taken away and everyone in the health insurance industry should be put out of work. Because those were the implications of her big campaign proposal, which drew big initial applause from the peanut gallery and widespread disgust among the more sober-minded public.

Howie Schultz shot that idea down like a marksman.

Schultz recalled a clip previously aired of Senator Harris supporting Medicare for all by saying "she wants to abolish the insurance industry." "That's not correct. That's not American," Schultz said. "What's next? What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?"

Schultz is a nice, mild-mannered guy, but you can call this former Starbucks CEO "The Kamala Slayer" for the ease with which he dispatched Harris's half-baked ideas so touted with a straight face in the corrupted and uncritical Beltway press hive.

At least Schultz knows how the real world works. Harris, who's never held a non-government sinecure in her entire charmed life, never ran anything. She got ahead politically through her relationship with California political fixer Willie Brown.

Now she's backtracking on her biggest proposal, a government takeover of health care, saying she's still "committed" to health care for all by other means, as if President Obama didn't already declare that war won with his if-you-like-your-doctor Obamacare reform. Tired Obamacare regurgitation? That's all she has left now. Don't think that's going to work.

This brings up the real point here: she's not ready for prime time. A flip-flop of this magnitude is perfect evidence she doesn't think anything through. She plays to the crowds, promises the sky, and then gets thin-skinned when the crowd sours or someone with brains thinks about the implications of her sweeping proposals. She wants us to vote for her based on her looks.

This isn't the only evidence she's not ready for the presidency. Take a look at what's being said on Twitter.

Here's another sweeping yet half-baked proposal that Howie Schultz or some other Democrat is going to have a good time shooting as another fish in the barrel:

Wait till she figures out that her stance on gun control leaves firearms solely in the hands of a police force she claims is racist and shoots too many young black men   Dustin Johnson (@DustinJ310) January 30, 2019

Obviously, it's a pattern, so the message to come is that she doesn't think anything through.

In fact, the Twitterati notice she's more about ego than anything else.

I would not trust this person to referee a dogfight. This is not about the American people, its about naked ambition. She will say or do anything to be President.  Brad Wyatt (@BradWyatt88) January 30, 2019

She's also thin-skinned and can't take heat.

In this instance, one wonders if she was the class tattletale, too.

The thin skin is no joke. Here's an instance where she commandeered her press allies to delete a perfectly accurate and neutral tweet, which they obliged her on.

After getting pushback from Sen. Kamala Harriss (D-CA) campaign, CNNs Andrew Kaczynski on Tuesday evening deleted an accurate tweet about how Harris backtracked on her call to eliminate private health insurance and provide Medicare for all.

She can't take the heat.

And it's making her a figure of fun:

Ka-ma-ka-ma-ka-ma-ka-ma-ka-ma-kamaleon: she comes and goes, she comes and goes  Deuteronomy Jones (@Ol_Deuter) January 30, 2019

Willie Brown also noted her flexibility  EVP of Research, FFFFFlat Earth Society (@bdray3) January 30, 2019

Kamalabama!! We got a flipper!  Jeff Grove (@grove1jeff) January 30, 2019

Thin skin and ego don't mix well with ridicule, so expect more to come for #HorizontalHarris.

Bottom line: She's not ready. The other Democratic candidates are going to have a ball with her.

Sorry, Kamala  get back to your acting. Willie Brown is sure to have more "advice."
An abundance of arrogance

The U.S. Constitution's preamble is a powerful sentence that contains just over 50 words. Upon final ratification in 1789, the task set before the newly formed American government was clear and eloquently stated: establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for a common defense, promote general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty and posterity. Absolutely nowhere in the U..S Constitution does it state that the government shall provide health care to the citizens. As the list of 2020 presidential contenders grows, so does the number of candidates who support, endorse, and promote a Marxist-based ideology. Their arrogance knows no bounds as to what they want to force upon the nation. From a government-run health care scheme to the unrealistic New Green Deal, the socialists must be stopped.

California senator Kamala Harris recently announced her candidacy, defining her campaign for the White House as a fight against President Trump. During her speech in California, she rambled through her resume bona fides and then proclaimed that government-run health care is a right. Apparently, the senator has never read the Bill of Rights. If she had, she'd know that government-provided health care is not an enumerated right. Several days later, the senator minced no words during a televised town hall event in Iowa with CNN host Jake Tapper, formally endorsing Medicare for All. It's worth noting that the town hall event was by invitation only for a select group of Iowa Democratic Party faithful and a handful of Drake University students. Sound familiar? For the Iowa audience, she reiterated her vision for a nationalized, government-run health care scheme, beginning with the elimination of the health care insurance industry in America. Right out of the gate, her plan will also eliminate the estimated 500,000 employees who work in the U.S. health care insurance business. Clueless Jake Tapper failed to follow up by asking her ideas on how to re-employ all of the insurance sector people she plans to put out of work. Keep in mind, there are also tens of thousands of people employed in the ancillary health care insurance sector. It's hard to imagine Senator Harris winning their votes, insomuch as these folks will be looking for new jobs if she's elected. As expected, Mr. Tapper also failed to inquire how Senator Harris proposes to pay for Medicare for All. As they say, the devil is in the details. Scouring the internet, the only information I found providing the Senator's fiscal plans is buried in an article published by the Washington Post (Jan. 21, 2019). Author Jeff Stein attempts to explain Senator Harris's $3-trillion tax plan. For starters, she intends to immediately raise taxes on the rich, in order to give away the U.S. Treasury to special interest groups. And while Senator Harris was one of the first to endorse the Bernie Sanders nationalized health care scheme, recently declared presidential candidates Gillibrand, Gabbard, Castro, and Warren have simultaneously jumped on the Sanders bandwagon. To date, exactly none of these candidates has specifically addressed the enormous tax increases that must be imposed in order to fund the whopping $33-trillion price tag over a ten-year period, calculated by the George Mason University Mercatus Center, whose research is supported by the Urban Institute. The Institute also concluded that the Sanders plan will fall $16 trillion short in generated tax revenue. Social Security and Medicare were supposed to be solvent, too. Or at least that's what the public was promised. The reality is a different story. Potential independent presidential candidate and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is not on board with socialist sophistry. In his recent televised 60 Minutes interview, he stated quite clearly (and drawing almost immediate criticism from opponents and detractors) that the Medicare for All scheme is not American. He concluded by stating another truth: it's also unaffordable. Keep in mind that Mr. Schultz is a business titan. Unlike Senator Kamala Harris, he has practical, real-world experience. Mr. Schultz is poised to spoil the socialist narrative, repeated by posturing Democrat in Name Only candidates who should take the time to actually read the U.S. Constitution and Bill Rights. The United States was not founded on Marxist ideals. It's abhorrently arrogant to force a Medicare for All scheme upon the nation, promoted by dishonest politicians who think a one-size-fits-all, government-run health care program is the only solution. It's not.
However, an idea that does not occur to anyone to consider is one of Trump's victory, no matter how unusual it sounds.

The U.S. federal government (more precisely, only one quarter of the government) was shut down for 36 days. Opinions of this shutdown, as expected, vary. In the left camp, a victory is celebrated, and in the right camp, the range of assessments extends from bitterness of defeat (the majority) to cautious optimism like "well, we will see who wins" (a minority).

Why is this view not considered? Probably because it is based on the emotional background of the conflict  that is, the personal confrontation between Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi, who is reveling in her newly acquired power. However, let's ask ourselves: would Trump's position change if, instead of Pelosi, there was someone else? Hardly anyone could argue that it was Pelosi who determined Trump's political moves.

In other words, would Trump have initiated a partial government shutdown if someone else owned a gavel in the House of Representatives (Republican, Democrat, or someone else  that doesn't matter anymore)? Of course he would, because his main strategic task is the wall on the southern border  not just a wall as a barrier, but a wall as a symbol of the sovereignty of the country.

To achieve this goal, Trump needs to drive the opposition into a deliberately uncomfortable corner  so uncomfortable that the opposition will begin to seriously think about its strategic role: either stubborn obstructionism or a constructive opposition.

What can make the Democrats do this? Only public opinion. The opposition of Trump and Pelosi should be reconsidered from this point of view  not from the standpoint of the opposition of the gladiator Trump and the gladiator Pelosi, but from the standpoint of winning the sympathies of the spectators in the political Coliseum. Then the idea of Trump's winning immediately moves from the realm of fantasy to the realm of reality.

For about one month, Trump slowly, step by step, squeezed out from the media narrative all the informational garbage not related to the problem of illegal immigration. In a month, everything suddenly became secondary: North Korea, Syria, economy, trade wars with China, the unemployment rate, and racial problems. No one is participating in heated debates over the fact that the number of vacant jobs in America has exceeded the number of unemployed. Few people outside Washington are interested in the vicissitudes of the Mueller investigation. Except for small fringe groups, no one raises the issue of impeachment. Everything has faded into the background except the wall.

As a result, Trump skillfully imposed his agenda on America. As part of this agenda, there came a clear understanding that two ideologies clashed in Washington  one that aims to turn America into a country akin to Venezuela, and the other to build a wall on the southern border. The tasks set by these ideologies are serious strategic goals, and Trump's achievement is the political equivalent of a successful reversal of the Titanic right before an iceberg encounter.

Thanks to Trump, no one in America is left with any doubt about the actual positions of the two opposing sides. It is now clear to all American citizens that the Republicans' position is to close the border and open the government, while the Democrats prefer to open the border and close the government.

Trump has skillfully arranged the scenery for the next stage of political drama. At the same time, he wisely saved his trump card for the final act, either in the form of a declaration of national emergency,or the wall built by the U.S. Army (the law allows this to be done even without the consent of Congress). Moreover, the Democrats are unaware: for some reason, they consider the partial government shutdown advantageous for them. If for the Democrats the upcoming 21 days of negotiations with Trump are a sign of their victory, then for Trump, 21 days of negotiations are the gun on the wall, which, according to Chekhov, must necessarily fire in the third act.

Declaring a state of emergency in America is a fairly frequent thing. President Obama declared national emergencies 12 times, and President G.W. Bush 13 times. By law, a national emergency may be declared by the president for only one year, but, as a rule, all presidents extend their own emergency declarations and the emergency declarations of their predecessors.

Trump extended all the emergencies declared by Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton. In addition, Trump extended the national emergency associated with Iran, which President Carter had previously declared. Currently, there are 31 active national emergencies in the United States. For reference, the U.S. Congress has the right to cancel a declaration of a national emergency, but only if both houses of Congress vote for it with a two-thirds majority.

The Democrats still haven't realized what happened to them. It seems that none of them read Machiavelli. After all, they just had to back down and quietly lose a small (only about 0.1% of the U.S. federal budget) political battle over the wall on the border with Mexico, but at the same time save their entire army of supporters, their entire reputation, and their entire political capital that would enable them to confront Trump in the next stage of political struggle.

The Democrats went all in. What the Democrats have done is worse than a betrayal of American citizens; this is a mistake.

Note that one of the key players, Mueller, understood what was going on and tried to change the course of the news cycle imposed by Trump. Mueller's photogenic arrest of Roger Stone had stopped the talk about illegal immigration and the wall for a few hours. However, this did not last long.

In conclusion, let's remind the Democrats about one of the best known of Murphy's Laws: "If everything seems to be going well, you have overlooked something."
While our fellow Americans are snoozing, or at least not as active or proactive as their counterparts, Muslims never deviate and never stop pursuing their goal of world domination. They place their primary focus on non-Islamic lands  in this case, Europe and the United States.

Every organization has a mission or a mission statement with a goal in mind. It works day and night to reach its ultimate target. Think of Islam as an organization (not just another religion) with an ambitious mission. What is that ambition? you might ask.

Knowing Islam intimately, please allow me to assure you that to Muslims, the goal is everything. Let's call it "religious fascism." Islam condones any and all means to achieve its goal. The ultimate objective of Islam is the rule of the entire world under the Islamic Ummah  never mind that these life-in-hand soldiers of Allah disagree with one another regarding the Ummah itself and who is to reign over it. That's a "family dispute" that they will resolve by their usual favorite method: brute force.

Like any organization and sub-organization, conflict exists within Islam. Muslims do disagree with one another on several issues. Each Islamic sect believes that it has the Prophet and Allah on its side and will prevail over the other. For now, they should work diligently to achieve the intermediary goal of defeating all non-believers. There are countless instances that substantiate Muslims' "ends justifies the means" guiding principle. This policy dates to Muhammad himself.

Muhammad repeatedly made peace covenants with his adversaries, only to violate them as soon as he was in an advantageous position. Betrayal, deception, and outright lies are fully condoned in furthering the work of Islam. In the present-day world, the work of Islam is defined by an entrenched and influential clergy who issue fatwas  rulings  that become directives and laws to the faithful.

As an example, Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic state, made extensive use of the fatwa. Widely known in the west is Khomeini's fatwa condemning Salman Rushdie to death for his book The Satanic Verses. A less known fatwa of Khomeini during the last Iran-Iraq War led to the slaughter of thousands of Iranian children. Children, nearly all under 15 years of age, were given plastic "keys to paradise" as they were commanded by the fatwa of Khomeini to rush forward to clear minefields for the tanks to follow. The Islamic murderers, in obedience to the fatwa of a bloodthirsty man of Allah, had no problem in deceiving the clueless lads with made-in-China plastic keys to paradise.

Such is the existential threat of Islam. It is a rigid Stone-Age controlling system with a stranglehold over many of nearly one and a half billion people under its command.

A dangerous feature of the fascistic personality is the relative lack of independent thought. This deficiency makes the person highly amenable to manipulation. Islam, by its rigidly authoritarian makeup, robs a Muslim of independent thought to the extent the believer blindly adopts it as his infallible system of belief. Hence, the ideology of Islam is guilty of conditioning masses of people as easily manipulated instruments in the hands of influential figures.

One of the greatest subtle, yet important differences between the Muslim's thinking and that of the people in the West is the extent to which Muslims are fatalistic. There is hardly a statement that a Muslim makes without being conditional  conditional on the will of Allah. "I shall see you tomorrow, Allah willing"; "You will make it home, Allah willing"; "Things will work out, Allah willing"; and on and on and on. To the Muslim, Allah is on the job  on every job. Allah, with his invisible mighty hand, literally does run everything. "Allah's hand is above all other hands" adorns every imaginable space in Islamic lands  a telling point about the Muslim's fatalism and submission to the omnipotent, omnipresent hand. If something happens, it is Allah's will. If it doesn't, it is Allah's will. The rank-and-file Muslim has little will of his own. It absolves him of any and all responsibility. This mentality is in stark contrast with the "take charge" and "can do" mental characteristics of Americans and others.

In the Qur'an, itself, Allah gives these fellows their mandate: cleanse the Earth of all kefir (infidels), and help usher in the Golden Rule of Islam over a corrupt world. This high-purpose strategic goal of Islamization legitimizes any and all tactics.

Qur'an 8:39: "Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah." Allah, in his kindness, leaves a bit of wiggle room for the unbelievers. Those who refuse to convert or whose life is spared may live under the rule of Islam by paying poll taxes (jizya)."

Conclusion

While many Muslims work around the clock for their cause  i.e., to infiltrate our schools, our law enforcement agencies, our health care system  they also run for office with the help of our Democrats and some GOP officials, who provide them with necessary tools. Regrettably, only a small number of Americans understand the real threat.

There is no doubt that Islam's goal is to religiously dominate the world, which involves complete control over all phases of society through the brutal means of sharia, with no distinction between mosque and state, between religion and liberties.

As Muslim organizations march through with their own crusade here in the United States, under our nose, I have not seen anyone stopping them.
The Branson Board of Aldermen on Thursday (now postponed to July 28) will consider an ordinance that would require face coverings in public spaces. The aldermen might approve it, disapprove it, or approve an amended version. Would you be in favor of some form of mandatory face covering ordinance in the city of Branson?

You voted:
RTHK: Trump blasts 'naive' US intelligence

US President Donald Trump upped the public row with his own intelligence services on Wednesday in tweets slamming them as "naive" on Iran and in need of schooling.

The broadside was a riposte to a far more sober but equally emphatic rejection by the intelligence community during congressional testimony on Tuesday of many of Trump's claims to foreign policy successes.

Insisting that Iran's nuclear program remains dangerous, Trump said his intelligence advisers  who believe Tehran is largely abiding by an international commitment to shelve nuclear weapons ambitions  need to be more realistic.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump tweeted. "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

It was hardly the first time Trump has openly criticised his own intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

However, the extent and vehemence of the criticism and the intensely public way Trump expressed his anger, showed how deep the split is between the White House and some of the country's most respected security officials.

The broadside, including tweets in which Trump touted the success of his policies in Syria and North Korea, followed testimony on Tuesday by top intelligence chiefs that was widely seen as contradicting the president's rosy assessments. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2019-01-30. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently upgraded the Delta variant of COVID-19, or B.1.617.2, as one of concern because it appears to be more transmissible. The good news, according to one local health official, is that preliminary data shows the COVID-19 vaccines are effec
Israel working with Trump admin to get US money to Palestinian security
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CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 16: Model Bar Refaeli attends the Diamonds Are Girls Best Friend event during the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival held at Nikki Beach on May 16, 2011 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Much effort is made in the US to maintain that Palestine is not a feminist cause and erase the plight of its women.

Recent assaults on the reputation of Womens March cochair and prominent black American activist Tamika Mallory demonstrate, yet again, that speaking even the most basic truths about Israel and Palestine is a hazardous undertaking.

Last June, Mallory was disinvited from a conference in Australia for public comments observing that the creation of the state of Israel entailed a human rights crime  a statement that should hardly have been considered radical, let alone grounds for a disinvitation, given that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that accompanied Israels founding has been well-documented, including by Israeli historians.

Mallory has come under fire again for a January 17 interview on PBSs Firing Line, in which she responded to host Margaret Hoovers insistence that she recognise the state of Israels right to exist by maintaining that everyone has a right to exist  I just dont feel that anyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group.

Mallorys position is an accurate reflection of international law: no state has an inherent right to come into existence, and certainly not any right to commit the crimes involved in Israels ongoing disposal of the Palestinians, copiously recorded by Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights organisations.

Hoovers rejoinder to Mallory, I just dont think it requires scholarly knowledge to be able to say that Israel has a right to exist, was thus unwittingly insightful; when it comes to the prevailing discourse on Israels supposed entitlements, scholarly knowledge of relevant disciplines like international law appears not to be required, and, indeed, is actively disregarded.

Journalists like Hoover fixate on the fabricated rights of Israel, while the actual rights of Palestinians enshrined in international covenants, such as the right to self-determination, the rights to be free from discrimination and collective punishment, and the right of return for refugees, are completely erased from the picture. Clearly, what is being demanded of activists like Mallory is not an affirmation of Israeli peoples rights, but a denial that Palestinians have any rights at all.

The treatment of Mallory is alarming not because it is exceptional, but because it is not. Between 2014 and 2018, American NGO Palestine Legal responded to more than 1,200 incidents involving attacks on the expression of solidarity with Palestine  baseless lawsuits, censorship, violence, threats of violence, firings, and false accusations of anti-Semitism and terrorism. Over the past few years, laws against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which aims to pressure Israel to comply with international law, have now been enacted in 26 US states.

Targets of punishment for Palestine solidarity in the US in the last few months alone have included scholar-activist Marc Lamont Hill, whose speech at the UN in support of justice and freedom for Palestinians got him fired from his post as a commentator on CNN  an outlet that habitually features a preponderance of Israeli government and advocacy perspectives while marginalising Palestinian ones.

And Angela Davis, whose Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute was rescinded because of her activism for the fundamental human and civil rights of the Palestinians  a decision only reversed after it generated widespread public outcry.

And Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, accused of appealing to anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty in her opposition to a federal anti-BDS bill  never mind that none of the politicians criticised by Tlaib for introducing the bill are actually Jewish, and that some of the organisations impugning her have themselves invoked similar tropes to demonise Muslim Americans as enemies within.

Similarly blatant double standards pervade the continuing barrage of condemnations against Tamika Mallory and her sister cochair of the Womens March, Muslim Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour.

Sarsour and Mallory have been tarred as anti-Semites for calling out Israels colonial policies against the Palestinians, as well as for having publicly appeared with and praised Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam: an organisation that is present for black people in Americas most deprived and segregated enclaves, as black Jewish journalist Adam Serwer observed in The Atlantic, but also traffics in anti-Semitism, homophobia, and sexism.

Among those who have chastised the Womens March chairs for fraternising with Farrakhan is Meghan McCain  whose father, the late Senator John McCain, insisted on referring to Vietnamese people as g**ks, sang gleefully about bombing Iran, and enthusiastically supported an illegal war of aggression that killed approximately half a million people in Iraq.

On a recent episode of television talk-show, The View, featuring Mallory as a guest, host McCain abandoned all semblance of self-awareness to sanctimoniously proclaim she would never be comfortable supporting someone who engaged in Farrakhans hateful rhetoric  having managed to quite comfortably panegyrise her own father as a great man who was defined by love.

Comparable levels of hypocrisy characterised the statement issued by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, explaining her refusal to participate in the Womens March this year.

I cannot walk shoulder to shoulder with leaders who lock arms with outspoken peddlers of hate, Wasserman Shultz announced  but apparently has no problem rubbing those same shoulders with leaders like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has not only indulged in the outspoken peddling of hate against Palestinians but institutionalised this racism in law.

While suggestions that former First Ladies Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush should be considered culpable for the sins of their presidential male relatives elicited feminist outrage, Mallory and Sarsour have been held guilty by far more distant association with Louis Farrakhan.

While the Womens March leadership has issued repeated apologies and repudiations of Farrakhans anti-Semitism from the margins of American society, the racial violence emanating from the centres of power with their detractors complicity continues apace, attracting minimal scrutiny and opprobrium.

The conceit that Palestine is not a feminist issue is sustained by perpetual erasure of the Palestinian women who, in the words of Amnesty International, carry the burden of Israels American-sponsored occupation and militarism: the women whose homes have been destroyed and family members arbitrarily imprisoned or killed, the women forced to suffer the indignities of being violated by soldiers and giving birth at checkpoints, the women harassed, abused, or killed for protesting the unliveable conditions under which they are made to exist.

It is revealing that opinion pieces expressing worry that my support for Israel will bar me from the feminist movement, as journalist Emily Shire complained in the New York Times, themselves exclude all mention of the violence experienced by Palestinian women.

Shire, for instance, castigated the Womens March for having an action endorsed by Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh, described as convicted for her involvement in a 1969 bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two Hebrew University students and an attempted bombing of the British consulate, but omitted the fact that Odehs confession was extracted by prolonged sexual, physical, and psychological torture: a detail one would expect to be a primary focus of feminist concern.

It is revealing also that the same media outlets bemoaning the anti-Semitism imputed to the Womens March have extolled as a feminist victory the ascent of women to the pinnacles of the American military-industrial complex. The women (and men) on the receiving end of weapons systems produced by female-headed corporations like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, including in Palestine, are ignored as mere collateral damage.

Such apparent contradictions are consistent with the long history of imperial feminism: a feminism that seeks the advancement of a privileged subset of women through participation in projects of power premised on the subjugation of others.

However, those who continue to advocate for Palestine in North American feminist movements are the inheritors of another powerful tradition: of internationalist solidarity against injustice, built on the recognition that resistance to systems of violent power must be as transnational and interconnected as the systems themselves.

This tradition survives despite persistent state efforts to suppress and punish it, because justice for just us is no justice at all.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
After 50 years of Israeli war crimes on Palestinian land, the world has to act and ban Israeli settlement goods.

Everyone has a right to live in his home and no one may uproot him.

These were the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Knesset event this week marking 50 years of Israels military occupation of the Palestinian territories in which he vowed to strengthen Israels settlement enterprise.

The right elucidated in Netanyahus speech, it would appear, however, does not extend to Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Israels unlawful construction and expansion of settlements and their related infrastructure on Palestinian soil is one of the most defining features of Israels occupation and has bred mass violations against Palestinians over the past five decades.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian homes and properties have been demolished displacing entire communities from their homes and at least 100,000 hectares of land have been seized for Israels settlement project, including for construction and agricultural use.

INTERACTIVE: Palestine in motion

Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land do not just amount to war crimes under international law, they violate fundamental principles of international law triggering additional responsibilities among all states.

Yet, for decades, Israel has openly defied international law by ruthlessly pursuing its settlement expansion.

Palestinian natural resources such as fertile land, water and minerals have been extensively and unlawfully appropriated to sustain the Israeli settlements. At the same time, Israel has imposed restrictions on Palestinians access to  and use of  water, land and other natural resources, as well as restricting Palestinians freedom of movement, tearing families apart, stopping farmers from accessing their farmland and preventing people getting to work or earning a living.

Over the years, as the Palestinian economy has steadily declined under the strain of these restrictions Israel has simultaneously built a multibillion-dollar business out of Palestinian suffering  exporting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of settlement goods internationally each year.

This thriving enterprise helps to sustain the presence and the expansion of settlements and is a key driving force for the systematic violations we continue to witness against Palestinians today. For five decades, the world has stood by and watched as Israel has exploited Palestinian people, land and natural resources for profit to support its illegal settlement expansion, offering little more than condemnation of Israels unlawful acts.

International lack of action

Unless concerted international action is taken to stop and remove settlements, the already dire human rights situation for Palestinians in the occupied territories will only get worse.

Under international law, states have an obligation not to recognise nor to render aid or assistance to the illegal situation created by Israeli settlements  yet many states continue to allow imports from settlements and permit their companies to operate on occupied Palestinian land.

The vast majority of states, including all EU member states, publicly acknowledge Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and have been nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the settlement project.

There have also been many UN resolutions passed demanding an end to settlement construction and expansion. As early as 1980, UN Security Council Resolution 465 called on all states not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in the occupied territories.

Yet, time and again, the global condemnation of Israels settlement policy has fallen on deaf ears. Israel has repeatedly made it clear that it couldnt care less what the world thinks and is doggedly determined to continue its expansion of settlements in flagrant violation of international law.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus speech pledging his continued commitment to expanding settlements proves just that. Israels military-run Civil Administration is also set to approve thousands of new homes in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank announced earlier this year as well as plans to establish two new settlements, the first in years.

Ban settlement goods

It has become increasingly evident that merely condemning Israels settlement expansion is not enough. Thats why, to mark the 50 years of occupation Amnesty International is making a call, for the first time in the organisations history, on governments worldwide to uphold their obligations by banning settlement goods from their markets and putting in place laws and regulations to stop their companies from operating in settlements or trading in settlement goods.

Governments worldwide have the responsibility to ensure that goods grown, produced or manufactured on stolen Palestinian land do not end up on our supermarket shelves. They have to show that their verbal condemnation of Israel is more than hot air. Failure of states to do so would undermine the legal principles that they claim to uphold.

Fifty years on its easy to feel helpless about what can be done to address decades of injustice and Israeli violations against Palestinians. Banning settlement goods and stopping companies from operating in settlements are concrete steps that governments must take to meet their international obligations and to help to end an inherently discriminatory system that has brought suffering to millions of Palestinians.

Philip Luther is Amnesty Internationals Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Richwood, TX (77531)

Today

Scattered showers and thunderstorms, especially during the morning. High 88F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Low 81F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Police are searching for two suspects, one of whom used pepper spray on a store clerk during a robbery.

The man and woman entered a business in the 7000 block of East Chase Parkway on Monday, according to Central Alabama Crime Stoppers. Once inside, the female used pepper spray on an employee while the male suspect stole undisclosed property.

Once they are identified and captured, Montgomery police will charge them with first-degree robbery.

Anyone with information on the suspects or the crime is asked to call Montgomery police or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers the 24-hour tip line at 334-215-STOP (7867), the P3-tips app, through the web at www.215STOP.com or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers Facebook page.
An Alabama Death Row inmate set to die by lethal injection next week claims his execution should be stayed because the prison wont let him have a Muslim spiritual adviser present in the execution chamber.

Domineque Ray, 42, is set to be executed at Holman Prison on Feb. 7 at 6 p.m. by lethal injection for the 1995 killing, rape, and robbery of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. On Monday, Rays lawyers filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming Rays right to freedom of religion was being violated. They also asked for a stay of execution.

The lawsuit claims Ray, a Muslim, asked Holmans Warden Cynthia Stewart last week that he be permitted to have a Muslim spiritual adviseror imamin the execution chamber instead of the prisons longtime Christian chaplain. The warden denied his request and denied Rays second request to not have the chaplain present in the execution chamber at all, according to the lawsuit.

Ray made a third request to have no autopsy performed on his body because it conflicted with his religious beliefs, and Stewart said she had no control over that accommodation, the complaint says.

The same day Ray met with the warden, Ray also met with the prison chaplain. The Christian chaplain told Ray his requests "could not be honored due to ADOC policy, the lawsuit says.

Ray claims in the suit he has not been allowed to see a copy of the policy that details chaplain presence or guidelines.

The lawsuit claims Rays First Amendment rights have been violated, along with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Tuesday, Rays lawyers also filed in federal court an emergency motion for a stay of execution, claiming Rays constitutional violations should halt the scheduled execution. Alabama has made a policy decision the chaplain is there solely for a religious purpose, the motion says. In other words, Mr. Rays freedom of religion lasts until he enters the execution chamber.

Bob Horton, spokesperson for the ADOC, said the department follows protocol regardless of the chaplains spiritual belief or that of the inmate.

The ADOC allows inmates who are about to be executed to use the prisons visitation area each day of the execution week to see friends, family, attorneys, and spiritual advisers, the lawsuit says. Per policy, the inmate must leave the visitation area at 4:30 p.m. on execution day and is only permitted to meet with his or her spiritual adviser before being taken to the execution chamber for the scheduled lethal injection at 6 p.m.

Alabama law does not require the presence of the prison chaplain at an execution, the lawsuit claims. Once in the execution chamber, a death-sentenced inmate who wishes to have physical contact with a religious leader while making a final prayer may do so only with the prison chaplain.

Rays imam will be allowed to witness the execution from a room adjacent to the chamber through two-way glass. There is no compelling governmental interest in preventing a condemned inmate from having his or her spiritual adviser- who has been approved to have a contact visit moments before the execution beginsfrom taking the place of the prison chaplain in the execution chamber, the suit states. When that spiritual adviser is otherwise available, in the moments before death, imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of Mr. Rays religious beliefs.

The Christian chaplains mandatory presence in the execution chamber serves an unconstitutional interest in safeguarding the soul or spiritual health of the condemned inmate in the Christian (non-Catholic) belief system [it] has the principle of primary effect of advancing Christian (non-Catholic) religion and inhibiting all other religions, the lawsuit claims. The suit also says the chaplain policy creates an excessive entanglement of government with religion.

The lawsuit asks Ray to be allowed to have imam take the place of the prison chaplain during his execution and also to order the ADOC not require the presence of a chaplain in the chamber.

John Palombi and Spencer Hahn, assistant Federal Defenders, are representing Ray in the federal cases. Palombi said, Mr. Rays suit goes to the heart of one of the most cherished of all rights, the right to freedom of religion. Neither Mr. Rays right to practice his religion nor his right to be free from having a different religion forced on him ends at the door to the execution chamber. We hope that the Commissioner will not force someone of a different religion on him and deny him the right to have his spiritual adviser with him at the moment of his death should that occur.

Horton said the ADOC protocol only allows approved correctional officials, that includes the prisons chaplain, to be inside the chamber where executions are lawfully carried out. The inmates spiritual advisor may visit the inmate beforehand and witness the execution from a designated witness room that has a two-way window.

Ray currently has a separate case pending in state court, where another team of lawyers have appealed to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. Rays is the first execution date set for 2019, and if carried out will be the first execution since Walter Leroy Moodys execution in April.

Ray was also convicted of capital murder for the slayings of brothers Earnest Mabins and Reinard Mabins, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was convicted of that killing five months before the Harville trial in 1999.
A special counsels report on problems within Mobiles Public Works department, revealed Tuesday, was taken by some City Council members and employee advocates as a validation of their concerns. Where it leads remained an open question.

Throughout 2018, the council repeatedly heard complaints from the unit that picks up curbside residential trash in Mobile. Employees and advocates cited low pay, understaffing and alleged abuse by supervisors as contributing to a demoralized work environment. In November, former U.S. magistrate Patrick Sims began an investigation authorized by the council.

Sims delivered his report Tuesday to a council committee consisting of chairman C.J. Small, Bess Rich and Council Vice President Levon Manzie. Council members Gina Gregory, Joel Daves and Fred Richardson also attended as Sims reported his findings.

"The complaints heard from employees are about two things," Sims said. "Pay and supervision." On the first point, he said it struck him that only two possible pay grades applied to most of the jobs involved, meaning employees had little to no hope of working toward better pay over time.

On the latter, Sims said that the complaints seemed to focus on a supervisor put over the department in 2015; though he did not name him, the supervisor previously has been identified in media reports and employee complaints as Jeff Dees. Sims said he took special care to distinguish whether complaints about Dees boiled down simply to the fact that Dees did things differently than the ways to which employees were accustomed, or whether there was an objective problem.

"My job as an investigator was to try to make a determination whether those complaints were valid or invalid. Were those just people who didn't like their boss or was there substance to these complaints?" Sims said. "Many of the complaints did appear valid."

Sims brought up an incentive plan implemented by Mayor Sandy Stimpson and acting Public Works Director John Peavy as a third issue. "I have no comments on the merit of the incentive pay plan," he said, but he had found that the employees regarded it as "a trick to cheat them out of money."

Peavy was not on hand for the committee hearing. The highest-ranking administration official present was City Attorney Ricardo Woods, who said the administration had no comment because it hadn't seen the report yet.

The committee voted to accept the report. Small said copies would be sent out to all council members and to the administration. However, there was no discussion of accompanying the report with a council resolution or a specific call to action.

Council members generally are prohibited from directing city employees. Small said the council members doors were open, implying he hoped he report would lead to discussions with the mayor's office. (Amending Stimpson's budget in September, the council allocated money for a 5 percent raise for the workers involved; Stimpson has declined to implement the raise, offering the incentive plan instead.)

"The request is to make sure this does not happen again," said Small.

Wesley Young, who leads an advocacy organization for some city employees, said he felt the report vindicated his stance that there were real problems in the department.

Sure it does, he said. It vindicates it because the facts are the facts  Ive been telling the truth for one year and now everybody knows the facts.
Police said a witness claimed a 60-year-old man was passed out when his foot hit the gas pedal of his van and slammed into a west Birmingham house, killing a woman sitting on her front porch.

Eddie King is charged with reckless manslaughter in the death of 62-year-old Daisy Lee Bell, who was killed on Easter weekend 2018. After a preliminary hearing Monday, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Streety bound the case over to a grand jury for possible indictment.

King remains free on a $30,000 bond.

Birmingham police Officer Christopher Finch testified at Kings hearing. The crash happened just before 3 p.m. on March 31, 2018, at the intersection of Pearson Avenue and 31st Street Southwest. Finch said a Dodge Caravan plowed through the intersection and through Bells yard, before striking the porch. The front wall of the house was damaged, Finch said, and there was a crushed lawn chair in the yard.

Bell, a 62-year-old mother and grandmother, was taken to UAB Hospital and pronounced dead.

Cook, who police identified as the driver of the van, stayed on the scene after the crash. When police arrived, he was sitting in a chair next to the van. According to Finch, a woman who was a passenger in the van told police, He was passed out, his foot hit the gas.

Another car that was at the intersection, but not involved in the crash, also stayed on the scene and its occupants spoke with police. Finch said the two people in that car said the van nearly struck them, before speeding up at the stop sign, jumping the curb and hitting the house and Bell. They identified the driver as a male.

The first officer on the scene told Finch that Cook was slurring his speech, and admitted he had a couple of beers. Cook was temporarily detained and taken to UAB Hospital, where officers received a warrant for a blood draw. That blood, along with a liquor bottle found in the van, were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for testing.

Finch said Cooks blood had a blood alcohol content of .233-- three times the legal limit-- and also showed traces of cocaine. The tests on the liquor bottle showed the DNA of two people, one of them being male.

Birmingham police obtained an arrest warrant against King on Dec. 7 and he was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on Dec. 13.

Deputy District Attorney Julie McMakin is prosecuting the case; Assistant Public Defenders Tana Flaten and Brock Brett are representing King.
As a Tarrant firefighter fights for his life in a Birmingham hospital, friends and co-workers are rallying around the family to offer support in any way they can.

On Tuesday evening, a GoFundMe was launched to help with mounting medical expenses for Lt. Jerry Presley, who was critically injured in a Sunday-morning fire.

Tarrant Fire and Rescue Service and Tarrant police responded to a fully-involved blaze at a house on Woodrow Drive. Shortly thereafter, a call came over dispatch that stole our breath and broke our hearts: fireman down, wrote Melody Rickels, wife of Fire Chief Jason Rickels.

Presley, 47 and a 18-year veteran of Tarrant Fire, fell off a ladder, dropping at least 12 feet to the ground below. Jerry's family rushed to his side Sunday morning to find him unresponsive and fighting for his life, she wrote in the GoFundMe. He suffered a C-3/C-4 spinal injury, brain trauma, and an arterial injury in the neck.

As of Tuesday, Presley remains in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit at UAB Hospital awaiting surgery to stabilize his spinal injury. The surgery has been delayed while they stabilize his cranial pressure and monitor a fever.

I'll never forget the look on my husband, Chief Jason Rickels', face when he heard the words fireman down. I'll never forget the drop of my heart when Jason said to me, It's Jerry, Melody Rickels wrote. Lt. Jerry Presley is a devoted family man and loyal friend who has spent his life in service to God, his country, and his community. Every day he wakes up and goes to work knowing that it could be the day he gives his life protecting someone he has never met. Jerry would not regret it. He is the best among us and beloved by all those who know him.

Presleys wife, Tan, and his three children are keeping vigil at the hospital. They are testament to, and reflection of, Tan and Jerry - smart, funny, kind, loving, and tenacious, she wrote. The outpouring of love, prayers, and well wishes for Jerry and his family have been both beautiful and humbling. Jerry's other family, the men and women of the fire service and police force, have surrounded Jerry and his family since the moment he arrived at UAB.

Melody Rickel wrote that at this point, it's hour by hour, day by day. One thing is certain, Jerry has a long, arduous road to recovery ahead of him. Tan and the kids will be with him every step of the way. The emotional toll, physical toll, and disruption of their lives is more than they should have to bear. The last thing they need to worry about is a financial burden.

There will be significant costs for Jerry's family ahead, not the least of which is temporary housing down by UAB and meals. The costs will continue as Jerry recovers, even after he returns home, she wrote. My earnest hope is that the extended community steps in to care for Jerry and his family the way he has always cared for the community. Prayers cost nothing, we ask for those in abundance. If you are able to help financially please consider donating to this fund to cover the family's expenses.

Donations to the GoFundMe can be made here.
Two Birmingham brothers charged with fatally shooting their first cousin in 2016 pleaded guilty this week and were sentenced to prison.

Travis Vanhorn and Thavion Vanhorn were each charged with murder in the March 2018 killing of Garry Lynn Logan. Logan, 29, was a local rapper and a father of four daughters.

Travis Vanhorn pleaded guilty on Monday and was sentenced by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Streety to 20 years in prison. Travis Vanhorn, 24, also faced charges of sex abuse of a child, first-degree sodomy, and first-degree sex abuse for a separate incident, but those charges were dismissed as part of his plea agreement.

Deputy District Attorney Julie McMakin prosecuted the Vanhorn cases. The family of the parties was instrumental in this case. Without the family, Thavion never would have come forward with his confession, and we would not have known who was involved, she said. I know that the Birmingham Police Department, the Logan family, and myself are very grateful that the family encouraged Thavion to accept responsibility for what he had done. Because of Thavions confession we knew that both he and Travis shot Garry, and we also knew that Thavion was the instigator.

Travis Vanhorn was represented by Jefferson County Assistant Public Defenders Brock Brett and Blair Shores. Travis accepted this plea bargain because he wanted to accept responsibility for his actions on that day, Shores said. He also did not want his extended family to have to experience a trial and relive this event.

Thavion Vanhorn, 20, also pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced by Streety to 30 years in prison. He was represented by Ken Gomany.

After the judge imposed Thavion Vanhorns sentence, he asked if he could address the victims family. The younger Vanhorn turned to face the family and said, Im sincerely sorry for my actions and for the death of Garry Lynn."

Travis Vanhorn and a third brother, Travion Vanhorn, were charged with capital murder for the December 2015 shooting death of 32-year-old Yancy Hodge Clark. Neither brother was indicted in that case.

The Logan family was very understanding of our limitations if his case was to go to trial and they were involved in every step of the negotiation process. Although, we would have liked to have gotten more time on Travis, everyone is pleased with the outcome," McMakin said.

She continued, Its always difficult to come into a familys life at their lowest point, but the Logan family, especially Garrys mom, Doris, was such a great family to work with. I hope that the conclusion of these cases will bring them some degree of closure."
A 28-year-old Birmingham man is behind bars, accused of seriously injuring his girlfriends infant son.

Fultondale police and U.S. Marshals captured Karlos Antonio Parker in Hoover Tuesday night. He is charged with aggravated child abuse, which is a felony.

Fultondale Police Chief D.P. Smith said the 5-month-old boy was injured last week when he was left in Parkers care while his mother went to work. Another relative picked up the boy from Parker and noticed the usually-happy baby was lethargic and slow to respond.

That relative called the mother, who took the boy to Childrens of Alabama. Doctors found bruising to his head and back, as well as swelling of the brain. The injuries were obvious, Smith said. The boy is now recovering.

The investigation showed that the injuries happened while in Parkers care. The chief said Parker denies hurting the boy.

Police on Monday obtained the warrant against Parker and requested the U.S. Marshals help in finding him. Parker was captured and booked into the Jefferson County Jail just after 9 p.m. He remains held on $150,000 bond.

Smith said the Department of Human Resources has been brought in to investigate the boys family situation. As a parent and grandparent, Smith said, it just makes you sick.
Its so cold in parts of the United States that even the postal service is abandoning its well-known albeit unofficial pledge to deliver no matter the weather.

Freezing temperatures associated with a polar vortex have prompted the U.S. Postal Service  known for its slogan Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night  to suspend mail delivery in parts of at least 10 states. USPS said no mail will be delivered to parts of Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North and South Dakota as temperatures drop to dangerous levels.

Temperatures throughout the north and northeast have dropped to near record-lows, with highs around 10 degrees below zero in places like Chicago. Temperatures in Minnesota have dropped to minus 27 degrees; Detroit is at minus 6 degrees. Windchill warnings are issued throughout the region.

What is a polar vortex?

A polar vortex is a low pressure area  essentially a wide expanse of swirling cold air  that is parked over polar regions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During the winter, the polar vortex at the North Pole expands, sending cold air southward. Thats what part of the U.S. is experiencing now.

A polar vortex always exists near the poles but weakens in the summer and strengthens in the winter. Many times during winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the vortex will expand, sending cold air southward with the jet stream, NOAA said. It occurs fairly regularly and is often associated with large outbreaks of frigid arctic air in the U.S.

What is a polar vortex?

Whats the coldest temperature reported in the U.S?

The coldest temperature ever reported in the U.S. was in Alaska  80 degrees below zero on Jan. 23, 1971 in Prospect Creek in central Alaska, the Weather Channel reported. The coldest temperature recorded in the contiguous U.S. is 70 degrees below zero, measured at Rogers Pass, Montana, on Jan. 20, 1954.

Every state in the continental U.S. has seen temperatures drop below zero at some point. Alabamas coldest temperature was 27 degrees below zero recorded on Jan. 30, 1966. The only state that has not seen subzero temps is Hawaii. Its coldest temperature was 12 degrees recorded at the Mauna Kea Observatory, which is at an elevation of 13,796 feet, on May 17, 1979.
Most government workers furloughed without pay during the partial government shutdown will receive checks this week, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Workers began receiving back pay this week and most all checks will be in accounts by Thursday, something the OMB described as record time.

"Thanks to the hard work of talented employees at @USOPM @OMBPress @DeptofDefense #DFAS @usda #NFC @USGSA @Interior furloughed employees are getting paid in record time. Some employees will receive pay today & most employees will be paid by 1/31/19," Margaret Weichert, the deputy director for management at OMB, tweeted.

Thanks to the hard work of talented employees at @USOPM @OMBPress @DeptofDefense #DFAS @usda #NFC @USGSA @Interior furloughed employees are getting paid in record time. Some employees will receive pay today & most employees will be paid by 1/31/19  Margaret Weichert (@Weichert45) January 29, 2019

Almost 800,000 federal workers went without pay during the record long 35-day shutdown. Congress and President Trump reached a temporary deal to reopen the government last week, with a Feb. 15 deadline looming.

All federal workers impacted by the shutdown  those who were on the job without pay and those who were furloughed  were guaranteed back pay but had to wait for reopening to get their money.

The departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, State, Interior, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice, as well as independent agencies, were closed starting Dec. 22 as the president and Congress squared off over the funding for the border wall.
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Latasha James was transferred from Cullman County Detention Center to Tutwiler Prison two weeks before she gave birth to her daughter in October. James spent three days with her baby before she had to go back to prison.

Its not anything that anybody can be really prepared for, having to be separated from your baby, James said. (Watching) them wheel the baby away from me was really hard.

But thanks to a partnership between the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Alabama Prison Birth Project, James was the first mother in Tutwiler to be able to exclusively pump breastmilk for her baby without having to supplement with formula.

The Alabama Prison Birth Project, a nonprofit that works to improve the health of babies born to incarcerated women, partnered with Tutwiler to design lactation rooms and provide pumping equipment for moms separated from their babies.

It helps me feel kind of somewhat bonded without us being around each other, said James.

Wendy Williams, deputy commissioner of women's services at ADOC, said she has been working with Alabama Prison Birth Project since 2016, when they started providing group prenatal classes and doulas  which provide pregnancy and birth support  for Tutwilers pregnant population.

Tutwiler sees between 40 and 50 pregnant women each year, she said. Women make up around 6 percent of the incarcerated population in Alabama.

Initially the women were a little unsure of [the lactation room], she said. I think some of them had never breastfed their other children prior to being incarcerated.

So the doula representatives did a great job of educating the women on breastfeeding and how the nutritional aspect can help the babys immune system.

Tutwilers lactation room provides privacy for women who want to pump, along with medical-grade breast pumps and rocking chairs. Mothers pump breastmilk in the room, then label and store their milk in a freezer.

Once a week, a representative from Alabama Prison Birth Project picks up the milk and distributes it to each childs caregiver. In James case, its her mother.

Breastfeeding is encouraged in the medical community because it contains antibodies that help babies fight off illness and can lower babies risk of developing asthma, diabetes and other problems. The staff of the Alabama Prison Birth Project say that pumping breast milk can strengthen the bond between mother and baby when the mother cant be with her baby.

Williams said she began looking at potential prison reforms at Tutwiler after a Justice Department investigation in 2014 detailed horrifying conditions there.

Tutwiler has a history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment, according to the report. The women at Tutwiler universally fear for their safety.

The report found that Tutwiler staff had raped, beaten and sexually harassed women inmates at the prison, and that inmates lived under a constant threat of sexual violence.

Williams said the prison is working on providing evidence-based programs designed specifically for women. Each woman is assessed and then paired with one of seven classes Tutwiler offers on topics including substance abuse, parenting, working through trauma and emotional regulation.

We might have an impact on their children or how they parent their children, Williams said. It really has changed my outlook on the impact we can have.
Kelly Phillips walked slowly but steadily to the edge of the water.

Surrounded by friends, supporters and more than one camera, he watched with a broad grin as a Plaquemines Parish Port Authority vessel in the Sugar Creek Bayou sounded its sirens and sprayed fire hoses into air as a salute to Phillips, a terminally ill man who was given three months to live nearly two years ago. Phillips defied those odds and completed a 20-month journey down the Mississippi River aboard a battered houseboat.

Over a hundred people gathered Saturday (Jan. 26) at the Cypress Cove Marina in Venice, Louisiana to celebrate the completion of his approximately two-thousand-mile trip. In addition to the nautical salute, Phillips was given the key to the city by Plaquemines Parish President Kirk Lepine, who told Phillips, You brought a bright light to Plaquemines Parish.

Phillips, a Wisconsin native who spent many years in New Jersey, was diagnosed about three years ago with cancer of the sinuses. He went through chemotherapy, which caused him to lose around half his body weight and resulted in a stomach ulcer that ruptured.

In March of 2017, doctors gave Phillips three months to live. Unwilling to go into hospice care, he bought a 45-year-old houseboat named Shameless and began to ply the Mississippi River around Wisconsin and Minnesota. After surviving three months past the doctors diagnosis, Phillips, with $214 to his name, decided to set out from Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin and head down the Mississippi River.

I figured Id travel for three months and that would be it. I didnt die, my plans got screwed up, so I continued going downriver, he said.

Phillipss months on the Mississippi were frequently challenging. From an exploding can of chili to getting the boat stuck in ice to collisions with rock jetties and even a cargo ship at anchor, Shameless and its captain weathered many potentially disastrous trials.

But along with hardship, Phillips discovered the warmth and generosity of the strangers he met on his journey. People would bring him food and fuel. He was given a motorized bike to use on his shore excursions, a new generator and engine, and, best of all, his furry first mate Sapphire. The pug terrier has been his constant companion since being gifted to Phillips early in the journey.

Kelly Phillips smiles as a vessel from the Plaquemines Parish Port Authority salutes him during a party in his honor at Cypress Cove Marina in Venice, Louisiana, on Saturday, January 26, 2019.

Phillips had initially planned to end his journey in New Orleans but then decided to complete the navigation of the Mississippi River with a final push down to Venice near where the river ends at the Gulf of Mexico.

As the smoke rose from the grill and music blared across the marinas parking lot, Shameless bobbed gently at the Cypress Cove Marina, her journey complete. Two new flags flew above her bow: the Louisiana state flag and a Mardi Gras flag. Tied up behind her was a new skiff, donated to Phillips by Belle Chasse residents Marty Phingsten and Adam Young, who also provided a new battery to Phillips.

We found out he needed a little boat to go from the shore to his houseboat. I think he lost his little flatboat. It went down the river, so we brought him that little boat right there, Phingsten said.

Phingsten and Young were among many people Phillips met along his journey who came to the celebration at the tip of Plaquemines Parish. As Sapphire scampered from new arrival to new arrival, several of whom brought bags of her favorite snack, Cheetos, Phillips greeted everyone with handshakes and hugs.

Captain Terry Roncali met Phillips about a year ago when he helped repair Shameless after it foundered in Hickman, Kentucky. Roncali and his granddaughter made the journey to Venice to reunite with Phillips.

Its just a miracle for him to even be here, Roncali said. When he left Hickman, I wouldnt have given you fifteen cents for him to even have gotten to MemphisHe got to Memphis and I said Boy, look at you go!

Jeanie Louviere of Buras, who just recently met Phillips, brought king cake to the party.

I came down because it was a heartwarming story. Being this guy is having what hes going through, its a blessing to be a part of it, she said.

Louviere told the story of how earlier in the day, Phillips ventured over to a Chili Cook-Off going on just up the road. There he played a game called Chicken Drop, where a chicken is released on a board covered in numbers and whichever number the chicken poops on wins a cash prize. Phillips, she said, played the birthday of his deceased daughter and the chicken came through, winning Phillips about $100.

Its amazing, she said.

Lt. Governor and former Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser came to the party and met Phillips for the first time today.

We want to make sure we extend the Louisiana hospitality to anyone, especially a guy with a story like this, that given the remaining time hes got left, hes sees that hes got friends, Nungesser said.

Kelly Phillips laughs with Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser during a party in Phillips's honor at Cypress Cove Marina in Venice on Saturday, January 26, 2019.

Phillips was touched by the show of hospitality: Its over the top. Theres no words. When asked what he learned during his journey, Phillips replied, People are good. Period. All over. My friends from New Jersey who helped me get this far, all the people down the river, its all about themI did the journey but its about the Mississippi River people.

He paused and looked at the crowd around him, If youd asked me four years ago if I wouldve done this, I wouldve said What are you nuts?

Before Phillips and his newfound family dug into the mountain of crawfish, jambalaya, gumbo, barbecued chicken, fried shrimp and other local fare donated to the celebration, Rev. Max Latham of the Three Crosses in Buras gathered the crowd into a circle beneath the raised Cypress Grove Hotel for a blessing. With his arm around Phillipss shoulder, Latham thanked God for bringing Phillips to their community and the gathered crowd nodded its agreement.

When the blessing was finished, Phillips, Sapphire in his arms, wiped a hand across his face and said quietly, I hope heavens like this.

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayunes Maria Clark contributed to this report.
In keeping with their promise of business as usual following a raid last week by federal agents, Austal USA officials held a keel-authentication ceremony Tuesday for a fast transport the company is building for the U.S. Navy.

Such ceremonies have become more or less routine at the shipyard on the Mobile River. Dale Ditsworth, deputy program manager for Austal USA's Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) program, told onlookers that adding up the EPFs and Littoral Combat Ships that Austal makes for the Navy, this was the 25th such ceremony held at the yard since July 2010.

Routine or not, the ceremony signifies that an Austal ship has transitioned from being a collection of separately built modules into something recognizable as a seagoing vessel. This time around it also was a chance to emphasize a sense of normalcy in the wake of last week's revelation that Austal USA was "working with the U.S. Navy on an open investigation" and that its Australian parent company, Austal, was the subject of an investigation by Australian authorities.

After expressing thanks for the support of elected officials at the federal, state and local level, Ditsworth said "We appreciate the confidence the Navy has in us."

"This is a wonderful and exciting time for us," Ditsworth said, adding that "we look forward to many more ships to build."

The ship at the center of Tuesday's festivities is EPF 12, the future USNS Newport. Its sponsor, Charlotte Marshall of Newport, R.I., was assisted by welder Cristian Manzano as she burned her initials onto a plate that will be fixed to the ship's structure. Afterward Marshall, a board member of the Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, said "I was told I have a future in welding" and issued the ritual affirmation that the Newport's keel "has been truly and fairly laid."

Austal has been authorized by the Navy to begin ordering components for EPF 13 and EPF 14. Austal USA President Craig Perciavalle said the company expects the Navy to follow with full contracts for those ships "very quickly." "Those discussions are active as we speak," he said.

When it revealed last week that it was involved in an investigation, Austal USA released a brief statement saying that it was "unable to provide additional details due to the nature of the investigation." Various agencies referred questions to the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of Alabama, which has not commented on the nature or scope of the inquiry.

On Tuesday, some Australian and defense-industry news outlets were reporting that parent company Austal had confirmed the U.S. investigation was related to the Australian one.

According to The West Australian and www.marinelog.com, Austal released a Jan. 29 statement saying that the U.S. investigation was "separate but related" to an inquiry by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Two years ago, Austal announced it was taking a loss due to cost overruns in Austal USA's Littoral Combat Ship program, news which affected Austal's stock price. Australian market regulators appear to be interested in how Austal handled the release of that news.

According to The West Australian, Austal said that Austal USA is fully cooperating with the USA authorities so that its investigation may be completed as soon as reasonably possible."

"I can't add anything more, that speaks for itself," Perciavalle said Tuesday. "We're supporting the process. I made the comment that we're business-as-usual, which we are. Right now we've got a lot of activity going on."

"We're in a good place in that regard," he said of relations with the Navy.

Austal continues to develop its proposal for a next generation Navy frigate based on its LCS. Winning the competition for the frigate contract would mean years of work for the Mobile shipyard after the last LCS is built. And Perciavalle said a newly awarded Navy contract for post-delivery work on LCS 20 is a significant sign of future developments.

Austal USA wants to keep building as many ships as possible in Mobile, he said, but the company sees room for growth in finishing and service work on ships after they're delivered.

To be able to have work thats normally done in San Diego to actually be done here, with Austal USA as prime, is really a key strategic win for us, for our service business, he said. Were hopeful that will be something that continues, going forward.
Anniston city councilman Ben Little was jailed on charges of violating state ethics laws after he was indicted by a Calhoun County grand jury, officials said.

The indictment accuses Little of voting on legislation in which he knew he had a conflict of interest and a matter in which he had financial interest, the Anniston Star reported.

Cherokee County Deputy District Attorney Scott Lloyd is prosecuting the case. On Tuesday, Lloyd told AL.com he signed the indictment.

Calhoun County District Attorney Brian McVeigh confirmed a Calhoun County Grand Jury indicted Little. He also said the state Attorney Generals office is handling the case.

The Star reported Little turned himself in to the Calhoun County Sheriffs Office Monday night.

Neither Little or his attorney responded to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.

If convicted on either charge, Little faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $30,000.
National School Choice Week, a celebration of the options parents can choose for their childs education, has ended, and while most in Alabama hardly knew it occurred, some events pulled together groups who want to highlight the choices parents already have.

Most parents say they want a choice in what type of education their child receives. And increasingly, parents want to use the public dollars available for education in non-traditional ways.

Critics, though, say school choice dilutes an already too-small pool of tax dollars without proven academic benefit beyond what traditional public schools offer.

School choice was limited to public, private and home-school before Alabama Senate Pro Tempore Del Marsh, R-Anniston, and Republican allies in the legislature expanded school choice in 2013 with the passage of the Alabama Accountability Act.

Charter schools were added to the school choice plate in 2015. Only two are currently operating, but three more will open in August. Growth has been slow in spite of the law authorizing up to 10 charter schools per year in Alabama.

About that slow growth, Marsh said, In some cases, the local entities havent been as accommodating to those trying to put together a public charter school. A lot of roadblocks have been thrown up and lawsuits filed.

Marsh said charter school operators have a hard time raising funds to start operating, and he plans to add a line item to the education budget to provide some funding for that reason.

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, heads the House Education Policy committee and said Alabama has made a lot of good strides in the area of school choice.

Weve learned lessons from other states mistakes, Collins said, and we have good laws on the books. Our programs are creating schools of choice but with high quality, and thats what we want in Alabama.

Both Collins and Marsh said they support traditional public schools but believe families need options because sometimes students need a better fit.

Marsh pointed to expectations of a record $7 billion education budget for next year and said school choice takes very few dollars when compared with the overall expenditures on education.

Collins said when shes talked with families about why they chose a school, it was rarely about academics. Its a hundred different issues. Thats why all parents and all families need choice.

The most controversial school choice program by far is the tax-credit scholarship program part of the Alabama Accountability Act. That program allows low-income students and students in schools labeled failing to use funds contributed by donors to attend participating public and private schools.

Donors get a tax credit up to limits imposed by law. No more than $30 million can be used for tax credits each year.

Critics, including the Alabama Education Association, say the money is needed in public schools and shouldnt be diverted from the Education Trust Fund. Supporters say scholarships are changing students lives.

Marsh said he wants to see the program continue but does not plan to introduce legislation to raise the $30 million cap. He tried that two years ago, and it never made it to the floor of the House for consideration.

Because of the cap, the program is maxed out, student-wise, with about 3,900 students using scholarships this year. More than 20,000 students have been turned away from the program since its inception in 2013, according to Lesley Searcy, executive director of the Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund, one of seven scholarship-granting organizations in Alabama. Those organizations, called SGOs, collect donations and distribute scholarships to eligible students.

Another provision in the law allows parents of students in failing schools to take a credit against their income tax for the cost to move the student along with the cost of tuition, up to 80 percent of what the state pays to educate the student in a public school. Few choose that option, and latest numbers from the Alabama Department of Revenue show only 128 taxpayers took the credit in 2016, for a total of $354,345.

Searcys organization strongly supports the Accountability Act and pulled together educators, lawmakers, and parents in three cities---Huntsville, Birmingham, and Mobile---during National School Choice Week to discuss the benefits of school choice.

School choice provides a way to help parents get access to a pathway that is right for their students, said Asst. Sec. of Education Scott Stump, who oversees career technical education for the U.S. Department of Education during an event in Birmingham on Jan. 23.

Stump attended roundtables in Huntsville and Mobile, hosted by the Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund, an organization that provides scholarships to low-income students to attend public and private schools under provisions of the Alabama Accountability Act.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos strongly supports school choice as does her boss, President Donald Trump.

Parents have the greatest stake in their childs education. Accordingly, they should have the greatest power to make sure their child gets the right education. - @BestyDeVosED on #SchoolChoice pic.twitter.com/gCNMmgOO6w  US Dept of Education (@usedgov) January 24, 2019

Colorado, where Stump served as state director of career technical education for seven years, has open enrollment among school districts which allows students to choose a school based on what type of programming the school offers, he said.

Alabama is still in its infancy in school choice offerings, Stump said, but is making progress. Youre in the beginning stages of impacting more students in different ways than the traditional way that we have historically done education as a model.

Former state Sen. Phil Williams, who now serves as policy director for the right-leaning Alabama Policy Institute, moderated the Birmingham event and set the tone for the discussion. School choice is not about tearing down public education, Williams said.

Every child deserves to have access to a world-class education that fits their learning needs. This week, we'll be sharing some of the @EducationFL resources for parents who are interested in learning more. More here- https://t.co/VU02gUgjDQ #fledu #schoolchoiceweek pic.twitter.com/UyPs4NYYkC  Florida Department of Education (@EducationFL) January 24, 2019

School choice is often wrongly portrayed as an alternative to or in opposition to a traditional public school, he said. Increasingly, public schools offer choices within their own system of schools.

Athens Renaissance School, a virtual, or online, public school that is part of Athens City Schools, is an example of that.

We believe in both-and, rather than just either-or, principal Nelson Brown said.

Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, attended the event and said, School choice is a piece of the puzzle, but we need to make sure we address the needs of the public schools because they will be serving a majority of our population.

Garrett, a former Trussville school board member, is vice chair of both the House education budget and education policy committees and said he attended the event because he is interested in how Alabama could become more innovative in its approach to education.

In recent months, school boards in some of the states largest districts---including Mobile, Montgomery, and Baldwin counties---have approved resolutions calling for the repeal of the Accountability Act, saying the laws original intentions have not been realized.

Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, represents some of the highest-performing school systems whose communities pay higher local property taxes to support their local public schools. Faulkner told attendees that traditional public school advocates like the Alabama Association of School Boards, the School Superintendents of Alabama, and the Alabama Education Association are winning the battle against the Accountability Act.

Faulkner directed supporters of the tax-credit scholarship program to make sure their voices are heard in Montgomery when the legislative session starts in March. Faulkner said even though few students in his district use scholarships, he supports the program.

Faulkner said low-income families need access to scholarships because they typically dont have the ability to change schools because they cant physically move their families. Is their ZIP code going to determine what kind of education they get, he asked. Are we just going to say as a state well, thats it?

I support school choice so that every Alabamian can realize their God-given potential. pic.twitter.com/tQSbfcIbBZ  Del Marsh (@SenatorDelMarsh) January 23, 2019

Marsh, who was unable to attend any of the roundtable discussions, said, We continue to be pleased with the AAA and the scholarship program and giving the children in failing systems the chance to get out.

Marsh said he is proud to have worked to expand school choice in Alabama and recognizes the need to continue to work with educators to improve public education.

Were not trying to get kids out of public schools, Marsh said. We believe in accountability and we believe that having school choice drives accountability.
More teachers in grades 4-6 and new funding for school security are among the financial needs for Alabama public schools, State Superintendent Eric Mackey told lawmakers on Tuesday.

The budget request for K-12 schools also includes more state funding to teach students who are learning English as a second language and more for school nurses and for transportation.

Overall, K-12 schools are requesting an appropriation of $5.3 billion from the Education Trust Fund in fiscal year 2020, an increase of $295 million over this year. Growth in tax revenues for education, especially income taxes, are expected to make a significant increase possible.

Mackey spoke to budget committees from the Alabama House and Senate during the first day of budget hearings in Montgomery. The hearings continue on Wednesday as lawmakers prepare for the legislative session that starts March 5.

Mackey, who was appointed superintendent in April, said K-12 schools have worked to ramp up the number of teachers at various grade levels since the Great Recession a decade ago forced the elimination of about 3,000 teaching jobs.

Mackey said schools have restored student-teacher ratios, called divisors, to desired levels in grades K-3, high school and middle school. Grades 4-6 are the next priority. Mackeys budget request calls for funding to add about 240 teachers in those grades.

The biggest classes in a school, K-12, are grades 4-6, Mackey said. And those are still elementary grades. Theyre in developmental stage where they need a lot of teacher-student personal interaction.

The added teachers would drop the divisor in grades 4-6 to 20.4. Mackey said the goal is to reduce the divisor below 20, which he said would probably take two years.

The divisor doesnt equate exactly to students per classroom, because support teachers, such as physical education and special ed teachers, are counted in the ratio in addition to the classroom teacher, Mackey said.

The $22 million request for school security funds addresses an issue that rose to the forefront after the February 2018 mass shooting that claimed 17 lives at a Parkland, Fla., high school. The money would be apportioned to local school systems based on enrollment. Local systems could use it to hire school resource officers (school-based police officers) or for security cameras, door locks, emergency response technology and other needs.

Mackey said door locks are one of the most requested needs, especially for older schools.

You have these rural schools, a lot of them Ive been in, they have 70 or 80, 90 doors, spread over 12 buildings, and anybody can walk in from the back side of the school and just come in, Mackey said.

Fencing and corridors to connect buildings are other examples of security improvements, Mackey said.

Giving troubled students more access to mental health counseling is considered another component in efforts to reduce the risk of school violence. Mackey said school systems could use the new state money to help place mental health counselors in schools, such as by providing office space and clerical help. Some students in need of mental health counseling might have no access to a counselor other than at school, Mackey said.

Set that mental health counselor up an office in the school and so then students are going back and forth to them just like they would to a school guidance counselor or assistant principals office, Mackey said.

Alabama schools generally have about 25,000 students each year who must learn English as a second language, Mackey said. The students are concentrated in communities in northeast and northwest Alabama where their families have migrated to fill jobs in agricultural industries, including Franklin, DeKalb and Marshall counties. Mackey said schools in those counties bear much of the cost of paying for the language teachers. His budget request would increase the state funding from $130 per English language learner to $400.

Mackey said the most difficult language challenges are with students from Guatemala who have never been in formal school.

In speaking to the legislators today, Mackey covered some of the same points he made during a school board meeting in September.

The K-12 funding request would almost double state funding for school nurses, from $32 million to $62 million.

Transportation funding would increase from $348 million to $373 million. The increase would be for transportation operations and for the purchase of new buses.

Alabamas economy, with record levels of employment, has made increases in education spending possible. Revenues that support the Education Trust Fund grew by almost 7 percent in fiscal year 2018, mostly because of an increase in individual income taxes, the largest source of education dollars.

Officials with the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Alabama Medicaid Agency are scheduled to appear at Wednesdays budget hearings.
The Alabama Department of Corrections has requested funding for a 20 percent increase in pay for security staff and to hire 500 more correctional officers, Commissioner Jeff Dunn told legislators at a budget hearing today.

The numbers are available on this spreadsheet.

Dunn said the ADOC is requesting a $42 million increase in its appropriation from the state General Fund, from $477 million to $519 million for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

Most of that increase, $26 million, will be to pay for the additional officers and higher pay for officers.

Alabamas prisons have been overcrowded and understaffed for years. Some prisons have less than half the officers they need, Dunn said.

Although our recruiting efforts have increased, we still are down to 50 percent or lower staffing levels in many of our major facilities, Dunn told legislators at todays hearing. And there is a direct correlation between the shortage of officers in our prisons and the increase in violence.

Dunn said the level of violence is "unacceptably high."

Dunn had told the Legislatures contract review committee in December that the ADOC would ask the Legislature for better compensation for correctional officers to help in recruiting and retention.

The ADOC is under a federal court order to beef up its security staff, as well as mental health care. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled in 2017 that mental health care in state prisons failed to meet constitutional standards and cited a shortage of officers as a key factor.

Dunn said the federal court order incorporates the staffing recommendations of a firm the ADOC hired to assess its needs. It calls for an additional 1,800 to 2,000 officers, Dunn said.

Starting pay for a correctional officer is about $30,000.

The budget spreadsheet shows that the increased staff would allow ADOC to reduce overtime costs by $6 million next year.

Budget hearings started on Tuesday and conclude today. Lawmakers are preparing for the legislative session that starts March 5.

Besides the prison system, the Alabama Medicaid Agency is scheduled to appear today, along with the Department of Human Resources, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Department of Senior Services and the Department of Public Health.

Dunn said the ADOCs most urgent need is to hire more correctional officers. He said improving health care for inmates and replacing aging prisons are the other two main components in fixing what he called a generational problem with state prisons.

The Legislature boosted prison funding last year, partly to pay for expanded mental health care. The ADOCs budget request calls for hiring 20 additional medical and mental health employees.

In 2016 and 2017, lawmakers rejected plans proposed under former Gov. Robert Bentley to build several regional prisons and close most existing facilities. Those plans would have required the state to borrow about $800 million through a bond issue.

Under Gov. Kay Ivey, the ADOC is still pursuing plans for new prisons, but possibly with a different approach. One plan under consideration is entering an agreement with private firms that would build three mens prisons and lease them to the state, which would operate them.

The ADOC has hired Hoar Program Management under an $11.5 million contract that includes preparing the architectural and engineering design work needed to request proposals if the Ivey administration decides to build the prisons.

Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Mobile, asked Dunn today if the Legislature was being cut out of the process.

Dunn said the Legislatures assistance in addressing the staffing issue was vital. Dunn said Ivey asked the ADOC to gather information for the governor to consider on how to proceed on prison construction.

The issue on the infrastructure is one that the governor has asked me to present options," Dunn said. So, we have done that and we are working through that process."

Dunn said it would cost about $750 million to make needed repairs and renovations to existing prisons and that some facilities have outlived their usefulness.

What we are doing right now is going through the process to obtain the required architectural design and engineering criteria needed to be able to take the next step.

Dunn was also asked about $4.7 million the Legislature appropriated previously for the ADOC to enter negotiations about the possible purchase of a private prison in Perry County. Dunn said the state Finance Department handled those negotiations. He said no agreement could be reached and he was not aware of any ongoing negotiations. Dunn said the owner wanted $15 million for the prison, which is not in use.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said the prisons location would present problems in lack of access to health care for inmates and recruiting staff to run it.
This is an opinion column.

Say it aint so, Alabama.

Matt Hart, long Alabamas most visible corruption fighter, has taken a job on the other side.

Like when Brett Favre went to the Vikings, or when Red Sox icon Roger Clemens came back to pitch for the Yankees.

Say it aint so.

Hart has joined the Birmingham law firm of Spotswood Sansom & Sansbury LLC  which received almost $1 million in a state contract with the attorney generals office to help in the prosecution of former House Speaker Mike Hubbard. Hart will, according to a press release, head the firms white collar defense and investigations practice group.

He will, it appears, defend those charged with public corruption.

Dudes gotta make a living, I know. He was unceremoniously forced out of his job overseeing the corruption unit at the attorney generals office last year after friction with AG Steve Marshall  and pressure from those who did not want his scrutiny  reached a boiling point.

There arent a lot of jobs in the corruption fighting business anymore. Especially not in Alabama. It takes courage and thick skin and will and support from the top down. And just a little bit of insanity.

So its the end of an era. And it comes with its share of sadness for regular people in Alabama..

Alabama can no longer expect any kind of commitment to fighting corruption on a state level. Oh, the AG will make petty corruption cases at low local levels, snagging bumbling bureaucrats and easy marks. And we can hope the feds will take a few looks at how business is done. But there will be no state investigations of political powerhouses, like Hubbard was when he was prosecuted by Harts team.

Hubbard, by the way, was sentenced to prison 936 days ago. He remains free.

That Hart goes to Spotswood Sansom & Sansbury will raise some eyebrows. The firm was paid up to $990,000 from 2014 to 2016 by then-Attorney General Luther Stranges office to help in the Hubbard prosecution. The payments do fall outside the two-year revolving door window.

Hart, a bear of a man and a bulldog of a prosecutor, made his name in Alabama with two decades of state and federal prosecutions.

As an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District he presided, under U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, over the Golden Age of Corruption Prosecutions for a corruption task force that won 125 convictions.

His team prosecuted many in the corrupt two-year college system, and the Jefferson County sewer scandal.

Hart returned to Montgomery to lead Stranges corruption unit, where he prosecuted Hubbard and made enemies in politics and business by investigating contracts and political donors.

Hart said in a statement that joining the defense firm was an easy decision.

The firm operates with integrity and its attorneys are elite practitioners and advocates. I look forward to offering the highest level of service to individual and corporate clients, he said.

I get it. I do. But say it aint so.

Because prosecuting corruption is hard. It makes powerful enemies and receives no thanks

Alabama for years did not pursue corruption on a state level, leaving that to the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, when they found the time and the inclination and the political will to do it.

Now, I suppose well see who -- if anybody -- has the will and the backbone.

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.
My wife Catherine and I have electricity between us.

Thats a truth I am proud of even if we have to check the voltage every now and again after 30-plus years of marriage.

But what I am about to describe is not actually the spark of love or the metaphorical way we describe electricity between people, sparks flying and all..

Im talking literally.

When she touches the top of my ear, at certain times, she feels an electrical buzz on her fingertip. When she does and moves her finger back and forth I hear what sounds like a Star Wars lightsaber --- bzuhzzzzzzzuhzzzzzuhzzzz (thanks Reddit and Huffington Post for offerings on how to spell that sound.)

We discovered this phenomenon a few weeks back and it kind of freaked me out. Not known to be electrifying, I wondered how there was a current running through me. Now when I touch my ear after she feels the buzzing, I dont feel anything.

My thoughts eventually led me to wonder if it has something to do with my brain disease, Lewy body dementia. The ear is rather close to the brain I figured. And strange body feelings are sometimes symptoms of LBD.

After some time searching the Internet, I got a better idea of what may be going on  but certainly not a definitive answer. It appears that the culprit may be the computer laptop. Other reports are that the phenomenon is connected to electric blankets.

What I found were scattered reports on website threads from people asking the same thing.

This from a reader on a physics blog.

When my wife uses her laptop, if I touch her skin, I can feel a buzz. She doesnt feel the buzz, but she can hear it if I touch her ear. So Im guessing its a faulty laptop, and shes conducting an electrical current. But why would she not feel anything, and what would it be that she would be hearing when I touch her ear?

Similar stories are reported on a few scattered websites but many of these reports are five or more years old. And its true that the buzzing goes away if Im not using my laptop with it on my lap.

Now scientists have pretty much ruled out any links between laptops and testicular cancer, a concern in the early days of heavy laptop use. But I havent been able to find a study on this particular situation.

So I dont think it is a symptom of my brain disease but I do wonder  though doubtful  that it may be a cause.

Some reports I have found are here and here.

As Buzzing in California asked on a blog post relating an electric blanket experience: This experience prompts two questions; one of an academic nature, and the other more related to general health matters.

Has anybody out there experienced this or know any more about it?

Id love to hear from you as I keep seeking an answer.

For the time being Ill just chalk it up to the electrifying chemistry I have with Catherine.
The Alabama Theatres iconic blade sign on Third Avenue North will be taken down on Friday for refurbishment, and could be gone for up to 18 months, theater organizers said today.

The sign, a beloved landmark in downtown Birmingham, has been in service for 62 years, drawing folks to the 2,150-seat theater at 1817 Third Ave. North.

Fravert Services, a local company that specializes in architectural signage, will start work on Thursday, organizers at the theater said. Dismantling and removal of the sign will start on Friday, and the 1800 block of Third Avenue North -- the street in front of the theater -- will be closed starting at 9 a.m. that day.

The street is scheduled to reopen on Monday, once the sign and its equipment have been safely removed, theater organizers said. The main entrance to the Alabama Theatre will be closed throughout the weekend. During that time, people can enter the theater through the stage door on 18th Street North or doors in the alley off 18th Street, between the theater and the parking deck of McWane Science Center.

Sprucing up the sign is part of a long-term plan to restore the exterior of the historic theater, which was built in 1927. The theater is owned by Birmingham Landmarks, a nonprofit organization that also owns the nearby Lyric Theatre.

This refurbishment brings us closer to completing a three-phase plan for the total restoration of the Alabama Theatre exterior, Brant Beene, executive director of Birmingham Landmarks, said in a press release. Phase one was the replacement of the 18th Street vertical sign. Phase two will be the refurbishment of the Third Avenue sign. Phase three will be the replacement of the marquee, returning the ornate design of 1927 and improving on the original with use of LED bulbs and other 21st century technology.

When it opened, the Alabama Theatre had two vertical signs, marking the building on Third Avenue North and 18th Street North. Both signs were removed in the mid-1950s, and a new sign on Third Avenue was installed in 1957. That sign, which features what organizers called instant-type neon, will have LED lighting when it returns to the building.

Here's how the Alabama Theatre looked in 1927. The theater in downtown Birmingham had two identical vertical signs, one on Third Avenue North, above the marquee, and one on 18th Street North.

The Alabama lacked a sign on its 18th Street side until 2017, when a replica of the previous sign was created and installed. The theater received a financial boost for the sign that year, winning a $120,000 preservation grant in an online contest sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The new 18th Street sign made its official debut on New Years Eve 2017, illuminated at midnight during a celebration that marked the Alabamas 90th anniversary. More 150,000 people visit the theater each year for concerts, movies, dance recitals, theater performances and other events, organizers said.
Developments in Venezuela are reverberating in Turkey, especially after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threw his weight behind the countrys embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Erdogan feels honor bound to do so, of course. Maduro was among the first international leaders to contact him even though the two hadnt met before and offer support against the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016.

The two leaders have maintained close ties ever since, with Maduro visiting Turkey for the first time in October 2017 and Erdogan visiting Venezuela for the first time in December 2018.

Turkish sympathy for Maduro also transcends political divisions. He is as much of a folk hero for Turkish Islamists and nationalists today as he is for the far left, where many see him as a latter-day Fidel Castro or Che Guevara.

Anti-Americanism  traditionally high among Turks  cuts across Turkeys deep ideological divides and remains a key aspect of the political narrative of most political parties today.

The irony is that  under normal circumstances  Islamists and nationalists loathe the brand of socialism represented by Maduro. It is his stand against what is perceived to be American imperialism that has united the left and the right in this case.

The support among Turks for Venezuelas controversial leader, therefore, has little to do with his politics, which many in Turkey also accept has dragged oil-rich Venezuela to the brink of economic disaster.

It is based, instead, on what is believed to be Maduros heroic, David-like stand against the US Goliath.

This was also apparent in the words of encouragement Erdogan extended to Maduro over the phone after Washington went public with its intention to see him toppled and replaced by the opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Following the conversation between the two presidents, Erdogans chief foreign policy adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, tweeted on Jan. 23 that Erdogan had referred to Maduro as my brother and told him to stand firm.

Supporting the #WeAreMADURO hashtag, which has been trending around the world, Kalin added that Turkey, under the leadership of our President Erdogan, will retain its principled stand against all coup attempts.

Erdogan has also been trying to turn the tables on those who are accusing Maduro of being authoritarian.

He told reporters during a press conference in Ankara with Maltese President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca on Jan. 25 that refusing to accept that Maduro was elected amounts to supporting totalitarianism.

If Maduro stands erect and continues along the path of his beliefs, I believe that the Venezuelan people will stand behind the leader they support and produced from the ballot box, Erdogan said.

There is, however, more to Ankaras support for Maduro than mere principles.

The fear in government circles and among the religious and nationalist supporters of Erdogan is clearly that Washington  with support from other Western democracies  could do to Turkey in the future what they are trying to do to Venezuela today.

Those who believe this are also angry with Turkish commentators who stress the mistake of standing up for Maduro and his authoritarian regime.

They are particularly furious with those who stress that the international opposition to Maduro comes mostly from the democratic world, while authoritarian countries like Russia and China are the only ones joining Turkey in supporting him.

Yasar Hacisalihoglu, assistant professor at Istanbul New Century University, accused Turkish analysts who argue along these lines of disregarding the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.

He was referring to Maduros return to power in May, with 68% of the vote in presidential elections considered by international observers to be flawed. Hacisalihoglu argued in his column in the pro-government Aksam newspaper that those who criticized Maduro were hoping for the US to intervene against Erdogan, the way it did against Maduro.

Pointing to crucial local elections in Turkey planned for March, Hacisalihoglu claimed that Maduros opponents in Turkey were using developments in Venezuela to try in advance and make the results of that balloting debatable.

Burhanettin Duran, the general coordinator for the Ankara-based Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, argued that criticizing Turkeys support for Maduro by providing a list of the Venezuelan leaders mistakes was meaningless.

Trump and his allies do not call for reconciliation or reform. They only encourage coup plotters and threaten to start a civil war, Duran asserted in his column in the pro-government daily Sabah.

Glaring facts like government mismanagement, corruption and repression in Venezuela, as well as the desperate flight of over 3 million economic refugees from the country, are considered to be irrelevant by those who support such views.

Their concern has nothing to do with Venezuelas plight and everything to do with Turkey.

Erdogan and his supporters continue to believe that Washington was the ultimate dark hand behind that coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. This was proved in their eyes by the belated and relatively mute US criticism of the anti-democratic coup attempt.

The fact that Fethullah Gulen  the self-exiled Islamic preacher who Ankara says masterminded the failed coup  lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania under US protection has merely reinforced this belief.

Coups aimed at toppling the government of the day in any country, whether they are authoritarian or democratic, continue to act, therefore, as emotional tripwires for Erdogan and his supporters, especially if these are seen to have the support of the West.

The same touchiness applies, for example, to mass demonstrations against the government around the world, like those in France recently. The overriding concern in such cases is that these demonstrations will incite copycat protests in Turkey.

Erdogan issued a dire warning when the Yellow Vest protests were at their peak in Paris, saying any attempt to emulate these demonstrations in Turkey would be dealt with mercilessly.

Erdogans response to the demonstrations in France reflects his deep fear of a repeat of the Gezi Park protests against his government in 2013. Erdogan and his supporters also accused the United States  with support from the Jewish lobby in America, European countries and Israel  of being the real mastermind behind the Gezi protests.

A repeat of such social upheavals in Turkey, especially at a time of increasing economic hardship for most Turks, remains one of the governments greatest concerns in the lead-up to the elections in March.

Nevertheless, not everyone who supports Erdogan and his government believes that Maduro deserves the unconditional support he is getting from Turkey.

Kemal Ozturk, who writes for the pro-government Yeni Safak, argued that being anti-American should not be a reason to support problematic regimes.

There is a very serious economic problem in Venezuela. People are wretched.  No one can claim that Venezuelas report card on freedoms, human rights [and] justice is good, Ozturk wrote.

He asked if it would not have been wiser for Turkey to criticize the United States loudly in this case while refraining from interfering in Venezuelas domestic affairs and keeping a healthy distance from that country.

Our approach to a leader who supported us on the night of July 15 [2016] may be emotional, but we have to adjust the balance between principles and emotions properly, he argued.

Mehmet Ocaktan, a former deputy from Erdogans Justice and Development Party, was more direct in his criticism of the unquestioning support Maduro is getting from Ankara.

Pointing out that coups are bad regardless of where they take place in the world, Ocaktan argued that this should not blind us to what Maduro represents.

The polished socialist Maduro is a genuine dictator and coup plotter, Ocaktan, who today is critical of the Erdogan governments policies, wrote in his column in the daily Karar.

He wrote that Maduro, despite being elected, is no less an oppressor than Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Ocaktan said those who believe the lie that Maduro is a Democrat and hastily claim that Venezuela is suffering the greatest two-faced coup attempt of our times in front of the democratic worlds eyes should face these facts and "calm down."
It was 50 days ago when Turkish President Erdogan warned of an imminent military operation east of the Euphrates in a matter of days.

Turkish forces continue to mass in the region but there is no a sense of an imminent operation. As I emphasized in my Jan. 2 article, there is no perceptible reconnaissance, surveillance and target-acquisition activities by the Turkish air force over a potential area of operations. For Ankara, close air support for ground forces is essential. Such preparations are usually the most significant signals of an imminent operation. So far there is none of that.

In the latest summit between Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin on Jan. 23 in Moscow, which Turkey had high hopes for, it appears Erdogan was unable to get what he desired. It was obvious that Moscow did not outright give support to Turkeys proposals for a safe zone in northeast Syria nor to Turkey's free use of Syrian airspace.

At a joint press conference in Moscow, when asked how Russia evaluates the proposed safe zone, Putin said, The treaty between Syria and Turkey of the year 1998 is still valid. And it deals, in particular, with the fight against terrorism. Today we have been discussing this issue quite thoroughly, fully and actively.

In the Moscow meeting, Putins mention of a 1998 bilateral anti-terror protocol between Turkey and Syria has been interpreted by Ankara as a green light given by Moscow to a Turkish military operation into Syria's northeast. A day after the Moscow meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told private broadcaster A Haber, We think he [Putin] referred to this [protocol] implying that Turkey can intervene in [Syria]. And this is positive for us.

Yet there is another interpretation of Putins reference to the Adana protocol. Putin is likely emphasizing the urgent need for normalization between Ankara and Damascus when tackling the problem of the Kurdistan Workers Party-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) in northeastern Syria. Furthermore, more cooperation and coordination between Ankara and the Assad regime is a must for Moscow to settle things down in and around Idlib. One may simply suggest that Erdogan went to Moscow with high expectations about the safe zone and that he flew back to Ankara with empty hands but with two tasks: first, to normalize ties with Assad regime as soon as possible, and second, to prioritize Idlib instead of northeast Syria.

The road map with Washington on a possible safe zone did not become clearer with US national security adviser John Boltons visit to Ankara at the beginning of January nor after US Sen. Lindsey Grahams Jan. 19 Ankara visit.

Sources in Ankara told Al-Monitor that although there is an understanding between Ankara and Washington to form a safe zone that will be 35 to 40 kilometers (20 to 30 miles) deep in Syria, there are still unsolved issues.

These sources, who did not want to be identified, said Washington is prepared to agree to the withdrawal of the Kurdish YPG from the area between the Turkish border and Syrias east-west M-4 highway. It also appears that the United States will not oppose patrolling by Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army groups and some Sunni tribal units in areas where Kurds are not in the majority. But Washington doesnt envisage the safe zone as an area where Turkish soldiers will operate independently on their own. Washington wishes to have French and British soldiers operate jointly with the Turks in joint patrols. Also, Washington and Ankara cant fully agree on whether Turkish troops can independently patrol in Kurdish-majority towns such as Kobani, Qamishli, Al Malikiyah and Amuda. The United States doesnt approve of the idea of patrols by Turkish troops in town centers.

Moreover, the United States has not yet decided to hand over to Turkey 14 bases it had set up in northern Syria .

Has the United States come up with a proposal that will persuade Ankara and eliminate its security concerns? Ankara is hearing reports that Washington is seriously considering the formation of a security force made up militants allied with Iraq's Barzani family; these forces are linked to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Kurdish National Council. This might be accepted by Ankara because of Turkish opposition to the YPG. The Rojava Peshmerga, allied with the KDP and the council, are in northern Iraq for the time being.

The Rojava Peshmerga force, formed in 2012 and trained both by NATO and the anti-IS coalition, now fields 6,000 fighters.

Kurdish National Council officials have already been saying that Rojava Peshmerga would move west across the border and may play a role to initiate a dialogue between the PYD and Turkey.

Ankara and Washington have agreed on transferring Rojava peshmerga to northeast Syria but they still have not decided on the missions and area of operations for these fighters.

Another issue subject to negotiations between the United States and Turkey is the local governance that has gained strength in northern Syria under US auspices and political post-conflict reconstruction. US army defines its operation in post-Islamic State northeast Syria as Kurdish governance and stabilization efforts.

This is a vast, comprehensive capacity building effort covering local governance, education, taxation, health care, infrastructure, agriculture and industry. The United States fears that Turkey, by settling in the area, may eradicate all these efforts. The United States is seriously worried that the political, security and economic void that might be left following the US pullout from the area might be filled by pro-Iran armed groups.

Finally, a most serious issue of contention between Ankara and Washington is the establishment of a no-fly zone in some critical areas of northeast Syria. Ankara, because of its experience in northern Iraq, is against this proposal, while Washington is seriously working on it.

What is clear is that the possibility of a Turkish military operation east of the Euphrates is not dependent only on Turkeys military capacity on the ground but also on the diplomatic efforts it has to exert to persuade both Washington and Moscow.
After the latest Turkey-Russia summit, the debate over a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey turned to the 1998 Adana Accord between Ankara and Damascus on cooperation against terrorism.

In their Jan. 23 meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the latter's obligations to ease tensions in northwestern Syria at Idlib, which is under the control of jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Putin brought up the accord and Erdogan said, Mr. Putin, put this on the agenda. The Adana pact is an important matter. Turkey must work on it. I believe it  will make use of Turkeys weight in the region.

The pact was signed after Syria agreed to expel Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The deal stipulated naming the PKK as a terror outfit, closing training camps, terminating its organizational and commercial activities, handing over captured militants, preventing PKK leaders from traveling to other countries via Syria and setting up telephone connections between the two countries. The agreement was to be renewed automatically unless one of the parties withdrew, but it fell by the wayside.

Twenty years later, a move to revive the pact will require Ankara and Damascus to work together. Turkish political opposition parties see the reference to the accord as meaning the government must speak with Damascus. Unal Cevikoz, deputy leader of Turkey's opposition Republican Peoples Party, said his group is calling on Ankara to establish direct contacts with Damascus.

Turkey entered Syria in 2016, five years into the latter's civil war, to keep the Syrian Kurds from forming a united territory of Kurdish cantons along Turkey's southern border and to combat the Islamic State. Turkey has been pushing east and has its eye set on Idlib, Manbij and Kurdish-inhabited territory east of the Euphrates River.

The question now is whether Turkey has given up on buffer zone plans with the United States and agreed to the option Russia seeks. The United States proposes establishing a "safe" zone inside Syria to protect Turkey's border against armed Kurdish groups. Putin seems to hope that reactivating the Adana Accord will discourage Turkeys goal of moving on Kurds in northeastern Syria. Moscow also wants to show that the wisest and most legitimate joint solution in northern Syria is for Turkey to work with Damascus.

The Syrian administration lost no time taking the pass from Putin to declare that it's committed to the Adana Accord, but with significant conditions. Activating the joint cooperation agreement with Turkey can be done when the situation on the borders returns the way it used to be between the two countries and when the Turkish regime stops supporting terrorism and its forces withdraw from the Syrian territories they are occupying, SANA news agency quoted an official source from the Syrian Foreign Ministry as saying.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also weighed in on the timing of Moscow's emphasis on the Adana pact. The problem of security on the Syrian-Turkish border arose chiefly due to the decision by the US to withdraw its units, its special forces and its military advisers from these areas, Lavrov told Russia's state-owned news agency TASS.

The situation definitely requires urgent steps to prevent a vacuum there.  We consider it quite possible for Turkey and Syria to use the bilateral Adana agreement of 1998, the Russian foreign minister said. As I understand, the Syrian government made a statement recently on its willingness to work on the basis of this agreement to provide security along the border," Lavrov added.

Responding to the developments, Erdogan only excluded high-level contacts between Ankara and Damascus. We cannot have high-level contacts with a person who has caused the deaths of nearly a million people and displaced millions of them, Erdogan said.

Speaking before parliament, Erdogan repeated his opinion: Nobody has to invite us [to Syria]. We had already signed our decision in 1998 with the Adana Accord. That signature allows Turkey to enter the country in case of adverse developments.

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu used even stronger words: If Syria doesnt take measures against threats, it gives Turkey the right to intervene. I think Putin recognized Turkeys right to intervene. This is positive.

Although analysts speak of a "secret" clause that allows Turkey to stage operations up to five kilometers (some three miles) into Syria in case of a terror attack against Turkey, there is no such stipulation in the text of the agreement.

To give applicability to the Adana Accord, in December 2010 the two countries signed the Joint Cooperation against Terror and Terror Organizations Agreement. It determines that the outlawed PKK and its extensions can't use Syrian territory and bans it from setting up camps, training bases and other facilities; recruiting militants, buying weapons and financing terror-related smuggling and commercial operations. It didn't appear to grant Turkey the right to intervene.

In another distinction between the Russian and Turkish interpretations, Moscow contradicts Ankara by its tolerance of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD). Turkey considers the PYD the PKK's Syrian offshoot. The YPG is the PYD's armed wing. Also, Damascus is disinclined to treat the YPG and PYD as terror organizations or pressure them as Turkey wishes. Within the Adana pact's framework, Ankara wants Damascus to eliminate the YPG or to allow Turkey to do so. Erdogans interpretation of Putins remarks was, He signals that this deal could be significant in Turkeys combat against terror.

But contrary to Erdogans emphasis on continuing his fight against terror, in their joint press conference Putin said Moscow wants the Kurds to begin negotiations with Damascus.

Although it doesnt give Turkey the right to intervene, Turkey can use the Adana Accord to thwart the PYD-YPG from gaining a legal status in the region. In an effort to eliminate Turkeys red lines on the PKK, Moscow prefers to refer to the Kurds as a people instead of an organization.

Putins approach is for the Syrian army to take control of the area and to find solutions to Turkeys security concerns within the Adana Accord. But Ankaras objection is unrelenting: If the regime takes control of Manbij and east of the Euphrates, it can also say that the YPGs existence is integrated with the Syrian army.

Pro-government Turkish media outlets couple these allegations with conspiracy theories. For example, the pro-Erdogan daily Yeni Safak reported something that sounded like it came from intelligence sources, saying the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "distributed more than 20,000 soldier and low-rank officer uniforms at Qamishli, Derbesiye, Ras al-Ain, Manbij and Hasakah." Yeni Safak claimed to have photographs of "PKK terrorists in regime uniforms.

There's no doubt the Adana deal will provide a new foundation in deliberations. To see how it will affect developments at Manbij and east of the Euphrates, we will have to await the outcome of Turkey's negotiations with Russia and the United States.

Erdogan said, Today both Russia and the United States say that the PYD-YPG will evacuate Manbij. He seems to have put an end to his constant threats that Turkey might launch an operation one night without notice. Erdogan was very positive about Russias attitude, saying, We have no problems with Russia on this issue.

There may not be a problem, but there is also no accord. Many issues are now left to the tripartite summit that Iran, Turkey and Russia are planning for February in Moscow.
Turkeys local elections are still two months away, but their integrity seems to be already under a cloud amid claims of legal violations and voter registration manipulation. Opposition politicians warn that tensions over foul play could boil over beyond local administrations and plunge the already polarized country into chaos.

Unlike previous local elections, the significance of the March 31 vote is not only about who controls town halls. Both the opposition and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) see the vote as the first electoral test of the executive presidency system, which took effect after last years presidential and parliamentary polls. The municipal elections come amid economic turmoil, which, according to pollsters, is eating into the AKPs popular support. Some suggest that the AKPs loss of big cities, especially Istanbul and Ankara, could turn up pressure on the government and spark calls for early general elections.

In an alignment mirroring last years elections, the AKP has teamed up with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for the municipal races. In the opposition camp, the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) is again in partnership with the Good Party, while the Kurdish-dominated Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) is running on its own.

In a political atmosphere long fraught with tensions, the AKP-led bloc has framed the election outcome as a matter of survival for Turkey. Good Party leader Meral Aksener has perhaps best summarized the climate, saying, We are going to local elections, but when you look at the rhetoric [of the AKP-led alliance], one might think we are going to war.

Moves casting doubt on the integrity of the polls are only adding to the tensions. The first controversy flared in December, when a government-sponsored bill extended by a year the tenure of the chairman and five members of the Higher Electoral Board (YSK), which organizes and oversees the elections. Their original tenure was to expire in January, meaning that new members would have been in charge of the local polls. The extension sparked concerns about the governments intentions since the YSKs credibility was already badly damaged in the 2017 constitutional referendum, when the board made a last-minute decision to accept ballots unstamped by electoral authorities, which, many believe, allowed for manipulation that tipped the tight outcome in favor of the government.

Many legal experts say the tenure-extension bill is unlawful. Omer Faruk Eminagaoglu, a former prosecutor at the Appeals Court, told Al-Monitor that the constitution precludes amendments in electoral laws within a year before elections. Hence, he argued, the term of the YSK members has legally expired and all their decisions are now invalid.

The board, however, remains in charge, fanning fresh controversies with its decisions. Earlier this month, the YSK barred several small parties from contesting the elections, including the left-wing Labor Party, which faced similar bans in the last two elections despite being able to run in previous ones.

Labor Party chairwoman Selma Gurkan told Al-Monitor the party had launched legal proceedings against the decision, which she denounced as unlawful and unfair. Two other socialist parties were barred from the polls, in which 13 parties will run.

The sidelining of parties could bear also on the fairness of the vote because disqualified parties cannot assign observers to polling stations. In other words, the YSKs decision effectively weakens opposition oversight of voting and counting.

According to voter rolls released by the YSK, some 57.1 million people are eligible to vote March 31. As opposition parties examined the lists, they came up with some disturbing findings. The CHP said it had spotted 6,000 voters aged over 100, including some who were first-time voters.

The number of voters has increased about 2% since the June 24 elections, but according to CHP parliamentary whip Ozgur Ozel, the increase can be observed only at certain polling stations.

Other figures appear outright implausible. According to the HDPs findings, 1,108 voters are registered in a single home in Hakkari in the Kurdish-majority southeast. In the same region, two homes in Mardin and Bingol have 506 and 224 voters respectively. The HDPs list of suspicious voters is rather long, but almost all cases are in the southeast, the partys stronghold.

But YSK chairman Sadi Guven said Jan. 22, There are neither duplicate voters nor imaginary and fake voters. However, few seemed convinced.

Even President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared annoyed, claiming that 504,000 of the AKPs 10 million members did not figure in the voter rolls. Still, AKP and MHP lawmakers made sure to vote down an HDP motion seeking a parliamentary probe into voter registries.

HDP parliamentary whip Ayhan Bilgen, who authored the motion, told Al-Monitor that the party had abundant data suggesting foul play, which, he warned, could trigger grave political turmoil.

We have so much data [regarding] not only an increase [in voters] but also the removal of some [from the rolls]. There is no explanation as to how an election can become so dubious that early, he said.

Recalling fraud allegations in both the 2017 referendum and last years polls, Bilgen said, Violating the constitution and flouting international election norms may be seen as commonplace by the AKP, but if the issue of election integrity is be put aside that easily in a country, this will lead to some comparisons. In Africa, there are certain countries that hold elections but no one sees them as democratic. The same goes for [some countries in] Central Asia, where elections are held but no one is lauding their leaders for upholding the rule of law.

Turkey is drifting to an utterly different league on the global ladder of democracy, Bilgen warned. We are heading toward chaos, where the whole country will be paying a price just because some want to stick to power.
After two decades, Turkeys diplomats are used to becoming targets of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans disdain. Often accused of being unpatriotic or faint-hearted, the countrys diplomatic elite has seen their power  not to mention their prestige  diminish under the acid-tongue president and his cronies.

The last punch came on Jan. 14 at an off-the-record parliamentarian event, where Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu declared that politically-appointed diplomats something the Foreign Ministry grudgingly accepted after long resistance proved to be more successful than career diplomats.

Ambassadors from outside the diplomatic profession who were appointed by the president are the most successful, Cavusoglu said in response to complaints by opposition party members that career diplomats were not being promoted to ambassador positions.

When there is an ambassador to be appointed to a foreign post, we choose the ones most appropriate for the country, Cavusoglu asserted. We don't pick arbitrarily.

Aydin Adnan Sezgin, a former ambassador and currently a Good Party (IP) parliamentarian, was at the closed-door session and expressed surprise to the parliament about the ministers words. He questioned Cavusoglus criteria for success.

Traditionally, advancement within the Foreign Ministry has been a purview of career-track diplomats. Despite opposition from other political parties and experts, the AKP changed the ministry's regulations in 2013 to allow people from outside the ministry to be appointed ambassadors. Some former diplomats have referred to the decision as a coup. Currently, 13% of all ambassadors are political appointees.

The AKP defends this system as having been adopted from the United States to increase efficiency and to adjust to a fast-paced world. However, the Turkish system ignored that in the United States presidential nominees for ambassadorships must be confirmed by the Senate, thus curtailing total arbitrariness in appointments. In Turkey, on the other hand, the president can approve almost anyone as an ambassador.

Cavusoglus statements about political appointees have understandably affected the morale of current career diplomats and upset retired personnel. But Cavusoglu refrained from apology, clarification and backtracking -mimicking the disdainful attitude of President Erdogan toward diplomats.

Erdogan's populist stridency estranged the Foreign Ministry from the AKP in the early 2000s. In various public speeches, Erdogan kept referring to the diplomats as mon cher (my dear in French) a mimicry that diplomats themselves use in self-mockery to indicate their Westernized, polyglot and cosmopolitan lifestyle. But the satirical expression has been turned to an expression of derision by Erdogan, who made no secret of the fact that he considered the decisions of mon chers unwise.

Perhaps it is therefore not surprising that the ebbs and flows of Turkish foreign relations and their perpetual state of crisis have baffled analysts and journalists. To Aydin Selcen, a former diplomat, it is simply chaotic foreign policy.

Meanwhile, pro-government media frequently boast that the AKP years have led to a stronger and more diverse Foreign Ministry, referring to Turkey's high number of female ambassadors  66, with 33 representing the country abroad. Under the AKP, the number of diplomatic missions around the world increased from 163 in 2002 to 242 in 2018, making Turkey fifth in the world for the number of diplomats abroad. In 2017, Turkey ranked as the world's leader in foreign aid. Based on these numbers, one might expect to hear of remarkable successes for the Foreign Ministry, but this is not the case.

After Cavusoglus remarks, Al-Monitor spoke with a group of senior and mid-level career diplomats, some of them retired or having resigned, to understand how the ministry has changed. All of them, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the ministry has been sidelined as the president's executive powers have expanded exponentially. Foreign Ministry personnel of all ranks are beside themselves watching the failures of Turkish foreign policy unfold firsthand.

We are successful if we can prevent the failure from leaking out of our own office, one mid-level career diplomat said. Our job has exclusively become damage control, as Turkey is operating on red alert full time.

First, the AKP developed an aggressive policy approach different from the ministry's usual functioning. When bureaucrats resisted new approaches, the administration got creative, developing new agencies or taking away existing agencies from the umbrella of the Foreign Ministry. The Office of Public Diplomacy, which was founded by career-diplomat Namik Tan in 2009 under the roof of the Foreign Ministry, was moved to the Prime Ministry the next year and the role of the coordinator was given to Ibrahim Kalin, presidents top foreign policy adviser. The administration also expanded the powers and reach of some existing agencies, such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet). Diplomats have complained about the duality of the system.

A senior diplomat told Al-Monitor, The AKP now complains about a parallel state system [referring to the Gulen movement's infiltration of state agencies], but for years [their actions] encouraged that to happen at all levels. For example, while serving abroad I learned that AKP parliamentarians were visiting the city I was posted in, but I was not told about their arrival, because another agency greeted and hosted them. These are simple tasks, but they can destroy a countrys image abroad.

The AKP created the new agencies and expanded others' authority into foreign affairs for a variety of reasons, one of them being to support the rogue arrangements it sometimes makes. A retired diplomat, Murat Ozcelik, revealed for example that in February 2006, when Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and members of his movement paid a controversial visit to Ankara, the Foreign Ministry only learned about the visit the night before it was to take place and couldn't for policy reasons host the delegation. Instead, the AKP had taken charge of it. Others have confirmed Ozceliks assertion and how the leadership in many cases keeps Foreign Ministry personnel in the dark until the last minute.

Second, like other bureaucratic agencies, the ministry has gradually fallen victim to nepotism in hiring. Once upon a time, diplomats were rigorously tested in foreign languages, Turkish history and law and international law, among other subjects. The required exam was considered one of the most difficult in the civil service.

After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, hundreds of employees were dismissed from the Foreign Ministry. Former ambassador Gurcan Balik, who also served under former President Abdullah Gul and former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, remains in jail for allegedly belonging to the Gulenist movement. The previous rules on eligibility for taking the ministry exams were eased.

Third, Erdogans personality type resulted in micromanagement at all levels of foreign affairs. Rather than following established protocols, Erdogan prefers to take shortcuts and personalize relationships. This undercuts discipline and the Foreign Ministry's functioning. Although this kind of personal style might work well with individual leaders, like the current US president, it does not benefit institutional arrangements, such as Turkish-EU relations.

Often, this resulted in institutionalized zig-zagging. The AKP upgraded Turkeys Secretariat-General of European Union Affairs to a ministry in 2011, only to downgrade and affiliate it as a general-directorate to the Foreign Ministry seven years later  during the shift to the presidential system. Similarly, the Office of Public Diplomacy was moved from the prime minister's purview to the president's. Although the office is supposed to be accessible to foreign-language speakers so it can present a good face for the country, its web page is now available in Turkish only and has not been updated for some time. The section for international media contacts has not been updated since 2014.

One recently retired ambassador told Al-Monitor, There's no need for any of these agencies anymore, other than having separate items for spending in the budget. They may also be used for staffing for some AKP cronies, [but] these agencies haven't been accountable to the Turkish parliament or public, and what purposes they have served remains a mystery. The public diplomacy office, for instance, generated commotion early on, but now, who knows what they do?

Timid statements made by Foreign Ministry personnel in response to Al-Monitor inquiries suggest that the three factors identified here are not an exhaustive list or minor aberrations affecting the ministry's functioning. Rather, they indicate that the Foreign Ministry, along with other agencies, is suffocating under Erdoganism.
BEIRUT  Fifty years ago, the Armenian district of Lebanons capital was a commercial hub, with artisans making detailed carpets, meticulously designed furniture and elaborate jewelry. But the district of Bourj Hammoud is now in decline, with stores and factories closing due to poor government planning and a worsening economic situation.

One of the few recent success stories that has emerged from the district was that of Karen Chekerdjian, a Lebanese-Armenian designer who specializes in modern, abstract and elegant furniture. Born in Beirut, Chekerdjian left in 1997 to study in Italy at the Domus Academy, a private post-graduate design school in Milan. Returning to Lebanon in 2000, she had to acclimatize to a post-civil war Beirut.

I realized only [upon my return] that there was no furniture industry, Chekerdjian told Al-Monitor. I am the first generation of designers after the war. Everything that was related to furniture design had already collapsed because of the war, and also because there has never been a government [that] helped to develop [the] industry.

In 2001, Chekerdjian opened her own studio in Beirut and operated out of the Port of Beirut for 10 years; she moved the studio to Bourj Hammoud in 2016. Chekerdjian said that with this change she hoped that [the] industrial area could become the place for all artist studios. But even that is difficult because there is no plan  from anyone  to do something about it.

Bourj Hammoud, located on the eastern border of Beirut, once offered a safe haven for Armenians who fled ethnic cleansing under the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century, Bourj Hammoud quickly became one of the most densely populated areas in the Middle East, and it remains so until today. The diaspora brought with it great talent in craftsmanship, which thrived even during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).

What is surprising is that the flourishing of the craftsmanship in Bourj Hammoud didnt just happen before the civil war but during the war, Farah Makki, an architect, social scientist and researcher for the youth-led Lebanese nongovernmental organization NAHNOO, said. The civil war was not the main cause of the decline of craftsmanship. The decline mainly started in the 1990s and after 2005 because of the many crises.

After the civil war, Lebanon entered an era of reconstruction characterized by neo-liberal policies and opening up to international markets, which often came at the expense of the local industry.

In the 1990s you had the globalization of merchandise, the opening of other markets and the arrival of imported goods. We had policies that didnt protect local goods and had unfair competition, Makki noted.

She added, What we are seeing in Bourj Hammoud is that you have a lot of craftsmen who had success stories during the civil war and so on. But now they are disappearing because they didnt have a good framework at a policy level in order to protect their craft and know-how.

This is an issue that NAHNOO, an organization based on promoting public spaces and cultural heritage, is seeking to change. This year, from January to June, the organization is conducting a mapping of some 100 artisans in Bourj Hammoud, to better understand the challenges and opportunities in the district through interviews. This information will then be developed into policy recommendations to revive the district and its cultural significance.

A lot of people say that they no longer recognize Beirut. Culture is important because it helps you identify yourself within your society, Makki said. We wanted to focus on tangible cultural heritage because it is at the core of our values, and it played a big role in building our inclusive society  and this is the case of Bourj Hammoud.

Noubar Eskidjian, a Lebanese-Armenian brass monger, represents this tangible culture, working in a small brass factory in the heart of Bourj Hammoud. His father opened the shop in 1940, after Eskidjians grandfather arrived in Beirut from Turkey. Eskidjian studied business and worked as a jeweler before taking over his fathers shop in 1997 and learning his craft.

The best of times was before 1980. I dont know [personally], but it was still very good before 1985, Eskidjian told Al-Monitor. I wasnt there, but I read my father's diary and [the district] was working at a very high level.  I have two workers [currently], but my father had nine workers working every day, maybe 10-12 hours.

Eskidjian was one of the lucky few who could sustain his business. My job is the same, because it is not something new. Everything I make is from the Renaissance, art deco and [art nouveau]  all timeless trends. Stainless steel, LED  that comes and goes. My job stays.

Eskidjian acknowledged that his story was not common. I am lucky that I am working, but I have many friends who work in factories that are closing  its catastrophic, he said. If the area is stable, our job will be stable as well.

There is some degree of optimism in reviving the sector through the work of NAHNOO and a renewed focus on tourism and culture recommended in Lebanons national economic vision, drafted by the global consultancy firm McKinsey and made public in early January.

On a local level, Chekerdjian also offered some hope, saying, We are seeing now a lot of the young generation of designers willing to continue. And I am proud of leading the way, and I am also proud of them.

However, she added, But the results are due to our own efforts  no one else has helped. A few private [individuals] have made the effort to help, but it is always private individuals who are doing the job.

The worsening economic situation also caused skepticism, and Chekerdjian concluded, I have seen some artisans closing down their ateliers because they couldnt afford it anymore. I work less and less, just like everyone in Bourj Hammoud.
From Jan. 23-26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov toured three nations of the Maghreb  Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia  for the first time since November 2005. The negotiations revolved around the issues of trade, economic cooperation and conflicts in Libya, Syria and Western Sahara.

The visit to Algeria  the sixth for Lavrov  was central to his North African tour. It took place a week before the session of the Russian-Algerian inter-governmental commission for trade and economic cooperation. The timing was a mere coincidence, though a symbolic one, as Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel pointed out during the final press conference. The ministers took their time discussing the prospects of economic partnership and agreed to arrange a negotiation venue for entrepreneurs from their countries. The economic interaction between Russia and Algeria appears to be developing: Since 2015, bilateral trade has doubled, reaching $4,6 billion in 2017. However, two-thirds of this sum consist of weapons and military equipment turnover, including the so-called associated products: engines, fuel, etc. For a partnership to be called close, mainly selling military hardware is not enough.

Russia has recently started to compete for the Algerian wheat market, traditionally controlled by France. Russian and Algerian quality standards for the grain vary and it is not clear whether Algeria is willing to adopt new ones. As for now, the sides agreed on a test supply.

Another highly relevant topic is the future of Gazproms projects in Algeria. In November, the corporation decided to give up the exploitation of two oil fields  Zamle al-Rekkeb and North Zamle al-Rekkeb  due to low economic viability. In general, oil exploitation projects in Algeria have turned out to be unprofitable for Russian business. The prospects of Russias participation in the development of the Rourd Sayah and North Rourd Sayah gas fields are still unclear. Currently, the main question is whether these projects are supposed to continue in any form. If not, Russia and Algeria will have to lean toward other directions of energy cooperation. Here, it is mostly up to Algerians to choose a strategy  either to rely on the discovery of new gas fields or to develop alternative energy sources, giving up the commodity-based economic model. In any case, Russia is ready to support the North African nation. For now, however, the dynamics of the energy industry mostly revolve around the bilateral coordination of oil prices and gas markets. Moscow also backed Algerias suggestion to create a national gas technology research center under the patronage of Gas Exporting Countries Forum.

There also is partnership in other fields. As Lavrov said after the meeting with his Algerian counterpart, a number of Russian companies have been operating in the country and even more seek to work there. Although Messahel said numerous opportunities to develop economic partnership exist, multiple impediments remain. They include Algerias investment laws  which hamper foreign enterprises  visa requirements and, oddly enough, American and European sanctions. The countrys laws require imported equipment such as that used for construction of gas pipelines to have international certification. Russian companies are sometimes unable to provide their Algerian partners with the necessary documents.

Although the countries have been rather close allies since the Soviet era, these issues show that Russia and Algeria are still far from fully implementing the Program of Strategic Partnership approved in 2001.

The situation involving two other Maghreb nations is even more complex. Tunisia and Morocco are viewed as US main non-NATO allies and largely rely on Western financial aid  provided both by Washington and by Brussels. However, the politicians of both Tunisia and Morocco consistently told the Russian foreign minister that they are willing to expand the partnership with Moscow.

Moroccos relations with the United States are currently not in their best shape. President Donald Trump still hasnt appointed an ambassador to the kingdom. At the same time, much like Algeria, in October 2002 Morocco and Russia signed a Declaration of Strategic Partnership. The trade turnover between the two is even smaller than that between Russia and Algeria, mostly due to the lack of weapons trade. Yet trade in general may be considered generally well-balanced, which is rare for Russia in the region. In 2017, the entire turnover between Russia and Morocco amounted to $1.4 billion, with $895 million consisting of Russian exports. According to the Russia-Africa Shared Vision 2030 report, Morocco ranks third out of African countries, just after Algeria and Egypt, on the list of Russian export increase rates from 2010 to 2017, with growth amounting to $337 million.

Tunisias ambitions and abilities are more modest; nevertheless, the nation managed to spark interest in Russian entrepreneurs, who are also weighing the prospects of working in Libya. In any case, Russia is obviously willing to develop its relations with Africa in general and with the northern part of the continent Africa particularly. For instance, Moscow plans to organize a Russia-Africa summit in the fall. North Africa's Arab nations are likely to provide much-needed help and support, considering that currently they are Russias main are primary drivers of cooperation between Russia and the African continent. According to authors of the Russia-Africa Shared Vision 2030 report who spoke with Al-Monitor, from 2010 to 2017 Russian exports to Africa basically tripled, increasing from $5.1 billion to $14.8 billion. It should be noted, however, that this amount almost exclusively consists of trade with North African countries; more precisely, Algeria and Egypt received 73% of such Russian exports in 2017.

Lavrovs meetings in the Maghreb also touched upon the conflicts in Libya and Western Sahara.

In its view of the latter, Moscow tries to balance between Algeria and Morocco. As the Russian foreign minister moved from one country to another, he had to adjust his statements with utmost caution. However, in regard to this conflict, as with many others, Russia formally advocates for compromise and dialogue. Expressing his position on the situation in Libya, Lavrov objected to the arbitrary choice of election dates, emphasizing that the conflicting sides should reach a consensus first. He said Russia is willing to become a mediator for anyone interested in peace.

Lavrov also placed emphasis on Syria. He discussed ways to reintegrate Damascus into the Arab family in every country he visited. This issue seems rather relevant in advance of the Arab League summit to be held in Tunisia in late March. Moreover, Russia said it aims to expand the Arab Leagues role in the Syrian resolution process. The consolidation of the Arab nations may help Moscow promote its initiatives in this field.

Humanitarian contacts are also a significant part of relations between Russia and the Maghreb. They include cultural exchange and tourism; the latter mostly concerns Tunisia, as Russia provides the most visitors among non-Arab countries (600,000 in 2018). Student exchange is also a strategic issue, a mechanism of what came to be called of maintaining the continuity of generations. It is quite traditional for Africans in general to look toward Russia as a place for quality higher education. As Russia-Africa Shared Vision 2030 states, 80,000 graduates of Russian universities currently live on the continent, including 30,000 North Africans.

In 2016-2017, 791 Algerians, 1,381 Tunisians and 2,612 Moroccans were studying in Russia. Most of them have to pay for their education, and Russian specialists who are working on bilateral cooperation between Russia and Africa say the lack of free education quotas for foreign students, the scarcity of postgraduate training programs in Russian companies and the absence of other accommodations prevents Moscow from taking root in the region.

Hence, despite the numerous documents such as declarations of strategic partnership, and the friendliness between political leaders, Russia and the Maghreb countries have a long way to go to build efficient relationships.
As Moscow urges Damascus and Ankara to cooperate and to revive the Adana agreement, Russian-Iranian relations in Syria face their next challenge. The controversy between Moscow and Tehran has always been a part of the Syrian conflict. However, the debates between the two have started to become more political in nature, influencing the future of Syrias armed forces and other military entities.

On Jan. 25, Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told CNN that he would have rather avoided using the term "allies" to describe Russia's relations with Iran and Syria. He also said that Russia realizes the importance of maintaining Israels security. Three days earlier, the Israeli air force launched a heavy attack on Iranian facilities in Syria. Reacting to this, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the chair of Iran's parliamentary foreign policy commission, said that the Israeli army may have a system of coordination with Russian air defense structures.

Earlier, the Iranians had expressed their displeasure over the lack of protection for Syrian military facilities, as well as the lack of Russian air support for operations in the Aleppo suburbs in 2016 and in al-Bukamal in 2018. Yet these concerns were conveyed via private channels and personal conversations. Also disclosed in private discussions was how Russia had reassured regional actors that it was making efforts to constrain Tehran's actions in Syria.

Sources in the Russian military industry who spoke with Al-Monitor conceded that since Russian specialists had started helping Damascus build up the efficiency of its air defense and are preparing to transfer the management of S-300 systems to Syrians, further Syrian or Russian reactions to Israeli activities could become a serious issue. For Moscow, this problem may become highly complex, if not intractable, even considering Russia's obvious interest in constraining Irans ambitions through Israels actions.

Officially, Russia emphasizes that it distances itself from the regional conflict and exclusively protects its own facilities. Furthermore, it views its support of Syrian air defense forces as a measure to re-establish the countrys sovereignty. In this regard, setting up the S-300 and integrating Syrian air defense into a semblance of a unified structure will allow it to keep its distance. At the same time, Moscow bears responsibility for the actions of its client.

Certain Syrian military leaders are reluctant to provide Iranian troops and associated Shiite militant groups access to their air bases, out of concern for being the target of Israeli assaults. However, the regime is unlikely to deny Iran, its main investor, the strategic pathway to supply its allies in Syria and Lebanon through Damascus' international airport.

Certain sources said that shortly before the Israeli attack, Russian representatives had asked Israel to avoid bombing the area around the airport, as it would have hampered the reconstruction process. Aviation officials of Bahrain and the UAE were assessing the prospects of re-establishing flights to Damascus, and Russian entrepreneurs were considering investing in the construction of a new terminal. Tehran, for its part, has no interest in igniting the conflict further and is likely to conceal its military preparations through economic projects. For instance, Iranians have created a de facto security zone around Damascus by buying real estate in the area. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps managed to strengthen its position around Homs, where the Russian corporation Stroytransgaz mines phosphates and transports them to Latakia by railway.

Meanwhile, Russia is also building up its own zones of influence, though it has chosen other areas, specifically around the Tartus and Khmeimim bases, as well as the Idlib de-escalation zone. This arrangement can be witnessed from the outcome of the 10-day confrontation between the so-called pro-Iranian and pro-regime groups: the National Defense Forces and 4th Division led by Maher al-Assad, the Syrian president's brother; and the Tiger Force and 5th Assault Corps, under command of Suheil al-Hassan, an Alawite leader. Novaya Gazeta, a renowned Russian dissident newspaper, presented its own view of the Ryabkov statement, pointing out that Russia and Iran decided to openly compete for the monopoly over the entire Middle East.

The newspaper may have dramatized the issue for political reasons, although the conflict between Maher al-Assad and Suheil al-Hassan may indeed have a Russian component to it, in addition to the local rivalry and business interests.

Moscow is gravely concerned about the reforms of Syrian pro-regime troops and other military entities, as it wants to curb corruption and constrain pro-Iranian actors. According to Asharq al-Awsat, Moscow recently asked Damascus to create an inspection board specifically to prevent corruption in the government troops. Moreover, it is known that Russian military officials started inspecting Syrian bases back in the summer of 2018.

The military sources Al-Monitor spoke with argue that during the campaign in the southwestern de-escalation zone, the controversy between the 4th Division and Russian troops became especially apparent. For a while, the 4th Division had already been a heavily overstaffed entity, covering the entire country and incorporating Shiite groups such as Liwa al-Imam al-Hussein and Liwa Sayf al-Mahdi. First, the pro-Iranian militants wearing 4th Division symbols refused to leave the areas under Russian control, as listed under the Russian-Israeli agreements. Second, the officers prevented the opposition squads, who were ready to reconcile, from joining the 5th Corps, trying to sabotage the Sunni buffer zone along the Israeli border. Maher al-Assads protege, Col. Ghiath Dalla, played a significant role in this process. Some sources suggest that Russian pressure in the spring of 2018 had forced him to give up the leadership of the eastern Ghouta campaign in Suheil al-Hassans favor.

It is auspicious that the recently published footage of Russian advisers training the Sunni Palestinian Quds Brigade, known as Liwa al-Quds, in Aleppo, may also attest to Moscows attempts to gain the support of paramilitary squads, which occasionally confront the 4th Division. As a famous Russian blogger pointed out, Liwa al-Quds militants are unlikely to return to civilian life, and it is quite obvious they are going to work in the field of security when the war ends.

Hence, it appears that Moscows attempts to devise a post-conflict scenario for Syria have made it realize the importance of supporting Syrian institutions and various social groups  at least as a way to reach agreements on the reconstruction process with regional actors. However, one can hardly tell whether Russia has actually managed to form a foundation out of Alawite and Sunni groups that is sturdy enough to rely upon in the long run.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  The prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel has returned to the forefront as competition begins to heat up between Israeli parties seeking to attract voters in the April 9 Knesset elections.

In a Jan. 19 report, Qatars London-based Al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper quoted Hamas sources as saying the group was contacted by an unnamed European country, as well as Cairo, to mediate negotiations with Israel on the swap issue.

The swap issue between Israel and Hamas has been at a stalemate since the end of 2014, despite the Islamic groups attempts to move it forward by releasing footage in December 2016 about the living conditions of Israeli prisoners in Hamas jails.

Israel has been unyielding, refusing to respond to Hamas' demand for the release of 52 Palestinian prisoners, whom Israel rearrested in June 2014 after their release in the Gilad Shalit deal in 2011.

On Jan. 17, Israels Channel 12 aired an investigative documentary on Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin, which included scenes and information revealed for the first time since he or his body was seized on Aug. 1, 2014.

Israel claims Goldin was killed during the 2014 war on Gaza, while Hamas has yet to reveal whether he is dead or alive. Hamas has also not disclosed the fate of another soldier Israel says was killed in the war. Israel also says Hamas is holding two civilians.

In April 2016, Hamas released photos of the four Israelis. Hamas has described all four as soldiers; Israel says the two civilians were captured in 2014 and 2015 after having crossed into the Gaza Strip and the two have been described as mentally ill.

On June 12 of last year, Israel's then-defense minister, Avigdor Liberman, called on Hamas to let the Red Cross see the Israeli prisoners. Were asking for the most obvious, humane humanitarian gesture  at least letting the Red Cross see our captives and fallen soldiers, Liberman said. After that it will be much easier, not necessarily to reach a long-term hudna (cease-fire) but to give humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza.

But Moussa Dudin, a Hamas member in charge of the prisoner file, said Hamas would only reveal new information about the four Israelis if Israel is ready to pay a price for each piece of information.

He told Al-Monitor that prisoner exchange talks between the group and Israel are at a standstill, denying reports about renewed talks with Israel through intermediaries. Dudin said the situation has been at a stalemate because Israel has refused to yield to Hamas conditions. He also said Israeli political parties are trying to come across as hard-liners when it comes to Hamas prisoners in the run-up to the national elections.

He said Hamas only condition to start indirect negotiations is the release of the prisoners who were rearrested in 2014.

Egypts efforts as a mediator are still ongoing, but have not made any progress yet, although Hamas would have shown flexibility in the release process of the Gilad Shalit deal prisoners whom Israel rearrested, Dudin said.

Several countries have tried to mediate between Hamas and Israel to restart negotiations to reach a swap deal, namely Egyptian, Turkish, Qatari and German intermediaries, but to no avail. Israel, however, said that it was ready to start negotiations but without any prerequisites such as those set by Hamas.

Al-Monitor tried to contact several Egyptian officials in Cairo and in the Egyptian Embassy in Ramallah, but to they all refused to give details, saying, The prisoner swap issue between Hamas and Israel is the prerogative of the Egyptian intelligence service.

The families of the four Israelis have upped their protests during the past year in a bid to further pressure the Israeli government to get the bodies and/or prisoners released.

The families are expected to escalate their movements as some accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of betraying them by allowing Qatari funds to reach Hamas in the Gaza Strip instead of pressuring the group to release the bodies and/or prisoners.

The media talks about renewed negotiations through intermediaries came in tandem with Israeli forces raiding Palestinian prisoners' cells in the Ofer Israeli prison Jan. 21.

Palestinians described the raid as the most violent since 2007, during which dozens of prisoners were injured.

Nahed al-Fakhouri, director of the Hamas-run Prisoners Information Center, said the Israeli prison raid was an attempt to pressure Hamas to retreat from its conditions to start the negotiations and to crack down on prisoners as part of the Israeli electoral campaign.

Fakhouri said the Israeli forces raided 15 sections in the Ofer prison, beating prisoners and firing tear gas, which resulted in dozens being injured and transferred to Israeli hospitals.

He said Palestinian prisoners are impatiently waiting for the negotiations in hopes of a swap deal with Israel, as they believe this to be the fastest way out of Israeli prisons.

More than 5,700 Palestinian prisoners are behind bars in Israel, and some have been jailed for decades; 700 suffer from various diseases, and 30 of them have cancer.

Abdul Rahman Shehab, director of the Atlas Center for Israeli Studies in Gaza, told Al-Monitor that the media leaks about renewed talks between Hamas and Israel are meant to buy time and silence the families of the Israeli soldiers during the election campaign and make them believe that Netanyahu is bending over backward to try to get their children home.

Shihab said no Israeli official is now allowed to start any swap deal negotiations with Hamas as this would negatively affect votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections. He said he expected that any future swap deal would be part of a bigger deal whereby Israel promises a longer-term truce to the factions in the Gaza Strip in exchange for prisoners and lifting the blockade that has been ongoing since 2007.

The prisoner swap issue with Hamas is one of the thorniest dossiers Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot left for his successor as chief of general staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

While handing over his responsibilities to Kochavi on Jan. 15, Eizenkot expressed his sadness at not being able to return my soldiers home safely during his tenure.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), the Palestinian Authoritys (PA) official news channel, opened its new headquarters Jan. 14 in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the opening of the office in Damascus took place in the presence of prominent Palestinian, Syrian and Arab officials, artists, intellectuals, representatives of the PLO factions in Syria, a number of ambassadors, clerics, members of the People's Council of Syria and representatives of the Syrian Ministry of Information.

Palestine TV is affiliated with PBC, which is a national institution established in 1993 in virtue of a decision by late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

The inauguration of the Palestine TV office in Damascus coincides with some Arab countries restoring their relations with Syria after the conflict in 2011. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced the resumption of their embassies work in Damascus, and on Jan. 22, Jordan announced the appointment of a new charge d'affaires in its embassy in Syria.

The PA maintained a neutral position on the Syrian crisis and announced its noninterference in Syrian affairs in order to preserve the lives and interests of the Palestinian refugees there. The official Palestinian position has always been keen on not being aligned to any Arab political axis and to remain neutral.

Palestinian activists called the move a prelude to the normalization of Palestinian-Syrian relations.

Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouti told Al-Monitor that the PA has taken the path of restoring relations with the Syrian regime. The presence of Palestine TV in Damascus is part of the normalization of Arab relations with Syria, especially with the Arab Leagues recent position and the opening of several Arab embassies in Damascus, he said.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said after meeting Lebanese President Michel Aoun in Beirut Jan. 17 that Arab consensus needs to be reached on Syria regaining its seat at the regional bloc.

The Arab foreign ministers decided in November 2011 to suspend Syrias membership to the Arab League, against the backdrop of the crimes Bashar al-Assads regime committed against the Syrian people.

Barghouthi said he hopes that Syria would emerge from its ordeal and that all aspects of the current crisis would end so that the Syrian people could participate in democratic life.

Ahmed Assaf, general supervisor of the PA Official Media, had said during the opening ceremony that opening the Palestine TV office in Damascus was an additional bridge in strengthening the relationship between the Syrian and Palestinian peoples.

Director General of Palestine TV Khaled Sukkar told Al-Monitor that opening the Damascus office comes within the framework of PBCs media revival. Damascus is an important Arab capital for us and our office there received broad acclaim among Syrian officials.

Sukkar noted that nearly half a million Palestinians live in Damascus, adding, We have responsibilities toward our people there. We have a national cause and we want our message to reach every house in the world.

There are around 450,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In a Jan. 20 statement, UNRWA said that 110,000 Palestinian refugees had been displaced from Syria since 2011 and have now settled in neighboring countries.

Sukkar pointed out that PBC had opened a number of offices in several Arab capitals, such as Tunis, Beirut, Amman and Cairo, noting that the Damascus office has begun to prepare a series of TV reports and live programs addressing the Palestinian presence and Arab issues.

Speaking about the editorial policy of the Palestine TV office in Damascus, Sukkar said that the media discourse is consistent with the political discourse determined by the PA leadership. We support the Syrian peoples choice and we do not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab country because we have a national cause of our own we need to take care of first, he noted.

He added, The events in recent years clearly show that the Palestinian cause has lost momentum, not only on the political level, but it rather started fading out from the Arab consciousness amid the unstable situation in the Arab world.

Sukkar noted, Our presence in Arab capitals is crucial and Damascus is one of these significant capitals for us, because it is important to restore our Palestinian narrative.

The general director of the Palestine TV news department, Mohammad Barghouthi, told Al-Monitor that opening an office in Damascus was a natural development as it serves PBCs objectives to convey Palestine to the world and bring the world to Palestine.

He said that the Syrian regime had granted them permission to open the office in Damascus and that they had assigned press crews to work there.

Barghouthi revealed that PBC will soon open a new office for Palestine TV in Algeria.

Author for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam and political analyst Hani Habib told Al-Monitor that opening the Palestine TV office in Damascus is linked to a political and media issue, as it is an attempt to reach the Arab and Palestinian public as much as possible.

As for the timing of this development, Habib noted that there are good ties between the Palestinian and Syrian leaderships, and opening the office was not related to a specific time because it requires preparation and has been in the works for a while.

The Palestinian leadership decided not to be part of any Arab axis, and this is a positive thing, because Palestine does not side with one party against another given the many Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, he said. Opening the Palestine TV office in Damascus is part of the Palestinian policy to extend political and media horizons with the Palestinian public in Syria."

Member of the PLOs Executive Committee Azzam al-Ahmad said on the sidelines of the opening of the Palestine TV office in Damascus, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Syria soon.

In this context, Habib noted that Abbas' visit to Syria would not be surprising. Nothing happened in the past to prevent this visit; the relationship between the PA and Damascus allows for such a visit.
The Redondo Beach lagoon reopened on Friday, June 18, for the first time in more than a year, after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shutter all last summer.
A new Palestinian government will be formed soon, now that the current Cabinet  headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah  officially submitted its resignation Jan. 29 to President Mahmoud Abbas. According to a decision announced Jan. 27 during a meeting of the powerful Fatah Central Committee in Ramallah, the new government will be made up entirely of PLO leaders. This is in contrast with the Hamdallah government, which was created as a national accord government with the hope of attracting Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to agree to hold elections.

Hamdallah said he was placing his resignation on Abbas' desk and is ready to work with whomever the president chooses to ensure a smooth transition of the new government.

Fatah spokesman Munir Jaghob said in a press statement Jan. 27 that the Fatah Central Committee has recommended a political government made up of factions within the PLO and independents.

Jaghob also said the committee decided to temporarily suspend the social security law for a set period of time to allow for discussions with all pertinent groups. The social security law spurred protests  including one that lasted four months and was one of the biggest and most powerful demonstrations against the Hamdallah government since it was established in 2014.

London-based Al Araby al Jadid reported Jan. 27 on some of the discussions that supposedly took place during the rambunctious, four-hour Fatah meeting. Citing a source who attended the meeting, the newspaper said that while the majority of members favor ending the Hamdallah government and appointing Fatah Central Committee member Mohammad Shtayyeh in his place, Fatah strongman Jibril Rajoub and former head of intelligence Tawfiq Tirawi objected, saying the continuity of the Hamdallah government is needed right now.

The source further noted that PLO Secretary Saeb Erekat suggested he head the new government, and that this idea was knocked down by Fatah member Hussein Sheikh, who said Erekat wouldn't be able to hold a senior PLO position and run the Palestinian government at the same time.

The Fatah Central Committee formed a group Jan. 27 tasked with consulting various PLO factions and reporting back in a week.

Abbas Zaki, a member of the central committee, told Al-Monitor that while problems are continuing, people are looking for solutions. There is a chance to change the government and to have a Cabinet representing PLO factions, but that requires dialogue with the PLO factions.

Zaki added that Palestinians need a clear strategy before changing the government.

Initial statements from a number of PLO factions haven't been positive.

Representatives of left-wing PLO factions and a number of independent factions said in separate statements that they will not join a government unless all Palestinian parties, including Hamas, are involved.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in press briefings that Fatah's intentions to set up a government outside of the national consensus is a departure from national partnership and a continuation of the single-minded Fatah policies that will ensure the dedication of the division.

Prior to the latest decision, Shtayyeh said in a Jan. 21 speech at a university in Ramallah that elections need to be restored: "It is a right of the Palestinian people and a way out of the current division.

Zaki said Abbas has asked the head of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, Hanna Nasser, to go to Gaza and talk with Hamas leaders to find out if they would agree to hold elections. If Hamas agrees that nation is more important than factionalism, then we can create a road map that we can work with," Zaki said.

Senior Palestinian sources in Ramallah told Al-Monitor that among the most likely individuals who could be asked to set up the next government is Shtayyeh, who leads the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Construction.

Possible candidates for prime minister include Fatah deputy head Mahmoud Alloul; Hussein Sheikh, who heads the Civil Affairs Ministry, which deals with Palestinian-Israeli daily affairs; and Erekat. A dark horse could be Nasser al-Qudwa, who resigned in May from the Fatah Central Committee in protest of what he said was Abbas monopolizing power and not sharing decision-making.

An unanswered question is whether a PLO government will make the possibility of reconciliation less likely, and push further away the possibility of any elections on either the parliamentary or legislative levels. The Palestinian Constitutional Court ordered in December that the outdated Palestinian Legislative Council be dissolved. The council's term expired in January 2010. The court called for legislative elections within six months, but so far the PLO hasn't held any discussions or taken legal action regarding presidential elections.

A political government backed by Fatahs Central Committee instead of the current technocratic government will weaken Abbas' ability to monopolize power. While a change of government will bring new blood into Palestinian politics, this change isn't likely to resolve the major internal problems with Hamas, nor will it be able to stand up to attempts by the administration of US President Donald Trump to pressure Palestinians into accepting its unilaterally designed plan for peace.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprised everyone Jan. 29 by announcing that he had decided not to extend the mandate of the multinational observer force in Hebron. The force was established in the wake of Baruch Goldsteins massacre of Muslim worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in February 1994, and after the United Nations Security Council demanded that an international force be stationed in Hebron to monitor events in the most volatile city in the West Bank. The force was first stationed there in May 1994, but it was forced to leave that August, after Israel and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat could not reach an agreement on what troops would constitute the force and what its precise mandate would be. It returned to the city after the signing of the Hebron Accords in 1997 by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Arafat.

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) now consists of several dozen unarmed observers from Norway, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. They are tasked with documenting events on the ground and writing situation reports, but these have had no real impact on the town. In fact, most reports written by TIPH get very little attention.

On the other hand, quite a lot of information about what happens in Hebron is disseminated to the public. Video clips showing clashes between Palestinians and the settlers in Hebron are published frequently. Israeli human rights organizations such as BTselem and Breaking the Silence place activists in Hebron specifically so that they can report to the world about what is happening there. So, for instance, in 2016, they filmed a soldier, Elor Azaria, shooting a neutralized terrorist in the head. Ten years earlier, in 2006, dozens of settlers were filmed throwing rocks at Palestinian homes, in response to plans to evict Jewish families squatting in houses in the local wholesale market, as well as in the illegal outpost of Amona. Furthermore, Breaking the Silence organizes tours of the city for anyone who is interested. Recently, they also released Occupying Hebron, a collection of testimonies from soldiers, describing the impossible situation in the city. The bottom line is that with such extensive documentation already circulating, written reports by the multinational force do not contribute much to the discussion.

Over the years, the international observers tried hard not to upset the Israelis too much, so that they could continue to cooperate with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the civil administration. As a result, reports produced by the various human rights organizations were usually much more severe than anything TIPH produced. But Hebron is still Hebron; it is impossible to ignore what is happening there.

In December 2018, journalist Uri Blau published in Haaretz a report by TIPH, claiming that Israel was violating international law and harming the Palestinian population on a regular basis. According to the report, no attempts are made by Israel anywhere in the city to restore "a normal life," particularly not in the Old City. As an example, the report mentions the old Palestinian vegetable market, which has been turned into an Israeli military zone "that is frequently taken over by settlers and serves as a playground for their children."

From the settlers point of view, this report was too much. True, it would be impossible for them to kick BTselem and Breaking the Silence out of Hebron. The most anyone can do is try to discredit them by calling them leftists and enemies of Israel. But when it comes to international observers from Europe, who are already suspected of anti-Israel sentiment, there is something that can be done.

As a result, the leaders of the settlers began pressuring Netanyahu (again) to act against TIPH. Similar pressure applied over the years, until recently, had little result, even though the settlers claimed that the international observers were being hostile to them. In 2017, for instance, Palestinian security cameras caught an observer puncturing the tires of a car belonging to a family of settlers in Hebron. At the time, the incident was considered to be so marginal and uncommon that nothing was done with the video footage. It only made the headlines in the last few months, as part of the settlers efforts to throw the undesirable organization out of Hebron once and for all.

Still, Netanyahu refused to acquiesce to the settlers requests, at least until this week. Then, without informing anyone in the security forces, the civil administration, the Foreign Ministry or even UN Middle East envoy East Nikolay Mladenov, Netanyahu announced that the observers role in Hebron was over. He did this even though he himself, together with Arafat, first decided to station them there 20 years ago.

The Israeli right celebrated of course. The Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of the settlement movement, released a statement priding itself on the success of the public struggle it waged, together with other right-wing organizations: We are pleased to see that all the effort we poured into this, together with the Land of Israel lobby in the Knesset, the My Israel movement and the Jewish community of Hebron, finally bore fruit.

The chairman of the Knesset Subcommittee for Judea and Samaria (in the West Bank), Knesset member Moti Yogev (HaBayit HaYehudi), is a resident of the settlement of Dolev, who once proposed that the Supreme Court be torn down with a D9 tractor. He said smugly that the IDF and the Israeli Police will ensure security and public order in Hebron better than any other force in the world.

This isnt just about the observers. It is part of a much broader and bigger effort, Avner Gvaryahu, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, told Al-Monitor. He said that several dramatic events have taken place in the city over the past four years, noting that anyone who still believes the occupation will end one day should come to Hebron to see exactly what is preventing that from happening.

Gvaryahu claims that neither the settlers nor the government want the world to see what is actually taking place in the city. There is a deep-rooted process underway to empty downtown Hebron of its Palestinian residents and turn it into a ghost town, he said. From Hebron the evil will come forth.

Now that he is in election mode, Netanyahu wants to appease the settlers as much as he possibly can. During a visit Jan. 28 to the West Bank area in the Etzion settlement bloc, where an alternative settlement is scheduled to be built for the evacuees of the Netiv Haavot settlement neighborhood, Netanyahu apologized for the Hebron Accords of 1997, claiming that they were a mishap. He said, "As far as I am concerned, there will not be anymore uprooting of communities or the cessation of [building in] communities, but rather the exact opposite. The Land of Israel is ours and it will remain ours. What has fallen will be rebuilt."

The settlers really understand the situation. They know that once the election is over, they will not be able to get everything that they can get now, with Netanyahu so susceptible to pressure. So far, they can take credit for one big victory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus worst nightmares came true on Jan. 29, as Benny Gantz, former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff, became his number one election rival. Gantz defied preliminary expectations and exuded a persuasive presence, revealing his stripes as a true leader during a speech at Tel Avivs Convention Center. Television stations broadcast Gantz for 21 consecutive minutes in prime time, which for Netanyahu probably seemed like eons.

The speech was followed moreover by substantive televised discussions, highlighting the importance of the event. It all ended with an additional unwelcome surprise for the current prime minister: Another former IDF chief of staff is joining forces with Gantz for the April 9 elections. Thus, Netanyahu finds himself facing Moshe Yaalon, his former defense minister and leader of the new party Telem, as well as his former chief of staff in Gantz on one ticket.

Gantz has his eye on additional connections and alliances. If he succeeds in convincing another former chief of staff, such as Gabi Ashkenazi, who also served under Netanyahu, to join his party, Israel Resilience, hell be able to offer a powerful security alternative to Netanyahu, something no one has done in ages. Such a development would make it even more difficult for Netanyahu to pull another rabbit out of his hat at the moment of truth, as he did in the 2015 elections when he inundated Israel with security threats and Arabs on the fence video clips with warnings of Hamastan on Israels borders. It was such tactics that brought him victory over Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog, who lacked his bulletproof aura.

Gantz has never been considered a charismatic individual, but what made the difference in his strong television appearance was his meticulous preparation, a speech heavy on slogans and messages and a complementary environment crafted with professionalism. From the prime ministers residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem, Netanyahu glimpsed the first real alternative to his own claims to the title of Mr. Security.

Gantz has survived the cooling-off period of four years mandated by Netanyahu in a law that allowed the prime minister to neutralize members of Israels defense establishment for four years  three for cooling-off years plus one to adapt to civil life  before entering the world of politics. Yaalon had completed his mandatory period earlier, but the big prize remaining on the shelf is Gabi Ashkenazi.

Many in Israel view Ashkenazi as the person capable of attracting significant numbers of right-wing votes to Israel Resilience. Ashkenazi has qualities that Gantz and Yaalon lack: He is viewed as an unpretentious man who talks at eye-level to the public, like a Likud member. As of now, Ashkenazi will not join Israel Resilience until the centrist Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid do so. It is possible, however, that the high standing of the Gantz-Yaalon alliance in the polls will convince Ashkenazi that Israel Resilience is indeed capable of fomenting a political revolution. If Ashkenazi were to join, the sky would be the limit.

So far, Gantzs strategy has been developing according to plan. He announced his candidacy and made a convincing debut in the polls. He has built up expectations and surpassed Lapid and Yesh Atid in the polls to emerge as a possible alternative to Netanyahu  all in the last two weeks. There is now some logic to Gantz asking Lapid to join him as number two.

At this stage, Gantz had planned to bring another security figure into his party, going to the next level. That is where we are now. What does Gantz want, next? To rise even higher in the polls and obtain more than 20 Knesset member mandates while lowering Netanyahu's to similar numbers. The Likud currently has 30-32 mandates according to the polls.

Strategic changes are afoot in the Israeli political arena with the possibly start of a new game. The path there, however, is still a long one. On the one hand, Netanyahu is the most experienced and ruthless player in town by far. On the other hand, even an experienced player experiences trials and tribulations, and based on the Likud's agitated reactions to Gantz's speech, it seems Netanyahu is in trouble.

Netanyahus plan is simple, and his success rate with it, during 10 years in power, is perfect  brand Gantz a left winger. Under Netanyahus leadership, Israels left has become a curse word. Anyone called a leftist is banished to the desert isle of low ratings and few voters. That said, Netanyahu will find it difficult to taint Gantz with being a leftist.

Gantzs major general past, Yaalons jumping on the bandwagon, and the political platform Gantz just presented  with soft center-right principles and a vague statement about striving for peace  will constrict Netanyahus wiggle room. In addition to all of Netanyahus other problems, it has emerged that two of his closest former associates have joined Yaalons Telem and will run on the Gantz-Yaalon list.

The two men  Netanyahus former cabinet secretary and life-long Likud member Zvi Hauser and Netanyahus former communications director Yoaz Hendel  are both solid members of the soft right. In 2012, Netanyahu banished them from the prime minister's office. Their crime? They identified, warned against and lodged a complaint about the sexually abusive behavior of Natan Eshel, head of the prime ministers office, toward a female employee. Eshel was forced to leave the bureau, while Netanyahu banished the gatekeepers. Now, unsurprisingly, they are returning to run against him.

Gantz, who had hardly said a word since founding Israel Resilience on Dec. 27, spoke for about half an hour on Jan 29. His speech was incisive and addressed all of Netanyahus weak points without mentioning the prime minister by name. Gantz alluded to mannerisms of a French royal house and asserted that instead of serving the people, the government looms over the people and finds the people to be a bore. He made reference to a government that feeds anxieties to ensure its own survival.

Gantz has put his finger on the societal situation in Israel, the relentless incitement and attacks on the gatekeepers and the labeling of anyone who doesnt bow down to Netanyahu as a left-wing traitor. All these things, he said, constitute the prime ministers Achilles heel. Gantzs in-depth polls show that even veteran Likud members are tired of the tempests and turmoil and want some peace and quiet for a change. Gantz promises to deliver quiet. In effect, he is presenting himself as the new Netanyahu but without the problematic trappings and tendencies.

Several questions remain: What character traits might Gantz demonstrate in place of those attributed to Netanyahu? What will Yair Lapid do now?

Only a little more than three weeks remains for submitting candidate and party lists to the Knesset. The most critical moment of Israels election campaign is upon us.
BAGHDAD  There's a discrepancy over how many US troops are still in Iraq, and whether they are welcome.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently estimated there are 5,000 American troops in Iraq and said there are no plans to remove them. However, that number is under scrutiny, in part because the United States has said it won't publicize such figures, and the Pentagon has removed from the internet official statistics on troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, other groups have different estimates.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi estimates there are 6,000 American troops in Iraq, compared with 7,700 a year ago  just after Iraq declared the Islamic State (IS) was defeated there. His Jan. 14 announcement, however, failed to satisfy some parliamentary blocs seeking "real," definitive statistics on the numbers of foreign forces, their missions and their deployment areas.

The Iraqi government favors keeping some US troops in the country for training and support. But some opposition blocs want the troops gone; others want to monitor their number and roles, in part to prevent the United States from establishing permanent military bases there to counter Iran's influence and maintain access to Syria.

Also speaking up on the matter is Asaib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais al-Khazali. The Associated Press reported on Jan. 28 that Khazali implied US troops could be forced out of the country if they don't leave. Asaib Ahl al-Haq is the Shiite paramilitary wing of al-Sadiquon political bloc, and it has ties with Iran.

Some major parliamentary blocs have sought for weeks to pass a law to remove all foreign forces  mainly targeting US troops  from Iraqi territories. The Fatah Alliance, the State of Law Coalition and the Sairoon Coalition are behind the bill, but the government has yet to configure a map of how foreign forces are distributed and their expected date of departure.

Laith Shubar, an Iraqi politician close to the prime minister, told Al-Monitor, The number Abdul Mahdi announced is real and close to the figure revealed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his recent visit to Egypt, where he pointed out that US forces in Iraq number about 5,000.

Shubar, who heads the Kafaat Bloc, added, The number of US troops in Iraq had been a mystery under the governments of Nouri al-Maliki and Haider al-Abadi. Today, this figure has been announced by the official authorities to clearly identify their advisory functions.

He believes that Abdul Mahdis government is likely to take steps to reduce the number of US troops in accordance with the tasks entrusted to them, which is mainly support and training, so as not to turn Iraq into the center of conflict between Tehran and Washington.

Yet Adnan al-Asadi, head of the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, said in a press conference Jan. 19, The number of US troops on Iraqi territory remains unknown so far." He added, The committee had sent an official letter to Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi, asking him to inform us of the number of these forces, the number of American bases [and] the legal grounds for their ongoing presence. We're still waiting for an answer.

Meanwhile, al-Sadiqoun parliamentarian Wajih Abbas said in a Jan. 14 statement to al-Sumaria TV news that the number of American soldiers in Iraq is 9,000. He stressed the need for parliament to intervene to reduce that number to a maximum of 3,000 forces, with specific tasks.

Talk of reducing the number of US troops in Iraq has begun to overshadow support for the draft law on removing foreign forces. The bill is backed by the Shiite blocs, sensing the US desire to remain for a longer period of time. This is especially true following US President Donald Trump's statement Dec. 26 from Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, when he said he has no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, a week after he announced a surprise pullout of US troops from Syria.

This draft law is unlikely to pass, as it's rejected by Kurdish and Sunni blocs, not to mention the Iraqi government's desire to maintain US support and training. The Iraqi government is avoiding any confrontation with the American administration, which warned against the consequences of passing such a bill.

State of Law Coalition member Alia Nassif said, Parliament ought to address Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi and the military commanders to identify the real number of foreign troops in the country and the tasks they are carrying out.

She told Al-Monitor, The security agreement signed between Baghdad and Washington in 2008 stipulated the withdrawal of US troops from the country by the end of 2011. Any subsequent deployment of such troops would be for training or advice only. It is the right of parliament, which ratified this agreement, to follow up on its implementation and any breaches that might take place during the execution phase.

The parliamentary blocs that had armed factions fighting in the Popular Mobilization Units  such as al-Sadiqoun and its Asaib Ahl al-Haq  have intelligence on the actual numbers of foreign forces and their deployment areas. Consequently, this debate will drag on, unless the government offers irrefutable evidence that the United States doesn't have large combat forces on Iraqi soil.

After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the number of US troops there peaked in 2007-2008 at roughly 165,000. After the United States announced the end of combat operations there in 2011, the number of American soldiers stood at 39,000.

US forces exited Iraq in 2011 only to come back in 2014, at Iraq's request, because of the emergence of IS. In 2016, there were about 3,800 to 5,200 Americans in Iraq, including trainers, experts, military advisers, security officers and special task forces.

Abdul Mahdi also said at his Jan. 14 news conference there were 11,000 total foreign troops in Iraq, including the 7,700 Americans, at the end of last year. That overall number dropped to 8,000 as of last month, with the 6,000 Americans, he added.
Iran's theological seats of learning appear set to face major difficulties in the coming Iranian year (beginning March 21) as the government has significantly reduced their budget allocations.

Various institutions and seminaries receive money from the government to promote religion and train clerics. In the budget bill submitted by the administration to the parliament, religious institutions and seminaries are facing a serious reduction in their annual budgets. For example, the government has allocated some 3.063 trillion rials ($72.86 million) to the Supreme Council of Qom Seminaries for the coming Iranian year. In comparison, the council received 4.45 trillion rials ($105.9 million) in the current year (ending March 20).

Ayatollah Ali-Reza Aarafi, who oversees all seminaries across the country, lamented the current state of affairs on Jan. 17, saying, "The seminary is in its worst condition economically." He added, The budgets of seminaries have been reduced by a third" of what they were last year.

It is unclear whether the administration of moderate President Hassan Rouhani is pursuing a particular aim  beyond the obvious cost savings  with the vast cuts in funding for religious institutions. However, Rouhani may be taking advantage of the economic pressure on the country from the reimposition of US sanctions as a pretext to reduce the budgets of seminaries. It should not be overlooked that the leaking of previously undisclosed budget allocations for religious institutions in December 2017 helped stoke massive public dissatisfaction over that winter.

Since Rouhani first took office in 2013, he has sought to make the government budget as transparent as possible through unprecedented measures. The Iranian public has become more aware of which institutions are being allocated funding, leading to greater sensitivity about reports on the matter. In early 2018, many Iranians took to social networks to express their disapproval of the budgets allocated to seminaries and religious institutions. What has particularly incensed the public is the funding granted to religious institutions that have little to show in terms of output. The Imam Khomeini Research Institution is among these bodies. Interestingly, the institution is controlled by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi  a staunch enemy of Rouhani and the spiritual leader of the hard-line camp in Iran.

In a speech at the University of Tehran this past December, the Iranian presidents cultural adviser urged students to hold workshops to review the annual budget of the country. "There is a tribe  behind every line of the budget.  There are a thousand institutions that you have not even heard of. When we want to cut their budget, they take the whole budget of the country hostage," said Hesamoddin Ashna.

The seminaries receive money from two main channels: the government and the grand ayatollahs.

Every year, worshipers pay one-fifth of their acquired wealth  including business profits  to grand ayatollahs. Payment of "khums" is a religious obligation in Shiite Islam. Based on Islamic law, the grand ayatollahs are obliged to spend this revenue on promoting Islam and aiding impoverished "sayyids" (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad). The grand ayatollahs chiefly spend the collected khums on seminaries, including monthly stipends ("shahrieh") to seminary students and teachers. However, they also receive donations from worshipers as part of vows or commitments to carry out specific acts ("nazr"), which are usually funneled to poor families.

In broad terms, seminaries in Iran are divided into two views about how they ought to be governed.

Some argue that seminaries should be independent of the state and nurture young religion students solely with funding provided by grand ayatollahs. This conviction has been openly stated by the grand ayatollahs, including those who are seen as close to the state. For instance, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, known for his proximity to the establishment, stated as recently as this past August, "The seminary should be independent of the government because such a dependency has negative effects." The reasons behind such calls are perhaps better explained by the influential Jomhuri-e Eslami newspaper, run by moderate cleric Masih Mohajeri, which reported back in December, "There is no doubt that the seminary and the affiliated institutions can only protect their independence by being governed by their own budgets [which are] secured voluntarily by the people, [while] the governmental budget will make them dependent and flexible in the face of the government and the establishments policies."

Describing the seminaries financial dependence on the state as a "huge danger," the Jomhuri-e Eslami daily emphasized that it will gradually cut people's ties to the seminaries, and a day will arrive when people will feel that there is no necessity to financially aid the seminaries and religious institutions. Under such a condition, a millennium of popular support for the seminary will be gone, and an important institution which confronted the oppressive powers by relying on its independence will lose the philosophy of its existence." Of note, the khums has for centuries been a key reason for the relative independence of the Shiite clergy, whether under Ottoman rule in Iraq or under the Pahlavi state in Iran.

In stark contrast to the first group, there are those who argue that the seminaries must receive government assistance while maintaining their independence. Ayatollah Mohsen Gharavian, a professor at the Qom Seminary, told Al-Monitor, "A number of clerics opine that the seminary has the right to an annual budget from the government and the establishment, because the budget comes from national revenues." He added, "I myself believe that the seminary should get its budget from the government but maintain its independence. Clerics should continue criticizing the government while theorizing [about religious matters]. "

Those who adhere to this view assume that the first group's wishes are not realistic. Mentioning the demand for the seminarys independence by a number of grand ayatollahs  amid simultaneous complaints about the decrease of the number of new clerics  Ayatollah Reza Ostadi, a prominent cleric and a member of the Supreme Council of the Qom Seminary, stated on Jan. 13 that shahrieh are not enough for clerics to make ends meet. He then explicitly questioned the grand ayatollahs, urging them to present solutions and also address the question of whether the seminaries should get money from the state.

In the meantime, the big picture is becoming ever clearer: Whether the seminaries want it or not, they have to accept the reality of the lower budgets allocated to them given the dire economic situation of the country. However, the change could be positive as it could serve as a test of whether they can exist  and thrive  independently of the state.
Earlier this month, Iranian and Indian officials finally reached an agreement on how India will pay for its oil imports from Iran. The agreement was finalized during Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's visit to New Delhi on Jan. 7-10, in which he headed a high-ranking economic and political delegation. The accord stipulates that Irans revenues from oil exports to India will be deposited in a rupee account in the state-owned UCO Bank. The funds will be exempted from hefty withholding taxes and can be used to purchase goods from the Indian market, paying for diplomatic missions, investing in the stock market or any other related aim that Iran desires. It was also agreed that Irans Bank Pasargad will open a branch in New Delhi and that Tehran will be able to transfer its export revenues to the bank as well.

The landmark agreement has several important implications.

Unlike the previous round of US sanctions on Iran, the current accord between Tehran and New Delhi does not include a method to settle payments in a convertible currency, namely the euro. Prior to Iran signing the nuclear deal, India had agreed to pay for 45% of Iranian oil in rupees and the rest in euros. Back then, Iran had envisaged escape routes through third party banks and institutions, especially in Turkey, to repatriate its oil export proceeds. But due to European Union sanctions imposed in early 2013, the Turkish route was promptly closed, leading Iran to keep its earnings in Indian accounts. Those proceeds were only repatriated following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015.

This time around, it will be much more problematic for Turkey to evade US sanctions through its banking system  despite the absence of European sanctions. Indeed, given the US prosecution of prominent Halkbank official Mehmet Hakan Atilla and his employer, it could be assumed that it will not be possible for Tehran to convince other Turkish banks to bypass US sanctions, even though the head of the Central Bank of Iran last month spoke of a breakthrough in banking relations between the two neighbors.

Hence, it seems as if Irans plan is to devise bilateral agreements with its main trading partners in order to expand its options and to benefit from its oil and natural gas export revenues amid restricted access to the international banking system. Such a scheme was agreed for trade between Iran and Turkey in 2018 while similar arrangements are being set up with China and Russia. However, it should be noted that use of non-convertible currencies, and especially the yuan and the rupee, carries several risks, including losses from fluctuations in exchange rates. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Iran can entirely base its oil trade on non-dollar currencies, and especially for the long term.

Meanwhile, Iran is following up on the long-discussed establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle, or SPV, by Britain, France and Germany, through which it seeks to move part of its oil export revenues and maintain crucial access to much needed convertible currency. The latter prospect was to some extent implied in connection with the Iran-India agreement signed earlier this month. As noted by Gholamreza Ansari  who incidentally served as ambassador to India prior to his appointment as deputy foreign minister for economic affairs  Iran is considering spending 50% of its oil revenues to purchase Indian products or products available in India  for the other 50%, the Indians have declared that they will transfer money through any banking system which Iran introduces. At the same time, it should be noted that the Iranian government is not counting on the SPV to clear a major portion of its oil export revenues accrued in India.

Another implication of the Iran-India agreement to consider relates to Irans purchase of Indian goods with its rupee holdings. While not fully being in control of where its oil revenues will be housed, this situation could present Iran with opportunities.

The Islamic Republic has always suffered from a lack of balance between its political and economic relations with its partners. This has made concessions to Western pressure at Irans expense not costly for Tehrans counterparts. For instance, with reference to Irans relations with Russia  perhaps its most important political partner  Moscow has on several occasions refused to fulfill its commitments with impunity. Examples of the latter include Russias stalled delivery of the S-300 missile defense system and its finalization of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was only completed after decades of delay. The heavy political component in the Iran-Russia relationship vastly overshadows the economic dimension; Irans share of Russias exports was a mere 0.37%, with bilateral trade below $2 billion. Consequently, it is not odd that Russia has historically found it rather easy to fail to fulfill its commitments without much concern about Irans reaction.

Iran and India have a much higher trade value compared to that of Iran and Russia, standing at $13.6 billion in 2017. Yet, while the trade balance is heavily tilted in favor of Iran  which enjoyed a trade surplus of $8.4 billion in 2017  the nature of traded commodities is not irreplaceable on either side. As such, both India and Iran can easily distance themselves from each other at low cost. The agreement signed in India earlier this month could change this weak point.

If Iran deftly makes use of its trade with India, it could establish a more strategic economic relationship, which in turn could pave the way for more political cooperation. This process appears to already have begun. For instance, Irans soymeal imports from India could be set to rise by a factor of 20 in the fiscal year ending in March compared to the previous year, potentially making up as much as one-third of Indias soymeal exports. Areas of cooperation can similarly be made more complementary if they are planned purposefully in the future.

Moreover, Iran can now use its revenues from oil exports to India for investment. Given that energy constitutes the lions share of bilateral trade, Iranian investment in Indias energy sector and especially refining would be a prudent move. Expanding its presence in Indias refinery sector could provide Iran with a sustained long-term market for its oil for decades to come.

Such a strategy would be in line with that of Russia, whose Rosneft-led consortium in 2017 acquired a major share of Essar Oil and with it control over the giant Vadinar refinery, as well as 3,500 filling stations, for $12.9 billion. Indeed, Iran has no option but to do the same if it wants to secure its share of a key future energy market. Sanctions could of course be an obstacle to such an end, but Russia has faced and overcome similar hurdles. While investment abroad might be considered a luxury amid harsh US sanctions, it could be a blessing in disguise. Given that previous embargos on Iran have been proven to engender massive waste and damaging speculation at home, investing oil revenues in India could prevent the waste of precious revenue while paving the way for more strategic economic engagement with an emerging power.
Turkey is taking a back seat in the investigation of Jamal Khashoggi's murder, letting the United Nations delegation  headed by the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard  take the lead.

Why it matters: The UN delegation arrived in Turkey on Monday. After meeting Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara, Callamard and her team of legal and forensic experts headed straight to Istanbul, where they ran into their first roadblock. After meeting with Istanbul's chief public prosecutor for four hours, the delegation went to the consulate where Khashoggi was killed, only to be denied access by Saudi officials on Tuesday. They were able to scout the vicinity of the compound, however.

A spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party promptly declared the Saudi obstruction to be a "scandal" and reiterated Turkeys call for an international investigation. The Turkish presidency and Foreign Ministry, however, have yet to comment, giving the impression that Turkish authorities seek to allow the UN to conduct its business without further escalating tensions  at least for now.

We welcome @AgnesCallamard's visit to Turkey in relation to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. We still do not know where Khashoggi's body is, who ordered the hit and who the 'local collaborator' was, Fahrettin Altun, communications director of the Turkish presidency, tweeted Tuesday.

Callamard also seems to want to avoid a confrontation. The request to the Saudi Consulate came quite late, so we need to give them a bit more time to process our request," she said.

Whats next: The delegation is scheduled to stay in Turkey until Feb. 2 and plans to meet with other people important to the case. Callamard has also sought permission to visit Saudi Arabia, Reuters reports. She is expected to present her findings to the UN Human Rights Council in June.

Know more: Read Al-Monitor contributor Giorgio Cafieros analysis of Saudi authorities stance. And don't miss Al-Monitor columnist Bruce Riedels article on the murder's impact on the kingdoms stability.
Missions Expert Takes on Leadership of Long-Time Unreached Peoples Advocacy Group

Dr. Kevin Higgins named General Director of Great Commission champions Frontier Ventures; continues in similar role at sister-ministry, William Carey International University



Contact: Gregg Wooding,

972-567-7660



PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 /Standard Newswire/ -- A significant leadership change has been made at one of the modern missions world's most quietly influential groups, with the appointment of Dr. Kevin Higgins as general director of Frontier Ventures (www.frontierventures.org). The ministry has a long history of promoting critical thought and creative action in missions efforts among the world's unreached people groups.



Higgins steps into the new role from being part of the three-person Office of the General Director team that has overseen the work at Frontier Ventures, founded more than 40 years ago as the U.S. Center for World Missions by the late missionary statesman Dr. Ralph Winter.



While leading Frontier Ventures' effortsincluding the innovative "launch lab," the Joshua Project's tracking of the progress of reaching the least reached; galvanizing prayer globally through the Global Prayer Digest; publishing "Mission Frontiers" magazine; and moreHiggins will also continue to serve as president of its sister organization, William Carey International University (WCIU, www.wciu.edu).



Founded in 1997, WCIU offers an MA in International Development through a robust distance-learning experience to equip men and women to address root issues of human problems among the world's most neglected peoples. Hundreds of students from around the world have completed studies through the university, where Higgins was named president in 2017.



"We are delighted that Kevin has agreed to take on this new role," said Greg Parsons, chairman of the Frontier Ventures board. "We believe this transition will allow us to further improve our effectiveness and also maximize coordination and cooperation between Frontier Ventures and William Carey International University, enhancing each of our 'Great Commission' endeavors."



Higgins, age 60, has a long history in missions leadership. Prior to joining WCIU, he served in two Muslim nations in South Asia, helping initiate a movement of people to Christ in more than a dozen language groups. He was international director of Global Teams from 2000 to 2017, and continues to serve as the organization's Asia region Muslim ministries coordinator.



Married with three grown daughters, Higgins earned his PhD in translation from Fuller's School of Intercultural Studies in 2013.



"It's an honor to be asked to assume this new role," Higgins said of his Frontier Ventures appointment. "Frontier Ventures has quietly played a powerful and significant role in educating, encouraging and equipping the church in regards to seeing Jesus proclaimed among those with the least opportunity to understand and experience the good news of his life and message. I am pleased to have this opportunity to be part of ensuring that contribution continues."



Other members of the former Office of the General Director will continue in different leadership roles at Frontier Ventures. Fran Patt has been named director of operations, and will oversee Frontier Ventures' work in the Northeast U.S., while Chong Kim will oversee the group's religious order expression and is helping with the launch of Frontier Venture's emerging SE Asia Hub.



Though Higgins' service as president of each organization is intended to maximize partnership and collaboration, the two will continue as distinct entities with separate boards and leadership teams.



Frontier Ventures Based in Pasadena, Calif., Frontier Ventures (www.frontierventures.org) promotes the cause of mission among the world's unreached people groups through research, education, and mobilization. Founded in 1976 as the U.S. Center for World Mission by the late missionary statesman, Dr. Ralph D. Winter, its subsidiary ministries include the acclaimed Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course.



William Carey International University

Named after William Carey, a pioneer British missionary to India in the late 1700s and early 1800s, WCIU (www.wciu.edu) was established in 1977 at the former U.S. Center for World Mission to equip international cross-cultural workers for overseas service. The distance-learning school has equipped hundreds of students.


GEFCO has launched a Mission Control Centre (MCC) in Amsterdam to manage global Time Critical Solutions.



The MCC will monitor all time-critical shipments booked on its IT system and act as a single point of contact for global customers to provide real-time monitoring updates on their worldwide emergency shipments.

GEFCO Freight Forwarding global TCS director Klaas Sybrandy said: With all time critical shipments being monitored closely by our excellent and experienced MCC team, we will ensure that we always find the fastest possible solution for all planned and unplanned emergency shipments for our customers.

The MCC team will be led by Vincent Karbet and Chantal van Loen. Karbet has worked in the freight forwarding industry for over 15 years, including executive roles with DHL Same Day.

Van Loen was responsible for TNT special services in The Netherlands for over 10 years.

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S.C. Department of Insurance Director Ray Farmer is a fan of state Rep. Bill Taylor's latest distracted driving legislation.

The director on Tuesday told an S.C. House transportation subcommittee he supports House Bill 3355  "Driving Under the Influence of an Electronic Device," or DUI-E for short.

During his testimony, Farmer said insurance premiums have increased roughly 8 to 10 percent over the last few years. Distracted driving contributed to that uptick, the director explained.

"We need to drive better," Farmer said, adding that distracted driving is a societal issue that needs addressing.

Taylor, an Aiken Republican, has said his bill does just that.

DUI-E would, among other things, make it illegal to hold a phone, call, text, email or watch a video while driving. Exceptions are made for first responders and those reporting an emergency or crime.

Phones could still be used via dictation or headset; Taylor on Tuesday said he uses Bluetooth.

In total, the Aiken lawmaker has branded DUI-E as a "Texting 2.0," a toothier version of South Carolina's 2014 texting-and-driving ban.

On Tuesday, Taylor said the 2014 law is "absolutely worthless." He has previously been critical of the law's fine structure and enforceability.

"I think that driving under the influence of electronics is more deadly than driving under the influence of alcohol," Taylor said during the subcommittee hearing.

Emphasizing Taylor's sentiments, Tiffany Wright, representing AAA Carolinas, described a phone in the hands of a driver as a loaded gun.

"Let's take the gun out of our hands," Wright said Tuesday.

Ten total lawmakers, Taylor not included, have signed on to the DUI-E bill, according to the Legislature's website.

"There's a great deal of interest in this bill," Taylor said.

Taylor filed a similar distracted driving bill last legislative session. That version was reported out of committee following several hearings but did not advance much farther.
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Can art restore the humanity to a celebrated artist?

On view at the David Zwirner gallery in New York through February 16 is God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin, a group exhibition curated by writer and critic Hilton Als featuring work by Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Jane Evelyn Atwood, James Welling, Ja'Tovia Gary and other artists. The exhibition, notes The New Yorker, is an attempt to give shape to a man who, in Alss eyes, is celebrated as a writer-prophet of racial injustice but too often overlooked as an artist and a human being.

I think that Baldwin martyred himself for lots of people, and it meant that his writing became polemical. The less internal life that he was allowed, the more polemical he became, Als says.

And so I think, Why not snatch him back from that? he adds. If you start listening to him sing, or you see something he said about his mother, or you see them together in Avedons photographs, it does something else to your mind, as opposed to 'Oh, yes, the civil-rights activist James Baldwin.' It goes back to an idea, which is very important to me, about giving Baldwin back his body, his spirit and his corporeal self. Now we have him singing, and we have him filling space, too.

As a galvanizing humanitarian force, Baldwin is now being claimed as a kind of oracle. But by claiming him as such, much gets erased about the great artist in the process, specifically his sexuality and aestheticism, both of which informed his politics, notes Als in an introduction to the exhibition.

Richard Avedon, James Baldwin and his mother, Emma Berdis Baldwin, New York, December 18, 1962.

Among the work included in the exhibition is an Avedon contact sheet depicting Baldwin at home with his family, looking joyful and at ease. Another Avedon image shows Baldwin as a young man in 1945.

The photographer and writer met while attending DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. They worked on the schools literary magazine together, but later lost touch with each other. They reconnected in 1964 to collaborate on the book Nothing Personal, as exploration of American identity. (A facsimile of the book was released in 2017 by Taschen.)

What Avedon and Baldwin shared from the start, as creators,  was an imagination that was not so much informed by reality as inseparable from it: they saw the exceptional in the real, Als wrote in a review of the recently released book.

Eugene Atget, Hotel, rue de Varenne 19, 1900

Als wanders far afield to recapture Baldwins life. He notes that Baldwins fascination with Paris  the city he emigrated to in 1948  was cemented by his obsession with A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickenss tale of the French Revolution. For that reason the exhibition includes photographer Eugene Atgets image Hotel, rue de Varenne 19, 1900.

Baldwin was to spend a great deal of time writing and living in cafes and hotels situated on avenues and streets Atget had visited with his camera, Als notes.

Anthony Barboza, Michael Jackson at 21, 1980

Also included is photographer Anthony Barbozas 1980 portrait of Michael Jackson at age 21, next to Diane Arbuss photograph A Young Negro Boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965. Together, notes Artsy, they suggest alternative presentations of black masculinity. At an exhibition preview, Als noted that Arbus had captured a young mans self-invention in processhis pencilled-in eyebrows, his parted and patted-down hair.

Between the two, Als asked, who is more real or more fake?Jackson, with his afro, or Arbuss figure with his shifting between maleness and femaleness? He suggested that the answer lay in between, noted Artsy.

Richard Avedon, James Baldwin, Harlem, New York, c. 1945

From Baldwins seminal debut novel "Go Tell It on the Mountain" (1953), to the recent film adaptation by director Barry Jenkins of his work If Beale Street Could Talk, we hardly need reminding that James Baldwins influence has never really left the modern day zeitgeist. notes Dazed. In 2019, Baldwin feels more relatable than ever. As a gay, black writer, his works are giving a fresh voice to the marginalized.

Alss exhibition at the Zwirner gallery reclaims Baldwin, who died in 1987, as a person. To have his body around his voice again is very important to me and in a way, the criteria of the show was whether or not we were being emotionally truthful to him and his work, as opposed to imposing an idea about him on the work and in the gallery, he says.

______________

At top: Jane Evelyn Atwood, James Baldwin with the bust of his head by American artist, Lawrence Wolhandler in his hotel room, rue des Grands Augustins, Paris, France. 1975
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Crimestoppers are seeking information in regard to acts of breaking and entering and vandalism that have recently occurred at Truro Raceway barns and the local horsemens club.

According to an article by the Truro Daily News, barns and tack rooms at Truro Raceway were broken into and vandalized at some point during the late-night/early-morning hours between Monday (Jan. 28) and Tuesday (Jan. 29).

Horses were not hurt in the incidents, but doors were damaged, glass was broken, and a fire extinguisher was sprayed in the interior.

Investigators believe that the same culprits also broke into the Truro Horsemens Club by smashing through the glass front door. Liquor was subsequently stolen from the premises.



A shot of the damaged front door at the Truro Horsemens Club

(With files from the Truro Daily News)
The term agrivoltaics was coined several decades ago but is just now gaining traction in the farming community.
St. Paul, Minn.  Despite trade difficulties with China, efforts are still being made to increase the demand for Midwest soybeans in Southeast Asia. At the beginning of 2019, representatives of the Northern Soybean Marketing group spent 10 days in four countries.

NSM is an independent group that is supported by Minnesota and the two Dakotas soybean checkoff organizations, said Seth Naeve, University of Minnesota Extension agronomist. They each put money into a pool that helps support marketing for soybeans from those states.

Naeve is one of six representatives that traveled to Southeast Asia during the first part of January. The group intended to visit Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.

We are going to do meetings in those countries and some company visits, said Naeve, just ahead of the trip. In addition, we have a new project we are starting in Malaysia with an integrator and soybean purchaser.

This integrator, in addition to having some food processing facilities, raises egg layers and broilers. NSM will be working with them to set up a new feeding trial with northern-grown soybeans.

Soybeans produced in the northern region tend to have lower total protein than those produced in the south.

The protein that is there is enhanced in nutritional value in terms of the balance of amino acids, he said. We have been doing this about four or five years where we have been talking about this whole amino acid benefit.

Northern grown soybeans are often marketed globally via the Pacific Northwest (PNW), while other regions of the country sell their beans through the Gulf of Mexico.
Pulse USA, a pulse crop and forage seed company based in Bismarck, N.D., is now fully-owned by some of the employees who work there.
Thank you to Lyn Redwood of Children's Health Defense for this report on the latest Mercktastrophe.



On Wednesday January 9th, I attended Science Day Presentations in the Jennifer Robi vs. Merck and Kaiser Permanente case in Los Angeles Superior Court. I want to report to our community on the outcome of this important event and provide some personal commentary.

It is difficult to describe the feelings of elation and frustration that I experienced during the full day of furious arguments that began at 9:30 am before Judge Maren Nelson. Due to the restrictions of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, my son and thousands of children like him, have never been able to have their injuries acknowledged in a court of law. This day gave families around the globe whose childrens health was permanently harmed by the HPV vaccine a glimmer of hope that their injuries and suffering would finally be acknowledged. The frustration I felt came from the obvious fact that the science relied on by our federal agencies to approve the HPV vaccine was criminally inadequate and that Jennifers injuries and those of the thousands of others like her could have been prevented.

Prior to Science Day, plaintiffs attorneys worried that because Judge Nelson threw out a $472 million 2017 jury verdict against Johnson & Johnson for causing ovarian cancer in women exposed to its asbestos-containing baby powders, the Court might not be very receptive to their arguments here. However, Judge Nelson gave scrupulous attention to the science presentations by both sides and clearly seemed to be approaching the Robi case with an open mind.

A red-letter day

After 20 years of advocating for vaccine safety, this was the first time that Ive watched vaccine science issues adjudicated in a true court of law. It was truly a red-letter day. Jennifers lawyers brilliantly laid bare Mercks anemic case for Gardasil, dissecting the science in withering presentations challenging both the efficacy and safety of the Gardasil vaccine, and then chronicling the horrifying agency and corporate corruption that lead to its approval.

Jennifer Robi is a 24-year-old former athlete and scholar who has been confined to a wheelchair since receiving her third Gardasil vaccines at age sixteen. She suffers continual uncontrolled neuro/muscular contractions (jerking) and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and many other symptoms of systemic autoimmune dysregulation.

Jennifers attorney, Sol Ajalat, initially brought her case in Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and then, following a judgment in the program, elected to proceed in civil court. Since VICA (the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act) forbids recoveries for product defect or negligence, Ajalat brought Jennifers civil case under the theories that Merck committed fraud during its clinical trials and then failed to warn Jennifer (and, by implication, other injured girls) about the high risks and meager benefits of the vaccine.

In order to support Sol Ajalat and his sons Greg, Larry, and Steve, who compose the Los Angeles firm Ajalat & Ajalat, a blue ribbon A-Team of the nations leading plaintiffs law firms have joined Jennifers trial team. These include the firms most feared by Pharma: Weitz & Luxenberg (countless major pieces of litigation over 30 years), Morgan & Morgan (Vioxx, Phenphen, Breast Implants, Tobacco), Baum Hedlund, (Monsanto $289 million verdict 2018 and the $54 million 2000 verdict against Bayer in Haemophiliac/AIDS case) as well as Childrens Health Defenses own Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Kim Mack Rosenberg (a co-author of The HPV on Trial). The plaintiffs bar has steered clear of vaccine lawsuits since the 2008 Thimerosal fiasco which nearly bankrupted several big firms. Now, Merck, through its reckless overreaching with Gardasila public health flimflam currently emerging as the most dangerous vaccine in historyhas brought the nations leading trial lawyers back to the brawl.

The three Merck attorneys who made presentations were Dino Sangiamo, Sally Bryan, and Christina Gaarder. Jo Lyn Valoff represented Kaiser. Read more at the Child Health Safety website here.
Readers increasingly look at The Times of India to become the voice of the nation and highlight issues that bring about a positive change in their lives. The cause of Lost Votes is one such cause that can bring about a change in the lives of crores of Indians.

The 2019 General Elections are on the anvil and TOI took up the challenge to launch a nationwide campaign to generate conversations and make a real difference. Hence the Lost Votes Movement. It calls for policy & electoral reforms to bring in the vote of Indian migrant into countrys General Elections.

In todays India, countless Indians are on the move. For work or education or marriage. And so are our banks accounts which automatically travel with us. And also, our mobile phone numbers and PAN & Aadhaar numbers. Perhaps the only thing that doesnt is our right to vote. Thats tied to the place where its registered in. Tied down by a rule that subtracts crores of Indians from our countrys democratic equation. Its time to change this. Its time to turn these lost votes into votes that count. Because they can shape the destiny of our nation.

A simple but powerful and noble idea, Lost Votes has the potential to positively impact our democracy, resonating with TOIs philosophy of Change Begins Here.

The Lost Votes campaign hopes to strongly represent the voice of crores of Indians whose votes are lost due to (short term or immediate) migration within the country.

Support the cause to make our vote mobile by pledging on www.lostvotes.com

Commenting on the campaign, Sanjeev Bhargava, Director, TOI Brand said; We are the largest democracy in the world. But are we the most robust? To strengthen our democracy, it is important that the right to vote and the facility to vote both be made available to the entire voting population.

 The idea of the film is to evoke the voice of the lost vote. A voice that amplifies the angst and echoes the emotion of over 20 crore Indians losing their vote. To play the voice of the lost votes on loud speakers and yet feel the voice being drowned by the distance, lost in the middle class multitudes out there. Losing your right to vote is like that fading homing signal. Its like missing the last train home and losing the hope of making a difference in your hometown from your distant work station. Mera Haq Kahin Pe Kho Gaya., said Senthil Kumar, Chief Creative Officer, J. Walter Thompson

When we started working on the Lost Votes campaign, I knew the film had to be poignant and soul-stirring. It needed to capture that ineffable feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. One who has to deal with the pain of not just losing touch with his roots but also not mattering in the larger scheme of things, because he/she is unable to vote (despite having the right to.) Whether youre a face in the crowd or the crowd itself, nobody is immune from this pain. The Lost poster-frame is meant to be symbolic of this feeling of becoming insignificant.; added Sambit Mohanty, National Creative Director, J Walter Thompson.

Credits:

CCO: Senthil Kumar

NCD: Sambit Mohanty

Creative Team: Sambit Mohanty, Ankur Kalita, Nirmalya Chakraborty, Sundeep Sehgal

Planning: Shweta Khosla

Account Management: Sridhar Iyer, Neetika Aggarwal, Amrita Hazari

Director: Arun Gopalan

Production House: Storytellers

VO/Lyricist: Swanand Kirkire

Music: Shubhojit
The makers of the most anticipated biopic of the year PM NarendraModi have finally gone ahead to announce the names of actors who will be a part of the main cast for the film. After actors Darshan Kumaar and BomanIrani recently joined the films cast, the latest to join the multi-starrer cast are actors Zarina Wahab, Manoj Joshi, Prashant Narayanan, Barkha Bisht Sengupta, Akshat R Saluja, AnjanShrivastav, Rajendra Gupta and Yatin Karyekar.

Says Producer Sandip Singh, A solid star cast with talented actors is the base of an effective cinematic experience. With PM NarendraModi we have got actors who are not just experienced but are also the right mix for a prestigious project like a biopic on MrNarendraModi. I am excited at the prospect of having such a talented cast and to work with them along with Omung."

PM Narendra Modi the biopic will traverse the journey of Narendra Damodardas Modi from his humble beginnings to his years as Chief Minister onto his landmark win at the 2014 election and finally being nominated as the Prime Minister of India.

With a poster launched in 23 languages, this larger than life biopic will be shot extensively in Gujarat and across locations within the country. Producer Sandip Singh is currently busy with the shoot of PM NarendraModi which has already commenced.

Produced by Sandip Singh and directed by biopic maestro Omung Kumar, this much-anticipated biopic comprising an ensemble cast has versatile actor Vivekanand Oberoi in and as PM Narendra Modi.
The apex industry event that celebrates milestones in the Indian media and advertising industry  Goafest is all set to be held on 11th, 12th and 13th April, 2019 at Indias festival destination. Presented by Viacom18, Goafest 2019 will see the A&M fraternity celebrate sucessul campaigns and facilitate idea exchange on categtory growth drivers and game changing global trends.

Speaking about the 14th edition of the festival, Mr. Ashish Bhasin, President of Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) said, Goafest is the Indian advertising industrys largest and most representative event . It is not just a festival but an ode to the industry and the pioneering work done through the year. This year too we will bring to fore an immersive event that will bring together the industrys most creatively curious, transformational and inspiring thoughtleaders and innovators from across agencies, brands and media houses. .

Mr. Nakul Chopra, Chairman Goafest 2019 said Goafest is all geared up for an inclusive and engaging 2019 edition. Our endeavor this year is to ensure that multi-category representation and participation, interactivity and thought leadership is at the forefront of all our initiatives. This year too the apex industry event will continue to establish its eminence as a leading knowledge sharing and networking platform and we are happy to have partnered with Viacom18 in building this to further scale.

Speaking about partnering with Goafest 2019, Sudhanshu Vats - Group CEO & MD at Viacom18 said Goafest has, over the years, cemented its reputation as the countrys foremost amalgamation of the best and brightest of the creative and marketing minds of the Indian business. Our association with them is an extension of our belief that knowledge sharing leads to knowledge enhancement thereby benefitting the entire industry.

Talking about the focus at the upcoming edition of the festival Vikram Sakhuja: President, The Advertising Club said ABBYs are the gold standard in creative awards and has always recognized agencies and talent that push boundaries and challenge status quo. Our endeavor with the festival and the awards this year is to ensure exceptional speakers, inclusive participation and thereby gain a headstart on decoding transformational global advertising and communication trends.

Shashi Sinha, Awards Governing Council Chair and Secretary, The Advertising Club said We are all set for the ABBYs and are hoping to see some pioneering and clutter breaking work being entered this year. ABBYs is the ultimate national benchmark for effective creative communication. Winning an ABBY holds a place of pride in the career lifecyle of every advertising and media professional. We sincierly hope that the awards continue to inspire the best minds in the industry to present their best foot forward. 

Presented by the Advertising Club and AAAI the Goafest 2019 will once again see the entire advertising and marketing fraternity soon come together in Goa in April 2019.
Veteran actor Ashutosh Rana has given Bollywood some of the most iconic performances and is a true believer of versatility. This new year he will be seen in a brand new avatar as he is gearing up to turn Host for the all-new episodes of Star Bharats Savdhaan India.

This season promises to have intriguing stories that will make it more engaging and will highlight the nature of crimes that have been committed in the contemporary society.

Ashutosh Rana shared, As a new host of Savdhaan India, I will narrate some of the gravest crimes committed in our country. Each story will lend the viewers a reason to be alert, aware and safe. As a responsible citizen; I consider myself honoured to be the voice of Savdhaan India thereby being instrumental in spreading the awareness in the nation.

Catch Ashutosh Rana on Savdhaan India starting 21st January every Monday to Saturday at 10 pm only on Star Bharat!
Authorities Investigating Suspected Home Invasion in Corning

Authorities are still searching for three armed and dangerous home invasion suspects in Corning. Five suspects broke into a home on Dora Avenue and Highway 99 W on Tuesday night. Three people were inside the home. One was able to wrestle a gun away from the robbers. Two robbers were killed and investigators say two men fled in a white dodge charger while a third took off on foot.

PG&E to Appear in Court After Bankruptcy Filing

Just a day after filing for bankruptcy, PG&E will appear in court. The utility will argue against proposed regulations that would force it to remove trees near power lines and shut off power during high winds. PG&E claims those changes could cost $150 billion.

Deadline for Government-Backed Debris Removal is Jan. 31

The deadline to sign up for phase two of government-sponsored Camp Fire debris removal is tomorrow. Of the 14,000 homes destroyed, just over 8,100 people have signed up. You can download a Right-of-Entry form by CLICKING HERE.

Koppers Inc. Plant Rejected as Debris-Sorting Site

Koppers Inc. in Oroville will not be used as a Camp Fire debris removal site. State and local agencies have determined there is no longer a need for a temporary debris site. The governor's office of emergency services says that after some analysis, there is enough capacity to get that work done at local facilities.

Camp Fire Recovery Bills Head to Assembly Floor

Two state bills on Camp Fire recovery head to the assembly floor. The first gives more than$31 million for lost property tax revenue, damaged wells and septic, and system. The second bill allows the state to reserve funds for emergency operations.

Measles Outbreak in Washington Spreads Fear in North State

A growing measles outbreak in Washington is spreading fear in the North State. Shasta County Health Officials say they have not seen any cases at this time. Right now, it is mandatory in California for children to be vaccinated unless they are homeschooled or have medical exemptions.

Butte County Sheriff's Office Investigating Body Found in Magalia

The Butte County Sheriff's Office is investigating a body found in Magalia on Tuesday morning. This was in the area of Humbug Road and Camp DeSabla. Investigators are releasing few details but say the death is considered "suspicious."
For the first time ever, astronomers have detected a 1.3 km radius body at the edge of the solar system.

Kilometer sized bodies like the one discovered have been predicted to exist for more than 70 years. These objects acted as an important step in the planet formation process between small initial amalgamations of dust and ice and the planets we see today.

The Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt is a collection of small celestial bodies located beyond Neptune's orbit. The most famous Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object is Pluto. Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects are believed to be remnants left over from the formation of the solar system. While small bodies like asteroids in the inner solar system have been altered by solar radiation, collisions, and the gravity of the planets over time; objects in the cold, dark, lonely Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt preserve the pristine conditions of the early solar system. Thus astronomers study them to learn about the beginning of the planet formation process.

Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects with radii from 1 kilometer to several kilometers have been predicted to exist, but they are too distant, small, and dim for even world-leading telescopes, like the Subaru Telescope, to observe directly. So a research team led by Ko Arimatsu at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan used a technique known as occultation: monitoring a large number of stars and watching for the shadow of an object passing in front of one of the stars. The OASES (Organized Autotelescopes for Serendipitous Event Survey) team placed two small (28 cm) telescopes on the roof of the Miyako open-air school on Miyako Island, Miyakojima-shi, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, and monitored approximately 2,000 stars for a total of 60 hours.

Analyzing the data, the team found an event consistent with a star appearing to dim as it is occulted by a 1.3 km radius Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object. This detection indicates that kilometer sized Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects are more numerous than previously thought. This supports models where planetesimals first grow slowly into kilometer sized objects before runaway growth causes them to merge into planets.

Arimatsu explains, "This is a real victory for little projects. Our team had less than 0.3% of the budget of large international projects. We didn't even have enough money to build a second dome to protect our second telescope! Yet we still managed to make a discovery that is impossible for the big projects. Now that we know our system works, we will investigate the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt in more detail. We also have our sights set on the still undiscovered Oort Cloud out beyond that."

Reference: This research appeared in Nature Astronomy (advance online publication) on January 28, 2019. This research was made possible by grants-in-aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the support of the Miyako open-air school and the local community in Miyakojima-shi.

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UPDATE 9:55 a.m. Friday, Feb. 1, 2019 - The Yuba County Coroner's Office has identified two people killed in a deadly crash on Highway 70 Wednesday.

The victims have been identified as Roberto Gomez Ledesma III, 33, of Marysville, and Lillian Rosemaria Leal, 37, of Linda.

---

UPDATE 4:48 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019 - The Yuba-Sutter California Highway Patrol has released more information regarding a deadly crash on Highway 70 Wednesday that killed two people.

According to the CHP, the crash occurred at approximately 11:20 a.m.

A driver in a Honda Civic was traveling south on Highway 70 south of Ramirez Road when it drifted into the northbound lane of Highway 70 directly in the path of a motorist in a Chevy Avalanche.

The driver of the Chevy Avalanche, identified as Jeanne Kendall, 68, of El Sobrante, did not have enough time to brake and avoid a collision. The front side of her vehicle collided with the passenger side of the Honda Civic.

The driver of the Honda Civic was ejected from the vehicle upon impact. The official report states that the driver was not wearing a seatbelt at the time.

The driver of the Honda Civic and the right, front passenger were pronounced deceased at the scene. The right, rear passenger was transported to Rideout Emergency Room due to major injuries.

The driver of the Chevy Avalanche was also transported to Rideout Emergency Room due to major injuries. Two dogs in the Chevy Avalanche were not injured in the collision.

CHP does not believe that drugs and alcohol were a factor in this collision.

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YUBA COUNTY, Calif. - Both lanes of Highway 70 are blocked at Ramirez Road due to a deadly crash that has killed two people.

Oroville California Highway Patrol reported the collision on its Facebook page around 1:40 p.m. and has confirmed that two people died in the collision.

Traffic is being diverted onto Woodruff Lane.

We have a reporter on the way to the scene. Stay with Action News Now for the latest updates as they become available.

Photo courtesy of Orlando Carmona.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Latest on a court hearing on a U.S. judge's proposals to try to prevent Pacific Gas & Electric Co. equipment from causing more wildfires (all times local):

11:30 a.m.

A federal judge in San Francisco has determined that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. violated its probation in a criminal case stemming from a deadly 2010 gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area.

At a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup upheld a finding that PG&E failed to notify probation officials that a prosecutor's office had opened a full investigation into the utility's role in a 2017 California wildfire.

He said he would set a sentencing date later.

Kate Dyer, an attorney for PG&E, says the company had communicated with probation officials and didn't hear until recently that it had fallen short.

Alsup is overseeing a criminal conviction against PG&E on pipeline safety charges stemming from a deadly gas line explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010.

He is considering imposing major new conditions as part of PG&E's probation to try to prevent the utility's equipment from causing more wildfires.

---

10:55 a.m.

A federal judge is berating Pacific Gas & Electric Co. at a hearing to determine whether he should order the company to take major steps to try to prevent more wildfires.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco told attorneys for the company Wednesday that safety was not PG&E's No. 1 priority and the company could have spent more money to trim trees to prevent wildfires.

Alsup is overseeing a criminal conviction against PG&E on pipeline safety charges stemming from a deadly gas line explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010.

He previously proposed as part of PG&E's probation that it remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines in high-wind conditions and shut off power at times when fire is a risk.

An attorney for PG&E, Reid Shar, said the company was not offering platitudes when it said safety was its No. 1 goal.

Wildfire damage has become a multibillion-dollar liability for the utility. The company filed for bankruptcy Tuesday in the face of hundreds of lawsuits from victims of wildfires.

---

3:40 a.m.

PG&E faces court in San Francisco today, a day after filing for bankruptcy.

Federal Judge William Alsup is overseeing a criminal conviction against PG&E on pipeline safety charges from a deadly gas line explosion that occurred in the Bay Area in 2010.

Judge Alsup proposed earlier this month that PG&E remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines in high-wind conditions and shut off power at certain times, as part of its probation. However, PG&E shot back in a court filing that the judge's proposals would endanger lives and could cost as much as $150 billion.

The company will try to convince the judge at today's hearing that this is not necessary to prevent its equipment from causing more wildfires.
WENN/FayesVision Music

The 'Empire' actor has reportedly told Chicago Police Department that the two masked white men, who brutally beat him near his apartment in Chicago, shouted 'MAGA country.'

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - Jussie Smollett's Los Angeles concert on Saturday, February 02 is to go ahead, despite the "Empire" star being targeted in a vicious attack on Tuesday morning.

Smollett, who plays an openly gay musician on the TV series, was hospitalized after two white men targeted him near his apartment in Chicago, Illinois in the early hours of Tuesday.

The men, who wore black ski masks, are said to have brutally beaten the 35-year-old, pouring an unknown chemical substance over him - which some outlets have reported as bleach - before using a rope as a noose around his neck.

Prior to the attack, the actor and musician was scheduled to perform at West Hollywood venue The Troubadour on Saturday, and Paul Kacik, of concert booking company Sean Healy Presents, told The Los Angeles Times that they are "going on with the show as far as we know, until we hear anything different."

Police are investigating the assault as a "possible hate crime" as the suspects allegedly recognised the actor from his work and called him out, shouting, "Aren't you that f**got Empire n**ger?". In an interview with the Chicago Police Department after the attack, Smollett is said to have told officers that the suspects also shouted "MAGA country". MAGA stands for "Make America Great Again", a slogan which has become synonymous with controversial U.S. President Donald Trump.

According to TMZ.com, the noose was still around Smollett's neck when the police interviewed him 45 minutes after the attack, which is thought to have left him with a fractured rib.

Smollett was overwhelmed with support from his celebrity friends following the attack, with stars including Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Ariana Grande and "Empire" creator Lee Daniels voicing their shock and horror over the incident.

Chicago P.D. spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi added in a tweet on Tuesday evening that police have "expanded the search area for cameras to be able to provide photos of the alleged assailants in this attack.

"No video of the alleged assailants or a vehicle has been discovered but we are continuing to broaden our search."

Smollett's castmates on the set of "Empire", which has halted production due to extreme weather in Chicago, where it's filmed, have also been provided with counsellors, who they can discuss the horrific attack with and ask any questions.

In addition, Smollett and his co-stars will be provided with armed security when they go out onto the streets of Chicago to shoot scenes, TMZ.com reported.
Instagram Celebrity

Multiple sources allege that the 'Hookah' rapper and the Australian native 'hooked up' at the Rolling Loud Festival in Sydney, Australia.

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - Well, this is rather awkward. Tyga reportedly has a new woman in his life. But the lucky lady, whose name is Tammy Hambrow, is apparently friends with Kylie Jenner, whom he dated for some time a few years back.

Report of them dating first surfaced on Monday, January 28, with multiple sources alleging that Tyga and Tammy "hooked up" at the Rolling Loud Festival in Sydney, Australia over the weekend. "They arrived together, were all over each other at the side of the stage and then left together," an insider said. "They were so into each other, it seems there's definitely something going on here. Some people backstage thought they were actually a couple."

Daily Mail additionally obtained a video from the festival, showing Tammy excitedly dancing in the VIP section with the "Hookah" rapper, though he didn't look as excited as she was. A second source claimed that the Australian beauty "was partying so hard she didn't seem to care what anyone thought."

Tammy's sister, Amy Hembrow, later denied the report and told the publication that they were just friends. However, Tammy was later seen spending another night with Tyga during his concert in Brisbane just one day after their previous outing. A source explained to Daily Mail that Tammy was "following" him around the country for the tour and that they are "100 percent together."

"They traveled up to Brisbane separately and hooked up again later on. She's basically doing his whole Australian tour with him," so the inside source said. "Tammy spent all night backstage (or on the side of the stage) as if she was his girlfriend. She was walking round with her AAA pass on display for everyone to see." Multiple onlookers also stated that Tammy made "no secret" of her romance with Tyga during his performance in the city.

Tyga and Tammy didn't immediately respond to request for comment.
Instagram TV

The mom of three says her husband is upset over it, adding, 'my husband and my family get harassed by hundreds of people,' until MTV airs the next episode of the series.

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - The latest episode of "Teen Mom 2" ended in a huge cliffhanger as it aired the audio of Jenelle Evans' infamous 911 back in October. She dialed the number folowing an argument between her and husband David Eason and she accused him of assaulting her.

"My husband assaulted me," the North Carolina native told the dispatcher. "He pinned me down on the ground in the yard, and I think I heard my f***ing collarbone crack, and I can't move my arms." Jenelle, however, backtracked her statement later, calling it a "misunderstanding" and they were both drunk at the time.

Now that the MTV reality series decided to air it during the final few minutes of the January 28 episode, the couple is upset. Speaking to HollywoodLife.com, Jenelle revealed that "it's a shame" the series is using the audio "to get ratings."

"The crew filmed with me the day after the incident and I explained what happened," she revealed. "It's a shame they HAVE to make it a cliffhanger for their own benefit to get ratings meanwhile my husband and my family get harassed by hundreds of people for a week until it airs."

"David is upset everyone keeps bringing up old things that have happened and that we have moved on from," The mom of three added. "I feel like my husband doesn't have a voice and they are still trying to use him in their show. It's not fair to David at all."

Jenelle insisted that the fight between her and David was nothing and "it was a stupid argument we had." She added, "Part of marriage sometimes is arguing and making up. I haven't even watched any episodes from this season yet."

Following the episode, Jenelle revealed that she didn't bother to try to find out people's responses. "I've been cleaning, doing laundry, and working out. Haven't read anyone's responses and don't care to," she went on saying. "I'm fine and I don't need to convince anyone."
Instagram Celebrity

In addition to that, the 'Momma' rapper writes how he wishes he could travel back in time and 'erase the day' when he meets the mother of two.

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - The shade game is on for Blac Chyna and her alleged ex-boyfriend Kid Buu. While the pair have yet to respond to the brutal fight they had during their vacation in Hawaii, the rapper appeared to confirm that things were indeed over for both of them by shading the mother of two on Instagram.

In a since-deleted clip on the photo-sharing platform, Chyna was seen bending over while grinding on Buu near the pool at the hotel they were staying at. "THANK U, NEXT," the rapper wrote in the caption, clearly referencing to Ariana Grande's famous breakup anthem. To top it off, he even changed his profile picture to an image of the songstress at the time.

Buu seemingly slammed the Lashed Bar owner again by writing, "I wish I could travel time and erase the day I met you," alongside a picture of him posing beside a car. The "Momma" spitter added the hashtag #GetBackMyWastedTime.

Buu and Chyna got into a violent fight in their hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Honolulu, Hawaii after she accused him of cheating on her. The Honolulu Police Department confirmed the report and stated that the incident is currently under investigation.

"Shortly before 9 A.M. today, a female visitor staying in Waikiki reported being assaulted by a male acquaintance. The victim reported that she and the suspect had escalated to a physical confrontation," so a statement read. "The male left the area after the confrontation and has not been located. This incident has been classified as abuse of a household member. The investigation is continuing, and no further information is being released at this time."

However, it appeared that the couple had made quite a splash at the luxury hotel even before the brutal fight. A source claimed to PEOPLE that other hotel guests, especially the ones with children, sent complaint because they "didn't like the way they behaved." Buu and Chyna went with their friends during the getaway.

"They hung out by the pool, partied and were loud. They are not the typical hotel guests," the insider said. "They were definitely being inappropriate in several ways. The girls were showing nipples, they were twerking and just being obnoxious."
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Addressing speculations that she might be dating her dancer, the 'My Heart Will Go On' hitmaker insists that she is single and urges press to leave her alone.

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - Celine Dion has insisted she's single and dancer Pepe Munoz is just her "best friend".

The "My Heart Will Go On" star has been accompanied by her dancer Pepe almost everywhere in the last couple of years, and they were most recently spotted together at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week in France, where they were pictured walking arm in arm and sitting together on the front row.

The pictures sparked renewed speculation of a romance, but Celine shut down the suggestion that she had moved on from her late husband Rene Angelil, who passed away three years ago, in an interview with Britain's The Sun newspaper.

"The press said, 'Oh my God, Rene just passed and now there's another man'," she said. "Yeah, there's another man in my life but not THE man in my life."

"We bonded right away as friends, we had a good time. It evolved... But when people started to take pictures and it was like, 'Who's that guy? Rene?' Let's not mix everything."

She explained that Pepe, who was in the room during her interview, was with her all the time because he helps to style her and serves as her trainer.

"We're friends, we're best friends. Of course we hug and hold hands and go out, so people see that. I mean, he's a gentleman. He's giving me his hand to go out," she continued. "I don't mind because he's handsome and he's my best friend."

When asked directly if she's single, she admitted she was before jokingly adding, "By the way, when I say, 'I am single,' please, leave me alone. Thanks."

The 34-year-old Spanish dancer told French magazine Gala last January that Celine, 50, was just a good friend and that the romance rumours "really amused us."
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The disgraced star of 'The Cosby Show' is serving his 3 to 10 years sentence at the State Correctional Institute Phoenix for drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.

Jan 30, 2019

AceShowbiz - The Pennsylvania prison where Bill Cosby is serving time for sexual assault was placed on lockdown last week, ends January 27, after a drone used to capture images of the actor behind bars was spotted overhead.

"The Cosby Show" star, who is suffering from blindness, was being escorted around the yard at the State Correctional Institute Phoenix when the high-tech flying gadget was identified by authorities.

The 81-year-old and his fellow inmates were rushed back to their cells, where they were forced to remain for the rest of the day as a security precaution, according to TMZ.

Officials believe the drone was being used by bosses at a media outlet to obtain rare footage of disgraced Cosby in prison, but it's unclear if the attempt was successful.

He was sentenced to serve three to 10 years behind bars in September (18) for drugging and assaulting Andrea Constand at his Pennsylvania home in 2004.

His lawyers have since filed an appeal, challenging his conviction.
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A little more than a week after being involved in a car crash, the grandfather of Prince William issues an apologetic letter to Emma Fairweather, saying he is deeply sorry for her broken wrist.

Jan 28, 2019

AceShowbiz - Queen Elizabeth II's husband Prince Philip has apologised to the motorist who broke her wrist after colliding with the royal's Land Rover in Norfolk, England earlier this month.

The 97-year-old poured out his remorse to Emma Fairweather, who was injured after her Kia was rammed by the Prince's motor.

In a letter obtained by the Sunday Mirror newspaper, Philip wrote: "I would like you to know how very sorry I am for my part in the accident at the Babingley cross-roads."

"I have been across that crossing any number of times and I know very well the amount of traffic that uses that main road. It was a bright sunny day and about three in the afternoon, the sun was low over the Wash. In other words, the sun was shining low over the main road. In normal conditions I would have no difficulty in seeing traffic coming from the Dersingham direction, but I can only imagine that I failed to see the car coming, and I am very contrite about the consequences."

Philip added: "I was somewhat shaken after the accident, but I was greatly relieved that none of you were seriously injured. As a crowd was beginning to gather, I was advised to return to Sandringham House by a local Police Officer. I have since learned that you suffered a broken arm. I am deeply sorry about this injury. I wish you a speedy recovery from a very distressing experience."

Prince Philip finally writes to injured crash victim and says he's 'deeply sorry' https://t.co/MJsNVR58Otpic.twitter.com/uFLcD6Uurs  Sunday Mirror (@TheSundayMirror) 27 January 2019

Emma told the Mirror, "He's tried to give an explanation so I appreciate that, whether I agree with it or not. It is a difficult letter to write."
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PIERRE, S.D.  A South Dakota legislative panel on Wednesday backed a measure meant to address concerns about a polygamous groups Black Hills outpost by making it a misdemeanor not to report births and deaths.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 12-1 to send the measure to the chambers floor. Republican Rep. Tim Goodwin, the sponsor, said the measure is a tiny step to start enforcement at the compound, which was founded by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Finally, were at least doing something, Goodwin said.

State law currently requires births and deaths to be reported, but theres no penalty for failing to do so. The Department of Health said in 2017 that no such records had been filed from the compounds address in the previous 10 years.

One former resident, though, said births occurred at the site, including two of her own children. She said the sect didnt allow her to get the documents for daughters born in 2008 and 2010.

The group, also known as the FLDS, opened the 140-acre compound near the town of Pringle more than a decade ago. Known to the faithful as R23, the compound sits along a gravel road and is shielded from view by tall pine trees, a privacy fence and a guard tower.

The FLDS is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism whose members believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the faith abandoned the practice in 1890 and prohibits it today.

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Warren Jeffs, considered by the group to be a prophet who speaks for God, is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered to be his brides. His brother, Lyle Jeffs, was sentenced to prison in 2017 for his role in carrying out a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud scheme and for taking off his ankle monitor and fleeing from home confinement while awaiting trial. He was caught nearly a year later after pawn shop workers spotted him and called police.

The group has long been based out of a remote community on the Utah-Arizona border, but the sect has been losing control of the municipal governments and police departments in sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.

In 2017, Goodwin sought to have lawmakers look into the South Dakota outpost, including how many people lived there, whether it had a home-schooling program and whether residents were involved in polygamy or sex trafficking. Lawmakers decided not to, though, with one top legislator saying it was up to law enforcement to investigate.

Goodwins legislation would make it a misdemeanor not to file a birth certificate within one year or to fail to notify the county coroner and sheriff of a death within 48 hours.

A company tied to Seth Jeffs, who authorities have said led the sects South Dakota Black Hills compound, last year purchased about 40 acres of land in northern Minnesota. Seth Jeffs, who took a plea deal in the food-stamp fraud case, applied in August to build a 5,760-square-foot building on the Minnesota land.
A University of Arizona professor filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona because the university doesnt cover transition-related healthcare for its employees.

Dr. Russell Toomey is transgender, and when he found Arizonas insurance policy excludes transition-related coverage, he decided to sue over a violation of civil rights, according to his article in the ACLU.

Arizona provides the same discriminatory health plan to nearly all state employees and their dependents. That means hundreds, if not thousands, of transgender state employees or transgender dependents of state employees cannot receive medically necessary care recommended by their doctors, such as a mastectomy or a hysterectomy, Toomey wrote.

Toomey said he knows of at least 20 families at the University of Arizona who are currently being harmed by the anti-trans policy.
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SAN FRANCISCO  A U.S. judge berated Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. on Wednesday, accusing the nations largest utility of enriching shareholders instead of clearing trees that can fall on its power lines and start fires and making excuses to avoid turning off electricity when fire risk is high.

Judge William Alsup in San Francisco did not immediately order PG&E to take any of the dramatic measures he has proposed to try to stop more wildfires.

But he warned that he was not ruling out at least some new requirements on the company if it did not come up with a plan to solve the problem of catastrophic wildfires in California.

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To my mind, theres a very clear-cut pattern here: that PG&E is starting these fires, Alsup said. What do we do? Does the judge just turn a blind eye and say, PG&E continue your business as usual. Kill more people by starting more fires.'

Alsup is overseeing a criminal conviction against PG&E on pipeline safety charges stemming from a 2010 gas line explosion in the San Francisco Bay Area that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes.

He proposed earlier this month as part of PG&Es probation that it remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines in high-wind conditions and shut off power when fire is a risk regardless of the inconvenience to customers or loss of profit.

Alsup said his goal was to prevent PG&E equipment from causing any wildfires during the 2019 fire season.

PG&E shot back in a court filing last week that the judges proposals would endanger lives and could cost as much as $150 billion to implement.

Kevin Orsini, an attorney for the company, said PG&E shared the judges concerns about wildfire and was working to reduce risk. But there werent enough qualified tree trimmers, and shutting off power would have repercussions that affect the community, he said.

Power cutoffs impact first responders, critical medical care and phone service and are potentially fatal, the utility said in its court filing.

PG&E is facing a fundamental problem. The state is facing a fundamental problem, Orsini said.

PG&E announced last year that it would cut off power preemptively when fire danger was high and did so for the first time in October for about 60,000 customers in Northern California. The move prompted complaints and demands for reimbursement from some customers.

Attorneys for wildfire victims, California regulators and the U.S. Department of Justice also spoke at Wednesdays hearing.

Alsup was also critical of the California Public Utilities Commission, accusing it of working slowly and using former PG&E employees. The judge later apologized for those comments but still questioned how so many fires broke out under the CPUCs watch.

Later, CPUC President Michael Picker told lawmakers it would take between 15,000 and 20,000 new workers to police every utility pole and wire, adding thats just not going to work.

Regulators are looking at deploying drones to monitor equipment, Picker said. At the Legislatures direction, the CPUC is now requiring utilities to submit wildfire mitigation plans, and the CPUC wants to contract for about 100 new workers to help monitor utility safety.

Its also conducting a review of PG&Es safety culture that could result in replacing the utilitys entire board, breaking up its electric and gas division or other major changes. That review could take a year. Regulators have learned that fines are not an effective way to make change at PG&E, Picker said.

Some lawmakers mirrored Alsups frustrations that regulators work too slowly.

What assurance can I give my constituents that things are going to be safer this year? Democratic Assemblyman Jim Wood, who represents Santa Rosa, which was hit by a devastating 2017 wildfire, said in a pointed exchange.

Picker said addressing Californias wildfires is a huge challenge driven by climate change that will require multiple solutions.

I dont think that we are prepared in any way here in the state of California for the enormity of what were seeing, he said.

PG&Es return to a U.S. courtroom came a day after it declared bankruptcy in the face of billions of dollars in potential liability from wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018. PG&E in that case is seeking another judges approval to obtain up to $5.5 billion in financing and pay $130 million in bonuses to thousands of employees.

Alsup only briefly mentioned the bankruptcy case during Wednesdays hearing. Filing for bankruptcy generally does not put criminal proceedings on hold, so PG&Es Chapter 11 reorganization may not allow it to avoid any orders issued by Alsup.

The judge found separately that PG&E violated its probation for failing to notify probation officials that a prosecutors office had opened a full investigation into the utilitys role in a 2017 California wildfire. Alsup said he would set a sentencing date later.

Kate Dyer, another attorney for PG&E, said the company had communicated with probation officials and didnt hear until recently that it had not met their expectations.

Alsup said he would wait to see a wildfire mitigation plan PG&E was scheduled to submit to the CPUC on Feb. 6 before deciding what, if any, additional requirements to order.

PG&E is facing hundreds of lawsuits from victims of wildfires in 2017 and 2018, including the nations deadliest wildfire in a century.

That blaze in November killed at least 86 people and destroyed 15,000 homes in and around the Northern California town of Paradise. The cause is still under investigation, but suspicion fell on PG&E after it reported power line problems nearby around the time the fire broke out.

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Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne contributed from Sacramento, Calif.
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SANTA FE  Keeping the 64 acres of city-owned property most recently occupied by the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in good shape while the city works to find tenants is costing the city more than $4 million a year.

Thats one take away from Tuesdays Finance Committee meeting at which the five-member City Council committee unanimously approved a budget adjustment of $961,000 to pay expenses at what now is being called the Midtown Campus through the end of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

After the meeting, Brad Fluetsch, the citys financial planning and reporting officer, said next fiscal years budget to maintain the property will likely exceed $2 million.

At least, he said.

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Meanwhile, the city is continuing to pay about $2.22 million annually in debt service payments on the property and will do so for the next 17 years  unless the state loan is refinanced. The property isnt scheduled to be paid off until June 2036.

While the city agreed to pay $19.5 million in 2009 for 91 acres that included the campus after the College of Santa Fe folded, the city borrowed $29.6 million from the New Mexico Finance Authority to make the purchase and pay for other improvements.

SFUADs lease payments used to be enough to cover the citys annual debt service, but that ended in June last year when the university closed and vacated the property.

Since then, a city ad hoc steering committee recommended that the city hire a special project administrator to oversee the property, procure maintenance and security services, and decommission some buildings to prevent damage from plumbing, leaky roofs and mold.

Most of the $961,000  $500,000  would be allocated for repair and maintenance of buildings. Another $168,000 would be put toward security, alarm and property management; $120,000 would cover costs for decommissioning buildings; $90,000 would pay for salaries; and $60,000 would fund building assessments. The remaining $23,000 would go toward grounds maintenance and sold waste removal.

Also at Tuesdays meeting, the committee approved $179,000 to be spent on the first round of retention incentive payments to police officers.

Approximately 130 officers are eligible for the retention bonuses that would pay them up to $4,700 if they stay on through June. The police union initially asked for $15,000 per officer, saying the police force was being depleted by the Albuquerque Police Departments recruiting efforts, but accepted the citys lower offer with a vote earlier this month.

Mayor Alan Webber called it a good faith offer in advance of negotiations with the police union. Its current collective bargaining agreement with the city is set to expire June 30.

Both budget adjustment approvals for the Midtown campus and police officer retention pay are up for final approval at tonights City Council meeting.
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SANTA FE  A bill that would bar New Mexico counties from enforcing local right-to-work ordinances cleared its first legislative hurdle Tuesday on a party-line vote.

The measure, House Bill 85, would stipulate that only the state could establish a law barring labor unions from collecting fees from non-union members in unionized workplaces.

I am very optimistic that we are going to get this through the Legislature and to the governors desk, Rep. Daymon Ely, D-Corrales, one of the bills sponsors, said in an interview after the House Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee passed the proposal on a 6-3 vote.

Ely also said 10 counties  along with the village of Ruidoso  should never have enacted local ordinances on the issue, especially after Attorney General Hector Balderas issued a January 2018 opinion that such ordinances would likely be struck down if challenged.

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McKinley County became the most recent county to pass such an ordinance when commissioners there approved it earlier this month. At least one of the ordinances, passed by Sandoval County, is already the subject of a pending lawsuit.

However, GOP lawmakers and some business leaders suggested the bill being debated at the Roundhouse would infringe on the ability of local governments to pass ordinances supported by their constituents.

Im asking you to respect their right to do that, said Carla Sonntag, president of the New Mexico Business Coalition.

In addition, Rep. David Gallegos, R-Eunice, questioned how the local right-to-work ordinances differ from minimum wage increases passed by Santa Fe and other cities.

In response, Ely said the difference is that the federal National Labor Relations Act only gives states the authority to enact laws dealing with agreements requiring workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

He was supported by more than two dozen labor union leaders and employees who called on lawmakers to support the measure.

Though union membership cannot be required under federal law, such fees could until recently be mandated under contracts in unionized workplaces.

A June 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down an Illinois law requiring nonunion workers to pay such fair share fees, but that ruling applied only to public sector unions. That means this years New Mexico bill would essentially apply only to private sector unions, Ely said.

In all, New Mexico had about 56,000 union members in 2018, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thats about 6.8 percent of the states total workforce.

Meanwhile, repeated Republican-backed attempts to enact a statewide right-to-work law have stalled at the state Capitol in recent years, with Democrats and labor unions in staunch opposition.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  He was the other dog, the dog nobody was looking for when a teacher at Manzano Mesa Elementary School spotted him hiding out underneath a portable building on campus.

The teacher thought he looked like Luna, a female black and white pup that had bolted from her new humans car Dec. 4, minutes after being adopted from the Lucky Paws adoption center.

It was a heart-wrenching thing, losing a dog who had yet to have a collar or tag, who didnt know her name or her human or where home was going to be.

That hadnt stopped a band of volunteers from looking for her. For weeks they searched, as I wrote in my Jan. 1 column, papering neighborhoods with hundreds of fliers and chasing down tips.

One of those tips came from the Manzano Mesa teacher, and even when it was obvious that this other dog was not Luna, the volunteers decided to trap him anyway and take him to the Animal Welfare Departments Eastside shelter so he could find a human of his own.

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Through a curious twist of fate, that human turned out to be me.

Fate, though, is fickle. And history is sometimes repetitive. I adopted that other dog  a black and white, 11-month-old, male heeler mix that the shelter folks named Pirate  on Jan. 16, but we never made it home. Pirate bolted from my car in a Tijeras bank parking lot, slipping out of his collar and leash without a tag, without knowing his name or his human or where home was going to be.

It was the Luna story all over again, only this time there were coyotes and bobcats, frigid East Mountain temperatures and a forest.

We searched until nightfall. I posted on every lost dog website I could think of, reported Pirates disappearance to the microchip company. Reluctantly, I contacted Brittany Berget, a vet tech at the Eastside shelter who had fostered Pirate for a couple of weeks and knew him better than anybody.

I reached out to NM DOG, a nonprofit rescue group whose members had searched for Luna under the leadership of volunteer Erin Morrisey Martinez.

None of them hesitated.

For nine days, Martinez and her group, Berget and her family and coworkers, my sons, my neighbor and friends tracked paw prints in the snow, posted most of some 1,000 fliers throughout the East Mountains. They left food stations, chased down tips, braved cold dawns and nights, braved one or two suspicious passers-by.

Every business we asked, the nearby schools and neighborhoods offered their support.

Suddenly, that other dog nobody was looking for was now being sought and thought of by what seemed an entire community.

Just as hope  my hope, anyway  began to fade, a familiar face joined the search. Lily Azures, of Paw Trackers Animal Rescue And Humane Trapping in Santa Fe, had been one of the Journals Angel Among Us in 2015.

Using her expertise, a plan was developed and a site selected where Azures believed Pirate was lurking.

Late Thursday, she had foster mom Berget scatter her worn socks, a shirt and urine at the site to lure Pirate there to trap him.

But Pirate was a wily, skittish one and likely not going to be fooled again by the same sort of trap used to catch him at Manzano Mesa. So we obtained a missy trap, believed to be one of only two in New Mexico, this one borrowed from Santa Fe Lost Pets, another rescue group.

Missy traps, so named for the first dog captured in one, are homemade contraptions, big enough for several people to stand inside and made of cattle fence panels, magnets and something akin to a garage door sensor.

Early Friday, we arrived at the site to set up the trap. It was a hopeful moment after too many frustrating days. Bergets socks were gone. A trail camera at the site had captured images of Pirate there overnight.

Azures settled in to watch the trap from a safe distance. Hours passed. The sun set. Hope again waned. Even so, Azures refused our offers of food or respite.

Now I know why.

She had faith that she was going to catch Pirate that night, predicting she would get him by 7 p.m.

She got him at 6:45.

Berget was one of the first to arrive after word spread. She had cried when she learned Pirate was missing, cried every night he was gone, cried now when he pressed into her lap.

I knew Pirate had shown up because of her scent. He knew her, he missed her and now he was crying, too, in her lap. I suspect he had been trying to find her, following her scent, his little dog heart touched by a young woman who had given him what was likely his first home and let him feel loved for the first time.

Berget had selflessly stepped aside to let me take the dog home when her time as foster mom was through. Now it was my turn to step aside.

Pirate is not the other dog. He is her dog. And he is home.

There are logistics still to work out, but we have left it at that for now. I am not sad about it. In losing a dog I barely knew, I gained the friendships of these wonderful volunteers it feels like Ive known forever.

They say a dog brings out the best in a human. Pirate, the little dog with a big heart, brought out the best in a whole lot of humans, including me. Thats as much as anybody can ask.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
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There are few issues that arouse political passions any more than gun rights vs. gun control  especially in the wake of tragic mass shootings like Parkland High School or closer to home the shootings at Aztec High School.

On one extreme are those who would ban guns if they could, and certainly would limit the kinds that could be purchased, with the other extreme arguing there is a virtually unlimited right to bear arms of any kind, anywhere, guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Fortunately, we dont have to choose between extremes and several pieces of legislation pending in Santa Fe find a common-sense middle ground because they put the focus where it should be: keeping firearms out of the hands of the wrong people.

Similar bills in the House and Senate would make it a crime to sell a firearm without conducting a background check  something that can be done through a federally licensed firearms dealer for about $45. What does that mean? It would help keep guns out of the hands of felons, people with documented mental health problems, illegal immigrants and others who couldnt purchase a gun from a licensed gun shop.

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SB 8 is being carried by Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe and Judiciary Committee chairman Richard Martinez of Espanola, both Democrats.

Would it stop criminals and cartel drug dealers from selling and buying guns on the black market? Of course not. But it could help avoid the next school shooting.

As it stands now, if you go into a reputable gun shop and purchase a firearm, a background check is required. If you agree to purchase one from some sketchy character in a parking lot in response to an ad on the internet, its no questions asked. How can anyone argue this makes sense?

Other proposed legislation follows a similar pattern:

 House Bill 40 would close the so-called gun show loophole by requiring any vendor to conduct a background check before transferring a weapon.

 House Bill 83 would allow family members or police officers to seek a court order to temporarily take guns away from someone they believe is an immediate threat. Of course, a judge would have to agree.

 House Bill 87 would prohibit someone convicted of battery on a household member and certain other crimes from having a firearm. The same would apply to people subject to a restraining order in some circumstances. Of course, reasonable time limits should be built in  these should not be lifetime bans.

Republicans in the Legislature have so far opposed these bills. They would be better served saving their rhetorical ammunition for proposals that truly over reach. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has made it clear local and state government cant ban guns. It struck down a Washington, D.C., law in 2008 and expanded it via a Chicago lawsuit in 2010. It has just agreed to hear its first gun law challenge in nearly a decade in a case challenging an unreasonable New York City ban on transporting a weapon.

Its worth noting Chicago has some of the nations strictest gun laws, yet hundreds of gun murders a year. Despite the strict rules on gun ownership in Mexico  you can have certain weapons, but only in your home  it has double the U.S. murder rate with one third the population.

So, no, these proposals in Santa Fe wont stop gun violence, but they do try to address what we know are problems while acknowledging the constitutional right to bear arms.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez says the legislation isnt perfect, but its time for us to take a stand. Hes right, and keeping guns away from those who clearly shouldnt have them is a good place to start.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
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Copyright  2019 Albuquerque Journal

Molynda Brewer was highly intoxicated on a Tuesday afternoon in October when she threw a rock through the windshield of a 1997 Mercury and then scratched a paramedic on the wrist, leaving some slight redness, according to Silver City police.

Brewer, 44, who is indigent and homeless, has been sitting in jail since then because she is unable to pay the fees required to meet the conditions that now-retired Grant County Judge J.C. Robinson set for her release.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico has joined Brewers Silver City attorney in asking the Court of Appeals to intervene and order the district court to release Brewer as she awaits trial.

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Ms. Brewer sits in jail  and has sat there for nearly three months  for one reason: the District Court requires her to pay for housing and GPS monitoring that she cannot afford, attorneys wrote in a motion asking the Court of Appeals to review the decision. This violates the New Mexico Constitutions guarantee of affordable bail and runs afoul of federal and state guarantees of equal protection and due process.

In 2016, New Mexicans voted overwhelmingly for a constitutional amendment that allows judges to deny bail and detain a defendant when a prosecutor proves he or she is too dangerous to be released.

The amendment also states that defendants found not to be a danger or a flight risk cant be detained simply because they cant afford to post bail.

But the ACLU says that costly conditions of release continue to keep people incarcerated for long periods. The group says the practice operates as a back-door bail system that keeps poor people in jail simply because they are poor.

If Ms. Brewer were in a position to be able to pay for the GPS monitoring, and had a house in order to comply with the conditions of house arrest, then she wouldnt be in jail right now, ACLU New Mexico legal director Leon Howard told the Journal. Shes solely in jail because she has an inability to pay for conditions that the court placed upon her.

Police who had been dispatched to a trailer park said they found Brewer in an argument with a man who reported that he saw her throw a rock at the Mercury.

Police asked paramedics to pick up Brewer, who was highly intoxicated and not making any sense. She became irate inside of the ambulance, started throwing things, grabbed a paramedic and scratched his wrist. She is charged with battering a health care worker and injuring or tampering with a motor vehicle.

Prosecutors argued at a November detention hearing that based on her violent conduct that afternoon and her past criminal charges, Brewer was too dangerous to release and should await trial behind bars.

Online court records show that she has numerous misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor convictions, including battery, driving while intoxicated and disorderly conduct.

In 2017 she was accused of murder, but prosecutors dismissed that charge for lack of evidence and instead took her to trial on an aggravated battery charge. She was acquitted.

Minutes from the detention hearing report that the judge said he had no doubt she is an uncontrollable alcoholic and will never be a law abiding citizen but that was not basis for denying her release.

He ordered Brewer to be placed on house arrest and said she could not leave home from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m., despite the fact that she has no residence, defense attorneys wrote in the appeal. And he required GPS monitoring, which attorneys said costs $100 per month in addition to a $65 start-up fee.

Brewers lawyers asked the court to reconsider those conditions, arguing that imposition of a GPS requirement is tantamount to the imposition of a money bond that her client could not afford. That request was denied at a hearing in December.

Both sides agreed that Brewer could meet the house arrest condition if there was space for her in a transitional living center.

But the court did not consider waiving the GPS monitoring fees, though Howard said its not unusual for a judge to do so.

The Court of Appeals has asked the state to file a response. A spokesman for the Attorney Generals Office said the office is statutorily tasked with providing appellate support and expertise to district attorneys on appeal and would file a response.
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A pastry chef is suing President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, alleging he was laid off in retaliation for trying to stop managers from sexually harassing women in the kitchen.

Former executive pastry chef Graham Randall says in the state lawsuit filed last week that he was laid off about six months after complaining to human resources that two top managers were sending lewd texts and engaging in other offensive behavior toward two women pastry chefs. The lawsuit against the Palm Beach club and the managers seeks more than $15,000 in lost wages and damages.

Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller said the allegations were completely without merit and we look forward to presenting the truth and defeating the ridiculous claims.

Randall said the club told him it couldnt afford to keep him on because too many charities had canceled events after Trumps comments blaming both sides in the 2017 racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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But Randall said business had not suffered, as evidenced by all the special visas requested by the club for foreign workers to fill jobs after he was laid off, including pastry chef jobs.

Randall said he alerted human resources about the behavior after one of the women showed him lewd texts, including one asking her to show a man her breasts.

The lawsuit said the two managers were eventually reprimanded and that they even thanked Randall for saving their careers because he had told human resources that he believed their behavior seemed out of character.

Nonetheless, Randall was laid off in September 2017, a month after Trumps comments about the Charlottesville riots that prompted the American Cancer Society and other major charities to cancel events at the club.

Just how Mar-a-Lago is faring is difficult to know because Trumps company is privately held and financial figures have not been released in any detail.

The club did think it was strong enough to double its membership fees to $200,000 shortly after Trump was elected two years ago. And Mar-a-Lago has been on a hiring spree of foreign workers, as noted in the lawsuit.

An Associated Press review of Labor Department filings shows the club got permission to hire 70 foreign workers on special H-2B visas in the winter months after Randall was laid off. That was up from 64 for 2016-2017 winter season.

For the latest winter season, Mar-a-Lago has requested even more visas  78. That is the most since Trump launched his presidential campaign on a promise to limit both illegal and legal immigration so Americans could have more jobs.

The president has said he has no choice but to hire abroad for some positions because there arent enough America workers to fill them.

On his latest financial disclosure report filed with the government, Trump reported that Mar-a-Lago generated $25 million in revenue in the 2017 calendar year, down from $37 million reported in his prior disclosure report. But the figures are not comparable because the earlier report covered 16 months.

Trump is not required to release estimates for profits in his disclosure reports.

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Condon reported from New York.
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CARACAS, Venezuela  Venezuelas Supreme Court barred opposition leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country Tuesday, a move certain to heighten tensions as the man challenging President Nicolas Maduros claim to the presidency presses forward with establishing a transitional government and the U.S. warns of serious consequences if he is harmed.

The government-stacked high court announced the order just hours after chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that he was opening a criminal investigation into Guaidos anti-government activities and requested that restrictions be placed on his movements abroad. The court also approved Saabs request that all of Guaidos financial assets be frozen.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton issued a warning to the Maduro government earlier in the day urging them not to harm Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress who has been recognized by the Trump administration and two dozen other nations as Venezuelas rightful president.

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Let me reiterate. There will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido, Bolton said on Twitter.

The Supreme Courts order comes as tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela reach a new high, with Maduro accusing the Trump administration of staging a coup against his presidency and Guaido seeking to consolidate an interim government under his own leadership.

Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest, and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation may signal that Maduros socialist government is moving to take a more punitive approach.

Speaking earlier outside the National Assembly, Guaido said he is aware of personal risks, but added, Venezuela is set on change, and the world is clearly conscious of whats happening.

I dont underestimate the threat of persecution at the moment, but here we are, he added.

The U.S. has emerged as Guaidos most powerful ally, announcing on Tuesday that it was giving him control of Venezuelas U.S. bank accounts. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that Guaido has the authority to take control of any Venezuelan government accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S.-insured banks.

Pompeo said the certification would help Venezuelas legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Guaido during a huge opposition rally in Caracas declared that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Maduros dictatorship.

Guido is calling for nationwide walkouts Wednesday afternoon and another round of mass protests Saturday as he seeks to ramp up pressure on Maduro. But Maduro has so far shown no signs that he is looking to cede the presidency.

Maduro went on state television Tuesday to announce that he was beefing up the nations defense by expanding Venezuelas civilian armed militia to 2 million members. The reserve force was created by the late Hugo Chavez to train civilians to assist the armed forces and defend the socialist revolution from attacks.

Once more well come out victorious, said Maduro, who wore a green cap and shirt before rows of troops. We are on the right side of history.

On Monday, the U.S. hit Venezuelas state-owned oil company with potentially devastating economic sanctions that could cost the already distressed nation billions in revenue.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told Russian state news agencies that there will probably be problems for Venezuela in paying its debts.

Storchak said Venezuela owes Russia $3 billion, and has repayments twice a year of around $100 million, with the next due in March. Russia also has extensive commercial interests in Venezuela, including state oil company Rosnefts partnership with the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin shares the view of the Venezuelan government that the U.S. sanctions are illegal and sees them as a tool of unfair competition by the United States.

The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, said Americans shouldnt travel to Venezuela, warning of unrest, the threat of being arbitrarily arrested and the danger of mass demonstrations erupting with little notice. The announcement raised the travel advisory to its highest level, putting Venezuela on a no-travel list that also includes Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and South Sudan.

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Associated Press writer Scott Smith reported this story in Caracas and AP writer Christine Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia.
Shannon Marvel

smarvel@aberdeennews.com

Offenders from a wide swath of the state could find themselves in the Faulk County Jail.

The 35-bed jail in Faulkton has contracts to house inmates from 13 counties, said Sheriff Kurt Hall. They are Dewey, Hand, Spink, McPherson, Hyde, Beadle, Edmunds, Brookings, Brown, Butte, Minnehaha, Campbell and Sully.

Its 215 miles from Sioux Falls to Faulkton.

Each county pays $85 per inmate, per night, Hall said.

He said of the 66 counties in the state, fewer than 30 have jails.

Faulk Countys $5.5 million jail was completed in 2017 after voters approved building it in 2015.

We had a jail, but it was built in 1918, so it was either get out of the business or get something full, Hall said.

He said the old jail had 12 useable beds.

Hall said the new jail has provided an economic boost to the area, including to the local pharmacy and the areas Meals on Wheels program.

Emily Richardt, executive director of Area IV Senior Nutrition, said the Faulkton team took on three new part-time employees to help make meals for inmates at the jail.

They make two hot meals  breakfast and lunch  plus a sack supper for the inmates, she said.

Anytime you can kind of diversify what you do, it helps you out. We do the out-of-school and after- school program in the summer. It kind of gives us an extra boost. The Senior Meal program is still our priority, so we want to make sure thats our first priority, Richardt said.

Hall said the jail has nine to 12 inmates on average, but the population could go up during the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline in spring.

He said that if there is a major protest of the pipeline, many arrests could be made. That was the case during the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, he said.

If the Butte County sheriff had to arrest 15 protesters, his go-to jails are the Lawrence County Jail, the Meade County Jail and Pennington County. Well, if all those jails only happen to have three or four beds open, hes only going to get 12 of these people in, Hall said.

He said thats why Butte County signed a contract with Faulk County to house inmates, if needed.

Hall commended the voters of Faulk County for approving the jail.

This building was a big burden on our taxpayers, but I think for the next 30 or 40 years its going to be a big investment, he said.
The Roger Stone arrest by the FBI has dominated local and national news blocks the past week. There are three issues that should trouble you about this case.

First, the display of force by the FBI in effectuating the arrest was demonstratively, irreversibly stupid, and unnecessarily heavy-handed. A call to his attorney would have sufficed, and he could have turned himself in to a battery of waiting news crews.

Instead, your government deployed a small army of armed agents with machine guns to take 66-year-old Mr. Stone into custody. Really? Were they trying to punish someone for exercising his right to remain silent?

Is the penalty for standing your ground and claiming your innocence to be treated like a person who is already guilty? Is there some new federal rule of criminal procedure barring the FBI from letting an accused person surrender like a gentleman?

We have seen this behavior before, like when drunks are grabbed by the top of the head and shoved into the back of a police car. But they are usually throwing up on the cops. Here, the FBI threw up on the judicial system. They look foolish and made the special prosecutors office look very, very bad.

Hours after being taken into custody by the Department of Justice under a show of force, their very lawyers for the United States said Mr. Stone was no flight risk. He was released on a signature bond, 29 federal swat units and machine guns later. Stones a great cook. He could have made them all breakfast instead.

I confess to some bias. Politics, it has been said, has strange bedfellows. Roger and I have worked together to promote the decriminalization of marijuana. He is an outspoken libertarian who has also supported gay rights as well. In the publishing business, you learn to respect advocates and adversaries. You reach across the aisles and find friends, not enemies.

The second bothersome part of Mr. Stones arrest is the accusations do nothing to lend credence to the claim that Donald Trump and his cadre of criminals worked with any Russian government officials to collude regarding the outcome of the election.

Once again, the special prosecutor has unearthed a series of things that happened a year after the election took place. I dont think when Congress decided to investigate Russian and Republican conspiracies into the 2016 campaign they had in mind Roger Stone purportedly threatening his friends Chihuahua, or Paul Manafort lying about his taxes in 1938. Where is the beef?

Anyway, as a publisher and news junkie, I want the special prosecutor to get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I want our citizens and the public to read, see and hear everything and anything there is to learn about this case, especially if the final report reveals a foreign adversary or government officials corruptly colluded and conspired to fix a national election.

For me, the most troubling aspect of Stones case is the possibility that the judge assigned to hear the case will impose another gag restriction on the lawyers and witnesses, along with their clients. Why? We can handle the truth.

There is nothing wrong and everything right with the public learning and knowing everything there is to know about the alleged collusion of Russia into a presidential election. Isnt that why they ordered an investigation in the first place?

Besides, the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States and the head of the Department of Justice. If Mr. Trump can tweet and say anything he wants at any time about this case, then it stands to reason that any person accused by the special prosecutor ought to have that same, equal right. Correct? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

After forty years as a criminal defense attorney, I generally do not advise clients to talk about their case. You do have a right to remain silent. The beautiful, stuffed blue Marlin gracing the wall of my law office is only there because he opened his big mouth. He could have still been surfing in beautiful Bahamian waters.

I tell people to shut up all the time, and get paid for it. But if a defendant does not want to be silenced, they have that right, too. Gag orders are constitutionally offensive and morally reprehensible.

We learned about Watergate by patriots acting as anonymous sources.

We learned about our government lying to us about Southeast Asia from an analyst publishing the Pentagon Papers.

We learn from whistleblowers. We even pay them lots of money if they win their Qui Tam lawsuits, exposing government frauds.

In fact, on a related matter, there is something utterly ironic about Trumps White House staffers being required to sign non-disclosure agreements. Why are they so afraid of books? None of them can read, anyway.

Look, we have a president who tweets and talks the night and day away. He gets to disclose anything he wants anytime he wants to. Yet, he demands others shut up. That is simply not fair, not equal, and not right. No one should stand for it. Challenge censorship at every turn.

Related to these discussions are stunning and shocking revelations that there are forces in the government who want to seal potentially damaging aspects of Robert Muellers final report. Lets hope not. Those comments are unsettling. You dont seal the truth. You seize it and run with it, not from it.

In our lives, and at this paper, the light of day and transparency is the best disinfectant. Ours is a community and this is a country that can survive honesty. We praise our victories. We have to reveal our wounds. We have to open up some along the way. This week, we do.

This week, SFGN treads into controversial territory. Our friends at Equality Florida are locked in a battle royal with other friends, politicians and LGBT leaders over the propriety of a statewide gay rights bill that may not even pass. Whether it does or not, good people are throwing bad words at each other to make their points. It may not be pleasant, but dont worry, we will all survive.

Our job at SFGN is to give voice to the debate, air to the discussion, and allow opposing sides to argue their case. With accuracy and honesty as our guide, we chart our course.

You as the reader get to review the issues and decide on where you land. All we do is create the conditions for you to choose. Freedom means you get to make choices, to be smart or stupid; silent or spoken; right or wrong.

So dont shoot the messenger. Freedom also means supporting the right of a free press to shake down that oak tree to see if it is firmly planted in the ground or shaking at the roots.

Have a great week.
UPDATE (04/05/19) - The bill has passed its second reading 95-to-5. It is now heading for a third one before a final vote.

You can read the bill here:

UPDATE (04/03/19) - Bill SB 160, which would allow presumptive care for firefighters, has passed the Senate and cleared the House & Business Labor Committee. It's now one step closer to becoming reality.

HELENA - For years lawmakers have tried to pass a bill in the state legislature that would allow presumptive care for firefighters. Each year that bill is denied and for the most part it comes down to funding.

As the law stands now, it's up to the firefighter to prove his illness came while on the job. If this bill passes, it puts the burden of proof on the insurance carrier instead of the individual.

"How does an insurance company disprove a presumptive illness claim all the evidence has been destroyed", said Larry Jones with Self Insurers Association.

Opponents of Missoula Senator Nate McConnell's bill add, the firefighters should be covered but making workers compensation fund it could devastate the program.

Jones said, "This bill will rewrite the entire Workers Compensation system. It will throw into chaos who's covered and who's not covered."

Which brought up another problem for people against SB 160, equal protection. Folks like Jones say it's unconstitutional to give presumptive care to one set of workers but not all.

Rich Cowger, Columbus Fire Chief, stood before the committee and said, "I'm not hear to argue how we pay for it I'm hear to argue that it's a reality and it needs to be covered."

Statistics stand behind the firefighters with this bill. Sen. McConnell told the committee firefighters have a 14% higher chance of getting cancer than anyone else. In addition half of all firefighter will die from the disease.

"I think this bill is a common sense approach. Assuring that when firefighters are exposed to hazardous materials and toxins on the job that employers do the right thing and presume that these certain illnesses are work related based on that scientific data. That means firefighters can focus on getting healthy, staying healthy and returning to work.", said Dave Maslowski with the Montana Fireman's Association

Staying healthy is key to the success of this bill as well. Here's a look at the requirements if passed:

 Physical Exam w/in first 90 days of employment

 Physical Exam every 2 years there after

 Live a tobacco free lifestyle

 Work at least 12 years before filing a claim

"The reality is no firefighter wants to file this claim - the outcome ususally isn't good.", said Cowger

In addition SB 160 allows rural volunteer fire departments the option to obtain presumptive illness coverage.

The hearing lasted about an hour Tuesday morning and depending on the committee's decision is could go up for a second reading in the Senate next month.
Two new electric buses are destined for Missoula, after the city of Bozeman applied for them but organizers found Missoula was in greater need due to its air quality issues.

The Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University recently worked with the Montana Department of Transportation to bring new buses to the city of Bozeman.

The Institute applied for funding through a federal grant to purchase two battery-electric buses for the Streamline and Skyline bus systems.

Current city buses use diesel to operate. The thought was that these buses would help contribute to an eco-friendly transit system.

The grant was open to all 50 states and about 125 buses were up for grabs.

But organizers say due to the cleaner air in Bozeman, the two battery-powered electric buses will instead go to Missoula.

Air quality is worse in Missoula due to the way air gets trapped in the valley.

The two battery-powered buses will contribute to zero emissions being released in the air helping the air quality in Missoula.

Even though Bozeman did not get the new electric buses, using public transportation contributes to an eco-friendly environment.

The transit system can do its part to minimize air pollution, certainly, a diesel bus with 20 people on it is a lot more environmentally friendly than those 20 people out driving their own cars, David Kack, Manager for the Western Transportation Institute said.

Kack says their goal is to still apply for the same grant to get electric buses down the road.
Tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans who served off the coast of Vietnam are a step closer to receiving disability benefits for Agent Orange exposure after a federal appeals court ruled in their favor this week.

In a 9-2 decision, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that blue water veterans  those who were stationed on ships off the shore of Vietnam  are entitled to the same benefits for diseases associated with Agent Orange as those who served on land or Vietnams inland waterways.

The appeals court ruled that in passing the Agent Orange Act of 1991, Congress intended to include Vietnams territorial sea. That law said that veterans who contracted certain diseases could receive disability payments based on the presumption that those ailments were linked to exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide used to clear foliage in Vietnam.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has not said whether it intends to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The VA is reviewing this decision and will determine an appropriate response, an agency spokesperson said.

The diseases now on the VAs Agent Orange list are coronary artery heart disease, respiratory cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, Hodgkins disease, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Parkinsons disease, type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy-early onset, AL amyloidosis, chronic B-cell leukemia, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, and soft tissue sarcomas.

The VA is considering adding several other diseases  bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension and Parkinsons-like symptoms  to the list.

Once an ailment is put on the list, the VA presumes the veteran who served in Vietnam got sick as a result of being exposed to Agent Orange, and the veteran is more likely to get disability benefits. For veterans who qualify for disability and their survivors who are entitled to death benefits, the payments can mean thousands of dollars a year.

The case, Procopio v. Wilkie, was brought by Alfred Procopio Jr., who served aboard the USS Intrepid from 1964 to 1967. In 1966, the ship was deployed off the coast of Vietnam. Procopio sought disability compensation for diabetes and prostate cancer, but the VA denied his claim because he had not served on land or the inland waters of Vietnam.

This weeks decision was hailed by Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, which brought the 2008 case challenging the VAs position on this issue.

We are heartened that the courts landmark decision unequivocally rights a wrong that is a terrible injustice to all veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange in the waters of Vietnam, Stichman said.

Providing Agent Orange benefits to those who served in Vietnams territorial waters has drawn strong bipartisan support in the Congress. Last year, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill to accomplish that goal, but the measure was blocked in the Senate.

B.J. Lawrence, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which has been a strong advocate for blue water Navy veterans, said in a statement that although very pleased with the ruling, the VFW isnt quite ready to celebrate. Thats because the VA can always appeal the ruling and Congress has yet to pass a Blue Water Navy bill. We need to get this done and reinforce to tens of thousands of veterans that our nation does have your back when you come home from war.
For travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport, there's a fresh reward for that TSA frisk, and it's being served in the form of carnitas tacos, Thai fried chicken, and croissants. Got your attention?

Yep, the long-awaited, 3,241-square-foot Manufactory Food Hall has at last opened at SFO, making that sterile post-security trek to the plane now totally delicious thanks to its fast-casual food concepts from the chefs behind SF's Tartine, Cala, and Kin Khaoall of them favorites among locals as well as must-visit restaurants for tourists.

Don't miss your flight while perusing the many tasty offerings at the new Manufactory Food Hall at SFO. (Juan Carlos Bricena)

Now though, if you happen to be flying Air France or Virgin Atlanticor even Jet Blue and Hawaiian Airlines, whose domestic flights still jet out of the international terminalyou can conveniently get a taste of some of the city's finest culinary talent without even leaving the airport.



The Manufactory Food Hall is a sprawling project, and is without question the most prominent opportunity ever for SFO travelers to get a taste of the diverse flavors and fresh, seasonal ingredients that are the hallmarks of San Francisco's leading restaurants (though there is much to be said for Napa Farms over in T2). The space is divided among the three restaurants, grab-and-go stations, a full-service bar, and a retail component perfect for visitors looking to take home the flavors of our great food city.

All of the kiosks are gradually working up to full menu strength (if you think opening a new restaurant in San Francisco is hard, try opening one in our airport). Here's what's on offer.

Tacos Cala at Manufactory Food Hall SFO Street-style offerings at Tacos Cala. (Juan Carlos Bricena) When Mexico City chef Gabriela Camara arrived in San Francisco and opened her upscale, CDMX-style restaurant Cala, we all lamented that she hadn't come sooner. Now, fans of her back-alley weekday companion spot, Tacos Cala, can get a familiar bite before boarding. There's just about everything you could want to be piled on top of a corn tortilla: eggs, fish, sweet potato, chicken, and carnitas. There are also breakfast items including chilaquiles and egg sopes; quesadillas; tortas; and entree-sized salads.

Kamin, the Kin Khao spin-off at SFO Delicious, gluten-free fried chicken at the airport? Duh. (Juan Carlos Bricena) Kin Khao's Pim Techamuanvivit is among our local culinary heroes for the way she's managed to elevate authentic Thai fareand for turning out a gluten-free, Thai-style version of fried chicken that is utterly divine. The Tenderloin restaurant's much buzzed about dish is the headliner at SFO spin-off Kamin, where it plays roles in sandwich form, in a meal box with turmeric rice and papaya salad, and in Kin Khao's original, slightly spicy wings. Chicken and fried tofu khao soi (noodle curries), salads, and breakfast porridges will also play a key role on the menu.

Tartine Bakery at SFO Taking the red-eye? Tartine's flaky quiche will be just as delicous for breakfast in the morning. (Juan Carlos Bricena) Once just the Mission's most beloved local bakery, Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt's Tartine has long since gone global, with locations not just elsewhere in the 'hood (hi, Tartine Manufactory) and Los Angeles, but in Seoul, Korea as well. Here at SFO, noobs to the brand can easily get a taste of its signature goodies with pretty much everything on offerthink quiche, sandwiches, soups (look for ingredients from Bay Area growers and artisans such as Rancho Gordo heirloom beans), scones, croissants, and pain au chocolat. How do you choose? Well, since we're talking about one of the world's premier bakeries, something with bread and some form of pastry is pretty much obligatory.

Third Wave Joe + Real Booze at SFO's Coffee Manufactory The food is all well and good, but when it comes to travel, we all know what's truly important: coffee and booze. In the world of airports, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a cappuccino at 8pm or a glass of rose at 8am. But until now, with the exception of a Peet's and an outpost of Vino Volo, SFO has lacked for indulgences in this department. Coffee Manufactory brings the Third Wave coffee movement to the airport with the expected latte art and hipster cold brews. The bar is also serving bottled and draught Northern California craft beers; far-above-airport-average California wines by the glass; and a solid list of classic cocktails made with high-quality ingredients and inspired by what you'd find at the actual bars of Kin Khao, Cala, and Tartine Manufactory in SF. Here you can also grab snacks with a more concise food offering of items from each of the three restaurant kiosks.



The Manufactory Food Hall sits in the Departures A wing of the International Terminal and can be accessed by any traveler who has cleared security (unless you're arriving from someplace abroad that isn't Canada). It is operated by large-scale concessionaire SSP America, but the restaurants say they have full control over food quality and the chefs pop in often as they commute to their other restaurants in L.A. (Robertson and Pruiett), Bangkok (Techamuanvivit), and Mexico City (Camara).

We've probably never given a toast to SFO before, so let's raise a craft cocktail or a glass of Joseph Swan Zinfandel to three of SF's most universally beloved, hard-working, and completely not-corporate restaurants for serving destination-worthy food at the gateway between SF and the world.
Jason Hickel in The Guardian:

Last week, as world leaders and business elites arrived in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates tweeted an infographic to his 46 million followers showing that the world has been getting better and better. This is one of my favourite infographics, he wrote. A lot of people underestimate just how much life has improved over the past two centuries.

Of the six graphs  developed by Max Roser of Our World in Data  the first has attracted the most attention by far. It shows that the proportion of people living in poverty has declined from 94% in 1820 to only 10% today. The claim is simple and compelling. And its not just Gates whos grabbed on to it. These figures have been trotted out in the past year by everyone from Steven Pinker to Nick Kristof and much of the rest of the Davos set to argue that the global extension of free-market capitalism has been great for everyone. Pinker and Gates have gone even further, saying we shouldnt complain about rising inequality when the very forces that deliver such immense wealth to the richest are also eradicating poverty before our very eyes.

Its a powerful narrative. And its completely wrong.

More here.
Sarah Burris in AlterNet:

A new report from the Center for Religion and Civil Culture at the University of Southern California revealed that evangelical Christians can be divided into five different sects. The Varieties of American Evangelicalism, detailed the ways in which the community has managed to divide, thanks in part, to President Donald Trump, The Christian Postcited. The five groups are described as Trump-vangelicals, Neo-fundamentalist evangelicals, iVangelicals, Kingdom Christians, and Peace and Justice evangelicals.

Trump-vangelicals are exactly what many think of when they picture political evangelical Christians. The Post described them as a kind of Christian nationalist serving as Trumps base. Theyre primarily white, with only a few Latino or black pastors. They value access to political power and many believe God chose and blessed Trump in order to make American great again.

Neo-fundamentalists can also be folded into the Trump-loving group of evangelicals, the study concluded. The difference is that they still maintain some semblance of their Christian values and distance themselves from the presidents moral failings. They focus on understanding their theology and being more personally moral.

iVangelicals sound exactly like the name. The megachurch movement helped spur them on and they arent as politically active as the other groups. They tend to be conservative, but they focus more on being non-partisan. Pastors like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes are good examples of iVangelicals ministering to mostly white suburbanites.

More here.
Paris-based architecture practice Lina Ghotmeh  Architecture has won a competition to design this cellular hotel overlooking at one of the largest vineyards of Kefraya, Lebanon.

Named Lining Kefraya Hotel, the fortress-like building will sit on a 3,400-square-metre area with its cellular design units, aiming to reflect the beautiful vineyards with protruding floor-to-ceiling windows.

Alongside the hotel rooms throughout the plans, the design scheme will be composed of a restaurant, reception spaces and a wine cellar, which will built as excavations within this intervention.

Located on one of the largest vineyards spreading along the Bekaa Valley, the architectural language of this project is designed as the expression of the earth from which it emerges.

"It is the materialisation of the story of this land, built in time and by time, cultivated by the hands of a mythic man, Michel De Boustros, who at the peak of the Lebanese war, continued to grow an exceptional vineyard," said Lina Ghotmeh  Architecture.

"Developed as an act of resilience during the unsettling years of this country, Kefraya is considered today as one of the largest territories dedicated to wine production."

"It is set on the deepest geological fault of the region and enjoys, due to that, a very rich terroir. Canaanites Archeological remains are also found to witness of the long history of this estate," added the firm.

The architects designed this project as a vertical "land work." The building looks like as if it emerges slowly from earth and dialogues with the territory on which it is built. On top of the roof, the architects also designed a long swimming pool creating a different atmosphere within the nature.

Earthly-like accumulations giveth structures' form: A series to porticoes intertwine with large panes of glass that bear the reflection of the beautiful landscape surrounding this temporary dwelling.

The building plays both on monumentality and on evanescence. Its dimensions, prolonged length, sets it out as a landmark with this territory while its reflecting skin extends the vineyards onto the edifices body and in the heart of its spaces.

"The act of excavating bares the memory of this territory, as the interior draws a parallel to the troglodyte structures: archaeological remains existing on site," explained the architects.

Guests will have a mesmerizing view towards the vineyards through large frames. Moving along the buildings length, visitors are invited to delve into the intensity of wine.

From golden like reflections into Red velvet like interiors, the journey of the dweller bares the pure immersion into the textures, the color, and the dazzle of the wine experience. The Lining Kefraya Hotel is expected to complete in 2021.

Project facts

Status: Competition

Location: Kefraya, Lebanon

Date: 2018  2021

Area: 3400 m

Commission type: Private

Client: Kefraya Wines

Program: Vineyard of Kefraya Estate

All images courtesy of Lina Ghotmeh  Architecture

> via Lina Ghotmeh  Architecture
Ive been reading mostly primary documents and very old letters in indecipherable handwriting, but unfortunately I cant share any of them here because I dont have permission to, so instead Ill share the books that are currently on my nightstand, waiting to be read

Erin Davis, a much-loved radio personality here in Canada, who recently lost her daughter, has written a very personal and uplifting memoir that Olivia Newton-John praises as a gift of love to others who are seeking solace. Im going to be interviewing Erin onstage for two events in February, so her book, Mourning Has Broken , is on the top of my pile.

At the Mountains Edge, a sweeping new historical novel of love, tragedy, and redemption set during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush from my friend, bestselling Canadian author Genevieve Graham, whose books shine a light on the lives of ordinary people pushed to their limits against the great tapestry of the Canadian landscape.



Another friend, Alyssa Cole, has the third book in her Loyal League series of historical romances coming out in February, and Im lucky enough to have an advance copy in my hot little hands. I may have peeked at this one already (spoiler: its really, really good!). While the Loyal League books are interconnected, you dont need to read them in order, so you can dive right in with An Unconditional Freedom.

The next book down is an ARC I was sent of an upcoming debut novel by Nathan Makaryk (based on his play of the same name). Im a longtime fan of the Robin Hood legend, which Nottingham promises to twist in interesting ways, so Im looking forward to reading it.

Kelli Estess first novel, The Girl Who Wrote In Silk, was a beautiful dual-time debut, and I leapt at the chance for an early look at her follow-up novel, Today We Go Home, which intertwines the lives of two military womenone in present day Seattle, and one fighting in disguise as a man during the Civil War in Indiana. I crossed paths with Kelli at the Historical Novel Society conference in Portland while she was doing the research for this novel, and what she told me then about the women who had fought in the Civil War was fascinating.

Finally, Ive got two novels by Armando Lucas Correa, who Ill also be interviewing onstage for our local bookstore in May: his internationally bestselling The German Girl, from 2016, and his upcoming novel, The Daughters Tale, an unforgettable family saga of love and redemption during World War II, based on the true story of the Nazi massacre of a French village in 1944.

And that should keep me busy for awhile.

******

Anne here.

A Quiet Life in the Country: I recently discovered the cosy mysteries of T.E. Kinsey, and really enjoyed them. (Referred to by a friend and isn't word of mouth recommendation the best?) This is from T.E. Kinsey's website: "Emily, Lady Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and theyve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life."

The setting is England, the year is 1908, just post-Victorian, and the class barriers of society are still firmly in place. One of the pleasures of the books, apart from the murder mysteries is the relationship between Lady Hardcastle and her small-but-feisty Welsh maid, Flo. Having been through many a dramatic and mysterious foreign adventure in the days before these books start, the two women are very much friends, as well as maid and mistress, and the banter between them is funny and irreverent, and a little bit shocking to the class-conscious other characters in the books. I've read all the books in the series so far and have preordered the next.

Jackie French is an Australian author, multi prize-winning and very prolific and interesting. She's written lots of books for children and young adults, she's written books on ecology and how to keep chickens, and this novel for adults kept me reading far into the night.

Miss Lily's Lovely Ladies is set before, during and after WW1, and is about an Australian girl, "the canned corned beef heiress," who is sent to England before the war, ostensibly to get a bit of polish' from an earl's cousin, known only as Miss Lily, and also to prevent a marriage with a local boy.

This is from the blurb:

Each year at secluded Shillings Hall, in the snow-crisped English countryside, the mysterious Miss Lily draws around her young women selected from Europe's royal and most influential families. Her girls are taught how to captivate a man - and find a potential husband - at a dinner, in a salon, or at a grouse shoot, and in ways that would surprise outsiders. For in 1914, persuading and charming men is the only true power a woman has.

Sophie Higgs is the daughter of Australia's king of corned beef and the only 'colonial' brought to Shillings Hall. Of all Miss Lily's lovely ladies, however, she is also the only one who suspects Miss Lily's true purpose.

As the chaos of war spreads, women across Europe shrug off etiquette. The lovely ladies and their less privileged sisters become the unacknowledged backbone of the war, creating hospitals, canteens and transport systems where bungling officials fail to cope. And when tens of thousands can die in a single day's battle, Sophie must use the skills Miss Lily taught her to prevent war's most devastating weapon yet.

But is Miss Lily heroine or traitor? And who, exactly, is she?

Jackie French plunges us into this era in a wonderfully intimate and fascinating way. Regency readers will be fascinated and delighted by the detail she provides as Sophie is "polished" by the mysterious and unconventional Miss Lily. More than that, it is a superb portrait of the changing roles of women in this time, how they stepped into the gaps left by the men running the war  at one stage Sophie reflects "Who spent years preparing for war, and yet gave no thought to how to deal with the wounded?"

As well as a wonderful social portrait of the times, it's a rollicking good tale. As I said, I read far into the night, and have thought much about the story ever since. I've also read the sequel and have preordered the third book in the trilogy. But it's not a romance, it's more a social historical novel. Highly recommended.

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Jo here.

January has been full of primer, spackle, paint, joint compound, and prying up miles of those well-nailed wood dohinkies folks pound into the floor to hold wall-to-wall carpets. While this induces in me a pleasant sense of accomplishment, it hasnt forwarded my reading experience much.



About the only thing Ive picked up is the latest Ilona Andrews, Magic Triumphs. Lovely. Im about half-way done and Im drawing it out for longer enjoyment.



Im also kicking back with my feet up and delving into Jean Francois Parot who writes historical detective novels in French. Theyre set in the Paris of Louis XV and are ferociously French in attitude and also gritty and period accurate.

I am not reading them in French because there is only so much challenge I can undertake at one time.



In the first of these books, Chatelet Apprentice, young Nicolas Le Floch leaves rural Brittany for the dangerous, fascinating world of police work in Paris. There is food involved. Historical food, lovingly described.



Its all extremely French and good source material for anyone who wants to write in the C18, which luckily I do.

******

Susan here.

Seems like all I've been reading lately is mystery, needing a fast escape with a quick pace when life is just too busy. For a while I've been slowly making my way through Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness series, and over the holidays that picked up, as I've glommed Heirs and Graces, Queen of Hearts, and Malice at the Palace since we last posted what-we're-reading. I'm onto Crowned and Dangerous at the moment.

I love this series--it's breezy and fun, with marvelous detail and ambience evoking life in Britain, aristocratic and not so much, in the 1930s. Clever, kind, slightly bumbling Lady Georgianna and the sexy Irishman the Hon. Darcy O'Mara, along with other regular characters, keep me coming back. The building relationship between Georgie and Darcy, which has a lovely tension that picks up speed. I very much enjoyed Malice at the Palace, where Georgie assists Princess Marina of Greece, arriving to marry Prince George, brother of the Prince of Wales, and sorts out a little murder at Kensington Palace while she's at it. Darcy has a central role in Crowned and Dangerous, as Georgie and Darcy postpone wedding plans to hurry off to Ireland when his father is accused of murder.

I alternate paper and audio in this series, and spent enough time in the car over the last couple of months to listen to some of these. I truly enjoy and appreciate the late Katherine Kellgren's excellent narration of Bowen's Lady Georgianna series.

******

Pat here.

As regular readers know, I love small towns and ghosts and psychics, so when I saw the description of this oneA Gift of Ghosts, by Sarah WyndeI couldnt resist. Usually, Ill give up after a few chapters, but this book kept me reading.



Im appalled that my cook from the Crystal Magic series, who knows what food everyone likes, isnt original, but there really is nothing new under the sun. So I just enjoyed the heck out of this love story about a physicist who can see and talk to ghosts but is utterly terrifiedrightfully soto admit it.



The story is basically the heroines journey of discovery, learning that when she opens up and accepts her gift, that she can make a serious difference in the lives of the living, as well as the dead. Its all romance, so our romance readers who enjoy ghosts and good-looking hunks who accept weird heroines should enjoy it!

******

Andrea here.

I have a very Janus-like reading month: looking ahead with an ARC and looking back to catch up on a classic that I somehow never got to on my towering TBR pile. I was lucky enough to snag an advance copy of C.S. Harriss upcoming release, Who Slays the Wicked, the latest addition to her Sebastian St. Cyr series. I love this series, as it's developed such interesting, complex characters as it deals with the ongoing theme of Good and Evil, and the gray areas in between.

In this book, Evil is truly personified in the depraved husband of Sebastians beloved niece. And though he loathes the man, Sebastian feels compelled to find the killer when the handsome wastrel is found brutally murdered in his bedbecause among the many people who have reason to wish him dead is his niece. The investigation into who had motive and opportunity is complicated by the presence of the Tsar of Russias sister and her entourage, who may have had political reasons for murder . . . which of course has Sebastian knocking heads with his wifes father, whos the power behind the King. Its a dark and chilling story, but as usual, Harris weaves a compelling story as Sebastian works to unraveling the clues before the investigation upsets too many influential people and leads to his own demise.

In looking back, I finally read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (yes, I know . . . how did I miss it until now!) Okay, Im coming a little late to the party. but its so well donea riveting tale of time travel, with rich history, and wonderful characters. Its actually fun to come on a treasure that you havent yet experienced and be able to savor it for the first time. I highly recommend both books. They do just what a book should do and sweep you up into its world.

That's it for our reading.

What books have swept you up into their world this month?
Iowas courts consistently rate among the best in the country by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he noted. Having a nonpartisan selection process assures people who come before the court that their cases will be decided based on the facts and the law and not to please a political constituency or special interests.

The merit selection process, also known as the Missouri Plan, was originally established as an effort to limit perceived influence by politicians and interest groups  Democrats and labor unions. It grew out of perceived Democratic manipulation and control of the process, Cook said. Among those who worked to create todays nonpartisan system was none other than Grassley, who at the time was a state lawmaker.

A political action group set up to oppose partisan attacks on the courts, Justice Not Politics, has been largely dormant, but members are talking about reorganizing, former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, a co-founder of the group, said. But as Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature and the governors office, they can move forward with this legislation if they want. And they may want to unless their constituents tell them to stop.

One point that should make GOP lawmakers think twice: Iowa voters demonstrated in two of the states four 2018 congressional races that Iowa is still a swing state. While they returned GOP control to the Statehouse, it stands to reason that Democrats could again occupy the governors office someday. If Republicans try to shape the courts in their favor, Democrats will get their turn.

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The March for Life this year may have gone largely unnoticed, as it often does, despite 100,000 people participating, had it not been for that infamous viral video of a group of Kentucky Catholic school students and a man with a drum. The whole beginning of the story seemed to turn on the look on the boys face. When people went on to see more of the video footage, the story got much more complicated. As so often is the case with life. So much has been said, and so much will continue to be said. And what I keep thinking about are the repercussions for all of us beyond quick reactions on social media. We make hasty or ill-founded assumptions all the time; should we be letting them define our lives and harm the lives of others?

The main question I keep reflecting on is: How do we look at people? Etched in my memory are scenes of Mass attendees staring disapprovingly at the young mom trying to pray with her crying baby. The whole community needs to serve as a model of how to pray with love and welcome all those who would join in, regardless of their station.

Can we look at people, even those with whom we vehemently disagree, with love? With a smile? Or even with just a dose of humility? What if respecting each others common humanity caused people of differing views to have conversations instead of confrontations? Its hard to conceive of in our current climate, but thats the radical sort of thing that Jesus asks us to not only imagine but work to bring about. Theres a lot to be encouraged by in the faces of the kids who come to the March for Life this year and every year.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online and founding director of Catholic Voices USA. Email her at klopez@nationalreview.com.

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So anyway, lets get real, shall we? Particularly in view of their long history as fellow con men, Trump didnt need to tell Cohen to lie. All Cohen needed to do was to follow the masters example. Trumps been lying about his dealings with the Russians from the get-go. Virtually every word hes ever said about the infamous Moscow Trump Tower is provably false.

Its now come to the point where hes lying about the lying, falsely claiming that everybody has always known about his Russian business interests, and besides, so what?

So what is that during the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly and indignantly denied any and all business relationships with Russia and Russians. The Washington Post has published a detailed timeline. On Jan. 11, 2017, for example, he tweeted: Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA  NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! In a same-day press conference, he repeated: I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia because weve stayed away.
WATERLOO -- An arrest has been made in the unsolved killing of a Grundy Center man in 2017.

Armando Adame III, 28, of Waterloo, was arrested at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility on Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Michael Bruce Johns, 28, in 2017, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Johns was reported missing Oct. 26, 2017, and the Grundy Center Police Department and Grundy County Sheriff's Office quickly suspected foul play in his disappearance.

Johns' body was discovered near 290th Street and Shadow Avenue in rural Floyd County about 10 miles south of Charles City on Dec. 1, 2017. His death was ruled a homicide and the cause of death was a shotgun wound to the head, according to the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner.

According to court documents, the investigation revealed that Johns was with Adame and another person on the evening of Oct. 24 in to the morning on Oct. 25.

The three traveled from Waterloo to the areas around Black Hawk, Buchanan, Grundy, Marshall, Tama, Butler and Floyd counties.

Cell phone records showed that the cell phones of Johns, Adame and the other individual eventually ended up in an area around Charles City.
WATERLOO  As record low temperatures brought life to a standstill Wednesday, the bitter cold was cited as a factor in the death of a University of Iowa student.

Sophomore Gerald Belz of Cedar Rapids was discovered unresponsive behind Halsey Hall on the University of Iowa campus at 2:48 a.m. Wednesday, according to a statement from the university. He was taken to the hospital and later died. No foul play was suspected, according to University of Iowa police.

We are saddened to share weve lost a member of the Hawkeye family, the university said in a prepared statement. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and loved ones.

The frigid conditions forced cancellation of Waterloo and Cedar Falls schools again today. Wind chill warnings remained in effect for the entire state through 10 this morning, and a wind chill advisory until noon.

The temperature at 8 a.m. Wednesday was minus 25, a new record low. The previous record low for Waterloo on Jan. 30 was minus 24, set in 1951.

The high for Waterloo on Wednesday was minus 12.
During the visit, Reynolds addressed last years move by the Iowa Board of Regents to increase tuition at the states universities.

We really have pretty low tuition when you look at some of the surrounding states, she said. You see a lot of out-of-state students coming because we have great universities and they can get a phenomenal education at a very reasonable price.

Reynolds said her goal was to keep tuition prices down through science technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM initiatives, and dual enrollment with community colleges and high schools.

Not all careers start in college, she said. We want kids to know there are all kinds of paths to a great a career.

She also addressed questions about the controversy concerning Iowa House District 55s election and 29 votes that werent counted. Earlier this week the Iowa House of Representatives voted to dismiss a challenge to the election results by Democrat Kayla Keother. The House voted 53 to 42 to dismiss the challenge, which in turn declares Republican incumbent Rep. Michael Bergan of Dorchester the winner.
WATERLOO  The Country View nursing home has been fined nearly $22,000 for deficient resident bed rails.

Members of the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to pay the fine for the violation discovered in October before the county-owned care center was sold to a private buyer.

This was due to a citation that was received last fall during our survey, said county Finance Director Susan Deaton. The issue was that our bed rails were not in compliance with the regulations.

There were no residents that were harmed as a result of this, she added. We corrected that issue.

The survey conducted by the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals led the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to levy the fine in a Jan. 9 letter to the county.

The survey on file with the state indicated the gaps in the side bed rails was greater than 4.75 inches, which created an entrapment hazard for residents.

This survey found that your facility was not in substantial compliance with the participation requirements and the conditions in our facility constitute immediate jeopardy to resident health and safety, the CMS letter stated.
ABORTION MONUMENT: Anti-abortion legislators have sponsored a bill calling for the placement of a monument to abortion victims on the Capitol grounds.

We remember  appropriately  victims of many things, and I think it is fitting that we memorialize the victims of abortion, said Rep. Dean Fisher, R-Montour, one of four sponsors. Not just the babies, but the mothers and fathers, too.

House File 153 https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=HF%20153 would require the Department of Administrative Services and the Capitol Planning Commission to solicit and approve an application for the monument. The bill provides that no governmental funds would be used to plan, erect or maintain the monument.

NO RIGHT TO ABORTION: Senate Joint Resolution 9 https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=88&ba=SJR9 would amend the Iowa Constitution to specify that neither a right to abortion nor a requirement that the state fund abortions exists in the Constitution.

The resolution, co-sponsored by 29 Senate Republicans, would have to be approved by this General Assembly and the next before it would go to the voters.
WATERLOO  For the second time since this fall, a new principal is leading Lincoln Elementary School.

Bev Smith, a longtime Waterloo Community Schools administrator, stepped into the position on an interim basis last week. She had retired Aug. 31 as the districts associate superintendent for human resources and equity.

Smith replaces Edwin Hood, who resigned Jan. 17 after less than a year on the job. He came to Waterloo last summer from the Dallas, Texas, public school district, where he was director of alternative certification.

The Board of Education approved his resignation Monday on its consent agenda.

Kingsley Botchway, Waterloo Schools chief officer of human resources and equity, declined comment on the reasons for Hoods resignation. Botchway, who succeeded Smith, praised her for agreeing to take on the principal role.

Ultimately, with (Hoods) resignation, we were put in a situation where we needed to find someone to lead Lincoln through the end of the school year, he said.

Botchway cited Smiths extensive leadership experience at the district level and noted she also had served as an elementary school principal earlier in her career. It really worked out well for us, he said.

The district has already posted the principal opening and plans to hire someone for next school year.

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CEDAR RAPIDS --- A man who was serving a 15-year federal prison sentence when he tried to hire a hit man to murder two people in Northeast Iowa was convicted by a jury Wednesday after a six-day trial in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

Jason Harriman, 44, formerly of Traer and Independence, was convicted of two counts of murder-for-hire. The verdict was returned Wednesday afternoon following about four hours of jury deliberations.

The evidence at trial showed that in 2011, Harriman was sentenced to serve 15 years in federal prison for unlawfully possessing a gun and ammunition. While in federal prison in Arkansas, Harriman made multiple phone calls and sent multiple emails to an individual he thought was a hired killer, but was actually an undercover agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

The victims were reportedly his ex-wife and her boyfriend living in Iowa, court documents state.

After meeting with the hit man in person in the prison, Harriman signed a contract calling for the murders of two people who were living in Northeast Iowa. Harriman agreed to pay the hit man $21,000 and had already given the hit man a 1969 Dodge Charger as a down payment.
The unprecedented 35-day government Shutdown took a heavy toll on the Environment of Joshua Tree National Park. During this period, the 1,235 square miles park was unattended and a section of the visitors destroyed the surroundings. There was rampant vandalism and they littered the place, damaged trees, painted graffiti, and ruined trails. They also went to the extent of creating new roads and cutting down Joshua trees. Normally, at the time of shutdowns, the parks remain out of bounds for visitors but this was an exception.

The Guardian reports about the pitiful state of affairs due to the longest ever government shutdown and lack of ranger supervision because of the furlough of federal workers.

In the opinion of Curt Sauer, the former superintendent of Joshua Tree national park, it will take years to restore normalcy to the park. He was in charge of the park for seven years.

The shutdown took a heavy toll on Joshua Tree.



"For what?" asked the park's former superintendent. "For nothing." https://t.co/Au4PJ9Apg4  Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 28, 2019

National Parks require continuous ranger supervision

Visitors come to National Parks to be in the arms of nature and enjoy the scenic beauty. Supervision by rangers is an important aspect to oversee the safety of the visitors who might take unnecessary risks and endanger their lives. During this government shutdown, there were reports of deaths in National Parks.

With thousands of federal workers furloughed and a lack of adequate supervision, the environment deteriorated with litter that left the surroundings unhygienic.

After shutdown ends, Joshua Tree National Park reopening with yet more 'irreparable' damage Trump is responsible for. https://t.co/olgGyU4lEu  Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) January 29, 2019

The Guardian adds that authorities of the park said unknown persons not only cut down the Joshua trees but also created two new roads inside the park, and destroyed government property.

Volunteers did take up the challenge and assisted in the cleanup because of the absence of the regulars. However, the beauty of the park has taken a beating and it will be will be a long-drawn process to restore its glory. John Lauretig, an official of a nonprofit group says  The local community is fed up with our parks being held hostage.

Implications of the government shutdown

According to the Sacramento Bee, the rugged desert expanse known as Joshua Tree National Park is located in Southern California near Palm Springs.

The shortage of rangers due to the shutdown led to large-scale vandalism and will take decades to become normal.

The park had to do with a skeleton staff of only eight law enforcement rangers who had to cover the large area. A vegetation specialist describes the unique Joshua trees as spiky and contorted. They can reach a height of up to 40 feet and have a life span of 150 years or more. Vandals cut down many of these trees. President Donald Trump imposed the shutdown because Congress was not sanctioning funds of $5.7 billion he wanted for constructing the proposed US - Mexico border wall.
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.






Introduction

Venezuela has the dubious fortune of being located on the continent of South America, which the United States has treated under the so-called Monroe Doctrine as its exclusive zone of political, economic, and military influence. In practical terms it meant that whenever a Latin American government pursued a policy at odds with Washingtons preferences, it would be subjected to measures ranging from economic sanctions to outright military invasion.

Latin America became one of the many battlefields of the Cold War when several countries sought to leave the US shadow and align themselves with USSR. The US retaliation was harsh, and included the support for the brutal military coup in Chile, training of death squads in Honduras and El Salvador, support for the so-called Contras in Nicaragua, not to mention the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Once the Cold War was over, however, a relative peace settled over the region, with Cuba remaining the only hold-out against US power. Even the coming to power of soft Marxist pink wave governments in Venezuela and Bolivia did not seem to overly ruffle Washingtons feathers. But the current escalation of the US campaign against Venezuela suggests a revival of US activism in the region.

Energy Dominance

One might as well cut to the chase and state the obvious: Venezuela is not only a member of OPEC, it is also a country with the worlds largest known oil reserves dwarfing those even of Saudi Arabia. It is no coincidence that pretty much every country that has been on the US hit list in the last decade or soLibya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Venezuelais a major producer of hydrocarbons. Given that the global economy is utterly dependent on steady provision of hydrocarbons, US political control over these countries means a stranglehold over major industrial competitors to the United States, namely the EU and China. It also creates US jobs, once US oil companies establish control over the countrys oil fields. At the very least, should the effort to place the country under indirect US control fail, plunging it into chaos removes a competitor to struggling domestic US oil producers.

Monroe Doctrine Returns

The timing of the US escalation closely follows the visit by Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela during which the possibility of creating a Russian military base in the country was discussed by some media outlets. Given that Russia has by now established through the Syrian example that once Russian troops arrive in a country they are unlikely to leave no matter how great the US pressure, Washington may have decided to step up the pressure in the hopes of not only Russia but its other major competitor, China, from establishing themselves more firmly in the country. Russias Rosneft already has considerable presence in the Venezuela, assisting it with the development of its oil potential, and China has also made a number of investments in the country, though its economic footprint remains modest. Moreover, the US aggression against Venezuela sends a signal to the nearby Nicaragua, also a country facing increasing US political pressure, against pursuing a project of building a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with Chinas support.

Thus far US actions consisted of economic sanctions and apparent coordination of coup attempts to be carried out by elements within Venezuelas military and security forces. It is still difficult to make out what the Trump Administrations recognition of Juan Guaido, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, as the countrys interim president was supposed to represent. Even by the standards of Trumps current foreign policy team of Pompeo and Bolton, recognition of a claimant to supreme executive office who does not actually occupy said office is unprecedented. Not even in the case of Syria, where the US has been far more directly involved in attempting to overthrown its legitimate government, was any opposition leader recognized as the official representative of the country itself. Therefore one may conclude Guaidos recognition was supposed to follow the military coup which Guaido probably promised and Washington clearly expected. It is also difficult to say whether Guaido overestimated the degree of his support within the military or outright lied to his American sponsors. Either way, the US intelligence community has once again failed at providing an accurate assessment of the situation within a country, as Venezuelas military rallied around President Maduro.

Bay of Pigs 2

United States has thus painted itself into a corner. Guaidos recognition, which was moreover coordinated with the bulk of Latin Americas countries and with the European Union (which likewise points to a wider though failed conspiracy to overthrow Venezuelas government) cannot very well be walked back. Maduros continued presidency has now become a challenge to US power at least as great as Assads. One can therefore expect stepped up US efforts to overthrow Venezuelas government, though it remains to be seen how far the US is willing to go. An outright US military invasion appears unlikely at the moment. The most recent such effort has been in Panama during the George H.W. Bush administration, a far smaller and easier to control country. There is no evidence of US intelligence services training Venezuelan expats in the manner of the Bay of Pigs invasion force or the Nicaraguan contras. However, Venezuela is bordered by two countries ruled by far-right politicians closely allied to the United States, Brazil and Colombia. In the wake of the failed US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and with the US military retooling itself for great power confrontations, the US modus operandi in the past several years has been to use proxy armies. These may take the form of non-state actors funded and armed by US intelligence agencies or of friendly states, as in the case of Saudi Arabias invasion of Yemen. One could readily imagine the Yemen model used against Venezuela, but this time with a Brazil-led coalition doing Washingtons dirty work.

Bargaining Chip?

Last but not least, one must consider the possibility of Venezuela being treated as a bargaining chip in some sort of negotiation with Russia and/or China in the delineation of the great powers spheres of influence. This would mark a de-facto return to the policy of compensations wherein the balance of power is preserved by major powers ceding parts of their empires to others in exchange for gains elsewhere. Thus, for example, Washington could approach Moscow and offer a Venezuela for Syria or even Venezuela for Ukraine bargain. While not out of the realm of possibility, it remains a difficult course of action to imagine for two reasons. The first is that there is little awareness of the limits of US power in Washington itself. The expectation is still of powering through any opposition. The second is that even if the offer were made, it would probably not be accepted in Moscow. Apart from the cost to Russias international image, the US at this point has very low credibility and trustworthiness.

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River to Sea
We can all agree that older people should have the choice to stay at home, and be cared for there, if that is what they wish to do. But the push for choice in elder care comes at a time where many governments are disinvesting in home-care public services.

With the view of reducing healthcare costs  and under the pretext of increasing choice  the UK and Irish governments have outsourced a great proportion of their home care services to for-profit providers. This is having several implications: no meaningful choice, increased loneliness among older people, a dissatisfied and sometimes exploited care work force and poor quality care.

While governments pay lip service to the notion of choice, their disinvestment in public home care services means that older people and their families often have no choice but to choose for-profit home care providers, as these are becoming the norm for elder home care. In the past decade, there has been a change from government-operated public facilities into private, autonomous facilities and services, organised for profit.

And there are further problems with this situation, beyond transformation of care into a commodity. Home care is not a typical product on a supermarket shelf. Care is a complex bundle of activities, tasks and interactions. Home care is a high involvement purchase, which requires considerable time and emotional investment. But people in need of care might not have all the necessary information, skills or time required to navigate intricate care markets.

In the course of our research into the needs of the growing ageing populations in Ireland, social workers admitted that clients have little information on home care agencies. The little information they have comes from marketing communication activities, not from an objective source. But this might not matter anyway, as participants told us that good care was down to the individual carer: You couldnt say one home care agency is better than the other, its all about the actual person delivering the care.

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Market-driven

The increased view of home care as a product has led to the reduction of care as a set of clearly defined units of work (such as showering, washing, dressing, toileting and cleaning) leaving little time for companionship and meaningful engagement with clients. In the UK between 2010 and 2013, more than half a million care slots lasted five minutes or less. In Ireland, participants told us that a 30-minute slot is now the norm. Carers spoke about the disappointment service users experienced as they hurried out the door to the next client.

Paradoxically, many home care agencies promote themselves on the emotional capacities of care workers and the potential friendships that can be formed. But older adults told us about feeling lonely and wishing that carers spent more time with them. The carer is the only person many clients see all day.

Loneliness is a major problem among older people that can lead to depression and can have a serious effect on health. Many participants agreed that providing companionship time should be part of the home care package, but this is not generally seen as a productive and efficient use of resources.

The carers

There is also a dark side to todays market promotion of choice for care workers themselves. When profits and efficiency are prioritised, there is pressure to keep costs down.

Agency directors told us that unfortunately the tender process, whereby governments invite bids from home-care agencies, is a race to the bottom as price is an important criterion to secure a contract. Low costs have created a system characterised by casual and zero-hour contracts and low wages. The insecurity and low wages in the sector causes recruitment and retention problems.

Care managers complained about capacity problems and the difficulty in attracting people to the profession. Since care markets deliver efficiency at the expense of workers pay and conditions, care workers tend to be drawn from vulnerable groups in society: traditionally women and increasingly migrants, who have few job opportunities. Carers in our research told us they do not feel valued or trusted and wished for better working conditions and a better funded sector.

Questioning choice

So what can we do? We need to question the extent to which choice should be the most important characteristic of a care model. Not because choice isnt intrinsically good, but because the current neoliberal environment, in which governments are seeking to disinvest themselves of care responsibilities, makes such an ideal unattainable.

In his well-known book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, the surgeon Atul Gawande asks us to think about what brings the most meaning and purpose to our lives and fill our days with those things, to the best of our ability, until we die. In principle, choice is a good thing, but it is only valid if we are able to choose among meaningful alternatives.

And maybe choice should not be the most important factor in elder care. Guaranteeing good quality care that includes companionship, independence and safety for all older people should be what matters the most. We need to think further about what we want good quality care to mean. Determining how people can be properly cared in a way that exploits no older person or carer is a profound challenge of our society.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

This project has received funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No 769975. The author also wishes to acknowledge the Irish research team that took part in the project: Professor Virpi Timonen (Principal Investigator, Trinity College Dublin), Austin Warters and Anne McDonald from the Health Service Executive.
Michael Christopher, the editor-in-chief of the local Arabic-language newspaper Al-Watan, fled South Sudan after being warned not to cover protests in Sudan, a 'friendly, neighbouring ... "We have not been spreading fake news. We were reporting the truth about what is happening on the streets of Sudan," Christopher told RFI on the phone from Cairo, where he is now based after fleeing Juba. On 7 January, the Al Watan editor-in-chief was summoned for a hearing by South Sudan's Media Authority to explain his coverage of the protests in Sudan. The demonstrations, triggered by the government's decision to raise the price of bread entered their second month Monday, increasing pressure on al-Bashir to step down. The Sudanese president recently visited Qatar and Egypt to seek support for his ailing government. "He is using shuttle diplomacy to prove to the world that he has the crisis in Sudan under control," reckons Christopher, who says he received several threatening phone calls from anonymous numbers, including some that threatened to shut down his newspaper. Although now in Cairo, the Al Watan editor is determined to shine a spotlight on protests in Sudan that have so far led to the deaths of more than 40 people: "We are going to continue to tell the truth with clarity and honesty. We will not let the people of Sudan down." South Sudan's minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, could not be reached for comment at time of publishing.

Michael Christopher, the editor-in-chief of the local Arabic-language newspaper Al-Watan, fled South Sudan after being warned not to cover protests in Sudan, a 'friendly, neighbouring ...

"We have not been spreading fake news. We were reporting the truth about what is happening on the streets of Sudan," Christopher told RFI on the phone from Cairo, where he is now based after fleeing Juba.

On 7 January, the Al Watan editor-in-chief was summoned for a hearing by South Sudan's Media Authority to explain his coverage of the protests in Sudan.

The demonstrations, triggered by the government's decision to raise the price of bread entered their second month Monday, increasing pressure on al-Bashir to step down.

The Sudanese president recently visited Qatar and Egypt to seek support for his ailing government.

"He is using shuttle diplomacy to prove to the world that he has the crisis in Sudan under control," reckons Christopher, who says he received several threatening phone calls from anonymous numbers, including some that threatened to shut down his newspaper.

Although now in Cairo, the Al Watan editor is determined to shine a spotlight on protests in Sudan that have so far led to the deaths of more than 40 people: "We are going to continue to tell the truth with clarity and honesty. We will not let the people of Sudan down."

South Sudan's minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, could not be reached for comment at time of publishing.
The taxi driver has claimed the fare was an honest mistake. Source: Getty, file.

A Scottish tourist in New Zealand was left shocked when he unwittingly paid 480 for a five-minute taxi ride.

John Barrett was holidaying in Wellington with his wife Susan when they caught a cab to his apartment from the train station on January 21, stuff.co.nz reported.

The journey, shorter than one kilometre, took just a matter of minutes but when Mr Barretts card was rejected the following day, he soon realised hed paid well over the odds for the short trip.

There was nothing at the time that made us think anything was wrong, Mr Barrett said.

After contacting the local council, the matter was elevated with the NZ Transport Agency.

Yet the tourist was left out of the loop for several days as he waited to see if hed ever get his NZ$930 back.

Taxi Federation Executive Director John Hart told stuff.co.nz overcharging was becoming a common occurrence in the city and passengers needed to remain vigilant.

Mr Barrett said the vehicle was operating with a Wellington Cabs light, however this name is not in operation under any company.

With just days left until he returned to the UK, Mr Barrett was finally contacted by the Transport Agency who had identified a driver responsible.

The couple had only just arrived in Wellington when nearly $1000 was taken from their account. Source: Getty

The driver claims to have made an honest mistake with a misplaced decimal point on a $9.30 fare.

The driver was an independent driver who had leased an Eftpos terminal from local taxi firm Wellington Taxis.

The company managed to identify the driver responsible after searching through all Eftpos transactions last week.

Mr Barrett has been very lucky to get his money back in this case, Mr Hart said.

A NZ Transport Agency spokesperson told Yahoo it was vital passengers were aware of who was driving their cab.

If the passenger has any concerns they should note the name on the displayed identification card, and/or the vehicles registration number. This will assist in any follow-up enquiries, they said.

An individuals fit and proper status can be reviewed if a driver is shown to have not complied with the legal requirements, for example, deliberately claiming more than an agreed fare.

Story continues

We urge people to contact us with any serious concerns relating to a passenger service provider.

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The ICRC transferred a Saudi prisoner from Sanaa, Yemen, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on January 29, Houthi media reported.

Musa al-Awaji was the first prisoner released under a deal struck between the Houthis and the Yemeni government during peace talks held in Sweden last month, The New Arab reported. The deal would involve the exchange of 15,000 detainees, they added.

The Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen welcomed the transfer.

Houthi-affiliated media reported that al-Awaji was released to the ICRC due to his deteriorating medical condition, adding that the move was humanitarian, and did not involve an exchange. In an interview, the sickly al-Awaji told Houthi-affiliated media that he was thankful for his release and that he was treated well during his detention. Credit: Ansarallah Media Center via Storyful
The French authorities said that all the jihadists returning to France will be arrested and brought to justice. The French interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said that the French jihadists who are expected to be repatriated are either in Syria or Iraq. Castaner added that some of the jihadists are currently in prison in Syria and remain there because of the presence of the American troops. The national, private French BFM-TV announced that 130 French jihadists will be repatriated in the coming weeks to face trial. They are currently being held in custody by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in prisons across northern Syria. But the French interior minister didnt confirm how many French jihadists will be repatriated. Testimony of a French female jihadist France 24, RFI sister TV channel, broadcast an exclusive interview of Mathilde, a French jihadist from Tours who went to Syria four years ago. Mathilde said French jihadists can choose between leaving and going to prison in France or staying in Syria and dying. She told France 24 that her husband chose to remain in Syria while she chose France and prison. Mathilde also told France 24 that she wanted to return to France a long time ago but couldnt do so because she had neither the money nor the contacts to do so. She said that life is Syria was not what she expected, quickly adding that she was well treated and never faced any violence. Mathilde has been tried in absentia and faces a ten year jail sentence. France changes its tune Until now, France has been adamant that it will not accept the repatriation of French jihadists fightin alongside, or with links to, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) They maintained that the French jihadists captured on the battlefields of Syria or Iraq will have to face trial by the local authorities and not in France. President Donald Trumps announcement, last December, of an American withdrawal from Syria changed everything. Only the US, Russia, Lebanon, Sudan and Indonesia have so far agreed to repatriate their jihadist nationals. The thousands of ISIS combatants held in SDF prisons are a burden for the Kurdish authorities who are asking foreign countries to repatriate their nationals.

The French authorities said that all the jihadists returning to France will be arrested and brought to justice.

The French interior minister, Christophe Castaner , said that the French jihadists who are expected to be repatriated are either in Syria or Iraq.

Castaner added that some of the jihadists are currently in prison in Syria and remain there because of the presence of the American troops.

The national, private French BFM-TV announced that 130 French jihadists will be repatriated in the coming weeks to face trial.

They are currently being held in custody by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in prisons across northern Syria.

But the French interior minister didnt confirm how many French jihadists will be repatriated.

Testimony of a French female jihadist

France 24, RFI sister TV channel, broadcast an exclusive interview of Mathilde, a French jihadist from Tours who went to Syria four years ago.

Mathilde said French jihadists can choose between leaving and going to prison in France or staying in Syria and dying.

She told France 24 that her husband chose to remain in Syria while she chose France and prison.

Mathilde also told France 24 that she wanted to return to France a long time ago but couldnt do so because she had neither the money nor the contacts to do so.

She said that life is Syria was not what she expected, quickly adding that she was well treated and never faced any violence.

Mathilde has been tried in absentia and faces a ten year jail sentence.

France changes its tune

Until now, France has been adamant that it will not accept the repatriation of French jihadists fightin alongside, or with links to, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil)

They maintained that the French jihadists captured on the battlefields of Syria or Iraq will have to face trial by the local authorities and not in France.

President Donald Trumps announcement, last December, of an American withdrawal from Syria changed everything.

Only the US, Russia, Lebanon, Sudan and Indonesia have so far agreed to repatriate their jihadist nationals.

The thousands of ISIS combatants held in SDF prisons are a burden for the Kurdish authorities who are asking foreign countries to repatriate their nationals.
Theresa May faced a backlash from Brussels after promising to renegotiate the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

The Prime Minister succeeded in uniting her party behind a plan to rewrite the deal to address concerns about the Irish backstop.

But senior figures in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Dublin resisted the demand from Mrs May as the clock ticks down to the UKs departure from the European Union on March 29.

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The Prime Minister also clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons ahead of private talks with the Labour leader on the Brexit process.

Having boycotted earlier cross-party talks, the Labour leader said he was ready to discuss a sensible approach to Brexit after MPs voted on Tuesday night to rule out no deal.

Mr Corbyn demanded to know which of her red lines she was prepared to compromise on in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

It really is time that the Prime Minister acknowledged she has got to move on from the red lines she put down in the first place, he said.

But Mrs May told Mr Corbyn he had opposed every move by this Government to get a deal and he is the one risking no deal.

In dramatic scenes on Tuesday night, MPs voted by a margin of 317 to 301 to back a plan  the Brady amendment  which requires the PM to replace the Agreements controversial backstop with alternative arrangements to keep the Irish border open after Brexit.

But asked five times on BBC Radio 4s Today programme what this alternative involved, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay was unable to provide any specific explanation.

Mr Barclay said the UK was exploring in terms of the use of technology looking at things like the time limit to deal with the backstop.

He added: There are a number of options, there are issues in terms of having time limits, issues in terms of exit clauses, issues in terms of technology, and this will be the nature of the negotiation with the European Union in the coming days.

Story continues

Downing Street has suggested that the UKs position could involve a time-limit or exit clause to the backstop or swapping it for a free trade agreement, as proposed in the so-called Malthouse Compromise drawn up by MPs from the Tories Remain and Leave wings.

(PA Graphics)

But the suggestion that the deal struck between the Government and Brussels could be unpicked was rejected by senior figures across the EU.

European Council president Donald Tusk will speak by phone with Mrs May on Wednesday evening.

Following Tuesday nights votes in the House of Commons, Mr Tusks spokesman said: The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation.

Brussels chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, told reporters that the EUs position was very clear, while Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the backstop remained necessary. French President Emmanuel Macron said the Withdrawal Agreement was not renegotiable.

European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans said there was an increasing risk that the UK will leave without a deal in March.

We continue to urge the UK Government to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible, he added.

The European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, expressed frustration with the British: What needs to stop is this: An amendment with 10 votes for, then an amendment with 10 votes against, an amendment that barely pulls through, one that fails That is no way to build a future relationship with the EU.

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Germanys foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said: Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Irelands side. We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue.

French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau said: The Withdrawal Agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.

Mr Barclay claimed that Tuesday nights amendments, two weeks after Mrs May suffered the heaviest parliamentary defeat in modern history over the meaningful vote, had overturned a defeat of 230 into a victory.

But there was concern from the business community, with CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn describing the Brady amendment as a throw of the dice and warning that firms were having to accelerate expensive no-deal preparations.

Brexiteer ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg made clear on Wednesday that he remains prepared to see the UK leave without a deal on March 29 if the EU refuses to reopen negotiations.

If (the EU) think the Withdrawal Agreement is non-negotiable then we will have to leave without an agreement, he told TalkRadio. Do they want the 39 billion, do they want an agreement or us just to leave? Its up to them.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he is willing to negotiate with the countrys opposition.

His remarks in an interview with the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency came amid a dire political crisis in Venezuela.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president last week and has urged citizens to challenge Mr Maduro with walkouts on Wednesday.

Juan Guaido (Rodrigo Abd/AP)

Mr Maduro told RIA Novosti he is willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future.

He said the talks could be held with mediation by other countries. Russia is one of the staunchest supporters of Mr Maduro and has offered to mediate. He also mentioned Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and the Vatican.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Mr Guaido held a major opposition rally in Caracas and declared that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Mr Maduros dictatorship.

Anti-government protests in Caracas (Fernando Llano/AP)

On Tuesday, Mr Guaido urged Venezuelans to step outside their homes and workplaces for two hours on Wednesday in the first mass mobilisation since last weeks big protests.

Mr Maduro accused Donald Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia.

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He said he was aware of orders by the US president for the Colombian government and the local mafia to kill him.

Russia has provided Mr Maduros government with loans and weapons.

A senior official said on Tuesday that Moscow is expecting problems ahead of an upcoming payment on Russias 3 billion dollar (2.3 billion) loan.

Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday: Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following US sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice.
By Jason Hovet and Robert Muller PRAGUE (Reuters) - China's Huawei has been excluded from a Czech tender to build a tax portal after the country's cyber watchdog warned of possible security threats posed by the telecoms supplier, documents showed on Wednesday. Huawei faces international scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and allegations that Beijing could use Huawei's technology for spying, which the company denies. The U.S. Justice Department has also charged Huawei with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and with stealing robotic technology from T-Mobile US Inc. The Czech Finance Ministry amended a tender for a new tax portal for filing returns, documentation on online registries showed. The ministry said the tender could "not allow producers that are subject to a current warning by the NUKIB," referring to the Czech cyber security agency. The agency in December warned network operators and other key institutions against using software or hardware made by Huawei or China's ZTE, saying they may pose a security threat. A NUKIB warning does not constitute an outright ban but requires 160 public and private operators of critical infrastructure to conduct an analysis of risks and act accordingly. "A warning from (NUKIB) is by law binding for the Financial Administration and we are obligated to carry it out," a spokesman for the Finance Ministry's General Financial Directorate said. Huawei objected to the decision. "We believe firmly that it is a discriminatory act based on a groundless and misleading warning issued by NUKIB," a spokeswoman for Huawei in the Czech Republic, Magda Teresa Partyka, said in an emailed statement. "We will request the Ministry of Finance to retract this tender and re-issue in accordance with applicable Czech law. If no resolution is found, Huawei will consider all its options." The tender is valued at 500 million crowns ($22 million) according to the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily newspaper which first reported Huawei's exclusion. Huawei had been seen as a favorite in the tax portal tender. Huawei's products have so far not been banned or excluded from planned upgrades of Czech mobile networks to next-generation 5G technology. The company said it had done some 5G tests with Vodafone in the Czech Republic, as well as testing MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) technology with T-Mobile. However, Vodafone said on Friday it was pausing the use of Huawei's equipment in its core networks in Europe until the technology is cleared by authorities. Last November, Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding on testing 5G solutions with investment group PPF. PPF controls Czech and Slovak operator O2 Czech Republic, Czech network provider CETIN and last year bought Telenor's mobile operations in Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro and Serbia. Huawei has been publicly backed by Czech President Milos Zeman, who has long promoted close cooperation with China, while Prime Minister Andrej Babis has called for a debate on cyber security at the European Union level. ($1 = 22.5380 Czech crowns) (Reporting by Jason Hovet and Robert Muller; Editing by Alexander Smith, Jason Neely and Mark Potter)
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he is ready for talks with opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido.

Mr Maduro told the Russian state news agency Ria that he would discuss the crisis gripping the country with the opposition, with the participation of international mediators.

"I am ready to sit at the negotiation table with the opposition for us to talk for the benefit of Venezuela, for the sake of peace and its future," he said.

Whether Mr Guaido is willing to enter talks is another matter.

In an exclusive television interview on Tuesday with Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay he said meetings with Maduro were pointless as they would make no headway.

Mr Maduro's government has been trying to increase the pressure on Mr Guaido with Venezuela's Supreme Court freezing his bank accounts and banning him from leaving the country.

The Maduro regime is under attack both at home and abroad, with protests across the country leaving at least 40 dead and more than 700 detained since 23 January. Meanwhile the US has imposed stiff sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, its main source of income.

The restrictions placed on Mr Guaido by the Supreme Court, regarded as the judicial voice of the Maduro government, lend a thin veneer of respectability to the attempts to undermine him.

High Court president Maikel Moreno said that Mr Guaido "is prohibited from leaving the country until the end of the (preliminary) investigation" without clarifying what is being investigated.

However Mr Guaido faces a much more serious threat than a frozen bank account and a travel ban, as was made clear during his interview with Stuart Ramsay.

The hoops the Sky team had to go through just to meet Mr Guaido, and the extreme nervousness of his security staff made it clear that he believes his life is in danger, something he confirmed during the interview.

"My generation in Venezuela grew up in dictatorship and we've had to deal with losing friends, to protest, see them imprisoned or seeing them being tortured - that's the reality," he said.

Story continues

He also admitted that his stance places others, including his family, in harm's way as well, but said that were part of the reality of opposition politics in Venezuela.

The threat posed by Mr Guaido to the Maduro government is not insignificant, despite it retaining the backing of the military.

As well as the US, Canada, Australia, many European nations and Latin American countries have all thrown their backing behind Mr Guaido.

The Supreme Court restrictions imposed on him might prove a bit of an inconvenience at times, but in a country where torture and detention are commonplace, his supporters inside the country are fearful that at some point his fate will be decided outside the court room.
Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) is preparing to pull the trigger on no-deal Brexit plans to shift assets worth 190bn (166bn) to its Irish division as it "cannot wait any longer" amid continuing political uncertainty, a High Court judgment has revealed.

The plans were drawn up by the bank in case of a no-deal scenario which would see UK financial services firms losing "passporting" rights that allow them to provide services across Europe.

Details of the move were revealed in a judgment by Mr Justice Snowden that largely approved the "huge" transfer, which will apply to thousands of clients of the bank.

It said: "Due to the continuing uncertainty over whether there might be a no-deal Brexit, the Barclays group has determined that it cannot wait any longer to implement the scheme."

The judge added: "On any view, the scale of the transfer of business... is huge.

"The scheme will apply to about 5,000 clients... and on the basis of the accounts for 2017 it is estimated that about 190bn of external assets will be transferred."

The transfer represents a significant portion of Barclays group's total assets of 1.1tn.

The High Court judgment was published on Tuesday, on the same day the prime minister won support from MPs (BSE: MPSLTD.BO - news) to return to Brussels and renegotiate her withdrawal agreement with the EU.

Business groups remain frustrated at the continued uncertainty, with CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn describing renegotiation as a "throw of the dice".

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) added: "Until MPs can agree a solution, the threat of no deal will continue to drain money from the UK."

Financial services companies have been planning for how to cope with losing passporting rights to do business across the remaining 27 EU member states, through alternatives such as recognising "equivalence" between UK and European rules have been mooted.

A number of banks have responded by shifting parts of their businesses to EU countries including Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) and France and in some cases shifting hundreds of staff.

Story continues

Barclays' plan to transfer assets to Ireland is "based upon the assumption that there will be no favourable outcome of the current political negotiations between the UK and the EU as regards passporting or the grant of equivalence status to the UK in respect of financial services".

It covers clients of two companies within Barclays group that are currently based in the UK and provide corporate, investment and private banking services as well as operating branches in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

That is a separate business from Barclays' domestic retail, business, and wealth and investment banking businesses in the UK, which have been "ring-fenced" under regulations introduced following the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The transfer covers clients selected on the basis that, after Brexit, European authorities might take the view that Barclays (Swiss: BARC.SW - news) "no longer had any authorisation to carry out" banking activities on their behalf.

The clients' identities have been stored on a USB memory stick held by Barclays' solicitors Clifford Chance, according to the court judgment.

The judgment revealed that Barclays had been planning to put the scheme into effect in time to transfer its Spanish arm by 1 February though the timetable was described as "unrealistic" by the judge.

Some details of Barclays' contingency plans were first reported last summer but the latest court judgment makes plain that the bank is now taking steps to finalise the move.
Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) is preparing to pull the trigger on no-deal Brexit plans to shift assets worth 166bn (190bn) to its Irish division as it "cannot wait any longer" amid continuing political uncertainty, a High Court judgment has revealed.

The plans were drawn up by the bank in case of a no-deal scenario which would see UK financial services firms losing "passporting" rights that allow them to provide services across Europe.

Details of the move were revealed in a judgment by Mr Justice Snowden that largely approved the "huge" transfer, which will apply to thousands of clients of the bank.

It said: "Due to the continuing uncertainty over whether there might be a no-deal Brexit, the Barclays group has determined that it cannot wait any longer to implement the scheme."

The judge added: "On any view, the scale of the transfer of business... is huge.

"The scheme will apply to about 5,000 clients... and on the basis of the accounts for 2017 it is estimated that about 190bn of external assets will be transferred."

The transfer represents a significant portion of Barclays group's total assets of 1.1tn (1.26tn).

The High Court judgment was published on Tuesday, on the same day the prime minister won support from MPs (BSE: MPSLTD.BO - news) to return to Brussels and renegotiate her withdrawal agreement with the EU.

Business groups remain frustrated at the continued uncertainty, with CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn describing renegotiation as a "throw of the dice".

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) added: "Until MPs can agree a solution, the threat of no deal will continue to drain money from the UK."

Financial services companies have been planning for how to cope with losing passporting rights to do business across the remaining 27 EU member states, through alternatives such as recognising "equivalence" between UK and European rules have been mooted.

A number of banks have responded by shifting parts of their businesses to EU countries including Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) and France and in some cases shifting hundreds of staff.

Story continues

Barclays' plan to transfer assets to Ireland is "based upon the assumption that there will be no favourable outcome of the current political negotiations between the UK and the EU as regards passporting or the grant of equivalence status to the UK in respect of financial services".

It covers clients of two companies within Barclays group that are currently based in the UK and provide corporate, investment and private banking services as well as operating branches in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

That is a separate business from Barclays' domestic retail, business, and wealth and investment banking businesses in the UK, which have been "ring-fenced" under regulations introduced following the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The transfer covers clients selected on the basis that, after Brexit, European authorities might take the view that Barclays (Swiss: BARC.SW - news) "no longer had any authorisation to carry out" banking activities on their behalf.

The clients' identities have been stored on a USB memory stick held by Barclays' solicitors Clifford Chance, according to the court judgment.

The judgment revealed that Barclays had been planning to put the scheme into effect in time to transfer its Spanish arm by 1 February though the timetable was described as "unrealistic" by the judge.

Some details of Barclays' contingency plans were first reported last summer but the latest court judgment makes plain that the bank is now taking steps to finalise the move.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Audi is seen during the first press day of the Paris auto show, in Paris, France, October 2, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Audi workers in Hungary reached a deal on a wage increase on Wednesday, ending a strike that has paralysed the carmaker's plant in Gyor, western Hungary, since last Thursday, the AHFSZ trade union said on its Facebook page.

Audi spokeswoman Judit Mithay-Marko confirmed that a deal had been reached.

The strike of thousands of workers led to a halt in production at the German carmaker's local unit which contributes an estimated 1.4 percent to Hungary's gross domestic product.

The strike in Gyor also led to a shutdown at the home plant of Audi, member of the Volkswagen group, in Ingolstadt, Germany, due to a lack of vital components from Hungary just as engines.

Production will be gradually restored from Wednesday evening, Mithay-Marko told Reuters. She declined to immediately estimate the damage caused by strike to the company.

The deal includes an 18 percent, or minimum 75,000 forint (207 pounds) per month, wage increase in 2019, the union said.

The Hungarian Audi unit's $8.3 billion net revenue in 2017 was about 12 percent of Audi's global intake, company data shows.

(Reporting by Sandor Peto and Marton Dunai; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans)
All Global Voices Symposium events scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 30, and Thursday, Jan. 31, are canceled. The Alumni Chair in the Humanities will try to reschedule the events.

Global Voices features panel discussions and a keynote address intended to promote global consciousness on campus, and to strengthen the Universitys ties with the city and its residents.

"The University of Dayton has emerged as an international university," said Julius Amin, history professor and Alumni Chair in Humanities, who co-sponsors the symposium. "We have programs in virtually every part of the world, so it becomes crucial for us to make the institutional pillars, character and culture reflective of these conversations about global awareness and engagement."

Dayton has become an increasingly global city in recent years. The city's immigrant population has more than doubled since the mid-2000s to more than 7,000 people in 2016, according to U.S. Census data. Dayton is home to immigrants from more than 100 countries, with Russia, India, Turkey, Philippines and Mexico as the top countries of origin, according to the city's Welcome Dayton office.

Representatives from local government, nonprofit organizations and community organizations join University of Dayton alumni, faculty, staff and students as symposium panelists. This years event also was scheduled to have student panelists from Wright State University and Central State University.

"The goal here is to be representative of the different, diverse groups in the Dayton community," Amin said. "Let's see how we all can engage in this conversation, because we hope that this conversation and partnership with UD continues after the symposium is over."

Amin knows firsthand what it's like to be an outsider on a college campus. A native of Cameroon, Africa, he first came to the U.S. as an international student. He joined the University of Dayton faculty in 1989.

University of Dayton and Wright State University students from the U.S. and abroad were scheduled to discuss how their experiences growing up in their native communities and countries compare with those on their college campuses.

"These students will be asked a fundamental question: 'What can be done to make you feel that this is your community, instead of just a place where you get your education and leave?'" Amin said.

Keynote speaker Nwando Achebe was scheduled to address global awareness on college campuses at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30, in the Kennedy Union ballroom.

Achebe is the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on oral history in the study of women, gender and sexuality in Nigeria.

She has written two books, including the award-winning The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of West African History.

Achebes late father, acclaimed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, wrote Things Fall Apart, the most widely read book in modern African literature. Chinua Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007.

All events are free and open to the public.

For more information, including the complete schedule and panelist roster, please visit the symposiums website.
"Trump and his top aides have taken a hard line on Iran, implying that the Islamist-led country still poses a nuclear threat despite its adherence to a 2015 accord that put curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that nuclear deal, and has reimposed sanctions, although other international allies have stayed committed to the pact.

During the hearing, Coats said Iran isn't taking any steps to make a nuclear weapon. We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device," he said.

CIA Director Gina Haspel, who also spoke at the hearing, said Tehran, "at the moment, technically they're in compliance" with the deal.

But Coats also noted that Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of the nuclear deal if it did not see any benefits from it." politico

------------

Well, pilgrims, I have resolutely maintained on SST that Iran has not had a nuclear WEAPONS program since 2003, having cancelled their research program then with the disappearance of the Iraqi threat. The 2007 NIE on Iran stated that explicitly but the Zionist lobby has blocked publication of an unclassified summary of subsequent judgments on this subject. Why? It is Israel's policy that Iran must be prevented from becoming strong enough to become the major hegemonic power in the ME. Trump's ignorance of realities in the region has enabled The Lobby to distort US policy to serve its purposes. To my surprise the IC chiefs had the guts to tell the world what is true about Iran and to point out other areas in which their agencies differ in judgment from the administration, but the Iran judgement is IMO the most important. Neocons like Pompeo, Bolton and E. Abrams do not reason from evidence. They reason from ideology and their shared hostility to anyone who does not bow down to the US. They and The Lobby currently control Trump's foreign policy especially in the ME.

At the same time we must remember that these agencies are "mature bureaucracies." That means they have existed long enough to have become "self licking ice cream cones." These are organizations for which institutional survival and the welfare of the all important leader of each agency are primary interests. You don't think so? Just remember that the grandees at the top of these agencies are totally dependent on their directors for success in the their careers.

That is what makes the performance of Coats and Haspel so impressive. Bravo! pl

See my essay linked below on "Artists and Bureaucrats."

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/dan-coats-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-1133969

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/artists-versus-bureaucrats...-1.pdf
Read whats in the news today, January 30!

Politics

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday held separate meetings with the ambassadors of Chile and Canada in Hanoi to promote trade and investment ties between Vietnam and the two countries.

-- Officials from the Cambodian provinces of Svay Rieng and Pray Veng visited Vietnams Long An Province in the Mekong Delta on Tuesday to extend their Lunar New Year greetings to the administration and people of Long An ahead of the upcoming Tet holiday.

-- Vietnams Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme Prosecutors Office of South Korea on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the prevention and combat of cross-border crimes as Minister To Lam and Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il held talks in Hanoi.

Society

-- Representatives from the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia on Tuesday visited Doan Thi Huong, a suspect in the February 2017 murder of North Korean national Kim Jong-nam who is detained in the state of Selangor  to inform her about the upcoming trial and encourage her to keep hold of her health and stay optimistic.

-- Jail terms of 30-42 months have been sought for two former deputy ministers of Vietnams Ministry of Public Security, Tran Viet Tan and Bui Van Thanh, who are being tried in Hanoi for lack of responsibility in a case of mishandling public land linked to Da Nang business tycoon Phan Van Anh Vu.

Business

-- Hanoi needs to take a different approach in order to attract and effectively use foreign direct investment (FDI), given new opportunities and challenges that are expected to pop up in the next decade, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said at a working session with municipal leaders on Tuesday.

-- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a plan to implement the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which was ratified by the countrys lawmaking National Assembly in November 2018, and required government bodies at all levels to spread information on CPTPP among groups likely to be affected by the deal, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.

-- Foreign direct investment flow to Vietnam witnessed a significant yearly increase of 52 percent to top US$9 billion in the first month of 2018, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, as Japans FDI disbursement also rose 9.3 percent year-on-year to $1.55 billion.

-- Vietnams consumer price index (CPI) in January rose 0.1 percent over the previous month and increased 2.56 percent year on year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO), which noted that the figure is optimistic considering it being the month before the Lunar New Year festival, when consumer prices typically hike in Vietnam.

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Statistics showed that more than 1, 167 arrivals visited to the country by air flights accounting for 77.7 percent, around 24,157 international visitors travelled by sea route while the number of visitors travelled by road reached 310,406 passengers.The highest growth focuses on the number of international tourist from Thailand, Taiwan (China), South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia.This month, the number of domestic tourist reached 6.6 million people with revenue of VND 56,500 billion (US$ 2.4 trillion) increasing by 6.6 percent .This year, Vietnam tourism is expected to receive around 18 million international travelers and serve 85 million domestic tourists with total revenue of more than VND 700,000 billion (US$ 30.1 trillion).

BY MAI AN Translated by Huyen Huong
An animal protection campaign has been launched at a large pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City by WildAid, the African Wildlife Foundation, and Vietnamese non-governmental organization CHANGE to raise awareness of protecting elephants and other animals with ivory.

The Cause no torment, thats salvation campaign kicked off on Monday with the sudden appearance of the realistic statues of the rhino, pangolin and elephant installed in the kneeling position at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in District 3.

The three lifelike statues -- a dehorned rhino, a pangolin stripped of its scales, and an elephant with its tusks cut off, all of which are bleeding -- are used as the main images of the campaign.

Elephants, pangolins and rhinoceros are currently listed as endangered species in Vietnam and are protected by the government through the prohibition of sales of their body parts.

The statues of the three animals, so meticulously made that they look just like real creatures, were placed in front of the giant statue of Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, right in the center of the Vinh Nghiem Pagoda for one day before being moved to Minh Dang Quang Pagoda in District 2.

In a short discussion with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, CHANGE communication manager Nguyen Tran Tung explained why the campaign organizers came up with this idea of placing statues of wild animals in suffering at religious institutions.

We know that some of those who consume elephant tusks, pangolin scales and rhino horns still go to the pagoda, Tung said.

Lifelike statues of a dehorned rhino, a pangolin stripped of its scales, and an elephant with its tusks sawed are seen at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City on January 28, 2019. Photo: CHANGE

The CHANGE media person said that by putting the wild animal statues in the kneeling position in front of the Guanyin statue, the campaign organizers want to convey a message that these poor creatures that are hurt by humans are wishing for protection from the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.

We hope people will think twice before doing anything that harms wildlife, directly or indirectly, Tung elaborated.

After staying at Minh Quang Dang Pagoda from January 30 to February 11, the animal statues will be on display at Khanh An Monastery in District 12 from February 12 to 18, and Tay Thien Pagoda in the northern province of Vinh Phuc between February 22 and 24.

The statues will return to Vinh Nghiem Pagoda on March 4 and stay there until the campaign wraps up on March 10.

We and the abbot of Vinh Nghiem also discussed a plan to have the statues stay permanently at the pagoda, so they can function as decorations while continuing to raise peoples awareness of wildlife protection, Tung said.

Before Cause no torment, thats salvation," WildAid and CHANGE also ran other campaigns to promote wildlife protection, with the participation of several influencers and public figures in Vietnam.

WildAid is a U.S.-headquartered organization that works to reduce the demand for endangered species products, while CHANGE is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to bring about sustainable change to environmental and developmental sectors through creative communication.

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A man in Da Nang loves creating pictures on leaf skeletons and this passion has made him Vietnams trailblazer in this novel art.

Le Nguyen Vy has already earned a name as the countrys first successful man in rock and shell painting  an art he had tried to learn for nearly 20 years.

Vy made over a thousand such paintings, many of which were sold to several other countries.

The art was his chief means of livelihood but a few years ago he encountered a problem in making a living from that.

In 2013 partly pressed by family budget constraints, the now sexagenarian shifted from rock painting to the novel art of leaf skeleton printing.

I pursued rock painting for over a dozen years and I have to acknowledge its disadvantage, he said.

Painted rock is heavy, hobbling transportation and making itself an unfavorable choice as a gift. Thats why it was unpopular. This is one of the reasons for my transition to leaf painting.

Le Nguyen Vy and his wife hold peepal tree leaves. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Le Nguyen Vy shows off one of his leaf artworks. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

He converted much of his home-based workshop originally for rock painting into a space for the new venture.

When deciding to switch to the art, he was also guided by the principle that artworks for livelihoods sake need to incorporate love for arts and creativity.

I aspire to beauty and have never ceased pursuing my passion.

The idea of using dead leaves for printing flashed through his mind when he saw leaves from a Bodhi tree while visiting Da Nangs famous Linh Ung pagoda.

Le Nguyen Vy collects Bodhi leaves. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Le Nguyen Vy collects Bodhi leaves. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Le Nguyen Vy collects Bodhi leaves. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

He at first tried to remove tissues from Bodhi leaves with chemicals so that only the veins remained to make skeletonized leaves, but all attempts ended in failure.

Again a childhood memory came to his rescue.

I sudden recalled leaves lying in the lake of the village where I lived as a child. They had fallen into the lake and decomposed there, he said.

So the solution is simple. Just put leaves in water and wait.

He chooses fresh adult Bodhi leaves, soak them for a month before they are whitened and dried in sunlight.

He spent a great deal of money experimenting with various paints on Bodhi leaf skeletons and even took out a bank loan of over VND10 million (US$430). His wife, Tranh Thi Chanh, said she had no idea her husband had borrowed money to pursue his new venture.

The risk-taking had previously been seen in his rock painting job when he used his house and motorcycle as collateral for bank loans, the 65-year-old wife said.

Le Nguyen Vys Bodhi leaf artworks. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Le Nguyen Vys Bodhi leaf features a Hindu-style temple in south-central Vietnam. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

In 2013, Vy rolled out his first leaf skeleton artwork.

A fallen leaf is considered trash. If some art is done on it, it will become valuable and immortal. A nondescript leaf can find its own value this way, he said.

His artwork with a photo of the family of Ram Nath Kovind  India's current president  was selected as the gift to the foreign state leader during his visit to Vietnam in November 2018.

The work, completed in 24 hours, was a glass-enclosed arrangement of 30 Bodhi leaf skeletons that looked almost transparent.

Indian State President Ram Nath Kovind (fourth left) receives a leaf skeleton artwork made by Le Nguyen Vy during his visit to Vietnam in November 2018. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Indian State President Ram Nath Kovind (middle) receives a leaf skeleton artwork made by Le Nguyen Vy during his visit to Vietnam in November 2018. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

The Bodhi tree, also known as ficus religiosa or sacred fig, is a species of fig native to the Indian subcontinent.

Nguyen Duc Quynh, head of Furama Resort in Da Nang, which offered the present, said he opted for Vys product because it was special and used the leaves of a sacred fig grown in a local pagoda.

In late December last year, Quynh again bought another of Vys skeleton artworks and gave it to King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni.

Another special product made by Vy is a leak skeleton with a picture of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his spouse.

Vy is now trying to add to his art repertoire the ability to make printing on breadfruit, country-almond and maple leaves to tailor his works to religion-specific customers, as Bodhi leaves are preferred by Buddhists.

He said he declined to create a leaf skeleton work using a photo a would-be customer sent him, saying it was ugly.

Le Nguyen Vys Bodhi leaf with a picture of a woman. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

Le Nguyen Vys Bodhi leaf artwork with a picture of the Cambodian king. Photo: Doan Nhan / Tuoi Tre

He believes that people have the best moments when they look happiest, true to their real personality, and he wants to capture their appearance at the time.

His wife said it was hard to live on the income from the leaf printing as the artworks had had few buyers.

The man has not found an able person to whom he can pass down the printing techniques, which are fairly difficult to master.

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With so many local events and festivals to choose from each year, it can be hard to keep track.
Much of the money related to the plan will be used to compensate water users who must relinquish Colorado River supplies.
Time is an issue because Brenda Burman, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, has said if there is no deal by Thursday she will begin the process of coming up with her own plan to divvy up the water. And the belief is that Arizona, which is a junior partner in existing agreements, would lose far more water than the 700,000 acre-feet over the seven-year period proposed in the multi-state drought plan.

One element of the plan provides 595,000 acre-feet of water to Pinal farmers over that same period. An acre-foot is the amount of water used by two typical families over the course of a year.

Bahr complained the plan is just a stopgap measure, dealing with how the state will divide up the available water only through 2026  and doing it by allowing farmers to pump more water out of the ground despite a history of subsidence from prior pumping.

And now the state is going to pay for more of that to happen, she said.

Rep. Rosanna Gabaldon, D-Green Valley, also questioned the issue of how water is being used.

Our water supply is very finite, she said. And Gabaldon said Pinal farmers knew that the amount of water they have been using was not going to be there forever.
During the six-hour surgery, the man was awake for two hours, singing the Vietnamese national anthem and the popular sing-a-long Nhu co bac Ho trogn ngay vui dai thang (As if Uncle Ho were here in the Joyous Day of Great Victory).



According to Associate Professor Dong Van He, deputy director of the Vietnam-Germany Friendship Hospital in Hanoi and head of the hospitals neurosurgery center, the patient is 36-year-old Nguyen Trung K., a businessman in Ha Noi.

Starting at the beginning of last year, K. randomly experienced headaches of mounting frequency and intensity, but he kept working as usual until the pain culminated in epilepsy-like seizures. After the second episode, his family brought him to Vietnam-Germany Hospital where he was diagnosed with glioma, one of the most common forms of brain tumor. Glioma develops in the brain and starts in glial cells that support and protect the nerve cells.

The condition typically causes abnormal pressure inside the skull, resulting in headaches, nausea, blurred vision a reduced sense of smell, unusual hormone levels or even partial paralysis and behavioral disorders.

In April, K. underwent a conventional surgery to have his tumor removed but it proved too large (up to six centimeters in diameter) and located too close to the brains functional areas that govern motor skills and language. The doctors decided they could not risk taking out the entire tumor for fear of rendering the patient mute and paralysed.

Coincidentally, the hospital had already planned to conduct an awake surgery and sent doctors overseas to study the method. In June, the hospital invited two Japanese doctors, surgeon Kotoe Kamata and anesthesiologist Takashi Maruyam, to Vietnam to review whether the hospital was ready to implement the technique.

Aside from proper facilities, medical equipment, skilled doctors and a thorough grasp of the procedure, the patient needs to be able to communicate in English to talk directly with the doctors during the surgery without interpreters.

After half a year of preparation and looking for the right patient, on the morning of January 28, the two Japanese doctors carried out the surgery on K. as a live example for Vietnamese doctors.

The surgery commenced at 10am and lasted for six hours. K. was unconscious under anesthesia for two thirds of the time so the doctors could work on the tumor cells located in non-critical areas.

During the surgery, the patient conversed normally with the doctors, Dr. He told the press during yesterdays briefing. The patient was asked to count from one to 10, answer basic questions about his name, family and work and perform basic movements like lifting his arms and feet. He was also asked to sing a few songs in succession,

The conventional anesthesia method would be quite dangerous in K.s case because the doctors would not be able to gauge whether (or how much) their work was changing the speaking and motor skills of the patient.

With the patient conscious, the doctors could stop and intervene in time if they notice something going awry.

Dr He said this method did not cost more than putting the patient under conventional anesthesia, but it is more difficult because it requires smooth collaboration between the surgeons, the anesthesiologist and the patient. The anesthesiologist must calculate the right dose so the patient would only be unconscious while doctors treat the non-critical areas.

The patient must remain calm during every step, Dr He said. If the conscious patient panicked and struggled and thrashed about, especially when the skull is open and being worked on by the doctors, the brain could be dislocated and the risks are unimaginable.

Dr He added that the patient had watched several videos of similar surgeries done in foreign countries to prepare.

The surgery was a success and K. was alert and in good health afterwards, with no sign of complications.

Awake surgery is no longer a novel concept in countries with developed medicines. For example, Japanese doctors have had 20 years of experience with the procedure, according to Dr He.

The unprecedented case edges Vietnam closer to a higher level of global medical achievements.

In the near future, similar procedures will be implemented more generally and undertaken by Vietnamese surgeons.

Vietnamnews
Starting Saturday, more than 40 custom lanterns will light up Reid Park Zoo as part of the zoos first Asian Lantern Festival in Tucson.

The event is a unique collaboration between the zoo, the University of Arizonas Confucius Institute, Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc. and the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center.

Shaped like animals and other designs to reflect both the tradition of the festival and spirit of the zoo, the lanterns are made of concrete blocks and iron, sculpted with vibrant hand-painted fabric, and lit with LED lights, according to a press release from the zoo.

The Reid Park Zoo had been looking into bringing unique events to the Tucson community, according to Candis Martin, a spokesperson for the zoo. And looking at successful festivals in other states, such as Cleveland Zoos lantern festival, Martin said it would be a great event to try locally.

Admission for adults is $18, and once visitors are inside, they are welcome to roam the zoo, look at the lights and enjoy a variety of free activities, including calligraphy, crafts, games, Henna tattoos, music, dance performances and more. Authentic Asian cuisine will be available for purchase too.
But Jordahl refused to sign the certification that he would not boycott companies that do business in Israel, filing suit instead to void the law.

In a ruling last year, Humetewa said the law interferes with First Amendment rights.

Humetewa rejected arguments by Attorney General Mark Brnovich that lawmakers have a legal, and even moral, right to prevent public dollars from going to individuals and companies who try to pressure the Israeli government through economic means. She said the state cannot use its economic power to deny people their right to speak out and act on their personal beliefs.

Brnovich is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that ruling. The judges have not yet set a date to hear arguments.

What Boyers Senate Bill 1167 would do is make the anti-boycott law applicable only to firms with 10 or more full-time employees and for contracts of $100,000 or more.

Put simply, if the Boyer measure becomes law, the 2016 statute that Humetewa found unconstitutional would no longer exist, leaving nothing for the appellate judges to consider and effectively forcing them to dismiss the case. More to the point, by limiting who is affected, it would exempt Jordahl, meaning he would have no legal right to sue to have the new version overturned.
Q. Why do you think this plan is business as usual?

A. Business as usual, in that were acting as if we really dont have a water issue and were continuing the kind of rapid growth and development and thirsty agriculture that is unsustainable. Every time the governor talks about the need for DCP, he frames it as something needed to ensure we can keep having economic development.

They talk they talk a lot about sustaining agriculture in Pinal County. We know a lot of that land is for development. These lands are being leased from people who are interested in developing them, but they are not worth much unless they have water. Actually, I think this is worse than business as usual. At some point, weve decided that trying to limit groundwater pumping isnt all that important.

Q. Pinal County farmers have known for years they were eventually going to have to give up all their CAP water due to a deal they cut in 2004 as part of an Indian water rights settlements act. But until recently, it was thought they wouldnt have to give it all up until 2030. Now, its looking more like all their CAP could disappear by 2022. Dont they deserve time to transition to other water sources instead of being cut off so abruptly?
Q. But eventually, the farms will stop using the groundwater when development comes in, and the developers will pump the groundwater out. Bahr says this plan benefits developers and land speculators. Is that a concern for your group?

A. Nothing in this legislation changes the Arizona Department of Water Resources standards for how they decide on issuing certificates of assured water supply for new development in Pinal County. Under state law, all new development has to prove it has enough water to last 100 years.

Theres already concerns in some parts of Pinal about the physical availability of groundwater for new development. Im concerned about that. Our coalition is concerned.

Q. Were going to keep growing. How will your group address that?

A. Our coalitions view is that we do need to have an approach that addresses the needs of multiple sectors of the economy. We need to continue to have that mindset, that approach, when we develop water policy.
Its not about the money, Casteix said. She said its about accountability: the ability to demand every document that those who shielded the abuser have, and getting abusers exposed so they cant harm others.

It takes survivors of sexual abuse decades to come forward and talk about what happened to them, Casteix said.

These adults are still in our schools, our churches, our youth-serving organizations and our sport groups right now, she said. More than 90 percent of the child predators out there have never been exposed.

Sen. Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, said the issue is personal for him, too, at least indirectly. I stand here as a proud Catholic, he said, but added that there was a predator at his parish church.

So I know the victims of that time period, he said.  Were tired of the cover-up, were tired of taking the voices of these young individuals. Since that, their life is no longer the same.

Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, the bills prime sponsor, said the two-year limit on sexual abuse claims makes no sense. He pointed out that civil suits over the terms of a written contract can be brought up to six years after.
UA President Robert C. Robbins will be in the audience this weekend for the 46th annual UA Presidents Concert, featuring the Arizona Symphony Orchestra and a handful of standout music students.

He was in the audience last year and its a safe bet had he been hired to the top job at the University of Arizona in January of 2017, not April, he would have been in the audience for that performance, too.

Robbins is a big fan of the arts, so much so that he recently created a vice president for the arts to promote performing and visual arts on campus. So we can only imagine how thrilled he will be to see the talent coming out of the Fred Fox School of Music.

The Presidents Concert gives the public a chance to see and hear from some of the schools brightest stars. The soloists are all winners of the schools annual concerto competition for voice and instruments.

everything you need to know about the Presidents Concert:
Composer Emerson Eads admits he was feeling a tinge of white guilt when he set out to compose a Mass to commemorate the release of four falsely accused Native Alaskans charged when they were teens with killing a white teen.

He grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska and is the same age as the four men whose convictions were vacated in late 2015 after serving more than 17 years in prison.

Foremost on Eadss mind: How do I deal with the fact that if I had been arrested that day, things would have been a lot different, he recalled during a phone call last week from a frigid North Dakota, where he is director of choral activities at Minot State University.

So Eads put pen to paper in late 2015 and composed a Mass for the Oppressed, a 30-minute choral piece that St. Philips in the Hills will perform twice on Sunday, Feb. 3, with a choir of at least 60, a string ensemble, percussionists, a pianist and four soloists. Eads will conduct the performance.

The Mass is quite interesting because it of course has the text of the Latin Mass, but it has other texts built into it, said St. Philips Music Director Justin Appel, who has known Eads since the pair were doctoral students at Notre Dame several years ago. These texts sort of highlight these social justice themes at the same time.
I've never seen anything quite like new film this over my entire 77-year movie-going life. ( TrustMovies saw his first film, or so he was told, before the age of one year; by the time he was 2-1/2, he had run away from home in order to go to the "picture show.") What filmmakerhas accomplished in-- he dedicates his film to his New Zealand grandfather who fought in WWI -- is so truly surprising and unexpected (even if, oddly enough, you have already reads lots about the film itself) that it will leave you amazed and shaken. This is hands down the closest thing to being in war itself that the movie experience has given me.Most filmgoers best know Jackson (shown, left) via hisandtrilogies, though early fans will remember his bizarre and oh-so-tastefuland(my favorite of his -- besides this film -- still remains).Nothing he has done, however, could prepare you for this new documentary, in which archival photos and film shot during "The Great War" have been not simply restored but colorized, wide-screened and given the three-dimension effect, rendering them literally something heretofore unseen.If this sounds like some mere stunt, the effect of actually viewing it on screen proves something else entirely. (We saw it in 3D, but it is also being shown in standard format.) This, combined with the film's narration -- which is nothing more or less than the actual recorded-during-interviews voices of the men who served in the war talking about the experience itself -- join forces to make what we see and hear seem like utter and unalloyed reality.Very wisely and cleverly, Jackson begins with old, black-and-white small-screen footage, which continues for quite some time, as he first shows (and has the soldiers tell) of how the war began for England, along with all the rah-rah recruiting (often of boys as young as fourteen or fifteen), the training of the troops, and then the shipping of them all off to the war itself.When, at last, one of those black-and-white photos suddenly changes to color, the effect is so startling, amazing and memorable that, for me, it outdoes any and every "special effect" I've had to sit through in our dismal array of current superhero schlock. Further, Jackson coordinates the visuals with the soldiers' narration extremely well.Only once during the entire movie did I find the visuals amiss, due mostly to the overly repetitive use of one particular photo, of soldiers supposedly waiting for the battle to begin. Otherwise, the well-chosen combos of visual and narrative keeps us locked in, producing an immediacy that works like a charm. A deadly charm.As amazing as the documentary is,is not an easy watch. In fact, it is often grueling. But what else might we expect from a film that place us so squarely in the middle of wartime? While the overt carnage is less than we often get from our usual slasher movie, the sense of fear, of odd isolation, of impending doom is so strong that (the acute and specific sounds effects are an enormous help here) that I found myself holding my breath and literally jumping slightly in my seat at numerous times throughout.Particularly engulfing and horrendous was the trench warfare (and trench living) to which the soldiers were subjected. Their utter lack of cleanliness -- and their inability to do anything about this -- along with their decaying teeth and non-healing wounds will stagger you. At 99 minutes, the movie does not seem overlong, but by its end, as the war itself ceases, you will be more than ready to cry "enough!"This is a fine and fitting way to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War I. Though the press audience with whom I watched the screening were made up mostly of the elderly or near so, I would hope that a few intrepid young people will take a chance on this one-of-a-kind movie.Though it seems that most of our youthful population can barely understand or be aware of our current and seemingly endless middle eastern war(s), let alone differentiate between our War for Independence, WWI, WWII, or our unnecessary and destructive wars in Korea and Vietnam, one can only hope that some few of these will want to learn something new, while having the kind of movie experience they will not have encountered anywhere else.From, after opening in special screenings last December, will now hit theaters nationwide this Friday, February 1. Clickto find those nearest you.
For example, law enforcement in Louisiana have faced resistance from vigilante protesters in the swamps where the Bayou Bridge Pipeline is nearing completion. Throughout the past several months, protesters have chained themselves to equipment, scaled construction cranes, blocked access roads, fought with police and climbed up in trees directly in the path of construction and refused to come down. Many of these desperate tactics have required first responders to tend to protesters, keeping them away from their other critical responsibilities throughout the community.

In Pennsylvania, a group of protesters has continued to oppose the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project. One elderly woman even went as far as to set fire near construction equipment and spread spoiled food around construction sites to attract wild animals. And in Minnesota, more than 100 people recently blocked streets in a small town to express their opposition to an oil line, as law enforcement spent nearly two and a half hours trying to disperse the crowd.
In November, my husband of 45 years, John Mackinen, died at age 75 in his hometown of Kemmerer. His life of hard work and community service included 23 years with the state highway department and 10 years as a volunteer for the Kemmerer Fire Department. Just after Christmas in 2016, John was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

What happened that led to this tragedy? John had worked in mines, on power lines, in a boiler room and in auto repair shops  all jobs where he may have been exposed to asbestos, which may not trigger symptoms of illness for years or decades after exposure. For me, his children, and his grandchildren, nothing can take away this heartbreaking loss, but we felt a deep need to seek justice and accountability. We learned that the only way to do so is to bring a lawsuit against the corporations that made and used asbestos.

Mountains of evidence have proven that these companies knew for decades that asbestos was hurting people. They knew it long before medical evidence alerted Americans that asbestos exposure is deadly. But they kept their internal studies secret and kept making and selling asbestos.
In 2018, Vietnam exported 6.1 million tons worth US$3.04 billion, up 4 percent in volume and 15.3 percent in value over the previous year.

During the first 11 months of the year, white rice export value made up 50 percent of total export turnover, Jasmine and fragrant varieties 32 percent, sticky rice 12 percent and Japonica and Japanese varieties 5 percent.

Experts said that in 2018 rice export price increased 15-16 percent. Notably, export volume to China much reduced but moved up to other markets such as the Philippines.

In days near Tet holiday, the world export market has been gloomy. Still rice price in the Mekong Delta has been stable compared to many previous years.

Vietnam Food Association reports that traders now pay VND4,600-5,400 a kilogram at rice fields. Dried rice is paid VND4,800-6,400. Of these, long rice price fetches as high as VND6,400 in Kien Giang province, VND300-800 a kilogram higher than the same variety in neighboring provinces.

Early 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced Vietnamese logo rice. At the same time, Phoenix Group from Dubai signed an agreement with Vietnamese Loc Troi group to minimize negative impacts from climate change, diseases and natural disasters to rice production.

According to the agreement, the two sides will implement a project to assist 10,000 Vietnamese households to expand sustainable farming scale over 10,000 hectares. The project is expected to bring lot of opportunities for Vietnamese firms to supply high quality rice with trackable origin and chemical residue reduction and to improve income for farmers.

By Cao Phong  Translated by Hai Anh
EVANSTON  Public comments about proposed rule CKA continued on Tuesday as the Uinta County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees held the second of two public hearings on the rule, which would allow approved district employees to carry concealed firearms on district property. Trustees Russell Cox and Dave Bennett did not attend the hearing.

During the previous hearing, the board heard comments from 15 citizens, with nine of those in favor of the policy and six opposed. At the Jan. 22 hearing, 17 people shared their thoughts, with eight opposing the rule and nine in favor, although four of those who spoke in favor were repeat speakers who had also appeared at the previous meeting. Between the two hearings a total of 28 different individuals spoke and they were evenly divided between those supporting and those opposed to the rule.

The first five speakers at the Jan. 22 hearing said they were opposed to the rule that would allow teachers to be armed.

Tiffany Hope said she has read through all of the documents about the proposed rule. She asked multiple questions of the board based on her reading and said there is a lot of ambiguity.

When talking about guns in schools, ambiguity is something we cant have, she said.
DOUGLAS  Under cover of night, 63-year-old Robert Blaylock snuck onto a Boxelder Road ranch to do some rustling. He had plenty of rope, a flashlight and everything he needed to make a quick buck off a Converse County ranchers hard work.

The flashlight proved to be his undoing.

He dropped his flashlight on the ground where he stole the calf, with his name (Boge) on it, Rick Grant explained.

Blaylock, of Glenrock, will serve 1-4 years for cattle rustling after his sentencing last week. For his offense, which he committed in April of last year, Blaylock faced a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Grant, whose calf was stolen by Blaylock, feels this is an important case.

You dont get too many convictions of cattle rustling anywhere, theyre so hard to catch, Grant said. When you get them caught, you want to make an example of them.

Ranchers feel that rustling is more widespread than people realize. It can be a challenge to catch rustlers, because its difficult for ranchers to know if theyve had an animal stolen, or if the animals gotten stuck in a creek or attacked by a lion or coyote. Even domesticated dogs can take out livestock, especially sheep.
Find out how much restaurant sales have risen recently, plus the number of military firearms that were unaccounted for, and more of this week'
I think its got a rough road to hoe in the Legislature, in that even if 90 percent of the legislators are Republican and they want to say that they give really a lot of credence to individual freedoms, that has to be a specific freedom, its not just all freedoms.

The medical community was less enthusiastic. Kevin Bohnenblust, the executive director of the Wyoming Board of Medicine, said his group didnt have a position yet and hadnt taken one on similar legislation in the 12 years hes been in with the organization. But he said physicians had expressed concern about the lack of evidence-based medicinal uses of marijuana.

Dr. David Wheeler, a Casper neurologist and the vice president of the Wyoming Medical Society, said he personally opposed the bill, as did his organization. He echoed Bohnenblusts concerns about the lack of research into effective uses of marijuana.

From my perspective and from most physicians perspectives, it doesnt make very much sense to ask physicians or to require physicians to play a role in deciding whether or not an individual should use marijuana for whatever purpose they see fit, he said. Marijuana doesnt meet any of the basic criteria for calling it medication. Its not dispensed in a uniform fashion, doses are unknown, side effects unknown.
Most of the approaches are trying to address symptoms of the problem and not the root, he said. The root issue is how producers secure operatorship.

With the current focus on oil and gas in the Legislature, its likely that many of these issues will be taken up during the interim session, a more appropriate venue, Obermueller said.

What we are hoping to do is take a more complete look and try to solve that issue, he said. Industry recognizes that is a serious issue.

***

The permitting battle has been a growing concern for state regulators. Mark Watson, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, has noted that the permitting war is a challenge, overloading the commissions monthly hearings with disputes and flooding the commission with paperwork. Hes instituted a new policy to prioritize only the application for wells that are ready to be drilled.

Watson declined through a spokeswoman to speak to the Star-Tribune until after his planned testimony on the bill before the House minerals committee Wednesday in Cheyenne.
IRS certified volunteers provide free basic income tax return preparation with electronic filing to qualified individuals through April 12 at the United Way offices, 350 Big Horn Road, behind True Companies off Poplar St. Volunteers will be able to help with 2018 tax returns only and do not do tax returns involving partnerships or corporations, self-employed persons, or rental properties.

Hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Natrona County residents will be assisted on a first come first serve basis, no appointments will be scheduled. A full schedule of hours of operation along with a list of necessary paperwork required can be found at www.unitedwaync.com or United Way of Natrona County Facebook page. Questions can be directed to 333.6031.

Carvey: Easel Intro and Demo
The Best Countries For Women

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report released annually reveals the best suitable countries for women to live on par with men.



The report examines the parity between men and women in four diff aspects- Economic participation and opportunity, Educational attainment, health and survival and political survival.



Efforts made by government through its regulations and other non-governmental organizations by increasing awareness have resulted positively, narrowing down the gender gap in various countries, as 86 of 136 countries showed improvements.



1. Nicaragua



The only Latin American nation among top ten in this list, Nicaragua is a country rich in culture and well known for its hospitality .The Nicaraguans love freedom and independence.



It is also the best place for women, they have a joint program named 'From rhetoric to reality' for promoting women's participation. Also, the gender responsive budgeting have integrated the tools and methods to develop gender perspective in the National General Budget.



The country has also formulated policies towards empowerment of women, which were fruitful placing itself in the top ten list of WEF report.



2. Switzerland



A European country, Switzerland spruced up to 9th position in this list and is aiming to reach the first position in the coming years by taking major steps to bring down the gender parity between men and women to zero.



Over the years the gap in education and health in terms of equality has come down on a large scale. Steps are being taken to neutralize economic inequality. Switzerland has had a law which aimed at establishing equality between men and women since 1981.



The Government also established Federal Office for Gender equality in 1988, which eventually banned gender discrimination across the country in 1996. However the country needs to overcome the existing wage inequality.



3. Denmark



This Scandinavian country, Denmark is one of the best place where women enjoys to the fullest. It holds the record of holding majority of girl students in post secondary education with ratio of 1.45 girls for every boy enrolled.



Denmark also adopted an innovative idea to have voluntary gender quotas in political parties since 1970 - setting an ideal model for the world nations. Denmark has the one of the highest female employment rates in Europe leaving a mark in giving equal opportunities to men and women.



A law which was formulated on the lines of EU directives prohibited any kind of gender discrimination at work place, and no differential treatment in promotions and hiring, cordial hiring and working conditions. This economy has made it possible to balance work and family with other innovative ideas.



4. New Zealand



Among the Asia/Pacific zone, the list was topped New Zealand with overall scores of 83.1. In this nation, there has been an increasing recognition for women's empowerment in recent years, indicating enormous strides made by women in society.



New Zealand comes out on the top of the index as the countries which have most equal status for women in their profession, based on the labor-force participation rate, wage gap among other things. Women out perform men in education field.



A strong statutory framework helps women to protect themselves through legal and human rights. Greater accesses to primary health care services are other amenities to women which helped in better standard of life. Being the first country to guarantee right to vote to women is keeping up to its standard.



5. Ireland



Ireland though dropped by one rank in the list still managed to make it in the top ten list. In Ireland the rights to women have improved greatly since it joined the EEC in 1973.



Ireland succeeded the target set by EU to achieve 60 percent of employment in women by 2006. Irish women's hourly incomes have crossed that of men by 2006. Female students outnumber male students in higher education.



6. Philippines



Philippines is the only Asian country that took seat in the list of WEF report. It performed better than U.S. and other developed nations in terms of gender equality.



Philippines tackled the equality issue by empowering women economical and political participation. Women here dominate in civil services and technical services and also four out of 24 senators are women. Last decade has seen an exponential rise in the number of working women. Women now have enhanced access to income and productive resources.



7. Sweden



A nation with its extensive welfare system laid down comfortable balance for citizens in work and family. Sweden didn't just work on equal distribution but also in all domains of society also ensured that knowledge of both men and women towards progress of their economy.



It is also the best place with right to choose for women. Share of professional ranks among women are increasing gradually. In public services 45 percent of seats are filled by women.



Gender mainstreaming is the strategy of Swedish government to finish its tasks within equality policy. In Sweden Minister for Gender equality is ultimately responsible for gender issues. Equality Ombudsmen is another government agency that fights gender discrimination.



8. Norway



Norway ranked 3rd closing at 84 percent of its gender gap in economic participation and opportunity index. A 2008 policy requires all the boards of listed countries to publicly hold 40 percent of each gender.



OECD survey shows that women in Norwegian countries do the least unpaid work- cleaning, cooking etc., at just over 200 minutes a day.



Norway is also rated as the best place to be a mother with lowest risk of maternal mortality with organized skilled help in almost all births -one out of 7,600.



9. Finland



Gender equality has long been the heart of values in Finland. The act on Equality for men and women and Ministry of Social Affairs and Health play key role in reducing gender bias.



Finnish women outnumber men in various government agencies. Special committees in the regional level are established to bring the gender issues to the direct notice of MSAH.



10. Iceland



Iceland meticulously topped the list since past four year making itself the most comfortable place for women in the world. It has the smallest gender gap in the world active participation in politics, employment, education, and health indicators. The country's achievement to top the list holds due respect to its heritage and culture



"Countries will need to start thinking of human capital very differently-including how they integrate women into leadership roles. This shift in mindset and practice is not a goalpost for the future, it is an imperative today," said Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chair.



The report thus suggests that globally policies to improve conditions of women are being constantly formulated by the governments overall. These countries set models to implement in the process of women empowerment.




New Delhi: Kerala is targeting to double the number of foreign tourist arrivals to over 20 lakh by the end of 2020 as it undertakes a number of initiatives to hard sell the state as a preferred tourist destination, a senior government official Tuesday said.



The state is expecting a footfall of over 10 lakh foreign tourists in 2018.

"We are targeting to double the number of foreign travellers to the state to 20 lakh by 2020 end," Kerala Tourism Tourist Information Officer B S Biju said.

To achieve the target, the state is taking a number of initiatives, he added.

"We are doing various campaigns in our core foreign source markets  UK, USA, Germany, France, and Middle East  to attract more visitors," Biju said.

For the promising markets such as Malaysia, China, Japan and Australia, the Kerala Tourism is doing campaigns there, including participating in fairs and organising business meets, he added.

It is a colourful scene, here at the Kerala Tourism stall, FITUR 2019, Madrid. pic.twitter.com/0KXWAEudEx  Kerala Tourism (@KeralaTourism) January 24, 2019

For domestic tourists, "we are taking initiatives such as TV and print campaigns, airport campaigns, partnership meets, participating in trade fairs and road shows," Biju said.

Professionals' Congress steps in to revive tourism in Idukki with slick campaign

The main source states for domestic visitors to Kerala have been Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi, he added.

Kerala Tourism has embarked on an ambitious marketing campaign in 2019 with a series of partnership meets being organised in 10 cities across India, Biju said.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday that 47 rescued migrants aboard the Sea Watch NGO vessel could finally disembark after Luxembourg, Italy and five other countries agreed to take them in.

"Luxembourg has joined the list of friendly countries that responded to our invitation (to take the migrants), now we are seven countries," Conte told journalists. "Disembarking will begin in the coming hours."

The other countries that have agreed to take in the migrants and asylum seekers, who have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel for nearly two weeks, are France, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Romania.

Their fate has been at the centre of a standoff between Italy's far-right anti-migrant Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and the German NGO Sea Watch.

The aid group on Friday filed an urgent case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship to dock.

Sea Watch took the step because of Rome's hardline attitude against the mainly sub-Saharan migrants that its ship pulled out of the Mediterranean on January 19.

Sea Watch 3 is sailing under a Dutch flag and has been sheltering from bad weather off Sicily.

It picked up the migrants and asylum-seekers -- including eight minors -- off the coast of Libya as they made the treacherous crossing.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday urged the Italian government to "take all necessary measures, as quickly as possible", to provide migrants on board the Sea Watch 3 with medical care, water and food.

Migrants rescued at sea have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer.

Sea Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told AFP, "We are happy that this European hostage-taking is ending.

"At the same time, it's a bad day for Europe because human rights have once more been made secondary to negotiations within the EU... Another bitter day," he said.

Europe has been wrestling with divisions over how to handle the problem since the migration crisis of 2015 when more than one million people arrived on its shores, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East.

Salvini, who has warned that he was considering legal action against Sea Watch crew, said Tuesday that the 47 migrants can disembark if they agree to leave for Germany or the Netherlands.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for the need for "humane solutions" for migrant rescue operations and urged that migrants be allowed to disembark at the nearest port, in this case "in Italy".

He said sharing of the care of migrants came after, and that France was committed to that principal.

In a similar case earlier this month, the EU struck a deal to share out between eight European countries nearly 50 migrants stranded aboard two ships, one of which was Sea Watch 3.

The Netherlands on Monday rebuffed Italy's call to take in the 47 migrants, arguing that Dutch-flagged ship had acted "on its own initiative".

Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year, according to the UN refugee agency, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey.
Iran has "no intention of increasing the range" of its missiles, a senior defence official said Tuesday, amid threats of European as well as US sanctions over its ballistic programme.

Iran has voluntarily limited the range of its missiles to 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles), sufficient to reach Israel and Western bases in the Middle East.

But Washington and its allies have accused Tehran of pursuing enhanced missile capabilities that also threaten Europe.

"Iran has no technological or operational constraints to increasing the range of its military missiles," the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, said.

"But while constantly striving to improve accuracy, solely based on its defence doctrine, (it) has no intention of increasing the range of (its) missiles," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

US President Donald Trump cited Iran's missile programme as one of the reasons why he pulled Washington out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers last year.

European governments have stuck by the nuclear deal but some have demanded a supplementary agreement to tackle Iran's ballistic missile programme and its interventions in regional conflicts.

Shamkhani's comments come after France warned on Friday that it was ready to impose new sanctions if talks on a supplementary deal fail to make progress.

"We have begun a difficult dialogue with Iran... and, unless progress is made, we are ready to apply sanctions, firmly, and they know it," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

Iran retorted that French arms sales in the Middle East were one of the real sources of instability in the region.

- Space programme to continue -

Iran's space programme has also come under Western criticism, with Washington charging that an abortive satellite launch earlier this month was cover for a bid for an intercontinental ballistic missile capability.

But Shamkhani, who was addressing the national conference on space technology in Tehran, said Iran could accept no limitations on its satellite launches.

"We will vigorously carry on with the development of our space programme," IRNA quoted him as saying.

Iran tried unsuccessfully to put a satellite into orbit on January 15, and plans to make a second attempt soon.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of violating UN Security Resolution 2231 of 2015.

It calls on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons".

Iran has always denied seeking any nuclear weapons capability but has said repeatedly that it needs its missile programme as a matter of national security.

In the 1980-1988 war launched by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iranian cities were devastated by Iraqi missiles in a bombing campaign dubbed the "war of the cities".

Iranian officials say that Western sanctions have starved its air force of spare parts and replacement aircraft, severely limiting its operational capacity and forcing Iran to rely on its missile programme.

The council run by Shamkhani is in charge of drawing up Iranian military and security policy.

A former defence minister and adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he was appointed as its secretary by President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.
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The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report is the world's foremost study on entrepreneurship. The most recent report has praised Luxembourgish initiatives fostering entrepreneurship, but highlighted the lack of qualified human resources as an area for improvement.

In regards to Luxembourg, the GEM examined the impact of government initiatives such as Nyuko, Fit4Entrepreneurship, Fit4Start, all of which promote the spirit of business, entrepreneurial careers, and offer training and funding.

Such initiatives have certainly born fruit, as the latest GEM report shows that Luxembourg's total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA - proportion of entrepreneurs compared to the total population) is at 9.3% and surpasses the European average of 8.3%.

However, Luxembourg does fall behind other countries like Estonia (19.4%) and Canada (18.8%), which are at the top of the ranking for TEA. Italy (4.3%) and France (3.9%), in comparison, remain at the bottom.

The GEM also examines entrepreneurs by gender, as male entrepreneurs predominantly focused on changing industries and services, whereas female entrepreneurs focused on educational services, health, and more.

The majority of new businesses are smaller in size, with five employees or fewer. The report did highlight a gender disparity in Luxembourg as the share of early-stage entrepreneurs among men (12.5%) was higher than the share of new entrepreneurs among women (5.9%).

Innovative and young entrepreneurs

The report details that Luxembourgish entrepreneurs are more motivated by the wish to be independent rather than necessity. 41% of the total population estimates that they have the necessary skillset to build a company compared to 43% in Europe.

This proportion is higher amongst men (50%) and educated people (50%) than amongst women (30%) and less-qualified individuals (33%).

The GEM's statistics show that 50% of start-ups are innovative compared to 25% of established businesses. The proportion entrepreneurial youths focusing on innovation is the highest in all of Europe, with an average of 28.7%.

Funding

A significantly large majority of entrepreneurs require external funding. Over two thirds of respondents declared the amount they personally contributed: amongst those, 50% contributed less than 10,000, 26% put in between 10,000 and 50,000 and 24% above 50,000. The statistics revealed that family members and friends are a primary source of funding for starting businesses.

As in other EU countries, the main causes of bankruptcy are a lack of profitability, person reasons, and issues linked to finding sufficient founding. A number of entrepreneurs abandoned their companies for another job.

As a result, the proportion of entrepreneurs stopping their business due to the opportunity of selling their business is considerably higher than in Europe (2%) at 11%.
The legalisation of cannabis is currently a big topic in political spheres.

Medicinal cannabis is already legal in the Grand Duchy, now recreational cannabis is on track to become legal as well.

These legalisations bring some logistical challenges with them: Where will Luxembourg get its supply from and where will the plants be cultivated?

Diana Calvario of the newly founded "Hanf asbl" would like to see Luxembourg's cannabis produced locally. While Luxembourg may not have the know-how yet, that would be something worth investing in Calvario believes.

A hemp farmer from northern Luxembourg welcomes the decision to make medical marijuana legal in Luxembourg, but is not so sure about the merits of legalising recreational cannabis as well. The believes this will have to be rigorously regularised.

The cultivation of cannabis as industrial hemp has been legal in Luxembourg for almost 25 years now, as it is classed as an arable crop.
Roland Bastian, the administrator of ArcelorMittal Luxembourg, confirmed that the Rodange site would produce tram tracks at the New Year's reception for the press.

Initially, British Steel was meant to produce the tram tracks, according to Luxtram. However, now the tram tracks that will be set down between the Place de l'Etoile and the station will originate from the ArcelorMittal Rodange site.

Michel Wurth, the president of ArcelorMittal Luxembourg, believes the steel sector has a significant future, including in Luxembourg. He explained that steel production is consistently at a high level on a global scale and construction and the automobile industry are both two of the most important industries to exist.

He did highlight one difficult that the industry is having, particularly in Luxembourg, which is that it has used all its CO2 certificates and would need to purchase more on the European market.

Dudelange and Bissen sites

Referring to the sale of the Dudelange site, Roland Bastian affirmed that this had not been a decision made by ArcelorMittal but had been a requirement set out by the European Commission. The sale should be completed in the first trimester of 2019.

In Bissen, ArcelorMittal will collaborate with Wire Solutions, a company already belonging to the group. There, ArcelorMittal will produce steel products for over 1,000 clients. The manager of the factory in Bissen is confident that a closer collaboration will increase productivity.

ArcelorMittal remains one of the biggest companies in Luxembourg with over 4,000 employees.
Fort Payne, AL (35967)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 86F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.
Zach Ienatsch is a staff writer for the Seguin Gazette. He can be contacted by e-mail at zach.ienatsch@seguingazette.com.
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How can all this be, you might ask? Allow me to answer a question with a question: Who passes these laws? Who has the power to exempt themselves from OSHA to provisions of insider trading? Congress, of course.

As members of the Democrat-controlled House grouse about White House security clearances, mark this too: No member of Congress is required to go through a full-field security check or to pass even a SECRET security clearance, before they can demand and see anything.

Nor are they required to conform to traditional requirements issuing subpoenas. Rather than bound by standard federal practices, congressional processes are insular and self-set. Thus, Democratic counsel has been known to call Republican deposition witnesses and tell them not to comply with majority subpoenas. One would think Canons of Ethics, but not here.

So, as the nation waits for the State of the Union speech that will not occur  since an untethered, unbridled House speaker has canceled it, we might be inclined to ask: Where is the check on Congress, which seems not only against fences, but increasingly unfenced? When will rationality and accountability return? When will Washington grow up?

Robert B. Charles was an assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell, former U.S. Court of Appeals clerk for Judge Robert Beezer, taught at the Harvard University Extension School, and currently leads a consulting group in Washington. He is a contributor for the Association of Mature American Citizens, a conservative senior advocacy organization with more than 1.5 million members.

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Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a series of free family movie nights featuring films that were released in or are about 1968, the year OCtech opened its doors to students.

The series continues Thursday, Jan. 31 with Parts III and IV of CNNs 1968: The Year That Changed America, which looks back at a year marked by seismic shifts in American politics, social movements and global relations, including cultural icons who forever changed the landscape.

The final movie in the series  Disneys The Love Bug about a race car driver who becomes a champion with a Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own  is set for Thursday, Feb. 14.

Movies begin at 6:30 p.m. on campus in Roquemore Auditorium. Free popcorn and bottled water will be served.

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To the extent that newly elected presidents tend to represent the antithesis of the incumbent, the younger Bush was plainly Clinton's opposite. And, needless to say, Obama was Bush's. Then came Donald Trump, who emerged from central casting as the opposite not only of Obama but of all things decent, fair and true.

Who, pray, will be the non-Trump?

By all rights, it should be a woman of color to counter Trump's grab-'em-by-the-[whatever] misogyny and his dog-whistling to Jim Crow. California Sen. Kamala Harris would be the obvious choice given those criteria. But as telegenic, experienced and charismatic as she is, Harris' pro-debt-free-college and Medicare-for-all positions would be hard sells in a general election.

Enter Schultz. He's richer than Trump; as white as Trump; a man. You see the problem. But he does have antidotal qualities. He's polite, smart, self-made, articulate, calm, rational  and a centrist like millions of voters. Given that the two major political parties have been rendered ridiculous by their bases  and 56 percent of Americans say they wouldn't consider voting for Trump, according to a Washington Post poll released Tuesday  why not a third way? Besides, there's no guarantee he'd attract only Democratic votes.
The 101st Illinois General Assembly was sworn in this month with much celebration, hoopla and optimism that the nightmare of the last four years in Springfield may be receding. But who will be representing us in Springfield for the next two years? Here are three lessons that the new legislature teaches us about Illinois politics.

First, turnover happens. More than 30 percent of the new General Assembly members were not there when the previous legislature was sworn in in 2017. This is a tremendous level of turnover, more typical of amateur state legislatures in lightly populated states. Large states, like Illinois, typically see much less turnover because members think of themselves as professionals with a longer term view of policy and the state.

This mass exodus from Springfield was undoubtedly exacerbated by both the extreme political crises of the Rauner years and the Democratic wave that swept many suburban lawmakers from office in November. Some might argue that this level of turnover precludes the need for state legislative term limits, the former governors fondest wish for the state. But while this natural turnover is largely self-selected, term limits cuts down all the old timber. Think Madigan.
Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, the Rules Committee chairman and assistant House majority Leader, said the Rules Committee is necessary to sort and assign the 6,000-plus bills that originate in the Legislature each year.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of bills are referred out to other committees, Harris said. I think its sort of a solution in search of a problem to find, out of 6,000 bills, the two or three that do not advance and say Aha! Something is going on.

He also noted that the current process has been in use for several years, including by Republican leadership in the 1990s, and called the process thorough, rigorous and inclusive of both sides.

This process is old and it has worked well for decades, Harris said. Its old and we know it works and we know its worth keeping.

House Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin said he voted for the rules in 1995, but times have changed.

Twentieth century Republicans are providing the foundation for 21st century Democrats in todays debate, he said. Things have changed a lot in this state and in this country since then. But to use that as a foundation for todays rules is mindboggling, and even worse its breathtaking.
Diana Brawley Sussman, director of the Carbondale Public Library and one of the organizers of the warming center, asked that those in need go to the local homeless shelter first.

"If people can stay at Good Samaritan House, then they should go there first so that both shelter spaces can hopefully house everyone in need," she said in an email Tuesday.

The cities of Herrin, Creal Springs, Pittsburg and Cambria will also be opening their city halls as warming centers during business hours Wednesday, and in Marion, the Illinois Department of Human Services will also be open between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Herrin City Hall will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday.

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Ana DeUnamuno, public relations coordinator for Rides Mass Transit, said Tuesday that any customer along routes in Carbondale and Marion are welcome to call 1-844-220-1243 to ask for a free ride to one of either citys warming centers.

The Illinois Secretary of State Office announced Tuesday that all of its driver services offices in the state would be closed. Online services will still be available, according to a news release from the office.
Power outages were reported in Carterville, Cambria, Hurst and Bush Wednesday morning as bitter cold settled over Southern Illinois and the Midwest.

The National Weather Service in Paducah recorded the region's coldest wind chill at 14 degrees below zero in Cambria at 6 a.m. Wednesday. Wind chill at the Southern Illinois Airport was negative 12 degrees at the same time, while in Marion it felt like 7 below and in Harrisburg like 11 below. Cairo, Illinois' southernmost city, had a 6 a.m. wind chill of 1 below.

According to a post on the City of Carterville Facebook page, the Carterville Fire Department had auxiliary power and was acting as a designated warming center. Just after 8 a.m., power had been restored to Cambria, Hurst and Bush. At 2 p.m., an Ameren outage map indicated about 15 customers were still without power in the Carterville area.

Water was also impacted in Carterville on Wednesday when the system went down because of a frozen valve and gauge at the water tower. By 11:30 a.m., water service was restored, but according to the city's Facebook page, customers were under a boil order.
"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist.

Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.
The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, AppliChem Inc., Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument, Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Cetram Pty Limited, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Densit Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Airport Ground Equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components LLC, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments LLC, ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings LP, ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW International Intellectual Property LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Marking & Coding (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Medical Group de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., ITW haubold Paslode GmbH, Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft Argentina S.A., Krafft S.L., Lock Inspection Systemes France Sarl, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Luvex - Industria De Equipamentos De Protecao Ltda., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, Magna Industrial Co. Limited, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Odesign Inc., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Salter India Limited, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques  SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tape Group B.V., Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Tarutin Kester Co. Ltd., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode (Qingdao) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tregaskiss Welding Products, US Finance Gamma LLC, Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., W Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wujiang Advanced Cleaning Co. Ltd., Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V..
Wall Street analysts have given iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Spain ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Spain ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
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I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks.

Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A. provides various banking products and services to individuals, small and medium enterprises, and corporate customers in Brazil and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Commercial Banking and Global Wholesale Banking. It offers deposits and other bank funding instruments; debit and credit cards; digital pre-paid solutions; payment platform; loyalty programs; employee benefit vouchers; payroll loans; digital lending and online debt renegotiation services; mortgages; home equity financing products; consumer credit; and local loans, commercial and trade finance, guarantees, structured loans, and cash management and funding solutions, as well as on-lending transfer services. It also provides funding and financial advisory services related to projects, origination and distribution of fixed-income securities in the debt capital markets, financing of acquisitions and syndicated loans, other structured financing arrangements, and subordinated debt and energy efficiency transactions; advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital markets transactions; and stock brokerage and advisory, equity, and equity research services. In addition, the company structures and offers foreign exchange, derivative, and investment products for institutional investors, and corporate and retail customers; and provides market making services. Further, it offers instant payment services; range of products and services focused on the agribusiness sector; microfinance services; and online automotive listing and digital car insurance solutions, as well as digital trading platform. The company provides its financial services and products to its customers through multichannel distribution network comprising branches, mini-branches, ATMs, call centers, Internet banking, and mobile banking. Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A. was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in SAo Paulo, Brazil.

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The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
Russian MPs propose to authorize police to down drone aircrafts in certain cases

 flickr.com/ David Rodriguez Martin

15:51 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  State Duma lawmakers have drafted a bill authorizing law enforcement bodies to down drones or reject their joystick signals in cases of their illegal location in air area.

In particular, police would be entitled to down unmanned aerial vehicles if they are flying in air area near public events venues and their border territories, the bill reads.

Police would be obliged to report these measures to the National Guard and events organizers.

Russias National Guard, Federal Guard Service and Federal Security Service would be authorized to regulate the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to protect citizens.

The bill will be submitted to the lower house of parliament soon, according to the State Duma committee on security and combating corruption.




Gary Scheuran and his wife saw what looked like a small plane with problems as they prepared to board the ferry to Cumberland Island National Seashore on Friday morning.
Weve seen this hollowing out of the middle- and lower-middle income kids, who arent interesting to anybody anymore, Hoxby said.

Popular economic opportunity measures can cause other distortions, too  especially if tied to public funding.

For instance, public flagships in states whose populations are relatively low-income would be rewarded for enrolling large numbers of poor kids, even though poor, academically qualified kids are still underrepresented on their campuses. The reverse is true for schools in states that are relatively affluent yet still manage to enroll a disproportionately high share of poor students.

Intergenerational mobility rankings can also penalize schools in states where theres a lot of income equality.

By national standards, for instance, Wisconsin has few people who are either very poor or very rich. As a result, the University of Wisconsin looks bad on national income mobility rankings, even though it enrolls a lot of students from the lower end of the states own income distribution.

Its easy to nitpick other peoples metrics, of course. Coming up with a better alternative is harder.
Theres no doubt about it that it will improve efficiency ... (and) safety, he said.

For now, Longview postal patrons apparently are the only residents in the county that the USPS is approaching about the idea, but this could not be confirmed.

Janice Heckethorne, who lives in the Old West Side, said most of the people living on her block are either not returning the letters or sending them back marked no thank you.

We didnt have any kind of public forum, notification, heads up, Heckethorne said. I thought, is this some kind of weird scam? It didnt look like an official post office envelope.

The cluster box would include lockers for larger packages and a secure place for outgoing mail, according to the USPS letter. Adopting the community box system would require everyones concurrence among the recipients neighbors, but the letter does not specify where the boxes would be placed or how many would be installed per neighborhood.

Rupert said he couldnt give specifics on how many cluster boxes could be installed, or where they would go.
Douglas said removing the option to contract independent hairdressers would only benefit salon owners. Stylists income would be 40 percent of what it is now, because the owner would take the remaining 60 percent.

Douglas said the average haircut in the Longview area is $25, which would have to increase along with prices of other services to make up for the costs of streamlining business at Marilyns, including hiring an accountant to put employees on payroll and getting everyone new business cards.

I gave up a lot to pursue my own business and do what I want to do, Luff said. Now that (might be) taken away? ... I put up a lot of work, my name is on a lot of clients.

State Sen. John Braun, a Centralia Republican who represents eastern Cowlitz County, spoke out against the bill at a hearing Tuesday.

My concerns about the bill include how it inexplicably singles out one sector of our economy which seems to offer good opportunities for many people  primarily women, and single moms in particular  to make a living and provide for their families. ... Todays hearing reminded me of the old line about the person from the government who is here to help you. It was apparent that booth renters across our state dont want this kind of help. They arent buying what this legislation is trying to sell.

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The commissioners resolution states that I-1639 and similar bills restrict the rights of citizens as protected by the U.S. and Washington state constitutions. It says the initiative will cause economic hardship for small firearms dealerships, burdens and price increases on those lawfully buying guns and have a direct negative effect on local economies. (The resolution is attached to this story online.)

Scott Hooper, owner of On Target Outdoors in Castle Rock, told the commissioners Tuesday the initiatives new background check requirements will put more burdens on local law enforcement by requiring them to review gun purchase applications in addition to federal system checks.

Kalama resident Ron Madderra echoed concerns of others who said that the initiative punishes law-abiding citizens, rather than deterring criminals.

Do we want people in our country to be monitored that closely for buying a legal firearm? Madderra said.

The commissioners resolution states it considers I-1639 or any similar legislation to be unconstitutional and beyond lawful application.

With this resolution, we appreciate that the public is understanding how much government has usurped the rights of the people, Mortensen said Tuesday.
Allison Coordes of Kelso has been named to the deans list at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Texas.

To be named to the list, undergraduates must receive a 3.5 or higher semester grade-point average. In addition, traditional undergraduates must be enrolled full time while non-traditional undergraduates must have completed 12 or more hours between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2018.

Four named to presidents list

Robert Bartlett, Shelby Dollemore, Alyssa Durst and Jennifer Duschik have been named to the fall 2018 semester presidents list at Gonzaga University in Spokane.

To be named to the list, students must earn between a 3.85 and 4.0 grade-point average.

Two named to MSU honor roll

Andrew Hanson of Woodland was named to the fall 2018 semester presidents honor roll at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont., and Kelso resident Haylee Hooper was named to the deans honor roll.
Father of arrested senator suspected of $455 mln gas embezzlement

 RIA Novosti, Ilya Pitalev

14:59 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  Raul Arashukov, the father of Russian senator representing Karachay-Cherkess Republic Rauf Arashukov allegedly involved in several murders, is suspected of embezzling natural gas worth over 30 billion rubles ($455 million) from Gazprom company, the Investigative Committees press service reports.

The man was arrested on Wednesday after his son, the statement reads. According to investigators, Raul Arashukov was committing the crimes over several years.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian senator representing Karachay-Cherkess Republic Rauf Arashukov was arrested in the Federation Council on suspicion of implication in several murders. Investigators believe that the member of parliaments upper house was involved in the murder of a Karachay-Cherkessia public youth movements deputy chairman Aslan Zhukov and the republican presidents advisor Fral Shebzukhov in 2010.

Moreover, according to investigators, the senator is suspected of creating and participation in a criminal organization, gas embezzlement from Gazprom.

On January 30, the upper house of Russian parliament considered an application by the Prosecutor General, stripped Arashukov of his immunity and gave consent to his prosecution.




The Islamic State is being bombarded from the air, as the Syrian Democratic Forces move in to secure the final towns and villages still under the group's control reports Al-Modon.

The ongoing fighting between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State (ISIS) is continuing in the groups final pocket in Deir ez-Zor, according Al-Modons correspondent, Omar Abu Layla.

Over the last few hours, the SDF has been able to take control of large sections of the village of al-Marashidah on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River, representing a strategic turning point in the battle against ISIS.

The groups last pocket has been subjected to continuous bombardment by International Coalition aircraft, which are supporting the SDF, and which have focused on the villages of Basatin al-Araqoub and al-Safafneh and the village of al-Sheikh Hamid in al-Baghuz, which are still under the groups control. The bombardment has killed many civilians.

The largest portion of remaining ISIS members who have refused to surrender themselves are Syrians. Fifty ISIS members surrendered themselves to the SDF near the Khalid bin al-Walid mosque in the al-Marashidah village, a number of them originated from various Arab countries.

Fewer than 300 ISIS fighters remain in the area, controlling portions of the town of al-Baghuz Fawqani, and at times up to the automatic divider point, and over the village of al-Sheikh Hamid and the al-Safafna area, which is part of al-Baghuz. The group also controls parts of the village of al-Marashidah and Basatin al-Marashidah and al-Arqoub which are part of the town of al-Sousa east of the Euphrates.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The women is believed to have been a member of the Islamic State, who have previously clashed with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham reports Alsouria Net.

On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activists said that a woman blew herself up inside the headquarters of the National Salvation Government of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the city of Idleb, killing a number of people.

Rami Abdulrahman, Director of the Observatory, told Reuters that the explosion caused deaths but did not say how many.

Hayat Tahrir al-Shams Abaa agency said that the suicide bomber, thought to be from the Islamic State, clashed with the building guards for a couple minutes and then blew herself up, killing and wounding a number of people.

Activists said that the woman was wearing an explosive belt and that she clashed with the building guards before she blew herself up.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The Syrian regime is pushing to conscript as many Syrians as it can into the ranks of its army, which has lead to summons being erroneously sent to those already serving and those killed in action reports Alsouria Net.

Bashar al-Assads conscription directorate has issued a huge number of conscription notices, while Syrians have been arbitrarily pushed into the army, all of which has raised questions about how the Defence Ministry is constructing its lists of those wanted for reserve service. It has become so bad, that even the dead are starting to be affected.

About a week ago, the Assad regime intensified its efforts to pull Syrians into reserve service in the areas under its control, in addition to increasing the number of notifications that are sent to Syrians homes informing them of the need to join Assads army.

Pro-regime social media pages have recorded strange cases of Syrians being notified of the need to sign up for reserve service, with these pages describing the actions of the conscription directorate as insanity. This has stirred anger directed against the regime in the areas under its control because of the lack of basic living essentials such as gas, fuel, water and electricity.

The strange notification cases included a man in al-Qardaha, who was called up for reserve service, despite being 52 years old. The pro-regime Syria Moment by Moment News Network said that a call for reserve service was also received by a 50-year-old financial manager.

Even the dead have not been spared from the reserve lists issued by the conscription directorate, according to Tartous Direct, a pro-Assad page, a first lieutenant who was serving at the Kuweires airbase received a notice despite having been killed five years ago.

In November, someone posted on Facebook an image of a reserve notification for his brother who has been dead for three years. The man, named Mohamed Abou al-Nassr Jumaa, said, Wheres the wisdom of sending reserve calls to martyrs? Is our state so secure that it believes martyrs are alive and need to sacrifice themselves again?

Other stories of the insanity include regime loyalist Facebook pages discussing a fighter in the regime army who was wounded in Deir ez-Zor and then transferred to a hospital in Damascus. A section of his intestines was removed and his stomach was wounded by shrapnel. His intestines were placed in a plastic bag outside his body for six months.

After the soldier appealed to the medical council, it decided to demobilize him because he was more than 80 percent disabled. However after he completed the procedures, he was called for reserve service, and then sent to Deir ez-Zor, according to the same sources. The soldier is still there while he waits for permission from the medical council to review the issue of his military service.

The Reserve Calls and Demobilization from the Conscription Directorate News social media page has discussed a state of arbitrary calls for military service, with the page saying that, A large number of soldiers who have been performing reserve service for over a year were surprised when they were notified that they needed to sign up for the service, despite them currently being enrolled.

The page, which publishes accurate information about the reserve lists issued by the conscription directorate, explained the errors by saying, The crux of the problem is that all the names in previous calls were re-requested from the records directorate without any correction, which is also why people who have been martyred have been requested to serve.

Preparation for a Major Battle

The huge reserve calls issued by the regime conscription directorate has reached the attention of international newspapers. For example, on Tuesday, the British paper, The Times, said that hundreds of Syrians have been forced by the regime to join the ranks of its forces in preparation for another attack on Idleb, the last opposition stronghold in northern Syria.

The paper said in its report that hundreds of Syrian men have been gathered together and forced to join the armys ranks. This measure also comes after a broad campaign against those who have fled military service.

Residents of Damascus and Aleppo and north of Deir ez-Zor said that regime forces are inspecting the ID papers of individuals at checkpoints against a list of names of those wanted as reservists and for military service.

The paper said that eastern Ghouta is one of the main areas to have seen a major wave of arrests recently, despite pro-Assad journalists denying that regime forces have raided homes searching for those who have fled compulsory or reserve service.

The newspaper closed its report saying, that according to the deal reached in September, Russia and the regime promised not to carry out any assault on Idleb, although the Russian Foreign Minister yesterday described Idelb as, still being a stronghold for terrorists and a legitimate target of the Syrian regime.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
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Officials with Post Time with Mike and Mike have released a preview of the upcoming episode of the show.

The next episode of the show will take place on Thursday (Jan. 31) at 10:30 a.m.

The duo will be joined by Wally Hennessey, Brady Galliers and Dave Brower.

Hennessey, who recently recorded his 10,000th win, will join the show to discuss his illustrious career. Hennessey, who drives at Pompano during the winter and Saratoga during the summer, has steered some of harness racings biggest names and superstars. He will discuss what it meant to finally score that illustrious 10,000th win and where he may go from here.

Galliers, a young up and coming trainer in Ohio, will join the show to discuss his career and how he got his start in the business. Galliers, who began training in 2013, has done some big things throughout his short career and has conditioned stock to over $1 million in purse earnings. He will also discuss the newly formed social media platforms that his team has created to help promote his brand.

Brower, the TV host at the Meadowlands Racetrack, will help the pair with their handicapping skills as they go through the differences between handicapping the winter versus the summer meetings in New Jersey. The pair will find out from Brower what the keys for success are for scoring at the big track.

Post Time with Mike and Mike can be heard live every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. via posttimewithmikeandmike.com or on the archive at betamerica.com/BARN.

(With files from Post Time)
Call it a boutique nursery, call it a small breeding operation. No matter the terms used to describe Warrawee Farm, one of the finalists for the Armstrong Breeder of the Year at the 2018 O'Brien Awards, one word can certainly summarize their work: successful.

Owned and operated by Dr. Michael Wilson & Dr. Julie Yager, Warrawee Farm bred horses that earned more than $1.3 million in 2018 -- an impressive number given the farm doesn't own a large number of broodmares.

"We are a small farm of 16 mares," noted Dr. Wilson. "We have had the good fortune and luck to have some Ontario-bred mares that have produced racehorses that have been able to compete anywhere, including three world champions. They, together with high class helpers, are the basis for any success that Warrawee has had."

One of those three world champions is 2018 Dan Patch Award winner Warrawee Ubeaut, who became the fastest freshman pacer in the history of the sport with a sizzling 1:48.3 victory in the International Stallion Stakes at the Red Mile. A daughter of Sweet Lou - Great Memories, Warrawee Ubeaut is the first filly to be the fastest two-year-old pacer regardless of gender since Hall of Famer Miss Easy boasted that feat in 1990.

Wilson pointed to the exploits of Warrawee Ubeaut and older trotter Warrawee Roo as key factors for his farm's award-nominated season.

"Two horses have, Im sure, led to this nomination. Warrawee Ubeaut and Warrawee Roo. 'Ubeaut', I am told, is the only filly in harness racing's 25 fastest two-year-olds, and she is the fastest. 'Roo', despite poor posts and bad luck, has performed really well at the highest level of aged trotters.

"'Ubeaut' won the Breeders crown for two-year-old filly pacers and 'Roo' came a fast-closing third in his aged trotter division. As a small breeder we couldnt possibly expect more."

Ever the humble gentleman, Wilson's expectations don't necessary correlate to his breeding farm's record of success. Warrawee Farm was named Canada's Breeder of the Year in 2011 over Seelster Farms. Seven years later, those two operations return in pursuit of another Armstrong Breeder of the Year trophy. Wilson stated that he was "surprised and flattered" to be named a O'Brien Award finalist, "considering the competition." Competition that boasts two 2018 O'Brien Award finalists in rookie pacing colt Bronx Seelster and older male pacer finalist Nirvana Seelster.

As is his nature, Wilson astutely and accurately assessed all aspects of the package that placed Warrawee Farm within O'Brien Award consideration and ultimately as an award finalist as one of Canada's best.

"In the breeding business, as any other part of the racing business, success is a consequence of of a whole series of contributing efforts, all absolutely necessary," stated Wilson. "Mares, recently including Great Memories (dam of both Warrawee Ubeaut and Warrawee Needy, both world champions and Karoon (dam of Warrawee Roo). The farm Staff...Duane Avery, Michelle Coupland and Brooke Dean. Unsung heroes. Trainers, essential for the success of a breeder, Ron Burke (trainer of Warrawee Ubeaut) and Luc Blais (trainer of Warrawee Roo) and their grooms among others, and the great drivers! All big cogs in a wheel of many cogs. Every one essential. Thank you."

Standardbred Canada will present the 30th edition of the OBrien Awards on Saturday, February 2, 2019 at the Hilton Mississauga/Meadowvale Hotel. The black tie gala includes a cocktail reception, gourmet dinner, wine, and complimentary portrait for the night's attendees.
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Russian senator arrested on suspicion of murder

 RIA Novosti, Ilya Pitalev

12:09 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  Russian senator representing Karachay-Cherkess Republic Rauf Arashukov was arrested in the Federation Council on Wednesday on suspicion of implication in several murders, the Investigative Committees press service reports.

According to investigators, Arashukov was involved in the murder of a Karachay-Cherkessia public youth movements deputy chairman and killing of the republican presidents advisor in 2010.

On January 30, the upper house of Russian parliament considered an application by the Prosecutor General, stripped Arashukov of his immunity and gave consent to his prosecution.




A week after the teacher strike concluded in Los Angeles, the citys board of education has unanimously approved the contract deal with the union.



Thats despite regulators from the county who oversee the district warning that the agreement is not financially sustainable on an ongoing basis.

Meanwhile, the board also voted 5-1 to pass a resolution calling for a charter school moratorium that the union had pushed for in negotiations. That could not be officially part of the labor agreement, but the district agreed to put the resolution in front of the board for a vote. The resolution calls on the state to stop the growth of charter schools in the city for eight to 10 months while state officials study the issue.

The contract deal that ended the six-day strike included a 6 percent pay raise for teachers, guarantees of class-size reductions, a pledge from the district to hire more librarians, nurses, and counselors, and a slew of other social-justice commitments .

Last week, United Teachers Los Angeles members voted 81 percent to ratify the deal. (About 73 percent of members voted.)

This contract is not the end, its the beginning, said Superintendent Austin Beutner in his opening remarks to the board Tuesday.



With this contract, the district is putting every nickel it has into the classrooms, he said, but more sources of funding are needed. Beutner said the contract cannot make up for 40 years of underfunding of public education, and pointed to the need for more state funding. The contract deal was based on Gov. Gavin Newsoms budget proposal, which increases school funding, as well as money from the county to hire more school nurses.

This contract is far from perfect, Beutner said, adding that he has gotten complaints from many stakeholders. I guess if everyone is a bit unhappy, we might have found the right compromise.

Still, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which oversees the district, said the district will need to develop a fiscal stabilization plan showing how it will cover the costs associated with the agreement.

Board member Nick Melvoin addressed the countys concerns before the vote, saying, Its up to us, collectively, to make [the contract] sustainable. Its up to us to not renege on the promises we made to teachers.

He said the district would need to make hard decisions for cutting expenditures and work with the larger community to grow the pie.

A Charter School Dilemma

While the contract deal was approved without much controversy, tensions were high at the board meeting as members voted in favor of a moratorium on charter school growth for eight to 10 months. (The board doesnt have control over charter school growth; the resolution asks the state to take on this issue.)

Many parents delivered emotional pleas to the board not to ask the state for a pause on charter school growth, saying that charter schools have offered more opportunities for their students. Fewer people spoke in favor of the resolution, but some educators and parents asked the board to invest in traditional public schools instead.

Los Angeles has more charter schools than anywhere else in the country. There are 224 independent charter schools, that are publicly funded but privately run.

Board member Richard Vladovic, who sponsored the resolution, stressed that the resolution is not anti-choice, but rather a chance to step back and look at the effects of charter schools in the district.



The teachers union has claimed that unregulated charter growth drains $600 million from district schools each year. Teachers have pointed to the per-pupil funding that follows students to charters as a reason for the poor conditions in traditional schools.

Beutner had supported the resolution, saying that it had helped the union and district end the strike, and that it makes sense to me to pause while experts, not advocates, study all of the issues and propose what adjustments, if any, might be appropriate to the law to provide a path for the next 20 years.

Image: Thousands of striking Los Angeles Unified teachers gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Jan. 22. Richard Vogel/AP
Measures moderating Brexit to be approved in March

The so-called lex Brexit will contain 23 provisions.

Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak expects the measures, which should temper the effects of Brexit, to be adopted by parliament this March.

The provisions, which should prepare Slovakia for a hard Brexit, have been recently discussed and approved by the government.

"There will be no legal vacuum since we will cover the basic needs of our citizens and our bilateral relations," said the foreign minister, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

The so-called lex Brexit, which is expected to include 23 measures, should be put together as one bill by mid-February.

The UK will leave the European Union, with or without a deal, on March 29, Lajcak said. A hard Brexit is more likely as British PM Theresa May lacks the majority to support a Brexit deal, he added.

Read also: Brits living in Slovakia to have the same rights as EU citizens after Brexit Read more

All in one

"We are ready to talk about a political declaration and future relations, but it does not change the fact that the day when the UK leaves with no deal is drawing near," Lajcak noted, as quoted by TASR.

Therefore, Lajcak wants to put together 23 measures with the help of all ministries by mid-February and then submit them to parliament.

"They concern the status of our citizens in Britain, their social rights, transport, economic cooperation and entrepreneurship, and cooperation in the areas of justice, security, defence, and foreign affairs," said the foreign minister, as quoted by TASR.

Responsible ministries are to prepare bills that will ensure that Brits will have the same social benefits and healthcare in Slovakia as they have had until now.

Is Slovakia ready for a hard Brexit?

However, non-affiliated MP Miroslav Beblavy, who chairs the Spolu party, thinks that the government is constantly underestimating the impacts of Brexit.

"The government is vague, and it has not proposed anything effective to support domestic economy," said Beblavy, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

Nonetheless, PM Peter Pellegrini (Smer) has pledged that the government will make an effort to draw new investors, just like the neighbouring countries.

Read also: Which companies in Slovakia does Brexit put in jeopardy? Read more

"The government can create interesting conditions for investments and for the relocation of firms," said Pellegrini, as quoted by TASR.

Impacts of hard Brexit

Although Pellegrini has recently declared that Slovakia is ready for all Brexit scenarios, a hard Brexit could have the biggest impact on Slovakia out of all central and eastern European countries, the Pravda daily wrote.

"This vulnerability is a consequence of the relatively high GDP share of Slovak exports to the UK and the extreme openness of the Slovak economy," reads the published document, as quoted by Pravda.

Slovakia exported goods, mostly cars and components, worth roughly 4.5 billion to Britain in 2017. The UK is Slovakia's eighth biggest export market.

A hard Brexit will decelerate the Slovak economy in the long-term by 0.7 - 1.4 percent of the GDP, the Institute for Financial Policy, running under the Finance Ministry, calculated.

Furthermore, the structural shortfall in revenues of the state budget are expected to reach 0.2 to 0.5 percent of the GDP in the long term, Pravda wrote.

Because of this, the best scenario is the UK leaving the EU with a deal, Lajcak said.

30. Jan 2019 at 22:26 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Slovaks donated 100,000 to Syria

Roughly seven million children need help in education.

Slovak private donors along with religious communities have contributed more than 95,000 to people in Syria. They took part in the Help for Syria campaign, organised by the ACN Slovakia-Aid foundation to the Church in Need, the TASR newswire reported.

Read also: Why some foreigners struggle to open bank accounts in Slovakia Read more

The foundation has supported hundreds of humanitarian, reconstruction, scholarship, therapeutic and pastoral projects in Syria worth more than 30 million, said Martina Hatokova, a head of ACN Slovakia.

Slovaks also took part in the campaign by going to discussions and group prayers with Syrian archbishop Antoin Chahd, who visited seven Slovak villages in November 2018.

Hatokova added 6.3 million people are displaced within Syria and about 13.1 million people depend on humanitarian help.

In addition, seven million children and youth need help in education and every fourth child was injured during the war, as reported by TASR.

30. Jan 2019 at 13:33 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Former chief of protocol involved in Vietnamese businessman's abduction gets new job

Radovan Culak will manage the ministry's rehabilitation institute.

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Radovan Culak, the former chief of protocol at the Interior Ministry, should become a director of the ministry's spa and rehabilitation institute Bystra in Liptovsky Jan (Zilina Region), the Sme daily reported.

Culak was the main coordinator of the abduction of the Vietnamese citizen Trinh Xuan Thanh, as stems from the testimonies of police officers published by the Dennik N daily.

Read also: Dennik N: This is what the Vietnamese kidnapping looked like Read more

At the time of the abduction in which Slovakia assisted, Culak reportedly said: "Kali [former interior minister Robert Kalinak - ed. note] knows about it, it is in the state's interest," as reported by Sme.

The Interior Ministry has confirmed that Culak has been relocated to Bystra, where he now serves as a deputy of institute's departing director Ladislav Hrobarik.

Police officer managing the spa centre

The ministry has not said why Sakova decided to appoint Culak as a deputy director, or whether he has gone through a recruitment procedure at all, Sme reported.

It just added that the recruitment procedure for the director will be announced once Hrobarik leaves.

The former chief of protocol now works as a police officer, even after the abduction scandal. The ministry has not explained how the work of the institute's director is related to the duties of a police officer.

"Police officers also serve in each facility of this kind," the ministry said, as quoted by Sme, adding that the director of the ministry's institute is a civil job position.

This means Culak would be forced to leave the police corps, Sme wrote.

30. Jan 2019 at 13:26 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Gambling rules in Slovakia will change

The parliament overrode the president's veto and adopted the change with the help of some opposition MPs.

Gambling in Slovakia will follow new rules after the parliament overrode the president's veto and adopted the new law on gambling.

This legislation redefines the structure and hierarchy of gambling licences. In addition, the Finance Ministry said it will increase the protection of gamblers, adding the rules for running gambling games on the Internet will also change, the SITA newswire reported.

The law was supported by some opposition MPs. As a result, a total of 86 deputies voted for the change.

What will change?

One of the most important changes is private domestic companies as well as companies from the European Union will be able to apply for online gambling licences. This concerns not only online betting games but also internet casinos, SITA wrote.

Until recently, the national lottery company Tipos had a monopoly on operating these games.

Read also: Gambling, slot machines can spur addiction Read more

Moreover, a new gambling regulatory authority will be established.

The law also introduces more measures to protect gamblers. For instance, the minimum number of gambling machines in one gambling house will increase to 15 machines. In addition, gambling in these houses will be banned between 3:00 and 10:00, as reported by SITA.

Increased powers for municipalities

Under the new rules, towns and villages are also allowed to ban some types of gambling games during a certain number of days during a year.

In addition, municipalities can now decide whether or not gambling houses should be situated near schools and kindergartens.

However, OLaNO MPs think towns should get more powers to regulate gambling on their territories. They have also criticised a weak regulation of adverts promoting gambling, SITA wrote.

A group of mayors came to the parliament on January 29 to protest against the new law, as the public-service broadcaster RTVS reported.

29. Jan 2019 at 23:27 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Meat from sick cows in Poland reportedly not exported to Slovakia

Slovakia's agriculture minister calls on people to buy local meat.

Shortly after an undercover film showing how sick cows are being secretly slaughtered in Poland was aired on Polish TV station TVN24, many European countries, including Slovakia, were outraged.

The State Veterinary and Food Administration (SVPS) has not been officially informed about the import of beef meat from the high-risk slaughterhouses in Poland, as it wrote on its website.

"Regarding the published story on how cows are handled and slaughtered in Poland, the SVPS has ordered deliberate controls on the safety of chilled and frozen meat," the SVPS added.

Minister encourages purchasing Slovak meat

Read also: Only 4 in 10 food products in stores are of Slovak origin Read more

"We cannot rule out the possibility that the meat ended up in Slovakia," said Slovak Agriculture Minister Gabriela Matecna (Slovak National Party), as quoted by TASR, adding that Slovaks should buy Slovak products, which are regularly checked from the very start until they get on the shelves in stores.

The scandal will be put on the table of the EU's Agriculture and Fisheries Council, she added.

"We do condemn the practices of the businesses that earn money in such a disgusting way and deliberately endanger the health of not only the Polish, but also other European consumers," said Emil Macho, head of the Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber (SPPK), as quoted in the press release.

The slaughter of sick cows took place at night without any veterinary inspection, and it remains unknown where they took the meat afterwards, the TASR newswire reported.

Poland is one of the EU's largest meat exporters alongside Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Allegedly not exported

More information about the scandal should be available on January 30, but Poland's General Veterinary Inspectorate (GIW) informed on its website the concerned slaughterhouse's licence has been revoked.

Read also: The best Slovak meats are exported Read more

"The Chief Veterinary Officer has ordered immediate inspection in Poland," claimed the GIW, adding the police, prosecutor's office, and the Chief Inspectorate of Road Transport (ITD) are involved.

In addition, Czech Agriculture Minister Miroslav Toman recently announced that meat from the slaughterhouse concerned did not arrive in the Czech Republic, the CTK newswire reported.

"No meat from this slaughter has been exported outside Poland," he said, referring to information received from Poland's supervisory bodies.

29. Jan 2019 at 23:14 | Compiled by Spectator staff
Unique discovery: The longest cave in the Tribec Mountains

A speleologist started to look for the cave in 2014.

Nitra has a unique discovery. The biggest and longest cave was discovered at Calvary in the Tribec Mountains. So far measurements and estimations showed that it may have a length of 400 metres.

The deepest spot is the surface of underground lake with a depth of 41.5 metres. The cave was formed due to tectonic motions, probably in the Quaternary period.

Currently, we are in the research and documentation phase. Research is complicated because moving around inside the cave is difficult and dangerous, said Juraj Halama, speleologist from Speleoclub Trnava, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

Re-discovered

The cave has a vertical character and less experienced climbers can get in using rope. The spaces are very narrow. The sinter decoration is very diverse and when considering the location in the built-up area of town it is also very rare. There are dripstones of various types and colours, atypically warm in the cave.

Regarding the natural conditions of the near surroundings, the discovery of a cave with these dimensions is unique, said Halama, as quoted by SITA.

Read also: New cave discovered in Demanovska Valley Read more

The Dezider Horvat cave was named after the father of Anzelma Hloskova, who contributed to re-discovery of the cave. She wrote an article in 2010 in Krasy Slovenska (Beauty of Slovakia) magazine on how her father accidentally discover edcave when mining limestone in 1948. He invited speleologist Jan Majka in 1950 to Nitra to carry out the first research.

Majka succeeded reaching a depth of 30 metres, however, he failed to realize how big it was.

In the past, it was not possible to research the cave the way we are able to today, they did not have such technology, said Halama, as quoted by SITA.

Long search

The cave was forgotten. The only living person who remembers it is Anzelma Hloskova. She owns a black-and-white photo from 1950, which captured her as 12-year-old entering the cave along with her sister.

Halama started to look for the cave in 2014. As the living contemporary was unable to locate it, he searched for additional information in the archive of the Slovak Museum of Nature Protection and Speleology.

Read also: Exploring Slovakias caverns and caves (Spectacular Slovakia - travel guide) Read more

Speleologists succeeded to find the cave entrance using geophysical research and probing earthworks. They uncovered it in June 2018.

They had to pull out a big amount of waste and brash firstly. They succeeded reaching a depth of 60 metres. Later, they found that the cave is much longer. New spaces were discovered in December 2018. Speleological groups from the Strazovske Vrchy Mountains and Tribec along with local enthusiastic climbers helped with the research.

Alexander Lacny, chairman of Speleoclub Trnava, said that the cave will never be accessible for the public despite its uniqueness.

The reason is that we would not be able to ensure the safety of visitors, he said, as quoted by SITA, adding that some parts are extremely dangerous.

30. Jan 2019 at 13:39 | SITA, Compiled by Spectator staff
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
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Moscow court rules Sochi vice-mayors detention in bribery case illegal

 RIA Novosti; the Interior Ministry's Moscow department

11:31 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  The Moscow City court has overturned a lower courts ruling on extension of detention for the first vice-mayor of Sochi Sergey Yurin and several other officials as part of a bribery case, the courts press service has told RAPSI.

Earlier, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow extended detention of Yurin, ex-official of Sochi administration and Legis Imperium company CEO Andrey Leventyuk and other defendants until March 15.

The Moscow City Court on Wednesday vacated the decision and sent the matter back to a first instance court for review. The court also held that all defendants to remain in detention till February 6 except Leventyuk, who was released from jail.

Yurin and Leventyuk are charged with receiving grand bribes. They could face up to 15 years if found guilty.

According to investigators, the city administration officials organized a criminal group to receive bribes as in 2010.

Several other officials were also detained in this case in October including deputy chief of the city administrations economic department Alexander Ivanov, deputy director of Rosgonki scientific center Anatoly Rykov, businessman and alleged bribe-giver Igor Stroganov; lawyers Alexey Litvinov and Nikolay Grebenyuk.
Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now...
Greetings, Future Tensers,

Last week, we published Thoughts and Prayers, the latest installment of our Future Tense Fiction series. In it, author Ken Liu imagines how much worse online trolling and abuse could get in a story about a near-future society in which the social media response in the aftermath of a mass shooting rapidly escalates out of control. In her response essay to the story, digital culture researcher Adrienne Massanari looks at how online harassers rationalize their cruel behavior as just trolling, or even as doing the right thing. She explains how trolls aggrieved entitlement ultimately leads to a distorted sense of punching up and punching down that distorts how these toxic digital actions have real-life consequences for their targets.

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Elsewhere on Future Tense, weve been exploring other issues related to privacy and power.

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Will Oremus argues that Apples frightful FaceTime bug should remind us that, in a world with cameras and sensors embedded in nearly all of our electronics, we can never really trust that our devices to keep our digital lives private. Josephine Wolff explains how two sloppy attempts at surveilling human rights researchers are pulling back the curtain on the tools and techniques that governments and others use to conduct digital surveillance and compromise devices belonging to journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents around the world. And Aaron Mak tells us how a recent Florida case demonstrates the inherent problems with using facial recognition technology to identify suspects in low-stakes crimes.

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Other things we read between wondering about the fate of Maduros Instagram verification:

Alexa, como estas? Although Amazons Alexa speaks both English and Spanish, it seems the smart speakers cant handle a little Spanglish. Faith Smith documents her familys struggle trying to get Alexa to comprehend her bilingual family.

Doctor Wiki: While you would be right to be concerned if your lawyer consulted Wikipedia, you shouldnt fear if your physician does, argues Stephen Harrison.

Subzero: Aaron Mak spoke with Climate Centrals Sean Sublette to discuss how TV meteorologists talk about the effects of climate change as the polar vortex bears down on the country.

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Can you hear me now? Telecom companies are seriously overhyping the roll-out of 5G networks in ways that may have major consequences for consumers, Amir Nasr explains.

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Getting that bread: The hugely popular online video game Fortnite isnt just attracting gamers out to yeet their opponents. Its also attracting criminals. Tamara Evdokimova explains how shady characters are using the in-game currency to launder real-world money.

New messages: April Glaser dives into why Facebook needs to be extra careful as it moves to merge Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and what it might mean for users.

Virtual crisis: As the political and economic crisis in Venezuela deepens, the embattled government of Nicolas Maduro has been blocking access to social media and other websites. But digital rights groups and other activists have been pushing back.

To the cottage industry of fake news warriors,

Anthony Nguyen

For Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
This piece is adapted from an article that originally ran in the New America Weekly.

By now, youve likely heard of 5G, the next-generation wireless network. At the very least, youve likely read headlines or seen ads hailing how it will change home internet, the economy, and society in massive ways. Companies continue to fall over one another to say that theyll be the first to offer this new, life-changing technology.

The problem? These claims are, as yet, untested, and they could be used to justify actions that would hurt not only the broadband market, but consumers.

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Fifth generation, or 5G, most simply defined, is the new technological standard for the next generation of wireless networks. As the number suggests, weve been through previous generations of standards before. There was 1G for analog phones and 2G for digital phones (think SMS and voicemail). Then there were 3G networks, which came with the mobile broadband internet connections that enabled the smartphone revolution, and 4G and 4G LTEwhich, among other advancements, improved and sped up those data connections.

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Proponents of 5G say that this next-generation network will be a larger leap than weve ever seen before. For one, they promise 5G will deliver data at speeds around 20 times faster than 4G. And its not just about phones. Many predict its capacity, speeds, and response times will pave the way for a massive rise in the number and sophistication of Internet of Things tech, including playing an essential role in a future with networked autonomous vehicles like self-driving cars and drones. These predictions, however, are far from definitive.

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Despite the fact that were years away from 5Gs nationwide commercial rolloutsome analysts have predicted that we wont see widespread deployment of strong 5G services in the U.S. until 2022 or 2023and have yet to see any of these predictions come to fruition, telecommunications companies insist that the 5G revolution is already here, or just around the corner. This month brought a comical example when AT&T announced that it would begin offering what it misleadingly called 5G E, which, in reality, is really only a slight upgrade to its current 4G LTE network. T-Mobile subsequently mocked AT&T by tweeting the message, didnt realize it was this easy, brb updating, along with a video of someone putting a small piece of tape labeled 9G over their smartphones network status bar icon. The backlash hasnt deterred AT&T, which is still advertising that its Americas best wireless network  now with 5G E.

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didnt realize it was this easy, brb updating pic.twitter.com/dCmnd6lspH  T-Mobile (@TMobile) January 7, 2019

Its not just AT&T. All four of the big mobile carriers have been dropping announcements about their upcoming 5G networks and partnerships with device manufacturers in a seemingly rampant desperation to one-up each other. Verizon recently unveiled its 5G service, which combines traditional fixed services with some of the technologies that are part of 5G standards, marking a similar (though much less embarrassing) effort to stake the claim of being first to make the leap to the next-generation network. The big marketing push can also be found outside of the wireless industry. Comcast, for example, was promoting what it called 10G at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, hoping to capitalize on the 5G hype to advertise its fixed broadband service. Unsurprisingly, 10G actually has nothing to do with 5G networks, but it does have a nice, futuristic ring to it.

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Hype aside, there are actual standards for what constitutes a 5G network, and mobile carriers are investing heavily to deploy nationwide 5G networks that they say will bring faster speeds.

But the marketing buzz gimmicks theyre using today to mislead could have harmful consequences of their own.

For one, theres the issue of companies trying to encourage their customers to upgrade to new, 5G-enabled smartphones (the first of which are set to come out the first half of this year)which could cost them $200 to $300 more than current 4G-era smartphonesbefore the new networks are up and running, before carriers have announced the terms or pricing for their forthcoming 5G wireless plans, and before we have a sense of just how good these new networks will actually be nationwide. While some carriers have begun to deploy 5G, as AT&T did in 12 cities in December, these networks mostly amount to demos for the time beingand, again, even optimistic estimates still suggest it will be years before we see these new networks built out across country.

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The 5G hype also carries the looming threat that the telecommunications industry and its allies, in promoting 5Gs yet-to-be-seen enhanced capabilities, may try to push the Federal Communications Commission to deem mobile broadband a viable substitute for fixed broadband (think DSL, cable modems, WiFi, etc.). Such a change by the FCC would be far more than just a bureaucratic technicality. It would be an alarming conclusion that would undermine a powerful law that calls on the agency to make sure that advanced telecommunications capability is deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

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Currently, the section defines that advanced telecommunications capability as high-speed fixed broadband. This law has helped to bring semi-reasonably-priced, functional internet connections to schools and to rural, tribal, low-income areas that otherwise would have been left behind or left paying exorbitant costs for these vital connections. Mobile broadband now is not a substitute for fixed broadband (see: this excellent CityLab article on trying to live on mobile-only internet)and we have yet to see any proof that 5G will make mobile broadband less restrictive or less expensive compared to fixed broadband.

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Yet the telecommunications industry has, for the past few years, been pushing for the FCC to declare mobile a substitute for fixed broadband. So far, the agency has resisted. But the hype around 5G might be what it takes to tip the scales. If the FCC were to formally agree that mobile could considered an advanced telecommunications capability, it would mean fewer requirements for the big telecoms to continue to maintain these kinds of fixed broadband services to underserved and unserved areas of the country.

We may have already seen a preview this argument, which brings us to a far greater threat 5G hype poses in the short-term: the proposed merger between wireless telecom giants T-Mobile and Sprint. Its a deal that my team at New America has argued would bring dangerous levels of consolidation to the wireless market. Among other serious issues, it would reduce the number of competitors in the industry from four to just three, reduce innovation, raise prices on wireless bills, wreak havoc on prepaid and wholesale markets that lower-income customers depend on, and eliminate an estimated 28,000 U.S. jobs. And its a deal that rests, in large part, on inflated projections that Sprint and T-Mobile make about the future 5G networks will bring.

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In documents currently under review by the FCC, the nations third-largest wireless carrier makes the case that its merger with the nations fourth-largest wireless carrier is necessary if the two hope to build a nationwide 5G network that will deliver customers hyper-fast speeds, serve as a competitor (or even a replacement) to high-speed fixed broadband, bring improved connectivity to rural areas, and to compete with competitor carriers AT&T and Verizon for the betterment of all consumers and the country. The claims are central to the companies argument for approving the deal, so much so that T-Mobile and Sprint list 5G as the first consumer benefit in its initial filing to the FCC.

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But these grandiose talking points about consumer benefits seem premature at best, misleading at worst, and certainly should not be viewed as concrete consumer benefits. While 5G does bring promisefor instance, likely improvements in speeds and capabilitiesthe full extent of that promise is still unknown. Some predict that it will only bring a modest improvement compared to current 4G speeds and will ultimately disappoint consumers. We also still havent seen evidence that a 5G rollout, in practice, would provide a viable and cost-saving substitute for fixed broadband, or that the carriers would necessarily pass on the bulk of the benefits and savings to consumers, especially those who dont buy into the most expensive tiers of service. (Remember all the limits on unlimited plans?) Nor have we seen proof that rural areas will benefit from 5G as much as T-Mobile and Sprint claim.

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Grandiose talking points about consumer benefits seem premature at best, misleading at worst, and certainly should not be viewed as concrete consumer benefits.

One analysis of the companies data suggests that the merger and proposed 5G build-out would only marginally improve capacity and coverage for some rural Americans, and it would be insufficient to expand or replace rural broadband coverage. Whats more, the analysis also suggests that, even six years after the proposed merger, over a quarter of rural customers still wouldnt have access to 5G service. This is in part because of economic incentives to focus on urban areas with their high concentrations of potential customers (in fact, the NTCA-Rural Broadband Association specifically called BS on T-Mobiles claims about the mergers potential to improve service in these areas by noting T-Mobiles history of consistently poor build-outs and performance in rural regions). Its also because some of the technical characteristics of 5G coveragespecifically, that the signals travel in frequencies that can only travel short distances and are particularly vulnerable to natural obstacles and inclement weathermean that the highest speeds being touted by the industry will be restricted to urban environments with dense populations.

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As former FCC Chairman Michael Powell recently said, expressing skepticism over wireless industrys hype, 5G is 25 percent technology, 75 percent marketing. Though Powell now represents and speaks on behalf of a major cable industry group, which has its own motivations for challenging the veracity of the wireless industrys claims about 5G, his underlying point is well taken.

This kind of hype and overselling of an emerging technology, of course, isnt unique. The prospect of new capabilities has always fueled excitement by enthusiasts who believe it will radically transform lives, and by those hoping to cash in. 5G may very well usher in profound changes in our technological capabilities. But the benefits are years from coming to fruitionand we shouldnt let our eagerness to see those benefits cloud our judgment about whats realistic and what will actually benefit those living in that future.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
What must it be like to work in intelligence under Donald Trump? You delve as deeply as anyone into the area of your specialty, parse data from myriad sources (satellite imagery, communications intercepts, spies, open reports), weave your findings with those of 16 other agencies into carefully crafted reports. Then, the president, the sole customer for your products, denounces you on Twitter as extremely passive, naive, and wrong! (The exclamation point is his.)

Thats what Trump did Wednesday morning, the day after his top intelligence officials testified before Congress about a report that disputes his opinions on Iran, North Korea, Syria, and more.

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Lets be clear: U.S. intelligence agencies are far from infallible, theyve been wrong many times in the past, and one of the distortions that the Age of Trump has spawned among the opposition is a romanticized worship of the wisdom and goodness of Americas spies.

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But Trumps latest Twitter jabs go beyond the pale. It would be one thing if he based his critique on conversations with outside experts, perusals of scholarly analyses, or events from his own experience. But of course, he talks with no such oracles, reads nothing worthwhile, and has accumulated no life lessons of any relevance here.

Nor could the intelligence analysts findings be dismissed as fake news from the deep state or the swamp. The witnesses at Tuesdays Senate hearingDirector of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspelwere appointed to their jobs by Trump himself.

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Trump clearly draws on very different sources of intelligence. Between his eruptions against Coats and Haspel on Wednesday morning came this tweet:

Three separate caravans marching to our Border. The numbers are tremendous. @foxandfriends

And:

Our economy, right now, is the Gold Standard throughout the World. @IngrahamAngle So true, and not even close!

It is perpetually amazing, and alarming, that the president of the United Stateswho could consult the worlds leading experts, in or out of government, on every subject imaginablechooses instead to rely on the random ravings of cable newscasters with no claim to special wisdom or inside knowledge on anything.

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Trump went after his intelligence directors with such harsh defensivenessunusually so, by even his standardsbecause their congressional testimony contradicted his well-known positions too blatantly for him to ignore.

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For instance, Coats testifiedreflecting the findings of a 42-page Worldwide Threat Assessment, a report that his agency releases to the public each yearthat Iran has been abiding by the nuclear deal, which it signed with the U.S. and six other nations in 2015, and that it is not engaged in any activities that would be necessary to produce a nuclear device.

Trump, who pulled out the U.S. out of the accord last year, calling it one of the worst deals ever made, fired back with two tweets:

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different .a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

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Actually, Irans behavior, good and bad, hasnt changed in the slightest since Trump abrogated the deal, except for one thing: As Haspel testified, the Iranian leaders are now debating amongst themselves whether to resume their nuclear program because theyve failed to realize the economic benefits they hoped for from the deal. In other words, according to the director of the CIA, the Iranians are thinking about breaking the deal because Trump has re-imposed the economic sanctions that had been lifted as part of the deali.e., theyre thinking about breaking the deal because Trump broke it.

On North Korea, Coats testified that though Kim Jong-un has suspended testing missiles and nuclear devices, he is unlikely to give up his nuclear weapons, mainly because he and the countrys other leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival. Haspel added that Kim is still committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.

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Trumpwho has said that he and Kim fell in love at their summit in Singapore in June and who, immediately after the meeting, proclaimed that North Korea no longer posed a threattweeted back:*

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Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!

Time will tell, indeed. But according to officials familiar with the negotiations between U.S. and North Korean diplomats, no progress is being made whatsoeverin part because Kim thinks, with good reason, that he can pry more concessions from desperate-for-a-deal Trump directly. This is why the North Koreans savorand many of Americas Asian allies fearthe upcoming summit.

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On ISIS, Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that, though the jihadi group also known as Islamic State has lost almost all the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, it still has thousands of fighters who continue to stoke violence in those countries, as well as a dozen or so outlets throughout the world. This was contrary to Trumps claimwhich he tweeted in December to justify his decision to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syriathat ISIS was defeated.

In response to Coats statement, Trump batted out this tweet at 3:25 a.m.:

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When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.

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Three things are wrong here. First, Trumps military campaign against ISIS was, in fact, a somewhat accelerated version of the campaign that President Obama had launched. Second, though he has achieved progress, theres been none since five weeks ago, which is when Trump announced the withdrawal. In fact, perhaps because of that announcement, ISIS has stepped up its offensive operations, in one attack, on Jan 17, killing four Americansas many as they had killed in Syria over the previous four years.

These observations amount to a finding that Trumps policies are weakening Americas global position and strengthening that of its main rivals.

Finally, the intelligence directors said that Russian cyberoperations continue to threaten U.S. infrastructure and still pose a threat to U.S. electionsa fact that Trump has never accepted (though he ignored it in his early morning tweet storm).

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In his written report, Coats leveled a still more serious critique of the president: Some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing U.S. policies on security and trade. The report also warned that Russia and China are pursuing common goals in a race for technological and military superiorityand that the two countries are more aligned than at any time since the mid-1950s. Taken together, those observations amount to a finding that Trumps policies are weakening Americas global position and strengthening that of its main rivals. Trump has not yet responded to this particular critique.

Its good to know, in a way, that reports like these are jolting Trump up in the morning.* Its doubtful, though, that hell do anything about them except rave on.
President Donald Trump has yet to break ground on his great border wall, but already its proving to be a powerful deterrent. Republicans are running away from it.

In TV interviews last weekend, Republican lawmakers bent over backward to avoid the word wall. I happen to agree with the president on barriers, said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine pledged to continue to build physical barriers. On Fox News Sunday, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, used the word barrier 13 times. Trump is winning the battle on the importance of a barrier, said Mulvaney. On Face the Nation, Mulvaney boasted that Democrats were privately telling the White House, We think you might be right on this barrier thing.

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Barrier thing? If Trump is winning, why is everyone around him afraid to say the word wall?

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The answer is: Trump isnt winning. Hes been losing on this issue for a long time. The wall, as he originally proposed it, was a dumb idea. Border security experts told him so. Democrats rejected it, and polls backed them up. Trump tried to get his way by shutting down the government, but nobody budged, and his approval ratings tanked. So now Republicans have retreated to a fallback position. Theyre claiming that renovations and extensions of current border infrastructurein short, the status quocount as Trumps wall.

One sign of the presidents troubles is the behavior of his polling adviser, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Shes been recoiling from the word wall like a vampire recoiling from sunlight. Democrats keep calling it the wall, the wall, because they want that to be a four-letter word, Conway complained on Fox News earlier this month. When an interviewer asked whether Trump would sign something that doesnt have border wall funding, Conway shot back, Its not border wall funding. Its border security. Last week on CNN, Conway and Chris Cuomo engaged in a 14-minute spell-casting duel. Cuomo hurled the word wall 15 times; Conway fired back with eight invocations of barrier and four uses of fence.

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Conway understands that the word wall is poison. Last week, a reporter asked her about a survey that showed 71 percent of Americans didnt think the wall was worth the shutdown. Why is that a good question? Conway snapped. Im asking why you and the polling questions, respectfully, are still saying wall. Survey questions about a fence tend to attract more support than questions about a wall. By shifting the GOPs language, Conway hopes to shift the polls.

Why does a wall poll badly? Because it never made sense. It was a gimmick designed for the 2016 Republican primaries. As conceived by Trump and his aides, the wall was supposed to be huge, manly, and a manifestation of Trumps genius as a builder. It would be massive, made of concrete units 40 to 50 feet tall, bigger than the Great Wall of China. It would be an icon of American dominance, growing taller, according to Trump, every time Mexico refused to pay for it. When a rival candidate called it a fence, Trump bristled: Jeb Bush just talked about my border proposal to build a fence. Its not a fence, Jeb, its a WALL, and theres a BIG difference!

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The wall was supposed to be unprecedented in scale and grandeur. It would be like you have never seen before, Trump promised. It would prove his superiority over politicians who, in Trumps words, had no idea how to construct such a thing. Nobody builds walls better than me, Trump declared at his campaign kickoff in June 2015. When a reporter asked the candidate how he would erect a 1,900-mile wall, Trump replied: Very easy. Im a builder.

The whole shtick was a fraud. Trump knew nothing about the border. After he became president, border security officers explained to him that a huge concrete wall would block them from seeing people on the other side. They noted that along much of the border, rivers, canyons, and other natural features make a wall unnecessary or impractical. Experts pointed out the legal headaches of seizing ranchers land. Instead of a wall, they recommended better detection technology, more personnel, and slatted fences along specific parts of the border. In other words, an extension of the current system.

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Trump didnt want to give up his dream. But in November, he lost the House. In December, facing trouble in the polls and in Congress, he began to change his language. The Democrats are saying loud and clear that they do not want to build a Concrete Wall, Trump tweeted, but we are not building a Concrete Wall, we are building artistically designed steel slats. An extension of current fencing, he argued on Jan. 4, would be even more powerful than what he had originally envisioned: A see-through wall made out of steel is far stronger than a concrete wall.

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On Friday, as he ended the shutdown, Trump recast his position. He stood not for a massive concrete wallWe never proposed that, he liedbut for smart walls with see-through visibility  equipped with sensors, monitors, and state-of-the-art drones. These structuresTrump also called them barriers and fenceswould be built only at high-risk locations. Such barriers were hardly radical, he argued, since the past two administrations had constructed them along one-third of the border. In fact, said Trump, Most of the Democrats in Congress have voted in the past for bills that include walls and physical barriers and very powerful fences.

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This retreat puts Republicans in a safer defensive posture. They shut down the government, and eventually reopened it, for nothing. By redefining the wall as an extension of current fencing, they give themselves a chance to attract Democratic support for at least some border construction, for which Trump can later take credit. The GOPs new position also helps Republicans deflect the objection that they controlled Congress for two years and did nothing. We are building the wall right now, a portion of it, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy assured Trumps supporters on Sundays Meet the Press. The next day, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders bragged that Trump, with congressional authorization, had already contracted to build roughly 115 miles of border fencing.

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Meanwhile, the new position gives Republicans a better angle of attack. If Democrats balk at extending the fences, Republicans can call them hypocrites. Weve got Democrats with hair on fire saying theyll never vote for a wall, Mulvaney protested on Face the Nation. But they voted for money to build that exact wall. In fact, something very similar is being built today. Conway, speaking with reporters last week, said she would tell Democrats, Youre betraying your own past votes  if your border security package does not include a physical barrier.

But the Republican retreat also creates problems. To begin with, it complicates Trumps depiction of Democrats as the party of open borders. On Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to give us a single dollar for the wall. He asked whether Democrats were so beholden to Pelosi that they were never going to vote for a barrier. But 30 seconds later, he called Pelosi a hypocrite because she just voted for almost a quarter-billion dollars for a barrier on the southern border. Which is it, Mick? Is she a conniving centrist or a wild-eyed liberal?

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Second, piecemeal extensions of the status quo might not satisfy Trumps base. Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser, says polls and focus groups show the presidents supporters want a wall that is not like anything that is built before. That magnificent colossus is exactly what theyre not going to get, and Trump isnt happy about it. Four weeks ago, the presidents former chief of staff, John Kelly, told the Los Angeles Times that Trumps latest proposal was not a wall. On Twitter, Trump fired back: An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED.

So good luck, Republicans, on selling your baseand your bosson slats and sensors. Maybe, while avoiding the word wall, you can somehow convince Trumps supporters that theyre getting one. But the narcissist who conceived this idea as a monument to his greatness might not surrender that fantasy without a longer fight. And its hard to let go of the wall when your president is still on the fence.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, like many Republican leaders, believes that American children are too weak. His latest evidence: Some schools in his state have closed for the dangerously cold polar vortex winds that are currently scouring the midwest and pushing frigid air to states nearby.

Come on, now, Bevin said to radio host Terry Meiners in an interview Tuesday, after the host had called the cold serious business in protest to Bevins complaint. Theres no ice going with it or any snow. What happens to America. Were getting soft, Terry, were getting soft.

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Bevin did admit that it was better for schools to err on the side of being safe, but he maintained that the current way children were being raised softened them:

Im being only slightly facetious. But it does concern me a little bit that in America on this and any number of other fronts, were sending messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal positionsomewhere in a warm placeand wait till it stops being hard. And that just isnt reality. It just isnt.

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The cold, which has already claimed a number of lives, hit Kentucky with single-digit temperatures and threatens to dip just below zero degrees. Teachers and state political figuresincluding those in his own partypushed back on Bevins comments, arguing that some students cannot afford clothes warm enough for sub-zero temperatures, and many would have to stand outside for a dangerously long time to wait for the bus. And the National Weather Service did predict some snow in Kentucky that could create dangerous road conditions.

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Bevin, not a stranger to controversy, came under fire last year for saying teachers had left hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to sexual assault and drugs by going on strike. I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today, a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them, Bevin told reporters. (He later apologized for his comment.)

In August, he compared state workers opposing his public pension reform to drowning victims, saying on a conservative talk show that he felt like he was trying to save someone who was struggling against him. You just need to knock them out and drag them to shore, he said. Its for their own good.

And in 2017, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that the governor blocked hundreds of accounts (many of which were held by his constituents) from interacting with his official Facebook and Twitter pages because he did not like what they were saying.
This post needs to start with a list of strong caveats.

 Polls underestimated Donald Trumps chances in 2016 in a way that, while not egregiously inaccurate overall, crucially failed to foresee the way hed win the Electoral College.

 There are like a million days (actually 643 days) until the 2020 election.

 Any individual poll is just one snapshot of where a hopefully representative subset of potential voters is at during a given time period, not a prediction of exactly what will happen in a real election.

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But with those caveats out of the way, this post also gets to highlight a pretty striking result from a 2020 poll out of Michigan, which is currently one of the bellwether-iest swing states in the U.S. as far as predicting who will win the presidency. The poll, conducted for WDIV and the Detroit News by a reputable pollster (Glengariff Group), found:

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 That Trumps job-performance approval-disapproval rating is underwater in the state by a 3853 margin and that among independents, hes underwater by 7 percentage points (4350).

 That Trump would lose a hypothetical 2020 matchup against Joe Biden by a 5340 margin.

 That Trump would lose a hypothetical 2020 matchup against Bernie Sanders by a 5241 margin.

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Trump also lost matchups against Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren by smaller marginsbut thats because more respondents said they were undecided in head-to-heads involving the two lesser-known candidates, not because Trump got significantly more support himself against them than he did against Biden and Sanders.

Whats most worrisome for Trump about these results is not just that Biden and Sanders are both very well-knownonly 9 percent of Americans said they didnt have an opinion about Sanders in a recent Gallup poll, and Biden is Bidenbut that theyre well-known for being about as far apart ideologically as two Democratic presidential candidates could be. Biden is the guy strongly associated with the Democratic Party establishment who has a long record on issues like criminal justice and financial regulation that now qualify as conservative; Sanders is the fiery leftist outsider who wants to crush the banks and raise taxes to pay for universal health care and higher education. If both of those guys would trounce Trump, it suggests that theres not much that voters could learn about Warren or Harrisor really anyone with a (D) next to their namethat they would find disqualifying.

And thats in the context of a fairly strong economy. And in the context of Michigan voters believing their state is on the right track by a 19-point margin, according to the same poll.

Not good for the Trump man! But hey, theres still time to turn it around. Maybe if he builds the wall? (WDIV and the Detroit News found that Michigan voters oppose Trumps wall plan by a 21-point margin.)
OAKLAND, Calif.Sen. Kamala Harris is proud of who she is and, based on the messaging of her nascent presidential campaign, she wants you to know it. Shes a proud child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants turned civil rights activists, a proud daughter of Oakland, California, and most emphatically, a proud black woman.

Indeed, throughout one short week on the campaign trail, Harris public appearances have been unapologetic in their blackness. To start, Harris not only announced her candidacy at Howard Universitythe former California attorney generals alma mater and one of the countrys oldest historically black collegesshe did so on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, roughly 47 years after Shirley Chisholm announced her historic run for president. (Some have speculated that Harris even borrowed the colors used by Chisholms campaign for her own campaign insignias.) And if Harris campaign announcement left any lingering questions as to her black identity (including those awkwardly asked by news pundits), her campaign launch rally on Sunday sought to end the debate.

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The opening national anthem, belted by the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir to the tune of clanging tambourines, was more spiritual than officious. The following musical performancea drum-clad rendition of Marvin Gayes Whats Going On by Oakland band Samba Funkurged attendees not to simply sway and clap, but to dance. And the opening prayer, a political invective against poverty and discrimination, did not manifest bowed heads or clasped hands. Instead, it took the form of bouncing feet, raucous claps, and roaring hallelujahs. One supporter in attendance described her excitement for Harris as reaching to a spiritual level. Another described the rally as a healing.

When Harris emerged on stage like Oaklands homecoming queen, welcomed by syncopated KA-MA-LA chants and skee-wees from her black sorority sisters, she could barely break her laughter long enough to speak. Whats up, Oakland!? she said through a wide smile. Harris seemed happy to be home.

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But a few minutes into her speech, one dissenting attendee interjected from the crowd. Youve done terrible things! the protester yelled before being swiftly drowned out by Harris supporters. While this protester failed to elevate his point beyond a stunted scream, his anger reflected growing resistance from the progressive base of Harris own partyespecially from progressive people of colorcentered on her record as a former prosecutor.

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Less than two weeks ago, a biting New York Times op-ed from Lara Bazelon, who worked alongside Harris during her time as San Francisco district attorney, accused Harris of withholding information about potentially corrupted criminal inquiries, declining to take a position on reducing sentences for low-level felonies, refusing to support a bill standardizing body cameras for police officers, and more. The firestorm of criticism following Bazelons op-ed was further catalyzed by a viral Twitter thread from Oakland resident Blake Simons, the co-host of the Hella Black podcast. In the thread, Simons castigated Harris for a record of rampant anti-Blackness which included strengthening the prison industrial complex. When I asked Simons what Harris would need to do to earn his trust, he said directly, If I trusted Harris, I would be a fool. Only a fool would trust someone who has proven to be an enemy time and time again.

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Such critiques made their way to Sundays rally, where a small protest gathered to vocalize the rebukes that have proliferated across the progressive social web in the last week. At the counter-rally, there was a particular focus on Harris failure in 2013 to prosecute Steven Mnuchin, the current treasury secretary and former CEO of OneWest Bank, following the banks widespread foreclosure violations. One protester told me, As a black woman, I would love to see another black woman become president. But this is much deeper than symbolism. Her record shows that she is not for the people as she claims.

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Others havent been so quick to dismiss Harris. Maya Wiley, the New Schools senior vice president for social justice and a frequent commentator on MSNBC, told Slate she was excited about Harris as a candidate, and described her as a natural born leader. Wiley went on to praise Harris record of reforms as Californias attorney general, including advocacy for implicit bias training for police officers, an open data initiative, and workforce development programs for formerly incarcerated individuals. According to Wiley, [full] reform requires more of the steps Sen. Harris helped to pioneer.

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Only a fool would trust someone who has proven to be an enemy time and time again.  Blake Simons

Lateefah Simon, whos worked closely with Harris and experienced her prosecutorial approach firsthand, also came to her defense. Simon, who before becoming the president of Oaklands Akonadi Foundation spent much of her career battling prosecutors in the court system, was hired by Harris to lead the creation of San Franciscos Re-entry Division, which seeks to help previously incarcerated people re-enter the community. Simon credits Harris with the creation of programs, like Back on Track, aimed at helping first-time, nonviolent drug offenders gain the skills and support needed to successfully navigate life outside of prison. Whereas some have been unforgiving of Harris alleged missteps, Simon has called attention to her courage. People may not understand what Harris was up against, she told Slate. It takes an incredibly brave person to enter a system defined by structural racism and try to dismantle it.

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Still, not everyone is convinced. After Sundays rally, Johnetta Elzie, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist who led protests in Ferguson, Missouri, alongside DeRay McKesson in 2014, said she was not excited about Harris. Elzie first became familiar with Harris controversial record in 2017. Having lived through the experience of protesting in Ferguson, and knowing the impact body cameras couldve had on catalyzing our moment, I couldnt understand her position, she said. I want her to sit with someone willing to ask the hard questions, and dissect her reasoning. I just want her to explain why. 

Ultimately, in a country where only 36 percent of black people say that they trust police officers, Harris must find way to reconcile her unapologetic blackness with her controversial record as San Franciscos, and then Californias, top cop. Harris critics dont just want authenticity. They want answers.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced over the weekend that he is seriously considering running for president as a centrist Independent. In discussing the possible bid, Schultz has noted that he cant run as a Democrat because the party has shifted so far to the left.

Schultzs potential campaign is causing many opponents of Donald Trump more indigestion than an Iced Praline Chestnut Latte because theyre scared to death that a 2020 spoiler might throw the election to the president. Trump himself has reportedly told fundraisers that hes trying to goad Schultz into running because he thinks it will help his re-election chances.

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In light of the very real threat his candidacy might pose to those wishing to unseat Trump, one important task of critics will be to make crystal clear that his record as CEO of Starbucks totally undermines his self-representation as a committed centrist.

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Centrist means representing a broad consensus, or a common-sense middle ground. Schultz has made choices in his business that in no way represent the mainstream view of how people want their workplaces to be.

For one, during Schultzs long tenure as CEO, Starbucks repeatedly fought against workers attempts to organize a union. In 2008, for example, a National Labor Relations Board judge found that the company had illegally fired three workers for their union activities, as well as violated other aspects of the law. Starbucks workers in our country still dont have a union. Although the right wing has tried for years to paint unions as extreme, a recent Gallup poll showed that 62 percent of Americans approve of labor unions; similarly, an MIT survey found that most workers wanted a greater voice on the job, and that almost half would join a union if given the opportunity. Squelching union organizing efforts may be routine for companies, but its not where our countrys political center lies.

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Starbucks also pays its workers poverty wages. According to PayScale, an online salary information company, the average hourly rate for Starbucks employees is around $11 per hour. Baristas average $9.77 per hour, and wages dont reach $15 per hour until a worker becomes a retail store manager ($17.44) or assistant manager ($15.17).

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And for years, Starbucks workers had unpredictable work schedules that impeded their ability to plan child care and other aspects of their lives. The company even had something workers unofficially named clopenings, in which the same person would be assigned to close the store and then open the next morning, leaving little time for anything in between. After negative media coverage, Starbucks announced in 2014 that schedules would be reliable and shared in advance, yet a year later workers still reported persistent problems.

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How about access to courts? If workers want to bring a lawsuit for anything from race discrimination to sexual harassment to wage theft, they cant, because the company requires employees to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment, and also to give up their right to bring a class action lawsuit. The #MeToo movement has helped to illustrate how harmful forced arbitration is: It typically results in denying workers the ability to vindicate their rights and hiding misconduct from public view. Schultz made much of his Race Together corporate campaign to spark conversations about race, but if a Starbucks employee were actually discriminated against, the company would prevent her from going to court.

What about the companys ratio of CEO compensation to typical worker pay? Starbucks under Schultz had a 204-to-1 ratio, just a hair better than Walmart (209:1); Schultzs total yearly compensation was reported to be around $20 million, while the median worker annual pay lingered at $28,000.

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These are not the values of a centrist. Most people have or had jobs, and know what it means to be a working person: to live paycheck to paycheck, to struggle to cover the bills, to need a regular work schedule, and to want more say on the job. And because of that, they have a basic sense of what constitutes a fair workplace. Starbucks under Schultz was not that workplace.

To be sure, Schultz is no Trump. Theres no long trail of unpaid wages, or outright fraud, or any of the incredible grotesquerie associated with our current president. But particularly because of his record as CEO, to position himself as the moderate and the Democratic Party as extreme is simply wrong.

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The story of the Democratic Party in the 20th century was about standing up for common sense, basic rights of working people. FDR presided over the New Deal, and JFK signed an executive order granting federal employees the right to join unions. Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The party has not moved radically left. Its Schultz who has generally run his business in a way that runs against the partys history of standing for basic workers rights.

Schultz is suffering from a severe affliction of horrendous judgment combined with both sidesism. Perhaps he is a centrist among CEOs, but he is far from a centrist among ordinary Americans.
The journalism crisis: BuzzFeedalong with HuffPost and a number of local newspapersrecently underwent a round of brutal layoffs. Will Oremus analyzes the situation, one sadly emblematic of the current state of digital media. Jenny G. Zhang interviews an unpaid BuzzFeed quizmasterwho drove a massive amount of traffic to the siteabout her thoughts on this news. Meanwhile, Mike Pesca looks at the broader state of the field and discusses why the digital media business model is broken. (Hint: It has to do with Big Tech.)

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Pinky and the brain: Since Trumps inauguration, several officials who were at various points thought of as the actual minds running the White House have resigned or been fired. Dahlia Lithwick notices one man still standing: Stephen Miller, the senior adviser behind many of the administrations cruelest immigration policies. Why arent more people paying attention to his actions?

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Take back control: HBOs Brexit centers on the big data machinations of Dominic Cummings (Benedict Cumberbatch), the mastermind of the Leave campaign. But does the films portrayal of smoke-filled rooms get the facts of Brexit right? Ellin Stein investigates. Meanwhile, Josh Keating reports on the latest developments in the real-life Brexit mess.

Your brain on e-cigarettes: Across the U.S., lawmakers and regulators are trying to crack down on vaping among teens, even though the practice is estimated to be 95 percent less harmful than smoking. Jacob Grier says this moral panic is a symptom of anti-smoker bias, and its ultimately bad for public health: Vaping, he argues, is just one of many moderately risky activities that consenting adults should be free to engage in.

For fun: A Patriots fan on what its like for your team to be so hated.

So, what do YOU think of Tom Brady?

Nitish
There may not be any good outcomes for Brexit at this point, but the British Parliament at least had several semi-coherent ways forward this month. It could have approved the deal Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with EU leadersbut Parliament rejected that two weeks ago. It could have kicked May out and started with a new prime minister, but it didnt do that either. With the clock ticking down until March 29, when Britain is scheduled to exit the EU whether a new deal has been negotiated or not, it basically had three remaining options: Accept the inevitability of a no-deal Brexit, hold a new referendum on whether to go through with Brexit at all, or ask the EU for more time to negotiate something else.

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Parliament decided it didnt want to do any of those, either.

On Tuesday, May put forward a neutral motion designed to allow discussion on the steps forward for Brexit, allowing members of Parliament to propose amendments expressing their preferences on that path forward. Speaker John Bercow allowed votes on seven of those amendments. (If you havent been watching, Bercow alone has made these debates into thrilling and hilarious TV.) The House of Commons voted down a Labour Party motion that would allow for debate on alternative ideas, including a new public vote or a permanent customs union with the EU. It also rejected several amendments that would have instructed May to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline if shes unable to get her plan approved.

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The House approved a nonbinding amendment rejecting the idea of a no-deal Brexit. And in the most-watched vote of the day, it approved an amendment from Conservative MP Graham Brady that requires Mays Irish backstop to be replaced with vaguely defined alternative arrangements. (The backstop is a controversial provision in the original deal that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with Europe, at least initially, in order to prevent the imposition of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.)

The tl;dr of all this is that May is going to Brussels to try to solve a problem she hasnt been able to solve for the last two years, and now she has only two months. Also, the EU has already rejected the idea of reopening negotiations. Despite the passage of the amendment rejecting a no-deal Brexit, that scenario probably became more likely on Tuesday.

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Not surprisingly, markets didnt react well:

Pound falls as Parliament rejects an amendment that could have led to a delay to Brexit https://t.co/y5eshsoXLn pic.twitter.com/Peal0NuYcG  Bloomberg Brexit (@Brexit) January 29, 2019

A group of Conservative Party MPsboth Brexiteers and Remainerssee a light at the end of the tunnel in whats being called the Malthouse Compromise. What sounds like a particularly dull Sherlock Holmes story is actually a plan, named after housing minister Kit Malthouse, that involves May negotiating with Brussels to replace the Irish backstop with something more palatable to Brexiteers who worry the backstop would lock Britain indefinitely into a customs union with Europe. The replacement would rely on technology to inspect goods for compliance with EU standards as they cross the border, without need for customs posts. (Important caveat: This technology probably doesnt exist yet.) If May cant get that deal, Plan B is a managed no deal, where Britain would ask the EU to extend its transition period to allow it to plan for a complete divorce.

The British government has often been accused of kicking the can down the road when it comes to Brexit. But with the no-deal deadline looming, its now basically kicking it directly into a wall.
Baltimores top prosecutor Marilyn Mosby announced Tuesday the states attorneys office will no longer prosecute marijuana possession cases within the city limits and will seek to vacate nearly 5,000 prior marijuana convictions handed down over the past eight years. Mosby said her office will focus its efforts elsewhere because prosecuting these cases has no public safety value, disproportionately impacts communities of color and erodes public trust, and is a costly and counterproductive use of limited resources, the states attorneys office said in a release Tuesday.

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Neither the weight of the marijuana being carried nor an individuals prior criminal record will impact the non-prosecution policy though possession with a clear intent to distribute will still be prosecutable. Those charged that are charged with felony intent to distribute will be referred to a diversion program. Defendants who face multiple charges, however, can still be charged with possession. We need to get serious about prioritizing what actually makes us safe, Mosby said, and no one who is serious about public safety can honestly say that spending resources to jail people for marijuana use is a smart way to use our limited time and money. Baltimores acting police chief, however, said the citys officers will continue to make arrests for illegal marijuana possession unless and until the state legislature changes the law regarding marijuana possession.

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Ms. Mosbys move places her in a vanguard of big-city prosecutors, including Kim Foxx in Chicago, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. in Manhattan and Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, who are moving away from marijuana cases, declaring them largely off limits and in some cases going so far as to clear old warrants or convictions off the books, the New York Times notes. Much of their reasoning sounds familiar from the many statewide campaigns that have resulted in outright legalization: Marijuana, they say, is not linked to violent crime. Enforcing its prohibition is a waste of resources, and has left thousands of people with criminal convictions that hinder their search for jobs and housing.

Jailing people for marijuana possession is a vast and ongoing moral failure, Mosby said of the new policy. Communities are still sentenced under these unjust policies, still paying a price for behavior that is already legal for millions of Americans. Thats why Im moving to vacate these cases.
In 2015, Alex, now 37, asked her boss if she could take two personal days before Thanksgiving break from her new job teaching at a private school in California. When Alex, who asked to use a pseudonym due to fear of professional consequences, told her boss, who is a woman, that the time off was for an embryo transfer, she recalls her boss saying that this treatment wouldnt qualify for use of one of her paid, already accrued personal daysand insisting that the time off would have to be partially unpaid. After a medical emergency in 2010, Alex had lost both of her fallopian tubes, so in vitro fertilization was her only hope for becoming pregnant again. (She was already the mother of a toddler, also conceived via IVF.) I have co-workers who go to Burning Man the first week of school every year, Alex said. Im not really sure why [IVF] wouldnt qualify for a personal day.

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Infertility is still largely seen as a private medical matter, not the subject of robust public policy discussion or careful consideration from employers. Paid family leave for new parents, by contrast, has gotten significant attention in recent years. It now has broad bipartisan support, and populous states like California and New York have passed comprehensive laws covering millions of workers. While federal legislation about family leave remains crucial and elusive, it is undoubtedly a well-defined and much-championed cause. The same goes for efforts to get company-sponsored insurance plans to cover birth control, which is now required under the Affordable Care Act.

President Trumps efforts to roll back the rule face extensive legal challenges and well-organized opposition from reproductive rights activists. And yet somehow, even as weve made strides in public awareness about the importance of issues like these, infertility treatmentsand the legal and workplace questions that surround themremain largely in the shadows. Individuals who suffer from infertility are often left isolated, facing negative career implications and bank-breaking medical bills.

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One of the biggest misconceptions about infertility is that its a niche issue. Its not. Michelle Obama, upon the release of her memoir in late 2018, became arguably the most famous person to publicly reveal her fertility issues: namely, that she and her husband Barack Obama had used IVF to conceive their daughters. One in 8 women of reproductive age may face problems when trying to conceive a child, which makes infertility about as common as breast cancer and more common than Type 2 diabetes. In 2015, 73,000 babies were born using assisted reproductive technologies, a number that has doubled in the last decade; the most common of these technologies is in vitro fertilization.

I have co-workers who go to Burning Man the first week of school every year. Im not really sure why [ IVF ] wouldnt qualify for a personal day.  Alex

Despite the fact that infertility was officially designated a disease by the American Medical Association in 2017, full fertility treatments are still not a standard part of most company health insurance plans, and are not viewed under current health care laws as an essential benefit. While there has been much public debate about whether employers have the right to limit womens access to contraception through their health plans, there has been little discussion about whether employers should be required to provide benefits that help a woman get access to prescribed, medically necessary treatments when she is struggling to start a family. If you need medical help to have a child, adequate insurance coverage for such treatment is largely viewed as an employment perk. Only 16 states currently require that insurance companies provide or offer some coverage, but even those benefits can have loopholes, and often fail to cover the large costs associated with effective treatment.

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Women dealing with infertility can find themselves caught in a maze of challenges. Even though male factor infertility is the root of 4050 percent of infertility cases in straight couples, its often necessary for women to undergo much more extensive evaluations, medications, and medical procedures in order to become pregnant. The process can be grueling, involving short-notice doctor appointments early in the morning, physically invasive procedures that can require sedation, endless blood draws, regular self-injections of intense hormones, and the emotional roller coaster of waiting to find out if a procedure was successful. Alex described the stress of trying to do a frozen embryo transfer during her demanding schoolyear. She often had work events at night, which meant she had to do her evening hormone injections at school. The anxiety of having needles at school, she said, and who was going to walk into the bathroomIt was crazy.

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Since these treatments fall, in terms of official workplace policy, at the intersection between medical treatment, disability, and pregnancy, companies are often caught flat-footed, with many lacking precedent and clear policiesleaving managers and HR staffers to make their own judgments. And many employers have no idea what their legal obligations are regarding all of this. Why, in 2019, are American workplaces still so stymied when it comes to dealing with issues around infertility?

When I first spoke to Lisamarie, now 35, in late 2017, she was a benefits administrator at a call center in North Carolina. She had been trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child for about six years. (She asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons.) Shes suffered three ectopic pregnancies and has had to have one of her fallopian tubes removed. After the last ectopic pregnancy, doctors told her that IVF was her only chance for conceiving a baby. Lisamarie began her IVF process, which wasshe was grateful to learnpartially covered by her insurance. But then at the end of 2016, in between the retrieval of her eggs and the implantation of embryos in her uterus, she found out that her company was dropping the benefit for the next year. I was gutted, she said. I didnt know how we were going to get these eggs transferred. I was lost.  I think I cried for a week.

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I didnt know how we were going to get these eggs transferred. I think I cried for a week.  Lisamarie

Fertility treatments are not cheap. IVF-related medications and procedures can cost anywhere from $12,000$20,000 per cycleand its not uncommon for IVF to take more than one cycle to workdepending on the clinic and the services provided. Some other forms of infertility treatment, such as intrauterine insemination, cost a fraction of that, but have lower success rates, higher risks for multiples when fertility drugs are used, and arent appropriate in all cases. While there are some opportunities for discounts or reduced fees for IVF, these out-of-pocket costs can be prohibitively expensive for many. The site Fertility IQ puts the average cost for successful IVF treatment at about $51,000, an amount that approaches the average annual US household income.

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According to a study conducted by the insurance brokerage firm Willis Towers Watson, the percentage of employers offering fertility benefits is expected to grow from 55 percent in 2017 to 66 percent by the end of 2019. The problem is that IVF, the most expensive and sometimes most effective form of treatment, isnt always coveredor the amount of reimbursement doesnt come close to covering the costs. David Schlanger, the CEO of the fertility benefits management company Progyny, explained:

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A traditional health plan from a company that offers [what some would consider] decent benefits though their health insurer would be a $20,000 lifetime maximum benefit. But it could have all these pre certification protocols where you might [have to do] three to six rounds of [intrauterine insemination] before they even let you try IVF, and at that point youve used up almost your entire benefit.

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According to Fertility IQ, the state of IVF reimbursement continues to be a tale of haves and have notswith 63 percent of patients and employees receiving zero coverage and almost 20 percent receiving complete coverage. The haves are most likely to work at large companies with robust benefits, often in industries that compete for talent, like tech, consulting or finance. Their employers often opt to expand their benefits through traditional health care companies, or contract additional fertility coverage with outside companies like Progyny. Many traditional insurance companies also have policies that exclude gay couples and single women from coverage by requiring that they must attempt conception through heterosexual intercourse for six to 12 months, depending on their age. This is obviously a maddening requirement for a set of would-be parents.

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Company costs are also always a factor. But the data suggests that comprehensive fertility benefits may actually save companies money in unexpected ways. A 2006 study showed that 91 percent of companies that added IVF coverage did not see a rise in costs to their health care plans, largely because by ensuring that women are targeted, medically appropriate treatments can reduce health care costs overall. When a large company is self-insuredmeaning it pays directly for the health care claims its employees makethere is evidence that it will save money when doctors and patients make smart clinical decisions not based around what treatments are covered and what they will cost.

For example, women who have access to IVF coverage may be less likely to undergo riskier procedures, such as transferring multiple embryos, in an effort to save out-of-pocket costs. Complicated pregnancies, pre-term births, multiples, and NICU stays can cost self-insured companies $100,000 to $500,000 per birth. Providing infertility benefits can have other cost-saving effects including reducing turnover and improving employee loyalty. And yet comprehensive infertility coverage is still notably rare.

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Lisamarie considered raising the loss of the benefits to her employer, but had a hard time even finding the right HR person to raise it with. She was uncomfortable discussing it with her manager and worried her request could be seen negatively. She and her husband decided to withdraw money from their 401(k)s to pay for the egg transfers. The last transfer resulted in a miscarriage at six weeks. When I spoke to her in the fall of 2017, she was out of retrieved eggs, no longer had insurance coverage for IVF, and was unsure if she and her husband would be able to continue with their quest to have a baby. On her first day back at work after the latest miscarriage, a co-worker shared the happy news that her daughter had just given birth that morning: I wanted to be happy for her but it just hit me in my gut. I just had to walk away because I couldnt hold back the tears, but nobody knew why I was crying.

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For many women, infertility is an incredibly painful experience, one that can be difficult to share even with close family members. Discussing it at work can feel like a nonstarter given that it requires opening yourself up to questions about your body, your family plans, your health, your sex life, and your career path. Women struggling with infertility are often faced with a barrage of stereotypes and judgment. There is an automatic assumption that youve brought this on because of career choices youve made, education choices youve made, or the stress in your life, said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE, an infertility support and advocacy group. The reality of what youre going through is not appreciated. Infertility can impact your work life, your relationships, your finances, your faith, and and your health.

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The emotional toll of infertility can be hard to overstate. Angie Bergmann, 36, an SEO strategist who lives in Akron, Ohio, has been dealing with fertility issues and treatments on and off for 14 years. Ive lost both of my parents, she said, and the grief from that is nothing compared to this.

The state of IVF reimbursement continues to be a tale of haves and have notswith 63 percent of patients and employees receiving zero coverage and almost 20 percent receiving complete coverage.

All the women I spoke to had concerns that sharing their infertility with their employers could jeopardize their jobs, lead their bosses to think less of them, or subject them to pregnancy-based discrimination before they were even pregnant. While there havent been comprehensive studies on infertility bias in the workplace, these women werent off-base in their concerns. Pregnancy discrimination is common in American workplaces, and anti-mom bias is also rampant. Women who become mothers earn less than their childless peers, and are judged more harshly by colleagues and bosses. Telling an employer that you are actively trying to become pregnant, may need time off for treatments, and thus might be taking maternity leave in the not-too-distant future rightfully feels risky to many women.

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Katie Lelito, 33, a scientist who has twice succeeded in lobbying employers to cover fertility treatments, said that she was always worried about how sharing her infertility could impact her professionally in a male-dominated field. I was concerned [that if people in my field] knew I was trying to get pregnant that I was somehow less of a scientist. I was worried that, because I also wanted to have a family, people would think maybe I wasnt as committed to my work.

Another thorny issue for women is how to deal with navigating job responsibilities while balancing the sometimes demanding treatment schedule procedures like IVF require. Unlike maternity leave, which most people can arrange for a set period of time well in advance, infertility treatments are far from linear and dont always have a known end date. Also, women cant always predict the physical and emotional needs that result from the process. Fertility treatments can require intense, mood-altering hormone injections on a strict schedule. Egg retrieval and implantation must happen precisely when a womans body is ready, with no regard for meeting schedules or work trips. And procedures requiring sedation can lead to time-off requests on short notice. Additionally, miscarriages or attempts to get pregnant that dont work can be emotionally devastating, making it difficult to return to ones desk like nothing has happened. Alex, the private school teacher, did ultimately conceive her second child with IVF, but not until the summer. She thinks its no coincidence that IVF was successful both times during the months when she wasnt teaching, and thus didnt have to juggle her medications, appointments, and anxiety while working full-time.

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The lack of clarity around workplaces and infertility has presented a challenge for employers, too. There are no widely established HR best practices for how exactly to support women who are dealing with these treatments. Even companies I contacted that have thoughtful and robust fertility benefits for their employees, including Pinterest and Bain and Co., dont offer specific training or guidance to managers around this issue. Often, companies appear to view this particular issue as something that can be categorized under general company guidelines around workplace flexibility and work-life balance, and suggest that their company cultures set a positive tone in supporting women who are dealing with infertility.

But in the absence of official policies, especially at workplaces with strict paid time off rules, less flexible work cultures, fledgling HR structures, or minimal experience dealing with womens health issues, disability, or pregnancy, a lot of discretion is left to individual managers. Thats especially tricky given that many women understandably dont feel comfortable sharing this information with their managers. Its tricky for mangers, too. Without knowing why someone is repeatedly coming in late or, say, declining important business trips, bosses can make their own assumptions about a womans commitment to her job.

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One woman I spoke to said that, at a former employer with a highly demanding work culture, her boss encouraged her to come back to work as soon as she could after an emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, despite the fact her doctor recommended two weeks off for her to recover. The boss had her take unpaid time for the two and a half days she wasnt at work after the surgery. His own wife has been through IVF several times, she recalled. He said, I understand [what you are going through], but you have a job to do. 

While theres still a long way to go in terms of establishing better workplace policies, there are established legal protections for women dealing with an infertility diagnosis at workmany employees and employers just dont know about them. The primary law that generally protects women who have suffered miscarriages or are undergoing infertility treatmentsexplains Dorota Gasienica-Kozak, a Pennsylvania lawyer who specializes in Assisted Reproductive Technology lawis the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

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Under some circumstances, the American Disabilities Act could also apply, requiring employers to make reasonable accommodations to support an employee with a covered disability. While reasonable has to be agreed upon by both the employer and employee, this could include modifying work schedules or workload, and granting paid time off for treatments. The crucial step, however, is that a woman must formally request an Americans with Disabilities Act review with her HR department, and may be required to provide documentation of the disability and the treatment needs.

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While its undeniably difficult, for women to publicly discuss their infertility, sharing stories can be a powerful tool for change. After Lelito, the scientist, found her quest to get pregnant at 27 unsuccessful, doctors told her that IVF was her only chance of conceiving. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, she knew there was no way she could afford IVF treatment costs out of pocket, so with the help of the graduate student union, she spent a year and a half lobbying the university to add coverage. In 2014, the university agreed to add the benefit for all employees and students in its system, covering thousands of people.

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But there was a catch. Lelito had already graduated and had started a job as a research scientist a few weeks before the change was announced, so she wasnt eligible to take advantage of the coverage. Her new company also didnt have any IVF benefits, so she decided to go a HR benefits open session and asked the representative if she would consider adding infertility coverage. Her response was, Oh we dont have that already? Well look into this right away. To her delight, the company added the benefit for that upcoming year. Using her companys IVF policy, Lelito conceived a baby, who was born in October 2016, and has a second due in 2019.

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Aside from achieving the concrete result of convincing employers to change their policies, many of these women expressed hope that telling their stories could help dispel the wider social stigma. Bergmann says that, while shed been at times hesitant to discuss her experiences, the #MeToo movement has emboldened her. I feel even more confident in speaking up now because I clearly see where being quiet has brought us, she said, The only way we can change the conversation around infertility, pregnancy, and reproductive health as a whole is by being unforgivingly and unapologetically loud in voicing our needs.

As for Alex, when she reflects on her long path to conceiving her two kids, the shame she felt around doing IVF still feels vivid. And feeling that it was shameful, she recalled, made it hard for me to really advocate for myself. I just wish there was more empathy around this experience, she said. I wish there could be more conversations, and we could support women who are going through this, socially, culturally, and professionally.
Roma, Alfonso Cuarons intimate masterpiece, has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film. Yalitza Aparicio, the Oaxacan schoolteacher and acting novice who plays Cleo, a young Mixtec woman who finds heartbreak and solace while working for a middle-class family in Mexico City, has been nominated for Best Actress. She is the first indigenous woman to be nominated in the category. Her co-star Marina de Tavira also earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Cuaron himself is in the running for the impressive trifecta of director, screenwriter, and cinematographer (he will be in a club all his own if he wins all three). If Roma takes Best Pictureit has at least a strong shotit will be the first foreign language film to take the Academys top honor. No filmmakernot even legendary directors like Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, both multiple winners in the foreign language categoryhas managed such a feat.

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Romas success at the Oscars would be a triumph for Cuaron, a versatile man of the cinema capable of conjuring the unexpected in the massive canvas of a Harry Potter movie, the eerie stillness of space in Gravity, or the black-and-white frame of Roma, where the director re-creates his childhood home and 1970s Mexico City in Proustian detail.

Romas achievements also belong to a generation of filmmakers unlike any other in the history of the art form. If Cuaron wins again, the Mexican trio of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guillermo del Toro, and Cuaron will take home their fifth Oscar in the past six years in the Best Director categorydel Toro for last years The Shape of Water, Inarritu for The Revenant and Birdman and Cuaron for 2013s Gravity. Of course, the list of foreign-born movie directors who have reached the pinnacle of their careers on Oscar night is long, but few countries can claim to have produced a cohesive group of collaborators with the level of success three Mexican auteurs have enjoyed for more than two decades.

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What makes Inarritu, del Toro, and Cuaron so unique? Renowned Mexican film critic Fernanda Solorzano believes the groups success began with their individual decisions to leave Mexico. They recognized early on that the industry in Mexico couldnt give them either the conditions or the budget they needed to advance their careers, Solorzano told me. They could have become complacent, they could have simply rested on their laurels. Instead, they chose to take risks. All three have been courageous.

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At different moments in the early stages of their careers, Cuaron, Inarritu, and del Toro worked in Mexican television, then a telenovela-producing juggernaut. While others made fortunes repeating tear-jerking formulas, the three directors looked to the big screen. Both Cuaron and del Toro directed their first movies when they were around 30 years old. Cuarons Solo con Tu Pareja, a playful urban comedy co-written with his brother, Carlos, became a smash hit. Del Toros Cronos, a dizzying tale of alchemy and vampirism, followed a couple of years later. Inarritu, who had already revolutionized Mexican radio in the 80s, would join the club in 2000, with the celebrated Amores Perros. After those first movies, none of them looked back. Actor Diego Luna, whose career Cuaron helped launch in the critically acclaimed Y Tu Mama Tambien, agrees. The three of them left Mexico immediately in search of greater challenges, he explained in an email. I believe that each of them, in his own peculiar way, understands risk as an essential part of success.

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All three directors are also constant innovators, both narratively and technically. For Solorzano, this resourcefulness comes not only from the trios creative passions but from the very concrete challenges they faced while trying to develop their craft in Mexico, where inventiveness becomes not a creative luxury but an obligation in an industry that depended, back then, mostly on public funding. For better or worse, in Mexico there are always obstacles, she told me. They had to learn to think outside the box.

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The way they make decisions and how unafraid they are of failure  I find that truly admirable.  Diego Luna

This inventiveness carried over when the directors finally had more resources at their disposal. Under the hood of Gravity, for example, is an obsessive exercise in the geometry of filmmaking, engineered by Cuaron and Emmanuel Lubezki, his virtuoso cinematographer and another member of Mexicos historic filmmaking generation. Inarritus Birdman, for which he won the first of his two Oscars in directing, is an experiment in the art of the long take, with Lubezkis eyes once again at the viewfinder. The Revenant, a gorgeous and violent epic with a grueling production history that almost drove Inarritu and his actors to the brink of insanity, and The Shape of Water, a product of del Toros vivid and colorful imagination, are also exceptional and spellbinding pieces of filmmaking. Roma is but the latest example of Cuarons ambition to experiment with cinemas sights and sounds, a drive so compulsive that it sparked a lively debate over whether viewers should avoid simply streaming the movie at home and instead head to the theaters, where its directors full powers are better on display.

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Another factor that explains the rise of the three great Mexican directors is the way they have chosen to approach Hollywood itself. Instead of trying to shape the business to their own particular tastes, all three chose to, as Diego Luna explained it to me, play the industrys game: earning their stripes as commercially viable directors in Hollywood while pushing for riskier, more complex projects. Luna told me that none of the three directors has ever just reacted to what the industry demands, which is generally some sort of repetition on a theme. Rather, theyve always tried to find original ways into a story, always innovating and surprising the industry. The way they make decisions and how unafraid they are of failure  I find that truly admirable.

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And then theres the sheer joy all three men derive from their craft. When I interviewed Cuaron in 2004 on the press tour for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanwidely praised as the seriess best installmenthe explained a theory he had come up with along with del Toro. Remember when your mom used to give you a big bowl of cereal in the morning and you had to finish before you could get to the prize, the small toy that was at the bottom of the box? Cuaron asked me, with a certain mischief. He went on to explain how both he and del Toro thought of the more commercial movies they had directed as the cereal that would allow them to make passion projects like The Devils Backbone or Y Tu Mama Tambien, the fabled toys in the story. Now, Guillermo and I have a secret that we dont tell our mothers, Cuaron whispered with a playful grin. We love the cereal as well!
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamets newest play tells the story of a depraved Hollywood mogul whose descent from power is swift after allegations of sexual assault pile up against him.

Sound familiar? Thats probably because Bitter Wheat, set to open in Londons West End at the Garrick Theater in June, is heavily based off the Harvey Weinstein allegations and the #MeToo movement that followed.

John Malkovich will play the disgraced studio head, Barney Fein, who is aptly described as a bloated monster.

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While speaking with BBC News, Malkovich points out that Weinstein was the starting point for Bitter Wheat as well as a reaction to the all the news that came out last year.

The play is described as a comedy, with Malkovich saying, A lot of comedy for me exists at the crossroads between pain and farce.

While this is the first creative work heavily inspired by the Weinstein allegations, its safe to assume it wont be the last.

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Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has announced that he may be running for president in 2020 as an independent candidate, and theres at least one New Yorker who has made it clear hes not on board with that idea. At a Barnes & Noble event, an audience member stood up during and yelled at Schultz, Dont help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire asshole.

Thats really harsh. I mean, not for New York, thats just how we greet each other here, said The Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Its just like, Hey a-hole! Congrats on your new puppy! Thanks! Hes a blessing, you prick.

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While Schultz may not be everyones cup of well, coffee, his potential campaign is certainly a concern, and right now, his potential run as an independent candidate is making the Democrats shit themselves, which usually only happens after you drink his coffee, Noah joked. Schultz says he would run as an independent candidate, which could be detrimental to the Democrats success and possibly help Trumps chances of pulling off another victory.

He has policies that are basically liberal, so theres a good chance that he could end up taking up votes that the Democrats need. And dont forget, in 2016, the Democrats only lost the electoral college by 78,000 votes. So every votes counts. So a Schultz candidacy could swing the election to Trump.
SIOUX CITY -- On the walls of Brightside Cafe & Deli, you can find helpful quotes from such intellectual heavy hitters as Mark Twain, Mahatma Gandhi and, even, Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore? As in the headmaster of J.K. Rowling's fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, featured in the "Harry Potter" series of books and movies? Yes, the very same one.

"We wanted to be the place where people can relax and escape their hectic lives," Erik Munoz said inside the eatery's dining room. "They may only be here for a breakfast or a lunch or during a coffee break. We want to represent the bright side in the lives of our guests."

It has long been long been the dream of Munoz and his brother-partner of operating their own restaurant.

When Little Chicago Deli, a downtown Sioux City mainstay for more than 30 years, closed abruptly in October, the Munoz Brothers knew the location at 525 Fourth St. would be perfect for them.

"Juan and I envisioned this would be a terrific place for a deli-style restaurant that would serve coffee and specialty omelets in the morning as well as soups, salads and sandwiches for lunch," Munoz sad. "There are enough downtown office workers who want something better than fast food."
After all, she had managed a multitude of eateries over the years.

However Walker, had to convince her husband Gary, a longtime Sioux City Foundry machine shop supervisor, to become her new business partner.

Since Sept. 2018, the Walkers have been selling and making comfort bar food at Sgt. Brew at 701 First St. in Sergeant Bluff.

That's just four blocks away from Mateo Fil-Am Kitchen and Catering, which is owned by Tim and Divina Ericksen, another husband and wife.

According to Divina Ericksen, Mateo -- which opened in November 2018 -- is the restaurant featuring authentic Filipino food within an 80-mile radius.

"We have this market to ourselves," Divina Ericksen, a Manilla native, explained inside her restaurant, located at 300 First St. in Sergeant Bluff. "We get to introduce the public to Filipino food."

Even though the Ericksens are newcomers to restaurant ownership, they know the industry has its fair share of sharks.

Jim Symons Jr. thought the same thing. That's why he named his new business Sharky's Pizzeria and Grill.
Senate rejected JIT report Sahiwal incident

A legislative body of the Upper House of Parliament Tuesday rejected the joint investigation team (JIT) constituted to probe the Sahiwal incident and demanded a judicial inquiry into the killing of three innocent members of the same family and their friend in an alleged encounter by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).



On January 19, four people  including three members of the Khalil family  were killed in an alleged encounter in Sahiwal. The CTD at that time had claimed that they had killed a local commander of militant organisation Daesh and three others in the intelligence-based operation.



A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior was held in the Parliament House while Senator Rehman Malik in the chair. The relatives of the victims, including deceased Khalils brother and alleged killed terrorist Zeeshans mother, appeared before the parliamentary panel to record their statements.



The committee categorically rejected the JIT formed by the provincial government to probe the incident. Why is government not appointing a judicial commission if it is within its power? it asked. Zeeshans mother informed the committee that her son was not a terrorist. Why wasnt Zeeshan apprehended alive? If an Indian terrorist can be arrested alive then why not Zeeshan, she questioned.



Rehman Malik said the committee took notice of the killings six hours after the incident. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Javed Abbasi, who is also part of the panel, said the police was involved in the entire matter. We do not accept any investigation by police. How is it possible that the ones who committed the killings are the ones investigating the murder? he asked, and urged that the investigation should be taken back from the police. If the committee and Senate have rejected the JIT, then in what capacity is the JIT working? he asked.



The PML-N senator criticized the provincial government and accused it of lying about the Sahiwal incident. To this, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insafs Azam Swati replied that the government should not be blamed. Abbasi, however, stuck to his statements and said the government is involved in the Sahiwal killings.



PML-Ns Javed Abbasi and PTIs Azam Swati also exchanged heated words during the meeting when the former referred to latters controversial statement over the incident. Abbasi said he didnt accept the probe by the police as they were involved in the case. The inquiry committee will definitely try to save the police personnel, he asserted.



Talking to the media after the meeting, Malik said he had written a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan, who also holds the portfolio of interior minister, to answer the call of the nation and form a judicial commission to investigate the Sahiwal killings. He said that the interior minister had the authority to form such a commission.



Malik added that though the matter of the Sahiwal incident was already in court, the court will not begrudge the federal government for forming a judicial commission as the complainant of the case had approached the judiciary to demand the same. It is better that you (interior minister) take the initiative (and form a judicial commission), he said, and added that if the demand was not fulfilled, the matter will be raised in the House. The former interior minister also said that all parties had agreed over the demand of a judicial commission.



Speaking to media before leaving for Islamabad earlier in the day, Khalils brother Jalil said the statement by their lawyer regarding threats was in his personal capacity. He opined that it would have been better if a judicial commission was formed instead of the joint investigation team (JIT). We are not satisfied with the JIT probe, he said, adding that they have changed their lawyer after threats against the family.
Average student debt at UI, for example, is $14,680, President Bruce Harreld said, and 45 percent of students graduate with no debt. However, average student debt for students with debt is $27,715.

The universities have set goals of helping students graduate in four years, which at the UI has resulted in a reduction more than $1,200 in average student debt since 2014, Harreld said.

ISU President Wendy Wintersteen said average student debt has been reduced by more than $2,200 since 2013, and the percent of ISU students borrowing money  59 percent  is a historic low.

A key to keeping student on a four-year graduation track, as well as increasing grade-point averages and placement rates, is what happens outside the classroom, the presidents said.

Nearly two-thirds of graduating seniors report being involved in two or more internships, research projects, service-learning opportunities or campus clubs, Harreld said. The UI goal is for 60 percent of graduates to be involved in at least three high-impact, out-of-classroom experiences.

As an instructor, Harreld said, If I can engage my students in work activities outside the classroom that relate to what Im teaching, theyre thinking about what Im teaching and practicing it a lot more.
The proposal was met with concerns from both sides at Tuesdays subcommittee hearing.

A representative of an animal welfare organization said the proposal sets too high a legal bar to get a conviction for animal abuse.

An Iowa dog breeder said she is concerned the bill does not differentiate intent from negligence, and the latter should not necessarily be punished.

Shipley, who put together the bill with Sen. Dan Dawson, a Republican from Council Bluffs, said he is hopeful the legislation will advance, and said he takes it as a positive sign he is hearing both support and concern from myriad stakeholders.

Sen. Dawson and I both understand when we put this together this was a pretty solid starting point, but it wasnt going to be everything everybody wanted, Shipley said. I want to keep it moving forward but have those conversations about improvements. ... Were certainly willing to listen and work on that.

Haley Anderson, executive director of Iowa Voters for Companion Animals, said she has been working with other legislators and other, similar bills that she expects to see introduced this session. She said those bills likely will include legislation adding stricter enforcement of dog breeders with inhumane conditions for the animals.

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In a statement to the Journal, Gausman said school was called off Wednesday, since there is a Wind Chill Warning for the day, while there was no such warning Tuesday.

Across the region, schools also postponed or cancelled extracurricular activities Tuesday and Wednesday.

Due to the bitter cold, the Postal Service announced it would suspend deliveries Wednesday in Iowa, South Dakota and some other Midwest states. Retail operations at local offices will be available, but may be limited, the USPS said. There will be no collection mail pick up from businesses or collection boxes, and there will be no residential or commercial package pick-up services.

Authorities also issued warnings for pets and livestock, urging owners to provide their animals with shelter from the harsh conditions.

It's been a bracing few days weather-wise in Siouxland, starting with a wind gust measured at 66 mph in Sioux City about midnight Sunday. The rebound finally comes during the day Thursday, when a forecast high of 17 degrees might feel comparably warm by comparison. After that, temperatures for Friday through Sunday in Sioux City will include daytime highs above freezing, with highs in the mid-40s expected for Saturday.

"If folks can hang on tight for the next 48 hours, things will improve," Rogers said Tuesday afternoon.

Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Delaney said over his 15 months as a candidate, the national chief issues have changed. The prime issue people are talking about is the Mexican border wall for which Republican President Donald Trump sought $5 billion, and which led to a month-long partial government shutdown through last week. He said a wall barrier is a Trump "vanity project" that should not be built.

Delaney said health care improvements remain a chief issue for Iowans. The congressman said he's highly concerned with rural community vitality, since many struggle to have flourishing business environments.

Delaney said one plan to address that would require one-fourth of federal contractors to have half of their workers hailing from distressed areas. He also wants to double the amount of the Earned Income Tax Credit received by people living in distressed areas.

Delaney said being first Democrat to work through Iowa in grassroots fashion will pay dividends, in a field he envisions could run from 10 to 15 presidential candidates.

"I have the right vision for the country, but not enough people knew who I was or still know who I am. The reason I got in early was, I basically had to run a pre-race, before everyone else got in the race, so I could be in the race," he said.
SIOUX CITY -- Two Sioux City School District students received honors Tuesday, after winning art and essay contests.

Sixth-grader Langston Saint was honored for winning the local and district Iowa Elks Association essay contest. Students wrote for the theme, "Our Flag, What It Means To Me," and Saint wrote how the flag has gone through substantial change over U.S. history.

More than 400 essays were submitted from nine area schools.

Additionally, Alexander Hernandez Martinez, a sixth-grader at West Middle School, won the Martin Luther King Jr. Art Contest. The contest resulted in first, second and third place honorees in each of the elementary, middle and high school levels, and Hernandez Martinez won the overall first-place award.

There were 165 art contest submissions by elementary students, 132 from middle school students and 32 by high-schoolers.

Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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HARTINGTON, Neb. -- A Randolph, Nebraska, man has been sentenced to prison for beating and choking a woman and then threatening a witness.

Evan Brandt, 36, had pleaded guilty in Cedar County District Court to first-degree domestic assault and terroristic threats. District Judge Paul Vaughan on Monday sentenced him to five to eight years in prison. Brandt must serve two and a half years before he's eligible for parole.

On May 27, Brandt assaulted the woman at a home in Randolph. Brandt later pointed a pellet gun at a witness who had intervened in the assault.

Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Pak-Russia agreed to coordinate efforts for peace in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Russia on Tuesday agreed to continue coordinating their positions on efforts for peace in Afghanistan. The understanding was reached during Russian Special Representative on Afghanistan Ambassador Zamir Kabulovs meetings with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua.



Mr Kabulov was in Islamabad for consultations on regional political situation and the Afghan peace process.



Pakistan has renewed efforts for facilitating the peace process in Afghanistan. The United States and Taliban last week held six-day-long negotiations after which both sides claimed significant progress although some issues still remain to be resolved.



Mr Qureshi in his meeting with Mr Kabulov underscored that Pakistan was facilitating the ongoing talks between the US and the Taliban as a shared responsibility and in good faith and hoped that the talks would lead to an intra-Afghan dialogue.



The Taliban have since the start of negotiations with the US refused to talk to the Afghan government until Washington committed to a clear withdrawal plan.



Amb Kabulov noted that Russia and Pakistan were important stakeholders in peace and stability in Afghanistan and it was in their shared interest to support all efforts for peace and stability there through their close coordination.



The two sides agreed to continue regular consultations on Afghan peace process and support regional initiatives to bring lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region, a Foreign Office statement said.



Foreign Minister Qureshi later left for a visit to Muscat, Oman. During his two-day trip to Oman, the minister will attend the meeting of Pak-Oman Joint Ministerial Commission. He would also be meeting Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi and deputy prime minister Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al Said.
Feature Image Credit: tataydigong.info

When youre serving in the army, the topic of death is constantly lingering in the air.

On day 1 of BMT, we joke about wanting our buddies to die so we can attain PES F and leave the army.

Before training sessions, we get briefed on the dangers of heat injury, and how it could potentially be fatal. We mindlessly take part in water parades, paying no heed to said warnings.

Throughout the 2 years of service, we read reports on unfortunate NSFs who succumb to injuries or have fatal allergic reactions. We sympathise, but think that it could never happen to us.

When we go back to camp for reservist, we enjoy the brief reprieve it gives us from our hectic work lives. It provides us an escape route back to a time when our biggest worry was getting in your Enciks good graces so that we could book out on time. Death is the last thing on our minds.

Yet, it still happens.

Today the nation mourns the loss of Corporal First-Class Aloysius Pang. The actor passed away last night from injuries he suffered during a military exercise in New Zealand, where he was due to spend 3 weeks at.

Everyone from celebrities to fans, and even meme and shitposting pages on Facebook that usually poke fun at popular culture have posted heartwarming tributes to the memory of Aloysius.

However, unlike Corporal First-Class Dave Lee, Corporal First-Class Liu Kai, and Corporal Kok Yuen Chin, all of whom died while in service within the last year, Aloysius was not an NSF, and was merely on reservist.

Currently, the public sentiment is that of sadness, anger, and injustice. The fact that he died while on reservist rankles the nation. After all, this is a man who had served his 2 year obligation as an NSF.

More importantly, his death, like many others before him, occurred during a training exercise.

Rice-Media-Aloysius-Pang-Singaporean-Man-Mortality-1

It was a mighty coincidence, but after reading the tragic news of Aloysius passing yesterday, I came home to the sealed rectangular envelope that ORD army personnel have come to recognise and dread. It was a notice for my next ICT (In-Camp Training) call-up.

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However, instead of the usual annoyance I would normally feel upon laying my eyes on the SAF100 notification letter, I felt genuine fear that my life would be in danger.

It was the most human Ive felt for a long time when I thought, What if that happens to me one day?

I couldnt help thinking about how we try our best to control every single element in our lives that sometimes we forget about the simple things; to stop and smell the roses, and to embrace the present.

More importantly, I wondered if any other NSMan felt the same way. If men about to enter the army were also thinking it could be them one day, or if men who have already ROD-ed are thinking, it could have been them.

As someone who isnt well-attuned to the world of Mediacorp dramas, I have to admit that I didnt even know who Aloysius was a mere four days ago. Yet, his passing has resonated with me more than I ever thought it would, simply because it could have very easily been me in his shoes.

Having ORD-ed less than 5 years ago myself, coupled with the fact that the both of us are not too far apart in terms of age, the similarity of our situations adds another layer of relatability.

Or perhaps, it was the suddenness in the way this incident unfolded, leaving the entire nation on the edge of our seats as the entire saga played out out over a short period of four days.

Stories of loss become even more tragic when it involves a young person. From time to time, my grandmother still tells me that one of the saddest things in life is the concept of Bai Fa Ren Song Hei Fa Ren, which translates loosely from Mandarin to an older person having to mourn the death of a younger person, against the natural order of human life.

When this happens, we cry foul at the fact that the deceased was not able to live a full life, and celebrate the memory of his life and accomplishments. We then post cliches on how life is short and how we should not take things for granted, although not much else happens from there.

This is neither a witch hunt nor a call for accountability from the relevant authorities. Strategically crafted press releases do little to alleviate the feeling of haplessness broiling within us, nor will it rid us of the inescapable feeling that the NS deaths are nothing more than collateral damage.

However, If there is anything positive that we can take away from this tragic occurrence, it is the reminder of the fragility and unpredictability of life, as well as our inevitable mortality as human beings.

Simply put, we have to accept that sometimes, shit happens, and things are out of our control. The reality is that people do die young. Ive always known this, but I think it was only yesterday that I truly understood it.

It is only when we are at our most vulnerable that we gain some perspective on the reason why we embark on our endeavours and rediscover the purpose behind our existence.

I just hope that it doesnt always have to take the death of a promising young man each time for all of us to gain that perspective.

Have something to say? Tell us at community@ricemedia.co

The post Following Aloysius Pangs Death, Singaporean Men Reckon With Their Mortality appeared first on RICE.
Both companies are education tech startups based in Singapore

XSEED, a Singapore-based edtech company, has reportedly acquired Report Bee, a cloud-based software solution for school management. The amount of acquisition is undisclosed.

Founded in 2010 by Ananthraman Mani, Bala Ganesh S., and Anjan T., Report Bee is a cloud-based software solution that allows schools to assess, report, and analyse the performance of individual students, classes, and teachers.

With the acquisition, the founders will join XSEED.

Also Read: Vietnam edtech company KYNA raises funding from SWOF and CyberAgent Capital

The acquisition will include the integration of Report Bees assessment platform and suite of products. XSEED intends to use Report Bees already established system to make real time assessments, provide personalised student feedback, and analyse data to diagnose teaching gaps.

Report Bee claimed that its platform has been used by close to 1,000 schools. Previously, it secured investment from India Education Innovation Fund which is wholly backed by Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

Headquartered in Singapore with development centers in Delhi and Bangalore, XSEED said that it has reached one million children in eight countries.



The post XSEED Education acquires Singapore-based edtech startup Report Bee appeared first on e27.
SEAF Womens Opportunity Fund (SWOF) is joined by CyberAgent Capital and other investors in funding e-learning solutions KYNA

KYNA, an all-age e-learning solution, has announced its second investment from CyberAgent Capital, who was joined by SEAF Womens Opportunity Fund. Previously, KYNA receives the first round of investment in April 2016 from Cyberagent Capital.

KYNA has shared that it will use the new funding for growing Kynaforkids.vn. The startup claims to have attracted more than 150,000 parents paying for its Math and English programs.

Also Read: 16-year-old Indian prodigy has developed a drone that can detect and destroy landmines

This funding will help KYNA fostering new product development, upgrading technology infrastructure, learning experiences, and gaining new market share, said Tram Ho, Co-founder and Managing Director of KYNA.

In five years, KYNA claimed to have attracted more than 600,000 users in all age ranges. Its products include Kyna.vn, an online short courses in different topics for adults and Kynaforkids, an online courses for children from age 5 to 12 years old.

Adding to its products option, KYNA also has become an e-learning contractor for large corporates in Vietnam.

This investment will support KYNAs growth plan, deliver significant social impact through skills training for adults and effective education service for children, said Jennifer Buckley, Senior Managing Director of SEAF Womens Opportunity Fund.

Previously known as CyberAgent Ventures, CyberAgent Capital is a Japanese venture capital firm that has been focussing its investment portfolios in Internet startups with founding teams who show potential. In Vietnam, CyberAgent Capital has backed around 30 startups like Foody, NCT Corp, VNG, Tiki, Topica, and Luxstay.

Also Read: Sam Tsai: The pivotal figure behind Taiwanese e-commerce giant PChomes entry into Thailands e-commerce market

SEAF is an emerging markets private equity fund manager that provides capital, capacity building, and a global network to support small and medium-sized business expansion. The firm is particularly focused on womens economic empowerment and gender equality. It also pursues companies in health and education, clean energy and smart solutions, sustainability in agribusiness, financial and technological inclusion, and displaced and migrant peoples investing.

The Womens Opportunity Fund is investing up to US$2 million per investment in growth-oriented, women-led businesses in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia.



The post Vietnam edtech company KYNA raises funding from SWOF and CyberAgent Capital appeared first on e27.
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks during a news conference on Yemen resolution U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaks during a news conference on Yemen resolution on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas .

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said on Wednesday they expect Congress will pass a resolution ending U.S. involvement in the Yemen war, which would force President Donald Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency in order to continue supporting the Saudi-led coalition.

Republican and Democratic senators and representatives said on Wednesday they were re-introducing a war powers resolution that passed the Senate by 56-41 in December, a rebuke of Trump amid anger at Saudi Arabia not just over civilian deaths in Yemen, but also the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

The lawmakers - an alliance of progressive Democrats and Republican constitutional conservatives - deplored the "humanitarian disaster" in Yemen but also said they wanted Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to decide whether the United States should be involved in military conflict.

"That decision has never been debated and discussed and voted on and approved by Congress," Republican Senator Mike Lee, one of the measure's sponsors, told a news conference.

The United States has supported the Saudi-led air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen with mid-air refueling support, intelligence and targeting assistance.

Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to risk disrupting the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel.

The embassy of Yemen in Washington issued a statement opposing the resolution, saying it would "deliver a massive victory to Iran" if Washington were to stop supporting the coalition.

December's Senate vote was the first time either chamber of Congress backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval.

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The measure never went further in December because the Republicans who then controlled the House of Representatives did not allow a vote in that chamber before the end of the year.

However, the measure's sponsors insisted it had helped lead to a ceasefire in Yemen that began in December. "Sometimes we underestimate how much influence we have," Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said.

Democrats now have a House majority, but Trump's fellow Republicans have increased their edge in the Senate by two seats to hold a 53-47 margin.

It would take a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to overcome a Trump veto. Trump had threatened a veto in December. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he still intended to do so.

"President Trump is going to have to make a decision," said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Starting with over 21 franchised and leased hotels, OYOs current footprint includes presence in Metro Manila, Tagaytay and Cebu

OYO to invest US$50M for Philippines expansion [press release]

Southeast Asias budget hotels aggregator OYO Hotels and Homes has announced its launch in the Philippines.

Starting with over 21 franchised and leased hotels, OYOs current footprint includes presence in Metro Manila, Tagaytay and Cebu as it plans to grow to 10 cities by 2020.

OYO Hotels would be franchising and leasing assets while transforming them into quality living spaces.

The company has also committed an investment of over US$50 million over the next few years in the country, and aims to generate over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Smart spending-tracker gini secures US$1.6M

gini, a Hong Kong based smart spending-tracker, has completed its seed round with a US$1.6 million investment from both international institutions and Hong Kong-based Vectr Ventures, the early stage fintech venture capital firm.

The funding will support a global roll-out plan, with gini aiming to be compatible with over 3,000 overseas banks in 60 countries by the second half of 2019  starting with over 60 banks across Hong Kong, France, Switzerland and the UK currently available.

We are Hong Kong-based, but the plan was never to launch an app only for the Hong Kong market, said Co-founder CEO Raymond Wyand. We live in a globalised world. Ultimately, our goal is to build a truly worldwide financial marketplace, to service not just a users home market but make managing money across markets accessible and easy for anyone to do. This new seed round allows us to start making that vision a reality.

Kinestral raises over US$100M led by SK Holdings [press release]

Kinestral Technologies, the developer and manufacturer of Halio, a smart-tinting glass product for buildings and homes, today announced that it has closed Series D funding of over US$100 million led by SK Holdings, one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea.

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Current investors 5AM Ventures, Alexandria Real Estate, Capricorn Investment Group and Versant Ventures also participated in the round. This investment will allow Kinestral to expand manufacturing, sales, and installation of Halio smart-tinting glass to meet rapidly growing global demand.

Halio looks like natural glass in its clear state and tints automatically or on demand to neutral gray shades to stop the unwanted intrusion of both glare and solar heat, while giving users privacy. Halio responds in seconds to changing light conditions. It tints uniformly to a virtually limitless number of tint level options. It can also be integrated with building management and home automation systems as well as cloud-based devices.

AI startup Clootrack raises US$500K funding [press release]

Bangalore-based AI startup Clootrack Software has raised US$500,000 in seed funding round led by Indian Angel Network. The round also saw participation from IAN Fund, Unicorn India Ventures (existing investor), SEA Fund and Malabar Angel Network.

Anthony Thomas, Global CIO, Nissan Motors and Salliel Gupta have led the round on behalf of IAN with Anthony joining the company board. IAN investor group also includes Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-founder, Infosys).

Founded in April 2017, Clootrack is an AI-driven data analytics platform that discovers and measures brand perceptions in real time. It does this based on analysis of customer conversations in various online media and customer care tickets. Clootrack discovers brand perception elements in an unsupervised manner from text conversations.

The company runs on proprietary deep learning algorithms based on proven mathematical models and has two pending patents.

PH venture capital, private equity players form investment industry association [press release]

Leading venture capital and private equity players in the Philippines have come together to create an investment industry association that will act as a unified voice representing professional and institutional investors in the Philippines.

Called the Venture Capital and Private Equity Association of the Philippines (VCAP), this non-stock, non-profit corporation was the brainchild of ICCP SBI Venture Partners, Navegar, Endeavor Philippines, and Kickstart Ventures, Inc. with support from Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura, Sayoc & de los Angeles Law.

VCAP is the first of its kind in the Philippines. It is a forum to promote a greater understanding of the roles VC and PE play in economic growth, to foster the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation, to encourage foreign investments into the VC and PE sectors in the Philippines, as well as to facilitate interaction and collaboration amongst its members, said William Valtos Jr., VCAP Chairman and President and ICCP SBI Venture Partners Senior Managing Director.

VCAPs mandate includes building linkages with similar associations in other countries, raising the profile of the VC and PE asset classes, serving as a platform for potential dialogue on regulatory and policy issues affecting venture and private equity investments in the country, and promoting professional development of the member firms and employees.

The formation of VCAP will give local and foreign investors an accessible forum for sharing market information as well as discussing policies and practices which are of concern to VC and PE institutions and professionals, according to Honorio Poblador IV, VCAP treasurer and Navegar managing partner.

The post Todays top tech news, Jan 30: OYO to expand to Philippines; gini raises US$1.6M appeared first on e27.
The migrant search and rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, operated by German NGO Sea-Watch, is seen off the coast of Siracusa, Italy, January 27, 2019. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said 47 migrants who have been blocked at sea off Sicily for 11 days on a rescue ship will be allowed to come ashore on Wednesday, ending the latest migrant standoff.

"In a few hours, they will begin to disembark," Conte told reporters in Milan. The migrants have been on the vessel since they were rescued off the Libyan coast.

Italy's populist government, which took office last year, has closed its ports to humanitarian vessels in a bid to force European Union partners to take a share of those rescued in the Mediterranean.

The Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3, which is run by a German humanitarian group, has been moored off the coast of Sicily as it waits for a safe port. Some 13 minors are among those on board and the long wait has taken its toll, Sea Watch said on Wednesday.

"Some people have stopped eating, shrunk into themselves, others have become emotionally unstable," Frank Dorner, the ship's doctor, said in a statement.

Five European countries agreed to accept some of the migrants, Conte said on Tuesday, naming Germany, France, Portugal, Malta and Romania. On Wednesday, he said Luxembourg and Italy would also welcome some of them.

The leaders of the two parties in the coalition government had pressed the Netherlands, France and Germany to accept the migrants this week. The Netherlands refused, saying the EU must draft a plan that automatically redistributes migrants saved at sea.

It is the second time in a month that the Sea-Watch 3 has been stranded at sea with rescued migrants and no safe port.

The previous standoff ended after 19 days with the migrants allowed ashore in Malta and an agreement among eight EU countries, including Italy, to subsequently take them in.

(Reporting by Lisa Di Giuseppe, writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Well, well  it seems were no closer to understanding who or what happened in a viral clip that began to make the rounds yesterday afternoon, but weve got enough information to give it a shot.

Here it goes: This is KLCC Suria, a popular shopping mall right next to Malaysias most imposing structure, Tun Razak Exchange, the Petronas Twin Towers.

Earlier this week, deep in its annals, basking in the confluence of nearby flattering Sephora lighting, the intoxicating aroma of Auntie Annes pretzels, and the immediate medical attention of a Guardian pharmacy, two women decided to have a go at each other, and of course in a crowded mall  at least one human was present to film and upload the fracas onto social media.

Behold:

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Alright, now an explainer. Watching the video, the taller woman in the beige baju (outfit) asks the sales girl: Do you know who I am?!

We did not, and it made the clip slightly confusing, but were used to that.

Turns out, her name is Sheryna, and she is the personal assistant of Nur Sajat, a Malaysian cosmetics entrepreneur slash celeb whose biggest claim to fame at this point sadly boils down to some unwarranted speculation by religious authorities regarding her gender at birth. TL;DR  some individuals are mildly obsessed, and while its probably no ones business, both Nur and her mother have clarified she is female.

Got it?

Deeper into the dregs of social media trash we go: After the clip went viral, both the shop assistant, named Mimi, and the PA have made public statements, and like two warring Real Housewives three Chardonnays to the wind, their stories conflict.

According to both Nur, who took to her Instagram to comment on the incident, and Sheryna, the salesperson showed great disrespect to both women. The duo claim that she spoke ill of Nur Sajat while she was present, and that she also referred to Sheryna as anjing (dog), quite the insult to some in this part of the world.

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According to Mimi, she was simply slogging it out at work when a woman in heels stormed in, grabbed her, dragged her outside, and slapped her in the face, accusing her of all sorts of things.

Oh yeah  if you didnt watch the clip until the end, the two women slap each other, eventually leading to the kind of fight that someone who just wanted to get a tee from Uniqlo needs to break up.

via hangat.com

Now, Mimi has reported the incident to nearby Dang Wangi police, saying that while she retaliated, it was only after she was struck several times, and that prior to the video being shot, she was harassed by others from Sajats camp.

Nur and Sheryna are standing firm, saying that her harsh words provoked the entire incident:

You called my PA a dog and said all sorts of things about me. When my PA went for you, you got scared, she wrote via Instagram.

Before you say anything bad about people, or even hate people, take a good look at yourself! After this sayang (love), try to respect people and do not insult them.

Alright, alright  LADIES. Violence is never the answer. Harsh words or not, you cant go around slapping people in KLCC, as much as everyone might like to  its illegal.

Police are now investigating the incident.

This article, She said, she said: Shopping mall bust up featuring a celeb PA and shop assistant, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
Main facilitator of Chinese consulate arrested from Sharjah

The main facilitator of last years attack on Chinese consulate in Karachi has been arrested from Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Counter-Terrorism Department Deputy Inspector General Abdullah Sheikh said the suspect was present in Karachi at the time of the attack. According to him, the accused had received an amount of Rs 0.9 million for the attack which he distributed among the attackers.



Sheikh said the suspect has connections in foreign countries and has been arrested on CTDs identification.



Earlier this month, Karachi Additional IGP Dr Amir Sheikh had said that India and its Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) members were involved in the attack along with terrorists belonging to the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).



He had claimed that the attack had been planned in Afghanistan and the purpose was to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). On November 23 last year, security forces had foiled an attack on the Chinese consulate located in Clifton neighbourhood of Karachi. The security personnel had killed all the attackers, and seized suicide jackets and ammunition.
Netflix's "The Ghost Bride" is currently filming in Malaysia.

30 Jan  Netflix is currently working on its new Mandarin original series, "The Ghost Bride", and it has tapped two talented Malaysian filmmakers to helm the project.

"Mrs K" director Ho Yuhang and "Guang" director Quek Shio Chuan team up for the locally-shot series, working with an international cast and crew from Hollywood, Malaysia and Taiwan.

The two filmmakers are directing a cast led by Taiwanese actor Wu Kang Ren and Taiwanese actress Huang Peijia. Chinese-Canadian actor Ludi Lin, who starred in "Power Rangers" and was recently seen in "Aquaman", and Malaysian actor Tian Tze Kuang are also part of the cast.

The six-episode drama, adapted by American-Taiwanese TV writer Kai Yu Wu ("Hannibal", "The Flash") from Yangsze Choo's 2013 novel of the same name, is the first Netflix Mandarin original series to be filmed in Malaysia.

It is now filming in several locations including Johor Bahru, Penang and Ipoh.

Set in 1890s Colonial Malacca, it follows Li Lan, who is offered a marriage proposal from the wealthy Lim Family to become the "ghost bride" to their recently deceased son. While this will save her family from debt, she will have to spend the rest of her life haunted by the son.

As she tries to get out of the ghastly arrangement, she finds herself caught in a murder mystery and other-worldly affairs that are much bigger than she could have ever imagined.
Malaysia and China are still in talks about a multi-billion-dollar, Beijing-backed railway project, the finance minister said Wednesday, after a week of confusing and contradictory statements about the deal. Since the shock defeat last year of a long-ruling, corruption-plagued regime in Malaysia, the new government has suspended a series of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects, including the rail line. Critics said the projects lacked transparency, could saddle Malaysia with debt, and were in reality aimed at quickly funnelling cash to former leader Najib Razak to help him pay back cash looted from a sovereign wealth fund. At the weekend, Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali said the government had made a final decision to cancel the 81 billion ringgit ($19.7 billion) rail link, which would have connected the eastern and western coasts of peninsular Malaysia. But hours later, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng expressed shock at the announcement. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the project could "impoverish" Malaysia and he was seeking China's "understanding" -- but also insisted no final decision had been made. On Wednesday, Finance Minister Lim said that the cabinet had agreed at a meeting that negotiations about the project were indeed still ongoing -- and from now on only Mahathir would comment on the issue. He said the discussions between the two countries would now be held "away from the public glare", official news agency Bernama reported. "Of course there is a time frame, but let's discuss the matter in a confidential manner." The new administration, which came to power in May after toppling a government that had ruled for six decades, is an uneasy coalition that came together with the principal aim of ousting Najib. While Mahathir has much experience in national-level politics -- he is 93 and had a first stint as premier from 1981 to 2003 -- many of his colleagues are serving in the national government for the first time. Najib's government was toppled in large part due to allegations that he and his cronies looted billions from state fund 1MDB, and spent it on everything from yachts to pricey artworks. He has been arrested over the scandal but denies any wrongdoing.
A pair of his father's old tandoor ovens helped Hong Kong restaurateur Asim Hussain achieve a dream -- the world's first Michelin star for a Pakistani restaurant, an accolade he hopes will fire interest in the country's often overlooked cuisine. Like many of Hong Kong's 85,000 strong South Asian population, Hussain's family trace their lineage in the bustling financial hub back generations, when the city was a British colonial outpost. His great-grandfather arrived during World War One, overseeing mess halls for British soldiers while his Cantonese speaking father owned restaurants in the eighties and nineties. Hussain, 33, already had some twenty eateries in his group when he decided to embark on his what he described as his most personal and risky project yet, a restaurant serving dishes from Pakistan's Punjab region, the family's ancestral homeland and where he was packed off to boarding school aged six. His father, a serial entrepreneur and even once Pakistan's ambassador to South Korea, suggested he restore two old tandoors from his now shuttered restaurant collecting dust in storage. "He comes from a generation that doesn't throw things away," laughs Hussain, dressed in a traditional knee-length tunic and sitting in a restaurant decked with paintings by Pakistani artists. "Actually the results are better than if we had new ovens because these things improve with age." Those tandoors, frequent trips to Lahore to perfect recipes and a kitchen overseen by head chef Palash Mitra, earned the New Punjab Club a Michelin star just 18 months after it opened its doors. - 'A benchmark' - The success made headlines in Pakistan, a country that is unlikely to see a Michelin guide any time soon and whose chefs have long felt overshadowed by the wider global recognition gained from neighbouring India's regional cuisines. "It makes us proud, it makes us very happy," Waqar Chattha, who runs one of Islamabad's best-known restaurants, told AFP. "In the restaurant fraternity it's a great achievement. It sort of sets a benchmark for others to achieve as well." Hussain is keen to note that his restaurant only represents one of Pakistan's many cuisines, the often meat-heavy, piquant food of the Punjab. At it doesn't come cheap -- as much as $100 per head. "I'm not arrogant or ignorant to say this is the best Pakistani restaurant in the world. There are better Pakistani restaurants than this in Pakistan." But he says the accolade has still been a "great source of pride" for Hong Kongs 18,000-strong Pakistani community. "It's bringing a very niche personal story back to life, this culture, this cuisine is sort of unknown outside of Pakistan, outside of Punjab, so in a very small way I think we've shed a positive light on the work, on who we are and where we come from," he explains. It was the second star achieved by Black Sheep, the restaurant group which was founded six years ago by Hussain and his business partner, veteran Canadian chef Christopher Mark, and has seen rapid success. But the expansion of Michelin and other western food guides into Asia has not been without controversy. Critics have often said reviewers tended to over-emphasise western culinary standards, service and tastes. Daisann McLane is one of those detractors. She describes the Michelin guide's arrival in Bangkok last year as "completely changing the culinary scene there -- and not in a good way." She runs culinary tours to some of the Hong Kong's less glitzy eateries -- to hole in the wall "dai pai dong" food stalls, African and South Asian canteens hidden inside the famously labyrinthine Chungking Mansions and to "cha chan teng" tea shops famous for their sweet brews and thick slabs of toast. While she's "delighted" New Punjab Club has been recognised, she has her reservations: "There is a lot of world cuisine operating way under the radar in Hong Kong and it doesn't get noticed by Michelin or the big award groups." - 'Taking ownership' - For some, any recognition of Pakistan's overlooked cuisine is a success story. Sumayya Usmani said she spent years trying to showcase the distinct flavours of Pakistani cuisine, so heavily influenced by the tumultuous and violent migration sparked by the 1947 partition of India. When the British-Pakistani chef first pitched her cookbook to publishers on her country's cuisine, many initially balked. But in recent years, she says, attitudes have changed. Pakistani-run restaurants in the west that once might have described themselves as Indian are more proudly proclaiming their real culinary heritage, she says. "I think it's really good that people are coming out of that fear of calling themselves specifically Pakistani," she told AFP. "It's nice that Pakistanis have started to take ownership of what belongs to them." Back in Hong Kong, Hussain remarks the hard work has only just begun. "I joke with the boys and I say that 'It's the first Pakistani Punjabi restaurant in the world to win a star, let's not be the first one to lose a star'".
Former House Deputy Speaker Atty. Lorenzo Erin Tanada III

QUEZON CITY, Philippines  Former House Deputy Speaker Atty. Lorenzo Erin Tanada III is eyeing measures that will ease the burden of common Filipinos if re-elected to public office.

On the program Get It Straight with Daniel Razon, the former lawmaker said he wants to push for minimum wage hike for workers in different regions across the country.

He argued that there is actually minimal or no difference between the price of basic commodities in the rural areas and in the metropolis.

In fact in most cases, the prices of basic goods are higher in the countryside than in the national capital region (NCR) because of higher transportation cost.

According to Tanada, it is only right for regional workers to enjoy the same benefits accorded to NCR workers.

In such situation, he added, urban migration and overpopulation in Metro Manila would also be prevented.

Makatarungan pa ba ang paggamit ng regional wage boards sa pagtatakda ng minimum wage? Panahon nang pagusapan iyan, the scion of the famous Tanada clan said.

Tanada is also eyeing a review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of. 2001 also known as EPIRA Law.

He claims that the measure failed to lower electricity rate in the past 18 years since its enactment.

Instead, he said, businessmen will be more attracted to invest in the country with lower power rates.

Sa ibat ibang probinsya, mas mahal ang singil ng kuryente kaysa sa Metro Manila, he said.

Tanadas first attempt at a seat in Senate was in 2013, but he was booted out of the Liberal Partys senatorial slate because then President Benigno Aquino III did not favor his Freedom of Information Bill.

Na-short list naman ako. Kung titingnan natin mayroon siyang hindi nagustuhan sa aking pag-advocate ng isang panukalang batas, he explained referring to former President Noynoy Aquino.

Tanada said he was offered to change camp and join then Vice President Jejomar Binays line up but he declined.

Tanada has been vocal of his commitment to the Liberal Party as he vows to continue the legacy of his father, the esteemed statesman former senator Wigberto Bobby Tanada.

A veteran human rights lawyer. Erin is known for his landmark legislations such as the creation of the Human Rights Claims Board for the victims of Martial law and other important bills such as the Freedom of Expression and the utilization of the Coco Levy Fund.  Marje Pelayo (with reports from Rey Pelayo)

The post GIS EXCLUSIVE: Atty. Erin Tanada to espouse workers pay, lower power rate if elected appeared first on UNTV News.
Govt firmly committed to protect human rights: Imran Khan

Prime Minister Imran Khan reiterated that the government was firmly committed to protecting human rights and promotion of rights of minorities and marginalized sections of society.



The prime minister was briefed that legislation was underway to criminalize enforced disappearance and the process of introducing necessary amendments in Pakistan Penal Code would be completed soon. The meeting was also briefed on progress made towards anti-torture, combating domestic violence and other human rights related issues. Discussing the progress made towards addressing human rights issues, PM directed that steps should be taken to ensure elimination of bonded labour from all parts of the country.



He expressed these views while chairing a high level meeting on GSP-Plus (Generalized System of Preferences) status of Pakistan. The prime minister said ensuring and safeguarding human rights was major plank of Islam and also enshrined in the countrys Constitution. Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari, Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi, Advisor to PM on Commerce Abdul Razaq Dawood, Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan and senior officials attended the meeting.



Moreover, he directed for immediate removal of all kinds of discriminatory sign-boards in Clubs  Islamabad Club, Gymkhana and other public places that restrict free movement of maids, `Aayas and domestic servants. Moreover, he directed the Bureau of Statistics to conduct a countrywide survey on child labour and subsequently formulate a comprehensive strategy to extricate such children from poverty and take measures for their education.



PM said that there was no room for terrorists or their facilitators in Pakistan. He made the statement regarding attack on a police compound in Loralai, Balochistan. All three attackers were killed by security forces, while nine people including three policemen were martyred. Prime Minister Khan strongly condemned the attack and praised the swift response of the security forces. He also prayed for the martyred and those injured in the attack. He added that the morale of Pakistan Army, police and the nation was high. The state will fulfill its responsibility wherever terrorist elements try to raise their head, he emphasized.



Technology for Economy -Prime Minister Imran Khan reiterated that the government was focusing on technology to transform the countrys economy and capitalize human resource potential.



He emphasized that development in all sectors was dependent on adaptation and use of technology that would ultimately improve governance and benefit the masses. He was chairing a meeting of Task Force on Technology Driven Knowledge Economy here at the PM Office. The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Asad Umar, Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, IT Minister Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Advisor on Commerce Abdul Razzak Dawood, ViceChairman of Task Force Professor Dr Atta ur Rehman, Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Tariq Binori, CEO Ignite Yousuf Hussain, representatives of business community and industrialists and federal secretaries of the ministries concerned.



The Prime Minister was briefed on the ways and means, and the strategy to promote technology driven economy with enhanced allocations for higher education, technical skills development of human resource, promotion of digitalization, promotion of AI (Artificial Intelligence) education and skills.
Detained auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn believes his arrest and the charges against him are the result of a "plot and treason" at his former employer Nissan, he told the Nikkei newspaper Wednesday. The Japanese business daily quoted Ghosn as saying he had "no doubt" that the charges against him were motivated by Nissan executives opposed to greater integration of the firm with its French alliance partner Renault. It was the first press interview Ghosn has given since his stunning arrest on November 19, conducted in the Tokyo detention centre where he has languished ever since. A Nissan spokesman hit back immediately, saying that current CEO Hiroto Saikawa has "already categorically refuted the notion of a 'coup d'etat'". "The sole cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn and (chief of staff Greg) Kelly," the spokesman added. He said a Nissan probe had uncovered "substantial and convincing evidence of misconduct" and that the firm's focus is "firmly on addressing the weaknesses in governance" that allowed this misconduct to happen. The 64-year-old Ghosn has been denied bail several times, with the court considering him a flight risk and concerned he could attempt to destroy evidence. But he again stressed that he "won't flee. I will defend (myself)", according to the Nikkei. "All the evidence is with Nissan and Nissan forbids all employees to talk to me," he added. Even his own lawyer has said it is unlikely he will be released before a trial, which could take up to six months to organise given the complexity of the case. Ghosn faces three separate charges, all of which he denies. He stands accused of under-reporting his income between 2010 and 2015 to the tune of five billion yen ($46 million) and continuing to do so for a further three years. He also stands accused of a complex scheme to try to pass off personal foreign exchange losses to Nissan and using company funds to reimburse a Saudi contact who stumped up collateral for him. He said the payment to this businessman, Khaled Juffali, had been signed by "four officers". - 'Up and down' - The executive, once feted for his turnaround of the struggling Nissan, has been removed as chairman of the Japanese firm as well as of Mitsubishi Motors. He has also resigned as chairman and chief executive of French company Renault. He told the Nikkei there was a plan to "integrate" the three companies but insisted it was intended to ensure there would be "autonomy under one holding company." After Ghosn's arrest, Saikawa referred to the "dark side" of his former mentor's tenure and accused him of having accrued too much power. But Ghosn rejected the characterisation of his tenure as a "dictatorship." "People translated strong leadership to dictator, to distort reality," he told the Nikkei. They did so, he added, for the "purpose of getting rid of me". Another accusation against him revolves around some $9 million allegedly paid to him from a joint venture based in The Netherlands but Ghosn rejected this, saying the claims of improper payments were "a distortion of reality". He has also come under fire for luxury houses in Rio de Janeiro and Beirut -- which Nissan alleges were paid for improperly via a subsidiary. He justified these residences on the grounds that he "needed a safe place where (he) can work and receive people in both Brazil and Lebanon." He stressed that the purchases were approved by the legal department. Asked about his conditions in the detention centre, Ghosn replied that the situation was "up and down" but said his health was "fine." Family members have said his detention conditions are overly difficult and even French President Emmanuel Macron has criticised them as "harsh." The reported comments by Ghosn were the first since a dramatic court appearance earlier this month in which he said he had been "wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations".
President Rodrigo Duterte and other government officials visited the blast site in Jolo, Sulu on January 28, 2019 | (Photo courtesy of Christopher Bong Go)

MALABON CITY, Philippines  President Rodrigo Duterte is convinced by the suicide angle in the twin explosions in Mt. Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday (January 27), contrary to earlier claims of the military.

The President himself revealed that the bombers were a man and a woman based on information provided by a source.

President Duterte also belied security lapses on the part of the government forces in the incident.

Walang lapses doon because the other bomber was outside. There was no reason for him to be frisked. Either he was just passing by before blowing himself up. Ang problema, iyan ang Kasi yung babae, almost wearing a cross pa. malaki ang cross sa dibdib niya so who would ever think, the Chief Executive revealed in an ambush interview with reporters during the groundbreaking for the soon-to-be erected San Lorenzo Ruiz General Hospital in Barangay Panghulo, Malabon City on Tuesday (January 30).

It was not revealed, however, if the suicide bombers were Filipinos or foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, the President strongly believes it was the Abu Sayyaf Group that was behind the incident.

This prompted the President to order government forces to pursue all enemies of the state by whatever means.

Yes, that is always my order. Destroy the Abu Sayyaf, destroy the NPA and destroy the drug organization. If destroying is killing, if you are interested to know, yes. Better para sa akin, President Duterte said.

The Chief Executive, however, did not give a timeline but according to AFP Westmincom Spokesperson Lt. Col. Gerry Besana, they were given clear marching orders.

Yung marching order ni presidente hindi na kailangang i-elaborate e run after them alam mo naman magsalita ang presidente natin e hindi mo na kailangan tanungin siya kung paano, Besana said.

Now that the military is expected to engage in an all-out-war with the terrorists, they are seeking support from the public, especially from the residents of Jolo.

Story continues

Nakikipagiyera kaming military sa Abu Sayyaf but people should be behind us, the Army official said.

The necessary support. Alam naman natin iyan. Unang una karamihan dyan sa mga abu sayyaf and all other terrorist groups are local. May mga kamag-anak yan kasi yun ang problema natin pag kapatid mo ang nagkasala itinatago mo, Besana explained.

Meanwhile, the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) is confident that the tragedy would not affect the outcome of the peace negotiations or the transition to the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

The group appealed to the entire Muslim community to unite to finally end their decades-long quest for peace in their region.

Iwasan na natin yung mga giyera-giyera na yan eh let us invite investors so thatwe need help here our people here is dying and suffering huwag na tayong magsiraan, noted NCMF Regional Director Dr. Zulfikar Abantas.  Marje Pelayo (with reports from Rosalie Coz/Dante Amento)

The post Duterte says suicide bombers behind Jolo church tragedy appeared first on UNTV News.
The death toll after two migrant boats sank in heavy seas off the coast of Djibouti has risen to 43, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday, with scores still feared missing. Search and rescue teams met with grim scenes of bodies strewn across the beach at Obock, a port town down the coast from Godaria where the vessels had set sail on the Horn of Africa nation's northeast coast on Tuesday. An AFP journalist also saw cadavers in the water before teams placed them in white body bags lined up on the beach. The International Organization for Migration said the boats capsized half an hour into their voyage. The IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti Lalini Veerassamy told AFP the death toll had reached 43 on Wednesday. "This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives," she said in a statement. Sixteen people were rescued following the sinkings, with one survivor telling Djiboutian authorities there were 130 people on his boat. The number of passengers on the second vessel remains unclear, as do the nationalities of those aboard. Located across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from Yemen and next to volatile Somalia and Ethiopia, Djibouti has in recent years become a transit point for migrants heading to seek work on the Arabian Peninsula. - Yemen arrivals on rise - Named after the town, the Obock region is unusual in that it sees people passing in both directions -- boatloads of Yemeni refugees fleeing war cross vessels carrying African migrants seeking better opportunities. In 2017, 100,000 migrants arrived in Yemen, with many aiming to head north to find work in Saudi Arabia and its neighbours. "The number of new arrivals arriving in Yemen has been continuously increasing since 2012, despite the deepened insecurity and violence following the war that erupted in March 2015," the IOM said in its 2018-20 regional migration response plan. "Arrivals peaked in 2016, when over 117,000 arrived in Yemen," it added. This migration continues even though Yemen is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. UN officials say 80 percent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine. IOM said that most of the journey migrants take to Yemen is by foot, walking across the scorching desert regions of eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti and northern Somalia. Once they arrive in Yemen they could face torture, blackmail, sexual abuse or forced labour. In 2017, some 2,900 people, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, fled the dire conditions they had found in Yemen back to Djibouti. The sea crossing itself has repeatedly proven perilous. Last year, at least 30 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia believed to be headed for Djibouti drowned when their boat capsized off Yemen amid reports of gunfire being used against those on board. In August 2017, dozens of migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia died after human traffickers forced them off two Yemen-bound boats and into the sea.
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong. PHOTO: Screengrab from Gov.sg YouTube channel

Another day, another data breach at the Ministry of Health (MOH). Barely three weeks after it accepted a Committee of Inquirys (COI) recommendations for improving cybersecurity, MOH revealed another staggering leak: that the personal details of 14,200 HIV-positive patients have been disclosed online by an American conman.

This marks three major incidents under Health Minister Gan Kim Yongs watch: the Hepatitis C outbreak at Singapore General Hospital (2015), the massive SingHealth cyberattack that compromised the personal details of 1.5m patients (2018) and now this. In what has become a familiar ritual, Gans textbook apology on Tuesday (28 January) rang hollow, now that the genie has been let out of the bottle.

Following the release of the COI report on 9 January, an MOH spokesman had said, Patient wellbeing is our top priority. This includes safeguarding the confidentiality of patient datawe are committed to safeguarding patient data.

Perhaps in its new-found zeal for protecting patient data, the Ministry somehow forgot that American Mikhy K Farrera Brochez, who was in Singapore between January 2008 and June 2016 on an employment pass, had illegally possessed the HIV-positive data in its Registry. He was in a relationship with Singapore doctor Ler Teck Siang, the head of MOHs National Public Health Unit who had authority to access information in the HIV Registry.

Which brings us to the first question, one that was also asked in the aftermath of the SingHealth fiasco: why was the public not informed earlier? MOH first lodged a police report on Brochez in May 2016 when it became aware that he might be in possession of confidential information from the HIV Registry. It started informing affected patients two years later when it found out that the American might still be holding on to some of the data.

After making another police report last Wednesday, it then began informing more affected individuals from Saturday and disabled access to the information. Was this another instance of a piecemeal and inadequate response, as Solicitor-General Kwek Mean Luck labeled the initial response to the SingHealth cyberattack? There are many gaps in the information MOH has released. What else has it not told the public?

Story continues

The spectre of HIV

The next issue at hand: what legal redress or protections do the affected patients have? 34 years after the first HIV-positive case was reported in Singapore and despite huge medical advancements in treating it, the stigma of the disease remains very real. It is no exaggeration to say that the disclosure of an HIV-positive status could ruin lives, end careers, and destroy relationships.

With the information online  including names, IC numbers and contact details  there is nothing to stop anyone from posting the data on social media accounts or online forums. Will MOH be liable if say, someone were to lose his job as a result of the illegal disclosure? Given that employers typically do not need to disclose the reasons when giving employees notice, this scenario is a distinct possibility.

What about individuals who end up ostracised by family and friends? Will MOH be responsible for the emotional distress this causes them and their loved ones?

It is not just about the 14,200 patients. The collateral damage from this incident extends beyond them.

Data protection

Last of all: what guarantees do we have that confidential patient data is, at the very least, being rigorously safeguarded by MOH?

Under the Infectious Diseases Act, all medical staff are required to inform MOH of a confirmed case of HIV within 72 hours of diagnosis. And while there is anonymous testing, patient registration with MOH is mandatory during treatment.

This is all highly sensitive and confidential data that is entrusted to MOH by law, and it failed in its duty of care. While it is unreasonable to expect foolproof cybersecurity in this day and age, it does not take a medical degree to point out that Brochez was hardly a skilled and sophisticated threat actor like the SingHealth cyberattacker.

MOHs statement is even more infuriating, While access to the confidential information has been disabled, it is still in the possession of the unauthorised person, and could still be publicly disclosed in the future. We are working with relevant parties to scan the Internet for signs of further disclosure of the information.

Meaning that Brochez, who was deported from Singapore in 2017, can release more information any time he pleases.

After the two data leaks, MOHs credibility is in tatters. Gans promise on Monday to continue to strengthen and to review our systems to ensure they are secure does not cut it. It is barely an adequate response.

MOH states that its staff embody six core values: dedication, excellence, professionalism, integrity, care & compassion, and teamwork. The HIV data scandal has called into question these values. The countrys international reputation is at stake  MOH must do better.

Related stories:

COMMENT: SingHealth cyberattack throws up leadership issue
As per this strategic partnership, Central Group will help Grab to expand its business in Thailand

Thailands largest shopping mall and department store operator, Central Group, is planning to invest US$200 million in ride-hailing giant Grab, says a Bloomberg report, citing people aware of the development. The investment will go into the Grabs companys Thai unit.

As per this strategic partnership, Central Group will help Grab to expand its business in Thailand.

Headquartered in Singapore, Grab is the largest O2O mobile platform in Southeast Asia, providing everyday services, including food and package delivery, mobile payments and financial services, in addition to taxi hailing. Currently, it operates in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Also Read: The culture of Echelon is the biggest draw for both speakers and participants alike

Since launch, Grab has secured US$7.1 billion across 21 investment rounds, from the likes of Hyundai Motor company, Yamaha Motor Company, and Microsoft. The latest funding came from Japanese financial services company Tokyo Century Corporation early this month. The money would be going into Grabs car rental arm, Grab Rentals.

Central Group consists of a variety of diverse investments in various corporations, including the retail, property development, brand management, hospitality, and food and beverage industries. A few hours ago, Central Group teamed up with JD.com to start a digital wallet platform to promote cashless payments in Thailand.

Called Dolfin Wallet, this wallet will go live in two to three months. The platform, which settles payments by reading QR codes on smartphones and other devices, will be run by Central JD Money, a subsidiary of Central Group and the JD.com joint venture Central JD Fintech Holding.

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Bangladesh will Wednesday file a lawsuit in New York against a Philippine bank over its involvement in one of the biggest-ever cyber heists, the country's central bank governor said. Unidentified hackers stole $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank's account with the US Federal Reserve in New York in February 2016. The money was then transferred to a Manila branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC), swiftly withdrawn and laundered through local casinos. A case will be filed against RCBC and "all others" involved in the heist to try and retrieve the stolen funds, Bangladesh central bank governor Fazle Kabir told AFP. An agreement between the bank and the US Federal Reserve in New York had been signed to assist Dhaka in the case, he added. Bangladesh has sent a legal team to New York and is prepared to fight for the money to be returned, Kabir told reporters in the capital Dhaka. The Philippines in 2016 imposed a record $21 million fine on RCBC after investigating its role in the audacious cyber heist. The bank has rejected the allegations and in 2017 accused Bangladesh's central bank of a "massive cover-up". This month ex-RCBC manager Maia Deguito was handed a lengthy jail term and $109 million in fines in the first conviction over the massive theft. Deguito, who was a branch manager where the money landed, was accused of coordinating the illegal transfer. She plans to appeal and can remain free on bail until the conviction is finalised. Deguito is the only person who has been convicted in the case, drawing international concern. The theft exposed the Philippines as a haven for dirty money, where some of the world's strictest bank secrecy laws protect account holders from scrutiny The hackers bombarded the US Federal Reserve with dozens of transfer requests, attempting to steal a further $850 million. But the bank's security systems and typing errors in some requests prevented the full theft. The hack took place on a Friday, when Bangladesh's central bank is closed. The Federal Reserve is closed on Saturday and Sunday, slowing the response. The US Federal Reserve, which manages the Bangladesh central bank account, has denied its own systems were breached.
Australia has unveiled plans to develop a network of police training centres in the Pacific, stepping up efforts to boost law and order in Papua New Guinea and across the region. Australian Federal Police told AFP Wednesday they were currently in talks with Pacific authorities to establish "training centres of excellence across the region". Regional police officers are sometimes poorly trained and struggle to fight crime on low budgets. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government has already announced a scheme to bring senior police executives to Australia, but now looks set to strengthen the focus on lower ranked officers. The drive is part of a broader effort to strengthen the rule of law across the region and bolster Australian influence, as China woos Pacific nations with attractive loans and eye-catching infrastructure projects. In countries such as Papua New Guinea the challenges are immense. Police Commissioner Gari Baki this week publicly admitted ill-discipline, brutality and corruption were rampant inside the force. "As police commissioner I was very concerned about bad police behaviour. I was in fact embarrassed with the number of cases being reported in the media," Baki said in a statement. Members of Papua New Guinea's constabulary are currently in prison for crimes ranging from indecent assault to grievous bodily harm to aiding prisoner's escape. Late last year officers from the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary stormed parliament demanding pay. Authorities in Port Moresby are now asking for help, with Prime Minister Peter O'Neill this week telling parliament that he would "hand over" a police training college for "the Australians to run it for us". Australian police confirmed they would be embedding advisors at the Bomana Police Training College outside the capital, adding that a police partnership with Papua New Guinea has now been extended to June 2022.
Australia failed to make basic checks before stripping a suspected Islamic State fighter of his citizenship, a senior official said Wednesday, an admission likely to call into question the legality of the move. The country last month striped Neil Prakash of citizenship after claiming he was Fijian -- prompting strenuous denials from the authorities in Suva and an embarrassing diplomatic rift. Prakash is accused of being a member of the IS jihadist group, and identified as the 12th Australian dual-national to lose their passport over terrorism links. He is currently in Turkey facing charges of joining the organisation. A parliamentary intelligence committee on Wednesday grilled Home Affairs officials on the issue, asking whether they verified his status with Fiji or consulted experts in Fijian law before revoking Prakash's citizenship. "No, we did not" admitted senior department official Linda Geddes. If Prakash is neither Fijian nor Australian he would now be stateless in contravention of decades old UN accords and Australian law. A Special Counsel advising the government told the parliamentary committee he offered "strong advice" on the case, but would not go into detail. The move against Prakash was touted at the time by hardline Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton as the ruling Liberal Party eyed its base supporters and May elections. But it created an awkward backdrop for a recent landmark Pacific visit by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Bilawal Bhutto challenged Imran Khan

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Tuesday warned that his party would not desist from holding a long march to thwart any attempts at rolling back the 18th Amendment. Speaking to media after inaugurating a medical college in Gambat, Bilawal said his party will appeal against the apex court decision on 18th Amendment. Will not let them snatch away hospitals from Sindh, he asserted. In Naya Pakistan, I challenge Prime Minister Imran Khan to build a medical college similar to the one inaugurated by me right now, Bilawal said during his address to the gathering.



In the last budget, people such as Imran Khans sister received relief but none was given to the poor, he said. Bilawal said the way Imran Khan is running the parliament is counter-productive for the country. He said Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had dismissed Imrans father on the basis of corruption. Bhutto was the first elected prime minister and he was the one who introduced the concept of one individual, one vote, he said.
The bodies of 2 killed in the grenade blast in Masjid Jutay in Barangay Talon-Talon in Zamboanga City. (PNP Region 9 Office)





Zamboanga City, Philippines  Two people died while three others were injured when a grenade exploded inside a mosque in Masjid Jutay in Barangay Talon-Talon on Wednesday (January 30).

The fatalities were identified as Sattal Bato and Rex Habil.

Meanwhile those injured identified as Palson Saji Asgali, Alnizkar Sabbaha and Jikilani Albani were immediately brought to the nearest hospital for immediate medical treatment.

The Ulama Council of Zamboanga Peninsula expressed its condemnation of what it called devilish, irrational and inhumane act.

The group called upon the people of Zamboanga City to be calm and vigilant amid the situation.

They urged the residents to report to authorities any sightings of suspicious persons, packages or vehicles for immediate action.

We share the grief of the families who lost their loved ones and sincerely extend our condolences to them, the group said.

For reports and inquiry, the public may reach the Zamboanga City Police Office (ZCPO) at phone numbers 09778558138 or 992 3187/9923179/9913164.  Marje Pelayo







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Harshwardhansinh Zala, who claims he has received many offers from abroad, wishes to help the armed forces through his technology

Harshwardhansinh Zala

What were you doing when you were 14 years old? At this age, I was still struggling with Maths and Science in the 9th grade.

But this wonder kid from the Indian State of Gujarat was already working on a revolutionary drone when he was this age. Now 16 years old, he has fully developed the drone, EAGLE A7, which can detect and destroy landmines, minimising the risk of losing human lives.

Harshwardhansinh Zala, Founder and CEO of Aerobotics 7, the company behind EAGLE A7, claims that this drone can go from, say the Indian army base station, to the path where it has to go and detect the landmines. After detecting the landmines, the drone will send the information back to the base station. The landmines can be viewed real-time and destroyed real-time without human risk, he told in an interview to The Quint .

We have developed the entire technology using raw materials and multi-spectral landmine detection technology. It is now under the process of international patent registration. We can detect landmines through different wavelengths, he said to the publication, adding that this technology is not available anywhere else.

The model is currently under the process of international patents registration.

Also Read: Drones will revolutionise these 3 industries, so watch out

Aerobotics 7 was founded by Zala when he was 14 years. The startups mission is to make the most innovative and advanced products for a better life. Its main focus is designing and developing life-saving drones.

Harshwardhansinh Zala

Zala, who claims he has received many offers from abroad, wishes to help the armed forces through his technology. He said he has got partnership offers from South Korea, the US, France, Dubai and Thailand.

We have got offers to establish our company there. We have been ensured funding as well. But, given the number of jawans (soldiers) being martyred (due to landmines) in our motherland, if I can develop this technology to serve the Indian Army and the CRPF, I will be glad, he said.

Story continues

The child prodigy is also the winner of the International Peace Award (Billion Acts Hero Award 2017).

Zala had sealed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in 2017, and bagged a deal worth INR 5 crore (USD4700,000) for the production of his self-designed drone.

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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 29): The Malaysia and Singapore Working Group has met in Putrajaya yesterday to discuss maritime issues surrounding the Johor Bahru Port Limits and Singapore Port Limits.

In a joint statement yesterday, the Foreign Ministry said the Working Group established by the Foreign Ministers of both countries had discussed the legal and operational matters in order to de-escalate the situation on the ground and provide a basis for further discussions and negotiations.

The delegations were led by Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia Datuk Seri Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore Chee Wee Kiong.

Based on the mandate given by the Foreign Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore during their meeting on Jan 8, the two delegations had constructive discussions on a set of positive recommendations which will be submitted to the Foreign Ministers of Malaysia and Singapore for their consideration when finalised, the statement said.

The Singapore and Malaysia bilateral spat on maritime boundaries with matters related to the Johor Bahru port limits, resurfaced on Dec 4 when the republic claimed the recent extension of the limits had encroached into Singapore Territorial Water off Tuas.

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Reuters

There are still disagreements on key issues between Iran and the world powers in talks to revive their 2015 nuclear deal, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that the final decision on the issue was up to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic instead of the newly elected president. Negotiations have been going on in Vienna since April to work out the nature and sequencing of steps Iran and the United States must take on nuclear activities and sanctions to return to full compliance with the nuclear pact.
SINGAPORE (Jan 30): Analysts are keeping a positive stance on CDL Hospitality Trusts (CDL HT) following Tuesday results announcement.

The managers of CDL HT, a stapled group comprising CDL REIT and CDL Hospitality Business Trust, posted a 2.1% decline in 4Q18 distribution per stapled security (DPS) to 2.77 cents from 2.83 cents in 4Q17.

The DPS decline was mainly attributed to the absence of contribution from three properties  two Brisbane hotels divested in Jan 2018, and the Dhevanafushi Maldives Luxury Resort, which has been closed since June 2018 for renovations as it rebrands to Raffles Maldives Meradhoo (RMM).

Revenue for the quarter dropped 5.4% to $52.3 million from $55.2 million a year ago. Net property income (NPI) also dropped 5.4% y-o-y to $38.4 million.

See: CDL Hospitality Trusts 4Q DPS falls 2.1% to 2.77 cents on divestment impact & ongoing AEI

Maybank Kim Eng has a buy call on CDL HT with a target price of $1.80. The research house also has CDL HT as its top sector pick.

In 4Q18, Singapores hotels revenue was up by 1.6% y-o-y, while NPI was up 3.3% y-o-y, led by stronger occupancies.

In a Tuesday report, analyst Chua Su Tye says, We see further improvement in its Singapore NPI to be led by stronger demand fundamentals  11M18 tourism growth at +6.6% y-o-y is ahead of the +6.4% y-o-y in 2017 and Singapore hotel room occupancy has jumped to between 83% and 92%, the strongest showing since 2013.

Elsewhere, revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth was stronger in Germany at +24.2% y-o-y and Japan at +7.3% YoY, on the back of growth in tourist arrivals.

However, revenue and NPI in Australia fell 33.4% y-o-y with the divestment of its two Brisbane hotels and a weaker AUD. Revenue for UK hotels was flat, while NPI dropped 19.2% y-o-y, on one-off operating expenses.

Meanwhile, RHB Research has kept its buy rating on CDL HT with a target price of $1.80, with the counter also being its top hospitality pick.

Story continues

In a Wednesday report analyst Vijay Natarajan says, Over the next three years, we expect a 4% CAGR DPU growth, backed by a positive outlook for Singapore and European hotels and a recovery of performance in the Maldives.

The analyst expects a 3.7% growth for Singapore Hotel RevPAR in 2019-2020, on the back of favourable demand-supply dynamics. But some disruption is expected at the Orchard hotel in 1H19 due to upgrading works.

Hotel supply is expected to grow at a low CAGR of 1.5% from 2018-2021.

Leisure demand is also expected to continue its healthy growth supported by an increase in airline capacity and more attractions.

Contribution from resorts in the Maldives is expected to improve from 2Q19, with the renovation completion of RMM in early 2Q19. The new resort is expected to command a 20-30% increase in room rates.

In addition, management plans for a soft refurbishment of Angsana Velavaru, to strengthen product offering and market positioning.

Outlook for its Japan and European hotels (UK, Germany and Italy) remains positive, on the back of a better events calendar, despite supply growth. Australia is also expected to see a stable performance, while the performance in New Zealand is expected to moderate, after a strong growth in past years.

Similarly, DBS Group Research is also reiterating its buy recommendation on CDL HT with a target price of $1.85.

In a Wednesday report, analyst Mervin Song says, We believe the projected upturn in the overall Singapore hospitality market, with RevPAR to grow by 3-5% per annum over the next few years should drive CDL HTs share price higher.

Along with the trusts recent acquisitions, its DPU CAGR should be 3% between 2018 and 2021.

According to Song, consensus has a lower target price of about $1.70, but this implies that the trusts portfolio is valued about $700,000 per key, below asking prices for hotel in Singapore which are in excess of $1 million per key.

With a potential upturn in the Singapore market over the next three years, this is too conservative in our view. Thus, given the quality of its properties, CDREIT should rerate closer to our TP which implies price per key of about $800,000 or 1.2x P/B, says Song.

Going forward, future accretive acquisitions will act at the counters re-rating catalyst.

We continue to recommend investors position themselves in CDL HT to the expected multi-year upturn in the Singapore hospitality market which is further supplemented with expected growth from its Japanese operations and expansion into Italy, adds Song.

As at 11.38am, units in CDL HT are trading 1.87% higher at $1.63 or 1.0 times FY19F book with a dividend yield of 6.1%.
 Condemned Alabama inmate seeks stay of execution based on notable religious claims | Main | "Beyond State v. Loomis: Artificial Intelligence, Government Algorithmization, and Accountability" 

Sociology Prof Michelle Phelps has this notable new Conversation commentary headlined "Congresss First Step Act reflects a new criminal justice consensus, but will it reduce mass incarceration?". The piece explains why the author thinks "no" is the sensible answer to the question headlining her commentary. Here are excerpts (with some links from the original preserved):

I have found in my research that criminal justice policies and practices in the United States have often followed complex trajectories. Reforms often receive support from unlikely coalitions. But, by focusing on these strange bedfellows, commentators and advocates sometimes paper over the deeper disagreements in ideas about who, how and how much to punish. Fights over these differences ultimately shape how policies get put into practice  and whether the bill ultimately achieves its intended outcomes. While the First Step Acts passage may look like a clear victory for more moderate punishment, its implementation and impact under the Trump administration is likely to be quite limited.

Criminal justice is often described by academics and journalists as a pendulum that swings wildly between harsh punishment focused on retribution, and more lenient treatment focused on redemption or reformation. In this metaphor, some people saw Trumps election as a swing of the pendulum away from progressive punishment and back toward punitive policies.

In our book Breaking the Pendulum, my colleagues Joshua Page and Philip Goodman and I argue that a better metaphor is the constant, low-level grinding of tectonic plates that continually produce friction and occasionally erupt in earthquakes. This friction manifests in traditional political combat, mass demonstrations, prison rebellions, and academic and policy work. Periodically, major changes in conditions like crime rates and the economy change to provide support and opportunities to one side or another. These changes often bring together unlikely allies.

People typically associate the law and order approach to criminal justice with Republicans. However, new research shows how liberals laid the ground for these policies. It was the Democratic administration of President Lyndon Johnson during the 1960s that first launched the war on crime by expanding federal funding to build up the capacity of local law enforcement agencies. In the following decades, the crime rate spiked, due in part to better reporting by police departments, and crime became a hot political issue.

By the 1990s, Republicans and Democrats had all but converged on attitudes toward law enforcement. Not wanting to lose to Republicans by being portrayed as soft on crime, Democrats took increasingly tough criminal justice stances. President Bill Clintons wildly popular 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was the apex of this bipartisan enthusiasm for aggressive policing, prosecution and punishment. The bill made federal sentencing guidelines more severe, increasing both life sentences and the death penalty, and built up funding streams to increase local police forces and state prison capacity.

Despite the rhetoric of the crime bill, the best evidence suggests that it played little role in the explosion of the national prison population  or what scholars term mass imprisonment. This is because policies focused on harsh punishment had already peaked by 1994. In addition, it only applied to the federal system, which represents only 10 percent of all people locked up. Finally, even though there was wide support for the crime bill, activists, politicians, judges and others continued to fight against tough punishment, eventually building the momentum for the First Step Act.

What does this history tell us about the First Step Act?

First, its not surprising that Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals came together on the bill. Both camps have moved away from the tough on crime mantra. Democrats now talk of smart on crime policies while some Republicans support the right on crime initiative. Both agree that aggressive policing and heavy criminal penalties for low-level offenses, particularly drug crimes, do more harm than good.

The rise of a new approach to criminal justice can be tied to a number of changes since the 1990s, including historically low crime rates, strained state and federal budgets and a growing awareness of the negative consequences of mass incarceration. Critically, a cadre of conservative leaders spent the past two decades working to change Republican orthodoxy on this issue. They frame mass incarceration as a fiscal and moral failure that wastes tax dollars and violates the Christian principles of second chances and redemption....

However, bipartisan consensus is not as seamless as it is sometimes portrayed. A group of Republican leaders remain aggressively opposed to these criminal justice reforms. And at the last hour, they nearly killed the First Step Act....

During his confirmation hearing last week, [Attorney General nominee William] Barr promised to diligently implement the First Step Act, but then backtracked to support Sessions policies at the Justice Department, adding, we must keep up the pressure on chronic, violent criminals.

Like the 94 bill before it, this indicates that the First Step Act will likely be more bark than bite. The First Step Act might provide relief to several thousand current federal prisoners. But Barr will likely follow Sessions and direct his prosecutors to seek the maximum criminal penalties against current defendants, including for drug offenses, limiting the impact of the First Step Acts sentencing reform. And the bill will have no practical effect on state prison systems, which in some cases have already embraced much more radical reforms.

While the First Step Act is a move in the direction of more humane and moderate criminal justice practices, I think it will likely be a very small first step indeed.
Americans seemed very serious to withdraw troops from Afghanistan

Sher Abbas Stanekzai, who headed the Afghan Taliban negotiators in peace talks with the United States in Qatar, says the Americans seemed very serious to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.



Stanekzai, who led the Taliban delegation at the Jan. 21-26 talks in Qatar, will step down as the leadership has appointed Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as head of the political office in Qatar and will lead the peace process.

The US and the Taliban reported progress in the talks and the Taliban officials have claimed they reached understanding on the complete withdrawal of the troops and that the Taliban will prevent Afghan soil from terrorism against other countries. Sources say the talks will resume next month, most likely on Feb. 25, for follow up discussions on the two major issues  withdrawal of troops and terrorism.



I think the US government is very serious to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. I am hopeful that the US envoy Zalmay Khalizad, will play key role in Afghan peace process, Stanekzai said in a video message released by the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on social media. He said the Taliban political representatives believe Khalilzad has authority more than the previous US negotiators whom they would interact. Our Jihad has forced the Americans to leave Afghanistan and now they are pursuing political option, the Taliban negotiator said. When asked about President Ashraf Ghanis statement that the US will withdraw troops from Afghanistan, he said Ashraf Ghani is not independent and Ghani offered the remarks after Khalilzad met him after the Qatar talks and he may have told him to make such statement. Ashraf Ghani has no power to decide to keep foreign troops in Afghanistan. He also does not have the powers to ask the foreign troops to leave Afghanistan. It is up to the American to decide either to leave or to stay in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader said.







Talking about the upcoming presidential elections, he said Taliban do not recognize elections in Afghanistan legitimate under foreign invasion. The elections will not be fair and transparent if held in the presence of the foreign troops and the government to be formed after the elections will also not be independent, Stanekzai said, adding that only 10 percent people voted in previous elections. Elected people will not be true representatives of the people but it will be an imposed administration on the people, he said. The presidential elections, scheduled for April 20, have been delayed by three months and will be held in July.
Education Reporter

Mathew Burciaga is a Santa Maria Times reporter who covers education, agriculture and public safety. Prior to joining the Times, Mathew ran a 114-year-old community newspaper in Wyoming. He owns more than 40 pairs of crazy socks from across the globe.
A spokesman for the Kremlin has denied rumors that the private Boeing 777 registered to Russia's Nordwind airline which landed in Caracas this week was there to spirit away a chunk of Venezuela's gold reserves - or escort the country's embattled leader, Nicolas Maduro, into exile, according to the Telegraph.

"Russia is prepared to help resolve the political situation [in Venezuela] in any way possible, without interfering into the countrys internal affairs," Mr Peskov was quoted as saying by the RBC news outlet. On Monday, a Russian newspaper reported that the empty plane had departed from Moscow to Caracas with enough space for some 400 passengers. According to photos taken by Reuters, it was parked by a private corner of the Caracas airport. It marked the first time the plane had flown on that route. Reports said the plane carried two crew teams and that there was "no obvious reason for it to fly there." Peskov cautioned journalists to be "careful with different hoaxes" when asked for a response to the plane rumors.

In what sounded like a slight against the US, Peskov said Russia was committed to helping resolve the "political situation" in Venezuela without interfering in the country's business. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow will do "anything" to support Maduro.

"Russia is prepared to help resolve the political situation [in Venezuela] in any way possible, without interfering into the countrys internal affairs," Mr Peskov was quoted as saying by the RBC news outlet. Though it's worth noting that reports claim Russia is nervous about protecting the money it has invested in Venezuela, which has been used to help prop up the Maduro regime. It's probably just a coincidence that one day after a Russian official warned that Venezuela would struggle to meet its financial obligations to Moscow under a $3.15 billion debt-rescheduling deal, Bloomberg is reporting that a mysterious Russian Boeing 777 had landed in Caracas on Tuesday and ferried away 20 tonnes of gold - equivalent to roughly 20% of the country's holdings of the shiny metal - to an unknown location with little explanation. The story cited a "bombshell tweet" sent by Venezuelan lawmaker Jose Guerra, a "former central bank economist who remains in touch with old colleagues there", and the "welter of social media speculation" that followed (though Guerra provided no evidence). To be sure, many outlandish claims have been made in the week since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the legitimate democratically-elected leader of what was once Latin America's wealthiest nation - creating the biggest threat to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's rule since the socialist dictator took office in 2013.

(Click to enlarge)

Moving the 20 tonnes of gold bars, worth some $840 million, occurred shortly after the UK denied the Maduro regime's request to retrieve some $1.2 billion in gold being kept in the vaults of the Bank of England.

And with the country owing billions of dollars to Russia and China (not to mention Venezuela's long-suffering bondholders), the story's implication is clear: was this collateral paid to Russian President Vladimir Putin?

Related: Cash Is Now A $3-Trillion Safe Haven Bet

On Monday, a plane belonging to Nordwind Airlines, a popular Russian charter operator based in Moscow, landed at the international airport near Caracas, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. A Nordwind spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on the purpose of the flight. While Finance Minister Simon Zerpa declined to comment on the nations gold, he said there was no Russian plane at Simon Bolivar International Airport: "Im going to start bringing Russian and Turkish airplanes every week so everybody gets scared," he said. Russias Foreign Ministry also had no information about the charter jet, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a message Wednesday. There are no plans to evacuate Russians from Venezuela, she said. According to BBG, Venezuela has been trying for years to increase its gold reserves via mining. The state gold processor Minerven melts ore into gold bars which are transported by the military (which controls the mining) to the central bank. The U.S. announced sanctions against the Maduro regime earlier this week, including restrictions on buying the country's oil, to try and starve his regime of money, while opening access to Venezuelan assets frozen in the U.S. to Guaido to try and help him cement his control of the country. By Wednesday morning, the regime was feeling pressure to capitulate and begin negotiations, with Maduro reportedly saying he'd be "open to talks" with the opposition, though, as the New York Times noted, " it is "not clear if the comments were a genuine offer for negotiations with the opposition or a bid to buy time for his embattled government." I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that we could talk about what benefits Venezuela, Mr. Maduro said. Maduro listed several potential mediators for the talks, including Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Russia, the Vatican and other European governments that had encouraged a dialogue. The purported capitulation comes after Maduro had threatened to use the country's Supreme Court to impose a travel ban on Guaido in what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate him.

President Trump welcomed Maduro's announcement while reiterating a warning to US citizens not to travel to Venezuela.

Still, he has rejected international calls for new elections, which could soon lead to several Western European nations joining the ranks of countries recognizing Guaido as the country's legitimate ruler.

By Zerohedge

More Top Reads From Safehaven.com
For the first time ever, Maybank has been named in Brand Finances Global 500 Brands. It is one of only two Malaysian brands in the list, and the only local bank to make it onto the prestigious list.

Maybank was 494th in the list of 500 brands worldwide, achieving a brand valuation of US$4.2 billion (RM17.27 billion) which marks an impressive 32% increase from last years US$3.16 billion valuation. Maybank also maintained its position as the top bank brand in Malaysia for the fifth year running. On top of that, it has improved its previous rating of AAA- to AAA and increased its Brand Strength Index (BSI) from 82/100 to 86/100. BSI is one of the key drivers that helps brand valuation and determines the strength of a brand.

Maybanks steady brand improvement showed at a regional level as well, as it was among only eight ASEAN brands that were listed in the global ranking. Group president and CEO of Maybank, Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said that the recognition was a reflection of Maybanks efforts in building relationships with stakeholders and delivering consistent value through all its products and services.

In a statement, the bank stated that it has been developing a meaningful brand experience centred on humanising financial services as well as a commitment to being at the heart of communities where it operates. Maybank is currently focusing on providing next-generation customer experience, as technology is influencing our lifestyle and the banking habits of today.

Lastly, Brand Finance Asia Pacific managing director Samir Dixit said that Maybank has started to threaten some prestigious global brands and is now competing at a global level when it comes to world strength and recognition.

(Source: The Star, The Edge Markets)

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Protesters outside the Washington, D.C., courtroom where Roger Stone pleaded not guilty. Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Six Trump campaign associates so far have been indicted for or pleaded guilty to a wide array of federal crimes. And this is before some of the best-known episodes in the Russia scandal, like the Trump Tower meeting and the presidents efforts to dictate false statements about it, have faced any legal sanction. Yet even as the legal net has widened, a devoted band of defenders has promoted an energetic defense of the president that has never wavered in its conviction of his essential innocence in the Russia matter.

The Wall Street Journals Kimberly Strassel, the Washington Examiners Byron York, the Federalists Mollie Hemingway, and the National Reviews Andrew McCarthy have confidently explained that every new indictment or revelation of malfeasance does not seriously indict the president or is not a revelation at all. These analysts represent the best and the brightest of the Trumpian vanguard, sitting atop an extensive food chain of talk-show hosts and rage-tweeters.

Their method for dismissing every incremental advance in the investigation is the same. First, they examine every new charge in isolation, ignoring the broader pattern of behavior in which it is contained. Then they assume the most innocent possible interpretation for each isolated fact, further assuming that no other incriminating evidence will emerge. It is not clear whether they have decided to act like lawyers for Trump, presenting the most plausible defense they can muster, or if they simply trust he would never do something like collude with Russia, and are working backward from their heartfelt presumption of innocence. Either way, they have developed a method that allows them to acknowledge every new piece of incriminating evidence without in any way altering their confidence that the investigation is going nowhere.

The indictment of Roger Stone for lying to Congress about his efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks during the campaign, and of intimidating a witness into lying, followed this script. Like many previous indictments, this one largely tracked to public news reports but contained a few unreported, eyebrow-raising details, such as the charge that a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about WikiLeaks plans to release additional emails. The indictment, characteristically, was tightly drawn. As former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance points out, Mueller had good reason to limit the charges he brought against Stone and other targets. If he charged him with conspiracy, Stone and other conspiracy defendants would have to be given access to Muellers evidence of this crime.

And so the Stone indictment, like other indictments, left many dangling threads. The most obvious was, who directed the senior campaign official to use Stone as a point of contact with WikiLeaks? A previous draft statement of offense against Jerome Corsi, who had cooperated with Stone during the campaign, noted that he understood [Stone] to be in regular contact with senior members of the Trump Campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump. When asked if that person was Donald Trump  one of the few people (and perhaps the only one) who could give an order to senior campaign officials  White House press secretary Sarah Sanders conspicuously declined to answer.

Trumps defenders have instead reprised their familiar defenses. The Stone indictment doesnt contain any evidence that Trump campaign was colluding with Russia, argues Strassel. Its just a person, who happened to be in regular contact with Trump, reaching out to a Russian front group, to coordinate political messaging. No collusion!

McCarthy argues, bizarrely, that the mere fact Stone had to reach out to contact WikiLeaks proves he was not working with WikiLeaks. The Trump campaign had to ask Stone because it was in the dark. Plainly, the campaign was not involved in the hacking, so it did not know what the Russians gave Assange, he argues. Therefore, the indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Muellers office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such conspiracy.

McCarthys arguing that, if you exclude the fact that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia through Roger Stone and WikiLeaks, there was no coordination between Trump and Russia. Well, sure. They were in the dark about what the hacking yielded, which is why they used Stone to get information, so that the Trump campaign could coordinate its messaging with WikiLeaks. Indeed, Trump did use this connection, by finding out that WikiLeaks planned to release emails casting doubt on Hillary Clintons health and laying the groundwork by calling her physically unfit.

Even this oddly tautological defense is not true. As former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade points out, Mueller has already charged 12 Russian intelligence officers in the GRU with conspiracy to defraud the United States by hacking, stealing and, importantly, staging the release of email messages. That means that even if members of the Trump campaign were not involved in the hacking and stealing of emails, they could still be implicated if they were involved in staging their release.

The conspiracy between Trump and Russia had multiple nodes, some of which have been hinted at in indictments, and others  including the famous Trump Tower meeting  have not. The Trump campaign had over 100 known contacts with Russians. Some of these meetings involved clandestine business deals. Others involved the transfer of political data. Theres not much question about whether there was a conspiracy between Trump and Russia, but exactly what form did it take, and what laws were broken, and by whom.

Yorks attempt to minimize Stones crimes encapsulates the innocent spirit with which the Trump defenders have approached this scandal. Stone is just a self-promoting windbag, he argues. The problem came when Stone was asked under oath about his statements, York writes. It is one thing to hype and punk and promote and posture and bluff when talking to the press, but another to hype and punk and promote and posture and bluff when testifying under oath to a congressional committee. Roger Stone knows that now.

Except Stone wasnt charged with hyping his connection to WikiLeaks; he was charged with minimizing it, which is the opposite. And the fact that lying to Congress is a federal crime is probably something Stone knew at the time he was doing it, not just something he knows now.

The Trump defenders ability to disregard the lying may be their greatest act of credulity. In every twist and turn of the Russia investigation, Trump and his associates have been found to have lied  to Congress, to the FBI, and to the public. Somehow this pattern of behavior has not registered on the right as suspicious in any way. It is just a disconnected sequence of events, the same thing that keeps happening for no apparent reason.
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Wayne loved his family and friends dearly. Any chance he would get, he was showing one of his grandkids the ins and outs of life and how to do things. From teaching Samantha how to drive a stick; starting out in the fields, to the back roads, and then moving on to the highway. To taking Jayden, Tristen and Dauson hunting or fishing; teaching them techniques, what to look for, the best spots, or just how to enjoy being in the hills or on the water. He loved teaching Donivan and Eli how to use and operate the bobcat to feed the cows, plow the snow or did a hole. Drilling into little Hopes head which direction north, south, east and west are numerous times every day. Always enjoying watching and interacting with baby Ethan, wondering where he hid the remote. Wayne was always teaching his grandkids by example, actions and words. He radiated pure unselfish love to anyone he knew, even to complete strangers. He would always give anyone, anywhere the shirt off of his back and never ask for anything in return.
The Montana Department of Transportation will stick with its recommendation of a 55 mph speed limit on 1.4-mile stretch of road between Woodside Cutoff and the outskirts of Corvallis.

Thats 10 mph faster than the speed limit the Ravalli County Commission and members of the community who turned out for a meeting last fall to voice their opinions wanted to see.

The MDOT Commission will likely make its decision final on Feb. 21 at its regular meeting in Helena.

I guess its a start in the right direction, said Corvallis Civic Club President Allen Bjergo. If thats what its going to end up being, well have to take it. Someone will then have to die and then we can come back with a new campaign.

Bjergo and other community members asked the Ravalli County Commission to recommend dropping the speed on the popular roadway from 60 mph to 45.

The county commission asked the state for a traffic and engineering study on Montana State Highway 373 (Woodside Cutoff Road) last January for the purpose of reducing the posted speed limit on that portion of the road.

In April, MDOT returned a report that recommended the 5 mph reduction.
Prominent criminal lawyer Edward Bennett Williams once noted that, like other criminal lawyers, he took on difficult case for unpopular clients, not because of my own wishes, but because of the unwritten law that I might not refuse.  Abbe Smith and Monroe H. Freedman, in the preface to their edited volume, How Can You Represent Those People? (2013)

Defense attorneys are frequently asked the cocktail party question: how can you represent those people? Prosecutors are rarely asked, how can you prosecute those people? Its a good questionand maybe harder to answer, in many respects, than the defense attorney question. It is interesting that we do not demand the same moral accountability from prosecutors that we do from defense attorneys they have chosen.  Paul Butler in the Smith and Freedman edited volume (above)

In a free society, it is vital that there be a counter to the overwhelming power of government, because it is a power that can be easily abused by those who wield that power, individuals who may be more interested in advancing their own ambitions, venting their own hatreds, and satisfying their own prejudices, than they are in respecting our rights and even protecting society. In representing those people, therefore, even those who have committed the worse crimes against other people and against society, the criminal defense lawyer serves each of us by curbing official abuse and preserving the fundamental values of a free society. Vital though criminal defense is, it can also be grueling. In addition to what is at stake in representing the accusedfrequently the clients inhumane imprisonment, and sometimes even the clients [possible or imminent] deathcriminal lawyers also have to deal with public scorn that can go beyond the familiar cocktail party question. As Clarence Darrow noted, You must learn to endure criticism and to be callous to spiteful remarks.  Monroe H. Freedman in the Smith and Freedman volume (above)

* * *

 94. The person charged is entitled to have the assistance of a defence counsel of his own choice at every stage of the case. He shall be so informed. The court may allow the person charged to have his defence conducted by more than one counsel.  From Norways Criminal Procedure Act of 1981

At The Faculty Lounge blog back in 2011 , Bridget Crawford posted on the lawyer who agreed to represent Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian suspect who apparently had confessed to the bombing in downtown Oslo and the shooting spree that soon followed at the island summer camp, terrorist acts that claimed the lives of 76 individuals. Breivik was convicted of his crimes in July 2012. Crawford transcribed a portion of the interview with his defense counsel, Geir Lippestad , part of which follows:

For several hours he hesitated and discussed with friends and family whether to defend a man who only hours early had massacred 68 young people on a summer holiday island. But in the end his civic instincts trumped his initial horror. I believe that the legal system is very important in a democracy and someone has to do this job, he told reporters this afternoon.

Some biographical background on Lippestad, whose own political views were worlds away from those of his client (distinct from but perhaps not unrelated to his violent, reactionary right-wing views, Breivik was several times diagnosed with a variety of mental health disorders, the severity of which raised the possibility of his being confined to a psychiatric hospital, upon which he said: I must admit this is the worst thing that could have happened to me as it is the ultimate humiliation. To send a political activist to a mental hospital is more sadistic and evil than to kill him! It is a fate worse than death.):

Geir Lippestad (b. 7 June 1964) is a Norwegian lawyer, politician and social activist. He is most known for his involvement in several high-profile legal cases. As a criminal appellate lawyer, he first became known in 2001 when he acted as defense counsel following the murder of Benjamin Hermansen. [He was accorded international recognition as a result of being] lead counsel for the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, Anders Behring Breivik. [.] He is also noted for being an outspoken proponent of progressive causes, and is the chairman of the left-wing think tank Agenda. [In 2015 he became and remains] a member of the Oslo City Council, representing Labour.

What immediately follows is my original comment, now lightly edited, to Professor Crawfords post:

Indeed, and lets hope people do not draw any inferences about Lippestad based on the charges against his client (as has happened in the case of lawyers who did pro bono work for accused terrorists detained at Guantanamo). Contrary to what some prominent legal ethicists believe, I dont think lawyers should be praised or blamed for exercising their professional and personal discretion with regard to whom they decide to represent, given the fact that every defendant is entitled to legal representation, no matter how horrific the charges (consider, for example, the charges against the defendants in the Nuremburg Military Tribunals ), or how convinced we may be of the defendants guilt (based on well-attested facts in the public domain), despite the putative and muddled notions of (material and probatory) presumption of innocence.

* * *

[1] which, by definition, is committed to democratic law-making (be it constitutional, statutory, common, administrative or regulatory) and the rule of law generally. As Brad Wendel has argued , the lawyer should be seen as endorsing more general political values embodied in the legal system, and Geir Lippestads rationale for agreeing to represent Breivik is evidence of his more-than-verbal appreciation of the value of that endorsement (Crawford views this decision in term of moral mettle), although I would add the decision likewise represents core moral values and principles enshrined in the rule of law generally and criminal law in particular, be it municipal or international. All defendants are entitled to due process and unqualifiedly deserve to be treated with dignity . As Joseph Raz explains in Ethics in the Public Domain (1994), When people are called upon to make substantial sacrifices in the name of one of the fundamental civil, [and here legal] and political rights of an individual, this is not because in some matters the interest of the individual or the respect due to the individual prevails over the interest of the collectivity or the majority. It is because by protecting the right of that individual one protects the common good and is thus serving the interest of the majority. The common good in this instance includes the rules of criminal procedure in the legal system of a constitutional democracywhich, by definition, is committed to democratic law-making (be it constitutional, statutory, common, administrative or regulatory) and the rule of law generally.

The legal and moral ecology of criminal defense lawyering, the norms and duties of which appear to be successfully internalized by most of its practitioners, bring in their wake (as spill-over or by-product effects) enhanced personal and professional esteem, respect, or status among ones peers as well as among those (as part of an overlapping set) outside the profession likewise concerned with rule of law values and constitutional and democratic principles and practices. There is of course a litany of publicly avowed reasons [2] that will be proffered by way of defense of such representation having to do with rule of law values generally (both substantive and procedural), constitutional protections and rights, and related democratic values and principles in particular. Criminal defense lawyers who defend presumptively or allegedly guilty clients, notorious or not, could be said to be clear exemplars of the moral and legal norms and professional responsibilities of criminal defense lawyering, evidencing and modeling the moral, legal, and logical breadth and depth its members commit to in virtue of their professional role and duties of legal office. The necessary exercise of personal moral discretion and judgment invariably means that some (in this case fairly small class of) individuals may studiously avoid recognizing (at least the full extent of) their professional and moral legal obligations, perhaps finding sufficient rationalization or justification in their ethical lifeworld that ill fits the predominant moral and legal ecology of criminal defense lawyering. On the other hand, personal moral discretion is essential to lawyers making a voluntary decision to represent a client or cause. The late and great Monroe Freedman speaks to the professional commitment made in favor of such representation:

After having made the choice to serve as the clients fiduciary, however, the lawyer is bound to zealously represent the clients interests as determined by the client after appropriate counseling by the lawyer. At that point, for a lawyer to act in a way that betrays the clients interests would be both a breach of fiduciary duty and a violation of personal moral obligations that many lawyers share.

The real problems of criminal defense, in the U.S. at least, lie elsewhere: recalcitrant issues with access to justice, the unfulfilled promises of Gideon , innocent clients pleading guilty, the ethics of plea bargaining, systemic race and class biases, and prosecutorial misconduct, for example. As Wendel succinctly reminds, In general  there does not appear to be a pervasive problem of potential clients being turned away on account of their morally disagreeable qualities, as opposed to their inability to pay.

[1] Strictly speaking, Norway is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, while its constitution is correctly characterized as democratic, hence the title of this Note.

[2] Wendel provides one such list in his book, Lawyers and Fidelity to Law (Princeton University Press, 2010): 151.

* * *

Prior blog posts by yours truly with direct or indirect relevance to both criminal procedure and the right to counsel:

See too:

For a philosophically and legally sophisticated analysis of the criminal laws notion of presumption of innocence, please see chapter 4, Innocence, the Burden of Proof, and the Puzzle of Affirmative Defenses, in Larry Laudan, Truth, Error, and Criminal Law: An Essay in Legal Epistemology (Cambridge University Press, 2006): 89-114.

Relevant Bibliographies:

Image: Jacob Lawrence, To the Defense (1989)
A criticism we sometimes hear about the H-2B program is that the workers are not thoroughly vetted and overstay their visas. This is not the case. While there is certainly room for improvement in our immigration system, the H-2B visa program is one of the most effective programs available. The migrant workers are among the least likely to overstay their visas each year. We also sometimes hear concerns that the H-2B visa program takes jobs away from Americans and gives them to foreign workers. This is simply not the case. Employers can only apply to hire H-2B visa workers if they are unable to find American workers to fill open jobs. Additionally, the jobs that H-2B visa workers are hired for are often seen as undesirable by American workers because they are short-term or temporary jobs. Our office hears from South Dakota businesses all the time who are struggling to find employees to hire. For these businesses, being able to hire a few H-2B visa workers each year is a matter of staying open or facing the prospect of closing down.
When people talk about global warming stopping  theyre usually not looking at the long-term forecast or hoping no one else is, Capehart said.

Using a singular weather event like the current cold spell and extrapolating it to a much broader conclusion of the worlds climate is misguided, he said, noting that people often take an isolated weather event and thats when people decide that history starts.

We have a word for [this weather], he said. Its called winter.

The bitter cold weather in the Midwest this week is caused by a circulating system of cold air that typically sits above the poles and Arctic Ocean, known as the polar vortex.

Usually, the polar vortex remains relatively stationary. But its recent, unusual southerly migration is believed to be in part because the vortex has slowly weakened over the years as the volume of sea ice dwindles, creating more open water in the Arctic Ocean and thus increasing the exchange of heat between the Arctic and the lower atmosphere. Once weakened, it can effectively split into different pieces and move elsewhere. Parts of Siberia and central Canada are also currently being hammered with cold weather from the migration of the vortex.

The ice has been going down quite a while, Capehart said.
While determining whether to recommend approval of the water permits, DENR followed state law that directs the agency to consider whether unappropriated water is available, whether existing water rights would be unlawfully impaired, if the proposed use of water is beneficial, and whether the proposed use is in the public interest.

On the Cheyenne River, TransCanada wants to annually pump 238.21 acre-feet (about 78 million gallons), at a maximum pump rate of 6.68 cubic feet of water per second (3,000 gallons per minute), from a point on the river that is 36 miles south of Faith. The location is just off the southwest tip of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, near the reservation community of Bridger.

The lower Cheyenne River is considered a reliable water source, the DENR said in a written report on the application.

On the White River, TransCanada wants to annually withdraw 223.68 acre-feet (about 73 million gallons), at a maximum pump rate of 6.68 cubic feet per second (3,000 gallons per minute), from a diversion point 14 miles south and 6 miles west of Presho.
Buche Foods, already bringing a new grocery store to Pine Ridge, announced Wednesday that a Hardware Hank will be part of its new business.

One of the biggest questions we kept getting from the community was what are you going to do about hardware? RF Buche, president of GF Buche Company, said in a release. Weve crossed the country seeking out the best fit for products and the best fit for the community. Hardware Hank is both.

With the Feb. 9 closing of the Sioux Nation Shopping Center, Buche Foods will continue to bus shoppers to Lynns Dakotamart in Martin on Monday through Friday as they make the grocery and hardware store transition.

Buche Foods now operates grocery stores in Mission, Wagner and Gregory and has convenience stores  called Gus Stops in honor of company founder Gus Buche  in Lake Andes, White River, Wagner and Mission.

The Oglala Sioux Council voted last month to award a contract for control of Pine Ridges only grocery store to Buche Foods, replacing a company that operated Sioux Nation Shopping Center for 50 years.
He also is charged with two Class 5 felony counts of possessing and ingesting meth, with a top sentence of five years on each if convicted, and two Class 1 misdemeanors.

Bunch was released in late December on bond conditions including daily testing for drug and alcohol use. By early January, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

In late December, a law enforcement source in southwest Minnesota in a statement of probable cause said a deputy in Fort Pierre said Bunch was part of a group including Thoe and three others who had stolen items and had been dealing drugs. The stolen goods turned up in a Minnesota residence.

A Stanley County deputy in Fort Pierre told the Minnesota law officer to use caution when dealing with them due to their past history of assaults, possession of firearms, (and the) use, possession and distribution of methamphetamine, according to a state court document from Minnesota obtained by the Capital Journal.

FBI spokesman Kevin Smith said in a news release that during an attempted arrest of Thoe on Jan. 13 by officers from more than one federal agency at the rest area near White Lake between Chamberlain and Mitchell, Thoe was shot and killed.

Thoe had been living in the Pierre area for several months, Smith said.
This commuter in Chicago looks very cold. Photo: Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images

The Midwest is frozen today. Blame it on a polar vortex thats pushed temperatures to the lowest levels in decades, grinding major cities to a halt from Chicago to Park Rapids, Minnesota, where the wind chill hit 65 degrees below zero Wednesday.

States of emergency have been declared in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, and five people have already died due to the extreme cold.

The cold earth slept below;

Above the cold sky shone;

-Percy Bysshe Shelley pic.twitter.com/hmaIOTP2Ex  NWS (@NWS) January 30, 2019

This is very serious weather and my administration is not underestimating the gravity of this in how we respond, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker said. We are undertaking a coordinated effort to keep people safe, but we need all Illinoisans to do their part.

Chicago looks much prettier than it feels right now.

Temp: -18

Wind chill: -45@Skilling @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/RFHmWz4XeW  Ben Bradley (@BenBradleyTV) January 30, 2019

More than 2,000 flights have been canceled across the country, according to FlightAware.com. Another 9,000 flights have been delayed. Amtrak canceled all of its services in and out of Chicago, where temperatures are closing in on the all-time record low of 27 degrees below zero. The city was so cold that transit rail tracks have been lit on fire to keep the metal from contracting.

Crews are having to set train tracks on fire in Chicago to prevent them from freezing over so that the trains can keep moving! pic.twitter.com/cAgqG3bU0e  TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 30, 2019

The wind chill hit 47 below in Milwaukee, where schools, museums, courthouses, and zoos have been closed due to the cold weather emergency. Even beer deliveries were canceled.

The severity of the cold was driven home late Tuesday night when the U.S. Postal Service announced plans to suspend service across the upper Midwest. Employee safety is a top priority for the Postal Service and this decision was made for their safety, USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum told NPR.

At -29 its officially cold enough to turn boiling water into snow! pic.twitter.com/FkGb3MmQoj  Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) January 29, 2019

A polar vortex is to blame for the severe cold this week. The National Weather Service explains what that is:

The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air surrounding both of the Earths poles. It ALWAYS exists near the poles, but weakens in summer and strengthens in winter. The term vortex refers to the counter-clockwise flow of air that helps keep the colder air near the Poles. Many times during winter in the northern hemisphere, the polar vortex will expand, sending cold air southward with the jet stream. This occurs fairly regularly during wintertime and is often associated with large outbreaks of Arctic air in the United States

The bitter cold is expected to last through Friday, with temperatures expected to reach the 40s in Chicago this weekend.
Washington

Democrats are once again pitching a big plan to fix up Americas schools. But it follows several false starts in the last few years to address this issue inside the Beltway from both parties.

Under the Rebuild Americas Schools Act, unveiled by House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday in Washington, the federal government would provide $70 billion in direct funding for school repairs and rebuilding, along with $30 billion in tax-credit bonds. The bill would also create a comprehensive national database on the condition of public school facilities, according to a fact sheet put out by the Democrats.

The proposal, which was released by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., would also generate 1.9 million jobs, according to the Democrats, who cite an estimate from the left-leaning and labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute.

In a press conference, standing behind a podium that bore the slogn Build Schools Not Walls (a reference to President Donald Trumps push to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border), Scott stressed that the bill would target money toward schools serving large shares of students in poverty. He said that every day, students and teachers go to school that are either unsafe, or lack basic resources, or both.

This is simply unacceptable, Scott said.

Asked what kind of response the proposal had received from the Trump administration and others, Reed said the bills supporters were still gathering co-sponsors, and said, There is a common recognition of this problem.

News about schools and infrastructure tends to overlap during crises, such as when when thousands of children were exposed to lead in drinking water in Flint, Mich. But experts have been sounding the alarm about schools overall state of repair for years. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave public schools infrastructure a D-minus grade. That was lower than the D-plus the group gave to the nations overall infrastructure.

Infrastructure projects started out as a potential area of compromise and bipartisan success between President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders when the new administration began in 2017before taking office, Trump complained about the U.S. building schools in Iraq but not New York City. But that promise has faded over the past two years.

Trump released the general outlines of an infrastructure spending proposal close to a year ago, but it did not contain any targeted money for schools. The $1.5 billion pitch did contain some funding that could in theory go to schools.

And right after Trump took over in 2017, Senate Democrats released a bill to provide $75 billion to help schools repair and rebuild. That was part of a larger $1 trillion blueprint to fix up crumbling infrastructure.

So even though the promise of Infrastructure Week has pretty much dissolved , Democrats are actually upping their funding request in their latest proposal.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Andrew Ujifusa half of Politics K-12 @AndrewUjifusa.
A former Whitewood police chief was sentenced this week in Butte and Lawrence counties after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a minor girl.

Ben Koens, a 69-year-old from Belle Fourche in Butte County, was sentenced Monday in Belle Fourche to the maximum punishment of 15 years in prison for having sexual contact with a minor under the age of 16, court records show. Five years of his sentence will be suspended if he meets certain conditions, including paying fines and fees, not contacting his victim, and participating in treatment programs.

Koens was sentenced Tuesday in Deadwood in Lawrence County to 10 years in prison for the same type of crime, records show. The two sentences will be served at the same time and once Koens is released, he must register as a sex offender.

The victim was the same person in both cases, court records show. The incident in Butte County allegedly occurred between Aug. 1, 2015, and May 31, 2018, when the girl was between the ages of 9 and 12. In Lawrence County, the sexual contact allegedly occurred between 2014 and 2015 when the girl was between 8 and 10 years old.
Korger said Annunciation House was utilized due to demand.

"In the past, the detention centers used to hold them until their court dates," she said. "But, with the increase in the amount of people coming across  from 500 people per week to about 2,000 people in a week  they have to make more room to get more people in. Rather than just release some of the people on the street, like they did after the shutdown (began), they had been working with Annunciation House, and Annunciation House would be receiving these people."

Korger typically helped with the day shift, which would welcome the refugees to various sites around the city.

"They come to the hospitality center," she said. "There, they can take a shower, because they've been walking for about a month  there's not a lot of showers (along the way). There are new, clean clothes that people have donated. Then the evening workers sit down and get all of the information for the group that came, whether it's a family or friends, and the name of a contact person here in the United States  usually it's a family member or, a lot of times, it's a friend  so that they can contact them and begin the process of getting ready to leave."

She said that a typical stay at Annunciation House is around three or four days.
Theres the possibility of us blowing the jail budget out of the water, Dailey warned. Theres nothing we can do about it.

As of last week, the Dawes County jail was responsible for six female prisoners. The number of male prisoners has spiked over last year as well. The county jail budget for 2018-19 is $321,160, $20,000 less than the jail staff requested during budget preparations last summer.

I told you it was a gamble, said jailer Steve Crile of the decrease.

With the current fiscal year running through July, Dailey said its imperative he and the commissioners begin discussions now on how to address the impacts from the Gilliam case, as well as any others that may materialize.

Long-term, Dailey said it may prove less expensive to hire additional female jailers to allow them to house female prisoners locally. State law forbids male jailers from overseeing female prisoners.

Holding them in our facility is still the least expensive way to go, Dailey said. The future of relocating prisoners to other counties may also become more difficult as large county facilities begin taking in state prisoners to reduce overcrowding in the Nebraska and Wyoming penitentiaries, he added.
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On Jan. 16, KWQC TV reported that the Scott County Republican Party released a statement questioning the swift action taken against U.S. Rep. Steve King following the New York Times publication of his racist remarks. They said, "Is it possible that the New York Times took Congressman Kings statement out of context? We as Republicans call them Fake News every day, but then jump to condemn him without hearing his side. ... we should demand to see the context before we go after anyone who is on our team."

It is disturbing that the Scott Country Republican Party has chosen to ignore Kings long history of racist remarks and hate-based actions. In a companion article to their interview, the New York Times also published a timeline of Kings "Racist Remarks and Divisive Actions" going back to 2002, such as his suing the Iowa Secretary of State in 2005 for posting voting information in multiple languages, his unsupported claim in 2006 that 25 Americans are killed daily by undocumented immigrants, his meetings with international white supremacists in the Netherlands, France, and Austria in 2015, 2016, and 2018. The list of his extremist public statements is too long to catalogue here.
A good Wednesday to all. Let me be the first person to ask, "Is it cold enough for you?" Most, if not all, area schools are closed today while many offices also are closed with many organizations canceling or postponing meetings on what could be a record-setting day for wind-chill.

1. Yes, it's that bad

It says -24 degrees with a wind chill of -53 degrees on the National Weather Service's website. And it's every bit of that.

The NWS Wind Chill Warning remains in effect until 10 a.m. Thursday.

According to the warning, life threatening wind chills will carry into Thursday.

"Near historic cold and life threatening wind chills are expected over the entire area through Thursday morning. The coldest temperatures since 1996 combined with wind are expected to push wind chills into the range of 30 below to 60 below zero.

"In addition to the dangerous cold, areas of blowing snow will create hazardous travel in open and rural areas through early this morning. This could create a life-threatening situation if your vehicle becomes disabled."

Summary
A National Weather Service Wind Chill Warning remains in effect until 10 a.m. Thursday.

With my weather background, I was excited about the possibility of record low temperatures, Burchett said in an interview. Its in my nature to find a way to visualize the cold in a way people may not think of.

Naturally, his mind went to the whiskey he distills on Cody Road in LeClaire. The distillery, like many area businesses, was closed Wednesday.

Knowing it has to be 17 below for it to freeze, I figured I only get so many shots to try it, he said.

Around 8 a.m. Wednesday, Burchett bundled up and returned outside to check on the bottle of whiskey, while, again, streaming it live on Facebook.

Holy cow, he said of the frozen, slushie-like whiskey. It is icey.

Burchett called the videos a throwback to my TV live shot days.

In 2011, Burchett left his job as chief meteorologist at KWQC-TV to concentrate on his distillery business, which he runs with his brother, Garrett.

In posting the videos, Burchett hoped to turn a few heads."
On Thursday, the president renewed via Twitter his call for border security money, saying congressional leaders would be wasting their time to have the hearings without serious discussion of a wall.

If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time, Trump wrote.

Meanwhile, Grassley, the states longest-serving member of Congress, cast much of the blame for the shutdown on Democrats. He singled out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, saying he hopes she is looking at these conference negotiations with an open mind and an earnest intent to secure the border.

The way I see it, Democrats in Congress ought to put their money where their mouth is. For weeks, weve heard about how they support border security, he added. But none have said exactly what that means. None have put forward any serious or specific plans for how to do it.

Still, Grassley said there is room for compromise on both sides of the political spectrum as those talks move ahead.
Davenports former Fire Chief Lynn Washburn has filed a lawsuit claiming she faced age and sex discrimination on the job and was forced out for complaining about the way she was treated. The city's attorney denies the accusations.

The lawsuit, filed in Scott County District Court earlier this month, calls for back pay, future pay, lost benefits, an award for emotional distress and other damages. City Administrator Corri Spiegel, whom Washburn accuses of bullying and harassment, also is named and asked to personally pay punitive damages.

Washburns suit also contains several demands to change city employee policies. It asks for court-ordered anti-discrimination training for employees, a federal review of all disciplinary actions, workplace monitoring for unfair treatment and screening of high-ranking employees for bigoted attitudes and opinions based on age and sex.

Washburn, who was fired 19 months ago, has accused the city of discrimination and retaliation before  and sued to be reinstated to her old job, a court battle she lost in Scott County. This is the first time she has sought compensatory damages, and she now says reinstatement would be not appropriate.
Trump and Putin at the G20 conference in November 2018. Photo: JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images

In July of 2018, just after a NATO conference at which the president reportedly considered leaving the historic defense pact, Trump met with Vladimir Putin for a two-hour private conversation where the only other American in the room was a career translator ethically barred from sharing the contents of the one-on-one talk. As if that didnt raise more concerns about a president haunted by an investigation into possible Russian influence over his campaign, it emerged on Tuesday that Trump had a second private meeting with the Russian president in 2018.

According to the Financial Times, President Trump spoke with Putin for several minutes after an event at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in November, with no American translator or aide at hand to take notes on the chat  though a Russian translator was by Putins side, and Melania Trump sat with the president. According to a Russian government official, the two leaders spoke for 15 minutes, discussing foreign policy options, including Syria and the Azov Sea incident, in which Russian forces fired on three Ukrainian navy vessels in November. The White House declined to acknowledge any detail from the meeting, other than the fact that it happened.

The details of Trumps November 2018 meeting with Putin came to light weeks after the Washington Post reported that the president confiscated the notes from his translator after a 2017 meeting with Putin in Hamburg, and reportedly told the interpreter not to discuss what had been said with administration officials. Also in January was the contentious BuzzFeed report that claimed Trump had engaged in talks to build a tower in Moscow through June 2016, and that the president had instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the matter.

Considering the overwhelming amount of evidence the Mueller investigation has already sifted through, one would think that Trump would consider the optics of having private meetings with the foreign agent that he allegedly colluded with during the 2016 campaign. And yet, at the November 2018 meeting, the star-crossed presidents reportedly discussed when they could meet again.
Larson said after Tuesday's hearing that Hardi never would have pleaded guilty had not the plea agreement called for her to be allowed to keep 10 cats.

If I knew this was going to go on, we would have fought it from the get-go, he said, adding that no judge would have found her guilty of animal cruelty.

He said the people of Orion ought to be made aware of the town's priorities on fighting cats instead of adding police coverage for recent break-ins or battling ongoing sewer problems.

They should spend the tax money where it should be doing good in the town, not trying to have us get rid of six cats, he said.

Larson said Hardi was hired as animal control officer by a previous mayor, but when Cooper came into office he wanted her to put down any cat the village had had more than five days. I can't see that, he said.

He said Hardi spent a lot out of her own pocket to keep the cats alive.

We supported them and fed them, he said. I'm about ready to file harassment charges and take him to court because this is ludicrous.

He said legal fees had cost him quite a bit but the cats were worth it and he wouldn't give them up.
The Quad-Cities economy is expected to grow by about 6% in 2021, less than the nation as a whole, due to difficulties meeting labor supply from a lack of available, skilled workforce.
"We want to make all kids feel like they're competent here, even if it's just about changing a light bulb. We want them to have adult role models other than their parents. We want to help them make decisions. We want to help them understand diversity. We want to help them get along without pushing and shoving."

Over the years, some of the ways in which Boys & Girls Clubs have served Q-C youth may have changed with the times, but its mission has remained largely unchanged over a quarter of century, with one notable addition: These days it is heavily focused on helping club members see the opportunities available to them beyond high school.

"We want to help these kids be productive and responsible individuals by the time they go out into the world," current Executive Director Jenny Gerlach told Quad-City Times reporter Jennifer DeWitt. "We just love our kids and want them to see their full potential."

They do that, Gerlach said, by focusing on five core areas: "education and career development; health and life skills; good character and leadership development; the arts; and sports, fitness and recreation."
Today is Wednesday, Jan. 30, the 30th day of 2019. There are 335 days left in the year.

1919  100 years ago: Moline city water is safe for drinking purposes and is almost entirely free of bacteria. The follow report is issued today by Adolph Anderson, city chemist:

Analyses of the city water during the month of January shows the water to be very good, conforming to the highest standard, that being the U. S. treasury standard. Analyses were made daily at the water plant, and samples were also collected in various parts of the city.

The report from the state water survey also shows the water conforms to the U. S. treasury standard in every respect for drinking water to be used on interstate carriers.

1944  75 years ago: East Moline  Celebration of youth week and the 63rd anniversary of the Christian Endeavor movement opened yesterday morning in the First Christian church with a special program arranged and presented by the young people.
Rock Island County board member Cecelia O'Brien, D-Moline, said she hopes the county is sued.

"I say, let's put this on hold and let the courts sort it out," she said. "I think it's further proof that the community in Rock Island County was not made aware of what the county wanted to do with that building.

"A small group of people in power decided they wanted to get rid of the courthouse," she said. "They went about it in such a way that nobody would realize what their intentions were because, if they had, there would have been a public outcry.

"If it were not for a set of lucky circumstances that postponed some things, that building would already have been torn down."

O'Brien referenced a meeting Monday between Rock Island County Chief Circuit Judge Walter Braud and Rock Island Mayor Mike Thoms at which Thoms refused to approve a demolition permit for the project.

"We are short on office space, we have a $10 million building, and we are tearing it down," O'Brien said. "Why is Judge Braud uniquely qualified to tell the city of Rock Island to tear it down?"

County board member Rich Morthland, R-Cordova, called Brackney's letter an "exciting development" and said he plans to attend the Feb. 4 meeting in Andalusia.
Editor's Note: Christine Hicks is a correspondent for The Dispatch-Argus who is participating in the Citizens Police Academy presented through April 3 by multiple law enforcement agencies in the Quad-Cities.

At last it's Jan. 23.

Since I received the letter several weeks ago informing me I had been accepted to participate in this years Citizens Police Academy in the Quad-Cities, Ive been on pins and needles to start. And now its here.

Ignoring the heavily snow-covered streets, I headed over to the relatively new and extremely handsome Silvis Police Department for our first session. I was greeted by the program coordinator, Lt. Jens Lape of the Rock Island County Sheriffs Department.

Our instructors for the evening were Sgt. Tony Frankowski and Officer Brian Yuska of the East Moline Police Department  both extremely knowledgeable about their jobs and just the right blend of gravity and humor.

Slowly other participants  young, middle aged and retirees  began to arrive. They included an emergency-room nurse whose son is a police officer, an assistant city clerk, a retired judge and an immigrant from Togo in Africa.

We are bound together by one thing: curiosity.
DAVENPORT  Duck City Bistro and the Downtown Davenport Partnership are planning a Feb. 28 fundraiser 5-9 p.m. to benefit park renovations to Kaiserslautern Square, next to the restaurant at 115 E. 3rd St.

All proceeds from $50-per-person tickets will go toward building a completely redesigned pedestrian-friendly park, including an upgraded fountain, new stage, shade trees and LED lighting.

DDP and Duck City Bistro are proud to partner with the city to help ensure this important park in the heart of downtown reaches its full potential, Kyle Carter, DDP executive director, said in a release this week. The refreshed park will be a spectacular amenity for the entire community.

The event will feature hand-crafted heavy hors d'oeuvres by Chef Jeremy of Duck City Bistro, including an eclectic mix of gourmet foods, and one complimentary cocktail or beverage. A full cash bar will be available as well.

Commonly known as K-Square, the Kaiserslautern Square park across from the historic Adler Theatre honors Davenports sister city, Kaiserslautern, Germany. Davenport Sister Cities is part of an international network that advances the cause of citizen diplomacy through activities that promote cultural awareness, exposure and exchange, the DDP release said.
Members-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, and Deb Haaland, pose together at the Capitol on November 14, 2018. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

While billionaires hyperventilate over Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs support for a 70 percent marginal tax rate, the freshman congresswoman still faces opposition from some members of her own party. the Hill reported on Tuesday that at least one member of her state delegation thinks she should face a primary challenge:

What I have recommended to the New York delegation is that you find her a primary opponent and make her a one-term congressperson, the Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity, told The Hill. Youve got numerous council people and state legislators whove been waiting 20 years for that seat. Im sure they can find numerous people who want that seat in that district.

Since the Hill decided to let this lawmaker remain anonymous, we know nothing about their own legislative record or biography. Those details are integral to understanding why a Democratic lawmaker would consider Ocasio-Cortez so damaging to the party that she merits a primary challenge. Perhaps they once waited 20 years for a chance at a seat. Maybe they object to the party shifting to the left. They could fear theyll face a progressive primary challenger in the AOC mold. Without these details, were left to guess at the roots of their resentment. Their gripe may be utterly petty, but its also a useful tell. There was a process, in this lawmakers view, and Ocasio-Cortez disrespected it by jumping the queue. Rather than accepting her surprise victory as proof of her nascent political skill, her colleague has decided to dismiss her as an upstart.

This lawmaker isnt the first Democrat to complain, either anonymously or on the record, about Ocasio-Cortezs ideology and rhetoric. Lawmakers have repeatedly expressed worry that the democratic socialist who unseated ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley would support primary challenges against other long-serving Democrats. The Hill claims that members of the Congressional Black Caucus are furious with Ocasio-Cortez over a Politico report that suggested she would back a challenge to Hakeem Jeffries, who defeated progressive Democrat Barbara Lee in a bid to become the House Democratic Caucus chair. (The Intercept reported last November that Jeffriess campaign for the role was supported by allies of Crowley, who had spread a rumor that Lee donated to Ocasio-Cortezs primary campaign.) But Justice Democrats, the left-wing group associated with Ocasio-Cortezs campaign, has only announced one primary campaign so far  against Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democrat in a safe seat who recently raised money for Republican representative John Carter.

Some senior Democrats appear more supportive of Ocasio-Cortez. She, along with several other left-wing Democrats, recently won appointments to prestigious committees, including Oversight and Financial Services. But its not so strange that the young Democrat continues to rub some of her new colleagues the wrong way. The partys identity crisis isnt a recent development. Nor is that crisis limited to internal differences of opinion on specific policies, like a Green New Deal or Medicare for All. Its much broader than that. The threat of an insurgent isnt just that theyll take the party further left, its that theyll change the way things are typically done.
About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile
For several months before his death, Father Alfred Kunz co-hosted a radio show called "Our Catholic Family."

Some would later say Kunz planned to expose sexually deviant priests by reading their names on the program.

Back then, in the late 1990s, such a move would have been almost unheard of. While a few isolated complaints had come to light, neither the extent of abuse by American clergy nor the hierarchys efforts to keep it secret would be revealed until the Boston Globe published an investigative report in 2002.

And so, in publicizing a list of pedophile priests, Kunz and his best friend Father Charles Fiore would have been defying their superiors orders to let church officials handle such complaints.

But Kunz never discussed their efforts  or pushback from church leaders  on the radio show. His co-host, Peter Kelly, said he never intended to do so.

Courtesy Peter Kelly Peter Kelly and Father Charles Fiore record a radio show at the WEKZ radio studio in Monroe.

Courtesy Peter Kelly Peter Kelly and Father Charles Fiore record a radio show at the WEKZ radio studio in Monroe.

Instead, Kunz spoke matter-of-factly with Kelly, an attorney and St. Michael parishioner, about the sacraments. They often discussed the temptations of the world and the repercussions of giving in to them. Kunzs slight Swiss accent, passed on by his immigrant father, did little to soften his harsh message.

When a person commits an individual mortal sin, he is subject to the same consequences as Adam and Eve, Kunz preached in one episode. And we know Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise. Secondly, he inherits, or he deserves, the same consequences as Satan himself.

At 67, Kunz still had a boyish face with a ruddy complexion and bulbous nose. He was going bald but had a swish of hair on the top of his head.

He was on the short side, but muscular and compact. Hed even been a Golden Gloves boxer.

He kept a schedule that would likely exhaust a much younger man.

Kunz said Mass every day, ran St. Michael School, and oversaw the finances of both the church and the school. He also lived at the school, in a conference room hed converted into a studio apartment.

Courtesy Peter Kelly Father Alfred Kunz is shown outside St. Michael Catholic Church in Dane. Kunz's body was found at the school attached to the church March 4, 1998.

He mentored young teachers and counseled parishioners in crisis.

At the churchs Friday fish fries, Kunz tied on an apron and cooked the cod. When parishioners cars broke down, he popped open the hoods and coaxed the engines back to life.

And he mowed the cemetery.

Not long before his death, Kunz decided the radio show was just too much. He convinced Fiore, his confidante and confessor, to take over the microphone. Fiore had slowed down in recent years due to a heart condition that left him breathless at even the smallest amount of physical exertion.

While Kunz was overextended, Fiore was a priest without a parish. He had parted ways with his religious order, the Dominicans, in the 1980s. After that, in an unusual arrangement, a bishop in Puerto Rico agreed to supervise him even though he never actually ministered there.

After his parents deaths, Fiore became the face of his familys real estate development company, using part of his inheritance to build a mansion at the top of a hill overlooking northwestern Dane County. He called it Monte Cristo, which translates to Mountain of Christ.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel archives Hundreds gathered to mourn the death of Father Alfred Kunz at his funeral in 1998.

On the night of March 3, 1998, Fiore joined Kunz and Kelly in the WEKZ studio in Monroe so they could teach him the ropes.

After recording several episodes, the two priests began their 60-mile drive back to St. Michael.

Kunz was oddly quiet as Fiore drove through the darkness, snowflakes becoming mere drops of moisture as they hit the windshield and the road.

Fiore later told a Madison newspaper reporter the expression on his friends face seemed troubled.

Finally, Fiore broke the silence: Al, youve been a good friend for so many years.

Kunz said nothing.

Fiore waited a beat, then spoke again: Al, you know, I really do love you.

In the dim dashboard light, Fiore could see Kunzs eyes filling with tears. Fiore told the reporter he couldnt tell what was on Kunzs mind; Kunzs reply gave nothing away.

I know, he said to Fiore. I know.

Father Alfred Kunz co-hosted a radio show called "Our Catholic Family."

Police believe the school building was likely empty when Fiore dropped off Kunz at St. Michael around 10 p.m.

About 20 minutes later, Kunz had a quick phone conversation. Tracked down by detectives, the man on the other end of the line, also a priest, said the call was about church business.

After he hung up, Kunz, who was hard of hearing, turned up some talk radio.

Sometime after that, the killer entered the hallway. Perhaps Kunz welcomed the person inside. Perhaps it was someone with a key or someone whod sneaked in earlier. Maybe Kunz had failed to lock the door. Investigators dont know for sure.

Kunz and his assailant struggled. The priest got a few good punches in, bruising his hand before falling or being knocked to his knees.

The killer slid a blade across Kunzs throat. He pitched onto the floor, where he bled to death.

Dane County Sheriff's Department A photo of Father Alfred Kunz's hand (left) taken during his autopsy shows bruising, which led police to believe he fought his attacker. The telephone cord (right) stretches from the office into the hallway in this crime scene photo. A photo of Father Alfred Kunz's hand (left) taken during his autopsy shows bruising, which led police to believe he fought his attacker. The telephone cord (right) stretches from the office into the hallway in this crime scene photo.

Brian Jackson, the teacher who called 911 to report Kunzs death, gave police this account of what happened the next morning:

The first to arrive for school, Jackson glanced through the two sets of glass doors and saw someone or something on the floor. A pool of liquid  it looked black  seeped across the width of the hallway from one wall of lockers to the other.

At first, Jackson thought the figure face down in the sludge was a child. When he got closer, he recognized Kunz.

Jackson dropped his bags and threw off his coat and sweater. He ran to Kunz, probing the priests neck for a pulse, and was reassured when he thought he felt a faint throbbing.

He ran to the principals office, grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

I need an ambulance at St. Michael School in Dane. The father, the priest at the school, is in a pool of blood on the floor, Jackson panted.

Was the man alive? The dispatcher wanted to know.

Jackson wasnt sure.

Did he have a pulse?

Jackson thought so.

Did he know where the priest was bleeding from?

Jackson didnt.

Read the documents

Read the documents

He dropped the phone and rushed back to Kunz.

Thirty seconds later Jackson was back on the line: Theres so much f----ing blood, he told the dispatcher. I have no idea where its coming from.

Did he know CPR?

Jackson didnt.

The dispatcher relayed instructions, and Jackson dropped the phone again.

Kunz was stiff as Jackson rolled him over. The priests face was purple. Jackson tried to open Kunzs mouth to breathe for him, but his jaw wouldnt move.

Jackson ran back to the phone, his voice becoming a high-pitched shriek.

Oh my God, someone slit his f----ing throat. I think somebody murdered him.

Jackson dropped the phone again, running back to the body. He slapped Kunzs face, trying to rouse him. The teacher shook the priests arms, trying to will him back to life.

Father! he wailed. Father!

Before the end of the 911 call, Jackson told the dispatcher one more thing. Some detectives brushed it off as a silly comment that must have come from watching too much TV. Others werent so sure.

What Jackson said was this: I suppose Im a suspect.

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How we reported this story

In reporting this story, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Gina Barton conducted dozens of interviews with those involved in the case. She attended the 20th anniversary Requiem Mass for Father Alfred Kunz and visited the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace shrine in Necedah, Wis.

The Dane County Sheriffs Department declined to release its case file to the Journal Sentinel, citing an exemption to the states public records law for open cases. Barton reviewed 50 pages of department reports that had been released to the Journal Sentinel in 1998 and remained on file in the newsroom. Those reports document the initial police response to the 911 call and several interrogations of Brian Jackson and people who knew him.

Barton read court records, archival records detailing events at the shrine and portions of Malachi Martins book on exorcism, Hostage to the Devil. She also reviewed dozens of print and television news reports about the Kunz homicide and investigation.

In addition, Barton listened to seven and a half hours of the Our Catholic Family and Our Apostolic Church radio programs. Recordings of the programs were provided to the news organization by Peter Kelly, who produced them. Descriptions of Kunzs feelings, beliefs, experiences and teachings were taken from statements he made on the show in 1997 and early 1998. Father Charles Fiore also spoke on some of the recordings.

Details and quotes in scenes were obtained through interviews with those present or from police reports, court records, transcripts, archived news reports, video recordings or audio recordings.

Brian Jackson spoke briefly in person to Journal Sentinel reporter Ashley Luthern. He said he is innocent and believes the investigation was waylaid by the fact detectives spent so much time on him. He declined a detailed interview, saying his lawyer had advised against it. Jacksons thoughts, feelings and interactions with Kunz, as conveyed in the story, come from police reports in which he described them to detectives.

In all other instances in which peoples thoughts are described, they conveyed those thoughts to a reporter.

Throughout the series, quotation marks indicate a subjects exact words as written in a transcript, as recalled by a party to the conversation or as stated to a reporter, either now or at the time of the incident. Italics indicate statements recalled or summarized by a third party in an interview, a news story or an investigative document, such as a police report.

People who provided information for this chapter include Lt. Kerry Porter, Sheriff David Mahoney and retired detective Dawn Johnson, all of the Dane County Sheriffs Department; Peter Kelly and former reporter Chuck Nowlen. Father Charles Fiore died in 2003. The sheriffs department declined to release the recording or the full transcript of the 911 call, but portions of it were detailed in a police report obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

Anyone with information about the murder of Father Alfred Kunz is asked to call the Dane County Sheriff's Department tip line at 608-284-6900.
The Assembly of Non-Governmental Organizations of Belarus has recognized Speaking Belarusian, a project authored by Valancin Viacorka of Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys (RFE/RLs) Belarus Service, as the Best Media Activity of 2018 in its annual Civil Society Champions contest.

Viacorka accepted the award at a ceremony in Minsk January 10.

It is a pleasure to know that this work, this emphasis on such values as linguistic rights, linguistic identity, and cultural tradition is not in vain, said Viacorka on receiving the award.

In a series of texts, short videos, audio, infographics, quizes, and other interactive materials, Viacorkas project allows audiences to engage with Belarusian, a language that suffered under Soviet rule when the use of Russian was enforced in the public sphere, and which is now classified as vulnerable by UNESCO.

The linguistic identity of Belarusians is under threat in dangerous geopolitical circumstances and must be preserved," Viacorka tells RFE/RL Pressroom. "Meanwhile, there is a high interest in language matters in society.

Speaking Belarusian is published on six platforms (TV, online, Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, and radio), and is used as a teaching aid at schools and universities. The series has received over 30 thousand page views on RFE/RLs website alone since October 2018.

Viacorka joined RFE/RL in the early 1990s with his weekly radio program on language and cultural matters. He later co-authored the weekly radio program Uninhabited Heritage, an exploration of forgotten Belarusian heritage. In 2010 he began organizing meet ups in Minsk for youth and adults to practice Belarusian and discuss ways to protect the language. Viacorka has published two books with RFE/RLs series Liberty Libraries on the distinct and vibrant language of Belarusian.

In its tenth year, the annual Civil Society Champions competition recognized journalists and media outlets in ten categories. The 57 projects that made the shortlist were judged by a jury of 112 community leaders, experts, and journalists from all over Belarus.

RFE/RLs Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, is one of the leading providers of news and analysis to Belarusian audiences in their own language. The Service ranks first among Belarusian media on Facebook, Twitter, and VKontakte, with a total combined weekly engagement of over 100,000, and a combined weekly reach of almost 7.5 million views.
SHUSHAN  An educational public forum on refugees, sponsored by more than a dozen area organizations, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10, at the Shushan United Presbyterian Church, Railroad Avenue.

Called Welcoming the Stranger, the talk will feature speaker Maxine Stein, president and CEO of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts. It is the largest refugee resettlement program in Massachusetts.

Stein will talk about the Oct. 27 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh and how the shooter focused his hatred on Jews and on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. The society is a global Jewish nonprofit that works with partners to protect refugees.

Stein will talk, too, about the current refugee situation, discuss who is a refugee, the differences between asylum-seekers and refugees and how they enter the United States. There will be a question-and-answer session afterward and light refreshments.

The talk is organized by the United Presbyterian Church of Shushan, Newman United Methodist Church of Shushan, Albany Presbytery Immigration Network, Saratoga Immigration Coalition, Temple Sinai in Saratoga Springs, Nuns of New Skete, Salem Ecumenical Clergy Group, Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York, St. Patricks Church in Cambridge, Cambridge United Presbyterian Church, Easton Friends Meeting, Greenwich Interfaith Fellowship and the Salem Rotary Club.

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Howard Schultz. Photo: 60 Minutes

To say that Howard Schultzs announcement that he is seriously thinking of running for president as a centrist independent was received poorly would be an understatement. The prospect of the billionaire former Starbucks CEO splitting the Democratic vote in 2020  an election in which defeating President Trump is seen less as a political mandate than an existential imperative  has drawn an outraged response from Democratic operatives and the general public alike. Said public was not shy in letting Schultz know about it, either: Dont help elect Trump! Go back to Davos! a heckler reportedly shouted at the 65-year-old on Monday during a live conversation with CNBCs Andrew Ross Sorkin. Health care is a human right! yelled another, referencing Schultzs claim on Sundays episode of 60 Minutes that universal health care is an unaffordable pipe dream, as false as the [Trumpproposed border] wall.

Yet Schultz remains characteristically undaunted. I am certainly prepared for the cynics and the naysayers to come out and say this cannot be done, he told the New York Times. I dont agree with them. I think its un-American to say it cant be done. Im not doing this to be a spoiler. Such dogged self-regard has driven the businessmans dalliances with social justice causes over the years, as well, perhaps most memorably with his widely-panned Race Together initiative from 2015. At the time, Schultz, by all accounts tormented by the killings of black men at the hands of American police that seemed to saturate daily news coverage, sought to encourage conversations about race in his Starbucks stores by having baristas write the term Race Together on customers drink orders. Critics on social media jumped down his throat, deriding the initiative as superficial, half-baked, and foisting undue emotional labor upon his low-wage employees. Honest to God, if you start to engage me in a race conversation before Ive had my morning coffee, it will not end well, tweeted the late PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill.

Schultz took the backlash in stride. He internalized the campaigns failures as a lesson learned  not about his intentions, which colleagues, employees, and even black civil rights advocates and HBCU administrators have said were pure, but about their execution. The irony is, we did create a national conversation  not how we intended, but you learn from mistakes, Schultz told Fast Company. We made a tactical mistake, he later added. So what? Were moving forward.

Yet by committing himself with such fanfare to using his corporate platform to address racial inequality, Schultz has inevitably opened himself up to questions about how he might handle the issue were he elected president. There is little evidence to suggest his interest would wane dramatically  he has launched pilot programs aimed at sharing profits from stores in Harlem and South Los Angeles, historically black and Latino areas, with their surrounding neighborhoods; initiated a hiring push to employ more disconnected and disenfranchised black and Latino youth; and stated, in a June interview with CNBC, that racial tensions in the U.S. remain at crisis levels. But despite admitting that the burden of proof is on [him] to establish legitimacy in the racial justice space, Schultzs commitment to the issue he deems most pressing  Americas national debt  indicates a political philosophy that has traditionally harmed the very communities he says he wants to help.

Americans, and especially black Americans, have grown accustomed to the economic consequences for which bemoaning the national debt have become shorthand: austerity. Schultzs preoccupation with tightened spending affirms this correlation. I think the greatest threat domestically to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over the cloud of America and future generations, Schultz told CNBC. One can debate ad nauseam the extent to which said debt actually matters to the countrys continued financial vitality  I am no economist, and will not to do so here  but less easily disputed is that treating it the same way a corporation would leads to one solution: less money for spending that is considered nonessential. Schultzs rhetoric thus far suggests he would take just that approach, specifically by targeting social welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare. Lets take a centrist approach about getting ideology out, Schultz said in June. We can get the 4 percent growth, we can go after entitlements, and we can do the right thing  if we have the right people in place.

Inveighing against the welfare state and its purported ills is a time-worn strategy for Republicans, and one that poor black Americans recognize as part of an ongoing effort to shame them. The racial dimension of these broadsides  in the form of suggestions, both subtle and overt, that black people in particular take advantage of government largesse to bankroll their lazy lifestyles  was behind Paul Ryans claims that a work ethic deficiency in our inner cities affirms the need for cuts, as well as Ben Carsons statement that public housing is too comfortable and thus discourages people from getting jobs. Real compassion, Carson told the New York Times in 2017, means refusing to give public housing beneficiaries a comfortable setting that would make somebody want to say: Ill just stay here. They will take care of me. The political imperative here is unambiguous: Conservatives sell austerity by capitalizing on the reality that white people  who comprise roughly 90 percent of the GOP base  tend to support welfare programs at lower rates when they believe their economic status is threatened by nonwhites.

The right does not have a monopoly on such thinking. The tenets of President Clintons 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act  which included new work requirements for welfare recipients and time limits on how long they could receive said benefits for  were predicated on similar assumptions that government assistance was the province of loafers. And despite his well-documented racial equality initiatives, Schultz, who grew up in public housing himself, considers such programs equally disposable. This liberal co-sign for austerity belies the fact that Democratic constituents would be among its greatest victims. People who are financially insecure tend to vote Democrat. Black people, the partys most loyal racial demographic, receive Medicaid and food stamps at rates greater than their population share, and are dramatically overrepresented in government jobs compared to whites. Whether a future policy agenda would actually reflect Schultzs austere rhetoric is to be determined  pursuing the kinds of initiatives as president that he did as a private citizen would cost money, after all. But considering how such rhetoric has traditionally been weaponized in electoral politics, the outlook for black America does not look promising.
HUDSON FALLS  The Hudson Falls school district was designated as susceptible to fiscal stress in state Comptroller Thomas DiNapolis most recent report.

The rating evaluates factors such as the amount of reserve cash a district has on hand and whether it has an operating budget deficit.

Hudson Falls Director of Business Services Kevin Polunci said the timing of the states measuring method is the main reason for the negative rating.

What this report does is it takes a snapshot of June 30, Polunci said, And they take your cash and look at what you owe, but they dont look at whats owed to you.

June 30 is right after school districts pay teachers, who choose to opt-in to a withholding program, for the entire summer. Also, most of Hudson Falls funding comes from state aid, which is paid out after the Comptrollers Office gathers the information for the report, according to Polunci.

Corinth, Hudson Falls schools facing 'fiscal stress' Two local school districts were cited by the state Comptrollers Office as being susceptible to fiscal stress.

The rating is similar to evaluating a familys financial situation right after Christmas and a mortgage payment and applying that to the entire year, he said.
We had trucks freezing up; we had our fill sites frozen up, thats why we had to call so many tankers in Hartford and Middle Granville for water, six or seven miles for water, so that was a big challenge, McCullen said. Thats the problem you run into in the winter time. Youre limited on your sources of where you can get water from.

Toward the end of the response, hoses doused the roof line with between 500 and 600 gallons of water a minute, causing shingles to fly off. A small tree in the front yard was saturated with water and ice. McCullen said they cleared the scene around 3:30 p.m.

Sitting in a truck and watching the firefighters douse his home, James Pawlikowski Jr. said he was not home at the time, nor were any family members. His child was in school. He believed his familys pet bunny and cat did not escape, something McCullen confirmed later in the day.

Pawlikowski said he had shuttered the house while his wife was away with family in Connecticut. He had been staying with his mother-in-law, and was driving her back from an appointment at Glens Falls Hospital when another family member called to say a house was on fire near the Granville State Police station.

We came back to see if it was ours, and it was, Pawlikowski said.
Generally, we share our stories that publish on poststar.com and occasionally use the service for breaking news by sharing videos, photos and other tidbits of information on traffic, crashes etc.

We also keep tabs on elected officials, schools, municipalities and our competition. All of the before mentioned are available in several places so we really would not be missing it per se.

Facebook with our nearly 45,000 followers offers more engagement by our readers than Twitter ever has. The story clicks, comments and shares are by at least 10 to 1.

For example, Tuesday's fire at Taco Bell/Long John Silver's only garnered eight clicks to read the story on Twitter while the Facebook version nearly 4,000 people clicked as of 3 p.m.

I feel like Twitter is the watchful eye while Facebook is the big mouth. It takes a lot for one of our Twitter followers to comment on a story, while on Facebook they come fast and furious about any topic.

Our reporters spend time on social media, but we are no where near it consuming what we write about. They spend plenty of time in meetings, talking with sources and when a story idea does materialize from social media I am happy to pass it along.
Following the decennial census, lawmakers meet  largely in secret  to figure out the best way to preserve power for those who already have it. Lines are drawn that are favorable to incumbents, which maximize partisan advantage and which often disenfranchise those who lack a powerful voice in the democratic process, including minorities and the poor.
We owe that to the people we treat. As providers, we have an obligation to care for patients, advise them about the benefits of healthy behaviors and habits, and better educate them about the complex and confusing nature of health care insurance coverage and billing.
"So . . . we are asking a favor (at least for the next three days)," it read. "Can you keep the criminalling to a minimum? It is REALLY cold out . . . do yourself (and us) a favor . . . stay inside. Be nice to each other, watch reruns of Say Yes to the Dress (we hear from the fire fighters that it's a really good show). Mmmmkay, thanks!"
The Truman deployed under this strategy last April. It sailed to the eastern Mediterranean and launched airstrikes against the Islamic State, then returned to Norfolk in mid-July. It spent several weeks at home for a working port visit, then returned to sea, this time to the north. The Truman went to Canada for training before moving onto Iceland, Great Britain and Norway. It spent some time operating north of the Arctic Circle. That hasn't happened in years.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a 14-year-old in Arizona discovered the same security flaw earlier this month while he was using FaceTime to set up a "Fortnight" gaming session with friends. According to the report, the teenager's mother, Michele Thompson, reported the bug to Apple, calling and faxing the company, and emailing with the security team days before news reports were published about the bug. The mother and son also posted about the issue on social media, but Thompson said it was frustrating trying to get Apple's attention, the report said, and she isn't sure how knowledge of the bug was made public. Thompson and Apple did not respond to requests for comment about her son's discovery.
"And to the Fort Monroe Authority for working with us to make our move possible," said Bowman. "Every day when we come to work, we have an opportunity to look out over the water and see firsthand the resources that we are working for."
"Ill in the sense that I believed she had gone crazy," he said. "She would have a cushion in one arm, and a basket in the other arm, and would walk around the house and the yard and talk to them."
The suit also alleges Cromwell had previously drawn and brandished his weapon toward unarmed residents and guests of the River Walk neighborhood. He had a "propensity" to "exceed the parameters of the duties assigned to him as a security guard," and his excessive use of force apparently led a previous employer to fire him, the lawsuit alleges.
"There's usually something in their background before we let them just put a weapon on," Moss said. He added that he thinks River Walk would be a difficult place to patrol because of its size and makeup, which includes a variety of adjacent communities and "not that many common areas."
In announcing his news conference, Sacks offered new information about what he said happened between the guard and Chen. He said a passenger in the guard's vehicle witnessed "relevant portions" of what led up to it. He also said a vehicle can be used as a weapon.
"The referendums on casino gaming are going to go ahead of regardless of what the results of any study are going to be, and it makes no sense to me for us to make a very significant policy decision and have a study that is just eyewash," Norment said.
On the Middle East, the annual report said thousands of Islamic State fighters and supporters remain in Syria and Iraq, and that they will continue to conduct attacks, even as Trump vows to pull American forces out of northern Syria. "We assess that ISIS will seek to exploit Sunni grievances, societal instability, and stretched security forces to regain territory in Iraq and Syria in the long term," the report said.
Donne thinks Kondo's message is catching on because people are more aware of their spaces and how to make the best of them. In the year since she's decluttered, Donne hasn't accumulated any more stuff, but there is more she can get rid of, she said, so she'll do it again.
Frank chose the gyro platter, because he prefers to order from a picture if he is unfamiliar with the cuisine, which he was. I chose the gyro sandwich on a fluffy pita drizzled with excellent tzatziki. Both meals held plenty of tender, deliciously spiced strips of the lamb and beef shaved from the vertical gyro rotisserie. Frank kept exclaiming, "This is lamb? I've never had lamb like this. This is great." (Oh, brother, you need to get out of the office more often.)
"He always sent me copies of things and handwritten letters telling me all sorts of stuff," Rumble said. "It was like, 'Am I supposed to be compiling his life story?' It was like he was begging me without really asking. I still have all this stuff that he sent me."
University of Utah electrical and computer engineering associate professor Hanseup Kim holds one of his low-power sensors in a testing gas chamber. The sensor will be used to sniff out when part of a cornfield is getting attacked by insects or invaded by weeds. Credit: Dan Hixson/University of Utah College of Engineering

Plants have important things to say, and University of Utah electrical and computer engineering associate professor Hanseup Kim wants to listen to them.

He leads a team of U engineers who have received a $2.2-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to design and build small chemical sensors that can "sniff" out when a plant is being attacked by insects or overwhelmed by weeds. The research is to benefit the production of biomass from corn, which is used to create ethanol for gasoline.

"I want to communicate with plants, and I want to know what they are feeling or know what they are going through," Kim says. "I believe that my research team can do this by building a communication loop with these sensors and the corn."

The research is based on a concept that corn stalks emit certain organic compounds when they are broken or damaged. So when insects like grasshoppers begin to chomp on corn stalks, these compounds are discharged so that predators can sense when insects are nearby, a type of natural defense mechanism for the plant, Kim says.

The team will be developing a low-power sensor that detects when these chemicals are present, alerting a farmer that insects must be attacking a section of the cornfield. The sensors, which will be connected to a network, will also potentially reveal when weeds begin to grow because those pesky plants also emit gases when they germinate.

Near the end of the three-year research project, Kim wants to conduct a trial with the sensors on a 200-by-200-meter section of a cornfield at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is collaborating with the University of Utah. Other researchers on the team include U electrical and computer engineering professor Carlos Mastrangelo, assistant professor Mingyue Ji, U materials science and engineering professor Ling Zang and University of Nebraska-Lincoln agronomy and horticulture assistant professor James Schnable.

The chemical sensors will be based on a design that Kim has already been working ondevices that operate on only 100 picowatts (a picowatt is one million millionth of a watt) as a standby power and turn on only when they detect a trace of the chemical. These sensors could operate in a cornfield for an entire season without having to change a button-sized battery. They were developed for hard-to-reach areas such as in water pipes to look for toxins or in forests to detect fires.

While the grant, which is from the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), is focused on the production of corn for biomass, Kim says this technology could benefit all forms of farming. This type of high-tech system for agriculture, known as Smart Farming, can help farmers produce the best crops through the use of data analysis, drones, robotics and the Internet of Things.

"Farmers can use less pesticides and herbicides, and that means lower costs for them while producing a higher yield of healthier foods," Kim says. "Currently, a major loss in crops is because of insects and weeds."

In 2017, biomass fuels provided about 5 percent of total primary energy use in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Of that, about 47% was from biofuels (mainly ethanol from corn). Most car gasoline sold in the U.S. uses about 10 percent ethanol.

Provided by University of Utah
Venezuela will reconsider in all likelihood its recognition of the Polisario separatist group under the administration of interim President Juan Guaido.

Actually, Juan Guaido expressed his will to relaunch, on sound and serene bases, the relations of cooperation between Morocco and Venezuela, and to remove the obstacles, which could hamper their evolution.

Juan Guaido expressed this willingness at the first phone talk he had Tuesday with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

The phone talk took place at the initiative of the interim President.

Bourita told his interlocutor that Morocco was following with the greatest attention the developments in Venezuela, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Foreign Minister also expressed to Juan Guaido Moroccos support for all the actions taken to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Venezuelan people to democracy and change.

If analysts understand behind the lines that Guaidos statement about removing the obstacles hampering bilateral relations means withdrawing recognition of the separatist front, Foreign Affairs Advisor at the Venezuelan parliament Manuel Avendano said this in a clear-cut way.

Venezuela will reconsider its recognition of the Sahrawi Republic under the government of Guaido, Avendano told MAP correspondent in Caracas.

The recognition of the Algeria-backed SADR Republic is more of a fallout of ideology espoused by Nicolas Maduros regime than a step to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, he said.

We want a peaceful solution to this regional dispute () We support any process that would lead to this end, within the framework of the UN, said Avendano, reiterating Guaido governments wish to establish open, extended and solid relations with the Kingdom.

The Polisario front, which by the past used ideological rhetoric to delude South American leaders, is now on the demise in Latin America where only failing states such as Venezuela and authoritarian Cuba are still attached to defending separatism.

The Polisario has been dealt severe blows in South America recently. Last year, Paraguay expressed support for Moroccos autonomy initiative as a lasting political solution to the regional dispute over the southern provinces. Paraguays support comes in a series of similar stands expressed by other Latin American states, including Uruguay and Peru.

An increasing number of states are coming to terms with viewing the Polisario as totalitarian organization fed by an ideological anachronism peculiar to the Cold War era.

Over the last years, support for the Algerian-sponsored separatist thesis in the Moroccan Sahara has been waning as 43 countries have withdrawn their recognition of the SADR entity out of 80 that previously recognized it in a Cold War context.

Furthermore, as a relic of the cold war, the Polisario remains obedient and dependent financially and diplomatically on its paymaster, Algeria, which uses it to achieve regional hegemony to the detriment of regional stability.
Not only do bees display collective intelligence, they are also flexible when it comes to making group decisions. Credit: Shutterstock, CC BY

When it comes to making decisions, most of us are influenced to some degree by other people, whether that's choosing a restaurant or a political candidate. We want to know what others think before we make that choice.

Humans are social animals. So social that we can rarely be independent of others because of our propensity for copying behaviour and communication  also known as social learning.

Humans copy each other every day. You might buy the latest trainers because they're really popular, even though you have no idea how good quality they are. And then you might share that information, perhaps posting a review on social media. This can induce "smarter" purchasing decisions because usually, if a product is popular, it seems less likely it would be of be poor quality. So sometimes social learning can improve our decision making.

Learning together

Our social learning ability has led to extraordinary technological success. Advances in modern science and technology, from the smart phone to the Higgs Boson particle, have been made possible not only by genius innovation, but by humans' ability to learn from others. So social learning is seen as a source of collective intelligence  smart decision making among groups of individuals that improves on the ability of one single person. This can be useful in areas such as management, product development and predicting elections.

However, the opposite can also be true. Crowds can also suffer from collective "madness", when ineffective or harmful knowledge goes viral due to copying  a phenomenon called maladaptive herding  which can trigger things like instability in stock markets.

Why do groups of humans sometimes exhibit collective wisdom and at other times madness? Can we reduce the risk of maladaptive herding and at the same time increase the possibility of collective wisdom?

Understanding this apparent conflict has been a longstanding problem in social science. The key to this puzzle could be the way that individuals use information from others versus information gained from their own trial-and-error problem solving. If people simply copy others without reference to their own experience, any idea  even a bad one  can spread. So how can social learning improve our decision making? Striking the right balance between copying others and relying on personal experience is key. Yet we still need to know exactly what the right balance is.

Smart flexible bees

Humans are not the only animals to display collective intelligence. Bees are also well known for their ability to make accurate collective decisions when they search for foods or new nests. What's more, bees can avoid maladaptive herding. Bees prevent bad information from becoming viral, although they copy each other through communication and social learning. But how do they do it?

In the early 20th century, Austrian behavioural biologist Karl von Frisch found that worker honey bees use a kind of "waggle dance" for communicating with each other. In short, these waggle dances are bee versions of online shopping rating systems. Instead of stars or good reviews, bee ratings are based on the duration of the dance. When a bee finds a good source of food, it dances for a long time. When it finds a poor one, the duration of the dance is short or non-existent. The longer the dance, the more bees follow its suggestion to feed there.

Researchers have demonstrated that bee colonies will switch their efforts to a more abundant site, even after foraging is already well underway elsewhere, thus preventing maladaptive herding. Collective flexibility is key.

Not so flexible humans

The question is, why can't human crowds be flexible like bees, especially when both have a similar social information sharing system? To examine this, we developed a mathematical model that was inspired by collective honey bee foraging behaviour.

Two key factors were identified for study: conformity  that is, the extent to which an individual follows the majority opinion; and copying tendency  the extent to which an individual ignores their own personal knowledge and relies solely on following others.

We launched a simple online game as a psychology experiment. Participants had to repeatedly choose one of three slot machines. One slot could drop more money than the others, but players didn't know which one at the outset.

The mission was to identify the best slot and win as much money as possible. Because many people participated in the same experiment, players could see what other participants were doing in real time. Then they could copy or ignore the choices of the others.

The results revealed that a challenging task elicited greater conformity and the copying increased with group size. This suggests that unlike bees, when large groups are confronted with tough challenges, collective decision-making becomes inflexible, and maladaptive herding behaviour is prominent. The popular slot got more popular because people followed the majority choice, even if it was not actually the winning one.

The study also showed that humans in groups can be flexible, like bees, when either conformity or copying was low. Players were able to switch to a new and better option when the group size was small or a less challenging version of the task was undertaken. Thanks to the low conformity, there were people willing to explore less popular options, who could eventually find the best one as opposed to the one most chosen.

Our results suggest that we should be more aware of the risk of maladaptive herding when these conditions  large group size and a difficult problem  prevail. We should take account of not just the most popular opinion, but also other minority opinions. In thinking this way, the crowd can avoid maladaptive herding behaviour. This research could inform how collective intelligence is applied to real-world situations, including online shopping and prediction markets.

Stimulating independent thought in individuals may reduce the risk of collective madness. Dividing a group into sub-groups or breaking down a task into small easy steps promotes flexible, yet smart, human "swarm" intelligence. There is much we can learn from the humble bee.

Explore further Bees can learn the difference between European and Australian Indigenous art styles in a single afternoon

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Parallel evolution with the help of the same genetic variants: different populations of the threespine stickleback have adapted to their habitats in similar ways. Credit: Andrew MacColl

Genetic analysis of sticklebacks shows that isolated populations in similar environments develop in comparable ways. The basis for this is already present in the genome of their genetic ancestors. Evolutionary biologists from the University of Basel and the University of Nottingham report these insights in the journal Evolution Letters.

Many examples can be found in nature of evolution producing the same characteristics repeatedly and independently. Similar adaptations to similar environmental conditions have been documented in numerous animal and plant species, even if primarily on the level of external characteristics. The extent to which similar populations have also made use of the same genetic variants during their evolution, however, is little known.

A new study has now provided new insights into the genetic basis of such parallel evolution. To this end, researchers from the University of Basel and the University of Nottingham examined the genome of threespine sticklebacks.

This is a popular fish among evolutionary biologists because it has adapted to a variety of habitats. In addition to this, the shared ancestor of freshwater populations  sticklebacks that originally lived in the ocean  still exists today, which enables an examination of the initial genetic base.

Isolated populations develop the same characteristics

On the Scottish island of North Uist, sticklebacks can be found in bodies of water with extremely varied pH values. While the lakes to the west contain alkaline water, the high moorland lakes in the east are acidic and low in nutrients.

Studies of five populations from both the western and eastern lakes showed that the fish adapted to their alkaline or acidic habitat independently of each other, but in comparable ways. All five populations in the acidic lakes, for example, displayed a greatly reduced skeleton and stunted growth  probably as an adaptation to the lack of nutrients.

Variants located in the genome of ancestors

In addition to the shared external characteristics, the researchers were also able to establish that changes in the genetic pool proceeded in very similar ways: the populations within the same type of habitat showed the same genetic variants in dozens of regions of the genome. This makes it possible to predict where in the genome changes will take place under the influence of a particular habitat  evolution becomes predictable to some extent.

Genetic analysis of the marine ancestor also showed that the genetic variants that are beneficial for adapting to acidic or alkaline water are all present in the ancestor. Similar life forms, therefore, didn't occur randomly, but independently of each other through the predictable sorting of advantageous genetic variants that were already present in the genome.

Explore further Is the outcome of evolution predictable?

More information: Quiterie Haenel et al. Predictable genome-wide sorting of standing genetic variation during parallel adaptation to basic versus acidic environments in stickleback fish, Evolution Letters (2019). Quiterie Haenel et al. Predictable genome-wide sorting of standing genetic variation during parallel adaptation to basic versus acidic environments in stickleback fish,(2019). DOI: 10.1002/evl3.99
Fifth-year PhD student Molly Keogh shot this photo near Bohemia, looking northeast over the marshes of Breton Sound in southeastern Louisiana. Credit: Tulane University

A new Tulane University study questions the reliability of how sea-level rise in low-lying coastal areas such as southern Louisiana is measured and suggests that the current method underestimates the severity of the problem. This research is the focus of a news article published this week in the journal Science.

Relative sea-level rise, which is a combination of rising water level and subsiding land, is traditionally measured using tide gauges. But researchers Molly Keogh and Torbjorn Tornqvist argue that in coastal Louisiana, tide gauges tell only a part of the story.

Tide gauges in such areas are anchored an average of 20 meters into the earth rather than at the ground surface. "As a result, tide gauges do not record subsidence occurring in the shallow subsurface and thus underestimate rates of relative sea-level rise," said Keogh, a fifth year Ph.D. student and lead author of the study.

"This study shows that we need to completely rethink how we measure sea-level rise in rapidly subsiding coastal lowlands" said Tornqvist, Vokes Geology Professor in the Tulane School of Science and Engineering.

The study, published in the open-access journal Ocean Science, says that while tide gauges can accurately measure subsidence that occurs below their foundations, they miss out on the shallow subsidence component. With at least 60 percent of subsidence occurring in the top 5 meters of the sediment column, tide gauges are not capturing the primary contributor to relative sea-level rise.

An alternative approach is to measure shallow subsidence using surface-elevation tables, inexpensive mechanical instruments that record surface elevation change in wetlands. Coastal Louisiana already has a network of more than 300 of these instruments in place. The data can then be combined with measurements of deep subsidence from GPS data and satellite measurements of sea-level rise, Keogh said.

Rates of relative sea-level rise obtained from this approach are substantially higher than rates as inferred from tide-gauge data. "We therefore conclude that low-elevation coastal zones may be at higher risk of flooding, and within a shorter time horizon, than previously assumed," Keogh said.

She said the research has implications for coastal communities across the globe.

"Around the world, communities in low-lying coastal areas may be more vulnerable to flooding than we realized. This has implications for coastal management, city planners and emergency planners. They are planning based on a certain timeline, and if sea level is rising faster than what they are planning on, that's going to be a problem."

Explore further New map highlights sinking Louisiana coast

More information: Molly E. Keogh et al, Measuring rates of present-day relative sea-level rise in low-elevation coastal zones: a critical evaluation, Ocean Science (2019). Journal information: Science Molly E. Keogh et al, Measuring rates of present-day relative sea-level rise in low-elevation coastal zones: a critical evaluation,(2019). DOI: 10.5194/os-15-61-2019
Credit: University of Oregon

Researchers in Ben McMorran's University of Oregon physics lab had a great 2018, publishing four papers about their efforts to bring new life to scanning transmission electron microscopes for medical and materials research.

They've created a technique, STEM holography, that sends electrons along two separate paths, one going through a sample and one not. This allows them to measure the delay between them to create a high-resolution image. It provides improved atomic resolution of a sample's outer structure and unveils previously unseen interfaces between a sample and underlying material.

The researchers have tested their technique on gold nanoparticles, carbon substrates and electrical fields. Eventually, it could be tweaked for use on live biological samples, said McMorran, an associate professor in the Department of Physics.

"This technique allows us to study materials at high resolution, measure them accurately and understand them better than was possible before," said doctoral student Fehmi Yasin. "Can we image biomolecular materials at atomic resolution without destroying them? No yet, but our technique is a good first step."

Researchers in Germany, Japan and the United States theorized 30 years ago that such an approach was possible, but available technology did not allow them to demonstrate it as a practical imaging technique, Yasin said. UO researchers have now shownusing microscopes at the UO, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Hitachi Ltd. Research and Development Group in Japanthat STEM holography works.

The technique builds on electron holography, another recent advance that requires state-of-the-art, cost-prohibitive electron guns, specially built apertures and highly stable power supplies to deliver atomic-scale resolution.

"Using flexible STEM holography, an offshoot we developed in collaboration with Toshiaki Tanigaki at Hitachi, we now can capture with more precision the interesting geometries of materials," Yasin said, "Previously, the field of view of STEM holography was limited to maybe 30 nanometers. Using flexible STEM holography expands the field of view."

The first transmission electron microscope was made in Germany by Max Knoll, an electrical engineer, and Ernst Ruska, a physicist, in 1931. The first commercial version emerged in 1939. Ruska won the Nobel Prize in physics for his efforts in 1986.

The multimillion-dollar microscopes create micrographs as a beam of electrons passes through a thin slice of a sample. Traditionally in scanning transmission electron microscopes, magnetic fields are used to focus the beam to an atom-sized spot of a sample. That beam then is scanned across a sample, but large numbers of electrons are required to see anything because most of them go through a sample without getting deflected.

The UO approach places a diffraction grating above a sample, creating additional beams hitting the sample and a hologram below it. That captures signals from electrons that are not scattered and details about how others are slowed as they pass through a sample.

The recent series of papers confirmed that STEM holography matches computer simulations.

Credit: University of Oregon

"We put the electron microscope in conditions where we could isolate the signal that we care about, and we looked at several different kinds of samples," said former UO doctoral student Tyler Harvey, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gottingen. "We also simulated images of one sample and found that the simulations matched the experiment very well."

In a December paper led by Harvey in the journal Physical Review Applied, the UO team detailed the technique and how it works theoretically.

In a separate paper in Nano Letters, a team led by Yasin showed that the technique provides subnanometer-resolution images of carbon-based materials. Color represents thickness, which adds a third dimension and enhances the measurements.

Images were as clear as expected with low numbers of electrons, the researchers noted.

"We think STEM holography will be a great tool for materials science and biology," Harvey said. "The technique really excels at imaging electric and magnetic fields, and it can do that while doing the thing most materials scientists care most about: seeing where the atoms are."

The ability to use the technique on biological specimens is a long way off, but being able to do so safely could have huge payoffs, Yasin said.

"We now have a lot of drugs that attack a cancer's composition," Yasin said. "But that composition is similar throughout our body, so these cancer drugs attack both diseased cells and the body's other cells simultaneously. If we knew the position of each atom in the cancer cell, we could develop much better, more-effective drugs, without the deadly side effects."

McMorran first wrote about the idea of using a hologram approach in a January 2011 paper in the Science, when he was with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland.

In his UO lab, supported by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, researchers have been pursuing four areas, all of which seek to image portions of materials that have been difficult to detect.

The four areas focus on transparent materials, including biomaterials or other organic molecules; electric fields, such as the charge and its distribution in single transistors; magnetic fields, such as materials now on hard drives and potentially useful in spintronics; and electrons and qubits expected to be used in quantum computers.

"Any four of these things might not work out," said McMorran, who also is a member of the Materials Science Institute and Oregon Center for Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science. "There may be a better technique that ends up being best for some. We may be developing a useful tool toward getting to all four possibilities or maybe just one of them. Right now, all arrows point to all four."

Explore further New transmission microscope for low-energy electrons
Researchers have built a fridge that's just three atoms big at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. The rest of the equipment visible in this picture, with co-authors Jaren Gan (left) and Gleb Maslennikov (right), controls the atoms to make the fridge work. Credit: Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore

Researchers in Singapore have built a refrigerator that's just three atoms big. This quantum fridge won't keep your drinks cold, but it's cool proof of physics operating at the smallest scales. The work is described in a paper published 14 January in Nature Communications.

Researchers have built tiny heat engines before, but previous quantum fridges were only theoretical, until the team at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore chilled with their atoms. The device is an "absorption refrigerator." It works without moving parts, using heat to drive a cooling process.

The first absorption refrigerators, introduced in the 1850s, cycled the evaporation and absorption of a liquid, with cooling happening during the evaporation stage. They were widely used to make ice and chill food into the 20th century. Albert Einstein even held a patent on an improved design. Today's fridges and air conditioners more often use a compressor, but absorption refrigerators still have their usesscience experiments included.

"Our device is the first implementation of the absorption refrigeration cycle on the nanoscale," says co-author Stefan Nimmrichter. To create an absorption fridge with just three atoms required exquisite control. "As an experimental scientist, it's a pure joy to be able to manipulate individual atoms," says Gleb Maslennikov, the paper's first author.

First, the researchers caught and held three atoms of the element Ytterbium in a metal chamber from which they'd removed all the air. They also pulled one electron off each atom to leave them with a positive charge. The charged atomscalled ionscan then be held in place with electric fields. Meanwhile, the researchers nudge and zap the ions with lasers to bring them into their lowest energy state of motion. The result is that the ions are suspended almost perfectly still, strung out in a line.

Another laser zap then injects some heat, making the ions wiggle. The ions interact with each other because of their like charges. The result is three patterns of wigglesquishing and stretching along the line like a Slinky, rocking like a seesaw pivoting about the central atom, and zig-zagging out from the line like a waving skipping rope.

The energy in each wiggling mode is quantized, with the energy carried by a number of so-called phonons. By tuning the wiggling frequencies, the researchers set up conditions for refrigeration such that a phonon moving from the see-saw to the Slinky mode will drag a phonon from the zig-zag mode with it. The zig-zag mode thus loses energy, and its temperature drops. At its coldest, it is within 40 microKelvin of absolute zero (-273C), the coldest temperature possible. Each round of ion preparation and phonon counting took up to 70 milliseconds, with cooling happening for around one millisecond. This process was repeated thousands of times.

Studying such small devices is important to see how thermodynamicsour best understanding of heat flowsmay need tweaking to reflect more fundamental laws. The principles of thermodynamics are based on the average behaviours of big systems. They don't take quantum effects into account, which matters for scientists building nanomachines and quantum devices.

To test quantum thermodynamics, the researchers made careful measurements of how phonons spread through the modes over time. In particular, the researchers tested whether a quantum effect known as 'squeezing' would boost the quantum fridge's performance. Squeezing means fixing more precisely the position of the ions. Because of the quantum uncertainty principle, that increases the fluctuation in momentum. In turn, this boosts the average number of phonons in the see-saw mode that drives the cooling.

To the team's surprise, squeezing didn't help the fridge. "If you have a finite amount of energy to spend, it's better to turn it directly into heat than use it preparing a squeezed state," says Dzmitry Matsukevich, who led the experimental work.

However, they found the maximum amount of cooling, which was achieved with a method dubbed "single shot," exceeds what classical equilibrium thermodynamics predicts. In this approach, the team stops the refrigeration effect by de-tuning the wiggling modes before the system reaches its natural endpoint. The cooling overshoots the equilibrium.

Physicist Valerio Scarani, another member of the team, is looking forward to taking things further. "The next question is, can you cool what you want with it? So far, we have the engine of the fridge, but not the box for the beer," he says.

Explore further Quantum engineering pushes refrigerator beyond classical efficiency limits

More information: Gleb Maslennikov et al, Quantum absorption refrigerator with trapped ions, Nature Communications (2019). Journal information: Nature Communications Gleb Maslennikov et al, Quantum absorption refrigerator with trapped ions,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08090-0
In this Nov. 12, 2015 file photo, an ailing butterfly rests on a plant at the monarch butterfly reserve in Piedra Herrada, Mexico State, Mexico. Millions of monarchs migrate from the United States and Canada each year to pine and fir forests to the west of the Mexican capital. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

The population of monarch butterflies wintering in central Mexico is up 144 percent over last year, experts said Wednesday.

The data presented by Andrew Rhodes, Mexico's national commissioner for protected natural areas, was cheered but scientists quickly warned that it does not mean the butterflies that migrate from Canada and the United States are out of danger.

This winter, researchers found the butterflies occupying 14.95 acres (6.05 hectares) of pine and fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan and Mexico states. That's an increase from 6.12 acres (2.48 hectares) a year ago.

They arrive in such numbers that their population is measured by how much surface area they cover.

This year's is the biggest measurement since the 2006-2007 period, Rhodes said. A low of just 1.66 acres (0.67 hectares) was recorded in 2013-2014.

Jorge Rickards, director of World Wildlife Fund in Mexico which participates in the monitoring, cautioned that the butterflies like other insects see their annual populations rise and fall and the monarchs have had a declining trend. This year's number was positive, but there is no guarantee it will continue.

The first monarchs crossed into Mexico more than a week later than usual on Oct. 20 owing to rain and cold along the Texas-Mexico border, Rhodes said.

"Once in Mexican territory, the butterflies occupied an area that gives us a lot of hope for the future," Rhodes said.

Scientists said the approximately 15-acres (6 hectares) coverage should be seen as a minimum for the viability of the migrating monarchs in the future.

Ryan Norris, an ecology professor from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada said it would be dangerous to think the improved coverage in their wintering grounds meant the butterflies were out of the woods.

"It buys us time, but that's the best it does," said Norris, who was in Mexico City for scientific meetings about monarchs.

Norris saw little connection between this year's increase and the concerted conservation efforts along the butterflies' migration route, especially in Mexico where the government, with the help of local communities, has nearly eliminated illegal logging inside the butterflies' protected area west of Mexico City.

"It was a Goldilocks year this year," he said. "Not too hot, not too cold, it was perfect."

Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch and an ecology professor at the University of Kansas, who runs a monarch tagging program, echoed that caution.

"It's not going to be replicated next year, not even close," Taylor said.

Above average temperatures in Texas next year will cause problems for the monarch production, Taylor said. Last spring, cold temperatures north of Texas kept the butterflies there to lay their eggs, but when it's warmer they wander farther north too soon and the population does not grow as well, he said.

Loss of habitat, especially the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs, pesticide and herbicide use, as well climate change will continue to pose threats to the species.

Explore further First monarch butterflies arrive at Mexico wintering area

 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Illinois study evaluated multiple Miscanthus cultivars for cold tolerance, and found 'Nagara' was one of the most promising. Top row: Miscanthus 'Illinois' before and after the 2013-2014 winter in Urbana. Bottom row: Miscanthus 'Nagara' before and after the same winter. Credit: Erik Sacks, University of Illinois.

For farmers, Miscanthus represents a big up-front investment. The large perennial grass must be established from vegetative pieces at great cost to farmers, but it promises a decade or more of massive biomass yields, starting in year two or three. If a cold winter happens to strike in the first year, however, all bets are off.

The cold-sensitivity of the crop has limited its adoption in northern climes, but new research from the University of Illinois shows a way forward for would-be Miscanthus growers in cold regions.

"Farmers are playing a game of chance: Will there be a severe winter or not? If they get poor establishment from winter die-back, they've lost out on their investment," says Erik Sacks, plant geneticist in the Department of Crop Sciences at U of I and co-author of two new studies published in Global Change Biology Bioenergy. "We wanted to find Miscanthus genotypes that could withstand the cold."

The majority of Miscanthus currently being grown for biomass is a single, cold-sensitive genotype, known commercially as 'Illinois' for the location of its introduction to the United States. For years, Sacks and other plant breeders around the world have been making crosses and exploring the native region of Miscanthus, trying to find and develop novel cultivars with more desirable agronomic traits.

In one of the new studies, Sacks and his colleagues planted 13 of these cultivars the May before an unusually cold winter in Urbana, Illinois. Most of the same cultivars were also planted further south in Dixon Springs, Illinois, and in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

"We had put out a bunch of new Miscanthus x giganteus hybrids that summer, most of them experimental crosses, but some from collections in southern Japan. We were looking for yield and other performance traits. But as it turns out, the 2013-2014 winter was extremely cold here in Urbana," Sacks says. "If you get lemons, you make lemonade, so we evaluated winter-hardiness."

In the spring of 2014, it was clear that first-year 'Illinois' plants had been decimated in Urbana, though there was little obvious damage to any of the plants in Dixon Springs or Jonesboro. In fact, most of the first-year cultivars were hit hard in Urbana that winter. However, one hybrid stood out.

"The 'Nagara' hybrid didn't know there was a winter in 2013-2014. It was perfectly fine. And in Dixon Springs, its yields were high and not significantly different from 'Illinois,'" Sacks says. "Here in the north, I'd say something like 'Nagara' is a much safer bet for a farmer."

Hongxu Dong, lead author on the studies and former doctoral student in Sacks' research group, adds that experimental hybrid '10UI-032.004' and one of its parents, M. sacchariflorus 'Bluemel,' were comparable to 'Nagara' in terms of first-winter survival in Urbana.

"This is remarkable considering that the other parent, M. sinensis ssp. condensatus 'Cabaret', was the least hardy entry in this study," he says.

The researchers also noted that mature plants in other trials in Urbana had much less winter damage and recovered fully by late spring. That observation told them that first-year Miscanthus plants are much more susceptible to damage from cold winters than mature, established plants. The researchers continued to monitor the plants, including their survival rate and biomass yield until the spring of 2015.

Sacks notes, "The take-home lesson is that winter-hardiness is something we need to be very concerned about in the Midwest and New England and anywhere else with a harsh winter. We need to be selecting for hybrids that farmers don't have to worry about each time they plant. We already have an immediate solution to that problem here, 'Nagara,'and there are others coming along from my research group."

In the second study, the researchers evaluated the effect of Urbana's 2013-2014 winter on mature Miscanthus plants. The three-year-old plants were crosses between an ornamental Miscanthus variety originally collected in mild coastal regions of southern Japan - Miscanthus sinensis ssp. condensatus 'Cosmopolitan' - and one of three others collected in far-flung regions across Asia, from southern Japan to remote areas on the border between China and eastern Russia.

Even though the plants were already mature, many of them were badly damaged or dead by spring of 2014, except the cross between 'Cosmopolitan' and the Russian variety, Miscanthus sacchariflorus 'Robustus.' Like 'Nagara,' these crosses didn't seem to notice there was a winter at all. They all survived and were highly vigorous in the following growing season.

The researchers created genetic maps for the plants and were able to identify a number of candidate genes correlated with winter-hardiness. They are now working with those genes to create hybrids that represent the best of both worlds.

"Genetic mapping to identify candidate genes associated with valuable traits is a critical step to enable marker-assisted selection, which can be especially valuable for breeding perennial crops like Miscanthus that have multi-year selection cycles," Dong says.

Sacks adds, "A main takeaway was if we cross something really non-hardy and something really hardy, their progeny survive here. That means we could take advantage of the high yield potential in the subtropical or tropical materials and combine it with the cold hardiness from the lower-yielding northern materials. Take extremes, combine them, and you've got something to work with. That was a good lesson."

Both papers, "Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (I): Overwintering ability and yield of new Miscanthus  giganteus genotypes in Illinois and Arkansas" [DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12588] and "Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (II): Genetic mapping for overwintering ability and adaptation traits in three interconnected Miscanthus populations" [DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12587] are published in Global Change Biology Bioenergy. The research was supported by the Energy Biosciences Institute, the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the US Department of Energy.

More information: Hongxu Dong et al, Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (I): Overwintering ability and yield of new Miscanthus  giganteus genotypes in Illinois and Arkansas, GCB Bioenergy (2018). Journal information: Global Change Biology Bioenergy , GCB Bioenergy Hongxu Dong et al, Winter hardiness of Miscanthus (I): Overwintering ability and yield of new Miscanthus  giganteus genotypes in Illinois and Arkansas,(2018). DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12588
A Korean research team created a wearable hand robot that can aid the disabled who lost hand mobility. The robot can detect user's intention by collecting the behaviors with machine learning algorithm. Credit: Soft Robotics Research Center, Seoul National University

A Korean research team has proposed a new paradigm for a wearable hand robot that can aid people with lost hand mobility. The hand robot collects user behaviors with a machine learning algorithm to determine the user's intention.

Professor Sungho Jo (KAIST) and Kyu-Jin Cho (Seoul National University) have proposed a new intention-detection paradigm for wearable hand robots. The proposed paradigm predicts grasping/releasing intentions based on user behaviors, enabling spinal cord injury (SCI) patients with lost hand mobility to pick and place objects.

They developed the method based on a machine learning algorithm that predicts user intentions via a first-person-view camera. Their development is based on the hypothesis that user intentions can be inferred through the collection of user arm behaviors and hand-object interactions.

The machine-learning model used in this study, Vision-based Intention Detection network from an EgOcentric view (VIDEO-Net), is designed based on this hypothesis. VIDEO-Net is composed of spatial and temporal sub-networks, which recognize user arm behaviors, and a spatial sub-network that recognizes hand-object interactions.

An SCI patient wearing Exo-Glove Poly II, a soft wearable hand robot, successfully picked and placed various objects and performed essential activities of daily living, such as drinking coffee, without any additional help.

This development is advantageous in that it detects user intentions without requiring any person-to-person calibrations or additional actions. This enables a human to use the wearable hand robot seamlessly.

A Korean research team created a wearable hand robot that can aid the disabled who lost hand mobility. The robot can detect user's intention by collecting the behaviors with machine learning algorithm. Credit: Soft Robotics Research Center, Seoul National University

Interview with Professor Kyu-Jin Cho

Q: How does this system work?

A: This technology aims to predict user intentions, specifically grasping and releasing intent toward a target object, by utilizing a first-person-view camera mounted on glasses. VIDEONet, a deep learning-based algorithm, is devised to predict user intentions from the camera based on user arm behaviors and hand-object interactions. Instead of using bio-signals, which is often used for intention detection of disabled people, we use a simple camera to find out whether the person is trying to grasp or not. This works because the target users are able to move their arm, but not their hands. We can predict the user's intention of grasping by observing the arm movement and the distance from the object and the hand, and interpreting the observation using machine learning.

Q: Who benefits from this technology?

A: As mentioned earlier, this technology detects user intentions from human arm behaviors and hand-object interactions. This technology can be used by anyone with lost hand mobility due to spinal cord injury, stroke, cerebral palsy or any other condition, as long as they can move their arm voluntarily.

Q: What are the limitations and future works?

A: Most of the limitations come from the drawbacks of using a monocular camera. For example, if a target object is occluded by another object, the performance of this technology decreases. Also, if user hand gesture is not able to be seen in the camera scene, the technology is not usable. In order to overcome the lack of generality due to these issues, the algorithm needs to be improved by incorporating other sensor information or other existing intention detection methods, such as using an electromyography sensor or tracking eye gaze.

Q: To use this technology in daily life, what do you need?

A: In order for this technology to be used in daily life, a user needs a wearable hand robot with an actuation module, a computing device, and glasses with a camera mounted. We aim to decrease the size and weight of the computing device so that the robot can be portable to be used in daily life. We used a compact computing device that fulfills our requirements, but we expect that neuromorphic chips that are able to perform deep learning computations will be commercially available.

Explore further Algorithm gives robots an instinctive understanding of how to use tools

More information: D. Kim el al., "Eyes are faster than hands: A soft wearable robot learns user intention from the egocentric view," Science Robotics (2019). Journal information: Science Robotics D. Kim el al., "Eyes are faster than hands: A soft wearable robot learns user intention from the egocentric view,"(2019). robotics.sciencemag.org/lookup  /scirobotics.aav2949
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new publication, led by experts from the Natural Resources Institute (NRI, University of Greenwich) and the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), calls for effective national regulatory capacities to monitor the import, marketing and use of herbicides in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the need for reliable information sources for smallholder farmers concerning proper and safe herbicide use.

The authors also call for increased investments in research and development to innovate and diversify the currently followed weed management strategies, agricultural service provision and communications with farmers in SSA.

The article entitled "Status quo of chemical weed control in rice in sub-Saharan Africa" was published open access on 23 January 2019 in the Springer journal Food Security.

Reporting on results of surveys conducted in 20 countries in SSA, the article reveals that controversial herbicides like glyphosate and 2,4-D are widely used by rice farmers in SSA, as these products dominate the rural agro-chemical supply markets and are sold at competitively low prices.

But what is even more alarming, according to the authors, is that most of these herbicide products, which are generally imported from outside SSA, are not registered and quality-controlled in the country where they are retailed and used.

The surveys also show that SSA rice farmers are often not well informed on the appropriate use of these products and therefore apply them incorrectly, especially with regard to the timing of the sprays, which renders these herbicides ineffective and even detrimental to the rice crop.

The authors caution that overreliance on a small range of herbicide formulations in SSA and the frequent use of these formulations in herbicide brands of unknown quality applied at sub-optimal timings may cause negative impacts on the environment, human health, and the crop, and may accelerate the evolution of herbicide-resistant weed ecotypes.

AfricaRice and its partners have developed several tools to address the knowledge gaps in effective and sustainable weed management practices at the farmer level. Farmer-learning videos have been produced on sustainable weed management and the safe and effective use of herbicides.

In addition, a decision-support mobile app called RiceAdviceWeedManager, launched recently by AfricaRice, aids rice farmers in SSA to diversify their weed management strategies and to use herbicides judiciously.

Explore further Recent study documents damage to rice crops by three fall-applied residual herbicides

More information: Status quo of chemical weed control in rice in sub-Saharan Africa. Food Security. Status quo of chemical weed control in rice in sub-Saharan Africa. doi.org/10.1007/s12571-018-0878-0 .]

Provided by Africa Rice Center
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Research funding organisations, research organisations, and individual researchers have different needs and requirements when it comes to research data management (RDM). Science Europe's latest publication, the 'Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management', aims to align these RDM requirements across research funding and research organisations in Europe.

The practical guide has been developed by experts from Science Europe Member Organisations and in consultation with the broader research stakeholder community in order to maximise its usefulness. It presents core requirements for Data Management Plans (DMPs) and criteria for the selection of trustworthy repositories, as well as guidance on how to put these requirements and criteria into practice.

"These requirements and criteria will help to align rules on data management throughout Europe. The guide is designed to aid researchers in complying with RDM requirements even when working with different research funders and research organisations. Alignment is especially important in light of the development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and an increasing tendency, in the research community, towards data sharing" explains Professor Stan Gielen, President of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Member of the Science Europe Governing Board, and co-initiator of this project.

"We are very excited about this new resource. A number of Science Europe Member Organisations have already implemented it and more have committed to do so this year" added Stephan Kuster, Secretary General of Science Europe. "Science Europe has developed this guide for the wider research community and we would like to encourage them to use it as a basis to set up their own DMP templates. At a later stage it can also serve as reference document for the evaluation of DMPs."

Explore further Roadmap: Global research data management advisory platform combines DMPTool and DMPonline

More information: Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management: Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management: scieur.org/rdm-guide

Provided by Science Europe
The US Congress has included the Sahara into its aid program to Morocco in a move that translates the US administrations recognition of the North African countrys sovereignty over the land.

The decision means a victory for Morocco, comments local Al Massae daily, which notes that the decision was made possible thanks to the Democrats who endorsed the inclusion of the territory in the USAID program in the kingdom.

This decision runs counter to an initial bill tabled before the Senate that sought to exclude the Moroccan southern provinces from any USAID financial contribution.

The aid allocation and distribution will be defined by the US States Department and the aid agency.

The daily recalled that this decision is in line with the position adopted by the Democratic majority in the Congress in 2015, noting that the new bill, which is favorable to Morocco, disavows Algeria and the media in its pay.

The Algerian media had actually published triumphalist articles about the initial text excluding the Sahara from aid funds destined for Morocco in the 2019 appropriation bill, hastily presuming that the United States does not recognize the administrative authority of Morocco over the Sahara.
Arabidopsis thaliana. Credit: Wikipedia.

Flax naturally adapted to new environments rather than by human influence due to a set of genes that enable it to change its architecture according to researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick.

The crop flax has a set of genes in it that make the plant able to adapt to its surroundings, and their ability to do so overpowers artificial selection.

Flax has PEBP (phosphatidyl ethanolamine-binding protein) genes within it that affect flowering time and plant architecture. One such gene, LuTFL1, has a wild version in European wild populations of flax.

Flax became domesticated 10,000 years ago in the Near East, where it was exploited for its larger oil laden seeds. It moved into Europe around 8,000 years ago, whereupon domesticated flax adapted to Northern Latitudes by taking on the wild version of LuTFL1, which changed the flowering time and architecture of the plant, making it tall and better able to survive in Northern conditions.

However, the seeds became small, so despite artificial selection for oil content, the plant's adaptation made it better suited for other purposes such as fibre.

The genes were studied through heterologous expression in Arabidopsis thaliana, essentially taking the DNA from the Flax and putting into the Arabidopsis plant to see what they would do.

The team found that the Arabidopsis plant changed in the way that they had predicted by flowering later and growing taller in a similar way to specialized fibre variety flaxes.

Professor Robin Allaby from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick comments:

"This research shows that flax adapted naturally to new environments, but actually over powered artificial selection in doing so. More broadly, this shows that the pressures of natural selection can be more than a match against artificial selection."

Explore further Research aims to help Canadian flax farmers

More information: Rafal M. Gutaker et al. Flax latitudinal adaptation at LuTFL1 altered architecture and promoted fiber production, Scientific Reports (2019). Journal information: Scientific Reports Rafal M. Gutaker et al. Flax latitudinal adaptation at LuTFL1 altered architecture and promoted fiber production,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-37086-5
We could see even sharper divisions in society in the future if support for racism spreads online. Credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

Living in a networked world has many advantages. We get our news online almost as soon as it happens, we stay in touch with friends via social media, and we advance our careers through online professional networks.

But there is a darker side to the internet that sees far-right groups exploit these unique features to spread divisive ideas, racial hate and mistrust. Scholars of racism refer to this type of racist communication online as "cyber-racism."

Even the creators of the internet are aware they may have unleashed a technology that is causing a lot of harm. Since 2017, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has focused many of his comments about the dangers of manipulation of the internet around the spread of hate speech, saying that: "Humanity connected by technology on the web is functioning in a dystopian way. We have online abuse, prejudice, bias, polarisation, fake news, there are lots of ways in which it is broken."

Our team conducted a systematic review of ten years of cyber-racism research to learn how different types of communicators use the internet to spread their views.

Racists groups behave differently to individuals

We found that the internet is indeed a powerful tool used to influence and reinforce divisive ideas. And it's not only organised racist groups that take advantage of online communication; unaffiliated individuals do it too.

But the way groups and individuals use the internet differs in several important ways. Racist groups are active on different communication channels to individuals, and they have different goals and strategies they use to achieve them. The effects of their communication are also distinctive.

Channels, goals and strategies used by unaffiliated people when communicating cyber-racism.

Individuals mostly engage in cyber-racism to hurt others, and to confirm their racist views by connecting with like-minded people (seeking "confirmation bias"). Their preferred communication channels tend to be blogs, forums, news commentary websites, gaming environments and chat rooms.

Strategies they use include denying or minimising the issue of racism, denigrating "non-whites," and reframing the meaning of current news stories to support their views.

Groups, on the other hand, prefer to communicate via their own websites. They are also more strategic in what they seek to achieve through online communication. They use websites to gather support for their group and their views through racist propaganda.

Racist groups manipulate information and use clever rhetoric to help build a sense of a broader "white" identity, which often goes beyond national borders. They argue that conflict between different ethnicities is unavoidable, and that what most would view as racism is in fact a natural response to the "oppression of white people."

Collective cyber-racism has the main effect of undermining the social cohesion of modern multicultural societies. It creates division, mistrust and intergroup conflict.

Meanwhile, individual cyber-racism seems to have a more direct effect by negatively affecting the well being of targets. It also contributes to maintaining a hostile racial climate, which may further (indirectly) affect the well being of targets.

Channels, goals and strategies used by groups when communicating cyber-racism.

What they have in common

Despite their differences, groups and individuals both share a high level of sophistication in how they communicate racism online. Our review uncovered the disturbingly creative ways in that new technologies are exploited.

For example, racist groups make themselves attractive to young people by providing interactive games and links to music videos on their websites. And both groups and individuals are highly skilled at manipulating their public image via various narrative strategies, such as humour and the interpretation of current news to fit with their arguments.

A worrying trend

Our findings suggest that if these online strategies are effective, we could see even sharper divisions in society as the mobilisation of support for racism and far-right movements spreads online.

There is also evidence that currently unaffiliated supporters of racism could derive strength through online communication. These individuals might use online channels to validate their beliefs and achieve a sense of belonging in virtual spaces where racist hosts provide an uncontested and hate-supporting community.

This is a worrying trend. We have now seen several examples of violent action perpetrated offline by isolated individuals who radicalise into white supremacist movements  for example, in the case of Anders Breivik in Norway, and more recently of Robert Gregory Bowers, who was the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

In Australia, unlike most other liberal democracies, there are effectively no government strategies that seek to reduce this avenue for the spread of racism, despite many Australians expressing a desire that this be done.

Explore further Racist attitudes and beliefs affect medical treatment of US minority groups

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
European eel. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0

A team of researchers at Universidade de Lisboa has found evidence that suggests global warming is playing a role in the sharp decline of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla)known more commonly as the glass eel. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the group describes subjecting specimens in their lab to global warming conditions and what they found.

Glass eels, so named because of their nearly transparent bodies, are also known for their incredibly long migrations. They hatch in the Atlantic Ocean as larvae and drift along on ocean currents toward Europe and then North Africa. Eventually, they wind up in continental waters, where they grow to adulthoodthey then swim back to their birthplace to spawn. They have been declining in numbers for several decades. Several factors have led to the decline, such as overfishing and the blocking of rivers and barriers to migration routes. Recent estimates suggest the population of the glass eel has dropped by over 90 percent since the 1980s. In this new effort, the researchers suggest climate warming could drive the glass eel to extinction.

To better understand what might be happening to the eel, the researchers captured several specimens and subjected them to conditions caused by global warming and CO 2 emissionswarmer and more acidic water. To gain a clear understanding of the impact of both, the researchers placed some of the specimens in warmed water, others in more acidic water and others yet in tanks with water that was both warmer and more acidic than the norm.

The researchers found that warmer water led to a lower survival rate for young eelsthough those that did survive showed more active temperaments, which might confer a better chance for surviving their long, 4000-mile migration. But higher acidity in the water made the eels less enthusiastic about migrating. This second finding backed up prior research showing that acidic water causes sensory damage to the eels.

The researchers suggest that fully understanding the conditions in which the eels live is critical if there is any hope of mounting conservation efforts to prevent their extinction.

Explore further European eels found to suffer muscle damage due to cocaine in the water

More information: Ocean warming and acidification may challenge the riverward migration of glass eels, Biology Letters (2019). Journal information: Biology Letters Ocean warming and acidification may challenge the riverward migration of glass eels,(2019). royalsocietypublishing.org/jou  .1098/rsbl.2018.0627

 2019 Science X Network
Patagonian galls such as these harbor a parent of the hybrid yeast used to make lager or cold-brewed beer. Credit: Diego Libkind, Institute for Biodiversity and Environment Research

Lager beer is cold, crisp, dryand worth about half a trillion dollars worldwide.

Behind the world's most popular alcoholic beverage is a yeast adapted to the cold, and hungry for the sugars it will transform into bubbles and booze.

That yeast is a hybrid, an amalgamation of the domesticated baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a recently discovered wild species, Saccharomyces eubayanus. Hundreds of years ago, the two species combined their strengths into a cold-fermenting strain that readily produces the crisp, light taste that came to dominate the beer market in the centuries that followed.

In a pair of new papers, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Genetics Chris Todd Hittinger, his graduate student EmilyClare Baker and others show how modern lager yeast adopted the cold-loving and sugar-hungry traits essential to their success.

In one paper, to be published Feb. 1 in Science Advances, the team demonstrates that when the cold-loving S. eubayanus donated its mitochondriathe power-generating portion of the cellto the new hybrid, it conferred cold tolerance on the strain. Today, all industrial lager strains retain the S. eubayanus mitochondria and ferment at cold temps.

In a second paper, Baker and Hittinger investigated the ability of S. eubayanus to ferment all the sugars in wort, the barley malt extract that ferments into beer. Most strains of S. eubayanus cannot ferment maltotriose, the second-most common sugar in wort. But the researchers were able to evolve a brand-new protein capable of transporting maltotriose into the cell, revealing a potential path to more aggressive fermentation of all available sugars, a key trait in producing a dry, crisp beer. The paper was published on the pre-print server bioRxiv ahead of publication in the journal PLOS Genetics.

The new research is the first to identify the genetic underpinnings of how two of the most defining features of lager productioncold tolerance and complete fermentationevolved in S. eubayanus and its hybrid offspring. Hittinger and Baker have applied for patents based on their work, which could provide new opportunities for altering both the temperature range and sugar metabolizing ability of industrial lager strains.

In 2011, Hittinger was part of the team that first isolated S. eubayanus in the wild from forests in Patagonia. Since then, his lab has worked to uncover how S. eubayanus combined with the bread-and-ale yeast S. cerevisiae some 500 years ago to kickstart the behemoth lager beer industry. Their partners in the brewing industry and the UW-Madison food science department helped them zero in on researching the origin of two key traits: growth in the cold and churning through all the sugar in wort.

One clue to lager yeast's cold preference came from a slate of recent studies showing that temperature tolerance in a wide range of species could be linked, at least partially, to mitochondria. These cellular components generate the bulk of the energy that cells rely on and have their own genome, albeit a small one with just a handful of genes.

Baker and Hittinger had previously shown that lager yeast inherited their mitochondria from S. eubayanus. To see if these mitochondria helped lager yeast thrive at cold temperatures, Baker treated S. eubayanus or S. cerevisiae strains with a chemical that broke down the yeast's mitochondrial DNA.

"Some yeasts are able to dispense with their mitochondrial genome," says Baker, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oregon. "As a result, you can get this blank slate strain without a mitochondrial genome and use that for crosses."

By making crosses between the two yeast species with or without their mitochondria intact, Baker produced two sets of hybrids: one had mitochondria from S. cerevisiae, the other from S. eubayanus. Other than the origin of their mitochondria, the hybrids were identical.

When Baker tested the growth of these hybrids at different temperatures, the differences were immediately apparent. The yeast with S. eubayanus mitochondria tolerated cold but wilted in the heat; strains with S. cerevisiae mitochondria couldn't handle the cold.

"At the most extreme temperatures, it's basically the difference between growing and not growing," says Hittinger, who is also a member of the Department of Energy-supported Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center headquartered at UW-Madison.

"For the first time we can remake custom lager strains that have the S. cerevisiae mitochondrial genome. And when you do that you get shifted temperature preferences," says Hittinger. "This is a new category of brewing strains that right now is not in anyone's arsenal. And we think it very well could have novel properties in beer production."

Cold-loving lager yeast take a long time to ferment and require refrigeration, which makes lager production more expensive than brewing ales. Hittinger and Baker believe that shifting lager production to slightly warmer temperatures with tailored mitochondria could produce huge cost savingsas long as the distinctive lager taste is preserved.

But some brewers are looking to move beyond the traditional lager. Since S. eubayanus was discovered in 2011, brewers have tried to brew beer with the wild yeast in hopes of creating a new market. Heineken has released a limited-edition S. eubayanus beer and the Wisconsin Brewing Company in Verona, Wisconsin, is trying to do the same in partnership with the Hittinger lab.

However, S. eubayanus cannot ferment all of the sugar in wort. Most strains of the yeast lack the ability to transport the sugar maltotriose into the cell to digest. Because maltotriose is the second-most common sugar in wort, brewing with S. eubayanus can result in an overly sweet beer.

So Baker and Hittinger tried to evolve better use of maltotriose in S. eubayanus strains. Over several months, the researchers grew S. eubayanus with plenty of maltotriose and a dash of other, digestible sugarsjust enough to let the yeast slowly reproduce. Then they looked for any yeast that gained the ability to transport and ferment maltotriose.

More than 2,000 generations later, they found a single strain that could grow on the sugar. When they looked at the yeast's genome, they found a new gene. The yeast had combined chunks of two genes capable of transporting maltosea sugar related to maltotriose but smaller and easier to transport.

"And that was particularly interesting because neither of these genes was able to transport maltotriose by themselves, but this new chimeric gene was," says Baker.

By reconfiguring existing genes, the yeast strain was able to quickly evolve a new trait without having to accumulate many slow, random mutations.

"We're hopeful that this will provide a way to reduce the sugar content in the final product," says Hittinger. "It'll make pure S. eubayanus beers less cloying and drier, more like a conventional lager, but will still retain some of the wild character that you expect from this wild, cold-tolerant strain."

Hittinger's office boasts empty bottles of Heineken's S. eubayanus beers and he's looking forward to seeing more of the wild beers available. His group is now working with brewers to test the new yeast strains under realistic conditions.

"This is a really interesting basic science story about how you take the different capabilities of two species that diverged from one another millions of years ago, hybridize them together, and get the best of both worlds to eventually create a multibillion-dollar industry," says Hittinger.

Explore further The evolution of beer

More information: "Mitochondrial DNA and temperature tolerance in lager yeasts" Science Advances (2019). Journal information: Science Advances "Mitochondrial DNA and temperature tolerance in lager yeasts"(2019). advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaav1869
For extreme rainfall events in Northern India (red diamond), the red lines show local weather patterns, and the blue lines show global patterns linking extreme rainfall events represented by the blue shapes. In particular, the blue shapes over Europe indicate that extreme rainfall in Northern India can be predicted from preceding events in Europe. Credit: Boers et al. 2019

An analysis of satellite data has revealed global patterns of extreme rainfall, which could lead to better forecasts and more accurate climate models.

Extreme rainfalldefined as the top five percent of rainy daysoften forms a pattern at the local level, for example tracking across Europe. But new research, published today in Nature, reveals that there are also larger-scale global patterns to extreme rainfall events.

These patterns connect through the atmosphere rather than over landfor example, extreme rainfall in Europe can precede extreme rainfall in India by around five days, without extreme rain in the countries in between.

The research, led by a team at Imperial College London and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, could help better predict when and where extreme rainfall events will occur around the world. The insights can be used to test and improve global climate models, leading to better predictions.

The study additionally provides a 'baseline' for climate change studies. By knowing how the atmosphere behaves to create patterns of extreme rainfall events, scientists will be able to gain new insights into changes that may be caused by global warming.

Lead author Dr. Niklas Boers, from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Grantham InstituteClimate Change and Environment at Imperial, said: "Uncovering this global pattern of connections in the data can improve weather and climate models.

This is especially true for the emerging picture of couplings between the tropics and the European and North American regions and their consequences for extreme rainfall.

"This finding could also help us understand the connections between different monsoon systems and extreme events within them. I hope that our results will, in the long term, help to predict extreme rainfall and associated flash floods and landslides in northeast Pakistan, north India and Nepal. There have been several such hazards in recent years, with devastating consequences in these regions, such as the 2010 Pakistan flood."

To find patterns in extreme rainfall events, the team developed a new method rooted in complex system theory to study high-resolution satellite data of rainfall. The data comes from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and covers the region between 50? North and South since 1998.

By breaking the globe into a grid, the team could see where events occurred and determine how 'synchronous' they werea statistical measure that assesses connections even if the events did not occur at exactly the same time.

The results from this 'complex network' model, analysed using our understanding of the motion of the atmosphere, revealed a possible mechanism for how the events were connected. The patterns appear to be created by Rossby waveswiggles in fast-flowing currents of air high in the atmosphere, known as the jet streams.

Rossby waves have been connected to regular rainfall, but this study is the first to connect them to extreme rainfall event patterns. Co-author Professor Brian Hoskins, Chair of the Grantham Institute at Imperial, said: "The new technique applied to satellite data shows very surprising relationships between extreme rainfall events in different regions around the world.

"For example, extreme events in the South Asian Summer Monsoon are, on average, linked to events in the East Asian, African, European and North American regions. Although rains in Europe do not cause the rain in Pakistan and India, they belong to the same atmospheric wave pattern, with the European rains being triggered first.

"This should provide a strong test for weather and climate models and gives promise of better predictions."

Co-author Jurgen Kurths, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: "This truly interdisciplinary study, which combines complex network science with atmospheric science, is an outstanding example for the great potential of the rather young field of complexity studies. As well providing insight into the spread of epidemics or information flow across networks, it can also be used to improve our understanding of extreme events in the climate system."

Explore further OU meteorologist expects severe drought and heavy rain events to worsen globally

More information: The global pattern of extreme rainfall teleconnections revealed by complex networks, Nature (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0872-x Journal information: Nature The global pattern of extreme rainfall teleconnections revealed by complex networks,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0872-x
Dry ground in the Sonoran Desert, Sonora,Mexico. Credit: Tomas Castelazo, tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

The field of climate science seems to contain many examples of alarming runaway feedback loops, vicious cycles, and previously unimagined detrimental synergistic effects arising within Earth systemsfor example, the albedo effect with regard to melting sea ice; or melting permafrost releasing more methane to further accelerate the melting process. New research by a team from Columbia University continues in this vein with results from their recent study published in Science Advances. The study, "Projected increases in intensity, frequency, and terrestrial carbon costs of compound drought and aridity events," shows that the compound effect of soil moisture (SM) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) on terrestrial carbon uptake is greater than the effect of either variable when considered separately, and that these two conditions tend to mutually reinforce each other.

Drought and excessive heat are two forms of extreme weather that have had, and will continue to have, a major impact on natural systems as well as human communities and systems that rely on them. A third climate dynamic, atmospheric aridity, is a combined measure of both temperature and atmospheric humidity, encapsulated in the metric of VPD. SM and VPD are both recognized indicators of carbon uptake and water use by plants in times of drought, and extreme occurrences of both of these indicatorshigh VPD or low SMare known to trigger plant stomata to narrow or close, thus limiting carbon uptake. VPD and SM are conditions that are also known to co-occur, and while they have often been evaluated independently in the past, an important goal of this study was to better understand the relationship between the two variables occurring in concert.

The compound effects of VPD and SM have been characterized by the investigators as "driven by a series of complementary physical processes," of which low SM contributes to decreased evapotranspiration. Reduced evapotranspiration in turn leads to increases in temperature and higher VPD (because of decreased evaporative cooling and near-surface humidity). Increased VPD drives further evapotranspiration, which in turn accelerates decreases in SM. The co-occurrence of VPD and SM in this vicious circle has been on the rise since the mid 20th century, and these co-occuring events have increased in frequency and intensity. This pattern is predicted to continually increase into the foreseeable future in tandem with warming trends.

In exploring the relationship between SM and VPD, Zhou and colleagues also looked at their effect on future climate scenarios, especially with regard to how observed data corresponded to several Earth system models (ESMs), in terms of their accuracy in relation to both past historical simulations and future climate simulation predictions. Specifically, their study showed that: "(i) compound VPD and SM extremes occur much more frequently than expected if VPD and SM were not intimately coupled, (ii) this co-evolution of drought and aridity results in substantial ecosystem carbon losses, and (iii) the impacts of these compound extremes will strengthen in the future."

In testing their hypotheses, Zhou and colleagues collected daily observations data from 66 flux tower sites, mostly located in low- and mid-latitude locations, and evaluated the relationship among SM, VPD, net ecosystem productivity (NEP), gross primary productivity (GPP), and total ecosystem respiration (TER). NEP is a measure of of the terrestrial carbon budget, while GPP and TER are constituent metrics of NEP, representing photosynthesis and respiration, respectively. Statistical analysis of these data confirmed a strong and bimodal correlation between SM and VPD at both extremes; that is, low SM and high VPD tended to co-occur as did high SM and low VPD. Moreover, they found that low SM-high VPD events tended to co-occur about twice as frequently as each variable considered independently, and that low SM-high VPD conditions tended to become more tightly coupled as they grew more extreme. In the presence of extreme low SM-high VPD conditions, GPP and NEP both decreased, while TER remained relatively stable.

To compare and verify their observations from the flux tower data, the group examined centennial simulations of historical (1871-1970) and projected future (2001-2100) climate conditions vis-a-vis 15 ESMs. These ESMs confirmed the negative correlation between SM and VPD and allowed the researchers to map areas of the globe in which the probability multiplication factor, the primary statistical measure of this study, was particularly pronounced. Of note, the southeastern US, the Amazon region, Southern Africa, and East and Southeast Asia all demonstrated strong SM-VPD interaction in both historical and future ESM models. These ESM models predicted increases in both frequency and intensity of compound SM-VPD events, which will have a significant global impact on continental carbon sink capacity.

In evaluating this future impact of extreme VPD-SM in the ESMs, the investigators projected a decline in carbon uptake. With regard to most non-boreal regions between 50 degrees north latitude and 50 degrees south latitude (where most of the flux tower data were collected), TER decreased. Both GPP and TER as affected by VPD-SM compound events were associated with "negative NEP anomalies over more than 75% of the land area during the two [historical and future ESM simulation] periods." In summary, "tremendous projected increases in the co-occurrence rate and magnitude of concurrent VPD and SM extremes in many regions globally" will result in drastic reductions in ecosystems' carbon uptake capacity.

ESM data also showed that NEP anomalies resulting from compound extreme SM-VPD events were much stronger than anomalies resulting from extreme events stemming from only one of these variables. Results differed regionally In assessing the additive effects of one extreme variable versus another in relation to carbon uptake in the context of historical and future simulations. Extreme low SM was projected to have a greater impact on NEP than extreme high VPD in the Northern Hemisphere, though this finding did not apply to the Amazon and Congo basins in the Southern Hemisphere. The additional effect of extreme low SM on GPP was shown to be much greater than the effect of extreme high VPD for almost all land masses in future simulations, however.

Zhou and colleagues also take into account the mitigating factor of the phenomenon known as CO 2 fertilization, whereby the rate of photosynthesis increases in plants due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. In spite of this offset though, global carbon uptake is still predicted to decline. The investigators note a few uncertainties in their methods and modelsfor example, the fact that their models don't take into account the adaptive capacity of plants to climate change. They also call for future work to separate the effects of VPD and SM as they apply to ecosystem models, since VPD is expected to increase substantially across the globe, whereas SM projections seem to apply less universally.

In conclusion, the group states, "our results highlight the importance of compound drought and aridity events and their impact on continental carbon uptake, and the need to consider these factors in evaluation of future climate change risks. Considering the projected increases in the intensity and frequency of compound drought and aridity events in the 21st century, strategies should be developed and implemented to manage risks and improve adaptive capacity."

Explore further Climate change tipping point could be coming sooner than we think: study

More information: Sha Zhou et al. Projected increases in intensity, frequency, and terrestrial carbon costs of compound drought and aridity events. Science Advances 23 Jan 2019: Vol. 5, no. 1. Journal information: Science Advances Sha Zhou et al. Projected increases in intensity, frequency, and terrestrial carbon costs of compound drought and aridity events. Science Advances 23 Jan 2019: Vol. 5, no. 1. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aau5740

 2019 Science X Network
Ice covers Lake Michigan's shoreline as temperatures dropped to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (-29 degrees Celsius) on January 30, 2019 in Chicago

An Arctic-like deep freeze gripping much of the United States with double-digit subzero temperatures is the coldest of its kind in two decades, but is it linked to climate change?

Experts say it could be, but whether global warming plays a role in this particular extreme weather phenomenon is still up for debate. Here's why:

What is a polar vortex?

"It is a mass of very cold air that typically sits right on the North Pole and tends to be restricted to the North Pole by the jet stream," explained Ben Kirtman, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

Normally, the jet streamwhich is a strong a current in the atmospherewould keep this cold air in the Arctic, but when the jet stream wavers, or weakens, the chill can spill.

"Occasionally we get meandering of the polar vortex and that is what is happening right now. And if you get a real big one you can have a big blob of cold air penetrate very far south," Kirtman told AFP.

According to the Weather Channel, this week's freeze "may be the coldest in more than 20 years in parts of the Midwest and will smash dozens of daily record lows in some areas."

NASA's Earth Observatory said that steady northwest winds "were likely to add to the misery, causing dangerous wind chills below -40 Fahrenheit (-40 Celsius) in portions of 12 states."

The National Weather Service warned that a wind chill of -20 F can cause frostbite in as little as 30 minutes.

Why is this cold spell so strong and so vast?

"It is not out of bounds with the historical record. They happen. You get storms that are bigger than other storms. There is a big part of this that is part of the natural variability of the climate," said Kirtman.

The protective band in the atmosphere that typically keeps polar air in the north can and does waver. That, too, is not unexpected.

"There are always undulations in the jet stream," said Kirtman.

Marius Radoi keeps his balance as he walks on the edge of Lake Michigan's shoreline in Chicago, but scientists are not certain if such deep-freeze conditions are the result of climate change

Why does the jet stream waver?

The strength of the jet stream is linked to the temperature contrast between the hot tropics and the frigid poles.

The starker this contrast, the stronger the jet stream, and in theory, the more likely that the polar air will stay in the Arctic.

However, sometimes a jet stream that is too strong can also become unstable, "and these instabilities cause a certain amount of waviness in the jet so you can get these meanders," said Kirtman.

Some evidence also suggests that when the poles heat up, there is less contrast between the tropics and the poles, and that, too, can make the jet stream become wavier, allowing cold air to spill down from the north.

The Arctic is well known to be heating at twice the rate of the rest of the planet.

Can this type of extreme weather be blamed on climate change?

"What people are starting to ask is, if you weaken the jet stream, does that mean we are going to have more, stronger excursions of the polar vortex? If that turns out to be true, we can link more extreme cold spells to climate change," Kirtman added.

Researchers are examining data in the quest to find out.

"There are some hints that it is linked to climate change, but I would emphasize that the jury is still out," he said.

Scientists are getting better at deciphering the role of climate change in certain weather extremes. So far, the signals are clearest in events like rainfall, drought, heatwaves and wildfires.

But when it comes to cold snaps, the answers are not as clear.

"I would say the science is still incomplete. We don't have proof at this point," said Kirtman.

Explore further How frigid polar vortex blasts are connected to global warming

 2019 AFP
The Turkish mega-city Istanbul is situated at the North Anatolian Fault, a geologically active zone with many devastating earthquakes in the past. Credit: Marco Bohnhoff/GFZ

A big earthquake occurred south of Istanbul in the summer of 2016, but it was so slow that nobody noticed. The earthquake, which took place at mid-crustal depth, lasted more than 50 days. A novel processing technique applied to data from special borehole strainmeter instruments and developed by researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and collaborators successfully identified the ultra-slow quake below the Sea of Marmara. The team, led by Patricia Martinez-Garzon, has published the results in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The region south of Istanbul is part of the North Anatolian Fault, separating Eurasia from the Anatolian plate. This geological fault is a large tectonic plate boundary known to generate destructive earthquakes causing large numbers of casualties. The last such major earthquake occurred in 1999 near Izmit, causing almost 20,000 fatalities. A portion of the fault, running just south of the densely populated mega-city of Istanbul, is currently identified as a "seismic gap," and is overdue to produce a large earthquake. While the tectonic loading due to plate motion is continuous, thereby constantly accumulating elastic energy on faults, the release of the stored energy can occur either seismically in the form of earthquakes, or aseismically during fault creep or slow deformation at depth. Understanding the interaction between both phenomena is critically important to define the seismic hazard and subsequent risk in urban areas.

The study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters reports on a large, two-month-long ultra-slow earthquake that occurred south of Istanbul below the Sea of Marmara in conjunction with elevated moderate-sized seismicity at shallow depth in the region. The researchers investigated the crustal deformation data from borehole instruments installed around the eastern Sea of Marmara as part of the GONAF Plate Boundary Observatory.

Data from one of the borehole strainmeter stations located in the most seismically active portion of the area on the Armutlu Peninsula was processed using novel computing techniques. Dr. Martinez-Garzon, lead-author of the study, says, "This allowed us to identify the slow slip signal that presumably occurred at mid-crustal depth level and that is of the same size as the largest ever seen such signal that occurred along the San Andreas Fault in California."

During this aseismic slow deformation signal, the shallower and typically fully locked part of the crust responded by producing the highest number of moderate earthquakes in years, indicating an interaction between near-surface and deep crustal deformation. Prof. Marco Bohnhoff, head of the GONAF observatory and a co-author of the study, says, "How this interaction works remains to be understood in detail. In any case, our results will allow us to better understand and quantify the regional seismic risk, in particular for the 15 million population center of Istanbul in the light of the pending big one."

More information: Patricia Martinez-Garzon et al, Slow strain release along the eastern Marmara region offshore Istanbul in conjunction with enhanced local seismic moment release, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2019). Journal information: Earth and Planetary Science Letters Patricia Martinez-Garzon et al, Slow strain release along the eastern Marmara region offshore Istanbul in conjunction with enhanced local seismic moment release,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2019.01.001
Professor Madeleine Beekman with beehives. Credit: University of Sydney

Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that the relationship between the tissue-sucking Varroa mite and virulence of a virus of honey bees, has most likely been misunderstood.

The study challenges the long-held belief that the parasitic Varroa mitea mite that sucks the tissue of honey beestransmits the Deformed Wing Virus of honeybees and in doing so changes the virus to make it more virulent and deadly.

Research published today in Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences concludes that this belief is incorrect.

"The prevailing wisdom is that the mite selects for very virulent strains of the virus," said Professor Madeleine Beekman from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney.

"For that reason, the virus is now known as a very dangerous virus and the Australian beekeepers are adamant this virus should not get into the country. In fact, there is legislation that prevents the import of any bee products that could contain the virus. But our work shows that the virus is more likely to be an innocent bystander."

Australia is the only country in the world to remain free of the Varroa mite. This makes Australian honey and wax valuable because it is free of chemical residues used to eliminate the parasite.

"Australia is the last country on the planet to produce completely pure honey," says Professor Beekman. "But the mite is highly likely to arrive in Australia on shipping containers so we need to understand how the mite and the virus interact."

Professor Beekman and her team in the Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Lab injected honey bee pupae with high levels of Deformed Wing Virus which is carried by the mite to test if the virus was highly virulent due to changes in the transmission route that occurred via the Varroa mite.

Honey bee with Varroa mite parasite. Credit: Pixabay

In the absence of the mite, the virus needs to be transmitted to other bees via direct interactions between an infected and non-infected bee. Varroa does the transmission by biting one bee and then another.

The team found the transmission route used by the Varroa mite selects against viruses that are much more virulent than the Deformed Wing Virus, such as Sacbrood virus and Black queen cell virus. These viruses normally suppress Deformed Wing Virus. The elimination of Sacbrood and Black Queencell virus leaves just Deformed Wing Virus, which does not kill the bees.

"Our work therefore changes our understanding of the effect Varroa has on Deformed Wing Virus and the health of honey bee colonies," Professor Beekman said.

"It means we don't have to be scared of the virus. Instead we need to focus on eliminating the mite and reducing its numbers."

The results will also have an impact on the ways the Australian beekeepers can prepare themselves for the arrival of Varroa.

"Many countries actively select for honey bee populations that can tolerate the Varroa mite without treatment. Australian beekeepers would like to import the sperm from such populations to start preparing their honey bees for when the mite arrives," said Professor Beekman.

"But the importation of the sperm is currently forbidden because of the threat of Deformed Wing Virus, which can be present in bee sperm. Perhaps beekeepers can now convince the authorities that bee sperm is safe."

"If we want to protect the bees, it now no longer seems to make sense to try to combat the virus," said Professor Beekman. "Instead, there needs to be a renewed focus on ensuring the number of mites in honey bee colonies remain low."

Explore further Bee disease a mystery

More information: Direct transmission by injection affects competition amongst RNA viruses in honeybees, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, rspb.royalsocietypublishing.or  .1098/rspb.2018.2452 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B Direct transmission by injection affects competition amongst RNA viruses in honeybees,
A casino dealer collects chips at a roulette table in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines. (Photo: REUTERS/Erik De Castro)

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) chief Andrea Domingo said she will ask President Rodrigo Duterte to relax a ban on new casino licenses.

Domingo said the country may lose out on a gaming boom that Asian neighbors want to cash in.

Gaming seems to be the sunrise industry now in Asia, Domingo said. There are still areas in the Philippines that can still absorb and benefit from these investments, which wont go here with the current ban.

Domingo hoped Duterte can be persuaded to apply a selective ban instead of ruling out new casinos completely.

President Duterte said in August last year there would be no new casinos set up during his presidency.

I hate gambling. I do not want it, Duterte said.

According to government data, there were nine private casino operators in the country offering 1,444 gaming tables and 9,427 electronic gaming machines in 2017. Gross gaming revenues rose 11.6 per cent to 176.5 billion pesos ($3.33 billion) the same year.

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Philippines Duterte hates gambling, rules out new casinos
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi has announced he could run for the 2019 Presidential election in the interest of the country despite his age.

The President, in an interview with London-based media al Arab, said he would consider running for this years Presidential elections should this benefit his country, known as one the few democracies in the Arab world.

Essebsi rose to power in 2014 in the wake of the 2011 revolution that swept away autocratic leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The 92-year old man and leader of Nidaa Tounes blasted in the interview critics accusing him of wanting to die in power.

Tunisia, the only success story of the Arab Spring, has been struggling economically and politically due to division in successive governments since the revolution. The President and his Prime Minister Youssef Chahed have fallen out.

Chahed was late last week named leader of a newly-set up party, Tahya Tounes (Long Live Tunisia).

The youngest Tunisian Prime Minister ever broke up with the President in May last year.

For Essebsi, there is no doubt that Chahed will seek the presidential seat with the help of Ennahda, the Islamist party in the Chahed-led fragile coalition running the country.

(Ennahda President) Rached Ghannouchi would secretly support him (Chahed) so he presents his candidacy to the presidential office, Essebsi said in the interview.

This is clear to everybody in Tunisia.
US will boost security ties with Taiwan, says ambassador as he warns mainland China to stop strong-arm tactics

The United States is expected to further increase security cooperation with Taiwan as part of its grand strategy to manage Chinas military and economic expansion in the Indo-Pacific region.

In an interview with the semi-official Central News Agency in Taiwan, the de facto US ambassador Brent Christensen said he expected to see great advances between Taiwan and the US in four major areas  including security  this year, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act.

Washington passed the act after it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, and it commits Washington to help the self-ruled island maintain its defences against mainland China.

He expressed Americas grave concerns over what he characterised Beijings efforts to coerce Taiwan into talks on reunification and warned that Washington would not let Beijing do whatever it wants with regard to the island.

We certainly urge China to abstain from any coercion that would jeopardise the security or the social, economic system of the people of Taiwan, he told the agency in the interview published on Wednesday.

In a speech on January 2, marking the 40th anniversary of a cross-strait ceasefire, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for cross-strait unification talks under the one-China principle, using the one country, two systems model practised in Hong Kong and Macau as the model.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, sternly rebuked Xi, saying most people in Taiwan do not support one country, two systems.

Relations between the two sides have soured since Tsai took office as president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.

In addition to poaching five of Taiwans allies, Beijing has staged war games around Taiwan to try to intimidate the island and force Tsai to accept the principle  that Taiwan is a part of China that must eventually be reunited with the mainland.

Story continues

We certainly believe that coercive means should not be employed to address these concerns, Christensen said, adding the US is concerned about the cross-strait tensions and the two sides should engage in constructive dialogue to peacefully resolve their differences.

Christensen said in addition to promoting security cooperation, he expected to see great advances in economic ties, people-to-people ties and Taiwans role in the global community in the coming year.

He said these areas had been his main priorities since he took over as director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy, in August.

He said the institute was gearing up to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the act, with a series of events for which certain senior-level figures would be encouraged to visit Taiwan without elaborating further.

Washington does not generally send high-level officials to Taiwan to avoid triggering angry protests from China.

Since President Donald Trump took office in 2017 and adopted a more confrontational stance with China, including the ongoing trade war, he has signed the Taiwan Travel Act and National Defence Authorisation Bill  allowing high-level official and military exchanges  and approving two batches of weapon sales to the island.

While these development appears to be favourable for Taiwan, Shen Lyu-shun, formerly Taiwans top envoy to the US, said in terms of economic cooperation, there has been no progress at all in US-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement talks, which is what the island needs to counteract the problems caused by the US-China trade war.

This article US will boost security ties with Taiwan, says ambassador as he warns mainland China to stop strong-arm tactics first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019.
THE National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) has removed over 650,000 campaign materials all over Metro Manila.NCRPO Director Major General Guillermo Eleazar urged the candidates to also do their

THE National Union of Students of the Philippines expresses grave condemnation to the murder of National Democratic Front Consultant Randy Malayao as he was gunned down inside a bus in Nueva Vizcaya at 2:30 am, Wednesday, Jan. 30. The Union also extends its condolences to his family.

Malayao has been actively involved in peace negotiations, but despite having immunity from harassment, arrest, and attacks, he was victimized by the administrations violence against dissenters.

He was a political prisoner during the time of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who experienced torture. Prior to that he was the editor-in-chief of Ang Mangingisda, the official student publication of the University of the Philippines Visayas-Miag-ao College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Malayao embodied a patriotic student leader that recognized the bigger picture of the fight against injustice and served not only his fellow students in the pursuit of truth through the university publication, but through his continued service to the people as a peace consultant.

We demand justice for Randy and the other illegally arrested and murdered consultants, human rights advocates, organizers, and innocent lives the administration has taken just to pursue Dutertes authoritarian fantasies.--NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
(Left) Decimated church seats of the Mt. Carmel Cathedral

in Jolo, Sulu after it was hit by twin explosions on January 27, 2019 | Photo courtesy of Ahmad Sajan. (Right) Bodies of worshipers lay lifeless after a grenade detonated inside their mosque in Masjid Jutay, Barangay Talon-Talon in Zamboanga City on January 30, 2019. | Photo courtesy of PNP Region 9 Office

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  Authorities cannot yet confirm if the grenade blast at a mosque in Masjid Jutay in Zamboanga City on Tuesday night is connected to the twin bombings in Jolo, Sulu on Sunday.

According to Zamboanga City Police Spokesperson PSInsp. Shelamie Chang, the explosives used in last nights bombing in Zamboanga was in no way similar to the ones used in Jolo.

The officer said, the incident in Jolo was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) while a grenade launcher was used in a mosque in Zamboanga City.

Authorities continue to investigate as to the motive behind the Zamboanga City blast that killed two individuals and injured three others.  UNTV News and Rescue

The post PNP: No established link yet between Jolo and Zamboanga City bombings appeared first on UNTV News.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has directed public utility vehicle (PUV) operators to implement stricter security measures in terminals following the deadly twin blasts in Jolo, Sulu over the weekend.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board are directing all PUV operators to install safety equipment in terminals, following the bombing incident in Jolo, Sulu. This is to ensure the security of passengers against those who are planning to stage terroristic acts, the LTFRB said in a statement on Tuesday, January 29.

The Board also advised commuters to be alert and report any suspicious activity or person along terminals and public transportation vehicles to the concerned authorities.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has also alerted all its units in Mindanao, ordering them to coordinate with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police in the investigation and apprehension of the perpetrators behind the bombing incident.

I am reiterating the instructions of DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade to ensure that all security measures are in place and strictly implemented, particularly in all ports in southern Philippines. Be vigilant and keep our forces in the highest state of readiness, PCG Commandant Admiral Elson Hermogino said in a separate statement.

Some 21 people were killed while about 97 others were injured when two blasts struck the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral during a morning mass.

Bus Terminal

The post LTFRB Orders Tight Security Measures in Transport Terminals appeared first on Carmudi Philippines.
A property magnate turned fugitive spy was jailed for the third time in Vietnam on Wednesday after a court convicted him of corruption over murky land deals that cost the state millions of dollars. Phan Van Anh Vu was convicted as Vietnam's communist government widens a corruption crackdown that has already seen dozens of former high-flying officials, executives and businessmen put behind bars. The 15-year prison sentence is Vu's third since the property magnate who moonlighted as an intelligence agent was arrested in Singapore and returned to Vietnam last year to face several corruption-related charges. He was convicted over improper land sales in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City that generated losses for the state worth almost $50 million, according to state-controlled VNExpress. "The sentence is too harsh. The court did not consider several factors that could have reduced the sentence," Vu's lawyer Nguyen Huu The Trach told AFP, adding he would appeal. Vu was sentenced alongside two former deputy ministers of public security, Bui Van Thanh and Tran Viet Tan, who were accused of aiding the deals or turning a blind eye to them. Thanh got 30 months, while Tan was sentenced to 36 months in prison. Two other lower ranking security officials got five years each, Trach confirmed. Vu told the court Thursday that he felt "humiliated" but did not admit guilt. "I don't think the two ex-deputy ministers are guilty," he said, according to footage broadcast on local websites. Vu, who was a spy in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) before being dismissed in September 2017, was allegedly trying to flee to Europe when he was arrested in January 2018 with two passports on him -- one real and one fake. His first conviction in July saw him jailed for nine years, later reduced to eight, for leaking state secrets. In December he was sentenced again to 17 years for pilfering more than $8 million from a bank in a share-buying scheme. Vu's fate shocked many in Vietnam because of his links to the powerful MPS, long believed to be untouchable. But several other MPS-linked officials have been targeted as Hanoi makes good on a promise to clean up the graft-prone country with a campaign that observers say is politically driven. According to Transparency International's corruption index, Vietnam ranks 117 out of 180 countries, behind Thailand and the Philippines.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila recently turned over 50 electric motorcycle units to the city government of Manila to mark the 118th founding anniversary of the Manila Police District (MPD).

According to the Embassy, the motorcyclesworth around USD180,000 or approximately PHP9,452,700reflect Chinas efforts to effectively assist the capacity building of the Manila Police and to fulfill Mayor (Joseph) Estradas advocacy of a green and clean city.

After the landmark state visit of President Xi Jinping, we have every reason to expect even greater development of the practical cooperation between China and the Philippines in various sectors, which is bound to bring more tangible benefits to the two people in the days to come, said Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, referencing Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to the Philippines last November.

In response, Manila City Mayor Joseph Estrada gratefully accepted the donation, saying that it would greatly benefit the MPD in its capabilities in patrolling the streets, preventing criminal activity, and securing the safety of the public.

With this donation, the MPD will be a stronger force, better able to ensure peace and order in our city streets, and with this, we move closer to our goal to recapture Manilas former glory, and be the Pearl of the Orient once again, Estrada shared.

Electric Motorcycle

The post China Donates 50 Electric Motorcycle Units to Manila Police District appeared first on Carmudi Philippines.
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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



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Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


Of course. You would have to be be barking mad to want to bring this rabble to NZ. But then socialists are mad by definition. It's not as if we don't have...
South Korea has been buying increasing amounts of U.S. crude oil and will continue to do so this year, Reuters reports, citing data from its service Eikon. This will help narrow the Asian economys trade surplus with the United States, improving moods in Washington and strengthening bilateral ties.

Over this month and next, for example, imports of U.S. crude oil and liquefied natural gas into South Korea are seen at 18 million barrels and 900,000 tons, respectively.

At the moment, the trend (of importing U.S. crude) will stay ... The economics for U.S. crude is a little bit better than Middle East and North Sea oil, Reuters quoted a source from the South Korean refining industry as saying.

Last year, according to Reuters data, the U.S. exported 7.87 million tons of crude oil to South Korea, equal to 57.687 million barrels, as well as 4.664 million tons of liquefied natural gas. The country, which is the worlds fourth-largest oil importer, was nevertheless granted a sanction waiver in November, allowing it to import a certain amount of Iranian crude.

South Korea, however, has been staying off Iranian crude for four months in a row as of December. Iranian oil exports to South Korea for full-2018 dived by more than 60 percent to 58.2 million barrels, according to the Korea National Oil Corp. data, from 147.87 million barrels a year earlier. At the same time, December imports of U.S. crude surged sixfold to 13.61 million barrels, S&P Global Platts reported earlier this month.

There were reports South Korea will resume Iranian imports this month or in February, which will leave it a narrow window to stock up on cheap Iranian crude before the sanction waivers expire. In the meantime, the U.S. has become the countrys sixth-largest supplier, overtaking Iran and Russia, and its third-largest LNG supplier. South Korea, for its part, became the U.S. largest LNG client last year.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The United States energy infrastructure are susceptible to cyberthreats from Russia and China, a new report shows from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), cited by CNBC.

Russia, the ODNI reports, now has the ability to shut down power and energy companies, and has been testing US infrastructure in an attempt to determine weaknesses. Russia has already successfully disrupted Ukraines electrical distribution network in 2015, and has already penetrated US energy infrastructure in the past, according to US officials, including a nuclear power company. The NSA in 2017 pointed fingers at Russias FSB, claiming it had already targeted US energy firms.

China, who the ODNI sees as the United States top cyberthreat, also has the ability to disrupt critical infrastructure, such as natural gas or oil pipelines, for days or even weeks.

Further cyber threats are posed by Iran and North Korea, the report claims, with Iran successfully infiltrating Saudi governmental networks in 2016 and 2017.

The report was provided during the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence community on Tuesday. Proposals to shore up the cybersecurity pitfalls included Senators Mark Warner (D-Va) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla) Office of Critical Technologies and Security, an agency that would, if created, educate business leaders about the potential dangers of relying on foreign technology and products, such as the Huawei debacle, over which the US Justice Department levied fraud charges on Monday.

Researchers from Texas A&M scored a Department of Energy grant just weeks ago aimed at improving US cybersecurity in the wake of such abysmal assessments on the nations energy security. The research will focus on development and demonstrating next-generation tools and technologies to improve the cybersecurity and resilience of the nations critical energy infrastructure, including the electric grid and oil and natural gas infrastructure, according to Texas A&M Today.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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The head of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) Tuesday said Sharara oil field, the countrys largest with a production capacity of 340,000 barrels per day, will remain shut down until rebels evacuate the oil facility they have been holding since December.

The armed group attempting to hold NOC and Libyas economic recovery to ransom must leave the field before NOC will consider restarting production, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla was quoted by Reuters as saying in London.

A group of armed men protesting against life hardship in the region high-jacked the oil field, in December. The oil field has seen then been under force majeure.

The seizure of the activities brought down the North African countrys 2018 average production of 1.1 million barrel per day down to a little above 900,000.

Mustafa Sanalla said NOC has suggested that a mixed force might provide a solution within a negotiated security framework led by the Government of National Accord in Tripoli and with the support of the UN, Reuters reports.

He criticized this month attempt by Libyan National Army (LNA) led by east-based Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to seize oil installation and flash out terrorists and armed gangs in the south of the country.

It is my concern that a sequence of events has been set in motion with unknowable consequences for Libya, and NOC, he said.

The UN envoy to the North African country Ghassan Salame also this month condemned the move but was quickly branded as an enemy of Libya, by the Haftar-led forces.

Libyas oil industry has faced disruption since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 when the nation plunged into conflict that led to rival power centres in west and east
A week after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro signaled that he was willing to negotiate with the opposition.

Im willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we could talk for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future, Maduro said in an interview published on Wednesday by RIA Novosti, a state news outlet in Russia, which firmly backs Maduro in the political turmoil in the Latin American country.

According to Maduro, the governments of Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Russia, the Vatican, and some European governments that he didnt name, support dialog in Venezuela.

The U.S. backed last week Juan Guaido, the chairman of the National Assembly, as the legitimate president of Venezuela, after Guaido declared himself interim president.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Treasury slapped another round of sweeping sanctions against Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA, in order to help prevent further diverting of Venezuelas assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice.

Speaking to RIA Novosti, Maduro accused Trump of plotting to assassinate him.

Donald Trump has without doubt given an order to kill me and has told the government of Colombia and the Colombian mafia to kill me, Maduro said.

If something happens to me one day, Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will bear responsibility, the Venezuelan leader told RIA Novosti.

Meanwhile, the oil market and officials are still trying to assess how the political crisis in Venezuela and the latest U.S. sanctions on PDVSA will impact Venezuelas exports and the global supply-demand picture.

Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told Reuters on Wednesday that it was too early to quantify the impact of the latest U.S. sanctions. Earlier this week, Khalid al-Falih, the energy minister of OPECs leading producer Saudi Arabia, said that the crisis in Venezuela had not had an impact on the oil market and there was no need for any additional measures.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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It is too early to quantify the impact of the latest U.S. sanctions on Venezuelas oil industry and exports, Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told Reuters on Wednesday.

On Monday, the U.S. Treasury slapped another round of sweeping sanctions against Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA, in order to help prevent further diverting of Venezuelas assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela.

The U.S. backed last week Juan Guaido, the chairman of the National Assembly, as the legitimate president of Venezuela, after Guaido declared himself interim president.

The path to sanctions relief for PdVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the Interim President or a subsequent, democratically elected government, Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said.

Speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, the IEAs head Birol said:

There are lots of uncertainties in the oil markets now for different reasons. We are following the uncertainties in Latin America, in the Middle East, and Asia as well.

Venezuelas top oil clients are the United States, which imported around 500,000 bpd from Venezuela last year through October, as well as India and China.

According to Birol, the oil market is currently well supplied, and a lot of U.S. shale oil is coming to the market as well.

Earlier this week, Khalid al-Falih, the energy minister of OPECs leading producer Saudi Arabia, said that the political crisis in Venezuela had not had an impact on the oil market and there was no need for any additional measures.

While al-Falih sees no need for market intervention, analysts told CNBC on Monday that Venezuela is back in the spotlight of the oil market.

Oils ticking time bomb is sure to detonate at some point and the price reaction will be anything but muted, CNBC quoted Stephen Brennock, oil analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said in a research note published on Monday.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The U.S. has vowed to zero out Irans oil exports, and after a surprising display of leniency last November, American officials have signaled that they wont be as flexible when sanctions waivers expire in May. However, the U.S. government may once again find itself in a bind.

The Trump administration granted eight waivers to countries late last year, allowing them to continue to import a certain amount of oil from Iran for a six-month period. The waivers surprised the oil market  and disappointed Saudi Arabia, in particular  leading to a selloff in oil prices. But the U.S. government felt compelled to grant waivers precisely because the oil market was extremely tight, or at least it appeared that way with Brent trading north of $80 per barrel in October.

This time around, when the waivers expire in May, the Trump administration has vowed things will be different. We are going to continue our path to get to zero, Brian Hook, the State Departments special representative for Iran, said earlier this month, referring to the U.S. governments stated desire to close off Irans oil exports. Hook boasted that Irans oil exports had fallen to around 1 million barrels per day (mb/d), down from the 2.7-mb/d peak from last year.

But the Trump administration may be severely limited in its effort to further tighten the screws on Iran  and its lack of flexibility could come down to the administrations own policies.

The oil market could be too tight by the time the U.S. needs to decide on whether or not to extend the waivers, and the tightness may be the result of the Trump administrations use of sanctions in an entirely separate part of the world: Venezuela.

It is a little early to say how much oil will be knocked offline in Venezuela from U.S. sanctions, but at least 500,000 bpd of oil exports to the U.S. are immediately in jeopardy. Those barrels will have to find another home. Its conceivable that the Maduro government could find another buyer for its oil, likely for a hefty discount, but it still needs diluent to process its heavy oil before it is ready for export. Related: The Only Way For The Aramco IPO Is Downstream

Up until recently, Venezuela sourced that diluent from the U.S., but now PDVSA will need to find it elsewhere. The risk is that production declines accelerate because of the inability to process its heavy crude. Production in Venezuela is likely to decrease by more than the shortfall in exports to the US of approx. 500,000 barrels per day, Commerzbank wrote in a note on Wednesday. To be sure, Venezuela was expected to suffer from ongoing production declines anyway, but U.S. sanctions could accelerate those losses.

The Trump administration is banking on Saudi Arabia making up for any shortfall. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin said that Americas friends in the Middle East will be happy to make up the supply. But that is far from a foregone conclusion. Saudi Arabia said that it would lower its output to 10.1 million barrels per day (mb/d) in February  below its required ceiling  and keep it at that level through June. Riyadh does not want to ride to the rescue of Donald Trump a second time around.

That means that the oil market could be significantly tighter by the time sanctions waivers expire in May, which could force Trump to back off once again. The Venezuela sanctions, along with sanctions on Irans oil exports, will create a tighter market for heavy crude oil, said Sara Vakhshouri, the president of SVB Energy International, according to Foreign Policy. [T]would lead to another round of 180-day U.S. waivers on Irans oil exports. Related: Oil Markets Unmoved By Modest Inventory Build

Moreover, Trumps aggressive approach towards Iran does not have nearly as much backing as its quest for regime change in Venezuela. While major European powers are leaning towards backing Juan Guaido, essentially signing off on Americas approach of toppling Maduro, they are very much opposed to the U.S. maximum pressure campaign in Iran.

In fact, France, Germany and the UK are finalizing the special purpose vehicle (SPV) just this week, a financing mechanism that will allow European companies to skirt U.S. sanctions and continue to do business with Iran. There is debate over how effective the SPV will be, but the effort demonstrates the lengths to which Europe is going to ensure that Iran still enjoys the benefits of the 2015 nuclear deal so as to keep the accord alive.

However, it could be the oil market itself that keeps the U.S. in check. If oil prices rise in the coming months  in part because of American efforts at disrupting Venezuelan oil  then Iran could be spared the worst for a second time.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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The shale gas bonanza may finally be slowing after a decade of skyrocketing growth.

In 2018, the U.S. natural gas industry broke new production records, but demand rose to new heights as well, ensuring that the market remained tight. In fact, natural gas prices spiked in November due to extraordinary low inventory levels and a cold snap that threatened to tighten supplies too much.

However, prices quickly came back down. Mild weather eased pressure on inventory levels, utilities leaned on coal plants to a greater degree, and speculators liquidated some bullish bets that had pushed prices up to multi-year highs.

But a larger trend underway in the U.S. natural gas industry allowed for prices to come back down  production is still soaring and most analysts see ample supplies going forward after winter comes to an end. In fact, Bank of America Merrill Lynch went so far as to predict congestion at storage facilities as soon as this summer, which is a notable forecast given that the U.S. entered this winter demand season with storage levels at their lowest levels in more than a decade.

The recent decline in natural gas prices  and more importantly, the expectation that inventories will rise sharply this year  has forced several top shale gas drillers to adopt more spending restraint. EQT Corp., the largest natural gas producer in the U.S., lowered its spending plans for 2019.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a handful of other top shale gas producers, including Gulfport Energy and Antero Resources, are also scaling back their ambitions. A slowdown in spending and drilling is exceptional, given that the shale gas industry has been breaking production records  nearly uninterrupted  for more than a decade. Related: Is This A Buy Signal For Crude Oil Futures?

Part of the problem is that production has simply grown by so much that analysts now question whether the market will be able to absorb all of the new supply.

Natural gas production is soaring in the Permian basin, where it is produced as a byproduct. E&Ps are targeting oil in the Permian, and gas is virtually worthless because of the glut. But because gas is not the main target, Permian drillers dont really care that the gas market is oversupplied and that prices are plumbing new depths.

But that puts extra pressure on gas-focused companies, particularly those in the Marcellus and Utica shales (the Appalachia basin), such as EQT. Companies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia do not have the benefit of producing oil. They are aiming for natural gas and other liquids, so lower natural gas prices cuts to the core of their business.

The Wall Street Journal reports that investors are pressuring the likes of EQT, Antero Resources and Gulfport Energy, demanding improvement in their financial performance. For years, Wall Street rewarded shale gas companies for their production growth, which was the main metric investors used to gauge future financial prospects. But with so many companies posting very disappointing returns, despite huge production, investors are falling out of love with the growth model.

Growth is a disease that has plagued the space, and it needs to be cured before the sector can garner long-term investor interest, Matthew Portillo, director of exploration and production research at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., told the WSJ. The industry has been under significant shareholder pressure to change the way it allocates capital.

A similar trend has been underway for some time in the oil industry, with shareholders rewarding companies that are hiking dividends and share buybacks instead of spending more on production growth. Related: Political Crisis In Venezuela To Reshape OPEC

As the WSJ notes, the share prices for EQT, Antero and Gulfport are down more than 40 percent in the past two years, a period of time that saw strong gains for the broader S&P 500. This is stockholder value destruction in the starkest possible terms, Firefly Value Partners LP, a firm that owns 8.1 percent of Gulfports shares, wrote in a note to Gulfports board, according to the WSJ.

EQT, for its part, has seen an internal revolt. Toby and Derek Rice, the founders of Rice Energy, which was purchased by EQT in 2017, are pushing to take over as leaders of EQT because they blame current management for the companys poor performance. The Rice family still owns 2.7 percent of EQT, and they are using their ownerships takes, plus the leverage of hedge funds that own portions of the company, to take over the executive leadership.

While the palace intrigue inside EQT is interesting by itself, the larger point is that the shale gas giant is struggling to impress Wall Street even as its production soars. Under pressure, EQT recently said that it would spend nearly $700 million less this year than it did in 2018. The decision suggests that even the largest shale gas companies are beginning to succumb to intense pressure from Wall Street, and they may already be reining in their ambitions. That does not mean that gas production will fall, but it could mean that the years of blistering growth rates could be coming to an end.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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Europe has long been considered as the sink of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, absorbing the cargoes that dont get sold on the booming Asian market.

LNG analysts and industry officials, however, expect Europe to become a genuine LNG demand market after 2021, as natural gas production in northwest Europe is set for a decline and as global LNG supply growth is set to likely outstrip Asian demand growth.

This winters LNG trade patterns have highlighted the role of Europe as a last-resort LNG market for suppliers.

Asian LNG prices have been at their weakest in three years so far this winter. So U.S. cargoes have found home in Europe, which has been the top buyer of U.S. LNG this winter season.

Meanwhile, Asian LNG spot prices fell last week for a fifth consecutive week amid above-average temperatures and ample supply. Major Asian buyersespecially Chinahad stockpiled gas well ahead of the winter. Milder winter weather in some parts of Asia and high stockpiles mean that there is currently little appetite for spot cargoes.

With weak Asian prices, Europe has been acting as the dump for LNG cargoes, but experts at the ongoing European Gas Conference in Vienna believe that the European market will start to show genuine demand in a year or two.

Europe will not just play the balancing role Europe will become more dependent on LNG, S&P Global Platts quoted the head of LNG at OMV, Elena Sidorochkina, as saying at the conference.

Natural gas production in northwest Europe is set for a decline in coming years, as the Netherlands is reducing production at the huge Groningen field, aiming to terminate production by 2030. The UK and Norway may also see drops in natural gas exports to nearby countries in northwest Europe. Related: The Venezuela Benefit For Canadian Oil Producers Is Limited

At the same time, global LNG supply is expected to continuously grow, likely outpacing Asias LNG demand growth, analysts and officials say.

According to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, this year could be a record year for LNG projects approved, with more than 60 mmtpa of capacity likely to reach final investment decision (FID). This will be well above the previous record of 45 mmtpa sanctioned in 2005 and triple the 21 mmtpa projects sanctioned last year.

Frontrunners in the race to hit FID include the US$27 billion Arctic LNG-2 in Russia, at least one project in Mozambique and three in the US. Our picks in the US are Golden Pass, Calcasieu Pass and Sabine Pass Train 6, WoodMac said in its 2019 outlook.

At the same time, the consultancy noted that Asian LNG demand growth will not keep pace with LNG supply and Europe, northwest Europe in particular, will have to absorb the surplus, especially during the summer.

European natural gas import demand will grow, while Russias pipeline gas capacity is limited by infrastructure bottlenecks in Europe, especially at the Baumgarten gas hub in Austria, according to Wood Mackenzies Hadrien Collineau, Senior Research Analyst, EMEARC Commodity Analytics for Gas and LNG.

Its not that Russia doesnt have the natural gas or the capacity to export that gas, rather, it will be infrastructure bottlenecks that could limit volumes to Europe. Related: Political Crisis In Venezuela To Reshape OPEC

Wood Mackenzie believes Europes LNG requirements will more than double by 2025. Europes growing gas import dependency, coupled with constraints on Russian pipeline exports, mean that LNG imports will have to increase, Collineau said.

For some time, northwest Europe has been regarded as the sink of the global LNG market, the analyst added.

However, northwest Europe will have to compete for LNG imports on the global market after 2020, Collineau noted.

Europe may have been seen as the one picking up the leftover supply from Asia, but analysts believe that the European market will soon start to play a more important role in LNG demand.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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In what would be an early geopolitical win for Moscow, German news agency DW reported yesterday, citing one of the projects engineers, that the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline should be operational by November.

Klaus Haussmann, an engineer at Nord Stream 2's future landfall site at Lubmin on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, told German public radio station Deutschlandfunk that the "raw" laying of the pipeline would be finished by the middle of 2019, according to the DW report. "Then comes the entire installation of the electrical equipment, security chains. And, then it's planned on the large scale that we get the first conduit filled with gas in November, from Russia," Haussmann said.

Haussmann said his concern was more the impact of the Baltic's winter weather and waves on construction at sea and less so the international pros and cons. "For two years or more, Nord Stream 2 has been pretty much under fire. But at the moment we have more worries with the weather outside," he said.

Geopolitically charged pipeline

Nord Stream 2 is a 759 mile (1,222 km) natural gas pipeline running on the bed of the Baltic Sea from Russian gas fields to Germany, bypassing existing land routes over Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. It would double the existing Nord Stream pipelines current annual capacity of 55 bcm.

However, it is arguably one of the most geopolitically charged energy projects ever proposed. Germany maintains that the pipeline is needed to increase natural gas supply as some EU members move away from nuclear for power generation, but not everyone agrees. The U.S., under the past three presidents including Donald Trump, has long countered that the pipeline puts European national security in jeopardy - a concern that seems grounded given Russias history of using gas a geopolitical weapon in the middle of winter.

Ukraine, which has argued that it will lose revenue since the Nord Stream 2 project would bypass the country, has tried to form a consortium of EU-based companies to stop the new pipeline, however, those efforts have largely fallen apart and at this point would be too late to make much difference. Related: Germanys Rush To Ditch Coal Is Great News For Norway

The Nord Stream 2 project has so angered President Trump that his administration has recently threatened to put sanctions in place if the project becomes operational. In a televised meeting with reporters and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before a NATO summit in Brussels last year, Trump said it was very inappropriate that the U.S. was paying for European defense against Russia while Germany, the biggest European economy, was supporting gas deals with Moscow.

Earlier this month, Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, said sanctions could be put in place against specific German firms involved in the pipeline project, prompting Berlin to reply that "nothing had changed" and the project had its permits and was proceeding. "We're not that easy to impress and intimidate," said German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier.

U.S. pressure

Though Germany has resisted U.S. efforts to back out of the Nord Stream 2 project, American pressure is likely the impetus for the country to forge ahead with plans to put more LNG infrastructure in place as well as procure U.S.-sourced LNG which would not only diversify its energy mix but also appease President Trump.

Nord Stream 2 is owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom which already has a monopoly over Russias network of pipelines to Europe and supplies close to 40 percent of Europes gas. Meanwhile, Russia's gas exports to Europe rose 8.1 percent in 2017 to a record level of 193.9 bcm, even amid concerns over Russias cyber espionage allegations, and its activities in Syria, Ukraine and other places.

By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com

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The Trump administration stepped up its effort at regime change in Venezuela on Monday, announcing sanctions intended to cripple the countrys oil sector.

The U.S. government will bar most transactions between any American companies and PDVSA, with some limited exceptions. The U.S. Treasury Department justified the sanctions, saying that PDVSA has long been a vehicle for embezzlement. The sanctions immediately put 500,000 bpd of Venezuelan oil exports at risk, as well as some 100,000 bpd of U.S. exports of diluents to Venezuela.

Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela, would be allowed to continue to operate, but its revenues will be diverted into a designated account. The Trump administration is trying to put Venezuelas oil revenues into the hands of its preferred president, Juan Guiado.

The threat of oil sanctions on Venezuela has been on the table for the better part of two years. Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson repeatedly hinted at the possibility of oil sanctions, but the U.S. government held off on such a drastic move over fears that it would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and it would also result in the U.S. bearing responsibility for the crisis.

Both of those things are now happening. Prior American sanctions have arguably made the humanitarian situation much worse, and the new round will surely deepen the misery inside the country.

Moreover, the U.S. is actively seeking regime change in Venezuela and is no longer trying to hide that fact. If there was any question about American intentions, those were put to rest late last week with the appointment of Elliott Abrams as the special envoy for American policy on Venezuela. Related: Whats Behind Saudi Arabias New Downstream Strategy?

Abrams is infamous for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, his support for strongmen in Central America that engaged in massacres in the 1980s, as well as his efforts to discredit reports of those killings. In many ways, he personifies the very dark period of American foreign policy in Latin America in the 20th century. His elevation to lead American policy on Venezuela is a little on the nose, but to be sure, the Trump administration no longer has any compunction about broadcasting its desire for regime change.

Trumps National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was holding a yellow legal pad at a press conference, which had 5,000 troops to Colombia scribbled on it. He did not mention that fact, and the White House declined to backtrack when asked about it, a spokesman responded by saying as the President has said, all options are on the table.

In the meantime, the sanctions on PDVSA alone are a dramatic escalation in the campaign to oust Maduro, and they amount to a nuclear bomb, Franscico Monaldi of the Baker Institute at Rice University said in comments to the New York Times. However, he pointed out that Chevron, Halliburton and Schlumberger are going to be allowed to continue to work in Venezuela. That suggests that Venezuelas oil production may not entirely collapse.

The motivation by the U.S. government is to rip Venezuelas oil sector out of Maduros hands and place it under the control of Juan Guiado. As such, the U.S. wants Venezuelas oil sector to remain alive, if on life support. Related: Trump Looks To Neutralize Pipeline Opponents

But the sanctions seriously complicate the situation. Venezuela has been exporting upwards of 500,000 bpd to American refiners on the Gulf Coast. Any shipments already at sea will be allowed to reach their destination, but sales will be barred going forward. PDVSA can seek alternative destinations for its crude, such as in India and China, but it is going to have to offer some painful discounts to complete sales in those markets.

However, if the sanctions starve the Venezuelan government of hard currency, Maduro and PDVSA may struggle to meet it soaring debt obligations. That could put Citgo in the sights of swarming creditors, something that Maduro clearly sees as a possibility. With this measure theyre setting out to steal the Citgo company from all Venezuelans, Maduro said at the diplomatic ceremony in Caracas. No, Donald Trump. No, no, no. The U.S. estimates that the sanctions could cost the Maduro government around $11 billion in missed revenue over the next year, and the new measures also freeze around $7 billion in assets.

As for the global oil market, Venezuela is now in danger of suffering steeper supply losses, something that U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin dismissed as a minor problem. There has been excess oil, Mnuchin said, according to the NYT. Many of our friends in the Middle East will be happy to make up the supply.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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The Aramco IPO fog has been partly cleared up, after Amin Nasser, Aramcos CEO, opened up to the press during a meeting at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

What some already expected has now become clear, Aramcos much anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO), will be mainly targeting downstream assets. Even though Nasser did not explicitly state this, looking at remarks made previously by Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid Al Falih, the picture is clear. As Al Falih clearly stated, the only one having ownership rights of Saudi crude oil and gas reserves in the Kingdom is Saudi Aramco, no other player will be involved.

During a private meeting in Davos, Nasser indicated to mainstream Saudi news outlet Arab News that the Aramco IPO will be held in 2021, which is several years later than was expected after the announcement by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Originally, the IPO was expected at the end of 2019, but the new date is more feasible and practical for a couple of reasons.



Ongoing diversification efforts of Aramco the last years, as shown by its multi-billion downstream spending spree the last months in Asia (especially Pakistan and South Korea) have put the IPO on hold. At the same time, Aramco is fully engaged in setting up external financing for the slated SABIC acquisition, which would make it in one go the worlds largest downstream company. For the Kingdom, a downstream IPO would not only remove transparancy issues with regards to commercial operations of Aramco, price settings and reserve questions, but would also make it easier to involve foreign partners. Downstream assets also could and will include international assets, partly to support higher interest of investments funds and sovereign wealth funds. Related: Oil Prices Rise As Saudis Pledge Deeper Cuts

Nasser still did not refer to a full-downstream IPO, but the signals are clear. The Kingdom has changed tax rules, made a new concession agreement, changed Aramco into a joint stock company, and introduced a lot of fiscal reforms to facilitate a listing, but skepticism about the transparency of the Saudi national oil company still exists. The first next step still is the acquisition of SABIC, and the financing of this $70 billion deal. Advisors have already been contracted, while the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, the main shareholder of SABIC, is positive on the sale.

At the same time, as stated above, Saudi minister of Energy Khalid Al Falih has reiterated that Aramco will retain exclusive rights to develop Saudi Arabias oil reserves. Al Falih said there is no intention whatsoever to chip away at Aramcos exclusivity and its concession. This is seen by some investors as a very large risk, even if third party assessments have now shown full reserves of the company. Still, for Riyadh, the position of Aramco and ownership of the oil reserves, is of national security. Saudi Arabias current geopolitical position, and the growing investment attractiveness, is still directly linked to the companys oil reserves. As shown by current developments, the oil giant is focusing on downstream JVs, even within the Kingdom, but theres no eagerness in upstream JVs. Security of the Kingdom, and its Royal Family, Al Saud, depends 100% on the oil revenue base. With total reserves audited at a total of 268.5 billion barrels, no moves are to be expected to change this situation. Without full transparency in reserves and commercial pricing decisions (as Aramco is still to be considered a NATIONAL oil company), the only way for an IPO is downstream.

Riyadh also will need to have the full ownership of oil and gas reserves in the Kingdom to leverage the latter for its multi-billion or even trillion investment schemes being presented. Without this, no major diversification can be executed and the position of the ruling royal family will also be directly affected. A cash machine like Aramcos upstream department is simply too valuable to be offered to the markets.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

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As international prices inched up in the aftermath of Washingtons latest sanctions against Venezuela, the Energy Information Administration reported a build in crude oil inventories for the week to January 25. At 900,000 barrels, the build is modest, and follows an increase of 8 million barrels in the previous week.

Gasoline inventories reversed four weeks of builds. In the week to January 24, these shed 2.2 million barrels. In the previous four weeks, cumulative gains in gasoline reached 26.6 million barrels.

There has been growing worry that United States refiners are producing excessive amounts of gasoline, which has pressured their profit margins as the oversupply combines with sluggish demand. Last week, refineries churned out 9.9 million barrels daily of gasoline, compared with 9.6 million bpd a week earlier.

In distillate fuels, the EIA reported a 1.1-million-barrels inventory decline and average daily production of 5 million barrels, versus 5.2 million bpd a week earlier.

Meanwhile, events in Venezuela are firmly in the spotlight. Earlier this week, the U.S. announced new sanctions on the state oil company, PDVSA, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin noting the company could avoid repercussions if it recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimatealbeit interimpresident of the country. Related: Oil Prices Rise As Saudis Pledge Deeper Cuts

At the same time Guaido said he would be announcing new boards of directors for both PDVSA and its U.S. unit, Citgo, further increasing a sense of confusion already overwhelming Venezuela. The Maduro government responded with a freeze of his bank accounts and a travel ban, following which U.S. national security adviser John Bolton threatened serious consequences if anything happened to Guaido, whom Washington, along with Canada and a number of South American governments embraced as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

Although price reactions to the deteriorating situation have been limited, they have been positive. However, from the perspective of drivers, the news about higher oil prices is not so good, and neither is it good for refiners, as demand for gasoline remains slow in growing.



By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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China is rushing headlong toward a more sustainable and green energy industry, with aggressive renewable energy campaigns in spite of significant setbacks like limited transmission capacity and a steadily growing backlog of subsidy payments. According to data released this week, in 2018 China grew its renewable power capacity by a whopping 12 percent as compared to the previous year, with the government continuing to introduce new renewable energy projects all the time.

Numbers shared by the National Energy Administration (NEA) during a media briefing this week show that by the end of last year the total renewable power capacity in China increased to 728 gigawatts (GW). This increase accounted for an impressive 38.3 percent of Chinas total installed power capacity, 1.7 percentage points higher on the year and approximately 7 percentage points higher than the end of 2015. So far, Chinas renewables investment has been focused on hydro, biomass, solar and wind power.

Of the 728 GW added to the grid in 2018, 20.59 GW were from new wind power capacity and 44.3 GW from new solar capacity. This amount of new solar capacity is higher than earlier estimates, but it shows a decrease in solar growth nonetheless, following a 2017 decision to cut down on Chinese solar subsidies. In addition to wind and solar, there were also smaller contributions to the grid, including from hydropower, which added 8.54 GW of capacity for a total hydropower capacity of 352 GW by the end of the year.

This growing enthusiasm for renewables in China comes from a larger energy revolution objective that endeavors to wean the worlds second-largest economy off of its long-time dependence on coal. With the fastest growing consumer market in the world and notoriously horrific air quality, China is looking to move away from one of the dirtiest forms of power production to something much cleaner and with a significantly lighter carbon footprint. Related: Chinese Solar Giant: The Party Is Definitely Over

The intense ramping up of renewable power production, however, has introduced a new level of strain on grid operators, who have to correspondingly raise transmission capacity. Because of this, China has attempted to vary the rhythm of renewable power construction in order to allow these grid operators an opportunity to add the necessary transmission capacity as well as make sure that the new energy generation does not go to waste. It would seem that this strategy has been a success in at least some sectors, as deputy head of the NEAs new energy section Li Chuangjun says that the amount of wind power waste fell to 7 percent in the last year, 5 percent lower than the previous year. The utilization rate of renewable energy is constantly going up, he quoted at this weeks NEA media briefing.

A recent guideline put together by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration set objectives for Chinas clean energy consumption between now and 2020. The guideline stipulates that by this year, wind power utilization rate should top 90 per cent, while the utilization rates of both photovoltaic and hydropower should reach more than 95 per cent.

These renewable energy goalposts are being implemented in tandem with initiatives to clean up Chinas coal plants, still the backbone of Chinese power production, by way of new emissions control technology. While Chinas energy revolution promises a literal breath of fresh air to its smog-choked cities and citizens, however, the country has received a good deal of criticism for funding major coal projects in other countries. Furthermore, recent reporting show that those new emissions controls in coal plants arent working so well after all.

While Chinas clean energy goals are ambitious, and the country certainly is gaining some ground in its energy revolution, it remains to be seen whether the reality will live up to the rhetoric. Even if China can get its own air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions under control, it counts for little if they are funding the same dirty coal operations elsewhere.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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A loyalist of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has suggested to the countrys leader, as part of his endeavors to unite the North African country and stamp out racism, to wed his daughter to Biram Dah Ould Abeid, the leader of an anti-slavery initiative.

Mohamed El Mokhtar Ould Hmein Amar, mayor of Aoujeft, a center-northern town, suggested that President Ould Abdel Aziz, in addition to his multiple unity actions, should marry his daughter Leila Mint Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz to Biram.

The Mauritanian leader has two daughters. Leilas sister Asma is already married.

The suggested-marriage is unlikely as Leila is already engaged while Biram, himself, is already married.

The anti-slavery leader is one of the toughest critics of the Mauritanian regime that he accuses of perpetuating slavery in the North African country.

Authorities criminalized the phenomenon several decades ago but Biram and his movement continue to claim that the phenomenon persists and that slaves are still subject to inhuman treatment.
I will never believe that he loves her.

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lmao, why? people act like he's so above her



Edited at 2019-01-29 11:13 pm (UTC)

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Not that hes above her. Probably just going off body language and how shes always changing herself for him and he doesnt really seem to be doing all the same things for her. But Im sure his stans would point out all the ways he does so who really knows

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It has nothing to do with being above someone. You can love and care deeply about a hamster. But he obviously will continue to cheat and use her for her money.

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bc people deluded themselves into thinking his overgrown chipmunk's face is a 10 while miley's cookie face is a 6.

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That's such BS. They've been together since they were teens and own a home and tons of animals together. Oh and they're married. Men don't do that shit for just anyone

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Same

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idk why, I think it's pretty clear. weird thing to think

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lmao mean! I kinda like this ~jock + ~weird girl combination you don't see it a lot in Hollywood

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the before(single)/after(married) in miley's looks is so predictably textbook white feminist.

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wait what? LOL i think it was more like "before: single and going through a promotion for a new image because she had a new narrative because she's a pop star" "after: married and also her normal boring self when she's not choosing new cultures to appropriate"

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aww she looks so happy

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Liam was honored with the Excellence in Film Award for his achievements as an actor



Wait...wut?

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Seriously, he hasnt done anything in a couple years.

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It was either him, his brother, Jai Courtney, or Margot Robbie. Not a lot of choices!

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I mean the obvious choice there is Margot Robbie lmao. Jai Courtney?!? Embarrassing. (as in I'm embarrassed he exists and people know about him)



Edited at 2019-01-29 11:30 pm (UTC)

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hdu Harley Quinn Harding for all the awards

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Mte, I guess standards are low

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Lol mte

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lol right? I definitely did a double take

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This. The last thing I can even remember him in was the last Hunger Games movie.

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Liam was honored with the Excellence in Film Award



lol

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> Liam Hemsworth

> Excellence In Film





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I feel like she's more into the relationship than he is just going by pics I see of them, but idk.

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it's so weird to me how he gives off such MAJOR douchebag vibes but somehow I never get the same thing from his brother, even though chris is always in the gym and prancing around like a total jock

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Chris at least has a personality, Liam does not

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It's cos Chris has charisma.

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He also seems to love his family. You see him with them all the time. Like he picks projects around that. Which is hella nice to see. Usually it's women doing that.

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idk how

they are both so douchey lmao

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chris comes off like a good family guy, i love his instagram lol

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I wonder what is like for Liam having a horse for a brother-in-law.

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aw that clip was really cute

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Has she gotten younger or something? She looks 15 again.

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Shes Younger Now

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lmaoo

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Love

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I can't stand this racist piece of trash.

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poor larry

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The fact we actually met Larry Hemsworth after Tahani mentioned him once for a second just proved this show is the best.

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The Good Place, one of the funniest, most intelligent shows EVA!

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the good place!

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lmao only a reject hemsworth could have more of an inferiority complex than tahani

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She looks nice, seems she tamed the chipmunk in her

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Staff Writer

Brad Hundt came to the Observer-Reporter in 1998 after stints at newspapers in Georgia and Michigan. He serves as editorial page editor, and has covered the arts and entertainment and worked as a municipal beat reporter.
Assassinations in broad daylight. Ruthless agents plotting undercover. Bugging devices in every Western capital. Three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, the specter of the notorious KGB still looms large in the public imagination. Now, a Manhattan museum offers a time-traveler's plunge into the world of the Cold War-era spy agency, complete with portraits of Vladimir Lenin on the walls, military music in the background and high-tech espionage devices galore. The KGB Spy Museum is the brainchild of a 55-year-old Lithuanian historian Julius Urbaitis, who spent three decades traveling the world to gather the 3,500 original artefacts brought together in its cavernous exhibition hall. Housed on Manhattan's West 14th street, dozens of period objects showcase the cutting-edge technology used by the KGB's spies to steal a march on the Soviet Union's rivals -- chief among them the United States. There are dozens of cameras designed to be concealed in buttons, belts or accessories. There are lipstick guns, miniature microphones, and shoe heels with secret caches for documents. There is a replica of the "Bulgarian umbrella" used in 1978 in London to fatally poison Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in one particularly infamous Cold War episode. Also on display, a wooden carving of the Great Seal of the United States that came to be known as "The Great Seal Bug" -- or simply "The Thing." Presented as a gift to US ambassador Averell Harriman in 1945 -- it was bugged with a miniature microphone powered by electromagnetic energy, pioneering technology for the time -- and enabled Soviets to eavesdrop on conversations inside his Moscow study until it was uncovered seven years later. - Period decor - KGB offices are painstakingly reconstituted using original period artefacts, from furniture, typewriters and uniforms right down to books, cigarettes or tea cups. As an optional extra, visitors can take a tour with a Russian-speaking guide -- such as Sergei Kolosov, a former detective with the Saint Petersburg police who remembers using some of the items on show. Urbaitis and his daughter Agne Urbaityte, 29, describe themselves as co-curators of the show, whose owner is an American company which includes several art collectors, and which wishes to remain anonymous. The collectors had heard of research by the father-daughter duo who a few years back converted a disused nuclear bunker into a KGB museum, in their home city of Kaunas, in Lithuania. Annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II, Lithuania only regained independence after the Soviet bloc fell in 1991 -- when Urbaitis was 27 years old. "The Americans came to Lithuania several times and asked if I could make a museum in the United States," he said, speaking mostly in Russian. "They didn't want someone who didn't know the (Soviet) regime." While the museum does depict harsh KGB tactics -- for instance through a model of an interrogation chair -- some critics have taken issue with its seemingly light-hearted approach to a deadly legacy. Urbaitis counters that his project is "apolitical" -- and his goal simply to "make this museum the best in the world about KGB technologies." - 'The iPhone is the best spy' - For proof of the enduring fascination with the KGB, look no further than the runaway success of the long-running TV series "The Americans," loosely inspired by the story of a couple of Soviet spies living under deep cover in US suburbia. The new museum welcomed hundreds of people in its first few days. "It's an indication of how our two countries -- Russia and the US -- were constantly trying to gain secrets one to the other," said Jim Lytle, who was among its early visitors. "Russia might have an exhibition like this about the CIA, I hope they do," he added. While the Soviet Union is long gone, and the technology has evolved beyond recognition, allegations of espionage dirty tricks continue to swirl around modern-day Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin -- a former head of the FSB, the main successor to the notorious KGB. Russian agents stand accused of poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain last year, triggering an international outcry and a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western nations. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, the special prosecutor investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 US election has brought charges against 25 Russians including several from the country's GRU military intelligence agency. "We are in a different war now," commented Lytle, a retiree from the advertising industry. "Now it is a war of ideology more so than threats about an atomic bomb and mass destruction. Today a lot of it is on the internet and social media." But for Urbaitis, the source of fascination lies firmly in the past, and he has little interest in documenting modern-day spy techniques -- often relying on everyday connected objects. "The iPhone is the best spy. Our computers are the best spies," he says. "Now we are giving information ourselves. It's easier for the agents." Manhattan's KGB Spy Museum brings together thousands of period artefacts, from bugging devices to weapons, to furniture, books, cigarettes and tea cups A miniature wire recorder on display at the KGB Spy Museum in New York Julius Urbaitis, curator of Manhattan's KGB museum, shows off a replica of the "Bulgarian umbrella" used to murder Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 Manhattan's KGB museum features prison doors -- with video images of purported detainees A lipstick gun on display at the KGB Spy Museum in New York Objects on display at the KGB museum include miniature microphones, and shoe heels with secret caches for documents
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday 47 rescued migrants aboard the German charity Sea Watch vessel could finally disembark after Italy and six other countries agreed to take them in. France, Germany, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Luxembourg have all now offered to accept some of the migrants who have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel since January 19. The ship, which had taken shelter from bad weather off Syracuse in Sicily, was ordered to head for Catania, where the interior ministry said the minors on board could best be housed. The four-hour journey up the coast was delayed, however, after a technical problem with the anchor winch. It was not immediately clear how long it would take to repair. The fate of the migrants has been at the centre of a standoff between Italy's far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini -- who has closed the ports to migrants and demanded Europe take its share -- and Sea Watch. The aid group on Friday filed an urgent case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship to dock and the mainly sub-Saharan migrants, including 15 minors, to disembark. - Legal action - Rescuers said the migrants were exhausted physically and psychologically, and some bore the scars of violence suffered in crisis-hit Libya. Salvini has warned he is considering legal action against Sea Watch's crew, which he has accused of sailing straight for Italy rather than taking the migrants to closer ports in Libya or Tunisia. The NGO says it tried but failed to get a response from Tripoli or Tunis. The decision to send the ship to Catania raised red flags among migration and legal experts who said it might be impounded. Local prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro has made a name for himself as a legal thorn in the side of the NGOs that rescue migrants at sea. In March 2018 he impounded the Open Arms ship as part of an investigation into the crew for allegedly aiding illegal migrants by refusing to hand them over to the Libyan coast guard. The ship was released after a month following a court ruling that Libya could not be considered a safe country because of a lack of safeguards for human rights. Sea Watch 3, which is sailing under a Dutch flag, pulled the migrants to safety as they attempted the treacherous Mediterranean crossing. - Possible ban - People rescued at sea have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government came to power in July. Salvini said Wednesday he was looking into a way to ban all ships with rescued migrants from entering Italian waters. Europe has been wrestling with divisions over how to handle the problem since the migration crisis of 2015 when more than one million people arrived on its shores, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for the need for "humane solutions" for migrant rescue operations and urged that migrants be allowed to disembark at the nearest port, in this case "in Italy". He said sharing of the care of migrants came after, and that France was committed to that principle. In a similar case earlier this month, the EU struck a deal to share out between eight European countries nearly 50 migrants stranded aboard two ships, one of which was Sea Watch 3. Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year, according to the UN refugee agency, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey. The 47 migrants and asylum seekers have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel for nearly two weeks
Iran, cryptocurrency

As U.S-imposed sanctions continue to cripple Iran economically, the Islamic state is reportedly on the verge of announcing its state-backed cryptocurrency.

The ability of Iranian financial institutions to conduct transactions and relate with the rest of the world has been shackled since the sanctions were enforced and many believe the Iranian cryptocurrency will help abate some of the effects of the sanctions. To further stoke the rumor fires, it has been reported that the Iranian government expects to make an announcement concerning the digital asset at the annual Electronic Banking and Payment Systems Conference, which kicks off in Tehran on January 29, 2019, according to Al Jazeera.

Hard Times Since the Sanctions

The Donald Trump administration imposed stern sanctions on Iran back in the middle of 2018 over malign activities being carried out by the state. By November, Belgian-based financial messaging system SWIFT was banned from providing its financial services to the country as well.

Citizens of countries such as Iran, which have been banned from the SWIFT network, find themselves unable to make and receive payments for foreign trade activities and a wide array of other international transactions. This drove the country into the research and development of its own digital currency, as many saw this as the only way to ensure that Iranian banks and citizens could continue to conduct the cross-border transactions that were no longer accessible due to the SWIFT ban.

Read the full story on CCN.com.
The Personal Envoy of UN Secretary-General for the Sahara Horst Kohler briefed on Tuesday the Security Council on the first roundtable meeting held in Geneva Dec. 5-6 on the Sahara that brought together Morocco, Algeria, the Polisario and Mauritania.

During this briefing and consultation held in accordance with resolution 2440, Kohler updated the Security Council members on his plans to advance the UN-led political process and convene a second roundtable in March.

The initial Sahara roundtable convened in Geneva was the first of its kind in six years. It was marked by the participation of Algeria, for the first time, as a party to the regional dispute over the Sahara and as a main stakeholder in the process aiming to find a political, realistic, practical and lasting solution to the conflict.

According to the UN, the Geneva 1st roundtable meeting was held as a first step towards a renewed negotiations process with the aim of reaching a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable solution.

Discussion in Geneva focused on stocktaking of recent developments, challenges and opportunities for regional integration, and next steps in the political process.

Morocco insists that the autonomy plan offered for the Sahara should be the basis for any negotiation, while Algeria and the Polisario still cling to the organization of a self-determination referendum, an obsolete option deemed unworkable by the UN due to everlasting disputes over eligible voters.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had urged all parties to the Sahara issue to demonstrate political will in order to advance the negotiations, emphasizing the importance of an enduring political solution to this regional conflict.

The former rounds of UN-brokered negotiations on the Sahara stalled due to the intransigent stand of the Algeria-backed Polisario front.

UN Security Council adopted end of April 2018 resolution 2414 which stressed the need to make progress in the search for a realistic, pragmatic and sustainable political solution to the Sahara issue.

The text also called on neighboring countries, namely Algeria and Mauritania, to make an important contribution to the political process and to engage further in the negotiations with the aim of reaching a mutually acceptable political solution, conducive to regional integration in the Maghreb and to regional peace and stability.
Travelogue III: Washington DC

The layout of Washington DC is perfect with the tidy, clean and clear environment. All buildings are arranged neatly and in order. The city is famous for its White House and Capitol Building. The White House is located at Pennsylvania Avenue NW. It is the official residence and workplace of the President of the United States. The Capitol Building is located on Capitol Hill. It is the United States Capitol and the home of the United States Congress and the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government.

In addition, there are lots and lots of museums in DC. All the museums are supposed to be good. All facilities have wheelchair access. Since time was limited, we have only chosen two of them to visit. Mr. White recommended us to visit the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. He considered it is the best one. Another one, the American History Museum, also is not bad.

Actually, the park lot is easy to find in DC. Due to being unfamiliar with the area, initially, we parked in a parking garage close to the White House. We paid $12 for one hour, and then rushed to the scene of the White House. Strange thing was that we found less people there. It seemed the purpose of all people was just for taking pictures. It only took us twenty minutes to finish the looking. Back to the garage, we picked up the car and tried to drive around the White House to take an entire building tour. Eventually, we found we stopped on the back side of the White House. People accumulated at the front side of the White House. The road side parking was much easier and cheaper than in the garage. We only paid $2.5 for one hour.

The restaurants are not popular on the main streets of DC. They are hidden in the first floors of all museums. We didnt have this information by that time. After visiting the Capitol Hill, finding a restaurant became difficult for us. A lot of police officers were on duty around the streets. We intended to avoid those polices because in America, they didnt have the good reputation to be nice their citizens. We drove to try our best to leave the central city and expect to have lunch at a quiet place. Unfortunately, we missed our way and run into Pentagon area. Thanks God for guiding us to see that amazing building. I promise no everyone is so lucky enough to see it. Soon, my excitement was broken by a gentleman, who was angrily seizing to us. He was shouting, yelling and waving his arm to order us leave the area. We were scared and run away as soon as possible. Running and running, suddenly, I saw a subway restaurant sign on the left side of the highway we were driving on.

It seemed eating in that subway restaurant was the happiest time during that week. Room temperature was warmer than anywhere in DC, cashier was nicer than anyone in DC and food was more delicious than in DC. Checking the time, I got to know its dinner time. Who knew how far away we left DC. Ironically, the cashier told us that we were in Virginia, rather than in DC. She also reminded that if we were going to visit Pentagon museum, we must join a group and visit it on a weekend day. It only opens on the weekend for the group of visitors.
Every year, Spin Master continues its work in The Toy Movement, delivering inspiration, fuelling imagination, and bringing joy to children around the world.In December of 2018, a dedicated team of Spin Master employees and partner organizations travelled to Colombia on a 3-day mission delivering toys to children, helping them, play, learn, and grow  as all children should. Visiting rural, impoverished areas, the team met with thousands of children across Colombia spreading the joy of the Toy Movement.As of 2016, 28 million children were living in forced displacement  this includes 12 million child refugees and child asylum seekers, and 16 million children living in internal displacement due to conflict and violence. These numbers do not include 7 million children internally displaced by natural disasters.The Toy Movement aims to show these children that they are not alone, that they are not forgotten. Please click here to learn more about our past missions and to learn how your company can join the movement.The Toy Movement aims to deliver inspiration, imagination, and joy to children in desperate need all over the world.For more information the Toy Movement, please visit http://www.thetoymovement.org/ To find more exciting Spin Master games and toys visit our website: http://www.spinmaster.com Join the conversation and share your photos with Spin Master on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinmaster Spin Master Tweets, too!! Follow them on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SpinMaster


The lions showing off their hip hop moves with the playful big head buddha characters.  Asyraf Rasid/thesun

Chinese New Year Best Reunion Ever!

HIGHLIGHTS

IN PARK PROMOTIONS - RETAIL

IN PARK PROMOTIONS - FOOD & BEVERAGES

Promotions

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Nickelodeon Slime Time

MEET & GREET

WILDLIFE PARK





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Malaysia - Cast the thought of traffic jams far away and create splashing fun memories instead this Chinese New Year with Sunway Lagoons Best Reunion Ever this Feb 1 to 19!From lion dances to the 12 Majestic Drums show, and even meet-and-greet sessions with the God of Prosperity, Captain Quack and Lady Quack, Sunway Lagoon, the citys go-to theme park will be awash with festive lunar new year spirit!At the recent launch of the campaign, Sunway Lagoon general manager Sean Choo told The Sun Daily the theme park aspires to [appeal] to families and millennials as the new year approaches.He added: The Best Reunion Ever celebrates togetherness, [and] promotes fun experiences to create best-day-ever memories for our guests.During the coming long holidays, we invite families, friends, and everyone to skip the jam, and join us for fun-filled experiences.Among the highlights is the special Hip Hop Lion Dance Performance by the Kuala Lumpur branch of the iconic Kun Seng Keng Dragon and Lion Dance Association, happening daily from Feb 5 to Feb 8.Guests can also expect an auspicious welcome dance called Prosperity for All, Chinese New Year sand art workshops, and Hua Ren Heritage Chinese New Year dance performances while enjoying many of the theme parks myriad attractions.Nickelodeons SpongeBob and Patrick will be sporting Chinese New Year themes, and will be offering photo opportunities at the Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon, alongside Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), and Dora the Explorer plus her best friend, Boots!Dont miss Sunway Lagoon original production,, and theshow, while getting a dose of nostalgia with theSunway Lagoon marketing director Michelle Sonia Gregory said: If you look at our activities, we curated activities that are very rich in tradition as well as trendy performances like the Chinese New Year Hip Hop [dance performance].For those looking for a reunion party, book a reunion set at Beach Bistro at RM360 for six persons, and receive a complimentary yee sang.Or nab a free Nickelodeon Lenticular cup with a purchase of the reunion sweet treat from I Scoop For You ice cream parlour at Surf Beach.Visitors can also enjoy more in-park reunion promotions and even collect cute Captain Quack & Friends ang pau on top of a lucky dip promising exciting gifts with a minimum purchase of RM100 at the Nickelodeon Store, Sahara Boutique, and Surf Haven.Dont forget to capture these Chinese New Year moments and upload them to social media with the hashtags #SLBestReunionEver and #SunwayLagoonMY!For more, visit the Sunway Lagoon website or Facebook and Instagram pages.More information about Sunway Lagoons Best Reunion Ever Chinese New Year event, via https://sunwaylagoon.com/bestreunionever/ Planning to have a reunion with family and friends?Join us and have a fun, entertaining and plenty of Insta-moments gathering with your loved ones this 1  19 Feb 2019!Come and enjoy your Best Reunion Ever with our exciting performances and activities from 5  8 February 2019! Meet & Greet with our Captain and Lady Quack at Carousel, Amusement Park from 9:50am  10:20am!Dont forget to let your inner talent shine at our Sand Art workshop happening at Surf Beach from 12:00pm  2:00pm!Catch the 12 Majestic Drums show happening at Giant Canopy, Surf Beach from 1:30pm  1:50pm!Get entertained with our Hua Ren Heritage Dance Performance happening at Giant Canopy, Surf Beach from 2:00pm  2:15pm!Putting a twist to the Lion Dance, catch the Hip Hop Lion Dance happening at Lekan from 3:30pm  3:40pm!- Get a Reunion LUCKY DIP with a minimum spend of RM100 at Nickelodeon Shop, Sahara Boutique or Surf Haven.- Spend RM60 & above and PURCHASE a Spongebob Bath Towel, Umbrella, Water Gun or Googles for only RM20 at all retail outlets.- Grab SPECIAL REUNION ITEMS at RM2 when you spend a minimum of RM20 at Sahara Boutique.- Get a FREE Yee Sang worth RM150 when you buy the Reunion Chinese New Year Lunch Set at RM360 (for 6 persons) at Beach Bistro, Surf Beach.- Grab a FREE Nickelodeon Lenticular cup when you buy the Reunion Sweet Treat (any Ice cream) from I Scoop For You ice cream parlour at Surf Beach.- Receive a MYSTERY GIFT when you buy 2 cans of 100plus or get a FREE Nickelodeon Lenticular cup when you purchase 2 bottles of Minute Maid drinks.- Get a MYSTERY GIFT when you buy Reunion Combo worth RM18 at Wagon Wheel Cafe, Scream Cafe & Zulu Kopitiam.- RM180 per packageInclusive of :- 1 Admission Ticket (Adult/Child/Senior)- 1 Quack Xpress pass- RM 10 retail voucher*Valid via ONLINE purchase for Malaysians only.MyKad- Adult RM130- Child / Senior Citizen RM106International- Adult RM190- Child / Senior Citizen RM160*For ONLINE purchase, get RM10 Retail voucher each.- Adult RM280- Child / Senior Citizen RM240- ENJOY 50% off on your 2nd day & entry is only valid for 2 consecutive days.*Valid via ONLINE purchase for International TravellersTime: 9:50am  10:00amLocation: Main EntranceTime: 12:00pm  12:15pmLocation: Pirates CoveTime: 3:30pm  3:40pmLocation: SpongeBob Splash AdventureTime: 3:30pm | 5:00pmLocation: Mali CoveTime: 4:00pm  4:30pmLocation: Surf StageTime: 10:00am | 5:30pmLocation: Carousel | Nickelodeon Store ExitTime: 12:00pm | 5:30pmLocation: Nickelodeon Lost LagoonTime: 12:30pm | 4:40pmLocation: Nickelodeon Lost LagoonTime: 2:00pm | 2:30pmLocation: Nickelodeon Lost LagoonTime: 1:00pm  2:00pmLocation: TigerlandTime: 3:00pm (Weekdays) | 11:20am & 3:00pm (Weekends, School Holidays & Public Holidays)Location: Wildlife Theatre
Christopher Williams has been the CEO of Wynnstay Properties Plc (LON:WSP) since 2006. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. Next, well consider growth that the business demonstrates. And finally  as a second measure of performance  we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels.

Check out our latest analysis for Wynnstay Properties

Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and receive a $60 prize!

How Does Christopher Williamss Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

According to our data, Wynnstay Properties Plc has a market capitalization of UK15m, and pays its CEO total annual compensation worth UK173k. (This is based on the year to 2018). While this analysis focuses on total compensation, its worth noting the salary is lower, valued at UK142k. We examined a group of similar sized companies, with market capitalizations of below UK152m. The median CEO compensation in that group is UK245k.

So Christopher Williams receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. This doesnt tell us a whole lot on its own, but looking at the performance of the actual business will give us useful context.

You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at Wynnstay Properties, below.

AIM:WSP CEO Compensation January 30th 19

Is Wynnstay Properties Plc Growing?

Over the last three years Wynnstay Properties Plc has grown its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 13% per year (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is down -2.2%.

Overall this is a positive result for shareholders, showing that the company has improved in recent years. Revenue growth is a real positive for growth, but ultimately profits are more important.

Although we dont have analyst forecasts, shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Story continues

Has Wynnstay Properties Plc Been A Good Investment?

With a total shareholder return of 20% over three years, Wynnstay Properties Plc shareholders would, in general, be reasonably content. But they would probably prefer not to see CEO compensation far in excess of the median.

In Summary

Christopher Williams is paid around the same as most CEOs of similar size companies.

We would wish for better returns (whether dividends or capital gains) but we do admire the solid EPS growth on show here. So considering these factors, we think the CEO pay is probably quite reasonable. If you think CEO compensation levels are interesting you will probably really like this free visualization of insider trading at Wynnstay Properties.

Of course, the past can be informative so you might be interested in considering this analytical visualization showing the company history of earnings and revenue.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Watch the full episode 14 of Yahoo UKs show The Royal Box, here.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have, arguably, done the most to modernise the Royal Family.

After her first patronages were announced at the beginning of the year, its clear that Meghans focus is firmly is on empowering women and gender equality. And Harrys onboard with Meghans ideals: during the couples joint visit to Birkenhead earlier this month, Harry also declared that he too is a feminist.

The pair will welcome their first child this spring, so, when it comes to parenting, will their forward-thinking ways lead to a break with tradition?

Harry and Meghan, pictured in Birkenhead, are expecting their first child [Photo: Getty]

Royal correspondent Victoria Murphy tells Yahoo UKs The Royal Box that she would love to see Harry and Meghan share parental leave.

I think theres so much discussion about equality among this couple. Were seeing that so much in what theyre doing, she says.

[Harrys] very happy to let [Meghan] lead and he talks about being a feminist and he talks about her wearing the trousers, and joking about that. But, I think for them to set that example as well, I think, could be really quite significant.

Kate, at the Forest School in October, took six months off for maternity leave after giving birth to Prince Louis [Photo: Getty]

In the UK, all employed pregnant women are entitled to 52 weeks (one year) of maternity leave. The amount of this thats paid is up to each individual company. According to Gov.uk, men may also be entitled to one or two weeks of paid paternity leave  more if their company allows.

However, many couples are now deciding to share parental leave, a 2015 government scheme which allows parents to split up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between them.

The Royal Family doesnt have the kind of fixed maternity leave that a large majority of the British public are entitled to.

The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to Prince Louis in April 2018 and officially returned to her duties in the October, taking six months off.

However, we did see Kate at a few events in the interim, such as Trooping the Colour and Harry and Meghans wedding.

Story continues

Prince William took two weeks paternity leave after the birth of their eldest child Prince George in 2013, when he worked as a RAF search and rescue pilot. He did the same when their daughter Princess Charlotte was born in 2015.

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden shared parental leave [Photo: Getty]

The length of maternity leave has varied for different royals, such as the Queen, Princess Diana and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Its not known who makes the decision about how much time they have off or whether its down to the individual.

Murphy adds: I dont think were going to see Meghan completely disappear off the scene, I think we will see her at some point, just perhaps not as frequently.

Shared parental leave is not unprecedented within royal families.

As Murphy points out, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and her husband Prince Daniel, Duke of Vastergotland shared parental leave with both their children Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar, born in 2012 and 2016 respectively.







Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.

Read more from Yahoo Style UK:

Meghan Markle pregnant: Baby due date, possible names and latest news

Duchess of Cambridge reveals Prince Louis has mastered this sweet milestone

How much maternity leave royal women take, as Duchess of Cambridge returns to work
The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). To keep it practical, well show how Water Intelligence plcs (LON:WATR) P/E ratio could help you assess the value on offer. Based on the last twelve months, Water Intelligences P/E ratio is 43.8. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 2.3%.

View our latest analysis for Water Intelligence

Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a subscription valued at $60.

How Do I Calculate A Price To Earnings Ratio?

The formula for price to earnings is:

Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share (in the reporting currency)  Earnings per Share (EPS)

Or for Water Intelligence:

P/E of 43.8 = $4.72 (Note: this is the share price in the reporting currency, namely, USD )  $0.11 (Based on the year to June 2018.)

Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good?

A higher P/E ratio means that buyers have to pay a higher price for each 1 the company has earned over the last year. All else being equal, its better to pay a low price  but as Warren Buffett said, Its far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios

Probably the most important factor in determining what P/E a company trades on is the earnings growth. When earnings grow, the E increases, over time. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. A lower P/E should indicate the stock is cheap relative to others  and that may attract buyers.

Its nice to see that Water Intelligence grew EPS by a stonking 182% in the last year. And it has bolstered its earnings per share by 15% per year over the last five years. So wed generally expect it to have a relatively high P/E ratio.

How Does Water Intelligences P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers?

Story continues

The P/E ratio indicates whether the market has higher or lower expectations of a company. The image below shows that Water Intelligence has a higher P/E than the average (21.7) P/E for companies in the commercial services industry.

AIM:WATR PE PEG Gauge January 30th 19

Its relatively high P/E ratio indicates that Water Intelligence shareholders think it will perform better than other companies in its industry classification. Clearly the market expects growth, but it isnt guaranteed. So further research is always essential. I often monitor director buying and selling.

Remember: P/E Ratios Dont Consider The Balance Sheet

Its important to note that the P/E ratio considers the market capitalization, not the enterprise value. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. In theory, a company can lower its future P/E ratio by using cash or debt to invest in growth.

Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context.

Water Intelligences Balance Sheet

The extra options and safety that comes with Water Intelligences US$3.5m net cash position means that it deserves a higher P/E than it would if it had a lot of net debt.

The Bottom Line On Water Intelligences P/E Ratio

Water Intelligence has a P/E of 43.8. Thats higher than the average in the GB market, which is 15.8. With cash in the bank the company has plenty of growth options  and it is already on the right track. So it does not seem strange that the P/E is above average.

Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. If the reality for a company is better than it expects, you can make money by buying and holding for the long term. So this free visual report on analyst forecasts could hold they key to an excellent investment decision.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E below 20.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
For readers, summer is the season for beach reads. Coined about 30 years ago, the term beach read is often used but rarely defined. So what does it mean for a book to be a beach read? Initially, it referred to those blockbuster books that were published in summer, regardless of who wrote t
Paris (AFP) - Scientists have long known that some beaked whales beach themselves and die in agony after exposure to naval sonar, and now they know why: the giant sea mammals suffer decompression sickness, just like scuba divers.

At first blush, the explanation laid out Wednesday by 21 experts in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B seems implausible.

Millions of years of evolution have turned whales into perfectly calibrated diving machines that plunge kilometres (miles) below the surface for hours at a stretch, foraging for food in the inky depths.

The heart rate slows, blood flow is restricted, oxygen is conserved.

So how could the ocean's most accomplished deep-sea diver wind up with nitrogen bubbles poisoning its veins, like a scuba novice rising too quickly to the surface?

Short answer: beaked whales -- especially one species known as Cuvier's -- get really, really scared.

"In the presence of sonar they are stressed and swim vigorously away from the sound source, changing their diving pattern," lead author Yara Bernaldo de Quiros, a researcher at the Institute of Animal Health at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, told AFP.

"The stress response, in other words, overrides the diving response, which makes the animals accumulate nitrogen," she added. "It's like an adrenalin shot."

One type of sonar in particular throws these whales off balance.

- 'Atypical' mass strandings -

Developed in the 1950s to detect submarines, mid-frequency active sonar (MFAS) is used today in naval patrols and exercises, especially by the United States and its NATO allies.

Starting around 1960, ships began emitting underwater signals in a range of about 5 kilohertz (kHz).

That is when the mass beaching of beaked whales, especially in the Mediterranean, began.

Between 1960 and 2004, 121 of these so-called "atypical" mass strandings took place, with at least 40 closely linked in time and place with naval activities.

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These were not individual strandings of old or sick animals, nor en masse strandings such the one last November in New Zealand, when more than 200 pilot whales beached themselves together.

Rather, a handful or more beaked whales would wash ashore within a day or two, and no more than few dozen kilometres apart.

The most deadly episode, in 2002, saw 14 stranded over a 36-hour period in the Canary Islands during a NATO naval exercise.

"Within a few hours of the sonar being deployed, the animals started showing up on the beach," Bernaldo de Quiros said.

Outwardly, the whales showed no signs of disease or damage: they had normal body weight, and no skin lesions or infections.

Internally, it was another story. Nitrogen gas bubbles filled the veins, and their brains were ravaged by haemorrhaging.

Autopsies also revealed damage to other organs, as well as to the spinal cord and central nervous system.

- Canary Island moratorium -

As with altitude sickness, reactions -- in humans, and probably in whales -- to nitrogen bubbles in the blood vary in type and intensity.

A 2003 study in Nature on the possible link between sonar and whale deaths led to Spain banning such naval exercises around the Canary Islands in 2004.

"Up until then, the Canaries were a hotspot for this kind of 'atypical' strandings," said Bernaldo de Quiros. "Since the moratorium, none have occurred."

The authors called for similar bans to be extended to other regions where at-risk whales are known to congregate.

The Cuvier's grows up to seven metres (23 feet) and dines mainly on deep-water squid and fish. Its upwardly turned mouth gives the impression of a permanent smile.

The whale is listed as "vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List of endangered species, and is thought to have a global population of 5,000 to 7,000.

Other threats include ship strikes, ocean pollution and shifting habitats caused by climate change.




Vicky Pattisons new TLC show is set to document the reality stars (Geordie Shore and Im a Celebrity winner 2015) life following her break-up from ex-fiance John Noble, and a new clip shows her tearful breakdown after discovering that her long-term partner had cheated on her.

The show, which airs tonight at 10pm, was originally planned to document the days leading up to their wedding, but has since been re-angled and renamed Vicky Pattison: The Break Up following the couples split.

It will now follow Pattisons personal life as she tries to come to terms with the wedding being called off, including the moment she found out Noble had been pictured with other women in Dubai.

Vicky Pattison breaks down after discovering her fiance John Noble cheated on her (TLC)

In the new clip of the show, Pattison breaks down in tears as she says, I hate myself but Id take him back. I would do anything for it just to be last week.

A week ago he was me future and me life and the man I was going to spend the rest of me life with, and I wanted babies with him. And now, Ive seen him with his hands all over so many different women. And he doesnt want to speak to us. He hasnt apologised.

Later on in the episode, she will detail the moment she found that Noble had been unfaithful, saying: I was in Brighton for my birthday with my friends, and my agent rang and asked if I was with anybody.

She said that someone had rang and said that they had some pictures of John with girls in Dubai. They werent very nice. They were awful.

I really subscribed to monogamy  like  faithfulness. I thought he would never do that. I just didnt see it coming. The moment it happened, it was over.

Read more

Gemma Collins reveals shell be back on Dancing On Ice this weekend following epic fall

Hollyoaks star Kristy-Leigh Porter reveals that her daughter was stillborn

Jermaine Jackson: Leave my late brother Michael alone
Venezuelas self-declared interim president, Juan Guaido, has been hit with a travel ban after the countrys chief prosecutor announced he would launch a criminal investigation into the congressional leader.

The supreme court  stacked with members loyal to president Nicolas Maduro  blocked Mr Guaido from leaving the counrty and froze his bank accounts, but did not strip him of his legislative immunity.

It came as Mr Guaido called on Venezuelans to stage a two-hour walkout from their homes and workplaces in protest at Mr Maduros stewardship of the country.

The incumbent president has said he will not stand down and told Russias state-owned news agency RIA Novosti he was open to negotiations alongside mediators.

Im willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we could talk for the sake of Venezuelas peace and its future, he said.

Russia is a key ally, backing the Maduro government with loans and weapons.

Mr Maduro has accused the US of instigating a coup against him after Donald Trump recognised Mr Guaido as the legitimate interim leader, prompting a string of other countries including Britain to follow suit.

On Tuesday Washington announced fresh sanctions on Venezuela, targeting its state-run oil company PDVSA.

Mr Maduro called the sanctions criminal and vowed to challenge the US in court. With these measures, they intend to rob us, he said.

Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Mr Guaido, during a huge opposition rally in Caracas, declared he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Mr Maduros dictatorship.

Under Venezuelas constitution, the head of the national assembly can take on the chief executives duties in a range of circumstances in which the presidency is vacated. The opposition argues Mr Maduros re-election last May was unfair.

The 35-year-old Mr Guaido has re-invigorated the opposition movement by pushing for three immediate goals: to end Maduros usurpation of power; establish a transitional government; and hold a new presidential election.

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The UN human rights office believes security forces detained nearly 700 people in just one day of anti-government protests last week  the highest such tally in a single day in the country in at least 20 years. It says more than 40 people are believed to have been killed.

Mr Maduros allies blame the opposition for the violence and deny the high death toll as well as reports that children were among those arrested.

Socialist party leaders have been organising counter-protests by thousands of Maduro supporters in different parts of the country.

On Tuesday, Mr Maduro announced he would expand Venezuelas civilian armed militia to two million members.

The reserve force was created by the late Hugo Chavez to train civilians to assist the armed forces and defend the socialist revolution from attacks.

Additional reporting by AP
Paris (AFP) - The crisis in Venezuela has triggered fresh tensions between Washington and Moscow, with chilly exchanges at the United Nations, but analysts warn against the temptation of seeing the return of Cold War-style divisions.

Since Venezuelan parliament leader Juan Guaido declared himself president on January 23 to challenge leader Nicolas Maduro, the rivalry between the US and Russia has returned with a vengeance.

Washington, as well as Europe and most of Latin America, has backed Guaido, while Russia, joined by China, has denounced US pressure and insisted that its ally Maduro is the only legitimate head of state.

"There's a Cold War atmosphere," says Thomas Posado, an expert in foreign relations at the Paris VIII university in France, but "it's a lot less ideological".

"What is particular about the Venezuelan crisis is that there are very contemporary economic interests at stake, linked to how Venezuela's debt is going to be reimbursed, and to whom," he added.

Russia and China have become the biggest lenders to Venezuela in recent years and the largest foreign investors in the country's oil sector, which sits on the largest deposit of proven crude reserves in the world.

The US has its own interests to protect in the country as the single biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil.

"It's not the Cold War, it's not old-style American anti-Communist policy because there isn't any Communism anymore," said Richard Lapper, a Latin American expert from the Chatham House think-tank in Britain.

Venezuela is just the latest in a succession of international crises on which Russia and the US have found themselves on opposite sides.

"You can't talk about there being some ideological divide like a new Cold War because you can't consider that Russia and China form a bloc" against the West, said Isabelle Facon from the France-based Foundation of Strategic Research.

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She said Moscow and Beijing have grown wary of US and European foreign interventions after their decisions to help topple the governments of Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011.

"They are very close in their criticism of what they see as the propensity of the United States and Europe to intervene and bring about regime change," Facon said.

The West, meanwhile, sees Russia as an increasingly aggressive power after its military interventions in Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015, while China rapidly expands its global influence.

- Splintering 'Western bloc' -

Analysts also say that the unilateralist foreign policy choices of President Donald Trump have fractured the traditional Western alliance between the US and Europe, perhaps to the worst degree since World War II.

This means the Cold War-idea of a unified "Western bloc" has become obsolete, while the European Union itself is divided on how to respond to the crisis.

At this stage, the EU looks unlikely to follow Washington in imposing additional sanctions against Caracas.

"I think it's a very high-risk strategy which the US and the Latin American countries are embarked on. You don't normally appoint an alternative government," Lapper said. "You assume that it's not going to last very long."

"The problem at the moment is that there's no sign yet of the high command of the armed forces in Venezuela ending their support for Maduro," he added. "And there's no sign that Russia and China will not support him."

Lapper sees the role of China as critical in Venezuela and many other Latin American countries, which is a major change from the Cold War-era.

"One thing that's changed over the past few years is that Chinese policy in the region, rather than being accommodative, has begun to become more aggressive," Lapper said.

"They're looking to shape things in Latin America as in the rest of the world. China's now the biggest trading partner for very many Latin American countries, and a very big source of investment."
Tampa (AFP) - E-cigarettes are twice as effective as nicotine patches or gum at helping people quit smoking traditional cigarettes, according to major British study Wednesday, involving nearly 900 people.

The report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 18 percent of smokers who switched to battery powered vaping devices were able to steer clear of combustible cigarettes for one year, compared to 9.9 percent of people who relied on nicotine replacement therapies to quit.

"This is the first trial to test the efficacy of modern e-cigarettes in helping smokers quit," said lead researcher Peter Hajek, a professor at Queen Mary University of London.

"E-cigarettes were almost twice as effective as the 'gold standard' combination of nicotine replacement products."

However, people who switched to vaping were far more likely to keep vaping, indicating they may have exchanged one nicotine delivery device for another, without ever beating their addiction.

The trial randomly assigned 886 people who sought help to quit smoking in Britain to receive either a three-month supply of a nicotine replacement treatment of their choice -- such as patches, gum, lozenges, sprays, inhalators, or a combination -- or an e-cigarette starter pack with one or two bottles of nicotine-containing liquid.

The vaping group was encouraged to buy future supplies in their own choice of nicotine strengths and flavors, which include fruit, candy and mint.

Counseling and behavioral support were offered once a week for at least a month.

When researchers checked back after a year, they found that 80 percent of e-cigarette users who had managed to steer clear of combustible cigarettes were still vaping regularly.

Just nine percent of those who had quit cigarettes for a year in the nicotine replacement group were still using patches, gum or other substitutes.

For that reason, an accompanying editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine urged caution.

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"While e-cigarettes are 'safer' than traditional cigarettes, they are not without risks," wrote Belinda Borrelli, professor of health policy at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and George O'Connor, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

The ongoing vaping habit among those in the e-cigarette arm of the study "raises concerns about the health consequences of long-term e-cigarette use," they added, noting that "e-cigarette vapor contains many toxins" though the levels and their effects are generally considered to be lower than those coming from cigarette smoke.

- 'Landmark' results -

Another concern is vaping's popularity with youths, as America grapples with a 78 percent surge in e-cigarette use among high school students from 2017-2018, which the US Surgeon General has described as an "epidemic."

"Adult use may not only expose children to e-cigarette vapor but also models addictive behavior," and boosts the risk that kids will take up combustible cigarettes themselves one day, the editorial said.

In the United States and Britain, cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death, taking some 480,000 lives each year in the US and more than 100,000 in Britain.

British experts said the findings could change the way health care providers talk about e-cigarettes, possibly leading more of them to encourage smokers to try vaping as a way to wean themselves off traditional cigarettes.

"The UK specialist stop smoking services will now be more likely to include e-cigarettes among their treatment options, and health professionals will feel more comfortable in recommending e-cigarettes as a stop-smoking intervention," said study author Dunja Przulj from Queen Mary University of London.

"This may ultimately further accelerate the reduction in smoking and in smoking related diseases."

According to Martin Dockrell, tobacco control lead at Public Health England, "this landmark research shows that switching to an e-cigarette can be one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, especially when combined with face-to-face support."
By Gram Slattery BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Vale SA's shares recovered some extensive recent losses on Wednesday that were triggered by a deadly tailing dam collapse, after the world's largest iron ore producer announced a plan to sacrifice production for safety. Vale will cut 10 percent of its output by decommissioning 10 dams, Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said on Tuesday, as the death toll following the miner's second dam collapse in just over three years was expected to exceed 300. The announcement triggered an 8.5 percent rally in Vale shares as well as a broader bounce in Chinese iron ore futures and shares of rival companies. At least 84 bodies have been recovered from the slurry at the Corrego do Feijao mine so far following the dam's collapse last week, with over 250 people still missing and presumed dead. Vale's initiative aims to pre-empt tough questions about its safety record in the wake of Friday's disaster, coming after a similar deadly dam collapse in 2015 at the nearby Samarco mine, which Vale co-owns with BHP Group. U.N. human rights experts called for an official investigation into the disaster. Baskut Tuncat, a U.N. expert on disposal of hazardous substances, urged Brazil to prioritize dam safety evaluations and block new tailing dams until safety could be ensured. Vale's plan to spend 5 billion reais ($1.3 billion) decommissioning dams over the next three years involves suspending operations at mines producing about 40 million tonnes of iron ore and 11 million tonnes of pellets per year, Schvartsman told journalists. Shares in Vale's rivals BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group rose, lifting Australia's metals and mining index. [IRONORE/] [.AX] "In our reports published over the last few days, we highlighted that the two main uncertainties in the area of financial impact were the impact on short and medium-term production and potential legal actions stemming from the event," XP strategist Karel Luketic said in a research note. Vale's announcement "helps ease worries relative to the first uncertainty mentioned, production," Luketic said. He said XP was maintaining its forecast for iron ore priced around $65 for the years covered by the production plan, but added the cuts "could support prices above that level." A Vale shareholder group has asked Brazil's securities regulator CVM to investigate the company's conduct, alleging Vale did not fulfill its obligation to disclose the risks and impact of its activities at the mine. Brazilian prosecutors have also said they would bring criminal charges against those responsible for the disaster. Police arrested three Vale employees, including two senior managers at Corrego do Feijao on Tuesday. They have also arrested two engineers from German auditor firm TUV SUD. DEMANDS In the town of Brumadinho, devastated by the torrent of mining waste, Vale workers laid out their demands. In a letter seen by Reuters, the local miners' union sought several months of additional pay and years of guaranteed employment, among other benefits. In a separate statement, the union said it had asked Vale for the last two years to move the company dining hall, which was located directly under the dam, a charge Vale denied. A worker outside the cafeteria and who narrowly escaped the fast-moving mud flow told Reuters he doubted anyone inside had made it out alive. On a hilltop site, Brumadinho cemetery director Jose Eustaquio da Silva, 63, has been digging 98 graves with his team in one cemetery alone. So far, five of the graves have been filled as recovery crews comb through mud from the disaster. "Everyone is tense," he said. "People who live near other dams are tense as well." Brazilian regulator, the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL), said on Wednesday it was setting up a task force to monitor dams for about 130 hydroelectric plants. It said the program was expected to last until May. Brazil's Retiro Baixo hydroelectric plant suspended its operations to preserve equipment although it said its dam was safe, state-owned Eletrobras said late on Tuesday. (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Jake Spring in BRASILIA; Editing by Edmund Blair and Bernadette Baum)
Life-threatening temperatures across the United States and a polar vortex in the Midwest is set to impact nearly 110 million Americans this week.

The extreme cold and record-breaking temperatures are blasting a swathe of states spanning from North Dakota to Missouri and into Ohio after a powerful snowstorm pounded the region earlier this week.

The unusually frigid weather is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the region rapidly increase. That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.

One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.

Cold weather advisories are in effect across a broad swath of the central US, from North Dakota to Missouri and spanning into Ohio. Temperatures will be as many as 20 degrees below average in parts of the Upper Great Lakes region and Upper Mississippi Valley, according to the National Weather Service. Youre talking about frostbite and hypothermia issues very quickly, like in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Centre.

Meanwhile, homeless shelters across the country are preparing for the onslaught of cold. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said city agencies are making sure homeless people are in shelters or offered space in warming buses. He also urged residents to check on their neighbors and take safety precautions. More than a thousand flights had been cancelled across the city's major airports by Tuesday afternoon, including 300 in Atlanta.

In Minneapolis, charitable groups that operate warming places and shelters were expanding hours and capacity as they do whenever dangerous extreme temperature events occur, said Hennepin County Emergency Management Director Eric Waage. He said ambulance crews were handling all outside response incidents as being potentially life-threatening.

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The Milwaukee Rescue Missions call volume was unusually high, but officials said there should still be enough beds for those who need them.

The potentially record-breaking low temperature forecast in Milwaukee is negative 28 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 33 degrees Celsius), with a wind chill as low as negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 45 degrees Celsius). The current record of minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 32 degrees Celsius) was set in 1996.

Subzero temperatures hit some states Tuesday, but Wednesday is expected to be the worst. Wind chills in northern Illinois could fall to negative 55 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 48 degrees Celsius), which the National Weather Service called possibly life threatening.

Additional reporting by AP
Washington (AFP) - Despite declaring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, the United States has maintained contact with him to ensure the safety of the embassy, a US envoy on the crisis said Wednesday.

Elliot Abrams, who was appointed last week after the United States recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president, said that Washington was sending a message that Maduro needed to protect the mission.

"We have contact with the de facto regime -- by which I mean the Maduro regime. We have contacts with them because we are concerned about things like the safety of Americans," Abrams told reporters.

"We have long had contacts with people whom we have not granted diplomatic recognition in different countries around the world," he added.

Maduro had ordered the United States to pull its diplomats by last Saturday. Washington refused, saying it no longer recognized Maduro and that Guaido had welcomed US personnel to stay.

But Maduro did not move to close the embassy physically at the deadline and said Saturday that his government was in talks with Washington on diplomatic representation.

"We have to figure out what the status of the embassy is going to be over time," Abrams said, reiterating US warnings that the Maduro regime "has obligations to protect the embassies and we will hold them to these obligations."

Abrams vowed that the United States would keep stepping up pressure on Maduro, a leftist firebrand who presides over a crumbling economy that has sent millions fleeing.

The United States has already sanctioned Venezuela's state oil company and blocked its assets in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Abrams said assets would be converted into humanitarian aid for Venezuela, although he said there was not much in the coffers of the embassy in Venezuela.

"So we're all looking around the world to see what other assets there are, whether in bank accounts or things like gold," he said.

Abrams is a veteran Republican policymaker on Latin America, playing a key role in anti-communist campaigns in 1980s Central America that were widely criticized by human rights groups.
Tijuana (Mexico) (AFP) - The United States began sending migrants who have applied for asylum back to Mexico on Tuesday to await their court dates under a controversial new policy from President Donald Trump.

Carlos Gomez of Honduras, who arrived at the border in a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants last year, was the first to be sent back, Mexican authorities said.

Mexican immigration officials ushered Gomez, 55, who was carrying a blue backpack, into a waiting van and took him to an undisclosed migrant shelter in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California.

The US embassy in Mexico City confirmed in a statement that Washington had begun implementing the new policy, Trump's latest bid to curb illegal immigration. Critics say the policy is xenophobic and could put vulnerable refugees at risk.

"The United States has begun implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols," the embassy said, using the US Department of Homeland Security's name for the plan -- which the administration initially called the "Remain in Mexico" policy.

"This action is a response to the illegal migration crisis the United States is facing on its southern border."

It said asylum claims in the US had increased by 2,000 percent in the past five years, "since many migrants know that applying for asylum gives them an opportunity to remain in the United States, even if they do not have a valid asylum claim."

The policy will not apply to Mexicans seeking asylum, the US says. Under international law, asylum applicants cannot be sent back to the country they are fleeing.

- 'Catch and release' -

Announced last year, the policy aims to curb what Trump calls "catch and release" -- allowing migrants who cross the border without papers and claim asylum to remain in the United States while their cases are processed.

The Homeland Security Department says the change is needed because of a "humanitarian and security crisis" on the US southern border, caused by a broken immigration system "exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States."

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The US says 90 percent of asylum claims are ultimately rejected as invalid by a judge. Most come from migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence in Central America's "Northern Triangle": Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Many asylum applicants never show up for their court hearings, officials say.

The system is badly backlogged, with 800,000 asylum requests currently pending. The process can take months or even years.

- 'Horribly bad idea' -

But the new policy has been sharply criticized by opponents on both sides of the border.

Migrants have been tortured, raped and killed in Mexico's often violent border regions, and the new policy violates the right of people whose lives are genuinely at risk to seek asylum in the US, activists say.

"It's a horribly bad idea to implement this plan," said Melissa Crow of the Southern Poverty Law Center in the US, an advocacy group that has challenged Trump administration immigration policies in court.

"It's not safe for many, if not most, of these asylum seekers to wait in Mexico. Lots of them are fleeing cartel violence and domestic abusers," she told AFP.

"There are examples of people being pursued by their persecutors while waiting in Mexico."

Mexico has said it "disagrees" with the policy, but will grant the migrants temporary visas for humanitarian reasons pending resolution of their asylum cases.

"The United States has decided unilaterally to ask them to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed," said Rodulfo Figueroa, head of Mexico's immigration office in Tijuana.

"We are also taking a unilateral decision to receive them. They are unilateral, sovereign decisions by both countries."

He said the number of migrants sent back daily would depend on the United States.

Mexican authorities have said the US plans to continue presenting 20 people a day at the Tijuana crossing, and eventually extend the policy to other points along the 3,145-kilometer (2,000-mile) border.
Beijing (AFP) - The United States accused Russia and China of not fully reporting their nuclear programmes Wednesday and called for more transparency, amid US threats to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.

A senior US official made the remarks as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- all of them nuclear-armed powers -- met in Beijing for talks on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Andrea Thompson, US under secretary for arms control and international security, said there were "uneven results" in efforts to advance transparency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"We previously agreed to set (a) format for reporting, but the gap between the reports of the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, is great," Thompson said in her opening remarks.

"I cannot overemphasise the value of transparency," she said.

Officials from Russia, China, France and Britain -- countries under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty -- also attended the meeting, which will continue on Thursday.

Russia has also proposed holding a new round of talks with the US in Beijing on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) -- a source of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington.

"If Americans accept our proposal, they (the talks) will take place," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday.

The talks, if conducted, would come just before the February 2 expiration date of US President Donald Trump's 60-day deadline to start withdrawing from the INF treaty.

Signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the arms control agreement is now under threat, with Washington accusing Russia of violating the treaty.

Trump has promised to withdraw from the agreement, while President Vladimir Putin has threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

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Earlier this month, talks in Geneva between senior diplomats from both countries fell through as Washington and Moscow blamed each other for pushing the INF treaty to the brink of collapse.

Last week, Russia unveiled its missile system in a bid to reassure foreign officials that its weapons were in compliance with the arms control agreement.

But Washington has said the missile system should be destroyed in a verifiable manner if Moscow wants to keep the INF alive.

At Wednesday's conference in Beijing, deputy Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed to "the spread of unilateral attitudes" as a threat to nuclear non-proliferation.

"Many issues continue to be unsettled due to the lack of political will," he added, and said that there is an "evident lack of mutual trust" between the five NPT states.

"This (NPT) regime is being loosened, which is fraught with serious and negative impacts for nuclear non-proliferation," he said.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council is set on Thursday to open the door to an easing of the arms embargo on the Central African Republic, five years after the country stood on the verge of genocide.

The government in Bangui has repeatedly called for the restrictions to be lifted to allow arms supplies to shore up its security forces fighting militias that control much of the strife-scarred country.

The council will vote on a French-drafted resolution that calls for a review of the arms embargo by September if the Bangui government meets benchmarks in managing weapons, disarming militias and reforming its security sector, according to the text seen by AFP on Wednesday.

The draft resolution would renew the embargo until January 2020 but open the door to a partial lifting that would allow the government to purchase weapons without seeking approval from the UN sanctions committee.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will submit a report by the end of July on whether the government has met the benchmarks after Bangui presents its own findings by June 30.

Diplomats said Wednesday they expect the measure to be adopted.

"We think it's a good idea to have a review of the embargo," Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told AFP.

Russia has stepped up its presence in the Central African Republic, offering training to troops and brokering peace talks with militias, sparking tensions with France, the former colonial power.

The UN arms embargo was imposed in 2013 when the country descended into bloodletting after President Francois Bozize, a Christian, was overthrown by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels.

Addressing appeals from the Bangui government, the UN sanctions committee has granted exemptions to allow shipments of weapons from France, Russia, China, the United States and Belgium to the poorly-equipped army.

- Averting genocide -

Thousands of people have been killed during the violence in the Central African Republic, one of Africa's poorest countries. A quarter of its 4.5 million people have fled their homes because of the violence.

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At the height of the bloodshed in 2013, France warned that the country was on the verge of a genocide with reports of atrocities committed by roaming militias.

In 2017, a similar warning came from then-UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien.

The vote at the council comes as the latest round of peace talks between the government and armed militias stumbled in Khartoum over demands for an amnesty for rebel commanders.

The Sudan-hosted talks which opened last week are expected to continue for up to three weeks.

The draft resolution also renews the mandate of a panel of experts who reported to the council last month that fighters of the former Seleka alliance had received fresh weapons supplies from traffickers in Sudan.

The militia groups are re-arming to counter the deployment of the newly-trained and equipped government troops to their areas of influence, the panel's report said.

Troops trained by Russia and the European Union are backed by the 13,000-strong UN mission in CAR, which supports the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Wednesday pressed all sides in Cyprus to resume talks on reuniting the divided island as the United States warned that peacekeepers would not remain there without progress toward a settlement.

The council unanimously adopted a resolution that renewed for six months until July 31 the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, known as UNFICYP, one of the UN's longest-running peace operations.

"Perpetual peacekeeping missions are unacceptable," acting US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the council after the vote.

"UNFICYP and the UN's overall presence in Cyprus cannot be a substitute for, or be part of a landscape that lacks a path towards a political solution."

The United States, the largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping, has threatened to shut down long-standing missions, arguing that peacekeepers who stay on for years contribute to creating frozen conflicts.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in response to a Greek military junta-sponsored coup.

Talks on reunifying Cyprus broke down in July 2017 when Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders failed to agree on compromises concerning power-sharing and security arrangements for the island.

Thousands of Turkish troops remain stationed in the north and Nicosia remains the world's last divided capital.

The resolution calls on Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to engage with Jane Holl Lute, a UN consultant who has been talking to the parties since July last year to try to agree on the basis for re-starting negotiations.

The council tasked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with the drafting of a report by April 15 on progress towards resuming negotiations that could set the stage for changes to the peacekeeping mission.

About 1,000 troops and police are deployed in Cyprus to maintain a ceasefire and monitor a buffer zone.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday asked her lawmakers to support a proposal which calls for the Northern Irish backstop in her Brexit deal with Brussels to be replaced with alternative arrangements. Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis confirmed the move after May addressed her lawmakers at a private meeting in parliament at which she sought to heal divisions and present a united front to Brussels over Brexit. Lawmakers will on Tuesday debate and vote on May's next steps, after the overwhelming rejection of her Brexit plan earlier this month, and have been proposing amendments seeking to shape the future direction of Brexit. Many pro-Brexit lawmakers oppose the so-called "backstop", an insurance policy aimed at preventing a hard border in Ireland, which would require EU rules to apply in British-ruled Northern Ireland if no other solutions can be agreed. Lewis said May told a meeting of her Conservative lawmakers on Monday that they should vote in favor of an amendment, proposed by senior Conservative lawmaker Graham Brady, which calls for the backstop to be replaced with "alternative arrangements". "It allows the PM to give a very clear message about what the parliament wants and where the party is," Lewis said. The European Union has ruled out renegotiating the principle behind the backstop. Its deputy chief negotiator Sabine Weyand said today that the bloc was "open to alternative arrangements" on the Irish border but that the problem with Brady's proposal was that it did not spell out what they were. Strong support for the amendment - if it is put to a vote on Tuesday - will allow May to demonstrate to the European Union that changes to the backstop could be enough to allow her to get parliamentary approval for a deal. May's address drew cheers of support and banging of desks audible to reporters outside the room. But, moments before she spoke the head of an influential eurosceptic Conservative faction said his group would not back the amendment. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William James, editing by James Davey)
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Friday called on Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to look at whether due process was followed in the case of two Reuters reporters sentenced to seven years in jail in Myanmar. A Myanmar court earlier on Friday rejected the appeal of the two reporters sentenced to seven years in jail on charges of breaking the country's Official Secrets Act, saying the defense had not provided sufficient evidence to show they were innocent. "We are very worried about due process in this case," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC radio when asked about the case. "We urge Aung San Suu Kyi to look at whether that due process happened and to recognize that, as someone who fought for democracy in Burma, she should be taking a personal interest in the future of these two brave journalists." (Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
ISTANBUL (AP)  A Turkish citizen who worked as a translator for the U.S. Consulate in Adana was convicted on terror charges Wednesday but will be freed from prison, Turkey's official news agency reported.

A court in southeastern Mardin province convicted Hamza Ulucay of "knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terror organization" without membership in the group, Anadolu news agency said. Ulucay had denied the allegations and requested an acquittal while appearing in court through a video hookup.

The court in southeastern Mardin province sentenced Ulucay to 4  years in prison, but released him with credit for the nearly two years he spent in pre-trial detention.

Ulucay was arrested in February 2017 for alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is considered a terror group by Turkey and its NATO allies. Authorities alleged he attempted to "provoke" people on behalf of the Kurdish militants.

The top American diplomat in Ankara, Charge d'Affaires Jeffrey M. Hovenier, attended Wednesday's court hearing along with other U.S. officials.

Two other U.S. government employees were arrested and are under investigation in Turkey. Mete Canturk worked for the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul and Metin Topuz for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Topuz was indicted on charges of espionage and attempting to overthrow the government. He is accused of links to a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who the Turkish government blames for a 2016 coup attempt. His arrest in October led the U.S. and Turkish governments to suspend bilateral visa services for more than two months.

The detention of an American pastor who had lived and worked in Turkey for two decades provoked Washington's ire. To pressure Ankara to release Andrew Brunson last year, U.S. President Donald Trump sanctioned two Turkish officials and increased tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, leading to a nosedive of the Turkish lira.

Brunson was convicted in October 2017 for terror links but allowed to leave the country after spending nearly two years in detention.

Serkan Golge, a NASA scientist with U.S.-Turkish citizenship, also has been jailed in Turkey.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned U.S. citizens against traveling to Venezuela amid the political crisis there over control of the government, as the United States and other nations have recognized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's rival Juan Guiado. "Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice," Trump wrote on Twitter. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Alison Williams)
Donald Trump has lambasted the US intelligence community as extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran after top officials contradicted the presidents claims surrounding the foreign adversary and North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," the president tweeted. "They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict."

"They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge," he added. "There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

The tweets arrived after National Intelligence Director Dan Coats released the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which concluded Tehran was not engaging in operations geared towards producing nuclear weaponry, while the North Korean regime remains steadfast in its refusal to give up its nuclear capabilities.

We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival, Mr Coats said.

He added, Our assessment is bolstered by observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearisation.

The president has repeatedly claimed his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has paved the way for the chance of denuclearisation along the Korean peninsula, telling reporters at the White House earlier this month, North Korea, were doing very well. And again, no rockets.

Theres no rockets, he added. Theres no anything. Were doing very well.

Story continues

Mr Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday the US faced major threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea  the big four  including nuclear weapons and cyber warfare.

While we do not believe Iran currently is undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not obtain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal, he said to lawmakers.
A US intelligence chief has completely contradicted Donald Trumps claims over the nuclear ambitions of both North Korea and Iran.

Pyongyang is unlikely to give up its nuclear capabilities, while Tehran is currently not engaging in activities necessary to produce nuclear weapons, national intelligence director Dan Coats concluded in his annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.

The findings of the report are in stark contrast to recent public statements made by the president on the situation in both countries.

Presenting his conclusions to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Mr Coats said the US faced unique threats from each of the big four of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, including cyber warfare and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

He warned that although Pyongyang had not conducted a nuclear test in more than a year, it had little intention of decommissioning its weapons stockpiles.

We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival, Mr Coats said.

North Korea, were doing very well. And again, no rockets. Theres no rockets. Theres no anything. Were doing very well.

Donald Trump, 6 January 2019

Our assessment is bolstered by observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearisation.

The conclusions of the intelligence community appear to contradict Mr Trumps assertions less than a month ago about how talks to denuclearise the Korean peninsula were progressing.

North Korea, were doing very well. And again, no rockets. Theres no rockets. Theres no anything. Were doing very well, he told reporters at the White House on 6 January.

Ive indirectly spoken to Chairman Kim. And when I came here, this country was headed to war with North Korea. And now we have a very good dialogue going. Very good.

Story continues

Meanwhile, despite warning Iran could look to test the limits of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Mr Coats said Tehran was not currently working on the production of nuclear weapons.

While we do not believe Iran currently is undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not obtain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal, he told the committee.

But, addressing the United Nations Security Council in September, Mr Trump painted a very different picture.

The president claimed he had pulled the US out of JCPOA, which seeks to limit Irans nuclear activities in return for relief from US, EU and UN sanctions, in May because Tehran was continuing with its atomic programme.

[Iran] must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon, Mr Trump said: For this reason I announced earlier this year that the United States would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

This horrible one-sided deal allowed Iran to continue its path towards a bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it most.

Mr Coats also dispelled the presidents widely-rejected claim Isis militants have been defeated in Syria, a claim made during the announcment of his shock decision to withdraw US troops from the country.

Remaining pockets of Isis and opposition fighters will continue, we assess, to stoke violence as we have seen in incidents happening in the Idlib province of Syria, the intelligence director said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday pushed back against threat assessments offered to Congress by the nation's top intelligence officials a day earlier and defended his more optimistic assertions on North Korea and Islamic State.

In a series of early-morning posts on Twitter, Trump said the Islamic State "will soon be destroyed," and that there was a "decent chance of denuclearization" with Pyongyang. On Tuesday, the intelligence officials broke with Trump in their assessments of the threats posed by North Korea and other nations.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats joined the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies on Tuesday to deliver their annual assessments of the most critical threats facing the United States in a public briefing with U.S. senators.

Related: Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump:

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Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons, while Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat. Trump plans a second meeting next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

On Islamic State, Coats said the militant group would continue to pursue attacks from Syria and Iraq against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Alison Williams and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Donald Trump reportedly sat down for a meeting with Vladimir Putin in November accompanied only by his wife Melania.

In a revelation likely to trigger fresh concerns about the US presidents relationship with Moscow, the Financial Times reported that Mr Trump met the Russian leader during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires without any of his translators or aides present.

The meeting allegedly occurred at the end of an evening event at the Colon Theatre. As other world leaders and guests left the building, Mr Trump and Melania sat down at a table with Mr Putin and one of his translators.

According to a Russian government official quoted by the newspaper, the leaders spoke for around 15 minutes on a range of foreign policy issues, including the Syrian conflict and an incident in the Azov Sea earlier in November in which Ukrainian sailors were fired on and detained by Russia.

The latter incident sparked international condemnation and was the reason given by Mr Trump to cancel what would have been an official face-to-face meeting with Mr Putin in the Argentinian capital.

Novembers meeting came just months after the two leaders spoke privately at the summit in Helsinki in which Mr Trump would later back the Russian president over his own intelligence agencies in suggesting Moscow did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

At that meeting, the US president went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of their conversation, it was reported earlier this month, including snatching away his translators notes and telling them not to reveal details of the conversation.

The unusually secretive way in which Mr Trump has handled meetings with Mr Putin has left his own administration guessing at their content and raised concerns among lawmakers. Democrats have even considered subpoenaing Mr Trumps Helsinki interpreter,

On Tuesday, US director of national intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers at a congressional hearing details of Mr Trumps discussion with Mr Putin in Helsinki were a sensitive issue and should only be discussed behind-closed-doors.

Story continues

Earlier this month, the US president felt obliged to tell the media he never worked for Russia following separate reports the FBI opened a probe in 2017 into whether the president was a Russian agent.

It comes as Robert Muellers investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia continues to bring charges against former associates of the president.

Roger Stone, a former adviser to Mr Trump, was charged last week on several counts, including lying to Congress. He became the 34th person charged as a result of the special counsels enquiry.

The White House has been contacted for comment.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump tried to strengthen the hand of Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido on Wednesday amid an intense power struggle and deadly political violence in that country.

Trump spoke with Guaido by phone Wednesday to reaffirm his support for the 35-year-old leader's push to oust embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Trump has recognized Guadio as the interim president of Venezuela and blasted Maduro's regime as corrupt and illegitimate.

President Donald J. Trump spoke today with Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaido to congratulate him on his historic assumption of the presidency and to reinforce President Trumps strong support for Venezuelas fight to regain its democracy," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement Wednesday.

"They agreed to maintain regular communication to support Venezuelas path back to stability, and to rebuild the bilateral relationship between the United States and Venezuela, Sanders said.

The two men also discussed the anti-Maduro protests set to take place Wednesday and Saturday. Similar demonstrations have turned deadly in recent days. The United Nations says at least 20 people have been killed, allegedly shot by the Maduro-controlled security officers or other pro-government forces. The UN's human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned on Friday that the situation in Venezuela could rapidly spiral out of control with catastrophic consequences."

"Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues," Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, referring to his administration's move on Monday to sanction Venezuela's state-owned oil company.

"Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court. Massive protest expected today. Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice," the president said.

More: Oil sanctions. Deadly violence. Dire economy. How the Venezuelan crisis could affect US

More: State Department warns Americans not to travel to Venezuela

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump phones Venezuelan opposition leader to lend support amid growing unrest
Donald Trumps White House administration has ordered several thousand more troops to the US-Mexico border, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

Acting Defense Department Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the latest dispatch of troops to the southern border would occur soon following a new request from the Department of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, reports indicate the presidents demands for an increased US military presence along the border are expected to cost American taxpayers over $600m (458m).

Mr Trumps Operation Faithful Patriot, which sent more than 5,000 military personnel to the region just before the 2018 midterm elections, has already reportedly cost taxpayers nearly $235m (180m); $132m (101) for active duty troops and $103m for the National Guard.

Pentagon officials have said the increased troop presence throughout the 2019 fiscal year will cost taxpayers an additional $448m (342m).

The latest deployment could surpass 2,000 troops, officials told Reuters. They said it was unlikely the level of active duty troops along the border would return to the peak of nearly 6,000 in November of last year.

Most recently, DHS has asked us to support them in additional concertina wire, and then expanded surveillance capability, Mr Shanahan said during an off-camera press briefing on Tuesday.

He added, And weve responded with, you know, Heres how many people it would take, and this is the timing wed be able  timing and mix of the people to support that.

The renewed military presence in the region arrives as the federal government reopens for three weeks of negotiations surrounding border security. The government was closed for 35 days  the longest shutdown in US history  due to the presidents demands for $5.7bn (4.3bn) to be included in the next federal spending bill towards building a wall in the region.

Story continues

A group of bipartisan lawmakers have begun reportedly negotiating the issue, though it remains unclear whether any discussions will lead to a bill the president might support.

Mr Trump has previously said he would declare a national emergency over the border if Democrats and Republicans were not willing to provide him the wall funding, though the declaration would likely faced an uphill legal battle and could face injunctions from a slate of federal courts.
WASHINGTON  For President Donald Trump, few companies have illustrated what he describes as a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing like Foxconn Technology Group.

Trump has mentioned the Taiwanese electronics manufacturers plan to build a plant in Wisconsin more than two dozen times in the past six months, according to a USA TODAY analysis of his official White House statements.

That doesnt include campaign rallies, media interviews and Twitter.

But a Foxconn executive told Reuters on Wednesday that the company is now reconsidering its plan to build liquid crystal display panels in the state, potentially undermining the president's narrative that his administration's policies have encouraged a resurgence in the manufacturing industry.

In terms of TV, the executive said, we have no place in the U.S.

President Donald Trump

Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou, told Reuters the company wants to create a technology hub in Wisconsin rather than focusing on manufacturing.

More: Report: Foxconn reconsidering plans to build LCD panels at huge Racine County campus

The president announced Foxconn deal at a White House ceremony in 2017, visited a Foxconn facility a year later and has frequently mentioned the company  as recently as last fall.

We have a lot of companies moving into our country, Trump said during an event in Mississippi in November. Tremendous car companies and Foxconn, and a level like we've never seen before.

We have a lot of companies, period, Trump said during a White House event at the end of October. Foxconn, in Wisconsin, as an example.

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In the wake of the Reuters report, Foxconn on Wednesday pledged again  as it has repeatedly amid earlier developments  to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin. In return for its promises in 2017 to spend up to $10 billion on the facility and hire 13,000 workers in Wisconsin, state and local governments promised public subsidies totaling $4 billion.

U.S. manufacturing jobs have increased slightly since the recession but are still well below their peak in the late 1970s. There were 12.8 million U.S. manufacturing jobs in December, according to Department of Labor data, up from 11.4 million in 2010.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump has made Foxconn a favorite talking point on U.S. manufacturing, but that narrative may be in doubt
President Trump lashed out at top U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday, a day after they contradicted his assessment of the Iranian nuclear threat in a joint appearance before Congress.

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Trumps criticism came after Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA director Gina Haspel testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday and disputed his characterization of a number of foreign threats.

We continue to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear-weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Coats said in testimony accompanying the U.S. intelligence communitys Worldwide Threat Assessment.

Coats and Haspel also said that, contra Trumps claims, North Korea is not on track to giving up its nuclear weapons and ISIS will likely continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States.

Trump pushed back on both assessments, saying the relationship between North Korea and the U.S. is the best it has ever been and ISIS will soon be destroyed.

More from National Review
Visit Convocation Hall The first public event in Convocation Hall will be an open house from 3-4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7, with student docents leading tours of common spaces. Then, on March 7, Conversations on the Quad moves indoors for a discussion about honor led by Oxford College Dean Douglas A. Hicks.

Originally constructed more than a century ago, one of the first buildings on Emorys Atlanta campus is now open after an extensive renovation, ready to once again serve as a hub for community, leadership and scholarship.

The marble building on the main quadrangle, known as the theology building for most of its history, is now named Convocation Hall. It officially opened at the start of the spring semester, and will host an open house from 3-4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7, with student docents leading tours of common spaces.

Convocation Hall is in the fabric of Emory and will always be, so it was extremely important to restore it to its original stature and make it a centerpiece of Emorys campus, just as it was back in 1916 when Emory moved from Oxford to Atlanta, says Matthew Early, vice president for campus services.

Emory College was founded in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia, where Emory's Oxford College is now located. Coca-Cola Company founder Asa Candler donated money and land in Atlanta for the university to expand, and in 1915, the Superior Court of DeKalb County granted a charter to Emory University.

Convocation Hall was completed in 1916 as one of the first buildings on Emory's Atlanta campus. It is part of the Emory Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

This historically significant building set many characteristics of Emory today, Early notes. It is a cornerstone of the quad, it is the face of Emorys Commencement ceremony, and it established the architectural vernacular of the Emory campus. You can look at any Emory building today and you will see a piece of Convocation Hall, from the red tile roofs to the marble.

First designed as the home for the theology school, in its early years the building served a variety of additional uses, including offices for university leaders like the chancellor and the college dean. For decades, it was the home of the Candler School of Theology and the Pitts Theology Library, until they moved into new buildings.

Convocation Hall now features spaces for significant university gatherings, including the original reading room and chapel, which combine state-of-the-art technology with restored architectural features. The University Senate and Administrative Council plan to host a spring meeting there as well.

The renovated building also supports Emorys mission by providing space for the offices of the president, advancement and alumni engagement, business and administration, the vice president and secretary, general counsel, and communications and public affairs. The collaborative and flexible workspaces allow for greater cooperation among these central functions to advance the One Emory vision.

From the repaired marble and terracotta archway on the buildings exterior to the ornate wooden ceilings and marble floors inside, Convocation Hall was restored to its original design in many ways, Early says. It is now ready to welcome visitors, faculty, students, staff and alumni to Emory, just as it was first intended in 1916.

Another public event will be held in Convocation Hall on March 7, as Conversations on the Quad moves indoors for a discussion about honor led by Oxford College Dean Douglas A. Hicks.

Convocation Hall will be available for select university events in late spring 2019. More information will be available on the Convocation Hall website at that time.

Fast facts about Convocation Hall

1. Oldest buildings: First known as the Theology Building, Convocation Hall was completed in 1916 and is one of the two oldest academic buildings on campus.

2. Mirror images: Originally, this building housed the Candler School of Theology, the chancellors office and an academic library. It is located across the Quad from the other original building on the campus, which was the first home of the School of Law, features similar design, and is now known as Carlos Hall.

3. Acclaimed architect: Designed by Beaux Arts architect Henry Hornbostel, Convocation Hall and Carlos Hall feature the Italian Renaissance style and pink and gray marble that defines the university's main quadrangle.

4. Creative carvings: While the two buildings are almost mirror images, Hornbostel added subtle, unique architectural details that reflect their original uses and can still be seen today. Tucked under the eaves of Convocation Hall are small ornamental carvings showing alternating religious images, reflecting its start as the home of the School of Theology; under the eaves of Carlos Hall, the carvings show the scales of justice and the Mosaic tablets of law, showing that it was the home of the School of Law.

5. Multiple uses: By the time Emory College arrived on campus in 1919, only two other academic buildings had been built, so through the years, the Theology Building also housed the College dean, the library, faculty offices, the post office and the Emory museum, among other uses.

6. Library levels: For most of its history, the building served as the home of the theology school and theology library. In 1974, the Theology Librarys collection greatly expanded with the acquisition of more than 200,000 rare books; it was renamed the Pitts Theology Library in honor of Margaret A. Pitts and the Pitts Foundations assistance in purchasing the collection. The interior of the Theology Building was redesigned to incorporate steel mezzanines in all the rooms.

7. Ripe for renovation: With the move of the Candler School of Theology into the Rita Ann Rollins Building in 2009 and the transfer of Pitts Theology Library into new quarters in 2014, the old building was left vacant and ready for a renewed purpose.

8. Preserving the past: Many of the buildings original features were preserved and restored in the current renovation, including the marble floors on the second floor, the distinctive pink marble walls in the Community Room (formerly the chapel space), paneling in the chancellors office, and a marble fireplace in the Candler Lounge restored to working order with gas-burning logs. Construction crews also found an old fireplace hidden behind drywall on the buildings lowest floor that has now been restored.

9. Looking to the future: The restoration added state-of-the-art technological capabilities and also brought the building into compliance with the universitys environmental standards; current mechanical, HVAC, fire safety and structural requirements; and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

10. Whats in a (new) name? Colleges and universities around the world have long celebrated the rhythms of academic life at special assemblies or convocations. The name Convocation Hall was chosen to celebrate this heritage and to revive the historic location for special community gatherings. Also, a gathering of eagles is called a convocation!

To learn more, please visit the Convocation Hall website.
Washington (AFP) - Longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges stemming from the ongoing investigation into whether the president's campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election.

Stone, 66, is charged with lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction in relation to his contacts with WikiLeaks, whose publication of embarrassing Russian-hacked communications from Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign gave a boost to Trump.

Stone, a veteran Republican consultant who prides himself on his reputation as a political dirty trickster, entered a not guilty plea during an appearance in federal court in Washington.

Stone is the sixth campaign associate of Trump indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 vote.

Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Moscow and denounced the probe by Mueller, a former FBI director, as a "political witch hunt."

Stone arrived for his arraignment on a chilly winter morning to chants of "Lock him up" from some protestors. One waved a Russia flag and another held up a sign reading "Dirty Traitor."

A pro-Stone demonstrator displayed a poster calling for contributions to a Stone Defense Fund.

Stone, who launched his career as a campaign aide to Richard Nixon and has a tattoo on his back of the first US president to resign from office, has spent decades advising political campaigns.

His association with Trump dates back to 1979, and he was one of the first to enlist when the billionaire real estate magnate launched his run for the presidency in 2015.

The Mueller probe was launched in May 2017 and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Monday that it was close to being wrapped up.
(WASHINGTON)  Roger Stone, a longtime adviser and confidant of President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges in the Russia investigation after a publicity-filled few days spent torching the probe as politically motivated.

The political operative and self-proclaimed dirty trickster appeared for his arraignment at the federal courthouse in Washington. He faces charges that he lied to lawmakers, engaged in witness tampering and obstructed a congressional investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.

Stone made no public statements as he arrived for the hearing in a black SUV. He waved to a small crowd of supporters chanting that he did nothing wrong and holding up glowing photos of him. And he largely ignored a group of protesters yelling Lock him up and carrying signs reading dirty traitor.

Stone was arrested early Friday at his Florida home. He appeared in federal court in Washington amid new signals about special counsel Robert Mueller probes endgame. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Monday that the investigation is close to being completed, although an exact timetable is unclear.

Muellers continued interest in hearing from Stone aide Andrew Miller, who is fighting the grand jury subpoena, indicates the special counsel could be pursuing additional criminal charges against Stone or others related to WikiLeaks release of hacked material during the 2016 election.

A self-described dirty trickster, Stone is the sixth Trump aide charged in Muellers investigation. The indictment does not accuse Stone of coordinating with Russia or with WikiLeaks on the release of hacked Democratic emails. But it does allege that he misled lawmakers about his pursuit of those communications and interest in them. The anti-secrecy website published emails in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election that the U.S. says were stolen from Democrats by Russian operatives.

Story continues

Stone, who has alleged without evidence that the FBI used Gestapo tactics in arresting him, said he did nothing more than exercise his First Amendment rights to drum up interest with voters about the WikiLeaks disclosures. He said he never discussed the issue with Trump.

Thats what I engaged in. Its called politics and they havent criminalized it, at least not yet, Stone said Sunday on ABCs This Week.

All I did was take publicly available information and try to hype it to get it as much attention as possible, because I had a tip, the information was politically significant and that it would come in October, he added.

Tuesdays arraignment could inspire the same circus-like atmosphere that surrounded his Friday court appearance in Florida, where Stone emerged from the building in a blue polo shirt, flashed a Richard Nixon victory sign, predicted his vindication and vowed that he would not bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself.

Its unclear whether Muellers prosecutors will look to have Stone locked up pending trial or whether they will simply recommend conditions that would allow him to remain free on bond. Its also possible that U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson might impose a gag order to prevent Stone from discussing the case.
By Julien Ponthus and Ritvik Carvalho

LONDON (Reuters) - While global markets would hail a U.S.-China trade deal, fears are growing that the European Union could be the fall guy in any breakthrough, which would allow Donald Trump to turn his attention to German cars or French luxury wines.

Investors thinking of chasing a rally on a trade accord through European trade proxies, such as Germany's export-heavy DAX index or the continent's luxury names, should probably think twice, analysts believe.

For trouble could come in a lot of different forms.

Alicia Garcia-Herrero, Chief Economist at Natixis for Asia Pacific, and a researcher at the Bruegel think-tank, is among those who have warned that a deal "could cost Europe dearly" if China substitutes a large part of its European imports for U.S. goods in a bid to appease the Trump administration.

There is a lot at stake. European-listed firms expect 456 billion euros ($521 billion) in total revenue from China in 2019, with luxury brands and automakers the most exposed sectors, a Refinitiv analysis of company data shows.

Vincent Deluard, global macro strategist at INTL FCStone, said that in the case China and the United States fail to clinch a deal, Europe could be flooded with cheap Chinese goods.

"Europe stands to lose the most when the truce expires on March 1st as China would surely dump billions of discounted goods on the old continent," Deluard wrote.

In 2017, China exported goods worth 374 billion euros to the EU and 505 billion dollars to the United States.

Another dire scenario sketched out by Deluard would be a bitter lose-lose for Europe and arguable win-win for Trump: "Imposing tariffs on European cars and reaching a deal with China could allow the Trump administration to claim two victories at the same time".

Many investors fear the immediate relief of a China-U.S. deal could be swiftly followed by a bitter confrontation between the EU and its closest ally.

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"WE ARE NEXT"

While Germany takes the lion's share of the EU's trade surplus with the United States, over 63 billion dollars in 2017, other European countries such as Ireland, Italy or France have a lot to lose if tariffs are imposed on European goods.

(GRAPHIC: U.S. trade balance with EU - https://tmsnrt.rs/2SdAeeO)

The diversity of their exports highlights how wide the impact would be.

A graphic from the Atlas of Economic Complexity, Center for International Development at Harvard University, shows how French exports in 2016 ranged from wines (3.80 percent) to gas turbines (10.95 percent) and medicines (6.08 percent).

(GRAPHIC: French exports to the United States in 2016 - https://tmsnrt.rs/2Sht7C0)

Analysts trying to decipher the U.S. president's strategy believe that a confrontation with the EU is a probable next step following the revamping of the North American Free Trade Agreement and his current efforts to slash the U.S. trade deficit with China from a record 375 billion dollars in 2017.

"We are next in the queue," warns BNP Paribas' chief economist William De Vijlder, adding that "the subject of the EU-U.S. trade negotiations has been under the radar up to recently but could resurface soon."

Lombard Odier strategist Charles St-Arnaud believes a period of prolonged EU-U.S. tension, with daily incendiary headlines making European markets jittery, is a distinct possibility.

"What Trump tweeted about French wine, I can see the parallel with Canadian milk," he said recalling the tense U.S. NAFTA negotiations with Canada.

On Nov. 13th, Trump complained that while France could easily export wines to the United States, U.S. winemakers' access to the French market was restricted.

"Not fair, must change", he said on Twitter.

(To see Trump's tweet click, https://tmsnrt.rs/2B75aUk)

St-Arnaud argues that the threat of a trade war with the United States could mean another grim year for European stocks, which have already suffered collateral damage from the trade spat between the world's two biggest economies.

"A European underperformance is possible in 2019," he believes.

If the Chinese negotiating team currently in Washington was to achieve significant progress, European stocks would get a boost, at least in the short-term.

"It is crucial for the world economy that this man-made uncertainty ceases," said De Vijlder. An escalation would meanwhile sharpen the global growth downturn and hit bourses worldwide, according to a big Reuters poll of economists.

But while both emerging and European stock markets underperformed Wall Street during 2018 due to the trade stress endured by exporters, European shares remain very much less loved by global investors than their EM peers.

According to data provider EPFR, while emerging markets equity funds have recorded 15 straight weeks of inflows, European funds saw outflows for 45 of the past 46 weeks.

"TAKE THE WIND OUT TRUMP'S SAIL"

With a concerns about Brexit, unrest in France, Italy's populist government and May's EU elections, the big European benchmarks are seen by many foreign investors as "uninvestable", especially as growth slows.

"It's pretty clear that during the course of conversation with any client, political risk premium, political uncertainty will come into the conversation," said Andrew Milligan, head of strategy at Aberdeen Investments.

Joerg Kraemer, Commerzbank's chief economist, said a confrontation with Washington could be very damaging, notably for the German car industry and that the European Commission would be wise to make a pre-emptive move.

"Europe needs to take the wind out Trump's sails and move first," he told Reuters, calling for the EU to scrap its 10 percent tariff on U.S. cars to defuse tensions.

(Reporting by Julien Ponthus and Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Catherine Evans)
A top judge in one of the United Nations international courts in The Hague has quit over what he termed shocking political interference from the White House and Turkey, the Guardian reports.

The judge, Christoph Flugge, alleged that Turkey used its veto to end the tenure of a Turkish judge in one of the U.N. courts, setting a dangerous precedent for intervention.

Every incident in which judicial independence is breached is one too many, he said. Now there is this case, and everyone can invoke it in the future. Everyone can say: But you let Turkey get its way. This is an original sin.

Turkish judge Ayd?n Sefa Akay was removed over alleged connections to a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. named Fethullah Gulen who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an blames for a failed coup against him in 2016.

Flugge cited White House interference as well. He said the U.S. had threatened judges over an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

John Bolton, the national security adviser to the US president, held a speech last September in which he wished death on the international criminal court,Flugge said, according to the Guardian.

If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States  and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted.

Flugge said the court was stunned by Boltons hostility.

The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat, he said.

It is consistent with the new American line: We are No 1 and we stand above the law, he added.
Xinchen China Power Holdings Limited (HKG:1148), which is in the auto components business, and is based in Hong Kong, saw significant share price movement during recent months on the SEHK, rising to highs of HK$0.63 and falling to the lows of HK$0.42. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Xinchen China Power Holdingss current trading price of HK$0.45 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Xinchen China Power Holdingss outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change.

See our latest analysis for Xinchen China Power Holdings

Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a subscription valued at $60.

Whats the opportunity in Xinchen China Power Holdings?

Great news for investors  Xinchen China Power Holdings is still trading at a fairly cheap price. Ive used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because theres not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stocks ratio of 4.27x is currently well-below the industry average of 10.23x, meaning that it is trading at a cheaper price relative to its peers. Whats more interesting is that, Xinchen China Power Holdingss share price is quite volatile, which gives us more chances to buy since the share price could sink lower (or rise higher) in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

What kind of growth will Xinchen China Power Holdings generate?

SEHK:1148 Future Profit January 30th 19

Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. With profit expected to grow by 97% over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for Xinchen China Power Holdings. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation.

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What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? Since 1148 is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With an optimistic outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation.

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on 1148 for a while, now might be the time to enter the stock. Its prosperous future outlook isnt fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means its not too late to buy 1148. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed buy.

Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters  the fundamentals  before you make a decision on Xinchen China Power Holdings. You can find everything you need to know about Xinchen China Power Holdings in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Xinchen China Power Holdings, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  Investigations are underway into allegations that a doctor working for an Ohio hospital system ordered inappropriately high doses of pain medication to dozens of patients, leading to the deaths of at least 28 people at two hospitals. A review of events so far based on information provided by Mount Carmel Hospital System, details in lawsuits and accounts from patients' family members:

Oct. 25: Columbus-based Mount Carmel receives formal report related to care provided by Dr. William Husel.

Nov. 19: Mount Carmel receives second formal report related to Husel's care and broadens an internal investigation.

Nov. 21: Mount Carmel receives a third report and prohibits Husel from providing patient care.

Dec. 5: Mount Carmel fires Husel, notifies the State Medical Board of Ohio and meets with Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien. Two days later, the hospital notifies the Ohio Boards of Pharmacy & Nursing.

Dec. 11: Mount Carmel begins training staff on changes in procedures and on existing and updated policies.

Dec. 27: Mount Carmel first contacts families of patients affected by Husel's actions to notify them and apologize.

Jan. 14: The first lawsuit is filed over the deaths, against the health system, a pharmacist, a nurse, and Husel, alleging a "grossly excessive" dosage of the powerful painkiller fentanyl was ordered to hasten the death of 79-year-old Janet Kavanaugh in December 2017.

The same day, allegations against Husel become public as the hospital system releases a statement revealing the deaths of 27 patients who received doses of pain medication that were potentially fatal. The hospital's President and CEO Ed Lamb apologizes and says they are investigating how it happened. In an internal video released to employees the same day, Lamb said Husel's orders were carried out by employees who "made poor decisions" and ignored existing safeguards.

Jan. 16: In the first public comments from a family member, David Austin, of Columbus, says he felt "like somebody kicked me in the chest" when he was told of the alleged circumstances of the death of his wife of 36 years, Bonnie Austin, in September. The same day, Mount Carmel says it identified a 28th patient. Attorneys for Hustel issue their first "no comment."

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Jan. 17: The widow of a man treated by Husel says news of the circumstances of her husband's death left her shocked that such a scenario could happen despite procedural and technological safeguards. Christine Allison, of Columbus, says "the system failed tremendously" in the case of her 44-year-old husband, Troy.

Jan. 19: The Ohio Department of Health confirms its investigation of Husel on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Jan. 24: Mount Carmel acknowledges that Husel kept working for four weeks after concern was raised last fall. It also says it is now investigating whether some patients got excessive doses while they might still have had the opportunity to improve with treatment. The hospital raises the total number of patients receiving excessive doses of pain medication to 34.

Jan. 25: State Medical Board suspends Husel's license, says doctor invoked his right against self-incrimination when he met with representatives this week and was questioned. Two additional lawsuits filed, over the deaths of 69-year-old Joanne Bellisari in May 2015 and 80-year-old Jim Allen in May 2018, bringing the total to six lawsuits.

Jan. 29: Mount Carmel says 23 staff members, including managers, now on leave pending further investigation. It previously said 20 employees  six pharmacists and 14 nurses. At least eight wrongful death lawsuits now filed.

___

Associated Press writers Kantele Franko contributed to this report.
MILWAUKEE  When it's 25 below zero, a lot of things can go wrong on a farm.

For instance, try fixing a frozen manure spreader in this wicked weather.

The spreader's chains are broken, or maybe the tractor pulling it has stalled out. Either way, when fresh manure starts to freeze, the problem gets worse.

Early Wednesday, dairy farmer Emily Harris, of Monroe, Wisconsin, went out to milk cows only to find that everything was frozen solid in the milking parlor.

It was an awful start to her day, which began around 4 a.m.

"This is crap. I have never seen such a thing," Harris said. "The cows are keeping the barn warm enough, but the milk house is frozen."

Near Tomah, Wisconsin, beef cattle farmers Bill and Natalie Divyak struggled with machinery that wouldn't function like it was supposed to.

Emily Harris (left) and her wife, Brandi, move a bale of hay Sunday on their small organic dairy farm in Monroe.

With the wind chill, it was about 50 below at their farm.

Driving tips: How to drive safety in cold weather and on icy roads

"Anything metal doesn't want to work. Silo unloaders freeze up, conveyor belts slip and don't want to move," Natalie said.

It's hard on the humans, too.

"Bill's glasses froze up. He had to come back inside to warm up because he couldn't see," Natalie said. "He thawed out his fingers (and his glasses) and went right back out again."

In this extreme cold, safety experts say you shouldn't stay outside for more than a few minutes at a time. But often farmers don't have that choice, especially when they need to care for their livestock.

Dairy farmer Carrie Mess, of Watertown, Wisconsin, said her farm was moving calves into a heated equipment building.

"A lot of people use heat lamps in calf hutches, but we moved away from that because it's a fire hazard," Mess said.

Cold weather advice: 8 things you shouldn't leave in your car during polar vortex

Her farm's arsenal against the extreme cold includes powerful "torpedo" portable heaters, electric heat tape on water pipes and straw bales for insulation.

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All of her cows have been moved into one barn, which is a bit crowded, but the extra body heat helps keep them warm.

"We will do our best, but there's always a chance that some heifers will get frostbite on their ears," Mess said.

Farmers say livestock can handle bitter cold weather, provided the animals stay dry and out of the wind.

"The first thing we do in weather like this is to protect our animals," said Bob Roden, a dairy farmer from West Bend, Wisconsin.

Water tanks for cattle on his farm have submersible electric heaters to keep them from freezing, and Roden piles snow around the tanks for insulation.

Inclement weather policy: Can your employer force you to go into the office?

His cows get extra feed because they need the calories to stay warm.

His tractors are kept in a heated shed, and he mixes kerosene with diesel fuel so the tractors run better in the cold.

Some of the newer equipment has heated cabs, so it's not so hard on the operators.

"Years ago we never had all that stuff," Roden said.

"The biggest thing now is we have all these extra costs to keep everything heated. It's kind of a bummer, but what else are you going to do?"

The cold wreaks havoc on tractor batteries, and diesel fuel can gel until it's as thick as Jell-O and clogs fuel lines. Tires flatten easier, too.

Sometimes farmers take off their gloves, when they need them the most, because getting a grip with gloved fingers is nearly impossible.

Talk about the polar vortex: A list of the coldest weather ever recorded in each state

If you spill fuel on your hands, they turn to ice in seconds, said Danny Strupp, owner of Strupp Implements, a farm machinery dealership in Slinger.

Batteries, hydraulics, fuel, everything is cold. Its like taking your car, or your tractor, and putting it in a freezer, Strupp said.

Wednesday morning, two of his shops mechanics were making farm service calls, and one guy was out in the dealerships driveway trying to get a tractor started.

Its just too darn cold. That darn thing wont crank over, Strupp said.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Think it's hard for you to deal with the cold weather? Imagine being a farmer
A suspected wildlife trafficking kingpin accused of smuggling $1 million worth of rhino horns to Thailand has had the case against him dismissed, in a surprise Thai court verdict slammed by conservationists.

Boonchai Bach, a Vietnamese national with Thai citizenship, was arrested in January 2018 in connection with the smuggling of 14 horns from Africa to Thailand.

His arrest came after police caught an airport quarantine official attempting to remove the horns from the quarantine section of a Bangkok airport.

The police sting led investigators to a major syndicate allegedly financed by Boonchai.

But the case was dismissed by a judge on Tuesday because of a lack of evidence, according to an official at Samut Prakan provincial court, where the trial took place.

The case against Boonchai unravelled after a key witness changed his testimony linking Boonchai to the crime, according to the founder of anti-trafficking group Freeland, Steve Galster.

"In the end the case was low-profile and treated like a parking ticket," Galster said, adding that the case "fell apart" when the prosecution's only major witness "flipped" on the stand.

Freeland representatives, including Galster, assisted with the investigation and testified at Tuesday's trial.

They allege there is "adequate incriminating information" to show the Bach family is part of the sprawling Southeast Asian crime syndicate dubbed "Hydra".

The syndicate smuggles elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts to Chinese and Vietnamese dealers.

For years, traffickers have operated out of Nakhon Phanom province in northeast Thailand, bordering Laos.

It is a pivot point in Asia's wildlife trafficking chain through which smuggled goods transit through Thailand into Laos and on to Vietnam and China.

Both countries are among the world's biggest markets for parts from endangered or protected species, including tigers, elephants, rhinos and pangolins.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Officials with the Texas secretary of state's office began calling county election chiefs Tuesday to warn about problems with its recent report questioning the citizenship of tens of thousands of registered voters, the latest example of a state backpedaling after raising alarms about potential widespread election fraud.

Local officials told The Associated Press that they received calls from Texas Secretary of State David Whitley's office indicating that some citizens had been included in the original data announced Friday. The state had used a database of drivers' licenses and personal IDs to suggested that as many as 95,000 non-U.S. citizens may be on the state's voter rolls and that as many as 58,000 may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996.

"We received a call from the state saying we should put things on hold," said Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole. "Some of the data that they received was flawed. Some of the voters had already provided proof of citizenship."

Whitley released a new statement Tuesday that didn't provide any revised estimate of voters whose citizenship remains in question. It also doesn't acknowledge any errors with the initial count, after his office Friday had expressed high confidence in the data that was used.

After the report, President Donald Trump this weekend went to Twitter to renew his unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud.

Nearly 10,000 names had been flagged in Dallas County. Another elections chief in suburban Austin said many of the roughly 2,000 names he received now warranted no investigating.

"There's a significant number, at least in our list," Williamson County Election Administrator Chris Davis said.

Texas is not the first state to question the citizenship of thousands of registered voters, and often early claims of possible illegal voting on a rampant scale haven't held up.

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When Florida began searching for noncitizens in 2012, state officials initially found 180,000 people suspected of being ineligible to vote when comparing databases of registered voters and driver's licenses. Florida officials later assembled a purge list of more than 2,600 names but that, too, was beset by inaccuracies. Eventually, a revised list of 198 names of possible noncitizens was produced through the use of a federal database.

In Colorado, former Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler launched a search for non-citizen voters with a pool of 3,903 people. Hundreds on his list were U.S. citizens, and Gessler later passed along just 141 names to county clerks.

"Citizenship status changes, and the fact is when that when you do this kind of large-scale database matching you're going to confuse people," said Myrna Perez, a voting rights expert and deputy director of New York-based Brennan Center for Justice Democracy Program. "These claims keep surfacing up and get debunked."

Even before Tuesday, there were signals that the Texas numbers may represent a massive overcount. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told supporters in a fundraising email Monday that "many of these individuals may have been naturalized before registering and voting, which makes their conduct perfectly legal."

Davis, who is also president of the Texas Association of Election Administrators, said the state advised local election chiefs Tuesday to remove any names that were shown to have originally registered to vote with Texas Department of Public Safety, which issues driver's licenses and personal IDs. He said they were told "to consider them citizens."

Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state's office, said Tuesday in response to the phone calls to counties that they are continuing to provide information to help verify voter eligibility.

"This is to ensure that any registered voters who provided proof of citizenship at the time they registered to vote will not be required to provide proof of citizenship as part of the counties' examination," he said.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
A teenager who avoided jail after attacking a car with a zombie knife has been put behind bars after the Court of Appeal ruled his sentence was too lenient.

Joshua Gardner, 19, was caught on camera hitting a car with a large combat knife in rush-hour traffic in May.

He was originally handed a two-year suspended sentence in November 2018 but on Wednesday the Court of Appeal ruled that was too lenient and jailed the teen for three-and-a-half years.

Jailed  Joshua Gardner was handed a three-and-a-half year sentence at the Court of Appeal (Picture: SWNS)

Judges heard that Gardner attacked the car after spotting the victim, who he had previously argued with, inside in Croydon, south London, in May 2018.

The victim tried to drive away but clipped the wheel of Gardners bike, causing him to fall. Gardner then started kicking the vehicle before hitting the windows with his knife.

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He eventually managed to smash the passenger window and tried to stab the victim through the hole.

Gardner appeared at the Court of Appeal in London on Wednesday after Solicitor General Robert Buckland QC referred his sentence as being unduly lenient.

Mr Buckland said Gardner attacked the vehicle in a seriously violent and sustained way using a very large zombie knife.

Judges Sir Brian Leveson, Mr Justice Nicol and Sir Brian Keith were shown dashcam footage of the incident, which was widely shared online at the time of the attack.

Mark Stevens, representing Gardner, said his clients defence at trial, which was not believed, was that he was simply trying to scare his victim.

Describing the knife Gardner was carrying, which had a 10-inch blade, as horrific, Sir Brian said: One of the challenges facing society is the commonplace carrying and use of knives.

That can never be an excuse for carrying a weapon of the type which this offender carried on that day.

Purported self-defence all too frequently becomes an offence and results in fatal injuries, particularly to teenage boys, almost on a daily basis.

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Public concern is obvious and inevitable. It thus falls to the court to demonstrate that such behaviour must result in substantial and effective custodial sentences.

In our judgment, taking into account all the circumstances, the sentence on this offender should have been four years in custody.

We reduce that sentence to three and a half years in custody at a young offenders institution to reflect the days that he spent on tag and his unpaid work.

Speaking outside the Court of Appeal, the Solicitor General said: Gardner took to the streets in broad daylight, terrorising his victim and those members of the public who witnessed this extreme act of violence with a dangerous weapon.

I am pleased that the Court of Appeal has today decided that a custodial sentence is more appropriate to help prevent Gardner from posing a threat to anyone else.
Taiwan's Navy has held its first fly-over demonstration using the indigenous Albatross UAV. This test was part of a joint military operation taking place near Pingtung.

Taiwan's Navy has held its first fly-over demonstration using the indigenous Albatross UAV. This test was part of a joint military operation taking place near Pingtung.

Flight testing of the Albatross UAV (Picture source : NCSIST)

This Taiwanese remote controlled UAV is developed by National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) took part in a joint military operation. This operation was to simulate a scenario during which DDG-1802, a guided-missile destroyer, and FFG-1205, a frigate, were offshore to protect Taiwan from a ballistic missile. During this simulation, the Albatross made its first public takeoff, landing and fly-over, dispatched to gather aerial intelligence for both ships to operate easier and safer.

Albatross UAVs, reaching maximum flight times of 12 hours and a flight range of 180 km, are indeed used for daytime and nighttime surveillance and reconnaissance, target acquisition and designation, etc... That may explain how important it is for the Navy to constantly improve this system.

Accurate and timely intelligence is actually essential to enable ships reach an effective command an control. This real time information is also used to improve the efficiency of the combined operations, thanks to the C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems.
The Telegraph

Rumours abounded on Friday night that China's top spycatcher had defected to the US, amid a growing focus in Washington on the theory that Covid-19 escaped from a Wuhan laboratory. Dong Jingwei, vice minister of state security, was reported to have flown from Hong Kong to the US in February with his daughter. There was no confirmation of the rumoured development from either the US or China. Dr Han Lianchao, a former Chinese foreign ministry official who is now a pro-democracy activist in the US,
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The Sudanese army issued a statement on Wednesday saying it would not allow the state to collapse, following weeks of mass protests demanding an end to President Omar al-Bashir's 30-year rule. Some activists had been calling for the military to back the protesters and pressure the government to step down. "The armed forces will not allow the Sudanese state to fall or to slide into the unknown," said General Kamal Abdul Maarouf, chief of staff of the armed forces, in a statement. He said those leading the protests were hostile to Sudan and were hurting the country's image. Addressing soldiers this month, Bashir, a 75-year-old former paratrooper who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1989, said he would only move aside for another army officer, or at the ballot box. The protests were triggered by price increases and cash shortages but quickly developed into demonstrations against Bashir. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Lena Masri; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
By Caroline Copley

CHEMNITZ, Germany (Reuters) - With Brexit less than two months away, and no divorce deal in sight, some German companies are taking matters into their own hands to limit any damage to their businesses.

The small and mid-sized firms - albeit a small minority - say they can't wait any longer to see what agreement, if any, will emerge between London and Brussels. They are taking steps to protect themselves should a chaotic British withdrawal lead to traffic tailbacks, heavier customs bureaucracy and rising delivery costs after March 29, the planned break-up date.

Kieselstein International, a maker of metalworking machines, has for example successfully introduced a clause into a contract to deliver goods to British Steel that puts the onus on the UK firm to bear the costs of any extra red tape linked to Brexit.

"We included a clause that says if delivery takes place after March 29 the goods cannot be delivered to the buyer's warehouse but are to be picked up in Chemnitz," managing director Jens Kieselstein told Reuters, referring to the town in Saxony where his business is based.

Others are taking measures such as finding new suppliers in continental Europe, should imports from Britain become more costly, stockpiling parts, or rushing to complete British orders before March 29 to avoid any disruption.

Such precautions are exceptions rather than the rule; among small and mid-sized companies - Germany's so-called Mittelstand - 77 percent believe Brexit will not affect them, according to a survey by the BVMW trade association conducted in December.

"We still have no binding information and have therefore decided to accept new orders and process them normally in the hope that the situation will soon be resolved," said Jakob Kania, managing director of Support Q, a consultancy firm for suppliers to the automotive industry.

Mittelstand businesses, some of which are big suppliers to Britain's machinery and automotive sectors, are typically family-owned with up to 500 workers and annual revenues below 50 million euros. Many lack the resources for the detailed contingency planning carried out by corporate heavyweights.

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Their fortunes are nonetheless crucial to Europe's biggest economy, accounting for more than half of Germany's jobs, a third of its corporate turnover, and almost a fifth of the nation's exports - 7 percent of which went to Britain in 2017, worth about 84 billion euros ($96 billion).

Mario Ohoven, president of the BVMW Mittelstand trade body, urged companies to check their contracts for Brexit risks, get to grips with customs procedures and visa formalities, and to consider switching to British haulage firms.

'ORDERS NEAR STANDSTILL'

British politicians continue to quarrel over the terms of Britain's exit from the EU, with parliament in deadlock. It is possible that Britain will leave without any deal to govern its trading relationship with the bloc - a scenario many businesses fear will bring chaos to the world's fifth-biggest economy.

With no visibility about future customs arrangements, Kieselstein, whose firm employs 50 people and has an annual turnover of 8 million euros, told British Steel he may have to add German sales tax of 19 percent onto the bill after March 29.

Kieselstein isn't the only Mittelstand firm taking precautionary measures.

Zabag Security Engineering, a maker of high-tech security gates and bollards, said it is looking for a new supplier in the EU for the grid mats it currently imports from Britain to avoid any disruptions to its supply chain.

The company, which makes about 10-15 percent of its sales in Britain, predicts difficulties in sending spare parts to Britain if extra customs red tape is introduced, and said this would have a big impact on trade and flexibility.

"The English market has always been a big part of our export business," said a Zabag spokeswoman. "But the uncertainty of the English over Brexit has increasingly minimized the number of orders placed with us and almost come to a standstill."

Joerg Daubner, managing director of DHD audio in Leipzig, which builds mixing consoles for radio and TV stations worldwide, said he was preparing to deliver a large order to Britain's BBC before March 29.

"The transition period will be critical so we want to avoid delivering during this time," he told Reuters.

Even for firms taking precautionary measures, the ongoing uncertainty limits how much they can act.

Max Frank, a Bavarian producer of products to reinforce concrete buildings, has started stockpiling parts at its British subsidiary in Stoke-on-Trent to limit any delays from customs disruption.

"Our plan is to increase the stock of standard goods by roughly 10-20 percent from mid-February," said Gerhard Bumes, who runs the subsidiary that employs 65 people.

"However, we produce a lot of goods made-to-order which we can't stock. We hope not to have any delays in our imports, but unfortunately there is no defined political plan at the moment."

HOPING FOR THE BEST

Germany's VDMA engineering association warned on Wednesday that a no-deal Brexit was getting closer by the day, after the British parliament instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to renegotiate an exit treaty.

"Unfortunately even after the vote in the British lower house, there is no new hope of avoiding a disorderly Brexit," said VDMA head Thilo Brodtmann.

Patrice Kaiser, a trade expert at Merkur Bank, said many companies had overlooked that border checks, blocked ports and major tailbacks would not just be a problem for those who import and export directly to Britain.

"If you import parts from Asia or China you should take a look at your supply routes because most of the imports up to now have been processed in Britain," Kaiser warned executives at a Brexit seminar organized by the BVMW in Chemnitz last week.

The eastern state of Saxony is home to many Mittelstand companies, and Kaiser said the region's dependence on the auto sector made firms particularly vulnerable to Brexit. Britain is the single largest export market for German automakers.

BVMW Chief Economist Hans-Juergen Voelz said many Mittelstand companies were simply hoping for the best.

"Many are not letting themselves be influenced by the images they see on TV of the British parliament and believe reason will prevail at the last moment."

($1 = 0.8744 euros)

(Editing by Pravin Char)
Rather than taking in a big breath of fresh air, cruise lovers might actually be inhaling pollution on par with the air in Beijing when they step out on the ship deck.

That's according to the findings of an undercover study by Ryan David Kennedy, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University's Department of Public Health. He analyzed the air quality on the decks of four different ships and routes at varied times of day between October 2017 and November 2018. The ships were Carnival's Liberty (Bahamas) and Freedom (Western Caribbean), Holland America's Amsterdam (California and Vancouver, Canada) and Princess' Emerald Princess (Southern California and Mexico).

Kennedy measured the concentrations of particulate matter, or the amounts of liquid droplets or solids found in the air, at the bow (front), stern (rear) and exercise areas on each of the four ships and found that the levels were significantly higher behind the smokestacks. In fact, they were up to eight times higher.

Air pollution levels were tested on board the Carnival Freedom on a cruise to the western Caribbean between April and May, 2018. The pollution level at the running track was found to be eight times higher than at the front of the ship.

Those numbers, he said, are comparable to the pollution levels in Beijing and Santiago, Chile.

Kennedy concluded that the source was likely the ships' exhaust systems, which emit waste via the smokestacks. Ship exhaust, he noted, contains "harmful constituents, including metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), many of which have toxic, mutagenic and/ or carcinogenic properties."

More concerning: Vacationers and crew members could be at prolonged risk of exposure  even out in open water  because the ships Kennedy studied never stopped producing exhaust: "The four cruise ships observed in this study were continuously emitting exhaust through their smokestacks because, in addition to providing propulsion, the ship generates electricity to power the cabins, air conditioning, and general operation of the ship."

Kennedy's study was published by the environmental group Stand.Earth, whose website says its mission is "shifting corporate behavior, breaking the human addiction to fossil fuels, and developing the leadership required to catalyze long-term change."

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Carnival disputed Kennedy's findings in a lengthy statement to USA TODAY, provided by spokesperson Roger Frizzell.

"We test the air quality of our ships and they meet or exceed every requirement. The air quality on our ship decks when in port compares favorably with a typical urban or suburban environment," it read. "Independent testing on our funnels  which is the area where the exhaust originates  further validates our claims."

t continued, "It is worth noting that our own investigation into this concludes that their data is faulty. Separately, it is absurd to suggest that some researcher surreptitiously taking random samples while posing undercover as a cruise tourist could in any way replicate or compare with the controlled and scientific air quality testing that we do continuously, and which portray a vastly different and positive picture. The onboard comparisons with the air quality of Beijing or Santiago are as ridiculous as they are wrong."

Frizzell noted, "We have installed Advanced Air Quality Systems on nearly 80 percent of our global fleet in close coordination with the EPA, so these systems are environmentally friendly, in addition to rolling out new ships powered by LNG, the cleanest burning fuel available."



He added, "We are tested regularly by authorities around the world, such as the EPA, in order to be approved to sail in key ports."

Carnival's statement also took issue with Stand.Earth itself, saying, "This particular organization, for fundraising purposes, is constantly in search of a problem in our industry even if it has to create fake tests that really have no scientific basis."

USA TODAY has also reached out to Holland America and Princess Cruises for comment on the study.

"Globally, the cruise industry has already invested $1 billion in new technologies and cleaner fuels, to significantly reduce ships air emissions," said Megan King, who represents the Cruise Lines International Association trade group, in a statement to USA TODAY. She added that more than $8 billion has been committed to building more advanced ships that run on liquified natural gas in order to achieve lower emissions and higher efficiency.

"Cruise ships are one of the more high-profile and easy-to-target flashpoints when air pollution and emissions are discussed," she said. "The cruise industry is only a small part of this issue, an issue which is facing the wider tourism and shipping sector; but we want to be a large part of the solution."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Air pollution on cruise ship decks rivals China and it's worst in these areas, study says
Washington (AFP) - Democrats on Tuesday picked Stacey Abrams, who rose to prominence in her heated but unsuccessful Georgia governor's race, to deliver the rebuttal to Donald Trump's State of the Union address, a first for an African-American woman.

The president will give his annual speech on February 5 before a joint session of Congress, after it was postponed because of the partial government shutdown.

Abrams is a former Georgia legislative leader but holds no current political office, an unusual status for someone delivering a national party's response to the president.

"She is just a great spokesperson, she is an incredible leader," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, adding that Abrams "has led the charge for voting rights, which is at the root of just about everything else."

Abrams, 45, emerged as a potent political star last year when she nearly won her race to became the nation's first female black governor -- in the reliably Republican southern state of Georgia.

She nearly forced a runoff with the state's secretary of state Brian Kemp in Georgia's tightest gubernatorial election in decades.

Abrams challenged the initial results, sharply accusing Kemp of deliberately suppressing thousands of votes. Kemp was declared the winner and took office this month.

A champion of voting rights who seeks to elevate the conversation to a national level, Abrams is already being discussed as a potential Democratic candidate for the US Senate in 2020. She said she was "honored" to be delivering the response.

"Stacey Abrams embodies the American Dream, and her powerful message of progress for all is deeply needed during this time for our country," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will deliver the Spanish-language response.

The rebuttal is a tradition that dates half a century.

In recent years, it has been seen as a high-profile honor bestowed on a rising political star.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who became Trump's UN ambassador, delivered the Republican rebuttal to Barack Obama in 2016, while Congressman Joe Kennedy III, a grand-nephew of president John F. Kennedy gave the Democratic response last year.
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia does not consider Chinese telecoms supplier Huawei as a security threat and would need evidence the company's technology poses a risk before imposing any restrictions, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said on Wednesday. Huawei faces international scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and allegations that Beijing could use Huawei's technology for spying, which the company denies. Europe has become the latest focus for action against Huawei after Poland arrested a Huawei employee on suspicion of spying and Germany is debating whether to follow the United States and allies like Australia in restricting the company's technology from next-generation mobile networks. Huawei has also been excluded from a Czech tender to build a tax portal after the country's cyber watchdog warned of possible security threats. Pellegrini was asked a news conference on Wednesday whether he saw Huawei as a security threat following the Czech action. "We don't have any official information from Slovakia's security forces that would give evidence that this company poses a specific security threat," Pellegrini told reporters. "If we want to talk about cyber security, we should talk about all companies and not single out one of them." Slovak watchdogs and the country's National Security Authority have not issued a similar warning to that of neighboring Czech Republic, and the prime minister said Slovakia would take its time before acting. "The politicians should be careful not to become a tool in a trade war or fight between competitors," Pellegrini said. "We should not make hasty decisions." (Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova, Editing by Michael Kahn and Jane Merriman)
The United States hopes to make "significant progress" during high-stakes trade talks with Chinese officials this week, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

Beijing and Washington have a month remaining in a 90-day truce declared in December before US tariffs on hundreds of billions in Chinese exports are due to increase sharply -- a prospect economists say could help knock the wind out of an already-faltering global economy.

The countries also are locked in confrontation over Washington's sweeping prosecution of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei for alleged sanctions violations.

While officials insist the case is unrelated, it is casting a shadow over the talks, with Beijing accusing Washington of a "smear" and "political violations."

"I expect we will make significant progress this week" on securing greater access to the Chinese market for American companies, Mnuchin told Fox Business Network.

The two sides will meet for a second round of talks Wednesday and Thursday, and Mnuchin said President Donald Trump is due to participate at the end.

Washington is seeking an end to forced joint ventures and transfers of American intellectual property and insisting that any agreement have teeth to ensure the parties abide by it.

But Mnuchin said there was no connection between the Huawei matter and the trade talks.

"Let me be clear. Those are separate issues," Mnuchin said. "I found out about that yesterday when it was announced. So those are not part of trade discussions."

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also insisted on Tuesday that the Huawei case is unrelated to the trade negotiations.

US officials have alternated between saying the two sides are "miles and miles" from reaching an agreement, and expressing optimism that common ground can be reached.

The world's two largest economies last year exchanged tariffs on more than $360 billion in two-way trade.

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Negotiators face severe time pressure as US duty rates on $200 billion in Chinese goods are scheduled to more than double to 25 percent on March 2 unless Trump decides otherwise.

Mnuchin also said he expected that reimbursements from income tax payments -- which provide an annual boost to crucial consumer spending -- would be paid as usual despite the five-week partial government shutdown, which ended last week.

"We're taking tax returns. We will be ready for tax refunds. We will have the phones re-staffed," he said.
Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio has tasked a special commission with investigating allegations of widespread corruption and abuse of office under the government of his predecessor.

The commission, which will formally begin work on February 4, has a mandate to look into allegations of corruption as well as stolen public funds and state assets between 2007 and 2018 during the rule of president Ernest Bai Koroma.

"Corruption is a threat to national development," said Bio at a ceremony Tuesday to inaugurate the commission.

"All those who will be invited by the commission must comply, anyone who fails to comply... will face the full force of the law."

Bio took over as president after winning last April's election run-off following a tumultuous campaign in which he targeted corruption.

"The commission of inquiry is not a witch-hunt but a democratic accountability and a fight against impunity," said Justice Minister Priscilla Schwartz said at the launch ceremony.

Several former leaders have been arrested in recent months following the publication in July of a damning report which said "rampant corruption" under the Koroma administration had led to the "near collapse" of the West African nation's economy.

Although Sierra Leone boasts huge mineral and diamond deposits, the former British colony remains one of the world's poorest nations and is only gradually recovering from years of war and disease.
Berlin (AFP) - Joe Kaeser, chief executive of German conglomerate Siemens, launched Wednesday a rare broadside against the European Commission, complaining that "backwards-looking technocrats" threatened to block a planned rail merger with France's Alstom.

Green lights for major tie-ups are usually negotiated quietly behind closed doors in Brussels.

But the Siemens-Alstom battle has been fought out in public, with Kaeser and his backers in the French and German governments on one side and EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on the other.

"It will be interesting to see if the future of mobility will be determined by backward-looking technocrats or future-oriented Europeans," Kaeser told reporters at a press conference on the group's first-quarter results.

That sentiment echoed a tweet he directed at Vestager Monday, telling the Danish politician that "it must be bitter to be technically right but to do everything wrong for Europe" -- an apparent acknowledgement the Siemens chief expects the merger to be blocked.

Kaeser is unusual among German bosses for taking strong public political positions, including against far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Now, four months ahead of the European Parliament elections, he has turned his ire on the EU.

"Many people complain that Europe is not establishing itself as a powerhouse", faced with new challenges from abroad, he lamented.

- Outdated rules? -

Liberal politician Vestager has well-known doubts about whether competition from Chinese rail behemoth CRRC is pressing enough to justify waving through the creation of a European giant, which would have operations in 60 countries and annual turnover of 15.6 billion euros ($17.8 billion).

With its signalling systems and high-speed rolling stock, a combined Siemens-Alstom could crush smaller competitors or undermine market pricing in the rail sector.

Several member state competition authorities share Brussels' concerns about the merger.

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Kaeser insisted that "European antitrust law came into effect in 1989 in a completely different context".

"It is naive to think that individual states can stand by themselves in front of Chinese competition," he added.

French Finance and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire shares that view, arguing ahead of a recent meeting with Vestager that "we can't take industrial decisions in the 21st Century using competition rules set in the 20th".

But competitors like Canada's Bombardier -- whose rail activities are based in Berlin -- contest the idea of the looming Chinese threat.

Alstom chief Henri Poupart-Lafarge has admitted doubts that the merger will go ahead, saying in December there was "no certainty" the Commission would give its green light.

Brussels is expected to announce its decision between February 6 and the deadline of February 18.

A Commission spokesperson declined to comment on Kaeser's comments Wednesday when contacted by AFP.

- 'Different options' -

Alstom and Siemens have published proposed concessions to soothe competition fears amounting to four percent of their combined annual revenue.

Early this week they sweetened their offer further in a last-ditch bid for approval.

Kaeser has also said the German firm could float its profitable rail arm on the stock market if the merger flops.

Other divisions of the sprawling conglomerate, including its renewable energy unit Siemens Gamesa and medical imaging business Siemens Healthineers, have already been listed as the group has sought to gain flexibility and streamline its organisation.

"We are not bitter, we are not angry, we have different options," Kaeser said.

"If it works it will be good for Siemens-Alstom, for customers; if not we will continue to be a leading company."

Siemens Mobility is one of the best-performing parts of the group, securing 4.5 billion euros of orders in the first quarter of the group's 2018-19 financial year, including for the London Underground.

On the French side, Alstom booked 3.4 billion euros of orders in the same period.
According to Boeing, the U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a $US 2.4 billion production contract for the next 19 P-8A Poseidon aircraft. The contract includes 10 aircraft to add to the current inventory of P-8As in the U.S. Navy fleet, all five jets currently under contract for Norway and the four aircraft remaining for the existing United Kingdom contract, bringing the total United Kingdom acquisition to nine aircraft.

According to Boeing, the U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a $US 2.4 billion production contract for the next 19 P-8A Poseidon aircraft. The contract includes 10 aircraft to add to the current inventory of P-8As in the U.S. Navy fleet, all five jets currently under contract for Norway and the four aircraft remaining for the existing United Kingdom contract, bringing the total United Kingdom acquisition to nine aircraft.

The U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a $2.4 billion production contract for the next 19 P-8A Poseidon aircraft (Picture source : Boeing)

The United Kingdom and Norway are acquiring the Boeing aircraft through the Foreign Military Sales process and will receive a variant designed and produced for the U.S. Navy called the P-8A Poseidon. The United Kingdom will receive their first aircraft in 2019 and Norway will begin receiving aircraft in 2021.

The P-8 is a long-range multi-mission maritime patrol aircraft capable of broad-area, maritime and littoral operations. A military derivative of the Boeing Commercial Next-Generation 737 airplane, the P-8 combines superior performance and reliability with an advanced mission system that ensures maximum interoperability in the battle space.

The P-8 is militarized with maritime weapons, a modern open mission system architecture, and commercial-like support for affordability. The aircraft has been modified to include a bomb bay and pylons for weapons  two weapons stations on each wing  and can carry 129 sonobuoys. The aircraft is also fitted with an in-flight refueling system. With more than 180,000 flight hours to date, P-8 variants, the P-8A Poseidon and the P-8I, patrol the globe performing anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; humanitarian; and search and rescue missions.
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists using sophisticated techniques to determine the age of bone fragments, teeth and artifacts unearthed in a Siberian cave have provided new insight into a mysterious extinct human species that may have been more advanced than previously known. Research published on Wednesday shed light on the species called Denisovans, known only from scrappy remains from Denisova Cave in the foothills of the Altai Mountains in Russia. While still enigmatic, they left a genetic mark on our species, Homo sapiens, particularly among indigenous populations in Papua New Guinea and Australia that retain a small but significant percentage of Denisovan DNA, evidence of past interbreeding between the species. Fossils and DNA traces demonstrated Denisovans were present in the cave from at least 200,000 to 50,000 years ago, and Neanderthals, a closely related extinct human species, were present there between 200,000 and 80,000 years ago, the new research found. Stone tools indicated one or both species may have occupied the cave starting 300,000 years ago. Scientists last year described a Denisova Cave bone fragment of a girl whose mother was a Neanderthal and father a Denisovan, evidence of interbreeding. The girl, nicknamed "Denny," lived around 100,000 years ago, the new research showed. Pendants made of animal teeth and bone points from the cave were determined to be between 43,000 and 49,000 years old. They may have been crafted by Denisovans, suggesting a degree of intellectual sophistication. "Traditionally these objects are associated in Western Europe with the expansion of our species, and are seen as hallmarks of behavioral modernity, but in this case Denisovans may be their authors," said archaeological scientist Katerina Douka of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago, later spreading worldwide. There is no evidence Homo sapiens had reached Denisova Cave when these objects were made. Denisovans are known only from three teeth and one finger bone. "New fossils would be especially welcome, as we know almost nothing about the physical appearance of Denisovans, aside from them having rather chunky teeth," said geochronologist Zenobia Jacobs of the University of Wollongong in Australia. "Their DNA in modern Australian Aboriginal and New Guinean people tantalizingly suggests they may have been quite widespread in Asia, and possible even southeast Asia, but we need to find some hard evidence of their presence in these regions to flesh out the full story of the Denisovans," added University of Wollongong geochronologist Richard "Bert" Roberts. The research was published in the journal Nature. (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Are you a federal worker interested in sharing your shutdown experience with Yahoo News? Contact us at shutdownstories@yahoonews.com.

Despite the temporary resolution to the standoff over the federal budget, U.S. government employees told Yahoo News theyre still nervous about the potential for another shutdown.

My first reaction to the government reopening was I was pretty happy about it, said Paul Garcia, a U.S. Border Patrol agent. I was pretty ecstatic, actually. Then I realized its just a continuing resolution and we might be in the same boat a few weeks from now.

At 35 days, the shutdown was the longest in the nations history. It ended last Friday, after Trump agreed to a deal with congressional leaders to open the government for three weeks and to create a bipartisan committee to draft a comprehensive border security bill. Trump has continued to float the possibility of declaring a national emergency to construct a wall along the border without a specific appropriation.

Im not even sure what is to come, said Garcia. I think the only thing we can do is prepare ourselves financially and keep our savings high, because you never know whats going to happen with the federal government these days.

The shutdown affected approximately 800,000 federal workers, some put on furlough and others required to report to their jobs without being paid. Federal workers took out loans, called in sick to work other jobs, relied on food banks and sold off personal items to meet their expenses until they receive back pay, which should happen for all employees by Thursday. Over half a million government contractors including custodians, security guards and IT consultants are still fighting to receive back pay.

The effects of the shutdown go beyond the financial. John Lauretig, a former park ranger at Joshua Tree National Park in California, said the consequences of the five-week shutdown will be felt for years.

Some of the worst damage Ive seen in the park is the off-road driving people have done, said Lauretig. Those road scars will be there for decades, because the desert is a sensitive environment and it doesnt recover quickly. A former Joshua Tree superintendent estimated that some of the damage would take 200 to 300 years to fully recover.

As federal workers attempt to catch up with five weeks of missed work and missed paychecks, they must deal with the psychological effects of waiting for another possible shutdown to commence.

I am terrified were going to go out again, said Freda McDonald, the executive vice president of the union that represents FEMA employees. I absolutely do not expect a deal to be reached between Congress and the White House by Feb. 15.
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. (Photo: Jay LaPrete/Pool/AP)

The national media took note last year when Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, 66, cruised to reelection in Ohio, a state that backed Donald Trump by 8 percent in 2016 and otherwise voted for Republicans in all of 2018s competitive contests, from governor on down. As a result of all the buzz, Brown started openly mulling the possibility of a presidential run.

The senators flirtation with higher office will move into a more serious phase Thursday as he embarks on his first visit to Iowa, home of 2020s inaugural nominating contest. The trip is part of a month-long Dignity of Work listening tour that will take Brown to all four early primary states, where he aims to find out whether the Midwestern populist message that has helped him defy Ohios rightward trend  fight for working-class people, regardless of race, without moving to the middle on social issues  can resonate with the voters most likely to decide the next Democratic nominee.

On the eve of Browns three-day Iowa swing, Yahoo News interviewed the senator about his presidential plans  and how, if he were to run, he would distinguish himself from the rest of the Democratic field. For anyone familiar with Browns progressive credentials  hes compiled one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate  the answer might come as something of a surprise: He wont follow the rest of the pack in touting big ideas that sound good on the stump but stand little chance of passing Congress. Brown refuses, for instance, to be stampeded into endorsing Medicare for all, which he considers an unrealistic goal right now; he also regards the Green New Deal skeptically, as more of a bumper sticker slogan than a concrete platform.

For Brown, such restraint is proof of both his pragmatism and his authenticity  though it remains to be seen whether Democratic primary voters agree. I'm not going into this race thinking I've got to prove that I'm a progressive, he explained. I don't need to jump when somebody says jump on any particular issue.

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More from the conversation:

Yahoo News: You're about to start a listening tour of the early presidential states. What would you have to hear to make you decide not to run?

Sherrod Brown: I don't know. I'm trying to go into this without judging what criteria we need for yes or a no. I just want to get a feel for these four states. I want to hear how people respond. Since November, when we first started thinking about running, my wife and I would listen to Democrats, and we would notice that too many of them think its a choice between running to our progressive base or talking to working-class voters. The problem is, if we choose between the two, we lose swing states. We lose Ohio. We lose New Hampshire. We could lose Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin or Florida. So it's pretty clear we need to do both.

As you said, there are a lot of other Democrats running or gearing up to run. Are any of them already saying the sort of things you want to hear?

I'm not sure they're talking to workers well enough. That's something the party needs to figure out. And it's not just talking to workers  it's governing as if you respect the dignity of work. For too long Democrats have not focused on these issues. We seem so happy about our success in the suburbs. But at the same time weve been losing the working-class areas by bigger and bigger margins. There are 88 counties in Ohio. I won 16 of them, and I won the state by seven points. But in many of those other 72 counties, we got emasculated. They werent even close. Theres this awful divide between the metro areas and the smaller towns.

So I don't think the guy from Ohio's the only one who can win. But I do think that I can run a good race because of my message  and I'm sure that being from Ohio would help in the electoral college.

What does the dignity of work mean in policy terms? And how does it differ from what other Democrats are offering, and have been offering, in recent years?

It's not an attack on any institution. It's not an attack, per se, on Wall Street. I define the dignity of work as three things. One is better wages and benefits. Two is more power in the workplace for workers. That means stronger unions, period, and also workplace rules  legislatively in some cases  that give workers some freedom, the freedom to get a decent job, the freedom to use your skills, the freedom to have a predictable workday. And last, it's a tax system that rewards work. Right now, Congress and Mitch McConnell and the president and the courts all put their thumb on the scale of justice to advantage corporations over workers, or Wall Street over consumers. The idea of the dignity of work is to rebalance those scales so that people have a legitimate shot.

You're often described as authentic, at least when you're not being described as rumpled. Seriously, though, authenticity is all Democrats can talk about these days. What does that word even mean?

It doesn't mean that you have a consultant telling you to be authentic, because if you do talk about being lost. I just think it's saying what you mean and meaning what you say. I've been consulted in race after race by fill in the blank  the DCCC, the DSC, whoever to move to the center, to not speak out. Life's too short for that. If the facts change, you don't dig in on something that's wrong. But you do dig in on issues of justice. And as I fight for workers, I will always fight for women's right to choose, I'll always fight for marriage equality, I'll always fight for a higher minimum wage, I'll always fight for strong environmental laws, Ill always fight for civil rights. It's who I am.

If you ran, you might be the only candidate who doesnt support full-tilt Medicare-for-all. Why not? Its basically the password to get into the Democratic primary these days.

Well, I'll start with this: I fought for universal coverage my whole career. I promised to pay my own health insurance until we got universal coverage  and I did. Now my wife and I are in the Obamacare exchanges, like millions of other people. I wrote the original Medicare at 55 voluntary buy-in. I wrote the public option, with Sheldon Whitehouse, that was originally in the Affordable Care Act.

I want to get something done. I see too many 58-year-olds and 62-year-olds whose plants have closed going without insurance; they just have to stay alive until they're 65 to get it. I mean, I can do the talking points. I want to get to Medicare for all. But I think we can get Medicare at 55, and 55's OK with me too. Then we move towards Medicare for all. But I just don't know how it happens in this political climate.

So you see it as a matter of realism? As in, how do Democrats actually cobble together 60 votes? The point other candidates are making is that the party should be setting Medicare for all as its goal. Its aspirational.

But I'm not going to change my philosophy and my positions to pass a litmus test. I'll put up my progressive bona fides up against anybody in this group. If all the candidates that you guys are writing about are in this race, I will be one of two people who voted against the Iraq War. I'll be one of two people who voted against NAFTA. I'll be the only person who has a long-term F-rating from the NRA. I've been pushing for marriage equality for 20 years. I don't need to jump when somebody says jump on any particular issue. And I've done all of that in a state where it's a lot harder than  pick your state, of the other candidates.

California. Vermont.

Right. So I wont be lectured to by other candidates about not being progressive enough on the issues.

Just to be clear: You see Medicare for all as something America should aspire to, but to say that its your policy prescription does not strike you as a realistic way to proceed?

That's fair enough.

What about a Green New Deal? That's the other hot topic on the left.

Yeah, well, first of all, I don't know exactly what that means. The New Deal was a bunch of things put together: the Wagner Act, Social Security, the minimum wage, collective bargaining, Medicare. So I think the Green New Deal is a wonderful term. I think that climate change is the greatest moral issue of our times, and that we need to address it directly, and deeply, and consistently, and comprehensively. I think that there will be many components of what we do to address climate change, and I've been part of those efforts in the past.

Im getting the sense that your approach to policy  even in a Democratic primary  will differ from your rivals. Unlike many of them, you seem to resist campaigning on these big, bold catchphrases. Why?

I came here to get things done. I believe in the Hubert Humphrey idea  inside/outside, with people on the outside pressuring people on the inside, and people on the inside doing the job. Heres an example: For a while I was the only person in the Senate pushing to expand and make permanent the Earned Income Tax Credit. After we finally did it, some people came into our office and said to us, "Next to the ACA, it's the best antipoverty measure in 25 years." That might not have been a really salient campaign issue, but look at the impact it has on the pocketbooks of a lot of people making $30,000 a year. So I'll take that over talking points on any issue, any day.

How about corporate PAC money? Youve taken plenty of it in the past. But now it seems like every Democratic candidate is turning it down. Is that something you would do too?

Well, I've thought about it. I may do that, I don't know. But the bottom line, again, is that I'm not going into this race thinking I've got to prove that I'm a progressive. Ive represented a conservative congressional district; I've represented a state that's getting more and more Republican every cycle. And thats just not how I operate. Im not going to change my views just because I'm running for another office.

Have you always considered yourself a populist?

I think so, yeah. I start with this: Populism is not racist. It's not anti-Semitic. It doesn't divide people. Populists don't advocate tax cuts for the rich. To me, populism is lifting people up, and bringing people together, and giving them a chance in life. If you're working hard, you ought to be able to get ahead. If you play by the rules, you ought to have a decent standard of living. And if you love your country, you'll fight for the people who make it work.

When I see some fascist dictator called a populist, or I see Donald Trump called a populist, it just rankles me. Because they're not. Phony populists go to meetings of rich donors to figure out their message  to figure out how to sound like populists. Well, nice try.

I mean, why does anyone even describe Trump as a populist? Because he says he's for people and he has big rallies? So did Mussolini.

At a time when gridlock has made getting anything done pretty much impossible and partisanship has divided us into warring tribes, I sometimes wonder if a person that wants to be president has to be crazy. Why would you even want the job?

That's why I wrestle with it. Most of the people in this race now have thought about running for president for a year, five years, 10 years, their whole lives, or at least their whole careers. I know some people have come to the Senate planning to run for president.

But it never occurred to me to actually do this until November, when I talked about our campaign in Ohio being the blueprint to win the White House. And then some people started applying it to me. I'm not saying theres a groundswell; politicians dont tell the truth when they say that. But I can see a path  and I'm thinking seriously about it.

I wrestle with what it does to your family, what it does to your soul, to run for a year or two. I've just come off a campaign that was pretty long and arduous. Theres no whining on the yacht; I get to do this great job, so I'm not complaining about the workload. But I also know that it's sort of unnatural to dive into something like this.

What do you feel like you could do as president that no one else could do?

I've always had the courage of my convictions. I haven't compromised on principle. So I put my history up against anyone  my history of running in a conservative state as a progressive and sticking with it. That tells voters that I would continue to be that person as president. And I don't know if my colleagues will be that.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Washington (AFP) - Thousands more troops will head to the US-Mexico border, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Tuesday, as part of a controversial mission to enhance security along the frontier.

Currently, about 2,350 active-duty troops are working along the border, where they are helping border patrol agents by providing logistical support and installing concertina-wire fencing.

They were deployed under an order President Donald Trump gave before midterm elections in November as "caravans" of Central American migrants made their way to the border to seek asylum from violence and poverty in their own countries.

At a Pentagon press conference, Shanahan said "several thousand" additional troops would deploy on the border mission, which was supposed to wrap up January 31 but has been extended through September.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked for additional help putting up fencing and with "expanded surveillance," Shanahan said.

Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis later said the military is currently determining which units will be involved, and that there would be an increase of "a few thousand" troops.

"We will provide more clarity on the numbers when we have it," Davis said.

The border troop deployment was one of several issues on which Trump and former defense secretary Jim Mattis disagreed before he quit in December after Trump's shock decision to pull troops from Syria.

Shanahan, who had been deputy defense secretary, succeeded Mattis on January 1.
Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday the end of a high-profile anti-corruption probe that boosted the state coffers by more than $100 billion and has left dozens detained.

The crackdown on graft launched in 2017 saw hundreds of elite princes, ministers and businessmen held at the luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Many were detained for weeks in the upmarket hotel, but most were released after agreeing significant financial settlements.

The corruption investigation concluded Wednesday with the approval of King Salman, according to a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency.

"The public prosecutor has refused to settle the cases of 56 individuals due to already existing criminal charges against them," the statement said.

An additional eight people have seen their cases referred to the public prosecutor after they refused to reach settlements.

"Settlements were reached with 87 individuals after their confession to the charges against them," SPA said.

During the probe more than 400 billion Saudi riyal ($107 billion) were recovered by the state "in the form of real estate, companies, cash, and other assets".

The figure matches that announced a year ago by the attorney general, who at the time said 56 suspects remained in custody.

Saudi's anti-graft sweep led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been labelled by some critics as a shakedown and power grab, but authorities have insisted the purge targeted endemic corruption.
Riyadh (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen announced Wednesday it shot down a "hostile" drone launched by Huthi rebels over the city of Abha in the kingdom's southwest.

Saudi air defences "tracked an unidentified object (over) the city of Abha and dealt with it in accordance with the rules of engagement," coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Coalition specialists who analysed the debris ruled it was a "hostile Huthi drone with Iranian specifications and characteristics", he added.

The coalition announced on January 20 it had "destroyed" seven rebel targets, including drone facilities, near Yemen's insurgent-held capital Sanaa.

Riyadh and its allies accuse Iran of supplying the rebels with weapons -- a charge Tehran denies.

A rebel drone attack earlier this month targeting a military parade at Yemen's largest air base killed a high-ranking Yemeni intelligence official.

The war between the Huthis and pro-government troops escalated in March 2015, when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into exile in Riyadh and a Saudi-led military coalition intervened.

Since then, the conflict has killed some 10,000 people and unleashed the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition is prepared to use "calibrated force" to push the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement to withdraw from Yemen's Hodeidah port city under a U.N.-sponsored deal, a senior United Arab Emirates official said on Wednesday.

Yemen's warring parties have failed to pull troops from the country's main port under a month-old truce, reviving the threat of an all-out assault on Hodeidah that risks cutting supply lines and unleashing famine.

The Houthis control Hodeidah while other Yemeni factions backed by the coalition trying to restore the internationally recognised government are massed on its outskirts.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the Western-backed Sunni Muslim Arab coalition struck 10 Houthi training camps outside Hodeidah governorate on Wednesday.

"Coalition prepared to use more calibrated force to prod Houthi compliance with Stockholm Agreement," he tweeted.

"To preserve ceasefire & any hope for political process, UN and international community must press Houthis to stop violations, facilitate aid convoys, and move forward on withdrawal from Hodaida city & ports as agreed," he added.

U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has been shuttling between the parties to rescue the deal, the first major diplomatic breakthrough of the nearly four-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen to the verge of starvation.

The ceasefire in Hodeidah, the entry point for the bulk of Yemen's commercial imports and aid, has largely held although sporadic skirmishes continued in flashpoints in the city. In other areas of the poorest Arabian Peninsula nation, including the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, fighting has escalated.

The warring parties disagree over who would control Hodeidah under the deal reached at December peace talks in Sweden between the Houthis and the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which was ousted from power in Sanaa in late 2014.

Story continues

"DANGEROUS ESCALATION"

Both sides have accused one another of violating the pact. A coalition source said in a statement sent to Reuters that Wednesday's strikes were "legal" as the ceasefire only applied to Hodeidah governorate.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said the strikes were a breach since they hit the outskirts of the city, including the July 7 eastern district.

"The United Nations' silence encouraged the most dangerous escalation in air strikes by the enemy since the Stockholm agreement despite our clear compliance," it quoted Salim al-Mugalis, part of the Houthi negotiating team, as saying.

The war has been stalemated for years, with the alliance that intervened in 2015 unable to dislodge the Houthis, who control most urban centres. Hadi's government controls the southern port city of Aden and a string of coastal towns.

Coalition forces led by the United Arab Emirates have twice attempted to capture Hodeidah port since last year to weaken the Houthis, but had held off from a full-blown assault amid global concern over the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis.

The war and the ensuing economic collapse has left 15.9 million people facing severe hunger.

Western nations, some of which supply the coalition with arms and intelligence, are pressing for an end to the conflict which is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthis deny receiving help from Iran and say their revolution is against corruption.

(Reporting by Ghaida Ghantous; editing by Hugh Lawson, William Maclean and Jonathan Oatis)
Dubai (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen released seven Huthi rebel prisoners on Wednesday and returned them to Sanaa, the United Nations said.

The office of UN envoy Martin Griffiths said he was "very encouraged by this positive spirit from the two parties", following the release of a first Saudi prisoner on Tuesday.

The seven Huthis were transferred from Riyadh to rebel-held Sanaa by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN said.

The ICRC, which is overseeing a broader prisoner swap between the warring sides, confirmed it had flown seven Yemenis to Sanaa.

"Another hope for many families separated by the conflict in Yemen," the organisation wrote on Twitter.

The return of the Huthi detainees comes a day after the rebels released the first prisoner under a deal between the rebels and the Saudi-backed government.

The two parties agreed to exchange 15,000 detainees and have submitted lists of prisoners' names to UN mediators.

The swap is part of a broader accord reached at UN-brokered talks in Sweden last month aimed at ending Yemen's conflict which has left millions at risk of starvation.

Some 10,000 people have been killed since the coalition intervened four years ago, according to the World Health Organization, although rights groups say the death toll could be five times higher.
Dubai (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen released seven Huthi prisoners on Wednesday and returned them to Sanaa, the UN said, even as the military alliance said it could use renewed force against the rebels.

The seven Huthis were transferred from the Saudi capital Riyadh to rebel-held Sanaa by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN said.

The office of UN envoy Martin Griffiths said he hoped that the move would give rise to a "rapid implementation of the prisoner exchange agreement" reached as part of a truce deal negotiated between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned rebels in Sweden last month.

The ICRC, which is overseeing the prisoner exchange process between the warring sides, confirmed it had flown seven Yemenis to Sanaa.

"Another hope for many families separated by the conflict in Yemen," the organisation wrote on Twitter.

But the coalition warned later Wednesday it was still prepared to use "force" against the Huthis to make the rebels abide by the UN-backed truce deal.

"The coalition is prepared to use... force to prod Huthi compliance with (the) Stockholm agreement," a coalition source told AFP.

- 'Humanitarian gesture' -

The return of the Huthi detainees came a day after the rebels released the first prisoner under the deal between the rebels and the Saudi-backed government.

"The special envoy welcomes the unconditional release" of a sick Saudi prisoner, Griffiths' office had said on Twitter on Tuesday, adding that he hoped to see the two parties make more humanitarian gestures.

The ICRC, which also supervised Tuesday's operation, confirmed the transfer from Sanaa to Riyadh of the Saudi soldier.

The organisation released a video showing a man on a stretcher being carried onto a Red Cross plane.

Rebel media Al-Masirah named the soldier as Mussa al-Awaji, and said he had been released "without conditions, as a humanitarian gesture".

Story continues

The prisoner swap is the first to take place since the truce that aims to end Yemen's conflict which has left millions at risk of starvation.

The two parties agreed to exchange 15,000 detainees and have submitted lists of prisoners' names to UN mediators.

The deal brokered in Sweden also involves a ceasefire in the lifeline port city of Hodeida, which came into force on December 18 but has been sporadically breached.

The rival camps were supposed to redeploy forces by January 7, but that commitment has not yet been observed.

However, the prisoner exchanges this week are "a step in the right direction", said Mirella Hodeib, ICRC's spokeswoman in Sanaa.

"It gives hope and lifts numerous families" whose members have been separated by Yemen's war, she said.

"We hope that the belligerent parties will put in place the agreement on definitive lists to start the exchange operation on a larger scale", Hodeib added.

Some 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi coalition intervened nearly four years ago, according to the World Health Organization, although rights groups say the death toll could be five times higher.
Associated Press

Anti-government activist Ammon Bundy on Saturday came out with his first videos announcing his campaign to become governor of Idaho. Im running for governor because Im sick and tired of all of this political garbage just like you are, Bundy said in a nearly three-minute video on his campaign website. Bundy said he wants to defend Idaho from President Joe Biden and those in the Deep State that control him because they are going to try to take away our gun rights, freedom of religion, parental rights, and more  and further violate the Constitution in unimaginable ways  even more than theyve already done.
A state of emergency was just declared over a measles outbreak; why wont Trump declare an emergency over the invasion of America by illegals?

In response to a sudden rise in measles cases, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of Washington on Friday declared a state of emergency after the disease struck more than two dozen people, most of them children.

Though measles was declared eradicated in the U.S in 2000, it has since made a comeback thanks to the importation of the disease, so to speak, with the constant arrival of third-world migrants from countries where it is still a problem.

Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children, Inslee said in a statement, Agence France Presse reported. The existence of more than 26 confirmed cases in the state of Washington creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.

According to AFP, health officials are warning that those infected with measles have already exposed others in schools, churches, a dentists office, the international airport in Portland, Ore., and area businesses. Worse, the outbreak could just be starting because the incubation period is about two weeks.

No more excuses

Meanwhile, on Friday President Trump agreed to sign legislation that would temporarily reopen the federal government for 21 days while giving lawmakers an opportunity to come up with a longer-term funding bill that includes money for the border wall hes been calling for since the campaign. (Related: If border walls are immoral like Nancy Pelosi says, are all of these countries immoral too?)

During a speech at the White House in which he laid out the risks to Americans from porous borders, he also renewed a previous threat to use his authority to declare a national emergency so he can secure funds for the wall without waiting for Congress.

Its bad enough Democratic intransigence on border wall funding is getting Americans killed. Now its allowed once-eradicated diseases back into the country as well.

If this outbreak  which the mainstream Left is trying to blame primarily on anti-vaxxers  isnt reason enough for the president to go ahead and declare his emergency, what will be?

Read more about the problems caused by open borders at OpenBorders.news.

Sources include:

YahooNews.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
Moscow (AFP) - A Russian lawmaker was arrested Wednesday in the middle of a parliament session in connection with two murders committed eight years ago, an official and news reports said.

Rauf Arashukov, a 32-year-old senator representing the Karachayevo-Cherkessia region of Russia's Northern Caucasus, is suspected of involvement in the 2010 murders of two people and of pressuring a witness to one of the killings, according to investigators.

He allegedly acted as part of an organised group that included his father, a statement by the Russian Investigative Committee said.

Arashukov was on the senate floor when police officers entered and read out a warrant, according to senate speaker Valentina Matviyenko.

"He tried to get up and leave the session. I told him to sit down," she told state television.

She said he will retain his senator post despite the probe until a court finds him guilty.

Parliamentary journalists did not witness the arrest as the cameras were turned off without explanation, said a correspondent for Rossiya 24 state TV.

A court in Moscow later denied bail to Arashukov, deciding to keep him behind bars for two months while the probe continues.

Investigators named the murder victims as Aslan Zhukov, an activist with an organisation representing the Circassian ethnic minority, and Fral Shebzukhov, an advisor to the governor of Arashukov's Karachayevo-Cherkessia region.

Both were shot dead in 2010, on separate occasions.
Rowan Companies plc RDC has received another offer from Ensco plc ESV to increase the exchange ratio. The proposal follows after Ensco announced a hike on Jan 14 for the previously-announced transaction, wherein the company will merge with Rowan in an all-stock deal.



Per the terms of the proposal, Rowan shareholders will receive 2.750 shares of Ensco for each share of Rowan, up about 24.2% from 2.215 exchange ratio considered under the definitive agreement entered into on Oct 7, 2018. On closure of the transaction, shareholders of Ensco and Rowan will own about 55% and 45%of the outstanding shares of the combined company, respectively.



The remaining terms and conditions of the agreement remain unchanged.



Per recent regulatory filings, Odey Asset Management LLP, one of Rowans largest shareholders, has pledged support to Ensco for the amended transaction by entering into an irrevocable voting agreement for the firms holdings of about 11.4 million or about 9% of Rowan shares outstanding.



This proposal will be reviewed by Rowans board of directors. The board will decide the course of action that is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.



The revised proposal is likely to realize annual expense synergies of about $165 million, up from $150 million anticipated earlier. Of the total, more than 75% of targeted synergies are expected to be realized within a year of closing. The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2019, is estimated to be accretive to cash flow per share in 2020.



On completion of the deal, the combined companys board of directors will include Enscos president and CEO, Carl Trowell, as well as Rowan president and chief executive officer, Tom Burke. The team will also include five additional members from Enscos current board and four additional members from Rowans board.



The combined company will have a fleet of 82 offshore rigs, which includes 28 floaters and 54 jack-ups. This includes two drillships as well as a jack-up rig under construction and does not include rigs that are part of Rowans ARO JV in Saudi Arabia. The new entity will possess the most technically-advanced fleet in the industry. This merger will create a leading offshore driller based on fleet size, geographic presence and customer base.



The combined companys balance sheet is expected to have liquidity of about $3.7 billion, including $1.7 billion of cash and short-term investments. This will provide the entity financial flexibility to continue fleet upgrade and improve drilling efficiencies. The total revenue backlog for the combined company is estimated at about $2.6 billion, excluding ARO Drillings substantial backlog that is unconsolidated.



Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider



Rowan carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



A few better-ranked players in the energy space are Sunoco L.P SUN and TransCanada Corporation TRP, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Headquartered in Houston, TX, Sunoco operates as a wholesale fuel distributor. The company is expected to witness year-over-year earnings decline of 38.9% in 2018.



Calgary, Alberta-based TransCanada Corporation (TRP) is a premier energy infrastructure provider in North America. The company generated average positive surprise of 19.1% in the trailing four quarters.



Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019



In addition to the stocks discussed above, wouldn't you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year?



From more than 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank, these 10 were picked by a process that consistently beats the market. Even during 2018 while the market dropped -5.2%, our Top 10s were up well into double-digits. And during bullish 2012  2017, they soared far above the market's +126.3%, reaching +181.9%.



This year, the portfolio features a player that thrives on volatility, an AI comer, and a dynamic tech company that helps doctors deliver better patient outcomes at lower costs.



See Stocks Today >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Rowan Companies PLC (RDC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Ensco plc (ESV) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Roger Stone, the notorious Republican political operative and long-time friend of President Donald Trump, pled not guilty on Tuesday to seven criminal counts, including lying to Congress, obstruction, and witness tampering.

Special Counsel Robert Muellers prosecutors have accused Stone of lying to congressional investigators about his efforts to inform Trump campaign officials of WikiLeakss plan to release hacked Democratic National Committee emails that proved damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Sitting in federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson ordered Stone to return Friday afternoon for another hearing.

Stone was arrested early Friday morning at his South Florida home in an FBI raid that Stone and his allies have cast as an unnecessary abuse of power.

In the indictment filed Friday, prosecutors alleged that Stone communicated in the summer of 2016 with senior Trump campaign officials about the damaging internal DNC documents then in WikiLeakss possession.

Following the July 22 release of a host of Clinton-related emails, a senior campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton campaign, the indictment reads. Stone, thereafter, told the Trump campaign about the potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks].

Stone claims that he had no advance knowledge of any document dump and was simply speculating in his communications with Trump campaign officials about what documents were in WikiLeakss possession.

While he has not categorically ruled out the possibility of cooperating with Muellers team, Stone has repeatedly vowed not to testify against Trump, since in doing so, he claims, he would be bearing false witness.

More from National Review
Roger Stone arrives at a courthouse in Washington DC - Getty Images North America

Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of Donald Trump, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the investigation into whether the president's campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Mr Stone, 66, a veteran Republican political operative, denied seven charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction.

Immediately after leaving court, following a brief hearing, he said: "I'm feeling fine."

The charges related to his contacts with Wikileaks whose publication of Russian-hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign gave a boost to Mr Trump.

Mr Stone appeared in the same cavernous, wood-paneled court room at Washington's US district court where Paul Manafort, Mr Trump's former campaign chairman, has previously done so.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, tie and pocketsquare, Mr Stone sat a table with his lawyer, Robert Buschel, with whom he spoke in hushed tones.

On a table a few feet away sat a team of government lawyers including two from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe into possible Russian collusion.

Mr Stone stood and spoke only to confirm that he understood the conditions relating to his bail, which had previously been set at $250,000.

He is not permitted to possess a passport and can only travel between his home in southern Florida, Washington, and New York.

The next hearing has been scheduled for Feb 1.

As he emerged from the court building, a few blocks from the US Capitol, Mr Stone was greeted by a melee.

Roger Stone outside court in Florida on Friday

Opponents raised large orange letters spelling out "traitor" and shouted: "Lock him up". One waved a large Russian flag.

Supporters of Mr Stone chanted "Roger Stone did nothing wrong" and appealed for donations to his legal defence fund.

Mr Stone declined to comment as he was bundled into a black SUV and driven away at speed.

He is the sixth campaign associate of Mr Trump to be charged by Mr Mueller.

Story continues

Mr Stone was arrested on Friday in an FBI raid at his home in Florida.

His court appearance came as it appeared Mr Mueller's sprawling investigation may be approaching a conclusion.

Matthew Whitaker, the acting US attorney general, said on Monday that the inquiry was "close to being completed".

Mr Stone later told InfoWars, the conspiracy theory website, that he was the victim of a "legal lynching" because he supported Mr Trump and "helped take down" Mrs Clinton.

Following the hearing Mr Stone emulated Richard Nixon by giving a double victory sign.
Logo of jester cap with thought bubble.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Rockwell Automation Inc (NYSE: ROK)

Q1 2019 Earnings Conference Call

Jan. 29, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for holding, and welcome to Rockwell Automation's Quarterly Conference Call. I need to remind everyone that today's conference call is being recorded. Later in the call, we will open the lines for questions. (Operator Instructions)

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Steve Etzel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Mr. Etzel, please go ahead.

Steven Etzel -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Rockwell Automation's first quarter fiscal 2019 earnings release conference call. With me today is Blake Moret, our Chairman and CEO; and Patrick Goris, our CFO. Our results were released earlier this morning, and the press release and charts have been posted to our website. Both the press release and charts include reconciliations to non-GAAP measures. A webcast of this call will be available at that website for replay for the next 30 days.

Before we get started, I need to remind you that our comments will include statements related to the expected future results of our company and are, therefore, forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from our projections due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are described in our earnings release and detailed in all of our SEC filings.

So with that, I'll hand the call over to Blake.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. I'll start with some key points for the quarter. So, please turn to page three in the slide deck. I'm pleased with our results for the quarter. Organic sales were strong, up almost 6% and well above the expectations. From a vertical perspective, growth was led by consumer and heavy industries. In consumer, food and beverage and life sciences were strong. Heavy industries growth was led by mining, pulp and paper and metals. Oil and gas grew slightly above the company average.

Story continues

Within transportation, automotive was down about 10% in the quarter, weaker than expected, and tire was up low single digits. In the quarter, Logix grew 7% organically and Process grew 5%. Revenue from Information Solutions and Connected Services, which is a measure of adoption of new value from the Connected Enterprise, once again, profitably grew double digits.

Commenting on regional performance in the quarter, North America, which for us is the combination of the US and Canada, grew 6% organically. We saw a good growth across a wide range of industries, with the exception of automotive which was weak. EMEA was down slightly in the quarter. Growth in consumer verticals was offset by declines in heavy industries. Asia grew 4%, with most countries in the region contributing to growth. China sales were up mid-single digits. Latin America sales were up 20%. We saw a good growth in Brazil, and Chile was strong due to increased mining activity. As you may recall last year, we won a big order with Codelco and we are starting to see this in our results.

I'll make a few additional comments about our Q1 results. Adjusted EPS was up 13% and segment operating margin was up 40 basis points year-over-year. Book-to-bill performance for our solutions and services businesses was a strong 1.12 in Q1. We grew backlog in the quarter. Patrick will elaborate on our first quarter financial performance in his remarks.

Let's move on now to the macro environment and our current outlook for full year fiscal 2019. We see continuing uncertainty due to trade tensions and geopolitical risks. However, forecasts continue to call for industrial production growth. We had a good first quarter and project quoting activity was strong. With one quarter behind us, our full-year outlook for organic sales growth and adjusted EPS guidance remains unchanged. We continue to expect our fiscal 2019 organic sales to be up 5.2% year-over-year, at midpoint of guidance. Currency is now expected to reduce growth by 1.5 percentage points. Including the revised impact of currency, our fiscal 2019 guidance is sales of about $6.9 billion. Our guidance for adjusted EPS remains a range of $8.85 to $9.25.

Now, I'll turn it over to Patrick to provide more detail around our Q1 results and our 2019 sales and earnings guidance.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Blake, and good morning, everyone. Before I go through our results and outlook, I want to mention that we made some reporting changes starting the first quarter of fiscal '19. We outlined these changes in today's press release and I will cover them briefly when I get to slide nine in the deck. For comparability purposes, fiscal '18 numbers have been recast to conform to fiscal '19 reporting.

With that said, we'll start on slide four, Key Financial Information: First Quarter. As Blake mentioned, we had a good first quarter of the fiscal year, with reported sales up 3.5%. Organic growth was 5.7%, about 200 basis points better than we expected. Currency translation was about a two point headwind to sales growth worse than expected. Segment operating margin was very strong at 22.8%, up 40 basis points compared to last year. A margin tailwind from good organic growth was partially offset by higher investment spending.

Earnings conversion, whether you include or exclude the impact of currency was between 30% and 35%. General corporate net expense of $22 million was down $2 million compared to last year. Adjusted EPS was $2.21 was up $0.25 compared to the first quarter of last year, an increase of 13%. The year-over-year increase in adjusted EPS is primarily due to the benefit of higher sales and lower share counts, partially offset by higher investment spending. As expected, the net impact of tariffs was a small headwind.

First quarter adjusted EPS performance was significantly better than we expected, given stronger than expected organic sales growth and somewhat lower than expected investment spending. Free cash flow was $170 million in the quarter or 63% of adjusted income. During the first quarter, we paid the annual incentives that our employees earned in fiscal '18.

A few additional items to cover not shown on the slide. For adjusted EPS, average diluted shares outstanding in the quarter were 121.5 million, down 8.6 million or about 7% from last year. We repurchased about 1.8 million shares in the quarter, at a cost of $292.8 million. This is slightly ahead of pace to get to our $1 billion full year target. At December 31, we had $816 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization.

Slide five provides the sales and margin performance overview for the Architecture and Software segment. This segment had 2.4% reported sales growth. Organic sales were up 4.6% year-over-year. Currency translation decreased sales by 2.2%. For the quarter, segment margin increased to 100 basis points year-over-year, to a very strong 31.5%. Operating leverage associated with the sales growth was partially offset by higher investment spending.

Moving on to slide six, Control Products and Solutions. Reported sales were up 4.5% for the segment. Organic sales growth was 6.6% and currency translation reduced sales by 2.1%. Growth in our solutions and services businesses in this segment was strong, at about 8%. The product businesses in this segment were up about 5% on an organic basis. Operating margin for this segment was up slightly compared to Q1 last year primarily due to higher sales offset by higher investment spending. As Blake mentioned, book-to-bill performance in our solutions and services businesses in this segment was 1.12 in Q1.

Next, slide seven provides an overview of our sales performance by region. Blake covered most of this -- in this slide in his remarks, that I'd just mention that growth was broad based across geographies with the exception of EMEA. Also, we saw a good growth in emerging markets, which were up high-single digits compared to last year.

This takes us to slide eight, guidance. We now project sales of about $6.9 billion. Our organic sales growth range remains unchanged, at 3.7% to 6.7%. We updated our currency assumptions and we now expect the headwind from currency translation to be closer to 1.5%. We continue to expect segment operating margin of about 22%. Our expected adjusted effective tax rate for fiscal '19 remains about 19.5%. And as Blake mentioned, we are maintaining our adjusted EPS guidance range of $8.85 to $9.25.

With respect to tariffs, we still expect to offset the incremental costs through supply chain changes and negotiations with vendors, as well as targeted price increases on affected products. Our supply chain and pricing folks have done tremendous work in this area, and we remain on track to neutralize the impact of tariffs for fiscal '19. We continue to project free cash flow conversion of about 100% of adjusted income. As to general corporate net, we -- now it's projected to be about $95 million. As a reminder, general corporate net now excludes interest income. Net interest expense for fiscal '19 is expected to be about $90 million.

Before I turn it back over to Blake, let me add a couple of comments on slide nine. As I mentioned at the beginning of this call, we made some reporting changes effective the first quarter of fiscal '19. As you can see on this slide, these changes include the adoption of ASC 606 revenue recognition as well as the new standard that defines operating and non-operating pension and post-retirement benefit costs. We transferred some business activities from one segment to the other and we also combined the US and Canada into North America, consistent with the way we run this region. Finally, we removed interest income from general corporate net. Our press release provides additional detail related to these changes. In addition, slide 10 and 11 of this deck provide a summary of the changes as well as a walk of fiscal '18 first quarter results.

Today, updated data books will be available on our website that will include prior year financial results, recast to the new reporting format. After our earnings call, Steve will be available to cover any additional details and questions you may have about the reporting changes.

With that, I'll hand the -- I'll hand it back to you, Blake.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Patrick. I'll make some additional remarks related to the execution of our strategy. We are performing well in our key focused areas. There are three components of our growth strategy, which are share gains in our core platforms, double-digit growth in Information Solutions and Connected Services, and a point or more of growth per year from inorganic investments. Core platform performance in the quarter was highlighted by 7% Logix growth. Our strategic partnership with PTC continues to gain momentum. We've had wins across all regions and in our key industry verticals, and the pipeline of opportunities is growing every day. We're also working well with PTC to converge our IoT technology roadmaps.

Our pipeline for inorganic investments remains robust. Yesterday, we announced the acquisition of Emulate3D, a UK-based software company whose products digitally simulate and emulate industrial automation systems. This software enables customers to virtually test machine and system designs before incurring manufacturing and automation costs and committing to a final design. Emulate3D was a member of our partner network and we've seen customers benefit by combining their solutions with our technology. Emulate3D software will become part of our FactoryTalk design suite.

For each of the components of our growth strategy, we have the financial flexibility to execute, all within the capital deployment framework described during Investor Day. An industry where this strategy is delivering tangible results as life sciences, where we've had several years of good growth. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from our multi disciplined Logix control platform, which addresses discrete, batch and continuous process applications.

Customers are implementing our independent Cart Motion Technology for greater throughput, and our software offerings such as MES and FactoryTalk innovation suite are important competitive differentiators. Our Connected Services offerings also provide us another way to win. Recently, we received another order from Pfizer to help them increase cyber security at their global manufacturing facilities. We will plan, implement and support security technology and solutions along with key strategic partners across Pfizer's global manufacturing supply chain. We're becoming more important to customers in every industry on their individual journeys to become more productive.

Finally, I want to thank our employees, partners and suppliers for their contributions to a good start to the fiscal year. Our entire organization is energized and excited about our new offerings and the opportunities that are ahead of us.

With that, I'll turn it over to Steve to start the Q&A. Steve?

Steven Etzel -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Before we start the Q&A, I just want to say that we would like to get to as many of you as possible, so please limit yourself to one question and a quick follow up. Thank you. Operator, let's take our first question.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And your first question comes from Rich Kwas with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open. Your next question comes from John Inch with Gordon Haskett. Your line is open.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

Can you hear me? Yeah. Good morning, guys.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

Hey. So just in terms of the quarter versus the flat EPS expectation and your result, I think Patrick, you mentioned it was driven basically by higher sales. Where did you actually see the surprise to the upside? And do you think those trends continue for the rest of the year?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, so for the first quarter, all regions except EMEA came in better than expectations, particularly the Latin America, which was up 20% from a industry perspective. Some of the heavy industries were better than we expected. In those, we include the metals, pulp and paper. Oil and gas is a little bit better as well. And then, consumer was better particularly the life sciences, which had very strong growth. So I'd say, across multiple regions and particularly, heavy and life sciences.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

And Patrick, the reason for not changing your guidance given the beat is because you expect things to soften, still given sort of uncertain international markets. So are there any other clues like then how did -- how did January do as part of the cadence toward the rest of the year?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

January is consistent with what we have in our guidance for the full year. I think, one of the ways you can think about this, John is, we have one quarter behind us.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

Meaning, you're not anticipating a slowing, or you're just yet not sure. I mean, I'm --

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

No, we have one quarter behind us, which was a little bit better than we expected and we see no reason at this time to change our guidance for the full-year.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

I got it. And then my follow up is really on the cadence of investment spending. If I remember, I think you said you spent $70 million to $80 million (ph) in fiscal '18 and you're going to spend $3 million to $4 million (ph) more with much of that focused in the first quarter. Are you still on track for that, and what actually did you spend in the first quarter with respect to investment spending and did that help margins in any way versus kind of heading into the quarter versus your thoughts around investment spending?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So you remember well, John, what we said was that we expected our investment spend to be up about $70 million for the full-year. Most of that we expect in the first half of this year, we still expect that. The timing is just a little bit different. Q1 was light by about $10 million. Q1 spend was up about 5% year-over-year, that's about $25 million. We expect the first half of the year to -- of the $70 million we think about two-thirds of that will happen in the first half of the year. Q1 was just a little bit lighter than we expected.

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

By about $10 million. Okay. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Thanks, John.

Operator

Your next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Your line is open.

Scott Davis -- Melius Research -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Scott.

Scott Davis -- Melius Research -- Analyst

Just trying to get a little bit concerned about earnings after Caterpillar yesterday, what you guys came up with a pretty strong number. I mean, what -- some of the folks out there have seen real weakness in China and some haven't, but you guys clearly haven't seen much. I mean, can you give us a little local color?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

So, China is a mid-single digits up (ph) and some of the industries that contributed to the growth are mass transit. So the metro system continues to be an area where we differentiate and have had good wins, and this year continues that. Life sciences, as we mentioned before, globally was good and China is adopting a lot of the new value that we provide in life sciences to complement the basic control. And then, there were other industries of chemical, metals, still growth in semiconductor and even automotive in China for the quarter.

Scott Davis -- Melius Research -- Analyst

Interesting. So, auto is going to be my next question and then, help us understand the divergence between SAR and CapEx, and OpEx. Obviously, I mean, SAR in China is struggling and inventories are rising, so that could be a really tough year, but capital spending seems to be on some sort of a solid footing. Is that correct, or how would you view the outlook there?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I would say, globally for auto, CapEx is flat and there are challengers for the uses of CapEx beyond just plant expansions and capacity, as they're devoting some of that CapEx spend to new technologies like electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles. In China, we continue to see gains in the electric vehicle market. One of the recent wins was with Powersen (ph), providing powertrain for a local indigenous Chinese brand owner. And remember, we essentially reentered that powertrain market just a few years ago and China is one of the places where we're winning not only for the joint ventures that involve American companies but for indigenous Chinese manufacturers as well. The SAR count, if it's weak, we will eventually have some impact on our business. But of course the model changes are the direct influence on our growth in automotive.

Scott Davis -- Melius Research -- Analyst

Yeah. Fair enough. Thank you guys. Keep up the good work.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Scott.

Operator

Next question comes from Steve Tusa with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Steve Tusa -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Good morning.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Steve.

Steve Tusa -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Can you just talk about what you're seeing in kind of the global machine tool industry, whether it's some of the -- some of those guys that operate out of Europe and into China, whether it's on the packaging side or elsewhere. It seems to us to follow on Scott's question that there is a lot of foreign component suppliers that sell into that chain that are seeing pronounced weakness in destocking. So I'm just curious as to kind of what you guys are seeing on that front?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I'll make a couple of comments on that and then Patrick may have some to add. We think that the moderation, let's say, in China, is contributing to some extent to the weaker results that we see in EMEA. That being said, when we talk about machine tool, there's a high component of that that's going to be CMC oriented versus PLC or Logix oriented and so we may be relatively less exposed in the metal working areas.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Steve, I would only add that our OEM business globally was up a little bit less than the company average, so low-single digits in the quarter and EMEA was one of the weakest regions there.

Steve Tusa -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Okay. And just to be clear for kind of the rest of the year, can you maybe give us a bit of a rundown on the major? What do you expect for the major segments and how those trend? I know that you guys talked about last call auto accelerating, maybe I missed that in the beginning, but is that still expected to be up this year, transportation maybe just give us a little bit of color on what's embedded by vertical in the guidance now? And again any calibrations there?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So what we said last quarter, Steve is that we expected auto to be flat for fiscal '19. Given the first quarter and our current outlook, we think that auto will be down mid-single digits for the year. We think at this point that, that will be offset by some of the better growth we've seen in some of the heavy industries that I just mentioned in -- about the first quarter, but also life sciences, within consumer life sciences and food and beverage are doing quite well. So versus our, I would call it November guidance, Automotive now expected to be down mid-single digits for the full year. Heavy industry, a little bit better, and then also strong consumer, particularly life sciences and after that, food and beverage.

Steve Tusa -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Thanks. Great color as always. Appreciate it.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Your next question comes from Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Your line is open.

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Maybe, just the first --

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Good morning. Maybe just the first question around process markets, your growth rate, I think on sales slowed to about 5% having been at double digits in the prior quarter. Are you starting to see any impact from oil or just the broader macro uncertainty starting to weigh on project activity? And maybe any updated thoughts on how you see process industry is growing this year versus the group average?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

So, in the quarter, oil and gas was up slightly above the company average. We continue to make progress in process industries, and of course, that's concentrated in the batch of verticals that we call heavy industries. Just as a reminder, that metric of process really measures the adoption of our process control technology, and does not include in that metric the other things that we sell to industries, like oil and gas, and pulp and paper, and metals, which would have a lot of the intelligent motor control as well. So we continue to see good growth in those industries and we expect that to continue with heavy industries contributing to our growth for the balance of the year.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

And Julian, for the full year, we expect a process as we define it to be up -- at or slightly above the company average.

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Understood. Thank you. And then just circling back on a geographic basis, if you could talk a little bit about the EMEA region, I think you talked about low-single digit growth. You had a slight decline organically in the first quarter. So, how quickly do we think that that recovers really? Is it solely to do with China, as you talked about or do you think there's some domestic aspects which should drive up EMEA growth over the balance of the year in certain verticals?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we think obviously, it's a little bit broader in EMEA than just China, Julian. Obviously, growth in EMEA generally from a macro point of view has slowed. We've seen that over the last three, four quarters. From a vertical perspective, what we see in that region is that consumer is still doing pretty well, it's up mid-single digits, heavy industry was down as was auto and consumer growth not strong enough to offset the weakness in heavy -- and in auto. Actually our order intake in the first quarter in EMEA was actually pretty decent and we expect the EMEA for the full year to be up, but low-single digits.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think that order intake help to build backlog which also informs our outlook in the region. And just within transportation auto was down and was somewhat cancelled now by the actual growth in the tire vertical.

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Understood. So we should see EMEA improving in fairly short order than in terms of your sales growth?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Our expectation is that we see some year-over-year growth in that region in the back half of the year.

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Julian.

Operator

Next question comes from Rich Kwas with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. I'm sorry, I -- juggling a couple of things here this morning. So I might have missed this, but in auto just on -- in North America, was that down year-over-year, within the context of that being down overall for the quarter?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

It was, Rich. It was down. So Auto was down about 10% globally, and similar for North America in Q1.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Okay. And I assume that was -- I'm sorry?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. We think that -- obviously, we see some weakness in MRO. In auto, we've seen some project delays generally, but at the same time, we see EV and powertrain as Blake was mentioning, continues to be strong. We still expect double digits, we see and expect double digit growth there, it's just not big enough yet to offset the weakness elsewhere in that vertical.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

And then, just on the North America and with the -- Detroit-based OEs, there is a decent launch cadence this year, year-over-year. So is that just something where you're not seeing as much wallet of that in terms of the mix or is there something that we're missing when we're looking at the broader numbers?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

No. We do expect to participate actually even more broadly in some of those cadences. So with some of the new value particularly in Information Solutions and Connected Services, we actually expect on some of those launches to expand what our traditional content may have been.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Okay.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

And I think some of those goes back to which to the MRO comment that I was making.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then last one on -- like the John's earlier question around the guide, so what gets you to the top end of the guide in terms of the 6.7% organic, what has the work in terms of the various verticals or assumptions that you've gotten in here?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

There are lot of variables here, but you can think about some of the trade uncertainty being cleared up, and then a little bit better performance in automotive.

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Okay, so those are the keys to trade in auto. Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Thanks. Good morning.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

I just wanted to come back to -- I think, Patrick, your comments on investment spending, I think you said it was about $10 million lighter than your plan in the first quarter. And then, I think you said two-thirds of the $70 million happens in the first half. So just doing that math and trying to back into 2Q, is the headwind about $30 million or so?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

You mean from a year-over-year point of view in the second quarter?

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Yes. Yes.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Probably a little less than that. Not far off, but actually --

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

A little bit less than that.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Look -- yes.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Okay. So, but then actually -- OK. Got it. And then, within our guidance, maybe just -- sorry?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Nigel, the only thing I would add to that, some of that year-over-year increase is investments that we've released in fiscal '18 and we see the -- call it, the annualization impact of that, it's not all incremental in fiscal '19.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Okay.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

So it will just carry on (ph).

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Okay. And then just about -- one more clear up and then I've got a broader question on PTC. But I think, you were talking about 120 bps of impact from ASC 606 all in 1Q. Did that play through, and then maybe just talk about the PTC, how that's progressing so far and how much sales impact you have baked into your FY '19 guide from the PTC retail?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Okay. I think, Blake wants me to take 606 and he'll take PTC. As it's -- actually the impact from 606 was as expected in the first quarter. The EPS impact was several cents negative. So expect -- as expected there, and no material impact on sales, the reasons for the beat on sales was not related to 606.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Okay.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, and regarding PTC, it was a good quarter. We had some interesting wins in the quarter, we've talked before about Ford at the Investor Day, where we're providing value actually in a power transmission facility. And then at a Asia Pacific region mining company, but since then a couple of additional ones in food and beverage, Lavifood, a Vietnamese company that specializes in processing and providing fresh fruits and vegetables. An Indian tire manufacturer, where we had an order of over a $1 million that includes PTC as well as our MES offering.

Doosan Bobcat in the EMEA region. They make loaders and excavators, you'll probably recognize the name and they were looking at additional analytics and visibility of their operations. And then in China, another metals and mining offer -- account. And those are just a few of the examples. I particularly like the diversity of where we're winning across geographies and industries. First, it says that the value that we're offering together is real. And second, it shows that our sales force is energized, they are out there talking about this and it's a way to make us more important to customers. There's also discussions going on in a parallel pack to converge our technology roadmaps. And so creating that tighter alliance as time goes on.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Thanks. That's great color. And Blake, what do you have baked in to your sales guide from PTC products?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, PTC falls in the FactoryTalk Innovation Suite, which is also a part of the bucket that we look at as Information Solutions and Connected Services. And so, we continue to talk about double digit growth on top of the $300 million base that we talked about last year, and with the contribution of PTC, we expect that to double over the next four years.

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks. That's great color. Thanks.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Nigel.

Operator

Your next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Anna Kaminskaya -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Good morning. This is Anna Kaminskaya on behalf of Andrew Obin. Maybe most of the questions have been asked already, but would you be able to provide any additional details on your announced acquisition, just how impactful it is to your P&L for the rest of the year?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Emulate3D won't have a material impact on the results in fiscal '19, but strategically and for customers, it's really an exciting addition, because this software that works along with our core configuration tools to help customers simulate and emulate the operation of their system. So the simulation allows them to model the physical movement of their production system before they actually have to try it out, with hard tooling on the line. And then the emulation capability allows them to look at the performance of the configuration tools, again to make sure that it's working smoothly and with the kind of timing that's required. We've worked with them in the past. We mentioned that they were part of our formal partner program, and now we're going to be able to achieve even tighter integration with them. So again, as with PTC, we have customers asking for us to get closer before we made this additional step. So we're excited about it and we think our customers are as well.

Anna Kaminskaya -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

And then your numbers around how much you paid for it, or any revenue contribution?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

We are not disclosing that Anna. And as Blake said, the impact on fiscal '19 will be immaterial.

Anna Kaminskaya -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Got it. And then with some of the changes to accounting and, I mean, strong 1Q, any other moving parts as we think about 2Q outlook, 2Q EPS, is it in line with historical seasonality? Anything you would like to call out besides the higher investment year-over-year that we already talked about?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Not really, Anna. I think the only thing I would say that we would expect the year-over-year growth to be somewhat balanced -- year-over-year growth rate somewhat balance the first half versus second half of the year.

Anna Kaminskaya -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Joshua Pokrzywinski with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Joshua, your line is open.

Breindy Goldring -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

This is Breindy Goldring on for Joshua Pokrzywinski. Good morning.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Breindy Goldring -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

So looking at Q2 guidance with the moving investment, we come up with earnings down very slightly and EPS up a little. Is that the right way to think about it?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

I'm not going to provide any additional color than I already did with respect to timing of spend and year-over-year growth rates first half, second half. So I'm not going to provide more detail on the second quarter.

Breindy Goldring -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Okay. That's fine. Thank you.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from Richard Eastman with Baird. Your line is open.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Yes. Good morning --

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Rick.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Patrick, would you just -- could you just speak to -- there was $90 million of tariff headwind kind of heading into the year. And I think the commentary was half price -- offset would be half price and half supply chain improvements. In that price commentary, I believe Rockwell took a second price hike, I think in November. Could you just speak to maybe the stickiness of that hike and also the price capture at the top line in the first quarter.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Rick. So, our price realization in the first quarter was about a point. And so we're on track to get close to a point and a half for the full year, which is what is in our guidance and our expectations. You're correct. So the $90 million was the gross annual impact, half of that we expect to offset with supply chain -- changes and negotiations with vendors. The other half offset with pricing. We had the annual price increase in August of each year as we always do. We had an off cycle price increase in October, and then we had an off cycle price increase in December. And those last two price increases, all relative to tariffs. We see -- we realize that the price increase that we were targeting associated with those last two price increases. And so that's why I said, we realized about a point in the first quarter. We expect a little bit more than that for the full year, just given the timing of those last two price increases.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Okay. Understood. And then just one question and it probably relates to the A&S op margin. The incremental there was quite high. And there wasn't a great deal of incremental sales growth, but at the end of the day, is that more mix around software sales, did they increase at a faster rate than Logix? Is there a mix in there, or is that -- is that a price -- that's more of the price capture than A&S? I'm curious how we delivered so much margin there?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, the way you can think about it there, Rick is that our spend was light as I mentioned earlier, and it was particularly the light in that segment.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Okay.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

From a mix -- yes, from a mix point of view within that segment, Logix did actually quite well. So there was not a big mix driver within that segment.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Okay, because when you talk about -- and Blake, you had mentioned this Information Solutions and the Connected Services. My guess is the Information Solutions base probably outgrew Connected Services. I don't know if that's easy enough to parse through, but again, that seems like that would have helped the software FactoryTalk suite products sales within A&S.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think on balance the margin is between that bucket is at or slightly above the company average in -- over a period of time.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Okay.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

If I look at the -- yes, go ahead, Rick.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Well, just again, I was just looking at the mix being more software friendly in A&S as the PTC agreement expands, is that going to be noticeable?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

I think it will be, but it's going to take a while, because when we resell some of that software or we add some of our software on top of that, it's on a subscription basis, Rick, and so therefore, it will start out really small. And so, obviously, we'd like to grow it as fast as possible, but it being subscription and not license sales, it's going to be slow and it's going to take some time before you'll see it have a mix effect.

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

I understand. Because it's a deferred component.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rick.

Operator

Your next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citi. Your line is open.

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Good morning, guys, it's Vlad Bystricky on for Andy.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

So can you guys talk a little bit more, I know you talked about Latin America -- the strength in Latin America. So can you just give a little more color on really what's driving that strength? Any particular countries and more about how you're thinking about the sustainability of the LatAm strength in 2019?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, a few comments in terms of the growth drivers in Latin America. Latin America for a long period of time has been a strong region for us. So there's a lot of diversity in the region in industries that we served well. One of the key starting points in Latin America is the backlog in mining. And so we talked last year about the big Codelco mining project as one example. We're starting to see some of that order come out in quarterly results. And so, that's a strong contributor for us. We also see continued growth in oil and gas, particularly in Mexico. And then finally, we've seen several quarters of good growth in Brazil as well. And so, I think those would be three of the key contributors to the continued performance in Latin America.

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And then just to circle back on the tariff impact for a moment. I know you talked about the pricing that you've put in. I think last quarter, you said about two-thirds of the supply chain adjustments were already in that execution phase. Can you talk about -- are all of the supply chain adjustments and vendor negotiations sort of now under way or in execution or do you still have more to do there to get to the amendment rule on tariffs?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

I think everything is being worked on, that doesn't mean that everything is buttoned up. But as I mentioned, we are on track, and our teams have done tremendous work on making that happen, which is why we continue to expect that for this fiscal year, the net impact will be zero.

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Okay. Perfect. And then, I think, maybe one last one for me. I know you aren't disclosing financials on Emulate3D, but can you just talk more broadly about what you're seeing in terms of valuation multiples in the pipeline? Have you seen any movement there? Have you seen any valuations start to come in -- all with the recent market volatility?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

I think there's been in general across a broad portfolio of names out there, there will be some contraction based on the -- based on the macro.

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks very much, guys.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Nicole DeBlase with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Nicole DeBlase -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, good morning.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Nicole DeBlase -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

So a couple of piggybacks on questions that have already been asked. First on China, I know you guys saw mid-single digit growth for the quarter. If you could kind of frame out what you expect for the full year?

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, we see China growing mid-single digits for the full year as well. And we talked before about life sciences which is really a macro trend across the world, but the Chinese companies are particularly rigorously adopting some of the new value, some of the software, again, that sits on top of the basic control systems. We see growth in tire, in China in the full year. We see growth in oil and gas in China, and then a little bit of growth in food and beverage as well.

Nicole DeBlase -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Okay. Understood. That's helpful. And then, piggybacking on the question on process. So I know you guys went through kind of what drove the growth this quarter. What happened within oil and gas, but growth did decelerate. I think it was up about 10% organically in the fourth quarter, it's now 5%. If you could just talk a little bit about the moving pieces from 4Q to 1Q?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, I would look at, the majority of that is quarterly variability. We're not seeing a meaningful slowdown in any one area of that versus another. And again, this is one component of what we're offering to those process applications. The other main piece being the motor control as well. So I wouldn't look at that as a trend at this point.

Nicole DeBlase -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Okay. Understood. Thanks. I'll pass it on.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Ashay Gupta -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Hi, good morning. This is Ashay Gupta on for Joe.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Ashay Gupta -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Yes. Hey, Patrick, so you mentioned that investment spend was $10 million lighter than expected in the quarter. Of the other two items that you mentioned in the 4Q call that was supposed to be headwinds like ASC 606 and the impact of pricing. Can you just comment on how those two items came in versus your expectations going in?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So, as I believe I mentioned earlier on the call the earnings impact of 606 was as we expected, or so a few cents of negative impact. And then with respect to tariffs in November, we mentioned that we expected a headwind in the first quarter associated with tariffs. And that is exactly what we saw in the first quarter. So the net of price and cost was a small headwind in Q1. And we expect the net impact of tariffs to be zero for the full year. So those tariffs and 606 came in as expected basically in the first quarter.

Ashay Gupta -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Understood. And just secondly, I think in the beginning you guys commented that semis was a strong area in the quarter which is just surprising given some of the commentary we'd heard from semis players and some of your competitors. So like what's different like are you taking share and what's your outlook for semis for the rest of the year? Thank you.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think our comment about semi was specific to China where semi was up. From a global basis, semi was about flat for the first quarter. We've seen several years of good growth in semi. We expected this year and our guidance was a slower growth in semi, but mid-single digits. And the first quarter was about flat, but with some growth in China, as Blake mentioned.

Ashay Gupta -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from John Walsh with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

John Walsh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Good morning.

John Walsh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

So I guess maybe just one question here to piggyback off of some of the earlier price questions. If I just kind of go through your K and look at what price has done in the last couple of years per your commentary, looks like it was a little bit less than a point in '17 and then about 50 basis points in '18 and I do the rough math here on what you're talking about comes from tariff versus organic price, it looks like we're going to tick up a little bit above that 50 basis points you probably realized in '18. So wondering if this is all just rounding or if you're actually starting to see some real underlying price traction outside of kind of the tariff impacts where you're just pushing the price through the channel?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So I would say, it's both. You're right. Last year we realized about half a point in price. We did mention I believe that we were targeting for a somewhat higher price increase in fiscal '19, given generally increasing input costs leave alone the impact of tariffs and so our -- we targeted a larger price increase given higher headwind from input costs. And on top of that, it is of course the tariffs and some of the price increases that we have implemented as a result of that. And so, in total, we will realize more price this year, that's our expectation then last year as I said about a point and a half. This includes not only the price from the tariffs, but also call it, our base price increase, our base price realization will be a little bit higher than what it was last year. So it's both, we realized a little bit more price from our, call it our annual price increase. And on top of that, there is the selective price increases related to the tariffs.

John Walsh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Yes, no, got you. And then I guess I was trying to get at maybe some value pricing as you move the portfolio more into your connected enterprise and what you're able to realize on that front kind of absent the general inflation and tariff, what kind of the value add pricing you were getting if you're starting to see any kind of tick up in that relative to where you've been historically?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

As we come out with new products software and capabilities, obviously, we tried to price it appropriately, knowing that there is still some competition out there.

John Walsh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Got you. Great. Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, John. Operator, we'll take one last question.

Operator

Okay. Your last question comes from Scott Graham with BMO. Your line is open.

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning. I -- like I think others here, had a number of earnings this morning, so I've jumped off and on the call, so forgive me if I have -- I'm double asking a question here. On the EMEA, organic down 0.7%. Would you be able to split for us, Europe versus Middle East and Africa there? And the driver of whatever happened in Europe?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes, I believe that the way you can think about these mature markets in EMEA -- no, emerging countries in EMEA generally perform better than the mature countries in that region.

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

So, would you say that the matures were maybe down mid-single

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Say again?

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Would you say that the matures were down mid-single digit or maybe low single -- something?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

There is a range there. The way I would say this is, there's some of the mature countries would be below the EMEA average and some of the emerging countries would be a little bit better. Obviously, mature countries still account for the majority of our business in that region.

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Understood. Thank you. And on oil and gas, I know that you're a little bit more tilted toward the upstream. I was just wondering if -- what your customers were saying given North America, first half of the year kind of looks a little dicey where capital spending goes with some of these upstream guys. What are you seeing in North America and elsewhere in your upstream business in oil for the next six to nine months?

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Yes. We continue to see growth in oil and gas, mid-single digits growth for the year. You're right, a little more than half of our business is upstream with the remainder split between midstream and downstream. We continue to see strength in the Permian. And one of the comments because we're not as dependent on the big mega projects regardless of the price of oil, people are going to be looking for productivity in their operations and that's really our sweet spot either with the solutions or with individual products as people find ways to make even more efficient their production operations. And so we continue to see that as a source of growth for us, including the US.

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Steven Etzel -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Okay. Thanks. Now I'll turn it back to Blake for a few final comments.

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Thanks for everyone's questions. I just want to summarize, the first quarter was a great start to the year. We delivered strong operating and financial performance. We're executing on our key initiatives and our strategy is working. Steve?

Steven Etzel -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Okay. That concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect.

Operator

And that concludes today's conference call. At this time, you may disconnect. Thank you.

Duration: 58 minutes

Call participants:

Steven Etzel -- Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Blake Moret -- Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Patrick Goris -- Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

John Inch -- Gordon Haskett -- Analyst

Scott Davis -- Melius Research -- Analyst

Steve Tusa -- JPMorgan -- Analyst

Julian Mitchell -- Barclays -- Analyst

Rich Kwas -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Nigel Coe -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Anna Kaminskaya -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Breindy Goldring -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Richard Eastman -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst

Vladimir Bystricky -- Citigroup -- Analyst

Nicole DeBlase -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Ashay Gupta -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

John Walsh -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst

Scott Graham -- BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

More ROK analysis

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By Greg Torode, Rupam Jain and Abdul Qadir Sediqi KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. diplomats and the Afghan Taliban have seen cause for hope in talks to end the United States' longest war, but the pivotal issues of a ceasefire and the militants sitting down with the Afghan government are far from being resolved. Areas in which both sides have hailed progress - plans for the withdrawal of foreign troops 17 years after the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban and assurances that Afghanistan won't become a base for al Qaeda or Islamic State - still need detailed negotiation, sources on both sides said. The withdrawal, for example, is contingent on a ceasefire that the Taliban have yet to discuss. "We want to be absolutely sure that the U.S. is leaving before we call off the fight," said a senior Taliban official on condition of anonymity. But a senior U.S. official privy to the negotiations was clear a ceasefire had to come first: "How could we even do a withdrawal without a ceasefire?" And the Taliban's assurances on counter-terrorism also come with caveats. They say they can guarantee the United States the security of the half of the country they now control, but they would have to be in an interim government to be sure of stopping al Qaeda or Islamic State from attacking anywhere else. Left to watch the unlikely U.S. and Taliban tango as he eyes a second term, Western-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani refuses to accept an interim government as part of any deal. "We want peace, we want it quickly, but we want a proper plan ... so the mistakes of the past do not repeat," Ghani said in a televised address on Monday, referring to a bloody history of failed governments, military coups and civil war. Ghani mentioned the deaths of previous rulers, including former President Najibullah, who was hanged from a Kabul lamppost when Taliban guerrillas swept into the capital in 1996. Former U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker wrote in the Washington Post that by negotiating with a Taliban that refused to talk to the Afghan leadership "we have ourselves de-legitimized the government we claim to support". NEW NEGOTIATOR The next round of talks will be held in Qatar on Feb. 25 when Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, will head the Taliban side following his release last year from eight years in a Pakistani jail. U.S. officials told Reuters they hope he will have the authority to negotiate on the ceasefire and the need for discussions with the Afghan government. The Taliban have so far refused to talk to the government which they dismiss as a puppet of the United States. Baradar, a co-founder of the movement and a former military commander in western Afghanistan, will enter new talks from a position of relative strength as its new political chief, Taliban officials said. For years, the Taliban have fought to expel foreign forces and drive the government from power, so they can restore their version of hardline Islamic law across Afghanistan. After intensifying attacks over the last two years, the Taliban are more powerful than any at other time since they were toppled by Western forces. And senior Taliban officials say they know the United States and other foreign forces are tired and want out. While they, meanwhile, can sense victory and a future role in government. "If the Afghan government and the Taliban have an agreement, it will involve altering government arrangements in some respect, creating a more inclusive government and consolidating the Afghan security forces and the Taliban in some new security architecture," said James Dobbins, a former diplomat who is now senior fellow at the RAND Corporation think-tank. Dobbins, who was the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2013, said it would take a long time to reach a deal that would be sustainable. But however much time the talks took, the senior U.S. official privy to the talks, who did not want to be identified, insisted: "We will not leave Afghanistan without a deal. We want to leave a good legacy." UNCERTAIN FUTURE Doubts have increased in recent weeks whether U.S. President Donald Trump would stomach a protracted presence in Afghanistan amid mixed signals from Washington. U.S. officials told Reuters last month that Trump had issued verbal orders to plan for a withdrawal of about half of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. However, they said he could reverse course. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that talks "are proceeding well". He did not address any possible pact with the Taliban or troop withdrawals. The U.S. troops in Afghanistan are part of a NATO-led mission and a U.S. counterterrorism mission largely directed at groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda. Some 8,000 troops from 38 other countries are participating in the operation, known as Resolute Support. Diplomats and military attaches from many of those countries describe an intense desire to leave. Italy is considering sending home its 900 troops within a year. The period after any deal and withdrawal is also fraught with risks. Kabul-based Western envoys say little hard thought has been given to how aid plans and other support would have to be intensified and tailored to fit a new era of peace, and possible power sharing. Some also warn of a spike in violence as fighters on both sides return to villages and start new lives. Afghans and regional diplomats also fear a U.S. bid to cut a hasty deal with the Taliban could allow militia groups to exploit ethnic rivalries to usurp power. Then there is the worry that the country's nascent democracy and women's rights could crumble in the absence of foreign forces. Ghani made clear this week they are worries he shares, even if question marks remain over his ability to shape events ahead. "I, as an elected leader in charge of 35 million Afghans, ... know what are the probable dangers and threats after the peace deal." (Additional reporting James Mackenzie in Islamabad; Editing by Nick Macfie)
MADISON, Wis. (AP)  Election security experts are watching a Wisconsin court case that could end with the first public conclusions on whether ballot-counting machines were hacked or performed poorly.

Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wants to review Wisconsin's voting machines as part of a recount of presidential results she demanded in 2016. Under state law, all parties involved in a recount are entitled to review the machines as long as they don't disclose proprietary information.

Some states perform pre-election checks of their machines. Stein's group says no one has ever conducted a post-election review.

The two companies that supply most of Wisconsin's machines argue Stein's experts shouldn't be allowed to speak publicly about the findings. They have until Monday to appeal a judge's ruling allowing public comment.
Caracas (AFP) - A retired Venezuelan colonel accused of being a leader of the explosives-laden drone "attack" on President Nicolas Maduro in August has been arrested, his wife said on Wednesday.

"He was kidnapped," Sorbay Padilla said in a video sent to journalists and human rights activists.

She said her husband, Oswaldo Garcia Palomo, is being held at the military's intelligence headquarters in Caracas.

Garcia Palomo, 54, had been in exile in neighboring Colombia but was captured at the end of last week in western Venezuela after secretly returning to the country, local press reported.

His detention comes during high political tension in Venezuela where opposition leader Juan Guaido, backed by the United States, has launched a bid to remove Maduro from power.

Last week Guaido declared himself acting president and has appealed to the military to disavow Maduro.

The government had fingered Garcia Palomo as one of the masterminds behind last year's alleged attack, in which two drones exploded during a military parade in Caracas during a speech by the president.

Seven soldiers were allegedly wounded in what Maduro claimed was an "assassination" attempt.

He accused Colombia of collaborating with Venezuela's "ultra far-right" opposition in the incident, which he said was funded by unnamed figures in the US.

Venezuela had asked Colombia to deport Garcia Palomo.

Padilla said no one has been able to contact her husband.

The prosecutor's office has charged 43 people in relation to the alleged drone attack, of which 30 were detained. Among them are three members of the armed forces, including two generals and opposition deputy Juan Requesens.

Guaido was also detained, but later released.

So far, the military high command has remained loyal to Maduro.

Earlier on Wednesday, he met with 2,500 soldiers in Caracas and called for "unity" while hitting out at "mercenaries" he said were conspiring with Colombia to sow division within the armed forces.

Story continues

Guaido and the opposition-dominated National Assembly he heads have branded Maduro a "usurper" over his re-election last May in a poll boycotted by his opponents protesting the detention, exile and barring of many of their leaders.

The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that more than 40 people were killed in protests that began last week when more than two dozen soldiers rose up in rejection of Maduro's regime. They were arrested.

In addition, the UN said almost 700 people were detained on January 23, the highest single-day toll for at least 20 years.
Rome (AFP) - Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday 47 rescued migrants aboard the German charity Sea Watch vessel could finally disembark after Italy and six other countries agreed to take them in.

France, Germany, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Luxembourg have all now offered to accept some of the migrants who have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel since January 19.

The ship, which had taken shelter from bad weather off Syracuse in Sicily, was ordered to head for Catania, where the interior ministry said the minors on board could best be housed.

The four-hour journey up the coast was delayed, however, after a technical problem with the anchor winch. It was not immediately clear how long it would take to repair.

The fate of the migrants has been at the centre of a standoff between Italy's far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini -- who has closed the ports to migrants and demanded Europe take its share -- and Sea Watch.

The aid group on Friday filed an urgent case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship to dock and the mainly sub-Saharan migrants, including 15 minors, to disembark.

- Legal action -

Rescuers said the migrants were exhausted physically and psychologically, and some bore the scars of violence suffered in crisis-hit Libya.

Salvini has warned he is considering legal action against Sea Watch's crew, which he has accused of sailing straight for Italy rather than taking the migrants to closer ports in Libya or Tunisia.

The NGO says it tried but failed to get a response from Tripoli or Tunis.

The decision to send the ship to Catania raised red flags among migration and legal experts who said it might be impounded.

Local prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro has made a name for himself as a legal thorn in the side of the NGOs that rescue migrants at sea.

In March 2018 he impounded the Open Arms ship as part of an investigation into the crew for allegedly aiding illegal migrants by refusing to hand them over to the Libyan coast guard.

Story continues

The ship was released after a month following a court ruling that Libya could not be considered a safe country because of a lack of safeguards for human rights.

Sea Watch 3, which is sailing under a Dutch flag, pulled the migrants to safety as they attempted the treacherous Mediterranean crossing.

- Possible ban -

People rescued at sea have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government came to power in July.

Salvini said Wednesday he was looking into a way to ban all ships with rescued migrants from entering Italian waters.

Europe has been wrestling with divisions over how to handle the problem since the migration crisis of 2015 when more than one million people arrived on its shores, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for the need for "humane solutions" for migrant rescue operations and urged that migrants be allowed to disembark at the nearest port, in this case "in Italy".

He said sharing of the care of migrants came after, and that France was committed to that principle.

In a similar case earlier this month, the EU struck a deal to share out between eight European countries nearly 50 migrants stranded aboard two ships, one of which was Sea Watch 3.

Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year, according to the UN refugee agency, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey.
BERLIN (AP)  German authorities arrested three Iraqi refugees on Wednesday on allegations they were planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack, and searched properties in three states in connection with their investigation.

Federal prosecutors said Shahin F. and Hersh F., both 23, and Rauf S., 36, were taken into custody in an early morning raid by a police SWAT team in the area of Dithmarschen, near the border with Denmark.

The suspects, who had refugee status in Germany, had been under surveillance for some time by a task force of around 200 investigators, said Holger Muench, the head of Germany's federal police.

"The case shows that the threat of Islamic terrorism is still present," Muench told reporters.

It wasn't immediately clear when the suspects came to Germany.

More than 1 million asylum-seekers entered Germany in 2015-16, most from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The involvement of several asylum-seekers in extremist attacks or plots has helped boost support for the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party.

Searches were carried out at other residences in northern and southwestern Germany of people linked to the three main suspects but not currently to the bomb plot.

The two younger men are suspected of preparing a bomb attack and violating weapons laws, and the older one is alleged to have aided them. Their last names weren't given in line with German privacy laws.

The men appear to have been in the early stages of planning, said Frauke Koehler, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutors Office.

"We believe that Shahin F. and Hersh F. were firmly committed to carrying out an attack," she told reporters. "But (...) according to our information the concrete target and timing of the attack weren't determined yet."

Prosecutors allege the two men decided in late 2018 to "carry out an attack motivated by Islamic extremism in Germany." There are indications that they sympathized with Islamic State, but Koehler said there was no evidence so far the men were members of, or directed by, the group.

Story continues

In December, Shahin F. downloaded "various instructions" on how to build a bomb, and ordered a detonator from a contact person in Britain, prosecutors said. Its delivery, however, was stopped by British law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, the two carried out tests using around 250 grams (almost 9 ounces) of gunpowder extracted from New Year's fireworks, and asked Rauf S. to procure a firearm, prosecutors said.

He is alleged to have contacted Walid Khaled Y.Y., also an Iraqi, who offered them a Russian semi-automatic Makarov 9mm pistol, prosecutors said. But the seller wanted at least 1,200 euros ($1,370) for the weapon, which was considered too expensive so it wasn't purchased.

Y.Y.'s home in the Schwerin area was searched as part of Wednesday's operation, and he is being investigated for alleged weapons and drug violations, prosecutors in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania told The Associated Press.

In preparation for the possibility of using a vehicle in the attack, Shahin F. started taking driving lessons, federal prosecutors said. All three will appear before federal judges late Wednesday to decide whether they should be kept in custody while the investigation continues.

Koehler said authorities received a tip about the alleged plot in late 2018 from Germany's domestic intelligence service, but didn't say how the agency started tracking the suspects.

In the only mass-casualty Islamic extremist attack in Germany, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck in 2016 and drove it into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and wounding dozens. IS later claimed responsibility.

Since that attack, Muench said police had foiled seven planned attacks.
Una Morgan, a member of the sibling Reggae music group Morgan Heritage, has gotten word that a Senator in Kenya has named his child after her.

Mr Irungu Kangata, who is the Senator for Muranga County, while professing his love for reggae music last week, revealed that he named his second child Una Morgan.

I named my second child Euna Morgan. How Comes is one of Morgan Heritages songs that really inspire people because they are highlighting the challenges people go through in life, said Kangata during an interview with the Star.

I love most of their songs because they touch a lot about family. I sing it to my wife just to encourage her because I am busy with politics, I still have to create time for my family. I love reggae but I think I love Morgan Heritages songs more because of the message they have.

No sooner had the Senators revelation reached social media than Una Morgan responded, expressing her gratitude.

She tweeted: I am sooo humbled by this. Im grateful my family could have a positive impact on peoples lives and families. I cannot wait to meet her.
President Donald Trump

WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump disputed the leaders of his intelligence services Wednesday with respect to Iran, North Korea, the Islamic State, and other foreign policy challenges.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump said on Twitter, one of a string of posts defending his foreign policy against what looks like in-house skepticism.

The tweets came a day after a new American intelligence assessment said Iran is not  for now, at least  taking steps toward making nuclear weapons, while North Korea shows no signs of giving up its nukes  positions that contradict Trump's public positions.

In testimony before a Senate committee, the leaders of the intelligence services avoided direct contrasts with Trump, but backed differing views of Iran and North Korea. They also said the Islamic State remains a threat, despite Trump's assertion that the extremist group has been all but defeated in Syria.

During a Wednesday tweet storm, Trump struck back at the intelligence community while defending his positions in all three areas.

Iran

While Trump defended his decision to withdraw the United States from the Iranian nuclear deal  in which the U.S. and allies eased sanctions on Tehran as it gave up the means to make nuclear weapons  the intelligence community said the country continues to live up to its end of the bargain.

"We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said during his Senate testimony.

In a tweet, Trump said Iranian behavior is changing, and its economy is suffering, because he withdrew from the nuclear deal. He called Iran "a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge."

He added: "Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

Story continues

North Korea

Trump continues to plan a second summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un  date and location to be determined  and expresses confidence that Kim is committed to junking his nuclear weapons programs.

The intelligence community does not share that optimism.

During her Senate testimony, CIA Director Gina Haspel said the evidence shows that North Korea is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.

Coats said that, while Kim is expressing "openness" to the idea of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, "we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities."

In tweets, Trump said the U.S. relationship with North Korea is "the best it has ever been." He said they have stopped nuclear testing, and claimed a "decent chance of Denuclearization."

Saying "I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly," Trump claimed "progress (is) being made-big difference!"

Islamic State

While Trump cited the imminent defeat of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as a reason to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, Coats told the Senate that "ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."

During his tweet storm, Trump said "tremendous progress" is being made against ISIS, and the "caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.'

This is not the first time Trump and the intelligence community have been odds.

Most famously, Trump has on occasion disputed intelligence assessments that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election on his behalf, the subject of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

At other times, Trump has endorsed the intelligence community's conclusions on Russia.

Former U.S. intelligence officials criticized Trump for all of the second-guessing on Twitter.

"The 'intelligence people' are trained professionals who serve our nation with honor and dignity every day," tweeted Michael Morell, the former acting and deputy director of the CIA. "They dont play politics with national security  ever. They deserve a presidents respect, not his/her public rebuke, which only serves to help our adversaries."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Naive': President Trump disputes his own intelligence chiefs on Iran, North Korea


















PHOTOS: Take a look inside Ottawas new, temporary House of Commons The new chamber for the House of Commons is seen in Ottawa before MPs come together for their first session in the temporary home on Jan. 28. The new glass roof is clearly on display in this image. Photo from The Canadian Press.

A new era has dawned on the nations capital as federal politicians have moved into a different space.

The House of Commons has been relocated from the Centre Block to the West Block. The new venue will serve as the temporary home for MPs for the next 10 years as renovations take place on Parliament Hill.

Lawmakers got their first crack at question period in their new home this week as the House returned to work in Ottawa. The restored and modernized West Block features a new glass roof, a fresh chamber, four committee rooms, multiple offices and support spaces, louvered sun shades to control light levels, modern information technology and an accessible, barrier-free path on all levels.

The restoration of the West Block began in 2011 with the governments Long Term Vision and Plan for the Parliamentary Precinct. Eight years of work has resulted in an area that has 50 per cent more usable space, modern broadcast facilities and a greener complex that features LED lights attached to 20 steel columns.

Click through the photo gallery to see where MPs will debate for the next decade.
Jerusalem (AFP) - A Palestinian woman tried to stab Israeli guards at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Wednesday, Israeli police said, with Palestinian officials reporting she was shot dead.

"At the security checkpoint at Zaim a female suspect attempted to stab security guards that were on patrol in the area," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a statement.

The Palestinian health ministry said a woman was killed by Israeli fire east of Jerusalem, adding her identity was not yet known.

An AFP photographer at the scene said the woman was wearing black with her face covered.

The body was later taken away by Israeli forces, he said.

The checkpoint separates Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank.

A wave of stabbing attacks against Israelis by lone-wolf Palestinian assailants erupted in 2015 but has since become sporadic.

Israel occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967.
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The Palestinian government officially submitted its resignation to president Mahmud Abbas Tuesday, a statement said, though it will remain in place while a new administration is formed.

Analysts see the change in government as an attempt by Abbas to strengthen his position and further isolate his political rivals Hamas as a decade-long split in Palestinian politics deepens.

"The government of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah submitted on Tuesday its resignation to President Mahmud Abbas," official news agency Wafa said in English following a cabinet meeting.

The government "will continue to serve our people wherever they are and shoulder all its responsibilities until a new government is formed," it added.

Hamdallah had offered to resign Monday, after the central committee of Abbas's Fatah movement recommended the formation of a new government that would comprise members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, is not part of the PLO.

Hamas condemned the government's resignation, saying Abbas was seeking to establish a "separatist government" to serve his interests.
Otto, a six-year-old Blue Heeler, played around in heavy snow that accumulated in Buffalo, New York, on January 29, ahead of a lake effect storm that authorities said would dump between 18 and 24 inches on the city by Thursday.

Ottos owner Sarah Wintle shot this footage of Otto chasing after a ball and diving head first into deep powdery snow in Delaware Park. She told Storyful that winter is his favorite season. Credit: @SarahAWintle via Storyful
Investors in Citigroup Inc. C need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the Feb 1, 2019 $53.50 Call had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today.



What is Implied Volatility?



Implied volatility shows how much movement the market is expecting in the future. Options with high levels of implied volatility suggest that investors in the underlying stocks are expecting a big move in one direction or the other. It could also mean there is an event coming up soon that may cause a big rally or a huge sell-off. However, implied volatility is only one piece of the puzzle when putting together an options trading strategy.



What do the Analysts Think?



Clearly, options traders are pricing in a big move for Citigroup shares, but what is the fundamental picture for the company? Currently, Citigroup is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) in the Banks  Major Regional industry that ranks in the Bottom 30% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Over the last 60 days, one analyst has increased the earnings estimates for the current quarter, while three have dropped their estimates. The net effect has taken our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter from $1.86 per share to $1.85 in that period.



Given the way analysts feel about Citigroup right now, this huge implied volatility could mean theres a trade developing. Oftentimes, options traders look for options with high levels of implied volatility to sell premium. This is a strategy many seasoned traders use because it captures decay. At expiration, the hope for these traders is that the underlying stock does not move as much as originally expected.



Looking to Trade Options?



Each week, our very own Dave Bartosiak gives his top options trades. Check out his recent live analysis and options trade for the NFLX earnings report completely free. See it here: Bartosiak: Trading Netflix's (NFLX) Earnings with Options or check out the embedded video below for more details:



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Sector - Energy fund seekers should not consider taking a look at Oppenheimer SteelPath MLP Income C (MLPRX) at this time. MLPRX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 5 (Strong Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

Zacks categorizes MLPRX as Sector - Energy, a segment packed with options. Sector - Energy mutual funds encompass a wide range of vastly changing and vitally important industries throughout this massive global sector. Oil and gas comprise the bulk of the exposure here, and carbon-based fuels are going to be the majority of assets in these funds. However, clean energy is starting to pick up steam.

History of Fund/Manager

Oppenheimer is based in Denver, CO, and is the manager of MLPRX. Oppenheimer SteelPath MLP Income C debuted in May of 2011. Since then, MLPRX has accumulated assets of about $788.02 million, according to the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by Stuart Cartner who has been in charge of the fund since May of 2011.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. MLPRX has a 5-year annualized total return of -6.83% and it sits in the top third among its category peers. If you're interested in shorter time frames, do not dismiss looking at the fund's 3-year annualized total return of -0.9%, which places it in the top third during this time-frame.

When looking at a fund's performance, it is also important to note the standard deviation of the returns. The lower the standard deviation, the less volatility the fund experiences. Over the past 5 years, the standard deviation of the fund is 18.77% compared to the category average of 1.49%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

One cannot ignore the volatility of this segment, however, as it is always important for investors to remember the downside to any potential investment.

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Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 1.03, so it is likely going to be as volatile as the market at large. Because alpha represents a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark, which is the S&P 500 in this case, one should pay attention to this metric as well. With a negative alpha of -13.41, managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Expenses

Costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing, and particularly as competition heats up in this market. And all things being equal, a lower cost product will outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, so taking a closer look at these metrics is key for investors. In terms of fees, MLPRX is a no load fund and it has an expense ratio of 2.14%.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Bottom Line

With a 'strong sell' rank, Oppenheimer SteelPath MLP Income C is in the bottom 20% of all the mutual funds we cover. This means that our models suggest it is one of the worst options for investors in Sector - Energy right now, though this could change if the performance of the fund and the Zacks Ranks of the equities in MLPRX turnaround in the next data release.

For additional information on the Sector - Energy area of the mutual fund world, make sure to check out www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds. There, you can see more about the ranking process, and dive even deeper into MLPRX too for additional information. If you are more of a stock investor, make sure to also check out our Zacks Rank, and our full suite of tools we have available for novice and professional investors alike.



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Get Your Free (MLPRX): Fund Analysis Report



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Four of the five suspects charged with the murder of 150 people at the Garissa University on April 2, 2015, have been put on their defence after a trial court established they have a case to answer.

Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi approved charges against Mohamed Ali Abdikar, Hassan Aden Hassan, Sahal Diriye, and Rashid Charles Mberesero.

Osman Dagane Abdi was, however, acquitted of all the offences.

Andayi said there was no evidence against Dagane, who worked as a guard at Garissa University when five terrorists stormed the institution killing 148 people leaving at least 79 with injuries.

Mberesero, a Tanzanian national, was acquitted of an additional charge of being in the country illegally, which Andayi said was not proved.

The five suspects went on trial in January 2016 and denied a total of 156 counts. A total of 22 witnesses testified against them including students who survived the attack.

The charges include committing a terrorist act, conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and being members of a terrorist group.

A status conference is scheduled to take place on February 13, ahead of the defence hearing.
REDDING, Calif.  Weed high schooler Jillian Turner received the shoutout of a lifetime Sunday night when President Donald Trump mistakenly tagged her in a tweet.

The president's tweet, which was hastily deleted, corrected and posted again, sought to attack two Fox News correspondents for their coverage concerning a potential border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

But rather than tagging Gillian Turner of the news network, he tagged Jillian Turner of Weed  the Siskiyou County city with a population of about 2,700.

As a result, Trump's ire was directed toward the Weed High senior and broadcast to about 57.8 million followers.

A deleted tweet from President Donald Trump that accidentally tagged Weed High School Jillian Turner.

"SO THAT HAPPENED," Turner posted with a screenshot of the tweet. From there, more than 200 users responded to the teen on Twitter. People responding suggested she make an appearance on "The Ellen Show" or visit the White House.

"On the plus side, I now know there is a place called Weed California," one user commented about the Northern California community.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Turner replied to a few tweets in the ensuing hours, once commenting: "like how does that even happen. one in a million chance."

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More: 'Fake news' on Fox News? Trump criticizes his seemingly favorite news outlet

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Oops. Trump's Twitter typo puts spotlight on California student
Lagos (AFP) - Modupe Adegbite's grandfather had 22 children, while her father had nine. At the age of just 19, she has decided she wants no more than four.

"Why do you have so many children if you cannot feed them?" she asked.

It's a question many young Nigerians will face over the coming decades in Africa's most populous country, where a booming population combined with poverty, record unemployment and roiling ethnic conflicts have some fearing a demographic "time-bomb".

Nigeria's population is expected to leap from 190 million today to 410 million by 2050 -- and to almost twice that number again by the end of the century -- according to the UN's World Population Prospects.

That would mean that in just 30 years, Nigeria will be the world's third most populous nation, behind only China and India.

For young women like Adegbite, who was born in Bada, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the economic capital Lagos, getting access to sex education and birth control can be difficult.

However Bada, which lacks electricity and paved roads, does have a family planning centre, which opened last year.

Condoms, the pill and hormonal implants are freely available at the local 9ja Girls centre, run by the US-based non-profit organisation Populations Services International.

- Breaking taboos -

"Most of the girls here are sexually active at 15, sometimes 14 years old," Naomi Ali of the 9ja Girls centre told AFP.

"They start very early, whatever their religion. So they quickly become pregnant and they stop going to school."

At first teenagers and young women in the area were suspicious, but Ali said hundreds now openly talk in the street about once taboo issues such as sexuality and romantic relationships.

"It's difficult, sometimes they believe that contraception will make them infertile, or the parents categorically reject it," she said.

Nigerian women have an average of 5.53 children, according to the World Bank, but the rate fluctuates greatly between major cities like Lagos and rural areas, where it reaches up to eight children per woman.

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Mabingue Ngom, the UN Population Fund's regional director for West Africa, said the situation in northern Nigeria was "urgent".

"If we do nothing, we are going to face major problems," Ngom said.

"Of the 20 million young Africans who enter the job market every year, only two to three million find work."

"That's what feeds into conflicts and terrorism," he added, referring to the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency that emerged from northern Nigeria, an area which, along with neighbouring Niger, has the world's highest fertility rates.

Nigeria is fairly small compared to the world's other highly populous nations -- at 923,000 square kilometres it's a 10th the size of the United States -- and the fight for space is already causing conflict.

In the fertile centre of the West African country, clashes between farmers and herders over access to land and water have left several thousand dead last year.

- Booming population, booming market? -

Efforts to encourage families to have fewer children have struggled in a country lacking a social safety net.

The idea that having more children means elderly parents will more likely be taken care of after retirement remains deeply rooted in Nigerian society.

But some analysts say large population growth could be an opportunity for the country, as foreign investors eye a rapidly expanding market.

Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital, said population growth "should become a dividend for the next 20 years in Nigeria".

He said Nigeria's priority should be to develop "a high level of adult literacy with a steady supply of electricity, especially in large cities."

"It is the best way for young people to get better paid jobs and sustain their families."

Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo seemed to agree at an economic forum last year.

"To avoid the time-bomb scenario, we must act with urgency to build an economy that can support that population, provide jobs and economic opportunity, education and healthcare, hope and optimism," he said.
Ive been keeping an eye on Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries S.A. (ATH:MOH) because Im attracted to its fundamentals. Looking at the company as a whole, as a potential stock investment, I believe MOH has a lot to offer. Basically, it is a financially-sound company with a a great track record of performance, trading at a discount. Below, Ive touched on some key aspects you should know on a high level. If youre interested in understanding beyond my broad commentary, take a look at the report on Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries here.

Excellent balance sheet established dividend payer

Over the past few years, MOH has demonstrated a proven ability to generate robust returns of 30% Unsurprisingly, MOH surpassed the Oil and Gas industry return of 13%, which gives us more confidence of the companys capacity to drive earnings going forward. MOH is financially robust, with ample cash on hand and short-term investments to meet upcoming liabilities. This suggests prudent control over cash and cost by management, which is an important determinant of the companys health. MOHs has produced operating cash levels of 0.27x total debt over the past year, which implies that MOHs management has put its borrowings into good use by generating enough cash to cover a sufficient portion of borrowings.

ATSE:MOH Income Statement Export January 30th 19

MOH is currently trading below its true value, which means the market is undervaluing the companys expected cash flow going forward. Investors have the opportunity to buy into the stock to reap capital gains, if MOHs projected earnings trajectory does follow analyst consensus growth, which determines my intrinsic value of the company. Compared to the rest of the oil and gas industry, MOH is also trading below its peers, relative to earnings generated. This bolsters the proposition that MOHs price is currently discounted.

ATSE:MOH Intrinsic Value Export January 30th 19

Next Steps:

For Motor Oil (Hellas) Corinth Refineries, there are three essential factors you should further examine:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for MOHs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for MOHs outlook. Dividend Income vs Capital Gains: Does MOH return gains to shareholders through reinvesting in itself and growing earnings, or redistribute a decent portion of earnings as dividends? Our historical dividend yield visualization quickly tells you what your can expect from MOH as an investment. Other Attractive Alternatives : Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of MOH? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
HuffPost

Twitter chatter blew up Friday after CNN weighed in on Ashli Babbitt, the Capitol rioter fatally shot by police as she climbed through a busted window to reach the Speakers Lobby and lawmakers huddled in fear during the violent insurrection on Jan. 6. The U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot Babbitt was cleared of any charges in the death of the 35-year-old Donald Trump follower and Air Force veteran. What really infuriated Twitter critics was a CNN both sides story Friday characterizing Babbitt as a terrorist to some and a martyr to others.
Mexico City (AFP) - The leaders of Mexico and Spain called Wednesday for talks to resolve the crisis in Venezuela, but gaps were visible between them on what exactly that would look like.

Visiting Mexico City, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for talks between Venezuela's rival leaders -- President Nicolas Maduro and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido -- that would lead to elections.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador meanwhile reiterated his appeal for dialogue between the Venezuelan government and opposition, but insisted there could be no preconditions.

Mexico and Spain, both key players in Latin America, have taken markedly different approaches to the Venezuelan crisis.

Sanchez said Saturday his government would join the United States and other countries in recognizing Guaido if elections were not called within eight days.

Lopez Obrador for his part has pointedly distanced Mexico from other Latin American powers that have recognized Guaido, saying his foreign policy is one of "non-intervention."

"We are in favor of dialogue, for reaching an agreement without the use of force. I think on that point (Mexico and Spain) agree," Lopez Obrador told a joint news conference.

However, he added, that dialogue must be "without conditions."

"We can't impose things. First the two sides have to sit down and talk. Instead of making recommendations, the best thing we can do is facilitate a dialogue... not withdraw recognition of one government or recognize another when that's not our role."

Sanchez said Spain, which is working to establish a "contact group" of countries to mediate the crisis, does not want to "impose or remove governments."

But he insisted that free, fair and transparent elections be a precondition for any talks.

Lopez Obrador did not directly answer a question on whether Mexico was willing to be part of the contact group Spain and several other European countries are proposing.

Story continues

As the pair spoke, Uruguay -- whose stance on the crisis is similar to Mexico's -- announced that the two countries would convene an international conference of those with a "neutral stance" on Venezuela in Montevideo on February 7.

They did not say which countries would take part.

Lopez Obrador and Sanchez, both left-wing leaders, downplayed any tensions over Venezuela, but acknowledged the gap between them on how to respond to the crisis.

"The relationship between our two countries goes far beyond any crisis," Sanchez said, a statement echoed by Lopez Obrador.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell criticized President Trumps foreign policy on Tuesday, introducing a measure urging a continued commitment of troops in Syria and Afghanistan until the Islamic State is defeated.

The Republican leaders amendment to the Strengthening Americas Security in the Middle East Act would acknowledge that al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to us here at home.

It would recognize the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan, McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

On December 19, President Trump promised to withdraw the about 2,000 troops currently stationed in Syria, announcing that the Islamic State has been defeated in the region. The controversial move drew bipartisan criticism and caused defense secretary James Mattis a day later to announce his departure from the administration in protest.

Colonol Sean Ryan, spokesman for U.S. coalition forces, said in a January 11 statement that the U.S. has begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria.

While it is tempting to retreat to the comfort and security of our own shores, there is still a great deal of work to be done, McConnell said. Were not the worlds policemen, but we are the leaders of the free world.

The larger Middle East bill would impose new sanctions on Syrias bank and those supporting Syrias government as well as increasing military aid for Israel and Jordan.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned during a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee that, ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.

However, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan added that the terror group has already lost lost 99.5% plus of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq.

More from National Review
Online Drug Traffickers Detained in Tbilisi

By Gvantsa Gabekhadze

The Georgian Interior Ministry has stated that they have revealed a scheme for online drug trafficking and detained five drug dealers subsequently.The detainees created groups, so-called drug-shops, in the messenger of the online application Telegram, and a drug shop on the chat platform Matanga, the ministry says.Police have seized Hashish, Bio and Alpha PVP from the properties of the detainees.The detainees have not been identified, but the ministry said that the crime is punishable by eight to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.Over the past few days, police have detained three other individuals in the Ponichala district of Tbilisi for dealing Heroin in large quantities.They face 8 to 20 years in prison or the life imprisonment.One more individual was detained in Tbilisi with 500 pills of ecstasy and four packages of MDMA.Up to 200 drug dealers were detained by police last year.
By Maggie Romano, BEAT reporter

Mission Trips

In countries such as Mexico, Ecuador, Mozambique, Haiti and many others, there are children living in poverty who don't know who Jesus is. Many sponsorship organizations have programs to help fight against poverty and bring these children to Christ. People can also help by sponsoring a child, donating money, or going on a mission trip.

"In the simplest terms, a mission trip is helping people to know Jesus and develop a relationship with Him." said Larry Ray, who helps organize mission trips through an organization called Lifeline Christian Mission. The organization has ministries in ten countries throughout South, Central, and North America. Their main focus is planting churches, building schools, feeding the hungry, and above it all, developing leaders to help promote God's kingdom on Earth. To find out more about Lifeline go to

The next mission trip Ray is participating in will be with a group from Brunswick's Polaris Christian Church to Quito, Ecuador in March. Following this trip, he will be going on a medical mission trip in May, a construction-oriented trip in July, and another medical trip in November.

During a 1995 church service Ray attended, his pastor challenged everyone to sign a covenant and make a promise to go on a mission trip before they die. Ray has kept that promise. His took his first mission trip in 2006. Since that first trip, he has participated in at least thirty mission trips. "It's our way of blessing others with the many blessings we have received from God," he said.

There are many ways to get involved with mission trips, such as going to Lifeline's website. "People may think they don't have the time or the money, and at one time that was me," Ray explained," But if a person has the desire to go, and God wants them to go, he will find a way for it to happen."

"You don't have to physically go on a mission trip to help either," he added. "You can help so much if you just pray for those who are going or even help them financially to get there."

Above all, the purpose of a mission trip is to build relationships with children who are growing up in extremely difficult circumstances. It's a magical opportunity to bring a child to Christ, give them hope, and show them love.

Have you ever wanted a level of contentment that has nothing to do with how much stuff you have? Then, perhaps a mission trip is right for you.

Maggie Romano, a sixth-grader at Willetts Middle School,
Editors Note: This piece first appeared on the Manhattan Institutes E21 blog. It is reprinted here with permission.

The greatest constraint on the objectives of democratic socialists in Congress, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, may not be Republicans or even centrist Democrats, but rather two government institutions, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). JCT and CBO have developed sophisticated models of the U.S. economy and federal budget, and they use those models to help Congress understand the impact of its legislative proposals.

Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have championed several policies that would greatly expand federal spending, such as implementing a single-payer health-care system and radically expanding the scope of environmental regulations. According to an Urban Institute analysis, the health-care plan alone would raise federal expenditures by $32 trillion over ten years. Though the CBO and JCT have not yet analyzed such policies  they usually wait until the plans are more developed  when they do, their analyses will find that the only way to finance such large increases in federal spending is through much higher taxes, a politically unpalatable result that will surely make headlines and produce difficulties for any nascent legislation.

I worked for several years at a research group called the Tax Foundation that advised members of Congress and President Trumps economic team during the 2017 tax-reform process. These policymakers had to be mindful of the JCTs scores. I therefore began to learn how sensitive its model is to policy ideas  what it likes and dislikes, if you will. My experience taught me that Democrats will have a treacherous path ahead as they try to push legislation such as single-payer health care. There are four reasons why, which I outline below.

1. The Model Despises Deficits

The JCTs and CBOs macroeconomic models despise deficits. They operate on the same assumption about deficits, which is that federal budget deficits reduce economic growth. The theory goes like this: When the government borrows, lenders choose to lend to the government instead of to private-sector businesses. This is sometimes called a crowd out effect, in that government borrowing will crowd out funds that would otherwise have been lent to the businesses. With less money available to businesses, they invest less, and the workers are less productive.

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This is a problem for those on the left, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who seeks to fund her environmental program, known as the Green New Deal, with debt. The standard line on the left is that a government deficit will put more money in the hands of consumers, who will spend it on goods and services. Employers will then hire more workers to satisfy that demand.

But the CBO and JCT operate on the crowd-out assumption, and it is very strong in their models. In recent publications, the CBO has shown that a policy of $500 billion in debt-financed public investment reduces GDP in the long run, In other words, the positive effects of the public investment are ultimately outweighed by the negative effects of the deficit.

2. The Model Knows Where the Money Is

The distribution of U.S. income is less skewed toward the extremely wealthy than democratic socialists imagine, and the mechanisms they propose to fund their policies will be woefully insufficient. For example, Ocasio-Cortez, in an interview on 60 Minutes, proposed a 70 percent marginal tax rate applied only to income above $10 million a year to finance her Green New Deal.

At first, this may sound like a substantial revenue-raising tax: People earning above that threshold have a lot of money, and the U.S. produces a fair number of them  over 16,000 as of 2016, according to IRS data. But this group of earners has only $245 billion of taxable income above the $10 million threshold. That comes to just over 1 percent of GDP. Most of the money in the U.S. lies elsewhere. Starting with a tax base this small limits the revenue one could possibly raise; for example, even the high rates set by Ocasio-Cortez would raise only between $164 billion and $382 billion over ten years, according to an estimate from the independent Penn Wharton Budget Model.

This is not enough for the Green New Deal, which is intended to be a multi-trillion-dollar investment. Furthermore, any tax increases intended for the Green New Deal will be unavailable for health-care reform, and vice versa. Obviously, democratic-socialist proposals will need a bigger tax base to work.

Sanders, for his part, seeks to capture a larger tax base: the vast income earned by middle- and upper-middle-class Americans. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders proposed broad-based tax increases on virtually all Americans. His 2016 platform included many taxes, including a payroll tax that would affect all workers. Taxpayers in the middle quintile (40th to 60th percentile) of income, for example, would see a tax hike of 8 percent. Overall tax revenues would increase by $15.3 trillion over ten years, but even this would be insufficient to pay for his spending proposals. According to the Urban Institute, Sanderss tax proposals would pay for only $15.3 trillion of the $33.3 trillion of spending he had proposed.

It is certainly theoretically possible to raise taxes to cover ambitious programs. But these tax increases must be distributed broadly across the U.S. population  and they must be truly enormous, so big that nobody, not even Bernie Sanders, has had the courage to propose them.

3. The Model Distributes Taxes on Institutions to Individuals

Democratic socialists might propose raising taxes on businesses or institutions instead of individuals to make their policies more politically palatable.

For example, consider the Cadillac tax from the Affordable Care Act. It was intended to be a 40 percent levy on expensive health-care plans, those with premiums exceeding $10,800 for individuals or $29,500 for families. The tax would be applied only to the amount by which those thresholds were exceeded, and paid by insurance companies. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who advised Democrats on the policy, later explained that the strategy for the tax was mislabeling it, by calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know its a tax on people who hold those insurance plans.

What Gruber described is the difference between legal incidence and economic incidence. While insurance companies would write the check for the Cadillac tax, incurring the legal incidence, they would also likely raise the cost of plans eligible for the tax, passing on the tax to the insured. In effect, the insured would still end up paying the tax, just indirectly, with the insurance company acting as a middleman. Since the insured still loses money because of the tax, he incurs the economic incidence of the tax.

The economic incidence is certainly less immediately visible than legal incidence. But the JCTs distributional analysis does not play these political games. It passes the tax increase on an institution on to the individuals who ultimately feel the burden. For example, if Ocasio-Cortez proposes raising taxes on oil companies as part of an environmental package, she would effectively be advocating for a tax on the middle class; the JCT model will show that oil companies will pass the cost along to oil consumers.

As a footnote, the Cadillac tax has still not gone into effect. Its implementation has now been delayed until 2022 in a series of bipartisan votes because of political pressure from anti-tax groups and unions. The constituency against middle- and upper-middle-class tax increases is strong, even if the incidence is only economic.

4. The Model Assumes Inconvenient Responses to Tax Increases

The JCT model suggests that people respond to tax increases in ways that will be unhelpful to Democrats. First, the model accounts for the fact that people work less and take more leisure hours when their wages are taxed more. This is known as the substitution elasticity of labor to taxation. The effect is small  typically, for every 10 percent increase in marginal tax rates, theres a 2 percent decrease in labor supply. Lower labor supply reduces economic growth, a result that critics of the Democrats will surely note.

An even more difficult problem may be with capital-gains taxes. Specifically, Democrats might propose hiking taxes on capital gains to pay for their projects. But empirical experience and JCT models both hold that as capital-gains taxes rise, people sell stock less often, so as to defer paying the tax. Recent JCT research into the subject suggests that for every 10 percent increase in capital-gains taxes, capital gains from stock sales fall about 8 percent in the long run because of fewer sales. In many cases, especially in the short run, the increase in the tax rate is swamped entirely by this effect, meaning tax hikes on capital gains could lose revenue.

Those are just four of the problems democratic socialists must face in turning their policies into viable legislation. Many establishment Democrats respect the JCT and CBO, and will require acceptable numbers from the analyses of these two governmental groups. The only way democratic-socialist policies will pass muster with the CBO and JCT is if theyre dramatically reformed. But that will require a willingness to compromise that Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have thus far not demonstrated.

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Moscow (AFP) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday.

"I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that we could talk for the good of Venezuela," Maduro told the Russian state news agency in an interview in Caracas.

Last week the oil-rich but economically devastated Latin American country was plunged into uncertainty when the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself "acting president".

The United States, a dozen Latin American countries and Canada have recognized Guaido as interim president, while China and Russia -- Venezuela's two main creditors -- have urged non-interference.

In the interview with RIA Novosti, Maduro also said he would support early parliamentary elections.

"It would be very good to conduct parliamentary elections at an earlier stage, it would be a good form of political discussion," Maduro said.

At the same time he dismissed the possibility of holding a new presidential poll any time soon.

"Presidential elections in Venezuela have taken place, and if imperialists want new elections let them wait until 2025," he said in an apparent reference to Washington.

Maduro has been in charge since 2013 but his re-election in May was branded illegitimate by the European Union, United States and Organization of American States.

The embattled leader also implied he was firmly in charge of the army whose support is crucial.

"I am carrying out my duties as commander-in-chief according to the Constitution consolidating the national Bolivarian armed forces," he said. "And the Bolivarian armed forces are demonstrating a lesson in ethics, loyalty and discipline."

Maduro also claimed that US President Donald Trump had ordered the government of Colombia to assassinate him.

Story continues

"If something happens to me one day then Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible for everything that is happening to me," he said, adding however that he was in good hands.

"At the same time, I am protected. We have a good system of defence in place and moreover, we have more significant protection -- this is protection from God who will give me a long life," Maduro added.

Russia has denounced the opposition's "usurpation of power", calling Maduro the crisis-hit country's legitimate leader.

Russia and Venezuela have a long history of ties and Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, known for his tirades against the United States, was a welcome guest at the Kremlin.
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazil's mining wealth has fueled its economy from colonial times. Its diverse mineral deposits are among the very richest in the world, earning it around $30 billion annually in exports.

By far the biggest of over 8,000 companies in the country's mining industry is Vale, Latin America's number one miner and the top global producer of iron ore.

Vale is at the center of the disaster at one of its Brazilian iron ore mines last week that left close to 360 people dead or missing, submerged in millions of tons of muddy mining waste from a ruptured tailings mine.

The scene of the tragedy was in the southeast state of Minas Gerais that is the focus of most of Brazil's mining activity. The state's name -- which means "General Mines" -- gives away its historic importance.

- 300 mines -

According to the Brazilian Mining Association (IBRAM), more than 180 million tons of iron ore are extracted each year from Minas Gerais.

The metal is sought after, especially by China, which is easily the biggest export market for Brazil's iron ore, way ahead of the United States, Japan, the Netherlands and Canada.

Brazil also has major reserves of gold, bauxite, nickel and manganese. It produces 98 percent of the global supply of niobium, an element used to make superalloys for jet engines and gas piping.

There are more than 300 active mines in Brazil, ranging from tiny operations up to major ones. Minas Gerais hosts the very biggest producers.

- Environmental impact -

Vale's disaster-hit mine at Brumadinho was significant to its bottom line. The mine was estimated to have produced between two and seven percent of the company's total iron ore output.

While the environmental impact of the disaster was still being evaluated, it appeared likely that it would usher in tighter regulation of Brazil's mining industry.

Reform is seen as especially pressing since it was the second such mining dam breach involving Vale, suggesting no lessons had been learned from the previous incident.

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Stricter additional rules would go against new President Jair Bolsonaro's promises to ease safeguards and allow more licenses.

- New rules? -

As it stands, local, state and federal authorities all have a say over mining operations, with the environment ministry imposing numerous rules and restrictions.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said this week the government would soon discuss new regulations.

Not all mines in Brazil use tailings dams similar to the Brumadinho one. According to data from the national water agency ANA, there are 790 such dams in use, of which nearly a quarter potentially could cause a high degree of damage if they burst.

Vale's CEO, Fabio Schvartsman, said Tuesday the company was going to decommission the 10 other tailings dams it had located at two other mining sites, and look to alternative ways to stock mining waste.

He also said Vale was looking at a cut of 10 percent of its iron ore output following the disaster, but the company said some of that would be offset by increased production elsewhere.

Iron ore prices spiked higher as the market contemplated reduced supply.
London (AFP) - An exhibition celebrating the storied history of an Indian members' club in London opens on Wednesday, less than a year after the restaurant dodged being turned into a boutique hotel.

"A Home Away from Home", organised by British conservation charity the National Trust, tapped into a "treasure trove" of history on the India Club which emerged in part thanks to recent efforts to save it from eviction.

The month-long exhibition tells the story of the restaurant and bar venue on the Strand in London's West End, through the voices of those connected to it over its six decades.

"The history has always been there but the campaign unearthed it and brought it to the surface," Phiroza Marker, the club's manager, told AFP during a preview tour.

"People want to tell their stories," she added, noting that old customers and even relatives of those who helped establish the club came forward when it was threatened with closure.

In late July, the club was saved from developers who wanted to overhaul the building, which already has a budget hotel on its higher floors.

- Heart of the diaspora -

Now primarily just a restaurant, the India Club became the heart of the Indian diaspora in Britain after it was set up in 1951 by Krishna Menon, India's first High Commissioner to Britain.

It moved to its current location sometime in the late '50s or early '60s and was an umbrella organisation for groups serving the growing south Asian community in Britain.

Westminster Council rejected redevelopment plans last year following a high-profile campaign against them.

The campaign garnered the support of intellectuals, Anglo-Indian businessmen and lawmakers from both countries -- as well as more than 26,000 petition signatories.

"We followed the campaign with a lot of interest," said Laura Carderera, a creative programme leader at the National Trust.

The charity is more associated with running historic buildings in rural Britain, but has ventured into new conservation projects like this over the past six years.

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"We felt that this place told a really important chapter in British history, about migration," Carderera added.

"It also tells a really important story about London's changing landscape -- places like the India Club are becoming a rarity."

- 'I made a connection' -

The oral history created by the trust, with the help of a bursary from the British Library, saw more than a dozen people interviewed, from the club founders' children to former staff and longtime clientele.

In keeping with the nostalgic atmosphere of the venue -- which has changed remarkably little over the decades -- Carderera's team bought old vinyl and cassette players on eBay to play the recordings.

Others are heard on vintage telephone handsets mounted on the walls.

"I was missing my home, my mum," recounts Krishna Ghosh, a trained Indian classical dancer who arrived in London in 1966 and began rehearsing at the club, in one of the oral histories.

"I made a connection culturally with the India Club," he said.

With a mandate to promote Indo-British friendship, the club built up a roster of regulars not from the Indian subcontinent -- particularly journalists working on nearby Fleet Street and at a BBC building opposite.

"It was one of those places where you felt: this is home, this is part of things," said Kieran Cooke, a BBC World Service journalist in the 1980s, in another oral exhibit.

In some of the non-audio elements featured, early 1970s clippings from the "India Weekly" newspaper serving the diaspora, adorn the walls.

Together with framed pictures, they show some of the dignitaries who have held meetings in the first floor lounge or dined at the restaurant above, including founding member Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister.

In his recollections, Cooke said: "The cliche is if only the walls could talk, but it's very much like that there".
A sign hangs outside a Lloyds Bank branch in London, Britain, February 21, 2017. Picture taken February 21, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) is cutting 292 jobs from Fareham, Birmingham, London, Halifax, and Chester sites, according to the union Unite.

In a statement sent to Yahoo Finance UK, Unite said it challenged the banks decision to axe staff as part of Lloyds cost cutting drive, the Strategic Review 3 plan.

The loss of a further 292 committed and hardworking staff from Lloyds Banking Group is appalling. Unite is seeking urgent clarification about the future of the remaining workforce at the impacted sites, Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said in a statement.

Unite has strongly objected to the reductions in sites and job roles announced today, especially against the backdrop of the continual use of agency staff and contractors. Unite is demanding that LBG cease the job cuts and closures in order to fully review the number of temporary and contract staff within the company.

The banks major restructuring plans have already led to hundreds of bank branches, offices and departments being closed or merged with thousands of staff losing their jobs.

Lloyds told Yahoo Finance UK that there was, in fact, a net 270 role reduction in its operational and support teams.

The changes involve gross role reductions of 490 and the creation of 220 new roles, as we continue to evolve and adapt to the changing needs of our customers, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Yahoo Finance UK.

The new roles, and the significant up-skilling of our colleagues, form part of the 3bn commitment we have made over the course of the next three years to invest in technology and people. This is our biggest ever investment in our people, and involves increasing training hours to 4.4 million hours per year.

Since 2011, over 90% of role reductions have been achieved through a combination of natural attrition, redeployment and voluntary redundancy. Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, we will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort.
Jack Shepherds lawyer is reportedly receiving death threats (Picture: AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

The lawyer representing convicted killer Jack Shepherd has reportedly received death threats and abuse, including a threat to firebomb his office.

Richard Egan, senior partner at criminal defence lawyers Tuckers Solicitors, is representing Jack Shepherd, who handed himself in to police in Georgia last week after being sentenced to six years in prison for the manslaughter of Charlotte Brown, who died when his speedboat capsized on the River Thames in December 2015.

Mr Egan said among other abuse he had received a letter  now handed to the police  which reads: Remember Jo Cox? You have been followed  nice house! Now, accidents happen, people get stabbed in London, pets get poisoned, children run over. Be warned (EDF) we will petrol bomb your nice office.

He told the BBC: It threatens my family. It suggests that I have been followed and that the writer knows where I live and where I work. There is a specific threat to firebomb my firm, endangering the lives of my colleagues.

Richard Egan has reportedly received a letter threatening to firebomb his house (Picture: PA)

Lord chancellor David Gauke condemned such threats, tweeting: Very concerned about death threats made against Jack Shepherds lawyer. Such behaviour is completely unacceptable.

He later said in a longer statement: I am deeply concerned to hear of the threats made against the lawyers representing Jack Shepherd.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Criminal defence advocates play a vital role in upholding the rule of law and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to defend their rights.

Whatever your views about this particular case, such intimidating and threatening behaviour is completely unacceptable in a civilised society.

A Scotland Yard spokesman told The Times that police have received an allegation of malicious communication from Tuckers Solicitors and are investigating.

Shepherd appeared in court in Tbilisi on Tuesday, where a judge ruled he will not face a fast-tracked extradition.

Earlier this month Tuckers released a statement on its website saying it is duty bound to continue to represent Shepherd after it emerged that the convicted killer would receive legal aid for an appeal against his conviction and sentence, despite his continued absence.
A measles outbreak is rapidly spreading across a Washington county known for choosing not to vaccinate its children, and health officials have declared a public health emergency.

Clark County, Washington, which is about nine miles away from Portland, Oregon, identified 71 confirmed cases and three suspected cases since the beginning of the year. Most cases are affecting children younger than 10.

The county has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state: Nearly one in four Clark County kindergarten students during the 2017-18 school year did not get all their immunizations, according to data from the Washington Department of Health. At three schools in the county, more than 40 percent of kindergartners did not receive all recommended shots before starting school.

Here's what you should know about the measles and this outbreak:

What is measles? What are the symptoms?

Measles is an extremely contagious illness caused by a virus that is spread through the air.

People infected develop a red spotted rash that starts inside the mouth and spreads all over the body. Symptoms include fevers as high as 104 degrees, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes.

How serious is it?

In 2017, about 110,000 died from measles, mostly among children younger than five, around the world, according to the World Health Organization. Young children and adults older than 20 are more likely to suffer measles complications that can be deadly.

As many as one out of every 20 children infected with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children, according to health officials. One in every 1,000 children with measles develops swelling of the brain that can cause deafness or an intellectual disability. Pregnant women with measles might give birth early or have a low-weight baby.

More: Im an adult worried about measles. What do I need to know?

Is there a cure?

There is no specific treatment available for measles.

How contagious is it?

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Measles is so contagious that 90 percent of unvaccinated people who come in contact with an infected person will get the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person coughs or sneezes. The virus can spread four days before and after symptoms appear.

How effective is the vaccine?

The measles two-dose vaccine is 97 percent effective against the virus, according to the CDC.

More: Son defies mom, chooses to get vaccinated at 18: 'God knows how I'm still alive'

How many people have been affected?

Clark County Public Health officials have identified 71 confirmed cases and three suspected cases.

So far, 52 children ages 1 to 10 have been infected; 15 children ages 11 to 18; one person between the age of 19 and 29; and three people between the age of 30 to 39. Sixty-two cases have been in unvaccinated people. Two infected people did receive a MMR vaccine. Vaccine records for the seven others were not immediately known.

Cases include two people who traveled to Hawaii and one case of a person who traveled to Bend, Oregon.

Where are people being infected?

Dozens of locations have been identified as possible exposure locations, including malls, grocery stores, daycares and churches.

Portland International Airport was previously identified by officials as an exposure location, but was later removed because the incubation period has passed.

Why aren't people vaccinating?

People choosing not to vaccinate have become a global health threat in 2019, the World Health Organization reported. The CDC recognized that the number of children who aren't being vaccinated by 24 months old has been gradually increasing.

Some parents opt not to vaccinate because of the discredited belief vaccines are linked to autism. The CDC said that there is no link and that there are no ingredients in vaccines that could cause autism.

More: A quarter of all kindergartners in this county in Washington arent immunized. Now theres a measles crisis

More: These 15 U.S. cities are hotspots for kids not getting vaccines

Contributing: Ken Alltucker, Brett Molina and Joel Shannon. Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What to know about the measles outbreak, affecting over 70 in Washington anti-vaccination hot spot
The next round of US-China trade talks will resume Wednesday and Thursday in Washington to try to find a way out of the tariff battle between the two powers.

Here is a look at all the presidents' negotiators representing Xi Jinping and Donald Trump:

- China's economic pilot Liu He -

Liu He, 67, leads the Chinese negotiating team. An influential economic adviser to Beijing since Xi came to power, Liu emerged from the shadows in February 2018 when he was sent to Washington to try to avert the trade war with Trump. He then was appointed to the post of vice premier in March, responsible for steering Chinese economic policy.

His profile contrasts with the usual resume of a top Chinese official: he is an economist who graduated from the prestigious US university Harvard.

Seen as pragmatic, Liu is considered the leader of the recent movement towards rebalancing the Chinese economy to rely on domestic consumption, services and technological innovation for growth rather than exports.

- Yi Gang, reformist central banker -

Yi Gang, 60, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), is a prominent member of the delegation. Yi, who speaks English fluently, spent 15 years in the United States, where he earned a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois and then taught at a US college.

He joined the Chinese central bank in 1997, becoming deputy governor in 2008, before taking the top leadership role last year -- a post under tight government control.

Associated in recent years with the gradual liberalization of lending rates and the easing of the tight yuan exchange rate, Yi is distinguished by his statements very favorable to the free market, even defending increased openness to foreign investors.

- Robert Lighthizer, Trump's trade adviser -

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, 71, is leading the American negotiating team, taking over from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who did not deliver on a breakthrough.

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Lighthizer stays out of the limelight but shares President Donald Trump's mistrust of China and believes it poses a threat to US economic power. And he has emerged as the US strongman in the ongoing trade negotiations, determined to force changes in Beijing's economic policies.

He led the contentious talks to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, now dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

His goal in the talks is to force the Asian giant to put an end to trade policies the US deems "unfair," especially the theft or forced transfer of American technology, obliging US firms to form joint ventures with local partners, and state subsidies for industry.

Prior to being named US Trade Representative in May 2017, Lighthizer was a specialist in international trade law for more than 30 years and is a veteran of trade negotiations with Japan in the 1980s.

- Peter Navarro, hardline anti-China voice -

Peter Navarro, 69, a Harvard-trained economist has long railed against the threat from Beijing. He has advised Trump since his upstart presidential campaign, after he gained Trump's attention with his 2011 book "Death by China" painting the country as a serial trade cheater, subsidizing export-oriented industries and manipulating its currency.

He pushed Trump to renegotiate NAFTA and vigorously defended the punitive tariffs imposed on US imports of steel and aluminum, a protectionist measure that prompted the departure of Trump's former chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, who was more pragmatic than dogmatic and highly respected by financial markets.

At the end of 2016, Donald Trump appointed Navarro as head of the newly-created White House National Trade Council.

However, his outspoken comments in previous meetings and reports that he sparred with other US officials, caused him to be left on the sidelines of some talks.

- Steven Mnuchin, more moderate? -

In the spring of 2018, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin led the US delegation sent to Beijing to advance trade negotiations -- but with little success. His influence in the talks seems to have decreased significantly since then.

Seen as counter-balancing Navarro's hardline stance, this former Goldman Sachs executive, 56, supports free trade and offers a more moderate voice on China.

He said Tuesday he expected "significant progress" at this week's talks.
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After announcing her intention to run for president last week, California Sen. Kamala Harris traveled to her hometown of Oakland Sunday to launch her campaign at a high-profile rally before a crowd of nearly 20,000.

Surprisingly, precisely zero people were surprised.

Harris, 54, is only two years into her freshman term as a U.S. senator. She represents one of the most dependably Democratic states in the nation. Previously she served as Californias attorney general for six years, and San Franciscos district attorney for seven years before that.

Kamala Harris speaks during a rally launching her presidential campaign on Sunday in Oakland, Calif. (Photo: Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images)

Thats hardly a flimsy resume. But its also not the sort of resume that, by itself, tends to gets you talked about as one of your partys most inevitable presidential prospects, or catapults you into the ranks of frontrunners the moment you declare.

Only two past presidents  Martin Van Buren and Bill Clinton  served as attorney general before ascending to the Oval Office. And theres only one senator-turned-president in U.S. history who spent so little time in the worlds greatest deliberative body before launching a White House bid: Barack Obama.

Harris, meanwhile, has been touted as a potential president for years  even before she joined the Senate.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, right, helps lead a 2004 MLK Jr. Day march with Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Rev. Cecil Williams. (Photo: Paul Sakuma/AP)

The question is why. Looking back at how the Kamala for commander in chief buzz built over time is instructive. In part thats because it reveals how much of a trailblazer shes been in every stage of her career  and how that trailblazer status has, in turn, propelled her into the national spotlight.

When Harris first ran for statewide office, the nation and, more specifically, the Democratic Party had begun to rethink the boundaries for minority and female candidates, says Dan Schnur, a former spokesman for John McCain and recent director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. Right after a primary in which voters chose between a minority candidate [Obama] and female candidate [Hillary Clinton], Harris emerged on the landscape of the biggest state in the country as both. Her demographic identity brought her a tremendous amount of attention at precisely the right moment in her partys history.

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Yet this history also highlights the single biggest challenge facing Harriss nascent campaign  the key factor that will determine if she catches fire or flames out. In a presidential slugfest, biography is a great starting point. But it can only take you so far. For years, the excitement surrounding Harris has overshadowed whatever political skills shes displayed on the campaign trail. Now those skills will be put to the test.

Sen. Harris thrives off of doubters and skeptics, says California Democratic consultant Brian Brokaw, who ran Harriss 2010 and 2014 campaigns for state attorney general. When her back has been against the wall  I have seen this time and again  its like fuel to her. People who think of her as lacking substance  as being all style or symbolism  couldnt be more off the mark. And they do so at their own peril.

Harris has never had trouble attracting national attention. In 2005, shortly after becoming DA, she appeared in a Newsweek story called A New Team in Town about the women in charge of [San Franciscos] safety; the feature was part of a cover package on How Women Lead.

Newsweek didnt proclaim Harris a possible president-in-waiting, but it wasnt long before other outlets and observers did. Shes a rising star and we hope to see her running for even bigger offices down the road, an EMILYs List spokeswoman told Politico in 2010, before Harris was elected as state attorney general. Thats a characterization Harriss campaign embraces, the site added, quoting her consultant Ace Smith calling her one of the potentially brightest rising stars in the Democratic Party  while pointedly noting that Smith had declin[ed] to speculate about her future beyond this election.

The assumption, of course, was that Harris had a future beyond that election  and once she actually won statewide office, nobody ever declined to speculate again. Harris has caught the attention of her partys most powerful figures, some of whom view her as a rising star in the mold of Barack Obama, Politico declared that December, naming her one of the top 10 breakout stars of 2010. [She] has the unique opportunity to build a strong national political brand.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom greet President Barack Obama in San Francisco in 2011. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

The real turning point, however, came a few years later  and the Obama connection is key. The two had long been close. In 2007, Harris attended Obamas presidential kickoff speech in Springfield, Ill.; that cycle, she wound up chairing his California campaign. Seeking to elevate Harris the way hed been elevated nearly a decade earlier, the president later handpicked her to deliver a primetime address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. CNNs John Berman was so disarmed by Harriss popularity, according to the Sacramento Bee, that he had difficulty introducing her before an interview on the convention floor.

I lost my train of thought, Berman told his viewers, because so many people are here getting their picture taken with her.

Shes definitely on the national radar, Jessica Taylor of the Rothenberg Political Report said at the time. Something like this will bring her higher visibility for her next office.

The following April, Obama gave Harris yet another boost. At a ritzy fundraiser in Atherton, Calif., the president told a group of Democratic donors that in addition to being brilliant, dedicated and tough, Harris also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country. The presidents assessment struck a wolfish, if not outright sexist, note, but the ensuing publicity secured Harriss spot on the national stage.

Soon, commentators were mentioning the Californian for every conceivable office: senator (to replace Barbara Boxer, if she were to retire); governor (to succeed Jerry Brown, if he were to pass on reelection); attorney general of the United States (after then-AG Eric Holder resigned); even Supreme Court justice (to fill either Stephen Breyer or Antonin Scalias seat).

Kamala Harris addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., in 2012. (Photo: Jason Reed/Reuters)

But amid all the mentioning, the presidency was the most persistent theme. In 2012, National Journal named Harris one of its up-and-comers to watch in the 2016 presidential race. A year later, the Washington Posts Chris Cillizza captured the conventional wisdom.

There is a theory that Harris could make the big leap to run for president in 2016, Cillizza wrote. If former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick stay out of the race, Harris could well be the only woman and the only African American candidate in the field.  Thats a powerful set of distinguishing characteristics, particularly in a Democratic presidential primary fight.

Publicly, Harris wasnt buying into it. The guessing game drives me bananas, she said at the time. Im only halfway through my first term as attorney general, and its a job I love.

Everyone knows what happened next: Harris announced her Senate ambitions in 2015, then promptly locked up the big donors and big endorsements and steamrolled her only serious challenger, Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez, in both the Democratic primary and the top-two general-election runoff.

As usual, the immediate coverage focused as much on what Harris had just achieved as where she might go next  and since arriving in Washington, the freshman senator has methodically fulfilled those grand expectations, paving the way for this weeks announcement.

Sen. Kamala Harris attends a Dream Act rally in Irvine, Calif., in 2017. (Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

As FiveThirtyEights Perry Bacon Jr. has pointed out, Harris has used her Senate perch to position herself as a leader of key Democratic primary constituencies, from black Americans (she attended the annual civil rights march in Selma and pushed legislation that would get rid of bail systems that rely on people putting up cash to be released from jail) to Latino Americans (she was one of the earliest critics on Capitol Hill of the Trump administrations aggressive immigration policies, and her push for a government shutdown over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program delighted party activists) to women (she was among the first Senate Democrats to call for Minnesotas Al Franken to resign amid allegations that he groped several women).

At the same time, Harris has kept her name in the cable news chyrons by deploying her aggressive prosecutorial skills in hearings of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees  making witnesses like Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, and Jeff Sessions nervous, as the former attorney general famously put it. The repeated interruptions and rebukes from Republican bigwigs she drew further fueled Harriss burgeoning reputation as a leader of the anti-Donald-Trump resistance.

So what does Harriss meteoric ascent augur for the campaign ahead?

Revisit Harriss press coverage over the years and a common theme emerges. She is the first African-American woman to lead her [department], Newsweek noted in 2005. Securing the [Democratic] nomination would make Ms Harris the first African American or Indian American woman to be a major party nominee for the presidency, added the BBC on Jan. 21. (Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican-born Stanford University economics professor and an Indian-born cancer researcher.)

Is Kamala Harris the next Barack Obama? asked the Washington Posts Nia-Malika Henderson in 2015. [She] embodies several parts of the coalition of the ascendant, the voting bloc that was so important to President Obamas rise  and thus seems to represent everything the Democrats want these days.

In other words, Harris, like Obama, has been a pioneering figure every step of the way, breaking through barriers of sexism and racism that have long held back women of color  and the historic symbolism of those successive breakthroughs has fed on itself, fueling higher hopes and greater buzz. Meanwhile, the nuances of Harriss actual agenda and achievements have often taken a backseat in the national conversation.

Sen. Kamala Harris questions Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in September. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

In my career when I was district attorney in San Francisco, attorney general of California and even United States senator, in each position I was the first, Harris told David Axelrod in 2017. So reporters would come up to me and ask this really original question, put a microphone in front of my face: So whats its like to be the first woman fill-in-the-blank.

I realized when I first ran for office that people demand that you talk about yourself, Harris added. I would prefer to talk about what needs to get done.

Whether or not the media has paid attention, Harris has gotten plenty done. Her extensive record in San Francisco, Sacramento and Washington, D.C., is rich with substance and sure to become a treasure trove for supporters and detractors alike  with positions on criminal justice reform, tax reform, immigration, mortgage relief, capital punishment, sentencing, transgender rights, police transparency and numerous other issues. In fact, its a record thats already being scrutinized on both the right and the left.

The Harris campaign sees this scrutiny as an opportunity to explain how the senator has used her platform as a prosecutor to go after banks, predatory lenders and other powerful institutions. This is someone whos put in the work, says her press secretary, Ian Sams.

Voters have seen [Harris] in these big hearings over the last year, and they have a baseline understanding that she is, for lack of better term, a badass, Sams says. That is where people are starting from. Its our job to tell them more about her record and her past electoral successes.

Yet the interesting thing to watch will be how Harris reacts as the scrutiny intensifies, first in a crowded Democratic primary contest and later, perhaps, in a fight against Trump.

The next year or two will show us whether Harris can hit major-league pitching, says Schnur. Shes torn up the minor leagues here in California and been tremendously successful. But she would be the first to tell you that this is an entirely different level of competition.

For now, the senator has the leeway to launch the campaign she wants to launch. She can evoke Martin Luther King Jr. with the timing of her announcement and Shirley Chisholm with her logo. She can refuse to pick a lane, pitching herself as the one [Democrat] who can actually put together a winning coalition. She can talk, as she did Sunday, about how Americas story has always been written by people who see what can be, unburdened by what has been. She can trumpet her impressive $1.5 million first-day fundraising haul. She can namedrop Too Short and dance to A Tribe Called Quest. And its easy to imagine the prosecutor in Harris already plotting how to cross-examine each of her opponents on the debate stage.

Kamala Harris greets a supporter as she launches her 2020 campaign in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday. (Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr./ZUMA Wire)

But campaigns are crucibles, and the most revealing moments are the ones that force a candidate from offense to defense. Despite what national pundits might assume, Harris hasnt always coasted to victory in safely Democratic California. Yes, her Senate bid was something of a coronation; yes, her earlier reelection campaigns, statewide and in San Francisco, were cakewalks. But her initial bids for both district attorney (2003) and attorney general (2010) were hardly smooth sailing.

In the former, Harris dispatched her ex-boss, incumbent DA Terence Hallinan  and his camps dismissive accusations that she owed her career to an early dalliance with powerful San Francisco pol Willie Brown  in part by making her opponents understand that if theyre going to try to hurt you, theyre going to get more hurt, her then-consultant Jim Stearns recently recalled. At one candidate forum, Harris made sure to remind voters that Hallinan had attacked another rival, Bill Fazio, for being caught in a massage parlor, and that Fazio had attacked Hallinan for people having sex in his office. Then Harris told the assembled voters that her campaign was not going to be about negative attacks. The crowd leapt to its feet, impressed by how Harris had put her rivals in their place.

In the latter race, for attorney general, Harris was again the underdog; though Democratic overall, California has long gravitated toward more conservative candidates for law-enforcement posts.

Kamala by no means fit the historical mold of California AGs  and by that I mean a lot of old white guys, many of whom had been Republicans, explains Brokaw. Progressive politicians told us she couldnt win because they agreed too much with her politically. They thought the state wasnt ready to elect someone like her as top cop.

Yet, adds Brokaw, by tuning out the external noise and outworking and outmaneuvering her opponent  frontrunning Republican Steve Cooley, thrice elected district attorney of Democratic Los Angeles  Harris weathered a controversy over the San Francisco crime lab and more than $1 million in late GOP TV ads attacking her anti-death-penalty position to eke out one of the closest statewide victories in California history.

She didnt come out of nowhere, says Sams. She ran some tough races in California. She went through the wringer and learned to not take any votes for granted.

A crowd of nearly 20,000 gathered in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday as Kamala Harris formally launched her campaign for president. (Photo: Tony Avelar/AP)

Even so, Harris has rarely been pushed out of her prosecutorial comfort zone on the trail. As Brokaw puts it, her training as a prosecutor has made her incredibly deliberate and detail-oriented, with every fact fully considered and every possible counterargument gamed out in advance. The assaults she has endured in the past, from Brown to capital punishment, were ultimately hurdles she could see coming miles away.

The 2020 contest wont be nearly as predictable.

Harris has been a very talented campaigner, adds Schnur. But there is no preparation for running for president except running for president.

Which brings us back to Obama. Like Harris, his climb was rapid and rousingly symbolic. But the real reason he won the 2008 Democratic nomination and went on to defeat John McCain is that he showed he could rise to the occasion when thrown off his stride by the sort of unexpected setbacks that bedevil actual presidents once in office: grueling delegate-by-delegate warfare against an unrelenting opponent (primary challenger Hillary Clinton); a controversy that inflames some of Americas deepest divides (the flap over Jeremiah Wright); a catastrophe that imperils the global economy (the 2008 Wall Street collapse).

The task ahead for Harris is proving that shes the next Barack Obama in this sense too. If she succeeds, she could very well add first woman president, first black woman president, and first Asian-American president to her long list of firsts.

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Read more from Yahoo News:
Sen. Kamala Harris of California (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; Photos: AP)

Tired of taking a back seat to smaller states that play an outsized role in picking presidential candidates, California moved up its primary elections for 2020 to Super Tuesday, March 3. That switch would seem to benefit Sen. Kamala Harriss candidacy, political observers say, though it also carries potential danger.

Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and former head of the Democratic National Committee, who ran in the Democratic primary in 2004, believes the switch gives Harris an added edge.

The advantage will go to Kamala Harris and anybody else from California, Dean told Yahoo News.

At the same time, entering Super Tuesday as the favorite to win an early California primary isnt all good news for Harris, who national polls show is running third in a hypothetical field of Democrats behind Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

It puts her at some risk, Dean says of Harris. If she goes in to California, she has to win. If for some reason she doesnt, thats going to be very problematic for her.

Harris has won three statewide elections, and with potential rivals like billionaire businessman Tom Steyer and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti bowing out, she might end up as the only major candidate from California in the race. In the past two days, three of the states Democratic House members  Ted Lieu, Katie Hill and Nanette Barragan  have all endorsed Harris, solidifying her standing as the candidate to beat in California.

Kamala Harris at her kickoff rally in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

In 2016, Californias Democratic presidential primary was held on June 7, after the race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and independent Bernie Sanders was all but over. In 2020, California voters could begin casting mail-in ballots as early as Feb. 3, the same day as the Iowa caucuses. Early voting in the state would continue right through the make-or-break contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Veteran political consultant Bob Shrum, who worked on the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy, thinks Harris will do well in her home states primary, but only if she makes her mark in those four bellwether states.

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The challenge for someone like Kamala Harris, for example, is to establish herself in those early primaries, Shrum said. I dont think she can skip Iowa or New Hampshire and just go to South Carolina. I think you really have to establish yourself through that whole succession of primaries and be one of the three or maybe four candidates wholl survive until Super Tuesday.

Harris appears to be heeding Shrums advice. Following her massive campaign kickoff rally on Sunday in Oakland, Calif., she headed to Des Moines, Iowa, to introduce herself to voters there with a CNN town hall. While the event made headlines across the state, it also generated interest outside of Iowa, drawing record ratings on CNN.

Holding one of the early nominating contests insures that issues that matter to a states residents will be addressed. For that reason, both Shrum and Dean agree with Californias decision to leapfrog other states and hold its primary in March instead of June.

It made a lot of sense for California to move up because the state has really not played any kind of decisive role in Democratic primary politics since 1972, and it gives Californians a chance early in the process of what is potentially a decisive or quasi-decisive moment to be heard, Shrum said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is also running for president, speaks in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 22. (Photo: Carlos Giusti/AP)

Dean, however, worries about what the change will mean for lesser-known candidates.

I dont blame them for moving up, because they were sort of a rubber stamp, but now theyre up so far that theyre almost going to negate their usefulness, Dean said. The first four primaries will winnow the field significantly. The problem with California moving this far up is that nobody is going to have any money by the time they get through the first four. Its going to be a problem.

Harris, whose campaign declined to comment for this article, has already proved that she is a candidate who can raise significant sums. In the 24 hours after she announced her presidential bid, she took in over $1.5 million in donations. With 475 pledged delegates at stake in California early in the nominating process of 2,382 needed to win the nomination, candidates will now be forced to allocate resources in a large state where television airtime isnt cheap.

Californias delegates arent afforded on a winner-take-all basis, theyre afforded on a proportional basis, so as long as you can clear the threshold, you can get 20 percent, 25 percent of the delegates, Shrum said.

Besides Harris, other candidates with name recognition, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are hoping to win some of those delegates.

"Elizabeth Warren is eager to meet voters from cities and towns across the country about issues important to them and their experience, and she'll continue traveling to as many states as possible in the coming months," a Warren spokesperson said in an emailed statement when asked how Californias new primary date would affect the race.

But Dean thinks the cost of running hard in California may outweigh the benefit for some candidates.

Supporters cheer while listening to Kamala Harris at her Oakland rally on Sunday. (Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

If I were in the lead after the first four states, lets say I had a 1-1-3-3 finish in those contests, in no particular order, I might skip California and just say, great, a lot of delegates, great place, but Im not spending $50 million, Dean said. Ill go on to the next state.

Voters in Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Alabama will also cast ballots on March 3.

Conversely, doing very well in the first four contests sets up the tantalizing prospect of being able to close out the primary early by running up the score in California.

If somebody sweeps the first four primaries, then I can see that person getting 68 percent of the delegates in California and then the race basically being over, Shrum said. I think it would be a very foolish thing to skip California.

Shrum and Dean agree that Harris had a stellar first week on the campaign trail, but so did other candidates.

I thought Elizabeth Warrens first week was terrific. I mean, look, were going to see a lot of terrific candidates, Dean said.

Shrum also cautions that early momentum has a way of evaporating in presidential primaries.

There have been plenty of people whove been the president of February or September, Shrum said. This is a long process that tests people.

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MILAN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said 47 migrants who have been blocked at sea off Sicily for 11 days on a rescue ship will be allowed to come ashore on Wednesday, ending the latest migrant standoff. "In a few hours, they will begin to disembark," Conte told reporters in Milan. The migrants have been on the vessel since they were rescued off the Libyan coast. Italy's populist government, which took office last year, has closed its ports to humanitarian vessels in a bid to force European Union partners to take a share of those rescued in the Mediterranean. The Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3, which is run by a German humanitarian group, has been moored off the coast of Sicily as it waits for a safe port. Some 13 minors are among those on board and the long wait has taken its toll, Sea Watch said on Wednesday. "Some people have stopped eating, shrunk into themselves, others have become emotionally unstable," Frank Dorner, the ship's doctor, said in a statement. Five European countries agreed to accept some of the migrants, Conte said on Tuesday, naming Germany, France, Portugal, Malta and Romania. On Wednesday, he said Luxembourg and Italy would also welcome some of them. The leaders of the two parties in the coalition government had pressed the Netherlands, France and Germany to accept the migrants this week. The Netherlands refused, saying the EU must draft a plan that automatically redistributes migrants saved at sea. It is the second time in a month that the Sea-Watch 3 has been stranded at sea with rescued migrants and no safe port. The previous standoff ended after 19 days with the migrants allowed ashore in Malta and an agreement among eight EU countries, including Italy, to subsequently take them in. (Reporting by Lisa Di Giuseppe, writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney earlier this month. Pic: Reuters

Nobody has presented any alternative arrangements that could avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said on Wednesday, as he warned that efforts to secure a Brexit deal were running out of road.

The concept of alternative arrangements is not a new one, he said. However, there are currently no alternative arrangements which anybody has put forward, which achieve what both sides are determined to achieve  to avoid a hard border.

Coveney said Tuesdays vote in the House of Commons, which saw MPs narrowly vote to back an amendment that calls for the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced by unspecified alternative arrangements, signalled a turning point in Theresa Mays attitude to the backstop.

That is why the Irish government is so disappointed with the vote, Coveney said.

He said that, while the EU was committed to exploring alternative arrangements for the backstop in the future, the prospect of such arrangements had already been explored endlessly during negotiations with the UK.

We have less than two months to go now until Brexit happens on 29 March. We are, quite simply, running out of road.

Any alternative to the backstop, he said, needs to be based on legal certainty and not just wishful thinking.

We in Ireland are essentially being asked  as is the EU  to replace legal certainty, with a hope of something that is yet to be proven.

In fact, its worse than that, because the hopes have already been tested in negotiations and theyve come up short.

In some of his most strongly worded remarks to date, Coveney said that anyone who allows a hard border to arise will be judged harshly in history, and rightly so.

This government in Dublin is not going to allow it, he said, noting that any Brexit-related economic concerns were trumped by concerns about maintaining peace on the island of Ireland.

There are some things that are more important than economic relationships, he said.

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Coveney said, however, that he welcomed the fact that MPs had voted in favour of an amendment that commits the government to avoiding a no-deal Brexit.

He called it highly unfortunate that only one party from Northern Ireland  the Democratic Unionist Party  takes its seats at Westminster. They represent a minority view on Brexit and the backstop, he said.

Noting that the majority of businesses and political groups in Northern Ireland think the backstop is infinitely preferable to a no-deal Brexit, he said it was critical that their voices were listened to.

Coveney was speaking at a keynote speech to the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin on Irelands future in a post-Brexit European Union.
Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds said it was reckless to say the Good Friday Agreement had been torn apart. Pic: PA

Politicians and business leaders in Ireland have largely denounced the passing of an amendment by MPs that calls for the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced by unspecified alternative arrangements.

CEO of Manufacturing Northern Ireland Stephen Kelly told BBC radio that the firms he represents are partly in despair and really confused about whats going on.

Speaking on Irish radio, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney likened the UK governments position to saying you either give me what I want or I am jumping out the window.

Kelly warned Theresa May that any agreement with the EU will still require a backstop, and said that 94% of the firms his organisation represents already supported the existing deal.

So if the prime minister intends to travel to Europe to add to that backstop, then we may still have a deal, but a deal that doesnt work for Northern Ireland isnt a deal.

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar will tell Theresa May on Wednesday morning that the backstop, which aims to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland, is not up for renegotiation.

READ MORE: After Brexit amendment, Irish leader to tell May backstop cannot be changed

Meanwhile, the leader of Fianna Fail, which props up Varadkars government in Irish parliament, said that the amendment was very vague and unclear.

What are the alternatives to the backstop? We had the negotiations and there was no clear alternatives, Micheal Martin said.

In addition to his comments on Wednesday, Coveney had already warned on Tuesday that the developments in Westminster do nothing to change the need for the backstop, which was agreed as the insurance policy to avoid a hard border in all scenarios.

We hope it will never be used, or be replaced quickly by a future relationship agreement. But it is necessary, he said.

The chair of the Brexit committee in Irish parliament, Senator Neale Richmond, also said that the withdrawal agreement and the backstop cannot be reopened.

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Meanwhile, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs Theresa May relies on in the House of Commons, reacted swiftly to Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) comments that accused the Conservative Party of ripping apart the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

This is serious because we are talking about a treaty which has delivered peace to the island of Ireland, SNP leader Ian Blackford said.

In the 30 years prior to the signing of the agreement, clashes between loyalists and republicans  known simply as the Troubles  took the lives of more than 3,600 people.

Speaking in the House of Commons, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said it was utterly reckless to speak in those terms.

The fact of the matter is that nobody in Northern Ireland  no political party  is advocating any kind of hard border on the island of Ireland, Dodds said.

Even though the majority of political parties and businesses in Northern Ireland support Mays original deal, the DUP has long been opposed to the backstop, fearing that its implementation could see Northern Ireland separated in some way from the rest of the UK.
By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Brexit negotiators have spent two years looking at alternatives to the backstop insurance policy to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland and have not found any that work, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Wednesday.

British lawmakers ordered Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday to renegotiate the divorce deal she struck with the European Union in November to remove the backstop, which would require some EU rules to apply in British-ruled Northern Ireland until an alternative plan can be found to keep the border open.

Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said possible options to resolve the issue included time limits, exit clauses and technological solutions. But Coveney told national broadcaster RTE that none of those proposals were new.

"We have been through all of these things. We have tested them and we have found that they do not stand up to scrutiny, and now we have a British prime minister advocating again for the same things that were tested," Coveney said.

"What we are being asked to do here is to compromise on a solution that works and to replace it with wishful thinking. That's what's being asked of the Irish government and we won't do it."

May has said she will seek "legally binding changes" to the divorce deal but has been met with a blunt response from the EU, with European Council President Donald Tusk, among others, backing Dublin in saying it was not up for renegotiation.

Coveney said there were mechanisms to get around some of the challenges May faces but the only way to do so was through the accompanying political declaration on future EU-UK ties. Unlike the binding divorce agreement, the non-binding declaration can be renegotiated to ease concerns on the backstop, he said.

However both sides were "running out of road" to prevent Britain crashing out of the bloc at the end of March without an agreement, he added.

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Coveney also challenged May to stand by previous statements that the backstop was necessary to rule out a return of checks between British-run Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland. He rejected any view in London that the potential economic damage to Ireland from a no deal Brexit would weaken its resolve.

In a speech later on Wednesday, he said: "It is vitally important that politicians in Westminster understand the overwhelming wish across society in Northern Ireland not to return to the borders and division of times past."

"Anybody who allows that to happen will be judged harshly by history and rightly so. This government in Dublin is not going to allow it and I want to be crystal clear, there are some things that are more important than economic consequences."

(Editing by Alison Williams and Angus MacSwan)
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland has alerted the European Commission that it will seek emergency aid in the event of a no-deal Brexit and is considering a range of other ways to help firms cope, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday.

With close trading links with Britain, Ireland's export-focused economy is considered the most vulnerable among the remaining 27 European Union members to the impact of its nearest neighbour's departure from the bloc.

Ireland's finance department forecast earlier on Tuesday that economic growth could be 4.25 percentage points less than forecast by 2023 in a disorderly Brexit and would disproportionately hit agricultural goods and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Varadkar said last month that Dublin was discussing with the Commission what state aid might be available if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal, and confirmed on Tuesday that it had informed Brussels that such a request would be forthcoming.

"The purpose of this aid would be to help cope with the impact on Irish trade, particularly for the beef, dairy and fishing sectors," Varadkar said in the text of a speech to be delivered at the Irish Farmers' Association's annual general meeting.

Additional exceptional EU supports available in the case of serious agricultural market disturbance that Baltic states used when the Russian market was closed to them "can be used for us too", Varadkar added.

He said the government has been engaging on these issues with EU Agriculture Commissioner, Phil Hogan, a former Irish government minister and member of Varadkar's Fine Gael party.

Farmers were told that domestic assistance would also likely be made available, with Varadkar saying his cabinet discussed providing funds for storage, restructuring grants and other state aids at its weekly meeting on Tuesday.

"I can assure you that Ireland is seeking every possible assistance," he said.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Tehran (AFP) - A US-born journalist working for Iran's English-language television station Press TV returned to the Islamic Republic on Wednesday night after 10 days of detention in the US.

Marzieh Hashemi arrived at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport and was greeted by over a hundred people.

Most of the crowd were Iranian women dressed in black veils and holding anti-American posters, while loudspeakers played revolutionary songs and anthems in the background, an AFP reporter at the airport said.

"Welcome voice of the oppressed," read one sign, with another saying "Marzieh is freed, America is shamed."

Disembarking from a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Hashemi came down the stairs with a floral wreath around her neck, as supporters clapped for her.

"I missed Iran so much," she said.

"Now is not the proper time to speak about why I was arrested, I will explain why at an appropriate time," she added.

A Muslim convert who changed her name from Melanie Franklin, she was arrested upon arrival at St. Louis Lambert International Airport on January 13.

Hashemi had reportedly flown to visit her ill brother and other family members.

Press TV said she was released a week ago.

She was arrested on a "material arrest warrant" and was to be let go after she gave testimony to a grand jury investigating unspecified "violations of US criminal law," according to a US court.

It is not yet clear if she gave evidence before being released.

Prominent conservative political figure Gholami-Ali Haddad-Adel was at the airport among the crowd, and described Hashemis arrest as "just like other acts" by US President Donald Trump.

"It is another instance of 40 years of enmity by America with a nation that had a revolution to get independence," he told AFP.

The Trump administration pulled out of a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Iran last year and re-imposed sanctions.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran has sent a large batch of mined uranium "yellow cake" for processing ahead of shipment to its main enrichment facility, Iran's state news agency reported on Wednesday in the latest sign of plans to step up its atomic activities. Yellow cake, or uranium ore, can be further processed into enriched uranium to make fuel for nuclear power plants, Irans stated aim, or to provide material for atomic bombs if refined much more, which the West fears may be the Islamic Republics ultimate goal. U.S.-Iranian tensions have resurged since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear accord, calling it deeply flawed. Under the deal, Iran restricted its enrichment program to ease concerns it could not be put to developing nuclear weapons and in return won relief from sanctions. Thirty tons of yellow cake from a production plant in the city of Ardakan in central Iran was sent to a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan on Wednesday, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. This appears to be the second time a consignment of yellow cake has been delivered to the facility, which was reopened in June after lying idle for nine years. The activity is permissible under the nuclear deal, which allows Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent -- far below the 90 percent of weapons grade -- and caps its stock of enriched uranium hexafluoride at 300 kg. Yellow cake is converted into a gas called uranium hexafluoride (UF6) before enrichment. The shipment will subsequently be sent to the Natanz nuclear facility for enrichment, according to IRNA. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in June that the plant for the production of UF6, the feedstock for centrifuge machines that enrich uranium, had been relaunched at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility and a barrel of yellow cake had been delivered there. (Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh in Geneva and Francois Murphy in Vienna, Editing by William Maclean)
NSAs Capt. Joseph J. Rochefort Building in Hawaii, with double rainbow in the sky. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: NSA.gov)

HONOLULU  A few miles from the historic Dole pineapple plantation in Wahiawa and the wintertime 30-foot swells on the North Shore of Oahu, some small road signs amid coffee farms indicate a military facility nearby. With a couple of additional turns, visitors arrive at one of the United States key cryptologic outposts: the National Security Agency Central Security Service Hawaii.

A giant banner featuring the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution against unlawful searches and seizures adorns the wall by the turnstiles at the campuss Rochefort building, reminding the staff of their commitment to the American public  and the fallout from the centers most notorious worker, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who in 2013, absconded with a trove of classified documents about government surveillance programs.

While Snowden was concerned about post-9/11 overreach, which he believed had resulted in illegal surveillance, the NSA facility in Hawaii is now at the forefront of what the Trump administration insists is a swing back toward competition between the great powers.

Instead of pouring money into counterterrorism, the national security machine, including NSA, is pivoting back toward China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

We are in a great power competition with China and Russia, Captain Kurt Mole, commander of the center, said in an interview with Yahoo News at the facility, referring to the National Defense Strategy. We are always striving to provide an information advantage.

NSA Hawaii and its employees are focused on upcoming threats and uncertainties in the Pacific region, including issues that range from nuclear development in North Korea to Chinas increasing aggression in the South China Sea. NSA routinely briefs military and civilian leaders on China, North Korea, Russia, violent extremism and, when called upon by the military, humanitarian aid and disaster relief, Mole said.

Moles comments echo the Pentagons 2018 National Defense Strategy, which says that inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.

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At NSA Hawaii, the workforce is focused on executing NSAs signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions in the Pacific region, Mole explained.

Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor in Hawaii, seen here in Hong Kong after leaving the United States in 2013, revealed details of top-secret NSA surveillance of telecom data. (Photo: The Guardian via Getty Images)

The NSA location in Hawaii is crucial in gathering signals intelligence, because the curvature of the Earth and other factors affect how far certain signals can travel without interruption or disturbance. A station in Europe, for example, could be far less effective at sweeping up clear digital information from the Pacific.

The benefit of Hawaiis geographic proximity to Asia extends into cyberspace as well, said Patrick Wardle, a former NSA hacker who now lives on Maui and who co-founded the cybersecurity company Digita Security. For example, when performing offensive cyber-operations, the targets time zone matters.

It makes more sense to be conducting operations in a time zone close to the targets the United States is interested in, in order to guarantee that a device being targeted is functioning and manned. Thus, hacking from Hawaii may be preferable, say, over hacking from Washington, D.C., Wardle said.

At a very basic level, having a facility where people are closer physically and timewise to the countries that theyre following in the Asia Pacific, its almost hard to understate that, said Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at the tech company Recorded Future and a former head of the NSAs East Asia and Pacific cyberthreats office.

Additionally, she said, its easier to hire local people with the appropriate abilities, including native language skills.

On the cybersecurity side, Moriuchi explained, locating NSA in Hawaii is also invaluable. Hawaiis utility grid is disconnected from the mainland United States and totally self-sufficient, which makes its threat environment even more unique.

If anyone were to take out Hawaiis electric grid, she notes, even though it has backup generators, this would also shut off some of the military response. Thats a serious issue that, say, all the bases in Texas dont have to deal with, she added.

Hawaii has long been critical for codebreakers and information gatherers. NSA Hawaiis newest operations center, where the interview took place, is named after Capt. Joseph J. Rochefort, who led a team of codebreakers at Pearl Harbor during World War II. Close to the operations center is the Washington Wong Building, an underground facility NSA employees have dubbed the tunnel, built after World War II, where aircraft and munitions were sometimes stored.

U.S. Navy Captain Joseph J. Rochefort, circa 1943 (Photo: U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archives)

The prime customer of NSA Hawaii is the newly renamed U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which directs U.S. military operations in the massive Pacific region, encompassing 36 different nations where 3,000 different languages are spoken. It covers a huge concentration of the worlds major nuclear, military and economic powers, including China, Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan and the United States.

On Oahu, NSA Hawaii employs about 3,300 personnel, says Mole, 75 percent of whom are active-duty military. Hawaii is also the home of one of the largest concentrations of military and intelligence forces, and it hosts INDO-PACOM, as well as multiple bases for the Marine Corps, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard, and one of the worlds largest missile-testing facilities, the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

The relationship between the military and local Hawaiians can sometimes be tense, although it is a vital economic partnership for the state.

Hawaii is one of the most heavily militarized places on the planet, Kalama Niheu, an activist from Oahu, wrote to Yahoo News.

Increasing militarization and the focus on great power competition could make Hawaii a target, Kyle Kajihiro, a local activist and graduate student at the University of Hawaii, wrote in an email to Yahoo News. Now the U.S. encirclement of China, Russia, and North Korea with military bases and nuclear weapons and missile defense systems increases the risk to places like Hawaii, Okinawa and Guam, especially when belligerent rhetoric raises the stakes of human or technological error. President Trumps warnings to the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, are a case in point.

A false missile alert sent out to residents across Hawaii one January morning in 2018 turned out to be a mistake made by the local emergency management agency, not by the military. However, it took 38 minutes for a new alert to be issued. While local authorities have argued that major changes have been implemented, including requiring a second person to initiate an emergency alert, its unclear exactly how a similar situation, real or fake, might play out in the future  and how much coordination there would be between state, local and federal authorities.

A combination photograph shows screenshots from a cell phone displaying an alert for a ballistic missile launch and the subsequent false alarm message in Hawaii on Jan. 13, 2018. (Photo: Hugh Gentry/Reuters)

The NSA, relatively hidden compared to some of the Special Forces drills on public beaches, has tried to address any gaps between the military and the locals through community outreach. On the morning of the false missile alert, local Hawaii residents who sought shelter in the tunnel were not allowed inside, but were greeted at the gate with coffee and reassurances.

There is a special bond between the military and the state, and our workforce strives to be contributing members of the community, said Mole.

The service industry in Hawaii is a dominant force in its economy, but there are many other job opportunities, including some at the NSA. Mole told Yahoo News he has worked with local schools to provide information and chances to work in cybersecurity, as well as with the Hawaii Business Roundtable. Were out in public, Mole said. Were heavily invested in local school systems  investing a lot in STEM education in K-12 nationwide.

NSA Hawaii has local connections to multiple campuses of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu Community college and Leeward Community College, as well as local high schools and middle schools, where the agency hosts cybersecurity camps and teaches basic coding techniques.

We need more cyber pros in the workforce, Mole said.

Those connections with the local community are key, particularly in cases like the false missile alert  and have led to many internships and subsequent employment for local students.

Mole was on a ship in Japan in 2013, when Snowden took a vacation from his IT job at the NSA facility in Hawaii and traveled to Hong Kong, where he disclosed information on NSAs global surveillance programs. Mole says the episode did result in some positive changes, as the agency seeks to move on.

The fallout after Snowdens defection has increased transparency, Mole said, and improved our ability to protect against insider threats.

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Khartoum (AFP) - Sudan's army said Wednesday it will not allow the state to collapse amid nationwide protests, as the defence minister warned of a "plot" to trigger insecurity in the African nation.

Deadly protests have rocked Sudan for weeks now, with protesters calling for an end to President Omar al-Bashir's three-decade-old rule.

The protests were initially triggered by a government decision to triple the price of bread, but have mushroomed into nationwide anti-government rallies.

The army's chief of staff, Kamal Abdelmarouf, said Wednesday the armed forces were ready to face those who destabilised the security of the Sudanese people.

"We will not allow the Sudanese state to collapse or fall into chaos," he said in a meeting with top military officers in Khartoum, according to a statement issued by the army.

On Tuesday, similar warnings were issued by Abdelmarouf's deputy, Essameddine Mubarak, who said that the forces were ready to face any threat to the country.

For years, anger has been mounting across Sudan over growing economic hardships and deteriorating living conditions driven by soaring inflation and shortage of foreign currency.

But the defence minister blamed the recent protests on an unspecified plot.

"Sudanese armed forces are aware of a plot to use the economic situation for triggering insecurity in the country," Defence Minister Awad Ibnouf said in the military meeting.

Despite nationwide rallies, Bashir has refused to step down and blamed violence at demonstrations on "infiltrators" among the demonstrators.

Officials say 30 people have died in protest-related violence since the demonstrations began on December 19, while rights groups say more than 40 people have been killed.

Earlier on Wednesday, professors and lecturers from the University of Khartoum held a sit-in protest on campus against Bashir's government.

"More than 300 professors and lecturers of the university held a sit-in today inside the campus," Mamduh al-Hassan, a spokesman for the group told AFP.

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He said that 531 university staff members had signed a "Khartoum University Professors' Initiative" listing a series of demands.

"The main demand is that a transitional government be formed in Sudan," Hassan said, echoing the demand of protesters on the streets calling for an end to Bashir's iron-fisted rule.

The current protest movement has been led by the Sudanese Professionals' Association, an umbrella group of teachers, doctors and engineers.

Analysts say the movement has emerged as the biggest challenge yet to Bashir's rule.
Shanghai (AFP) - Fraud, obstruction of justice and cloak-and-dagger trade theft -- a US rap sheet alleging systematic skullduggery by Chinese telecom giant Huawei has deepened the company's problems just as it sought to win back global trust.

The US Justice Department this week unveiled a raft of charges against Huawei which could see its Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou extradited to the United States and threaten its business worldwide.

Meng's father -- 74-year-old Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei -- had spearheaded a rare recent charm offensive by the famously secretive company to salvage its reputation amid mounting espionage concerns.

But that may be an uphill climb following the US allegations of brazen criminality at Huawei's highest levels.

In a case centring on Meng, Huawei is charged with violating US and UN prohibitions on trading with Iran.

A separate case details a sustained effort to steal technology from US telecom operator T-Mobile, plus the damaging allegation that Huawei rewarded staff for stealing competitors' technology secrets.

None of the charges deal with deeper US concerns that Huawei's cheap equipment -- used in telecommunications infrastructure across the globe -- is a Trojan horse for potential Chinese state spying and sabotage.

- Gathering clouds -

But the Justice Department's move strengthens Washington's leverage in isolating the company, said Paul Triolo, a global tech-policy expert with Eurasia Group.

"The effort seems designed to make the case to allies... that while there is no smoking gun on cybersecurity, there are a host of other business practice, cultural, and legal issues clouding the company's future," he said.

The main case levels 13 charges against Huawei Technologies, Meng -- who faces an extradition hearing in Canada on March 6 -- and two affiliates over Iran sanctions violations.

The broader allegations in the case, filed in federal court in New York, were already known.

Story continues

But the charges detail efforts by Huawei and its subsidiaries to trick financial institutions into sanctions-busting activity.

They say Meng "repeatedly lied" to bankers and that Huawei obstructed justice by destroying evidence and putting witnesses beyond the reach of US law enforcement.

Huawei strenuously denies wrongdoing and Beijing has said the allegations are politically motivated.

The charges stand in stark contrast to a narrative pushed by Huawei in recent weeks -- perhaps in anticipation of the US revelations.

Speaking to foreign reporters, the normally reclusive Ren portrayed Huawei as an unselfish global force for good in comments larded with flattery for President Donald Trump and US tech leaders like Apple.

"We stand strongly against any behaviour that violates laws and regulations," Ren said on January 16, touting a "very sound" compliance system and tough discipline for violators.

But the New York charges reveal that Ren, whose background as a former Chinese army engineer has long raised red flags in Washington, was questioned by the FBI years ago, during which he repeatedly lied to US investigators about the nature of the Iran business.

- Trade secrets -

A separate case in Washington state cites internal emails and other evidence detailing a 2012-13 effort to steal the technology specs of a phone-testing device developed by T-Mobile, then a partner in Huawei's ultimately failed push to enter the US market.

Huawei staff repeatedly and surreptitiously took photos inside a T-Mobile facility and one staffer even stole a key part for the device, the charge sheet says.

The company later concocted an "internal report" designed to cover up the theft and blame rogue staff.

Perhaps the most damning allegation is that Huawei set up a system of bonuses for technology stolen from rivals.

"You are being encouraged and could possibly earn a monetary award for collecting confidential information regarding our competitors and sending it back to (Huawei China)," an internal staff email is quoted saying.

Triolo said there is a "clear threat now hanging over the company", possibly including fines, executive travel bans, and being officially branded a threat to US national security -- which could have devastating worldwide repercussions on its business.

"Carriers around the world will need to at least consider how to protect their investments and supply chains. This is the nub of the issue," said Triolo.
The U.S. met a Canadian court deadline Wednesday by filing a request asking Canada to extradite Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co.s CFO Meng Wanzhou, who has been held in Canada on a provisional warrant since she was arrested in Vancouver on December 1.

The request comes on the heels of separate charges filed by federal prosecutors in New York and Washington state against Huawei, unsealed Monday, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets from one of its U.S. business partners, and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" in Moscow, Russia October 2, 2014. Picture taken October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Alexander Bibik

Among other considerations in Wanzhous case, the Canadian court will consider provisions of Canadas Extradition Act and treaty with the U.S., which prohibit extradition requests compromised by political motivation. That opens the door for for the court to weigh comments made by President Donald Trump when asked about Mengs arrest, Dr. Gary Botting, a barrister in Vancouver and Canadian extradition law expert told Yahoo Finance.

Canada cannot extradite somebody for political purposes

Trump told Reuters, Whatevers good for this country, I would do, when asked if he would intervene in the U.S. Justice Departments case. If I think its good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made  which is a very important thing  whats good for national security  I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary, Trump reportedly said.

A man walks past a Huawei sign in a mall in Beijing, China, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Saying that he can use this as a bargaining chip in international relations, trade negotiations, for example, that might be something that impacts the extradition hearing in Canada, Botting said. Botting expects Mengs defense to rely on constitutional and treaty arguments for the bulk of its argument against extradition.

You cannot extradite somebody for political purposes. That's a treaty provision that's a much larger and more important provision than whether or not this is criminal in Canada, Botting said. Why single her out as Chief Financial Officer? Why not handle it with a fine, especially when they're saying that she faces up to 30 years in jail?

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In its extradition filing, the U.S. is required to perfect what is called a Record of the Case, according to Botting.

It has to be a certified Record the Case saying the evidence summarized in the document, witness by witness, in other words what each witnesses expected to say, along with information about the identity of Ms. Meng, Botting said.

Once perfected, the matter heads to Canadas Department of Justice, where the Justice Minister has 30 days to determine whether the Department will issue the authority to proceed with an extradition hearing. The Minister of Justice has the right to reject the U.S.s Record of the Case as inadequate, and stop the proceeding.

2 questions before Canadas Department of Justice

Bottling said there are two primary questions before the Department: Whether Canadian authorities have arrested the correct person identified in the warrant, and whether the crime alleged is also recognized as a criminal violation in Canada.

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is out on bail and remains under partial house arrest after she was detained Dec. 1 at the behest of American authorities, leaves her home to attend a court appearance regarding her bail conditions, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Tuesday Jan. 29, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

All they are looking at is, is this the right person, and is this a criminal violation in Canada? He said.

The authority to proceed may not be issued unless Canadian law recognizes a criminal offense analogous with the criminal offense charged in the U.S. indictment.

While Canada is not a party to U.S. sanctions against Iran, and therefore does not recognize a law exactly analogous to the crime the U.S. alleged against Meng, Botting said the underlying law of fraud, which is recognized by both countries, would likely act as enough of a common denominator to issue an authority to proceed.

If an authority to proceed is granted, it initiates court proceedings and allows the assigned judge in British Columbia to set an extradition hearing date and preliminary schedule.

Under Canadian law, the court is required to preserve a detainees Charter Rights, which are Canadian constitutional protections that guarantee Meng the right not to be deprived of fundamental freedoms.

So the question is has [the extradition process] been done in a fair and just way? Botting said.

An argument that would trump all

In addition to citing Trumps statements, Botting said he anticipates the defense to make the additional, though less weighty claim, that Canadas laws do not specifically provide for sanctions against Iran, as set forth under U.S. law.

Even if the U.S. introduces evidence showing that Huawei and Meng committed the crimes alleged, a successful argument by the defense that Mengs constitutional rights were violated, or that the treaty was violated, would trump such evidence.

If the extradition is for political purpose, that would trump all, Botting said.

In a separate case, United States v. Shulman, Canadas Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor who publicly threatened a U.S. citizen sought for extradition under the extradition treaty with Canada was equivalent to a price on the alleged detainees head and therefore a violation of Canadas Extradition Act.

The Meng matter is adjourned until March 8 to allow the Justice Minister time to determine whether to issue an Authority to Proceed.

Huawei has denied that the company committed any of the violations of U.S. law contained in the unsealed indictments. Mengs lawyer has denied the charge that she committed fraud.

If she were extradited you can be sure she would be held for a long time, Botting said. Now it could be they decide to go with a big fine.

Alexis Keenan is a New York-based reporter for Yahoo Finance. She previously produced live news for CNN and is a former litigation attorney. Follow her on Twitter at @alexiskweed

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Dividends play a key role in compounding returns over time and can form a large part of our portfolio return. HRnetGroup Limited (SGX:CHZ) has begun paying dividends recently. It now yields 2.9%. Does HRnetGroup tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, Ill take you through my analysis.

View our latest analysis for HRnetGroup

Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a 6-month subscription to the award winning Simply Wall St research tool (valued at $60)!

Heres how I find good dividend stocks

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?

Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?

Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

SGX:CHZ Historical Dividend Yield January 30th 19

How does HRnetGroup fare?

The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 38%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect CHZs payout to increase to 52% of its earnings. Assuming a constant share price, this equates to a dividend yield of 3.9%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to SGD0.056 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income.

When considering the sustainability of dividends, it is also worth checking the cash flow of a company. A company with strong cash flow, relative to earnings, can sometimes sustain a high pay out ratio.

If theres one type of stock you want to be reliable, its dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Unfortunately, it is really too early to view HRnetGroup as a dividend investment. It has only been paying out dividend for the past one year. Generally, the rule of thumb for determining whether a stock is a reliable dividend payer is that it should be consistently paying dividends for the past 10 years or more. Clearly theres a long road ahead before we can ascertain whether CHZ one as a stable dividend player.

Story continues

Compared to its peers, HRnetGroup has a yield of 2.9%, which is high for Professional Services stocks but still below the markets top dividend payers.

Next Steps:

Whilst there are few things you may like about HRnetGroup from a dividend stock perspective, the truth is that overall it probably is not the best choice for a dividend investor. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the companys fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. Ive put together three important factors you should look at:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CHZs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for CHZs outlook. Valuation: What is CHZ worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CHZ is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
The 360 is a feature designed to show you diverse perspectives on the days top stories.



Speed Read

Who: Howard Schultz, a 65-year-old billionaire businessman and former CEO of Starbucks

What: The coffee chain mogul announced that he is The coffee chain mogul announced that he is weighing whether to run as a centrist independent in the 2020 presidential election during an interview with CBS News  60 Minutes   a move that has the potential to seriously alter the balance of the race.

going to get, by my calculations, between 6 and 14 percent of the vote, and hell get zero electoral votes and hell give the possibility of swinging the race to Trump. Schultz is a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat who publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. His announcement has caused some concern for the Democratic Party, which fears a Schultz candidacy could split the electorate and pave the way for President Trumps reelection. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who ran in the 2004 Democratic primary, told Yahoo News that Schultz is 

Schultz again teased a 2020 run at the launch of his book tour in Manhattan, where a heckler was escorted off the premises for yelling: Dont help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire, before calling Schultz an expletive. The heckler added that Schultz should go back to Davos with the other billionaire elite who think they know how to run the world.

Story continues

Why: During his 60 Minutes interview, Schultz said he was considering running during a fragile time for the country, and said he believed Trump is not qualified to be president.

He argued in an op-ed in USA Today that he believes voters are fed up with the two-party system because both Democrats and Republicans now embrace extreme ideologies and need a Washington outsider in the presidential race.

Whats next: The billionaire said that any run should not be undertaken without intense preparation and promised he wouldnt run unless he felt it was possible to win.

To decide, I will spend the next few months continuing to learn, listen, talk with people, hear their stories and understanding what people need  and whether they are ready for a new choice, Schultz wrote in his op-ed.

Perspectives

A Schultz run will ensure Trump wins a second term.

In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. Thats a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we cant afford to run it now.  Former New York City Mayor and possible Democratic candidate for president Michael Bloomberg, MikeBloomberg.com

Absent such changes, his candidacy would threaten to siphon away enough votes to give Trump a second term.  By flirting with such a risk, Schultz is demonstrating a level of megalomaniacal recklessness that is itself disqualifying.  Michelle Goldberg, New York Times

Already top Democratic operatives working for presidential candidates and beyond say theyre worried that the only thing hell accomplish is making sure Donald Trump gets re-elected. Its more than just sniping at a prospective opponent; word that he might invest in an independent run has many of them clearly worried about how hed split votes in a general election.  Edward-Isaac Dovere, Atlantic

Fears that Schultz will split the vote for a Trump win are overblown.

As the Onion put it , with a rare headline that was more factual than satiric: Howard Schultz Considering Independent Presidential Run After Finding No Initial Support Among Any Voter Groups. Rather than discourage him from running, Democrats should welcome it  to prove once and for all that few American voters are craving a moderate  chairman emeritus  who fear-mongers over the national debt and blames both parties equally for the countrys hyper-partisanship.  Alex Shephard, New Republic

We need party reform, not a third party.

Neither party does a good job of behaving responsibly. Instead, they seem to be most sensitive to the views of privileged interest groups and activists occupying the ideological fringe. This keeps them from advocating a salable and sensible program in the true public interest. Unfortunately, a third-party challenge is extremely unlikely to break this pattern of irresponsibility. Instead, internal reforms of party structures are the way to go.  Jay Cost, National Review

Schultz fears radical candidates, but hes a radical choice too.

Schultz is afraid Democrats will nominate someone radical, but what hes proposing, of course, is pretty radical, too. There are lots of hurdles to an independent bid for the president. And there are reasons why George Washington, the countrys first president, was the first and only independent to serve as president.  Domenico Montanaro, NPR

We dont need another egotistical billionaire.

Just what we need, another ego-crazed billionaire with zero experience in government who thinks he is destined to be president. What could go wrong?  The anti-Trump majority of Democrats, independents and sensible Republicans must let Schultz know, in no uncertain terms, that this is no time for such foolishness. Instead, perhaps, he should angle for a Cabinet post. Or just have a decaf latte and chill.  Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

After two years of Donald Trump, do either of these men really think the nation is yearning for another wealthy businessman in the White House? I realize that this idea of running the country like a business has been a popular trope for many years, but one might have thought the current disastrous experiment would have provided considerable evidence of what a fatuous idea that is.  Heather Digby Parton, Salon

Remember 2016.
Police are investigating after a homeless man was deliberately set on fire in a park (Picture: Getty)

Police are investigating after a homeless man was deliberately set on fire in a park.

West Midlands Police said it is believed the man was sleeping when two people poured lighter fluid over his hands and set him alight.

Officers said the victim was initially thought to have suffered severe burns during the attack in the Swanswell Park and Pool area of Coventry.

The attack happened in the Swanswell Park and Pool area of Coventry (Picture: Google Maps)

The force said the incident happened some time between 10pm on Saturday, January 26 and the early hours of the following day.

The attack has sparked outrage on social media, with people branding it sick and cruel and vile.

MORE: Scottish tourist charged 480 for five-minute taxi ride

MORE: Critics pour water on scientists claim of a cure for cancer within the next year

Anyone with information or who saw anything suspicious is urged to contact the police or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
A historians remarks at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, have gone viral after he told billionaires if they want to solve inequality, all they need to do is pay their taxes.

In a video posted by Now This and viewed more than 5 million times, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman heavily criticizes billionaires who talk about solving inequality, but fail to actually do the main thing he says will help.

I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then, almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not paying their fair share, Bregman said last week at the forum, which typically draws the worlds elite.

He expressed surprise that there was only one panel at Davos dedicated to the topic of tax avoidance, even though its a fundamental issue. It feels like Im at a firefighters conference and no ones allowed to speak about water, he remarked.

Bregman took aim at billionaires and ultra-wealthy celebrities who try to persuade people that philanthropy is the answer to inequality.

This is not rocket science, he said. We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes. We can invite Bono once more. But come on! Weve got to be talking about taxes. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.

Bregman called out tech billionaire Michael Dell for asking people to name one country where a top tax rate of 70 percent had worked. The United States, thats where it has actually worked, in the 1950s, he said. Under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, tax rates for the ultra-rich peaked at just over 90 percent.

Bregman also noted the irony of Davos attendees flying to the Swiss mountain town on 1,500 private jets to hear broadcaster David Attenborough give a speech about how people are destroying the planet.

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of anti-poverty NGO Oxfam International, who was on the panel with Bregman, also spoke about the global tax system, which she said allows $170 billion to be sheltered in tax havens instead of contributing to developing countries that need the revenue.

Story continues

Executive director of Oxfam International, Winnie Byanyima, sat the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, on Jan. 21, 2019. (Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI via Getty Images)

This figure comes from Oxfams recent report into wealth inequality, which found that just 26 billionaires possess as much wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people. The report called for a more human economy with stronger tax systems for corporations and the super-rich that fund universal public services to help tackle inequality.

Inevitably, perhaps, the Davos speakers were challenged.

Ken Goldman, former CFO of Yahoo, pointed to the low U.S. unemployment rate and reduction in global poverty, and asked why the panelists were only talking about taxes.

The quality of the jobs matters, it matters fired back Byanyima. She talked about poultry processing workers in the U.S. needing to wear diapers because they were too scared to ask for bathroom breaks.

Dont tell me about low levels of unemployment, Byanyima said. You are counting the wrong things. You are not counting dignity of people. Youre counting exploited people.

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HuffPosts This New World series is funded by Partners for a New Economy and the Kendeda Fund. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundations. If you have an idea or tip for the editorial series, send an email to thisnewworld@huffpost.com

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the number of private jets coming into Davos as 15,000. It was 1,500.

Related...

Finding Reality at the World Economic Forum

Americans Vastly Underestimate Wealth Inequality, Support 'More Equal Distribution Of Wealth': Study

Who Is Most Scared of Inequality?

Tax The Rich, Then Tax Them Some More

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Malacrino will play David Platts first employee at his new barbers. (Getty Images)

Coronation Street is set for a bit of Hollywood glamour, as Greys Anatomy actor Luca Malacrino joins the cast.

The 26-year-old Cardiff born actor will join the soap on a temporary basis as Andrea  David Platts first employee at his new barbers shop.

David and big brother Nick Tilsley have gone into business together, and are set for a shock when they expect Andrea to be an attractive woman.

Discovering Andrea is actually an Italian man when he turns up to the interview, Shona Ramsey and Leanne Battersby will persuade the brothers to give him a chance.

Corrie bosses have remained tight-lipped on further details of his storyline, but have described Andrea as fiery, Italian, stylish.

Malacrino, whos appeared in US show Im Dying Up Here, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders and Greys Anatomy says it was his mum who persuaded him to return to the UK for a chance to star on the cobbles.

Nick was recently revealed to have stolen 80k from his hairdressing grandma Audrey (REX/Shutterstock)

I rang my mum in Cardiff and asked her if she thought taking the next flight out to audition for Coronation Street was a good idea.

She said, I dont know why, but I have a really good feeling about this one. So I booked the next flight out, Malacrino told Wales Online.

In Hollywood Ive played a psychopathic murderer, a 60s British agent and an ex-con from Brooklyn so itll be great to get stuck into a completely different role on Coronation Street.

Around eight million people watch it per week, which is a pretty brilliant feeling. I cant wait to show what I can do with this character, he explained.

Malacrino is set to make his Coronation Street debut on Wednesday February 6th.





Read more

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Piers Morgan slams MSP over Winston Churchill Claims

Kerry Katona brands ex husband a d***head
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP)  A grenade was thrown into a mosque in the southern Philippines where Muslim teachers were sleeping early Wednesday morning, killing two of them and injuring four, authorities said.

It was the second explosion at a religious site in the south this week, though authorities didn't see it as retaliation for the bombings of a Roman Catholic cathedral in nearly Jolo during Sunday Mass that killed 21 people.

Regional police Chief Superintendent Emmanuel Luis D. Licup said investigators are trying to determine the motive and identity of the suspect in the grenade attack at the mosque in Zamboanga city. The victims were from Basilan and nearby provinces at the mosque to teach Islam to children.

Military Col. Leonel M. Nicolas emphasized the grenade blast was not a retaliatory act and was still under investigation. Licup said a personal grudge was among the possible motives.

The Ulama Council of Zamboanga Peninsula condemned the attack as "an inhumane act" and called for people to be "calm yet vigilant."

President Rodrigo Duterte's office described the mosque attack as a taunt to the government and said the successive attacks on different places of worship showed the ruthlessness of terrorists.

The peace process for the southern region would not be stalled by such obstacles, presidential spokesman Salvador S. Panelo said. "The movement to change the face of Mindanao and the oppressive conditions affecting its people shall move forward despite these acts of terrorism," the statement said.

The official military and police toll for the catherdral attack was raised to 21 dead with about 100 wounded. One of the dead is still unidentified.

The Islamic State group claimed two suicide bombers carried out the cathedral attack, one who detonated an explosive belt inside the building and the other near the entrance. Philippine authorities have named as their main suspect a commander of a local Abu Sayyaf faction that has pledged allegiance to IS.

Story continues

Duterte said Tuesday that an unidentified militant couple detonated the two bombs, and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said at least one was a suicide bomber.

Duterte visited the bombed cathedral on Monday and ordered government forces "to destroy" the Abu Sayyaf. The group has carried out years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in the southern Philippines. It has an estimated 300 to 400 members, mostly in Sulu where it is holding several foreign and Filipino kidnap victims.

Earlier this month, minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that is opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that are not part of any peace process.

Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, and Duterte has extended martial law in the entire southern third of the country to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents, but bombings and other attacks have continued.
A flag depicting the British Union Jack design and the EU design is seen outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, January 14, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Goldman Sachs (GS) increased its probability calculation that a no-deal Brexit  also known as a hard Brexit  was likely to happen, after parliament rejected an amendment to take a no-deal Brexit off the table.

Members of Parliament (MP) instead backed prime minister Theresa May to reopen negotiations on Brexit with the European Union and replace the backstop, which is intended to prevent a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland forming. This is something the EU unequivocally said it would not do.

US investment bank Goldman has now:

Increased its no-deal Brexit probability to 15%, from 10%;

Reduced its probability of Brexit not happening to 35%, from 40%;

Kept its estimated probability of a delayed Brexit deal at 50%.

Analysts at Goldman said in a note that parliament at large signalled last night that it opposes a no deal Brexit, but it is not ready to delay Brexit to rule out no deal entirely. But by offering something to everyone, Tuesdays Brexit amendments offered little additional clarity to anyone.

A no-deal Brexit is if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal. That means that all the rules that govern trade, immigration, standards, and many more, between the bloc and Britain cease to apply. It is the worst case scenario for the UK economy.

The UKs own chancellor Philip Hammond said there will be very significant disruption in the short term and a very significant hit to our economy in the medium to long term in a no-deal Brexit.

Goldmans CEO David Solomon said last week that the bank will not invest in Britain as much if there is a hard Brexit.




SAN FRANCISCO  At least three companies are hoping to bring supersonic airplanes back into the skies, but environmental groups worry their return could mean a big increase in greenhouse gasses from aviation.

The issue is expected to come to the fore next week as international regulators meet in Canada beginning Monday to discuss environmental and noise standards for the newly-revived supersonic transport technology.

The International Council on Clean Transportation released a study on the climate impacts of a creating a new commercial supersonic network Wednesday in anticipation of the meeting.

Supersonic jets fly faster than the speed of sound and at higher altitudes. The jets could fly from Paris to New York in three and a half hours, less than half the eight hours a conventional commercial jet would take.

British Airways and Air France ran Concorde supersonic service from 1976 until 2003, when it was discontinued in part because of low sales caused by the high cost of tickets, as well as concern over a 2000 accident that killed 113 people.

Now at least three startups are working on bringing supersonic transportation back, including the commercially-focused Boom Supersonic and two others working on business jets, Spike Aerospace and Aerion Supersonic.

The Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations group, will meet in Montreal to discuss standards for supersonic aircraft, which havent flown commercially for 16 years.

A concern among environmental groups is that supersonic jets burn much more fuel per passenger than conventional jets. The International Council on Clean Transportation estimates the new supersonic jets will consume as much as five to seven times as much fuel per passenger as subsonic aircraft on the same routes. Thats partly because going faster requires more fuel and partly because the supersonic jets are expected to transport significantly fewer passengers per plane.

Story continues

The aviation industry has set a goal of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by half in 2050 compared to 2005 levels, a level that's already expected to be difficult to meet, said Dan Rutherford, director of aviation programs at the International Council on Clean Transportation.

"Adding these planes, which could be five to seven times as carbon intensive as comparable subsonic jets, on top of that just to save a few hours flying over the Atlantic seems problematic to me," he said.

That's an issue as the world attempts to diminish the carbon dioxide it emits to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Here are the facts: Despite winter storms, global warming is real

Boom Supersonic says it is working on making its supersonic flights sustainable and that its goal is making the fuel burn necessary for supersonic travel equivalent to business class on conventional aircraft.

We are committed to pushing the envelope to discover new ways to make supersonic travel environmentally and socially sustainable for generations to come, said Dan Mahoney, Booms chief marketing officer.

Business class is between two to three times as emission intensive as economy class because the amount of energy required to fly a plane is divided among the people being flown. The more people, the more energy efficient. Business class seats fewer people, so its less efficient.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Global warming: New supersonic airplanes would be terrible for environment, study warns
Detained auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn believes his arrest and the charges against him are the result of a "plot and treason" at his former employer Nissan, he told the Nikkei newspaper Wednesday.

The Japanese business daily quoted Ghosn as saying he had "no doubt" that the charges against him were motivated by Nissan executives opposed to greater integration of the firm with its French alliance partner Renault.

It was the first press interview Ghosn has given since his stunning arrest on November 19, conducted in the Tokyo detention centre where he has languished ever since.

A Nissan spokesman hit back immediately, saying that current CEO Hiroto Saikawa has "already categorically refuted the notion of a 'coup d'etat'".

"The sole cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn and (chief of staff Greg) Kelly," the spokesman added.

He said a Nissan probe had uncovered "substantial and convincing evidence of misconduct" and that the firm's focus is "firmly on addressing the weaknesses in governance" that allowed this misconduct to happen.

The 64-year-old Ghosn has been denied bail several times, with the court considering him a flight risk and concerned he could attempt to destroy evidence.

But he again stressed that he "won't flee. I will defend (myself)", according to the Nikkei.

"All the evidence is with Nissan and Nissan forbids all employees to talk to me," he added.

Even his own lawyer has said it is unlikely he will be released before a trial, which could take up to six months to organise given the complexity of the case.

Ghosn faces three separate charges, all of which he denies. He stands accused of under-reporting his income between 2010 and 2015 to the tune of five billion yen ($46 million) and continuing to do so for a further three years.

He also stands accused of a complex scheme to try to pass off personal foreign exchange losses to Nissan and using company funds to reimburse a Saudi contact who stumped up collateral for him.

Story continues

He said the payment to this businessman, Khaled Juffali, had been signed by "four officers".

- 'Up and down' -

The executive, once feted for his turnaround of the struggling Nissan, has been removed as chairman of the Japanese firm as well as of Mitsubishi Motors. He has also resigned as chairman and chief executive of French company Renault.

He told the Nikkei there was a plan to "integrate" the three companies but insisted it was intended to ensure there would be "autonomy under one holding company."

After Ghosn's arrest, Saikawa referred to the "dark side" of his former mentor's tenure and accused him of having accrued too much power.

But Ghosn rejected the characterisation of his tenure as a "dictatorship."

"People translated strong leadership to dictator, to distort reality," he told the Nikkei. They did so, he added, for the "purpose of getting rid of me".

Another accusation against him revolves around some $9 million allegedly paid to him from a joint venture based in The Netherlands but Ghosn rejected this, saying the claims of improper payments were "a distortion of reality".

He has also come under fire for luxury houses in Rio de Janeiro and Beirut -- which Nissan alleges were paid for improperly via a subsidiary.

He justified these residences on the grounds that he "needed a safe place where (he) can work and receive people in both Brazil and Lebanon."

He stressed that the purchases were approved by the legal department.

Asked about his conditions in the detention centre, Ghosn replied that the situation was "up and down" but said his health was "fine."

Family members have said his detention conditions are overly difficult and even French President Emmanuel Macron has criticised them as "harsh."

The reported comments by Ghosn were the first since a dramatic court appearance earlier this month in which he said he had been "wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations".
Gemma Collins and DOI partner Matt Evers (Credit: Rex)

Gemma Collins has confirmed shell be strapping on her skates once again to take part in Dancing On Ice this weekend, following her epic fall last weekend.

The Only Way Is Essex star took a nasty tumble during her routine on Sunday night, which found her left with a badly swollen knee.

Video of the swelling was posted online by her boyfriend James Arg Argent, as well as footage of her at a curry house with her leg up and a bag of ice packed around the injury.

The following day, she was pictured leaving her house in a wheelchair.

But in a post to her Instagram page, she told her 1.2 million followers that shed be back in training soon and has been having physio following the spill.

Giving the peace sign from a hospital trolley, she captioned: Be back Sunday guys dont worry. Nothing is going to stop me.

Your support is overwhelming and keeping me going #nopainnogain @dancingonice. Physio is going well and will be ok.

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Yesterday, Arg slammed viewers who have accused her of faking her fall.

Anyone who thinks Gemma faked the fall and risked life-threatening injuries is an idiot, he said.

She had a feeling that something was going to go wrong on the night and she was right!

He later added on Instagram: When I saw her fall like that face-first, I honestly thought she might be unconscious or lost some teeth.

The way she got up & carried on was AMAZING!!! You worked so hard this week & improved so much!

Collins has now said that she passed out during the routine.

It definitely wasnt faked, one million per cent. If they knew the pain I am in with my knee, they would understand, she told The Sun.

I didnt fall, I passed out. I was just going and then, next thing, on the ground. What is scary is my teeth could have been smashed out.

It was so weird. I dont think I tripped, I think I blacked out.

Collins has also found a new fan in Good Morning Britains Piers Morgan, who commended her on getting up after the fall, and defended her after Twitter users mocked her.

Story continues

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Read more

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The Gannett Foundation, sponsored by the USA Today Network's parent company Gannett Inc., is offering more than a dozen grants totaling $2.3 million to organizations trying to improve their communities.

A Community Thrives is a program that invests in organizations involved in projects related to education, arts and culture, wellness and other positive local initiatives.

Past grantees include $100,000 recipient Upward Intuition in Pensacola, Florida, for its plan to build a multipurpose community skateboarding plaza to combat crime and drug abuse. Atlanta nonprofit HeartBound was awarded a $50,000 grant last year to expand a program allowing children to read with their incarcerated parents during prison visitation.

More: Books and puzzles bring family time to prison visitation

More: Upward Intuition wins $100,000 'A Community Thrives' grant for downtown Pensacola skate park

The Gannett Foundation rolled its other significant grant-making program, Community Grants, into A Community Thrives this year in order for applicants to apply to both sources of funding.

For 2019, A Community Thrives will award 16 grants and offer bonus promotions. Three participants will receive $100,000; seven will receive $50,000; six will receive $25,000; and weekly bonus promotions will total $200,000.

In order to qualify for a grant, organizations must be affiliated with a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, be located within the U.S. and have a U.S.-based project that will improve a local community. Organizations will also have to agree to the official rules.

Approved organizations will move on to a fundraising phase, where they will work to reach goals based on the budget of their organization to become eligible for grants.

Organizations may submit applications at act.usatoday.com between Jan. 29 and Feb. 28. Fundraising begins on March 18. Grant winners will be announced on or around June 1.

Additionally, the Gannett Foundation will give $1.3 million in grants to USA TODAY Network markets nationwide to use toward community efforts. These grants will be a minimum of $2,500 and the number of grants will vary based on how local markets choose to award the funds.

Story continues

Last year, The Community Grants Program awarded $2.3 million in 109 communities across the country supporting issues including hunger, literacy, housing, extended learning and many others.

A Community Thrives has already provided $1.2 million in grants to local communities, drove local communities to fundraise almost $1 million in one year and received submissions from people in 46 states plus the District of Columbia.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gannett Foundation to give more than $2 million in community-based grants
A beagle is in critical condition at Center Line Veterinary Hospital after getting frostbite on his back legs

DETROIT  A beagle was fast asleep in an animal hospital, shivering under a pile of blankets atop an operating table.

That was the scene Tuesday at the Center Line Veterinary Hospital, where the dog was brought after being found with frostbite on its back legs and paws.

The nonprofit organization Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue rescued the animal after receiving a call about a stray dog laying down on the ground outside in the cold weather on Detroit's east side. The beagle remained in critical condition because of his frostbite, said Detroit Pit Crew Director Theresa Sumpter.

Sumpter said the next 10 to 15 hours were "very critical" for the beagle, as he remained bundled up in blankets and was given warm fluids and medication. Sumpter said the organization ran a microchip test to see whether the dog had an owner, but no records came up. If the canine recovers, he will receive a full health checkup and be available for adoption.

The organization is raising funds on its Facebook page to help pay for the beagle's medical care. More than $1,000 was donated in just two hours.

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Sumpter said Detroit Pit Crew has picked up 11 dogs in the last 48 hours, and has received hundreds of calls from people noticing dogs out in the snow and dangerously cold temperatures. A wind chill advisory is in effect for southeast Michigan until Thursday, when it could feel as cold as 45 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service.

Detroit Pit Crew has been rescuing injured, sick and pregnant stray dogs off the streets of Detroit since 2013.

Sumpter urged dog owners to bring their pets inside when it's this cold.

"If you leave your dog outside without shelter, they will die," Sumpter said. "I don't know why someone would leave a dog outside, it doesn't make sense."

More: 'Theyre like children:' How to keep pets safe in this polar vortex

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Frostbitten stray beagle being treated at veterinary hospital after rescue in Detroit
Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn is abandoning a much-touted plan to build a sprawling factory in Wisconsin that would have employed blue-collar workers, opting to instead establish a research center that will employ engineers and other highly educated workers.

In Wisconsin were not building a factory, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou, told Reuters in a piece published Wednesday. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment.

In a deal that was celebrated by President Trump at a White House ceremony in July 2017, Wisconsin lawmakers agreed to provide Foxconn with $3 billion in tax breaks and credits in exchange for its commitment to create up to 13,000 manufacturing jobs in the state over the next 15 years.

I would see Terry, and I would say, Terry, you have to give us one of these massive places you do great work with, Trump said, flanked by then-Wisconsin governor Scott Walker in the East Room of the White House. The American worker will not let you down.

Foxconn had initially vowed to hire more than 5,000 Wisconsin workers by the end of 2020, but a company source told Reuters that they now plan to hire just 1,000 workers by that date. Under the terms of the deal Foxconn negotiated with Walker, the agreed-upon tax breaks and credits can be revoked if the firm does not follow through on its commitments, though it remains unclear whether the breaks will be revoked.

Foxconn, which supplies components for Apple, Amazon, and Google products, planned to manufacture LCD screens in the $10 billion factory  a plan they have since concluded would be too expensive.

In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S., Woo said. We cant compete.

Walker lost his reelection bid to Democrat Tony Evers in November amid harsh criticism of the Foxconn deal, which hed championed since 2013. Opponents of the deal charged that it amounted to a corporate giveaway with no guaranteed benefits for Wisconsins workers. They also cited Foxconns history of reneging on high-profile job-creation promises after the media spotlight fell away. In 2013, the company vowed to create 300 manufacturing jobs by investing $30 million in a technology factory in central Pennsylvania, only to quietly scrap that plan after it garnered an initial burst of positive PR.

More from National Review
After the calm comes the storm.

On Tuesday night, Theresa May got a surprising boost when Tory MPs rallied round her in a series of amendment votes on Brexit.

Brexiteers and Remainers called an uneasy truce to back proposals to replace the controversial Irish backstop in the Prime Ministers withdrawal deal.

However, in the cold light of Wednesday, senior EU voices have put on a unified, co-ordinated front and told Mrs May in no uncertain terms the Irish backstop is not up for renegotiation.

At home, the truces Mrs May has struck  with hard-line Brexiteers and the DUP particularly  remain unsteady, making it incredibly difficult to predict what will happen next week, let along by March 29.

So heres a handy guide of what we probably think will happen:

The future of Brexit remains uncertain (PA)

1. May goes back to Brussels

Mrs May is due to speak to the European Council president Donald Tusk on Wednesday evening.

And while there has been no immediate announcement of any plan for Mrs May to visit Brussels, it is expected she will visit in the near future to discuss the Withdrawal Agreement as Brexit day draws ever closer.

MEPs are due to debate Brexit after an address from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker but the EUs chief Brexit negotiator said the blocs position was very clear.

Mr Juncker met the European commissioners on Wednesday morning to discuss new plans for dealing with a no-deal Brexit, said a spokesman.

Jeremy Corbyn has agreed to meet the Prime Minister for Brexit discussions (PA)

Corbyn and May open talks

Mr Corbyn is to meet Mrs May on Wednesday afternoon to discuss Brexit, having boycotted earlier cross-party talks.

The Labour leader said he was ready to discuss a sensible approach to Brexit after MPs voted on Tuesday night to rule out no-deal.

But with both leaders seemingly poles apart on how to move forward with Brexit  on issues including no deal and a customs union, it is unlikely that any consensus between the pair can be reached.

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner said Mr Corbyn has not backtracked by agreeing to speak with Mrs May while no-deal Brexit remains a possibility.

Story continues

MPs are set to vote again on Brexit in February (PA)

MPs to vote again

A second meaningful vote on Brexit is set to take place on February 13th.

As it stands, Mrs May has commanded a fragile majority of backbenchers, who rallied round the Brady amendment on Tuesday night.

The Prime Minister, attempting to now negotiate the terms of the backstop with a stubborn EU, may have a two-week honeymoon period before facing MPs for the second vote.

If she fails in her bid to change the backstop, Tory Leavers and Remainers are likely to turn on her yet again.

Currently the Brexit deadline is the 29th March (PA)

The Brexit deadline

As it stands, Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29th but with the Commons divided on the issue, it is not yet clear whether this deadline will be missed.

However, the chances of an extension to Article 50 became less likely after MPs rejected two proposals to delay Brexit by extending the two-year negotiation process if Mrs May was unable to secure an acceptable agreement by February 26th.

Whether Britain leaves the EU without a deal or whether one is in place by the time Brexit day comes around is currently up in the air.

But the PM faces a potential split in her party  and another threat to her leadership  if she agrees to delay Brexit.

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Two suspects are dead and five police officers were injured in a gunfire exchange in Houston on Monday, police say.

The suspects were killed amid a shooting that erupted while a narcotics team attempted to serve a search warrant in a southeast Houston neighborhood, Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a Monday night briefing. He added that black tar heroin was being sold at the residence.

According to Acevedo, the gunfire began when the officers forced the homes door open.

Were not sure how many other suspects fired at this time, he said.

Four of the officers sustained gunfire wounds, while a fifth was also injured on the scene. Two officers who were hit in the neck are in critical but stable condition, according to Acevedo. The other three are expected to make a full recovery.

No further details were provided about the suspects, including an alleged third that ABC 13 reported had barricaded himself inside the residence.

As of Monday evening, the Houston Police said the residence at 7800 Harding remains an active crime scene, with a SWAT team working to make sure no one else is inside the location.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the incident a horrific attack in a statement on Monday night.

The city of Houston and the Houston Police Department will have whatever state resources they need to bring swift justice to those involved, he said.
RIYADH (Reuters) - The father of two young Saudi women whose bodies were found bound together in New York last October has dismissed a police assessment that they committed suicide and said marks he saw on their faces indicate they were beaten before their deaths.

Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, who had previously been living in Virginia, were found along the rocky Manhattan shore of the Hudson River with duct tape around their waist and ankles. A New York Police Department official has said they likely entered the water alive and were said to have preferred suicide over returning to Saudi Arabia.

Their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered that the Saudi Embassy in Washington had ordered the family to leave the United States because the daughters had applied for political asylum, the Associated Press reported in October, citing police. An embassy spokeswoman denied that at the time.

Saudi Arabia's rights record has come under intense scrutiny after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate last year and the flight to Thailand of an 18-year-old woman who alleged abuse by her family. The woman's family denied the allegation.

Saudi news site Sabq published an interview on Monday with the women's father, who was not named, denying police claims that at some earlier point they had been subjected to physical abuse, and accusing a Virginia investigator of abducting the women and blocking him from retrieving them.

"He told us that he had withdrawn the report and placed the girls in a safe place," Sabq quoted the father as saying.

"We tried to communicate later with this investigator but he refused to respond. He asked us to go to the court on the grounds that the case had been transferred there, but when we went, we did not find any trace of the case," the father added.

He said when he viewed his daughters' bodies at the morgue before taking them back to Saudi Arabia, "we found bruises filling both their faces ... especially the younger one, which confirms they were heavily beaten before they died."

Story continues

A New York Police Department spokesman declined to comment, instead referring a reporter to the city medical examiner's office.

"We stand by our conclusion," said Aja Worthy-Davis, a medical examiner's spokeswoman.

Fairfax County Police in Virginia and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin in Riyadh, Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by William Maclean and Matthew Lewis)
RIYADH (Reuters) - The father of two young Saudi women whose bodies were found bound together in New York last October has dismissed a police assessment that they committed suicide and said marks he saw on their faces indicate they were beaten before their deaths.

Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, who had previously been living in Virginia, were found along the rocky Manhattan shore of the Hudson River with duct tape around their waist and ankles. A New York Police Department official has said they likely entered the water alive and were said to have preferred suicide over returning to Saudi Arabia.

Their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered that the Saudi Embassy in Washington had ordered the family to leave the United States because the daughters had applied for political asylum, the Associated Press reported in October, citing police. An embassy spokeswoman denied that at the time.

Saudi Arabia's rights record has come under intense scrutiny after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate last year and the flight to Thailand of an 18-year-old woman who alleged abuse by her family, which they denied.

Saudi news site Sabq published an interview on Monday with the women's father, who was not named, denying police claims that they had been subjected to physical abuse, and accusing a Virginia investigator of abducting the women and blocking him from retrieving them.

"He told us that he had withdrawn the report and placed the girls in a safe place," Sabq quoted the father as saying.

"We tried to communicated later with this investigator but he refused to respond. He asked us to go to the court on the grounds that the case had been transferred there, but when we went, we did not find any trace of the case," the father added.

He said when he viewed his daughters' bodies at the morgue before taking them back to Saudi Arabia, "we found bruises filling both their faces... especially the younger one, which confirms they were heavily beaten before they died."

The New York City medical examiner's office, Fairfax, Va. police, and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
By Patrick Rucker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. bank regulator has decided not to fine Citigroup for discriminating against minority mortgage borrowers, dropping the public rebuke that some officials had sought, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The decision is sure to be watched by consumer advocates who have questioned whether the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) will enforce fair lending rules under the leadership of Joseph Otting, an appointee of President Donald Trump and former banker who has pledged to be friendlier to the industry.

Reuters reported in October that the OCC was mulling sanctions against Citi for failing to give minority customers mortgage discounts that were available to many other borrowers.

Instead of a fine, the OCC issued a warning after Citi assured the regulator it had repaid borrowers and fixed faulty lending policies, the people said this week.

A spokesman for the OCC declined to comment, and a Citi spokesman declined to comment for this story.

In October, Citi told Reuters it believed it had not engaged in discrimination but also said it had reimbursed affected customers and that the third-largest U.S. lender had strengthened internal controls.

The warning from the OCC, known as a "matter requiring attention", does not entail the monetary penalties or reputational hit that makes public sanctions more effective at discouraging misconduct, said enforcement experts.

"There is no deterrence for banks when abuses are kept secret," said Eric Halperin, CEO of non-profit Civil Rights Corps and a former Department of Justice official who prosecuted discrimination cases under former President Barack Obama.

"Regulators should bring bad behavior to light."

Some OCC staff have argued since early 2017 that the faulty mortgage program violated federal law requiring equal treatment for all races, Reuters has reported.

But officials seeking a tough line against Citibank were disappointed. This summer, the Justice Department decided it would not penalize the bank, Reuters reported in October. In recent weeks, the OCC also declined to publicly sanction Citi, sources said.

Story continues

Citi's problem sprang from a "relationship pricing" program, common throughout the industry, that gives customers holding large deposits with the bank a preferential mortgage rate.

In 2014, Citi identified "errors" implementing the program, the bank said in October. Sources familiar with the issue said some minority borrowers who qualified for the mortgage rate discount had not received it.

Citi flagged the issue to the OCC, saying the discrepancies were inadvertent and it had taken steps to resolve them. Following a review, OCC staff agreed in early 2017 that the loans were racially skewed and recommended public sanctions, according to the sources.

In recent weeks, a panel of senior OCC officials voted to issue the written warning, the sources said. Although Otting does not sit on that panel, he has the final say on enforcement.

In October, Citi said less than 4 percent of its mortgages were affected by the relationship pricing problem and harmed customers were typically refunded $850.

The bank declined to say exactly how many customers were harmed, but a Reuters estimate based on mortgage lending data provided by Inside Mortgage Finance suggests thousands of qualified borrowers may have missed out on the discounts.

(Reporting By Patrick Rucker; editing by Michelle Price and David Gregorio)
By Rodi Said QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) - The head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia believes talks with the government over the future of the northeast region will begin in days after a "positive" reaction from Damascus. Any deal between the YPG and President Bashar al-Assad's state could piece together the two biggest chunks of a nation splintered by eight years of conflict. Dialogue attempts have revived in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw troops from the Kurdish-led region. "There are attempts to carry out negotiations ... the Syrian government stance was positive," the YPG commander Sipan Hemo told Reuters. "We believe they will start in the coming days." In a voice recording sent from his representatives late on Wednesday, Hemo said U.S. moves to withdraw were over-hasty and could not happen while the battle against Islamic State militants still rages. Syrian Kurdish leaders have sought Russian mediation for talks with Assad's state, hoping to safeguard their autonomous region when U.S. troops currently backing them pull out. They fear an attack by neighboring Turkey, which has threatened to crush the YPG. On a recent visit, U.S. envoy James Jeffrey talked to him and other officials about both satisfying Turkey and protecting northern Syria, Hemo said. U.S. arming of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the YPG spearheads, has infuriated NATO ally Turkey. Ankara sees the Syrian Kurdish fighters as indistinguishable from the Kurdish PKK movement that has waged an insurgency inside Turkey. The Kurdish-led authority that runs much of north and east Syria presented a road map for an agreement with Assad in recent meetings with his key ally Russia. Hemo said there had been no direct talks with the state since, but Damascus had received the proposal, which focused on preserving Kurdish and minority rights, including education, as well as self-rule. Kurdish forces and Damascus have mostly avoided combat during the war. Assad, who has vowed to recover the entire country, has long opposed Kurdish ambitions for a federal Syria. Short-lived talks between the two sides last summer went nowhere. Government officials were not immediately available for comment, but a minister last week expressed optimism. "LONG WAR WITH DAESH" Mixed messages from Washington have clouded Trump's abrupt announcement last month, which sparked concern among Western allies. The 2,000 American forces are still deployed in the SDF region, rich in oil, farmland and water - the biggest chunk of Syria outside state rule. "Implementing this (U.S.) decision to withdraw practically is not possible in the near term," Hemo said. SDF fighters are now battling Islamic State remnants in an enclave in eastern Syria, after seizing vast swathes of land from the jihadists with U.S. help. "Daesh is headed towards demise. There are many sleeper cells and there will be a long war with Daesh in this region," Hemo said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. He said any safe zone in northeast Syria, which Trump mentioned on Twitter, should be under U.N. auspices. The SDF has welcomed the possibility but said any such zone must keep Turkey out. "We want to be on good ties as neighbors, but the Turkish state does not accept this," Hemo said. "If Turkey attacks our region, we will respond appropriately." Ankara has drawn on Syrian rebel proxies to help fight the YPG in the northwest before and has vowed to march further east. Turkey's foreign minister said on Thursday his country has the capacity to create a safe zone in Syria but would not exclude other states that want to cooperate. (Writing by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen will testify next week at a closed hearing of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee after postponing an appearance before another congressional panel, citing threats from Trump. Cohen, who is set to go to prison in March after pleading guilty to crimes including campaign finance violations during Trump's 2016 election campaign, had expressed concern about testifying because of threats against his family from Trump. "Mr. Cohen has relayed to the Committee his legitimate concerns for his own safety as well as that of his family, which have been fueled by improper comments made by the President and his lawyer," Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the panel's chairman, said in a statement. "These attacks on Mr. Cohens family must stop," Schiff said. Last week, Cohen cited threats from Trump for postponing testimony before an open hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee set for Feb. 7. That hearing has not been rescheduled. Cohen was subpoenaed last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee to appear in mid-February. Cohen will be represented by a new team of lawyers after shaking up his legal team on Monday. Michael Monico and Barry Spevack, partners in the same Chicago criminal defense law firm, will replace Manhattan attorneys Guy Petrillo and Amy Lester, who oversaw his guilty plea and last month's sentencing in New York. In addition to congressional testimony, Monico and Spevack will also represent Cohen as he cooperates with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election as well as federal and state investigations in New York, Lanny Davis, another Cohen attorney, said in the statement. In December, Cohen was sentenced by a federal judge in Manhattan to three years in prison for crimes including orchestrating hush payments to women in violation of campaign laws before the 2016 election. Cohen said in the guilty plea that he was directed to make the payments by Trump. The president and his lawyers have argued the payments were a personal matter unrelated to the election. Trump called Cohen a "rat" in a tweet last month for cooperating with prosecutors. Cohen had been Trump's self-described longtime "fixer" and once said he would take a bullet for the New York real estate developer. In a Fox News interview this month, and other forums, Trump also suggested he had damaging information on Cohen's father-in-law. (This story corrects the spelling of Lanny Davis' first name in paragraph 9) (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Cynthia Osterman)
Tel Aviv (AFP) - Thousands of Ethiopian Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv Wednesday to protest racism and police brutality days after a young community member was shot dead by an officer.

Carrying signs accusing the police of "murder", the protestors blocked main intersections in the Israeli commercial capital ahead of a march to a central protest.

Yehuda Biadga, reportedly in his early 20s, was shot dead on January 18 in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, after rushing at a police officer holding a knife, according to eyewitnesses.

His mother, Mamia Biadga, had called the police to subdue her son who reportedly suffered from a mental condition, but says officers used excessive force.

"When a terrorist comes to murder, they don't shoot him," she said during the demonstration. "But Yehuda, who served in the army, had to be shot?"

The protestors, mainly young members of the community joined by supporters from other segments of Israeli society, marched to the nearby Ayalon highway chanting against the "police state" and calling for harsh measures to be taken against violent officers.

Community elders wearing traditional robes and holding colourful umbrellas herded the protestors with instructions in Amharic called through bullhorns.

Police looked on from a discreet distance and there were no immediate reports of clashes or arrests.

A police spokesman said the justice ministry's internal affairs department was investigating Biadga's death.

Shahar Mula, one of the demonstration's organisers, said Biadga's killing was "a trigger" for the rally, noting a series of incidents since 2015, when the community held protests over its problems.

"We came to protest... to convey a message that the police violence cannot continue," he told AFP, demanding dialogue with the government over the community's grievances.

For Shiran Tasama, the demonstration was connected to a broader cause.

Story continues

"The racism (in Israel) is not directed only at the Ethiopian community, it's against all the disempowered populations," she said, calling on them to "unite".

"We're not just protesting against the police, we're protesting against the education ministry and all the other institutions that have abandoned the weak populations," the 26-year-old from Hod Hasharon told AFP.

Israel's Ethiopian community now numbers around 140,000 people, including more than 50,000 born in the Jewish state.

Most of them are descendants of communities cut off from the Jewish world for centuries, and were belatedly recognised as Jews by Israeli religious authorities.

The community has consistently alleged institutionalised racism in recent years.
Equity Residential EQR reported fourth-quarter 2018 normalized funds from operations (FFO) per share of 84 cents, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny. However, normalized FFO per share figure came in higher than the 83 cents reported in the year-ago quarter.



Results mirror improved same-store net operating income (NOI) and lower total interest expense. Nonetheless, the company incurred certain casualty losses arising from rainstorm damage to assets in its Washington, D.C. area portfolio. Further, its transaction activities in 2018 and 2017, and higher corporate overhead resulted in a negative effect on the companys performance.



Total revenues in the reported quarter came in at $652.7 million, up 3.5% from the prior-year tally. In addition, the revenue figure comfortably surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $650.0 million.



For full-year 2018, the company reported normalized FFO per share of $3.25, up 3.8% from the prior year. This was backed by 4.3% year-over-year growth in revenues to nearly $2.6 billion.

Equity Residential Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise



Equity Residential Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Equity Residential Quote

Quarter in Detail



Same-store revenues (includes 73,992 apartment units) were up 2.6% year over year to $616.5 million, while expenses flared up 4.2% year over year to $180.2 million. As a result, same-store NOI inched up 1.9% year over year to $436.3 million.



The company recorded 2.5% growth in average rental rate to $2,784. Physical occupancy expanded 30 basis points year over year to 96.2% for same-store portfolio.



The company exited 2018 with cash and cash equivalents of around $47.4 million, up from $33 million recorded at the end of the previous quarter.



Portfolio Activity



During the reported quarter, Equity Residential did not acquire or sell any apartment properties.



During full-year 2018, Equity Residential acquired five apartment properties  comprising 1,478 apartment units  for a total of $707.0 million, at a weighted average Acquisition Capitalization Rate of 4.4%. During this period, the company sold five apartment properties for around $706.1 million.



Outlook



For first-quarter 2019, Equity Residential projects normalized FFO per share at 78-82 cents. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the same is currently pinned at 82 cents.



For full-year 2019, the company expects normalized FFO per share of $3.34-$3.44. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the same is $3.41.



The companys full-year outlook is backed by same-store portfolio revenue growth of 2.2-3.2%, physical occupancy of 96.2%, and NOI change of 1.5-3.0%.



Our Viewpoint



Equity Residential is poised for growth amid economic recovery and job-market growth, favorable demographics, lifestyle transformation, and creation of households. Further, the company is expected to benefit from its portfolio-repositioning efforts in high barrier-to-entry/core markets. Nevertheless, new apartment supply across its markets will likely continue putting pressure on new lease rates, occupancy, retention and result in high concessions as well.



Equity Residential currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



We now look forward to the earnings releases of other REITs like Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. ARE, AvalonBay Communities, Inc. AVB, and Apartment Investment and Management Company AIV which are slated to report their quarterly numbers on Feb 4.



Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represent funds from operations (FFO)  a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.



Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019



In addition to the stocks discussed above, wouldn't you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year?



From more than 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank, these 10 were picked by a process that consistently beats the market. Even during 2018 while the market dropped -5.2%, our Top 10s were up well into double-digits. And during bullish 2012  2017, they soared far above the market's +126.3%, reaching +181.9%.



This year, the portfolio features a player that thrives on volatility, an AI comer, and a dynamic tech company that helps doctors deliver better patient outcomes at lower costs.



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Jussie Smollett (Credit: Getty Images)

Jussie Smollett, one of the stars of US TV series Empire, was brutally attacked by two men on Monday night in a incident that is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime.

The Chicago Police Department has appealed for witnesses to the attack, said to have been perpetrated by two white men at 2.42am as Smollett was leaving a branch of Subway.

According to TMZ, he was approached by the men, wearing ski masks, who reportedly shouted at him Arent you that f***ot Empire n*****?

Though he tried to fight back, Smollett was beaten to the ground, had a rope put around his neck, and bleach poured on him.

Overnight, the Chicago Police Department received a report of a possible racially charged assault and battery involving a cast member of the television show Empire, police told Yahoo in the US.

Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime. Detectives are currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline.

Chicago Police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi added to ABC7 that Smollett was still wearing the rope around his neck when he contacted police, in the hope it could be used by forensics.

As they left, its claimed that they shouted This is MAGA country, referring to Donald Trumps slogan Make America Great Again, however, police have since said that if that aspect of the crime did happen, it had not been reported to police.

The attack came days after reports that threatening letters had been sent to the Fox studios in Chicago, addressed to Smollett, with you will die black f*g written inside in cut-out letters.

Lee Daniels, creator of the show, in which Smollett plays the gay son of Terrence Howards Lucious and Taraji P. Hensons Cookie, posted an emotional response to the attack on his Instagram page.

You didnt deserve nor anybody deserves to have a noose put around your neck, to have bleach thrown on you, to be called die f****t n***** or whatever they said to you. You are better than that. We are better than that. America is better than that. It starts at home, he said.

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We have to love each other regardless of what sexual orientation we are because it shows we are united on a united front and no racist f*** can come in and do the things that they did to you. Hold your head up, Jussie.

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We all hope to reach retirement while were as young as possible, but some hit the mark sooner than others.

As Grant Sabatier, author of Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need, stared at the walls of his cubicle in his corporate job right out of college, he became restless. He started crunching the numbers on how many hours of his life he was trading per amount of dollars earned after taxes. It came out to 4,700 hours of his life traded for $80,000 after taxes during a 2.5-year period. After landing back in his parents house with over $20,000 in credit card debt and no money in his bank account, he knew it was time for a radical change.

I was disappointed in myself, Sabatier recalls. He started thinking about money differently. Id been afraid of money. And one of the things I realized was that money is a human invention, and you can control money or let it control you, he says.

Sabatier took to YouTube video tutorials, where he learned how to run Google AdWords campaigns, and that landed him a job at a digital marketing agency making $50,000 a year. He added a side business, developing his own private client base of real estate brokers and lawyers.

Within a year, he set up his own full-fledged marketing business, with a specific agenda in mind. I launched my own company with the explicit goal of saving $1 million as quickly as possible, he says.

A drastic cutback in living expenses was crucial in moving toward his goal. He drove a used car that he bought for $800. I moved from a $1,500-a-month apartment to an $800-a-month apartment, he says. Sabatiers then-girlfriend (now his wife) refused to come over to his cheap apartment, but he says it was worth it because the money he saved on rent and invested instead has now grown to over $300,000.

During this time Sabatier says he was saving and investing 80% of his income. He says that he had most of his money invested in the Vanguard Total Stock Market index fund. In around 2010 he also invested in five tech stocks, including Amazon, Apple and Facebook. He says that when he first bought Amazon stock, it was at $180. He says that when he first bought Amazon stock, it was at $180, and while that involved a bit of luck (its now over $1,500), he says an early retirement plan is reachable, even if you dont find the next Amazon.

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Investing is one part of the picture, he says. You can control the variables of how you invest, but you can control more of the variables around how much you spend, and how much you make. He says that index funds are the best place for the highest percentage of your money that will be invested over time, as the diversification factor gives a high return. I often only recommend that you invest less than 10 percent of your own net worth in individual stocks, he says.

Within five years, and before his 30th birthday, he had saved $1.25 million.

Sabatier, 34, says that with the achievement of his goal there came a few tradeoffs. I think I was addicted to making money during this period, he says. He says that working 80 to 90 hours per week definitely caused him to lose some friends. But he kept his eye on the prize: financial freedom. For him, that meant saving and investing enough money that working became optional and free time was maximized. I figured out that every $100 I saved, I was buying myself six days of freedom in the future, and I started looking at money in units of time. Nowadays, Sabatier hasnt given up all sources of income, but he makes money on his own terms. He chooses to spend his time operating passion projects such as his website, MillennialMoney.com.

Sabatier admits that he is an extreme example of retiring early, having saved over $1 million within five years, but he thinks that most people can do it in 10 years if they make the necessary choices around cutting spending and increasing savings  and, of course, being lucky in selecting investments is key as well. For him, the tradeoffs are worth it. He suggests that retirement is really just choosing to live life on your own terms, living the life that you want, not just the life that is expected of you.

Do you have a retirement or savings story? Are you trying to make ends meet? Let us know at moneyquestions@yahoo.com.

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A large part of investment returns can be generated by dividend-paying stock given their role in compounding returns over time. Historically, Bank of Chongqing Co., Ltd. (HKG:1963) has paid dividends to shareholders, and these days it yields 2.9%. Lets dig deeper into whether Bank of Chongqing should have a place in your portfolio.

Check out our latest analysis for Bank of Chongqing

Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a 6-month subscription to the award winning Simply Wall St research tool (valued at $60)!

Heres how I find good dividend stocks

When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:

Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?

Does it consistently pay out dividends without missing a payment of significantly cutting payout?

Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?

Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?

Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

SEHK:1963 Historical Dividend Yield January 30th 19

How does Bank of Chongqing fare?

The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 9.8%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect 1963s payout to increase to 17% of its earnings. Assuming a constant share price, this equates to a dividend yield of around 4.8%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to CN1.21 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income.

When assessing the forecast sustainability of a dividend it is also worth considering the cash flow of the business. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow.

Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. The reality is that it is too early to consider Bank of Chongqing as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 5 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record.

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Relative to peers, Bank of Chongqing generates a yield of 2.9%, which is on the low-side for Banks stocks.

Next Steps:

If Bank of Chongqing is in your portfolio for cash-generating reasons, there may be better alternatives out there. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the companys fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. There are three key factors you should look at:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 1963s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 1963s outlook. Valuation: What is 1963 worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether 1963 is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
TORONTO (AP)  Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei said Wednesday that China's arrests of two Canadians who have been detained in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese Huawei executive is unsurprising because disappearances and forced detentions without due process are common in China.

The frequent government critic issued a statement in response to tensions between Canada and China ahead of his exhibition at Toronto's Gardiner Museum next month.

"China is not a nation under rule of law. China is a nation under rule of the Party," he said.

Ai said the West is the hidden force behind China's rise and blames Western countries for pretending not to notice that China has not changed its authoritarian tendencies.

In 2011, Ai was detained by Chinese authorities for his outspoken views on human rights. Ai's passport was withheld for four years but was returned to him in July 2015. The artist now works from a studio in Germany and has traveled the world to document the plight of refugees and migrants. His exhibition, which opens Feb. 28, includes works depicting refugees.

Ai said the West has benefited economically from its partnership with China through the exploitation of labor, environmental damage and corruption.

"The West's apparent conflict with the situation in China is because of its refusal to acknowledge its complicity in creating this monstrous regime," he said.

"In the end, nothing will change. China completely ignores so-called universal values."

The arrest of the daughter of Huawei's founder at Vancouver's airport on Dec. 1 has led to the worst relations between Canada and China since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The U.S. wants her extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei's business dealings in Iran.

China detained two Canadians shortly after her arrest in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release her. A Chinese court also sentenced a third Canadian to death in a sudden retrial of a drug case, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier.
London (AFP) - Digital tourism giants Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor are profiting from "war crimes" by offering services in Israeli settlements, rights group Amnesty International said in a report published Wednesday.

The London-based organisation's "Destination: Occupation" report called on the companies to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories, including east Jerusalem.

"They are doing so despite knowing that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal," said the report.

"In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law."

Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan threatened to bar Amnesty from access to the Jewish state over its charge.

"The hypocritical Amnesty International speaks in the name of human rights and in practice promotes boycotts against Israeli citizens as part of the anti-Semitic boycott and delegitimisation campaign," Erdan said in a statement released Tuesday night.

"I instructed the ministry of strategic affairs to examine the possibility of preventing Amnesty personnel from entering, or residing in, Israel, said Erdan who is also strategic affairs minister, charged with opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

He said that he had started to act well before the publication of Amnesty's study.

"A few weeks ago I asked the finance minister to end the tax benefits granted to the organisation," he said without giving details.

Israel sees the BDS movement as a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism -- a claim activists deny, saying they want only to see an end to Israel's occupation.

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- 'Illegal exploitation' -

Amnesty International accused the online firms of "normalising" settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"To boost bookings, many listings in settlements boast of their proximity to areas of natural beauty in the occupied territories, such as the Dead Sea, nature reserves and the desert," it said.

"By listing and promoting these natural features and nature-based activities and attractions the digital companies are increasing the attractiveness of the listings, securing greater numbers of tourists and ultimately benefiting financially from the illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources."

Amnesty launched a campaign in 2017 calling on governments to prevent businesses based in their countries from operating in settlements.

"Governments worldwide must take action to regulate companies or activities over which they have control," said the report.

In November, Airbnb announced it was removing from its rental listings settlement homes in the occupied West Bank.

But it never said when the decision would go into force.

Israel passed legislation in March 2017 banning entry to foreigners who support boycotting the country or its settlements.

In November of that year Erdan's office denied entry to a US employee of Amnesty, with an interior ministry spokeswoman giving the grounds as "BDS", without elaborating.

About 450,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements often in confrontation with the territory's 2.5 million Palestinians, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in occupied east Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and major roadblocks to peace, as they are built on land Palestinians see as part of their future state.
By Douglas Busvine and Andreas Rinke FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom proposed a series of measures on Wednesday to ensure that future 5G mobile networks are safe, as debate neared a climax on whether to bar Chinese vendors from Germany on national security grounds. The move by Europe's largest telecoms firm came as the government held a first high-level meeting on whether to shut out Chinese suppliers led by Huawei following U.S. warnings that their equipment may contain 'back doors' open to cyber-espionage. The United States has shut Chinese vendors out of government contracts on security grounds, against the backdrop of an escalating trade dispute with Beijing. Ally Australia has barred the Shenzhen-based company from its 5G rollout. Huawei, the global networks market leader with annual sales exceeding $100 billion, denies that such security loopholes exist. Deutsche Telekom and its competitors Vodafone and Telefonica Deutschland use Huawei gear extensively and also dismiss the cyber claims as groundless. "Deutsche Telekom takes the global debate on the security of network equipment from Chinese providers very seriously," the company said in a statement that spelled out three confidence-building measures. The company, which is nearly one-third state owned, proposed that all critical infrastructure should be independently certified before deployment by an independent laboratory under state oversight. It also called for network equipment makers to submit the source code that runs their equipment to a trusted third party. Under certain circumstances, an operator would be able to gain access to address any security vulnerabilities. Further, it said legal obligations and liability for the security of critical infrastructure should be broadened to cover network vendors in addition to operators, as is the case now. Huawei, which last November opened its own information security lab in Bonn to allow greater scrutiny of its kit, welcomed the Telekom proposals and said it already cooperated broadly with Germany's BSI cybersecurity watchdog. "It is up to policymakers, regulators and the industry to work out the details, but such an initiative makes a vital contribution to making the debate about 5G more fact based," the Chinese company said in a statement. POLITICAL RISK While German officials also see no evidence of back doors, some are receptive to arguments that organizations and individuals are required, under China's National Intelligence Law, to aid the state in intelligence work. "There are some passages (in Chinese law) that worry us. That includes the obligation of Chinese companies to cooperate with intelligence services," a foreign ministry spokesman told a government news conference earlier. Huawei and its founder Ren Zhengfei have denied they would ever spy for China, and the company says that the law does not compel it to do so. A top German former spy saw a risk, however, that in time of war a Chinese vendor could activate a so-called 'kill switch' capable of shutting down critical network infrastructure. "If this module is shut down in a crisis, we would be absolutely unprepared and could not react," Gerhard Schindler, former president of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), told ARD public television. Germany, a U.S. ally and NATO member, has a close trading relationship with China, and officials were initially less sympathetic to U.S. arguments on the Chinese cyber risks than the English-speaking 'Five Eyes' nations that share intelligence extensively. Yet after months of debate, senior officials in Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration say a consensus is forming around the idea of tweaking the country's telecoms legislation to exclude Chinese vendors from building 5G networks for reasons of governance. The operators, which last week applied to take part in a multi-billion-euro auction of 5G spectrum to be held in March, are pushing back hard against the political case for excluding Chinese vendors. Deutsche Telekom has given the starkest warning, saying that if Huawei is not only barred from future work, but its kit must also be ripped out of existing 4G networks, 5G could be delayed by years. That would leave Germany lagging its competitors in deploying applications such as 'connected' factories in which robots and sensors could communicate directly with each other across campus networks. Virtual operator 1&1 Drillisch, a unit of United Internet, has applied to take part in the 5G auction and is talking to vendors including China's ZTE about building and running its network should it bag spectrum in the forthcoming licensing round, sources say. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Riham Alkousaa and Mark Potter)
Health Secretary Matt Hancocks department has stepped in and overruled plans to suspend blood donations in Channel ports (Picture: PA)

The Department of Health has stepped in to overrule plans to suspend blood donation sessions in Channel ports around the scheduled date for Brexit amid fears the local transport system could grind to a halt.

NHS Blood and Transport (NHSBT) announced that sessions in Dover and Folkestone had been cancelled in the two weeks before March 29 and the six weeks afterwards, citing fears of transport chaos.

The announcement sparked fury, with Labours shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth describing it as a disastrous consequence of Theresa Mays hopeless mishandling of Brexit.

But within hours, the Department of Health stepped in and said it did not agree with the plans, insisting that donation sessions will continue uninterrupted.

Blood donations had been suspended in ports, but the Department of Health overturned the decision

In a statement, it said: The department does not agree with this course of action. Weve discussed this issue with NHSBT and confirmed blood donations will continue as normal.

Were grateful to all life-saving blood donors who make an important contribution.

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The move was welcomed by Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, who had earlier criticised the original announcement as ridiculous and irresponsible.

He described the move by the Department of Health as a welcome move and the right thing to do, adding: We need to know who authorised this nonsense in the first place.

But Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, a supporter of the Best for Britain campaign for a second Brexit referendum, said: This whole sorry saga is a lesson in how unprepared the Government are.

She added: What are the Department of Health actually going to do, magic away the Brexit tailbacks?

Im unsure what has changed in the last few hours apart from the press were alerted. The appointments they cancelled remain cancelled  theyre just trying to mop up a self-made blunder.

Concerns have been raised in recent months over the impact on Kent of a no-deal Brexit, including preparations for queues at ports and the Channel Tunnel if customs checks have to be re-introduced.

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Earlier this month a leaked report suggested delays of as little as 70 seconds per truck at Dover could cause traffic jams which would take six days to clear.

The Government has carried out a practice-run using Manston airfield in Kent as a holding centre for trucks queuing to reach Dover in the event of disruption.

However, Calais boss Jean-Marc Puissesseau said the port has been preparing for Brexit for a year and will be ready to cope when the UK leaves the EU on March 29, with or without a deal.
Denmark is building its own border "wall"  but this one is meant to keep out pigs.

On Monday, the Danish government began construction of a more than 40-mile fence along its German border aimed at preventing the spread of African swine fever.

Crews began working in the border town of Padborg, and the roughly 5-foot tall fence is scheduled to be completed this fall, the Danish government said.

"We have 11 billion good reasons to do everything we can to prevent African swine fever reaching Denmark. And now we can finally get started on erecting our wild boar fence," the country's Minister for Environment and Food, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, said in a statement. "The fence and our increased efforts to hunt wild boar will break the chain of infection so there is less risk of African swine fever spreading to Denmark."

However, no cases of African swine fever have been reported in Germany, according to The Associated Press. The Local, an English-language news outlet, reported that the first case spotted in Poland came in 2014 from a wild boar from Belarus and that Belgium saw its first case in September near its border with Luxembourg and France.

The virus is highly contagious for pigs and can be spread through a variety of ways tied to the animals, but it is not a risk for human health, according to the intergovernmental World Organisation for Animal Health.

Workers erect a fence along the Denmark Germany border at Padborg, Denmark, Monday Jan. 28, 2019. Denmark has begun erecting a 70-kilometer (43.4-mile) fence along the German border to keep out wild boars in an attempt to prevent the spread of African swine fever, which could jeopardize the country's valuable pork industry.

Exports from Denmark's pork industry account for almost half of its agricultural exports and 5 percent of the country's overall exports, according to its Agriculture and Food Council.

In fact, pigs outnumbered people in Denmark by over 2 to 1 in 2016, according to the European Union's Eurostat.

"Even though African swine fever is harmless to people, we have to protect our pork exports," Orla Osterby, agriculture spokesperson for the Conservative People's Party of Denmark, said in a statement Monday.

The government said it has also increased other efforts to curb the potential spread of the virus, including making it easier to hunt wild boar at the border.

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Critics of the border barrier, though, say it would be ineffective and is largely symbolic.

Its "likely not ... a practical way to keep the African swine fever; beyond the fact that wild boar are extremely powerful animals and likely they can make their way through or under it," Viorel D. Popescu, an Ohio University biology professor who studies Eastern European forest ecology, wrote in an email to the Daily Beast.

"The fence will prevent rare and endangered species from moving freely between Denmark and Germany. The fence will go through protected areas, and that is a very bad idea," Denmark's World Wildlife Fund general secretary Bo Oeksnebjerg said, per the Local, when the barrier was being considered in the parliament in June.

Some Danish officials themselves have admitted that boars could pass through the gaps in the fence where it will cross roads and waterways, the AP reported.

The fence will cost $4.6 million, according to the AP.

Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Denmark is building a 'wall' on its German border. To stop pigs
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday that failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams will deliver Democrats response to President Trumps State of the Union address.

Abrams, who lost a tight gubernatorial race to former Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp in November, will return to the national spotlight on February 5 to address the nation immediately after Trump concludes his remarks.

Shes an incredible leader. She has led the charge for voting rights, which is at the root of just about everything else, Schumer told reporters. Im very excited that shes agreed to be the respondent to the president.

Abrams said she was honored to be speaking on behalf of Democrats in a Tuesday afternoon tweet.

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Abrams rose to prominence last year as a Democratic champion of voting rights, relentlessly attacking her opponent for using his position as the states top elections official to crack down on voter fraud by pursuing administrative actions that she argued were intended to disenfranchise racial minorities.

After losing to Kemp by more than 50,000 votes, Abrams refused to concede the race and backed a lawsuit that, if successful, would have resulted in a recount, on the grounds that Republicans engaged in misconduct, fraud or irregularities . . . sufficient to change or place in doubt the results.

The voter-suppression charges leveled against Kemp by Abrams and her allies included the shuttering of polling places in rural areas and the use of small documentary discrepancies, such as a mismatch between the personal information listed on a drivers license and that listed on a voter-registration form, to disenfranchise some 50,000 minority voters.

In response, Kemps defenders pointed out that individual counties determine how many polling places to keep open and a voter affected by a documentary mismatch has two years to correct the error before he is removed from voting rolls.

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The date of Trumps State of the Union was brought into question after Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly called on the White House to delay the speech until the government shutdown, which concluded Friday after 35 days, was resolved.

More from National Review
Obock (Djibouti) (AFP) - The death toll after two migrant boats sank in heavy seas off the coast of Djibouti has risen to 43, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday, with scores still feared missing.

Search and rescue teams met with grim scenes of bodies strewn across the beach at Obock, a port town down the coast from Godaria where the vessels had set sail on the Horn of Africa nation's northeast coast on Tuesday.

An AFP journalist also saw cadavers in the water before teams placed them in white body bags lined up on the beach.

The International Organization for Migration said the boats capsized half an hour into their voyage.

The IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti Lalini Veerassamy told AFP the death toll had reached 43 on Wednesday.

"This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives," she said in a statement.

Sixteen people were rescued following the sinkings, with one survivor telling Djiboutian authorities there were 130 people on his boat.

The number of passengers on the second vessel remains unclear, as do the nationalities of those aboard.

Located across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from Yemen and next to volatile Somalia and Ethiopia, Djibouti has in recent years become a transit point for migrants heading to seek work on the Arabian Peninsula.

- Yemen arrivals on rise -

Named after the town, the Obock region is unusual in that it sees people passing in both directions -- boatloads of Yemeni refugees fleeing war cross vessels carrying African migrants seeking better opportunities.

In 2017, 100,000 migrants arrived in Yemen, with many aiming to head north to find work in Saudi Arabia and its neighbours.

"The number of new arrivals arriving in Yemen has been continuously increasing since 2012, despite the deepened insecurity and violence following the war that erupted in March 2015," the IOM said in its 2018-20 regional migration response plan.

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"Arrivals peaked in 2016, when over 117,000 arrived in Yemen," it added.

This migration continues even though Yemen is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

UN officials say 80 percent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine.

IOM said that most of the journey migrants take to Yemen is by foot, walking across the scorching desert regions of eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti and northern Somalia.

Once they arrive in Yemen they could face torture, blackmail, sexual abuse or forced labour.

In 2017, some 2,900 people, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, fled the dire conditions they had found in Yemen back to Djibouti.

The sea crossing itself has repeatedly proven perilous.

Last year, at least 30 migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia believed to be headed for Djibouti drowned when their boat capsized off Yemen amid reports of gunfire being used against those on board.

In August 2017, dozens of migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia died after human traffickers forced them off two Yemen-bound boats and into the sea.
How important is NATO for U.S. national security? American conservatives have long debated this question.

In early 1951, General Dwight Eisenhower met with Senator Robert Taft (R., Ohio), his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Eisenhower offered Taft a simple deal: If the senator, who had voted against the formation of NATO two years earlier, would commit to supporting the Western alliance, Ike would end his candidacy and Taft would have a clear shot at the White House. Taft declined his offer. Eisenhower eventually resolved to win the election and, in so doing, he preserved Americas burgeoning alliance system in Europe. As he told Congress that February, in a world in which the power of military might is still too much respected, we are going to build for ourselves a secure wall of peace, of security.

Eisenhower went on to preside over eight years of relative peace and prosperity, in part through a sensible commitment to international policies of peace through strength. Ikes commitment to U.S. alliances and collective defense was part of this package, and it became a baseline for successful Republican foreign-policy presidencies after his, including Ronald Reagans.

Today, we again see questions of whether and why conservatives should support NATO, this time from the perspective that the Soviet Union collapsed long ago.

President Trump has emphasized the need for Americas European allies to spend more on their own defenses and to wean themselves off Russian natural gas. He is right to do so, and recent NATO commitments to increase defense spending by $100 billion suggest that such criticism may be having a positive effect. Over the years, Trump has also more than once raised the question of whether NATO is still an asset or has become a liability instead. For American citizens to ask this question is not outrageous. The question deserves an answer.

The conservative case for NATO is not that it strengthens liberal world order. Rather, the conservative case for NATO is that it bolsters American national interests. In an age of great-power competition, as identified by the Trump administration, Americas Western alliance provides the U.S. with some dramatic comparative advantages. The United States, Canada, and their European allies have a number of common interests and common challenges with regard to Beijing, Moscow, terrorism, cyberattacks, migration, nuclear weapons, and military readiness. NATO is the one formal alliance that allows for cooperation on these matters. It is also the only alliance that embodies Americas civilizational ties with Europe  a point forcefully made by President Trump when he visited Poland in 2017. Properly understood, NATO helps keeps Americas strategic competitors at bay, pushing back on Russian and Chinese influence. In all of these ways, the U.S. alliance system in Europe is a bit like oxygen. You may take it for granted, but youll miss it when its gone.

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Now consider the alternative. American withdrawal from NATO would be a grave error. Not only would it surrender the above advantages and undo existing progress in Europe. It would also have negative long-term implications globally pertaining to Americas foremost long-term strategic challenge: namely, the Peoples Republic of China. As Beijing extends its influence worldwide, U.S. disengagement from NATO would send the signal that the United States is an unreliable friend. Americas allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific would have to rethink the integrated security architecture we have painstakingly built since Eisenhowers day. This is not to mention the obvious and immediate tactical and operational military advantages that would accrue to Russia in Europe, shifting the balance of power against the United States.

The irony is that the Trump administration actually has a success story to tell about its policies toward NATO and Russia, particularly in Europe. Under this administration, the U.S. has provided lethal aid to Ukraine to fight off Russian-backed insurgents. It has made no concessions to Moscow regarding that conflict. It has increased sanctions against Russia and boosted Americas military presence in Eastern Europe. It has increased funding to the European Defense Initiative, bolstered U.S. defense spending, held Russia accountable for its breach of the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) Treaty, and explored the place of low-yield nuclear weapons as a necessary component of the American arsenal to deter Russian aggression. At the same time, the presidents calls for increased European defense spending have had some useful effects. Virtually all NATO allies have increased their levels of defense spending over the past two years. As president, Mr. Trump has regularly reiterated his support for NATO. The concomitant emphasis on allied burden-sharing is not unreasonable, as Eisenhower regularly insisted.

In keeping with its treaty powers under the U.S. Constitution, Congress should not be passive on this issue. Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to express continuing congressional support for the NATO alliance. The bill passed by a vote of 357 to 22 in the House of Representatives. The Senate is working on similar legislation.

Public-opinion polls taken over the last three years show that a solid majority of Trump supporters, conservatives, Republicans, and Americans continue to back the NATO alliance. Conservative voters in heartland states such as Wisconsin certainly expect Europeans to do their fair share in defending themselves. But they do not oppose NATO. On the contrary, they support it.

An overarching support for Americas Western alliance has been a key component in the conservative foreign-policy approach since Eisenhowers time. It remains relevant to this day. As conservative Republicans and other Americans consider the costs and benefits of the U.S. alliance system, recall Ikes wise recommendation: Now boys, lets not make our mistakes in a hurry.

Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) represents Wisconsins eighth district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Colin Dueck is a professor in the Schar School at George Mason University and a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

More from National Review
Here are the companies the Yahoo Finance team is watching today.

McDonald's delivered a beat on earnings, with revenue in line with expectations, but same-store sales came in weaker than expected. Still, its touting 14 straight quarters of positive global comparable store sales.

This was a huge quarter for Boeing. The aerospace giant posted big beats on earnings and revenue, seeing growth across all sectors, including commercial jets and defense contracts. Also, it's expecting 2019 to be another big year. Boeing recently won several multibillion-dollar contracts to deliver new planes to the military.

Novartis is banking on newer drugs to help boost its bottom line. The pharma giant says sales grew 3% last quarter, driven mostly by expensive new medications. That's despite increasing political pressure here in the U.S. to cut prices. Novartis expects sales will continue to grow in the single digits this year.

Southwest Airlines struck an unusual deal with the FAA during the government shutdown. The low-cost carrier agreed to pay the FAA for a furloughed safety inspector to certify three new jets during the shutdown. The arrangement cost a little over $3,000 and took up to three hours of administrative office time.

It looks like Foxconn is scaling back on some of its cutting-edge displays. The tech company is reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at the $10 billion plant it is building in Wisconsin. A spokesperson told Reuters the change is due to the high cost of making advanced TV screens in the U.S., where labor isn't cheap.
Chris Christie visited The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he discussed the recent government shutdown over lack of funding for President Trump's border wall. While Christie maintains that he and Trump have been friends for 17 years, he didn't hold back when it came to criticizing the president. Christie started the interview by taking a large shot of tequila. The former New Jersey Governor soon after said, "The president blew it." When Stephen Colbert asked, "When?" Christie responded, "When he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it." On Friday, Trump agreed to a three-week spending package that allowed the government to reopen after the longest shutdown in American history. A shutdown that Christie didn't think was very well thought out. Christie said, "I don't think, given that it went 35 days, we had a plan." Christie went on to say that by not securing the $5.7 billion in wall funding, Trump lost. Or as Christie explained, "In politics we call that 'getting rolled.'" When Colbert asked Christie, "Would you have been a better president than Trump?" The longtime friend of Trump immediately said, "Yes." The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 on CBS.
Chris Christie visited The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night, where he discussed the recent government shutdown over lack of funding for President Trumps border wall. While Christie maintains that he and Trump have been friends for 17 years, he didnt hold back when it came to criticizing the president.

Christie started the interview by taking a large shot of tequila. The former New Jersey governor soon after declared, The president blew it.

When? Colbert asked.

When he shut the government down with no plan on how to reopen it, Christie responded.

On Friday, Trump agreed to a three-week spending package that allowed the government to reopen after the longest shutdown in American history  a shutdown that Christie didnt think was well-thought-out.

I dont think, given that it went 35 days, we had a plan, he said, adding that by not securing the $5.7 billion in wall funding, Trump lost. Or, as Christie explained, In politics we call that getting rolled.

And when Colbert asked, Would you have been a better president than Trump? the longtime friend of Trump immediately said yes.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS.

Watch Kamala Harris discuss her extreme idea to get gun control legislation passed:

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Building up an investment case requires looking at a stock holistically. Today Ive chosen to put the spotlight on China Boqi Environmental (Holding) Co., Ltd. (HKG:2377) due to its excellent fundamentals in more than one area. 2377 is a company that has been able to sustain great financial health, trading at an attractive share price. Below, Ive touched on some key aspects you should know on a high level. For those interested in understanding where the figures come from and want to see the analysis, take a look at the report on China Boqi Environmental (Holding) here.

Very undervalued with excellent balance sheet

2377s strong financial health means that all of its upcoming liability payments are able to be met by its current cash and short-term investment holdings. This implies that 2377 manages its cash and cost levels well, which is an important determinant of the companys health. 2377s has produced operating cash levels of 0.82x total debt over the past year, which implies that 2377s management has put its borrowings into good use by generating enough cash to cover a sufficient portion of borrowings. 2377s share price is trading at below its true value, meaning that the market sentiment for the stock is currently bearish. This mispricing gives investors the opportunity to buy into the stock at a cheap price compared to the value they will be receiving, should analysts consensus forecast growth be correct. Compared to the rest of the commercial services industry, 2377 is also trading below its peers, relative to earnings generated. This further reaffirms that 2377 is potentially undervalued.

SEHK:2377 Intrinsic Value Export January 30th 19

Next Steps:

For China Boqi Environmental (Holding), there are three key factors you should look at:

Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 2377s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 2377s outlook. Historical Performance: What has 2377s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity. Other Attractive Alternatives : Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of 2377? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Santiago (AFP) - A court on Wednesday jailed six former agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's regime for involvement in the 1982 murder of ex-president Eduardo Frei.

Judge Alejandro Madrid handed down the verdict after a 15-year investigation during which Frei's body was twice exhumed for forensic examination.

The verdict found the six defendants guilty of "homicide by poisoning after a surgical intervention," and sentenced them to between three and 10 years.

Lawyers for the Frei family described the verdict as historic.

Frei, president from 1964 to 1970, died of a sudden infection in January 1982 while he was hospitalized for hernia treatment. He was 71.

Pinochet became Chile's dictator soon after a military coup that killed Frei's successor, Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973. Pinochet left office when democracy was restored in 1990.

Frei died when he and his Christian Democratic Party were gaining strength as the military regime's main opposition. The Pinochet regime faced its first street protests in the early 1980s.

His body was disinterred for a second time in 2016 to determine how the poison, low doses of mustard gas and thallium, had been administered.

The judge sentenced a doctor, Patricio Silva Garin, to 10 years in jail for administering the poison, causing Frei's death. Another doctor, Pedro Valdivia, was sentenced to five years as an accomplice.

Lusi Vecerra Arancibia, the ex-president's driver, and intelligence agent Raul Lillo Gutierrez were each handed seven-year sentences.

Two physicians specializing in palliative care, Helmar Rosengerg and Sergio Gonzalez, got three years for covering up the crime.

More than 3,200 people were killed under the Pinochet regime, and some 38,000 people were tortured.
Hasakeh (Syria) (AFP) - From detention in northern Syria, alleged Irish jihadist Alexandr Bekmirzaev describes hunger and fear as missiles pounded down on the last shreds of the Islamic State group's "caliphate".

"I thought we were going to die from the starvation," the Muslim convert, 46 this year, told AFP in English, captured after fleeing the extremist group's crumbling last pocket in eastern Syria.

Bekmirzaev said he fled into territory held by Kurdish-led forces, who detained him along with four other alleged foreign jihadists late last month.

Backed by air strikes of the US-led coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have since September been whittling down the last IS holdout near the Iraqi border.

Brought in for an interview by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are still interrogating him, the detainee described watching the IS stronghold collapse around him.

The hundreds of suspected jihadists captured by the SDF are usually keen to be sent home.

The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria also wants to send the prisoners back for trial, but governments in their countries of origin are often reluctant.

France said Tuesday for the first time that French jihadists held by Kurdish forces in Syria could be allowed to return home.

"We are examining all options to avoid the escape and scattering of these potentially dangerous individuals," the French foreign ministry said.

- 'Bombing, bombing' -

Bekmirzaev was detained by SDF forces on suspicion of being a fighter trying to blend in with fleeing civilians, with the aim of escaping and then setting up IS sleeper cells to carry out further attacks.

He insisted he had never carried a weapon for Islamic State -- but his claim could not be verified by AFP.

Since summer, there had been "bombing, bombing, bombing" on a near-daily basis, said Bekmirzaev, who was born to an Uzbek father and Belarusian mother.

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With the so-called Hajin pocket encircled by the SDF, there was no flour in the market, and meat was prohibitively expensive, he said.

Bekmirzaev said he, his wife and five-year-old son were forced to eat bread made with wheat husks, what little the neighbours gave them, and sometimes grass.

"Vegetables? You wish. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. This is grass we eat," said the bearded man.

As US-backed fighters advanced inside the jihadist pocket, taking village after village, Bekmirzaev and his family were forced to flee deeper into jihadist-held territory.

- Kids crying -

"I left my home because the SDF approach probably around 800 metres from my house" in the village of Kishmeh, he said.

He and his family fled south along the eastern banks of the Euphrates River to the village of Al-Shaafa, he said, where they slept in a mosque.

From there, they again escaped in a large group including women and children, guided by a young man who helped them avoid landmines.

We thought, "if we go as a big group, it will be less dangerous, because they will see so many people, specially with the kids, kids crying," he said.

Bekmirzaev says he has been in Syria for five-and-a-half years, his Belarusian wife and son a little less.

He claims he never intended to fight for IS and worked as an ambulance worker for around a year in 2014-2015, but it is not clear what he did after that.

He also says an IS commander confiscated his passport, and he had already been thinking of escaping the jihadists with his family from as early as 2015.

- 'Mistake' -

Bekmirzaev says he converted to Islam in his early twenties in Uzbekistan, after a troubled period "drinking a lot, taking drugs" following a brother killing himself.

He then lived and worked in Ireland for more than a decade, selling menswear and as a nightclub bouncer, before becoming an Irish citizen in 2010.

But in 2012, a year after Syria's war started with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests, he lost his job.

He says he plunged into depression, to the backdrop of endless news reports about the conflict in Syria.

"I thought, 'I need to help to the Muslims' so I decide to come here," in September 2013, he said. Four months later, his wife and then 10-month-old son joined him.

IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq the following year, and the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" there.

But the jihadist group has since lost most of that territory to various offensives, and is down to its last fighters in what remains of its eastern holdout.

Bekmirzaev now describes his decision to come to Syria as a "mistake".

Disillusioned, he asked where the group's elusive leader was.

"Where is this guy called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Where is he? This is my question," he said.

"I didn't do anything," he claimed. "I want to go back to my country. I hope they won't abandon me."
By Anna Mehler Paperny TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada has decided to cut the number of diplomatic staff in Cuba by up to half after another person fell ill, Ottawa said on Wednesday, bringing the total to 14 Canadians suffering mysterious symptoms since 2017. Canadian and U.S. diplomats in Havana first began complaining of dizziness, headaches and nausea in the spring of 2017. The United States reduced embassy staffing in Cuba from more than 50 to a maximum of 18, after more than two dozen personnel developed unusual illnesses. "A further reduction in the (Canadian embassy) footprint is deemed to be the appropriate response," a Canadian government official told reporters. The November incident was the first new Canadian case reported in months, leading to the decision to evacuate much of the remaining staff. Spouses and dependents left last year. The Cuban government has been cooperating with a Canadian investigation into the cause of the illnesses, which has not been determined. "I think I can safely say the Cuban officials are as frustrated as we are that we cannot get any closer to determining a cause," the official said. Canada is one of Cuba's most important economic partners. More than a million Canadians visited the Caribbean island last year, making it the most important tourism market, as it has been for decades. Canada is also among Cuba's 10 top trade partners, with Canada-Cuba trade totaling $790 million in 2017. This is Cubas only trade partnership where the trade balance is in the country's favor, according to the latest Cuban trade figures. That is due to a joint venture between Canadian company Sherritt International and state nickel monopoly Cubaniquel, which produces around 60 percent of the islands nickel plus cobalt, which is then shipped to a joint venture in Canada for refining. (Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)
Lagos (AFP) - Cameroon authorities should not shut their borders to thousands of Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram militant attacks in Rann near the frontier, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Wednesday.

Rann, in northern Borno state, has been repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram, most recently on January 14, when the jihadists targeted a military base.

The NRC said in a statement it was "alarmed by the massive displacement of 30,000 people from the Nigerian town of Rann into Cameroon, less than one week after 9,000 Nigerians fled a deadly attack in the city."

Eric Batonon, NRC country director in Nigeria said the Nigerian refugees who crossed into Cameroon were forced to return last week.

"We call for Cameroon to keep its borders open. It is crucial that the Nigerian and Cameroonian authorities offer assistance to those fleeing the violence," he said.

"The women, men, and children fleeing are not opportunists; they are civilians fleeing for their lives."

NRC said since November 2018, there has been a steep surge in displacement in northeast Nigeria, triggered by a spike in attacks.

"More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee, many for the second time. This is creating vast humanitarian needs and stretching the capacity of already congested camps and sites across the region," it said.

"However, by denying assistance and protection to those fleeing, needs are exacerbated and affected communities will continue to rely on humanitarian assistance," it added.

The UN said on Tuesday more than 30,000 people have fled Rann and across the border to Cameroon in recent days because of fears of renewed Boko Haram attacks.

The latest mass movement comes as the UN voiced renewed concern about the effect of the bloody conflict on civilians and launched a longer-term plan to help those made homeless by the fighting.

UN refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva that recent fighting in Borno had forced more than 80,000 people to flee their homes.

Boko Haram's jihadist insurgency which began in 2009 has killed 27,000 people and forced more than two million others to flee, triggering a dire humanitarian crisis in the region.
Tim Hortons unveiled several new retail products on Wednesday, including a new Coffee Bar. (Tim Hortons)

No time to make coffee in the morning before heading out for work? Tim Hortons has come up with a solution for you.

On Wednesday, the Canadian coffee chain announced the roll-out of several new retail products, including instant coffee, ready-to-drink iced coffee and a Double Double Coffee Bar.

We wanted to create another edible treat that satisfies Canadians Timmies coffee cravings, Alex Macedo, president of Tim Hortons, said in a news release.

With Canadians increasingly finding themselves on-the-go, we developed this innovative treat so they can easily take their Double Double with them.

The Double Double Coffee Bar looks like a chocolate bar, but doesnt actually contain any chocolate in it. Made with Tim Hortons coffee beans, the bar contains caffeine and features a smooth and silky texture with an espresso bean finish.

The company will also be relaunching its ready-to-drink Iced Capp with three new flavours, including Original, Vanilla and Mocha.

Iced Capp in a bottle (Tim Hortons)

Expect instant coffee to begin rolling out in participating retail stores in February, while ready-to-drink iced coffee and Iced Capps will be available in March. People wanting to get their hands on the Coffee Bar will have to wait until the fall.

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A robot vacuum is a handy tool for keeping your house or apartment looking tidy between major cleanings. It can be especially helpful in homes with pets, where clumps of hair can accumulate seemingly overnight. And, a robot vacuum can go about its business while you're not home, freeing you do do more important things.



Based on more than 600 hours of testing on more than 40 robot vacuums, the best robot vacuum for most people is the $269 Shark Ion R85. Not only is it great at cleaning, but it also works with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It even has an optional stick vacuum, so you can clean couch cushions and other spots the robovac can't reach.

If you're on a budget, we recommend the $159 iLife A3s Pro. While it lacks smart-home connectivity and is on the slower side, its better than most other robot vacuums  even those costing hundreds more  at picking up pet hair and other debris.

Here's all of our top picks for best robot vacuums.





Latest News & Updates (June 2019)



Eufy's new Robovac 15C Max will be available on July 1 for $279, but will be priced at $219 from July 22 through July 31. The Robovac 15C Max is a traditional "bounce" style vacuummeaning, it bounces off of objects to navigate a roombut is WI-Fi connected and controllable via Alexa and Google Assistant. It also features improved suction, and a new filter and dustbin.

iRobot has introduced two new vacuums, the Roomba s9+ ($1,299) and the Braava Jet m6 ($499). The former is the company's new top-end robot vacuum, and is designed to better get into corners and along edges. The m6 is the company's new and improved wet/dry mopping robot. In addition to their cleaning skills, the two robots can talk to each other, so that the m6 can start mopping once the s9+ is done vacuuming.

Shark Ion R85. Credit: Shark

Shark Ion R85. Credit: Shark

1. Shark Ion R85 The best robot vacuum overall Rating: 4/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 94| Pet Hair Score: 88 | Average Cleaning Time: 1:01:57 | Loudness: 59.2 dB | Bin Size: 625 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: Alexa, Google Home | Size: 12.8 x 12.5 x 3.4 inches | Weight: 5.1 pounds



Pros: Great pet-hair performance; Dustbin is super easy to clean; Easy app setup and notifications



Cons: Can get stuck on thick carpet

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Shark Ion R85

Our best robot vacuum overall, the Shark R85 proved excellent at picking up pet hair and other debris around our home with a minimum of fuss. While it took about an hour on average to finish a run in our test space, it was much more thorough than all other robot vacuums. We also like its notifications, smartphone control and easy-to-clean dustbin The optional handheld vacuum is handy for getting those spaces the robot vacuum can't reach.

Read our full Shark Ion R85 review.







iLife V3s Pro

iLife V3s Pro

2. iLife V3s Pro Best budget robot vacuum Rating: 4.5/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 97 | Pet Hair Score: 99.5 | Average Cleaning Time: 1:31:00| Loudness: 64.1 dB | Bin Size: 600 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: None | Size: 11.8 x 11.8 x 3 inches | Weight: 4.5 pounds



Pros: Excellent pet-hair-cleaning performance; Fantastic hardwood performance; Inexpensive



Cons: Loud; Inconsistent cleaning pattern; slow

iLife V3s Pro

This is the best robot vacuum you can get for less than $200. Despite its low price, the iLife A3s Pro consistently outperformed other robot vacuums that cost three times as much. It picked up nearly all the pet hair in our lab tests, and was also good in our at-home tests, too. The only caveats is that its slow, cant be controlled from your smartphone (though it has a remote), and is a bit louder than other vacuums. But for this price, those are tradeoffs were willing to make.

Read our full iLife A3s Pro review.



iLife V5s Pro

iLife V5s Pro

3. iLife V5s Pro Good cleaner, so-so mopper Rating: 4/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 94.8 | Pet Hair Score: 97.3 | Average Cleaning Time: 1:40:58 | Loudness: 59.9 dB | Bin Size: 600 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: None | Size: 11.8 x 11.8 x 3 inches | Weight: 4.9 pounds



Pros: Inexpensive; Quiet; Excellent cleaner; Attractive design



Cons: Lackluster mopping feature: Some debris not suctioned completely into dustbin

iLife V5s Pro

The second-best robot vacuum under $200 is iLifes V5s Pro, which vacuumed nearly as well as the V3s Pro. The V5s Pro has an added mopping feature that was pretty ineffective in our in-home tests. Like most budget robot vacs, the V5s Pro lacks a smartphone app, and doesnt work with any smart home devices. Its also one of the slowest robot vacuums weve tested. Still, for less than $200, its a very effective cleaner.

Read our full iLife A5s Pro review.



iRobot Roomba i7+. Credit: iRobot

iRobot Roomba i7+. Credit: iRobot

4. iRobot Roomba i7+

The self-cleaning robot vacuum

Rating: 3.5/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 90.4 | Pet Hair Score: 90.5 | Average Cleaning Time: 18:09 | Loudness: 62.6 dB | Bin Size: 379 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: Alexa, Google Home | Size: 13.3 x 3.7 inches | Weight: 7.4 pounds



Pros: Low profile means it fits easily under furniture; Supereasy setup; Affordable



Cons: Gets stuck easily on unfavorable surfaces; Doesn't learn to avoid areas; Dustbin sends dust everywhere



Review iRobot Roomba i7+

iRobot's highest-end model makes our best robot vacuum list because it has a base with its own dustbin, so you can go multiple cleanings without having to empty out the bin. It edged out the Shark Ion R85 on our pet hair test, picking up just over 90 percent of all the fur on the floor.

It has a number of other features, such as the ability to map multiple floors and create virtual walls. The Roomba i7+ is also fast, finishing a cleaning run in less than 20 minutes. Still, its price  $1,099  plus the fact that it wasn't as thorough as other vacuums kept the i7+ from receiving a higher rating. You can purchase the i7 for $799, but that price doesn't include the cleaning base, one of the main reasons for getting this vacuum in the first place.

Read our full iRobot Roomba i7+ review.



iRobot Roomba 690. Credit: iRobot

iRobot Roomba 690. Credit: iRobot

5. iRobot Roomba 690

A solid performer for the money

Rating: 3.5/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 89.2 | Pet Hair Score: 73.3 | Average Cleaning Time: 1:12:27 | Loudness: 66 dB | Bin Size: 600 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: Alexa, Google Home | Size: 13 x 3.6 inches | Weight: 7.8 pounds



Pros: Affordable; Easy-to-use app; Maneuvers well in tight spaces



Cons: Somewhat loud; Dustbin too easy to remove



iRobot Roomba 690

The iRobot Roomba 690 has powerful suction and is especially user-friendly. Once you set this vacuum up, it basically runs itself. But you can also control it from a convenient smartphone app that you can use to schedule cleaning times from anywhere. This robot did a great job on both carpeting and hardwood flooring, but it didn't do as well with pet hair as our top pick did. This vacuum also continued cleaning over various obstacles rather than getting stuck like competitors.

Read our full iRobot Roomba 690 review.



Samsung PowerBot R7070

Samsung PowerBot R7070

6. Samsung PowerBot R7070

Older, but still good

Rating: 4/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 87.9 | Pet Hair Score: 81.5 | Average Cleaning Time: 27:30 | Loudness: 66.7 dB | Bin Size: 600 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: Alexa, Google Home | Size: 13.7 x 13.4 x 3.8 inches | Weight: 9.5 pounds



Pros: Easy to clean; Works with Alexa, Google Assistant; Can be controlled via remote or companion app



Cons: Height makes it difficult to fit under furniture



Samsung Powerbot R7070

Our best robot vacuum from 2018, the Samsung PowerBot R7070 is still a very capable and fast cleaner. You can also control it from your smartphone, as well as with Alexa and Google Assistant. But while it completed a cleaning run in half the time that the Shark Ion R85 took, it wasn't as effective at picking up pet hair or kitty litter. And it's about twice as expensive.

Read our full Samsung PowerBot R7070 review.



Eufy RoboVac 11S. Credit: Eufy

Eufy RoboVac 11S. Credit: Eufy

7. Eufy RoboVac 11S A good value robot vac Rating: 3/5 stars



Cleaning Performance: 85.5 | Pet Hair Score: 67.5 | Average Cleaning Time: 1:18:00 | Loudness: 62.5 dB | Bin Size: 600 ml | Smart Home Compatibility: None | Size: 12.8 x 12.8 x 2.85 inches | Weight: 5.7 pounds



Pros: Low profile means it fits easily under furniture; Supereasy setup; Affordable



Cons: Gets stuck easily on unfavorable surfaces; Doesn't learn to avoid areas; Dustbin sends dust everywhere



Eufy RoboVac 11S

The Eufy RoboVac 11S is the best robot vacuum for those on a budget simply because it works. The device is short enough that it can track under furniture where you normally can't reach with an upright vacuum. And though there's no Wi-Fi connectivity or app control, there's a companion remote. You can use this to schedule the vacuum so that it cleans up any litter crystals, stray hairs and food crumbs left behind.

Read our full Eufy RoboVac 11S review.

Robot Vacuum Test Results

They can't all be named to our best robot vacuum list, but many of the robot vacuums we tested performed well on our tests, both in the lab and in the home. The numbers indicate the percentage of debris (Cheerios, kitty litter, and dog hair) that ended in the robots bin on both hardwood and carpeted surfaces, as well as the average time it took the robot to clean a 15 x 18-foot space. We will add to these results as we test additional vacuums.



What to Look for in a Robot Vacuum

Before you buy, you need to determine what your needs are, and how much youre willing to spend. Things youll want to consider include:

How much youre willing to spend.

The size of the space you want to clean.

If you need a vacuum to clean up pet hair.

If you want to control the vacuum using your smartphone.

We've put together a handy robot vacuum buying guide to help you determine your needs.

How We Test and Rate Robot Vacuums



To determine which models make it to our best robot vacuum list, we call in or purchase a number of robot vacuums based on their popularity on Amazon, as well as their price and reputation from other review sites and reader comments.

The first phase of our analysis starts with lab tests in our Ogden, Utah, facility. There, we test each robot vac to see how effective it is at picking up 20 grams of kitty litter, 20 grams of Cheerios, and two grams of dog hair on hardwood and a medium-pile carpet. We also time how long it takes each to complete each test, as well as how loud the vacuum is as it goes about its business.



While we factor in the average cleaning time to our overall rating, we give it less importance than cleaning effectiveness, as most people will schedule a robot vacuum to go about its rounds after they leave their house.

The most promising vacuums are then sent to a reviewer to see how well they perform in a real-world environment. Here, we look at things such as how easily it navigates around an apartment, if it gets stuck under furniture or on carpets, how difficult it is to set up, and how messy it is to empty its dustbin.



From there, we base our final rating on its price, cleaning ability, functionality and ease of use relative to similar models.

Credit: Toms Guide
Denise Krisko

Vident Investment Advisory (VIA) is a full-time ETF subadvisor. The firma wholly owned subsidiary of Vident Financialdoes the day-to-day work of running 40 ETFs from different issuers, including Vident ETFs, overseeing more than $4 billion in ETF assets. Its a crucial role in the ETF ecosystem that gets little notice from end-investors. Denise Krisko, president and co-founder of VIA, offers a rare glimpse into the often-unsung heroes of ETF portfolio management.

ETF.com: As a way of introduction, how has your experience at companies like Vanguard, Northern Trust and BNY Mellon led you to VIA? How did you get involved with the world of ETF subadvisement?

Denise Krisko: I started at Vanguard with index mutual funds. Then I moved to Deutsche [Bank] at a time when Deutsche was subadvising the Fidelity mutual funds. Ultimately, I was at Bank of New York asset management, heading up equity index management, at a time when we started to subadvise the WisdomTree ETFs. They were being serviced by BNY and required some optimization, currency hedging, things that required hands-on portfolio management. That was the genesis of my ETF subadvisory.

Since then, our team continued to subadvise more and more ETFs that were being serviced by BNY. BNY merged with Mellon, so we became part of Mellon Capital. We had over 100 ETFs at one point.

Then, as things changed coming into the financial crisis, I left Mellon Capital and started a firm called Index Management Solutions, which provided management to one advisor's ETFs. Others saw this and said, Hey, can you subadvise ours as well? And we did. The business grew a bit unexpectedly and without my really trying to grow it.

Ultimately, Vident Financial became one of our clients. We were subadvising one of their ETFs, and they offered to set up a new firm that would just subadvisor ETFs. Theyd be the parent company, and thats what I did in November 2014. We launched Vident Investment Advisory specifically to provide subadvisory management to ETFs.

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ETF.com: At that point, were you subadvising only Vident Financial ETFs, or others?

Krisko: The business began with the then-three Vident ETFs, but over the past four years, it has grown to include over 40 funds with over $4 billion in combined assets.

Were subadvisor to the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO); to the YieldShares High Income ETF (YYY), and we're subadvisor to four Nationwide ETFs, among others. Our clients vary in size significantly from very small operations, to Nationwide, UBS and AllianceBernstein, for example.

ETF.com: In the ETF ecosystem, what did you find so appealing about the role of subadvisor?

Krisko: Essentially, we just discovered it. But I came to realize a few things. One, that there was the need for quality servicesa lot of firms, large and small, did not want to manage products on their own. Demand was there. And moving away from BNY Mellon allowed us to also become service-provider-agnostic. Among the funds we subadvise, they are custodied at five different custodians, numerous distributors, index calculators, index providers and every combination thereof.

It has interested me, because, with the rapid growth in the ETF industry, there are a number of new entrants, smaller firms in particular, who either dont have the capacity to manage funds themselves, or just dont have the expertise. We provide that.

ETF.com: What goes into your role as subadvisor?

Krisko: The role has evolved into providing much more than just simple portfolio management and trading, which is basically the core of what subadvisory isthe day-to-day portfolio management and trading.

But now we also provide assistance with capital marketsthe brokers we're trading with all of the time. We know who's offering liquidity. We can bring new issuers to them. Were close to the exchanges, we're close to different custodians and numerous service providers. Were in tune with what's happening across the industry. And our reach has become globalwe are now managing UCITS ETFs [in Europe] for HANetf.

We have asset management firms with large, established portfolio management and trading desks coming to us for subadvisory because they're seeing the additional benefits of our ETF-specific experience.

ETF.com: Is conflict of interest ever a concern if you subadvise, say, two competing ETFs in a given segment from competing issuers?

Krisko: There's definitely awareness, but no concern. Weve had scenarios, especially in thematic products, where we've had multiple similar products. As soon as a proposed fund is presented to us that would in any way be similar to or could be perceived to conflict with a fund that we're currently subadvising, we take a closer look at it.

Weve found that funds that at first glance seem quite similar are often very different once you look at the underlying index methodology and at holdings. We haven't had this problem.

ETF.com: How many portfolio managers do you have working on 40 ETFs?

Krisko: We have seven portfolio managers. They all have ETF experience specifically. They also each specialize in a particular asset class. Index portfolio managers can carry many more portfolios than an active manager could, and of the 40 funds, 32 are indexed.

As we have more and more active funds launchwhich we have had recentlythe number of portfolios per manager will begin to go down. There is more work required with those, more trading.

ETF.com: Whats your biggest concern as a portfolio manager today? How is your day-to-day different today than it was a year ago?

Krisko: Id say the biggest difference is the volatility in the market. It creates a bit more oversight and touch management. Even though many of the ETFs we subadvise are index funds, and they may not be trading on many days, there are still a lot of moving parts going on all the time.

There are distributions taking place, expenses that are coming out of the funds. Managing the cashparticularly when there's so much volatility in the marketrequires a little bit more effort.

ETF.com: How much of a role do you play in developing a new ETF idea?

Krisko: It varies. People come to us at different stages of the product development cycle. Sometimes they already have their exemptive relief. They have the index, it's already being calculated.

Typically, then, they were going to run it themselves and usually one of the other service providers has said, Why don't you consider a subadvisor? So they come to us.

Most clients have the idea developed. Theyre working on tweaking it and looking for our assistance on portfolio management and trading. But we can also get involved with the process of discussing index methodology, liquidity criteria, etc.

ETF.com: With 2,200-plus ETFs on the market today, are you still surprised by innovation?

Krisko: At times I feel like the market is a bit saturated. But then someone calls with a great new idea. Theres still room for innovation.

A lot of growth will come from firms that may have existing strategies that they're looking to offer in an ETF format. Perhaps they're currently in mutual funds or separately managed accounts, and theyll be looking to transition to an ETF for those efficiencies. There are also a lot of areas in the ESG [environmental, social, governance] space yet to be explored.

Contact Cinthia Murphy at cmurphy@etf.com

Permalink |  Copyright 2019 ETF.com. All rights reserved
Lerwick (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Vikings partied in Scotland's Shetland Islands on Tuesday in the annual "Up Helly Aa" festival, featuring a parade of men in suits of armour torching a wooden ship.

The event -- which means "long winter's end" in Old Norse -- has taken place in the port of Lerwick, around 125 miles (200 kilometres) northwest of mainland Scotland, on the last Tuesday in January every year since the early 1890s to celebrate the region's Viking heritage.

"It means a lot to Shetlanders and people in Lerwick that we can do this festival," John Nicolson, one of the organisers, told AFP.

"It's really steeped in Viking history here."

The 48-year-old is the figurehead for this year's festival -- known as the "Guizer Jarl" -- leading a "Jarl Squad" of dozens of Vikings for the day and hundreds of other dressed up "guizers".

"I've been looking forward to it for 13 years," said Nicolson, a self-employed decorator who has been on the 17-strong organising committee all that time.

"There's only been a few guys that have been (Guizer Jarl), so it's a great privilege."

The Jarl dons the same suit of armour -- comprising helmet, breastplate, shield, axe, dagger and belt -- each year.

But in a closely guarded secret, he chooses the design for his and his squad's other garments, representing a different character from the Norse Sagas stories each time.

The formidible looking crew spent Tuesday parading through the town, before a torchlit procession of hundreds led the burning down of the replica longship -- and celebratory parties were expected to last until dawn.

The festivities take place regardless of conditions on the far-flung islands -- which sit in the North Atlantic Ocean on the same latitude as southern Greenland.

"There's no postponement for weather," said Nicolson.

"It'll be what it'll be, and we'll just carry on."
Thanos (Credit: Marvel/Disney)

Sorry America it appears that Avengers: Endgame will land the UK before the US after all.

The final chapter in the Avengers story was thought to be making its debut at the same time as the US release date of April 26, after the US pulled back a planned May 3 premiere to bring it in line with the UK.

But according to Comscore Movies, the official release date is now April 25, a solid 24-hours before it bows in the US, a move likely to send US Marvel fans apoplectic with jealousy.

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Marvel movies in the UK have nearly always been released just ahead of the US, ever since Iron Man 2 back in 2010.

So us lucky folk on this side of the pond will see what Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and The Hulk have in store for Thanos, following the mass devastation of Avengers: Infinity War.





Thus far, Marvel has been pretty coy with details, releasing just one major trailer, an introspective affair in which Tony Stark beams a message to Pepper Potts as he runs out of oxygen in space, and the remaining Avengers lick their wounds.

But still, it racked up a staggering 289 million views in a single day.

So its official. Avengers: Endgame lands on April 25, preceded by Captain Marvel on March 8.

Read more

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The Telegraph

Joe Biden returned from his sojourn to the UK and Europe to face a growing list of domestic headaches as his big-spending policies stalled and were also blamed for rising inflation. Mr Biden's initial "American Jobs Plan" called for a record $2.3 trillion in infrastructure spending. Republicans fought hard to stop that and it is now bogged down in Congress. While Mr Biden was meeting Vladimir Putin in Geneva a bipartisan group of 21 senators - 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats - came up with a com
A growing measles outbreak in Washington state led the governor to declare a state of emergency on Friday. Now, 35 cases have been confirmed in Clark County, a southwestern county that includes Vancouver, and 11 potential cases are awaiting confirmation. There has also been one confirmed case in King County, which includes Seattle.

So why the emergency declaration? Because measles is a highly contagious disease. The virus can live for up to two hours wherever an infected person has coughed or sneezed. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 90 percent of non-vaccinated individuals exposed to someone with the disease will also become infected.

Once upon a time, the United States had eliminated the measles, but outbreaks have increased as the anti-vaccine movement takes hold  and 18 states now allow for non-medical philosophical vaccination exemptions.

Heres why the current outbreak in Washington is a perfect example of what can happen when parents do not vaccinate their children for philosophical or religious reasons  and how exactly that can put their own kids, and others, at risk.

Most of the cases have been in kids. And most of those kids are un-immunized.

Twenty-five of the 35 people in Clark County whove caught the measles are kids between the ages of 1 and 10, while another nine are between 11 and 18. So far, just one adult in the area has caught the disease.

Thirty-one of those 35 people were unvaccinated. The vaccination status for the remaining four is, for now, unclear.

What is clear to experts is that not being vaccinated is what put those people at risk  and what allowed the measles to spread. Public health experts recommend children get two doses of the MMR vaccine: the first when theyre 12 months old, and a second between the ages of 4 and 6.

In Clark County, however, vaccination rates have been dropping. In the 2004-2005 school year, 96 percent of Clark County kindergartners had been vaccinated against the measles, KATU 2 reports. By 2017-2018, only 84 percent of kindergartners had.

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The fact is, this never would have happened if all of those children were immunized, or even if most of them were immunized, John Lynch, medical director of infection control at UW Medicines Harborview Medical Center, told HuffPost. Being vaccinated provides very good protection against the measles.

Indeed, recent measles outbreaks like the one in Disneyland in 2015 are thought to be fueled by vaccine refusal as vaccination rates drop below the levels needed to provide herd immunity.

As a pediatrician and parent, I find it frustrating because this is happening among children who are dependent on their parents decision-making, said Wendy Swanson, a pediatrician and chief of digital innovation at Seattle Childrens Hospital.

We know that 31 of the cases so far are in un-immunized people, and these are people who are in the age-range that immunization is recommended. And we have a vaccine that is known to be very safe and wildly effective.

A lot of kids who cant be vaccinated are now at risk.

Babies typically arent given their first dose of the measles vaccine until their first birthday (though there are exceptions for babies who travel out of the country), in part because mothers whove been immunized against the disease either through vaccination or because they once had the disease pass some of that immunity on to their little ones.

If you put a vaccine in while maternal antibodies are still around, the vaccine wont stimulate the babys own immune system to respond, it will just get soaked up by the maternal antibodies doing their job, Swanson explained in a 2015 blog post on the topic.

Thus far in Washington, no cases have been in children under the age of 1, which Swanson believes is at least partly because local officials have been dogged in their efforts to track exactly where infected individuals have been (schools, daycares, health centers, grocery stores, etc.) so parents with babies can stay away.

In this Jan. 25, 2019 photo, a sign at the entrance to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington prohibits all children under 12 and unvaccinated adults due to the number of measles cases in Clark County. (Photo: AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus, File)

But children who are immunocompromised  like those who are on steroids or who are undergoing chemotherapy, for example  are also unable to be vaccinated.

Its the kids who are too young to be immunized, or who are too sick to be immunized that we worry about, Swanson said. Theyre not going to be protected.

An outbreak like the one in Washington shows how easily the disease can spread among unvaccinated children and that once there is a pocket of the measles, it can easily spread. The Oregonian reports that two Clark County children who contracted the disease and who were unvaccinated recently traveled to Hawaii, where they were quarantined and then flew home after five days.

The good news? Most parents are onboard with vaccinating their kids.

If your kids are immunized, you should feel really comfortable in the face of an outbreak, Swanson said. Two doses of the measles vaccine are about 97 percent effective at preventing the disease, the CDC says, but even just one dose (which is what most kids under age 4 have) is 93 percent effective.

Swanson worries that sometimes the media coverage about measles outbreaks makes it seem there is a nationwide crisis over vaccination, but thats not true. More than 90 percent of kids in this country are vaccinated, according to public health recommendations.

The media tends to distort this, she said. But an outbreak like this shows why this issue can get distorted. Because the panic and frustration parents can feel is if their children are in a more vulnerable position because of decisions made by other people.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
If its too cold for you, its too cold for them.

Thats the rule of thumb that animal-care experts suggest pet owners follow in deciding whether to bring their furry friends indoors as much of the nation experiences an Arctic blast thats lowering temperatures well below the freezing point, with about 90 million people encountering sub-zero readings.

Those are not safe conditions for man or beast, no matter how much a dog may love to play outside.

As Iowa City braces for temperatures of minus-20 and even lower Wednesday and Thursday, animal services coordinator Chris Whitmore is advising residents to limit their pets exposure to the minimum  just long enough to take care of their bodily functions.

Much like humans, dogs will shiver when theyre cold, a sign they need to go inside.

Some people think, Well, hes a husky, I can leave him out while Im at work. They dont want to be out there, Whitmore said. He might enjoy it when youre there to watch him, but when its this cold, we always tell people, Dont leave your pet outside. Its just not safe.

Whitmore and other authorities in the field offered a number of tips for the millions of American animal lovers who will be dealing with frigid weather in the coming days.

Among them:

 Cover them up: Dogs with thicker coats have higher tolerance to cold weather, but short-haired breeds like chihuahuas, beagles and greyhounds dont have much natural shield from the elements. If taking them out for a walk of more than a few minutes, put a sweater or coat on them.

If the dog will tolerate them, booties provide added protection for their feet. That part of their body is especially vulnerable to the rock salt often used as an ice-melting agent, irritating their paws. It can also be harmful if swallowed. Once back inside, make sure to wipe off the dogs feet and belly with a moist rag.

 Knock on the car hood or blow the horn: Cats have a knack for finding warm spots when its cold, but oftentimes that can be a wheel well or a nook underneath the hood of a car that was recently turned off. The noise from a knock or the horn will scare them away.

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Every winter we get cases where a cat has been killed or severely injured because they were napping near the engine and the engine was turned on, said Rob Halpin, director of public relations for a Boston branch of the Massachusetts SPCA.

 Beware of antifreeze: Animals are drawn to the smell and sweet taste of ethylene glycol in regular antifreeze, which crystallizes in their lungs and kills them. Colder temperatures often remind drivers to add antifreeze to their vehicles, and spillages become hazardous to animals.

There is a pet-safe version of antifreeze that instead uses propylene glycol  some states require its use  but its more expensive and some drivers eschew it.

 Go outside with them: As uncomfortable as it might be, its best to accompany dogs outside to do their business instead of letting them roam by themselves in the yard. Though most dogs will want to scurry back to where its warm, some may not be able to resist chasing a squirrel or running around.

Theyre like children. They dont know when theyre starting to get frostbite, hypothermia, so you have to be the responsible one, Whitmore said.

 Dont leave pets in the car: The Chicago branch of PAWS says cold weather can create a freezer-like environment inside a car thats turned off, so it discourages owners from traveling with their pets during the winter. If pets must come along, they shouldnt be let alone in the vehicle even for short spells.

 Shelter, food and water: Stray cats can withstand temperatures around 15-20 degrees but are in danger of hypothermia when the mercury drops lower. Some cities give away small, insulated boxes that serve as shelter for cats  they can also be made easily out of Styrofoam coolers  and volunteers or other residents spread them around.

That can mean the difference between life and death for an outdoor cat or cats, Halpin said.

For people who like to look after neighborhood cats that may visit from time to time, experts suggest leaving food and warm water available to them. Its important the water remain liquid because hydration is critical to maintaining proper body temperature.

 Check online: Go to the websites of animal-protection organizations like the Humane Society and the ASPCA for more information on how to keep pets safe during extremely cold weather.

Car tips: 8 things you shouldn't leave in your car in cold weather during polar vortex

Postal deliveries: No mail will be delivered to parts of six states

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Theyre like children:' How to keep pets safe in this polar vortex
The market expects New Jersey Resources (NJR) to deliver a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended December 2018. This widely-known consensus outlook is important in assessing the company's earnings picture, but a powerful factor that might influence its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates.

The earnings report, which is expected to be released on February 6, 2019, might help the stock move higher if these key numbers are better than expectations. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower.

While the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call, it's worth handicapping the probability of a positive EPS surprise.

Zacks Consensus Estimate

This energy services holding company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.69 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -55.8%.

Revenues are expected to be $711.50 million, up 0.9% from the year-ago quarter.

Estimate Revisions Trend

The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period.

Investors should keep in mind that an aggregate change may not always reflect the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts.

Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Earnings Whisper

Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. Our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) -- has this insight at its core.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is subject to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

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Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only.

A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP.

Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell).

How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for New Jersey Resources?

For New Jersey Resources, the Most Accurate Estimate is the same as the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that there are no recent analyst views which differ from what have been considered to derive the consensus estimate. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of 0%.

On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3.

So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that New Jersey Resources will beat the consensus EPS estimate.

Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue?

Analysts often consider to what extent a company has been able to match consensus estimates in the past while calculating their estimates for its future earnings. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number.

For the last reported quarter, it was expected that New Jersey Resources would post a loss of $0.42 per share when it actually produced a loss of $0.33, delivering a surprise of +21.43%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates three times.

Bottom Line

An earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss.

That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.

New Jersey Resources doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release.



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As some U.S. companies blame Chinas economy for their earnings misses, Chinas Alibaba has offered some upbeat notes about the worlds second-largest economy amid growing concerns of a slowdown.

The growth deceleration of Chinas economy doesnt matter that much, according to Joe Tsai, Alibabas co-founder and executive vice chairman. He emphasized the sheer size of Chinas $13 trillion economy. China posted GDP growth of 6.6% in 2018  the lowest since 1990.

In the future, obsessing on the rate of growth is not meaningful because of the law of large numbers. The reality is the absolute dollar amount of new wealth creation in the Chinese economy will be well over USD 800 billion each year, Tsai told analysts on Wednesday.

Alibaba said it sees opportunities in digitizing Chinas retail business and capturing affluent young shoppers.

Alibaba on government policies

Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group speaks to journalists during Alibaba's 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

In a rare move, the Hangzhou-based internet giant also addressed its relations with the Chinese government, calling the proposed tax cuts by the State Council right on point. Relieving burdens on small businesses could boost spending in its marketplace.

We have witnessed the government becoming more adept at calibrating the interplay between regulation and economic growth, Tsai said when he addressed concerns over Beijings attitude towards internet giants. He also praised the governments efforts to stimulate the economy. The bigger point here is that the Chinese government is now getting quite sophisticated in terms of targeting the government measures more towards fiscal policy, said Tsai.

While Alibaba has been expanding its footprint overseas, especially in countries in Southeast Asia, China still generates about 95% of its revenue. Its critical for Alibaba to assure investors that it knows how to navigate through macroeconomic headwinds. Alibaba posted 41% revenue growth in the latest quarter, the slowest in three years. But the company also managed to attract 33 million new monthly active users to its Taobao platform during the quarter.

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While the Chinese economy suggests a bleaker outlook in 2019, the company continues to grow its user base at a healthy rate and is working on monetizing new ad revenue streams, which should keep driving growth in the coming year, eMarketer forecasting analyst Oscar Orozco wrote on Wednesday.

Krystal Hu covers technology and trade for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.

Read more:

What Tim Cook left out about China in Apple's revenue guidance

Apple cuts iPhone XR price for partner sellers in China

Amazon eyes closed Sears stores for Whole Foods expansion
PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus on Wednesday said it had detected a cyber attack on its information systems which resulted in a data breach but it said the incident did not affect its commercial operations. The world's second-largest aerospace group said that the incident was being investigated and that it had taken actions to beef up security. "Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted, however we do know some personal data was accessed. This is mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe," the company said. (Reporting by Matthias Blamont; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
The past few months have been nightmarish for some of the biggest consumer names on Wall Street, and that sure has affected your portfolio. For instance, food company Conagra Brands, Inc. CAG saw its shares plummet nearly 40% in the last three months, while tech behemoth Apple Inc. AAPL plunged almost 20% in the same period.

No doubt, consumer stocks are feeling the pain owing to drop in consumer sentiment due to the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown and continuing trade conflict with China. U.S. consumer confidence fell to the weakest point since July 2017 of 120.2 in January from 126.6 last December, per the New York-based Conference Board. A gauge measuring consumers expectations also tanked to the lowest since October 2016, while Americans view on present conditions werent good either.

But, while consumer stocks certainly have been choppy of late, there are plenty of names that have given good returns. So, there is no need to panic and give up on these stocks yet. We have zeroed in on four such stocks that have yielded strong returns in the last few months and have defied the drop in sentiments.

Crocs

Crocs, Inc. CROX has improved significantly from what it was a decade ago. The company, which sells a wide range of footwear, has especially sold products to nursing and food service sectors where most of the employees are on their feet all day. This development is surely working in favor of the company as its projected revenue growth for fiscal 2018 is 6% and 5% for 2019.

The companys stock has outperformed the broader Textile - Apparel industry in the past six-month period (+56.5% vs -5.0%).

The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current quarter and year are a promising 46.3% and 166.7%, respectively. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

GM

In the age of Uber and Lyft, General Motors Company GM maybe facing a tough challenge as reflected by the secular decline in its vehicle sales. But, do not count GM out. It has a reliable business model and boasts $17 billion in net operating cash flow and has more than $25 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet.

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And how can we forget that GM has easily surpassed third-quarter expectations with impressive earnings results that helped its shares jump 9% in a single trading session. The companys stock has outperformed the broader Automotive - Domestic industry in the past six months (+1.5% vs -3.1%). The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Chipotle

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. The fast-casual restaurant chain has seen several turnarounds in 2018 and has, particularly, had an impressive run last month, indicating that investors arent giving up on this stock.

One of the major reasons the stock is doing well is improving fundamentals. The company expects revenues to grow 8% in fiscal 2018 and earnings to jump a solid 29%. Further, kudos to CEO Brian Niccol for introducing digital sales tactics like Panera Bread and Starbucks Corporation SBUX that helped sales improve.

The companys stock has outperformed the broader Retail - Restaurants industry in the past six-month period (+22.3% vs +13.8%).

The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 28.8%, more than the industrys expected gain of 8.7%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Snap

Last year was pretty awful for Snap Inc. SNAP. Its user growth declined, thanks to stiff competition from Facebook, Inc.s FB property Instagram. But, this year looks promising. After all, its focus on international user growth through an improved Android app and its continuous initiative to connect with advertisers will surely boost its top line in the near term. This company currently expects its top line surge more than 30% in fiscal 2019.

The companys stock has outperformed the broader Internet - Software industry so far this year (+16.7% vs +10.6%).

The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current quarter and year is an encouraging 38.5% and 13.1%, respectively. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3.

Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019

In addition to the stocks discussed above, wouldn't you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year?

From more than 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank, these 10 were picked by a process that consistently beats the market. Even during 2018 while the market dropped -5.2%, our Top 10s were up well into double-digits. And during bullish 2012  2017, they soared far above the market's +126.3%, reaching +181.9%.

This year, the portfolio features a player that thrives on volatility, an AI comer, and a dynamic tech company that helps doctors deliver better patient outcomes at lower costs.

See Stocks Today >>



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General Motors Company (GM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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Crocs, Inc. (CROX) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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International Space Station. Photo: imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock

The UKs space sector created over 3,000 new jobs, saw significant growth in income and bounced back from a slowing annual growth rate last year, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The UK Space Agencys latest report on the size and health of the nations space sector shows the industrys total income now stands at an impressive 14.8bn ($19.4bn). This is up from 13.7bn in 2016, when the last report was released.

Whats more, an additional 3,400 jobs took employment in the sector from 38,522 to 41,900 people over the two years.

READ MORE: Morgan Stanley is serious about investing in outer space and just had its first meeting

The 2016 report showed the sectors annual growth rate had slowed to 1.6% in the 2014 to 2015 financial year. However, these new figures show an acceleration, with annual rates of 2.1% for 2015 to 2016 and 4.5% for 2016 to 2017.

The report also shows an average of 39 new companies have been added to the UK space sector every year since 2012.

According to the UK Space Agency, much of this growth is due to space manufacturing, including satellites, ground systems and components, which increased at a rate of 27% per year.

READ MORE: What its like to travel to space, from a tourist who spent $30 million to live there for 12 days

The UK has significant capabilities in this area, building major parts for one in four of the worlds commercial telecommunications satellites.

Chris Skidmore, science minister, said: Our space industry is a great UK success story. New innovations and pioneering experts are helping the sector to grow faster than the rest of the economy as whole.

The industry is not only providing thousands of new high-skilled jobs but supports a wealth of other sectors worth an estimated 300bn to the UK.

READ MORE: Outer space investors should bet on the moon, analysts say

By investing in important infrastructure such as the National Satellite Test Facility near Oxford and establishing satellite launch capabilities, our modern Industrial Strategy is helping our space sector to thrive.

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The space industry generates over a third (37%) of its income from international trade, according to the report. The nations membership of the European Space Agency, which is independent of the EU, generates 29% of these exports.

France and the US account for the largest share of exports to individual countries at 40% and 8%, respectively.

READ MORE: Amazons cloud-computing business is looking to space

Broadcasting accounts for just over half (51%) of the space industrys income. There has also been strong growth in areas such as the supply of devices and equipment that use satellite data.

EU Space programmes like Galileo account for 2.5% of the total income, and defence and military has seen strong growth, increasing from 2% to 8% of income.





WATCH: Interview with Dr Alice Bunn, international director at the UK Space Agency.

With Yahoo Finance UKs Alanna Petroff, live from the World Economic Forum in Davos, 22 January 2019.
From Car and Driver

Toyota will unveil the first details about its upcoming 2020 Tacoma pickup truck next week during the Chicago auto show. The company teased the announcement with this partially shrouded image that shows just the front end of the highly popular mid-sizer from the headlights up, with the silhouette of hillsides in the background. While the darkened picture leaves much to the imagination, we can see that the model shown closely resembles the current-generation Tacoma, which was all new for 2016. Since Toyota doesn't allude to any significant exterior changes, we can only assume that the news will include updates to the powertrain options or available trim levels.



The current Tacoma (pictured below) is available with either a standard 159-hp 2.7-liter four-cylinder engine or a 278-hp 3.5-liter V-6. Both pair with a six-speed automatic transmission and rear- or all-wheel drive. Certain trim levels and cab combinations also offer a six-speed manual transmission, which we hope will continue.

Although the thought of a more powerful engine intrigues us, we have no idea what that could be. Maybe an electrified version of the iconic pickup is coming; after all, Ford recently confirmed it will build an all-electric version of the full-size F-150. It could even be called the Prius T. Who knows?

The Tacoma is already available in a variety of distinct models that include the enhanced TRD Sport and TRD Off-Road times as well as the top-of-the-line TRD Pro. The latter just returned to the lineup for 2019, and the truck in the picture is missing the Pro's exclusive blacked-out grille and distinct lettering. Could the Taco add yet another trim level to its already bloated roster? It's definitely possible. The other possibility is that Toyota brings back the single-cab body style, which hasn't been offered this entire generation. Of course, this is all speculation. The truth won't be revealed until the company holds its press conference at 11 a.m. on Thursday, February 7, in Chicago. Stay tuned for more details.

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As you get ready for taxes this spring, expect change. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law in 2017, brings adjustments for 2018 tax returns. Many of the law's provisions will affect retirees, and potentially for the better in some cases. "The impact of the TCJA's changes in the tax law could substantially reduce a retiree's income tax liability," says Mike Herzog, a tax attorney with Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott in Pittsburgh. To take the best approach, start early and discuss the changes with a tax professional. "Each retiree's tax situation is unique and requires careful consideration," Herzog says.

Here's what retirees need to know about tax changes for 2018 returns:

-- The standard deduction has increased.

-- Some deductions and exemptions are gone.

-- There are changes to state and local tax deductions.

-- Tax brackets have been adjusted.

-- Earned income can be saved.

-- There are new deduction rates for medical expenses.

-- Caregivers may have deductions.

-- You may experience a lower hit on 401(k) and IRA withdrawals.

-- Selling assets will impact income.

-- Donate to charity the right way.

Use the following guidelines to help you prepare your 2018 taxes.

The standard deduction has increased. The standard deduction has nearly doubled in size. Previously set at $6,350 for single tax filers and $12,700 for joint filers, it is now $12,000 for single filers and $24,000 for those filing jointly. Furthermore, if you are filing as a married couple, an additional $1,300 is added to the standard deduction for each person age 65 and older. If you are single and age 65 or older, an additional deduction of $1,600 can be made. "For older taxpayers who no longer carry a mortgage and have limited deductions, the standard deduction is often more valuable than itemized deductions," Herzog says.

[See: 10 Tax Breaks for People Over 50.]

Some deductions and exemptions are gone. In the past, those who used a standard deduction could also include a personal exemption if they were not a dependent. That personal exemption is no longer an option. "Deductions for interest on home mortgages have been reduced and interest from home equity loans eliminated," says Bob Harkson, chief financial planner at Phase 2 Wealth Advisors in Gig Harbor, Washington.

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There are changes to state and local tax deductions. Under the new law, a taxpayer's state and local tax deduction is limited to $10,000. This includes both income and property taxes. "Retirees who live in states with high property taxes, such as California, New Jersey or New York, will be limited on the state tax deduction they will be permitted to take on their return," Herzog says. "Some retirees might find it beneficial to move to a more tax-friendly state that has lower property taxes in an effort to reduce their tax liabilities."

Tax brackets have been adjusted. The tax brackets for 2018 have been reduced: The 15 percent tax bracket is now 12 percent, the 25 percent bracket is now 22 percent and the 28 percent bracket is now 24 percent. "If you can, limit withdrawals from taxable sources to keep you from being pushed into a higher tax bracket," Harkson says.

Earned income can be saved. For retirees working as consultants or taking on freelance gigs, earnings can be placed in a Roth IRA to build tax-free savings. "Unlike traditional IRAs, you can continue to add money to Roth IRAs past age 70 1/2, as long as you have earned income and are under the income limits," says Yvonne Marsh, a financial planner at Marsh Wealth Management in Knoxville, Tennessee. The adjusted gross income limits are $135,000 for a single filer and $199,000 for those filing jointly. If you want to put some of your earnings from 2018 in a Roth IRA, you have until April 15, 2019, to do so. "As long as you earned $13,000 in 2018, you can contribute the maximum $6,500 for both you and your spouse," Marsh says.

[See: 7 New Taxes Retirees Face.]

There are new deduction rates for medical expenses. If you have high medical expenses, you may be able to deduct them. "For taxpayers who are ridden with medical expenses and go beyond the standard deduction, they can itemize their expenses as long as they have documentation," says Jai Kumar, marketing manager at Rapid Filing Services in New York. Previously, you could deduct unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of your AGI for medical expenses. Under the new law, you can deduct health care costs that exceed 7.5 percent of your AGI. However, keep in mind that the deduction threshold moves to 10 percent once again in 2019.

Caregivers may have deductions. If you are single and are caring for a family member, you may be able to file as the head of household. To do this, you will need to be paying more than half the amount needed to support the family member. "Then your standard deduction is $18,000 and $19,600 if you are over 65," Harkson says. When acting as a caregiver, talk to your tax advisor to see if the deduction applies to your situation.

You may experience lower hit on 401(k) and IRA withdrawals. If you take required minimum distributions from retirement accounts each year, the new law may reduce what you owe on the funds. "Retirees who are subject to required minimum distributions from certain retirement accounts, such as 401(k) plans and IRAs, will be taxed on these withdrawals at ordinary income rates," Herzog says. Even though the amount will be taxed, the more favorable tax brackets could reduce what you'll owe this year.

[Read: How to Use Retirement Accounts to Reduce Your 2018 Tax Bill.]

Selling assets will impact income. Large capital gains from the sale of highly appreciated stock or property could lead to higher taxes and medical expenses. "If you are in a higher income bracket, remember that having a lot of taxable income in one year will drive up your Medicare premiums," Harkson says. It might be advantageous to sell stocks or other property over a set period, such as several years, to stay in a lower income tax bracket.

Donate to charity the right way. If you filed a charitable giving deduction as an itemized deduction in the past but aren't itemizing this year due to the higher standard deduction, look for other ways to donate to charity. If you're over age 70 1/2 and have to take required minimum distributions, you can give these funds directly to charity. Have the custodian of your account make the transfer to the organization you want to help. By doing so, you'll avoid income taxes on the required minimum distributions. The maximum amount you can donate is $100,000.
Photo credit: Land Rover

From Car and Driver

UPDATE 1/29/19: The Range Rover SV coupe is DOA, as Land Rover says that it will not reach production. The company had planned to build 999 of these exclusive models globally but has cancelled all existing orders; according to Auto Express, some customers had already configured their vehicles.

The Range Rover has come a long way since it launched in 1970 as a two-door utility vehicle. Thanks to a confluence of events about a decade later-namely, that the Range Rover gained a second set of doors just as aspirational types were coming to the conclusion that projecting the persona of landed gentry on a perpetual pheasant hunt was a worthy endeavor-the brands fortunes grew enough to justify cranking up the levels of opulence and performance, an approach that continues to this day. The 2019 Range Rover SV coupe unveiled at the 2018 Geneva auto show represents the new pinnacle of the brand.

The Biggest Prize in Sport

Limited to a production run of just 999 examples worldwide, the SV coupe will be hand assembled at the SVO Technical Centre in Warwickshire, England. While the two-door format harks back to the original, Range Rover also made sure to extract plenty of output from the supercharged 5.0-liter V-8-the SV coupes engine produces the same 557 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque as the recently uprated SVAutobiography Dynamic four-door. A ZF eight-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters sends torque to a full-time four-wheel-drive system with a two-speed transfer case and a locking rear differential. A claimed zero-to-60-mph time of 5.0 seconds and a top speed of 165 mph make this the fastest full-size Range Rover ever, according to its maker.

Photo credit: NEWSPRESS, THE MANUFACTURER

Land Rovers Terrain Response 2 technology allows drivers to select from Dynamic, Eco, Comfort, Grass/Gravel/Snow, Mud and Ruts, Sand, and Rock Crawl driving modes as desired. The SV coupe sits slightly lower than the standard Range Rover, and the air-spring suspension automatically lowers the vehicle by another 0.6 inch at speeds of 65 mph or above. Additionally, the suspension can raise the vehicle by 1.6 inches above normal for off-road driving below 50 mph; a maximum of 3.0 inches above the standard ride height is available at speeds up to 31 mph.

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Two-Door Exclusives

The aluminum-bodied exterior is largely specific to the coupe, with the hood and the lower tailgate being the only body panels carried over from the standard four-door Range Rover. The doors have frameless glass and a power-close feature. The exclusive two-part grille and new side vents are composed of a special mesh and feature a satin-silver metal surround; the Range Rover script on the hood and the tailgate is handcrafted in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter in the United Kingdom. Rolling stock includes 21-, 22-, and 23-inch wheels, the last being the largest ever offered on a Range Rover.

Photo credit: NEWSPRESS, THE MANUFACTURER

Eight standard exterior colors are available, in either a traditional gloss or a satin finish. Buyers also can choose from 16 additional hues from the SV Premium Palette. A so-called Contour Graphic, which extends from the front fender vents down the body sides and onto the tailgate, will be offered in four shades.

Warm Embrace

The interior of the Range Rover SV coupe coddles passengers in the warm embrace of materials and colors generally associated with private social clubs that have strict dress codes. Front passengers get heated and cooled 20-way power-adjustable chairs, while the folks in back make do with merely 10-way power seats. The semi-aniline leather features a gradated diamond-quilt design. A selection of four two-tone interiors, with the front seats and back seats in different colors, are available, along with four single-tone interior treatments.

Photo credit: NEWSPRESS, THE MANUFACTURER

Wood trim elements on the steering-wheel rim, door panels, center console, instrument panel, and load floor can be rendered in Natural Black Ash or Santos Palisander veneers as well as Nautica, which is the product of a new-toRange Rover process that fuses together walnut and sycamore woods.

Land Rovers InControl Touch Pro Duo setup handles the infotainment duties utilizing a 10.0-inch display, a 10.0-inch control panel, a 12.0-inch Interactive Driver Display, and a full-color head-up display. The 1700-watt, 23-speaker Meridian 3D Signature sound system offers more jam-kicking capability than SV coupe owners are likely to need.

Should you find yourself requiring a ludicrously quick, leather-lined, two-door gentlemans express with off-road chops to spare, youll need to stop by your financial institution and pick up a minimum of $295,995, the SV coupes base price. And dont delay-remember, Range Rover is making only 999 of them.

Photo credit: NEWSPRESS, THE MANUFACTURER

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As English professor Jack Dudley, Ph.D., delves into a lecture at the Mount's Frederick campus on horror films that pay homage to Edgar Allen Poe's works, students from St. John's Catholic Prep, who fill the classroom, engage in discussion with Dudley and with students from St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, who participate in the class remotely using Zoom hybrid classroom capabilities.

Technology in the higher education classroom now aids high school students in accessing college courses, as illustrated by the American Horror Story English class at the Mount's Frederick campus. While St. John's Catholic Prep is near the campus and students even have time to change into their uniforms before heading to school for the remainder of their day, the Goretti students' commuting time would make it nearly impossible for them to take the class if they couldn't participate virtually. Dudley's class, being offered this semester, studies American horror fiction and film, focusing on authors such as Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as the philosophical and cultural implications of their works.

This course, as well as sociology and criminal justice classes the Mount has offered to high school students since 2017, count both as college credit and as a requirement toward high school graduation.
Lebanon appeared to move closer on Wednesday to forming a new government after months of wrangling, with politicians from rival factions indicating it could happen this week, but the head of one party said not all points had been settled, Reuters reported.

Lebanon urgently needs a government to start addressing its extensive economic woes, which include a public debt equal to around 150 percent of national output and years of low growth.

Discussions over a unity government began after a national election last May, the first in nine years, and aimed to distribute cabinet positions among Lebanons main political blocs and according to its delicate sectarian balance.

Asked if the government would be formed within 24 to 48 hours, one politician, Abdul Rahim Mrad, told al-Jadeed TV: I believe it will have been formed, I believe so because that is the atmosphere today.

Mrad is one of six pro-Hezbollah Sunni Muslim members of parliament whose representation in the cabinet has been an obstacle to forming the government, to be led by prime minister-designate Saad al-Hariri, also a Sunni.

Hariri said on Tuesday that this week would be decisive in efforts to form the government, but warned it was a last chance to settle things.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd (Changan Automobile) may see its net profits attributable to shareholders of listed company in 2018 reached RMB500 million to RMB750 million, the automaker announced on January 30. Compared to the RMB7.137 billion of net profits in 2017, the company is likely to suffer a sharp year-on-year plunge of 89.49% to 92.99%.

Besides, basic earnings per share in 2018 amounted to RMB0.1 to RMB0.16, while this number for 2017 was RMB1.49.

Changan Automobile attributes the net profit slump to the reduction in the investment income from joint ventures.

The automaker saw its full-year sales in 2018 slid 25.6% from the previous year to 2,137,785 units. The annual sales of its self-owned Changan brand amounted to 1,499,747 units, exceeding 1 million units for the fourth year in a row, yet still presenting a decline over the performance in 2017.

The investment income from joint ventures was the mainstay for Changan Automobiles annual net profits. Its net profits in 2016 and 2017 were RMB9.564 billion and RMB6.855 billion respectively, among which RMB9.029 billion and RMB6.039 billion were coming from Changan Ford.

However, the sales of the Sino-U.S. joint venture in 2018 were halved over a year ago to only 377,739 units, which directly led to the precipitous decline in net profits.

To survive the current plight, Changan Automobile has taken a number of measures to speed up the transformation towards electrification. As early as October 19, 2017, it announced its Mission Shangri-La new energy strategy, aiming to build a special platform for three new energy cars before 2020. Besides, the automaker vows to cease selling petrol vehicles by 2025, instead solely focusing on electric models.

Moreover, Changan Automobile claimed on August 28, 2018 that it planned to reorganize internal assets by transferring part of NEV-related assets, business and staff members to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Chongqing Changan NEV Science and Technology Co., Ltd., aiming to boost its development of new energy vehicle (NEV) businesses.
YEREVAN.- The President of the RA National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Republic of Armenia Timur Urazayev.

Welcoming the guest, the Head of the parliament has underlined that the Armenian-Kazakh relations are anchored on the firm bases of friendship and mutual trust.

Highlighting the current level of the relations between the two countries, Ararat Mirzoyan has noted in this issue that personally the Ambassadors contribution is great.

The President of the National Assembly has expressed hope that the Friendship Group of the newly elected parliament to be formed in the future will give new impetus for further deepening and expansion of bilateral relations, for which all conditions are available.

Touching upon the activation of the inter-parliamentary ties and the rise of the parliamentary diplomacy role, the Head of the legislative body considered necessary the effective cooperation between the deputies of the two countries also in multilateral parliamentary formats.

Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Armenia Timur Urazayev congratulated Ararat Mirzoyan on being elected NA President and wished him successes.

The Ambassador has assured that Kazakhstan is concerned about deepening the effective cooperation with Armenia in bilateral, as well as multilateral formats, including in the frameworks of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Timur Urazayev highly assessed the parliamentarians contribution to the process of the development of the inter-state relations.

Discussing the agenda of many spheres of bilateral cooperation, the interlocutors have emphasized the expansion of the trade-economic ties, documenting that there is non-used great potential of deepening the Armenian-Kazakh cooperation.
YEREVAN.  At the invitation of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyanalong with his wife, Anna Hakobyanon Thursday evening will travel to Germany on a two-day official visit.

In capital city Berlin, the PM will have meetings with the top leadership of Germany, the Staff to the Prime Minister informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Also, Pashinyan will deliver an address at the office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

In addition, the Armenian premier is scheduled to meet with representatives from the German economys Eastern Commission-Eastern Europe Union and the leading German companies.

In Cologne, Nikol Pashinyan will meet with the mayor of this city as well as representatives from the German Armenian community.

Furthermore, the PM of Armenia is slated to pay a visit to the Technical University of Cologne.
US House of Representatives member Adam Schiff reflected on the act of vandalism that was committed against two private Armenian schools in California.

On Tuesday evening, Turkish flags were hung on the gates and stairs of AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School and Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School.

Schiff wrote on Facebook that numerous descendants of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide were attending these schools, and noted that he stands with the Armenian community in condemnation of the manifestation of hate. The congressman added that an investigation is underway into this incident, and expressed the hope that the authorities will be able to identity the suspects and prevent future such incidents.

Another House of Representatives member, Brad Sherman, also reflected on this matter. He petitioned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), calling on to launch an investigation into this manifestation of hate. Also, the congressman urged the US federal authorities to punish the perpetrators with the full gravity of the law.
Armenia Civil Contract Party member obstructing work of opposition party proxy at polling station

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Armenia Police find data on 2,287 deceased persons, remove them from voters' lists

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Head of Yerevan district enters polling stations, addresses ruling party's proxies, records drawn up

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Voting stopped for a while at polling station in Armenia's Sotk

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Armenia First President casts his ballot

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Armenian Ombudsman conducts independent monitoring of electoral process from early morning

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UAE will ban travelers from 3 countries from entering country

Shooting occurs outside Armenia village polling station

Armenia ex-ruling party official: I receive information on use of administrative resources, directives at military units

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CEC Secretary presents voting procedure: Voter must take all ballots

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World's tallest hotel with restaurant opens in Shanghai

Armenia village election precinct commissions ruling party member chairman takes stamp home with him in evening

Bright Armenia Party leader: I petitioned to Prosecutor General to launch criminal cases, declare wanted

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With Chinese ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui visiting Thimphu on Tuesday, it seems China seeks to intensify engagement with Bhutan.

A report published on Wednesday by TOI, Chinas Bhutan outreach poses a significant foreign policy challenge for India in the neighbourhood.

It has been reported that the new government in Thimphu is likely to look at Beijing more and more as a potential partner in its efforts to diversify its economy.

During his visit to Bhutan, Luo Zhaohui met Bhutan foreign minister Dr Tandi Dorji on Wednesday morning.

Informing about the meeting, the office of the Bhutan foreign minister on its Twitter handle on Wednesday stated: Honble Foreign Minister met with H.E. Mr. Luo Zhaohui, Ambassador of China to India today morning coinciding with the visit of Inner Mongolia Cultural & Art Delegation from China.

Luo Zhaohui will be accompanied by a cultural delegation from China which will perform on the occasion of the Chinese Spring Festival.

The Chinese ambassador Luo Zhaohui visited Thimphu to promote diplomatic relations between China and Bhutan. Bhutans new government thinks that Beijing is a potential partner capable of transforming Bhutans economy, reports ET News.

The report says Prime Minister Lotay Tshering-led Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) government in Bhutan wants to reduce the mountainous countrys excessive reliance on hydropower which it exports to India.

In its election manifesto, the DNT had stated that Indias share of trade with Bhutan accounted for 80 per cent of Bhutans total trade.

We acknowledge the central role of hydropower sector in our economy, however, since it is a climate sensitive sector and considering possible geo-climatic hazards in future, it would be unwise to hinge the countrys economy solely on a single sector, said the DNT manifesto.

Chinas vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou along with Luo visited Thimphu in order to explore trading opportunities.

Kong Xuanyou reportedly had discussed the boundary issue with Bhutan leaders.

Xuanyou also invited Bhutan to actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and share Chinas development dividend. Bhutan is the only Indian neighbour to have resisted the temptation so far to join BRI.

Honble Foreign Minister met with H.E. Mr. Luo Zhaohui, Ambassador of China to India today morning coinciding with the visit of Inner Mongolia Cultural & Art Delegation from China. @PMBhutan pic.twitter.com/KyGBP8H1VI  ForeignMinisterBhutan (@FMBhutan) January 30, 2019

Bhutan is the only country neighbouring India to have resisted the temptation so far to join the BRI.

During PM Lotay Tsherings visit to India last month, his first overseas tour after being elected as the PM, his counterpart Narendra Modi had announced that India would provide grant assistance of Rs 4500 crore for Bhutans 12th Five Year Plan, and a transitional Trade Support Facility of Rs 400 Crore over a period of five years to strengthen bilateral trade and economic linkages.

PM Tshering also invited Modi to Bhutan, but the Indian PM is yet to undertake that visit.
One size does not fit all, Dillon said.

Clearly, supervisors were not going to make everybody in the packed room happy. More than 60 people came to the lectern during public comments with different points of view.

I hate to see people fighting one another, grape grower Davie Pina said. I hate to see initiatives coming if theres no science to it.

The group Napa Vision 2050, a backer of Measure C, encouraged supervisors to be courageous, remove the filters of denial and stop the dithering, the finger-pointing and the off-loading of responsibility.

For the sake of saving the world, we, the people who live here in Napa County and everyone else in the world, need leaders who will make personal sacrifices to ensure a healthy world for all, Vision 2050 President Charlotte Williams wrote to the county. We need you to take immediate action to protect and regenerate our natural environment.

Napa Valley Grapegrowers President Paul Goldberg urged supervisors not to hastily add to the regulations faced by farmers.

We need you to do your research and turn over every stone to make sure any changes you make are based on science, Goldberg told supervisors.
Eighty percent of emergency calls came from a cellphone, 15 percent came from a landline, and a total of five percent came from various other technologies, according to the report.

The local California Highway Patrol is one of about 180 law enforcement agencies in the state that already accept texts to 911. All CHP agencies in the Bay Area participate, Ulloth said, and texts can be directed to CHP dispatchers when a cellphone user is on a state road.

As technology has evolved, so has the way that the public tries to contact emergency officials. Ulloth believes this service is one that the community needs.

It costs $20,000 per year to pay for the technology and systems that keep the text to 911 program running, he said.

The city is still working through kinks with the program, but it hopes to debut and test the service with an unofficial launch within a month. Dispatchers will be trained on the service, but anyone who happens to text 911 during that time will still receive service. The city will announce the program is up and running about a month after its unofficial launch.

In the meantime, anyone who tries to text 911 in Napa County will receive an immediate reply directing the person to call 911 for assistance.

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SACRAMENTO  Two suspected looters in wildfire-ravaged Magalia, Calif., were arrested Saturday evening after one got in a fistfight with a Butte County deputy.

David Eugene Blood, 52, was arrested on suspicion of battery on an officer, possessing a loaded, concealed firearm in his car and possessing an open container, among other offenses, while Kenneth Zimmerman, 51, was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office.

The men were seen near the ruins of the Discount Liquor Store, which was destroyed in November by the Camp Fire.

Blood was seen walking out of the rubble with property obviously stolen from the business, the Sheriffs Office said in a news release.

Blood and Zimmerman were recognized by the responding deputies from prior contacts, according to the release.

Deputies searched Bloods car and found a loaded .45-caliber handgun in a backpack, according to the release.

Law enforcement later learned Blood was under a restraining order and was prohibited from possessing a gun or ammunition, according to the release.
Mattioli complained to Sorensen, who allegedly attributed the firefighters behavior to her gender. When she told him the treatment was taking a physical and emotional toll on her and pressed him to take action, the lawsuit claims Sorensen ultimately explained that he was unable to take any action because if he attempted to enforce any code of conduct the firefighters didnt like, they could, as a group, vote him out as they had done the previous Fire Chief.

According to the lawsuit, Mattioli then approached City Manager Jennifer Phillips, who in September 2016 moved Mattiolis office from the firehouse to City Hall and had her report directly to Phillips. After Phillips left the city in December 2016, she was once again required to report to Sorensen.

The lawsuit claims Sorensen then subjected Mattioli to retaliation by hyper-scrutinizing her work, holding her accountable for duties that were outside her job description, imposing unreasonable and arbitrary deadlines, taking away responsibilities and privileges, and in May 2017 issuing the second of two negative performance evaluations that prevented her from earning a raise.

The lawsuit does not name Sorensen as a co-defendant.

In legal filings, attorneys for the city claim that Mattiolis supervisors took steps to address her concerns.
The lawsuit asks the judge to order the defendants to pay damages to alleged victims and correct all alleged misleading statements in print and online materials.

What makes this case particularly important is that the product being fixed is not a consumer good but someones freedom, said attorney Dean Harvey, who is lead counsel on the case. It is about whether a presumptively innocent person is able to go to their job or not, take care of their children or not.

The action comes amid uncertainty for the bail industry in California.

A state law signed last year would have ended cash bail for suspects awaiting trial, but its now on hold until voters decide a 2020 ballot referendum that would overturn it.

Under that law, which was to go into effect later this year, suspects would instead be held or freed based on the likelihood theyll return to court and the degree of danger they pose to the public.

According to plaintiffs attorneys, work on the lawsuit began before the law was passed and it should go forward even if the cash bail system is eliminated because that would not help people who paid high premiums and would not stop the companies from continuing to collect on debts.
A bankruptcy judge could also allow PG&E to reduce its eventual payouts to California fire victims. That could include Paradise residents whose homes were destroyed by last years Camp fire, if PG&Es equipment is found to have sparked the blaze. The utility has already started skipping payments to families whose properties were destroyed by the 2015 Butte fire, which was caused by a tree falling on a PG&E power line.

PG&E officials say electricity and natural gas service will continue uninterrupted for its 16 million customers in Northern and Central California. The company has lined up at least $5.5 billion from several banks to fund its operations during what it expects to be a two-year bankruptcy process, and it filed a motion Tuesday asking the court to approve that so-called debtor-in-possession agreement.

Lawmakers watched in dismay as PG&E chose bankruptcy, but there was nothing they could do to stop the company from filing. State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, said the situation is extremely disappointing and underscores the need for change at PG&E in both its leadership and corporate culture. Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), who chairs the Utilities and Energy Committee, lamented that the effect on fire victims and PG&E ratepayers may be severe.
"We can get into this thing of the 'good homeless' and the 'bad homeless' and that's not useful," Thomas said. Whether those in need were unsheltered before the Camp Fire, or are experiencing homelessness for the first time, it comes down to the same number of resources for more people.

"We all are anticipating it'll be a pretty rough transition," she said.

Playing it by ear

Larry and Christine Smith have agreed that at this point, it's best to play it by ear and stay on their toes. The divorced pair have been sharing a newly purchased RV for the last month at the Silver Dollar Fair Ground after the fire torched both their homes.

Having been "treated like transients," Larry Smith said, they take the information and resources they can get with a grain of salt. "We talked to the case manager and stuff, but they don't know half the time the answer," he said.

They are among the few who plan to stay at the fairgrounds in their RV after Thursday, paying the daily fee. "That's what we have to do because we don't have anywhere else to go," Christine Smith said.

Months later, the trauma still hurts. She said she has nightmares every night.
The St. Helena City Council will hold two special meetings next week.

The first will be a goal-setting workshop at 1-5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4, at the firehouse.

The second will be an informational workshop with a report from Kosmont Companies and updates from city staff on key projects at 2-5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, at the firehouse.
The Public Works letter left open the possibility that the city might issue a new will-serve letter if the applicants submit accurate data regarding baseline water use, demonstrate how the project would comply with the citys water-neutrality policy, and obtain a water use agreement from the city.

Hall said the propertys water use went way down during renovation and ceased entirely for three months due to a faulty backflow valve that was subsequently replaced. However, the park has remained in operation, and except for those three months the Halls have been receiving and paying water bills for the property, she said.

As the renovations continue, I anticipate that (water usage) will be back to the standard level it was before when the park was occupied by tenants, Hall said.

She estimated that the last residents moved out in 2014, but she denied that the park has abandoned its water rights.

There are no people living there now, but that doesnt mean that the park is not a mobile home park in operation, she said. It is in operation, in the stage of renovation. Unfortunately the renovation has taken longer than Id hoped.
The scores of pages of U.S. indictments handed down Monday against Huawei Technologies Co. dont explicitly mention anything about 5G networks or Chinas spy agency.

But they sent a clear message to world leaders weighing whether to use Huawei equipment for next-generation wireless networks connecting everything from phones to cars to supertankers: Chinas largest technology company is a threat to national security.

They arent just going after the notion that there is hard evidence of previous spying, said Graham Webster, a fellow at Washington-based research group New America who studies Chinas digital economy. They are trying to undermine trust in Huawei overall, saying that this company cannot be trusted in your infrastructure.

The case is a further sign that wider strategic tensions between the worlds two largest economies will persist even if they reach a deal to end a months-long trade war that is starting to hit global growth and company earnings. That may be harder now as Chinese President Xi Jinpings top economic aide visits Washington this week for talks to stave off more tariff increases.

The indictments intensify the spotlight on Huawei, which has come to symbolize Chinas economic rise and challenge to the U.S.s status as the worlds top superpower. In particular, the decision to prosecute Meng Wanzhou  daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei  has riled Beijing and increased concerns around the globe of a new Cold War.

For Huawei, the indictments couldnt come at a worse time. Since Meng  Huaweis chief financial officer  was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 after a U.S. request, the company has struggled to convince the world its equipment wont be used for espionage. This month, Poland arrested one of its employees for spying, prompting Huawei to disavow any responsibility for his actions. Canada has until March 1 to assess a U.S. request to extradite Meng.

Ren, Huaweis founder and CEO, used a rare press appearance this month at its Shenzhen headquarters to insist the company doesnt help Beijing spy.

I love my country, I support the Communist Party, but I will not do anything to harm the world, Ren said. On Tuesday, Huawei issued a statement saying once again it had done nothing wrong in either case.

The indictments, however, are a direct attack on Huaweis credibility.

In one, the U.S. alleges that Ren and Meng misrepresented Huaweis business with Iran to the American government and four financial institutions since 2007, in violation of U.S. sanctions. The indictment also accused the company of destroying evidence once it became aware of the investigation.

The other set of charges cite emails between Huawei USA and China to explain how engineers conspired to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile USA Inc. They show how employees in China repeatedly pressed their colleagues to collect key information on Tappy, a robot used to test mobile phones that Huawei wanted for its own use.

When T-Mobile complained about the attempted theft, Huawei allegedly covered up the matter with a faulty internal investigation and blamed rogue employees for any wrongdoing. In fact, Huawei had set up an internal committee that handed out monthly bonuses to employees who stole the most valuable intellectual property from competitors, the suit alleges. Twice a year, special bonuses were paid to employees from three regions who had collected especially important confidential information.

Employees were directed to post confidential information obtained from other companies on an internal Huawei website, or, in the case of especially sensitive information, to send an encrypted email to a special email inbox, the indictment says.

Taken together, the charges bolster the Trump administrations case that Huawei is operating at the behest of the Chinese government. While theres no explicit evidence that the companys products are compromised, its very difficult to know for sure  a risk the U.S. argues is too big for critical infrastructure like 5G.

While this wouldnt change the opinions of the Pentagon and intel agencies, which would already be well set, it certainly would make the public case easier to push to other countries, said Victor Abramowicz, a former Australian Department of Defence intelligence analyst who is now a security researcher at Curtin University in Perth.

Already Australia and New Zealand have joined the U.S. in keeping Huawei out of its 5G networks. Other countries like Canada, the U.K., Germany and France have yet to make a decision.

Its not an easy choice. On the commercial side, Huawei presents a cheaper option than its competitors: The company said it has already won more than 30 5G contracts globally, including 18 from European countries. Australias TPG Telecom Ltd. on Tuesday pulled the plug on plans to build the countrys fourth mobile network, saying it no longer made financial sense after the government banned Huawei.

Because the global market is now deeply consolidated and Huawei enjoys a lead in technology and solutions, I dont think the recent news about the company will impact Huaweis 5G deployment  both in China and abroad, said Bing Duan, an analyst with Nomura Asset Management.

Cannot Be Naive

Even more than current technology, control over 5G networks could allow an enemy to wreak mass industrial sabotage and social collapse, according to U.S. officials. This week the European Unions digital chief Andrus Ansip urged companies to reconsider partnerships with Chinese companies due to an intelligence law that says any organization and citizen must assist Beijings spy agencies with investigations.

We cannot be naive anymore, he said.

Chinas government sees the charges as part of a bigger U.S. plan to hold back the worlds second-biggest economy. On Tuesday, the foreign ministry in Beijing urged the U.S. to revoke Mengs arrest warrant and stop its unreasonable crackdown on Chinese companies.

For some time now, the United States has used its national power to smear and attack specific Chinese enterprises in an attempt to stifle their legitimate operations, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement. There are strong political attempts and manipulation behind this.

Tech War

China has threatened countermeasures against governments that ban Huawei, and detained two Canadians on espionage charges  a move that Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government saw as retaliation for Mengs arrest. Those actions have only helped confirm the links between Huawei and the government, according to a European diplomat in Beijing who asked not to be identified.

The battle over Huawei and 5G is only part of the fight. The U.S. is also looking to curb Chinas  Made in China 2025 plan to dominate other vital technologies, from robotics to new-energy vehicles to biotechnology, as part of its trade war.

The tech war between the U.S. and China is going to intensify over the course of this year, David Loevinger, a former Treasury official who is now a managing director at TCW, a Los Angeles based asset manager, said on Bloomberg Television. And its not just legal actions against Chinese firms and Chinese executives: Were going to see much broader restrictions on exports of technology to China and much broader restrictions on Chinese investment in the tech sector.

Now read: US files criminal charges against Huawei
There is tremendous pressure on Vodacom and MTN to reduce their mobile data prices and make Internet access more affordable.

To drive this point home, politicians and the regulator often highlight that South African mobile data prices are significantly higher than many other African countries.

However, what is seldom mentioned is how the government and the regulator are holding back mobile operators through their own incompetence and vested interests.

To give mobile operators more spectrum is the easiest way to enable them to cut data prices.

The reason is simple  a lack of additional spectrum means operators have to build denser radio networks to increase their capacity.

This means more towers, which increases the overall cost to roll out networks and leads to higher data prices.

Providing operators with additional spectrum will make it much cheaper and easier to roll out LTE networks and increase capacity.

These savings can be passed on to consumers in the form of lower data prices and more attractive data products.

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub has even stated that if the government gave it more spectrum, it could cut mobile data prices in half.

This raises the question: Why has this not happened?

The answer is not surprising: ineptitude and political games.

Consumers are the biggest losers

The delay in providing South Africas mobile operators with additional spectrum is costing the country billions per year, and consumers are the biggest losers.

For over a decade the government and regulator have been promising additional spectrum to operators, but to no avail.

The delay in digital migration, which will free up valuable digital dividend LTE spectrum, also forms part of the problem.

South Africa initially planned to complete the digital migration process by November 2011, but over seven years later there is still no end in sight.

The Department of Communications previously explained that while the 2,600MHz and the 3,500MHz bands are available for licensing, it is best to license them together with the spectrum that will be released through the digital dividend.

This means that valuable spectrum, which could have been used by mobile operators to improve their networks and drive down data prices, has been wasted for years.

Good news is that President Cyril Ramaphosa understands the problem and confirmed that the government is working to speed up the release of valuable spectrum in South Africa.

Whether this happens remains to be seen, as many similar promises have been made before.

Spectrum: South Africa vs other countries

When you look at the spectrum assignment in South Africa and other African countries, it is easy to see why MTN and Vodacom are pleading for more.

MTN South Africa, for example, has 38MHz of cellular spectrum. This is nearly half the amount of spectrum the company has in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast.

Vodacoms situation is similar  it has 38MHz in South Africa and 173MHz in Lesotho.

It is therefore not surprising that Vodacom launched its first commercial 5G service in Lesotho rather than South Africa.

The chart below shows MTN and Vodacoms spectrum in various African countries where it operates.

Spectrum tables

The tables below show a breakdown of the spectrum allocation in various countries where MTN and Vodacom operate.

It should be noted that these spectrum breakdowns show mainstream IMT bands, whereas certain operations may have additional spectrum assigned for legacy technologies such as WiMAX.

MTN Spectrum per Country Spectrum Band South Africa Uganda Ghana Nigeria Ivory Coast 700MHz    10MHz (4G)  800MHz  5MHz (4G) 10MHz (4G)  10MHz (4G) 900MHz 11MHz (2G, 3G and 4G) 8.2MHz (2G and 3G) 8MHz (2G and 3G) 5MHz (2G and 3G) 10MHz (2G and 3G) 1,800MHz 12MHz (2G and 4G) 15MHz (2G) 10MHz (2G) 15MHz (2G) 15MHz (2G) 2,100MHz 15MHz (3G and 4G) 15MHz (3G) 15MHz (3G) 10MHz (3G) 15MHz (3G) 2,600MHz  10MHz (4G) 20MHz (4G) 30MHz (4G) 20MHz (4G) Total Spectrum 38MHz 53.2MHz 63MHz 70MHz 70MHz Dedicated newly issued spectrum for 4G  15MHz 30MHz 40MHz 30MHz

Vodacom Spectrum per Country Spectrum Band South Africa Mozambique Kenya DRC Lesotho 800MHz  10MHz 10MHz 10MHz 20MHz 900MHz 11MHz 7.8MHz 17.5MHz 6MHz 22.2MHz 1,800MHz 12MHz 7.8MHz 20Mhz 17.8MHz 30MHz 2,100MHz 15MHz 15MHz 10MHz 10MHz 20MHz 3,500MHz  5MHz (1,900MHz)  15MHz 81MHz Total Spectrum 38MHz 45.6MHz 57.5MHz 58.8MHz 173.2MHz

Excellent 4G coverage in South Africa

Despite the shortage of spectrum in South Africa, Vodacom and MTN have achieved excellent 4G population coverage.

This was achieved by refarming 2G and 3G spectrum to roll out 4G services, as the government had not assigned new spectrum suitable for the technology.

Refarming refers to the practice of repurposing spectrum for a different technology or use. In simple terms  Vodacom and MTN took spectrum away from 2G and 3G to roll out 4G.

The chart below shows MTN and Vodacoms 4G population coverage in their major African operations.

Please note that the DRC and Mozambique have no 4G coverage.

Spectrum should be assigned

Instead of simply accusing Vodacom and MTN of profiteering and trying to force them to drop prices through political and regulatory means, assigning spectrum is a much better solution.

By giving Vodacom and MTN more spectrum it forces them to come clean on their commitment to cut data prices when they receive more spectrum.

Some of the spectrum can also be used to increase competition, which will put further pressure on the two major operators to compete on price.

Assigning new spectrum is by far the best thing the government can do to make Internet access more affordable.

Before politicians try to score cheap political points by slating Vodacom and MTN, they should get their house in order first by completing the digital migration and giving additional spectrum to operators.

Now read: What you are not told about mobile data prices
Vodacom has revealed that R500,000 is the highest amount it has ever paid for an idea that helped the company, and it is much lower than what Kenneth Makate  the Please Call Me employee  is demanding.

Vodacom runs an Ideation programme to encourage employees to come up with ideas to help the company, with an annual prize pot of up to R1 million, after tax.

The exact allocation per winner and runners-up can vary, but first place winners have previously received R500,000, after tax, on a number of occasions.

The R500,000 which was paid to employees is far less than the reported R49 million which Vodacom offered Makate as compensation for his Please Call Me idea.

Although Vodacom will not confirm the amount offered due to confidentiality clauses in its negotiations with Makate, the company described it as a significant amount of money and a windfall for Makate.

Vodacoms head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Nkateko Nyoka, has stated that Vodacom is waiting to pay Makate.

Makate, however, said he hasnt reached any deal with Vodacom and described the amount offered to him as shocking and an insult.

Company programmes for ideas

Many companies run programmes to encourage employees to come up with new ideas.

Vodacoms Ideation programme gives employees and permanent on-site contractors the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the company.

The staff members only have to email an outline of their proposal to the innovation department, run by Jannie van Zyl  Executive Head: Innovation at Vodacom.

A formal review panel at Vodacom then assesses these ideas to see if they are commercially viable.

Once the idea has been accepted and formally implemented, the idea and idea originator are entered into the annual innovation competition.

This is not unique to Vodacom. Under former FNB CEO Michael Jordaan, the bank started offering a million rand every year to an employee who comes up with a great idea and then implements it.

This goes a long way towards creating the right type of culture within a large corporate which could otherwise be very bureaucratic, said Jordaan.

Criticism remains

On the Please Call Me matter, Vodacom recently admitted that the Please Call Me was invented and patented by MTN before Makate came up with the idea.

Despite this, Vodacom still decided to pay Makate compensation  which far exceeds the maximum amount paid to other Vodacom employees for their ideas.

This, however, did not prevent politicians and other commentators from attacking the company and calling for a higher settlement.

Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams told Vodacom to just shut up and said the company should not talk to us until you have reached a settlement with [Makates] team.

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi also weighed in, and said people must stand by Nkosana Please Call Me Makate against this bully called Vodacom.

Lesufi added that Makate must be protected from Vodacom and that the company must pay him by the end of the month of face the wrath of the nation.

Vodacom shutdown threatened

The Please Call Me Movement is now threatening to shut down Vodacom on 31 January if a settlement has not been reached.

The movement, which claims to be against corporate bullying and consumer injustice, said Vodacom owes Makate R70 billion for his idea.

Join us as we will be shutting down Vodaworld in pursuit of justice for Nkosana Makate, a recent flyer reads.
If you have ever sent money overseas, you will know that it can be an expensive endeavour and can take a considerable amount of time.

While it can be frustrating to wait over two days for an international payment to go through or to pay transaction fees on small amounts, there are reasons that these charges and wait times exist  according to banks.

Sending money to another bank across borders is not as simple as domestic interbank transfers, as everything from currency conversion to criminal screening must be conducted to ensure the legitimacy of the transaction.

There is also the simple logistics of time zone differences and operating hours to consider, which can extend the wait time.

Most South African banks use the SWIFT international transfer system to send and receive money to and from international banks, and this comes with its own set of limitations and fees.

To find out more about international transfers, MyBroadband spoke to a number of major South African banks.

Absa

Absa RBB head of retail pricing Jean van Rooyen told MyBroadband that customers can make international payments through its NovoFX app or Western Union, allowing for quicker and more convenient transfers.

The global standard for international bank account transfers is 2-5 days and most of our payments are settled within two days, van Rooyen said.

The 2-5 day period for international bank account transfers affords cross country, global time zones and financial institutions to effectively manage payment flows, manage and mitigate risk and apply funds.

Payments made in Absa branches can also be requested for same-day delivery, subject to currency cut-off times.

Van Rooyen said the costs for international transfers depend on the amount being sent.

Customers using our digital platforms can expect to pay 0.55% of the payment amount with the maximum fee of R750 and a minimum of R150. An addition electronic fee of R100 is levied on the transaction.

Factors influencing the price of transactions include exchange control and compliance regulation, foreign exchange trades, and arrangements with banks.

These also affect the length of time it takes to process the transaction.

International transfers are processed during business hours. Public holidays in the destination country could result in delays in processing, van Rooyen added.

Similarly, the destination country may be closed for business if they are in a different time zones, but the delay applies more to territories in the east than in the west.

Standard Bank

Standard Bank told MyBroadband that its international fund transfers take at least two business days.

International transfers take two working days as we are dependent on the receiving bank processing payments timeously, the bank said.

Standard Bank charges 0.50% of the transaction value with a minimum of R151 and a maximum of R690.

Standard Bank also said that arrangements with banks and the need to make foreign exchange trades adds to this cost.

The bank needs to maintain foreign currency accounts with agent banks to make payments in foreign currencies. There are also costs of using an international payment switch and trading in foreign currencies.

Standard Bank must also comply with both local and international laws.

FNB

FNB charges 0.55% for international payments, with a minimum of R160 and a maximum of R675.

Like overseas transfers through other local banks, these payments take a minimum of two days to reflect.

A foreign exchange spot transaction is done to exchange one currency for another where delivery of the cash takes place two business days later, said FNB Foreign Exchange CEO Anthony Grant.

There are time zone differences of up to 12 hours and this period allows for document, fraud and exchange control vetting processes to be completed, he added.

Clients can also request a same-day payment, for which FNB will do its best to process the transfer during the same business day.

The cost of the payment is influenced by a number of factors, including regulatory hurdles and foreign exchange fees.

Foreign bank and correspondent bank fees, document, fraud and exchange control vetting all contribute to the cost of these transfers, with the document vetting processes impacting both cost and time, Grant said.

Nedbank

Nedbank charges a commission of 0.63% to send money overseas, with a minimum charge of R170.48 and a maximum charge of R874.69.

The time taken to complete these transactions and the cost of conducting them are affected by regulatory practices.

For international bank accounts, various factors affect the time to process an international transaction, Nedbank said.

Some of these factors may include: regulatory requirements, industry practices, and internal risk-based processes.

Now read: We need to stop using credit cards in South Africa
It's a question that pops up whenever it's really cold: If there's global warming, why is it so cold?

According to meteorologist Ray Wolfe, with National Weather Service Quad-Cities, it's not that simple.

"I think a good way to think about it is climate is your personality, and weather is your mood," Wolfe said. "Your personality is who you are over the long-term, and your mood can vary day-to-day for any number of factors that influence it."

In other words, climate change is a long-term trend.

"Clearly in our part of the world, as well as globally, the temperature has been warming for quite some time now," Wolfe said.

But weather, he said, is a variable that changes day to day.

"It's wintertime, and in wintertime we get snowstorms and we get cold. It just so happens that the cold we're getting now is near-record cold, it looks like."

Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, based in Lexington, Massachusetts, says the polar vortex we are experiencing started with misplaced Moroccan heat. Meteorologists watched last month when the normally super chilly air temperatures 20 miles above the North Pole rapidly rose thanks to that southern warm air.
United Way of Muscatine will host how-to sessions through February for the tax program MyFreeTaxes at MCSAs Computer Lab, 312 Iowa Ave.

Income earners of $66,000 or less are encouraged to use the program this tax season. All tax information should be brought to the session. A list of required documents may be found at UnitedWayMuscatine.org.

Reservations are not required. Sessions are open to the public.

Dates include:

3-5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 29

3-5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30

5-7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5

2-4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12

2-4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13

4-6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 18

3-5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26

3-5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27

For more information, call the United Way of Muscatine at 563-263-5963.

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MUSCATINE  A Morning Sun man found guilty of leaving the scene of a fatal crash after his girlfriend leaped from his car in Lee County, Iowa, won't be sentenced Feb. 1 as originally ordered.

Damian L. Hamann, 29, was found guilty Dec. 5 by a 12-person jury in Lee County, Iowa, of the Class D felony connected to the death of Muscatine woman Sadie Alvarado, 20, and could face up to five years in prison.

Hamann was scheduled to appear Friday morning at the Fort Madison Courthouse for sentencing, requesting a deferred judgment, but in documents filed Tuesday, sentencing has been continued to a later date because the court will be dealing with a Des Moines County jury trial. "The court will reset sentencing after consulting with the parties and counsel," the document read.

Alvarado's body was found the morning of Aug. 5 in a ditch in West Point Township in rural Lee County. Hamann turned himself in that day and, according to the complaint, told authorities early Sunday he and Alvarado had an argument, and she jumped out of the vehicle.

He went back to his home in Morning Sun, he told officers, and returned later that day to look for her.

In court documents, the jury found Hamann guilty of leaving the scene of an accident and found that the accident involving his vehicle resulted in the death of Alvarado.

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Cold water species, think burbot, are no longer confined to cold water pockets like in the summer and may range more widely. Other species, such as bluegills, may do the opposite  that is hang out and not expend much energy. They can accomplish this by not eating for weeks or months. Generally, however, everything underwater slows down, and life continues just swimmingly, thank you, as long as theres oxygen. Ah yes, oxygen.

In an average winter, ice and snow form a lid on a lake or reservoir. If that lid is too thick, it prevents light penetration thus shutting down oxygen production from photosynthesis by aquatic plants. In addition to producing no new oxygen, the existing aquatic plants die.

Microbes at the bottom of the lake decompose the organic matter, the dead aquatic vegetation. If the lake is too shallow and the winter too long, those microbes will use up all the oxygen breaking it down. The result can be too little oxygen to support a lakes fish, and they die.

In deeper lakes or mild winters, most fish survive. Plus, fish have adapted to slow down in the winter, as being too active would burn through their oxygen reserve.

Then, as water warms under the spring sun, ice-out occurs, insect life increases, and a fishs metabolism rises just in time to take advantage of the increasing food.
I havent had any facilities impacts reported, Alley said. Despite reports of prohibited dog-walking and drone-flying during the shutdown, she said that by and large, the local community was really concerned about the park.

Seth Hahn of Kalispell had been visiting for three weeks and barely saw any difference. The one thing I did notice was that the (parks) Instagram feed was down, along with its webcams and condition updates. He said the stream of local visitors had kept the road to Lake McDonald Lodge passable. Standing with his siblings Dylan and Katie in its parking lot, next to a dozen parked cars, he said that this is probably the most crowded Ive seen it.

Alley said that most visitor-facing services  like restrooms, visitor centers, school programs and snowshoe walks  should return to normal this week. Another possible shutdown looms on Feb. 15, but for now, the park is focused on reopening.

But even if this monthlong pause in operations is the only shutdown, it could echo into summer.

Winter is when the park prepares for the millions of tourists who arrive from June through September. Its when the park starts the hiring process for 400 to 500 seasonal employees, and determines which maintenance projects will be funded once the snow melts.
After three weeks of furlough due to a partial federal government shutdown, Buttes consent decree could face further delay and might not be ready for signature until the end of summer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The shutdown reportedly did not stall progress on the consent decree for Anaconda, though its signing was previously pushed back.

Officials initially anticipated decrees for both Butte and Anaconda would be finalized by the end of 2018.

Despite the delays, the goal of delisting both Butte and Anaconda as Superfund sites in 2024 and 2025, respectively, has not slipped, according to Doug Benevento, administrator of EPA's Region 8, which includes Montana.

Benevento said Tuesday that since his return to his Denver office Monday, he and his staff have already prioritized both Butte and Anacondas Superfund sites. He also said there is work being done right now and that the consent decree could reach signature by mid-summer, which would not be significantly later than the most recent target date of early summer.

"There's not a concern. Work has been going on for some time," he said.
On Wednesday morning, Brian Bersuch got into the drivers seat of his Jefferson Lines bus, just as he has day in and day out for years working
The heritage of Montana is as vast as its landscapes and similarly, can elicit different feelings depending on the where the viewer stands and casts his or her gaze. The heritage of Montana must be defined by properly recounting history and it is undeniable that the cultures, stories and the resilience of Montanas Indigenous people contribute to what we all inherit as citizens of this state and have the opportunity to recognize through House Bill 219. Establishing Montana Indigenous Peoples Day will provide the opportunity to reflect on the incredible contributions this states Indigenous people have made, and continue to make, to the state we are proud to call home.
The first annual Faith, Science, and Climate Action Conference, held in Bozeman in late 2018, convened more than 200 people from Montana who are concerned about the imminent threat from climate change to the earth.

We learned from scientists and faith leaders about the local and global impacts of climate change, and we committed to solutions-oriented collaboration.

Climate change is caused by human activity and is causing suffering among the worlds most vulnerable populations already.

The recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Special Report calls for immediate worldwide attention to this global problem.

We believe in responsible stewardship and social justice, which summon our moral courage and action. We are excited about possibilities for new technologies, regenerative agriculture, improvement in human health, and greater equity for the worlds poor.

We call upon Congressmen Steve Daines, Jon Tester and Greg Gianforte, and state legislators, to commit to climate protection. Please raise the level of public discourse about climate change. Form bipartisan coalitions to develop science-based solutions and public policy which looks beyond immediate political gain. Plan for economic transformation which will improve everyone's health and well-being.
In this day and age, when anyone and seemingly everyone has the ability to take photos and video and share them with the entire world, its sometimes difficult to determine just where to draw the line to protect privacy.

One place where it should not be difficult, however, is in the bedroom. Anyone who shares a nude photo of themselves, or a video depicting a sex act, with a loved one or close friend ought to have some basic assurance that those sensitive materials will not be distributed without their consent.

Montanas legislators are being asked to make the distribution of such materials without consent  commonly called revenge porn  a crime punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500 for a first offense.

This week, the House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on House Bill 192, sponsored by Missoula Democrat Rep. Marilyn Ryan. The bill aims to amend the Privacy in communications section of Montana Code Annotated to prohibit the distribution of images in which a person is naked or shown performing a sex act, if the person depicted has not consented to sharing the images.
I was riding, with a flashing rear light, at about 10 mph on southbound Higgins a block past the bridge; pavement markings indicate bikes should occupy the right traffic lane (there is no longer a bike lane). And just past Fourth Avenue I saw that you had pulled up to within 10-12 feet of my back wheel. Experiencing tailgating is annoying experience when one is in a car. On a bike, with no real opportunity to vacate your space without slipping/falling on snow or ice, its downright terrifying. After about a minute, just before Sixth, you were finally able to get into the left lane and pass me. Since you didnt honk or cut right back in front of me, you were probably just impatient and clueless rather than criminal (threatening me to get me to move out of your way). So now you know; you put a fellow human in imminent danger  please dont do it again.
Shelly Fyant, who is on the tribal council for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Native women face a disturbing reality of violence and that legislation supported by Montana's delegation in Washington, D.C., is a good step but not enough if the state does not take action as well.

"Federal legislation alone will not keep our sisters and our children safe," Fyant said.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said Wednesday lawmakers have a "moral obligation" during the session to address the lack of resources and legislation surrounding the abuse and murder of Native women.

"We must act so that this epidemic is unheard of in our state and our country's future," Bullock said.

Rep. Rae Peppers, a Democrat from Lame Deer, said more awareness on the issue will help break down misconceptions that women go missing because they are out partying or using drugs and alcohol.

"This is a stereotype that we have to get rid of," Peppers said. "We have to understand every single one of these women are somebody's mother, daughter, sister, auntie. And a lot times they are leaving behind children."

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Cole added that Montana cities can only rely on property taxes so much as there is less and less brick and less and less mortar to tax" relative to local needs. Montana is in company with only four other states in not imposing a sales tax.

President Brad Griffin of the Montana Retail Association led public opposition to the bill Wednesday. A tax provided for by Ferns bill, Griffin said, would hurt brick-and-mortar retailers and present an obstacle for a potential statewide sales tax proposal.

Main Street retail is under extreme pressure from online sellers like Amazon, Griffin said. Why would we enact legislation that only makes shopping online more attractive?

Fern's bill only provides a list of items excused from the definition of luxury goods, such as unprepared food, gasoline and "any necessities of life." The bill allows ordinances adopted within tax districts to narrow the definition of luxury goods and services.
"I think it's silly our kids are told they're not safe, but the rest of us still have to go there (for class)," Frank said.

Doranda Standing Rock, a student and parent of a 5-year-old, said UM gave families short notice about the move. She too was concerned about the asbestos in McGill but hoped for the best.

"I am, but hopefully they've got it under control," Standing Rock said.

***

UM investigated the air handler that serves the preschool in McGill Hall on Jan. 19 following an earlier finding of asbestos in a separate air handler on Dec. 12, according to the campus. The separate air handler served three offices of McGill 212; UM confirmed those offices are clean, although Short said they may not yet be occupied.

The email to preschool families said facility managers were "reasonably certain there was no contamination" in the child care area from asbestos in the air system for McGill 212 because the preschool has a different air system.

"However, because asbestos is contained in the thermal system insulation throughout the building, in order to be certain, we decided to expand our testing to include the HVAC system supplying the child care (area)," UM said.
A 57-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for firing a gun at two men who followed him out of the casino he had just robbed in April.

Stephen Antill, formerly a railroad worker, told the Missoula District Court judge that last year he had been completely broke, drinking heavily and at the end of a long stretch of hard luck.

"This was the lowest point in my life," he told Judge Robert "Dusty" Deschamps. "I always had a job, a roof over my head. At 57 years old I was looking at being homeless the rest of my life."

Missoula Deputy County Attorney Mark Handelman said the act was well-planned and deliberate: Antill was caught on the Nickel Ante Casino's security camera with a black ski mask and a plastic bag over the gun, presumably meant to catch the shell casings and recover any evidence, Handelman said.

After the casino employee, who Handelman said changed jobs because of the robbery, gave Antill the money, a patron followed Antill out and, according to court documents, Antill shot several times at the man, missing him each time. At least one bullet hit a window of the casino, however, and caused broken glass to "bounce off" the face of another man who was walking out of the building at the same time.
Chris Goble probably didnt realize as an 11-year-old washing the parking lot of Hoagieville on South Higgins that the business would provide him with a lifelong career.

Now, 29 years later, Goble owns the Hoagieville and is well underway with plans with business partners to transform it into a modern family-friendly restaurant, coffee joint and beer and wine taphouse called Brewed.

Itll feature indoor seating, and outdoor upper-level patio seating with views of Pattee Canyon and Mount Sentinel. There'll be a simple menu of American classics like sandwiches, burgers and shareable appetizers.

The first thing Goble wants people to know is that he doesnt like the word tavern to describe the new concept, even though he has to apply for a tavern conditional use permit from the city.

Were not going to have gaming machines, we wont be serving liquor and well close at 10 p.m., he said. Its going to be bright and open with lots of windows and lots of greenery on the outside. Its going to be a great upgrade on that corner.

He envisions it being a neighborhood living room where people can get a local craft beer, a glass of wine, a salad and soup, or coffee and eggs for breakfast.
The job is to make homelessness rare, brief and one-time only.

One of those goals involves getting more than the point in time snapshot of homeless people which takes place Jan. 31 from sunset to sunrise. Instead, Williams said they need to know the homeless people in Missoula County year-round to better serve their needs, and theyre using technology and the multiple agencies to help fill in those blanks.

They also want to find better ways to prevent people from experiencing homelessness, and ensure that everyone has rapid access to safe, long-term housing that is sustainable to them. And one audience member asked them to help find homes for people who had to register as a violent or sexual offender.

To reach those goals, panel members said they need to work closely with landlords to explain the programs and make them willing to take chances. They also asked business owners to consider hiring those who are down on their luck but also have skills to share.

"Give me the name, number of a business. When I meet homeless people, all have some sort of work ability," said Randy Krastel, a police officer who patrols downtown Missoula. "They are still able to do this, but are at the lowest point of their lives. They're carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and I can find that work.
Construction on a new and much-widened Higgins Avenue Bridge is expected to begin in the spring of 2020 and officials say it will be much improved over the current, outdated structure.

The Montana Department of Transportation held a public open house to share designs and take public input on the new bridge at The Wilma on Tuesday. Shane Stack, a Missoula project engineer with MDT, said the department weighed the input of the public and many other stakeholders before deciding to incorporate a shared bike/pedestrian path on either side of the vehicle lanes.

The path will be striped to designate bike lanes and walking paths.

The other option had been to physically separate bike and pedestrian paths, but local transportation organizations endorsed the shared use mode, as did a little more than half of the public comments.

When you look at whats there now, its going to be a huge improvement, Stack explained.
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried addressed a room full of reporters Wednesday at the Associated Press' annual pre-legislative session gathering, taking questions on everything from school breakfast to the identity of her new cannabis director. (She didn't disclose, but hinted at an impending announcement).

In her afternoon speech, the commissioner also rolled out a recital of new additions to the department. Here are some of the key adds she announced:
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to reporters on AP Day in Tallahassee on Jan. 30, 2019. ELIZABETH KOH | Times/Herald Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that based on legal advice hes received, he does not feel confident he can suspend Broward County Superintendent Robert Runcie, who has come under intense fire for the way his district handled the Parkland shooting and the confessed shooter, Nikolas Cruz, who was a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

This came up during the campaign (and) I went back and actually looked at the statute and it seemed pretty clear to me that the statute applied to county-wide elected officials and that it didnt apply, on its face, to appointed officials, DeSantis told reporters at the Associated Press' annual AP Day news conference in Tallahassee. The balance of the advice Ive gotten since then has said that thats probably the way to do it.

DeSantis did say that he is looking at other options related to the School Board of Broward County and that he would come to a decision on that in the next two or three weeks.

If you talk to those Parkland parents, I think theyre frustrated not just with the superintendent but also with the school board. It seems theres something every day where someone is not being listened to or whatever, DeSantis said. There may be options where we can look at accountability there but it think it will be different than me saying, The superintendent is out or whoever is out.

Runcie did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Andrew Pollack, the father of murdered Parkland student Meadow Pollack, said hes hopeful that DeSantis can put pressure on Browards school board members to remove Runcie or face suspension from office. Pollack and several other Parkland families have repeatedly called for Runcies ouster, and he said the fact the board hasnt removed Runcie yet is despicable. The school board members have to look themselves in the mirror, do the righteous thing and remove the superintendent, Pollack said. They should get ahead of it before they are removed ... We all know (DeSantis) will be quick to pull trigger on board members who dont act.

Shortly after he took office, DeSantis suspended and replaced Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel over his departments failings during the Parkland shooting. Multiple deputies hesitated to go into the building where the shooting was taking place. Israel formally requested a hearing to contest his suspension with the Florida Senate.

At the Tallahassee event, DeSantis also said that he expects Florida to do much better in its 2020 elections than the debacles that happened with his own election in the 2018 midterms, after the triple machine recount saw blown deadlines, broken ballot machines and accusations of liberals trying to steal the election from former Gov. Rick Scott.

We need to do 2020 where theres not any type of circus after the votes are in, DeSantis said. They should be counted and let the victor go on to take the state of Florida.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks to reporters during "AP Day" in Florida's Capitol on Jan. 30, 2019. [Lawrence Mower/Times]

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said Wednesday that she wants her offices lawsuit against the nations largest opioid drug makers and sellers finished as soon as possible.

But when that might happen, and whether it would end with a jury trial or a settlement, is still up in the air.

Moody said shes been meeting often with the lawyers leading her offices lawsuit, which was filed last year, but hasnt set a timeline for it.

The case against companies such as Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma and Walgreens could result in millions  or even billions  of dollars for Floridians and communities suffering from an epidemic killing 17 people a day in the state.

Speaking to reporters at AP Day in Tallahassee, Moody reiterated that opioids is one of her top priorities. Her husband is a Drug Enforcement Agency agent, and she said shes seen the effects of the epidemic firsthand while serving as a Hillsborough circuit judge.

I literally had mothers cry on my shoulder, she said.

Moody has also created a bipartisan opioid advisory group to come up with best practices to combat the epidemic, and she said Wednesday that she plans on asking the Legislature to create a permanent opioid panel.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Hospitalized women with ischemic stroke were less likely than men to be evaluated by stroke specialists and get specialized diagnostic tests, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.

Previous studies found that there are gender differences in stroke risk factors, incidence, treatment and in how stroke survivors fare mentally and physically.

In this study of nearly 67,000 ischemic stroke survivors drawn from a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries, researchers examined whether there were gender differences in hospital evaluation after stroke.

They found small but notable differences, suggesting women hospitalized with stroke were less likely than men to see stroke specialists and receive imaging and other tests to diagnose stroke.

Female stroke survivors had a:

6 percent less likelihood of having intracranial vessel imaging;

10 percent less likelihood of having cervical vessel imaging;

8 percent less likelihood of being monitored for heart-rhythm irregularities; and

8 percent less likelihood of having echocardiography.

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Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The benefits of vitamin D in promoting bone health are already well known. A new study out of Brazil suggests that vitamin D also may promote greater insulin sensitivity, thus lowering glucose levels and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

Other recent studies have shown a clear relationship between vitamin D and glycemic control, suggesting that vitamin D increases insulin sensitivity and improves pancreatic beta-cell function. In this cross-sectional study involving 680 Brazilian women aged 35 to 74 years, the goal was to evaluate the possible association between vitamin D deficiency and increased glycemia.

Of the women interviewed, 24 (3.5%) reported using vitamin D supplements. Vitamin D supplementation was found to be negatively associated with high glucose levels. Habitual exposure to the sun also provided the same association, demonstrating that vitamin D deficiencies are associated with high blood glucose levels.

Study results appear in the article "Higher serum levels of vitamin D are associated with lower blood glucose levels."

"Although a causal relationship has not been proven, low levels of vitamin D may play a significant role in type 2 diabetes mellitus," says Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton, NAMS executive director. "Vitamin D supplementation may help improve blood sugar control, but intervention studies are still needed."

Explore further Obesity and vitamin D deficiency may indicate greater risk for breast cancer
Trainees Hector Bravo-Rivera, Shantee Ayala-Rosario, and Albit Caban-Murillo, of Puerto Rico's "fear lab," presented a poster on decision-making under conditions of threat at last year's Society for Neuroscience meeting. Credit: NIMH

A lineage of young neuroscientists from diverse backgrounds trace their scientific roots to a "fear lab" in Puerto Rico that the National Institutes of Health has been supporting for two decades. A crucible for studies of fear extinction, the lab has so far published 80 paperssome the first ever from Puerto Rico for certain journalsthat generate more than 2,000 citations a year. Of 130 young people trained in the lab, 90 percent are from Puerto Rico and Latin America and half are women.

"Like most labs, the key has been fostering intellectual growth through journal clubs, lab meetings, weekly one-on-ones, and philosophy of science retreats," said the lab's founding director, Gregory Quirk, Ph.D. "Done right, these four activities develop skills of logic, communication, and intellectual inquisitiveness in trainees while also building group cohesiveness."

After completing a post-doc fellowship at New York University, New York City, under well-known fear researcher Joseph LeDoux, Ph.D., Quirk launched the lab in 1997 at what is now Ponce Health Science University, Ponce, Puerto Rico. A decade later, it moved to its current location at the University of Puerto Rico Medical School in San Juan, adding some human and non-human primate studies.

Quirk provides tips on his approach to nurturing discovery and mentoring "off the beaten track" in an article published Jan. 30, 2018 in the Journal of Neuroscience. It marks nearly two decades since the lab's first publication in that journal, which showed that ventral medial prefrontal cortex was necessary for consolidation of extinction (loss of fear) memory in rodents.

Soon thereafter, the group made news when it reported in Nature that they had discovered the brain's equivalent of an "all clear" signal in the infralimbic cortex, that when mimicked with electrical stimulation, quelled conditioned fear in rats. Since then, the lab has been in the vanguard of translational studies extending insights from extinction learning experiments to mental disorders.

For example, in 2015 they reported in Nature a discovery of possible relevance to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)that an old fear memory is recalled by a separate brain pathway from the one originally used to recall it when it was fresh.

"More recently, my laboratory has explored circuits of active avoidance, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and frustration using deep-brain stimulation, optogenetics, and CRISPR-Cas9 techniques," Quirk added.

He credits support from NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as a key to the lab's success. For example, a FIRST Award from NIMH was renewed four times. The lab was also the first in Puerto Rico to receive a Presidential Early Career Award and a MERIT Award.

"Other grant 'firsts' for Puerto Rico were a CONTE Center P50 subaward, a Pathway to Independence Award (K99-R00) for my postdoc, and Dissertation Completion Awards (R36) for my graduate studentsall funded by NIMH," noted Quirk.

Quirk's report includes comments from former trainees, which he collected during a recent reunion celebrating the lab's 20th anniversary. For example, "After years of JClubs, you are never again satisfied with mediocre efforts," a former doctoral student commented about the lab's mandatory journal clubs.

Weekly lab meetings begun with guided meditation and "appreciations" set a tone that fosters a culture of cooperation, said Quirk. Rotating presentations by trainees ensure that everyone knows what each person is doing/thinking in the lab and can help guide it.

"It was impressive when I found a Quirk Lab member presenting another member's poster without being part of the study: lab meetings turned every member into defenders of the others' projects," observed a former student.

Lab members are encouraged to overcome any inclination to be socially polite and boldly ask questions of each other, Quirk said. The same high standard is expected in written communication. A "Six-Eyes Rule" dictates that manuscripts be critiqued by three outside readers before submission to a journal.

"You are writing for a brain that is not yours," he noted.

The idea to have what Quirk affectionately calls "Face Timeindividual one-on-one meetingsoriginated with students. "This was a firm deadline to make my data presentable and remind Greg of the importance of my project," said one current post-doc.

For three days each winter, the lab uses university funds to head the mountains for a Philosophy of Science Retreat. "Rather than discuss data, the idea of the retreats is to examine the philosophical issues that define us as scientists and underlie our approach to scientific questions," explains Quirk.

"The retreat gave me the security to rely on the other people in the lab," noted a current undergraduate. Each grad student or post-doc mentors two to four undergraduates.

In a recent NIMH Director's Message spotlighting fear lab trainees at last year's Society for Neuroscience Meeting, NIMH director Joshua A Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., wrote: "Dr. Quirk is a long-time NIMH grantee who has been a supportive and effective mentor, training numerous undergraduate and graduate students who have gone on to stellar neuroscience careers."

Explore further Brain recalls old memories via new pathways

More information: Quirk GJ. Neuroscience research and mentoring in Puerto Rico: what succeeds in this environment? , Journal of Neuroscience (2019). Journal information: Nature , Journal of Neuroscience Quirk GJ. Neuroscience research and mentoring in Puerto Rico: what succeeds in this environment? ,(2019). DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2352-18.2018
Dr. Ronald Crystal. Credit: Jesse Winter

A rapid, non-invasive eye exam that uses innovative imaging technology effectively measures the severity of disease in patients with a rare neurodegenerative disease called Friedrich ataxia, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers. The results suggest that the exam, known as corneal confocal microscopy (CCM), could be a rapid and sensitive tool for assessing patients in the clinic and act as a biomarker in clinical trials testing new therapies for the disease.

The paper, published in the Dec. 21 issue of the Annals of Neurology and online Oct. 7, provides compelling evidence for using CCM to assess the degeneration of corneal nerves in patients with Friedrich ataxia, a disease that affects the nervous system and causes increasing muscle movement problems, immobility and premature death. CCM produces high-resolution images of thin layers of corneal tissue, allowing investigators to measure nerve fiber density, length and branch density. The test takes a few minutes and requires a couple of drops of anesthetic in each eye before the pictures are taken. By contrast, current clinical assessments involve a series of evaluations to assess muscle movement and neurological performance and take much longer to complete.

"The corneal nerves are a window into the health of the nervous system," said senior author Dr. Ronald Crystal, chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine and the Bruce Webster Professor of Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Crystal is a paid consultant for Adverum, a biotechnology company that partially supported this study. "The fact that our results align so well with the gold standard clinical evaluation tools, the Friedrich's Ataxia Rating Scale (FARS) and the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) and the underlying genetics provides strong evidence that CCM is an efficient and accurate tool we should add to our diagnostic techniques."

Friedrich ataxia affects an estimated one in 50,000 people in the Caucasian population, with onset typically beginning between the ages of 10 and 15. It is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder, meaning that a person must inherit two abnormal frataxin genes, one from each parent, to develop the disease. This genetic abnormality causes increasingly impaired muscle coordination over time. Those diagnosed with the disorder typically require a wheelchair about 10 years after signs and symptoms appear, and most die in their late 30s. The symptoms include the loss of coordination of gait, hand, and eye movements, slurred speech, uneven weakness in muscles of the limbs, sensory loss, wasting of the optic nerve, abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, and diabetes. The disease is diagnosed through clinical and neurologic evaluations, followed by genetic testing.

For the study, Dr. Crystal, who is also a pulmonologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and colleagues at Weill Cornell Medicine, including lead author Dr. Odelya Pagovich in New York and co-senior investigator Dr. Rayaz Malik in Qatar, a pioneer of CCM, used the technology to examine the corneal nerves of 23 patients with Friedrich ataxia and 16 people without the disease. Patients with Friedrich ataxia had a significantly lower number of nerve fibers and shorter nerve lengths compared with people without the disorder.

The researchers compared the CCM test results with data from the current clinical assessment tools and genetic testing. The CCM results correlated with disease severity, age of disease onset and diagnosis, FARS and SARA scores, and genetic test results. For six of the 23 patients with Friedrich ataxia who were still ambulatory, the CCM results also correlated with gait abnormalities observed in walking tests. The strong correlation with existing assessment tools suggests that CCM could act as an accurate biomarker for the disease.

Currently, there are no available treatments for Friedrich ataxia. Recently, however, biotechnology companies have been testing experimental therapies in early-stage clinical trials and evaluating patients' responses with standard clinical assessments. Integrating CCM as a biomarker into future clinical trials could help researchers identify responders more quickly, optimize doses, and save valuable time in the drug development pipeline.

"As a rapid, non-invasive diagnostic test, CCM may serve as an effective therapeutic endpoint for measuring outcomes in future studies for Friedrich ataxia and potentially other neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease," Dr. Crystal said.

Explore further New study reveals reversibility of genetic nervous system disease

More information: Odelya E. Pagovich et al. Corneal confocal microscopy: Neurologic disease biomarker in Friedreich ataxia, Annals of Neurology (2018). Journal information: Annals of Neurology Odelya E. Pagovich et al. Corneal confocal microscopy: Neurologic disease biomarker in Friedreich ataxia,(2018). DOI: 10.1002/ana.25355
Ball-and-stick model of the testosterone molecule, C19H28O2, as found in the crystal structure of testosterone monohydrate. Credit: Ben Mills/Wikipedia

A new study of older men carried out by The University of Western Australia has found there is a link between men who have higher levels of the sex hormone estradiol, produced from testosterone, and slower ageing.

The study is the largest of its kind to look at the relationship between sex hormones and ageing in older men.

Testosterone plays a critical role in male sexual functioning, including modulation of libido, erectile function and production of sperm. It is also converted to estradiol, with higher levels of estradiol associated with longer telomeres, which are proteins that protect chromosomes from damage.

The researchers collected data from 2913 men in Perth aged between 70 and 89 and measured both testosterone and estradiol levels in their blood. The length of telomeres in their DNA from white cells was also measured.

The lead scientist of the study, Professor Bu Yeap from the UWA Medical School, said the researchers found a correlation between higher estradiol levels and longer telomeres. He said the protection of chromosomes from telomeres that were longer slowed the ageing process.

"The research suggests higher testosterone levels in older men, which is then converted to estradiol, might sustain youthfulness," Professor Yeap said.

"We know from the study that testosterone, estradiol and telomeres are linked, however further research is needed to explore how this relationship works.

"Testosterone is converted to estradiol but it's still unclear what determines the level of production."

Professor Yeap said other factors should also be considered in estradiol levels such as physical activity and body composition.

The research has been supported by National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and is published in Clinical Endocrinology.

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More information: Bu B. Yeap et al. Cross-sectional associations of sex hormones with leucocyte telomere length, a marker of biological age, in a community-based cohort of older men, Clinical Endocrinology (2018). Journal information: Clinical Endocrinology Bu B. Yeap et al. Cross-sectional associations of sex hormones with leucocyte telomere length, a marker of biological age, in a community-based cohort of older men,(2018). DOI: 10.1111/cen.13918
New research has found that women who have a heart attack, stroke or some other type of cardiovascular event before age 35 have twice the risk of going into early menopausewhich could create its own set of health hazards.

Menopause is the process in which a woman permanently stops having menstrual cycles. In many women, it occurs around age 51.

Past studies have found a link between women who had early menopause and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. But a group of researchers in Australia set out to see whether the reverse is true: Could a stroke, heart attack or other cardiovascular event in young women contribute to early menopause?

In new research being presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference next week in Honolulu, the scientists presented data on 177,131 women pooled from nine studies. The women were categorized according to age they went into menopause, classifying anyone who started before age 45 as "early."

They also looked at their self-reported cardiovascular events, such as heart attack, angina and stroke.

The study found that women who had a cardiovascular event before age 35 had twice the risk of being in menopause by the time they reached 45. Women who had an event after 40 were more likely to experience a "normal" menopause at around 51.

The findings should send a strong message to doctors of young women with heart disease, said the study's lead author, Dongshan Zhu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland in Australia.

"These women should be alerted by their physicians for their future high possibility of having early menopause, because early menopause is associated with higher risk of death, Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis," he said.

The findings illustrate the strong connection between female hormone levels and overall health, particularly heart disease, said Dr. Thomas Price, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Duke University in North Carolina.

Lower estrogen level is associated with a higher risk for heart disease for various reasons, including the hormone's positive effect on keeping blood vessel and artery walls flexible, he said.

Price, who was not connected with the study, said menopause is typically preceded by a gradual decline in hormones over a span of numerous years.

"It's not like your hormones are perfectly normal and all of sudden, poof, they're gone, and you stop having periods. It's a gradual thing," he said. "So, the question becomes, is there something about having a cardiovascular event that could cause early menopause? Or is it, more likely, that early menopause is associated with lower estrogen levels, which predisposes someone to cardiovascular events?"

Zhu said that because most of the women in the study were white, more research is needed to see whether the findings hold firm in other races and ethnic groups.

Additional studies also could examine whether genetic factors tie early-onset menopause to the occurrence of cardiovascular disease, he said, or whether environmental factors such as smoking also play a role.

Explore further Weight plays a role in menopause age

Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. If you have questions or comments about this story, please email editor@heart.org.
Marketing authorization of fexinidazole for the treatment of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), more commonly known as sleeping sickness, has been granted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This approval paves the way for the distribution of fexinidazole in endemic countries this year, with another submission planned in Uganda.

Sleeping sickness is usually fatal without treatment. Transmitted by the bite of a tsetse fly, it causes neuropsychiatric symptoms; including aggression, psychosis, and a debilitating disruption of sleep patterns that have given this neglected disease its name. About 65 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk.

"I have a personal connection to sleeping sickness. Growing up in East Africa, my mother was always worried that sleeping sickness would impact us as a family," says Ameet Nathwani, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Sanofi Medical. "The approval of fexinidazole in the Democratic Republic of Congo gives me great hope for our efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness by next year."

The current treatment option for sleeping sickness, while effective, was burdensome for patients and health workersrequiring logistical challenges of hospitalization, especially challenging for people living in remote areas.

Fexinidazole is approved in the DRC as a 10-day once-a-day treatment for T.b. gambiense sleeping sickness (the most common form of the disease, found in West and Central Africa). Importantly, fexinidazole is the first all-oral treatment that works both for (i) the early stage of the disease as well as the (ii) second stage of the disease in which the parasites have crossed the blood-brain barrier, causing patients to suffer from neuropsychiatric symptoms. Fexinidazole could, therefore, eliminate the need for patients' systematic hospitalization.

On 16 November 2018, The European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive scientific opinion of fexinidazolea result of clinical trials led by the non-profit research and development organization, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and an application submitted by Sanofi.

"We look forward to the implementation of fexinidazole as a first-line treatment and welcome this rapid approval of fexinidazole in the DRC very shortly after the EMA opinion, a testament to the dedication of the DRC Government through the Ministry of Health to eliminate HAT as a public health problem by 2020," says Dr. Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases at DNDi. "This shows the value of Article 58, an innovative regulatory mechanism intended for the review of new medicines destined for use outside of the European Union."

Sanofi had submitted a regulatory dossier to the EMA under Article 58 of Regulation 726/2004 in December 2017. By allowing for the participation of endemic countries (DRC and Uganda) and of the WHO in the evaluation of the fexinidazole regulatory dossier, approval under Article 58 also facilitates and could accelerate future national product registrations and patient access.

Provided by Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative
The New California State movement held its third Constitutional event at Veterans Memorial Hall in Roseville, California, on Jan. 26.

The self-governed legislature is a statewide grassroots effort to free most of Californias rural areas away from the current state and form a new one. So far, representatives from 47 out of 58 counties in California have joined this movement.

About 200 representatives throughout California attended the event on Jan. 26. Besides passing the three resolutions, they also drafted an outline of the New California States Constitution.

They also wrote a letter to President Trump. It was signed by Paul Preston, president of the movement.

We feel that we are threatened, said Preston. The principles of the Founding Fathers were the rights we have today are God-given rights and that only we can control the government; we are in charge of the government.

The movements self-governed legislature passed three resolutions. They claimed that the current States mono-party system and sanctuary state policy is causing violence to increase in California. This proves that the state failed to provide three conditions guaranteed by the Constitution.

Article IV Section Four of the U.S. Constitution declares that U.S. states are guaranteed a Republican form of government, protection against invasion, and protection against domestic violence.

One of the struggles that we have right now with California is we have absolutely no representation in the State. So all the rural counties in California have been completely devoid of representation, said David Arnold, a State Senator from Orange County.

For some reason, our legislatures, the people running this country and this State have forgotten their oath of their office, which is to uphold the Constitution, said Paul Taylor, former candidate for the California Senate.

Donald Wilson, a historian and advisor for the movement, said that the founding principals of America have always been against globalism.

When you look at the way we did things, you cant be president if you werent born here. Thats in the Constitution, said Wilson. And there were hard borders, and there were things when we even say We the people. Whos we? You know, people quote that line a lot, but whos we? We, those of us who are here, and who are citizens and who make our own country. Thats who the we are.

Terrence Bates, an assemblyman of the self-governed legislature from Orange County, said the current government in California has kept the people in bondage.

Theres taxation without representation, theres overregulation, the education system is horrible, said Bates. I have four kids and our children do not like what they are learning in schools. They feel like they are always having to explain themselves for being believers in God, and believers in traditional values and traditional family.

Bates was also excited to be sworn in at the gathering to join the New California State movement.

I believe this entire movement is in my DNA because my ancestor was George Read, who was the governor of Delaware and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Preston said the event is significant because everyone is watching what representatives are doing in New California.

Illinois, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and upstate New York have also had similar movements.

NTD News, Roseville, California
His backpack held less than 20 pounds of gear, including a down jacket, tent, food and water. He took his walking poles from the pack to create a splint and wrapped the leg with a bungee cord.

His right leg was broken, too, and he knew it, but he left it alone: The right leg didnt seem to need anything.

Hiker from Oregon hears his calls

He started yelling for help.

I could hear my voice echoing off Baron Lake below, Ross says.

Not long before, six hikers from the Chemeketans, a Salem, Oregon, hiking group, arrived at the lake, where they would camp that night.

I heard the rockslide and didnt think anything of it, since slides are typical, Joel Zak, the groups photographer, said by email. It wasnt until we heard a consistent call-out about every 15 minutes that all of us became concerned.

John Coyier, another Chemeketan who was there with his wife, Joanna Picchi, said they couldnt make out what was being said. I was convinced it was someone who needed help, Coyier said in a telephone interview.
This topic is prompted by an issue that the Idaho Legislature may be considering this session, and I will reference it toward the conclusion of this column. But first, I want to consider the idea of being a partisan. The term as a noun refers to someone who is a supporter, follower, adherent, devotee, champion, fan, fanatic, enthusiast, zealot, stalwart, or booster of a cause, person or party. I suspect that many of us would use that term from time to time about our feelings about a lot of those three things, but I would also say that our interest sometimes wanes, or other interests become more important. When I use the term nonpartisan to describe me or others, that is what I mean. My interests and enthusiasms change.

The idea I am proposing is that most public policy is mostly nonpartisan. We need to organize solutions to public problems. Since all politics is nothing more than the debate about the application and distribution of resources (time, money, property) toward a need, much of that discussion is about what is practical and possible. It usually drifts into partisan areas around the withholding of resources or disagreement that there is a problem to be solved at all. Often, as in the debate about climate change, the notion that there is no problem to be solved has its base in the withholding of resources to deal with it.
Ive been concerned about the shutdown and about people not having pay, Leavitt told the Times-News on Thursday, before the political impasse came to a temporary end. Without that kind of support, how do we get our air traffic controllers and others so essential to getting people in and out of Twin Falls to work?

Some Magic Valley-based companies contributed as well: On Friday, a Glanbia representative brought cheese, crackers, and nutritional products  along with some squeezable stress cows  to the airport for federal workers.

An executive with the company came up with the idea to donate cheese that morning after flying out of the airport, engagement manager Peggy Watland said.

It was a feel-good moment and we just expanded on it and ran with it, Watland said. We dont often take the time to help each other enough, so we just wanted to do something special.

While the shutdown has technically ended, not all government employees have received the pay they are owed yet. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that he hopes all workers will receive back pay this week, the Associated Press reported, with the exact timing depending on each individual agency.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls man told police he fired toward a home early Monday after people in the street began throwing things at his car.

Maurice A. Sanchez, 29, has been charged with felony unlawful discharge of a weapon at an occupied building and felony concealment of evidence. His bond has been set at $50,000.

A Twin Falls Police Department officer happened to be in the area at the time, around 1 a.m. Monday, while assisting Idaho State Police with a traffic stop on the 100 block of Locust Street.

He heard what he believed to be several shots fired in the area, Twin Falls Police Lt. Terry Thueson said.

A resident who lived in the 200 block of Walnut Street called 911 to report the shots fired, describing a vehicle that had been in the area and sped off at the same time. Another officer found the silver Jetta driving erratically in downtown Twin Falls and stopped the vehicle, according to court documents.

Sanchez, the driver, consented to a vehicle search. Police found an empty holster and one live round in the vehicle. After searching the surrounding area, they discovered a black revolver at Fourth Avenue North and Fairfield Avenue North. The .38 Special contained three spent shells.
States nationwide have increasingly had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs as major pharmaceutical companies ban prisons from using their products for capital punishment.

During a long period of testimony that began Monday and stretched into Tuesday, Zmuda went through dozens of redactions and the reasons behind them.

Just to protect the identity of that person from being at risk, he told correction department attorney Jessica Kuehl on why he blacked out the name of a hairstylist.

He also covered over the locations of two family members of a condemned man  both also prisoners.

Other redactions included the dates of practices of executions and the phone numbers of members of the clergy who were available to counsel condemned prisoners during their final days and hours.

The names of prison staffers called in to provide extra help manning the cell blocks on execution days were blacked out, along with aerial views of a prison complex and the names of companies who provided basic medical equipment like catheters and IV lines used in lethal injections.
TWIN FALLS  The Twin Falls County Historical Society will host Jim Gentry with his presentation Twin Falls Booms: 1915-1916 at 1 p.m. Feb. 9 at the museum which is located in the Union School Building on U.S. Highway 30 between Twin Falls and Filer.
KETCHUM  The 12th annual Family of Woman Film Festival, with the theme Women Still Waiting for Change, will begin Feb. 25 and run through March 3 at the Magic Lantern Cinemas, 100 Second St., Ketchum.

There will be a 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. screening for each film on the day of its presentation.

With the political turmoil around the world as well as in our own country, many may feel that the gains women have made in the past few years are slipping away, festival founder Peggy Goldwyn said in a statement. This year, we would like to point out that slow progress toward full equality remains a tide that cannot be turned, while recognizing those womens voices that are still waiting to be heard.

This year, the festival will present five documentary films and one dramatic film  each providing an important perspective on the lives of women. Following are the first two:


More women in urban areas fall victim to domestic violence in Indonesia than those in the rural areas, proving that a familys economic and social statuses do not always have a direct bearing on its susceptibility to violence, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS).



Khariroh Ali, Commissioner of National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), quoted a national survey conducted by BPS in 2017 that revealed that 36.3 percent of women who live in urban areas are prone to domestic violence, compared to women who live in rural areas 29.8 percent.



The survey also shows that 39.4 percent of women who graduated from high school or higher and 35.1 percent of women who do not work have experienced physical, psychological, and sexual violence from their partners or other people. The survey was participated by 9,000 women aged 15-64 years old.



This data is surprising because we assumed women in the villages who do not work and who have low level education are more vulnerable to domestic violence, but this survey shows the opposite, said Khariroh in a discussion held last week themed Womens Economic Empowerment: The Intersection with Domestic Violence at @America, Jakarta.



According to Komnas Perempuans annual report, 98 percent victims of domestic violence are women. The record also shows that from 2012 to 2017, 65 to 71 percent of the cases are domestic violence.



While economic empowerment may contribute positively to the prevention of domestic violence, some researches show that it can also trigger domestic violence in a family.The survey found that when women become financially independent, it triggers domestic violence because men feel that their superiority is threatened. This is what we call toxic masculinity. They cant accept women earning more than they do, added Khariroh.Therefore, economic empowerment is not the only factor that can prevent domestic violence, she said. The most important thing is to improve access to education to all and to transform social values to end patriarchy.Khariroh also called on the government to provide support for victims of domestic violence. The state must guarantee protection to violence survivors, providing medical and legal assistance, and creating empowerment programs so that they survive and thrive.Minister of Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Yohana Yembise said the government offers various training programs to empower women economically, including victims of domestic violence. The central government tries to work with regional governments to conduct training and counseling using their Regional Government Budget (APBD).We want women to be financially independent and are not dependent entirely on their husbands. Thats why we help facilitate home industries to mothers and women who are victims of domestic violence, including women who are single parents, said Yohana at the discussion.Find out how this YouTube channel offers a space for Ugandan women to discuss taboo issues affecting them and follow @bunnnicula on Twitter.
Grandpa was exaggerating about walking four miles uphill both ways to school in the snow. But it turns out he was telling the truth about one thing.

Madison just doesnt see extreme cold like it once did.

Most college freshmen had never experienced anything as cold as Saturdays low of minus 23  assuming they havent spent time up north  and Wednesdays projected minus 26 will be new territory for anyone younger than 23.

While the high is expected to reach only minus 13 on Wednesday  just 2 degrees shy of the 120-year-old record  climate data show cold snaps like this are far less common than they were a generation ago.

Between 1869 and 1999, the temperature hit minus 20 an average of almost 12 times per decade, according to National Weather Service data. Since 2000, its happened just twice: in 2000 and Saturday.

The average number of days per decade when it doesnt get above zero has fallen from 15 in the last century to just two.

And not only have the super-cold temperatures become less frequent, theyre also, well, warmer.
The strike talk was mostly about new hiring, smaller class sizes and salary increases. But lurking just below the surface during the teacher walkout in the Los Angeles Unified School District was another issue: charter schools, which many teachers (and their union) fear and loathe, seeing them as an existential threat to traditional public schools.

Indeed, one of the less-noticed provisions of the agreement to end the strike was that the school board would call for a statewide re-examination of the role and effect of charters, and that it would consider asking the state for a moratorium on any new ones. Board member Richard Vladovic said he will introduce a resolution on those subjects on Tuesday.

The states law authorizing the creation of charter schools has been around since 1992 and legislators have made it easier during the ensuing years for such schools to open. In L.A. Unified, their growth has been explosive: The district now has 277 charters, most of them independently run, though they receive public funding. Most are non-union. They enroll close to 140,000 students  about one in five in the district. Their growth is responsible for about half of the declining enrollment in traditional public schools that has sapped the districts finances over the last 15 years.
All non-essential state offices and agencies will be shuttered to the public Wednesday in preparation for sub-zero temperatures and life-threatening wind chills.

Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order Tuesday to close the offices, saying the weather presents "an imminent threat to the well-being of the public." State employees involved in emergency response, public safety and public health whose absence would compromise safety are required to work. They may only be released "based on operational needs."

The executive order allows state employees to request Wednesday off due to the weather and use leave time. It also directs agencies to offer employees the ability to work from home or use alternative work hours or days.

The Wisconsin State Capitol, though, will be open Wednesday.

Local governments, schools, shopping malls and restaurants are among a host of places across Wisconsin that plan to close Wednesday, when the wind chill is forecast to be as cold as minus 40 to minus 55 degrees throughout the day.
I would love to see it 12 months out of the year, not just when its 60 below, Girard said of the outpouring of support.

Kat Koski, who has been homeless for more than two months with her daughter, her daughters fiance and grandson, also called on others for help. She said compassion and generosity stopped with the holiday season. Koski said she was glad First United opened its doors for the homeless.

It shows people have hearts still, Koski said. Without the emergency shelter, she said she and her family would have either stayed in the library  where they are sometimes told they have too many bags to stay  or riding on Metro Transit buses to stay out of the brutal wind.

Different kinds of shelter

Counts of local homeless from January and July 2018 found 614 and 640, respectively, although most of them were in shelter. The vast majority want permanent housing, advocates say.

Rufus Miller, 66, who goes to The Beacon regularly and was there Tuesday, said hes been trying to find housing for a long time. Hes been homeless for about three years.

We need help here. We need affordable housing, Miller said.
If you were unmoved by the plight of millions of federal workers, aid recipients and national park cacti affected by the 35-day shutdown of the federal government, consider this: Its coming for your beer.

Kind of.

Alcohol is highly regulated by both state and federal governments, and while the regulation remained in place during the shutdown, the administration of it did not.

For breweries, this created delays in two key bits of federal red tape: the brewers permit  one of the first green lights necessary to make beer  and label approval for new products. Last weeks deal to fund the government for three weeks during negotiations on a permanent solution is obviously good news for brewers, but the damage done by 35 days of administrative inactivity will take weeks to clear.

The details of these regulations mean the shutdown is affecting different breweries to dramatically different degrees depending on their business model. Some are in a bind that threatens to scuttle their business before it even starts, others are mildly inconvenienced and others still could capitalize on a looming vacuum in the market.
Improvements slated for the final phase of the project include fixing the ceiling, updating a catering kitchen and adding second-floor bathrooms and an elevator.

Opening early

Krahenbuhl believes opening the opera house to some early functions will generate excitement from residents and businesses and that could lead to an increase in donations. That is key because no public funds are going to the project. Although city officials are supportive and applied for the DNR grant, no city funds have been given to the project, he said.

When you put in a center like that, it brings in enough people to really boost your bars, restaurants, your hotels, whatever, he said.

So as long as we make it safe, were grandfathered in to use it the way it was. We will be doing stuff as the weather allows us to do it because its not heated, its not air conditioned and theres no restrooms on the second floor yet.

Krahenbuhl has no doubts that the opera house will be busy once it officially opens. He based his expectations on the success of a opera house in Elkader, Iowa. Located just southwest of Prairie du Chien, it has a population of 1,200 people and is plagued by flooding problems because the Turkey River splits the village.
"That wind chill out there is not even a joke," he said. "I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside."

A period of light freezing rain or drizzle is possible Saturday afternoon and night.

The Weather Service said that in Madison on Wednesday, the high near 13 below will come with west winds at 10 to 15 miles per hour, producing wind chills of 40 below to 50 below, with some patchy blowing snow.

Overnight the low should plunge to near 30 below, with west winds easing to 5 to 10 mph, producing wind chills of 35 below to 45 below.

Theres a 50 percent chance for snow on Thursday, mainly after 4 p.m., with 1 to 2 inches possible as the high rises to 1 below under mostly cloudy skies. West winds should blow at 5 to 10 mph before turning out of the south in the afternoon, producing wind chills of 40 below to 50 below.

The snow should end overnight, with a low around 4 below and wind chills of 10 below to 15 below.

The Weather Service said skies over Madison should be partly sunny Friday, increasingly cloudy Saturday, cloudy Sunday, and mostly cloudy Monday and Tuesday, with highs near 19, 36, 41, 40 and 26, and lows Friday night through Monday night around 10, 34, 36 and 19.
STOUGHTON / SUN LAKES, Ariz.Michael Ray Whitney, age 77, of Stoughton and Sun Lakes, Ariz., journeyed to his heavenly home on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019. He was born Dec. 30, 1941, in Mankato, Minn., the son of George and Doris Whitney of Delavan, Minn. He attended Delavan High School where he graduated in 1959. At age 17, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and was trained as a drummer. He spent the remainder of his four year hitch performing in the U.S. Marine Corps Drum and Bugle Team, based in Hawaii and touring the Far East and Australia.

In 1963, he enrolled in the University of Minnesota as a music major, graduating in 1967. He worked his way through college by performing in night clubs in Minneapolis. While in college he met another drummer, Carol DiGiovanni, and they married in 1965. They had three daughters, Christine, April and Kimberly. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975.

Following college, Michael continued performing in various bands, and in 1972 was selected by the Hollywood USO for a tour of Vietnam and Thailand to entertain the troops.
KENOSHA  A Sturtevant couple recently had their new baby boy delivered by a Kenosha County Sheriffs Department deputy alongside the Highway 50 offramp from Interstate 94.

Kenosha County Sheriffs Sgt. Tony Gonzalez said that on the night of Jan. 18 the couple, who have yet to be publicly identified, were on their way from their home to Froedtert South/St. Catherines Hospital in Pleasant Prairie with the woman in labor during a snowstorm. However, the baby did not wait until they got there, and the couple pulled over on the southbound Highway 50 offramp on the City of Kenoshas west side.

At 9:46 p.m. Deputy Allison George, who has been with the Sheriffs Department for about two years, was called to the site for a report of a woman in labor. George was able to deliver the boy and provide a blanket. The parents waited about 10 minutes in their vehicle for an ambulance to arrive.

As of Monday, mother and baby were still in a hospital, Gonzalez said, although he could not confirm which hospital.

Gonzalez said George was recently honored for providing lifesaving measures at a Town of Wheatland home in November when there was a fatal shooting there. Four Racine residents face first-degree homicide charges in connection to that alleged home invasion that left one man dead and three others shot.
The plow driver whose tip led to the arrest of a Baraboo area murder suspect last week is seeking reward money in connection with the case.

Sauk County Sheriffs Office Detective Justin Hannagan said he spoke with the driver  who called 911 around 1 a.m. Wednesday to report suspicious activity outside a business on the east side of Madison  about the reward money.

The tip led to the capture of Robert M. Pulvermacher, 68, of Middleton, who at the time was wanted in connection with a Jan. 13 stabbing death in the parking lot of the Ho-Chunk Casino near Baraboo.

Sauk County Crime Stoppers offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who provided authorities with information leading to Pulvermachers arrest, and said separate reward money also may have been available.

Hannagan said Crime Stoppers is processing the claim, but does not disclose the identity of informants or the amounts they are paid. I can confirm that we had tips and they were acted on, Hannagan said.

Dane County released audio of the 911 call in which the plow driver told a dispatcher he saw suspicious activity outside Pulvermacher Cartage of Wisconsin, a trucking company owned by Pulvermachers brother. The driver said a car dropped off a man wearing jeans, a dark jacket and a blue hoodie.
I dont wish anything bad on him

According to the Sheriffs Office incident report, Stulo told a deputy that he had had drunk a few beers at Maxines, a bar at 835 Washington Ave., before driving and that he was looking at his phone when the crash occurred. He also allegedly failed field sobriety tests and refused to have his blood drawn until a warrant was acquired.

I dont wish anything bad on him, Scott said. Should he lose his job? I dont think so. What good is it going to do? I forgive him, but he still has to pay for what he did to me.  Im hoping he learned a lesson from this.

Scott said she has been undergoing physical therapy and seeing a psychiatrist as a result of the crash.

I dont have a normal life, she said.  I find myself angry, because of the way I am hurting all the time and going to all these therapy sessions. I was obeying the law, and he wasnt obeying the law. And thats what put me in this situation.

The crash

Scott doesnt remember much about the crash. She guesses she blacked out momentarily after her car, a Chevy Impala, was struck from behind by Stulos truck on the 1900 block of State Street.
The United Auto Workers financed the March on Washington to a major degree, because the NAACP and the Urban League doubted it would be successful and were reluctant to be identified with it. "When it became clear that we were a force to be reckoned with, then every organization wanted to claim credit for the march," Black said.

A: As far as the being a part of the lower class, it's gotten worse. The middle class, because they usually try to live in mixed-race communities, it's gotten better. Now the police force, however, for that lower class is more dangerous because (the police) don't feel threatened whatever they do. Would he have shot someone 16 times (in my neighborhood, back in the day), the whole community would have converged on (Van Dyke) immediately and maybe he would have been shot by one of the neighbors in the old community. (The police) just start shooting depending where you are. (Laquan McDonald) could not have been shot 16 times in Hyde Park. All of Hyde Park would have been enraged. In my day, many (white) police were known by the people in the community. Even with black officers now, they are not as responsible to the community as they used to be. There is a difference in terms of that kind of change. Some for the better, many worse.
Then Evers named the hope. The governor spoke with the authority conferred upon him by the voters and said: I believe this is the year (that legislators will stop neglecting the achievement gap). And, he added, my Urban Initiatives programs will also empower minority students in our states highest-need districts by expanding early childhood education and summer school grant programs.

Some critics of Evers will suggest that he was too optimistic in making that announcement. Or too naive. But we think the governors approach is the right one.

Walker was a disaster as a governor because he failed to aim high. He never understood the Wisconsin Idea or this states historic determination to lead rather than follow. Walker was satisfied to collect talking points and ideas from right-wing groups funded by the out-of-state billionaires who paid for his campaigns.

The defeated former governor made no attempt to call on legislators to go big and take on fundamental issues. He was satisfied to spend his time attacking unions and public education and public services, and trying to make it harder to vote.
In a special report back in 2015, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked whether Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was single-handedly trying to gut the state's open records law.

The report came on the heels of what was then the most brazen attack on Wisconsin's longstanding law that presumes, unless there are certain extenuating circumstances, that all records kept by state and local governments are open to the public. The attack was made in the middle of the night before the July Fourth holiday by inserting words into the state budget that few legislators had seen. Although the provision had been drafted several months before so it could be inserted when the time was right, only a select group of legislative leaders had seen it.

When it was discovered by reporters and alert citizens, there was no end to the outrage from all corners of the state. At first no one claimed responsibility for the secret maneuver that virtually exempted legislators from the states openness laws. But there was little doubt that Speaker Vos was fully aware of the chicanery and, as it turned out, was the mastermind behind it.
Trump wins! says Political Environment's James Rowen. He wins because Harley Davidson's sales are dropping. Remember when the president called for a boycott of the iconic Wisconsin manufacturer when Harley said it would switch some of its production overseas? Rowen says Scott Walker sat by last summer as Trump trashed Harley -- and is still going to be the head of Trump's Wisconsin re-election campaign.

Writing on WisOpinion, Bill Kaplan says the silver lining of the government shutdown is that it helped people realize the importance of government programs that help regular people -- programs like food inspection, air safety, and tax refunds. The voters blamed Trump and the GOP for federal workers' woes and loss of services to the public. Kaplan hopes the experience will encourage state Republicans to support accepting the additional Medicaid dollars that Gov. Scott Walker rejected and Gov. Tony Evers wants to bring into the state. The recent Marquette Poll found that over 60 percent of state residents think the funds should be accepted.
In a joint statement, Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers "is inheriting the best budget scenario in a generation."

"Wisconsin's finances are in great shape. No amount of spin or rhetoric can change the facts. As the budget process begins, we look forward to continuing to fund our priorities at historic levels while at the same time cutting taxes for families across Wisconsin," Darling and Nygren said.

An Evers spokeswoman painted a different picture.

"It is 2019 and Governor Evers has inherited a budget from Republicans defined by eight years of failing to fully fund our public schools, ignoring our criminal justice system crisis, tax policies that prioritize millionaires instead of working Wisconsin families, no long-term solution on transportation, and attempts to gut healthcare protections for millions of Wisconsinite," said Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff in a statement.
Construction on the facility is expected to take five years, with a 2022 completion date. Foxconn is eligible for up to $1.35 billion in credits tied to capital investments and job creation over a seven-year period, with a maximum of $193 million in credits per year. The company is also eligible for a sales and use tax exemption on building materials, supplies and equipment used for construction of the facility, amounting to about $139 million.

Foxconn is eligible for another $1.5 billion in tax credits tied solely to job creation, distributed over a 15-year period. Those credits can be earned on wages for employees earning between $30,000 and $100,000 per year. The company is required to pay an average annual salary of $53,875 in order to qualify for credits.

The company is required to employ a minimum number of people in each year of the deal in order to receive the jobs credits, starting at 260 in 2018. The minimum threshold increases each year until 2027, when it reaches 10,400. If, in any year, the company does not reach the minimum employment numbers, it will not receive the jobs credits.

In order to receive the maximum credits of $1.5 billion by 2032, the company must employee 13,000 people. If Foxconn were to only meet the minimum thresholds, it could earn up to $1.06 billion.
"We think that education reform, and a lot of these ideas are bipartisan ... will get serious consideration from the Republican majorities and Gov. Evers," Szafir, WILL's executive vice president, said in an interview. "Obviously, we understand the world we operate on. Whenever you talk about giving parents more educational opportunities, that's going to turn off politicians that are more closely aligned to the teachers unions."

Szafir and Sobic cited some of the report's proposals such as course choice as possible ground for bipartisanship.

Course choice, also known as part-time open enrollment programs, allow students to take courses at other schools without having to switch schools. The report cities an example from Green Bay where public school students are able to take Mandarin language courses at Notre Dame Academy, since the course is not offered through the Green Bay School District.

"What surprised me was that we have several existing programs like course choice that are providing Wisconsin families with more educational opportunities, but because of the administrative and regulatory burden it has been more difficult for families to access those programs," said Sobic, WILL's director of education policy. "There's a lot of opportunities for the state Legislature and Gov. Evers to provide more educational opportunities across the state."
Zhuhais real estate market has been underestimated and there is no room for the citys housing prices to go down, according to Roy Ho, director of Centaline Macau Property Agency Limited.

A recent report that laid out 16 cities in China with the highest property risk profiles  known as Red Flag Towns  found that the neighboring city of Zhuhai was the third riskiest. The ranking was determined by the average loan-to-deposit ratio of property purchases, as of 2017 data.

According to the report, average property loans in Zhuhai reached about 140 percent of deposits in 2017 and were exceeded only by the property markets of Huaian in Jiangsu Province and Xiamen in Fujian Province, which both exceeded 175 percent. With the exception of Hefei in Anhui Province, ranking fourth on the list just below Zhuhai, the next 12 cities all measured below 110 percent.

Contacted by the Times, Ho declined to comment on the abovementioned ranking of Zhuhai. However, he said that Zhuhais real estate market is worth more than its current valuation. Zhuhai is a city [where] the real estate market is being underestimated, he argued. Its not a city that has high housing prices.

There is a growing interest in purchasing property in Zhuhai among Hong Kong and Macau residents. Residents from the two SARs account for 40 percent of the total number of buyers of projects in Zhuhai, while they constitute 60 percent of Hengqin property buyers, according to Ho.

I will not say that Zhuhais housing prices will go up. But there is not much room for the price to decline either, said Ho, adding that many people are paying close attention to Zhuhai.

When talking about people borrowing money to purchase properties in Zhuhai, Ho expressed that he does not think Zhuhai has a high rate of loans.

Its actually not high at all, said Ho, explaining that the house purchase restriction policy [in Zhuhai] restricts everything in a [strict] manner, regardless of the size of the property or whether the purchase involves a second property.

Loans are at most 50 percent [of one propertys total value]. Normally they are 30 percent or 40 percent if buyers are purchasing their first property. The first installment is normally paid with cash, said Ho.

In Hos opinion, Zhuhai currently enjoys several favorable policies for the development of Hengqin, including its free trade zone.

When these things [projects that benefit from favorable policies] become mature, [the Zhuhai real estate] market will probably change a lot. However, these projects are currently being carried out [and are not completed yet]. Now, [the Zhuhai real estate market] is only waiting for a critical moment, Ho told the Times. JZ
President Xi Jinping is set to visit Macau to mark the 20th anniversary of the SARs handover, Guangdongs security chief revealed.

A South China Morning Post report mentions that a security plan is being worked on, adding that the communication center for police forces will be set up by October to handle the security details and operational command for the presidents trip.

In October, a Greater Bay Area police communication center will be set up in Zhuhai, Li Chunsheng, head of the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department said.

[Xi] will come and join the celebrations for the 20th anniversary in Macau, where he will deliver an important speech.

The information was revealed at a meeting in Guangzhou where dozens of officials from the city of Maoming discussed its annual report.

The province intends to collaborate with Hong Kong and Macau to create an international innovation and technology hub  which is a top priority for this year.

According to Li, this year is a politically significant year, as it celebrates the 70th anniversary of the establishment of China, as well as Macaus 20th year of handover. Li also indirectly mentioned the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijings Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Its the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China, its the 20th anniversary of Macaus handover, and of course, its the anniversary of a series of incidents, which took place 20, 30 and 10 years ago, he said. The hostile forces inside China have long marked this year as an important time to implement their plan  which is a vain attempt  to overthrow our system.

The official added that Guangdong had recently organized a special meeting and rolled out eight operations to strike illegal activities that will jeopardize political security, including strengthening control over universities, the social sciences sector, and the internet.

We must resolutely defend the countrys political security, Li said. Among all types of security, political security is the most prominent and its two essential parts are the security of our socialist system and the security of the Chinese Communist Partys regime.
PHILIPPINES The head of the worlds largest body of Muslim-majority countries has strongly condemned the bombing of a Catholic church in the Philippines that killed 20 people and wounded nearly a dozen.

MALAYSIA Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that proceeding with a multibillion-dollar China-backed rail link project would impoverish the country, saddling the government with excess debt for the next 30 years.

THAILANDs military government has suspended the licensing of commercial marijuana-based products for medical use amid concern that foreign pharmaceutical companies might try to monopolize the market.

NORTH KOREA is unlikely to give up its nuclear capabilities, the top U.S. intelligence official said, even as President Donald Trump expresses confidence he can persuade Kim Jong Un to disarm.

PAKISTANs top court yesterday upheld its acquittal of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, paving the way for Aasia Bibi to leave the country in a blow to radical Islamists who had demanded her execution.

IRAQ The leader of one of the most powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq said that he expects a vote in the coming months by Iraqs parliament calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, underscoring the jostling for power between Iran and the U.S. in this key Middle Eastern country.

SYRIA Government forces shelled a northwestern town held by al-Qaida-linked militants yesterday, killing at least 10 people and wounding others.

BULGARIAs prime minister said yesterday that his country still aims to adopt the euro by 2022 despite some opposition by some local businesses that fear greater scrutiny of the economy.

SPAIN Official statistics show that Spains jobless rate dropped to 14.45 percent in 2018, the lowest in one decade.

BRAZIL Authorities issued arrest warrants yesterday for five people in connection with a dam collapse that killed at least 65 people as it plastered part of a city with reddish-brown mud and iron ore mining waste.

US Insurance claims from Californias deadly November 2018 wildfires have topped USD11.4 billion, making the series of fires some of the most expensive in state history.
The Trump administrations unveiling of criminal charges against the Chinese tech giant Huawei has complicated high-level talks set to begin today in Washington that are intended to defuse the trade war between the administration and Beijing.

The Justice Department charged yesterday [Macau time] that Huawei had violated U.S. sanctions against sales to Iran and stolen trade secrets from T-Mobile, a U.S. partner. Those charges cut to the heart of some of the administrations key complaints about Chinas trade practices.

Analysts said the trade talks would likely proceed, but reaching any substantive agreement would probably be harder. And unless the two sides can forge some sort of accord by March 1, U.S. tariffs on USD200 billion of Chinese imports are set to rise from 10 percent to 25 percent.

The Chinese will keep talking, said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. Treasury official. They wont be happy with the Justice Department action, but I think they would like to keep it separate from the trade talks.

Representatives of U.S. business groups privately raised concerns that the administrations actions could poison the atmosphere between the two sides. Any backlash in China against the indictment of Huawei, one of the countrys global powerhouses, could limit Beijings ability to agree to anything that might be seen as bowing too willingly to U.S. demands.

The Justice Department has also charged Huaweis chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. The United States is seeking to extradite Meng, who has been held in Canada since Dec. 1.

Sarah Sanders, the White House spokeswoman, was asked whether the criminal charges against Huawei were linked to the trade talks with China and amounted to a carrot-and-stick approach.

No, those two things are not linked, she said. They are a totally separate process.

This weeks negotiations were already facing low expectations.

We are anticipating no big outcomes this week, Erin Ennis, senior vice president at the U.S.-China Business Council, said before the Huawei charges were announced.

The Trump administration, with support from U.S. businesses, wants China to make fundamental changes to its economy that China is reluctant to accept and that will be difficult to verify, analysts say. The administration has accused Beijing of deploying predatory trade tactics, ranging from requiring U.S. and other foreign companies to hand over technology in return for access to the vast Chinese market to outright cyber-theft.

Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative and lead negotiator in this weeks talks, wants China to toughen its protections of intellectual property and to stop unfairly subsidizing its state-owned enterprises.

The scope of these talks will be the broadest and deepest in U.S.-China history, Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said.

Yet reaching the kind of deal the United States wants could prove elusive if not impossible. Chinese officials deny that they force U.S. companies to transfer technology. And they regard the support of their state-owned companies and the acquisition of cutting-edge technology, much of it from abroad, as vital to Chinas economic development.

U.S. companies in China say that forced technology transfers typically happen at the local level and stem from informal pressure by Chinese officials, which would make it difficult to verify whether Beijing has complied with any major agreement.

In previous rounds of talks, China has shown little inclination to yield to the administrations demands.

China has yet to show any indication that it is ready to address U.S. and global concerns about its structural issues, said Scott Kennedy, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The two sides are pretty far apart.

Beijing has previously offered to increase its purchases of U.S. products, notably soybeans and other agricultural goods as well as natural gas. This would help address Trumps concern about the gaping U.S. trade deficit with China. Beijing could also open more industries to U.S. companies and pledge better protection for U.S. intellectual property. In return, China could press the U.S. to remove the tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed last year.

Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said that China would likely accept such a deal, if it were offered. Doing so would outweigh any concerns China has about Huawei.

If they think they can get the deal that they want, they wont cancel the talks over Huawei, he said. Christopher Rugaber, Washington, AP

Australias TPG abandons mobile network plan over Huawei ban

Australian company TPG Telecom said yesterday it had abandoned the rollout of what would have been the countrys fourth mobile network because of a ban on Chinese giant Huawei, which would have been the main equipment vendor.

In light of the ban announced in August, that upgrade path has now been blocked, TPGs statement said.

Australia blocked Huawei and Chinese mobile device maker ZTE Corp. from its 5G network due to security concerns. The government said involvement of a company likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government presented too much risk.

Several governments have been scrutinizing Huawei over its links to the Chinese government. The private Chinese company started by a former Peoples Liberation Army major in 1987 suffered a setback in the U.S. market in 2012 when a congressional report said it was a security risk and warned phone companies not to buy its equipment.

The U.S. Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Monday against Huawei, two of its subsidiaries and a top executive, who are accused of misleading banks about the companys business and violating U.S. sanctions.

The company is also charged in a separate case with stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors are seeking to extradite the companys chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and allege she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huaweis business dealings in Iran. She was arrested on Dec. 1 in Canada.

TPG said it had explored other options but concluded it does not make commercial sense to invest further shareholder funds [] in a network that cannot be upgraded to 5G.

TPG executive chairman David Teoh said: It is extremely disappointing that the clear strategy the company had to become a mobile network operator at the forefront of 5G has been undone by factors outside TPGs control. AP
Pakistans top court yesterday upheld its acquittal of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, clearing the last legal hurdle and freeing Aasia Bibi to leave the country in a move that dealt a blow to radical Islamists who had demanded her execution.

Following the landmark decision, Bibi will finally be able to join her daughters who earlier fled to Canada where they have been given asylum.

Bibis lawyer, Saiful Malook, who returned to Islamabad after fleeing the country amid death threats, called the decision a victory for Pakistans constitution and rule of law. The three-judge Supreme Court panel had insisted on very strict proofs of blasphemy and found none, he said.

Pakistans Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa who led the panel of judges dismissed the petition filed by radical religious leaders. The extremists had petitioned the court to overturn its acquittal and send her back to prison for execution. He said in court that Bibis accusers were guilty of perjury and if the case had not been so sensitive, they should have been jailed for life.

The image of Islam we are showing to the world gives me much grief and sorrow, Khosa said.

Bibi, who spent eight years on death row and who has been under guard at a secret place since her acquittal last October, was overjoyed at the news, which she heard over the TV.

I am really gratefully to everybody, now after nine years it is confirmed that I am free and I will be going to hug my daughters, a friend quoted Bibi as saying. The friend spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity fearing for his own safety.

Following her October acquittal, radical religious parties took to the streets to protest, calling for the killing of judges who acquitted Bibi and for the overthrow of Prime Minister Imran Khans government. They also filed the last-minute appeal for a review of the Supreme Court acquittal.

The protests were spearheaded by the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, whose single point agenda is protection of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

Bibis case goes to the core of one of Pakistans most controversial issues  the blasphemy law, often used to settle scores or intimidate followers of minority religions, including minority Shiite Muslims. A charge of insulting Islam can bring the death penalty.

But the accusation on its own is sometimes enough to whip up vengeful mobs, even if the courts acquit defendants. A provincial governor who defended Bibi was shot and killed, as was a government minority minister who dared question the blasphemy law.

Bibi, who always insisted that she was innocent, has said she will leave the country as soon as her legal battles are over. Her lawyer, who fled the country after receiving death threats, returned to Pakistan for the final review.

Bibis ordeal began on a hot day in 2009 when she brought water to fellow farmhands who refused to drink from the same container as a Christian woman. AP
Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman told a judge yesterday [Macau time] that he wont take the witness stand in his own defense at his U.S. drug-trafficking trial, ending speculation that he might go for broke and build on a notorious reputation already cemented by the sprawling government case against him.

Your honor, me and my attorneys have spoken about this, and I wont testify, Guzman said through a Spanish interpreter in a rare instance of him standing up and speaking in court.

The decision, along with the defenses plan to call only two brief witnesses, could bring the trial to a sooner-than-expected conclusion. Closing arguments were set to begin Wednesday with deliberations starting as soon as Friday afternoon.

Guzmans lawyers say hes being framed by a cadre of cooperators who were far more culpable in the Sinaloa cartels wildly lucrative cocaine-smuggling enterprise.

As the government was finally concluding a case that began in mid-November, an actor who played Guzman on a popular Netflix series caused a minor stir Monday by showing up in the courtroom as a spectator. The defendant cracked a smile and waved when Narcos: Mexico cast member Alejandro Edda was pointed out to him, Edda told reporters.

It was a very surreal moment, I have to be honest, the actor said.

Surreal was an apt description for many aspects of the governments case, including testimony from several cooperators that made Guzmans delight at seeing Edda seem understandable. Some of the more than 50 government witnesses said Guzman had spoken often of his dream of being portrayed on film or being the subject of an autobiography about his rise to power as the Sinaloa cartel boss.

The highlights of the government case offered plenty of potential material, starting early in the trial with testimony by a former Sinaloa cartel lieutenant describing how a car carrying Guzman into Mexico City shortly after he escaped prison in 2001 got a police escort by highway officers. A suspected informant claimed he had survived several attempts on his life ordered by Guzman, including a knife attack at a jail right after he heard a brass band ominously playing a favorite corrido folk song of Guzmans  Un Puno De Tierra  over and over.

A former Colombian kingpin who once supplied the cartel with tons of cocaine, Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, made an impact solely by the way he looked while testifying  with his face distorted by an extreme makeover meant to hide his identity. Ramirez explained that he had undergone at least three plastic surgeries that altered my jawbone, my cheekbones, my eyes, my mouth, my ears, my nose.

Much of the testimony was devoted to how corrupt Mexican authorities had a voracious appetite for drug money. One cooperator said Guzman had paid former President Enrique Pena Nieto USD100,000, a claim Pena Nieto denied.

Three of the latest witnesses kept the drama alive: A former cartel computer tech who testified how, after being flipped by the FBI, he showed them how to intercept the syndicates phone calls and texts that Guzman had monitored with spyware; a member of the cartel security team who alleged Guzman shot a kidnapped victim before having the man buried alive; and an ex-girlfriend who described how they evaded a manhunt  one of his specialties  using a trapdoor underneath a safehouse bathroom that let to a drainage tunnel that he used to run away, naked, in 2014.

Guzman was captured in 2015 and escaped jail through a tunnel dug into his prison cell before he was sent in 2017 to the U.S. Hes been in solitary confinement ever since and would face life in prison if convicted. Tom Hays, New York, AP
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that proceeding with a multi-billion-dollar China-backed rail link project would impoverish the country, saddling the government with excess debt for the next 30 years.

Since winning a historic vote last May, Mahathirs government has axed or reviewed large-scale infrastructure projects to rein in surging national debt that it blames mostly on corruption in the previous government.

But there is confusion over the status of the USD20 billion East Coast Rail Link following recent conflicting statements by two Cabinet ministers. Mahathirs comments suggested it might be called off.

He said the cost of the project could exceed 100 billion ringgit ($24.3 billion) upon completion.

It is not that we do not want to honor our contracts, but we just cannot pay, Mahathir said. It will impoverish us so we seek understanding of the parties concerned, that it is not because we just want to frustrate or throw out a contract, but because we are really tied in terms of finance.

Paying compensation wont be as much as the amount of debt we will carry for the next 30 years, he added.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the project had been agreed to on the basis of mutual respect and equality.

He said the two sides were discussing the issue.

The 688 kilometer (430 miles) East Coast Rail Link is a key part of Chinas regional Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. It would connect Malaysias west coast to rural eastern states. It is largely financed by China and the main contract was awarded in 2016 to the China Communication Construction Company, or CCCC, by former Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Officials have said the projects final cost is about 50 percent higher than estimated by the previous government.

During a trip to China last August, Mahathir initially said the project would be cancelled. He later said negotiations were underway about scaling down the project or delaying it. The situation was muddled when Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali on Saturday said the Cabinet had agreed to terminate the project but Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng disputed that.

Mahathir also said that Lim will make an official announcement soon.

The government has also said it is investigating whether any money in the rail project has been channeled by Najibs government to repay debts at the 1MDB state investment fund. A massive financial scandal at 1MDB led to the ouster of Najibs coalition. Najib is facing multiple corruption charges linked to 1MDB. AP
The commencement into operation of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HKZMB) in late October last year, which added traffic congestion pressure to an area already suffering from the consequences of being the largest border checkpoint to mainland China, was the main topic that gathered lawmakers attention during yesterdays session at the Legislative Assembly (AL). The plenary meeting had been scheduled to address enquiries from the lawmakers to the government and hear its replies.

From the start, lawmakers Angela Leong and Chan Hong launched the topic of the HKMZB adding to traffic congestion  in particular the trouble at the roundabout of the Perola Oriental  wanting to know how and when the government plans to address this and other problems related to traffic.

The Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosario, led the governments reply, noting the recent enforcement of several measures in the place, which included more road lanes to and from the Border Gate as well as easing the access of traffic coming from the bridge port and heading to Taipa with the addition of an exclusive corridor for such direction.

A representative of the Transport Bureau noted several other measures, such as the inclusion of an emergency circulation lane in the area of Avenida Marginal do Hipodromo and a restriction imposed on tourism buses from December 8, restricting access during several hours of the day and on weekends. The representative said that the measures form the basis of a strategy that is already showing positive results.

Regarding the planned connection between Zone A of the new landfills and the peninsula, the Secretary said, besides the existing connection, we are planning three others, [one of which is] a connection to Rua dos Pescadores, which is now in conception phase.

Another connection would link the area in the surroundings of the Outer Harbor to Zone A, but first a feasibility study will be required as we need to take into account several factors such as the maritime traffic in the Outer Harbor and the existing flyover structures.

The third connection would link Zone A to Zone B around the [Macau] Science Centre, which is in design phase and I can say that we already decided that would be through an underwater tunnel since we are very close to Ponte da Amizade.

We expect to present a plan for [the Rua dos Pescadores connection] at the end of this year, said the Secretary, and we foresee the presentation of the final plan for [Zone A to Zone B] construction in 2020.

The government also took the opportunity to discard once more the idea of using the lower deck of the Sai Van Bridge as a corridor for motorcycles, replying to a suggestion from lawmaker Chan Hong followed by clarifications called for by Pereira Coutinho.

The lower deck of the Sai Van Bridge will be used for the LRT [Light Rail Transit], said the Secretary, noting, this deck is not for regular access; its purpose is for emergency use. It does not have the conditions to be used for regular vehicle circulation.

Besides, with the construction that is currently undergoing at Barra for the Transport Hub, this deck access would be suppressed, the representative of Transport Bureau added, noting that the bridge is already served by an motorcycle exclusive corridor that has proved effective. Using that as an example, the government plans to adopt the same solution for the fourth bridge between the Peninsula and Taipa.

The lawmakers insisted on a concrete timeline and budget, noting that there is also urgency for such links to be built.

Yes, there is urgency, acknowledged Rosario. There is a great traffic jam. We would like to expedite all this  including the fourth bridge  that we will launch the public tender for next month. [] At that time we will know the timeline and an approximate budget. Only after the tender is launched we can know more. I think it should be around MOP1 billion, but soon we will know for sure.

Advancing on time, the government noted that the public tender conditions have already established a maximum construction time of 1,440 working days. According to the Secretary, an overrun of about 20 percent in terms of budget and 10 to 20 percent in terms of time is considered normal for this kind of project.

rosario clarifies peninsula line of lrt

ON THE sidelines of Legislative Assembly session, the Secretary for Transport and Public works clarified that the so-called Eastern Line of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) would connect the Pac On Ferry Terminal in Taipa to Zone A of the landfills and then through the shoreline to the Border Gate. He said it would, for the time being, be the only route considered after the conclusion of the Taipa line and the connection of the route to the Barra Transport Hub. The Secretary also hinted that the connection would be made through an underwater tunnel as there is no plan for it to be included in the fourth link bridge between Macau and Taipa.
Nevada gambling regulators announced a settlement yesterday with casino mogul Steve Wynns former company over allegations that former executives failed on multiple occasions to investigate claims of sexual misconduct against him.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board detailed at least seven allegations of misconduct by Wynn dating to 2005 in which former executives and managers of Wynn Resorts became of aware of the claims but failed to act. The board also said Wynns conduct was inappropriate and unsuitable and violated company policies.

Wynn resigned from his company in February 2018 and has denied any misconduct.

The control boards settlement with Wynn Resorts does not revoke or limit its gambling license but requires the company to pay a fine. The amount will be set by the Nevada Gaming Commission, but it wasnt immediately clear when that could occur.

Wynn Resorts said in a statement the closing of the boards investigation was an important remedial step and noted that any employee named in the control boards report as having been aware of the allegations but who failed to investigate or report them are no longer with the company.

We have fully cooperated and been transparent with the board in this in-depth investigation. We look forward to appearing before the Nevada Gaming Commission to review the settlement and establish the final resolution of the investigation, the statement said.

Wynns attorney L. Lin Wood said he was busy with a deposition for another case Monday and was not in a position to respond.

The Nevada Gaming Control Boards investigation began last year after a January 2018 report in the Wall Street Journal that said a number of women reported they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn, including one case that led to a USD7.5 million settlement with a manicurist.

Its complaint said that the woman in 2005 alleged she had been raped by Wynn and became pregnant as a result. The complaint said the salons management reported the allegations to human resources and at least four former executives failed to take action after learning of the allegations.

The complaint said former executives also failed to investigate after a cocktail server alleged that Wynn pressured her into a nonconsensual sexual relationship from 2005 to 2006, which resulted in him paying a private settlement of $975,000 to the woman and her parents.

The complaint also says Wynn sexually harassed multiple flight attendants with Las Vegas Jet, LLC., a Wynn Resorts subsidiary that provided pilots and other flight services for several aircraft owned by the company.

The report also included allegations from three workers at the Wynn Resort spa that Wynn sexually harassed them while he was receiving massages in 2014, allegations that Wynn engaged in sexual misconduct in 2005 against a former cocktail server and flight attendant, allegations that a Wynn employee, not named in the report, facilitated sexual relationships for Wynn and hotel guests with cocktail servers, and allegations made in a 2007 email to Wynns former general counsel alleging that a former executive not named in the report loves sleeping with cocktail servers.

Along with the probe by Nevada regulators, a similar investigation was launched in Massachusetts, where Wynn Resorts plans to open a $2 billion casino-hotel this summer near Boston. Wynn has sued to block the release of a Massachusetts Gaming Commission report on its investigation, arguing it contains confidential information that is protected by attorney-client privilege.

A Nevada judge has temporarily blocked the reports release.

The Macau gaming authority did not open its own investigation into Wynn Resorts but said last year that it was seeking more information from local subsidiary Wynn Macau. The local arm of the Wynn casino empire said it would fully cooperate with any requests from the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

Wynn Resorts said the company had undergone an extensive self-examination over the last twelve months, to create a safe, healthy and supportive workplace.

The changes included leadership changes, including a new CEO and changeover at the companys board of directors, sexual harassment prevention training for all employees, a womens leadership council that promotes equality in the workplace and studies of pay and promotion equity.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officer Larry Hadfield said he was not aware of the police department launching any criminal investigations based on allegations released in the report. MDT/AP
The Second Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) members consider the regime of the System Framework for Private School of Non-tertiary Education unfair to schools in regard to liability for violations, according to the chairman of the committee, Chan Chak Mo.

Yesterday, the committee made the first detailed review of the regime, with several of the ALs legal advisers raising many questions about the bill. The committee hopes that the government can explain and clearly answer the questions.

The bill indicates that if a schools running entity or operator violates the rules when performing its duties, the operator then must bear civil, criminal and administrative responsibilities.

According to Chan, many of the committee members expressed their disapproval toward this particular article.

Lawmakers in opposition to these clauses argue that the school operator is not aware of the situations in the school, or the violations, and they thus deem it unfair for school operators to be wholly accountable for the responsibilities. In addition, the members expressed their concerns over the requirements for a school board.

The framework proposes that the operational entity must establish a school board that will be able to appoint and dismiss the rector, approve the number of permanent school staff, make decisions regarding the schools teaching policies and development plan, as well as supervise the schools operation.

The school board will be composed of a minimum of seven members, consisting of the rector, teachers, and parents.

Previously, lawmaker Pereira Coutinho expressed his worries about a school board depriving schools of their autonomy.

Sulu Sou also criticized that a school board might be established for vested interests.

The regime proposes that the chairman of the board should select secretaries who are not members of the school board.

The lawmakers asked the government to clearly state the recruitment procedure for secretaries and the selection method of the members of the board.

In addition to the above controversial articles, the bill also proposed conditions under which a school could take the initiative to shut itself down or for a school to be mandatorily required to close.

In the committee members opinion, the law did not clearly state the solution for a closure situation, as it is unclear whether the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) will first be involved in handling a closure situation as well as handling the transformation of the operators of a school.
"She ran to win, but she knew she wouldn't win," Anastasia Curwood, a Chisholm biographer and professor at the University of Kentucky, told History.com last year. "She said many times, I just want to show it can be done."

Chisholm was from Brooklyn, and she entered politics in the mid-1960s after working as a nursery schoolteacher and educational consultant for the city, The Washington Post reported last year. In 1965, she was elected to the New York State Assembly - becoming only the second African American woman elected to the state legislature.

In 1968, she ran for a newly redrawn U.S. congressional district covering Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, made up mostly of African-American and Puerto Rican residents, according to a 2018 NPR report. She entered the race despite not having the backing of the local Democratic Party. A fluent Spanish speaker and longtime resident of the area, Chisholm won over both constituencies and sealed the election with a 2-to-1 margin.

The election meant Chisholm would be the first black woman elected to Congress - a distinction Chisholm recognized for what it was.

"That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free," she would later state.
The man who has become the arch enemy of Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro (56), and who is at risk of being arrested at any time in his own country, knows no fear.

Late Tuesday evening (local time), Venezuelas supreme court ordered a ban on his leaving the country. Moreover, his bank accounts have been frozen, and his immunity as parliament leader has been lifted 



If I thought of fear all the time, I couldnt be here, says Juan Guaido (35) when we meet in his office in parliament in Caracas on Tuesday. Our meeting with the man who has declared himself to be the acting president was planned for three days.



But again and again, there are security situations, and Guaido had to be brought to a different location than originally scheduled. Communication is difficult because everything is monitored.





His handshake is gentle, he laughs a lot, he seems surprisingly relaxed. But the situation is dramatic. Guaido: During the past few weeks alone, 700 people were arrested at protests. 300 political prisoners have been incarcerated. We are all living on the edge of imprisonment, or even murder. However, this hasnt stopped us from taking up our responsibility.



Guaido became a member of parliament only three years ago. Until a few weeks ago, he was completely unknown. But as a charismatic president of parliament, he managed to unite the opposition and has received international support like nobody before him.



Guaidos best protection is probably the public  especially the support of US President Trump. The US is threatening to react with severe consequences should Guaido be arrested.



Its 25 degrees outside. Venezuelas National Assembly may be the most beautiful parliament in the world. There are palm trees in the courtyard, at the center of which lies a small well. Politicians are taking selfies in front of it. But appearances are deceptive: since last year, President Maduro hasnt acknowledged parliament, and ever since only opposition politicians remain.



There continue to be attacks by groups of thugs (collectivos) after parliamentary sessions. Paramilitary followers of President Maduro are pursuing supporters of the opposition, politicians, and journalists. They beat and kick them until they bleed. These days, they are particularly aggressive. The acknowledgement of parliament leader Guaido as acting president by the US and Canada has put pressure on Maduro.

Auch Interessant







With the military at his side, Maduro has taken a tough stance. The solicitor general demanded a ban on leaving the country for Maduros opponent and wanted to freeze accounts.



Guaido tells BILD: Maduro is occupying the country because there was no election in 2018. Thats why he is a dictator. If you have to go to a hospital in Venezuela, you might die, because people do not get sufficient treatment. There is no medicine. In the military, the situation is just like elsewhere in the country: people are hungry. The soldiers know it cant continue like this.



Guaido comes from Venezuelas middle class. He has three brothers. Many members of his family once served in the military  back then, under Hugo Chavez. Juan Guaido also wanted to become a soldier, but was unable to do so because he had asthma. Instead, he became an engineer. Guaidos father  who was a pilot  now lives on Tenerife, as a taxi driver.



I have regular exchanges with my father, he says. We share the same family values and the same ideas about society. His mother still lives in Venezuela.



On Monday, new US sanctions against the state oil company in Venezuela were announced. There could also be further sanctions from Europe. Guaido says: We need sanctions from the EU. More and more people are being murdered. It is also obvious that the regime is completely corrupt.



Guaido continues: We would like to thank Germany and Europe for supporting the activists who had to flee. We are counting on the EU to follow through with its ultimatum against Maduro and to take appropriate steps.



The EU has given Maduro until Sunday to announce a new election.




Savanah Burke is determined to go the distance to play basketball at the collegiate level  and not just figuratively.
COZAD  Cindy Schneider smiled and laughed after she was asked how she felt receiving the Distinguished Service Award from the Cozad Chamber of Commerce during their banquet on Jan. 18.

I dont do these things for an award, Schneider said with another smile, I did not know I would receive the award until that night, my kids and the chamber did a good job of putting it together.

Schneider was also touched that her granddaughter, Samantha Smith, was able to present the award to her. She has done so well at her job, she said, She made sure to text me and make sure I was going to the banquet.

Schneider was recognized by the Cozad chamber for her work at Meadowlark Pointe, and with the Cozad Rotary Club, Grand Generation Center and Cozad United Methodist Church.

You only get one chance in this life, Schneider said, If you dont do something for someone, your life is kind of blah. I have had good teachers along the way.

Of her work at Meadowlark Pointe, Schneider said she has worked for the Cozad hospital since 1991 and at the time, volunteered in home health and hospice care, which was not covered by Medicare at the time.
Would you know how to respond in an emergency in which a person was bleeding profusely?

Most people believe that such an injury is beyond their ability to help.

Dr. Larry Buglino disagrees. He believes that people who have received some training are perfectly capable of helping in these situations and their assistance can help save lives.

He is leading the Stop the Bleed classes which will begin at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5. The class will be offered on the first Tuesday of the month at the hospital.

Buglino said no prior training or experience is required.

The course is very similar to a first aid/CPR class, Buglino said. We teach you everything you need to know about these life-threatening injuries and how to control them.

There is no minimum age requirement because people of almost any age can learn these skills.

You can go on YouTube and see videos of people that have taught young children to apply these tourniquets, Buglino said.

The Stop the Bleed movement was created after researchers studied mass casualty incidents such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
The guards in charge of protecting Pope Francis and the Vatican grounds have received new high-tech helmets. The new helmets are made of plastic material created through 3-D printing technology. Previously, guard members wore handmade helmets made of metal.

The helmets were given to the Vaticans Swiss Guard on January 22, the groups 513th birthday. They are the colorfully dressed security force that helps protect the pope.

The force numbers about 110 people. Members are required to be male, Catholic, unmarried and have Swiss citizenship, the Catholic website Crux reports. They must be between the ages of 19 and 30, at least 1.7 meters tall, and be willing to serve in the guard for at least two years.

The helmets are part of the Swiss Guards ceremonial clothing. These official uniforms include yellow, red and blue stripes on the parts covering the arms and legs. Guard members dress this way for official religious services by the pope or for Vatican visits by heads of state.

The new helmets look almost exactly like the old ones, with a round design and colorful bird feathers on top. One major change was added to the new helmets an image with the coat of arms symbol for Pope Julius II. Pope Julius II first used the security force for his personal protection in 1506.

Urs Breitenmoser is a spokesman for the Swiss Guard. He told Reuters one the biggest improvements of the new helmets is that they will not heat up as much as the metal ones. This means the guards will sweat less, he said.

The new, lighter helmets should also provide relief for guard members wearing the helmets for long periods of time. Swiss news site Swissinfo.ch said the old helmets  which were made in Austria - weighed two kilograms. The new ones - made in Switzerland - weigh just 570 grams.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from Reuters and online sources. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

helmet  n. a hard hat worn to protect the head

uniform  n. special set of clothes that worn by people to do a particular job or students attending school

symbol  n. a sign or object used to represent something

sweat  v. produce liquid through the skin when a person becomes hot or nervous


Americas national intelligence chief says North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons. The statement contradicts President Donald Trumps claim of progress on denuclearization.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats spoke to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

He said we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.

Trump and Kim met in Singapore last June. The two promised to work toward the complete denuclearization of the divided Korean Peninsula. But progress has been limited.

The U.S. has demanded full information from North Korea about its nuclear and missile sites. North Korea is seeking an end to economic restrictions against it. The government also wants a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War.

Trump is planning a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February. Trump met with North Koreas nuclear issues negotiator Kim Yong Chol on January 18. He said afterwards that the two sides had made a lot of progress on denuclearization.

Iran and Islamic State

Coats met with the Senate to present the yearly Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Committee. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel, and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray were also there.

Coats told the committee that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities. Iran had agreed to give up its nuclear activities in exchange for trade and investment from the West.

Last year, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated earlier under President Barack Obama. Trump called it the worst deal ever. And Iran is threatening to build up its nuclear activities if the country does not gain from the promised trade and investment.

The report also said the Islamic State group remains a terrorist and insurgent threat inside Iraq. The terrorist group also operated in Syria where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of American troops.

When asked for her assessment, CIA Director Gina Haspel said Theyre still dangerous. She added that they still command thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Russia and China

Coats also spoke of Russia and China seeking to expand their reach around the world. He said, Moscows relationship with Beijing is closer than its been in many decades.

The intelligence report warned about Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies found last year that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump.

Coats told the committee that Russia and perhaps other countries will likely use social media and other means to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Hai Do adapted this story for Learning English with news reports from Reuters and the Associated Press. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

contradict - v. to say the opposite

assess - v. to make a judgement about something

retain - v. to continue to hold or use

regime - n. a form of government

key - n. something that is necessary

decade - n. a period of 10 years


Leaders from the United States and China will meet in Washington, DC this week to try to decrease trade tensions between the two countries. But the talks are complicated by a dispute about the Chinese technology company Huawei.

On Monday, the government of U.S. President Donald Trump announced criminal charges against Huawei. American government lawyers say the company has violated U.S. restrictions against sales to Iran.

In addition, they say Huawei stole trade secrets from the American company, T-Mobile. They say Huawei engineers secretly took photos of a robot made by T-Mobile and tried to take part of it from T-Mobiles lab.

Huawei says it settled the dispute with T-Mobile in 2017.

American government lawyers have also charged Huaweis chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. Meng is being held in Canada, where she was arrested in December.

Even with these conflicts, observers say the trade talks would likely continue. However, they warn the Huawei issue may mean the sides may not reach any serious agreement.

If they do not come to any official understanding before March 1, the U.S. will sharply increase taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

China answers

The Chinese foreign ministry has called on the U.S. to end its campaign against Huawei and other Chinese companies, calling the actions unreasonable.

Huawei also rejects the U.S. charges. The company is one of the worlds biggest providers of phone and Internet equipment; half of its sales come from outside China. For the past 10 years, the company has denied U.S. accusations that its equipment could permit it to spy for China. It says the U.S. has no evidence to support the accusations.

U.S. concerns

On the U.S. side, the Huawei charges show some officials and business leaders main objections to Chinese actions. They argue that Chinese industries require U.S. and other foreign companies to share technology in exchange for access to Chinese buyers. They also say that Chinese industry insiders sometimes steal information.

Robert Lighthizer is the U.S. trade representative and the lead negotiator in this weeks talks. He wants China to strengthen its protections of intellectual property. He also wants it to stop unfairly supporting state-owned businesses.

But in earlier talks, Chinese officials have not shown any interest in accepting U.S. demands. Chinese officials deny the claim that they force U.S. companies to share technology. And they say supporting their state-owned companies and gaining new technology is critical to Chinas economic development.

What about trade?

U.S. officials say the dispute over Huawei and other Chinese businesses is separate from the trade issues to be discussed this week.

Chinese officials have already offered to buy more from the U.S. and open more industries to U.S. companies. In return, they may ask the U.S. to remove the taxes that Trump place on some Chinese products last year.

Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, commented on the idea. He said China would likely accept such a deal, if it were offered.

If they think they can get the deal that they want, they wont cancel the talks over Huawei, he said.

Im Caty Weaver.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story for Learning English based on reports from AP and Reuters. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

complicate - v. to make something more difficult

access - n. permission or the right to enter, get near, or make use of something

intellectual property [rights] - n. the rights of a person who has thought of or invented something that other people want to use or profit from
It is argued that the neither the approach taken to terrorist speech in Bill C-51 or Bill C-59 is satisfactory. Both offences fail to deal with the problem of calls for people to engage in unspecified generic acts of terrorism as seen in Othman Hamdans calls for lone wolves swiftly to activate. An extensive case study of the Othman Hamdan case is provided including the use of immigration law after his acquittal for counselling murder and other crimes. Hamdans acquittal for counselling murder and other offences suggests that the new Bill C-59 terrorist speech offence will likely not reach Hamdans internet postings. One coherent response would be to repeal terrorist speech offences while making greater use of court-ordered take downs of such speech, programs to counter violent extremism and surveillance. Another coherent response would be to criminalize the promotion and advocacy of terrorist activities subject to defences specifically designed to protect fundamental freedoms. Unfortunately, neither Bills C-51 or C-59 pursue either of these options.
Rep. Karen Bass Elected To Chair House Subcommittee On Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations

WASHINGTON  Today, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was elected to chair the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. Upon her appointment, she issued the following statement:

Congress has an important role to play in foreign policy across the continent of Africa and I am honored to serve as Chair of this subcommittee. I look forward to continuing our bipartisan work especially in the areas of human rights, democracy, rule of law, and economic development. I am also particularly interested in finding ways to strengthen US-Africa economic relations.

Given the broad jurisdiction of the subcommittee, as Chair, I also intend to focus on the impact of climate change; international humanitarian standards for refugees, migrants and asylum seekers; and U.S. military engagement across Africa. I look forward to hearing from and partnering with African nations as we develop legislation to strengthen U.S. Africa engagement.

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Rep. Bobby Rush Sends Letter to FBI Director Calling for Hate Crimes Investigation of Attack on Jussie Smollett

U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.)

WASHINGTON  Today, U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray calling for an immediate and sweeping civil rights investigation into the racist and homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett.

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This is a hate crime plain and simple and I will not stand by while evil acts are inflicted on any citizen, especially not in my hometown. Jussie Smollett has brought pride to Chicago and made our great city his second home with his trailblazing portrayal of Jamal Lyon on the Fox series Empire. I am even more disturbed by the manner in which this crime was carried out, particularly at the media reports of the attempted lynching, which harkens back to some of the darkest days in our history. I thank the Chicago Police Department and FBI for their swift action and thorough investigation. I also call on my colleagues to support my antilynching legislation that will ensure perpetrators receive an enhanced sentence under hate crimes statutes, said Rush.

A copy of the letter is available here and included below:

January 30, 2019

The Honorable Christopher Wray

Director

Federal Bureau of Investigation

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935 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20535-0001

Dear Director Wray:

I am writing you today with a deep sense of disappointment. As you are aware, yesterday, in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois, a young African-American man, Jussie Smollett, was  as reported by multiple media sources  attacked with racist and homophobic slurs before he was brutally beaten, doused in an unknown chemical, and had a rope wrapped around his neck.

I am certain that you would agree that this kind of evil behavior has no place in our society. Therefore, I was heartened to hear that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting with the investigation into this vicious attack and I applaud you and your agents for your diligence and hard work as you assist in bringing the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.

As you are aware, crimes of this nature strike fear at the very core of a community and have a long-lasting impact on its members. They are, therefore, rightfully characterized as hate crimes. That the perpetrators in this attack are reported to have wrapped a rope around the victims neck is jarring, to say the least, and a surprise to many people who believe that lynching has been relegated to the annals of our history.

As we have seen too often in recent years, this is not the case. That is why I have introduced legislation  H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act  that rightfully classifies lynchings as hate crimes.

Therefore, let me once again thank you and the FBI for your expediency in seeking answers to this crime. My staff and I stand ready to assist in any way we can so, should you require it, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Bobby L. Rush

Member of Congress
Congresswoman Barbara Lee Named to Conference Committee for Homeland Security by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Washington, D.C.  Congresswoman Barbara Lee was named as one of six House Democratic Members serving on a conference committee for homeland security. The committee members, along with Democratic and Republican members from the House and Senate, will work over the next several weeks to negotiate government funding for homeland security.

Congresswoman Lee will serve on the conference committee with the following Democratic Members:

Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey of New York

Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Chairwoman Lucille Roybal-Allard of California

Congressman David Price of North Carolina

Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas

Congressman Pete Aguilar of California

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Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 11:36 am

Justin Bryant explores the blank spaces in African-American life

A smile is almost never just a smile. Justin Bryants delicate and disturbing solo exhibition at the LookOut Gallery at MSUs Snyder Hall looks into some unsettling voids.

At the heart of the exhibit, viewable through Feb. 15, is an absorbing group of portraits of African- American life.

Theres a line-up of happy-looking kids, about to brush their teeth; a woman being carried off by police officers; a man protesting at a 1960s civil rights rally in Washington, D.C.; a group portrait of members of the Niagara Movement, an early civil rights group that met in Ontario, and several other scenes.

The wall of lithographs took Bryant months to finish.

Only he didnt finish them. Most of the people in the portraits have no eyes.

Some of the portraits sit on small shelves, like family pictures.

All these people  Ive never met then and I dont know them but they kind of feel like family to me, he said.

Bryant, a native of Stuttgart, Arkansas, wrapped up a week-long residency at MSUs Residential College in the Arts and Humanities last week.

One of the largest works in the exhibit is a portrait of author James Baldwin juxtaposed with a beautiful, starry sky. The top of Baldwins head is a pure white circle, withholding the mysteries of his keen eye and authorial brain from the viewer.

At a discussion hosted by poet Cindy Hunter Morgan Thursday, Bryant tied some of the ideas behind his work to a devastating poem by Maya Angelou, The Mask.

In The Mask, Angelou gives voice to a long-suffering laborer whose automatic laughter masks an abyss of hurt, and, by extension, unmasks a painful part of the black experience in America.

The bare patches in Bryants work have a multi-faceted relationship to the mask described by Angelou.

Its a power relationship, Bryant said.

It was my way of being careful  thinking about the people I was drawing, honoring them. It keeps the power on their side, what the smile could mean.

Bryant uses several strategies to slip into the blank spaces of African-American life.

To create another piece in the Minor Key exhibit, he cut a hole in one of his art history textbooks and inserted a portrait of African-American artist Beauford Delaney, with the eyes missing.

When Bryant realized an important black artist was all but cut out of art history, he simply cut him back in  literally.

Delaney, a modernist painter associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s, has inspired generations of artists.

Delaneys friend James Baldwin called him living proof, for me, that a black man could be an artist.

Although Delaneys work ranged from portraits and figurative work to a headlong plunge into Abstract Expressionism, he is still underappreciated and all but unknown to the broader public.

Bryant learned that many African- American artists emigrated or stayed in Paris in the middle of the 20th century, but are nearly forgotten now.

I became really interested in how I didnt know a lot of history that involved my own culture  and how I will never know it, he said.

A striking series of paintings Bryant made a few years ago builds on the same idea in a different way.

He perched several notable buildings that were built by free or enslaved African- Americans on top of the heads of African- American people.

One of them is the White House, nestled in a lush Afro.

Bryant likened the buildings to crowns.

They are painful images, but powerful, he said.

One of the most ambitious works in the Minor Key exhibit is a set of four books, each one etched with a combined portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bryant himself. Both faces change expression as you look from one end of the row of books to the other.

Its a lot of visual information to take in, but Bryant is the first to admit he gets himself into some conceptual cul-de-sacs.

Im trying to get people to see that these ideas are multi-faceted, and thats the hard part, he said. How do you talk about poetry, buildings, your own experience all together without it coming across as just a mess? His impatience with the static, finished look of most gallery art is already evident in Minor Key. Next, Bryant plans to inject more narrative into his work  figures in a scene, or something happening. With a show coming up at the Thea Foundation in North Little Rock this fall, hes girding himself for another gestation period and a few false starts.

He just got his masters degree in fine art from Louisiana State University and he looks ready to cut a hole into it, at least figuratively. (Although, with Bryant, you never know.)

In school, youre often encouraged to make a lot of right decisions, but I think youve got to make a lot of wrong decisions first, he said.

That, he said, pretty much describes the last five years of his life.

I try to make mistakes daily, he said.

The crazy thing is that when you have enough confidence with it, it automatically is right.

Justin Bryant Lingering in the Minor Key Through Feb. 15

LookOut Gallery MSU Residential College in the Arts and Humanities C200 Snyder Hall
Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 11:36 am

The flagship and founder of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and the cutting edge blockchain technology that powers it are at the forefront of incredible opportunity, study and controversy in Lansing.

In the dusty tiled basement of the Eastside business incubator The Fledge, owner Jerry Norris teaches the basics of blockchain technology to Lansings youth via a very low tech method  the whiteboard.

It is part of a learning experiment The Fledge is conducting using a basic ledger, a critical component to understanding blockchain technology.

If we cant do it on paper, we cant do it faster on computers. If we dont start on paper, we will never understand the process and the flow, Norris said.

On the board is a list of chores and tasks related to The Fledge like washing dishes in exchange for usage of the building's music studio. In theory, when members of The Fledge do dishes, other members see this person doing it and verify a studio time credit for them.

The ledger traacks credits and costs in a transparent, centralized medium, but this method isnt without flaws.

Entropy will take over this whiteboard, whether it is dust or people running up against it or maliciously changing it or people writing down a mistake and recording it, Norris said.

Norris hopes the participants will welcome a digital ledger after seeing the shortcomings of a central ledger. Afterward, Norris will provide digital copies to every person who wanted to do business with the whiteboard.

If all those digital copies stay in sync and produce the same result, Norris and his students will have created a decentralized ledger.

However, this isnt the last step. If someone figures out a way to change the ledger digitally, thats when the ledger will reach a final step requiring the most brain and computer power: digital encryption.

Norris said the end result will be a self contained Fledge Coin cryptocurrency. However, these same learning principles behind The Fledges homegrown crypto currency were exploited in a cyber attack two years ago.

In April 2016, the Lansing Board of Water and Light was hit by a ransomware attack in conjunction with other city facilities nationwide.

Opened via company email, the virus took over BWLs digital and cyber systems, encrypting all the files and requesting $25,000 in Bitcoin payment to decrypt them.

With the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency and no treasury department or bank oversight, the encrypted transactions are almost untraceable to authorities the trusted follow the money line of investigation simply does not apply to this realm.

According to a BWL report released in Nov. 2016, BWL paid the ransom. The $25,000 in Bitcoin was only a drop in the bucket compared to the roughly $2 million BWL subsequently spent to invest and rework its cyber security against future attacks. Most of the expense was covered by insurance aside from a $100,000 deductible, according to BWL.

Based on our discussions with cyber-security experts, law enforcement agencies, and other organizations who have also been the targets of these types of criminals, paying the ransom was distasteful and disgusting but sadly necessary, and was the only action we could take to unlock our system and free it from the ransomware, BWL CEO Dick Peffley said.

The Fledge now houses the former East Lansing Bitcoin ATM where BWL paid the $25,000 ransom, Norris said. It is one of five in Greater Lansing.

The older model machine sits in the corner of the former church atrium with an adjacent small security camera on watch. Its default screen simply displays Buy and sell Bitcoin here.

Norris said The Fledge tries to keep an eye on who uses it and for what reasons.

If we start hearing about the more evil side of it, thats where we will ban them from the machines, he said.

Aside from the ledger experiment, The Fledge has the most serious on the ground framework of Bitcoin in the Lansing area. It plays host to a group of 10 cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts called the Lansing Blockchain Gang. All of its vendors accept cryptocurrency as payment and it was briefly home to a Bitcoin mining operation.

Mining Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general is when a network of computers are hooked up and lend their computing power as members of the blockchain verifying transactions in exchange for a small percentage in return.

The bulk of The Fledges mining force was made up of old gaming computers and processors out of gaming systems.

It wasn't a very lurcrative option. We ran it as a complete academic exercise and we lost money in electricity use compared to what we gained. We are not talking significant money, but dollars, Norris said.

The Fledge plans to develop a system that will compare the price of cryptocurrencies versus the electricity cost to mine them and make decisions off this data.

Supplementing electricity use with solar arrays will also be an option, Norris added.

The applications for cryptocurrency and blockchain as an entrepreneurial tool are also being looked at from the academic perspective in Lansing.

MSU director of undergraduate entrepreneurship Neil Kane said cryptocurrency caught his eye in 2017 after Bitcoin blossomed to nearly $19,800 per coin.

Going into the spring of 2018, I began to hear the number of universities who are leaders in the space offered courses in blockchain, Kane said. The New York Times did a story called Cryptocurrencies Come to Campus. I saw that article, ran it by the entrepreneurship program and thought we should do it.

At the time, Kane said he had no intention of teaching the course and thought it was more about awareness. It circulated to the deans and they responded favorably, he said.

In Fall 2018, the course MG 491 was born. It was put together in only four months and was the first of its kind in Michigan higher education.

The staying power for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is up in the air, but the technology that powers it is revolutionary and warrants study, Kane said.

Kane saw blockchain technology as introducing new ways to track pharmaceuticals, document real estate transactions and manage supply chain statistics.

They also had to develop a business plan using blockchain technology.

One group argued blockchains encrypted decentralized ledger could better keep records of confidential documents under HIPPA laws more efficiently than any human system, Kane said.

Im told by students today that their employers say the skills in blockchain are in demand," Kane said. "For those who were interested, we can develop the competency and credentials for the job market to go in that field.

MSU has not given an update on whether the course will be returning next fall.

If we offer it again, there are tweaks and refinements to make to it. There was a learning curve. It was like a beta version. Now that we had a dress rehearsal, next time we would be a lot smarter about doing things, Kane said.

There's a Wild West aura to cryptocurrency that appeals to Norris and his entrepenurial ilk but not to state officials. Michigan department of the Attorney General still has an active consumer alert on the dangers of virtual currency.

According to the consumer alert, Virtual currency is not legal tender and is not issued or backed by any central bank or governmental authority Because it is not real currency, virtual currency should be treated like an investment. As with any investment decision, you should thoroughly research virtual currency before investing your hardearned money.

Dont go out buying cryptocurrency thinking to be the next millionaire, Norris said.

The big mistake people make when they are getting into this and investing is they think it is all going to be like 2017. People probably got hurt when they were buying Bitcoin at those amounts thinking they could double the amount of Christmas presents that year. It didnt turn out for them.

Bitcoin is now trading at around $3,400 per coin, down $16,400 from its 2017 high.

Utility and adoption are the indicators for good cryptocurrency, Norris said.

For Norris, investing in cryptocurrency is about hanging on for the ride.

Im trying to curl up in a ball and wait to see what happens. I do believe it is way undervalued. This is not investment advice, but I believe in the growth of it.

Norris said the real value in cryptocurrency and its blockchain technology is providing individuals with powerful ways to circumvent the power structure and judgement from big institutions.

This is the key point: Wall Street controls how the money flows and who gets the money. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer or whatever you want to say. It is the decentralized aspect of Bitcoin that says Ok, we shouldnt have a single person or organization that can control this power. It should be more driven in a pure, free market fashion.

Cryptocurrency also gives individuals deemed unbankable a way to store and exchange goods, he added.

If I try to go to a bank and have a credit problem, they might not let me have a bank account. If a lady might not like how I look if Im Muslim or a certain color or whatever there is a lot of judgement in that process, some of it legal, not legal and personal.

We have alternatives to this method, Norris said.

If we really want to help underserved people, we need to get them bankable. If they cant be bankable in the traditional sense, cryptocurrency offers a way.

One of Norris mottos is Keep Bitcoin shady. This isnt an endorsement for bad activity, he said.

I see banks and institutions having futures on the cryptocurrency exchange. As I see that getting introduced, I see all these little people I think it could help getting pushed out of the system. When I say keep Bitcoin shady, what I really mean is keep big institutions out of it.

The blowback on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is like listening to an old man lament over new progress, Norris said.

Why it sounds so bad or evil is the bankers telling you how horrible it is, just like the Taxi drivers telling you how horrible Uber was and the hotels telling you how horrible AirBnB was. I would ask people to look at it objectively. I remember when we were scared of the internet and scared of email.

We had no idea how big the internet was until we further experimented with it, Norris said.

We are in that phase with cryptocurrency right now. We have no idea how this is going to change things.

For Lansing, there might be no change to the local economy if blockchain and cryptocurrency was to boom, Norris said.

It may not be so much about what the blockchain is doing to Lansing; It might be what Lansing can do for the blockchain and effect the rest of the world. People are being enabled with this technology and we can create great things too.

For more information, visit thefledge.com

Graphic designed by Austin Ashley
Posted Wednesday, January 30, 2019 11:36 am

Despite attacks, Im still not quitting

Joel Ferguson offers no remorse for what fellow Trustee Brian Mosallam labeled as John Englers reign of terror at Michigan State University.

When the Board of Trustees accepted Englers resignation two weeks ago, the other six members who were at the special meeting took time to apologize to the survivors of convicted pedophile Larry Nassar or opine about the brighter future ahead.

Not Ferguson. Instead, he sat quietly. But last week, confronted with calls for his resignation, he broke his silence in an exclusive interview with City Pulse.

Ferguson referred to the public reaction of other trustees to Englers departure as a grandstanding circus.

Among the points Ferguson made in the phone interview were:

 Engler, by and large, did the job he was hired to do: Protect MSUs finances. There was no reason for trustees to apologize to anyone when they accepted his resignation. Instead, trustees were only covering their asses to protect the reputation of the institution amid a continued crisis, he said.

 Reports that Ferguson, a leading Democrat in Michigan who served on the Democratic National Committee, had privately flipped his initial vote from former Gov. Jim Blanchard to support former Republican Gov. Engler last year  and the criticism that came along with it  are based on inaccurate journalism by the Detroit Free Press, he contended. Ferguson always supported Engler, up until days before he left.

 His comment on Tim Staudts radio show last year that there are so many more things going on at this university than just this Nassar thing was twisted in the media in an attempt to demonize him. Strangely, though, when Ferguson volunteered a transcript of the interview that he said was verbatim, of that interview, the controversial words were omitted entirely.

 Im not quitting.

No apologies on Engler

The former governor was only appointed president to safeguard university finances amid a growing public relations nightmare, Ferguson said. And by all accounts, Engler had fulfilled the boards expectations. There was simply no reason that he, or anyone else on the board, owed apologies for a job well done, Ferguson explained.

At Michigan State University, with all that noise, our job was to make a decision that was best for us and to make certain our funding and everything else stayed intact, Ferguson added, saying finances were the whole thing. Nobody griped when he came in, because we all knew it had to happen, because that was what our needs were.

Although the board was initially confident in its selection, a series of insensitive statements by Engler culminating in January with saying some sexual assault victims were enjoying the spotlight eventually helped turn the tide. Hundreds of students and staff had urged him to resign by the end of his tenure. The trustees agreed. For all the reforms were making, we keep slipping backwards, Board Chairwoman Dianne Byrum told City Pulse.

But two days before the vote Ferguson disagreed that Engler needed to go. His thinking, he told City Pulse, was that Engler was only slated to stay on board for another couple months anyway.

And a replacement wouldve only created the optics of a disjointed and dysfunctional board, Ferguson claimed.

Referring to the vote to accept Englers resignation, Ferguson said, After we make the vote, then guys want to cover their asses and claim they dont like Engler.

Harkening back to his vote to appoint Engler, he said, My decision was about what was best for MSU at the time. We were under attack by the Legislature. We had legislators grandstanding and saying shit and everything else. We were under attack and we did it unanimously.

As interim president for almost a year, Engler helped quell concerns when the Republican-controlled legislature was threatening to slash state funding for the university. He also helped negotiate a $500 million settlement for Nassar survivors and bring some financial closure amid MSUs continued legal exposure, Ferguson said.

And that was all Engler was ever hired to do in the first place, Ferguson emphasized. It was never about healing. Englers resignation letter also touted his personal list of accomplishments and further argued MSU was better off after a year under his leadership. Its a sentiment that Ferguson  despite differing opinions  still supports.

If I had to do it again, I would do everything I could to protect the university, Ferguson added.

In an 11-page resignation letter, Engler suggested his departure was more of a political mandate than choice. Democratic board members had enough support to oust him, without Ferguson if need be, if he didnt leave on his own accord. And by the time the motion to accept his resignation came to the table, Ferguson said he didnt have another choice.

I only voted for what was in front of me at the time, Ferguson emphasized.

No fucking vote

When former President Lou Anna K. Simon resigned last January, the Board of Trustees was left to fill the gap. The Detroit Free Press reported that Ferguson ultimately served as the linchpin vote for Engler after the board initially deadlocked in closed-door negotiations between Engler and former Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard.

Ferguson, for his part, claimed the author of that story  David Jesse  entirely fabricated the narrative. There was no consensus reached before the unanimous vote to appoint Engler, Ferguson said. And Ferguson had never offered to support anyone other than Engler for the job, he argued. Jesse didnt return a call for clarification.

There was never a fucking vote, Ferguson said. Once anonymous people start something, it takes a life. Its not relevant. The board voted to make certain we kept out funding. He said the former Republican governor had rapport with the people who were making the decisions. That was what the discussion was about. It had nothing to do with (political) party.

Some Democrats, however, were already painting a target on Fergusons back as a political traitor. Several elected officials (all of them Democrats) have since called on Ferguson to resign for his role in selecting Engler last January  regardless of the behind-the-scenes board mechanics that ultimately installed him as the president.

A spokesman for Progress Michigan, a progressive think-tank designed to hold public officials accountable and challenge conservative propaganda, said all remaining trustees that supported Engler should reconsider whether theyre the right people to effectively guide the university forward and rebuild wounds of the past.

Joel Ferguson, in particular, has made comments in the past about this Nassar thing and several other controversial statements throughout this process, said Sam Inglot, a spokesman for Progress Michigan. Anyone that thought John Engler was the right person here needs to reconsider their time on the board.

Ferguson already gave it some thought.

And hes not going anywhere anytime soon.

Ive done my job every time, Ferguson added. I had enough guts and balls to represent the university and hire somebody that I didnt vote for because he was the right fit based on who was giving out the money at the time.

I didnt apologize

To Tim Staudt on Lansing's WVFN-AM (730), Ferguson commented on Jan. 22, 2018, that there are so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing. Critics were at Fergusons throat. He later issued a statement outlining deep regrets for trivializing the experiences of those who survived Nassars crimes.

He recognizes the suffering of these young women and had intended to refer to it as the Nassar tragedy, according to a statement from Ferguson provided by his spokeswoman at the time, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, now-spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel. Mr. Ferguson deeply regrets his comment and apologizes to those he offended.

But Ferguson put it another way in last weeks interview with City Pulse.

I apologized for what people felt and how they perceived me. I didnt apologize for the statement, Ferguson said. I guess I shouldve used a different word, but what I was trying to say was were going to keep running the university as we go through this Nassar stuff. Now people are running off and developing a story off a negative.

Later in Staudts broadcast, Ferguson defended Simon before her resignation two days later. He also touted her work fundraising for the Breslin Center and laughed at the idea of an NCAA investigation. But Ferguson still maintains that his critics cherry-picked the negative aspects of that interview to crucify him.

You can never use money to completely make over peoples pain and suffering, but theres going to be something happening in their favor, Ferguson said later in the interview. I think that when people find out (Nassar) was on an island by himself, theyll move on and well keep the university moving with the president we have.

Of course, Nassars abuse wasnt isolated on an island as Ferguson had suggested. State investigators later issued a scathing report about a culture of indifference toward sexual assault at MSU in favor of protecting its reputation. All told, at least 11 university employees had failed to report Nassars abuse, the report found.

Investigators called it a failure of people, not policy and advocated for a topdown cultural change at MSU. Calls for Fergusons resignation, after the interview hit the local airwaves, were already gaining momentum.

East Lansing Councilman Aaron Stephens, after hearing the broadcast, labeled Fergusons commentary deeply offensive and suggested he resign from the board. State Sen. Curtis Hertel Jr., D-East Lansing, said Ferguson hasnt represented his views on the issue and he wouldnt be upset should Ferguson follow Engler out the door.

He shouldve resigned before he was even elected, added Ingham County Commissioner Mark Grebner.

Retired State Rep. Sam Singh, an MSU grad who was mayor of East Lansing, has called for Fergusons head since last year, namely because of the inappropriate and insensitive comments toward Nassar survivors. And he still doesnt think Ferguson has a role on the board.

Its clear that he never wanted to shoulder any responsibility to the university, Singh added. He protected Simon until the last day. He protected others until their last day. Even with Engler, he supported him to the very end. He has shown absolutely no leadership and has actually hurt this university over the last several months.

Ferguson, for his part, still claims he misspoke during the interview and that media outlets and attorneys have since doctored his original statements. He said he meant to emphasize that Nassar wont distract from other, equally important university business. And he laughed off questions about those who might still want him gone.

I have no reason to resign, Ferguson added. I hope I dont look too bad, but if I do, Im still not quitting.

This Nassar thing disappears

Ferguson later sent City Pulse a copy of what he labeled a verbatim transcript of the controversial radio interview. His reference to things going on at the university other than just this Nassar thing, however, was missing from the document. And Ferguson couldnt offer much of an explanation for the omission.

Thats not even germane to the doggone discussion, Ferguson said. The main part is the part at the bottom where I said we got to help these young ladies and do all that. Thats the real part. I didnt conveniently omit a goddamn thing. I dont type. Whoever prepared it mustve missed it. Well get a new one sent over.

A revised transcript never arrived; City Pulse instead used audio from the interview to verify the statements.

kyle@lansingcitypulse.com

Editor's Note: This story was updated to accurately reflect the broadcast location of WVFN-AM.
Adapted from the Twitter feed and mined from the notebooks Wednesday, January 23, 2019.

What does it mean to be Catholic and Pro-life? It means being on the side of this mother and her children. What does it mean if youre Catholic and wear a MAGA cap? It means youre on the side of the border patrol agents firing the tear gas canisters. Reuters photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon via the Daily Beast.

I'm the last person who has any business speaking for the Catholic Church, but, heck, it's Twitter. Unasked for opinions are the coin of the realm. So here goes

For the record, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, was an altar boy, Mrs M and I set out to raise our sons Catholic, but the last serious conversation I had with a priest was nearly twenty years ago and it ended with him calling Mrs M and I bad parents and me telling him to go to hell.

You can read the whole story here.

Now, about those MAGA cap-wearing twerps from Covington Catholic....

I hope when they got back to school some priest or nun knocked those caps right off their heads and the smirk off Nick Sandmann's face.

At Politico Rich Lowry writes as if he would try to get in between a swinging nun and a smirking Sandmann:

The primary offense of the Covington Catholic High School kids wasnt so much allegedly mobbing, mocking or getting in the face of a Native American drummer at the Lincoln Memorial. It was wearing red Make America Great Again hats.

No, their primary offense was being a gang of obnoxious and disrespectful twerps who thought it was funny to taunt and mock an old man who meant them no harm.

They've become even more obnoxious not through their own efforts but by becoming the darlings of Right Wing apologists like Lowry who can't bring themselves to admit that the conservative movement has been taken over by the hideous men it courted.

But it definitely adds to their obnoxiousness that they were wearing those caps and they were either too dumb to know what they stand for or knew exactly what they mean. Either way they wore them for the same reason most Trump's hideous men wear them - to make people mad.

Karen Tumulty---calling them little jerks instead of twerps---thinks they need a little redemption and suggests that they earn it through spending their spring break working on a service project on a Native American reservation.

I offer this as a fellow Catholic, which means I believe there is always a path to redemption. Also, that lots of people who start out as little jerks can grow up to be good adults.

This is true. Thing is if you're in high school and you're a jerk you're not a little jerk. You're a big jerk. And if you're a junior or senior you're well on your way to being a great big adult jerk.

Perhaps Im naive...But I dont want to give up on teenagers. I mean, they should offer real service, not just things that look good on their college resumes. And I think they can learn. The American Experience has been a learning curve.

Tumulty thinks Covington Catholic should organize the trip. Might be a good plan. It would be a more true expression of the faith than sending them on a class outing to Washington D.C. on the pretense theyre taking part in the effort to end abortion. It would take time to work it out and by then Sandmann and his cohorts will have graduated. What the school can do right away is a better job of teaching students like them what it means to be Catholic. These kids need to be pressed harder to study their catechisms.

Among other things.

Ostensibly, they were in Washington as good Catholics marching to end abortion. Theyd likely identify themselves as pro-life. Just as likely theyd have no problem with being called anti-abortion or calling themselves anti-abortion. The question is does their pro-life position begin and end with their being anti-abortion or is being against abortion part of their being pro-life? Or to put it another way, how Catholic are they?

It was bouncing around social media for a little while that Trump had invited the twerps to the White House. Would be just like him. He never misses a chance to preen for the cameras and show off to his base of hideous men, if he can help it.

There was no word whether he planned to serve the twerps cold burgers and fries as part of another grinning, thumbs-upping photo op and if he was claiming hed shell out for the Un-Happy Meals himself.

But never mind the White House.

What I'd really like to see is them get invited to visit the Vatican.

The Church's pro-life agenda is definitely anti-abortion. But it's also anti-death penalty. Anti-war. Anti-racism. Its anti-nationalist, which is no surprise coming from a religion that identifies itself as universal with its very name. Its anti-treating the poor and sick and unfortunate with cruelty and contempt. And while it's anti-abortion it's pro-taking care of the babies after they're born and taking care of the mothers and helping them raise their children.

Its pro-government health care and a social safety net in general..

It's pro-labor. Pro-environment. The U.S. Bishops werent happy when Trump pulled us out of the Paris Accords. Neither were the worlds cardinals. And it's very much pro-immigrant and pro-refugee or, as Jesus might have put it, it's pro-inviting strangers in.

The Pope himself has made himself very clear on this point.

Other points too:

The pope has made compassion towards refugees and those on the margins of society a hallmark of his papacy, and has repeatedly urged world leaders to reject nationalism and xenophobia.

The U.S. Bishops have elaborated on this:

Because of the belief that newcomers compete for scarce resources, immigrants and refugees are at times driven away, resented, or despised. Nevertheless, the first principle of Catholic social teaching regarding immigrants is that people have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families. This is based on biblical and ancient Christian teaching that the goods of the earth belong to all people. While the right to private property is defended in Catholic social teaching, individuals do not have the right to use private property without regard for the common good. Every person has an equal right to receive from the earth what is necessary for lifefood, clothing, shelter. Moreover, every person has the right to education, medical care, religion, and the expression of one's culture. In many places people live in fear, danger, or dehumanizing poverty. Clearly, it is not God's will that some of his children live in luxury while others have nothing. In Luke's Gospel, the rich man was condemned for living well while the poor man starved at his doorstep (Lk 16:19-31). The native does not have superior rights over the immigrant. Before God all are equal; the earth was given by God to all. When a person cannot achieve a meaningful life in his or her own land, that person has the right to move

Its a shame that the bishops have lost their moral authority at a time when we sorely need it. Its a shame the Pope himself keeps equivocating, backtracking, and compromising himself on the molestation scandal and what he says he believes about treating LGBT people with love and respect. I like to make jokes that arent wholly (holy?) jokes about how Francis has been tempting me to back to mass and how Ill be mad at him if he does. But theres really nothing he can do to restore my faith, and even if he could, hes not been moving as fast or as strenuously as he should towards cleaning house and clearing the path for married priests and the ordination of women. And like I said, the way he keeps contradicting himself on dealing with the scandal and not doing enough to discourage the priests and bishops who are still blaming it on their gay brethren.

But to a degree this my problem---that is, its a quarrel between me and the Church which Ive resolved by quitting the Church, shaking the ashes and candle wax from my feet on my way out the door. For anyone who hasnt been driven away and still considers themselves Catholics in good standing, its another matter. What the bishops and the Pope say on those many other pro-life issues should carry as much weight as what they say about abortion.

Lowry half-assedly argues that the MAGA caps should be seen pretty much as souvenirs, hardly different from Washington Nationals caps, just an expression of team spirit. With mock indignation, he harumphs at liberals for assuming that Team Trump is Team Racist. But of course it is. Trump is a racist. His agenda is racist. He shut down the government to get his racist wall built. Wearing his teams merch marks you as siding with the racist, which makes you a racist, no matter how good buddies you are with the (very few) non-white kids in your classes. Lowry knows that, but he writes as if the Covington twerps dont and have no reason to.

The hell they dont know.

Theyre not in elementary school. Theyre juniors and seniors on their way to college. Theyre in the process or soon will be of writing their application letters, so presumably theyre thinking about whats going on in the world and what their place in it post-college will be. Those caps are statements of solidarity with Trump, and unless theyre stupid or deluded, theyre wearing those caps with pride and contempt. Pride in their identification with Trump, contempt for anyone their hero has contempt for and that list is long. It includes everyone Jesus identified as himself in the Sermon on the Mount, and the Sermon on the Mount is central to the Catholic pro-life agenda.

To put it simply, then: the Catholic pro-life agenda is pretty much the opposite of Donald Trump's on just about everything.

What this means is that wearing a MAGA cap doesn't just mark you as a racist jerk.

For a Catholic, it's practically a sin.
The Jan. 20 Sunday LNP included an article about Pennsylvanias commitment to plan strategies to reduce air pollution (East Coast states unite against emissions). This plan, under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is in concert with eight neighboring states and Washington, D.C., to address transportation sources. Poor air quality causes thousands of U.S. deaths each year and sickens thousands more.

To further encourage the reduction of health and material impacts related to air pollution in Lancaster County, our congressional representatives would do well to support the recently introduced Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019 (HR 763). This bipartisan, revenue-neutral act would provide an effective, nonregulatory way to stimulate personal decisions leading to less air pollution.

In addition, it would put money into peoples pockets every month to spend as they see fit, helping low- and middle-income Americans.

Ed Mitchell

West Lampeter Township
In his novel 1984, George Orwell wrote: The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself. To wear an improper expression on your face was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it ... facecrime.

Nick Sandmann committed facecrime Jan. 18 by just smiling, and the liberal media went berserk, once again abandoning facts and journalistic integrity. Why? Because Sandmann and this group of boys from a high school in Kentucky had attended a pro-life event and were mostly white, Catholic, and wore MAGA hats. They were denounced by television anchors, journalists with Harvard degrees, Hollywood celebrities and social media as bigots, privileged and deserving of assault and even death.

The students were painted as examples of everything evil in America and accused of mocking a Native American activist, Nathan Phillips, who was lionized by the media, but later possibly exposed as a fraud and a liar. Complete video footage showed that Phillips had invaded the teens personal space while beating a drum and that members of the Black Hebrew Israelites activist group had threatened the students with violence and spewed vile hate speech. The teens resisted these taunts by doing school spirit chants. There was no evidence that the students had any intention of harming anyone.

By embracing Orwellian, politically correct groupthink, the left has abandoned Martin Luther Kings dream of people being judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

Mae Stehman

Lititz
Pro-Israel lobbyists offer newly elected members of Congress a free trip to Israel. Do taxpayers care?

Believing that facts can influence how Americans view the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, I offer the following: For 10 years, the American Israel Education Foundation, part of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent $12.9 million to fly more than 1,000 lawmakers and staff to Israel. The goal: to promote American support for Israel. U.S. taxpayer-funded support already totals more than $10 million daily.

A poll found that nearly 61 percent of Americans think were already giving Israel too much money, yet Congress is crafting a $38 billion Israeli gift, the largest military aid package in U.S. history. Do taxpayers approve of that?

U.S. media are laser-focused on Russian foul play in our elections, but the Israel lobby has been influencing U.S. policies on behalf of a foreign country for years, with few legal consequences.

A few politicians, aware of the facts about Israel-Palestine, are confronting the Israel lobby. New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has refused the American Israel Education Foundation freshman field trip. Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, child of Palestinian immigrants, alleges that the foundation shows only one side of the issue. Shes planning an alternative trip that will include, she says, whats happening to my grandmother and whats happening to my family there.

What a scary thought for Israel and a beautiful one for justice if Congress could know and would act on all the facts.

Harold A. Penner

Akron
THE ISSUE

The Ephrata Area School Districts Akron Elementary School is among 10 mostly aging schools in four Lancaster County districts that were found in voluntary testing in 2016 and 2017 to have elevated lead levels in water fountains, classroom sinks and a kitchen, an investigation by Ad Crable, published in Sunday LNP, found. And, as in the Akron case, two of the other three districts that found lead contamination  School District of Lancaster and Solanco  did not directly notify parents of the potential danger. But officials in all three districts maintain they took ample steps to notify the public.

We understand the anger of Lisa Getz Bender and Brian Bender.

As Crable reported, the Benders learned recently that their daughter had spent a year in a kindergarten classroom at Akron Elementary School where lead-contaminated water had been found, and they werent informed of the contamination by Ephrata Area School District officials.

We would have been angry, too.

As Lisa Getz Bender said: Even if it had been a minute level of lead, it can be detrimental to children. We should have at least been informed.

She is right on both counts.

As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, There is no safe level of lead exposure in children, with lasting decreases in cognition documented in children with blood levels as low as 5 micrograms per deciliter of lead in blood.

Lead in a childs system can cause serious cognitive, learning and behavioral issues that last a lifetime. These can include attention issues, drops in IQ, hyperactivity and aggression. Physical effects such as slowed growth, anemia and impaired hearing also can result from lead poisoning.

Lead exposure can be treated, but damage done by lead poisoning is irreversible. This is why knowledge of exposure is so essential.

Voluntary testing

So, first things first.

We commend the officials at Ephrata Area, Lancaster, Solanco, Warwick, Lampeter-Strasburg and Penn Manor school districts who chose to do voluntary lead testing in 2016 and 2017.

They were spurred by the crisis in Flint, Michigan, where thousands of children were exposed to lead in drinking water.

Districts such as Donegal that also did voluntary testing in the past are to be commended, too.

Unbelievably  given that Pennsylvania has ranked second among the 50 states in its number of children with elevated blood lead levels  no state law compelled them to do that testing.

Even a new state law only urges schools to do lead testing at their drinking water sources by the end of this school year. (More on that later.)

According to a 2016 study by the Journal of Pediatrics, Lancaster County was among the 20 U.S. counties with the highest levels of lead exposure in children  mostly due to lead paint in old buildings but also because of corroding lead in outdated plumbing fixtures.

Following the voluntary testing at the 65-year-old Akron Elementary School, a drinking fountain in a classroom and eight classroom sinks were shut down, Crable explained, because, even after attempted repairs and re-tests, water still contained unsafe levels of the toxic metal.

We can understand why the Benders would worry.

Parents left in the dark

Not directly notifying parents of the lead testing results was a lousy call.

And we say that not just to Ephrata Area School District officials.

In three of the four school districts where unsafe levels of lead were found from voluntary testing, no letters were sent home to parents notifying them of the problem, Crable reported.

This was despite U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines that say schools should share lead test results with parents, teachers and students.

Ephrata says the matter was discussed at a public meeting of the school boards budget and finance committee in May 2017.

But most parents dont attend school board meetings  let alone board committee meetings.

Ephrata Area Superintendent Brian Troop finally emailed a letter Sunday alerting parents to the results  after the LNP investigation was published.

The School District of Lancaster and Solanco School District cited a 2016 LNP article on lead issues in their schools as the means through which parents were informed. LNP does have considerable reach, but a single newspaper article should not replace direct communication with families.

Solanco also posted notifications in its two affected schools and on the district website, which is better but still not adequate.

Only Penn Manor and Pequea Valley school districts sent letters home to parents and caregivers after lead had been found in school water. We applaud them.

Notably, Penn Manor Superintendent Mike Leichliter sought the opinion of a medical toxicologist at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia about whether students at one elementary school needed to be tested (they didnt). We appreciate his concern for the children of his district.

Tougher law needed

Some of Lancaster County's 17 school districts already have completed the lead testing that the new state law calls to be conducted this school year. Other districts, plus the La Academia Partnership Charter School, are awaiting results.

Wed strongly urge every district to disclose the results of this testing to parents.

Stephanie Wein, clean water and conservation advocate for the environmental group PennEnvironment, told Crable that school officials cant rely on school board meetings and websites to disseminate the results of lead testing.

We agree.

Weins organization supports a soon-to-be-introduced state bill that would call for direct disclosure to parents.

We also agree with state Rep. Karen Boback, a Republican from Luzerne County and a former teacher, who believes the new state law didnt go far enough.

She had introduced a bill to require schools to inform parents of lead-testing results. She also thinks all schools should be mandated to perform lead tests.

Inexplicably, the new state law contains an opt-out provision for districts that claim financial hardship. This defies logic, as lead poisoning in children can cause the very cognitive issues that lead children to require costly special education services.

Lawmakers ought to heed the words of their colleague, who correctly asserts that lead testing is not a frivolous expense. As Boback put it: Lead poisoning, God forbid, would be tragic.

Note: Editorial was updated Wednesday afternoon to include mention of Donegal School District.
Jose Ferrufino, convicted of first-degree murder last month for the point-blank shooting of a younger Providence Township man he suspected of having an affair with his wife, returns to court this afternoon for sentencing.

The murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in state prison without possibility of parole.

Lancaster County Judge David Ashworth will also impose sentence for 15 related counts ranging from burglary to terroristic threats.

A Lancaster County jury found Ferrufino, 50, guilty of killing 35-year-old Hugo Garcia-Hernandez on March 22, 2017, rejecting his claim of innocence.

Garcia-Hernandez, of 124 Pennsy Road, died from a single shot to the heart after Ferrufino and two other men broke down his bedroom door before 2 in the morning and attempted to bind him with zip ties, according to trial testimony.

Ferrufino, a fencing contractor formerly of Manheim Township, testified he was asleep when the killing happened.

Assistant District Attorney Barry Goldman built his case around an accomplice who told a different story.

The accomplice, Alejandro Cruz-Santiago, 40, a former cook at the now-shuttered Carlos & Charlies, explained how Ferrufino went out of his way to befriend him and then recruited him to rob, not kill, Garcia-Hernandez.

He said he was shocked when Ferrufino, who he knew as El Chapo, pulled out a handgun and shot Garcia-Hernandez in the chest.

This is the pain my heart felt when you were (having sex) with my wife, Ferrufino said before pulling the trigger, according to Cruz-Santiago.

The men fled without loot, not even Garcia-Hernandezs wallet, state police said.

Ferrufino faces sentencing for about a dozen charges related to the threats he leveled at Garcia-Hernandez on Dec. 24, 2016 when he barged into the mans apartment while wielding a handgun.
A Lancaster County judge Wednesday scolded Jose Ferrufino for a total lack of remorse before imposing a life sentence plus 15 to 35 years for the murder of a Providence Township man he suspected of having an affair with his wife.

A Lancaster County jury last month found Ferrufino, 50, guilty of killing 35-year-old Hugo Garcia-Hernandez on March 22, 2017, rejecting his claim of innocence.

Garcia-Hernandez, of 124 Pennsy Road, died from a single shot to the heart after Ferrufino and two other men broke down his bedroom door before 2 in the morning and attempted to bind him with zip ties, according to trial testimony.

Ferrufino, a fencing contractor formerly of Manheim Township, testified he was asleep when the killing happened.

Judge David Ashworth at the sentencing said a letter he received from Ferrufino that reasserted his innocence and blamed others shows a total lack of remorse and arrogance.

Ashworth called the point-blank shooting a premeditated assassination.

You felt you had the right to do what you did, said Ashworth as Ferrufino, in green prison garb, stood before him. Mr. Ferrufino, this is a nation of laws. This is not a nation of who can get away with whatever they can get away with.

U.S. Border Patrol officers caught Ferrufino, a native of El Salvador, trying to enter illegally near Rio Grande City, Texas, in February 2003. Three years later, an immigration judge canceled Ferrufinos deportation, allowing him to lawfully remain in the United States, according to immigration officials.

Ferrufino declined to say anything at the half-hour proceeding.

Great loss

judge You felt you had the right to do what you did."

Maria Antonia Martinez told the judge that Garcia-Hernandez was her cousin but was more like my right arm in the ways that he helped her.

Honestly, I feel very sad, said Martinez, speaking in Spanish as a court interpreter translated. Its very hard to remember all this.

Thank God, she added, justice is being done.

Everardo Hernandez-Garcia, the victims nephew, also speaking in Spanish, described the sense of great loss he and his family continues to struggle with.

Thank God justice is being made because I know in this country, things are done in a clear way, Hernandez-Garcia said. Im thanking the authorities for doing all their jobs.

The first-degree murder conviction carried a mandatory sentence of life in state prison without possibility of parole.

Ashworth added the additional jail term for the murder-related burglary and conspiracy. In addition, the judge sentenced Ferrufino for the threats he made at gunpoint at Garcia-Hernandezs home on Dec. 24, 2016.

Assistant District Attorney Barry Goldman built his case around an accomplice who implicated Ferrufino.

accomplice This is the pain my heart felt when you were (having sex) with my wife."

The accomplice, Alejandro Cruz-Santiago, 40, a former cook at the now-shuttered Carlos & Charlies, explained how Ferrufino went out of his way to befriend him and then recruited him to rob, not kill, Garcia-Hernandez.

He said he was shocked when Ferrufino, who he knew as El Chapo, pulled out a handgun and shot Garcia-Hernandez in the chest.

This is the pain my heart felt when you were (having sex) with my wife, Ferrufino said before pulling the trigger, according to Cruz-Santiago.

The men fled without loot, not even Garcia-Hernandezs wallet, state police said.
While plans to build a new restaurant at Harrisburg Pike and Dillersville Road are still in the early design phase, a legal battle over a temporary gun shop on the property is just ramping up.

A company created by Themi Sacarellos, owner of the popular Round the Clock diners in York County, sued the Gun Gallery, owned by Brian Buecker, in September and again in late December for nonpayment of rent.

In both cases, district judge David P. Miller ruled in Sacarellos favor, including most recently on Jan. 7, when he ruled the gun shop owed $9,003 total in back rent and court costs.

Following the last judgment, Sacarellos company filed another request in court seeking possession of the property on Jan. 25. Buecker appealed the Jan. 7 court decision that same day and the appeal is pending.

Controversial gun shop

Its been nearly a year since The Gun Gallery relocated from Millersville to the former Reifsnyders piano store property at 1020 Dillerville Road, owned by Sacarellos.

The opening was followed by an outcry from residents, parents and nearby school administrators due to the gun shops proximity to Franklin & Marshall College and Lancaster Country Day School.

The shop, however, had proper zoning and approvals.

A rezoning of four nearby parcels owned by Sacarellos was approved on the condition of Sacarellos voluntary commitment not to allow any sales of firearms or related products on those parcels.

Last February, Sacarellos had stated the lease for the shop was temporary and would end by November. However, the Gun Gallery remains open.

In a separate lawsuit by Buecker in April, the gun shop alleged Sacarellos undermined the gun shops success through several means, effectively breaching the agreement.

According to the lawsuit, those means included placing a chain in an entrance leading to the property from Harrisburg Pike, blocking the view of the gun shop from Harrisburg Pike by parking tractor-trailers in front of the business, and making inflammatory statements on the temporary nature of the stores presence to LNP.

In a court response, Sacarellos attorneys stated the store was always visible, and that Buecker never requested changes. That case is ongoing.

Michael McHale, Bueckers attorney, declined to comment on both the rent dispute and the civil lawsuit.

Future plans

No plans have been submitted to Manheim Township for redevelopment of the property, Sacarellos said in a phone interview Tuesday morning.

He said an engineer has been hired and is in the drafting phase to redevelop the six-acre tract, which will include a new restaurant and retail space. The commercial location has sparked interest from a regional retailer, but Sacarellos declined to name the prospective lessee.

While the restaurant may turn out to be a diner, Sacarellos said it would not be a third iteration of a Round the Clock diner like the ones in York County.

It depends on how the menu is made, he said.

One issue that Sacarellos faces as he seeks to redevelop the site is back taxes owed on the parcels that make up the property.

Six parcels making up a majority of the tract owned by Sacarellos company were reported to owe back taxes totaling more than $47,000, according to a December county report detailing delinquent properties.

Sacarellos declined to comment on any tax matters.
Pennsylvania legislators are again pitching a proposal to make college free for many low- and middle-income students.

On Wednesday, lawmakers reintroduced the Pennsylvania Promise Act, which would create a grant program to cover up to four years of tuition at a state-owned or state-related university or a community college for students with a household income of $110,000 or less. For students whose families earn $48,000 or less, room and board also would be included.

It would also provide need-based aid for adult learners seeking a higher education degree or certificate.

We cannot continue to allow the government to break the promise to our young people, state Rep. Jordan Harris, a Philadelphia Democrat and Millersville University graduate, said during a news conference Tuesday in Harrisburg.

Census data put Pennsylvania 47th in the country in per-capita funding for higher education. College students in Pennsylvania have the second-highest amount of undergraduate student debt  nearly $36,000  according to data from The Institute for College Access and Success.

And tuition, for many, keeps rising.

Base in-state tuition for the 14-university Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, for example, has increased 33 percent  from $5,804 to $7,716  since 2010.

Despite that, last years Pennsylvania Promise proposal failed when the House and Senate versions stalled in both chambers education committees. This years bills  House Bill 244, which Democratic state Rep. Mike Sturla, of Lancaster, has cosponsored, and Senate Bill 111  are likely to have the same fate under the Republican-controlled legislature.

Political and financial hurdles

The General Assembly would need to raise perhaps up to $1 billion to fund the program, according to a Keystone Research Center and Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center report on which the proposal is largely based.

The bills dont outline how that money would be raised, but it would almost certainly require additional taxes, such as corporate net income tax, a natural gas severance tax, a higher income personal income tax or a wealth tax.

Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument, of Landisville, told LNP that the political and financial challenges that stood against lawmakers last year remain.

Aument, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said hes all for making college more accessible, but he wouldnt want a program to become a giveaway to higher education institutions.

Perhaps a proposal incentivizing in-demand programs would garner more bipartisan support, he said.

Its also in our interest that these young people are employed and remain in Pennsylvania and become productive members of our communities, he said.

Continuing the conversation

Sturla, who also cosponsored last years Pennsylvania Promise House bill, said the in-demand jobs Aument speaks of are exactly why these bills are necessary.

We are stressed for an educated workforce in Pennsylvania, he said in a phone interview, particularly in skilled trades.

Aument said he hopes to form a commission  perhaps within days  to have a very thoughtful, broad conversation about higher education funding. It would be similar to the basic education funding commission, which was created in 2014 and introduced the new basic education funding formula.

If all goes according to plan, Aument said, the commission should release a report and recommendations by Spring 2020.
A Florida man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for an October 2015 crash near Daytona Beach that killed a 25-year-old Lancaster woman.

Tyler Wayne Dutton, 27, will serve the prison time and then be subject to four years probation for the death of Jordan Marie Rineer, according to FlaglerLive.com.

Dutton had been drinking in Daytona Beach with Rineer the night of October 26, 2015 and then was driving home with her early the next morning, according to a FlaglerLive.com report.

Authorities said Dutton's blood-alcohol level was between 0.11 and 0.18 percent when his 2008 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck overturned several times on U.S. Route 1 about 20 miles north of Daytona, according to the FlaglerLive.com report. Rineer was ejected from the truck and died at the scene. Dutton suffered a shoulder injury.

Rineer is the daughter of Rick and Toni Shissler Rineer of Willow Street, who lived for a time in Florida, where Rineer graduated from high school.

For several years before her death, Rineer had been living in Lancaster and working as a bartender at the Shamrock Cafe. At the time of the crash, Rineer was in Palm Coast, Florida, to visit her sister and help her grandmother after hip surgery.
Heres a piece of advice for those planning to take Fridays night hike led by Lancaster County park naturalist Ann Strauss:

Leave your flashlights at home.

Strauss wants to introduce you to your night vision.

People dont go out when its dark, Strauss says. Theyre uncomfortable in the dark. But once your eyes adjust, you can see just fine.

Strauss, who has been working as a naturalist at different locations for many years, loves leading hikes under the stars. Ive lost count on the number of night hikes Ive led, she says.

She was no stranger to the outdoors both day and night growing up on her familys 35-acre farm in Shippensburg.

We had every Pennsylvania habitat on our farm, she says. And she credits her mother with cultivating an early love for nature.

But she didnt decide to pursue it as a career until later.

Her path veered from becoming a school teacher to an environmental educator when she was doing volunteer work at an environmental education center during graduate school.

I fell in love with it, she says. It just felt right. Everyone is just so interested. The kids are excited. It teaches itself.

She worked for a time in upstate New York, then left the job market to raise her family, which had resettled in Lancaster County.

About three years ago, she started working for the Lancaster County Department of Parks and Recreation, and shes already led several night hikes here.

I love taking people out of their element, out of their comfort zone, she says. When you do that, its always a dramatic result; they always enjoy it.

Folks rarely have an opportunity to find out just how well they can see in the dark, because they never need to.

As soon as a flashlight pierces the darkness, our night vision is destroyed. If participants absolutely need to bring a flashlight to the hike, it will be shrouded in red cellophane before the group sets out.

Fridays hike starts at the Environmental Center in Lancaster County Central Park. From there, Strauss will lead participants out into the open field where eyes will have time to adjust.

If its clear, well do a little star gazing, Strauss says. One thing I like to teach is how to find the North Star, and well look at some constellations.

She purposely scheduled the walk during a new moon phase so it would be even darker.

From the field, the group will go to the head of Scout Trail, a wide, easily navigated trail that meanders through the forest, down along Mill Creek and then back up toward the Environmental Center.

The trail itself is under a mile, and only has one area coming down the hill that may cause a stumble if one is not careful.

IF YOU GO WHAT: Winter night hike WHEN: Fri. 7-8 p.m. COST: $2 WHERE: Lancaster Environmental Center, Lancaster County Central Park INFO: Register by noon Thursday at 717-295-2055. lancastercountyparks.org.

Strauss concedes at the outset that the chances of actually seeing wildlife while 16 or so people are hiking through the woods are kind of slim. But no matter.

Theres still a sense of wonder to be found.

The woods are such a different place at night, Strauss says.

She will do some owl calling, since this time of year is perfect for getting a response.

Along the creek shell likely talk about raccoons, which like to visit there and hang out in the big dead sycamore trees.

Shell also take the opportunity to explain the differences between our night vision and that of nocturnal animals.

And she has a few surprises in store, too.

All without the use of a flashlight.

DO try this at home! To teach people about human night vision, naturalist Ann Strauss always has participants do a couple of simple exercises you can try even if you cant make this weekends night hike. What youll need: A night sky, obviously. Small pieces of construction paper of several different darker colors. A partner or two. A spirit of discovery. Exercise No. 1 Stand 2 or 3 feet from your partner in the dark and look directly at each other. Try to make out the features on the other persons face. Can you? Now look at someone or something next to your partner, instead of directly at him. Can you see your partners face now? The answer may surprise you. Exercise No. 2 Cut squares of construction paper of various darker colors and put them in a bag. When youre outside at night, pull one out and guess what color it is. Put it in your pocket and check when youre back inside to see if you were right . A quick and extremely simplified biology lesson: Eyes have two kinds of photoreceptors that allow us to see light  rods and cones. In humans, cones are located in the center of the eye and rods in the periphery. Cones work well in high levels of light and help us discern colors, while rods work better in low light. Animals have different configurations of rods and cones allowing for better night vision. Since our rods are located in the periphery of our eyes, we see better at night in our peripheral vision and discerning color is nearly impossible. Neat, huh?
Talk of James Buchanans sexuality has surfaced again.

Any evidence that Buchanan was homosexual is as flimsy as a house of cards. Still, some people seem determined to prove the unprovable.

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss is the latest to claim he understands the sexuality of Lancaster Countys most famous resident. In his highly acclaimed Presidents of War, Beschloss cites the fact that Buchanan was widely thought in Washington to be gay.

That claim, as far as this columnist knows, has not been made previously by a serious scholar. As his authority for the statement, Beschloss cites historian Jean Baker. But in her 2004 biography, James Buchanan, Baker only says there has long been suspicion that our only bachelor president was a homosexual. Then she debunks the idea.

While acknowledging that no one will ever know, Baker concludes that the best speculation is that Buchanan had little interest in sex. So where does Beschloss get his fact that 19th-century Washingtonians thought Buchanan was gay?

He seems to have created it while introducing a new gay friend for Buchanan. The mans name is John Nugent, a reporter for the New York Herald. In early February 1847, Nugent wrote a story about the impending treaty that would end the Mexican War. The treaty was not yet public information. President James K. Polk, who supported the treaty, was irate about the leak to the press.

Polk, according to Beschloss, concluded that James Buchanan, his secretary of state, leaked the story to Nugent for two reasons: Buchanan opposed the treaty as written and, as implied by Beschloss, Buchanan and Nugent had a gay relationship that apparently included sharing such information.

Nugent is barely mentioned in other Buchanan biographies, and never as Buchanans possible lover. But Beschloss says Polk wrote in his diary that he was shocked Buchanan would have constant and intimate intercourse with Nugent and feared he has placed himself in his power.

Beschloss further relates that senators investigating the news leak told Polk that Buchanan was in habits of intimacy with Nugent and had reported they often had difficulty contacting Buchanan because this fellow, Nugent, was closeted with him.

Intimacy and closeted dont necessarily suggest sexual relations, especially in 19th-century language and at a time when homosexuality was illegal. If Buchanan had been widely thought to be in a homosexual relationship with Nugent or anyone else, that revelation would have destroyed his political ambitions.

U.S. Sen. Rufus King was Buchanans Washington roommate for four years and is the usual target of gay Buchanan fans who like to view 19th-century relationships through 21st-century eyes. Beschloss barely mentions King in a political footnote. But Jean Baker calls King the only man to whom [Buchanans] name was ever erotically connected.

So why did Beschloss nominate Nugent?

Buchanans sexuality is a mystery. He was engaged to a Lancaster woman who traveled to Philadelphia and died under mysterious circumstances. He liked women and spent much time in their company throughout his life. He liked men, too. He was a convivial bachelor.

When a historian with the reputation of Michael Beschloss makes an unsupported statement about what the presidents contemporaries thought about his sexual preference, he does history a disservice.

Jack Brubaker, retired from the LNP staff, writes "The Scribbler'' column every Wednesday. He welcomes comments and contributions at scribblerlnp@gmail.com.
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The narrow Sepulveda Pass between the San Fernando Valley and the Westside of Los Angeles has always been difficult to traverse. Now, L.A. County's transit agency has a plan to make it a little easier with a rail connection that would let riders avoid the infamous 405 Freeway, potentially cutting people's commutes from upwards of an hour to 15 minutes.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is holding three meetings over the next week to present updates to the planning process and gather feedback on options for study: three versions of a heavy rail subway, like the Red or Purple Lines, and a proposed monorail.

Image courtesy of Metro

All of the options Metro is pursuing for study do include a station on the UCLA campus, in addition to the station connecting to the future Purple Line subway at Westwood and Wilshire Boulevard, about a mile from campus. This would make it possible to take rail directly onto campus on the Sepulveda Line and with a transfer from the Purple Line.

Metro had previously explored options for a light rail line, like the Expo or Gold Lines, which could then connect seamlessly to another light rail line Metro is developing to run up and down Van Nuys Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley by 2028.

But further study found the demand for the full corridor would be too high to be accommodated by light rail, which has lower capacity than a heavy subway rail.

Metro also eliminated the possibility of simply extending the Purple Line subway beyond its current planned end point at the Westwood Veterans Administration into the San Fernando Valley, because the route would have lower ridership.

Metro has estimated the potential ridership and travel times between the Van Nuys Metrolink station and the Expo Line in West L.A. for the four options it is studying. HRT, below, stands for Heavy Rail Transit, or subway, while MRT stands for Monorail Transit.

Image courtesy of Metro

The different options for the subway include slightly different routes and station connections, as well as differences in whether the tracks would be all underground or partially elevated. Building underground avoids tension over property rights or environmental impacts at the surface but is much more expensive.

The transit project has been allocated about $10 billion combined in Measures R and M, two voter-approved sales tax increases to fund transportation. Metro doesn't yet have estimated budgets for the proposed alignments, but even $10 billion doesn't go far when tunneling through geologically complex mountainsides.

The current timeline would have Metro finishing the project around 2033, though the agency has identified it as a priority to finish for the 2028 Olympics. For that to happen, Metro would need an infusion of extra cash, either in the form of a grant or a private partnership that could help speed things up.

Metro's Office of Extraordinary Innovation is reviewing proposals for private partnerships, but none could be finalized until the project has gone through a full environmental review process, which is expected to start in 2020 and could take years.

There are also plans to expand the line from Westwood to LAX, but there's currently no budget to do so until 2048 with a potential completion ten years later.

Metro will give full details on all of the proposed options at public meetings over the next week:

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Westwood Presbyterian Church

Hoffman Hall

10822 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90024

Westwood Presbyterian Church Hoffman Hall 10822 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90024 Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Marvin Braude Constituent Service Center

6262 Van Nuys Blvd.

Van Nuys, CA 91401

Marvin Braude Constituent Service Center 6262 Van Nuys Blvd. Van Nuys, CA 91401 Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Proud Bird Restaurant

Aviator Room

11022 Aviation Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90045

Metro also produced a video that presents an overview of the project, which includes testimonials from Angelenos with horrifying commutes who would welcome a public transit option to make life easier.
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A wide variety of anxieties about the state of public education in Los Angeles -- ranging from high class sizes to low salaries -- drove thousands of teachers to strike for six days this month.

But many striking members of the teachers union had another demand: do something about charter schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded and part of the L.A. Unified School District -- but they're privately run. This means they have increasingly competed with LAUSD to enroll the city's students, and to capture the per-pupil funding that comes with those students.

Leaders of the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, proposed a solution to what they see as a growing threat: a cap on new charter schools within LAUSD. They even emerged from strike-ending negotiations last week with suggested legislation for a charter cap that the school board could vote on.

On Tuesday, the L.A. Unified School Board voted to go along. Board members passed a similar resolution calling not for a cap, but for a "temporary moratorium" on new charters in LAUSD pending a study of the charter school authorization laws California first passed in 1992.

Board member Richard Vladovic, the resolution's sponsor, called for the study to take no longer than "8 to 10 months."

Vladovic said he put forward the measure "in the spirit of unity," framing it as a "step back, after 27 years of an experiment, to see if it worked."

IT'S POLITICAL

LAUSD's resolution is non-binding; only Sacramento can alter the state laws allowing charter schools to start up. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state schools superintendent Tony Thurmond have both endorsed a temporary charter school moratorium, and Tuesday's vote provides another nudge to state lawmakers to follow through.

The vote also illustrates that LAUSD board politics are not cleanly split along "pro-charter" and "anti-charter" lines.

Four of the six current board members were once endorsed by the California Charter Schools Association. But only one member of this so-called "pro-charter" wing of the board, Nick Melvoin, voted against the resolution. The other three -- including board president Monica Garcia, who's been a special target of anti-charter advocates and teachers union supporters -- voted in favor of the charter school moratorium.

Garcia said she saw a vote for the moratorium as an endorsement of the agreement that ended the teachers strike one week ago. She felt the study that the resolution called for might contain useful lessons, and a temporary moratorium might help turn down the temperature in the debate about charter schools.

"We have to stop the infighting and ... focus on where there are win-win strategies," Garcia said. "This is an opportunity for that."

HOW PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT THE VOTE

Charter school advocacy groups mobilized a response Tuesday, gathering more than a thousand charter supporters outside LAUSD headquarters ahead of the vote, hoping to urge the board to reconsider. Many saw the vote as a slap in the face -- and a surrender to rhetoric pitting charter parents against other LAUSD parents.

"Where I live, we need charter schools," said public commenter Elisa Avalos, a mother from the east San Fernando Valley. "I feel like public schools failed me. I'm not asking you to neglect public schools. I love public schools. I wish my son would've gone there."

"I think it's past time we started talking about accountability for the district's lowest-performing schools," said parent Roxann Nozario. "Why are these schools allowed to stay open, year after year? Maybe we should study that."

But United Teachers Los Angeles leaders and other moratorium supporters framed the growth of charter schools as an existential crisis for LAUSD -- one that has starved the district, according to one union-commissioned estimate, of more than $500 million in potential revenue per year.

NOTE: "Charter schools" refers only to what LAUSD calls "independent" charter schools. This enrollment count excludes LAUSD's "affiliated charter schools," which are essentially district-run schools. (SOURCE: L.A. Unified School District)

"What happens to parents like me who are making the choice to go to a public school?" said public commenter Alicia Baltazar at today's school board meeting. "When you let all these charter schools come in and they start taking all the students, and they start taking with them all the funding, what does that leave us?"

"Everyone else wants to say 'public schools are horrible,'" Baltazar continued, "but they're not looking at 'why are they so horrible?' Why are they failing our students? Why is the money being funneled away so much into these charters, and not into public schools?'"

UTLA vice president Cecily Myaert-Cruz focused on the portion of the resolution calling for a study of charter growth: "We need to understand that if we are going to survive as a public, traditional school district."

HOW FAST ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS GROWING?

Two decades ago, charter schools in L.A. were niche.

In 2002, enrollment in LAUSD-run schools peaked at more than 737,000 students -- and fewer than 10,000 students attended charters.

Since then, enrollment in district-run schools has declined by more than 30 percent -- to just 484,000 students.

Meanwhile, charter enrollment has exploded. More than 117,000 students now attend more than 200 charter schools -- more charters than any single school district in the U.S.

NOTE: "Charter schools" refers only to what LAUSD calls "independent" charter schools. This enrollment count excludes LAUSD's "affiliated charter schools," which are essentially district-run schools. (SOURCE: California Department of Education)

"Independent charter schools" are run by non-profit organizations, not the school district, with each reporting to its own appointed board.

Under California law, charter schools in L.A. Unified must submit to oversight by LAUSD officials and, under California law, local school boards have an up-or-down vote on applications to open new charters within their district's boundaries -- but limited power to turn down a qualified applicant.

Board member Scott Schmerelson noted these limited powers have forced some frustrating choices. He says state law gives him little leeway to turn down renewals for schools accused of mismanagement. Schmerelson has also has been asked to approve renewals for charter schools that are academically underperforming -- but that are allowed to remain open because they're only marginally better than others in the neighborhood.

Schmerelson said the district has little recourse when a charter school's enrollment does not "reflect the diversity of their surrounding communities."

"There are some charter schools that I consider to be mini-private schools," Schmerelson said. "The whole area is Hispanic and this charter school is mainly white. That's not diversity."

Charter school advocates would say the district is not totally hamstrung. To their point, LAUSD has threatened charter schools with closure or sanction in recent years for mismanagement or underperformance -- and the California Charter Schools Association itself has called for shutting down schools that are underperforming.

In recent years, LAUSD board members have rarely rejected a petition to open new charter schools that comes up for a vote. When existing charter schools seek the "renewals" they need to stay open, board members have rarely turned them down.

In a statement Tuesday, CCSA called the district's proposed temporary moratorium the result of a "backroom deal" meant to placate teachers union supporters without addressing the true problem in L.A.'s public schools: "the persistent achievement gap."

"This resolution," said CCSA president Myrna Castrejon, "is a solution in search of a problem."

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of public commenter Elisa Avalos. LAist regrets the error.
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Eighteen weeks of fully paid parental leave could soon be a reality for expectant Los Angeles parents.

Los Angeles City Councilmembers David Ryu and Nury Martinez introduced a motion Tuesday that would require employers to make up the difference between the state's parental leave policy, which provides workers with 60 to 70 percent of their salary during the first 18 weeks of becoming parents, and bring it up to 100 percent.

Ryu said that new parents - particularly low-income parents, who often face the fewest choices around returning to work - "shouldn't have to choose between parenting and putting food on the table."

The councilmembers stated that the 18-week timeline aligns with current state regulations.

They are considering an exception for small businesses, and may propose a cap on the amount that employers would be required to cover, based on the annually adjusted cost of living. The state's parental leave policy currently caps weekly payments at $1,252.

Ryu and Martinez are asking the city attorney to report back with options for how the motion might be executed and are requesting a study of how the ordinance would affect small businesses and non-profits.

The proposal will go to the Health, Education, Neighborhoods, Parks, Arts and River Committee next, Ryu said. Martinez added that she would hope to see the policy implemented by the end of the year.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that the Ryu/Martinez proposal will likely cap weekly payments to new parents at $1,252. In fact, that number reflects the state of California's current cap. LAist regrets the error.
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Black Panther was a cultural phenomenon but if you haven't seen it yet -- or you want to be surrounded by a large cheering crowd rather than cramming friends around your TV -- now's your chance. Disney announced that the movie is heading back to the big screen, for free, at 250 participating AMC Theatres.

It's a one-week engagement, Feb. 1-7, which Disney says is in honor of Black History Month. It also happens to be in the middle of awards season, with Black Panther nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture. Can't hurt to get people (especially Academy voters) talking about the movie, right?

They'll be doing two screenings a day at each theater, including several locations around Southern California. You can find a theater near you and reserve your tickets here. If the screening you want is full, they also have a number of waiting list slots.

This is the first time a superhero movie has been nominated for Best Picture but Black Panther has some momentum after taking home the SAG Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a motion picture.

In association with these screenings, Disney also announced a $1.5 million grant to support the United Negro College Fund.

"Black Panther is groundbreaking for many reasons, including the rich diversity of voices behind its success," Disney Chairman/CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. "The story also showcases the power of knowledge to change the world for the better, and the importance of ensuring everyone has access to it."

Wakanda forever -- and in theaters for another week.
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Knock Down The House had an inspiring, electric premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The screening of this documentary, which follows four women's insurgent campaigns for Congress in 2018, was as much a celebration of what they did as it was a rallying cry for the possibility of political change in 2020.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's featured in the movie and joined the Q&A via webcast from Washington D.C., rallied the crowd with these words:

"We are so early on. We can do 2018 again, better, in 2020. So when someone tells you that they're going to run for office, believe in them early. Don't dismiss them. And know that when we all participate, and we all know what we have to give and we choose to give it, our nation will be better. We have no other choice."





The other three candidates in the film were there in person. Cori Bush Amy Vilela , and Paula Jean Swearengin all took the stage (accompanied by director Rachel Lears and producer Robin Blotnick ).

Joined by Ocasio-Cortez on the screen behind them, the audience was on its feet applauding and cheering, many through tears. It's an emotional movie. The women all sacrifice money, time, and much more as they go up against powerful interests to try to have their voices heard.

They're all working-class women, new to politics. They ran because they were fed up with how the system has traditionally been run. They said that they were sick of corporate money having more power than the people.

None of them took corporate donations. At one point in the film, we see Amy Vilela celebrating a $100 donation like she's gotten a figure with a whole lot more zeros.

For these women, every penny, and every person, counted.

We see Ocasio-Cortez at a Democratic primary debate where there are more empty chairs than audience members -- and her opponent wasn't there. The incumbent Democratic congressman, Joe Crowley, sent a surrogate to the debate on his behalf.

It didn't end well for him.

For Ocasio-Cortez in New York, and for Cori Bush in Missouri, they were doing something that no one had dared -- or bothered to do -- for years: mounting primary challenges against Democratic incumbents.

They went up against the traditional political machine with the help of the group Brand New Congress. The organization, which was formed in the wake of the 2016 election, helps grassroots candidates run their campaigns. They help with speechwriting, fundraising, and public speaking.

At one point in the film, Vilela has to give a speech -- she's full of self-doubt. Then a member of Brand New Congress gives her a pep talk. He tells her to forget about the words. He puts away her comptuers and says to speak from her heart and to trust herself. Then she proceeds to slay at the podium.

Knock Down The House shows how, for these four women, politics is extra personal.

Bush ran in the Missouri district where Michael Brown was shot and killed by police. Violence and racism topped her concerns. While the incumbent congressman was an African-American man, she didn't feel that he was making life better for their community.

Paula Jean Swearengin ran in West Virginia, where she actively opposed the coal industry. We see her drive around her town pointing to the houses where people live with cancer. She's infuriated about the polluted air, ravaged mountains, and sickened people of her state.

Vilela ran in Nevada, mostly on the issue of health care for all. We see her drive around with the urn of her daughter's ashes strapped in the backseat of her car with a seatbelt. Her daughter died of a pulmonary embolism after she was denied care for lack of health insurance.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto Rican waitress from the Bronx, knocks on doors, talking with people from all cultures and races in Bronx and Queens. We see her as a waitress doing kitchen prep work and talking about how her district needs someone from the community and from the working class to truly represent their needs in D.C. The incumbent didn't live there.

While Ocasio-Cortez is the superstar of the pack and [spoiler alert] the only one to get elected, she was quick to say that it was Cori Bush speaking at a meeting of Brand New Congress who inspired her to run. She also soothes the emotions of her colleagues when they lose, saying that it may take 100 of them running to get one of them elected. In other words, there's power in numbers.

During the Q&A, the three women who lost were asked if they'd run again. All of them said yes and that the fight isn't over.

Knock Down The House is fielding multiple offers from film distributors. We're told there should be a sale any day now.

It's poised to be one of the biggest documentaries of 2019. If it rallies the same enthusiasm outside of Park City as it has at Sundance, the effects could be felt in 2020.

Listen to the full interview with director Rachel Lears on the Frame.
The Associated Press story in the La Crosse Tribune, Shutdown ends for now (Jan. 26) is interesting, but the subtitle, Trump agrees to short reprieve in effort to bring Dems to table is way off the mark.

Democrats are the adults in the room. Theyve been at the table since President Donald Trumps inauguration, begging him to discuss comprehensive immigration reform. When Trump shut down the government, Democrats worked tirelessly to put 800,000 federal workers back to work.

Trumps method of operation is throwing a temper tantrum.

He has been very successful sending Americans back to the emergency room for their health care, handing out tax cuts to his rich friends, destroying the environment, deregulating everything in sight and removing the U.S. from all forms of international agreements with allies.

He has just one more campaign promise to fulfill -- build that wall. This was the hallmark of his campaign, and the pressure is on because fellow Congressional Republicans are counting on some movement in this area for their re-election success. If he has to, Trump will use government workers as pawns again.

Interesting, isnt it, that the Department of Homeland Security doesnt have a southern border wall as its top priority?
The state will have $282 million less than previously projected  but still a sizable amount of new revenue to spend  for the next state budget, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The state will have about $1.8 billion in new revenue available during the next state budget cycle, bureau director Bob Lang said. The cycle goes from July 2019 through June 2021.

The state also is projected to end the 2018-19 fiscal year in June with a balance of about $692 million in its general fund, according to the fiscal bureau. Thats in addition to the projected $1.8 billion in new future revenue.

Those figures help frame the emerging debate over the next state budget. The newly available revenue projections give Gov. Tony Evers and lawmakers considerable leeway on tax and spending decisions.

Still, the downward revision in projected revenues  based on an economic forecast that real GDP growth will slow in coming years  suggests the state may have less to spend than officials previously thought.
Midwestern power company Xcel Energy is warning La Crosse area customers of scammers taking advantage of the extreme cold to steal financial information.

The company said it received reports from the La Crosse Police Department of scamming incidents targeting residents and business, mainly in the La Crosse area.

The scam is a type of phone phishing where scammers impersonate Xcel Energy employees. They alter the caller ID and phone number to make the call look like its coming from Xcel Energy. Then the scammers scare their intended victims with notices of outstanding payments and threaten to shut their power unless they pay over the phone. Sometimes, scammers will require victims pay with a prepaid debit card because the funds on these cards are often not linked to a bank account or insured, making them harder to reclaim.

Xcel notifies customers about overdue bills through U.S. mail, not over the phone, Xcel spokesperson Christine Ouellette said, and customers receive a written disconnection notice before the power is turned off.

Furthermore, Wisconsin state law forbids utilities from shutting off the power during the winter months between Nov. 1 and April 15, Ouellette said. We legally cant disconnect power.
Mark Schneider, co-owner of Schneider Plumbing and Heating in Onalaska, said business was brisk Tuesday, but (i)t isnt that crazy yet. I think its going to get worse today and tonight.

The main things homeowners should watch for is frozen or covered vents and make sure filters are not clogged, Schneider said.

A wet weekend ahead

La Crosse utility crews will monitor snowmelt and rain conditions as the weekend approaches, with a forecast of a temperature as high as 39 and a chance of rain Saturday, said Bernie Lenz, the citys utilities director.

The frozen ground, with a frost line of 18 inches to 2 feet for this time of year, wont absorb water, although the snow will and lessen runoff, he said.

If forecasts evolve to show there is significant rain coming Saturday, well be out making sure critical inlets are open ahead of that  even in the cold weather, Lenz said.
The Brickhouse, home to the La Crosse Eagles Club until 2016, has a commercial kitchen and a second-story ballroom, which has hosted concerts and private events including weddings. Keith Brown, its owner, said it is shutting down at the end of April.

Harcey said the kitchen is an attractive feature for the school district because many students are interested in the culinary arts, and that the ballroom could be used for student performances and presentations.

Just the physical space, he said of The Brickhouse, would be a big improvement.

District officials would not say how much they expect to pay for the property, saying negotiations are ongoing.

Harcey said the school board could vote on the potential purchase as early as Monday, and that students could move into the building as early as November.

While the building is structurally sound, it will require considerable work to suit the districts plans  a process that could be phased over a number of years, Harcey said.

The district will also have to secure parking, since spots around The Brickhouse are few and far between.

And then theres the current site of 7 Rivers, Hogan.
Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency in response to Wisconsin's ongoing winter storm and potentially life-threatening temperatures. Evers has also directed state agencies to close state government offices for public business with limited exceptions.

"It's critically important that we're ensuring the people of Wisconsin and our public employees are safe in these dangerous weather conditions," Evers said. "I am urging people to prepare for this severe weather and to exercise caution when traveling or going outdoors."

Extreme wind chill values at minus 30 to minus 50 degrees below zero mixed with heavy snowfall present imminent threats and dangerous, life-threatening conditions.

Evers declared a state of emergency on Jan. 28 in anticipation of the storm. Executive Order No. 7 directs state agencies to close state government offices for public business on Jan. 30, excluding essential emergency response, public health, and public safety employees. The Executive Order also directs all state agencies utilize all available means to ensure employee safety including alternative work options.

The Wisconsin State Capitol will remain open to the public.

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Umami is an oddball taste. Few people have heard about it, and I had to look it up. It is described as savory and characteristic of broths and cooked meats. The taste buds respond to the glutamate. Tomatoes and soy sauce are rich in umami.

The average human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds. Every couple of weeks there is a complete turnover in taste buds, a whole new set. Older people have only about 5,000 taste buds, and over time theyre not replaced. Smoking also reduces the number of taste buds.

The Denmark study found that boys and girls have about the same number of taste buds. But the study also found that girls are generally better at recognizing tastes compared to boys. They found that boys need about 10 percent more sourness and 20 percent more sweetness to be able to recognize the taste of something. Girls have a finer sense of taste.

Findings also indicated that girls prefer flavors that are not too strong. Boys tend to more extreme flavors. Boys prefer those super sweet soft drinks. Boys also lean toward the sourest samples.
- Rochelle Pangilinan had a maternity photo shoot before her expected date of delivery

- One of the photos from her shoot was uploaded online and went viral

- Netizens were impressed by Rochelles outfit and posing in the picture

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Rochelle Pangilinan is pregnant for the first time and will give birth very soon.

KAMI learned that Rochelle decided to have a maternity shoot before her expected date of delivery.

The Kapuso star uploaded one photo from her maternity shoot by Nice Print Photography, showing the actress-dancer wearing a daring red outfit while seemingly dancing in front of the camera.

Im a dancer, actor and wife,now soon to be Mom ...

Psalm 139:13-17 TLB says, You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mothers womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complete! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous, Rochelle wrote on Instagram.

Netizens were in awe of Rochelles viral photo:

Everything about this photo is beautiful! Have a safe delivery!

Unique tlga idea mo in this picture. So far ikaw p lng ang meron nito @rochellepangilinan

ikaw p lng naka isip ng ganyang concept. patented na ba,baka gayahin eh sayang nmn.

Ang ganda. Pero natakot ako Baka madulas ka. Ingat plge ate Rochelle.

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In a previous report by KAMI, Rochelle hosted a lavish baby shower, which was attended by several celebrities.

Rochelle Pangilinan broke through in showbiz as a member of the Sexbomb Girls. She got married to Arthur Solinap on August 8, 2017 in Tagaytay City.

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Tricky questions: testing boys and girls of the Philippines for knowing some historical information. Who is smarter: boys or girls? Find out in the video! Check out our other videos  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

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- The Philippine military has followed the all-out war order of President Rodrigo Duterte against the Abu Sayyaf

- The military has shot canyons to the territory of the Abu Sayyaf

- They also deployed attack helicopters in Sulu

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The Philippine Military has obeyed the order of President Rodrigo Duterte to release an all-out war against the militant groupAbu Sayyaf.

KAMI learned that the military has shot canyons and mounted airstrike in Sulu. They also deployed attack helicopters as reported by ABS-CBN News.

"Iyun all-out war po natin versus the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, tuloy-tuloy po iyan," Col. Gerry Besana said.

"Ang kautusan po kasi ng ating Presidente, ay pulbusin talaga ang mga Abu Sayyaf, he added.

In a report by GMA News, Gen. Divino Pabayo of JTF Sulu said that they are utilizing all the military in Sulu to fight against the terrorist group.

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As previously reported by KAMI, President Duterte visited the church in Jolo where the twin explosions happened last Sunday. The President ordered the military to launch an all-out war against the Abu Sayyaf. The bombing in Jolo has caused at least 20 deaths and around 100 people injured.

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- The joined security forces have conducted a raid to arrest alias Kamah, one of the suspects in the Jolo bombing

- A family member of Kamah was killed during the operation

- However, Kamah was able to escape from the scene

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The Philippine Army, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, PNP Special Action Force, and Philippine Navy joined forces to raid the house of alias Kamah, one of the suspects in the church bombing in Jolo.

KAMI learned that the security forces received a tip that Kamah was seen in Kalimayahan Village in Sulu. The authorities immediately went to raid his house. However, Kamah was able to escape from the scene as reported by GMA News.

The security forces were able to catch Ommal Yusop, 62, who was believed to be Kamahs relative. Yusop was reported killed when he resisted and the authorities had to use deadly force.

The raiders were able to recover .45 caliber pistol, a sniper scope, two mobile phones, and a motorcycle.

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Kamah is one of the four suspects who was caught in surveillance behaving suspiciously before and after the bombing in Jolo church. Kamah is believed to be a logistician for Abu Sayyafs urban group, Ajang Ajang.

In a previous report by KAMI, the authorities have publicized the CCTV footage containing the suspects in Jolo bombing that caused at least 20 deaths and around 100 people injured. Alias Kamah was seen wearing a blue-green jacket when he handed something to the person he was with and immediately ran after the blast.

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While some of the information reported today has been previously reported publicly, other details about the continuing evolution of this project will require further review and evaluation by our team, Brennan said in a statement. Our team has been in contact with Foxconn since learning this news and will continue to monitor the project to ensure the company delivers on its promises to the people of Wisconsin.

Brennan said Evers plans to protect taxpayers and the local communities that have already made significant investments in this project, and our environment are his chief concerns.

In the coming weeks, the Evers Administration will continue to commit time, resources, and personnel to ensure that the interests of Wisconsin workers and taxpayers are protected and promoted by our approach to the Foxconn project, Brennan said.

Democrats respond

Some Democrats have blasted Republicans for their response to the Foxconn plan changes.

Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, tweeted, There is nothing more pathetic than legislative leaders responsible for selling taxpayers a bag of coal evading even a whiff of any responsibility and accountability. You own this and owe taxpayers answers.
MILWAUKEE  Gwen Moore, Wisconsins Democratic U.S. representative from Milwaukee, announced Tuesday that she has been diagnosed with cancer.

Moore, 67, said she was specifically diagnosed with small cell lymphocytic lymphoma in the spring that she described as a manageable, non life-threatening cancer with proper surveillance and treatment.

Right now Im in great health with an excellent prognosis of living with this disease, Moore said Tuesday.

Moore grew up in Racine.

She made the announcement during the House Ways and Means Committees first hearing of the 116th Congress, where representatives discussed how to better protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.

During the hearing Moore praised the Affordable Care Act for its protections for those with pre-existing conditions and for other provisions, such as caps on for allowing her proper care as she manages her condition.

They could have just denied me completely because of my pre-existing condition, Moore said. Weve talked a lot about his costing too much, or being too expensive. How much does a life cost?

Moore was recently selected to be a member of the powerful tax writing committee.

Moore represents the 4th Congressional District, which includes all of the City of Milwaukee and large parts of suburban Milwaukee County stretching from the north end of Oak Creek all the way north to the Ozaukee County line.

Pete Wicklund contributed to this report.

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When Andrea Beaugrand-Jorgensen was diagnosed with colon cancer in February at the age of 39, there were things she did not have, like health insurance.

Working part-time, she did not have $800/month to buy into her employers benefits package.

However, as is typical of people who are genuine and kind, she was rich in people who loved her.

Beaugrand-Jorgensens friends and family did not want to just talk about supporting her, they wanted to do something really meaningful to ease her situation.

The first effort, a GoFundMe page, was launched in late February by Malacara and has raised about $23,000 to date, helping cover medical costs and also a trip for Beaugrand-Jorgensen to take to Disney World with her daughter.

And that was just the start of it.
RACINE  A man may owe his life to his dog, which alerted him to a fire in his home early Wednesday.

At 1:22 a.m. Wednesday, the Racine Fire Department was dispatched to the 1100 block of Saxony Drive for a house fire, according to a Racine Fire Department news release.

The adult male owner and lone occupant of the home called 911 to report the fire after he was alerted to it by his dog. Paramedics treated and transported the man to Ascension All Saints Hospital for injuries he sustained in the fire. He was later transported to Milwaukee Columbia St. Mary's Regional Burn Center for additional treatment.

The dog was transported to the Wisconsin Humane Society.

As firefighters battled the fire in the single-family home, the temperature was -16 degrees, with 15 mph wind, creating a wind chill of -43 degrees. Extra fire crews were called to the scene to allow crews to rotate due to the extreme cold weather. No firefighter injuries were reported.

The cause of the fire with an estimated damage of approximately $95,000 is under investigation.

The Racine Police Department and We Energies also responded to the scene.

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Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the states largest police officers union, had a similar message.

While officers found to have engaged in misconduct should absolutely be held accountable for their actions, people should resist the urge to paint all of law enforcement negatively with a broad brush as a result of a specific individual event, Palmer said in an email.

There are few other professions that are as maligned as law enforcement is for the perceived bad acts of a few officers, regardless of where throughout the country those events might occur, Palmer continued. The vast majority of police officers report to duty each day out of a genuine desire to serve and protect their community, despite the tremendous dangers and scrutiny that go along with the jobs that we expect them to perform.

Stulos defense attorney, Patrick Cafferty, said that the criminal charges being filed were no surprise, and that not guilty pleas will be submitted.

At this point in the proceedings, we do not have access to all of the information the DA has, Cafferty said in a message to The Journal Times. We will take this one step at a time.

I dont wish anything bad on him
NORFOLK  A lack of funding is threatening to shut down the Corps of Discovery Welcome Center in northeastern Nebraska.

The rest area, which has been open for 18 years, sits along U.S. 81 in Cedar County, just south of the South Dakota border at Yankton. Corps of Discovery board member Frederick Pinkelman of Wynot says the board will meet Friday  likely for the last time as the board is expected to formally close the center.

The center has been a popular spot not only for travelers, but also a gathering place for presentations, local vendors and families.

The center's major funding source, the Lewis & Clark Natural Resources District, recently told the board that it would not continue its financial support.

The center has had an annual budget of about $55,000.

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CAMBRIDGE  A March 4 sentencing hearing is scheduled for two 18-year-olds accused of planning to attack a high school in south-central Nebraska.

Furnas County Court records say Joseph Williams of Oxford and Aron McMains of North Platte pleaded no contest Monday to misdemeanor attempted terroristic threats. Prosecutors had lowered the charges from felony counts.

Court records say Williams, McMains and two 17-year-old boys had been discussing an attack on Cambridge High School for months. When one student transferred to a different school, they tried to recruit another student.

One of the students told police he thought the plan was a joke but wasn't sure whether the others felt that way.

Both 17-year-olds are seeking to be prosecuted as juveniles.

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Annie Mumgaard is running for a second term to serve District 4 in north-central Lincoln on the Lincoln Board of Education.

I am passionate about LPS being a school district built on equity and that takes work. And Im willing to continue to do that work, Mumgaard said in the announcement of her re-election campaign.

Our community has a variety of decisions to make within the next several years on how to best meet the needs of our expanding and diverse student population."

She said she decided to run for re-election because experience and continuity are vital to making those decisions.

Mumgaard, a Democrat in the official nonpartisan race, cited her work to create the districts strategic plan and embark on a special-education audit among her accomplishments during her first term.

Shes been chair of the boards student learning committee, and has served on other board committees.

Mumgaard, 56, works for the University of Nebraska State Museum as its virtual-learning educator. She holds a masters degree in art education from Lesley College and a bachelors in broadcast journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Paul Claus, the lead locksmith at Lincoln Public Schools for 41 years, is running for the Lincoln Board of Educations District 4 seat in north-central Lincoln.

Claus, a registered Republican in the nonpartisan school board race, said one of the reasons he decided to run is because of the most recent valuation increases and concerns about the LPS tax rate.

The last time property owners saw a large increase in their home values, the district didnt lower the tax levy, he said.

We are currently talking about building new high schools and middle schools, he said. If the school district hopes for that bond to pass they need to take a very close look at the mill levy."

In 2017, when the Lancaster County assessor did a complete revaluation of property, LPS saw property tax revenue go up by 9 percent and kept the tax rate at the maximum $1.05 per $1,000 in assessed value. In the newest budget, it lowered the tax rate by a cent.

Claus said he also wants to make sure students get a balanced view of politics in classes, not just one side.

I care for kids, he said. Im a very conservative person. I have a concern for our children having at least a balance, politically (in school).
The second of two men convicted in the brutal beating of a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student in October 2015 was sentenced to prison Wednesday.

James Price said Patrick Pantoja, 26, didn't deserve to be assaulted so severely he was hospitalized for three months and in a rehabilitation hospital another five months.

Pantoja and a friend were walking back to campus from a friend's house near the Capitol around 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2015, when police say Price and Stelson Curry beat Pantoja to get his cash and belongings.

But Price, who a jury convicted of aiding and abetting robbery and first-degree assault in his second trial last summer, said he's changed his life since then.

He's married, has a child, works at a summer Bible camp, volunteers and no longer "hangs around the wrong friend group," he told Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen.

His attorney, Matt Kosmicki, asked the judge to consider the 28-year-old's traumatic childhood.

He was abused by his father, and after his mother committed suicide, he was left to care for his sister, Kosmicki said.
A 42-year-old Lincoln man has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute meth in the area.

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf sentenced Claude Charles Iron Thunder on Tuesday to the prison time, plus four years of supervised release.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine between June 2014 and March 2018.

In a press release, United States Attorney Joe Kelly said information provided to law enforcement indicated that Iron Thunder was responsible for the distribution of at least 7 ounces of methamphetamine mixture in the Lincoln area.

On March 8, an undercover officer bought an eighth ounce of meth from someone else in Iron Thunders apartment while Iron Thunder was asleep. That person told the officer the seller and Iron Thunder were working together to sell methamphetamine.

This case was investigated by the Lincoln/Lancaster County Narcotics Task Force.

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Tuesday, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf sentenced Gerald Crowe Jr. to 12 years, nearly a week after sentencing Kayla Crowe to 10 years, the mandatory minimum.

"I'm not proud of the decisions that I have made, and I'm going to ensure that I don't make the same ones again," Gerald Crowe Jr. told the judge first, adding that in the past several months he's been taking steps to better himself as a person, husband and father.

He completed in-patient treatment at the VA Medical Center in Omaha, is in out-patient treatment at the Lincoln VA and in treatment for PTSD.

Gerald Crowe Jr. was an infantry soldier in the U.S. Army and injured in Afghanistan.

"I know it took me a while to start getting help with my PTSD. I tried for so long to cope with it myself, but all it did was tear my life apart," he said Tuesday.

And, he said, he regrets getting his wife into this situation.

The therapy he's getting now is really helping, and he's going to use this as a learning point and build his life from it, Gerald Crowe Jr. said.

"The me that stands in front of you today is not the same person that made those bad decisions over a year ago," he said.
Chief Lancaster County Deputy Sheriff Todd Duncan said the sheriff's office was notified at 8:55 p.m. Saturday.

The sheriff's office relies on the Corrections Department to make the public aware of escaped inmates, he said.

Convicted of second-degree murder and a weapons charge, Gafford was sentenced to 30 to 50 years for fatally shooting Jacque Holbert in September 1997. Prison records say his scheduled release date is Dec. 11, 2022.

He had been on parole twice, Strimple said, but had it revoked. Another parole hearing was scheduled for April.

Until Saturday, Gafford had been in the prison's custody since 2017.

On Jan. 20, Holbert's son, 21-year-old Jacque "Jack" Holbert IV, was fatally shot while lying in a bed in a home in Omaha. The shots came from outside the house, police said. No arrests have been reported.

A representative of the Holbert family told the Omaha World-Herald the family had not been notified of Gafford's escape, but the prison's spokesperson said staff notified the person listed with the prison as the primary contact.

Police didn't immediately return messages to the Associated Press about whether Gafford knew about the death of his victim's son or if Gafford is being investigated in connection to the death.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Events

Barnes and Noble Storytime  11 a.m. Saturday. Celebrate Elmo's birthday featuring the book Elmos Super-Duper Birthday, by Naomi Kleinberg, including hands-on activities, stickers and a craft. Get a coupon for $4 for a grilled cheese sandwich and milk, Barnes and Noble Bookstore, South Pointe mall, 2910 Pine Lake Road. Barnesandnoble.com or 402-421-7979.

Bilingual Kids Storytime  10-11 a.m. Saturday. Listen to a story in English and a second language, songs, games and a craft to wrap up the hour, kids ages 3 to 8, must be accompanied by a parent, Indigo Bridge Books, 701 P St. Indigobridgebooks.com or 402-477-7770.

Family Late night event  5-8 p.m. Thursday. The theme is Adventures. New games and activities throughout the museum will be available for working parents and families, free (members), $ 9.95 (adults), $10.95, (kids 18 months to 15 years), free (kids under 18 months), 14th and P streets. LincolnChildrensMuseum.org or 402-477-4000.
The state senator who introduced a bill to update the 1949 Americanism statute  and require that students take the civics portion of the U.S. citizenship test  said she tried to address concerns of opponents of a similar bill last session.

But the arguments for and against LB399 raised during a three-hour hearing Tuesday fell along similar lines to past years: supporters who think the test is necessary to ensure students learn the fundamentals of and appreciate the U.S. government and its founding documents; and those who dont think another test is a way to accomplish that and have concerns about important history it doesnt cover.

Last year, Sen. Lydia Brasch convinced her fellow lawmakers to pull her bill overhauling the Americanism law governing civics education to the floor of the Legislature after the Education Committee failed to advance it, but it went no further.

Audrey Worthing, a high school student in Arthur County who attended Elm Creek schools, said shes been coming to legislative hearings for the past four years to argue for increased civics education.

You should know during three-plus years of debate in this room the number of states that have passed some kind of civics initiative has reached more than 30, she said. Its time to move forward.
Bens appearance makes Burning seem like it is heading into standard love-triangle territory. But there is something troubling about the icy cold Ben, with his condescending remarks, bored yawns and oddly imperious affability.

Then, well over halfway through the 2-hour movie, Burning becomes an ever-more intense thriller with Jong-su on a baffling trail of desire, class conflict, family, deceit, the aforementioned cat and burning greenhouses.

Revealing the details of Burning, from when they are placed early on to how they fit together at the end, only would undermine the picture.

But it needs to be said that Chong-dong lays them out and gathers them up perfectly, while using them to create looks at class envy via Jong-su, who compares Ben to Jay Gatsby, and the superficiality of the hip upper class, the confusion of love and culmination of lust and desire in burning rage.

That wouldnt have been possible without superb performances from the trio -- Ah-in creating a perhaps slow-witted but determined protagonist, Yeun, a Detroit native speaking only in Korean, delivering a revelation of cool, distant control and, in her debut, Jong-seo, making an alluring mysterious, innocent woman.
Apple has disabled a group-chat function in FaceTime after users said a software bug could let callers activate another person's microphone remotely.

With the bug, a FaceTime user calling another iPhone, iPad or Mac computer could hear audio  even if the receiver did not accept the call. The bug is triggered when callers add themselves to the same call to launch a group chat. That makes FaceTime think the receiver had accepted the chat.

The bug, demonstrated through videos online , comes as an embarrassment for a company that is trying to distinguish itself by stressing its commitment to users' privacy.

"This is a big hit to their brand," said Dave Kennedy, CEO of Ohio-based security firm TrustedSec. "There's been a long period of time people could have used that to eavesdrop. These things definitely should be caught prior to ever being released."

Kennedy, however, commended Apple's quick response this week following reports of the bug by tech blogs. He predicted the reputational dent could soon be forgotten if it doesn't become part of a pattern.

"We're aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week," Apple said in a statement Tuesday.
The future of BNSF Railways' Havelock shops appears to be up in the air.

BNSF spokesman Andy Williams said in an email this week that the railroad is "working on a restructuring at Havelock," although he declined to provide any details.

Several unions represent various workers at the shops, including carmen, mechanics, electricians and pipefitters, and those unions voted last week on a new agreement. At last count, more than 400 people worked there.

Union officials have either declined to comment or have not responded to requests for comment about the contents of the agreement and the results of last week's votes.

However, a copy of the agreement obtained by the Journal Star shows that BNSF wants to separate the seniority rosters for workers at the Havelock shops and those in the railroad's diesel shop at its Hobson Yard on West O Street.

According to the agreement, employees at both the Havelock shops and the diesel shop would have to reapply for jobs for which they are qualified within 30 days of the agreement being signed.

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Once new job assignments are determined, BNSF would create two new seniority rosters, one for Havelock and one for the diesel shop.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Tuesday said that he is not under federal investigation "to my knowledge," releasing the statement after a report that he was secretly recorded while trying to solicit business for his law firm from a developer.

The Sun-Times reported on Tuesday that the longtime House speaker and Illinois Democratic Party chairman was recorded during a meeting arranged by Ald. Daniel Solis, who has worn a recording device in the investigation that led to an attempted extortion charge against veteran Ald. Edward Burke.

"To my knowledge, I am not under investigation by the office of the U.S. attorney, and I have not been contacted by the U.S. attorney relative to Dan Solis," Madigan said in a statement.

Citing a federal court affidavit used to secure search warrants for Solis' homes and offices, the newspaper reported that Madigan was recorded at his law office in 2014, telling the developer: "We're not interested in a quick killing here. We're interested in a long-term relationship."

Later, Solis told the developer's associate "if he works with the speaker, he will get anything he needs for that hotel," according to the report.

An attorney for Madigan said that to their knowledge neither the speaker nor his law firm is under investigation."

"The speaker recalls attending several meetings with Ald. Solis over the past five years, including meetings with individuals in need of legal representation," Heather Weir Vaught, a private attorney for the speaker, said in a written statement. "If indeed, some of his conversations were being recorded, the speaker did not know that, but he has no concern if they were. The speaker has no recollection of ever suggesting that he would take official action for a private law firm client or potential client."

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Neither Madigan nor Solis has been accused of wrongdoing.

Madigan & Getzendanner, the speaker's Chicago law firm, specializes in helping building owners get their property taxes lowered. Madigan and his firm have faced criticism over the years for representing clients that also have business before the state, but the speaker told the Tribune in 2010 that a "personal code of conduct and compliance with a wide range of government ethics provisions have ensured that I maintained ethical standards."

The charge against Burke and reports about Solis have rocked the City Council and the race for mayor, where candidates have scrambled to deal with their ties to Burke.

The Illinois House convened for the week just after noon on Tuesday, with Madigan holding a significant majority of 74 Democrats to Republicans' 44 seats and a new governor with an ambitious agenda to change the state's tax system and legalize recreational marijuana. The speaker likely would have to take a key leadership role in ushering Gov. J.B. Pritzker's agenda through Springfield.

"There is an ongoing FBI investigation, and I think we need to see that play out," Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference about winter weather. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on that ongoing investigation."

"I think it's very important for people to be held accountable if they've done something wrong," he said. "So we need to see the investigation play out, and then people who are indicted or found ... to have acted inappropriately or against the law to be held fully accountable for that."

The new revelation follows big Democratic successes in the November election, despite a year of questions about Madigan's handling of sexual harassment complaints within his political and government organization, putting him on the defensive after years of setting the agenda.

The speaker long has faced criticism from outside his House Democratic caucus, usually on partisan issues. But the #MeToo movement didn't fall along partisan lines, and harassment allegations have made critics of some of his members. Madigan last year dropped Tim Mapes, who served as his chief of staff since 1992 and as executive director of the state Democratic Party since 1998, after House staffer Sherri Garrett accused him of harassment and bullying.

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CHARLESTON -- Today's wind chills could mean bad things for the body, water pipes and even vehicles in a short time unless steps are taken by residents to be prepared.

Latest forecasts from the National Weather Service show Coles County, like much of the state, will be seeing "dangerously cold wind chills" until midday Thursday. The wind chill is expected to be as low as 30 to 45 below zero.

On top of that, light snow accumulations are possible Thursday afternoon and evening, the weather service reported.

Don't brave the cold

The only safe choices for the frigid conditions expected are to dress appropriately or avoid it altogether, according to one local physician.

"If you do not have the need to go outside, stay inside," said Doug Kabbes, who works at the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center Effingham walk-in clinic and previously worked in emergency rooms.

If that's not an option, he said, the most important thing is to dress in layers. Most clothing should be loose-fitting to trap air for insulation, while the outer layer should be water-resistant and keep out the wind, Kabbes said.

The areas on the body that are the most at risk are the hands, feet and face, he added. It's best to wear a hat that covers the face as best it can and, ideally, wear mittens versus gloves, he said.

Kabbes said frostbite can occur in about 10 minutes if skin is exposed to the wind chills expected. Medical issues with cold weather can also include hypothermia, when exposure leads to a drop in body temperature.

Symptoms such as numbness and uncontrollable shivering "tell you things are getting bad" and anyone experiencing them should "get warm immediately," he also said.

A whitening of the extremities, which is a sign of frostbite, or symptoms of hypothermia mean a trip to a hospital emergency room is needed, Kabbes added.

Schools and other entities in the area have already taken heed of warnings by medical professionals on the chances of frostbite and canceled classes for students. Multiple area school systems, Lake Land College and Eastern Illinois University in Charleston are among those that have opted to close today as subzero temperatures hit Central Illinois.

Closings in the area today Eastern Illinois University The university will be open but non-essential employees can use their discretion about safe travel to work. Lake Land College The closure will be in place for the main campus in Mattoon and for all satellite locations. Coles County Courthouse Anyone scheduled for court today can contact the county Circuit Clerk's Office on Thursday to determine their new court dates. School districts Charleston, Mattoon, Oakland Coles County Health Department Secretary of State facilities and offices Online services will be available. Individuals can visit the Secretary of States website, www.cyberdriveillinois.com to change an address, register to become an organ and tissue donor or renew license plate stickers online. A determination will be made today at noon regarding a possible closure due to weather for Thursday Peace Meal Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center's Peace Meal congregate meal sites in all 14 counties will be closed. There will be no Peace Meal home delivered meals. SBLHC Cardiac rehabilitation classes (METS)

High probability of water pipes leaking and bursting

Even in past winters that were not considered very cold, Steve Shadwell of Shadwell Plumbing and Heating always could expect a slew of calls following blasts of frigid air.

This time around, those calls will increase, he predicts.

"I am expecting to very busy," Shadwell said. "Instead of working eight hours (as usual), we are going to be on call 24/7."

Shadwell explained water pipes, especially those that are not insulated well, can be susceptible to leaks and breaks in these extreme conditions. The pipes get hit by those frigid breezes. The water freezes, and then thaws and expands, leading to potential pipe cracks or all-out busts.

"Wind goes through cracks and gets to those pipes," he said.

"If they froze up before, they will freeze up again," Shadwell warned.

To mitigate these potential issues, residents are advised to insulate their pipes as much as possible, whether with heat tape or other insulators. Shadwell recommended to keep a water drip in the home to ensure water is circulating through the pipes, making it more difficult to freeze.

Shadwell also advised lines to outside hydrants are not connected. These are highly susceptible to freezing.

Local institutions have prepared ahead of the weather. Pipes, specifically sprinkler lines in the residence halls on EIU's campus, are in vulnerable locations for potential busts.

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Mark Hudson, Housing and Dining director at EIU, said the narrow hallways like those connecting the dining halls and the residence halls are fairly exposed to the elements. The lines are located in suspended ceilings that do not offer much insulation from particularly cold winds.

In preparation for the sub-zero temperatures, Hudson said lines in at-risk areas have been drained temporarily to prevent breaks.

Hudson said there is always a concern that the heating in the building might be affected as well during these extreme cold spells. Students who are hot have been known to open their windows to cool off their rooms, but Hudson explained this throws off the HVAC system. He said the system will overwork attempting to warm up the floor.

Housing staff have been instructing student residents to lock and not open the windows for this reason ahead of this cold front, he said.

Keeping the car functioning in extreme temps

Lake Land College automotive technology instructor Kevin Miller trains students to become auto service techs and to help keep their customers' vehicles running smoothly, including during harsh winter weather.

To keep their windshields clear, Miller said drivers should ensure their wiper blades are in good shape and that their reservoir is full of nonfreezing windshield washer solvent.

Also, Tyler Johnson, manager at Car-X Tire and Auto in Charleston, urged folks with vehicles outside to separate the windshield wipers from the glass. Oftentimes, someone can find themselves damaging the motor that makes those wipers function when trying to pull the wiper from the glass after it already froze to the windshield, he said.

He mentioned the blades at those temperatures are very brittle.

Miller said they also should keep their gas tanks full, and check their cabin filter in the glove compartment, and their battery.

"A battery can be dead and still start the car," Miller said, warning that a dome light or a cellphone charger can quickly drain a weak battery. In the cold, Johnson noted the battery is working harder to get the car started.

New Life Car Care Director Dan Craw said if a battery is more than five years old, he recommends replacing it.

Johnson warned residents to also ensure the antifreeze, which works to prevent your engine from freezing up or overheating in extreme climates, is rated for the temperatures Coles County is expecting. He recommends antifreeze with a freeze point of 15 to 34 degrees below zero. He noted that many of the antifreeze solutions in local vehicles are rated at these levels.

While many are advised to stay inside today, Johnson said those who are planning to go out should give their vehicles time to heat up before driving off.

"If you just get in it and try to back out of a parking lot, do you know how stiff your steering and everything is going to be? You need to let things get warmed up and start circulating," Johnson said.

Should they head out onto the road, Miller said drivers should stock their vehicles and emergency kit with a spare tire and jack, ice scraper, flashlight, cellphone charger, winter clothes and blanket, bottled water and high energy snacks, a small shovel, and possibly cat litter or sand for traction. He said they should keep roadside assistance contact information readily available.

Craw, who is also a road crew worker with the Illinois Department of Transportation, said he recently assisted a shivering driver who had run out of gas and was stranded alongside the road in her parked car with no extra winter clothes and only a thin blanket.

"I can't stress enough the importance of an emergency kit," Craw said.

If their vehicle runs off the road, Miller said motorists should remain in their vehicle and only run their engine for a few minutes at a time to prevent exhaust from building up within the vehicle. He said they can help guide emergency help to them buy tying a bright cloth to their antenna and turning on their dome light.

Craw said winter is one of the busiest times of year for his Mattoon-based auto service charity as they assist low-income drivers with malfunctioning heaters and with low and dead batteries.

The same can be said for other automotive repair shops, too.

On Monday, Johnson said the auto shop was a lot busier than normal, which he attributed largely to the upcoming wind chill. He said numerous people were coming in for preventive checks on their tires and antifreeze solution to prepare for the weather.

Contact Jarad Jarmon at (217) 238-6839. Follow him on Twitter: @JJarmonReporter

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Jarad Jarmon Reporter Jarad Jarmon is a reporter for the JG-TC. He covers the city of Charleston, Eastern Illinois University, Mattoon schools and the Regional Office of Education. Follow Jarad Jarmon Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
MATTOON -- Multiple area school systems, the area's community college and Eastern Illinois University in Charleston are among the entities that have opted to close Wednesday as subzero temperatures hit Central Illinois.

Classes at EIU for tonight and Wednesday have been canceled because of the expected low temperatures and wind chill conditions.

The university announced that the cancellation affects classes scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. or later today and all day Wednesday. The university will be open Wednesday but non-essential employees can use their discretion about safe travel to work, the announcement said.

The Mattoon school district issued a statement late this morning: "Due to the inclement weather, all classes at Mattoon Community Unit School District 2 are canceled Wednesday (Jan. 30, 2019)."

In Charleston, school officials posted today on Facebook: "Due to forecasted extreme wind chill temperatures tomorrow morning and throughout the school day, which poses a threat to the safety of students, staff members and others travelling to and from our schools, schools in the Charleston district will be closed tomorrow, January 30, 2019."

Oakland schools will be closed Wednesday.

Lake Land College plans to temporarily close all of its campuses due to the frigid weather in the forecast this week.

Kelly Allee, director of marketing and public relations for Lake Land, said the college is scheduled to close at 5 p.m. today, remain closed throughout the day on Wednesday, and then reopen Thursday morning. She said the closure will be in place for the main campus in Mattoon and for all satellite locations.

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The Coles County Courthouse will also be closed Wednesday because of the expected weather conditions, county Presiding Judge Mark Bovard said.

He said anyone scheduled for court Wednesday can contact the county Circuit Clerk's Office today and Thursday to determine their new court dates.

The Coles County Health Department will be closed Wednesday, as will the LifeSpan Center.

At mid-day today, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White's office announced that the Secretary of State facilities and offices will be closed Wednesday due to dangerously cold temperatures.

Online services will be available, the secretary's officials indicated. Individuals can visit the Secretary of States website, www.cyberdriveillinois.com to change an address, register to become an organ and tissue donor or renew license plate stickers online.

A determination will be made on Wednesday at noon regarding a possible closure due to weather for Thursday. Please visit www.cyberdriveillinois.com for updates on closures.

Coles County and other counties including Champaign, Clark, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Moultire and Shelby are under a hazardous weather outlook from the National Weather Service based in Lincoln. There is a wind chill warning to be in effect from 9 p.m. tonight to noon on Thursday.

This afternoon and tonight, according to the NWS, wind chills will drop to 30 to 40 degrees below zero. Bitterly cold weather will continue through Thursday morning, with wind chills of 20 to 35 degrees below zero.

Light snow accumulations are possible Thursday afternoon and evening, the weather service reported.

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MATTOON -- Frigid winter weather has increased demand from people in financial need for the assistance provided by the Mattoon Community Food Center.

"People just can't afford to pay their utilities and then buy groceries," said Janet Clark, volunteer executive director of the food center. She added that this is a "real serious issue," especially for single parents and senior citizens.

For example, Clark said an elderly grandmother shared with food center volunteers that she leaves the heat off during the day at her home but then turns it back on when her grandson returns from school.

Clark said statistics recently released by Michael Gillespie, sociology professor at Eastern Illinois University, show that the poverty level in County remains at 21 percent after having only nominally decreased from 21.9 percent. Clark said she worries that another federal government shutdown could cause demand for the center's food to spike even higher.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture told Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance recipients on Jan. 20 that they needed to make their two-and-a-half weeks of assistance in purchasing groceries last through February if the shutdown was still in effect, Clark said.

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"There is just no way to stretch that assistance very far," Clark said. "We are really worried about how people are going to meet that demand."

The food center reports that it served a total of 6,131 families comprised of 20,621 individuals, including 7,168 children, in 2018. This includes 1,259 home deliveries for home-bound individuals. Each distribution is planned to feed a family for one week each month. This amount is intended to supplement SNAP funds, which provide food for two-and-a-half weeks.

Late winter is a time when monetary and food donations decline after peaking during the preceding holidays, Clark said. The center is financed solely by donations from businesses and individuals. Clark said church support for the center is down 11.8 percent from last year as the financial support of local churches is spread out over many different charities.

In addition to money for purchasing supplies at reduced costs from the Eastern Illinois Food Center, Clark said the center needs donations of food that would be part of a family's typical daily meal planning. She said donations of high protein food, such as peanut butter and soup, are especially important.

Clark said the center is fiscally solid but its food budget will take a hit due to the need to obtain a new walk-in freezer to store meat. The walk-in was a used unit purchased six years ago with a $25,000 grant from Walmart. She said freezer bids accepted at this date are in the $36,000 range.

"We are facing some real challenges right now," Clark said.

Contact Rob Stroud at (217) 238-6861. Follow him on Twitter: @TheRobStroud

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CHARLESTON -- Classes at Eastern Illinois University for Tuesday night and Wednesday have been cancelled because of the expected low temperatures and wind chill conditions.

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The university announced that the cancellation affects classes scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. or later on Tuesday and all day Wednesday.

The university will be open Wednesday but non-essential employees can use their discretion about safe travel to work, the announcement said.

It said the regular class schedule is set to resume Thursday and more information is available online at www.eiu.edu/~status/.

Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave

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German sources told Reuters on January 21 that Mahan Airs license for flying to Germany had been cancelled, with the German federal government citing safety concerns and Mahan Airs potential military use by the Iranian Regime. While in a meeting with EU foreign ministers later that same day, German FM Heiko Maas advised that Mahan Air had transported weapons and soldiers to war-torn areas in Syria on behalf of the Iranian Regime.

The German foreign ministry said in a statement: This decision has been taken in light of the recent sanctions agreed upon by the EU Council after the [terroristic] developments in France and Denmark.

The terrorist actions by the Iranian Regime, which led to these sanctions, included a failed attempt to bomb a grand gathering by the Iranian Resistance in Paris in June 2018 and the Resistance headquarters in Albania in March.

Considering these recent developments, the National Council of Resistance of Irans foreign commission has published a detailed report of Mahan Airs activities and its relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

In the report, the NCRI advise that although Mahan Air is registered as a private company, it has close ties with high-ranking Iranian officials and has enjoyed state-sponsorship since day one. In fact, Mahan Air was founded shortly after the IRGCs foreign terrorist arm, the Quds Force was established and virtually all of its major players are linked to the IRGC or the Quds Force, including:

 Hamid Arabnejad, chairman and CEO of Mahan Air, and close friend to Quds commander Qassem Soleimani

 Hamid Aslani, HR head of Mahan Air, advisor to Hamid Arabnejad, and Brigadier general of the IRGC.

 Hamid Asgari, head of Mahan Airs catering and former commander of IRGCs 41st division, known as the Tharallah Division. He is close to Qassem Soleimani.

Also, the Mola Almowaheddin institute, which describes itself as a charity but it likely a front for the Regime, owns 100% of Irans stock.

The NCRI advise that Soleimani organized daily Mahan Air flights to transport weapons, equipment and fighters to Syria to aid the regime of Bashar al-Assad. They say that Mahan Air transports IRGC militias to Damascus in groups of 200.
He continued: Only the highest authority of the regime (Regimes Supreme Leader Khamenei) was aware of this and no one else  His Holiness had said that you should be careful about these people (P5+1), they are not trustworthy and wont keep to their promises. Well, we had to work smartly and intelligently, in addition to not breaking the bridges behind us, we also had to build a bridge that would enable us to go faster if we were to go back. It was a tube of two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long  We had bought similar tubes, the same quantity, we were told to fill the main tubes with cement, so we poured cement in those tubes  but we did not say that we had other tubes because if we did, they would have said, sir, pour cement in those as well  We are going to use the same tubes now. Now we have those tubes. (Channel 4 State TV, January 22, 2019). https://bit.ly/2RLqSHH

On Wednesday, January 30th, Salehi told the state news agency, IRNA: We had some substitute parts and bought some more and these were not against the rules. There was no need to announce that we have substitute tubes. He then explained that the concealment and breach of the agreement were done under the order of regimes Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. He said: We have to be alert and calculate the process of possible return. In other words, we should not eliminate all the bridges behind us.

These remarks clearly show that the regimes intention in the nuclear negotiations, especially with the P5+1, were based on falsification and concealment, and had no purpose other than gaining more opportunities to obtain the nuclear bomb.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, immediately warned after the agreement on July 14, 2015: This agreement does not close the mullahs path to deception and access to a nuclear bomb. And before that, on November 24, 2013, she had said: Any leniency, hesitancy, and concessions by the international community will prompt Khamenei to once again move toward manufacturing through deception and cheating.

In his book, National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy Rouhani, president of the clerical regime, wrote: In 2002, the activities were moving in a calm atmosphere, but the Mujahedin (PMOI/MEK) suddenly made a lot of noise by making false accusations while our Atomic Energy Organization wanted to  notify the IAEA in a fait accompli.

Sunday Telegraph March 5, 2006, disclosed that in a public speech Hassan Rouhani had revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

30 January 2019

Source: https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/
The new agreement, spearheaded by Irans First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, also promises to give Tehran an even stronger foothold in Syrias political, economic, and military landscape as the country turns its attention to rebuilding in the wake of a civil war that has lasted nearly eight years. As that influence grows, it threatens to exclude the United States, which supported pro-democracy rebels against the Assad regime while Iran and Moscow defended the existing dictatorship.

The threat of Iran overriding American influence in Syria was underscored on Tuesday by Agence France Presse, which reported upon Bashar al-Assads personal response to the new plan for banking transfers as well as the broader string of agreements that were signed during Jahangiris trip to Damascus. These primarily economic deals follow upon a military cooperation agreement that was signed between Iran and Syria in August, which arguably helped to strengthen the position of Iran-backed Shiite militias inside Syria, where they freely operate alongside what is left of the regular army.

Channeling familiar Iranian propaganda, Assad describe the US as waging economic war in the Middle East, and he welcomed Iranian cooperation as a means of countering the efforts of Western powers. These deals will help consolidate Syrian and Iranian resilience against the economic war waged against them by some Western states, he was quoted as saying.

Iranian Member of Parliament Allaedin Boroujerdi put the Iranian-American competition for influence in even starker terms, describing the agreements with Damascus as a firm response to efforts by Western powers to change the political structure of the Syrian government. According to the Iranian propaganda network Press TV, the Assad regime has already committed fully to Iran, stating that the US and its allies wont be part of reconstruction in Syria, because very simply we wont allow them to be part of it, whether they come with money or not.

Another report from the same source credits President Assad himself with urging both his own government and his Iranian allies to increase their efforts for mutual cooperation, with the specific aim of resisting Western strategies in the region. Press TV even goes so far as to say that the recent agreements between Tehran and Damascus represent changing winds that promise to bring about an altogether new Middle East, specifically one in which defiance of Western interests is more prevalent.

Of course, the realization of this goal would surely require the authors of such defiance to stand against the worlds most advanced military. But Tehran has made a particular habit of insisting upon its ability to do just that.

Last Friday, the Iranian military conduct large-scale war games that reportedly featured rapid-deployment techniques and showcased some of the latest developments in Irans military technology and strategy. The Algemeiner noted that Irans state media boosted these exercises amid increased antagonism with the United States and claimed that the exercises involved 12,000 elite troops, fighter jets, drones, and armored vehicles. They were also accompanied by familiar rhetoric regarding the supposed power of Irans military and paramilitary forces, which have been hobbled by international sanctions for much of the Islamic Republics 40-year existence.

Ramezan Sharif, a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically claimed in a press conference on Tuesday that Irans defense sector had realized the most astounding achievements during that time, and that pressure from the international community had had no effect. All these advances were made under the enemys heavy sanctions that have existed since the beginning of the revolution, he said according to The Iran Project.

The article then goes on to say that the Islamic Republic has made great headways in the domestic development and manufacture of a broad range of military equipment during recent years. However, Iranian state medias claims to this effect have in many cases been debunked by military experts, who identified supposedly new Iranian weapons and vehicles as non-functional mock-ups or outmoded technologies modified with something akin to a new coat of paint.

However, this is not to say that Iran has made no progress in any of its areas of domestic weapons production. The country has apparently expanded the range of its ballistic missile arsenal while also greatly expanding the size of that arsenal. This trend continued after the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was enshrined by a United Nations Security Council resolution that calls upon the Islamic Republic to avoid work on all nuclear-capable weapons. Tehran has specifically disregarded the provision, arguing that its ballistic missiles are not designed for the express purpose of carrying nuclear warheads, and that the language of the resolution makes compliance optional.

In remarks made to Tasnim News Agency on Tuesday, Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami reiterated the regimes longstanding rhetoric about ballistic missile development, stating that other officials have repeatedly said our missile capabilities are not negotiable. Another state media outlet then quoted Hatami as saying that while the nations missile development would be ongoing, it would focus only on precision and not on range. But this claim was seemingly belied by an attempted space launch that was carried out earlier in January and may have pointed to a desire to construct a very long-range, space re-entry missile.

These and other recent Iranian gestures have prompted backlash from the international community, and especially from the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal. France and the United Kingdom, being also permanent members of the UN Security Council, called a meeting of the body to discuss the matter late last year. There is little reason to suppose that the anxieties expressed by such public condemnation will diminish based solely on assurances from Iranian official, least of all when those assurances come amidst the sharp anti-Western rhetoric that currently surrounds talks between Tehran and Damascus.

Furthermore, Irans efforts to publicly undermine the USs position is by no means limited to Syria. Another report published on Tuesday by The Iran Project quoted Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as saying of neighboring Iraq, Its leadership is looking for a way to drive out the US. This statement came in the midst of further boasting about supposed American losses in Syria, as well as about the general strength of the Islamic Republic.

The enemy is aware that if it intends to launch an invasion and aggression, it will get a crushing response, Baqeri said at a ceremony in Tabriz. As The Iran Project pointed out, such remarks are reminiscent of those that have been emanating from the highest reaches of the regime since its inception, but especially in the Trump era. The report credited Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with promoting the view that American decision-making in the region had been forced to change. Specifically, he claimed, the US had come to understand that if it confronts Iran, it will definitely suffer blows and defeat.

The fact remains that all such rhetoric is sure to be regarded on the international stage as being far removed from reality. There is no scenario in which a heavily impoverished nation with largely antiquated military technology can present a credible military threat to the United States. However, as fantastic as that rhetoric is, the officials who espouse it are surely emboldened by the support they receive from other, more powerful and stable US adversaries.

Chief among the Islamic Republics allies is Russia, which provided air support for Iranian ground forces and militant proxies during their defense of the Assad regime in Syria. There are growing signs of Moscow proceeding to provide Tehran with political support for its much broader efforts to spread its influence and confront its professed enemies in the West.

Along these lines, Newsweek reported on Monday that the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Iran had held talks over the situation in Venezuela, where a challenge to the rule of President Nicolas Maduro has been granted legitimacy by some foreign governments, including that of the US. In their discussion, Sergei Lavrov and Mohammad Javad Zarif reportedly agreed that the American support of Venezuelas National Assembly leader Juan Guaido constituted an attempt to illicitly intervene in the countrys affairs, and they signaled readiness to oppose the American position there in the Western hemisphere.

For its part, the Trump administration apparently refuses to back down, maintaining that all options are on the table. This may reflect commitment not only to its position regarding Venezuela, but also to its famously assertive posture regarding the Islamic Republic. Even before winning office, President Trump decried the Iranian regime as the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism and signaled his intention to tear up the nuclear agreement that had been spearheaded by his predecessor. Now, two years into his first term, he has not only fulfilled that promise but has extended anti-terror sanctions to the entirety of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and has sought to build international consensus regarding the need to confront Iranian influence.

These commitments seemed at odds with his announcement last year of plans to withdraw US forces from Syria, but now there are new signs of the US president changing course to keep the pressure on Tehran. Another Newsweek report indicated on Monday that the White House has actually sent more troops to Syria to protect those that are leaving, and that it might leave some in place over the long term, with the express purpose of helping to expel forces that are operating under Iranian command.
Apple on Tuesday, 29 January, announced the results for its first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year that ended on 29 December 2018. The company, in its release, posted a quarterly revenue of $84.3 billion, a five percent decline from last years numbers. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the whole quarter revenue.

The most significant change, the company posted, was in the sales of its iPhone, with a 15 percent revenue drop from last year. On the hindsight, revenue from other products and services grew at 19 percent, with services reaching an all time high of $10.9 billion.

Apart from services and iPhones, revenue from Apples Mac computers and Wearables, Home and Accessories also reached an all-time high, growing at 9 percent and 33 percent. Revenue from the iPad grew at 17 percent.

While it was disappointing to miss our revenue guidance, we manage Apple for the long term, and this quarters results demonstrate that the underlying strength of our business runs deep and wide, CEO Tim Cook said in the press release.

"We returned over USD 13 billion to our investors during the quarter through dividends and share repurchases. Our net cash balance was USD 130 billion at the end of the quarter, and we continue to target a net cash neutral position over time." - Luca Maestri, CFO, Apple

Also Read: Apple Admits Qualcomm Was the Only 4G-Ready Chip Supplier

Apple gave the following guidance for its second quarter of 2019 fiscal:

Revenue between USD 55 billion and USD 59 billion

Gross margin between 37 percent and 38 percent

Operating expenses between USD 8.5 billion and USD 8.6 billion

Other income/(expense) of USD 300 million

Tax rate of approximately 17 percent

Also Read: Unpaid Work Done by Women Worth 43 Times Apples Annual Turnover

. Read more on Tech News by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand Deaths1,000 Gaushalas in MP in the Next 6 Months, Says Kamal Nath Govt . Read more on Tech News by The Quint.
Actor Shamita Shetty was verbally abused and her driver roughed up in a road rage incident in Thane, Mumbai on Tuesday, 30 January around 1.30pm. It happened after a motorist, accompanied by two friends, rammed his car into Shamitas.

According to Times of India, Shamita and her driver, Darshan Sawant, filed a complaint at the Rabodi police station against the three yet-to-be-identified men. Sawant, who was threatened and slapped by the men, has provided the police with their vehicle details.

A case has been registered under sections 279, 323, 504, 506, 427 and 34 of the Indian Penal code. No one was injured in the incident, which took place near the Viviana Mall.

(Source: Times of India)

. Read more on Celebrities by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsAs China-US Battle It Out, Heres What It Means for India . Read more on Celebrities by The Quint.




How Jews found refuge in India shapes International Holocaust-Remembrance Day

29 Jan 2019: How Jews found refuge in India shapes International Holocaust-Remembrance Day

Poignant tales of compassion of Jews finding refuge in India in the midst of the horror of the Holocaust were recounted as the UN commemorated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 commemorates the tragedy of the Holocaust that occurred during the World War-II.

It commemorates the genocide that resulted in the death of an estimated 6 million Jews.

Fact: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres voiced concern over centuries-old hatred

India's Permanent Mission to the UN co-hosted with B'nai B'rith International a special event 'India: A Distant Haven during the Holocaust' yesterday as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres voiced concern over the centuries-old hatred being "not only still strong", but also "getting worse".

Speech: Commemoration an opportunity to recount moving tales of compassion: Akbaruddin

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said the commemoration was an opportunity to recount the moving tales of compassion amid the tragedies of the Holocaust, and to promote the civilizational values that are key to preventing such crimes against humanity.

He told the gathering that there were numerous stories of solace offered in India to those escaping troubling times in Europe.

Fact: Akbaruddin recounted legendary story of the Nawanagar Maharaja

Akbaruddin recounted the legendary story of the Nawanagar Maharaja, who against all odds, took personal responsibility to provide home to around 1,000 Polish children. They travelled all the way to Gujarat in India to escape the ravages of the World War II in their homeland.

Details: Stephen Tauber, a Holocaust survivor, shared his story

During the ensuing panel discussion, noted scholar, and archivist Kenneth Robbins shared how some of the Jewish faith found refuge in India amid the horror of the Holocaust.

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Stephen Tauber, a Holocaust survivor whose family fled from Austria to India, also shared his stories.

"While the world was at war, India was engaged in its own struggle for freedom from colonial rule," Akbaruddin said.

Speech: 'India, people of Jewish faith go back thousands of years'

"Yet, even during these difficult times, people of India welcomed visitors from overseas who were escaping uncertainties in their homelands," Akbaruddin noted.

He added that link between India and people of Jewish faith went back thousands of years when the first Jews landed on India's south-western coast nearly 2,000-years ago and over time have greatly contributed in fields of entrepreneurship, art, architecture and culture.

Fact: India had rarely witnessed anti-semitism till 26/11, points out Akbaruddin

Akbaruddin pointed out that India had rarely witnessed anti-semitism except during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks when Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed 174, including six persons at the Chabad House in Mumbai. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention marks 70th anniversary this year.

UN: 'Examples of compassion and solidarity serve as beacons of hope'

"As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention this year, we watch with concern that globally the forces of anti-semitism, racial and religious intolerance and xenophobia are posing new challenges to global values," Akbaruddin said.

"Examples of compassion and solidarity serve as beacons of hope and inspiration in troubled times," the diplomat pointed out.

Story: Family left for India aboard an Italian ship, Tauber recalls

"Such stories help in building across borders and generations, peaceful co-existence," Akbaruddin added.

During the panel discussion, Robbins spoke about minorities' contribution to Indian society, and India's history of religious tolerance.

He also outlined the movement of Jews to India during different periods of history.

Tauber recalled a more personal story of his own family that had left Vienna on an Italian ship.

Recognition: B'nai B'rith International CEO Daniel Mariaschin thanked Tauber for story

Tauber's family worked to maintain its Jewish traditions in a tiny community. In 1941, the family settled permanently in the United States.

"Ken is a font of knowledge about India, and particularly the intersections between Indians and Jews...Ken's work epitomizes the phrase 'labor of love', " B'nai B'rith International CEO Daniel Mariaschin said.

Mariaschin thanked Tauber for sharing his story.

Fact: 'You, your family were fortunate to find rescue in India'

"You and your family were fortunate to find rescue in India and ultimately a new life here in the United States," Mariaschin said. President of B'nai B'rith International, oldest Jewish service organization in the world, Charles Kaufman emphasized UN's role in fighting hatred and violence.
By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - The Delaware Supreme Court on Tuesday gave an investor probing possible fraud and mismanagement at Palantir Technologies Inc more power to litigate against and inspect emails of the data analytics company co-founded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.

In a 3-0 vote, the court said a lower court judge abused his discretion by preventing KT4 Partners LLC from using materials from Palantir in litigation outside Delaware, and from reviewing emails related to Palantir's investors' rights agreement.

The decision is a victory for KT4's Marc Abramowitz, who said Palantir wrongly blocked him from selling his estimated $60 million stake after a 2015 falling out with Chief Executive Alexander Karp, who had accused him of stealing the Palo Alto, California-based company's intellectual property.

Lawyers for Palantir and KT4 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Palantir handles work for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, and its software has been credited with helping track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. The company was valued at $20 billion after a 2015 funding round.

Last February, Judge Joseph Slights of the Delaware Court of Chancery let KT4 inspect some Palantir financial records, saying it had shown "a proper purpose of investigating potential wrongdoing" and a credible basis to probe further.

But in Tuesday's Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice Leo Strine said Slights did not justify restricting KT4's use of Palantir books and records in litigation only in the Court of Chancery, and not in other Delaware courts or in states such as California, where Palantir had itself sued KT4.

Strine said the restriction could lead to wasteful, overlapping litigation in multiple jurisdictions, and deny KT4 a "safety valve" if the chancery court were unable to assert jurisdiction over Karp and Thiel.

The chief justice also found it unfair for Palantir to keep shareholders such as KT4 "in the dark" by withholding emails, given its lack of formal board resolutions or minutes that might have satisfied KT4's needs.

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"Emails and other electronic communications do much of the work of the paper correspondence of yore," Strine wrote. "[A] corporation cannot insist on a production order that excludes emails even if they are in fact the only responsive corporate documents that exist and are therefore by definition necessary."

Strine rejected other KT4 claims, and returned the case to the lower court.

The case is KT4 Partners LLC v Palantir Technologies Inc, Delaware Supreme Court, No. 281.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)




Assam: Three-year-old

30 Jan 2019: Assam: Three-year-old's black jacket removed by security, CM orders probe

A video of a mother removing the black jacket of her three-year-old on orders of security personnel on Tuesday in Assam has gone viral on social media, prompting Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to order an inquiry.

Many people, who were on way to attend CM's function in Biswanath district, were frisked by security.

Notably, protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has caused unrest in Assam.

The bill: A little about the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

The contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on January 8.

The BJP at Centre, which piloted the bill, is firm on getting it passed in the Upper House in the next few days.

The bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who have lived in the country for six years.

Protests: But why are Northeast states against the bill?

The bill has got staunch opposition from residents of Northeast states as they feel this will encourage migration from Bangladesh. The residents also claim it negates NRC and that religious discrimination is dangerous.

Notably, on Tuesday, members of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) jointly opposed the bill.

JD(U) which is BJP's important ally, also dissented with the saffron party on this.

Orders: Security personnel were asked to confiscate black items

Following the angry protests, security has been upped in states. In Assam, officers were asked to not allow anyone carrying black flags to Republic Day functions on Saturday.

The officers asked people if they had a black handkerchief, and if they had one it was confiscated.

Items like black clothes, handkerchiefs, mufflers, shawls, and headbands were seized from the public.

What happened: Toddler's jacket was removed on a cold day

The toddler became a victim of this black flag phobia of the Assam government. Her mother told PTI, "My three-year-old child was wearing a black colored jacket. The security personnel didn't allow him to enter the meeting venue in it."

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She added the officer asked her to remove the jacket.

The child was forced to wear a sleeveless T-shirt on a chilly morning.

Fact: Here is a video of the incident

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Inquiry: CM asks police to conduct inquiry

Apart from the child, officers forced grown-ups to remove their black sweaters, mufflers, scarfs etc. Locals reportedly said, "The security personnel will bar us from entering the meeting venue if we do not remove our black clothes."

As the video of the child being frisked gained attention, Sonowal asked Assam Director General of Police to probe the case and submit the findings at earliest.
Ralegan Siddhi (Maha), Jan 30 (PTI) Social activist Anna Hazare began a hunger strike on Wednesday over "non-fulfilment" of assurances by the Centre and the Maharashtra government on the appointment of Lokpal and passage of the Lokayukta Act in the state.

Hazare offered prayers at the Padmavati Temple in his village Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra in the morning. He then went in a procession, accompanied by students, youths and farmers, to the Yadavbaba Temple and sat near it to begin his hunger strike.

The anti-corruption crusader told PTI that he welcomed the Maharashtra Cabinet's decision to bring the office of state chief minister under the jurisdiction of Lokayukta.

"However, the strike will continue till the government fulfils promises they made before coming to power about passage of Lokayukta Act, appointment of Lokpal and to tackle farmers' issues," he said.

As a routine procedure, doctors conducted a basic health check-up of Hazare, a close aide of the activist said.

"Hazare has now begun his fast as he is disappointed with the state government for not appointing the Lokayukta," the aide said

Hazare had written a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday, saying he would launch the agitation in his village from Wednesday.

Maharashtra minister Girish Mahajan, who has been acting as an emissary between the government and Hazare, on Tuesday urged the activist to cancel the agitation, claiming that almost all the demands made by him were fulfilled.

"His first demand was implementing Swaminathan Commission recommendations, that farmers should get 1.5 times MSP. I think that demand has been fulfilled," Mahajan had told reporters in Mumbai.

Hazare, however, said he would not call off the agitation till the Lokayukta Act becomes a reality.

Apart from the appointment of Lokpal at the national level and Lokayukta in states, Hazare has been demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations and some electoral reforms.

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"It has been five years since the Lokpal Act was passed. Yet the Narendra Modi government has not appointed Lokpal...Lokayukta Act has not been passed in Maharashtra for four years," Hazare observed in his letter dated January 28.

The activist said the chief minister had mediated when he had launched the agitation at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi in March last year. Hazare said he had withdrawn that agitation after the central government had assured in writing that it would fulfil the demands.

"Nine months have passed, yet the demands have not been fulfilled. Hence, I will be on hunger strike in my village Ralegan Siddhi on January 30," he had said in the letter.

The Fadnavis Cabinet had on Tuesday decided to bring the office of chief minister under the jurisdiction of Lokayukta.

Hazare had welcomed the government's decision to set rolling the process to appoint Lokayukta.

"I thank them on behalf of the people for taking the decision towards appointment of Lokayukta through a constitutional process. But, that does not mean I will not stage hunger strike. The agitation will go on until the Act isin place," he had said.

. Read more on India by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsTop Entertainment News: Tamil Actor Jiiva Part of 83 . Read more on India by The Quint.
Proportionally fewer immigrants own single-detached properties in Canadas two biggest real estate markets.

According to new data from Statistics Canada, immigrants own 43 per cent of all residential properties in Toronto and 37 per cent in Vancouver. Immigrants make up 46 per cent of Torontos population and 41 per cent of Vancouvers.

But the type of homes they own differs. In Vancouver, single-detached houses account for 39 per cent of all immigrant-owned properties, compared with 48 per cent with Canadian-born owners. In Toronto, about half of immigrant-owned properties are detached, compared with 60 per cent for Canadian-born owners.

Its worth noting that this kind of release and the Canadian Housing Statistics Program itself is evidence that the federal government is taking housing affordability more seriously, Eric Swanson, Executive Director of Gen Squeeze, told Yahoo Finance Canada.

A few years ago, Gen Squeeze and others were calling for better and more regular data from all levels of government on who was buying local housing, and now were starting to get it. Thats great news.

The data does not take socioeconomic conditions into account. It also does not include non-resident foreign buyers. It covers 2016 and 2017.

Immigrants own higher priced homes in Vancouver

When looking at homes valued at $1.8 million or more, immigrant-owned properties are worth $255,100 more than Canadian-owned ones. The difference is even larger when looking at recent immigrants (2009 to 2016). That group owns five per cent of all single-detached properties in Vancouver. The average value is $2.3 million, which is $823,900 higher than the average for Canadian-born owners.

The pattern does not repeat itself in Toronto, where immigrant-owned homes are worth slightly less. While those owned by recent immigrants are worth slightly more.

Immigrants who came to Vancouver under the Quebec Immigrant Investors Program owned the highest-priced single-detached homes at $3.3 million. Its $1.6 million for those that immigrated under skilled worker programs. Immigrants from China and Iran own the highest-priced detached homes.

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These data show that there is ongoing opportunity to reduce taxes on earnings for typical residents, and especially younger folks and renters who are particularly harmed by the current housing market, by taxing high home values more when owned by both foreigners, immigrants and locally-born residents. Paul Kershaw, UBC professor, told Yahoo Finance Canada.

Just focusing on wealth brought by immigrants will miss an important, and large, piece of the housing unaffordability puzzle.

Though investor immigrants also own more expensive single-detached homes in Toronto, differences are less pronounced.

The differences between Toronto and Vancouver in this data align with more anecdotal reports going back years that have pointed to Vancouver as the more attractive location for global capital, especially Chinese capital, says Swanson.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.




IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them.





They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country.





However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia.





"Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination.





Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia.





They should be lovingly helped.





Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948.





To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts:





While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 :

Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell.

The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites.



A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught.



The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers.



Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites."



Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers.









There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks.





This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work.





It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter.





In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam.













In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir.





" The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life."





An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir .





In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance).





Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed).





Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance).









Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam.





It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way.





A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah.





Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs).









Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life".





Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology.





Islam is a supremacist ideology.





Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism.





Islam is a civilization.

Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization.





Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life.

It has a say about every conceivable human act .





Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam.

























The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic.





Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111).





A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44)





Muhammad himself said:

I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30)









Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad.




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The 3 secrets you need to know to cope with work stress

The day I went to work at the company they welcomed me with a smile. They guided me to my place, showed me my desk, my chair, my computer and even gave me a white mug with my name printed in orange. In the desk drawer I found a dark, heavy and circular object that I immediately made my own, seeking to fulfill the expectations that I believed others had of me.
CHAMPAIGN  The president of the University of Illinois is proposing to freeze tuition for in-state students for a fifth consecutive year.

The base annual tuition for Illinois freshmen would remain $12,036 in Urbana-Champaign, $10,584 in Chicago and $9,405 in Springfield under the proposal by Timothy Killeen.

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Trustees will vote Thursday on the proposed rates and fees, which will remain constant for four years.

Room and board and mandatory fees will increase for new students in Urbana-Champaign and Chicago. Annual fees would increase by about 1 percent in Urbana-Champaign to $3,086 and by 3.6 percent to $3,308 in Chicago.

Room and board for a standard double occupancy room in Urbana-Champaign will go up by 1.5 percent to $10,774 per year and at UIC will run $11,260 a year, a 1.7 percent increase.

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SPRINGFIELD  There was general agreement at the Senate Education Committee meeting Tuesday that the definition of a school day is changing, but the committee voted unanimously to reinstate an old definition of the term  at least temporarily.

If the bill, which passed on a 16-0 bipartisan vote, becomes law this session, it would reinstate a requirement of five hours of direct supervision by a teacher in order for a day to be considered an instruction day.

Opponents of the mandate said it would limit flexibility for digital snow day alternatives and other opportunities such as apprenticeships or programs for students that have trouble in a classroom environment.

State Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, D-Shorewood, the bills lead sponsor and Education Committee Chair, said she understood that more flexibility is needed for school districts and was committed to working toward it. But she warned of the wild, wild west created by the repeal of the five-hour mandate.

Right now a district could choose to have four days of school in a year, she said.

Illinois Education Association lobbyist Sean Denney, a proponent of the bill who represents Illinois teachers, said a trailer bill to last years education funding overhaul repealed the five-hour mandate, and it was rolled out without real oversight.

Denney said teachers unions such as the IEA and Illinois Federation of Teachers need the bill to move forward as a negotiating point for future discussions about flexibility.

Representatives of the Illinois State Board of Education, the Large Unit District Association and other public education advocacy groups were joined by Donn Mendoza, superintendent of Round Lake School District 116, in speaking against the bill.

The groups said they had concerns that any step backward could tie up the negotiation process indefinitely, and the bills effective immediately clause would cause confusion for districts this year.

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Mendoza said his district used the flexibility of a state waiver to offer new e-learning capabilities and other innovative programs.

I understand the request and the idea of having a minimum, but our position is learning shouldnt be tied to seat time, he said. The one thing Im worried about is we will lose the ability to take these next steps.

As the committee met, Tri-Valley CUSD 3 in Downs was using an e-learning day to replace what would have been a regular snow day due to the bitter cold.

David Mouser, Tri-Valleys superintendent, has children in the district, and said they spent hours taking part in digital instruction that had been uploaded to the districts website. He said he received several emails or social media messages from parents of students participating in learning on their snow day.

Theres no substitution to being at school and engaging kids in real time, Mouser said. But after seeing what my kids have experienced today and hearing from parents around the district, youd be hard-pressed to convince me that going backward is the right decision.

Mouser said a district poll showed most students have internet or cellphone access, but instruction is formative, assignments are not graded and attendance is not taken on digital snow days, so those who lack access are not penalized.

Mouser also noted there was discussion between the local teachers union and the district, and all of the district employees  even hourly staff  get paid as if it were a regular day.

Despite the dialogue at Tri-Valley, statewide teachers unions fear the absence of the five-hour mandate will give districts uneven footing in negotiations with school boards.

For Mouser, the concern is that days added to the end of the school year will delay a multimillion-dollar renovation project at the districts high school.

It certainly seems that the learning our students experienced this week was much more effective than a day tacked on to the school year in July, he said.

While there is no immediate clarity as to how long it will take for the bill reinstating the mandate to clear the legislative process, both sides agreed to start negotiations on greater flexibility as soon as possible.

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THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY FROM THE HERALD & REVIEW NEWSROOM

BISMARCK, N.D.  The deadly deep freeze enveloping the Midwest sent temperatures plunging Wednesday to rival some of the most frigid spots in the world, triggering widespread closures of schools and businesses, and the canceling of more than 1,600 flights from Chicago's airports.

The U.S. Postal Service even took the rare step of suspending mail delivery across much of the region. Hundreds of public schools and universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes as residents huddled inside amid one of the coldest air masses in years.

The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to drop much farther south than normal. That meant temperatures in parts of the Midwest were lower Wednesday than in Antarctica, where the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station hit negative 25 degrees (negative 31.7 Celsius)  balmy compared to Fargo, North Dakota's negative 31 degrees (negative 35 Celsius) and Minneapolis' negative 27 degrees (negative 32 Celsius), according to the National Weather Service.

Snowplows were idled overnight because of the cold in southeastern Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to negative 29 degrees (negative 34 Celsius). In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees (negative 28 Celsius), breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966  and colder than the weather in Barrow, Alaska, the most northern town in the U.S.

And that doesn't include wind chill, which in northern Illinois made the air feel as cold as negative 57 degrees (negative 49.4 Celsius). The National Weather Service warned that a wind chill of minus 25 (negative 32 Celsius) can freeze skin within 15 minutes.

Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold , including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing. Some buses were turned into mobile warming shelters to help the homeless in Chicago.

"These (conditions) are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures."

About 1,300 of Wednesday's canceled flights in Chicago were at O'Hare International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports. United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart said "everything tends to slow down" during severely cold weather, including manpower, fueling and equipment. Calling the temperatures "dangerous," Hobart said United was bringing in extra workers and providing heated tents for employees.

A popular saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat ..." will stop the mail from being delivered, but extreme cold did so Wednesday. The U.S. Postal Service has suspended mail delivery in parts or all of several Midwest states including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Governors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday. In Chicago, major attractions closed because of the bitter cold, including the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Art Institute and the Field Museum.

In Michigan, homeless shelters in Lansing were becoming "overloaded," Mayor Andy Schor said. They also were filling up in Detroit.

"People don't want to be out there right now," said Brennan Ellis, 53, who is staying at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries.

At least six deaths have been linked so far to the weather system, including two people in the Detroit area, according to local police. Other deaths included a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana, and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

Hawaii native Charles Henry, 54, was staying at a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota, and said he was grateful to have a place to stay out of the cold.

"That wind chill out there is not even a joke," he said. "I feel sorry for anybody that has to stay outside."

Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that "you're going to freeze or lose a limb," said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. The extreme cold was "a scary situation," because much of the housing is of poor quality, said Chris Fairbanks, energy assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.

The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.

But it wasn't stopping one of America's most formidable endurance tests: the three-day Arrowhead 135 was going on as scheduled in northeastern Minnesota. Competitors can cover the race route by bicycle, cross-country skis or just running.

 Associated Press

1,500 flights, trains canceled as subzero temps hit Illinois

CHICAGO  More than 1,500 flights are canceled at Chicago's airports as plummeting double-digit subzero temperatures disrupt area air and rail transit.

The National Weather service says the actual temperature was 23 below zero at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Wednesday morning. Wind chills in northern Illinois were as low as 57 below in Rockford.

Officials have warned against venturing out into the dangerously cold weather and the governor has issued a disaster proclamation.

The South Shore Line, which runs into northern Indiana, suspended its commuter rail trips Wednesday and said it expected limited service Thursday. Extreme weather conditions earlier prompted Amtrak to cancel all trains into and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday.

Some major Chicago attractions weren't open Wednesday and schools are closed.

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 Associated Press

9:40 a.m.

Wind chills plummet to 57 below in Illinois amid deep freeze

SPRINGFIELD  Wind chills dipped as low as 57 degrees below zero in Rockford as bitter cold weather moved into Illinois .

The National Weather Service said Wednesday's weather in Illinois is "about as dangerously cold as it can be." The temperature was 23 below in Chicago and 13 below in Springfield and Champaign. Southern Illinois saw readings of zero and 3 below. The low temperatures come after schools, universities, museums, courts and other facilities across Illinois preemptively closed Wednesday.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has issued a disaster proclamation. State and local officials have asked residents to stay indoors if possible and check on neighbors.

The frigid weather is expected to last through Thursday before temperatures are forecast to climb more than 60 degrees, to 45 on Monday in the Chicago area.

 Associated Press

8:44 a.m.

Dangerously low temperatures expected throughout the day in Decatur region

DECATUR  Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Lincoln have issued a wind chill warning until noon Thursday.

According to the weather service website, dangerously cold wind chills as low as 30 to 40 degrees below zero are expected.

"A Wind Chill Warning means the combination of very cold air and the wind will create dangerously low wind chill values," the weather service said in its warning. "Frostbite can occur quickly and even hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken."

Throughout the morning, 30 to 50 degrees below zero wind chills are expected. Temperatures will rise to 15 to 30 below zero this afternoon, dropping several degrees again overnight.

Due to early morning snow, drifting can occur in open locations throughout the morning.

Bitterly cold weather will continue through Thursday morning, with wind chills of 20 to 40 degrees below zero.

After the wind chill warning ends Thursday afternoon, light snow accumulations are possible, ranging from a dusting to around an inch north of Interstate 74.

"A slight chance of light freezing rain and drizzle will follow Thursday night," the weather service said.

Hang on, too, because temperatures will swing back to a high of 36 degrees on Friday a toasty 47 degrees on Saturday, the weather service predicted.

 Donnette Beckett

History photos: Past winters in Decatur

Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR

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DECATUR  Police on Monday arrested a 22-year-old woman they say attacked a Decatur blood donation clinic employee and fled the scene in September.

A signed affidavit said the woman faces a preliminary charge of aggravated battery, which is subject to review by the Macon County State's Attorney's Office. She was released from Macon County Jail after posting $7,500 bond on Tuesday.

The affidavit said officers were called to CSL Plasma, 1021 N. Water, on Sept. 9 after an employee said the woman became angry after she told her she couldn't donate plasma because she wasn't adhering to the donation center's dress code.

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Detective Sgt. Chris Copeland in September told the Herald & Review that the woman violated the code by wearing a shirt that exposed her midriff.

After being told that she had to leave, the woman came to the back of the donation center and bumped the employee with her chest. The affidavit said she then punched the employee in the left side of the face.

Copeland said the employee tried to grab the woman to prevent her from punching her again, but was grabbed by the hair and dragged down a hallway until other staff members helped free her. He said the arrested woman then left the business.

Officers found the woman and arrested her in the 1200 block of East William Street. The affidavit said witnesses at the scene had corroborated parts of the employee's account of the incident. Police did not indicate in the affidavit why it took months to arrest the woman.

CSL Plasma could not be reached for comment on the incident Tuesday evening.

Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR

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DECATUR  Police said they are investigating the circumstances of a gunman who hammered on the front door of a Decatur woman's residence Tuesday night.

The incident happened at 7:17 p.m. in the 1000 block of North Hill Avenue, and Decatur police Sgt. Josh Sheets said the woman heard the knock and the man calling out Yo before her grandson entered her bedroom and told her to stay away from the windows because the man had a gun.

The woman said the whole incident lasted about five minutes, and then she observed a car leave her driveway and head southbound, Sheets said.

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Sheets said the grandson told police a relative who also lives in the house had been texting a woman who came to the house just before the gunman arrived, and she had spoken briefly with the relative before leaving.

The grandson said the female and the man (with the gun) were then seen having an argument at the front of the house, and it appeared the woman was pleading with the man as she had her hands up in front of her as he was attempting to walk up to the front of the house, Sheets said. The man then pushed the woman aside and removed a black, semi-automatic handgun from his coat pocket and that is when he began beating on the front door.

Sheets said the male relative was uncooperative and would not talk about what happened with police. The gunman was described as black, about 27 years old, 5-feet-5 to 5-feet-6-inches tall, 200 pounds, short haircut with a full beard and wearing a red and black Chicago Bulls cap and red and black hooded sweatshirt.

2019 mug shots from the Herald & Review

Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid

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The name of Joe Glauber is probably not on the tip of your tongue. You may never have heard of him.

But in the circles that he frequents, Joe Glauber is highly respected. He served as the chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and had been in the number two position there for many years. He has been the chief agriculture specialist in the office of the U.S. trade ambassador, with lengthy service looking after U.S. farm interests in global trade issues.

And when Glauber wrote an opinion piece last week for a Washington news service, those dealing with agricultural trade sat up and took notice. Corn Belt farmers may want to do the same, even though they know trade issues are becoming their Achilles Heel in the commodity market place.

Glauber attended the recent American Farm Bureau annual meeting to serve up some New Orleans-style spicy analysis about the tenuous nature of U.S. trade relationships and how it is jeopardizing a very weak farm economy. He wrote in the opinion piece, Farmers voted overwhelming for Trump in 2016 and judging from the warm reaction he received on Monday, he remains popular. But from comments I heard at the convention, there is much unease over his trade policies despite his reassurances to the contrary.

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Glauber said the Trump administration quickly unplugged from the TransPacific Partnership trade agreement, which would have allowed the United States to have access to 65 percent of the global population that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. And now China is launching its effort to become the leader in Pacific trade. Glauber said Farm Bureau estimated the TPP would have added $4.4 billion to the farm economy.

Glauber said President Trump quickly launched negotiations to replace NAFTA, with the USMCA still needing approval in the United States, Canada and Mexico. But he said, The new NAFTA ended up looking a lot like the old NAFTA with relatively small changes in agricultural provisions. The only farm-related changes are improvements in access for U.S. dairy and poultry products to Canadian markets.

Glauber said to spur Canada and Mexico to hasten negotiations, the United States imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from those countries, which remain today, and retaliatory tariffs imposed by Mexico and Canada have reduced U.S. exports by $2 billion, offsetting any gains from the new NAFTA.

His largest complaint with the Trump administration is the on-going trade war with China, which has eliminated soybean exports to that nation that have averaged $12 billion in recent years. While negotiations are incomplete, Glauber says there is an uncertainty for future exports that benefit the farm economy because of the uncertainty of any success in the negotiations.

Glauber says while some may say it is a game of chicken, the U.S. has to win with hard bargaining, or U.S. agriculture may end up paying a heavy price. And that has only 30 days left.

Stu Ellis is an observer of the Central Illinois agriculture scene. In addition to his weekly column, you can view his From The Farm and Harvest Heritage reports on WCIA 3 News.

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As Chairperson of the Cascade County Democratic Central Committee, I was asked to communicate our heartfelt disappointment with the Montana Senate President, Republican Scott Sales ludicrous suggestion that Montanans send $8 million to assist President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise and vanity project known as The Wall along the US/Mexico border. This distraction at the starting gate of the business of the Montana Legislature is both foolish and insulting.

Many have panned this idea as simply a bad one. As noted by Casey Schreiner, Montana House Minority Leader and Democrat from Great Falls, Lets prioritize building stuff in Montana, which weve unfortunately not been able to do, and not focus on spending money out of state. As further noted by columnist George Oshenski, The Montana Constitution provides no authority or mandate to send Montana Taxpayer dollars to the president for expenses of federal government. In fact Article 5, Section 11, (4) specifically states that: A general appropriation bill shall contain only appropriations for the ordinary expenses of the legislative, executive and judicial branches for the interest on the public debt and for public schools."
The first annual Faith, Science, and Climate Action Conference, held late 2018, convened more than 200 people from Montana who are deeply concerned about the real and imminent threat from climate change to the earths life-sustaining systems.

We learned from scientists and faith leaders about the impacts of climate change on Montana and the world, and we committed to solutions-oriented collaboration.

The recently released United Nations Intergovernmental Panel Special Report, with over 6000 cited references from hundreds of scientists, calls for immediate worldwide attention to this global problem already causing suffering among the vulnerable.

Our varied faiths hold common values of responsible stewardship and social justice, summoning us to moral courage and action. We are excited about possibilities for new technologies, regenerative agriculture, improvement in human health, and greater equity for the worlds poor.

As people of faith and people of science, we have committed to actions which will lessen future suffering, help people adapt to changing conditions, and create a better future.
For more than two decades, Montanans have benefited from the Montana Charitable Endowment Tax Credit (MCETC). The MCETC encourages individuals, as well as businesses and organizations, to make lasting impacts in their communities. Those impacts have totaled more than $145 million in service to Montanans since the credit was established in 1997. The MCETC is also responsible for millions more in gifts that exceeded the qualifying credit amount.

More than $145 million in a rural state like Montana is life-changing. This is money that is at work today, tomorrow and forever for the communities we live in. The benefit is as high, wide and handsome as our great state, making a difference in every corner of Montana and in every nonprofit arena.

This was not always the case.

Montanas charitable state credit was created to give our state an important tool to bridge the philanthropic divide  one that continues to follow us. Montana ranks near the bottom with regard to per capita charitable giving, number of foundations, size of foundations, and value of foundation gifts granted and received.
Shelly Fyant, who is on the tribal council for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Native women face a disturbing reality of violence and that legislation supported by Montana's delegation in Washington, D.C., is a good step but not enough if the state does not take action as well.

"Federal legislation alone will not keep our sisters and our children safe," Fyant said.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said Wednesday lawmakers have a "moral obligation" during the session to address the lack of resources and legislation surrounding the abuse and murder of Native women.

"We must act so that this epidemic is unheard of in our state and our country's future," Bullock said.

Rep. Rae Peppers, a Democrat from Lame Deer, said more awareness on the issue will help break down misconceptions that women go missing because they are out partying or using drugs and alcohol.

"This is a stereotype that we have to get rid of," Peppers said. "We have to understand every single one of these women are somebody's mother, daughter, sister, auntie. And a lot times they are leaving behind children."

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Montana lawmakers are being asked to consider a bill that would make it illegal for a physician to prescribe drugs to hasten the death of a terminally ill patient.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that nothing in state law prohibits medically assisted death. Since then, lawmakers have failed to pass bills that sought to either explicitly ban or legalize the act, leaving the practice in a gray area legally.

A House bill to be heard Tuesday aims to change that. Under the measure, doctors who prescribe life-ending medication could be charged with homicide and they would be unable to use the patient's request for assistance as a defense.

The bill does not refer to withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, which is allowed under the Montana Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.

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The early draft of a bill to continue Medicaid expansion in Montana would continue the program without increasing costs to the state by expanding a tax to more health insurance companies, increasing premiums for some people covered and charging a new assessment for some religious groups that are organized as corporations.

Rep. Ed Buttrey, a Republican from Great Falls, will carry his party's bill to continue Medicaid expansion. The draft released Wednesday also includes what Buttrey calls "community engagement" provisions that require work, volunteer hours or other mandates such as participating in substance use disorder treatment, to be covered under Medicaid expansion.

Buttrey cautioned that the bill is still a very early draft and could change before it's introduced.

"We've really all along been about the principal of skin in the game. If you're benefiting from the program, you need to help the program to succeed," Buttrey said of his approach. He said his bill does that for all the parties involved, from individuals to insurance companies and hospitals.

Medicaid expansion has been a good deal for the state, Buttrey said, by improving health outcomes for people, increasing their personal income and job potential, and saving money because the federal government pays a higher share of the cost.
No decision was made in the long and complex five-day hearing to determine whether Lloyd Barrus would be forcibly medicated to stand trial in the killing of deputy Mason Moore.

Barrus is at the center of a Sell Hearing, a legal procedure that allows a court to determine if a defendant can be forcibly medicated to restore mental competency.

The state wants to medicate Barrus in order to return his mental capacity to a state that would enable him to offer rational support to his defense attorneys. Barrus' defense says his delusional disorder is so advanced that simply medicating him, by force if necessary, would drive Barrus further into his delusions and would make it even more difficult to bring him to trial.

The hearing resumed Monday after a seven-week hiatus and wrapped up Tuesday.

Barrus and his son were part of a May 16, 2017, high-speed chase that kicked off after he and his son allegedly killed Broadwater County deputy Mason Moore near Three Forks, 60 miles south of Helena. The chase, which ended after 184 miles of high-speed pursuit on I-90, ended in the death of Barrus son, Marshall, and the arrest of Barrus.
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Grand Old Partisan salutes Warren Keifer, born this day of 1836. Outbreak of civil war, the young attorney enlisted as major in the 3rd Ohio Infantry, which battled through West Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee. Promoted to colonel, he commanded the 110th Ohio Infantry at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania and Petersburg. A narrow escape from death came just three days before Appomattox.

In 1867, Keifer won a state senate term. This war hero headed the Ohio department of the GOP-aligned Grand Army of the Republic veterans organization. Delegate to the 1876 Republican National Convention, that year he won the first of four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was Speaker of the House in the 47th Congress.

During the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley named him a major general. Keifer commanded troops that entered Havana. He returned to Congress for three more terms and was delegate to the 1908 Republican National Convention. For the remainder of his long life he was a local bank president.

Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wU7PaoWdjw4

Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.

Each day, his grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far.

He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar.

Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision.

Buy the book at Amazon

See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party.

"This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!"

"Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before."

and

"one of the best books I ever read"
Advocates of an open economy face rough road



Much depends on the evolution of domestic politics in high income countries, especially the US



Martin Wolf





The US trade war with China has impacted around 7 percent of all imports to the United States  VCG via Getty Images





History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes  words sometimes reputed to have been said by Mark Twain. Even if he did not say this, he should have done.



Since the industrial revolution, the world economy has experienced two great waves of economic integration or, as we now call it, globalisation: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Conflict among great powers, economic depression, nationalism and protectionism killed the first. The same combination, if in a different historical sequence, might yet kill the second.



Last time, the ruin started with the first world war. The great depression and soaring protection came later. This time, the rot seems to have begun with the great recession, after the 2008 crash. Protection and rising tension between great powers  the US and China, in this case  followed. But both stories are rooted in the same reality: the difficulty of maintaining an open world economy.



History may rhyme, but it has not repeated. By ignoring the advice of foolish reactionaries, policymakers managed the recent recession vastly better than their predecessors did the depression of the 1930s. Instead of a collapse in output and trade, this era has seen no more than a setback. Some of it was even desirable, notably the decline in irresponsible cross-border short-term lending. The growth of trade has slowed in relation to world output but not collapsed. Nevertheless, the pressures on globalisation are real (see charts).



What explains the slowdown in the growth of trade? The weakness of investment in the post-crisis period is one factor. Another is the exhaustion of opportunities for the unbundling of global supply chains in goods (the distribution of parts of integrated production processes across countries). Instead, we see evidence of re-shoring (the transfer back of production into the original country) of some supply chains as the cost advantages of producing in emerging countries decline. Also significant has been the import of some supply chains into China (the transfer of production processes from other countries) a point brought out in a recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute.



The last significant liberalisations of trade were the completion of the Uruguay Round in 1994 and Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Since then, the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations flopped, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and negotiation of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the US and EU has barely got off the ground.









More recently, the world has witnessed a shift towards outright protectionism. Mr Trump has used a controversial national security argument to justify tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium, including those from the countrys closest allies. These actions violate WTO rules, which define the national security loophole very restrictively. Most importantly, the US has launched an open-ended trade war on China. The total affected trade already comes to about 7 per cent of US imports. In addition, the US has indicated its desire to upend the WTOs dispute settlement process and is blocking appointments to the organisations appellate body, with a view to rendering it unable to function.









If the actions taken so far are not hugely damaging, far more so is the ideological rejection of core principles of the global trading system by its founder, the US: instead of liberalisation, there is protectionism; instead of multilateralism, unilateralism; instead of global rules, national discretion. What is not clear is how far this represents a permanent US repudiation of past commitments. But suspicion of Chinese aspirations and a belief that trade has been unfair to the US are shared across US politics.



What lies ahead? Much depends on the evolution of domestic politics in high-income countries, especially the US. If allegedly perfidious foreigners continue to be made a scapegoat for failures of domestic policy  always a temptation  an inward-looking economic nationalism might become even more potent. Alternatively, in a world of resurgent great power politics, we might see protectionist trading blocs emerge around the economic superpowers: the US, the EU and China.







The evolution of economic opportunities Will also shape globalisation, as it always has, from the steamships and cables of the 19th century to the container ships and internet of today. In a seminal book, out in early 2019, Richard Baldwin of the Graduate Institute in Geneva discusses what he calls globotics  an ugly neologism that describes the integration of artificial intelligence with robotics. The author argues that this is about to do to many services what the old information revolution did to manufacturing: facilitate offshoring and destroy enormous numbers of jobs.



The impact will be two-fold. First, improvements in technology will make it far easier to collaborate at a distance. People who are not physically present will be able to participate much more fully in collaborative work, principally as a result of improvements in virtual reality. This will promote globalisation. Second, many tasks now carried out by people will be done by AI and robots, revolutionising many service activities, with profound and highly destabilising economic and social effects.







The development of cross-border economic activities will continue to reflect the interaction between technology and politics. The former creates opportunities, the latter struggles to manage them. Politics, now, are increasingly inward looking. Yet humanity is discovering new ways of annihilating distance and jumping barriers. In the long run, the latter will probably win and globalisation proceed. But the short run looks very bumpy.
Boston, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City Year, a national education nonprofit that helps students and schools succeed, today announced that its co-founder Michael Brown will step down from his CEO position this June at the conclusion of the organizations 30th anniversary year



Brown will serve as a senior adviser to the organization through June 2020 to support the leadership transition and promote the success of The City Year Campaign, City Years current capital campaign. In addition, Brown will continue to serve on City Years national board as a charter trustee.



It has been the honor of a lifetime to do this work, arm in arm with a tremendous community of idealists and champions, said Brown. It is due to the strength of City Years staff and board leadership and our committed supporters that I am able to step down as CEO this June, confident in the knowledge that City Years greatest years lie ahead. To everyone who has ever worn the City Year jacket, I want to say thank you, and let you know that you have been, and will always be, a deep source of inspiration to me.



Brown and his co-founders launched City Year in 1988 with the goals of uniting young adults from diverse backgrounds for a year of full-time community service, leadership development and civic engagement, and inspiring public policy that promoted national service opportunities for Americas young adults. City Year, which now serves exclusively in public schools, has grown from 50 members in Boston to 3,000 City Year AmeriCorps members serving in 29 U.S. cities, with affiliate programs in South Africa and the U.K. Since its founding, City Year has generated 30,000 alumni nationwide, served more than 1.9 million children, and completed over 52 million hours of service. City Years alumni have been awarded more than $150 million in scholarships from the National Service Trust for their service in City Year. The organizations annual budget is nearly $200 million.



Brown has been a leading advocate for the concept of voluntary national service, and City Year served as an inspiration for the federal national service program AmeriCorps, an innovative public-private partnership that has engaged more than one million Americans in service since 1994.



On behalf of City Years National Board of Trustees and all of City Years stakeholders, I would like to express deep gratitude to Michael for his three decades of extraordinary service, including the past 12 years as CEO, said Jonathan Lavine, Co-Chair of the Board and Co-Managing Partner, Bain Capital, LP. There are many successful nonprofits led by talented leaders, but we can say with confidence that Michaels inspirational leadership is exceptional.



For his achievements at City Year, Brown has been awarded the Independent Sectors John Gardner Leadership Award, the Reebok Human Rights Award and been named one of Americas best leaders by U.S. News and World Report.



Michael has a profound commitment to social justice and an unshakable sense of idealism. He is a leading social entrepreneur of our time, said David L. Cohen, Co-Chair of the Board and Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of Comcast Corporation. Were grateful that Michael will continue his involvement in City Year, and look forward to building upon the organizations successes in the years to come.



In a message to the national City Year community, Brown stated that the conclusion of the organizations 30th anniversary year is the right milestone to begin a new chapter dedicated to leading on initiatives that are important to me in the nonprofit, philanthropic and social change arenas and mentoring and teaching a new generation of nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs.



In consultation with the Board of Trustees, Lavine and Cohen will appoint a committee to launch a national search for City Years next CEO. The search will be open to internal and external candidates with a focus on identifying the strongest and most qualified candidate to serve as City Years next CEO.





###

About City Year

City Year helps students and schools succeed. Fueled by national service, City Year partners with public schools in 29 high-need communities across the U.S. and through international affiliates in the U.K. and South Africa. Diverse teams of City Year AmeriCorps members provide research-based student, classroom and school-wide supports to help students stay in school and on track to graduate, ready for college and career success. A 2015 study shows that schools that partner with City Year were up to two-to-three times more likely to improve on math and English assessments. A proud member of the AmeriCorps national service network, City Year is supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service, local school districts, and private philanthropy from corporations, foundations and individuals. Learn more at www.cityyear.org, City Years Facebook page, on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Join the presidents of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Petroleum Services Association of Canada (PSAC), Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors (CAODC), Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (EPAC), and Canadian Energy Pipeline Association in a conversation about the important role energy will play in the upcoming provincial election.



The business of energy is the business of every government in Alberta regardless of its political persuasion. The news conference is not being held to support or oppose any particular registered party or candidate.

Attendees include:

CAPP president and CEO, Tim McMillan

PSAC president and CEO, Gary Mar

CAODC president and CEO, Mark Scholz

EPAC president, Tristan Goodman

CEPA president and CEO, Chris Bloomer

A teleconference line will be set up for those unable to attend. Please dial in five to 10 minutes before the conference begins.

Space is limited. Please RSVP in advance to ensure attendance. Valid press credentials will be required to attend the press conference. Security will be on site.

Date: Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019 Time: 2  2:30 p.m. MST Location: Plaza Room

The Metropolitan Centre

333-4 Avenue SW Teleconference: 1-866-403-9129 Contact: Tonya Zelinsky

Interim, manager of media relations

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

(P): (403) 267 1131

(C): (403) 827 1151

(E): tonya.zelinsky@capp.ca

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) represents companies, large and small, that explore for, develop and produce natural gas and crude oil throughout Canada. CAPPs member companies produce about 80 per cent of Canadas natural gas and crude oil. CAPP's associate members provide a wide range of services that support the upstream crude oil and natural gas industry. Together CAPP's members and associate members are an important part of a national industry with revenues from crude oil and natural gas production of about $120 billion a year. CAPPs mission, on behalf of the Canadian upstream crude oil and natural gas industry, is to advocate for and enable economic competitiveness and safe, environmentally and socially responsible performance.
9th Annual Aerospace Raw Materials & Manufacturers Supply Chain Conference (RMC)

Monday, March 4, 2019

33rd Annual Commercial Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference (ASC)

Monday-Wednesday, March 4-6, 2019

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aviation Week Networks SpeedNews Conferences , the worlds most prominent developer of aerospace and aviation information sharing events, will host two of its premier Conferences at the Beverly Wilshire (A Four Seasons Hotel) in Beverly Hills, CA, providing global aerospace and aviation leaders, executives and decision makers with targeted industry information, data, updates, forecasts and professional networking opportunities.

The SpeedNews 9th Annual Aerospace Raw Materials & Manufacturers Supply Chain Conference (RMC) , developed for executives in the dynamic global commercial and military aircraft markets, commences these unique back-to-back events on March 4, 2019. At RMC, industry experts and insiders will cover topics of interest for equipment OEMs, sub-tier manufacturers, material and parts suppliers, supply chain executives, market analysts, and investment bankers. Delegates will be presented with supply chain strategies, demand outlook for aerospace part manufacturers, market and supplier trends, and an update on the impact of new materials challenging traditional material manufacturing. This event is sponsored by Aero Metals Alliance, Constellium, PCC Metals Group, Toray Composite Materials America, and Valence Surface Technologies. Register now to attend.

Immediately following RMC, the SpeedNews 33rd Annual Commercial Aviation Industry Suppliers Conference (ASC) will take place on March 4-6, 2019 and will bring together equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, aviation analysts, financial institutions, and marketing executives. During the event, aircraft and engine manufacturers will present Delegates with status reports on product strategies and market developments. Industry experts will provide production and delivery forecasts and review the current economic status of the industry. Supply chain management, maintenance and subcontractor issues will also be addressed. "ASC is a premier event focused on the jetliner ecosystem," according to Kevin Michaels  Managing Director of AeroDynamic Advisory. "It is a must-attend event." This event is sponsored by AeroDynamic Advisory, Alabama Department of Commerce, Click Bond, CFM International, CIRCOR Aerospace, Louisiana Economic Development, PCC Metals Group, Santa Rosa Economic Development, and Valence Surface Technologies. Register now to attend.

At ASC, the 5th Annual Gilbert W. Speed Award will be presented to the individual who demonstrates outstanding leadership and collaboration across the global aerospace and defense supply chain. The award honors the legacy of the man who founded SpeedNews in 1979, the aviation industrys newsletter of record, and established its annual suppliers Conference in 1987. David P. Storch, Chairman & CEO of AAR, was the awards inaugural winner in 2015. Scott A. Smith, President of AMI Metals, Jim Downey, Co-Founder of EnCore Aerospace and Stephen E. Gill, Chairman & CEO of The Gill Corporation were the subsequent winners.

A special cocktail reception will be held on the evening of March 4, 2019 for Delegates of both Conferences.

Presenters at the upcoming RMC and ASC Conferences represent these prominent organizations:

AAR Corporation

AeroDynamic Advisory

Air Canada

Airbus Commercial Aircraft

Alderman & Company

Alton Aviation Consultancy

AVITAS

Bank of America - Merrill Lynch Global Research

Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Bombardier Commercial Aircraft

CFM International

Charles Edwards Management Consulting

Citibank

Collins Aerospace

Counterpoint Market Intelligence

CRU Group

DVB Bank

Eaton

Embraer

GE Aviation Honeywell Aerospace

Jefferies

KMeu Consult

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation America

Moog

Novaria Group

PCC Aerospace Components & Metals

Pratt & Whitney

Raymond Valeika Consultants

Roland Berger

Rolls-Royce

SMR - Steel & Metals Market Research

Supply Dynamics

Teal Group

The Lundquist Group

thyssenkrupp Aerospace

Titanium Industries

Toray Composite Materials America

Tronos Aviation Consulting

Walsh Aviation

Willis Lease

To purchase a Sponsorship or Advertising Package to promote a company on-site at the Conferences, contact Joanna Speed, Managing Director, A&D Conferences, at +1-424-465-6501 or jspeed@speednews.com . On Twitter, follow @speednewsconf ( https://twitter.com/speednewsconf ). For information about all SpeedNews events, visit http://speednews.com/all/conference .

ABOUT SPEEDNEWS CONFERENCES

For 33 years, SpeedNews Conferences have delivered an array of information to the aviation industry that is unmatched in its quality and depth to stakeholders in commercial, defense, business and general aviation, aerospace manufacturing, raw materials, and M&A.

SpeedNews Conferences is the worlds most prominent developer of aerospace and aviation information sharing events providing global aerospace and aviation leaders, executives, and decision makers with targeted industry information, data, updates, forecasts, and professional networking opportunities.

AVIATION WEEK NETWORK

Aviation Week Network, an Informa business, is the largest multimedia information and services provider for the global aviation, aerospace, and defense industries, serving 1.7 million professionals around the world. Industry professionals rely on Aviation Week Network to help them understand the market, make decisions, predict trends, and connect with people and business opportunities. Customers include the world's leading aerospace manufacturers and suppliers, airlines, airports, business aviation operators, militaries, governments and other organizations that serve this worldwide marketplace. Aviation Week Networks portfolio delivers award-winning journalism, data, intelligence and analytical resources, world-class tradeshows and conferences, and results-driven marketing services and advertising.

ABOUT INFORMA

Aviation Week Network is part of Informa, a leading international business-to-business information services group, operating in over 30 countries. We create transaction-led exhibitions and content-based events, specialist data, intelligence and marketing services products, as well as scholarly research and specialist reference-led academic content. Our products and services help businesses and professionals connect, learn, do business and gain an edge over the competition. Informa is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Joanna Speed, Managing Director, A&D Conferences

+1-424-465-6501 / jspeed@speednews.com

@speednewsconf

Facebook.com/SpeedNews

linkedin.com/in/joanna-speed-3279153




English Icelandic

Islandsbanki informs that following expiration and by agreement of parties, the credit rating service contract between Fitch Ratings and Islandsbanki is to terminate.

The decision by Islandsbanki is driven primarily from a cost perspective and the Bank will continue to work closely with S&P Global Ratings and is committed to comply with its obligations to provide the relevant information in an open and transparent way, in support of the rating agency's actions in relation to the Bank.

S&P Global Ratings currently rates the Bank at BBB+/A-2 (outlook: Stable), affirmed in July 2018.

For further information:

Investor Relations  Gunnar Magnusson, gunnarsm@islandsbanki.is , tel +354 440 4665.

Islandsbanki press releases

If you wish to receive Islandsbanki press releases by e-mail please register at: https://www.islandsbanki.is/english/investor-relations/ir-contacts/e-mail-subscription/

About Islandsbanki

A leader in financial services in Iceland, Islandsbanki is a universal bank with total assets of ISK 1,163bn (about EUR8.5bn) and a 25% - 50% market share across all domestic business segments. Building on over 140 years of servicing key industries, Islandsbanki has developed specific expertise in tourism, seafood and energy related industries. Driven by the vision to be #1 for service, Islandsbankis relationship banking business model is propelled by three business divisions that manage and build relationships with the Bank s customers. Islandsbanki has developed a wide range of online services such as the Islandsbanki and Kass apps, enabling customers to do their banking whenever and wherever. At the same time, the Bank continues to operate the most efficient branch network in Iceland through its strategically located 14 branches. For the fifth consecutive year, Islandsbanki led the Icelandic Customer Satisfactory Index for banks in 2017 and was also named Best Bank of Iceland in 2018 by Euromoney and Bank of the Year in 2017 in Iceland by the Banker. Islandsbanki has a BBB+/A-2 rating from S&P Global Ratings and BBB/F3 from Fitch Ratings and is the only bank in Iceland rated by two international rating agencies. www.islandsbanki.is

Disclaimer

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, involving uncertainty and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by the statements. Islandsbanki hf. undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this press release. It is the investor's responsibility to not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which only reflect the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements should not be considered as guarantees or predictions of future events and all forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
English French

Fexinidazole will contribute to international efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness, a fatal neglected tropical disease endemic to Africa, by 2020

It is the first all-oral treatment for sleeping sickness, and is effective for both stages of the disease

Democratic Republic of Congo bears the majority of the sleeping sickness disease burden, with around 85% of reported cases



PARIS and GENEVA - January 30, 2019 - Marketing authorization of fexinidazole for the treatment of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), more commonly known as sleeping sickness, has been granted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This approval paves the way for the distribution of fexinidazole in endemic countries this year, with another submission planned in Uganda.

Sleeping sickness is usually fatal without treatment. Transmitted by the bite of a tsetse fly, it causes neuropsychiatric symptoms; including aggression, psychosis, and a debilitating disruption of sleep patterns that have given this neglected disease its name. About 65 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk.

"I have a personal connection to sleeping sickness. Growing up in East Africa, my mother was always worried that sleeping sickness would impact us as a family," says Ameet Nathwani, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Sanofi Medical. "The approval of fexinidazole in the Democratic Republic of Congo gives me great hope for our efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness by next year."



The current treatment option for sleeping sickness, while effective, was burdensome for patients and health workers - requiring logistical challenges of hospitalization, especially challenging for people living in remote areas.

Fexinidazole is approved in the DRC as a 10-day once-a-day treatment for T.b. gambiense sleeping sickness (the most common form of the disease, found in West and Central Africa). Importantly, fexinidazole is the first all-oral treatment that works both for (i) the early stage of the disease as well as the (ii) second stage of the disease in which the parasites have crossed the blood-brain barrier, causing patients to suffer from neuropsychiatric symptoms. Fexinidazole could, therefore, eliminate the need for patients' systematic hospitalization.

On 16 November 2018, The European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive scientific opinion of fexinidazole - a result of clinical trials led by the non-profit research and development organization the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and an application submitted by Sanofi.

"We look forward to the implementation of fexinidazole as a first-line treatment and welcome this rapid approval of fexinidazole in the DRC very shortly after the EMA opinion, a testament to the dedication of the DRC Government through the Ministry of Health to eliminate HAT as a public health problem by 2020," says Dr Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, DNDi Director of Neglected Tropical Diseases. "This shows the value of Article 58, an innovative regulatory mechanism intended for the review of new medicines destined for use outside of the European Union."

Sanofi had submitted a regulatory dossier to the EMA under Article 58 of Regulation 726/2004 in December 2017. By allowing for the participation of endemic countries (DRC and Uganda) and of the WHO in the evaluation of the fexinidazole regulatory dossier, approval under Article 58 also facilitates and could accelerate future national product registrations and patient access.

About sleeping sickness

The majority of sleeping sickness patients live in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 85% of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense sleeping sickness cases were reported in 2017, followed by the Central African Republic, Guinea and Chad. The latest data released by the WHO in July 2018 confirm a sustained decrease in the number of new cases. Only 1,447 new cases were reported to the WHO in 2017 compared to 2,164 cases in 2016 and 9,870 cases in 2009. But the history of sleeping sickness is marked by resurgence, interspersed by decades where the disease has seemed largely under control. In its roadmap on neglected tropical diseases published in 2012 and supported the same year by the London Declaration, the WHO included sleeping sickness, and targets its elimination as a public health problem by 2020.

About DNDi

A not-for-profit research and development organization, DNDi works to deliver new treatments for neglected diseases, in particular human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, filarial infections, mycetoma, paediatric HIV, and hepatitis C. Since its creation in 2003, DNDi has delivered eight treatments. Fexinidazole is the first new chemical entity to be successfully developed by DNDi.

DNDi's fexinidazole programme is supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA; UK aid, UK; Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), The Netherlands; Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through KfW, Germany; French Development Agency (AFD), France; German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, Germany; Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), France; Medecins sans Frontieres; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of Norway's in-kind contribution to EDCTP2; Republic and Canton of Geneva, International Solidarity Office, Switzerland; Spanish Agency for International Development and Cooperation (AECID), Spain; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland; UBS Optimus Foundation, Switzerland; Brian Mercer Charitable Trust, UK; Stavros Niarchos Foundation, USA and other private foundations and individuals from the HAT campaign.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A.I.S. Resources Limited (TSX-V  AIS, OTCQB: AISSF) (the Company or AIS) is pleased to announce that brine sampling commenced at the Guayatayoc Mina in Northern Argentina on January 29, 2019 at 295 metres depth. The target depth is 400 metres.



Fig 1. Drill Rig

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a0b6b1d4-cb97-4690-8a37-57f535163598

Brine sampling using a handheld resistivity meter has provided the following encouraging results and confirms the previous results at 200m:

Resistivity 188.5 ms (micro siemens) (three times the salt concentration of sea water which is 54 ms)

Specific Gravity is 1.15 (fresh water is 1.0) (lithium brines are usually 1.2-1.25)

Ph is 6.85 (slightly acid which is possibly due to the presence of chlorides that combine with Li, Ca, Mg, and other elements)

Brine samples will be sent to SGS in Buenos Aires for testing and to Geoanalytics in Tucson to measure porosity and brine release characteristics. SGS will take about 10-14 days to process the samples after they receive them. The next packer test for brines will be at 325 metres where the maximum resistivity contrast occurred.



Fig 2. Brine sample bottles duplicated



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2a0401c3-b4bc-4fbf-935d-5113383d8716

Fig 3. Core sample sealed and prepared for analysis at Geoanalytics, Tucson USA

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3b330c0d-2f1e-4108-a0bb-620c871868cd

Fig 4. Drill core showing halite (salt) sequences at 292m depth

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/44886252-bfa8-4bb6-b4ac-8c1d3af9f1c3

Phil Thomas CEO said that, Core coming out has been very encouraging as is the increase in specific gravity. In places the clays are soaked and we are not able to retrieve the core due to the brine levels which is good. The packer brine sampling test results will tell us in the next few weeks if the contrast between fresh water and salt water is lithium enriched brines.

Qualified Person

Phillip Thomas, BSc. Geol, MBusM, MAIG, MAIMVA, (CMV), a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101 regulations, has reviewed the technical information that forms the basis for this news release, and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Thomas is not independent of the Company as he is Chief Executive Officer and a shareholder.

About A.I.S. Resources

A.I.S. Resources Ltd. is a TSX-V listed investment issuer, was established in 1967 and is managed by experienced, highly qualified professionals who have a long track record of success in lithium exploration, production and capital markets. Through their extensive business and scientific networks, they identify and develop projects worldwide that have strong potential for growth with the objective of providing significant returns for shareholders. The Companys current activities are focused on the exploration and development of lithium brine projects in northern Argentina.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors, A.I.S. Resources Limited

Phillip Thomas

President and CEO

Contact

Phillip Thomas - President and CEO

E: pthomas@aisresources.com

Website: www.aisresources.com

Martyn Element

Chairman

T: 604 687-6820

E: melement@aisresources.com

ADVISORY: This press release contains forward-looking statements. More particularly, this press release contains statements concerning the anticipated use of the proceeds of the Private Placement. Although the Corporation believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Corporation can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The intended use of the proceeds of the Private Placement by the Corporation might change if the board of directors of the Corporation determines that it would be in the best interests of the Corporation to deploy the proceeds for some other purpose. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Corporation undertakes no obligations to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
RENO, Nev. , Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nevada Exploration Inc. (NGE or the Company) (TSX-V: NGE; OTCQB: NVDEF) is pleased to announce that the results of a mercury soil sampling program combined with the results of its earlier hydrogeochemistry (groundwater) sampling program have extended the geochemistry support for its NNW-trending target at South Grass Valley another 1,500 metres beyond the 2,500 meters established based on the results of its ongoing drilling program, for a total of 4,000 metres, which still remains open.



Mercury is one of the characteristic pathfinder elements associated with Carlin-type gold deposits (CTGDs): thallium, antimony, mercury, and arsenic. As the most volatile of the CTGD pathfinders, mercury is the most easily transported vertically, in vapour phase. Because of its vertical mobility and strong association with CTGDs, testing for mercury in soils to detect covered CTGD mineralization is a logical tool for focusing exploration efforts at covered targets. As part of a deposit case study at the Cortez Hills deposit at the north of end of Grass Valley, soil sampling demonstrated that mercury concentrations in soil increase immediately above the footprint of gold mineralization.

NGE identified its blind, covered exploration target at South Grass Valley using hydrogeochemistry, specifically responding to highly-anomalous concentrations of gold in groundwater. With bedrock getting deeper towards the north end of the target area, and with NGEs groundwater sampling predominantly limited to shallow depths (< 60 metres), the distance above bedrock that NGE collected groundwater samples varied considerably across different areas of the Project, which introduces a potential source of variability for the gold and related pathfinder element concentrations in the groundwater samples. Accordingly, while the absolute gold-in-groundwater concentrations at the north end of the Project, where samples were collected further from the bedrock surface, are not as high as at the south end, where samples were collected closer to the bedrock surface, the concentrations at the north end are still highly anomalous and coincident with the NNW projection of a structurally complex package of favourable lower-plate carbonate host rocks based on air magnetic and gravity geophysics, which together provide evidence that the CTGD-style hydrothermal system recently discovered by the Company may extend northwards beyond the limits of NGEs initial phase of drilling.

To complement the hydrogeochemistry data and provide an additional source of geochemistry data to focus the next phase of drilling, NGE completed a mercury soil sampling program across the Project. NGE completed 13 E-W sample lines spaced every 400 metres, with an average length of about 3,000 metres, and with sample locations spaced every 50 metres along the lines, for total of approximately 930 samples.

In terms of the distribution of mercury-in-soil concentrations, the results of the program show:

background concentrations as low as 6 ppb;

a median (50th percentile) concentration of 37 ppb;

the majority (72%) of samples contain concentration less than 50 ppb;

100 ppb corresponds to the 93.6 percentile (top 6.4%) of all samples collected; and

the 100+ ppb samples cluster almost exclusively within the Companys NNW target area, and importantly extend northward beyond NGEs initial area of focus, coincident with the anomalous concentrations of gold in groundwater that continue in this direction.

Discussing the results of the mercury soil sampling program, Wade Hodges, NGEs CEO: We know that at Cortez Hills, at the north end of the valley, mercury in soils does a great job of mapping the extent of this large covered deposit; and we know based on our recent drill assay results that were getting highly-anomalous concentrations of mercury along with elevated gold in thick intervals of favourable lower-plate bedrock containing significant concentrations of CTGD pathfinders associated with intense hydrothermal-alteration. Combining mercury in soils with hydrogeochemistry has given us further evidence that the hydrothermal system weve discovered at South Grass Valley may continue another 1,500 metres, beyond the 2,500 meters weve seen in the drilling so far, for a total of 4,000 metres (which is still open). For context, with the addition of Fourmile, the mineralization along Barricks Goldrush-Fourmile camp extends for 7,000 metres. Weve set our bar at looking for projects that offer plus five million-ounce potential, and each new layer of information is reinforcing that our target at South Grass Valley is large enough to support this scale of mineralization.

The Company has submitted a permit application to provide additional drill sites at the north end of the Project, as well as additional locations at the south end of the Project to infill around the drill holes completed to date. At this time, NGE is currently drilling SGVC007, located 400 metres east of hole SGVC006. For more information about the Companys current drilling program at South Grass Valley, please see the recent news release dated January 23, 2019: https://www.nevadaexploration.com/news/nevada-exploration-drilling-enlarges-target-at-south-grass-valley-project-battle-mountain--eureka-trend-nevada



As NGE continues drilling at South Grass Valley, per NI 43-101, 2.3(2), the Company must remind its stakeholders that the Project remains an exploration target for which the potential quantity and grade of any mineral resource is still conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource.

About Nevada Exploration Inc.

NGE is an exploration company advancing a portfolio of new district-scale gold exploration projects along Nevadas Battle Mountain-Eureka (Cortez) Trend. NGE is led by an experienced management team that has been involved in several significant discoveries in Nevada, including the discovery of Lone Tree and Rabbit Creek (part of the Twin Creeks Mine). NGEs team has spent the last decade integrating the use of hydrogeochemistry with conventional exploration tools to develop a Nevada-specific regional-scale geochemistry exploration program.

With new proprietary technology, NGE has completed the worlds largest groundwater sampling program for gold exploration, collecting approximately 6,000 samples to evaluate Nevadas covered basins for new gold exploration targets. To advance follow-up targets, NGE has overcome the high drilling costs that have previously prohibited the wide-spread use of drilling as a prospecting tool by developing its Scorpion drill rig, a small-footprint, truck-mounted, small-diameter RC drill rig specifically tailored to the drilling conditions in Nevadas basins (analogous to RAB drilling in other parts of the world).

By integrating hydrogeochemistry and early-stage low-cost drilling with conventional exploration methods, NGE is overcoming the challenges and radically reducing the costs of exploring in Nevadas covered basins, and is taking significant steps to open this important new search space up for district-scale exploration.

For further information, please contact:

Nevada Exploration Inc.

Email: info@nevadaexploration.com

Telephone: +1 (604) 601 2006

Website: www.nevadaexploration.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Wade A. Hodges, CEO & Director, Nevada Exploration Inc., is the Qualified Person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101, and has prepared the technical and scientific information contained in this News Release.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking information) within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, expectations, beliefs, plans, and objectives regarding projects, potential transactions, and ventures discussed in this release.

In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made numerous assumptions, regarding, among other things, the assumption the Company will continue as a going concern and will continue to be able to access the capital required to advance its projects and continue operations. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable, these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies.

In addition, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are the risks inherent in mineral exploration, the need to obtain additional financing, environmental permits, the availability of needed personnel and equipment for exploration and development, fluctuations in the price of minerals, and general economic conditions.

A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company is disclosed in the Companys continuous disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities at www.sedar.com. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d424475e-79e4-41f8-988a-ba15e1e2a2a0
RADNOR, Pa., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP reminds Tenaris S.A. (NYSE: TS) (Tenaris) investors that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against Tenaris on behalf of purchasers of Tenaris securities between May 1, 2014 and November 27, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period).



Important Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased Tenaris securities during the Class Period may, no later than February 11, 2019 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please visit www.ktmc.com/tenaris-securities-class-action .

According to the complaint, Tenaris produces and sells seamless and welded steel tubular products and related services for the oil and gas industry and other industrial applications. Tenaris has a significant investment in Ternium S.A and, as of December 31, 2017, held 11.46% of Terniums share capital (including treasury shares). Ternium was created in 2005 by the consolidation of Siderar of Argentina, Sidor of Venezuela, and Hylsa of Mexico. In 2008, Venezuela ordered the transformation of Sidor, a Venezuelan steel company, into a state-owned enterprise. On May 7, 2009, Ternium sold its 59.7% stake in Sidor to Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, a Venezuelan state-owned entity. Ternium agreed to receive $1.97 billion for the sale of its interest. It took several years, from 2009 to 2012, for Ternium to receive the money.

The Class Period commences on May 1, 2014. On April 30, 2014, after market hours, Tenaris filed a Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013 with the SEC, which provided Tenaris year-end financial results and position. The Form 20-F stated that Tenaris was committed to conducting business in a legal and ethical manner in compliance with local and international statutory requirements and standards.

According to the complaint, on November 27, 2018, Bloomberg reported that Paolo Rocca, who served as Tenaris Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) throughout the Class Period, was indicted for his role in a graft scheme. Specifically, the article stated that an Argentine judge indicted Mr. Rocca after he testified that one of his companys executives paid an undisclosed amount of cash to government officials in monthly installments from 2009 to 2012 to speed up a compensation payment from Venezuelas Hugo Chavez for the nationalization of Sidor.

Following this news, Tenaris stock fell $2.64 per share, or nearly 10%, to close at $24.36 per share on November 27, 2018.

The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, the defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Tenaris CEO and Chairman, Paolo Rocca, knew that one of his companys executives paid cash to government officials from 2009 to 2012 to speed up compensation payments for the sale of Sidor; (2) this conduct would lead to Mr. Rocca being charged in a graft scheme, and subject Tenaris, its affiliates, and/or executives to heightened governmental scrutiny; and (3) as a result, Tenaris public statements were materially false and/or misleading at all relevant times.

If you wish to discuss this securities fraud class action lawsuit or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests with respect to this litigation, please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check (James Maro, Jr., Esq. or Adrienne Bell, Esq.) at (888) 2997706 or (610) 6677706, or via e-mail at info@ktmc.com .

Tenaris investors may, no later than February 11, 2019 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class members claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.

Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, please visit www.ktmc.com .

CONTACT:
Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Research Report on Coal Import in China, 2019-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



China is the largest coal producer and consumer. The huge coal consumption in China encourages foreign coal producers to expand their production capacity. In addition, overseas coal mines are mostly opencast ones, which makes it easy to increase production.



However, coal production in China is restricted by environmental protection policies and other factors. In recent years, some small and medium-sized coal mines had to cut or even stop production because their environmental protection facilities failed to meet standards. Meanwhile, the rising mining costs have made the coal prices in China higher than the international coal prices. For example, in 2017, the average price of imported steam coal was only 429 CNY/ton, about 12% lower than that of domestic steam coal.

According to this analysis, the logistics costs for imported coal are very low because imported coal mostly enters China by sea. While the logistics costs for domestic coal are far higher because the prices of refined oil are more expensive in China than in other parts of the world, and the expressway tolls are excessively high. Therefore, China imports a large quantity of coal every year. In 2017, the import volume of coal in China was about 270.9 million tons, up by 6% from 2016.

Coal imports are classified into anthracite, coking coal, other coal, other bituminous coal and lignite. The first three types of coal are used for thermal power generation and collectively called steam coal in China. China's coal imports are dominated by steam coal that has a low average price. For example, in 2017, steam coal imports reached about 188.14 million tons, accounting for about 69.4% of China's coal imports. As the major sources of China's coal imports, in 2017, Indonesia, Australia, Mongolia and Russia exported 251 million tons of coal in total to China, contributing about 93% to the import volume of coal in China. Indonesia, the largest source of China's coal imports, exported about 109 million tons of coal to China in 2017, accounting for 40.2% of the import volume of coal in China.

According to the researcher, coal import can bring the following benefits to China: (1) Appropriate amount of coal imports can suppress the price fluctuations and speculation on China's coal market so that the downstream industries can maintain stable production and operation; and (2) the import of high-quality coking coal that China lacks can promote the development of China's coke and metal smelting industries.

However, the Chinese government issues policies to restrict coal import from time to time, worrying that a large number of coal imports will harm the interests of the domestic coal mining industry. For example, from July 1, 2017, according to the Interim Measures for Administration of Quality of Commercial Coal, the ports administered by province-level governments stopped approving coal import.



On January 9, 2018, the National Energy Administration held talks with major power enterprises on assessing power plants' use of imported coal and the supply of coal for power generation. At the beginning of April 2018, the Customs of China's major coal importing provinces such as Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang began to restrict coal import.

It is expected that the import volume of coal in China will continue to grow from 2019 to 2023 but the growth rate may be limited. On one hand, imported coal can stabilize the coal prices in China and improve the operation of the major downstream industries of coal. On the other hand, a large number of coal imports will certainly impact China's coal mining industry. Therefore, the Chinese government will issue policies to regulate and rationalize coal imports.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Overview of China's Coal Industry

1.1 Definition of Coal

1.2 Classification of Coal

1.3 Industry Chain of Coal



2 Analysis of Environment of Coal Import in China, 2019-2023

2.1 Economic Environment

2.1.1 China's GDP and Disposable Income Per Capita

2.1.2 China's Industrial Value Added

2.2 Policy Environment

2.2.1 China's Regulatory Policies on Coal Industry

2.2.2 China's Policies on Coal Import

2.3 Technological Environment



3 Analysis of Coal Supply in China

3.1 China's Coal Reserves

3.2 Production Capacity of China's Coal Mines

3.3 Production Volume of Coal in China



4 Analysis of Coal Demand in China

4.1 Major Downstream Consumers of Coal in China

4.1.1 Thermal Power Generation

4.1.2 Iron and Steel Smelting

4.1.3 Building Materials Industry

4.1.4 Chemical Raw Materials and Chemical Products Industry

4.2 Consumption Volume of Coal in China

4.3 Market Size of Coal in China



5 Analysis of Coal Import in China

5.1 Scale of Coal Import in China

5.1.1 Import Volume of Coal in China

5.1.2 Import Value of Coal in China

5.2 Average Import Prices of Coal in China

5.3 China's Reliance on Coal Imports



6 Analysis of Coal Imports by Type in China

6.1 Steam Coal Import in China

6.1.1 Import Volume of Steam Coal in China

6.1.2 Import Value of Steam Coal in China

6.1.3 Average Import Prices of Steam Coal in China

6.1.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Steam Coal in China

6.1.5 Sources of China's Steam Coal Imports

6.2 Coking Coal Import in China

6.2.1 Import Volume of Coking Coal in China

6.2.2 Import Value of Coking Coal in China

6.2.3 Average Import Prices of Coking Coal in China

6.2.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Coking Coal in China

6.2.5 Sources of China's Coking Coal Imports

6.3 Anthracite Import in China

6.3.1 Import Volume of Anthracite in China

6.3.2 Import Value of Anthracite in China

6.3.3 Average Import Prices of Anthracite in China

6.3.4 Comparison of Average Prices of Domestic and Imported Anthracite in China

6.3.5 Sources of China's Anthracite Imports



7 Analysis of Major Sources of China's Coal Imports

7.1 China's Coal Imports from Indonesia

7.2 China's Coal Imports from Australia

7.3 China's Coal Imports from Mongolia

7.4 China's Coal Imports from Russia



8 Major Coal Importers in China

8.1 Major Steam Coal Importers in China

8.2 Major Coking Coal Importers in China



9 Prospect of Coal Import in China, 2019-2023

9.1 Major Factors Influencing Coal Import in China

9.1.1 Favorable Factors

9.1.2 Unfavorable Factors

9.2 Forecast on Import Volume of Coal in China

9.3 Forecast on Types and Major Sources of China's Coal Imports



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fgfxs2/research_report?w=12

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HPN Cartridge approved in Malaysia; HPN, BCU Cartridges approved in Thailand

Further commercial roll-out of Unyvero in ASEAN region by partner Acumen Research Laboratories facilitated

Near-term Chinese NMPA submission of Unyvero HPN expected

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Holzgerlingen, Germany, January 30, 2019; published at 08:00 a.m. CET -- Curetis N.V. (the "Company" and, together with Curetis GmbH, "Curetis"), a developer of next-level molecular diagnostic solutions, today announced that its partner for the commercialization of Unyvero in the ASEAN region, Acumen Research Laboratories Pte Ltd. (Acumen), has received first approvals by the respective regulatory authorities to market the Unyvero HPN Hospitalized Pneumonia Application Cartridge in Malaysia and Thailand. Thailand also approved the Unyvero BCU Blood Culture Application Cartridge.

With these additional approvals in Asia, Unyvero HPN for the diagnosis of pneumonia in hospitalized patients is now fully registered as an IVD medical device in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand  a milestone that allows for broader commercial roll-out and adoption in ASEAN countries with a total combined population of more than 630 million people. Acumen and Curetis intend to submit additional Unyvero Application Cartridges for regulatory approval in the ASEAN markets to further progress the commercial roll-out of Unyvero in the region.

In only four to five hours, the Unyvero HPN and BCU tests enable the detection of a very broad panel of pathogens and antibiotic resistance markers that are highly relevant for the diagnosis of hospitalized patients with suspected pneumonia and blood stream infections, respectively. This will not only help to improve clinical outcomes for these patients, but also enable better antibiotic stewardship to help mitigate the growing antimicrobial resistance challenge, said Siew Hwa Ong, PhD, CEO of Acumen.

The further regulatory approval of several Unyvero Application Cartridges in Asian markets beyond the Singapore bridgehead have the potential to contribute to further growth of our Unyvero business in the entire ASEAN region. This marks an important milestone in our Asian expansion strategy, said Oliver Schacht, PhD, CEO of Curetis. With an expected near-term regulatory submission to the Chinese National Medical Product Administration for the Unyvero HPN Application by our partner Beijing Clear Biotech and with further clinical studies supporting market access in China and beyond already planned, we are preparing for a significant commercial expansion of our Unyvero portfolio in Asia in the coming years.

###

About Acumen Research Laboratories

Acumen Research Laboratories, based in Singapore, was founded in 2010. The company has strong capabilities in translational research for developing molecular diagnostics using gene-based biomarkers, with approaches that focus on in-depth clinical validation early in the development process. Acumen is one of the few industry leaders in host-based, gene expression sepsis diagnostics. Acumen has received strong support from several Singapore government agencies such as Enterprise Singapore, the countrys enterprise development agency, the National University of Singapore Enterprise Centre and the Diagnostics Development (DxD) Hub of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

About Curetis

Curetis N.V.s (Euronext: CURE) goal is to become a leading provider of innovative solutions for molecular microbiology diagnostics designed to address the global challenge of detecting severe infectious diseases and identifying antibiotic resistances in hospitalized patients.

Curetis Unyvero System is a versatile, fast and highly automated molecular diagnostic platform for easy-to-use, cartridge-based solutions for the comprehensive and rapid detection of pathogens and antimicrobial resistance markers in a range of severe infectious disease indications. Results are available within hours, a process that can take days or even weeks if performed with standard diagnostic procedures, thereby facilitating improved patient outcomes, stringent antibiotic stewardship and health-economic benefits. Unyvero in vitro diagnostic (IVD) products are marketed in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S.

Curetis wholly owned subsidiary Ares Genetics GmbH is developing next-generation solutions for infectious disease diagnostics and therapeutics. The ARES Technology Platform combines the presumably most comprehensive database worldwide on the genetics of antimicrobial resistances, ARESdb, with advanced bioinformatics and artificial intelligence.

For further information, please visit www.curetis.com and www.ares-genetics.com .

Legal Disclaimer

This document constitutes neither an offer to buy nor to subscribe securities and neither this document nor any part of it should form the basis of any investment decision in Curetis.

The information contained in this press release has been carefully prepared. However, Curetis bears and assumes no liability of whatever kind for the correctness and completeness of the information provided herein. Curetis does not assume an obligation of whatever kind to update or correct information contained in this press release whether as a result of new information, future events or for other reasons.

This press release includes statements that are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms believes, estimates, anticipates, expects, intends, may, will, or should, and include statements Curetis makes concerning the intended results of its strategy. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Curetis actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements. Curetis undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.

Contact Details

Curetis GmbH

Max-Eyth-Str. 42

71088 Holzgerlingen, Germany

Tel. +49 7031 49195-10

pr@curetis.com or ir@curetis.com

www.curetis.com



International Media & Investor Inquiries

akampion

Dr. Ludger Wess / Ines-Regina Buth

Managing Partners

info(@)akampion.com

Tel. +49 40 88 16 59 64

Tel. +49 30 23 63 27 68

Attachment
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Resource Capital Gold Corp., TSXV:RCG (RCG or the Company) announces today that it has filed a Notice of Intention (the NOI) to make a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada) (the BIA).

The initial NOI period will allow RCG to evaluate, with its partners, all available legal recourses and financial alternatives that may allow the Company to resume its operational production efforts as soon as possible and continue as a going concern.

Pursuant to the NOI filing, PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. has been appointed as the trustee in the proposal proceedings of RCG, and in that capacity will monitor and assist the Company in its restructuring effort.

Following this announcement, the Company has requested a trading halt of the Companys common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV). There is no certainty as to timing or likelihood that the common shares will recommence trading on the TSXV or any other market.

About Resource Capital Gold and the Dufferin Project

The Dufferin Mine is described as a series of stacked Saddle Reef veins located along the hinge line of a regional anticline structure and is akin geologically to the Bendigo Goldfields in Australia. The vein system at Dufferin has been defined by diamond drilling over a strike length of 1.4 km and to a depth of 400 meters, with 14 different Saddle Reef veins recognized. Mine development to date has extended to approximately 600 meters in length and to a depth of only 150 meters.

Resource Capital Gold Corp. is developing the high-grade Dufferin Gold Mine and mill in Nova Scotia, with initial gold production from test milling achieved in March 2017. The Dufferin project covers 1,684 hectares in 104 mineral claims which contain more than 14 east-west trending saddle reef" quartz vein gold-bearing structures, each with free-milling gold. The stacked gold reefs are open at depth and extend along trend for over 3.2 kilometers within the Dufferin and West Dufferin projects, with additional strike length being held in claims by the Company up to a total of 11 km of strike length.

The Company is also advancing the Tangier and Forest Hill gold projects and is preparing preliminary economic assessments on both.

Additional information with respect to the Dufferin gold project is available in the revised technical report of the Company filed on SEDAR entitled Revised Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Dufferin Gold Deposit, dated as of April 3, 2017.

About the Tangier property

Tangier was the site of the first gold discovery in Nova Scotia in 1860. Total historic gold production up to 1919 is estimated at 29,000 ounces at a recovered grade of 17.5 g/t Au. The property saw several phases of bulk sampling during the 1980s and 1990s, the best of which was 2,578 tonnes with a recovered grade of approximately 16 g/t Au.

A total of 211 surface and underground drill holes have been completed on the property. Past mining activities have developed 3,300 m of underground workings. The mine sits on a project area of 1,904 hectares in 119 exploration claims.

The Tangier gold deposit is situated along the east-west trending Tangier anticline, a structure that has been traced for 7.3 km. Within this anticline, two sections totaling 1.4 km have been explored with drilling and past mining, which demonstrate good continuity of gold-bearing quartz veins to depths of 300 m. Gold-bearing quartz veins have been identified over a total strike length of 3.4 km on the property. This work has identified 70 or more gold-bearing quartz veins, demonstrating an extensive mineralized system.

Mineralization at Tangier consists of coarse flake gold and nuggets in generally stratabound quartz veins up to 1.5 meters thick containing calcite and up to 5% sulfide minerals, including pyrite, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, and galena. The characteristics of the mineralization indicate that the deposit is an orogenic gold deposit, similar to the Dufferin Mine and others in Nova Scotias Meguma Terrane.

Additional information with respect to the Tangier project is available in the technical report of the Company filed on SEDAR entitled Tangier Gold Property Technical Report, with an effective date of April 7, 2017.

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release was reviewed and approved by David Smith, CPG, who is a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Resource Capital Gold Corp.

Jack R. Cartmel

Interim President & CEO

For further Information please contact:

Jack R. Cartmel at (604) 642 6114

Resource Capital Gold Corp.

Vancouver Park Place

666 Burrard Street, Suite 500

Vancouver V6C 3P6

BC Canada

P +1 604 642 6114

E info@rcgcorp.ca

rcgcorp.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking information) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is generally identifiable by use of the words believes, may, plans, will, anticipates, intends, could, estimates, expects, forecasts, projects and similar expressions, and the negative of such expressions. Forward-looking information in this news release include statements about: (i) the Companys plans during the NOI period to evaluate options and alternatives for the Company to resume production and as a going concern; (ii) resumption of trading of the Companys stock; and (iii) the Companys plans for the Project and the respective timing for completion of any activities to further such plans (including the closing date of the land acquisition), the results of any PEA or other study on the Project, the Tangier project or the Forest Hill project, or any press release, presentation or other description of such projects, and the ability of the Company to achieve those results, including capital and operating costs, mine life, anticipated internal rate of return and net present value, payback period, ramp-up periods, production costs, production parameters, recovery rates, assumptions on which the PEA is based including metal prices and exchange rates, and the Companys prospects for growth and the ability to attain such growth.

Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks as a result of the Company having a limited operating history, uncertainty as to the ability to achieve the results described in any economic assessment on the Companys projects, including the preliminary economic assessment on the Project as such economic assessment is preliminary in nature and may have a wide variance from actual results, risks from making a production decision without any feasibility study completed on the Companys properties, uncertainty regarding the inclusion of inferred mineral resources in the mineral resource estimate which are too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applicable to them that would allow them to be classified as mineral reserves, uncertainty regarding the ability to convert any part of the mineral resource into mineral reserves, uncertainty involving resource estimates and the ability to extract those resources economically, or at all, uncertainty involving drilling programs and the Companys ability to expand and upgrade existing resource estimates, any applicable regulatory processes and actions, risks applicable to mining operations generally, and risk as a result of the Company being subject to certain covenants with respect to its activities by creditors, as well as other risks.

Forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date such statements are made. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.

The Company is not basing its production decision on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability; as a result there is increased uncertainty and economic and technical risks of failure associated with its production decision.
Culpeper, VA, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



At the annual meeting of the Association of Social Work Boards, delegates of the social work regulatory boards in the United States and Canada voted to amend a section of their Model Social Work Practice Act to adopt a licensure by endorsement model for licensed social workers to obtain equivalent licensure in additional jurisdictions. What this change means for licensed social workers is fewer requirements at application and less time to get additional licenses. What this change offers to regulators and legislators is clear guidance for how to structure laws to move qualified social workers into the workforce with fewer barriers to practice.

Licensure by endorsement offers a turnkey solution to the challenge of providing mobility to social workers while allowing regulatory boards to fulfill their mission of public protection, said Mary Jo Monahan, ASWB chief executive officer. In 2017 ASWB delegates adopted a resolution to implement social work practice mobility. This is an important step in that implementation process. By making this change in the model law, our members recognize that a licensed social work professional has already met public protection thresholds in another jurisdiction.

The new endorsement language includes two application steps: submission of an application with payment of fees and providing evidence of a current license in good standing, subject to disciplinary review and receiving endorsement by the licensing board.

ASWB offers mobility resources for social workers on MovingSocialWork.org, a website devoted to social work practice mobility. A recent post includes a list of states with links to information about applying for additional licenses.

Social work has adopted a model law to guide states legislative efforts to achieve consistency of regulation from state to state. As the introduction to the ASWB Model Social Work Practice Act explains, greater consistency of terminology and laws promotes increased public understanding of social work, and increased mobility for qualified social workers increasing the public protection benefits of increased understanding of social work practice and greater access to vital mental health practitioners and services. Standardization also promotes consistency in legal decisions related to licensure, renewal, discipline and other board activities.





*****

About ASWB

The Association of Social Work Boards is the nonprofit association of social work regulatory bodies in the United States and Canada. Members include 50 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. territories of the Virgin Islands and Guam, the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and all 10 Canadian provinces. ASWBs mission is to provide support and services to the social work regulatory community to advance safe, competent, and ethical practices to strengthen public protection. Founded in 1979, the association is celebrating 40 years of service to the social work regulatory community in 2019. Learn more at www.aswb.org.
Las Vegas, NV, Hong Kong & Zurich, CH, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 12 ReTech Corporation (OTC: RETC) announced that Jelmoli, (House of Brands) of Zurich, Switzerland will become the newest merchant to be added to the 12Sconti APP network.



The 12Sconti APP helps to solve a major problem for food and grocery merchants.

The waste of perishable goods is a continuous problem for merchants in the developed world. The 12Sconti APP advances the dialogue on how to deal with it by allowing retailers to discount, on an hour by hour basis, foodstuffs and other perishable products like flowers, which otherwise would need to be disposed of as waste or recycled as agricultural compost. Using the mobile-app, a merchant will be able to attract a wide social-economic demographic of consumers who might want to purchase soon to expire products at a substantial discount. In the long term, the APP could also be used as a tool for pre-orders, which will help merchants customize their supply chain resulting in more efficient resource management.

Jelmoli is the largest premium department store in Switzerland, founded in Zurich 185 years in ago. It is known as the House of Brands in its luxury goods department store business. Located at the Bahnhofstrasse, a world famous up-scale shopping area in Zurich, Jelmolis Food Market is well known for its high-quality products and excellent services.

Angelo Ponzetta, CEO of 12 ReTech commented, We are very excited that one of Zurichs most prestigious retailers and Switzerlands biggest premium department store is joining the growing ranks of 12 ReTech merchant clients. Their participation is a major breakthrough for our 12Sconti APP network. Up until now, the merchants using 12Sconti have enjoyed mixed success in getting their clients to download the APP to their mobile phones. A major retailer such as Jelmoli, with millions of consumers in their database, is a huge win for us. Jelmoli will use the 12Sconti APP to communicate time-sensitive marketing messages to their clientele to stimulate sales of perishable products in their Food Market and restaurant.

Franco Savastano, CEO of Jelmoli commented, Jelmoli is constantly working to develop its premium position and to optimize the high-quality environment. Collaborating with 12Sconti APP is part of our strategy to address new consumers in order to meet our sustainability goals. I believe that our customers will find the 12Sconti APP intuitively easy to use and a valuable and convenient tool to find offers on products and services that we will update on a regular basis. We look forward to reaching out to our existing as well as new customers and to be able to sell perishable goods in a timely manner.

Thierry Bromberger, Head of the Food Market & Gastronomie within Jelmoli commented "Mit dem 12Sconti App konnen wir ein nachhaltig orientiertes und preisaffines Publikum ansprechen und gleichzeitig Food Waste reduzieren. Dies ist ganz im Sinne von Jelmolis Nachhaltigkeits-Strategie. Jelmoli freut sich, als erster Retailer an Board dieser innovativen App zu sein.

Mr. Brombergers comments translated into English: With the 12Sconti App, we can appeal to a sustainability- oriented and price-conscious clientele while reducing food waste. This is in the spirit of Jelmoli's sustainability strategy. Jelmoli is pleased to be the first retailer on board this innovative app.

Mr. Ponzetta concluded, "The launch of the 12Sconti APP is the first step in our plans to help retailers increase the number of shoppers in their stores while solving various problems faced by perishable goods vendors around the globe. We also think that Jelmoli will take a close look at our 12 Technology Suite in the future as we can provide a positive value proposition for their luxury goods business."

About Jelmoli:

With a history dating back to 1833, Switzerlands leading premium department store offers exclusive international and Swiss brands on six floors. Over 2 million items from more than 1 000 brands are displayed for a diverse and demanding clientele on around 24 000 square meters of space divided across the six stories. Over 1 000 qualified employees create an atmosphere of well-being, high-quality advice and a positive shopping experience.

About 12 ReTech Corporation:

At our core, we are a software company whose technology allows retailers to combat the dual threats of Walmart and Amazon  both online and in physical stores. Our microbrand rollup acquisition strategy allows us to demonstrate the effectiveness of our software, devise and test new products, while providing shareholder value through immediate revenue and earnings growth. The Company operates through our subsidiaries on three continents: 12 Hong Kong, Ltd., 12 Japan, Ltd., 12 Europe A.G., 12 Retail Corporation (and its subsidiary in North America, E-Motion Apparel, Inc.). For more information please visit our website at www.12ReTech.com.

12 ReTech Corporation is publicly listed on the OTC Markets under the symbol RETC.

Safe Harbor: This document contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainty, including without limitation, the ability of the Company to successfully implement its turnaround strategy, changes in costs of raw materials, labor, and employee benefits, as well as general market conditions, competition and pricing. Although the Company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this letter will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as representation by the Company or any other person that the objectives and plans of the Company will be achieved. In assessing forward-looking statements included herein, readers are urged to carefully read those statements. When used in the Annual Report on Form 10-K, the words "estimate," "anticipate," "expect," "believe," and similar expressions are intended to be forward-looking statements.

Investor Relations Contacts:

Mark Gilbert

Magellan FIN, LLC

mgilbert@magellanfin.com

317-361-2392 (USA)

Attachment
LE MARS  Jury selection began today in the case of a former Alta Vista woman charged with neglecting her infant son to the point he died in 2017.

Authorities said 4-month-old Sterling Koehn was found dead in a maggot-infested diaper, and an autopsy determined he died of dehydration, malnutrition and an infection from untreated diaper rash. An entomologist determined the developmental level of the maggots indicated the diaper hadnt been changed in nine to 13 days.

Trial for Sterlings mother, 21-year-old Cheyanne Harris, was moved from Chickasaw County where they had lived, to the Plymouth County Courthouse in Le Mars because of pre-trial publicity. The childs father, Zachary Koehn, was convicted of murder and child endangerment causing death during an October trial.

+9 UPDATE: GUILTY in under an hour: Jury convicts Zachary Koehn in baby death (PHOTOS) MOUNT PLEASANT  A former Alta Vista man has been found guilty in the 2017 neglect death of his infant son.

Harris attorney, Aaron Hawbaker, filed a notice she may use a diminished responsibility or intoxication defense, and he indicated the defense may call Michael OHara, a psychology professor at the University of Iowa, as an expert witness.

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OHara specializes in post-partum depression, and he testified for the defense in Zachary Koehns trial. At that time, he said he wasnt able to examine Harris but had concluded that she likely suffered from the depression.
An autopsy was completed and Johns' death was ruled a homicide. The autopsy determined the cause of Johns death was from a shotgun wound to the head.

According to court documents, the investigation revealed that Johns was with Adame and another person on the evening of Oct. 24 in to the morning on Oct. 25.

The three traveled from Waterloo to the areas around Black Hawk, Buchanan, Grundy, Marshall, Tama, Butler and Floyd Counties.

Cell phone records showed that the cell phones of Johns, Adame and the other individual eventually ended up in an area around Charles City,

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Adame admitted to being with Johns and the other person during an interview Nov. 17, 2017 but denied having anything to do with his disappearance or death.

A search warrant was served at his residence on the 300 block of South Hackett in Waterloo. Law enforcement found a sawed off 12 gauge shotgun and ammunition.
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Northern Colorado Springs resident and Police Cadet Lt. Chris Bauer, left, gets his badge pinned on from his dad, CSPD Sgt. Troy Bauer.
Along the Divide: Value Up: A message of hope in the storm
An effort by a conservative Colorado House Republican to find a way to force the state to reimburse Jack Phillips, the owner of Lakewoods Masterpiece Cakeshop, for attorneys fees and loss of business income failed to gain sympathy from a Democratic-controlled House committee Tuesday.

House Bill 1081, sponsored by Republican Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs, would require about $2.6 million, beginning in 2019-20, to cover attorneys fees and other costs for those sued by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

That money would pay for a public defender, regardless of the defendants income; allow a defendant to request that the case move to another court if the case is based on a First Amendment claim; and/or allow a defendant to recoup legal costs and lost business income when the defendant wins the case.

Williams told the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, where most of Williams bills get sent, that the bill is intended to reform the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, specifically adding due process protections for those in the crosshairs of the commission. In addition, Williams said First Amendment considerations are better suited in a court of law than the Civil Rights Commission.

As to Phillips, Williams said the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in his favor was a moral victory, but one that didnt cover the loss of 40 percent of his business. Williams designed the bill to be retroactive, for appeals or actions for judicial review filed on or after Dec. 1, 2013.

Williams told the committee that the bill is not specifically geared to Phillips, but the bills fiscal analysis notes only one case so far that qualifies for recouping business losses that go back to the intended effective date in 2013: the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

Even though Williams said the bill was not designed for Phillips, he admitted that most of the $2.6 million contained in the bills costs would go to reimburse Phillips.

But Phillips shouldnt count on a check from the state anytime soon. Neither he nor his attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom testified at Tuesdays hearing.

The only person who testified in favor of the bill was attorney Kristi Brown, who has attempted in the past to put a personhood initiative on the statewide ballot. Brown, who does not represent Phillips, said the state Constitution grants due process to the accuser  the Civil Rights Commission  and not to the accused.

Four witnesses testified against, including Daniel Ramos of One Colorado, the states leading advocate organization for LGBTQ Coloradans. Ramos told the committee the bill would ask taxpayers to pay for Phillips violation of the states non-discrimination laws when he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.

We believe when a business is open to the public, theyre open to all and taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for discrimination, Ramos added.

The committee voted down the bill on a

It wasnt the only one that conservative Republicans lost on Tuesday. Another bill targeting the Civil Rights Commission, House Bill 1111, lost on a party-line 5-3 vote, with one Democrat absent.

The measure would require the Attorney Generals office to provide annual training of at least one hour to the members of the Commission regarding the states obligation of religious neutrality and consistency when considering claims that involve freedom of speech or free exercise of religion.

The measure was sponsored by Republican Rep. Mark Baisley of Roxborough Park, Douglas County, who implied that the Commission is at war with the states citizens.

Also citing the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling, Baisley said the Commission showed hostility to the sincere religious beliefs that motivated Phillips decision not to bake the custom cake for the same-sex couple.

Dawn Howard of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition testified in favor of the bill, but only if it were amended to include education on disability discrimination. And while Brad Bergford, representing the conservative Commission for the Protection of Constitutional Rights, signed up to testify against it, he said the Civil Rights Commission could use far more than an hour of training.

Ive watched in horror what theyve done over the past seven years, he said, adding that it has clearly ruled against people it disagreed with while allowing those with the same ideological viewpoint off the hook.

The Commission for the Protection of Constitutional Rights is part of the right-leaning National Lawyers Association.

And lest you think Republicans are done going after the Civil Rights Commission in 2019, think again. Republican Rep. Steve Humphrey of Ault is taking another shot at the the Live and Let Live Act, House Bill 1140, which would allow religiously based adoption and foster-care agencies to turn away same-sex couples in adoption matters.

Humphrey ran a similar bill in 2018 that died in the House Judiciary Committee. This years bill has been sent to the kill committee: State Affairs. A hearing date is not yet publicly scheduled.party-line 6-3 decision.
Although Gov. Jared Polis favors an income tax rate reduction  as he mentioned in his State of the State address Jan. 10  Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee arent singing his song.

On Jan. 17, Polis, under his personal Twitter account, thanked the Republican sponsors of a bill that sought to lower the individual and corporate income tax rate from 4.63 percent to 4.49 percent.

Thank you, @JerrySonnenberg and @RepRodPelton, for offering tax relief for ALL Coloradans. I look forward to working with you to achieve even lower rate than 4.49%, coming up w/agreeable ways to reduce tax expenditures to ensure revenue neutrality, Polis tweeted.

But Polis didnt extend that support at the hearing Tuesday on Senate Bill 55, sponsored by Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, and Rep. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells. No one showed up to testify in favor of it. The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines to kill Sonnenbergs bill.

The bill would have cost the state $280 million in fiscal 2019-20, which opponents said would result in cuts to education in the next recession .

Sonnenberg told the panel that the state has a $1.6 billion surplus, on top of a $1 billion surplus from fiscal 2018-19. His bill would shave off just under $300 million from that surplus, he said.

SB 55 is his second attempt at an income tax-rate cut in as many years.

Sen. Lois Court, committee chairwoman, told him they would never see eye to eye on a tax cut, and she hinted at part of Polis tweet from Jan. 17: that a tax cut had to be revenue neutral.

People who make more than $1 million a year would get an average cut of about $1,200, but those with lower incomes would see only a few dollars under the cut, said Chris Stiffler, an economist with the Colorado Fiscal Institute. And 1 in 4 Coloradans has no tax liability after deductions and other credits, so the bill wouldnt help them, he said.
UPDATE 6:08 a.m., Thursday

James Henry Sauls, who was reported missing early Wednesday, returned home late Thursday.

Sauls, 81, was found safe just before midnight.

--

Colorado Springs police are asking the community's help in finding an 81-year-old man who is believed to have an impaired mental condition.

James Henry Sauls was last seen leaving his home in the 1500 block of Oak Hills Drive in Colorado Springs Tuesday morning, driving a silver 2009 Toyota 4Runner. Sauls' car has a disabled veteran Colorado license plate of 092-SSA. The car was spotted near Thornton early Wednesday.

Police describe Sauls as a black male who is 59 and 150 lbs. He has brown eyes and short, white hair. He was last seen wearing a Dallas Cowboys knit cap, brown framed glasses, a dark blue jacket, blue shirt, khaki pants and black sneakers.

Sauls is believed to have dementia or early onset Alzheimer's.

Anyone who may know the whereabouts of Sauls is asked to call police at 719-444-7000. If you wish to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at 719-634-7867.
Colorado Springs police are seeking help in identifying suspects in a Jan. 17 robbery of a thrift and boutique shop owned by the Benet Hill Monastery.

One is a Hispanic or Native American woman aged 40 to 50. The second is a white woman with red hair, and the third is a white man in his late teens to early 20s with short hair.

Robbers were looking at a $5,000 gold necklace in a display case when the white man and woman distracted the staff as the other woman reached into the case and snatched it.

Anyone who recognizes the suspects in the surveillance photos or witnessed the robbery are asked to call police at 444-7000. To remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at 719-634-7867.
The Colorado Automobile Dealers Association sued a state agency Tuesday, seeking to overturn recently adopted vehicle emission regulations based on California standards.

The dealership group charges that the states Air Quality Control Commission violated constitutional requirements and skipped steps in the rule-making process by reaching a predetermined outcome based on an executive order issued last year by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper.

In November, Colorado adopted vehicle emission rules incorporating California standards, after an order by Hickenlooper aimed at reducing the states greenhouse gas emissions.

The Commission seemed to have made its mind up before this rule-making process even started, rapidly pushing through this complex rule that will cost our state and citizens billions of dollars without taking the necessary time to fully evaluate its impacts, the dealers group said in a news release. Unfortunately, it is Colorados consumers who will ultimately pay the price for this misguided decision.

Citing a figure produced by the Trump administration, the dealers said the rule would add more than $2,000 average to the cost of new vehicles in Colorado.

This is hard-earned cash that most Coloradans will not recover and will have the biggest negative impact on working families and the economically disadvantaged, the dealers said. Rather than trust the citizens of our state to choose the vehicles they need and want to drive safely in Colorados unique conditions, the Commission has concluded that Californias regulators, not Coloradans, should decide what vehicles must be bought and sold in our state.

State officials came up with a different number, however, maintaining that under the new rule, the average price of a new vehicle in 2025 will be $1,138 higher. But car owners will save as much as $1,682 on fuel and other maintenance costs, officials said, amounting to a net savings.

Federal and California standards are identical, with increasingly strict emission limits imposed on manufacturers through 2025. But the Trump administration has proposed freezing federal standards starting with the 2021 model.

For decades, California has been the only state with a waiver under the federal Clean Air Act allowing it to impose tougher standards. Under federal law, states are only allowed to operate under federal standards or adopt those set by California.

Colorados move was designed to establish a cost-effective and sensible backstop for Colorado in the event of a federal rollback, the commission said when it voted to incorporate the California rules. Another 12 states, mostly in the Northeast, and the District of Columbia have also adopted the California standards.

In their lawsuit, the auto dealers argue that dealerships will no longer be able to trade inventory with dealers in neighboring states under the new rule, substantially increasing transaction costs and overall prices of new vehicles sold in Colorado. Because costs will be higher in Colorado, the lawsuit maintains, state residents will simply buy their new vehicles in nearby states.

The lawsuit also contends that the state violated a requirement when officials failed to calculate how much tax revenue will be lost if the regulation reduces fuel sales by an anticipated 1.6 billion gallons.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment had no comment on the lawsuit, a spokeswoman said.
Chinese New Year, one of two spring festivals celebrated by the Asian community in a big way with food, is right around the corner, on Tuesday. And 2019 is the Year of the Pig.

Cynthia Chung Aki, founder of Golden Lotus Foundation, an organization devoted to advancing knowledge of Asian culture, gave us an overview of the Chinese New Year celebration and foods to serve.

Pork is a staple in Chinese cooking, so no such thing as avoiding pork even if it is the Year of the Pig, she said. The more variety of dishes served for the lunar year dinner signifies the generosity and, to some degree, wealth of the family. Chinese see the lunar new year as the most significant event, even to planning the birth of their child.

Aki recommended some favorite new year dishes: steamed black sea bass (garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, green onions), Peking duck from appetizer to soup, all from the duck, and crispy Hong Kong egg noodles with vegetables.

Ive in the past done hot pot, where everyone cooks their own food in a boiling skillet of broth to cover the pork, chicken, beef, seafood, noodles, vegetables rather than having to make individual dishes, she said.

So with Chinese New Year upon us, what better excuse to dine out at a Chinese restaurant or create your own feast at home? We wanted to learn more about the latter. To better understand cooking techniques, exotic ingredients and special dishes served at Chinese eateries, we took a series of monthly Asian Cuisine Cooking Classes last year offered by the Golden Lotus Foundation. Mei Chung, owner and chef at Hunan Springs restaurant downtown, taught the classes.

The first was a tour of the Asian Pacific Market to get a primer on ingredients used to prepare Chinese cuisine. From that tour, we came up with a list of must-have ingredients for stocking a Chinese pantry:

 Soy sauce. This is the most iconic and well-known Chinese pantry essential, one you likely already have. Both regular/light and dark soy sauces are musts. While you can get by with just regular or light soy sauce in some dishes, dark soy sauce is critical to get the right depth of flavor, color and consistency in other dishes.

 Sesame seed oil. This is the second-most recognizable flavor of Chinese and Asian cooking. Most of the sesame oils you see in markets are toasted, so they have a dark amber color and rich aroma.

 Oyster sauce. Whether the traditional version made from oysters or the vegetarian version made from mushrooms, oyster sauce provides umami flavor that really elevates the taste of any Chinese dish.

 Cornstarch. This is the most common thickening agent used in Chinese cooking. It is also the most readily available ingredient. A cornstarch slurry, a mixture of cornstarch and water, is used to thicken stir-fry dishes and soups.

 Aromatics. Ginger, garlic and scallions are the holy trinity of Chinese cooking. These three flavors vary depending on which recipe youre using and how youre cooking them.

During that tour, we also learned about different types of rice, noodles, dumplings and eggroll wrappers.

The following weeks, we met at Chungs home, where she had a demonstration kitchen set up. We learned to make the following recipes, which have symbolic meaning for Asians during Chinese New Year:

 Fried eggrolls are probably the most well-known Chinese dish. Because they look like bars of gold, they are a symbol of prosperity and wealth.

 Steamed dumplings, another popular item, are eaten during every special occasion but are most significant during Chinese New Year  for good reason. Dumplings are shaped like ancient Chinese silver and gold ingots. By wrapping dumplings, you are locking in good fortune. After eating them, its believed you will live a wealthy and prosperous life.

 Double pan-fried noodles with vegetables is another dish that expresses wishes for prosperity. In some regions of China, its customary to cook dumplings and noodles together. This is called gold silk and gold ingots. For Chinese New Year, people like to eat long noodles. The longer the noodle, the longer your life will be.

Interested in creating your own good fortune Chinese New Year dinner  or just slurping oodles of noodles? Below is an adaptation of one of Chungs recipes.

Contact the writer: 636-0271.
Retirement announcements by three key school superintendents in the Pikes Peak region have led to searches for their replacements.

Academy School District 20 will hold a community-wide focus group Wednesday night to hear what qualities and characteristics students, parents and residents would like to see in a new superintendent for the regions second-largest school district.

The session will be from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Discovery Canyon Campus Auditorium, 1810 North Gate Blvd.

Superintendent Mark Hatchell announced Oct. 1 that he will retire at the end of this school year after 12 years of leading the district, which has 26,178 students this year in 43 schools.

This will be D-29s ninth superintendent since incorporating in 1959. Applications are being accepted until March 29. A dynamic and visionary leader is how the job listing describes the ideal candidate.

Other attributes sought include exemplary communication and a record of proven achievement with a passion for building relationships.

A Leadership Profile Report will be available on the district website in early February.

The board of education has hired search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to help identify and select candidates.

The salary is listed as a regionally competitive compensation package. The average salary in the 2017-18 school year for D-20 was $236,646, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Lewis-Palmer School District 38 Superintendent Karen Brofft announced in December that she will retire at the end of this school year as well.

An online community survey for parents, students, staff and the community is available at surveymonkey.com/r/6HJQCRK.

The Monument school district, which has 6,895 students this year, also is seeking volunteers to participate in the superintendent interview process. The deadline to apply is Friday. The application is available here: lewispalmer.org/cms/lib/CO01900635/Centricity/ Domain/33/Volunteers.pdf.

The Colorado Association of School Boards is assisting with the search. Applications are being accepted through 10 p.m. Feb. 14. The salary is not listed, but the 2017-18 average salary for D-38 was $172,853, according to the states education department.

The D-38 board of education will list finalists Feb. 25, conduct interviews March 15 and announce March 18 who gets the job.

After 30 years of working at The Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind, the last 15 as superintendent, Carol Hilty has decided to retire.

Applications were accepted in December, and board members began reviewing candidates this month. They interviewed candidates Tuesday in closed-door sessions.

Members of the deaf community have campaigned for the school to hire a deaf superintendent, but it is unclear if any of the candidates are deaf or hearing-impaired.

An independent audit of the school is underway and expected to be completed by June 30, examining the schools methodology in deaf education, academic quality, student performance, admissions policies, off-campus intervention programs, board oversight and financials.

A search firm, Ray & Associates of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, listed the superintendent position as paying $150,000 plus benefits.

The school has 210 deaf or hard of hearing, blind or vision-impaired students from ages 3 to 21. About 80 students live on campus. Off-campus programs reach more than 700 students statewide.

Harrison School District 2 continues to have an interim leadership team of two chief operating officers and has not announced any search to replace former Superintendent Andre Spencer, said spokeswoman Christine OBrien.

Spencer left the district last spring with several weeks of school remaining and no public reason for his departure.

An announcement of how the district plans to proceed could come next month, OBrien said.
AAA on Thursday named The Broadmoor hotel's Penrose Room in Colorado Springs as a five-diamond winner, an award it's received each year since 
Colorado Springs, CO (80903)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. NNW winds shifting to E at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to showers and a possible thunderstorm overnight. Low 52F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
President Donald Trump expressed cautious satisfaction over the progress of peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, following six days of talks between the U.S. special envoy for the conflict-wracked country and Taliban negotiators last week.



Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting, Trump tweeted on January 30.



Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? he also said in a separate tweet.



Trumps comments come after both the Taliban and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, said that "progress" had been made in their talks in Qatar.



In an interview with The New York Times published on January 28, Khalilzad said that the sides had agreed in principle to the "framework" of a peace deal to end the Afghan war.



He said that the draft "framework" calls for the Taliban to prevent international terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan. That could lead to a full pullout of U.S. forces from the country, but only in return for the Talibans entering talks with the Afghan government and agreeing to a lasting cease-fire.



Speaking to reporters in Kabul later in the day, the U.S. envoy said: "There is a lot more work to be done before we can say we have succeeded in our efforts but I believe for the first time I can say that we have made significant progress."



Backed by Western nations, the Western-backed government in Kabul has struggled to fend off a resurgent Taliban and other militant groups.



The Taliban has so far refused to hold direct negotiations with Afghan government officials, whom they dismiss as U.S. "puppets." The militants have said they will only begin talks with the government once a firm date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops has been agreed.
Climate change may increase congenital heart defects

DALLAS, January 30, 2019 -- Rising temperatures stemming from global climate change may increase the number of infants born with congenital heart defects (CHD) in the United States over the next two decades and may result in as many as 7,000 additional cases over an 11 year-period in eight representative states (Arkansas, Texas, California, Iowa, North Caroline, Georgia, New York and Utah), according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

"Our findings underscore the alarming impact of climate change on human health and highlight the need for improved preparedness to deal the anticipated rise in a complex condition that often requires lifelong care and follow-up," said study senior author Shao Lin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., professor in the School of Public Health at University of Albany, New York. "It is important for clinicians to counsel pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant on the importance of avoiding extreme heat, particularly 3-8 weeks post conception, the critical period of pregnancy."

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect in the United States affecting some 40,000 newborns each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Our results highlight the dramatic ways in which climate change can affect human health and suggest that pediatric heart disease stemming from structural heart malformations may become an important consequence of rising temperatures," said the leading author Wangjian Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Albany.

The projected increase in children with congenital heart disease will pose greater demand on the medical community caring for newborns with heart disease in their infancy and well beyond.

While previous research has found a link between maternal heat exposure and the risk for heart defects in the offspring, the precise mechanisms remain unclear. Studies in animals suggest that heat may cause fetal cell death or interfere with several heat-sensitive proteins that play a critical role in fetal development, the researchers say.

The estimates in the current study are based on projections of the number of births between 2025 and 2035 in the United States and the anticipated rise in average maternal heat exposure across different regions as a result of global climate change. The greatest percentage increases in the number of newborns with CHD will occur in the Midwest, followed by the Northeast and South.

In their analysis, the researchers used climate change forecasts obtained from NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. They improved the spatial and temporal resolutions of the forecasts, simulated changes in daily maximum temperatures by geographic region and then calculated the anticipated maternal heat exposure per region for spring and summer. For each pregnancy and region, they defined three exposure indicators: 1) the count of excessively hot days (EHD) as the number of days exceeding the 90th (EHD90) or 95th (EHD95) percentile for the same season of the baseline period at the same region; 2) the frequency of extreme heat events (EHE) as the number of occurrences of at least three consecutive EHD 90 days or two consecutive EHD 95 days; and 3) the duration of EHE as the number of days for the longest EHE within the 42-day period.

To obtain a parameter for congenital heart defect (CHD) burden projections, the investigators used data from an earlier study, also led by Lin, which gauged the risk of congenital heart defects based on maternal heat exposure for births occurring between 1997 and 2007. The researchers then integrated the heat-CHD associations identified during the baseline period with the projected increases in maternal heat exposure over a period between 2025 and 2035 to estimate the potential changes in CHD burden.

"Although this study is preliminary, it would be prudent for women in the early weeks of pregnancy to avoid heat extremes similar to the advice given to persons with cardiovascular and pulmonary disease during heart spells," said Shao Lin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., associate director of environmental health services, University at Albany, State University of New York.

###

Other investigators included Tanya Spero, M.S.; Christopher Nolte, Ph.D.; Valerie Garcia, Ph.D.; Ziqiang Lin, Ph.D.; Paul Romitti, Ph.D.; Gary Shaw, Ph.D.; Scott Sheridan, Ph.D.; Marcia Feldkamp, Ph.D.; Alison Woomert, Ph.D.; Syni-An Hwang, Ph.D.; Sarah Fisher, M.P.H.; Marilyn Browne, Ph.D.; and Yuantao Hao, M.D., Ph.D. There were no author disclosures.

This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with partial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Additional Resources:

Available multimedia located on the right column of the release link: https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ climate-change-may-increase-congenital-heart-defects?preview= f9d168ef92d192dbb1155b3bad30ac8f

For more information visit: https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ health-topics/ congenital-heart-defects

Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews

Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information .

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a leading force for a world of longer, healthier lives. With nearly a century of lifesaving work, the Dallas-based association is dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all. We are a trustworthy source empowering people to improve their heart health, brain health and well-being. We collaborate with numerous organizations and millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, advocate for stronger public health policies, and share lifesaving resources and information. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-30. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The third week of your 2019 Unicameral Legislature saw an uptick in activity as senators finalized bill introduction and committee hearings began. At the end of January 23rd, 739 bills and 15 legislative resolutions had been introduced - all during the first 10 days of the session. Each of these bills will be routed to one of 14 standing committees and receive a public hearing where stakeholders will testify as proponents, opponents, or in a neutral capacity. Public hearings are an extremely important part of the work we do in the Legislature. Without input from our constituents, we will not have all of the information necessary to make the best decisions possible for our state. I encourage you to track bills of interest and to testify at the public hearings. If you need information about how or when to do so, please contact my staff using the information at the end of this column.
Rose grew up in Telbasta, graduating from Arlington High School in 1956. After high school, she attended Wayne State College in Wayne for one year. In 1957, Rose moved to California for a year, and worked for California Milling Corporation in Los Angeles. Rose moved back to Fremont in 1958 and worked for Hormel.

Rose was united in marriage to William 'Willy' Diedrich in November of 1960, at Telbasta. The two of them made their home in Fremont, and in 1961 they welcomed their son, Clark. In 1963, the family moved to Valley, where Rose went to work for Valmont Industries. Rose and her family moved to Ogallala in 1965, where she worked for TRW until 1987. That same year she moved back to Fremont to care for her mother. Rose went back to work at Hormel in 1988, and worked there until she retired in 2003. In 2016, Rose moved back to Ogallala to be closer to her son and grandchildren.
Weve always had a really good relationship with our Fremont Police Department and I think what this allows us to do is strengthen our relationships with the other agencies as well, Shepard said. I think the other thing long term is to really put in place some really strong protocols, that we all know what our roles are in the case of a variety of different circumstances.

Representatives from each agency will meet once every month or two, with potentially smaller groups meeting more frequently.

The group is still new, and its goals are broad, but at the meetings, they hope to improve safety protocols and responses to threats against the school; develop more preventative measures; and most importantly, open up lines of communication between groups that occasionally overlap but rarely coordinate their efforts.

When we were dealing with some of the issues last semester, oftentimes we were talking with someone on the other end of the phone who we did not have any type of relationship with, Shepard said.

What this task force has allowed us to do is kind of allow us to build those relationships between the agencies and have some really good conversations about how we work with students and how we keep our buildings and our school district safe, he said.




Plaintiffs appealing defense verdicts in the first bellwether trials over the blood thinner Xarelto are fighting back against an attempt by the drug manufacturers to toss out all 20,000 cases in federal court on federal pre-emption grounds.



Plaintiffs had appealed verdicts in three bellwether trials before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, insisting that the jurys findings were due to improper jury instructions and evidentiary rulings. But Johnson & Johnsons Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer Pharma AG filed a cross-appeal last year, arguing that Xarelto labels clearly warned of excessive bleeding and, as a result, federal pre-emption warranted tossing the overwhelming majority of the pending cases. U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana had denied summary judgment on those grounds before trial.



Defendants raised and re-raised this affirmative defense throughout this litigation, but each time, the district court rejected defendants arguments and ruled that federal law does not preempt any claims at issue, wrote plaintiffs attorney Frederick Longer in a response filed on Friday.



He wrote there was no clear evidence that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would have rejected the revised warning label plaintiffs wanted: One that advised doctors to administer a laboratory test to assess a patients bleeding risks before prescribing Xarelto.



The same argument over the clear evidence standard has come up in several tort cases against drug manufacturers. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case over whether there was clear evidence that the FDA would have rejected a warning on Mercks osteoporosis drug Fosamax.



Longer, of Philadelphias Levin Sedran & Berman, did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Bayer, represented by Lisa Blatt, a Washington, D.C., partner at Arnold & Porter who plans to join Williams & Connolly next week, did not respond to a request for comment. Janssen was represented by Susan Sharko at Drinker Biddle & Reath in Florham Park, New Jersey. Janssen spokeswoman Sarah Freeman wrote in an emailed statement: "We stand behind the safety and efficacy of Xarelto (rivaroxaban) and believe its FDA-approved labeling has always appropriately informed physicians of the information that they need to make treatment decisions with their patients. The prescribing information for Xarelto clearly, prominently, and repeatedly warns of the risk of bleeding, which is a known risk associated with all anticoagulants."



Lawsuits allege that Xarelto, an anti-coagulant used to treat blood clots, caused plaintiffs to suffer from uncontrollable internal bleeding. The Xarelto litigation is among the biggest mass torts in the country. In addition to the federal multidistrict litigation, there are about 2,000 lawsuits pending in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, where juries also have come out with defense verdicts. A trial judge in the Philadelphia cases reversed the only plaintiff's win so far: a $28 million award in 2017.



In federal court, three bellwether trials occurred in 2017. Juries found the warning labels that the FDA approved were adequate.



In an April 23 brief, plaintiffs appealed the verdicts. In particular, they alleged Fallon, the judge, should have included evidence of Xarelto labels that regulators in other countries had approved recommending the laboratory test. Jurors in the third trial also should have heard about striking new evidence: a Bayer study that backed up the use of the test, they wrote.



Janssen and Bayer defended Fallon's rulings in a June 7 response, then added their own appeal arguments.



The court could resolve these three cases simply be rejecting plaintiffs evidentiary and instructional challenges, their lawyers wrote. But with more than 20,000 similar cases now pending before the district court, the court should consider alternative grounds for affirmance that would have broader application to the litigation as a whole.



Those alternative grounds included federal pre-emption since the FDA previously had rejected reference to the laboratory test on Xareltos label.



But the FDA's action was not clear evidence, plaintiffs responded this month, citing the 2017 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that Merck appealed to the Supreme Court.



The FDAs past rejection of proposed language on a similar topic does not necessarily constitute clear evidence that a change would have been rejected, because, for example, the FDA might have disagreed only with the companys selected language, or the position the FDA took in the past might not accurately predict the position it would take at a later time, Longer wrote.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- So Foxconn Technology Group may not make display panels in Wisconsin after all.

Those whove been following Foxconn for a long time wont be surprised. Chairman and founder Terry Gou is as much a salesman as he is a manufacturer, having spent decades honing his pitch not just to clients but also governments.

Then-Governor Scott Walker, backed by President Donald Trump, loved exactly what he sold: the promise of thousands of jobs to make stuff in the U.S. Walker loved it so much that he pledged as much as $3 billion in sweeteners, a deal that likely cost him his governorship.

Now, according to a Reuters interview with one of Gous right-hand men, such plans to manufacture display panels may be scaled back or even shelved.

In Wisconsin were not building a factory. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment, Louis Woo was cited as saying. Woo was one of the key architects and negotiators behind Foxconns deal with the state.

Foxconns Wisconsin-made screens likely would have been put into televisions. Woo this week admitted that in terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.  We cant compete.

If Foxconn cant be competitive making electronics in the U.S., nobody can.

Woos admission doesnt appear to come from any change in Foxconns deal with Wisconsin, or even any shift in the macroeconomic environment. Its simply a matter of economic reality. The same reality that existed when Trump was handing out red truckers hats and promising to Make America Great Again.

Two years ago this week I wrote that Foxconns U.S. panel project didnt make sense, evidenced by a comment Gou himself made saying that such plans werent a promise but a wish.

Wishes dont always come true. I believe now, as I did then, that it would not be in Wisconsins interests to be closely tied to the flat-panel industry because its a highly cyclical, cost-sensitive business. One that would likely see massive job cuts not long after large-scale hiring.

Story continues

Foxconn is now publicly conceding that manufacturing panels in Wisconsin isnt viable, but still thinks it can hire just as many as originally promised. Instead of factory workers, Woo said theyll hire for research positions as well as back-end packaging and assembly employees. Frankly, thats wishful thinking because the U.S. doesnt have much of a talent pool to dabble in these areas.

In 2018, the first year of the Wisconsin experiment, the company couldnt even hit its employment target. Instead of creating a very modest 260 full-time jobs, Foxconn filled just 178 positions, Reuters reported.

Now that Foxconn is acknowledging the truth about manufacturing in America, it might be time for the country to face that same reality.

To contact the author of this story: Tim Culpan at tculpan1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rachel Rosenthal at rrosenthal21@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.

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CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's chief prosecutor said on Tuesday he had asked the Supreme Court to open a preliminary investigation into self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido, as well to freeze the opposition leader's accounts and impose a travel ban on him.

The United States, along with several countries around the world, have recognised Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate head of state and denounced leftist President Nicolas Maduro as a usurper. Maduro, sworn in earlier this month for a second term after disputed elections last year, accuses Guaido of staging a U.S.-directed coup against him.

Attorney General Tarek Saab said on state television said he had asked the court "to open a preliminary investigation into Mr Juan Guaido as a result of diverse violent occurrences provoked in this country since Jan. 22," the day before Guaido named himself president.

He also accused Guaido of helping foreign countries to interfere in internal matters.

As a lawmaker, who also heads the National Assembly, Guaido has immunity from criminal investigation that can be removed only by a high court.

Minutes after the announcement, Guaido said he did not underestimate a threat of imprisonment but did not believe it was "anything new."

"We are here, we will keep acting and working to confront the humanitarian crisis," he told a news conference.

Hundreds of thousands of people protested on Jan. 23 against Maduro, triggering a police crackdown. At least 40 people are believed to have been killed in political violence last week, including 26 shot by pro-government forces, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Stepping up the pressure on Maduro, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuelan state-oil firm PDVSA on Monday, triggering higher global oil prices and angry responses from China and Russia.

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Ana Isabel Martinez; Writing by Angus Berwick; Editing by Frances Kerry)
By Matt Spetalnick and Brian Ellsworth

WASHINGTON/CARACAS (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA, aimed at severely curbing the OPEC member's crude exports to the United States and at pressuring socialist President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Russia, a close ally of Venezuela, denounced the move as illegal interference in Venezuela's affairs and said the curbs meant Venezuela would probably have problems servicing its $3.15 billion sovereign debt to Moscow.

Minutes before the sanctions announcement, Juan Guaido, the opposition leader who proclaimed himself interim president last week with U.S. backing, said congress would name new boards of directors to the company and its U.S. subsidiary, Citgo.

Guaido, supported by the United States and most countries in the Western Hemisphere, says Maduro stole his re-election and must resign to allow new, fair polls.

Maduro, in a live national broadcast on Monday, accused the United States of trying to steal U.S. refining arm Citgo Petroleum, the OPEC member's most important foreign asset, which also manages a chain of U.S. gas stations. He said Venezuela would take legal actions in response.

In the first sign of serious retaliation, three sources with knowledge of the decision said PDVSA had ordered customers with tankers waiting to load Venezuelan crude bound for the United States to prepay for the cargoes or they will be authorized to fill the vessels or leave the ports.

The Trump administration sanctions stopped short of banning U.S. companies from buying Venezuelan oil, but because the proceeds of such sales will be put in a "blocked account," PDVSA is likely to quickly stop shipping much crude to the United States, its top client.

"If the people in Venezuela want to continue to sell us oil, as long as the money goes into blocked accounts we will continue to take it, otherwise will we not be buying it," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at a White House briefing.

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Oil at sea, already paid for, would continue its journey to the United States, he said. White House national security adviser John Bolton said at the briefing the measure would cost Maduro $11 billion in lost export proceeds over the next year and block him from accessing PDVSA assets worth $7 billion.

While there are significant exceptions, such as rules that should allow Citgo to keep using Venezuelan crude in U.S. refineries, the sanctions will likely cause some reordering of global oil flows as Venezuela seeks to sell elsewhere.

Gulf refineries that use Venezuela's heavy crude will have to look for alternatives to replace supplies. Despite a sharp decline in oil exports due largely to mismanagement of the industry and the economic crisis Venezuela remains the fourth-biggest vendor of oil to the United States, supplying some 500,000 barrels per day.

Citgo, Valero Energy Corp and Chevron Corp are the three largest buyers of Venezuelan crude in the United States.

"They are not allowing tankers bound for Valero, Citgo and Chevron to leave Venezuelan ports if not prepaid," a PDVSA source said referring to a decision by the company's trade and supply division.

Other exceptions in the sanctions will make it easier for Chevron Corp to keep participating in a joint venture in Venezuela, and allow U.S. entities in Venezuela to keep buying PDVSA gasoline.

VITAL SECTOR

In Moscow, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Venezuela could struggle to service its debt to Moscow.

"There will probably be problems. Everything now depends on the army, on the soldiers and how faithful they will be to their duty and oath. It is difficult, impossible to give a different assessment," he said on Tuesday.

The Kremlin condemned the U.S. sanctions as illegal interference in Venezuela, while Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they looked like an attempt to confiscate Venezuelan state assets.

The sanctions, contained in an executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump, freeze U.S.-based assets of PDVSA, Venezuela's largest source of revenue.

The Trump administration had long held off on targeting Venezuela's vital oil sector for fear that it would hurt U.S. refiners and raise oil prices for Americans. White House officials had also expressed concern about inflicting further hardship on the Venezuelan people.

The latest sanctions appear to seek to build on the momentum mounting in recent weeks against Maduro at home and abroad.

U.S. officials said the sanctions on PDVSA were intended to prevent Maduro's government from siphoning off funds from the oil company to maintain his grip on power.

Mnuchin said oil supplies were sufficient to ensure no significant impact on U.S. gas prices in the short term.

Even though the Venezuelan military has shown no sign of abandoning Maduro, Bolton said: "Our assessment based on numerous contacts on the ground is that the rank and file of the Venezuelan military is acutely aware of the desperate economic conditions in the country and we think they look for ways to support the National Assembly government."

Countries around the world have recognized Guaido, the National Assembly speaker, as Venezuela's rightful leader, and the United States vowed to starve Maduro's administration of oil revenue after he was sworn in on Jan. 10 for a second term that was widely dubbed illegitimate.

Maduro has promised to stay in office, backed by Russia and China, which have bank rolled his government and fought off efforts to have his government disavowed by the United Nations.

Bolton reiterated that Maduro would be held responsible for the safety of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Venezuela as well as Guaido and other opposition figures.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Brian Ellsworth in Caracas; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and Marianna Parraga in Mexico City; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)
The U.S. intelligence community believes the terrorist group known as ISIS is still a threat, despite President Donald Trumps earlier claims that American troops have defeated ISIS.

ISIS still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, and it maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks, and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses, reads the Worldwide Threat Assessment, released by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on Tuesday.

ISIS very likely will continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western

adversaries, including the United States, the report continues.

Trump announced in December that American troops would immediately be withdrawn from Syria, tweeting that the U.S. has defeated ISIS in Syria.

The sudden move rattled Trumps top advisers and spurred the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Since then, National Security Adviser John Bolton has said the U.S. will only withdrawal troops after ISIS is defeated and the safety of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters is secured.

Trump said his plans to withdrawal remain the same, although he later described the move on Twitter as a slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops.
Have you ever been to Las Vegas? That might sound like a strange question coming from me considering I typically only write about Bona Vista, right? So whats the catch? Dont worry. Ill connect all the dots (or neon tubing) for you real quick.

On Friday, Feb. 8, from 7 to 10 p.m., Bona Vista Programs is bringing a small taste of Las Vegas to Kokomo. Elvis wont be there, but it will be much like being in Vegas in many other ways (and not like Vegas in some other ways). But, the best way that it wont be like Vegas is that all of the money raised will benefit the children and adults served by Bona Vista Programs!

During our 3rd Annual Viva Las Vista casino night event, the Kokomo Country Club will be transformed to look like a casino. If youve never been to the casino or youve never played casino games online, dont worry! Youll fit right in. This night is not just for the pros (and, believe me, Im thankful for that). The dealers from the Sertoma Group of Broadripple are so patient and are such great teachers. They will tell you everything you need to know, and they are happy to do it! They want you to win!

What kind of games might you find in our casino? We will have Blackjack, Craps, Poker, Wheel of Fortune, Roulette, Texas Hold Em, Over/Under just to name a few. And they arent set up on card tables like youd find if we were hosting this in my garage. These are big, legit gaming tables. More than one of each, as well, so I dont want you to envision a room with just seven tables in it!

What do you get for your ticket price? Each ticket comes with 15 starter poker chips. So, you dont have to buy extra on top of your ticket price. In addition, we also will have a pizza and breadstick buffet for you to enjoy all evening, and our friends at the Bona Vista Bistro will have a table full of yummy desserts set up! There will be a live DJ and dance floor (in case you need a break from the action), a 50/50 raffle, and your chance to win a fabulous prize at the end of the night! Oh, and there will be a cash bar available, if youd like to partake, but its definitely optional. Wed be remiss not to have it, though, because Vegas.

Want to know how it wont be like Vegas? There wont be any cocktail waitresses. If you want something from the buffet or bar, unfortunately youll have to get it yourself (or find a friend who delivers to your seat at the table). We also dont serve unlimited alcoholic beverages to those who are gambling. Thats just not our style  drink responsibly. Also, there will be no smoking inside our casino (AKA the Kokomo Country Club). Oh, and one of the biggest ways it wont be like Vegas, you wont walk away with any cash money (only amazing prizes). Maybe you dont when you go to Vegas anyway, so thats not a big deal to you. Who am I to judge?

Support Local Journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. Contribute

Again this is a fund raiser, not a fund-giver-away-er. But, you will have the chance to win one of several raffle basket prizes. When I say raffle basket, though, I dont mean your mommas raffle basket. Im talking one basket that will hold a pair of Kelly Clarkson concert tickets thanks to our friends at WWKI. These are a hot ticket to shake off the winter blues, and they could be yours just for coming and enjoying the evening with us! Some of the other baskets are being put together by Soupleys Wine & Spirits, Coca-Cola Kokomo, Indiana University Kokomo, Whites Meat Market, and Kokomo Walmart. Those are just some examples. I dont want to show my entire hand before the night of the event. What kind of gambler would I be if I did that?

So, how do we make money if youre not playing for cash? Its your ticket price. For $40 for an individual or $70 for a couple, you get to partake in casino games, food, and fun all while supporting a good cause  the adults and children we serve on a daily basis. Another way you can impact the bottom line during the event is by purchasing more poker chips. Obviously, we hope you win big from the beginning. But, in the event that you go all in and dont win, youre not out for the night! You can purchase bags of 15 poker chips for just $10 to keep the fun going all night long  or at least until 10 p.m. when the event ends.

Whether you walk away with one of our prizes at the end of the night or not, you still won because we won by your donation of your ticket price. If you dont have your ticket yet, you can go to bonavista.org, click on Events and then find Viva Las Vista. Or, you can stop by 1220 E. Laguna St. in Kokomo and pay for them in person. We would love to have you come and see what its all about.

Let me remind you to get your tickets in advance, too! They are $40 each now until the event starts. However, if you bring a date or a friend or random stranger you sat next to while reading this article you can get two tickets for just $70 (in advance)! The night of the event, the ticket price goes up to $50 each and $80 a couple. So dont delay!

We also couldnt do this without our sponsors: Advanced Medical Imaging, Beckley Office Supply, Brenneco Fire Protection, City of Firsts Community FCU, The DeHayes Group, Dr. Thomas Prather, Duke Energy, First Bank of Berne, JA Benefits, Liberty Financial, Monroe Construction, Smith Financial Corp., Sycamore Financial Group, WWKI, and Wyman Group (as of the time of me writing this). Please support these community partners! We are a better organization because they support us!
Some elites of the pro-Trump media sphere have turned on the president for his failure to secure border wall funding after a 35-day partial government shutdown.

Trump signed a measure Friday to reopen the government for three weeks while border security negotiations continued.

After Trump signed the stopgap measure, Coulter sent a flurry of tweets attacking Trump as a "wimp."

After singing his praises for years, some of President Donald Trump 's most influential defenders have abruptly changed their tunes.

Just as recent polls show Trump's base of supporters shrinking , some elites of the pro-Trump media sphere have turned on the president for his failure to secure border wall funding after a 35-day partial government shutdown.

While politicians generally pay close attention to the media, even Republicans in Congress have speculated that a handful of conservative pundits hold significant sway over this president. He reportedly maintains close relationships with some talk-show hosts and has even invited some to speak at his campaign-style rallies .

The impasse in Congress over whether to fund a border wall  Trump's signature promise during the 2016 campaign and a major plank of his presidential agenda  resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal workers missing at least one paycheck , a bevy of government services halted and a spike in sick leave among some Transportation Security Administration staff that caused delays at major airports .

Trump demanded that any bill include $5.7 billion toward a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats refused. With polls showing a majority of Americans blaming him for the standoff, Trump, who said that he would be "proud" to shut down the government over the wall, signed a measure Friday to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations over border security continued. It was an option he could have taken at any point during the shutdown.

The move was panned by some of his staunchest conservative allies, who viewed it as a capitulation to Democrats.

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None were more explicit than right-wing commentator and immigration hard-liner Ann Coulter, the author of "In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!" who once tweeted that she wouldn't care if Trump "wants to perform abortions in [the] White House" if he passed the immigration policies proposed during the campaign.

After Trump signed the three-week stopgap measure, Coulter sent a flurry of tweets attacking Trump as a "wimp."

Ann Coulter TWEET: Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.

Ann Coulter TWEET: Maybe the solution to the border crisis is not deporting 22 million illegals but one Jared Kushner.

Trump and the White House both dismissed Coulter's salvos this week.

"I hear she's become very hostile," Trump said of Coulter in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal published Sunday. "Maybe I didn't return her phone call or something."

At a White House press briefing Monday  the first in 41 days  a reporter cited Coulter while asking press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders how the president can claim he has made no concessions in the border security fight.

Sanders responded: "Conservatives that actually have influence are still supporting the president throughout this process."

Trump has defended the measure as being "in no way a concession." On the day it was signed, Trump suggested that he was willing to shut down the government again or use his presidential powers to declare a national emergency in order to bypass Congress in pursuit of the wall. "If no deal is done, it's off to the races!" He tweeted.

"I don't think Ann Coulter was ever Trump's base," former Trump campaign advisor Michael Caputo told CNBC, before clarifying that "I'm not saying that she is not his base  she's part of his base. But she doesn't represent his base. She represents a wing of the base."

Asked about the three-week funding bill, Caputo said, "I see it as a concession, but it's all part of his strategy" to get the wall. "He clearly made a decision that he's going to have to break some eggs to make an omelette here," Caputo said.

Coulter wasn't the only Trump supporter with harsh words for the president.

The Daily Caller, a conservative news site co-founded by Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson, ran an all-caps headline, "TRUMP CAVES," on Friday, The Washington Post reported.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said Friday that "the president pleased few of his supporters" by signing the stopgap legislation.

"And the illegal immigrants are surely pleased at the prospect they may soon jump to the front of the line while legal immigrants aren't even part of the discussion in the nation's capital," Dobbs said.

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who said that he spoke with Trump about the border security fight in December, cast blame on the president and congressional Republicans alike for failing to come through on the wall so far.

"You could get mad at Trump all you want, you can get mad, but why wasn't this done when the Republicans had the House for two years and the Senate for two? Why wasn't it done? And you could even ask Trump. Why didn't you push for it?" Limbaugh said Monday.

Others in the president's media orbit, including Fox News host Sean Hannity and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, stepped in to do damage control following the disparaging remarks from some of their peers.

"Don't let what is what I believe a shift in strategy fool you, because I don't have any doubt at all that the president is going to fight as hard, if not harder, for the money for the wall," Hannity reportedly said on his radio show Monday night.

On "Fox & Friends" that morning, Gingrich took on Coulter directly: "She doesn't know anything about how you put a majority together. She's off here in some fantasyland where she gets to be noisy, which helps her sell books."

Coulter tweeted a blistering response.

Coulter TWEET: RIDDLE OF THE DAY: How do you break Newt Gingrich's nose? (ANSWER: Kick Donald Trump in the ass.)

Coulter TWEET: Poor Newt. At least Rudy got a job.

Coulter TWEET: To those who would attack Newt, please remember that just as collusion is not a crime, kissing the emperor's ass violates no federal law.

Coulter TWEET: Trump voters have fallen into 2 factions: The Tell the Truth faction and the Kiss the Emperor's Ass camp. Newt and I have picked different camps.

When the shutdown began in December, former Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., lamented the influence that Trump's media supporters appear to have over the president.

"This is tyranny of talk radio hosts, right? And so, how do you deal with that?" Corker said to reporters , according to the Post. "You have two talk radio hosts who completely flipped the president. And so, do we succumb to tyranny of talk radio hosts?"

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski agreed, saying in late December that conservative pundits were "absolutely" a factor in the standoff, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

"So we gave him a clean [continuing resolution] and he had lunch with a few people from the House. He listened to conservative talk radio and, whoops, all of a sudden, 'No way am I going to sign a CR. The only thing that's going to be acceptable is $5 billion period. End of story,'" she reportedly said.

"So, yes. Yes, I think it has. I think clearly it had an impact."





More From CNBC


The Trump administration has ordered the production of a new, low-yield nuclear weapon in the hopes of countering Russia.

The weapon, called the W76-2, has started production at the National Nuclear Security Administrations Pantex Plant in the Texas Panhandle.

The administration believes that such a weapon could serve as a deterrent. In a report called the Nuclear Posture Review released last year, the administration argued that a low-yield weapon would be a more flexible deterrent than the U.S.s existing nuclear arsenal, all of which are considered too big to use. Such a weapon would raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely, the report contends.

The W76-2 is a variant of the W76-1, which reportedly has a yield of approximately 100 kilotonsmore than six times stronger than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The W76-2, meanwhile, is believed to have a yield of around 5 to 7 kilotons, made possible by removing or disabling the second stage of the W76-1, reports NPR.

But experts fear that the approach may be misguided and potentially dangerous, not least because the W76-2 will be launched from the same missile used to launch the W76-1. Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, explained to NPR: Its not like the Russians are going to be sitting there saying, Well, lets wait to see this one detonate first. Oh, its a small mushroom cloud! Well, in that case' Furthermore, he noted that a nuke is a nuke. Once its used, the gloves are off.

The administration already announced plans in October of last year to pull out of a major arms control treaty with Russia. It is expected to suspend compliance in the coming days.

Despite such concerns, production of the warheads are underway. An unspecified number are due to be delivered before the end of September.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  A South Korean woman who was forced as a girl into a brothel and sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during World War II was mourned Wednesday by hundreds of protesters who demanded reparations from Tokyo over wartime atrocities.

Kim Bok-dong had been a vocal leader at the rallies that have been held every Wednesday in Seoul for nearly 30 years. She died on Monday at a Seoul hospital where she had been receiving treatment for cancer. She was 92.

On a street near where the Japanese Embassy used to be, protesters gathered around a bronze statue of a girl representing Korean sexual slavery victims and held a moment of silence for Kim. Many of them held signboards with Kim's photos and words including, "We will never forget the life of Kim Bok-dong" and "Japanese government, apologize!"

Kim was one of the first victims to speak out and break decades of silence over Japan's wartime sexual slavery that experts say forced thousands of Asian women into front-line brothels. She traveled around the world testifying about her experience, including at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 and at a U.N. Human Rights Council panel in 2016. Of the 239 Korean women who have come forward as victims, only 23 are still alive.

"We do not have much time left to spend with them," said Lee Seong-rim, one of the protesters, who said it would be "miraculous" if the Japanese government ever fully acknowledges accountability over the sexual slavery of Korean women.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who visited an altar set up for Kim at a Seoul hospital on Tuesday, said in a statement that Kim devoted her life to "restoring human dignity" and that her campaigning gave South Koreans a "braveness to face the truth."

According to Yoon Meehyang, who heads an activist group representing South Korean victims of Japan, Kim was dragged away from home at the age of 14 and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers at military brothels in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore from 1940 to 1945. She came forward as a victim in 1992, a year after Kim Hak-sun became the first South Korean woman to identify herself as a former sex slave.

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"I am a victim of the Japanese military's comfort women system and I stand in front of the Japanese embassy every Wednesday fighting for the restoration of our honor and dignity, but I also know too well the pain of women all around the world who are currently suffering from wartime sexual violence," Kim Bok-dong said in 2012 as she launched the "Butterfly Fund" for helping victims of wartime sexual abuse with another former Korean sex slave, Gil Won-ok.

A 1991-1993 Japanese government investigation concluded that many of the women were recruited against their will, leading to a landmark Japanese apology. The investigation found no written proof in official documents, however, and conservatives in Japan have cited that in arguing the women were not coerced. Many South Koreans say past apologies didn't go far enough.

Kim's death comes as relations between South Korea and Japan have sunk to their lowest point in years over what South Korea says is Japan's refusal to fully acknowledge the suffering of the so-called "comfort women" during WWII and of forced Korean laborers during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 through 1945.

Moon's government in November announced plans to dissolve a foundation founded by Japan to compensate South Korean sexual slavery victims, which if carried out would effectively kill a controversial 2015 agreement between the countries to settle a decades-long impasse over the issue.

Many in South Korea believed that Seoul's previous conservative government settled for far too less in a deal where Tokyo agreed to fund the foundation with 1 billion yen ($9 million). There's also criticism that Japan still hasn't acknowledged legal responsibility for atrocities during its colonial occupation of Korea.

Japan had said it didn't consider the money it provided to the fund as compensation, insisting that all wartime compensation issues were settled in a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic ties between the countries and was accompanied by more than $800 million in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.

Japan blasted Seoul's decision to walk back on the deal, with Foreign Minister Taro Kono saying Seoul was violating the "most basic rule to live in the international society."
Siemens steels itself for EU rejection of rail merger with Alstom

By John Revill

MUNICH (Reuters) - Siemens will accept defeat if the European Union rejects its pleas to allow it to combine with Alstom to create a powerful Franco-German rail business.

Having offered a series of concessions to answer competition concerns, Siemens will not pursue the deal at any costs and instead make new plans for its trains business, Chief Executive Joe Kaeser said before the German company's annual meeting in Munich on Wednesday.

The engineering company wants to create a European rail champion to compete with China's state-owned CRRC Corp but its ambitions have run into opposition from EU regulators concerned about the impact on train operators.

"We are not bitter, we are not angry at all. We have different options. If it works it will be good for Europe, Siemens, Alstom, and for customers," Kaeser said.

"If not, we will continue to lead in mobility as we have before," said Kaeser who nevertheless appeared to be resigned to the merger being rejected.

The EU Commission is due to announce its decision by Feb. 18, with indications the merger will be rejected.

Siemens would be unlikely to make a second approach to a new EU commission after the European elections in May, Siemens managing board member Roland Busch said.

A new commission would be bound by the same laws as its predecessor, and changing these laws would take years, Busch said.

PLAYING BY OUTDATED RULES?

Appealing to the EU, Kaeser said Europe needed to stand together to compete with the United States, China and India. He said EU competition rules from the 1990s were from a different era that were now outdated.

"It will be interesting to see if the future of mobility in Europe will be determined by backward-looking technocrats or future-oriented Europeans," he said.

The merger aims to create the world's second largest rail company with combined revenues of around 15 billion euros ($17 billion), still half the size of CRRC but twice that of Canada's Bombardier.

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The plan has been backed by Siemens shareholders who have said it would help create a focused technology group.

"Although countries such as China and the United States are increasingly ruthlessly pursuing their own industrial policy, the focus of the Competition Commission is on the task of protecting consumers and ensuring fair competition within the EU," said Marcus Poppe, fund manager at German asset manager DWS, which owns 2.2 percent of Siemens.

"This position may be correct under current European law, but fails to recognize the threats to the European industrial sector in global competition over the next 20 years,"

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has described Siemens and Alstom as world champions which can compete without a merger. People familiar with the matter have told Reuters regulators were minded to reject it.

The German firm's main customers include Deutsche Bahn and Channel Tunnel operator Eurostar. Siemens recently signed a 1.54 billion euro deal to supply London Underground with 94 new trains.

Reporting its first quarter results on Wednesday, Siemens posted weaker-than-expected industrial profit, as problems persisted at its power and gas business which has hit by collapsing demand for large turbines.

Siemens reported a 6 percent fall in adjusted operating profit for its industrial business during the three months ended Dec. 31 to 2.07 billion euros ($2.37 billion), missing the forecast for 2.15 billion euros in a Reuters poll.

The company's stock was down nearly 2 percent by midday.

Profit halved at its Power and Gas business, although the downturn was partly balanced by an improvement in profit at Digital Factory, the company's automation unit.

The company maintained its guidance, expecting moderate revenue growth in 2019 when currency swings and acquisitions were removed. It said it also expected a profit margin of 11 to 12 percent from its industrial business. ($1 = 0.8740 euros)

(Additional reporting by Joern Poltz; Editing by Maria Sheahan and Edmund Blair)
(Bloomberg) -- An Apple Inc. hardware engineer was charged by the U.S. with stealing the iPhone makers driverless car secrets for a China-based company, the second such case since July amid an unprecedented crackdown by the Trump administration on Chinese corporate espionage.

Jizhong Chen was seen by a fellow Apple employee taking photographs Jan. 11 with a wide-angle lens inside a secure work space that houses the companys autonomous car project, about six months after he signed a strict confidentiality oath when he was hired, according to a criminal complaint in federal court in San Jose, California.

Prosecutors said Chen admitted to taking the photos and backing up some 2,000 files to his personal hard drive, including manuals and schematics for the project, but didnt tell Apple he had applied for a job with a China-based autonomous vehicle company.

As President Donald Trump ratcheted up his trade war with China, the Justice Department in November announced a China Initiative aimed at prioritizing trade-theft cases and litigating them as quickly as possible.

San Francisco prosecutors have brought trade-secret theft cases against Chinese nationals who worked for companies as diverse as Micron Technology Inc., a memory chipmaker, and drug maker Genentech Inc. This week, the U.S. charged Huawei Technologies Co., Chinas largest telecommunications company, with stealing secrets from its American partner, T-Mobile US Inc.

Huawei Charges Stoke China Trade Talk Risk: Balance of Power

Apple said disclosure of the data taken by Chen would be enormously damaging, according to prosecutors. Among the photos seized by the government: an image stamped Dec. 19 diagramming Apples autonomous driving architecture. Another from June 2018 depicts an assembly drawing of a wire harness for an autonomous vehicle.

Chen told Apple investigators hed taken the pictures to support applications for jobs within the company after supervisors tagged him with a performance improvement plan, according to the complaint. After Apple learned he was seeking employment with a Chinese rival, he was suspended.

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The engineer later told Apple he intended to travel to China to visit his ill father, but was arrested last week before he could board his direct flight. He was released from federal custody after posting $500,000 in cash and property on Jan. 25.

Chens attorney didnt immediately respond to phone and email requests for comment.

Zhang Xiaolang, the former Apple engineer charged in July with stealing self-driving car secrets for a Chinese startup, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He, too, told Apple investigators he was planning to go to China to visit family. The company that Zhang was allegedly working for, Guangzhou-based Xiaopeng Motors, said at the time it found no indication Zhang communicated any sensitive information to it from Apple.

Apple began its autonomous vehicle project around 2015 with the goal of developing a full self-driving electric car to compete with Tesla Inc.. In 2016, Apple scaled back to focus almost exclusively on the underlying software and hardware that could eventually power a self-driving car, whether designed by Apple or a partner.

This year, under new leadership hired from Tesla, the company again retrenched, shifting a couple hundred of its employees from the autonomous software team to its other artificial intelligence teams inside the company. According to the complaint against Chen, Apple has approximately 1,200 employees working directly on what it calls Project Titan.

Representatives of Apple and the FBI didnt immediately respond to requests for comment on Chens case.

The case is U.S. v. Chen, 19-cv-70117, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).

(Updates with details of allegations in second paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in San Francisco at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net;Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, ;Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Photo credit: Andy Manis - Getty Images

From Esquire

One of the curious-if by curious, you mean sad and pathetic-phenomena on the electric Twitter machine these days is the presence of Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin, who spends a lot of time defending his record of selling the state off for parts, and pretending that he is still somehow relevant to our political moment.

On Wednesday, alas, this project took a terrible hit. From Reuters:



Foxconn Technology Group is reconsidering plans to make advanced liquid crystal display panels at a $10 billion Wisconsin campus, and said it intends to hire mostly engineers and researchers rather than the manufacturing workforce the project originally promised.

Foxconn, which received controversial state and local incentives for the project, initially planned to manufacture advanced large screen displays for TVs and other consumer and professional products at the facility, which is under construction. It later said it would build smaller LCD screens instead.

Now, those plans may be scaled back or even shelved, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. He said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high. In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S., he said in an interview. We cant compete.

Oh, look. The magic beans are just...beans.

Photo credit: Scott Olson - Getty Images

Rather than a focus on LCD manufacturing, Foxconn wants to create a technology hub in Wisconsin that would largely consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations, Woo said. It would also produce specialized tech products for industrial, healthcare, and professional applications, he added. In Wisconsin were not building a factory. You cant use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment, Woo said.

Earlier this month, Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple Inc., reiterated its intention to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but said it had slowed its pace of hiring. The company initially said it expected to employ about 5,200 people by the end of 2020; a company source said that figure now looks likely to be closer to 1,000 workers.

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Give it another month, and it's liable to be a drive-thru restaurant concern.

Photo credit: AFP - Getty Images

This was going to be the lasting monument to Walker's greatness-his big, beautiful, stupid wall, as it were. Unfortunately, the Foxconn folks saw the sucker coming from a couple of hectares off. Instead, Wisconsin is now in hock to this company for the foreseeable future.

Heavily criticized in some quarters, the Foxconn project was championed by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican who helped secure around $4 billion in tax breaks and other incentives before leaving office. Critics of the deal, including a number of Democrats, called it a corporate giveaway that would never result in the promised manufacturing jobs and posed serious environmental risks.

The companys own growth projections and employment goals suggest the taxpayer investment would take at least 25 years to recoup, according to budget think tank the Wisconsin Budget Project. Foxconn CEO Gou plans to meet with Wisconsins new Democratic governor, Tony Evers, a past critic of the deal, later this year to discuss modifications of the agreement, according to the source familiar with the companys thinking.

"Public-private partnership" is one of those slogans that sound very good at TED talks and around the shrimp station at Davos. Too often, however, the partnership leads to private profit and a public stick-up. I have more respect for someone who picks pockets on the subway.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

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(Bloomberg) -- With Samsung Electronics Co. set to report its first drop in quarterly profit in two years, investors are counting on the worlds biggest chipmaker to cut capital spending to keep profits flowing during a supply glut.

Samsung will probably report a 15 percent decline in net income to about 10.2 trillion won ($9.1 billion) for the last three months of 2018, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the first time earnings have fallen since the third quarter of 2016.

How much a chipmaker spends on its ability to produce the components is currently a hot topic among investors in the $463 billion semiconductor industry, where a handful of manufacturers dominate memory output. Samsung already cut annual capital expenditure last year. Chips make up the biggest portion of income for the Suwon, South Korea-based company, which is struggling with falling sales of Galaxy smartphones and iPhone screens.

There is strong chance that Samsung will reduce its capex plans for 2019, said Mike Howard, vice president of memory research at Yole Developpement. It makes a lot of sense to reduce capex when the market is oversupplied.

After falling 24 percent last year, Samsungs stock has climbed 18 percent this year. A representative for Samsung declined to comment before the release of final figures on Jan. 31.

Its closest rival, SK Hynix Inc., made it clear that spending cuts are coming this year when reporting results last week that fell short of analysts estimates. Hynixs comments in a call with investors helped boost its shares to fresh highs for the year, fueling optimism that Samsung would follow suit.

Memory-chip inventories remain high as customers such as data centers hold off on expansion plans amid the brewing U.S.-China trade war, as well as slower global economic growth. The price of dynamic random-access memory used in servers is projected to fall by more than 20 percent quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of this year, according to TrendForce.

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Earlier this month Samsung reported preliminary earnings with operating income slumping 29 percent to 10.8 trillion won.

Samsung will probably spend less than $10 billion on factory equipment this year, down from the $14 billion projected before September, according to Christian Dieseldorff, senior analyst at Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International. Samsung said in October its entire capex would drop 27 percent to 31.8 trillion won in 2018.

The decline may continue this year. Both Micron Technology Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. trimmed their capital spending forecasts. Hynix said it planned to reduce spending on equipment by 40 percent this year and might even consider additional cuts to capex, depending on demand. It also said it would not produce more memory than it sells.

Last year demands were very healthy  server demand was a surprise and that continued to be strong, and right now that has been slowing, said Clark Tseng, director of industry research and statistics at SEMI. There are more reasons to cut capex compared to 2018.

Samsung has a long history of forging ahead with aggressive investments in chips to retain a comfortable lead over its rivals. Samsungs de facto chief, Jay Y. Lee, told South Korean President Moon Jae-in in mid-January that it was necessary to try to invest while bracing for a downward cycle in the economy.

Any cut in spending will probably not compromise their lead, which is widening as the U.S.-China trade war makes it harder for Chinese manufacturers to procure equipment, according to Gloria Tsuen, vice president and senior credit officer at Moodys Investors Service.

The technological hurdle could actually increase more as trade and political tensions rise, Tsuen said. The U.S. may make it more difficult for China to buy the equipment they need.

--With assistance from Joyce Lee.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sam Kim in Seoul at skim609@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Former Trump advisor Roger Stone arrives for his arraignment at Federal Court in Washington on Jan. 29. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ



Roger Stone, a longtime ally and confidant to President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty in Washington federal court Tuesday, accompanied by his out-of-state attorneys after an initial hiccup in court filings raised uncertainty about his representation.



The Republican operative appeared with Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based attorneys Robert Buschel of Buschel & Gibbons and Grant Smith of StrategySmith after a magistrate judge twice said Monday that they failed to follow local rules to appear. Stone was also joined by D.C.-based lawyer L. Peter Farkas of Halloran Farkas + Kittila.



Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson first issued an order Monday morning stating that Buschel and Smith had failed to file motions to appear pro hac vice signed by a sponsoring member of the D.C. Bar. In a subsequent order denying the pro hac vice motion filed later Monday, Robinson noted that Farkas, whose name appeared on the signature lines of the motions, did not file the motions and had not filed a notice of appearance.



Robinsons order noted the attorneys had until 9 a.m. Tuesday to comply with local rules. Farkas notice of appearance showed up on the docket just before 10:30 a.m.



Buschel entered the not guilty plea on Stones behalf Tuesday, and Robinson set a status hearing for Feb. 1.



U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was assigned Stones case, will preside over that hearing. She also oversees the case of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. In another case brought by the special counsel, Jackson sentenced former Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom associate Alex van der Zwaan to a month after he admitted to lying to federal investigators.



Michael Marando, a prosecutor from the U.S. attorneys office in D.C., said Tuesday both parties would ask the court to designate Stones case as complex and seek a protective order for discovery.



The arraignment came after a federal grand jury in Washington returned a seven-count indictment against Stone on Thursday. Stonewho was arrested the next day in Florida and subsequently released on $250,000 bailvowed to fight the charges in a trial.



The special counsel has accused Stone of lying and attempting to obstruct the House Intelligence Committee investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and attempting to pressure a witness to lie to the panel. Those alleged lies center around Stones contact with the group WikiLeaks during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when the anti-secrecy organization released thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons campaign.



Prosecutors believe top Trump campaign officials instructed Stone to contact Wikileaks in the summer of 2016 to seek information about future email releases.



Read more:



'I Will Defeat This': Roger Stone Released on $250,000 Bail in Broward Federal Court



'Mueller, Arrest Me': Watch the Video Roger Stone Made Year Before Arrest



Skadden Settlement Spotlights Greg Craigs Ukraine Work



Barr Vows Mueller 'Will Be Allowed to Complete His Work'



Can Lawyers Represent Hostile Foreign Governments Charged in the Mueller Probe?
(Bloomberg) -- Qualcomm Inc., the biggest maker of chips used in smartphones, gave a sales forecast in line with analysts estimates, indicating the company is getting a lift from the move to next-generation 5G wireless systems.

Fiscal second-quarter revenue will be $4.4 billion to $5.2 billion, the San Diego-based company said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts on average estimated $4.83 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Qualcomms outlook follows more dire forecasts by chipmakers Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp.

There was strong performance from our chipset business, Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf said in an interview. Still, he said Qualcomm isnt immune to the economic slowdown affecting its peers. We are seeing some impact, like the rest of the industry, from market weakness.

Earlier this month, Qualcomm said it was on target to become the leading supplier of technology for 5G phones, with its chips expected to be part of 30 devices tied to the new, faster networks later in 2019.

Key Insights

The companys earnings and outlook provide a window into demand for products made by some of the worlds biggest technology companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. While the majority of Qualcomms sales come from chips that are the brains of smartphones, license revenue from patents that cover the fundamentals of how modern high-speed data phone systems work provide the bulk of the companys profits.Qualcomm reported that revenue declined 20 percent to $4.84 billion in the fiscal first quarter. Its chip business had sales of $3.74 billion while the licensing unit generated $1.02 billion. The technology licensing is central to regulatory action and lawsuits by Apple that argue Qualcomm has illegally used its position as a major chip supplier to force phone makers to pay inflated fees. Arguments in an antitrust trial brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against the company ended Tuesday.Apple, which brought a similar suit, isnt paying licensing fees. The chipmaker has brought various patent suits against the iPhone maker in retaliation aimed at achieving a settlement.

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Market Reaction

The shares rose about 2 percent in extended trading after the results were released. Qualcomms stock is down 12 percent this year, closing Wednesday at $50.17 in New York.

Executive Commentary

Mollenkopf said that concerns about waning smartphone demand in China was largely a calendar 18 story. Chinese handsets will see relatively flat demand in 2018 to 2019; 2018 was down more than 10 percent.The CEO added that Qualcomm made progress in resolving its licensing revenue dispute with Huawei Technologies Co., one of the worlds largest phonemakers. We signed in the middle of the quarter a new interim agreement with Huawei, which is a bit better than before, Mollenkopf said. We had up until last quarter $100 million a quarter. We have now signed a new agreement at $150 million.

Know More

For more details on the results, click here.Read the statement here.

(Updates with executive commentary starting in third paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net;Nico Grant in San Francisco at ngrant20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Molly Schuetz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
CHICAGO (AP)  Detectives reviewed surveillance footage of "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett walking to his downtown Chicago apartment, but so far none of the video shows him being attacked by two masked men, although investigators have obtained images of people they would like to question, a police spokesman said Wednesday.

Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted photos of the "persons of interest" Wednesday evening.

Investigators "for the most part" can confirm the route Smollett took early Tuesday when he says he was attacked along a street in the Streeterville neighborhood after visiting a sandwich shop, Guglielmi said. However, there are gaps, and none of the footage shows an attack, he said, although the review is ongoing.

Smollett, who is black and gay and plays the gay character Jamal Lyon on the hit Fox television show, said the men beat him, subjected him to racist and homophobic insults, threw an "unknown chemical substance" on him and put a thin rope around his neck before fleeing.

Guglielmi said detectives, who are investigating the allegations as a possible hate crime, have looked at hundreds of hours of surveillance video from businesses and hotels in the heavily monitored area. But he said they still need to collect and view more. He said they are expanding the search to include footage from public buses and buildings beyond the scene's immediate vicinity in the hopes of spotting the men who match Smollett's description of the suspects.

"We haven't seen anybody, at this point, matching the description he gave. Nobody looks menacing, and we didn't find a container anywhere," Guglielmi said, referring to a container for the liquid that the actor said was thrown at him.

Smollett has not spoken publicly about the attack, but his representative told The Associated Press Wednesday night that the actor "is at home and recovering."

Now in its fifth season, the hourlong drama follows an African-American family as they navigate the ups and downs of the record industry. Smollett's character is the middle son of Empire Entertainment founder Lucious Lyon and Cookie Lyon, played by Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, respectively.

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After the attack, Smollett returned to his apartment, and his manager called police from there about 40 minutes later, Guglielmi said. When officers arrived, the actor had cuts and scrapes on his face and the rope around his neck that he said had been put there by his assailant. According to Guglielmi, the 36-year-old later went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after police advised him to do so.

The FBI is investigating a threatening letter targeting Smollett that was sent last week to the Fox studio in Chicago where "Empire" is filmed, Guglielmi said. The FBI did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Bobby Rush, a Democratic congressman from Chicago, issued a statement calling on the agency to conduct "an immediate and sweeping civil rights investigation into the racist and homophobic attack."

In addition to his acting career, Smollett has a music career and is a noted activist, particularly on LBGTQ issues. Smollett's representative said his concert scheduled for Saturday in Los Angeles will go on as planned.

The report of the attack drew a flood of outrage and support for Smollett on social media. Among the many celebrities and politicians who weighed in was California Sen. Kamala Harris, a 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful who knows Smollett. She called the attack "outrageous" and "awful."

Some of the outrage stems from Smollett's account to detectives that his attackers yelled that he was in "MAGA country," an apparent reference to the Trump campaign's "Make America Great Again" slogan.

Chicago has one of the nation's most sophisticated and extensive video surveillance systems, including thousands of cameras on street poles, skyscrapers, buses and in train tunnels.

Police say the cameras have helped them make thousands of arrests. In one of the best-known examples of the department's use of the cameras, investigators in 2009 were able to recreate a school board president's 20-minute drive through the city, singling out his car on a succession of surveillance cameras to help them determine that he committed suicide and had not been followed and killed by someone else, as his friends speculated.
When New Frontier Data released its free market update to the industry last fall, 2018 Cannabis Industry Trends Report: Market Insights offered a look into the growing demand for non-flower products.

In Illinois, for example, monthly revenues from dispensary sales had increased by 54% over a 12-month period (April 2017 to April 2018), though growth had not been found equal across all product categories. Even as flower sales increased 40% year over year, revenues from edibles and concentrates meanwhile grew by 71%, demonstrating a markedly stronger demand for these value-added products.

Even more recent indicators have reinforced the dynamic. In Oregon this month, industry stakeholders reiterated their concerns about oversupply.

As Adam Smith, founder and director of Craft Cannabis Alliance (a small business association in the state) told Rolling Stone magazine, Were looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of local capital that is at imminent risk... Many of these businesses are growing some of the best cannabis in the world, as efficiently as anyone anywhere. It matters that we understand that this is not an oversupply problem, its a political problem, a market access problem and a prohibition problem.

Oregons legal adult-use market opened for sales in 2016, after the regulatory Oregon Liquor Control Commission began issuing licenses to anyone who qualified. At first, the lack of any cap on licenses was not a problem: The legalized supply was low, popular demand was high, and business was booming. By October 2017, however, the fall harvest produced more than double the cannabis yield of the previous year, though demand within a state of 4 million people had not changed.

Consequently, according to New Frontier Datas Senior Economist Beau Whitney, prices for flower are expected to decline another 35% to 50% due to oversupply.

Oil-extracting companies are making a killing right now based on low wholesale prices for flower and trim, he explained. Their margins increased because cultivators are desperate for cash and selling biomass to the extractors at low, low prices. Other cultivators are growing only for extraction and not even selling into the flower market. The result leads to downward pricing pressure on cultivators who want to sell into the flower market.

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Expect to see flower prices declines in California as well once the rules settle a bit, Whitney added. Right now, I could see outdoor in the near term going for less than $250 a pound, trending much farther below that in the longer term.

According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the states growers produced up to 15.5 million pounds of cannabis while consuming just 2.5 million pounds (or 16%) of it, leaving a surplus equal to 13x of Colorados total production ripe for diversion eastward, where wholesale prices can fetch 3x higher.

Meantime, local regulatory debates in California cities and towns that do not welcome cannabis businesses have been more common than expected, adding to low prices and extreme competition which will force many of the states smaller companies out of business.

Takeaway: Investors will want to be particularly wary of markets characterized by unlimited licenses and chronic oversupply. Whitney notes that Canada has more planned capacity than it needs, so it will see falling prices once that capacity comes online. Once that hits, their only outlets will be the export markets in the European Union and elsewhere, he said. Prices across the U.S. depend on the regulatory structure, but as prices go down out west, it will put downward pressure on the entire market.

See more from Benzinga

 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Photo: Sean Pavone/Shutterstock.com



This is the first in a series of articles focusing on employment litigation brought by court employees in Pennsylvania.



Over the past decade, six of the state's largest court administrations have agreed to pay a total of $1.28 million to resolve nearly 30 formal complaints by court employees.



The documents, obtained by The Legal through multiple public records requests, shed light on a topic that has largely remained outside public scrutiny and outline claims that have been made against sitting judges, court administrators and even a current member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.



In one case, a Bucks County domestic relations supervisor allegedly smacked a female co-worker on the buttocks. The director of the Domestic Relations Division then allegedly threatened the victim's co-workers with termination if they reported the incident.



In another case, a female Philadelphia judge allegedly fired her clerk after the clerk became pregnant, at one point allegedly remarking to the mother-to-be that she "should only hire lesbians and men."



In yet another case, a clerk in the filing department of the Chester County prothonotary's office allegedly sexually harassed his female coworker, including showing her a photo of a nude man on his computer. The male clerk was later promoted to become the alleged victim's supervisor, and, according to court papers, harassment, such as showing nude photos of women, continued. The alleged victim of the harassment was eventually fired for making complaints.



These allegations and dozens more stem from lawsuits that clerks, tipstaff, court masters, probation officers and other employees from some of the state's largest court systems filed against the courts in recent years. In total, 27 claims were filed by court employees over the past decade, with most ending up in federal court and several others resolving before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.





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The types of cases range from sexual harassment and racial discrimination to Equal Pay violations and failure to adhere to the Family Medical Leave Act. The documents do not show any particular pattern of conduct by higher-ups in court systems across Pennsylvania, and several employment attorneys said it is difficult to determine the strength or severity of the claims based on the settlement amounts.



Employment attorney Patricia Pierce of Greenblatt, Pierce, Funt and Flores, who has represented employees with claims against courts, said that, when it comes to the total amount courts have paid out over the past decade, she is not surprised at the number, despite the lengthy time frame.



Pierce, who filed one of the claims detailed in this report, said the economic claims can be limited if the person was only out of work for a short time, the employee's salary was not high, or the employee planned to retire soon. And on top of that, the claims are complicated by a sovereign immunity, which bars many types of claims that might otherwise go forward against a non-governmental agency.



"Employment law as a whole is a labyrinth that one has to navigate very carefully to ensure that you've done what you need to do to exhaust the administrative remedies and plead the right claims," Pierce said. "But, then there's also an overlay of governmental immunity that makes many of these cases very difficult to bring."



Officials of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which provides defense counsel to the court systems, declined to comment for this story.





Takeaways





According to the records obtained by The Legal, a total of 27 claims were filed and subsequently settled against courts in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties over the past ten years. One claim was also filed against the AOPC.



















Philadelphia saw the most litigation, with a total of 13 settlements, according to the records. Seven of those claims ended at the EEOC phase, so little information, other than the amount the case settled for, was made publicly available. Those EEOC cases settled for as little as $800 and as much as $26,000.



The Allegheny Court system saw eight cases over the past ten years and ended up paying the largest amount out of any county over the past decade, with a total of $451,510.



According to the responses, Montgomery County did not make any payouts in connection with employment litigation over the past decade.



The alleged conduct ranges from the serious and troubling, to the seemingly unintentional and the somewhat bizarre, with one case stemming from claims that a domestic relations officer was retaliated against after reporting that former Bucks County Judge Alan Rubenstein was smoking in his chambers on two occasions. That case settled for $48,750 in 2009.



The largest settlement over the past 10 years, according to the records, came in the case Amoroso v. Bucks County, in which a domestic relations employee was allegedly sexually harassed by a superior. That case settled in 2015 for $175,000, with $105,000 going to the plaintiff and $70,000 being paid in attorney fees.



According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, plaintiff Stacy Amoroso worked as a Domestic Relations officer when a male officer named Frank Filipovits allegedly smacked her on the buttocks. After Amoroso complained, the director of the Bucks County Domestic Relations Division, Laura LoBianco, who was also named as defendant, allegedly told Amoroso not to talk about the incident and threatened to fire Amoroso's co-workers who witnessed the incident if they talked about it, the complaint said.



The complaint contended that Amoroso was subject to disparate treatment after that. According to the complaint, in 2010 Filipovitz became a supervisor in the office, and, that same year, Amoroso sought FMLA leave due to depression and anxiety. The complaint contended that Filipovitz used his position to discriminated and retaliate against Amoroso, raising allegedly frivolous performance issues, until she was fired in 2011.



Amoroso's complaint alleged violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, Equal Protection clause, the Americans with Disability Act and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.



Attorneys for Filipovitz and Amoroso both did not return a call seeking comment.





Suits Involving Judges





Although most claims involved employees who worked at agencies within the court system, such as the Department of Human and the Probation Department, two cases in Philadelphia involved judges, one of whom is now a justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.



The case Adair v. First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, raised claims against the court and court administrator, as well as state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, who was the administrative judge of the Family Court division at the time. The case was brought by a master in the Family Court, who contended that Dougherty and other court officials denied her several employment opportunities because she was a white female.



The case raised race and gender discrimination claims and violations of the Equal Pay Act. It settled in 2012 for $50,000.



Dougherty had been sued in his capacity as the court administrator and was represented by the AOPC.



The other suit involving a judge stemmed from claims that Philadelphia Judge Ann Butchart discriminated against Divya Gupta after Gupta became pregnant.



According to the complaint Gupta filed in federal court, Gupta was hired as a law clerk, but became pregnant soon after. Butchart, the complaint said, had said her previous law clerk had been pregnant and had to take a sudden medical leave due to the complications. The complaint said Butchart, who is openly gay, said she should "only hire lesbians or men," as law clerks. According to court papers, Butchart had specifically requested that Gupta to be in the office during her previous clerk's maternity leave. Gupta was fired soon after. The case settled for $35,000.



Although Gupta's lawsuit named Butchart, the First Judicial District was the only defendant sued. The AOPC was defense counsel in the case, and the FJD declined to comment about any specific cases.





Hurdles





Both Philadelphia and Allegheny County courts saw a significant portion of their employment litigation end at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which does not make its records public.



Several attorneys said that, given the difficulty in bringing these cases, they were not surprised by this trend.



"You also have to be thinking about the impact on the client. If there's not a lot of out-of-pocket loss, why put their name in the public domain if you can resolve it early?" Pierce said.



According to Bailey & Ehrenberg attorney William Wilson, who was appointed to represent a claimant against a court system defendant, some plaintiffs may feel reluctant to sue an institution upholding the rule of law.



"Everyone would be hopeful that the court would be observing the law, so there might be some extra skepticism," he said, speculating that a similar psychology might also be at play from the court officials, making them somewhat overconfident.



"I wonder if those of us involved in the legal system tend to think we don't have biases because we know what the law is, and we don't have to watch out for ourselves as much," he said. "I wonder if that might occasionally cause court personnel to assume their not doing something wrong."
1. Yes. Its important for students to stay focused throughout the year. Its a plus.

2. Yes. It would fill the learning gaps caused by COVID and would help cut youth crime.

3. No. Students and teachers deserve a summer break. Year-round school wont work.

4. No. It wouldnt work with the militarys summer PCS schedule. Its a bad idea.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing how the school calendar would work.

Vote

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By Laila Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices gained more than 2 percent on Tuesday after the United States imposed sanctions on state-owned Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, a move likely to reduce the OPEC member's crude exports and relieve some global oversupply worries. International Brent crude oil futures were up $1.39 to settle at $61.32 a barrel, a 2.32 percent rise, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures increased $1.32, or 2.54 percent, to settle at $53.31 a barrel. Venezuela is among the world's largest heavy crude oil producers, and the United States has been its biggest client, taking about half the country's export volumes.. The Trump administration's restrictions on Venezuelan crude, aimed at driving President Nicolas Maduro from power, stop short of banning U.S. companies from buying oil from the Latin American country. However, proceeds from such sales will be put in a "blocked account" that should deter PDVSA from shipping crude to the United States. "Todays price advance looked like a delayed reaction to yesterday's Venezuelan headlines as traders may have had second thoughts about the impact on domestic oil supplies," Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note. Additionally, "possibilities that some Gulf Coast refiners may need to pay up for alternative stocks from such places such as Saudi Arabia that has already suggested that they will be steering cargoes away from the U.S.," he wrote. Venezuela's exports fell to little more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 from 1.6 million bpd in 2017, according to Refinitiv ship-tracking data and trade sources. Petromatrix estimated that Venezuelan exports will drop by about 500,000 barrels per day under current conditions. Venezuela is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is implementing a supply cut deal to support prices. Russia, OPEC's biggest non-member ally, and China have both publicly denounced the U.S. sanctions. Meanwhile, Libya's biggest oilfield, El Sharara, will remain shut until departure of an armed group occupying the site, the head of National Oil Corp said. Despite some tightening, global oil supply remains high, largely because of a more than 2 million bpd increase in U.S. crude oil production last year to a record 11.9 million bpd. U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 1.1 million barrels last week compared with analysts' expectations for an increase of 3.2 million barrels, industry group the American Petroleum Institute said on Tuesday after prices settled. The U.S. Energy Information Administration's crude and gasoline inventory data will be released on Wednesday. Some in the oil industry also worry that crude demand could stutter if the trade war between Washington and Beijing slows global economic growth. In China, a top oil importer, signs of a slowdown have emerged. Activity in its vast manufacturing sector is expected to shrink for the second straight month in January, a Reuters poll showed. (Reporting by Laila Kearney; Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio, Alistair Belland Leslie Adler)
(Bloomberg) -- New York City Council members attacked Amazon.com Inc. executives and Mayor Bill de Blasios administration over the companys resistance to a unionized workforce, as lawmakers continue to seek ways to force the retailing giant to provide more public benefits before it moves to the city.

At the second of four scheduled meetings on the subject, Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer told Brian Huseman, Amazon vice president for public policy, that the company isnt welcome in New York. At the same time, union members from the building trades packed the hearing to support the deal because it will bring construction jobs for them.

Shame on you for coming to New York City without pledging a neutral stance toward union organizing, Van Bramer said. This is a union town, we support union workers in this city.

Amazon has chosen Long Island City as one of two sites for a major expansion. The Seattle-based company plans to create thousands of highly-paid tech jobs over the next decade in its new location in Queens, but has faced backlash from local lawmakers and community groups who fear the influx could push out existing residents and add to crisis-level congestion on the subway.

Huseman said the city could expect workers averaging salaries of $150,000. The company has made an outreach to small businesses, and will limit its in-house food retail offerings so that workers would be encouraged to patronize local retailers for lunch, coffee and dinner.

Amazon can expect about $1.3 billion in city tax abatements and job-linked incentives -- part of a total $3 billion city-and-state package. De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have touted the deals benefits: a $2.5 billion headquarters across the East River from Manhattan, and the prospect of 25,000 jobs by 2030, and as many as 40,000 within 25 years. The new office could bring as much as $29.5 billion in state and city tax revenue 25 years, officials say.

Van Bramer took the mayor to task on the union jobs. De Blasio, a Democrat who has courted union support throughout his political career, is traveling the U.S. trying to present himself as a spokesman for progressive causes.

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The mayor can spread the gospel of progressive values across the country but I believe it is this record-breaking act of corporate welfare that will define his mayoralty, Van Bramer said.

In fact, the view among organized labor towards Amazon in New York is mixed. Construction jobs and building service workers will be unionized but not the Amazon office workers.

Teamsters Joint Council 16, which represents 120,000 workers in the New York City area and Puerto Rico, and Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union President Stuart Appelbaum, have organized opposition against it. Construction and building trade groups called the potential for about 1,300 new construction jobs a win for working- and middle-class families.

For all the posturing, the City Council has few tools that could actually kill the deal. Any of the parties could call off the plan with 60-days days notice, a provision in the agreement that Van Bramer said the mayor should use to win more concessions from the company. A $505 million state grant thats part of the Amazon subsidy package requires unanimous approval of the states five-member Public Authorities Control Board, which oversees many capital spending projects and includes members appointed by the governor, the mayor and the state legislature.

Van Bramer said Amazons public relations blitz in the neighborhood isnt working, and lambasted Amazon for spending millions of dollars on the campaign rather than using the money to help public schools.

Opposition is only growing, Van Bramer said. Two-to-one my constituents have called telling me to keep fighting this deal. So that is what I will do.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
The Number of States Banning Car Insurance Companies From Using Gender in Determining Rates Is Growing

In January, California became the sixth state to ban auto insurance companies from using gender when assessing risk factors for private passenger car insurance. Ricardo Lara, the Golden State's new insurance commissioner, declared, Gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation are beyond your control, and it is not a fair or even an effective way to predict risk.

The change could potentially alter rates for drivers across the state. Teen boys could benefit the most, with an average 5% decrease in their auto rates, while teen girls could see rates increase 6% on average.

Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and some parts of Michigan also ban using gender to set auto insurance rates.

Why auto insurance companies believe gender matters

Auto insurance companies have traditionally used gender as a factor in calculating rates because statistically, women have fewer accidents than men do, especially when it comes to serious accidents and DUIs.

But the California Department of Insurance determined that some insurers found male drivers were a higher risk while others claimed the inverse, and that gender-related accident rates varied widely by location. Genders relationship to risk of loss no longer appears to be substantial, the department wrote in a report that detailed the reasons for gender non-discrimination in auto insurance rates.

How can I save on auto insurance?

Currently, the average annual cost of car insurance in the U.S. is $941.65, according to a ValuePenguin study, with Louisiana leading the nation at $1,824 and North Dakota having the lowest average annual rate at $428.

Here are ways that you can save money on your annual auto insurance premium.

Compare insurance costs before you purchase a car. Some makes and models have higher insurance costs than others because premiums are based, in part, on the cars purchase price, its overall safety record, repair costs and the likelihood of it being stolen. Many insurers offer discounts on cars that are known to be safe and those that have anti-theft features, such as steering wheel, hood and tire locks and electronic immobilizers on car keys.

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Compare auto insurance quotes. You can save almost 50% if you choose an insurer that offers the lowest auto insurance rates in your state and nationwide without sacrificing quality of service.

Raise your deductible. The more expensive the car, the more youll save if you raise your deductible. That's because a high deductible means you have to pay more money before insurance kicks in, but in return you pay a lower amount in premiums.

You can also save money by bundling your auto and homeowners insurance policies. Other ways to keep your car insurance costs to a minimum include, maintaining a good credit history, selecting different types of coverage to maximize savings, taking advantage of low mileage discounts and seeking out group insurance policies.
Natural gas prices dropped on Monday, in a shorten session due to the US MLK holiday. Prices retraced some of the gains experienced in the tail end of the Friday session ahead of the long weekend. Colder than normal weather is expected to cover most of the mid-west and east coast for the next 2-week which should substantially reduce inventories. The prediction from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration shows that some areas of the mid-west will experience brutal temperatures. Heating demand will be increase significantly putting downward pressure on inventories.

Technical Analysis

Natural gas prices found support near the 10-day moving average at 3.27 and bounce. Prices ran into resistance which is the first Fibonacci retracement level near 3.65. Momentum has turned positive as the MACD (moving average convergence divergence) index generated a crossover buy signal. This occurs as the MACD line (the 12-day moving average minus the 26-day moving average) crosses above the MACD signal line (the 9-day moving average of the MACD line). The fast stochastic shows momentum is neutral as the index is printing in near the zero index level with a flat trajectory.

Supplies increased according the EIA. The average total supply of natural gas rose by 1% compared with the previous report week. Dry natural gas production remained constant week over week. Average net imports from Canada increased by 18% from last week as U.S. imports from Canada increased while U.S. exports to Canada declined.

Demand is Rising on Cooler Temperatures

The EIA reports that demand rises amid cooler temperatures. Total U.S. consumption of natural gas rose by 18% compared with the previous report week, according to data from the EIA, averaging 97.2 Bcf per day. Natural gas consumed for power generation rose 14%. Industrial sector consumption increased 5% week over week. In the residential and commercial sectors, consumption increased 30%, averaging 46.9 Bcf per day during the report week as winter weather swept through most of the Lower 48 states. Natural gas exports to Mexico declined 1% week over week, averaging 4.7 Bcf per day for the report week.

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This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
* GTH surges to six-month high * IHC continues to gain on PAL Cooling acquisition talk * 10 of 11 Saudi banks slide * Saudi's Amana jumps on capital increase approval By Ateeq Shariff Jan 29 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's stock market fell on Tuesday as most of its bank shares dropped while Egypt's blue-chip index gained, partly helped by Global Telecom on the prospect of it going private.

Market sentiment was also hurt by weak global markets, as prospects for a long-awaited Sino-U.S. trade deal were dealt another blow after the United States levelled sweeping criminal charges against China's telecom giant Huawei.

Saudi Arabia's index lost 0.5 percent with Al Rajhi Bank dropping 0.8 percent and Samba Financial Group shedding 1.6 percent.

Al Khodari lost 0.4 percent after the Capital Market Authority said it would impose a fine of 40,000 riyals ($10,665.81) following its failure to disclose financial results within the specified time frame.

But Amana Cooperative Insurance jumped 10 percent after saying its shareholders approved a capital increase to 240 million riyals from 140 million riyals.

The Dubai index edged down 0.2 percent, pulled by its banking shares. Mashreq Bank plunged 10 percent, while Commercial Bank of Dubai slumped 7.5 percent.

Property developer DAMAC Properties added 0.8 percent.

The firm responded to reports that it was going invest $1.3 billion in London's property market. DAMAC said it had no plans to invest in the UK real estate market at the moment.

The Egyptian blue-chip index was up 0.5 percent, helped by a 9.9 percent jump in Global Telecom Holding . The stock has gained for the third straight session after its major shareholder VEON Ltd said it was considering taking it private.

Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (SODIC) increased 2.5 percent, while Madinet Nasr for Housing and Development (MNHD) gained 3 percent.

The firms have been rising in the last few sessions after calling off a planned merger last week.

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Abu Dhabi's index slid 0.4, with First Abu Dhabi Bank falling 0.8 percent and Abu Dhabi's National Energy Company (TAQA) slipping 6.8 percent. TAQA said the board will meet next week to approve financial results.

International Holding continued to gain, closing 8.8 percent higher. The company said it would initiate discussions to buy PAL Cooling.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), Union National Bank (UNB) and Al Hilal Bank agreed a merger on Tuesday to create the third-largest bank in the United Arab Emirates.

The announcement was made after the market closed. ADCB dipped 0.2 percent and UNB lost 2.4 percent as of last close on Monday.

The Qatar index edged up 0.2 percent, helped by a 3.6 percent rise in Qatar Fuel and a 3.2 percent increase in Qatar Gas Transport Co.

Doha Bank rebounded partially, adding 2.2 percent. The company fell after reporting a decline in its full year profit.

Qatar National Bank, the largest bank by assets in the Middle East and Africa, was down 0.3 percent. The bank is planning to issue U.S. dollar-denominated bonds, Reuters said, citing sources familiar with matter.

SAUDI ARABIA The index fell 0.5 pct to 8,581 points DUBAI The index fell 0.2 pct to 2,566 points QATAR The index gained 0.2 pct to 10,722 points ABU DHABI The index lost 0.4 pct to 5,033 points EGYPT The index added 0.5 percent to 13,977 points KUWAIT The index rose 0.4 pct to 5,415 points OMAN The index was up 0.3 pct at 4,172 points BAHRAIN The index gained 0.5 pct at 1,386 points ($1 = 3.7503 riyals) (Reporting by Ateeq Shariff in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
A lawyer in Texas is suing Apple over a recent FaceTime exploit that let people listen in on conversations.

The lawyer suggests someone was able to listen in while he was undergoing a private deposition with a client.

The suit suggests Apple knew about the bug.

Larry Williams II, a lawyer based in Houston, filed a lawsuit in Harris County, Texas Monday against Apple over an exploit that let people eavesdrop on iPhones using FaceTime .

The bug went viral on Monday evening after news outlets, including CNBC, verified that one person was able to place a FaceTime video call to another person and, using the exploit, was able to listen in or see video of the recipient of the call, even if they didn't answer. Williams says he heard about the bug as early as January 27.

The suit alleges that Apple "failed to exercise reasonable care" and that Apple "knew, or should have known, that its Product would cause unsolicited privacy breaches and eavesdropping." It suggests Apple did not adequately test its software and that Apple was "aware there was a high probability at least some consumers would suffer harm."

The suit says that Williams was "undergoing a private deposition with a client when this defective product breached allowed for the recording" of the conversation.

Williams claimed this caused "sustained permanent and continuous injuries, pain and suffering and emotional trauma that will continue into the future" and that Williams "lost ability to earn a living and will continued to be so in the future."

The lawsuit also says that iOS 12.1, the latest major release of the iPhone operating system, was defective and "unreasonable dangerous" and that Apple "failed to provide adequate warnings to avoid the substantial danger" posed by the security flaw.

A teenager's mother told CNBC that she reported the bug to Apple last week, but Apple has not confirmed to CNBC that it recognized or was able to replicate the bug.

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Williams is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as a result of the exploit.

After news of the exploit spread, Apple AAPL quickly removed the ability to place group FaceTime calls. The company said that a fix is coming this week.

An Apple spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.





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The Latest: Pence going to Miami to meet with Venezuelans

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)  The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local):

7:50 p.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is going to Miami on Friday to meet with people who have fled Venezuela, as the Trump administration continues to challenge Nicolas Maduro's claim to the presidency.

A White House official says Pence will be talking with community leaders, political prisoners and former elected officials who have fled the South American country due to political persecution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the visit ahead of its formal announcement.

The Trump administration has recognized Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress, as Venezuela's rightful president.

Trump spoke with Guaido on Wednesday. The president tweeted that he congratulated Guaido "on his historic assumption of the presidency and reinforced strong United States support for Venezuela's fight to regain its democracy."

 Jill Colvin in Washington

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6:30 p.m.

The governments of Mexico and Uruguay are calling for an international conference of neutral countries to jump start a dialogue between Venezuelans.

The conference is to be held Feb. 7 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, and Mexico said Wednesday that it expects at least 10 countries and international organizations to participate.

Mexico and Uruguay have refused to withdraw recognition from the embattled Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro. The U.S., Canada and many Latin American nations have recognized opposition leader Juan Guiado, who declared himself Venezuela's interim president last week.

A statement from Uruguay and Mexico says that "the purpose of the conference will be to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country."

___

5:50 p.m.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators says they will urge European countries to recognize Venezuelan congress leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of the South American country.

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Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and he told reporters Wednesday that the Venezuelan opposition's new envoy in Washington "asked us to urge our European allies, which we have done and will continue to do."

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland was the only Democrat in the group of five senators who met with opposition envoy Carlos Vecchio to express bipartisan support for Guaido, who has declared himself Venezuela's interim president in a challenge to Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The European Union's foreign policy chief has said that if Maduro doesn't announce a new presidential election in the next days, the 28-nation bloc "will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership."

___

4:35 p.m.

Colombia is barring over 200 people identified as having close ties to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from entering the neighboring Andean nation.

Migration director Christian Kruger said Wednesday the measure is part of a larger response by the regional bloc known as the Lima Group.

Representatives from a dozen nations in the Americas that comprise the Lima Group are recognizing Juan Guaido as interim president, with the exception of Mexico.

Kruger said those on the no-entry list are being barred because of their "close relationship and support for the regime of Nicolas Maduro."

Venezuelan Ronald Ramirez became the first person denied entry Wednesday after landing in the Colombian city of Barranquilla on a charter plane.

Kruger said that Ramirez was recently named by Maduro to lead a Venezuelan manufacturing business that operates in Colombia.

___

4 p.m.

The Trump administration's special envoy for Venezuela says there are deep splits in the country's military that should make embattled President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters very nervous.

Elliott Abrams says the vast majority of Venezuelan soldiers are unhappy with Maduro and the state of the country. Abrams says Maduro may have the backing of the top brass but the rank-and-file are restive.

Abrams told reporters at the State Department on Wednesday that the administration would continue to ramp up pressure to push Maduro to step down and would expand its support for opposition leader Juan Guaido.

The administration last week recognized Guiado as the country's legitimate leader and has since hit Venezuela with severe sanctions. It has also turned over control of government bank accounts in the U.S. to Guaido.

___

3:10 p.m.

Opposition protesters in Venezuela have wrapped up a walkout urging President Nicolas Maduro to step down by singing their country's national anthem.

The two-hour walkout in cities around Venezuela drew thousands to the streets.

Protester Maria Kley said she was demonstrating because, "We want a free Venezuela."

Others like Dr. Hugo Rosillo said they wanted to see an end to the medical shortages that prevent physicians like him from treating curable illnesses.

He said the children's hospital where he works has turned into "a storeroom for cadavers."

Like last week's demonstration, the walkout drew a cross section of Venezuelan society, from nurses and businessmen to students and construction workers.

___

2:45 p.m.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido says Venezuelans took to the streets in more than 5,000 spots across the country to demand their freedom from President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido made a surprise appearance Wednesday before a cheering crowd at the Central University of Venezuela in the capital of Caracas.

He had called for people to stage a peaceful demonstration by stepping out of their homes and workplaces for two hours.

A week earlier he asserted that the constitution gave him presidential powers because Maduro's re-election was a sham.

Guaido says he's not losing any sleep over a Supreme Court order banning him from leaving the country.

He also says his goal is for masses fleeing Venezuela's crisis to return home and reclaim their nation.

Opposition leaders are calling for another protest on Saturday.

___

12:45 p.m.

Venezuelans are exiting their homes and workplaces in a walkout organized by the opposition to demand that President Nicolas Maduro leave power.

People began gathering on streets in the capital city of Caracas around noon, waving flags and chanting phrases like, "Free elections!"

Drivers are honking their horns in support of the protesters.

The demonstration comes one week after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president before thousands of supporters, contending that he is the nation's rightful leader because Maduro's reelection was a sham.

Guaido is the 35-year-old president of the National Assembly, the only branch of Venezuela's government controlled by the opposition.

Maduro is refusing to step down and accusing the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and imposing punishing oil sanctions.

___

11:45 a.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump has stressed to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido his "strong support" for the nation's fight to regain its democracy.

Trump and Guaido spoke on Wednesday. The White House says Guaido thanked Trump for committing the U.S. to freedom and prosperity in Venezuela and the region. The leaders also agreed to regular communication in support of Venezuela's path back to stability and to rebuild strained relations between both countries.

Large protests are planned across Venezuela on Wednesday to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Guaido declared himself Venezuela's rightful leader last week and said the nation "is set on change."

___

10:50 a.m.

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has turned to the power of prayer as opposition leaders backed by the United States amp up pressure for his ouster.

Maduro on Wednesday participated in a Christian prayer session with dozens of evangelical supporters.

In the session aired on state TV, Maduro lowered his eyes and raised his right hand in prayer.

He asked "all powerful God" to bless Venezuela and lead it to a peaceful future.

A minister leading the service says millions of evangelicals are praying around the clock for the South American nation.

The socialist president has been challenged by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who claims that he's Venezuela's rightful leader.

___

9:45 a.m.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is huddling with his military ahead of planned anti-government protests.

In scenes broadcast on state TV, Maduro could be seen walking around the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas early Wednesday with top commanders and dozens of troops.

"Do you love you homeland? Will you defend the constitution? Will you defend your commander in

chief?" Maduro asked the troops, who responded with loud shouts of "Yes, commander in chief!"

Since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president last week with the support of the U.S. and other nations, Maduro has appeared almost daily on state TV with his military, projecting an image of invincibility even as international pressure against him builds.

Supporters of Guaido are planning a nationwide walkout Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on Maduro.

___

9:35 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is pressing his case directly to the American people, asking for their help preventing a "Vietnam in Latin America."

In a 45-second video shot late Tuesday from the presidential palace and addressed to "the American people" Maduro said that the Trump administration is behind an attempt to overthrow him in a coup.

He said the U.S. is looking to get its hands on Venezuela's abundant oil reserves, replicating U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Libya.

But he said he's confident that he's on the "right side of history" and pleaded with regular Americans to keep U.S. troops out of the country.

___

8:15 a.m.

The wife of a rebel military officer who President Nicolas Maduro has accused of plotting his overthrow says he has been arrested after sneaking back into Venezuela amid the country's upheaval.

Sorbay Pailla said she last heard from her husband, retired National Guard Col. Oswaldo Garcia Palomo, on Sunday after he entered the country clandestinely from Colombia. She said contacts within the DGCIM military intelligence unit told her that he was arrested in the western state of Barinas.

The Associated Press was unable to confirm the arrest and the government has yet to comment. But Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, condemned late Tuesday what he called the "kidnapping" of Garcia Palomo.

Garcia Palomo has been an outspoken critic of Maduro who has been open for months about his intent to amass a military force in exile to remove Maduro.

___

This version corrects the spelling of the officer's name to Garcia Palomo.

___

7:40 a.m.

U.S. President Donald Trump is telling Americans to not go to Venezuela, where there's major political turmoil.

Trump tweeted Wednesday there's a "Massive protest expected today." He says, "Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice."

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts. Guaido declared himself Venezuela's rightful leader a week ago and says the nation "is set on change."

Maduro's embattled socialist administration has barred Guaido from leaving the country while he's investigated for anti-government activities.

The U.S. and many other nations back Guaido. Trump has imposed sanctions that could starve Venezuela of billions of dollars in oil revenue.

Trump tweets: "Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court."

___

3 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he is willing to negotiate with the country's opposition.

Maduro's remarks in an interview with Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday came amid a dire political crisis in Venezuela. Opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president last week and has urged citizens to challenge Maduro with walkouts on Wednesday.

Maduro told RIA Novosti that he is "willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future." Maduro said the talks could be held with mediation of other countries.

Russia is one of the staunchest supporters of Maduro and has offered to mediate.

___

2 a.m.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to ratchet up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts Wednesday, just a day after the embattled socialist administration barred Guaido from leaving the country while he is investigated.

The man challenging Maduro's claim to the presidency is urging Venezuelans to step outside their homes and workplaces for two hours beginning at noon in the first mass mobilization since he declared himself the nation's rightful leader a week ago during another round of big protests.

The surge in political maneuvering has seen two dozen nations, including the United States and several big Latin American countries, backed Guaido, and the Trump administration has imposed sanctions that could starve the already distressed nation of billions in oil revenue.

But Maduro is holding firm.
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By Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 24 hours after the United States announced large-scale sanctions on Venezuela's nationally owned oil company, merchant trading firms and refiners were still deciphering what the measures prohibited.

The sanctions, announced on Monday, are aimed at driving President Nicolas Maduro from power, the strongest U.S. measures yet against the socialist president who has overseen economic collapse and an exodus of millions of Venezuelans in recent years.

Traders who sell Venezuelan crude to the United States are looking for avenues to keep crude flowing during the sanctions, according to people familiar with the discussions, while U.S. companies that buy Venezuelan oil have also been looking for work-arounds, seeking counsel for instance on whether they can continue to use third party intermediaries, such as commodity merchants.

The sanctions https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-usa-sanctions-fact/factbox-u-s-sanctions-on-venezuelas-oil-industry-idUSKCN1PN34I froze assets of state-run PDVSA and require U.S. firms to pay for oil using accounts controlled by the country's opposition party head and self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido.

PDVSA is seeking to sidestep the restrictions by asking major buyers, including U.S. refiners, to renegotiate contracts, sources said.

Oil sanctions in the past have been evaded by using intermediaries, said Scott Maberry, who specializes in international trade at Sheppard Mullin law firm, but he doubted that would happen with PDVSA. "I would not be surprised if this administration is vigilant and does not feel bound by past practices," said Maberry.

A U.S. Department of Treasury spokesman called the sanctions against PDVSA "extremely sophisticated," adding that the department would "take questions from industry and stakeholders and issue FAQs as appropriate."

No FAQ (frequently asked questions) had been issued by Wednesday morning. "It is unlike (Treasury) to roll out an action like this without some clear guidance," said a former Treasury official familiar with the sanctions.

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"If you want to help refiners, third-party processors, and other companies understand and comply with these sanctions, especially if they are non-U.S. persons, this type of guidance is essential."

Via PDVSA, Venezuela exports about 500,000 barrels of oil daily to the United States, mostly to PDVSA subsidiary Citgo Petroleum and U.S. companies Valero Energy Corp and Chevron Corp. It also imports products from the United States.

The sanctions not only limit U.S. companies from paying PDVSA for crude, but also oil sales moved through multiple third parties, such as potential arrangements involving sending oil to Russia or China, which would later sell to an intermediary that would pass the oil on to U.S. buyers.

Intermediaries that comply with U.S. sanctions in general and transact in U.S. dollars would still be subject to the Venezuela sanctions. Transactions sent through a multitude of parties would only be allowed if the revenues were sent to accounts inaccessible by Maduro's government, several sources said.

"Treasury will be tracking this closely. The idea that this can get laundered and not tracked is far-fetched," said Joe McMonigle, senior energy policy analyst at Hedgeye in Washington and a former Energy Department official under President George W. Bush.

The Trump administration has said the restrictions should have a minimal impact on U.S. consumers, but some experts said they were concerned there could be unanticipated effects.

"PDVSA has so many intertwined dealings and transactions with the U.S., including through Citgo, that the immediate impact of these sanctions is far more comprehensive on the U.S. economy than you would typically see," said Scott Flicker, chair of the Washington office of law firm Paul Hastings and head of the firm's global trade controls practice.

The United States exempted Citgo from sanctions until July 27. However, previous sanctions have already prevented Citgo from sending PDVSA its profits, which had been paid to the parent in the form of dividends.

Analysts at Tudor, Pickering & Holt said that if Citgo was unable to import Venezuelan barrels, "some sort of impact on operations seems like a distinct possibility."

Several refining sources said they assumed the administration was trying to introduce sanctions slowly to avoid an immediate shock, but the lack of clarity has caused them to quickly look for cargoes elsewhere as they cut off Venezuelan shipments.

U.S. refiners last week asked the administration not to issue sanctions, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

"Such a ban would further tighten the heavy sour crude market in the United States, resulting in higher crude prices for U.S. refineries and higher fuel costs for U.S. consumers," the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a trade association, said in a Jan. 23 letter to President Donald Trump.

(Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Humeyra Pamuk, Marianna Parraga and Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Gaffen, Rosalba O'Brien and David Gregorio)
Wall Street expects a year-over-year increase in earnings on lower revenues when Genesee & Wyoming (GWR) reports results for the quarter ended December 2018. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates.

The stock might move higher if these key numbers top expectations in the upcoming earnings report, which is expected to be released on February 6. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower.

While the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call, it's worth handicapping the probability of a positive EPS surprise.

Zacks Consensus Estimate

This railroad operator is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.90 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +16.9%.

Revenues are expected to be $569.94 million, down 0.3% from the year-ago quarter.

Estimate Revisions Trend

The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.78% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period.

Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change.

Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Earnings Whisper

Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction).

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is subject to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Story continues

Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only.

A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP.

Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell).

How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for Genesee & Wyoming?

For Genesee & Wyoming, the Most Accurate Estimate is lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bearish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of -1.08%.

On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #4.

So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that Genesee & Wyoming will beat the consensus EPS estimate.

Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue?

Analysts often consider to what extent a company has been able to match consensus estimates in the past while calculating their estimates for its future earnings. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number.

For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Genesee & Wyoming would post earnings of $1.15 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.23, delivering a surprise of +6.96%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates three times.

Bottom Line

An earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss.

That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.

Genesee & Wyoming doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release.



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(Updates shares, adds aero outlook, Saudi comment)

By Sanjana Shivdas and Mike Stone

Jan 30 (Reuters) - General Dynamics Corp on Wednesday forecast 2019 profits lower than analysts estimated and said margins in its critical business jet unit would not improve substantially until 2020, sending shares down nearly 4 percent.

The U.S. aerospace and defense company said the cost of ramping up production of next-generation Gulfstream business jets has sapped profits in its highest margin unit, overshadowing a strong fourth-quarter performance, led by information technology services.

Its shares rose 4 percent after it reported results but reversed course after company executives discussed its outlook during a conference call with analysts.

The Falls Church, Virginia-based company forecast 2019 earnings in the range of $11.60 to $11.70 per share, below the average analyst estimate of $12, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon.

Margins at the aerospace unit, the company's most profitable, fell to 14.1 percent during the quarter, compared with 17 percent a year ago, pulling down the overall margins as well.

The company will continue to ramp up business jet production in the first and second quarters, Chief Executive Officer Phebe Novakovic said on the call. She predicted earnings and margins at the unit would improve in 2020.

Revenue from the business jet unit rose 36.4 percent to $2.7 billion as jet deliveries, another important metric, increased to 42 from 30 in the same quarter a year ago.

Management estimated the unit would have 2019 revenue of $9.7 billion, up $1.2 billion over 2018, on 145 deliveries, but margins in 2019 would be 15.5 percent compared with 17.6 percent in 2018.

Payments for armored land vehicles going to Saudi Arabia also slowed during the quarter. "Our payment issue got caught up in a larger, international political issue," Novakovic said.

General Dynamics is making the vehicles in Ottawa, Canada, but political opponents, citing the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Yemen war, insisted Canada's government scrap the deal negotiated by the previous Conservative government.

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Novakovic said "that will resolve. It's a timing issue and we're quite comfortable and quite confident."

Total operating margins for the quarter were 11.8 percent, down from 12.8 percent last year. Operating margins measure how much profit a company makes on a dollar of sales.

Net earnings rose to $909 million, or $3.07 per share, from $636 million, or $2.10 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, expected a profit of $2.99 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

Total revenue jumped 25.4 percent to $10.38 billion, beating estimates of $10.36 billion.

The stock fell 3.6 percent to $169.66 in afternoon trading. (Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru and Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Jeffrey Benkoe)
(Adds detail about combined unit)

By Alwyn Scott

Jan 30 (Reuters) - General Electric Co said on Wednesday it would fold its battery storage and electrical grid units into its wind turbine and hydropower business to cut costs, speed decision-making and cater to surging demand for renewable power.

The announcement, a day before GE was due to report fourth-quarter results, will eliminate a layer of management mostly based in Chicago, with minimal reduction in staff. The combined unit will have about 40,000 employees and annual revenue of about $16 billion, GE spokesman Jim Healy said in an interview, compared with $10.2 billion for renewable energy last year.

GE's renewables business currently comprises on- and offshore wind turbines, plus hydropower. GE's units handling electrical transmission and distribution grids, battery storage and solar inverters and controls had been in GE's Power business, which is focused on fossil fuel generation. Regional leaders for renewables will now deal directly with the company's renewables headquarters in Paris. GE does not make solar panels.

The move is GE's first big structural shift since October, when it said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice had expanded accounting probes to include a $22 billion writedown of goodwill at GE Power in the third quarter.

To help its ailing power business, GE said in October it would separate natural gas power from coal, nuclear and grid, and named new leaders for the units. Some analysts interpreted the moves as GE preparing its non-gas businesses for sale.

GE's newest gas turbines are under scrutiny after a broken blade severely damaged a unit in Texas last year, causing a two-month plant outage. The break has forced some utilities to curtail use of their new GE turbines while they await blade replacements, and GE has since said it knew about the problem after a similar blade broke in 2015.

GE's power division took on added importance to GE's future earnings after the company announced last year it would focus on jet engines, power plants and renewable energy and dispose of its healthcare unit and majority stake in Baker Hughes, along with other restructuring.

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GE's renewable energy unit contributed about 9 percent of the company's industrial revenues in 2017, before the integration. Power contributed about 28 percent.

"This strategic realignment positions GE to lead in the fast-growing renewable energy market," GE Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Culp said in a statement.

GE shares were up 0.7 percent at $8.96 in early trading (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera and Rachit Vats in Bengaluru and Alwyn Scott in New York; editing by Bernard Orr, James Emmanuel and Jonathan Oatis)
(Bloomberg) -- Foxconn Technology Group is rethinking its plan to build a cutting-edge factory in Wisconsin that was part of a promise to create 13,000 jobs, raising new questions about a high-profile project President Donald Trump once called central to his efforts to return manufacturing to the U.S.

The worlds largest contract-electronics manufacturer is reconsidering whether it is economically feasible to develop liquid-crystal displays at its Wisconsin plant, Louis Woo, special assistant to Chairman Terry Gou, said on Wednesday. Reuters reported earlier that the company could scale back its LCD production plans or abandon them.

The signaled shift marks yet another surprising evolution to the scope of Foxconns slated $10 billion expansion into the state, which has gone through a series of changes since Gou and Trump unveiled the project to much fanfare in 2017. The Taiwanese company had secured billions of dollars in potential incentives from the state in exchange for meeting capital investment and hiring targets, but the deal has grown increasingly controversial, with critics, including Wisconsins new governor, Tony Evers, describing it as a corporate giveaway.

Gous company is in a particularly precarious position as the U.S. and China wage an escalating battle over trade. It does most of its manufacturing in the mainland, sells products to Americans and faces pressure from both sides to maintain or create new jobs.

Though Woo suggested Wednesday there are no plans to give up on the planned facility entirely, the company is assessing what LCD technology is best suited for the project, in part due to ongoing supply chain challenges.

Given global economic conditions and the trade tensions between China and the U.S., we have to be responsible to our employees and customers, and its impossible that we can always stay committed to our original plan without any change, Woo said. There is no scrapping of our plans. We are upholding our commitment to Wisconsin.

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Doubt has been growing about Foxconns ability to meet its hiring commitments. Gordon Hintz, minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly, expressed concerns that Foxconn would fall far short under a deal regarded as the richest tax credit, exemption, and subsidy package in state history. The concern came into focus in a letter to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, in which Foxconn confirmed it missed its job-creation targets for 2018.

Initially, Trump, who personally helped shepherd the project forward, said Foxconns move into Wisconsin foreshadowed a major shift toward bringing back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. from places like China. At a groundbreaking ceremony for the Wisconsin factory last June, Trump and Gou posed for cameras holding golden shovels, and the president said the states investment would help America reclaim its proud manufacturing legacy.

But Foxconn soon acknowledged that its plans were under transition. Rather than hiring 13,000 factory workers, the company said months ago that the vast majority of roles would likely be comprised of knowledge workers, high-skilled engineering positions, since much of its plants manufacturing operations would be automated. The company also revealed it would instead be building a smaller-scale LCD factory in southeastern Wisconsin than it committed to in the contract with the state, in order to remain cost competitive with China.

Tension over the deals future became a heated issue during Wisconsins gubernatorial election race last year. Republican Governor Scott Walker, who struck the partnership with Foxconn on behalf of Trump, said it would prove transformational for the state, while Evers, his Democratic opponent, called it a lousy deal.

Since Evers won the election, he has said he will hold the company accountable for its contract commitments, but has not suggested hed attempt to make any other substantial changes to the project. Reuters reported Wednesday that Gou planned to meet with Evers later this year to discuss changes to Foxconns agreement with the state.

Local officials in Wisconsin issued a statement after the initial report that Foxconn may abandon plans for LCD manufacturing.

Contrary to what was reported by Reuters, Foxconn reiterated to us, today, its commitment to building an advanced manufacturing operation in Wisconsin, in addition to its commitment to create 13,000 jobs and invest $10 billion in Racine County, the officials said in an emailed statement. As Foxconn has previously shared, they are evaluating exactly which type of TFT technology will be manufactured in Wisconsin but are proceeding with construction on related manufacturing, assembly and research facilities on the site in 2019.

Foxconn, Apple Inc.s main manufacturing partner, is also dealing with a slowdown in demand for iPhones. Its main listed business, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., gets about half its revenue from Apple, which is struggling to staunch declines in revenue, particularly in the pivotal Chinese market. In November, Bloomberg News reported Foxconn is planning a steep reduction in its expenses in 2019.

Taipei-based Foxconn assembles everything from iPhones and laptop computers to Sony Corp. PlayStations at factories in China and around the world. Beyond the slowing smartphone market, its grappling with an uncertain economic climate as U.S.-Chinese trade tensions escalate. Hon Hai in November posted earnings about 12 percent below expectations.

(Updates with Wisconsin officials statement in the 12th paragraph.)

--With assistance from Gao Yuan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Debby Wu in Taipei at dwu278@bloomberg.net;Austin Carr in New York at acarr54@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, ;Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan, Peter Elstrom

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
The FBI found no clear motive behind the Las Vegas shooting after more than a year of investigating the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, determining the shooter only desired mass destruction and infamy.

Stephen Paddock opened fire on a country music concert from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Oct. 2017, killing 58 people and injuring roughly 900. By the time police located Paddocks suite, the 64-year-old retired postal service worker, accountant, and real estate investor had committed suicide.

It wasnt about MGM, Mandalay Bay or a specific casino or venue, Aaron Rouse, the head of the FBIs Las Vegas office, told the Associated Press. It was all about doing the maximum amount of damage and him obtaining some form of infamy.

In the hundreds of interviews following the shooting, police learned Paddock had no religious or political affiliations, but he did enjoy gambling tens of thousands of dollars in high-stakes video poker.

This habit earned him special treatment at casinos: the AP reports Paddock was allowed to use the service elevators at Mandalay Bay to bring up multiple suitcases. He was provided the suite, worth $590 per night, for free.

In his personal life, Paddock may have suffered from mental health issues and expressed feelings that he couldnt be helped. He reportedly grew up in a financially-strapped home. His father, a bank robber once on the FBI Most Wanted list, was not in the picture but may have inspired Paddocks final act.

Paddocks father created a facade to mask his true criminal identity and hide his diagnosed psychopathic history, and in so doing ultimately achieved significant criminal notoriety, read the FBI summary, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Paddocks younger sibling reportedly called his brother the king of microaggression. As the AP puts it, Paddock was narcissistic, detail-oriented and maybe bored enough with life to plan an attack that would make him famous.

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Paddock wired $150,000 to his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, while she was visiting family in the Philippines prior to the shooting. He had an estimated $5 million in savings and real estate assets when he carried out the mass shooting.

Although business dropped steeply in the weeks after the shooting, Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino appeared to be back to business as usual just one year later, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. Construction on a $1.9 billion stadium thats supposed to the new home for the NFLs Oakland Raiders continues, and tourists and conference attendees still come and go.

A lot of the feeling among people is more, Lets move on,' Pauline Ng Lee, a community activist and chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Mens Club, told the U.S. News & World Report a year after the shooting. People tend to look forward, not back.

Less than a year after, however, MGMwho owns the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Paddock fired fromhas filed federal complaints against victims of the shooting, aiming to avoid liability claims. The decision has been met with backlash and boycotts from the general population.
(Updates with Hormel statement, U.S. hog slaughter data)

By Michael Hirtzer

CHICAGO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Hog slaughterhouses and grain elevators were shut down in the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday as the coldest temperatures in years gripped the region.

Temperatures in the Northern Plains and Great Lakes plunged to as low minus 42 Fahrenheit (minus 41 Celsius), making parts of the Midwest colder than the South Pole.

Tyson Foods Inc canceled two shifts at a pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, while Hormel Foods Corp halted the hog slaughter at its processor in Austin, Minnesota, according to three people familiar with the operations.

A Hormel spokesman said the company that processes pigs for the company in Minnesota, Quality Pork Processors Inc, was not operating on Wednesday and would start late on Thursday. Tyson did not respond to a request for comment.

With fewer packers slaughtering, there was less demand for hogs, contributing to lower prices in recent days in U.S. cash hog markets. The CME Group's index of the U.S. cash hog market was trading at a roughly two-week low of 57.89 cents per pound.

The so-called polar vortex pushed a mass of cold air into much of the Midwest agriculture belt, with temperatures expected to plunge in some areas as low as minus 40 degrees, the point at which Fahrenheit and Celsius converge.

That forced farmers to hunker down and give extra rations to their animals.

The two pork plants each had capacity to kill about 20,000 hogs per day, according to industry estimates. More closures were likely on Thursday as meat packers sought to protect workers and limit potential weather-related damages to trucks and other equipment.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the U.S. hog slaughter on Wednesday at 261,000, compared with 466,000 hogs a week ago and 464,000 hogs on the same day in 2018.

Grain elevators and processors also shut down or reduced operations. An Archer Daniels Midland Co elevator in Toledo, Ohio, was closed on Wednesday and will remain closed on Thursday due to the extreme cold, according to the facility's website. ADM declined further comment.

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Cargill Inc spokeswoman April Nelson said the company closed all of its grain plants in the Midwest.

Mechanical issues earlier prevented two Iowa soybean processors operated by Cargill from receiving bean deliveries in Iowa Falls and Cedar Rapids, according to an email seen by Reuters.

"Please do not send trucks until you hear from us. Sorry for the inconvenience," a notice from Cargill said.

(Reporting by Michael Hirtzer; Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub, Julie Ingerwersen and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; editing by Bill Berkrot and Lisa Shumaker)
By Marianna Parraga (Reuters) - Venezuela's state-run company oil company, PDVSA, hit by U.S. sanctions on Monday, ordered customers with tankers waiting to load Venezuelan crude bound for the United States to pay for the cargoes before they depart, three sources with knowledge of the decision told Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, in a move aimed at limiting embattled President Nicolas Maduro's access to oil revenues, stopped PDVSA from collecting the proceeds of oil exported to U.S. customers, while freezing assets of PDVSA's units, including U.S. refining arm Citgo Petroleum Corp. Maduro, whose authority is being challenged by the self-proclaimed president and head of the congress, Juan Guaido, said earlier his government would start legal action to protect Citgo. He did not mention if PDVSA planned changes to its exports. "They are not allowing tankers bound for Valero, Citgo and Chevron to leave Venezuelan ports if not prepaid," a PDVSA source said, referring to a decision by the company's trade and supply division. Venezuela exports about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude to the United States. Citgo, Valero Energy Corp and Chevron Corp are the three largest buyers of Venezuelan crude in the United States. Valero said it planned to "comply with the sanctions" and diversify oil purchases to reduce the impact on its business. "Valero will continue to support the Administration and will provide officials with relevant information that will help the U.S. refining system to function efficiently," it said in a statement. Refining firm Phillips 66, another buyer of Venezuelan oil until last year, said it expected to be able to obtain alternative crude grades and "mitigate any disruption in crude supply for our operations." Traders and shippers with tankers anchored around Venezuelan ports said they saw no clear way for U.S. customers to pay for Venezuelan crude after sanctions, even if payments are intended to be made before loading. According to the new sanctions, any proceeds from Venezuelan crude exported to U.S. companies will stay in special bank accounts in the United States. The trading sources said they feared the European Union may follow with similar measures freezing PDVSA's accounts in Europe. Several years ago, PDVSA moved its bank accounts that receive money from oil exports mainly to China. It also has accounts in Europe. But U.S. firms willing to transfer money to those foreign accounts still need to find correspondent banks in the United States willing to authorize the transactions, which is difficult because of sanctions. (Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City; Editing by David Gaffen and Peter Cooney)
PRAGUE (Reuters) - European Union countries should coordinate their approach to cyber security, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Friday after meeting the chairman of Huawei Technologies in Davos, according to news agency CTK. Huawei faces growing scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and allegations that Beijing could use its technology for spying. It denies those allegations. Czech state and private institutions are analyzing risks after the country's national cyber-security watchdog, NUKIB, warned about potential dangers in using technology from Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE. Their products have so far not been banned or excluded from planned upgrades of mobile networks to the next-generation 5G technology in the Czech Republic. "It is necessary to start debate on cyber security on the level of all EU member states, because this is a global issue," CTK quoted Babis as saying after meeting Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman. Babis said security audits of risks have been started based on the December NUKIB warning, which he said critical infrastructure operators must follow under the law. Europe has become a battleground in a struggle between Beijing and Washington that analysts say could determine which of them achieves technological supremacy in the 21st century. Huawei is playing a leading role as the telecoms world gears up for 5G, the next-generation wireless technology that promises to link everything from vehicles to household devices at far faster speeds. But some Western countries, including the United States and Australia, have barred Huawei after U.S. officials said the company is close to the Chinese state and its equipment may contain "back doors" that could open them up to cyber espionage. Germany is considering stricter security requirements for 5G that would exclude Huawei, the newspaper Handelsblatt reported last week. Poland is also set to exclude Huawei from its 5G network in favor of European vendors after a Huawei employee was arrested on suspicion of spying, sources said. In the Czech Republic, Huawei has been publicly backed by President Milos Zeman, who has long promoted close cooperation with China. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka; editing by Michael Kahn, Larry King)
Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab in October. Pic: Reuters

Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab told a House of Commons committee on Wednesday that Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar leaked an inaccurate account of an October meeting about the Northern Ireland backstop.

A conversation he had with Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney, Raab said, was leaked to the media in terms that were not factually accurate in terms of the proposal that I had put forward.

It was leaked in a misrepresenting, inaccurate way by the Taoiseach [Irish prime minister] directly.

In November, media reports said that Raab, in a meeting with Coveney, had proposed a three-month time limit on the Northern Ireland backstop.

Speaking to the Northern Ireland affairs committee, Raab denied that he had pushed for a mechanism that would have allowed the UK to exit the backstop, which aims to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland, unilaterally.

Everyone within the UK government knows that the approach that I have been suggesting in relation to an exit mechanism  that thats not what Ive been arguing for.

A spokesperson for the Irish government dismissed Raabs comments, saying Wednesday that Varadkar was not responsible for leaking details of the meeting to either the Financial Times or Telegraph.

The meeting I had with Simon Coveney was very constructive, we both wanted to make this work, I found him to be a great interlocutor, and I urged him not to rule out looking at some of the other opportunities and mechanisms for dealing with the exit, Raab told the committee.

We agreed, at his request, to keep that meeting confidential. And check the media: I didnt comment on it. It was only commented on, not by Simon, but by the Taoiseach.

But a mechanism providing for a unilateral, three-month exit from the backstop was simply not what we discussed or what I proposed, Raab said.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Some of the most influential forces in Democratic politics revolted Monday against former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's prospective presidential bid, insisting that an independent run would unintentionally help President Donald Trump win another four years in office.

The critics included the Democratic chairman of Schultz's home state, another billionaire businessman who long flirted with an independent run of his own, former President Barack Obama's chief strategist, and the most powerful super PAC in Democratic politics.

"If Schultz entered the race as an independent, we would consider him a target. ... We would do everything we can to ensure that his candidacy is unsuccessful," said Patrick McHugh, executive director of Priorities USA, which spent nearly $200 million in the 2016 presidential contest.

Specifically, he seized on Schultz's apparent willingness to cut entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security to narrow the federal deficit.

"The bottom line," McHugh said, "is that I don't think Americans are looking for another selfish billionaire to enter the race."

The intense pushback in the early days of the 2020 campaign reflects the passion Democrats are bringing to the race to deny Trump a second term. Rank-and-file voters and party officials alike are anxious about any hurdle that would prevent them from seizing on Trump's unpopularity.

While no independent has won the presidency since George Washington, Democrats fear that Schultz would almost certainly split their vote and give Trump an easier path to re-election. Yet Democrats concede that they had few tools to dissuade Schultz from launching an independent campaign  as he told CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday he was considering  though many were skeptical that he would actually follow through.

Schultz felt the passion of the anti-Trump resistance moments after he took the stage Monday evening in New York City to promote his new book.

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"Don't help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire!" a protester shouted before being ejected by security.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the appearance, he acknowledged that his prospective run might be "threatening" to some Democrats, but said, "my heart's in the right place."

The 65-year-old billionaire confirmed that he has identified as a Democrat his entire life. But Schultz suggested his moderate approach might attract a significant number of Republican voters frustrated with Trump in addition to Democrats turned off by the party's embrace of liberal policies, such as universal health care and free tuition at public universities.

"Who's to say that lifelong Republicans given the choice between Donald Trump and a far-left liberal, progressive Democrat  if they had a better choice where are they going to go?" he asked. "My views are squarely in the middle."

Schultz said he would make his decision in the "summer-fall" after spending the coming months traveling around the country  in part promoting a new book  to test whether there's interest in an independent presidential candidate, according to a person familiar with his planning. Asked how much of his personal fortune he'd be willing to spend on the election, he said only: "I'm going to do what's necessary."

Schultz's team has polled on the viability of a third-party run and believes there is an opening, though they have not shared the specifics of their internal surveys.

He's being advised by a team with experience in both parties, including Steve Schmidt, who worked on Republican John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and former Obama adviser Bill Burton, who joined Schultz at his Monday appearance in New York.

Schultz's team also includes Republican pollster Greg Strimple, GOP strategist Brooks Kochvar, former journalist Erin McPike and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, another former journalist who has worked closely with Schultz since 2015.

Yet history  and the reality of a political system designed to favor major-party candidates  suggests that Schultz may do little more than play spoiler should he decide to run. Bloomberg, who studied the possibility of an independent run of his own in the past, offered Schultz a direct message based on his own experience.

"The data was very clear and very consistent. Given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way an independent can win. That is truer today than ever before," Bloomberg, who is considering a Democratic 2020 bid, said in a statement.

He continued: "In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the president. That's a risk I refused to run in 2016, and we can't afford to run it now."

The angry voices were far and wide, and they included Obama's former chief strategist, David Axelrod, along with Democrats from Schultz's home state.

"If Schultz decides to run as an independent," Axelrod tweeted, Trump "should give Starbucks their Trump Tower space rent free! It would be a gift."

Tina Podlodowski, the Democratic chairwoman in Washington state, where Schultz has lived for decades, discouraged him from running as an independent.

"A billionaire buying his way out of the entire primary process does not strengthen democracy," she said. "It only makes it more likely that our democracy will be further strained under another four years of President Donald Trump."

Perhaps trying to elevate Schultz, who is not well known among Democratic primary voters, Trump himself weighed in on Monday, tweeting that Schultz "doesn't have the 'guts' to run for President!"

The Seattle billionaire was in New York Monday to promote his latest book, "From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America." After New York, he has stops this week in Tempe, Arizona; Seattle; and San Francisco  but no dates listed for the early voting states of Iowa or New Hampshire.

On paper, Schultz offers a number of qualities that might appeal to voters. He grew up in public housing in New York City's Brooklyn borough and became the first person in his family to graduate from college.

He's also been a longtime Democratic donor, contributing to the campaigns of Obama, Hillary Clinton, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, among others. In Monday's interview, he said McCain was the only Republican he had ever donated money to.

The soft-spoken businessman has also criticized Trump, telling employees that the president was creating "chaos" and hurting business; calling Trump's tax cuts for corporations unnecessary and reckless; and vowing to hire 10,000 refugees after Trump issued an executive order banning travel from seven mostly Muslim nations.

The Democratic National Committee declined to address Schultz directly. Spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa offered only this response: "We are focused on defeating Donald Trump, and anyone who shares that goal should vote for the Democrat nominee in 2020."

___

Johnson reported from Seattle. AP writer Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.
Martin Flumenbaum and Brad S. Karp



The Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution protect individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures, and compelled self-incrimination. The Supreme Courts holdings in Miranda v. Arizona and Terry v. Ohio have left circuit courts at a crossroads in determining what conduct is appropriate to ensure that both the public, and a criminal suspects constitutional rights, are protected.



The use of handcuffs on a suspect during a Terry stop further complicates the analysis required to determine whether an individual is deemed to be in custody for purposes of Miranda. Decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth Circuits endorse the view that the use of handcuffs does not constitute custody, while the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits have held that handcuffing a suspect can create a custodial environment thereby requiring that the suspect be informed of his Miranda rights. The Second Circuit has generally taken the position that the use of handcuffs during Terry stops converts the stop into an arrest, thereby triggering Miranda rights. That is, until its recent decision in U.S. v. Fiseku.





Supreme Court Precedent





In Miranda, the court ruled that when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise significantly deprived of his freedom by the authorities, and subjected to questioning, procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the individuals privilege against self-incrimination. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 445 (1966). The court reasoned that these safeguards were necessary to balance the coercive pressures imposed on suspects during police interrogations. Id. at 467.



Later, the court in Terry ruled that a police officer may, in certain circumstances, search a suspect to investigate possible criminal activity without probable cause, provided the search is reasonable. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22 (1968). According to the court, reasonableness must be determined by objectively ascertaining if the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate. Id.



For decades, courts have been divided in determining whether the methods employed to search and seize an individual in a stop rise to a level of custody, thereby triggering Miranda to ensure the admissibility of statements made, and evidence acquired, during the encounter.





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Previous Second Circuit Cases





'U.S. v. Newton.' The Second Circuit first addressed the issue of the effect of handcuffs in U.S. v. Newton, which held that a police officer may use handcuffs during a Terry stop if the officer reasonably believes that (1) the person detained poses a present physical threat, and (2) handcuffing was the least intrusive means to protect against that threat. 369 F.3d 659 (2d Cir. 2004).



In Newton, officers searched the home of a parolee for an illegal firearm, pursuant to information provided by the parolees mother. Id. at 662. Upon arrival, an officer asked the parolee to step into the hallway, where he handcuffed him, informing him that he was not under arrest but was being restrained for both the officers safety and his own. Id. at 663. During the search, another officer asked the handcuffed parolee if there was any contraband in the house, to which the parolee responded that there was a gun in the home for protection. Id. The gun was located and seized by the officers, and the parolee was placed under arrest. Id. at 663-64. At no point during the encounter was the parolee advised of his Miranda rights. Id. at 664. The court held that the use of handcuffs placed the parolee in custody because they restrained him to a degree that would indicate to a reasonable person that the interrogation was being conducted pursuant to arrest-like restraints. Id.



'U.S. v. Bailey.' Ten years later, the Second Circuit addressed this issue again in U.S. v. Bailey, following remand from the Supreme Court. U.S. v. Bailey, 743 F.3d 322, 327 (2d Cir. 2014). In Bailey, at almost 10 p.m., two police officers stopped a car occupied by two men in the parking lot of a fire station. The officers followed the car from an apartment for which they possessed a search warrant to locate drugs and a firearm believed to be on the premises based on information from an informant. The officers instructed the men to exit the car, conducted a search of their persons which revealed no weapons, and asked them basic identification questions. The men were then handcuffed, transported back to the apartment in a summoned patrol car, and arrested upon arrival at the apartment after police located the firearm and drugs during their search. Id. at 327-28.



The Second Circuit held that, while the initial stop was constitutional, the police exceeded the permissible scope of a Terry stop when they handcuffed the suspects because the officers faced no present physical threat, given the fact that (1) they had already subjected each man to a pat down and confirmed that neither was armed, and (2) the men were outside of the vehicle and there was no threat that they could obtain any weapon from the car. Id. at 341.



'U.S. v. Fiseku.' The Second Circuits recent decision in Fisekudeviates from its prior rulings on the effect of handcuffing a suspect during a Terry stop. In Fiseku, a police officer approached Bekim Fiseku, one of three individuals suspected to be in the process of committing a robbery, in a treelined area of a parking lot at approximately 1:15 a.m. While the officer questioned Fiseku at the rear of the vehicle containing the other suspects, two additional officers approached the scene in separate patrol cars. The officers then instructed the driver to exit the car and, following preliminary questioning, proceeded to handcuff him and Fiseku, prior to instructing another passenger to exit the vehicle.



The suspects were questioned separately, with the driver and passenger in separate patrol cars, and Fiseku remaining outside of the vehicle. While the suspects were handcuffed, one officer asked if there was anything in the car that shouldnt be there, to which the driver responded, no, you can look. Upon searching the vehicle, the officer discovered several items that confirmed his suspicions, and the suspects were charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. Fiseku and the vehicles driver moved to suppress their statements and the physical evidence discovered during the encounter based on alleged violations of their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.



The district court suppressed the two mens statements, reasoning that they had not been informed of their Miranda rights prior to being questioned while handcuffed. Interestingly, the court refused to suppress the physical evidence, finding that the use of handcuffs was reasonable to secure the officers safety during the investigatory stop. Fiseku ultimately pled guilty.



On appeal, Fiseku argued that the officers use of handcuffs converted the Terry stop into an arrest without probable cause, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Second Circuit affirmed the district courts ruling that officers are permitted to handcuff suspects to ensure officer safety, and the lower courts finding that the handcuffing in Fiseku was less restrictive than holding the suspects at gunpoint would have been.





Implications of Fiseku





The Second Circuits holding in Fiseku signifies a break from the courts prior holdings in Bailey and Newton, despite the similarities among the three cases. The Fiseku court distinguished the facts in Bailey, ostensibly because (1) the encounter occurred in a tree-lined area of a parking lot, rather than an open area of a parking lot, and (2) the officer approached the suspects in an area in which they were already stationary, rather than an area selected by the officer. It remains to be seen how district courts in the Second Circuit will reconcile the courts ruling in Fiseku with the courts prior filings in Bailey and Newtonand the Fiseku courts rationale that the use of the handcuffs is less intrusive and intimidating than holding a suspect at gunpoint. Taken further, the courts rationale could be used to permit officers to infringe upon individuals constitutional rights so long as the method used is less intrusive than the officer pulling his gun on an unarmed suspect. How far the ruling will be stretched will be up to district courts.



Martin Flumenbaum and Brad S. Karp are litigation partners at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Kandice Purdy, an associate at the firm, assisted in the preparation of this article.
(Adds details on decision, background)

By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Costa Rica's competition regulator has rejected Wal Mart de Mexico's bid to buy a local supermarket chain, the agency's president said on Wednesday.

The retailer's plan to buy 52 markets would have increased its store tally in the Central American nation to more than 300.

The company known as Walmex, a unit of U.S.-based Walmart Inc, already has 252 stores in Costa Rica, which is one of its worst-performing Central American markets.

The company said in July it had agreed to buy Grupo Empresarial de Supermercados' stores in Costa Rica as part of a growth plan for the region. It did not disclose the price.

Costa Rica's Commission for the Promotion of Competition (COPROCOM) notified Walmex in December that it opposed the deal, saying the acquisition could give the retailer enough market power to alter prices, exclude competitors or affect suppliers.

The commission gave Walmex, which said the acquisition would be positive for consumers, the opportunity to appeal the decision.

Rodolfo Chevez, COPROCOM's president, told Reuters in a phone interview that the company's arguments, when put to a "technical study," did not ultimately alter the commission's decision from December, which is now final.

Walmex was not immediately available to comment

The company also operates in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico, its largest market by far with 2,400 stores. Costa Rica was the second-worst performer in the third quarter this year by same-store sales. The weakest market was Nicaragua, where political turmoil caused sales to drop.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Dave Graham and Peter Cooney)
HeartCheck(TM) CardiBeat and GEMS(TM) Mobile review results expected in late February

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 29, 2019) - CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSXV: EKG) ("CardioComm" or the "Company"), a leading global provider of consumer heart monitoring and electrocardiogram ("ECG") acquisition and management software solutions, confirms it has completed a request for additional information from the US Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") for the Company's premarket notification 510(k), Class II medical device clearance application for the HeartCheck CardiBeat and GEMS Mobile Application.

The Company had submitted a letter of revocation of their supplementary information submission on December 26, 2018 in compliance with the FDA's directive. The Company has now provided the FDA a restatement of their response for additional information as of January 23, 2019, which the FDA has confirmed received. The FDA will now have 31 days to complete the 510(k) review of CardioComm's restated submission.

To learn more about CardioComm's products and for further updates regarding HeartCheck ECG device integrations please visit the Company's websites at www.cardiocommsolutions.com and www.theheartcheck.com.

About CardioComm Solutions

CardioComm Solutions' patented and proprietary technology is used in products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients. Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm Solutions has earned the ISO 13485:2016 certification, is HIPAA compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Etienne Grima, Chief Executive Officer

1-877-977-9425 x227

egrima@cardiocommsolutions.com

investor.relations@cardiocommsolutions.com

Story continues

Forward-looking statements

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to these items. Such statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.

In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation, Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations).

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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Traveller Assist under the scanner; action against fake rescue operators soon

The Tourism Ministry on Tuesday called an emergency meeting with key stakeholders to prevent the possible spread of multi-million dollar insurance scams involving bogus rescues amid worries that such fraudulent activities may dent the countys burgeoning tourism industry.
Another Reason U.S. Fears Huawei: Its Gear Works and It's Cheap

(Bloomberg) -- Canada has until March 1 to assess a U.S. request to extradite the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co. in a case thats sparked an unprecedented diplomatic dispute as Washington broadens its attack on the Chinese technology giant.

Meng Wanzhou appeared in British Columbia Supreme Court Tuesday where Justice William Ehrcke granted her request to change one of the sureties backing her bail. He also agreed to push back Mengs next Vancouver court appearance by a month to March 6 to account for the 30-day window that Canada has to review the U.S. request and decide whether to proceed to extradition hearings.

The developments come in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the worlds two largest economies after U.S. prosecutors in Washington and New York unsealed two indictments against Huawei on Monday.

Huawei and its U.S. affiliate were ordered to appear in a federal court in Seattle on Feb. 28 to face charges that they engaged in a scheme to steal trade secrets of T-Mobile US Inc.

The Brooklyn case alleges that Huawei, two affiliated companies and CFO Meng engaged in bank and wire fraud as well as conspiracy in connection with business in Iran. Meng, 46, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities and later released on C$10 million ($7.5 million) bail.

The Seattle case entails a 10-count indictment that alleges the company conspired to engage in a concerted effort to steal a mobile phone testing robot T-Mobile created called Tappy. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez.

The indictments intensify the spotlight on Huawei, which has come to symbolize Chinas economic rise and challenge to the U.S.s status as the worlds top superpower. In particular, the decision to prosecute Meng -- daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei -- has riled Beijing and increased concerns around the globe of a new Cold War.

Meng, currently under house arrest in Vancouver, will have several opportunities to appeal. The final decision on extradition will be up to Canadas Justice Minister David Lametti.

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Extradition cases can take a long time in part because of defenses that review someones rights, Lametti told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday. He said he would only have a role in Mengs extradition at the end: if a judge orders her removal, its up to him to decide whether to hand her over.

I only will have to make a decision at the end of the process, he said.

When Mengs defense lawyer asked Ehrcke if he would also be assigned to the extradition proceedings, the judge said he didnt know.

"I think that remains somewhat open depending on scheduling, he said. I have no idea whether were looking at months or years. And maybe you have a better idea than I do, but at this point thats completely unknown to me."

(Updates with details from Huawei CFOs court appearance.)

--With assistance from Greg Quinn.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Brooklyn at pathurtado@bloomberg.net;Natalie Obiko Pearson in Vancouver at npearson7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net, David Scanlan

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Apple AAPL posted its first holiday-quarter decline in revenue and profit in over a decade Tuesday. Despite this, Apple shares surged over 5% in morning trading Wednesday after they popped after-hours following the companys highly anticipated quarterly earnings release. Now, its time to dive into Apples fiscal Q1 2019 results in some of its most important businesses.

Overview

Apples quarterly revenues fell 4.5% from the $88.29 billion in the year-ago period to $84.310 billion, which actually came in slightly above our Zacks Consensus Estimate. This, of course, was after Apple CEO Tim Cook shocked Wall Street when he lowered the firms quarterly revenue guidance in early January by $5 billion from the low-end of its previous guidance on the back of slowing sales in Greater China and subdued iPhone growth.

Meanwhile, Apples adjusted quarterly earnings climbed 7.5% to $4.18 a share, to come in just above our estimate. The companys overall net income did, however, slip slightly from $20.065 billion to $19.965 billion.

Clearly, some investors were happy to see Apple top Wall Streets recently adjusted quarterly estimates. But should they be when the tech powers most important businesses look as though they could be headed for a serious slowdown?

iPhone

Apples iPhone revenues plummeted 15% year over year from $61.104 billion to $51.982 billion. This number alone might be reason enough to scare many investors since the iPhone accounts from roughly two-thirds of Apples revenues. On top of that, Apple signaled last quarter when it said it would stop breaking down unit revenues that its iPhone unit sales are likely to remain flat or fall for years to come.

Our NFM estimates called for iPhone unit sales to fall roughly 15%, which would match the divisions overall revenue downturn. The problem for Apple going forward is that it no longer has its new higher-priced iPhones to provide helpful quarterly comparisons, which had been the case for the last year. For instance, Apples flagship smartphone revenues soared 29% last quarter even though iPhone unit sales came in flat because it was being compared to a quarter that didnt include newer phones.

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Slowing iPhone growth was going to catch up to Apple eventually, especially in mature markets like North America and Europe. That is why China has been such an important region for years. But the new economic slowdown in the worlds second-largest economy could spell trouble.

China

Apples sales in Greater China, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan and accounts for roughly 20% of company revenues, plummeted 27% from $17.956 billion in the prior-year quarter to $13.169 billion. Investors should note that Apples revenues in the vital region surged 16% in Q4 and 11% in the first quarter of 2018.

The firms dramatic decline is likely due to a huge downturn in iPhone sales in Greater China. Strategy Analytics reported that iPhone shipments in China fell 22% to 11 million units during the three months ended in December. Clearly, Apple faced macroeconomic factors that were out of its hands after the Chinese economy slowed to a pace not seen in nearly 30 years in 2018.

This slowdown has impacted the likes of Intel INTC, Nvidia NVDA, Alibaba BABA, and many others. Nonetheless, Apple now faces a potential crossroads in what remains a key growth region where it has always faced an uphill battle to grow its market share since its high-priced iPhones must compete against a ton of more affordable smartphone offerings.

Bottom Line

Apple has perhaps reached a new phase in its business. Cook has also remained confident that the firms services business will continue to grow as it takes on Spotify SPOT and soon enough Netflix NFLX, Amazon AMZN, and Disney DIS with its own streaming TV offering. New reports even suggest that Apple aims to expand its gaming division, similar to Microsoft MSFT. Plus, Apples CEO has placed a great deal of faith in Apple Watch-focused health offerings.

Still, Apple is at its core an iPhone company. This could change with the invention of a new game-changing product. But in the near-term, Apple must decide if it will offer lower-priced iPhones in China to help it compete with the likes of Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp.

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2019 / Traders News Source, a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on small and mid-cap public companies is issuing a comprehensive report on Altria Group, Inc. (MO), one of the world's largest tobacco companies.

In the recent past, Altria's has shown increasing interest in the cannabis sector. In fact, Tobacco sales haven't improved much in the past few years, and therefore cannabis has become a natural extension for the tobacco industry. In fact, both the alcohol and tobacco industries are considering cannabis as a promising catalyst which could offset the weaker sales, price competition in cigarettes and alcohol beverages.

Details and expectations of Altria's financial moves into the vaping and cannabis sectors READ MORE

Copy and paste to your browser may be required to view the report - https://tradersnewssource.com/altria-group/

The company will host a live audio webcast on Thursday, January 31, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss its 2018 fourth-quarter and full-year business results. Altria will issue a press release containing its business results at approximately 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time the same day.

The stock is offering a solid 7.1% dividend yield for the first time in nearly a decade. The company has raised its dividend 53 times in the last 49 years.

See what the analysts are saying about Altria Group and the company's guidance READ MORE

Copy and paste to your browser may be required to view the report - https://tradersnewssource.com/altria-group/

This document is not intended as an offering, recommendation, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the securities mentioned or discussed and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please read all associated disclosures and disclaimers in full before investing. Neither TNS nor any party affiliated with us is a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer with any agency or in any jurisdiction whatsoever. To download our report(s), read our disclosures, or for more information, visit https://www.tradersnewssource.com.

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CONTACT: editor@tradersnewssource.com

SOURCE: Traders News Source
Investing.com - Asian stocks were mixed in morning trade on Wednesday as China's Vice Premier Liu He is set to begin trade talks with U.S. officials, including President Donald Trump, in Washington today.

Chinas Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen Component edged up 0.1% and 0.2% by 9:50 PM ET (02:50 GMT), while Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index rose 0.4%.

Apples CEO Time Cook, who is reportedly in regular contact with Trump, said trade tension between China and the U.S. is easing this month.

Despite Cooks comments, traders remain sceptical whether the two sides could bridge their differences over a number of issues, especially after the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled two criminal cases against Chinas technological giant Huawei on Tuesday.

Citing people familiar with the talks, Reuters said there have been few signs that Chinese officials are willing to address core U.S. demands on intellectual property rights and technology transfers.

"Clearly on the structural concerns, on forced technology transfers, there remains a significant gap if not a wide chasm between the two sides," a person familiar with the talks told Reuters.

The two nations are trying to reach a deal before a deadline on March 1. Otherwise, Trump is likely to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%.

Meanwhile, investors also await the monetary policy decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve later in the day following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japans Nikkei 225 was down 0.4%.

South Koreas KOSPI gained 0.6%. LG Display (KS:034220) slumped about 4% in the morning after the company said its panel shipments for the first quarter were expected to decrease by a high single-digit percentage due to seasonally weak demand.

Down under, Australias ASX 200 edged down 0.1%.

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The trucking industry has been "whipsawed," according to trucking lawyer Braden Core, by a series of decisions that have not clarified the legal status of whether an independent owner operator is an employee or an independent contractor.

Core, a partner at the Scopelitis law firm of Indianapolis, which specializes in trucking-related legal issues, noted the California Dynamex case from earlier this year which held that a group of workers in California for Dynamex were employees, using the so-called A-B-C test. Earlier this month in Indiana, the state's Supreme Court used the same A-B-C test to find that a group of employees at a company called QD-A were independent contractors. Just this month, in a case involving Super Shuttle, the airport transit company, a widened definition of independent contractors was handed down by the National Labor Relations Board.

And now into the mix is the case of Oliviera vs. New Prime, decided earlier this month by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case doesn't make any sort of clear stand on whether an independent contractor is an employee or truly independent, but it does add to the list of different ways in which an independent owner-operator can be dealt with when they turn to either the courts or arbitration to redress grievances.

Core led a Scopelitis webinar Monday to discuss the New Prime case. In the case, an independent driver hired by New Prime, Dominic Oliveira, had a disagreement with New Prime over compensation. Oliviera filed suit, New Prime said it needed to go to arbitration. The Supreme Court upheld lower court cases that the Federal Arbitration Act, when it was written in the 1920's, used language that today could be interpreted to mean that an independent owner operator could be seen as meeting a transportation exemption from the FAA, which means the dispute could head to court rather than through arbitration.

It also noted that Oliviera was engaged in interstate commerce so the FAA did apply to him.

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The case was far more complicated than that. But Core--whose comments on the webinar tended to be aimed toward trucking companies that would presumably not be happy with the outcome of the New Prime decision--said there was a silver lining.

The Supreme Court ruled that the relationship between New Prime and Oliviera was a "contract of employment," which allowed the driver to fit into the FAA exemption for transportation workers. "The one thing New Prime gives us is certainty," Core said on the webinar. "Before there was significant uncertainty about what a contract of employment' was, and there were a lot of really good arguments that it shouldn't include owner-operators. Well, the Supreme Court saw it differently."

What the case does not mean, Core said, is that drivers will never find themselves in an arbitration process even if they prefer the courts. State arbitration rules, he said, may allow trucking companies to make that happen.

"There are a lot of hot takes out there about this case and some of them miss the mark," Core said. One of them, he added, is that New Prime means the end of arbitration for owner-operators. "That is simply not the case," Core said.

That's because, according to Scopelitis' Ryan Wright, also on the webinar, there are lower court rulings that hold that arbitration rules may be enforceable. "Several lower courts have expressly held that even if an arbitration agreement is exempt under the FAA, it may be enforceable under state arbitration law," Wright said.

If a trucking company is taken to court by a driver, in terms of arbitration, "that doesn't mean that you are at the end of the line, and the reason is state law," Core said. He showed a map of the U.S. on the webinar in which each state was colored differently. A company can consider using state law to enforce arbitration, Core said, but "you now multiply the complexity by 50."

"Pretty much every state has a law that will enforce arbitration," Core said. Only Louisiana has a transportation exemption like that found in the FAA.

But companies might not be ready for them, he added. Companies will need to "drill down" into their arbitration agreements that previously were drawn to be in compliance with federal arbitration law. Now, Core said, companies need to see "how do we fare under state law?"

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A pair of attorneys with Davis Wright Tremaine, Arthur Simpson and Giancarlo Urey, also noted that state arbitration laws are not impacted by the New Prime decision. But they added that "(i)t likely follows that the question of whether federal courts must compel arbitration under state arbitration laws will be the subject of future litigation."

As Core conceded, it is possible that companies don't have an arbitration agreement in their contracts with owner-operators. Some companies, Core said, might have thought New Prime ended any reason to have one. But as he stressed, it had not, which brings a company back to the question of whether arbitration is preferable to litigation.

Conventional wisdom is that drivers want litigation as a way to resolve disputes if other negotiations have failed and companies want arbitration. (When New Prime was decided, it went against another nugget of conventional wisdom, that a conservative court generally favors arbitration. But as several analysts have noted, conservative jurists also tend to favor stricter interpretation of text and their interpretation of the FAA led them to conclude that an owner-operator like Oliviera fell under the transportation exemption).

Earlier in the webinar, Prasad Sharma of Scopelitis reviewed some of the pros and cons of arbitration vs. litigation. Arbitration is private and confidential, so a negative discussion of a company's behaviors doesn't get aired in a public courtroom. The arbitrator is likely to have subject matter expertise, unlike a judge or jury. It's usually cheaper. It's usually "one and done," as there are limited or no grounds for an appeal that can drag on for years, as they do in the court system.

But there are "pros" in the legal system, Sharma said, most notable a tighter set of rules and legal precedents upon which to base a legal action. Even then, he added, "a court can be far from predictable in following precedent."

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 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. convinced investors that life beyond the iPhone wont be so bad, sparking a relief rally in the stock.

The Cupertino, California-based company reported its first holiday-quarter sales decline since 2001 as revenue from the iconic handset tumbled 15 percent. But Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri focused on a growing services business and rising sales of other devices.

Mac revenue grew 9 percent, while iPad sales climbed 17 percent. The companys Wearables business, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, surged 50 percent.

Analysts viewed the results as better than many had feared, according to PiperJaffrays Michael Olson. Market sentiment in the past few weeks had become overly negative, ignoring the strength of Apples platform, said Katy Huberty, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, especially non-iPhone revenue growth.

On services, the Apple executives pointed to increased usage of Apple Pay and Apple Music. They also made a new prediction: The number of subscriptions will top half a billion by 2020, up from 360 million now. Without getting into detail, Cook suggested Apple will get further into the original video content business.

Apple shares rose 3.9 percent to $160.68 at 10:00 a.m. in New York Wednesday. The company had lost about a third of its market value since October as investors adjusted to the reality of a saturated smartphone market and the end of growth for Apples most-important product.

The company reported other growth stats on specific services:

The Apple Pay app handled 1.8 billion transactions in the holiday quarter, twice the volume in the year-ago quarterApple News had 85 million monthly active users in the periodCloud services revenue, which comes from iCloud storage upgrades, was up more than 40 percentApple Music topped 50 million subscribers, generating record music-related revenueA record quarter for Search Ads, which let developers place ads in the App Store

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Suppliers to the iPhone maker in Europe, such as Dialog Semiconductor Plc, STMicroelectronics NV and AMS AG followed the company higher Wednesday.

Apple executives confirmed that customers are taking longer to upgrade their handsets, but said older iPhones will support the services business, while sales of other devices boost revenue. Cook noted the installed base of active Apple devices hit a record 1.4 billion in the fiscal first quarter. Thats the gateway through which customers access existing and future services from the company.

The recent slump in Apple shares may already reflect falling iPhone sales, leaving investors willing to buy into the companys vision for services. Still, the company will ultimately need iPhone sales to rebound or a major new hardware product. If fewer people use Apple devices, they will be less likely to pay for the companys services.

Apple has been working on an augmented reality headset, which it plans to have ready as early as next year. Its also been adding health-tracking capabilities and iPhone features to the Watch.

And while the services numbers impressed some investors, growth has slowed. The company blamed that on an accounting change, foreign exchange headwinds, approval delays for games in the Chinese App Store, and "some level" of deceleration for the AppleCare warranty business.

(Updates shares in sixth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Nate Lanxon and Ryan Vlastelica.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. plans to launch iPhones with a more-powerful 3-D camera as soon as next year, stepping up the companys push into augmented reality, according to people familiar with the plans.

The rear-facing, longer-range 3-D camera is designed to scan the environment to create three-dimensional reconstructions of the real world. It will work up to about 15 feet from the device, the people said. Thats in contrast with the current iPhone 3-D camera system, which points toward users and operates at distances of 25 to 50 centimeters to power Apples Face ID facial-recognition feature.

Apples new system uses a laser scanner, rather than the existing dot-projection technology which doesnt work as well over longer distances, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unreleased features. Thats just one of many new features -- including a third, more advanced camera, enhanced photo-capture tools and a more powerful chip -- that Apple plans to include in coming generations of iPhones, the people said.

The laser-powered 3-D camera would enhance augmented reality on the iPhone, allowing for more accurate depth perception and placement of virtual objects. It could also help the handset take photos that can better capture depth, the people said. Apple has been in talks with Sony Corp. about testing sensors for the new system, one of the people said.

While virtual reality immerses the user in a digital realm, AR overlays visuals and data onto a view of the real world. Use cases include looking at a building and displaying details of the structure beside the image, or listing repair instructions for a mechanic while she works on a defective machine. Its been touted as having wider mass-market appeal than VR, and Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has talked up its prospects.

The 2020 iPhone camera may be a prelude to an AR headset that Apple has been preparing for as early as 2020. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the companys plans, which could change.

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Apple previously aimed to put the new 3-D camera system on the back of this years high-end iPhones, but delayed that, the people familiar also said. Still, the Cupertino, California-based technology giant is doubling down on camera capabilities for its handsets.

For 2019, Apple plans successors to the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max -- code-named D42 and D43 -- and an update to the iPhone XR, said the people. The larger of the new high-end iPhones will have three cameras on the back, and other handsets could eventually come with the upgraded system, too, the people said.

Cameras have become one of the most-important features in a saturated smartphone market. Better photos are a compelling reason for people to upgrade their handsets, especially when other new capabilities are either harder to design or too wonky for most customers to appreciate. Apple pioneered smartphone camera improvements, which over the years have included additions like Portrait Mode. Rivals have tried to catch up, with Samsung Electronics Co. launching phones with as many as four outward-facing cameras last year.

The iPhone still generates the majority of Apples revenue, although sales of the devices fell last year as people upgraded less often. That triggered a stock slump that wiped more than $300 billion off the companys market value since October. New models with more-capable cameras could spur upgrades and reignite Apples growth, making these upcoming iPhones the most critical in years.

A third camera on the back of the 2019 iPhone will help the device capture a larger field of view and enable a wider range of zoom. It will also capture more pixels so Apple software could, for example, automatically repair a video or photo to fit in a subject that may have been accidentally cut off from the initial shot, according to the people familiar with the plans. The company is also planning an enhanced version of its Live Photos feature, which pins video from before and after each shot to the photo. The new version will double the length of the video from three seconds to six seconds.

The laser-powered 3-D camera could debut first on an upgrade to the iPad Pro currently planned for as early as spring 2020, according to one of the people. Apple isnt expected to release a major iPad Pro update this year like it did in 2018. It typically upgrades the line in the second half of the year. Apple in the past has launched major new features on the iPad before the iPhone, including 4G internet connectivity in 2012.

Apple is also testing some versions of this years iPhone line that includes a USB-C connector instead of the Lightning port that has been used on iPhones since 2012, indicating that the company plans an eventual switch, according to one of the people. Moving to USB-C would make the new models compatible with chargers used for hundreds of other devices, like Android phones.

This years iPhone models will include an upgraded Apple processor and use an updated Face ID sensor for unlocking the device and approving payments, the people said. The handsets will otherwise look similar to the current models with larger changes expected as early as 2020 to accommodate plans for 5G networking capabilities, Bloomberg News reported last year.

Beyond iPhones, Apple plans to release an updated version of its lower-cost iPad with a roughly 10-inch screen and a faster processor as early as this spring, according to people familiar with the plans. That device is expected to retain the Lightning port, according to one of the people. The company is also readying a new, cheaper iPad mini, its smallest tablet that hasnt been updated since 2015, the people said.

Apples next operating system update, iOS 13, will include a dark mode option for easier nighttime viewing and improvements to CarPlay, the companys in-vehicle software. There will also be iPad-specific upgrades like a new home screen, the ability to tab through multiple versions of a single app like pages in a web browser, and improvements to file management. The company will also integrate two new services, including a magazine subscription service and its original video content efforts, via iOS updates this year.

Each year since 2012, Apple has launched its latest iPhone in September. The one exception was the iPhone Xs November release in 2017.

--With assistance from Yuji Nakamura.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Debby Wu in Taipei at dwu278@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Peter Elstrom

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to cut the price of some of its flagship iPhones for only the second time in the device's 12-year history, pegging its retail value to past prices in local currencies outside the United States instead of the rising U.S. dollar. The move is an attempt to stem weak sales of the iPhone, particularly in overseas markets such as China, where a 10 percent rise in the U.S. dollar over the past year or so has made Apple's products - which already compete at the top end of the market - much pricier than rivals. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook disclosed the plan on Tuesday after the company reported the first-ever dip in iPhone sales during the key holiday shopping period. The company has only once before cut iPhone prices, shortly after it debuted in 2007. Apple did not say in which countries it would adjust iPhone prices. Resellers in China already began cutting iPhone prices earlier this month after Apple lowered its sales forecast for the quarter ended in December. The company priced its new iPhone XS, which was released in September, at $999, the same price in U.S. dollars as its predecessor, 2017's iPhone X. That worked for U.S. consumers, but in countries such as China and Turkey the local currency had fallen so much against the surging U.S. dollar, it made the phone significantly pricier than its predecessor a year before. Apple had essentially asked the consumer to bear the cost of the strengthening dollar. On Tuesday, Cook said Apple will adjust foreign prices in some markets by resetting them at or close to what they were one year before in local currencies. Effectively that means Apple will absorb the cost of the strengthening dollar. "Weve decided to go back to (iPhone prices) more commensurate with what our local prices were a year ago, in hopes of helping the sales in those areas," Cook told Reuters in an interview. RISING DOLLAR HURTS APPLE SALES In the company's quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Cook also highlighted the impact of foreign exchange problems in Turkey, where he said the local lira had depreciated by 33 percent against the dollar and Apple's sales were down by $700 million from the previous year. In November, Apple also cited currency pressure on its prices in Brazil, India and Russia. Apple has not said when or how often it might reset its prices because of foreign currency changes. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the price adjustments may not extend to its services business, which includes Apple Music and the App Store. While that unit beat analyst expectations with $10.8 billion in sales in the quarter ended in December, growth has slowed compared to previous years. Maestri said slower growth was partly because prices rose for users in non-U.S. markets. "Roughly 60 percent of our services business is outside the United States, and as you know, the U.S. dollar has appreciated in recent months," Maestri said. "And in general, we tend not to reprice our services for foreign exchange on a very frequent basis." (Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Bill Rigby)
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.s holiday sales decline reflected the iPhone makers lost ground in China amid an economic slowdown in the worlds second-largest economy.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has seen China as a key part of Apples sales and manufacturing strategy, with the company generating almost $52 billion in revenue from China and Hong Kong last fiscal year. But with China announcing its slowest economic growth since 2009, Apple said its sales fell 27 percent in the holiday quarter -- representing almost $5 billion of lost revenue.

Weak macro conditions in some emerging markets was significantly more severe than we originally foresaw, especially in Greater China," Cook said on a conference call with analysts after the earnings release.

Apple isnt the only hardware maker with China woes. Chipmaker Nvidia Corp. forecast a weakened sales outlook because of falling demand for its gaming processors in China and Intel Corp. cited the Chinese economy as a reason for its lackluster forecast.

In addition to the economic pinch, Chinese consumers are increasingly turning away from Apples high-priced phones to less expensive domestic models from Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp.

Global iPhone shipments fell sharply, due to high retail pricing, unfavorable foreign exchange rates, intense competition from rivals like Huawei, battery replacement programs driving longer ownership cycles, diminished carrier subsidies in some developed markets, and flagging demand in some emerging markets, Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics, wrote in a note.

Apple has tried to replace phone sales with services revenue to compensate for the loss. To that end, Cook said services revenue in Greater China increased by more than 50 percent. Despite the gain, the Chinese governments censorship of video games affected Apples business in the country, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on the conference call. He called the challenge temporary in nature, but analyst Neil Campling of GTS Group noted that there were no game approvals in China between March and mid December.

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There were a couple bright spots for Apples business in China: two-thirds of those customers who purchased a Mac computer or iPad during the quarter were first-time buyers for the products, the companys executives said.

Still, the iPhone remains the centerpiece of Apples product lineup, so some analysts remain disappointed by the companys performance in a crucial market for growth.

Apple iPhone has an Asia problem, Mawston wrote.

--With assistance from Matt Turner.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nico Grant in San Francisco at ngrant20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Reed Stevenson

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Government to provide term extension for transitional justice bodies, but not for officials in the commissions

The Cabinet on Monday night decided to extend the terms of the two transitional justice bodies by at least one yearbut not of the officials. The move may placate the conflict victims even as it lacks substance.
What is an IRS audit?

An IRS audit takes place when the Internal Revenue Service chooses to review a taxpayer's accounts to verify that tax laws are being followed. Audits aren't terribly common: Only 0.6 percent of individual returns were examined in the 2017 fiscal year, according to the IRS. But filing your return completely, accurately and honestly can reduce your chances of being pinpointed and increase the odds of a favorable outcome. Read on for nine potential audit triggers.

You earned a lot of money.

According to 2017 fiscal year statistics from the IRS, individual filers who made between $200,000 and $1 million were audited at a 0.8 percent rate. If they were business owners, that rate was 1.6 percent. Those earning more than $1 million were audited at a 4.4 percent rate. If you're a high earner, be aware that you may hear from the IRS. Consider using some of that income to hire a good tax preparer.

You aren't reporting cryptocurrency.

"Cryptocurrency is going to be an emerging issue with the IRS," says Phyllis Jo Kubey, enrolled agent and certified financial planner in New York City. "A lot of people don't know that when they buy something with cryptocurrency, it's a taxable transaction." If you're receiving bitcoin as income or successfully mining it, for example, these transactions may need to be reported. The IRS receives information from digital currency wallet Coinbase and may apply increased scrutiny to your tax return if it doesn't reflect the data provided.

You failed to report taxable income.

"Unless something is specifically exempt from being taxable income, it is income and you're supposed to report it," Kubey says. The IRS gets its own copies of the 1099 and W-2 income forms you have received and may notice your omissions. Track down any tax forms that have gotten waylaid or lost in the mail and contact a tax preparer if you're not sure about which earnings count as taxable income.

You made typos or a math error.

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It might be an honest mistake, but if something looks fishy, such as an incorrect Social Security number or calculations that don't add up, you may bring on additional scrutiny from the IRS. Be careful and check your work twice when filing taxes.

You are self-employed.

Business owners may attract additional scrutiny from the IRS. Uncle Sam tended to examine the returns of self-employed filers at higher rates than it did comparable nonbusiness filers, according to IRS data. If you claim self-employment income and deductions through your individual income tax return, double- and triple-check your figures and keep a pristine paper trail to back up tax deductions.

You have three consecutive years of business losses.

For self-employed filers who have reported losses for three consecutive years, "that does create a potential audit risk because the IRS will challenge that to see if it's a business or it's a hobby," says Dave Fultz, a partner with Barsz Gowie Amon & Fultz, located outside Philadelphia. The important difference: "A loss from a business is deductible. A hobby loss is not," he says.

You use round numbers.

Be specific when itemizing various expenses, Fultz says. If the numbers all end in a double zero, it can look fishy. "The IRS does look at that, and they might feel you don't have documentation for your expenses," he says. Again, keep good records and be specific when writing off expenses.

You deduct 100 percent of a car for business use.

When listing the business use of a work-related automobile, the IRS knows that it's unlikely that you're using it 100 percent for work. For example, if you use it for commuting, that expense isn't deductible. There are myriad mobile apps and tools to help you track mileage. Maintain your paper trail.

Something doesn't add up.

If you're claiming large deductions on a small salary, for example, you could open yourself up to additional verification from the IRS. "If you have expenses that are proportionately unusual compared with income on your tax return, it's more likely to promote scrutiny," Kubey says.

The bottom line

As long as you file taxes accurately and keep good records, you shouldn't fear a tax audit. "At the end of the day, honesty is the best policy," Fultz says. "As long as you have support for everything you put on the return, even if you are audited, it's OK." If you're concerned about your tax return or the paperwork involved, meet with a good tax preparer and make sure you keep accurate records throughout the year.

Tax audit triggers

To recap, here is what triggers a tax audit:

-- You earned a lot of money.

-- You aren't reporting cryptocurrency.

-- You are self-employed.

-- You failed to report taxable income.

-- You made typos or a math error.

-- You have three consecutive years of business losses.

-- You use round numbers.

-- You deduct 100 percent of a business car.

-- Something doesn't add up.

Remember that audits are rare, and good record keeping will help you endure the audit process.





More From US News & World Report


In a race against time, an American professor and a Haitian CEO have teamed up to establish private nature reserves to protect Haiti's disappearing species. Now, with funding from Global Wildlife Conservation and Rainforest Trust, the first such park has been purchased: Grand Bois, a mountain in the southwest of Haiti with rare and endangered plants and animals.

"The native species of plants and animals in Haiti need greater protection," says Professor S. Blair Hedges, director of Temple University's Center for Biodiversity, who has been surveying, with helicopter, the last remaining tracts of Haiti's original forests before they disappear. In November 2018, he and his team reported, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that Haiti has less than 1% of its original primary forest and is going through a mass extinction of biodiversity. However, they identified a few remaining biodiversity 'hot spots' where original forests and their species still exist, including Grand Bois.

His partner in the effort is Haitian businessman Philippe Bayard, CEO of Sunrise Airways and president of the leading conservation group in Haiti, Societe Audubon Haiti. Since they teamed up nine years ago, Hedges and Bayard raised public awareness about Haiti's disappearing species through videos, brochures, public lectures, and a documentary film.

Haiti's government took notice. In 2015, Haiti declared Grand Bois a national park, identifying it as a priority for conservation and validating the critical need to acquire and protect the area. Parks were also created for Deux Mamelles and Grand Colline, other mountainous hot spots in southwestern Haiti. There are, however, limited resources from the Haitian government for protection of these large and remote areas, whether publicly or privately owned.

To assemble the mountain tracts, Bayard and Hedges sought donors to purchase private land and help pay for park management. Two experienced conservation organizations, Global Wildlife Conservation and Rainforest Trust, joined the effort. After delays from government instability in the last two years, the Grand Bois purchase was completed on January 18 of this year.

"It is a jewel of biodiversity with about one half of the orginal forest intact above 1,000 meters of elevation," explains Hedges, "Its more than 1,200 acres holds at least 68 species of vertebrates including some found nowhere else in the world and plants and animals previously thought to be extinct, such as Ekman's Magnolia tree and the Tiburon Stream Frog. A first step in managing Grand Bois involved creating a nursery for the magnolia trees, with technical assistance from Fundacion Progressio, an NGO in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

"That Grand Bois and the two other areas were named as national parks based on our work has been gratifying," says Hedges. "Now with funding from Global Wildlife Conservation and Rainforest Trust, we are beginning the process of land purchase and management to build a network of private nature reserves and to assist the government in managing other protected areas."

For decades, Bayard and Hedges have witnessed the continual degradation of the environment in Haiti. "Sadly, conservation efforts in Haiti were not producing convincing results and therefore the current system of protected areas is not working. Something different was truly needed," said Audubon Society of Haiti president Bayard. He knew that a new strategy was necessary and a private trust fund was the answer. As a result, the pair recently founded Haiti National Trust to preserve the country's natural environment and biodiversity. "We are trying to embark on a new direction for biodiversity conservation in Haiti," said Bayard.

Morne Grand Bois is found in Haiti's Massif de la Hotte mountain range, the number one priority conservation area in the country and one of the most important areas for amphibians in the world. Because 19 amphibians here are critically endangered, the Massif de la Hotte is an Alliance for Zero Extinction site and also a Key Biodiversity Area, which is a nationally identified region of global significance.

In addition to his research and conservation work in Haiti, Hedges has collaborated with the Philadelphia Zoo to keep alive and/or captively breed the most endangered frog species still found in the country. As head of Temple's Center for Biodiversity, Hedges coordinates research that seeks to understand how species evolved, what species currently exist, how species interact with each other and the environment, and how scientists and society can save species from extinction.

###

About Haiti National Trust

Haiti National Trust (HNT) works to protect the environment and biodiversity of Haiti for future generations through land purchase and management. HNT believes that biological diversity must be saved because of its intrinsic value and importance for humanity. Healthy forests secure soil for crops, stabilize drinking water, and keep coastal communities and reefs alive and thriving. HNT engages local communities to help us maintain, protect, and expand the critical ecosystems of Haiti. We are a non-profit charity. More information at http://www. HaitiTrust. org

About Rainforest Trust

Rainforest Trust is a leading international conservation organization that has been steadfast in its mission for 30 years to save endangered species through the purchase and protection of imperiled tropical habitats in partnership with local partners and communities. Since its founding in 1988, Rainforest Trust has helped protect over 18 million acres of rainforest and other tropical habitats in more than 125 project sites around the world. Presently, Rainforest Trust is working to establish a network of over 190 protected areas toward its goal of strategically protecting 50 million acres by 2020. Rainforest Trust has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, and 100 percent of project gifts directly fund vital conservation action. More information at http://www. RainforestTrust. org

About Global Wildlife Conservation

Global Wildlife Conservation protects endangered species and habitats through science-based field action. GWC envisions a world with diverse and abundant wildlife and is dedicated to ensuring that the species on the verge of extinction are not lost. The global organization brings together scientists, conservationists, policymakers and industry leaders to ensure a truly collaborative approach to species conservation. More information at http://www. globalwildlife. org

Acknowledgements

The purchase of Grand Bois was made possible by a generous donation from the Sheth Sangreal Foundation (through Global Wildlife Conservation) and from Rainforest Trust.

Contact information:

Professor S. Blair Hedges, sbh@temple.edu
TEL AVIV, Israel...January 29, 2019 - Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), today announced a strategic, multi-year research collaboration, in which Rafael will collaborate with BGU in a variety of fields, including cyber security, smart mobility, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The agreement was signed at the Cybertech 2019 conference in Tel Aviv by Netta Cohen, chief executive officer of BGN Technologies, and Dr. Ran Gozali, executive vice president and head of Rafael's R&D and Engineering Division.

This partnership follows Rafael's decision to build an R&D center of excellence in Beer-Sheva's high-tech park, which is located adjacent to BGU, to benefit from the University's talents and expertise in these fields. The new center--to be launched later this year--will focus on different aspects of advanced autonomous systems.

"Rafael's decision to have a significant presence at the high-tech park adjacent to BGU, together with the partnership signed today, is a clear indication of our researchers' leadership in hardware and data related innovation," Cohen said at the signing ceremony. "We are looking forward to closely working with Rafael, a world leader in advanced defense systems, on a variety of cutting-edge projects in different disciplines."

The first two projects will focus on exploring the risk of cyber security breaches in sensors of autonomous cars and how these threats might be mitigated. Autonomous driving requires the use of multiple sensor systems including cameras, radars, and lidar-based systems, all of which can be targets of cyberattacks. AI and machine learning techniques will be used for identifying and mapping the different possible security breaches, and then solutions to protect against these threats will be developed.

Dr. Ran Gozali said, "Cyber security is one of the biggest challenges in almost every aspect of modern-day life. This partnership will help support our advanced autonomous solutions, by working with prominent experts in the field, such as the researchers at Ben-Gurion University. We are certain that the collaboration will help maintain the qualitative edge and innovative solutions that are offered by Rafael to its customers."

Rafael has had vast experience in the cyber arena over the past 25 years. As a leader in the field, Rafael has implemented cyber defense projects around the world. In Israel, this includes the national Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT), considered one of the world's most advanced, and the cyber defense system for Israel National Central Credit Registry and Israel's Railways Authority. Rafael has also been awarded a cyber defense contract by the Ministry of Defense of Argentina.

###

About Rafael

Rafael develops and manufactures advanced defense systems for the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment, as well as for foreign customers around the world. The company offers its customers a diversified array of innovative solutions at the leading edge of global technology, from underwater systems through naval, ground and air defense systems to cyber and space systems. These include the Iron Dome and the David's Sling Air Defense system, the Trophy Active Protection System for armored vehicles, and many others. Rafael was established in 1948 as Israel's Defense Ministry national research and development laboratory. Rafael's systems are based on vast expertise, technological know-how and a thorough understanding of specific operational requirements. Today, Rafael is one of Israel's largest defense companies, employing 8,000 workers and hundreds of sub-contractors, with a 2017 net profit of $124 million and sales totaling $2.2 billion. Visit Rafael's website.

About BGN Technologies

BGN Technologies is the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the third largest university in Israel. BGN Technologies brings technological innovations from the lab to the market and fosters research collaborations and entrepreneurship among researchers and students. To date, BGN Technologies has established over 100 startup companies in the fields of biotech, high-tech and cleantech and has initiated leading technology hubs, incubators and accelerators. Over the past decade, BGN Technologies has focused on creating long-term partnerships with multinational corporations such as Deutsche Telekom, Dell-EMC, PayPal, and Lockheed Martin, securing value and growth for Ben-Gurion University as well as the Negev region. For more information, visit the BGN Technologies website.

About American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision: creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. As Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) looks ahead to turning 50 in 2020, AABGU imagines a future that goes beyond the walls of academia. It is a future where BGU invents a new world and inspires a vision for a stronger Israel and its next generation of leaders. Together with supporters, AABGU will help the University foster excellence in teaching, research and outreach to the communities of the Negev for the next 50 years and beyond. Visit vision.aabgu.org to learn more.
Supreme Court issues interim order to halt construction works at Pashupati area

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued an interim order directing the government to stop the construction works on the premises of Pashupatinath Temple against the law and standard practice.
Reviewing Indian aid

Economic assistance can be used to prevent migration by rebuilding rural economies
Regulator says gas bottling plants flouting safety rules

Most of the gas bottling plants have not been following safety measures putting consumers at high risk of suffering injury or even death due to unsafe cylinders, the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology said after making several market inspections.
Ramallah: On Tuesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah has tendered his resignation and that of his unity government to President Mahmoud Abbas, he said that dealing a blow to wavering settlement efforts with Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas.

Abbas said in a statement that he accepted the resignation and that the government will "continue its duties until the new government is formed." While A Hamas official condemned the move as an attempt to marginalise and exclude the group from Palestinian politics. Hamdallah is a little-known academic, headed the national unity government formed in 2014 and led the West Bank-based Fatah's reconciliation efforts with Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007.

Abbas said that "The president will begin consultation to form a political government made up by factions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that will prepare for the holding of new parliamentary election,"

also read Canadian serial killer chopped bodies of 8 men, Pleads guilty of killing

The two groups signed a reconciliation deal two years ago which set in motion a plan for Abbas's Palestinian Authority to resume governing in Gaza and take control of the coastal enclave's crossing points into Egypt and Israel. But disputes over power-sharing and policy towards Israel have hampered the deal's implementation.

also read India to become world's second largest steel producing country, after China
Dubai: Pakistan said that itr will try to resume peace talks with India only after the release of election results.

A senior minister said that Pakistan will talk with India after the election as it is useless to talk to New Delhi because no big decisions are expected from the present Indian government.

As per the reports, Fawad Chaudhry, Minister of Information of Pakistan, said that the time is not right to hold dialogue as the Indian leaders are preparing for the upcoming general elections. He said "It is useless to talk to them (India) now unless there is some stability. We will move forward once the new government is formed after the elections." He further added that, :We have delayed our efforts to hold talks with India because we do not expect any big decision from the present Indian leadership,"

When the minister is asked, which Indian leader will suit Pakistan more when it comes to peace talks Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi. He replied by saying the said it does not matter for Pakistan. He also said that they would like to move forward to hold dialogue with whosoever comes into power in India.
In the daily course of life, Our Bollywood actors hardly gets any time to spend with their loved ones. This becomes even more difficult for once they get occupied in their work. Thustaking a break and spending time with loved ones is the best therapy. On this boat, Simmba star Sara Ali Khan shared some photos of precious moments with her mother Amrita Singh on Instagram from their trip to Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

The actress has made her debut last year in Abhishek Kapoors Kedarnath is extremely busy ever since. Now, she took some time and shared these pictures from her trip which are absolutely beautiful. In the photos, we can see Sara posing with her mother Amrita Singh in pretty dim light. They seem to be soaking in the calmness and serenity of the forest during sunset. She wrote, Wilder and Wildest in the Wild #motherdaughter #hakunamatata #pinksky

Sara rose to fame with her debut film Kedarnath which also starred Sushant Singh Rajput in the lead. Her acting as the girl next door was appreciated a lot. Post Kedarnath, she was seen playing a fun-loving girl in Simmba which starred Ranveer Singh in the lead. Directed by Rohit Shetty, the movie went on to become one of the biggest blockbusters of 2018. There were also rumours of Sara being a part of Imtiaz Alis Love Aaj Kal 2 starring her father Saif Ali Khan. But, as per reports of Bollywood Life, she has backed out from the film due to script issues.

also read This South star is to play batsman Kris Srikkanth in Ranveer Singh starrer '83

Deepika Padukone becomes chairperson of MAMI film festival, says 'It's an absolute honour'
Rahul Gandhi has pledged that the Congress will ensure minimum income to the poor if the party is voted to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress president's promise was made at a farmers' rally in Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, where the party wrested power from the BJP with a two-third majority in December last year.

The backdrop



Shrinking jobs and a weak farm economy were cited as the reasons for the BJP's rejection by voters in Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in December last year.



That rattled the BJP, which then unleashed a string of populist measures in a bid to placate the electorate.

Till the assembly poll results, the BJP-led NDA did not visualise any threat to it from the opposition in the general election.

The sops



Shrinking jobs and a weak farm economy were cited as the reasons for the BJP's rejection by voters in Hindi heartland states in December last year.

So the Union government tweaked the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to charm small businesses.



The ceiling for such businesses to come under GST was raised to annual turnover of Rs 40 lakh, from Rs 20 lakh earlier.

The move is likely to benefit 20 lakh small businesses, most of which are run by the BJP's core voter base of traders.

The Union government also hinted it was mulling relief measures for farmers, a move estimated to cost Rs 120 billion, in the form of fund transfers and interest-free loans.

Export incentives for onion farmers were doubled to 10 per cent after prices nosedived.

Then came the announcement of a 10 per cent quota to the economically backward, a move to appease its upper caste voters.

The Union government also hinted it was mulling relief measures for farmers, a move estimated to cost Rs 120 billion, in the form of fund transfers and interest-free loans.

The last sop by the BJP was the new e-commerce norms, which prevented US conglomerates like Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart to sell products from firms in which they own stake.



The government's move came after retailers and traders piled pressure on it citing that multinational firms were flexing their inventory muscle and exclusive sales agreements to choke them.

The government's interim budget is also widely expected to raise the ceiling of income tax to placate the middle class.

The interim budget, or vote on account, will be presented on February 1.

Action, reaction



It is in this backdrop that Rahul Gandhi made the minimum income guarantee promise, in an apparent effort to get a first mover advantage of sorts, visualising that the government will not hesitate to shower sops on the electorate in the budget.



The Congress plan is to directly transfer the money to bank accounts of identified beneficiaries. Congress think-tanks suggest that the party would mull tweaking the spending on food subsidy to fund the minimum income guarantee.

The country has earmarked Rs 1.7 trillion on food subsidy in 2018.

This is nearly seven per cent of the total central spending.

Different concepts of welfare



Shrinking jobs and a weak farm economy were cited as the reasons for the BJP's rejection by voters and Congress' victory in Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in December last year.

The minimum income guarantee scheme is not to be confused with the universal basic income (UBI) plan, wherein all citizens are guaranteed a minimum sum regardless of their economic or employment status.



The minimum income guarantee scheme targets the poor as beneficiaries instead of the entire population.

In the universal basic income scheme, money is transferred to the beneficiaries regardless of their economic or employment status. There are no riders as to how to spend the money.

The Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), which rules India's tiniest state, has said it would include UBI in its poll manifesto for this year's assembly polls and will implement it by 2022.

Sikkim has a population of less than seven lakh.

Pilot projects of universal basic income scheme have been done in randomly selected households in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The direct money transfer was made in the name of the female head of the household. The experiments were conducted without touching the existing welfare schemes.

Bottlenecks



As per 2014 official data, roughly 30 per cent of India's 1.3 billion population live in poverty.

Developed countries can toy with the idea of UBI, but India is home to one in three of the world's poor and hence cannot afford such a state-sponsored programme.

Its opponents say the universal basic income reduces the incentive to work while proponents think it will end poverty and is necessary in a country where an overwhelming majority of the population earn a livelihood from the informal sector.

Who qualifies as poor



As per 2014 official data, roughly 30 per cent of India's 1.3 billion population live in poverty.



The World Bank defines poor as those with an income less than $2 a day.

The World Bank defines poor as those with an income less than $2 a day.

A dollar is Rs 71.1460 as per exchange rates on January 28, 2019.

The extremely poor earn less than $1.25 according to the World Health Organisation, which also has set other parameters for defining poor such as food consumption and access to health care.
Bengaluru: Amid strains in Congress-JDS ties, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Wednesday again threatened to quit if Congress leaders continued to take potshots at him.

"Yes, I had said I would step down if Congress leaders continue to take potshots at me. If they repeatedly make such statements, how many more days can I tolerate such stuff. Power is ephemeral. What is permanent is you (party workers) and six-and-a-half crore people of this state," he said addressing the National JDS Convention here.

On January 28, Kumaraswamy had threatened to step down over adverse comments by a Congress MLA, prompting the coalition partner to swing into damage control mode.

Congress general secretary K C Venugopal and incharge of party affairs in the state said the party high command has full faith in Kumaraswamy and the State government.

On Sunday, Congress MLA ST Somashekhar had demanded that Siddaramaiah be made chief minister again.

Somashekhar had claimed that development works had come to a grinding halt here and other parts of the state.

Addressing the convention Wednesday, former Prime Minister and JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda also said the Chief Minister has been hurt by some Congress leaders taking potshots at him.

He also referred to Siddaramaiah's alleged ambitions to become chief minister in 2006-2007.

"Back then, Siddaramaiah had told me that if I had put pressure on Sonia Gandhi, he would have become chief minister, instead of Kumaraswamy. Siddaramaiah is nursing pain and he should be seeking answer from Sonia Gandhi about it," Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said amid alleged bid to topple his government, it was becoming difficult for him to direct his officials to address people's problems.

"They (BJP and some Congress leaders) are giving threats of dislodging my government by Shankranthi or Rajyotsava Day, besides during assembly session beginning February 6.

Amidst these media leaks, how shall I ask my officials to address people's problems. Just think of the situation I am in? However, I should be grateful to my legislators who have stood behind me," he said.

Kumaraswamy also appealed to farmers not to get carried away with some leaders portraying him as "anti-farmers."

"There is another message being circulated in WhatsApp that I brought down prices affecting milk farmers.

During Siddaramaiah's rule, milk farmers were getting Rs 27 per litre, and I brought it down to Rs 20. I request farmers not to get carried away by this. I am continuing as the chief minister because of you," he said.

Kumaraswamy also asked party chief Deve Gowda to prepare the list of appointments to various boards and corporations to avoid any confusion in running a coalition government.

"... In 2006, I committed a mistake by not heeding to my father (Deve Gowda) and was unable to make appointments to boards and corporations. I do not want to repeat the same mistake while running the present coalition government," he added.
Over three dozen rights activists rounded up from Baneshwor

Police on Wednesday arrested 32 human rights activists including nine women for staging a demonstration organised by Human Rights and Peace Society in New Baneshwor, Kathmandu.
New Delhi: Will eight states go to assembly polls along with Lok Sabha elections? If BJP dissolves its governments in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, eight states will have assembly and parliament elections together in April-May. The party has already told the governor it is ready for assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir.

4 definite cases

Four state governments  Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa  complete their five-year term by June this year. The Election Commission (EC) is ready to hold assembly polls in these states along with the Lok Sabha polls. The EC can declare elections in Jammu and Kashmir too since there is no government in power there.

Maharashtra and Haryana governments have their terms until November this year, while Jharkhand elections are due only in January 2020. The EC can declare elections in a state only if the term ends within six months of election notification. Only if these states dissolve their governments now can the EC declare elections there along with Lok Sabha polls.

Some parties are game

The Congress units in Maharashtra and Jharkhand are preparing for simultaneous polls. The Shiv Sena has asked the BJP for polls at state too along with the Lok Sabha election this summer. BJP thinks it could keep Senas alliance if it agrees to this demand.

There was no Congress-NCP alliance during 2014 state election and the BJP went on to win 122 seats. But the two parties have struck a deal now for the state and central polls. That along with a possible anti-incumbency wave might deter BJP from calling early polls in states.

Change of tactic

The BJP had suggested conducting elections for Lok Sabha and 11 states together last year as a precursor for simultaneous polls across the country. Telangana, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh were among the 11. But assembly elections were held here late last year. Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Orissa are set for polls now. Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand will make it eight.

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Thiruvananthapuram: The Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the Lord Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala has sought financial aid from the state government for the temple following drastic fall in revenue during the just concluded Mandala-Makaravillaku festival.

Board sources said the final amount to be sought from the government was yet to be arrived yet, but they were keeping their fingers crossed and hoping at least Rs 250 crore would be set apart for the development of Sabarimala in the state budget, which is to be presented Thursday.

The August floods and the recent massive protests by right wing activists and devotees over the women entry issue at the temple had led to a revenue dip of Rs 100 crore in Hundi collections and 'prasadam' sales this year.

Right wing outfits had also allegedly asked devotees not to make any money offerings at hundis in temples managed by the TDB as a mark of protest against the stand taken by the CPI(M)-led LDF government to implement the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the hill shrine.

The nearly two month long festival had witnessed protests by frenzied devotees at the temple complex.

On January 2, two women in their forties - Kanakadurga and Bindu - managed to trek the hill shrine with plain-clothed personnel and offered prayers, thus creating history.

A Sri Lankan woman also managed to reach the shrine.

Controversy had erupted in Kerala after the left government submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court recently claiming 51 women in menstrual age entered the Sabarimala temple during this pilgrimage season.

The BJP, the Sabarimala Karma Samiti and the Pandalam royal family, associated with the Lord Ayyappa temple, had come down heavily on the state government saying there were discrepancies in the age of the women devotees mentioned in the affidavit.

The names of at least two men from Tamil Nadu were also listed in the affidavit.
Thiruvananthapuram: SFI leader Naseem, a prime suspect in the recent attack on a policeman, surrendered at Cantonment Police Station in the city on Wednesday. He was hiding for the past one-and-a-half months, though he was spotted at a public event attended by ministers yesterday as revealed by the visuals shown on Manorama News. He was present during the entire function attended by ministers AK Balan and KT Jaleel at the University College on Monday evening, though the police claimed he was absconding.

On Tuesday, the police who provided security to the ministers turned a blind eye to Naseems presence. He left the venue without any hassle after the event, pointing to CPM district leaderships help to the suspect involved in a non-bailable offence.



Police reportedly had information that Naseem had participated in the Womens Wall event held on New Year. But no action was taken then either. A plea from the parents of the assaulted policeman was also ignored.

Naseem allegedly beat up a cop at Palayam after a spat following a traffic infringement. The traffic cop who pulled over violators near the war memorial at Palayam was thrashed by a gang of 20 SFI supporters for questioning them. Those arrested were later freed from custody by force by the same gang later. CCTV images showed Naseem leading the gang. Six people were booked as prime suspects in the incident.

There was pressure from the CPM to save the suspects from the beginning itself, it is alleged. Following controversy, SFI activists Haider, Aromal, Sreejith and Akhil surrendered to the police. The aide of Neyyatinkara MLA Ansalan is the father of Haider.

The police later removed Naseem and another suspect from the case that soon went cold. The latter was removed saying the CCTV images were not conclusive. Naseem officially went in hiding. He participated in several CPM events thereafter, including the one in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.

Another suspect in the case is on the rank list of new police recruits. His other old cases too were buried with political intervention. A top CPM leader had directly asked the police to remove this person from the list of suspects in the case involving Naseem. But the police have not budged yet, despite political pressure to free him.
Kochi: Several fake news over the mysterious death of nurse Annliya are rife, her father claimed. Huygens Parakkal, whose daughter Annliya was found dead in the Periyar River in late August, also asserted that the crime branch had never suggested suicide.

Parakkal also said that he was waiting for the crime branch to hear him out once they were done gathering evidence in the case. "Some people want us to believe that Annliya committed suicide. Some people even try to propagate that the case has been closed. But I have clear reasons to believe that it was not a suicide," he told Onmanorama.

Some of the rumours were even attributed to the police crime branch, he added.

Huygens said that he had found out that the CCTV at the Thrissur railway station was functioning on the day she disappeared. Later the authorities claimed that the cameras were not working when the police checked them. The cameras were working on the day before and the day after. "It is mysterious to claim that the camera was not working on that crucial day," Parakkal said.

Annliya's with her father and mother. File photo

He also pointed out that the Annliya's husband Justin, who is in the dock in connection with the murder, could have tampered with evidence since his father was a railway employee in Alappuzha.

Parakkal also cited contradictions in Justin's claims and the phone records of Annliya. "The last call from Annliya's phone was made at 4.28 pm on August 25, the day she died. But Justin claimed to a priest that he received a call from Annliya at 4.37 pm threatening that she would jump into the river. Though the priest asked Justin to connect him to Annliya, Justin did not do so. I suspect that Justin acted out the part to make an impression that Annliya was alive at the time. Even the priest confirmed my doubts," he said.

Adding to the doubts, Justin went to the police only at 11 pm and he had not mentioned to them about the call or the warnings.

The railway station master at Aluva has said that he had received no alert about anyone falling from the train on August 25, Parakkal added. "The river is hardly three minutes away from the Aluva station. Most of the passengers who want to alight at Aluva come near the door by the time the train crosses the river. They would have surely known if someone fell into the river. There were no reports of anyone falling into the river. Even railway authorities said so," he said.

Parakkal said that he was informed that the crime branch had got hold of Justin's phone. "If that was the case, the police can get to know of these things if they examined the phone. I believe that it was impossible to tamper with the phone now," he said.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan handed over the case to the crime branch following a plea from Parakkal to change the investigating officer, the Guruvayur ACP.

Annliya with her husband Justin. File photo

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After taking his party to power in three Hindi heartland states recently with the promise of farm loan waiver, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has announced a big dream -- a minimum income guarantee for every poor person if the Congress is voted to power at the centre.

Rahul made the crucial announcement, which could be a game-changer in the run-up to the general elections due in a few months, at a rally in Raipur on Monday. Gandhi described the idea of minimum income guarantee as a step that no government in the world had taken up so far.

The recent poll results  largely perceived as a manifestation of the agrarian distress in rural India  prove that Modi's big dreams lacked a connect with the poor sections of the population.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram termed the plan "historic" as it could transform the lives of the poor. Whether feasible or not, Rahul has made a promise that sets up the tone of the Congress' campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. With this radical proposal that looks alluring to those at the bottom of society, Rahul has placed himself and his party as an alternative to the BJP's narrative of a New India which has 'urbane, business India' at its centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been propagating ambitious ideas such as 'New India' and 'Digital India' ever since he came to power in 2014. While the concepts looked attractive to the urbane, middle class and the well-off, the recent poll results  largely perceived as a manifestation of the agrarian distress in rural India  prove that Modi's big dreams lacked a connect with the poor sections of the population.

This is exactly where Rahul has been trying to cash in on with an alternative poor-centric narrative. Rahul no more calls Modi's government a 'suit-boot ki sarkar', though he never misses a chance to accuse it of crony capitalism or being pro-rich. Rahul or the Congress is yet to elaborate on the concept of the minimum income guarantee as he envisages it, but at the outset it looks feasible as against Modi's 2014 pre-election promise of Rs 15 lakh to each person, ever since a hot topic of trolls.

Indian policy-makers had earlier conducted two important studies testing the impact of Universal Basic Income (UBI) through unconditional cash transfers in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi between 2011 and 2012. The experiment gave 100 randomly-selected households Rs 1,000 per month. The money was deposited under the name of the woman head of participating households in a bank.

The Congress may be hoping that the promise of minimum income would work among the economically backward just like the UPA governments' flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme became a hit among the rural population.

The idea got prominence after Arvind Subramanian, as the then Chief Economic Adviser, pushed it in a big way in the pre-budget Economic Survey of 2017 which included a 40-page chapter on UBI that outlined the three components of the proposed program-- universality, unconditionality and implementing agency.

It is not known if Rahul wants to implement a similar scheme or something different. On Tuesday, in Kerala, he said it will be a direct money transfer scheme. Rahul challenges those citing cash crunch to implement such a large scheme, citing the example of how the newly elected governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh could waive off farm loans, something the BJP refused to do despite being in power for long. The Congress may also be hoping that the promise of minimum income would work among the economically backward just like the UPA governments' flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme became a hit among the rural population.

The Congress seems to have succeeded in planting a dream, now it's up to the party machinery to take it to the masses. For that it will have to give a concrete and workable shape to the idea which, to be frank, looks abstract now. It is also to be seen whether the Congress workers would match the well-oiled poll machinery of the BJP, which is up and ready to take out each message of the Modi-Shah duo to the post-truth voters who look vulnerable to emotional appeals than facts and figures.
There are not many encouraging signs for a flood-devastated Kerala in the Economic Review 2018 tabled in the Assembly on Wednesday, on the eve of the 2019-20 Budget presentation. Own tax revenues are falling, debt stock is ballooning, and generous central transfers will stop. This is a clear warning that Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac will not be keen on reducing deficits like he was last year. Fiscal consolidation will have to wait when the reconstruction of the state is on.

The Goods and Services Tax, which it was said would benefit a consumer state like Kerala hugely, has still not yielded desired results. The review is not cheered by marginal improvements, either. The growth rate of own tax revenue (OTR) for 2016-17 was 8.16 per cent. It rose to 10.16 per cent in 2017-18. This indicates that the slowdown in growth rate of OTR since 2013-14 still continues, the review said. The minister had taken charge of the finance portfolio in 2016 with the promise that he would push up tax growth to 20 per cent. The OTR growth rate, in short, has declined to an average of 10 per cent since 2013-14 when it was 18 per cent between 2006-07 and 2012-13.



Not just the OTR, even the total revenue receipts have shown an alarming decline. While the growth in the state's revenue receipts was a booming 22 per cent in 2011-12, it has in 2017-18 slumped to 9.8 per cent. After 2011-12, the big high came in 2015-16 when the growth rate was nearly 20 per cent.

Illusory spike in receipts

This 2015-16 spurt was slightly deceptive. It was mainly on account of a rise in the share of central taxes granted to states. It shot up from 32 per cent to 42 per cent. Besides, the state received a revenue deficit grant (money to help the state bridge its burgeoning deficit) that was spread over three fiscals: Rs 4640 crore (2015-16), Rs 3350 crore (2016-17), and Rs 1529 crore (2017-18). These substantial money transfers, which had kept the state going during the last three fiscals, will not be available from the 2019-20 fiscal on. The review was also of the opinion that the 15th Finance Commission recommendations for tax devolution would hurt socially advanced states like Kerala.

The review acknowledges that various external factors, including the August floods, have thwarted the state's fiscal consolidation efforts.

Compounding the woes is the fattening debt stock. In 2017-18, it is 30.68 per cent of the GSDP, up from 30.25 per cent in the previous 2016-17 fiscal. Not even a decade ago, in 2011-12 for instance, the debt-GSDP ratio was 24.56 per cent.

Silver lining

But it is not as alarming as it seems. Borrowings and liabilities as a proportion of revenue receipts, an indicator of debt stress, is steadily coming down. This ratio of interest payments to revenue receipts has been declining since 2014-15. The Comptroller and Auditor General report on state finances 2016-17 has also pointed this out. Interest payments as a percentage of revenue receipt showed a decreasing trend during the last two years, which indicated that the state's interest liability was not growing with increase in debt liability, the CAG report had said.

Holiday for fiscal tightening

Nonetheless, the review acknowledges that various external factors, including the August floods, have thwarted the state's fiscal consolidation efforts. And the review calls for a fiscal consolidation holiday at a time when the state is desperately trying to find its feet after a massive deluge. Fiscal consolidation is the aim in the medium run, but when rebuilding the state is the most biggest priority, annual deficit targets need to be relaxed at least for a year, the review noted.


Do you remember Nirosha? Back in 90s, actress Nirosha was among the most sought-after female actors in the southern film industry. And if there's one actress having acted alongside with the likes of Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna in Telugu then, it's none other than this Sri Lankan.

The veteran actress on Wednesday turned 50 and on this occasion let's take a look at five unknown facts about the former lady star for whom age is just a number.

> Several well-known personalities of Indian Tamil cinema have some kind of connection with Sri Lanka and so do Nirosha. The actress was quite a known name in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam film industry but not many are aware that she was born in Sri Lanka. Nirosha grew up in Wennappuwa from where her mother hails. (The legendary actor and former Tamil Nadu chief minister MG Ramachandran was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka.)

> The acting is undoubtedly is in her genes. She is the youngest and the last daughter of the renowned Tamil actor and comedian M.R. Radha (Mohan Rajagopala Radhakrishnan Naidu). Renowned actress Radhikaa Sarathkumar is her sister.

Nirosha and sister Radhika Sarathkumar (now and then)

> She acted in 6 Malayalam movies of which the most noted was the 1988 film 'Oru Muthassi Katha'. She played the role of Karthu, who falls for an orphan boy Chanthu played by Vineeth.

> Nirosha is married to actor Ramki after a clandestine affair. Since her marriage, she stayed away from movies and was active in television with serials and shows.

Nirosha with husband and actor Ramki

> After a hiatus, she returned to the big screen with 2017 Telugu flick Sudhakar Komakulas Nuvvu Thopu Raa.
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor MP flagged off the Advanced Trauma Life Support Ambulance provided to General Hospital, here from his MPLADS fund on Monday at the hospital premises.

The Rs 23 lakh project is the first of its kind ambulance available to a government hospital in the district.

This state-of-the-art ambulance is equipped with top-of the-line resuscitation and life support equipment like, transport ventilator, automated external defibrillator, multi-parameter monitor with ECG, oxygen saturation, NIBP etc (to monitor vital parameters of the patient), syringe infusion pumps, advanced airway management equipment, trauma board, splints etc. It is essentially a Mobile Critical Care Unit in its operational capabilities.

Delighted to target taxpayers money to a useful cause. #MPLADS https://t.co/9ybn4b2Gdj  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) January 29, 2019

It will be manned by a paramedic during patient transport and depending on the need for further advanced critical care support, by a trainer medical personnel as the case may be.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Tuesday he would not join what is likely to be a crowded field of candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Trend reports citing Reuters.

I have decided not to throw my hat into the ring to run for president in 2020, Garcetti told a news conference at City Hall.

Garcetti, 47, who was re-elected in 2017 to a second term as mayor of the countrys second-largest city, said: It may be out of vogue today but I kind of believe that whenever possible you should finish the job you set out to do.

Last year, Garcetti fueled speculation that he would seek the presidential nomination with trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, states that hold some of the earliest presidential nominating contests.

A fellow Californian, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, launched her White House bid last week, becoming the latest Democrat to seek the partys nomination to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard are among those already in the race, and more U.S. senators are weighing bids.

Garcetti was an early backer of Democrat Barack Obamas first White House bid in 2008, and acted as a Spanish-speaking surrogate for Obamas campaign in key states ahead of the election. He backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race against Trump.

He is the son of former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who was the citys top prosecutor during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson in the 1990s.
A new low-yield nuclear warhead, created at the behest of the Trump administration, has officially entered production, Trend reports with reference to Defencse News.

The first production unit of the W76-2 warhead is underway at the Pantax Plant in Texas, according to a statement from the National Nuclear Security Agency.

NNSA is on track to complete the W76-2 Initial Operational Capability warhead quantity and deliver the units to the Navy by the end of Fiscal Year 2019, an agency spokesman said. The spokesman noted only the IOC units will be delivered this year, but declined to say how many warheads make up that total.

The warhead design is a modification of the W76-1 warhead for the Navys Trident ballistic missile, which has allowed NNSA to quickly turn around the design since it was ordered in last years Nuclear Posture Review. The warhead is designed to be smaller than the weapon detonated at Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.

The system is controversial, however, with nonproliferation advocates and many Democrats in Congress arguing that, by their nature, all nuclear weapons are strategic, not tactical. They note that even a low-yield nuclear weapon is incredibly powerful (an estimated 60,000-80,000 people were wiped out by the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima), and they worry having a low-yield and high-yield warhead launched on the same submarine-launched missile creates a situation where an adversary doesnt know which system is being used and therefore reacts as if the larger warhead has been launched.

As a result, the future of the weapon is in doubt, with Rep. Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, indicating a desire to cancel funding for the W76-2 going forward.
No martyrdom for rights from now onward: PM Oli

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has paid homage to martyrs on the occasion of the Martyrs Day.
An air ambulance helicopter crashed in Ohio Tuesday, killing all three crew members on board, according to a company official, Trend reported citing ABC News.

The Survival Flight Inc. helicopter was headed to pick up a patient from a hospital in Pomeroy, Ohio, at the time of the crash, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The crew members have been identified as pilot Jennifer Topper, 34; nurse Bradley Haynes, 48; and nurse Rachel Cunningham, 33, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

"We are obviously devastated," said Andy Arthurs, vice president of EMS services for Survival Flight Inc. "Our first concern is for the crew members and their families."

The crash happened at 6:50 a.m. in a heavily wooded area of Zaleski, Ohio, which is located about 70 miles southeast of Columbus, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesman Peter Knudson.

The wreckage of the helicopter -- which had taken off from a hospital in Grove City, Ohio -- was found at about 10:15 a.m., according to the highway patrol.

No one on the ground was injured, highway patrol officials said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

An investigator from the NTSB will arrive in Ohio on Wednesday, Knudson said.

From 2009 through November 2018, there were 75 medevac helicopter accidents, 27 of which were fatal, according to the NTSB.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Over the past seven months, 1,076 servicemen have been dismissed from the Turkish armed forces within the fight against the Fethullah Gulen (FETO) terrorist movement, Trend reports referring to the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.

Reportedly, 624 servicemen dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces, served in the army ground forces, 107 servicemen - in the navy and 345 servicemen - in the air force.

Turkey will continue to actively fight against the FETO terrorists, infiltrating the Turkish Armed Forces.

Earlier, the Minister of National Defense of Turkey Hulusi Akar said 15,153 people were dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces as part of the fight against the FETO terrorist movement. He said the purge in the ranks of the Turkish Armed Forces will continue.

Fethullah Gulen and his supporters are accused of the July 16, 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey.

A group of rebels attempted a military coup in Turkey on the night of July 16, 2016. The main confrontation broke out in Ankara and Istanbul. More than 250 Turkish citizens were killed, over 2,000 people were injured, the mutiny was suppressed.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Moscow is interested in actively assisting Baghdad in eliminating the terrorist presence in Iraq, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Mohamed Ali Alhakim on Wednesday, Trend reports referring to TASS.

"We are pleased to note that the situation in Iraq has improved after most of the ISIL [the former name of the Islamic State terror group outlawed in Russia - TASS] forces were defeated, though the task of eliminating the terrorist threat has not been accomplished in some parts of your country yet, so we are interested in actively assisting you in the matter," the Russian top diplomat stressed.

Lavrov also pointed out that he would like to know the Iraqi foreign ministers view of "the current developments in Iraq, Syria and other countries of the region as far as the fight against terrorism is concerned."
In negotiations with Russia, the Japanese government is still proceeding from the position according to which the peace treaty with Russia should be signed after solving the territorial problem between the two states, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a debate in the lower parliamentary chamber on Wednesday, Trend reports referring to TASS.

"In any way, the Japanese government will continue persistent negotiations [with the Russian side] on the basis of its consecutive position: the signing of the peace treaty after solving the territorial issue," Abe stressed.

Asked about whether the "northern territories" [the Kuril Islands - TASS] are Japan's ancestral territories at the debate in the parliament, he stressed that these territories are fully covered by Japan's sovereignty. "The northern territories are territories which have our sovereignty. This position did not change," Abe stated.

Earlier in the week, the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan reiterated about the main position of the countrys government on the southern Kuril Islands. "Japans government does not change its basic position that four islands are our ancestral territory," LDP Executive Acting Secretary-General Koichi Hagiuda Koichi Hagiuda said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to galvanize negotiations on the peace treaty in November last year in Singapore, then at a meeting in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of a G20 summit on December 1 the two state leaders declared the creation of a new format and assigned the foreign ministers to be in charge of its operation.

Moscow and Tokyo have negotiated for decades to develop a peace treaty on World War II results.

The main obstacle is the sovereignty of the southern part of the Kuril Islands: after the end of the war the whole archipelago was included in the Soviet Union, but Tokyo is disputing the sovereignty of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of uninhabited islands which Japan calls Habomai.
South Koreas purchases of U.S. oil and gas this year will hold to the rapid pace set in 2018, likely narrowing its trade surplus with the worlds top economy further and bolstering its ties to Washington, Trend reports referring to Reuters.

South Korea is expected in January and February to import at least 18 million barrels of crude oil and 900,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States, according to trade flow data from Refinitiv Eikon.

Thats a four-fold increase on oil from a year earlier and a slight drop on LNG, indicating the record U.S. crude and LNG volumes heading into South Korea in 2018 are set to continue, supported by favorable market conditions brought about by increasing oil and gas output in the United States.

The jump in South Koreas U.S. oil and gas imports comes as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to push to reduce trade deficits with the United States major trading partners by selling more to them than it buys. U.S. oil and LNG exports are a key part of this strategy.

At the moment, the trend (of importing U.S. crude) will stay ... The economics for U.S. crude is a little bit better than Middle East and North Sea oil, said a South Korean refining source who declined to be named due to company policy.

Record U.S. crude oil and LNG volumes flowed into South Korea in 2018, while supplies from the Middle East were tightened amid OPEC-led output cuts and a re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

The United States was South Koreas sixth-biggest crude supplier last year, its highest ranking ever as it overtook Iran and Russia. It also became South Koreas third-largest LNG supplier, while South Korea was the top importer of U.S. LNG.

South Koreas U.S. oil and gas imports more than quadrupled in value to $6.75 billion in 2018 from $1.5 billion in 2017, according to the countrys customs data.

The U.S. oil import value of $4.5 billion alone was more than six times the $725 million taken in U.S. oil in 2017.

Buying more U.S. oil and gas was part of (Seouls) strategy as our wide trade surplus against the United States was grounds for revising the Korea-U.S. free trade deal, said Je Hyun-jung, director at the Korea International Trade Association.

South Koreas 2018 trade surplus with the United States at $13.86 billion was the lowest since 2011, down 22.4 percent from $17.86 billion a year earlier, the customs data showed.

In 2017, Trump threatened to renegotiate or scrap what he called a horrible bilateral trade deal that had doubled the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea since 2012.

The two countries agreed to revise the deal last year, with Seoul capping its steel exports to the United States to avoid hefty tariffs and giving greater market access to U.S. carmakers. The revision took effect on Jan. 1.

Tilak Doshi, a Singapore-based analyst at consultancy Muse, Stancil & Co, said improving trade ties between South Korea and the United States will also support their shared goal of North Koreas denuclearisation.

Any help from the United States regarding North Korea is critical, so good trade relations will help. It also helps South Koreans to protect their exports to the United States by pointing to their (U.S.) energy imports, Doshi said.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday met with his Lithuanian counterpart, Saulius Skvernelis, and the two discussed cooperation in the technology, trade, business and tourism sectors, Trend reports referring to The Times of Israel.

Ahead of the meeting Netanyahu highlighted the two countries signing of a declaration of intent to increase our cooperation in cybersecurity and called it just one example of the growing cooperation between us.

Noting the Jewish peoples tragic past in Lithuania, with almost the entire population murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust, Netanyahu said that the utterly defenseless Jews now had a secure, powerful country.

Citing his own Lithuanian ancestry, he said the two leaders were now forging a bridge from the past to the future.
European Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Theresa May will have a phone call about Brexit later on Wednesday, an EU source said, Trend reports referring to Reuters.

UK lawmakers demanded on Tuesday that May renegotiates the Brexit divorce deal, which the bloc says it would not reopen.
The United States is expected to further increase security cooperation with Taiwan as part of its grand strategy to manage Chinas military and economic expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Trend reports referring to South China Morning Post.

In an interview with the semi-official Central News Agency in Taiwan, the de facto US ambassador Brent Christensen said he expected to see great advances between Taiwan and the US in four major areas  including security  this year, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act.

Washington passed the act after it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, and it commits Washington to help the self-ruled island maintain its defences against mainland China.

He expressed Americas grave concerns over what he characterised Beijings efforts to coerce Taiwan into talks on reunification and warned that Washington would not let Beijing do whatever it wants with regard to the island.

We certainly urge China to abstain from any coercion that would jeopardise the security or the social, economic system of the people of Taiwan, he told the agency in the interview published on Wednesday.

In a speech on January 2, marking the 40th anniversary of a cross-strait ceasefire, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for cross-strait unification talks under the one-China principle, using the one country, two systems model practised in Hong Kong and Macau as the model.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, sternly rebuked Xi, saying most people in Taiwan do not support one country, two systems.

Relations between the two sides have soured since Tsai took office as president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.

In addition to poaching five of Taiwans allies, Beijing has staged war games around Taiwan to try to intimidate the island and force Tsai to accept the principle  that Taiwan is a part of China that must eventually be reunited with the mainland.

We certainly believe that coercive means should not be employed to address these concerns, Christensen said, adding the US is concerned about the cross-strait tensions and the two sides should engage in constructive dialogue to peacefully resolve their differences.

Christensen said in addition to promoting security cooperation, he expected to see great advances in economic ties, people-to-people ties and Taiwans role in the global community in the coming year.

He said these areas had been his main priorities since he took over as director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy, in August.

He said the institute was gearing up to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the act, with a series of events for which certain senior-level figures would be encouraged to visit Taiwan without elaborating further.

Washington does not generally send high-level officials to Taiwan to avoid triggering angry protests from China.

Since President Donald Trump took office in 2017 and adopted a more confrontational stance with China, including the ongoing trade war, he has signed the Taiwan Travel Act and National Defence Authorisation Bill  allowing high-level official and military exchanges  and approving two batches of weapon sales to the island.

While these development appears to be favourable for Taiwan, Shen Lyu-shun, formerly Taiwans top envoy to the US, said in terms of economic cooperation, there has been no progress at all in US-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement talks, which is what the island needs to counteract the problems caused by the US-China trade war.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received a telephone call from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Trend reports referring to Al Arabiya.

Guterres thanked the support provided by Saudi Arabia in pushing for positive results in the dialogue between the Yemeni parties and appreciated the efforts of the crown prince in this regard, a statement from Saudi Press Agency read.

The crown prince stressed Saudi Arabia's keenness on everything that serves the interests of the Yemeni people and the security and stability of Yemen, the statement read.

During the phone call, Guterres also commended the recent peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea signed in Jeddah and expressed his appreciation toward Saudi leadership which mediated in helping restore relations between the two countries.

The UN Secretary General also briefed the Saudi crown prince during the phone call on the international efforts spent towards regional issues and developments.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Azer Ahmadbayli  Trend:

Along with support of the Kurdish forces - SDF/PYD/YPG - in Syria, the US, in its plans to redraw the map of the region at the junction of the four Middle East countries, in recent months has increased its activity in Iraq, solving two tasks in parallel: to strengthen the position of its ally Erbil, and minimize the influence of its enemy Iran.

While the Kurds of Syria are being supported to establish an Iraqi-type autonomy, in Iraqi Kurdistan, Washington will have to make the most powerful Kurdish parties to bridge their differences and unite (without this condition nothing would be possible to do), and partially or fully transfer the oil of Kirkuk under the control of Erbil to create the economic foundations for a future state.

And here it is - the two ruling parties of the Kurdistan region  the eternal rivals for leadership in the Kurdish issue - intend to sign a four-year agreement, outlining the main political positions in an effort to stabilize Kurdistan and strengthen its position in the region.

The main points of the agreement between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP), according to regional media, include issues of joint management, decision-making, relations with Baghdad, Kirkuk and disputed territories, as well as relations with neighboring countries, especially Iran and Turkey.

We shouldnt have two policies: the policy of KDP towards Iran and the policy of PUK towards Iran. We dont want to have two policies - the policy of PUK towards Turkey and the policy of KDP towards Turkey, said one of the leaders of PUK to Rudaw information agency.

If, based on this understanding, we can figure out a common view on these issues, we will have the opportunity to play bigger role in the region, he said.

Exciting developments are also happening around Kirkuk. Both the US and the Federal government in Baghdad are trying to change the military balance of power in the disputed province.

The US has developed a new security framework for the disputed province of Kirkuk, said last week a source who wished to remain anonymous. He told Kurdish news source BasNews that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad held a meeting with representatives of ethnic communities in Kirkuk to discuss the matter.

The key identity of this framework will be involvement of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces into the process of provision of security in the province and their deployment around the city together with the Iraqi army.

Almost the same day, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi ordered the withdrawal of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service forces, which were created and trained by the US, from Kirkuk, replacing it with the 61st Brigade of the Iraqi army.

It is worth of noting that a strong anti-sectarian culture and non-involvement into political matters are key characteristics of Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service forces.

Press center of the Joint Operations Command said in a statement that the brigade sent to Kirkuk as a replacement is not part of the Presidential Guard, which consists mainly of Kurds and Peshmerga.

Thus, the Kurdish forces with the assistance of the United States may reappear in the disputed province after they were ousted from there by the Iraqi army and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in October 2017.

Kirkuk with its oil fields will be of key importance for independence of Iraqi Kurdistan as it provides almost half of the revenues of the autonomy. But Baghdad, too, does not want to give up such a tasty morsel.

However, the issue of disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil, which will determine who will control Kirkuki oil, is a kind of a time bomb. It is not for nothing that the parties have several times postponed the decision on the status of the disputed territories.

The severity of the problem became evident when PUK has recently raised the Kurdish flags over its headquarters in Kirkuk, causing tensions between the Kurds and other ethnic groups in the multinational city, as well as between the Kurdish Autonomy and Baghdad, right up to the Iraqi army threatening to use force.

In such situation, it is very important what forces will physically control the disputed territories at the time when their ownership will be defined by political or other means.

Baghdad feels a threat posed by the tandem of Americans with the Kurds, and decided to take counter measures.

A few days ago, Sairoon Parliamentary Bloc submitted a bill to the Iraqi Parliament named Law against Foreign Military Deployments in Iraq that would require all foreign military personnel to leave the country, Anadolu Agency reported. If passed, the bill would require all foreign military deployments  including troops and advisers  to leave the country within one year after its ratification.

Without the American support, it will be hard for the Kurds to speak with Baghdad on an equal footing.

As for curbing Iranian influence, there still remains an armed neutrality between the Americans and Iran-empowered PMF. The danger of PMF for the Americans is not only that it is an organization created by the sectarian principle, and not so much that they got a good combat experience in the fight against the IS, but that the PMF is legitimate and integrated into the structure of the Iraqi security forces.

The Americans can do nothing about PMF unless they decide to play hardball.

For instance, the United States told Baghdad that it would not interfere if Israel attacks Iranian positions in Iraq, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said recently during his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in Baghdad.

The reason? Last September Iran allegedly deployed its short-range missiles in Iraq.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

Iran held a demonstration of its new Kaman 12 drone, Trend reports referring to Mizan News Agency.

The demonstration took place during the Eghtedar 40 military exhibition in the Iranian capital of Tehran, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

The Kaman 12 drone has a 100-kg ammunition capacity and can additionally carry 4 bombs 23 kg in weight. The drone also possesses a 1,000-km operating radius.

Capable of reaching the speed of 160 km/h, the drones maximum and minimum weights are 450 kg and 220 kg, respectively.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

Partners of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action must adhere to fulfilling their responsibilities; in the contrary case, Iran has a variety of options, Ali Akbar Salehi, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in an interview with IRNA, Trend reports.

Salehi, who has been critical of the slow progress of the Chinese sides efforts in modernizing the Arak reactor in Irans Markazi Province, said that international cooperation in the nuclear industry is not at an ideal level.

"Iran is grateful to Russia for fulfilling its commitments within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and displeased with China in this regard," Salehi said.

According to Salehi, Russia has fulfilled all its obligations under the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"Beijing, on the other hand, says that, should [China] cooperate with Iran, the US may possibly impose sanctions on Chinese companies involved in China's nuclear industry. However, Iran operates under the UN Security Council resolution 2231," he said.

Salehi added that, with the US withdrawing from the nuclear deal in May 2018, China's cooperation with Iran slowed down in some areas.

"Iran, however, had other expectations from China," he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

The railroad connections of Iran with its neighbors must be built and connected via various means, including the Tabriz railroad, Ali Larijani, Iranian MP, said during a meeting on the commencement of the construction of Bostanabad - Sarab railroad, Trend reports referring to IRNA.

Acording to Larijani, the main purpose is to connect Iran in all directions by means of railroad projects.

Appropriate funds have also been allocated in the next years budget (starting from Machr 21, 2019) for said projects and transit directions, he noted.

Construction of the 77-kilometer long Bostanabad-Sarab railway has commenced in Irans East Azerbaijan Province.

The project is planned to be implemented in three phases. Phase one has been commissioned to a contractor with 450 billion rials (about $10.7 million). It is foreseen that the 15-kilometer railroad will be constructed in 48 months.

Iran intends to connect the Bostanabad-Sarab railway to the Ardabil Province, and eventually to the Caucasus via Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

The center of the financial structure envisaged in the Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) mechanism may be located in France, head of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Mohammadreza Modoudi said, Trend reports via Tasnim news agency.

He said that the financial structure will be managed by Germany, while the UK will carry out its implementation.

He added that the financial line within the SPV will help develop banking relations with Iran.

There are reasons why France, Germany and the UK cooperate with Iran in the financial mechanism, he said. It is their commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Iran, and they will operate in a way that would make it difficult for the US to react to this financial mechanism.

He said that it is still unclear to what extent the financial mechanism will contribute to the joint operation of Iranian and European companies.

Following the US sanctions against Iran in November 2018, the EU intends to establish a SPV to safeguard financial ties with Iran within the JCPOA. This financial mechanism hasnt started operating yet.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

An exhibition of arts and crafts, cultural and historical heritage of Turkmenistan was organized at the CIS headquarters in Minsk in connection with the chairmanship of Turkmenistan in the CIS in 2019, Trend reports with reference to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry.

A meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government is scheduled in Ashgabat at the end of May, with the meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of State being held on October 11 this year.

The priority objectives within the concept of Turkmenistans CIS chairmanship in 2019 are strengthening trust between states, supporting stability and security, strengthening political and diplomatic interaction, increasing the level of cooperation of the CIS with international organizations (including the UN and the OSCE), creating conditions for enhancing trade economic cooperation, and integration into global economic relations, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported earlier.

The key areas of partnership between the CIS countries are energy, transport and communications. Promotion of cultural, humanitarian, scientific, and educational ties, along with relations in the sphere of sports, between the states of the Commonwealth are also of great importance.

In 2012, Turkmenistan already chaired the CIS and held about 30 events in this regard.

Referring to its status of permanent neutrality, Turkmenistan decided to participate in the CIS structure as an associate member in 2005. In 1999, Turkmenistan withdrew from the Agreement on visa-free regime with all CIS countries.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The National Space Agency under the President of Turkmenistan has been reorganized into the Space Administration of the Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency (Turkmen Communication), Trend reports with reference to the Turkmen presidential decree.

The Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency is under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Ministry of Industry and Communication of Turkmenistan.

The document prescribed to ensure the preparation and approval of the draft regulation on the space administration of the Turkmenaragatnasyk Agency.

The decision to establish the National Space Agency under the President of Turkmenistan was made in May 2011. At the same time, the Turkmen Hemrasy CJSC (Turkmen Satellite) was established.

Turkmenistan launched its first telecommunications satellite TurkmenAlem 520E from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) in 2015 with the help of SpaceX, the US company, in order to start space research.

The first Turkmen satellite is equipped with three antennas, the coverage area of which includes dozens of countries in Europe and Asia, as well as countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The satellite has 38 active communication channels-transponders. Of these, 26 are used by Turkmenistan, the remaining 12 have been given on the long-term lease to Space Systems International-Monaco S. A. M. company.

TurkmenAlem 520E satellite is able to provide satellite telephony, data transmission and other types of communication between ground stations located at distances up to 10,000-15,000 kilometers from each other.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed a decree on the creation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection and the State Committee for Water Resources of the country, Trend reports with reference to the document.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, the State Committee for the Environmental Protection and Land Resources have been transferred to the jurisdiction of the new ministry.

The State Committee for Water Resources of Turkmenistan has been declared successor on water management issues of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources.

By a separate decree, the structures of the central office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of Turkmenistan, as well as the State Committee for Water Resources, have been approved.

New structures, together with the Ministry of Justice, have been instructed within a month to prepare and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers proposals on introducing changes and additions arising from this decree to the legislation of Turkmenistan.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed a decree on the establishment of the Ministry of Industry and Communication of Turkmenistan, Trend reports with reference to the document.

The Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Railway Transport, the Ministry of Road Transport, the Ministry of Communications, the State Service of Maritime and River Transportation, the Turkmenistan Airlines have been transferred to the jurisdiction of the new ministry.

According to a separate decree, provision on this ministry and the structure of its central office have been approved.

The document prescribed the Ministry of Industry and Communication, together with the Ministry of Justice, within three months to prepare and submit to the Cabinet of Ministers proposals on introducing amendments and additions arising from this decree to the legislation of the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

As many as 1.174 million people have crossed the Bilasuvar customs checkpoint in Irans Ardabil province this Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), governor of Bilasuvar district of Ardabil province Hasan Gobadi said, Trend reports via IRNA.

Some 1.05 million people of this amount were tourists, foreign citizens, mostly Azerbaijani citizens, he noted.

He said that 85 percent of tourists (993,000 people) went on foot and 180,000 people passed the Bilasuvar customs checkpoint by using various transport means.

He added that 54,000 trucks, 2,000 buses and 17,000 cars entered Iran during this period.

In comparison with the same period last year, there was a 33-percent decrease in the number of trucks, 9 percent decrease in the number of cars and 7 percent decrease in the number of buses.

During this period, a total of 311,000 tons of products were exported from Bilasuvar customs checkpoint to Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia by 13,700 trucks, and this is a 107 percent increase over the same period last year, he said.

He added that 24,300 tons of goods were imported to Iran via Bilasuvar customs checkpoint by 1,113 trucks during the ten months of this Iranian year.

He said that ceramic, potatoes, various glassware and building materials, salt, bitumen and particle board are mainly exported, while cotton, various seeds, animal feed and artificial fiber are mainly imported.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Valiyev - Trend:

The fourth meeting of the member countries of the Cooperation Council of the Turkic Speaking States on information and communication technologies (ICT) is taking place in Kazakhstans Almaty city, a source in the Azerbaijani IT market told Trend Jan. 30.

Azerbaijan is represented at the meeting by the delegation of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies.

The meetings agenda includes issues of cooperation between the parties in the field of e-government, cybersecurity, issues of mutual recognition of e-signatures between the countries participating in the meeting, the source noted.

Prospects of cooperation between the parties are also considered as part of the Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) construction project initiated by Azerbaijan.

Technical work on the mutual recognition of e-signatures is underway between Azerbaijan and Turkey. The work is planned to be finalized this year.

The mutual recognition of e-signatures between the countries will simplify the registration of goods during crossing borders, which is important for development of international trade relations and access to the global markets.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyev
Ministry distances itself from Dahals criticism of US and its allies

Four days after the ruling partys co-chairman released a scathing statement, criticising the United States and its allies stance on Venezuela, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs distanced itself from the statement on Tuesday,
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 29

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

In 2018, over 4.25 million shipments with a total weight of about 365.4 tons were delivered from China to the transit center of Azerpoct LLC, Azerbaijans postal operator, the company told Trend Jan. 30.

The shipments were processed and sent to the US, the UAE, Germany, Austria, Belarus, the UK, the Czech Republic, France, Iran, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

In addition, in 2018, the postal operator received over 9.96 million internal shipments, which is 1.6 percent more than in 2017.

In 2018, over 99,700 letters and parcels were sent, which is 6 percent more than in 2017. Besides, the number of registered letters and parcels increased by 4.2 percent and reached almost 50,000 in 2018 compared with 2017.

The number of received international small shipments exceeded 1.26 million, which is 44.5 percent more than in 2017.

The number of domestic shipments in the form of parcels also increased. Their number grew 13.5 percent and reached 96,200.

In 2018, more than 15,700 international parcels were sent, which is almost 27 percent more than in 2017. The postal operator received almost 35,400 international parcels in 2018, which is 7.4 percent more than in 2017.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyev
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:

Azerbaijani processing center Azericard LLC has insured its cyber risks, Deputy Director General of AzeriCard Zakir Ahmadov told reporters on Jan. 30, Trend reports.

Ahmadov noted that two large insurance companies PASHA Insurance and Ateshgah Insurance have been selected for risk insurance.

"Moreover, a UK company has been chosen for re-insurance. On average, thousands of cyber attacks per month are recorded. The attacks are carried out both outside and inside the country," Ahmadov said.

Along with this, Ahmadov added that the company's financial status allows to cover all the losses in case of unforeseen circumstances.

Azericard is the first processing center in Azerbaijan, fully certified by international payment systems MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Diners Club, UnionPay and JCB. The center serves 21 banks (in total, there are 30 banks in the country).

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Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyev
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

Ninety percent of employees of Azerbaijans Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park are residents of Sumgait city, head of the Sumgait city executive power Zakir Farajov said, Trend reports.

He made the remarks Jan. 30 during the visit of representatives of embassies and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan to Sumgait.

He said that the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park is one of the biggest industrial parks in the South Caucasus.

Thus, if earlier there was a problem with unemployment in Sumgait, this problem has been eliminated, he noted. This was achieved thanks to the constant commissioning of new industrial facilities.

He added that presently, a part of facilities are operating in the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, noting that the commissioning of other industrial facilities under construction is expected by the end of the year.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Jeyhun Alakbarov  Trend:

The Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park testifies to Azerbaijans economic development, Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral told reporters in Baku on Jan. 30.

Ozoral made the remarks during a visit by representatives of embassies and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan to the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park.

Turkish companies also played a role in the construction of the park, he added.

"The Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park is a part of economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey, he said. Most of the products that will be produced here will be exported to the Turkish market."

Ozoral said that the products produced in the industrial park will be supplied to Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in the future and there will be an opportunity for its export from Turkey to Europe.

"In the future, this park will make an important contribution to the economic development of not only Azerbaijan, but also Turkey," the ambassador said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of Turkish goods to Qatar increased by 62 percent and reached $1.18 billion in 2018 compared to 2017, Trend reports referring to the Aegean Exporters Associations (EIB).

Presently, Qatar ranks 37th in the list of the countries to which Turkey exports its goods.

In 2018, chemical products in the amount of $117 million and building materials in the amount of $100 million were exported to Qatar from Turkey.

Presently, Qatar ranks 19th among the countries that have made direct investments in the Turkish economy.

Foreign investments in the Turkish economy reach $4.108 billion. Qatar's investments in the Turkish economy reach $541 million.

About 68 percent of foreign direct investments in the Turkish economy accounts for European countries. Spain ranks first among European countries that have made direct investments in the Turkish economy.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

Production of silkworm cocoons in Azerbaijan's Aghjabedi district is planned to reach 50-60 tons, the head of Aghjabadi district Executive Power Shahin Mammadov said at the conference dedicated to the results of the implementation of the State Program on the Socio-Economic Development of the Regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018, Trend reports.

Mammadov noted that this sector is revived thanks to government support.

He said that last year the production of silkworm cocoons reached 37 tons, having increased 2.2 times over a year. The farmers' income from the production of silkworm cocoons exceeded 330,000 manats.

He added that over the past five years, 614 million manats were invested in the district, and production increased by 2.7 times, including agricultural products - by 1.9 times.

In 2018, 55,000 people were attracted to agricultural work in the district, which makes up 51 percent of the district's employed population, Mammadov added. Moreover, 22,000 villagers were attracted to seasonal work in cotton production.

Mammadov also noted that the volume of cotton production in recent years has increased tenfold and reached 23,300 tons, while the productivity per hectare reached 23.3 centners.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Hasanli_Azad
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Leman Zeynalova, Jeyhun Alakbarov  Trend:

The trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan almost doubled in 2018 compared to 2017, ambassador of Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan Beibit Issabayev told reporters in Baku on Jan. 30.

Issabayev made the remarks during a visit of representatives of diplomatic corps, operating in the country, to Azerbaijans Sumgait city, Trend reports.

"According to the preliminary statistics, the trade turnover between our fraternal countries - Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, has almost doubled, he said. As you know, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev visited Baku two years ago, in April 2017.

During the meeting between President Nazarbayev and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the task was set for our governments to double the trade turnover in the next two years, that is, until 2020, and then, as far as possible, to triple it, he said.

We already fulfilled 90 percent of the instructions of our respected presidents in 2018, he said. Next year, the trade turnover will be 2.5 times more than in 2017.

The diplomat stressed that mutually beneficial trade and economic relations between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan intensify in almost all areas, including the chemical industry, the oil and gas sector and agriculture.

"We have increased export of grain to Azerbaijan and restored export of wheat to the country, he said. I think our people have great prospects, great domestic development and reserves for the planned, balanced, mutually beneficial growth of bilateral trade and economic relations."

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry organized a visit of representatives of embassies and international organizations accredited in the country to Sumgait city on Jan. 30.

The visit was organized for over 60 representatives of diplomatic corps operating in the country to familiarize with the development of Sumgait city.

Foreign diplomats visited SOCAR Carbamide and SOCAR Polymer plants in the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, the Sumgait State Musical Drama Theater, the Chemist Palace of Culture and the Heydar Aliyev Center, the chess school and the art school for children, Sumgait Boulevard and the Flag Museum.

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Tehran, Iran, Jan. 30

Trend:

Irans minister of information and communications technology says that the Iranian Space Research Center has located a poppy farm in a city in the country.

The Iranian Space Research Center found a 70-hectare poppy farm in one of the cities while monitoring the countrys areas under cultivation, Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi has said in a tweet.

I asked to check all the cities. Technology is still in the service of transparency, although some might not like it, the minister said.

Poppies are often grown for their colorful flowers, but, one species of poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the source of the narcotic drug opium.

Iran sits on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. The Islamic Republic shares about 900 kilometers of border with Afghanistan, over which 74 percent of opium is smuggled.

The fight against drug trafficking annually costs Iran about $1 billion, according to official estimates.

According to statistics, there are about two million drug users in Iran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Rashid Shirinov  Trend:

St. Petersburg Tractor Plant plans to launch production of Kirovets energy-saving tractors at the facilities of JSC AgromashHolding KZ in the Kazakh city of Kostanay, Trend reports referring to the Kazakh media.

During a meeting in Astana, First Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin and Director of Petersburg Tractor Plant JSC Sergey Serebryakov discussed issues of cooperation.

Serebryakov expressed interest in cooperation on organizing not only tractor production, but also the production of cardan shafts and wheel disks at the facilities of AgromashHolding KZ.

Earlier, the director of St. Petersburg Tractor Plant familiarized himself with the potential of production sites of AgromashHolding KZ, which is the leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery in Kazakhstan, as well as of the national automaker SaryarkaAvtoProm and the Industrial zone in Kostanay.

It is worth noting that the products of St. Petersburg Tractor Plant are popular in Kazakhstan. In 2014-2017, about 500 Kirovets tractors were sold in the country; however the annual demand is about 1,600 tractors, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid
Tehran, Iran, Jan. 30

Trend:

Food industry currently shares 48 percent of Iran's export goods to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UAE, and it is expected the volume will increase to 60 percent.

Referring to country's economic situation and the export market, the Chairman of food and agriculture commission in Tehran Chamber of Commerce Kaveh Zargaran said that countries previously importing Iranian products during the time of their domestic conflicts, are currently launching their own productions, so they won't be limited to Iran's exports only, Trend reports via ILNA.

"Although Iran should be cautious about the quality and price of its products and avoid the effects of production costs on the quality of products," he added.

He noted that the price and quality are competitive factors in the trade and this issue not only matter of foreign market but the domestic market as well".

"Currently Iran's food industry shares 48 percent of the country's exports goods to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UAE, and it has the capacity for expansion that can be supported by eliminating some restrictive rules and increase the volume to 60 percent,'' said Zargaran.
Miles to go

Transmitting the message that Nepal is safe and secure for foreign investment is one thing. Ensuring that, another
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

Two officers of the Azerbaijani Army arrived in Juba, South Sudan and started to serve as observers to participate in a peacekeeping mission being conducted under the UN mandate, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

On Nov. 30, 2018, the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan made a decision on the deployment of four servicemen of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in the Republic of South Sudan to participate in the mission held under the command of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

The statement made by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during a meeting with the families of martyrs is Azerbaijans principled position on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva told Trend on Jan. 30.

"This position is based on the well-known resolutions of the UN Security Council, the norms and principles of international law, she said. I do not see the need to further comment on this issue."

Abdullayeva was commenting on Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyans statement. While responding to a question at a recent press conference regarding the Azerbaijani presidents statement that the Azerbaijanis will never reconcile and the Azerbaijani army has demonstrated its power on the battlefield, Mnatsakanyan said that this is "regrettable."

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Details added (first version posted on 17:56)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has expressed grief over the death of head of the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund, United Nations` leading expert on global energy, doctor of political science, professor Togrul Bagirov, and offered his deep condolences to his family.

May Allah rest his soul in peace!
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

Such a concept as agenda of bilateral Russia-Azerbaijan relations has unclear limits, which is a positive factor indicating that it is constantly expanding, well-known Azerbaijani political analyst Tofiq Abbasov said on Jan. 30.

Abbasov made the remarks in Baku during the Moscow-Baku video-conference entitled "Russia-Azerbaijan: agenda for 2019," organized at the press-center of Trend news agency.

This is a very encouraging trend that stimulates the mood of the Azerbaijani and Russian business and political elites, he said.

"I think that political elites have done more in the development of bilateral relations, gradually, I would say step by step striving for establishing a trusting political dialogue between the two countries, Abbasov said. That is why it is obvious that the political dialogue between Russia and Azerbaijan is intensifying. In fact, this is the relay race, which is passed on to our business elites, who mostly operate by inertia."

He stressed that presently, a lot of social and economic agreements which are advantageous for business people were signed, however, despite this fact, some of them act cautiously.

"Meanwhile, today there is no need for the parties to get accustomed to each other as they got accustomed to each other long ago, he added. Therefore, if political elites break through big corridors and open big highways, businessmen must take advantage of that."

Today there is every chance to say that a big geo-economic zone may be created in the Caspian region, he said.

In this regard, Abbasov touched upon the agreement on the legal status of the Caspian Sea signed by the Caspian countries.

"Of course, the Caspian five countries in Astana reached a breakthrough in the issue of determining the legal status of the Caspian Sea, Abbasov said. However, even before this event, Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan reached a trilateral agreement that the parties have no complaints to each other. In fact, we have come to the consensus even before the signing of the historical document, which also testifies to the full mutual understanding in bilateral and trilateral formats. This is an encouraging fact."

Bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Russia are actively developing as there are great opportunities, in particular, in the fields of economy, transport, communication, humanitarian sphere, tourism sector, Abbasov added. The strategic cooperation is being strengthened.

"Our countries play a key role in many areas, he said. I think that today the biggest need is in the dynamics. We must not forget that the sanction ghost wanders around the world and perhaps it will affect the interests of many countries.

Therefore, we must develop bilateral scientific and technical capabilities and the technological potential of our enterprises, he said. This means that if new jobs are created, it is necessary to think about making bilateral efforts, the formation of a new sphere in the field of high technologies. For this purpose, our countries have all the prerequisites to think about import substitution, as well as creation of a modern high-tech market.

2019 opens up great opportunities to stimulate the areas having a potential which is in demand, Abbasov said.

The deviation from the commodity economy is important, he said. For this purpose, the parties must think about how to give incentives to the scientific departments and it is important to be in the spirit of innovation and active search to achieve that.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has expressed grief over the death of head of the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund, United Nations` leading expert on global energy, doctor of political science, professor Togrul Bagirov, and offered his deep condolences to his family.

May Allah rest his soul in peace!
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

Azerbaijan-Slavic Youth Association has sent a letter of protest to the European Parliament over its biased approach, Trend reports Jan. 30.

Armenias political party leader and political prisoner Mher Yeghiazaryan died in prison on January 26, after a 52-day hunger strike in Armenia, reads the letter. However, neither the PACE, the European Parliament, nor the OSCE, the US Senate, nor any other international organization have ever reacted to his death as a result of his hunger strike. Even this is not the case with the worlds popular media. The fact is that Yeghiazaryans arrest was purely political, and he died as a political prisoner in hunger strike.

This is one of the indications that political landscape in Armenia is in chaos, the letter says. International organizations are ignoring it. Why the Council of Europe, the US Senate, and other organizations, who make the arrests of Mehman Huseynov arrested for non-political reasons, or rather the issue of domestic affairs, declare him a political prisoner, and why they are silent about the political prisoner who died in Armenia? In general, international organizations are silent instead of adopting a relevant resolution condemning this terrible event in Armenia.

Family members of the party leader who died in prison have repeatedly appealed to international organizations and held a press conference on this issue, reads the letter. Nevertheless, there was no reaction to the incident. It was also confirmed that Yeghiazaryan was not a criminal and was arrested for political reasons. They repeatedly asked Pashinyan to intervene in this criminal case, but he didnt intervene in any form. All these processes have proven how politically motivated the case is, and if so, the silence of international organizations is simply a pity.

As a member of a civil society, we feel regrettable that a reputable organization such as yours applies dual standards, before its too late, we demand a legal and political assessment of the event for justice, the letter says. Fairness is the fundamental principle of civil society.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan organized a visit to the country's Sumgayit city with the participation of representatives of embassies and international organizations accredited in the country, Trend reports on Jan. 29.

The trip, organized for direct familiarization with Sumgayit's development, was attended by over 60 representatives of diplomatic corps operating in the country.

Foreign diplomats got familiarized with the Socar Carbamide and Socar Polymer plants in Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park, and also visited the Sumgayit Drama Theater, the Chemist's Palace of Culture and the Heydar Aliyev Center, the chess school and the art school for children, Sumgayit Boulevard and the Flag Museum.
Details added (first version posted on 18:59)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 29

Trend:

Armenias demand on providing the Armenian community with privileged rights after it ethnically cleansed the Azerbaijanis contradicts all documents, Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev said in Baku on Jan. 29.

Hajiyev made the remarks at a meeting of the board of the Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region with the representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Hajiyev reminded the grave consequences to which the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has led, reminded the participants of the event the position of the international community in connection with the settlement of the conflict, the requirements of four UN resolutions.

He also spoke about the consistent policy pursued by the government of Azerbaijan to improve the living conditions of all internally displaced persons and refugees, as well as the care of President Ilham Aliyev to the families of martyrs.

Hajiyev said that the constructive work carried out in Jojug Marjanli, ensuring a safe return of internally displaced persons once again demonstrates the determination of Azerbaijan to restore all the territories that will be freed from occupation, to establish peace and development.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev spoke about the grave consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and stressed that hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who lived in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding areas were forcibly expelled from their homes.

Mammad-Guliyev stressed the importance of liberation of Azerbaijani territories within the settlement of the conflict and the return of internally displaced people to their lands.

He brought to the attention of the event participants the importance of restoring contacts and dialogue between the two communities of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Mammad-Guliyev also stressed the great importance of restoring the violated fundamental human rights of internally displaced people, including 80,000 people of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The head of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, Tural Ganjaliyev, noted that according to the OSCE resolution in Helsinki of 1992, the Azerbaijani community is an interested party in resolving the conflict. Ganjaliyev informed the event participants that the Azerbaijani community is ready to establish contacts and constructive dialogue with the Armenian community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Then the members of the board of the Azerbaijani community from Khojaly, Durdana Agayeva and Samir Huseynov, made a speech. They noted that before the occupation of the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly, they lived together with the Armenians in an atmosphere of prosperity and stressed that the peaceful Armenian population had become hostage to the aggressive policy of Armenia.

During the event, other members of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan addressed their questions to representatives of the diplomatic corps in Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 24 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 30, Trend reports.

The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict may grow and even "draw in" Russia in one way or another, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats wrote in a worldwide threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region remains a potential source for a large-scale military conflict that might draw in Russia", he said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Medics say frail KC needs intensive care

Doctors attending to Dr Govinda KC, who has been staging his 16th hunger strike for the past 21 days, have advised that he be transferred to the intensive care unit, as his health condition is deteriorating.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

Trend:

Bakcell, the First Mobile Operator and the Fastest Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan received National CSR 2018 award.

Bakcell has received the Project of the year award in the Support for young entrepreneurs category. The jury of this award, held for the first time in the country, was composed of representatives of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the State Committee on Family, Women and Childrens Problems of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, ASAN service and National Parliament (Milli Majlis) members, as well as representatives of various NGOs and private organizations.

The awards ceremony was organized by the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Youth Foundation and Proactiv Company at the Baku Congress Center. During the event, the guests and participants got acquainted with the national competition held for selecting the most successful CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects of 2018, as well as the best CSR projects and development of this area in Azerbaijan.

The Start and improve your own business project which was selected as the Project of the year in the Support for young entrepreneurs category, is implemented to help realizing business ideas of young persons living under the patronage of the SOS Childrens Villages Azerbaijan Association, being one of the long-term partners of Bakcell, or graduated from other boarding schools. Young persons, who participated in the project, have established their own businesses with financial support of Bakcell. In the year 2019, we will continue this project to support even more young entrepreneurs says Suheyla Jafarova, Head of Public Relations and Corporate Communications department of Bakcell.

This year we celebrate 10 years anniversary of our Bakcell Stars CSR program, which is considered to be one of the largest-scale corporate social responsibility programs in the country. The program serves the purpose of supporting and providing equal rights and opportunities to children with special needs and support their complete integration to the society, as well as supporting education and skill improvement of children and teenagers deprived from parental care and children from economically disadvantaged families helping them prepare for building their own business in the future and improving their well-being. The activity of Bakcell in this area is constant and we are very pleased to see that our support to children and youth is very efficient added Suheyla Jafarova.

Note that starting from the year 2009, Bakcell is providing its support to children and teenagers deprived from parental care and children from economically disadvantaged families, within the frames of cooperation with the SOS Childrens Villages Azerbaijan Association. Also, by means of the Communication through art project, implemented as of the year 2010 together with United Aid for Azerbaijan (UAFA) Association, along with many other social projects, Bakcell is doing its best to ensure the provision of equal rights and opportunities to children with a need for special care, efficient organization of their time and their complete integration to the society.

Bakcell, the First Mobile Operator and Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan, offers a wide range of products and Services to users of modern mobile communications Services. The company provides its customers with the best-in-class 4G mobile internet.

The 4G services of Bakcell are already available in Baku and Absheron peninsula, as well as central parts of more than 40 regions of Azerbaijan.

With more than 7000 base stations, Bakcell network covers 99% of the population and 93% of the land area of the country (except for the occupied territories). In 2017, Bakcell network has been recognized as the Best in Test in Azerbaijan by P3 Communications, being one of the most trusted independent authorities in mobile benchmarking. Bakcell has also been recognized as the Fastest Mobile Network in Azerbaijan. This award, presented by world-famous Ookla company, recognized Bakcells commitment to delivering fastest speeds to customers all across Azerbaijan.

For more information about Bakcell products and services, please visit www.bakcell.com or call 555. For press releases please see www.bakcell.com/az/news (or www.bakcell.com/en/news for press releases in English).

If you are not a Bakcell subscriber, but wish to find out about Bakcell and its products and services, please call 012 498 89 89.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijan will start to export furniture under the Made in Azerbaijan brand to various European countries in 2020, director of the furniture factory Saloglu in Agstafa region Tajaddin Mustafayev said, Trend reports on Jan. 30.

Mustafayev made the remarks in Baku at the conference dedicated to the results of the implementation of the "State Program on Socio-Economic Development of the Regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018" held with the participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

He stressed that 2,500 jobs are planned to be created after expanding the production capacity of the factory, in which 400 people work.

"The construction of a new furniture factory with a total area of 17.5 square meters has been already launched, he said. The total cost of the project is 25 million manats."

A preferential loan worth 10 million manats was allocated through the state support for the implementation of the project, he said.

Mustafayev also stressed that a contract was signed with the German company HOMAG Group for the purchase of the most advanced technological equipment and it will be supplied to Azerbaijan soon.

He said that a new furniture factory will be constructed before the end of this year and the factory will begin to export furniture in the first quarter of 2020.

"This will create conditions for providing people living in the region with jobs to increase the export potential of our region," he added.

(1.7 AZN = 1 USD on Jan. 30)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The production of auto parts for Khazar cars will be launched in Azerbaijan by the end of 2019, Director of the Khazar Car Plant Emin Akhundov said.

Akhundov made the remarks in Baku at the conference dedicated to the results of the implementation of the State Program on the Socio-Economic Development of the Regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2014-2018, Trend reports.

The matter rests in the production of certain car parts in the country, he said.

Speaking about the results of 2018, Akhundov stressed that over 1,000 cars were produced during that period and 95 percent of cars were sold.

Thus 40 percent of cars were bought by the state structures, while 60 percent  by people, he said, adding that this testifies to the competitiveness of cars, he added.

The production of the first Peugeot cars will begin by the end of the year, Akhundov added. All necessary equipment has been already installed at the plant.

The Khazar car plant is located in southeast Azerbaijan in the Neftchala Industrial Site. All cars produced there comply with Euro 5 standards. Cars have been sold since summer 2018.

On Aug. 6, 2016, big Iranian automaker Iran Khodro and Azerbaijani company AzEuroCar, a subsidiary of AzerMash, signed an agreement to establish a joint automobile plant in Neftchala. The Azerbaijani side invested 75 percent in the plant, while the Iranian side invested 25 percent.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Hasanli_Azad
Islamic Republic security forces stormed the home of the secretary of the board of directors of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, Jafar Azimzadeh, on January 29 and arrested him. Hours later, the vice president of the union, Parvin Mohammadi, was also arrested.

Security forces confiscated the personal belongings of Azimzadeh and Ms. Mohammadi, including their laptops and cell phones, during two separate raids, according to reports.

The Free Union of Iranian Workers has condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of their members.

Ten days ago Esmail Bakhshi, representative of Shush sugar factory workers and Sepideh Qolian a civil rights activist were violently taken away form their homes.

Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi, an attorney representing Azimzadeh, reported his client's arrest on Facebook, noting, "I managed to meet Jafar Azimzadeh for a couple of minutes, hours after his arrest."

Describing his client as "proud" and firm, Foroughi wrote, "Azimzadeh has been sentenced to six years for 'actions against national security' and 'propaganda against the [Islamic Republic] establishment' by Branch 15 of Tehran Revolutionary Court."

According to Foroughi, Azimzadeh had earlier been sentenced to eleven years for the same charges by another branch of the Revolutionary Court in the city of Saveh, southwest of Tehran, but was later acquitted.

"Based on the illegality of issuing two different verdicts for the same charges, we are appealing against the latest ruling, Foroughi wrote.

Mohammadi, a former representative of workers of Iran Metal Industries, had published an open letter December 20 lambasting the Islamic Republic's establishment for conducting nightly raids on the houses of steel workers in city of Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and arresting them.

The steel factory in Ahvaz has witnessed labor strikes and protests for the past two months, with workers demanding unpaid wages. Labor unrest in Iran has intermittently flared up since December. Another major industrial complex, the sugar mill in Shush, has also seen strikes and protest.

"Gentlemen, rest assured that storming the houses of workers and arresting them will never end their protest," Ms. Mohammadi had reiterated.
President Hassan Rouhani delivered a speech on Wednesday saying that Iran is facing its toughest economic situation in 40 years, but he added that U.S. sanctions are to blame; not the Islamic Republic or the current government.

As the Islamic Republic approaches the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, it is pressed to show what it has accomplished in this period.

Although Rouhani urged the people not to blame the government for the deep economic crisis, Irans economy suffers from a range of structural problems that are self-inflicted and not related to sanctions.

By nationalizing most industries after the revolution and imposing multiple restrictions on businesses, imports and investments, the country has had an anemic average growth rate of barely three percent in the past forty years.

Irans anti-Western policies, its role in hostage-takings in the 1980s and later arbitrary arrests of foreign and dual nationals, as well as a policy of exporting its Shiite influence in the region, have all contributed to its economic vows.

Rouhani was speaking at a ceremony at the shrine of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, as part of a series of events leading up to the 40th anniversary of the February 11th revolution.

Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also visited the shrine on Wednesday but Iranian media have not reported on any remarks by him.

Few Iranian news sites reproduced Rouhani's remarks. The official IRNA did publish a long report, without the reference to "toughest economic situation in 40 years", which only Reuters reported.

This is the first time an Iranian official admits during Islamic revolution's anniversary that the state of economy in Iran has deteriorated. The occasion has always been used to boast about the countrys progress as a result of the 1979 revolution.

Until recently Rouhani has been insisting that there was no economic crisis in the country.

Rouhanis remarks about the impact of US sanctions is perhaps aimed at Iranian hardliners who have been preventing the ratification of bills that would allow Europe to help Iran circumvent the sanctions.

Last week, Amir Haji Zadeh commander of IRGCs aerospace force harshly criticized Rouhani and his managers for blaming the sanctions for Irans economic problems and expressed strong opposition to ratification of bills required by the international watchdog, Financial Action Task Force.

Tough U.S. sanctions reimposed by President Donald Trump in 2018 have compounded Irans economic crisis, which has led to intermittent protests, strikes and a steep devaluation of its currency in the last 13 months.

Criticizing the United States, Rouhani said that few countries have backed the U.S. in its tough policy toward Iran and added that the Iranian peoples will has not been shaken and theyll have the fortitude to endure the pain of sanctions.

But labor unrest and government arrests of activists indicates volatility in society. During protests in 2018, many shouted slogans against Khamenei and Irans policy of spending resources to support Syrias Bashar al-Assad, the Lebanese Hezbollah and other pro-Iran groups in the region.

Rouhani then went on paying homage to Khomeini and praising the establishment of the Islamic Republic, saying that justice and equality was its biggest accomplishment. But reports in 2018 indicated that more than 25 percent of the population suffers from poverty and class differences, partly built on monopoly of power and corruption, are as high as ever.
Three suspects implicated in a criminal case against Sarmayeh Bank, including a former government minister, have been put behind bars with bail set at ten trillion rials (roughly $240,000).

Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Parviz Kazemi, who was head of Sarmayeh Banks board of directors after leaving government, is among the three defendants facing charges of financial corruption at the bank. Ali Bakhshayesh and Mohammad Reza Tavassoli, the bank's former managing director and legal advisor respectively, face charges along with Kazemi.

At a January 29 court hearing, Kazemi admitted that 30 million euros (roughly $35 million) deposited in his wifes bank account was indirectly paid by a South Korean firm to Kazemi as a consultation fee.

Kazemi, 61, resigned from his post as minister in 2006 and began working in banking.

In addition to the three facing charges, the prosecutor claimed 32 other managers at the bank committed obvious regulatory violations.

Irans banking sector, largely owned by the government or various state institutions have been a heaven for fraud, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, especially in the last decade.

During previous hearings, the judge disclosed that an individual named Rahmatollah Assadi had deposited the 30 million euros in Kazemis wifes bank account on behalf of an undisclosed South Korean firm.

It was also revealed during trial that Kazemi gained a seat on the board of directors of a company called Steel Azin by granting a six trillion rial (roughly $143 million) loan to an investor named Hossein Hedayati. The investor only returned $2.9 million of the loan, having squandered the rest.

The main shareholder of Sarmayeh Bank is Iran's Teachers Reserve Fund.

The fund has 800,000 members, all employed by the Education Ministry, who receive annual interest based on their monthly deposits.

The prosecutor says 150 trillion rials (roughly $3.6 billion) of the fund's assets went missing as a result of fraud committed by the three defendants.

Had Razavi, the son-in-law of the current Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, Mohammad Shariatmadari, is also implicated in the case, as is Mohammad Emami, producer of the popular TV program Shahrzad.

Razavi, is accused of lying about the value of his assets in order to get approval for massive loans. Emami is accused of taking more than $230 million loans from the bank fraudulently.

Irans Vice President, Eshaq Jahangiri, recently admitted on state-run media that financial corruption in Iran reaches to the countrys top officials.  The fight against corruption needs impartiality, free from factional interests, Jahangiri told IRNA August 18.

Jahangiri mentioned Ahmadinejads Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as well as his Deputy for Executive Affairs Hamid Baqaei, both of whom are serving prison terms for corruption, as examples of graft reaching the highest levels of government.

However, some of the closest allies of current President Hassan Rouhani and his vice president have also been questioned about possible corruption, including Rouhanis brother, Hossein Fereydoun, and Jahangiris brother Mehdi.
On Thursday, January 31, at 10.30, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host press conference titled "Mothers go to Jail for their Children's Lives." Participants include mothers of children with primary immunodeficiency Olena Stepanenko, Olena Pokhtel, Natalia Ustrashkina and Ina Ivanenko, the executive director of the Patients of Ukraine Foundation (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation by phone: (095) 934 6241, olga.p@patients.org.ua.
No civilian killed in Donbas in four weeks of January  Sajdik

There have been no civilian deaths in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine since the beginning of this year, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's special representative in the Trilateral Contact Group, Martin Sajdik, said.

"According to preliminary data from the OSCE SMM [Special Monitoring Mission], between the start of the year and the day before yesterday [January 28] not a single civilian death was registered," Sajdik told reporters in Minsk where the TCG met on Wednesday.

"This is clear evidence that our work here in Minsk is bringing fruit," he said.

Last year saw the lowest number of civilian deaths since the conflict began, he said.

The main topic of the TCG security subgroup was a general security situation in the conflict zone and ceasefire compliance, he said.

The economic subgroup discussed water supply issues, including preparation for an audit of the Voda Donbassa water company, he said. "The audit's possible duration is one year," Sajdik said.

The humanitarian subgroup discussed prisoner swap issues, he said.

The next TCG meeting is due on February 13, Sajdik said.
Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov has announced the arrival of a third helicopter for the ministry's aviation security system, it will be used by Ukraine's State Emergency Service.

"Helicopter 53 is the third H-225 Super Puma copter for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine from France for the aviation security system. In extremely difficult weather conditions  rain, fog, low clouds, limited visibility  our pilot successfully landed it in Nizhyn," Avakov wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

As reported, Avakov told Interfax-Ukraine in an interview late in December 2018 that Ukraine would receive 55 Airbus Helicopters within three years. Of them, 21 heavy H 225 Super Puma helicopters will be used by the State Emergency Service and the National Guard.

The first two helicopters have already arrived, one of them has been transferred to the National Guard, the other one to the State Emergency Service.
The head of the Delegation of the European Union to Russia, Markus Ederer, undertook an official demarche on behalf of the 28 EU countries on Wednesday with respect to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, an EU official told Interfax in Brussels.

The EU official said that the ambassador has confirmed the EU's well-known stance regarding the continued illegal detention of Ukrainian naval sailors in Russia, as this was stated in EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini's EU statement and in several public statements, including those on January 17.

He said that Ukrainian servicemen have been held under arrest since November 25, 2018, when Russia has seized three Ukrainian ships and their crewmembers and opened fire on them, injuring several Ukrainian servicemen in the area of the Kerch Strait.

The interlocutor of the news agency said that the EU was expecting Russia to provide the unhampered and free passage through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov and backwards in line with international law. Besides, he said that this use of force by Russia had been unacceptable. He added that the EU was also expecting that Russia would immediately and unconditionally release 24 Ukrainian naval sailors, who have been seized, and would observe their rights for legal support and the unhampered access to them for consular authorities and would provide injured crewmembers with the proper medical aid.

On January 30, 2019, Grushko received Ederer at the latter's request, the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU said earlier on the same day.

"Certain aspects of Russia-EU relations and the Ukraine situation in the context of the Ukrainian military ships' violation of the Russian border in the Kerch Strait area on November 25, 2018 were discussed at the meeting," a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website said.

"The Russian official called the attention of his interlocutor to the need for the EU to take a principled approach to flagrant violations of human rights, discrimination against ethnic and language minorities, and manifestations of neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in Ukraine," the ministry said.

On November 25, 2018, Russian border guards used weapons to stop three Ukrainian naval vessels, the Yany Kapu tug and the Berdyansk and the Nikopol armored gunboats, which were traveling from Odesa to Mariupol in the Kerch Strait. The vessels were escorted to Kerch.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the ships entered Russia's territorial waters on orders from Kyiv and described the incident as an act of provocation coordinated by two Ukrainian Security Service officers. Russia also said that Kyiv did not duly notify it that naval vessels were planning to pass through the Kerch Strait.

Kyiv called the border guards' actions unlawful and accused Moscow of violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a treaty between Ukraine and Russia on cooperation in using the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

Courts in Simferopol and Kerch remanded the 22 sailors and two Ukrainian Security Service officials in custody until January 25, 2019.

The Ukrainians are charged with "conspiracy by a group of persons or an organized group to illegally cross the border using violence or the threat to use violence." If found guilty, they could face up to six years in prison.

In late November, the Ukrainians were transferred to Moscow. The court extended all the Ukrainians' arrests until April 24.

Kyiv calls the detained sailors prisoners of war.
Nobody will lose by addressing Dr KCs demands: Former Chief Justice Karki

Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki has said that the government should immediately fulfil the demands put forth by Dr Govinda KC, who has been staging indefinite hunger strike for the past 22 days.
The German side has pledged its readiness to continue supporting Ukraine in de-escalation and deterrence of Russian armed aggression, including by ensuring the military presence of the German navy's ships in the Black Sea.

These issues were on the agenda of meetings between Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defense for European Integration, Lieutenant-General Anatoly Petrenko with Director for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany Michael Siebert and German Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Silberhorn in Germany, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's press service said.

"The German side has assured its readiness to continue supporting Ukraine in de-escalating and deterring Russian armed aggression, including by ensuring the military presence of the Bundeswehr naval ships in the Black Sea, seeking the release of Ukrainian sailors and comprehensive support for reforms in the security and defense sector of Ukraine," it said.
The OSCE's special representative to the Trilateral Contact Group on settling the situation in the east of Ukaine, Martin Sajdik, has said there is no alternative to the Minsk accords.

"Based on my three-year work experience, I want to stress once again my total commitment to the Minsk Agreements and my personal conviction about their necessity and having no alternative for a peaceful resolution on the conflict in the east of Ukraine. This is our common task," Sajdik told journalists in Minsk on Wednesday.

All Minsk negotiators must do whatever is necessary for the agreements' full implementation, he said.

He declined to comment on his conflict resolution plan. "I have nothing to repeat here on the matter," Sajdik said.

Asked to comment on reactions to his plan, he said: "I don't comment on comments."

Sajdik said in an interview published in the Monday issue of the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung that he had proposed a new peace plan for Donbas to replace the Minsk accords.

The diplomat said the new plan was presented at the last meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Milan in December, which was attended by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France.

The plan envisages that the UN and the OSCE act not in parallel, but together under a common leadership headed by a special representative; this would concern both the UN's military and police components and the OSCE Monitoring Mission, which is already operating.

The European Union would be called upon to set up a reconstruction agency to act in all districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, similar to the one the EU created in the Balkans.

The plan also envisages the establishment of a transitional UN administration in Donbas, which would monitor the implementation of the peace plan and reintegration.

Sajdik also said the Minsk accords stipulate that Donbas representatives be involved in the process and be heard, "and it should be so, even after the adoption of a new, comprehensive agreement."
A local resident fatally wounded a married couple with a firearm in Mykolaiv's Ingulsky District near the building of the Lenin District Court. He was later detained by the police, National Police Spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo said.

Trakalo said the shooting occurred around 15:00.

A woman died at the scene of the crime, and a man was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The attacker was detained by a member of the Ingulsky District's police department" Trakalo said.

Police said a pretrial investigation has been opened under Article 115 of Part 2 of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

Currently, law enforcement officers conduct investigative actions, at the scene there is the entire leadership of the Mykolaiv Central Board of Police headed by the head of the Main Department of Emergency Situations of the Mykolaiv region, Oleksandr Anokhin.

Preliminary qualification is Article 115 part 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the spokesman for the National Police of Ukraine informed (intentional killing of two or more persons, which is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 10 to 15 years or life imprisonment with confiscation of property if the intentional unlawful death of another person was committed out of mercenary motives).
Sajdik working on own initiative, publishing own "peace plan for Ukraine", instead of doing his job as OSCE, TCG rep  Iryna Gerashchenko

Verkhovna Rada First Deputy Chairperson, Ukraine's envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko has said the "peace plan for Ukraine" of Martin Sajdik, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Representative in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for Donbas, is his own initiative and recommended he apply himself to the issue of releasing Ukrainian hostages held by Russia.

"We, the participants of the Minsk groups, read with amazement that OSCE Special Representative Martin Saidik, instead of focusing on the direct duties of the coordinator and making maximum efforts for the constructive work of the Minsk groups, has put out a 'peace plan for Ukraine,' for some reason, in an Austrian newspaper. He should stop fearing the Russians and promote real progress in security matters. ... This is his personal initiative. He has no mandate from the OSCE or TCG to engage in these activities," she said on Facebook on Wednesday.

Gerashchenko said Sajdik and the other OSCE coordinators should focus efforts on releasing Ukrainian hostages.

"Sajdik has not been able to fulfill the demand of the Ukrainian side for a long time to hold a joint meeting of the TCG and the humanitarian subgroup on the issue of the release of hostages," she said, adding that on the eve of today's TCG meeting she had sent another letter to Sajdik asking whether there has been a response from Russian TCG representatives to Ukrainian proposals to arrange a prisoner swap.

Gerashchenko said the existing Minsk agreements are grossly violated by the OSCE member state  Russia.

"That is why - and only for this reason - the war continues in Donbas," she said.

Regarding Sajdik's so-called plan, Gerashchenko said: "We have a peace plan. President Petro Poroshenko promulgated it, and not in an Austrian newspaper, but from a podium at the United Nations. We have long advocated the introduction of a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas. The initiative is blocked by one country  Russia."
Health Ministry not to announce measles epidemic in Ukraine  Suprun

Acting Health Minister of Ukraine Ulana Suprun states that the Ministry of Health will not announce a measles epidemic.

"We will not announce an epidemic," Suprun told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday.

At the same time, she said, it is important to expand the accessibility of citizens to vaccines.

In addition, Suprun called for all to be vaccinated and once again emphasized the safety of vaccines.
France and Germany are currently studying a proposal to deploy a joint UN and OSCE mission in Donbas, French Foreign Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"We are currently studying this proposal on a joint basis with Germany and in conjunction with the Russian and Ukrainian parties within the Normandy format," a representative of the French Foreign Ministry said, responding to a question about how Paris evaluates plans for such a mission.

He also called on all parties to implement the Minsk agreements and peacefully resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

"A peaceful resolution to the Donbas conflict will depend above all on the parties' political will to fulfill their commitments. The full implementation of the Minsk Agreement remains the only framework for resolving the crisis," he said.

In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, Martin Sajdik, the special representative of the OSCE chairperson-in-office in Ukraine, mentioned a new plan for the peaceful resolution of the Donbas conflict. The plan involves establishing a joint UN-OSCE mission.

According to the diplomat, this plan was presented at the last meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council in Milan in December, attended by representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France. According to the plan, the UN and the OSCE should not act in parallel, but together under the general leadership led by the so-called special representative: this applies to both the military and police components of the UN and the OSCE observation mission, which is already operating in the field.

They said in Moscow that they were familiar with Sajdik's plan, however, they believe that such initiatives should be supported by the parties to the conflict.
Russian-led forces have mounted eight attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas in the past 24 hours with no casualties reported, the press centre of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"The ceasefire was breached eight times, including thrice by use of weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements. ... None of the Joint Forces' servicemen was hurt," the press center wrote on Facebook on Wednesday morning.

The press center reported attacks on Ukrainian positions near Avdiyivka, Bohdanivka, Hnutove, Novomykhailivka, Krymske, Katerynivka, Luhanske, and Khutir Vilny.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, on January 29, four militants were killed, another six were injured. What is more, the Ukrainian troops destroyed a KAMAZ military truck with weapons and equipment belonging to the enemy. In addition, the Ukrainian military spotted and eliminated an enemy ambush during a reconnaissance operation near the town of Dokuchaievsk. They seized a 120mm 9K111 Fagot anti-tank missile system, an RPG-18 anti-tank rocket launcher, and a 12.7mm NSV (Utyos) heavy machine gun.

"Since Wednesday midnight, Russian-led forces haven't attacked Ukrainian positions yet," the report said.
Kyiv will continue retaking Ukraine's territory, using political and diplomatic means, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

"We will continue the policy of restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity, politically and diplomatically, ensuring unity of the pro-Ukrainian coalition in the world, in the EU, using the sanctions-based tool and the mechanism of a UN international mission throughout the occupied Donbas," Poroshenko said at the forum titled: "From Kruty to Brussels. We are going our own way" in Kyiv on Tuesday.

He noted that he is closely following various statements that suggest ways to resolve the conflict.

"I carefully monitor various proposals. Sometimes they go crazy as if we are playing toy soldiers here, not defending the country in a war with the second most powerful army in the world. They suggest writing down Putin's wishes in the notebook and then put this notebook to a referendum. Or they propose to stand before Putin on our knees, or in some other pose. I repeat again. The enemy came to us not for Crimea. The enemy came to us not for Donbas. The enemy came for the whole Ukraine, to return the fugitive to the prison of the peoples, as the Russian Empire was aptly called by French traveler de Custine two hundred years ago," he said.

"Peace is a complete restoration of territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, nothing else. Peace is Moscow's undeniable recognition of our right to walk our own path. We must do everything for Ukraine not to ask Moscow where to go ever again. This is an exclusive right of the Ukrainian people. And this path is called - away from Moscow," Poroshenko said.
Presidential candidate of Ukraine from the "Opposition Platform - For Life" Party, MP Yuriy Boiko considers direct negotiations with ORDLO to establish peace in Donbas as the main and primary task.

"Our most important task for the near future: first, we will do everything to stop the bloody confrontation in the east of Ukraine, we will immediately start direct negotiations for the sake of achieving peace in the state. This is the first thing we will do after our victory," Boyko said in Kyiv on Tuesday, speaking at the extraordinary congress of the party "The Opposition Platform - For Life; the 112. Ukraine TV channel quoted him as saying.
A delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople will pay a visit to Georgia to discuss the Ukrainian church's autocephaly on Wednesday.

Metropolitan Emmanuel of France is heading the delegation, Archpriest Andria Dzhagmaidze, the head of the press center for the Georgian Patriarchate, told reporters on Tuesday.

Members of the delegation will meet with Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia and discuss the Ukrainian church's autocephaly at the meeting, he said.

"Constantinople itself initiated the meeting," he said, adding that he does not think that this visit would drastically change the stance of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Last week, Archpriest Andria Dzhagmaidze said that the Georgian Patriarchate believes that pressure certain local politicians and non-governmental organizations exert on it regarding the recognition of the new Ukrainian church is inadmissible.
Dr KC doesnt need to continue his hunger strike: Government

The government has said that Dr Govinda KC doesnt need to continue his hunger strike as the National Medical Education Bill has addressed his demands.
U.S. National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats believes that there are currently no obvious frontrunners for the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine.

"The large field of presidential candidates, high levels of distrust in political elites, and lack of a clear frontrunner may provide Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's rivals, as well as lesser known candidates and political newcomers, an opportunity to appeal to the largely undecided Ukrainian electorate," Coats said in his "Worldwide Threat Assessment" statement at the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

At the same time, Coats said that Russia is taking steps to influence elections in Ukraine.

"Russia is taking steps to influence these elections, applying a range of tools to exert influence and exploit Kyiv's fragile economy, widespread corruption, cyber vulnerabilities, and public discontent in hopes of ousting Poroshenko and bringing to power a less anti-Russia parliament," Coats said.

Ukraine will hold a presidential election in March 2019 and legislative elections in the fall. Currently, the number of presidential candidates registered by the Central Election Commission of Ukraine has reached 23 people. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday about his intention to take part in the presidential elections in Ukraine.
Illegal armed formations attack Ukraine's Joint Forces in Donbas three times in past day, no casualties reported

Illegal armed formations attacked Ukraine's Joint Forces in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, three times from 00:00 to 18:00 Kyiv time on Wednesday, January 30.

"There have been no casualties amid shelling by the Russian occupation forces," the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an evening update on Facebook on January 30.

In particular, Ukrainian positions near the village of Kriakivka, Novoaidarsky district in Luhansk region, were attacked with the use of 82mm mortars, while the enemy opened fire from automatic grenade launchers and small arms to attack Ukrainian positions near the village of Khutir Vilny on the outskirts of the village of Zolote-4.

Ukrainian positions near the village of Pavlopil, Volnovakha district in Donetsk region came under fire from grenade launchers.

The armed forces of Ukraine fired back, keeping the situation under control, the update said.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine by its decision of January 25 rejected appeals against the decision of the Kyiv Court of Appeals dated September 25, 2018, by which the court recognized and allowed to execute the decision of the Hague arbitration of May 2 to recover compensation from Russia for the property of former owner of PrivatBank (Kyiv) Ihor Kolomoisky and the affiliated individuals in Crimea.

"The Supreme Court granted permission to execute the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the recovery from the Russian Federation of compensation for the property expropriated in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," reads a posting on court.gov.ua portal.

According to the materials of the case, the Hague arbitration court awarded the plaintiffs a total of about $130.5 million compensation for real estate, $9.2 million compensation for the legal process costs, as well as interest on the indicated amounts at the rate of 12-month LIBOR plus 1% of compound interest annually.

According to the decision of the Kyiv Court of Appeals dated September 25, 2018, writs on the recovery of the specified amounts and interest from the Russian Federation represented by the Ministry of Justice in favor of the plaintiffs must be issued.

At the same time, the Supreme Court partially granted appeals against another ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeals dated September 5, 2018 to secure a claim that seized shares of Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian banks with participation of the state: VTB, Prominvestbank and Sberbank (all based in Kyiv).

"Appeals against the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeals dated September 5, 2018 (on securing the claim) were partially satisfied, and the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeals dated September 5, 2018 was changed. A petition seeking to secure the claim is upheld partially," the court said in a posting on the website court.gov.ua, without specifying other details.

According to the posting, the full text of the Supreme Court ruling will be drafted on February 1, 2019, while on January 25 the preamble and resume of the ruling were announced.

As reported, the lawsuit was initiated by the claimants against Russia on June 19, 2015 under the Ukraine-Russia bilateral investment treaty signed on November 27, 21998 and under the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) regulations.

The Claimants contended that, as of August 2014, the Russian Federation breached its obligations under the Ukraine-Russia BIT by interfering with and ultimately expropriating their investments in real estate located in Crimea. Aerobud, Crimea Development, NIVa-tour, UBK-Invest, Edelveis-2000, Planeta, Privatoffice, Privatland, Dan-Panorama, Energetik recreation center, Financial Capital asset management company and Financial Vector asset management company are among claimants.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on May 2, 2018 said that the Tribunal issued its unanimous Award on the Merits, addressing issues pertaining to liability and damages. Other details of the award were not disclosed. The article of the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) Arbitration Rules 1976 which the tribunal referred to says that the award shall be made in writing and shall be final and binding on the parties. The parties undertake to carry out the award without delay.

In July 2018, all 18 legal entities and Dubilet appealed to the Kyiv Court of Appeals seeking to declare valid the award of Permanent Court of Arbitration and collect sums from the debtor  Russia as compensation for real estate. The claimant said that there is property of the debtor on the territory of Ukraine, according to a posting on court.gov.ua.

New law in the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine was applied to confirm pro-arbitration and in pursuance to Part 3 of Article 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure in August 2018 the claimants filed a petition to secure the claim to the Kyiv Court of Appeals. They claimants sought to seize the shares of Prominvestbank, Sberbank and VTB Bank and ban any actions aimed at selling property.

By the ruling dated September 5, 2018, the Kyiv Court of Appeals, acting as the court of lower instance, granted the application for securing the claim, and by the ruling dated September 25 of the same year - the application for recognition and the granting of permission to enforce the award of the Hague arbitration.

The Supreme Court composed of the panel of judges of the First Court Chamber of the Civil Court of Cassation, acting as an appellate court, heard the appeals against these rulings during an open-door hearing, according to a posting on court.gov.ua.
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While Gov. Steve Sisolak has promised no new taxes in his proposed budget for the next two years, he also plans to light the fuse on a huge tax bomb in the future.

In his State of the State speech in Carson City before lawmakers he casually tossed out that state public employees should be empowered to bargain collectively in the years ahead. Since 1969 local government workers in Nevada have been allowed to form unions and collectively bargain for pay and benefits, but not so state government employees.

Sisolak doubled down during an interview at the Smith Center in Las Vegas with the editor of the news and commentary website The Nevada Independent, saying state public workers generally are paid less than local government workers and discussion of collective bargaining rights for state workers is long overdue.

Sisolak said, Our state employees should be treated in a fair and respectful manner. The fact that they havent had a raise in 10 years and the fact they dont have the same working conditions that other jurisdictions had. Im coming from a county that employees did have collective bargaining  they make a lot more money.  The pay is probably 30 to 40 percent less than any other governmental entity that exists. And to attract good people at those wages is simply not going to happen.
Crime and candidacy

Having lawbreakers as lawmakers would be the biggest irony
Agents discovered the group after they crawled over and under the crude vehicle barrier separating the United States from Mexico, the Border Patrol said in a press release.

Just a week earlier, a group of 84 migrants arrived nearby in a tour bus, and then crawled under the fence into the United States, where they were taken into custody by Border Patrol agents.

On Dec. 19-20, in nearly the same place, the Border Patrol apprehended 306 Central American migrants crossing illegally into the U.S.

Clearly, the fencing in that part of the Tucson Sector is not working. The border is 1,954 miles long. Everyone agrees that big parts of it do not require any fencing because the terrain is so rough that it makes crossing very difficult. On the other hand, a significant part of the border does need barriers. Right now, there are about 705 miles of fencing  about 405 miles of pedestrian fencing and about 300 of vehicle fencing, which blocks vehicles but allows people on foot to cross easily.
RENO  A Winnemucca tax preparer was sentenced Tuesday to five years in federal prison for his role in a tax return conspiracy, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas A. Trutanich for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Tara Sullivan for the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

Thomas Michael Bidegary, 67, a former IRS employee who co-owned Winnemucca Tax and Bookkeeping Service, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit tax fraud and theft of government money.

As tax season approaches, todays sentence serves as a reminder that preparing or filing false tax returns is a crime, said Trutanich. Our office will continue to work closely with the IRS to pursue justice when individuals attempt to evade tax obligations.

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Sullivan said Bidegary used his knowledge as a former IRS employee to steal from his clients and the government.
PROVO, Utah (AP)  A 29-year-old Provo man who strangled his father and then stuffed the body in a home freezer has been sentenced to at least six years and up to life in prison.

Omar Carmona was sentenced Tuesday after previously pleading guilty but mentally ill to manslaughter and aggravated robbery.

Authorities said Carmona killed 57-year-old Marco Carmona during a 2016 argument in the trailer of the son, who was originally charged with murder and desecration of a human body.

According to police, the son put the body in the freezer and plugged it in, then took his fathers wallet, money and cellphone and used the money to buy soda.

Prosecutor Randy Kennard said the outcome was a just resolution for a case that was a tragedy for the family.

Defense attorney Dustin Parmley said his client suffered from hallucinations and schizophrenia.

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Jan. 29

William D. Bone, 50, of Midvale, Utah was arrested at Montego Bay for trespassing. Bail: $355



Samuel Cadavieco, 28, of Twin Falls, Idaho was arrested on Idaho Street on a warrant for failure to appear after bail on a misdemeanor crime. Bail: $415



Eric Garcia, 18, of Lamoille was arrested at Fifth and Wilson streets for attempting to knowingly give false information regarding a crash, false statement to obstruct a public officer, and no proof of insurance. Bail: $4,380



Kathy L. Guisti, 64, of Elko was arrested at 886 Westwood Drive for driving under the influence, failure to maintain lane or improper lane change, and failure to drive on right half of road. Bail: $1,450



Jose L. Rios-Bernales, 53, of Elko was arrested on the old Highway 40 frontage road in front of L&H Industrial for duty upon damaging unattended vehicle or property damage, and driver or passenger failure to report unattended vehicle or property damage. Bail: $1,780


ELKO  An Elko man was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison on charges related to an arrest for child pornography.

Brandon K. Evans, 24, pleaded no contest to four counts of statutory sexual seduction in a plea agreement that dropped six counts of lewdness with a 14 or 15 year old; one count of visual presentation depicting a person 16 or younger in a sexual portrayal; luring a child less than 16 years old with intent to engage in sexual conduct with the child; and encouraging, enticing or permitting a minor 14 or older to be subject to a sexual portrayal.

Evans was sentenced Jan. 29 by Elko District Judge Al Kacin to 15 to 48 months on each of the four counts, to be served consecutively, an aggregate of five to 16 years, with credit for 232 days previously served.

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Evans made the plea Oct. 29 before Judge Nancy Porter, who recused herself from the sentencing phase.

Evans was arrested on June 12 along with Jake M. Vega after a four-month investigation by the Elko Police Department, the Elko County Sheriffs office, the Elko Combined Narcotics Unit.

The Nevada Department of Public Safety, Homeland Security Investigations and the Major Crimes Unit out of Carson City were also involved.
The theme this year is all around, and we really wanted to show the community something different, said Lauren Roovaart, museum director. My goal is to get a lot of people in here the night of the reception and get them to take interest in an artist who is graciously coming here for Cowboy Poetry to be with us and share his experience and his art.

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Schenck will be giving a public discussion on his process during the earlier part of the reception.

Schencks work is on the main floor in the Halleck Bar Gallery. Local artist Myles Crouch is showing upstairs in the Barrick Gallery.

Crouch takes a traditional Native American art form and gives it a new twist. He paints mainly on old ledgers. Crouch will also talk about his style and the message he is portraying.

I am very excited about Myles Crouch, Adeline said. I think he is a very up and coming contemporary ledger artist. His colors and the feel are a complement to Billys work. It speaks for itself. I feel like he drops in some neat history about Nevada. He uses some Nevada maps.

The original art form was composed on buffalo hides, but over time Native Americans began to tell their stories on other surfaces, including old ledgers.
By Anton Usov

Renewable power generation is set to play a greater role in Kazakhstan's energy mix as a result of financing led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the construction of a new 50MW solar power plant in the south of the country.

The proposed financing package arranged by the EBRD includes a local currency loan of up to US$ 40.4 million in Kazakhstan Tenge and a loan of up to US$ 10 million from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The new plant, which will be located in Chulakkurgan, south Kazakhstan, will generate over 102 GWh of electricity per year and will help reduce CO2 emission by 86,000 tons per year.

The EBRD has again teamed up for this investment with Risen Energy, China's leading solar modules producer and project developer. It is the EBRD's second project with Risen after the two organisations worked together to deliver a 40MW solar plant in the Karaganda region of the country.

The latest project is the eighth to be signed under the Bank's Kazakhstan Renewables Framework, a 200 million facility for financing renewable energy projects in Central Asia, which benefits from a US$ 110 million contribution from the GCF.

The EBRD is supporting the implementation Kazakhstan government's strategy related to renewable energy and carbon market as part of the framework.

Separately earlier this month, a new 100MW solar plant was launched in the Karaganda region of north Kazakhstan. The project was developed by Joachim Goldbeck Holding GmbH of Germany and co-financed by the EBRD and the GCF.

In 2018, under the Green Economy Transition Approach, the Bank mobilised investments worth 3.4 billion into green economy projects.

To date, EBRD has invested a total of over $ 8.85 billion in the economy of Kazakhstan through 254 projects.
Highlighting its commitment to supporting Oman in meeting its growing power needs, Siemens has received an order to supply the Duqm Integrated Power and Water project (DIPWP) with gas and steam turbines, long-term power generation services and digital solutions. The total order volume of the contract is in the range of 200 million euros, representing Siemens' largest contract in the Sultanate of Oman. Spanning a period of 25 years, the service contract for the project, marks also one of the company's longest contracts in the oil and gas sector globally. Following completion of the project in 2022, DIPWP will have an installed generating capacity of 326 megawatts in combined-cycle duty and 36,000 cubic meters of desalinated water for Duqm refinery and petrochemical facilities per day.

The plant is set to meet the requirements of the new refinery and petrochemical complex under development at the Duqm Special Economic Zone in Oman, complementing the country's economic diversification plan and focus on building up its industrial sector. The Siemens scope of supply includes a combined cycle power plant consisting of five SGT-800 industrial gas turbines, five SST-300 industrial steam turbines, and the corresponding control system. Additionally, the project scope includes Siemens' cybersecurity solutions to improve asset visibility, reliability and security, while decreasing operation and maintenance costs.

Eng. Abdullah Al Hashimi, Project Director of DIPWP, said: "Oman aims to build a robust and diversified energy system that can support its long-term, sustainable economic development. We are committed to supporting the country in realizing this vision with projects that set new standards in efficiency and reliability, and can serve as blueprints for other national and regional projects. We are pleased to partner with Siemens on this significant project that will support the industrial zones in the country while preserving natural resources."

"This is the biggest order ever Siemens achieved in Oman for medium-size gas turbines and the first one in Oman for our SGT-800. Currently, Siemens supports the generation of more than half of Oman's power supply, enabling the country to optimize gas consumption," said Jean-Claude Nasr, Senior Executive Vice President, Power Generation at Siemens in the Middle East and North Africa. "Siemens reiterates its firm commitment to continue its support to the growing Omani market with focus on the expansion of localization and Omanisation in the long term, strengthening the country's economy and creating more jobs for the Omanis," Nasr added.

"The advanced monitoring and diagnostics services provided to Duqm plant will help maximize performance, lower operating costs and deliver better and more reliable business outcomes for the plant operator," added Claudia Massei, CEO of Siemens Oman. "We are looking forward to contributing further to Oman's long-term energy and water strategy, in a sustainable manner."

Siemens has been operating in Oman since 1972. Today, the company is actively supporting the Sultanate's diversification plan and executing several key projects in different sectors. The company is actively supporting Oman's long-term economic growth through the application of technology in the fields of electrification, automation, and digitalization along with the proactive transfer of knowledge and technical expertise.

This press release and a press picture are available at www.siemens.com/press/PR2019010135PGEN

For more information on the Siemens SGT-800 gas turbine, please see

www.siemens.com/sgt-800

For more information on the Siemens Power and Gas Division, please see

www.siemens.com/about/power-gas

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 170 years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. With its publicly listed subsidiary Siemens Healthineers AG, the company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment - such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems - and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2018, which ended on September 30, 2018, Siemens generated revenue of 83.0 billion and net income of 6.1 billion. At the end of September 2018, the company had around 379,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com.

Contact for journalists

Kerstin Schirmer

Phone: +49 9131 1737510

E-mail: kerstin.schirmer@siemens.com
Ten organizations* and two industry groups** blasted Holtec International's application*** to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to build and operate the world's largest nuclear waste dump in New Mexico. The waste, from commercial nuclear power is currently at the reactor sites where it was produced. Opening a high-level waste dump, if licensed, would lead to tens of thousands of ongoing high level radioactive waste shipments on rail, truck and boat for decades. Deadly containers would pass through nearly 90% of U.S. Congressional districts including neighborhoods, cities, farmlands, lakes, rivers and ocean-fronts. The waste is the hottest, most concentrated atomic waste from the nuclear fuel chain, misleadingly dubbed "spent" fuel. This radioactive waste can cause death in minutes if unshielded, and remains radioactive for literally millions of years; it is one of the most deadly materials on Earth.

The organizations are demanding that the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board halt the Holtec licensing because it is illegal. The federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended, only allows the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to take ownership of irradiated nuclear fuel at an operating permanent geologic repository. Such a title and liability transfer to DOE at the "interim" site proposed by Holtec, is not allowed. The wise precaution was included in the law to safeguard against an "interim" surface site becoming de facto permanent in the absence of a permanent repository. The Holtec site would not be suitable for long-term isolation and, in the view of those challenging Holtec, it is also not suitable for short-term storage.

The Holtec license application says the lethal waste at the site would be owned by either the Department of Energy (DOE) or the nuclear utility companies that made it. But at the hearing, Holtec's lawyer, Jay Silberg, admitted that under current law DOE cannot take title and ownership of the waste at an "interim" centralized storage site. This makes the proposal unrealistic.

Diane Curran, attorney for Beyond Nuclear, said "We should not even have to argue this hypothetical case. We call on the licensing board to dismiss the application."

Attorney Terry Lodge, representing seven organizations from California to New York and Michigan to New Mexico charged that, "The Holtec proposal is a corporate welfare trough that will make the nuclear waste problem in this country worse, putting millions of people along transport routes at unnecessary risk."

Sierra Club lawyer Wallace Taylor, argued against the segmented licensing stating that, "It is irresponsible and illegal to grant a license for 20, 40 or 60 years and ignore that the waste will be dangerous for centuries longer with no plans to continue managing and isolating it."

Holtec admitted they do not have a way to repair cracked storage and transport canisters but stated that since they are not expecting cracked canisters they don't have to prepare to deal with them.

Major questions were raised about how waste would get to New Mexico (which has no commercial nuclear power reactors); how long it would stay (forever?); who would pay; and who would be liable for the statistically-inevitable accidents and radioactive releases, both in transit and at the site.

Alliance For Environmental Strategies (AFES), based in southeastern New Mexico, is charging that the siting violates principles of environmental justice and that Holtec's Environmental Report is totally inadequate in this regard.

Given admissions by Holtec, it seems that nuclear power companies would have to keep title, pay to transport the waste and remain economically and legally liable, which they will not be willing to do. This makes funding for the Holtec dump operation and eventual closure highly questionable.

Diane D'Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said "New Mexico could end up holding the bag, threatening the thriving industries already in the region including dairy, pecan farming and ranching. Mixing high-level radioactive waste with the booming Permian Basin oil and gas industry is a recipe for disaster. Everyone along the transport routes would be at personal and economic risk because all insurance policies expressly state they will not cover radioactive accidents or incidents. Check your own auto, renters and homeowners policies," she advised.

Approximately 40 objections were filed, including environmental racism/injustice; danger of contaminating water; inadequate radioactive waste containers and storage systems; no ability to inspect, monitor or repackage damaged fuel and containers; condition of the waste after extended storage; eventual decommissioning costs and funding; next destination of the waste when the temporary storage license expires and unnecessary transport dangers.

Curran stated that "Holtec's environmentally reckless, poorly conceived dump proposal is an environmental, economic fiasco for the State of New Mexico and for communities all across the country from nuclear power reactors to the Holtec site."

The 3 judge panel will decide in about 45 days, mid-March to early April, 2019, who will have standing and which objections will be considered.

*Organizations: Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear, Alliance for Environmental Strategies (NM), Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (MI), Citizens Environmental Coalition (NY), Don't Waste Michigan (MI), Mothers for Peace (CA), Nuclear Energy Information Service (IL), Nuclear Issues Study Group (NM)

**Industries: Faskin Oil, NAC International

*** Holtec International's HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) Project, NRC Docket No. 72-1051; Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 95 / Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Contact:

Diane D'Arrigo dianed@nirs.org 301-270 6477 x3

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Leona Morgan protectnewmexico@gmail.com 505-879-8547

Nuclear Issues Study Group
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
NC to continue with pressure campaign to probe shady aircraft deal

The main opposition Nepali Congress has said that it will continue to put pressure on the government through February 4 nationwide protest to conduct a fair investigation into the irregularities in the procurement of two wide-body aircraft.
Donetsk plant plundered, equipment siphoned to Russia

Topaz Plant used to produce e-warfare systems, including the Kolchuga radar.

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Ukraine imports cars worth over US$2.2 bln in past year

Car exports from Ukraine over the period under review were estimated at $9.067 million.

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Ukraine's Supreme Court green-lights seizure of shares of Russian banks' subsidiaries

The applicants requested the seizure of registered shares of Sberbank, Prominvestbank and VTB Bank.

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An elaborate Tet pole ceremony was once the royal signal that the nation could start welcoming the Lunar New Year.

On Saturday, the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre relived the Tet pole ceremony that used to take place under the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945) to signal that Lunar New Year day preparations can begin.

The Tet pole, or Neu was an important rite under the Nguyen Dynasty. It informed the populace that the Lunar New Year was coming.

The long bamboo pole is traditionally placed in front of the house to prevent evils from invading the houses spirit, especially on the 23rd day of the last lunar month when Kitchen Gods leave the house to submit their reports to the Jade Emperor in heaven.

Starting from the Hien Nhon gate, the bamboo pole, more than 15m long is carried on the shoulders by 10 people dressed as soldiers of the Nguyen Dynasty. They pass through the Trieu To Temple and Thai Hoa Palace to arrive at The Mieu Temple.

The elegant music band of the royal court follows the pole, playing old royal music.

At The Mieu Temple, an elaborate altar has been prepared for the ceremony.

Among the ceremonial offerings are betel leaves, arecanuts pork, chicken and sticky rice.

The Tet pole installation is a solemn ritual in which everyone wears traditional attires, royal music is played and seniors pray that all families are blessed with peace by the Spirit and by all ancestors.

The imperial court also installed the Tet pole to pray for good weather so the farmers would have a smooth cultivating and harvesting season.

According to historical records, during the reign of King Minh Mang (the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, reigning from 1820-1841), a number of emperor's seals would be hung on the Tet pole. On the seventh day of the first lunar month, the seal was opened and the Tet pole was taken down, marking the official beginning of the New Year.

Heads of the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre in traditional Kinh costumes hold incense sticks and pray during the ceremony.

After the praying and the offering, the seal and parallel sentences composed and written by scholars in Chinese characters using black ink on red paper, seeking happiness, prosperity and longevity, are hung on the top of the bamboo pole.

When the pole stood stall above the walls of the ancient palace, the entire city could begin to hang their own Tet pole to welcome the Lunar New Year. After the ceremony at the The Mieu Temple, it will be repeated at several other relics in the complex of ancient Hue monuments on a simpler scale.

On the seventh day of the first lunar month, the tree will be taken down, marking the end of the Tet holiday and everybody will return to work.
Former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes died on Tuesday.

On the occasion, as tributes poured in from all parts of the political spectrum, one newspaper carried an article headlined: "Why George Fernandes once said 'would like to be reborn as a Vietnamese'."

The exact quote is: "If there is a rebirth, I would like to be reborn as a Vietnamese;" such was his admiration for the people of this country. He had made the statement following his visit to Vietnam as the Defense Minister of India.

I had the opportunity to meet him then.

His humility and absolute openness in talking to people was striking and very rare, because it was authentic, not a practiced politicians smooth talk that I have come across frequently.

When I asked him about specifics of the agreement reached in his talks with Vietnamese authorities, he quickly asked the very senior bureaucrat with him to make a copy and give it to me. I could see that the bureaucrat was not happy at all with this request, but he had no choice. This readiness to share information also set him apart immediately from other Indian politicians and leaders.

"Can we talk sometime tomorrow, I really want to watch this water puppet show tonight," he told me. The simplicity with which he said it remains fresh in my mind to this day.

This was not the George Fernandes I had in mind before I met him in person, because he was usually referred to as a "fiery socialist" or a "firebrand union leader." I had first "encountered" him as a child, because a railway sector strike that he led had delayed a train my family had to take by more than 10 hours.

I was livid and thrilled at the same time, livid because I heard adults complain about troublesome labor union leaders, and thrilled because it was new experience, sitting in a small railway station for hours together, being taken to a local tea shop for hot tea late in the night and having the most soulful experience of listening to Kathakali (a classical dance from the south Indian state of Kerala) songs on the tea shops radio.

George Fernandes next came into my consciousness at a time of a personal political awakening that happened around high school/undergrad time.

The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared an Emergency with attendant draconian measures.

I remember the resentment as small businesses like my family restaurant were squeezed dry by impractical rules. A government inspector could come into the restaurant at any time, order a dish and weigh it to see if met the minimum requirements, and levy a fine on the spot.

People seethed with anger and I knew then that the people in the north of the country were having it much worse than those of us in the south. The forced sterilization of young men remains a stark, dark memory.

George Fernandes became a hero then, as someone with the guts to resist Emergency rule.

After the Emergency was lifted and a united opposition swept to power in a historic election, he became the industry minister and did something radical.

He threw Coca Cola and IBM out of India, an action that is talked about still. I cannot imagine anyone else with the courage for doing this, whatever the merits or demerits of the action.

Whatever his detractors said and will say about him in the future, there is no doubt that he was a man who was sincere in working for the downtrodden, especially low paid workers.

When he talked to me in Hanoi, his curiosity about contemporary Vietnam was genuine.

As I detailed Vietnams accomplishments, especially in agriculture, going from a net importer of rice to a leading exporter in the world of rice, coffee and other produce, he remarked on how Indians should learn from the Vietnamese work ethos. "We should really learn from them," he said.

As with everything else, his admiration for the Vietnamese people in recovering from the consequences of war and the unjust embargo imposed on it for decades was genuine.

There are many things that can, and will be written about George Fernandes, good and bad and in-between.

However, there is no denying his prominent place in Indias history, his work as a union leader, his role in ushering in an era of coalition politics in the country and so on.

Through all this, for me, the mans fundamental simplicity, honesty and genuineness will stand out.

I know he had initially aspired to become a priest and chucked it because he found the church a bastion of hypocrisy.

In the end, it did not matter, because George Fernandes had achieved sainthood.

I hope his death becomes an occasion to remember the kind of grassroots work he did and the impact he had.

I have to disagree with him on one thing, though.

If there is rebirth, I would like him to be reborn, not as a Vietnamese, as he wished, but as an Indian again. The country needs people like him, now more than ever.

*Hari Chathrattil is an Indian working in Hanoi. The opinions expressed here are his own.
Two former deputy ministers will be jailed for involvement in violations committed by a disgraced property tycoon.

Former deputy public security ministers Bui Van Thanh, 60, and Tran Viet Tan, 64, will respectively spend 2.5 and 3 years in prison for "negligence of responsibility, causing serious consequences."

The Hanoi Peoples Court held that the former officials mismanagement allowed disgraced and jailed property tycoon Phan Van Anh Vu to commit violations involving public land that caused VND1.16 trillion ($50 million) in losses for the state exchequer.

The three-day trial ending Wednesday also found Phan Huu Tuan, 64, former deputy head of the ministrys General Department of Intelligence and Nguyen Huu Bach, 56, a division head under the department guilty of "abusing power or position in the performance of official duties." They were sentenced to five years in jail each.

According to the indictment, Vu, 44, who used to be one of the biggest property developers in Da Nang and was the chairman of three large property companies as also a shareholder in a number of projects in the city, was recruited to work as intelligence agent for the ministry.

Former deputy public security minister Bui Van Thanh stands trial in Hanoi. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Before working for the ministry, Vu already owned two companies based in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. With his new position, Vu asked his superiors to approve paperwork for him to lease and transfer land, as also land use rights of seven projects at prime locations in the two cities. His activities with public land caused millions of dollars in losses.

Tan, Bach and Tuan were found responsible as officials who directly supervised Vu, while Thanh was found to have broken laws in signing documents proposing the sale of several properties and land lots that belonged to the ministry.

Former deputy public security minister Tran Viet Tan stands trial in Hanoi. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Vu was also convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to 15 years in jail in the case that the court deemed "very serious."

The court also ordered the seizure of seven properties that Vu earned through violations.

According to the Politburo, the Communist Party's highest decision-making body, between 2014 and 2018, Thanh committed violations that resulted in "very serious" consequences, negatively affected the reputation of the Party and the public security forces.

He was also found to have signed a decision allowing Vu to travel abroad and requested a diplomatic passport for him in late 2017, even after investigations had been opened against his business violations. Vu was not qualified for a diplomatic passport at the time.

Thanh was dismissed from his position as Deputy Minister of Public Security and Tan was retroactively stripped of his title as Deputy Minister of Public Security for the 2011-2016 term last August.

Thanh was also dismissed from all Party positions and demoted from lieutenant general to colonel, while Tan lost his former Party position and was demoted from colonel general to lieutenant general.

Phan Van Anh Vu stands trial in Hanoi. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Vu had been sentenced to eight years in prison for "deliberately disclosing state secrets" last year in a case in which Tuan and Bach got seven and six years in jail, respectively. Given the fact that the violations involved state secrets, details of the closed trial were not revealed.

In late December last year, Vu received another 7 years in prison for "abuse of power to appropriate property" in a case where he was found to have misappropriated more than VND200 billion ($8.6 million) from Dong A Bank.

Under Vietnams Penal Code, a person who receives multiple sentences will serve a maximum of 30 years in jail.
Facebook Messenger most popular chat app for online shopping in Vietnam

Most Vietnamese people use Facebook Messenger for online shopping. Photo by Shutterstock/Charnsitr

Seventy percent of Vietnamese using chat apps for online shopping do so on Facebook Messenger, a survey has found.

The rate of shoppers using it has increased by 23 percentage points since 2016, the survey, released last Friday by HCMC-based market research firm Q&Me, said.

People use Messenger mostly to contact shops (61 percent of respondents) and restaurants (48 percent), it found.

The lowest rates are for banks (21 percent) and workshops (15 percent).

But the top reason for contacting a business on Messenger is to ask for information about a product (57 percent).

It is followed by purchase (55 percent), inquiry about promotions (47 percent) and checking product/service availability (37 percent).

Fifty seven percent of respondents were however not happy with businesses as their messages were not responded.

Facebook Messenger is the most popular messaging app in Vietnam with 94 percent of respondents using it, followed by Zalo (89 percent) and phone text messages (59 percent).

The survey was done in January with 300 people in Hanoi and HCMC responding, but data from previous surveys done last November and in April 2017 was also collated.

Vietnams e-commerce market reached revenues of $2.27 billion in 2018, up 29.4 percent from a year earlier. The number of consumers shopping online reached 49.8 million people, growing by 2.6 percent, according to Germany-based market research firm Statista.
I was never a big fan of most pop music. I found it disposable and a waste of time for the most part. I was always more into cutting edge stuff-- like the just-released song up top by the Scottish band Paris Street Rebels. The band is barely 2 years old and their press agent tried to put their music in context by explaining that they take the best parts of the transatlantic Punk explosion of the 1970's and combine it with towering melodies and 21st century working class outrage. Their region has collapsed economically. All 4 "hail from the tough mining town of Ballingry, Fife, Scotland where the mines have long shut down and 'Thatcher' is still a dirty word. The band look to music as an escape, an antidote and a means to elevate themselves and others like them from the indignity of a story left untold, a destiny unfulfilled. Beyond the confines of their beginnings, Paris Street Rebels' ultimate goal is to unite the forgotten people, the misfits, the lost, the persecuted, the afraid and everyone in between. To give something back in an age where musicians and artists only exist to take. To give the world what it's been missing ever since Rock 'n' Roll lost its teeth. 'Freakshow' is a schizophrenic anthem penned in desperation. The need to escape to an almost mythical, promised land where authenticity trumps artifice and drives the narrative whilst simultaneously realizing that this can only be achieved by changing the place and time you're in."

I ran the Student Activities Board at my university. I was out of touch with pop culture back then too. I booked unknown bands and artists very few people wanted to hear. But now anyone who went to Stony Brook in those days brags about how they heard Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, the Dead, Otis Redding, Tim Buckley, The Airplane, Ravi Shankar, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, The Who, Jackson Browne, The Byrds... long before anyone had heard of them. (I had to fight off a serious impeachment challenge for "wasting" $400 of student money on The Doors.

Earlier today I explained why I never watched The West Wing . Another admission: though I had been invited numerous times, I never went to see. Let me explain why-- but first some context. I was an "A" student in high school. And history was my best subject. One teacher, who was embarrassed that I had so much more knowledge about the subject than she did was wise enough to have me teach the class while she took the opportunity to go to the teachers' lounge and smoke cigarettes. The following year, we got a young wiz kid, Mr. Feldman as our history teacher. Madison High was lucky to get him and he definitely knew more about history than I did. I graduated in 1965 but he stayed. I found an old NY Times article about the school from 1975, 10 years after I had left.

When New York City first desegregated its high school system 10 years ago, James Madison High School in the South Flatbush section of Brooklyn seemed a good place to start. Academically, it was one of the best in the entire city and regularly sent almost 90 per cent of its 1,000 graduates off to college. The faculty had a fair complement of civilrights sympathizers, and the surrounding community, a grid of neat brick and stucco houses set off by tiny but faultlessly trimmed lawns, was dominated by middleclass Jews, largely Democratic and loosely liberal, who presumably would offer little objection to giving blacks and Puerto Ricans a chance at a better education. When the blacks first came, recalls Rae Marcus, now an assistant principal at the school, there was none of the feeling of Why us? The community and faculty and kids were all ready. If integration would work any place, we thought, it would work at Madison.

Chuck Schumer graduated a year after me, went to Harvard and soon after was elected to the state Assembly (where he quickly turned himself over to Wall Street). The Times interviewed the young Assemblyman for the story. He was socially liberal and said "I looked at the black kids with the same regard as the whites in the business and commercial course. There was no animosity or anything. They were just different; they were not the kinds of kids who were friends.

I couldn't resist but the quote I was really looking for was Mr. Feldman's, the whiz kid history teacher, who seemed mournful that the school was by then desegregated.

Others have moved beyond a sense of helplessness to one of resentment. In the old days, teaching wasn't work; it was a pleasant experience, says Stanley Feldstein, a history teacher who has written three books on race and ethnic history and has one of the school's few doctorates. Now I look on it as a job. Several weeks ago, Feldstein, now so unhappy that he is seeking a transfer to another high school, had to take a knife away from one of his freshman girls who was prepared to stick it into a boy who had just pinched her. I just don't like to be a cop, that's all, he said. You're not really in class to teach any more. You're there just to keep discipline.'

In some ways Mr. Feldstein was one of my favorite teachers. I saw one serious flaw at the time: Alexander Hamilton-worship. My own idol was my grandfather and he always taught me that Hamilton was a capitalist pig and Washington's biggest mistake. I was crestfallen when Mr. Feldstein sang his praises at every opportunity. I started thinking Mr. Feldstein might be the first Republican I had ever met. I didn't care what he said about this-- I was, and would always be, a Jeffersonian.

This morning I was happy to see that one of my friends, Matt Stoller, wrote a wonderful piece forabout Hamilton-- The Hamilton Hustle -- a couple of years ago. He found all the recent praise for Hamilton, especially within the Democratic Party, "strange [since] it presumes that Alexander Hamilton was a figure for whom social justice and democracy were key animating traits." Maybe Stoller had a grandfather like mine. "Given how Democrats, in particular, embraced the show and Hamilton himself as a paragon of social justice," he wrote, "you would think that he had fought to enlarge the democratic rights of all Americans. But Alexander Hamilton simply didnt believe in democracy, which he labeled an American 'disease.' He fought--with military force-- any model of organizing the American political economy that might promote egalitarian politics. He was an authoritarian, and proud of it." More recently, there were people who found his rile analogous to Trotsky's in the Russian Revolution.

To assert Hamilton disliked democracy is not controversial. The great historian Henry Adams described an evening at a New York dinner, when Hamilton replied to democratic sentiment by banging the table and saying, Your people, sir-- your people is a great beast! Hamiltons recommendation to the Constitutional Convention, for instance, was to have a president for life, and to explicitly make that president not subject to law.





Professional historians generally avoid emphasizing Hamiltons disdain for the people, at least when they write for the broad public. Better to steer safely clear of the freight train of publicity and money behind the modern Hamilton myth. One exception is amateur historian William Hogeland, who noted in a recent Boston Review essay that Hamilton had strong authoritarian tendencies. Hamilton, he wrote, consistently emphasized the essential relationship between the concentration of national wealth and the obstruction of democracy through military force.





Indeed, most of Hamiltons legacy is astonishingly counter-democratic. His central role in founding both the financial infrastructure of Wall Street and a nascent military establishment (which supplanted the colonial system of locally controlled democratic militias) was rooted in his self-appointed crusade to undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to govern themselves. We should be grateful not that Hamilton structured the essential institutions of America to fit his vision, but that he failed to do so. Had he succeeded, we would probably be living in a military dictatorship.





Viewers of the play Hamilton have a difficult time grasping this point. It just seems outlandish that an important American political official would argue that democracy was an actively bad system. Sure, Americas leadership caste has done plenty on its own to subvert the legal norms and folkways of self-rule, via voting restrictions, lobbying and corruption, and other appurtenances of access-driven self-dealing. But the idea of openly opposing the hallowed ideal of popular self-government is simply inconsistent with the past two hundred years of American political culture. And this is because, in the election of 1800, when Hamilton and his Federalist allies were finally crushed, America repudiated aristocracy and began the long journey toward establishing a democratic political culture and undoing some, though not all, of the damage wrought by Hamiltons plutocratic-leaning Federalist Party.





Indeed, the shifting popular image of Hamilton is itself a gauge of the relative strength of democratic institutions at any given moment. In the roaring 1920s, when Wall Street lorded it over all facets of our public life, treasury secretary Andrew Mellon put Hamiltons face on the ten-dollar bill. Mellon was the third richest man in the country, famous for, among other things, having his brother and chairman of one of his coal mining subsidiaries extoll the virtues of using machine guns to enforce labor discipline. Mellon himself, who later presided over the Great Depression, was routinely lauded by big business interests as the greatest secretary of the treasury since Alexander Hamilton. Big business leaders in Pittsburgh, such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, worshipped Hamilton (as well as Napoleon).





During the next decade, as populists put constraints on big money, Hamilton fell into disrepute. In 1925, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then just a lawyer, recognized Hamilton as an authoritarian, saying that he had in his mind after reading a popular new book on Hamilton and Jefferson a picture of escape after escape which this nation passed through in those first ten years; a picture of what might have been if the Republic had been finally organized as Alexander Hamilton sought. By 1947, a post-war congressional report titled Fascism in Action listed Hamilton as one intellectual inspiration for the Nazi regime. Hamiltons name practically became an epithet among Democrats of the New Deal era, which makes it all the more surprising that he is the darling of the modern party.





Within this context, its useful to recognize that Hamilton the play is not the real story of Alexander Hamilton; rather, as historian Nancy Isenberg has noted, its a revealing parable about the politics of the finance-friendly Obama era. The play is based on Ron Chernows eight-hundred-page 2004 biography of Hamilton. Chernow argues that Hamilton was an abolitionist who opposed states rights, favored an activist central government, a very liberal interpretation of the Constitution and executive rather than legislative powers. Hamilton, he notes, sounds . . . like a modern Democrat. The abolition arguments are laughably false; Hamilton married into a slaveholding family and traded slaves himself. But they are only part of a much broader obfuscation of Hamiltons politics.





To understand how outrageous Chernows understanding of Hamilton is, we must go through a few key stories from Hamiltons life. We should probably start with the Newburgh ConspiracyHamiltons attempt to foment a military coup against the Continental Congress after the Revolution. In 1782 several men tried to organize an uprising against the Continental Congress. The key leader was Robert Morris, Congresss superintendent of finance and one of Hamiltons mentors. Morris was the wealthiest man in the country, and perhaps the most powerful financier America has ever known, with the possible exception of J. P. Morgan. His chief subordinate in the plot was a twenty-seven-year-old Hamilton, former aide-de-camp of George Washington and delegate to the Congress.





After the war, army officers, then camped out in Newburgh, New York, had not been paid for years of service. Morris and Hamilton saw in this financial-cum-political crisis an opportunity to structure a strong alliance between the military elite and wealthy investors. Military officers presented a petition to Congress for back pay. Congress tried to pass a tax to pay the soldiers, while also withholding payments owed to bondholders. Hamilton blocked this move. Indeed, according to Hogeland, when a motion was raised to levy the impost only for the purpose of paying army officers, Hamilton shot it down: all bondholders must be included. Meanwhile, Morris and Hamilton secretly encouraged General Horatio Gates at Newburgh to organize a mutiny. After unifying investors and the military elite, Morris and Hamilton calculated that the military officer corps would threaten Congress with force unless the Articles of Confederation were amended to allow full federal taxing power by federal officials. This coup attempt would then, they reasoned, force Congress to override state governments that were more democratic in their approach to political economy, and place aristocrats in charge.





According to Hogeland,

In Morriss plan these taxes, collected not by weak state governments but by a cadre of powerful federal officers, would be earmarked for making hefty interest payments to wealthy financiersincluding Morris himself, along with his friends and colleagueswho held millions of dollars in federal bonds, the blue-chip tier of domestic war debt.

Douchebag! by Chip Proser

The mutiny itself failed due to a public statement by George Washington opposing a military uprising. But in broader terms, the plot succeeded, once Washington promptly warned Congress about the unstable situation and urged that they take drastic action to centralize and federalize the structure of the American republic. Military officers received what would be the equivalent today of multi-million-dollar bonuses, paid largely in federal debt instruments. This effectively institutionalized the elite coalition that Morris and Hamilton sought to weaponize into a tool of destabilization. The newly unified creditors and military officers formed a powerful bloc of aristocratic power within the Congress that pushed hard to dramatically expand federal taxing power. This group set up [Hamiltons] career, Hogeland writes, because by placing him in power over their asset base-- a national debt-- they would assure a steady stream of unearned income. Chernow obscures Hamiltons participation in the mutiny, claiming in a rushed disclaimer to preserve his heros honor that Hamilton feared a military uprising-- but he then proceeds to note that Hamilton was playing with combustible forces by attempting to recruit Washington to lead the coup. Its a howling inconsistency bordering on falsification.





When Hamilton became Washingtons secretary of the treasury, he swiftly arranged the de facto payoff of the officer group at Newburgh, valuing their bonds at par and paying them the interest streams they wanted. Here was perhaps the clearest signal that the Federalist Party was structured as an alliance between bondholders and military elites, who would use a strong central government as a mechanism to extract money from the farming public. This was Hamiltonian statecraft, and it was modeled on the political system of the Whigs in Great Britain, the party of monied interests whose power was anchored by the Bank of England.













Chernow, a longtime Wall Street Journal financial writer, portrays Hamilton as a visionary financial genius who saw beyond the motley array of foolish yeoman farmers who supported his ideological foe Thomas Jefferson. In lieu of the static Jeffersonian vision of a yeomans republic, Chernows Hamilton is reputed to have created a dynamic, forward-looking national economy-- though its more accurate to say that Hamilton was simply determined to shore up the enduring basis of a financial and industrial empire. Hillary Clinton even quoted the play paraphrasing Hamiltons line, They dont have a plan-- they just hate mine. But in fact, there were competing modern visions of finance during the period, as Terry Bouton showed in Taming Democracy. And the one we have today-- a public central bank, substantial government involvement in credit markets, paper money-- has characteristics of both.





True to their own aristocratic instincts and affiliations, Hamilton and his mentor Morris wanted to insulate decision-making from democratic influence. Morris told Congress that redistributing wealth upward was essential so that the wealthy could acquire those Funds which are necessary to the full Exercise of their Skill and Industry, and thereby promote progress. While in office, Hamilton granted a group of proto-venture-capitalists monopoly control over all manufacturing in Paterson Falls, New Jersey, the site of some of the most powerful waterfalls on the East Coast. Hamilton, who captained this group of investors, thought it would power a network of factories he would then control. Among the prerogatives enjoyed by the funders of the Paterson Falls project was the authority to condemn lands and charge tolls, powers typically reserved to governments. More broadly, in the fight to establish a for-profit national bank owned and controlled by investors, he placed control over the currency in the hands of the wealthy, linking it to gold and putting private financiers in charge.





Morris and Hamilton sought, as much as possible, to shift sovereign powers traditionally reserved for governments into the hands of new chartered institutions-- private corporations and banks-- that would be strategically immunized from the democratic disease. These were not corporations or banks as we know them; they were quasi-governmental institutions with monopoly power. Jefferson sought to place an anti-monopoly provision in the Constitution precisely because of this well-understood link between monopoly finance and political power.





Chernow portrays this far-reaching debate over the future direction of Americas productive life as a byproduct of Hamiltons unassailably noble attempt to have the federal government retire the Revolutionary War debt. This is simply false (and a very common lie, expressed with admiration by other prominent Hamilton fans like Alan Greenspan and Andrew Mellon). Hamilton wanted a large permanent debt; he wanted it financed so his backers could extract a steady income from the people by way of federal taxes. To pay off the debt would be to kill the goose laying the golden egg. By constricting the question of democracy to a question of accounting, Chernow misrepresents what was really at stake. It was a fight over democracy, authoritarianism, and political economy-- and in many ways, the same one were having today.





Protests broke out in the western parts of the country, similar to pre-Revolution-era revolts against the British, who, in extracting revenues for the Crown and its allies, were pursuing the same policies that Hamilton did. These protests were a response not to taxes, but to the specific tax structure Hamilton constructed. Western farmers, though not poor, had little access to cash, so they used whiskey as currency-- a medium of exchange that farmers in many cases produced sporadically in backyard stills. Hamiltons tax was a political attack on these farmers, whom he saw as his political opponents. The levy targeted whiskey because western farmers had converted this commodity into a competitive monetary system. The whiskey levy was also regressive, with a low rate on industrial distillers and a high rate for small farmers, with the goal of driving the farmers out of the whiskey business. Furthermore, Hamilton placed the collection authority for the tax in the hands of the wealthiest big distillers, who could then use it to drive their smaller competitors out of business. This was all intended not only to destroy the political power of small farmers, but to foment a rebellion that Hamilton could then raise an army to crush. And thats just what happened.





In 1795, Washington and Hamilton raised more than ten thousand troops to march into Western Pennsylvania, the strongest redoubt of opposition to the new tax (known forever after as the Whiskey Rebellion). Washington, halfway through the march and perhaps doubting the wisdom of this use of military power, handed over command to Hamilton, and went home. Entrusted with executive power, Hamilton used indefinite detention, mass arrests, and round-ups; seized property (including food stores for the winter); and had soldiers administer loyalty oaths. He also attempted to collect testimony to use against his political enemies, such as William Findley and Albert Gallatin (who would later be Jeffersons and Madisons secretary of the treasury), which he hoped to use, as Hogeland writes, to silence his political opponents by hanging them for treason. This is the strong-armed tyranny that David Brooks (to take one among countless exemplars of latter-day Hamilton worship) celebrates when he says that Hamilton gave us the fluid capital markets that are today the engine of world capitalism. It is also, far from incidentally, what John Yoo cited as precedent when defending George W. Bushs national security policies.













Similarly, Hamiltons fights with John Adams in the late 1790s represented one of the most dangerous periods in American history, akin to the McCarthy era on steroids. The latter part of the French Revolution was as shocking to Americans of the early republic as the 1917 Russian Revolution was to their modern successors. It stoked the widespread fear among Federalists that any talk of democracy would lead to similar guillotine-style massacres; they began referring to Jeffersons supporters as Jacobins-- an epithet that was the 1790s equivalent of terrorist or communist. This was the era of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made criticism of the government a federal crime. But in addition, and more frighteningly, Hamilton constructed the only partisan army in American history (titled the New Army) and tried to place himself at the head of it. Only Federalists could be officers. He envisioned himself leading an expedition into Florida and then South America, and mused aloud about putting Virginia to the test militarily. Ultimately, Adams-- perhaps the most unlikely savior of self-governance in the annals of our history-- figured out what Hamilton was doing and blocked him from becoming a New World Napoleon. The New Army was disbanded, and our military established a tradition of nonpartisanship.





...Hamilton lost, but not without bequeathing to later American citizens a starkly stratified political economy. Bouton argues that the defeats of the middle class in the 1780s and 1790s narrowed democracy for everyone. As poor white men found the freedoms for which they fought undermined by a wealthy elite, they in turn tried to narrow the concept to exclude others. Much of the turn toward a more reactionary version of white supremacy in the early 1800s, in other words, can be laid at Hamiltons feet. Later on, Hamiltons financial elite were ardently in favor of slave power. Manhattan, not any Southern state, was the first political entity to follow South Carolinas call for secession, because of the merchants financial and cultural ties to the slave oligarchy. In other words, Hamiltons unjust oligarchy of money and aristocracy fomented a more unjust oligarchy of race. The aggrieved rites of ethnic, racial, and cultural exclusion evident in todays Trump uprising would no doubt spark a shock of recognition among the foes of Hamiltons plutocracy-in-the-making.





...One of Hamiltons biggest fans is Tim Geithner, the man who presided over the financial crisis and the gargantuan bank bailouts during the Obama presidency. In his 2014 memoir, Stress Test, Geithner wrote admiringly of Hamilton as the original Mr. Bailout, and said that we were going to deploy federal resources in ways Hamilton never imagined, but given his advocacy for executive power and a strong financial system, I had to believe he would have approved. He argues this was a financial policy decision. In doing so, he evades the pronounced anti-democratic impulses underlying the response to the financial crisis.





As economist Simon Johnson pointed out in a 2009 essay in The Atlantic titled The Quiet Coup, what the bailouts truly represented was the seizure of political power by a small group of American financiers. Just as in the founding era, we saw a massive foreclosure crisis and the evisceration of the main source of middle class wealth. A bailout, similar to one that created the national debt, ensured that wealth would be concentrated in the hands of a small group. The Citizens United decision and the ever-increasing importance of money in politics have strong parallels to the property disenfranchisement along class lines that occurred in the post-Revolutionary period. Just as turnout fell to record lows in much of the country in 2014, turnout collapsed after the rebellions were put down. And in another parallel, Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out across the country were evicted by armed guards-- a martial response coordinated by banks, the federal government, and many Democratic mayors.





The Obama era looks like an echo of the Federalist power grabs of the 1780s and 1790s, both in its enrichment and glorification of financial elites and its open disdain for anything resembling true economic democracy. The Obama political elite, in other words, celebrates Hamilton not in spite of Hamiltons anti-democratic tendencies, but because of them.





Set in contrast to the actual life and career of its subject, the play Hamilton is a feat of political alchemy-- as is the stunningly successful marketing campaign surrounding it. But our generations version of Hamilton adulation isnt all that different from the version that took hold in the 1920s: its designed to subvert democracy by helping the professional class to associate the rise of finance with the greatness of America, instead of seeing in that financial infrastructure the seeds of a dangerous authoritarian tradition.





In 1925, Franklin Roosevelt asked whether there might yet be a Jefferson to lead the forces of democracy against Hamiltons money power. Perhaps someone-- maybe Elizabeth Warren, who pointed out on PBS that Hamilton was a plutocrat-- is asking that question again. That said, Hamilton is a great musical. The songs are catchy. The lyrics are beautiful. But the agenda is hidden, because in America, no political leader, not even Donald Trump, can credibly come right out and pronounce democracy a bad thing and agitate for rule by big finance. And the reason for that is that Alexander Hamilton, despite his success in structuring Wall Street, lost the battle against American democracy. Thank God for that.
In the last month, Ive added a new word to my vocabulary  kayfabe. What does it mean? Its the theatrical master plan that people involved in pro wrestling engage in when deciding whether Boris the Black or The White Snake will win or lose a match.
In the beginning, our country needed a well regulated militia for defense and expansion; hence the Second Amendment. Nowadays, we have the largest and best equipped military in the world. A well regulated militia is obsolete.

In 2008, The Supreme Court of the U.S. came to the rescue of the Second Amendment with a creative interpretation that reads:  A well regulated Militia, being not anymore necessary for the security of a free State, nevertheless, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

This new Second Amendment was a windfall for the weapons industry. There are now more guns of any kind owned by private citizens than by police and military. Unfortunately, not all of our gun owners are responsible and law abiding. About 120,000 people are shot every year, more than 33,000 of them dead.

The government which is responsible for the welfare of the people, needs to introduce reasonable gun restrictions to keep guns out of the hands of those irresponsible and law-disregarding citizens. It can do that. No part of the Constitution forbids the enactment of gun regulations.

All you responsible and law abiding gun owners should support such regulations. Your reputation and the health of our nation depends on them.
Civic Sense

The editorial of the Kathmandu Post (We are the change, Page 6, January 18) drew my attention.
I already had it, there was no reason not to share them, Cowart said.

Barsideous Brewing provided the other grains and a few other ingredients which they prefer to not divulge. Bill Bartman and Cowart worked together on a batch which will produce just under four barrels of the Belgian ale.

Barsideous Brewing will have the product  which will have some flavor of orange and chocolate  available the first week of February.

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The week before Valentines Day, which would be perfect, chocolate for your sweetheart, Joel Bartman said.

The plan is that in a couple of months, Bill Bartman will take the same ingredients he provided over to Conversion Brewing, and he and Cowart will brew a second batch there.

At Barsideous Brewing, there are also plans afoot to can a small amount of their product in February. This will be their second canning run.

We did very well the first time, canned a couple of kegs and sold out, Joel Bartman said.

At Conversion Brewing, Cowart is always seeking out new opportunities and trying to keep up with demand.
Two Corvallis residents are in the Benton County Jail after they were arrested on charges of criminal treatment and theft.

Patricia Lynn Mayes, 53, and her husband, Kenneth Lee Mayes, were arrested Jan. 23 after a search warrant was executed at the end of a five-month investigation. Evidence also was obtained that indicated the couple exploited an elderly female victim dating all the way back to January 2016.

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Patricia Mayes initially met the women when she was working as her caregiver with an in-home health care business in Corvallis. Patricia Mayes eventually left the in-home health care business and reportedly convinced the victim to hire her as an independent caregiver.

Patricia Mayes, Kenneth Mayes and Patricias adult son eventually moved into the victims residence north of the Corvallis city limits where they have lived for the past three years. The son has not been charged in the case, but Undersheriff Greg Ridler said the investigation is continuing.

Ridler said the Sheriffs Office still is working on a forensic financial examination and no accounting was available on how much money was stolen from the victim.

Those with additional information on the case should call Benton County Sheriffs Office Detective Adam Miller at 541-766-6774.

Contact reporter James Day at jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-758-9542. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day.

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West Bengal: Sundarbans vulnerable to storm surges

by T.V. Padma

January 30,2019 | Source: India Climate Dialogue

Villages located near river creeks and low-lying areas of the Sundarbans are more vulnerable to storm surges, whose frequency is projected to increase due to global warming, a study by scientists from Jamia Milia University in New Delhi says. The scientists assessed peoples vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity and resilience capacity, and developed a composite vulnerability index (CVI) based on the three factors.



Villages located in the lower and southern parts of the study area were found to be the most vulnerable to storm surges. Most of these villages are near rivers and creeks, while others are located in low-lying areas. Conversely, villages located at higher places faced fewer storm surges. But some villages in the northern part of the study area were highly vulnerable due to presence of low-lying and waterlogged wetlands.



The findings of the study, reported in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment Journal, may have implications for developing resilience capacity in response to storm surge flooding, the scientists say. It can help the local policymakers integrate local multi-hazards knowledge and provide information in a form that can help take action to both mitigate and adapt to storm surge floods, they say.



Identifying vulnerable villages



The study has identified vulnerable villages, and nascent efforts will now be made to assess vulnerable populations within these villages, says Haroon Sajjad, lead author of the study. Poor coastal zone management, limited livelihood facilities, low level of infrastructural development and insufficient institutional management have all made Sundarbans coast more vulnerable to climate-induced disasters, he said. It is hoped that the government would take necessary steps towards policy recommendations, Sajjad added. These include location-specific poverty reduction measures to reduce overall vulnerability; exploring tourism as an alternative source of income; community infrastructural development; and improved early warning systems and cyclone and flood centres that serve as shelters during extreme events.



However, Tuhin Ghosh, assistant professor at the department of oceanographic studies at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, who has worked extensively on the Sundarbans and analysed the impacts of the storm surge due to the 2009 cyclone Aila on more than 3,500 km of the old earthen embankments, disagrees with some of research findings.



Ghosh says that the maximum surge height, over a 120-year period of 15.6?m in the study area, as reported in the new study, is a gross overestimation, and more than twice than the storm surge height during the super cyclone in Odisha in 1999. Ghosh cites a previous study published in Environmental Fluid Mechanics journal, which shows that the estimated peak storm surge was about 4 m in the Sundarbans region that propagated into all major rivers, inundating the riverbanks as well inland areas.



Ghosh cites this report to point out that the funnelling effect of the Bay of Bengal and intricate network of rivers and tidal creeks in the Sundarbans delta construct a more complex system that may dissipate the propagation of a storm surge to a large extent. The proximity of the coastline must be considered as a reduction factor, and an important variable in the vulnerability analysis, he says.



Bangladesh and India share the Sundarbans, an area of about 25,500?sq. km that is home to the worlds largest mangrove forest. Of this, roughly one-third  nearly 9,630?sq. km  lies in India. In India, the Sundarbans is bound by water on three sides  Hooghly River to the west, Ichamati-Raimangal River to the east and the Bay of Bengal to the south. Only 54 of its 102 islands are inhabited. Most of the people are below the poverty line  earning less than USD 1.5 a day  with limited access to resources, and are, hence, unable to cope.



Salty waters



As storm surges are expected to increase in the Bay of Bengal due to climate change, the flood inundation that they bring in their wake will have far reaching socio-economic and ecological implications on the study area, the report by Sajjad cautions. With the incursion of more seawater due to storm surges, croplands and settlements will become more saline, making agriculture more unproductive. Meanwhile, the mixing of seawater with swamps in the area will also have deleterious impact on the biodiversity of the region, it says.



Scientists and policy analysts are already reporting some long-term impacts of storm surges in the study area that has undergone major economic and social changes during the last 15 years and witnessed the displacement of an estimated 70,000 people. For example, agriculture was heavily affected after the 2009 cyclone Aila that devastated the Sundarbans deltaic area, with most of the agricultural land lying fallow till date. Similarly, fish production has declined significantly.



Sajjads research findings are in line with a 2017 report of the World Bank, which says that the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh is already becoming increasingly saline, especially between October and May. Laboratory analyses of water and soil samples show an increase of salinity over time in the region. Climate change induced sea-level rise will further intensify the problem of river and soil salinisation, the report says.



World Bank studies also predict that the progressive salinisation of water and soil in a changing climate will significantly impact the fragile ecosystem of the Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and affect the people living in and around the forest.



The report says, Increased water salinity will alter the aquatic ecosystem and the mangrove forest, along with significant shortages of water for drinking and irrigation in the south-west coastal area, while soil salinisation is likely to lead to a significant decline in the output of high-yielding rice.



Contentious embankments



Some scientists and policy analysts also say that the tendency of governments to build embankments to protect the Sundarbans residents from flooding end up compounding the problem due to sea level rise and tidal waves.



John Pethik, retired professor and coastal science expert at Newcastle University, Britain, who has worked extensively on the Sundarbans coast, says that his research has demonstrated that the construction of flood defences in the Sundarbans has acted to increase the rate of sea level rise and thus the vulnerability of its inhabitants. Such constructions amplify the tidal wave as it passes into the channels constricted by embankments.



Pethiks studies have also shown that while deltaic subsidence, amplify the effect of sea level rise in the Sundarbans, the main culprit is the increased tidal waves in the channels constricted by embankments.



Yet there are signs of hope. A February 2018 paper of Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre says that despite the predominantly top-down, out-of-context policies that can often hamper efforts to support locally appropriate and socially just adaptation in the Sundarbans, there are some signs of hope for emerging alternate pathways.



Experiments are on by agricultural scientists, non-government organisations and local people to revive salinity-resistant traditional paddy crops, which could usher in changes in agricultural practices, which can help farmers, build climate-resilient crop systems.



There are similar experiments on culturing fish and prawn species that can tolerate salinity. While these alternative pathways can help build local resilience it is important that they are accessible and affordable to the poorest of the poor, especially in a region where most of the people are below the poverty line, the working paper says.
Pakistan: Foreign investors keen to invest in fishing industry

January 30,2019 | Source: The Express Tribune

Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi revealed on Monday that foreign investors were expressing keen interest in investing in the fishing industry of Pakistan due to business-friendly policies of the government.



Developing the fishing industry in line with international standards will not only help increase forex inflow into Pakistan, but will also generate employment opportunities, the minister said in a meeting with a delegation of the World Bank.



The delegation, headed by Director for Environment and Natural Resources Julia Bucknall, expressed the desire to invest in the fishing industry. The minister was of the opinion that Pakistan needed to benefit from its enormous natural resources and the time was ripe to invest in the infrastructure necessary to revamp Pakistans economy.
Karnataka: Light fishing snatches livelihood of small fishermen

January 30,2019 | Source: The Times of India

Fishing using LED lights or fish light attractors on mechanised fishing vessels, including motorised fishing crafts is not only destroying the population of small fish, but also snatching away the livelihoods of small fishermen, alleged Ali Hasan, president, Dakshina Kannada district Gillnet Fishermens Association. Hundreds of traditional fishermen on Tuesday gathered at the Old Port to protest against LED light fishing by trawlers and purse-seine boats.



Addressing the large gathering of protesters, Hasan said by using LED lights, fish from up to one km are attracted to the net. As a result, traditional and small boat fishermen are left with no fish to catch. Many have lost their livelihoods due to unscientific fishing methods used. This type of fishing has destroyed fish breeding and also poses a threat to traditional fishermen, he stressed.



Chikkaveer Nayak, deputy director, fisheries department, who was present at the spot, said that department as well as legal experts will come to a conclusion on how to act against fishermen who are violating the government order. On Saturday, traditional boat fishermen staged a flash protest at the fishing dock and alleged that some fishermen had ventured into the sea for LED light fishing despite a government ban. According to sources, around seven fishing vessels had left for LED light fishing.



Another fishermen community leader pointed out that in November, 2017, the Union government had imposed a ban on use of LED lights and fish light attractors for deep sea fishing, as it posed a threat to traditional fishermen and caused the death of small fishes. Along with orders, it had set 16 guidelines. Those violated should be penalised, he demanded.



Replying to him, Chikkaveer Nayak read out all the guidelines to the protesters. The protesters demanded that punishment be meted out to violators, and threatened of high voltage protests in the coming days if no action is taken against those fishing vessels.



Meeting today





In order to discuss about their next step against LED light fishing, Trawl Boat Association office-bearers have called a meeting on Wednesday. Sources told TOI that they have planned to legally fight against LED light fishing. Rajesh Puthran, general secretary, Trawl Boat Fishermen Association, said that among seven boats that left for sea to carry out LED light fishing, two have returned and five more are yet to return.
Tamil Nadu: Fishers held in Qatar return home

January 30,2019 | Source: The Times of India

Five fishermen from the southern district who were detained by the Qatar coast guard earlier this month returned home on Tuesday night after being released. The fishermen were identified as C Sudarson, 37 of Rajakkamangalamthurai in Kanyakumari, A Subash, 29 of Kootapuli in Tirunelveli, S Santhacruz, 36 of Idinthakarai in Tirunelveli, G Brathaap, 38 and F Sudarsan, 51, of Periyathaalai in Tuticorin district.



General secretary of South Asian Fishermen Fraternity (SAFF), Churchil said the fishermen were working in Iran on January 13, when they were detained by the Qatar coast guard authorities on charges of entering their territorial waters.



After intervention by the government of India and authorities concerned they were released from a Qatar jail on Monday. They were flown to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi early on Tuesday morning with the help of authorities in the Indian embassy in Doha. They were later flown from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram, where they reached around 8.30pm, where they were received by officials from the fisheries department. The men then headed home by road.
Bihar: Team inspects West Godavari fish exporting unit

January 30,2019 | Source: The Hans India

Responding to the invitation sent by Andhra Pradesh government to test the quality of fish exported from the state, a delegation of officials from Bihar visited a fish exporting plant and tested the quality of fish, verified the packaging system and inspected the export procedure.



A team of officials led by Principal Secretary N V Vijay Lakshmi of Bihar visited export plant in Unguturu mandal of West Godavari district on Tuesday. The visit was made in response to the invitation sent by Andhra Pradesh government. Earlier, the Bihar government had imposed ban on imports of fish from Andhra Pradesh alleging that harmful chemicals were used in cultivation and packing the fish. Fish and prawn farmers in West Godavari are suffering losses due to the ban imposed by Bihar government. The Andhra Pradesh government decided to convince the Bihar government to lift the ban and asked the officials to verify the export units in West Godavari.



Andhra Pradesh commissioner of fisheries Ram Sankar Naik, joint director of fisheries S Anjali and fish exporter Manoj Kumar have explained to the Bihar delegation that harmful chemicals are not used for exporting of fish to other states. Exporter Manoj Kumar said 120 fish traders export 8 to 12 tons of fish in over 100 trucks every day to other states. He said there is no scope for using the harmful chemicals in cultivation or packing of fish.



Commissioner of fisheries Ram Sankar Naik said teams comprising the officials of animal husbandry, food safety and fisheries were constituted in the state to inspect the trucks to test the quality of fish exported from the State. West Godavari district collector Praveen Kumar, Bihar officials Bipin Sarma, Ajay Kumar, fish traders and fish farmers present on the occasion.
He has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in the New York Times, featured at Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com and interviewed on radio, TV and in social media.





For many years he served as a Lecturer in Corporate Communication at Penn State University. A former President of the Philadelphia Public Relations Association (PPRA) he has lectured at Rowan University, Temple University, The College of New Jersey and Arcadia University. He has conducted workshops on public relations for thousands of participants throughout the nation and has taught countless others the art of public speaking. He has also advised numerous lawyers, judges, public officials and political candidates.





Cirucci is a prolific writer and his op-ed pieces have appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Courier-Post and other publications.



A native of Camden NJ, Cirucci is a former President of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Cirucci served as Associate Executive Director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for nearly 30 years. He served as Chair of Penn State University's Professional Advisory Board for the Corporate Communication major at Penn State Abington and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Judicial Selection Commission.



He received his MA degree from Rowan University and his BA from Villanova University. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rowan's public relations program and was inducted into the Philadelphia Public Relations Hall of Fame. He received the E. A. "Wally" Richter Leadership Award from the National Association of Bar Executives' Communications Section. The Award is the Section's highest honor. He has also been honored by numerous other local, state and national groups.









Cirucci's passions include politics, the popular culture, books and authors, art, communication, music, theatre, movies, dining and travel. In his hometown of Camden, Cirucci taught fifth grade at the Ulysses Wiggins Elementary School named for the founder of the Camden NAACP. He later served as editor of a local weekly newspaper, as Assistant to the Township Manager of Cherry Hill Township and as Associate Director of Communications at the New Jersey State Bar Association.

He's Dan Cirucci, the founder and editor-in chief of the Dan Cirucci Blog and one of the most widely honored public relations professionals in his field. He's also a public relations consultant to numerous organizations and individuals and the host of The Advocates on RVN-TV.
US President Donald Trump has stressed to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido his 'strong support' for the nation's fight to regain its democracy, the White House says.Trump and Guaido spoke by telephone on Wednesday.The White House said Guaido thanked Trump for committing the US to freedom and prosperity in Venezuela and the region.The leaders also agreed to regular communication in support of Venezuela's path back to stability and to rebuild strained relations between both countries.'I appreciate the phone call from the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who reiterated his complete support for our democratic work, commitment to humanitarian aid and his administration's recognition for our (interim) presidency,' Guaido wrote on Twitter.Large protests are planned across Venezuela on Wednesday to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to step down.Guaido declared himself Venezuela's rightful leader last week and said the nation 'is set on change'.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Two new massive solar and battery storage projects have been proposed for South Australia, continuing the momentum in new investment that will likely see the state produce the equivalent of 100 per cent of its electricity needs through wind and solar as early s 2025.One of the new projects - a $1.2 billion proposal for 500MW of solar PV to be accompanied by 250MW/1000MWh of battery storage - has broken cover in the state's planning approval process.The applicationwas filed by consultants Energy Projects Solar Pty Ltd, and is proposed for a site just east of Robertstown, about 115 kms north east of Adelaide.The same company is also proposing a 280MW solar farm and battery storage facility near Port Pirie, known as the Bungama solar project.It says the Robertstown Solar project - subject to financing - is likely to be built over four stages, and the battery storage facility will also be built in stages. Synchronous condensers may also be installed if required by the grid and market operator.The Robertstown Solar project is a rival to another proposal in the Robertstown area known as the Solar River project,which is for 200MW solar PV and 120MWh of battery storage, and which could add another 200MW of solar and 150MWh of battery storage in a second stage.The two projects join another dozen or so solar and storage proposals in the state that are in various stages of construction and proposal.These include the Bungala solar project, which has complete the first 120MW stage and is nearly finished the second 120MW stage, the 110MW Tailem Bend solar project still not completed, and the 280MW Cultana solar project proposed by Whyalla Steel owner Sanjeev Gupta and Simc Zen Energy.South Australia has already reached more than 50 per cent share of wind and solar in its grid, mostly through large scale wind (44 per cent) and rooftop solar (7-8 per cent).That share is growing as more projects come on line. Gupta himself proposes some 1GW of solar and storage in the state to help power Whyalla and other big energy users, and AEMO has predicted enough wind and solar could be built by 2026/27 to generate more than is consumed in the state.AEMO, and local network operator ElectraNet, want to build a new connector to NSW to facilitate the flow of electricity to and from South Australia and other states.Both the Robertstown and then Solar River projects appear to have been proposed with that in mind. The link favoured by AEMO and ElectraNet will begin near the Robertstown sub-station and go through to Wagga Wagga. Numerous other projects are being proposed for the other end of the line in NSW, and in between.In South Australia, apart from the significant amounts of battery storage proposed, about five different sites are being considered for pumped hydro facilities, and SolarReserve is still working on its solar tower and molten salt storage proposal near Port Augusta.The Robertstown solar project is proposed for cropping and grazing land. Calls made to the project developers and consultants for further information were not returned. Robertstown envisaged completion of its project within 6 years of approval, while Solar River is looking to begin construction this year and finish in two years.Giles ParkinsonGiles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Gridand founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
By the end, he didn't really want to look. Head bowed, hands running through his hair, Marco Silva's actions showed there is no life for him as a poker player.Everton's manager went to Huddersfield under pressure but returned with a critical victory, one which was built on the club's old-fashioned values of grit and determination. They didn't play well, by any means, but three points was all that mattered.If Silva was relieved to see his 10-men escape with three points, thanks predominantly to a super display from Jordan Pickford in the second half, Jan Siewart will know exactly the size of the task that confronts him in Yorkshire.MATCH FACTS, PLAYER RATINGS, PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE, AND MATCH ZONEHUDDERSFIELD (4-3-3)Lossl 6: Hadergjonaj 6, Zanka 6, Schindler 6, Kongolo 5: Diakhaby 5, Hogg 6 (Mooy 55mins), Bacuna 6: Mounie 5, Puncheon 5, Kachunga 5Subs not used:Hamer (GK), Smith, Mooy, Lowe, Depoitre, Pritchard, DurmGoalsBooked PuncheonManager Jan Siewart 6EVERTON (4-2-3-1)Pickford 8: Coleman 6, Keane 6, Zouma 7, Baines 7 (Digne 55mins 6): Gomes 6, Davies 7.5: Bernard 7, Sigurdsson 7, Richarlison 7: Tosun 5.5Subs not used:Stekelenberg (GK), Walcott, Digne, McCarthy, Calvert-Lewin, Lookman, KennyGoals Richarlison (3)Booked Bernard, TosunRed card- DigneManager Marco Silva 6Referee S Attwell 6Attendance 23,699Man-of-the-Match Jordan PickfordHow Richarlison scored Everton's goal.Check out more from Sportsmail's amazing Match Zone feature hereThe arrival of a new man usually triggers a bounce but, unfortunately, there was fizz in the stands. The John Smith's Stadium has been wonderfully atmospheric for the past two seasons, a place you knew that everyone was having a good time regardless of the result, but it was unusually flat here.Siewart received a generous ovation when he emerged before kick-off but you sensed the locals have accepted what fate awaits them in May and, within three minutes, the German saw why 10 of Huddersfield's last 11 matches have ended in defeat.Everton began aggressively, with recalled midfielder Tom Davies a prominent figure, and they got the boost they craved when Leighton Baines  another of Silva's five changes  worked a short corner that culminated with Richarlison prodding in from close range.How Silva enjoyed it. Three jabs of his fist and a roar of delight showed how the pressure had been released ever so slightly. Everton's performances have given him increased angst and another false step would have been a calamity.Immediately, Siewart began waving his arms in attempt to cajole his players but the hush that descended was symptomatic of a crowd that knew the implications. With only five goals in their previous 12 home fixtures, the chances of them scoring two in the remaining 87 minutes were scant.To give an idea of how limited Huddersfield are in terms of their attack, it took until the stroke of half-time for them to even have a shot: it couldn't be described as a serious attempt on goal as Stevie Mounie's shot ended up closer to the corner flag than it did to Jordan Pickford.Huddersfield, really, were there to be taken apart and it was only down to the fact Everton have been so crippled by a lack of confidence that they did not go through the gears to have things wrapped up by the interval.Much to Silva's exasperation, the visitors were laboured and other than a shot from Gylfi Sigurdsson which Jonas Lossl comfortably caught, Everton had no cutting edge and their 27milllion striker Cenk Tosun seemed more intent on fighting with Huddersfield's defenders than causing mischief. (361)They needed to show more, much more, and Everton re-emerged with a little more purpose. Davies, again, was driving force and his surging run to get on the end of good play between Tosun and Sigurdsson ended with him cracking a drive straight at Lossl.One more goal would make the points safe. Everyone in the stadium knew it, none more so than Silva; to watch him was to see a portrait of a man desperate for break, as he shuffled impatiently from side-to-side and shook his head in frustration when a pass missed its target.A rare Huddersfield opening on the hour, when Elias Kachunga headed Terence Kongolo's cross wide, led the Portuguese to spin on his heels and mutter darkly. His team, certainly, were not making it easy for him.Never more was that apparent than in the 67th minute when substitute Digne, who had replaced Baines, got caught out of position and then exacerbated his error when committing the most obvious professional foul on Adama Diakhaby. The resulting red card was inevitable.Huddersfield could not have wished for a better position for the free-kick but, indicative of the way things are going, Aaron Mooy's curling effort was beaten away by Jordan Pickford. And Everton, finally, were able to breathe a little easier.
Evertonhave left Idrissa Gueye out of their squad to face Huddersfield on Tuesday as the defensive midfielder continues to be linked with a move to Paris Saint-GermainThe Senegalese international was expected to start in the Toffees' Premier Leagueclash with the Terriers but he was omitted from squad and now looks set to leave the club before the window slams shut on Thursday night.Gueye has been asking to leave Everton for PSG since December when the French champions began to show interest in him.Evertonrebuffed PSG's21.5million bid for the Senegal international on Monday and told the French champions their key midfielder is not for sale.Gueye is keen to secure the move to Paris but Everton want at least 35m plus add ons before they consider selling the defensive midfielder. The Merseyside club value him at close to 40m.To deal could still go ahead despite PSG completing the 35million signing of Argentinian midfielder Leandro Paredes on Tuesday.Toffees boss Marco Silva made five changes for Tuesday's game, with Leighton Baines back as captain and Cenk Tosun, Kurt Zouma, Tom Davies and Bernard also returning to the starting line-up.
Six years after two passenger jets slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, a new kind of hostile terror threat rose in New York.Designed to spread the vengeful ideology of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, a website named Revolution Muslim (RM) was quietly launched into cyberspace in 2007 out of a Brooklyn apartment.The RM platform, which would forge potentially deadly links with some of Australia's most notorious anti-Western Muslim preachers, was a precursor to Islamic State's slick online propaganda machine.Its mission, while pushing US freedom of speech legislation to extreme limits, was to radicalise and recruit vulnerable young English-speaking men in the West into becoming jihadists.RM was the brainchild of New Yorker Jesse Morton and Yousef al-Khattab, two American men who had converted to Islam. Both Al Qaeda recruiters would later be hunted down by American counter-terror agencies, with Morton captured in Morocco after fleeing US soil. The pair were charged with soliciting murder through their RM network.'My organisation was the first to unashamedly promote the Al Qaeda world view on the streets of the United States,' Morton, 39, told nine.com.auon the phone from his Washington D.C. base.Morton is no longer an Al Qaeda recruiter. While in prison he became an informant for the FBI, and now fights for the other side in the war on terror.'I was much more harmful than a fringe extremist who wanted to travel abroad to join the frontlines or carry out attacks at home.'Morton reckoned 'tens of people [have been] killed' as a result of his work, pumping out the Al Qaeda doctrine to potential lone wolves and others susceptible to the idea of fighting in the Middle East.Famously, Morton called for attacks on South Park creators. He was also blamed for inciting Colleen LaRose, known as Jihad Jane, to attempt to kill a Swedish cartoonist. There were others who had fallen under his influence, including the plotter of a New York City bombing.'I was a prolific and popular figure,' Morton said, explaining the kind of power he wielded in the eyes of vulnerable men he set out to transform into 'jihadi lions'.'I was a white guy with blue eyes that converted to Islam. I understood the religion and could speak Arabic.' A learned student of politics and economics, and with a Masters degree from prestigious Columbia University, Morton said, 'I could synthesise a very dangerous message.'Morton claimed to have impacted 'most of the people' who went on to become high-level propagandists for Islamic State's media machine. Two of Morton's recruiting and motivating peers, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US citizens, were killed by an American drone strike in Yemen in 2011. He was friends with Anjem Chaudary, an extremist firebrand preacher jailed in the UK over his support for IS.TENTACLES INTO AUSTRALIAMorton's carefully crafted propaganda reached Australian shores, where it was hoped several key local figures would help do Al Qaeda's bidding in Australia's major cities.Between 2007 and 2010, Morton told nine.com.auhe had 'very intensive contact' with a handful of prominent men in the Australian Muslim community known for their hardened anti-Western preaching, and links to terror groups such as Al Qaeda and IS.Nine.com.aucannot identify two of those men. One individual is currently awaiting trial on terror-related charges. The other man named by Morton is a Wahhabist sheikh in Australia, believed to lecture regularly at a popular city mosque. However, that sheikh appeared to have 'gone more silent' in recent times, according to Morton.But a shadowy individual who can be named is Egyptian-born Australian Muslim, Abu Sulayman.Sulayman, a 34-year-old raised in Sydney's southern suburbs, is now believed to be Australia's most senior ranking member in Al Qaeda. In 2012 Sulayman defected to Syria, where he took up a senior posting with Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's offshoot branch in Syria.Morton said Sulayman was 'very prolific' cross-posting propaganda from RM, perhaps reinforcing the possibility that an Al Qaeda sleeper cell existed in Australia post-9/11.CAPTURE AND CHANGEAfter his capture in Morocco in 2011 and extradition to the US, Morton was sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison. Behind bars, the trajectory of his life changed.Eleven months in solitary confinement forced Morton to 'sit with myself' and contemplate his predicament and mindset. Luck intervened, too. A prison guard let Morton into the prison's law library for 10 hours each day. He was supposed to only spend one of every 24 hours outside his cell. There, he read books of enlightenment, philosophy texts and biographies of the founding fathers.He also got a huge break when the FBI offered him the chance to become an informant. His mandatory sentence was slashed and he was released in 2015. Following his release, Morton secured a high-profile posting with George Washington University's Program on Extremism. It was believed Morton could help governments understand and fight the radicalisation of youth.A new study, When Terrorists Come Home, co-authored by Morton and a former NYPD counter-terror official, investigates how jihadist prisoners can be returned safely has just been released.It is vital to rehabilitate violent extremists, Morton said. Many offenders are young men with a long life ahead once they leave prison.In 2010, the US government estimated that approximately 20 percent of former Guantanamo Bay detainees were suspected of re-engaging in terrorist or insurgent activities.THE AUSTRALIAN PROBLEMIn NSW, there are currently 28 AA-rated male inmates, most held in Goulburn's notorious SuperMax, nine.com.auhas confirmed.The AA rating is given to NSW prisoners deemed a special risk to national security who could incite terrorist activities. Two women in NSW are categorised similarly. In Victoria, there are 25 terrorism-charged offenders spread across several prisons in the state.Typically, the most dangerous extremists are held together in separate units inside prisons, such as SuperMax. It is a solution that concerns Morton.'It is understandable people want to isolate terrorism-related convicts,' Morton said.But that can create echo chambers and incubators where everyone agrees with each other, he said.'They can feel these punitive measures are part of an already perceived war on Islam and Muslims  and that situation can also be utilised as fodder for other propaganda.'Prisoners can then be released without changing and with even more commitment to the cause, he said.'GOD IS THE GROUP'Placing convicted jihadists in general prison population allows for better surveillance and intervention, Morton claimed. In general population, clusters of Muslim prisoners with different interpretations of Islam will naturally form. Specialists trained to understand the nuances in Islam ideologies and different behavioural indicators for risk can then meaningfully monitor what an individual is doing.'These kids are looking for something to belong to, and it's not that they are absolutely committed to Allah or God. The 'god' is really the group,' Morton said.Alternative networks can provide the purpose and belonging that the extremist networks offered, according to Morton's study.The NSW Government announced in 2017 it would spend $47 million to tackle radicalisation in prisons.A NSW corrections spokesperson told nine.com.authat staff training was a vital strategy in its counter-terrorism strategy.'All frontline staff receive training on radicalisation and extremism as part of entry level training.'The Victorian Government provided $6.8 million in the latest budget to help staff identify radicalisation in the prison system.'Our approach aims to limit a concentration of extremists being placed together at the risk of heightening their violent beliefs, through perceptions of being singled out due to their religious or political beliefs,' a Corrections Victoria spokesperson said.'Any prisoner identified as attempting to radicalise other prisoners can be quickly placed in a more restrictive, higher security environment to limit their influence.'FOLLOW:Mark Saunokonoko on Twitter
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked for a performance guarantee of Rs 10 crore each from the governments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh expressing dissatisfaction over the cleaning of river Yamuna.

The order comes after the interim report filed by the monitoring committee comprising of expert member B S Sajwan and former Delhi chief secretary Shailaja Chandra.

Recommendations of the Monitoring Committee

The committee tasked with developing an action plan and a detailed report had made the following recommendations in its interim report:

A study to assess the environmental flow of the river Yamuna for the stretch between Hathanikund and Okhla and notes that it would not be possible to rejuvenate it unless minimum environmental flow was provided.

Creating ponds and pits in various localities to facilitate idol immersion.

Building awareness about why the flood plains are sacrosanct and why they need conservation.

Involvement of citizens by dissipating knowledge about why the river is important and why it is worth preserving and restoring.

River Yamuna is a unique birding destination and there is a need for the Delhi Development Authority to preserve the birding hot spots.

Other observations made by the National Green Tribunal

The other observations include:

The performance guarantee would be forfeited if the work was not carried out as per the recommendations of the monitoring committee.

The monitoring committee was asked to expeditiously submit its final report.

Steps to be taken by the three states at the earliest for disposal of municipal solid waste, cleaning of drains and ensuring cleaning of garbage.

Haryana pollution control board to conduct a study of water quality and the flow of Yamuna at the point it enters Haryana, and submit the list of industries located in the catchment area.

NGT also noted that almost 67 per cent of the pollutants that enter the Yamuna would be treated by two sewage treatment plants at Delhi Gate and Najafgarh under the first phase of the Maili se Nirmal Yamuna Revitalisation project.
The Africa Centre for Climate and Sustainable Development was inaugurated by the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at Rome. The centre has been opened by the Italian government in association with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

About the Centre

The important aspects of the Africa Centre for Climate and Sustainable Development are:

The centres origin can be traced to a declaration endorsed by the G7 meeting of the Environment Ministers in 2017. The centre would facilitate coordination among the G7 and African countries on common initiatives in Africa to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda.

The Centre would contribute towards addressing the needs of Africa by providing a platform for G7 countries to steer their cooperation to contrast environmental degradation and promote sustainable economic growth in the region.

The centre will provide a fast-track, demand-driven mechanism for African countries to access grant resources that support policies, initiatives, and best practices on climate change, food security, access to water, clean energy, and accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa.

The centre would be hosted by UNDP which would utilise its extensive country office network and programmatic hubs, and global expertise and knowledge, to enable the African countries to access the resources available through it.

Attaining the Sustainable Development Goals

Africa referred to as Dark Continent still has up to 330 million of its population living in poverty and up to 60% of unemployed Africans are young people. The centre will help to speed up progress and quickly resource national development priorities in the African countries to address these challenges and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The unfavorable view of Trump held by a significant majority of the country may well assist Democrats in its message of change  even radical change.

The party will bank on discontent with an administration riven by chaos and headed by a president who often seems to have slipped his moorings to reality. Abrupt, contradictory shifts in policy combined with a temperamental chief executive waging running combat with the media in the midst of an ongoing investigation of his campaign all work to Democrats benefit in 2020 in the minds of party leaders.

It would, however, be a serious strategic error to rely heavily on antipathy toward Trump as the core of the campaign  a lesson learned the hard way by Clinton.Underestimating Trump, as the Clinton campaign discovered, is risky.

As the first female to secure a major party presidential nomination, Clinton opened the path for women to compete on an equal footing with their male counterparts.

It was no small achievement and will forever be viewed as a seminal moment in American politics, her subsequent badly flawed campaign and loss to Trump notwithstanding.

Any doubts about whether the country is prepared to accept a female as president have been put to rest. Clinton, after all, won the popular vote rather handily.
The authors of a new report are calling on federal, state and local governments to do more to address a staggering spike in pedestrian fatalities.

The report, Dangerous By Design 2019, urges swift action to curb the death toll, approximately 49,340 people in the 10-year period ending in 2017 in the United States.

We are killing an airliners worth of people walking each and every month  and these numbers are only increasing. This is a wake-up call for all of us. No one should have to risk their life just to cross the street, yet thats exactly what thousands of people have to do just to get around each day, said Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition, which produced the report along with the advocacy group Smart Growth America.

Police release photo of bobtail truck of interest in fatal pedestrian crash on I-81 in December State Police at Carlisle are looking for the driver of a bobtail truck in relation to a December fatal crash on Interstate 81 in Silver Spring

Cumberland and Perry counties saw a spat of fatal pedestrian crashes in December and January, including two separate incidents on Dec. 23. On that day, a man was struck and killed while walking on Interstate 81 in Silver Spring Township, and another man was killed in a hit-and-run in New Bloomfield. Both were in the early morning, and police have not reported finding the driver in either case.
Sentinel reporter Joseph Cress offers a daily digital glimpse back in Cumberland County history with help from our Newspapers.com archives:

51 Years Ago

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A walkout by about 75 workers around 10 p.m. Jan. 29 triggered a strike at the Carlisle Tire and Rubber plant where members of the United Rubber Workers Local 794 had been engaged in contract talks with the Tire and Rubber Division of the Carlisle Corporation. There were some reports of violence and most members of the Carlisle police force were on duty throughout the night into Jan. 30 dressed in riot gear. A company spokesman said he was flabbergasted that the walkout took place less than an hour after the parties had met to negotiate through a federal mediator. In other local news:

 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found no justification to change the life sentence of Percy Haines, the former Newville area farmer who was convicted in September 1955 of the courtroom slaying of Carlisle attorney John D. Faller Jr. Haines was serving his time in the Eastern State Penitentiary. Gunfire from Haines injured three other people during a non-support hearing held Aug. 2, 1955, in the second floor of the Old Courthouse on the Square in Carlisle.

 The Sentinel reported that initial planning for the 1968 Memorial Day program was to get started soon under the direction of an executive committee headed by Richard R. Mumper, the recently elected president of the Carlisle Joint Memorial and Veterans Day Committee.

Email Joseph Cress at jcress@cumberlink.com.

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Central Penn College has announced it would be the first college in central Pennsylvania to offer free housing to all incoming new students.

With this initiative, all incoming freshmen and transfer students who choose to live on campus will be eligible to receive free housing for the entire 20192020 academic year, Central Penn College President Linda Fedrizzi-Williams said.

Students who start in the summer term and attend classes continuously through the spring 2020 term will save up to $5,800 in housing costs. Students who start in the fall term will save up to $4,350.

Over the past year, the college has been working to address the college affordability issue that many students and families face. In addition to offering free housing, the college has made the decision to freeze tuition for the 201920 academic year

For more than 100 years, Central Penn College has been a leader in providing affordable, career-focused education to students in this area and beyond. With our new Free Housing Initiative, we will continue to build on that great tradition, said Fedrizzi-Williams, who became president of the college in June 2018.
Cabinet meets Congress demand on two hospitals

The Government has fulfilled the demand of the opposition Nepali Congress regarding the two hospitals established in the names of its leadersGirija Prasad Koirala and Sushil Koirala.
Carlisle High School junior Samantha Martin brought her case for increasing funding for public schools to the Capitol Wednesday.

Martin was one of several speakers representing teachers, principals and parents in a Pennsylvania Schools Work rally calling for significant increases in state funding for classrooms, including $400 million for basic education, $100 million for special education funding to support students with intellectual disabilities or other health impairments, and $10 million for career and technical education.

Martin said she found her lifes passion within the walls of Carlisle High School as she learned about abolitionists, suffragists and labor unionists. She plans a career in politics, and is preparing for that career through an advanced placement seminar, teaching her how to think critically and analyze sources. The seminar is offered in fewer than 1,500 schools nationwide.

Without proper funding for public schools, and without dedicated teachers and administrators, neither I nor any of my friends would be able to find and develop our passions, she said.

Because people are mastering skills earlier and earlier in a fast-paced society, students need to be prepared for a world in which what used to be considered basic education is no longer enough, she said.

Make sure they have the tools they need to allow students to meet todays challenges, not the challenges of a decade ago. Instead of lagging in the past, I hope you will focus on the future, Martin said.

Email Tammie at tgitt@cumberlink.com. Follow her on Twitter @TammieGitt.

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On January 17, 2019, Taiwans presidential office issued a statement on Facebook accusing Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper funded by Beijing, of fabricating a story alleging that Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen secretly sent an envoy to advise three Hong Kong independence activists. The Taiwan government is currently investigating whether the journalists violated immigration laws during their reporting, which could potentially result in all reporters from the paper being barred from entering Taiwan for three years, according to news reports.

According to Ta Kung Paos front-page story, members of Student Localism, a Hong Kong student group that supports the territorys independence, met with a representative of Tsais government at Academia Historia, a history museum located near the presidential office. Ta Kung Pao claimed that the three student activists were conspiring with the envoy about securing Hong Kongs independence from China.

The story was immediately debunked by the independent Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times, which stated that the secret envoy was actually Times political reporter Su Yong-yao, who happened to be interviewing the activists at the time.

Ta Kung Pao fabricated fake news, seriously violated journalism ethics and standards, and poses a danger to human safety and rights. We strongly condemn these actions, Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister, Chiu Chui-cheng, said during a press conference.

Chiu added that authorities are investigating whether the Ta Kung Pao journalists violated Taiwans immigration laws. Chiu stated that journalists from Hong Kong or Macau who wish to report from Taiwan on a short-term basis must apply for permit in advance, and that failing to do so could affect their ability to enter for up to three years.

The government is also investigating Wen Wei Po, another Beijing-backed Hong Kong paper that ran the story, Chui said. According to news reports, such an immigration violation could result in all journalists from the two papers being banned from entering Taiwan for three years.

When CPJ called Ta Kung Paos news department, the person who answered the phone said he knew nothing and hung up. CPJ also contacted Wen Wei Po for comment, but was directed to call Ta Kung Pao.

Ta Kung Pao defended the main points of the report in an article published on January 21, insinuating that Su and the pro-independence Liberty Times have close ties with Tsai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.



Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council told CPJ that the immigration agency will be responsible for investigating any unlawful actions regarding the incident.
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New York, January 30, 2019At least four journalists were surveilled under Project Raven, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersurveillance and hacking operation, Reuters reported today. The UAE hired former U.S. National Security Agency employees to assist in deploying a surveillance tool called Karma that exploited a vulnerability in the iPhones messaging application, according to a Reuters investigation based on interviews with nine former Raven operatives.

What weve learned about Project Raven raises significant concerns over the lengths to which the UAE will go in targeting journalists, and the involvement of former U.S. intelligence officials is also disturbing, said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in Washington, D.C. Emirati officials must stop targeting the press at home and abroad, and the U.S. must make it clear to their allies that hacking journalists phones is not a legitimate counterterror strategy.

Reuters reported that the operation surveilled Rori Donaghy, a British journalist who has contributed to The Guardian, three U.S. journalists who were not named in the report, as well human rights activists, foreign diplomats, and foreign leaders. When CPJ called the UAE Embassy in Washington, D.C. today for comment, a representative said questions should be submitted via email. The embassy did not immediately reply to the email CPJ sent.

CPJ has previously documented the UAEs tough stance on the critical press, including its aggressive stance toward Qatar-based media, including Al-Jazeera, during a regional diplomatic dispute. Emirati-affiliated militias in Yemen have also attacked and harassed journalists who were critical of UAE action inside the country.
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 30, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Flu can make you deathly ill, but it could also trigger a stroke or a rupture in your neck arteries, two new studies suggest.

The findings prompted an urgent reminder from the researchers: Getting a flu shot will not only protect you against infection but may also reduce your risk for these serious complications.

Researchers in the first study found that flu can increase your odds for having a stroke by almost 40 percent -- and that added risk remains for a full year.

"The risk is highest in the 15 days of influenza and starts to decrease as time goes on," said lead researcher Amelia Boehme. She's an assistant professor of epidemiology at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City.

For the study, Boehme and her colleagues identified nearly 31,000 patients from a New York state database, average age 72, who had a stroke in 2014. As a group, they tended to have had more severe cases of flu, since all were seen in an emergency room or admitted to the hospital.

Boehme's team expected to find differences in stroke risk between men and women, urban and rural dwellers and blacks and whites. Instead, researchers found their risk of stroke after fighting the flu was similar.

Other studies have found that stroke risk rises after any major infection. It could be that in people who are already at risk for stroke, flu triggers one, Boehme said. But this study did not prove that flu causes stroke risk to rise.

Still, patients need to be closely monitored after having the flu, said Dr. Salman Azhar, director of stroke at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"What's interesting here is the flu not only increases the risk of stroke, but that the risk is actually a prolonged risk, which goes on for several months," he said. "People need to get vaccinated."

Azhar suspects the inflammation that goes along with an infection like flu leaves the body vulnerable to strokes and heart attacks.

"The flu puts your immune system into overdrive and you've got a lot of inflammation, and it persists," he said. "It's not a one-and-done risk -- the risk is there for several months."

In the second study, another group of Columbia University researchers found that in the month following a bout with flu, patients had a higher likelihood of tearing neck arteries.

"Previous studies have shown that non-traumatic cervical artery tearing is a leading cause of stroke in patients 15 to 45 years old," said lead researcher Madeleine Hunter, a medical student. "However, how dissections of the neck's arteries occur without major trauma remains unclear."

Using the same data as in the first study, Hunter's team reviewed nearly 3,900 cases of cervical artery tearing among men and women, average age 52.

They also identified more than 1,700 cases of flu and found 113 cases where patients had flu during the three years before suffering a torn neck artery. Flu was most likely to have occurred within the 30 days before the tear.

"The fact that our study found an association between flu and cervical artery tearing and that the association fades with time suggests that influenza may be a trigger," Hunter said.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine in New York City, reviewed the findings.

"Flu causes a hyperimmune response and can increase clotting and wear-and-tear on the arteries," he said. But the problem with flu isn't just the flu itself, Siegel pointed out. Rather, it opens the door to other life-threatening diseases.

One of the under-appreciated aspects of the flu shot is that, if you get flu, it will likely be a milder case, Siegel said. "I would expect complications like these, which are extreme, to be less with flu shots."

The findings are to be presented Feb. 6-8 at the American Stroke Association annual meeting, in Honolulu. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until it is published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

To learn more about flu and heart disease and stroke, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.




1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
While such an agenda will most assuredly draw a sharp contrast with the Trump presidency, it is by no means certain it will capture the imagination of the nation.

The socialism upon which it rests has long been anathema to Americans, a rejection of the traditional values of individual freedom, personal responsibility and self-initiative.

The primary contests and candidates' debates will reveal how far left the party will tilt and whether the American people can be persuadedsuch an ideological shift represents progress rather than a threat.

The unfavorable view of Trump held by a significant majority of the country may well assist Democrats in its message of change - even radical change.

The party will bank on discontent with an administration riven by chaos and headed by a president who often seems to have slipped his moorings to reality.Abrupt, contradictory shifts in policy combined with a temperamental chief executive waging running combat with the media in the midst of an ongoing investigation of his campaign all work to Democrats' benefit in 2020 in the minds of party leaders.
Obviously, the big news this week in the chamber is the announcement of the hiring of the next chamber president. Late last week, the chambers Board of Directors unanimously accepted the recommendation of the Search Committee to hire Jeanne Schieffer as the next president of the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce (see The Telegram's Jan. 26 story on columbustelegram.com).

Jeanne will begin her duties as chamber president on March 1. She will become only the third chamber president in the past 36 years.

Jeanne is currently corporate communications and public relations manager at Nebraska Public Power District. That background in communications, working with customers and a board of directors, managing a team, and an economic development organizational mindset  all of that translates directly into her new position. While there are clearly differences organizationally between NPPD and the chamber, there are plenty of similarities for Jeanne to build on.

The board is thrilled it was able to reach an agreement with such a talented professional to lead our organization and confident that Jeanne will drive progress for us in exciting new directions. Jeanne is truly dedicated to the mission of growing Columbus through the chamber, which obviously can only happen if the chamber itself continues to grow and prosper.
The Nebraska Cattlemen Board of Directors met recently in Lincoln for its annual legislative meeting.

NC's six policy committees brought attention to bills and resolutions recently introduced in the Nebraska Legislature that are of interest to Nebraska beef producers.

Under close review and in accordance with NC Policy, the Board of Directors considered and took positions on nearly 90 pieces of legislation and choose three bills as priorities for this legislative session.

Once again, NC board members went into this legislative meeting acknowledging the immediate need for property tax relief and reform in the State. Nebraska Cattlemen chose to support and prioritize LB 497 by Sen. Curt Friesen.

The bill is the product of much work and discussion during the interim with senators and agricultural interest groups who have heard the outcry for property tax relief from constituents and members. LB 497 contains many provisions to address the inequity in school funding statewide and the over reliance on property tax dollars. NC policy aligns with provisions of the bill and the association looks forward to working with the Legislature to pass reform in 2019.
The need for renovation and expansion is clear, Hoesing said, noting the school would have to undertake portions of the project - likely at the burden of the taxpayer through a levy hike  to make certain areas of the school compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Without passage of the new bond order, provided information shows that the district would continue to levy at the present level, however, it would need to approve an additional bond through the Qualified Capital Purpose Undertaking Fund (QCPUF) to address the ADA and life safety compliance requirements. This could result in a 3-cent levy increase for up to 10 years ($417,265 per year).

"The important thing to look at is if we say, vote yes, we get all of these amenities and all these things for our district, Principal Stephen Grammer said. If you vote, no, taxes dont go down, it means they actually go up because we have to do these ADA compliance regulations. So we would still have to raise money to do that, so why not just get some amenities and other stuff we need right now (through the proposed bond order.)"

Its also a natural undertaking associated with continual growth. With high school enrollment in recent years spiking from around 450 to 600 students, there are real space confinements within the school.
Im not sure anybody knows what that means yet, Denker said. While Im excited that we got an Excellent rating, I would be more comfortable if it was something we sustained for three or four or five years ... Its easier to become No. 1 than it is to stay No. 1. So while were excited that we have gotten to the Excellent rating, what do we need to do to sustain that? I think thats what parents want to see, an Excellent rating every year and hopefully not a roller coaster.
Bigger, better. Can it be safer too?

The newly completed 10.5km Kalanki-Koteshwor section of the Ring Road in Kathmandu. The eight-lane highway upgraded by the Chinese government was handed over to the government of Nepal on Monday.
UW-Madison's thousands of students and employees will return to normal operations midday Thursday.

Classes that start at 1 p.m. or later on Thursday will be held. Students who cannot attend should contact their instructor.

Campus events that start at noon or later are allowed to proceed, but those attending should contact the event organizer to confirm that the event will be held as scheduled.

Faculty and staff should return to work at noon Thursday when campus buildings unlock, though some services may not be available immediately. More detailed information will be posted on alerts.wisc.edu.

Employees who are unable to report to work should contact their supervisor. An employee who reasonably determines that it is not safe to travel will not be subject to discipline, according to the university.

Supervisors should make an effort to afford employees flexibility with scheduling. This may include allowing employees to work from home, make up work over the weekend or take leave time.

The University of Wisconsin System offices located on UW-Madison's campus in Van Hise Hall are closed until 7:30 a.m. Friday.

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The bill would eliminate the requirement that offenses must be committed under age 25 to be eligible for expungement. Traffic crimes, such as drunken driving, would not be eligible for expungement. Wisconsin is one of only four states with an age-limit restriction.

The law would make clear that a crime that is expunged is not considered a conviction for employment purposes.

Our employers are begging us to give them workers who have the right attitudes who want to get back to work. We want to give those offenders who have records the ability to have that second chance and get back to work, Darling said.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders said he understands the importance of the legislation to employers and those with criminal records but wishes it were not necessary to shield court information from the public.

I wish that there were some trust in the ability of the citizens of Wisconsin to be discerning in their judgments about the public records that they can see, Lueders said.
At that time, they found an average of 11.4 a year occurred, and it was increasing over time.

A more recent FBI study of 2016 and 2017 found that in 2017, there were 30 active shooting incidents throughout the nation and 138 were killed in the shootings, the first time a death toll has risen above 90 for a single year.

The FBI concluded that the enhanced threat posed by active shooters and the swiftness with which active shooter incidents unfold support the importance of preparation by law enforcement officers and citizens alike.

And it appears communities are heading that warning.

Sheridan Pabst, an investigator with the Chippewa Falls police department, gives the presentations and coordinates more in-depth drills for businesses and organizations.

He said the interest has come from all over, from businesses, churches and government organizations among other things.

He noted that the majority of attacks in business settings start with a particular target, but then spiral off.

Its usually someone related to a staff member, one way or another, Pabst said.

Pabst said the increased interest in training was a response to the environment, similar to the bomb drills of the Cold War era.

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* The 4th International Competition of Cartoons Aleksandar Klas 2017, Serbia: All cartoonists whose cartoons are selected in the catalog and the exhibition will receive a free copy of the catalog ( Regulation ).

* International Cartoon Contest in Memory of Cartoonist Prof. Atila Ozer 2016, Turkey: The selected cartoons will be published in a catalog. These will be sent at no cost to the participants whose works are : The selected cartoons will be published in a catalog. These will be sent at no cost to the participants whose works are exhibited and published ( Regulation ).
CHATHAM  For the 10 years between 2005 and 2015, Tony Ntumba was a translator and photojournalist for the United Nations in his native country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Fluent in six languages, he was the first person out of a U N helicopter, the chief means of transportation due to jungle conditions, ready to reassure the people of a village that this group of white men were there to help them.

But Ntumbas main responsibility was to make a photographic record of the plight of the Congolese citizenry at the hands of both the government and the rebels it was fighting in a civil war. Because his pictures informed the world of facts the leaders of the Congo wished kept secret, he was arrested, tortured, held captive and marked for death. After he could not get visas from foreign embassies for he, his wife Joelle and their small daughter Pearl Hope to leave the Congo, Ntumba used a visa already on his passport to relocate to the United States, eventually ending up on Cape Cod four years ago.

That is the back story for Losing Stability: The Refugees Journey From the Congo, a G. Peter Fleck Memorial Lecture sponsored by and held at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House on Sunday. Ntumbas talk, along with a display and slideshow of his photographs, was first presented last October as part of the Paul Hush Memorial Series of forums held at the First Parish Brewster Unitarian Universalist Church in Brewster.

In his comments, Ntumba described the conditions under which many Congolese live.

The government is corrupt, he says, and virtually every official action requires a bribe. Most workers are vastly underpaid despite the relatively high resale value of the mineral tantalum, vital for smartphones and other devices, they mine. Quality education is almost impossible to attain. There are some 50 different rebel groups involved in the civil war, and some of them are actually armed by the government. Rather than going to school, children are recruited either to serve in the official or rebel military forces or to work as mine laborers.

Though Ntumba was doing the jobs for which the United Nations employed him, the Congolese government did not want the world to know what was happening in his country.

Every day I was experiencing the madness of human beings, he said. At one point, Ntumba received a call from the presidents office. They wanted to hire me. I asked them why, since the president already had photographers on his staff. He believes the goal was to gain control over his work.

When that failed, he was detained and tortured  he still has trouble wearing shoes due to the electric shock treatments he received. The last time he was arrested he was held in a house, an unofficial and secret location, from which a guard, believing Ntumbas life was in danger, set him free. Deciding he had to leave the Congo, yet fearing being arrested at the airport, he hid in a truck carrying fuel to his plane and then climbed aboard by way of the landing gear.

Most foreign embassies in the Congo will not grant visas to citizens wishing to emigrate to their countries, Ntumba says. Some will even force applicants to leave the embassy grounds even though the officials know that the Congolese army is waiting outside to arrest and kill them. To gain the desired visa a person has first to escape to another country  some as far as Libya and beyond.

You are running away from something and you do not know where you will end up, Ntumba says. I am lucky to be here because I already had a visa to come [to the United States].

Ntumba was forced to leave his wife behind and it took two years to finally attain a U.S. visa for her to leave the Congo and join him. Both have applied for asylum status with the help of immigration lawyers in Hyannis but have no idea when and if that will be granted. Also, they have twice requested a visa for their daughter, now six and living with her grandmother in the Congo, but until their own status is settled their efforts to facilitate their daughters arrival here will not succeed.

Ntumba and Joelle are living in a rental home in Hyannis which they may have to vacate due to the landlords desire to rent it for the summer at a higher rate. He is working as a driver for the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, while his wife, who held an important position in an electric company in the Congo, has only been able to obtain seasonal retail employment on the Cape.

Under international and federal law, asylum has two basic requirements. First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country. Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group.In his introductory remarks, the Rev. Rod MacDonald of the Nauset Faith Alliances Refugee Support Team explained that under the Trump Administration the possibility of a person successfully applying for refugee or asylum status has been severely curtailed. Ntumba and his wife are being supported by the Alliance in terms of housing, employment, fellowship and obtaining local legal assistance for the application process. But as became apparent in the question and answer session that followed Ntumbas presentation, there may be little that can be done to address the conditions he photographed, the oppressive actions of the Congolese government and the rebels, the economic inequality and lack of opportunity so many of its citizens, or facilitate a change in the status of Ntumba, his wife, and his daughter.
By Maria Kiselyova and Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused Donald Trump of ordering neighboring Colombia's government to kill him, but said he was open to the possibility of talks with the U.S. leader and his own domestic foes. In an interview with Russia's RIA agency, Maduro rejected calls for an early election, said an order to arrest his rival Juan Guaido had not yet been given, and promised Caracas would honor debts to Russia and China. Facing the biggest challenge of his six-year rule, the 56-year-old socialist leader also said his armed forces remained loyal and President Vladimir Putin was firmly behind him. Maduro's comments were published on Wednesday as the fight for control of Venezuela escalated with the government preparing an investigation into self-declared interim president Guaido, and new street protests planned. Venezuela plunged further into turmoil last week after the United States recognized Guaido, 35, as acting president, while Russia, which has lent Caracas an estimated $17 billion since 2006, continued to back Maduro. "Donald Trump has without doubt given an order to kill me and has told the government of Colombia and the Colombian mafia to kill me," Maduro told RIA. Though the Venezuelan was reprising an old allegation that critics scoff at as a smokescreen, there was speculation of military plans after Trump adviser John Bolton appeared on Monday with a pad showing the words "5,000 troops to Colombia." "If something happens to me one day, Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will bear responsibility," Maduro said of his right-wing foes. "I AM LEGITIMATE" Despite their increasingly militant opposition to Maduro, whom they regard as a dictator, both Washington and Bogota have repeatedly denied accusations of plots to kill him. Maduro, who survived what he called an assassination attempt in August last year, said he was well protected, guaranteeing him a long life. He declined to comment on reports Russia sent private military contractors to help guard him. He also dismissed calls for a snap presidential vote, saying his re-election last year was fair despite widespread allegations of fraud and the barring of two opposition rivals. "I won 68 percent of the vote," he told RIA. "I won legitimately... If the imperialists want a new election, let them wait until 2025." Despite alleging Trump wanted him dead, Maduro said he was ready to meet him "wherever he wants", but thought the prospect unlikely given what he described as attempts by Trump's advisers to prevent it. He said Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Russia, the Vatican and several unnamed European countries wanted talks between him and the opposition. "I am ready to sit at the negotiation table with the opposition for us to talk for the benefit of Venezuela," Maduro was quoted as saying. Regarding the investigation and possible arrest of Guaido, he said: "As far as I know, this measure has not yet been taken. Let's wait for the internal constitutional and legal processes to see what the results will be. We won't rush, we'll wait." (Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - A U.S. judge rejected Yahoo's proposed settlement with millions of people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen in the largest data breach in history, faulting the Internet services provider for a lack of transparency. In a Monday night decision, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, said she could not declare the settlement "fundamentally fair, adequate and reasonable" because it did not say how much victims could expect to recover. Yahoo, now part of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc, was accused of being too slow to disclose three breaches from 2013 to 2016 that affected an estimated 3 billion accounts. The settlement called for a $50 million payout, plus two years of free credit monitoring for about 200 million people in the United States and Israel with nearly 1 billion accounts. But the judge said the accord did not disclose the size of the settlement fund or the costs of the credit monitoring, and the proposed class may be too big because the number of "active" users that Yahoo disclosed privately to her was far lower. Koh also said the maximum $35 million of fees for the plaintiffs' lawyers may be "unreasonably high," saying the legal theories of the case were "not particularly novel." A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment. Verizon said: "While preliminary approval of the settlement was not granted, we're confident that we can achieve a viable path forward." Yahoo revealed the full scope of the breaches after having agreed in July 2016 in to sell its internet business to Verizon for $4.83 billion. The revelations prompted a cut in the purchase price to $4.48 billion. U.S. prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers in connection with one of the breaches in 2017. One hacker later pleaded guilty. Koh contrasted her decision with her approval last August of health insurer Anthem Inc's $115 million settlement over data breaches affecting about 79 million victims. The judge said Anthem, unlike Yahoo, timely disclosed the breaches, offered free credit monitoring even before settling, and committed to upgrading its data security. "Yahoo's history of nondisclosure and lack of transparency related to the data breaches are egregious," Koh wrote. "Unfortunately, the settlement agreement, proposed notice, motion for preliminary approval, and public and sealed supplemental filings continue this pattern of lack of transparency," she added. The case is In re: Yahoo Inc Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-md-02752. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Photo credit: Bill Clark - Getty Images

From Esquire

I don't want to alarm anyone unreasonably, but the heads of the entire United States intelligence community went before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning and testified that the President* of the United States doesn't know enough about foreign affairs generally, and the threats to this country in particular, to throw a cat. From the Washington Post:

[Director of National Intelligence Dan] Coats, speaking on behalf of the assembled officials, gave a global tour of threats, focused mainly on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Coats said that North Korea was unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, which the countrys leaders consider critical to the regimes survival. That assessment threw cold water on the White Houses more optimistic view that the United States and North Korea will achieve a lasting peace and that the regime will ultimately give up its nuclear weapons...And throughout the hearing, officials found themselves repeating earlier assessments on subjects that also were at odds with other public statements from the president.

Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images

The officials assessed that the government of Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Trump administrations persistent claims that the country has been violating the terms of an international agreement forged during the Obama administration. Officials told lawmakers that Iran was in compliance with the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as some officials had previously said privately. But Iranian leaders are discussing reneging on the deal if they fail to reap the economic benefits it was supposed to bring after international sanctions were lifted, Haspel said. The Trump administration has reimposed U.S. sanctions.

The intelligence community has earned every speck of every grain of salt with which its evaluations are taken in the wake of what happened in the run-up to the Iraq War. (So, in fact, has anyone associated with the late Avignon Presidency, no matter what their opinion of the current president* is.) But these are people saying now that the administration* is being unreasonably naive towards North Korea and unreasonably bellicose toward Iran. This comes out to being hilariously and dangerously incompetent on all counts.

Story continues

Trump continues to equivocate on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, contradicting the unanimous assessment of all the top intelligence officials currently serving. At last years threats hearing, leaders focused much of their remarks on Russia, unanimously concluding that the country was trying to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections by sowing discord and confusion via social media, as it had two years earlier in the U.S. presidential race.

Yeah, that, too.

Coats and the rest of them have done everything except sound an air raid siren about this administration*'s bungling attempts to develop a foreign policy, and there's no indication yet that the Senate Republicans have mustered the gumption to act on the alarm. And John Bolton is making policy. This will all end splendidly.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

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The incoming archbishop of St. John's says he plans to begin his new role by listening to the experiences and concerns of Catholic priests and parishioners, before deciding what the priorities are for the future of the archdiocese.

Peter Hundt will be installed as archbishop in a ceremony Tuesday evening in St. John's, replacing former Archbishop Martin Currie, who retired in December. Hundt was previously the bishop of Corner Brook and Labrador.

Hundt said he plans to spend the next couple of years speaking with parish priests one-on-one, as well as greeting laypeople at the doors of churches in and around St. John's.

"I'd like to do that within the context of weekend masses. It gives me a chance ot meet people at the door, talk to them before and after mass," Hundt told the St. John's Morning Show Monday.

He began that process of listening Tuesday morning, by meeting with his predecessor's advisors in the hours before his installation ceremony at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist.

Paula Gale/CBC

Thought seminary wouldn't stick

Hundt was raised Catholic on a farm in Bruce County, Ont. He decided to enter the seminary after high school, though at the time, he said, he didn't expect the commitment would be long term.

"The longer I was in the seminary, the more it just became clear to me that this was where I was being called," he said.

Ordained in 1982, Hundt was appointed an auxiliary bishop in Toronto in 2006, and served there until appointed as bishop for Corner Brook and Labrador five years later.

A year ago, then-St. John's Archbishop Currie informed the nuncio  the Pope's representative in Canada  of his intention to retire when he turned 75 on Dec. 11, 2018, setting in motion a search for his replacement.

"At that point, then the nuncio starts to investigate who would be the right choice to replace the archbishop," Hundt said.

That investigation then involves a questionnaire, sent to a number of people in the church to gather recommendations for a replacement. The list of potential replacements is reviewed and narrowed, until a recommendation is presented to the Pope for his approval.

Story continues

Heather Barrett/CBC

Church as family

Hundt comes to the archbishop role at a time when many around the world are calling for change in the Catholic church, from greater inclusion of LGBTQ people to accountability for abuse scandals. Even his predecessor questioned celibacy restrictions for priests.

However, the church's use of family imagery and metaphors is one of its strengths and something that provides a framework for these issues, Hundt said  for example, in coming together to help support abuse victims.

"In a family, the big thing is being there and being willing to listen, being willing to support, and that's what we need to do as a church as well," he said.

The public is invited to attend Hundt's installation as archbishop at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Hundt will also continue to cover the Corner Brook and Labrador diocese until a new bishop is named there later this year.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
Commemorations took place in Quebec City, Montreal and across Canada Tuesday night to honour the victims of the Quebec City mosque attack on Jan. 29, 2017.

It has been two years since a gunman entered the mosque following Sunday prayers, killing six men and critically injuring five others.

Despite difficult driving conditions in Quebec City, hundreds of people filled the Universite Laval auditorium for an evening vigil.

The six men who died were honoured with banners  their names and a quality to describe each of them was read out as the banners unfurled.

Azzedine Soufiane was called courageous, Mamadou 'Tanou' Barry was described as smiling, Khaled Belkacemi was devoted, Abdelkrim 'Karim' Hassane, pious, Ibrahima Barry, intelligent, and Aboubaker Thabti, generous.

Thabti's son, Mohamed, said his dad was someone who was always ready to help.

"It's important to never forget the person you loved and who loved you," the 12-year-old said.

"I think it was a good initiative for the whole community to bring people together without the aspect of religion or culture and just to be with other people in peace," he said of the vigil.

Along with members of the men's families Premier Francois Legault spoke at the event.

Legault said the events that unfolded in 2017 are now part of Quebec's collective history, and that the tragedy shook the entire province.

"Hate will not separate us," he said.

Albert Amba Mballa is a student at Universite Laval, originally from Cameroon. He moved to Quebec City shortly before the attack and was living near the mosque when it happened.

Julia Page/CBC

He said it was important to him to attend the vigil because all of humanity shares the desire to live in peace.

"This is a moment to hold hands, and say 'stop' to all forms of violence," he said.

Earlier, in Montreal, Mayor Valerie Plante lit candles at City Hall, alongside Samer Majzoub, the president of the Canadian Muslim Forum.

Story continues

Julia Page/CBC

Artist plans memorial

Inspired by the tree where so many people came to lay mementos in memory of the victims of the attack, artist Luce Pelletier will create a memorial to those who died in the shooting.

Officials in Quebec City and leaders in the city's Muslim community unveiled plans for the memorial on Tuesday afternoon.

CBC

"This piece will encourage remembrance, to remind us that violence can and should be transformed into friendship, into goodness and acceptance," said Boufeldja Benabdellah, president of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec, where the attack took place. "That is the significance of this memorial."

The art installation  to be called Vivre ensemble  will have components on both sides of Eglise Street: half in front of the cultural centre and half across the street, on the site of an old church.

Pelletier said she was inspired by the tree where people from all over the city came to leave flowers, cards, candles, and messages following the deadly attack. Her memorial piece will feature a circular bench around a tree to encourage gathering and reflection.

She also designed stone pillars with the names of the six men who died, atop of which are aluminum leaves that are meant to evoke Algeria, Guinea, Morocco, and Tunisia  the birthplaces of the victims.

Pelletier said she hopes the site immortalizes a spirit of gathering and solidarity.

Spencer Van Dyk/CBC

"I think it's very inspiring," said Megda Belkacemi, the daughter of Khaled Belkacemi, one of the victims.

"The artist created something unique, and the fact that the memorial borrowed such beautiful aspects of each country, and from Quebec and Canada, is very inspiring for me."

"I think it will be beautiful and peaceful to be there."

Benabdellah told those gathered together for the project's unveiling, including the widows and families of the six men who died, that the memorial celebrates the diversity of cultures and faiths in the city.

He said he has seen small but significant steps towards understanding and acceptance of the city's Muslim community in the last two years.

"It is healing to shake hands," he said.

The memorial is set to be inaugurated in 2020.
Prince Harry spent Wednesday morning meeting young people from around the world as he took the next step in his role for his grandmother Queen Elizabeth.

Harry, 34, took part in a roundtable discussion with young leaders from across the Commonwealth.

It was part of his position as Commonwealth Youth Ambassador, which he took on for the Queen last April. He and wife Meghan Markle, 37, see the Commonwealth as taking an important role in their working life.

In a speech during his visit, the prince said, Nearly 12 months into the job, I can honestly say I feel more passionate than ever about the huge opportunity we have here: To empower young people across the Commonwealth, you who are here in this room today, and the millions around the world who are part of this global collective of change makers.

Continued Harry, Some may say its our responsibility, but I see it as our privilege, to equip you with the tools and the platform you need  to continue your cause driven work at the highest level  driving positive and effective change.

Prince Harry

Prince Harry

During their tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, the royal parents-to-be undertook several engagements targeted on the Commonwealth  the group of 53 nations linked to the U.K. And in the summer, they helped host a reception in London.

Reflecting on the tour, Harry said on Wednesday, In all of these places, its been incredibly humbling to see how young people like yourselves are creating innovative and clever solutions to the diverse challenges you face  whether it be better mental health for everyone, eradicating extreme poverty and improving access to education for girls, or highlighting the very real effects and daily battles of climate change.

Prince Harry

He also referenced the new role hell soon take on  dad  telling the group, As someone who is about to become a father, I am acutely aware of our shared responsibility to make this world more resilient and its inhabitants more accountable for the next generation.

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Harry was officially welcomed by Lord Tariq, who also congratulated him on his pending new addition.

I know theres a small event happening in your lives but we are looking forward to the Duchess being part of the family, Tariq said.

RELATED: This Is How Prince Harry Is Spending His First Valentines Day as a Married Man

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Wednesdays meeting at Lancaster House in London was hosted by Lord (Tariq) Ahmad, Minister of State for the Commonwealth, and saw the young people brief Harry about the issues that are key to them in the run up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2020 (CHOGM).

With around 60 percent of the populations in Commonwealth countries under the age of 30, young people are being encouraged to take even more of a leading role in their countries.

Harry has urged the under-30s to take a lead as they are the future of the Commonwealth nations. And youth delegates from across the U.K., who participated in CHOGM 2018 (part of which Meghan attended alongside Harry a month before their May wedding), joined young people from nations including India, Fiji, Ghana and Jamaica to discuss how they can use the networks they are building to make their ideas a reality.
Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty, AP

Tel Aviv, ISRAEL  New research released today by the cybersecurity firm FireEye identifies a new Iranian hacking group targeting telecommunications companies and transportation companies to gather information on individuals. The new group, designated Advanced Persistent Threat 39, is based in Iran and is suspected to be state sponsored, according to a senior researcher with FireEye.

APT39 is an Iranian cyber espionage actor that FireEye intelligence has tracked since November of 2014, Ryan Whelan, a senior manager for strategic intelligence operations at FireEye, announced Tuesday at a cyber conference in Tel Aviv. We assess APT39s principal activities is to conduct operations to support Iranian operations in other areas and by other groups, or other organizations.

Whelan said FireEye had tracked the group for more than four years and was confident it was Iranian, based on Persian-language intercepts and domain registries linked to Iran.

APT39s targeting is global, but the majority of [its] operations are centered in the Middle East, including Israel, Whelan said.

In a blog post the company posted Tuesday morning, FireEye says APT39 has prioritized the telecommunications sector, with additional targeting of the travel industry and IT firms that support it and the high-tech industry. The group appears to be gathering information on people as a way to launch further operations.

In 2017, FireEye identified another group, called APT34, that was also targeting organizations involved in critical infrastructure in the Middle East. The overlap of this new group with APT34, as well as other Iranian-government associated groups, suggests this one is state operated, Whelan said.

FireEye believes his new group is distinct from APT34, but they do share similarities and resources within the Iranian apparatus, he said.

Among other similarities, both APT34 and APT39 were using the names of famous Iranian film directors to register domains. Those directors are not complicit, Whelan said.

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APT39 was mainly focused on stealing personal data, according to Whelan. This differentiates them from previous Iranian APT actors, he said.

While the group has targeted transportation and telecom firms, Whelan said one of the ultimate targets appears to be a specific Middle Eastern oil and gas company, though he didnt name it. He said the attackers penetrated a telecom company and ran search on customer logs and employee data for the oil and gas company. Whelan said it appeared that the hackers were trying to obtain information that could be commercially useful.

But what appears to be most striking about this new group is its focus on collecting intelligence on individuals, which has been a priority of other recent suspected state-sponsored hacks. That appears to have parallels to other attacks, according to John Hultquist, who manages intelligence analysis at FireEye.

Its useful to compare this actor to the Chinese one who targeted [U.S. Office of Personnel Management], insurance, travel for similar reasons, Hultquist wrote to Yahoo News.

Irans interest in the cyber domain is consistent with its preference for asymmetric and indirect conflict while disguising its hand, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in an interview with Yahoo News.

However, stealing personal information and penetrating networks, as reported of APT39, offers Iran an array of targets for future exploitation should the regime need to escalate against the West, he continued.

The Iranian Interests Section at the Pakistani Embassy, Irans consular representation in the U.S., did not respond to a request for comment on the new research.

The Trump administration has ramped up its rhetoric against Iran in recent months. In 2018, President Trump announced his intention to end the multilateral nuclear pact, and the White House is currently in a battle with European allies over the imposition of sanctions on Tehran.

We are aware of reports claiming that Iran is increasing its cyber hacking activities, a State Department spokesperson wrote in a statement. The United States is deeply concerned with the Iranian regimes malicious cyber activity. We express particular concern for cyber activities targeting critical infrastructure that have the potential for disruptive or destructive consequences.

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Read more from Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday he expected to see significant progress in trade talks with Chinese officials this week and that U.S. charges against telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd were a separate issue. "Those are separate issues, and that's a separate dialogue," Mnuchin said in an interview with Fox Business Network. "So those are not part of trade discussions. Forced technology issues are part of trade discussions, but any issues as it relates to violations of U.S. law or U.S. sanctions are going through a separate track." China's Vice Premier Liu He is leading a delegation for high-level trade and economic talks in Washington this week, including a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. On Monday, the United States announced criminal charges against Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and the Chinese technology firm. But Mnuchin said he did not expect the issue to be part of the economic talks. Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested in Canada in December and is fighting extradition to the United States. Mnuchin said the U.S. security concerns raised by the Huawei case were separate from the conversation on trade and forced technology. "There are two different issues. One is an issue of state subsidies" regarding Beijing's subsidies, he said. The other, he added, was a national security issue focused on U.S. infrastructure and cybersecurity. "These are separate issues and shouldn't be confused," Mnuchin said. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Paul Simao)
Moose Jaw, Sask., has garnered headlines recently for its good natured spat with Storelgen, Norway over the world's largest moose title. But close to a century ago, the city was better known for its ties to the criminal underworld, crooked cops and seedy characters.

Anyone driving by the city along Highway 1 will be greeted by a sign proclaiming Moose Jaw to be the "Friendly City." Drawing inspiration from it's bootlegging and gangster-loving past, Moose Jaw will now be known as "Canada's Most Notorious City."

Jackie L'Heureux-Mason, executive director Tourism Moose Jaw, said the idea for a new slogan came after the city held professional development training on branding.

Tourism Moose Jaw

The big take away from the training was to be unique and as L'Heureux-Mason found "The Friendly City" was anything but.

"There are over 100 places in North America that use that as their slogan, even right next door to us, Friendly Manitoba," she said. "Typically speaking, people know us for our tunnels and our spa."

L'Heureux-Mason said the new motto was leaked by someone within the city or tourism board and that it was set to be announced later this year in March.

As a result, council, the tourist board and community members decided their checkered past would be the best fodder for the future.

The Moose Jaw tunnels were used first by Chinese immigrants who were working on CP railways. To flee persecution, and the hefty head tax imposed on Chinese workers, the rail workers fled underground. According to L'Heureux-Mason, the tunnels were built during the initial construction of buildings along the city's Main Street.

Later, during the roaring 20s as prohibition came to be the law of the land through the United States and much of Canada, Moose Jaw became a hub for bootleggers.

It's rumoured that Al 'Public Enemy No. 1' Capone would head to Moose Jaw by way of the Soo Rail line to lay low when things were getting too hot in Chicago. His gang the Chicago Outfit made money hand over fist running booze, racketeering and often drew the ire of police they couldn't buy.

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As L'Heureux-Mason explained, gangsters fleeing north to Moose Jaw were in luck. The city's top cop Walter Johnson was known to be corruptible and retired after amassing a small fortune.

"Not all of our history was rosy and sun shiny, and that's okay. We embrace that, we know that we have learned many things from those notorious moments in the past," said L'Heureux-Mason.

Al Capone connection

Courtesy of Glen Lundeen

Capone's presence in Moose Jaw is only rumoured, where most accounts of him being in the city come from eye witness accounts and stories passed on by previous generations. But Al Capone's grandniece Deirdre Capone says she knows her "Uncle Al" was in Moose Jaw.

"Most people don't really understand the connection between Moose Jaw and the United States during prohibition," said Capone.

"I want people to know the truth of back then. Was there bloodshed? Absolutely."

She did not elaborate on how she knew that Capone had been to Moose Jaw. She said she is in talks to make a movie on the history of Canada's role in bootlegging and prohibition in the United States, focusing on Al Capone's own history.

The new motto came as a surprise to Capone but she said she is happy that city was accepting of its checkered past.

"I'm very proud of them," said Capone. "Embrace your past, don't try and pretend it never happened. Embrace it."
By Sophie Louet and John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - France is preparing for the return of dozens of French jihadists held by Kurdish authorities in Syria after the United States announced the withdrawal of its forces, its interior minister said on Tuesday, marking a shift in Paris' policy on the issue. France, like other European nations, has been wrestling with how to handle suspected militants and their families seeking to return from combat zones in Iraq and Syria, as well as those in detention, after Islamic State lost huge swathes of territory. Government policy until now has been to categorically refuse to take back fighters and their wives. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has categorized them as "enemies" of the nation who should face justice either in Syria or Iraq. "The Americans are disengaging from Syria and there are people who are in prison and held because the Americans are there and they will be released. They will want to come back to France," Christophe Castaner told BFM TV. "I want all those who return to France to be put immediately into the hands of justice," he added, responding to an unsourced report by BFM that 130 French jihadists will be released in the coming weeks. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have been backed by 2,000 U.S. troops and air support from nations including France, are holding about 150 French citizens in north-eastern Syria, including 50 adults, according to military and diplomatic sources. Excluding families, officials estimate 250 French jihadists are still fighting in Syria, including 150 in the Hajin area, one of the final bits of territory held by Islamic State in eastern Syria, and 100 in Idlib province. French officials in private say that they will have no choice but to change policy on citizens who went as jihadists to fight in the Middle East. Paris is already trying to repatriate minors on a case-by-case basis. Washington's decision to withdraw from Syria quickly has left Paris fearing that French jihadists will either disperse or fall into the hands of the Syrian government if the Kurdish-led forces strike a peace deal with the government in Damascus. "Given the evolution of the military situation in north-east Syria, American decisions, and to ensure the safety of the French people, we are examining all options to avoid the escape and dispersion of these potentially dangerous people," foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told a daily briefing on Tuesday. As well as the headache of how to deal with returning jihadists, France is grappling with the threat of homegrown militancy after suffering a series of deadly militant attacks over the past three years. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Gareth Jones)
(This January 27 story was corrected to clarify in paragraph 16 that the IRI was accredited to observe the election, but did not do so.) By Zeba Siddiqui and Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) - A top official at an observer group that monitored Bangladesh's election, as well as one of its foreign volunteers, have said they regretted participating. The election led to an overwhelming victory and a third successive term For Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ruling alliance, though western governments, including the United States, have called for reports of irregularities at the polls to be investigated. The president of the SAARC Human Rights Foundation told Reuters he now believed there should be a fresh vote after hearing first hand accounts from voters and some officials presiding over polling booths that activists from Hasina's Awami League stuffed ballot boxes the night before the poll and intimidated voters. Reuters was not able to independently verify those accounts. "Now I have come to know everything, and can say that the election was not free and fair," said Mohammad Abdus Salam, a 75-year-old former high court division justice. After Reuters published this story, the SAARC Human Rights Foundation issued a statement saying Salam had been misquoted. It quoted him as saying he told the reporters that "people in the mosque were saying the elections weren't conducted properly", but that he did not feel able to offer an opinion because he had not been an observer himself. "I have responsibly and judiciously discharged my duties," the statement quoted Salam as saying. "This incorrect news has hurt my prestige and standing, and I am distressed." Contacted again by Reuters, Salam declined to comment further. A Canadian observer who was brought in by the foundation, Tanya Foster, also told Reuters she regretted her involvement. But in a subsequent email and letter she said the regret concerned the hostility and harassment she faced from the media and others on her return to Canada and not her actual participation as an observer. A Reuters spokesman said: "We stand by our reporting on the views expressed by the election monitors." Several observers fielded by the foundation said they continued to endorse the vote. Gautam Ghosh, a Kolkata, India-based lawyer, and Hakimullah Muslim and Nazir Miya - members of Nepal's ruling Communist Party - said they stood by their initial statements that the polls were fair. "We heard of incidents of violence but never saw anything with our own eyes. We can't comment on what happened elsewhere," said Miya. Ghosh said he had never seen such a good election. Bangladesh, which is an important supplier of clothing to major Western High Street brands and is the second-biggest garments exporter in the world behind China, had already faced criticism from the European Union, United States, and British officials for irregularities observed during the polling. Transparency International last week said its investigation into the Dec. 30 election found irregularities at 47 of the 50 constituencies surveyed, including fake votes, ballot stuffing, and voters and opposition polling agents barred from entering polling centers. It found the ruling party was alone in actively campaigning at all areas surveyed, sometimes with help from local law enforcement officials and government resources. The government has dismissed the Transparency International investigation as lacking in credibility. Hasina's political adviser H.T. Imam called the group "a puppet" of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Imam did not respond to calls seeking further comment on Reuters' report about the monitors' misgivings. The BNP-led alliance has rejected the election, calling it rigged, after the Awami League and its allies swept more than 95 percent of the parliamentary seats. The United States, European Union and Britain have since called for allegations of ballot-rigging and intimidation to be investigated. Several other international groups were accredited to monitor the voting, according to a Bangladesh Foreign Ministry statement dated Dec. 27, 2018, but not all have commented on it publicly. The Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) was accredited as an observer, but said it did not carry out its monitoring mission. Ahead of the election, the U.S. State Department had expressed disappointment that some U.S.-funded observers had been forced to cancel plans to observe the polls as Bangladesh didn't issue visas "within the timeframe necessary". Bangladesh denied delaying visas and said it was following due process. Political experts said observers were key to establishing the credibility of the poll, which was Bangladesh's first fully participatory election in a decade. The BNP had boycotted the last vote in 2014. VICTORY ENDORSED The SAARC Human Rights Foundation brought in observers from Canada, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, who spoke to the press on election day and the day after, endorsing the fairness of the voting, often in glowing terms. On New Year's Eve, hours after being declared the winner of a contest that brought her a third straight term in power, Hasina sat on a white couch at her residence to address an audience of journalists and election observers. "They voted so enthusiastically, especially women and the young generation," Hasina said. "By coming to my country, you have also given us good opportunity to show how democracy is working." As a microphone was passed around the room, monitors from the SAARC Human Rights Foundation as well as other observers, including those from the Saudi Arabia-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - which endorsed the poll as fair - congratulated Hasina on the win. The first to speak was Foster, who called the election "very fair and democratic". "In Canada I feel that it is a similar type of process," Foster said, as Hasina smiled back. Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed, who is the government's information and communication technology adviser, repeatedly tweeted out statements made by the foundation's observers calling the election fair and peaceful. Though the initials and logo it uses closely resemble those of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an inter-governmental body that is well-known in the region, the Dhaka-based SAARC Human Rights Foundation has no affiliation with that organization. The foundation's Secretary General Abed Ali told Reuters the group had applied for approval from SAARC and was expecting it soon. A spokesman for the Kathmandu-based SAARC, though, told Reuters it had never heard of Ali or his group. Its advisory committee is chaired by a lawmaker from Hasina's Awami League, and includes a former lawmaker from the Jatiya Party, which has often been allied with the Awami League. A former minister in a previous BNP government is also listed on the panel, but no current opposition members. Ali said those current and former lawmakers "are just supporting our humanitarian activities". "I want to make it clear that we have no affiliation with any political party," he added. Awami League lawmaker Obaidul Muqtadir Chowdhury, who is listed on the foundation's website as chairman of its adviser panel, did not respond to calls seeking comment. Former Jatiya Party lawmaker Mohammad Ruhul Amin, who stood down at this election and is also a member of the adviser panel, did not respond to calls seeking comment. Party Chairman Anwar Hossain Manju said he had not heard of the foundation. The secretary of Bangladesh's Election Commission, Helal Uddin Ahmed, said it had no knowledge of links between the SAARC Human Rights Foundation and any political party. FOREIGN OBSERVERS In his original interview with Reuters Salam, the group's president, said the observers fielded by his organization had only monitored a few polling stations, so were in no position to make a clear assessment of the election's fairness. He said he was not directly involved in organizing the poll observers. He said some presiding officers had told him they had been forced to stuff ballot boxes. "I want to speak the truth," he told Reuters at the headquarters of the foundation, a dusty two-room ground floor apartment in the industrial town of Mirpur on the outskirts of Dhaka. "I am not doing this for any political gain." He did not identify the presiding officers, who he said spoke to him in confidence because they felt guilty at participating. Reuters could not independently verify the accusations. Ali dismissed the president's comments, saying: "Can you write something just based on someone saying something?" Foster, a policy analyst in the Saskatchewan provincial government, told Reuters she had heard from Bangladeshis in Canada that a group known as the SAARC Human Rights Foundation was looking for foreign election monitors. "I asked about the qualifications because I thought it would be an interesting experience. I applied to SAARC and to the Election Commission and they vetted me and offered me an invitation to be an observer," said Foster, whose daughter, Chloe Foster, also joined the observer's panel. They had never acted as international observers to a national election before. In hindsight, she said "I don't feel great about it. I feel like I was too naive". "I don't know that our reports are of that much value, considering we only visited nine polling centers and only in Dhaka," she added. "We didn't go to the more hostile areas. We didn't audit the election commission or conduct background checks of the presiding officers or poll agents." In her subsequent email and letter to Reuters, Foster said that she stands by her comments on election day: that she didn't witness any election irregularities. She also said she had left Bangladesh "feeling good about the role I had played in upholding democracy". Foster said her regrets concerned the pressure she faced from journalists and others on her return to Canada. "I had dozens of people harassing me about what I knew and didn't know," she said, adding that these people even contacted her government employer, putting her in a tenuous position at work. Chloe Foster was not available for comment. Ali, the foundation's secretary general, said the women had experience monitoring elections in Canada. He said it was not possible for any group to monitor all polling stations. (Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA and Gopal Sharma in KATHMANDU; Editing by Martin Howell and Alex Richardson)
Hallways at the University of Alberta are decorated with posters with reassuring slogans such as "Love yourself" and "Take a break and find balance."

One U of A student in Edmonton says that when he walks by the slogans, he feels as if it's all for show.

In the fall of 2016, the 18-year-old tried for the second time to take his own life. After his second discharge from hospital in less than a month, a university administrator came to meet him.

But instead of offering help, the staff member handed him a notice of eviction from his residence.

"I couldn't believe it," said the student, who told his story to Radio-Canada. CBC News is calling him Eric to protect his identity.

"I was being evicted for trying to attempt suicide. I hadn't put anyone else in danger."

Eric describes that moment.

Eric was told he had to move out of his campus residence because he had violated his residency agreement. The agreement states that "the resident will not endanger persons or damage property in the premises and residence."

Katrine Deniset

The administrator handed the student a trespass notice and an eviction letter that said: "You admitted to attempting to commit self-harm within your residence and this was the second attempt."

The letter also said: "The type of example your actions support have no place in an academic learning environment."

Eric said he had experienced symptoms of depression since his early teen years, but at university his symptoms worsened. "Things suddenly felt meaningless," he said.

He first attempted suicide in his second year of university. Police intervened and took him to hospital. After he was discharged, the U of A gave him a list of phone numbers to call if he needed help.

"I never gave it [another] thought to contact those people," he said. He said the help he was offered was based on an assumption that his actions were a cry for help, not a serious suicide attempt.

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One week later, he still had constant thoughts of dying, he said. He tried again to take his own life.

Again, police took him to hospital. When he returned to his dorm, staff had booked him a hotel room for the night and told him they would meet with him the next morning, he said. That's when the university took action.

Decision without explanation

Officials at the U of A haven't explained how the decision could have been approved.

In an interview this month, Andre Costopoulos, dean of students, said there is no policy that includes "considering self-harm or actively self-harming" as a reason to ban a student from a campus residence.

Costopoulos wouldn't comment on the specifics of Eric's case, but said it's possible the decision was based on erroneous information.

Two weeks after Eric's eviction, the same administrator who gave him the letter emailed him about reconsidering the previous decision.

But Eric said the damage was done.

"I just felt like I needed a safe place to stay where I could try to work this out in my head, where I can feel comfortable," he said. "They took that away from me."

'Never justifiable, never acceptable'

The University of Alberta Students' Union said the eviction is unacceptable.

A letter like the one Eric received is "never justifiable, never acceptable," Andre Bourgeois, vice-president of student life, said in an interview this month.

Bourgeois said the students' union is aware of more than one case when a student was evicted under similar circumstances.

He said that he's concerned that a recent directive from Alberta Advanced Education to have the province provide clinical care services for students will make it harder for school staff to make decisions in the best interests of students with mental health issues.

"I wouldn't say that I'm confident that the university will never make another mistake when it comes to suicide or mental health," Bourgeois said.

Eric has thoughts about that, too.

Students vulnerable

Mara Grunau, executive director of the Calgary-based Centre for Suicide Prevention, said suicidal thoughts are almost always the result of multiple factors, but students can be particularly vulnerable to certain stresses.

"What we typically see with students is the pressure they feel to achieve," Grunau said.

"It can also be pressure from living away from home for the first time."

Symptoms of mental illness also often reveal themselves in late adolescence, she said.

Since 2017, five University of Alberta students have died from suicide, according to Costopoulos.

Still a student, Eric has sought psychiatric help and continues to fight his depression.

If you are dealing with thoughts of suicide you can call the 24-hour Canada-wide crisis service hotline: 1-833-456-4566.
Index funds

Junior gold miner Continental Gold Inc. (TSX:CNL) continues languish after its stock collapsed in late September 2018 after an attack by FARC dissidents on its employee compound in Northwestern Colombia left three geologists dead. The miner has lost 40% over the last year compared to gold only falling by just over 2%. This has sparked considerable speculation that the miner is facing significant headwinds, which could derail its flagship Buritica project located northwest of Medellin, Colombias second largest city. While several issues have emerged, Continental Golds outlook is not as poor as some pundits believe.

What triggered the price collapse?

The September 2018 attack on Continental Golds employees in the Colombian municipality of Yaramul triggered the concerted sell-off, and the stock has yet to recover despite gold firming in recent weeks. Much of this is related to overbaked fears that the degree of security risk associated with Continental Golds operations has ratcheted up to a dangerous level. While the volume of dissidents after the historic FARC peace deal was implemented and the leftist guerilla groups demobilization completed has surprised government officials and observers, there hasnt been a widespread breakdown in security. The attack upon the compound, which was within the boundary of Continental Golds Berlin property, was an unforeseeable and opportunistic event.

Many armed groups in rural parts of Colombia fund their activities through a mixture of taxing cocaine trafficking, extortion and illegal artisanal gold mining. The overall degree of security risk within Colombia is at around its lowest level in decades despite the ELN, which is the last remaining leftist guerilla group, ramping up attacks on energy infrastructure and the security forces.

It is important to note that through a series of tax and regulatory reforms as well as security guarantees, the Colombian government is seeking to reinvigorate Colombias nascent precious metals mining industry, as the prolonged oil slump has wreaked havoc Colombias oil dependent economy and Bogota is desperately seeking other sources of fiscal revenue and economic growth drivers.

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While the attack forced Continental Gold to suspend operations at Berlin indefinitely, it didnt impact its flagship Buritica project, which has been identified as containing one of the largest high-quality ore bodies underdevelopment globally.

According to the latest announcement from Continental, 55% of underground development at Buritica is complete, while 94% of surface engineering and procurement is finished. This sees overall project development having reached 47%, placing it ahead of schedule. That means the first gold pour at Buritica could occur ahead of schedule.

The attractiveness of Continental Golds Buritica project is very clear. It has mineable proven and probable reserves of 3.9 million gold equivalent ounces with an average grade of 8.75 grams of precious metal per ton of ore (g/t). Those exceptional ore grades mean that Buritica will have industry leading all-in sustaining costs (AISCs) of an impressively low US$492 per gold equivalent ounce produced. This emphasizes the mines considerable profitability in an operating environment where gold is trading at over US$1,300 per ounce.

Buriticas considerable appeal was illustrated by senior gold miner Newmont Mining Corp. in May 2017 buying an almost 20% interest in Continental Gold for US$109 million at a premium, one of the highest paid in recent years. The involvement of Newmont forms an important backstop for Continental Gold.

Aside from security issues, another concern weighing heavily on Continental Gold is that in August 2018 it increased the pre-production capital costs for Buritica by up to US$126 million when compared to the February 2016 feasibility study. There are fears that Continental Gold wont be able to fund the shortfall because of growing security concerns, making Colombia an unattractive location for foreign investors.

Cost blowouts and scope changes, while usually inevitable for such projects, particularly in emerging market jurisdictions because of their fluid regulatory environments, are also a red flag for investors. The trepidation that these events have sparked is magnified by Newmonts merger with Goldcorp, which some pundits believe will reduce its interest in backstopping Continental Gold. While thats indeed a risk, it is highly unlikely given the attractiveness of the Buritica project.

Even if Newmont didnt provide the required capital, there are other options available to Continental Gold. These include selling or commencing a joint venture at one of its non-core properties, obtaining further debt funding or entering into a streaming agreement. The quality of the Buritica project means that financing will be available in one form or another.

Is it time to buy Continental Gold?

There is no doubt that Continental Gold is a risky investment. Mine development is a lengthy, costly and hazardous process riddled with uncertainties.

Nonetheless, the rewards associated with the Buritica development far outweigh the risks. This in conjunction with Continental Gold trading at a deep discount compared to its peers, along with the construction progress made to date makes Continental Gold an extremely attractive investment for risk-tolerant investors.

More reading

Fool contributor Matt Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2019
Source: WikiCommons/Tomas er

Frances LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (MC.PA), which makes high-end beverages like Moet & Chandon as well as designer clothing, said it is stockpiling four months worth of wine and spirits in preparation for Brexit.

Bloomberg reported that on LVMHs fourth-quarter earnings conference call, executives highlighted that Britain accounts for 4% of the companys revenue and the group is ready for the worst case scenario.

LVMH is the latest out of a long line of companies to say they are stockpiling goods to prepare for Brexit. It is currently unclear whether a Brexit deal will be sealed in time for the 29 March deadline or if the UK is going to crash out of the European Union without an agreement in place.

This week, bosses of Britains biggest supermarkets and popular food outlets warned the public of inevitable pressure on food prices and fewer products if a hard Brexit leads to new checks, delays and tariffs at Britains borders.

Supermarkets Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, and Morrisons have also asked their main suppliers to ramp up stock over shortage concerns. Aldi has already considered stockpiling food as part of its preparations for Brexit but CEO Giles Hurley has said that Aldis increased fresh food range would make this more difficult.

READ MORE: Food shortages in a no-deal Brexit realistic, says professor




FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla must do more to combat fake news as Europeans head towards an election or the companies will face the threat of regulatory action, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Companies and trade bodies representing the advertising industry signed up to a voluntary code of conduct in October to ward off more heavy-handed legislation. Critics say not enough has been done since they signed up.

The European Union's executive said signatories to the code of practice had taken steps to remove fake accounts and limit sites promoting fake news but said more was needed.

"Now they should make sure these tools are available to everyone across the EU, monitor their efficiency, and continuously adapt to new means used by those spreading disinformation. There is no time to waste," EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said.

European Parliament will hold elections in May while Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine all go to the polls in coming months.

Russia has faced allegations - which it denies - of spreading false information to influence the U.S. presidential election and Britain's referendum on European Union membership in 2016, as well as Germany's national election in 2017.

The Commission called on Facebook to provide more clarity on how it uses its tools to fight fake news and told Google to expand its actions to more EU countries.

It said Twitter should provide more details on its measures while it said Mozilla's online browser should have more information on how it would limit details about users' browsing activities.

The Commission also lamented the absence of advertisers signing up to the pact.

Google said it had announced several measures such as disclosing whether political organizations or political issue advocacy groups were paying for European parliamentary election advertisements, and setting up a library with these details.

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Google's Project Shield would help protect campaign groups and journalists from cyber-attacks, it said.

Facebook said: "The battle against false news is an ongoing one, and we need to work together with others in the technology industry, public authorities and governments to make continued progress."

Twitter said in a statement it had made several changes "including enhanced safety policies, better tools and resources for detecting and stopping malicious activity, tighter advertising standards, and increased transparency to promote better public understanding of all of these areas."

Mozilla had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Edmund Blair)
Growing number of churches

want armed security

By Mary Pflum. January 27th, 2019

When Chris Crews prepares for church on Sunday mornings, he follows a routine. He rises early. He puts on his church clothes, a button-down shirt paired with blue jeans or khakis. Then, before leaving the house with his wife and two children, he straps a firearm -- a 9 mm or a .45 -- to his right hip.

"I don't leave home without a gun," Crews said. "It's kind of like the old American Express card ads: I just won't leave home without it."

Crews, 47, is part of the security team at Ava Assembly of G-d, a Pentecostal church of 300 members in Ava, Missouri. The church has no paid security guards. Instead, it counts on a team of 18 church members to keep fellow congregants safe. None of the security team members are paid and all carry handguns.

Ava Assembly of G-d launched the security team 18 months ago after the church's pastor, Buddy Boyd, received threats related to a domestic dispute involving members of the community.

In response, and amid rising fears of mass shootings in general, a congregant suggested forming a security team. Boyd quickly agreed.

"Times have changed," Boyd said. "The No. 1 concern is to protect our parishioners." .......

It is refreshing to find some at least who see the potential risks involved when members of a church gathering have no means of protection. There are those of course who see the presence of guns in a house of worship as something to be decried, also making the naive assumption that within such a place there is some sort of divine immunity from attack. The trend is one that should grow and not only with churches - unfortunately many obstacles are being placed in the way of armed support in schools. Seemingly politics beats common sense.

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Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar in December. Pic: Reuters

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar will on Wednesday speak with Theresa May to tell her, once again, that the most contentious aspect of her Brexit deal  the Irish backstop  is not up for renegotiation.

On Monday night, after MPs narrowly passed an amendment that calls for the backstop to be replaced by unspecified alternative arrangements, the Irish government swiftly released a statement with a message almost identical to that of the European Union, saying that its position had not changed.

In a statement, the Irish government said: The EU position on the withdrawal agreement, including the backstop, is set out in the conclusions of the December meeting of the European Council. It has not changed.

The withdrawal agreement is not open for re-negotiation.

Varadkar will tell May that, because the UK is not willing to change its Brexit red lines, it will not be possible for the EU to agree to a significant and legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement that she desires.

He will reiterate, however, that it may be possible to re-open the other aspect of her Brexit deal, the political declaration.

Though Ireland has long signalled that the backstop, which is designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland, is merely a means to an end, it has also said that its one of the only things that could be agreed within the parameters that the UK government has set for itself.

And the backstop agreement was also something that had been heavily influenced by UK negotiators, the EU has consistently pointed out.

May will tell the EU on Wednesday that she is seeking one of three options: a time limit for the backstop, a mechanism that could see the UK unilaterally exit from the backstop, or an agreement to implement a technological solution known as max fac to minimise border controls.

The EU, however, has already rejected all three options.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, Varadkar had told Irish farmers that Ireland and the EU needed to hold our nerve.

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Brexit is the great political challenge of our time, he said. But he also warned about the prospect of a no-deal Brexit and said that his government would seek emergency aid from the EU in such a scenario.

This would be used to mitigate the impact of the sectors of Irelands economy most exposed to Brexit impacts, such as the beef, dairy and fishing sectors, he said.

I cannot offer you the reassurance provided by certainty but I can reassure you that until things are certain we will keep fighting your corner.
(Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Canada is barely putting up a fight in the global war for data supremacy, making friends with the foreign technology giants it ought to be fending off, according to Jim Balsillie, the former chairman and co-CEO of Research In Motion.

His call for more home-grown intellectual property, and limits on the growing influence of global technology firms in this countrys tiny innovation sector, is a familiar refrain for the famed businessman who put Canadian BlackBerry devices (BB.TO) in millions of hands around the world.

Balsillie argues the point has become about more than lost clout.

Data is the digital nervous system. Its determinative of not only national security and military power. Its also determinative of how you manage and control the private sphere within your country, he told an audience at the Cantech Investment Conference in Toronto on Tuesday. This is a massive geopolitical war that is framing everything. You have to look at it as all things are on the table with this battle.

Balsillies militaristic comments are underscored by the list of nations that have banned 5G equipment from Huawei Technologies over fear the networking components could be used by China for espionage, an allegation the company denies.

Canadas problem, he said, is reliance on the likes of Amazon (AMZN), Uber, and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) to drive innovation.

Canada has an innovation problem . . . All our policies are tuned to make the foreign rich richer, Balsillie said. Does anybody know what Googles payroll is in Canada? About $150 million. You know what the revenue is? Several billion. They get the IP free from universities, or near free. They buy small startups and exfiltrate the IP. They get data favourably from Sidewalk Labs.

Balsillie has complained at length about the data ownership terms of the agreement between Waterfront Toronto and the city-building subsidiary of Google.

The traditional trade economy, based on comparative advantage, has an incentive to cooperate. Where the ideas economy, because it is rent-based, has landlords and tenants, Balsillie said. Its much more rivalrous.

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The rent he refers to is payments for intellectual property, an area were Canada appears to be falling behind global peers. Two-thirds of Canadas intellectual property on artificial intelligence is owned by foreign firms, Balsillie noted.

He also highlighted reports from the 152-country Patent Cooperation Treaty showing overall filings have grew by 14 per cent between 2014 and 2017.

Filings from Canada shrank by over 22 per cent during that time. Meanwhile, Chinese filings surged 91 per cent.

Canada sat in 22nd place behind Poland on the Bloomberg 2018 Innovation Index. South Korea, Sweden, and Singapore ranked first, second and third respectively.

Ballsillie said he sees examples of false myths or fake news in the tech ecosystem, including the claim that Canada is the first country to have a national artificial intelligence strategy.



Apparently it has already performed beyond our wildest expectations . . . I asked the government to see the documents for this amazing accomplishment. It turns out there are none. This is no strategy, Balsillie said. Apparently they are going to work on it.

His solution to Canadas innovation woes is for entrepreneurs to reclaim influence over Ottawas innovation strategies from non-experts he wishes would shut up. Building bridges between policy makers and tech leaders is the aim of the Council of Canadian Innovators, a business association he chairs.

Public discourse and policy input is dominated by a plague of people who have no experience commercializing ideas, Balsillie said. I try to call out the BS wherever I see it.

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Jussie Smollett Attacked in Suspected Hate Crime

Trending News: Empire Star Brutally Beaten in Possible Hate Crime

Empire star Jussie Smollett was attacked in a possible hate crime on Tuesday, January 29, according to Chicago police. The actor, 36, who identifies as gay both in real life and in his role as Jamal Lyon on the Fox drama, was allegedly beaten up by two men in Chicago He was hospitalized and "in good condition," police say, according to CNN.

Officials say Smollett was out getting some food at about 2 a.m. CT when two men allegedly hurled antigay and racist slurs at the actor. Then they reportedly started throwing punches. "The offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim, according to a police statement. The substance poured on Smollett was bleach, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

"At some point during the incident, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around the victim's neck," the police statement continued. "The offenders fled the scene."

"Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime," said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, according to NBC News. "Detectives are currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline. The victim is fully cooperating."

Related: Bradley Cooper, Justin Baldoni and More Men Who Inspired Us in 2018

Outpouring of Support

John Legend, Zendaya, and more celebrities reacted to the news on Twitter.

Sending love to Jussie and the Smollett family after this horrific attack. We support you and pray that you find peace and justice.  John Legend (@johnlegend) January 29, 2019

This is heartbreaking and terrifying...please pay attention to whats happening here. Sending all my love to @JussieSmollett https://t.co/YTJ6bwLDkZ  Zendaya (@Zendaya) January 29, 2019

I'm just now hearing the news about the senseless hate attack on my #EMPiRE Nephew @JussieSmollett IM SO ANGRY AND HURT ABOUT THIS! THIS MUST STOP!! SPREAD LOVE NOT HATE! PRAYERS UP TO U NEPHEW! ????ai??ai pic.twitter.com/p4GqfNW3An  Vivica A. Fox (@MsVivicaFox) January 29, 2019

Danny Strong, the executive producer of Empire, also offered his support.

Im deeply horrified and saddened by the racist and homophobic attacks against @JussieSmollett. He is a kind and profoundly talented soul whom I respect with all my heart. The terror of racism and homophobia has no place in our society, it is the most indecent way to live...  Danny Strong (@Dannystrong) January 29, 2019

...whoever did this, do not forget that you are nothing but hate filled cowards while Jussies talent and activism will continue to shine a bright light on to the world for decades to come.  Danny Strong (@Dannystrong) January 29, 2019

Fox released a statement about the attack to CNN.

"We are deeply saddened and outraged to learn that a member of our 'Empire' family, Jussie Smollett, was viciously attacked last night," a representative told CNN. "We send our love to Jussie, who is resilient and strong, and we will work with law enforcement to bring these perpetrators to justice. The entire studio, network, and production stands united in the face of any despicable act of violence and hate  and especially against one of our own."

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) as well as The Anti-Violence Project, a national organization that supports the LGBTQ community, also tweeted about the attack.

Our hearts are with @JussieSmollett today. This attack must be investigated thoroughly. According to @antiviolence, the severity of hate violence against LGBTQ people is increasing: https://t.co/hN0yNJEmov https://t.co/acWmjzBBzW  GLAAD (@glaad) January 29, 2019

Law enforcement is asking that anyone with any information about the attack call Area Central Detectives at 312-747-8382.

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Opinion / Columnist

The last two weeks have seen stay-aways to protests the soaring cost of living turn into street protests and looting. The Zanu-PF government has, as expected, responded with an orgy of wanton violence; hundreds were arrested, hundreds of thousands were beaten up and/or raped and 25, according to some reports were shot dead.This is a regime that determined to the people complaining against rigged elections and the worsening economic meltdown at all cost, The populous are expected to suffer and die in silence like sheep in a slaughter house.Regular as clock work, the workshops (talk-shops really), reports, recommendations, etc. on the stay-away, street protests and orgy of violence from Zimbabwe's bloated NGO community have started coming out."In pursuit of a Zimbabwe people want, which is characterized by rapid and sustainable economic, social and political development underpinned by the rule of law, constitutionalism and unity, NANGO proffers the following recommendations for consideration:" said National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO). There are so many NGOs is Zimbabwe NANGO is the official umbrella body of NGOs operating in Zimbabwe.1. Call to candid, inclusive and open national dialogue: The mammoth task ahead of Zimbabwe on the economic, social and political sphere demands more structured multi-stakeholder collaborations and partnerships between government, business, non-state actors and citizens on actions and activities which are crucial in addressing challenges bedeviling the country. We urge President Emmerson Mnangagwa to expedite the national dialogue involving key political parties, civil society, churches to resolve a myriad of issues faced by the nation.2. Rule of law and constitutionalism: We implore the government to investigate murders, assault, torture and other human rights abuses that were reported and bring all perpetrators to justice."The report goes on to list 9 recommendations in total and all they usual platitudes. This is very predictable and monotonous to the point of foolishness!NANGO is one of the many who have been calling for "all stakeholders' meeting" but will not say what what exactly must be discussed?NANGO says it wants "Rule of law and constitutionalism: We implore the government to investigate murders, etc., etc." This is just a cliche. If these NANGO members were serious about wanting rule of law and constitutionalism then why have they done nothing to stop Zanu-PF rigging last year's elections in the first place or stopping the regime getting away with it.By addressing this vote rigging and, per se, illegitimate Zanu-PF regime as "the government" NANGO have tacitly accepted the regime as the de facto legitimate government. Zanu-PF has never ever held free, fair and credible elections in the last 38 years and hence the reason why the nation is in this mess. And yet, even now with the nation up to her eyes in this economic and political nightmare we still have some people pretending they do not know what constitutes free, fair and credible elections!The Zimbabwe we want will never come to pass as long as those calling for rule of law, etc. are only paying lip service to rule of law, etc."Alive to the economic recession, coupled with governance deficit, impunity, social, economic and political exclusion that has seen the majority of the population particularly the marginalized susceptible to hunger, social dislocation of families, high levels of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, human rights violations as well as severe shrinking of NGOs' operating space," NANGO pontificated.The truth is NGOs do not give a damn about the economic recession, the serious human rights violations, etc. Indeed, they have profited from all the economic and political mess. The madness and orgy of violence of the last two weeks have created thousands of man-years work for the NGO directors all paid for by naive and gullible but very generous donors!Corrupt and tyrannical regimes do NOT shrink NGOs' operating space, they expand it.NGO and religion are the two social sectors which have grown in leaps and bonds in Zimbabwe in the last 38 years and the directors and the pastors are living in comfort and luxury, comparable to that of the political ruling elite and their cronies.NGOs and Churches are doing well thanks to the corrupt, tyrannical and dysfunctional political systems there is now a symbiotic relation between political and civic leaders. Many politicians have cultivated good relationships with church leaders with many a politician becoming church leaders in their own and church leaders have become self-appointed political commissars on root to a political career. Call it civic society and politics cross pollination!Whilst civic society may publicly criticise one side or, on very rare occasions, both sides of the political establishment, civic leaders know there are lines which they must never cross. Of all the country's brigade of NGOs only the Catholic Church has dared to tell Zanu-PF to its face that last July's elections were rigged.And, as if to attorn for their honesty, the Catholic Bishop have been bending over backwards to underline they are NOT asking for Zanu-PF to step down. They want the Zanu-PF thugs to lead the national dialogue hopefully leading to a GNU in which Zanu-PF will call the shots.Civic society has been divided along party lines with pro-Zanu-PF church leaders like Wutaunashe taking up the party's propaganda lie of blaming sanctions for the nation's economic ills. He would never admit that corruption is the cancer killing the economy even after Mugabe confessed in 2016 to $15 billion in diamond revenue being swindled.Neither Mugabe nor his successor, Mnangagwa, have arrested even one swindler and there is every reason to believe the swindling is still going on to this day. No nation, much less one with a mere $10 billion GDP like Zimbabwe, can sustain a $15 billion haemorrhage. Wutaunashe and others will not even acknowledge corruption is a problem.Many NANGO members have remained doggedly faithful to MDC leaders, they have cheered and applauded the oppositions even when the latter failed to implement even one reform during the GNU, for example.Linda Masarira, a human rights activist turned politician, confessed of how the NGOs and the opposition worked together to falsified their activities to defraud the naive and gullible donors.The mission statement of each and everyone of Zimbabwe's army of NGOs, if they all had one, would claim they work to establish a free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe. The irony is Zimbabwe would have become a free, just and prosperous nations decades ago if those working in civic society had pay little more than lip service to their respective organisation's mission statement to ensure their organisation remained relevant and to secure their own job.A politician's job is never done, this is certain true of Zanu-PF and MDC politicians. If we accept the vague definition of the politicians' work of creating a free, just and prosperous nation, then Zanu-PF politicians' work load has increased 100 fold, at least. Compared to 1980 since the ordinary people have moved from third class citizen to serf whose freedoms and rights are not worth even the paper they are written on.On the economic front the country's per capita GDP was US$ 942 in 1980 it dropped to a record low of $479 (or 2.7% of US) in 2008 and was $1268 (3.8%) in 2018. As we can see above, whilst the economic meltdown is getting worse, Zanu-PF has given up all hope of an economic recovery and is retaining its iron grip of power by stepping up its political repression, instead.The need for democratic change in Zimbabwe is greater now than in 1999 when MDC was formed. The party has failed to implement even one democratic reform in the last 19 years. Not one.So both Zanu-PF and MDC have their work cut out; so far, both have made things worse not better. The country's civic society has grown and thrived to meet the demand born out of the politicians doing such a through job destroying the national economy and resorting to more and more barbaric measures to remain in power!
Opinion / Columnist

The recent events since the beginning of this year of 2019, has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no such thing in reality as the so called New Dispensation'. The reckless announcement of fuel price increase by the junta president, proved that we are led in this country by clueless leaders.It is disheartening to watch some of the videos and pictures of human rights abuses by the state security in the past two weeks. People have been tortured, maimed, raped and even displaced for merely excising their Constitutional Rights to freedom of association, freedom of expression and or freedom to demonstrate and petition. We are now told that the number of those killed so far has risen beyond the previously stated 12, those with gunshot wounds are over two hundred, thousands have been mercilessly beaten, opposition leaders are either part of the over 1 100 who have been arrested while some are still in hiding.The situation is so bad, ZANU-PF only knows violence, they don't care about the economic hardships in fact they don't even know or have a clue of how to deal with the economy. All they know is to beat and torture people into submission. They are so obsessed with power and money to the extent that thus all they care for and they never care about people's lives. In fact we don't matter to them.I am dismayed and extremely disgusted by the level of propaganda by the state media, the state media has become a joke. The police spokesperson has taken over in the area of media propaganda, Judith Makwanya and Reuben Barwe as well as the president spokesperson are now trailing behind her in terms of media propaganda. The way that woman is lying these days is no longer a laughing matter, she now needs urgent deliverance. Or better still as Mnangagwa will put it she now needs to be exorcised from the evil spirits causing her to lie like that.At this rate it becomes more and more important for uMthwakazi people to come together and claim was is rightfully ours. The level of damage in Bulawayo by suspected state security agents is dire and needs to be looked at without being judgmental. We still have people who are unaccounted for since the shutdown, some are languishing in remand prisons.I was at the Tredgold Magistrate courts last week when the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights asked for information from relatives of those who were arbitrarily arrested. You still need to do so if your relative still do not have a lawyer or better still call Abameli Lawyers for Human Rights.Most of those who were either beaten, raped, or arrested were not even part of the demonstrators or looters. Most of the victims were actually coming from work.In view of the atrocities being committed in Bulawayo, it would be prudent for both the local and the international media, and the international community as stake holders to not only focus on Harare but consider to come to Bulawayo on a fact finding mission. The situation is bad people still live in fear.The more reason why Mthwakazi people believe that we are not part of Zimbabwe and we need to restore our state is the constant marginalization, looting of our resourses, unprovoked harassment by the state, exclusion, Gukurahundi and all the human rights abuses specifically targeted to us, with the intention of continuously suppressing us.We say enough is enough. We cannot be ignored anymore or be ill-treated we are human too.----------Mbonisi Solomon Gumbo is a member of MRP writing in his personal capacity
News / National

by African News Agency

FORMER deputy prime minister Professor Arthur Mutambara has told a British audience that the mooted "ever-closer African Union" was "despicable" and instead suggested that a "United States of Africa" would be more beneficial to Africans.Speaking at the Oxford Union Debate Society, University of Oxford in the UK, Mutambara said: "I stand before you in unequivocal and vicious opposition to the proposition that says: This House would embrace an ever-closer African Union'."For a start, we need the United States of Africa - a country - and not a union of sovereign states. We need to abolish national sovereignty and embrace continental sovereignty."We must pull our individual national sovereignties into one indivisible and all-inclusive Pan-African sovereignty. In order to leverage Africa's 1.2 billion people, massive natural resource base, and potential $2.3 trillion GDP, we need to operate as one country and not a union of sovereign states."Mutambara made his remarks last Thursday amid mounting international criticism of Zimbabwe's government which used the army to shut down protests sparked by astronomical fuel hikes.At least 12 people were killed in the violent and brutal clampdown that left many others injured. Doctors in that country said they treated 68 people for gunshot wounds.More than 1,000 people have been arrested in the aftermath of the protests, as the Zimbabwe government moves to silence critical voices."We need one government, one head of state and government, one legislature and one judiciary system. China, India, and the US are doing just fine with one national leader (President or PM)," surmised Mutambara."We surely do not need 55 heads of state in Africa. As a minimum, we should have a federation of all the African states with devolved authority but driven by one strong and overarching central government where all sovereignty is reposed, as is the case with the United States of America."Mutambara said even more appealing and effective was the possibility of transforming the entire continent into a unitary state as is the case with China and India. He said an ever closer AU would deliver neither the federated arrangement nor the unitary entity."You cannot expect the 55 African leaders to commit political suicide and legislate themselves out of existence. Each one of them wants to be a president or prime minister even it means presiding over starving and disempowered people," argued Mutambara, who was deputy prime minister of Zimbabwe's unity government from 2009 to 2013."President Cyril Ramaphosa is not prepared to be a state governor or minister of agriculture of the United States of Africa. President Paul Kagame is not prepared to be a state governor or a minister of home affairs for the continent. Neither does President Yoweri Museveni want to be reduced to a state governor or minister of transport," said the professor."They all want to be presidents of sovereign nations at the expense of the socio-political and economic advancement of ordinary Africans. An ever-closer African Union will continue to accommodate these perverted and delusional ambitions of our African leaders."Under an ever-closer AU, African leaders and governments pay lip service to continental economic integration and African unity."They have national budgets, visions, strategies, policies, elections, mandates, manifestos, and implementation plans. AU programmes such as Agenda 2063 are neither referred to nor reflected in these national ambitions, plans and programmes. The central organising framework is the individual African state and not the African continent."This is despicable. It is unacceptable."He said that in the great debate between Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere in 1963 at the formation of the OAU - on whether to move quickly and unify into the United States of Africa or consolidate African states first and gradually integrate the continent through regional blocs - Nkrumah, a proponent of the former, was right, and Nyerere, an advocate of the latter, was wrong."Gradualism, a brick-by-brick approach, and slowly developing regional blocs towards continental integration have not produced the United States of Africa. The doctrine of an ever closer union of African states has failed for the past 56 years," he said."Yes, the United States of Africa looks overly ambitious, if not impossible. It is precisely for this reason that we should aspire towards it. As South African president Nelson Mandela taught us: It always looks impossible until it is done'."To paraphrase US President John F. Kennedy: We must pursue this agenda because it is hard and not because it is easy'."Mutambara concluded by saying: "We must unshackle ourselves from paralysis by analysis. No guts, no glory. As Africans, we reject an ever-closer AU and embrace the United States of Africa. Such a framework will enable us to advance our socio-political and economic aspirations across the continent dramatically".
News / National

by Staff reporter

A Rusape man spent three years hiding in a cave after he struck his wife to death with a hoe and burnt her body for denying him sex.However, the long arm of the law finally caught up with Lameck Manyanga (28), of Inyati Mine in Madindi Village, after he was slapped with a 25 year term when he appeared before Mutare High Court judge Justice Hlekani Mwayera.Manyanga was facing charges of killing his wife, Tendai Mufaranyuri, in cold blood. He told the court that he had had no intentions of killing his wife but the incident happened during a heated argument.Mr Jonathan Chingwinyiso, representing the State, had it that on December 9, 2014 at Inyati Mine, Manyanga had a domestic dispute with his wife.More to follow....
News / National

by Staff reporter

Two passengers travelling in a Zambia-bound Kabor Bus were last night shot and injured by robbers at Lion's Den near Chinhoyi.Police say the robbery involved four suspects all of whom were part of the passengers.Two of the robbers were armed with pistols.Police Spokesman for Mashonaland West Province, Inspector Clemence Mabweazara said the robbers first shot at the driver but missed him before firing two other shots which hit and injured two female passengers.The heist saw many passengers losing money and cellphones which were reportedly collected into a satchel.After the act, the four robbers disembarked and vanished into the bush and are still at large.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes a letter by the Zimbabwean government addressed to DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, expressing its disappointment that the Party and the Southern African Partnership for Democratic Change (SAPDC), has taken such an "aggressive stance" towards the Zimbabwean government's violence against citizens and protestors.The Mnangagwa-administration expressed disapproval in our escalation of matters to the International Criminal Court and United Nations Human Rights Council.

The DA wishes to reaffirm once more that the unlawful actions of the Zimbabwean government against citizens merit immediate and strong action, not the quiet diplomacy President Ramaphosa has adopted.The ANC's silence on this matter does nothing but prolong the pain of Zimbabwean citizens and we cannot accept such a poor regard of human rights.The DA will continue to act on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, in efforts to end their anguish. We will remain committed to ensuring peace and justice prevail in our neighbouring country. We will not be intimidated by ZANU-PF's "disappointment."The DA is committed to the vision of democratic ideals and values all across the African continent and we will always fight to protect human rights.
everolimus

after that expiry

Undertakings and next steps




News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

Self-styled Communications strategist William Mutumanje has accused the police of having a personal vendetta against Saviour Kasukuwere's brother Dick mafios who was arrested for inciting violence and jailed for two years."I do not even know Dickson Mafios but I do know he did not incite anything worse than what the government incited. That arrest and sentence was fast, so fast it had to be personal." Mutumanje wrote on Twitter. "I wish we where that fast with corrupt government officials. Oh wait, they can't arrest themselves."The former Zanu-PF Mashonaland Central provincial chairman Itai Dickson Mafios was on tuesday convicted of inciting people in Bindura to join the violent protests that rocked the country a fortnight ago.In a cynical jibe Mutumanje said he is firmly behind Preside Emmerson Mnangagwa's success as a President."For the sake of clarity, I support Mnangagwa to succeed. I am desperate for it actually, because his failure will not affect him as badly as it will affect you and me. I also believe his presidency inenge juzi riri kurukwa one side richi rukunurwa on the other side. Ane 1 big probrem manje!"Mutumanje' business partner Kuda Musasiwa said the govenement of president Mnangagwa is a murderous and brutal regime."The Zimbabwe situation will disappoint you continuously. Are there agent provocations in our midst, here to cause mayhem in Zimbabwe? Yes. There are. Is our government repressive, brutal and murderous? Yes it is. Are we a racist, tribalist, sexist, classist, corrupt people. Sadly, yes we are."
News / National

by Thulani Nkala

The recent citizens protests in Zimbabwe, claimed quite a number of human lives, grievous bodily harm (GBH) episodes, disappearances and displacements. In the majority of cases, all that was and still is instigated by Zanu-PF and it's security personnel.Resulting from those protests, CHARLES THOMAS GUMBO, an MLF member was arrested by the state security agents on TRUMPED UP CHARGES of taking part in the murdering of one policeman, Constable Alexio Maune, (32) who was based at Entumbane Police Station. He has been arrested and incarcerated at Khami Prison with two other Mthwakazi people.CHARLES THOMAS GUMBO and the two others are set to appear before the court on 04/02/19.We should never forget that Zanu-PF has used this same modus operandi of falsely accusing the peoples of Mthwakazi so as to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing. Thousands of the Mthwakazi people have perished that way, thrown in disused mine dumps, buried alive, tortured, raped, brutalised and disappeared on the same trumped up charges.Please let us not allow Charles Thomas Gumbo and the other two Mthwakazi citizens to suffer the same fate. Let us donate in solidarity to free this giant of Mthwakazian and the other two citizens. Let us show solidarity with our own citizens. And this is the question that the trio have answered about their identity. The identity of being Mthwakazian, hence this persecution by the Zanu-PF regime.What about you? What do you want? It is high time you decided who you are? Mthwakazian or Zimbabwean?Rise Mthwakazi Rise!!!Vuka Mthwakazi Vuka!!!Let's donate & free our own citizens!!!NB: May you direct donations to the following account: (An estimated target figure for the bail of the trio is $6000/about R60 000.)ACCOUNT NAME: MTHWAKAZI LIBERATION FRONT BANK: STANDARD BANKACCOUNT NUMBER: 001866443BRANCH CODE: 004305
News / National

by Staff reporter

AUTHORITIES at Beitbridge Border Post have started investigating the cause of a fire which razed down a State warehouse and property worth thousands of dollars at the port of entry yesterday.Though official comment could not be obtained from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority's (Zimra) communications department, officials here said the matter was under investigation.They said the fire broke out between 6AM and 7AM at the export warehouse near the section where commercial trucks are checked for compliance before leaving for South Africa.When our news crew visited the scene yesterday, firemen from Zimra, NOIC, Beitbridge and Musina Municipalities were struggling to put out the fire until 2PM.The warehouse was full of goods mostly seized from travellers for non-compliance with customs laws during the past 18 months. Under normal circumstances, such goods are disposed of through rummage (auction) sales after three months.According to Zimra's website, the latest rummage sale of mostly vehicles and groceries was conducted in Beitbridge on 26 October last year. Witnesses said the fire was reported by one of the private security guards at the warehouse, who noticed smoke bellowing out through several openings."The guard alerted his superiors and through the CPU, fire tenders from Zimra, NOIC, Municipalities of Beitbridge and Musina were then summoned to the scene," said the official."However, Zimra's fire tender failed to start maybe due to lack of servicing."District CPU chairperson Mrs Kiliboni Ndou-Mbedzi, who is also the District Administrator, said they were working with border officials and other stakeholders on the way forward."We are yet to get the cause of the fire and value of the destroyed property," she said."This is a very unfortunate incident considering that recently, sections of the border's arrivals' side were blown off by storms, among other key infrastructure."In addition, we are still attending to issues where schools, clinics and homesteads in rural Beitbridge were destroyed by hailstorms."The warehouse on the export side becomes the fourth in a few years to go up in smoke at the border post.In 2016, another warehouse on the import side went up in flames destroying property worth millions. The fire was attributed to an electrical fault. In July of the same year, another State warehouse was looted and burnt by hoodlums calling themselves Combined Beitbridge Residents Association.The thugs were demonstrating against the implementation of Statutory Instrument 64, which removed specified goods from the open general import licence. In November 2014, property worth millions of dollars went up in flames when the main Zimra warehouse caught fire under unclear circumstances.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A PANEL of four judges appointed by Chief Justice Luke Malaba has cleared Supreme Court judge Justice Francis Bere of ethical misconduct following allegations levelled against him by Meikles executive chairman Mr John Moxon.Justice Bere, who was recently elevated to the Supreme Court, was under investigation over allegations of conflict of interest in a ruling he made in a consultancy dispute between Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Meikles Limited and Widefree Investments involving more than $2 million.Widefree is linked to industrialist Mr Joseph Kanyekanye, a long standing client of Bere Brothers, a law firm founded by the judge.Chief Justice Malaba had ordered investigations into alleged violation of judicial ethical conduct by Justice Bere after Mr Moxon filed a complaint with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) that Justice Bere was conflicted in giving a ruling against Meikles under Case Number SC 503 /18.Meikles, which entered into a consultancy agreement with Widefree Investments trading as Core Solutions in December 2013, lost the case both at the High Court and Supreme Court. The obligation of the agreement was that Core Solutions would assist Meikles in recovering funds owed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.In its findings, the four-member Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee chaired by Constitutional and Supreme Court judge Justice Rita Makarau, ruled that there was no evidence suggesting that Justice Bere was aware of the client-legal practitioner relationship between the respondent and Bere Brothers.According to a letter dated January 23, 2019 and signed by Chief Justice Malaba, the committee recommended to the JSC boss that the conduct of Justice Bere in the case in question was not unethical.Chief Justice Malaba said the committee, whose other members were Labour Court judge Justice Lawrence Murasi and Constitutional and Supreme Court judges Justices Tendai Uchena and Justice Lavender Makoni, also noted that Justice Bere severed ties with the law firm 17 years ago."The Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee conducted investigations into the question whether the Honourable judge's conduct in case number SC50/18 raised issues of ethical conduct."After investigations, the committee made the following findings:(a) there is no evidence that the Honourable Judge was aware of the client-legal practitioner relationship between the respondent and Bere Brothers(b) there is no evidence that the Honourable Judge has kept himself abreast of the goings on at Bere Brothers, having severed ties with the law firm in 2002.(d) in the application for condonation, the respondent was not represented by Bere Brothers but by a different law firm(e) the complainant, if he was aware of the relationship between the respondent and Bere Brothers at the time the application was heard, (he) did not bring this to the attention of the Honourable Judge and seek his recusal from determining the matter," read part of the letter.Chief Justice Malaba acknowledged receipt of the complaint dated September 20, 2018 against Justice Bere and subsequently ordered the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee to launch a probe.In a letter written to Chief Justice Malaba in September last year, Mr Moxon said he had information of Mr Kanyekanye's links with Justice Bere."Information, however, has come to my attention that gives rise to the suspicion that conditions under which our Supreme Court case was heard do not meet the very high standards of impartiality and integrity that are associated with that court," he said.
News / National

by Staff reporter

THE trial of an Air Force of Zimbabwe pilot Tashinga Musonza (29) who is accused of brutally murdering his girlfriend Miss Lucy Duve (32) in a crime of passion late last year, failed to kick off on Monday at the Gweru High Court after his lawyer applied for the matter to be referred to the Constitutional Court.Musonza allegedly killed Duve, a lawyer that was based in Gweru, after accusing her of cheating on him. His lawyer Mr James Makiya of Makiya and Partners said they were applying to have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court because they wanted to challenge the existence or presence of assessors on the High Court bench."We apply that the matter be referred to the Constitutional Court for purposes of challenging the issue of assessors. The assessors should not be part of the bench because there is no provision for them in the High Court Act," said Mr Makiya.Chief Public Prosecutor for the Midlands province Mr Samuel Pedzisayi, said the State was not opposed to having the matter remanded to next month because the Gweru High Court Circuit had no time for such challenges and arguments."This is a High Court Circuit which only has 10 days and already half a day has been lost due to the official opening procession. So I have liaised with my colleagues at Bulawayo High Court and the matter can be heard on 19, 20 and 22 February," he said.Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Thompson Mabhikwa sitting at the Gweru High Court Circuit ruled that Musonza's trial be remanded to February 19 at the Bulawayo High Court."The matter has been remanded to the Bulawayo High Court following an application made by the defence council to have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court. The accused is remanded in custody to February 19," said Justice Mabhikwa.Musonza allegedly fatally assaulted Duve who was working for a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) accusing her of cheating on him with his colleague. It is the State's case that on November 25, Musonza went to their lodgings around 10pm and found Ms Duve asleep. He accused her of cheating on him with his colleague.The two drove to the airbase since Musonza wanted the matter clarified. They woke up Ms Duve's alleged lover who denied being in a relationship with her.Musonza got furious and started assaulting Ms Duve.His colleague tried to restrain him but was overpowered and he ran away from the scene to seek assistance from fellow colleagues. Upon their return they found Ms Duve lying unconscious in a pool of blood.Musonza later drove Ms Duve to Clay Bank Hospital in the company of two of his colleagues and another female who is said to be Ms Duve's friend. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital leading to the arrest of Musonza.A post mortem report showed that Miss Duve had a fractured skull, blood clots in her brain and that her lungs were affected by the attack among other injuries.The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, together with Minister Local Government, Public Works and National Housing July Moyo visited the Duve family in Bulawayo, to console the family.Ziyambi said Government doesn't condone violence against women and also assured Duve family that justice will prevail.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A delegation from South Africa's Africa National Congress (ANC) arrived last night in the country to meet with the ruling Zanu-PF party officials on a solidarity visit.The team which is being led by ANC secretary general Ace Magashule was this morning briefed on the current situation in the country by the ruling party secretary for administration Obert Mpofu at Zanu-PF Headquarters.Other senior ANC officials who arrived in the country are, Tony Yengeni, Thoko Didiza, Bongani Nongo, who are all ANC central committee members and Justice Phitso, the chief of staff to the secretary general's office.In his address, Magashule applauded President Mnangagwa for giving them the opportunity to interact with their counterparts."We clearly understand the situation on the ground which is affecting your country and we want to move forward as former liberation movements in addressing your situation," he said.Mpofu said they were joined together by a very rich revolutionary background which actually realized their people being emancipated from the tentacles of oppression and subjugation over many years."Our long walk to freedom as stated by your founding father Nelson Rolihlala Mandela still continues. As Zimbabwe we have achieved one milestone in this journey of emancipation by ensuring that we take ownership of the land."This precious resource which is very dear and sentimental to all Africans should not be taken for granted," he said.More to follow....
News / National

by Staff reporter

The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) and the National Handling Services (NHS) are resigned to the possibility of losing $68,8 million dollars the two companies were owed by Air Zimbabwe when it was placed under judicial management in 2018.When Air Zimbabwe, once the pride of Zimbabwean skies, was placed under judicial management on 4 October 2018, it was saddled with over $340 million in debt, 92 percent of which was local debt.Among the companies that were owed huge sums by the national airline was CAAZ at $43million, and the NHS at $24 million.The CAAZ debt has since accumulated to $44.8million at the end of December 2018.There is now concern that the two parastatals that they may never recover that money.While painful in its early stages, the reconstruction of the national airline might be the solution to the challenges at AirZim.Only last week, the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Engineer Joel Biggie Matiza was in Malaysia discussing ways to help the ailing parastatal.The national airline is facing operational challenges which have resulted in low level reliability and cancellation or delayed flights on its two operational aircrafts.It is hoped that the placement of the company under the judicial management of Mr Reggie Saruchera may help to turn around the airline for it to operate viably and competitively.
There are plenty of ISPs in South Africa that offer homes and businesses with internet services. However, only a few of these companies have managed to stand out in terms of providing quality. When it comes to efficiency, it is a known fact that not every company is able to offer this to the highest level. So, what are the best ISP providers in South Africa 2021?

Picture showing internet cables. Photo: Pixabay.com

Source: UGC

African countries are quickly embracing fast internet speed, and South Africa has not been left behind. Whether you want to download a high definition movie, keep your business running or stream live sport on your smart TV, this article will help you find the best ISP in South Africa.

Best internet service provider South Africa

As a consumer, it is really important for you to determine the various options you have with regards to choosing the best ISP in South Africa to avoid sub-standard performance.

Cool Ideas

Image: cisp.co.za

Source: UGC

This is one of the top internet providers South Africa has ever had. Cool Ideas ISP offers both home and business fibre services. The company has a very high rating of 4.46 due to their reliability. The company was started in 2011 and since then, it has met their customers expectations.

Cool Ideas is rated as the leading ISP provider for Netflix streaming. The service provider offers fibre services through various networks which include Mitsol, Vuma, Metrofibre among others. You can opt for any option that favors you and enjoy the package.

Supersonic

With download speeds of 23.377 Mbps, upload speeds of 19.679 Mbps and a latency speed of 23 ms, Supersonic is doing pretty well when service providers in South Africa are ranked. These speeds are significantly influenced by the fibre optic cables that this Internet service provider has incorporated.

After web-based speed test and mobile app tests, it gets a rating of 4.35 which is fairly good. True to its advertisement, this is an internet that works.

Home-connect

Photo: @cwhomeconnectsa

Source: UGC

Home-connect has a customer review rating of 3.92. It boasts of offering fast internet speeds. The provider offers different fibre services including uncapped, unshaped, and buffer-free connectivity solutions, all of which are specific and in line with the provider's unique Fibre to the Home (FTTH) product suite.

Apart from delivering an expansive and reliable network, Home-connect takes pride in delivering exceptional customer service.

Vox Telecom

Image: vox.co.za

Source: UGC

Vox is a leading ICT and telecoms operator in the country. If you need the best fibre ISP South Africa, then Vox is a good choice as it provides services for home users, SMEs, and even enterprises. Home user services include ADSL, mobile, wireless, WiFi, Satellite, voice, security, and email.

SMEs get services such as cloud computing, visual communication, backup, PBX, among many others. The company also offers PBX, cloud computing, security and many others for enterprises. It is rated 4.02 and it is among the best ISP in South Africa.

MTN

MTN makes it to the list of the best South African service providers with its 4.0 rating. MTN offers affordable, reliable and quick internet services. You can get both broadband and WiFi services depending on what you prefer.

MTN remains to be one of the best ISP providers because of the team of technicians that work round the clock to solve any forms of technical glitches that are likely to occur.

Axxess

Image: axxess.co.za

Source: UGC

If you are looking for great fibre deals, then Axxess has got you covered. Axxess features no contracts, does not have any credit checks, offers free VoIP calls to other users using Axxess voice numbers, and this is available countrywide. Axxess is rated 3.73 on average. This clearly shows it can be a good shot when you are considering an excellent ISP in South Africa.

Founded in 1997 by Franco Barbalich, the company has grown over the years to provide the best services and even managed to win Internet Service Provider of the Year Award in both 2008 and 2009. They provide ADSL and VDSL internet, fibre internet, mobile internet, website hosting, and voice services.

Axxess offers a wide range of capped and uncapped DSL services that a user can choose from depending on their needs.

Afrihost

Image: afrihost.com

Source: UGC

Afrihost also does not include any contracts, but they provide a double back money guarantee. They have been in the industry for 20 years now, offering different services such as fibre, LTE fixed wireless, mobile, ADSL and VDSL, hosting, domain, internet marketing, and many other services. The company is basically a one-stop-shop. They are rated at number 4 with 3/5 stars in the ADSL and Fibre ISP ratings.

Regarding customer service, you shouldn't worry because Afrihost is an award-winning company in matters reliability.

Cybersmart

Image: cybersmart.co.za

Source: UGC

When talking about uncapped internet South Africa, then Cybersmart is one of the names that must be mentioned. It is the cheapest ADSL in the country, a reason why it is preferred by most clients. Cybersmart offers services are such as broadband, hosting, and cloud. Their uncapped ADSL services start from just R195, and they also have uncapped hosting, shared hosting, and ADSL add-ons.

Cell C

With a rating of 3.53, Cell C is an excellent option for anyone looking to find good internet speeds. Cell C takes pride in first speeds that can go up to 1GBps. It is, therefore, convenient for gaming and streaming. It is affordable too. Reach out for the connection in your home or office.

Webafrica

Webafrica ISP was designed to make it easier for people to access the internet. The good thing about this company is that you are only required to enter the street you live in, and then you will be shown the fastest available internet at your property - it is that simple. Webafrica offers Fasterfast fibre, racy-fast LTE at home, as well as the old school ADSL.

Their starting fee is R454 per month for the Fasterfast fibre, R219 per month for the Racy-fast LTE at home, and R219 per month for the Flying-fast LTE on the run. The old school ADSL starts at R39 per month. The company is ranked number 6 in the ADSL and fibre ISP ratings with 3/5 stars.

MWEB

Ranked favourably in the ADSL and fibre ISP ratings, it also gets 3.03, when the mobile app and web-based speeds are considered. This makes MWEB another great option you can explore if you are looking for a good ISP in the country. The company offers connectivity on fibre, LTE, and ADSL. Their products include web hosting, Microsoft Home Office, Showmax, AVG antivirus, and premium mailbox.

Internet Solutions

Internet Solutions has operations all over the continent. They provide cloud and internet services as well as a variety of data centers to aid organisation growth. Ranked at number 8 in the ADSL and fibre ISP ratings, the company has managed to stay on track by providing quality services to their customers, which has made them a household name.

Telkom Internet

Image: telkom.co.za

Source: UGC

Telkom is ranked among the go-to service providers in the ADSL and fibre ISP ratings thanks to the excellent services it provides to its customers. When speeds are considered, it gets a rating of 2.60. Among the services that this company provides are internet services, data, and calling services.

XDSL

Image: xdsl.co.za

Source: UGC

XDSL is another highly ranked ISP in South Africa that provides great services. The company is ranked number one in the ADSL speed test ranking South Africa, and among the services they provide, there are internet and connectivity, data center and cloud solutions, and telephony/VOIP.

Vodacom

Vodacom Fibre provides ultra-fast internet, which comes with an added benefit of a voice line. If you are looking for an ISP convenient for fast downloads, gaming, and streaming videos, this is the choice for you. It also provides an option to connect multiple devices to the internet at the same time.

Vodacom also provides 5G (fifth-generation wireless technology), the latest cellular data network. This network is engineered to improve speed and responsiveness. By default, 5G will reach peak speeds higher than 1Gbps, but basic 4G works at a maximum speed of only 150Mbps. In comparison, 4G EVO (a later, faster version of 4G) can reach up to 500Mbps depending on device capability and the number of carriers deployed.

Neotel

Photo: @tech_financials

Source: Twitter

Neotel was previously known as SNO Telecommunications and is the second-largest operator for fixed-line telecommunication services in South Africa. NeoBroadband Wireless was once voted as South Africas Best Fixed Broadband Service. The Company provides both businesses and individuals with reliable Internet access through flexible solutions.

The Company offers bundle services up to 300GB and a low contention ratio of 1:25, ensuring that clients enjoy ample internet.

In the end, the service provider can give you everything you prefer. Did you find the list of the best ISP providers in South Africa 2021 useful? In your opinion, which of the agencies do you find the most reputable? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

READ ALSO: How to connect DSTV extra view cables 2021

Briefly.co.za recently published an article on How to connect DSTV extra view cables 2021. Digital Satellite Television, commonly famous as DSTV, is a television giant not only in South Africa but also in other states across Africa. Since its inception in 1995, the television company has steadily grown an overwhelming audience, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The multi-choice television service mainly provides general entertainment, movies, sports, culture and lifestyle, documentaries, news, commerce, religion, children, and several other consumer channel programs with a cutting edge broadcast.

Source: Briefly.co.za
Intended as a discussion group, the blog has evolved to be more of a reading list of current issues affecting our county, its government and people. All reasonable comments and submissions welcomed. Email us at: bill.pysson@gmail.com REMEMBER: To view our sister blog for education issues: www.district100watchdog.blogspot.com
A Kat, eagerly awaiting the CoA's judgment earlier today

handed down its judgment in[2019] EWCA Civ 38. As regular Kat readers will know, the appeal concerns the English court's jurisdiction to grant a global FRAND licence where UK sales only account for 1% or less of the sales on which royalties are claimed. The Kat's correspondents,and, send this report:handed down its judgment in Huawei and ZTE's appeal against Carr J's refusal to dismiss the case brought against them by Conversant on jurisdictional grounds. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, with Lord Justice Floyd setting out the reasons with which Lord Justices Flaux and Patten agreed.Conversant sued both companies on patents it claims are standard essential, seeking injunctive relief and damages, together with a declaration that it had made FRAND offers or a determination of the FRAND terms. Huawei and ZTE challenged jurisdiction on two grounds: 1) that the case would raise validity and infringement of foreign patents which is not justiciable subject matter in the English Court and 2) that the Chinese court is the natural and appropriate forum so the Court should refuse permission to serve the Chinese entities out of the jurisdiction ongrounds. Following the CoA judgment in, the appellants accepted that the justiciability point was no longer arguable before the Court of Appeal, so the Court only had to deal with theground (which Huawei had not argued in). The appellants also proposed that if the appeal failed on this point, questions should be referred to the ECJ. The judgment goes through the background of licensing in the SEP area, quoting from the Court of Appeal's judgment in, and explained briefly the wider fight between the companies, which includes proceedings commenced in China by Huawei China and ZTE China against Conversant seeking to invalidate Conversant's Chinese patents and seeking a FRAND determination.The Court addressed the position as against the two UK domiciled appellants, turning to the Brussels Recast Regulation Article 4, which provides that "persons domiciled in a Member State shall, whatever their nationality, be sued in the courts of that Member State" and relied on the CJEU judgement in[2005] for authority that the English court could not applyto decline jurisdiction over a claim against a person domiciled in a contracting state on the ground that the natural forum for the claims was the courts of a non-contracting state. The question was whether this reasoning applied to cases involving Article 24 (giving Member States exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings involving registration or validity of patents). The Court concluded that it was a matter of discretion for the court whether to assume jurisdiction under Article 4 when the subject matter fell within Article 24 (relying on the judgment of Andrew Smith J in[2012]).Turning to service on the Chinese entities, there was no dispute that the first two hurdles were met: 1) the claim falls within a gateway (CPR 6 PDB) and 2) there is a serious issue to be tried. The dispute related to the third hurdle i.e. whether England and Wales is the proper forum to hear the case. The "case" for this analysis is not just what the Claimant has pleaded; the court must have regard to the totality of the dispute, including the likely defence and the case must be characterised in a way which does not pre-judge the appropriate forum.The evidence before the judge at first instance had caused him to conclude that the Chinese courts did not have jurisdiction to determine essentiality or infringement of non-Chinese patents, nor did they have jurisdiction to determine FRAND rates without agreement from both parties. Conversant had not agreed to accept the Chinese court's jurisdiction for such determination and the judge had concluded that their refusal was reasonable. It was on this basis that the judge had concluded that China was not an alternative available forum.The appellants sought to adduce new evidence before the Court of Appeal to introduce the Guangdong Court Guidelines, which had been issued 10 days after Carr J had handed down judgment, but before the order was sealed. These guidelines stated that where the territorial scope of the SEPs in question exceeded the territorial scope of the court and the other party did not object (or the objection was deemed unreasonable), the court could determine the royalty. The Appellants sought to rely on this as evidence that the Chinese court would now exercise jurisdiction to determine essentiality, infringement and FRAND for a global portfolio in circumstances where both parties consented and their expert claimed that if the facts were analogous to this case, the court would take the view that the refusal to agree was unreasonable. Conversant's expert disagreed and pointed out that there was no case law on the circumstances in which it would be "unreasonable" for one party to object. The Court of Appeal agreed with Conversant's expert. The Guidelines had been introduced for a trial period and it was speculative to interpret them in the way the appellants' expert was seeking to do.In reaching its decision the Court of Appeal stated that it was clear that you could get different answers to thequestions, depending on the level of generality at which the dispute is characterised. If you just look at the relief which would be granted in the English court, that would be too specific. But if you ended up making the claimant pursue a claim on a different property right with different underlying facts in the foreign forum, that meant it had been defined too broadly. Conversant's claim was closely analogous to the claim advanced inand accepted by the Court  (i) the UK patents are essential to the standard; (ii) that the claimant has complied with its ETSI undertaking in making FRAND offers; (iii) that the defendants have not so complied without any reasonable ground for so doing; and (iv) that it is entitled to enforce its UK SEPs and obtain the usual relief for infringement, including a FRAND injunction and damages, and a determination of the FRAND terms. If Conversant were made to seek a remedy in China, they would have to advance their case based on different patents, relying on different facts. Floyd LJ pointed out that that it was not legitimate to characterise the claim as one for the enforcement of a global portfolio right, as no such right exists. It is a dispute involving determination of infringement, validity and essentiality of UK patents. The FRAND element is embedded in the determination of whether Conversant is entitled to the relief for infringement of their UK SEPs. The FRAND element cannot be considered separately for the purpose of theanalysis.Although the new evidence in relation to the Chinese Court Guidelines would be admissible under the first(couldn't have been submitted at first instance trial) it did not meet the second criteria of having an influence on the outcome of the case. There was no guidance on how the court would apply the test of when refusal by one party was reasonable, and even Huawei's letter to the Supreme Court in relation to its petition to that Court for leave to appeal instated "[T]here is no decided case in which the Chinese courts have gone further, as the English courts did in these proceedings, by conducting a global royalty-setting exercise without the consent of the parties and then imposing the result thereof as a condition of avoiding a territorial injunction."Finally the Court refused the CJEU reference on the basis that first, the Court of Appeal inwas able to reach a decision on justiciability without a reference. Secondly, Huawei had never suggested that a reference was necessary in that case, and now accepts that theCoA decision precludes any justiciability argument before the Court of Appeal in this case. Thirdly, despite a lengthy draft produced by Huawei's counsel, Floyd LJ was not persuaded that there is any lack of clarity in the relevant EU law.
A tourist in Australia picked up a beautiful tiny octopus and originally posted it on TikTok with "What a pretty octopus" written in Mandarin. But what the tourist didn't seem to know is that he was holding a blue-ringed octopus, which "carries enough venom to kill 26 full grown adults in a span of minutes," according to Gizmodo.

Via Gizmodo:

The venom of the blue-ringed octopus, which contains the neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, causes paralysis and the sting is so small that most people have no idea that they've been poisoned until it's too late. To make things even more horrifying, there's no anti-venom available for the blue-ringed octopus. The only known treatment is to massage the victim's heart until the venom works its way throughout a person's body in a matter of hours.

And from Traveller:


Last month, Matt Crull, 29, of Martin County, Florida, was sleeping in his van when police came to investigate what they described as a "suspicious van." Martin County Sheriff's deputy Steven O'Leary found a plastic bag of white powder, claimed to run a field test on it, and arrested Crull for possession of 92 grams of heroin. Crull went to jail where he sat for over a month. Thing is, the heroin was actually laundry detergent. From the Miami Herald:



"(It's) very surreal when you're sitting in jail with a half a million dollars bond," Crull told WPBF25, "and you can't go anywhere knowing that you didn't do wrong"





Sheriff William Snyder says (O'Leary) has been fired after an investigation uncovered that at least 11 people he put in jail for drug charges were found innocent, the TV station reported.





"No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, just based on the law of possibilities there's always a possibility that one bad apple will slip through," Snyder said, according to WPTV. The TV station reported that Crull may sue for damages.
Chicago Police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi tweeted a case update tonight on the attack reported against 'EMPIRE' actor Jussie Smollett.

"Tonight Chicago Police detectives expanded the search area for cameras to be able to provide photos of the alleged assailants in this attack," said Guglielmi.

"Thus far, no video of the alleged assailants or a vehicle has been discovered but we are continuing to broaden our search."

PREVIOUSLY: 'Empire' star Jussie Smollett attacked by 2 white men who put rope around neck, poured chemical on him, yelled slurs

UPDATE: We continue to seek any available evidence/video to identify possible offenders in this case. Anyone who may hv been in area of 300 E North Water St btwn 1-3a should send info to https://t.co/g9Q1Srtgmc. Thus far we have not found anything to be able put out a description pic.twitter.com/wxdA0OOjZz  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) January 29, 2019

Statement on #ChicagoPolice hate crime investigation. We are taking these allegations very seriously and encourage anyone with information to report anonymously to https://t.co/yYAqzcVIfu pic.twitter.com/DxipALHXaz  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) January 29, 2019

#Empire is reeling from the violent & bigoted assault on Jussie Smollett this morning; @leedanielsent & @Dannystrong @FOXTV drama shutting down for at least 1 day as arctic cold freezes #Chicago https://t.co/mILZMzi9aH  Dominic Patten (@DeadlineDominic) January 30, 2019

I fucking love Jussie Smollett & working on Empire w him was some of the best times he is the epitome of charisma, kindness, humility & unadulterated talent. He will rebound soon & we'll continue living PROUDLY & BOLDLY against the illness that's woven into our country. Love you  jesse saint john (@jessesaintjohn) January 30, 2019

Jussie Smollett,'Empire' Actor, Reportedly Attacked In Possible Hate Crime.NPR. VILLAINY, RACISM,HOMOPHOBIA, PROMOTED BY MOST INFAMOUS ?IN ?,IS THE POISON THAT KILLS??.WHITE ONLY IS NOT RIGHT.?? IS PPL OF COLOR.??GOP GOES DOWN WITH SHIP djt

https://t.co/egSweOPhlO  Cher (@cher) January 30, 2019

LATEST: "MAGA Country" claims are true, per Chicago PD  detectives did a follow-up, supplemental interview with Jussie Smollett, where he did in fact tell police his attackers yelled, "MAGA country." Our full @GMA story: https://t.co/zUMGUPrjww pic.twitter.com/QE0GUEq6xM  Tony Morrison (@THETonyMorrison) January 30, 2019

Watch: Empire creator Lee Daniels posts an emotional, strong reaction to the news that actor Jussie Smollett was brutally attacked in a possible hate crime: "America is better than that." https://t.co/JweLLBZ0Cs pic.twitter.com/jAf90o5GI5  Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 30, 2019
This blog is looking for wisdom, to have and to share. it is also looking for other rare character traits like good humor, courage, and honor. It is not an easy road, because all of us fall short. But God is love, forgiveness and grace. Those who believe in Him and repent of their sins have the promise of His Holy Spirit to guide us and show us the Way.
In an interesting decision (only available in Swedish and French) handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in November 2018, it was considered whether the word mark EZMIX could be registered as an EU trade mark for goods and services relating to software used for music production. The following post seeks to briefly analyse the CJEUs position.In April 2015, Toontrack Music sought to register the word mark EZMIX for goods and services in Classes 9, 15 and 42 of the Nice Classification. The EUIPO examiner denied registration, on grounds that the sign would both lack distinctive character and be descriptive of the goods and services, in accordance with what is now Article 7(1) (b) and (c) in Regulation 2017/1001 on the EU Trade Mark ( EUTMR ). Toontrack Music amended its application by limiting the designated word mark to goods and services in Classes 9 and 42 of the Nice Classification. The Fifth Board of Appeal of the EUIPO dismissed the appeal. Further to another appeal to the General Court, also this decided to dismiss the appeal in its entirety.

The CJEU appeal

Toontrack Music subsequently appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) claiming:

The EUIPO disputed all parts of the appeal.

The CJEU order

(i) The first part of the first ground of appeal

The CJEU first set out that, according to Article 256(1) in the Consolidated version of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ( TFEU ) and Article 58 in the Consolidated version of The Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union , only decisions on point of law may be subject to a right of appeal. The General Court therefore enjoyed discretion in examining and assessing the relevant facts and evidence. Importantly, the assessment of the facts and the evidence does not  except in cases of misrepresentation by the General Court  constitute a point of law examined by the CJEU in an appeal.





The Court went on to state that it is sufficient that one of the absolute grounds for refusal laid down in Article 7(1) EUTMR is applicable in the case at hand in order for a sign not to be regarded as registrable as an EU trade mark. It then recalled that findings concerning the special features, attention, opinion and attitude of the public concerned, are all relevant in the assessment of the publics understanding of a mark. The same criteria is applicable to word marks as well (C  232/15 P, The Court went on to state that it is sufficient that one of the absolute grounds for refusal laid down in Article 7(1) EUTMR is applicable in the case at hand in order for a sign not to be regarded as registrable as an EU trade mark. It then recalled that findings concerning the special features, attention, opinion and attitude of the public concerned, are all relevant in the assessment of the publics understanding of a mark. The same criteria is applicable to word marks as well (C  232/15 P, ultra air (available only in French and German)).





According to the CJEU, Toontrack Music sought  by way of its arguments  to challenge the General Court's assessment of the facts regarding the publics understanding and therefore obtain a new assessment on the facts. However, Toontrack Music did not claim that the General Court ought to have misunderstood the facts or evidence submitted to it at the time. It was therefore clear that the companys arguments should be left out of consideration. Thus, the first part of the first ground of appeal was found to be manifestly inadmissible.





(ii) The second part of the first ground of appeal





The General Court found that the EUIPO Fifth Board of Appeal had not erred in concluding that the public would immediately understand that ez is synonymous with the word easy. The CJEU confirmed that.





iii) The second ground of appeal





As regards the second ground of appeal, the CJEU reasoned that it was made clear through the previous assessments of the word mark that the evidence submitted by Toontrack Music was sufficiently reviewed. In particular, the evidence relating to the relevant circle of people and how the word mark would be perceived by such circle of people was regarded as being sufficient.





Importantly however, it is for the appellant to state precisely the evidence misunderstood by the General Court and to demonstrate the errors of assessment that led to the General Court's misconception, in order to enable the CJEU to examine the argument relating to the scope of circle of people (C  101/17 P, Verus (available on in French and German)). In its appeal, Toontrack Music did not state what evidence had been allegedly misunderstood and the second ground was therefore dismissed.





iv) The third ground of appeal





The CJEU finally dismissed the third ground of appeal due to the principle of court hierarchy which prevents the parties to add new case material in the higher instances (C  101/17 P, Verus).





What now?





For the moment it appears that the CJEU is highly aware of the usage of abbreviations such as ez, despite it (mostly) being used in tech-savvy communities. Nonetheless, the CJEU wasted no time considering procedural obstacles which play an important role in safeguarding procedural economy and efficacy. When it comes to cases like this, the CJEU has once again made it clear that only decisions on point of law may be subject to appeal to this court.
DunningKruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability.

Trump has a very unrealistic view of his ability to master all subject. 1. He is the only one that can fix our economy. 2. He is the only one that can make trade deals. 3. He is the only one that is able to negotiate with China, Russia, and North Korea. 4. He knows more than his experienced diplomats. 5. He knows more about foreign affairs.6. He knows more than his generals. 7. He knows more than his security team. Trump is a jack of all trades, and is the master of NONE. The repub TROLLS also suffer from this effect. The fact of the matter is that, they don't know it.
In the midst of celebrating LGBTQ Pride the U.S. Supreme Court rained on our virtual parade by ruling in favor of the Catholic Social Serv...
The North Dakota Department of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response section will deploy a five-member response team this week to assist in an escalating measles outbreak in Vancouver, Washington.

The team will be relieving existing members of the Washington state response team. Washington requested the specialized team through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.

We are pleased to assist with this serious public health emergency,  said Tim Wiedrich, Emergency Preparedness and Response's section chief. Our participation not only assists Washington but also strengthens our North Dakota response capabilities.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency on Jan. 25 in response to the measles outbreak. Since Jan. 1, Washington public health officials have confirmed 36 cases and 12 suspect cases in two counties. Twenty-five patients are between the ages of 1 to 10 years old. Thirty-two of the patients were not immunized, and the immunization status of the remaining four cases is unverified.
Testimony also indicated that Rodriguez passed eighth grade with mostly failing grades and he was required to repeat ninth grade.

Ney said said that since 2006, there has been a shift in how experts assess intellectual disability and he said today IQ tests are only part of a picture that also includes a clinical review of how well a person is functioning in the world.

Ney said that in the past an IQ of around 70 would be in the neighborhood of being considered for intellectual disability. He said that number today might be an IQ in the high 70s or 80s.

Ney said if that had been the case when Rodriguez went to trial, the defense would have taken a different approach.

Under questioning from one of Rodriguez's current attorneys, Joseph Luby, Ney alluded to information that hinted Rodriguez's intellectual development may have been hampered by exposure to toxic chemicals during the years his family worked as migrant laborers, as well as by physical and sexual abuse at an early age.

Under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Reisenauer, Ney was asked about serotonin, a brain chemical that when lacking can cause mental health and behavioral issues.
Lori worked as a legal assistant in Bismarck, then in the summer of 1984, she moved to Orange County, Calif., with her dad. There, she met and married the love of her life, Don Hayes. Lori met Don at West County Tire, when her dad wandered in as a retired tire salesman and was hired to join the crew. Don and Duane struck up an immediate friendship, and Duane introduced Don to Lori. Lori and Don were married one year to the day after their first date, Dec. 14, 1986. Lori and Don were a match made in heaven, meant to be.

Lori and Don moved from California to Lake Havasu City, Ariz., in 1991, where they lived and raced dirt track stock cars. Lori and Don enjoyed many racing adventures. Lori was not only a member of Dons pit crew, but she helped build the engines, suspensions and every aspect of the cars. Lori was known as Mrs. Pirate at the race track, and was even known to get behind the wheel of the race car from time to time. In 1999, Lori and Don moved to St. George, Utah. There, they became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2003. Lori enjoyed teaching Sunday school and working with the young womens group. One of Loris greatest joys was watching her girls transform into young women. In the summer of 2011, Lori and Don moved to Bismarck to be closer to family.
Having turned back toward Bismarck, he was headed into the wind. As he landed, he was able to make a small turn and avoid going over a bluff. Neither he nor his wife sustained any injuries.

No bumps, bruises or cuts, Lee said.

After landing, they went through the checklist of actions to be taken in such a situation. They had no choice then but to wait for help. It came from many sources. Air traffic control, Burleigh County Sheriffs Department, North Dakota Highway Patrol, Bismarck Rural Fire Department, a local snowmobile club and a farmer with a tractor and snowplow were part of the search. Lee said he is grateful to everyone who helped.

Were so appreciative, he said. I cannot express it enough.

Lee has about 850 hours flying experience. His training includes preparation for an emergency landing. Once he was able, Lee called his first flight instructor to thank her.

Andrea had a calming influence on him and prayed during the landing, Lee said.

Shes a great co-pilot, he said.

They resumed their trip on Wednesday on a commercial airline and expected to be in Florida by mid-afternoon.
The North Dakota Senate agreed to impose new fees on owners of electric and hybrid vehicles Tuesday, a move proponents pitched as a way to balance the scales with traditional gas guzzlers that pay for road projects through fuel taxes.

The 26-19 vote sends Senate Bill 2061 to the House. It would impose an annual road use fee of $110 for electric vehicles and $50 for hybrids.

The reason for establishing these fees is that these vehicles are using the road system but either pay no fuel tax or a very limited amount of fuel tax, said Sen. Dale Patten, R-Watford City.

The bill also includes a legislative study of designing a jointly owned public and private network of electric vehicle infrastructure.

As introduced by Grand Forks Republican Sen. Curt Kreun earlier this month, the bill would have imposed an annual fee of $248 for electric vehicles and $71 for hybrids, but it was later amended with smaller fees. The original electric vehicle fee would have been the largest among the 20 states that already impose one, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

A fiscal note predicts the bill would generate roughly $250,000 in the next two-year budget cycle after accounting for computer programming costs.
"Let's rule on the side of the property owner and the law-abiding citizen in North Dakota for a change," Ertelt told the committee.

"I don't see anybody whacking somebody for stealing a wrench out of a toolbox," he added. "I don't think that's how North Dakota citizens think."

Ertelt helped draft the bill from his previous experience "dabbling in law" as a self-represented litigant and as "a staunch advocate of the right to property."

"It's not the intention to give a carte blanche OK to just up and shoot someone or use deadly force on someone," Ertelt told the Tribune. HB1457 offers a "level playing field" for attackers and their potential victims, he added.

Opposing testimony came from Donnell Preskey, representing the North Dakota Sheriff's & Deputies Association, whose members she said believe the bill expands the current law for deadly force "to be used in almost any kind of incident that homeowner or person encounters," such as shooting someone committing criminal mischief.

"They believe that this goes beyond self-defense," Preskey said.
In an interesting twist, Becker  as a member of the House Judiciary Committee  questioned Stenehjem and others opposing his bill, drilling into details such as charging defendants and those who abscond.

Erickson described forfeiture scenarios and his experiences involving North Dakota's law, but first criticized the Institute for Justice for its "F" rating of the state's law. He called the rating "a political or a media manipulation distinction."

"They use that to get the media to say, 'There's an F here, so we should make some changes,' but it doesn't base itself in reality," Erickson said.

Lawmakers dug into the bill, asking about absconded defendants, federal and game and fish practices, forfeiture proceeds  and related statistics, which don't exist in North Dakota.

"We are in somewhat of a black box here, in which we don't know," McGrath said.

In concluding Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Kim Koppelman, R-West Fargo, appointed Reps. Karla Hanson, Terry Jones and Bernie Satrom to a working group to receive feedback on items "that need to have some attention" in the bill.

"I've not done this before, so this is a new animal that we're creating," Koppelman said of the working group.

The House Judiciary Committee recessed its hearing on HB1286 to resume 8:30 a.m. Monday in the Prairie Room of the state Capitol at Bismarck.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-223-8482 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

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But students don't have to comply, and, at that point, local law enforcement is typically involved in the investigation, Copas said.

"Rather than throwing up our hands and saying,'Oh, it happened outside of school, we can't touch it,' well, now we're going to take it a step further and say we need to help with this investigation in any way that we can and partner with our local law enforcement," she said.

Amy De Kok, legal counsel for the North Dakota School Boards Association, said her organization supports the bill but has some reservations.

"I receive calls frequently about how and if schools can regulate this off-campus conduct," she said. "However ... we do have some concerns with the proposed bill language, because there is a risk of liability for schools if they are disciplining a student for off-campus conduct that's non-school-related speech."

De Kok told the committee the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet addressed the issue, but many federal circuit courts have taken up cases that deal with off-campus speech that is alleged to be cyberbullying, in which a student claims their First Amendment rights are being violated.
In this way, legal notes and fiscal notes serve the same function, and both are imperfect and based on assumptions. They're meant to give an expert opinion.

But, the Senate has proposed eliminating the legal review notes from proposed legislation. The rule-change sponsor, Sen. Keith Regier, fears that too much input might unfairly bias lawmakers.

What Regier characterizes as biased input may indeed be sage legal advice. We believe the House would do well to thank Regier and his Senate colleagues for their suggestions, but keep the legal notes attached online for the public to see.

While the legal notes that are attached to bills are simply opinions, they're important. It's a good example of government trying to protect against itself. By that we mean, it stops overzealous legislation which, if passed, could result in clogging the courts with more lawsuits. It saves taxpayers the headache of having to spend money to fight against the government. If conservatives are really so concerned about government overreach, then they should advocate leaving the legal review in tact as the analysis could stop unwitting legislators from creating too many rules that would only spin off lawsuits.
Last week the Missoulian published a series of news stories about private residential treatment programs for children  mostly teenagers  in Montana.

As this series shows in tragic detail, it is long past time for the state to enact meaningful regulation of these programs. The experiment in which these programs were essentially allowed to regulate themselves has clearly failed.

Its important to note that some of these treatment programs have helped a lot of troubled kids turn their lives around. During the past week, the Missoulian has heard from a handful of these former students and parents wanting to share their personal stories and emphasize their very positive experiences.

Undeniably, there is a place for these programs in Montana. Their good work should be encouraged. But it would be irresponsible to ignore that there have also been some troubling practices that have resulted in very negative outcomes as well, from suicide and sexual assault to post-traumatic stress disorder and lasting trauma. Regardless of the methods used by any program in Montana, they are all allowed to operate with little to no transparency to the public or even to parents. That has to change.

The current system allows problematic residential treatment facilities to shut down when complaints pour in, only to open again in a new place under a new name. It allows serious problems to slip through the cracks, with no accountability, and ultimately tarnishes the reputation of all private treatment programs in Montana. This must stop.

The Montana Legislature is faced with two bills this session that would address two gaping loopholes in the states ability to oversee these programs. Its up to Montana to tackle this issue on its own because there are virtually no federal regulations in place, despite repeated attempts to pass legislation through the U.S. Congress.

LC2664, requested by Rep. Denley Loge, R-St. Regis, is a draft bill aimed at protecting vulnerable people from sexual predators, specifically providing that participants in private alternative adolescent programs cannot consent to sex with program employees. This is important because under Montana law, the legal age of consent is 16. It should be against the law for any adult holding such a strong position of power and trust to have sex with a teen resident. Loges bill must advance through the Legislature and be signed into law. There is no good reason to oppose it.

Another proposal, House Bill 222, would eliminate the licensing exemptions for alternative adolescent treatment programs affiliated with religious organizations. The bill, requested by Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, and sponsored by Rep. Zac Perry, D-Hungry Horse, is currently awaiting action in the House Judiciary Committee. Morigeau points out that his own grandmother was abused at a mission school in St. Ignatius where a lawsuit revealed clergy were routinely assigned after getting caught sexually abusing children.

The Montana Division of Child and Family Services has recorded multiple, ongoing, proven reports of abuse at religious treatment programs  but has no enforcement authority over them. In 2015, former CFS Director Sarah Corbally told state legislators the agency had tallied more than 30 reports of abuse and neglect at unlicensed facilities over the previous five years and could do nothing about it.

Despite this compelling testimony, Montanas lawmakers chose not to do anything about it, either. Montanans must demand they act on this legislation at last. They can remind their representatives and senators of specific cases, such as Pinehaven Christian Ranch for Kids, which has opposed state oversight in previous legislative sessions, and which itself saw a former teacher sentenced to prison for sexual intercourse without consent in 2005 after assaulting two teenage girls in the program.

Montana should be able to discipline programs with lax procedures or loose policies that allow this to happen. There should be a process for students in these programs and their parents to file credible complaints, and have those complaints thoroughly and publicly investigated.

Montana does not yet have such a system. Right now, complaints are fielded by a board that is, inexplicably, housed under the state Department of Labor and Industry, which oversees no other enterprises even remotely similar to alternative residential treatment programs for adolescents. Indeed, the department has supported bills to transfer oversight to another agency, and the Montanas Department of Public Health and Human Services has previously requested that it be given this responsibility.

Further, the board in charge of investigating any complaints is stacked with industry insiders  three of the five board members run treatment centers. Thus, the oversight board, called the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Program (PAARP), has never meted out a sanction to any program throughout its dozen years of existence, despite having received nearly five dozen complaints.

Worse, every one of those complaints is kept a secret. They remain unavailable for public review unless the board takes disciplinary action  and it has never taken significant action.

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry is the wrong agency to oversee these programs. And the board that investigates complaints should not consist of a majority of members who run the very businesses they are supposed to investigate. It should be expanded to include members with expertise in child education, adolescent behavioral problems and treatment.

The board also should not grant licenses to any program that has not passed a thorough inspection. Parents who pay great sums of money to send their children to these facilities may be lulled into a false sense of security by these licenses, when in reality, inspections are few and far between  and all too often, entirely perfunctory.

At a minimum, treatment programs should be required to share the results of criminal background checks of workers with the public. And unlicensed employees with no training should not be allowed to care for teens with sometimes serious disorders.

Montana can no longer turn a blind eye to these lapses. Too many children already have paid the price. Its time, finally, to repair this troubled system for troubled kids.

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ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo.  A Utah family, including 2-year-old twins and a 2-week-old infant, are safe and unharmed after their small plane ran out of fuel and landed in a snow-covered field in a remote area of southwest Wyoming.

The Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office says the family was rescued about 8:45 p.m. Monday by helicopter about three hours after the single-engine plane made an emergency landing while flying from Wayne, Nebraska, to Heber, Utah.

The Sheriff's Office didn't identify the man who piloted the plane or his family, other than to say they were from Heber.

It says the pilot planned to refuel at the Rock Springs airport but a strong headwind caused the plane to use more fuel than expected, forcing it to land undamaged about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the airport.

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If you look across the river from Tower Road and downstream, you can see lots of stick nests, Greene said. They nest in colonies, with big stick nests together. They like to be by the river, and around here really go for the big cottonwood groves.

The heron isnt the only one swinging by the nest while the osprey are wintering down south. In a Jan. 21 video, a kestrel is perched on the edge of the nest, with feathers flying as he devours another small bird. And on Jan. 4, a northern flicker is seen foraging for yellowjackets, serving as part of the winter cleanup crew.

We actually have quite a long list of birds that have hopped up on the nest for various reasons, Greene said. Flickers and robins and towhees; most are just hanging out, but theres about 20 species of birds the camera sees at the nest.

The Hellgate webcam is viewed by millions of people in more than 200 countries, and is part of the Montana Osprey Project. One comment on the ospreys YouTube video site notes that the nest gets more air traffic than OHare airport.
A rancher legally shot a gray wolf on his property 40 miles east of Billings on Tuesday, according to a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks press release.

The rancher, who held a Montana wolf hunting license, said he killed the wolf after it chased some of his cattle away from a coulee where he was feeding them.

The wolf was a young male and weighed about 100 pounds. The rancher said he did not see other wolves and did not believe the animal killed or injured any of his cattle. FWP officials inspected and tagged the animal on Tuesday.

The rancher lives north of the Yellowstone River, according to FWP spokesman Bob Gibson. Custer is roughly 54 miles northeast of Billings.

FWP wolf specialist Abbie Nelson said there is no way to know where the wolf came from. During this time of year lone wolves  and young males in particular  can travel hundreds of miles in search of a mate. Since the rancher did not see other wolves it is likely that the wolf was passing through the area, she said.

"At this point, there is no plan to do any DNA sampling or trying to chase down its travels  that process is incredibly expensive and would depend on what DNA we already have from packs throughout the West," Gibson said.
Eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 outside of Bozeman were blocked after a semi crashed and rolled onto the passing lane Tuesday afternoon, according to the Montana Highway Patrol.

The male driver and another male occupant, both from Florida, were wearing their seat belts and werent seriously injured, said MHP Trooper David Morris. Both were transported to Bozeman Deaconess Hospital with minor injuries.

The semi, traveling east near mile marker 309, over-corrected on a left-hand curve and rolled, blocking the passing lane.

The crash happened around 7 a.m. Tuesday, and as of about 3 p.m. the highway was still constricted to one lane of traffic as crews worked to clear the semi from the road, said Morris.

The roads were clear and dry, said Morris, and the driver was cited for careless driving.

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KALISPELL  A skijoring race in northwestern Montana was called off early after a horse was injured on the course and had to be euthanized.

The Daily Inter Lake reports the horse was injured Sunday at the World Invitational Skijoring races, which pair a horse and rider with a skier being pulled through a course. The event was being held at Big Mountain Ranch in Whitefish in conjunction with the Whitefish Winter Carnival.

Skijoring committee member Mike Righetti says the rider hit a turn too hard, and the horse stumbled and "rolled wrong." The owner decided to euthanize the horse, and a vote was taken to end the races early.

Righetti says skijoring event organizers work hard to make the course safe, but the sport comes with a "known risk" of injury.

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Legislation designed to add more clarity around campaign claims against political opponents failed on a 47-53 vote in the House Tuesday.House Bill 139, introduced by Rep. Kimberly Dudik, D-Missoula, would have required printed election material referencing another candidates voting record to provide specific bill numbers, the years of votes and titles of bills or resolutions. References to another candidates statements would have required the date and location the statement was made.The Legislative Services Division previously noted concerns that Dudik's bill might run counter to the First Amendment. Dudik told the House State Administration Committee Jan. 17 that the bill properly navigated a road map provided by past court decisions leveled against similar legislation."The compelling state interest that's being furthered by this bill is that our citizens have a right to know what information is being given to them about candidates in elections," Dudik said Tuesday on the House floor. "We require truth in advertising and just about everything else in our state, and there's no reason that our candidates and our election process shouldn't have the same requirements."Rep. Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus, told the House prior to the vote that Dudik's bill would yield a legal challenge, as has occurred with similar legislation in the past."This has been challenged three times. Every time the Legislature's come back and we've made small changes, the law gets challenged again and guess what? It's still unconstitutional," said Mandeville, chair of the House State Administration Committee. "Because what this bill is doing, and what similar bills have done in the past, is compel speech, is force people to engage in speech in order to participate in the political process."
The bill is moving on to the full House for debate after it passed out of committee on a 19-0 vote.

Its companion bill, House Bill 187, would revise laws already in place addressing youth suicide prevention. The Montana Department of Health and Human Services has a suicide prevention officer who directs prevention programming across the state.

Dunwells second bill would have this office evaluate and award grants for suicide prevention activities, and it would appropriate $1.3 million from the states general fund for those grants. The bills language would require grants be prioritized for research-based practices. An example of one such program is Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM). The program is used globally to encourage young people to think about and discuss mental health issues.

Montana State University Extension is promoting the program in the state and 17 Extension agents are certified to teach YAM in rural schools, like Shelby, Miles City and Ronan.

Colleen Murphy spoke in support of the bill as a clinical social worker in Boulders elementary school. She said the youngest child who has expressed suicidal thoughts in her office was in third grade.

The more mental health preparation that we have, the better, Murphy said.
A legislative committee Tuesday heard from supporters of a bill that would ease workers' compensation claims for firefighters who get sick from illnesses presumed related to their job, saying the legislation provides necessary protection for firefighters. Those opposed to the bill say presumptive coverage would increase workers' compensation costs.
On Monday, Goes Ahead said his administration took over the tribal finance office, as part of his effort to begin auditing the tribes finances and determining where the missing money has gone. The week before, he had also succeeded in freezing the previous administrations bank accounts, he said.

First Interstate Bank and all the folks there have recognized Goes Ahead and Backbones signatures to freeze all the accounts so that way we can get the (financial) house in order, C.J. Stewart, a political adviser to Goes Ahead, said Tuesday.

That process culminated in a confrontation Tuesday afternoon, when Not Afraid's supporters used construction equipment to block pickups loaded with boxes of documents trying to leave the tribes finance office. The heavy machinery eventually moved, and the vehicles then were able to head to the legislative branch offices to unload the financial documents.

They went in and were trying to ransack some of the records, Not Afraid spokesman Jared Stewart said Tuesday, referring to the Goes Ahead supporters takeover of the office.
The oil industry is crucial to my people, said Rep. Andi Clifford, D-Riverton, who is a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe. We have oil royalties we depend on. But with our cultural beliefs, we respect land, water, wildlife and our resources, and there always needs to be that balance. That is the critical infrastructure thats important to us.

For those in opposition of the bill  a group that largely consisted of private citizens, tribal members and environmental groups  the narrative went beyond ones right to protest: It extended to their own rights as landowners. Many questioned what sorts of actions would qualify them as intentionally encumbering a critical infrastructure project.

While some groups  such as the Wyoming Stock Growers Association  lauded the bills revision of language regarding private land owners, others disagreed. Monika Leininger, a community organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, noted the bill contained vague language that she believed would be confusing to laypeople and would leave them unsure of their rights as private property owners.

If its in the interest of the government to protect private companies, isnt it in our interest to protect ranchers and private landowners? she said.
On #HolocaustMemorialDay, we remember the tremendous, immeasurable human cost of bigotry  and we reaffirm that there can be no place for antisemitism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, or *any* form of hatred in our communities, our politics, and our country.  Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) January 27, 2019

In memory of the millions of Jewish people, and others, who perished in the Holocaust. Let us never allow antisemitism or any other form of racism to disfigure our society.



My message in the Holocaust Education Trust's Book of Commitment. @HolocaustUK pic.twitter.com/NK1dsRrRk1  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) January 26, 2019

Today #WeRemember the murder of 17 million people, including 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis.



With the rise of Anti-Semitic and Neo-Nazi ideology, it's more important than ever we learn from the atrocities of the past & commit to fighting intolerance. #HolocaustMemorial https://t.co/8jpJ8olBaD  Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 27, 2019

On Sunday, as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day , Planned Parenthood, the single largest murderer of children in the womb in modern history, tweeted out its thoughts:Planned Parenthood is responsible for the killing of some 300,000 American unborn children per year; those children are disproportionately minority and from poorer families.But this is typical of the intersectional Left, which has subsumed anti-Semitism under the broader rubric of Leftist politics. The issue when it comes to the Holocaust isn't the dehumanization and slaughter of innocents anymore - now it's "bigotry" writ large, so that the Holocaust can be used as just another club against conservatives on a range of issues from immigration to biological sex. This is how the Women's March can proclaim that it opposes bigotry even while its leaders call for anti-Semitic boycotts against Israel from the podium. For too many on the Left, getting into the specifics of the Holocaust makes it impossible for the Holocaust to be used as a political tool. Better to be vague about the Holocaust, to broaden it to a miasmatic evil, so that the Holocaust can be linked with whatever trendy cause Leftists wish to promote that day.That's how open anti-Semities like Britain's Jeremy Corbyn can, with a straight face, tweet nonsense like this:In memory of the millions of Jewish people, and others, who perished in the Holocaust. Let us never allow antisemitism or any other form of racism to disfigure our society.Corbyn has backed Hamas and Hezbollah , and is an ardent Israel-hater who has associated with blood libel purveyors and Holocaust deniers. Yet he apparently has no qualms about blathering about the Holocaust, even though he'd undoubtedly side with its modern-day advocates in the radical Islamist world.Omar is a BDS supporter who has also expressed bewilderment that Jews might be upset at her past tweet about Israel "hypnotizing" the world. But she's happy to use the Holocaust as a club against supposed right-wing extremism, even as she promotes anti-Semitic terrorists.Watering down the Holocaust so that it can be applied as a gloss on every favored cause of the day is the ultimate insult to Jews. Jews should reject such cynical manipulation from the very people who would gladly engage in atrocities against innocents if given the chance to do so.
wrote Toni Airaksinen in 2016 for Quillette. At the time, she was studying at Barnard College and described moving from an initial infatuation with gender studies to seeing it as anThis lack of grounding in objective truth and the dismissal of facts and knowledge as patriarchal constructs is at the root of criticisms of gender studies. Gender studies advocates were understandably shocked by the recent decision of the Hungarian government to withdraw accreditation from gender studies programs, and the move was condemned by the Association of University Professors as "Certainly, anyone interested in academic freedom should be concerned when the government has the power to decide what can-and what cannot-be studied at universities. Students, rather than governments, should determine an academic discipline's value. However, the bad news for advocates of gender studies is that careful consideration of the merits of this discipline will lead most students in a different direction.Hungary's prime minister wasn't alone when he told the international news agency Agence France-Presse that gender studies isAs David Paternotte, co-editor of the book Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe, told Inside Higher Ed , this is a common critique:Yet this criticism is based in fact: Unlike other academic disciplines, gender studies and its antecedent, women's studies, are explicitly linked to an ideological movement with a specific political purpose. The National Women's Studies Association's constitution, passed in 1982, described the relationship between the academic women's studies field and the feminist movement. The constitution reads: Feminist education is a process deeply rooted in the women's movement and remains accountable to that community. Feminist aims include the elimination of oppression and discrimination on the basis of sex, race, age, class, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation; as well as other barriers to human liberation inherent in the structure of our society; Feminist education is not only the pursuit of knowledge about women, but also the development of knowledge for women, a force which furthers the realization of feminist aims; The National Women's Studies Association actively supports and promotes feminist education and supports the persons involved in that effort, at any educational level and in any educational setting.From its beginnings, the women's studies field wasn't simply about imparting facts and information, encouraging analysis, or building analytic capabilities that students could use to reach their own conclusions about a variety of subjects, as other liberal arts disciplines seek to do. Rather, women's studies was meant to impress on students a specific world view with the goal of influencing political outcomes and changing how society is structured. Indeed, the academic discipline considers itself "accountable" to the feminist community and feminist cause.Women's or gender studies disciplines have not outgrown this relationship with the feminist political movement during the last 35 years. In fact, the National Women's Studies Association website continues to emphasize this relationship, answering the question posed on its website,withThe association provides additional evidence that it remains committed to advancing a specific and political agenda, explaining:Certainly, there are other disciplines in which learning outside of the classroom is recognized as valuable and an important part of students' development. However, women's studies is an outlier in that the students' impact on the community, not the acquisition of knowledge or experience themselves, appears to be the primary goal of the process. That's a fine mission for a political organization, but not one whose purpose is education.Perhaps it goes without saying that the ideology advanced through the women's and gender studies disciplines is progressive. Women's and gender studies programs aren't merely encouraging political engagement and activity, but for the advancement of social changes that including expanding government redistribution and oversight of society in the name of promoting equality and inclusivity.While students entering essentially any higher education institution can expect to find more liberal professors than moderates or conservatives, those considering gender studies should prepare for near uniformity in the political outlook of the department.A study conducted by the National Association of Scholars of 8,688 tenure-track professors at 51 top-ranked liberal arts colleges found overall more than 10 registered Democrats for every 1 Republican professor. But gender studies, along with Africana studies and peace studies, was the most heavily slanted. The study's author concluded,This political uniformity of the faculty further undermines the idea that students will receive a comprehensive education with utility outside of the classroom or far-left political circles.Premilla Nadasen, president of the National Women's Studies Association, told Inside Higher Ed that the reason for hostility to gender studies is concerns about changing society and a desire to protect traditional power structures:I think what they suggest through this phrasethat this is somehow contrary to family values...But women and gender studies scholars are not rooted in aThey think about gender as a frame of analysis for understanding the way in which the world works. I think if there's any ideology that has been manifest in this debate, it's the right-wing ideology that is attempting to return to a heteronormative patriarchal society.Perhaps those concerns play a role in some criticism of the discipline, but the most powerful criticisms of the field don't center on its impact on society. They center on the impact on individual students themselves. A college education is supposed to provide them with broad knowledge that will enhance their life experience and make them better citizens, community members, and future leaders. It's doubtful that the heavily politicized content of gender studies programs accomplishes that.Barnard College's Toni Airaksinen described being discouraged from bringing up legitimate arguments, such as the possibility of biological differences, by her professor who dismissed those arguments asShe described the one-sized indoctrination as "cruel," writingOther students who invest their time in higher education on debates about whether the entire discipline is toothus leaving out women without vaginas, may ultimately wonder if this was really the best use of their finite time at university to gain skills and knowledge that will help them in life, post-college.Women's role in history and society, as well as how cultures approach issues related to gender, are areas worth academic inquiry. It's unfortunate, however, that gender studies programs today are so wholly intertwined with one specific and extreme political ideology that those outside of the discipline at least have little reason to assume that these topics are being fairly and thoroughly analyzed.Until that changes, questions about the discipline's value will persist-as they should.
Failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is reportedly telling close advisers and friends that she hasn't fullyon a 2020 presidential campaign.CNN reports that ClintonCNN reported Jeff Zeleny told the network Sunday morning onAlthough, Zeleny added, he does not believeor that Clinton is likely to throw her hat into the ring for 2020 unless there's truly a dearth of qualified Democratic candidates.That said, according to Zeleny, the rumor is a strong one.The answer to that is likely,Unlike in the two previous contests Clinton entered, she would be competing against a strong field of Democratic contenders in 2020, each hell-bent on being the Democratic choice to dethrone President Donald Trump. And while the party may still be finding its footing, deciding where on the spectrum from progressive to moderate it wants to be while up against the Republican populist President, one thing is for certain: they're looking for fresh blood.Several Democratic contenders, including Clinton's heir apparent, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), have approached the 2016 presidential candidate looking for help, advice, and access to the Clintons' massive fundraising network - a group of such high level donors, anyone with the Clinton blessing is likely to become the de facto front-runner. But Clinton has kept surprisingly quiet on which candidate she prefers to do the job she failed to do: unseat Donald Trump.Clinton has regularly hinted at a third run for the nation's highest office, though her top advisers have told conflicting stories to the media. Early on, former Clinton staffers completely ruled out any possibility that Hillary would make another run in 2020, but of late, both Clinton and her close friends have been dropping hints to reporters that the door truly is not closed.In November, two former Clinton advisers penned an op-ed virtually guaranteeing that Clinton would undertake a third presidential campaign, though the candidate distanced herself from those reports.But according to Zeleny, Clinton believes that, although she lost quite spectacularly to Trump, and has yet to fully embrace the reasons for her failure - preferring instead to blame the country's supposed "sexism" and "racism" for her difficulties - there's still an argument to be made that she's the strongest candidate in the field, particularly given that she won the national popular vote in her last contest, even if she lost the Electoral College.She may not be wrong. Gillibrand and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are "Clinton clones," couching moderate ideology in progressive rhetoric. Other than former Vice President Joe Biden, no male is polling close to the top. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is already causing controversy with his threatened 2020 campaign - so much so that the Democratic National Committee may not tolerate a second run from the Vermont progressive.Although the field is vast, no single candidate is strong, and Clinton must know that. But how ready is anyone for a third Clinton campaign? A recent poll has her being soundly beaten by both Biden and Sanders.
Layton High School senior Michael Moreno and his debate partner, whom The Daily Wire will not name, were participating in a round with a topic relating to immigration. The specific topic of the round wasMoreno and his partner were arguing in the negative, meaning they were arguing against the other team's plan to reduce restrictions on legal immigration.Instead of arguing in the affirmative, Moreno told The Daily Wire, the other team read aabout how terms likeandare dehumanizing. In documents provided to The Daily Wire, these students quoted from numerous professors critical of assimilation and the notion that immigrants must act American to livethe students said.Moreno and his partner responded by arguing the other team did not actually articulate a position. The structure of this debate allowed for the affirmative to propose a plan and then have the negative argue against that plan. Since the other team did not propose solutions to reduce restrictions on legal immigration, Moreno said, his team had nothing to argue against and claimed this was unfair.Moreno said.The other team, during the cross-examination section of the debate, said Moreno and his partner could not talk about fairness because they wereMoreno said he then speed-read through quotes from Shapiro and Peterson pertaining to identity politics. He specifically cited comments Shapiro made at the University of Connecticut on January 24, 2018, where he said:Moreno also quoted Peterson saying,At this point, Moreno began recording the debate, and posted the video to YouTube with the faces of the other debaters blurred. The judge ended the round after Moreno's quotes from Shapiro and Peterson, as the other team continued to affirm that they had no standing asThe judge, who before the round told each team not to be racist, claimed Moreno and his partner'sandwere actually racist. The judge then joined the opposing team in claiming it was Moreno and his partner who turned the debate into a discussion ofand claimed Shapiro and Peterson areAfter another 10 minutes of this kind of back and forth, the judge said Moreno and his partner lost the round.Moreno then spoke to the tournament directors, who both work for Arizona State University (The Daily Wire will not name them as they did not respond to a request for comment). These two affirmed that the team has aover their treatment, but that Moreno and his partner were there to debate for that particular judge, and their arguments failed to persuade him, whether he was impartial or not.one of the directors tells Moreno in the video.Neither of the directors responded to a Daily Wire inquiry about what is going on in the debate community that allows one side to just yell "racism" and end the debate.You can watch the video for yourself below:
Whiskey on ice in a cut glass: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage Click image to expand.



Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture

North Carolina's ABC system restricts the sale of spirituous liquor in this state to an average of just 4.3 stores per county operated by local government boards. Private companies are not allowed to distribute or sell liquor in North Carolina. This, you'll recall, is to protect us from the evils of alcohol.If only our bodies were able to distinguish between alcohol from liquor or beer and wine, the way our state law does. But while our ABC system exerts tight control over liquor, it also licenses private companies to distribute and sell beer and wine in North Carolina. So consumers in North Carolina can buy beer and wine all over the place: in grocery stores, convenience stores, wine and beer stores, specialty shops, and so on. (It's heavily overregulated and problematic , but still.)Here is a chart you've probably seen before. It's as U.S. government health chart explaining the "Standard Drink" equivalence of types of alcohol beverage. Charts like this are often used on college campuses and in public-service announcements:All of these drinks contain 14 grams (0.6 ounces) of pure alcohol.Data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism include the per-capita consumption amounts of liquor in each state in 2016. The Southeastern region of the United States contains a mix of control states (including North Carolina) and license states. Do tight control and limits on the number of stores selling liquor seem to make a difference? These data suggest they might.As you can see, the states controlling retail sales of liquor have among the lowest per-capita consumption of liquor of the 14 states in the region. North Carolina is 13th out of 14.Control appears to be working, but is it working? I think the Standard Drink idea dovetails with what economists call "substitute goods." Simply put, a substitute good is any good consumers turn to when the price of a similar good increases.Research finds that most people who enjoy alcoholic beverages don't exclusively favor one type, but they do tend to favor beer and wine over liquor , even though liquor may be catching up . This suggests wine and beer are effective substitute goods for liquor if liquor is made harder and costlier to get than wine and beer. Such as by limiting stores, limiting hours, and setting monopoly prices for liquor, all of which the ABC system does.See, for example, how the liquor control states fare in terms of beer consumption per capita. Suddenly they're in the middle of the pack, with one (West Virginia) ranking third overall. North Carolina ranks 8th out of 14 in that measure - suddenly in the middle of the pack.The other shoe drops when looking at wine sales per-capita. Two liquor control states round out the top four, Virginia (3rd) and also North Carolina (4th).Keeping the Standard Drink chart in mind and combining liquor consumption with beer and wine consumption, what were the Southeastern state's overall per-capita consumption for alcohol in 2016?Suddenly, the picture of control isn't so clear. At least not in practical terms.
Direct primary care (DPC) is the Netflix of primary care. In exchange for a small monthly fee, patient members of the DPC clinic have around-the-clock access to the services that their physician offers. There is no health insurance - just the patient paying the doctor a monthly fee in exchange for health care.The fact that there is no insurance in the direct primary care model may concern some people. The thought of health care without insurance usually elicits thoughts of large, surprise medical bills. However, by removing insurance from the equation, many of the problems that exist in the traditional model, which involve a primary care doctor and a third-party payer, disappear. Direct primary care can offer less costly and more consumer-friendly primary care services that are tailored to individuals' desired health outcomes.In 2015, the Union County government began to offer a direct primary care (DPC) health benefit option to their county employees. I recently obtained some new data detailing Union County's health plan cost and utilization for 2018. Union County employees have the option of choosing from a direct primary care option or a more traditional, consumer-driven health plan with a health reimbursement account. The results of adding a DPC option have been an overwhelming success.The main reason for switching to a direct primary care model is cost. Providing primary care services is less expensive when a doctor can skip insurance paperwork and contract directly with other health entities to conduct business. Moreover, it can be less expensive for a patient to pay a monthly fee to the direct primary care doctor than pay copays and fees toward meeting a deductible. Union County employees covered by the DPC option cost 26 percent less per member, per month to cover than employees covered by the consumer-driven option. DPC participants that had a chronic condition cost 22 percent less to cover than those in the consumer-driven option. The group participating in the DPC option also had a lower medical risk score than the group who chose the consumer-driven plan.Because direct primary care is an alternative model, participants must not be satisfied with their care, right? Wrong.In the DPC option, 99 percent of participants reported a positive overall experience, 99 percent of participants reported high satisfaction with provider access, and 97 percent of participants reported a high level of trust in the care they received. Participants of the direct primary care model reported that they spent almost double the amount of time with their DPC physicians compared to their traditional primary care physicians. And a note for employers who are thinking of adding this option: 77 percent of employees said that their opinion of their employer had improved since Union County offered a DPC option.The cost of care is lower, and patients are happier. But does that mean that patients can get the same level of care as they do in a traditional primary care office? Yes, and in many cases, the care is even better. Seventy-nine percent of employees reported that their health has improved after adoption of DPC. Further, because wait times in the DPC setting are minimal, those with chronic conditions, that is, the most high-risk participants, were able to visit with the doctor on average of seven times during the year. Also, 41 percent of the of the participants in this program have multiple chronic conditions and were able to be easily managed by the direct primary care.Direct primary care has the potential to bring many health care benefits to the American health care system. Regardless of your political affiliation, everyone can all agree health care costs are too high, and conventional primary care often is not the personalized care we want. Alternative delivery models such as DPC can bridge all of those gaps by offering less expensive and higher quality care.As in the case with Union County, public health plans could save substantial amounts on their plans by contracting with a DPC doctor. If you tease this scenario out even further to larger plans, such as the state health plan , the savings realized by the state could be monumental. That means state employees would receive more benefits at lower costs. Including a DPC option in Medicare and Medicaid also may fundamentally change the way the underserved populations could get care.Now imagine a private setting. If you receive health insurance from work, the premiums paid on that plan are paid by your employer. The more expensive the care, the more your employer must contribute, which often comes at the expense of salaries and other benefits. With health care costs on the rise, a higher proportion of wages are paying for employer-sponsored plans than ever before. That means less money in the pockets of employees.As health care costs reach peak levels, innovation will drive alternative ways of delivering health care. DPC is one of those methods, and the evidence is plain and simple that this type of primary care can provide safe, less expensive, and higher-quality care that patients desire. In addition, the plan sponsors save money, which could reduce taxpayer expenditures on health care or increase wages for employees. Regardless, DPC is an innovative way for care to be delivered and will continue to grow as traditional methods of providing care break down due to high cost and low satisfaction.
President Trump is moving toward his 2024 candidacy as per all indications from his enlightening address to the NC GOP on June 5, 2021. Considering this political vector as a distinct possibility: What is your electoral pleasure as an integral cog in this Representative Republic?

No Vote: Mr. Trump will never be president again as we boldly march toward a Socialist society.

Yes Vote: Mr. Trump was the best president since Ronald Reagan, and we need a real leader, who is fully cognitive of that responsibility in these tumultuous times..




WHITE FUNGUS



















Taiwan-based magazine White Fungus is about to release its 16th issue. The new issue features a 50-page interview with Carolee Schneemann, an epic exploration of the world of animal music, plus Kurt Gottschalk reports on a New York performance of Max Richters SLEEP.

Taipei curator Jeph Lo describes witnessing the emergence of noise music in Taiwans postmartial law era, alongside a photo essay on political demonstrations held during the islands transition out of military rule. There is an article about 2018 Turner Prizenominee Luke Willis Thompson, plus an interview with Dor Guez about the Christian Palestinian Archive. The issue features new performance art from Taiwan, plus a profile of obscure Wellington street artist Ruffo who appears in Chris Krauss classic fantastical memoir I Love Dick .

White Fungus was started in 2004 by brothers Ron Hanson and Mark Hanson in Wellington, New Zealand. The first issue was an impromptu protest against the building of a motorway that would cut through the citys arts district, destroying heritage buildings and forcing artists from their studios. Copies of the first issue were produced on a photocopier, wrapped in Christmas paper and hurled anonymously through the entrances of businesses throughout the city. The name of the publication comes from a can of "white fungus", a commercially produced pulped beverage the Hansons discovered in their local supermarket in Taiwan. In 2009 the Hansons relocated back to Taiwan where they have since been active publishing and directing live art events.
The Nebraska State Patrol Bomb Squad safely destroyed a live grenade found in a dumpster outside a Talmage home Monday, an agency spokesman said.

People cleaning out the home of a resident who had died discovered the grenade and called the Otoe County Sheriff's Office, Cody Thomas said in a news release.

The sheriff's office called the bomb squad, which removed it from the area and used a counter-charge to dispose of the grenade, Thomas said.

The bomb squad's commander, Lt. Dain Hicks, encouraged people who find grenades or other explosives to call law enforcement for help and to not move the device.

Reach the writer at 402-473-2657 or rjohnson@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSRileyJohnson.

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That Week When Russia Turned Oregon Coast Skies Orange, Red

Published 01/30/2019 at 2:53 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  In mid April of 2015, the Oregon coast experienced a run of oddly reddish, orange skies. In fact, so did much of Oregon. But on the coastline, it meant for extra intense sunsets, and yet something was slightly off-kilter about these colors as well. (Above: unusual reds along the Otter Crest Loop as the day neared its end).

Its fascinating what weather or conditions nearly a world away can do to this area. And vice versa, of course.

Back then, it was wildfires in Russia that were hazing up coastal skies and sunsets, along with some dust from a huge storm in China.

The fires were taking place in the southeastern Siberian region of Khakassia, where more than 60 villages had been destroyed, over 5,000 left homeless and more than 33 dead. Various video and photos of the scenes had an apocalyptic look full of thick smoke and skies literally on fire. Something that was creepily echoed here in the U.S. in subsequent years.

A second blaze that broke out near that area later in the week is worsening the situation.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has a computerized weather tracking system called the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), and a blog about data from the network. For several days the agency had been focused on these plumes as they crossed the Pacific.





The smoke layers were first spotted over the Pacific on April 15. NWS scientists later pieced together various images and saw its movements from Russia to China, out into the ocean, and then eventually to the Pacific Northwest.

Later, even more of it was becoming apparent, according to the NWS blog at the time.

You can see the main plume on the borders of California, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho, with some smoke moving into central Canada, the NWS wrote that week. The plume has stayed surprisingly intact (and rather intense). You can also see hints of a big plume over Alaska (unfortunately, one of the areas we don't have a lot of OMPS data for today). And you can see a narrow plume wafting all the way across the Pacific.

What resulted was fiery skies all over the region, including Portland, the Oregon coast, Seattle and even Idaho.

Meteorologists at the time said particulates had likely cooled temperatures here by as much as two degrees. That week, they had been forecasting record temperatures, but it didnt happen.

Oregon Coast Beach Connection documented the weekends sights.

There was a discernible haze from the fires on that Saturday and Sunday, but central coast towns like Depoe Bay and Lincoln City were experiencing a slight fog on top of it all. The real evidence arrived at dusk on both days. Saturday's sunset become a muddled pink, while Sunday's was notoriously red and fiery just about everywhere on the West Coast.

The results on that Sunday time were especially striking and startling. Although you may not have thought much of it if you hadnt been paying attention to the news at the time. Along the Otter Crest Loop, as sunset approached, things turned a deep but fuzzy red and pink. At the Devils Punchbowl, the sky was a deep orange with a variety of reds mixed in. As the blue hour commenced, those minutes just after sunset, the sky got that signature blue but a little paler this time, with stranger reds and orange splashed across the horizon.

Of course subsequent wildfires in Oregon, Washington and California made that incident pale in comparison. Worse was the choking smoke that was hard to get away from, even on the beaches. Unfortunately, thanks to climate change, these situations are likely to be the new normal during summers in Oregon. Oregon Coast Lodgings in this area - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

More of these images from that weekend below:















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New Oregon Coast Travel Book Examines Depoe Bay in Detail; Debuts at #1

Published 01/30/2019 at 5:53 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Depoe Bay, Oregon)  What whales sometimes do on the central Oregon coast will absolutely surprise many: especially how close they can get without humans noticing  on the beach, no less. Then there are there a myriad of wild beach finds, like the green flash at sunset or velella velella. Or in the case of the Depoe Bay area: strangely shaped objects that defy description, or ancient forest stumps that are unique even among all the ghost forests of the region.

These odd finds, fun facts and more are mixed in with surprising history of Depoe Bay and a deeply detailed look at every beach access, all part of the fourth paperback and ebook in the Ultimate Oregon Coast Travel series, with both now available at Amazon.com. Written by Andre GW Hagestedt, it brings to light a bevy of unusual finds, hidden spots, surprising science and some rather unknown facts.

The book debuted at the number one spot on Kindle for the category for new releases in the travel reference category.

Ultimate Oregon Coast Travel: Depoe Bay covers the tiny town and the areas around it, including every beach access, and the history and science behind Gleneden Beach, Lincoln Beach, downtown Depoe Bay, Devils Punchbowl, Otter Rock, Cape Foulweather and Otter Crest Loop. Like the previous three books on Lincoln City, Cannon Beach and Seaside, this one also delves into various oddities like all that slippery green goo, the famed Second Summer and other curiosities of sky, sea and sand.





The overall theme of the Depoe Bay area is a unique paradox: there are lots of hidden spots, but they arent really secrets. Theyre simply overlooked, tucked away just out of sight, or actually somewhat forgotten. Or in some cases they are hiding in plain sight. This stretch from Gleneden Beach down to almost Newport is chock full of them  perhaps more than any other slice of Oregon coast.

Among them are spots like Rodea Point, where waves make a wild show  and an intense sound  but no one knows about this gravel patch lookout by the sea. It sits at the beginning of Otter Crest Loop, which is itself off the beaten path enough to be rather clandestine on its own  yet its not intentionally kept from the public. Then theres the absolute secret section of the Oregon Coast Trail, which is only that way because state officials forgot to put it on their trail map. It too is full of wild wonders, including a very close proximity to the boiler at Boiler Bay and access to an actual hidden spot that just screams pirates treasure.

The book also delves deeply into the history of this area, including Gleneden Beachs quirky beginnings and the adventurous tale of the shipwreck that got Boiler Bay its name. Thats like an action movie that needs to be made. On the amusing side: theres the freaky legend of the little flying men around Devils Punchbowl.

Like the other books in the Ultimate Oregon Coast Travel series, geology of the area gets the detailed look. This time, you find out the odd and ancient story of why all those rocks around Depoe Bay are rounded and bubble-like, and you get glimpses into the surprising origin of Cape Foulweather.

Hagestedt is the editor and publisher of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online mix of breaking travel news and recreation magazine. Hes documented every beach access along the upper half of the Oregon coast, and these books are an extension of that. Lodgings in Depoe Bay - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours





















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From the Chicago Tribune:

You likely dont know much about Howard Schultzs politics, but you know his accomplishment. He built Starbucks into a ubiquitous brand. Can a billionaire barista also build a national political organization and make a serious run for president as an independent candidate?

Good question. America hasnt seen a wealthy outsider candidate from the business world become president since, um, well, two years ago. President Donald Trumps election was a triumph of showmanship over governance expertise. Depending on whos doing the talking, Trumps term in office is either proud proof that anyone can grow up to be president, or dire evidence that only seasoned political figures should get the job.

Weve been critical of Trumps leadership skills. That doesnt mean we presume the next president will be  or should be  a Republican governor, Democratic senator or other breed of traditional politician.

Every presidential election is different, and by nature each race is a referendum on the previous four years. Perhaps Trump wins re-election. Perhaps hes defeated by a big-name Democrat such as Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren or former Vice President Joe Biden. Perhaps the next president is none of the above.
Two years after voters approved a bill to raise the statewide minimum wage, the fight continues over just how high the minimum wage should be in Arizona.

Travis Grantham, who represents Arizonas District 12 in the State House of Representatives, has introduced a bill that would in effect lower the minimum wage for college students across the state.

Aimed at encouraging youth employment, House Bill 2523 would allow employers to pay the federal minimum wage to employees who are between the ages of 18 and 22, are working only part-time or on a casual basis, and are enrolled full-time in classes.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

The bill was only introduced last week and is still very early on in the process, having not yet been assigned to a committee. But the Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce has thrown their support behind the measure, saying it will encourage much needed job opportunities for college students and provide businesses with flexibility, according to Joe Galli, the chambers Senior Adviser for Public Policy.

We think its great for students and young people, Galli said, adding that the chamber has heard a lot of support for such a bill from some of their member businesses.
She said that some people have even walked up to where the suspects were shot, and alleged one of them called it fascinating.

I want things to go back to normal. I want to open my window and not have that flashback, Parafiniuk said. Just to be able to open my window and start my day, peaceful, looking at my beautiful Flagstaff ponderosa pines and the birds and the squirrels.

Parafiniuk said she came from a family of officers and didnt blame the police officers for their work. Piccone also was thankful for what the officers did, saying she and her daughter hoped to visit the injured officer and give him thank you cards.

Both of us would like to meet him and say thank you, because this could have been so much worse, Piccone said.

In total, four officers shot at the two suspects and three were left uninjured. One of the officers in the incident had worked for the department for five years, while the others worked for two years.

A department official explained that the officers have been placed on paid administrative leave following the incident. The department does not have a set time their officers are placed on leave following incidents involving firearms, said Kameron Lee, spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Similarly, Valerio Ferme, dean of the College of Arts & Letters (CAL), said in a meeting last week that his primary goal to preserve current employees of all levels as the college works to return its $150,000 of state funds.

While faculty positions may be secure, in the worst-case scenario, part-time and student worker positions could become collateral damage.

Ferme explained that, in the case of CAL, if the $150,000 cannot be found within the state budget, collectors will dip into the colleges local budget, a grave prospect for employees.

We have people that are on salary on our local budget. If we were not to find the money from the state budget and they came after our local money, we would have to consider not keeping those people, he said.

Both Pugliesi and Ferme displayed confidence, though, that their colleges will be able to return the funds requested if they remain mindful about the budget restrictions.

At the senate meeting, faculty members expressed concern regarding consulting, hiring additional vice-administrators, rebranding, new mailers and other high-cost-generating activities; however, the executive council revealed no one culprit of the shortfall has been determined.

There was no mulligan answer, Gioia Woods, senate president, said of the councils recent budget discussion with administrators, who stated NAU would move forward with a more conservative budget plan next year.

Kaitlin Olson can be reached at the office at kolson@azdailysun.com or by phone at (928) 556-2253.

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Anthony Davis doesnt want to be in New Orleans anymore. Thats been obvious for a while, to the point that ESPNs Zach Lowe essentially wrote an entire post in December talking about how it was inevitable, even if he didnt (or, more likely, couldnt) come out and say it.So when Davis made the unusual move of formally requesting a trade (through agent Rich Paul), the idea wasnt much of a surprise. That he did it so openly, though, is certainly a twist, and technically against the leagues tampering rules.

Agent Rich Paul has notified the New Orleans Pelicans that All-NBA forward Anthony Davis has no intention of signing a contract extension if and when presented and that he has requested a trade, Paul told ESPN on Monday.  Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 28, 2019

So one day later, the league has already levied its punishment, fining Davis $50,000.

Pelicans star Anthony Davis has been fined $50,000 for his representative, Rich Paul, going on the record for trade request, violating CBA. https://t.co/oYex8zL1O3  Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 29, 2019

$50,000 isnt nothing, of course, but theres probably a key reason its not any higher:

The $50K is the most that Davis can be fined without the player filing a grievance. https://t.co/hQ5chJdF25  Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) January 29, 2019

So what we have here is the league wanting to pay lip service to their tampering rules without putting themselves in a position to have to defend them against a union grievance. And thats a strategic decision, because theres no way arguing this sort of grievance could really end well. It comes down to what a player owes a team, and one thing a player pretty clearly doesnt owe a team is silence so as to protect a teams leverage in trading them somewhere else. Davis and Pauls tactic isnt dissimilar to what Paul George did to the Indiana Pacers, when he undercut any potential leverage by publicly signalling he wouldnt be signing an extension. The Lakers ended up being fined for tampering in that case, although they never traded for George, he stayed in Oklahoma City instead, and the Pacers traded one year of George for multiple years of Victor Oladipo, Domantas Sabonis, and a renewed hope for the franchise (until last week.)

Its slightly different for New Orleans in that they had one more year of control remaining, but considering their season is a lost cause at this point, it might have made the most sense for them to trade Davis anyway. Whether they would have done that or not, though, is another thing entirely, and Davis clearly felt it was worth pushing the move forward, especially since all it costs him is $50,000. Davis and LeBron share Rich Paul as an agent, and theres every chance this is a move engineered to get Davis to Los Angeles; if that happens and the Lakers are hit with another tampering fine (less likely given the Rich Paul go-between, assuming he knows how to properly cover), its still going to be money well spent.So while attempting to enforce their tampering rules without having to defend them, the league has instead established a bargain rate for having your agent publicly open recruiting season. Good work all around!
Expensive housing may be the culprit behind close to a third of Comal County residents not being able to afford basic living needs in 2016, ac
"Scouting saw something in me that I, as a shy and insecure kid, wasn't able to see. I honestly don't know if I would be a pastor today if it weren't for Boy Scouts and the confidence, skill building, reverence, and friendships it offered me. Now I see scouting changing other children's lives, and I hope this worship service will be a reminder of the amazing potential we  and God  see so clearly in these children," Heery said in a news release.
People will once again chow down for charity Saturday when the Ukrainian National Club in Auburn hosts its ninth annual Pierogi Eating Contest.

Competitors in men's, women's and senior divisions will eat as many of the potato-filled dumplings as they can in eight minutes.

+3 Competitive eaters vie for the Golden Pierogi trophy in Auburn AUBURN  Brian Hooper brought his lucky fork to help him eat 35 pierogies and win the mens 

The event begins at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2. It is closed to competitors, but spectators are welcome. There will also be raffle prizes and a 50/50 drawing, and takeout dinners of pierogis, pigs in a blanket, kielbasa and kapusta will be available for pickup between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Dinners are $15 and prepayment is requested. To preorder, call (315) 253-5997.

Proceeds from the event will support Stand By Me of Cayuga County. The Ukrainian National Club has raised more than $21,000 for area nonprofits since it began hosting the contest in 2010, it said in a news release.

For more information, call (315) 253-5997.

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U.S. Rep. John Katko will kick off a series of town hall meetings on the Interstate 81 project in Syracuse with a pair of forums next week in Auburn and the town of DeWitt.

Katko, R-Camillus, will hold a town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 4 in the student lounge at Cayuga Community College, 197 Franklin St., Auburn. The forum's moderator will be Steve Lynch, director of planning and economic development for Cayuga County.

Another forum is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9 at DeWitt Town Hall, 5400 Butternut Dr., East Syracuse. The event will be held in the court room. The moderator will be DeWitt Councilor Kerry Mannion.

"Our community has a once-in-a-generation decision before us as we look to the future of Interstate 81," Katko said in a statement. "This decision impacts not only the city of Syracuse, but the towns and villages that surround it and rely on I-81."

Other Interstate 81-focused town hall meetings are planned for February, according to Katko's office. They are finalizing details for forums in Salina and Syracuse.

Representatives from the Federal Highway Administration and the state Department of Transportation have been invited to attend the town hall meetings.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James announced on Wednesday that the state has launched an investigation into Apple's handling of a bug within its FaceTime software that allowed eavesdropping on iPhones.

The glitch was revealed this week and Apple announced that it would disable the group FaceTime feature until it's fixed. But questions have been raised about how long the company knew about the bug and whether it was slow to respond.

Reports indicate the bug was first discovered by a 14-year-old in Arizona, who discovered that he could see and hear his friend by placing a FaceTime call. The problem: His friend didn't accept the call. The bug could allow users to see and hear the recipient, even if the other party didn't accept the FaceTime request.

James said her office will review Apple's response to the bug and determine whether any New York laws were violated.

"New Yorkers shouldn't have to choose between their private communications and their privacy rights," James said. "This FaceTime breach is a serious threat to the security and privacy of the millions of New Yorkers who have put their trust in Apple and its products over the years."
Despite declaring Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, the United States has maintained contact with him to ensure the safety of the embassy, a US envoy on the crisis said Wednesday. Elliot Abrams, who was appointed last week after the United States recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president, said that Washington was sending a message that Maduro needed to protect the mission. "We have contact with the de facto regime -- by which I mean the Maduro regime. We have contacts with them because we are concerned about things like the safety of Americans," Abrams told reporters. "We have long had contacts with people whom we have not granted diplomatic recognition in different countries around the world," he added. Maduro had ordered the United States to pull its diplomats by last Saturday. Washington refused, saying it no longer recognized Maduro and that Guaido had welcomed US personnel to stay. But Maduro did not move to close the embassy physically at the deadline and said Saturday that his government was in talks with Washington on diplomatic representation. "We have to figure out what the status of the embassy is going to be over time," Abrams said, reiterating US warnings that the Maduro regime "has obligations to protect the embassies and we will hold them to these obligations." Abrams vowed that the United States would keep stepping up pressure on Maduro, a leftist firebrand who presides over a crumbling economy that has sent millions fleeing. The United States has already sanctioned Venezuela's state oil company and blocked its assets in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Abrams said assets would be converted into humanitarian aid for Venezuela, although he said there was not much in the coffers of the embassy in Venezuela. "So we're all looking around the world to see what other assets there are, whether in bank accounts or things like gold," he said. Abrams is a veteran Republican policymaker on Latin America, playing a key role in anti-communist campaigns in 1980s Central America that were widely criticized by human rights groups. Opposition demonstrators rally in Caracas against President Nicolas Maduro, ordered the United States to pull its diplomats out of Venezuela
German industrial giant Siemens on Wednesday reported slumping profits in its first quarter, although order books were well filled ahead of a planned merger of its rail division with France's Alstom. The group booked a net profit of 1.1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) between October and December, a fall of 49 percent year-on-year. Much of the drop reflected the comparison with the year-earlier period which saw one-off windfalls from Siemens selling shares in former lighting subsidiary Osram and from tax cuts in the United States. Meanwhile chief executive Joe Kaeser used an early morning press conference to repeat criticism of the European Commission, which has strong reservations about the planned Siemens-Alstom rail deal. "It will be interesting to see if the future of mobility will be determined by backward-looking technocrats or by future-oriented Europeans," Kaeser said. Company bosses say the tie-up is needed to face up to new global competition from Chinese rail behemoth CRRC, but EU officials believe a combined group could be too dominant in the European market. Ahead of the merger decision expected next month, orders grew at Siemens' Mobility division, including a 1.6-billion-euro contract to supply new trains for the London Underground. Profits at the unit were steady at 236 million euros, following a strong July to September quarter. In other Siemens divisions the picture was less rosy, as underlying profit across the group fell six percent, to 2.0 billion euros, on the back of revenues steady at 20.1 billion. "There is still much to do before we achieve industry-leading margins in all our businesses," said Kaeser. Siemens' troubled energy division continued to "disappoint", he said, even after a massive restructuring last year in which it shed 7,000 jobs. The Power and Gas unit booked revenues down nine percent year-on-year and halved its operating profit to 119 million euros. Kaeser, freshly returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, highlighted international uncertainty potentially weighing on Siemens in 2019. But the group is still forecasting "moderate growth" in revenue in its 2018-19 financial year to September, after currency effects and changes to its structure following the mooted Alstom rail merger are excluded. Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser repeated criticism of the EC, which has strong reservations about a planned merger of its rail division with France's Alstom
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday that 47 rescued migrants aboard the Sea Watch NGO vessel could finally disembark after Italy and six other countries agreed to take them in. "Luxembourg has joined the list of friendly countries that responded to our invitation (to take the migrants), now we are seven countries," Conte told journalists. "Disembarking will begin in the coming hours." The other countries that have agreed to take in the migrants and asylum seekers, who have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel for nearly two weeks, are France, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Romania. Their fate has been at the centre of a standoff between Italy's far-right anti-migrant Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and the German NGO Sea Watch. The aid group on Friday filed an urgent case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship to dock. Sea Watch took the step because of Rome's hardline attitude against the mainly sub-Saharan migrants that its ship pulled out of the Mediterranean on January 19. Sea Watch 3 is sailing under a Dutch flag and has been sheltering from bad weather off Sicily. It picked up the migrants and asylum-seekers -- including eight minors -- off the coast of Libya as they made the treacherous crossing. The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday urged the Italian government to "take all necessary measures, as quickly as possible", to provide migrants on board the Sea Watch 3 with medical care, water and food. Migrants rescued at sea have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer. Sea Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told AFP, "We are happy that this European hostage-taking is ending. "At the same time, it's a bad day for Europe because human rights have once more been made secondary to negotiations within the EU... Another bitter day," he said. Europe has been wrestling with divisions over how to handle the problem since the migration crisis of 2015 when more than one million people arrived on its shores, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East. Salvini, who has warned that he was considering legal action against Sea Watch crew, said Tuesday that the 47 migrants can disembark if they agree to leave for Germany or the Netherlands. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for the need for "humane solutions" for migrant rescue operations and urged that migrants be allowed to disembark at the nearest port, in this case "in Italy". He said sharing of the care of migrants came after, and that France was committed to that principal. In a similar case earlier this month, the EU struck a deal to share out between eight European countries nearly 50 migrants stranded aboard two ships, one of which was Sea Watch 3. The Netherlands on Monday rebuffed Italy's call to take in the 47 migrants, arguing that Dutch-flagged ship had acted "on its own initiative". Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year, according to the UN refugee agency, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey. The 47 migrants and asylum seekers have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel for nearly two weeks
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Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said he was prepared to hold negotiations with the US-backed opposition and added he would support early parliamentary elections, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday. "I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that we could talk for the good of Venezuela," Maduro told the Russian state news agency in an interview in Caracas. Last week the oil-rich but economically devastated Latin American country was plunged into uncertainty when the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself "acting president". The United States, a dozen Latin American countries and Canada have recognized Guaido as interim president, while China and Russia -- Venezuela's two main creditors -- have urged non-interference. In the interview with RIA Novosti, Maduro also said he would support early parliamentary elections. "It would be very good to conduct parliamentary elections at an earlier stage, it would be a good form of political discussion," Maduro said. At the same time he dismissed the possibility of holding a new presidential poll any time soon. "Presidential elections in Venezuela have taken place, and if imperialists want new elections let them wait until 2025," he said in an apparent reference to Washington. Maduro has been in charge since 2013 but his re-election in May was branded illegitimate by the European Union, United States and Organization of American States. The embattled leader also implied he was firmly in charge of the army whose support is crucial. "I am carrying out my duties as commander-in-chief according to the Constitution consolidating the national Bolivarian armed forces," he said. "And the Bolivarian armed forces are demonstrating a lesson in ethics, loyalty and discipline." Maduro also claimed that US President Donald Trump had ordered the government of Colombia to assassinate him. "If something happens to me one day then Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible for everything that is happening to me," he said, adding however that he was in good hands. "At the same time, I am protected. We have a good system of defence in place and moreover, we have more significant protection -- this is protection from God who will give me a long life," Maduro added. Russia has denounced the opposition's "usurpation of power", calling Maduro the crisis-hit country's legitimate leader. Russia and Venezuela have a long history of ties and Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, known for his tirades against the United States, was a welcome guest at the Kremlin. In the interview with RIA Novosti, Maduro also said he would support early parliamentary elections
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani slammed his critics on Wednesday, defending the political achievements of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and calling the US an "oath-breaker". "One should not condemn the government or the great Islamic system instead of America -- this is the greatest damage that can be done," he said on state TV. Hardliners have repeatedly hammered the 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers since the early stages of negotiations, calling it a fool's errand and a deception. They contend that Iran has gained nothing from the agreement despite complying with its restrictions on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, intensifying their criticism after Washington withdrew from the treaty last year. Speaking during an annual ceremony of allegiance to the late founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Rouhani said: "America has not been an oath-breaker only to us, but also to Europe, China, NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)." President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the deal -- technically called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- last May, reimposing punishing sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Washington also withdrew from the TPP trade agreement and the Paris Agreement on climate change control in 2017 and forced Canada and Mexico to negotiate a new deal in 2018 replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. The other parties to the Iran nuclear deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia along with the European Union -- have insisted it remains in force and is working. Rouhani took another jab at opponents who have criticised Iranian diplomats' lack of foresight over not predicting the US withdrawal. "No agreement is based on whether the other party remains, but the main basis is the country's interests," he said. He ended his speech by calling for "unity", saying Khomeini's main concern was not foreign forces but domestic "discord". Iran's President Hassan Rouhani (C) visits the mausoleum of the Islamic republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran in a handout picture released by his office on January 30, 2019
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei survived food shortages during China's Cultural Revolution, but now the reclusive billionaire identified as "Individual-1" in a US indictment faces an existential fight for his family and company. Ren, 74, founded Huawei in 1987 with just 21,000 yuan ($5,600) and watched it grow into a global behemoth with 180,000 employees operating in 170 countries, sales of 206 million smartphones last year, and revenue topping $100 billion. But broad criminal charges unveiled in the United States this week are now threatening to wreck his empire and put his daughter, Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, behind bars. The accusations dealt a blow to Huawei's image just as the famously secretive company had mounted a media blitz to salvage its reputation, with Ren leading the charge to dispute espionage concerns. Huawei's PR department "says we're at a stage of crisis transition, I need to make our customers understand us," Ren told Chinese media this month. "I've been forced" to speak out, he said. Meng, who was arrested in Canada and faces a US extradition hearing in March, was charged with bank fraud and other crimes related to violations of Iran sanctions. The company was also accused of stealing technology secrets from telecom operator T-Mobile USA. While Meng's father was not charged, the former Chinese army engineer also made an appearance in the indictment. Identified as "Individual-1", he "falsely stated" to FBI agents during an interview in July 2007 that Huawei did not conduct any activity in violation of US export laws or dealt directly with any Iranian company, according to the documents. The US Justice Department says the indictment charges other individuals but they have not been apprehended and their names will remain concealed for now. "The criminal activity alleged in this indictment goes back at least 10 years and goes all the way to the top of the company," acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said on Monday. Ren -- who is worth $3.4 billion, accordint to Forbes -- was heading to Argentina at the same time as his daughter when she was detained in transit in Vancouver in December, but he took a different route. "I left two days after her, and transferred in a different place," he told Chinese media. Avoiding countries with a US extradition treaty could be a problem for company executives just as Huawei battles to sell its telecom gear for the next generation 5G cellular networks. Washington has mounted a fierce lobbying campaign to push allies to reconsider using the telecom giant's equipment over security concerns. - Cultural Revolution - Distrust of Huawei stems in part from Ren's background as a People's Liberation Army engineer. Ren joined the military during the Cultural Revolution years, when "complete chaos" reigned, he told international journalists at a roundtable this month. His squad revamped a clothing factory in the northeastern city of Liaoyang, where they slept outside on the grass as temperatures dipped to minus 20 degrees Celcius, Ren said. "There was no supply of fresh vegetables at all, so we had to pickle some vegetables like cabbages and radishes we got in autumn in large concrete pots, and rely on pickled foods for six months at a time," he said. His engineering talent in the military earned him praise and publicity and in 1978 a spot in the Communist Party. He was then selected to be a representative of the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1982. "As Meng Wanzhou's father, I miss her very much," Ren said. "Throughout her childhood, I was in the military, which means that each year I was away for 11 months, spending one month with my family." - Connections? - Ren's prestigious political chops has engendered questions about his connection to the Chinese state. "The National Congress is the once-in-a-decade forum through which the next leaders of the Chinese state are chosen," a US Congress panel wrote in 2012 investigative report on Huawei. "Mr. Ren proudly admits that he was invited to that Congress, but he will not describe his duties." Ren has denied any close connection to Beijing, saying he was just a veteran without a military rank. Huawei has long rejected such Western accusations, saying there was "no evidence" it poses a threat to the national security of any country. But this month Poland arrested a Huawei employee suspected of spying for China. The firm swiftly sacked the employee and denied any connection to his actions. Despite Washington's campaign to blacklist the company, Ren has said he still hopes for "collaboration" with the US. It will be difficult for Huawei to win back the trust of the United States after the indictment accused the company of stealing T-Mobile technology and running a programme to reward employees for stealing information from competitors. Ren had insisted in his recent media interviews that his company needs to respect the intellectual property of others, "and get their permission, and pay for it." Ren Zhengfei Ren founded Huawei in 1987 and watched it grow into a global behemoth
Fraud, obstruction of justice and cloak-and-dagger trade theft -- a US rap sheet alleging systematic skullduggery by Chinese telecom giant Huawei has deepened the company's problems just as it sought to win back global trust. The US Justice Department this week unveiled a raft of charges against Huawei which could see its Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou extradited to the United States and threaten its business worldwide. Meng's father -- 74-year-old Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei -- had spearheaded a rare recent charm offensive by the famously secretive company to salvage its reputation amid mounting espionage concerns. But that may be an uphill climb following the US allegations of brazen criminality at Huawei's highest levels. In a case centring on Meng, Huawei is charged with violating US and UN prohibitions on trading with Iran. A separate case details a sustained effort to steal technology from US telecom operator T-Mobile, plus the damaging allegation that Huawei rewarded staff for stealing competitors' technology secrets. None of the charges deal with deeper US concerns that Huawei's cheap equipment -- used in telecommunications infrastructure across the globe -- is a Trojan horse for potential Chinese state spying and sabotage. - Gathering clouds - But the Justice Department's move strengthens Washington's leverage in isolating the company, said Paul Triolo, a global tech-policy expert with Eurasia Group. "The effort seems designed to make the case to allies... that while there is no smoking gun on cybersecurity, there are a host of other business practice, cultural, and legal issues clouding the company's future," he said. The main case levels 13 charges against Huawei Technologies, Meng -- who faces an extradition hearing in Canada on March 6 -- and two affiliates over Iran sanctions violations. The broader allegations in the case, filed in federal court in New York, were already known. But the charges detail efforts by Huawei and its subsidiaries to trick financial institutions into sanctions-busting activity. They say Meng "repeatedly lied" to bankers and that Huawei obstructed justice by destroying evidence and putting witnesses beyond the reach of US law enforcement. Huawei strenuously denies wrongdoing and Beijing has said the allegations are politically motivated. The charges stand in stark contrast to a narrative pushed by Huawei in recent weeks -- perhaps in anticipation of the US revelations. Speaking to foreign reporters, the normally reclusive Ren portrayed Huawei as an unselfish global force for good in comments larded with flattery for President Donald Trump and US tech leaders like Apple. "We stand strongly against any behaviour that violates laws and regulations," Ren said on January 16, touting a "very sound" compliance system and tough discipline for violators. But the New York charges reveal that Ren, whose background as a former Chinese army engineer has long raised red flags in Washington, was questioned by the FBI years ago, during which he repeatedly lied to US investigators about the nature of the Iran business. - Trade secrets - A separate case in Washington state cites internal emails and other evidence detailing a 2012-13 effort to steal the technology specs of a phone-testing device developed by T-Mobile, then a partner in Huawei's ultimately failed push to enter the US market. Huawei staff repeatedly and surreptitiously took photos inside a T-Mobile facility and one staffer even stole a key part for the device, the charge sheet says. The company later concocted an "internal report" designed to cover up the theft and blame rogue staff. Perhaps the most damning allegation is that Huawei set up a system of bonuses for technology stolen from rivals. "You are being encouraged and could possibly earn a monetary award for collecting confidential information regarding our competitors and sending it back to (Huawei China)," an internal staff email is quoted saying. Triolo said there is a "clear threat now hanging over the company", possibly including fines, executive travel bans, and being officially branded a threat to US national security -- which could have devastating worldwide repercussions on its business. "Carriers around the world will need to at least consider how to protect their investments and supply chains. This is the nub of the issue," said Triolo. Huawei's global image has been further shaken by a slew of criminal charges filed in the US Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has sought to imprfove the company's international image Timeline showing how Chinese telecom giant Huawei has been dropped from major markets in the past year, plus the arrest and US federal charges against finance chief Meng Wanzhou.
A pair of his father's old tandoor ovens helped Hong Kong restaurateur Asim Hussain achieve a dream -- the world's first Michelin star for a Pakistani restaurant, an accolade he hopes will fire interest in the country's often overlooked cuisine. Like many of Hong Kong's 85,000 strong South Asian population, Hussain's family trace their lineage in the bustling financial hub back generations, when the city was a British colonial outpost. His great-grandfather arrived during World War One, overseeing mess halls for British soldiers while his Cantonese speaking father owned restaurants in the eighties and nineties. Hussain, 33, already had some twenty eateries in his group when he decided to embark on his what he described as his most personal and risky project yet, a restaurant serving dishes from Pakistan's Punjab region, the family's ancestral homeland and where he was packed off to boarding school aged six. His father, a serial entrepreneur and even once Pakistan's ambassador to South Korea, suggested he restore two old tandoors from his now shuttered restaurant collecting dust in storage. "He comes from a generation that doesn't throw things away," laughs Hussain, dressed in a traditional knee-length tunic and sitting in a restaurant decked with paintings by Pakistani artists. "Actually the results are better than if we had new ovens because these things improve with age." Those tandoors, frequent trips to Lahore to perfect recipes and a kitchen overseen by head chef Palash Mitra, earned the New Punjab Club a Michelin star just 18 months after it opened its doors. - 'A benchmark' - The success made headlines in Pakistan, a country that is unlikely to see a Michelin guide any time soon and whose chefs have long felt overshadowed by the wider global recognition gained from neighbouring India's regional cuisines. "It makes us proud, it makes us very happy," Waqar Chattha, who runs one of Islamabad's best-known restaurants, told AFP. "In the restaurant fraternity it's a great achievement. It sort of sets a benchmark for others to achieve as well." Hussain is keen to note that his restaurant only represents one of Pakistan's many cuisines, the often meat-heavy, piquant food of the Punjab. At it doesn't come cheap -- as much as $100 per head. "I'm not arrogant or ignorant to say this is the best Pakistani restaurant in the world. There are better Pakistani restaurants than this in Pakistan." But he says the accolade has still been a "great source of pride" for Hong Kong?s 18,000-strong Pakistani community. "It's bringing a very niche personal story back to life, this culture, this cuisine is sort of unknown outside of Pakistan, outside of Punjab, so in a very small way I think we've shed a positive light on the work, on who we are and where we come from," he explains. It was the second star achieved by Black Sheep, the restaurant group which was founded six years ago by Hussain and his business partner, veteran Canadian chef Christopher Mark, and has seen rapid success. But the expansion of Michelin and other western food guides into Asia has not been without controversy. Critics have often said reviewers tended to over-emphasise western culinary standards, service and tastes. Daisann McLane is one of those detractors. She describes the Michelin guide's arrival in Bangkok last year as "completely changing the culinary scene there -- and not in a good way." She runs culinary tours to some of the Hong Kong's less glitzy eateries -- to hole in the wall "dai pai dong" food stalls, African and South Asian canteens hidden inside the famously labyrinthine Chungking Mansions and to "cha chan teng" tea shops famous for their sweet brews and thick slabs of toast. While she's "delighted" New Punjab Club has been recognised, she has her reservations: "There is a lot of world cuisine operating way under the radar in Hong Kong and it doesn't get noticed by Michelin or the big award groups." - 'Taking ownership' - For some, any recognition of Pakistan's overlooked cuisine is a success story. Sumayya Usmani said she spent years trying to showcase the distinct flavours of Pakistani cuisine, so heavily influenced by the tumultuous and violent migration sparked by the 1947 partition of India. When the British-Pakistani chef first pitched her cookbook to publishers on her country's cuisine, many initially balked. But in recent years, she says, attitudes have changed. Pakistani-run restaurants in the west that once might have described themselves as Indian are more proudly proclaiming their real culinary heritage, she says. "I think it's really good that people are coming out of that fear of calling themselves specifically Pakistani," she told AFP. "It's nice that Pakistanis have started to take ownership of what belongs to them." Back in Hong Kong, Hussain remarks the hard work has only just begun. "I joke with the boys and I say that 'It's the first Pakistani Punjabi restaurant in the world to win a star, let's not be the first one to lose a star'". A pair of his father's old tandoor ovens helped Hong Kong restaurateur Asim Hussain achieve a dream -- the world's first Michelin star for a Pakistani restaurant, an accolade he hopes will fire interest in the country's often overlooked cuisine Hong Kong restaurateur Asim Hussain already owned some twenty eateries when he decided to embark on his what he described as his most risky project yet, a restaurant serving dishes from Pakistan's Punjab region, the family's ancestral homeland Like many of Hong Kong's 85,000 strong South Asian population, restaurateur Asim Hussain's family trace their lineage in the bustling financial hub back generations, when the city was a British colonial outpost
A property magnate turned fugitive spy was jailed for the third time in Vietnam on Wednesday after a court convicted him of corruption over murky land deals that cost the state millions of dollars. Phan Van Anh Vu was convicted as Vietnam's communist government widens a corruption crackdown that has already seen dozens of former high-flying officials, executives and businessmen put behind bars. The 15-year prison sentence is Vu's third since the property magnate who moonlighted as an intelligence agent was arrested in Singapore and returned to Vietnam last year to face several corruption-related charges. He was convicted over improper land sales in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City that generated losses for the state worth almost $50 million, according to state-controlled VNExpress. "The sentence is too harsh. The court did not consider several factors that could have reduced the sentence," Vu's lawyer Nguyen Huu The Trach told AFP, adding he would appeal. Vu was sentenced alongside two former deputy ministers of public security, Bui Van Thanh and Tran Viet Tan, who were accused of aiding the deals or turning a blind eye to them. Thanh got 30 months, while Tan was sentenced to 36 months in prison. Two other lower ranking security officials got five years each, Trach confirmed. Vu told the court Thursday that he felt "humiliated" but did not admit guilt. "I don't think the two ex-deputy ministers are guilty," he said, according to footage broadcast on local websites. Vu, who was a spy in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) before being dismissed in September 2017, was allegedly trying to flee to Europe when he was arrested in January 2018 with two passports on him -- one real and one fake. His first conviction in July saw him jailed for nine years, later reduced to eight, for leaking state secrets. In December he was sentenced again to 17 years for pilfering more than $8 million from a bank in a share-buying scheme. Vu's fate shocked many in Vietnam because of his links to the powerful MPS, long believed to be untouchable. But several other MPS-linked officials have been targeted as Hanoi makes good on a promise to clean up the graft-prone country with a campaign that observers say is politically driven. According to Transparency International's corruption index, Vietnam ranks 117 out of 180 countries, behind Thailand and the Philippines. Phan Van Anh Vu was convicted as Vietnam's communist government widens a corruption crackdown
The death toll from the sinking of two migrant boats off the coast of Djibouti rose to 28 on Wednesday, the UN migration agency said. "Twenty-three bodies were recovered this morning and the coast guard continues (its) search," Lalini Veerassamy, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief of mission in Djibouti told AFP, a day after five people were found dead. Two boats carrying migrants bound for Yemen departed from Godoria on the Horn of Africa nation's northeast coast, IOM said, but capsized in heavy seas about 30 minutes into their journey on Tuesday. Two survivors were discovered after the sinking and Veerassamy said "a few" others arrived at an IOM facility in the town of Obock on Tuesday evening. One survivor estimated there were 130 people on his boat, but was not able to estimate the number of passengers on the other vessel. Located across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from war-torn Yemen and next to volatile Somalia and Ethiopia, Djibouti has in recent years become a transit point for migrants heading to find work on the Arabian Peninsula. It is also a destination for boatloads of Yemeni refugees fleeing war. Located across the Bab el-Mandeb strait from war-torn Yemen and next to volatile Somalia and Ethiopia, Djibouti has become a transit point for migrants including Yemeni refugees fleeing war
Tens of millions of people in the United States are bracing for a potentially life-threatening deep arctic chill forecast to hit swaths of the country on Wednesday. Companies have told their workers to stay home, schools are closed and hundreds of flights have been canceled. The US Postal Service -- known for its commitment to bringing the mail whatever the weather -- has even reportedly suspended deliveries in Iowa due to the severe cold. Temperatures in almost a dozen states stretching more than 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) from the Dakotas to Ohio were forecast to be the coldest in a generation, if not on record. "One of the coldest arctic air mass intrusions in recent memory is surging south into the Upper Midwest before spreading across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country," the National Weather Service said. "Expect frigid temperatures, bitterly cold and life-threatening wind chills, likely leading to widespread record lows and low maximum temperatures from the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley." The cause is a swirl of arctic air that broke away from the polar vortex that usually encircles the North Pole. The National Weather Service forecast temperatures between -10 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (-23 to -40 Celsius) by Wednesday across the Midwest, with wind chills making it seem as cold as -65 degrees Fahrenheit in one area of Minnesota. Chicago, America's third largest city, was expected to be colder than parts of Antarctica. Authorities in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin put emergency measures in place to handle the frigid weather. "We need everyone to do your part and make sure you and your families are prepared," said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. - Frostbite warnings - Americans were asked to stay home if possible Wednesday, when temperatures are expected to be at their coldest. Scores of schools, businesses and government agencies announced closures in multiple states. "People exposed to extreme cold are susceptible to frostbite in a matter of minutes," warned the NWS. Lawrence Gottlieb of the University of Chicago Medical Center said the threat was significant "when temps fall below zero, especially when there is a strong wind." Some 160 warming centers were opened in Chicago, where temperatures could potentially equal or exceed the all-time record of -27 degrees Fahrenheit. With the wind chill, it would feel like -40 or -50, officials said. "They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told a news conference. In Minneapolis, officials allowed residents to stay on public buses and trains for warmth. - Snow storm - In the northeastern and southern United States, snow was falling. A cold emergency was declared in the US capital Washington, with additional services put on for the homeless. In Atlanta, some 300 flights were canceled Tuesday as the city prepares for the Super Bowl and more than 400 were canceled in Chicago, a major regional hub for US airlines. In Canada, the icy temperatures -- stretching from Manitoba in the western Prairies region to the Atlantic seaboard -- prompted a rare "hazardous" cold warning from the government. Environment Canada reported record-breaking snowfall at the Ottawa airport, where some 50 flights were canceled, with an accumulation of nearly a meter (more than three feet). An additional 200 flights were canceled at Toronto's airport. - Global warming? - Scientists say climate change is causing more extreme weather, and one theory for polar vortex chills is that arctic air currents usually trapped around the North Pole are weakened and dislodged by a warming climate. President Donald Trump used the occasion to again voice skepticism about climate change, tweeting: "What the hell is going on with Global Waming? (sic) Please come back fast, we need you!" But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates NWS, tweeted, "Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening," with a link to a 2015 explanatory article. Jerry Jackson rides his bike in Detroit, Michigan -- the state has declared a emergency in view of the frigid temperatures Map of North America showing the temperature forecast for Wednesday, January 29, 2019 -- when an artic chill will descend on a large part of the US and Canada People wait for a bus in frosty Detroit, Michigan The arctic chill descended from Canada, where residents of Montreal were dealing with the severe winter cold -- which even prompted a "hazardous" warning from authorities


A Byron Bay couple has endured a terrifying ordeal when a stray surfboard came crashing onto their windscreen as they drove along a busy road.

Lara Uhl, 23, was driving on Bangalow Road towards Byron Bay with her boyfriend Joaquin Francis on Wednesday when the board suddenly appeared.

It came out of nowhere it was so scary, Ms Uhl, originally from Germany, told Yahoo News.

The stray surfboard at Bangalow was close to penetrating the glass and striking Joaquin Francis in the head. Source: Lara Uhl

The window was instantly smashed on the passengers side where Joaquin, a local musician, was sitting.

My boyfriend was covered in glass. It would have hit him in the head, Ms Uhl revealed.

Remarkably, Ms Uhl managed to steer the car safely to the side of the road despite swerving near surrounding traffic.

Officers took the board as police look for its owner. Source: Lara Uhl

The couple revealed they dont have the money to fix their windscreen. Source: Lara Uhl

The couple quickly turned to see where the board had come from but to their dismay the driver responsible appeared oblivious to the incident and drove off without stopping.

They called police straight away, with officers attending the scene before taking the board as they search for its owner.

Couple desperate to find boards owner

Ms Uhl has shared photos of the board with Yahoo News in hope the owner recognises it and comes forward.

She said they were driving a white van which was possibly a Toyota.

The damage comes just two days after they purchased the car and on the same day as Joaquins 24th birthday. Source: Lara Uhl

The terrifying incident comes just two days after the couple purchased the car and on Joaquins 24th birthday.

This day couldnt get any worse, Ms Uhl admitted.

The couple are hopeful the owner will come forward and cover the cost of the windscreen, believing the incident was simply an honest mistake.

If you know who owns this surfboard please let us know because we dont have the money for our car, she admitted.

The owner of the board is advised by police to contact Byron Bay police station.

Last year, a Queensland woman was lucky to escape unharmed when a piece of wood penetrated her windscreen after flying off a passing truck.

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A brutal cold wave moved eastward Thursday after bringing temperatures in the US Midwest lower than those in Antarctica, grounding flights, closing schools and businesses and raising fears of hypothermia. The extreme weather has now been blamed for as many as eight deaths, US news outlets reported. Mail deliveries were suspended and people were encouraged to stay home in nearly a dozen US states where the mercury plunged into the negative double digits, the worst freeze to grip the region in a generation. The phenomenon stemming from a blast of Arctic air caused surreal scenes throughout the region, such as steam rising off the waters of Lake Michigan -- the result of extremely cold air passing over warmer water below. Parts of Niagara Falls solidified into frozen stillness, and blocks of ice covered the river winding through downtown Chicago. America's third city was in the direct path of the harsh weather and experienced its second-coldest day ever. Chicago was on track to break new records overnight when temperatures were forecast to reach their lowest points in the early hours Thursday. "This is a historic cold, obviously," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told a Wednesday night news conference. "They are life-threatening temperatures, and they should be treated accordingly," he cautioned. The most intense cold was expected overnight Wednesday into Thursday, said Ben Deubelbeiss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, The New York Times reported. The Wednesday morning temperature in the Windy City was -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius), which felt like -50 degrees (-46 Celsius) with wind chill. It was colder than Alaska's state capital and even colder than parts of Antarctica. "It feels like being close to dry ice," Leon Gilbert, 31, told AFP. "I can feel my skin tighten up." Unlike most Chicago residents, Gilbert was required to report to his job at a Starbucks on a downtown street largely devoid of its usual bustle of people and traffic. Sandwich shop manager Daniel Gonzalez, 37, also reported to work -- at 5:00 am. "I have two shirts on... I have a hoodie, I have my big winter coat, I have a face mask and a skullcap and still cold," Gonzalez told AFP. At Chicago's O'Hare airport, a major regional hub for airlines, ground crews struggled with freezing equipment and were told to avoid spending more than 15 minutes at a time exposed to the cold, causing delays for flights that managed to take off. More than 1,800 flights were canceled at Chicago's two major airports, while rail operator Amtrak scrapped train services from its hub in the city. - Homeless at risk - The US Postal Service suspended deliveries in parts of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, the Dakotas and Nebraska. The cause of the sub-zero chill affecting tens of millions of Americans was a swirl of Arctic air that broke away from the polar vortex that usually encircles the North Pole. The National Weather Service said temperatures would remain 25 to 45 degrees below average through Thursday, with wind chill values as low as -25 to -55 degrees Fahrenheit (-32 to -48 Celsius). "The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as five minutes," NWS said. Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin implemented emergency measures. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said government offices would remain closed through Thursday. Nonessential employees would stay home. "The priority must continue to be on keeping people safe," she said. Authorities and health experts warned of frostbite and hypothermia. Hundreds of warming centers were opened for vulnerable residents such as seniors, buses were employed as mobile warming spaces, and shelter capacities were increased for the homeless, including the approximately 16,000 living on the streets of Chicago. - Transportation problems grow - Burke Patten, spokesman for Chicago homeless shelter provider The Night Ministry, said some of the homeless were reluctant to go to shelters. "The concern would be whether they are going to be able to survive in these bitter cold temperatures," Patten told AFP. Flight cancelations piled up throughout the country -- more than 2,700 by the evening, stranding travelers such as Brandon Robinson who spent extra days at a Chicago hotel. "I'm here until they let me leave," Robinson said. Remnants of a weekend snowstorm continued to plague portions of the northeast US -- with strong winds and blowing snow reducing visibility on roads. Heavy snow was forecast in the northern stretches of Maine and snow squalls predicted for other parts of the east coast. A man takes a photo of Lake Michigan and the skyline as temperatures dropped to -20 degrees F (-29C) in Chicago A person with a walker crosses Canfield Avenue in Detroit, Michigan Ice covers Lake Michigan's shoreline as temperatures dropped to -20 degrees F (-29C) in Chicago As temperatures near record lows in parts of the American Midwest, people gather outside a Neighborhood Service Organization in Detroit A bicyclist braves the cold in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota
A life-threatening deep freeze gripped the American Midwest on Wednesday as weather colder than Antarctica grounded flights, disrupted travel and brought life to a standstill for tens of millions. Mail deliveries were suspended, schools and business closed, and residents encouraged to stay home in nearly a dozen states where temperatures overnight sank into the negative double digits, the worst cold to grip the region in a generation with all-time records still under threat. America's third city Chicago -- where the morning temperature was -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius), which felt like -50 degrees (-46 Celsius) with wind chill -- was colder than Alaska's state capital and even colder than parts of Antarctica. More than 1,500 flights were canceled in the city's two major airports while rail operator Amtrak scrapped train services from its Chicago hub. The US Postal Service -- known for its commitment to bringing the mail whatever the weather -- suspended deliveries in parts of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, the Dakotas and Nebraska. The cause of the sub-zero chill was a swirl of arctic air that broke away from the polar vortex that usually encircles the North Pole. "A record arctic air mass will remain over the central and eastern US over the next several days," the National Weather Service said. "Wind chill values of 30 to 60 degrees below zero will be common across the northern Plains, Great Lakes, and upper Midwest." Residents in Grand Forks, North Dakota awoke to a bone-chilling -35 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was -27 degrees in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Authorities warned that the extreme temperatures were life-threatening, as Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin implemented emergency procedures. Warming centers were opened for vulnerable residents such as the elderly and shelter capacities increased for the homeless. "We need everyone to do your part and make sure you and your families are prepared," said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. US media attributed at least four deaths to the extreme cold and the major snowstorm that preceded it. Mail deliveries were suspended, schools and business closed, and residents encouraged to stay home in nearly a dozen states where temperatures overnight sank into the negative double digits, the worst cold to grip the region in a generation The cause of the sub-zero chill was a swirl of arctic air that broke away from the polar vortex that usually encircles the North Pole
(Photo: Getty)

Palestinian Islamist organisation and militant group Hamas has called out to supporters for funding  but in an unusual method.

The cash-strapped fundamentalist organisation is appealing to supporters to finance the group through Bitcoin.

Support the resistance financially through the bitcoin currency, said a spokesperson for Hamas military wing. The exact means by which the funding would occur would be announced later, they said.

Hamas is currently the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip since it took over the area more than 10 years ago.

The group is known for waging war against Israel multiple times and is regarded by the US and the European Union as a terrorist organisation.

According to reports by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the organisation has been struggling with financial difficulty as banks seek to distance themselves from the group.

The statement from Hamas accused Israel for looking to cut off the groups access to finance.

Bitcoins dark history

Due to the virtual coins security and anonymity, Bitcoin is well-known for its association with buying and selling illicit items and substances.

Research from the University of Technology Sydneys Business School in December 2017 found that somewhere between 43 to 49 per cent of all Bitcoin transactions were related to buying and selling illegal goods like drugs, weapons, and pirated software.

Bitcoin has become the PayPal of the dark web, the research said.

UTS finance professor and research study co-author Talis Putnins indicated that it was possible to track whether Bitcoin was being used for legal or illegal purposes by looking at the frequency of transactions.

Users involved in illegal activity are very active in terms of buying, selling and trading, whereas legal users are largely buying and holding the cryptocurrency, Putnins said.

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Now read: Bitcoin scammers wreak havoc with bomb threats

Now read: You may not actually own your Bitcoin  legal expert

Now read: Watch out: these 3 scams are targeting Aussies, and weve already lost $3 million
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A Kentucky mother-of-four has been missing for nearly a month.

Savannah Spurlock, 22, went out with friends to a bar in Lexington on January 4 but never returned home.

Police say she was last seen leaving the bar with three men, who have been identified and questioned.

Authorities are asking for the public's help in locating a Kentucky mother-of-four who has been missing for nearly a month.

Savannah Spurlock, 22, was last seen leaving a bar in Lexington on Friday, January 4, with three men, according to a Facebook post from the Richmond Police Department. She hasn't been seen since.

Savannah's mother, Ellen, told NBC's "Dateline" that her daughter rarely goes out and would never leave her four sons willingly. Savannah has a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and infant twins who were born in December. Her three youngest boys are currently living with their father while Savannah's eldest son, who has a different dad, is being cared for by her father, according to NBC.

View this content at Business Insider

Ellen Spurlock said her daughter took her car that night to go out with two friends.

"That was the first time, that I knew of, that she had been out in months," Ellen told NBC. "She told me she was going out for a little bit and she would be back. She didn't give me the hour, but I took it to mean she would be gone for the evening."

Lt. Col. Rodney Richardson, assistant chief of police at the Richmond Police Department, said investigators learned that Savannah drove with a friend to another friend's house. They then got in another car to drive to The Other Bar in Lexington.

Around 3 a.m. Friday, Ellen said she got a FaceTime call from her daughter, who was driving in a car full of people.

"I got the call and she said she was in Lexington and that everything was fine," Ellen said.



Read more:

Police believe body found in Texas creek is missing mother Emily Wade, who disappeared after going to a co-worker's house to watch a movie



Story continues

Savannah spurlock surveillance 3

Ellen said a man was driving the car, but she didn't recognise him. There were also one to two people in the back seat "hollering and talking over each other," but she told NBC she couldn't see them clearly. She said her daughter did not seem upset.

"She said: 'I will be home later this morning. I promise.' And when she said she promised something, she always did it," Ellen told "Dateline". "So when I went to sleep, I was secure in the thought that she would be home later in the morning."

But when Ellen woke up in the morning, her daughter had not returned. When she didn't return by evening, Ellen reported her missing to police.

Search warrant savannah spurlock

Richardson said Savannah was last seen on surveillance footage leaving The Other Bar with three men. Police said all three men have been identified and interviewed, though no arrests have been made. Police have not released their names.

Richardson said investigators determined that Savannah did not know the men, but that they did know each other. They also believe that two of the men were in the car when Savannah called her mum, and that the third was following that group in another car.

One of Savannah's aunts, Elaine Moore, told the Lexington Herald Leader that police told the family that the men claimed Savannah left one of their homes on foot.

Ellen spurlock

According to WLEX, police obtained a search warrant to look through the Garrard County home belonging to the parents of one of the men on January 22, and seized a car off the property. No further details were released.

Savannah's family and police are asking the public to contact them if they have any information on her disappearance, no matter how small a tip.

Anyone with information about her disappearance is being asked to contact the Richmond Police Department at 859-624-4776 or email detective@richmond.ky.us.

Savannah is described as five feet tall, 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She has multiple tattoos including a rose on the left shoulder, the phrase, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" on her right torso, and "I'm her daughter" on her back. She was last seen wearing a black top, a maroon skirt, and heels.
ALBERT SCHRAM

On Tuesday, after six months, the allegation of false pretence concerning Dr Schrams PhD credentials was thrown out of the Port Moresby magistrates court for lack of evidence. Presiding magistrate A Kalandi struck out the case against Dr Schram and discharged him. But Mr Kalandi ordered that Dr Schram forfeit K2,000 bail for not appearing in court and stated he could be arrested if he returned to Papua New Guinea.

The academic had good reasons for not appearing. As he writes on his blog, he had been in a no-win situation, unable to prove my innocence after being falsely accused, wrongfully dismissed, maliciously prosecuted and unlawfully detained. You can read Dr Schrams full account here. What follows is an extract about the life he and his wife Paulina are now leading in his hometown in Italy.

VERONA - Many readers have asked how we are doing after this ordeal. Today, I have moved on.

I feel relieved to be free from those terrible dishonest colleagues, all professed Christians, who unhesitatingly first knowingly falsely accused me, then threw me under the bus, and never again reached out or said or wrote a word to me (with only a few exceptions).

They must be experts in betrayal, since Jesus himself was betrayed by his own disciples.

It really pains me we won't be able to see the many good friends we have made in over six years living among the good people of Papua New Guinea. I can only come back to the country, if all charges are dropped and all costs and damages that my family and I suffered are reimbursed.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. A Dutch Protestant church has ended a non-stop service that started in October to protect a family of Armenian asylum-seekers from deportation after the government announced changes to its immigration policy, ARMENPRESS reports, citing The New York Times.

The Bethel Church, a small chapel in a Hague residential neighborhood, announced the end of the 24-7 service Wednesday, a day after the Dutch ruling coalition announced it will review hundreds of asylum applications by children that previously were rejected.

Church official Theo Hettema said in a statement that "we are incredibly grateful for a safe future in the Netherlands for hundreds of refugee families."

The round-the-clock church service began Oct. 26 to protect the Tamrazyan family  parents, their two daughters and a son. Dutch law prohibits authorities from entering a church building while a service is underway.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The early parliamentary elections in Armenia once again affirm the peaceful change of power and display the firm desire of the Armenian public for reforms, reads the statement of Manuel Sarrazin, German Bundestag's Eastern European Policy Spokesman, reports ARMENPRESS.

Manuel Sarrazin salutes the early parliamentary elections of December 9, 2018 and congratulates Nikol Pashinyan on the undisputable victory. According to him, for the first time in a quite a long period Armenia held free and transparent elections.

Anyway, the electoral reforms related to campaign financing is a necessity for ensuring the democratic standards in future elections and for developing the party system that will reflect the pluralism of the Armenian society. Now its time to create stable democracy, when corruption and crimes are denied and healthy growth is ensured, Sarrazin wrote.

He is confident that Germany and the EU should support this political development and bring to end the ratification of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan thinks that the issue of gas price supplied by Russia to Armenia should be solved in the logic of the Eurasian Economic Union, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan told the reporters on January 30.

That issue should be solved in the scope of the EAEU, not bilateral relations, because its of key importance for the economic union, the PM said.

According to Nikol Pashinyan, gas price remains an open issue.

We have clearly agreed with our Russian partners that its an open issue which still needs to be discussed, he said.

Starting from January 1, 2019 Russian gas price supplied to Armenia rose by 15$, reaching 165$ for 1000 cubic meter.

Pashinyan announced that the increase of the price will not affect the consumers.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan received the representatives of the National Democratic Institute of International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) Armenia on January 30.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press ser4vice of the parliament of Armenia, the guests congratulated Ararat Mirzoyan on being elected in the high post of the President of the National Assembly.

Ararat Mirzoyan thanked his international colleagues for the support shown to the formation process of the political new culture in Armenia during the preparation of the extraordinary parliamentary elections.

Laura Nicolas, Senior Resident Director of NDI and Chris Holzen, Senior Advisor for Europe & Eurasia, International Republican Institute (IRI) presented to the President of the National Assembly the mandate of their organizations and were interested in the needs of the National Assembly and works to be done.

Ararat Mirzoyan outlined some priorities in the development of the institutional capabilities of the National Assembly.

The international partners, wishing success to the newly elected parliament, assured their readiness for the close cooperation and implementation of the programmes on the basis of the needs assessment.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and US President Donald Trump's national security advisor John Bolton did not discuss Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement during their telephone conversation.

I want to emphasize once again that its ruled out that there can be any kind of information that the public is unaware of. I have told that during my telephone conversation with Bolton NK issues was not discussed, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan told the reporters.

He added that they talked about Armenia.

On January 23 Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page that he had a telephone conversation with John Bolton, during which they discussed issues referring to regional situation and bilateral relations.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The son of Prosperous Armenia Party president Gagik Tsarukyan, Nver Tsarukyan, has been questioned by police in connection with the fatal shootout in a restaurant in Abovyan, a town just outside Yerevan.

Prosperous Armenia Party spokesperson Iveta Tonoyan, however, has said that Tsarukyans son has nothing to do with the incident and has not had any participation in it.

I am officially informing that Nver Tsarukyan has nothing to do with this incident and didnt have any participation, Tonoyan said on Facebook in response to an article by 1-in.am news claiming that the politicians son indeed did have involvement.

Tonoyan said that Nver Tsarukyan has been questioned and that authorities have already determined that he has nothing to do with the case.

Prosperous Armenia Party has 26 seats in the 132-seat parliament and is the leading opposition faction by size.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Consul General of Armenia to Los Angeles Armen Baibourtian has condemned the incident involving two Armenian schools in the US city when a masked man hanged Turkish flags on the buildings of the educational facilities.

I am maintaining constant contact with the city authorities of Los Angeles and following this issue and the investigation of the police. We support the united conduct of the Armenian community of Los Angeles over this issue, Baibourtian told ARMENPRESS.

LAPD is investigating an apparent hate crime after unknown people hanged Turkish flags at two private Armenian school buildings.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The members of the Cabinet of Armenia will take an oath to properly fulfill their duties for the second time in the history of Armenia, reports Armenpress.

The swearing-in ceremony of the Cabinet members has kicked off in the Presidential Palace.

The Cabinet members will read the following text of the oath: For the sake of the implementation of national goals and the strengthening of the Motherland, I swear to properly fulfill my obligations to the people, preserve the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of Armenia, foster the protection of sovereignty and interests of the Republic of Armenia, remain committed to the high rank of a Cabinet member.

On January 14, according to the Presidential decree, Nikol Pashinyan has been re-appointed Prime Minister of Armenia.

On January 19 the President signed decrees on re-appointing several ministers.

According to the Presidential decrees, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has been re-appointed foreign minister, Davit Tonoyan  defense minister, Arayik Harutyunyan  education and science minister, Suren Papikyan  minister of territorial administration and development, Erik Grigoryan  minister of nature protection, Felix Tsolakyan  minister of emergency situations, Hakob Arshakyan  minister of transport, communication and information technologies, Tigran Khachatryan  minister of economic development and investments, Atom Janjughazyan  minister of finance, Arsen Torosyan  minister of healthcare, Artak Zeynalyan  minister of justice. Zaruhi Batoyan has been appointed minister of Labor and social affairs.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Newly appointed Ambassador of Tunisia to Armenia Mohamed Ali Chihi (residence in Moscow) presented his credentials to President Armen Sarkissian, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

The Ambassador conveyed the warm greetings of the Tunisian President to Armen Sarkissian.

President Sarkissian congratulated the Ambassador and wished success in his responsible mission, expressing confidence that he will have his great contribution to the development of the Armenian-Tunisian relations and expansion of the cooperation.

Remembering his meeting with the Tunisian President in Yerevan in October 2018 on the sidelines of the La Francophonie Summit, the Armenian President said the International Organization of La Francophonie is a platform where the two countries can actively cooperate.

The President specifically highlighted the economic partnership, and as a beginning considered necessary to boost the contacts and observe the potential of the two states.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Newly appointed Ambassador of Tunisia to Armenia Mohamed Ali Chihi (residence in Moscow) presented the copy of his credentials to deputy foreign minister of Armenia Grigor Hovhannisyan, the Armenian MFA told Armenpress.

The deputy FM wished the Ambassador success in his mission and expressed hope that his activities will contribute to strengthening and deepening the Armenian-Tunisian relations.

The Ambassador thanked the deputy FM and stated that the Tunisian side has warm attitude towards Armenia and its people.

Both officials highlighted the Armenian-Tunisian contacts at multilateral platforms, especially within the framework of La Francophonie. In this context they highly valued the Tunisian Presidents delegations visit to Armenia aimed at participating in the La Francophonie summit.

The officials agreed to make efforts to boost the inter-state legal framework, economic, tourism and cultural exchange.

Deputy FM Hovhannisyan expressed hope that the Tunisian side will actively take part in the World Congress on IT which this time will take place in Yerevan.

At the end of the meeting the sides reaffirmed their commitment to make all efforts to develop the Armenian-Tunisian relations.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. 30 people from the 581 inmates who were pardoned and released in December of 2018 have again committed crimes, Chief of Staff of Armenian Police Colonel Armen Ghukasyan said at a news conference.

The Police Chief has ordered to carry out surveillance against those released under the clemency. 581 people have been pardoned and released, of whom 30 have committed 42 crimes as of today, he said, adding the crimes were mostly robberies.

He said that 10 years ago law enforcement had carried out a study which showed that crime rates tend to grow the following year of a clemency.

This doesnt mean that this humanitarian step that the government is carrying out for criminals is a wrong attitude, and I believe that these people should simply be under surveillance and control. Unfortunately the current legislation doesnt yet enable full supervision for these people, he said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Russian deputy foreign minister Grigoriy Karasin welcomed the periodicity of the recent meetings between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilyam Aliyev, as well as between the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs during the talk with Armenian foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, reports Armenpress.

During the meeting we, of course, touched upon the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. We welcomed the meetings between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan and expressed wish for these meetings to be continuous. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs (Russia, US and France) are working on this path. New meetings are ahead and will be held at different levels, both the FMs and heads of state, but the important thing is for these meetings to be well prepared in order to ensure progress, the Russian deputy FM told reporters in the Armenian-Russian University on the sidelines of his working visit in Armenia.

The deputy FM said its important to ensure predictability on this matter.

We note with satisfaction that in the recent months that tranquility and relative predictability have become usual. There is consensus among the international community and all countries on this matter: one thing is clear  scenarios of settling the conflict by force must be ruled out. And the negotiations must be held in calm atmosphere and conditions of mutual respect, he said.

He ruled out major progress in the NK conflict settlement during 2019.

We all would like for this conflict to be settled as soon as possible, but we must be realistic and rely on the negotiations that are taking place between the two countries by the mediation of the international community and first of all the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, Karasin said.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had a brief meeting in Dushanbe on September 28, 2018, during which they reached an agreement to reduce tension and prevent incidents in the border. An operative connection has been established between the sides since the meeting of the two leaders.

Thereafter, they held another informal meeting in St. Petersburg in December on the sidelines of the informal meeting of the heads of CIS states.

Pashinal and Aliyev also met on January 22, 2019 in Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Lydian Armenia CJSC (Lydian Armenia) has received formal notification from the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia that pursuant to the criminal investigation into alleged withholding of information by employees of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, an international consultancy group, Earth Link, and Advanced Resources Development (ELARD) has been selected to review all subject matter covered by Lydians EIA/ESIA, to determine the possibility of harmful impacts by the Amulsar Project and the validity of preventative and mitigation measures, Lydian International said in a press release.

However the contract award to ELARD is subject to state funding and therefore the audit start date has not yet been announced. The audit is expected to take up to 12 weeks to complete.

The following terms of reference were given to ELARD:

Water resources impact assessment;

Geology impact assessment;

Biodiversity impact assessment;

Air quality impact assessment; and

Unprejudiced clarification of technical issues raised by the decision to commission a complex expert examination.

Lydian is confident that the audit will conclude that the EIA/ESIA documents are valid and could serve as a blueprint for future projects in Armenia.

In anticipation of this investigation, Lydian completed the Hydrogeological Survey, a study of regional water resources to expand on work carried out in 2013. The Hydrogeological Survey concluded there was no hydrogeological connectivity between the water regime at the Amulsar Project and the groundwater of Jermuk, Lydian International said.

Twenty-five samples were collected from specific sampling points in the Amulsar and Jermuk areas. The samples were collected in the presence of agency representatives of the government of the Republic of Armenia, according to Lydian International.

Lydians samples were analyzed by an internationally accredited laboratory (ALS (Czech Republic)) and the data was interpreted by Golder Associates (U.K.) principal hydrogeologist whose conclusion stated the following:

the chemistry of the waters of the Jermuk thermal springs and minerals water boreholes are characteristic of hydrothermal waters based on their major and minor ion chemistry and environmental isotopic characteristics. The hydrothermal waters have an enriched d13C signature, along with clear differentiation with respect to d180 and d2H, d34S, 87Sr/86Sr and gross alpha and beta activity, which is clearly distinct from the surface water and shallow groundwater sampled and consistent with a separate flow regime of hydrothermal origin. This water type is not similar to groundwater encountered in the vicinity of Amulsar mountain and supports the conclusion that the groundwater system of Amulsar mountain is a distinct hydrogeological system to the Jermuk hydrothermal system. In summary, based on the data and analysis of the groundwater regime presented in the 2016 ESIA for the Amulsar Gold Project, combined with the major ion and isotope data presented in this memorandum it may be concluded that the Jermuk thermal mineral water system is not in hydraulic connection with shallow groundwater and surface water on the Amulsar mountain, Lydian International reported.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government is still holding talks with Gazprom Armenia CJSC on leaving unchanged the gas tariff for the domestic consumer, Deputy prime minister Tigran Avinyan told reporters today, reports Armenpress.

The talks are underway, and I cannot say anything new at this moment. Overall, all agreements, which we have talked about, are operating, he said.

Asked at the expense of what the Gazprom Armenia CJSC will make the finance in order not to increase the gas tariff for Armenias consumer, the deputy PM said there are different components at the expense of which the domestic price of gas is formed for the consumer. There are different figures which need revision. And at the expense of these components and optimization, re-calculation, re-assessment, review of losses, I think we will find the concrete points where optimization is possible, the deputy PM said.

He added that the talks are in process, and in case of any information, public will be informed.

Gazprom CJSC increased the gas price supplied to Armenia from 150 USD to 165 USD starting from January 1, 2019. Following this Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the gas tariff for the domestic consumer will not increase, noting that the Armenian government will continue the talks with the Gazprom Armenia CJSC to reach a final agreement.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Western Region strongly condemned the hate crimes committed at Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School and AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School, reports Armenpress.

On January 29 the masked figure in black zip-tied more than a dozen Turkish flags on the gates of these two Armenian private schools.

This type of behavior can be credited due to the lack of accountability of the Armenian Genocide and its ongoing denial by Turkey. It also serves as a reminder of why fighting for justice for the Armenian Genocide remains at the forefront of our priorities, ANCA Western Region said in a statement.

Congressman Adam Schiff also made a statement over the incident.

Private Armenian schools in Southern California were vandalized today with Turkish flags. These schools are attended by many descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, and I stand with the Armenian community in condemning this act of hate, the Congressman said.

He stated that the authorities are investigating the incident and expressed hope they will identify the suspects to prevent additional threats and intimidation.

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the incidents of clutching Turkish flags on the gates of two Armenian private schools.

The incidents caused concern and outrage among L.A.s Armenians. Many described the incidents as an act of hate intended to intimidate the community and discredit the Armenian Genocide.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Minister of Economic Development and Investments Tigran Khachatryan has held a meeting with Asian Development Bank (ADB) Senior Financial Sector Economist Joao Farinha-Fernandes to discuss issues concerning the development of a legislative package on PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP).

During the meeting Khachatryan addressed details of the development, as well as other related documents, and discussed several organizational matters, the ministry said in a press release. The sides exchanged ideas over the PPP regulation process.

Fernandes highly appreciated the cooperation and noted that working with ministry officials in charge of the PPP legislative package was a pleasure. The team of the ministry responsible for the issue is led by Khachatryans deputy Avag Avanesyan.

The roadmap of the development and adoption of the legislative package was presented.

The sides affirmed that it is necessary to complete the process as soon as possible  during the coming months.

The ADB delegation also discussed issues concerning training of experts and development of skills, recommending a number of options. They agreed to continue closely cooperating.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the incidents of clutching Turkish flags on the gates of two Armenian private schools, Los Angeles Times reports.

School officials and police said the masked figure in black zip-tied more than a dozen flags on the schools gates and fled.

The incidents caused concern and outrage among L.A.s Armenians. Many described the incidents as an act of hate intended to intimidate the community and discredit the Armenian Genocide.

The LA Police investigate the surveillance footage and plan to boost patrols near the schools.

Arpi Avanesian, principal of AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park, said they were shocked and surprised to see the Turkish flags on the schools gate. It came as a complete shock and surprise in the sense we weren't expecting it. I dont know what this person was thinking about. Why today? What set them off to do this?, she said.

Nora Hovsepian, chair of the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region, informed that Turkish flags were also found hanging at Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School, an Armenian school in Encino founded nearly 60 years ago by members of a generation of Armenian genocide survivors.

LA Police Departments spokesman Jeffrey Lee said the incident in Encino was logged as a hate crime.

During a press conference on January 29 a group of officials urged the authorities to find and prosecute the suspect.

In both schools the flags were taken down before the students arrived.

We want to all get along, Arpi Avanesian said. We want people to understand the crimes of the past and we can all have a bright and happy future. Our hope is one day Turkey will understand what their government did over 100 years ago.

Congressman Brad Sherman condemned the incident and urged the Police to make arresting the vandals a high priority.

By the end of the school day, Ferrahian students had responded: Armenian flags waved all over campus, hanging from stair railings and gates.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. In new Armenia, people must be in real and constant relationship with arts and culture, national values must be close to people like a parent, a friend, PM Nikol Pashinyan said after witnessing how very few people have attended the powerful concert of the Armenian National Academic Choir in honor of the 150th anniversary of birth of Komitas.

Yesterday I and Anna went to the Armenian National Academic Choirs concert dedicated to the 150th anniversary of birth of Komitas. 150th anniversary of birth of Komitas, National Academic Choir, conducted by National Hero of Armenia Hovhannes Chekijyan, superb concert. And  a semi-empty hall. This is the real face of our cultural life and policy. Ask anyone and they will say that Komitas, Chekijyan, and the Academic Choir are our national values. But the system is built in a way to make as little people as possible to interact with this national value. Because, this is high national value right, its not for everyone, masterpieces of art should be kept at the storages of museums (like rococo glasses kept in the closet, because they are values and arent for daily use. As few people as possible must go to museums or not go at all. And so on.., the PM said sarcastically.

He emphasized that the cultural policys goal should be the elimination of this system. He says that the perception must be sowed as early as from school. It is this very problem or group of problems that the ministry of education, science and culture must solve, he said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Member of Parliament Gor Gevorgyan from the ruling My Step faction argues that the scientific resource of Armenia can also be used for the development of foreign policy.

The MP says he is planning to boost science diplomacy by using the parliamentary arena.

My professional experience began in the very sector of foreign policy. I have certain academic experience concerning international relations, namely global politics and the Middle East. And in this regard there are key issues that we must definitely activate for the benefit of the Armenian foreign policy, Gevorgyan told ARMENPRESS.

Any new government must inventorize and assess achievements of the past. And in this sense we must note that the Armenian foreign policy indeed had good and successful achievements, including our involvement in different initiatives. You cant live in the 21st century by being cut out from various global processes.

Asked about his planned steps in the foreign policy sector, the MP said: There is a very interesting format in the west within diplomacy that is called science diplomacy. Meaning you use all resources existing in your state. This is first and foremost about intellectual capacities. And in this context it is very important for us to use the existing scientific arena in Armenia. We have a number of areas where we have recorded scientific successes.

We have a Center of Armenian Studies in Egypt. This is a unique thing. A small community remains, but we have a Center of Armenian Studies at the University of Cairo. And through such resources we can emphasize the sectors which the foreign ministry doesnt physically manage. This structures workload is great, and we can use the parliamentary arena in this context, he said, adding that he proposes for the initiative to be rhythmic, coherent and have continuous development.

The full interview is available in Armenian.

By Anna Grigoryan

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. Germany is a major player in the European Union, a key driving force of domestic and foreign policy jointly with France. From this perspective Germany has a strategic significance for Armenia, Political scientist Narek Galstyan told Armenpress, adding that the next important factor is Germanys eastern policy.

There is one peculiarity here. Compared to some EU states, countries, Germany has not tried to play an active role in the political life. It is mainly interested in the economic factors. If we want to assess Germanys significance for us, we need to understand what Germany is expecting from the Eastern Partnership countries, and what we can offer. Germany is important for us because it has rich economic potential which we havent managed to use completely, Narek Galstyan said.

The political scientist said Germany has always been a very active economic partner for Armenia, is in the 1st place among the EU states. Galstyan is confident that the two countries can actively develop the cooperation in several sectors.

For us the cooperation in the IT sector will be beneficial, which is a priority for the German companies. The decentralized cooperation is also important, the potential of which is not utilized as well. The talk is about the cooperation between Armenias provinces and the German Federal lands. The German lands have certain independence in foreign economic matters, therefore we can develop economic directions in this platform, in particular tourism. This is a new direction for us, and there is rich potential here, the political scientist noted.

Narek Galstyan outlined the cooperation opportunities in science and education. He said although there is small Armenian community in Germany, but it managed to keep the attention to Armenian scientific research. According to him, actions should be taken here as well.

Political scientist Greta Avetisyan in an interview to Armenpress stated that in the recent period, especially after the change of power in Armenia, the Armenia-Germany relations are at an active stage.

Lets remember the informal meeting between Pashinyan [Prime Minister of Armenia] and Merkel [German Chancellor] in Brussels. Then, Merkels visit to Armenia during which she invited the Armenian PM to Germany. Overall, we can state that the Armenian-German relations are developing quite actively both politically and economically. Germany provides great support to Armenia on the path to democracy especially after the revolution. This was mainly outlined during the elections when Germany provided assistance to Armenia for the organization of election processes. This speaks about the fact that Germany in any case is interested in the ongoing processes in Armenia, is ready to continue and further expand the cooperation, she said.

Comparing Pashinyan-Merkel previous and upcoming meetings, Greta Avetisyan said if the previous meetings were of more cognitive nature, because after the recent changes in the country there was a need to revise the bilateral agenda, clarify the agreements, the upcoming meeting will mainly focus on concrete actions aimed at expanding the bilateral ties.

The political scientist considered possible the new investments taking into account the anti-corruption fight, improvement of business climate in Armenia.

Several companies with German capital are operating in Armenia. Given their positive experience and improvement of the business climate in the country the number of such companies can increase in Armenia, the political scientist noted.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on February 1. The two leaders will exchange views on bilateral and economic relations, as well as foreign and security policy matters.

Interview by Anna Gziryan

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. As Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is expected to pay an official visit to Germany today, ARMENPRESS has recapped the Armenian-German political and economic ties and updated statistics.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in January of 1992. Since then, Armenia has paid more than two dozen official visits to Germany on the presidential, prime ministerial and foreign ministerial levels. And since 1995, official visits from Germany to Armenia took place on the levels of Speaker of Parliament, Deputy PM and FM.

Angela Merkels visit to Armenia

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Armenia in August of 2018.

During an official dinner in honor of Merkel, PM Nikol Pashinyan noted that the sides had very important and productive negotiations. He expressed convictions that all agreements will be coherently and in a principled manner be fulfilled one by one, which will mean a new chapter in the relations between Armenia and Germany.

In turn, Merkel noted that the German government wants to accompany Armenia on the path of brave changes and support further developments in the country.

Chancellor Merkel reiterated support to reforms in Armenia after the December 2018 early election of parliament. The German Chancellor noted that she would be happy to once again have a meeting with PM Pashinyan in the nearest future.

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, Armenia and Germany have signed more than 40 agreements concerning the economy, education, culture and trade. Cooperation memorandums have been signed in various sectors.

Armenia launches dialogue over visa liberalization with EU member states

The dialogue began as part of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the EU and Armenia that was signed in November 2017.

Earlier in January this year, Deputy Police Chief of Armenia Colonel Hovhannes Kocharyan visited Germany and held multiple meetings with local authorities. During the meetings the German side praised the productive cooperation on the basis of international legal documents concerning readmission, emphasizing the high level of mutual confidence and willingness to support Armenias expectations.

The sides also highlighted the need to specify the timeframes and circle of mutual obligations of future action plan of visa liberalization.

Economic indicators

In 2017, as well as in January-November of 2018, Germany has been the 4th main trading partner of Armenia.

According to the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments, Germany is Armenias leading trading partner from the EU in accordance to data from 2017 and 2018.

Trade turnover in January-November 2018 totaled 402,1 million dollars  a 38% growth compared to the previous year.

In structural terms of the mutual trade foreign trade, more products are imported from Germany than exported from Armenia.

Main Armenian exports to Germany include copper, aluminum foil, textile products and alcoholic beverages, while top customs-value imports from Germany to Armenia include passenger and cargo vehicles, pharmaceuticals, tractors, food processing equipment, printing equipment and others.

More than ten major companies with German capital operate in Armenia. The companies operate in mining, light industry, imports and sales of cars and construction materials, IT, asset management and other sectors.

Business Armenia Foundation told ARMENPRESS that Armenian-German business visits are planned in 2019.

Recognition of Armenian Genocide

On June 15, 2005, the German parliament adopted a decision about recognizing the Armenian Genocide. On April 23, 2015, then-President of Germany Joachim Gauck delivered a statement about the Armenian Genocide, and on June 2, 2016, the German parliament adopted a resolution on recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

During the 2018 visit to Armenia, Chancellor Merkel visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan with FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and paid tribute to the memory of the victims.

By Anna Gziryan

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
"Perhaps the sentiments put forth here are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." --Thomas Paine
The Education of Ron Ginyard

He had the inside track on a city council seat-until he changed sides.

by James Leonard & John Hilton

From the January, 2019 issue

When he moved back to Ann Arbor in 2014 to care for his ailing mother, Ron Ginyard thought about getting into city politics one day. A 1974 Huron grad, Ginyard had lived in California since 1976, working mostly as a stockbroker and branch manager for Morgan Stanley in Long Beach.



Ginyard moved to the Northside neighborhood in Ward One. In 2017, he talked with Anne Bannister, who won one of the ward's city council seats that year, about running in 2020, when Bannister's term would be up. Early last year, he says, he heard back: she and others wanted to talk to him about running--in 2018.



Ginyard said that they met in February at Carson's restaurant. "They wanted to get to know me, check me out."



At the time Sumi Kailasapathy, the other Ward One rep, was still talking about running for reelection. But according to Ginyard, she was at the Carson's meeting. So were Bannister and Ward Four rep Jack Eaton--all members of what we call the Back-to-Basics Caucus.



Ginyard evidently passed the audition. "They gave me the directions on the things I needed to do," he says in one of several interviews at Sweetwaters downtown. And Bannister sent him Pat Lesko to set up his campaign.



"They were very, very, very positive on Pat," Ginyard says. "She was very versed in putting together a campaign."



---



Lesko had managed council campaigns before. In 2010, she'd also run for mayor against John Hieftje--then the leader of what we call council's Activist Caucus. After a brutal race, Lesko got just 16 percent of the vote. Eaton, Kailasapathy, and another council candidate who'd campaigned with her also lost.



Eaton and Kailasapathy ran again and won in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Lesko hasn't tried for public office since. But she stayed politically active, attacking the Activists in her short-lived newspaper the Ann Arbor Independent, its online successor a2indy.com, and an ongoing flood of social media posts.



Lesko

...continued below...

What's shocking about the A2Indy tweet to Kessler is that the A2Indy wants to be known as a 'media organization' of some sort. However, here we have a media organization tweeting to the employer about the personal political opinions of one person. He wasn't commenting on behalf of the company he works for. Imagine if MLive started complaining to UofM about personal political opinions by UofM employees/staff. It's just very unprofessional for a media organization to do that and if the A2Indy wants to be taken more seriously then they need to stop with the personal attacks.

lives just up the block from Ginyard on Brookside Dr., and he started going to weekly campaign meetings at her home. He says he saw Kailasapathy, Bannister, and Ward Two activist Kathy Griswold there at different times. (Bannister and Kailasapathy didn't respond to requests for comment on Ginyard's account. Griswold says she doesn't recall meeting Ginyard at Lesko's, but it could have happened.)Though Kailasapathy had taken out petitions to run again, Ginyard says the popular incumbent did so only "to keep other people out of the race." He provided the Observer with copies of emails in which she and other Basics councilmembers welcomed him as her heir apparent.In one exchange, Ginyard emailed Kailasapathy to tell her he would be out gathering nominating signatures. She responded "I would still like to help you. You can drop off a sheet at my office." She signed the message, "in solidarity.""So glad you're running in Ward 1, Ron!" Ward Two's Jane Lumm emailed. Bannister chimed in: "If you need anything, let me know! I'm so happy you're running!! Thank you!""Hugs to you both," Kailasapathy wrote Ginyard and Bannister, "and so relieved I am going to be represented by two caring council members."In another exchange, Bannister wrote Lesko and cc'd Griswold: "Thanks, Pat! We desperately need a candidate in Ward 3, and Ward 2." Griswold later announced that she'd run against the Activist incumbent in Ward Two.Lesko didn't email him much, Ginyard says, because they were meeting weekly. But in early April she sent him a list of people who'd supported Bannister, and later that month, a long message with advice on how to run his campaign. In it, she mentioned she'd "been asked to help more than one candidate this time around.""Pat is the brains of the operation," Ginyard says. He later elaborates: "She's integral. Her hands are all over everything."In April, most of the declared candidates appeared at a forum at the U-M's Ford School, including Ward Four challenger Joe Hood. Ginyard says he didn't attend because "I wasn't ready." Neither did Kailasapathy--which he says didn't surprise him, because he knew she wasn't really running.In an email exchange afterward, Lumm brushed off the Activist candidates' talk of supporting basic services. "They speak the language when they run for office, but look at their voting records!" she wrote. "Lots of fodder here for Jack, Ali, Ron, Joe.""The Crows are coming home to roost Jane," Ramlawi responded. "The voters are smarter then the majority on council give them credit for.""Go wonderful crows, GO!!!," Lumm replied. "I am cheering you all on!!!!!!!!!!!! ... You guys give me hope!!!!!"---But Ginyard was beginning to wonder about his choice of allies. He liked some of the changes in his hometown--but it seemed to him that the Basics caucus wanted to "totally stop development."Lesko's attitude bothered him, too. "I didn't like how she spoke to me, very demanding, pushy, very rigid," he says. "There was no deviation."Ginyard is black, and he says some of Lesko's advice emphasized that: She wanted him to put his photo on his lawn signs, he says, and kick off his campaign at Arrowwood Hills, the HUD co-op that historically has had a large African American population. He refused. "I didn't want [race] to be a factor," he says. "I wanted to run as a citizen and a man."He was also concerned by what he was hearing about Lesko's reputation. He got the impression, he says, that "everybody enjoyed using Pat as long as she stayed in the background." He says Eaton told him that when they ran together in 2010, "'she sunk us all.'" (Eaton declined to comment.)Lesko takes her reputation seriously. In 2017, when Ward Five councilmember Chip Smith dismissed theas "Pat Lesko's blog," Lesko emailed the Observer to warn that it would be "actionable" to describe it as "anything but a newspaper." The same year, she threatened to sue formerstaffer Jen Eyer over a Facebook post.In a recent interview, Eyer explains that when Lesko ran for mayor, she was in charge of comment moderation at what was then AnnArbor.com . In 2017, she saw a Facebook comment about Lesko "being toxic on the local political scene. So I made a comment stating the simple fact that we frequently had to moderate her comments for pushing false information, and there were many accounts that she would use"--despite the site's ban on candidates posting anonymously."She went after me really hard," Eyer says. In addition to threatening litigation, "she called my place of business. She emailed my boss and tried to get him to fire me." Fortunately, her boss just laughed it off.Soon afterward, thedisappeared from the Internet. Lesko continues to post to Twitter and Facebook as A2Indy, but her paper's online archive is gone: links to a2indy.com now end up at a site called GiganticBeanbags.com After three or four meetings, Ginyard says, he stopped attending the sessions at Lesko's house. "I realized I didn't like the way this was going."---In late April, Eaton kicked off his campaign against mayor Christopher Taylor. Kailasapathy was at the party, working the room to discourage Basics candidates from competing with one another in the primaries. Joe Hood agreed to bow out in Ward Four, consolidating support for challenger Elizabeth Nelson. (She crushed an Activist incumbent in the primary--and when Hood ran as an independent in November, she crushed him, too.)In Kailasapathy's Ward One, Jeff Hayner had also pulled petitions to run. He told the Observer he felt "a lot of hostility" at the party, but decided to stay in the race. Hood told us he thought Eaton and his allies might favor Ginyard "to show a little diversity."We included that quote in an article ( "Council Triage," June )--but mistakenly attributed it to Hayner. We apologized to both candidates and corrected the attribution online and in print, but Hayner wasn't satisfied. Saying people were accusing him of "racism," he demanded corrections pinned to our Facebook page and Twitter feeds and free ads in the next two issues. Since Hood's suggestion that politicians might favor racial diversity seemed harmless, we refused.We also got an email from Lesko. Though she wasn't mentioned in the article, we'd previously described her as an Eaton ally--and so, she said, tainted her by association with what she called a "disgusting racist assertion." She, too, demanded corrections pinned to our Facebook and Twitter feeds. Hood's speculation, she wrote, was "a gross insult to me and my family and, equally importantly, an insult to my neighbor Ron Ginyard, whom I know and respect immensely."That may have been the last good thing she said about Ginyard. In an interview for the June article, he had told us he didn't align with either faction--but if anything, he was "more on the mayor's end" of council's political spectrum.After the article appeared, Ginyard says, Lesko "walked down the street, and we talked."I told her that I could not deal with her issues and who she is and how she does things ... I didn't want to be tied to somebody who is a political operative who is very much disliked by a large group of people."She says, 'I feel sorry for you.' We sat and talked for thirty-plus minutes. She played all nice, and, when she walked out, she commenced to slamming me every chance she got."She wasn't the only one to turn on him. "Anne Bannister was my biggest supporter," Ginyard says. "She gave me $250." After the article came out, "she wanted me to give it back."---It was the only check he got from the Basics Caucus. But as the primary approached, he found new supporters in the Activist Coalition. "They listened to me," he says. "I spoke to the mayor about being independent. I told him, sitting down with him, that I won't always vote with him. And he said that's the way it's supposed to be."Taylor endorsed Ginyard and made a donation from his campaign fund. Other Activist supporters also contributed. Meanwhile, Eaton, Kailasapathy, and Bannister all endorsed Hayner and gave him money. Ramlawi contributed to him, too.In July a website appeared with the address RonGinyard.org , but it wasn't Ron Ginyard's. Headlined "What Is Ron Ginyard Hiding?," it was a skillfully crafted attack on him and his candidacy, highlighting his failure to vote and a financial settlement that Morgan Stanley made with an investor he'd advised. (Ginyard says he wasn't reprimanded and continued to work for the company.)The website was registered anonymously, but it did include an email address. When we sent a message, "John D." replied."Jeff Hayner/Ron Ginyard had nothing to do with the site," the message said. "The site went up because for months Ginyard didn't answer neighbor phone calls, emails and he didn't meet with some of our leading neighbors who asked to meet him."Ginyard says whoever sent that message was "lying through his teeth like the lying website ... I meet with neighbors." But he thinks "John D." was a fiction--he believes that the person who emailed us was actually Lesko.When they were working together, "Pat said to lock down RonGinyard.org before somebody takes it," he explains. "I think Pat secured the site on my behalf [as] a friendly gesture"--then weaponized it when he switched sides.After the election, we emailed "John D." to ask if the website had influenced the outcome. The reply: "the primary is over"--then both the site and the email address went offline.Asked about Ginyard's account of the Ward One campaign, including his theory about RonGinyard.org , Lesko emails that she's "not interested in discussing the primary election at this point." But she has used other names in the past: in 2009, she launched the blog a2politico.com as "Sam Rosenthal."Just before the election, Lesko made an anti-Ginyard post on their neighborhood's Nextdoor social network. Its headline asked, "Is it racist to say a black candidate is unqualified?"Ginyard calls that "race baiting." When they were working together, he says, Lesko never said a word about his qualifications.---Ginyard ended up losing to Hayner by 130 votes. Taylor won reelection, but three of his supporters lost council seats, reducing the Activists to a four-vote minority.Lesko was triumphant. "Hieftje gave Taylor the Titantic and the ship hit an iceberg of their own making," she wrote in an email to the Observer. "They were sucked down in a whirlpool of lockstep voting and group think." The message ended, "Now the real work begins."Asked if that means she considers herself a partner in the new council's work, Lesko didn't answer. But in a November Facebook post, she wrote that since 2010 she's "recruited and helped seven progressive Democrats run for and win seats on Ann Arbor's City Council." And she seems to feel empowered to speak on their behalf. When local resident Neal Kessler tweeted something she disliked in November, she responded by tagging his employer:"Hey @SmithGroup, love your employee insulting the new #A2council majority," she wrote. "This is how contracts are won and working relationships are established."We asked the members of the new majority if Lesko spoke for them. Lumm and Griswold didn't respond, but the others all gave firm No's. But given her claimed influence, it's perhaps not surprising that the tweet was deleted--and Kessler emails that he can't talk about it."That is A+ Pat Lesko," Ginyard says. "I've had neighbors tell me she is very intimidating. And I said, 'I will stand up to her.'"He may get another chance. He says he's thinking about going back to his original plan and running in 2020. And he hopes Lesko will run against him.---Pat Lesko objected to our article on last summer's First Ward Democratic primary ("The Education of Ron Ginyard," January). In an email, she called it a "spittle-stained, misogynistic rant."Lesko claimed the article was "jam-packed" with errors, but we found only one substantive factual dispute: "I never told Ron to put his photo on his signs," she wrote. "Kathy Griswold did that."In a separate email, Griswold confirmed that she'd suggested the idea to Ginyard. Asked to respond, Ginyard emailed that while Griswold may also have suggested it, he vividly recalls Lesko telling him to put his "smiling face" on his signs. [Originally published in January, 2019.]On December 24, 2018, Kai Petainen wrote:
" " Romeo, a male Sehuencas water frog (Telmatobius yuracare) native to South America, was thought to be the very last of his species until a massive search turned up, not one, but two females. Lucky boy. Teresa Camacho Badani, Museo de Historia Natural Alcide dOrbigny

Romeo might be the only frog who has ever had an online dating profile. Not that it's a very good one. It begins thusly:

"Not to start this off super heavy or anything, but I'm literally the last of my species."

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Let's face it: Most of us would swipe left on this, but, remarkably, Romeo has recently found a date. Maybe it was his captivating eyes and baggy skin that caught Juliet's eye, but let's be real  it was a team of researchers searching streams all over the Bolivian cloud forests that caught Juliet. At any rate, Romeo and his new girlfriend have a big job before them: saving the Sehuencas water frog (Telmatobius yuracare) from extinction.

Romeo has lived alone in an aquarium in his home country of Bolivia for 10 years, after having survived the collapse of his entire species, brought on by chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that's devastating amphibian populations worldwide. Over the past decade, expeditions to find more of his species have trudged out of the jungle empty handed, and Romeo has been testing out his mating call less and less frequently as the years go by. Romeo's caretakers had begun to think they'd never find him a mate.

But in January 2019, not one but five Sehuencas water frogs  two females and three males  were found in a mountain stream that had been searched by frog detectives in the past. Because so few frogs were found and due to the degraded condition of the stream the tiny population was found in, the scientists decided to take all the frogs back to the lab, treat them for the chytrid fungus and try to breed them in captivity.

"Now the real work begins," Teresa Camacho Badani, chief of herpetology at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d'Orbigny, said in a press release. "We know how to successfully care for this species in captivity, but now we will learn about its reproduction, while also getting back into the field to better understand if any more frogs may be left and if so, how many, where they are, and more about the threats they face." Camacho Badani also is the leader of the expedition that discovered Juliet and the other frogs.

If you're interested in keeping tabs on how Romeo and Juliet's romance turns out, you're in luck: Romeo is very active on Twitter. (It's been a slow 10 years....)

Now That's Interesting Chytrid fungus kills amphibians by growing on their skin. Since frogs take oxygen through their skin, it makes it difficult for them to breathe.
His first book was essentially a history of economic thought that put a certain theological perspectve on thnkers mostly from the fairly distant past. A basic theme in all of his books is that economics is a form of secular religion that posits a material salvation in some distant future as a result of economic growth and redistribution, a material heaven on earth. In that book he posed two competing theological strands in the history of economic thought: a Roman (Catholic) rationalism and a Protestant revelationism. The former started with Aristotle and included such figures as Aquinas, Adam Smith, Saint-Simon, and Keynes. The latter started with Plato and Augustine, Calvin, Darwin, Spencer, and Marx. A number of observers criticized this pair of categories, noting particularly that virtually the only economist in the second list is Marx (although Spencer did write on economics somewhat). I happen to share the criticisms that it is not clear how useful or meaningful this pair of lists is, although the tradition of lining up historiccal intellectual figures as being Aristotelian or Platonic has a long history in philosophy.

Robert H. Nelson of the University of Maryland Public Policy Department died at age 74 on Dec. 15 while attending a conference in Helsinki, Finland. He was the leading economist writing about the relationship between religion and economics, notably in three books: Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics (1991), Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond (2001), and The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Enviornmental Religion (2010). I spent several days with him some years ago at a conference on forestry issues where he was presenting his views on environmentalism as religion. In any case, his death has me thinking about the broader issues he wrote about. I shall note the arguments in these books along with some further observations.

But this does make me think about the especially strong theological/religious element in Marxism, with people believing in the philosophy and even specific Marxist economics doctrines such as the labor theory of value. There has been a long history of people converting to Marxism and then sometimes converting away from it, sometimes becoming religiously anti-Marxists in their disillusionment to a fanatical degree. As an old recognition of this I note a comparison made by Bertrand Russell, someone who considered himself to be a reasonable Aristotelian against troublesome Platonic idealists (recognizing that Marx claimed to be a materialist, not an idealist).

Yahweh (God) = Dialectical Materialism

Messiah = Karl Marx

The Second Coming = The Revolution

The Saved = The Proletariat

The Church = The Communist Party

Damnation to Hell = Expropriation of the Capitalists

The Millennium = The Socialist Commonwealth

The second book got more attention than the first and in some sense made a more obvious point: that current schools of thought can be viewed as sects whose differences ultimately boil down to matters of belief. The subtitle of From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond indicates the sorts of schools of thought Nelson was thinking of. My sense is that the Old Keynesian versus Classical Monetarist split was probably less theological/religious than some other splits among economic schools of thought, such as indeeed Marxists and their polar opposites the Austrians. Nevertheless, many people arguing over the Keynesian versus Old (and newer) Monetarists sometimes seem to fall into the terminology of belief, often buried in the matter of assuming axioms that cannot be questioned. So, looking at the New Classical school one finds Sargent at one point declaring rational expectations to be an axiom that cannot be questioned and must be used in any serious economic analysis. One must believe in rational expectations, even if one knows that it is factually inaccurate (and Sargent would later grant indeed that ratex is indeed false). Of course with Samuelson it is not just his Keynesian macro but also his defense of standard neoclassical microeconomics, with this having also a theological/religious aspect to it.

I would add a sociological element to this general Nelson argument that many economics debates between schools of thought often seem to take on a theological or religious aspect, even if most participants usually at least put on a show of respecting facts and logical rigor and so on. It is an old observation made esepcially by some observers of British economics that especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there was a tendency for people who became professional economists to come from families that included actual ministers of the Anglican Church (or other denominations), with this coinciding with a decline of that church and its influence. To some extent this is conisstent with the origin of economics in Britain in moral philosophy, which is what Adam Smith was a professor of, and with the very first Professor of Political Economy in Britain being Thomas Robert Malthus, who was in fact actually also an ordained Anglican priest. More generally many economists, although certainly not all, seem to be at least partly driven by motives to do good, a sentiment easily coming from people who may be secular on the surface but come from family bsckgrounds of religious practitioners (I confess this might apply to me, with both my quite religious mothers grandfathers having been Proetestant ministers).

The third of these books may deal with a more serious and controversial issue, the matter of economic religion (more or less as described above) against an erstwhile environmental religion, with many anti-environmentalist Christian ministers denouncing environmentalism for being a competing anti-Christian religion drawing on paganism and other alternative religious impulses. For Nelson, both of these are secular religions, but he recognizes that the environmentalist movement (in contrast to some extent to environmental scientists) has a spiritual side that can be quite fervent and draws on various religious traditions, although it must be noted that increasingly current Christians of at least some denominations are emphasizing environmental themes. But some opposed to these recent views emphasie how the monotheist Judeo-Christin-Muslim tradition has emphasized humanity dominating nature with a be fruitful and multiply view. Such a view then merges with the materialist economic Heaven on Earth to be delivered by economic growth. In the non-Christian environmentalist religion one finds both the Earth Mother worship of neo-paganism but also the Buddhist Economics strand one finds in Schumachers Small is Beautiful book that de-emphazies economic growth and sees nirvana as being in a low consumption economy that is associated with a condition of envitonmental harmony that is nirvana on earth.

Barkley Rosser
According to the official, BCR's projection for the Inca country's economic growth in 2019 stands at 4% . On the other hand, uncertainty has increased in international markets.

However, Velarde stressed foreign investors are interested in Peruvian debt papers.

"() This is a country that has very solid macro foundations ; in the region, we are one of the most solid (nations)," he expressed.
Within this framework, the businessman indicated the Inca country's non-traditional shipments currently experience a rebound, since they posted a 10.5% increase in 2017 and at least a 14% rise by end-2018.




"I am convinced we are about to witness the beginning of Maduro dictatorial regime 's end," Popolizio told the press on Tuesday.









At the said gathering, the group will discuss the situation of Venezuela to continue supporting a transition government led by Guaido that guarantees "free, fair, and transparent elections" with the participation of all political actors.





Military intervention





As for the "5,000 troops to Colombia" note written on National Security adviser John Bolton's notepad during a White House press briefing which was understood as a possible U.S. intervention in Venezuela the diplomat said he had no information on the matter.





However, he affirmed Peru and the Lima Group oppose military intervention in Venezuela in order to end Maduro's regime.





"One thing Peru and the Lima Group have always said is that we do not support military intervention in Venezuela," he remarked.





(END) RMCH/VVS/RMB/MVB

Peru's Foreign Affairs Minister Nestor Popolizio believes the signs of weakness shown by the regime of Nicolas Maduro suggest his dictatorship is about to come to an end.Published: 1/30/2019
The Head of State will be overseas from February 24 to March 3, 2019.

According to the document, the top official will visit Portugal on February 25-26. There, he will hold meetings with his Portuguese counterpart Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Antonio Costa , as well as other high-ranking authorities.
I was born in 1956 in Madison, Tennessee, while my parents were attending Madison College. I grew up along the Front Range in Colorado, attending schools in Longmont, Brighton, Boulder and Loveland, Colorado. Two years after graduating from Campion Academy, I married my sweetheart, Regina. We lived in Loveland, Colorado for six years before moving to Mena in western Arkansas.





I love the people of Mena and the friendly easy going way of life here. I have owned and operated my own business since moving to Mena. I enjoy the natural beauty of western Arkansas and being out of doors.




Welcome back to WHY? In this installment, we visit the historic Grand Central Terminalone of those New York City buildings that has a seemingly never-ending supply of stories and secrets.

On a visit to GCT earlier this month, we asked commuters coming through the main concourse if they knew about one of those secrets, hiding in plain sight.

On the constellation-filled ceiling of Grand Central's main concourse, there's a small dark patch at the edge where the mural and marble meet, in the northwest corner. That dark patch is an homage of sorts to this dirty ol' townit was darkened through decades of exposure to a few pollutants, but mainly cigarette smoke. When the ceiling was finally cleaned in the mid-1990s, a decision was made to leave this small 9" x 18" rectangle untouched. The result is the city's most satisfying before & after.

The cleaning was part of a major restoration, and took around two years (from 1996 to 1998). Years ago the MTA's Marjorie Anders told Gothamist, "The area was left untreated by the cleaning solutions so that future preservationists will be able to tell if those solutions [used for cleaning] had any impact on the ceiling materials themselves. This is common practice among restoration artists."

She added that not everyone was on board with the idea, however. "It is a little known fact that many folks at the railroad did not want to leave a dirty patch," she said. "They wanted it all cleaned. Because I was frequently up on the scaffold with journalists during the restoration work, I got to know the crew doing the cleaning. They wanted to leave a 4-foot by 8-foot section uncleaned. But the General Superintendent of GCT would have none of it. In the end, on behalf of the two women who did most of the cleaning, Mary and Marina, I appealed to the President of the Railroad at the time who agreed to leave a much smaller patch." And so it was... and it hasn't been cleaned since.

During our recent visit, we met with George Monasterio, the director of Grand Central, who spoke more about the ceiling's dirty little secret. He explained that Simple Green and cotton rags were used, a cleaning solution that he says saved the railroad around $8 million, as it was the least expensive option and happened to work the best. Here's what else he had to say:

Actually, that isn't the ceiling's only dirty secret. While the mural was originally painted directly on to the ceiling, leaks caused damage that led to an entirely new (nearly identical) mural being placed over it in the 1940s. The whole thing was repainted... on insulating boards that contained asbestos. When the MTA renovated Grand Central in the 1990s, the authority decided not to restore the original mural because disturbing those boards could become a health hazard. So instead, the boards were cleaned. (These boards also contain a hole from a rocketwhich you can read more about here.)

Fun fact: Both the original and the current ceiling have a big flaw. The design was mistakenly projected backwards, so nothing is where it truly belongs. The New York Times reported on this in 1913, writing, "A commuter from New Rochelle... pointed out wrathfully in a letter, west is east and east is west, and any one endeavoring to read directions by the zodiacal figures used in the decoration scheme would be entirely misled."

But that grimy patch made up of New York City dirt? It's perfect.

Do you want to know WHY? Send us your questions, which can be about anything from New Yorker behavior, to what a certain city agency does, to something you saw on the sidewalk that sparked your curiosity.
Rebel is Rebecca Carroll's regular conversation on race and pop culture. You can hear Rebecca talk about these issues with guests on Wednesday mornings on WNYC, or participate in one of Rebel's regular conversations in The Greene Space.

This week's Rebel interview is with art historian Jessica Bell Brown, the curator of a new exhibit at Gracie Mansion in collaboration with First Lady Chirlane McCray. "She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York City" features over 40 artists and collectives connected to the city, and is the largest installation of its kind to be mounted in the history of Gracie Mansion.

We asked Brown why this show is relevant now. She said, "Why now? Why not now? The women in this show are not only artists, they're filmmakers, they're activists, educators, war veterans in the case of Ruth Orkin and in this era of Me Too, Say Her Name, Time's Up, it's time for us to take charge and really envision a new future."

The full conversation is below.

"She Persists" will be open to the public starting February 4th (here are details about visiting Gracie Mansion).

Rebecca Carroll is a cultural critic and Editor of Special Projects at WNYC, where she develops, produces and hosts a broad array of multi-platform content, including podcasts, live events and on-air broadcasts. Rebecca is also a critic at large for the Los Angeles Times, and a regular columnist at Shondaland in addition to Gothamist. She is the author of several interview-based books about race and blackness in America, including the award-winning Sugar in the Raw, and her personal essays, cultural commentary and opinion pieces have been published widely.
News of hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffins record-breaking purchase last week of a $238 million penthouse prompted what has by now become a routine series of responses to the city's sky-high real estate transactions: sticker shock and bewilderment, followed by "Who is this guy?", followed by "He ain't all that."

But for New Yorkers, an especially sore point of Griffins purchase is that, like many of the citys luxury real estate buys, his ultra-exclusive four-story pad at 220 Central Park South will likely not be a primary residence, meaning that the hedge fund billionaire and serial real estate collector will not be subject to local income tax. In some cases, because of a controversial tax abatement program, some owners of luxury apartments in New York City even manage to pay less in property taxes than their neighbors.

Amid the outrage, at least two members of the City Council, including council speaker and possible mayoral candidate Corey Johnson, have renewed calls for a pied-a-terre tax on luxury homeowners, though they haven't yet provided details.

Councilman Mark Levine, who represents the Upper West Side and Washington Heights, said that while New Yorkers have grown increasingly accustomed to "grotesque" property transactions by the uber-rich, last week's record-setting figure  which made Griffin the owner of the most expensive residential property ever bought in the United States  struck a nerve.

"I think something snapped in a lot of people," he said. "It has changed the debate in a way that has to be addressed. People are simply not comfortable with this kind of extreme wealth moving into our cities without it benefiting the people that live here."

Johnson was not available for comment. But a spokesperson for the speaker said he and the council were looking at this issue closely.

Enough.



Its time for a pied-a-terre tax. We should tax luxury non-primary residences, like this one likely will be.



Are you with me? https://t.co/fGxG88j6k5  NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) January 25, 2019

47 rent-stabilized tenants were evicted to make way for construction of this new tower, where the penthouse just sold for $238M to a billionaire who will pay *zero* local income tax. Exhibit A for why we need a pied-a-terre tax in NY now. https://t.co/AonC70XfMH  Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) January 25, 2019

The pied-a-terre tax is not a new concept. Back in 2014, state Senator Brad Hoylman drafted a bill based on a proposal by the Fiscal Policy Institute that would have imposed a graduated tax starting at 0.5 percent on non-resident owners of properties valued at more than $5 million and rising to as much as 4 percent on those with properties worth more than $25 million.

At the time, the FPI estimated that such a pied-a-terre tax could generate more than $600 million a year in additional city revenue. That number was based on an estimate that the number of pied-a-terres valued in excess of $5 million was 1,556. (However, an analysis of the city's luxury housing market in 2015 by the city's Independent Budget Office disputed that figure as inflated and estimated that the amount would fall well below $380 million.)

Regardless of the exact impact, the bill went nowhere, in large part due to strong pushback from those in the citys real estate industry who said that such a tax might start to collapse the residential market.

Despite such ominous claims, the pied-a-terre tax idea, which has precedents in other cities grappling with housing shortages amid the prevalence of luxury ghost apartments, has never completely died. In 2015, then-City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, whos now running to become the citys public advocate, backed a pied-a-terre tax as a way of raising money to hire more police.

So with Democrats now in command of a governing majority in the state legislature, could a pied-a-terre tax join the list of the partys progressive agenda items?

Hoylman, who has re-introduced the bill in this legislative session, said that while it remains an open question whether his pied-a-terre tax proposal can get traction, he believes Griffin's purchase has certainly renewed attention on the issue.

"We are constantly asked how we can build more housing for the homeless and for people being priced out of their neighborhoods," he said. "The pied-a-terre is one possibility that needs to be on the table. Because if we continue to hold budgets flat or raise them minimally, I think it's time to consider new sources of revenue."

Policy experts who have long argued that a pied-a-terre tax would be a "win-win."

James Parrott, the director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs, wrote the FPI proposal on which the 2014 legislation was based. He said he sensed interest in the pied-a-terre tax to be "substantially greater now."

(Parrott is currently serving on the city's Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform and prefaced his remarks by saying they did not reflect those of the commission.)

According to Parrott, the environment in New York City is ripe for reform, citing the heightened public awareness of billionaires snapping up luxury dwellings, growing income inequality, the affordable housing crisis, and a recent national debate, prompted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, over a more progressive tax system.

"Its very likely we could see some action this year," he said.

Similarly, Moses Gates, vice president of housing and neighborhood planning for the Regional Plan Association, who has also advocated for a pied-a-terre tax, said, "The more we see the inequities that are happening because of the lack of a pied-a-terre tax, the more we see that theres public appetite for addressing it."

Both Parrott and Gates rejected the argument that such a tax would result in a residential market slide.

Gates cited the attraction of New York City for wealthy buyers as both a place to visit and a relatively safe investment as reasons why the impact on housing prices would be minimal. "I don't think it will even come close," he said.

Under the proposed bill, Griffin would be asked to cough up $8,890,000 a year to the city for maintaining his part-time residence at 220 Central Park South, according to Parrott's rough calculation.

David Kallick, the deputy director and director of immigration research at FPI, said that between the changed political climate and the recent high-profile sale, "It's definitely woken people up."

Although it might not be clear what percentage of city housing consists of luxury pied-a-terres, the data shows that there is growing trend of unoccupied residential units. According to a 2017 survey by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the number of apartment units in the city that were vacant because of "seasonal, recreational, or occasional use" was 74,945. That's 30.5 percent of the total units in the city that were classified as vacant but unavailable for rent or purchase. It's also the highest number since the Regional Plan Association began tracking such vacancies in 1991  and according to the RPA, more than enough to house all of the citys homeless.

UPDATE: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the title for Moses Gates. He is the Regional Plan Association's vice president of housing and neighborhood planning.
For subway riders with accessibility needs, theres nothing more daunting than a flight of stairs in a stationwith no elevator in sight.

The issue of accessibility in New Yorks subway system has been an ongoing struggle for disability rights advocates, who filed a lawsuit against the MTA in 2017 for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the recent death of a woman who fell down a flight of subway stairs in Midtown Manhattan while carrying her baby in a stroller has put another spotlight on subway accessibility and how it affects a wider group of commuters. (The cause of death is currently under investigation.)

Only about a quarter of the MTAs subway stations are currently accessible, according to a July 2018 report from the New York City Comptrollers Office. Of New York City's 122 neighborhoods served by the subway system, 62 do not have a single accessible station. Of those 62, 19 are in the Bronx, 26 are in Brooklyn, 7 in Manhattan and 10 in Queens. That ranks New York Citys metropolitan rail system dead last in the country, in terms of system-wide accessibility.

A recent study from the TransitCenter foundation and Hunter College shows that a wide variety of people with diverse needs seek out elevators during their travels through the subway system.

Obviously elevators are utterly essential for people with disabilities, said Colin Wright, Senior Advocacy Associate at TransitCenter, which "works to improve public transit in ways that make cities more just, environmentally sustainable, and economically vibrant." According to Wright, "what [we] found was most people using elevators are parents with strollers, seniors who have difficulty walking, and even people carrying large packages."

But despite the demand, elevators at subway stations have been poorly maintained. In 2018, TransitCenter worked with Hunter College to send Sociology and Urban Planning students out to observe subway elevators at 64 stations, spread across Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx. The observation windows included weekdays and weekends, peak hours and off-peak hours. All told, students observed and took notes on 10,500 passengers using elevators.

There were two questions at the heart of the study: Who benefits from elevators in the subways, and are those elevators passibly-pleasant environments?

The answer to the latter was no. The study found that many elevators appeared to be unclean: a third of them were said to have noticeable odors, most frequently being that of the smell of urine, and only three-quarters were determined to be well lit.

Riding an elevator also proved to be a significant time suck. The median time for a one-way trip on an elevator was 27 seconds, as recorded by the students. That time did not include waiting for the elevator to arrive, which many students noted was a turn-off to passengers and often led to people abandoning their wait.

As for who uses the elevators, the study found the distribution skewed toward people carrying large packages, followed by senior citizens.



(Courtesy Transit Center)

The student observers also made a note of which stations had escalators in addition to elevators. They found that, in the absence of an escalator, use of elevators rose by a factor of about 3.5 for obese people and by 2.5 for people using a cane, crutches or a walker.

Wright said he hopes the studys findings prompt everyday riders and the New York City Transit authority to consider the diverse group of users who rely on and benefit from elevators.

Station accessibility is not a nice-to-have. said Wright. Its an essential part of any subway system.

Mondays incident prompted many people to reflect on times when a dearth of elevators failed them or other commuters.

There isnt a New York mom who hasnt stared down those subway steps with a stroller. You can either give up the subway (not an option for many) or stand there and hope for help. https://t.co/JNesBH7nVi  Erin Geiger Smith (@erin_gs) January 29, 2019

New York is a city of elevators that lead up, up, up, into penthouses and conference rooms, but very few lead down into the subways, and those that do smell like bathrooms and feel like death traps. See a mother carrying her stroller down the stairs? Help. https://t.co/W8z0TvwDFL  Brian Ries (@moneyries) January 29, 2019

There is no city more inaccessible than NY. Stairs, narrow passageways, broken elevators, everywhere. Its a gauntlet for anyone with a different kind of body. So stressful.  roxane gay (@rgay) January 29, 2019

There are two up escalators but no elevator at the 7th Avenue B/D/E station at West 53rd Street, where Malaysia Goodson fell down the stairs with her child on Monday night. The MTA called the fatal incident a heartbreaking tragedy, and said it is working with police to investigate the cause of death. (Goodson's baby was not seriously injured.)

In response to the study from TransitCenter and Hunter College, an MTA spokesperson on Tuesday said improving accessibility is one of NYC Transit President Andy Byfords main pillars. Byford has laid out plans to add elevators to at least 50 stations in the next five years as part of his Fast Forward initiative. Within five years, Byford has pledged that no one will be more than two stops away from an accessible station.

As for elevator cleanliness, the spokesperson said nearly 50 additional station cleaners who will address elevators have been hired under the agency's Subway Action Plan.

Wright said Monday nights fatality is a reminder of the urgency to make more stations accessible and of the importance of helping fellow riders.

Next time youre passing a parent with a stroller, make sure to pitch in and help because they might have no other option besides the kindness of strangers to get into stations, he said.

For more on this story, listen to Shumita Basu's segment on WNYC:

Shumita Basu is a host, producer and reporter in the newsroom. You can follow her on Twitter @shubasu.


It will soon be illegal for New York educators to carry firearms at school, thanks to a gun control package state legislators passed on Tuesdaythe first the state has seen since 2013. Also included: new laws that enable the courts to determine if a person poses too much of a threat to own guns or have them in their home, extend the waiting period on gun purchases, ban bump stocks, and more.

"Today is the next evolution in this ongoing crusade," Governor Andrew Cuomowho has pledged to sign the billssaid today while meeting with gun safety advocates. "Now, you'll see the political extremes rise up, same argument for the past 25 years. 'Oh, it's another restriction, it's another slippery slope. They won't be happy until they take my gun.' No one wants to take guns from legal owners who are mentally healthy. We don't want people who are mentally ill or past felons to have guns. That's all this is."

The state legislature last took up the issue of gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, passing the SAFE Act to strengthen background checks and crack down on assault weapons. Tuesday's legislative package goes further, and reads as a direct rebuke of President Trump and other Republicans' approach to the staggering problem of gun violencenamely, that school shootings might be prevented if only we could put more guns on campuses.

Parents of Scott Beigel, a teacher who died during the shooting at Parkland, Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in February 2018 were present in the state capitol today, and said their son "would have never wanted to be armed" at work, according to the Daily News. One of the bills passed Tuesday bars anybody but a "security officer, school resource officer, or law enforcement officer [from carrying] a firearm on school grounds."

"Today is a day where we acknowledge that unless we fix a whole lot of things, this will not stop. If we just offer our thoughts and prayers, it surely will not stop." #EndGunViolence  Sen. Stewart-Cousins (@AndreaSCousins) January 29, 2019

Predictably, some in the legislature's Republican minority complained that this measure infringes on the rights of trained gun owners (military members, ex-law enforcement) who want to bear arms for protective purposes. "Guns in the right hands could be part of the solution, part of the defense of our children," Sen. Andrew Lanza said, according to the News. "If the state refuses to put armed officers in schools, my fear is that the only people carrying guns in schools are going to be the bad guys and that's a problem."

Please note, we have piles of evidence to support the common sense idea that more guns mean more deaths, and that throwing a "good guy with a gun" into a chaotic scenario tends to escalate tensions with more deadly outcomes.

Data tells us that students are less safe when there are more guns in their schools.



Following years of inaction on common-sense gun laws, today we passed sweeping anti-gun violence legislation in the Senate, including a bill that prevents school districts from arming teachers. https://t.co/rrAMB7kUQR  State Senator Julia Salazar (@SalazarSenate) January 29, 2019

At the same time, the Senate and Assembly also passed a "Red Flag" bill, providing for court-issued Extreme Risk Protection Orders against people determined to pose a threat to themselves or others, pursuant petitions from a "family member, law enforcement officer, or school administrator." If deemed an extreme risk, these people would be prevented from possessing, purchasing, or attempting to purchase a firearm. Lawmakers also beefed up our background checks, extending the waiting period from three to 30 days. A separate bill requires out-of-state applicants applying for firearms licenses to let New York officials access their out-of-state mental health records.

The package also included a ban on possession, transportation, and manufacture of modifiers that make guns fire more rapidlylike bump stocksand established regulated gun buy-back programs so people can report and turn in illegal firearms without fear of retribution.

According to the Democrat and Chronicle, a ban on 3-D printed guns and provisions for safer at-home gun storage did not make it into final package. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told the publication that this decision had to do with technical kinks still to be worked out.

This set of bills represents another box checked on a progressive agenda established by the state's newly Democratic majority. Last week, lawmakers finally codified Roe v. Wade and removed abortion from New York's penal code, and also expanded access to higher education for undocumented students. The previous week, they banned gay conversion therapy, and before that, officially classified discrimination on the grounds of a person's gender identity or expression as a hate crime. All in all, a productive January.
I remember feeling both enraged and terrified when I first heard the story of James Byrd, Jr.  the black man who was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to his death by three avowed white supremacists in Jasper, Texas. The year was 1998 and at the time I lived alone in Brooklyn, a good 45 minutes from my office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where I worked as a television producer for a talk show on PBS. Even as Byrd lived in the deep South, where deep-seated racism continued in open acts of violence and terror, Id never heard of anything this horrific, and after that, I started looking over my shoulder more when I walked home from the subway.

The news played it up as an isolated incident, but it opened a floodgate of pent up horror and fear, anger and loyalty  a whole range of emotional dissonance. It was the rope that put me over. That Byrds neck had been tied to the truck, his head decapitated at about mile three. Because its the rope, the noose, that singular tool of violence that lives, bloodied and menacing, in the collective memory of black America.

I didnt live through the late 1800s and early 1900s when thousands of slaves were lynched on a regular basis, but I held the imagery in my bones  through pictures of white people gathered around a black body swinging from a tree and Billie Holidays "Strange Fruit" and Emmetts neck tied to a cotton gin fan. This was the late 1990s, though, when James Byrd, Jr. was lynched.

Now, just over twenty years later, comes an assault that could only be described as an attempted lynching and a definitive hate crime. And what I realized when news broke today that the Empire actor Jussie Smollett, while walking in Chicago early this morning, had been assaulted by two unidentified assailants, who yelled out racist and homophobic slurs before tying a noose around Smolletts neck, is that black folks will forever be in vicious concert with the noose.

No matter the generation, how far past or urgently present, whether a 49-year-old man walking home after a night of drinking with friends, or a young, openly gay actor whose ease and clarity and accessibility on the popular culture scene makes him beloved by fans and peers alike, the noose will drop from the sky and into the hands of hate at any moment. We know what it signals, how quickly our lives can end in its taut, virulent tug.

Despite all that, nearly every media outlet who first reported on the attack referred to it as a possible hate crime. And that may be for those whose necks are not exposed.

The latest news reports say that Smollett, who also had an unknown chemical  some reports have identified it as bleach poured on him during the attack, is in good condition according to police. But how will he recover from this trauma? Many of us are triggered by the mere image of a noose  Smollett has now felt one around his neck, yoked by the thick, bitter thread that history told us was our forever fate.

Rebecca Carroll is a cultural critic and Editor of Special Projects at WNYC, where she develops, produces and hosts a broad array of multi-platform content, including podcasts, live events and on-air broadcasts. Rebecca is also a critic at large for the Los Angeles Times, and a regular columnist at Shondaland in addition to Gothamist. She is the author of several interview-based books about race and blackness in America, including the award-winning Sugar in the Raw, and her personal essays, cultural commentary and opinion pieces have been published widely. You can follow her on Twitter @rebel19.
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
In a world where a blog is created every second does the world really need another blog? Well, it's got one. An irregular set of postings, weaving an intricate pattern around a diverse set of subjects. Comment on culture, technology, politics and the occasional rant about life. Alan ... in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Cainthus, the Irish dairy technology startup, has appointed Aidan Connolly as its new CEO to replace David Hunt. Hunt, a co-founder of Cainthus, will remain at the company as its president.

Connolly, who recently left Irish agtech business Alltech where he was head of innovation and worked for over 25 years, has often been referred to as the fourth founder of Cainthus. He was, in fact, the companys fourth investor after its three co-founders  Hunt,Ross Hunt and Robin Johnston  chairman of the board for some time, and a core advisor from the start.

This was a very big decision for me to make, and I needed to make it now as Cainthus is at an inflection point in the development of its business, Connolly told AgFunderNews. And I really feel that this company is one out of a very small handful of agritech startups that could truly reach a $1 billion valuation.

Cainthus uses computer vision technology to monitor dairy cows, specifically to understand how much theyre eating and drinking and also to track their health. By installing around 20 cameras per barn, Cainthus technology identifies and memorizes individual cows by their unique features, such as their coat pattern, ear tag, and facial features. The company then aims to analyze some 864,000 data points per animal, per day to help dairy farmers make proactive and predictive decisions that improve efficiencies, enhance animal wellbeing, reduce animal loss, and ultimately increase farm profitability, according to a press release.

This is a game-changer for the dairy industry because dairy farmers usually dont know theres a problem with a cow until after its occurred, said Connolly. Using computer vision also limits the need for human intervention, setting it apart from other dairy technology startups that are capturing data by other means including wearable sensors, he added, although adding that computer vision adds its own set of challenges.

Connollys main task as he starts at the company will be to drive its commercial expansion, something that former CEO Hunt is particularly excited about.

Aidan has brought new agriculture products to just about every market during his career, including some major markets for Alltech such as Brazil and France, which is quite something, he told AgFunderNews. We have a fantastic, natural working relationship already as weve been working closely together for years in his capacity as chairman and investor.
East Harlem's El Museo del Barrio announced on Monday that it would be canning its forthcoming retrospective of the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, slated to open at the end of next month. The cancellation, which ARTnews reports was incited by local community activists, comes at the heels of comments that Jodorowsky made about his 1970 film El Topo. In interviews at the time, Jodorowsky, who directed and acted in the film, spoke about a horrific scene of sexual violence against Mara Lorenzio, who also co-stars in El Topo, as having happened in reality.

In a 2017 report in The Telegraph, the writer Helen O'Hara cites the Chilean-French director describing in the 1972 book El Topo: A Book Of The Film that he raped Lorenzio while filming the disturbing scene in the desert.

As O'Hara notes, these comments have rarely been brought up in interviews with Jodorowsky, and when they have been, he's doubled back on them. Two years ago he wrote in a lengthy Facebook post that when he attempted to sell the film in New York, he decided to launch an "attack with scandalous declarations." He says that around then, he dressed up in El Topo's garb and said things "to surprise interviewers," among them that he was "antifeminist," that he had "eaten tacos made of human meat with Diego Rivera," and "that rape scene is a real rape." Jodorowsky has not yet replied for a request for comment from Gothamist.

The museum decided to cancel the retrospective after reviewing his comments. "We are committed to addressing complex and challenging issues, but have a responsibility to do so in a way that generates productive dialogues and debate," Patrick Charpenel, Executive Director of El Museo del Barrio, told Gothamist in a statement. "However, while the issues raised by Jodorowsky's practice should be examined, we have come to the conclusion that an exhibition is not the right platform for doing so at this time."

El Topo was scheduled to screen as part of the retrospective.
The Ukrainian side has begun the preparation of the documents for extradition

Russian Interpol workers detained Ukrainian kickboxer Vadym Olenchyk wanted for a murder committed in Kyiv and carjacking, as Ukrayinska Pravda reported citing speaker of Ukraines National Police Yaroslav Trakalo.

We have got the information from Russia on the detention of Olenchyk. Besides, the Russians filed the request, whether the detainee is on the wanted list. The information was passed to the initiator of the wanting, Solomensky Department of the Police in Kyiv, he reported.

Earlier Interfax-Ukraine reported citing a source at the Russian law enforcement bodies that Olenchyk was detained in Kurortny district of St. Petersburg.

Olenchyk will be detained for 40 days and transferred to the remand center.

The Ukrainian side has begun the preparation of the documents for extradition.

Vadym Olenchyk is wanted since November 2017 for murder and carjacking.

Earlier Ukraine asked the U.S. to extradite MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter Andry Inosov suspected in the murder of journalist Vasyl Serhienko in Cherkasy region.

It is established that the sportsman suspected in the murder is hiding in the territory of the United States. In February 2018, he was arrested by FBI. The request was filed to the American authorities on the provision of the international legal support and extradition of the Ukrainian for the prosecution.
Ukrainian sailor behind bars in Russia Hromadske

POW, Ukrainian sailor Viktor Bespalchenko detained in Moscow remand center got only one letter from relatives as his lawyer Olha Oparenko reported on Facebook.

During all the time, Viktor has got only one letter; however, the relatives and close people often write him letters, but, they are not delivered to the sailor for some reason. He wrote the requests for the dates and phone calls, she wrote.

According to the lawyer, Russian ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova has visited Ukrainian sailor.

Viktor learns English on his own... Viktor is in a good mood, he sends his regards and asks people not to worry about him, Oparenko said.

As we reported, lawyer Nikolai Polozov, who deals with the defense of Ukrainian prisoners of war, confirmed that three Ukrainian sailors wounded in the Russian Navy attack on Ukrainian ships were brought from Matrosskaya Tishina to Lefortovo prison in Moscow. He also added that it happened on Monday, January 28.

On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian ships were rejected passage via the Kerch Strait, Russian coast guards opened aimed fire on them.

All 24 sailors on board were captured and delivered to Moscow  21 of them were delivered to Lefortovo remand center, another - to the hospital of Matrosskaya Tishina prison.

On December 3, the Russian prosecutors officially accused Ukrainian sailors with the 'illegal crossing of the state border' during the attack in the Kerch Strait.

Facing an extension of the sentence term, Ukrainian POWs detained in the Kerch Strait refused to testify in Lefortovo court. Sailors were distributed into six groups, four people in each. On January 15, 2019 Moscow's Lefortovo district court decided to keep 20 Ukrainian sailors in remand until April 24. On January 16, the court extended the detention term for another 4 sailors.
Russian representatives declined this offer stating that they were waiting for the change of power in Ukraine during the coming elections in 2019

Ukraines representative to the subgroup on humanitarian issues of the Trilateral Contact Group on settlement of the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian Presidential Envoy for Donbas conflict settlement Iryna Gerashchenko stated Russias representatives to the group and subgroup on humanitarian issues refused from exchange of Russians convicted in Ukraine for Ukrainians illegally kept in Russia, as she wrote on Facebook.

Russia has refused to discuss the exchange of Russians for Kremlins political prisoners, the Ukrainians. Both within the humanitarian subgroup and Trilateral Contact Group, she wrote.

Gerashchenko noted that the Ukrainian side offered to exchange of three Ukrainian servicemen kept in Donbas for three Russians convicted in Ukraine.

On a terrible anniversary of Russias violation of the Minsk Agreements  attack in Debaltsevo, we have proposed to exchange three Russians convicted for crimes in Donbas for the heroes S. Glondar, B. Pantyushenko, A. Korynkov, who have been illegally kept in Donetsk for four years. No reaction received, she stated.

Russian representatives declined this offer stating that they were waiting for the change of power in Ukraine during the coming elections in 2019.
According to Medvedchuk, the majority of the presidential candidates raise Donbas issue now, yet they use it for publicity, and only the representatives of the Opposition Platform  For Life have a real plan to settle peace on the occupied territory

Viktor Medvedchuk at the All-Ukrainian Cogress of "Opposition Platfrom - For Life" 112.ua

The Chairman of the Council of the party Opposition Platform  For Life Viktor Medvedchuk claimed a need to create autonomous region Donbas and incorporate it in the Constitution. He said it during the All-Ukrainian Congress of the party, as Pravda reported.

According to Medvedchuk, the majority of the presidential candidates raise Donbas issue now, yet they use it for publicity, and only the representatives of the Opposition Platform  For Life have a real plan to settle peace on the occupied territory.

He noted that the program of the candidate from his party provides the return of the people, but not the territory, through their consciousness, security assurances, and only then Donbas has to come back to Ukraine.

Medvedchuk said that the peace agreements might be reached in a quadrangle Kyiv-Luhansk-Donetsk-Moscow.

The conception plan provides for the creation of an autonomous region Donbas as a part of Ukraine  with its parliament, government and other authorities, he said.

Medvedchuk added that the plan offers to introduce the relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. He said it did not contradict with the Minsk Agreements and Ukraines legislation.

Poroshenko says that the key to peace is in the Kremlin. You know, he is right  this is true. But we know where is the key, and where is its door, he stressed.

Medvedchuk criticized pro-European aspirations of the current authorities, he noted a need to restore friendship and economic cooperation with Russia and promised to support the presidential candidate Boyko.

On Tuesday, January 29, an emergency All-Ukrainian Congress of the Opposition Platform  For Life was held.

On 17 November 2018, 'Opposition Platform - For Life' party nominated Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election.

The presidential campaign in Ukraine kicked off on December 31. The election day is slated for March 31.
Open source

Ukraine's law On the subordination of religious organizations and the procedure for state registration of religious organizations with the status of legal entities 2673-VIII was published in Golos, parliament's official newspaper.

According to the law, the state admits that a religious organization has a right to report to any existing religious centers in Ukraine and abroad. Besides, a religious organization has a right to change its subordination through registration of a new edition of the statute or amendments of this statute.

The general assembly of the religious organization decides whether it changes its subordination. The members of the organization can summon a meeting.

No less than two-thirds of the members of the religious organization make a decision of change of subordination and amendments to the statute. This is required so that the assembly is considered plenipotentiary, the law says.

The law comes into force on the next day after its publication.

The law does not provide any criteria for people's membership in the religious communities, which leaves room for speculation.

The document also provides for a temporary ban on carrying out any actions with parish property. Thus, upon transferring a parish, it is impossible to sell, take away or pledge its real property. If a part of the parish does not want to conduct a transition into a new church, it can form its own new religious community and has the right to conclude an agreement on the alternate use of the temple.
The Public Council of International Experts has finished its work on the estimation of the integrity of the candidates for the post of judges of Anti-corruption court

Ukraine can be congratulated on great achievements in the creation of a principally new system of judges appointment, which is unique to the world experience. Thus, Chairman of Public Council of International Experts Sir Anthony Hooper commented on the results of the interview within the appointment of the judges of Ukraine Supreme Anti-corruption court as the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine reported.

According to the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJU), on January 28, the Public Council of International Experts has finished its work on the estimation of the integrity of the candidates for the post of judges of Anti-corruption court.

According to Sir Anthony Hooper, the experts got the maximal assistance from the HQCJU.

It was impossible to work closer and more qualitative together than we did.

He emphasized that Ukraine is the first and only country in the world, which invited international experts for participation in the appointment process of the judges.

Secondly, I would like to tell about the transparency of the procedures. The process and procedures of the appointment of judges have the zero transparency in my country. And here, you can watch on YouTube, and I hope you watched, how we questioned the candidates; it was not simple questions about their state and so on, it was immediately shown on YouTube. Once more, I do not know any country of the world, which has reached such level of transparency in the procedures of the appointment to such high posts. I think, Ukraine should be congratulated, Hooper said.

Sir Anthony Hooper has 60-years experience as the lawyer in the UK and Canada and he got judicial practice during the worked with corruption cases and anti-corruption legislation before he headed the Public Council. Ukrainian experience became something unique even for him:

Despite my entire carrier; the things we did were something unusual. The law on the anti-corruption court gave an extremely big and important role to the international experts, particularly; it provided them with the right for a veto against the candidates for the post of judge. Any of us participated in something like this before. And, according to my opinion, Ukraine should be proud of such law and things we could do along with the HQCJU to reach the results.

According to Sir Anthony Hooper, the task of the international experts was not to prove corruption of a candidate but to have some doubts toward his integrity and professional suitability.

We have studied all the materials, all the documents provided by the candidates. We questioned all candidates in the written form; its 100 different forms, where the candidates were asked to explain, for example, why their flat or car were bought at the price twice lower than a market one. Or, why, there is an inconsistency between the income and spent funds. And similar questions.

Candidates, who were not able to fundamentally answer the questions, could not compete further. 39 candidates out of 113 left the competition at integrity state. Another seven will continue to compete, three decided to quit the race. 71 candidates are ready for the next stage of the competition.

Earlier President Petro Poroshenko stated that the creation of the Supreme Anti-corruption Court of Ukraine will finish in February 2019.

We recall that in June 2018, the law on the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court came into effect in Ukraine, as well as a formal law on the creation of the Anti-Corruption Court. According to the documents, the Higher Anti-Corruption Court must be formed before June 14, 2019. To begin its work, it is necessary to recruit at least 35 anti-corruption judges, at least 10 of them should be representatives of the Appeals Chamber.
The head of the Agora Human Rights Group Pavel Chikov posted a letter from the Court which said that the decision to defer consideration of the case pending examination of Ukraines inter-governmental case against Russia was withdrawn

Ukrainian political prisoners Sentsov and Kolchenko Human Rights in Ukraine

The information that the European Court of Human Rights had restored the priority status given to the case of Ukrainian political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko were premature, as Human Rights in Ukraine reported.

One mistake was rectified, yet the Court is still refusing to consider the mens applications until it has examined Ukraines intergovernmental case against Russia over Crimea, the message says.

The head of the Agora Human Rights Group Pavel Chikov posted a letter from the Court which said that the decision to defer consideration of the case pending examination of Ukraines inter-governmental case against Russia was withdrawn.

The letter asked that an earlier letter adjourning consideration be regarded as not having been sent. It did seem likely, and this has now been confirmed, that the earlier letter was an administrative mistake since application No. 8019/16 concerns Ukraine vs.Russia, and should not include Crimea, the news agency reads.

However, an earlier letter as of September 29, 2018 from the Strasbourg Court also mentioned that the proceedings had to be adjourned.

The intergovernmental suit brought by Ukraine could take years to be considered and it is immensely frustrating that this adjournment appears to still be in place, the message reads.

Oleg Sentsov stopped the hunger strike on the 144th day. The Russian side officially announced the statement by Sentsov but did not name the reason. According to Sentsov's lawyer, the decision to end the hunger strike was made after Russian doctors and penitentiary facility workers issued an ultimatum to Sentsov, suggesting that he either voluntarily stop the hunger strike or agree to be force-fed.

He announced a hunger strike in May 2018, demanding to release him and the rest of Ukrainian political prisoners illegally kept by the Kremlin. During the time of his hunger strike, Sentsov has survived four health crises.

The native of Crimea, film director, and political activist, Sentsov was illegally detained in Crimea in 2014, then taken to Russia. The Russian side has judged him and sentenced him to 20 years of imprisonment at a high-security penal colony. The prosecutors charged Sentsov with preparing terrorist acts in occupied Crimea. Sentsov denies his guilt. Ukraine's government, its citizens, and the international society - politicians, artists, public figures - urge the Kremlin to release him.

One more Ukrainian activist, a native of Crimea, Oleksandr Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years in prison as part of the same criminal case of the so-called "Crimean terrorists."

Related video:
The date of the consideration of the case is not specified yet

Open source

The case of MP Nadia Savchenko and ex-Head of Officer Corps Centre of the POW Release Volodymyr Ruban was passed for consideration to Sloviansk City District Court, Donetsk region, as RBK-Ukraine reported.

The panel of judges, which is going to hear a case, was defined on January 29. The panel is headed by judge Yevhen Pronin. The date of the consideration of the case is not specified yet.

Reportedly, Savchenko took a polygraph testing. The Security Service of Ukraine claimed that the psychological forensic examination with the use of the polygraph of MP Nadiya Savchenko confirmed her intentions of committing the coup d'etat, particularly the commitment of the terrorist act in the governmental quarter and the Ukrainian Parliament.

Besides, on December 13, Kyiv Court postponed the consideration of Savchenkos case due to her bad state of health. Savchenko stated that she had partial loss of hearing and vision.

Yuriy Lutsenko, Prosecutor General, claimed that he had proof that Savchenko planned an armed coup d'etat, which would have brought to mass civilian casualties. In particular, according to the information of Prosecutor General's office, she planned to shell Kyiv with a grenade launcher. Furthermore, together with early detained Volodymyr Ruban, she is suspected of an organization of assassination of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Yuriy Boyko, the founder of the union and a candidate for presidential elections in Ukraine in 2019 was present at the event

Viktor Medvedchuk, the Chairman of the political party, and Vadym Rabinovich, the President of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and the leader of the party Open source

On Tuesday, January 29, an emergency All-Ukraine Convention of the Opposition Platform  For Life was held. 112 Ukraine broadcasted the event.

Viktor Medvedchuk, the Chairman of the political party, Vadym Rabinovich, the President of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and the leader of the party, Yuriy Boyko, the founder of the union and a candidate for presidential elections in Ukraine in 2019, Nataliya Korolevska, Ukrainian MP and former Minister of Social Policy, were delivering speeches at the Congress.

Boyko is a Ukrainian politician, former Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, and a former Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine. He is well-known for his firm pro-Russian position, claiming that one of the key points of this electoral program would be 'direct negotiations with Russia', which he believes would help bring an end to the ongoing Donbas conflict.

On 17 November 2018, Opposition Platform - For Life party nominated Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Because it was not yet registered as a party in January 2019 it could not nominate him as a presidential candidate. Hence on 17 January, 2019 Boyko submitted documents to the CEC for registration as a self-nominated candidate.

The presidential campaign in Ukraine kicked off on December 31. The election day is slated for March 31.
He served in Ukraine since October 2016; his successor in this office would be Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki

Polish Ambassador Jan Pieklo's diplomatic cadence is expired. Ukraine's deputy foreign minister Vasyl Bondar reported that on Facebook.

'Today, I officially said goodbye to Jan Pieklo who is done with his cadence as the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Poland in Ukraine. We spent the past two years in tight contact and fruitful cooperation, solving complicated issues. We had our tough moments, and something could not be done in spite of good will and joint efforts', the Ukrainian diplomat wrote.

He added that Pieklo was and remains 'a good friend of our country, a decent representative of the Polish people, a genuine analyst and comprehensively creative person'.

Pieklo served as the Polish ambassador to Ukraine since October 2016. Prior to that, he headed the Fund of Ukraine-Poland cooperation PAUCI. He will go back to Poland tomorrow.

Polish leader Andrzej Duda already assigned Pieklo's successor, Bartosz Cichocki.

Cichocki was born in 1976. He graduated from the University of Warsaws Institute of History. He is a long-time specialist in Eastern issues. He worked at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, as a coordinator for the Russia and Eurasia programme; and at the National Security Bureau, as a specialist for Russian foreign and security policy, and later as Head of the International Affairs Section. Between 2015 and 2016, Bartosz Cichocki worked at the Polish Embassy in Moscow where he was charged with bilateral and press relations. Most recently, he was an adviser to the Head of the Foreign Intelligence Agency.
SANTIAGO, Chile, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ITAU CORPBANCA (NYSE: ITCB; SSE: ITAUCORP) announced that it filed today with the Chilean Financial Market Commission a Material Event Notice reporting that Itau Corpbanca scheduled the annual ordinary shareholders meeting for March 19, 2019. The Material Event Notice is also available on the companys corporate website at itau.cl/investor-relations.

About Itau Corpbanca

ITAU CORPBANCA (NYSE: ITCB; SSE: ITAUCORP) is the entity resulting from the merger of Banco Itau Chile with and into Corpbanca on April 1, 2016. The current ownership structure is: 38.14% owned by Itau Unibanco, 28.57% owned by the Saieh Family and 33.29% owned by minority shareholders. Itau Unibanco is the sole controlling shareholder of the merged bank. Within this context and without limiting the above, Itau Unibanco and CorpGroup have signed a shareholders agreement relating to corporate governance, dividend policy (based on performance and capital metrics), transfer of shares, liquidity and other matters.

The bank is the fifth largest private bank in Chile and, as per its mandate, is the banking platform for future expansion in Latin America, specifically in Chile, Colombia and Peru. Itau Corpbanca is a commercial bank based in Chile with operations also in Colombia and Panama. In addition, Itau Corpbanca has a branch in New York and representative offices in Madrid and in Lima. Focused on large and medium companies and individuals, Itau Corpbanca offers universal banking products. In 2012, the bank initiated a regionalization process and as of the date hereof has acquired two banks in Colombia -Banco Corpbanca Colombia and Helm Bank-, becoming the first Chilean bank having banking subsidiaries abroad. The merger with Banco Itau Chile and the business combination of our two banks in Colombia, represent the continued success of our regionalization process.

As of November 30, 2018, according to the Chilean Superintendency of Banks, Itau Corpbanca was the fifth largest private bank in Chile in terms of the overall size of its customer loan portfolio, equivalent to 10.3% market share.

As of the same date, according to the Colombian Superintendency of Finance, Itau Corpbanca Colombia was the seventh largest bank in Colombia in terms of total loans, and the eighth largest bank in Colombia in terms of total deposits, as reported under local regulatory and accounting principles. As of October 31, 2018, its market share by loans reached 4.7%.

Investor Relations  Itau Corpbanca

+56 (2) 2660-1701 / IR@corpbanca.cl
The ministers of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Denmark and Czech Republic visited the area of the Joint Forces operation State Border Service

The ministers of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Denmark, and the Czech Republic visited the area of the Joint Forces operation. This visit will help the foreign diplomats to see the looming danger from Russia. The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reports this.

January 29, the minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine  Pavlo Klimkin, Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek and his colleague from the Kingdom of Denmark Anders Samuelsen officially visited the Mariupol front-line in the Donetsk region. There they visited the water area in the Mariupol Sea Port and the sea guard ship Donbas. This ship guards the state border of Ukraine in Azov Sea.

The ministers of foreign affairs of Ukraine, Denmark and Czech Republic visited the area of the Joint Forces operation State Border Service

The head of the Regional Directorate of the Sea Guard rear-admiral Oleg Kostur assured that the Azov Sea should be free for the navy, thats why the Ukrainian sailors react so sharply on the provocations of Russia.

The foreign diplomats have understood the whole situation happening in the area of Joint Forces operation within the existing humanitarian corridors. They visited the central checkpoint Hnutove to get the whole picture of the situation. The First Deputy of the Head of the Regional Directorate in Donetsk-Luhansk of the State Board Guard of Ukraine Oleg Tsevelov pointed out that the reconstruction of checkpoints allows to improve the quality of the control service, to encourage creating of new additional working places for the citizens and to increase the checkpoint opportunities.
The fighters serve within the UN peacekeepers' contingent in this country; none of them suffered over three months of combat missions

Reuters

Pilots of Ukrainian gunships, the members of UN peacekeeping mission conducted a successful operation, codename Operation Scorpion, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Defence Ministry said that over the past three months, the crews of Mi-24 Hind gunships completed almost 1,500 combat missions. They fought the local mercenaries who attacked the local military, UN peacekeepers and members of humanitarian organizations that combat the ongoing spell of Ebola virus.

The illegal armed units also attacked local residents.

None of the Ukrainian peacekeepers were hurt in these attacks.

Earlier, Ukrainian military helicopters evacuated the peacekeeper of the Republic of Malawi, who survived by himself in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 16 days. This was reported by the press service of the Defense Ministry."During the clashes, a peacekeeper from the contingent of the Republic of Malawi lost contact with his unit and ended up alone in the jungle. Search and rescue operations did not give any results for 16 days due to extremely dense vegetation and difficult weather conditions. Fortunately, this soldier did not panic and managed to reach an open area, where he was found and promptly evacuated by the crew of a Ukrainian military helicopter," the message said.
A man and a woman were shot in Mykolaiv near KosmosPlaza mall building as Novosti N reported.

According to it, an unknown shot people with hunting carbine Saiha near the entrance to the building. He left the weapon at the site.

As a result of the shooting, a woman died at the site and man was taken by ambulance. There is information that he died on way to the hospital.

Five patrol police cars, investigative group, and experts arrived at the site. It is guarded, the circumstances and identities of killed to be established.

According to the current information, a shooter was detained at the site.

A woman died at the site and a man in the ambulance car. Due to rapid actions of law enforcers, a perpetrator was detained. The investigative actions take place, the message said.

As we reported earlier, an explosion occurred in the mall on Borshchahivska Street in Kyiv at about 12 p.m. on January 12, one man injured.

Earlier, a truck in Kyiv shot down an elderly woman who died on the spot on January 30. According to the witnesses of the incident, a woman was hit by a lorry. Perhaps, she slipped. Unfortunately, the victim had lost her leg and died on the spot. "The diseased was about 70 years. The accident occurred a few meters from the pedestrian crossing; perhaps a woman was walking around a snowdrift site along the road," as Informator news outlet reported.
Open source

The measles epidemic will not be declared in Ukraine. Acting Minister of Healthcare of Ukraine Ulana Suprun said this, as reported by UNIAN.

We will not declare measles outbreak, as these would be just words, they do not matter. Actually, much more important is to spread the vaccination opportunities and the availability of the vaccine, Suprun reported.

The acting healthcare minister also said that only vaccine can overcome measles. She implores all the Ukrainians to get vaccinated in order to lower the number of people suffering from measles and to avoid the lethal cases.

According to the Public Health Center, 3,450 people, including 1,502 adults, and 1,948 children got sick with measles during the third week of 2019. In 2018, measles took 16 lives.

Earlier, the outbreak of measles was spotted among the personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine, assigned to Vinnytsia military unit.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigory Borisovich Karasin vesti.ru

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigory Borisovich Karasin said that under no circumstance arranging of the international monitoring mission in the Kerch Strait is possible, - as TASS reports.

Under no circumstances is it possible. We, as a kind gesture, offered such a one-time trip for experts, so they could report about this to their authorities. But, unfortunately, they decided that it was a bigger offer. We do not like that, said Karasin.

He also added that the Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to arrange a one-time visit for experts.

However, we absolutely disagree with the fact that it is regarded as the multilateral monitoring form, and yet including Ukraine, in other words, it is like thinking about a full-scale long term mission, the Deputy Minister noted.
The presidential candidate from 'Opposition Platform-For Life', one of the key figures of the pro-Russian political force presented the key points of his electoral program

Yuriy Boyko, the presidential candidate from pro-Kremlin political force 'Opposition Platform-For Life', held a speech at this party's convention in Kyiv. He voiced out some of the major provisions of his program, as he's running for the presidency in March 2019.

'I sincerely thank you for the given trust. I'll apply all efforts to justify it, and I will see to it that you'd not be ashamed for our today's decision so that we would win'.

'The convention of the ruling party took place simultaneously with ours. It seems symbolic to me. But that's all we have in common because we stand for peace while they've been promoting war for five years in a row. We stand for the unification of the entire country, and they divide our society by religion, language and war. We support reducing social tariffs, while they plan to increase the prices this spring. We are the only alternative to this destruction. We are the creators, and I congratulate you on that', he said.

Boyko stressed that his priorities would be 'to stop the bloody opposition in eastern Ukraine', 'to stop the poverty'. 'We will immediately go for direct negotiations [with Russia] for reaching peace in the state; that's the first thing we do after the victory', the politician claimed.

He also added that another important provision would be canceling of the medical reform. 'The government will provide the citizens of Ukraine with the accessible and high-quality medical service, according to the Constitution', he said.

Boyko also insisted on the revision of the pension reform. 'The law enforcers will be protecting people instead of protecting the authority from its own citizens', he added, speaking of the order and security issues.

'We'll implement a clear and solid action plan. We're sure about our forces and assets (...) The future of our country and the fate of Ukrainians depend on all of us. We've got clear goals and tasks, and, most importantly, the support of millions of our citizens who trust in us. The future is ours. We will prevail!', he said.

Earlier, Boyko was officially registered as the candidate for the presidency during the upcoming election.

He is a Ukrainian politician, former Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, and a former Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine (in three Cabinets; in 2006-2007, 2010, and 2012-2014). He is well-known for his firm pro-Russian position, claiming that one of the key points of this electoral program would be 'direct negotiations with Russia', which he believes would help bring an end to the ongoing Donbas conflict.

On 17 November 2018, 'Opposition platform - For Life' party nominated Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Because it was not yet registered as a party in January 2019 it could not nominate him as a presidential candidate. Hence on January 17, Boyko submitted documents to the CEC for registration as a self-nominated candidate.

The voting day is scheduled for March 2019.

Previously, Boyko belonged to the Party of Regions, the pro-Kremlin political force, which is currently disbanded. When the party lost the authority in early 2014, the politician joined the newborn 'Opposition Bloc', along with many of his allies from the Party of Regions.

In late 2013, the-then Ukrainian president and the government decided to delay the signing of EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. That resulted in the birth of Euromaidan, the all-Ukraine movement for the integration with the EU and NATO. The brutal actions of the law enforcers that crashed down a peaceful rally eventually led to human casualties. Eventually, the Revolution of Dignity prevailed in February 2014, toppling the government. President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country. The former Cabinet and the leading political figures, including Boyko, stayed low-profile for a while. However, Boiko and other members of that party made it to the next roster of the Ukrainian Parliament, which created legal grounds for them to vote for the laws and to join the presidential election campaign.
According to Vadym Rabinovych, they need only one year to build Switzerland of Eastern Europe

Vadym Rabinovych offers Golden Key to peace 112 Agency

Vadym Rabinovich, representative of the 'Opposition platform - For Life' party and Ukrainian MP, spoke about the plan of Ukraines economic rise at the All-Ukrainian Congress of the party. He also offered a Golden Key to peace and a crisis bailout plan.

I want the only thing to be remembered throughout the current presidential and parliamentary campaign  the Golden Key to victory, the Golden Key to peace, the Golden Key to the economic prosperity is in the 'Opposition platform - For Life' party. This is a symbol of our victory, with this key we will open the door that leads our country to prosperity, and then together we will sing and rejoice not in a destroyed country, but in Switzerland of Eastern Europe. We are for Ukraine, the real one, the strong one, and we will win! Rabinovich said.

According to Vadym Rabinovich, they need only one year to build Switzerland of Eastern Europe.

We have another offer  to build a neutral, strong and independent Ukraine, a Switzerland of Eastern Europe. We need only one year to get back to the normal situation, and the next years will be the years of rise, he said.

As we reported earlier, 'Opposition platform - For Life' party nominated Yury Boyko as its candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Because it was not yet registered as a party in January 2019 it could not nominate him as a presidential candidate. Hence on 17 January, 2019 Boyko submitted documents to the CEC for registration as a self-nominated candidate.

The presidential campaign in Ukraine kicked off on December 31. The election day is slated for March 31.
It marked the country's progress in several essential areas, including the rule of law, defense and security and some others

The G7 Ambassadors Support Group recognized the reform progress that has been made in Ukraine since 2015 and will continue its efforts to make further progress. It has identified the key reforms it will support in 2019 during the French Presidency of the G7. This is mentioned in the tweet posted by the Support Group.

The G7 Ambassadors Support Group recognises the reform progress that has been made in Ukraine since 2015, and will continue its efforts to make further progress. It has identified the key reforms it will support in 2019 during the French Presidency of the G7. pic.twitter.com/vhowzKVkW4  G7AmbReformUA @G7AmbReformUA January 29, 2019

G7 has expressed its political support for Ukraine for a while. In November, when Russian special service fighters captured Ukrainian sailors in the Kerch Strait, the group urged Russia to release them. G7 also supports the anti-Russian sanctions course imposed on this country for the annexation of Crimea and the military aggression in Donbas.

Earlier, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde noted the leadership of the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in conducting reforms in Ukraine and expressed her confidence in successful implementation of the whole program of cooperation during 2019.
The new document has been developed by the Foreign Ministry; it will facilitate Ukraine's rapprochement with the Alliance

Open source

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has upheld the draft decree of President of Ukraine 'On the approval of the Annual National Program under the aegis of Ukraine-NATO commission in 2019'. The respective decision was made at the Cabinet session. The press office of the authority reported that on Wednesday.

The Vice Prime Minister for Ukraine's European and Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze called the document 'strategic and systematic'.

'Over the past few years, we worked on its structure and content, and we finally made it to a completely new format, based on a logical chain, where we stated our strategic goals and specific tasks for this particular year to reach these goals', she said.

She added that the document would give Ukraine an opportunity to move on the path of integration with the NATO and complete the tasks necessary to provide the effective and adjusted work for preparation of Ukraine's membership in the Alliance.

The official reiterated that the NATO leadership positively assessed the new vision of the Ukrainian government when it shaped the yearly annual program, and highly evaluated the innovative approach to the development of the document.
A Ukrainian soldier committed suicide at the team site in Donetsk region as UNN reported citing its own sources in Donetsk region police.

A soldier under contract shot himself not far from Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk district. He was born in 1988. He shot himself in the head with an AK-47 assault rifle.

The incident took place when he was on duty. The reasons for such actions of the soldiers are unknown.

The police have opened the criminal proceeding due to the intentional homicide with mark suicide. The reasons and circumstances of the incidents will be established later.

Earlier we reported that Ukrainian serviceman of Mykolaiv 79th air assault brigade went missing in Donbas near Pavlopil. He was carrying out a combat mission.

Besides, the soldier from the 58th Detached Mechanized Infantry Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces land forces Stanislav Panchenko was taken prisoner by the militants, who published a video with him. The representatives of the Armed Forces paid attention to the fact that the video with confession was published after Panchenko went missing. This is enough to make the soldier say whatever they want.
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ARHT Media Inc. (ARHT or the Company) (TSXV:ART), a global leader in holographic telepresence, today announced that the Company signed agreements for almost C$900,000 between November 1, 2018 and January 30, 2019, with over C$500,000 being signed in the month of January 2019. Combined with the recent recapitalization of the business through a C$2.4 million private placement financing and the additions of Tim Casgrain and David Wetherald to our board of directors, ARHT is extremely well positioned for positive performance in 2019.



Our sales momentum continues to grow as we see adoption of our new business models in all parts of the world, commented ARHT CEO Larry OReilly, and I was particularly pleased with signing over C$500,000 in new contracts in January, with an ever growing sales funnel positioning us extremely well for the coming year. Add to that our recent C$2.4mil private placement financing and the addition of two extremely accomplished board members in Tim Casgrain and David Wetherald, we hit the ground running in 2019.

Sales and Event Highlights November 2018  January 2019 Include:

Women in Tech Summit at Imperial College London featuring a keynote address by Googles Dr. Marily Nika beamed in live from Los Angeles and tech panelists beamed in live from New York;

Signing of a Marketing Joint Venture with the Ontario Science Centre to promote our products and services to the museum and science centre community globally;

Beaming UBS Asia CIO, Min Lan Tan, from Singapore to New York for UBSs Year Ahead Launch media event with approximately 100 members of the media in attendance;

Signing of our first long term installation at an international airport that will be commissioned in the first half of 2019;

Beaming Aquaman star Jason Momoa live from Rockefeller Center in New York into the IMAX auditorium at Cinepolis Cinemas Universidad multiplex in Mexico City and CCXP in Sao Paulo, Brazil;

Beaming Dr. Simon Leung from Hong Kong into Toronto to deliver the 2018 Triggs Lecture with live Q & A at the Ivey Business School, Western University;

First live event between two third party owned permanent ARHT capture and display studios  between Shenzhen, China and Toronto, Ontario with SCI Innovation Centers in each market; and

The Company continues to see growing interest, and have recent signed agreements, with top organizations in the finance, banking, pharmaceuticals, museum and educational sectors and ARHT is also now signing deals in new territories including Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil and a number of territories in the Middle East.

About ARHT Media

ARHTs patented Augmented Reality Holographic Telepresence technology is the worlds first complete end-to-end solution for the creation, transmission, and delivery of lifelike digital human holograms that create the sensation of presence. The Company's technology is protected by U.S. Patent No. 9,581,962.

Connect with ARHT Media

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ARHTmedia

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ARHTmediainc

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/arht-media-inc-

For more information, please visit http://www.arhtmedia.com/ or contact the investor relations group at info@arhtmedia.com.

ARHT Media trades under the symbol ART on the TSX Venture Stock Exchange.

ARHT Media Press Contact

Salman Amin

samin@arhtmedia.com

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, the events, sales and revenues generated by the Company; the Companys technology; the potential uses for the Companys technology; the future planned events using the Companys technology; the future success of the Company; the ability of the Company to monetize the HumaGram technology; the development of the Companys technology; participation by the Company in various events; and interest from parties in ARHTs products. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic and competitive uncertainties; regulatory risks; risks inherent in technology operations; and other risks of the technology industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
Denmark and the Czech Republic strongly condemn the Russian actions and call on Russia to immediately release the 24 illegally detained crewmembers of the Ukrainian vessels seized in November 2018

Klimkin, Samuelsen, Petricek visit Ukraine's Mariupol on January 29 https://twitter.com/KaterynaZelenko

The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Anders Samuelsen, and the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tomas Petricek, jointly visited Eastern Ukraine and the port city of Mariupol together with their Ukrainian colleague Mr. Pavlo Klimkin on January, 29. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark reported that.

The visit to the frontline city of Mariupol was a signal of the two countries strong support for Ukraine.

This visit serves to confirm our continued strong support for Ukraine. I am pleased to be here together with my Czech colleague. We are united in our strong and unwavering support for Ukraines independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have not forgotten the incident on November 25, where 24 Ukrainian crewmembers were illegally detained by Russia. If Russia will not release the Ukrainian crewmembers, I believe the EU should be ready to look at further targeted sanctions against Russia. That will be discussed when we meet with our EU colleagues on 18 February, where we will also discuss what more we could do to support this region of Ukraine, Anders Samuelsen, The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs said.

https://twitter.com/KaterynaZelenko Klimkin, Samuelsen, Petricek visit Ukraine's Mariupol on January 29 https://twitter.com/KaterynaZelenko Klimkin, Samuelsen, Petricek visit Ukraine's Mariupol on January 29 https://twitter.com/KaterynaZelenko Klimkin, Samuelsen, Petricek visit Ukraine's Mariupol on January 29

[article_attached position="1]

Denmark and the Czech Republic strongly condemn the Russian actions and call on Russia to immediately release the 24 illegally detained crewmembers of the Ukrainian vessels seized on November 25, 2018. If the crewmembers are not released, the EU should stand ready to look at new, targeted measures against Russia. Russia must ensure unhindered and free passage through the Kerch Strait to and from the Azov Sea and must halt its harassment of ships on their way to Ukrainian ports.

Earlier Anders Samuelsen assumed imposition of anti-Russian sanctions due to the detention of the Ukrainian sailors. He also urged the EU to impose sanctions against Russia for confrontation in the Azov Sea and illegal detention of the Ukrainian sailors, as his statement published on the website of the establishment says.

I think that the EU has to react to Russias aggressive behavior. If Russia does not want to release the sailors, I will take the lead on impositions of new sanctions of the EU, he stated.
This years Ukrainian voting paper would be very long; more and more candidates are registered by the Central Electoral Commission

This years Ukrainian voting paper would be very long; more and more candidates are registered by the Central Election Commission (CEC). What can we say for sure is that there would not be none of the above option. If you have not chosen anyone from the long list of candidates, what should you do?

None of the above option was excluded from the ballots on November 18, 2011: Ukraines Verkhovna Rada adopted these amendments due to the uselessness of this protest column.

In the 2004 elections, this option was even more popular than the candidate who ranked fifth; Natalia Vitrenko gained 1.53% of the vote, while 1.98% of the voters voted "against all."

By choosing the none of the above option, the voter actually declines his responsibility for the decision taken by the others. That is, it would be impossible to use his ballot for some fraud, at the same time, this did not carry any semantic meaning.

No matter how many people vote against  this does not change anything. Those "against all" votes have no legal consequences. In this case, the president is elected by a majority of the minority. According to electoral legislation of almost all European countries, the against all option is not included in the voting paper (except Greece, Spain, and France).

Despite the fact that this years election list would be quite long, some people do not like any of the nominated candidates. In this case, there are at least three options here. Of course, you can simply skip the elections, the non-participation is not punished. However, this is a wrong approach. Your vote might disappear and actually worsen the position of a more worthy candidate. Or it might be used for fraud. No matter how hard the CEC tries, the fraud would take place.

If you do not like any of the candidates from the ballot, you can put a tick in several boxes. Your ballot will be declared invalid, so nobody can use it for counting out.

Even if you cannot find your ideal candidate, just chose lesser of two evils. After all, there would be a candidate whom you definitely do not want to see as president. So vote at least for his direct opponent.

Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for March 31, 2019. But the election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates would last until February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates will appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw his candidacy until March 7, 2019.

Meet registered candidates running for president in Ukraine

Read the original text at 112.ua.
The intention to run for a second presidential term, application for EU membership in 2024 and cold peace with Russia. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko made a number of loud statements at the large forum From Kruty to Brussels. We are going our way, which was held at the Kyiv International Exhibition Center.



What else was the head of state talking about? We publish the main theses of the speech.

The worst times of Ukrainian economy left behind



The first thing Poroshenko noted is that Ukraines economy after several years of recession has been growing for 12 consecutive quarters:

The crisis caused by the war, economic aggression and trade blockade from the side of Russia is retreating. And although the statistics do not coincide with the moods and feelings of people, it convincingly shows that the worst part is over.



At the same time, the president noted that effective social policy in Ukraine can be based only on a free market economy.



And the sectors that the country should develop in the future are agriculture, IT, engineering, tourism and logistics.

People remain top priority



Poroshenko once again stressed that the people remain the main priority for him:



Money follows people - this is a principle not only of decentralization, but also of education reform, changes in the health care system, and other reforms. People are the main thing. It is this vision that I propose to the current government, which, according to the Constitution, is responsible for socio-economic policy. "



EU and NATO need Ukraine



The head of state is convinced that today Ukraine has more than ever approached accession to the EU and NATO, and this accession is necessary not only for our country:



More and more politicians in the West understand that without Ukraines membership in the EU, without Ukraines membership in NATO, Europe will definitely be in danger. Not only Ukraine needs this membership - the EU and NATO definitely need Ukraine to be a full-fledged member of these structures.



At the same time, Poroshenko added that at the moment not a single state that is not part of NATO has such close relations with the Alliance as our country.

Cold peace with Russia



Despite the abovementioned, and the policy of the state, which for several years has been based on the Away from Moscow principle, the president acknowledged that Ukraine needs a compromise with the Russian Federation:



"We need peace with Russia, although it will be cold peace. People are tired of war. Russian propaganda and its liars inside the country use this painful emotion."

Poroshenko runs for presidency, January 2019 Screenshot

Application for EU membership in 2024



Poroshenko promised that in 2024 Ukraine will apply for membership in the European Union:



"Many of us did not believe that the Association Agreement would be signed and ratified. Many did not believe that we would win a greater diplomatic battle with Russia to ratify it ... The agreement is valid. And the EUs share in our exports exceeded 42%. In 2024, we will apply for joining the European Union, and I have no doubt that we will receive and will begin to implement the action plan on NATO membership."

Anti-corruption court



The head of state also assured that the Anti-Corruption Court, which creation had been arguing for so long and demanded by the West, would begin its work soon:



"The competition for the formation of the High Anti-Corruption Court will be finished soon. The Public Council of international experts together with the High Qualifications Commission of Judges excluded 42 participants out of 113 finalists. The new court will start its work this year.

Second presidential term



As everyone expected, Poroshenko announced that he would run for the second presidential term:



"Feelings of deep responsibility towards the country, towards contemporaries, towards past and modern generations led me to decide to be a candidate for the post of President of Ukraine again."



At the same time, he explained to the voters why he is worth their support:



I ask the voters for a mandate to guarantee the irreversibility of European and Euro-Atlantic integration; to guarantee the irreversibility of our independence; to restore Ukraines territorial integrity; to bring peace that is beneficial for Ukraine; to complete the construction of a strong, prosperous state, able to ensure the order, welfare and security of every Ukrainian. "



Populists pose a threat



Also, the head of state did not forget about his competitors in the upcoming elections, noting that some of them pose threats to the country:



"Populists are the grave danger to the country. If they are not stopped and allowed to come to power, all the misfortunes that people have experienced in recent years as a result of the war and economic aggression from Russia will be in vain."



President did not name his opponents, but hinted:



I follow the various offers very attentively and sometimes they say such things ... Supposedly we are playing with toy soldiers, and we are not defending the country in the war with the second most powerful army in the world. They offer to write Putins wishes in a notebook and then taking this notebook for the referendum, they propose to stand before Putin on the knees ... ".



********

Open source

About 4 000 people gathered to listen to Poroshenko at the Kyiv International Exhibition Center.



MPs from the Petro Poroshenkos Bloc, the leadership of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, members of the Cabinet of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy, his first deputy Iryna Gerashchenko, the third President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko and the family of Petro Poroshenko were there.



In addition, the forum was attended by some non-fractional deputies, in particular, Dmytro Yarosh and Boryslav Bereza.
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Plateau Energy Metals Inc. (Plateau or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:PLU) (OTCQB:PLUUF) is pleased to announce, as part of the Companys ongoing drilling program to expand the mineral resource at its high-grade hard rock Falchani lithium project, the latest drill results from four holes at Falchani West, and three new drill holes results from Falchani East.



Falchani West Highlights

Refer to Figure 1 - Falchani Lithium Project Drill Plan Location Map

200 m of 2,519 ppm Li (0.54% Li 2 O equivalent(eq)) from 117 to 317 m downhole in thin upper breccia, lithium-rich tuff and lower breccia; includes a thick 156 m lower breccia intersection averaging 2,624 ppm Li (0.57% Li 2 Oeq) from 161 to 317 m, with Li contents up to 4,862 ppm (1.05% Li 2 Oeq) (PLAT33-V)

from 117 to 317 m downhole in thin upper breccia, lithium-rich tuff and lower breccia; includes a thick 156 m lower breccia intersection averaging 2,624 ppm Li (0.57% Li Oeq) from 161 to 317 m, with Li contents up to 4,862 ppm (1.05% Li Oeq) (PLAT33-V) 17 m of 3,728 ppm Li (0.80% Li 2 Oeq) from 28 to 45 m downhole in Li-rich tuff within a broader 56 m interval of 2,420 ppm Li (0.52% Li 2 Oeq) that includes upper breccia unit, Li-rich tuffs and lower breccia unit from 18 to 73.5 m (End of hole - EOH) (PLAT36-V); hole terminated in mineralization due to ground conditions

from 28 to 45 m downhole in Li-rich tuff within a broader that includes upper breccia unit, Li-rich tuffs and lower breccia unit from 18 to 73.5 m (End of hole - EOH) (PLAT36-V); hole terminated in mineralization due to ground conditions 14 m of 2,685 ppm Li (0.58% Li 2 Oeq) from 24 to 38 m downhole in Li-rich tuff within a broader 53 m interval of 2,521 ppm Li (0.54% Li 2 Oeq) that includes upper breccia unit, Li-rich tuffs and lower breccia unit from 15 to 68 m (PLAT32-V)

from 24 to 38 m downhole in Li-rich tuff within a broader that includes upper breccia unit, Li-rich tuffs and lower breccia unit from 15 to 68 m (PLAT32-V) Falchani West has highly anomalous lithium values covering a mapped and sampled footprint of >1.5 km E-W by approximately 1.7km N-S towards Tres Hermanas ridges with outcrop trenching and sampling results pending

Drilling continued to the end of December 2018 with 4 additional drill hole results pending

Three rigs will restart in 2019 and will continue to expand drill coverage at Falchani West to the west and north to be incorporate in the resource update targeted for late Q1 2019

Preliminary leach results from the upper and lower breccia units suggests that the breccia mineralization behaves similar to the better studied, Li-rich tuff unit; similar extraction, leach and processing routes are expected

Falchani East Highlights

Platform 1 drilling has now established true thickness of lithium mineralization at the discovery hole

112 m of 3,816 ppm Li (0.82% Li 2 Oeq) from 76 to 188 m downhole (91.7 m true thickness) in lithium-rich tuff unit within a broader interval of 153 m of 3,182 ppm Li (0.69% Li 2 Oeq) from 59 to 212 m downhole (125.3 m true thickness) in thin upper breccia, lithium-rich tuff and lower breccia (PLAT1-SSW)

These results continue to demonstrate similar grades and widths in the lithium rich tuff unit at the interpreted southern fringe of the collapsed caldera, and we are seeing a significantly thicker lower breccia unit as compared to Falchani East commented Alex Holmes, CEO of Plateau. Our exploration team will focus on a few more holes at Falchani West targeted to put together a maiden resource as part of the Q1 2019 resource update.

Falchani Interpretation

The geological interpretation at Falchani West continues to evolve. Falchani West appears to represent a similar, but potentially larger side of a 6 km by 5 km collapsed caldera with faulting due to the presence of a sub-volcanic felsic intrusion creating an interpreted resurgent dome centred along the N-S faulted valley separating Falchani West area from the Falchani East resource.

In the southern drilled extents of both Falchani East and West, lithium mineralization thins to the south due to the presence of this lithium-bearing, sub-volcanic felsic intrusion representing the southern edge of the caldera. The intrusion affects the formation, orientation and preservation of the overlying tuff and breccia units.

In the northern drill platforms (example PLAT-14), the lithium-rich tuff unit and to a greater extent, the mineralized lower breccia unit become extremely thick to the north and west from the interpreted resurgent dome intrusion. The lower breccia contains large intersections of Li-rich tuff interpreted as large blocks within the host breccia. The highest-grade lithium mineralization encountered to date is located proximal to the base of the thick lower breccia, immediately above a volcano-sedimentary explosive diatreme unit that marks the commencement of volcanic activity at Falchani. The diatreme unit overlies the lithium-bearing sub-volcanic intrusion, interpreted to be a source of heat and lithium-bearing fluids that locally enhanced the lithium contents of the volcano-sedimentary rocks within the collapsed caldera lake.

Based on the available data, the Companys technical team believes the collapsed caldera setting may have trapped the lithium-rich mineralization millions of years ago, during the latest extrusive episode of one of the youngest member of the Macusani rhyolites.

The Companys technical team is working together with its technical advisors to understand more fully this unique volcanic lithium deposit model setting, and research is being considered to unravel the geology and evolution of Falchani.

The original radioactive prospecting discovery at Falchani East has been tested by drilling over only ~25-35% of the original ~2km2 surface area. The surface uranium mineralization remains a future target for additional drilling to the north and east of the Falchani East lithium resource area.

Drill Results  Details

Refer to Figure 2  E-W Cross Section looking north through Falchani East and West

Platform 32 V  Falchani West Vertical drill hole

PLAT32-V Vertical Hole  70.5 m total length

 14 m of Lithium-rich tuff unit intersected 2,685 ppm Li from 24 to 38 m

 53 m of 2,521 ppm Li in broader interval from 15 to 68 m, that includes thin intersections of Li-rich breccias located above and below the tuff unit

 Sub-volcanic felsic intrusive was intersected from 68 to 70.5 m (EOH)

 The top 15 m comprised unconsolidated colluvium gravel overburden

Platform 32 W  Falchani West inclined hole drilled to 270  Azimuth at -55  inclination

PLAT32-W  114.0 m total length

 21 m of Lithium mineralization intersected 2,937 ppm Li from 21 to 42 m downhole (17.2 m true thickness) in 6 m of upper breccia; 7 m of Li-rich tuff and 8 m of lower breccia unit

 Sub-volcanic felsic intrusive was intersected from 42 to 114.0 m (EOH)

 The top 21 m comprised unconsolidated colluvium gravel overburden

Platform 33 V  Falchani West Vertical drill hole

PLAT33-V Vertical Hole  342.0 m total length

 39 m of Li-rich tuff averaging 2,247 ppm Li from 120 to 161 m

 200 m of Lithium mineralization intersected 2,519 ppm Li from 117 to 317 m in 3 m of upper breccia; 39 m of Li-rich tuff and 158 m of lower breccia unit

 Sub-volcanic felsic intrusive was intersected from 317 to 342 m (EOH)

 The top 4 m comprised unconsolidated colluvium gravel overburden

Platform 36 V  Falchani West Vertical drill hole

PLAT36-V Vertical Hole  73.5 m total length

 17 m of Li-rich tuff intersected 3,728 ppm Li from 28 to 45 m downhole

 55.5 m of Lithium mineralization intersected 2,420 ppm Li from 18 to 73.5 m (EOH) in 10 m of upper breccia; 17 m of Li-rich tuff and 28.5 m of lower breccia unit; hole terminated in lower breccia mineralization due to technical issues

 The top 18 m comprised barren rhyolite

Platform 1 SSW  Falchani East inclined hole drilled to 215  Azimuth at -55  inclination

PLAT1-SSW  261.0 m total length

 High-grade lithium-rich mineralization in upper breccia, tuff and lower breccia intersected 153 m of 3,182 ppm Li (0.69% Li 2 Oeq) from 59 to 212 m downhole (125.3 m true thickness)

 Includes lithium tuff-only interval of 112 m of 3,816 ppm Li (0.82% Li 2 Oeq) from 73-188 m downhole (91.7 m true thickness)

 The drill hole ended in sub-volcanic felsic intrusion from 212-261 m (EOH)

 Surface uranium mineralization confirmed with an intersection of 20 m of 1,538 ppm (0.15%) U 3 O 8 from 0 to 20 m downhole (16.4 m true thickness) within a broader 33 m intersection of 971 ppm U 3 O 8 from surface (27 m true thickness)

 Barren rhyolite was intersected from 33 to 59 m downhole

Platform 1 V  Falchani East Re-drilled Vertical drill hole

PLAT1-V re-drilled discovery hole  177.5 m total length

 High-grade lithium-rich mineralization in upper breccia, tuff and lower breccia intersected 97 m of 2,926 ppm Li (0.63% Li 2 Oeq) from 71 to 168 m downhole



 Includes lithium tuff-only interval of 81 m of 3,332 ppm Li (0.72% Li 2 Oeq) from 87-168 m downhole

 The hole terminated at 177.5 m in lower breccia mineralization due to technical issues

 Surface uranium mineralization confirmed with an intersection of 11 m of 1,069 ppm (0.11%) U 3 O 8 from 0 to 11 m downhole within a broader 35 m intersection of 586 ppm U 3 O 8 from surface to 35 m; which is also within an even broader 53 m interval of 404 ppm U 3 O 8 from surface to 53 m

 Barren rhyolite was intersected from 53 to 71 m downhole

Platform 41 V  Falchani East Vertical drill hole

PLAT41-V  78.5 m total length  targeting surface uranium mineralization

 Weak uranium mineralization intersected 4 m of 313 ppm U 3 O 8 from 22 to 26 m downhole

 Only minor, isolated 1 m interval samples intersected uranium mineralization above 250 ppm U 3 O 8

 Primarily barren rhyolite was intersected from 0 to 22 m downhole and 26 to 75 m downhole

 The drill hole terminated in upper breccia from 75 to 78.5 m downhole (EOH)

Quality Assurance, Quality Control and Data Verification

Drill core samples are cut longitudinally with a diamond saw with one-half of the core placed in sealed bags and shipped to Certimins sample analytical laboratory in Lima for sample preparation, processing and ICP-MS/OES multi-element analysis. Certimin is an ISO 9000 certified assay laboratory. The Companys Qualified Person for the drill program, Mr. Ted OConnor, has verified the data disclosed, including drill core, sampling and analytical data in the field and lab. The program is designed to include a comprehensive analytical quality assurance and control routine comprising the systematic use of Company inserted standards, blanks and field duplicate samples, internal laboratory standards and has also included check analyses at other accredited laboratories. Downhole thicknesses for vertical drill holes are considered accurate true thickness intersections. True thicknesses for inclined drill holes have been estimated.

Qualified Persons

Mr. Ted OConnor, P.Geo., a Director of Plateau Energy Metals Inc., and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

About Plateau Energy Metals

Plateau Energy Metals Inc ., a Canadian exploration and development company, is enabling the new energy paradigm through exploring and developing its Falchani lithium project and Macusani uranium project in southeastern Peru. The Company, with mineral concessions covering over 93,000 hectares (930 km2), controls all reported uranium resources known in Peru and has significant and growing lithium resources, all of which are situated near infrastructure.

For further information, please contact:

Plateau Energy Metals Inc. Alex Holmes, CEO & Director Facebook: www.facebook.com/pluenergy/ +1-416-628-9600 Twitter: www.twitter.com/pluenergy/ IR@PlateauEnergyMetals.com Website: www.PlateauEnergyMetals.com



Forward Looking Information

This press release includes certain forward-looking statements concerning the Companys plans and expectations related to its properties, including, but not limited to, expected exploration drilling, an updated resource estimate, metallurgical test programs and a maiden PEA at Falchani Lithium; expected optimization work programs, an updated PEA and exploration drilling at Macusani Uranium; and the timing and expected results related to the foregoing. Forward-looking statements are frequently identified by such words as "may", "will", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", indicate, scheduled, target, goal, potential, subject, efforts, option and similar words referring to future events and results. Forward-looking statements are based on the current opinions and expectations of management. Although the Company believes that the opinions and expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements since the Company can provide no assurance that such opinions and expectations will prove to be correct. All forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and subject to a variety of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; the possibility that any future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with our expectations; mining and development risks, including risks related to accidents, equipment breakdowns, labour disputes (including work stoppages and strikes) or other unanticipated difficulties with or interruptions in exploration and development; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities; risks related to commodity price and foreign exchange rate fluctuations; risks related to foreign operations; the cyclical nature of the industry in which we operate; risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms or delays in obtaining governmental approvals; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the certainty of title to our properties; risks related to the uncertain global economic environment; and other risks and uncertainties related to our prospects, properties and business strategy, as described in more detail in Plateau Energy Metals recent securities filings available at www.sedar.com . Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements and Plateau cautions against placing undue reliance thereon. Except as required by applicable securities laws, neither Plateau nor its management assume any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f921f60a-8db6-4bbb-b561-225f68c50771

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e494c918-d822-43a3-b17d-2d470e299e06




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Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 06:39:11|Editor: yan

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MINSK, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- There is no alternative to the Minsk agreements, said Martin Sajdik, the OSCE's special envoy to Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Ukraine.

All participants of the Minsk process should do everything necessary to fully implement the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, the diplomat said on Wednesday following the negotiations in Minsk.

Ensuring security and decent living conditions for the population in the conflict zone is one of the main priorities of the contact group, Sajdik stressed.

The number of civilian casualties was significantly reduced in 2018, he said, adding that this trend continues this year.

Sajdik also said the negotiators discussed the topics about improving the conditions for crossing the contact line, exchanging prisoners, preserving vital civilian infrastructure and many others.

The next meeting of the contact group is scheduled for Feb. 13.

The TCG is a group of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to facilitate a diplomatic solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
San Francisco, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, NEJM Catalyst published new research co-authored by healthcare executives from UCB, ARTIS Ventures and Quid, that analyzed more than 500,000 publicly available comments made by patients living with one of 10 chronic diseases, including Alzheimers, diabetes, Crohns disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, breast cancer, osteoporosis, Parkinsons disease, and epilepsy. The result is the identification of eight commonly occurring unmet needs expressed by patients, with the analysis revealing that six of the top eight relate to long-term emotional concerns such as how to live with the disease, a stark contrast to the commonly held belief that patients just want their symptoms treated.



The study, which used natural language processing to analyze more than half a million posts made between 2010 and 2018, is the largest of its kind and serves to provide critical information to help healthcare stakeholders offer improved understanding of the real needs of patients with severe chronic conditions, starting by treating them as people, rather than a set of symptoms.

Emotions Matter, Lets Address Them

As it relates to this study, the emotional concerns most commonly expressed by patients centered around questions such as how a patient's daily life would change, how they would cope mentally with the physical condition, and how to manage the disease long-term. Surprisingly, these questions took precedence over purely medical concerns.

The takeaway for healthcare providers is that patients are looking for some degree of control over how the illness will affect their lives, rather than the focus on just resolving medical needs. Identifying, understanding, and actively targeting these emotional needs on a granular basis is critical to providing both the care and experience that patients want, and deserve. The first step is to start treating them as people, rather than a set of symptoms.

People, Not Patients - Rethinking the Approach

Physicians, advocacy groups, and other healthcare stakeholders have opportunities, and responsibilities, to address these emotional needs through greater awareness and education. The analysis shows patients want to understand their disease at a deeper level, both theoretically and practically. While the internet has made it easy to collect information, patients lack the medical training to truly understand their condition. Therefore it is not enough to only inform them of steps to manage their illness, such as with a medication schedule, but instead take the time to explain the reasoning and science behind each medical step.

The root of many of these unmet emotional needs stem from uncertainty and confusion, which leads to anxiety and distrust. If healthcare stakeholders heed the very clear results of this study, we can all work together to provide people with severe chronic conditions a better quality of life.

A Word from the Authors

Creating value for patients is only possible if healthcare stakeholders align on how to define, maximize, and measure it, said Dr. Bharat Tewarie, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at UCB. As a start, those stakeholders need to break silos, work together, and align on a definition using the lens of the patients. This landmark research gives us this lens so we now can see that the emotional needs of patients are more top of mind than medical needs.

For investors and the venture community at large, this research illuminates the tremendous untapped opportunities that can truly make an impact on how people with chronic diseases can improve their lives, said Vasudev Bailey, PhD, partner at ARTIS Ventures.

We were inspired to conduct this study when we realized that AI now lets us do something that has never before been possible: listen to half a million voices all together, said Jennings Xu, author at Quid.

Read the complete study published on January 30 in NEJM Catalyst here.

This research was conducted and written by Bharat Tewarie, MD, UCB, Vasudev Bailey, PhD, ARTIS Ventures, Maxwell Rebarber, and Jennings Xu, both from Quid.

About ARTIS Ventures



Founded in 2002, ARTIS Ventures supports and partners with entrepreneurs who are driven to positively impact their world through disruptive technological innovation. ARTIS was the first institutional investor in cancer-curing Stemcentrx, which was acquired for as much as $10.2 billion in 2016, making it the largest venture-backed acquisition in the history of life sciences. Other notable companies the firm has backed include YouTube, Modern Meadow, Nimble Storage, Aruba Networks, Quid,, IDbyDNA, Versa Networks, Cohesity, Excision BioTherapeutics, Locus Biosciences and many more. The firm supports its portfolio companies throughout their entire life-cycle, from initial venture investment to initial public offering and beyond. For more information visit www.av.co or email contact@artisventures.com.

About UCB



UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases in immunology and neurology. With more than 7500 people operating in 40 countries, the company generated revenue of 4.5 billion in 2017. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB). Follow us on Twitter: @UCB_news.

About Quid

Quid is a research platform that inspires full-picture thinking by drawing connections across massive amounts of written content. Our powerful set of core technologies mimics the way the human brain reads and organizes information but does so at a scale and speed beyond the capabilities of any single researcher or team. Quid leverages proprietary machine intelligence to broaden and deepen your analysis. The platform identifies patterns in millions of text-based documents to link otherwise disparate elements into broader storylines that can signal forthcoming trends, opportunities, or potential trouble ahead. We are a trusted partner across a wide spectrum of industries, including Fortune 500 companies, consulting groups, healthcare insurance firms, advertising and PR agencies, and media outlets. Many of the worlds top companies use Quid to spot emerging trends, gauge consumer sentiment, stay ahead of competitors, and develop unique content. For more information, visit Quid.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 06:14:07|Editor: yan

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SANAA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Visiting UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the release of seven captured Yemeni Houthi rebels by Saudi-led coalition (SLC) that had handed them over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), just a day after the rebels released a sick Saudi soldier.

"The SE (special envoy) welcomes the SLC's decision to release seven Ansar Allah (Houthi group) prisoners. The ICRC transferred the prisoners from Riyadh to Sanaa today (Wednesday)," Griffiths said in Twitter.

"The SE is very encouraged by this positive spirit from the two parties, and hopes this will give a push to the rapid implementation of the prisoner exchange agreement," he added.

Meanwhile, the ICRC said "it facilitated today (Wednesday) the safe return of seven Yemeni nationals from Riyadh to Sanaa on board our plane." "Another hope for many families separated by the conflict in Yemen," the ICRC added in a brief statement on its Twitter account.

On Tuesday, Griffiths welcomed the release of a captured Saudi Arabian soldier by the Houthi rebels. The ICRC transferred the Saudi prisoner from Sanaa to Riyadh on the same day.

Houthis said in a statement that the release of sick Saudi soldier Musa Awagi came as a "humanitarian initiative."

The United Nations has been pushing for implementing an all-out prisoner swap deal, a cease-fire and withdrawal of Yemeni rival forces from Yemen's main port city of Hodeidah in line with a peace agreement reached in Stockholm last month.

The Iranian-allied Houthi rebels and the coalition-backed exiled government held a series of UN-sponsored meetings last week in Jordan to discuss the lists of prisoners to be swapped.

Griffiths arrived in the capital Sanaa on Monday to break the stalemate in Hodeidah's peace deal. The cease-fire deal went into force on Dec. 18, 2018, but the withdrawal of the rival forces has yet to be fulfilled.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north.

The four-year war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced 3 million others and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 06:04:05|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Wednesday voluntarily deported 116 illegal immigrants from eastern Libya to Nigeria.

According to the information office of the eastern-based Interior Ministry, the deportation has been carried out from the eastern city of Benghazi to Nigeria.

This is the first voluntary repatriation of illegal immigrants from eastern Libya, as IOM carries out such operations from western Libya, from which many illegal immigrants cross the Mediterranean toward Europe.

"The immigrants were deported from Benina international airport of Benghazi, after all their needs were provided," the ministry said.

Libya suffers political division between eastern and western governments, both competing for legitimacy.

The IOM is running a voluntary return program with an aim to arrange the return of illegal immigrants stranded in Libya to their countries of origin. IOM voluntarily deported more 16,000 illegal immigrants from Libya to their countries in 2018.

The insecurity and chaos in the north African nation following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime led to massive waves of illegal immigrants toward European shores.
A Syrian child pulls over his back a sack while walking in the mud at a camp for the displaced near the village of Shamarin, near the border with Turkey in the northern Aleppo province, on Dec. 6, 2018. (Xinhua/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock on Wednesday stressed the need for access to Syria so that aid can reach people in need, particularly in the context of harsh winter.

Lowcock, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said an aid convoy is urgently needed for some 42,000 people stranded in Rukban along the Syria-Jordan border.

Conditions in the informal settlement have continued to deteriorate since the last humanitarian convoy to the area on Nov. 3-8. Eight infants have reportedly died since last month. And the cold is making the situation even worse, Lowcock told the Security Council. "So it is critical that the parties support a second convoy to Rukban."

The United Nations has been engaged on multiple fronts to ensure it can happen, including by addressing concerns expressed by Russia and the government of Syria about the security of the convoy and monitoring arrangements for aid distributions, said Lowcock.

The convoy will include more than 100 trucks of relief supplies, focusing on food, winterization support and health, nutrition and household and water and sanitation items, as well as vaccination, he said.

The United Nations received verbal approval on Sunday from the Syrian Foreign Ministry for the convoy to proceed. Security guarantees have also been received from Russia and international coalition forces, said Lowcock.

"Planning is now under way for loading of the trucks to begin before the end of this week, and for them to set off by Feb. 5. We call on all parties to ensure that this goes ahead without any further delay."

The team plans to stay in Rukban for at least a week, to ensure sufficient time to monitor distributions, carry out an intention survey to help identify a durable solution for those people in the informal settlement, and vaccinate as many children as possible, said Lowcock.

In terms of security, it has been agreed that there will be a 5-km buffer zone between the armed groups present in the area and the convoy to avoid any interference, he said.

However, protection for the accompanying personnel must be provided at the offloading point and the accommodation site, and security is needed inside the informal settlement to guard aid distribution, vaccination and the conducting of the intention survey, said Lowcock.

The UN humanitarian chief also expressed concern over renewed violence in the northwest and the northeast.

In the de-escalation zone of Idlib in the northwest, the risk of military escalation continues to loom, he said.

The September 2018 agreement between Russia and Turkey that averted an offensive on Idlib by the Syrian government was followed by a significant decrease in ground fighting and airstrikes. However, January 2019 saw an increase in fighting between non-state armed groups, placing civilians at risk and resulting in injury and death, he said.

"Today I reiterate the importance of sustaining the Russia-Turkey agreement and I remind you that a large-scale military operation in Idlib would have catastrophic humanitarian implications," he warned.

Turning to the northeast of the country, Lowcock voiced concern about the humanitarian impact of ongoing military operations in southeastern Deir-ez-Zor governorate, where thousands have been displaced and an unknown number of people remain trapped under Islamic State control.

Since December 2018, about 20,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced from the Hajin area in Deir-ez-Zor into neighboring Hassakeh governorate. Some 25 children have died, either in transit or shortly after arrival, he said.

Lowcock asked for support from all UN member states to ensure that the parties respect and protect civilians, with particular attention to the northwest and northeast of the country, and to avert "at all costs" a full military offensive on Idlib and the surrounding areas.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 02:53:27|Editor: mym

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British Prime Minister Theresa May attends the Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons in London, Britain, Jan. 30, 2019. Multiple options for Brexit still remain a possibility after Theresa May was given the backing of the House of Commons to renegotiate her European Union Withdrawal Agreement. (Xinhua/British Parliament/Jessica Taylor)

by Peter Barker

LONDON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Multiple options for Brexit still remain a possibility after British Prime Minister Theresa May has been given the backing of the House of Commons to renegotiate her European Union (EU) Withdrawal Agreement.

May won a slim majority in the House of Commons in a series of votes Tuesday evening, which saw Members of Parliament (MPs) signal their support for the prime minister to return to Brussels and to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement rejected by MPs earlier this month.

"MPs decided they want May and the EU to change the Irish Backstop," Alan Wager, fellow at the independent think-tank UK in a Changing Europe, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

"They say that leaves Britain tied too closely to the EU, and also following its rule; they want to make the UK less bound to EU rules," said Wager.

The Withdrawal Agreement contains a Northern Ireland Backstop, which seeks to preserve the open border between the two nations.

"What May's MPs want is something that says the EU and Britain are not locked into this agreement on the Northern Irish border indefinitely," Wager explained.

"The EU are really reluctant to give way on this point -- but someone is going to have to give on this: either the EU or the British government."

The stumbling block of the Irish Backstop over the border issue is one that has already derailed May's Withdrawal Agreement and it could do so again.

But first, May must persuade EU leaders to reopen negotiations. Brussels, however, is very reluctant to reopen the Agreement they have already made with May.

European Council president Donald Tusk said shortly after the vote on Tuesday night that set May on the path to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement that it was "not open for re-negotiation".

Michel Barnier, EU's chief negotiator on Brexit, said on Wednesday that "we stand by the agreement we have negotiated with the UK."

And European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker also said on Wednesday that the Withdrawal Agreement was "the only deal, and the best possible deal."

Wager believed that May would find it hard to solve the conundrum of pleasing her MPs with concessions from the EU when the EU's leaders seem adamant that they are not for turning.

"So it looks like although May has now a majority in parliament, something she was lacking a couple of weeks ago, she now needs to go back to the EU and reopen those negotiations -- she will find it very difficult to get a compromise that will be supported by the EU and by her own MPs," Wager said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 01:58:10|Editor: yan

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NANNING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Days away from the Lunar New Year, Zhong Xian is reluctant to go hometown to visit her parents.

Zhong, 33, is a business manager at a state bank in Nanning, capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The single woman is planning to go to Phuket in Thailand for the holiday instead.

"Every Spring Festival when I return home, my parents urge me to get married," Zhong said straightforwardly. "I am so fed up."

Chinese Lunar New Year falls on Feb. 5 this year. From Jan. 21 to March 1, nearly 3 billion trips are to be made via China's transport systems, as people set off for family gatherings or tours.

But put off by a host of factors such as family and societal pressure, an increasing number of Chinese decide not to make the homecoming. They either choose to stay in places where they work or simply go for travel.

In a poll posted Monday by Life Times on microblogging platform Sina Weibo, many of the so-called "home-fear tribe" said that being asked about salary and pushed to go on blind dates are among the reasons that hold them back from returning home.

In Wuzhou city of Guangxi, Zhong's hometown, locals have the New Year tradition of decorating their homes with flowers and potted plants that are deemed auspicious.

"In the past, whenever I went home, I would see bundles of peach flowers," Zhong said. "In traditional culture, peach flowers mean good relationship and marriage, and I certainly know what my parents are trying to indicate with the flowers."

Zhong said however beautiful the flowers were, she always felt stressful because that meant her parents were worried about her still being single.

"Relatives would also urge me to get married as well, which intensifies the pressure," Zhong said. "That's why I don't want to go home."

In the eastern city of Xiamen, migrant worker Yang was also fretting over the idea of homecoming. He has decided not to go home this year because he worries about big expenses.

"I would have to spend at least 5,000 yuan (745 U.S. dollars) in New Year gift money," Yang, who comes from Jiangxi Province, told the Xunyang Evening News. "And that doesn't even include my travel expenses."

In addition, Yang worried that relatives might ask how much he earns.

"People know that I work in a big city like Xiamen, so they think I make big bucks here," Yang said. "They would have high expectations for me, which puts pressure on me."

While many are scared to return home for the Spring Festival, their parents are offering some relief.

"My daughter doesn't like coming home in recent years," said Zhong Xian's mother Wang Liping. "I can understand that because we always asked if she has a boyfriend and when she will get married."

Wang said she knows about her daughter's anxiety, and that the most important thing is her daughter's happiness.

Huang Nanjin, a professor with Guangxi University, said that behind the "home-fear tribe" is dissolving traditional values.

"Quick communication via the Internet has lowered young people's attachment to families and the environment where they grew up," Huang said. "For many young people, returning home does not matter as much anymore."

"Home is still home," Wang Liping said. "What matters most is the reunion of the family."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 01:48:08|Editor: yan

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PARIS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A man shot at passers-by in Bastia, northeast of France's Corsica island, killing one person and injuring several others on Wednesday, local media reported.

At around 16:30 local time, a man opened fire on people in the street in Bastia for unknown motives, BFMTV reported. A person died and six others were injured -- one was in critical situation.

A police operation is underway to try to launch negotiation with the shooter and neutralize him after he was hiding in the building where he lives.

In a separate report, regional television France 3 Corsica Viastella reported the man was a 70-year-old resident who was known for "neighborhood problems."
Chinese artists perform during a show titled "Happy Chinese New Year 2019" in Thessaloniki, Greece, Jan. 28, 2019. (Xinhua/Dimitris Tosidis)

ATHENS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A large group of Chinese artists performed a special and festive show for a "Happy Chinese New Year 2019" on Monday at Greek port city of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country.

The event was organized by the Chinese embassy in Greece and the Beijing Municipality, with the support of the Chinese Cultural Center in Athens, as well as the Chinese community and businesses.

It was held to enhance the cultural exchange between China and Greece and to welcome the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, which begins on Feb. 5 and ends on Feb. 19 this year. The year 2019 is the year of the pig, according to the Chinese zodiac.

The show in Thessaloniki took place at the Royal Theater and the program included dance, acrobatics, traditional Chinese music, theater, opera and Kung Fu demonstration by martial arts fighters.

More than 30 artists from the Beijing Dance Academy, China's National Acrobatic Troupe, Chinese Traditional Music Orchestra and the Lon Yun Kung Fu Troupe did their best to impress the audience.

Every year Chinese artists come to Greece as envoys of the city of Beijing to showcase the culture of their country as part of the Chinese New Year celebration. This time, the program of the event started in Thessaloniki and will continue in Athens.

"We are very pleased to welcome a group of Chinese artists as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. The event is free to the public and is sold out. Next year the event, which during the last three years only took place in Athens, will probably last two days," Stelios Konstantinides, co-producer of the show and organizer of cultural events, told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 01:23:04|Editor: yan

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States kicked off here on Wednesday morning a new round of high-level talks to address their differences on outstanding economic and trade issues.

The talks, scheduled for two days, mark a significant step in the implementation of the important consensus reached by Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump during a working dinner in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 1.

The two heads of state agreed back then that the two sides should try to reach a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement within 90 days to bring an early end to their months-long trade friction featuring massive tariffs on imports from each other.

The latest talks began shortly after 9 a.m. local time (1400 GMT) at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex, following a brief session open to the media.

All the discussions and negotiations, which are expected to last until Thursday afternoon, will be held behind closed doors.

The Chinese delegation, headed by Vice Premier Liu He, includes senior officials from major economic sectors of the Chinese government, while the U.S. team is led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and includes Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, among others.

The White House has said that the U.S. side welcomes the Chinese delegation, which arrived in Washington on Monday, and that Trump is scheduled to meet with Liu on Thursday.

The world is watching these talks closely, with many hoping for some substantial, positive progress to be made.

Analysts have warned that the lasting trade tension between the world's two largest economies would not only impact their own businesses, workers and consumers, but also stoke global market fears of uncertainty and disruption, and erode confidence in the long-term global economic growth.

While acknowledging that the talks will not be easy given the complexity and difficulty of certain issues in dispute, China maintains that there will be no insoluble problems between the two countries as long as they both keep the great benefits of cooperation in mind and show sincerity and mutual respect at the negotiating table.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 01:23:04|Editor: yan

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CAIRO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court sentenced a former deputy governor on Wednesday to 12 years in prison over bribery charges related to illegal constructions.

Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Suad al-Khouly, former deputy governor at the northern and seaside province of Alexandria, to 12 years over receiving about 1 million Egyptian pounds (over 56,000 U.S. dollars) from some businessmen to stop a removal decision of illegally constructed buildings on state-owned lands.

Busted by the Administrative Control Authority (ACA) in August 2017, the lady was also accused of attempting to exempt the businessmen from paying fines for such violations, which amounted to 10 million Egyptian pounds (over 560,000 dollars) according to the ACA.

She also got an extra but suspended one-year jail term and was expelled from her post by court order.

Meanwhile, the court handed Akram al-Dakkak, former chief of the province's environment department, a suspended one-year prison term, sacked him, and acquitted the other five defendants.

The case is part of a massive anti-corruption campaign launched by Egypt over the past few years that led to the arrest and imprisonment of several officials and senior employees and the retrieval of large amounts of public money.

In January last year, former governor of Minufiya province north of the capital Cairo and two businessmen were arrested over bribery, profiteering and looting public funds.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:47:56|Editor: yan

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MOGADISHU, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Somalia and the United Nations on Wednesday committed to strengthening their relationship aimed at transforming the Horn of Africa nation.

Somali President Mohammed Abdullahi Farmajo who held talks in Mogadishu with visiting Rosemary DiCarlo, UN under-secretary-general for political and peace building affairs, vowed to work more closely together to support Somalia's state building and peace building priorities.

"The Federal Government of Somalia and the United Nations look forward to deepening their long partnership to enable Somalia to continue to make progress towards a peaceful and prosperous future," they said in a joint statement issued in Mogadishu.

It said DiCarlo, who arrived in Mogadishu earlier on Wednesday held open, cordial, and frank discussions while committing to strengthening the relationship between the Somali government and the UN.

During the meeting which was also attended by Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, the three leaders discussed practical measures for the government and the UN to work more closely together for the benefit of Somalis.

Khaire stressed the government's high regard for the work of the UN, of which Somalia is a member, and emphasized Somalia's commitment to its international obligations and membership.

"The Somali leaders expressed their sympathy and solidarity with the United Nations in the wake of the attack on the UN compound on 1 January 2019. They reiterated their commitment to enhance the security and safety of UN personnel," it said.

The mortar attack on the UN compound in Mogadishu left three members injured.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ ), a leader in business-focused interactive video, and the pioneer of Augmented Sales Intelligence software, announces they have teamed up with the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) to support their fundraising efforts through the use of interactive video for their upcoming March for Babies campaign, benefiting the March of Dimes.



March for Babies is an annual national event where thousands of people across the country come together to raise money to expand programs and educate medical professionals to ensure that moms and babies receive the best possible care. The funds are used to advocate for policies that prioritize their health, and for research to find solutions to the biggest health threats facing pregnant moms and their babies.

Using nFusz technology, viewers will have the ability to click to donate or click to register and participate in the event in the moment they are inspired to take action while watching the video. The LAFD will begin distributing the videos ahead of the campaign march, scheduled to take place April 27th, 2019.

Weve had great success in growing the total dollar amount raised over the previous two years weve been participating in the March for Babies campaign, stated LAFD Battalion Chief William Peralta. Were excited to expand our campaign efforts by introducing interactive video to our constituents and supporters, which were confident will help us break our previous record of dollars raised that we set last year, continued Battalion Chief Peralta.

As we continue to expand our NGO program, we couldnt be more proud to support and assist the efforts of the brave men and women of the Los Angeles Fire Department who place the needs and safety of our communities ahead of their own every single day, stated Rory J. Cutaia , CEO of nFusz. We encourage everyone to donate what they can to this important cause. Come out and join the nFusz Team in the campaign march this April.

About nFusz

nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ) is a recognized leader in business-focused interactive video and the pioneer of Augmented Sales Intelligence software. The companys flagship product, notifiCRM, is the first interactive video-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows anyone to create, distribute, post, track, and measure interactive videos that increase engagement and conversion rates by up to 600 percent. Video viewers can respond to one or more calls to action by clicking within a video while its playing  and no download is required. nFusz products are cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), available by subscription for individual and enterprise users, and accessible on all mobile and desktop devices. The companys newest products, also based on its interactive video technology platform, include notifiMED, for the healthcare industry, notifiEDU, for the education industry, and notifiNGO, for non-profit organizations.

For more information, please visit: www.nFusz.com

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please address media inquiries to: info@nFusz.com

855.250.2300, extension 7

Please address investor inquiries to: investors@nFusz.com

855.250.2300, extension 2

About the Los Angeles Fire Department

The Los Angeles Fire Department preserves life and property, promotes public safety and fosters economic growth through a commitment to prevention, preparedness, response and recovery as an all risk life safety response provider.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

This press release may contain "forward-looking" information within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In accordance with the safe harbor provisions of this Act, statements contained herein that look forward in time that include everything other than historical information, involve risks and uncertainties that may affect the Company's actual results. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and there are a number of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by the Company, including, but not limited to, plans and objectives of management for future operations or products, the market acceptance or future success of our products, and our future financial performance. The Company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, and other filings with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov). The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:47:54|Editor: Chengcheng

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Chinese tourists visit the statue of late Cambodian King Father Norodom Sihanouk in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Jan. 30, 2019. Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said the country received 1.9 million Chinese tourists last year, up from 1.2 million a year earlier, making China the largest source of foreign tourists to the kingdom. (Xinhua/Phearum)

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Cambodian artists jointly performed here on Wednesday to celebrate the launch of the China-Cambodia culture and tourism year 2019.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, Chinese Minister of Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang as well as Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian were among some 800 spectators at the event held at the iconic Chaktomuk Theater.

The two countries set 2019 as the China-Cambodia culture and tourism year during Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's visit to Beijing earlier this month.

Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said the country received 1.9 million Chinese tourists last year, up from 1.2 million a year earlier, making China the largest source of foreign tourists to the kingdom.

He said the Southeast Asian nation is expected to attract 3 million Chinese tourists in 2020, 5 million in 2025 and up to 8 million in 2030.

"The huge influx of Chinese tourists to Cambodia has importantly contributed to boosting Cambodia's economic growth, creating jobs and generating an income source for Cambodian tourism operators," he said.

During the two-hour event, dozens of artists from the two countries jointly performed a variety of traditional dances and sang songs together.

Each of the performances drew hearty rounds of applause from the audience.

"Personally, I like all of the performances, especially I admire a troupe of Chinse deaf and dumb artists for perfectly performing the Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva dance," Penh Yom, a professor of traditional dance at the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, told Xinhua.

"They followed the pulse of music well and showed their dance styles tidily as if they were not disabled persons," she said. "If it was not announced that they were disabled persons, we supposed they are normal persons."

Another viewer Chhoeun Rin, a Grade-9 student at the Duan Hua Chinese School, said the performance was amazing, as all artists are very talented, and he hoped to see such a wonderful performance every year.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:42:52|Editor: yan

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JUBA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan peace monitors on Wednesday called on all the parties to the revitalized peace agreement to end hostilities in the border town of Yei, where military build-up has been reported.

In a statement issued in Juba, the reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, said it had received various reports of armed operation in the southwestern parts of South Sudan, adding that all parties must silence the guns.

The peace monitoring body noted that a peace agreement, which was signed in September last year and is in a critical implementation phase, has brought normalcy to the world's youngest republic after five years of civil strife.

They urged all parties to grasp firmly the Intergovernmental Authority on Development led diplomatic process and allow the full implementation of the peace agreement.

"Likewise, that the ceasefire has been largely holding is a great credit to all its signatories, and we urge that this continues. The silencing of guns is a matter of high national importance," said the monitors.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:37:51|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Wednesday reiterated its commitment to continued technical support to African countries in development planning.

This came at the opening of a two-day intergovernmental meeting on development planning on Wednesday in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

Experts from the national planning and statistics institutions of Cameroon, Benin, Egypt, Kenya, Zambia, as well as from ECA and other international organizations converged in the meeting, according to ECA.

The five nations are pilot countries for the 10th UN Development Account project on "Strengthening the Capacities of African Governments for Integration of Accountability in National Development Planning."

The Development Account was established by the UN General Assembly in 1997 and provides a mechanism for promoting the exchange and transfer of skills, knowledge and good practices among target countries through cooperation with a wide range of partners in the broader development assistance community.

The ECA's principal regional advisor, Sylvain Boko, noted that ECA has been collaborating with the five pilot countries over two years.

Two technical studies have been done in each pilot country to evaluate and asses the status of their planning and statistics systems; and a national strategy for integrating accountability in national development planning has been developed in collaboration with each country, based on the findings of the technical studies, Boko has said.

The third phase of the project consists of working with each government to implement training programs to address the capacity gaps identified in the national strategies, which will need to be addressed for a successful implementation of the national strategies, he has indicated.

Speaking on his part, Stephen Karingi, ECA's Director of Regional Integration and Trade, noted that the project builds on ECA's track record in providing advisory services and technical support to member States.

"It rests on specific interventions that mainly focus on people and institutions that are central to the success of the implementation of member states' national development goals," he added.

Karingi has reiterated that the project looks at planning as an instrument to enhance accountability in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:37:50|Editor: yan

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RIGA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Operatives of the Latvian anti-graft agency on Wednesday raided the office and home of Riga Mayor Nils Usakovs as part of what they described as an ongoing criminal investigation, local media reported.

Ugis Vidauskis, a spokesman for the Riga city council, said on public radio that the Corruption Prevention Bureau's officers arrived at the town hall before noon but that they gave no explanations for their activities.

Simultaneously, searches were also conducted at Usakovs' home in Riga's posh neighborhood of Mezaparks. After finishing the search, the officers left Usakovs' home carrying several suitcases and a black plastic bag. Neither the Riga mayor nor his wife, who heads his office, were detained in the process.

While talking to media representatives in the afternoon, Usakovs assured his conscience was clear. Claiming no criminal activity on his part, he said he would not resign as mayor of Riga.

Meanwhile, opposition councilor Vilnis Kirsis said that the opposition in the city council was collecting signatures under a call for a council meeting to vote on Usakovs' dismissal.

Kirsis said that given the ongoing probe into Rigas Satiksme municipal transport company's corruption scandal and Wednesday's raids it would be right for Usakovs to stand down.

Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said on public radio he did not know the reason for the raids at the Riga mayor's office and home. He also said that it was for Environmental Protection and Regional Development Minister Juris Puce to decide whether to sack the Riga mayor.

Karins noted, however, that recent corruption scandals in Riga had been shocking and that as a resident of Riga he was dissatisfied with the local government's job performance.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:27:46|Editor: yan

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KUWAIT CITY, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Kuwaiti Ministry of Trade and Industry said on Wednesday that the country's non-oil exports in 2018 increased 63 percent to hit 207.7 million dinars (683 U.S. million dollars), according to KUNA.

In a press release, the ministry said that Kuwaiti non-oil exports to Egypt hit 80 million dinars (264 million dollars) against 5.7 million dinars (18 million dollars) in 2017.

Egypt ranked the first among countries importing Kuwaiti products, according to the press release.

Iraq came second with the Kuwaiti non-oil exports at 18.7 million dinars (59 million dollars), 53.3 percent lower than the figure in 2017.

Kuwaiti exports to Italy decreased to 11 million dinars (36 million dollars) from 13.4 million dinars (42 million dollars) in 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:17:44|Editor: yan

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ISLAMABAD, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Arif Alvi has hailed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying it will bring economic prosperity.

The president also expressed his willingness to learn the innovative measures by the Chinese government on poverty alleviation so as to improve Pakistani people's livelihood.

The president made the remarks in his greetings to the Chinese government and the Chinese people for the upcoming Chinese Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year.

"On behalf of the people and the government of Pakistan, I must extend my heartfelt felicitation to the government of China and the people of China."

The friendship between Pakistan and China is "very important and valuable," the president told the Chinese media on Tuesday.

After decades of reform and opening-up, China has made tremendous progress and contributed greatly to poverty alleviation, said the president.

The most remarkable idea of China to open up is the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the CPEC, he said.

"It (CPEC) is a major communication throughway which will improve our own economy. There are a number of projects along the CPEC road. There are a number of projects aside from the CPEC road within different cities. Gwadar port is being developed and the economy of Pakistan will also improve."

The president said the cooperation between Pakistan and China helped maintain peace in the region, adding that it also helped and will continue to help bring peace in Afghanistan.

"I think we have to look forward. I think we have a bright future... It is for peace. The world should know that the People's Republic of China and Pakistan are working for world peace."

Alvi believed that the future of Pakistan-China relations will keep on developing towards prosperity of the two peoples.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:02:42|Editor: yan

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BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- "Iraqis were and are still victims of recurrent upheavals. Through my films, I depict the Iraqi individual as the victim who rises to become a hero," an Iraqi filmmaker told Xinhua.

On a sunny afternoon in Baghdad on the bank of Tigris River, Mohammed al-Daradji, a filmmaker and the director of the Iraqi Independent Film Center, told Xinhua about his persistence to introduce his homeland to the world through his films.

"The world's acquaintance of Iraqis doesn't transcend more than the casualty statistics. Through my films, I tried to introduce the human side of Iraqis to the world," said Daradji, who has represented Iraq at the Oscars for three times.

Born and raised in Iraq, Daradji, 40, studied theater in Iraq before immigrating to the Netherlands in mid-1990s.

He obtained a Master's degree in cinematography and directing in Britain, and his films earned recognition and awards from around the world.

His latest film, The Journey, or al-Rihla in Arabic, was released in Iraq in March 2018, and was chosen by Iraq's Ministry of Culture to represent the country in the Oscars. However, the film did not make it to the nominations.

"The Journey was my third film to represent Iraq in the Oscars. A few Iraqi films are made every three or four years, thus to see a film representing Iraq in the Oscars is very important," Daradji said.

In The Journey, Daradji delved into the mindset of an Iraqi female suicide bomber, who was reluctant to blow herself up in 2006 at a crowded railway station in Baghdad on the first day of Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice.

In this movie, the Iraqi director not only highlighted the grave impacts of the U.S.-led invasion on Iraqi society, but also presented an alternative approach to the character of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

In one scene of the movie, three troops aggressively entered the main hall of the railway station and unashamedly mistreated a little girl selling flowers. In another scene, the troops abused a female suspect.

Within the sphere of Baghdad's railway station, Daradji, through the characters and their roles, explicitly touched upon an array of social issues in the Iraqi society, such as harassment, male dominance, child labor and forced marriage.

Prior to a screening of The Journey in the French Institute in Baghdad, French Ambassador to Iraq Bruno Aubert handed the Grand Prize from the Paris-based Arab World Institute to Daradji for best film.

The best actress award was handed to Zahraa Ghandour, an Iraqi-Lebanese actress who played the leading role of a female al-Qaeda member named Sara in the film.

The screening was followed by a discussion where the audience had the chance to interact with the director and leading actress.

When asked about how the U.S. viewers received the film, Ghandour said "I have already sensed a tangible sympathy from U.S. viewers toward Sara."

"But instead of feeling guilty for what happened to the people of Iraq, I wish they spread awareness that Iraqis are not bad people," she added.

Daradji disclosed his intention to establish a "mobile cinema," travelling across Iraqi cities to give the displaced people in refugee camps and in the areas liberated from Islamic State (IS) militants the chance to watch his films.

The Journey was the first Iraqi film to be released in cinemas across the country since 1991, and it also reached the audience in the Arab world as well as Europe and the United States.

The 13-year severe UN sanctions imposed on Iraq in early 1990s and a series of wars and unrest following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 affected Iraq's all aspects of life including the country's film industry.

With or without substantial support from the Iraqi government, Daradji said he and other independent filmmakers are aiming to "put Iraq on the global cinema map."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-31 00:02:42|Editor: yan

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HARARE, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's Public Service Commission on Tuesday signed a 60-million-dollar loan facility with local bank National Building Society (NBS) for the provision of a national home ownership scheme for civil servants.

The housing facility, to be rolled out countrywide, is part of non-monetary incentives that government is availing to its poorly paid workers who are threatening to go on strike demanding a pay rise.

NBS managing director Lameck Danga said funding for the project was already available and that the number of beneficiaries will be determined by the amount of loan each civil servant will get.

"It is a global facility, it is not only restricted to houses that are almost complete but each civil servant will come in with their own circumstances then we will evaluate that," said Danga.

The NBS, wholly owned by the National Social Security Authority, started operating in 2016 with the aim of providing accommodation to low income earners and players in the informal sector.

Public Service Labor and Social Welfare Minister Sekai Nzenza said the program marked a shift from the focus on salaries as the fulcrum of an employee's conditions of service.

She said the government was committed to meeting the needs of its workers.

"Further, this occasion is a demonstration of government's new commitment to public partnerships that harness the competencies and comparative advantage of private sector players in delivering public sector policy objectives," she said.

Cecilia Alexander, chairperson of the Apex Council, the umbrella body of civil servants, said the program should benefit workers across the board at affordable terms.

"We also recognize the efforts of the government to improve the conditions of service for its workers notwithstanding the economic hardships currently prevailing in the county," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 23:57:40|Editor: yan

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MOSCOW, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia is cutting oil output in accordance with its deal with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other oil producers, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday.

"The exact figures will be known tomorrow. But according to preliminary data, we will come down to an average monthly reduction of 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the level of October 2018, as expected," Novak told reporters.

He expected Russia's average crude oil output in January to shrink by around 100,000 bpd from the October volume.

The minister explained the difference by stating that monthly Russian output volumes differ and the country produced significantly more crude oil at the end of last year than in October.

In December, OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed to cut crude oil production by a total of 1.2 million bpd from January 2019 for an initial period of six months to do away with a global supply glut.

The OPEC members would contribute 0.8 million bpd and non-OPEC members, including Russia, would contribute 0.4 million bpd from the October level.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 23:42:34|Editor: yan

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MADRID, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Spanish experts expressed confidence in Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, saying it should be treated just like other companies from anywhere in the world.

During a recent interview with Xinhua, Enrique Puertas, a Spanish expert in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity at the Universidad Europea de Madrid, said that "Huawei cannot be a problem: we are talking about a key company with a long trajectory working with telecommunications companies which use its hardware in Spain."

"We should treat Huawei the same as an American or French company ... or one from anywhere else in the world," he added.

Speaking to the online newspaper "Vozpopuli.com," David Sancho, who is responsible for research at the specialized publication Trend Micro, said Huawei "does things like everyone else" and their products "have no clear advantage or disadvantage" in respect to other products.

"They are phones with Android software and so they are more open than others, such as Apple, for example," Sancho said.

Jose Manuel Riera, professor at the School of Telecommunications at the prestigious Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, also ruled out any kind of illicit practices based on his working experience.

"I work in a public institution and we have had a relationship with Huawei for over five years. We have always had excellent treatment from the company and have full confidence in them. According to my experience, there is no reason for us to be afraid of anything," said Riera.

Riera was responding to a remark from Andrus Ansip, the vice president of the European Commission for the Digital Single Market, who said that Europe should be "afraid" of companies such as Huawei.

During the interview, Puertas also highlighted that Huawei is not merely a smartphone manufacturer.

"The image we have of Huawei in Spain is related to their mobile phones, but it is a company which provides technology for routers or the networks that are used for landlines. However, people also see that Huawei's models are the first with features such as artificial intelligence and I believe the company has a very positive image," he told Xinhua.

Maintaining a close relationship with the country's National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE), Huawei has jointly developed projects with them.

"It is a good way of raising awareness so people can participate in challenges with two great institutions such as these," said Puertas.

Enrique Dans, professor for information systems at the Instituto de Empresa (IE), shared Puertas' thoughts about Huawei's role in cybersecurity and highlighted that the company "carries out a lot of projects" in this field.

However, Huawei's work in Spain is also to help with the rollout of 5G networks.

"It is orientated to show that this new technology can change our lives as we understand them today," said Riera, whose university only recently inaugurated Spain's first professorship in 5G in collaboration with Huawei.

"Huawei is helping with the students' end of course projects by offering technology and visits to their offices among other things. The director of Huawei's Human Resources Department has also come to speak to students and to give conferences," Riera added.

Huawei currently employs around 1,000 people in Spain and aims to continue to create more jobs within the country.

"This kind of young talent is very much in demand these days, but Huawei has worked well to try and attract these talented young people," said Puertas.

Huawei published another communique Tuesday, in which it expressed "disappointment" at charges leveled against it.

"The company denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations," the statement said.

Dans said that there are other reasons for the recent criticism against the Chinese company.

"Until I see documents which prove that Huawei are spying on us or that we can't trust them, I don't believe it. All I see is a commercial war. From the EU (European Union) point of view, everything moves around commercial alliances," Dans said.
NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carlos P. Naudon, President and Chief Executive Officer and Steven A. Tsavaris, Executive Chairman of PDL Community Bancorp and Ponce Bank announced the election of Maria Alvarez to the Ponce Bank, PDL Community Bancorp, and Ponce Bank Mutual Holding Company Boards of Directors. Ms. Alvarez currently serves on the Board of the Ponce de Leon Foundation, a charitable foundation that was established in connection with the Ponce de Leon Federal Savings Bank reorganization in 2017.



We are proud to welcome Maria to our Boards of Directors, remarked CEO Carlos P. Naudon. Marias background and community involvement makes for a perfect fit to the communities we serve, and Marias experience and insight will help us to better serve those communities. We look forward to working with her.

We are extremely excited to have Maria join the Ponce Bank team during such a dynamic time in our organization, remarked Executive Chairman Steven A. Tsavaris. We look forward to the fresh perspectives and valuable insights of our new Board member as we continue our commitment to our customers and our communities.



Ms. Alvarez is the Executive Director of the New York StateWide Senior Action Council, Inc. and Brooklyn-wide Interagency Council on Aging. Ms. Alvarez has worked with senior citizen groups as an organizer, advocate, and director of housing and caregivers programs for over 22 years. She has designed and implemented educational, social service, and leadership programs for older adults. She is a certified Health Insurance Information Counseling and Assistance Program counselor. She holds a Bachelors Degree from Marquette University and a Masters Degree in Non-Profit Management from the New School for Social Research where she was a Sloan Fellow.

Our administrative office is located at 2244 Westchester Avenue, Bronx, New York 10462, and our telephone number at this address is (718) 931-9000. Our website address is www.poncebank.com . Ponce Bank conducts its business from its administrative office and 13 branch offices. The banking offices are located in Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, New York and Union City, New Jersey. Our primary market area currently consists of the New York City metropolitan area.

Contact:



Frank Perez

frank.perez@poncebank.net

718-931-9000
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:52:24|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopia Federal Attorney General on Wednesday filed criminal charges against Abdi Mohammed Omer, former president of Ethiopia's eastern Somali regional state, with plotting to incite civil conflict.

Omer is accused of organizing a youth vigilante group called "Heego" and ordering them to carry out deadly attacks on non-native ethnicities living in Somali regional state, during several days of unrest in August.

The Federal Attorney General also filed criminal charges against 46 other individuals, accused of overseeing deadly attacks on non-native ethnicities in August in several cities of Somali regional state.

Several days of deadly unrest in Jijiga, capital of Somali regional state and other smaller cities in the region in August of last year left around 58 people dead and 266 others injured.

Cities across Somali regional state were engulfed in violence between Aug. 4-6, 2018, as supporters of Omer rioted in the streets to protest an army intervention to oust him.

The army intervention came amid reports of tension between the Ethiopian federal government and the former regional president over alleged human rights abuses in Somali regional state.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:52:24|Editor: yan

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PARIS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain announced on Wednesday that Neymar's foot injury will see the Brazilian forward sidelined for the next ten weeks, meaning he will miss both legs of their UEFA Champions League round of 16 tie against Premier League side Manchester United.

In a statement, PSG said that the club had gathered a group of world-renowned medical experts at the Ooredoo Training Center to carry out a thorough review of the injury to Neymar's right foot.

Neymar sustained the injury in a French Cup tie against Strasbourg on January 23, which was later described by the club as a recurrence of a previous injury. He had been sidelined for three months last season due to a fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot.

"As a result, Neymar is expected to return to the field within ten weeks," the statement read.

"Paris Saint-Germain sends its strongest support and encouragement to Neymar Jr. to overcome this injury, with the courage and determination that the player has always shown," it added.

Neymar joined PSG on a record fee of 222 million euros in 2017. He has scored 20 goals in 23 appearances this season.

PSG visit Manchester United on February 12, and play the return leg at the Parc des Princes on March 6. In addition to missing both legs of that tie, Neymar may also be sidelined for the quarterfinals should PSG advance.

Despite their comfortable 13-point lead in the domestic league signalling a smooth path to title defense, PSG suffer a huge blow with Neymar's absence in the European club elite competition where they desperately fight for the highest glory.

PSG have faced consecutive disappointment in European competitions in recent years, having never moved through the quarterfinals since the Qatari investors took over the club in 2011.

Besides Neymar, PSG also have concerns in midfield with Marco Verratti's ankle injury. They signed Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes from Zenit Saint Petersburg as a bolstering move on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:47:23|Editor: yan

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LUSAKA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Zambia's anti-corruption agency on Wednesday announced it arrested an opposition lawmaker over alleged corruption allegations.

The Anti-Corruption Commission said it arrested Mathews Jere, a lawmaker of the main opposition United Party for National Development for Livingstone constituency in the southern part of the country for abuse of authority of office, according to a statement.

The anti-corruption agency said the matter was committed between Aug. 1, 2013 and Oct. 31, 2014 when the lawmaker served as a councilor.

It alleged that the lawmaker, while acting together with other unknown people, abused the authority of his office by allocating pieces of land to himself.

He has since been released on police bond and will appear in court on Mar. 25, 2019.

The lawmaker, 45, was elected as Livingstone Member of Parliament (MP) during the 2016 general elections.

On Tuesday, transparency watchdog, Transparency International Zambia, released its 2018 Corruption Perception Index, which shows Zambia sliding two points from number 37 scored in 2017 to 35.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:42:22|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to partner with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), which is a member of World Bank Group, to lure investors into the affordable housing sector, a government official said on Wednesday.

Charles Hinga Mwaura, principal secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure Housing and Urban Development, told at a trade forum in Nairobi that Kenya requires 2.6 trillion Kenyan shillings (about 25.7 billion U.S. dollars) from both public and private sources to construct one million social housing units by end of 2022.

"We are going to partner with MIGA to provide insurance so that for foreign denominated investors are comfortable in putting their funds into Kenya's housing market," said Mwaura.

He noted that the MIGA facility is likely to help de-risk investments that will be put into real estate sector.

"It will also ensure that foreign investors are compensated for any equity and loans in case of political risk or changes in government housing policy that will affect their portfolio," he added.

Mwaura said that the government is not keen to borrow funds and burden taxpayers but will partner with the private sector to construct the social houses in order to maintain the country's macro-economic stability.

He added that under President Uhuru Kenyatta's big four agenda on affordable housing, approximately 2.4 million salaried employees will be subjected to a mandatory contribution of 1.5 percent of their monthly incomes which will be channeled to the housing levy.

Mwaura observed that in order to create demand for the affordable houses, the fund will be used to purchase the houses constructed by the private sector.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:37:22|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Wednesday revealed that remains of some 30 victims have recovered so far from Tuesday's sea tragedy along the Red Sea coast in Djibouti.

"Through noon local time, IOM's team has learned that the remains of 30 victims have been recovered - three men and two women found on Tuesday and another 25 persons today," the UN migration agency, IOM, said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.

IOM also revealed that a total of 16 survivors have been recovered from the accident that occurred in Obock, on Djibouti's Red Sea coast.

The tragedy occurred off Godoria, a locality in the Obock region of northeast Djibouti.

Following the incident on Tuesday, a team of gendarmerie gathered near the reported site of the incident alerted by local residents in the area. The team discovered two survivors on Tuesday.

The latest incident is said to be one of the many similar deadly calamities that have occurred on Djibouti's Red Sea coast area, as desperate East African migrants attempted to cross the dangerous route hoping to reach the Middle East via the war-torn nation Yemen, mainly aiming at reaching Yemen' northern neighbor Saudi Arabia.

IOM's Missing Migrants Project (MMP), based in Berlin, also on Wednesday released data indicating there have been at least 199 drowning off the coast of Obock, Djibouti since the year 2014.

The MMP has also revealed records of three major shipwrecks of craft departing Obock, before Tuesday's tragedy.

A shipwreck, which was recorded in late February 2014, had resulted in the death or missing of some 17 people, while another similar incident in November 2014 had also left some 30 dead or missing.

Two more tragedies in 2016 had left some 24 people dead - one on October 5 that killed 10 people, and the second incident on October 21 left 14 people dead.

The number of causalities from Tuesday morning's incident has ignited fear as more than 130 migrants went missing from the capsizing of the two boats.

IOM's Djibouti Chief of Mission, Lalini Veerassamy, said following the deadly incident on Tuesday that such tragic incidents showcase the extent of menaces desperate migrants encounter while they cross the Red Sea route.

"This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives," IOM's statement on Wednesday quoted Veerassamy as saying on Wednesday.

"The government of Djibouti has always shown empathy and regional leadership on this critical issue. We will continue to support them to prevent such tragedies and protect migrant lives," Veerassamy added.

In addition to the Red Sea coast along Djibouti, similar deadly incidents is also rampant along the coast of Somalia.

In June last year, IOM had said that some 46 Ethiopian migrants had drowned and 16 others were missing, while they were on their way of crossing the Gulf of Aden after departing from Somalia.

Another incident happened on June 5 when at least 100 migrants crammed onto a smuggler's boat that left the port of Bossaso, Somalia.

The migrants who were reported to be Ethiopians, 83 men and 17 women, were travelling through the night across the Gulf of Aden to find employment in Yemen and the Gulf region, when their vessel capsized in high waves as it approached its destination, IOM had said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:37:21|Editor: yan

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MUSCAT, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Oman's Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah met on Wednesday visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi to discuss bilateral relations, Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

During the meeting held in the capital Muscat, the two discussed the importance of moving forward to enhance bilateral relations in areas of mutual interest.

Meanwhile, Sultan bin Mohammed al-Numani, minister of the Sudan's Royal Office, received in his office the Pakistani minister.

According to the Omani News Agency, the two ministers discussed means of developing and enhancing cooperation between the two countries.

The Pakistani minister praised the depth and strength of his country's relations with Oman.

Qureshi arrived in Oman on Tuesday to chair the 7th session of the Oman-Pakistan Joint Committee, which will be held on Thursday to discuss areas of cooperation for the development of economic and investment relations.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:27:20|Editor: ZX

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DAR ES SALAAM, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania has identified suspects in connection with the recent brutal killings of 10 children in the southern Njombe region, a senior official told the National Assembly on Wednesday.

Kangi Lugola, the Minister for Home Affairs, could not give details on the identification of the suspects on investigative reasons.

"We regret the killing of our children, these incidences are associated with superstitious beliefs," Lugola told the House in the capital Dodoma, adding that legal measures will soon be taken against the culprits.

"Preliminary investigations have shown that almost all the killings were based on superstitious beliefs," said the minister when he was responding to a question posed by Mufindi South constituency Member of Parliament, Mendrad Kigola.

The lawmaker had wanted to know measures being taken by the government to curb the killings of innocent children in Njombe region.

On Tuesday, the United Nations in Tanzania condemned the suspected ritual killings of 10 children in the east African nation's southern highland region of Njombe.

"The United Nations in Tanzania offers its deepest condolences to the families and communities of children who have been brutally murdered in Njombe over the last few weeks," the UN said in a statement.

"Children have a fundamental right to be safe and be protected from violence so that they can enjoy their childhood and reach their full potential," the statement said.

"The UN joins the government of the United Republic of Tanzania in condemning these heinous acts. As the UN, we stand ready to support the government in their efforts to address the issue," said Alvaro Rodriguez, UN Resident Coordinator in Tanzania.

Ruth Msafiri, Njombe District Commissioner, said on Monday a total of 10 children's dead bodies were discovered in different parts of the town, some being slaughtered and their body parts removed.

The Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Hamad Masauni, swore that the government will hunt all the killers and bring them to book.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 22:12:16|Editor: ZX

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CAIRO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court sentenced on Wednesday 17 people to three years in prison over forming an illegal group and committing terrorist activities, official MENA news agency reported.

A criminal court in Cairo convicted the 17 defendants of forming a militant group and joining a terrorist organization in Helwan district south of the Egyptian capital.

The prosecution charged the defendants with committing, inciting and plotting murder and attempted murder of policemen from Helwan traffic department and others from a nearby police station.

They were also accused of deliberate damage and sabotage of state properties for the purpose of harming the national economy.

Terrorist operations killed hundreds of Egyptian policemen, soldiers and civilians over the past few years.

The Muslim Brotherhood group of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi is currently outlawed in Egypt as a terrorist organization.

Most of the terror attacks in the country over the past few years were claimed by a Sinai-based offshoot of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian army and police killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's ongoing anti-terror war declared by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 21:37:09|Editor: ZX

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MOSCOW, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia is ready to act as a mediator in establishing dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

"We sincerely want to create conditions for establishing dialogue between the government and the opposition. We are talking about this with our Venezuelan partners, China, Latin American countries and Europeans," Lavrov said at a press conference.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency published earlier on Wednesday that he was ready to negotiate with the opposition with the help of international mediators.

Moscow welcomes Maduro's readiness to accept such international efforts, Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister said many countries and associations have come up with mediation initiatives, including the European Union, the Caribbean Community, Uruguay and Mexico.

But, Lavrov said, Venezuelan opposition leaders oppose all these dialogue initiatives because their Western sponsors are publicly encouraging this destructive position.

"We call on the opposition of Venezuela to take a constructive approach, abandon ultimatums and act independently," he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a daily briefing Wednesday called Maduro's openness to negotiations "commendable."

Russia is ready to contribute in every way to resolving the domestic political situation in Venezuela without interfering in its internal affairs, Peskov said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 21:30:11|Editor: Li Xia

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Residents look at red lanterns at a community in Saihan District of Hohhot, capital of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Jan. 30, 2019. Red lanterns are arranged to greet the upcoming Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year. (Xinhua/Wang Zheng)
NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Brooklyn-based Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union expanded its national footprint this week with the opening of its first Pennsylvania branch, a 1,500-square-foot location in the Poconos regions Stroudsburg, PA.



PSFCU cut the ribbon on its state-of-the-art branch, Jan. 19, with the assistance of local politicians, state senators, schoolchildren from the Pope John Paul II Polish School (East Stroudsburg) and more than 100 local Polish-Americans. The new branch marks PSFCUs 19th total branch, and its fourth state in which it operates, joining New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

The credit union said the new branch will generate 5 jobs to start, and will likely grow as it attracts more local members.

This is our 19th branch, and our first one in the great state of Pennsylvania. We also hope it wont be our last one in the Keystone State, said Bogdan Chmielewski, CEO of PSFCU. Trust is the foundation of our credit union, and the nourishment of these trusting relationships with members is what paves our roads to success. Today, our journey has led us to cross the Delaware, and were expecting a successful first step in Stroudsburg.

Over the past few years, an increasing number of Polish-Americans have moved to the Poconos region, thereby creating a desirable opportunity for PSFCU, the nations largest ethnic credit union.

Prior to the grand opening, Pennsylvania State Senator Mario Scavello presented PSFCU with a Certificate of Recognition that lauded the credit unions commitment to community and philanthropy, and its past history of providing economic opportunity to individuals and businesses within the communities it serves.

I know that Poles are a group of good hard workerswe see this standing here today. I thank PSFCU for its philanthropic commitment and investment in Stroudsburg. I wish you great success, said Sen. Scavello while attending the ribbon cutting ceremony.

PSFCUs philanthropic commitments have been fundamental to its success within its communities. During the grand opening ceremony, Mr. Chmielewski and Krzysztof Matyszczyk, the credit unions chairman of its Board of Directors, presented a $10,000 check to Hanna Czuma, director of the John Paul II Polish School.

In addressing the schools director, Mr. Matyszczyk said: We are firm believers in supporting the Polish-American community by engaging in a variety of organizations and staying involved. I wish you all the best and hope that we continue to thrive and help each other.

We welcome the union with unity. On behalf of all teachers, students and parents, I would like to thank the Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union for so generously supporting our school. We opened the doors to our school in 2006 and couldnt be more excited that PSFCU has finally arrived in Stroudsburg! said Ms. Czuma.

The new branch is located at 334 North 9th Street in Stroudsburg, PA. PSFCU has been granting mortgages and loans for nearly a decade to Pennsylvania residents, but now with a physical branch located in the state, it will be able to offer a plethora of products and services enjoyed by all members.

ABOUT PSFCU

By far the largest Polish financial institution outside of Poland, PSFCU is the largest ethnic credit union in the U.S. with almost $2 billion in assets. It offers carefully tailored financial products and services to its 135,000+ members and their families throughout the country, mainly through its 19 branches in four states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois). Long known for its commitment to the communities it serves, the credit union proudly sponsors and supports countless Polish-American organizations, schools, churches and cultural events that all help make local neighborhoods succeed and thrive.

pburdzy@psfcu.net, 973-808-3240 ext. 6134

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d7930d02-bfef-4195-8c78-cf8ae79c06e5

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3aee715e-fb54-4eaa-beb6-5ef1fb8f45ac
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 21:12:05|Editor: Li Xia

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HONG KONG, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's diplomacy has secured the further development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), with Hong Kong contributing to the national diplomatic endeavor, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

Xie Feng, commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Hong Kong SAR, made the remarks at a spring festival reception held in Hong Kong.

During the event, four people from Hong Kong were presented the "Friends of Diplomacy" award.

The four "Friends of Diplomacy," coming from different career backgrounds and social sectors, all take up the responsibility of serving Hong Kong and contributing to the country, with deep love for Hong Kong and the motherland, Xie said.

He hailed them as outstanding representatives of the Hong Kong compatriots who have made remarkable contribution to national diplomacy and Hong Kong-related diplomatic work.

"China's diplomacy is for the entire Chinese people, including the over 7 million Hong Kong compatriots," Xie said, adding that "Our compatriots in Hong Kong have placed national rejuvenation at their hearts, and cared deeply about the development of the motherland. They have always walked shoulder by shoulder with the country's diplomacy."

Xie praised Hong Kong compatriots' roles as upholders of national sovereignty, security and development interests, facilitators of people-to-people exchanges between China and the rest of the world, practitioners of the country's opening-up strategy for win-win outcome, as well as contributors to China's participation in global governance.

Describing the year 2018 as "exceptional," Xie pointed out that Hong Kong has been actively participating in national development and continuing the success of "one country, two systems."

He also expressed hope that more and more Hong Kong compatriots, especially young people, would join the "Friends of Diplomacy" and contribute to the national diplomatic endeavor.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 21:07:04|Editor: ZX

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GARISSA, Kenya, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Residents living along the Kenya-Somalia border have been forced to walk a long distance in search of telecommunication network following the destruction of local mobile phone service providers' masts by suspected al-Shabab militants.

The strange turn of events has seen people struggling to communicate with the outside world as well as missing out on the use of the Kenya's vibrant mobile money transfer services, which has in the process grounded their economy and made life unbearable.

Police said the militants have ruined several communication masts in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa counties, which border Somalia, thereby making the militants' movements easy and devoid of detection.

"It has been very difficult for us in the security sector because when an attack occurs, it is next to impossible to call for reinforcement from the Kenya Defense Forces personnel stationed in Dabacity," a security officer in Mandera who declined to be identified told Xinhua on Wednesday.

He said their families back home are equally worried about their safety and not being able to keep in touch with them due to communication breakdown.

While some of the communication masts destroyed by the militants since 2017 have been restored with armed police providing round-the-clock guard, others are yet to be repaired and local residents have appealed for remedial interventions.

Locals interviewed told Xinhua that the militants' actions to destroy the masts have set them 10 years back.

"This is economic sabotage. We can no longer communicate with the outside world or do business with other towns on top if not being able to know what is happening in the next village," Mohamed Abdi, a resident of Welmarer in Garissa, where communication mast was destroyed two weeks ago, said.

Abdi said residents are forced to travel to nearby towns just to make a phone call, while others trek to distances to climb tall trees in search of mobile network, adding that their biggest problem is how to seek for help in case of an emergency.

"The government should intervene because we cannot even call for help in case we are attacked," he pointed out.

Mohamed Birik, North Eastern regional commissioner, said the government has boosted security within and around the border areas and has also secured vital installations including telecommunication equipment.

The official said plans are underway to restore communication masts which were severed, adding that armed security officers have been posted to guard the vital installations.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 20:41:59|Editor: Li Xia

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities have conducted firework quality checks and cracked down on illegal sales and storage of fireworks to ensure safety ahead of the upcoming Spring Festival.

The State Administration for Market Regulation has carried out a random inspection on fireworks produced in six provincial-level regions and found that 15.3 percent of fireworks manufactured by 150 companies were substandard, according to a statement from the regulator.

The ratio was down 11.7 percentage points from a year earlier, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Security has conducted a nationwide inspection on firework safety and uncovered a number of cases of selling or storing fireworks illegally in such provinces as Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, China National Radio (CNR) reported.

Setting off fireworks is a tradition to celebrate the Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year. Local governments have restricted the use of fireworks in recent years to reduce air pollution and address safety concerns.

More than 800 cities in China have imposed firework bans so far, the CNR reported.

This year, Beijing citizens need to provide identity cards to purchase fireworks, local authorities announced last week, as part of efforts to ensure safety.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 20:41:58|Editor: Li Xia

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Patients in China will be able to rate their satisfaction with their experiences while seeing doctors at tertiary hospitals, according to the National Health Commission.

Tertiary hospitals across the country will be incorporated into the satisfaction monitoring network set up by the commission by the end of March, Zhang Zongjiu, an official with the commission, said Wednesday.

Patients can log on to the platform by scanning the hospitals' QR codes with their cell phones and answer questions about how satisfied they are.

China has a three-tier system to grade hospitals, with tertiary hospitals -- which have the largest number of beds and provide comprehensive medical services -- at the top of the list.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 20:26:55|Editor: Li Xia

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Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, watches the performance by an art troupe from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 28, 2019. The DPRK art troupe paid a visit to and staged performances in Beijing from Jan. 23 to 30.(Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- An art troupe from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) paid a visit to and staged performances in Beijing from Jan. 23 to 30.

The troupe is led by Ri Su Yong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee, vice-chairman of the WPK Central Committee and director of the party's International Department.

Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, together with Ri, watched the performance by the DPRK art troupe at the National Center for the Performing Arts on Monday.

Hailing the performance as a cultural exchange activity for implementing the consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, Li said that this visit would further strengthen friendship between the Chinese and DPRK people.

The performance, featuring famous and popular songs from both the DPRK and China, as well as orchestral music, won warm applause from the audience.

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, met with Ri on Tuesday.

Wang said the performance was a great success, marking a good beginning for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"We are willing to work with DPRK comrades to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and let the China-DPRK friendship go deeper into the hearts of the two peoples," Wang said.

Ri expressed gratitude to China for receiving the DPRK art troupe and pledged to continue working with China to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries.

Huang Kunming, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, also watched performance on Saturday.

The DPRK art troupe also watched performances by artists from the National Ballet of China and China National Opera House.

The visit of the DPRK art troupe is at the invitation of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 19:51:47|Editor: ZX

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THE HAGUE, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Dutch political parties have reached an agreement on the children's pardon for children of asylum seekers, ending a bemused period for the coalition.

The liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Christian Democrats (CDA), Democrats 66 (D66) and Christian Union (CU), agreed Tuesday evening on a broad arrangement on amnesty, a so-called children's pardon, for existing cases of parents with children already rooted in The Netherlands who are according to the rules not entitled to stay. These cases, consisting of 700 children, will now be reassessed.

About 90 percent of them, about 630 children, is expected to stay. Because their parents can therefore also not be forced to leave the country, in total around 1,300 children and adults will get a residence permit.

On the other hand, the government wants the children's pardon to disappear for new cases. That was the demand from the biggest party, the VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The parties also agreed that the asylum procedure will be shortened. Because asylum seekers are in that case expected to get a clearer picture on their future, the coalition estimates that there will be no need for a children's pardon in the future and that the regulation can therefore disappear.

"What we have done is build a system for the future where we do not give people hope for a residence permit who should not have that hope," said Minister of Migration Mark Harbers during a press conference in The Hague.

The government parties argued on the issue in recent weeks, after the CDA made a turn. The Christian Democrats joined the camp of D66 and CU, which have long been in favor of easing the children's pardon. This turn not only shifted the relationships within the coalition, but also in the House of Representatives, which will debate on the agreed children's pardon on Wednesday morning. A majority now is in favor.

The VVD initially did not want to change the coalition agreement and stated that it wanted to stick to the current strict form. However, earlier on Tuesday it became clear that the VVD was prepared to negotiate. In exchange for a temporary stop on the expulsion of children rooted in the Netherlands, the parties agreed at the request of the VVD to have a new agreement on future cases.

"We had to find a new balance and I think we succeeded," VVD party leader Klaas Dijkhoff stated. "If you decide that you want to change the coalition agreement, we have to talk. The talks were good, It was about the content, because we know what's at stake."

CU leader Gert-Jan Segers called the agreement a "blessing for all those children who have been in uncertainty".
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 19:51:47|Editor: Li Xia

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DUBLIN, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral trade between China and Ireland set a record high of 14.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up 31.23 percent from a year ago, said a Chinese official on Tuesday.

Last year China exported 3.64 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods to Ireland, up 24.87 percent year on year while its imports from Ireland were valued at 10.8 billion U.S. dollars, up 33.51 percent year on year, said Yue Xiaoyong, Chinese ambassador to Ireland.

The trade surplus that Ireland enjoyed over China last year further widened to 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 38.35 percent compared with the previous year, he said.

The above figures were announced by Yue while addressing a reception hosted by the Chinese embassy here on Tuesday night to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival or the Chinese New Year which falls on Feb. 5 this year.

Yue told over 200 people who attended the reception that 2019 is a year of opportunity for the development of the relationship between China and Ireland as it marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

He said that over the last 40 years, bilateral ties have developed steadily and the strategic partnership for mutually beneficial cooperation formed by the two countries in 2012 has further strengthened their practical and fruitful cooperation.

Big deals were secured by Irish companies which attended the first edition of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai last November, he said.

"We welcome more Irish companies and friends from different circles to participate in the second edition of the CIIE which will be held later this year," he said, adding that China is willing to share the opportunity of development through economic globalization with all the countries across the world, including Ireland.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 19:36:45|Editor: ZX

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WELLINGTON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) on Wednesday announced funding of 9.8 million NZ dollars (6.7 million U.S. dollars) for 31 new Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) projects, aimed at building economic, environmental, and social sustainability in the primary sector.

The SFF provides funding for projects led by farmers, growers, and foresters and has recently been replaced by MPI's new Sustainable Food and Fiber Futures (SFF Futures) program.

"SFF has been instrumental in kicking off both small and large innovative, community-led projects, and laying the groundwork for SFF Futures," Steve Penno, director of investment programs at MPI, said in a statement.

The new 31 projects cover areas from apiculture and dairy to soil management and horticulture and are great examples of innovative thinking, Penno said.

"These projects look at tackling problems or advancing opportunities for the community. They will contribute towards growing our regional economies, protecting our environment, and providing social benefits for New Zealand," he said.

"They range from a project aimed at building our apiculture industry's capacity by training people on tree species that support bee populations, to one that's about improving water quality through the use of plantain pastures to reduce nitrogen leaching," Penno added.

Another project is looking to understand fish behavior at pump stations and how to reduce the threat the stations have on native fish, while another involving five properties in the Central Hawke's Bay will assess the opportunity for growing kiwifruit in the region.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 19:26:42|Editor: ZX

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KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian regulator said Wednesday that Deloitte was fined 2.2 million ringgit (about 540,000 U.S. dollars) for failing to report irregularities involving the 2.4 billion ringgit bond issued by a subsidiary of state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In a statement, the Malaysian Securities Commission said Deloitte failed to discharge its statutory obligations despite having found irregularities when auditing Bandar Malaysia and its holding company, 1MDB Real Estate (1MDB RE), in 2015 and 2016.

1MDB RE, now known as TRX City, was one of the third party security providers of the Islamic bond or sukuk program and the immediate holding company of Bandar Malaysia.

1MDB was the holding company of 1MDB RE and Bandar Malaysia.

The Securities Commission said Deloitte had committed two breaches for its failure to immediately report irregularities which may had a material effect on Bandar Malaysia's ability to fulfill its obligations in repaying bond holders.

The Securities Commission imposed a total fine of 2.2 million ringgit for the breaches, the maximum fine provided under the country's laws.

The commission added the breaches committed by Deloitte were serious in nature as the audit firm failed to discharge its statutory obligations.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 19:21:40|Editor: Li Xia

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GUANGZHOU, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Migrant worker Wu Shuijin feels a little lonely during his Spring Festival homecoming journey this year, because he failed to persuade his co-workers to join his motorcycle trip.

At a rest stop of the No. 321 highway of Zhaoqing City in China's southern Guangdong Province, Wu and his wife got off their motorcycle to stretch their legs and drink some water.

"This place used to be filled with motorcyclists at this time of year, but now it's really quiet here," he said looking around the stop where only a dozen motorcycles are parked.

During the past six years, Wu, who works in Guangdong's Foshan, has rode a motorcycle back to his home in Wuzhou city of neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for Spring Festival.

The co-workers who rode back with him in the previous years have chosen high speed trains or private cars instead this year.

Wu has been a witness to shrinking motorcycle fleets, typical in southern China, which has a large migrant worker population and warm weather. The Pearl River Delta has seen fleets of homebound motorcyclists amid the Spring Festival travel rush over the past decade.

Wearing waterproof coats and leather knee pads and carrying bulging bags, the motorcycle fleets once made headlines in Chinese media, but such heroic trips are fading into memory due to sprawling railway networks and increasing car ownership.

Wu's hometown Wuzhou is a city on the border between Guangdong and Guangxi. The number of motorcycles flowing into the city from Guangdong during Spring Festival travel rush was reduced from 250,000 in 2013 to 55,000 in 2018. It is estimated that the number will drop by 5,000 MORE this year.

The No. 321 and No. 324 highways are major paths for motorcycles to leave the Pearl River Delta.

"In the past, we would use up several boxes of water in one day, but now there is still much left in this box after half a day," said volunteer Zhang Min who has been working at a rest stop of the No. 321 highway for the past three years. "I can see an obvious drop in the number of motorbikes both this year and last year," she said.

Some reporters, who waited at the roadside expecting to capture magnificent pictures of motorbikes, were also disappointed to see the declining number of motorcyclists.

Apart from the expanding railway networks, better countryside roads are also enabling migrant workers to abandon motorbikes. During the past several years, China has been upgrading countryside roads as part of efforts to revitalize the countryside and reduce poverty.

"In the past, I had to ride a motorbike as it would be hard for me to carry the luggage back after getting off the bus. But now the bus can reach my doors thanks to the new roads," said Su Wenxun, a migrant worker from Guangxi who works in Foshan.

Better infrastructure and more private cars are changing the way people observe Spring Festival in the countryside. In the past, many villagers would visit family and friends by bike, motorcycle or on foot. Now it's more common for them to drive.

"It's normal to see traffic jams in our village at new year time," said Wu Shuijin. The couple and their son work in a paper box factory. They bought a car last year. The son who finished working earlier drove back home with some friends.

"The income of migrant workers are rising. It's no big deal for us to buy a car now," Wu said.

He believes that there will still be motorcyclists joining the Spring Festival travel rush in the future. "But it will be individual phenomenon instead of a dramatic spectacle."
NASHUA, N.H., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dresner Advisory Services today launched the 2019 Real Business Intelligence conference, the only industry event for business and IT communities focused completely on real world best practices and proven methods for business intelligence, analytics, information management, and performance management. The theme of the third annual event is Digital Transformation: Driving Change with Data.



Digital enterprises must be hyper-decisiveTM  instantaneously processing vast arrays of data and information and delivering actionable insights to a growing community of users. This years conference will explore the essentials of culture, technology, and process, helping attendees leverage and evolve current investments to emerge as successful, future-ready, and hyper-decisive enterprises.

The 2019 Real Business Intelligence Conference will be held May 14-15, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Tang Center in Cambridge, MA. The focus of the two-day, single track event will be on strategies for success with BI, analytics, information management, and performance management, providing attendees with pragmatic and actionable takeaways. Registration for this premier event is now open at www.seebeyondthenoise.com .

Our conference is specifically engineered to provide a high-impact, enriching environment for learning and collaboration,  said Howard Dresner, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services. More than a typical technology forum, our event aims to provide attendees with the tools and strategies they need to further their success with business intelligence and analytics programs within their own organizations.

Howard Dresner and Bill Hostmann are the conference co-chairs of this executive forum that will feature luminary keynotes, customer case studies, and expert and customer panels.

The conference features an exciting roster of speakers, including:

Bill Aulet  Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, will conduct a workshop focused upon how data drives change and competitive advantage, the networking effects created with data, and why some new ventures that drive change with data soar, while others fail

Sylvia Acevedo  CEO of Girls Scouts of the USA, will present on their digital transformation powered by data analytics, creating a 360-degree view of customer, reaching more girls and increasing impact

Efosa Ojomo  Research Fellow at the Clay Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, will discuss intelligently using data to make more accurate predictions, and developing theories in the absence of data, to help better predict what causes what - and why.

Dr. Iyad Rahwan  Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, will share insights into the various projects deployed at MIT to build a more cooperative relationship between humans and intelligent machines - founded in science and democratic values

Dr. Barb Wixam  Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research, will present on data wrapping, one of three key approaches to data monetization, describing key activities that distinguish top performers  and exploring implications for business intelligence

Dr. Benson Hsu  Vice President of Population Health at Sanford Healthcare System, will explore the fundamentals for the successful transition from big data to artificial intelligence at Sanford Health and its positive effect on population health

Gary Cokins  a renowned EPM expert, will explore the importance and value of strategy maps and balanced scorecards, measures of channel and customer profitability, and activity-based cost management and transparency

David Dadoun  Senior Director of Business Intelligence and Data Governance at Aldo Group, will explore the need for user proficiency in working with data and the design center and goals that drove the creation of Aldo Groups emerging data literacy program

Ankur Gopal  Founder and CEO at Interapt, will explore the widening talent gap as companies increasingly adopt digital business initiatives and the program they created, to source talent from diverse backgrounds, teaching them the skill of learning how to learn in an immersive training program

Mari Kuraishi  President of the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund and co-founder of Global Giving, will discuss the challenges of leveraging data within the nonprofit and philanthropic world, ethical issues around data, and how data is being used to transform the work of the social sector in areas as diverse as fraud detection, data consolidation, and monitoring

We have carefully chosen the speakers and topics on our agenda to provide a unique experience for our attendees, said Bill Hostmann, research fellow at Dresner Advisory Services. We strive to provide a unique and compelling two days of content, and have assembled a stellar roster of sessions that are not found at any other technology conference in the industry.

As a part of its mission, the Real Business Intelligence conference shares profits with charity. 2019 giving partners include: Girl Scouts, Global Giving, The Martin Trust for Entrepreneurship, and The MIT Center for Information Systems Research.

The company announced conference sponsors Salesforce, Information Builders, Alation, and Prophix, and its media partner MIT Sloan Management Review.

For more information, visit www.seebeyondthenoise.com .

About Dresner Advisory Services

Dresner Advisory Services was formed by Howard Dresner, an independent analyst, author, lecturer, and business adviser. Dresner Advisory Services, LLC focuses on creating and sharing thought leadership for Business Intelligence (BI) and related areas such as advanced and predictive analytics, enterprise planning and end user data preparation.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:36:09|Editor: Xiang Bo

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MOSCOW, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he is ready to hold talks with the country's opposition with the assistance of international mediators, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.

"I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that we can speak for the good of Venezuela, for the sake of peace and the country's future," Maduro said in an interview with the Russian news agency.

On the possibility of inviting international mediators, Maduro said that "there are several governments and organizations in the world that demonstrate their sincere concern about what is happening in Venezuela. They called for dialogue."

The president said that he would like them to support the dialogue in Venezuela.

Maduro said he would welcome an early parliamentary election as a "very good form of political discussion, a solution via people's vote."

But he opposes holding a snap presidential election as he was elected less than a year ago with some 68 percent of the vote and the poll was held in line with all constitutional and legal parameters.

"If the imperialists want new elections, let them wait until 2025," Maduro said.

The Venezuelan leader said he is ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, but such a meeting, in his opinion, is unlikely to happen because Trump's team will do everything to prevent it.

Maduro was reelected in May 2018 and was sworn in as president on Jan. 10 for another six-year term.

Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is the head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23.

The United States and Brazil have recognized Guaido's presidency, and Trump has warned that "all options are on the table."

Maduro, in response, announced the severing of diplomatic and political ties with the United States.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:21:07|Editor: Xiang Bo

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NEW DELHI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The 13th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs was held here on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Chinese delegation was led by Yi Xianliang, director general of the department of boundary and oceanic affairs in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the Indian delegation was led by Pranay Verma, the joint secretary (East Asia) in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

The two sides reviewed the situation along China-India border areas since last meeting and exchanged in-depth views on boosting mutual trust and pushing for early harvest consultations.

The two sides agreed to follow the guidance of the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries as well as the mandate of the special representatives of the two countries on the boundary issue, to further strengthen communication and coordination in a constructive manner, and step up the building of mutual trust measures so as to jointly maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas and promote the sustained and sound development of Sino-Indian relations.

Representatives of the two countries' foreign and defense ministries attended the meeting.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:16:06|Editor: Xiang Bo

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ULAN BATOR, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of Mongolia has purchased a total of 183 kg of gold from legal entities and individuals so far this year, down 82 percent from a year ago, local media reported Wednesday, citing the central bank.

The sharp decrease is directly related to the expiration of the effective period of low royalty taxes on gold with the 2014 amendments to the Minerals Law, according to experts of the Bank of Mongolia.

The amendments, which have played an important role in hiking gold sales to the central bank over the past five years, expired on Jan. 1.

The bank of Mongolia purchased only 12.7 tons of gold in 2014. Thanks to the low royalty taxes on gold with the 2014 amendments, the central bank's annual gold purchase almost doubled in 2018, reaching 22 tons, according to the bank.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:06:03|Editor: Xiang Bo

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 130 migrants have gone missing after two migrant boats capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.

In a press statement, the IOM said the two boats sank off Godoria, a locality in the Obock region of northeast Djibouti on Tuesday morning, shortly after setting off in the Red Sea.

The IOM said so far it has rescued two migrants and recovered the bodies of three women and two men.

Search operations are still going on to recover the bodies of the missing migrants. The IOM didn't specify the nationality of the migrants.

Every year, thousands of Ethiopians looking for better economic opportunities go through Djibouti and the Red Sea to reach the Arabian Peninsula. And hundreds of them die while trying to cross the Red Sea either of thirst or drowning yearly.

In recent years, the Ethiopian government has taken out advertisement in local print and broadcast media outlets to warn its nationals of the danger of illegal migration.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:01:02|Editor: Xiang Bo

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least eight civilians were killed as a result of a U.S.-led airstrike on the Islamic State (IS)-held area in eastern Syria, state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday.

The overnight airstrike targeted the outskirts of the Baghuz town in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province, where remnants of IS militants are located.

The official agency said the death toll includes three women and five children.

The shelling came as the IS group has lost all villages and towns in the eastern Euphrates region and is now controlling a few farms in that area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights recently said that around 1,250 IS militants have been killed since the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Force launched a wide-scale offensive to defeat IS in the eastern Euphrates region in eastern Deir al-Zour last September.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 17:01:02|Editor: ZX

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Musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra perform during their Chinese New Year Concert in Philadelphia, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, Jan. 29, 2019. Chinese musicians teamed up with their U.S. counterparts on Tuesday at a special New Year concert in Philadelphia to mark the 40th anniversary of China-U.S. diplomatic relations. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

PHILADELPHIA, United States, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese musicians teamed up with their U.S. counterparts on Tuesday at a special New Year concert in Philadelphia, the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, to mark the 40th anniversary of China-U.S. diplomatic relations.

About 100 musicians from the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) and The Philadelphia Orchestra performed in the first side-by-side Chinese New Year Concert in Philadelphia.

Walter Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, said that it is important to have people-to-people ties.

The joint concert by the two orchestras is a good sign of people-to-people cooperation, which dates back to 1973, he said at a reception before the concert.

To mark the unique event, the two orchestras jointly proposed a distinctive east-meets-west program featuring the world premiere of the newly revised version of Peking Fantasy, a work co-commissioned by the two orchestras and composed by young Chinese composer Gong Tianpeng.

"Inspired by the artistic power of Peking Opera, the crowning heritage of traditional Chinese performance art, Peking Fantasy incorporates the essence of Chinese culture with elements of western symphonies, hoping to introduce the traditional Chinese art to international audience in a more accessible way," Gong told Xinhua.

The collaborative concert has attracted some 2,000 strong local audience.

"It's nice and has captured the spirit with combined symphonies. It's quite amazing that such high caliber musicians from both sides to come together to present the beauty of music," said Katherine Bakeev, who traveled from the neighboring state of Delaware in order to enjoy the concert.

"It was really impressive that such grand scope, range and style can be combined in one piece. It's totally universal," she added, when commenting on the Peking Fantasy.

The Philadelphia Orchestra and SPO have worked together since 2016 to advance cultural exchanges between the United States and China.

Founded in 1900, the Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world. The Orchestra made a historic visit to China in 1973, becoming the first U.S. orchestra to make a China tour since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 16:45:57|Editor: ZX

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least eight civilians were killed as a result of a U.S.-led airstrike on the Islamic State (IS)-held area in eastern Syria, state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday.

The overnight airstrike targeted the outskirts of the Baghuz town in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province, where remnants of IS militants are located.

The official agency said the death toll includes three women and five children.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 16:35:54|Editor: ZX

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LUSAKA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Former Zambian foreign minister on Tuesday officially announced that he will challenge President Edgar Lungu for the country's presidency in the 2021 general elections.

Harry Kalaba, who resigned as foreign minister in January 2018 over rife government corruption, said he will run for president as a candidate from an opposition political party, the Democratic Party.

He told reporters during a press briefing that he was expelled from the ruling party not because of any gross misconduct but because of criticizing high-level government corruption.

He said he will not re-contest as a lawmaker for a constituency in the northern part of the country where he was a Member of Parliament (MP) under the ruling party because he wanted to direct his energies towards mobilizing support for his 2021 presidential bid.

"I do not wish to challenge the decisions of the PF (the ruling party Patriotic Front) in the courts of law, I will spare the courts the drama of adjournments," Kalaba said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 16:05:50|Editor: Li Xia

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's first seaborne rocket launch is scheduled for mid 2019 with a Long March-11 carrier rocket set to blast off in the Yellow Sea, said Jin Xin, deputy chief commander of the rocket.

China has achieved a breakthrough in the key technologies for seaborne launches, Jin, of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, told a press conference by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation on Tuesday.

The Long March-11, with a length of 20.8 meters and a takeoff weight of about 57.6 tonnes, is the only rocket using solid propellants among China's new generation carrier rockets. It has a relatively simple structure and can be launched in a short time.

After leaving port, the rocket could be launched within a week, said Jin.

The rocket can carry a payload of up to 350 kg to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 km and 700 kg to a low-Earth orbit at 200 km. It is mainly used to carry small satellites, and can take multiple satellites into orbit at the same time.

A seaborne launch has many advantages over a land launch, Jin said. For instance, the launch site is flexible, and falling rocket remains pose less danger.

Using civilian ships to launch rockets at sea would lower launch costs and give it a commercial edge, said Jin.

It will also help lay the groundwork for developing reusable rockets and recovery technologies at sea.

The seaborne launch technology will help China provide launch services for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, he added.

Another three Long March-11 launches on land are also planned this year.

The Long March-11, which made its maiden flight on Sept. 25, 2015, has so far sent 25 satellites into orbit in six launches with high reliability and good performance rates.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 15:55:48|Editor: Li Xia

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- By granting British telecommunications giant BT Group nationwide operating licenses, China has showed the world its resolution in opening up the telecom sector.

Issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the nationwide permits marked the first of its kind granted to an international telecom firm, and will allow its China joint venture BT China Communications Limited to contract directly with its customers and bill them in local currency, the company announced on its website last week.

BT, formerly known as British Telecommunications, obtained a nationwide domestic IP-VPN license and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) license, which represented a "major step" for the company in China, it said.

"Being able to service and bill locally significantly simplifies the process of delivering connectivity and other communication services," said Bas Burger, CEO of Global Services of BT.

"A lot of foreign companies have obtained IP-VPN permit in China via joint ventures with Chinese firms, just like BT, but getting the ISP license is somewhat more difficult," Li Zhen, an analyst with CCID Consulting, told the Economic Daily.

Telecom is one of the key sectors that China vowed to open up further, with foreign investors gaining an increasing share in many value-added telecom services.

According to a report by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the total number of foreign-invested telecom firms with operation permits totaled 121 by the end of 2018, up 39 percent year on year.

Chinese authorities have been encouraging faster and cheaper Internet connections, with growing competition among the country's major telecom firms including China Mobile and China Unicom, which means that foreign carriers might not yet have a competitive edge in terms of rates, Li told the newspaper.

Still, getting access to the world's most populous country with increasing mobile penetration means opportunities.

Last year, the country expanded the policies experimented with in the Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ) on opening value-added telecom services to all other pilot FTZs, Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology, said at a press conference Tuesday.

Building on these efforts, the country will implement previously promised opening-up policies in fields including automobiles and telecom, Miao said, adding that the ministry would also roll out policies on data management as well as safety standards in the industry.
KENNETT SQUARE, Pa., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Veterans often carry experiences from their military service that present unique healthcare challenges, and unfortunately, many of them may not know about, or have access to, specialized care. To help provide Veteran-centric care and support that reflect the important contributions made by these men and women, Genesis HealthCare has been participating in We Honor Veterans, a pioneering campaign developed by National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs.



More than 220 Genesis HealthCare affiliated Centers have been recognized as We Honor Veterans Community Partners, with many achieving a Level Four recognition, the highest recognition of this exciting program. As a Level Four Community Partner, Centers have:

Increased their professional and organizational capacity to provide quality services for Veterans and their families;

Developed and strengthened partnerships with hospices, VA, Veteran organizations and other healthcare organizations;

Promoted hospice and palliative care for Veterans; and

Demonstrated the impact of its Veteran-centric organizational programs.

We congratulate Genesis HealthCare for their ongoing commitment to Veterans through the We Honor Veterans program, says NHPCO President & CEO Edo Banach. We Honor Veterans partners are committed to providing quality Veteran-centric care to the Veteran patients they serve. These organizations have achieved advanced training and have demonstrated advanced proficiency in providing the support these patients need. They understand how a Veterans military service, combat experience or other traumatic events, could impact their end-of-life experience.

In addition to the We Honor Veterans program, Genesis HealthCare has a strong commitment to Veterans across the country. The Company has more than 100 VA Contracted facilities, employs more than 1,200 Veterans and cares for more than 16,000 Veterans each and every year.

The resources of We Honor Veterans focus on respectful inquiry, compassionate listening, and grateful acknowledgment, coupled with Veteran-centric education of health care staff caring for Veterans. To learn more about We Honor Veterans or to support this important work via a secure, online donation, please visit www.wehonorveterans.org.



Genesis HealthCare is dedicated to improving the lives we touch through the delivery of high-quality healthcare and everyday compassion.

About Genesis HealthCare

Genesis HealthCare (NYSE: GEN) is a holding company with subsidiaries that, on a combined basis, comprise one of the nation's largest post-acute care providers with more than 400 skilled nursing centers and assisted/senior living communities in 29 states nationwide. Genesis subsidiaries also supply rehabilitation and respiratory therapy to more than 1,500 healthcare providers in 46 states, the District of Columbia and China. References made in this release to "Genesis," "the Company," "we," "us" and "our" refer to Genesis HealthCare and each of its wholly-owned companies. Visit our website at www.genesishcc.com.

Contact: Lori Mayer

610-925-4138

Lori.Mayer@genesishcc.com
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 15:05:38|Editor: WX

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CARACAS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday criticized the U.S. government as "childish" in conducting its foreign policy after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton's notepad with words "5000 troops to Colombia" evoked concerns.

"This is a childish way to direct foreign policy from the White House," Maduro said as he led military exercises at an air force base in the north-central Venezuelan state of Aragua amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

Bolton, while announcing a new round of sanctions against Venezuela and its state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) at a press conference Monday, carried a notepad under his arm with the words scribbled on the top of a largely blank page.

Maduro said the United States appears to be relying on "psychological warfare" in its push to oust him from power.

The White House has repeatedly said "all options are on the table," hinting at a military option against Venezuela with the aid of Colombia, which is a U.S. ally and neighbors Venezuela.

The U.S. sanctions announced Monday aim to block the Venezuelan government's access to 7 billion U.S. dollars belonging to the PDVSA, which the U.S. Treasury described as "a primary source of Venezuela's income and foreign currency," and could lead to losses of up to 11 billion dollars over the next year.

"That's why I say nerves of steel, calm and levelheadedness, confidence in our strength and maximum military mobilization," said Maduro while addressing the armed forces to boost its morale.

Maduro was reelected in the May presidential elections with 67.84 percent of the vote, and was sworn in as president on Jan. 10 for another six-year term.

Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, Juan Guaido, head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23.

The United States, Brazil and some other countries have recognized Guaido's presidency, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that "all options are on the table." Maduro, in response, cut diplomatic and political ties with the United States.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 15:05:38|Editor: ZX

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Self-driving trains for the subway line connecting downtown Beijing with its new international airport are being debugged, according to the line's contractors.

The trains will also be put on part of the line for trial operation in March, said Sun Qingbin, chief engineer of the train testing project from First Engineering Co. Ltd. of China Railway Electrification Bureau Group, on Tuesday.

With a designed speed of 160 km per hour, the trains will make the subway line the fastest urban rail transit project in China, the company said.

It will take only 19 minutes to get from Beijing's south third ring road to Beijing Daxing International Airport after it starts operation by the end of September.

The trains are also equipped with variable frequency air conditioners and LED lighting systems to save energy.

Stretching over 41 kilometers through Beijing's southern part, the subway line will link the new airport with Caoqiao station in Fengtai District, where passengers can transfer to subway line 10.

The line is part of an integrated transport network that will combine subways, expressways, intercity rail and high-speed rail with the airport at the center.

Beijing Daxing International Airport, located 46 kilometers south of downtown Beijing, is designed to take pressure off overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeastern suburbs. It sits at the junction of Beijing's Daxing District and Langfang, a city in neighboring Hebei Province.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:55:34|Editor: WX

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SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's childbirth posted the lowest November figure, maintaining worry about a so-called demographic cliff, a government report showed Wednesday.

The number of newborn babies was 25,300 in November, down 1,800, or 6.6 percent, from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.

It was the lowest November figure since the statistical agency began compiling the data in 1981. The record-low trend lasted for 32 months since April 2016.

The continued fall in newborn was attributable to the social trend of delayed marriage and the reducing number of women who are of childbearing age.

The number of marriage retreated 7.3 percent over the year to 22,800 in November, marking the lowest November figure. The reading for divorce jumped 11 percent to 10,100 in the period.

The continued slide in childbirth fueled concerns about the demographic cliff, which refers to a sudden drop in the heads of household eventually leading to a consumption cliff.

According to the statistical agency's estimate, the South Korean population was forecast to begin falling from 2028.

The low birth rate has been a headache for the South Korean economy as it can lead to the lower workforce amid the fast-aging population, which would drag down the economy's growth potential.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:50:32|Editor: WX

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DHAKA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- In a bid to encourage people to use public transport, the Bangladeshi government will introduce integrated ticketing system for all modes of transportation in the country.

During a meeting of Bangladesh's highest economic policy-making body, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday asked the relevant government authorities for necessary measures in this connection.

After the meeting of Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC),Planning Minister MA Mannan told journalists that they will develop an integrated ticketing system for roads, railways and waterways transportation so that people can travel with a single ticket.

Apart from this, Hasina stressed the need for BMRE (Balancing, Modernization, Rehabilitation, Expansion) to improve the railway services.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:25:29|Editor: WX

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MAIMANA, Afghanistan, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least four militants were killed and seven others sustained injuries as government forces stormed Taliban hideouts in Qaisar district of the northern Faryab province on Tuesday, an army spokesman Mohammad Hanif Rezai said Wednesday.

The government forces, according to the official, attacked a Taliban hideout in Arkalic area of Qaisar district Tuesday evening, killing four insurgents on the spot and wounding seven others.

A weapon cache of the militants has also been destroyed, the official said, adding that the security forces would continue to chase militants elsewhere in Qaisar and adjoining areas.

Taliban militants haven't commented yet.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:15:27|Editor: WX

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NEW DELHI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Swine flu scare has gripped the Indian capital city as 11 suspected deaths and more than 500 cases have been reported over the past one month.

According to a report released by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, which works under the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi has witnessed an alarming rise in the number of swine flu cases this year, with 532 people diagnosed with the disease so far at various hospitals.

This is far more than the 205 cases reported during entire 2018, the report said.

Among the 11 dead, eight belonged to Delhi while the rest three came from other states. The city has witnessed 173 fresh cases of influenza in the last six days.

"There are 15 confirmed cases of swine flu in our hospital, of which eight patients have died. All eight were from Delhi," English daily The Indian Express quoted Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital spokesperson Smriti Tiwari. RML is one of the hospitals designated by the centre government for treating the disease.

Another leading hospital in the city, the Safdarjung Hospital confirmed 18 swine flu cases and three deaths. "Around 9-10 patients were admitted in the hospital. All of them are stable and a few have been discharged," All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) Medical Superintendent D.K. Sharma reportedly said.

According to the newspaper report, the spread of the disease has kept the city's schools on alert too.

After a child tested positive for swine flu at the Sardar Patel School, the school's management got the school fumigated and asked students from nursery to grade four to stay at home till Feb. 4. Other schools have sent out advisories to parents concerning the spread of the disease.

The country's former defence minister George Fernandes had died of swine on Tuesday.

Swine flu is said to be a contagious respiratory disease caused by "Type A" strains of H1N1 virus. The virus enters the body through inhalation of contaminated droplets or is transferred from a contaminated surface to the eyes, nose or mouth of a person.

The initial symptoms of the disease are fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat, running nose, and sometimes vomiting of diarrhea.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:10:26|Editor: zh

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- China will award national medals and honorary titles to both citizens and foreigners who have made great contributions to the country as it marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China this year.

The deceased can also be nominated, according to a circular on the nomination and selection of award-winners issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

This is the first time for the country to conduct the selection and conferment of these highest national honors to commend a number of exemplary contributors to the construction and development of the PRC.

Among them, Medals of the Republic will be awarded to those who have given great contributions and meritorious service and are of high moral character and recognized by the public.

The nominees for the Medals of Friendship should be foreigners who have made outstanding contributions to China's socialist modernization drive, promoted exchange and cooperation between China and the world, helped maintain world peace and who are firm in their long-term friendship with China.

Meanwhile, national titles of honor will be awarded for prominent figures who have made great contributions and earned reputations in fields such as economy, national defense, education, science, culture and sports.

Nomination of candidates and selection of award-winners will be led by the working committee on the Party and state medals and honorary titles and should be transparent and fair, the circular read.

Ceremonies to present the honors will be held on important occasions and anniversaries, such as the National Day, according to a law approved by the National People's Congress Standing Committee, China's top legislature, in late 2015 to introduce the honorary system.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 14:00:24|Editor: WX

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LONDON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A recent journal study has established a potential correlation between Brexit and extra cardio deaths from heart failures and strokes within the British population.

This is mainly due to price hikes on imported fruit and vegetables following the official Brexit on March 29, researchers said in an article published on British Medical Journal Open, an online open access platform dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas.

With 84 percent of fruit and 43 percent of vegetables eaten in the UK in 2017 imported from the European Union (EU) and non-EU countries, the country's fruit and veggie security will be at stake in the post-Brexit years because of increased border controls which push up tariffs and transaction cost.

A decreased intake of fruit and vegetables would lead to a greater chance of the population suffering with cardiovascular diseases, the article said, citing an average of five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed by each individual daily advised by the World Health Organization.

Modelling the study on varying Brexit scenarios, researchers from Imperial College London (ICL) and the University of Liverpool found that a no-deal scenario would be the deadliest as it could increase the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease by more than 12,000 over the next decade, equivalent to a 2-percent increase in deaths from such diseases.

Speaking of the significance of the study, Professor Christopher Millett, from the School of Public Health at ICL, who jointly led the research, said, "The UK's exit from the European Union has long been framed in terms of its political and social importance. But this study shows that the impact of Brexit will reach far beyond the economy and may affect people's risk of disease."

"The UK government should therefore carefully consider the population health implications of Brexit during upcoming negotiations and post-Brexit planning, particularly adverse changes to food systems," the article added.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 13:50:23|Editor: WX

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CARACAS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) barred opposition leader Juan Guaido who self-proclaimed himself interim president from leaving the country and froze his financial assets Tuesday.

The TSJ's order came hours after Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that he requested the high court to apply precautionary measures against Guaido.

"We are requesting the TSJ the application of the following precautionary measures prohibiting departure from the country, of selling and mortgaging real and personal property and freezing bank accounts," the attorney general said.

Saab explained that the request to the TSJ is in line with a preliminary investigation opened against Guaido "in response to violent events that were incited in the country beginning on Jan. 22."

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, in response to Saab's request, tweeted that "there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido."

Maduro was reelected in the May presidential elections with 67.84 percent of the votes, and he was sworn in as president on Jan. 10 for another six-year term.

Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, Guaido, head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23.

The United States, Brazil and some other countries have recognized Guaido's presidency, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that "all options are on the table." Maduro, in response, cut diplomatic and political ties with the United States.

On Monday, the United States announced sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., which the U.S. Treasury described as "a primary source of Venezuela's income and foreign currency," in an attempt to pile financial pressure on Maduro.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified Guaido's authority to receive and control certain property in accounts of the Venezuelan government or its central bank held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S. insured banks, according to a statement from the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.

Pompeo said the certification "will help Venezuela's legitimate government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 13:35:20|Editor: Chengcheng

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BELGRADE, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Developing an all-around cooperation with China is an important direction of Serbian diplomacy, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said here on Tuesday, promising firm support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Vucic made the remarks when receiving China's newly-appointed ambassador to the country Chen Bo, who handed the letter of credence to the president at the Palace of Serbia.

Serbia and China are seeing "the highest level" of bilateral cooperation in history thanks to the BRI, the president was quoted as saying in a press release issued by Vicic's cabinet after the meeting.

Vucic expressed satisfaction with the intensive political dialogue and fruitful economic cooperation between the two countries, and emphasized the importance of Chinese investments for economic growth in Serbia.

Announcing his participation in the second Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation in April in Beijing, he reaffirmed Serbia's support for the initiative, saying it promotes peace and cooperation and shows China's respect for the equality of all countries.

Chen said that the two countries, which enjoy a tradition of friendly relations, are now making progress in pragmatic cooperation in all fields, leading to great achievements, according to a press release by the Chinese embassy.

China attaches great importance to China-Serbia relations, considering Serbia as a reliable friend and an important partner, Chen said. "Bilateral cooperation promotes the economic and social development of Serbia, and benefits the further opening-up of China as well. It features mutual benefits and win-win results" with a great potential and broad prospects

China, together with Serbia, would promote the development of their comprehensive strategic partnership under the BRI and 16+1 mechanism for cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE), Chen said.
Bolingbrook, Ill., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ATI Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2003 by ATI Physical Therapy, a leading physical therapy provider located in 25 states throughout the nation, has partnered with Buona Restaurants for a storewide fundraising effort.



During the entire month of February, Buona will donate 20 percent of sales to the ATI Foundation, provided an ATI Foundation event flyer is present at the time of payment. All 24 Buona locations in Illinois will honor the flyer. The fundraising effort will be promoted at the more than 180 Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana ATI Physical Therapy clinics.



The ATI Foundations mission is to provide resources and funding to children with physical impairments to enhance and sustain a better quality of life. Since inception, they have helped more than 6,700 children nationwide, many of whom have come from the Northern Illinois community.



We are excited to partner with Buona to enhance to the lives of physically impaired children within the communities we live, work and serve. Together, we can make an impact on the quality of resources, care and treatment these children have access to day-to-day, said Terry Williams, Vice President and Executive Director of the ATI Foundation. At the same time, this fundraising effort enables more exposure to the needs of physically impaired children in Illinois and across the nation.



To kick off the month-long event, Buonas Oak Lawn location will host an ATI Foundation beneficiary presentation. This special presentation is open to the public and will take place Friday, February 1 at 12:00 p.m. at 6235 W. 95th, Oak Lawn Illinois 60453.



The honorary beneficiary will be Oak Lawn resident Meghan Reilly who is 15 years old and has cerebral palsy. The last two summers, Meghan has been attending the Shady Oaks Camp serving those with disabilities and impairments in Homer Glen, which has made a valuable impact on her emotional and physical growth. The 4-week camp experience costs the family $5,000 out of pocket. The ATI Foundation has committed to helping Meghan get to camp again this summer.



The Buonavolanto Family is proud to partner with the ATI Foundation on raising funds for Meghan and other local children, said Joe Buonavolanto III, Director of Operations. We are honored to participate in this fundraising event, and it is our hope that we can help as many families as possible.



Buona has 24 locations in the Chicagoland area, and features The Original Italian Beef among other favorites like hand-rolled pizza and specialty sandwiches. To find a Buona near you or to order online, visit Buona.com.



Event flyers can be obtained at any Chicagoland ATI Physical Therapy clinic location (find a location at ATIpt.com) or visit ATIFoundation.com/special-events for more details or to print an event flyer.




Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 13:20:14|Editor: Lu Hui

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CARACAS, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) barred opposition leader Juan Guaido who self-proclaimed himself interim president from leaving the country and froze his financial assets Tuesday.

The TSJ's order came hours after Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced he requested the high court apply precautionary measures against Guaido.

"We are requesting the TSJ the application of the following precautionary measures prohibiting departure from the country, of selling and mortgaging real and personal property and freezing bank accounts," the attorney general said.

Saab explained that the request to the TSJ is in line with a preliminary investigation opened against Guaido "in response to violent events that were incited in the country beginning on Jan. 22."

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, in response to Saab's request, tweeted that "there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido."

Maduro was reelected in the May presidential elections with 67.84 percent of the votes, and he was sworn in as president on Jan. 10 for another six-year term.

Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, Guaido, head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23.

The United States, Brazil and some other countries have recognized Guaido's presidency, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that "all options are on the table." Maduro, in response, announced the severing of diplomatic and political ties with the United States.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 13:05:12|Editor: mmm

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The British House of Commons on Tuesday passed an amendment to show support for Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal which it rejected earlier this month.

By 317 votes to 301, parliament members gave May a mandate to return to Brussels to call for a re-opening of negotiations on the Irish border issue.

In less than two months for Britain to leave the European Union (EU) on March 29 by default, London is seeking an orderly Brexit while preparing for a possible no-deal divorce.

The following are the chronicled major events related to Brexit -- withdrawal of Britain from the EU:

Jan. 15, 2019 -- Parliament members voted 432 to 202 against the deal reached between the British government and the EU after a five-day debate, which was called the worst defeat in almost a century in the British parliament.

Nov. 25, 2018 -- The EU's 27 member states endorsed the withdrawal agreement and Political Declaration on Britain's exit from the EU and the European Atomic Energy Community, as well as on a framework of the future relationship between the EU and Britain.

Britain's 39-billion-pound "divorce bill" has yet to be passed by the British parliament.

Nov. 22, 2018 -- Britain and EU negotiators reached a draft agreement on post-Brexit economic and security ties.

Nov. 14, 2018 -- The British Cabinet agreed to Prime Minister Theresa May's Chequers plan on Brexit.

Nov. 13, 2018 -- Britain and the EU agreed to the draft deal on Brexit. According to the draft, there will be a 21-month transition period after Brexit, during which Britain will remain in the single European market and the EU Customs Union, and continue to enjoy zero tariffs with EU members. In addition, the two sides are expected to seek to establish a free trade area. Earlier in the day, the EU published contingency plans for a "no-deal" Brexit.

July 2018 -- May put forward the controversial Chequers plan, or proposals for negotiations with the EU for a "soft" Brexit.

June 26, 2018 -- Queen Elizabeth II signed the EU withdrawal bill, according to which Britain will quit the EU at 2300 GMT of March 29, 2019. December 2017 -- Britain and the EU reached a deal on several key terms on Brexit.

June 2017 -- Britain's negotiations with the EU officially started, aiming to complete the withdrawal agreement by October 2018.

March 29, 2017 -- The British government invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on quitting the EU.

July 2016 -- The British government created the Department for Exiting the European Union.

June 23, 2016 -- Britain held a national referendum on quitting the EU with 52 percent of the vote in favor. Britain joined the EU in January 1973.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 11:55:01|Editor: mmm

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SAN SALVADOR, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Policies to create jobs and curb crimes could stem the rising flow of undocumented migrants from El Salvador to the United States, presidential hopeful Hugo Martinez has said.

"While immigration is driven by several causes, it is true that in most cases people migrate in search of job opportunities," Martinez, the former foreign minister and presidential candidate from the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), told Xinhua recently.

Since October 2018, the Central American migrant caravans have made their way north through Mexico to the U.S. border, with migrants hoping to be given asylum.

The best way to reverse the exodus, said Martinez, is to invest in the regions the migrants are abandoning.

"If we guarantee them opportunities in their hometowns, the migration flows will decrease."

In fact, he said, fewer undocumented Salvadorans are migrating abroad since the implementation of the Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle, which encompasses three Central American countries.

The plan calls for investment in education, security and job creation in communities with high rates of immigration.

Martinez proposes the creation of "development poles" throughout El Salvador to spur local economies and improve the future outlook for youths.

Many migrants are also escaping from rampant crimes, said Martinez.

An ongoing anti-crime campaign has cut the homicide rates by 50 percent, according to the presidential candidate, but criminal gangs continue to hold sway over certain communities.

Regional cooperation has been effective in fighting crimes, but more remains to be done, he said.

The government will maintain the existing foreign policy, which aims to look after the interests of El Salvador while fomenting ties and cooperation with other countries.

"I coined a historic term for our country, which is a 'foreign policy open to the world and with no ideological trappings.' That is going to be the orientation of my foreign policy," said Martinez.

El Salvador is the first of the six Latin American countries to hold elections in 2019, which also includes Guatemala, Panama, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay.

Some 5.2 million Salvadorans will be eligible to vote on Feb. 3 for a successor to President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, whose five-year term ends.

Martinez, 51, is a trained agricultural engineer. He has been a member of the FMLN since his youth.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 11:34:57|Editor: mmm

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SYDNEY, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Global food security could be under threat from an increasing numbers of food production shocks, according to an Australian study released on Tuesday.

Led by researchers from the University of Tasmania (UTAS), the study assessed food production data for crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture between 1961 and 2013.

They found that there were 226 shocks, or sudden drops in an area of food production, across 134 nations increasing in frequency over the past 50 years.

"Increasing volatility in our food production necessarily means that how much we're producing, how much is available, the prices, and how much globally we can get of certain food types is affected," lead author Richard Cottrell told Xinhua.

According to Cottrell the main causes behind the shocks varied between production areas.

For crops, extreme weather and climate events such as floods and droughts played the biggest part.

Livestock production was also affected by weather and climate, but geopolitical events and disease played a bigger role -- disease was also a significant factor in aquaculture shocks, while in the ocean nearly half of all food shocks were caused by overfishing.

"We looked at the full range of global food production systems, covering crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture," Cottrell said.

"We found that crops and livestock are slightly more shock-prone than fisheries and aquaculture, and some regions, such as South Asia, are more frequently affected than others."

The effects of production shocks reached far beyond where they immediately occurred, with flow on effects which spur unforeseen consequences when one means of food production is dramatically reduced.

"The Indian subcontinent got a lot of food production shocks in crops and livestock, largely to do with floods -- and because they're a major producer in the world it's not only the country themselves that are affected when they have a shock," Cottrell explained.

"If you were to shock someone like India and they have a huge reduction in rice production they'll probably lower their exports and so that shock suddenly starts to affect all the trade partners of the major producers as well."

The increased frequency with which food shocks are occurring makes it difficult for communities to recover between events, hindering coping strategies such as accumulating food or assets for use during times of hardship.

Cottrell said that while the international community faces a significant challenge to build resilience to these problems, steps taken now can help safeguard against unexpected shocks in the future.

"This can be done through measures such as investing in climate-smart food systems, and building food reserves in import-dependent nations so they are better able to deal with the impact of disruption caused by problems such as climate change."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 11:24:55|Editor: mym

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TOKYO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo stocks lost ground Wednesday morning as investors were in a cautious mood ahead of the outcome of the U.S. Federal Reserve's two-day policy-setting meeting, while pharmaceutical makers weighed heavily on the market.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average dropped 109.51 points, or 0.53 percent, from Tuesday to 20,555.13.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, lost 5.23 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,551.86.

Pharmaceutical makers, securities house, consumer credit, and electric power and gas issues comprised those that declined the most by the morning break.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 11:04:51|Editor: ZX

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Policemen and residents look at a mosque where a grenade exploded in Zamboanga, the Philippines, Jan. 30, 2019. At least two people were killed and four others injured in a grenade explosion inside a mosque in southern Philippine city of Zamboanga early on Wednesday, the military said. (Xinhua/Stringer)

MANILA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed and four others injured in a grenade explosion inside a mosque in southern Philippine city of Zamboanga early on Wednesday, the military said.

Western Mindanao Command of the Philippine military said a grenade was thrown by an unidentified perpetrator inside a mosque in Zamboanga.

Police said the victims, most of whom were Muslim preachers from the island province of Basilan and nearby provinces, were sleeping during the attack.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Col. Leonel Nicolas of the military's Joint Task Force Zamboanga Commander said the mosque blast is not a retaliatory act to the twin bombings in southern Philippines several days ago.

"The incident is under investigation. We are assisting the wounded at the Zamboanga City Medical Center," he added.

Nicolas said soldiers and policemen were immediately sent to the mosque after the explosion.

The mosque attack took place three days after Sunday's twin blasts hit a cathedral on Jolo island in Sulu province in southern Philippines that killed at least 21 people and wounded 111 others.

The Philippine authorities blamed the attack on local terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.

The Philippines is on high alert while authorities are investigating the Jolo attack.

Lt. Gen. Arnel Dela Vega called on the public not to speculate by linking the mosque blast to the Jolo blasts.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 10:59:50|Editor: WX

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CARACAS, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) barred opposition leader Juan Guaido who self-proclaimed himself interim president from leaving the country and froze his financial assets Tuesday.

The TSJ's order came hours after Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced he requested the high court apply precautionary measures against Guaido.

"We are requesting the TSJ the application of the following precautionary measures prohibiting departure from the country, of selling and mortgaging real and personal property and freezing bank accounts," the attorney general said.

Saab explained that the request to the TSJ is in line with a preliminary investigation opened against Guaido "in response to violent events that were incited in the country beginning on Jan. 22."
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 10:59:49|Editor: WX

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SYDNEY, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Fire conditions have worsened in Australian State of Tasmania on Wednesday, with authorities warning residents that many more properties are still under threat.

Firefighters broke the news on Tuesday that three homes had been destroyed in the state's south, while 30 degree temperatures and strong winds hampered crews' efforts to protect property.

Nearby tourist attraction, the Tahune Airwalk was left blackened and charred when fires moved through the Huon River area.

Residents have been warned that the fire may still jump the river and they should be prepared to watch out for spot fires which can be started by floating embers, if they haven't already evacuated.

There are currently 12 emergency warnings in place across the state urging residents to take immediate action.

"With the fire weather conditions that are predicted, it's unlikely any fire will be controllable and those fires are likely to take a run," Andrew McGuinness from the Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) told the ABC.

"Crews are stretched and conditions can change very quickly," he said.

State capital Hobart was shrouded in smoke on Tuesday evening, with the TFS placing a smoke warning on the area.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 10:24:43|Editor: Chengcheng

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Barcelona have reached a deal to sign highly rated Brazilian teenager Gabriel Novaes on loan from Sao Paulo, according to press reports.

The Catalan club secured the 19-year-old on an 18-month contract with an option to make the deal permanent, Globo Esporte said on Tuesday.

Novaes traveled to Spain early Wednesday to undergo a medical before Thursday's close of the winter transfer window.

He is expected to play the rest of the current season for the Barcelona B team but could be promoted to Ernesto Valverde's first-team squad next season.

The forward was a standout performer in Sao Paulo's U-20 Paulista Youth Cup triumph earlier this month, leading the tournament scoring with 10 goals.

Barcelona's La Liga rivals Sevilla were also interested in signing the forward, according to news reports.
An Artist from China's Yunnan Province sings a traditional song during the opening ceremony of the Exhibition of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Yunnan Province of China and Happy Chinese New Year Photo Exhibition at the China Cultural Center in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/U Aung)

YANGON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition of intangible cultural heritage from China's Yunnan Province kicked off Tuesday at China Cultural Center in Myanmar's Yangon.

Scheduled to run for two days, the exhibition is being held under the theme "Recalling of the Beauty of Colorful Yunnan."

Yunnan, a multi-cultural province in southwestern China, is rich with intangible cultural heritage, with as many as 26 ethnic groups, out of a total of 56 in China, residing in the province.

Visitors look at photos during the opening ceremony of the Exhibition of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Yunnan Province of China and Happy Chinese New Year Photo Exhibition at the China Cultural Center in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/U Aung)

Wang Xue Hong, wife of Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, expressed her belief that the exhibition could promote cultural exchanges between China and Myanmar.

It is necessary to preserve and value the cultural heritage of a country as the heritage reflects the image of that country and its people, U Aung Naing Myint, Rector of National University of Arts and Culture of Myanmar, told the event.

The two-day exhibition displays 16 intangible cultural heritage crafts including Yiliang bamboo weaving, tin making technique, Jianchuan woodcarving, tie-dyeing technique of the Bai people, Naxi Dongba painting, cucurbit flute making, the shadow puppet making, among others.

The exhibition was jointly organized by Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Yunnan Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Center and China Cultural Center in Myanmar.
English French

Paris, 30th January 2019

Changes to the terms of the agreement between COFEPP and MBWS

The ADAM to vote in favor of the Principal Option

Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits (Euronext: MBWS) today announced the addition of an amendment to the agreement signed by COFEPP and MBWS, at the conclusion of discussions with the ADAM.

Under the terms of the amendment:

COFEPP has made a commitment to not exercise, in total, more than 30% of the stock warrants issued under the framework of the Principal Option;

The timeframe for exercising the Long-term stock warrants is extended from 27 to 42 months.

The ADAM (Association for the Defense of Minority Shareholders) and several shareholders with a significant equity stake in MBWS has viewed these changes favorably, and have made a commitment to vote in favor of the Principal Option (Resolutions 28 and 29, to be submitted to shareholders at the General Meeting scheduled on 31st January 2019).

MBWS Board of Directors, met today to approve these changes unanimously (with COFEPPs representatives abstaining from the discussions and the vote). The Board of Directors is pleased with this agreement which is in the best interest of the Company, all of its shareholders, employees, clients and partners.

Additionally, today the Company received a letter with the following statement made by the ADAM:

Colette Neuville declared, Without denying the criticisms that minority shareholders may have of the agreement of 21st December 2018 between COFEPP and MBWS, the ADAM and several shareholders with a significant equity stake in MBWS have considered that  given the seriousness of the situation  it has become necessary to take a constructive approach.

Discussions were held that have resulted in more favorable conditions for minority shareholders: several shareholders have thus made a commitment, along with ADAM, to vote for the Principal Option (and to approve Resolutions 28 and 29) under two conditions:

That the dilution of minority shareholders be significantly reduced: to this end, COFEPP has accepted the commitment to exercise no more than 30% of the stock warrants to be issued under the framework of the Principal Option (with the shares acquired under the Reserved Capital Increase, COFEPP could have exercised up to 47% of the stock warrants); That the timeframe for exercising the Long-term stock warrants be extended from 27 to 42 months (or 3.5 years) so that minority shareholders are able to benefit from the first results of the strategy carried out by COFEPP (which will have taken control of the Company) before exercising their stock warrants.

This agreement provides evidence of the efforts that have been made by each of the parties to provide the company with the chance to overcome the difficulties which it is currently addressing and will continue to face. This chance will depend significantly on the confidence that management is able to build with its various partners, under the close watch of minority shareholders, especially regarding the availability of information.

Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits produces and sells a range of wine and spirits across four geographic clusters: Western Europe, Middle East & Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. MBWS has distinguished itself for its know-how, the range of its brands, and a long tradition and history of innovation. From the inception of Maison Marie Brizard in Bordeaux, France in 1755, to the launch of Fruits and Wine in 2010, MBWS has successfully developed and adapted its brands to make them contemporary while respecting their origins. MBWS is committed to providing value by offering its customers bold, trustworthy, flavorful and experiential brands. The company has a broad portfolio of leading brands in their respective market segments, most notably William Peel scotch whisky, Sobieski vodka, Krupnik vodka, Fruits and Wine flavored wine, Marie Brizard liqueurs and Cognac Gautier. MBWS is listed on the regulated market of Euronext Paris, Compartment B (ISIN code FR0000060873, ticker MBWS) and is included in the EnterNext PEA-PME 150 index, among others.

Investor Contact

Raquel Lizarraga

raquel.lizarraga@mbws.com

Tel : +33 1 43 91 50 Press Contact

Simon Zaks, Image Sept

szaks@image7.fr

Tel : +33 1 53 70 74 63





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Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 09:59:32|Editor: Chengcheng

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MEXICO CITY, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Former Mexico international defender Carlos Salcido has joined Veracruz on a free transfer as he extends his professional career to a 19th year, the Liga MX club said on Tuesday.

The 38-year-old signed with Veracruz until the end of the current season, having parted ways with Guadalajara last month.

"After reaching an agreement with the board... [Carlos] will be reinforcing the squad to contribute his experience and leadership for the remainder of the Clausura [tournament]," Veracruz said in a statement.

Salcido, who has been capped 124 times for Mexico's national team, made 117 league appearances for Guadalajara after joining the club from Tigres UANL in 2014.

Veracruz are currently 17th in the 18-team Clausura standings with a draw and three losses to date.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 09:54:30|Editor: mym

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian authorities on Tuesday arrested five people in connection with the iron-ore waste dam collapse last week, which killed scores and causing an environmental catastrophe.

Police arrested three employees of mining giant Vale, which owns the mine in Brumadinho in the southeast state of Minas Gerais, and two subcontracted engineers.

The employees "were directly involved in the licensing of the dam that collapsed," and the engineers "had declared the dam was stable," state news agency Agencia Brasil said.

While arresting the suspects, who will be detained for a period of 30 days, police also gathered documents as evidence.

"It is hard to believe that a dam with this size -- run by one of the world's biggest mining firms -- can burst unexpectedly, without any sign of vulnerability," said Perla Saliba Brito, the federal judge that ordered the arrests.

The dam was reportedly equipped with sensors capable of detecting signs of structural weakening.
Tourists visit the Wat Phnom historic site in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Phearum)

by Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese tourists drove Cambodia's tourism growth last year, with some 1.9 million Chinese holidaymakers visiting the kingdom, up from 1.2 million one year earlier, Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said in recent interview with Xinhua.

A total of 6.2 million international visitors traveled to the Southeast Asian country in 2018, up 11 percent from 5.6 million in the year before, he said.

"Chinese tourists had sustained our tourism growth last year," Khon told Xinhua.

The two countries set 2019 as the China-Cambodia culture and tourism year. The minister said the huge influx of Chinese tourists to Cambodia was the result of excellent ties and proximity between Cambodia and China, Cambodia's political stability and attractive tourism sites, and increasing direct flights between the two countries.

Direct flights connecting the two countries have remarkably increased from 110 flights per week in 2016 to 404 flights per week now, according to a government report.

"Chinese tourists are the biggest spenders of all foreign tourists to Cambodia," Khon said, adding that they had importantly contributed to developing Cambodia's economy and creating jobs for Cambodians.

Chhay Sivlin, president of the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents, which represents nearly 300 tour and travel companies, said most of Chinese tourists visited the famed Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap province and the coastal province of Preah Sihanouk.

"A Chinese tourist averagely stay for five days in Cambodia, spending about 600 U.S. dollars for air fares and accommodation costs," she told Xinhua. "This amount excludes their spending for doing shopping."

Sivlin, who is also president and chief executive officer of CSL Travel & Tours, said Chinese tourists like doing shopping and purchasing high-end luxury goods.

File Photo of Chausay Tevada temple in the Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap, Cambodia. (Xinhua/Mao Pengfei)

HIGHER TARGET

Khon said Cambodia is expected to attract 3 million Chinese holidaymakers in 2020 and up to 5 million in 2025.

"Thanks to our close ties, our attractive tourism sites, and increasing direct flights between our two countries, I believe that we can achieve these targets," the minister said.

In order to lure more Chinese travelers, he said the ministry would continue to encourage the owners of hotels, restaurants and resorts to use three languages -Khmer, English and Chinese - on their billboards or promotional leaflets.

Kong Sopheareak, director of the statistics and tourism information department at the Ministry of Tourism, said to prepare for the growing number of Chinese tourists, the kingdom needs to invest more in hotels, restaurants and transportation services.

"Also, we need to invest more in the development of human resources in tourism sector, especially in the training of Chinese speaking tour guides," he told Xinhua.

File Photo of Ta Keo temple in the Angkor Archaeological Park in Siem Reap, Cambodia. (Xinhua/Mao Pengfei)

SPRING FESTIVAL BOOM

Khon said the Ministry of Tourism has never collected the figures of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia during the Chinese New Year, but he has observed that every year, a lot of Chinese tourists have visited the kingdom on the occasion.

"I think it is not different from previous years, a large number of Chinese tourists are expected to visit Cambodia during the upcoming Chinese New Year," he said.

The Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival falls on Feb. 5 this year.

Sopheareak said the demand for hotels, restaurant and transportation services was very high on the occasion. "As I know, most of the hotels, particularly in Siem Reap and Preah Sihanouk have been booked," he said.

Sivlin said hotels at popular tourist sites are always fully booked during the Spring Festival season.

"I think the number of Chinese tourists to Cambodia during the Spring Festival holiday is about five times higher than that of normal days," she said.

Ho Vandy, president of World Express Tour and Travel Company, believe that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia during the Spring Festival this year will be more than that of last year.

"As Chinese people are rich, they are keen to travel overseas on their holidays, and Cambodia is one of their most favorable destinations," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 07:59:12|Editor: Chengcheng

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SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Apple Inc. said Tuesday that its revenue of the fiscal 2019 first quarter has fallen 5 percent to 84.3 billion U.S. dollars from the year-ago quarter, the first time that the U.S. hi-tech giant has reported a revenue decline for the quarter ending in December in more than 10 years.

Market analysts attributed the drop in earnings largely to the company's disappointing sales in China as Apple reported a 15 percent decline in iPhone revenue for the first quarter ending on Dec. 29, 2018.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said it was "disappointing" that the Cupertino, California-based company has missed its revenue guidance for the past quarter.

The revenue from iPhone sales for Q1 quarter totaled 51.98 billion dollars, slightly below the market forecast of 52.67 billion dollars.

However, Apple said its total revenue from all other products and services grew 19 percent, with services revenue from Apple Pay, Apple Music and iCloud storage hitting an all-time high of 10.9 billion dollars, up 19 percent over the prior year.

The company posted all-time highs in its revenues from Mac and Wearables, Home and Accessories, which increased 9 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

"Our active installed base of devices reached an all-time high of 1.4 billion in the first quarter, growing in each of our geographic segments," Cook said.

He said Apple's net cash balance topped 130 billion dollars at the end of the first quarter.

Apple predicted its revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 will stand between 55 billion and 59 billion dollars, while gross margin will be 37 percent and 38 percent.

While Apple generated "strong operating cash flow" of 26.7 billion dollars during the December quarter, its operating expenses for the second quarter are forecast between 8.5 billion and 8.6 billion dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 07:34:09|Editor: mym

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Police officers stand at the site of an Taliban attack in Bodana Qala village, Sholgara district of Balkh province, Afghanistan, Jan. 29, 2019. At least six police officers were killed and three others wounded after Taliban militants attacked security checkpoints along a main road in Afghanistan's northern province of Balkh overnight, a local official said Tuesday. (Xinhua/Yaqoub Azorda)
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 06:58:58|Editor: mym

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LONDON, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The British pound dipped against major currencies as a much-anticipated amendment to postpone Brexit was rejected by the British parliament on Tuesday night.

The British House of Commons on Tuesday voted 321-298, with a majority of 23, against an amendment from Labor's Yvette Cooper for Brexit to be delayed by nine months if no deal is agreed by Feb. 26.

The latest development came as British MPs voted on a series of amendments to modify the prime minister's Brexit plan after it was voted down by a historic margin on Jan. 15.

The pound fell by 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar and 0.8 against euro while it was down by some 0.1 percent against both currencies just before the parliament vote began.

Out of the seven amendments, only two were passed. One is a non-binding call on the government to rule out no-deal Brexit and the other demands replacing Brexit backstop with "alternative arrangements".

The vote gives May a mandate to return to Brussels to say the Brexit deal is likely to win in the British parliament if changes are made to the Irish border issue. However, the EU has insisted that the Irish backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement and is not open for renegotiation.

The pound has roared higher in recent weeks as investors discount the chances of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, said Luke Trevail, currency analyst at TorFX, before the vote, believing it was put to the test at the parliament vote on various amendments.

Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com, was quoted by the BBC as saying the pound's drop is "quite a comedown".

"[It] is showing how the pound remains intensely sensitive to Brexit news flow, and partially how the market had put some faith in the Remainers/soft Brexiters forcing concessions from the government," he says.

The Backstop plan is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the Brexit deal. It is designed to avoid border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is considered by some British especially Brexiteers to be a trap to retain Britain in a customs union with the EU and pragmatically delay their "divorce".
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 05:38:35|Editor: mym

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NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday, as the United States slapped sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company to pile financial pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro through curbing the country's crude exports.

The White House announced the sanctions against Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA, during a Monday briefing, which the U.S. Treasury described it as "a primary source of Venezuela's income and foreign currency."

As the PDVSA provides an overwhelming majority of Venezuela's oil exports, the measure will block 7 billion U.S. dollars in assets and could result in 11 billion dollars in lost sales over the next year, said U.S. national security adviser John Bolton during the White House briefing.

Any purchases of Venezuelan oil by U.S. entities would flow into blocked accounts. Relevant money would be released only to Venezuela's legitimate leaders, according to the White House.

U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate interim president last week, denouncing incumbent President Maduro who won the elections last year with over two thirds of the votes.

The United States is Venezuela's biggest oil customer, importing about 500,000 barrels per day of crude in 2018, according to Reuters.

PDVSA is also the parent company of the Huston-based petroleum company Citgo and holds the majority stake of Citgo, also a refiner and transporter of fuels and other industrial products.

Investors are worried that the latest sanctions would negatively impact U.S. purchasers and send global oil prices soaring.

The West Texas Intermediate for March delivery bounced 1.32 U.S. dollars to settle at 53.31 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for March delivery rose 1.39 dollars to close at 61.32 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 05:28:31|Editor: yan

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BEIRUT, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- France has denied media reports that France had suspended its support to the Lebanese army to protest Hezbollah's continued military mobilization, said French Embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday.

"France did not stop its military aid to Lebanon, and French President Emmanuel Macron will not cancel his visit to Lebanon which is due in February," Agnes Von der Muhll, spokesperson of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was quoted as saying in a statement released by the embassy.

Media reports had earlier quoted French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as saying that Macron planned to cancel his visit to Lebanon if Lebanon fails to form a new government.

Reports also suggested that France had suspended support to the Lebanese army.

"France is paying close attention to the situation in Lebanon and hopes to see the formation of a new government as soon as possible," the statement read, stressing the need to "ensure Lebanon's sovereignty, stability and security."

The statement also called upon Lebanese officials to implement the needed reforms in a bid to obtain the 11 billion U.S. dollars pledged for Lebanon by donor countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 05:23:31|Editor: yan

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ROME, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Italian government's policies toward migrants already in the country could be helping to line the pockets of private holding companies, according to a new report unveiled Tuesday in the Italian Parliament.

The report from Valori, an economic and sustainability research entity, focused on the government's security decree, which is aimed at closing the country's ports to potential asylum seekers from poor countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Over the last five years, Italy has been the top landing spot for refugee arrivals. But since the government took power under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in June 2018, the number of migrant arrivals in Italy has fallen to nearly zero. Some headed for Italy have died at sea, with others landing in other countries.

Tuesday's report in parliament said there was a dark side for those would-be asylum seekers already in Italy: conditions in migrant camps are bad and showing little sign of improving.

Part of the reason for that, Valori said, is that operation of the camps is being handed off to private companies motivated by maximizing profit rather than to process and help to those who traveled from war-torn or economically broken home countries.

"The government crackdown on the system for the reception of ... asylum seekers imposed by the government's security decree has already produced a sure winner," Valori said, mentioning the Swiss equity group ORS, which already operates migrant centers in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and which started work in Italy five months ago.

"This is important research in an area where there is very little information," said Nicola Fratoianni, a member of Parliament's Chamber of Deputies who was at the event where the report was unveiled.

"There is a saying that the people running migrants across the Mediterranean make more money from migrants than they do from drugs. The companies running camps are also making money from the migrants," Fratoianni said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 04:58:24|Editor: yan

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ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi-backed Yemeni government started Tuesday talks with foreign diplomatic missions in an attempt to unfreeze its bank accounts being frozen abroad as a result of the country's conflict.

In the southern port city of Aden, Governor of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY), Mohammad Zimam, discussed with German Ambassador to Yemen, Carola Muller, measures of re-opening CBY's accounts frozen by some German banks, according to the state-run Saba news agency.

During the meeting, Deputy Governor of the CBY for foreign banking operations, Hussein Quaiti, said that releasing frozen accounts will help Yemen's central bank in paying its euro payment commitments in addition to resuming cooperation between the Yemeni and German banks, Saba said.

German banks were paying Yemen euro-paid commitment in accordance with a financial agreement signed between Yemen's Central Bank and Germany previously, it said.

The German ambassador also met with the country's Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik and discussed key financial issues and the suitable ways to support the war-torn Arab country economically.

Muller confirmed that she had communicated with German banks regarding unfreezing Yemeni bank accounts and is waiting for the response, according to Saba.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including capital Sanaa in 2014, causing the legitimate government members to flee and settled in Aden.

The internal military conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government recently entered its fourth year, aggravating the suffering of Yemenis and deepening the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
English French

Press release

Paris, January 30, 2019

2018 Annual Results

Solid sales and financial results:



Overall backlog: + 17.9% to 2.2bn

Revenues: + 12.0% to 1.6bn

Attributable net income: + 23.4% to 73.0m

Financial structure: 50.0 positive net cash position



Proposed dividend: 2.50 per share

Key sales data (2018 vs. 2017)







Total orders: 2,231.0m (+15.0%) incl. VAT



Housing: 1,871.5m (+4.5%) incl. VAT 9,122 units (+1.1%)



Commercial property: 359.5m Take-up period for Housing*: 5.0 months vs. 5.1 months ( -0.1 months)







Key financial data

(2018 vs. 2017)







Revenues:

1,558.2m (+12.0%) Of which housing: 1,293.8m (+6.6%)

Gross margin:

300.0m (+11.5%)

Adjusted EBIT:

148.9m (+18.1%)

Attributable net income:

73.0m (+23.4%)

Cash net of financial debt:

50.0m vs. (33.1)m at end 2017



Financing capacity: 353.4m (321.1M at end 2017)







Key growth indicators (2018 vs. 2017)







Overall backlog:

2,179.4m (+17.9%) Of which Housing: 1,960.8m (+17.4%)



Housing property portfolio: 30,116 units (+8.4%) Kaufman & Broad SA announced its results for the 2018 financial year (from December 1, 2017 to November 30, 2018) today.

Nordine Hachemi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kaufman & Broad, made the following comments:







"The 2018 results confirm the quality of Kaufman & Broad's fundamentals under less dynamic market conditions. They show that its growth model is capable of generating profit and cash flow. This model guarantees a long-term capacity for distribution while reinforcing its financial solidity and its outlook for growth.







"In value terms, overall orders were up by 15.0%. The increases in the land reserve (+8.4%) and in overall Backlog (+17.9%) confirm our strong long-term growth capacity. In particular, thanks to the 17.4% increase in Housing Backlog, we will be able to continue closely managing our land reserve, which represents more than three years of activity.







"Given that the French housing market was in decline in 2018, as we anticipated, these positive sales results attest that our housing supply is in line with demand and underscores our capacity for giving our customers high-quality housing at prices consistent with their spending power.







"In addition, the Commercial business was dynamic, with total orders amounting to 359.5m including VAT. The A7-A8 project at Paris-Gare d'Austerlitz, around 90,000 sq.m of office, retail, and hotel space, is moving ahead according to schedule, and the building permit should be filed in the first half of 2019.







"The adjusted EBIT margin was more than 9%, a testament to our firm handle on sale prices and operating expenses. Working capital requirement is still stable in a context of increasing revenues and Backlog.





"The result is an 83.1m reduction in financial debt compared with the end of 2017 and a positive net cash position of 50m at the end of November 2018.

"All of these points helped raise consolidated share capital by more than 46 million, bringing it to 262m at the end of November, and contributed to a financing capacity of 353.4 M, made up primarily of available cash (253.4 million).

"In 2019, the favorable market fundamentals were still powerful (demographic dynamics, in particular the need to build in high-demand, low-supply areas), which helped boost demand for new housing. However, due to a projected decrease in the number of building permits granted and a predicted increase in the project abandonment rate linked to a persistent gap between asking prices and purchasing power, the market should settle at around 115,000 housing units.

"In this context, Kaufman & Broad will continue its strategy of marketing projects that respect its customers' expectations and their financial means.

"Over the 2019 financial year, total revenues should be stable compared with 2018: the expected drop in the first half due to the strong Business Property activity in the first half of 2018 should be offset by an increase in the second half of 2019. The gross margin ratio is expected to remain stable at around 19% and the adjusted EBIT ratio should stay above 9%.

"Based on these data, the Board of Directors will propose the payment of a dividend of 2.50 per share to the General Meeting of Shareholders, a 19% increase, including an option for payment in cash, shares, or in cash and shares."



Sales activities

Housing

For 2018, in value terms, housing orders totaled 1,871.5 million including VAT, a 4.5% increase compared with 2017. In volume, 9,122 units were ordered, a 1.1% increase compared with 2017.

The take-up period for projects was 5.0 months over the 12-month period, a 0.1 month improvement compared with 2017 (5.1 months).

Housing supply, with 95% of projects located in high-demand, low-supply areas (A, Abis, and B1), totaled 3,781 units at the end of 2018 (3,835 units at end 2017).

Breakdown of the customer base

In 2018, in value terms (before VAT), orders from first-time buyers were up compared with 2017, representing 18% of sales. Orders from second-time buyers increased by 5%, making up 9% of sales. Orders from investors accounted for 31% of sales (26% just for the Pinel Scheme). Block sales increased by 34%, representing 41% of sales in 2018, of which more than 46% of which was managed accommodation(for tourists, students, business travelers, and seniors).





Commercial Property

Over the 2018 financial year, the Commercial Property segment posted 359.5 million (including VAT) in net orders, a figure that corresponds to a logistics platform and two office complexes.

In particular, Kaufman & Broad signed:

a sale-before-completion contract (VEFA) to build approximately 7,000 sq.m in office premises at Eurasante, a specialized health industry complex developed by the Lille metropolitan area.

a sale-before-completion contract (VEFA) for a major restructuring project on the "HIGHLIGHT" commercial campus in Courbevoie: 24,000 sq.m divided into three buildings, including one high-rise building;

a sale-before-completion contract (VEFA) for the "GREEN OAK" office building in Arcueil in the Vache Noir district: 10,700 sq.m, with a significant percentage of low-carbon materials, such as wood or recycled glass in the facade;

a sale-before-completion contract (VEFA) for a latest-generation XXL logistics platform of a total surface area of 74,000 sq.m in MER for DWS (Deutsche Bank Asset Management) after signing a lease-before-completion (BEFA) contract with the LAPEYRE group.

In addition, in 2018, Kaufman & Broad delivered two major office projects:

The "GALAXIE" building in the 13th arrondissement of Paris: 23,000 sq.m, home to the CDC Habitat Group's new head office,

The "ORA" building in the 17th arrondissement of Paris: 26,000 sq.m, home to Canon's new head office (70% of surface area),

Kaufman & Broad (through its subsidiary Concerto) also delivered the French armed forces' logistics platform in Chatres: 36,000 sq.m completed for GROUPAMA (owner) and the Ministry of Defense (tenant).

Kaufman et Broad currently has around 283,000 sq.m in office space and around 66,000 sq.m in logistics space under marketing or under study. It is also currently building around 52,000 sq.m in office space and more than 146,000 sq.m in logistics space.

Forward-looking sales and development indicators

At the end of 2018, the Housing backlog amounted to 1,960.8 million (excluding VAT), the equivalent of 18.2 months of business. Kaufman & Broad had 203 housing programs on the market at the same date, which represent 3,781 housing units, compared with 218 programs representing 3,835 housing units at the end of November 2017.

The Housing property portfolio represents 30,116 units. It was up by 8.4% compared with the market at the end of 2017 and corresponds to more than 3 years of sales activity.

In the 1st quarter of 2019, the Group is planning to launch 25 new programs, including 8 in the Ile-de-France region, representing 543 units,16 outside of the Paris region (Ile-de-France), representing 1,139 units, and one business property program.

At the end of 2018, the commercial backlog amounted to 218.3 million.

Financial results



Business volumes

Total revenues amounted to 1,558.2 million (excluding VAT), up 12.0 % compared with 2017.

Housing revenues amounted to 1,293.8 million (excluding VAT), compared with 1,213.7 million (excluding VAT) in 2017. This represents 83.0 % of group revenue. Revenues from the Apartments business were up 4.4 % compared with 2017, and amounted to 1,220.8 million (excluding VAT). Revenue from Single-family Homes in Communities totaled 73.0 million (excluding VAT), versus 44.6 million (excluding VAT) in 2017.

Revenue from Commercial Property amounted to 254.2 million (excluding VAT), compared with 165.3 million (excluding VAT) in 2017.

Profitability highlights

Gross margin for the 2018 fiscal year amounted to 300.0 million compared with 269.1 million in 2017. The gross margin ratio was 19.3%, stable compared with 2017 (19.4%).

Current operating expenses amounted to 162.8 million (10.4% of revenues), compared with 151.2 million for the same period in 2017 (10.9% of revenues).

Current operating profit amounted to 137.2 million, compared with 118.0 million in 2017. The current operating margin ratio was 8.8 %, compared with 8.5% in 2017.

The group's adjusted EBIT amounted to 148.9 million in 2018 (compared with 126.1 million in 2017). The adjusted EBIT margin was 9.6% (compared with 9.1% in 2017).

Attributable net income was 73.0 million compared with 59.1 million in 2017, up by 23.4%.

Financial structure and liquidity

The net cash position was 50 million on November 30, 2018, compared with a net financial debt of (33.1) million at the end of 2017, an 83.1 million improvement within the space of one year. This includes 6.6 million in shares bought back in 2018. Cash assets (available cash and investment securities) amounted to 253.4 million, compared with 221.1 million at November 30, 2017. The group's financing capacity was 353.4 million (321.1 million at the end of 2017).

Working capital requirement amounted to 110.8 million (7.1 % of annual revenues), compared with 147.6 million at the end of 2017 (10.6% of revenues). It is significantly lower than "standard" levels, for two main reasons: first, the take-up period for Housing was at a historic low, and, secondly, commercial operations benefited from favorable operating conditions, both for office space and logistics, in 2018.





Dividends

At the General Meeting of Shareholders on May 2, 2019, Kaufman & Broad SA's Board of Directors will propose the payment of a dividend of 2.50 per share, an increase of 19% compared with the dividend paid for 2017 (2.10 per share). A proposal will also be made at this Shareholders' Meeting to give Kaufman & Broad's shareholders the option to receive this dividend in cash, in shares or in cash and shares.

Governance

With the objective of continually improving its governance, Kaufman & Broad's Board of Directors has decided to appoint Yves Gabriel to the position of lead director. Yves Gabriel joined the Board of Directors on March 8, 2016 as an independent board member and subsequently became chair of the Compensation and Nominating Committee.

He was the Chairman and CEO of Bouygues Construction and member of the Bouygues Group's board from 2002 to 2015, CEO of the SAUR group from 1996 to 2002, and CEO of the SCREG group from 1992 to 1996. Before that, he held management roles in different subsidiaries of the SCREG and Bouygues groups.

Yves Gabriel will assist the Chairman in his duties, particularly with the organization and proper functioning of the Board of Directors and its committees and the supervision of corporate governance and internal control.

2019 outlook

Over the 2019 financial year, total revenues should be stable compared with 2018: the expected drop in the first half due to the strong Business Property activity in the first half of 2018 should be offset by an increase in the second half. The gross margin ratio is expected to remain stable at around 19% and the adjusted EBIT ratio should stay above 9%.

This press release is available at www.kaufmanbroad.fr

Next regular publication date:

April 12, 2019: Q1 2019 results (after market close) Thursday, May 2, 2019: Shareholders' Meeting



Contacts

Chief Financial Officer

Bruno Coche

01 41 43 44 73

infos-invest@ketb.com







Press Relations Media relations: Hopscotch Capital: Valerie Sicard

01 58 65 00 77 / k&b@hopscotchcapital.fr

Kaufman & Broad: Emmeline Cacitti

06 72 42 66 24 / ecacitti@ketb.com

About Kaufman & Broad - Kaufman & Broad has been designing, developing, building, and selling single-family homes in communities, apartments, and offices on behalf of third parties for more than 50 years. Kaufman & Broad is one of the leading French developers-builders due to the combination of its size and profitability, and the strength of its brand.

The Kaufman & Broad Registration Document was filed with the French Financial Markets Authority ("AMF") under No. D.18 0226 on March 29, 2018. It is available on the AMF (www.amf-france.org) and Kaufman & Broad (www.kaufmanbroad.fr) websites. It contains a detailed description of Kaufman & Broad's business activities, results, and outlook, as well as the associated risk factors. Kaufman & Broad specifically draws attention to the risk factors set out in Chapter 1.2 of the Registration Document. The occurrence of one or more of these risks might have a material adverse impact on the Kaufman & Broad group's business activities, net assets, financial position, results, and outlook, as well as on the price of Kaufman & Broad's shares.

This press release does not amount to, and cannot be construed as amounting to a public offering, a sale offer or a subscript ion offer, or as intended to seek a purchase or subscription order in any country.

Glossary

Adjusted EBIT: corresponds to income from current operations restated for capitalized "IAS 23 revised" borrowing costs, which are deducted from gross margin.

Backlog: In the case of sales before completion (VEFA), this covers orders for housing units that have not been delivered, and for which a notarized deed of sale has not yet been signed, and orders for housing units that have not been delivered for which a notarized deed of sale has been signed for the portion not yet recorded in revenues (in the case of a program for which an advance of 30% has been received, 30% of the revenues from a housing unit for which a notarized deal has been signed is recognized as revenues, while 70% is included in the backlog). The backlog is a summary at a given time, which enables the revenues yet to be recognized over the coming months to be estimated, thus supporting the Group's forecasts - with the proviso that there is an element of uncertainty in the transformation of the backlog into revenues, particularly for orders that have not yet been signed.

EHU: The EHUs (Equivalent Housing Units) are a direct reflection of business volumes. The number of EHUs is a function of multiplying (i) the number of housing units of a given program for which notarized sales deeds have been signed by (ii) the ratio between the group's property expenses and construction expenses incurred on said program and the total expense budget for said program.

Financing capacity: corresponds to cash assets plus lines of credit not yet drawn

Gross margin: corresponds to revenues less cost of sales. The cost of sales is made up of the price of land and any related costs plus the cost of construction.

Lease-before-completion (BEFA): a lease-before-completion involves a customer leasing a building before it is built or redeveloped.

Orders: measured in volume (units) and in value terms; orders reflect the group's sales activity. Orders are recognized in revenue based on the time necessary for the "conversion" of an order into a signed and notarized deed, which is the point at which income is generated. In addition, in the case of multi-occupancy housing programs that include mixed-use buildings (apartments, business premises, retail space, and offices), all of the floor space is converted into housing unit equivalents.

Property portfolio: represents all of the land for which any commitment (contract of sale, etc.) has been signed.

Property supply: it is represented by the total inventory of properties available for sale as of the date in question, i.e. all unordered housing units as of this date (minus the programs that have not entered the marketing phase).

Sale-before-completion (VEFA): a sale-before-completion is an agreement by which the vendor transfers its rights to the land and its ownership of the existing buildings to the purchaser immediately. The future structures will become the purchaser's property as they are completed: the purchaser is required to pay the price of these structures as the works progress. The seller retains the powers of the Project Owner until the acceptance of the work.

Take-up period: The take-up period is the number of months required for the available housing units to be sold, if sales continue at the same rate as in previous months, or the number of housing units (available supply) per quarter divided by the orders for the previous quarter, and divided by three in turn.

Take-up rate: The take-up rate represents the percentage of the initial inventory that is sold on a monthly basis for a property program (sales per month divided by the initial inventory), i.e. net monthly orders divided by the ratio between the opening inventory and the closing inventory, divided by two.

Units: Units are the number of housing units or equivalent housing units (for mixed projects) for a given project. The number of equivalent housing units is calculated as a ratio between the surface area by type (business premises, retail space, or offices) and the average surface area of the housing units previously obtained.

NOTES

Financial data

Key consolidated data

In  million Q4

2018 Full year

2018 Q4

2017 Full year

2017 Revenue 461.9 1,558.2 442.9 1,390.8 Of which housing 406.8 1,293.8 392.9 1,213.7 Of which Commercial Property 51.3 254.2 42.4 165.3 Of which other 3.7 10.3 7.6 11.8 Gross margin 88.2 300.0 87.4 269.1 Gross margin ratio (%) 19.1% 19.3% 19.7% 19.4% Current operating income 38.9 137.2 42.6 118.0 Current operating margin (%) 8.4% 8.8% 9.6% 8.5% Adjusted EBIT* 42.7 148.9 45.5 126.1 Adjusted EBIT margin (%) 9.2% 9.6% 10.3 % 9.1% Attributable net income 21.2 73.0 25.9 59.1 Attributable net EPS (/share)** 0.97 3.34 1.23 2.81

* Adjusted EBIT corresponds to current operating profit restated for capitalized "IAS 23 revised" borrowing costs, which are deducted from the gross margin.

**Based on the number of shares that make up Kaufman & Broad S.A.'s share capital, i.e. 21,073,535 shares at November 30, 2017 and 21,864,074 shares at November 30, 2018

Consolidated income statement*

 thousands Q4

2018 Full year

2018 Q4

2017 Full year

2017 Revenues 461,892 1,558,229 442,858 1,390,798 Cost of sales (373,733) (1,258,227) (355,488) (1,121,666) Gross margin 88,159 300,002 87,370 269,132 Sales expenses (10,302) (36,433) (10,573) (37,655) Administrative expenses (26,225) (74,541) (16,391) (64,340) Technical and customer service expenses (5,055) (21,487) (5,538) (20,582) Development and program expenses (7,666) (30,357) (12,293) (28,599) Current operating income 38,911 137,185 42,576 117,956 Other non-recurring income and expenses - - - - Operating income 38,911 137,185 42,576 117,956 Cost of net financial debt (1,709) (8,707) (2,382) (5,779) Other financial income and expense - - - - Income tax (11,611) (39,335) (7,657) (28,430) Share of income (loss) of equity affiliates and joint ventures 677 3,894 613 1,120 Net income of the consolidated entity 26,268 93,036 33,149 84,867 Minority interests 5,061 20,065 7,232 25,749 Attributable net income 21,207 72,972 25,918 59,118

*Not approved by the Board of Directors and not audited.



Consolidated balance sheet*

 thousands November 30,

2018 November 30,

2017 ASSETS Goodwill 68,661 68,661 Intangible assets 90,017 89,442 Property, plant and equipment 8,407 7,699 Equity affiliates and joint ventures 6,185 14,815 Other non-current financial assets 1,826 2,311 Deferred tax assets 4,233 4,227 Non-current assets 179,330 187,155 Inventories 396,786 384,882 Accounts receivable 406,309 340,142 Other receivables 172,172 198,968 Cash and cash equivalents 253,358 221,065 Prepaid expenses 1,100 1,079 Current assets 1,229,726 1,146,136 TOTAL ASSETS 1,409,056 1,333,291 November 30,

2018 November 30,

2017 LIABILITIES Share capital 5,685 5,479 Additional paid-in capital 168,816 132,670 Attributable net income 72,972 59,118 Attributable shareholders' equity 247,473 197,268 Minority interests 14,282 18,174 Shareholders' equity 261,755 215,442 Non-current provisions 33,402 24,952 Non-current financial liabilities (maturing in > 1 year) 199,652 249,615 Deferred tax liability 42,692 60,105 Non-current liabilities 275,746 334,672 Current provisions 2,265 1,191 Other current financial liabilities (maturing in < 1 year) 3,705 4,541 Accounts payable 705,958 652,012 Other payables 159,199 125,178 Prepaid income 428 255 Current liabilities 871,555 783,177 TOTAL LIABILITIES 1,409,056 1,333,291

*Not approved by the Board of Directors and not audited

.



Operational data

Housing Q4

2018 Full year

2018 Q4

2017 Full year

2017 Revenues ( million, excluding VAT) 406.8 1,293.8 392.9 1,213.7 Of which apartments 384.9 1,220.8 376.5 1,169.1 Of which single family homes in communities 22.0 73.0 16.4 44.6 Deliveries (EHUs) 2,386 7,566 2,572 7,843 Of which apartments 2,292 7,255 2,484 7,619 Of which single family homes in communities 94 311 88 224 Net orders (number) 3,141 9,122 3,148 9,027 Of which apartments 2,909 8,613 3,043 8,712 Of which single family homes in communities 232 509 105 315 Net orders ( million, including VAT) 638.0 1,871.5 623.4 1,790.1 Of which apartments 582.9 1,735.7 594.9 1,700.2 Of which single family homes in communities 55.1 135.8 28.5 89.8 Property supply at the end of the period (in number) 3,781 3,835 End-of-period backlog 1,960.8 1,670.2 In value terms ( million, excluding VAT) Of which apartments 1,839.7 1,591.5 Of which single family homes in communities 121.1 78.7 In months of business 18.2 16.5 End-of-period land reserve (number) 30,116 27,775





Commercial Property Q4

2018 Full year

2018 Q4

2017 Full year

2017 Revenues ( million, excluding VAT) 51.3 254.2 42.4 165.3 Net orders ( million, including VAT) 13.3 359.5 35.7 144.3 End-of-period backlog ( million, excluding VAT) 218.3 174.7

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Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 04:28:17|Editor: yan

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ATHENS, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- European Commission (EC) Vice President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen sent a strong message of support to Greece during a visit to Athens on Tuesday.

If he wore a hat, he would take it off in honor of Greece's success to exit last summer the bailout programs after eight years, he noted among others, addressing the Greek parliament, according to Greek national news agency AMNA.

At the same time, he welcomed the actions of the Greek government to strengthen the social cohesion, while pointing out the necessity to support the reforms needed for a healthy economy, long-term growth prospects and investments.

Greece could improve however, in the areas of non-performing loans, education and restoring trust in the bank system, he added.

During his stay in the Greek capital, he also met Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Development Yannis Dragasakis, Greek Parliament Speaker Nikolaos Voutsis and attended a working lunch with the leader of the main opposition New Democracy party, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

In their meeting, Katainen and Voutsis voiced their shared concern over the preservation of the fundamental values and the identity of the European Union, ahead of the European Parliament elections in May, according to AMNA.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 04:13:11|Editor: yan

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PRAIA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- A photo exhibition commemorating the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up started Tuesday in Praia, capital of Cape Verde, a small island country off the northwest coast of Africa.

Organized by the Chinese embassy in Cape Verde, the exhibition features 66 photos showcasing the great changes in various fields in China since 1978 when China adopted the reform and opening-up policy.

In his opening speech, Chinese Ambassador to Cape Verde Du Xiaocong reviewed the achievements China had scored in the 40 years of reform and opening up, reiterating that China has always adhered to the path of peaceful development and pursued the opening-up strategy of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.

Du said the development of bilateral relations between China and Cape Verde almost synchronized with China's reform and opening up. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1976, China and Cape Verde have realized progress in various fields through mutually beneficial cooperation.

Jorge Santos, the president of Cape Verde's National Assembly, praised the glorious achievements of China's reform and opening up over the past 40 years which have had a positive impact on the bilateral relations.

He thanked China for the contributions it made to boost the economic and social development of Cape Verde, hoping that the cooperation will deepen.

The exhibition will run for a week in Praia and then will continue across the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 03:48:05|Editor: Chengcheng

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Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zhang Qiyue (Front) dots the dragon's eye during the opening of "Happy Chinese New Year 2019-Night of Beijing" show at the Technopolis cultural center in Athens, Greece, on Jan. 29, 2019. An enthusiastic crowd of Greeks of all ages joined on Tuesday Chinese living here in the celebratory event to welcome the upcoming Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

ATHENS, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- An enthusiastic crowd of Greeks of all ages joined on Tuesday Chinese living in Athens in a celebratory event to welcome the upcoming Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year.

A giant costumed character of pig greeted the audience of the "Happy Chinese New Year 2019-Night of Beijing" show at the entrance, as the year 2019 is the "Year of the Pig" according to the Chinese Zodiac.

The hall of the Technopolis cultural center, a major cultural venue in Athens, where the show was staged, was fully packed the night.

The performance given by artists from several prestigious troupes in China, such as Beijing's Dance Academy and China's National Acrobatic Troupe, enthralled the audience.

The show was opened up by dragons dance performed by both Chinese and Greek youth. The two dragons, one red and one blue, were believed to symbolize China and Greece, as they are the colors of the national flags of the two countries.

The show was also attended by officials from both China and Greece.

Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zhang Qiyue addressed the event.

"Although China and Greece are far away geographically, they respect and understand each other and are linked with strong friendship," said the Chinese ambassador.

She added that the cooperation between the two countries has proved fruitful, and the cultural exchanges between the two countries have increased a lot.

The Chinese ambassador received a big applause when she wished "Kali Chronia", Happy New Year in Greek.

Eva Kontostathakou, Vice Mayor of Finance of the City of Athens, on her part, expressed confidence that Sino-Greek friendship and cooperation will further flourish.

"It was a marvelous show. We are very happy that we host this event in our city," she told Xinhua after the performance.

"Let's have a happy new year, with health! Let's have a peaceful 2019, with hope and optimism for the future," she added, sending warm wishes to Chinese people.

The two-day event which ends on Wednesday was jointly organized by the Chinese embassy in Greece and the Beijing municipality with the support of the Chinese Cultural Center in Athens and the Chinese community, businesses and media in Greece.

At stands set up at Technopolis, visitors can also get a taste of Chinese delicacies, and get introduced to Chinese culture and traditions through books and handmade gifts.

"I like the civilization and the culture which is so different from ours, very different. It is very interesting to see and learn more about history," Vassilis, a young Greek who studies the Chinese language, told Xinhua.

It was his first time to joint a Spring Festival celebration.

"It is so nice, very nice. I love it, the dances, the acrobatics, everything," he said.

Panagiotis was also for the first time in the festival celebration.

"I was curious to follow it, after seeing photographs about it from previous years," he told Xinhua, before sending his wishes to Chinese people.

"(I wish) Health to all. I don't know what else to say. Let's have a good spring," he said.

Ioanna, was among the Greek students who performed the dragon dance.

"It was a great experience. It was our first time. We had two rehearsals, but I think the result was very good and the atmosphere was amazing," she said, expressing eagerness to participate in many more such events in the future.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 03:33:02|Editor: yan

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TIRANA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Commission on Legal Affairs, Public Administration and Human Rights in the Albanian Parliament approved the agreement between Albania and the European Union (EU) on border management by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the Ministry of Interior said in a press release on Tuesday.

According to the press release, the draft law "On the ratification of the status agreement between Albania and the European Union (EU) on the actions undertaken by Frontex in Albania" was presented in front of the Commission by Deputy Interior Minister Rovena Voda.

According to Voda, the draft law aims to strengthen the cooperation in the operational areas between Albania, the Border and Migration Department and Frontex.

"The agreement aims to strengthen Albania's cooperation with the EU countries in the area of border management, illegal migration and cross-border crime," said Voda.

Later on Tuesday, the EU delegation in Albania welcomed the future entry into force of the agreement between the EU and Albania on Frontex.

"The future entry into force of the agreement between the EU and Albania on Frontex, will contribute to enhancing security and ensuring a better management of irregular migration in Albania and in the whole region," tweeted the EU delegation in the social media Twitter.

Moreover, the EU delegation wrote that negotiations of such agreements have been concluded with other Western Balkans partners as well.

"The management of Albanian borders will remain the competence of Albanian authorities. The Agency will only provide assistance and support to national competent authorities, in a spirit of mutual cooperation," reads the status.

The EU delegation to Albania explains that there is no link between the entry into force of the agreement and the visa suspension mechanism.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 01:57:36|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- A car bomb exploded on Tuesday in Syria's northern city of Manbij, a war monitor reported.

The bomb ripped through a military car near the Martyrs Cemetery in the city of Manbij, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Manbij Military Council (MMC), said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the MMC vehicle was the target of the explosion, which left the driver in a critical situation.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 01:17:30|Editor: yan

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SANAA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Visiting UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on Tuesday welcomed the release of a captured Saudi Arabian soldier by the Houthi rebels who had handed him over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

"The SE (special envoy) welcomes the unconditional release by AA (Ansar Allah or Houthi group) of the sick Saudi prisoner, whom the ICRC will transfer from Sanaa to Riyadh today," Griffiths said in Twitter. "The SE hopes to see more similar humanitarian gestures from the parties," he said.

"The SE looks forward to the implementation of the prisoner exchange agreement by the two parties. Thousands of Yemeni families await this implementation, to be reunited with their loved ones," he added.

Earlier on the day, the Houthis said in a statement that "the sick Saudi soldier Musa Awagi will be transported to his country through an ICRC plane today (Tuesday)." They said the move came as a "humanitarian initiative."

The Iranian-allied Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed exiled government held a series of UN-sponsored meetings last week in Jordan to discuss the lists of prisoners to be swapped.

The ICRC, which oversees the discussions to release and transfer conflict-related detainees between the Yemeni rival parties in Amman, said in a statement last week that an agreement could be reached in the coming days.

The United Nations has been pushing for implementing an all-out prisoner swap deal, a cease-fire and withdrawal of rival forces from Yemen's main port city of Hodeidah in line with a peace agreement reached in Stockholm last month. The trust-building measures would pave the way for a next round of peace talks.

Griffiths arrived in the capital Sanaa on Monday to break the stalemate in Hodeidah's peace deal. The cease-fire deal went into force on Dec. 18, 2018, but the withdrawal of the rival forces has yet to be fulfilled.

The UN said the discussions have been stalled because of different interpretations of the Stockholm Agreement over who would control key points of Hodeidah during the partial cease-fire.

The Hodeidah port is the key lifeline and entrance of the majority of food imports and humanitarian aid to impoverished war-torn Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north.

The coalition-backed government forces have advanced to the eastern and southern outskirts of Hodeidah over the past five months, but held off to allow the chance of implementing the peace deal.

The four-year war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced 3 million others and pushed the country to the brink of famine.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-30 01:12:29|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Somali Prime Minister Ali Hassan Khaire on Tuesday lauded strong partnership between his country and Kenya on security and development.

Khaire who met Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi also thanked Kenya for being Somalia's leading strategic partner in the ongoing transformation of the Horn of Africa country.

Khaire who delivered a goodwill and condolence message to Kenyatta from his Somali counterpart, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, following the recent terrorist attack at 14 Riverside Drive said his country appreciates the key role played by Kenya in the stabilization and reconstruction of his nation.

Khaire assured President Kenyatta that Somalia stands in solidarity with Kenya in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

He said the Jan. 15 terror attack at the 14 Riverside Drive which left 21 people dead and several others injured has only strengthened the resolve for the two countries to defeat terrorism and violent extremism.

Khaire said Somalia is on the positive trajectory as it strives to build on the gains made in securing the nation by the African Union Mission in Somalia, with a new constitution, getting new currency as well as building strong security institutions, which are key to both economic and social stability of the country.

The PM said Somalia currently hosts about 50,000 Kenyans working in various sectors of the economy, adding that the country has improved its purchasing power and the investment environment through various development programs.

He said the reconstruction of Somalia has seen its education, health and other community development programs taking off.

"The reconstruction of the country and the ongoing programs in economic development will help us reduce poverty and greatly contribute to our efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism," Khaire said.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-29 23:31:59|Editor: yan

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RIYADH, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Saudi city NEOM announced on Tuesday the establishment of a closed joint-stock company under the name "NEOM," Saudi Press Agency reported.

The announcement was made after obtaining the necessary approval from the concerned authorities.

The newly-established entity is owned by the Public Investment Fund and the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

The company will develop a new area in the northwest of Saudi Arabia equipped with all elements to make it the best place to live and work, and a leading investment destination.

NEOM will have new cities with extensive infrastructure that includes a network of airports, an advanced seaport, industrial areas, as well as creative and innovation centers to unlock the potential of a knowledge-based economy.

The significant change in the legal status of NEOM will also allow the company to create 16 key economic sectors, including energy, water, tourism, media, and health.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-29 23:11:45|Editor: yan

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ZAGREB, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- A Croatian delegation led by the Minister for Maritime Affairs, Transport, and Infrastructure, has returned from China pleased with the strong interest Chinese companies have shown for big infrastructure projects in Croatia, local daily Vecernji list reported on Tuesday.

The daily wrote that China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) is interested to bid for the concession of the new containers' terminal in Port of Rijeka in the northern Adriatic. Chinese investors are also interested in building a stretch of railway that would connect Rijeka with Hungarian border.

Minister Oleg Butkovic, along with executives from state-owned railway company HZ Infrastruktura, the road management company Hrvatske Ceste, and the Rijeka port operator spent a week in China where they met Chinese Transport Minister and representatives of Chinese companies. Among other things, the ministers discussed on the possible launch of direct flights between Zagreb and Beijing.

In July 2018, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) started the construction of the Peljesac Bridge, one of the most important infrastructure projects in Croatian history that will connect the southern Peljesac peninsula to the mainland. The Chinese company offered the best bid among three companies that were competing for the project and was awarded to build the bridge.

Vecernji list reported that the Croatian delegation returned home with the impression that CRBC's success has inspired other Chinese companies to invest in the country and bid at open competitions.

In a press release last week, the Ministry for Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure said the Minister's visit to China marked the continuation of the process of strengthening relations between the two countries, as well as preparing for this year's summit between China and 16 Eastern and Central European countries to be hosted by Croatia.
Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-29 22:56:40|Editor: yan

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MANILA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Philippine security forces on Tuesday stepped up the manhunt for the suspects that carried out Sunday's twin bombings at a Roman Catholic Cathedral in the southern Philippine Sulu province that killed 21 people and wounded more than 100 others.

The military launched ground assault and airstrikes against the Abu Sayyaf militants in Palitkul town in Sulu, the lair of the extremist Abu Sayyaf.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte earlier had ordered the military to pulverize and launch an all-out war against the Abu Sayyaf. On Tuesday, Duterte told reporters that he ordered the military to "arrest the killers" and to "go into a punitive action" against the Abu Sayyaf.

"I order you to destroy the organization. I order you now, crush the Abu Sayyaf by whatever means," Duterte told the military on Monday when he visited Jolo, where the church is located.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana echoed Duterte's assessment, saying the second bomb that exploded at the church's entrance may have been carried out by a suicide bomber.

Lorenzana told Xinhua in an interview that the Abu Sayyaf militants "affiliated with the ISIS" were behind the "terrorist attack."

He said that security was tightened in Basilan, Sulu and Zamboanga City as early as August last year when the military intercepted reports that Abu Sayyaf extremists were planning to launch bombings targeting churches.

"And so since then these churches were guarded by soldiers, everyday, 24 hours a day. But for some reasons two bombers still (managed to enter Jolo to bomb the cathedral.) They are terrorists," Lorenzana said.

Senior Superintendent Bernard Banac, the spokesman for the Philippine National Police (PNP), said there are ongoing police operations to hunt the suspects, adding that all angles are being looked at to ensure that the perpetrators are arrested.

"There are leads that investigators are looking into including surveillance camera footage of possible suspects seen in the vicinity of the cathedral moment before the explosions," Banac told a news conference.

Banac said the investigation on the suspects is ongoing. "Right now we are in the process of verifying the identities of these persons as seen in the CCTV footage," he added, referring to the closed-circuit television footage.

He said security operations to and from Jolo have been intensified, and that roadblocks and checkpoints have been set up in and around Jolo.

Authorities also sent more elite troops and policemen to the province to maintain peace and help in the ongoing operations to hunt the suspects.

Authorities are piecing together what led to the deadly blasts that occurred amid tight security.

Police Senior Superintendent, Sulu Provincial Police Office Director Pablo Labra, however, said nothing is conclusive about the theory that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. "We cannot prove that right now," he told a local television in an interview.

Labra added that witnesses interviewed by police claimed a person left the bag or a package in one of the pews in the middle of the church.

Police bomb experts are now in Jolo, sifting through the debris inside and outside the cathedral for fragments that will help reconstruct the explosive device and identify the chemical composition of the explosive material used.

"This is to ensure that there are no bombs remaining in the area," Banac told reporters, stressing the need to put Jolo on a lockdown.

"These are precautionary measures that while police (bomb) experts are conducting a sweep, no people are coming in and out of the site. This is for the safety of all," Banac said.

Col. Gerry Besana, spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom), released the footage showing the alleged suspects walking in the street in the vicinity of the cathedral.

He said one of the suspects, caught by a street surveillance camera, was the brother of a slain Abu Sayyaf leader.

The WestMinCom and the PNP said the suspect was seen in the CCTV footage handing something to a companion before running away.

Besana said his motive was to avenge the death of his brother who was killed by police in August last year.

PNP Chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said Kamah is a known member of the so-called Abu Sayyaf sub-group "Ajang-Ajang."

Jolo is the base for Abu Sayyaf militant group. The gang has recently become better known for criminal brutality, kidnaping-for-ransom activities, bombings, and beheadings in western Mindanao, particularly in their lair in the island provinces of Basilan and Sulu.

The AFP created last month an Army infantry division that will mainly hunt down the elusive Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the southern Philippine Sulu province in a bid to eliminate the threat posed by the Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

The Jolo attack took place while Mindanao is under martial rule.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovate BC and the Government of British Columbia are excited to announce Rogers Communications as the title sponsor for the 2019 #BCTECHSummit. The #BCTECHSummit showcases British Columbias vibrant technology industry, builds cross-sector opportunities for businesses, and explores the latest ideas and innovations fueling our economy.

We are extremely excited to partner with Rogers Communications for the upcoming #BCTECHSummit, said Innovate BCs VP of Operations, Tomica Divic. This years event is all about exploring how emerging technologies will help us solve the most pressing challenges facing B.C. and the world today. 5G will unlock unprecedented possibilities and Rogers commitment to improving the lives of Canadians through transformative tech and innovation makes them an ideal partner.

Rogers will provide one of six keynote speakers at this years event, joining an impressive speaker lineup that includes thought leaders from Walt Disney, LinkedIn, General Electric, IBM, Fujitsu, and Microsoft, who have signed on as Titanium Sponsor for the event. The speakers will deep dive into key topics like artificial intelligence, block chain, and cybersecurity that are reshaping todays technology landscape.

We are very proud to sponsor this premier innovation and technology event, said Rick Sellers, President of BC, Rogers Communications. We are on the cusp of a massive technological transformation that will change the way we live and work, so its a critical time to get thought leaders together to discuss and plan how Canada can bring the best that 5G has to offer.

Rogers is currently working on a multi-year program to bring 5G to Canadians. In 2018, the company announced plans to launch a national LTE-M network to enable the next era of IoT solutions in Canada, as well as a 5G research partnership with University of British Columbia, and a national infrastructure agreement with Ericsson. Rogers continues to upgrade its 4.5G network with the latest 5G-ready technology to be ready for 5G commercial deployment.

Last year the company invested over $4 million in local community initiatives in British Columbia and employed over 1,600 people in the province. Rogers continues to enhance its wireless network for customers in B.C., most recently in Witset First Nation and along Highway 16, Vancouver Island, Qualicum Beach, Kelowna, Burnaby, Maple Ridge, Vancouver, and across the SkyTrain.

This years #BCTECHSummit will highlight the remarkable work happening in B.C.s growing tech sector and around the world, said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology. We are proud to partner with Rogers Communications at the #BCTECHSummit to showcase emerging technology from leading companies, entrepreneurs and researchers that are helping spur prosperity in every region and sector of our economy.

The #BCTECHSummit will take place from March 11  13, 2019 in Vancouver, British Columbia. To purchase tickets, or for more information about the event, visit bctechsummit.ca

About #BCTECHSummit

Hosted by the B.C. government and Innovate BC, the #BCTECHSummit is Western Canada's largest annual innovation event. The #BCTECHSummit showcases B.C.'s vibrant technology industry, builds cross-sector and cross-border opportunities for businesses and explores the latest ideas and innovations solving challenges and fueling the global economy. Every year, the #BCTECHSummit brings together an unparalleled mix of technology leaders, industry executives, investors, senior government officials, researchers and students to connect and share insights, experiences and opportunities. Learn more: bctechsummit.ca .

About Innovate BC

Innovate BC is a one stop service centre to connect innovators  large and small  with B.C. government funding, tools, resources and support. Innovate BC programs and initiatives serve and celebrate innovation in British Columbia, helping our industries grow, while ensuring the benefits of our thriving technology sector are felt by people in all regions of our province. Innovate BC is a Crown Agency of the Province of B.C. Learn more: innovatebc.ca .

About Rogers

Rogers is a leading diversified Canadian communications and media company. They are Canadas largest provider of wireless communications services and one of Canadas leading providers of cable television, high-speed Internet, information technology, and telephony services to consumers and businesses. Through Rogers Media, they are engaged in radio and television broadcasting, sports, televised and online shopping, magazines, and digital media. Their shares are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). Learn more: rogers.com

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PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (WTXL) - FBI agents believe an 150 foot long underground tunnel leading toward a Florida bank is a part of an attempted bank robbery.

The FBI provided an update on their investigation Wednesday afternoon.

Agents say they were called to the tunnel after local police responded to a report of a tunnel in the road.

They say the tunnel entrance was found inside a wood line south of the Chase Bank branch along with a generator, wrench, and a wagon. According to WPLG, there was also a pair of muddy boots, a small homemade ladder, a stool and digging tools inside the tunnel.

Agents say the tunnel is approximately 2-4 feet wide and at least 50 yards (150 feet) long. They say a cadaver dog determined that there were no bodies inside of the tunnel.

The FBI is now investigating the situation as an attempted bank burglary, since the bank was never breached and no money was taken.

Investigators have not determined when the tunnel was started or when it was last worked on. According to the Associated Press, agents plan on digging up the tunnel.

Anyone who may have seen suspicious activity in this area, likely after dark, is urged to call the FBI at 754.703.2000.

Underground tunnel leading to bank discovered in Florida, FBI investigating

By: Kelly Bazzle - WFTS

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla.  The FBI is investigating after an underground tunnel was discovered leading to a Chase Bank near a South Florida shopping center.

The FBI was called after officials realized the sinkhole they were investigating was a tunnel of sorts.

There was a pair of muddy boots, a small homemade ladder, a stool, digging tools and a small Honda generator inside the nearly 50 foot tunnel, according to WPLG . The tunnel reportedly stretches fifty feet under a road. It starts in a wooded area and continues straight toward the drive-up window of the bank. Pembroke Pines police turned the investigation over to the FBI. Officials have not released further information.

Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
VALDOSTA, Ga. (WTXL) - Exciting changes are coming to Valdosta.

The city approved a $250,000 loan application for the renovation of a historic building downtown.

"It's just important for people to see that there is a building in our historic core that people are investing in it," said Ellen Hill, Valdosta Main Street Director. "They're bringing in business, they're bringing in retail options and it just helps build the vibrancy of our downtown."

And construction is underway to transform the Converse Building that has its roots in 1900. It was originally built for the Converse brothers, one of Valdosta's first retail shops.

But activity has slowed for the brick and mortar since then.

The building has been vacant for six years. The project isn't just designed to bring new life into a historic building, but also help downtown Valdosta transform, attracting businesses and residents to the area.

Hill says about 15 new jobs will be coming to the downtown area thanks to the renovations.

The building will eventually house the headquarters for a real-estate company, with space available for offices and retail.

"People are really starting to invest again, bringing in all those new businesses," said Hill. "And we're really hoping to do a push for more retail and more restaurant space, too."

Hill says somewhere between $3 and $5 million will be invested into the project, which will preserve the building's historic inside and outside.

Which, in the end, is the goal, retaining the past as the city grows into the future.

"We had 10 and a half million dollars of investment last year and that brought 138 jobs to our downtown. So I think that this is just a trend that is moving forward into 2019," said Hill.

The Valdosta Downtown Improvement Authority says they hope to have businesses up and running in the old Converse building in the next few months.
VALDOSTA, Ga. (WTXL) - Two women in Valdosta are facing charges after their altercation led to a child being burned by hot cooking grease.

WALB reports Latrice Spikes, 24, of Riverview, Florida, is being charged with reckless driving and aggravated assault, while Dominique Solo, 22, of Valdosta, is being charged with simple battery.

According to WALB, the women got into an altercation at an intersection and that's when Spikes tried to run over Solo with her car.

The police are reporting that Solo retaliated by trying to throw hot cooking grease on Spikes, but hit the child who was in the vehicle.

Officials have not released the condition of the child at this time.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Tallahassee's two universities are working on major development projects this year.

Crews are expected to start on one of those projects this week.

Both FSU and FAMU are looking at the future when it comes to these projects, but they're also realizing the need for more space and resources for their students.

Let's start with FSU. The College of Business will move into a new five-floor building called Legacy Hall. It will be the largest academic space on campus.

Legacy Hall will be on the corner of Gaines Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's an $88 million project.

FSU wants to break ground this fall and hopes to open Legacy Hall in the fall of 2021.

Now, let's look at FAMU.

The university is building an amphitheater for students and the community to use.

To make room for it, FAMU will tear down four residence halls that haven't been used for years.

The university says it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain them.

The amphitheater will cost about $2.7 million, and students are paying for more than half of it. The SGA contributed around $1.5 million in what's called "capital improvement trust funding."

FAMU says work will begin this week, but is waiting on contractors to confirm when, based on the weather.

The goal is to have the amphitheater ready for the 2019-2020 school year.
CRESTVIEW, Fla. (AP)  A Florida special education teacher and two aides are charged with abusing children with autism by blowing whistles into one's ears and locking them in dark bathrooms.

The Northwest Florida Daily News reports that teacher Margaret Wolthers surrendered Tuesday to Okaloosa County sheriff's investigators to face aggravated child abuse charges. Aides Diana LaCroix and Carolyn Madison had already surrendered.

Sheriff Larry Ashley said the women abused three children between ages 8 and 10 from September to November.

He said the women would hold the arms of one child while blowing a whistle into the child's ears. He said all three children were locked separately into a bathroom with the lights off for up to 90 minutes.

The women said they were disciplining the children and felt the practices acceptable.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Florida took a step Tuesday in imposing economic sanctions on the popular home-sharing platform Airbnb because of a company decision against listing properties in the West Bank, an area that is a major flashpoint in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Governor Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, acting as the State Board of Administration, agreed to place Airbnb on the states scrutinized companies list.

The list prohibits state investment in companies that boycott Israel. DeSantis, who urged taking the step, hopes the states action causes Airbnb to reverse its decision.

States like Florida have stepped up and said, you know what, if we allow Israel to be singled out for commercial discrimination, its only going to snowball. You are going to have more and more people join it," said DeSantis. "Youll have more governments get involved.

Guy Gilady, Israels Deputy Counsel General in Miami, appeared at the Cabinet meeting and called the Airbnb West Bank decision shameful.

The state of Israel regards Airbnbs policy as pure discrimination against Jews. We, like you, abhor discrimination in all its forms," said Gilady.

Airbnb, which has 90 days to respond to the State Board of Administrations action, issued a statement after the meeting reiterating that it unequivocally rejects the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, movement that has targeted Israel and supported Palestinians.

The company says the decision against allowing hosts in the settlements in the West Bank affects about 200 listings.

The action by the State Board of Administration followed a resolution supported by DeSantis and the full Cabinet that said Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel.

The resolution, proposed by Patronis, supported the December 2017 move by President Donald Trump to shift the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP)  A Florida corrections officer told authorities he exposed his genitals while following a woman around a store because he thought she was attractive.

The Orlando Sentinel reports 55-year-old William Keister pleaded not guilty to a charge of indecent exposure. An affidavit says the 16-year veteran of the Orange County Corrections Department resigned Friday.

A witness told deputies Keister was walking around a Dollar General with his genitals in his hand. According to deputies, Keister said he exposed himself and followed the woman around the Mims store.

Authorities said Keister told them he began masturbating, but stopped because he knew it was wrong.

The affidavit says the incident was captured on camera and a co-worker identified Keister as the man.

Its unclear if he has a lawyer who could comment.

___

Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
First Minister Questions: First Minister concedes A&E performance in north-east Wales is unacceptable

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Jan 30th, 2019

The below is the another in a new quick weekly summary of this weeks First Minister Questions session from Cardiff Bay. First Minister Questions takes place every Tuesday when the Assembly is sitting and can be watched live via Senedd.tv.

For those who have never ventured onto the Senedd site, you can view the session the below was taken from here, that allows a video player (along with creation of your own clips!) plus by clicking the meeting information and papers link you are able to view all the supporting documentation, along with a link to the full transcript.

The first topic covers waiting times at the Maelor, something we covered here earlier this week.

A&E waiting times





Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price AM (Plaid, Carms. E. & Dinefwr), used an evidence session with the Public Accounts Committee on Monday (video clip below) to put the First Minister on the spot regarding waiting times at A&E departments at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and Wrexham Maelor Hospital.





The First Minister said A&E departments saw more patients than ever before during December 2018 and, as a result, even though there was no great improvement in waiting times the NHS was more resilient than previous years. The median time that people in Wales had to wait in A&E was 2 hours 25 minutes.

.it is unacceptable that people are kept waiting in some places in the way that the Member described, and the performance at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital is not acceptable to the Welsh NHS, its not acceptable to the (Health) Minister and not acceptable to the board of Betsi Cadwaladr (Health Board) either. Huge efforts are going on to make sure that the position there is improved for the future.

 First Minister, Mark Drakeford (Lab, Cardiff West)

Was this putting lives at risk? Adam asked, calling for an inquiry into how A&E was working across the whole of Wales.

The First Minister rejected the need for months and months of work on another inquiry adding that the NHS know where the pinch points are and know what needed to be done.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Leader of the Opposition, Paul Davies AM (Con, Preseli Pembs.) found it disturbing that 5% of the UK adult population dont believe the Holocaust happened.

Research from the Antisemitism Policy Trust found that online searches looking for information on the Holocaust being a hoax rise about 30 per cent every year on Holocaust Memorial Day, and antisemitic searches in Wales are higher than in any other part of the United Kingdom.Im sure youll agree with me that awareness and education is the best means of addressing this. Therefore, are you confident that learning about the Holocaust and the consequences of religious or ethnic genocide are given enough emphasis in Waless new curriculum?

 Leader of the Opposition, Paul Davies AM

The First Minister said he found it hard to accept that so many people are in denial about one of the worst occurrences of the previous century noting it was a wider issue than one of government, but he underlined the importance of a Welsh Government-backed programme to send small numbers of young people to Auschwitz who then return and tell the story to others.

Reducing the cost of NHS agency workers

Jenny Rathbone AM (Lab, Cardiff Central) told the chamber that while there was a need to cover absences in the NHS, different health boards had different ways of managing agency staff  and some were doing so much less effectively than others.

Helen Mary Jones AM (Plaid, Mid & West Wales) added that there was a particular problem in retaining nurses due to a lack of flexible working adding that nurses leave the NHS and, ironically, end up working for the agencies doing the same work but costing the NHS much more.

The First Minister said the amount the NHS spent on agency workers was cut by 30million over the last financial year and mooted a national staff bank.

.some health boards have already made greater progress than others. Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.spends on agency 1.8% of its pay costs as a whole, and that is the lowest percentage of any health board in Wales. The second phase of the work that I mentioned in my opening answer will involve all health boards in Wales learning from one another, but it will also.consider the benefits of an all-Wales staff bank, so that we can use the staff that we have more directly under our employment, in order to bring down costs, but also to provide a better service.

 First Minister, Mark Drakeford

Keep up to date with what is going on in the Senedd via SeneddHome.com
House cleaning [Xinhua]

Little New Year (or Xiaonian), usually a week before the lunar New Year, falls on January 28 this year. It is also known as the Festival of the Kitchen God, the deity who oversees the moral character of each household.

There are numerous customs associated with honoring the Kitchen God and determining the date of Little New Year. The date of this holiday was sometimes assigned according to location, with people in northern China celebrating it on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month, and people in southern China celebrating it on the 24th.

Here are six things you should know about the Little New Year, another sign of the start of spring.

1. Offer Sacrifices to Kitchen God

In one of the most distinctive traditions of the Little New Year is the burning of a paper image of the Kitchen God, dispatching the god's spirit to Heaven to report on the family's conduct over the past year. The Kitchen God is then welcomed back by to the home through the pasting of a new paper image of him beside the stove. From this vantage point, the Kitchen God will oversee and protect the household for another year.

The offerings to the Kitchen God include pig's head, fish, sweet bean paste, melons, fruit, boiled dumplings, barley sugar, and Guandong candy, a sticky treat made out of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat.

Most of the offerings are sweets of various varieties. It is thought that this will seal the Kitchen God's mouth and encourage him to only say good things about the family when he ascends to heaven to make his report. The Kitchen God will be invited to sit in a sedan chair for his trip to heaven.

Consequently, the day before Little New Year, the streets and alleyways are filled with vendors selling papier-mache sedan chairs and paper gold and silver ingots for the Kitchen God's journey. There are even songs in his honor.

Although very few families still make offerings to the Kitchen God on this day, many traditional holiday activities are still very popular.

2. House Cleaning

Between Laba Festival, on the eighth day of the last lunar month, and Little New Year, on the 23rd day, families throughout China undertake a thorough house cleaning, sweeping out the old in preparation for the New Year.

According to Chinese folk beliefs, during the last month of the year ghosts and deities must choose either to return to Heaven or to stay on Earth. It is believed that in order to ensure the ghosts and deities' timely departure people must thoroughly clean both their persons and their dwellings, down to every last drawer and cupboard.

3. Eat Guandong Candy

Guandong candy, a sticky treat made out of glutinous millet and sprouted wheat, is a traditional snack that Chinese people eat on the Festival of the Kitchen God.

4. Paste Paper-cuts to Windows

In the Little New Year, old couplets and paper-cuts from the previous Spring Festival are taken down, and new window decorations, New Year's posters, and auspicious decorations are pasted up.

5. Bath, Hair-cut

As the old Chinese saying goes, whether they're rich or poor, people often have a haircut before the Spring Festival. The activity of taking bath and haircut is often taken on the Little New Year.

6. Preparations for Spring Festival

People start to stock up necessary provisions for the Spring Festival since the Little New Year. Everything needed to make offerings to the ancestors, entertain guests, and feed the family over the long holiday must be purchased in advance.

Consumers select products for the upcoming Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year, at a shopping mall in Jinzhou, Liaoning province. [China Daily / Li Tiecheng]

Before setting out to the market, a Spring Festival shopping list must be made, including items such as meat, poultry and eggs, fruit and vegetables, rice and flour, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, and tea, red paper, images of celestial horses and the Kitchen God. Incense and candles, snacks, new calendars, and toys must also be purchased. Not to be forgotten are new clothes for children and firecrackers to welcome in the New Year.

After Spring Festival provisions have been brought home, it's time to make further preparations for the holiday. These preparations may include preparing meat, packing blood sausages, making tofu, steaming New Year's sticky rice cakes, and making fried bread. This must all be done in advance, since no cooking may be done from New Year's Eve until well into the first month of the New Year.

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
English French

Press Release

Paris, 30 January 2019

17:40 CET

Growth in line with 2020 ambitions

2018 gross margin: 63.8m

+16% on pro-forma (+35% reported)

Artefact (FR0000079683 - ALATF - eligible for PEA-PME, i.e. personal equity plans investing in SMEs) has reported a gross margin of 63.80m for 2018, up 16% on a pro-forma basis and 35% on reported data. This fine performance is perfectly in line with the target announced by the group in October 2018 (for 15% growth in pro-forma gross margin). That target had already been upgraded when the company reported its interim earnings.

Reported Pro-forma Gross margin in  m 2018 2017 Change 2017 Change France 24.63 11.80 +109% 16.71 +47% Rest of Europe 32.04 32.94 -3% 32.94 -3% Other Markets* 7.13 2.38 +199% 5.51 +29% TOTAL 63.80 47.12 +35% 55.15 +16%

Unaudited data

* Other Markets cover the Asia-Pacific and MENA zones and Brazil, following the opening in the latter.

Growth trends were confirmed in Q4, when the Group's gross margin increased 15% relative to the year-earlier period to over 17.15m. On a pro-forma basis, growth worked out to 10% for the period.

Reported Pro-forma Gross margin in  m Q4 2018 Q4 2017 Change Q4 2017 Change France 6.67 4.93 +36% 4.93 +36% Rest of Europe 8.19 9.31 -12% 9.31 -12% Other Markets 2.29 0.66 +246% 1.38 +67% TOTAL 17.15 14.90 +15% 15.61 +10%

Unaudited data

In France, gross margin grew 109% to 24.63m at 31 December 2018. On a pro-forma basis, the increase came to 47% relative to 2017. This momentum became a firm trend in Q4, when gross margin gained 36% on pro-forma, again driven by the strong traction in Data Consulting.

In the Rest of Europe, revenue for the financial year declined slightly, to 32.04m. The decrease steepened in Q4, undermined by the situation in Scandinavia, which remains complicated, and by the loss of two media accounts in Germany, which had a significant impact on the last quarter. As part of its restructuring in Scandinavia, the Group sold its NetBooster affiliate marketing business in Denmark, Norway and Finland to Daisycon on 30 January 2019. The divested activities accounted for 20% of gross margin generated in those three countries in 2018, representing business volumes of under 1m in gross margin.

Across Europe in general, recent months have seen Artefact extend the roll-out of its Consulting/Data/Media offer and renew and strengthen its management teams. These efforts are expected to bear their first fruits in the next few months. The appointments of Tom Cijffers and Sarah De Martin as, respectively, CEO and Managing Director of Artefact UK, with effect from October 2018, along with the recent arrival of a new Consulting Partner in the Netherlands, all testify to this rising of power strategy.

Finally, the Other Markets zone accounted for more than 10% of gross margin at 7.13m in 2018. Pro-forma growth, which is taking off in this zone, reached nearly 30% (three-fold increase in reported data). Pro-forma gross margin surged 67% to 2.29m in Q4, driven by strong sales momentum in China and by the ramp-up in the Consulting business in Dubai.

Outlook

In step with its expansion, the Group continued to recruit at a smart pace in H2 2018. After the success achieved last year, operating profitability is expected to make solid gains over the full year. This performance will be achieved despite the dip in operating profit expected in H2 relative to H1, as a result of the company's substantial investments in human capital to take full advantage of the growth potential in all Group zones.

Artefact is reiterating its ambition for 2020: to top the 100m mark in terms of gross margin, with an EBITDAr margin of between 10% and 15%.

Financial calendar (after market):

April 25th, 2019

FY Results 2018 and Q1 Gross Margin 2019

July 24th, 2019

H1 Gross Margin 2019

October 24th, 2019

H1 Results 2019 and Q3 Gross Margin 2019

- END -

About Artefact I artefact.com

Artefact embodies the perfect combination of marketing and engineering experts. Nominated innovative agency of the year in 2017, the agency works with some of the biggest advertising brands to invent the future of customer experience through new technologies. The agency has almost 1,000 employees across 17 countries worldwide, delivering three complementary solutions: Data Consulting, Digital Marketing Expertise and Technology Deployment (Big Data and Artificial Intelligence). Its 600 active clients include more than 100 blue-chip accounts such as Orange, Carrefour, Emirates, Deutsche Telekom and Monoprix, all of which are attracted by the agency's cutting-edge expertise. Artefact was founded by three alumni of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in Paris: Vincent Luciani, Philippe Rolet and Guillaume de Roquemaurel. It has grew at a very strong pace since it was founded in 2015 and succeeded in tripling its sales in 2016. In September 2017, the agency merged with French listed company NetBooster, an international network of digital agencies run by data and media experts.

Artefact was awarded the Grand Prix d'Honneur at this year's Data Festival and obtained FrenchTech's official diploma for "hyper-growth" French companies awarded by the French Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Mounir Mahjoubi.

Artefact is listed on Euronext Growth. ISIN code: FR0000079683. Ticker: ALATF

The share capital of Artefact is composed of 32,674,364 shares.

For more information:



Financial Communications Press Contact ARTEFACT

Benjamin HARTMANN

Tel. 00 33 (0)1 40 40 27 00

investor-relations@artefact.com



ACTIFIN

Stephane Ruiz / Victoire Demeestere

Tel. 00 33 (0)1 56 88 11 11

vdemeestere@actifin.fr
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent a condolence message to his Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, over the blasts in the southern Philippines.

In the message, Xi said he was shocked to learn of the two serious attacks inside and near the entrance of a Roman Catholic church on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippine province of Sulu that have caused heavy casualties.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people, as well as in his own name, Xi deeply mourned the deceased and sent sincere condolences to their families and the injured.

China determinedly opposes all forms of terrorism, and deeply condemns acts of violence targeted at innocent civilians, Xi said, adding that China is willing to fight terrorism together with other countries of the international community, including the Philippines, to maintain international and regional peace and stability.

(Source: Xinhua)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attends a gathering and extends Spring Festival greetings to leaders from non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and personages without party affiliation in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 28, 2019. [Xinhua/Yan Yan]

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday attended a gathering in Beijing and extended Spring Festival greetings to leaders from non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), and personages without party affiliation.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, expressed his hope that they will make new and greater contributions to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Senior officials Wang Yang and Han Zheng attended the gathering.

Gao Yunlong, chairman of the ACFIC, addressed the gathering on behalf of the central committees of non-Communist parties, the ACFIC and personages without party affiliation.

Xi said China has kept its economic growth within a reasonable range during the past year, noting that institutional reforms of the Party and the state have been comprehensively promoted along with other reforms, and China's level of opening-up has seen constant improvement.

The year 2018 was the first year since new leaders of non-Communist parties and the ACFIC were elected, Xi said, noting that central committees of non-Communist parties, the ACFIC and personages without party affiliation have actively offered advice and suggestions and provided important references for the scientific decision-making and effective policy execution of the CPC Central Committee.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi expressed gratitude for their work including the active role played in poverty alleviation.

Noting that pursuing progress while ensuring stability was the underlying principle of the current and future work of the Party and the country, Xi urged to pursue progress while ensuring stability in both economic and social development.

He called on non-Communist parties, the ACFIC and personages without party affiliation to unite the people in promoting reform and development, adding that they should follow closely the policies and decisions made by the CPC Central Committee while giving full play to their expertise and wisdom.

Calling investigation and research the foundation of making correct decisions, Xi said that more investigations and research should be made in addressing prominent issues in the work of the Party and the country, including forestalling and defusing major risks, carrying out targeted poverty alleviation and preventing and controlling pollution.

Xi also called on the ACFIC to fulfil the CPC Central Committee's requirements on supporting the growth of private businesses and help to implement policies of promoting the development of medium-sized, small and micro enterprises and private investment.

(Source: Xinhua)
Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Small Molecule Drug Discovery - Global Market Outlook (2017-2026)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



Global Small Molecule Drug Discovery Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period



Some of the factors such as rise in drug discovery and development and rising usage of these drugs in the treatment of chronic diseases are driving the market growth. However, high costs of drugs are hindering the market growth.



Small molecule drug is a substance that can quickly enter the cells due to its low molecular weight. After entering the cells, it may affect the other molecules like proteins and may cause the cancer cells to die. There are two phases of developing new small molecule drugs. One is Drug discovery, and the other one is Drug development. Small molecule drugs are different from other drugs which have a large molecular weight. So, these targeted therapies are small-molecule drugs or small molecule inhibitors.



By Process Phase, lead optimization segment held significant growth during the forecast period due to increasing strength, selectivity, or pharmacokinetic parameters, rising in cancer and other diseases encouraging investments in lead optimization.



Based on geography, North America is anticipated to be one of the leading regions contributing to the global market during the forecast period. There is an increasing number of contract organizations for research and development. This shows that the United States is focusing on R&D activities to meet the rising demands of its people, finally leading the market of North America.



What our report offers:

Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments

Market share analysis of the top industry players

Strategic recommendations for the new entrants

Market forecasts for a minimum of 9 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets

Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)

Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations

Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends

Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments

Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements

Key Topics Covered:



1 Executive Summary



2 Preface

2.1 Abstract

2.2 Stake Holders

2.3 Research Scope

2.4 Research Methodology

2.5 Research Sources



3 Market Trend Analysis

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Drivers

3.3 Restraints

3.4 Opportunities

3.5 Threats

3.6 Emerging Markets

3.7 Futuristic Market Scenario



4 Porters Five Force Analysis

4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers

4.2 Bargaining power of buyers

4.3 Threat of substitutes

4.4 Threat of new entrants

4.5 Competitive rivalry



5 Global Small Molecule Drug Discovery Market, By Process Phase

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Hit Generation and Selection

5.3 Lead Identification

5.4 Lead Optimization

5.5 Target Id/Validation



6 Global Small Molecule Drug Discovery Market, By Therapeutic Area

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Anti-Infective

6.3 Cardiovascular

6.4 Central Nervous System

6.5 Dermatology

6.6 Gastrointestinal

6.7 Immunological

6.8 Metabolic

6.9 Oncology

6.10 Orthopedics

6.11 Respiratory

6.12 Other Therapeutic Areas



7 Global Small Molecule Drug Discovery Market, By Geography

7.1 Introduction

7.2 North America

7.3 Europe

7.4 Asia Pacific

7.5 South America

7.6 Middle East & Africa



8 Key Developments

8.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures

8.2 Acquisitions & Mergers

8.3 New Product Launch

8.4 Expansions

8.5 Other Key Strategies



9 Company Profiling



Astrazeneca

Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh

Bristol- Myers Squibb

Gilead Sciences, Inc.

Glaxosmithkline

Johnson & Johnson

Merck & Co.

Pfizer Inc

Teva Pharmaceuticals

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zb5fbv/global_small?w=12

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
LONDON, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The combination of in-market consolidation, convergence and cross border transactions between North America, Europe and Asia which drove Telecom and Technology M&A during 2018, is expected to continue to stimulate dealmaking in 2019.



Private equity firms and specialist digital communications infrastructure fund platforms, particularly those from the US, have become increasingly active buyers of Telecom & Tech companies in the US, Europe and globally, where there is continuing consolidation among smaller players. While this will continue, dealmakers are also seeking more international expansion, despite the global political uncertainty, to enhance risk diversification, particularly in infrastructure investment.

Theres a clear trend towards cross-border activity. Broadly speaking, the greater opportunity lies outside of the US in infrastructure, stated Alan Mitchell, President & COO, Merchant Banking and Private Equity of Spain Telecom. The European marketplace is diverse, it doesnt have the control of the incumbents. Whilst the general economic tone of the EU matters, its less of a concern than in LATAM where the volatility in currency makes them less attractive.

Dylan Foo, Partner and Head of Americas Infrastructure Equity, AMP Capital agrees that cross-border transactions will hold up in the face of continued global uncertainty. Global volatility is nothing new. While all rational investors will likely become a little more cautious, we do not expect any slowdown in investment. The infrastructure investment community has increasingly realized that telecom infrastructure is critical for the provision of essential services in todays world and incredible growth in data consumption is providing strong industry tailwinds.

US-China trade standoff

BDOs recent Horizons report highlighted that the prolonged US-China trade standoff was a core driver of European cross-border deals, despite investment rules and approval processes being tightened. China also looks to have an increasing desire for European technologies, particularly in 5G, which will lead to increased competition in the market with the US.

Mitchell sees this as progressive. A more open playing field for tariffs with non-Chinese companies is positive. Lower regulatory hurdles, an abundance of emerging technologies and high-tech assets are what buyers look for.

The precipice of 5G

2019 looks to be a unique turning point in infrastructure requirements with the opportunity that 5G will provide, together with the critical use of wireless networks.

Mitchell outlines, The development cycle over next two years is going to determine what future technology is all about. Data, fiber  we dont know what the opportunity is from 5G yet and what the minimum requirements are for products and services of the future to perform. The huge proliferation of devices and 5G will open up opportunity substantially greater than what weve seen before.

The US, however, is a step ahead, with the Verizon/ATT approach to rollout 5G on a city-by-city basis being implemented at a faster pace than its global competitors, which will likely drive increased investment from both domestic and international markets. Outside the US, 4G LTE is the predominant service beyond metropolitan areas, which breeds opportunity to develop and scale operations further.

Cell Towers: a transatlantic battle?

Whilst investment interest is there across telecom infrastructure, the attempted M&A in the past year indicate a continued focus and recognition of the value of cell tower development.

In the US, independent tower owners like Crown Castle and American Tower control the majority of the market, whereas European towers are still largely owned by the operators, though the landscape is changing with Telefonica and Telecom Italia recently selling minority stakes in their portfolios. After a restructuring process, the owners of French telecom infrastructure incumbent TDF are tipped to be looking to sell the business in 2019, according to a recent report by TMT Finance News.

Mitchell highlights, The concept of building fiber and hoping for customers is a dated strategy. Securing customers in new fiber 5G builds within towers that have customers and/or the ability to, suits an existing operator. US incumbents are also investing in anticipation of netting their IRR hurdle, and take the opportunity for a more diverse opportunity set, though its harder for new companies to do that due to cash flow.

Will high valuations limit appetite?

Foo thinks not. Unless an asset has certain tax characteristics, foreign investors will not view valuations any differently to domestic US investors.

Mitchell and Foo are speakers at the upcoming TMT M&A Forum USA 2019 (April 11, New York). The event, sponsored by Santander and Tillman Infrastructure, offers more than 250 M&A professionals the opportunity to engage with leading figureheads and discuss infrastructure, 5G investment, M&A strategy and changing trends within the telecommunications, media and technology M&A landscape in the US and globally.

Investors should appreciate that while the space is attractive for sound infrastructure fundamental reasons, it is more operationally complex than many traditional infrastructure asset classes and requires real asset management expertise for a successful investment experience.

Mitchell responds, Being at the forefront of the 5G development cycle, emerging technology of the future and making money from that is exciting. People will lose money up front. How to invest in growth technology today and leverage for tomorrow will be the true opportunity set.




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Arsenal are within sputtering distance of tying up a couple of new arrivals at the Emirates with news that deals for both Denis Suarez and Yannick Carrasco are close to conclusion.

Suarez is currently in London and is set to finalise his loan move today (Wednesday). As part of the machinations, the 25-year-old midfielder will have to renew his contract with Barcelona for an extra year (to 2021) to help preserve his market value.

According to those in the know, the six-month loan will cost Arsenal around 2million with a non-obligatory option to buy tacked on at 25million.

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Out on the eastern front, the Gunners are also deeply mired in negotiations with Dalian Yifang about a loan for winger Yannick Carrasco, who moved out to China from Atletico Madrid roughly one year ago.

As per Belgian journalist Kristof Terruer, Dalian are open to a loan for Carrasco but would like to source a replacement before anything goes through. The player is said to be unhappy in China and keen to return to Europe.

However, Inter Milan are also said to be interested in acquiring the 25-year-old Belgium international and may do so if they finally end up losing Ivan Perisic this month, who has been strongly linked with a move to Arsenal.

Arsenal have made an approach to sign Inter Milan winger Ivan Perisic. #AFC want loan with 35m option to buy. 29yo open to #Inter exit. Fits plan of versatile midfielder e.g. Suarez (still possible) / Nkunku + winger. Unclear if injuries mean defender wanted but Sokratis not bad  David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) 26 January 2019

In conclusion, \_()_/.
The Honorable Judge Jeffrey Cramer addressed several matters Jan. 22 in Wetzel County Circuit Court.

Those matters are as follows:

*

James Willis Bright, Jr., 60, of 88E Club Road, Pleasant Plains, Arizona, entered a not guilty plea to a six-count indictment. Bright will return to court Feb. 21 for a status hearing and further proceedings.

Bright is free on bond, and bond was allowed to continue. Brights indictment contains one count of attempted murder and five counts of wanton endangerment.

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Glen R. Anderson, 64, of 27 Mexico Lane, Reader, entered a not guilty plea to the charges against him. He was ordered to return to court Feb. 21, 10 a.m. for further proceedings and a status hearing, with a possible trial date to be set. Anderson was remanded back to jail, where hes currently incarcerated.

Andersons eight-count indictment includes the charge of sexual assault in the first degree, two counts of sexual abuse by a custodian, sexual abuse in the first degree, three counts of distribution and display to minor of obscene matter,

and enticing minor to photograph sexually explicit conduct.

A second two-count indictment charges him with sexual abuse in the first degree and sexual abuse by a custodian.

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John Wesley Blake, 48, of 8742 Mountaineer Highway, New Martinsville, will return to court Feb. 21 for a status hearing and possible trial date.

Blake entered a not guilty plea to a one-count indictment, charging him with child neglect creating risk of injury.

Judge Cramer set Blakes bond at $1,000 personal recognizance and ordered him to go to the state police office to be fingerprinted and photographed.

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Nancy Mae Cox, 35, of 8742 Mountaineer Highway, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to a one-count indictment, charging her with child neglect creating risk of injury.

Cox was also placed on a $1,000 personal recognizance bond; she was ordered to go to the state police office to be fingerprinted and photographed. She is to return to court on Feb. 21 for further proceedings in the case.

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Ronald Lanson Wood, 40, of 1736 Doolin Run Road, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and was ordered to return to court Feb. 21, 10 a.m. He was also allowed to remain free on bond.

Woods attorney, Patricia Kurelac, entered a motion for bond modification, allowing Wood to work out-of-state and not have to appear for drug testing. Prosecutor Tim Haught said he wouldnt oppose the modifications, as long as Wood is tested the day he appears in court.

Wood received an eight-count indictment from the grand jury, charging him with burglary, the misdemeanor offense of domestic battery, two counts of the misdemeanor offense of battery, the misdemeanor offense of destruction of property, two counts of strangulation, and the misdemeanor offense of unlawful restraint.

*

Joshua Eugene Streight, 31, of 214 S 2nd Avenue, Paden City, appeared in court Jan. 22 without an attorney. He told Judge Cramer he was ready to file a not guilty plea to a charge against him. Cramer advised Streight to try and secure legal counsel and fill out a financial affidavit to determine if he qualifies for a court-appointed attorney.

Streight said he works for a local union and just found out he owes another attorney a large sum of money. Streight said that attorney wont represent him. Cramer ordered Streight to return to court Feb. 6 for a status hearing. He was allowed to remain free on bond.

Streight was charged in a one-count indictment with malicious assault.

*

Brandon Scott Lloyd, 33, of Route 1 Box 219, West Union, entered a not guilty plea to a two-count indictment. He is to return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings in the case. He is presently incarcerated at the Northern Regional Jail, under a $10,000 cash/surety bond. Prosecutor Haught told the court if Lloyd makes bail, Haught would like it to be a probation office supervised bond. Judge Cramer agreed. Lloyd was remanded to jail.

Lloyd had received a two-count indictment, charging him with fleeing from an officer in a vehicle and gross child neglect creating risk of death or serious bodily injury.

*

Lewis Ray Anderson, 24, of 6310 McElroy Creek Road, West Union, pleaded not guilty to one charge against him. He was ordered to return to court on Feb. 21 for a status hearing and further proceedings. His bond was allowed to continue.

Anderson was given a one-count indictment, charging him with failure to update sex offender registry information.

*

Denzil R. Owens, 38, of 308 Fair Street, Middlebourne, appeared in court alongside Attorney Brent Clyburn. He entered a not guilty plea to the charge against him. He is to return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings. With no objection, his bond was allowed to continue.

Owens is charged by the grand jury in a one-count indictment, with failure to register as a sex offender.

*

Nicholas Chad Fletcher, 39, of 245 Lemley Ridge Road, Littleton, entered a not guilty plea to the charges against him. He was represented by Attorney David White, who was filling in for Attorney Kevin Neiswonger. He is to return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings.

Fletcher is currently incarcerated. Attorney Haught advised the court that if Fletcher makes bond, to have it supervised by the probation office. Judge Cramer agreed. Fletcher was remanded to jail.

Fletcher received two indictments from the grand jury. The first indictment charges him with burglary and grand larceny. A separate, one-count, indictment charges Fletcher with fleeing from an officer.

*

Codey Allen Baters, 31, of 44493 State Route 7, Clarington, Ohio, did not show up for his hearing on Jan. 22. A capias warrant was issued for his arrest.

Baters was charged through a two-count indictment with entry of a building other than a dwelling and misdemeanor petit larceny, to have occurred on or about November 10, 2018.

*

Jeffery Allan Starkey, 54, of New Martinsville, appeared in court and entered a not guilty plea to the charges against him. He will return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings. Starkey, who is on bond, was allowed to remain free  pending the next hearing.

Starkey received a four-count indictment, charging him with possession of a controlled substance (psilocybin mushrooms) with intent to deliver, misdemeanor driving while revoked for DUI, misdemeanor expired registration, and misdemeanor no insurance.

*

Randall Wayne Yoho, 58, of 732 American Ridge Road, New Martinsville, entered a not guilty plea to the charges against him. Judge Cramer set a return date for Feb. 21, 10 a.m. Yoho was allowed to remain free on his bond, pending the next hearing.

Yoho was given a three-count indictment, charging him with possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) with intent to deliver, possession of a controlled narcotic substance (Xanax) with intent to deliver, and possession of a controlled substance (Tramadol) with intent to deliver.

*

Natasha Lynn Tedrow, 27, of 632 Maple Avenue, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. She will return to court Feb. 21 for a status hearing. She is currently on bond, and the bond will continue. She will remain under the supervision of the probation office. Tedrow is represented by Attorney Ferro.

Tedrow received a three-count indictment, containing charges of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamines) with intent to deliver, prohibited person in possession of a firearm, and false evidence of registration.

*

Jenna Kay Erb, 38, of 253 Chelsea Street, Sistersville, entered a not guilty plea to the charges against her. She will return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings. She was formally arraigned and ordered to go to the New Martinsville Police Department for fingerprinting and a photograph. Erbs bond was set at $1,000 personal recognizance, and she was allowed to remain free on bond, pending her next hearing.

Erb received a three-count indictment from the grand jury, charging her with burglary and two counts of misdemeanor destruction of property.

*

Michael Lee Erb, 32, of 101 Evans Street, New Matamoras, Ohio (homeless) pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He will return to court Feb. 21 for a return date on the charges. He was remanded to jail under the condition that if he makes bond, he will be under the supervision of the probation office. Erb is represented by Attorney Ferro.

Erb received a three-count indictment, charging him with grand larceny, unlawful taking of vehicle (joyriding)  third or subsequent offense, and receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle.

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Kristi Rhena Fox-Hall, 35, of 46 Anson Street Apt. 7, New Martinsville, pleaded no guilty to the charges against her. She will return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings. She was remanded to jail. If she makes bond, she will be placed under probation office supervision.

Fox-Hall is charged in a two-count indictment with burglary and grand larceny, to have occurred on or about September 22, 2018.

*

Amanda Nicole Dennis, 37, of 24423 Energy Highway, New Martinsville, appeared in court without counsel. Judge Cramer tentatively appointed Ferro as counsel.

Because Dennis lives in Florida, Prosecutor Tim Haught asked the court to set bond at $2,500. Haught stated if Dennis failed to appear for her next hearing, it would cost the county to have her extradited.

Judge Cramer said he was going to set the bond at $1,000 personal recognizance. He said Dennis had commuted all the way for this hearing, and he believes she will appear for the next one. She was ordered to go to the Paden City Police Department to be fingerprinted and photographed. Dennis will return to court Feb. 21.

Dennis received a one-count indictment from the grand jury, charging her with embezzlement.

*

George Patrick Hallowell, 49, of 131 Commercial Street, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He was ordered to return to court Feb. 21 for a status hearing. Bond was set at $1,000 personal recognizance.

Hallowell has been charged with uttering false bill or note, to have occurred on September 13, 2018.

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Michael Tryone Blare, 35, of 957 Husky Highway, Fairmont, pleaded not guilty to the charge against him. He will return to court Feb. 21 and is represented by Attorney Ferro. His bond was allowed to continue.

Blare was given a one-count indictment, charging him with driving while revoked for DUI  third offense.

*

Randy Lee Cline, 50, of 607 N 7th Avenue, Paden City, pleaded not guilty to his charges, and he was ordered to return to court Feb. 21 for further proceedings. He is currently on bond, which was allowed to continue.

Cline, represented by Ferro, was given a two-count indictment, charging him with driving while revoked for DUI  third offense and fleeing from an officer.
Area residents traveling in the northeastern-most part of Wetzel County might have experienced some travel delays Sunday, Jan. 27 as a section of Route 250, north of Mannington, was closed for several hours during the late morning and early afternoon hours. The closure came as Marion County law enforcement responded to a call regarding two men passed out inside of a pickup truck. Law enforcement reported that they discovered the two men, along with pipe bombs inside the truck.

Damon Leigh Sturgeon, 39, of Mannington, was arrested and charged with illegal possession of destructive devices. Jason Lee Barr, 44, also of Mannington, was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine.

According to the Marion County Magistrate Complaint, law enforcement responded to a call regarding two males slumped over in a Maroon Dodge Ram. An officer knocked on the driver side window, and the male later identified as Sturgeon woke up and appeared very confused. Sturgeon, who was advised to roll down the vehicles window, began to look around and reach under the seat.

Sturgeon was then told to exit the vehicle, and he complied.

In the meantime, another officer had knocked on the passenger side of the vehicle and made contact with a male later identified as Jason Barr.

The complaint states that both men, who appeared to be under the influence of a drug and/or narcotic, were asked if there was anything illegal in the vehicle. They both stated no.

Barr was then asked if law enforcement could search his vehicle, and he complied.

I opened the front driver side door and observed a gas mask laying on the driver seat and then opened the driver side rear door and observed a black and white backpack behind the driver seat and a camouflage backpack behind the passenger seat, the complaint reads.

The complaint further states that law enforcement observed an open front vertical zip pocket of the black and white backpack and a black cylinder that had a spring and what appearing (sic) to be a fuse coming out of one end, a squeeze bottle container that was taped up that also had what appeared to be a fuse coming from one end and a clear plastic container with a red lid that contained screws and metal pellets and a hole approximately the same size as the fuses of the other devices.

The search was ceased, and Barr and Sturgeon were both detained. It is noted that neither Barr or Sturgeon claimed the black and white backpack, though Barr said he owned the camouflage backpack.

The criminal complaint states that the West Virginia State Police responded with a bomb technician, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was also alerted. Four devices were dismantled. A search revealed a glass pipe, digital scales, and plastic baggies containing a white/crystal-like substance believed to be methamphetamine were discovered in the camouflage backpack.

During further investigation, Sturgeon allegedly told BATF Special Agents that he made the devices at Barrs Mannington residence, inside the garage.

The complaint reports a search warrant obtained for this location yielded various improvised explosive device components, a black powder can, and several tools.

Bond for Sturgeon was set at $200,000. Bond for Barr was set at $2,500.

Published reports indicate that law enforcement is unsure as to why Sturgeon possessed the pipe bombs.
Report: More Than 312,000 Felons Can't Vote in KY

By The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - Kentucky has more than 312,000 people who cannot vote because of a felony conviction, a 67 percent increase from 2006, according to a report released Tuesday.

Kentucky is one of three states, including Iowa and Virginia, that impose lifetime voting bans on people with felony convictions. A report from the League of Women Voters of Kentucky shows 92 percent of those with felony convictions have been released from prison or jail and live in the community, but cannot vote.

"I think it is not a point of honor to be possibly the last state that permanently disenfranchises people," said Judy Johnson, the felon and voting rights chairwoman for the League of Women Voters of Kentucky.

The Kentucky Constitution bans convicted felons from voting, holding public office, owning a gun and serving on a jury. The governor can restore voting rights to convicted felons with a pardon. And in 2016, the state legislature passed a law allowing people convicted of nonviolent felonies to have their records expunged, a process that includes a $500 fee.

The court has granted 2,032 expungement requests between July 15, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2018, according to the report. The prior three governors have issued 11,500 partial pardons to restore voting rights. But since 2016, the report noted the number of people who have completed their prison sentences yet still cannot vote jumped 88.6 percent.

In 2015, former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear signed an executive order that would have automatically restored voting rights to some convicted felons once they have completed their sentences. But Republican Gov. Matt Bevin rescinded that order once he took office. Bevin's office now considers pardons on a case by case basis.

Bevin, who is seeking re-election in 2019, has restored voting rights for 981 people out of 1,765 applications, according to the report. Bevin signed additional pardons in December, but the data was not available in time for the report. Representatives from Bevin's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Democratic state Rep. George Brown has proposed an amendment to the state's constitution that would automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons once they have completed their prison sentences. If state lawmakers approve the proposal, the amendment would be put on the ballot in 2020 for voters to decide.

Brown said the issue has been debated in the legislature for years, with attempts to change the state's constitution dating back to at least 1994.

"We've known this information and now it's time to truly act on it," said state Rep. Attica Scott, a Democrat from Louisville who supports the bill. "Voting is a foundation of our democracy. Give the people the right to vote."

The bill has been assigned to the House Elections, Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. The committee chairman, Republican state Rep. Kevin Bratcher, said he has not read the bill but said he supports it "in theory." He said he planned to address the issue this year, but he's not sure if it will be Brown's bill or another proposal yet to be filed.

"Once you are square with the state, you should be able to vote again," Bratcher said.

In November, Florida voters approved a similar proposal to automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons, with exceptions for murder and sex crimes.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin speaks to the audience during the republican party's Lincoln Dinner, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018, in Lexington, Ky. Bevin announced during the dinner that he will seek re-election for Governor in 2019. PHOTO:AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley

Bevin Criticized for Comments on School Closings

By The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - Kentucky's Republican governor is being criticized for suggesting it is "soft" for school districts to cancel classes because of cold weather.

Gov. Matt Bevin told WHAS radio on Tuesday he is concerned that closing schools for cold weather "sends messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere." He also said it is "better to err on the side of being safe" and he is "being only slightly facetious."

Many teachers, school administrators and political rivals did not see it as a joke. Democratic candidate for governor Adam Edelen called Bevin's comments "dumb and mean."

Many schools closed Wednesday because forecasts predicted frigid temperatures with a wind chill of well below zero degrees (negative 17 Celsius).
Bardwell Woman Arrested on Drug Charges

By West Kentucky Star Staff

BARDWELL - A Bardwell woman has been arrested on numerous drug charges.According to the Carlisle County Sheriff's Office, deputies executed a search warrant Tuesday at a home in the 100 block of College Street in Bardwell. The search warrant was the result of an anonymous complaint of drug activity at that address.The residents of the home were not present when deputies arrived. However, 18-year-old William Bobo was inside playing video games at the time. Bobo was alleged to be in possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, including digital scales. He was cited and released by the Sheriff's Office.During this time, one of the residents of the home, 20-year-old Morgan Booker, returned. During the search, deputies say they located additional marijuana, drug paraphernalia, lortab pills, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and other items of suspected narcotics. Deputies note that some of the items will need to be tested at the Kentucky State Police crime lab prior to charges being filed for them.Booker was arrested and charged with two counts of 1st degree possession of a controlled substance, 2nd degree possession of a controlled substance, possession of a prescription drug not in proper container, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.She was taken to the Ballard County Jail.
Safety Tips During Frigid Weather

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - As bitter cold makes its way into the local area, the Paducah Fire Department is sharing some tips about heating your home safely.The U.S. Fire Administration says home fires occur more often in the winter months than any other time of the year. Heating is the second leading cause of home fires fatalities with smoking as the leading cause.Deputy Chief of Fire Prevention Greg Cherry said one of the biggest mistakes residents make is placing flammable objects such as bedding, clothing, and curtains, too close to a heating source. He added that anything flammable should be kept at least three feet away from fireplaces, space heaters, wood stoves, candles, and radiators.Here are some additional tips the Department shared:Never use an oven to heat your home.Turn off space heaters when leaving the room or going to bed.Make sure the heating appliance (space heater and/or kerosene heater) has an automatic tip switch.Plug only one heat-producing appliance, such as a space heater, into an electrical outlet at a time.Never use an extension cord or power strip with heat-producing appliances.Maintain heating equipment and chimneys by having them cleaned and inspected each year by a professional.If using a fireplace, keep a glass or metal screen in front of itPut fires out before going to bed or leaving the home, and properly store the ashes in a metal container.If you use natural gas or propane, install carbon monoxide alarms and test them monthly.Cherry also encouraged residents to make a fire escape plan for their home.
Police Investigate Sunday Night Shooting

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - A McCracken County man is hospitalized after a Sunday night shooting, and police have begun investigating.The Paducah Police Department says officers were called to Baptist Health Paducah at 7:10 pm about a man with a gunshot wound. They identified the man as 20-year-old Darrius Wesley of Paducah, but were unable to interview him.Wesley was transferred to an out-of-state hospital, where he is listed in critical but stable condition.Police say they will release more information as their investigation progresses.Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Paducah Police Department at 270-444-8550 or contact West Kentucky Crime Stoppers at 270-443-TELL.Tips can also be sent by texting WKY and information to 847411 (tip 411) or by downloading the app WKY Crime Stoppers from the Apple Store or Google Play. Tipsters also may access the online tip form through the City of Paducah website at http://paducahky.gov/west-ky-crime-stoppers.Information leading to an arrest or indictment may result in a reward of up to $1,000.
Salt Lake City, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cambia Grove, a health care-focused hub where innovators and entrepreneurs convene and catalyze new solutions, and the Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah), published a new report that found Utah is a national hotbed for health care industry innovation.

With an employment density more than twice the national average, Utahs health care innovation jobs grew by more than 22 percent over the last five years. The study, conducted in 2018, quantifies the health care innovation work taking place in Utah and classifies it into the following categories: health IT, digital health, life sciences and innovative services such as telehealth, concierge care or patient navigation platforms.

The study found that this sector has had a significant impact on Utahs state economy and directly accounts for:

 $7.1 billion in sales and output, or dollars spent and produced as a result of employment or capital investment in the sector

 34,130 jobs with average compensation of $90,250 vs state average of $55,442 per worker

 $2.3 billion in employee compensation

 $312.3 million in total venture capital investment in 2017

 5-year job growth rate of 22.2 percent

 15 percent of total jobs in the states health care economy, while producing 25 percent of total output

In addition, when capturing direct, indirect and induced ripple effects, the health care innovation sector in Utah generates:

 $11.35 billion dollars in total annual sales and output

 60,878 total jobs across the state

 $3.67 billion dollars in annual employee compensation

Utah has one of the strongest and most diverse economies in the country, said Clark Cahoon, Life Science Cluster Director, Governors Office of Economic Development. Here we let the market drive innovation and an effective and sustainable health care system is a market priority. Our policies and behavior as a state reflect our dedication to health and we welcome all entrepreneurs to join us in our work to improve the health care system.

This study contributes to Cambia Groves ongoing research into health care innovations impact across the country. As part of this effort, Cambia Grove is also conducting a census of health care startups currently operating in Utah. The database serves as a resource for organizations in the innovation ecosystem who are seeking ways to learn more about health care startups in the region, what they do and who they are. Startups are invited to join the database here: Cambia Grove Startup Census.

Everything that we do connects back to our vision of a health care system that embraces innovation to improve patient care and outcomes, said Maura Little, Executive Director, Cambia Grove. Our goal in sharing these insights is to fuel the rising tide of entrepreneurs entering into health care, as we continue to support their efforts to transform and improve the system.

To coincide with the release of the Utah Health Care Innovation Landscape report, Cambia Grove is sponsoring the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit, taking place January 31 - February 1. At the event attendees will have the opportunity to connect with Cambia Grove and learn about the resources available to health care entrepreneurs and visionaries.

Theres an amazing energy here, particularly on the eve of the Silicon Slopes conference. Utah has become a haven for tech startups and digital health is a big part of that, said Theresa Foxley, President and CEO of EDCUtah. Its encouraging to see so much excitement and creativity taking place in Utah and to see our impact as a market quantified.

To view the methodology and full findings, please visit: Cambia Grove Utah Health Care Innovation Landscape Report.



About the Economic Development Corporation of Utah

Since 1987, EDCUtah has worked with state and local government and private industry to attract and grow competitive, high-value companies and spur the expansion of local Utah businesses. EDCUtah is a private nonprofit organization.

About the Cambia Grove

The Cambia Grove is a health care-focused hub where innovators and entrepreneurs can convene and catalyze new solutions. We offer a shared space for the emerging health care economic cluster where a host of stakeholders set aside competition in favor of true collaboration toward the shared goals of better health and a more sustainable system. To learn more, visit us at CambiaGrove.com or on Twitter.





About Cambia Health Solutions

Cambia Health Solutions, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is dedicated to transforming health care. We put people at the heart of everything we do as we work to make the health care system more economically-sustainable and efficient for people and their families. Our company reaches more than 70 million Americans nationwide, including more than two million people in the Pacific Northwest who are enrolled in our regional health plans. To learn more about us, visit CambiaHealth.com or Twitter.com/Cambia.

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Local Leaders Return from China Economic Trip

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Mayor Brandi Harless and Ballard County Judge-Executive Todd Cooper released statements Wednesday about their recent trip to Shanghai, China to discuss economic development.The two leaders returned last week after leaving on Jan. 17 as invited guests to attend the Shanying International Holdings annual conference. Shanying International Holdings is the parent company for Global Win and Phoenix Paper. Global Win-Wickliffe, now known as Phoenix Paper, LLC, is reopening the former Verso Corporation paper mill in Wickliffe. In August 2018, Global Win signed a letter of intent to purchase the former paper mill with a $150 million investment expected to create full-time jobs.According to a press release from Paducah Public Information Officer Pam Spencer, the theme for the Shanying International conference was "Innovation, nothing is impossible". Many of the presentations focused on the paper business and its growth globally as more paper products are being developed to replace non-biodegradable plastic products.Mayor Harless said, This is an exciting time for Shanying International and its subsidiaries as new technology and research are helping the paper industry expand into new markets. The goal is for paper to surpass the use of plastics in areas such as packaging and shipping. As Shanying continues to broaden its market globally, I am thrilled that they have chosen to invest in Ballard County. We will continue this wonderful partnership and look for opportunities to enhance their growth in this region.Judge-Executive Cooper said, My hope is this region will continue to welcome Phoenix Paper and its corporate staff with open arms. As we work to make this company a success, it could help our region with future opportunities beyond our wildest dreams.Harless added, Being asked to join the team in Shanghai was a welcomed surprise. I was reaffirmed on this trip that helping our economy grow is about developing relationships with companies and helping to solve their problems. I had many conversations with the Shanying team about how our region and Paducah are uniquely situated to help them solve their challenges.The conference attendees also enjoyed a presentation about productivity and happiness. Judge-Executive Cooper said, The management staff was asked to examine their own lives to see what makes them happy. They then were challenged to help their employees achieve happiness with the goal for all employees to become more productive in their personal lives which would carry over to their professional lives. Shanyings corporate staff work long days to make their business successful and are looking forward to getting the paper mill in Wickliffe up and running. Plus, they encourage their employees to think of new ways to expand, grow, and become a better company. It was an amazing trip to learn more about this new addition to our region.According to the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, eight Chinese-owned companies operate facilities in Kentucky, currently employing about 8,700 people.
Arrest Made Related to 2018 Thefts from Vehicles

By West Kentucky Star Staff





PADUCAH - A man was found and arrested Saturday after being named as a suspect months ago in vehicle break-ins dating back to August.The McCracken County Sheriff's Department says two different incidents were reported in August. Deputies lifted a fingerprint from a crime scene on Calvert Drive, while items from a theft on Brookhill Lane were tracked. By October, detectives had named 39-year-old James Roland Mallas of Paducah as a suspect.Detectives knew Mallas was currently on parole from a burglary conviction, but they couldn't find him, even with the help of the Kentucky Department of Probation and Parole.More thefts from vehicles on Paducah's south side took place in October, and Mallas was allegedly spotted in surveillance video, but detectives still couldn't find him.By mid-January, the state crime lab had confirmed that fingerprints from the August theft belonged to Mallas, so detectives and deputies began using surveillance at several locations to find him.On Saturday, a deputy learned that Mallas was inside a home on Oaks Road. When they entered the home, detectives say Mallas was found hiding under a bed, with suspected methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia nearby, in plain view.Mallas was arrested on possession charges and for two counts of theft by unlawful taking under $500. He was also charged with warrants for a parole violation and for failure to appear on other drug charges.Mallas was taken to McCracken County Jail. The investigation is continuing, and deputies say more charges are likely.Once again, the Sheriff's Department reminds everyone to keep their vehicles locked, and to remove or conceal valuables.
All United Flights Cancelled at Barkley Regional

By West Kentucky Star Staff

CHICAGO - United Airlines has cancelled all Wednesday flights to and from Chicago at Barkley Regional Airport in McCracken County due to the unusually cold weather.The airline said it was a wind chill warning in Chicago that prompted the cancellations. With forecasters anticipating a high temperature in the double-digits below zero for the day, Chicago hasn't seen temps this low in quite some time. The high temperature there on Thursday is expected to be a bit warmer, perhaps slightly above the zero mark.It's not known if the airline is planning on any additional cancellations.
Halls Sophie Garner-MacKinnon has been named the 2020-21 Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year, according to a release from Gatorade. Garner-MacKinnon is the first Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hall High School.
San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- George Ortiz is alive today thanks to a 26,000-square-mile safety net that stretches across South Texas.

Ortiz, a construction worker from Jourdanton, suffered a severe leg injury last year while on the job, causing a dramatic loss in blood. The therapy that helped save his life  a transfusion of specially collected and tested whole blood  came through the Brothers in Arms program.

The South Texas Blood & Tissue Center and a network of trauma centers, medical helicopter providers and EMS units are celebrating the one-year anniversary of Brothers in Arms in January. The program supplies the whole blood for use in medical helicopters, San Antonio Fire Department medical vehicles and Level 1 trauma centers in San Antonio, covering 26,000 square miles of South Texas.

We have given whole blood to more than 140 patients in pre-hospital settings, and were excited to say there has been at least a 25 percent decrease in deaths related to hemorrhage in trauma patients, said Dr. Donald Jenkins, deputy director of military health at the Institute of Trauma and Surgery at UT Health San Antonio and University Health System.

There is no place in the United States where an entire region of 22 counties across 26,000 square miles with more than 50 hospitals and 70 EMS and helicopter EMS agencies has access to whole blood for their injured and bleeding patients, except for South Texas, Dr. Jenkins said.

San Antonio is the only city in the nation with a broad network to transport whole blood to trauma sites, which is transforming emergency response in mass trauma situations.

About Brothers in Arms:

Use of whole blood, rather than only red cells or other components, was found to be better for controlling bleeding and increasing survival rates in battlefield tests led by Dr. Jenkins.

The program provides transfusions much earlier at the trauma site or en route to the hospital, which was also shown to increase survival rates in studies by the military.

Because the blood is specially tested to ensure it is low in antigens that could cause reactions, patients can receive O-positive blood, rather than O-negative blood. Although O-negative blood is traditionally used in emergency situations because it is safe to give to people with all blood types, supplies are extremely limited. O-negative donors represent only 7 percent of the population, compared to 36 percent who are O-positive.

A core group of O-positive men was established to donate blood to the program, currently with 484 active Brothers in Arms donors.

As it heads into its second year, Brothers in Arms is expanding to more emergency rooms in San Antonio and the surrounding area.

For patients like George Ortiz, the program has been lifesaving.

What I remember is standing on top of the hole-drilling machine and removing some pins so that the rest of the stem that drills the hole could come down. Then the machine squished my leg. It felt like it tore it off," he said.

Ortiz went in and out of consciousness as his coworkers and emergency personnel raced to save his life. A Department of Public Safety trooper applied a tourniquet at one point. Ortiz was evacuated via ambulance and then helicopter, and he received the Brothers in Arms transfusion on the way to the hospital.

He is alive today because of Brothers in Arms blood donors like Michael Noriega, who had donated just days before the accident.

Ensuring a stable blood supply for patients and hospital partners in all the communities served by STBTC is paramount, said Elizabeth Waltman, COO of South Texas Blood & Tissue Center. It is imperative that programs like Brothers in Arms have specialty blood to support and sustain the program, especially given that a whole blood unit has a 35-day shelf life.

The program represents a collaboration involving the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, a subsidiary of BioBridge Global; UT Health Science Center; the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council (STRAC); University Health System; the San Antonio Military Medical Center; The U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research; San Antonio Fire Department; and medical helicopter services Air Evac Lifeteam/Methodist Aircare, PHI Inc., and San Antonio AirLIFE.

The program was established in San Antonio with support from a grant provided by the San Antonio Medical Foundation, USAA and Union Pacific Railroad.

The continued success and growth of our Brothers in Arms program depends on growing this pool of committed donors, Waltman said. Brothers in Arms participants are among our most reliable donors, with more than 80 percent of them showing up to scheduled appointments to give blood.

Male donors who would like to know if they qualify to be a Brothers in Arms volunteer are encouraged to call 210-731-5590 to schedule an appointment for testing.

###

About the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center: The South Texas Blood & Tissue Center (STBTC) is a nonprofit community blood center that provides blood, plasma, platelets and other blood components to more than 70 hospitals in 48 South Texas counties. It is the largest blood supplier in our region. STBTC has a proud 45-year history serving the South Texas community. The center is a subsidiary of BioBridge Global, a nonprofit organization comprising services for regenerative medicine and research including blood banking and resource management; cellular therapy; umbilical cord blood collection and storage; donated human tissue recovery and distribution for transplant; and testing of blood and plasma products to help patients in South Texas, the United States and worldwide. STBTC has seven donor rooms in South Texas and conducts thousands of mobile blood drives each year. Visit us at SouthTexasBlood.org and BioBridgeGlobal.org.

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The 77th WCO Fellowship Programme, intended for French-speakers, was launched in Brussels on Monday 28 January 2019.

This Programme forms part of the WCOs initiatives to develop the management capacities of Member administrations in support of Customs Reform and Modernization programmes. It is designed to provide promising young managers from Member administrations with access to and further familiarization with WCO and international standards, tools and instruments, but also with training in supervisory and management techniques, so as to help them carry out reform and modernization within their respective administrations in a dynamic and sustainable manner.

This latest Programme brings together 12 participants who had the opportunity to meet Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary General, within the framework of a round-table session, introducing a series of conferences given by WCO experts, as well as to the eight-day Leadership and Management Development Workshop, facilitated by two experts from France and Gabon.

The participants will remain at WCO Headquarters until 22 February in order to prepare an in-depth study on a technical subject of their choice, under the supervision of a WCO tutor, and to make recommendations to their respective administrations for possible subsequent implementation. Lastly the participants will spend a fortnight in one of the Programmes partner Administrations (the Republic of Korea, France or Japan) to round off their study trip.

The French-speaking Fellowship Programme is funded by the Customs Administrations of Japan and France and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance of the Republic of Korea.

List of countries participating in the 77th Fellowship Programme: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote dIvoire, Laos, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Thailand, Togo and Ukraine.
On 28 January 2019, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya met with the Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Brussels Committee of Ambassadors at WCO Headquarters. The Meeting was organized at the initiative of His Excellency Dato Hasnudin Hamzah, Ambassador of Malaysia to Belgium, with the objective of discussing emerging priorities for Customs, as well as exploring mechanisms to further enhance cooperation between the WCO and ASEAN Member States. The Ambassadors of all ten ASEAN Members were present.

Ambassador Dato Hasnudin Hamzah outlined the importance attached to WCO activities, particularly as regards trade facilitation and the harmonization of Customs procedures. He highlighted the priority currently assigned by ASEAN to the facilitation of e-commerce, and the digital economy more broadly. He indicated that the theme of Thailands chairmanship of ASEAN for 2019 is Advancing Partnership for Sustainability.

Secretary General Mikuriya presented the WCOs main areas of work and he elaborated on the Organizations theme for 2019 : SMART Borders for Seamless Trade, Travel and Transport. He highlighted the importance of automation and the use of technologies to address emerging challenges, and he stressed the importance of implementing WCO tools and instruments.

During the discussions, participants addressed issues related to e-commerce, exchange of information, data protection, Single Window, transit procedures, intangible goods and capacity building.

All participants reiterated their countries willingness to maintain close cooperation with the WCO. Secretary General Mikuriya concluded by reiterating the WCOs continued commitment to assist with the enhancement of Customs capacity in the ASEAN region in order to support the regions economic development objectives.
OTTAWA, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Calian Group Ltd. (TSX: CGY) is pleased to announce it has been awarded an IT services contract by General Dynamics Mission SystemsCanada as part of a partnership to deliver Land C4ISR systems support for the Canadian Army.

General Dynamics was awarded three contracts by the Government of Canada to support the Land Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. These Land C4ISR systems will offer the Canadian Army an improved ability to help protect the communications and information systems they depend on while continuing to develop technologies that generate economic impact for Canada.

Calian has been awarded a five-year contract vehicle for the provision of IT and software development services in support of Land C4ISR systems. While the contract is not material to Calian, the duration and potential scope represent a strategic win for Calians IT services team, with initial estimates indicating the contract may be a strong contributor to IT services growth. The contract also reinforces and expands Calians more-than 20-year partnership with the Department of National Defence (DND). A proudly Canadian company and award-winning veteran-friendly employer, Calian has deep roots in services and solutions for a wide range of defence and space programs, from health services to training to satellite engineering.

Im excited about our continued partnership with General Dynamics Mission SystemsCanada and the opportunity to provide expertise on Land C4ISR systems for the Canadian Army, said Sandra Cote, VP, Calian IT Professional Services (ITPS). The Department of National Defence is a key customer for Calian and we continue to invest in partnerships and technologies that will aid us in the delivery of services in this evolving landscape.

This announcement demonstrates Calians continued growth and the teams execution of the customer diversification pillar of our four-pillar growth strategy, stated Kevin Ford, President and CEO, Calian Group. We are very happy to be partnering with supplier General Dynamics Mission SystemsCanada on these critical defence systems. Supporting operational readiness is in our DNA at Calian. I see this new partnership as another example of how our diversified business supports the full spectrum of both resilient people and capabilities within the Departments Defence Policy objectives.

About Calian ITPS

Calian ITPS has the experience and knowledge to support complex IT initiatives and manage discrete IT functions in support of business and technology needs, regardless of platform or applications. Calian ITPS offers SAP consulting, IT development support services, cloud consulting and on-demand IT services. Calians Cyber Resilience Office provides organizations with the right people, technology and solutions to build actionable plans that keep their environments safe and secure.

About Calian

Calian employs more than 3,200 people with offices and projects that span Canada, U.S. and international markets. The company's capabilities are diverse with services delivered through two divisions. Calians Systems Engineering Division (SED), located in Saskatoon, provides the worlds leading space technology companies with innovative solutions for testing, operating and managing their satellite networks. SED provides leading-edge communications products for terrestrial and satellite networks, as well as providing commercial (including agriculture) and defence customers with superior electronics engineering, manufacturing and test services for both private sector and military customers in North America. The Business and Technology Services (BTS) Division is headquartered in Ottawa and includes the provision of business and technology services to industry, public and government in the health, training, engineering and IT services domains.

For investor information, please visit our website at www.calian.com or contact us at ir@calian.com

Kevin Ford Jacqueline Gauthier Media inquiries: President and Chief Executive Officer Chief Financial Officer Simon Doyle 613-599-8600 613-599-8600 613-599-8600 x 2205

DISCLAIMER



Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Such statements are generally accompanied by words such as intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect or similar statements. Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the impact of price competition; scarce number of qualified professionals; the impact of rapid technological and market change; loss of business or credit risk with major customers; technical risks on fixed price projects; general industry and market conditions and growth rates; international growth and global economic conditions, and including currency exchange rate fluctuations; and the impact of consolidations in the business services industry. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, please see the Companys most recent annual report and other reports filed by Calian with the Ontario Securities Commission. Calian disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. No assurance can be given that actual results, performance or achievement expressed in, or implied by, forward-looking statements within this disclosure will occur, or if they do, that any benefits may be derived from them.
Cultural Development Programme - Youth Arts Jamboree

Gibraltar Cultural Services, on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, is launching this years Youth Arts Jamboree, a cultural development programme dedicated to young people.

The activities offered in the programme are all geared for children and young people aged between 2 and 25 years old. The Jamboree will be held from the 18th February to the 7th March 2019.

This years programme offers specific workshops for young people in a variety of disciplines, from creative writing and poetry, to drama, music, fine art, movement and fashion. The aim is to invest in young people offering opportunities for growth and development. The sessions will be fun and educational, some targeted at beginners and others more specialised and focused.

Her Worship the Mayor, Kaiane Aldorino-Lopez GMH will once again lead visits to the historic City Hall, with GCS combining these with art tours of the Mario Finlayson Art Gallery housed within.

An innovation will be live chat and performance sessions with local established musicians relaying their life experiences. An opportunity to share in the joys and successes of some of Gibraltars best, an opportunity to learn from them.

Hoping to invest in future skills, the programme will offer opportunities in photography, lighting, and videography. A few placements are been funded for and made available for young people wishing to learn or further improve their skills in these areas. These programmes will be provided by the Gibraltar Photographic Society, ArtDance and WrightTech respectively.

Other events will include the established art, dance and music competitions, Heritage Trust and Gibraltar Museum tours and the World Book Day celebrations, amongst others.

Art treasure hunts to feature Gibraltars leading art galleries have been devised so that youth groups and young people and their families may appreciate the work of local artists and the interesting buildings they are housed within. The walk takes you on a journey from Casemates via Irish Town to John Mackintosh Square.

The Minister for Culture and Youth, the Hon Steven Linares, said:

It gives me great pleasure to present the full and varied development programme that has been produced by Gibraltar Cultural Services. It is imperative that we invest in our youth so that we can have more young people in cultural activities, and in turn, we strive to produce the cultural, youth and heritage leaders of the future. I look forward to the participation of many of our youth in this unique Jamboree.

CEO at Gibraltar Cultural Services, Seamus Byrne, said:

GCS are delighted to be able to present this development programme for HM Government of Gibraltar.

We need more young people involved in photography, fine arts, drama, architecture and many other genres of the Humanities spectrum. GCS believes that the Youth Arts Jamboree initiative, is a very important development programme for Gibraltar, as it will provide a platform that will contribute to our communitys cultural growth.'

For any enquiry please contact Gibraltar Cultural Services, Events Department, on telephone 20067236 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Monday 18th February  Thursday 7th March 2019

Programme of Events

Jamboree launch at GEMA (Gibraltar Exhibitions of Modern Art)

6pm to 8pm

Arts & Crafts workshop with Giorann Henshaw for 8 to12 year olds (Vault 1)

Fashion Workshop for teenagers with Paul Perez (Vault 2)

Drama Workshop for teenagers with Daniel Strain Webber (Vault 3)

For more info and to book a place at these sessions please call 200 79750

Gibraltar Museum Guided Tour

4:30pm, for young people aged 5-8 with accompanying adult

Limited spaces available. Pre-registration on a first-come-first-served basis

To book your place please contact: 200 74289 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. indicating the name and age of the child, name of accompanying adult and contact details

Monday 18th to Friday 22nd February

School Open Days

Visits to the Mayors Parlour at the City Hall, hosted by Her Worship the Mayor (These can be combined with a visit to the Mario Finlayson National Art Gallery) Pre-booking required

Tuesday 19th February

Gibraltar Museum Guided Tour

4:30pm, for young people aged 9-11 with accompanying adult

Limited spaces available. Pre-registration on a first-come-first-served basis

To book your place please contact: 200 74289 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. indicating the name and age of the child, name of accompanying adult and contact details

Learning to take the Perfect Shot

Gibraltar Photographic Society Workshop for beginners (a two part event) Cameras can be provided if needed

4:30pm at Wellington Front

For further information please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Getting to Know Adrian Pisarello, live chat & music session

GEMA, Montagu Bastion

6pm to 7pm

To book your place please call 200 49161

Launch Art Treasure Hunt

Schools, youth groups and individuals invited to participate in a fun and interactive art treasure hunt through the different Galleries via Casemates and Irish Town.

For large groups, sessions can also be booked for after the Jamboree More information on 200 75669

Wednesday 20th February

Story Construction Workshop with writers Stephanie and Lee Dignam

For 8-12 year olds

6pm to 7pm, John Mackintosh Hall Lecture Room

To book your place please call 200 49161



Thursday 21st February

Getting to Know Nolan Frendo, live chat & music session

GEMA, Montagu Bastion

6pm to 7pm

To book your place please call 200 49161

Guitar for beginners with musician Justin Phillips

For 8-12 year olds

5pm to 7pm, Rock on the Rock Club

To book your place please call 200 49161

Thursday 21st, Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd February

Gibraltar International Dance Festival,

Organised by MO Productions

Tickets priced at 5 per session, 15 Gala, from www.buytickets.gi

More details from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Friday 22nd February

Music Session with Luke Bosano

For young people aged 8-12

5pm to 7pm, Rock on the Rock Club

To book your place please call 200 79750

Monday 25th February to 1st March

Gibraltar Festival for Young Musicians FYM

Organised by the Gibraltar Academy of Music and Performing Arts, GAMPA For musicians aged 4-18 years

Tickets 5 per session, 12 Gala night, available at the door

Details from: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Social media workshop with Surianne Dalmedo

For young people aged 16+

5pm to 6pm, John Mackintosh Hall Lecture Room To book your place please call 200 79750

Live drawing session with artist Sebastian Rodriguez

6pm to 8pm, GEMA

For young people aged 13+

To book your place please call Face Frames on 200 72629 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tuesday 26th February

Learning to take the Perfect Shot

Gibraltar Photographic Society Workshop for beginners (part two) 4:30pm at Wellington Front

For further information please Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Percussion workshop with Surianne Dalmedo

For 2-5 year olds, with accompanying adult

5pm to 6pm, Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, Casemates To book your place please call 200 49161

Young Artist Exhibition

Organised by Gibraltar Cultural Services Official Opening & Prize Giving

6:30pm, John Mackintosh Hall

Invitation only

Wednesday 27th February

Getting to Know Layla Bugeja live chat & music session

6pm to 7pm, Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, Casemates

To book your place please call 200 49161

Poetry Workshop with Giordano Durante

For young people aged 8+

6-7pm, John Mackintosh Hall, Lower Exhibition Room

To book your place please call 200 79750

Creative Writing Workshops with Jackie Anderson

A session organised at the Gibraltar College organised for students

Young Artist Competition

John Mackintosh Hall open until 13th March Open from 9am-9:30pm

Peoples Choice Award - you can vote on your favourite artwork throughout the competition. Forms available at reception

Thursday 28th February

Giordano Durante Poetry Workshop

Session organised at Westside Comprehensive School for students

Getting to Know Paul Isola live chat & music session

6pm to 7pm, Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, Casemates

To book your place please call 200 79750

Improvisation & Contact Workshop with Nathan Conroy

6pm to 7:30pm, Bayside Drama Studio For young people 12+

To book your place please call 200 49161

MARCH

Friday 1st March

Drama Workshop with Daniel Strain Webber

For young people aged 13+

6pm-7:30pm, John Mackintosh Hall

To book your place please call 200 79750

Tour of the Northern Defences

Organised by the Gibraltar Heritage Trust.

Meet at 5pm at Landport Bridge. Tour will take approximately 2 hours. Suitable for ages 8+.

All attendees under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult. To book your place please call 200 42844

Monday 4th March

Creative Writing Workshops led by Jackie Anderson

Organised by Westside Comprehensive School, for Year 11s

Getting to Know Guy Valarino live chat & music session

6pm to 7pm, John Mackintosh Hall, Lower Exhibition room Book your place on 200 79750

Tuesday 5th March

Drama Workshop with Julian Felice

For children aged 8-12

5pm to 6pm, John Mackintosh Hall Theatre

To book your place please call 200 49161

Wednesday 6th March

Creative Writing Workshops led by Jackie Anderson

Organised by Westside Comprehensive School, for Year 11s

Fine Arts Association Art workshop

Fine Arts Gallery, Casemates

For more information please call 200 52126

Story Construction Session with Stephanie and Lee Dignam

For young adults 18+

6pm to 7pm, John Mackintosh Hall Lecture Room

To book your place please call 200 49161

Thursday 7th March

WORLD BOOK DAY at the John Mackintosh Hall

School visits and Library tours

A special performance of Harry Potter by the White Light Company featuring Transitions and GAMPA at 4:30pm. Open to the public

Childrens activities, book fair, interactive readings and more More information from GCS on 20075669 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Other Opportunities for young people Video

GCS is offering two young people the chance to work with WrighTech in producing a promotional video of the Jamboree. This opportunity would be ideal for any young person interested in videography, camera work and editing and would provide hands on experience.

For details contact WrighTech on 200 74535

Photography

GCS will be funding the participation of three young people to enrol in the Photographic Societys Induction course, something those interested would have to commit to. The course starts on Thursday 28th February running over 10 weeks until the 9th May. It will cover all aspects of basic photography. The sessions will run from 7-8:30pm. A camera can be made available for the duration of the course for those requiring one.

For more details email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Theatre Lighting and Sound Course

ArtDance will be running a 3-day course from the 15th-17th April, exploring the processes and techniques involved in creating lighting for stage. Applicants will be equipped with the basic skills and knowledge of the technical and creative side of lighting in theatre. Technician, Mark Cortes, will be leading the course at the John Mackintosh Hall Theatre.

For more details contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clear Blue Technologies International Inc. (Clear Blue) (TSXV: CBLU), the Smart Off-Grid company, has delivered Smart Off-Grid Power Packs to power lighting at 51 intersections in North Dakota for the Department of Transport. The initial three phases of installations are complete, with 16 lights already in use at rural intersections across the State. The remaining 34 lights are expected to be installed in two phases during 2019. The project was done in partnership with Luma Sales, and includes the sale of Clear Blue Smart Off-Grid Power Packs as well as on-going monitoring and management services.



Driven by the growth of the energy industry, North Dakotas rural population is growing rapidly, and the State needed innovative and cost-effective approaches to providing lighting infrastructure in these areas, said Matt Strand from Luma Sales. Clear Blue's solar-powered lights replaced existing grid-connected lights that were too unreliable and costly to maintain. If a lamp burned out, there was no way to know, and due to the large territory they are installed in, sending someone to fix it is expensive. This was solved by Clear Blues Smart Off-Grid power solution. Its 24/7 monitoring and management software can remotely detect any issues and anticipate periods of bad weather, enabling service personnel to proactively make changes to ensure the lights come on every night.

The Luma Sales lights were installed on the existing wooden poles and connected to Clear Blues Smart Off-Grid Power Pack, which consists of a solar panel, smart controller, and battery, with built-in communications that wirelessly connects to Clear Blues Illumience power management software-as-a-service. Clear Blue also provides the on-going management service to the Department of Transport.

Thanks to our Smart Off-Grid Power Packs, the Department of Transport can affordably and reliably light intersections across a broad expanse of North Dakota, says Miriam Tuerk, co-founder and CEO of Clear Blue. It is yet another example of how wireless power is a lower cost, more reliable, and more flexible solution for street lighting. For local governments, this is a case of pure economics in making budgets go further, and that is why we believe Smart Off-Grid is so beneficial in powering critical infrastructure.

According to Transparency Market Research, the global solar street lighting market is projected to reach $17.78 billion (USD) in revenue by 2024, a CAGR of 23.23% from 2016 to 2024.i In Q3 2018, Clear Blues lighting vertical posted a 610% revenue increase for the three months ended September 30, 2018, compared year-over-year to Q3 2017.

About Clear Blue Technologies International

Clear Blue Technologies International, the Smart Off-Grid company, was founded on a vision of delivering clean, managed, wireless power to meet the global need for reliable, low-cost, solar and hybrid power for lighting, telecom, security, Internet of Things devices, and other mission-critical systems. Today, Clear Blue has thousands of systems under management across 35 countries, including the U.S. and Canada.

Media Contact:

Becky Nye

Senior Associate

Montieth & Company

12 E 49th St., New York, NY 10017

bnye@montiethco.com

+1 646.864.3517



Investor Relations:



Miriam Tuerk

Co-Founder and CEO

investors@clearbluetechnologies.com

http://www.clearbluetechnologies.com/en/investors

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
English Lithuanian

The Management Board of PLLC Kauno Energija (hereinafter  the Company) (code  235014830) approved on 30 January 2019 a non-audited Set of Consolidated and Companys Financial Statements of 12 months of the year 2018, prepared according to International Financial Reporting Standards, as adopted by the European Union.

The result of Companys activities of 12 months of the year 2018 according to International Accounting Standards is profit in amount of EUR 4,553 thousand (12 months of the year 2017 is profit in amount of EUR 6,046 thousand), turnover from sales is EUR 61,329 thousand (12 months of the year 2017  EUR 59,692 thousand). The result of activities of the Group which as at 31 December 2018 consisted of PLLC Kauno Energija and of its subsidiaries  LLC Kauno Energija NT (code  303042623) and LLC Petrasiunu Katiline (code  304217723) is profit in amount of EUR 3,973 thousand (the result of 12 months of the year 2017 is profit in amount of EUR 6,861 thousand), turnover from sales is EUR 61,317 thousand (the result of 12 months of the year 2017 is EUR 59,680 thousand).

EBITDA of 12 months of the year 2018 is: Companys  EUR 12,657 thousand  at 12.1 per cent less, than in the year 2017 (12 months of the year 2017  EUR 14,391 thousand), Groups  EUR 12,707 thousand  at 19,9 per cent less, than in the year 2017 (12 months of the year 2017  EUR 15,861 thousand).

Companys profit of 12 months of the year 2018 decreased by EUR 1,493 thousand in comparison with the result of the same period of the year 2017 due to the additional heat price constituent, started to apply from May 2018 and decreasing heat price by 0.62 ct/kWh (excl. VAT). This constituent has been started to apply without waiting the decision of National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (NCC) regarding determination of new base heat price constituents to refund to consumers Companys additional income, earned on the difference between prices of fuel purchase and consumption, actual and included in the price of heat, and between prices of purchase of heat. A constituent in amount of 0.29 ct/kWh (excl. VAT) decreasing the price of heat has been started to apply Starting from 1 December 2018 after new base heat price constituents became valid.

The amount of the heat sold decreased by 0.8 per cent in comparison with the year 2017, Companys turnover from sales increased by 2.7 per cent due to the 3.3 per cent increase in the average selling price of heat.

We hereby present the non-audited interim financial statements of 12 months of the year 2018 together with Confirmation from responsible persons.

Loreta Miliauskiene, Head of the Economics Department, tel. +370 37 305 855

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I want you and the other Democratic members of Congress to do what you and your GOP colleagues have promised to do for decades: Stop illegal immigration on the southern border (based on the advice of on-the-ground experts and verifiable facts); and enact a comprehensive immigration policy that makes sense (based on merit and fairness, not partisan political imperatives).
The excavation of the church site began in 2016. Since then, archaeologists have made discoveries that shed further light on the layout and construction of the 1617 church beneath the 1907 church. A number of churches have occupied the site over the years. Historic Jamestowne intends to build new exhibitions to allow visitors to view the archeologists work and discoveries, the release states.
We get some people who have been coming to this years for years, its great to see them come back, Ritchie said. Its a neat series it really is. People enjoy getting out of the house and coming down to the Riverwalk, enjoy themselves listening to music.
Love in the Art of the Ancient Regime: A lecture presented by Donald Schrader, an adjunct professor of art history at the University of Mary Washington. He will discuss the evolution of Rococo art and how it expressed love. 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Williamsburg Library, 515 Scotland St. Free.
UW to Host Violin-Piano Recital Feb. 8

The University of Wyoming Department of Music presents its first Faculty Recital Series presentation of the spring semester, featuring John Fadial, violin, and Chi-Chen Wu, piano. They will perform Sonatas for Violin and Piano.

The free public event is Friday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. The program will include Gabriel Faures Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A major, Op. 13 and Cesar Francks Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major.

Fadial, UW professor of violin, has appeared on four continents as chamber musician and soloist. He has toured internationally for the U.S. State Department as an artistic ambassador and has served as concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur, the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele, the Eastern Music Festival and Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

He has won prizes in the American String Teachers Association Solo Competition and the Baltimore Chamber Awards, and has performed at the Phillips Collection; the Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center; the Salle Poirel; the University of Blagoevgrad; and Bulgaria.

As a recording artist, Fadial was a semifinalist for the Grammy Award for best Chamber Music Performance of 2007 for the CD Where Does Love Go: Chamber Music of Mark Engebretson on the Innova label.

Fadial has taught master classes around the world in which his students, including four Music Teachers National Association national finalists, have won positions and competitions around the United States.

A native of Taiwan, Wu came to the United States for graduate school in 1999, studying with some of the nations most celebrated pianists. Her performances have been praised in newspapers around the world, and she has collaborated with such well-known chamber musicians as Takacs String Quartet and the Juilliard String Quartet.

Wu has won numerous medals for her music and has performed as a soloist around the world. She teaches piano courses at UW and coordinates collaborative piano assignments for the Department of Music.

For more information, call Kathy Kirkaldie, UW Fine Arts coordinator, at (307) 766-2160 or email kirsik@uwyo.edu.
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adastra Corporation, a global leader in data management and analytics, today announced the expansion of its business footprint across North America and Asia with three new offices in Toronto, Detroit and Bangkok  laying out the groundwork for its next stage of growth.



Adastra is a company that has always worked at the forefront of technology  transforming and disrupting norms with a high calibre, cutting-edge approach. The companys new downtown Toronto office is its second in the GTA. It will help bolster Adastras service to the region, further integrate with the citys booming tech ecosystem and foster closer relationships with clients, employees and partners.

The new Toronto office will house an innovation hub for product development and demonstration to deepen Adastras expertise in cutting-edge technology solutions. The Adastra Disruption Lab will help create a culture of intrapreneurship for the companys workforce, allowing employees to define their entrepreneurial spirit within through creatively testing and developing new tech concepts using company time and resources.

This year marks a watershed moment for Adastra, said Darren Edery, CEO of Adastra Corporation. As we significantly expand our footprint, we will continue to transform our North American customers by helping unlock and drive insights from their most valuable asset  their data.

Meanwhile, the Detroit office will help Adastra establish a beachhead presence for the company in the U.S. Midwest, allowing it to foster close relationships and grow its existing U.S. client base.

Additionally, Adastras new Bangkok office will provide a gateway to the Asian market and its abundance of talent, technology and customers. Innovation never sleeps  no matter what time of day, there is an Adastra office open somewhere around the world.

As part of its expansion, the company has recently refreshed its brand and launched a new website with increased visibility for Adastras Artificial Intelligence , Big Data , Cloud , Digital and Governance services, technologies and thought leadership. The website will accompany Adastras new tagline, Data Connects Everything, emphasizing its core focus on helping clients extract value from data.

ABOUT ADASTRA CORPORATION

Adastra Corporation transforms businesses into digital leaders. Since 2000, Adastra has been helping global organizations accelerate innovation, improve operational excellence, and create unforgettable customer experiences, all with the power of their data. By providing cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Cloud, Digital and Governance services and solutions, Adastra helps enterprises leverage data that they can control and trust, connecting them to their customers  and their customers to the world.

More information can be found at https://adastracorp.com. Connect with us on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

MEDIA CONTACT

Hailey MacKinnon

MAVERICK PR for Adastra Corporation

haileym@wearemaverick.com

416-640-5525 ext. 226

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aa316989-a8e4-42db-a0e5-98f8333b7eee

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1f9b5759-c9f0-40e4-81a0-66f3d8da19ed
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GATINEAU, Quebec, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HEXO Corp. (HEXO or the Company) (TSX: HEXO ; NYSE-A: HEXO ) is pleased to announce the closing of its previously announced marketed offering of 8,855,000 common shares at a price of C$6.50 per share for aggregate gross proceeds of C$57,557,500, which includes the exercise of the full over-allotment option of 1,155,000 common shares.



The Company will use the net proceeds from the Offering for general corporate purposes, including funding the Companys global growth initiatives and research and development to further advance the Companys innovation strategies.

CIBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets are the lead underwriters and joint book-running managers and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. is the co-lead underwriter for the Offering. The co-managers for the Offering are AltaCorp Capital Inc., Beacon Securities Limited, Bryan, Garnier & Co Ltd, Cormark Securities Inc., Eight Capital, GMP Securities L.P., Laurentian Bank Securities Inc., PI Financial Corp. and Roth Capital Partners, LLC.

The common shares were offered in each of the provinces and territories of Canada by way of a prospectus supplement dated January 24, 2019 to the Companys amended and restated short form base shelf prospectus dated December 14, 2018 and in the United States pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-10 in accordance with the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System.

Copies of the prospectus supplement, short form base shelf prospectus and registration statement may be obtained in Canada from CIBC Capital Markets, 22 Front Street West, Mailroom, Toronto, ON, M5J 2W5, by telephone at (416) 956-3636, by email at michelene.dougherty@cibc.ca or from BMO Capital Markets, Brampton Distribution Centre c/o The Data Group of Companies, 9195 Torbram Road, Brampton, Ontario, L6S 6H2, by telephone at 905-791-3151 Ext. 4312 / 4322, or by email at torbramwarehouse@datagroup.ca and in the United States from CIBC Capital Markets, 425 Lexington Avenue, 5th floor, New York, NY, by telephone at (800) 282-0822, by email at useprospectus@cibc.com or from BMO Capital Markets Corp., Attn: Equity Syndicate Department, 3 Times Square, 25th Floor, New York, NY 10036 (Attn: Equity Syndicate), or by telephone at (800) 414-3627, or by email at bmoprospectus@bmo.com .

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release. This press release is for information purposes only and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About HEXO

HEXO Corp. is an award-winning consumer-packaged goods cannabis company that creates and distributes award-winning products to serve the global cannabis market. As one of the largest licensed cannabis companies in Canada, HEXO Corp. operates with over 1.3 million sq. ft. of facilities in Ontario and Quebec and a foothold in Greece with plans to establish a Eurozone processing, production and distribution centre. We serve the Canadian adult-use market under the HEXO brand while continuing to provide our medical cannabis clients with consistent access to Hydropothecary medical cannabis products.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws (forward-looking statements) including statements regarding the Offering and the use of proceeds of the Offering as well as statements regarding the Companys future business plans. Forward-looking statements are based on certain expectations and assumptions and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance and achievements to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, including that the Companys use of proceeds of the Offering may differ from those indicated. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company appears in the Prospectus Supplement and the Base Shelf Prospectus and the Companys Annual Information Form and other continuous disclosure filings incorporated by reference in the Base Shelf Prospectus, which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and EDGAR at www.sec.gov . Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, or for any other reason.

Investor Relations:

Kathy Chow

1-866-438-8429

invest@hexo.com



Media Relations:

Sarah Brown

media@hexo.com

Director:

Adam Miron

819-639-5498
Be with Yoga, Be at Home, J&K LG's message on I'ntl Yoga Day 20 Jun 2021 | 9:29 PM Jammu, June 20 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday extended greetings to the people on the eve of International Day of Yoga-2021. see more..

MP CM highlights virtues of Yoga 20 Jun 2021 | 9:29 PM Bhopal, June 20 (UNI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan emphasised on Sunday that Yoga is the panacea for maintaining physical health.

In a message to the populace on the eve of International Yoga Day, the veteran leader averred, Owing to Premier Narendra Modis initiative, the world is gaining from this age-old body of knowledge. I was affected by the novel coronavirus but it did not vanquish me because I perform Yoga. That provides me colossal energy to work up to 18 hours a day for the welfare of the masses.



UNI AC. see more..

COVID-19: MP Speakers appeal 20 Jun 2021 | 9:15 PM Bhopal, June 20 (UNI) On the eve of the Madhya Pradesh dispensations novel coronavirus-related mega immunisation campaign, Assembly Speaker Girish Gautam appealed to the citizenry to enthusiastically participate in the drive.

An apprehension is building up regarding a third wave of the millennium scourge. Health experts have unambiguously stated that the sole way to combat it is to adhere to guidelines in letter and spirit, an official release quoted the politician as saying. see more..

Jammu police nabs six criminals with pistol, weapons, heroin in outskirts 20 Jun 2021 | 9:13 PM Jammu, June 20 (UNI) Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested six notorious criminals, who were evading arrests in many cases and one among them having Public Safety Act warrant pending for execution, arrested by Police in Ranbir Singh Pura here in city outskirts. see more..
Colombo, Jan 29 (UNI) Two new school buildings constructed with Indian assistance were handed over to the people of Sri Lanka on Monday at Navatkuli and Chavakachcheri in Jaffna District.

The school buildings, in Navatkuli Mahavidyalam and Drieberg College were jointly inaugurated by the Deputy High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka Dr. Shilpak Ambule and Governor of the Northern Province Dr. Suren Raghavan.

These buildings are part of new class room buildings being currently constructed in overall 27 schools in the Northern Province at a cost of 250 million Sri Lankan Rupees. 10 school buildings have been completed and inaugurated including the two buildings handed over today. The rest of the school buildings are expected to be handed over in the coming days, reports Colombo Page.
Indian embassy in Antananarivo celebrates 7th International Day of Yoga 20 Jun 2021 | 9:23 PM Antananarivo, Jun 20 (UNI) International Day of Yoga was celebrated here today at Indian embassy with the theme, " Yoga for Wellness", which is particularly relevant in a phase when entire world is facing challenge of Corona pandemic. see more..

B'desh registers 3,641 new Covid cases, 82 more deaths 20 Jun 2021 | 9:06 PM Dhaka, Jun 20 (UNI) Bangladesh has recorded 82 more Coronavirus deaths, the highest number of fatalities in the last seven weeks with 3,641 new cases, taking the tally to 13,548 in the country. see more..

Argentina reports first confirmed case of Black Fungus: Reports 20 Jun 2021 | 3:01 PM Buenos Aires, Jun 20 (UNI) Argentina Health Ministry has confirmed country's first case of mucormycosis, also known as the "black fungus". see more..

Bangladesh enthusiastically preparing tomorrow,'s International Yoga Day 20 Jun 2021 | 8:33 AM Dhaka, June 20 (UNI) Bangladesh is enthusiastically preparing for the forthcoming International Yoga Day on June 21, it was announced on Saturday. see more..
Australia gifts three Stabicraft vessels to enhance Sri Lanka Coast Guard fleet

Colombo, Jan 29 (UNI) The Australian Government gifted three Port class Stabicraft vessels to the Sri Lanka Coast Guard on 25 January, reinforcing Sri Lankas civil maritime security capabilities and fulfilling a promise made by then Australian Prime Minister Turnbull during his visit to Sri Lanka in November 2017.

At a gifting ceremony held in Colombo, Australian High Commissioner Bryce Hutchesson said the gifting of these vessels highlights both governments commitment to safe and secure borders, according to The Daily Financial Times.

Australia and Sri Lanka have a long track record of cooperation on civil maritime security issues, including working together to combat people smuggling and illegal migration, Hutchesson said.
The Embassy of Turkmenistan in the Republic of Belarus held an exhibition at the premises of the CIS Executive Committee, marking the beginning of Turkmenistans Chairmanship of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2019.

The Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee, Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev and the CIS Co-Chair in 2018, Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of Tajikistan to the CIS statutory and other bodies Khakdod Makhmadsharif Makhmud delivered welcome speeches at the exhibition opening ceremony. They expressed confidence that Turkmenistans Chairmanship will contribute to the strengthening of interstate relations and development of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Then, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the Republic of Belarus Nazarguly Shagulyev acquainted the participants with the exhibits of the historical and cultural heritage of Turkmenistan and a photo exhibition. A stand featuring the works by the President of Turkmenistan aroused especial interest among the exhibition participants.

After viewing the exhibition, the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiaries of the CIS Member States to the CIS statutory and other bodies held their first meeting at the CIS Executive Committee under Turkmenistans Chairmanship.

 TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2021
Campbell Gray Hotels, a leading luxury hospitality group, has appointed Alan ODea as its new managing director.



ODea joins the Campbell Gray Hotels team following a successful and varied 20-year career in the hospitality sector.



Further to gaining a degree in Hotel & Catering Management at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in his native Ireland, ODea has since held a number of senior positions within globally-recognised hospitality groups including, most recently, spending 12 years with the Swiss-based Movenpick Hotels & Resorts where he resided in Paris, Zurich, Cairo and Dubai in his role as senior vice president Africa.



Prior to joining Movenpick Hotels & Resorts, ODea was regional director of revenue management France for InterContinental Hotels Group and director of revenue management for Le Meridien Hotels in Paris.



Through his time spent working in Dubai, ODea developed a deep understanding of - and connection to - the Middle East, leaving him perfectly positioned to take up his new role at Campbell Gray Hotels, whose flagship properties include Le Gray in Beirut, Campbell Gray Living Hotel & Residences in Amman, Jordan, The Phoenicia in Malta, and the soon to open, The Merchant House in Bahrain.



ODea joins the team at a particularly exciting time as a number of new properties have recently joined the Campbell Gray Hotels portfolio including The Machrie Hotel & Links in Islay, Scotland which opened in September 2018, The Merchant House in Manama, Bahrain which will open at the end of this month and Alex, a Campbell Gray Hotel which will open on Lake Zurich, Switzerland this spring.



As managing director, ODea will oversee the day-to-day running of the company and ensure the continued high-performance of its six hotels and its Campbell Gray Living arm.



Commenting on ODeas appointment, founder of Campbell Gray Hotels, Gordon Campbell Gray, said: Its a pleasure to welcome Alan as managing director of Campbell Gray Hotels. His role will be crucial as the company continues to evolve. Were looking forward to an exciting year ahead and to continued success.



Saad Audeh, Chairman of Campbell Gray Hotels and founder of its parent company, The Audeh Group, said: We are delighted to welcome Alan to the team and are confident his diverse experience will be invaluable as he leads our ongoing expansion. He will also combine some of our other hospitality and engineering divisions, providing more services to developers and our existing portfolio." - TradeArabia News Service
The winner of the Saudi Arabia Hotel Investment Conference (SHIC) Young Leader Award was announced last week during the summit, which was held at the Marriott Riyadh Diplomatic Quarter.



Yasmin Al Sanea, Human Resources manager at the Intercontinental Al Jubail, was not only announced as the winning recipient of the award, but she also achieved wide recognition from the SHIC Board and broader industry, for her achievements so early in her career.



I feel blessed and honoured to have been selected as this years Young Leader award recipient and thank God for that. The hospitality and tourism sector is so fast-paced and dynamic especially for local nationals, and as a young professional, its an incredible achievement to be acknowledged by some of the industrys best leaders, Al Sanea said.



As well as receiving a full access pass to SHIC, Yasmin was also awarded a two-day leadership course at the prestigious Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management in Dubai, with flights and accommodation included in her prize.



Jonathan Worsley, chairman of Bench Events and co-founder of SHIC, said: It is comforting to meet so many young industry professionals who are showcasing their passion and commitment to leadership. This is what SHIC and AHIC are all about  growing the industry and developing world-class hospitality leaders.



Commenting after the awards, Dr Badr Al Badr, chief executive officer at DUR Hospitality, expressed his pleasure to support young and emerging talents within the Saudi hospitality sector. He stressed on the importance of contributions brought in by fresh talents towards developing innovative approaches and initiatives that will help drive the sector forward, achieve global excellence, and position Saudi Arabia as a leader in hospitality.



Furthermore, Al Badr congratulated Yasmin Al Sanea, stating that this important recognition highlights the major role played by women in developing all sectors in the kingdom, and urged for more women empowerment within all the fields that will contribute in achieving a robust and varied Saudi economy.



The judging panel included the regions hospitality leaders, including Dr Badr Al Badr, Shuja Zaidi, Principal at Equinox Hospitality and Gasem Al Maimani, CEO at Taiba Holding Company. - TradeArabia News Service
General Motors, a leading automotive company, has partnered with Sultan Qaboos University in Oman for the first Unmanned Vehicle Systems Conference, as part of its investment in future mobility and efforts to shape the thinkers of tomorrow.



The event will run from February 5 to 7, and in Oman, and will feature several workshops, students projects competitions, as well as an exhibition on unmanned vehicle systems.



Organised by the College of Engineering at the university, the 2019 edition will be attended by engineers, academics and regulators to increase awareness and knowledge exchange on the future of mobility.



GMs participation in the conference underscores its commitment to support education around electric vehicles (EVs), as well as inspiring next generation of STEM students to be engaged in alternative propulsion and a future of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion  the companys vision for mobility.



As part of the conference, GM will organise a static and dynamic trial of the 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV, the brands fully electric and affordable hatchback, which will enable students to take a closer look at the vehicle and experience its advanced propulsion system.



Gary West, head of future mobility for General Motors, will deliver a rotating 15-min talk and walk-around of the Bolt EV to university and industry representatives.



As part of the initiative West will also present a case study titled Future Mobility  Moving Humanity Forward, providing deeper insight into GMs vision for the future of transportation.



West said: At GM we have a clear vision of the future of mobility  zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestions  and this conference will give us the opportunity to engage with engineers, thought leaders and innovators in this arena.



The Middle East is embracing EVs at a heartening pace and we are investing heavily to accelerate this momentum. Through this conference we aim to increase awareness of the changes the transportation industry is undergoing and the importance of all of us, from manufacturers to students and regulators, to rally behind this cause, he added.



GM recently demonstrated the Chevrolet Bolt EVs abilities across Oman as part of the 2,000-km Electric Vehicle Road Trip (EVRT) that reaffirmed the vehicles every-day credentials and its unprecedented driving range of over 500 km.



The conference will enable GM to further heighten interest in EVs in the sultanate as the country continues to invest in installing the necessary infrastructure for greater adoption of zero emission vehicles.



West During EVRT the excitement and the willingness of Omani motorists to embrace EVs was evident. Almost everyone who drove the Bolt became an EV-convert, and we are confident our participation in the conference is going to further spur this change, added West.  TradeArabia News Service
Export Bahrain, a national development initiative, will be the go to destination for the kingdom's businesses looking to enter global markets and it will offer tools to take them to the next level, said a senior official.



Speaking at a business networking luncheon hosted by AmCham Bahrain, Export Bahrain executive director Dr Nasser Ali Qaedi said: The vision of the initiative is to promote a new generation of economic activity for the country; thinking globally through innovation, technology, productivity and opportunities to position businesses to a new frontier.



The event, held at Downtown Rotana, was attended by US Ambassador to Bahrain Justin Siberell and senior members of AmCham Bahrain. The luncheon aimed at encouraging further trade and business development opportunities between the US and Bahrain.



Established in November 2018, Export Bahrain looks to promote opportunities in foreign markets, expand and diversify exports whilst improving the overall perception of the private sectors products and services internationally.



Qaedi said: Export Bahrain helps enterprises, specifically SMEs, identify new market opportunities and then enable the private sector to reach global markets by expanding their clientele for their products and services.



There has been scattered support by other entities for export related projects in the country but we are trying to set up a go to destination for businesses. Our vision is to take Bahrain to the world, we aim to assist businesses to take Bahraini products and services to new markets. It isnt the size of the company but the quality of products and services offered that matter, he added.



The organisations tools and know-how will be available to all companies in Bahrain which are looking to explore opportunities outside the country, he concluded.



Export Bahrain strives to provide an ideal environment to support and develop domestic exports and achieve Bahrains 2030 vision of promoting our export-oriented sectors to ensure that Bahraini companies embrace the world markets for products and services.



Export Bahrain offers export-focused solutions such as:

* Export financing: The first support provider of SME export financing in the Kingdom of Bahrain, covering asset-based financing, export letter of credits and working capital to pre- operating/pre-shipment costs;

* Export credit insurance: The first export credit guarantee channel in Bahrain, protecting against losses arising from the default of payment of the buyer;

* Export training: Export-focused training; allowing companies to have the necessary knowledge and skills required to become export-oriented;

* Export workshops: Provide regular workshops and consultations to share knowledge on the growth opportunities, business potentials and raise awareness of the critical exporting matters;

* Export market intelligence: Providing SMEs with the necessary know how and information about various markets (legal issues, tax issues, etc) in different countries in order to assist working out plans for taking the next step towards expansion of business.



A business networking event was organised today (January 29) by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bahrain (AmCham Bahrain), at the Downtown Rotana Hotel in Manama, to discuss the workings of the new initiative, as well as to encourage further trade and business development opportunities between the US and Bahrain. - TradeArabia News Service
FinTech Consortium has announced the launch of Georgetown Universitys Professional Development Program in FinTech, an online interactive course.

The program, specifically designed for professionals in the GCC with at least 2 years of experience in financial services or technology, focuses on FinTech innovation, strategy, and entrepreneurship across different verticals, including but not limited to digital banking, Islamic FinTech, blockchain applications, insurance technology and regulatory technology.

Program participants can expect to learn about how technological advancements, evolving consumer expectation and infrastructure are driving innovation in financial services. They will also learn about the sectors which have undergone disruption and the ones that remain ripe for disruption, as well as the changing approach to innovation fueling both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. The program culminates in a case study in which participants learn how to develop their own FinTech solutions, strategies and pitch to prospective investors and financial institutions.

The course is a three-month online interactive, live program, comprising seven modules, and four case-studies designed by prominent industry thought leaders, and led by Professor James Angel, who has co-invented 12 FinTech patents. Although participation can be entirely online, some live classroom sessions will also be held at Bahrain FinTech Bay by professors visiting from Georgetown Universitys McDonough School of Business in Washington DC.

James Angel, associate professor of finance in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, said: The financial services industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation. New technology enables us to offer services, products and interact with consumers like we could never do before. This 12 weeks Certificate Program brings together world class expertise in business education and the cutting edge of FinTech in business creation.

The program will be offered twice a year with the first cohort commencing on April 13, 2019. Candidates seeking to further their knowledge in FinTech, pursue corporate innovation or entrepreneurship, and connect with industry experts, are encouraged to visit www.fintech-institute.com/gt for more course and eligibility information. - TradeArabia News Service
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Catawiki, the Dutch online auction platform for rare objects, recently chose Selligent Marketing Cloud , as vendor of choice, to power their personalized customer experience and offers. Using Selligent Marketing Cloud, Catawiki will be able to promote its weekly 50,000 new products to the most relevant customers, on the right channel, to drive engagement and conversion.



Catawiki chose Selligent Marketing Cloud because they were seeking a partner with a flexible data architecture that was extensible and could consolidate multiple tools and programs into one integrated and user-friendly platform. Each week, 50,000 new products across 80 categories become available to customers. With Selligent Marketing Cloud, Catawiki can now drive dizzying levels of personalization by targeting products to the right customer at a one-on-one level.

"We are not a standard ecommerce company and we found that a standard marketing vendor could not deliver the level of personalization needed to create tailored experiences for our customers across email, mobile and newsletters, said Jeroen van Ittersum, CRM Marketing Lead at Catawiki. Selligent Marketing Cloud offers us an integrated platform, with a common UI, making it easy for us to view and control our marketing.

Selligent Marketing Cloud offers Catawiki the ability to deliver personalization with precision. With the ability to optimize content, device, channel and frequency of communications, Catawiki will be leading the market with a Consumer-First attitude.

Van Ittersum added: "Balancing a constantly-revolving stock with ensuring we are only targeting customers with products and offers that are relevant is a difficult task, working with Selligent Marketing Cloud, we will drive new levels of personalization to make our customer experience even better.

"We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Catawiki, said John Hernandez, CEO of Selligent Marketing Cloud. Our platform will enable Catawiki to drive highly personalized experiences that increase conversion, while delivering marketing messages that are valuable and engaging to customers. Meanwhile, our simple-to-use interface means that Catawiki always remain in control.

Catawiki is the latest addition to a growing number of retail brands already working with Selligent Marketing Cloud. Other brands include Coolblue in the Netherlands, Walmart in the USA and JBC in Belgium.

About Selligent Marketing Cloud

Selligent Marketing Cloud is a marketing automation platform that enables B2C brands to engage consumers across all critical channels. Built for the relationship marketer, Selligent Marketing Cloud is the only marketing cloud built on a single code base, featuring artificial intelligence and a Customer Data Platform with a universal consumer profile at the core of every action.

More than 700 brands across retail, travel, automotive, publishing, and financial services rely on Selligents proven platform. With 10 offices across the United States and Europe and more than 50 agency partners, Selligent serves over 30 countries with local, personalized service. Learn more at www.selligent.com and connect with the team at Twitter , LinkedIn , and our blog .

About Catawiki

Catawiki, the online auction platform for rare and hard to find objects, hosts weekly auctions in over 80 categories from art and antiques to collectables and luxury goods. All auctions are curated by in-house experts and with more than 50,000 special objects every week, theres something available to suit everyones passion. Find the object you love and Catawiki will take care of the rest!
Acciona, a leading supplier of sustainable infrastructure solutions and renewable energy projects, has secured a 500 million ($572 million) contract from the Saudi government to finance, design and build the new Shuqaiq 3 desalination plant and operate and maintain it for 25 years.



The project was awarded by Water and Electricity Company (WEC), the state-owned company in charge of desalination and water treatment projects, to the Acciona consortium which comprises partners Marubeni Corporation, Abdul Latif Jameel-CDC and Rawafid Alhadarah Holding Company, said a statement from Acciona.



The Spanish group said one of its business units, Acciona Agua, will be involved throughout the project structure: as an investor, sole EPC (turnkey) contractor, and leading and majority partner in operation and maintenance.



The project, Acciona Agua's biggest so far in Saudi Arabia, will be implemented under a BOO (build, own and operate) model.



The Spanish conglomerate was chosen for the project owing to its considerable experience in major desalination projects worldwide and also for the lowest bid offer of $0.52 per cu m of desalinated water, which is among the cheapest in the world, it stated.



Located in the country's southwest, on the shores of the Red Sea, and scheduled for completion in 2021, Shuqaiq 3 will be one of Saudi Arabia's biggest desalination plants, using inverse osmosis technology and with a capacity to process 450,000 cu m per day, to cater for a population of two million people.



It will also incorporate a solar photovoltaic facility to reduce its specific power consumption, said the developer.



As part of the project's social outreach measures, in the first few years the consortium will offer academic and practical training to residents of the area in order to nurture the development of water industry professionals in a region so in need of projects of this kind, said the statement from Acciona.



This is Acciona's third desalination plant in Saudi Arabia, enabling the company to provide some three million people with water.



In July last year, Acciona Agua had won the contract to build the Al Khobar 1 desalination plant, in kingdom's east coast, about 400 km from Riyadh.



This turnkey project, with a one-year warranty, is valued at more than 200 million and is the first project of this kind to be commissioned by government corporation Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) from a Spanish company.



The facility will have a capacity to serve a population of 350,000. The plant will also supply water to Aramco, the world's largest oil company, it stated.



In 2012, Acciona was awarded the contract to design, build and commission the Al Jubail seawater desalination plant, which since 2015 serves both the city and the industrial complex in the country's eastern province.-TradeArabia News Service
Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Healthcare Hyperspectral Imaging Market" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The global healthcare hyperspectral imaging market is estimated to witness a CAGR of 14.4% during the forecast period 2018-2024



Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has a similar information collection process like other spectral imaging across the electromagnetic spectrum. The primary goal of hyperspectral imaging is to achieve the spectrum for every pixel in the image scene captures and identify the target with high precision and details. Hyperspectral imaging, also known as imaging spectrometry, provides high accuracy and detailed information.



HSI has a wide range of applications in vegetation, archaeology, forensic, crime detection, food quality, diagnosis, and many more. The emerging application has led to an increase in the demand for HSI in non-invasive diagnosis, especially in surgical guidance.



Hyperspectral imaging assists in distinguishing spectrally unique materials and also helps to extract the detailed information that is not possible with other types of remotely sensed technique. It is a type of imaging with a large number of narrow wavebands, where each scene contains information about the radiation reflected/absorbed range of wavelength. This has become one of the key methods for evaluating any target in non-destructive and remote-based imaging.



Market Scenario

The global healthcare hyperspectral imaging market has immense growth opportunities in both developed and developing regions. The manufacturers are focusing on developing healthcare hyperspectral imaging systems to support image analysis and fasten the process of various imaging facilities, especially during surgeries.

There is increased adoption of imaging systems for high-quality imaging, screening, and diagnosing due to improved access and encouragement from the government & other healthcare institutions, especially in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK.



Imaging mass spectrometry and functional magnetic resonance imaging are the forms of hyperspectral imaging with a wide range of applications in healthcare. The advancements in hyperspectral imaging systems have changed the way the diagnoses in healthcare are being done, and a significant change is witnessed in the optical imaging market.



A majority of the leading healthcare hyperspectral imaging companies focus on developing high-quality cameras that provide an assessment of diagnosis and treatment for various chronic diseases. The manufacturers are emerging with different strategies to compete in the market along with various brands, models, and designs.



The factors such as the rise in the aging population, increased incidence of chronic diseases, the introduction of portable/handheld hyperspectral imaging systems with high operability and safety, and an increase in the number of diagnostic procedures are expected to positively impact the growth of the healthcare hyperspectral imaging market, thereby leading to the high demand for advanced healthcare hyperspectral imaging devices.



Key Players

Headwall Photonics, Specim Spectral Imaging, Norsk Elektr- Optikk, IMEC, and Surface Optics have the maximum revenue generation in the global healthcare hyperspectral imaging market.

Regional Analysis



The regions covered in the report are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World (ROW). In North America, the US and Canada are the leading countries owing to the highest number of diagnostic cases in 2017. This region dominates the overall presence of healthcare hyperspectral imaging and has the most diversified devices available in the market.



It has the highest percentage of the elderly population with many individuals suffering from chronic diseases such as CVD, neurovascular disorders, orthopedic surgeries, and other urology-related disorders. This has helped most of the vendors to sustain and grow over the period and maintain their product presence in the market.



Europe is the second leading region and held more than 30% of the market share in 2017.



The market in Europe was largely driven by advancements in medical device technologies. The factors such as an increase in the prevalence of diseases, continuous adoption of advanced technologies, and increasing aging population are driving the market. The leading countries in Europe include Germany, France, the UK, and Italy.



Key Competitive Facts

The market is highly competitive with all the players competing to dominate. Intense competition, rapid advancements in technology, and frequent changes in government policies are the key factors that confront the market.



The manufacturers have formulated various strategies for developing innovative healthcare hyperspectral imaging devices in the market.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Industry Outlook

1.1 Medical Devices Industry

1.1.1 Hyperspectral imaging

1.2 Definition: Hyperspectral Imaging

1.3 Why Hyperspectral Imaging?

1.4 Industry Trends

1.5 Healthcare Spending in the US

1.6 Regulatory Bodies & Standards

1.7 Medical device classification

1.8 Emerging Global Markets

1.9 PESTLE Analysis



2 Report Outline

2.1 Report Scope

2.2 Report Summary

2.3 Research Methodology

2.4 Report Assumptions



3 Market Snapshot

3.1 Total Addressable Market (TAM)

3.2 Segmented Addressable Market (SAM)

3.3 Related Markets

3.3.1 Medical imaging

3.3.2 Ultrasound Devices

3.3.3 Medical X-ray Equipment

3.3.4 MRI Equipment

3.3.5 Mammography Devices

3.3.6 Healthcare X-ray Detectors

3.4 Porter 5 (Five) Forces



4 Market Characteristics

4.1 Market Segmentation by product

4.1.1 Hyperspectral Cameras

4.1.2 Components and Accessories

4.2 Market Segmentation by application

4.3 Market Dynamics

4.3.1 Drivers

4.3.1.1 Increase demand for hyperspectral imaging cameras

4.3.1.2 Increase focus in improving the quality of images

4.3.1.3 Advanced medical imaging capabilities

4.3.2 Restraints

4.3.2.1 High cost involved

4.3.2.1 Data processing

4.3.2.2 Inadequate reimbursement policies

4.3.2.3 Intense competition among vendors

4.3.3 Opportunities

4.3.3.1 Emergence of micro spectral imaging technology

4.3.3.2 Increase adoption of Handheld and portable hyperspectral cameras

4.3.3.3 Growing popularity of multi-brand hyperspectral imaging

4.3.3.4 Increased healthcare spending

4.3.4 DRO - Impact Analysis

4.4 Key Stakeholders



5 Industry Trends

5.1 Market Trends & Impact



6 End-users

6.1 Overview

6.2 Diagnostic centers

6.3 Hospitals

6.4 Pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries

6.5 Research centers



7 Regions

7.1 Overview

7.2 North America

7.3 Europe

7.4 APAC

7.5 Rest of the World



8 Competitive Landscape

8.1 Competitor Comparison Analysis



9 Vendor Profiles

9.1 Headwall Photonics, Inc

9.2 Specim Spectral Imaging Ltd

9.3 Norsk Elektro Optikk AS

9.4 IMEC

9.5 Surface Optics Corp



10 Companies to Watch for

10.1 Telops Inc.

10.2 Applied Spectral Imaging

10.3 Corning Inc



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/lq48jp/global_healthcare?w=12

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
MANZINI  Two judicial officers are on each others throats after one accused the other of having sexual intercourse with his wife.



One of the judicial officers is a magistrate, who is based in one of the courts in the Lubombo Region and the other is a court president.

The magistrate was eventually found guilty of adultery by the Masundvwini Roy

al Kraal after he allegedly had sexual intercourse with the Court Presidents wife and impregnated her with a baby boy, who is about 15 years old now.

A source close to the matter alleged that when the affair between the two started, the magistrate was a lawyer before being appointed to his current position.

Then, he was an attorney of the complainants wife in their maintenance case. The source alleged that in 1998, while he was still representing the complainants wife, the accused was the one who used to serve the complainant with summons and a garnishee order.



He alleged that later on, the complainants wife went to reside at a rented flat around the Lubombo Region.

One day, the complainant went to visit his wife with the aim of taking her back home and he caught her and the accused in a rented house which was occupied by his significant other, the source alleged.



He said police were called and the defendant claimed that he was not aware that the woman was married. He said the complainant asked him why he referred to the woman as Mrs when he served him with the maintenance summons and garnishee order but he failed to respond.



Thereafter, the source said the complainant reported the matter at Logoba Royal Kraal and opened a case of adultery. However, the source said the case dragged for some years at Logoba Royal Kraal because the wife was allegedly no longer attending the matter.



As a result, he said the case was transferred to Masundvwini Royal Kraal where it was finally concluded as a judgment was issued on September 25, 2018, which was about 20 years since the case was opened.



According to the judgment, which was issued by Masundvwini Royal Kraal Chairman Mduna Phungwayo and Secretary Peter Dlamini, the complainant opened a case of adultery against the magistrate. The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge and claimed that he did not know that the woman was married since she did not tell him, reads part of the judgement.



The royal kraals committee found the defendant guilty as charged and as based on his own plea.

As a result, the defendant was fined a total of seven cattle and according to the judgment, the complainant was supposed to get five cattle while the royal kraals committee and the emissary to collect the fine would get one each.
MANZINI - A family of a six-year-old boy was left shattered after he was allegedly killed by his 21-year-old aunt who strangled him to death with a waist belt.

The incident, which left many with a number of unanswered questions, allegedly took place inside an office at Simunye yesterday.



A well-placed source alleged that the woman was walking with two children, including her six-year-old nephew, when the incident took place.

He said while they were walking, the aunt entered an office with his nephew while the other child waited outside.



It is not clear what happened inside but the aunt was heard calling the police to report that she had just strangled her nephew to death, the source said.



Shocked



He said when the police, who responded promptly to the call, arrived at the scene, the aunt, who was visibly shocked, told them that she did not know what happened. In fact, she told the police that kuvele kwatsi khwishi, the source alleged.



Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the incident. She said police were still investigating the matter and mentioned that the aunt was still with the law enforcers as she was assisting them with information regarding the incident.



Meanwhile, Clinical Psychologist Ndo Mdlalose said things like this do happen. She said even though she might not know what really took place, she suspected that the woman suffered from a psychotic episode or projection.



Psychotic



She said when one suffered from a psychotic episode, that individual could have too many issues in his/her life. She said in this case, if the woman suffered from a psychotic episode, maybe the nephew did something silly and all her issues flooded her mind such that she did not even know what she was doing.

On the other hand, the clinical psychologist said when an individual suffered from projection, it meant that that person had buried a lot of issues in his/her mind yet it was affecting him/her emotionally.



When those issues come out, it can affect the next person because one can lose his mind for a moment, she said.

Therefore, the clinical psychologist advised individuals that if they happened to go through something, they should seek help by simply talking about it to close people.



People should not be embarrassed by talking about their issues, she said.

Moreover, Mdlalose reminded people that stress could not be kept for long because when it got out, it could lead an in individual into an emotional roller-coaster because the mind would get disturbed.
Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala at the official opening of the High Court. (R) President of the Law Society of Swaziland Mandla Mkhwanazi making his remarks during the official opening of the High Court. (File Pic)

MBABANE  There is plenty of evidence that justice is now for sale. This was the Law Society of Swazilands (LSS) response yesterday when asked if there was any evidence to the effect that justice in the country is now for sale.



The President of the LSS, Mandla Mkhwanazi, in an interview, simply said yincumbi (there is plenty of it) when the question was put to him regarding the alleged sale of justice.



In his speech on Monday during the official opening of the High Court of Eswatini 2019 Legal Year, Mkhwanazi said there was a growing concern among attorneys which had filtered to litigants, rightly or wrongly, that our justice is now for sale.



Dignity



Mkhwanazi stated that this perception, which was shared by members of the public, reduced the dignity of the courts and judicial system in general. He mentioned that this created the impression that justice was then perceived to be only accessible to the rich and influential members of the society.

The president said when he delivered his speech on Monday, he was not making things up when he said justice was for sale in the country.



He stated that there were many complaints from attorneys who alleged that they had witnessed the exchange of monies for judgments in favour of those who paid the money.



Chief Justice Bheki Maphalalas response on Monday on the allegation of justice being for sale, was that he was not aware of such and challenged the president to bring forth evidence to that effect. I will be expecting you Mr Mkhwanazi to give me evidence of justice being for sale. I am not aware of it, said the chief justice.



On the question of the LSS informing the CJ that the society was not a political party, Mkhwanazi said this issue was not a new one.

He made an example that even during the era of a certain former minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, the then minister allegedly stated that he was reluctant to associate with political parties. Mkhwanazi said this happened at a time when he (minister) did not see eye to eye with the LSS.
MBABANE  Is the right to be heard not absolute in the Kingdom of Eswatini? This constitutional question will now be answered by a full bench of the High Court which will be constituted by the chief justice.



A constitutional question refers to any legal issue that requires the interpretation of the Constitution to resolve an issue rather than the interpretation of the statute.



The right to be heard in a court of law before a decision is taken is paramount in a constitutional dispensation but an Act of Parliament may allegedly curtail that right by issuing statutes that make such a right not absolute.



During the argument of the application, where government wanted to stop the strike action by civil servants, the court was informed that the right to be heard was not absolute in the Kingdom of Eswatini.



In his argument, Assistant Attorney General Mbuso Simelane gave an example of the provisions of Section 291 of the Companies Act of 2009 that deemed liquidation process to be invoked simply by filing of the application for winding up.



Section 291 allows a drastic action to be effected without hearing upon a company wherein a mere registration of a liquidation in courts deems such company liquidated, taking away the powers of the directors to manage the company or dispose of its assets.



Lucky Howe, who was representing the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) and NAPSAWU, contended that the right to be heard was a Chapter III right, which was also confirmed by the High Court.



The chief justice is now expected to constitute a full bench of High Court judges to determine whether the right to be heard is absolute or not.

When the matter was argued in the Industrial Court on Sunday, the State sought to invoke Section 90 of the Industrial Relations Act in particular Section 90 (1).



Arbitrator



Section 90 (1) reads as follows: A person, organisation, federation or a party to a dispute shall not continue or take strike action or institute a lockout while proceedings in relations to the dispute to which the action relates are pending before court or an arbitrator.



The respondents (unions) stated that the matter had not been enrolled and was therefore not pending before court, as a result Section 90 did not come into play.

Howe averred that Section 90 did not operate automatically but must be proved. He argued that there were also no averments invoking Section 90 made by the State and it was therefore not entitled to an order in terms of that section.
MBABANE  If you are going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. This might be an old adage, but for ENCAC CEO, Stanley Dlamini, it serves as music that gospel artists must dance to. ENCAC is an acronym for Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture. This Council is a mother body that regulates the arts industry in the country.



On Tuesday afternoon, Dlamini sent a clear message to gospel artists that his Council expected them to lead a holy life on and off the stage. Besides living up to the way they talk about their faith, he also encouraged artists to be innovative and professional, especially when it comes to their craft.

In recent times we have been constantly celebrating the successes of artists who have represented the country well outside our borders. We encourage gospel artists to emulate this trend, he said.



Stereotypes



Dlamini said they did not want artists who would perpetuate stereotypes that are old-fashioned. We expect gospel artists to modernise their music, style and everything else, so that they do not lose touch with the evolving arts industry, Dlamini elaborated.

In continuation, the CEO acknowledged the lack of resources such as venues and funds; however, he pushed for unity among the musicians especially when planning for shows, so that they do not find themselves fighting for dates or venues.

This positive encouragement was made during a media launch put together by Prophet Nkosingiphile Dlamini at the City Court guest house in Mbabane. The prophet-turned-gospel artist was officially unveiling his first album Size Nekhambi, which was recently released.



Agreed



Bishop Maculuve, who was also in attendance, agreed with the statement shared by Dlamini. Former ACASWA PRO, Ronnie Dlamini, also said the CEO was spot on.

During the official album unveiling, the new gospel artist said his passion for singing was ignited by his church followers as each time he would render a song; they would show appreciation for his talent.



I am new in the music industry but it feels like I have been doing it for quite a long time because I have always loved praise and worship, I always praise my God before I deliver my sermons. When I joined the music industry, I honestly did not expect to make such a huge impact in the music scene as my aim was to grow myself and also make sure people enjoyed good songs from me, in the form of an album, the prophet said.



Interim Committee member, Terrence Matse said it was a blessing to have pastors who also ministered through song in the music industry. He encouraged artists to value their brands by always going the professional way when presenting their work.



Learn



Other artists must learn from this and use the same routine. It is amazing to see a new artist hosting a proper media launch to unveil his latest project. Trust me, being professional plays a huge role in an artists career, Matse said.

It was also revealed that the new album would be launched on March 1, during a massive show set to take place at the Divine Healing Ministries Auditorium in Manzini.

Dlamini rose to popularity through his overwhelming prophecies and miracles while he was the leader of the Bread of Life International Ministries.
MBABANE  The African Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed strong sentiments that Eswatini could be on the right path towards economic recovery.



Speaking through a representative of the nine executive directors, who had been in the country from Saturday, AfDB Executive Director, who represents Canada, China, Korea, Kuwait and Turkey, said they were strongly of the view that economic reformation could be achieved at ease if the appropriate measures would be put in place.



We are enthusiastic to see how the economic reforms to be implemented by the new government will improve the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said David Stevenson.

He said they were impressed with governments efforts to enact policies that would enable the country to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which could culminate in improvement of the private sector for the better.

It will also be highly important to appropriately manage the public expenditure if the country seeks to achieve economic growth in the short to medium term, Stevenson advised.



The executive director further pointed out that as part of the economic reformation process, government ought to consider co-financing investments into the private sector through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).



Contract



The PPP Knowledge Lab, an online search engine, defines a PPP as a long-term contract between a private party and a government entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility, and remuneration is linked to performance. PPPs typically do not include service contracts or turnkey construction contracts, which are categorised as public procurement projects or the privatisation of utilities where there is a limited ongoing role for the public sector.



Further, Stevenson strongly emphasised on the need to manage the countrys wage bill with a view to ensure that government has adequate resources to pay salaries. He said it was vital to ensure that funds were allocated towards capital projects that would turn the economy around.



It should be mentioned that Eswatini remains one of the smallest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with arguably the second largest wage bill which stands at over E800 million with 44 000 civil servants.

The AfDB will continue to fund infrastructural, agricultural and policy formulation support to the Kingdom of Eswatini, Stevenson assured.



An economist, who preferred anonymity, advised that assurance by AfDB to continue funding the kingdom does not take anything away from the fact that Eswatini should ensure budget prioritisation against all odds.



Importance



He stated that it would also be of equal importance to see into it that even when appropriate budget allocation has been achieved, funds allocated for developmental projects were not diverted to suit the desires of the certain individuals in high echelons of power.

The approval processes of what has been budgeted for should also be prioritised to avoid mismanagement of resources, he said.



Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg promised the AfDB executive directors that they were working around the clock to publicly announce an economic reformation strategy that would encompass advice from both international and local bodies with a view to achieve sustainable economic growth.

He said they were glad that the reputable African Bank has confidence on Eswatinis economic turnaround strategy. Rijkenberg said the countrys authorities were highly grateful for both financial and technical assistance that had been received.



Assisting



AfDB has been assisting the country for a number of years now, especially towards agricultural and infrastructural development. We are proud to have maintained a good track record in terms of repayment deadlines and completing projects within the projected budgets which strategically position us at an advantage to receive funding in future, said Rijkenberg.



The overarching objective of the AfDB group is to spur sustainable economic development and social progress in its regional member countries (RMCs), thus contributing to poverty reduction.

The Bank group achieves this objective by mobilising and allocating resources for investment in RMCs and providing policy advice and technical assistance to support development efforts.
MBABANE  The LUSIP rollout has been progressive and impressive. This is the view held by African Development Bank (AfDB) executive directors, who paid a visit to Lubovane Dam and other parts of the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project (LUSIP) as part of their visit to the kingdom which ended yesterday.



Executive Director David Stevenson said it was encouraging to note that the copious amounts of money that had been invested into both phases of the LUSIP had helped in the improvement of agricultural commercialisation. AfDB was one of the core funders of LUSIP which costs over E3 billion together with the Kuwait Fund and the Government of Eswatini among others.

We are very impressed with the successful rollout of the LUSIP programme.



Returns



The farmers returns are testimony to the fact that it has served its purpose of improving agriculture and the livelihood of Eswatini citizens, said Stevenson.

He said they hoped more yield would be produced by the farmers who benefited from the programme in order to maximise on the effect of AfDB funding among others regional and international bodies.



Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said they were grateful that AFDB found it viable to inject capital into the LUSIP programme. He also commended AfDB for the support received by the country not only towards agriculture but to infrastructure and policy formulation as well.



In future, we want to ensure that even businesses benefit from the AfDB since it has become evident that they greatly help in terms of assuring positive development, said Rijkenberg.

LUSIP paid out shareholders allowances totaling E76 million during the 2017/18 financial year.

In the annual report issued by Eswatini Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (ESWADE) Chairman of the Board of Directors Mkhululi Dlamini for the 2017/18 financial year, it was explained that this reflected 60 per cent increase from the previous years payout of E47 million.



The LUSIP payout showed a 135 per cent increase over last years shareholders allowances, injecting a further E41 million into the project development areas economy. It was also mentioned that a total of E59.9 million was remitted in taxes by farmer companies. This represented a 63 per cent increase from the previous period.



Transforming



The objective of LUSIP, according to ESWADE, was to alleviate poverty in the project area by transforming the existing subsistence farmers into commercial farmers on irrigated lands producing both food and cash crops (principally sugar cane).

It was also meant to support the development and utilisation of the water resources of the Lower Usuthu River through provision of irrigation infrastructure to enable smallholder farmers to intensify and diversify their agricultural production building on existing market linkages with the private sector.
NEW YORK, NY, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE  Dewmar International BMC, Inc. (OTCPINK: DEWM) officially announced today that it has begun efforts to restructure its management team to lead efforts in growing its longstanding consumer brands and fully leveraging opportunities to expand its industrial hemp, marijuana email website and Canadian business objectives in 2019.



Recently, the company announced the launch of MarijuanaEmail.com which allows any interested cannabis user in the United States, and ultimately Canada, to register and opt-in to receive emails from any dispensary in our national directory. Users will receive product information, new inventory information, sales information and more from participating dispensaries. Only when the dispensary joins the platform by paying the nominal fee do they unlock the contact information of these registered consumers. MarijuanEmail.com is the bridge to both the dispensaries and consumers. This is the only platform in the world that utilizes this current business model and is one of the top 5 databases of marijuana dispensaries in the United States, covering an estimated 90% of all marijuana dispensaries in the country.

As previously announced, Dewmar has filed an application for trademark protection in Canada for the Kush Cakes brand. Dewmar officers are confident that Kush Cakes will stand out among all products on the shelf in any dispensary in North America. Ongoing conversations currently exist with several Canadian public and private companies that has expressed interests in licensing the Kush Cakes brand in specific Canadian provinces. Just days ago, Dewmar officers had a conversation with and submitted written content to one of its Canadian consultants who has an initiative to secure a licensed producer of edible cannabis products in Canada.

While discussions are preliminary, the feedback from the Canadian market has been positive coupled with high interest in getting Kush Cakes into 30 specifically identified dispensaries as soon as possible. The Company is confident that Kush Cakes will stand out among all products on the shelf in any dispensary in North America and has the potential to become one of the most recognizable brand names in the Canadian cannabis industry. Kush Cakes is not just a brownie, it is a brandable and recognizable delivery platform for cannabis, CBD and its constituents.

In 2014, Dewmar recognized the enormous potential of the hemp industry and as a result, created United States Hemp Corporation which is a Nevada Corporation that holds all of the Companys hemp assets. Recently, the Farm Bill Act of 2018 legalized industrial hemp and its constituents for the first time in decades. As a result of this federal legislation, with its assets and tenured standing, the United States Hemp Corporation is well positioned to benefit from emerging market opportunities. The Company is exploring the option of spinning off this tenured subsidiary that entered its fifth year of existence while simultaneously implementing other initiatives related to industrial hemp which can build shareholder value.

To maximize opportunities, the Company has begun an executive search to replace its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Marco Moran with a seasoned executive that can take the baton and expand upon the strong foundation that is primed to flourish. The preferred, optimal candidates would have Wall Street experience with an expertise in capital markets in order to maximize one of the most liquid companies in the OTC Markets history that has traded tens of billions of shares within the past 5 years. Alternatively, a new executive hire may have advanced sales, marketing and merchandising experience preferably within the cannabis industry, while adding other members of the management team where necessary.

During the first week of the search, three CEO candidates have already been interviewed. All 3 having been executive officers of 1 or more public companies. Last week, one of the Companys consultants was approached by a former Wall Street executive who he has known for decades. The Wall Street executive engineered a buyout of the broker dealer that he co-founded in the 1990s and has appeared on media outlets such as CNBC. The initial discussion went very well as further dialogue is anticipated with possible details forthcoming.

One of the principled commitments Dr. Moran made and kept since 2014 was that the company would not -- ever again -- participate in any further toxic financings. Going forward, any executive that is named to a leadership position within Dewmar must make this same pledge to continue this shareholder-friendly policy.

For almost a decade,, Dr. Marco Moran has logged hundreds of thousands of flight miles and routinely worked 60-80 hours per week to build the Dewmar brand. This includes an extensive effort in getting the flagship product, Potion, into 5 states of Walmart. Dr. Moran has worked tirelessly to build shareholder value; spending many days, if not weeks, away from his family each month. He unselfishly invested some of his own personal funds into the Company to ensure its success while virtually taking no salary whatsoever during 8 of the 10 years as CEO because he placed the Company first.

The Company currently is positioned with assets in hemp genetics; secured valuable trademarks inclusive of Kush Cakes brand; qualified as a national supplier/vendor number with Walmart, the worlds largest retailer; and operates a one-of-a-kind, revenue generating cannabis industry online platform, MarijuanaEmail.com , that had over 200,000 hits within its first month of inception. Any combination of these opportunities should make shareholders very happy. Additionally, Dewmar strategically made wise investments in companies such as CirrusMD and New West Genetics to name more success stories.

As a result of this first decade of successes, it is now time for new leadership so that Dewmar can fully address its most lucrative opportunities with the focus and consideration they deserve. The Company assures that it will continue to work tirelessly to build shareholder value during this transition period and beyond.

About Dewmar International BMC, Inc.

Dewmar International BMC, Inc. is a certified service-disabled veteran business concern, new product development, manufacturing and brand management company. Established in 2003, Dewmars primary business strategy has been in creating high profit margins with functional foods and beverages, such as Lean Slow Motion Potion , which is rated as one of the top 3 national selling relaxation beverages in the U.S. market and Kush Cakes relaxation brownies. The company has offices in Clinton, MS; Houston, TX; Denver, CO; New Orleans, LA and recently Louisville, KY.

Dewmar is the owner and developer of the cannabis industry dispensary-to-consumer website www.MarijuanaEmails.com , which serves as a unique online portal that connects marijuana dispensaries with their customer base throughout North America. The Company asks all investors and supporters to share this website with friends, family and associates asking them to register with as many dispensaries to learn about each stores product offerings, promotions and discounts.

About United States Hemp Corporation

United States Hemp Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dewmar International BMC, Inc., was formed in 2014 in the State of Nevada whose primary goal is to promote the cultivation, research and new product development of hemp-based nutraceuticals, industrial goods and consumer goods in the United States to be shared with the World. The U.S. Hemp Corporation's staff is to make every concerted effort to be the leader in the marketing, sales, promotions and distribution of hemp products both with a primary goal to take pride in the Made in America mantra as to enhance the economic benefit of U.S. citizens as it provides quality products for sale locally and for worldwide export.

Click here for the Safe Harbor Statement.

InvestorRelations@DewmarInternational.com
Note: Special one-year subscription at a reduced price for first-time subscribers or for subscriptions that have been expired for at least one year  those living in Jackson County and the Cherokee Indian Reservation (28719) addresses qualify. Offer good through Friday, Aug. 2, 2019.

We accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover; we do not accept AMEX.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In line with its strategic plan to modernize and digitalize its management tools and processes, Royal Air Maroc (RAM), the Moroccan national airline, has chosen JAGGAERs spend management solutions suite for the digital transformation of its procurement processes.

Since the end of October 2018, the companys current and prospective suppliers can see the tenders from Royal Air Maroc on this portal, which will serve as the single point for submitting bids, with full transparency, said Abdelhamid Addou, CEO of RAM, in an official press release. Thanks to this digitalization process, all of the companys tenders, national as well as international, will be accessible to a wider range of suppliers, which will make our procurement more efficient, he adds. RAM has implemented JAGGAERs eSourcing, Contract Lifecycle Management, Supplier Management, Supplier Evaluation and Program Management modules.

Royal Air Maroc carries more than 6 million passengers annually. Its purchasing generates 500 contracts per year, with an annual budget of 7 billion Moroccan dirham (approximately $735 million). To simplify the management of all its tenders and comply with its internal rules, RAM launched an online suppliers portal, RAM eSourcing, for all the companys national and international suppliers. This portal is in extensive use by 500 suppliers and 200 users managing 400 contracts.

The official start of the RAM eSourcing portal three months ago was a great success, mainly thanks to a quick adoption of all its features by internal users as well as suppliers. The portal deployment coincides with a long-held desire to modernize among internal teams, said Tarek Chbourk, RAM Chief Procurement Officer.

We are honored to be able to support Royal Air Maroc in attaining its procurement goals as well as being a part of this projects success, declared Patrick de Coucy, Managing Director of JAGGAER France. RAM is an important customer and this project demonstrates our experiences in the deployment of our Source-to-Pay solution in the transportation industry. I would like to underline the fact that this projects success is also due to the flawless cooperation between the teams at RAM and JAGGAER in delivering a solution that matches RAMs goals.

About Royal Air Maroc

Created in 1957 through the merger of Air Atlas and Air Maroc, Royal Air Maroc is the Moroccan national airline. Its history is full of successes and achievements: the company has been able to overcome crises that affected the international air transportation industry thanks to its personnels commitment, the recovery plans put in place and State support.

During its 58 years of existence, the company has always invested in aircraft renewal and modernization and has seen a significant rise in traffic and revenue. It expanded its network by opening new lines over all continents and by multiplying its frequencies. In 2017, RAM carried more than 7.3 million passengers.

In the past five years, RAM has been awarded a 4-star label by Skytrax, a well-known global organization that audits and evaluates services levels in the aviation industry. Royal Air Maroc has been a part of the Oneworld Alliance since December 2018.

About JAGGAER: Global Source to Pay Spend Management Solutions

JAGGAER is the worlds largest independent spend management company, with over 2000 customers connected to a network of 3.7 million suppliers in 70 countries, served by offices located in North America, Latin America, throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East. JAGGAER offers complete SaaS-based Source to Pay eProcurement solutions with advanced Spend Analytics, Sourcing, Supplier Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Savings Tracking, and intelligent workflow capabilities. JAGGAER has pioneered spend solutions for over two decades and continues to lead the innovation curve by listening to customers and analyzing the market. Our solution suites are trusted by the worlds largest manufacturing, education, health care, retail, consumer package goods, logistics, construction, utilities companies and public service organizations. Additionally, JAGGAER holds 38 patentsmore than any other spend management company. www.JAGGAER.com
Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, a former JAC student, has received a research grant given to him through the Fullbright Fellowship. The grant will allow Dr. Jorgensen to study shark and ray species in the Galapagos Islands.
Like other cities like Pointe Claire, Beaconsfield is now streaming its council meetings via webcam.
OTTAWA, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Interset , a security analytics company powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has signed the Montreal Declaration for a Responsible Development of AI , committing itself as an organization to the development of AI in service of the fundamental interests of individuals and the common good.



AI has burgeoned across industries thanks to its ability to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate problem-solving and reduce manual labor, but this growing trend is also fueling concerns about the risks and ramifications of autonomous technologies. As a response, the Montreal Declaration provides a framework for the ethical development and deployment of AI with emphasis on 10 principles: well-being, respect for autonomy, protection of privacy and intimacy, solidarity, democratic participation, equity, diversity inclusion, prudence, responsibility and sustainable development.

AI has been at the heart of Intersets technology since our inception because we believe in its ability to support and empower cybersecurity teams and society in protecting their organizations, said Stephan Jou, chief technology officer at Interset. We signed the Montreal Declaration for Responsible AI as a company in recognition of AIs growing value in cybersecurity as well as our role in ensuring that AI is designed and executed with societal welfare in mind. To that end, we are committed to the Declarations mission and will continue to advance its 10 principlesstarting at home.

Intersets user and entity behavioral analytics (UEBA) is powered by unsupervised machine learning, a type of self-learning AI that enables the solution to distill billions of events into a handful of prioritized threat leads. Machine learning enables Interset to mathematically discover patterns and create a unique digital fingerprint for every entitya person, machine, printer, website, IP address, etc.in an enterprise. This automation frees up security teams to focus on investigating and responding to threats leads.

Learn more about Intersets commitment to ethical AI in our blog,  Interset & Responsible AI - Part 1: Well-being, Autonomy, and Privacy the first in a series on the Montreal Declaration and its 10 principles.

About Interset

Interset, a security analytics company powered by self-learning AI, augments existing security tools and empowers security teams to identify and respond to the threats that matter before data is stolen. Intersets machine learning threat detection platform measures the unique digital footprint of systems and users, distilling billions of events into a handful of prioritized threat leads. What used to take months, can now take minutes. Interset is backed by In-Q-Tel and trusted to protect critical data in finance, critical infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing, healthcare, utility and energy industries. Visit us at interset.ai , and follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn and Facebook .
THE SHORTHORN

Is seeking work study student assistants for our reception desk for summer and fall.Prompt, cheerful, students with professional attitudes are encouraged to apply to answer office phones and greet guests from behind a plexiglass COVID barrier.Preference is given to students available to work some mornings. This in-office job offers flexible hours and plenty of time to study.Apply through Handshake for job #4723423 or call 817-272-3188 for more information.
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Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "UK Data Centre Trends Tracker 2019" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The January 2019 editions of the Euro-Data Centre and the UK-Data Centre Trends Trackers highlights that UK average pricing remains more expensive than the other large markets of Germany, France and the Netherlands.



The research is based on a survey of more than 120 Data Centre providers in the UK market, with 250 facilities. The researcher has also created a forecast breakdown of the key UK Data Centre customer segments - from a sample of 25 UK Data Centre providers.



The UK Data Centre cluster pricing varies by 40 percent according to UK geographical region.



The report also reveals that the fast growth European Data Centre clusters include Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Slough - with Frankfurt uniquely being the largest cluster in Europe as well as among the fastest growing.



The Euro-Data Centre Trends Tracker provides up to date analysis of the 15 key Data Centre Country Markets in Europe with the total market size including space, power, new facility developments and average price changes.

Over the past six month period to the end of 2018 the Euro-Data Centre Trends Tracker finds that:

Germany has seen rapid growth in new Data Centre space and facilities - with new developments focused on the Frankfurt area. New facilities are being built by Equinix, Etix Everywhere, e-shelter, Interxion, Global Switch & CyrusOne in Frankfurt with Noris Networks extending its Munich facility, and T-Systems expanding its Biel facility. Frankfurt as a result has become the largest single Data Centre cluster in Europe (overtaking the London & Inner M25 cluster).

The four largest Data Centre country markets - which are the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands - provide around 71 percent of Data Centre space across the 15 largest European markets.

In Europe new Data Centre facilities are also being added in Amsterdam (including e-shelter, Equinix, Evoswitch & Interxion), in Madrid new Data Centre space is being built by Data4, e-shelter (planned), Equinix & Interxion.

The highest average Data Centre pricing in Europe is to be found in Switzerland, the UK and Ireland. The lowest average Data Centre pricing is to be found in Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy.

The UK-Data Centre Trends Tracker edition reveals the following trends:

Recent UK growth in new Data Centre space has slowed - However, new Data Centre space over the six month period to the end of 2018 is being added within the London area by Virtus and Interxion & in Slough by Equinix.

By the end of 2018 new Data Centre space has been added by Virtus (at Stockley Park & Slough), by Interxion (London) and Equinix (Slough). Into 2019 more Data Centre space is to be introduced by Virtus, CyrusOne, Equinix (Slough) - and e-shelter has announced that it is to build a new Data Centre campus in Dagenham (East London, within the London M25 area).

UK average pricing varies considerably by Data Centre cluster - with around 12 major clusters across the UK, including within the London M25 area, Slough, Cardiff, Woking, Reading, Manchester, Leeds & Newcastle. The highest pricing is now seen in the London & Slough areas, with the lowest seen in Cardiff, Manchester & Newcastle areas.

London & the Inner M25 area still has the largest concentration of Data Centres. But Slough (Berkshire) has become the second largest UK cluster, followed by Cardiff and Manchester - with Slough seeing the highest rate of new Data Centre growth.

UK Data Centre space is growing, but at a lower pace than in previous years. New Data Centre build-outs in the London area are dependent on converting brown-field sites (with Virtus converting former distribution warehouses into Data Centres, and e-shelter to build a new campus Data Centre on a former Aventis chemical plant). Slough has gained momentum as a fast-growing Data Centre cluster.

Key Topics Covered:



Section 1: Introduction



Section 2: Methodology



Section 3: UK Data Centre Pricing - discounts & supplementary changes available



Section 4: UK Data Centre Pricing for Power



Section 5: UK Data Centre Market Sizing



Section 6: UK Data Centre Capacity (m2)



Section 7: UK Data Centre Total Customer Power (MW)



Section 8: UK Data Centre clusters



Section 9 New UK Data Centre developments



Section 10: Financial Data Centre Results & Developments



Section 11: UK Data Centre Customer segments



Section 12: UK Data Centre customer Trends



Section 13: UK Data Centre Pricing Trends



Section 14: Conclusion - Overall UK Data Centre Trends

Companies Mentioned



Aventis

CyrusOne

Data4

e-shelter

Equinix

Etix Everywhere

Evoswitch

Global Switch

Interxion

Noris Networks

T-Systems

Virtus

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rjl8ns/united_kingdom?w=12



Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
As a current print subscriber, you receive 24/7 access to our website and online e-edition at no additional charge. All you have to do is activate your access. To activate digital access, you will need your account number. You can find your account number on any recent subscription notice or bill.
The Perspective

Atlanta, Georgia

January 29, 2019



An institution of higher learning is a social laboratory, where the next generation of leaders prepare themselves to enter the workforce. The state, as an institution, is run by people who have acquired a certain level of knowledge that allows them to steer the affairs of their compatriots. In this case, the institution of higher education in question is the University of Liberia.



A few weeks ago, the administration of the University of Liberia decided to suspend or ban student political activities. Whatever the reasons may be, this move is very counterproductive, it goes against the freedom of speech and freedom association enshrined in the Constitution. It deprives young men and women who are preparing to take up leadership role in the society the opportunity to engage in social and political debate that will guide them when they leave college.



Students of the university are not children who need to be taught how to and when to speak, they are adults who graduated from high school and earned the right to be in a professional learning environment. Being in that context should in no way obliterate their social rights. The university cannot arrogate itself the power to stop its customers  the students - to assemble and discuss issues relative to their wellbeing.



Shutting down campuses because of students behavior or demands is far from being a sign of strength. If there is one place in the world where people should be free and able to discuss their differences and arrive at peaceful resolution of conflicts, it must be the university campus. Depriving future leaders of the nation of their freedom of speech and assembly sets a bad example, it is like telling them that the best way to deal with dissent is to shut down people. That is what they would do when they get into leadership position, using force not dialogue. It was not too long ago when people had to hide and read or distribute leaflets. The ban creates an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that gives birth a dangerous atmosphere.



People who stood up to tyranny and autocracy, sacrificing their wellbeing, must not now sit and quietly watch this new development. Politics on a university campus is national politics. Politics is not a privilege but a right for every citizen. The university provides a service -learning  that students buy. Students are not accountable to the university authorities about their political views and the university should pose no constraints on the expression of students political views, except when it interferes with overall learning environment.



It is an illusion to think that one can stop students from engaging in politics. It would be much safer for all to allow them to do it in public and in the view of all rather than go underground and start circulating new versions of ReAct. Then government security would get involved and people would be arrested and mistreated. And we fall back into the same pit we thought we had gotten out of.



Those who were around Presidents Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor should read the writing on the wall. The tragedy is not that they did not advise those leaders properly back then but that they are allowing the same situation to reappear under their watch to paraphrase Minister Tweah.



Let the students do their politics because you cant stop student politics. It always backfires.
Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Asia-Pacific Data Centre Pricing Tracker" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker provides average pricing information (rack space, m2 rentals and kW rentals), Data Centre space, Data Centre Customer Power (DCCP), the key geographical clusters and new build Data Centre facilities across 7 Country Markets. The Country Markets covered include - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore & Thailand.



The publication also identifies the key aggregated pricing - by standard rack space (without power) and by m2. Finally, Datacentre pricing summarises the overall Data Centre trends taking place in seven markets surveyed.

DCP Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker - analysis of seven Asia Pacific Country Markets - which provides a unique survey of the third party Data Centre Country Markets of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. The Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker provides for each of the 7 Country Markets a breakdown of third party Data Centre space, power, pricing, key geographical clusters and new Data Centre developments.



The first edition of the Asia Pacific Data Centre Price Tracker highlights the significant differences in pricing and Data Centre development across the region. The largest Data Centre market in the 7 country survey is Japan (with 595,000 m2 of space) followed by Singapore (with 338,000 m2 of space) and Hong Kong in 3rd place (with 290,000 m2 of space).



Data Centre price levels also vary significantly across the region, with Indonesia having the lowest cost average rack space pricing (at USD $540 per month) and Hong Kong with an average rack space rate (at USD $976 per month). The highest average rack space rates in the region are found in Thailand (at USD $1,510 per month) and Singapore (at USD $1,414 per month) per rack.



The largest Data Centre geographical clusters in the region are Tokyo and Seoul, followed by TKO (Tseung Kwan O in Hong Kong), East & West Singapore and Cyberjaya (Malaysia).



DCP has identified 17 third party Data Centre facilities under construction across the region with Singapore in particular continuing to add new facilities, with new build outs by Global Switch, Equinix, ST Telemedia and Colt Telecom. Singapore has become established as an Asia Pacific hub for international companies expanding into Asia including cloud, content and hosting companies. Hong Kong is becoming a Data Centre hub for Chinese companies and is also gaining a range of service providers who require access to the Chinese market.

Key Topics Covered:



Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Pricing (Average Data Centre rack space & m2 rentals) Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Sizing (by Data Centre raised floor space & Data Centre Customer Power) Key Asia Pacific Data Centre Country Market Geographical Clusters New Asia Pacific Country Market Data Centre Developments Overall Asia Pacific Market Data Centre Trends

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rmrxvq/asiapacific_data?w=12



Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
Sterling Heights, MI (48312)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. A few storms may be severe. Low near 70F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The time for action is now  this is the mantra being taken up by Generation Z across the world. Already this year, thousands of high school students across the world have skipped school to protest their governments inaction on climate change. The students were inspired by 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg, who started the movement by skipping school every Friday since August 2018. This is only the beginning: further demonstrations are already scheduled for the coming weeks.

Gen Z has the most to lose from the negative effects of climate change, and Thunberg made a compelling call to action at the recent COP24 conference in Katowice, Poland: You say you love your children above all else  and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes, she told global leaders during the climate summit. Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis, she added.

A proud history of activism

Other notable youth movements over the past 50 years have included the Vietnam War protests Tiananmen Square and the Arab Spring . While each of these movements is unique to its time and place in history, they share a common element: a clear authority to protest against.

largely because no single government or organisation has the necessary authority to create the kind of change needed to address climate change on a global scale. Arguably, young climate activists today face an even tougher challenge than their historical predecessors. Getting political action on climate change is a seemingly impossible task , and youth movements over the past 30 years have been unable to influence global policy in any meaningful way. This isbecause no single government orhas the necessary authority to create the kind of change needed to address climate change on a global scale.

A powerful appeal

While Gretas message may have fallen on deaf ears at COP24, her appeal to global business leaders at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, holds more promise. As scholars in social innovation, we are interested in understanding how youth activism can transform the business sector, by aligning sustainable business models with a meaningful purpose and positive impact on the environment.

are #betterplanet, and has planted nearly 800,000 trees to date. Understanding that Gen Z motivated by social causes , companies are making efforts to genuinely engage with this demographic on social media. For example, Boxed Water has pledged to plant two trees for every picture of their product shared withand has planted nearly 800,000 trees to date.

The international community has been warned that there is only a 12-year window to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C  the limit to prevent  climate catastrophe . By that time, Greta Thunberg will be just 28 years old  so its no wonder that todays youth are determined to keep up the pressure.

Tackling climate change is going to need buy-in from corporations, governments and civil society. If todays young activists can speed up this process, all power to them. After all, as the old proverb goes, we dont inherit the world from our parents  we borrow it from our children.
Salida, CO (81201)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 90F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 56F. S winds shifting to E at 10 to 20 mph.
Jan 30 2019 1:25 pm

This content, and any other content on TLS, may not be republished or reproduced without prior permission from TLS. Copying or reproducing our content is both against the law and against Halacha. To inquire about using our content, including videos or photos, email us at general@thelakewoodscoop.com Stay up to date with our news alerts by following us on Twitter Instagram and Facebook Got a news tip? Email us at newstips@thelakewoodscoop.com , Text 415-857-2667, or WhatsApp 609-661-8668.
Dublin, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Innovation Tracking Factbook 2018: An Assessment of the Pharmaceutical Pipeline" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

"Innovation Tracking Factbook 2018: An Assessment of the Pharmaceutical Pipeline" is a comprehensive, granular analysis of the 25,284 products currently in the pharmaceutical industry pipeline, from the Discovery stage through to Pre-registration and split into key therapy areas and indications. A particular focus of this report is placed on analysis of the development of innovative drugs, specifically first-in-class innovation.



Innovation in developing new products is the key element in growth in the pharmaceutical industry. The market is highly research-intensive, powered by high R&D investment, and it possesses a strong product pipeline to maintain growth and ensure long-term revenue generation. One of the methods companies use to gain more revenue is developing first-in-class products.



Though developing first-in-class products requires high investment in terms of time and money, it has proven to result in blockbuster drugs, when compared with me-too products. The perks of successful innovation are high, and without successful innovation companies would see a long decline in their growth.



All the therapy areas have shown growth in their pipeline size, of which the genetic disorders pipeline observed the highest change of nearly 130%. 80% of the rare diseases are genetic in origin, and progress in terms of understanding these diseases at the molecular and genome level is helping to create new medicines. Increasing patient population and high level of unmet needs in most of the diseased conditions are constantly driving the industry towards innovation.



Over recent decades, in addition to an increase in the yearly number of new chemical entity approvals by the FDA, the number and proportion of these approvals that were first-in-class at the time of approval have also increased. The proportion of first-in-class approvals has increased steadily most years since 2002.



Small molecule products are leading the pipeline owing to their inherent nature of action and the cost of developing them. Small molecules have also proven their worth in generating revenue and are ranked top in terms of sales. Combination and multiple therapies are also a strategy to bring new drugs into market and maximize the return on investment. Currently oncology holds the highest number of multiple therapy drugs.



The Drug pipeline is also benchmarked against its size across each segment compared from Q1 2015 to Q3 2018. In addition, a detailed contextual analysis of the drivers of this pipeline in key therapy areas and an assessment of the level of first-in-class innovation is also provided.



Scope

What is the current size and composition of the pharmaceutical industry pipeline and how has it changed in the last four years? What can we learn from this?

The largest therapy area, by a substantial margin, is oncology, and, with growth in the pipeline sizes for all major oncology indications since Q1 2015, this trend appears set to continue. Why is this case?

What is the overall advantage for companies including first-in-class product developments in their pipeline portfolio, rather than opting for better-characterized established molecular targets?

What factors have been driving the increasing number of first-in-class product approvals over recent decades?

What key discernible trends have appeared in the strategic consolidations landscape in the past decade and which disease areas have been most active?

Reasons to buy

Achieve an up-to-date understanding of the landscape of the overall pharmaceutical pipeline, on both a broad and granular level; this also provides a highly accessible reference which is useful in any pharmaceutical strategic decision making process

Benchmark key therapy areas and indications in terms of the number of pipeline products and level of innovation, and assess one's own strategic positioning against this backdrop

Understand the contemporary role and importance of radical and incremental innovation within the various disease areas and indications

Make key decisions about the role of innovation within one's own pipeline portfolio

Key Topics Covered:



1 Table of Contents

1.1 List of Tables

1.2 List of Figures



2 Introduction

2.1 Increasing Cost of Drug Development

2.2 Most Drugs Fail to Recuperate R&D Costs

2.3 Contracting Life Cycles for Approved Products

2.4 The Case for First-in-Class Pharmaceutical Innovation

2.5 Status of Innovation in Rare Diseases

2.6 Conclusion



3 Assessment of Pharmaceutical Industry Pipeline

3.1 Pipeline and Clinical Trials Landscape by Therapy Area

3.2 Pipeline by Stage of Development

3.3 Pipeline by Molecule Type

3.4 Key Therapy Areas by Indication

3.4.1 Oncology

3.4.2 Infectious Diseases

3.4.3 Central Nervous System

3.4.4 Immunology

3.5 Conclusion



4 Assessment of Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry Pipeline

4.1 First-in-Class Innovation by Stage of Development

4.2 Key Therapy Areas by Indication

4.2.1 Oncology

4.2.2 Infectious Diseases

4.2.3 Central Nervous System

4.2.4 Immunology

4.3 Conclusion



5 Appendix



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/gmskps/pharmaceutical?w=12

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.
Welcome back pirates! As you make your return to campus The East Carolinian has created a forum that centers around topics within the community where readers can express their experiences and concerns. With the new guidelines set in place by East Carolina University do you feel as these precautions will keep you safe?

Survey
Catching up with a friend over Zoom, I wondered what might have happened if China had come clean about the presence and origins of COVID-19 before it spread beyond Wuhan. But, my friend asked, wouldn't the United States have done the same and tried to hide it, too?
Zanda Tang cannot remember the moment he became interested in art, for the Chinese native, it has always been a part of him. As a child, he preferred staying at home painting to playing outside with the neighborhood children. Rather than imaging a world with his action figures, he created one on a canvas, transfixed by the infinite possibilities that a pen and paper possessed. Now, over twenty years later, Tang still finds himself enthralled with the arts, and his passion has turned into a celebrated career as an animation concept artist.









Throughout his career, Tang has worked on many successful projects, whether for films, television shows, or advertising campaigns. He has impressed audiences around the world with his films Lion Dance and Baby and Granny, as well as with promotional content for Huiju Shopping Center Beijing and China Academy of Space Technology, to name a few.





Tangs first taste of international acclaim started back in 2016 with his work on Diors Samurai. The animated film takes place in ancient times, where Samurai Yota falls in love with a beautiful princess and is heartbroken to learn that their love is forbidden. However, a chance encounter with a magical elder reveals that Yota may marry his princess if he travels through time to find her in the dystopian future. Yota jumps at the chance, and finds her, only to learn that she is now a successful police officer with no memory of him. Now Yota must divide his time between saving the city from ruthless organized gangs, trying to understand this confusing modern world, and hopefully sweeping the princess off her feet.





This project seems very simple, but it represents the motivation of young people to fight bravely and dare to explore the future, said Tang. There is also a lot of playability in animation. For example, how did the ancient warrior adapt to the life in the modern society, and how did he use the traditional weapons to resist when he faced the enemy with the advanced weapons? How could he help his princess accomplish her mission in modern police identity? This story is very original.









Diors Samurai has successfully screened at many prestigious film festivals around the world. It was an Official Selection at Trailer Fest Film Festival, London Monthly Film Festival, Direct Short Online Film Festival, Creation International Film Festival, and Play Film Festival. Tang also created the trailer to promote an original story idea for a US network TV pitch.





Before the film went to festivals, I was actually at a turning point in my career, hesitating whether to be an illustrator or a game concept designer. After all of Diors Samurais success, I firmly believe that I can continue to take my favorite animation as my career. My goal is to integrate more styles, so that I can easily handle different types of projects, said Tang.





Tang designed all the characters in this animation. He boldly used more ink style visual effects on the picture so that the characters formed a strong contrast between black and white, which enhanced the impact of the animation action fragments and made the whole film obtain a certain mystery. Monochrome embellishment makes the whole animation full of personality and creativity.





Tang had extensive knowledge on ancient warrior armor outside of the film, as a hobby he found interesting. This became pivotal in his designs for the film. In terms of painting style, he proposed to use more Asian style black and white to express the characters. He embellished the main character with high-purity colors, which represented the character's personality and state. This not only adds more atmosphere to the later martial arts movements, but also adds a deeper tone to the whole animation. This resulted in an ink-painting style of samurai animation.





My understanding of Chinese culture and my years of obsessing over Japanese animation came in handy here. I've always liked to copy comic book characters, so this style is very familiar to me. I have a good command of body shape, structure and lines, and tend to caricature the character's facial features. The setting of traditional Oriental elements and a lot of fighting scenes were things I knew I could not only accurately depict, but also be passionate about, he said.





It is Tangs strength to give the characters a comic style; his designs give this film a unique and appealing image. Diors Samurai could not have achieved what it did without his animation talents, but for Tang, the most rewarding part of the project was working with such a stellar team.





Each member of our project has the same personality as the protagonist of the story and dares to explore the unknown. As long as we set our goals, we will work hard to achieve them. Because of our personalities, this project can be completed well, he concluded.





Written by Annabelle Lee

Published Jan. 29th, 2019




LONDON, Jan. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the OPEC, Russia has the worlds largest natural gas reserves  standing at an estimated 49 trillion cubic metres. These have greatly spurred on the countrys economic growth. Whats less known, however, is that Russia also has many unused resources that could enhance its performance all the more.



Eastern Siberia, in particular, is a region that has many untapped oil and gas reserves. These have not been exploited, due to the fact that many contain either large volumes of associated petroleum gas dissolved in oil, or free gas. Many companies are put off by the time and money needed to extract valuable materials here.

One organisation that has thrown itself into this challenge is the Irkutsk Oil Company (INK). It has developed a unique process to extract gas and separate it into its valuable components. INK has recently spoken to World Finance magazine about its technologies, as well as its latest project of advanced gas processing.

As part of its plans, INK has built and commissioned the Natural and Associated Petroleum Gas Plant  which has a feed capacity of 3.6 million cubic metres per day, as well as constructing a pipeline that stretches 196km. INK has also been able to extract helium, as part of its recent developments.

INKs massive project is not only expected to revolutionise the oil and gas region in Russia, but enhance the amount of processed goods produced in the country too. Company leaders believe INKs work will promote the local economy in Eastern Siberia, with INK currently employing over 8,000 people.

To find out about INKs latest work, check out an exclusive article in the latest issue of World Finance or read it online:

www.worldfinance.com

World News Media is a leading publisher of quality financial and business magazines, which enjoys a global distribution network that includes subscriber lists of prominent decision-makers around the world.
Willem-Alexander and Maxima participate in a water pageant after his inauguration ceremony, April 2013 (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

As January draws to a close, its time for a celebration of the months lovely birthstone, the rich and wonderful garnet. Our spotlight today shines on the garnet and diamond tassel earrings worn by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

Maxima visits the Center for Youth and Family in The Hague, March 2017 (LEX VAN LIESHOUT/AFP/Getty Images)

Maximas earrings are both bold and simple in design. They feature numerous disc-like gemstone beads. The luminosity and color of the stones indicate that the beads are most likely small garnets.

Maxima attends a press conference at the presidential residence in Buenos Aires, October 2016 (JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images)

The garnet beads are strung together to form strands, which are gathered into a tassel-shape by a trio of pave-set diamond bands.

Maxima visits the Presidential Palace in Berlin, April 2011 (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

The earrings have been in Maximas jewelry box for a number of years. She began wearing them when she was still Princess Maxima. Above, during a visit to Germany in 2011, she pairs them with a diamond scroll brooch that belonged to Queen Wilhelmina.

Maxima attends the opening the 10th International Hands On! Conference in Amsterdam, October 2015 (Michel Porro/Getty Images)

Maxima often wears the earrings with her favorite dramatic picture hats, and they do provide a pleasant extra bit of visual weight with the angled chapeaux.

Maxima welcomes the Greek president to the Noordeinde Palace, July 2016 (Michel Porro/Getty Images)

She often wears the earrings with clothing in various shades of pink, including dark berry and blush.

Maxima visits the Center for Youth and Family in The Hague, March 2017 (LEX VAN LIESHOUT/AFP/Getty Images)

Here, the earrings are part of a monochrome look with a wine-colored coat and matching hat, worn during a visit from the President and First Lady of Argentina in 2017.

Maxima and Mathilde visit the Combiwel welfare organisation in Amsterdam, November 2016 (FRANK VAN BEEK/AFP/Getty Images)

And here, the earrings coordinate with the dark berry-colored velvet portion of her ensemble, worn during a state visit from King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians.

Maxima speaks during the launch of the Philippines National Strategy for Financial Inclusion, July 2015 (NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images)

But occasionally, Maxima uses the earrings for contrast, as she did with this orange ensemble in the Philippines in 2015.

Maxima arrives at the Binnenhof in The Hague for the annual Prinsjesdag ceremonies, September 2015 (REMKO DE WAAL/AFP/Getty Images)

The earrings are substantial and glittering enough to be worn with formal wear as well as more casual ensembles. One of my very favorite appearances of the earrings came on Prinsjesdag in 2015, when Maxima wore them with a stunning gown by Jan Taminiau. The delicate embroidery on the dress was inspired by the Japanese room at the Huis ten Bosch Palace.

Maxima waves during the water pageant on her husbands inauguration day, April 2013 (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

Maxima also wore the earrings on one of the most important days of her life: the inauguration of her husband, King Willem-Alexander, as monarch. She chose the earrings for the water pageant held in the evening after the inauguration ceremonies, pairing them with diamonds from the family vaults.
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Sidetrade is proud to announce that they have attained the highest certification level in the Microsoft Partner Network and have been admitted to the elite circle of Microsoft Gold Partner membership .

Sidetrade has just been officially recognized by Microsoft for the quality of the design and user friendliness of their applications.

The Microsoft Gold Partner label is the highest level of certification awarded by Microsoft to their professional partners. By earning this coveted distinction for Application development, Sidetrade joins the elite circle of the most advanced firms developing integrated SaaS applications, using Microsoft's Azure platform and Visual Studio environment.

"Behind the success of our artificial intelligence platform stands our development team. Having their excellence recognized by Microsoft is very gratifying indeed. It is further proof of Sidetrade's expertise. With this certification, our technical teams consolidate their relationship with the community of Microsoft developers, which contributes so much to our know-how and capacity to innovate", said Laurent Pontier, CTO Sidetrade Financials Solution.

This certification is the crowning achievement of several years' co-development with Microsoft teams through major training programs, certification, and innovative products for the benefit of Sidetrade clients.
Ernst Toch - Cantata of the Bitter Herbs  Jephta (2004)

Cantata Of The Bitter Herbs 1 Introduction And Psalm 114 6:12 2 Sheheheyanu 1:34 3 Children's Dance 1:52 4 The Ten Plagues 1:59 5 And It Was At Midnight 2:25 6 Aria 4:07 7 Psalm 126 7:17 8 He Saved My Soul From Death 1:59 9 God Of Right, God Of Might 8:25 10 Hymn 3:43 - 11 Jephta, Rhapsodic Poem (Symphony No. 5) 25:26 Theodore Bikel - narrator Carol Meyer - soprano Elizabeth Shammash - mezzo-soprano Richard Clement - tenor Ted Christopher - baritone Prague Philharmonic Choir (tracks: 1 to 10) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (tracks: 1 to 10) Seattle Symphony (tracks: 11) Gerard Schwarz - conductor

Fetters fell, the captive rose. Old is the memory of Israels escape from Egypt. Told and retold for thousands of years, the story has given strength to the weary, hope to the disheartened. Thus begins Tochs Cantata of the Bitter Herbs, a unique musical-dramatic work begun during the great German-Jewish composers forced exile to the United States, and premiered in Los Angeles in the midst of World War Two. Tochs retelling of the Passover story is cast as an appeal for universal justice and liberation from oppression. The composers ultimately triumphant vision is set to luminous late Romantic music and includes a solo quartet that recalls the beauty of the famous trio from Der Rosenkavalier. ---naxos.com

"Ernst Toch? Oh, yeah. He's the guy who wrote 'The Geographical Fugue.'" That's about all we knew about the man, we who, during the late 50s and early 60s, performed Toch's opus for spoken choir. In fact, Toch referred to himself as "the world's most forgotten composer." He was one of the "degenerate" composers (read "Jewish") whose music was forbidden by Hitler and the Third Reich. He emigrated to America in 1934 and, like many others driven out of Europe by the Nazis, found a niche in Hollywood writing film scores, for which he received three Oscar nominations. But his concert music found little audience in America, a source of frustration and disillusionment. Fortunately, between 1947 and his death in 1964 he produced seven symphonies and some pieces for strings. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony in 1956, and Symphony No. 5 - "Jeptha, Rhapsodic Poem" - is included on this recording. (All seven symphonies are available on the CPO label, conducted by Alun Francis.) Oh, yes. "The Geographical Fugue" can be heard on The Turtle Creek Chorale's album POSTCARDS.

Toch initially wanted to compose an opera based upon the biblical story of Jeptha and his daughter, but instead abandoned the project and wrote a one-movement symphony ". . . describing in abstract instrumental terms the unfolding of the biblical story . . . its tragic conflicts, and the emotional impact of its dilemma." It appears that the Israelites asked the warrior Jeptha to help them defeat the Ammonites. Jeptha ". . . made a vow to God that if He would deliver the Ammonites into his hands, he would demonstrate his gratitude by sacrificing . . . whatever was the first to emerge from his house upon his return." Well, as luck would have it, that "first" happened to be his daughter, his only child. Talk about dilemmas! Gerald Schwartz and the Seattle Symphony do a masterful job in bringing this music to life.

Although "Jeptha" may take a few listenings to be appreciated, not so "Cantata of the Bitter Herbs." It's immediately accessible. Taking his inspiration from the Passover hagadda, Toch ". . . conceived this work as transcending the confines of Jewish history and experience to express a universal theme: the equal injustice of all human oppression throughout the world. . . " Except for an aria sung in Hebrew, there's nothing about this piece that sounds remotely "Jewish." Charlie Richards writes in his review that it reminds him of Strauss or Zemlinsky. I hear Brahms, perhaps, or Mendelssohn. (My favorite movement is Psalm 126 for chorus and tenor and soprano duet: "When Adonai brought back his children to Zion, it would be like a dream, and the melodies would fill our tongue and the laughter our mouth." Sublime!) "Bitter Herbs" is an absolutely stunning piece of music, one that should find its way into the repertoire of our major orchestras, especially around Passover/Easter time. Perhaps then Ernst Toch would be less "forgotten."

I'm giving the recording 5 stars, although I quibble over the low recording level of "Bitter Herbs" and the pronunciation of the English text by the Prague Philharmonic Choir. (I'm sure a citizen of Prague would have the same criticism of an American choir singing in Czech.) It's a "shanda" that economics prohibits recording many of the works in the Milken Archive series in America. "American Jewish Music" recorded practically everywhere but America. ---J. T Waldmann, amazon.com

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if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Cole Fowler says El Acompanante is a film worth watching, as the story brings light to the difficulties patients faced during the Cuban AIDS epidemic.
The Texas A&M Health Promotion office teaches students about warning signs to watch for when it comes to stalking.
Arab, AL (35016)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. High around 85F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
TORONTO, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a release issued under the same headline yesterday by Eviana Health Corporation (CSE:EHC), we have been advised by the company of two corrections, made to the second sentence of the first paragraph and the "About Eviana Health Corporation" section. The corrected release follows:

Eviana Health Corporation (the Company) announced the appointment of Alexander Kotyck as President of the Company by news release dated October 29, 2018. The Company and Mr. Kotyck have been unable to agree on the terms of Mr. Kotycks appointment, and accordingly Mr. Kotycks appointment as President has been terminated effective immediately. The Company announces the termination of negotiations and the immediate termination of Mr. Kotycks authority to execute any functions of the President or to represent the Company in any capacity.



About Eviana Health Corporation

Eviana Health Corporation is a Canadian Securities Exchange listed organization, which is in the business of producing and selling high quality cannabidiol (CBD) targeting the medical, beauty & grooming, vitamins & supplements, fitness, food & beverage, and pet markets, through its operations in Serbia.

For further information, please contact:

Eviana Health Corporation

Avram Adizes, CEO

info@eviana.com

This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is provided, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Companys publicly filed disclosure. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or - 2 - management's estimates or opinions should change, unless required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Esrey Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: ESR) (Esrey or the Company) announces that its annual financial statements for the year ended September 30, 2018, including the related management discussion and analysis, and CEO and CFO certifications (collectively, the Annual Financial Filings) were not filed by the required filing deadline of January 28, 2019 (the Filing Deadline).



The Annual Financial Filings were not filed on or before the Filing Deadline due to the fact that the resignation of the Companys representative in Macedonia has resulted in delays in providing documentation requested by the auditors related to the Companys operations in Macedonia.

The Company is working on the steps required to complete the Annual Financial Filings and expects to be able to file the Annual Financial Filings by February 15, 2019. The Company will provide updates as further information relating to the Annual Financial Filings becomes available.

The Company has applied to the applicable securities regulatory authorities and received a management cease trade order (MCTO) imposed against the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the Company precluding them from trading securities of the Company. The MCTO will be in effect until the Annual Financial Filings are filed, and requires that the Annual Financial Filings be filed on or before March 28, 2019.

Until the Annual Financial Filings are filed, the Company intends to issue bi-weekly default status reports in accordance with National Policy 12-203 - Management Cease Trade Orders. The Company intends to satisfy the provisions of the Alternative Information Guidelines during the period it remains in default of the filing requirements. The Company confirms that there is no other material information relating to its affairs that has not been generally disclosed.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

David Cohen

Chairman

For more information, please contact:

Investor Relations: 1-778-373-0103

Email: info@esreyresources.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Black Hat Asia, the world's leading provider of information security events, announces Keynote and Briefings highlights for its upcoming event in Singapore. The event offers a week of immersive Briefings, hands-on Trainings, a Business Hall showcasing the industrys latest solutions, and a collection of special programs that span topics critical for those working from practitioner to executive levels, the wider InfoSec community, and more.



Black Hat Asia will take place March 26-29, 2019 at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. For more information and to save S$200 on registration prices by March 22, please visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/registration.html

Highlights from the first-round of Black Hat Asia 2019 Briefings include:

Keynote:

Mikko Hypponen  Security & Privacy Expert

Hypponen has dedicated his career to combatting security threats, tracking online crime for nearly three decades and sharing his work with the world - including his creation of Hypponen law, which states, whenever an appliance is described as being smart, its vulnerable. Serving as Chief Research Officer for F-Secure, he is a widely regarded security expert whose research has been featured in The New York Times, Wired and Scientific American, and more. He is a sought-after speaker, having lectured at the universities of Oxford, Stanford, and Cambridge - Hypponens TED Talk has been seen by 1.5 million people and translated to 40 languages. In addition to his ongoing research, Hypponen also serves as curator for the Malware Museum at the Internet Archive.

To see the current 2019 program lineup and to view presentation abstracts, visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/briefings/schedule/index.html

NEW! Black Hat Asia 2019 Executive Summit

On Wednesday, March 27, Asias brightest security executives will attend this newly crafted event aimed towards security leaders and forward thinkers. Participants will hear from a variety of industry experts who are helping to shape the next generation of InfoSec strategy. The Executive Summit follows Chatham House Rule in an effort to foster an open and collaborative environment. To learn more, please visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/executive-summit.html

Classroom-Style Courses - Black Hat Trainings

Prior to the Briefings, Black Hat Asia will offer four days of deeply technical, hands-on Training courses led by the some of the brightest minds in the industry. This years Trainings will span topics covering infrastructure hacking, pentesting, malware analysis, SDR, and more. For information on the lineup and to save S$300 on the course(s) of your choice by March 22, please visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/training/schedule/index.html

Live Demos - Black Hat Arsenal: Tools Announced!

Black Hat Arsenal will return to Singapore with its highly popular tool and demo area, showcasing the hottest developments from the open-source community. For more information on Arsenal and to see which tools have been selected this year, visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/arsenal/schedule/index.html

Black Hat Asia Sponsors

Top sponsors of Black Hat Asia 2019 include Diamond Sponsors: Infoblox, Tenable; Platinum Sponsors: PolySwarm, Qualys; and Gold: Anomali. For more information on sponsorship opportunities and to see the full list of participating companies, visit: blackhat.com/asia-19/event-sponsors.html

Connect with Black Hat (#BlackHat)

Future Black Hat Dates and Events

Black Hat USA 2019 , Las Vegas, Nevada, August 3-8, 2019

, Las Vegas, Nevada, August 3-8, 2019 Black Hat Europe 2019, London, England, December 3-6, 2019

About Black Hat

For more than 20 years, Black Hat has provided attendees with the very latest in information security research, development, and trends. These high-profile global events and trainings are driven by the needs of the security community, striving to bring together the best minds in the industry. Black Hat inspires professionals at all career levels, encouraging growth and collaboration among academia, world-class researchers, and leaders in the public and private sectors. Black Hat Briefings and Trainings are held annually in the United States, Europe and Asia. More information is available at: blackhat.com. Black Hat is organized by UBM, which in June 2018 combined with Informa PLC to become a leading B2B information services group and the largest B2B Events organizer in the world.

To learn more and for the latest news and information, visit www.ubm.com and www.informa.com.
Hong Kong: Measures to boost bus safety set

The Transport Advisory Committee today was briefed on the Governments follow-up actions in relation to the recommendations in the Report of the Independent Review Committee on Hong Kongs Franchised Bus Service.

Committee Chairman Prof Stephen Cheung said the Government will, in collaboration with franchised bus operators and stakeholders, proactively pursue the recommendations to enhance the operation safety of franchised buses.

Members welcomed the measures to further enhance the safety of franchised buses with a view to sustaining the safe and reliable franchised bus service in Hong Kong.

Following the fatal traffic incident involving a franchised bus on Tai Po Road in February last year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam set up the independent review committee to comprehensively review the operation and monitoring of franchised buses.

The Transport Department will, in conjunction with franchised bus operators and experts, proactively implement a series of measures to strengthen the safe operation of franchised bus services.

The Working Group on the Enhancement of Safety of Franchised Bus, set up by the department in March, has also become permanent to provide a common forum for the Government, franchised bus operators and experts to continue to discuss, study, implement and promote measures to enhance bus safety.

The Government also briefed the committee on the plan to implement a free-flow tolling system at Tseung Kwan O  Lam Tin Tunnel and other government tolled tunnels and roads.

It will develop an application of in-vehicle units to allow drivers to pay tunnel tolls without stopping at toll booths.

To enable toll payment by using the system upon the tunnel's commissioning, the department plans to start issuing in-vehicle units to registered vehicle owners in the third quarter of 2020.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-30. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Charlotte based hip-hop artist Well$ raps to his audience during the first night of Double Barrel Benefit hosted at Kings in downtown Raleigh on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018. Double Barrel Benefit is a concert hosted by NC States student-led radio station, 88.1 WKNC. The proceeds of the concert from admission and merchandise help the radio station stay open and function during the year.
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Letter to the Editor

The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ...
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global invention process is fundamentally flawed. From patent attorneys, to United States Patent and Trademark bureaucracy, to the lack of affordable intellectual property analysts, there is a widespread need for the ability to quickly and comprehensively search for intellectual property and to put those results to work to propel innovation forward.



LOCI, the leading invention platform offering innovators the ability to seamlessly search, analyze, protect and monetize their ideas, today announced its latest feature to the platform, LOCI Provisional Patent Application Filing. The new LOCI Provisional Patent feature assists inventors in quickly and efficiently filing provisional patent applications in one sleek platform, alleviating the traditionally complicated and time consuming process.

The LOCI platform has expanded to include the next large piece of the puzzle, assisting inventors in filing provisional patent applications. LOCI Provisional Patent makes the patent process simple and intuitive by providing simple questions to elicit substantive responses from the inventor about his or her work.

The LOCI platform includes the following capabilities:

LOCI Search: Now a completely free feature in the platform, allows inventors to visually search the global database of millions of patents and documents for existing ideas and potential prior art using a beautiful Venn diagram.



Now a completely free feature in the platform, allows inventors to visually search the global database of millions of patents and documents for existing ideas and potential prior art using a beautiful Venn diagram. LOCI Invention Analysis: An affordable tool allowing inventors to receive detailed analysis of the novelty of their idea. This analysis comes with a simple 0-100 LOCI Score indicating the originality of an idea, plus loads of supporting data to provide additional insight and ideas, all powered by machine learning and data analytics, to help inventors refine and prepare their inventions for patenting.



An affordable tool allowing inventors to receive detailed analysis of the novelty of their idea. This analysis comes with a simple 0-100 LOCI Score indicating the originality of an idea, plus loads of supporting data to provide additional insight and ideas, all powered by machine learning and data analytics, to help inventors refine and prepare their inventions for patenting. LOCI Provisional Patent: For platform users that have just completed an Invention Analysis of an idea that they wish to patent, the LOCI system will generate an auto-filled application that inventors only need to review and approve before filing with the U.S. Patent Office, and/or staking on the Ethereum Blockchain. With this new capability, the LOCI Platform has become an official one-stop-shop for aspiring inventors far and wide.



For platform users that have just completed an Invention Analysis of an idea that they wish to patent, the LOCI system will generate an auto-filled application that inventors only need to review and approve before filing with the U.S. Patent Office, and/or staking on the Ethereum Blockchain. With this new capability, the LOCI Platform has become an official one-stop-shop for aspiring inventors far and wide. LOCI Marketplace: The LOCI Platform also provides inventors with assistance to sell, license, or otherwise monetize their ideas.

We are ecstatic to introduce LOCI Provisional Patent as a revolutionary capability for inventors, said John Wise, CEO of LOCI. The LOCI Platform is truly a one-stop-shop, creating a completely unique resource in the space where inventors can quickly and painlessly search, analyze, protect and monetize their ideas. I have witnessed firsthand how difficult the patent process can be, but now with LOCI, we aim to foster brilliant ideas and inspire inventors.

To learn more about LOCI, visit LOCI.IO . To begin using the live LOCI products, visit LOCISEARCH.COM to create an account.

About LOCI

LOCI is a suite of applications intended to disrupt and revolutionize the global patent industry for inventors as well as governments, institutions, and law firms. The platform features a free state of the art patent search engine which allows anyone to see visually where various inventions land within the digital patent landscape, an Invention Analysis tool which gives an in-depth assessment of the novelty of new ideas in a way never before possible, and now a Provisional Patent Application Filing process built right into the platform. All of this is leading up to an innovative Marketplace for Ideas facilitated by LOCIcoin tokens, where users can buy, sell, and license ideas on the blockchain.

Media Contact

Evan Sneider

Red Rooster PR

esneider@redroosterpr.com

+1-954-673-6835

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/be563639-54ea-430a-990a-e31af3b9ad5d
The Andalusian Rescue Centre for Horses (ARCH) is celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. Founded in 2009 by president Jill Newman Rogers and a group of horse-loving friends, the charity has since rescued, cared for and re-homed more than 300 horses and donkeys.

More information : ARCH is currently looking for more volunteers. Visit www.horserescuespain.org

Situated on the outskirts of Alhaurin el Grande, the charity works with the Spanish animal protection authorities to combat the ongoing problem of abuse and neglect. It also works closely with the legal team that supports the Refugio del Burrito donkey sanctuary, as many of the rescues involve long and complicated court cases.

The rescue centre is staffed by a band of dedicated volunteers. Some have extensive experience in the horse world, while others are people who simply love animals and offer help in the stables and with fundraising projects.

The volunteers care for as many as 15 animals at any given time and their only reward comes from bringing the animals back to health and finding them loving homes.

There is also an enthusiastic team that runs the ARCH charity shop in Alhaurin el Grande, and their efforts provide much-needed finances for the horses and donkeys in the charity's care.

"The vet cried after witnessing the cruelty to horses" The charity was recently involved in a rescue operation with the Seville organisation Caballos Luna (Seville), when it saved 21 animals from a farm in Villanueva de Algaidas. Following an anonymous tip-off, members of ARCH arrived to find the animals surrounded by excrement and carcasses. Jill Newman Rogers told SUR in English of the horrendous scene they faced on arrival at the farm. "We managed to save 21 horses, donkeys and mules, and one dog, but many others were dead. The veterinary surgeon who accompanied us had tears in his eyes after witnessing the cruelty these helpless animals had suffered."

"Heartbreaking struggle"

Jill Newman Rogers explained that the work is a "continuous uphill and often heartbreaking struggle".

"We help them because they have no voice of their own. Some of the cases we are asked to help are victims of unbelievable cruelty: horses that have gone blind through being kept in dark and restricted conditions; others with hooves grown so long they can't walk; neglected injuries which have resulted in severe physical damage; and emotional abuse that has made the animal traumatised and untrusting of humans," Jill explained to SUR in English.

The charity's welfare project relies on the support of animal lovers across the globe, and the local community and businesses; it is with this help that it is able to continue to provide relief to abused horses.

Once the animals are fit and healthy, ARCH then offers them to "forever homes" or for fostering. The charity also offers help and advice on obtaining a permit from the Junta de Andalucia that allows potential owners to keep horses on their land, while those adopting from outside Spain will receive assistance with the necessary paperwork and recommendations of specialised transportation services.

"Adopters are carefully chosen and given continual support. Should an adoption not work out for any reason, then the animal comes back to ARCH. Sadly, some rescues don't make it but at least their last days are filled with love and affection," the president said.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, ARCH has organised a special open day with live music, a fun dog show and barbecue, which will be held at the rescue centre on Easter Saturday (20 April).

The charity is also appearing on the Channel 5 reality TV series, Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun. A film crew visited the Costa del Sol last summer to make a feature about ARCH and the episodes will be shown on Thursday 31 January and Thursday 14 February.
Tauranga race track has been spared the axe, in a major shakeup of the thoroughbred racing industry that proposes shutting down 21 race tracks around the country by 2030.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has released its Future Venue Plan and is now seeking feedback from the racing industry.

Currently 48 thoroughbred tracks hold race meetings.

The proposal is to reduce that to just 27 by 2030.

Racing clubs will not be closing down, only the race tracks, with the industry body encouraging clubs to hold their race meets at tracks that remain open.

The proposal is to sell the tracks slated for closure and some of the proceeds to be used to upgrade facilities.

Its part of recommendations of a review of the industry by Australian racing identity John Massara.

The move comes as the industry struggles with rising costs, some venues needing major upgrades and stagnating stakes.

Racing Tauranga chairman Frank Vosper is excited and says the changes have to happen for the racing industry to survive.

But he says some of the tracks identified for closure will fight to stay open.

Parochialism is still in the way of the industry, says Frank.

A lot of problems faced by clubs around the country is the cost of maintaining the facilities.

We in Tauranga will not be getting the chop, we are doing well. Weve got the population growth and greenspace where we are.

We want to grow the facility, use it more as a venue for other events not just racing.

Theres some exciting opportunities and because of our population I think we will survive.

Frank says the board has some exciting ideas going forward such as improving members facilities and developing the venue as a conference center.

We want to be on the front foot going forward with the Massara report and drive it rather than being driven.

One of the major recommendations in the Messara review was to close 20 tracks.

It slated closure of Dargaville, Avondale, Thames, Rotorua, Wairoa, Stratford, Hawera, Waipukurau, Woodville, Reefton, Greymouth, Hokitika, Motukarara, Timaru, Kurow, Oamaru, Waimate, Omakau, Winton, and Gore.
Bay of Plenty

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Auckland

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Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view.
Port Richey, FL (34668)

Today

More clouds than sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 77F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
Gov. Ron DeSantis says that these issues are important to him. He has proposed establishing an Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection to deliver money, technical assistance and coordination with communities in planning for sea-level rise. There is an opportunity to augment these initiatives with the development of a statewide resiliency strategy.
Hill says he got interested in the issue after a legal challenge was mounted to a large cross at a public park in Pensacola. The city was sued in 2016 by several people who said the cross was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Of course, Hills proposed bill would do nothing to stop someone from filing a federal lawsuit.
"She is just a great spokesperson. She is an incredible leader. She has led the charge for voting rights, which is at the root of just about everything else," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who, along with other Democrats, is urging Abrams to challenge Republican Sen. David Perdue, one of Trump's most outspoken allies on Capitol Hill. "She knows what working people, the middle class, go through."
TALLAHASSEE  Authorities say two Florida teens have been charged with threatening to shoot up their school.



A Leon County Sheriff's Office news release said Monday that the boys, ages 13 and 14, face felony charges of making written threats to do harm at Governor's Charter Academy in Tallahassee.



Officials say the threats were made on an internal school app used to chat with other students and teachers. One boy wrote that he wanted to commit a shooting "like the man that shot up Parkland High," a reference to the killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Authorities say the other student replied, asking if he could join the shooting.



Authorities say no weapons were found and the students had no apparent plan to actually commit any violence.



Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The failure to act jeopardizes our vitality as a state, the governor said. Look at what happened this past summer with the red tide in places like southwest Florida. It wasnt just that it didnt look good. It had an economic effect. It had an effect on the quality of life. The algae blooms have had an effect on property values. And of course the Everglades has been something weve been talking about for a long time. There have been steps taken, but I think people really want to see this brought to fruition.
Defense lawyer Joe Nascimento said Wickerstar was wrong to go online, but he still did not discuss any details of the case. The Reddit post revealed that its a death-penalty case and implies that he was the lone not guilty holdout before conviction, but no other details are shared  the timing of the murders, the names of the victims and defendant, the location and the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecutions case were not discussed.
Authorities ask anyone with information on the gunmans identity or his whereabouts to call the FBI at 754-703-2000 or contact Broward Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 954-493-8477 or online at www.browardcrimestoppers.org. Tips that lead to an arrest are eligible for a reward of up to $3,000.
This is what was left of a customized 2005 Acura TL owned by a Miami Beach man, Matt Olechnowicz, after it fell about nine stories inside a downtown Miami parking garage Tuesday evening, Jan. 29, 2019, and burst into flames. The car was almost like a kid to me, he told WPLG. (Miami Fire Rescue via the Miami Herald)
Officers encountered a man who appeared impaired by drugs or alcohol and said he was going through hard times because his wife had left him, police said. While officers searched him, the man pulled a gun from the pocket of his shorts and shot himself in his head.
In a series of tweets, U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Coral Gables) said she chose to host Guac the 3D Activist statue in my DC office this week to stand in solidarity with the families who lost a loved one to gun violence.
Tony said Wednesday: Col. Zukowsky is a strong leader who will serve the Broward Sheriffs Office and Broward County well. I am especially impressed with his management and leadership principles, his high tempo operational experience and his sound ethical values. He is a seasoned administrator who brings forth a wealth of professional command experience. I know his knowledge will be beneficial in carrying out my vision for BSO.
Among the issues Kaplan said the court challenge could raise are whether a suspension is appropriate for a new governor or only the governor at the time the alleged neglect of duty or incompetency rose, whether or not a newly elected governor could come in after the fact and utilize this removal process as a house cleaning tool to undermine the integrity of the democratic process to allow the voters to decide as to whether or not Scott Israel should remain or should be voted out.
Kelly Armstrong said he follows politics more than the average person. He heard about the rally on the radio and was curious more than anything else, he said. So he drove down from Boca Raton to see what it was all about.
But its not certain theres enough time to have the proposed tower in operation by the end of the year. The tower needs to be designed once an engineering study is done and the plans have to receive federal approval. The county must also reach a lease agreement with the owner, who would also have to agree to the construction and architectural plans.
Stark, who chairs both the Florida Jewish Legislative Caucus and Broward County Legislative Delegation, said of this recent honor, "I do a lot of work on things that affect the Jewish community, so to be recognized by your peers for trying to do everything for the betterment of the community is a very humbling and very honorable experience."
The human toll of extreme cold, especially for vulnerable groups like the poor, elderly and children, cannot be underestimated, said JDC CEO David M. Schizer. As parts of America are plunged again into dangerous temperatures, the warm home and clothing we take for granted is often out of reach for those on the margins of society, like elderly Jews in places like the former Soviet Union.
In response to the Shuafat video, Asaf Romirowskya senior non-resident fellow at the BESA Center (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies), a fellow at the Middle East Forum and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle Eastsays that Shuafat exemplifies the stasis UNRWA has manufactured. What UNRWA should be doing is putting political pressure on countries to integrate Palestinians, who have lived there for decades. This would be a better strategy than continuing to fund an agency solely designed to maintain them in limbo. And yet, UNRWA does the opposite. It perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem in order to perpetuate itself.
Other advertisements for the exhibition also shockingly downplay the Jewish character of Jerusalem. A model of Al-Aqsa mosque is touted in a promotional brochure as one of the exhibitions main attractions, instead of any Jewish site. Likewise, the Zionist movement and Israel were portrayed as aggressors that wrested control over Jerusalem from the Palestinians
Rebecca Margolis, president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, told the BBC: This invaluable report offers a documented confirmation of the fears felt so acutely and expressed by so many Canadian Jews during the Second World War: that the Nazis would land on our shores and with them, the annihilation of Jewish life here.
[Reporters note: Since this story was posted, Service America has forwarded contact information for 4,693 customers with unclaimed refunds totaling more than $878,000 to the Florida Division of Unclaimed Property. See this story for further information. Former customers who believe they are owed money can look up their names at www.FLTreasureHunt.org. Refunds are no longer available by contacting Ken Stoll through the phone number or email posted in the following story.]
Cord-cutting trend expected to nearly double broadband-only homes in U.S. over the next five years

Broadband households without legacy multichannel expected to hit over 40 million by 2023

MONTEREY, Calif.( )

Broadband-only households are set to grow from 23.3 million in 2018 to 40.8 million by 2023, according to estimates from Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"The steep upward trend of due to 'cord-cutting' is not surprising given the abundance of online video services on the market, although this could be a circular argument, with more companies jumping on the streaming video bandwagon in response to the growing broadband-only market," said Tony Lenoir, Senior Kagan Research Analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Kagan expects the segment of broadband homes without a traditional multichannel subscription to account for nearly one-third of U.S. households in the next five years.

Findings show that over-the-top (OTT) products, whether subscription video on demand, direct-to-consumer or virtual multichannel, are offered at competitive prices which is a major factor fueling cord-cutting in a context of affordability. Other reasons for the strong projection of broadband-only growth include the ease of joining and cancelling online streaming services. They typically do not require contracts.

Mr. Lenoir added, "The value proposition of streaming video services touches a chord with the average consumer. The vast majority of streaming services offer free trial periods, effectively allowing consumers to shop around while bypassing hardware hassles associated with legacy video distribution. This coupled with the fact that streaming services are typically screen-agnostic and seamlessly portable, offer individual, customized consumption for customers."

Additional takeaways from Kagan's broadband-only home outlook:

Kagan expects broadband-only homes, or households without a traditional multichannel video package but a subscription to wireline broadband, to rise at an 11.9% compound annual growth rate from 2018 to 2023.

Broadband-only homes are set to account for 41.7% of wireline broadband households by 2023. Kagan expects cable and telco broadband to serve nearly 75% of U.S. households by that time.

About S&P Global Market Intelligence

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Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
For us, the choice for president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen comes down to two viable options, Jamilah Nasheed or the incumbent, and no
How do you feel about the new Major League Baseball rules?

A runner on second in extra innings? 7-inning double headers? When does football start?

The game has changed over the years.Hopefully these changes will speed it up.

Is baseball the one where you hit touchdowns? View Results
Ashtabula, OH (44004)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Variable clouds with thunderstorms, especially early. A few storms may be severe. Low 71F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
Milton, PA (17847)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy after midnight. Low 67F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
by Oshan M. Gunathilake





Reparation is a pressing need for thousands of families





The Office for Reparations was one of the key commitments by the Government of Sri Lanka towards its Transitional Justice and Reconciliation mechanisms  which was brought under the UNHRC 30/1 Resolution. In October 2018, the Parliament passed the relevant act for the implementation of the Office and in January 2019, applications for the members of the office were advertised to the public. Aligning to these developments, as responsible citizens of the country it is important to have an understanding of the current need for the Office for Reparations, in order to build reconciliation and heal the old scars of our nation.













A story from the North: Maivilis hopes for reparation





If I go for tuition I will pass the scholarship examination a young girl remains hopeful against all odds. Maivili is a nine-year-old girl who is seeking help to better her academic prospects.

Who is Maivili? And, where are her parents?Maivili is a daughter of a disappeared father. Maivilis father Krishnapagalanwas forced by aterrorist organisation to run menial errands. He surrendered to the military through Father JoshepFransisat in Mullivaykkal 18th of May 2009 when Maivili was just a baby that was two months old.





I have never seen my father. I seethat my father was there at my brothers 1st birthday through photos. But he was not there for my 1st birthday. I did not spend any of my birthdays with my father,Maivilistill craves her fathers love. Her tears melt our hearts.





Maivili lives in Selvanagar, Kilinochchi with her mother and two brothers. Her mother was a teacher at Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalaya and she received a very small-scale salary.





I lost my husband. I have no other financial support to bring up my children. I have three children. All three of them are minors, Maivilis mother laments.





Maiviliis in Grade 4 and is supposed to sit for the scholarship examinations next year. I study well. I wish to pass the scholarship exams like my brother. My mother used to teach me. But now she is sick, and she cant teach me. I want to go for tuition. But as I dont have my father with me, there is no one to pay my tuitions fees for me...





Maivilis mother is a dialysis patient. She cannot work anymore because of kidney failure. Unfortunately, she does not have any other financial support.





I am worried about my health. If anything happens to me, my children will be orphans and their education will be stopped and their life will be a question mark... she cries.





After informing them about the establishment of the Office of Reparations





If you give money to us soon, I will be able to go to the tuitions...says a smiling Maivili. It is easy to see the happiness in her eyes at the hope of a better education.





We lost everything during the war. My husband was not a LTTE member. But he was compelled to run some errands for the LTTE. So, he did. When the government asked to surrender all the people who have connections with LTTE, he surrendered. That was the last day, I saw him. I faced huge difficulties without him. Maivili was a two months old baby then... she explained.





We were not provided with any compensation. He was the only breadwinner of my family. After he disappeared, I started to work. I had gone through a very painful life as I needed to look after my three children solely. The Office should have been established earlier. However, we are really happy about this new initiative. There are thousands of mothers like me. They can get some kind of assistance/support through the Office she warmly welcomes the Office of Reparations.





I will be more than happy if we can get reparations. I see reparations not only as monetary compensation but also as an acknowledgment of the state for our grievances. If anything, bad happens to me, then at least I will have a hope that even my children will be compensated for their fathers loss and they can use the money for their future...





A story from the South: A grieving mother  Babynona Peiris





I suffered a lot. My happiness is gone with my sons. They took my sons by force. I was very unlucky as even I was not able to do the final rituals for my sons - PeliyagodagamaBabynona cries.

PeliyagodagamaBabynona aged 84 is a victim of JVP insurgencies. She lives in Akuressa, Matara. She had 3 sons and has 4 daughters. P.C. Somasiri (age 26) and P. C. Ariyadhasa (age 23), the two eldest sons had been married and the younger one, P.C.Siripala (age 19) was single at the time of the incident. On 2nd of December 1988, they had been abducted by a group of JVP insurgents and they never return home. Babynona had gone through innumerable hardships in her life since all her three sons were disappeared. She lost all of her sons (breadwinners) within a day. She had experienced the real bitterness of life while bringing up the remaining four daughters.





I did not have any ways to send my daughters to school. My sons were saving for their sisters; education. After I lost my sons, my daughters had to stop their education though they were interested in studying Babynona laments.





Babynonas four daughters had to stop schooling as they had no means to send them to the school. Babynona was a labourer who was unable to earn much with her meagre wages.





The two wives of the two elder sons were in great shock due to the forced disappearance of their husbands and they had no means of earning. This added an extra burden to Babynona, but she took care of both wives of her sons amid all troubles.





Babynona said that while wives of two elder sons received 50,000 rupees as compensation money for each, she had only received 25,000 for her younger son who was not married. This wouldnt have been enough to take care of her big family.





I received only 25,000. I dont remember when exactly I received it. But I received it after many years of the incident. I was helpless soon after the incident. It would be much great if I could receive any assistance, support or compensation soon after I lost my sons.





Further, she explained that there were a large number of mothers from the South who were not provided reparations for their lost children. Many of them still live with difficulties. She appreciates the initiative to establish the Office for Reparations. She requested the Office for Reparations be established before she dies as she still believes that she has not received adequate reparations for her loss.




The non-initiation of dialogue is an immense disservice to our security forces. The momentum of internal talks must be matched by reviving the same with Pakistan





by Ashok K Mehta





A deeply poignant moment of the 70th Republic Day parade was the spellbinding citation of Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani for the award of the Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime gallantry award, which is a terrible misnomer in war-ravaged Kashmir. A terrorist-turned-soldier, Wani is the first Kashmiri to bag this medal for conspicuous valour. Having won two Sena Medals earlier, he is the bravest son of the soil. An equally poignant moment was captured in the highly emotive picture of Wanis Commanding Officer of Rashtriya Rifles battalion clutching his father, consoling him. Kashmiri soldiers and terrorists gunning for each other is not a new normal in the Valley. The stunning irony of this epic encounter is that very few, if any, Kashmiris are celebrating his martyrdom for fear of reprisals. Only a handful attended his funeral in Kulgam; whereas when another Wani, Kashmirs poster boy, Burhan Wani, was killed in 2016 by the security forces, crowds of sympathisers, fellow terrorists and overground workers were among an unprecedented 30,000 (by one account) and 150,000 (by another estimate) mourners. Such is the striking chasm in commemorating trauma and tragedy in Kashmir.









Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik was right. It is not the militants that have to be killed but militancy. Military commanders in the State have for long been agonised over this dilemma  body count but also securing the support of the people. Unfortunately, local support is diminishing, converting to public disrupting military operations to enable the terrorists escape. And when they are killed, it is the same civilians who publicly glorify their martyrdom. But no Kashmiri leader  no one  had a word of praise for soldier Wanis bravery and sacrifice.





When terrorist Wani was being described as a cat with nine lives, he was also being paired with the academic hotshot, UPSC topper Shah Faesal  two Kashmiris on divergent paths to stardom. While Faesal has abandoned the civil service for politics, for reasons he has principally attributed to the environment of siege in Kashmir, he has said a lot more: Like the roots of conflict are deeper than mere radicalisation; Kashmir is not a development issue (even as the Governor was promising 40 new colleges and five medical colleges); Hurriyat is a stakeholder and without its participation, a peace process is unrealisticFaesal has been more blunt in admitting he quit his Government job to protest the unabated killings in Kashmir, subversion of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Reserve Bank of India and National Investigation Agency; and marginalisation of Muslims. We will see if he becomes a topper in politics.





Another Wani, journalist Khurshid Wani, who writes for The Pioneer, declared 2018 annus horribilis. On Republic Day, he noted: Transition of power four times, highest levels of violence in a decade, lowest economic activity and unending political uncertainty marked one of the most tumultuous years in the recent history of Jammu & Kashmir.





For the security forces, though, there was cause to celebrate. With the elimination of three remaining terrorists, Baramulla became the first of 13 police districts in Kashmir to become militant-free. The last time a district was declared militant-free was Kulgam in 2008 but that was short-lived. Srinagar Corps Commander, Lt Gen Anil Bhatt, who was awarded UYSM on Republic Day, hailed the Ramzan ceasefire, the holding of local elections and the extending duration of an incident-free Amarnath Yatra as outstanding achievements of 2018. Further, accounting for 257 terrorists at an attrition rate of 1:8 (soldiers:terrorist), capturing 54 terrorists and killing 26 terrorist leaders are highest military successes since 2010. Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat is pleased with the strong counter-infiltration grid; though 140 infiltrators got through while nearly 100 were killed. Rawat asked: Will Faesal ask misguided youth to give up the gun? In tit-for-tat killings, the advantage was claimed by Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, Army Commander in Jammu & Kashmir and the mentor of surgical strikes. Revenge for Pakistan taking out our soldiers with sniper fire has been taken with interest, he said.





The military continues with its mission of ridding the Valley of terrorists  bringing down the threat from the present 300 terrorists to zero and declaring the Valley terrorist-free while simultaneously regaining local support to bring back normalcy. Alienation and Islamist radicalisation are galloping ahead without any effective steps to arrest their momentum and rollback. A former BSF intelligence chief, SS Guleria, has said Salafism backed by Pakistan has sounded the death knell of Kashmiriyat, which is being eroded by a fanatic Islam, and Wahabi preachers are systematically propagating the Salafi ideology among village youth on Fridays and encouraging students to hate non-Muslims. The Hurriyat, Jamaat-e-Islami, Ahl-i-Hadith and other similar organisations have spread extremist ideologies in the Valley. Guleria has recommended the re-opening of cinemas, bars and liquor shops as well as staging concerts, playing IPL matches and restructuring the madrasa curriculum. It is time to target the instigators/abettors of violence and hatred.





The overall picture at the beginning of 2019 is bleak and chilly as the weather in the Valley. Every couple of years, say in a decade, the clock moves a full circle. Security forces do what they are best at: Putting the lid on violence and reducing the terrorist population to a manageable level. In other words, creating conditions conducive to resuming a political process with all stakeholders, including the Hurriyat. Non-initiation of dialogue is immense disservice to the security forces, who ultimately carry the can. The momentum of internal dialogue has to be backed up with reviving the talks process with Pakistan. Ideally, the two have to operate in tandem. Pakistan Army Chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has reportedly sent feelers for talks to Gen Rawat, who is ready to take a leap of faith. After the Central elections and elections in





Jammu & Kashmir, both strands of the Kashmir dialogue can be started sometime in mid-2019. The start of a peace process in Afghanistan shows there is no military solution.





Radha Kumar noted in her book, Paradise at War: For the sake of Kashmiris, we must hope that a peace agreement is arrived at, sooner than later. The state of conflict in which theyve had to live for the past 30 years with only brief interregnums of peace is intolerable. A young Kashmiri architect told Kumar recently: I just want to be left alone in my Kashmir. Given the 70 years of India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, that might be too much to ask. But that should not be, Kumar concludes.





(The writer is a retired Major General of the Indian Army and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the revamped Integrated Defence Staff)
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Maduro says military deserters plotting coup from Colombia (lead)



Caracas, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused military deserters of having become "mercenaries" conspiring from Colombia to divide the armed forces and plot a coup.

"Military deserters have become mercenaries of the Colombian oligarchy and conspire from Colombia to divide the armed forces," Maduro said, without providing further details, as he led a march of 2,500 soldiers at a barracks in Caracas on the same day as a demonstration called by the opposition.

Maduro is in the midst of a standoff with Juan Guaido, the leader of the opposition-held National Assembly who last week declared himself interim president.

Washington threw its weight behind Guaido's claim, having previously termed as fraudulent the May 2018 election that saw Maduro win a second term.

Several European powers meanwhile have given Maduro an ultimatum to hold fresh elections or they too will recognize Guaido.

To keep up the pressure, Guaido has called mass demonstrations against the government this week, and has appealed to the powerful military to change sides, offering amnesty to those who do.

Maduro said Wednesday he would be willing to negotiate with the opposition and hold early congressional elections, in a concession as opponents plan another big demonstration.

But at the same time, he dismissed the possibility of holding a new presidential poll anytime soon.

At least 40 people have been killed in clashes with security forces nationwide and at least 850 arrested since January 21 when a brief military rebellion was put down in Caracas, according to the UN human rights office in Geneva.
C. Africa Republic peace talks stumble over militia amnesty



Bangui, Central African Republic, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



The Central African Republic's government and armed militias who control most of the country held more peace talks on Wednesday but an amnesty proposal is impeding progress, sources close to the negotiations said.

The Central African Republic fell into crisis in 2012 after violence erupted from a mainly Muslim rebel insurgency known as the Seleka that sparked the creation of rival Christian militias known as the anti-Balaka.

The new talks, which started last week with senior CAR officials and rebel chiefs in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, came after seven previous rounds failed to reach a lasting agreement.

Talks have focussed since Monday on the demands of the 14 armed groups, notably the formation of a unity government and the amnesty proposal for warlords, national television TVCA reported.

CAR authorities have always rejected an amnesty for militia commanders, many of whom face UN sanctions or human rights accusations.

"After a detailed review of a draft peace proposal we realise that the fundamental and key points of our demands have not been taken into account," one anti-Balaka militia representative told AFP.

A representative of the FPRC, the country's largest armed group, said that as the talks currently stand, "we will be rejecting the deal and everyone will be going home."

Sudanese authorities say the talks in Khartoum could last up to three weeks.

CAR's crisis deepened in March 2013, after a power-sharing deal with the government collapsed, and the Seleka entered the capital Bangui to force president Francois Bozize, a Christian, from power.

Former colonial ruler France intervened militarily under a UN mandate, pushing the Seleka from power, and President Faustin-Archange Touadera was elected in February 2016.

But his government controls only a fraction of the state, despite the support of more than 13,000 troops and police in the UN's MINUSCA mission.

Most of CAR is in the hands of militias, who often portray themselves as defenders of their own religious group but fight turf wars over cattle or mineral wealth, including gold, uranium and diamonds.

Thousands of people have been killed and a quarter of the population of 4.5 million have fled their homes because of the violence.
US calls for Russian, Chinese nuclear transparency (lead)



Beijing, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



The United States accused Russia and China of not fully reporting their nuclear programmes Wednesday and called for more transparency, amid US threats to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.

A senior US official made the remarks as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- all of them nuclear-armed powers -- met in Beijing for talks on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Andrea Thompson, US under secretary for arms control and international security, said there were "uneven results" in efforts to advance transparency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"We previously agreed to set (a) format for reporting, but the gap between the reports of the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, is great," Thompson said in her opening remarks.

"I cannot overemphasise the value of transparency," she said.

Officials from Russia, China, France and Britain -- countries under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty -- also attended the meeting, which will continue on Thursday.

Russia has also proposed holding a new round of talks with the US in Beijing on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) -- a source of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington.

"If Americans accept our proposal, they (the talks) will take place," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday.

The talks, if conducted, would come just before the February 2 expiration date of US President Donald Trump's 60-day deadline to start withdrawing from the INF treaty.

Signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the arms control agreement is now under threat, with Washington accusing Russia of violating the treaty.

Trump has promised to withdraw from the agreement, while President Vladimir Putin has threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

Earlier this month, talks in Geneva between senior diplomats from both countries fell through as Washington and Moscow blamed each other for pushing the INF treaty to the brink of collapse.

Last week, Russia unveiled its missile system in a bid to reassure foreign officials that its weapons were in compliance with the arms control agreement.

But Washington has said the missile system should be destroyed in a verifiable manner if Moscow wants to keep the INF alive.

At Wednesday's conference in Beijing, deputy Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed to "the spread of unilateral attitudes" as a threat to nuclear non-proliferation.

"Many issues continue to be unsettled due to the lack of political will," he added, and said that there is an "evident lack of mutual trust" between the five NPT states.

"This (NPT) regime is being loosened, which is fraught with serious and negative impacts for nuclear non-proliferation," he said.
Iran's Rouhani tells critics: blame 'oath-breaker' US



Tehran, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



Iran's President Hassan Rouhani slammed his critics on Wednesday, defending the political achievements of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and calling the US an "oath-breaker".

"One should not condemn the government or the great Islamic system instead of America -- this is the greatest damage that can be done," he said on state TV.

Hardliners have repeatedly hammered the 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers since the early stages of negotiations, calling it a fool's errand and a deception.

They contend that Iran has gained nothing from the agreement despite complying with its restrictions on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, intensifying their criticism after Washington withdrew from the treaty last year.

Speaking during an annual ceremony of allegiance to the late founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Rouhani said: "America has not been an oath-breaker only to us, but also to Europe, China, NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)."

President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the deal -- technically called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- last May, reimposing punishing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Washington also withdrew from the TPP trade agreement in 2016, the Paris Agreement on climate change control the next year and forced Canada and Mexico to renegotiate and sign a new deal in 2018 replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The other parties to the Iran nuclear deal -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia along with the European Union -- have insisted it remains in force and is working.

Rouhani took another jab at opponents who have criticised Iranian diplomats' lack of foresight over not predicting the US withdrawal.

"No agreement is based on whether the other party remains, but the main basis is the country's interests," he said.

He ended his speech by calling for "unity", saying Khomeini's main concern was not foreign forces but domestic "discord".
Three Iraqis held for 'Islamist attack' plot in Germany



Berlin, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



German police commandos Wednesday arrested three Iraqis suspected of planning an Islamist attack using explosives, a gun and a vehicle.

Two of the men had "decided in late 2018 to carry out an Islamist attack in Germany,a" prosecutors said in a statement.

"According to the investigation so far, the accused had not yet chosen a target for their attack.

"Whether the accused belonged to a terrorist group must now be clarified."

The suspects were identified only as Shahin F. and Hersh F., both aged 23, and their alleged supporter, the 36-year-old Rauf S.

They were detained in early-morning raids in Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein state, near the Danish border.

Shahin F. had allegedly accessed bomb-building manuals online and asked a contact in Britain to send him a fuse, a plan that was however foiled by UK police.

He and Hersh F. had also collected explosive material from fireworks, said authorities.

And they had asked Rauf to procure a gun, but rejected as too expensive a Makarov 9mm weapon on offer from a man identified as Walid Khaled Y.Y. in the statement.

Because the Iraqi men had wanted to use a vehicle in their attack, Shahin F. had also started driving lessons early this year, said prosecutors.

Police also carried out related raids in the states of Mecklenburg-Pommerania and Baden-Wuerttemberg.

News site Spiegel Online reported, quoting unnamed security sources, that the men had arrived in Germany in the autumn of 2015, at the height of the refugee influx that brought over a million asylum seekers.

One of the suspects had allegedly spoken of wanting to target the largest possible group of "non-believers, but not children", Spiegel Online said.
US calls for Russian, Chinese nuclear transparency



Beijing, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



The United States called for more transparency Wednesday as it accused Russia and China of not fully reporting their nuclear programmes amid US threats to withdraw from a key arms control treaty.

A senior US official made the remarks as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- all of them nuclear-armed powers -- met in Beijing for talks on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Andrea Thompson, US under secretary for arms control and international security, said there were "uneven results" in efforts to advance transparency under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

"We previously agreed to set (a) format for reporting, but the gap between the reports of the United States on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other, is great," Thompson said in her opening remarks.

"I cannot overemphasise the value of transparency," she said.

"We look forward to discussing how we can enhance transparency with a view to reassuring others of the very real steps we are taking to ensure full and verifiable compliance with our arms control non-proliferation and disarmament commitments and obligations."

Officials from Russia, China, France and Britain -- countries under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty -- also attended the meeting, which will continue on Thursday.

The talks come after months of raging tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

US President Donald Trump has promised to walk away from the agreement while President Vladimir Putin has threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.

Earlier this month, talks in Geneva between senior diplomats from both countries fell through as Washington and Moscow blamed each other for pushing the INF treaty to the brink of collapse.

Last week, Russia unveiled its missile system in a bid to reassure foreign officials that its weapon was in compliance with the INF treaty.

But Washington has said the missile system should be destroyed in a verifiable manner if Moscow wants to keep the INF alive.

At Wednesday's conference in Beijing, deputy Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov pointed at "the spread of unilateral attitudes" as a threat to nuclear non-proliferation.

"Many issues continue to be unsettled due to the lack of political will," he added, and said that there is an "evident lack of mutual trust" between the five NPT states.

"This (NPT) regime is being loosened, which is fraught with serious and negative impacts for nuclear non-proliferation," he said.
Captured Irish jihadist tells of dying days of 'caliphate'



Hasakeh, Syria, Jan 30 (AFP) Jan 30, 2019



From detention in northern Syria, alleged Irish jihadist Alexandr Bekmirzaev describes hunger and fear as missiles pounded down on the last shreds of the Islamic State group's "caliphate".

"I thought we were going to die from the starvation," the Muslim convert, 46 this year, told AFP in English, captured after fleeing the extremist group's crumbling last pocket in eastern Syria.

Bekmirzaev said he fled into territory held by Kurdish-led forces, who detained him along with four other alleged foreign jihadists late last month.

Backed by air strikes of the US-led coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have since September been whittling down the last IS holdout near the Iraqi border.

Brought in for an interview by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) who are still interrogating him, the detainee described watching the IS stronghold collapse around him.

The hundreds of suspected jihadists captured by the SDF are usually keen to be sent home.

The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria also wants to send the prisoners back for trial, but governments in their countries of origin are often reluctant.

France said Tuesday for the first time that French jihadists held by Kurdish forces in Syria could be allowed to return home.

"We are examining all options to avoid the escape and scattering of these potentially dangerous individuals," the French foreign ministry said.



- 'Bombing, bombing' -



Bekmirzaev was detained by SDF forces on suspicion of being a fighter trying to blend in with fleeing civilians, with the aim of escaping and then setting up IS sleeper cells to carry out further attacks.

He insisted he had never carried a weapon for Islamic State -- but his claim could not be verified by AFP.

Since summer, there had been "bombing, bombing, bombing" on a near-daily basis, said Bekmirzaev, who was born to an Uzbek father and Belarusian mother.

With the so-called Hajin pocket encircled by the SDF, there was no flour in the market, and meat was prohibitively expensive, he said.

Bekmirzaev said he, his wife and five-year-old son were forced to eat bread made with wheat husks, what little the neighbours gave them, and sometimes grass.

"Vegetables? You wish. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. This is grass we eat," said the bearded man.

As US-backed fighters advanced inside the jihadist pocket, taking village after village, Bekmirzaev and his family were forced to flee deeper into jihadist-held territory.



- Kids crying -



"I left my home because the SDF approach probably around 800 metres from my house" in the village of Kishmeh, he said.

He and his family fled south along the eastern banks of the Euphrates River to the village of Al-Shaafa, he said, where they slept in a mosque.

From there, they again escaped in a large group including women and children, guided by a young man who helped them avoid landmines.

We thought, "if we go as a big group, it will be less dangerous, because they will see so many people, specially with the kids, kids crying," he said.

Bekmirzaev says he has been in Syria for five-and-a-half years, his Belarusian wife and son a little less.

He claims he never intended to fight for IS and worked as an ambulance worker for around a year in 2014-2015, but it is not clear what he did after that.

He also says an IS commander confiscated his passport, and he had already been thinking of escaping the jihadists with his family from as early as 2015.



- 'Mistake' -



Bekmirzaev says he converted to Islam in his early twenties in Uzbekistan, after a troubled period "drinking a lot, taking drugs" following a brother killing himself.

He then lived and worked in Ireland for more than a decade, selling menswear and as a nightclub bouncer, before becoming an Irish citizen in 2010.

But in 2012, a year after Syria's war started with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests, he lost his job.

He says he plunged into depression, to the backdrop of endless news reports about the conflict in Syria.

"I thought, 'I need to help to the Muslims' so I decide to come here," in September 2013, he said. Four months later, his wife and then 10-month-old son joined him.

IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq the following year, and the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a "caliphate" there.

But the jihadist group has since lost most of that territory to various offensives, and is down to its last fighters in what remains of its eastern holdout.

Bekmirzaev now describes his decision to come to Syria as a "mistake".

Disillusioned, he asked where the group's elusive leader was.

"Where is this guy called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Where is he? This is my question," he said.

"I didn't do anything," he claimed. "I want to go back to my country. I hope they won't abandon me."
Nancy Madsen has written for newspapers in Watertown, N.Y., and Mankato, as well as for PolitiFact Virginia at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va. Nancy is a graduate of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft at odds on face recognition. One is on the right path
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Enterprise, AL (36331)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy with late night showers or thunderstorms. Low 72F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
By Mata Press Service

Immigration Canada is being flooded with complaints after applicants trying to snap up spots for bringing parents or grandparents into the country under a new policy, were unable to access the system.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada opened up to applicants its online form for indicating interest in sponsoring a family member through the 2019 Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP) last Monday at 9 am PST.

It took just 10 minutes for all the 27,000 online application spots to be filled. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said over 100,000 individuals attempted to access the interest to sponsor form.

Terrible! I had 4 different computers available for this. By the time I submitted the application, it said that the form it was closed!! Wow as a public figure in this country I am going to ask for answers for all the thousands of people that they never got a chance to even apply! tweeted Patricia Jaggernauth.

Nisha Nigil tweeted; Feeling defeated. This is ridiculous. Have been trying to get into the application cycle for the past seven years. They need to come up with a better system. We need to start lobbying or campaigning for this.

There needs to be an independent audit of IRCC's PGP sponsorship process. What happened today was a joke at best, tweeted Samuel E. Ezebunandu.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Ahmed Hussen, said the government took steps to provide a first-in-first-served approach for 2019 after listening to and addressing concerns from clients and stakeholders about the previous intake process

This approach will further enhance the client experience by keeping the application process fair for all while remaining an easy-to-access electronic method for applicants, he said in a statement.

But for tens of thousands that was not the case.

I had my schedule cleared, computer set up, kept refreshing every few seconds. Form went from open to closed right away. This is not a concert ticket you are selling; this is about uniting families. The whole process is atrocious, said Naimul Khan.

As a family reunification program, the PGP Program gives Canadians and permanent residents the opportunity to have their parents and grandparents come to Canada to live permanently.

The PGP Program continues to be very popular, with continued high volumes in the interest to sponsor process. In 2018, after removing duplicates, the government received 93,836 interest to sponsor forms.

Consistently high admissions levels for parents and grandparents over the last few years has allowed the government to eliminate the application backlog. The application inventory has dropped from a peak of 167,000 people in 2011 to just over 28,000 people in October 2018.

Once invited, potential sponsors will have 60 calendar days from the date of their invitation to ensure IRCC receives their complete application for sponsorship.

Michelle Rempel, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship said the Liberal government is sending a very disturbing message to Canadians and newcomers: play by the rules and expect long delays and backlogs  if your application gets accepted at all.

Canada shut the door on parents and grandparents after a mere 10 minutes, she said.

This is consistent with a pattern of failures that we see from the Liberal government on this issue. First, the Liberals abdicated responsibility by instituting a lottery system, leaving family unification to the luck of the draw, but those following the rules are given just minutes to submit their forms, she said.

Canadians and newcomers know that this situation is not fair. Those who play by the rules should not be pushed to the back of the line.
Health Canada is warning Canadians that Ayurvedic products sold by A1 Herbal Ayurvedic Clinic Ltd. may pose serious health risks especially to children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women.

Inspectors have seized products, ingredients, and equipment from the Surrey clinic at 31-8430, 128 Street, and from an affiliated clinic in Brampton, Ontario located at 11-351 Parkhurst Square.

The seizures came after the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control informed Health Canada of a case of heavy metal toxicity involving a patient who was using products from the Surrey clinic.

Laboratory testing identified lead and mercury in the products. Lead and mercury are heavy metals that may pose serious health risks when consumed in excessive amounts. Children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women are most susceptible to the toxic effects of heavy metals.

None of the seized health products are authorized for sale by Health Canada. Unauthorized health products have not been assessed by Health Canada for safety, effectiveness, and quality.

A1 Herbal was also found to be operating without the necessary Health Canada license.

Ayurvedic medicinal products used in traditional Indian healing practice and are often imported from India. Improper manufacturing processes may result in dangerously high levels of heavy metals in the final product.

Consumers who choose to use Ayurvedic medicinal products are reminded that some of these products may contain high levels of heavy metals. Consuming excessive amounts of heavy metals may pose serious health risks because they may accumulate in vital organs.
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Page Content

The Netherlands Representative in the Steering Committee of the Recovery Trust Fund for St. Maarten managed by the World Bank Mr. Frans Weekers and Director of Reconstruction in The Hague, Mr. Hans van der Stelt held what has been hailed as a positive meeting with Finance Minister of St. Maarten the honourable Perry Geerlings on Friday last week.





The Minister discussed several topics relating to the recovery of St. Maarten with the two Dutch representatives, which includes possible financing of some of the priority projects outlined in the St. Maarten United Christian Democratic Coalitions 2018  2022 Governing Program entitled 'Building a Sustainable St. Maarten.'





The intention is to find ways to fund priority programs that are part of the Governing Program, which are not mentioned in the National Recovery and Resilience Program NRRP, as critical projects covered under the USD$550 million Trust Fund.





Some of the projects identified for consideration include the complete reform of the Tax Department and reform at the Public Finance Department to improve financial management of the Country. On the subject of Tax Reform Geerlings said, they also broached the subject of options for financing the preparation of necessary legislation to realise Tax Reform, and fund the introduction of much needed new technology and additional human resources, and the construction of our own Tax Inspectorate Building.





Minister Geerlings said, We also spoke about the Airport Bridge Loan, and I am happy to report that all parties remain very committed to seeing it to fruition. I must say this does offer a level of comfort as it gives us a light at the end of what could have been a very dark tunnel for the airport. He was referring to the financial precarious situation at the Princess Juliana International Airport, and the Council of Ministers effort to resolve the problems by accepting an offer from the World Bank Trust Fund and EIB to fund the Airports reconstruction to the tune of USD$100 million.





Of that amount, USD$50 million will be in the form of a loan and another USD$50 million as a grant.

Minister Geerlings has in the meantime facilitated critical liquidity support to the Airport of USD$5 million, which allowed Airport workers to receive their salary for January and avoid a full default on the Airports commitment to its bondholders amongst others. Fridays meeting was held inside the Cabinet Office of Finance Minister Geerlings at the Government Administration Building in Philipsburg.





In the photo from the left, Dutch Representative in the Steering Committee of The Netherlands for the Recovery Trust Fund for St. Maarten Frans Weekers, Minister of Finance for St. Maarten the Honourable Perry Geerlings, and Director of Reconstruction in The Hague Hans van der Stelt.




New Delhi: The interim budget to be presented in Parliament on Friday is expected to be a full-fledged budget of the Modi government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections that could include tax sops for the middle class and the corporates and a relief package that could address agrarian distress and the stressed small scale industry sector.

Piyush Goyal, who has been given charge of the finance portfolio in the absence of Arun Jaitley who is in the US for medical treatment, is widely expected to break tradition by going beyond a vote-on-account budget close to the elections by showering sops in various categories.

Minister without portfolio Arun Jaitley had already indicated as much when he said from New York that the interim Budget may go "beyond the traditional " vote-on-account as tackling agricultural challenges "can't afford to wait".

For the record, the government on Wednesday maintained that the budget will be called "Interim Budget 2019-20" after media reports described the coming exercise as "General Budget".

The income tax sops could include a rise in the threshold exemption limit for middle class tax payers, considered a big constituency of the BJP. The exemption threshold could go up from the present Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh per annum. The corporates have also been clamouring for reducing the peak rate from 30 to 25 per cent.

The agriculture sector is set to receive good attention from the government after the recent election defeat for the BJP in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on the back of stress.

Direct investment support upto Rs. 15,000 per hectare for small and marginal farmers on the lines of a mix of the Kalia scheme in Odisha and the Rythu Bandhu scheme in Telangana is widely expected to be announced in the budget along with interest-free loans and nominal premium on the crop insurance scheme.

Another option is to look at reworking the Bhavantar scheme, implemented by the erstwhile BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, under which farmers are compensated for the gap between Minimum Support Price and the market price. Cold chain and provision logistics for famers will get a push to benefit them in marketing their produce.

For the stressed micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, hit badly by the demonetisation decision of 2016 and GST implementation following that, the budget could contain incentives and easier flow of credit.

There are concerns that the expected giveaways could lead to ballooning of the fiscal deficit, especially in the wake of the shortfall in tax collections, particularly GST revenue.

This is expected to pose a major challenge to the government to meet its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of the GDP even as it has maintained that the shortfall would be made up by higher direct tax collections.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue, which crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark only twice this year - in April and October - has remained largely subdued for the rest of the year and in the range of Rs 94,000 crore to Rs 97,000 crore per month against the annual GST collection target of Rs 13.48 lakh crore, which translates to a monthly average target of Rs 1.12 lakh crore.

"After the failed budget promise of enhanced procurement of crops through a revised Minimum Support Price (MSP) formula in 2018-19, announcements to be made on February 1, 2019 will be the last opportunity for the government to woo a larger section of society through an interim budget, as against a vote-on-account, by altering both taxes and outlays on schemes," said a report last week by JM Financial Institutional Securities.
Mohanan was also the acting chairperson. With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members -- Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

: Two independent members of the National Statistical Commission, P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi, have resigned over disagreement with the government on certain issues, an official said Tuesday.

"I have resigned from NSC. We thought that the commission is not very effective now a days and we also thought that we are not able to discharge the commission's responsibility," Mohanan told the media.

Both members tendered their resignation on January 28, 2019, an official said.

The NSC, under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, is to have seven members, as per its website. Already, three posts were vacant.

The tenure of Mohanan and Meenakshi was to end in June 2020. They joined as members in June 2017.

Reportedly, these two members are said to have resigned over disagreement with the government over the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18, sources said.

In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of the UPA years.

NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.
I have to tell you, sometimes the highlight of my day is one of the videos from the internet about cats and dogs.
National wage bargaining arrangements that help deal with both high income inequality and low productivity are key to New Zealand avoiding the rise of populist politics seen in other parts of the world, says the chair of the Fair Pay Agreements Working Group Jim Bolger.

"New Zealand must make certain that we don't get into that space, that we don't have the yellow shirts that we see in Paris," said the former National Party Prime Minister, referring to the right-wing nationalist 'yellow vest' protests that have seen violence and property damage in the streets of the French capital in protest at the policies of President Emmanuel Macron.

Bolger said the report, which recommends unpicking key elements of the labour market deregulation enacted by his own government in the early 1990s, was "not a big step at all", but a "small step in the right direction" of employment relations reform more in line with many other members of the rich countries club, the OECD, and tailored to New Zealand.

The working group examined the "more dictatorial" national collective bargaining system in Australia and "we didn't see that model fitting easily with ours", said Bolger.

A slew of supportive statements from trade unions and criticism from employer groups followed this morning's release of the working paper, which the government first saw in November. Lees-Galloway presented today's report as a final version.

A key sticking point is the recommendation that all workers covered by an FPA negotiation would be compulsorily represented by a trade union, irrespective of their existing employment arrangements. National's employment relations spokesman, Scott Simpson, called that "a step towards compulsory unionism" and the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce said there was "a very real concern that this would disproportionately and adversely impact smaller regionalised businesses".

"Considering the significant number of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) in New Zealand, the implications of this would be far-reaching," said chamber chief executive Leeann Watson. "We believe that the decision to enter an employment agreement should always be voluntary, which is much more in keeping with the modern principles of good faith."

Bolger said the provision was important "to prevent people ducking away from their responsibilities".

"Some employers unfortunately will, throughout history," he said. "Compulsion is a reasonable compromise."

Lees-Galloway stressed that best practice advice from the OECD was to have a mixture of sector, enterprise, and individual employment bargaining.

"We've got the enterprise and individual level bargaining. What we don't have in New Zealand is the sector-level bargaining. We're moving to exactly the model that the OECD in the 21st Century is recommending we should have."

However, he gave no firm timetable for Cabinet decisions and declined to say whether he expects legislation to enact FPAs will reach Parliament this year, saying that was one of the reasons Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had said there would be no more than one or two FPAs in the current parliamentary term.

There would simply too little time to do more, he said.

In response, Bolger urged Lees-Galloway not to let the report "sit on a shelf" and Council of Trade Unions chairman Richard Wagstaff said the government needs to "move swiftly to turn these recommendations into law so that Kiwis can have fairer work, the work we all deserve".

"While nearly 40 percent of children in poverty have parents that work, FPAs represent the largest step toward reducing child poverty that this government has taken so far," Wagstaff said.

Two emerging areas of likely policy arm-wrestling are the proposal to allow FPAs to be triggered if just 10 percent or 1,000 members of a workforce, whichever is smaller, call for it, and limited opt-out provisions.

"It's a low-level trigger," said Bolger of the 10 percent threshold. "Where the Minister and his colleagues end up on it, I don't know. The majority of the panel believed it would be beneficial to enable the process to start. This is one of the key issues."

Employer peak body Business NZ said FPAs would "bring risks to business and the economy" and said the reforms should back voluntary rather than compulsory union representation.

Bolger said the worry with leaving representation voluntary was that "those we want in, won't come in".

The FPA reforms were aimed primarily at "the working poor", he said, noting tables in the report that show the sectors with the largest workforces earning a median hourly rate of under $20. By far the largest is 107,000 sales assistants and salespeople on a median $18 an hour, as are some 44,900 cleaners and laundry workers. The next largest identified group was farm and forestry workers, on a median $18.70 an hour.

The lowest-paid group was food preparation assistants, with 21,900 workers, on a median $16.50 an hour, following by checkout operators (15,600) and hospitality workers (39,200) on a median $17 an hour.

Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope said business owners "would want to see significant changes to the proposals to address the likely risks to business, jobs and growth".

(BusinessDesk)

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Bacon and sausage manufacturer Hellers has been fined $39,375 and ordered to pay $5,000 to each of three children who suffered allergic reactions after eating mis-labelled sausages.

The fine is the first since tougher penalties were introduced in the Food Act 2014.

The children became sick in September 2017 after staff at Hellers Wiri factory failed to follow proper procedures and Cheese Sizzlers were packaged as Original Sizzlers and therefore didnt have cheese listed as an ingredient.

The children affected were allergic to dairy products  one had a moderate reaction, one a moderate-to-severe reaction and the third had to be hospitalised with a severe anaphylactic reaction.

Following these reactions, Hellers initiated a product recall.

The Ministry for Primary Industrys food compliance manager Melinda Sando says the incident could have been prevented if Hellers staff had cross-checked labels and the product itself before packaging.

The company had a duty to ensure its products were safe and suitable. Proper labelling of allergens is a key requirement in discharging this duty and consumers should be able to rely on food labelling when making their purchasing decisions. This is especially so for those with food allergies, Sando says.

The fine and reparations were ordered by Manukau District Court Judge John Bergseng.

Since the incident, Hellers has put in place additional staff training and procedures to prevent the problem from recurring, MPI says.

Hellers was unavailable to comment.

Allergy New Zealand chief executive Mark Dixon says food businesses need to take food allergen management seriously.

The recent tragic death of Auckland teenager Edyn Rubena-Misilisi shows how dangerous accidental food allergic reactions can be. Food allergy is not a lifestyle choice, it is a challenging condition which needs to be managed all day, every day for many thousands of people, Dixon says. Rubena-Misilisi died in November from an allergic reaction to nuts.

In September last year, investment company Rangatira Holdings sold its majority stake in Hellers to Australia-based private equity company Adamantem Capital for a reported $200 million, subject to Overseas Investment Office approval which appears to be still pending.

(BusinessDesk)

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The European Union's parliament has taken a decisive step towards unilaterally reducing New Zealand's rights to export specified quantities of tariff-free sheepmeat, beef and dairy products to the trading bloc if and when Brexit occurs.

The move has been slammed as "outrageous" by former trade negotiator Charles Finny in a Tweet and "disappointing" by the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the proposed moves risk compounding "growing international economic uncertainty and rising trade tensions".

Another former diplomat and trade negotiator, the International Business Forum's Stephen Jacobi, stressed the EU parliament's adoption of a European Commission recommendation to reduce tariff rate quota access for a range of agricultural products from several countries was simply the latest step in a process that began in 2017.

At that time, both the EU and the UK indicated they wanted to change preferential market access which, in New Zealand's case, was negotiated as compensation for Britain entering the then European Common Market in 1973. Sheepmeat is the most affected trade, although butter, cheese and beef access rights would also be trimmed.

"They haven't implemented this and they won't until Brexit takes place," said Jacobi. "But the bigger picture is that it's completely unacceptable for them to act like this. These quotas were negotiated and bought and paid for in the Uruguay Round (mid-1990s global trade agreement) and they cannot simply be adjusted at whim through a change in circumstance like this.

"It's a deeply unhelpful move. Not helpful in our relations with post-Brexit Britain and certainly not helpful in our FTA (free trade agreement) negotiations with the EU. It seems extraordinary, after all of these years, that we have to go and back and renegotiate these bloody things.

"We're not paying twice - for Britain going in (to the EU in 1973) and leaving," Jacobi said.

Trade publication Euronews reported yesterday that the EU had formally "adopted quotas for farming produce it will accept from third countries" after Brexit. It said those reductions could occur before the EU had concluded trade talks with the countries affected, including the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Thailand.

Some 20 countries put the World Trade Organisation on notice in 2017 that splitting the quotas between the UK and EU markets would leave them worse off.

To date, New Zealand has been able to ship as much product covered by the tariff-rate quotas as it wished to either the UK or EU, managing product flows according to market conditions.

The EU proposal would split the existing rights between the UK and EU, based on trade flows between 2013 and 2015.

New Zealand's stance, however, is that access should not change. Britain's decision to leave the EU doesn't alter the fact that the EU has a trade agreement with New Zealand.

Jacobi said the EU might try to wrap the TRQ issue into the FTA negotiations that are now underway but this should be "strongly resisted".

The Europeans might also argue they had to make these changes to prepare for Brexit and that "they can't do anything different now because the parliament has signed off and it'll be too tough to go back and sort it out," said Jacobi. "Well, tough."

Splitting the quotas would be "hotly contested" by New Zealand and other affected nations, who would seek dispute settlement through the World Trade Organisation if the move went ahead unilaterally.

"There are opportunities for NZ post-Brexit, but this is a big can of worms that's not fixed," he said.

DCANZ executive director Kimberly Crewther said it was disappointing that Europe had proceeded to unilaterally change a negotiated tariff schedule despite objections from about 25 countries.

"This move preempts the WTO negotiating process which is underway. I'm not sure it's the kind of example that the EU as a growing net exporter of agricultural products would want to see other countries replicating."

An MFAT spokesperson confirmed that the proposals would eliminate WTO quotas into the EU for five products and reduce access by more than 10 percent for 95 products. In the case of the UK, "these proposals would fully eliminate current WTO quota access into the UK for 55 products".

"This issue is of particular concern for those countries without preferential access into the EU through a free trade agreement," said MFAT. "These countries  like New Zealand, the US, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, China, India  are reliant on the access conditions negotiated and bound in the WTO. The tariff rate quotas are particularly important in that regard because the EUs tariffs for the majority of these products are too high to be able to trade into that market ordinarily.

"New Zealand has been clear from the outset with both the EU and the UK that these proposals do not fully honour their existing WTO commitments and will leave concerned WTO members, like New Zealand, worse off," MFAT said. New Zealand was urging a "re-think" to the current approach by both the UK and EU.

"At a time of growing international economic uncertainty and rising trade tensions, New Zealand has been urging the EU and UK not to compound these by undermining the bound tariff rate quota access other WTO members negotiated over more than two decades to obtain into their markets."

(BusinessDesk)

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Press Release

January 30, 2019 Sponsorship Speech at the Commission on Appointments

by Senator Panfilo M. Lacson

January 30, 2019 More at: https://pinglacson.net/2019/01/30/sponsorship-speech-for-6-ambassadors-and-chief-of-mission/ Mr. Chairman, distinguished colleagues, your Committee on Foreign Affairs conducted a public hearing this morning to deliberate on the nominations of six Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the ad interim appointment of one Chief of Mission, Class I. After deliberating on the qualifications and fitness of the said officials during the public hearing, the Committee has determined that they are fit and qualified to be in the posts where they are nominated and appointed, and therefore ruled to recommend to the plenary their nominations and appointment for the consent of the body. It is therefore my honor and privilege to recommend that the Commission give its consent to the nominations of the following senior officers of the Department, namely: LEAH BASINANG-RUIZ. She is a reputed officer of the DFA. She joined the Department in 1987 as a Foreign Service Officer immediately after passing the FSO Examination the previous year, where she ranked second place. In 2004, she also passed the Career Ministers' Examination with flying colors by placing second. For 31 years, she has worked her way up in the DFA organizational hierarchy and assumed significant positions overseas, including the Philippine Embassies/Consulates in Wellington, New Zealand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Canberra, Australia; Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany; and, Lebanon, where she earned the distinction as the first female Philippine Ambassador from 2011 to 2016. As the Chief Coordinator of the Office of the Secretary from July 2016 to April 2018, she contributed to the success of the Philippines' historic chairmanship and hosting of ASEAN in 2017. At present, she is the Assistant Secretary of the DFA's Department Legislative Liaison Unit. Mr. Chairman, it is my distinct privilege and honor to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MS. LEAH BASINANG-RUIZ as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Poland with concurrent jurisdiction over Georgia and the Republic of Ukraine, and the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Latvia, and the Republic of Lithuania. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Our next nominee is MR. ALEX GARCIA CHUA. His diplomatic career started as a Record Clerk and Assistant in the DFA's Office of Cultural Affairs. For 40 years, he has served in the Department in various capacities, most significant of which were his posts as Charge d'Affaires and later, Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing, China and consequently, as the Philippine Ambassador to Myanmar. Our nominee was recognized by the Guangdong Provincial Government Foreign Affairs Office as the first diplomat to have assumed three consular positions in a single Post - as Consul, Deputy Consul General and Consul General in the Philippine Consulate General's office in Guangzhou, China. As Ambassador to Myanmar, he has been cited for major economic activities that promoted bilateral trades and investments between the host country and the Philippines. For such an exemplary service, he was given a Loyalty Award in his 30th year in DFA in July 2008. More so, in his current capacity as the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Financial Management Services, he managed to secure the DFA's first ISO Certification (9001:2015). Mr. Chairman, it is my distinct privilege and honor to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MR. ALEX GARCIA CHUA as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Kenya, with concurrent jurisdiction over the Republic of Burundi, Union of the Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Rwanda, Republic of Seychelles, Federal Republic of Somalia, United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of Uganda, and Republic of South Sudan, and as Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT). I so move, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our third nominee, MS. MA. THERESA B. DIZON-DE VEGA, has been in the Philippine foreign service for 24 years. She topped the examinations for foreign service officers in 1994 and also ranked third in her Career Minister Examinations in 2007. From being the Principal Assistant at the Office of the Undersecretary for Policy in 1995, she remarkably assumed significant posts in the home office such as the Officer-in-Charge of the Undersecretary for Administration and concurrently, as the Chief Coordinator of the Office of the Secretary. Her overseas posts, particularly at the Philippine Embassies/Consulates in Mexico, Hong Kong, London, United Kingdom and New York, U.S.A. also added to her exemplary credentials. In 2007, she was conferred with the Order of Lakandula, Rank of Pinuno, a Medal of Civic Merit by the Government of Spain and Gawad Mabini, Rank of Dakilang Kasugo. She was likewise distinguished with the Order of Sikatuna, Rank of Dakilang Kasugo or Gold Distinction in 2016. Mr. Chairman, it is my honor and privilege to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MS. MA. THERESA B. DIZON-DE VEGA as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Federal Republic of Germany. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Our fourth nominee is MR. RAUL SALAVARIA HERNANDEZ. Our nominee is a man of many hats -- he worked as an educator who taught English and Social Ethics. He served as a parish priest of Mapanas, Northern Samar; he later became Vice-Chancellor/Oeconomous/Director of Vocations of the Diocese of Catarman; and finally, a diplomat for 24 years. He has risen from the ranks and served in various foreign postings which include the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Gulf States, Canada and China. Mr. Hernandez also served as the DFA Spokesperson from July 2011 to May 2014. Among his many commendations were the Department of National Defense and the National Defense College of the Philippines' Most Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2010; Gawad Mabini award with the rank of Grand Cross or Dakilang Kamanong in 2013; and Asia's Society Korea's Ambassador of the Year in 2016. Mr. Chairman, it is my distinct privilege and honor to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MR. RAUL SALAVARIA HERNANDEZ as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Turkey with concurrent jurisdiction over Georgia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our next nominee is MR. LEO M. HERRERA-LIM. Prior to his nomination to an ambassadorial posting to the Kingdom of Denmark, Mr. Herrera-Lim has assumed significant posts at the Philippine Embassies in Washington D.C., USA and London, United Kingdom, and at the Philippine Consulate General in Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California. He served both as Chairman and Philippine Representative to the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) where he was credited for the accomplishment of AICHR's mission, particularly in the completion of thematic studies on ASEAN women in Disaster, Child's Rights and Education Promotion and the Regional Action Plan in Mainstreaming Persons with Disabilities and the implementation of the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons (ACTIP) which had recently entered into force. It was during the nominee's chairmanship of the AICHR that he was commended by his fellow diplomats in the ASEAN. Singaporean Representative Dr. Shashi Jayakumar of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights described the nominee's leadership of AICHR as "a tough act to follow," describing his chairmanship as one "which is of a substantive forward looking role considering the diversity of cultures and history among ASEAN member countries." Kuala Lumpur Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman remarked that he is a diplomat with "able and visionary leadership." And finally, no less than Los Angeles Deputy Consul General Imelda Panolong mentioned that he is "one of the brilliant minds in the DFA." Mr. Chairman, it is my distinct privilege and honor to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MR. LEO M. HERRERA-LIM as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Denmark. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Our sixth nominee is MR. JESUS SANTOS DOMINGO. Mr. Domingo started his diplomatic career in 1990 as Director of the Middle East and Organization of the Islamic Conference Affairs. He rose through the ranks and served in various positions overseas such as New York, U.S.A.; Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; and, Geneva, Switzerland. For 28 years, he has ably served the Department and has been credited for various diplomatic undertakings, most relevant of which was his stint as Minister, in charge of Humanitarian and Disarmament Affairs of the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in Geneva. Mr. Domingo received numerous recognitions such as Outstanding Graduate Award, AFP Reserve Officers Training Corps in 2014; Outstanding Achievement Medal, the highest Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary Award; and U.S. State Honorary Ranks: General (in Washington), Colonel (in Kentucky), Admiral (in Alabama), and Traveller (in Arkansas), to name a few. Mr. Chairman, to this end, it is my distinct privilege and honor to recommend that this body give its consent to the appointment of MR. JESUS SANTOS DOMINGO as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to New Zealand, with concurrent jurisdiction over the Republic of Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga, and the Independent State of Samoa to include Cook Islands. I so move, Mr. Chairman. Finally, Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to recommend for the approval of the body the ad interim appointment of MR. HENRY S. BENSURTO, JR. Mr. Bensurto, a lawyer by profession, has served the Department for 27 years. He has been lauded for his efforts as the Head of the DFA Legal Team on West Philippine Sea Issue, and as Critical Member of the Philippine Delegation to the Hague during the Arbitration versus China from 2013 to 2016. Among his important foreign posts were at the Philippine Embassies in Singapore and Washington, D.C., and the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco, U.S.A. Among his many commendations were two Presidential Awards, the Gawad Mabini with the Rank of Commander and the Order of Lakandula with the Rank of Grand Officer, the 2016 Torch Bearer Award from the Philippine-American Press Club-USA, and the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to recommend the approval of the ad interim appointment of MR. HENRY S. BENSURTO, JR. as Chief of Mission, Class I. I so move, Mr. Chairman.
Press Release

January 30, 2019 Stop grandstanding on Dengvaxia issue, De Lima tells Acosta Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has scored Public Attorney's Office (PAO) Chief Persida Acosta for grandstanding on the Dengvaxia issue which scares off parents from availing free vaccines to protect their children from life-threatening diseases, such as measles. De Lima, who chairs the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, slammed Acosta for sowing public fear on the vaccination program and treating children as pawns to up her political game and fulfil her selfish ambitions. "Our country's immunization program is now in a quandary and our children's health is under threat because of the vaccine scare triggered by the grandstanding of Public Attorney's Office (PAO) Chief Persida Acosta to be in Duterte's good graces," she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 454. "If she is truly bent on finding the truth about the cause of deaths of the children vaccinated with Dengvaxia, she must do the right thing for the bereaved families want nothing less than the truth," she added. Official figures showed that the number of deaths from measles climbed five times to 17,289 between January to November 2018 from 3,706 cases during the same period in 2017. Health Secretary Francisco Duque confirmed that the measles outbreak can be attributed to the refusal of families to get vaccinated due to the exaggeration of Acosta and some allies of Mr. Duterte about the purported deaths from Dengvaxia vaccine. Note that the mother of a certain Dr. Kendrick Gotoc, one of the personnel the Quezon City Health Department who was allegedly given three dosages of Dengvaxia, filed charges against Duque and 38 other respondents in the Department of Justice (DOJ), after PAO claimed that Gotoc died due to the effects of Dengvaxia. "This government, through PAO Chief Acosta, has eroded with just one act of political witch-hunting what the DOH has worked for in decades - getting the public's trust to its immunization programs and ensuring that children even from poor families are protected from preventable diseases," De Lima pointed out. The lady Senator from Bicol said Acosta should rely on medical science and experts on the field to find out the real reason behind the deaths of individuals, especially children, who were vaccinated with Dengvaxia. "She can only serve that purpose within the confines of legal arena and medical science, not outside, in the public sphere, as if the truth over the death of the children can be decided by public opinion and not through the better guidance of forensic analysis," De Lima said. "Buhay at kalusugan ng libo-libong kabataan ang nakataya rito, kaya kung may katotohanang dapat hanapin sa likod ng Dengvaxia vaccine, saliksikin, hindi pulitikahin. Sa halip na hanapan ng solusyon ang problema, higit pa ninyong pinalalala at binabalot sa takot ngayon ang publiko," she added. The Dengvaxia controversy started in November 2017 after pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur announced that Dengvaxia may cause severe dengue when administered to patients who have not acquired the mosquito-borne disease prior. In December 2018, De Lima filed Senate Resolution No. 966 calling for a Senate probe into pandemic potential of measles that has caused deaths and infections in some parts of the country while people shunned away from the government's free vaccines.
Sen. Bam thanks Sen. Ping for acknowledging his contribution to the passage of free college law

Sen. Bam Aquino thanked Sen. Panfilo Lacson for acknowledging his role in the passage of the free college law and for his support in his re-election bid in the May elections.

"Lubos tayong nagpapasalamat kay Sen. Ping sa kanyang pagkilala sa ating pagtrabaho bilang principal sponsor ng batas para sa libreng kolehiyo. Napakalaking bagay ito, lalo na't galing sa isang beterano at may integridad na mambabatas tulad ni Sen. Ping," said Sen. Bam, principal sponsor at co-author of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

"Ang tunay na bida rito ay ang ating mahihirap na estudyante at kanilang pamilya. Ngayon, may pagkakataon na silang makapagtapos, kahit kapos," added Sen. Bam.

The senator also acknowledged his fellow legislators, student and youth groups, advocacy groups , the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the state universities and colleges (SUCs) for their help in getting this revolutionary reform passed that will give poor Filipino a chance of having a bright future through education.

After gathering dust in the legislative mill for years, Sen. Bam pushed for its passage as principal sponsor in the Senate during his term as chairman of the Committee on Education.

In an earlier statement, Sen. Lacson said that Sen. Bam, as principal sponsor and co-author of the free college law, persevered to make this landmark piece of legislation a reality.

"Kapag napapagusapan ang libreng matrikula sa kolehiyo, ang unang naiisip ko, si Senador Bam Aquino. Alam kong siya ang nagtiyagang itulak ito sa Senado bilang author at Principal Sponsor ng Free Tuition Law," Sen. Ping said.

Sen. Lacson said that, as the law's principal sponsor, Sen. Bam had to defend the measure from the intense questioning of his colleagues, who scrutinize up to the smallest detail.

After the free college reform was signed into law by President Duterte, Lacson took to his Twitter account to congratulate Sen. Bam, saying "before anybody else from the Senate grabs credit, Sen. Bam principally authored/sponsored the free tuition bill, now a landmark legislation."

Sen. Lacson also expressed his full support behind the re-election bid of Sen. Bam in the 2019 elections.

"Kung ako lang masusunod, magandang makabalik si Senator Bam sa Senado," said Sen. Lacson.
Agricole Farm Stop, a new grocery store focused on local produce, is expected to open this June at 110 Jackson St. in downtown Chelsea.

Agricole aims to support the local farm economy by selling locally-grown food and giving farmers 75 percent of the selling price. Its concept is similar to a year-round indoor farmer's market, but with only one checkout for customer ease.

Agricole's cofounders are Sharon Norton, Kathy Kennedy, Abby Hurst, and Patrick Zieske. Zieske says Agricole was inspired by Ann Arbor's Argus Farm Stop. Argus has been successful as a farmer-focused, local-produce business model, and has two locations in Ann Arbor on Liberty and Packard Streets.

Argus' cofounders presented their business concept to Chelsea residents in a Transition Town Chelsea meeting four years ago. Zieske says that presentation sparked the Agricole cofounders' passion for creating a similar business in Chelsea.

"We were so excited about this, and knew we had to start something like this in Chelsea," Zieske says. "We began looking for a place and people to get it started."

After years of working with other community members and seeking the right location, Agricole cofounders have now begun daily training at Argus to prepare for their grand opening this summer.

"Argus sees it as their mission to help other businesses like theirs," Zieske says. "They share everything they've learned from this business ... and are always available."

Once Agricole opens, customers can expect a coffee shop, patio, and year-round locally-sourced goods. When local produce is harder to attain, Zieske says dry goods will still be available in the store.

In the final months before the store opens, Agricole will host a crowdfunding campaign to raise additional funds for business costs. The campaign runs Feb. 15-March 31 and will be advertised on Agricole's website and Facebook page. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), one of Agricole's investors, plans to match all donations up to $50,000 dollar for dollar.

Zieske says he is most looking forward to Agricole becoming a part of Chelsea's community.

"I'm excited to interact with the farmers, and for those producers and customers to interact," Zieske says. "And those unusual foods. We've seen some pretty interesting things (like pawpaw fruit), and I can't wait to have those in the store."

Emily Benda

is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. You can contact her at

emily@emilybenda.com
Two new studies, one of which was conducted in young adults and the other in mice, add to evidence for the benefits of a rocking motion during sleep. In fact, the study in people shows that rocking not only leads to better sleep, but it also boosts memory consolidation during sleep.

Having a good nights sleep means falling asleep rapidly and then staying asleep during the whole night, said Dr. Laurence Bayer, a researcher at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Our volunteers  even if they were all good sleepers  fell asleep more rapidly when rocked and had longer periods of deeper sleep associated with fewer arousals during the night. We thus show that rocking is good for sleep.

Dr. Bayer and colleagues had earlier shown that continuous rocking during a 45-min nap helped people to fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly.

In the new study, the team wanted to explore the effects of rocking on sleep and its associated brain waves throughout the night.

The researchers enlisted 18 healthy young adults to undergo sleep monitoring in the lab.

The first night was intended to get them used to sleeping there. They then stayed two more nights  one sleeping on a gently rocking bed and the other sleeping on an identical bed that wasnt moving.

The data showed that participants fell asleep faster while rocking. Once asleep, they also spent more time in non-rapid eye movement sleep, slept more deeply, and woke up less.

Next, the study authors wanted to know how that better sleep influenced memory.

To assess memory consolidation, participants studied word pairs. The researchers then measured their accuracy in recalling those paired words in an evening session compared to the next morning when they woke up.

They found that people did better on the morning test when they were rocked during sleep.

Further experiments showed that rocking affects brain oscillations during sleep.

The rocking motion caused an entrainment of specific brain oscillations of non-rapid eye movement sleep (slow oscillations and spindles). As a result, the continuous rocking motion helped to synchronize neural activity in the thalamo-cortical networks of the brain, which play an important role in both sleep and memory consolidation.

The second study, performed in mice, is the first to explore whether rocking promotes sleep in other species.

And, indeed, it did. A team of researchers headed by University of Lausannes Dr. Paul Franken used commercial reciprocating shakers to rock the cages of mice as they slept.

While the best rocking frequency for mice was found to be four times faster than in people, the experiments show that rocking reduced the time it took to fall asleep and increased sleep time in mice as it does in humans. However, the mice did not show evidence of sleeping more deeply.

The authors had suspected that the effects of rocking on sleep were tied to rhythmic stimulation of the vestibular system, the sensory system that contributes to the sense of balance and spatial orientation.

To explore this notion in the mouse, they studied animals whose vestibular systems were disrupted by non-functioning otolithic organs, found in their ears. The experiments showed that mice lacking working otolithic organs experienced none of the beneficial effects of rocking during sleep.

Taken together, our studies provide new insights into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the effects of rocking stimulation on sleep, the researchers said.

The findings may be relevant for the development of new approaches for treating patients with insomnia and mood disorders, as well as older people, who frequently suffer from poor sleep and memory impairments.

The results were published in the journal Current Biology.

_____

Aurore A. Perrault et al. Whole-Night Continuous Rocking Entrains Spontaneous Neural Oscillations with Benefits for Sleep and Memory. Current Biology, published online January 24, 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.028

Konstantinos Kompotis et al. Rocking Promotes Sleep in Mice through Rhythmic Stimulation of the Vestibular System. Current Biology, published online January 24, 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.007
Selbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Bearings are machine elements used to reduce energy loss caused by friction in the rotary parts of a broad range of equipment and machinery. The onshore wind power generation sector dominated the global wind turbine bearing market and will retain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Onshore wind turbines account for the majority share of the global cumulative installed wind capacity. The wind turbine gear bearings market for onshore applications can be calculated through the number of onshore wind installations coming online each year. China accounts for the largest number of onshore wind installations and is the largest consumer of wind turbine bearings across the globe.



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Geographically, APAC held the largest wind turbine bearing market share and will continue to dominate the global market over the next few years. China, India, Japan, Pakistan, and South Korea are the major revenue contributing countries to the wind turbine bearings market in the APAC region. Factors such as the presence of wind turbine component manufacturers and an increased focus on renewable technology are driving the overall market growth in the region.



Scope of the Report:

This report focuses on the Wind Turbine Bearings Market, especially in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, types and applications.



Wind Turbine Bearings Market Segment by Top Manufacturers Including:

SKF, Dalian Metallurgical Bearing, Timken, TMB, ZWZ, Liebherr, NSK, NTN Bearing, Rollix, Rothe Erde, Schaeffler Group, Kaydon Corporation, ZYS Luoyang LYC Bearing, Zhejiang Tianma Bearing and Xibei Bearing.



Wind Turbine Bearings Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:

North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)

Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)

South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)

Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)



Wind Turbine Bearings Market Segment by Type covers

- Slewing Ring Bearings

- Spherical Roller Bearings



Market Segment by Applications can be divided into:

- On-shore

- Off-shore



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There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Wind Turbine Bearings market.



Chapter 1, to describe Wind Turbine Bearings Market Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;



Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Wind Turbine Bearings, with sales, revenue, and price of Wind Turbine Bearings, in 2016 and 2017;



Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;



Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Wind Turbine Bearings, for each region, from 2013 to 2018;



Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;



Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2013 to 2018;



Chapter 12, Wind Turbine Bearings market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2018 to 2023;



Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Wind Turbine Bearings sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source



Table of Contents



1. Wind Turbine Bearings Market Overview



2. Wind Turbine Bearings Market Manufacturers Profiles



3. Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market Competition, by Players



4. Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market Size by Regions



5. North America Wind Turbine Bearings Revenue by Countries



6. Europe Wind Turbine Bearings Revenue by Countries



7. Asia-Pacific Wind Turbine Bearings Revenue by Countries



8. South America Wind Turbine Bearings Revenue by Countries



9. Middle East and Africa Revenue Wind Turbine Bearings by Countries



10. Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market Segment by Type



11. Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market Segment by Application



12. Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market Size Forecast (2018-2023)



13. Research Findings and Conclusion



For more information on this report at: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-wind-turbine-bearings-market-2018-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2023/?utm_source=Releasewire.com-SP



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Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Being a component installed at the external opening of an oil or gas drilling well, the wellhead system plays a vital function by providing a structural pressure enclosing interface for drilling and production equipment. The wellhead system is also used for delivering exact suspension point and proper pressure sealing for the total casing used in the operationfrom the bottom of the well to the surface control equipment.



Demand for Wellhead System to Stay Coherent as the Industry Seeks Advanced Technologies



The emergence of clean technology is expected to bring new innovations in the conventional wellhead system. The shift towards implementing an environmentally safe approach in oil and gas recovery is likely to positively influence the wellhead system market. In line with this, Western Economic Diversification Canada awarded $1.1 million to Intelligent Wellhead systems for clean technology innovation that would enhance safety and environmental measures in the recovery of oil and gas.



Various technological developments are expected to boost the demand for wellhead system market as evolving technologies such as monitoring systems and pressure control systems enhance the functionalities of the wellhead system. For example, ADNOC received a three-year contract for providing in-country wellhead system and services that reflect greater efficiency, by Weir Oil & Gas Pressure Control Dubai.



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Key Regions Showcase Burgeoning Demand for Wellhead Systems



The wellhead system market is analyzed with respect to the key regions which include Eastern Europe, North America, Western Europe, Latin America, Japan, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific.



Amongst the key regions, the European, North American, and Middle East and Africa regions are expected to project increasing demand for the wellhead system as there is major production of oil and gas along with enormous exploration of the same. Moreover, the numerous petrochemical industries located in these prominent regions are expected to contribute to the growing demand of the wellhead system. Major players in the market are supplying wellhead system equipment to these regions owing the increasing requirements.



Forum Energy Technologies, another market player registered increase in sale of the well site production equipment in the United States, which highlights the potential for wellhead system market in North America.



Moreover, key nations in the Asia Pacific region including China and India are seen utilizing wellhead system on a large scale in the petrochemical industry which has been on a key factor that fosters the production of oil and gas.



Aker Solutions, a prominently recognized wellhead system market player, is currently bidding for contracts valuing NOK 45 billion, two-third of which are in the subsea areas, where the company is looking forward to receive projects from major economies such as Brazil, Australia, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the UK.



Prominent Players Aiming to Gain Larger Share of the Wellhead System Market



The prominent wellhead system market players are seen initiating crucial strategies to gain a competitive edge over the other participants in the market. The wellhead system market are seen implementing expansion strategies to extend their business in the key regions.



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The key players in the wellhead system market include Stream-Flo Industries Ltd., Wellhead Systems, Inc., Oil States International, Inc., National Oilwell Varco, GE Grid Solutions, Baker Hughes Inc., FMC Technologies, Nabors Industries Ltd., Shanghai Wellhead Equipment Manufacture Co. Ltd., Cameron-Schlumberger Ltd., Forum Energy Technologies, and Aker Solutions.
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- HTF MI released a new market study on Global Traffic Safety Products Market with 100+ market data Tables, Pie Chat, Graphs & Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed analysis. At present, the market is developing its presence. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the Market and contains a future trend, current growth factors, attentive opinions, facts, and industry validated market data. The research study provides estimates for Global Traffic Safety Products Forecast till 2025*. Some are the key players taken under coverage for this study are Global Industrial, Honeywell, MSC Industrial Direct, Safety Smart Gear, Roadtech Manufacturing, MCR Safety, SA-SO, W.W. Grainger, Safety Cones USA, Pexco Davidson Traffic Control Products, Fastenal, The Cortina Companies, Emedco, The Traffic Safety Store, RoadSafe Traffic Systems, 3M, Ergodyne, STHIL, Tamis, Traffic Safety and Supply Company & Highway Signals.



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Traffic safety products have a short lifespan, for instance, a traffic cone made of PVC has an average lifespan of just about two to three years. However, these PVC safety cones often do not last more than a year as many are either stolen or destroyed in accidents. Similarly, traffic vests and rainwear have an average lifespan of two years but due to extreme weather conditions and the frequency of use, they last less than 1.5 years. The short repurchase cycle of traffic safety products costs millions to government bodies and increases the risks of traffic causalities in the country.



Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the Report:



1) What all companies are currently profiled in the report?

Following are list of players that are currently profiled in the the report "Global Industrial, Honeywell, MSC Industrial Direct, Safety Smart Gear, Roadtech Manufacturing, MCR Safety, SA-SO, W.W. Grainger, Safety Cones USA, Pexco Davidson Traffic Control Products, Fastenal, The Cortina Companies, Emedco, The Traffic Safety Store, RoadSafe Traffic Systems, 3M, Ergodyne, STHIL, Tamis, Traffic Safety and Supply Company & Highway Signals"

** List of companies mentioned may vary in the final report subject to Name Change / Merger etc.



2) Can we add or profiled new company as per our need?

Yes, we can add or profile new company as per client need in the report. Final confirmation to be provided by research team depending upon the difficulty of survey.

** Data availability will be confirmed by research in case of privately held company. Upto 3 players can be added at no added cost.



3) What all regional segmentation covered? Can specific country of interest be added?

Currently, research report gives special attention and focus on following regions:

North America, Europe, China, Japan, Middle East & Africa, India, South America & Others

** One country of specific interest can be included at no added cost. For inclusion of more regional segment quote may vary.



4) Can inclusion of additional Segmentation / Market breakdown is possible?

Yes, inclusion of additional segmentation / Market breakdown is possible subject to data availability and difficulty of survey. However a detailed requirement needs to be shared with our research before giving final confirmation to client.

** Depending upon the requirement the deliverable time and quote will vary.



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To comprehend Global Traffic Safety Products market dynamics in the world mainly, the worldwide Traffic Safety Products market is analyzed across major global regions. HTF MI also provides customized specific regional and country-level reports for the following areas.



- North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

- South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

- Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

- Europe: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia.

- Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia.



2-Page profiles for 10+ leading manufacturers and 10+ leading retailers is included, along with 3 years financial history to illustrate the recent performance of the market. Revised and updated discussion for 2018 of key macro and micro market influences impacting the sector are provided with a thought-provoking qualitative comment on future opportunities and threats. This report combines the best of both statistically relevant quantitative data from the industry, coupled with relevant and insightful qualitative comment and analysis.



Global Traffic Safety Products Product Types In-Depth: Traffic vest and rainwear, Tube Delineators, Barricades, Cones & Other



Geographical Analysis: North America, Europe, China, Japan, Middle East & Africa, India, South America & Others



In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.



Competitive Analysis:

The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Global Industrial, Honeywell, MSC Industrial Direct, Safety Smart Gear, Roadtech Manufacturing, MCR Safety, SA-SO, W.W. Grainger, Safety Cones USA, Pexco Davidson Traffic Control Products, Fastenal, The Cortina Companies, Emedco, The Traffic Safety Store, RoadSafe Traffic Systems, 3M, Ergodyne, STHIL, Tamis, Traffic Safety and Supply Company & Highway Signals includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.



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In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Global Traffic Safety Products are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2025



Key Stakeholders/Global Reports:

Traffic Safety Products Manufacturers

Traffic Safety Products Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers

Traffic Safety Products Subcomponent Manufacturers

Industry Association

Downstream Vendors



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Actual Numbers & In-Depth Analysis, Business opportunities, Market Size Estimation Available in Full Report.



Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- HTF MI recently introduced Global Social Media Management Software Market study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product / Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2023. The market Study is segmented by key regions which is accelerating the marketization. At present, the market is developing its presence and some of the key players from the complete study are Buffer, Sprout Social, Hootsuite Media, AgoraPulse, IFTTT, Sendible, Facebook, Lithium Technologies, Crowdbooster, NUVI, TweetDeck, SocialOomph, Roeder Studios, Oktopost, Sprinklr, Social Board, SocialFlow, Zoho Social etc.



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This report studies the Global Social Media Management Software market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the Global Social Media Management Software market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.



Browse 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and in-depth TOC on " Social Media Management Software Market by Type (, Type Segmentation (Cloud-based, On-premises ), Industry Segmentation (Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale, Other ) & Channel (Direct Sales, Distributor) Segmentation), by End-Users/Application (Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale), Organization Size, Industry, and Region - Forecast to 2023". Early buyers will receive 10% customization on comprehensive study.



In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.



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Competitive Analysis:

The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Buffer, Sprout Social, Hootsuite Media, AgoraPulse, IFTTT, Sendible, Facebook, Lithium Technologies, Crowdbooster, NUVI, TweetDeck, SocialOomph, Roeder Studios, Oktopost, Sprinklr, Social Board, SocialFlow, Zoho Social includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.



Market Segments:

The Global Social Media Management Software Market has been divided into type, application, and region.

On The Basis Of Type:, Type Segmentation (Cloud-based, On-premises ), Industry Segmentation (Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale, Other ) & Channel (Direct Sales, Distributor) Segmentation.

On The Basis Of Application: Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale

On The Basis Of Region, this report is segmented into following key geographies, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share, growth rate of Social Media Management Software in these regions, from 2013 to 2023 (forecast), covering

- North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Latin America (Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Rest of World {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis}



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Have a look at some extracts from Table of Content



Introduction about Global Social Media Management Software



Global Social Media Management Software Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2017

Social Media Management Software Market by Application/End Users

Global Social Media Management Software Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications

(2013-2023) table defined for each application/end-users like [Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale]

Global Social Media Management Software Sales and Growth Rate (2013-2023)

Social Media Management Software Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application

Social Media Management Software (Volume, Value and Sales Price) table defined for each geographic region defined.

Global Social Media Management Software Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data



Additionally Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors list is being provided for each listed manufacturers



Market Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) table for each product type which include, Type Segmentation (Cloud-based, On-premises ), Industry Segmentation (Public Sector, BFSI, Telecom and Media, Retail/Wholesale, Other ) & Channel (Direct Sales, Distributor) Segmentation

Social Media Management Software Manufacturing Cost Analysis

Social Media Management Software Key Raw Materials Analysis

Social Media Management Software Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Industrial Chain Analysis

Market Forecast (2018-2023)

........and more in complete table of Contents



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Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- HTF MI recently Announced Global Rail Wagon study with 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed TOC on "Rail Wagon. Global Rail Wagon research allows you to get different methods for maximizing your profit. The research study provides estimates for Global Rail Wagon Forecast till 2025*. Some of the Leading key Company's Covered for this Research are Kiruna Wagon AB (Sweden), Texmaco Rail & Engineering Limited (India), Hindustan Engineering & Industries Ltd. (India), CFR Marfa (Europe), PKP Cargo (Europe), SNCF International SA (France), Canadian National Railway Company (Canada), DB Schenker (Germany), SBB Cargo (Switzerland), Baltic Rail AS (Europe), Union Pacific Corporation (United States), CTL Logistics (Germany), Colas Rail SA (France), Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (United States), Rail Logistics, LC. (United States), RSI Logistics Inc. (United States) and Tschudi Logistics Holding AS (Norway) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Manufacturers which are also part of the research are Ozark Rail Logistics (United States), Vehix, Inc. (United States), VTG Rail Logistics (Germany) and BNSF Railway (United States).



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Rail wagon refers to transportation of cargo by unpowered railway vehicle. Development of rail infrastructure is the essential element for economic development of the countries. Growing research and development for modernization of techniques such as producing wagon from composite material, develop cost-effective wagon with improved lifecycle, reduce problem during exploitation, and production of the lightweight wagon with more carrying capacity are the key factors driving the rail wagon market. The market study is being classified by Type (Open Wagon , Covered Wagon , Flat Wagon , Intermodal Wagon , Tank Wagon and Other) and major geographies with country level break-up that includes South America (Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America) , Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Rest of Asia-Pacific) , Europe (Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Rest of Europe) , MEA (Middle East, Africa) , North America (United States, Canada, Mexico) .



Global Rail Wagon Research for a Leading company is an intelligent process of gathering and analyzing the numerical data related to services and products. This Research Give idea to aims at your targeted customer's understanding, needs and wants. Also, reveals how effectively a company can meet their requirements. The market research collects data about the customers, marketing strategy, competitors. The Rail Wagon Manufacturing industry is becoming increasingly dynamic and innovative, with more number of private players entering the industry.



Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the report:



1) Who are the Leading Key Company in Global Rail Wagon market space?



Following are list of players that are currently profiled in the report " Kiruna Wagon AB (Sweden), Texmaco Rail & Engineering Limited (India), Hindustan Engineering & Industries Ltd. (India), CFR Marfa (Europe), PKP Cargo (Europe), SNCF International SA (France), Canadian National Railway Company (Canada), DB Schenker (Germany), SBB Cargo (Switzerland), Baltic Rail AS (Europe), Union Pacific Corporation (United States), CTL Logistics (Germany), Colas Rail SA (France), Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (United States), Rail Logistics, LC. (United States), RSI Logistics Inc. (United States) and Tschudi Logistics Holding AS (Norway) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Manufacturers which are also part of the research are Ozark Rail Logistics (United States), Vehix, Inc. (United States), VTG Rail Logistics (Germany) and BNSF Railway (United States)"



** List of companies mentioned may vary in the final report subject to Name Change / Merger etc.

2) What will the market size be in 2025 and what will the growth rate be?

In 2019, the Global Rail Wagon market size was xx million USD and it is expected to reach USD xx million by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025.



**The market is valued based on weighted average selling price (WASP) and includes any applicable taxes on manufacturers. All currency conversions used in the creation of this report have been calculated using constant annual average 2018 currency rates.



To comprehend Global Rail Wagon market dynamics in the world mainly, the worldwide Rail Wagon market is analyzed across major regions. HTF MI also provides customized specific regional and country-level reports for the following areas.



- North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

- South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

- Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

- Europe: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia.

- Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia.



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Competitive Analysis:

The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Kiruna Wagon AB (Sweden), Texmaco Rail & Engineering Limited (India), Hindustan Engineering & Industries Ltd. (India), CFR Marfa (Europe), PKP Cargo (Europe), SNCF International SA (France), Canadian National Railway Company (Canada), DB Schenker (Germany), SBB Cargo (Switzerland), Baltic Rail AS (Europe), Union Pacific Corporation (United States), CTL Logistics (Germany), Colas Rail SA (France), Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (United States), Rail Logistics, LC. (United States), RSI Logistics Inc. (United States) and Tschudi Logistics Holding AS (Norway) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Manufacturers which are also part of the research are Ozark Rail Logistics (United States), Vehix, Inc. (United States), VTG Rail Logistics (Germany) and BNSF Railway (United States) includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.

Research Parameter/ Research Methodology



Primary Research:

The primary sources involves the industry experts from the Global Rail Wagon industry including the management organizations, processing organizations, analytics service providers of the industry's value chain. All primary sources were interviewed to gather and authenticate qualitative & quantitative information and determine the future prospects.



In the extensive primary research process undertaken for this study, the primary sources  industry experts such as CEOs, vice presidents, marketing director, technology & innovation directors, founders and related key executives from various key companies and organizations in the Global Rail Wagon in the industry have been interviewed to obtain and verify both qualitative and quantitative aspects of this research study.



Secondary Research:

In the Secondary research crucial information about the industries value chain, total pool of key players, and application areas. It also assisted in market segmentation according to industry trends to the bottom-most level, geographical markets and key developments from both market and technology oriented perspectives.



Buy Full Copy Global Rail Wagon Report 2018 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1592285-global-rail-wagon-market



In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Global Rail Wagon are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2018

Base Year: 2018

Estimated Year: 2019

Forecast Year 2019 to 2025



Key Stakeholders in Global Rail Wagon Market:

Global Rail Wagon Manufacturers

Global Rail Wagon Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers

Global Rail Wagon Subcomponent Manufacturers

Industry Association

Downstream Vendors



**Actual Numbers & In-Depth Analysis, Business opportunities, Market Size Estimation Available in Full Report.



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Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.
Dubai, UAE -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Powered is an innovative company offering mobile application and augmented reality development in Dubai. Powered is the first company to provide augmented reality development services, and is now expanding its wings to Saudi Arabia. Their mobile apps help enterprises to enhance their operations and realize growth. Businesses who partner with Powered can improve their communication techniques and enterprising tactics for optimal performance. The company also offers insights regarding the future of mobile app development and the impact it has on the growth of enterprises. Businesses can tailor their applications to develop endless possibilities through augmented reality.



Speaking about app development services, the Company Spokesperson continued, "Our technicians are committed to building highly functional mobile applications that achieve desired results. We have all the resources needed to create proficient and well-designed apps. The apps help businesses to tap into more markets, ensure high retention, monetize processes and streamline their efficiency. They include e-commerce apps, custom utility apps, business enterprise apps, and gaming apps."



Powered is among the leading companies offering Android App development in Dubai. Their Android apps are robust and help businesses to engage with a broad client base. Powered are full-service Android app developers who offer customized apps and digital solutions to suit the business needs and set up. The company has skilled and skilled professionals who design digital strategies for local and international businesses. Their apps are advanced, with high-grade features that clients utilize to ensure optimum performance.



Speaking about app development, the Company Spokesperson continued, "As the most reliable and trusted Android developer in Dubai; we develop apps that integrate with mobile applications and wearable devices. In this way, our clients can share information remotely. Our apps can be used in security systems, TVs, bulbs and more to allow users to take control of their homes. We aim to produce apps that offer solutions to problems related to the introduction of smart devices that are interconnected. We also want to help businesses to trade conveniently through mobile money transfer services."



Powered is the most sought after App Development Company in Dubai offering businesses convenient ways of maximizing their profits. The company understands various platforms used by enterprises and cross-checks and tweaks the apps on these platforms to ensure optimum performance. They involve clients in their app development procedures to ensure tailored apps that will work well for their business. With integrated augmented reality in the development processes, users can interact well with the app's environment.



About Powered

Powered is the first company to offer augmented reality development services, and is now expanding its wings to Saudi Arabia. Their mobile apps help enterprises to enhance their operations and realize growth. Businesses who partner with Powered can improve their communication techniques and enterprising tactics for optimal performance.



Contact details

Company : Powered

Address: Tiffany Tower, JLT Cluster W Office 1406,

Cluster W, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 (50) 912 4567

Email: hello@powered.ae

Website: http://www.powered.ae/
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- The latest market analysis report on the Power Electrical Enclosures market performs industry diagnostic as a way to accumulate valuable data into the business environment of the Power Electrical Enclosures market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The subject matter experts behind the research have collected vital statistics on the market share, size and growth as a way to help stakeholders, business owners and field marketing personnel identify the areas to reduce costs, improve sales, explore new opportunities and streamline their processes. Unbiased perspective on intangible aspects such as key challenges, threats, new entrants as well as strengths and weaknesses of the prominent vendors too are discussed in this market intelligence report.



For more clarity on the real potential of the Power Electrical Enclosures market for the forecast period of 2018 - 2026 the study provides vital intelligence on the major opportunities, threats and challenges posed by the industry. Besides, a strong emphasis is laid on the weaknesses and strengths of some of the prominent players operating in the same market. Quantitative assessment of the recent momentum brought about by events such as collaborations, acquisition and mergers, product launches and technology innovation empower product owners, marketing professionals and business analysts make a profitable decision, reduce cost and increase their customer base.



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The major players covered in this report are

Boxco, Emerson Electric, Omega, GE, Eaton, Zhejiang Qixing Electric Technology, TEC Automatismes, Palazzoli, Rittal, ABB, Hammond, Pentair, Marechal Electric, Siemens, Schneider Electric, OMP Mechtron, Takachi Electronics



Understanding the market size

The size of the Power Electrical Enclosures market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region.



Knowing the trends influencing the industry performance

Stakeholders, marketing executives and business owners planning to refer a market research report can use this study to design their offerings and understand how competitors attract their potential customers and manage their supply and distribution channels. When tracking the trends researchers have made a conscious effort to analyze and interpret the consumer behaviour. Besides, the research helps product owners to understand the changes in culture, target market as well as brands so they can draw the attention of the potential customers more effectively.

Our trend analysts look for the crucial connection between consumer trends, behaviour and values, to provide context for the sectors, demographics and global themes that matter to you.



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We can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:

North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Rest of Middle East & Africa



Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers in these key regions:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Southeast Asia

- India



Most widely used downstream fields of Power Electrical Enclosures market covered in this report are:

- Power Generation

- Transmission and Distribution (T&D)



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The study objectives of this report are:

1. To analyze and study the global Power Electrical Enclosures capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast (2018-2026);

2. Focuses on the key Power Electrical Enclosures manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.

3. Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, analysis.

4. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

5. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

6. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

7. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

8. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

9. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

10. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



There are 13 Chapters to thoroughly display the Power Electrical Enclosures market. This report included the analysis of market overview, market characteristics, industry chain, competition landscape, historical and future data by types, applications and regions.

Chapter 1: Power Electrical Enclosures Market Overview, Product Overview, Market Segmentation, Market Overview of Regions, Market Dynamics, Limitations, Opportunities and Industry News and Policies.

Chapter 2: Power Electrical Enclosures Industry Chain Analysis, Upstream Raw Material Suppliers, Major Players, Production Process Analysis, Cost Analysis, Market Channels and Major Downstream Buyers.

Chapter 3: Value Analysis, Production, Growth Rate and Price Analysis by Type of Power Electrical Enclosures.

Chapter 4: Downstream Characteristics, Consumption and Market Share by Application of Power Electrical Enclosures.



Continue



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Sellbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Asia Pacific PLC Software Market is anticipated to witness a significant growth during the forecast timeline. The growth can be accredited to the increasing demand for such solutions across the ever-growing industrial sector in the region. These software systems provide a number of advantages such as offering system flexibility and reporting in detail for process optimization, resulting in greater productivity. Facilitating easy integration of network systems for simple communication is among the other benefits offered by the PLC software systems.



The accelerated economic growth in India and China has been led by increased manufacturing activities in these countries. Initiatives, such as Make in India and Make in China by the Indian and Chinese governments, are boosting the regional industrialization activities, further contributing to the PLC software market growth. Furthermore, increasing demand for factory automation across these economies is driving the industry demand.



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Advancements and innovations, such as enhanced communication and data sharing techniques between PLCs, improved communication of PLCs with Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs), enhanced processing speeds, and expanded memory, are some of the key factors propelling the PLC software market growth. Latest innovations in PLCs have helped the manufacturers to reduce the size of PLCs and minimize the power consumption. These advanced PLCs find applications for picking & placing of objects in industries, robotic control to automate the industrial processes, and reduce the human involvement, thereby reducing time consumption.



Rising demand for automation across various industrial sectors is anticipated to drive the PLC software market growth. The demand for automating several business operations is on the rise to reduce human errors, enhancing the efficiency. With the entry of several software providers offering solutions, which can be easily utilized by operators & technicians, the PLC software market is set to witness a significant growth over the forecast timeline. In addition, the introduction of new & advanced features by the software providers and their integration into the industrial systems are helping the business to increase the operational efficiency, positively impacting the PLC software market growth.



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PLC software market is segmented on the basis of product and region. Based on the product, the industry is classified into ladder logic and functional block diagrams. Ladder logic diagrams are gaining popularity across various sectors owing to the ease of use offered by such products. Despite the availability of various other languages, ladder logic is considered to be the most popular language utilized for programming PLCs. For replacement of relay circuits, less-complex control systems, and sequential control, the ladder logic is widely utilized. Other advantages of such products include intuitive and self-documenting, efficient representation for discrete logic, modern debugging tools.



Major companies in the PLC software market include Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SE, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Rockwell Automation, Inc., ABB Group, Robert Bosch GmbH, General Electric, Hitachi Ltd., Yokogawa Electric, Omron Automation, IDEC Corporation, and Honeywell International, Inc.



About Global Market Insights:

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The global Platform Screen Door market was valued at $710 million in 2017, and Our analysts predict the global market size will reach $1640 million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of 7.91% between 2017 and 2026.

A new market assessment report on the Platform Screen Door market provides a comprehensive overview of the Platform Screen Door industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The analytical study is proposed to provide immense clarity on the market size, share and growth rate across different regions. The profound knowledge and extensive examination of the trends from the yesteryear and future aims at offering the stakeholders, product owners, and marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the Platform Screen Door market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026.



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The major players covered in this report are

Nabtesco, Westinghouse, Faiveley, Fangda, Kangni, Stanley, Panasonic, Horton Automatics, Jiacheng, Shanghai Electric, Manusa, KTK



Most important types of Platform Screen Door products covered in this report are:

- Full-Closed Type

- Semi-Closed Type

- Half Height Type



On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including:

- Metro Transportation

- Road Transportation



Understanding the market size

The size of the Platform Screen Door market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region. Analysis of percentage or the size of the Total Available Market based on the type of product, technology, regional constraints and others form an important part of the Platform Screen Door report.



Knowing the trends influencing the industry performance

Stakeholders, marketing executives and business owners planning to refer a market research report can use this study to design their offerings and understand how competitors attract their potential customers and manage their supply and distribution channels. When tracking the trends researchers have made a conscious effort to analyze and interpret the consumer behavior Besides the research helps product owners to understand the changes in culture, target market as well as brands so they can draw the attention of the potential customers more effectively.



Purchase Full report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/29464



Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers in these key regions:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Southeast Asia

- India



We can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:

North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Rest of Middle East & Africa



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The study objectives of this report are:

1. To analyze and study the global Platform Screen Door capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast (2018-2026);

2. Focuses on the key Platform Screen Door manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.

3. Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, analysis.

4. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

5. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

6. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

7. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

8. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

9. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

10. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



Key elements from table of content:

7 Profile of Leading Platform Screen Door Players

7.1 Nabtesco

7.1.1 Company Snapshot

7.1.2 Product/Business Offered

7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share)

7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis

7.2 Westinghouse

7.3 Faiveley

7.4 Fangda

7.5 Kangni

7.6 Stanley

7.7 Panasonic

7.8 Horton Automatics

7.9 Jiacheng

7.10 Shanghai Electric

7.11 Manusa

7.12 KTK

Continue.



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- The latest report, Paper Containers market enables stakeholders to gain insights into their potential consumers to construct more effective marketing strategies for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026. Most importantly, the document empowers business owners to seek information about potential consumers and where they can find them. With an exclusive coverage of the top vendors, the study enables business owners to know more about the local market and locate potential consumers.



The comprehensive study offers an overview of the current state of development of the business as well as predicts the course of progress across different regions. A large number of factors including the major driving forces, threats and opportunities are taken into account to present an analytical picture of the industry portrayed in the report.



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The research further examines and provides data on the market by type, application and geography interspersed with illustrations and other graphical representations. The market analysis not only determines the attractiveness of the industry but also the evolving challenges and opportunities and their association with the weaknesses and strengths of prominent market leaders.



Estimating the potential size of the Paper Containers industry:

Industry experts conducting the study further estimate the potential of the Paper Containers industry. Such information is important for firms looking to launch an innovative service or product on the market. Industry experts have measured the total volume of the given market. Researchers have calculated the industry in terms of sales by the competitors and end-user  customers. Data on the entire size of the Paper Containers market for a particular product or a service for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026 covered in the report makes it valuable. This information reveals the upper limit of the Paper Containers industry for a specific product or service.



Leading players of Paper Containers including:

- Eco-Products

- Letica

- Huhtamaki Group

- Sonoco

- International Paper



Major Regions play vital role in Paper Containers market are:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Middle East & Africa

- India

- South America

- Others



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Extensive data on market segmentation:

The Paper Containers market report divides the market of potential buyers into different groups, or segments/sub-segments, based on various characteristics. The segments and sub-segments identified contain buyers who are expected to respond or react similarly to certain products and services. The report further finds out consumers who share traits including similar expectations, interests, geography and needs. The segmentation sheds light on how some customers are likely to purchase a product or service than others to enable marketers to allocate their focus as well as the resource.



Market share:

The report discovers the market's total sale that is generated by a particular firm over a time period. Industry experts calculate share by taking into account the product sales over a period and then dividing it by the overall sales of the Paper Containers industry over a defined period. Subject matter experts further use this metric to offer a general idea of the share and size of a firm and its immediate rivals. By providing an in-depth knowledge of the position a company, as well as an entrepreneur, holds in the Paper Containers market



The research provides answers to the following key questions:

- What will be the market size and growth rate of the Paper Containers market for the forecast period 2018 -2026 across different regions?

- What are the key driving forces expected to shape the future of the industry worldwide?

- What strategies are the prominent vendors adapting to stay ahead of their competitors?

- Which major trends are impacting the development of the Paper Containers market worldwide?

- Which factors can hinder, challenge or even restrict the expansion of the Paper Containers market worldwide?

- What are the opportunities or future prospect for the business owners operating in the market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026?



Key Points from TOC

8 Competitive Landscape

8.1 Competitive Profile

8.2 Eco-Products

8.2.1 Company Profiles

8.2.2 Paper Containers Product Introduction

8.2.3 Eco-Products Production, Value ($), Price, Gross Margin 2013-2018E

8.2.4 Eco-Products Market Share of Paper Containers Segmented by Region in 2018

8.3 Letica

8.3.1 Company Profiles

8.3.2 Paper Containers Product Introduction

8.3.3 Letica Production, Value ($), Price, Gross Margin 2013-2018E

8.3.4 Letica Market Share of Paper Containers Segmented by Region in 2018



Continue



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Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- Nucleic acid array is the nucleic acid technology that uses a large number of nucleic acid samples that are bound to solid substrates such as silicon and glass microscope slides. Nucleic acid arrays have made it possible to analyse samples on a single slide, which represents the entire gene ranging from 3000 to 32000. The nucleic acid array method is useful for analysing gene expression patterns, genetic mapping and genotyping. Moreover, with the help of nucleic acid array analysis, several expression profiles, such as treated and untreated cell cultures, tissue developmental stages, tumours and normal tissues can be compared. Due to the availability of technologically advanced nucleic acid arrays, glass slides and nylon membranes are mostly used as the solid supports on which nucleic acids are arrayed.



Nucleic Acid Arrays Market: Drivers and Restraints



The rising adoption of technology in academic as well as research laboratories is expected to increase as the results provide valuable and comprehensive information about the interaction of genes in a single experiment, which is a major factor that is expected to drive the nucleic acid arrays market over the forecast period. The availability of technologically advanced nucleic acid arrays that are easy to use, cost-effective and provide reliable results is driving the nucleic acid arrays market. Analysis with nucleic acid arrays helps in the detection of mutations and polymorphism in eukaryotic as well as prokaryotic genomic DNA, which is expected to boost the nucleic acid arrays market. Areas such as cancer research, plant & animal genomics and the clinical research validation of drugs will benefit from the usage of nucleic acid arrays. These devices will provide high throughput and greater efficiency. The overall market of nucleic acid arrays is growing due to the growing expenditure on healthcare.



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Nucleic Acid Arrays Market: Segmentation



Tentatively, the global nucleic acid arrays market can be segmented on the basis of product type, application, end user and geography.



Based on product type, the global nucleic acid arrays market is segmented as:



RNA Array

DNA Array

Based on application, the global nucleic acid arrays market is segmented as:



Data Analysis

Transcriptome Profiling

Cytogenetics Analysis

Agrigenomics Solutions

miRNA Profiling

Others

Based on material type, the global nucleic acid arrays market is segmented as:



Nylon Membrane Arrays

Glass slide Arrays

Based on end users, the global nucleic acid arrays market is segmented as:



Hospitals

Diagnostic laboratories

Research centres

Emergency departments

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Nucleic Acid Arrays Market: Overview



Nucleic acid arrays are used for the analysis of gene sequences. Nucleic acid arrays have made it possible to analyse 32,000 genes on a single slide. These devices have a high throughput, are easy to read and display reliable results. Nucleic acid arrays help in the comparison of tumour-based and normal tissues. Moreover, the usage of nucleic acid arrays has resulted in the growth of the biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical industries. However, technical expertise is required for the effective usage of nucleic acid arrays. The global market for nucleic acid arrays is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period. Majority of these devices are introduced in the market, which creates high competition among the local and regional players.



Nucleic Acid Arrays Market: Regional Outlook



Geographically, the global nucleic acid arrays market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is expected to dominate the global nucleic acid arrays market owing to an increase in the number of research and development activities. Furthermore, the market in North America is expected to grow due to advancements in technology and the availability of skilled healthcare professionals. Europe is expected to have the second-largest share in the global nucleic acid arrays market throughout the forecast period. The nucleic acid arrays market in Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to grow at a significant CAGR due to the expansion of product offerings by key players and increasing biotechnology industries in the region.



Nucleic Acid Arrays Market: Key Players



The global market for nucleic acid arrays is highly fragmented. Examples of some of the key players operating in the global nucleic acid arrays market are Thermo Fisher Scientific; NuGEN Technologies Inc.; DNAmicroarray, Inc.; Agilent Technologies, Inc.; Sensovation AG; QIAGEN and Arbor Biosciences, among others.



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Selbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- MarketStudyReport.com offers 2018 report on global North America Microgrid market that evaluates industry growth trends through historical data and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2018-2024.



North America Microgrid Market is predicted to reach over USD 7 billion by 2024. Aging grid infrastructure coupled with stringent government policies toward adoption of sustainable power technologies will stimulate North America microgrid market. Economic competitiveness, low power cost & transmission losses and reliability are key the parameters that will encourage the product penetration. In addition, ongoing funding toward the development of distributed generation technology will enhance the industry landscape.



Eminent participants in the North America microgrid market include GE, ABB, Schneider Electric, Alstom, Siemens, Honeywell, Caterpillar Inc, Tesla, Virdity Energy Solutions, EnSync Inc, Toshiba, Hitachi, Advanced Microgrid Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Exelon and Power Analytics Corporation.



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Increasing high-end power consumption across the industries on account of development of new HVAC systems and heavy load machineries will foster the microgrid market. Growing electricity demands across hospitals, retail outlets, automotive, manufacturing operations, offices and industries will encourage product penetration across commercial and industrial application. For instance, as per EIA, the commercial and industrial sector in 2017 accounted about 4.5% and 22.4 % of the primary energy consumption respectively.



Ongoing adoption of captive power plants across the manufacturing and industrial sector for ensuring regulated power production will foster North America microgrid market. Increasing investment toward the expansion of decentralized grid coupled with rising investments for the expansion of infrastructure and power sector will accelerate the business growth. For instance, in 2016, the government of Canada, announced an investment of about USD 900 million were financed toward installation of numerous energy sources and R & D across the country.



Natural gas microgrid market will grow on account of stringent government measures pertaining to the adoption of lower emission fuel as a replacement for conventional fuel sources. Ongoing investment toward exploration of unconventional fuel reserves owing to escalating gas demand will enhance the industry outlook. Amren Corporation in 2017, developed an advanced microgrid which utilizes, solar, natural gas and wind energy as a source along with an integrated battery storage and automation system.



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Canada microgrid market is predicted to reach deployment of over 400 MW capacity by 2024. Growing electricity demand across remote and off grid areas along with upsurge in investments toward the adoption of clean energy technology will complement the business growth. Furthermore, ongoing development of distributed energy sources to minimize the dependency on conventional grid will enhance the industry outlook. In 2016 Canada government made an investment of USD 2.4 billion for developing wind and solar energy sources.



Flow batteries accounted for over 5% of North America microgrid market in 2017. Ongoing investment pertaining to the integration of sustainable grid coupled with innovations toward the development of cost-effective and efficient storage technologies will propel the industry growth. key features including long life cycle and higher efficiency will further encourage the product adoption over available substitutes.



Complete report for 2017-2024 on North America Microgrid market is now available at https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/north-america-microgrid-market



Related Report:



United States Energy Storage battery for Microgrid Market Report 2017



United States Energy Storage battery for Microgrid Market research report is added by Market Study report by covering all major market aspects. The report also touches the key scenarios like top players, competition, types, applications, regions, recent developments and future market predictions.



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Tokyo, Japan -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Global Mobile Messaging Services Market 2024 report holds the comprehensive study of the market trends with updates which are key to the said market. The report intentionally analyzes all subdivisions of personal growth trends and future outlook. Based on technology growth, value and volume, the Mobile Messaging Services Market Report presents future market size as well as cost-effective, leading-edge fundamentals in the marketplace.



Rich Communication Services (RCS) brings mobile messaging into the modern world. You can include more information and features than the standard SMS (think about all the apps in your SMS inbox). This can be very useful for brands that want to offer a little more.



Global Mobile Messaging Services Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of +13% during the forecast period 2019-2024



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Top Market Players in the Market:

Tencent, Ailbaba, Apple, Blackberry, Facebook, Kiki Interactive, Line, WhatsApp, Hike



Instant messaging is a type of online chat that provides real-time text transmission over the Internet. With the advent of smartphones and the explosive growth of mobile apps, low-cost free chat and social messaging apps have proven to be an affordable alternative to operator-based text messaging via SMS. Many IM apps offer features such as group chat, graphical exchange, video and audio messaging, stickers, or emoticons.



Mobile Messaging Services took chapters-by-chapter formatting and graphic representation within documents. Major market participants around the world are known to help the company's process direction and condition. There is also complete information on the mobile messaging services market share of manufacturers and various locations with company and product debut within these accounts.



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The report projects market analysis and the "Mobile Messaging Services Market" on a global as well as a regional basis. This report constitutes each industry manufacturer through direct quantitative assessment of industry analysts, direct data, support of industry experts along with the most recent comments, and market value chain.



Researchers further assessed general sales and revenue generation in this particular market. In addition, the Mobile Messaging Services Market Report provides an extensive analysis of underlying market trends, multiple management factors, and macroeconomic indicators along with market improvements for all segments.

The research purposes of this report are as follows.



Research and forecast the market size of mobile messaging services in the global mobile messaging services market.



Worldwide important player analysis, SWOT analysis, value and world market share for top players.



Describe and forecast markets by type, end-use, and region.



Investigate and compare market trends and forecasts across major regions of the world.



Study the potential and benefits, opportunities and challenges, limitations, and risks of global core regional markets.



To identify significant trends and factors driving mobile messaging services market growth.



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The latest report on Methanesulfonic Acid industry takes a closer look at the value chain assessment for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026. Along with the detailed analysis of the performance of the prominent market players, the study brings to light their winning strategies. Apart from this, the researchers behind the market intelligence report examine the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and restraints expected to shape the progress of the Methanesulfonic Acid market for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026. The market intelligence report includes detailed statistics on market segmentation based on product value, application, classification, and sale.



Scope of the Report:

Furthermore, application of Porters Five Forces Analysis to determine the status of various aspects such as the capability of both the suppliers and customers, threats posed by different substitutes, the intensity of competition and promising new vendors makes the study a valuable resource. Extensive analysis of data pertaining to the current as well as emerging trends offers clarity regarding the Methanesulfonic Acid market dynamics. Besides, information on the performance of different companies, profit, gross margin, strategic initiative and more are presented through various resources such as tables, charts, and infographic.



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Market segment by Region/Country including:

- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.)

- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.)

- South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.)

- Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.)



Methanesulfonic Acid market competitions by top manufacturers covered in this report are:

BASF, Arkema Group, Oxon Italia, Jinshenghui Chemical, Zhongke Fine Chemical, Xingchi Science and Technology, Suning Chemical, Jinji Chemical, Yanuo Chemical, Xudong Chemical



Most important types of Methanesulfonic Acid products covered in this report are:

- Pharmaceutical Grade

- Industrial Grade



Most widely used downstream fields of Methanesulfonic Acid market covered in this report are:

- Electroplating

- Medicine

- Organic Synthesis

- Other



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The market intelligence report further offers hard to find data derived from attractiveness analysis that narrates a lot about the products, regions and applications expected to generate more revenue. The research contains the details about the latest events in the Methanesulfonic Acid market including but not limited to the product launches, acquisition and mergers, collaborations and technology advancements with an aim to help business evangelists, product owners and marketing personnel understand what the future demands, customer preferences, consumption volume, production capacity and supply chain management of the Methanesulfonic Acid market will be like.



The global Methanesulfonic Acid market research report answers it all:

- What performance needs should products meet during the forecast period, 2018 to 2026?

- What are the distribution needs must the vendors fulfil to gain a competitive edge over their competitors?

- Which geographic locations should the business owners operating in the global Methanesulfonic Acid market focus on during the forecast period, 2018 to 2026?

- What are the cost drivers? What are the performance tradeoffs to be considered during the estimated period?

- What are the industry standards both new entrants and established business owners must adhere to?

- Which production and delivery issues have plagued the global Methanesulfonic Acid market?



Key points from TOC:



Chapter 7 Profile of Leading Methanesulfonic Acid Players

7.1 BASF

7.1.1 Company Snapshot

7.1.2 Product/Business Offered

7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share)

7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis

7.2 Arkema Group

7.3 Oxon Italia

7.4 Jinshenghui Chemical

7.5 Zhongke Fine Chemical

7.6 Xingchi Science and Technology

7.7 Suning Chemical

7.8 Jinji Chemical

7.9 Yanuo Chemical

7.10 Xudong Chemical



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Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- Partnerships between the private sector and public institutions have been the chief agenda of global public health initiatives. The last few years have witnessed an increase in several private-public partnerships specifically focussing on vaccine provision in developing countries. Partnerships like the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control (ICG) help magnify the vaccine outreach to remote areas of the world with the maximum need. The governments of several countries across the globe initiate immunisation programmes periodically and these programmes are backed by global organisations such as UNICEF and WHO and private not for profits like the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).



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A classic example of how private-public partnerships are helping boost vaccination programmes across deep regional pockets is Brazil. In 2010, Ezequiel Dias Foundation, Brazil formed a strategic alliance with Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics for the sustainable supply of Menjugate MenC vaccines for Brazil's National Immunization Program. By 2015, Brazil became self-sufficient in the production of the meningococcal C conjugated vaccine for the country's public vaccination programmes. Such initiatives at the global level are anticipated to support global immunisation goals and at the same time boost growth of the meningococcal vaccines market.



Factors Leading to Worldwide Adoption of Meningococcal Vaccination Programmes



The global meningococcal vaccines market is expected to be driven by enhanced access to vaccines in low and middle-income countries, growing investments by manufacturers and governments to cope with pandemic meningitis outbreaks, and rapidly growing consumption of meningococcal vaccines bolstered by immunisation alliances and mass vaccination campaigns among others. Partnerships and alliances between manufacturers and governmental healthcare organisations are facilitating the speedy introduction of vaccines in some of the economically challenged countries of the Middle East and Africa region. Enhanced access to vaccines in under-penetrated global markets is expected to accelerate revenue growth of the global meningococcal vaccines market.



Approval of new vaccines in the U.S and Europe in 2015 and 2017 to treat meningococcal meningitis has revolutionised the global immunisation landscape. This is further boosting the growth trajectory of the global market for meningococcal vaccines.



According to Future Market Insights projections, the global market for meningococcal vaccines is expected to reach US$ 6,008.9 Mn by 2028 end from a valuation of US$ 2,290.7 Mn in 2017  reflecting a CAGR of 9.2% during the 10 year period from 2018 to 2028.



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GlaxoSmithKline to Lead the Global Meningococcal Vaccines Market with About 50% Market Share Recorded in 2017



The global meningococcal vaccines market is highly consolidated, with GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi together holding about 80% of the global market share in 2017. Pfizer is the third largest company in this market with just under 12% market share in 2017. Companies are expanding their production capacities through the acquisition of established vaccines production units of other global or local companies. Sanofi has a huge pipeline of 17 active meningococcal vaccines programmes and is targeting emerging markets; while GlaxoSmithKline has 5 active pipeline programmes for meningococcal vaccines, all of which are in the phase II clinical stage. Addition of the vaccine Bexsero has enabled GlaxoSmithKline to defend its brand against Sanofi's aggressive portfolio in the paediatric vaccines space.
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a standard message-based hardware management interface which consists a hardware chip which implements the core of IPMI. IPMI defines a specific way for embedded management subsystems to communicate with CPU's, embedded management sub-subsystems and Remote management applications (with the help of serial lines, LANs, etc.). IPMI management consists of various subsystems are embedded such as BMCs (baseboard management controllers), EMCs (enclosure management controllers through the application of the IPMB standard) and PMCs (peripheral management controllers through ICMB). Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) or Management Controller (MC) is the hardware chip which is used to upfront the IPMI and helps in controlling the server. Primary features of IPMI includes monitors system (temperatures, fans, voltages, power supplies, system physical security, bus errors, etc.), Recovery Control (Recover or Restart the server), Logging and Inventory which are provided independently from CPU, BIOS and Operating System. IPMI out-of-band operation allows the system to operate, even when hosts in-band communication is not functioning. IPMI enable systems to be interoperable, extensible, and scalable. IPMI is finding high usage in various sectors and new geographical areas which are driving the market. Because of its vast usage and secure climate IPMI market will witness an escalating demand globally.



IPMI: Market Dynamics



IPMI facilitates processor independent monitoring which is driving the market. IPMI is a standard that shapes a consistent hardware and software framework. Also, IPMI implementations reduce development time by handling standard failures. Because of the significant features, IPMI has found applications in various vertical such as banking, healthcare, retail, financial services, aviation, insurance, IT, Manufacturing, Telecom, education, research, public sector and many more. Industries such as retail, aviation, IT and telecom requires specialized IPMI systems because a single breakdown in hardware can kill the sales for that period. Industries such as retail, aviation, IT and telecom need dedicated IPMI systems because a single failure in hardware can kill the sales for that period. Many industry vertical deals with a large workforce, diverse customer profiles and assets in different locations. In the current scenario, the economic and financial sector development has supported the automation and expansion of IT structure, which changed the operating environment of these industries forever and played a significant role in shaping and strengthening economies of developing countries such as India and China.



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However, IPMI comes along with many restraints. IPMI might give total control in the hands of a remote attacker who can get complete control over a vulnerable operating system. IPMI firmware also contains many security flaws such as buffer overflow vulnerabilities, shell injection, and privilege escalation vulnerabilities. Some of the IPMI have poorly written shell scripts, bad architecture, and terrible security design. The high price is also a major restraint for the market as it restricts companies looking for IPMI for their network of computers because of the budget.



IPMI market has an opportunity towards the advancements in the retail sector since it requires a large number of systems running continuously 24/7. Also, IPMI can foresee a substantial market growth in China and Japan because of advancement in the telecommunication sector in these regions.



IPMI: Market Segmentation



IPMI market can be segmented on the basis of component Type, which include:



Hardware

Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs)

Sensors & Controls

Memory Devices

Others

Software



IPMI market can be segmented on the basis of Application, which include:



Server

Blade Server

Rack Server

Tower Server

Storage Devices

Telecommunication Equipment



IPMI market can be segmented on the basis of End Users, which include:



Banking

Healthcare

Retail

Financial Services

Aviation

Insurance

IT

Manufacturing

Telecom

Education

Research

Public Sector

Others



IPMI: Segment Outlook



IPMI market can be segmented on the basis of types which include Hardware (Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs), Sensors & Controls, Memory Devices, and Others) and Software. IPMI market can be segmented on the basis of applications which include Server (Blade Server, Rack Server, and Tower Server), Storage Devices and Telecommunication Equipment. IPMI market can also be segmented on the basis of end-user which includes banking, healthcare, retail, financial services, aviation, insurance, IT, manufacturing, telecom, education, research, public sector and others



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IPMI: Regional Outlook



Regional coverage for IPMI market includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Japan. IPMI market will witnesses a high demand in APEJ because of the significant growth in telecommunication industry of Japan and China. China will foresee a rise in telecom customers because of expanding the population. Also, mobility penetration is also increasing in APEJ countries which will further drive the demand of IPMI market.



IPMI: Market Players



The market players in IPMI market are Intel, Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Company, NEC Corporation, Cisco, ARM Holdings PLC, Microsoft Corporation, Emerson Electric Company, Softlayer Technologies, Inc. and many more.
San Francisco, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Snapshot



The global market for high-resolution melting analysis is gaining momentum on account of the advancements in molecular biology. High-resolution melting analysis involves the microscopic study of double-stranded DNA samples to successively detect polymorphisms, epigenetics, and mutations. The study involves the amplification of the region where the mutational analysis needs to be carried out and generation of multiple copies of that region in the sample tube. The applications of high-resolution melting analysis in molecular biology are expansive, which is expected to play to the advantage of the market. TMR Research throws light on several market forces that are expected to contribute to the growth of the market over the coming. Moreover, a multifaceted approach to understand the knit and grit of the market was followed during research and analysis.



One of the most important applications of point high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis is the detection of point mutation. The conventional method of SNP typing is expensive and time-consuming which shifts the focus on HRM analysis. Testing of zygotes has also emerged as an important application of HRM analysis, which is propelling demand within the global market. Apart from the above-mentioned applications, intercalating dyes used for the transition of double-standard DNAs to single-stranded ones are another key area that is projected to contribute to the growth of the market.

Genetic testing centers have been specifically very successful in North America which has given an impetus to the market. On the other hand, prominence of academic Institutes and research centers in Europe has also contributed to the growth of the regional market.



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Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Overview

High resolution melting analysis is a powerful and strong methodology in molecular biology for the purpose of detecting epigenetic differences, polymorphisms, and mutations in double-stranded DNA samples. It was first discovered and developed by the Idaho Technology and University of Utah. High resolution melting analysis has several advantages over genotyping technologies such as cost effectiveness, it is powerful and fast as compared to genotyping technologies, and it is comparatively simple. Based on products and services, the global high-resolution melting analysis market can be segmented into software and services, consumables and reagents, and instruments. In terms of application, it can be segmented into epigenetics, pathogen identification, species identification, mutation scanning, and SNP genotyping.



The global market for high-resolution melting analysis is likely to have a fruitful future owing to ongoing research and developments in this field sponsored by several leading companies operating in this particular field. For instance, FDA in the U.S. approves many treatments which are made for addressing a specific genomic profile or genetic makeup of the tumor of the patient.



Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Drivers and Restraints



The prime factors that are boosting the growth of the market comprise the growing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, COPD, chronic diseases such as cancer, and other different infectious diseases. The prime benefits associated with high-resolution melting analysis are optimization of therapies, patient compliance, drug safety, cost savings on several treatments, and disease diagnosis. In return, these are also expected to propel the demand for DNA testing services. Moreover, rising awareness pertaining to the applications of high resolution melting analysis technologies for HLA typing, mutation discovery, and DNA mapping are additional aspects that are anticipated to propel the growth of the high-resolution melting analysis market during the forecast period. High resolution melting analysis is a technology employed for assessing melting curve plots of amplified gene. This particular technology is basically used for gene mutation scanning, microbial species identification, methylation profiling, and other different diagnostics based on PCR. Thus, mutation scanning and other applications are likely to gain prominence over time owing to rising prevalence of advancements in technology of molecular biology, genetic disorders, and growing awareness pertaining to SNP typing.



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Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Market Potential

Growing government budget provision for research and development in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and applied life sciences is a crucial factor heightening the demand for numerous diagnostic techniques and tools. For instance, in 2015, the Obama led administration announced the introduction of the Precision Medicine Initiative with a huge investment of US$216 mn in the President's budget of 2016. This initiative is further expected to have positive impact on the growth of the high resolution melting analysis market.



Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Regional Overview



Region-wise, the market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. North America is expected to perform extremely owing to factors such as robust adoption of advanced technology in healthcare, numerous genetic testing centers, strong biotech and pharmaceutical industry, prevalence many academic universities, and high prevalence of diseases. Asia Pacific has also been identified as one of the potential regions where the market can grow steadily owing to dynamics such as rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as HIV, COPD, and cancer, growing cases of genetic disorders, and rising private and public expenditure on genetic testing and molecular diagnostic.

Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Competitive Landscape

The top drawer companies operating in the market are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Kapa Biosystems, Idaho Technology Corporation, and Roche Molecular Systems.



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About TMR Research

TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in today's supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients' conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The latest market intelligence study on High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market applies the best of both primary and secondary research techniques to bring to light the growth rate of the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. The comprehensive study covers hard to find facts about the market landscape as well as its growth prospects in the years to come. Most importantly, the research report includes vital statistics about the major vendors occupying a strong foothold in this industry. Besides this, in order to calculate the market share, the study takes a closer look at the selling price of the product across different regions.



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Scope of the Report:

The researcher assessing High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market dive deep to unearth intangible facts related to the key restraints, opportunities, and threats expected to shape the progress of the industry during the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. Significant evaluation of other factors such as demand and supply status, import and export, distribution channel, consumption volume, and production capability play a vital role in offering business owners, stakeholders and field marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the same space. All important data are presented in self-explanatory charts, tables and graphic images that can be incorporated into any business presentation.



In market segmentation by manufacturers, the report covers the following companies-

BASF, Oxy Chem, TOAGOSEI, Detrex Chemicals, KMG Electronic Chemicals, Akzo Nobel, PCC Group, Vynova, Dongyue Group Ltd, Jinmao Group, Suhua Group, Sanonda, Siping Haohua Chemical, Suzhou Crystal Clear Chemical, Jianghua Microelectronics Materials, Chuandong Chemical



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In market segmentation by geographical regions, the report has analysed the following regions-

- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.)

- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.)

- South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.)

- Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.)



Most important types of High-pure Hydrochloric Acid products covered in this report are:

- Concentration: 31-33%

- Concentration>33%



Most widely used downstream fields of High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market covered in this report are:

- Semiconductor

- Food Ingredient & Supplement

- Pharmaceutical

- Other



The study explores in details about the recent trend fast gaining momentum in High-pure Hydrochloric Acid industry due to factors including but not limited to growing customer preference and a sudden rise in their spending capacity. Aspects attributed to the gross margin, profit, supply chain management and product value and their considerable impact on the development of the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market during the forecast period, 2018 - 2026 is carefully scrutinized during the research.



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The research provides answers to the following key questions:

- What is the estimated size of the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period?

- What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions?

- Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition?

- What are the potential opportunities for the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026?

- What are the key trends expected to shape the development of the industry over the coming years?

- What are the key restraints and challenges likely to hinder the growth of the High-pure Hydrochloric Acid market worldwide?



Key points from TOC:



Chapter 7 Profile of Leading High-pure Hydrochloric Acid Players

7.1 BASF

7.1.1 Company Snapshot

7.1.2 Product/Business Offered

7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share)

7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis

7.2 Oxy Chem

7.3 TOAGOSEI

7.4 Detrex Chemicals

7.5 KMG Electronic Chemicals

7.6 Akzo Nobel

7.7 PCC Group

7.8 Vynova

7.9 Dongyue Group Ltd

Continue



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Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Healthcare Asset Management is the field of study which looks at how to manage the "health" of an asset or assets. This often includes methods to establish asset health and effort to decide the appropriate actions to be taken to manage the assets' health. This also includes the discussion of health at end of life to ensure the asset's full life is used efficiently.



Healthcare Asset Management Market report focus on analysing the key inferences, current market scenario, and mainly on global and regional market. Healthcare Asset Management Market is providing information on major players like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, traders, customers, drivers, investors and etc.,



Data type of Healthcare Asset Management market include capacity, production, market share, price, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, growth rate, consumption, import, export and etc. Moreover, Healthcare Asset Management market established the Industry chain, manufacturing process, cost structure, marketing channel are also analyzed in this report.



The global Healthcare Asset Management market is expected to witness a CAGR of 7.54% during the forecast period 20182023. The global Healthcare Asset Management market size is analyzed based on three segments  product type, end-users, and regions.



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In this Healthcare Asset Management market Research, the years considered to estimate the market size of Healthcare Asset Management are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2023



Competitive Analysis of Healthcare Asset Management Market:



The global Healthcare Asset Management market is split and has immense growth opportunities for the vendors, especially in the developed regions. The existence of large, small, and local vendors in the market creates high competition. Following are the leading Manufacturers.



Aeroscout Inc., Awarepoint Corporation, Airista Flow, Ge Healthcare, Ibm Corporation, Infor Inc., Motorola Solutions, Radianse, Siemens Healthineers, Sonitor Technologies,.



Geographically, Healthcare Asset Management Market report provides segment analysis, import and export status, demand status, production volume, of Healthcare Asset Management including regions such as: Canada, US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, GCC, South Africa.



Healthcare Asset Management Market Dynamics:



Drivers



- Rising Demand with Increasing Concerns of Drug Counterfeiting

- Need to Increase Efficiency in Healthcare Institutions

- Growing Concerns for Patient Safety



Restraints



- Data Privacy Concerns

- Accuracy Issues with the Devices

- Organizational and Infrastructural Facility of Healthcare Institutions Affecting Implementation



The Healthcare Asset Management market report provides valuable information for companies like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, traders, customers, investors and individuals who have interests in Healthcare Asset Management industry.



Key Developments in the Healthcare Asset Management Market:



November 2017 - Infor released an updated version of Infor Enterprise Asset Management.

October 2017 -IBM acquired the Vivant Digital business in Australia.

July 2017 - GE Healthcare acquired the clinical outcome consulting firm, Novia Strategies.

June 2017 - GE Healthcare debuted its Wireless Asset Tracking Technology.

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Healthcare Asset Management Market Segmentation as follows-



By Technology:

-Real-time Location System (RTLS)

-Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) System

-Active RFID

-Passive RFID



By Component:

-Hardware

-Software

-Services



By Application:

-Staff Management

-Equipment Tracking

-Patient Tracking

-Supply Chain Management



By End User:

-Hospital/Clinic

-Laboratory

-Pharmaceutical

-Bio-Technology



What Healthcare Asset Management Market Research Offers:

-Healthcare Asset Management Industry gives assessments for the regional level analysis with Production, Sales, Consumption, Imports and Exports



-Healthcare Asset Management market provides manufacturers with basic information, product category, sales revenue, price, and gross margin



-Healthcare Asset Management market forecasts for a minimum of 5 years of all the mentioned segments



-Supply chain trends planning the latest technological developments.



-Global Healthcare Asset Management market shares drivers, constraints, opportunities, threats, challenges, investment opportunities



-Strategic for the new entrants in Healthcare Asset Management market



-Manufacturing process, price, suppliers, production and consumption analysis, mode of transport and cost analysis, industry chain analysis



-Company describing with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments



-And many more



TOC of Healthcare Asset Management Market Report:

Chapter 1: Introduction- Healthcare Asset Management Market brief is given here.



Chapter 2: Market Definition



Chapter 3: Research Methodology



Chapter 4: Executive Summary



Chapter 5: Key Inferences



Chapter 6: Market Overview- includes Current Market Scenario, Porter's Five Forces Analysis, Bargaining Power of Suppliers, Bargaining Power of Consumers, Threat of New Entrants



Chapter 7: Market Dynamics- includes Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities, Key Challenges by Healthcare Asset Management Market



Chapter 8: Market Segmentation- By Type, Application, End users, Geography of Healthcare Asset Management Market



Chapter 9: Competitive Landscape- Induces Mergers & Acquisition Analysis, Agreements, Collaborations, and Partnerships, New Products Launches



Chapter 10: Key Players- Top most compitators of Healthcare Asset Management Market.



Chapter 11: Future of the Market



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Industry Research is an upscale platform to help key personnel in the business world in strategizing and taking visionary decisions based on facts and figures derived from in depth market research. We are one of the top report resellers in the market, dedicated towards bringing you an ingenious concoction of data parameters.



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Organization: Industry Research Co.

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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- This report researches the worldwide Solar Grade Wafer market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions.

This study categorizes the global Solar Grade Wafer breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.



Global Solar Grade Wafer market size will increase to Million US$ by 2025, from Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Solar Grade Wafer.



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This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Solar Grade Wafer capacity, production, value, price and market share of Solar Grade Wafer in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report:

GCL

LDK

Yingli Solar

ReneSola

Green Energy Technology

China Jinglong

Sornid Hi-Tech

Jinko Solar

Trinasolar

Comtec Solar Systems

Nexolon

LONGI

Targray

Topoint

JYT

Tianwei



Solar Grade Wafer Breakdown Data by Type

Monocrystal

Polycrystal

Solar Grade Wafer Breakdown Data by Application

Single Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell

Polycrystalline Silicon Solar Cell



Solar Grade Wafer Production Breakdown Data by Region

United States

Europe

China

Japan

Other Regions



Solar Grade Wafer Consumption Breakdown Data by Region

North America

United States

Canada

Mexico

Asia-Pacific

China



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India

Japan

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Thailand

Vietnam

Europe

Germany

France

UK

Italy

Russia

Rest of Europe

Central & South America

Brazil

Rest of South America

Middle East & Africa

GCC Countries

Turkey

Egypt

South Africa

Rest of Middle East & Africa



The study objectives are:

To analyze and research the global Solar Grade Wafer capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;

To focus on the key Solar Grade Wafer manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.

To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.

To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



To Browse a Full Report with TOC: https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-solar-grade-wafer-market-insights-forecast-to-2025.htm



In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Solar Grade Wafer :

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2025

For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.



About QYResearchReports.com

QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations.



Contact US:

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United States

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Tel: +1-518-618-1030

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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- Polysorbate represents a class of emulsifiers used in food preparation, pharmaceuticals, and personal care and beauty products. Polysorbates are oily liquids made up of fatty acids and sorbitan. They are produced by reaction of sorbitol and polyol with ethylene oxide. Polysorbate function includes dispersion of oil in water as opposed to water in oil. Brand names for polysorbates include Tween, Canarcel, Scattics, and Alkest.



In beauty and personal care ingredients, polysorbate serves as a surfactant creating emulsions, facilitating the ingredients to combine better, making the product more effective. Polysorbate 20 is a commonly used in anti-aging products, facial cleansers, and hair styling gels. In cosmetic creams, polysorbate 40 serves as an emulsifier to stabilize essential oils in water. Polysorbate 80 is used commonly in cold creams, baby lotions, bath oils, and suntan lotions. Polysorbate 85 is commonly used in tanning lotions.



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In foods, polysorbate is commonly used in ice creams, making them easier to handle and preventing them from melting rapidly. Polysorbate is also used in products like flavored mouth drops, as a wetting agent, to help the flavor spread. They are also used in powdered drink products, such as hot cocoa mix as emulsifiers. Polysorbate is a commonly used ingredient in the influenza vaccine. It also assists in emulsifying medicines like amiodarone.



The global polysorbate market is segmented into source, type, end-use, and region. Sources for polysorbate include plants (palm, olive, bay tree, etc.), animals (cow, sheep and pork fat), and synthetic source. Polysorbate types include Polysorbate 20, Polysorbate 40, Polysorbate 60, and Polysorbate 80 etc. The number followed by "Polysorbate" signifies the fatty acid type associated with the polyoxyethylene sorbitan part of the molecule. To be specific, 20 signifies monolaurate, 40 signifies monopalmitate, 60 signifies monostearate, and 80 signifies monooleate. Global polysorbate market is segmented on the basis of its end-use which includes use in food industry, medical and pharmaceutical use, and use in cosmetics. The global polysorbate market is further segmented on the basis of manufacturing technology used. Region wise, the global polysorbate market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific (APEJ), and MEA.



Continuously rising demand from the end use industry plays a vital role in the growth of the global polysorbate market. Growing demands for the bio based products also fuel the growth of the global polysorbate market. Increasing awareness about the use of quality skin care products is also a growth driver for the industry. Growing demand in food and beverage industry due to rapid industrialization is expected to fuel the growth of the polysorbate market.



Availability of natural alternatives restrains the growth of the polysorbate market. Turkey-red oil and coconut oil, owing to their emulsifying properties, can serve as an alternative to polysorbate. Coconut oil is an all-natural and safe alternative to polysorbate. It keeps water and oil from separating and also gives a pleasant scent. Borax or sodium borate is a natural alkaline mineral which when mixed with beeswax, serves as a natural alternative to polysorbate. Polysorbate can cause minor side effects on sensitive skin such as skin irritation.



Some of the major players identified in the global polysorbate market are Evonik Industries, Avantor Performance Materials, NOF America corporation, Solenis, Croda International, Camden-grey Essential Oils, Mohini Organics Pvt. Ltd., M S Mehta & Co, Shine-Sarod Nigeria Limited, Chimi Gostaran Saba ( C. G. S. ), Reachin Chemical Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Runhua Food Additive Co., Ltd, Wmc marketing, Gulf Care Factory, and Mukasa Distributors Ltd. etc.



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Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- The global cyber security market is projected to exceed US$ 177 Billion by 2025. Cybersecurity is becoming a strategic imperative for organization owing to increased focus on preventing information in the wake of high-profile data thefts and breaches. The worldwide spending on cybersecurity is increasing as it is becoming difficult to keep pace with the rise in cybercrimes and malware attacks on governments, BFSI and healthcare organizations. The adoption of cybersecurity solutions is expected to grow with the increasing penetration of internet among developing and developed countries. Also, the expanding wireless network for mobile devices has increased data vulnerability making cybersecurity an integral part of every single organization across the world.



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Product Segments

- Network security, Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Security and Vulnerability Management (SVM) are the top product segments by size and growth prospects.

- Network security emerged as the most attractive product segment by size.

- Identity and Access Management (IAM) accounted for over 16% share of the overall product market in 2017.

- Security and Vulnerability Management (SVM) is anticipated to capture nearly 23% share of the overall cyber security products market by 2025.

- Messaging security and web security are product groups with low growth prospects.



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Service Segments

- The service segments dominate the overall cyber security market.

- In 2017, the managed security services captured maximum share of the overall cyber security services market.

- Integration service solutions accounted for over 30% share of the overall cyber security services market in 2017.

- The education and training segment captured least share of the overall cyber security services market.



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Industry Verticals

- The government sector accounted for lion's share of the global cyber security market in 2017.

- Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector accounted for nearly 22% share of the global cyber security market in 2017.

- Manufacturing companies were not known for storing sensitive information, but that has changed in a big way.

- The information and communications technology (ICT) sector captured nearly 10% share of the global cyber security market in 2017.

- The healthcare industry is likely to capture over 6% share of the global cyber security market by 2025.



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Geography

- North America captured maximum share of the global cybersecurity market in 2017, followed by Europe.

- It is anticipated that Asia Pacific will account for over 30% share of the global cybersecurity market by 2025.

- Countries such as India and China are rapidly moving toward digitization in all the sector which is anticipated to increase the cybercrime activities in the region.



Global Cyber Security Market (By Product Segments, Service Segments, Industry Verticals, Geography, Recent Developments) - Forecast to 2025 report provides a comprehensive assessment of the fast-evolving, high-growth Cyber Security Market.



This 106 Page report with 61 Figures and 5 Tables has been analyzed from 9 viewpoints:

1. Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

2. Global Cyber Security Market Share & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

3. By Product Segments - Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

4. By Service Segments - Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

5. By Industry Verticals - Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

6. By Geography - Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast (2015 - 2025)

7. Global Cyber Security Market - Key Developments

8. Global Cyber Security Index 2017

9. Global Cyber Security Market - Growth Drivers and Challenges



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Product Segments

- Network Security

- Identity and Access Management (IAM)

- Security and Vulnerability Management (SVM)

- End Point Security

- Messaging Security

- Web Security

- Others



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Service Segments

- Managed Security Services

- Integration Solutions

- Security Consulting

- Education and Training



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Industry Verticals

- Government

- Banking, Financial services and Insurance

- Manufacturing

- Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

- Retail

- Healthcare

- Others



Global Cyber Security Market & Forecast - By Geography

- North America

- Europe

- Asia Pacific

- Others



Global Cyber Security Index 2017

- Africa

- Americas

- Arab States

- Asia and the Pacific

- Europe



Research Methodologies

Primary Research Methodologies: Questionnaires, Surveys, Interviews with Individuals, Small Groups, Telephonic Interview, etc.

Secondary Research Methodologies: Printable and Non-printable sources, Newspaper, Magazine and Journal Content, Government and NGO Statistics, white Papers, Information on the Web, Information from Agencies Such as Industry Bodies, Companies Annual Report, Government Agencies, Libraries and Local Councils and a large number of Paid Databases.



Please visit this link for more details: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/igate/global-cyber-security-market-product-segments-service-segments-industry-verticals-geography



Find all IT Security Reports at: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/it-security



For related reports please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/search/site/Cyber%20Security



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The report presents a thorough overview of the current state of the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market. The report analyzes the overall growth of the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market and examines the industry chain in details, analyzing the past, present, and the potential future growth prospects of the market.



The report also presents detailed data about the production of 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) according to a region-wise segmentation. The key applications and product types of the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market have also been examined from a geographic standpoint. The report examines the development of the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market over the years and presents a detailed analysis of the various trends, drivers, and restraints on the market's current state.



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Global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market size will increase to Million US$ by 2025, from Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI).



This report researches the worldwide 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions.



This study categorizes the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.



This report focuses on the top manufacturers' 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) capacity, production, value, price and market share of 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report:

BASF

Xudong Chem

NHU

Juhong Chemical



2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Breakdown Data by Type

0.99

0.98



2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Breakdown Data by Application

Chemical Intermediates

Corrosion Inhibitor

Medicine and Food Applications

Spices

Other



Browse Press Release of this Research Report: https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-2-methyl-3-butin-2-ol-mbi-market-insights-forecast-to-2025.htm



2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Production Breakdown Data by Region

United States

Europe

China

Japan

Other Regions



The study objectives are:

To analyze and research the global 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;

To focus on the key 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.

To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.

To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of 2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) :

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2025



For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.



Key Stakeholders



2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Manufacturers

2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers

2-Methyl-3-butin-2-ol (MBI) Subcomponent Manufacturers

Industry Association

Downstream Vendors



About QYResearchReports.com

QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Based on the Gene Synthesis industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of Gene Synthesis market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2018-2026), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2018-2026), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Gene Synthesis market.



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Scope of the Gene Synthesis market

The latest market intelligence study on the Gene Synthesis market brings in the best of both qualitative and quantitative assessment techniques to explore the market size, share, and status of the Gene Synthesis market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. The extensive examination of the global business environment provides a detailed analysis of the key driving forces and challenges with the aim to give the stakeholders, business owners, and filed marketing executives a competitive advantage over others. The study further probes into prominent challenges, technology advancements, current trends and lucrative avenues often considered as the boosting elements for the Gene Synthesis market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026.



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Leading players of Gene Synthesis including:



- Genscript

- DNA 2.0 (ATUM)

- OriGene

- BBI

- Genewiz

- Eurofins Genomics

- Gene Oracle

- SBS Genetech

- Bio Basic



Gene Synthesis Market split by Type, can be divided into:



- Below 1000 bp

- 1001-3000 bp

- 3001-5000 bp

- Above 5000 bp



Gene Synthesis Market split by Application, can be divided into:



- Commercial

- Academic Research



Market split by Sales Channel, can be divided into:



- Direct Sales

- Distribution Sales



Market segment by Region/Country including:



- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.)

- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.)

- South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.)

- Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.)



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A quick look at the industry trends and opportunities

The study is a professional probe into the revenue generated and capacity estimates for the Gene Synthesis market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026 empower the business owners to maintain a competitive edge over their rivals. The research further examines and provides data on the market by type, application and geography interspersed with illustrations and other graphical representations. The market analysis not only determines the attractiveness of the industry but also the evolving challenges and opportunities and their association with the weaknesses and strengths of prominent market leaders. Other factors taken into consideration when studying the industry include profitability, manufacturing capability, distribution channels and industry cost structure and major success factors.



Understanding the market size

The study segments the complete Gene Synthesis market on the basis of different application, end-use, end-user, and production capability. From a business standpoint, the industry has been thoroughly examined across various countries located in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and others. The size of the industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2026 is evaluated on the basis of current sales figures and past financial report can be used to forecast the future sales.



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The research provides answers to the following key questions:



- What will be the size and the growth rate of the Gene Synthesis market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026?

- What are key drivers believed to shape the future of the market during the estimated period?

- What are the prominent industries players dominating the Gene Synthesis market during the forecast period?

- What are the major trends influencing the development of the industry?

- What are the key challenges likely to hinder the progress of the market?

- What are major opportunities and threats encountered by the business owners operating in the business vertical?



Key elements from table of content:



Chapter 7 Profile of Leading Gene Synthesis Players

7.1 Genescript

7.1.1 Company Snapshot

7.1.2 Product/Business Offered

7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share)

7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis

7.2 GeneArt (Thermofischer)

7.3 IDT

7.4 DNA 2.0 (ATUM)

7.5 OriGene

7.6 BBI

7.7 Genewiz

7.8 Eurofins Genomics

7.9 Gene Oracle

7.10 SBS Genetech

7.11 Bio Basic

Chapter 8 Upstream and Downstream Analysis of Gene Synthesis

8.1 Industrial Chain of Gene Synthesis

8.2 Upstream of Gene Synthesis

8.2.1 Raw Materials

8.2.2 Labor Cost

8.2.3 Manufacturing Expenses

8.2.4 Manufacturing Cost Structure

8.2.5 Manufacturing Process

8.3 Downstream of Gene Synthesis

8.3.1 Leading Distributors/Dealers of Gene Synthesis

8.3.2 Leading Consumers of Gene Synthesis

Continue...



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The latest market intelligence study on the Garage Heaters market applies the best of both primary and secondary research techniques to bring to light the growth rate of the Garage Heaters market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. The comprehensive study covers hard to find facts about the market landscape as well as its growth prospects in the years to come. Most importantly, the research report includes vital statistics about the major vendors occupying a strong foothold in this industry. Besides this, in order to calculate the market share, the study takes a closer look at the selling price of the product across different regions.



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Scope of the Report:

The researcher assessing the Garage Heaters market dive deep to unearth intangible facts related to the key restraints, opportunities, and threats expected to shape the progress of the industry during the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. Significant evaluation of other factors such as demand and supply status, import and export, distribution channel, consumption volume, and production capability play a vital role in offering business owners, stakeholders and field marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the same space. All important data are presented in self-explanatory charts, tables and graphic images that can be incorporated into any business presentation.



Understanding the market size:

The size of the Garage Heaters market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region. Analysis of percentage or the size of the Total Available Market based on the type of product, technology, regional constraints and others form an important part of the Garage Heaters report.



Market share:

The report discovers market's total sale that is generated by a particular firms over a time period. Industry experts calculate share by taking into account the product sales over a period and then dividing it by the overall sales of the Garage Heaters industry over a defined period. Subject matter experts further use this metric to offer a general idea of the share and size of a firm and its immediate rivals. By providing an in-depth knowledge of the position a company as well as an entrepreneur holds in the Garage Heaters market



Market Segment on the basis of manufacturers, the report covers:

- NewAir

- Hamilton

- King Electric

- Glen Dimplex

- Cadet

- Reznor

- Lennox



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Most important types of Garage Heaters products covered in this report are:

- Electric

- Natural Gas



Most widely used downstream fields of Garage Heaters market covered in this report are:

- Residential

- Commercial



Major Regions play vital role in Garage Heaters market are:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Middle East & Africa

- India

- South America

- Others



The study explores in details about the recent trend fast gaining momentum in the Garage Heaters industry due to factors including but not limited to growing customer preference and a sudden rise in their spending capacity. Aspects attributed to the gross margin, profit, supply chain management and product value and their considerable impact on the development of the Garage Heaters market during the forecast period, 2018 - 2026 is carefully scrutinized during the research.



The research provides answers to the following key questions:

- What is the estimated size of the Garage Heaters market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period?

- What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions?

- Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the Garage Heaters market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition?

- What are the potential opportunities for the Garage Heaters market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026?



There are 13 Chapters to deeply display the global Garage Heaters market.



Chapter 1 covers the Garage Heaters Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;



Chapter 2 talks about the top manufacturers and analyses their sales, revenue and pricing decisions for the duration 2018 and 2026;



Chapter 3 displays the competitive nature of the market by discussing the competition among the top manufacturers. It dissects the market using sales, revenue and market share data for 2018 and 2026;



Chapter 4, shows the global market by regions and the proportionate size of each market region based on sales, revenue and market share of Garage Heaters, for the period 2018- 2026;



Continue



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The global Formic Acid market was valued at $865 million in 2017, and Our analysts predict the global market size will reach $1420 million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of 4.61% between 2017 and 2026.

A new market assessment report on the Formic Acid market provides a comprehensive overview of the Formic Acid industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The analytical study is proposed to provide immense clarity on the market size, share and growth rate across different regions. The profound knowledge and extensive examination of the trends from the yesteryear and future aims at offering the stakeholders, product owners, and marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the Formic Acid market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026.



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The major players covered in this report are

Basf, Feicheng Acid Chemicals, Luxi Chemcial Group, Eastman, Basf-YPC Company, Tianyuan Group, Perstorp, Wuhan Ruisunny Chemical, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & ,Chemicals, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shandong Rongyue Chemical, Chongqing Chuandong Chemical, Huaqiang Chemical, Shanxi Yuanping Chemicals, Shandong Baoyuan Chemical



Most important types of Formic Acid products covered in this report are:

- Methyl Formate Hydrolysis Technology

- Sodium Formate Technology



On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including:

- Agriculture

- Leather & Textile

- Rubber

- Chemical & Pharmaceuticals



Understanding the market size

The size of the Formic Acid market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region. Analysis of percentage or the size of the Total Available Market based on the type of product, technology, regional constraints and others form an important part of the Formic Acid report.



Knowing the trends influencing the industry performance

Stakeholders, marketing executives and business owners planning to refer a market research report can use this study to design their offerings and understand how competitors attract their potential customers and manage their supply and distribution channels. When tracking the trends researchers have made a conscious effort to analyze and interpret the consumer behavior Besides the research helps product owners to understand the changes in culture, target market as well as brands so they can draw the attention of the potential customers more effectively.



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Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers in these key regions:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Southeast Asia

- India



We can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:

North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Rest of Middle East & Africa



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The study objectives of this report are:

1. To analyze and study the global Formic Acid capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast (2018-2026);

2. Focuses on the key Formic Acid manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.

3. Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, analysis.

4. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

5. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

6. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

7. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

8. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

9. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

10. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



Key elements from table of content:

7 Profile of Leading Formic Acid Players

7.1 Basf

7.1.1 Company Snapshot

7.1.2 Product/Business Offered

7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share)

7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis

7.2 Feicheng Acid Chemicals

7.3 Luxi Chemcial Group

7.4 Eastman

7.5 Basf-YPC Company

7.6 Tianyuan Group

7.7 Perstorp

7.8 Wuhan Ruisunny Chemical

7.9 Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals

7.10 Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers

7.11 Shandong Rongyue Chemical

Continue.



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Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- Future Market Insights delivers key insights on the global electrical enclosure market a new publication. The long-term outlook on the global electrical enclosure market remains positive with the market value expected to increase at a CAGR of 4.9% during the forecast period (2018-2028). Among the end use segments in the electrical enclosure market, the industrial segment is expected to expand at a significant CAGR in terms of value as well as volume over the forecast period. Global sales revenue of electrical enclosures is estimated to be valued at US$ 6,429.8 Mn by the end of 2018. China is estimated to account for a value share of 37.1% in the global electrical enclosure market by 2018 end and is anticipated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period. In this report, Future Market Insights throws light on the various drivers and restraints likely to impact revenue growth of the market during this period.



Rapid Growth of Renewable Power Generation Key Growth Driver



Most of the end users are now shifting their focus to alternative forms of power or energy rather than depending on energy generation by fossil fuel operated power generators. These alternative forms of energies  for instance, wind power, solar power and other forms of renewable energy are gaining popularity among all types of end users. Additionally, carbon emission and dependency on fossil resources is increasing day-by-day. Thus, in order to control this dependency, usage of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy is likely to be the new trend in the energy and power industry. Establishment of these power generation facilities will increase the demand for electrical enclosures in the upcoming years. Many countries such as the U.K. and Germany among others, are planning to adopt renewable energy sources, which is expected to further increase the demand for electrical enclosures for transmission and distribution.



A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-561



Capacity Addition Plans and Installation of New Grids to Power the Electrical Enclosure Market



The governments of various countries have planned to make huge investments on numerous projects to provide better electricity services. For instance, the government of Russia has devised plans such as the GOELRO plan, Russian SFSR Electrification Plan, and Railway Electrification Plan among others, for establishing new power grids to provide electricity in the rural areas of the country. These plans are being supported by the State Commission for Electrification of Russia. Also, the government is focussing on installing new transmission lines in order to create a national grid and also to develop railway electrification, which will in turn boost the demand for electrical enclosures. These planned investments across various sectors such as infrastructure, power, and railways among others, will drive significant growth in the electrical enclosure market.



Need for Integration of Grid Infrastructure



Increasing transmission and distribution activities across the globe have increased the demand for installations of enclosures, which in turn, is driving the market of electrical enclosures. Transmission and distribution expansion, along with urbanisation, is necessary for the development of industrial and manufacturing sectors. Some countries, such as GCC countries and Turkey have the potential to become the hub for many manufacturing industries, which will increase the demand for electrical enclosures owing to rapid industrialisation. By material type, metallic enclosures will witness supreme demand as they have a longer life and reduce the risk of fire hazards. Climate control enclosures can work in extreme climatic conditions and are ideal for use in several regions, thereby driving demand in the global market.



Segmentation Analysis



The electrical enclosure market is segmented on the basis of product type into junction enclosure, disconnect enclosure, operator interface enclosure, environment and climate control enclosure and push button enclosure.



On the basis of product type, the junction enclosure segment is anticipated to continue to dominate the global market in terms of value over the forecast period. The junction enclosure segment is estimated to grow at a relatively high CAGR as compared to other types over the forecast period. It is expected to represent a total incremental opportunity of US$ 1,691.2 Mn between 2018 and 2028.



Read Comprehensive Overview with Methodology of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-561



Regional Market Projections



The electrical enclosure market in China is expected to represent significantly high incremental opportunity between 2018 and 2028, while the North America electrical enclosure market is projected to expand at a significant CAGR in terms of volume over the forecast period. Sales of electrical enclosures in North America is expected to represent a total incremental opportunity of US$ 523.3 Mn between 2018 and 2028.
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- HTF MI recently introduced Global Dual Clutch Transmission Market study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product / Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2023. The market Study is segmented by key regions which is accelerating the marketization. At present, the market is developing its presence and some of the key players from the complete study are Aisin Seiki, ZF Friedrichshafen, Getrag, Jatco, Magna, Continental & Allison etc.



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This report studies the Global Dual Clutch Transmission market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the Global Dual Clutch Transmission market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.



Browse 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and in-depth TOC on " Dual Clutch Transmission Market by Type (, Product Type Segmentation, Wet Dual Clutch Technology & Dry Dual Clutch Technology), by End-Users/Application (Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV), Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV)), Organization Size, Industry, and Region - Forecast to 2023". Early buyers will receive 10% customization on comprehensive study.



In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.



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Competitive Analysis:

The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Aisin Seiki, ZF Friedrichshafen, Getrag, Jatco, Magna, Continental & Allison includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.



Market Segments:

The Global Dual Clutch Transmission Market has been divided into type, application, and region.

On The Basis Of Type:, Product Type Segmentation, Wet Dual Clutch Technology & Dry Dual Clutch Technology.

On The Basis Of Application: Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV), Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV)

On The Basis Of Region, this report is segmented into following key geographies, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share, growth rate of Dual Clutch Transmission in these regions, from 2013 to 2023 (forecast), covering

- North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Latin America (Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis}

- Rest of World {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis}



Buy Single User License of Global Dual Clutch Transmission Market Report 2018 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1457901



Have a look at some extracts from Table of Content



Introduction about Global Dual Clutch Transmission



Global Dual Clutch Transmission Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2017

Dual Clutch Transmission Market by Application/End Users

Global Dual Clutch Transmission Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications

(2013-2023) table defined for each application/end-users like [Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV), Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV)]

Global Dual Clutch Transmission Sales and Growth Rate (2013-2023)

Dual Clutch Transmission Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application

Dual Clutch Transmission (Volume, Value and Sales Price) table defined for each geographic region defined.

Global Dual Clutch Transmission Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data



Additionally Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors list is being provided for each listed manufacturers



Market Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) table for each product type which include, Product Type Segmentation, Wet Dual Clutch Technology & Dry Dual Clutch Technology

Dual Clutch Transmission Manufacturing Cost Analysis

Dual Clutch Transmission Key Raw Materials Analysis

Dual Clutch Transmission Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Industrial Chain Analysis

Market Forecast (2018-2023)

........and more in complete table of Contents



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Los Angeles, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- This report studies the Dental Braces market size (value and volume) by players, regions, product types and end industries, history data 2013-2017 and forecast data 2018-2025; This report also studies the global market competition landscape, market drivers and trends, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.



Dental Braces (also known as braces, orthodontic cases, or cases) are devices used in orthodontics that align and straighten teeth and help to position them with regard to a person's bite, while also working to improve dental health. They are often used to correct underbids, as well as malocclusions, overbites, open bites, deep bites, cross bites, crooked teeth, and various other flaws of the teeth and jaw. Braces can be either cosmetic or structural. Dental braces are often used in conjunction with other orthodontic appliances to help widen the palate or jaws and to otherwise assist in shaping the teeth and jaws. In the statistical process, we defined the Dental Braces as Braces. Dental Braces is divided into ordinary braces and invisible braces, constituted ordinary braces include archwire and bracket, they were then sold to hospitals or the clinic. Therefore, we divided the archwire, brackets and invisible braces three parts to analysis the Dental Braces.



Dental Braces is one of the fastest growing medical products in recent years in China, and it is in great demand in the Chinese market. In the long term, Dental Braces industry in China is very promising.



The global Dental Braces market was xx million US$ in 2017 and is expected to xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2018 and 2025.



Get PDF report template at https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/545123/global-dental-braces-market



Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share and growth Rate of Dental Braces in these regions, from 2013 to 2025, covering



North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)



Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey etc.)



Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam)



South America (Brazil etc.)



Middle East and Africa (Egypt and GCC Countries)



The various contributors involved in the value chain of the product include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, intermediaries, and customers. The key manufacturers in this market include



Henry Schein



3M Unitek



GC Orthodontics



FORESTADENT



Patterson Dental



American Orthodontics



Dentsply



Ormco



Dentaurum



Dental Morelli



ShanghaiIMD



Hangzhou Xingchen 3B Dental



Hangzhou Shinye



YAHONG



Zhejiang Protect Medical



By the product type, the market is primarily split into



Metal



Ceramics



Polymer Materials



By the end users/application, this report covers the following segments



Conventional Orthodontic Treatment



Beauty



We can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:



North America



United States



Canada



Mexico



Asia-Pacific



China



India



Japan



South Korea



Australia



Indonesia



Singapore



Malaysia



Philippines



Thailand



Vietnam



Rest of Asia-Pacific



Europe



Germany



France



UK



Italy



Spain



Russia



Rest of Europe



Central & South America



Brazil



Rest of Central & South America



Middle East & Africa



GCC Countries



Turkey



Egypt



South Africa



Rest of Middle East & Africa



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About QYResearch

QYResearch always pursuits high product quality with the belief that quality is the soul of business. Through years of effort and supports from the huge number of customer supports, QYResearch consulting group has accumulated creative design methods on many high-quality markets investigation and research team with rich experience. Today, QYResearch has become the brand of quality assurance in the consulting industry.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The latest market evaluation report on the Cyclopentane market explores how the Cyclopentane market will continue to expand for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The study further serves as a unique research for stakeholders, product owners, and field marketing executives looking for actionable data and unique resource on market size, share, and growth. The market intelligence report gives business evangelists an authority to review the major trends, opportunities, and challenges expected to shape the future of the industry during the estimated period. Importantly, the study not only helps spot the major vendors but also their winning strategies. The real-time data accumulated through qualitative and quantitative research technique further help business owners determine where they stand in comparison to their region, country, and product category.



Request Sample copy of this report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/29452



Apart from this, the valuable document weighs upon the performance of the industry on the basis of a product service, end-use, geography and end customer



The researcher assessing the Cyclopentane market dive deep to unearth intangible facts related to the key restraints, opportunities, and threats expected to shape the progress of the industry during the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. Significant evaluation of other factors such as demand and supply status, import and export, distribution channel, consumption volume, and production capability play a vital role in offering business owners, stakeholders and field marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the same space. All important data are presented in self-explanatory charts, tables and graphic images that can be incorporated into any business presentation.



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Leading players of Cyclopentane including:



- Haltermann

- Chevron Phillips

- Maruzen (Chemiway)

- HPL

- YNCC

- South Hampton Resources

- INEOS

- LG Chemecial

- SK Global Chemical

- Beijing Eastern Acrylic

- DYMATIC Chemicals

- Jilin Beihua Fine Chemical



Cyclopentane Market split by Type, can be divided into:



- Content <95%

- Content 95%-98%

- Content >98%



Cyclopentane Market split by Application, can be divided into:



- Refrigerator

- Heater

- Chemical Solvent



Cyclopentane Market split by Sales Channel, can be divided into:



- Direct Sales

- Distribution Sales



Market segment by Region/Country including:



- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.)

- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.)

- South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.)

- Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.)



Buy Cyclopentane market report and avail 15% free customization on the report at https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/29452



Region wise performance of the Cyclopentane industry

Next, the market assessment report also takes into account the top performers and the new entrants when weighing upon the competitive landscape of the Cyclopentane market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025. Relevant and hard to find facts pertaining to the import and export status, supply chain management, product price, profit and gross margin are clearly explained through resources such as charts, tables, and graphic images. A comprehensive coverage of various segments and the breakdown of their sale figures according to the regions form an important part of the scope of this study.



Get Access to Full summary of this report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/cyclopentane-market



The research provides answers to the following key questions:



- What is the estimated size of the Cyclopentane market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period?

- What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions?

- Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the Cyclopentane market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition?

- What are the potential opportunities for the Cyclopentane market for the forecast period, 2018- 2026?

- What are the key trends expected to shape the development of the industry over the coming years?

- What are the key restraints and challenges likely to hinder the growth of the Cyclopentane market worldwide?



There are 13 Chapters to thoroughly display the Cyclopentane market. This report included the analysis of market overview, market characteristics, industry chain, competition landscape, historical and future data by types, applications and regions.



Chapter 1: Cyclopentane Market Overview, Product Overview, Market Segmentation, Market Overview of Regions, Market Dynamics, Limitations, Opportunities and Industry News and Policies.

Chapter 2: Cyclopentane Industry Chain Analysis, Upstream Raw Material Suppliers, Major Players, Production Process Analysis, Cost Analysis, Market Channels and Major Downstream Buyers.

Chapter 3: Value Analysis, Production, Growth Rate and Price Analysis by Type of Cyclopentane

Chapter 4: Downstream Characteristics, Consumption and Market Share by Application of Cyclopentane

Continue...



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Harrisburg, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the Connector market and contains qualitative and quantitative insights, historical and forecasted data, competitor and regional analysis from 2014 to 2025. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types and applications.



Request a Free Sample Report before Purchase: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/01291069975/global-connector-market-insights-forecast-to-2025/inquiry?source=releasewire&Mode=11



The report covers the profiles of major players in the global Connector market such as: Amphenol, Delphi Connection Systems, Hirose Electric, Hon Hai Precision Industry, Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Molexorporated, TE Connectivity, Volex PLC.



Connector Market, by Types:

PCB (Printed circuit board) Connector

Rectangular I/O

Application Specific Connector

Fiber Optic Connector

RF (Radio Frequency) Coax

Circular Connector

IC (Integrated circuit) Sockets

Others



Connector Market, by Applications:

Automotive and Transportation

Consumer Electronics

Computer and Peripherals

Industrial

Telecom/Datacom

Others



Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering United States, Europe, China, Japan, South Korea, Other Regions.



Several important Key questions answer covered in this Connector market research report:

- What is status of Connector Market? -This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, Prospect, Growth trend, Sales by regions, manufacturers, types and applications.

- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?

- What is Connector Market forecasts (2019-2025)?  Considering Sales, Revenue, Growth rate, Price and Trends for Regions, Types and Applications?

- Who Are Connector Market Key Manufacturers?

- What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2025? -What are the key factors driving the global Connector market?

- What are the key outcomes of the distinct analysis of the world Connector Market-Analysis done by considering prime elements?



Browse Full Report: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/01291069975/global-connector-market-insights-forecast-to-2025?source=releasewire&Mode=11



The research includes historic data from 2014 to 2018 and forecasts until 2025 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs.



The study comprises a mix of data pertaining to the key restraints, drivers, competitive landscape, regulatory forces, key strategies implemented by the key players, and opportunities, expected to have a profound impact on the scope of growth of the market. A detailed analysis of these factors allows the report to present a reliable forecast regarding the future growth dynamics of the Connector market.



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MarketInsightsReports provides syndicated Market research reports to industries, organizations or even individuals with an aim of helping them in their decision making process. MarketInsightsReports has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.



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Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- Business information contains the information about reports, files, ledgers, competitive research, user & technical manuals, training guides and other documents which offer comprehensive details about business related activities. The services are provided by business analytics companies through subscription platform. These information help companies in better decision making and give a picture of industry insights and competitive landscape.



Request a sample of Business Information Market report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1490678-global-business-information-market-7



The Business Information market study is being classified and major geographies with country level break-up that includes South America (Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America) , Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Rest of Asia-Pacific) , Europe (Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Rest of Europe) , MEA (Middle East, Africa) , North America (United States, Canada, Mexico) .



Top Key Players-

Bloomberg [United States] , Equifax [United Kingdom] , Experian Information Solutions [United States] , Thomson Reuters [Canada] and Wolters Kluwer [Netherlands] are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Players which are also part of the research are Experian PLC [Ireland] , TransUnion [United States] , Fitch Ratings [United States] , Morningstar, Inc [United States] and Moody's Corporation [United States].



Business Information Market Drivers:

Increasing Demand for Business Information as it Serves as a Risk Management and Reduction Tool

Growing Need to Improve Market Responsiveness



Business Information Market Trend:

Use of Big Data

Need For Customer-centric Solution

Popularity of Smart Devices and Growing Digital Contents



Business Information Market Restraints:

Easy Access of Free Business Information

Lack of Interoperability Among Players



Business Information Market Opportunities:

Rising Demand of Business Intelligence Tools Across Industries and Growing Popularity of Social Media



Get customization & check discount for Business Information Market report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/request-discount/1490678-global-business-information-market-7



Business Information Market Leaders and their expansionary development strategies

July 2018 - : Equifax Acquires DataX to promote financial inclusion. "The combination of DataX's data with Equifax's unique and robust data assets will add more depth to consumer's profiles and will help lenders expand borrowing options." said Trey Loughran, president of United States Information Solutions at Equifax.



Business information services are subjected to data breach and it requires strong data protection laws. Global organization such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has stern rule regarding public data breach where companies are liable to pay 4 % of their annual turnover or 20 million, whichever is greater, in case of public data breach.



Key Target Audience

Business Information Service Providers

Business Information Seekers Companies

Government Agencies

Potential Investors

Research Institutes



Place a Purchase Order For Business Information Market Study (Single User License) at: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1490678



Table of Contents



1 Market Overview



1.1 Business Information Introduction



1.2 Market Analysis by Type



1.3 Market Analysis by Applications



1.4 Market Analysis by Regions



1.4.1 North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)



1.4.1.1 United States Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)



1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)



1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa



1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)



1.5 Market Dynamics



1.5.1 Market Opportunities



1.5.2 Market Risk



1.5.3 Market Driving Force



2 Manufacturers Profiles



2.1.1 Business Overview



2.1.2 Business Information Type and Applications



2.1.3 Business Information Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)



3 Global Business Information Market Competition, by Manufacturer



3.1 Global Business Information Sales and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2017)



3.2 Global Business Information Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2017)



3.3 Global Business Information Price by Manufacturer (2016-2017)



3.4 Market Concentration Rate



3.4.1 Top 3 Business Information Manufacturer Market Share in 2017



3.4.2 Top 5 Business Information Manufacturer Market Share in 2017



3.5 Market Competition Trend



4 Global Business Information Market Analysis by Regions



4.1 Global Business Information Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Regions



4.1.1 Global Business Information Sales by Regions (2013-2018)



4.1.2 Global Business Information Revenue by Regions (2013-2018)



4.2 North America Business Information Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2018)



4.3 Europe Business Information Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2018)



4.4 Asia-Pacific Business Information Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2018)



4.5 South America Business Information Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2018)



4.6 Middle East and Africa Business Information Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2018)



5 North America Business Information by Countries, Type, Application and Manufacturers



....Continued



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Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- The latest study on the Automobile Metal Stamping market for the forecast period, 2018 to 2025 classifies the industry into various segments based on the product type, end-use and application. Besides, these segments are assessed in detail by incorporating industry estimates at both the regional as well as country level. This segment evaluation is beneficial in helping stakeholders, business owners and marketing personnel get an understanding of the growth areas and potential opportunities for the Automobile Metal Stamping industry. The market intelligence report further covers the competitive landscape of the industry across different regions.



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Scope of the Report:

The detailed examination of recent developments including collaboration, mergers and acquisitions, investment and product launches have also been performed during the research on the Automobile Metal Stamping market. Overview of the gradual shift in the customer preference, spending power, consumption volume and production capability helps business owners understand where the market will be heading in the years to come. Vital statistics on distribution channel and supply chain management across different regions are presented through different resources such as tables, charts and graphic images.



The major manufacturers covered in this report

Shiloh Industries, Inc., Kenmode Precision Metal Stamping, American Industrial Company, Lindy Manufacturing, Martinrea International, Aro Metal Stamping, Clow Stamping Co, Wisconsin Metal Parts, Inc., Manor Tool & Manufacturing Company, Alcoa Inc.



Major Regions play vital role in Automobile Metal Stamping market are:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Middle East & Africa

- India

- South America

- Others



Most important types of Automobile Metal Stamping products covered in this report are:

- Blanking

- Embossing

- Bending

- Coining

- Flanging

- Others



Most widely used downstream fields of Automobile Metal Stamping market covered in this report are:

- Cars

- Commercial Vehicles

- Recreational Vehicles

- Transportation



When accessing the major driving forces shaping the progress of the Automobile Metal Stamping industry the researchers also focus on the growth of the customer base in various emerging regions. Advantages offered by the products such as improved shelf life as well as durability and how they are impacting the development of the industry are also assessed during the research. While examining the major restricting factors researchers make an attempt to analyse the strict environmental regulations affecting the market.



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The study objectives of this report are:

- To analyze and study the global Automobile Metal Stamping capacity, production, value, consumption, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2026);

- Focuses on the key Automobile Metal Stamping manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.

- Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.

- To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

- To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

- To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

- To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

- To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market

- To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market

- To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



The research provides answers to the following key questions:

- What will be the growth rate and the market size of the Automobile Metal Stamping industry for the forecast period 2018-2026?

- What are the major driving forces expected to impact the development of the Automobile Metal Stamping market across different regions?

- Who are the major driving forces expected to decide the fate of the industry worldwide?

- Who are the prominent market players making a mark in the Automobile Metal Stamping market with their winning strategies?

- Which industry trends are likely to shape the future of the industry during the forecast period 2018-2026?

- What are the key barriers and threats believed to hinder the development of the industry?

- What are the future opportunities in the Automobile Metal Stamping market?



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Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- HTF MI released a new market study on Global AI in Banking Market with 100+ market data Tables, Pie Chat, Graphs & Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed analysis. At present, the market is developing its presence. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the Market and contains a future trend, current growth factors, attentive opinions, facts, and industry validated market data. The research study provides estimates for Global AI in Banking Forecast till 2025*. Some are the key players taken under coverage for this study are Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Intel, NVidia Corporation, AWS, IBM, SAP (Germany), Cognizant, Oracle, Salesforce, Accenture (Ireland), IPsoft Inc. and Micro Strategy Incorporated, Palantir Technologies Inc. and Inbenta Technologies.



AI in banking refers to the process of operating banking operations by highly automatic techniques. Banking industries especially implementing artificial intelligence to offer personalized banking, customer support services, enhance security and back-end process and others. According to a study conducted by CMR and NASSCOM, 74% top Indian IT decision makers support the need for artificial intelligence in the BFSI sector. Further, emphasizing on technological advancement such as Chatbot enables banking solutions and process automation expected to drive the AI in the banking market.



Click to get Global AI in Banking Market Research Sample PDF Copy Here @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1597285-global-ai-in-banking-market-1



#Summary:



Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the report :



1) What all companies are currently profiled in the report?

Following are list of players that are currently profiled in the the report Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Intel, NVidia Corporation, AWS, IBM, SAP (Germany), Cognizant, Oracle, Salesforce, Accenture (Ireland), IPsoft Inc. and Micro Strategy Incorporated, Palantir Technologies Inc. and Inbenta Technologies"



** List of companies mentioned may vary in the final report subject to Name Change / Merger etc.



2) Can we add or profiled new company as per our need?

Yes, we can add or profile new company as per client need in the report. Final confirmation to be provided by research team depending upon the difficulty of survey.

** Data availability will be confirmed by research in case of privately held company. Upto 3 players can be added at no added cost.



3) What all regional segmentation covered? Can specific country of interest be added?

Currently, research report gives special attention and focus on following regions:

North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc

** One country of specific interest can be included at no added cost. For inclusion of more regional segment quote may vary.



4) Can inclusion of additional Segmentation / Market breakdown is possible?

Yes, inclusion of additional segmentation / Market breakdown is possible subject to data availability and difficulty of survey. However a detailed requirement needs to be shared with our research before giving final confirmation to client.



** Depending upon the requirement the deliverable time and quote will vary.



Enquire for customization in Report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1597285-global-ai-in-banking-market-1



Market Drivers



Rising Demand of Customized IT Solutions in Banking Sector

Integration of AI and Autonomous Operational Processes



Market Trend



Increasing Adoption of Chatbot Enabled Banking Applications



Restraints



High Initial Capital Investment



Opportunities



Emphasizing on Intelligent Applications for Banking Operations and Growing Demand of Process Automation



To comprehend Global AI in Banking market dynamics in the world mainly, the worldwide AI in Banking market is analyzed across major global regions. HTF MI also provides customized specific regional and country-level reports for the following areas.



- North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

- South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

- Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

- Europe: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia.

- Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia.



2-Page profiles for 10+ leading manufacturers and 10+ leading retailers is included, along with 3 years financial history to illustrate the recent performance of the market. Revised and updated discussion for 2018 of key macro and micro market influences impacting the sector are provided with a thought-provoking qualitative comment on future opportunities and threats. This report combines the best of both statistically relevant quantitative data from the industry, coupled with relevant and insightful qualitative comment and analysis.



Geographical Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc



In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.



Competitive Analysis:

The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Intel, NVidia Corporation, AWS, IBM, SAP (Germany), Cognizant, Oracle, Salesforce, Accenture (Ireland), IPsoft Inc. and Micro Strategy Incorporated, Palantir Technologies Inc. and Inbenta Technologies. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.



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In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Global AI in Banking are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2017

Base Year: 2017

Estimated Year: 2018

Forecast Year 2018 to 2025



Key Stakeholders/Global Reports:

AI in Banking Manufacturers

AI in Banking Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers

AI in Banking Subcomponent Manufacturers

Industry Association

Downstream Vendors



Browse for Full Report at @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1597285-global-ai-in-banking-market-1



Actual Numbers & In-Depth Analysis, Business opportunities, Market Size Estimation Available in Full Report.



Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.
Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/29/2019 -- A number of credentials systems are used in the market to gain access such as username or password, which can access multiple systems by saving them in database. However, in the recent years many high profiles breaches were reported, which triggered awareness among public about importance of security measures. Thus, security firms and IT developers are more focused on developing advanced authentication techniques, which can help to avoid security threats by adding multi-factor authentication.



The informative Report shares details about Advanced Authentication Market, to get a comprehensive analysis of the sector. In order to provide the complete descriptive analysis of report uses exploratory research methodologies such as qualitative and quantitative analysis. Apart from that, it focuses on restraining factor to get a clear picture about down stages of the businesses.



Request for View Summary of this Report, Click the below link: https://www.researchnreports.com/technology-and-media/Global-Advanced-Authentication-Market-Research-Report-2019-2025-229789



Global Advanced Authentication Market Analysis Report includes top manufacturers: MasterCard Inc. (U.S.), Atos Corporation (France), Versasec AB (Sweden), Gemalto (the Netherlands), Datacard Group (U.S.) with their company profile, growth aspects, opportunities, and threats to the market development.



The global Advanced Authentication Market is a fragmented market. The leaders constantly keep innovating for the new technology and investing in research and development. The market has driven many areas like government, BFSI, retail & wholesale, and telecommunications.



The scope of the report is limited to products offered by major players including providers of Smartcards, Biometrics, Mobile Smart Credentials, Tokens, User Based Public Key Infrastructure. While the regions considered in the scope of the report include United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, China, India, Japan and the rest of the world.



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Global Advanced Authentication Market report analyzes market characteristics, size and growth, SWOT analysis, Porter's five power models, segmentation, market share, customer information, key mergers and acquisitions, trends and strategies. The report also delivers detailed information on important aspects such as key drivers and constraints that define the future growth of the market.



Study Objectives of Advanced Authentication Market-

Chapter 1: Advanced Authentication Market Overview

Chapter 2: Global Economic Impact on Industry

Chapter 3: Market Competition by Manufacturers

Chapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region

Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions

Chapter 6: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers

Chapter 7: Advanced Authentication Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders



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Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2019 -- MarketResearchNest.com published an Exclusive Research Report on "Global Digital Dose Inhaler Market Research Report 2019" that highlights the in-depth market analysis and covers significant data with future prospects of the market.



The global Digital Dose Inhaler market is valued at million US$ in 2018 is expected to reach million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of during 2019-2025.



This report focuses on Digital Dose Inhaler volume and value at global level, regional level and company level. From a global perspective, this report represents overall Digital Dose Inhaler market size by analyzing historical data and future prospect. Regionally, this report focuses on several key regions: North America, Europe, China and Japan.



At company level, this report focuses on the production capacity, ex-factory price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer covered in this report.



Request for sample copy of Digital Dose Inhaler Market Report 2019@

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/report/requestsample/502145



The following manufacturers are covered:

- Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

- Novartis International AG

- Propeller Health

- AstraZeneca Plc

- Philips Respironics

- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

- Opko Health, Inc.



Digital Dose Inhaler Segment by Type:

- Metered Dose Inhaler

- Dry Powder Inhaler



Digital Dose Inhaler Segment by Application:

- Hospital

- Clinics

- Others



Market Segment by Regions:

- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan



Browse full content and In-depth TOC of Digital Dose Inhaler Market Report 2019@

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/Global-Digital-Dose-Inhaler-Market-Research-Report-2019.html



Digital Dose Inhaler Consumption Breakdown Data by Region:

- North America-United States, Canada, Mexico

- Asia-Pacific-China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam.

- Europe-Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Rest of Europe.

- Central and South America-Brazil, Rest of South America

- Middle East and Africa-GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa



The study objectives are:

- To analyze and research the global Digital Dose Inhaler capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;

- To focus on the key Digital Dose Inhaler manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.

- To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.

- To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.

- To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.

- To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.

- To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.

- To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.

- To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

- To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.



In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Digital Dose Inhaler:

- History Year: 2014-2018

- Base Year: 2018

- Estimated Year: 2019

- Forecast Year 2019 to 2025



For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2018 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.



Inquiry for buying a sample copy of Digital Dose Inhaler Market Report 2019 @

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MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the Global and Southeast Asia's most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.

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The recent statewide wildfires have caused extra hardship for some insurance customers, as companies are raising rates and canceling the coverage of some customers.

Devastating fires such as last years Camp fire may have an effect on fire insurance claims and policies. Cal Fire estimates the Camp fire, which started on Nov. 8 in Butte County and spread to the town of Paradise in Northern California, covered over 150,000 acres and claimed at least 86 lives. It was the most destructive wildfire, causing an estimated $11 billion to $13 billion in damages, reported the Property Casualty 360, a national underwriter company.

Other fires that have taken a significant toll in San Diego County include the 2003 Cedar fire that burned 273,000 acres in 2003 and the Witch Creek fire that burned nearly 200,000 acres in 2007. Cal Fire estimates the Cedar fires costs at $27 million and Witch Creek costs at $18 million.

In response, some companies offering fire insurance such as the Automobile Club of Southern California, known as AAA, are re-evaluating their exposure to future catastrophic fire events.

A statement prepared by the Auto Club said less than 1 percent of its current home policies will not be renewed with the company and coverage will be placed elsewhere. The company covers 13 southern counties of California including San Diego.

One Poway resident has already found herself as part of that less than 1 percent. Ginger Couvrette, who lives in the StoneRidge area, said her home insurance coverage through the Auto Club was abruptly canceled last week after 25 years of coverage.

Couvrette, elected to the Poway Unified School District Board of Education in November, said her family was sent a letter from the Auto Club, saying their house needed to be inspected. Couvrette made an appointment for a representative to come out and inspect the house on Jan. 23.

Instead, Couvrette said, she was checking the mail on that day while waiting for her appointment only to discover another letter from the Auto Club, saying the company had canceled Couvrettes home insurance coverage due to brush.

Couvrette said her home has over half an acre of artificial turf, dirt and gravel between her home and any brush. It really made me angry, said Couvrette, who said her family also had four cars under the Auto Club insurance.  It surprised me, we live in StoneRidge and dont have any brush up to our house. They didnt inspect our house.

Couvrette said she would have understood having to pay more for coverage, but that was not presented to her as an option. The Auto Club offered to help her find alternate coverage, which she said she declined and pulled her auto coverage from them. She is seeking alternate insurance coverage, she added. The Auto Club will continue to cover her home and auto insurance until March.

She said she had not previously received any sort of notice about brush or the possibility of being dropped from coverage.

The Auto Club is taking a measured and thoughtful approach in our assessment, the company statement reads. We are identifying only the very high-risk homes to be non-renewed based on physical proximity to brush. We use a combination of aerial and physical inspection photos which includes identification of surrounding brush vegetation.

Jeffrey Spring, Auto Club corporate communications manager, said the company is addressing policies on a case-by-case basis. He said if the Auto Club is unable to underwrite a home, including those that exceed its square footage limits, then the Auto Club will offer alternative coverage with a carrier through an in-house agency.

If we cant place a house or car with our organization, then well help them locate another company that will, Spring said.

Spring said the Auto Club can also help customers secure a policy with the California FAIR Plan.

The Fair Plan describes itself as a last resort insurer. The association is comprised of insurers authorized to transact basic property insurance in California. Insurance is offered to those who have been unable to obtain insurance in the voluntary insurance market, its website states, and FAIR Plan policyholders are encouraged to shop for more comprehensive insurance coverage at least annually.

The Auto Club aims to continue offering home insurance as it has for more than 100 years.

We want to continue offering home insurance at competitive rates for the long-term, and to responsibly achieve that long-term goal, we must periodically take steps to mitigate our exposure to catastrophic risk, the company stated. In California, that means mitigating our exposure to wildfires.

Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson from the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit organization that represents the insurance industry, said one reason insurance costs go up following a catastrophe like wildfires is due to rising building costs and Canadian tariffs, which raise the cost of importing Canadian lumber, which is commonly used in the United States for building.

Labor shortages and increased material costs have caused building costs to rise, and after something like a wildfire, there will be a demand surge in building, which raises related costs further, therefore raising insurance rates, Ruiz said.

Canceling policies is something insurance companies have always done, Ruiz said, as part of keeping balanced coverage in an area. Insurance companies make sure to only insure part of an area and to keep that portion balanced, may choose not to renew a policy. That doesnt mean the insurance company is getting rid of all its local policies, Ruiz said.

Ruiz said anyone who has faced their insurance being canceled, or raised above their means, to visit a local insurance broker to shop and compare to find a new policy that fits best.

Unlike an insurance agent, an insurance broker does not work for a specific company and is usually aware of what is going on in the area and can help you find the right coverage, she said.

Sevag Sarkissian, a representative of State Farm Insurance, said while the companys underwriting guidelines cannot be shared due to being proprietary information, several California laws address significant losses to homes and homeowners insurance policies.

For example, following a declared disaster, if there is a total loss of a home the law generally requires an insurer to renew the policy for at least the next two annual renewal periods, and no less than 24 months from the date of the loss, Sarkissian said.

Many factors are considered when underwriting a homeowners insurance policy because each customers circumstances are unique, Sarkissian said. Each customer is looked at on a case-to-case basis and cases are treated fairly and in a consistent manner. Factors include location of the property relative to natural hazards, condition of the property and the customers past claim activity and history.

To keep our promises to all of our homeowner customers, we must find the appropriate balance between our exposure to loss, the resources available to maintain a quality level of service, and our ability to meet our financial obligations to pay claims. Our customers are our top priority, and we want to be able to meet their needs. It is our intent and obligation to fairly and responsibly manage our business, provide the best possible service, and provide homeowners insurance for all of our customers over the long term, Sarkissian said.

Email: news@pomeradonews.com
With state marijuana tax revenue projected to be at least 40 percent lower than what was first expected this fiscal year, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, has proposed helping the legal marijuana industry in California by temporarily reducing the 15 percent tax on recreational marijuana purchases to 11 percent and temporarily ending the $148 per pound cultivation tax that farmers pay. Both breaks would end in June 2021. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board welcomes Bontas understanding that high taxes can hurt business and wishes he and other lawmakers who are sympathetic to the legal cannabis industry had similar empathy for all the other industries that struggle with the states heavy taxes and regulations.

But its hard to fathom why Bonta and others dont grasp that the states first order of business in trying to help the legal marijuana industry thrive should be targeting those who grow and sell marijuana illegally. Far from being hurt by the Jan. 1, 2018, onset of legal recreational marijuana use in California, the black market is thriving. According to marijuana industry analyst GreenEdge, legal state sales dropped from $3 billion in 2017  when medical marijuana was all that could be legally purchased  to $2.5 billion in 2018. Thats stunning.

A September article in Vice magazine laid out why: Legal pot shops have to comply with regulations on potency and safety testing and packaging that illegal dispensaries can ignore, allowing the illegal shops to sell marijuana for 40 percent less than legal stores. A November analysis by the Southern California News Group noted that the 1996 state vote to legalize medicinal marijuana use created an elaborate network of unregulated growers and sellers who are less fearful of the legal consequences if they are caught than in previous eras when marijuana was considered a societal scourge.

The states response to this problem has been mild. It issued a warning to the Weedmaps website to stop listing illegal shops along with legal shops last February, which the Irvine-based company ignored. A better idea? Law enforcement should use Weedmaps to locate and shut down these shops.

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Tax relief for the cannabis industry may be a good idea. But a 4 percent tax cut wont come close to ending the huge price advantage owned by illegal shops. Please, Sacramento: Grasp the obvious.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Barrio Logan  a 1,000-acre bayside community west of Interstate 5 and south of downtown San Diego that includes an unusual mix of homes and heavy industries  has long been plagued by pollution. A 2014 story in The San Diego Union-Tribune detailed how high levels of diesel and airborne toxins and other factors made it one of the 100 most polluted of the 8,035 census tracts in California.

But attempts to provide relief to residents of the area have been complicated by the fact that the many maritime businesses in the area, including at the Port of San Diego, vigorously dispute the idea that theyre to blame for air pollution. They say the culprit is Interstate 5, which adjoins Barrio Logan.

Now, finally, the state government intends to pin down responsibility. Funding from the states Community Air Protection Program will be used to place air monitors in Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, Sherman Heights and west National City.

Its shocking and appalling that this wasnt done years ago. Residents of the Barrio Logan area have complained about high rates of asthma and cancer for decades. Now they may finally begin to get the environmental justice they deserve.

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Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Okapis are the closest living relatives of giraffes. And like their longer-necked cousins, okapis are endangered. So the recent birth of an okapi at the San Diego Zoo was cause for celebration.

Born on Jan. 11, the as-yet-unnamed male calf is the second surviving okapi born at the zoo in less than two years.

He and mother Subira are in good health, the zoo says. They are staying for the time being at the zoos okapi maternity area at the back of the exhibit.

The new arrival was long anticipated, as the calf had been conceived 14 months previously. Thats a normal gestation period for okapis.

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The most recent okapi birth before this one occurred in the summer of 2017. Dubbed Mosi, he was the zoos first okapi born in four years.

More than 60 okapis have been born at the zoo since they first arrived in 1956.

Like giraffes, okapi calves are introduced to the world very abruptly. They simply fall out from their standing mothers onto the ground. Both species also need to stand up and walk very quickly because of the danger of predators.

These animals sport an elongated neck, although nowhere near as long as giraffes. And like giraffes, they eat leaves. With their striped legs, theyre also compared to zebras.

Okapis are native to Central Africa. They are found in the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly named Zaire. Their rain forest environment is remote and offers plenty of opportunities for hiding. Their sensitive ears easily pick up sounds of intruders, including humans.

This reclusive nature helps explain why okapis werent discovered by scientists until 1900. However, African cultures have long known of them. The ancient Egyptians made carvings of okapi.

The okapi environment is replicated at the zoos Ituri Forest habitat. The zoo says this is its single most complex multi-species habitat. It includes hippopotamuses, forest buffaloes, spotted-necked otters, monkeys and birds.

The okapi population is thought to be in the low tens of thousands, although an exact count isnt available. Its generally acknowledged that their numbers decreased during the Congos civil wars. These began in 1993 and officially ended in 2003, although violence goes on. Theyre also vulnerable to poaching.

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In 2013, conservationists said the number of okapis had fallen by about half in just 18 years. That year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the okapi to its list of endangered species.
A new judge will hear lawsuit by a former County of San Diego employee who claims she was fired for reporting a social workers poor performance, according to court records.

The employee, Valerie Harrison, sued last October in San Diego Superior Court, accusing the county of wrongful termination. The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money for economic and non-economic damages.

The county denies the lawsuits allegations, according to court records.

Harrison said in court records that, as a human resources officer in the child welfare department, her responsibilities included investigating complaints against employees in various programs to which she was assigned. She said the county ended her employment after less than a year in retaliation for her reports that a protective services worker was failing to properly check on foster children.

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The lawsuit says that in summer 2017, Harrison learned of complaints involving a protective services worker who allegedly was not meeting his obligations to conduct welfare checks on foster children. He either was refusing to visit children, or he was visiting them once a year and only in public places, according to court records.

Harrisons investigation found that the employees poor performance had caused children to suffer a litany of abuse, injuries and other harm, including oral infections and abscesses due to improper dental care; home environments lacking adequate food, reeking of cat urine, and super-lice infestations; and an unreported live-in boyfriend who drove the kids around even though his drivers license was suspended due to a DUI conviction, according to court records.

Super lice is head lice which have grown resistant to over-the-counter medications typically recommended to treat the blood-sucking insects. Despite their name, the lice are no worse than normal head lice; theyre just harder to kill, medical researchers say.

The social worker, who was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, retired in 2017, according to public pension records.

Last year, the county denied Harrisons initial claim seeking $3 million for damages, including for emotional distress and lost wages and benefits, according to court records.

While employed by the county in 2017, Harrison received about $78,000 in salary and benefits, according to data available on transparentcalifornia.com.

In court papers filed Nov. 14, 2018, the county answered the allegations in the lawsuit.

The countys defense says it had legitimate business reasons for the challenged employment decisions, and that it would have made the decisions regardless of any alleged protective activities.

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The county also said it is protected from liability because any injuries or damages to the plaintiff were the result of public employees use of discretion.

Earlier this month, one of the attorneys representing Harrison alleged that the judge assigned to the lawsuit, San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald F. Frazier, was prejudiced against the employee, her attorney or her interests and that a fair and impartial trial or hearing cannot be had before the judge. The specific reason for the judges alleged prejudice -- and against whom -- was not specified in the court filing, called a peremptory challenge.

Harrisons lead attorney, Daniel Gilleon, said Monday he would not detail the reasons for the challenge.

There are way too many factors to this peremptory challenge to list on the Judicial Council form that we were required to use, Gilleon said. This is a standard, ho-hum practice in the civil justice system that absolutely nothing should be read into.

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Frazier granted the request, and the lawsuit was reassigned to Judge Richard E. L. Strauss, according to court records. Frazier declined comment Monday through a court spokeswoman because of judicial ethics rules.

Michael Workman, a spokesman for the county, also declined to comment on the lawsuit because it is ongoing.

The next scheduled hearing is a case management conference on Sept. 20.

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morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
Students at two Poway Unified District high schools may notice an increased police presence on campus Wednesday after a message threatening violence was circulated on social media.

Officials with the Poway Unified School District said they requested increased patrols at Westview High and Rancho Bernardo High after students spotted social media posts that threatened violence on Jan. 30. The posts included what appeared to be a threatening message written on a wall of a bathroom.

Our custodians have searched all of our restrooms. No messages nor any threats to cause harm were found, Westview principal Tina Ziegler said in an email sent to parents and shared on the districts Facebook page on Tuesday. And just like Rancho Bernardo, the background in the photos do not match up to any of our restrooms at Westview.

Despite that, the rumor was spreading quickly, so officials felt they had to quickly nip it in the bud, said district spokeswoman Christine Paik.

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The district notified San Diego police of the posts and requested an increased police presence on both campuses, Paik said.

We appreciate those individuals who shared these posts with us as we continue our See Something Say Something initiative, Ziegler said in her email.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

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karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com
A 39-year-old San Diego police officer accused of holding a gun to his girlfriends head and asking her why she deserved to live pleaded not guilty to felony domestic violence and assault charges Wednesday.

Timothy Romberger had been arrested Jan. 23, a day after the Police Department learned of an incident that reportedly occurred in Santee, San Diego police Lt. Brent Williams said.

Romberger, an 11-year veteran of the department, remains free on $50,000 bail.

Deputy District Attorney Jessica Paugh said she told the court that Rombergers girlfriend had sent text messages describing the alleged domestic violence to his estranged wife. The wife shared those messages with a third person, who reported them to police.

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The victim alleged the suspect took a gun and put it to her head, threw her to the ground, put his hands around her throat and said, Tell me why you deserve to live, Paugh said in an interview after the hearing.

When investigators recovered Rombergers gun, Paugh said, they found what appeared to be the victims hair in the barrel of the firearm.

The prosecutor asked Judge Robert Amador to consider raising Rombergers bail to $100,000, but it was left at $50,000.The judge issued a protective order, barring contact between the victim and suspect, Paugh said.

During the hearing, Rombergers girlfriend told the judge she had not been a victim of domestic violence and had made up the story, Paugh said.

Romberger was charged with one count of felony assault with a semi-automatic firearm and one count of felony domestic violence. If convicted, he faces up to nine years in state prison.

District Attorney Summer Stephan issued a statement after Romberger was arraigned. She said protecting victims of domestic violence and prosecuting their abusers is a priority for her office.

As District Attorney I am thankful to San Diego Police Chief Dave Nisleit and his team for conducting a thorough investigation of one of their officers and submitting a case to my office for potential prosecution, she said. For justice to thrive, it is important that everyone is accountable under the law.

Romberger has been suspended from duty with pay while an investigation into the allegations continued and his police officer powers have been revoked, according to Williams, the departments spokesman.

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Romberger was represented at his arraignment by the Public Defenders Office. His next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 22.

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Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

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UPDATES:

12:25 p.m.: This story was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 4:30 p.m.
Police have located additional evidence in the case of a missing Polish tourist.

Michal Marcin Krowczynski, 30, was reported missing on Jan. 18 after he missed his flight home. He had been vacationing in Arizona and San Diego, posting regularly of his travels on his Instagram account.

His last post features a picture taken in Pacific Beach on Jan. 16.

On Wednesday, police said two items believed to be Krowczynskis  a can of deodorant with Polish writing on the back and a single shoe  were found on a beach near Calumet Park on Calumet Avenue in the Bird Rock community.

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The items were found by a community member who heard Krowczynski was missing and decided to help in the search, police said.

He is described as white, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and 180 pounds with short brown hair and green eyes. He has a short beard and braces.

People who believe they may have spotted Krowczynski or who have information regarding he whereabouts was asked to call police at (619) 531-2000.

Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

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lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
San Diego City Council members and community leaders Tuesday praised a series of priorities set for the council in 2019 by President Georgette Gomez, especially her focus on housing, the environment and social justice.

The priorities, which Gomez calls a work plan, aim to put the council in the position of setting the agenda for San Diego, instead of Mayor Kevin Faulconer. That became possible in November, when Gomez and the councils other Democrats secured a 6-3 majority that allows them to override vetoes by Faulconer, who is a Republican.

I so appreciate the efforts on this council that will be made to ensure equality throughout our city, said Councilwoman Dr. Jennifer Campbell. We need to have quality of life in every single district in our city, and I think this plan outlines a way to do that.

Those efforts include stronger protections for renters and better economic opportunities for low-income residents and minorities. Other priorities set by Gomez include recruiting more minorities and local residents to the citys police force, expanding homeless outreach efforts and keeping trash out of local waterways.

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The final priorities she chose include pursuing innovative housing solutions, bolstering council staff and expanding efforts to secure grants.

Without commenting on specifics, a member of Faulconers staff said the mayor is ready to help Gomez and the council reach their goals and is committed to making his staff available to residents with problems or concerns.

The mayor looks forward to working with this council on our shared priorities, said Jessica Lawrence, the mayors director of budget and finance policy.

Other members of the council and advocates echoed Campbells praise.

The items in the work plan are things I care deeply about, from increasing housing supply to meaningfully implementing our climate action plan, said Councilwoman Vivian Moreno.

Sophie Wolfram, of the nonprofit Climate Action Campaign, said Gomezs proposal to accelerate efforts to implement the citys climate plan are crucial to achieving its goals.

Until climate action plan implementation is made a top priority of the city, the city has no chance of hitting its 2035 targets -- or even coming close, Wolfram said.

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association praised Gomez simply for creating the work plan, which is the first of its kind for the council.

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I appreciate there is leadership being exercised here in saying this is what were going to focus on, said Haney Hong, the associations chief executive.

Gomez said she will soon unveil a final version of the plan based on feedback she received Tuesday.

One suggestion from Campbell was to include efforts to regulate short-term vacation rentals in the plan. The city had to back away from legislation it approved last summer based on concerns it could be overturned in court.

Gomez concedes that some of her objectives cant be achieved in just one year, but said that the council can lay building blocks in 2019.

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Some of the goals in the plan have already been priorities of Faulconer and the council, but Gomez said the new council will likely take some different approaches to solving long-standing problems. An example is homelessness, where she wants a less punitive approach and more outreach efforts outside of downtown.

On protections for renters, Gomez is proposing a new rent policy for properties owned by the citys Housing Commission and a relocation assistance program for people displaced when low-income properties shift to market-rate rents.

Its crucial to focus on renters, she said, as a steadily larger percentage of the city can no longer afford to be homeowners.

On economic opportunities, Gomez wants multiple pieces of new legislation.

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I am going to work on a range of policies to ensure both high-quality job creation and that pathways are created for low-income workers, people of color, women, and other groups of disadvantaged workers, she said in the proposed work plan.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
After months of uncertainty, a local group of nonprofits has finally found a more stable home for one of the few shelters that serves asylum-seeking families.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted 4-1 to lease the old family courthouse downtown to the San Diego Rapid Response Network for $1, to become a shelter for asylum seekers until the end of the year. Under terms of the lease, Jewish Family Services, one of the network groups, will be responsible for the costs of opening, operating, and maintaining the facility.

Im proud of the Rapid Response Network, the county, the state for stepping up and addressing this issue, said Michael Hopkins, CEO of Jewish Family Services. Immigration is a bit of a hot potato, but for all of us this is about families and making sure theyre safe and secure.

The vacant building has been scheduled for demolition and redevelopment as affordable housing, but county officials say leasing it to the network will not interfere with its proposed development.

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The decision comes three weeks after supervisors approved a series of measures exploring ways to address the asylum issue. The new shelter also removes uncertainty for asylum-seekers, because the San Diego Rapid Response Networks shelter has moved several times.

In October the federal government ended a program that used to connect asylum seekers with their sponsors and family members already in the United States. This change led to asylum seekers being processed by ICE and then they often were stranded in communities such as San Diego, where they waited, often with few resources, for the legal process to play out.

The San Diego Rapid Response Network, a coalition of more than two dozen nonprofits, responded by setting up a shelter for migrant families. But since last fall the shelter has been forced to move multiple times.

The group is required to vacate its current space by Feb. 15.

In another development, Tuesday was the first day the Trump Administrations Remain in Mexico policy went into effect. That policy forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claim works its way through the legal process.

Hopkins, and members of the Board of Supervisors, said they expect that policy will soon face a legal challenge and possible injunction.

Meanwhile, the shelters new location will have around-the-clock security, Hopkins said. That was a point of concern that led to secrecy about the shelters prior locations.

The shelter is meant to be temporary for asylum-seekers with sponsors; typically they leave the shelter in less than 72 hours. There is another shelter, run by Safe Harbors, that is more long term and caters to asylum seekers who dont have sponsors.

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The Rapid Response Network also will seek options for where its shelter will go after Dec. 31.

Its a good day, County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said after the vote. The county of San Diego is stepping up and showing leadership to not only address the asylum issue with compassion and humanity, but also to ensure public safety, public health, and that we do not compound the homeless situation.

The shelter proposal received majority support from county supervisors after it was proposed by Supervisor Greg Cox and Fletcher and then backed by San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore and District Attorney Summer Stephan.

Supervisor Jim Desmond, who voted against the motion, said his issue was not with the shelter but with a lack of commitment by the state to address the migrant issue and help bear the cost of providing medical personnel and health screenings to migrants.

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What I am not okay with is todays action leaves that entire burden still on San Diego County taxpayers, Desmond said. I understand there are things in the works and there are assurances from the state, but I do not have that in front of me today.

Gov. Gavin Newsoms recently proposed budget would allocate $20 million over three years to fund a rapid response network to provide services during immigration or human trafficking emergency situations. Newsom also has asked the legislature to approve spending $5 million on the issue by the end of the fiscal year, in June.

Simultaneous to the county supervisors meeting, the Assembly Budget Committee met Tuesday and recommended an immediate allocation from state funding be made toward a migrant shelter.

County Supervisors Kristin Gaspar and Dianne Jacob, who both opposed seeking out county properties as potential shelter locations during a vote earlier this month, voted in favor of approving the shelter Tuesday.

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Gaspar said that she had been concerned about the county having to fill a role that should be done by the state and federal government. She added that she would not support a similar action again, come Dec. 31.

Meanwhile Jacob, chair of the board, emphasized that asylum seekers are here legally and it is important for public health and safety to support the shelter.

She also said that it is the right thing to do, and announced that she will be putting an item on the boards next closed session agenda to explore possible litigation against the federal government related to the issue.

The intent of the litigation, she said, would be to get the federal government to do its job in this area and to reimburse the county and all of the other entities that have put money out on an issue that is a federal responsibility.
The city of San Diego decided Tuesday to back California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerras lawsuit that seeks to hold the Trump administration accountable for sewage and other toxic flows that routinely spill over the border from Tijuana and foul beaches as far north as Coronado.

The City Council voted unanimously in closed session on Tuesday to join the legal action. Councilman Chris Cate was absent.

Ahead of the vote, South Bay residents and environmental advocates urged the council to take action, pointing to an ongoing spill in the Tijuana River that started in December and has yet to be plugged.

This is the greatest environmental catastrophe thats happening in our county and probably in our state, said Imperial Beach Councilman Mark West.

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Theres a sewage spill thats actually happening right now that is causing between 20 and 50 million gallons of sewage-tainted water to flow down our river, he added.

Paloma Aguirre, coastal and marine director with the nonprofit environmental group Wildcoast, said the pollution has taken a toll on public health.

Its contaminating our parks. Its contaminating our beaches, and we are starting to see instances of children who are becoming sick with asthma attacks just by breathing this pollution, she said. I myself have ended up in urgent care just by being adjacent to some of the contaminated waters.

While elected officials approved legal action, West and others had hoped the city would join a different lawsuit  one brought in March by Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and the Port of San Diego.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer disagreed, recently urging the council to join the states lawsuit.

This gives us a new tool in the battle against sewage and trash that flows across the border and into our waterways, Faulconer said in a press statement following Tuesdays vote.

Both lawsuits specifically targeted the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, for violations of the Clean Water Act.

However, the states approach is more narrowly focused than that of the Port and the South Bay cities.

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IBWC operates pumps in the Tijuana River and capture basins in several canyons to the west of the river, which are intended to divert toxic flows to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The systems are easily overwhelmed by light rain or sewage spills and allow polluted water to surge into the Tijuana River Valley and the Pacific Ocean on a regular basis.

Both lawsuits seek to force the federal government to beef up the capacity of the diversion systems in the canyons, but the Port and the South Bay cities have also targeted the river.

The only way to really address this issue is to file a lawsuit with respect to both the canyon collectors and the main channel, John Carter, deputy general counsel at the Port, told the council at Tuesdays meeting. The federal government owns the main channel of the Tijuana River, and it allows sewage to pass through that channel without any treatment, as it flows just a stones throw away from its own sewage facility.

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The states complaint was filed in federal court in September on behalf of the San Diego County Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Water board officials have suggested their legal argument is strongest when applied to just the canyon collectors. The agency is now in the process of developing stronger environmental requirements for the Tijuana River, which it had put off for years in favor of negotiations with Baja officials.

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Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com
A La Mesa man found dead in his apartment in June 2006 had been stabbed more than 30 times with a sword, and the blood from the suspected killer was found under the victims bedroom window, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The suspect, Zachary Bunney, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in El Cajon Superior Court to one count of murder and an allegation that he used a sword to kill the victim, 47-year-old Scott Martinez.

Bunneys attorney did not immediately respond to a message requesting comment.

The 39-year-old Oregon man had been arrested outside Portland earlier this month and was brought to San Diego County to face the charge in a cold case investigators say was solved through genetic genealogy  a method made possible with the increase in consumer DNA testing.

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The weapon used in the attack was a decorative sword that investigators believe had belonged to Martinez, Deputy District Attorney Brian Erickson said in a phone call after Tuesdays arraignment. The killer left it behind in the apartment.

Investigators also found blood under a bedroom window there, Erickson said, and believe that the killer had cut himself during the attack, then left the residence through the window.

In the 12 years after the killing, La Mesa police searched DNA crime databases, but turned up no match to the blood found by the window.

Then last fall, a team of genetic genealogists working with Parabon Nanolabs took on the case. After about a weekend of work, the team supplied La Mesa police with Bunneys name as a possible suspect.

Police got a warrant for his DNA. It was a match to the blood left at the crime scene, La Mesa police said last week in announcing his arrest in the cold case.

At the time of the slaying, Bunney was 26 and living in La Mesa, police said. He had been friends with the woman who babysat Martinezs young daughter.

Authorities have not given a suspected motive behind the deadly attack.

Erickson said he lost his bid to have the judge increase Bunneys bail from $3.1 million to $5 million.

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Genetic genealogy came to the forefront as a crime-solving tool in April with the announcement that it had been used to catch the suspected Golden State Killer  so named for a crime spree that included at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in California from 1974 to 1986.

Recent years have seen a sharp rise in the popularity of consumer DNA testing, done through companies such as Ancestry or 23 and Me and others.

Police do not use and do not have access to databases of those and other companies.

Instead, law enforcement-based searches are done in public databases  GEDmatch, with 1.2 million DNA profiles, is the biggest.

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Consumers must intentionally upload their data into sites like GEDmatch to be a part of its database.

Many of the users are eager to figure out who their ancestors were. But some are genetic genealogists working with police to solve a violent crime.

The genealogists are looking to see if they can find a close enough match from the crime scene DNA to a relative  a third cousin will do.

If they can find a near match, the experts might be able to generate family trees to figure out whose DNA was left at the site of a homicide.

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Since November, police in San Diego County who have used the method have publicly identified suspected killers in two cold cases  the Martinez slaying in La Mesa, and a 2007 beating death in Carlsbad.

Erickson, the prosecutor, called genetic genealogy the wave of the future.

I think we are going to see a lot more of these cases, he said. The good thing about it is it brings some closure to these families.

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teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
New and soon-to-be parents working for Los Angeles businesses would be guaranteed up to 18 weeks of paid leave  at as much as 100% of their usual wages  under a new proposal at City Hall.

City Councilwoman Nury Martinez and Councilman David Ryu, who introduced the plan Tuesday, argued that it would support family bonding and help businesses retain employees.

Paid parental leave is good for families. Its good for business. And its good for Los Angeles, Ryu told reporters, adding, Parents should not have to choose between paying the bills and raising a family.

Many details remain to be hammered out by city staffers, including whether small businesses and nonprofit organizations would be exempt from the requirement and whether the city would help offset the costs for companies. But the fledgling proposal could significantly bolster the paid leave that new and soon-to-be parents would be guaranteed in the city.

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California is ahead of much of the country in providing paid leave for new parents, offering eligible employees 60% to 70% of their previous pay for up to six weeks. That time is paid for out of a payroll tax deducted from employee paychecks.

But only a fraction of California parents who are eligible end up taking that time off, and poorer workers have been less likely to do so. Martinez said Tuesday that existing state and federal programs often cater to white-collar economies while leaving out the low-wage workers and people of color.

California also provides disability benefits for pregnant and postpartum mothers, which can increase the amount of partially paid time off for parents by up to 12 weeks. That brings the time off that many California workers can potentially take to 18 weeks at 60% to 70% of their pay, Ryu said Tuesday.

Under the new proposal, L.A. employers would have to make sure that their workers get up to 18 weeks of paid time off around the birth, fostering or adoption of a child, at as much as 100% of their pay. Employers would have to make up the difference between any existing state benefits the workers receive and their normal wages.

This would be a huge step forward for working families and help them make meaningful the promise of paid family leave from the state, said Julia Parish, senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Legal Aid at Work, which advocated for a similar ordinance to boost pay during parental leave in San Francisco.

Although parents would be eligible for up to 100% of their previous pay, the draft proposal says that the city would cap the total compensation received by eligible workers, limiting the maximum to the annual cost of living for a parent and child in Los Angeles. A Ryu aide estimated the current amount around $65,000, citing an analysis from the California Budget and Policy Center.

Employees would be eligible if they worked inside Los Angeles city limits for companies that meet specific requirements, including withholding a percentage of worker earnings for State Disability Insurance Tax payments, Martinez and Ryu said in a policy brief detailing their proposal.

The Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., which advocates for San Fernando Valley businesses, called the plan an extremely expensive one-size-fits-all parental leave policy and complained that it places the burden squarely on employers, many of whom will be unable to pay.

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By mandating one particular vision of parental leave  18 weeks of subsidized, fully paid leave  this motion leaves employers and their parent employees no financial wiggle room to work out a solution that works for their individual circumstances, the groups legislative affairs director, Elizabeth Hawley, said in a statement Tuesday.

Hawley added that the group feared unintended consequences of such a well-intended but potential misguided policy, such as companies moving out of Los Angeles.

Beacon Economics founding partner Christopher Thornberg, who has analyzed previous city proposals to boost wages, said that if L.A. leaders want businesses to shoulder new costs, they should offer some sort of cost relief to the company.

Backers of paid parental leave counter that studies of existing programs in California and San Francisco have shown benefits for employers, including reduced turnover among workers and improved productivity. Martinez and Ryu suggested that the requirement could be phased in over three years, with the biggest businesses affected first.

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Their motion asks for city attorneys and staffers to report back on options for a Paid Parental Leave Ordinance, analyze its potential effects on small businesses and how the city could mitigate them, and come up with a timeline and framework for implementation and enforcement.

Ryu and Martinez said they hoped for a vote on a new law by the end of the year. Mayor Eric Garcetti voiced early support for the idea Tuesday, applauding the two council members for leading the way.

Paid leave for parents has gained growing attention among political leaders in California and beyond: Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed expanding the Californias paid parental leave program from six weeks to six months.

His current budget proposal calls for a task force to consider how to phase in the expansion, as well as how to increase participation in the program.

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Beyond California, a record number of states have introduced bills in the last legislative session to create programs or expand access to paid parental leave, said Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies for the National Partnership for Women & Families, which advocates for family leave.

And at the federal level, were seeing more and more conversation not only among Democrats, but across party lines, Shabo said.

The new proposal is the latest move by Los Angeles leaders aimed at helping workers. L.A. has been boosting its minimum wage to $15 an hour, a decision backed by the council four years ago over the objections of some business groups. Council members have also boosted the number of paid sick days that workers can earn, putting the city requirement at double the state minimum.

Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.

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emily.alpert@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlpertReyes
Leslie Van Houten, the youngest member of Charles Mansons family who was convicted in the 1969 killings of a Los Angeles couple, was recommended for parole Wednesday by a panel of state commissioners in Chino.

It was the third time that Van Houten, 69, was recommended for parole. Twice before, Gov. Jerry Brown denied her release, finding her an unreasonable danger to society.

Now, the decision heads to newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom in his first high-profile parole decision.

Van Houtens attorneys have long emphasized that she was only 19 when she took part in the grisly slayings of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, and argued that she has been a model prisoner. But release has been strongly opposed by the families of the victims as well as prosecutors and many others.

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State officials will begin a 120-day legal review before the decision goes to Newsoms desk. He could uphold, reverse or modify the decision, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Newsom could take no action, thereby allowing the decision to stand, or he could direct the full Board of Parole Hearings to consider it.

A former homecoming queen from Monrovia, Van Houten did not participate in the 1969 killings of Sharon Tate  Roman Polanskis pregnant wife  and four others at the couples Benedict Canyon home.

But the next day, she joined Charles Tex Watson and others as they burst into the LaBiancas Los Feliz residence and killed the husband and wife.

Remembering Charles Mansons victims: Rich, famous, fringe and random 

After Watson stabbed Rosemary LaBianca with a bayonet, he handed a knife to Van Houten. She testified to stabbing LaBianca in the back at least 14 more times. The blood of the victims was used to scrawl messages on the walls, as had been done at the Benedict Canyon home.

Van Houten, Manson and three others were convicted and sentenced to death, but after the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

An appellate court overturned Van Houtens conviction in 1976, and a second trial the next year ended in a hung jury. At her third trial, in 1978, she was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy, and sentenced to seven years to life in prison. Starting in 1979, Van Houten has gone before the parole board regularly.

At parole hearings, Van Houtens attorneys characterized her as a model inmate, who earned a bachelors degree in English literature and masters in humanities while running self-help groups for incarcerated women.

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I take responsibility for the entire crime. I take responsibility going back to Manson being able to do what he did to all of us. I allowed it, she told a panel of parole commissioners at her most recent hearing in 2017.

I learned that I was weak in character. I was easy to give over my belief system to someone else, she said, adding, I sought peer attention and acceptance more than I did my own foundation. That I looked to men for my value, and I didnt speak up.

At that hearing, the parole commissioners found her suitable for release, but Brown disagreed and reversed the decision. The governor said in 2018 that the aggravated nature of the crime alone can provide a valid basis for denying parole, even when there is strong evidence of rehabilitation and no other evidence of current dangerousness.

Van Houtens attorney appealed in L.A. County Superior Court, but a judge refused to overturn Browns decision.

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Manson died in 2017 of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence.

What will happen to Charles Mansons remains? 
A temporary migrant shelter in far eastern Tijuana closed Tuesday.

The shelter, known as El Barretal, opened in late November 2018 to provide members of the Central American caravan a place to live when conditions in a shelter closer to the U.S. Mexico border became overcrowded and miserable because of heavy rain.

Leonardo Neri, a federal volunteer and the shelters coordinator, said the closure of the site has been planned for weeks. Government officials have been assisting the last remaining residents find more permanent housing solutions within Tijuana, he said.

At the beginning of December, there were more than 3,000 people from the Central American caravan in this place, said Neri. He emphasized that local, state and federal officials have been working to place the migrants in more permanent shelters or assist them with finding other living arrangements.

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There were about 100 people  fewer than 10 of them children  living there as of Friday, according to a shelter volunteer.

In November, a caravan of more than 6,000 mostly Central Americans arrived in Tijuana. Mexican federal officials estimate a caravan of another 13,000 is currently traveling through Mexico for the U.S.-Mexico border, but they are hoping to persuade a majority of the group to find work in southern or central Mexico.

Neri said the federal government has not designated a place for the next caravan to shelter when they arrive in Tijuana.
Every once in a while, a popular history text comes along with the power to transform social narratives by exposing readers to information previously unknown to them. Dee Browns blockbuster book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a perfect example. In 1970, as the country was exploding in civil rights movements and American Indians were occupying a defunct prison on Alcatraz Island, the book stunned American audiences with a brutal history that had been often sanitized in their public school educations.

Chronicling the 1890 massacre of hundreds of Lakota people at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota  as well as numerous other heinous actions against American Indians  helped put things into perspective.

I was 12 when the book came out, and watching my Indian mom weep while reading the book was enough to make me never want to read it. I still have not read it, but I know what an effect it had on the American social landscape. I also know that despite that, it did what so many history texts have done previously: It confined American Indians to a tragic, disappeared past, unwittingly perpetuating a pattern of indigenous erasure from the modern American present. They tell stories of Indian death, not Indian life.

A new book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present, explicitly counters that pattern, as the title suggests. Author David Treuer, professor of creative writing and literature at USC, an Ojibwe born and raised on the Leech Lake reservation in Minnesota, writes that this book is a counternarrative to the story that has been told about us, but it is something more as well: it is an attempt to confront the ways we Indians ourselves understand our place in the world.

This book is a counternarrative to the story that has been told about us David Treuer

David Treuer stands for a portrait at Ishihara Park on January 22, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Treuer is a Native American author whose new book, "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee" looks at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Native Americans in the 20th century and beyond. Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times

This sense of collective cultural introspection generates intimate glimpses into the lives of Native people through personal stories as a way to describe the historical periods it chronicles. Journeying through the 20th and 21st century chronologically, the broad sections are organized thematically.

Part 1 provides a broad overview of pre- and post-contact Native life by region, until 1890. Subsequent sections focus less on federal policy (though thats covered in vivid detail) than on the ways federal policy affected Native communities and individual lives.

For example, Part 2, titled Purgatory: 1890-1934 takes up the period immediately following the massacre at Wounded Knee, in what historians often describe as the nadir or low point of Native life. It was a time of utter misery when community life was plagued by intractable poverty, declining health, and massive land and culture loss.

Treuer says the book is part history, part memoir and part reportage, and this combination of writing styles gives the book the feeling of creative nonfiction, which is important given the books hefty size at more than 500 pages.

Treuer recently spoke with me via video chat about his in-depth reportage and personal inspirations behind the book. The text is edited for clarity.

Just by our continued presence, Native people have been the way in which the country figures out what it is and what it wants to be David Treuer

A meeting during the American Indian Movement takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, D.C., 1972 Getty Images

I wanted to begin by talking about your process for interviewing people. You mention that you began writing the book after your dad passed away in 2016, which means you must have written this hefty text really quickly. You describe traveling cross-country, where you talk to all these people, but did you do also do all that traveling in that short period of time?

2014 and 2015 is when I started doing a lot of interviews and legwork, and it wasnt just one road trip. Whenever I went anywhere, Id find people to talk to. I went to Montana, Washington state, North Dakota and Minnesota a lot. And whenever I met with someone  and this is not standard journalistic protocol  Id tell them, Im writing a book and I want to talk you about your life, and would later go back and revisit their stories with them. But as Im sure you know, because we [Native people] have so often been co-opted, misconstrued, talked-over and imagined to within an inch of our lives by outsiders  and had so little control over our own stories  I gave people the opportunity to revise what they had told me before, or opt-out completely if they wanted to. If Im going to write a book about us and for us, it has to serve us.

A march in 1974 at the official start began of the trial of the American Indian Movement leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks on charges arising out of the 1973 takeover of Wounded Knee, S.D. AP

Thats really generous, and its really an indigenous methodology.

Maybe, but it just felt right. Weve been screwed over so many times, and I didnt want to screw anyone over. But it was really encouraging. Like one guy, a Blackfeet nicknamed Red Boy: I say some things that are an assessment of what hes like in his character, and describe him as being very sad, and I was really nervous; whats he gonna think? Its really uncomfortable to be written about and see someone elses assessment of you.

Especially if its not how you think of yourself.

Exactly, and we almost never think about ourselves the way others think of us. I was talking with a friend who said, Wait, if he [Red Boy] says he doesnt like it and wants to pull out, it could jeopardize the whole chapter. But he read it and thought I did a great job, and basically said, Go with God.

Youve used these stories as a vehicle to bring this history to life, to give it focus, how these histories have played out in peoples lives. What were the challenges of writing history this way?

I dont know what the challenges were because I dont know any other way to do it. But what I discovered, like when writing Rez Life [Treuers previous book, released in 2012], is that policy is not just a presidential declaration, or an act of Congress, or dry catalogable acts.

A member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), left, offers a peace pipe to Kent Frizzell, right, assistant U.S. attorney general, in a tepee at Wounded Knee, S.D., during a ceremony April 5, 1973, ending the bloody standoff between AIM and federal authorities. Jim Mone / Associated Press

History is something that lives inside of us. Federal Indian policy of the 1950s was experienced in very personal ways. I dont know any other way to tell Indian history than through Indian voices. This is a history of Indian lives, not Indian deaths. Its about how we continue to live and move forward. How were both Native and American, and how we square the tribal circle with the American republic.

One of the things that struck me was the title of the third chapter, Fighting Life: 1918-1945, where violence is centered as a force that mediates Native lives  violence done to us, to each other and to ourselves  and not necessarily physical violence, but fighting as a force that drives us to continue to adapt and survive in the modern world. And also trauma. How do you think trauma shapes our lives?

My views are mixed. We hear a lot about historical trauma and blood memory, but I dont subscribe completely to that view. If you think about the bubonic plague in 14th century Europe where everyone was dying, where everyone lost parents and children; we dont hear about historic trauma associated with it.

That was pretty far in the past 

So was Columbus, but people still talk of that as historical trauma. Why do we talk about trauma associated with one but not the other? I also think about my father, as a Holocaust survivor. He experienced so much more trauma than I can even imagine, losing his entire family, losing his homeland, his language and culture, fleeing for his life. I havent experienced anything quite that severe. But he was an excellent role model and father, even though he had many flaws. He was marked by trauma, but it did not determine the shape of his life. Obviously, we live out the effects of the past. The problem is not that Native people were enslaved after Columbus  although thats a problem  or that various colonial powers tried to destroy us, or that we were written out of the Constitution. Its that the ways historical injustices have been perpetuated into the present moment activates a kind of trauma in a way that keeps it alive.

David Treuer with his brother and parents. David Treuer

You write about the more recent history of the Red Power Movement and question the popular presumption of [Native American activist] Leonard Peltiers innocence and wrongful imprisonment. Are you concerned about pushback from Indian country about that?

I imagine there will be some pushback. But in my reporting on Peltier I just rely on the verified record. It feels very important not to ignore the ways in which Peltier and the some of the American Indian Movements leadership has been found wanting and has failed. There have been a couple of generations now of hero worship of people like Russell Means and Dennis Banks and not a recognition of the kind of violence that dogged the movement, and sometimes perpetrated by leaders of the movement.

Although Native women are writing about it.

Exactly, and as always Native women are taking the lead in all the important things. And at great risk have gone on the record to talk about what they experienced at Wounded Knee and in [the American Indian Movement] more generally. The people I write about, at least in relation to AIM, may not feel what I feel to be true, which is that I hold us, our tribes, our leaders, with too much respect to not ask of them their best. I hold the elected officials of the United States government to a very high standard, but I hold our [tribal] elected officials to a higher standard. Thats why I think the protest at Standing Rock is a great example of a movement that was also troubled by some of the actions of elected Standing Rock officials  thats a matter of record. But it was a movement that was powerful because water protectors also held each other to a very high standard of behavior, and dignity and accountability. Unlike AIM, the water protectors empowered women as opposed to the ways AIM disempowered women. And empowered the collective, rather than figureheads, and built coalitions, rather than to lead a following. Russell Means and Dennis Banks legacy may be dinged by my book, but Im less concerned with their legacies than I am about the continued health, power and effectiveness of Indian movements and Indian communities.

The book jacket for David Treuer's "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee." Riverhead Books

I get the sense that you believe the U.S. is capable of transcending its history and doing right by us.

I wouldnt say that as it exists now the American system is capable of protecting and defending even most Americans as much as it is capable and designed to protect commercial interests and multinational corporations. That said, our founding documents and stated ideals are worth defending and can be revived, particularly for the most vulnerable. I feel there is a war for the character of the country that is underway. We see it in electoral politics and the two-party schism weve inherited and that weve made. That war is between two competing versions of America, a country that creates equal opportunities and protections, and one that simply promotes, in the words of Ronald Reagan, a place where someone can still get rich. We have always been at the center of that fight. Just by our continued presence, Native people have been the way in which the country figures out what it is and what it wants to be.

::

David Treuer

Riverhead; 528 pp., $28
Swinging by her old stomping grounds this week, local stand up comedian Vicki Barbolak  she of the catch phrase trailer nasty  will perform five shows over three days at The Comedy Store in La Jolla. Since her recent stint on Americas Got Talent, Barbolak has been touring from coast to coast and abroad reminding audiences that, yes, everyday life can be a hilarious adventure. Join the anti-diva on the journey. Itll be a trip.

Vicki Barbolak: Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Comedy Store-La Jolla, 916 Pearl St., La Jolla. $20 (plus two-drink minimum per person); 21-and-over with valid ID. thecomedystore.com/la-jolla/

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cynthia.zanone@sduniontribune.com
Imperial Beach city leaders this month approved a new program that will offer owners of historic properties tax breaks in exchange for a commitment to preserve such buildings.

The City Council authorized the so-called Mills Act program and a set of fees for applicants during a meeting on Jan. 16. The program is named after the state law that allows cities to provide tax relief to encourage historical preservation.

Former Councilwoman Lorie Bragg, founder of the Imperial Beach Historical Society, expressed her support for the program in an email to the city  a message Mayor Serge Dedina read before the City Council voted.

Im hopeful that homeowners will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, she said, according to Dedina. This is an important first step in the preservation of the few historic homes we have in Imperial Beach.

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Eligible property owners will receive tax cuts calculated under the Mills Act and the California Revenue and Taxation Code so long as they preserve their properties under the terms of a 10-year renewable contract with the city.

To qualify, properties must be listed on the federal governments National Register of Historic Places or the California Register of Historic Resources.

If a building is not preserved as outlined in the contract, the city could end the agreement and force property owners to pay penalties and fines, as well as repay property taxes. Penalties would be set at 12.5 percent of the propertys value.

It is unclear whether any properties in Imperial Beach are designated as historical in the national or state registers. Deputy City Manager Erika Cortez has estimated that no more than a handful of properties could qualify as historical, though the number of properties with historical significance could rise over time.

With few properties expected to qualify for the Mills Act program, if any, the city doesnt anticipate major impacts on the revenue the city generates from property taxes, according to city staff.

The City Council approved three fees related to the program:

A $300 application fee, an annual $100 fee to cover costs to monitor compliance with the program and a $750 fee to cover costs related to any necessary enforcement actions. The enforcement fee will be assessed only if the city takes action to enforce the contract, City Manager Andy Hall said.

Other cities in San Diego County that have a Mills Act program in place include San Diego, Vista, Coronado and National City.

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Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
PHOTO: The Boys & Girls Clubs of Oceanside received $5,000 from San Diego Gas & Electric to further the clubs mission of Inspiring Future Leaders through Science, Technology, Research, Engineering, Arts, and Math. In an effort to combat summer learning loss, the club started the STREAMing Ahead program. Pictured are club members at a field trip to Valley Heights Ranch, where they were harvested strawberries to take home. Visit bgcoceanside.org.

North County community events

CARDIFF

Lecture on Seadrift film set for Friday

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MiraCosta College will host a free lecture, Seadrift: A Sociocultural History of Refugees, Racism, and Reconciliation, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Friday as part of the lifelong learning lecture series in the Student Center Conference Room at the San Elijo Campus, 3333 Manchester Ave. The lecture will be led by Thao Ha, MiraCosta sociology professor, who will discuss the documentary film Seadrift, which was inspired by her research on the Vietnamese fishermen in Texas and conflict in the 1980s with native fishermen and the KKK. Ha will show a trailer of the film and then discuss the issues of refugee assimilation, racial and ethnic conflict and community resolutions and reconciliation. Email lifesanelijo@gmail.com.

CARLSBAD

Center offers classes starting Monday

New classes start Monday at the Carlsbad Senior Center, 799 Pine Ave. Registration is due by Thursday. Classes include Heart Coherent Tai Chi Kung from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Mondays; Yoga  Intermediate with Visualization, 2:45 to 4 p.m. Mondays; Better Balance & Mobility, 1 to 2 p.m. Mondays and 10:45 to 11:45 a.m. Wednesdays or 11 a.m. to noon Mondays and 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesdays; and Collage 101, 2:45 to 4:45 p.m. Mondays. Register at (760) 602-4650.

Free American sign language classes

The Carlsbad Senior Center runs free weekly English Conversation classes from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesdays. Students learn how to meet and greet deaf people, exchange pleasantries and do basic fingerspelling. Each class focuses on basic subjects that help students learn functional sign language. Drop-ins and all levels are welcome. The next class is Jan. 31. Call (760) 602-4650.

ENCINITAS

MS support group to hold meeting Friday

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The Encinitas Multiple Sclerosis Connection Group meets from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at San Diego County Credit Union, 501 N. El Camino Real, in the Community Room. The support group is open to community members with multiple sclerosis and their families and caregivers. Topics include medicine, doctors and nutrition. Call (760) 944-4549 or (760) 805-6390, or email m.easterling68@gmail.com.

ESCONDIDO

Library puts on Lunar New Year celebration

The Escondido Public Library hosts a Lunar New Year Celebration from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the librarys Turrentine Room, 239 S. Kalmia St. The event features the Three Treasures Cultural Arts Society Lion Dance team performing a traditional dance celebrating the Lunar New Year. Attendees will learn about the history and cultural significance of lion dancing. Visit escondidolibrary.org.

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Class focuses on reverse mortgages

A free class on The Pros and Cons of a Reverse Mortgage will be from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Friday at Escondido Adult School, 220 W. Crest St. in Room 111. For more information, call (760) 739-7300.

NORTH COUNTY

Irish heritage club recruiting members

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In preparation for St Patricks Day and Irish American Heritage month in March, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick North County is welcoming new members who have a love of all things Irish. The group traces its lineage back to 1771 and promotes Irish heritage, history, culture and traditions. Prospective members can join the meeting at 11:30 a.m. Friday at OSullivans Irish Pub, 640 Grand Ave., Carlsbad. Email fsospnc@gmail.com.

OCEANSIDE

Women Marines Association to gather

The Edith Macias Vann Chapter of the Women Marines Association will hold a luncheon from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 9 celebrating the 76th anniversary of the Marine Corps Womens Reserve. The luncheon will be held at the Veterans Association of North County building, 1617 Mission Ave. Rhonda Amtower, president of the Women Marines Association, will be the guest of honor. Guest speaker Cal Frantz will talk about a decorated Marine horse from the Korean War, Staff Sgt. Reckless. RSVP by Friday at lilliantusa@att.net or call (760) 436-2505.

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SAN MARCOS

GOP womens group

to meet Monday

The San Marcos Republican Women Federated will hold a luncheon at 11 a.m. Monday at the St. Mark Country Club, 1750 San Pablo Drive at Lake San Marcos. Registration and social time starts at 11 a.m., followed by call to order at 11:30 a.m. The speaker is Christopher Harris, secretary for the Executive Board for Local 1613  National Border Patrol Council, American Federation of Government Employees affiliated with the AFL-CIO and director of Legislative and Political Affairs. The womens group is collecting old cellphones to be refurbished and given to nonprofits such as St. Judes Childrens Research Hospital, shelters for battered women and victims of natural disasters. Reservations and payment of $30 are due by Thursday to S. Glass, 1164 Sunrise Way, San Marcos, 92078. For questions, call (760) 744-0953.

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SOLANA BEACH

Biblical discussion on immigration at church

Solana Beach Presbyterian Church hosts Welcoming the Stranger, a Biblical discussion on immigration with Matthew Soerens, at 7 p.m. Friday at the church, 120 Stevens Ave. Sorens, the keynote speaker, is co-author of Welcoming the Stranger and Seeking Refuge, and is U.S. director of Church Mobilization for World Relief. Sorens will lead a discussion on immigration and how to respond based on Biblical values. Panelists include the Rev. Mike McClenahan, senior pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church; Jon Huckins, co-founding director of the Global Immersion Project and co-author of Mending the Divides; Jose Serrano, World Relief immigration specialist; and Linda Martinez Haley, director of the North County Immigration and Citizenship Center. Admission is free. Visit solanabeach.church.

VISTA

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Kiss and Tell hits stage at Moonlight

A performance of Kiss and Tell, a Valentines Cabaret, is at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Moonlight Amphitheatre, 1250 Vale Terrace Drive. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30. There is lounge seating (cash bar). Call (760) 724-2110 or visit moonlightstage.com.
Making the decision to hire a caregiver is hard enough, but unfortunately, its just the beginning. Here are five tips to help make the process easier:

1. What do you need?

Before you start looking for a caregiver, make a list of the kinds of tasks you want them to do. Some families only need help with day-to-day chores like cleaning, cooking and laundry. Others may require those with more skills for tasks like lifting, tending to bed sores or tracheostomy care. Whatever your needs, put together a thorough inventory that can be used as a checklist during your search. An easy way to get this list going is to literally go through a days activities  make a list of specific activities from morning until bedtime.

2. The search

Once you know what youre looking for, you can start the search. There are many ways to do this: You can advertise on caregiving sites like care.com or carelinx.com. Ask friends and family for referrals. Use social media to spread the word that youre looking for a caregiver. Some will yield better results than others, so its best to use multiple approaches during this process. Caregiving sites may require a sign-up fee, but theyre a pretty safe route to take because theyve done a lot of the work for you  from filtering out those who dont match your requirements to how much to pay. Going through an agency is another route  they, too, eliminate a lot of the guesswork but also charge more.

3. Crafting a job description

To get what youre looking for, it is a good idea to write a job description that clearly outlines your expectations and needs. If there are special needs  like health care training for specific tasks  it should be listed. That way, youre not going to attract applicants who cant perform those tasks.

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4. Be upfront about money

About pay: If you post your ad online, many caregiving-focused sites may require you to include a range. Generally, the hourly rate it is between $10 and $25. If you decide to employ a caregiver directly, you can set your rate and negotiate with your soon-to-be employee. Many job seekers who advertise online provide you with a range so as to eliminate any confusion. A good rule of thumb: Be upfront about how much youre willing to pay, and that can help narrow down the list.

5. Closing the deal

Just like the job description you created outlining what you want, be clear about what wont be tolerated, such as excessive cellphone use, tardiness or smoking. Ask for three references and call them all. At least two of the references should be from former employers. If you are hiring a caregiver through an agency, a criminal background check is probably going to be required. If you are not going through an agency, consider using an online people search website (for example, backgroundcheckgateway.com) to confirm the information the worker has provided to you is correct. Be vigilant and dont be shy about asking a lot of questions.

Twitter: @outdoorlivingsd

michael.rocha@sduniontribune.com
Phils BBQ, a longtime staple in San Diego County, is exporting its widely known brand to Temecula as part of a continuing expansion that will ultimately take it beyond California.

By the end of this year, Phils hopes to open what will be its fifth freestanding restaurant in a space now occupied by a TGI Fridays, which will be operating through mid-March.

Not only did Phils purchase the 6,342-square-foot building  for which it paid $3.2 million  but it also plans to spend more than $4 million on building out the restaurant space.

Even as owner Phil Pace prepares to develop the new Riverside County eatery, he and his team are also eyeing possible locations in Las Vegas in hopes of opening a sixth restaurant there by the end of the year. Pace says the company invests at least 50 percent in the new restaurants and borrows the balance from a commercial bank.

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Phils BBQ, which opened its first restaurant in 1998, currently has locations in Point Loma, San Marcos, Santee and Rancho Bernardo; three outlets in Petco Park, a venue at the San Diego International Airport; and plans to open an outlet at the new Sycuan Casino hotel resort opening in March.

We have a lot of people who come in from Phoenix, Vegas, Colorado, a lot of tourists, and theyre always emailing us to let us know these places are available, are you thinking of opening a place out here? said Pace. I can be in Vegas and Im recognized, even without a Phils BBQ shirt on. The same thing in Phoenix. It really tells you a lot about our brand recognition.

Kevin Sheehan, chief operating officer for Phils, estimates that the company gets 20 to 30 emails alone from people in the Temecula area inquiring about the possibility of opening there.

Phils generally prefers to buy the real estate for its restaurants if it can because not only does it become an asset for the company, but it also makes it less vulnerable to what can became escalating lease costs over time, Sheehan explained.

As part of the new Temecula venue, the Fridays space will be transformed to showcase the Phils familiar look and decor, plus it will have a state-of-the-art audio visual system, new bar, and fully remodeled dining room and kitchen.

A big part of the kitchen cost is a pollution control unit that essentially sucks the smoke out of the air, Sheehan explained.

The company is moving deliberately in its expansion plans but does hope to open new restaurants as frequently as one a year over the next five years, following the Las Vegas opening.

We have a lot of employees who have worked for us for 15 to 20 years in California and Im trying to build a solid company where some day I can step back and build a future for the folks here today, Pace explained. Basically were lining everything up to secure the employment and future of the majority of the staff whove devoted much of their lives to the company.

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lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

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(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisberg
Qualcomm rose to become the research and development powerhouse driving the mobile industry under a business model that allowed it to get paid for its technology by licensing patents and selling chips as separate products.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, along with Apple, claims this double dipping is illegal. But to make a case that Qualcomm violated antitrust laws, the FTC must prove that Qualcomm hurt competition in the smartphone chip market and harmed consumers along the way.

On Tuesday, the FTC made its last pitch to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh that Qualcomms aggressive patent licensing practices did indeed hurt competition, while Qualcomm countered that massive innovation, falling prices and the rise of competitors such as Intel in the smartphone chip market prove that it didnt hurt anybody.

Final arguments were held Tuesday in the complex case, bringing an end to the 10-day bench trial over FTC allegations of anti-competitive practices that strike at the heart of Qualcomms patent licensing business model.

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Judge Koh did not issue a ruling, or give a hint of her thinking, as testimony came a close. While she typically makes rulings fairly quickly, she said the massive amount of documents and complex legal issues in this case make it likely her decision could take longer than usual.

Patent royalties have been the fuel for the San Diego companys success in the smartphone era. Theyve delivered on average $6.3 billion per year in revenue to Qualcomm over the past decade and thats funded a good portion of the companys profit, and research and development efforts.

The FTCs lawsuit is the first serious legal challenge to Qualcomms patent licensing business practices in the U.S., though regulators in China, South Korea and Europe have fined Qualcomm for its business practices.

The FTC isnt seeking hefty fines. It is asking Koh, however, to order Qualcomm to stop certain business practices that it contends harm competition. Those could include that Qualcomm license its patents to rival chipmakers, which would upend the companys current practice of licensing its standard essential patents to smartphone makers based on the price of device  up to a cap of about $13 per phone under todays rates.

The FTC alleges Qualcomm leveraged its dominant market position in 3G CDMA chips and premium 4G LTE chips to force smartphone makers to pay too much in patent royalties.

In testimony throughout the trial, the FTC served up a steady stream of Qualcomm customers who said the San Diego company threatened to cut off chip supply to smartphone makers as part of patent license negotiations.

Smartphone makers ranging from Samsung to Apple to Lenovo to Huawei testified that they couldnt fight to lower patent fees for fear of losing chips supply.

Qualcomm royalties dont reflect changes in the (patent) portfolio or in the law, said FTC attorney Jennifer Milici in closing arguments. Qualcomm maintained high rates  their own expert said rates havent changed at all in 25 years. This demonstrates chip market power.

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The FTC contends that harmed competition. Because of the amount it was making in patent royalties, Qualcomm could price its chips lower than it ordinarily would had it included the cost of its intellectual property in the price of the chip.

That pressured competitors such as Intel and MediaTek to meet Qualcomms prices -- squeezing their profit margins, according to the FTC. That, in turn, put them at a competitive disadvantage and discouraged research and development needed to challenge Qualcomm.

There is nothing wrong with a company gaining market power through better products, said Milici, the FTC lawyer. What Qualcomm was not allowed to do is use its monopoly power to put up roadblocks that prevented competitors from catching up.

Milici said most of the facts in the case are undisputed, and Judge Koh will have to make a credibility determination between the FTCs witnesses and Qualcomms testimony.

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In addition to squeezing profit margins of rivals, the FTC also alleges Qualcomm used incentive funds tied to chip sales to provide smartphone makers with a break on high royalties  a move that kept the royalty rate high, according to the FTC.

And Qualcomm entered into a de facto exclusive chip supply deal with Apple that slowed down Intel from landing high-volume deal to supply iPhones.

Milici said the same market dynamics that led to Qualcomm gaining monopoly power in 3G and 4G wireless chips is likely to play out again with new, high-speed 5G technology, which will begin rolling out this year.

The agency is asking Judge Koh to force Qualcomm to change its business practices that are deemed anti-competitive.

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There is a significant risk that what the industry saw play out in 3G and 4G will play out again in 5G, said Milici.

Qualcomm lawyer Bob Van Nest of Kiker, Van Nest and Peters, argued that the FTC has failed to prove that Qualcomm harmed competition. Instead, Van Nest said Qualcomm earned its market position through superior innovation and better products.

The market is thriving, said Van Nest. This is a dynamic and innovative market.

Qualcomm has been losing market share to MediaTek and Intel steadily since 2015, when they began to catch up to Qualcomms better performing chips, said Van Nest. Intel is now the sole modem chip supplier to Apples latest iPhone models.

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The company claims that the FTC and its antitrust expert, UC Berkeley economist Carl Shapiro, have come up with a theory of competitive harm that is not borne out in the marketplace, where prices for smartphones and data are falling while devices pack on powerful new capabilities.

Shapiro is all about theory but no empirical facts to back it up, said Van Nest. He simply ignores what happened in the market.

Qualcomms economic expert countered the FTC theory of harm by studying market data  though the FTC poked holes in his methodology.

Still, Qualcomm believes the FTC failed to prove under antitrust laws that Qualcomms conduct was anti-competitive or that its negotiated royalty rates were artificially inflated because of its business practices.

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Companies that testified that they felt threatened are all big sophisticated companies with their own leverage and who no doubt want to pay less for Qualcomms technology, said Van Nest. The testimony was completely self-serving.

Qualcomms licensing rates were set several years before it even began selling chips, said Don Rosenberg, general counsel for the San Diego company. He believes they fairly reflect the value of its patent portfolio.

The FTC hasnt come close to meeting its burden of proof in this case, said Rosenberg in a statement. All the real world evidence presented at trial show Qualcomms years of research and development and innovation fostered competition and growth for the entire mobile economy to the benefit of consumers.

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mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

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760-529-4973
WASHINGTON (AP)  Directly contradicting President Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies told Congress on Tuesday that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, that the Islamic State group remains a threat and that the Iran nuclear deal is working. The chiefs made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border for which Trump has considered declaring a national emergency.

Their analysis stands in sharp contrast to Trump's almost singular focus on security gaps at the border as the biggest threat facing the United States.

Top security officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats presented an update to the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday on their annual assessment of global threats. They warned of an increasingly diverse range of security dangers around the globe, from North Korean nuclear weapons to Chinese cyberespionage to Russian campaigns to undermine Western democracies.

Coats said intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will eliminate his nuclear weapons and the capacity for building more  a notion that is the basis of the U.S. negotiating strategy.

"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Coats told the committee.

Coats did note that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed support for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and over the past year has not test-fired a nuclear-capable missile or conducted a nuclear test.

The "Worldwide Threat Assessment" report on which Coats based his testimony said U.S. intelligence continues to "observe activity inconsistent with" full nuclear disarmament by the North. "In addition, North Korea has for years underscored its commitment to nuclear arms, including through an order in 2018 to mass-produce weapons and an earlier law  and constitutional change  affirming the country's nuclear status," it said.

The report said Kim's support at his June 2018 Singapore summit with Trump for "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" is a formulation linked to an end to American military deployments and exercises involving nuclear weapons.

Trump asserted after the Singapore summit that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat. However, Coats and other intelligence officials made clear they see it differently.

"The capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there," said Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Plans for a follow-up Trump-Kim summit are in the works, but no agenda, venue or date has been announced.

More broadly, the intelligence report on which Coats and the heads of other intelligence agencies based their testimony predicted that security threats to the United States and its allies this year will expand and diversify, driven in part by China and Russia. It says Moscow and Beijing are more aligned than at any other point since the mid-1950s and their global influence is rising even as U.S. relations with traditional allies are in flux.

"Some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perception of changing U.S. policies on security and trade," the report said, without providing examples or further explanation.

The report also said the Islamic State group "remains a terrorist and insurgent threat" inside Iraq, where the government faces "an increasingly disenchanted public."

The intelligence assessment, which is provided annually to Congress, made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which Trump has asserted as the basis for his demand that Congress finance a border wall. The report predicted additional U.S.-bound migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with migrants preferring to travel in caravans in hopes of a safer journey.

In Syria, where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of U.S. troops, the government of Bashar Assad is likely to consolidate control, with Russia and Iran attempting to further entrench themselves in Syria, the report said. Asked for her assessment, Haspel said of the IS group: "They're still dangerous." She added that they still command "thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."

The intelligence agencies said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other Western nations. In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat. In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from that accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.

The intelligence assessment of Afghanistan, more than 17 years into a conflict that began after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., projected a continued military stalemate. Without mentioning prospects for a peace deal, which appear to have improved only in recent days, the report said, "neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic military advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year" if the U.S. maintains its current levels of support. Trump has ordered a partial pullback of U.S. forces this year, although no firm plan is in place.

Coats told the committee that Russia and perhaps other countries are likely to attempt to use social media and other means to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

"We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections," the intelligence report said.

The report specifically warned about Russia's cyberattack capabilities.

"Moscow is now staging cyberattack assets to allow it to disrupt or damage U.S. civilian and military infrastructure during a crisis," it said.
ISLAMABAD (AP)  The Taliban said Wednesday they are not seeking a "monopoly on power" in a future administration in Afghanistan but are looking for ways to co-exist with Afghan institutions  the most conciliatory statement to date from the militants.

The Taliban, who now control almost half the country and carry out near-daily attacks mainly targeting Afghan security forces, issued the statement amid intensified U.S.-led talks to resolve the long-running Afghanistan war. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad reported this week that there had been "agreements in principle" toward a framework for peace with the Taliban.

The statement Wednesday by Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen appears aimed at easing fears among those worried about any agreement that includes the Taliban. Its unusually conciliatory tone also could offer Khalilzad greater leverage as he seeks to rally Afghanistan's leadership behind his peace efforts.

In an exclusive audio message to The Associated Press, Shaheen asserted that the Taliban want to live alongside their countrymen "in an inclusive Afghan world."

"After the end of the occupation, Afghans should forget their past and tolerate one another and start life like brothers. After the withdrawal, we are not seeking a monopoly on power," said Shaheen, who is based in Qatar, where the Taliban have a political office.

Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, has been pressing the Kabul government to cobble together a strong negotiation team, but divisions within the country's so-called Unity Government and criticism from warlords-turned-politicians seeking greater involvement, have hampered progress.

Khalilzad has urged President Ashraf Ghani to put together a team that has wide representation in order to ensure that what he calls a "framework for the future" would include rights for women, the rule of law and press freedom.

The Taliban have so far refused to negotiate directly with the Kabul government, which the insurgents often refer to as puppets of the United States. Khalilzad has been pressing the Taliban into direct talks while focusing his discussions with the group on ensuring Afghanistan does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists.

Shaheen said another round of talks with the U.S. envoy is planned for Feb. 25 in Doha.

Prior to that meeting he said the U.S. and the Taliban will establish joint technical teams to work out details of a future U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as ways of preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a haven for terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

Khalilzad, who held talks with the Taliban for six days last week in Qatar, said during a visit to Kabul on Monday that much more remains to be done but that there has been significant progress toward an agreement with the insurgents.

In turn, Ghani assured Afghans that no deals would be made without the Kabul government's full participation.

Khalilzad, who was appointed last September, has stepped up efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan's protracted war that will allow an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces and bring to an end America's longest military engagement that has already cost Washington about $1 trillion.

President Donald Trump has also expressed frustration with the U.S. continued involvement in Afghanistan, lending a greater urgency to an early settlement.

Atta-ul Rahman Salim, deputy head of the Afghan High Peace Council which comprises top Afghan clerics and other prominent figures, said the only way to peace is through direct talks with the government.

"If the Taliban really want to join the peace process, the best and easy way to start is with direct peace talks with the Afghan government," he said, adding that "there is a big difference between what you say and what you do."

Despite the Taliban insurgents' refusal to negotiate with Kabul, Shaheen's message appeared directed at a wide array of stakeholders in Afghanistan  possibly even Ghani's government  who could work together to hasten a U.S. troop pullout.

"Withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan is a shared responsibility," said Shaheen, adding that he Taliban did not want a return to the anarchy of the early 1990s when mujahedeen  who had fought the Russians for 10 years until their withdrawal in 1989  turned their guns on each other, killing tens of thousands of civilians and destroying large swathes of the capital.

Many of those same mujahedeen-turned-warlords are now powerbrokers in Kabul, having returned to power after the collapse of the Taliban. Shaheen appeared to be addressing them as well as those who fear internecine fighting following the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in November 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and ousted the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban had ruled Afghanistan since 1996, imposing a harsh form of Islamic law that denied women work and girls education.

They have since said that both work and school would be available to women and girls in an Afghanistan administration that includes the Taliban.
A week-long workshop on addiction counselling concluded yesterday for 17 members of the public sector and non-government organisations.

The workshop participants were presented with certificates in the Universal Treatment Curriculum for substance use disorders.

The workshop facilitators, from intergovernmental program The Colombo Plan in Sri Lanka, taught the trainees the basics of drugs and drug addiction, several theories of counselling and the fundamental skills that an addiction counsellor needs.

Dato Zainuddin, Achmad Nuhung and Jayvee Acquino are UTC trainers who conducted previous trainings in Samoa. Trainer leader Mr Zainuddin said the Samoan participants were enthusiastic learners.

This is one of the most difficult fields to be in, said Mr Zainuddin

Its not easy to be a drug addiction counsellor because you are dealing with people who are often times very unrealistic, very demanding, seldom grateful.

You are dealing with individuals who have led difficult lives and the way they respond can sometimes be difficult.

As well as gaining their certificates in basic counselling skills for addiction professionals, 10 participants (listed below) will sit their International Certified Addiction Profession exam today. Mr Zainuddin expressed confidence in their success.

Police Commissioner, Fuiavailili Egon Keil, said drugs are a growing problem not only in Samoa but across the Pacific.

Illicit drugs, or hard drugs add no value to Samoa. There is no question that drugs wreck lives and communities, he said.

The negative effects of drugs affect everyone: the upper class, the middle class and the door. It does not recognise race, colour, creed, religion.

The problem of drug addiction can be addressed by fiercely prosecuting the dealers, producers and importers of illegal drugs to Samoa, Fuiavailili continued.

He said the training in UTC will help the fight against addiction, to help people prone to the lure of drugs.

The training program was funded by the United States Embassy in Samoa, from the U.S State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The Colombo Plan is an intergovernmental program focusing on the development of its member-states across the Asia-Pacific region.

Samoa is not currently a member state, but in his keynote address, United States Embassy Charge dAffaires Tony Greubel urged Samoa to join and highlighted its benefits.

Once you are part of it, you are in more regular contact with headquarters  which gives you more access to technical assistance and education programs  so you can keep this ongoing, he said.

The training program itself was a suggestion of Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr Sailele Malielegaoi, added Mr Greubel.

We talked to the Colombo Plan, we talked to the State Department about a funding source, and its worked.

The trainees going to sit the International Certified Addiction Professional Examination tomorrow are:

Aasa Afoa  Ministry of Police

Alapati Moafanua  Ministry of Police

Iosua Samia  Ministry of Police

Rudolph Ho-Chee - Ministry of Police

Aharoni Viliamu  National Health Service

Usugafono Fepuleai - National Health Service

George Tuitama - National Health Service

John Lokeni - National Health Service

Apollo Fata Salafai  Samoa Social Welfare Fesoasoani Trust

Moana Solomona  Ministry of Justice Courts and Administration

And the trainees who have completed Course 4 of the Universal Treatment Curriculum for substance use disorders.

Christopher Sinclair  Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Folole Lemisio  SPCS

Frank Fuaava Telea  Ministry for Revenue

Maselani Talai  Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Saumaa Asemaia  Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Taumaia Esera  Goshen Trust

Mary Collins  Samoa Social Welfare Fesoasoani Trust
Ten-year-old child vendor Faustina Aperaamo of Falelauniu has been thrown a lifeline  $1,000 to pay for her school fee for the whole year.

The funding support comes courtesy of New Zealand-based couple, Eli and Wyndi Tagi.

The couple decided to fund the school fees, after they read a story of a 13-year-old child vendor in the Samoa Observer, which revealed the financial difficulties that her family faced that led to her abandoning school. According to the Samoa Victim Support Group (SVSG), the couple were touched by the story and decided to support one.

Faustina recently joined the recently concluded SVSG Buddying Up Programme  which was funded by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)  and is aimed at boosting the self-esteem of child vendors and promoting the importance of education.

Speaking in an interview with the Samoa Observer, Faustina thanked Eli and Wyndi Tagi for their generosity and praised the SVSG Buddying Up Programme for highlighting the importance of education.

I am very happy for the opportunity that I have been given to attend school again, thanks to the couple from New Zealand who is paying for my fees.

I like the programme because I was able to listen to so much helpful advice by various people, and I was challenged by one of the speakers who said education is very important for me and it is my only way to secure a successful future.

I also learned from one of the police officers that said according to the law we children belong in school during school hours, she added.

Faustina said due to her parents background and the challenges they faced, she didnt mind being a street vendor as her parents werent rich.

And sending me to school was hard for my parents due to financial difficulties, but the buddy up programme taught me that there is a bigger world out there and I can become just like everyone else working in an office. My dream is to be an office worker in the future and in order to achieve that I have to stay in school, she added.

The 35-year-old mother of Faustina, Telesia Manusina, thanked God for his blessings through the New Zealand couple as it will now enable her daughter to return to school.

I thank God for his blessings through the New Zealand couples help, my daughter has the chance to attend school again and all expenses paid for.

She used to attend Vaigaga Primary School but she did not attend school last year. At the moment there is no one employed in our family, but we try to live off selling various Samoan foods, Telesia said.

Faustina has been helping her parents sell products, as she knows how tough life is for them.

I love my child and I only want the best for her, and her education will benefit her future and that of her families, her mother added.

It is understood the SVSG will monitor the disbursement of the funds provided by the New Zealand couple, to ensure they are channeled to tuition fees and arent misused.
China is the largest trading partner of Pacific Islands Forum (P.I.F.) member countries, excluding Australia and New Zealand, with its total trade goods for 2017 amounting to $8.2 billion.

This is according to a staff research report published by the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission on June 14, 2018 titled Chinas Engagement in the Pacific Islands: Implications for the United States.

The report said the amount surpasses South Koreas $8 billion, Australias $5 billion and the United States $1.6 billion total trade goods to the P.I.F. member countries.

P.I.F. member countries include Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Australia and New Zealand.

Chinas total trade with Samoa for 2017, the report said, was to the tune of US$66 million (T$25.3m) for 2017.

According to the report, Chinas total trade with Pacific Island Countries has increased rapidly over the past decade, which was boosted by President Xi Jinping to the region in 2014.

The high-level visit saw the largest year-on-year increase in total trade over this period, growing 63 percent largely due to a sharp boost in Chinese exports, said the report.

In 2017, Chinas exports to Pacific Islands Forum countries reached $4.7 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 2014. Chinese imports from Pacific Islands Forum countries totaled $3.5 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2014.

Chinas top export destinations in the Pacific Islands are the Marshall Islands (mostly passenger and cargo ships), Papua New Guinea (broadcasting, equipment, iron, rubber and prefabricated buildings), and Fiji (seafood, delivery trucks and rubber).

Chinas imports from the region consist mostly of raw materials and minerals. Beijings top sources of imports in the region are Papua New Guinea (petroleum, rough wood, and nickel mattes), New Caledonia (ferroalloys and nickel mattes), and the Solomon Islands (rough wood).

According to the report, Chinas involvement in the Pacific has noticeably accelerated since President Xi took office in 2013.

An examination of trade, investment, aid and tourism shows that China is becoming one of the dominant economic players in the region, well ahead of the United States, the report further stated.

Given the rapid growth in Chinese activity in all four categories of economic engagement over the past decade, this trend is likely to continue in the years ahead, bringing economic and security implications for the United States and its allies and partners in the region.
Member of Parliament, Faumuina Tiatia Liuga, has urged the Government to get the Public Defenders Office to take on civil matters.

He said the Government has surplus from the last two financial years that can assist the office and its work.

We are now investing funds into assisting and protecting criminals, yet this Office should be put to better use for civil matters.

I have been involved in civil matters on numerous occasions, mainly from the general elections, and yet there is no assistance provided for civil, Faumuina said.

But Minister of Justice Courts and Administration, Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu, clarified that a public defender is an attorney-at-law appointed by the Court to represent those who cannot afford a private attorney.

The purpose of this measure is to assist the low income earners, people who cannot afford a lawyer to represent them in the Court of law for criminal matters.

Under the law, this Office is labeled as a public advocate, however, under the measure will amend it to Public Defender.

Talking about his own litigation, Faumuina said after every general election he always ends up in Court for civil matters.

These civil matters literally drain candidates financially and now this service was removed. Where can we go for assistance? Civil matters are very expensive, he said.

The Government should consider including civil representation into this law. For example, if I have to investigate the qualifications of my opponent in the general election  yet that criteria should be set by the Election Office for any candidate  so I don't have to take this matter to Court.

These are some of the issues and yet we are now moving to protect the criminal, and leave the rest to fend for them, Faumuina added.

But the Minister explained that the purpose of the measure is to assist low-income workers facing criminal charges, and the law only caters for criminal matters due to the lack of funding.

But Faumuina didnt accept the response and added that it was time for the Minister to act.

The Minister said that time will come, but I tell you there is no time, now is the time to act. And just last week the Prime Minister have cautioned Ministries who are not using monies budgeted for the financial year.

In 2016 the surplus was $61 million and $101million was the surplus for 2017 and we are expecting another surplus for the financial year 2018. How can you say there is no money?

The protecting of our people should be paramount and yet you claim the lack of funds is being used as an excuse by the Minister, I am saddened. This is clearly discrimination, Faumuina added.

Adding to the debate, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi said it is stupid criminals are entitled to legal representation paid for by tax payers.

However, the purpose of this bill is to assist those who cannot afford legal representation but it is only for felony cases.

The Prime Minister also expressed concern at lawyers who took advantage of the legal aid program.

They target the Government and in return they represent clients under the legal aid paid for by the Government, he added.

The Public Defenders Office, according to Tuilaepa, was adopted by the Samoan Government to fund legal representation for low-income earners.

As a tax payer, I refuse to pay for legal representations for criminals, they should pay for their own lawyers given it is their crime. However, this is one way the Government can assist those who cannot afford a lawyer, he added.

Parliament was informed by the Minister that the current budget allocated for the Legal Aid program will go directly to run the Public Defenders Office.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has praised the Government for addressing child labour issues but called for legislation as a long-term solution.

The ILO national coordinator to Samoa, Tomasi Peni, told the Samoa Observer in an interview that his organisation currently works in a tripartite partnership with the Government, employers and the Samoa Workers Congress.

And while the Government has spearheaded labour-related initiatives  through entities such as the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour (MCIL)  there is a lot more that should be done to address issues such as child labour.

The Government is doing a good job through initiatives like the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour with the minimum age of employment which is 15  with conditions as well in reference to the hazardous work list and light work list  children are not supposed to engage in any hazardous work but only those 18 and above.

But we need to see more progress through the law regarding child labour, because there is currently no law in Samoa only the Education Act. Street vending is one form of child labour, and so street vending is the only case we can find here in Samoa, he said.

Street vending in Samoa is not bad, Mr. Peni added, unlike other countries where the children are vulnerable to prostitution and child trafficking.

Acknowledging the role of non-government organisations like the Samoa Victim Support Group (SVSG), he said they empower children through their activities such as the Buddying Up Programme.

The Buddying Up Programme focused on promoting the significance of education in the lives of Samoan child vendors and improving their self-esteem.

Child labour is a violation of fundamental human rights and has been shown to hinder childrens development, potentially leading to lifelong physical or psychological damage, and it is one of the main priorities of ILO to fight against it, Mr. Peni added.

The ILO national coordinator also acknowledged the role of the media in highlighting issues such as child labour and the work of the Government in trying to address it.

When we look at child labour or street vendors, it is everyones responsibility, but at the end of the day it all comes down to parents. It is okay to sell after school but during night times, children are at risk and their safety should be a priority. Street vending is not bad, I testify to that because I used to be a street vendor and now I have secured a successful future, he added.
A consultation seminar on child rights yesterday heard that the rights of children arent black or white and are often misunderstood.

Seminar facilitator Muliagatele Dr. Potoae Roberts Aiafi of Oceania SMART Consulting said it the reason why consultations on such issues were very important.

Childrens rights arent a black and white thing this is why its often misunderstood, this is why we need to consult the communities about this topic because theres always the mentality that its a western thing, that rights are an overseas concept, she said.

Staff from the Ministry of Women Community and Social Development had convened the seminar for representatives from Upolu communities to consult, make awareness, and seek advice and support for the Child Rights Protection Bill.

But its clear cut, it says the parents are responsible for their kids and the question that comes up is, if the parents neglect their children, who is responsible? she asked.

There have been kids who go through this, like street vendors, that is abuse in itself. Thats abuse and neglect because they are being exposed to various risks and that is what were trying to deliver here today. Everyone has rights but its to a certain extent of course so were here to communicate that.

Held at the Tooa Salamasina Hall, the Upolu consultation was attended by men, women and youth representatives  where they discussed solutions on how to improve services in terms of primary prevention, responsive services and legislative compliance.

The seminar commenced with an opening prayer, followed by keynote remarks which was were delivered by the acting Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Susuga Latu Afioga  who highlighted the Ministrys leading role in the preparation and programs that advised of the improvement of childcare protection in Samoa.

The Ministry will host a similar consultation seminar for Savaii tomorrow.
Member of Parliament, Olo Fiti Vaai, has urged the Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi to check reports from the Auditor General and the Audit Office during the past 10 years for evidence of Government corruption.

In these reports, Olo said there are many instances of corrupt practices highlighted not just by the Auditor General, Fuimaono Camillo Afele, they have also been investigated by the Officers of Parliament Committee.

Olo was responding to the challenge by Prime Minister Tuilaepa for proof of an allegation of corruption within the Government he made in Parliament last week.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer, the Salega East M.P. said the reports produced by the Audit Office have uncovered illegal payouts to Chief Executive Officers, gifts valued at $25,000 being given to a Minister and board members, and the illegal use of Government funds for staff funeral and weddings which date back to 2015.

This includes the illegal payouts to Chief Executive Officers, $25,000 worth of Christmas gifts to a Minister and board member, and Government funds used for employees funeral, weddings, Olo said.

The key words are government funds.

When I consider all these actions, it is corrupt, that is whats happening in the Government.

What more proof does the Prime Minister want?

The Auditors have submitted their reports  despite the fact the reports are from 2015  the Government must still hold these CEOs accountable for their actions.

The failure by the Government to fill key positions within the bureaucracy also came under scrutiny.

Olo pointing out that Ministries continue to submit request for the funding of the positions in the budget, despite the jobs not been filled.

And then at the end of the financial year  divert it to purchase cars, computers, and other office necessities  yet these funds were legally allocated for to pay for the position. There is no way around it  this to me is corruption and illegal, he added.

The use of public funds before approval by the Parliament, added the M.P., is another area of concern.

While I am all for the pay rise in Government, it is long overdue.

However, the rise was in effect on January 1, 2019  yet the supplementary budget bill was only approved last week  yet the raise was included in this budget.

That to me is illegal and should not be allowed under any circumstances.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa strongly denied the allegation.
Now we know Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi and his administration has another mantra. Apart from whats good for Upolu is also great for Savaii as is often always used and abused, we were let in on another secret philosophy last week  perhaps inadvertently.

It happened during that infamous exchange in Parliament, when Prime Minister Tuilaepa was talking about atomic bombs, and things he wanted to blow up like petitions in Parliament.

Weve been independent for nearly sixty years now, and yet this matter of some constituencies having two, three, four reps in Parliament is always brought up, he said. The Governments of the past avoided it. Why? They were afraid to touch fire but with the H.R.P.P. government, it is our belief that it is only smoke, no one will get burned.

Well thats quite telling isnt it? No wonder why this Government has been behaving with such reckless abandon during the past few years, acting like someone drunk on power so that they have just about changed everything in Samoa today.

The worry is that wherever there is smoke, there is bound to be fire somewhere. All the smoke needs is the right amount of oxygen and a little breeze for it to light up.

Looking at Samoa today, the breeze is picking up so that soon it will become wind. And there is plenty of oxygen from so many poor decisions made by this administration, we know it will only be a matter of time before smoke turns into fire.

Weve lost count of the number of things this Government has changed over the years.

But what we do know is that it appears to be a crusade to destroy history, culture and whatever was good, decent and of value to Samoa. It feels like someone is on a mission to create a new legacy so that the sacredness of our past, history and the wisdom of our forebears is demolished, destroyed and erased.

It started with the decision to demolish the old Parliament house. That was symbolic of this Governments intentions. Something changed in the atmosphere the day they bulldozed that historical building, which signified Samoas struggle for freedom. Looking back now, everything else that has followed has been like a domino. Its scary.

Nothing is beyond this Governments reach. What from meddling with the affairs of the Office of the Head of State, to villages, families, businesses and more. Is there anything they havent touched? Who can forget the day they dragged Church Ministers to Court demanding that they pay their taxes?

That day shall live on in memory as one of the worst days in this countrys history.

The point is the forefathers of this nation would be turning in their graves, at the idea that this Government is doing everything in its power, to turn things upside down. Folks, they have already butchered the Constitution blue with so many unnecessary changes. When are they going to stop?

The fact is, if our forefathers did not see fit to tax pastors and the Head of State office holders when the Constitution was written, why now? Dont we believe anymore in the wisdom of our forebears who fought blood, sweat and tears for the freedom we enjoy today?

Now the latest one is the ramming down of the Electoral Constituencies Bill, which was passed in Parliament this week. Contrary to opposition and public views expressed to the Parliamentary Committee, the Government simply wouldnt be persuaded.

Like he promised, Prime Minister Tuilaepas Government rammed through the bill in Parliament and no atomic bomb of any sort couldve stopped it.

At the hint of objection from one of only two Members of Parliament who voted against the bill, Tuilaepa raised his voice. He told Parliament the amendments in the bill are the final phase of the multiple phase reform programme the Government started 28 years ago.

This is the final amendment. This is to clean up electoral boundaries. The traditional and cultural boundaries are not affected, that remains.

When he was asked why theyve removed one M.P. for Savaii, Tuilaepa was not impressed. We are not fools, he shouted, the people who drafted this law are not fools.

Well thats good to know. But perhaps the Government needs to be reminded one more time today, that even the people of this country are not fools. They can easily read between the lines and they can see fire. Wherever there is smoke, fire will sure follow.

Have a wonderful Thursday Samoa, God bless!
It is not often the winner of the best personal assistant prize in an Auckland firm gets to spend a few days in paradise.

And that is exactly what has happened with Angela Leng, who scooped the award as part of her job working for New Zealand company Bayleys Real Estate in Auckland.

Angela Rudling, a real estate sales and marketing representative, told Dear Tourist that she is in Samoa with her personal assistant (PA), who is also called Angela.

I work in a real estate called Bayleys Real Estate in Auckland, New Zealand and Angela is my personal assistant. And what happened is she won the personal assistant prize for being best assistant  so this was my reward for her, to bring her away and have a few days in paradise, she said.

When she was asked what makes Samoa paradise for her, she said: Without a doubt, Samoa is paradise. Its beautiful, its lush, its beautiful beaches, beautiful people  we love it. Its clean and pretty and the weather is gorgeous.

Besides sunbathing at the Taumeasina Island Resort poolside, driving around the island, going to Tafatafa and visiting Sinalei Resort were also highlights.

Sinalei resort was beautiful. They just had a storm there but it was absolutely beautiful, sitting there in the afternoon with drinks and met a lovely guy who works for the new Samoan airline and he was waiting on us so we had a really lovely experience. It was so beautiful, said Angela.

Last Friday night, they dined at Paddles and got to witness the restaurant winning an award at the 2018 Samoa Tourism Excellence Awards.

We were at dinner last night and they had won the award last night and it was so exciting  they were so thrilled to have won that award.

And their Italian owner was so thrilled to win again. The food was fantastic, the food was great, I mean you can see why they won the award, she told Dear Tourist.

While their Samoan adventure had been great, they noticed the absence of street signs when they tried to locate their friends.

I spent 45 minutes driving around in our rental car, trying to find where my friends lived when we arrived.

We found one street sign in about 20 streets and even the GPS doesnt seem to have names so it was really hard.

But we eventually found it, we ran into a woman that knew where we wanted to go and sort of gave us directions, Angela said.

She concluded the interview by saying she will without a doubt recommend Samoa to her friend as it is beautiful and vowed to be return. The pair flew in last Thursday and returned to Auckland last night.
Govt. Press Secretariat - An amendment before Parliament will restrict the Community Law Center to provide legal aid only to defendant charged with criminal offenses.

Established by law in 2015, the Community Law Center was designed to provide free legal services to the people of Samoa by strengthening and improving public access to legal services.

The primary target for the Community Law Centre was to enhance the availability of legal services (ease of access to legal services and legal information) for the community at large, in particular those members of the public who cannot afford private legal assistance.

It included free legal aid for defendants facing criminal charges as well as clients involved in civil court cases.

However, the amendment is for the Community Law Center to provide legal aid only for defendants charged with criminal offenses.

In defending the amendment, Justice Minister Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu noted that the $200,000 tala budget for Legal Aid is insufficient to cater for the rising demand for defendants facing criminal charges and eligible for legal aid from the Center.

But most importantly, the Minister noted that legal representation by any defendant charged with a criminal offense is mandated by the constitution.

Supporting the amendment, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi noted that the legal aid assistance paid for by taxpayers have also been abused by certain lawyers.

These are the same lawyers manipulating the system by encouraging clients to sue the government knowing full well that its a lost cause for their clients but a sure pay check from the legal aid assistance funded by taxpayers.

That in my book is a devious crime that should be discontinued, added the Prime Minister.

WHAT GOVT SAVINGS?

Also related to debating the amendment, the Prime Minister clarified that concerns raised by certain members to use government savings from previous years reported to be in the thousands of tala are ludicrous.

While it sounds good for government to report savings from its expenditures it is a poor reflection on the Executive Branch because it defeats the entire purpose for any government to fulfil its mandate for the people and that is to implement projects that benefits the people.

It is also an unacceptable reflection on any CEO who fail to expedite his budget expenditures of public projects or developments which the public will reap the benefits.

And the reality is that there are no government savings at the end of each fiscal year because the budgeted funds are redirected to finance other beneficial projects which our people deserves.


Karti Chidambaram (file photo) The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Karti Chidambaram to travel to the UK and Spain in February and March adding a stern rider directing him to co-operate with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its probe into his alleged role in the INX Media and Aircel Maxis case. Failing which it would be viewed seriously, the court told the son of former Union Minister P. Chidambaram. His travel dates are from February 10 to 26 and again March 23 to 31.



Allowing him to "go where ever you want, do whatever you want", Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi warned: "Don't play around. Not an inch of non-cooperation will be tolerated. You are not cooperating."



A bench of Chief Justice Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna asked Chidambaram junior to appear before the ED for "further investigation" on March 5, 6, 7, and 12.



Apart from giving an undertaking, the court also directed Chidambaram junior to deposit Rs 10 crore as security with the Secretary General of the Supreme Court.



As senior counsel K.V. Vishwanathan appearing for the senior Congress leader's son wanted to say something on the security deposit, Gogoi said: "Do you want us to add another zero?"



At the outset, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the ED has fixed his questioning dates between his first travel to the UK from February 10 to 26 and before his second travel to Spain from March 23 to 31.



The court in its last hearing on Monday had asked the ED to indicate the dates when it would like to question Chidambaram junior.



Telling Karti Chidambram that the court will "come down very heavily" on him if there was "an iota of non-cooperation" by him, the bench asked him to appear before the authorities (ED) on the dates mentioned and cooperate in every manner.



The court said: "Any non-cooperation would be viewed very seriously."




The BJP on Tuesday came down heavily on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after buses, in which party workers were returning from Amit Shah's rally in East Midnapore, were vandalised.

Addressing a press conference, BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra held Trinamool workers responsible for vandalising and setting ablaze the buses and said the Mamata Banerjee was behaving like a "Talibani Didi".



"The way stones were pelted, buses were vendalised and set ablaze, shows what kind of situation is prevailing in West Bengal. This is the real face of Mamata Banerjee," he said.



"What kind of act is this? You (Mamata Banerjee) are behaving like Talibani Didi," he added.





He said Mamata Banerjee was scared of the growing support for the BJP and that was the reason she has been trying to terrorise the people.



"Talibani forces are active in Bengal under Mamata Banerjee. Today's incident has proved it," Patra said condemning the incident as undemocratic.



He also hit at opposition parties for taking part in Mamata Banerjee's Kolkata rally and sought to know their stand on the issue.



"You won't allow CBI to enter in the state. You won't allow rallies and yatras of BJP leader. You raise doubts on army and BSF. You won't allow any democratic process in the state. Is this democracy," the BJP leader asked.



"Will you save democracy by vandalising buses and setting ablaze them. We will not bow to this kind of threat," he added.
By SA Commercial Prop News

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said government would be willing to sell stakes in state firms to private investors



The South African government will soon debate whether to split up state power firm Eskom to make it financially viable, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday.

Eskom is vital to the health of Africas most industrialised economy as it supplies more than 90 percent of its power, but it is drowning in debt after a decade of steep financial decline.

Experts hired by President Cyril Ramaphosa to help revive the ailing company are proposing splitting it up into three state-owned entities responsible for power generation, distribution and transmission, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week.

Ramaphosa is due to meet the experts this week, and Eskoms fate will also be debated at a cabinet meeting starting on Wednesday.

Should Eskom be unbundled into generation, transmission and distribution, as is the worldwide practice? That is a debate we are going to have soon. And it is going to go beyond a debate because we need very fast movement, Gordhan said at a business conference outside Johannesburg.

Gordhan, who also oversees struggling state firms Denel and South African Airways, added that the government would be willing to sell stakes in state firms to private investors once we get to a level of stability in some of these outfits.

The fiscus doesnt have space for endless bailouts, referring to the budget.
Minister of Education meets Head of ICRC's mission in Yemen [30/January/2019] SANAA, Jan. 30 (Saba) - Education Minister Yahya Badruddin al-Houthi met on Wens day with Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Franz Rauchenstein.



In the meeting, Minister Al-Houthi reviewed the most important problems and difficulties facing the educational process due to the continuation of the US-backed saudi-led aggression coalition, its unjust siege and the direct targeting of their fighter jets against the educational establishments.



For his part, the head of the ICRC mission said that he will review the status of the education sector and its needs with the concerned parties in Geneva to identify aspects of possible interventions according to the matrix of needs of the ministry.





AA

Saba
President Donald Trump lashed out at the intelligence community in a post on Twitter on Wednesday after members of his own administration appeared to contradict some of the president's claims regarding foreign policy issues.

Trump seemed to take particular issue with U.S. intelligence officials telling Congress that Iran is not currently attempting to develop a nuclear weapon and technically remains in compliance with the nuclear deal the president abandoned.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump tweeted.

"When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond," he added. "Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict."

Trump claimed Iran's struggling is "the only thing holding them back" and suggested his intelligence chiefs should "go back to school!"

The tweets from Trump come after Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Coats and Haspel seemed to contradict Trump's claims about Iran as well as the threats posed by terrorist group ISIS and North Korea.

Trump claimed in an earlier tweet that ISIS will "soon be destroyed" even though Coats told lawmakers the militant group "is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."

The president also dismissed the intelligence officials' belief that North Korea is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons, calling the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea the "best it has ever been."

"Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen," Trump tweeted. "Now a whole different story."

"I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly," he added, referring to a planned summit with the North Korean dictator late next month. "Progress being made-big difference!"

This is not the first time that Trump has clashed with members of the intelligence community, as he also dismissed their assessment that Russia sought to interfere in the election that won him the White House.

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Business News
Here is a summary of some of the widely followed stories on cryptocurrency and blockchain during the past 24 hours.

Saudi Arabia, UAE developing common digital currency Aber

The central banks of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the launch of a project to co-develop a common digital currency "Aber" to be used for financial settlements between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE through Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers technologies.

Fidelity Aims To Launch Bitcoin Custody Service In March

Financial services firm Fidelity Investments is targeting to launch its Bitcoin custody service in March, Bloomberg reported citing people with knowledge of the matter. The move by the mutual fund giant may help ease fears of trading cryptocurrencies.

Biggest hackers revealed in 'crypto crime' report

A report by a blockchain analytics company revealed that two prominent, professional hacking groups have carried out the biggest attacks targeting cryptocurrency exchanges. Together, these groups have stolen about $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency so far, Chainalysis says in its third and final report in the "Crypto Crime" series.

Presidential Hopeful Howard Schultz Is Crypto-friendly

Billionaire Howard Schultz, the latest White House aspirant, is considered as the most cryto currency-friendly person among potential candidates. The former Starbucks CEO and Chairman Emeritus had announced on Sunday that he is "seriously thinking of running for president". While discussing cryptocurrencies and blockchain during a quarterly earnings conference call last year, he said that he was seeing cryptocurrencies as a future part of a cashless, digital , though he did not see bitcoin as a "legitimate" cryptocurrency.

GunBroker.com Marketplace adds payment option by Utility Token FreedomCoin

GunBroker.com Marketplace introduced a new payment option using a utility token called FreedomCoin with which, buyers and sellers can pay for purchases using a digital wallet on a blockchain-powered infrastructure. FreedomCoin, is a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar and users can store them in personal, secure blockchain wallet until needed. They can convert funds though an app.

Current Prices

As of this writing, Bitcoin is gaining 0.96 percent or $32.74 at $3440 on Coinbase. Ethereum is rising 2.90 percent or $3.04 at $108.09.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
The central banks of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the launch of a project to co-develop a common digital currency "Aber" to be used for financial settlements between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE through Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers technologies.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) and the United Arab Emirates Central Bank (UAECB) will create a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for the project after studying the feasibility through practical application.

The PoC will also determine the impact on the improvement and the reduction of remittances costs and the assessment of associated technical risks. SAMA and UAECB have agreed to initially concentrate on the technical aspects the implementation of Aber project.

The central banks will establish an additional option for financial transfers between the two countries and enable banks in both countries to directly deal with each other in conducting financial remittances.

The project will also help the two countries use it as an additional reserve system for the domestic central payments settlement system in case of any disruption. The two countries already have in place central systems for remittances and domestic transactions.

The use of Aber digital currency will initially be restricted to a limited number of banks in each state. The economic and legal requirements for future uses will be considered if no technical obstacles are encountered.

The move to develop a common digital currency comes after the recent first meeting of The Executive Committee of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council held in the UAE capital city Abu Dhabi in mid-January. They agreed, as one of seven initiatives, on the issuance of the electronic currency on a probational basis and its exclusive use by a limited number of ?banks in the two countries.

Meanwhile, central banks in some countries have already begun pilot projects to explore the dimensions of Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers technologies applied in circulation of digital currencies.

The neighboring Iran is close to issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)) called the Crypto-Rial, which will be backed by the national fiat currency Rial to subvert the heavy U.S economic sanctions and the recent cut off from the International Payment system SWIFT.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Venezuela's top court ordered self-declared president Juan Guaido not to leave the country, and froze his bank accounts.

The move by Supreme Tribunal of Justice, loyal to President Nicolas Maduro's authoritarian regime, came shortly after the US Government handed control of Venezuela's bank accounts in the United States to Guaido, the opposition leader whom Washington has recognized as interim president.

In line with Attorney General's advice,Tribunal President Maikel Moreno said Guaido is prohibited from leaving the country until the end of the preliminary investigation for having "caused harm to peace in the republic".

At least 40 people were killed and hundreds arrested when Maduro's forces tried to suppress massive opposition-backed demonstrations against the President last week.

Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president.

Venezuela cut diplomatic ties with the US and expelled its diplomats in retaliation to Washington recognizing him.

On Tuesday, a day after the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil and natural gas company, the State Department handed control of Venezuelan assets in US banks to Guaido.

"Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo certified the authority of Venezuela's interim President Juan Guaido to receive and control certain property in accounts of the Government of Venezuela or Central Bank of Venezuela held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or any other U.S. insured banks, in accordance with Section 25B of the Federal Reserve Act," said a statement by Robert Palladino, State Department Deputy Spokesperson.

He believes this certification will help Venezuela's government safeguard those assets for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.

The Trump administration called on other governments to recognize Juan Guaido and take similar steps "to protect Venezuela's patrimony from further theft by Maduro's corrupt regime".

More than 20 governments have pledged their support to Guaido.

The European Union wants Maduro to call elections, while Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain went one step further by warning of military action unless elections are declared by February 3.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
China will on Thursday see January results for its manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs, highlighting a busy day in Asia-Pacific economic activity.

The manufacturing PMI is expected to see a score of 49.3, down from 49.4 in December. The non-manufacturing PMI is called at 53.9, up from 53.8 in the previous month. The composite was at 52.6 in December.

Japan will release December numbers for industrial production, vehicle production, housing starts and construction orders.

Industrial production is predicted to fall 0.5 percent on month and 2.3 percent on year after sliding 1.0 percent on month and 1.5 percent on year in November. Vehicle production advanced an annual 6.3 percent in the previous month.

Housing starts are tipped to gain 2.0 percent on year after slipping 0.6 percent a month earlier, while construction orders sank an annual 10.7 percent in November.

Australia will provide December figures for private sector credit and Q4 data for import and export prices. Credit is expected to hold steady at 0.3 percent on month and 4.4 percent on year.

Import prices are tipped to rise 0.3 percent on quarter after climbing 1.9 percent in Q3. Export prices are expected to jump 2.7 percent after rising 3.7 percent in the three months prior.

South Korea will see December numbers for industrial production and retail sales. In November, industrial production was down 1.7 percent on month and up 0.1 percent on year, while retail sales added 0.5 percent on month and 1.0 percent on year.

Malaysia will release December data for producer prices; in November, prices were down 2.8 percent on month and 2.9 percent on year.

Thailand will provide December numbers for imports, exports and trade balance. In November, imports were worth $20.65 billion and exports were at $21.32 billion for a trade surplus of $0.66 billion.

Finally, the in Taiwan are closed for the long Lunar New Year holiday and will reopen on February 11.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm OpenGate Capital said Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to acquire Sargent and Greenleaf or S&G from Stanley Black & Decker Inc. (SWK).

The transaction is anticipated to be completed in the first quarter of 2019. Financial terms were not disclosed.

S&G is a brand in the specialized high security lock industry. Founded in 1857 and headquartered in Nicholasville, Kentucky, the has approximately 120 employees globally with a distribution footprint that enables S&G to sell its products into more than 100 countries.

S&G designs and manufactures mechanical and electronic locks for safes, vaults, safe deposit boxes and highly sensitive environments.

Andrew Nikou, OpenGate Capital's founder and CEO, said, "We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement to acquire S&G from Stanley Black & Decker. We have already started to review how our newly launched OGx capability can drive innovation into the business through technological enhancements as part of our full potential strategy and believe real growth can be achieved."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Oil prices were modestly higher on Wednesday amid concerns over possible supply disruptions after the United States slapped sanctions on Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA, in an effort to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to cede power to rival Juan Guaido.

Global benchmark Brent crude oil rose half a percent to $61.50 per barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 0.45 percent at $53.55 per barrel.

The upside remained capped by concerns over weak demand outlook due to ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China, the world's two largest economies.

Uncertainty persists after the U.S. Justice Department unsealed sweeping criminal charges against Chinese tech giant Huawei and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Meanwhile, after Washington announced export sanctions against PDVSA on Monday, media reports suggest that the state-owned oil producer is asking major buyers, including U.S. refiners, to renegotiate contracts.

The South American country exports 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude, including 500,000 bpd to the United States, and imports over 200,000 bpd of refined products.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
U.K. stocks rose on Wednesday as the pound dipped amid anxiety over Brexit. In addition, comments from Apple's chief that U.S.-China trade tensions were easing helped sooth investor worries about slowing growth in China.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was up 61 points or 0.89 percent at 6,894.57 after rallying 1.3 percent in the previous session.

Miners were in demand as iron ore and copper prices rose following a mining disaster in Brazil. BHP, Anglo American and Antofagasta all gained over 1 percent.

British American Tobacco jumped over 3 percent to extend gains from the previous session as fears over the menthol cigarette crackdown Stateside receded.

Investors awaited cues from the FOMC meeting and U.S.-China trade talks for further direction.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep policy unchanged when it announces its decision on Wednesday.

China's Vice Premier Liu He is in Washington this week to meet U.S. officials, including President Trump.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Indian shares opened higher on Wednesday, tracking firm cues from other Asian after Apple CEO said trade tensions between the U.S. and China are easing.

Overall gains, however, remained limited as investors awaited cues from a number of events lined up for the week, including the FOMC meeting, U.S.-China trade talks, Thursday's F&O expiry and the all-important interim budget.

The benchmark BSE Sensex was up 118 points or 0.33 percent at 35,710 after closing marginally lower in the previous session. The broader Nifty index was up 29 points or 0.27 percent at 10,681.

Jet Airways dropped around 1 percent after grounding three of its Boeing 737 planes due to nonpayment of lease rentals.

DHFL tumbled 3.6 percent after a news portal alleged a Rs. 31,000 crore scam by its promoters.

Axis Bank soared 5 percent after its quarterly profit jumped by more than twofold on improved asset quality.

HDFC declined 1.3 percent after its Q3 profit missed estimates.

HCL Technologies rallied 2.2 percent on reporting a 19 percent rise in quarterly profit.

Bajaj Finserv advanced 1.4 percent after its Q3 profit grew 16 percent.

Tata Steel jumped 3.3 percent after relaunching a blast furnace at a cost of "tens of millions of pounds" at Port Talbot in Wales.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
The following are some of today's top gainers in the pharma/biotech sector.

1. OncoCyte Corporation (OCX)

Gained 224.73% to close Tuesday's (Jan.29) trading at $5.91.

News: The Company announced positive results from its key R&D Validation study demonstrating the accuracy of its DetermaVu liquid biopsy test for lung cancer.

The R&D Validation study demonstrated a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 75% of DetermaVu on a prospectively collected cohort of 250 patient blood samples that were blinded to laboratory operators.

DetermaVu Lung is on track for commercial availability in the second half of 2019, according to the Company.

2. Voyager Therapeutics Inc. (VYGR)

Gained 38.31% to close Tuesday's trading at $11.12.

News: The Company has formed a strategic collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. (NBIX) focused on the development and commercialization of Voyager's gene therapy programs, VY-AADC for Parkinson's disease and VY-FXN01 for Friedreich's ataxia, as well as rights to two programs to be determined.

Neurocrine Biosciences gains development and commercialization rights to gene therapy programs VY-AADC, VY-FXN01 and two additional programs to be determined. In turn, Voyager receives $165 million upfront, along with funding for ongoing development of each program, and up to $1.7 billion in potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments.

3. Zynerba Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ZYNE)

Gained 25.26% to close Tuesday's trading at $4.81.

News: No news

Clinical Trials & Near-term Catalysts:

-- A pivotal trial of ZYN002 in Fragile X Syndrome, dubbed CONNECT-FX, is underway, with topline results expected in the second half of 2019.

-- A phase II clinical trial evaluating ZYN002 in children and adolescents (three through 17 years) with developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, dubbed BELIEVE 1, is ongoing, with topline data expected in the third quarter of 2019.

-- The Company expects to initiate an open-label Phase 2 study in pediatric patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Australia in the first half of 2019.

-- A phase II study in pediatric patients with 22q is expected to be initiated in Australia in the first half of 2019.

4. Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CNAT)

Gained 25.26% to close Tuesday's trading at $4.81.

News: No news

Clinical Trials & Near-term Catalysts:

In collaboration with Novartis, Conatus is conducting three randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b clinical trials evaluating Emricasan in patients with fibrosis or cirrhosis caused by NASH namely, ENCORE-NF (for NASH Fibrosis), ENCORE-PH (for Portal Hypertension), and ENCORE-LF (for Liver Function).

-- Top-line results from ENCORE-NF are expected in the first half of 2019.

-- Last December, the Company announced that the ENCORE-PH trial did not meet the primary endpoint. The study has an ongoing six-month extension with 48-week liver function and clinical outcome results expected in mid-2019.

-- Top-line results from ENCORE-LF are also expected in mid-2019.

5. Kazia Therapeutics Limited (KZIA)

Kazia Therapeutics is an innovative oncology-focused biotechnology company, based in Sydney, Australia.

Gained 23.33% to close Tuesday's trading at $3.70.

News: No news

Clinical Trials & Near-term Catalysts:

The lead program is GDC-0084, which is being developed to treat glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and most aggressive form of primary brain cancer. The compound was licensed from Genentech in late 2016.

A phase II trial of GDC-0084 in Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), a phase II trial of GDC-0084 in Breast Cancer Brain Metastases (BCBM), and a phase I trial of GDC-0084 in Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) are underway.

Also in the pipeline is Cantrixil, currently in phase I trial for ovarian cancer.

6. Avadel Pharmaceuticals plc (AVDL)

Gained 19.47% to close Tuesday's trading at $2.70.

Avadel is a branded specialty pharmaceutical company, generating revenue primarily from the sale of pharmaceutical products, previously sold in the U.S. without FDA approval ("Unapproved Marketed Products" or "UMDs").

Pipeline:

The lead drug candidate FT218 for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy in subjects with narcolepsy is under phase III testing. The study is expected to be completed in September 2019 (Source: ClinicalTrials.gov).

Another company by the name Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (JAZZ) is developing a drug, Solriamfetol, as a treatment to improve wakefulness and reduce excessive daytime sleepiness in adult patients with narcolepsy or obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Solriamfetol is under FDA review, with a decision date set for March 20, 2019.

Near-term Catalyst:

The Company is expected to report Q4 and full year 2018 financial results in March.

For full-year 2018, the Company expects revenue to be in the range of $90 million to $105 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters have a consensus revenue estimate of $96.78 million for the year. Revenue in full year 2017 was $172.7 million.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Vale SA said it would dismantle 10 dams that are similar to the one that collapsed on Friday, killing at least 84 people, after police arrested five people in connection with the disaster earlier Tuesday.

Vale said it has presented to the Brazilian authorities its plan to decommission all its dams built by the upstream method.

The plan presented to the Brazilian authorities aims to de-characterize these structures as tailings dams in order to reintegrate them into the environment. Vale currently has 10 dams built by the upstream method, all of which are currently inactive. All of Vale's dams present stability reports issued by external, independent and internationally respected companies.

Vale estimates that investments of around R$ 5 billion will be necessary to decommission its upstream dams and estimates that the decommissioning process will occur over the next 3 years.

In order to carry out the decommissioning of the upstream dams safely and quickly, Vale will temporarily halt the production of the units where the structures are located, namely: Aboboras, Vargem Grande, Capitao do Mato and Tamandua operations, in the Vargem Grande complex; and the Jangada, Fabrica, Segredo, Joao Pereira and Alto Bandeira operations, in the Paraopebas complex, also including the stoppage of the Fabrica and Vargem Grande pelletizing plants. The operation of the halted units will be resumed as the decommissioning works are completed.

The estimated impact of the production stoppage is about 40 million tons of iron ore per year, including in this figure the pellet feed needed for the production of 11 million tons of pellets, an impact that will be offset by the increase in production of other systems of the company.

Vale said it expects to reallocate all its collaborators currently located in the operations that will be halted.

Separately, Vale said that the Public Ministry of Labor filed a Public Civil Action and a preliminary injunction was granted, determining a freezing of R$ 800 million to secure the indemnification of direct and third-party employees that worked in the Corrego de Feijao mine at the time of the dam breach; maintenance of the wage payments to the relatives of direct and third-party employees that are still missing while the status of fatality is unconfirmed; payment of funeral expenses, transfer of body, burial of all direct and third-party employees; and, among other administrative measures.



Futhermore, on January 28th, 2019, a putative securities class action complaint was filed against Vale, its CEO Fabio Schvartsman, and CFO Luciano Siani Pires, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint, putatively brought on behalf of certain purchasers of Vale securities, alleges violations of rules.

The complaint alleged that the Company made false and misleading statements, and omitted to make disclosures, concerning the risks and potential damage of a breach of the dam in the Corrego de Feijao mine in Brumadinho, Brazil. The complaint seeks an unspecified amount of damages. Given the early stage of the proceeding, it is not possible at this time to predict the outcome of this matter. Vale intends to defend vigorously against the claims.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Springfield, MO -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/30/2019 --The Missouri Association of Manufacturers announced today that Red Monkey Foods has been awarded the organization's Member Momentum Award. This award recognizes a Member manufacturer who has demonstrated new or significant growth through their products, services, operations, staffing, and/or facilities. The manufacturer must demonstrate a new business model through creative or innovative ways, remodel their current way of doing business, or expand upon their current business model. The executive team must demonstrate their commitment to continued growth, while maintaining a commitment to excellence in quality. The award will be presented at MAM's Gearing Up Conference and 2019 Annual Meeting on February 6 at the Oasis Convention Center in Springfield.



Influential executive leaders will discuss hot topics facing the industry on the Manufacturing Matters Panel at the Gearing Up Conference & 2019 Annual Meeting. Following the discussion there will be an interactive Q&A with the audience. Eric Olson with the Springfield Business Journal will moderate.



Panelists:



- Susan Tripp, President & Owner of TrippNT

- Gregory Rocque, President of Positronic

- Kevin Thompson, CFO of Cambridge Engineering

- Mark McNay, Senior Vice President & General Manager of SMC Packaging Group



Throughout the day, attendees will take part in networking opportunities in this events largest expo to date, discuss manufacturing trends, developments and interact with peers and top professionals in the industry to drive your business into the future.



Missouri Association of Manufacturers Gearing Up Conference & 2019 Annual Meeting is an all-day event on February 6, at the Oasis Convention Center in Springfield, Missouri. This event has become the Missouri premier manufacturing event, assembling key executives and technical experts. The general session features Chris McChesney and Jack Stack as keynote speakers addressing hot topics facing the manufacturing industry. This event is designed for manufacturers and is open to the public. Register online at www.mamstrong.org



About Missouri Association of Manufacturers

Missouri Association of Manufacturers (MAM) strives to instill interest and enthusiasm among elected officials and the public in general, by advocating policy that promotes regional economic growth and worldwide competitiveness. Missouri Association of Manufacturers (MAM) serves as the manufacturers advocate in Missouri and works to educate policy makers at all levels, of the importance about issues important to manufacturers. MAM utilizes its strength in numbers to develop strategic partnerships and create exclusive benefit programs. The goal of each program is to offer lower pricing or greater advantages than members would be able to obtain on their own. MAM is focused on bringing manufacturers together to address common issues and challenges, and to learn from one another. MAM events, conferences, workshops and networking events provide a non-competitive environment for developing these beneficial relationships. For more information visit us @ http://www.MAMstrong.org
Weather Alert

This product covers Eastern North Carolina **CLAUDETTE WILL BRING IMPACTS TO EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY** NEW INFORMATION --------------- * CHANGES TO WATCHES AND WARNINGS: - None * CURRENT WATCHES AND WARNINGS: - A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Coastal Onslow, East Carteret, Hatteras Island, Mainland Dare, Mainland Hyde, Northern Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island, and West Carteret * STORM INFORMATION: - About 500 miles west of Buxton NC or about 430 miles west of Morehead City NC - 33.8N 84.2W - Storm Intensity 30 mph - Movement East-northeast or 70 degrees at 17 mph SITUATION OVERVIEW ------------------ Tropical Depression Claudette will move across the Southeast today and is expected to track across eastern North Carolina as a minimal Tropical Storm tonight, and move offshore tomorrow morning. Heavy rain bands and embedded thunderstorms from this system will lead to the threat of flash flooding across the area tonight through tomorrow morning. Additionally, a few tornadoes will be possible beginning this afternoon and continuing into tomorrow morning, which could lead to locally enhanced damage. Tropical storm force winds are expected across coastal sections of eastern North Carolina. This could lead to some downed trees and scattered power outages. Minor storm surge flooding of 1 to 3 feet above ground will be possible along sound-side locations of the Outer Banks and mainland counties adjacent to northern portions of the Pamlico Sound. Additional storm surge flooding of 1 to 2 feet above ground will be possible across Bogue Sound, and the into the lower New and White Oak rivers. Overwash of dunes and flooding of properties and roadways will also be possible for locations where dune structures are weak. The threat for stronger and more frequent rip currents will continue for area beaches through the middle of the week. Dangerous marine conditions are also expected, with strong winds and seas building to 7 to 10 feet creating treacherous conditions for mariners. POTENTIAL IMPACTS ----------------- * FLOODING RAIN: Protect against dangerous rainfall flooding having possible significant impacts across areas south and east of a Manteo to Kenansville line. Potential impacts include: - Moderate rainfall flooding may prompt several evacuations and rescues. - Rivers and tributaries may quickly become swollen with swifter currents and overspill their banks in a few places, especially in usually vulnerable spots. Small streams, creeks, canals, and ditches overflow. - Flood waters can enter some structures or weaken foundations. Several places may experience expanded areas of rapid inundation at underpasses, low-lying spots, and poor drainage areas. Some streets and parking lots take on moving water as storm drains and retention ponds overflow. Driving conditions become hazardous. Some road and bridge closures. Protect against locally hazardous rainfall flooding having possible limited impacts across far northern and western portions of eastern North Carolina. * TORNADOES: Prepare for a tornado event having possible limited impacts across Eastern North Carolina. Potential impacts include: - The occurrence of isolated tornadoes can hinder the execution of emergency plans during tropical events. - A few places may experience tornado damage, along with power and communications disruptions. - Locations could realize roofs peeled off buildings, chimneys toppled, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, large tree tops and branches snapped off, shallow-rooted trees knocked over, moving vehicles blown off roads, and small boats pulled from moorings. * SURGE: Prepare for locally hazardous surge having possible limited impacts across the Outer Banks and mainland counties adjacent to northern portions of the Pamlico Sound. Potential impacts in this area include: - Localized inundation with storm surge flooding mainly along immediate shorelines and in low-lying spots, or in areas farther inland near where higher surge waters move ashore. - Sections of near-shore roads and parking lots become overspread with surge water. Driving conditions dangerous in places where surge water covers the road. - Moderate beach erosion. Heavy surf also breaching dunes, mainly in usually vulnerable locations. Strong rip currents. - Minor to locally moderate damage to marinas, docks, boardwalks, and piers. A few small craft broken away from moorings. Elsewhere across Eastern North Carolina, little to no impact is anticipated. * WIND: Protect against hazardous wind having possible limited impacts across coastal sections of eastern North Carolina. Potential impacts in this area include: - Damage to porches, awnings, carports, sheds, and unanchored mobile homes. Unsecured lightweight objects blown about. - Many large tree limbs broken off. A few trees snapped or uprooted, but with greater numbers in places where trees are shallow rooted. Some fences and roadway signs blown over. - A few roads impassable from debris, particularly within urban or heavily wooded places. Hazardous driving conditions on bridges and other elevated roadways. - Scattered power and communications outages. Elsewhere across Eastern North Carolina, little to no impact is anticipated. * OTHER COASTAL HAZARDS: Dangerous surf conditions and the high risk for rip currents will continue for area beaches through early next week. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS ---------------------------------- * EVACUATIONS: Listen to local official for recommended preparedness actions, including possible evacuation. If ordered to evacuate, do so immediately. * OTHER PREPAREDNESS INFORMATION: Now is the time to complete all preparations to protect life and property in accordance with your emergency plan. Ensure you are in a safe location before the onset of strong winds or possible flooding. If you are a visitor, be sure to know the name of the city or town in which you are staying and the name of the county in which it resides. Listen for these locations in local news updates. Pay attention for instructions from local authorities. Rapidly rising flood waters are deadly. If you are in a flood-prone area, consider moving to higher ground. Never drive through a flooded roadway. Remember, turn around don't drown! If a Tornado Warning is issued for your area, be ready to shelter quickly, preferably away from windows and in an interior room not prone to flooding. If driving, scan the roadside for quick shelter options. If in a place that is vulnerable to high wind, such as near large trees, a manufactured home, upper floors of a high-rise building, or on a boat, consider moving to a safer shelter before the onset of strong winds or flooding. Closely monitor weather.gov, NOAA Weather radio or local news outlets for official storm information. Be ready to adapt to possible changes to the forecast. Ensure you have multiple ways to receive weather warnings. * ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION: - For information on appropriate preparations see ready.gov - For information on creating an emergency plan see getagameplan.org - For additional disaster preparedness information see redcross.org NEXT UPDATE ----------- The next local statement will be issued by the National Weather Service in Newport/Morehead City NC around 6 PM EDT, or sooner if conditions warrant.
Posted by Jeremy on at 05:36 PM CST

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75261  Clone Scout Walker  20th Anniversary Edition

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Spielwarenmesse - the Nuremberg International Toy Fair - started today and LEGO has come out strong. Unlike last year, when LEGO severely curtailed press access and only had a limited amount ofsets, there is a huge amount of information coming out of the show thanks to stalwarts Zusammengebaut.com, who have been live blogging all the LEGO reveals.All the sets below will be released at general retail on April 1st.The newest addition to the line is the Action Battle sets, a themed series of midway/sideshow builds that have a shooting range appearance.Those that have seen these sets have told us that each has two bases (ready player two?) and puts one faction of theuniverser against the other: Imperial speeder bikes against tree-borne ewoks, and AT-AT with snowtroopers battling Hoth Rebel soldiers with turrets are the hard targets of the first two of these child-like games of skill.With a succesful first season, and news that a second season has been approved, the inclusion of a subtheme based on this intra Original/Prequel Trilogy television series doesn't come as a surprise.The red TIE Interceptor flown by the First Order pilot Elrik Vonreg will come with a similarly coloured minfig , as well as a Kazuda Xiono minifig , Bucket and General Leia , while Black Ace's ugly includes Poe Dameron, Griff Halloran and BB-8 minifigs.The onlymovie set that isn't linked to the 20th anniversary is a forested playset that recreates the duel between Rey and Kylo Ren, and serves as a reminder of the climactic plot point in the upcomingepisode 9, due out later this year.This set is pegged to come with new Kylo Ren and Rey minifigs.The big reveal, of course, was the special edition 20th anniversary line up. This collection of five sets recaptures three of the original 1999 sets, but in a modern format, and revisits two more recent sets.Each will come with a specially designed minifig that captures the originality of the two-decade old line by using the original prints, with the added touch of the 20th anniversary logo at the back of each torso. The print on these minifigs are not a recreation, as the original Illustrator file that was used when they were first issued has been dug out from the LEGO digital archives. Each comes with a display stand.Build Boba Fetts personal Slave I starship and travel with him through the LEGO Star Wars galaxy in search of fugitives! Grab the handle and fly him around. Pull the triggers to fire the spring-loaded shooters. Load Han Solo trapped in carbonite into the hold and deliver him to collect your payment. Its another exciting day in the life of a bounty hunter!Speed to victory in Anakins Podracer! Sit young Anakin Skywalker in the cockpit and lower his goggles ready for the race. Then fire up the huge engines, grab the play handle and zoom through the canyons of Tatooine or your living room! With Anakin at the controls, victory is yours!Sound the alarm, Echo Base is under attack! Win the Battle of Hoth with Luke and Dak Ralter in their amazing LEGO Star Wars Snowspeeder from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Speed over the ice and launch the spring-loaded shooters. Then fire the rear stud shooter and harpoon with string. On the ground, help the Rebel Trooper take aim and fire the gun tower stud shooter. Those Imperials must be defeated!Protect the Wookiee warrior with the armored Clone Scout Walker! Sit the Kashyyyk Trooper in the seat of the armored AT-RT Walker and stride in battle. Turn and fire the stud shooter before the Dwarf Spider Droid destroys the trench with its own stud shooter. The Clone Army must win at all costs!Deploy the troopers with the LEGO Star Wars Imperial Dropship! Load them onto the platform and store their stud blasters for the flight. Then sit the Shadow Trooper in the cockpit, fire up the engines and blast off for another exciting battle against the Rebels!It is worth noting that there was no evidence of any new LEGO BrickHeadz or buildable Figures. Typically toy fairs only show what is being offered to general retail and any store exclusives are kept under wraps, so if there areBrickHeadz or buildable figures coming in 2019 they won't be revealed at any of the toy fairs.
Russian Supreme Court upholds ex-Bolotnaya case defendants acquittal of murder

 RIA Novosti, Andrey Stenin

13:07 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  The Russian Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld acquittal of ex-Bolotnaya riots defendant Richard Sobolev in a case on ethnic murder, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

The court therefore dismissed an appeal against sentence lodged by prosecutors.

In October, Sobolev was acquitted of murder upon by jury. The Moscow City Court declared his right to rehabilitation and demand for moral damage compensation.

According to investigation, in 2014, a group of people killed a citizen of Uzbekistan in Moscow. Sobolev was detained on November 30, 2016. The man has been charged with gang ethnic murder. He pleaded not guilty.

Earlier, Sobolev, who was also charged with participation in the riots in central Moscow in 2012, was pardoned under an amnesty.

Public protests erupted on Bolotnaya Square on the eve of Vladimir Putins inauguration for a third presidential term in May 2012. The rally culminated in clashes between protesters and the police. Over 400 people were arrested, and scores were injured when protesters briefly broke through police lines. Several criminal cases under Article 318 of the Criminal Code for using violence against officials were launched as a result.

Riot organizers Leonid Razvozzhayev and Sergey Udaltsov were sentenced to 4.5 years in prison each. Other defendants in the case received prison terms ranging from suspended sentences to four years. Several defendants were pardoned; two activists were sent to compulsory mental treatment.




Charges brought against arrested Federation Council member

 RIA Novosti, Vladimir Fedorenko

16:39 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  Rauf Arashukov, a member of Russias Federation Council, has been charged with murder, participation in a gang and witness tampering, the Investigative Committee reports.

Investigators claim that the member of parliaments upper house was involved in the murder of a Karachay-Cherkessia public youth movements deputy chairman Aslan Zhukov and the republican presidents advisor Fral Shebzukhov in 2010.

Moreover, investigators believe that the senator is implicated to natural gas embezzlement from Gazprom company.

During interrogation the defendant said that he is e not fluent in Russian language and asked for the services of an interpreter.

He was arrested in the Federation Council on January 30. The upper house of parliament stripped Arashukov of his immunity and gave consent to his prosecution upon an application by the Prosecutor General.




Sentence mitigated for gang members convicted of murders of 15 years ago

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

12:42 30/01/2019

MOSCOW, January 30 (RAPSI)  The Supreme Court of Russia on Wednesday mitigated sentence for three residents of Chelyabinsk Region for a string of murders committed more than 15 years ago, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

The court finally gave Igor Urvachev 19 years in high security prison. Sergey Baranov and Alexander Batalov received 19.5 and 20.5 years in high security prison respectively.

In 2008, a court in the Chelyabinsk Region sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 20 to 23 years.

The court found that the crimes were committed by gang members between 2002 and 2003. According to the regional court, Batalov decided to kill a witness in a criminal case over beating and murder threat opened against his brother. He and his accomplices killed the victim in a forest.

Moreover, in 2003, they murdered a witness in a case on assault related to robbery.

Batalov, Urvachev and Baranov were found guilty of two counts of murder, incitement to kill, illegal purchase, bearing and storage of firearms and their parts and illegal manufacture of weapon.
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US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas): I understand from whats been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. We know theres been significant solar flare activity, and so  is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moons orbit, or the Earths orbit around the sun? Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate.

Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief for the National Forest System, responded that she would have to follow up with you on that one, after a brief pause.

Gohmert: Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change, Id like to know.
Saverio dall Rosa: Mozart aged 14 in January 1770 Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 29 January 2019 Star rating: 4.0 ()

Ian Page's Mozart 250 project has reached tthe teenage Mozart, here performed alongside an intriguing selection of music by his contemporaries



La finta semplice) the previous year, this year is a quieter time for composition with only three orchestral serenades. But in the wider world, there is plenty of music going on with works by Arne, Paisiello, Haydn, CPE Bach and Gluck.



This is the context for 1769: a year in music at the Symphony from Cassation in G major K.63, two airs from Thomas Arne's An Ode upon Dedicating a Building to Shakespeare, Mozart's aria Cara, se le mie pene, arias from Pasiello's Don Chisciotte della Mancia, Haydn's Le pescatrici, CPE Bach's Die Israeliten in der Wuste and Gluck's Aristeo, the first movement of Leopold Mozart's Symphony in G major 'Neue Lambach' and Haydn's Symphony No. 48 in C major 'Maria Theresia'. It is 1769, and young Mozart turns into a teenager. Having written his first full-length opera () the previous year, this year is a quieter time for composition with only three orchestral serenades. But in the wider world, there is plenty of music going on with works by Arne, Paisiello, Haydn, CPE Bach and Gluck.This is the context for Ian Page and the Mozartists at the Queen Elizabeth Hall , on Tuesday 29 September 2018 for the fifth year of their Mozart 250 project. The orchestra was joined by soprano Chiara Skerath and baritone James Newby to perform Mozart's, two airs from Thomas Arne's, Mozart's aria, arias from Pasiello's, Haydn's, CPE Bach'sand Gluck's, the first movement of Leopold Mozart'sand Haydn's

Elsewhere on this blog :

We started with the symphony which Mozart extracted from hisA cassation was a type of serenade, and Mozart re-used four of the movements to create a symphony. First a crisp and perky 'Allegro' with prominent horn parts, then a lyrical 'Adagio' with a prominent solo violin part. This movement though seemed to almost outstay its welcome. The third movement minuet was brisk, with a trio played by a smaller concertante group, and finally a lively 'Allegro assai'. A very creditable piece, and quite a piece of work for a thirteen-year-old, but the music does not yet dig very deep.Arne'swas a setting of a large-scale ode written by David Garrick to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in Stratford. In fact the celebrations were five years late (Shakespeare was actually born in 1564), and torrential rain dampened things somewhat. Arne's music does not survive in full, and we heard two airs in orchestrations by Ian Page. Chiara Skerath sang 'Soft flowing Avon', a delightfully lyrical piece which Skerath sang with great engagement, and then James Newby gave a vividly dramatic account of 'Tho' crime from death and torture fly'. This latter seems to have only a tangential relevance to Shakespeare!Mozart's concert ariais a bit of a mystery as it survives only in a copyist's manuscript and we have no context for it. As sung by Chiara Skerath it proved to be very Italian in influence, elegant and charming with Skerath again showing a lovely degree of engagement with the music.Paisiello was one of the major opera composers of the day and can be seen as an important precursor to Rossini. His three-act comic operawas premiered in Naples in 1769. The libretto, by the Neapolitan poet Giovanni Battista Lorenzi, takes great liberties with the original novel. James Newby sang 'Venga pur, ma zitto zitto', an aria for Sancho Panza in which he is leading the blindfolded Quixote to what he promises to be a golden bed with Dulcinea in it. It was a delightfully characterful piece with hints of the Rossini comic operas to come.The first half concluded with an aria from one of Haydn's major comic operas,. Unfortunately this only survives in an incomplete form, so has not had the modern revival that it deserves. Mastriccio's aria 'Son vecchio, son furbo', sung by James Newby, was a striking and sophisticated piece with elements which reminded you that Mozart's opera arias did not come out of nowhere, and some delightful patter moments.The second half opened with the first movement of a symphony by Mozart's father Leopold. This is one of a pair which Leopold gave to a monastery in Austria in 1769, and there has been disputation ever since about which of the two was written by the father and which by the son. The discovery of the original manuscript in 1982 confirmed theas being by Leopold. The opening 'Allegro' was a brisk, well-made and attractive piece, not unlike the music of Leopold's son at the time, and also without the sense of plumbing greater depths which Mozart would bring to his mature music.Born in 1714, CPE Bach was very much one of the older generation. He moved to Hamburg in 1768 and his oratoriowas one of his first large-scale pieces for the city. About the Israelites in the desert, part one concludes with an aria for Moses, 'Gott, sih dein Volk im Staube liegen!'. In fact a prayer, here sung by James Newby, it proved to be a powerful and striking piece with a plangent solo bassoon part. Newby made it moving and impassioned, and you could not help but be struck by the links to the music of CPE Bach's father.By 1769 Gluck had a very strong reputation, and two of his reform operas,andhad already been performed in Vienna. For Parma in 1769 he createdwhich included three one-act operas (including a new version offor soprano castrato), and from this we heard the aria 'Nocchier, che in mezzo all'onde' which Gluck had lifted from his cantataand which he would re-use again in his 1774 French version of. Chiara Skerath sang with a rich timbre lyric voice, giving us a dramatic and stylish account of the aria with fine passage-work and a lovely sense of character.The evening concluded with Haydn'swhich got its subtitle 'Maria Theresia' because it was thought to have been written for Empress Maria Theresa's visit to the palace of Esterhazy in 1773. It is now known that the symphony was written in 1769, but it may well have been performed for the Empress in 1773 as well, it is a very grand, sophisticated and large scale piece. Haydn uses an orchestra which has just oboes, bassoons and horns, but the horn parts are place very high and it is these high, almost trumpet-like horn moments which give the piece its distinctive character. The opening 'Allegro' was richly complex and certainly not all brisk vigour, whilst the gently wistful, elegant 'Adagio' had far from simple textures, though the movement itself seemed to be a little too long for its own good. A robust minuet led to an energetic finale with scurrying strings and the high horn parts to the fore.Not all the music in the concert was of the highest order, and I have to admit that I have relatively limited attention span when it comes to music from Mozart's youth and early teenage years. But Ian Page and his ensemble gave committed stylish performances, with both soloists making their contributions highly characterful and engaging, and what we learned was the remarkable variety that was available. The young Mozart would certainly not have heard all this music, but it is what was in the air, what he absorbed.
This past week brought Southwest Florida cold, wind and plenty of rain  not the best fishing conditions, thats for sure. With a new month at our doorstep, lets look ahead at the possibilities.

Inshore, look for sea trout fishing to get better as the month progresses, plus we will see a notable increase in size. Trout were sparse over the past couple months; however, catches were on the rise the past week or two. If the water remains relatively cold, small baitfish will be absent and trout at times sluggish. Shrimp or shrimp imitations or artificials should be the bait of choice and fished slow and low. If we have a couple weeks of warm weather, then you can expect bait to move back into the area, but for much of the month its hard to beat anything that resembles a shrimp.

Catching small or rat redfish over the winter is a common problem, thats a great sign for good things to come. We should note an increase in size as the month progresses, by the second half look for fish to begin feeding under the bushes on high water. Shrimp or scented artificials are the top baits. If you have the patience to soak cut bait on bottom, ladyfish or mullet steaks are deadly. Also look for redfish in sand potholes on low water and feeding along sand and oyster bars with the rising tides. There will be some extreme low tides that give great opportunities for stalking tailing or waking reds in the extreme shallows.

If we see a stretch of warm weather, look for snook to make their way to feeding stations around the inshore waters. Areas may include oyster bars, shorelines, sand holes and structure with moving water such as docks, piers and bridges. If the water temperature stabilizes around 70 degrees or higher, they should feed heavily on a wide variety of natural and artificial baits. Both snook and redfish are closed season with no harvest at the present time. Make sure to unhook and release them quickly to ensure their survival.

Sheepshead fishing should peak this month as they finish up their spawning chores. Look for the larger fish around the Gulf passes, on the beaches and schooling around structure both inside the passes and a short distance offshore. Remember, a small, sharp hook or jig head works best when rigged with shrimp with just enough weight to keep it on bottom. Be patient and bring plenty of bait, these stripped bandits are notorious bait stealers until you get the feel for the strike. If you do not have access to a boat, try one of the many public piers or bridges. Not only do sheepshead fight hard, they are also outstanding on the table. Its been a great winter with lots of fish, get out there and catch a few before theyre gone.

Anglers fishing the previously mentioned areas for sheepshead are sure to score with a few pompano. They feed off the bottom, often hang around the same areas and love shrimp. You can also expect to catch them in many of the same areas that attract redfish or trout  areas like sand depressions or pot holes, and sand bar transitions are feeding stations for pompano that often travel in schools. While a live shrimp is hard to beat and works great, those that target pompano often throw artificials to cover more ground. With small pompano jigs with white, pink and yellow  the most common colors have been catching pompano forever, you can really enhance these jigs with a small piece of fresh shrimp. With jig style baits, a moderately slow retrieve with a jigging motion to bounce the bait off bottom and simulate a fleeing crustacean is the key to success.

We should see some days with light winds and calm seas in the upcoming weeks. This is a good time to target the many artificial reefs in our Gulf waters. As mentioned, sheepshead should be on many of these areas, plus a variety of other species from large to small and everything in between. Your best bet is to bring tackle from light to heavy, a selection of baits, and be ready for anything.

This month can go a couple ways, we may break out of winter and get an early jump on the warmer days of spring, or, we may be in for several more weeks of cool weather. Im keeping my fingers crossed we get an early jump on spring. Thats my favorite time of year to fish our waters.

If you have a fishing report or for charter information, please contact us Gulf Coast Guide Service at 239-283-7960, via the Website www.fishpineisland.com or email gcl2fish@live.com.

Have a safe week and good fishin.

As a native of Pine Island, Capt. Bill Russell has spent his entire life fishing and learning the waters surrounding Pine Island and as a professional fishing guide for the past 18 years.
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When Rebecca Etter and her boyfriend, Adam Frantz, began searching for a home last year, they started with social media. A bit overwhelmed by such an important decision, they wanted to do their homework.

Being able to look on a variety of social media outlets for images is a way to locate listings youd be more interested in, said Etter, 35, who is moving this month from Fitler Square to Kensington.

Studying dozens of homes on Instagram and LinkedIn, along with more traditional home buying sites such as Trulia and Zillow, and the review site Yelp, narrowed down their physical search to less than 10 houses. The search also led them to agent Ariel Morgenstein of JG Real Estate.

We felt confident that the company was highly reviewed across different platforms, which was important as first-time home buyers, Etter said. We had a lot of questions and wanted to be sure we had the right team who could help us.

Social media offered a casual atmosphere to learn about the process. It normalized looking for a home, and I felt more comfortable asking the questions I needed to because I had done my own research, she said.

With people using social media to stay in touch with friends, follow the news and shop, it follows that they would log on when buying or selling a home. Realtors' social media presence offers a glimpse about their style, how quickly their properties sell, and how clients feel about them. Browsing online can save time by helping buyers focus on what they want and who can best help them.

Respondents to a recent National Association of Realtors survey showed 77 percent of Realtors use social media, to market both homes and themselves, said Bill McFalls, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors. Of that, 97 percent use Facebook, 79 percent LinkedIn, 39 percent Instagram, and 33 percent Twitter.

You touch one person, and they share it with 10 others, said McFalls, who pointed out that Realtors use targeted social media for most of their clients, regardless of their age or the price range or geographic location of the property. Social media is a great tool for sellers, buyers and Realtors who love the opportunity to be more informed about whats out there, and its usually cheaper than print media as it effectively can attract more eyes and can be targeted.

Although some larger companies and teams have their own marketing departments that handle social media, most individual Realtors manage their own platforms, he added. Open houses, however, remain an effective tool.

Social media gives listings an online personality "to showcase our attributes and get more eyeballs on the listing, which ultimately leads to more showings and conversions on sales, said Jared Gruber, managing partner of JG Real Estate in Fishtown. That includes such review sites as Yelp and Google to give ourselves more credibility.

Cutting-edge tools, such as Matterport, a 3D camera that creates virtual tours, give clients that realistic experience so they feel like theyve been on the showing already, Gruber said. When the client takes a virtual tour before visiting a house, it often leads to a quick sale.

Its difficult to put your finger on exactly how social media impacts our bottom line, but its helped to bolster our image and led to more conversions, Gruber said.

He credits social media with helping him grow his business from a single shingle in 2011 to a medium-size company today with $50 million in sales, 1,000 rental units, and a staff of 38, including employees and independent contractors.

Since its inception two years ago, Take The Tour Now, a virtual-reality capture company based in Gibbsboro, Camden County, that creates immersive, user-controlled home tours, now has more than 300 realty clients. The platform is completely agnostic so it doesnt matter what type of device or operating system, and it shares across social media effortlessly and is used by the end-user without any browsers or plug-ins, Michael J. Radie, CEO of Take the Tour Now, said. This gives people the look before they go. They can now see 15, 30, 40 homes in a single day as opposed to two or three with an agent driving them around.

Instagram played a huge role in helping Alyssa Morrione and Brett Tiagwad decide between renting and buying and narrowing down the area where they wanted to live, Morrione said.

Especially with a rental building, you can follow the tag and see people at these buildings and what their actual apartments look like, said Morrione, 29. You can see what the lobby or the outside looks like, not from the website perspective but a real-life perspective.

The couple bought a house in Center City in November.

Kristen Foote, Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Society Hill, uses Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to tease new listings, advertise homes on the market with eye-catching videos using the Ripl program, and share her success stories with potential clients. She finds, generally, that different segments of the population gravitate toward different platforms.

If youre targeting the millennial market, theyre looking everywhere for homes, said Foote, who finds that LinkedIn appeals to the higher-end market and buyers 50 and above. I posted a video of a condo at Two Liberty on Instagram, and I had two other people tag their friends names in it, and those two friends contacted me about the unit.

A Realtor for 20 years, Carol Diament with Compass in Center City uses her personal Facebook and Instagram pages to market herself to both potential clients and other Realtors. Shell post coming soon with a propertys facade, but she said her effort is less about getting direct business than about reminding people shes an agent.

I take a lot of photographs and post things that are fun and interesting, she said. Im not sure if social media gets you direct business, but I think its an important component.
Alterra Property Group is seeking a buyer for the Acme supermarket building in Society Hill that it had wanted to redevelop into a residential mid-rise, as well as for the property across the street that was recently renovated into a CVS pharmacy.

The Acme building on the east side of Fifth Street, between Spruce and Pine, and the CVS on the west side of the street are being listed for sale at $15 million and $12.4 million on the website of Tulsa, Okla.-based real estate brokerage Stan Johnson Co.

Alterra managing partner Leo Addimando said in an email Tuesday that the company periodically sells selected holdings from its portfolio.

There is some logic in our business to selling and moving on to other projects where further value can be added, he said. These tenants now have long-term leases, and I dont see anything changing at these two sites for decades.

Efforts by Alterra to redevelop the Acme site in 2017 as a five-story apartment or condo building were opposed by residents of Society Hill who said the building would be out of scale in a neighborhood made up largely of single-family townhouses.

The dispute led to legislation that would apply to subsequent projects, exempting the affluent neighborhood from citywide rules allowing developers to exceed otherwise-permitted height and unit-count limits when their projects have green roofs and fresh grocers on their ground floors.

Alterra later abandoned its plans for the Acme site in exchange for an agreement by community members not to oppose an expansion of the supermarket or the redevelopment of the property across the street that then housed a state liquor store, a dry cleaner and other small shops and is now the CVS.

Addimando said Tuesday that Acme officials have given no notice to date that they are ready to move forward with the stores expansion.

A spokeswoman for Acmes parent company, Albertsons Companies LLC of Boise, Idaho, did not respond to an email seeking details of the chains plans at the site.
(Bloomberg)  President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. intelligence community as extremely passive and naive about the threat posed by Iran, a day after members of his own national security team undercut some of his biggest foreign policy claims.

Trump said on Twitter Wednesday that Iran is testing rockets and the only thing holding it back from spreading discord is a crashing economy. Trump said U.S. intelligence agency leaders should perhaps go back to school.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! Trump said on Twitter. When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different.

Trumps spy chief as well as top officials from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that North Korea and Islamic State remain critical security threats to the U.S., even as the president contends that hes made great progress in getting Kim Jong Un to disarm and in eradicating the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

Responding to Trumps criticism, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a tweet that it is a credit to our intelligence agencies that they continue to provide rigorous and realistic analyses of the threats we face. Its deeply dangerous that the White House isnt listening.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on Senate Intelligence, said in a tweet that the President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality. People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter.

On Iran, the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community said the Islamic Republic is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device but that its ballistic missile programs continue to pose a threat to countries across the Middle East. Despite Trumps angry tweet, thats actually the position held by his administration.

Irans Foreign Minister Javad Zarif added his two cents in a Wednesday morning tweet with the hashtag #ThatAwkwardMoment. Zarif pointed out that Trumps own intelligence agencies contradict what he and warmongers in his administration say about Iran.

But Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats differed with Trump on other international issues, telling the Senate panel that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear capabilities because Kim views nuclear arms as critical to regime survival.

North Korea continues to develop its nuclear program and is unlikely to give up all of its WMD stockpiles, delivery systems, and production capabilities, Coats said, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

The president has boasted that his personal diplomacy, including a historic meeting with Kim in Singapore last year, convinced North Korea to cease launching intercontinental ballistic missiles and testing nuclear bombs, and that the two men agreed to work toward denuclearization. Those efforts prevented a major war in Asia, Trump says.

On the Middle East, the annual report said thousands of Islamic State fighters and supporters remain in Syria and Iraq, and that they will continue to conduct attacks, even as Trump vows to pull American forces out of northern Syria. We assess that ISIS will seek to exploit Sunni grievances, societal instability, and stretched security forces to regain territory in Iraq and Syria in the long term, the report said.

Trump said Wednesday on Twitter that Islamic State was out of control in Syria & running rampant when he took office and credited his administrations handling of the matter.

Tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks, Trump said. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago. Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting.

Coats said the group will try to undermine stabilization efforts and retaliate against its enemies.

That ability was shown earlier this month, when Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed four Americans on patrol in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. Days later, a suicide car bombing in Syrias northeastern region of Hasakah targeted a U.S. military and Kurdish convoy.

(Updates with lawmaker responses starting in fifth paragraph.)

With assistance from Glen Carey and Billy House.

To contact the reporters on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net;Chris Strohm in Washington at cstrohm1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Larry Liebert

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Theres no doubt Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is a terrible leader. Following in the steps of his predecessor Hugo Chavez, he is further destroying whats left of a once-prosperous oil state. His human rights record is a disaster.

But the Trump administrations effort to oust Maduro  it recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as legitimate president last week  revives memories of past unhappy U.S. efforts at regime change. Think Libya, failed efforts in Syria, and Iraq, for starters.

In true Trumpian fashion, there appears to be no Plan B should Maduro hang on, nor any strategy for coping with a failed state if he is deposed. Yet so far Trumps Venezuela venture has received bipartisan support in Congress. It should be getting much more skeptical scrutiny than it has received until now.

First, there is the matter of why we are involved in Venezuela regime change at this moment.

The rhetoric about human rights from the president and Vice President Pence clearly doesnt cut it; this is not a White House that cares about humanitarian causes. Maduro may be the first despot for whom Trump has expressed dislike.

When the Venezuela story broke last week, it looked like a move to distract from the government shutdown. I thought it might be a test run for the bigger Trump aim of squeezing Iran into regime change via sanctions.

Yet, as the New York Times has detailed, the effort to dislodge Maduro is mainly the result of a long-running push by Cuban American Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) to engage Trump on the issue. The underlying reason appears to be Cuba: Maduro, like Chavez, is closely aligned with Havana, which long profited from cheap Venezuelan oil. Ousting Maduro would hurt the Cuban regime.

It looks like Rubio, along with another Cuban American  the National Security Councils senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, Mauricio Claver-Carone  persuaded Trump this issue was a winner.

Perhaps this appeared to be the opportune moment: the situation was at boil, with huge anti-Maduro demonstrations on the streets of Caracas. The optics were good. This is a civic revolution against a kleptocratic tyranny, says the University of Marylands Vladimir Tismaneanu, an expert on popular revolts against dictators. The young, handsome Guaido  directly encouraged by Pence  declared himself the legitimate president.

As leader of Venezuelas National Assembly, Guaido had a plausible legal basis to take charge, since the last presidential elections were blatantly rigged. Moreover, Washington got many Latin countries to recognize Guaido, with EU nations poised to join if Maduro didnt schedule new elections.

Yet, good optics and good causes cant overcome the caveats that make U.S. intervention a huge gamble. So far the Venezuelan military is backing Maduro, and it, plus tens of thousands of armed militiamen, has all the guns. U.S. sanctions may deter Maduro from selling oil to the United States, but his strong backers, China and Russia, can take up the slack, while other countries will also buy more discounted oil.

Will the United States intervene militarily if Maduro hangs on? It looks unlikely (despite National Security Adviser John Boltons efforts to hint that this option is open). At a time when Trump wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria, Afghanistan, and maybe even South Korea  damn the consequences  its hard to imagine him invading another country.

Thats a good thing, because, if the military sticks by Maduro, U.S. intervention would be a very bad idea.

In Venezuela, you would need to go in with a large force and stay for a long time, says Shannon K. O'Neil, senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is not Panama in 1989, where you could take out a leader and have a working government. Even many Venezuelans who desperately want Maduro out would reject a U.S. invasion, she says, nor would other Latin American governments be likely to join it. This would be an American project, she says.

Even if Maduro falls, the big question is what comes after. The country is awash with armed groups; opposition groups are sharply divided,

Venezuela is a failed state, says ONeil. Much of the middle class, including professionals, has fled, infrastructure has collapsed, and even the oil industry is terribly degraded. You would have to rebuild the basic functions of a state.

And, lest we forget, the United States has a sad record with helping rebuild states whose leaders it has ousted. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted. In Libya, Washington stayed aloof after helping depose Muammar Gaddafi; the country became a terrorist haven.

Trump has made clear his disdain for nation-building. He would probably tell Guaido to pay for reconstruction with oil, even though it will take years to revive the industry. Trump might even ask him to hand over some of his oil fields to repay American efforts.

So why are we getting into the regime change game again in Venezuela? That is the question that Americans should be asking right now.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy appointed two environmentalists to the long-troubled Pinelands Commission this month. The move could be a sign that Murphy is trying to put the commission back on track of protecting the fragile 1.1 million-acre forest. But his intentions are unclear because his staff wont answer simple questions about his vision to protect the forest, which protects 17.7 trillion gallons of clean water for the region.

Murphys had plenty of time to consider the commissions fate. For years, the agency was conflicted between being a responsible steward and bending to former Gov. Chris Christies pro-development agenda. Even though it has long been clear that a commission, which allowed two gas pipelines to run through the forest, is unfit, Murphy waited a year after taking office to appoint new members Kelly Mooij, a Trenton environmental lobbyist, and Theresa Lettman, an Ocean County environmentalist. Murphy has five more appointments to the 15-member commission. Each of the seven counties in the Pinelands has one appointment and the Department of Interior has one. Gubernatorial appointees must be confirmed by the state Senate, which helped Christie stack the commission with pliable members.

Maybe Murphy is caught between those who want to run pipelines and subdivisions through the forest and those who want to protect our drinking water  as well as the threatened and endangered plants and animals that live in the Pinelands. But he shouldnt be. He should follow the newly-installed members of Burlington Countys freeholder board, who earlier this month asked the countys old delegate to the commission to resign so he could be replaced with a pro-environment member.

Murphy should take his opportunity to appoint members and a chairman who can meet the forests future challenges. Pinelands Preservation Alliance Director Carleton Montgomery has a short list of reforms Murphy ought to adopt. He says the forests ability to protect the aquifer under it is being undermined. The commission should figure out how much water is being lost from the aquifer from overpumping  especially near Atlantic City and Ocean County  and regulate it. Commissioners should strengthen permit requirements for private water companies, which take water from the aquifer, to make sure theyre not taking too much. And, the commission should do a much better job stopping people from ripping up the forest floor with their dirt bikes, four-wheelers, and all-terrain vehicles.

Under Christie, the commission ignored these issues, even though the public brought them up again and again. And, it violated the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan by approving two natural gas pipelines. Construction has started on one of the pipelines, even though both are being challenged in the courts.

Murphy may fear alienating development interests, but he should put those fears to rest by reading the Pinelands plan. It encourages development in areas that can sustain it and restricts development in the most vulnerable areas The plan is essential to ensuring that our drinking water is safe.

Right now, Murphy is the forests most important steward. He should act like it by appointing a commission that can best protect it.
I dont give a f*** about anybody, all right, but f***ing you & us, you know that.

 City Councilmember Bobby Henon, on Page 117 of United States of America v. John Dougherty, Robert Henon, et al.

The feds say these words were spoken by Councilmember Bobby Henon to assure his political patron John Dougherty he was taking care of his interests, but it is also the defining sentence that sums up the sorry lot of them.

Wednesday, the feds released a stomach-turning 160-page indictment charging conspiracy, embezzlement, theft of honest services, fraud, and other charges related in part to the stealing of Local 98 union funds for personal use of Dougherty and associates  at least $600,000. It also includes the wholesale stealing of democracy, in Doughertys alleged control of a City Councilmember on his payroll.

The immediate victims are Local 98s union members, whose dues financed Doughertys daily life, but the impact of these crimes ripple well past that group to include all of us  including sick children. Here are three immediate takeaways.

The Cocoa Pebbles Papers. The banality of corruption outlined in the indictment is shocking. Much of the money Dougherty and his Local 98 associates were accused of stealing centered on the unions American Express cards used, feds say, to buy household and personal items at Target. Doc or his minions filled shopping carts with razors, baby wipes, teeth whitening strips, and an astonishing variety of breakfast cereal  from Honey Bunches of Oats to Lucky Charms and Cocoa Pebbles.

The feds also claim Henon stopped an audit from Philadelphia Parking Authority in exchange for installation of windows for a friend.

Its bad enough to steal and embezzle as the indictment charges, but to do it for such mundane and pedestrian items is embarrassing, and somehow worse.

Henon should step down. Henon, a paid Local 98 employee, moonlights as a City Council member installed by Dougherty to do his bidding, which feds claim meant using the law to punish Doughertys enemies. The indictment claims that Doughertys (and Henons) support for a soda tax was to punish rival Teamsters. Henon held Council hearings to investigate a company that towed Doughertys car. And, the feds claim he got L&I to shut down the installation of MRI machines at Childrens Hospital of Pennsylvania  twice  because the job wasnt given to Local 98. Henon, who is Majority Leader and a Committee chair, is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but in the court of politics, these charges are inalienable breaches of trust to his constituents and an insult to all city residents.

Democrats need to step up. Doughertys outsized influence and money erodes the publics trust in government  and now splatters doubt on all those who Dougherty supported. That includes the mayor and many members of City Council. Philadelphias Democratic Party should extricate itself from John Johnny Doc Dougherty and his ilk  big money donors with outsized power over our government.

Democratic voters must demand integrity from a party that tolerates too many convictions and guilty pleas from elected officials. The citys survival depends on it.
Zephaniah Sainta is headed to the University of Pennsylvania next year, but five years ago few would have thought it possible.

Having immigrated to Philadelphia from Haiti, Zephaniahs parents enrolled her and her brother in their assigned district school in Philadelphia. But the school struggled to meet her needs, and her family started looking for options.

What Zephaniahs parents really wanted was to send her to a private school. Yet tuition was simply not in the familys budget.

Thats when Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools (BLOCS) stepped in. Under state law, businesses can make charitable contributions to scholarship organizations such as BLOCS and receive a tax credit for their donation. BLOCS is the largest such organization in Pennsylvania and has raised $40 million for scholarships next year.

We see stories like this every year, says Bill OBrien, BLOCS CEO. The stories can be as simple as Mom and Dad got laid off and lost their job, and we step in and help and then the family gets back on track next year.

He says, The real story is in the inner-city schools in Philadelphia. Were trying to give these students the opportunity to come out ahead.

For nearly 20 years, Pennsylvania has provided tax credits worth 75 percent for donations to scholarship organizations. These corporate contributions have allowed the number of scholarships to nearly double from 17,000 in 2002 to 34,000 today.

In 2012, state officials added another, similar scholarship option for students attending a public school in a low-achieving school zone (schools that score in the bottom 15 percent of comparable schools on state tests). Scholarship organizations awarded more than 14,000 scholarships to eligible students last year.

State residents do not have to look far to find state lawmakers proposing even broader learning options for K-12 students this year. Next door in West Virginia, the legislature is considering a proposal to create education savings accounts, which allow families to do more than choose a new school for their child.

How would it work? Under the proposal, the state would deposit part of a participating childs share of education funds (according to the state education formula) into a private account. The childs parents could then use that money to buy education products and services for the student.

The money could be used to help buy textbooks, pay for a personal tutor, or pay private school tuition  or go toward all three, it the parents so chose. Unused account funds can be saved from year to year.

Lawmakers in six states have enacted similar proposals, with the most recent new accounts opening last fall in North Carolina (Nevadas lawmakers enacted a law but have yet to fund the accounts). Arizona enacted the first such account law in 2011, starting with accounts for 75 children with special needs. This year, some 15,000 children are using accounts in Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Those benefiting from the programs include students who had been assigned to failing schools, children living on Native American tribal lands, and students in military families, to name a few.

Pennsylvania already offers some measure of parental choice in K-12 education. In addition to approximately 180 charter schools, the commonwealth offers two scholarship options. But to create more opportunity for students like Zephaniah to come out ahead, state officials should waste no time considering new ways to expand patent and student choices so even more students can aim high.

Jonathan Butcher is a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundations Center for Education Policy.
Are partisan division and political bickering unavoidable in American politics? The headlines make it seem so, but its not true. Transformative issues can still bring us all together. Want proof? Politicians as different as President Trump and Governor Wolf agree on this: Our criminal justice system needs reform.

Recent bipartisan victories, such as the federal First Step Act and the success of Pennsylvanias Justice Reinvestment Initiative, prove elected leaders can still cooperate on behalf of all citizens. These smart on crime measures are protecting public safety while helping former prisoners live independent, crime-free lives. And the results speak for themselves. Pennsylvanias prison population plummeted by the most in history last year and dropped in six of the last seven years. Notably, crime rates fell at the same time. A remarkable achievement, but weve got much more work to do.

Thats why the state legislature passed with overwhelming bipartisan support  and Gov. Wolf signed  clean slate legislation, which Sen. Williams sponsored. This bill gives the formerly incarcerated a second chance at life and employment by sealing criminal records for certain nonviolent misdemeanors after 10 years without any additional convictions. Pennsylvania is now a model for states across the nation considering similar reforms.

And recently, the governor and General Assembly stopped suspending drivers licenses for certain nonviolent, non-driving offenses. Suspending licenses hurts working peoples ability to earn their own success and provide for their family.

The Trade Institute of Pittsburghs executive director, Steve Shelton, who works with returning citizens to secure good-paying jobs, testified about the importance of this reform last year: I cant get industry-certified welding graduates to [a local energy project] because of past offenses that keep them from obtaining a drivers license.

Fortunately, lawmakers acknowledged this and joined together to fix an indefensible policy. Here are three ways we can build on this bipartisan momentum.

First, update our antiquated probation system. the Commonwealths supervised population is the second-highest among reporting states. Why? Because we have pointlessly long probation sentences, resulting in excess technical violations that land people in prison and create even longer probation sentences.

We can break this cycle through bipartisan comprehensive probation reform legislation S.B. 14, which Sen. Williams introduced this week in partnership with Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R., Washington County). The bills goal is simple: minimize technicalities and shorten parole. Its proven that recidivism dramatically declines after the first year of probation, so probation sentences longer than a year are generally unnecessary, counterproductive, and expensive.

Second, reform our sentencing and parole practices to lower costs and shorten prison stays where appropriate. The second phase of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI2) , which the Senate passed last year, includes improved sentencing guidelines and easier access to drug treatment, streamlining the process for the parole-eligible and offering a better chance to reintegrate into society.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center estimates these reforms will further reduce the prison population and save approximately $48 million over five years.

JRI2 also supports crime victims by expanding compensation rights and informing them when their perpetrator is out on parole. This prioritizes public safety while establishing compassionate, smart sentencing.

Third, roll back burdensome occupational licensing laws so returning citizens can find work. These laws increase recidivism by creating unnecessary roadblocks for those seeking employment after leaving prison. Without well-paying jobs, those formerly incarcerated often turn to more desperate options.

An Arizona State University study found states with the highest licensing burdens increased recidivism 9 percent over 10 years, while states with the lowest burdens reduced recidivism by an average of 2.5 percent. Because employment is a critical factor in determining whether someone returns to prison, its no surprise that licensing has an effect on crime.

These three measures wont fix all of the Commonwealths law enforcement challenges, but they will make our criminal justice system fairer, improve public safety, and protect the disadvantaged. No matter what side of the political divide youre on, we can all agree that these are goals worth striving for.

Anthony Williams is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania Senate, representing the Eighth District since 1998. Charles Mitchell is president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvanias free-market think tank.
Therese Noone Schireson, 68, of Bryn Mawr, a retired teacher, mother, and artist who made quilts, died Wednesday, Jan. 16, of cancer at her home. She was the wife of Lower Merion District Judge Henry J. Schireson.

Mrs. Schireson was named for St. Therese of Lisieux, known to Catholics as "the Little Flower. The oldest of nine siblings, Mrs. Schireson was born in Philadelphia. She grew up in Bala Cynwyd and won a scholarship to Notre Dame Academy in Villanova.

She received a bachelors degree in art history from Pennsylvania State University in 1972 and in 1998 a masters degree in early childhood education from the University of Pennsylvania.

In the early 1970s, she worked for a year as an English teacher at John Bartram High School.

She married Henry Schireson in 1972. The couple took a seven-month trip in a Volkswagen bus through Europe and North Africa. She liked to recall leaning out the window of the bus to pick wild oranges in southern Spain, her family said.

In her 20s, she studied yoga and meditation, and taught the subjects at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges, at Main Line School Night, and on cruise ships.

As a pioneer of van life, yoga, and organic cooking, she was way ahead of her time, her family said.

She poured her heart into calligraphy, yoga, teaching, sewing, travel, quilting, and baking, all while raising a family in Gladwyne and Narberth. The Schiresons moved to Bryn Mawr in 1992.

One of my earliest memories is waking up in the middle of the night with growing pains, said son Ben. My mom would get me and my sister out of bed and do yoga with us. It seems funny to me now that it was my very first experience at yoga, but it was perfect.

During the 1990s, she taught first grade and was a curriculum specialist at Haverford Friends School. She believed that intellectual development in first grade was critical to childrens later academic success, and she followed her students progress for years.

In the summers of 2001 and 2002, under the auspices of UNICEF, she traveled throughout Indonesia training primary school teachers to update their early childhood curricula.

In the last chapter of her life, she was present at the births of her two grandchildren and delighted in watching them develop.

Taught to sew by her grandmother at an early age, she developed a lifelong love of needlework and textile arts. In high school and college, she made her own clothing, and as a young mother, created ornate smock dresses for her daughters.

Her interest in needlework resurfaced in the last five years, when Mrs. Schireson took up quilting and joined the Valley Forge Homestead Quilters. She arranged for needlework partners in the United States, Asia, and Australia to mail her quilted squares that she incorporated into larger quilted pieces. A whole new world opened up, she said in a biography for a quilting group.

In addition to her husband and son, she is survived by daughters Suzanne and Terese; two grandchildren; four sisters; three brothers; and nieces and nephews.

Services will be private.

Memorial donations may be made to LUNGevity, a nonprofit fighting lung cancer, via https://lungevity.org/for-supporters-advocates/support-our-work.
Brrr. If you think its cold this morning, just wait until tomorrow when temperatures tumble into the single digits. We do have a chance of seeing snow today, though, so bundle up. One thing thats heating up today: the FBI probe with Johnny Doc, the all-powerful labor leader, at its center. Officials are expected to announce today that he has been indicted by a federal grand jury. Weve got the details on the investigation so far and where its headed next.

Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning.

 Aubrey Nagle (@aubsn, morningnewsletter@philly.com)

Federal authorities will announce criminal charges today against powerful labor leader John J. Dougherty, Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon, and at least three other officers of their union, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

The specific charges and the total number of people facing prosecution, the results of a years-long FBI probe, are unclear. Both Dougherty (known as Johnny Doc) and Henon have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Who is Johnny Doc?

Johnny Doc is the most powerful man in Philadelphia politics who has never won an election. Hes led the Local 98 for a quarter-century and in that time has amassed influence across the city.

Hes behind those inflatable rats you see around town, Pennsylvanias new congressional districts, the victories of two mayors, the new construction tax abatement, and even the soda tax.

Whats happened so far?

The FBI probe began in 2016 with a raid on more than a dozen union sites as well as homes and offices of key Local 98 officials and allies. It focuses on how the union has exerted its considerable clout with Dougherty at its center.

On Monday, a New Jersey electrical contractor and a childhood friend of Doughertys became the first person to plead guilty in the probe.

On Tuesday, Doughertys chiropractor, a South Philadelphia neighborhood activist, was charged with stealing from a nonprofit he founded as well as from Local 98s charitable arm.

Your toilet overflows, it floods your master bedroom. To fix it, youll have to tear up multiple rooms in your home to access the drain line. Ugh.

Thats what happened to a Morrisville couple in 2016. Their State Farm policy had said it would cover tearing out and replacing any part of the building necessary for the repair. But a confusing change in the plan meant their work wasnt covered. The couple sued and won $46,000 and it may have national implications.

What you need to know today

Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly

And awn and awn and awn. Gotta love an account dedicated to Philadelphias architectural marvels like @philly_jawnings.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and well pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!

Thats Interesting

Opinions

It would make you wonder, wouldnt it? Am I about to start a treatment that my doctor thinks is best for me? Or is this the product of someones free lunch?  Patrick J. Brennan, MD, chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, on why gifts from pharma to doctors should be banned.

The robots are coming for your job and theyre going to make you forget all about President Trump, writes columnist Will Bunch.

Its been five years since 26-year-old architect Amber Long was gunned down during an attempted purse snatching in Northern Liberties. And yet there have been no arrests in the case, writes columnist Jenice Armstrong.

What were reading

A Daily Dose of | Super Foods

The Super Bowl is this Sunday, so you better get your menu together. Need guacamole? You can pick it up at plenty of local restaurants. As for wings, our staff has some recommendations.
The first tweet from Axios announcing that Stacey Abrams would give the Democratic Partys response to the State of the Union address next week showed Abrams looking angry, mouth contorted, finger jabbing.

Almost immediately, Twitter clapped back at Axios, an online news outlet focusing on politics, about how it represented the former Democratic candidate for the governor of Georgia. Axios, which also posted a story about Abrams musing why Democrats would select someone who might be deemed a loser, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment (although it switched to a more appealing photo of Abrams 33 minutes after the first critical tweet).

There are countless photos of Stacey Abrams and her glorious smile. Axios must have had to search to find an image to fit the angry black woman' trope," writer Leah McElrath posted on Twitter Tuesday afternoon.

But some Twitter users said they were OK with Abrams showing anger; its reflective of a pending federal lawsuit alleging discrimination against black people and other minority voters because of a biased election system. The lawsuit, filed last November by Fair Fight Action, alleged Georgia purged the names of voters from registration lists, and voting precincts with majority black voters experienced problems with absentee and provisional ballots.

Only days earlier, Rebecca Traister, the journalist and author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Womens Anger, had tweeted about the photo TheHill.com had used for its story on New Yorks rookie Democratic congresswoman, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

We talked to Tanzina Vega, host of The Takeaway" for WNYC and PRI and the former beat writer for race and ethnicity at the New York Times, about the photos implications. She, too, tweeted in the early hours Wednesday, both about Abramss photo and Ocasio-Cortez, who apparently inspired a former Starbucks CEO to run for president because she had proposed a 70 percent marginal tax rate for the ultra wealthy.

What were your thoughts when you saw the tweets criticizing Axios for the Abrams photo?

First of all, Im not in [Axios] photo-editing department and I dont know what went into the decision process. And I wish that women of all races, but particularly women of color, were allowed to express the same range of emotions that other women and that men are allowed to express.

That said, I did see the photo before it was changed and my initial reaction was one of concern. Women, women of color in particular, black women and Latinos are often stereotyped as being angry, as being hotheaded, as being incapable and as being over emotional. Because of those stereotypes, there is a danger in perpetuating those stereotypes through images.

Why is it important to talk about how news organizations choose photographs?

The images we see in media matter. Weve seen examples of this, often when we look at a mug shot. A news organization makes a decision on what kind of photograph to use for someone who allegedly committed a crime.

Why do you think Axios acted so quickly to change the photo?

To their credit, there were a lot of women who saw this.  Were at a really interesting point in our society and one of the things that social media has done is that its created an environment, for better or worse, for a quick course correction. It gives us the ability to immediately react. And it gave Axios the ability to immediately respond. Its allowed for conversation to stop happening in silos, where instead of just people of color and other women talking to each other, were all talking about these issues.

Is it a positive step that white women were among the first to criticize the photos?

The examples we are seeing in society are so egregious in this level of inequality that its starting to stick. Its starting to stick with the broader public. The problem is that, so often, assertiveness and power in women is misconstrued as anger.

.
Snow squalls that moved through Philadelphia in advance of an arctic front that have sent temperatures cascading, and the region is about to get a taste of Chicago.

The squalls were brief, but furious -- winds gusted to 52 mph at Philadelphia International Airport  and the arrival times were problematical.

A massive pileup was reported on Route 222 near 422 in Wyomissing, Berks County.

The temperatures are going to crash, David Dombek, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. The dropped from 35 to 24 just between 2 and 3 p.m. at Philadelphia International Airport.

By 6 p.m., the National Weather Service said it had fallen to 19 with a wind chill reading of 2.

Temperatures were heading to single digits overnight.

The region also is under a wind and wind-chill advisories, for 20- to 30-mph winds with gusts of 40 to 50 mph.

All things considered, if you arent particularly fond of the facefuls of frigid air and below-zero wind chills expected the you probably would prefer Anchorage, Alaska, to Philadelphia between now and Friday.

In Anchorage, temperatures were above freezing Wednesday, with almost no wind.

And come Thursday, with a forecast high of 18, Philadelphia could set a Jan. 31 record for lowest daily maximum temperature. The record is 21, set in 1935. Readings are not expected to go above freezing until mid-morning Sunday.

Before you complain, that high in Anchorage on Wednesday will be about 40 degrees better than Chicagos forecast high of 10 below zero.

And, yes, that is frigid even by Chicago standards: It hasnt been that cold out that way in 24 years. (Well survive, said Amy Seeley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Chicago, where, by the way, employees are getting paid again.)

The contrasts between temperatures in the 49th state and the Midwest and East are related, meteorologists say, as a piece of the polar vortex has migrated to the mid-latitudes, draining some of the cold air from the Arctic regions.

The invasion is tied to the so-called Arctic Oscillation, which has been in a phase that promotes the southward spillage of polar air, said Matt Rosencrans, head of forecast operations for NOAAs Climate Prediction Center.

However, Rosencrans said the frigid conditions are likely to persist for only a few days, as the overall pattern doesnt favor an extended siege of cold. And forecasters are seeing no sign of significant snow in the near future.

Philadelphia will be spared the Chicago experience, as the core of the cold air will moderate substantially as it slides eastward over land masses.

Nevertheless, wind chills are forecast to go as low as 7 below zero, and temperatures will tumble into the single digits early Thursday.

Philadelphia has declared a code blue alert, which frees up extra shelter beds for people found sleeping outside.

Elsewhere, a number of school districts in the outlying suburbs opened two hours late Wednesday while Cheltenham Township, which opened at is regular time, announced an early dismissal for Wednesday afternoon.

In Kensington on Tuesday, teams of outreach workers were preparing to clear out the last major homeless encampment in the city: the Emerald Street camp, whose drug markets draw scores of people in addiction.

The camp is set to be cleared on Thursday morning as temperatures plummet.

Tim Sheahan, director of homeless services at the citys Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, said the intense cold could help persuade people in the camp  and others sleeping rough across the city  to accept a bed at a shelter or treatment facility.

The cold should moderate on Friday, and the next significant precipitation, early next week, is going to be rain, said Dombek. Temperatures on Monday could pass 50.

He said any chance of significant snow will have to wait until at least late next week.

In the short term, Seeley said, she would offer Philadelphians the same advice she offers Chicagoans.

I feel like a parent sometimes, she said. Common sense should prevail.
Four people, including a firefighter, were hurt in a blaze Wednesday in a rowhouse in North Philadelphias Franklinville section, officials said.

There was no word on their conditions, but the injuries did not immediately appear to be life-threatening.

The blaze in the house on the 3500 block of Warnock Street was reported about 6:55 a.m. and arriving Fire Department units reported finding heavy fire throughout the two-story structure.

Three people, including one person who jumped from the second floor, were hurt and taken to hospital, the Fire Department said.

A firefighter suffered unspecified injuries in the collapse of the porch roof and was taken to a hospital, the department said. A second firefighter was taken to a hospital after experiencing shortness of breath battling the blaze in the 20-degree weather.

The fire was declared under control at 7:36 a.m. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
A three-day anti-crime initiative last week in and around Kensington resulted in 180 arrests, more than $260,000 in drugs seized, and 20 guns confiscated, Philadelphia police announced Wednesday.

Among those arrested was a suspect in a February 2018 double homicide in Kensington. Jose Vasquez, 23, of the 3300 block of B Street, is accused of fatally shooting Jose Rodriguez, 21, and Bryon Vasquez, 19, on the 200 block of East Stella Street, police said.

Vasquez is in custody at a city jail on State Road. Lawyer Gina Amoriello, appointed by the court Wednesday to represent him, declined to comment on the case.

The initiative last Wednesday to Friday led to arrests of 87 illegal narcotics dealers, 59 buyers, and 30 people on prostitution charges, Deputy Commissioner Dennis Wilson said at a news conference at the Police Forensic Science Center at Eighth and Poplar Streets. Authorities also seized $68,567 in cash tied to the illegal drugs, he said.

Much of the $262,640 of street value in drugs seized was heroin, a large portion of which contained fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid, Police Inspector Joseph Fredericksdorf of the Narcotics Bureau said. Marijuana and cocaine also were seized.

The arrests occurred on the street and in homes, police said.

The enforcement effort was planned by the Narcotics Bureau and done in conjunction with the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration task forces, and for the first time included the citys Police-Assisted Diversion program, Wilson said.

The program, which allows police officers to get people with addiction connected to social service agencies, was launched in December 2017.

Kurt August, who works in the city Managing Directors Office as program manager for Police-Assisted Diversion, said a resource center has been set up at 3525 Kensington Ave. to help those arrested get services such as drug, alcohol, and mental-health treatment.

Wilson said the initiative was part of Operation Pinpoint, the departments 2019 violent-crime-fighting strategy that combines hot-spot policing and intelligence-led efforts as a laser focus to get into the neighborhoods and arrest prolific offenders.
Nearly 30,000 students submitted more than 120,000 applications for Philadelphia charter schools this year through a new website that allowed families to apply to multiple city charter schools at once.

More than half of the applications  54 percent  came from the Lower and Far Northeast sections of Philadelphia, according to Philadelphia School Partnership, the nonprofit that ran Apply Philly Charter. The application process through the website closed Monday.

Philadelphia School Partnership spokesperson David Saenz said the concentration of applications from the Northeast wasnt surprising, because more than 35 percent of the citys school-age children live there and some neighborhood schools are overcrowded. He also said the biggest and best-known charters that participated in the new website were in the Northeast  including MaSTs three schools, which got more than 27,000 applications.

About 12 percent of the applications came from North Philadelphia, and another 12 from the northwest sections of the city, Saenz said.

I think the total application volume reinforces what we already knew, which is theres a lot of demand for quality school options, said Mark Gleason, executive director of Philadelphia School Partnership, which also grants money to the citys charter, district, and private schools. We see a real opportunity with a service like this to ground beliefs about charter schools in actual data. The waiting list is no longer just anecdotal.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run, currently serve about 70,000, or one-third of Philadelphia public school students. Most of the citys 87 charter schools participated in the new effort, which leaders said would make the charter application process simpler and fairer -- and would be a less dramatic step than unifying the citys enrollment system. To apply to participating schools, families had to use the website or call a number for help.

The applications were for students looking to enroll in one of the participating charter schools  whether they attend a district or private school, another charter school, or will be entering kindergarten.

On average, each student applied to four charter schools. One-quarter of students applied to just one, while 75 percent applied to five or fewer, according to Philadelphia School Partnership.

Joanna Hightower, CEO of Alliance for Progress Charter School in North Philadelphia, said the K-8 school typically receives 500 to 600 applications a year. This year, we received 1,677 applications, to be exact," Hightower said, calling the increase fantastic. Most of the schools openings are in kindergarten, where Hightower anticipates having 75 to 78 openings.

Charter schools have enrollment caps placed upon them by the district.

Schools that participated in Apply Philly Charter will still hold their own lotteries and must notify families of the status of their applications by Feb. 19.

While most of the Alliance for Progress schools applications come from the surrounding areas, I think using the tool has allowed for a greater reach in our city, Hightower said.

Philadelphia School Partnership didnt release data on individual schools, except to say that the original MaST school received the most applications. It drew 12,800, while its newest school, a K-5 opening this fall, got more than 6,800 applications for 900 spots.

CEO John Swoyer said the new application website shows MaST how were doing against other schools. Normally we wouldnt know that.

It also gives the school data it may use in conversations with the School District. We have an expansion request in for additional seats, and it gives us an idea for where were seeing the most demand for our school model, Swoyer said, referring to MaST II, which has a maximum enrollment of 1,250 and is asking the district to permit an additional 650. We can see right by logging in where the top zip codes are.

Several more charter schools are expected to participate in Apply Philly Charter next year, according to Philadelphia School Partnership.
A New Jersey landfill has backed out of a plan to take soil contaminated with chemicals from a former naval base in Willow Grove, responding to concerns from activists but leaving unresolved how and when the military will dispose of the tainted soil.

The military had planned by the end of the month to complete excavation  a step toward removing the contamination caused by firefighting foams used at the base that also seeped into public drinking water that serves thousands of Bucks and Montgomery County residents.

But the Cumberland County waste complex that had agreed to accept the soil pulled out of the agreement with the Navy on Monday, amid complaints from activists about depositing the soil in a New Jersey landfill. Like other landfills that deal with contaminated waste, the complex has a containment system meant to keep any chemicals from getting into the environment.

Rather than get involved in a tit-for-tat  weve just decided not to bring the dirt [here], said Jerry Velazquez, executive director of the Cumberland County Improvement Authority. We certainly dont want to be pointed to as the entity thats creating an environmental hazard.

The chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, ran off the former Willow Grove and Warminster bases and contaminated Bucks and Montgomery County drinking water. Though they have since been cleared from Horsham, Warrington, and Warminster Townships' drinking water, PFAS already appear to have spread into other towns water supplies. The chemicals are still moving from soil into groundwater on the Willow Grove base, and a plume of tainted groundwater is spreading, posing a threat to drinking water.

The potential for continued leaching of PFOA/PFOS to groundwater, used as a drinking water source, presents an imminent threat to the public, said a Navy report on the planned soil excavation.

The excavation would remove some of the most-contaminated soil from the base. It would also mark action in the slow remediation process at Willow Grove, which includes the monumental task of addressing contaminated groundwater and is largely still in a research, planning, and testing phase.

The Navy did not respond to questions Tuesday about when or where the soil would be deposited. The status of the excavation was not clear.

The question the Navy now appears to face  where will it dump the soil?  underscores the potential difficulty of cleaning up the contamination. While environmentalists have long had concerns about the toxicity of landfills, operators say the containment systems ensure chemicals dumped there wont contaminate groundwater. Residents and elected officials, meanwhile, have criticized the military for the slow pace of its cleanup process.

PFOA and PFOS are types of perfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS. They have been linked to health problems; elevated levels were found in the blood of some Bucks and Montgomery County residents; and a recent count by the Inquirer and Daily News found that drinking-water supplies in at least 22 other towns in addition to Horsham, Warrington, and Warminster also contained some amount of the chemicals.

New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel, one of the environmentalists opposed to the previously scheduled disposal, said the soil should be remediated before being dumped. In the meantime, Tittel said, the Navy should dig it up and store it temporarily at the site so that it is contained and the chemicals dont continue leaching into the environment.

Its good that Cumberland Countys not going to get dumped on by all these toxic chemicals, Tittel said. The stuff has to be cleaned up in a more responsible way.

At least 2,500 cubic yards of soil are marked for excavation on less than an acre, which includes areas of the base near the former fire station and airplane hangar.

We think its a good start, said Chris Crockett, chief environmental officer for the water company Aqua America. Theyre actually trying to remove the contaminated materials from the area. However, we want that to be done in a safe way that protects all of our neighbors and communities. Theres still a lot more [soil] thats going to need to be taken off and cleaned up.

A congressional task force  formed last week and made up of representatives whose communities across the country have dealt with PFAS water contamination  plans to push for Environmental Protection Agency regulations, cleanup funding, and accountability for polluters.

Politico reported Monday that the EPA plans not to set a federal drinking-water standard for PFOA and PFOS or regulate the chemicals under the Safe Drinking Water Act. That means any drinking-water regulation would be up to individual states  or, perhaps, Congress, if a newly formed bipartisan group can succeed in getting legislation passed.

Politico, citing sources within the EPA, also reported that the agency does plan to deem PFOA and PFOS hazardous, meaning polluters could potentially be held accountable for cleanup.

These steps are expected to be contained in a draft plan the EPA has yet to release. If true, they make it likely that the chemicals that have plagued local communities in Bucks, Montgomery, and other counties across the country could become an issue in acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheelers Senate confirmation.

This is deeply troubling. The EPA exists to protect our air and water, and right now, millions of Americans are drinking water tainted with chemicals linked to cancer, hypertension, and other ailments, said Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat who this month began representing the contaminated areas of Montgomery County in the U.S. House. President Trumps EPA has little interest in environmental regulation, but Congress does. And if the EPA wont act, we will.

An EPA spokesperson said Tuesday the report is still under review.

EPA has not finalized or publicly issued its PFAS management plan, and any information that speculates what is included in the plan is premature, said Office of Water Assistant Administrator Dave Ross.
As a result of a recent agreement between Philadelphia and Panama, health professionals at eight local hospitals will be able to train with doctors from Latin America and the Caribbean, and patients there will be able to receive U.S. medical care.

The agreement between the Panama Clinic and Philadelphia International Medicine includes the creation of a direct flight between Philadelphia and Panama City, and the opportunity for U.S. doctors, residents, and students to be mentored by affiliate physicians from Jamaica, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Panama, and for Latino physicians to observe and compare the health-care services provided in Philadelphia.

The educational and clinical care exchange, particularly in areas of neurology, ophthalmology, cardiology, and telemedicine, involves Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple University Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Wills Eye Hospital, Rothman Institute, Vincera Institute, Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, and Renfrew Center.

The idea is to position and understand that Philadelphia is a vanguard city when it comes to medicine, said Edgar Vesga-Arias, CEO and president for Philadelphia International Medicine, a health-care organization that connects international patients and doctors with specialized services provided at those eight hospitals. Connecting Philly to an international hub like Panama opens doors of positive economic exchange between both cities.

Vesga-Arias estimated that 10 physicians could be involved by the end of the year.

Georgia Athanasopulos, the general consul for Panama in Philadelphia, noted how the exchange would benefit both regions: U.S. doctors could learn to treat tropical diseases, and patients in Panama could receive care they typically might not be able to afford.

Among Latin American and Caribbean countries, Panama ranks second, after Colombia, for quality of service for medical tourists, according to the 2016 Medical Tourism Index.

The Panama Clinic will open its new medical offices in May at Panama Citys Pacific Center complex.
In August 2018, Lisa Semple was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer that soon left her with one working arm. That notwithstanding, she pressed through the physical and emotional pain of her illness and spent the last three months of her life painting 19 portraits of strangers and loved ones.

It was a bucket-list item for her, said her husband, George. Eventually her goal was to retire, return to painting, and then have a gallery one day."

Using only her right arm, she painted, designed, and curated her own exhibit, Faces of Cancer, which opened in January at the Cherry Hill Public Library and ends Thursday.

She never lived to see the show. Semple, 50, a mother of three, died Dec. 23.

Eighteen months earlier, doctors had told her she had an aggressive form of breast cancer called triple-negative. It progressed swiftly. Before it took its toll, Semple was an avid runner, a teaching assistant at Cherry Hills Sharp Elementary School, and 1990 graduate of Moore College of Art and Design. As an advocate for the underdog," she made sure other people were cared for, that gave her purpose, said her husband, who works in IT for the State of New Jersey.

He recalled a story of how Lisa stood up to a neighborhood bully when she was a teenager. She was happy to help someone who may be a square peg, and look out for them, guide them," he said. Its OK to be a square peg, were all square pegs in the end."

Semple had been told she didnt have much longer to live after returning from a family trip to Watkins Glen, N.Y., in August. It was at that point she painted the first piece in her show, Tears Behind the Smile. A solemn but honest self-portrait of the way she felt at the time of the news.

Colette Desrochers, a breast cancer survivor who is a pediatrician at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and a subject of Lisas paintings, said Semples self-portrait reminded her of her own experience.

"I saw the tears behind the smile, said Desrochers, the Semples' longtime neighbor in Cherry Hill. Its something that anybody whos had cancer recognizes. Everyone asks you how you are, wants to know how you are doing, and you tell everyone youre fine, you smile and keep going.

But I could see what was behind the portrait, she said.

Semple grew up in Medford Lakes, where she would ride bikes and swim in the lake with her friend Heather Caldwell. A friend of Semples since the two were 10 years old, Caldwell, a skin cancer survivor, is among the subjects of Semples exhibit. The two continued to run and walk the paths they used to ride bikes on together as kids, even late into Semples battle with cancer.

When Semples diagnosis turned terminal in August, Caldwell recalled that her longtime friends perspective on life began to change.

Im past caring what people think about my style or whatever, she remembered Semple telling her. Im going to paint whats in my heart, what Im feeling.

After Semple finished her self-portrait the terminally ill woman experienced a rush of inspiration, Caldwell said. Semple wanted to take her efforts further and tell the stories of other people with cancer. The following week, she painted a portrait of her college roommate and fellow breast cancer survivor, Jennifer Croft, and days later, she started on Caldwells portrait. Soon after, Semple began receiving photos sent in by families and survivors of cancer after she reached out to friends, fellow cancer patients she met during treatments, and through posts on social media.

Working from those photographs, she painted the portraits of a 10-year-old boy who was suffering from cancer and she did a portrait of Caldwells 95-year-old grandmother. Among her other subjects were a 19-year-old engineering student who died of a brain tumor in 1990, a couple who died of cancer in 2017 a month apart from each other, and a professional dancer who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 17.

Semples goal was to bring a lasting memory to the survivors and families of people with cancer.

I think when you look at it all, what you see are stories of love and courage through so many of these people," Caldwell said. Whether they lost their battle, or whether theyre still fighting, you see the supports that were in place.

Reggie Wu, a Cherry Hill native and survivor of testicular cancer, was another subject of Semples work. A guitarist and keyboardist of the hair-metal band Heavens Edge, Wu found out he had cancer 10 years ago. He didnt know Semple, but he admires her work. And he also hopes the portraits of cancers wide toll will inspire people who see them to be more proactive about cancer checkups.

Hopefully people think about their wellness, Wu said. A lot of my friends put this stuff off and dont think twice about it. [Early detection] is so important. Cancer can get anybody, from a 10-year-old boy to me."

George Semple, for his part, hopes to continue his wifes efforts to share the stories of cancer patients. He would like her exhibit to be displayed in cancer treatment facilities or other public galleries. He also wants to start a nonprofit organization in Lisas name and donate art supplies to cancer patients or others with a terminal illness in the hope that they, too, might find painting a salve for their pain and a way to find meaning and joy.
A 30-year-old teacher was charged Tuesday night with sexual assault on a student who attended Rancocas Valley Regional High School, authorities said.

Alexandra Reiner, of Eastampton, also was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. She was being detained in the Atlantic County Jail in Mays Landing and was scheduled to appear Wednesday morning in Superior Court.

Authorities said the investigation began last week when district officials contacted the Burlington County Prosecutors Office. Reiner, a special-education teacher, allegedly had sexual contact with a male student last month in Mount Holly and Lumberton. Authorities declined to reveal any other details.
WASHINGTON - China and Russia are working together to challenge U.S. leadership in the world, undermine democratic governments and gain military and technological superiority over the United States, the nation's top intelligence official told a Senate panel Tuesday during a hearing that also underscored the distance between the U.S. intelligence community and President Donald Trump on several critical fronts.

The two U.S. adversaries "are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s," Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said in his prepared remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee, seemingly invoking the Cold War of the 20th century to warn lawmakers about the strategic risk posed by China and Russia.

The countries have expanded cooperation in the energy sector over the past half decade; influenced international bodies that set rules and standards, particularly around communications technology; and will collaborate on the shared goal of "taking advantage of rising doubts in some places about the liberal democratic model," Coats warned.

CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray and other top officials joined Coats in a discussion that covered a wide array of national security challenges, including cyber attacks that will aim to disrupt the 2020 presidential election and the continued threat posed by the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

Coats, speaking on behalf of the assembled officials, gave a global tour of national security challenges, focused mainly on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

He said that North Korea was "unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities," which the country's leaders consider "critical to the regime's survival."

That assessment threw cold water on the White House's more optimistic view that the United States and North Korea will achieve a lasting peace and that the regime will ultimately give up its nuclear weapons.

It was not the first time that U.S. intelligence has determined North Korea is not on the path to surrendering its weapons. And throughout the hearing, officials found themselves repeating earlier assessments on subjects that also were at odds with the president's public statements.

The statement on North Korea drew extra attention coming ahead of a planned summit meeting next month between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their first summit last year ended with a vague agreement that contained few concrete goals and deadlines.

The distance between the intelligence community and the White House extended to areas that have ignited fierce political debates in Washington.

None of the officials said there is a security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where Trump has considered declaring a national emergency so that he can build a wall.

Coats noted that high crime rates and a weak job market are likely to spur migrants from Central America to cross into the United States. But he also sounded optimistic that Mexico will cooperate with the Trump administration to address violence and the flow of illegal drugs, problems that Trump has said Mexico isn't addressing sufficiently.

Officials also warned that the Islamic State was capable of attacking the United States and painted a picture of a still-formidable organization. Trump has declared the group defeated and has said he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as a result.

Coats noted that the terrorist group has suffered "significant leadership and territorial losses." But it still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, he said, and maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks and attracts thousands of supporters around the world.

The officials assessed that the government of Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Trump administration's persistent claims that the country has been violating the terms of an international agreement forged during the Obama administration.

Officials told lawmakers that Iran was in compliance with the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as some officials had previously said privately. But Iranian leaders are discussing reneging on the deal if they fail to reap the economic benefits it was supposed to bring after international sanctions were lifted, Haspel said. The Trump administration has reimposed U.S. sanctions.

Intelligence officials largely sidestepped lawmakers' questions about why certain White House staffers were given security clearances after problems were discovered in their background checks that might ordinarily keep personnel from obtaining access to classified information.

Officials also warned, as they did last year, about Russia's intention to interfere with the U.S. political system via "information warfare" waged largely on social media, which stokes social and political tensions to divide Americans. Other countries are likely to employ those tactics, as well, Coats said.

"We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections," the intelligence director said in his written statement.

Trump continues to equivocate on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, contradicting the unanimous assessment of all the top intelligence officials currently serving.

At last year's threats hearing, leaders focused much of their remarks on Russia, unanimously concluding that the country was trying to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections by sowing discord and confusion via social media, as it had two years earlier in the U.S. presidential race.

Last week, Coats emphasized in a national intelligence strategy document that U.S. spy agencies were turning their main focus away from fighting global terrorist networks toward countering Russia and other state adversaries seen as geopolitical threats to the United States.

The United States will be challenged in coming years, the strategy concluded, by nations that exploit "the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals" and "increasingly isolationist tendencies in the West."

In remarks last September, Haspel said the CIA would spy more aggressively on hostile governments.

The CIAs spies and analysts will invest more heavily in collection against the hardest issues, Haspel said. She didnt name specific countries, but the agency has set up new centers to collect intelligence on Iran and North Korea and has been focusing its assets on major powers, including Russia and China, according to intelligence officials.
CARACAS, Venezuela -Venezuelans took to the streets for lunch hour protests on Wednesday, forming pockets of resistance outside military bases and on main streets across the country as the opposition movement seeks to force embattled President Nicolas Maduro to hand over power to an interim government.

Juan Guaido, who declared himself Venezuela's interim president last week and won backing from most Western governments, convened the protest and appeared as the demonstrations were wrapping up in Caracas' Central University.

"Let's keep protesting," he told the crowd of students, doctors, and nurses. "Let's keep taking the streets.

Maduro has sought to neutralize Guaido by ordering him not to leave the country and freezing his assets. The government has also responded to his challenge by cracking down on rebellious neighborhoods, trying to preserve an autocratic, socialist-style system increasingly imperiled by deep unpopularity and foreign pressure.

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled National Assembly, seemed undeterred on Wednesday.

"At this moment I'm not worried about the prohibition to leave the country. What worries me is that Venezuelans are able to come back to the country," Guaido told reporters that were covering the protest. "We have the backing of Trump and many European leaders...I'm willing to do anything that is necessary for humanitarian aid to come in."

The protests Wednesday were far smaller than the massive outpouring over the weekend and the government repression in recent days may have discouraged a broader attendance.

Over the past week, 35 people have died in protests - most shot by security forces as they took part in late night pot-banging demonstrations in slums, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict. More than 800 people have been detained, according to the legal aid group Foro Penal.

In past protests, it's been common for security forces to fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds. That didn't happen on Wednesday and some analysts saw that as the result of the more cautious approach by Maduro.

"I think participation was good. To repress now is a risk for the government," said Felix Seijas, a political analyst and head of the Delphos polling agency.

A larger protest is planned for this Saturday.

The Trump administration is leading an international campaign to drive the leftist Venezuelan leader from power, embracing Guaido's arguments that Maduro began a second term after an election riddled with fraud and years of authoritarian rule that have plunged this oil-rich country into an economic and humanitarian catastrophe.

Maduro has relied on the support of the powerful armed forces to stay in office, and on Wednesday, he attended military exercises in the morning. As the protests were starting, state television reported the launch of a new government social program to improve public spaces.

"We want to construct a more beautiful Venezuela," Maduro said in a nationwide address announcing the program.

Maduro and his supporters have waved away the European Union's demand that Maduro accept presidential elections by this weekend or the E.U. will recognize Guaido as president.

One of Maduro's most prominent supporters, Diosdado Cabello, said in a speech Wednesday that the only elections the government is considering are for National Assembly, currently the only opposition-controlled body in Venezuela.

"Militia members, members of the police and the armed forces, wherever we have to mobilize to defend the homeland, we will," Cabello said.

In Caracas, where supplies of food, medicine and electrical power have shriveled in the past few years, residents expressed frustration with the government, but some were wary about joining protests because of possible violence.

Outside the Jose Manuel de los Rios Hospital in northwest Caracas, about 100 employees filled the street, chanting and waving signs, as dozens of police officers looked on.

"I'm here because I'm in a hospital where my patients are dying. We have nothing," said 26-year-old radiology technician Haberlyn Mejia. "I hope there's a profound change in my country. We need it urgently."

The crowd shouted, "Families and patients, the people are present."

In the western commercial area of La Candelaria, dozens of demonstrators gathered in the street and urged others to join. "People, listen, join this fight," they shouted, holding signs that read "Humanitarian aid now." Maduro has rejected most offers of international food and medical aid.

Rafael Tafuro, 65, a carpenter who was waiting for the subway in eastern Caracas on Wednesday morning, said that "of course" he would take part in the demonstrations.

"Do you think what we're living isn't enough?" he said. "I protest because of everything. I haven't had work in a year. I'm a carpenter. Materials are way too expensive, and no one has money to pay for my services."

But Lasmick Valverde, a 19-year-old accounting student, said he would not join the demonstrations. "I'm too scared something will happen to me," he said. "I support what they're doing, but I don't like protests."

Earlier Wednesday, Maduro issued a new offer of dialogue to the opposition while warning the American people that intervening in his country could create a new Vietnam-style quagmire.

Guaido did not respond to the dialogue offer, the latest effort by Maduro to open talks with the opposition. The offer was immediately praised by Russia and drew a tweet from President Trump, who said it came after increased U.S. pressure on the Venezuelan government and economy. The reactions highlighted how the fight for power in the South American country has taken on the overtones of a superpower rivalry.

Trump for the first time spoke directly to Guaido in a phone call Wednesday, expressing his "strong support for Venezuela's fight to regain its democracy," according to a White House statement.

In an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that aired Wednesday, Maduro said he has sent letters to the governments of Bolivia, Mexico, Russia and Uruguay to involve them in a new process of dialogue with the opposition.

At the same time, he issued a video message directed at the American people, asserting that the Trump administration is trying to carry out a coup d'etat in Venezuela that he said would be disastrous.

The United States wants "to put their hands on our oil like they did in Iraq, like they did in Libya," Maduro added.

"I ask for the support of the people of the United States so that there is not a new Vietnam," he said in the video posted on Facebook.

Russia, which has been Maduro's most vocal international supporter and is a major investor in Venezuela, praised his willingness to negotiate with the U.S.-backed opposition.

"The fact that President Maduro is open to dialogue with the opposition deserves high praise," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a phone call.

In an early morning tweet soon after, Trump seemed to suggest that Maduro's offer of dialogue was prompted by "U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenue." He said a "massive protest" was expected Wednesday.

The Venezuelan Journalists Union reported Wednesday that two French journalists and their Venezuelan producer were detained a day earlier and were in custody at the presidential palace in central Caracas.

On Tuesday evening, four journalists - two Venezuelans and two Chileans - were also detained. They were picked up near the presidential palace, where they were covering a small pro-government demonstration.

The Venezuelans were released 10 hours later. The Chileans, Rodrigo Perez and Gonzalo Barhona of TVN, were also released and were waiting to be deported on an evening flight.

The detentions come as the government is increasingly intimidating journalists and warning radio stations not to transmit opposition rallies or speeches.

Authorities intensified pressure on the opposition Tuesday with a request by the chief prosecutor to freeze Guaido's assets and bar him from leaving the country. The request was later ratified by the loyalist Supreme Court pending a full investigation. The move stopped short of a detention order - something the Trump administration has strongly warned against.

Speaking at the National Assembly, Guaido dismissed the move as "nothing new under the sun." The United States strongly criticized the chief prosecutor's effort.

"Let me reiterate - there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," White House national security adviser John Bolton wrote on Twitter.

The United States on Monday targeted the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), which is a major contributor to Venezuela's economy. The U.S. move freezes $7 billion in U.S.-based assets and blocks more than $11 billion in revenue that Venezuela would receive from oil sales next year through its U.S.-based company, Citgo, which owns three refineries in the United States and employs thousands of workers.

In his interview Wednesday with Russian media, Maduro said the decision violates international law.

"It is an unlawful decision in a bid to expropriate a Venezuelan asset, a Venezuelan company," he said.

The Treasury Department said the money would go to a fund that a transitional government headed by Guaido could eventually access.

- - -

Krygier reported from Miami. The Washington Post's William Branigin, Anne Gearan, Paul Sonne and Joshua Partlow contributed from Washington. The Post's Amie Ferris-Rotman contributed from Moscow and The Post's Paul Schemm from Addis Ababa.

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Video: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro released a video Jan. 30, accusing the Trump administration of trying to stage a coup d'etat in Venezuela. (Nicolas Maduro/Facebook) https://wapo.st/2sSutF6
HARRISBURG  Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is again seeking to raise the states minimum wage to $15 by 2025, even though the issue has for years been opposed by Republicans who control both legislative chambers.

Wolf, a Democrat, on Wednesday proposed raising the states current minimum of $7.25  the same as the federal minimum  on a sliding scale, starting with a bump to $12 this July. It would rise by 50 cents every year until 2025, when it would be $15. The wage would increase with the cost of living every year after that.

At a news conference in the state Capitol, Wolf noted that 29 states have a higher minimum wage than the one set at the federal level. That includes all of Pennsylvanias surrounding states, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Raising the wage just to $12 an hour, Wolf said, would give a raise to one million Pennsylvania workers.

Pennsylvania has to be a place where hard work is rewarded, said Wolf, who was flanked by Democratic lawmakers, low-wage workers, and other advocates. Too many people are working harder and harder and they still cant afford basics like food, transportation, and shelter.

Wolf has proposed a minimum-wage increase every year since taking office in 2015, a call that has gone nowhere.

Republicans control both the House and Senate, and have the power to determine what measures get a vote. For years, GOP leaders have balked, with many saying they would prefer the federal government deal with the wage issue.

Business groups also oppose a minimum-wage boost in Pennsylvania, saying it would cause financial hardship  from reduced hours and benefits to outright job cuts  that would ultimately harm workers.

We think there is a broad agreement that policymakers should focus on policies that help single parents and low-income families  we just dont think that this is the most effective and smart way to address that, said Alex Halper, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry.

Pennsylvanias minimum wage has not risen in a decade. Lawmakers last approved a boost in 2006, with the rate eventually moving to $7.15 an hour. But it only reached $7.25 an hour in 2009 to match the federal minimum wage.

Meanwhile, surrounding states have been upping theirs. According to the U.S, Department of Labor, Maryland set its minimum at $10.10 per hour; West Virginia is at $8.75 per hour; New York is $11.10 per hour; and Ohio is $8.55 an hour.

And in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy and Democratic leaders of the state Legislature earlier this month reached an agreement to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2024.

According to a 2018 study by the Keystone Research Center, a liberal-leaning think tank in Harrisburg, a $15 hourly minimum wage would give a raise to 253,698 Philadelphia residents. In Allegheny County, it would increase the wages of 216,710 residents.
The 24-year-old man who allegedly threw the punch that led to the death of a fellow dog walker in a South Philadelphia park Jan. 5 agreed Wednesday to refrain from visiting four area parks while he awaits trial.

During a motions hearing before Judge David C. Shuter, Matthew Oropeza promised to stay away from Gold Star Park, Jefferson Square Park, Capitolo Playground, and Columbus Square for the duration of his legal battle.

Prosecutor Danielle Burkavage said he is permitted to visit only Dickinson Square Park, at Fourth and Tasker Streets.

Obviously," Burkavage added, it goes without saying that his dogs must be leashed at Dickinson Square Park if he is to visit that location."

Prosecutors said they sought the condition to limit Oropezas potential contact with witnesses in the case. He also agreed to turn in his gun and his license to carry it.

Earlier this month, police charged Oropeza with involuntary manslaughter, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and making terroristic threats after the deadly Jan. 5 encounter in Gold Star Park.

On that night, authorities said, Oropeza punched a fellow dog walker, Drew Justice, after Justice complained that Oropezas dogs were unleashed. Justice then fell backward, hit the ground, and soon after died. In Pennsylvania, involuntary manslaughter is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison.

Burkavage unsuccessfully argued that Oropeza should be placed under house arrest for the remainder of his case, saying his apartment on the 1600 block of South Sixth Street is a half-mile from the residence of Kristi Buchholz, Justices fiancee and a key witness.

Oropeza, who is free on bail and unemployed, had moved into the apartment in July with his girlfriend and their 2-month-old son.

Burkavage said that days before the fatal altercation, Oropeza had had a verbal run-in with another man at Gold Star Park about the same issue.

A neighborhood man spotted Oropeza walking his two dogs without leashes Jan. 1, Burkavage said, and told Oropeza that he must put them on leashes.

And the defendant aggressively came toward that witness, who was with his wife and small child, and said something along the lines of, Say it to my face, say it to my face,  Burkavage said. And he got within one foot of them.

Days later, witnesses told police that Justice and Buchholz were walking their black Shih Tzu shortly after 9 p.m. when Justice asked Oropeza to put a leash on his two dogs.

And the defendant, when told, Hey, put your dogs on a leash, came right up to him and says, Say it to my face, say it to my face,  Burkavage said. The exact phrase he had said days before.

Burkavage also cited a 2016 incident in Delaware County in which Oropeza was charged with disorderly conduct after he shoved down a man outside RP McMurphys Bar & Grill at 2623 MacDade Blvd. Burkavage said the man suffered facial injuries. Oropeza also was arrested on drug charges after police found six small baggies of a white powdery substance suspected to be cocaine," Burkavage said. Oropeza completed a diversionary program to clear the charges.

These incidents show what the defendant is made of, Burkavage said. And by that I mean he shows volatility and aggression."

Shuter denied the house-arrest request, but ordered Oropeza placed under direct supervision, which requires him to check in with the court once a week and steer clear of anyone involved in the case.

Bottom line is, Shuter told Oropeza, if you see any of these people  turn around and walk the other way.

I understand, your honor," said Oropeza, who appeared in a black suit, white shirt, and salmon-color tie.

Oropezas attorney, Fortunato Fred Perri Jr., said after the hearing that his client had been minding his business with his dogs in the park and reacted to a situation that he felt threatened by. Unfortunately, tragically, someone passed as a result.

Members of Justices family declined to speak to reporters.

Oropeza is scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 13.
In a wide-ranging indictment unsealed Wednesday, federal authorities portrayed the regions most powerful labor leader, John J. Dougherty, as an unscrupulous kingpin who enriched himself on the backs of union members and exerted his influence to steamroll opponents and corruptly bend the government of Philadelphia to his whims.

The chief weapon in his arsenal, prosecutors said, was City Councilman Bobby Henon, whom Dougherty helped propel into office in 2011 on a tide of union money, then allegedly used as a tool to leave his mark on pressing legislation facing the city.

Together, they are charged  along with six other members and allies of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers  as codefendants in a sprawling criminal case that threatens to upend the landscape of politics and organized labor across Pennsylvania.

The allegations detailed in the 116-count indictment range from the typical fare of white-collar cases  claims that Dougherty and others embezzled more than $600,000 between 2010 and 2016 to fund personal shopping sprees, restaurant dinners, and annual trips  to staggering claims of corruption and political vindictiveness.

But emerging through it all was a portrait of Dougherty as a man intent on reshaping the city to his vision through sheer force of his own considerable clout.

I got a different world than most people ever exist in, Dougherty said in a 2015 conversation caught on an FBI wiretap and quoted in the filing.

 UPDATE: How Johnny Doc used his unions money to weaponize a councilman and corruptly bend the government to his whims

Dougherty, the indictment alleged, showered Henon with benefits, including sports tickets and a $73,131 annual union salary, then used him as a vise to squeeze his wide array of foes  including Comcast Corp., the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, and even a tow truck driver who tried to haul away the union boss car.

As prosecutors told it, Doughertys decision to throw his weight behind Mayor Jim Kenneys signature soda tax in 2016  a move that won it the support it needed to pass  grew solely out of a desire for revenge against the Teamsters Union, which opposed the bill and had run a TV ad portraying Dougherty in a negative light.

When representatives from the Mayors Office briefed Dougherty on the taxs potential public health benefits, authorities allege, he scoffed: You dont have to explain to me. I dont give a f---.

The criminal case unsealed Wednesday brought to a head rumors that have dogged the pugnacious labor leader and the councilman since 2016, when federal agents raided more than a dozen sites associated with Local 98.

Flanked by FBI and IRS agents at a morning news conference in Center City, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams accused Dougherty of selling out the unions members, and accused Henon of abdicating his duty to his constituents.

He made decisions on behalf of John Dougherty, rather than the people that elected him to City Council, she said.

But both Dougherty, 58, and Henon, 50, were quick to reject that characterization and vowed to fight the case.

They and their six codefendants face charges of embezzlement, bribery, and theft that threaten to send them to prison for decades. They are expected to surrender to authorities and make their first court appearances Friday afternoon.

To allege that John in any way attempted to defraud the union he cares about so deeply is preposterous, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., one of Doughertys attorneys, said in a statement. He looks forward to his day in court and the opportunity to clear his name.

Meanwhile, Henon took to Facebook to defend himself and pledged to remain in office.

I want to make clear: I have done nothing wrong, he wrote. I have never committed fraud in my life.

Few in city government or in the citys building trades rushed to call on either man to resign.

Kenney, at a news conference Wednesday, said it was up to Henon to decide whether he should step down.

As for the indictments claim that Doughertys and Henons support for the soda tax grew out of an inter-union squabble, the mayor said: It may have been a revenge plot by Local 98, but it wasnt to do with me.

Across town, about two dozen Local 98 members spent the morning cloistered inside the Spring Garden Street union hall and dodged reporters questions once they emerged. Union spokesperson Frank Keel said Local 98s members intend to stand by the man who has led them since 1993.

Under Doughertys leadership, the 4,700-member organization has grown into the biggest independent source of campaign money in the state. The unions money and manpower have helped elect mayors  including Kenney  as well as City Council members, county commissioners, members of Congress, state legislators, governors, and more than 60 judges, including the union leaders brother, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty.

Every move he makes is done in order to better the lives of the membership of Local 98, Keel said. And the dramatic increase in wages, health care benefits, and the overall standard of living for the membership is a testament to that singular focus.

>> READ MORE: How will Johnny Doc, Local 98 move forward in Philly politics as the feds move in?

Michael T. Harpster, head of the Philadelphia office of the FBI, and Guy Ficco, his counterpart at the IRS, stressed at Wednesdays news conference that the charges in their joint investigation should not be read as an indictment of the union or its members.

If anything, Harpster said, John Dougherty is not pro-union, and does not honestly represent the interests of all of 98s membership.

Investigators built their case in much the same way that Dougherty accrued his considerable clout  by paying close attention to a small circle of insiders the union leader has cultivated in his union, city government, and the South Philadelphia neighborhood where he grew up.

Henon, for example, joined the union as a seasonal worker and rose through the ranks from apprentice to foreman to business agent. He served as Local 98s political director from 1999 until his election to Council in 2011 to represent parts of Northeast Philadelphia and Port Richmond. He was named Councils majority leader in 2016.

>> DOCUMENTS: Read the full 116-count indictment

The other union employees charged Wednesday had long-standing business and personal ties to Dougherty and Local 98. They include: Local 98 president Brian Burrows, 58; union political director Marita Crawford, 49; Michael Neill, 52, the head of its apprentice training program; and two office employees  Doughertys nephew Brian Fiocca, 27, and Niko Rodriguez, 27.

>>EDITORIAL: After Johnny Doc, Local 98 indictment, Bobby Henon should step down and Philly Democrats should step up

And after investigating that inner circle for years, agents emerged with a plethora of recordings and financial records indicating that Dougherty and his associates burned through more than $600,000 of Local 98s money with little hesitation.

More than $6,000 went toward sending former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams daughters on summer camp trips abroad. Dougherty had hoped to win Williams endorsement for his brothers 2015 race  and succeeded; Williams even appeared in a video supporting the state Supreme Court candidate.

Personal purchases at Target  dog food, Lucky Charms cereal, nail polish, mouthwash  and takeout meals for Doughertys family from the Palm and other restaurants were regularly reimbursed by the union after being submitted as Food for Toys and Turkeys Volunteers and other charitable purchases, according to the indictment.

Tickets worth thousands of dollars for concerts by Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Bruce Springsteen were charged to Local 98s American Express accounts, and provided to relatives of Dougherty and other union officials.

Union funds also were used to cover extensive renovation projects at Doughertys house; the homes of some of his family members; and Docs Union Pub, the bar he used to own in South Philly.

Much of the work was done by one firm: Massa Construction Corp., a construction contractor based in the Bustleton section of the city. Its owner  Anthony Massa, 65  on Wednesday became the third of Doughertys longtime friends who were not union members to be charged as part of the investigation.

New Jersey electrical contractor George Peltz and Pennsport chiropractor John Moylan were charged separately earlier this week.

But of all the people Dougherty leaned on to expand his wealth and influence, he turned to Henon  who once described the union boss as his best friend  again and again.

The indictment is rife with quoted conversations between the two men as they negotiated what stance the councilman should take on issues ranging from audits of the Philadelphia Parking Authority to issues affecting other unions, like plumbing code legislation.

Dougherty allegedly used Henon to pressure Comcast to steer nearly $2 million worth of electrical work to the company of a friend as the media conglomerate negotiated the renewal of the citys 15-year cable lease in 2015. The firms rates were 60 percent higher than those for nonunion workers.

That is why you are over there, thats why we raised $600,000 [in contributions to Henons campaign], Dougherty recounted telling Henon in a conversation that year, quoted in the indictment.

Henon promised Dougherty that he would delay Comcasts renewal agreement until the union boss got what he wanted, the indictment alleged . I dont give a f--- about anybody, all right, but f---ing you and us, Henon said, and you know that.

In a fit of pique that same year, prosecutors said, Dougherty had Henon use his sway over the Department of Licenses & Inspections to stop nonunion workers from installing MRI machines at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.

>> READ MORE: How will Johnny Doc, Local 98 move forward in Philly politics as the feds move in?

At Doughertys request, Henon also allegedly squashed a 2016 audit of the PPA that would have ascertained whether it could be sending more money to the Philly schools.

And when a tow truck driver picked up Doughertys car in 2015, requiring him to pay $200 to release it, and failed to give him $10 back in change, a furious Dougherty knew whom to call.

That $10 is going to cost their f---ing industry a bundle, he told Henon, according to the indictment. Within weeks, the councilman convened a hearing to investigate the towing company for the purposes of protecting the general welfare and public interest.

>> READ MORE: Who is Johnny Doc, Philadelphias most powerful union leader?

In a 2015 editorial, the Inquirer questioned Doughertys influence on Council  a stance that, according to the indictment, enraged the union boss.

Dougherty urged Henon to respond  to insist to the papers readers he was no union puppet but rather his own man.

An op-ed from the councilman appeared in a subsequent edition of the paper.

John has never asked me to vote a certain way or introduce legislation on his behalf, it read. Yes, John is my best friend and a former colleague, but Im lucky if I hear from him more than once every few months.

But the indictment says Henon didnt write a word of it: The real author was Dougherty, who dictated it to his spokesman and had it signed with the councilmans name.

Contributing to this article were staff writers Chris Brennan, Juliana Feliciano Reyes, Mark Fazlollah, Craig R. McCoy, Chris Palmer, Mensah M. Dean, Kristen A. Graham, William Bender, and Andrew Seidman.
In 2005, Jacqueline Silver noticed that the nurses at Temple University Hospital, represented by a union called PASNAP, had won a great contract.

So Ms. Silver, a well-loved and respected social worker everyone called Jackie, set a plan into motion: She was going to get that kind of union representation for her and her coworkers there.

That was the kind of person Ms. Silver was, her friends and family said. She was someone who stood for the people," said Lorenzo Glover, a respiratory care worker who led the charge in 2005 with Ms. Silver to leave their current union and join PASNAP.

Ms. Silver died in her sleep in the early hours of Tuesday, Jan. 22, at her home in North Philadelphia, said her son, James Silver. She was 56.

Compassionate and hardworking, Ms. Silver dedicated her life to advocating for others.

At the hospital, she was instrumental in helping her patients get lung transplants. As a mother, she battled the education system to get one of her sons, who is autistic, better schooling. As a longtime labor leader, she fought to improve her coworkers' lives through collective action.

She was all about making sure we never stood down and that we always fought, said Celeste Bevans, a radiology tech at Temple and the vice president of Ms. Silvers local union, the Temple University Hospital Allied Health Professionals, or TAP, which joined PASNAP in 2006. Ms. Silver was president of TAP at the time of her death.

The hospital where Ms. Silver worked for nearly 30 years has been in mourning, Bevans said.

When Ms. Silver led the charge to join PASNAP and leave union 1199C, she had to convince her roughly 600 coworkers  a wide-ranging group known as professional and tech staff that includes occupational therapists, lab workers, and phlebotomists  that it was the right move. It was a scary process, Glover said, and downright disheartening at times, with dissent coming from coworkers and management.

But Ms. Silver was the woman to get it done, Glover said.

She knew how to talk to people, said Patricia Eakin, a retired Temple nurse who recently stepped down as PASNAP president. They respected her, they listened to her.

After joining PASNAP, Glover said, the techs won better vacation time, health care, and wages, as well as the ear of the administration. Ms. Silver was especially skilled at engaging the administration, Glover said, always insisting that the union be assertive and professional, never aggressive or hostile. This was the standard we had to abide by, he said.

In 2010, Ms. Silver was one of the key leaders when 1,500 Temple nurses and techs went on strike for 28 days, Eakin said. She also served on PASNAPs executive board, an elected position, and did so until the day she died.

Ms. Silver, the oldest of seven, grew up in North Philadelphia. After graduating from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, she joined her mother, Novella Davis, to study at the Community College of Philadelphia, where Davis was working toward her associates degree.

They decided they would study social work so they could make a difference in peoples lives, Davis, 72, said. Theyd show up to their night class together and classmates would call them Cagney and Lacey, after the 80s-era show about two women detectives, she said, laughing at the memory.

Ms. Silver and her mother went on to Temple University to get their bachelors in social work and graduated at the same time. Ms. Silver then got her masters in social work at Temple. All the while at Temple, she raised her two sons, James and Jermaine, and also worked various jobs to support them. Davis helped with child care while she was at class or at work.

To strengthen their union, Ms. Silver developed relationships with politicians such as former State Sen. Shirley Kitchen, who was a social worker before she went into politics. In 2016, Ms. Silver was a delegate for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and served on his campaigns platform committee, on which she fought for Medicare for All, Eakin said.

She also loved to shop and dress up, James Silver, 37, said. She always wore dresses and heels, even at work. You would know she was walking down the hall because of the tapping of her heels, he said.

In the last few years, MS. Silver was grooming new leaders, like Bevans, for the union. She had planned to resign from the union this year, Bevans said.

She is survived by her two sons, a granddaughter, six brothers and sisters, and her mother. The funeral will be at 11 a.m., Thursday, Jan. 31, at Zion Baptist Church, 3600 N. Broad St., in Philadelphia. The viewing will be from 9 to 11 a.m.
In Bucks County, an undocumented Mexican national was detained by immigration authorities when he went to the Ottsville Magisterial District Court to pay a fine for driving without a license.

In Montgomery County, federal agents commonly wait outside the courthouse with photos of their targets, arresting immigrants before they go into the building.

In Berks County, an attorney reported that agents sat through her clients Protection from Abuse hearing, then arrested him at its conclusion. Another man was arrested when making a child-support payment at the courthouse.

Those allegations and more are contained in a new report by the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple University, which says that apprehensions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in and around local courthouses in Pennsylvania have frightened away undocumented witnesses and victims, disrupting the course of justice. ICE agents often are assisted in making arrests by local courthouse personnel who provide information on peoples legal statuses, the study added.

The report helped confirm that this is not exclusively a Philadelphia problem, said Jennifer Lee, a Temple law professor and a leader of the Sheller Center. Its about the Philadelphia ICE office reaching out across the state, in counties with significant immigrant populations.

The report found:

Problems related to ICE enforcement in and around Pennsylvania courthouses are widespread in communities with large immigrant populations.

Immigrants' ICE-driven fear of going to court means they may not attend legal proceedings, so courts are in turn less able to effectively adjudicate cases.

ICE has made arrests or collaborated with court staff, particularly probation workers, in at least 13 counties, including Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, and Bucks.

Asked about the new Sheller Center report, ICE officials said their courthouse enforcement includes actions against specific targets who have criminal convictions, are gang members or national-security threats, or have been ordered to be deported or were previously deported. Witnesses in cases, and family members or friends who are accompanying the target alien, are not to be arrested except in special circumstances, such as if they pose a threat to public safety or interfere with ICE, the agency said.

ICE officials said arrests undertaken in courthouses are safer for its officers, the public, and the person being arrested, because all those entering are screened and searched for weapons. Agents are directed to generally avoid making arrests in civil proceedings and in places such as Family Court or Small Claims Court.

The report, Obstructing Justice: The Chilling Effect of ICEs Arrests of Immigrants at Pennsylvania Courthouses, was released Wednesday, two days after a study by the advocacy group Immigrant Defense Project harshly criticized ICE enforcement in New York courts.

The IDP said ICE had made more arrests, expanded operations into upstate counties it had previously ignored, and targeted particularly vulnerable immigrants, including victims of human trafficking and domestic violence.

Last year, a joint ProPublica-Inquirer investigation showed that the Philadelphia ICE office has been particularly aggressive. In 2017, the Philadelphia office, with agents fanning out across its three-state region, arrested more undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions than any of the 23 other ICE offices in the nation. That was especially striking given that Pennsylvanias undocumented population ranks 16th in the country, with West Virginia and Delaware far behind.

Since President Donald Trump took office, deportation officers have been freed from an Obama-era mandate to focus their resources on deporting immigrants with serious criminal convictions. Now every undocumented immigrant is a potential target for arrest.

ICE generally refrains from making arrests in churches, schools, hospitals, and college campuses, operating under what are called sensitive locations guidelines.

That guidance does not cover courthouses, which have become a battleground: ICE says its actions are consistent with long-standing law-enforcement practices, while immigration advocates and some judges say courts are being undermined because undocumented victims and witnesses stay away.

In 2018, ICE codified its guidelines for sending deportation agents to federal, state, and local courthouses to make arrests.

When practicable, ICE officers and agents will conduct enforcement actions discreetly to minimize their impact on court proceedings, the directive said. Courthouse arrests are often necessitated by the unwillingness of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the transfer of custody of aliens from their prisons and jails.

The Sheller Center study is based on surveys and interviews with lawyers, legal-aid organizations, victim-services advocates, and community organizations across Pennsylvania. It also relied on questionnaires and on ICE material that was obtained by the Immigration Legal Resource Center under the Freedom of Information Act.

The report urged the state Supreme Court to develop protocols to limit ICE enforcement at courthouses, stop court personnel from cooperating, and bar immigrants legal statuses from being collected by the courts. The cases mentioned in the report occurred mostly in 2017 and 2018.

The center described cases where ICE agents entered courtrooms, apprehended people in hallways and common areas, and waited outside courthouses to arrest undocumented migrants when they arrived or left. An attorney in Philadelphia said she received notification from ICE that her juvenile client, who had been adjudicated delinquent but was doing well in foster care, would be arrested at the childs next hearing.

Philadelphia attorneys reported that clients were arrested by ICE when they came to check in with probation officials. The same thing happened in Chester and Allegheny Counties, the study said.

The report describes an email conversation between a Beaver County probation officer and an ICE agent, who sought to arrest an undocumented man:

I can attempt to get him to report in person if he needs to be taken into custody, the probation officer wrote.

Sounds good, the ICE agent responded. Appreciate your willingness to assist.

He was just sentenced only a week ago, so chances are good that I can get him in here without suspicion, the probation officer answered. I can tell him he has to sign supervision papers, etc. Just let me know.
When City Council passed a tax on sweetened beverages in June 2016, Mayor Jim Kenney heralded the measure as a way to change the narrative of poverty in our city by funding an expansion of pre-K.

To Electricians union leader John J. Dougherty and Councilman Bobby Henon  two of the key players who helped steer the controversial legislation through Council  it served another purpose, according to prosecutors: punishing a political enemy.

Let me tell you what Bobby Henons going to do, and hes already talked to [elected local public official]," Dougherty told another Electricians union official in May 2015, according to prosecutors. "Theyre going to start to put a tax on soda again, and that will cost the Teamsters 100 jobs in Philly.

That revelation emerged Wednesday as a glaring example of the way prosecutors say Dougherty has exerted his power, as the U.S. Attorneys Office unveiled a 116-count indictment against Henon; Dougherty, who is business manager of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and six others affiliated with the local.

It also points to the cases possible ripple effects  from City Hall to Harrisburg and Washington  as the political world adjusts in a municipal election year to the potential fall of the most powerful labor leader in Philadelphia.

Local 98 has been the biggest independent source of campaign funding in Pennsylvania during the last few election cycles, and it has had a significant role in shaping the judiciary, putting 60 of its preferred candidates on the bench, including Doughertys brother, Kevin, elected to the state Supreme Court in 2015.

In addition to races for mayor and Council, dozens of vacancies in county courts across the state will be on the ballot in 2019, including in Philadelphia, along with an expected two positions on Superior Court.

>>READ MORE: Union official and councilman at the same time, Bobby Henon crossed the line, prosecutors say

In the highest-profile race, the indictment could threaten to taint Kenneys signature achievement as he seeks reelection in November. It also gives new ammunition to the beverage industry to target Council candidates this year who support the 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax.

Prosecutors say Henons support for the tax was part of a corrupt bargain he struck with Dougherty in exchange for a $73,131 salary from Local 98 and tickets to sporting events worth $11,807.

It may have been a revenge plot by Local 98, but it wasnt to do with me, Kenney told reporters at City Hall on Wednesday. The mayor  who has known Dougherty since childhood, attended high school with him, and came up through the trenches in the citys political wars  said his finance director suggested the idea for a soda tax shortly after he took office in 2016. Kenneys predecessor, Michael Nutter, had unsuccessfully floated the idea.

Henon said Wednesday that he had done nothing wrong and would remain in office.

Still, the soda lobby is expected to spend heavily in Council races as part of its bid to repeal the tax. The building trade unions, which support Kenneys levy on sweetened beverages because it also funds renovation projects for city properties, could try to match that campaign spending.

Kenneys bid for a second term for now appears strong. No Philadelphia mayor has lost a bid for reelection since the City Charter was amended nearly seven decades ago to impose a two-term limit.

Former City Controller Alan Butkovitz entered the Democratic primary in November and State Sen. Anthony H. Williams may join the race in the next three weeks. Will they, avowed opponents of the soda tax, use Kenneys connections to Dougherty to pound the

It could be awkward, as both have received contributions from Local 98 over the years. Yet while opponents have long attacked the tax as a job-killer, the indictment offers a new line of attack.

After the Teamsters ran a TV ad during the 2015 primary that portrayed Dougherty in a negative light, prosecutors say, Henon and Dougherty responded by threatening to push the soda tax, which the Teamsters opposed.

The Teamsters, who had fallen out of favor with Dougherty amid a labor dispute at the Convention Center, had endorsed Williams in the Democratic primary for mayor. Local 98 and most of the citys other unions backed Kenney.

A month after Kenney took office in January 2016, Dougherty and Henon discussed how to pass the tax, the indictment says.

Prosecutors say that after a Kenney administration official explained to Dougherty how the tax would benefit the city, Dougherty replied, You dont have to explain to me. I dont give a f. Listen, my goal is to make sure you are alright, thats all.

On March 1 of that year, prosecutors say, Dougherty texted Henon to stay IN FRONT of the soda tax, and in May instructed him to start talking to other Council members about the measure.

The indictment says that when Henon told Dougherty that they could win one unidentifiedCouncil members vote with a little, like, hug, Dougherty responded: Let him know that once you get this stuff, theres gonna be a ton of major league jobs, that his wife [is] more than qualified for.

>>READ MORE: Read the full Johnny Doc, IBEW Local 98 indictment

The next month, Council passed the tax on a 13-4 vote. Henon voted in favor of it.

Given Local 98s outsize role in campaigns, the indictment raises the question of whether candidates in this years municipal elections who have enjoyed or sought Local 98s support in the past will keeptheir distance. Also to be determined is whether Local 98 remains a political force, or retreats to play defense against the feds.

Another ripple effect of Doughertys legal woes could be on the 10-year property tax abatement on new construction, which has helped fuel a building boom that created union jobs. Many members of Council want to cut or end the program, to spend more on schools and affordable housing. Council President Darrell L. Clarke last year cosponsored a proposed 1 percent tax on new construction, which Dougherty helped kill.

Will there be another attempt to change the abatement program with a weakened Dougherty?

>>READ MORE: From the shopping sprees to the buying of a councilman, Johnny Docs indictment should be a reckoning for us all | Mike Newall

At a minimum, many political leaders will be fielding awkward questions in the days ahead. Perhaps no one more so than Kenney, who won the 2015 election for mayor with the union leaders help. Local 98 has been saying for weeks that its entire focus for 2019 is helping the mayor win a second term.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams brushed aside reporters' questions Wednesday about whether Kenney had been interviewed or scrutinized during the investigation, saying she was unable to discuss details of the probe. She stressed he was neither a defendant nor named anywhere in the indictment.

Still, it could be an inescapable issue during the campaign. On Thursday evening, Kenney is scheduled to hold a fundraiser at a Center City steakhouse, with tickets going for $2,500, $5,000, or $11,900. The invitation, paid for by Local 98, says checks should be sent to Marita Crawford, the unions political director.

Crawford is one of the union officials now under indictment.

Kenney noted that contributions come from members, not the union leadership. Im a union mayor," he said Wednesday. "And I support union activities and union work.

Staff writers Kristen A. Graham and Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.
When a local drag queen named Annie Christ wanted to book a room at the Lansdale Library to host a story hour, staff did the states required background check and reserved a room for this Saturday, Feb. 2. After all, drag-queen story hours have become a trend in libraries across the country and around greater Philadelphia.

Then, the phone calls began.

Theres definitely more complaints about this than any other event weve done, said beleaguered library director Tom Meyer. But the amount of support for having it is also overwhelming.

He estimates 50 phone calls have come in, many of them from outside the area, expressing concerns. He figures maybe a dozen protesters will show up, based on Facebook activity  but he also expects so many families to attend, hell have to start turning people away after the room hits its 64-person capacity.

Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is bringing perversion from the nightclubs and sexually charged pride parades into the library with children, a Facebook page announcing a protest reads.

Such story hours have spurred similar protests (and counterprotests) around the nation. In Texas, opponents even filed suit in federal court. Demonstrators rallied outside a South Carolina library, and circulated petitions against a similar event in Detroit.

Meyer met such threats with a shrug. One of the tenets of our mission here is to celebrate cultural diversity in the community, and I think a lot of the parents are interested in that and also the message of the story time, about acceptance and inclusion, he said. Meyer added that he also supports demonstrators' right to speak their piece.

Library branches in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania suburbs, and South Jersey have run similar events with drag queens since 2017; the Free Library of Philadelphia alone has hosted more than 50 of them, according to Andrew Nurkin, deputy director of enrichment and civic engagement. Currently, the Fumo Family Library Branch in South Philadelphia is hosting a series of drag-queen trivia nights, including one Feb. 13.

Thats hosted by Ian Morrison, also known as Brittany Lynn, a drag queen who has just launched a fund-raising campaign for an event series, a Drag Queen Story Time Tour, that kicks off at the Please Touch Museum in June but will continue across the region, including puppets in the audience who will raise questions kids might be afraid to ask about gender differences and acceptance.

I think the message of love and acceptance resonates universally, said Abbe Klebanoff, the Fumo branch manager, adding that the drag-queen events are among the branchs most popular.

Backlash has been minimal, Klebanoff said. I had one woman come up to me  she saw a flier  and we had a very frank discussion. She had a different point of view."

She had heard of protests elsewhere. But thats Texas, she said.

Still, Steve Piotrowski, who created a Facebook page criticizing the event, said he and co-organizer Ken Souder will be outside the library Saturday for a protest, prayer gathering, and news conference.

We strongly believe that it is very dangerous to use publicly funded libraries and government in general to promote radical ideas, Piotrowski said in an email.

He believes Annie Christ in particular is anti-Christian, and drag-queen story hours in general aim to indoctrinate children. ... The community is overwhelmingly not approving of this.

Brittany Lynn said the reason families love the story hour is it opens up conversations.

Were not pushing any agenda. Were just giving a view of diversity and acceptance that isnt so heteronormative, the performer said.

Last year, the drag queens event at the Please Touch Museum stirred some anger and threats to cancel memberships. But the museum stood by the event.

Recently, Brittany Lynn held a fund-raiser for the Fumo Family Branch that raised $300, more than doubling the branchs annual budget for hosting community events. Now, the goal is to raise $10,000 to make sure every kid whos interested has access to a little drag-queen glitter and glamour.

As you know in Philadelphia, the funding for libraries is causing them to close on weekends and end their social programming," Brittany Lynn said. "Theyre struggling. The point of the fund-raiser is not only to create the materials needed, but to make these programs available at no cost to the venues that are progressive enough to have it.
I now own Frank Rizzos police whistle.

Why?

First, let me tell you how.

In a melancholy ceremony, the Rizzo family liquidated its patriarchs personal belongings at an auction Tuesday evening.

This was a postscript to a huge estate sale in November.

After that sale, more personal effects were found and were shipped off to be sold by Uniques & Antiques out of its low-rent warehouse on a rainy night in Aston, Delaware County.

Most of the Rizzo fever was cooled by the first sale, attended by thousands. Tuesdays affair drew fewer than a dozen bidders, some who seemed to have a plan. Others were browsers like me.

Kevin Tobin of Bryn Mawr showed up out of curiosity. He had volunteered during Rizzos 1972 and 1976 mayoral campaigns and thought he might pick up a keepsake.

I covered Rizzo off and on over the years. I knew Franny Rizzo better than his father and was surprised to see some of Juniors memorabilia up for auction too. Who would be interested in buying an award to Franny from Peco, where he worked before he was elected to City Council? Or his passport?

I didnt give it to them, Franny told me from Naples, Fla., where he spends the winter. They came through the house and scooped everything up.

Doesnt watching his familys history pass into other hands make him sad, I asked.

No, it made me happy, he said. At the first sale, people walking out of the door with a $4 item thanked me for letting them have something they will cherish.

One item for sale Tuesday was Frank Rizzos Smith & Wesson .38-caliber pistol that came with his carry permit. He got the permit in 1986 after two terms as mayor. Under the reason required for applying for the permit, he wrote: Retired Police Commissioner.

Not former mayor. At heart, Rizzo remained a cop.

He always said anybody can be mayor, but not anybody can be police commissioner, Franny told me.

The gun went for $1,560. A Center City man who declined to give me his name (few buyers wanted to be named) bought a leather-covered blackjack for $180 and an oak nightstick  which drew counteroffers  for $390. The book of signatures of people attending Rizzos funeral at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral Basilica was sold for $468, and a Wedgwood Philadelphia Bowl was bought for $390. (Such bowls used to be handed out to dignitaries. On one occasion, while presenting a bowl, Rizzo said it holds two pounds of rigatoni. After that, insiders called them Rigatoni Bowls.)

The kid from Rosewood Street in South Philly ended up living in Chestnut Hill, but he retained  for better or worse  a rowhouse mentality, and he loved his city. Like Ed Rendell, he was gregarious and approachable. Rizzo didnt duck reporters; he was forever quotable, and colorful as a box of Crayolas.

I was in his debt for one thing: In 1991, he was running for mayor for a third time, this time as a Republican against Democrat Rendell. Someone suggested I stage a comedy contest between the candidates in what was going to be a hard-fought battle.

I approached Rendell about a comedy joke-off against the Riz. Rendell was getting ready to stiff-arm me when I told him Rizzo had agreed.

Ill do it, said Rendell.

I went to Rizzo first because I knew he would say yes, and that would pressure Rendell to agree.

That contest  Rizzos last public appearance before he died on July 16, 1991  evolved into the annual Candidates Comedy Night that ran for 25 years and raised $500,000 for Variety, the Childrens Charity.

It would not have happened without Rizzo.

So thats part of why I wanted a memento.

Whether you like Rizzo or not, the whistle represents a part of Philadelphia history, like the matchbook-size piece of the Independence Hall floorboard I bought after it was put on sale after the building was renovated.

Rizzos police whistle isnt that grandiose, but it is functional and it cost just $30. The fact that my owning it will drive some people crazy  you know who you are  just adds to my personal enjoyment.
NEW YORK  Ten years ago we thought wellness was all about the hippy and the dippy.

My, how times have changed.

Today, according to the Global Wellness Institute, wellness takes in $4.2 trillion in annual global spending.

No wonder Philadelphia is right on the wave. We may be cheesesteak central, but most of our new businesses are promoting a wellness lifestyle: Both suburban towns and Center City continue to welcome boutique fitness outfits, such as Walnut Streets Rumble and Cyclebar in Plymouth Meeting. Spiritual haunts like Syreeta Scotts Sable  a downtown location will open later this year  and Angela Monacos Ritual Shoppe sell sage, candles, and essential oils so one can have a wellness experience in the comfort of her own home. And every upstart fashion label seems to more concerned with slow fashion than with producing the next must-see runway show.

I spent the last two days in New York City chasing wellness trends at the Active Collective, where boutique owners go to find the latest in athleisure trends, and at the Global Wellness Institute, where experts study the economic impact of wellness. This is what I learned about 2019 wellness trends.

Athleisure isnt going anywhere anytime soon.

The good old days when getting dressed up at Le Bec-Fin have been replaced with yoga pants for Sunday brunch at Parc. Avocado toast included. I spent last Friday afternoon with Ashley Anapolsky, buyer for Philly online athleisure site Addison Bay at Active Collective, where the latest trends in active wear, from Athletist to Spiritual Gangster, were on display. Top ones include: reversible leggings and jackets, multicolor camo, from hot pink to banana yellow to cobalt blue to  aack!  biker shorts. I dont know how this is going to go over," said Anapolsky, who admittedly picked up a few. I dont either.

How our clothing is made will matter more and more

Phrases like zero waste, sustainability, and slow fashion will continue to dominate our fashion lexicon. Luckily, Philadelphia is on point in following these important movements. And We Evolve continues to make resale desirable with subscription boxes. Betsy Cook of Haddonfields National Picnic makes her pieces on the sales floor. And in coming weeks, United By Blue will launch a shoe collaboration with fellow environmentally conscious company SOLE that they say is the worlds most eco-friendly  it features recycled cork midsole fashioned from algea, foam, and rice rubber. Well see radical innovation in sustainable textiles, said Beth McGroarty, vice president of research and forecasting at the Global Wellness Summit. If manufacturing is a mean, faceless business, more ethical fashion brands will provide transparency into how they treat  and even celebrate by name  the artisans that created your wardrobe.

Wellness is driving real estate, too. But its not cheap.

Fitler Club, the high-end social club near 30th Street Station, is opening piecemeal throughout the year with a theme of cultivating a holistic approach to health and wellness issues. The club will feature a gym with an indoor pool and restaurants that specialize in healthy fare, from juice bars to super-food cuisine  think lots of kale and cauliflower  courtesy of chef Kevin Sbraga. Wellness real estate, according to the Global Wellness Institute, accounts for $13.4 billion in worldwide sales.

Wellness is not a luxury of the uber-white and uber-rich.

Modern-day wellness habits have the tough reputation of being a luxury for the rich. People of color and poorer people dont see it as something they have time for or can actually afford, said Ophelia Yeung of the Global Wellness Institute. Its hard to forget that wellness experiences can be done at home, too. Apps like Calm help us meditate, and email blasts from Black Zen help women of color (but really, any woman) attack everyday problems from a holistic point of view. Coming home to a tidy space, lighting a candle, and playing your favorite relaxing music can really set the tone to unwind, Monaco said. Burning some Palo Santo or spraying my favorite intentional spray can change the energy. And most people, especially Oprah, will tell you good energy unlocks our wellness.

Get your meditation on. Anywhere will do.

According to the Global Wellness Institute, meditation is evolving from a singular to a plural practice, meaning today you might try transcendental meditation, tomorrow you might just stare at a wall and try to rid yourself of monkey mind. It seems like weve reached peak mindfulness and meditation, but we really havent, McGroarty said. After years of talk, people are actually doing it. On the horizon are yoga trucks where people can meet for yoga  not order tacos. Locally, yoga studios like Yoga on Main in Manayunk have instituted weekly meditation practices. For example, every other Monday it features chakra meditation and oneness blessing. That is definitely on my bucket list.

The science of smell is the next wellness frontier.

The sense of smell is on the cusp of a wellness moment as scientists study the impact of scent on our physical and emotional well-being. Under the umbrella of aromatherapy, its long been known that candles and oils can help us feel better. But, according to McGroarty, companies like Nue Co. are marketing anti-stress supplement as fragrances, and restaurants  think Autograph Brasserie in Wayne  are offering scent-based menus that pair wine and foods with Diptyque candles. It seems that a lot of my brands, like Ferragamo, Hugo Boss, even Armani are using real essential oils in their fragrances, said Nir Guy, owner of King of Prussia specialty store Perfumology. The more natural things they are putting in are making our brains happier. People are less allergic to it, and they dont sneeze as much when they come into my store.

Dying well is just as important as living well.

We are so afraid of death  I know I am  that we dont give it much thought in life. As a result, we watch our friends and loved ones rush through the process eager to get the death and burials over with. Ironically, the wellness market, which has extending life at its center, is part of the problem. Suddenly, MGroarty said, it seems a death positive movement is here, bringing with it talk of making the dying process more humane. And just like birthing doulas who help women give birth in a loving surrounding, there are death doulas who help us die with dignity. But at the heart of our relationship with death is coming to terms with how we are living, said Henry Fersko-Weiss, president of the International End-of-Life Doula Association. If you dont think youve had a life worth living, the dying process becomes even more unbearable, Fersko-Weiss said.
With an onslaught of freezing winter weather, doctors have one message for Philadelphians: Stay inside as much as possible.

In order to get frostbite, you have to be out in freezing temperatures, said Bob McNamara, chair of emergency medicine at Temple Universitys Lewis Katz School of Medicine. So the number-one thing would be to stay inside.

Temperatures in Philadelphia, which were already below freezing Wednesday, are expected to drop to the teens Thursday and remain below freezing until Sunday. Winds at 20- to 30-mph will make it feel even colder, and increase the risk of frostbite.

People should also be concerned about hypothermia, McNamara said, which can occur indoors too, if people dont have proper heating. Roughly half the cases of severe hypothermia we see happen indoors, he said.

But fear not! There is plenty you can do to prepare for the winter not-so-wonderland.

While curling up under a fuzzy blanket is always a good call, here are some tips from experts, including one whos just returned from Antarctica.

Frostbite

When the body gets cold, it restricts blood flow to the extremities, prioritizing major organs instead. So the first signs of frostbite include tingling or pain in the fingers, toes, ears, nose, and elsewhere on the face. Numbness and graying patches of skin are more serious indicators that frostbite is setting in.

Older people and young children are at high risk, as is anyone with a medical condition that might affect their circulation.

 READ MORE: How to keep your pets safe in freezing temperatures

Steps to Prevent It

Nothing beats staying indoors, but if you have to venture out, try to spend as little time outside as possible, McNamara said. And go prepared.

Ted Daeschler, a scientist at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, returned to Philadelphia one week ago from a research expedition in Antarctica, where he and colleagues camped in 5- to 15-degree temperatures.

He said he often wore two pairs of socks, hooded long underwear, a second layer of long underwear, shirt and pants, a fleece jacket, insulated wind pants, a wind jacket, a neck gator, and wool hat and gloves.

Still there were times when the wind made it too cold to work outside and we remained in our camp, he wrote in an email.

While you may not need to go to Antarctic levels of preparedness, its a good idea to follow the advice your parents gave you as a kid: warm hat, gloves, snow boots, a wind-resistant jacket, and layers of clothing. The air between layers retains heat, McNamara said.

 READ MORE: How to keep your pipes from freezing in cold weather

When to Get Help

"If you catch frostbite early, it can be reversed, McNamara said.

Mild cases of frostnip, in which the skin feels cold and is just starting to tingle, can be reversed by getting indoors or using a warm bath, he said.

But if the skin becomes pale, waxy, or hard, people should seek medical attention. Those are signs of tissue loss and may require amputation.

Every winter we see people who lose body parts from frostbite in the city of Philadelphia, McNamara said.

Hypothermia

When the body is exposed to the cold for long periods of time, it can lose heat faster than it can produce it, causing a dangerously low body temperature, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wet conditions are especially dangerous, even when temperatures are above freezing.

Hypothermia is a life-threatening condition, McNamara said. Major organs can stop functioning properly when body temperature drops.

It can be difficult to spot, though. People may have slurred speech, stumble or trip over themselves, and seem confused. A mistake people can make is to think they just had too much to drink, McNamara said.

 READ MORE: Tips for staying warm from Philadelphians who work outside

Steps to Prevent It

Stay inside and stay dry, the CDC recommends. People should check on neighbors and the elderly to make sure everyone has functioning heat. Not just a space heater, McNamara said.

When To Get Help

If you think someone has hypothermia, call 911 and get medical attention, McNamara said.

If youre stranded or waiting for emergency responders, try to get the person dry, wrap them up in blankets, and get them as warm as possible.

And a warning on alcohol: While some people believe drinking can stave off the cold, its actually very dangerous, McNamara said. Alcohol dilates the blood vessels on the skin, making you feel warm. But this process increases heat loss. So you wont know youre cold and youll be getting colder by the minute, McNamara said.

Another concern doctors in the emergency room see during cold snaps: people with broken bones and head injuries from slipping and falling on ice.

All the more reason to stay indoors, McNamara said.

 READ MORE: Biking in the winter: How to ride in freezing weather
For five years, Jefferson University Hospital surgeons have been traveling to Haiti to rebuild the jaws of patients whose faces are disfigured by benign yet massive tumors. These are delicate operations, made all the more challenging because the doctors cannot see what they are dealing with until they arrive in a sparsely equipped operating room in Port-au-Prince and meet their patients.

This year they tried a new tactic: making models of the patients' jaws in advance, with 3-D printers in Philadelphia.

The idea was to use the plastic models as a guide, allowing the physicians to bend titanium surgical plates in the exact shape of each patients jawbone  a task normally done during surgery. Shaping the plates in advance would save up to an hour in the operating room, reducing time under anesthesia, the risk of infection, and other complications, and it also would help the surgeons achieve a more faithful reconstruction of each patients original anatomy.

The concept is unusual even in the United States. Jefferson physicians have been making jaw models for this type of surgery only for the last year and a half, using a suite of printers housed in a former bank vault on Chestnut Street.

For patients in poverty-stricken Haiti, still recovering from the 2010 earthquake, the high-tech advance was like something from another world.

It was life-changing, said Patrick Jean-Gilles, head of the ear, nose, and throat/head and neck surgery department at Haiti State University Hospital.

Jean-Gilles sent discs containing three patients' CT scans to Jefferson in early January, and Robert S. Pugliese, director of Jeffersons Health Design Lab, got to work. Assisted by medical students, he converted the scans into computer files that could be interpreted by the labs printers. Then he kept watch for days as the printer nozzles glided back and forth, depositing layer after layer of plastic in the shape of the patients' jaws and other facial bones.

Though invented decades ago, 3-D printers have only recently begun to transform medicine in various ways, as the cost of the boxy machines has declined. Some physicians use printed models of body parts as a visual aid, planning the best approach for surgery when a patients anatomy is especially complex. Others use printers to fashion actual devices to be implanted in a patient. Those typically are made from plastic and other inert materials, though increasingly, researchers are experimenting with devices that can print cartilage and other living tissue.

A printed model of a jawbone lies somewhere in between. It can help in visualizing the best strategy for a surgery, and it also serves as a template for bending the titanium plate that is screwed into what remains of a jaw eroded by a tumor.

Dominick Gadaleta, Jeffersons chief resident for ear, nose, and throat/head and neck surgery, demonstrated the process last month, shaping a narrow strip of metal with a device that looked like a heavy-duty pair of pliers. He matched the metals curvature precisely to the contours of a jawbone model made from one of the Haitian patients scans.

Its a much better anatomical fit than what can be achieved in the OR, Gadaleta said.

Jefferson surgeons have used this technique on two dozen U.S. patients so far, and they say it is especially useful for patients in Haiti, some of whose tumors are so large that the bone beneath has been destroyed. In the case of a 26-year-old Haitian woman whose right jaw was completely gone, physicians planned to bend the metal in a mirror image of her left jaw, said Joseph M. Curry, a Jefferson head and neck surgeon who is a co-leader of the Haiti project.

The various benign tumors of the jaw are no more common in Haiti than in the U.S., but here they typically are removed while still small. In Haiti, where such surgeries were not readily available until recently, some patients' tumors have grown to half the size of their faces. They need both a delicate tumor removal and also a complex reconstructive procedure that is not yet performed by Haitian physicians.

The growths are generally not painful, but patients can suffer from stigma, isolation, and difficulty eating and finding a job, Curry said.

Curry flew to Miami the night of Jan. 15, then caught an early-morning flight to Haiti the next day, the first of four days he would spend in the operating room at St. Lukes Hospital in Port-au-Prince. He was one of a team of 20, including Jefferson surgeon David Cognetti, two surgeons from the University of Miami, and nurses, residents, and students from both institutions. Two of the group were there on a different mission: discussing a potential telehealth" program through which Haitian physicians could consult their U.S. counterparts.

Eight patients underwent tumor removal and facial reconstruction surgery. The surgeons had 3-D-printed models in only two of the cases, as the necessary CT scans cost more than $300  out of reach for many people in the impoverished country, Jean-Gilles said. A third 3-D-printed model had been made for a ninth patient, but the physicians were concerned that she might have cancer, and elected to postpone the surgery pending the results of a biopsy.

The surgeons occupied two operating rooms at St. Lukes, tackling one case a day in each room. Some of the clinicians were tasked with cutting away the tumors while others handled the reconstruction. Jean-Gilles took part, as well.

On each patients jawbone, the surgeons screwed in a sterilized metal plate. In the two cases with the printed models, the plates had been custom-bent in advance.

Then the surgeons cut pieces from each patients fibula, the smaller of the two lower-leg bones, and attached those to the metal plates. (People can still walk with most of that bone removed.) With painstaking care, they attached the blood vessels in the implanted bones to veins and arteries in the patients' necks. In the two cases where models were printed in advance, the time saved during surgery meant less time for the pieces of leg bone to go without oxygen, in addition to the other advantages. Each case took all day.

The team worked with limited resources. Unlike in the U.S., the patients did not undergo scans of their legs to ascertain the health of blood vessels before the surgeons removed the fibula. Because the patients were fairly young, the team decided it could omit that step, Curry said.

Also unlike in the U.S., the patients recovered with non-opioid pain medications. Opioids can suppress the respiratory system, and the Haitian hospital had limited technology to monitor the patients' breathing rate. But the non-opioid alternative, though safer, provided less pain relief.

They do remarkably well," Curry said. Theyre not comfortable, but theyre OK.

While all eight surgeries were successful, the surgeons achieved a better fit for the two patients whose jaw models had been printed in advance, Curry said.

Its giving them basically their old jawline back, he said.

More than a week later, Jean-Gilles said seven of the patients were recovering well, though one developed an infection and will need a repeat surgery.

All the other patients are eating now and so happy, the Haitian surgeon said.

And with the knowledge gained from working alongside the Jefferson and Miami surgeons, Jean-Gilles plans eventually to undertake the complex reconstructive surgeries himself.

Maybe someday he could even get a 3-D printer. The machines used to print the jaw models cost $6,000 apiece, a hefty sum in Haiti.

But at Jefferson, lab director Pugliese said that because the printers have already saved so much time in the operating room, they already have paid for themselves.
(Bloomberg)  Apple Inc. plans to launch iPhones with a more-powerful 3-D camera as soon as next year, stepping up the companys push into augmented reality, according to people familiar with the plans.

The rear-facing, longer-range 3-D camera is designed to scan the environment to create three-dimensional reconstructions of the real world. It will work up to about 15 feet from the device, the people said. Thats in contrast with the current iPhone 3-D camera system, which points toward users and operates at distances of 25 to 50 centimeters to power Apples Face ID facial-recognition feature.

Apples new system uses a laser scanner, rather than the existing dot-projection technology which doesnt work as well over longer distances, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unreleased features. Thats just one of many new features  including a third, more advanced camera, enhanced photo-capture tools and a more powerful chip  that Apple plans to include in coming generations of iPhones, the people said.

The laser-powered 3-D camera would enhance augmented reality on the iPhone, allowing for more accurate depth perception and placement of virtual objects. It could also help the handset take photos that can better capture depth, the people said. Apple has been in talks with Sony Corp. about testing sensors for the new system, one of the people said.

While virtual reality immerses the user in a digital realm, AR overlays visuals and data onto a view of the real world. Use cases include looking at a building and displaying details of the structure beside the image, or listing repair instructions for a mechanic while she works on a defective machine. Its been touted as having wider mass-market appeal than VR, and Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has talked up its prospects.

The 2020 iPhone camera may be a prelude to an AR headset that Apple has been preparing for as early as 2020. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the companys plans, which could change.

Apple previously aimed to put the new 3-D camera system on the back of this years high-end iPhones, but delayed that, the people familiar also said. Still, the Cupertino, California-based technology giant is doubling down on camera capabilities for its handsets.

For 2019, Apple plans successors to the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max  code-named D42 and D43  and an update to the iPhone XR, said the people. The larger of the new high-end iPhones will have three cameras on the back, and other handsets could eventually come with the upgraded system, too, the people said.

Cameras have become one of the most-important features in a saturated smartphone market. Better photos are a compelling reason for people to upgrade their handsets, especially when other new capabilities are either harder to design or too wonky for most customers to appreciate. Apple pioneered smartphone camera improvements, which over the years have included additions like Portrait Mode. Rivals have tried to catch up, with Samsung Electronics Co. launching phones with as many as four outward-facing cameras last year.

The iPhone still generates the majority of Apples revenue, although sales of the devices fell last year as people upgraded less often. That triggered a stock slump that wiped more than $300 billion off the companys market value since October. New models with more-capable cameras could spur upgrades and reignite Apples growth, making these upcoming iPhones the most critical in years.

A third camera on the back of the 2019 iPhone will help the device capture a larger field of view and enable a wider range of zoom. It will also capture more pixels so Apple software could, for example, automatically repair a video or photo to fit in a subject that may have been accidentally cut off from the initial shot, according to the people familiar with the plans. The company is also planning an enhanced version of its Live Photos feature, which pins video from before and after each shot to the photo. The new version will double the length of the video from three seconds to six seconds.

The laser-powered 3-D camera could debut first on an upgrade to the iPad Pro currently planned for as early as spring 2020, according to one of the people. Apple isnt expected to release a major iPad Pro update this year like it did in 2018. It typically upgrades the line in the second half of the year. Apple in the past has launched major new features on the iPad before the iPhone, including 4G internet connectivity in 2012.

Apple is also testing some versions of this years iPhone line that includes a USB-C connector instead of the Lightning port that has been used on iPhones since 2012, indicating that the company plans an eventual switch, according to one of the people. Moving to USB-C would make the new models compatible with chargers used for hundreds of other devices, like Android phones.

This years iPhone models will include an upgraded Apple processor and use an updated Face ID sensor for unlocking the device and approving payments, the people said. The handsets will otherwise look similar to the current models with larger changes expected as early as 2020 to accommodate plans for 5G networking capabilities, Bloomberg News reported last year.

Beyond iPhones, Apple plans to release an updated version of its lower-cost iPad with a roughly 10-inch screen and a faster processor as early as this spring, according to people familiar with the plans. That device is expected to retain the Lightning port, according to one of the people. The company is also readying a new, cheaper iPad mini, its smallest tablet that hasnt been updated since 2015, the people said.

Apples next operating system update, iOS 13, will include a dark mode option for easier nighttime viewing and improvements to CarPlay, the companys in-vehicle software. There will also be iPad-specific upgrades like a new home screen, the ability to tab through multiple versions of a single app like pages in a web browser, and improvements to file management. The company will also integrate two new services, including a magazine subscription service and its original video content efforts, via iOS updates this year.

Each year since 2012, Apple has launched its latest iPhone in September. The one exception was the iPhone Xs November release in 2017.

With assistance from Yuji Nakamura.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Debby Wu in Taipei at dwu278@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Peter Elstrom

2019 Bloomberg L.P.
When State Farm notified homeowners that it was amending their policies in 2015, the insurer told consumers that the revision was not intended to change coverage.

But the new policy provision actually slashed coverage for homeowners, despite being in a section called additional coverages, a Morrisville couple claimed in a lawsuit against State Farm. And the couple, Lisa and Rodney Aguiar, won $46,000 last fall for their breach-of-contract claim in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

Now, the Philadelphia law firm representing the Aguiars is considering the national implications of the local case, arguing that State Farm used deceptive language in reducing coverage for consumers across the country, all while failing to cut premiums.

Theyve added this entire provision into your policy and they call it additional coverage, said Anthony DiUlio, a property-damage lawyer for the Aguiars. They guise what is indisputably a reduction in coverage in confusing language that by no means helps an insured understand what is happening.

In a statement, State Farm said it is disappointed with the judges overall ruling," but said it stands by its court filings.

The insurers lawyers had noted that the notice to homeowners included the bold heading Potential Reduction in Coverage. The notice also advised policyholders to view the amendment as either an actual or potential reduction or elimination of coverage. The Aguiars did not have to renew their policy after receiving it, and the amended policy did not cover their insurance claim, State Farm lawyers argued.

At issue was a toilet overflow that flooded a master bathroom and a policy provision that deals with accessing broken water lines.

In March 2016, Lisa Aguiar said, her toilet soaked the bathroom and bedroom in their former Levittown home, causing minor water damage. The couple wanted to fix a break in the sewer line that they said had caused the problem. But State Farm refused to cover the cost of their plan to tear up their laundry room, living room, and bathroom to access the sewer line, Lisa Aguiar said.

Previously, the Aguiars State Farm policy said it would pay for tearing out and replacing any part of the building necessary to repair the plumbing system, if damage was caused by water or steam.

By contrast, the new provision covered costs for tearing out only that particular part of the building that is needed to access the specific point where water or steam escaped.

State Farms notice of the language revision told homeowners the change could potentially reduce or eliminate coverage depending on how it is interpreted.

It was very difficult for a consumer to understand," Lisa Aguiar said of the notice. I just felt misled.

The Aguiars sued State Farm in October 2016, claiming breach of contract, and later accused State Farm of bad faith and violations of Pennsylvanias consumer protection act.

In November 2018, Judge D. Webster Keogh awarded them $46,000 including lawyers fees on only the breach-of-contract claim, according to Keoghs office. In issuing the verdict, Keogh said he agreed that State Farms notice was confusing but said he wasnt sure whether the insurer was willfully deceptive.

I think there was clearly confusion and misunderstanding generated by what was sent out by State Farm, the judge said, according to court transcripts. But Im not certain that it jumps from the nonfeasance side to the misfeasance side.

DiUlio, who unsuccessfully tried to turn the case into a Pennsylvania class action, said his firm is reviewing the nationwide implications of the ruling, saying hes received calls from consumers as far away as California with similar stories.

This change has been nationally implemented. So this is not something that is just going to affect 100 or 200 people, said DiUlio, of the firm Wheeler, DiUlio & Barnabei in Philadelphia.

State Farm changed its tear-out policy while it battled a proposed class action over a similar issue in Arizona. In that case, a woman wanted to replace her entire plumbing system after she suffered water damage, according to court records. She expected State Farm to cover the associated tear-out cost, citing the any part of the building" part of her homeowners' policy. State Farm said it would cover only access to the portion of the pipe from where water escaped," court records show.

A proposed class-action case started in 2007 and lasted nearly eight years before the parties settled in April 2015. State Farm ultimately had to reimburse 144 people who had similar claims denied, court records show.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the state Insurance Department approved State Farms policy change in October 2014, narrowing the tear-out language from covering any part to the specific part of a building. The state did not approve the allegedly deceptive language in the notice to consumers, a department spokesperson said.

Asked whether State Farm changed the tear-out policy because of the Arizona class-action suit, State Farm spokesperson Anna Bryant said decisions to change policy language are based on a variety of factors.

In recognition of a fluid and ever-changing environment and industry, we regularly review and amend our policy language, she said in an email.

State Farm is the market leader for homeowners insurance in Pennsylvania, with a nearly 18 percent share of the premiums written in 2016, the most recent year that data are available.
A Newark, Del., software firm that makes light-based fast-computing systems and a video-enhancement platform used by the U.S. military for war intelligence and weapons testing, has agreed to pay $2.75 million to resolve civil allegations of federal contracting fraud.

The 11-member firm, E.M. Photonics Inc., and Eric Kelmelis, the companys chief executive, had each been accused of falsified labor costs and duplicative work in order to maximize charges," under special programs run by the Small Business Administration for U.S. contractors with under 500 employees, according to a statement by David C. Weiss, U.S. Attorney for Delaware.

The company  cofounded by Kelmelis in 2001 while working on his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Delaware  has filled 100 contracts with the U.S. Navy and Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, NASA, the Department of Energy, and other agencies.

Photonics officials said they settled accusations with the agencies and prosecutors in late December, after a four-year investigation of billing and timekeeping issues from 2009 to 2014. However, the deal was announced only this week by federal prosecutors in Wilmington after the end of the partial shutdown of the federal government.

The government got the quality research and work it paid for, and the company and Kelmelis both deny that they made any misrepresentations, according to defense lawyer Nathan J. Andrisani of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Philadelphia. And, the agencies have given the company 20 more contracts since the period covered by the investigation ended.

Andrisani said the company and Kelmelis were disappointed that they had to settle but thought that putting the matter behind them was the best option as they go back to work on new and better technology.

Kelmelis agreed to pay half the settlement immediately, while E.M. Photonics will pay the other half over the next three years. The settlement includes $1.18 million in restitution, and does not cover any tax or criminal liability. The settlement agreement says both sides agreed to the payments to avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience and expense of protracted litigation.

During the five years covered by the investigation, the company and its boss engaged in two principal schemes to defraud" federal procurement programs meant to help small businesses, prosecutors alleged in Weiss statement on the settlement.

First, Kelmelis and his company told employees to falsely complete time sheets for direct labor that the employees did not perform and submit false invoices and public vouchers to the funding agencies for direct labor that was not performed on these contracts and grants. Also, prosecutors say the company sought and received government funding for essentially equivalent work already performed and funded by another government agency, but falsely certified that the work wasnt duplicative.

The government alleged that both of these schemes were designed to maximize charges to each contract or grant, the statement added.

The civil allegations resolved in the settlement are the latest in a series that government procurement investigators have made in recent years against firms participating in the federal Small Business Administrations Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. These programs are the nations largest source of early-stage/high-risk funding for start-ups and small businesses," according to the E.M. Photonics settlement.

Some other cases included criminal charges and resulted in prison sentences. No criminal charges have been filed in the Delaware case. Asked whether the government is done with the company, Weiss' spokeswoman, Kimberlynn Reeves, said the office had nothing to share.

The settlement followed a joint investigation by Jamie M. McCall and Jennifer Hall, of Weiss office; the federal Defense Criminal Investigative Service; and NASA, Army, Navy, Air Force and Energy Department investigators, to ensure the integrity of the U.S. Department of Defenses procurement system," including research and development, said Leigh-Alistair Barzey, special agent-in-charge of the services Northeast field office.

In 2017, the federal Government Accountability Office urged Congress to tighten requirements for small businesses that participate in the small-business contractor programs.

GAO noted that federal agencies have awarded $2 billion a year through SBIR and tech transfer for the last 25 years, and that from 2010 to 2016, prosecutors used information collected by federal inspectors general to win 14 guilty verdicts or criminal pleas for violating program guidelines, collected $31 million in restitution, and suspended 40 people from federal contracting, with other cases in the works.

In one such case, a Lehigh University professor was convicted in 2016 on criminal charges and sentenced to prison for defrauding NASA and other agencies in connection with a $700,000 grant that was partly backed by the SBA SBIR program.

In that case, Lehigh University engineering professor Yujie Ding was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for lying to win the contract. Ding told the government he would use public funds to pay scientists to do the research in his company lab. Instead, the court found that Ding had a grad student do the work in a Lehigh lab, illegally boosting Dings firms profits.

We are a Band-Aid. The agencies needs to firm up these programs, Jim Ives, assistant inspector general for investigations at NASA, told me after Dings conviction was appealed (the Third Circuit appeals court upheld Dings sentence).

Ives urged SBA and the agencies who hire SBA-backed contractors to get folks out to visit [contractor workplaces]. Review their financial records. Its not brain surgery. Its keeping an eye on whats going on.
Does it really matter to anyone outside of classical music that members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra played so beautifully side by side Tuesday night in the Kimmel Centers Verizon Hall?

And, is it possible that having the Philadelphia Orchestra go to China for the 12th time, as it announced Tuesday it would do in May, will do anything to alleviate tensions between China and the United States?

The vague promise of cultural diplomacy was back in the air as the Philadelphians hosted their Shanghai counterparts to form a hybrid, 100-plus-member ensemble composed of musicians from each orchestra.

But what exactly is that promise?

At a time when there are some tensions, there is also room for some cooperation, Walter Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy for the U.S. State Deptartment Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said at a reception before the concert. Douglas said he hoped this sense of cooperation would extend to other fields.

The reception at the Kimmel Center, which attracted an impressive corps of Chinese media, was a chance for the orchestra to reveal details of its next China tour.

Billed as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China, the tour begins with three concerts in Beijing (May 17, 18, and 20), and then moves on to Tianjin (May 22), Hangzhou (May 24), and Nanjing (May 25), before culminating with what is billed as a special anniversary concert in Shanghai (May 26).

Even amid current tensions over trade and other issues, the trip has no official government function, said orchestra president and CEO Matias Tarnopolsky in an interview earlier in the day. However, he added: It is our fervent hope that only good things can come from the presence of the Philadelphia Orchestra in concert halls and conservatories and schools during our trip, where we deeply connect with people, he said, and hope that these acts build bridges.

Chinese officials are expected at two of the concerts, although exactly which ones was not known, he said.

Still, outside of any official diplomatic function, the tour has ambitions on other levels. Sponsors like the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Temple University, and others will use the orchestra as a calling card there.

The Philadelphia Orchestra says it has visited China more times than any other American orchestra, and its leadership aims to attract new philanthropic support in China, where classical music is popular. In December, Beethoven in Beijing, a film by the Philadelphia company History Making Productions that recounts the orchestras 1973 China trip, was runner-up in the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festivals pitch contest.

I am very hopeful that the relationship that we have been building in China over many years will provide some support for the orchestra, not only on tour but also at home, said Tarnopolsky. We are also hopeful that we can recruit one or two to our board of directors from China, so that is part of our longer-term strategy.

Repertoire is to include Beethovens Symphony No. 6 (thePastoral), a reprise from the 1973 visit, as well as the world premiere of a Tan Dun vocal concerto titled The Deer of Nine Colors. Music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin will conduct all seven concerts.

The orchestra and Nezet-Seguin will also be offered up as a kind of prize in a new competition founded by the China Conservatory of Music, with the Philadelphians accompanying each of the three finalists (all pianists) in the last round of the competition, the May 20 concert. First prize includes $150,000 and an award of professional representation.

In addition to its performances in China, the orchestra will engage in education and outreach activities much like the side-by-side performance it hosted Tuesday night with the Shanghai orchestra, which is an arm of the vast media conglomerate Shanghai Media Group.

The free Chinese New Year concert crossed international borders: Philadelphia players sat in principal chairs for the first half  led by Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Zhang Liang  of Rimsky-Korsakovs Capriccio espagnol, Tchaikovskys Capriccio italien, and the cheerful Spring Festival Overture by the Huanzhi Li.

Shanghai players took principal chairs for the world premiere of the revised version of the Symphony No. 10 by New York composer Peng-Peng Gong, with the hybrid orchestra led by Philadelphia Orchestra assistant conductor Kensho Watanabe.

The symphony, subtitled Peking Fantasy, is in a sweet, direct musical language  often sentimental in a pleasant way, other times in a long-winded way. An offstage trumpet solo by David Bilger made for a gorgeous, floating presence. Its a work of highly original sounds presented in a series of vivid episodes.

Particularly striking in the Tchaikovsky were moments of Philadelphia and Shanghai instrumentalists playing solo passages together: oboists Jonathan Blumenfeld and Cheng Yue, and horn players Jeffrey Lang and Ma Chuchen.

After the Gong premiere, the composer brought up on stage Peking Opera master Shang Changrong, whose arias in part were inspiration for the piece. The opera artist took the microphone and with great enthusiasm told the audience in Chinese (as translated by Gong) that music reminds us how much we love each other, and that music is ever without boundaries or borders.

May the people of China and the U.S. treat each other as brothers and friends forever, he said.

Whether this concert and the Philadelphia Orchestras cumulative presence in China can fulfill the ambition implied in the phrase cultural diplomacy is an open question, but classical music these days is clearly placing itself in proximity to power and influence well outside its normal sphere.

A string quartet from the Sphinx Organization recently played Dvorak in Davos at the meeting of the World Economic Forum. When Sen. Lindsey Graham met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara a few weeks ago, Erdogan invited him along to a concert by pianist Fazil Say, which Graham described as one of the best evenings of his life, the New York Times reported.

These kinds of cultural encounters may not have a direct impact on the course of events, but we do it because sometimes music provides the only harmony in earshot. We do it, happily and hopefully, because the alternative dissonance can be just too awful to contemplate.
A disc jockey identified as Jerry Okirwoth has been killed by concert-goers for playing boring music.



Late Jerry Okirwoth, a part time DJ and student at Parombo Secondary School in Uganda was murdered by the mob for failing to play their favourite songs. He was killed in a disco hall in Nebbi District, Northern Uganda.



Nebbi Resident District Commissioner William Bob Labeja blamed the establishments management for failing to protect the fast rising DJ from the angry crowd.



"As the head of security in the district, I will no longer allow any disco operators to conduct their businesses in the sub-county and anybody who defies the directive will be prosecuted.



All disco halls in all sub counties must be closed because they are causing insecurity and redundancy among the youth, he told the press.



In 2014, three Zimbabwean men were charged with murder after assaulting a DJ on Independence Day for playing boring music. Elson Samuel Tirivavi, 22, suffered severe head injuries after he was hit with a chair and a bottle in the ensuing fight.









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The Electoral Commission has described as fake, images being circulated on social media purported to be ballots for the Ayawaso Wuogon Bye Election slated for Thursday, 31st January 2019.



According to reports, the said images are accompanied by a publication to the effect that the ballots were seized from a group of men in the bushes near the Ghana Institute of Management of Public Administration (GIMPA).



However, in a statement, the Commission said the purported images are fake and should be disregarded by well-meaning Ghanaians. The so called ballots bear the old logo of the Commission which was discarded by the Commission last year. The new logo, which is on the surface of the authentic ballots, bears the Coat of Arms of the State, an eagle, a ballot box and a hand casting its vote. The alleged logo displayed on the ballots in the photos being circulated is not the logo of the Electoral Commission.



For the records, the process of printing ballots is meticulously policed by all the Political Parties in an election, and security agencies. Selected Political parties agents remain at the printing houses all through the process. Once printing is completed, the ballots are transported to the nearest police armoury under the supervision of the Political Parties and the police. The transportation process is also monitored and policed until the ballots are securely locked up in the armoury.



The statement further added that: the Electoral Commission urges well-meaning Ghanaians to ignore the fake news and videos, which mischievous members of society will seek to flood the social media space within the coming days and months. We are aware that these elements in our society are planning to spread fake news and videos in order to create fear and panic and cause disaffection for the Electoral Commission. Their activities are aimed at the discrediting and impugning on the integrity of the Chairperson and Deputy Chairpersons, Commission members and the Electoral Commission as a whole. The Electoral Commission remains committed to conducting credible, transparent and fair elections that will uphold the sovereign will of the people.





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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We have credible information that the NPP is on a grand scheme to rig the bye elections at Ayawaso West which is scheduled for tomorrow.



As part of this grand scheme, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, popularly known as Chairman Wontuni is tasked to secretly arrange for buses to bus illegal voters to vote at the bye elections.



We are reliably informed that about 15 buses have been secured by Wontumi from VIP and STC to help mobilize these voters from Tema, Kasoa, Madina and other areas to Ayawaso West.



The information gathered indicated that these buses would pick these illegal voters at 4 o'clock in the morning at their respective terminals.



We have also chanced on some of the registration numbers of these buses and we dare to strike at this unpopular scheme by the NPP.



Again, we send a strong warning to Chairman Wontumi to stay away from the bye elections in Accra. We only know him to be an Ashanti Regional Chairman and as such he should mind his business.



We again want to send a strong warning to the NPP that we shall resist any attempt to rig the bye elections because we are monitoring them closely.





Signed

Francis Mordey

NDC Ayawaso Youth Movement





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The National Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joshua Hamidu Akamba, is certain of a landslide victory for the party in the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections.



Mr Akamba insists the constituency is not an asset to be inherited by the concubine of the late Member of Parliament for the area, Emmanuel Kyerematen Agyarko. On Thursday, January 31, 2019, the Electoral Commission will hold the Ayawaso West-Wuogon constituency by-election.



The seat became vacant following the death of the NPP Member of Parliament for the constituency, Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, who died in November last year and was buried last Saturday at Odumase-Krobo, his hometown.



The New Patriotic Party (NPP), NDC, Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) as well as the Liberal Party of Ghana have all put up candidates for the seat.



But few hours to the elections, the contest seems to have been reduced to a two-horse race as candidates of the NPP, Lydia Alhassan and NDCs Delali Brempong embarked on a house-to-house campaign to canvass for votes.



Speaking on Asempa FM Wednesday, Joshua Akamba said the election was cool chop for the NDC.



He noted that constituents who are tired of the NPPs incompetence were ready to boot them out.



The NDC National Organiser also accused the NPP of vote-buying knowing too well that they had lost the by-elections in advance.



According to him, roads are being tarred, street lights being fixed and even gutters are being desilted as a ploy to woo constituents to vote for the partys Parliamentary candidate.



Joshua Akamba urged the residents not to be swayed by the NPPs communist inferior tactics and vote massively for the NDC.





Source: Adom News









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Former President John Dramani Mahama says education will be a major pillar in the 2020

manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).



Mr Mahama says the upcoming manifesto will deal with the challenges facing the education

sector, with particular emphasis on resolving challenges of the Double Track Senior High School system.



Mr Mahama said this on Monday when he addressed delegates of the NDC in Hohoe in the

Hohoe Constituency as part of his campaign tour of the Volta Region and students of the St.

Francis College of Education besieged the meeting to express their frustrations with

developments on the education front.



He told the trainee teachers that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) failed to tell the truth to

students of Colleges of Education and now reality has caught up with them in government over

the issue of allowance.



Mr Mahama questioned the rational for students of Colleges of Education being subjected to

write licensure examinations and national service, after doing one-year practical teaching as

part of their course.



On the upcoming flagbearership elections slated for February 23, 2018, Mr Mahama urged the

delegates to vote for him, adding that the NDC cannot afford to fail Ghanaians in election 2020

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC] has expressed optimism of winning the upcoming Ayawaso West Wuogon bye-election despite sureness by the NPP that, It is a cool chop for them.



According to the partys National Youth Organizer, George Opare Addo, we are winning this bye-election despite what people are saying about our candidate.



NDCs Parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Delali Kwesi Brempong has been hit with accusations that - he claimed to have questioned NPPs intention to elect a woman as their candidate.



But Delali Kwesi Brempong has vehemently denied the allegation after describing the report as an attempt by the NPP to tarnish his hard-earned reputation and to score political points.



Mr Brempong is competing with three others in Thursday's by-election for the Ayawaso West Wuogon seat which became vacant after the death of Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko.



The NPPs candidate has been highly tipped to win the contest but George Opare Addo in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie said his party will pull a surprise.



We are not afraid despite the accusation, we are winning, we have prepared and I can assure you that the NDC is winning this bye-election, he told host Kwesi Aboagye.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Ambrose_wash









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Audio Attachment:

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Assin Central Constituency on the ticket of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kennedy Agyapong, has strongly refuted claims that he offered a reward for Ahmed Hussein-Suale an investigator with private investigative firm, Tiger Eye PI, to be killed.



This is in spite of empirical evidernce attesting to the fact that he urged his staff to beat the investigative journalist anytime they sighted him on the Oman FM premises located at Madina.



Speaking in an ecxlsive interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Wednesday, the maverick politician also asserted that though he has lots of evidence on Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the Head of the Tiger Eye PI group, but does not trust the Ghana Police Service with his gathered information.



"I never offered a reward for Ahmed to be beaten, killed," he said.



"I don't trust the police. I have a lot of evidence but I don't share with anybody....I will serialise it for Ghanaians to see who Anas is and I am not afraid to die. I can get you voices, people coming out with evidence who are so afraid and who don't trust the police and therefore everything is hanging," the outspoken NPP MP told the BBC.



Click on the attached audio above to listen to the interview.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo yesterday called on the people of the Awayaso West Wuogon constituency to throw their weight behind the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate, Madam Lydia Seyram Alhassan, in the by- election slated for tomorrow.



That, he said, was because the government had done enough within the last two years of being in power.



He, also, on behalf of the NPP, expressed appreciation to the constituents and Ghanaians in general for their support so far and said the NPP had been able to fulfil 41 of its promises within two years of being in office.



President Akufo-Addo, who was addressing the final rally of the party at the La Bawaleshie Presbyterian Basic School Park, said one of his strengths had been his continued faith in God, hence one of the reasons why he had been able to resolve the crisis in Dagbon.



Remembrance



He brought to the fore the role played by Lydia Seyram Alhassan which culminated in her late husband winning the seat twice and asked the people to remember her on the day of the election.



When he had his turn to introduce President Akufo-Addo earlier, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said the NPP had zero tolerance for incompetence and it was for that reason that Ghanaians voted for competence in the person of President Nana Akufo-Addo.



Madam Alhassan, for her part, said security, sanitation, scholarship, women empowerment and youth entrepreneurship would be her focus should she win the seat.



She expressed appreciation to the supporters and the people of the constituency and asked that they continue to remember her, especially on Thursday during the election.



All the NPP machinery, made up of some executives from national, regional and the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency were present at the rally grounds.



The Ayawaso West Wuogon parliamentary seat became vacant after the sudden death of the former MP, Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, on November 21, 2018.



Other contenders



Madam Alhassan faces a stiff challenge from the candidates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Delali Kwesi Brempong and the Progressive People's Party's (PPP), William Kofi Doworkpor, who lost to the late Agyarko in the 2016 elections and Mr Clement Boadi of the Liberal Party of Ghana.



The Chief of Staff, Mrs Frema Osei Opare, appealed to the people to choose the NPP candidate because the NPP was the only party that cared about the people.



The MP for Assin Central, Mr Kennedy Agyapong, called for massive votes for Lydia Alhassan as a way of paying their last respect to the late Emmanuel Agyarko.



The MP for Ablekuma West, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, debunked the claim by the NDC candidate that it was a "mistake" for the NPP to pick a female to contest him and asserted that voting for a woman like Lydia Alhassan would increase the number of women in Parliament and enhance its work.

Source: Daily Graphic









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says his government has fulfilled 41 of its 2016 campaign promises and hoping to do more.



Forty-one promises made by the NPP and its presidential candidate has been fulfilled and delivered within two years. We are not done and I know that, but after the four years, everybody will see that yes, Akufo-Addo was a man of his words and a man of truth, a man of honesty and integrity, Nana Akufo-Addo stated during a bye-election rally at Ayawaso West Wuogon, on Tuesday, 29 January 2019.



According to Mr Akufo-Addo, Ghanaians will realise he is a man of integrity after he completes his first term in office.



President Akufo-Addo, who was addressing the final rally of the party at the La Bawaleshie Presbyterian Basic School Park, said one of his strengths had been his continued faith in God, hence one of the reasons why he had been able to resolve the crisis in Dagbon.









He however called on the electorates to vote massively for the NPP candidate, Lydia Seyram Alhassan, to honour the late MP for the area Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko



Im pleading with you, Lydia is a mother and a widow but because of her love for Ghana and Ayawaso West she has decided to contest and continue the good works of her husband, so vote massively for her to honour her late husband, the President pleaded.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007









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Minority Chief Whip of Ghana's Parliament, Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak has called for the immediate removal from the House the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong for the year 2019.



He said comments made by the Member of Parliament does not befit the credibility bestowed him as a Member of Parliament, therefore he must be suspended for this year.



My view and prayer is that at least he should be sanctioned for the rest of the session and the rest of the session is the rest of the year from all parliament proceedings, so that when he is sanctioned and suspended for the whole of the session it will amount to him losing his humanity on his post, he said.



The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Asawase constituency, Alhaji Mubarak Muntaka in the August House today, Wednesday hotly exchanged words with Kennedy Agyapong over a matter referred to the privileges committee.



He has been referred to the committee due to comments he made months before the killing of Tiger Eye P.I investigator, Ahmed Husein-Suale.



However, the intrusion of some members of the House present at the time prevented the two from engaging in an open fight on top of the exchange of foul words.



The action by the lawmakers took place before the House started its proceedings for the day.

Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Mr Kobby Barlon, the Deputy National Organiser of the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), said the Party will monitor closely every ballot to be cast at the forthcoming Ayawaso West Wuogun Constituency by-election on January 31.



He said: The New Patriotic Party (NPP) will not have it easy this time around as the NDC will not allow any foreign voter to cast a vote in that constituency.



Mr Barlon said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to debunk media allegation that the NDC was considering boycotting the by-election because the Electoral Commission (EC) did not respond to petitions put before it bordering on the Voters Register.



He said the EC rather responded, thankfully, to all the letters written to it and the NDC, as a Party, will take part in the by-election come Thursday, January 31.



Times have changed and the NPP will not have it easy as before. We are going to monitor every single ballot that will be cast on that day, he added.



The NDC complained that there was a disparity of 1,165 voters when the Party compared the figures on the PDF form with that of the printed version of the Voters Register of the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, which was presented to it by the Electoral Commission.



That, Mr Barlon said, necessitated the Party to petition the EC to address the discrepancy accordingly.



He said the ECs explanation to the petition indicated that the additional 1,165 voters include special voters and transfer voters, which were, hitherto, not included in the PDF.







Source: GNA









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Campaigns by the four political parties and their candidates contesting the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency seat were wrapped up in line with the constitutional requirement for such activities to end 48 clear hours ahead of scheduled polls.



The four political parties; the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), rounded up their campaigns yesterday with all of them beaming with confidence of annexing the seat that became vacant following the death of the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, on November 21, 2018, who was subsequently buried last weekend.



LPG



Speaking to the Daily Graphic in separate interviews, the candidate for the LPG, Mr Clement Boadi, said the party had engaged with the electorate for which reason, winning is something that we are not compromising on, that is why we have put in everything and left nothing to chance.



NDC



The NDC candidate, Delali Kwasi Brempong, posits that he does not believe the NPPs candidate will ever pose a threat to his chances of claiming the seat.



He said his confidence was based on the fact that he had already bagged in excess of 20,000 votes in the 2016 election and that his main contender, the NPP candidate, had nothing to show for it except a fresh, unknown face with accompanied challenges.



PPP



For his part, the PPP candidate, Mr William Dowokpor, said he had observed that the wind of change was not blowing in favour of the NPP as it did in 2016.



Rather, it is against the NPP and the NDC, contending that in 2016, the wind of change was strongly against the NDC because people just wanted them out of power.



He was emphatic that with the support of the remaining Nkrumaist parties, he was confident of emerging as the new MP for the constituency.



NPP



Madam Alhassan, for her part, said security, sanitation, scholarship, women empowerment and youth entrepreneurship would be her focus should she win the seat.



She expressed appreciation to the supporters and the people of the constituency and asked that they continue to remember her, especially on Thursday, the election day.



EC and Police



Meanwhile the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr Kwame Amoah, has told the Daily Graphic that preparations are advanced for a successful poll and that all the modalities have been put in place to ensure that nothing happens that will mar the success of the by-election.



The Greater Accra Regional Commander of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr Patrick Adusei Sarpong, said the Command was deploying 600 policemen to provide security for the exercise and that no untoward behaviour from any person or group of persons would be countenanced by the police.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Interior Minister Ambrose Dery has assured Ghanaians, particularly relatives of the girls kidnapped in Takoradi, that the police are making progress in efforts at rescuing the three girls.



He said the police are large and in charge of the matter and are on top of issues, noting they have arrested another suspect in addition to the first one, Samuel Wills, who is currently standing trial for kidnapping and breaking jail.



Even though Mr Dery did not give details on the new leads for security reasons, he maintained the Police are on course.



He is however not sure when the police will be able to find and rescue the girls who are currently being held hostage by the kidnappers.



Pressure has in the last week been mounting on the Police to find and rescue the girls who were kidnapped between August and December last year. A social media campaign is at its peak to push authorities to act before it is too late.



Since last week, the Police CID and some government ministers have been giving assurances to the family members of the kidnapped girls that the victims are alive and still being held hostage within the country.



Im not a prophet



But when the Interior Minister was asked Tuesday when the girls are likely to be rescued, he retorted that he is not a prophet, but said his outfit is committed to bring some good results.



[Im] Interior minister, Im not a prophet; I dont lay any clairvoyance. What I can assure you is a commitment to really investigate the matter and get to the bottom, he told journalists.



The minister expressed optimism, stating the Ghana Police has what it takes; the professionalism is there.



He gave the public his word that they will give off their best to make sure they bring relief to the families of the kidnapped girl and the entire Ghanaian public. He urged all to have confidence in them.



We have a police that is committed, we have an interior minister working under a president that is clear and consistent that is clear and consistent about what he does and delivers. Ghana should have confidence, he noted.







Source: 3news.com









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Ya-Na Abukari Mahama II, Overlord of Dagbon has promised that his administration would bridge the Andani-Abudu gap and draw up a development roadmap that will be beneficial to Dagombas and all the people of Dagbon.



Dagbon has won, not Abudu or Andani and the fact that we all agreed to select one overlord is an indication that nobody is interested in the Abudu-Andani dichotomy.



Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Ghana News Agency(GNA) in Yendi after his coronation, Ya-Na Mahama II said his pre-occupation was the total development of Dagbon and would therefore work with everybody to bring progress.



We have been yearning for peace and now we have it - it is time for us to forge ahead as a people to achieve the development that had eluded us in the past years, due to the dichotomy, he told the GNA at his Gbewaa Palace.



He advised his sub chiefs against partisan politics as that had the tendency to undermine the peace and unity they were enjoying, adding What I need from you now is to come out with ideas that will Fastrack[GE11] development.



Ya-Na advised the Dagbon elites to formulate policies and programmes that would be beneficial to the people and denounce underhand dealings that could derail the development agenda they were putting in place.



As the elites of Dagbon, you have the ears of the youth and therefore have the greatest responsibility of advising them to avoid doing anything that would hold back the development of our communities.



Ya-Na Mahama appealed to the media to uphold high standards of professionalism and do away with controversial issues that could degenerate into conflicts and major misunderstandings.



People see whatever the people put up there as the gospel truth and so if you churn out half-truths and falsehood, then you have the potential of creating troubles.



He said during the 17-year vacuum, some of the media reportage had not been helpful for the unity and peace of the area as it ended up deepening the rift and called on all to be on their guard, overcome trivialities that could create confusion.



Ya-Na Mahama advised other chiefs to be patient for their turn as it was God that chose leaders in every society.



I contested three times without getting it and this time around I was selected and I know that one day you will also have your turn.



Ya-Na promised to also solve all their issues traditionally as that was key in enhancing unity among all stakeholders.



He appealed to other ethnic groups in Dagbon to lend their support for the development of the Kingdom and beyond.



Source: GNA









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Ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas has disclosed the circumstances that led to him employing his colleague Ahmed Hussein-Suale who was murdered on January 16 in Accra.



According to the BBC, Hussein-Suale grew up among eight siblings in Wulensi, a small town in northern Ghana, where he stood out for his fierce interest in politics. At 18 he moved to Accra to study political science at the University of Ghana, where he first met Anas.



Anas had already made a name for himself as an undercover reporter and Tiger Eye was a fledgeling team. Hussein-Suale sought him out the same way several early Tiger Eye employees had, by asking around until someone could tell him: that is the man known as Anas. Anas responded the way he did to all potential recruits - he set him a test: travel to Tema, north of Accra, and report a story there about cocaine. Hussein-Suale went to Tema and promptly failed. He blew his cover and got himself arrested. "He did not perform to my expectation," said Anas, in an interview with the BBC last week. "And that was that."



But Hussein-Suale wrote Anas a long letter explaining why he should be given another chance. "So I gave him another chance," said Anas. "And from that day he excelled from one investigation to the next."



Hussein-Suale's first big story came in 2013 when he travelled with Anas to northern Ghana to expose witchdoctors behind the poisoning of children - often children with disabilities - believed to be possessed by evil spirits. In an elaborate sting typical of Tiger Eye's style, the team arranged for the witchdoctor's "concoction men" to visit a family home with a supposedly possessed child. While the concoction men were outside cooking their poison, the team swapped the infant for a prosthetic baby. When the men returned and took hold of the fake baby, police swooped.



The film - Spirit Child - aired internationally on Al Jazeera. Hussein-Suale, then 24, impressed Anas with his pragmatism, not hesitating when it came to entering the witchdoctor's shrine. "The average African is spiritually afraid of traditions and gods," Anas said. "But Ahmed was always bold."



His natural demeanour was the opposite. He was quiet and unassuming, to a fault. "You would be likely to disregard him at first," said Sammy Darko, Tiger Eye's lawyer, "but that made him a good fit for investigative journalism." He was also scrupulously attentive and diligent. He became known as the "encyclopaedia of the team" for his detailed knowledge of each project, and later as "spiritual leader" for his habit of leading a prayer before undercover operations.



His cubicle at Tiger Eye's offices had notes and documents from various investigations piled on the desk and pasted on the walls. "He would go out quietly and do a lot of background work," said a fellow investigator, "so that when we came on to the story we knew exactly what we were doing." But he also had a playful streak. "I got annoyed with him once," recalled Seamus Mirodan, the director of Spirit Child. "One of the villagers gave him a just-slaughtered guinea fowl as a gift. He put it in my tripod bag and it just shat itself all over the inside of the bag."



In 2015, Hussein-Suale took the lead on a story that would rock Ghana and propel Tiger Eye into the national spotlight. "Ghana in the Eyes of God" - a three-hour undercover epic based on hundreds of hours of secret filming - exposed widespread corruption in Ghana's judiciary, showing judges and court workers accepting bribes to influence cases. More than 30 judges and 170 judicial officers were implicated. Seven of the nation's 12 high-court judges were suspended. The film played to 6,500 people in four showings at the Accra International Conference Centre and brought gridlock to the streets of the capital.



For all Tiger Eye's fans, not everybody appreciated the team's methods. They faced accusations of entrapment. "It is wrong to induce somebody by an enticement of something lucrative, big money or whatever, then turn around and say the person is corrupt," said Charles Bentum, a lawyer for several judges implicated in the expose. "You cannot exonerate the enticer and condemn the victim."



The judiciary story made Anas famous in Ghana. Behind the scenes, Hussein-Suale's combination of diligence and mettle was impressing his boss; he was becoming Anas's right-hand man. In early 2018, Anas asked Hussein-Suale to accompany him to Malawi for a grim story about "muti" - the practice of harvesting human body parts for good luck rituals - that a young Malawian journalist, Henry Mhango, had brought to them. They would collaborate on the story with the BBC. "I chose Hussein-Suale because I knew he had the capacity to withstand the shocks," said Anas.



Culled from the BBC.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The Former Deputy Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Development Agency (GYEEDA), Alhaji Alhassan Tapsoba has been interrogated by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), in connection with the killing of Tiger Eye PI investigator, Ahmed Hussein-Suale.



He was picked up by the BNI on Monday, January 21.



The Ashanti Regional National Democratic Congress (NDC) Communications Officer, Mr. Abass Nurudeen, who made this known in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM said Alhaji Tapsoba's interrogation was as a result of a text message he sent to a close associate of Anas Aremeyaw Anas.



Expressing his displeasure with the BNI, Mr Nurudeen argued that "if someone can be interrogated for a harmless text message, then Kennedy Agyapong has no right to be walking around freely."



The information he put up was that, he was arrested on suspicion. His arrest was in connection with the investigation of the Ahmed Suale murder... that he sent a text message to someone related to Anas, and they believed he is a person of interest in this whole investigation.



"But if that is the case, I think they shouldnt have gone about the whole thing the way they did. The processes were shrouded in secrecy, and it was a fundamental bridge of due process relating to taking people in custody in this country. Why, if someone sends a harmless text message to a member of the Tigar PI team could be picked, why is Kennedy Agyapong waking around a free man, he said.



Hussein-Suale who worked with the Tiger Eye Private Investigations, a private investigative company operated by ace journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, was killed by unknown assailants at Madina on January 16, 2019.



He was shot three times, twice in the chest and another in the neck late in the night while driving home by unidentified men riding a motorbike.



The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has since launched a full-scale investigation into the gruesome murder.



The CID said it had interrogated Mr Agyapong on the alleged inciting comments.

Source: Graphic.com









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The Auditor General, Mr. Daniel Domelevo, says any public servant who has attained the age of sixty years has no option than to proceed on retirement, unless the government gives him or her a five-year contract.



He said his outfit will not entertain anyone who has gone beyond the mandatory retirement age and the five-year contract granted by the government on the payroll of the state.



Quoting Article 199 of the 1992 Constitution, he insisted that public servants must retire at age 60 and nothing else.



According to him, the strict adherence to the law is to make room for the numerous youth who are looking for jobs after completing their university education.



He vowed to investigate and expose all those cheating the system by refusing o go after achieving the mandatory retirement age.



Mr. Domelevo was addressing the 5th Delegates Conference of the Audi Service Divisional Union of the PSWU in Kumasi yesterday.



It was under the theme: The Role of the State Auditor in Protecting the Public Purse.



According to the Auditor General, countries with high unemployment rates always experience instability and vowed to weed out all the over age people in the system to pave way for the youth.



Domelevo was also worried that people who are no more in the employment of the government still have their names on the government payroll, because departments and agencies they worked at are not showing any interest in getting their names off the payroll.



The Auditor General lauded the government for giving the service its budget allocation, revealing that his year his outfit will focus on government contracts procurement audit. This, he said, is aimed at correcting leakages and wastage of scarce government resources.



The Senior Minister, Mr. Yaw Osarfo Maafo, who was the Special Guest of Honour, charged the Audit Service not to be only interested in expenditure, but also focus on revenue leakages at the ports and other government installations.



He expressed worry over Ghanas revenue to GDP discrepancies per ECOWAS database, which is 16%, but 12% in Ghana, a development he said, needed auditing actions to correct.



The Senior Minister denounced corruption, saying it is the enemy of the poor and must be stamped out of Ghana.



The Board Chairman of the Audit Service, Prof Edward Dua Agyemang, expressed worry about the small number of staff of the service.



While he called for the recruitment of skilled people into the service, he urged them to be wary of their attitudes wherever they find themselves.

Source: The Chronicle









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Ghana has joined Niger to become the second country in Africa to host a Risk Analysis Cell (RAC) that will help in the effective gathering of intelligence and sharing of information on border security.



The cell, which was inaugurated at the headquarters of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) in Accra yesterday, forms part of efforts under the Africa-Frontex Intelligence Community (AFIC) project that includes setting up of RAC across eight designated African countries during a three-year period.



Other activities under AFIC include the development of a risk analysis training curricula and training of personnel from all participating countries.



The project is being financed by the European Union (EU) and also supervised by Frontex, an European border agency, which is helping beneficiary countries to collect, analyse and share information based on indicators such as passengers flow, refusals, travel facilitators and documents fraud.



During the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by representatives from various security apparatus and diplomatic communities, the Deputy Minister of Interior, Henry Quartey, who spoke on behalf of the sector minister, Ambrose Dery, indicated that lack of proper intelligence have often had what he called devastating impact on countries.



The effective analysis of information, he said, was therefore important in projecting trends of migration and also predicting threats and vulnerable situation that may emerge out of irregular migration.



The Frontex Head of Third Country Analysis Sector, Roman Fantini explained that the decision to select Ghana to host RAC was based on the commitment of the country that has actively participated in programmes sanctioned by AFIC.



Ghana has provided crucial inputs at all the stages of our development, and it regularly shares information, he added.



The Head of Governance for EU Delegation to Ghana, Maria Luisa Troncoso also mentioned that the EU was always willing to support government to address the root causes of illegal migration.



At the national level, the EU has recently funded the Ghana Integrated Migration Management Approach. Currently we are designing new projects, including a EUTF proposal on border management and the fight against human trafficking, Ms Troncoso added.

Source: Daily Guide









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Spokesperson for the Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Gideon Boako has disclosed that the United Nations Office for Projects has plans to build 100,000 affordable housing units for Ghana under the Sustainable Development Goals 25+5 Cities Projects.



He made this disclosure when the Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia led a Ghanaian delegation comprising the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu; Director-General for Ghana Health Service, Dr. Nsiah Asare and CEO of Ghana Investment and Promotion Centre, Yofi Grant to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.



Speaking on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Dr. Gideon Boako mentioned that through the forum called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was introduced after 15 years of the Millennium Development Goals, Ghana was praised as the first African country to have factored the SDGs into its budget for implementation.



Through this, the United Nations Office for Projects made us know that already, it has measures with Ghana to build 100,000 affordable housing units for Ghana under the SDGs 25+5 Cities Projects, he revealed.



Discussing the impulse of the World Economic Forum, Dr. Boako averred it is a platform which allows world leaders as well as global business leaders to deliberate on the economy and the well being of the people in the world.



The forum again, according to him seeks to find ways through discussions to strengthen the economy of countries; thus the forum allows world leaders to have bilateral discussion to close as well as begin deals which they have not had the opportunity to meet and discuss.



Dr. Bawumias spokesperson however said that Ghana through President Akufo-Addo was honoured for the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda, the governance system in the country and the economic management as well as embracing technology through the introduction of the drone system in the health sector.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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A Circuit Court in Accra has discharged Dr. Dominic Kwame Obeng-Andoh, the director of Obengfo Hospital, a private medical centre in Accra and struck out a case against him for want of prosecution.



He was hauled before the court in June last year on two counts of practising medicine without lawful authority and operating an unlicensed health facility based on a complaint filed by the Ghana Medical and Dental Council (GMDC).



Dr. Obeng-Andoh denied all the charges leveled against him and has been in court at every stage of the proceedings but the complainant- GMDC- failed to assist the court in the matter.



The prosecution was subsequently ordered by the court to comply with the rule on disclosure of documents and serve the medical doctor with all the documents it intended to rely on for the case.



The prosecution asked the court for more time on numerous occasions to gather documents, as well as serve the accused person, which the judge always granted.



The court warned the prosecution that it would be left with no option than to discharge Dr. Obeng-Andoh if fails to serve the accused with the prosecution documents by January 7, 2019 as promised earlier.



The prosecution, instead of complying with the courts order, rather went back to court to seek more time.



Nana Kofi Bekoe, who held brief for Dr. Emmanuel Maurice Ankrah, counsel for Obengfo, however, objected to the prayer, saying the case had been adjourned for three consecutive times at the instance of the prosecution which is again asking for more time.



He disclosed that the Ghana Medical and Dental Council, which is the complainant in the matter, never sent a representative to court.



The court, presided over by Priscilla Dapaah Mireku, reminded the prosecution that it promised during the last sitting to serve the accused with the documents but failed to do so.



She disclosed that Article 19 of the 1992 Constitution states that an accused person is presumed to be innocent unless proven otherwise or the accused person pleads guilty.



If the prosecution is not ready to prosecute its case, the accused person should not be made to suffer their actions. The accused person is therefore discharged and case struck out for want of prosecution, Mrs. Dapaah-Mireku ruled.



She added that the prosecution can pursue the case when its ready to do so.

Source: Daily Guide









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Interpol Ghana has been urged to consider confiscating foreign assets of Nana Appiah Mensah, CEO of troubled gold dealership firm, Menzgold.



The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), has secured a court order confirming the freezing of assets of Menzgold and other related businesses belonging to NAM 1, as he is popularly called.



EOCO has therefore advised his family members, workers and associates in possession of such properties to submit them in their own interest.



Reacting to this, Amanda Clinton lawyer for some of the aggrieved customers of Menzgold said seizing just Nam 1s assets in Ghana will not be enough.



According to her, it will be ideal if there will be a confirmation from Interpol Ghana that they have sent out notification globally and that there is a coordinative attempt for international assets to be seized. It will really be great if Interpol Ghana can confirm that notices have been sent out internationally"



Amanda who was speaking in an interview on Citi Eyewitness news, Tuesday, also welcomed EOCO's action saying it is an indication that something is being done by government to give the customers justice.



We very much welcome this decision from EOCO she said.

Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Mr Joe Gartey, the Minister of Railways Development, has described the 1,300-kilometre joint railway project with Burkina Faso as the biggest infrastructure undertaken since independence, which would impact on the economies of both countries.



The Minister, who met stakeholders in the Volta Region on the project, said aside facilitating communication between the two nations, his outfit, in collaboration with other ministries, would undertake integrated associated developments to benefit communities along the route.



He said a Ghana-Burkina Joint Committee of experts on the project had been constituted and that frameworks were being developed to ensure the project passed the test of time.



Mr Gartey said feasibility studies were ongoing to determine environmental, social, and economic impacts that would help produce detailed designs and possible stops along the way.



He revealed that both local and international consultants were being engaged to undertake feasibility studies and support with strategic analysis.



The Minister said investors had already shown interest in proving housing and other service outlets along the route, which was projected to help expand the lifespan of the Eastern Corridor roads and enhance their sustainability.



He further assured chiefs and land owners that compensations for land use had been factored into the project cost and called on them to support the project.



The line begins from Tema and would travel through Aksombo, Ho, Hohoe, through Yendi, and Paga on its way to Burkina Fasos capital, Ouagadougou.



The project would be developed on a Build Operate and Transfer basis with the Government having already secured funding for the Tema-Akosombo stretch.



Mr Gartey said both local and foreign investors were being sought for the project, which had already attracted about a dozen bids.



Togbe Kotoku XI, the Paramount Chief of Kpenoe Traditional Area, said bad roads in the region must be fixed for the realisation of the projects full economic benefits.



Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, the Volta Regional Minister, said the Regional Coordinating Council would facilitate the project by ensuring hurdles of land acquisition were surmounted.

Source: GNA









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OccupyGhana is delighted that Ghana has passed a fiscal responsibility act. It's a step in the right direction.



But we at OccupyGhana are still grappling with the basic question: will the Act actually control excessive government expenditure now and in the future?



For instance, according to the law, "... the overall fiscal balance on cash basis for a particular year shall not exceed a deficit of five percent of the Gross Domestic Product for that year; and an annual positive primary balance shall be maintained."



We note that:



Overall budget balance = (Primary balance) + (Government Interest Payments).



From this, the following questions and concerns arise:



1. If the primary balance must be positive, why doesnt the Act specify how big it must be (say as a proportion of GDP)?



2. Is it not the case that without specifying the size, arguably, any small positive amount (even GHC 100) would satisfy the law?



3. Wouldnt a cynically pro-spending government have the incentive to choose a primary balance approximately equal to zero?



4. Then given that the primary balance is approximately equal to zero, we get: Overall budget balance = interest payments. That would be legal, but wouldnt that defeat the aims of the law?



5. We note that the law caps the budget deficit-GDP ratio at a maximum of 5%. Doesnt this imply that a government could always borrow to pay interest payments such that annual interest payments are equal to 5% of GDP?



6. Would it then not be the case that Parliament cannot reject it because it is the law and also that with the primary balance at almost zero, only borrowing can finance interest payments?



7. How does the law prevent a government from rolling over the debt perpetually by borrowing to service its debt?



8. In each year, the government sells additional bonds (debt) to pay the interest on the debt and to pay off holders of maturing government debt. However, if the annual interest payments on the debt (before the law became effective) exceed 5% of GDP, would this not imply that the primary balance must have a sufficiently big and positive value?



9. How do we ensure that a self-interested government cannot game this law?



10. Section 3 states the circumstances under which the fiscal responsibility rules may be suspended. These include occurrences such as natural disaster, public health epidemic, drought, an unanticipated severe economic shock including commodity price shocks; and periods where the Gross Domestic Product growth rate is one per cent or less. Although this provision appears necessary for fiscal flexibility, arent there any chances that it could weaken the law?



11. What if a minister of finance claims that because tax revenue fell unexpectedly, pushing the primary balance to be negative, the overall budget had to exceed 5% of GDP? Technically this might not be a violation of the law. In fact, the minister would have considerable discretionary power because the law provides that the "... unforeseen economic circumstances referred to ... shall be such that as a result of the occurrence of the circumstances specified, the Minister is of the OPINION that the implementation of any of the fiscal responsibility rules would be unduly harmful to the fiscal, macroeconomic, or financial stability of the country."



12. Perverse fiscal incentives may not arise if the circumstances that warrant the suspension of the fiscal rules are outside the control of politicians. Commodity price shocks in global markets and natural disasters are examples of events that are outside the control of politicians. But a GDP growth rate of one per cent or less or a low tax revenue need not be events that are outside the control of politicians. They could be the result of mismanagement by politicians and bureaucrats. Why then does the law not define severe in "unanticipated severe economic shock"?

13. If a shock is severe but anticipated or should have been anticipated, does this scenario fall under section 3?



14. Further, doesnt a positive primary balance imply that all non-interest expenditure must be financed from revenue, not borrowing?



15. Is it consistent with this government or any government's big plans (e.g., infrastructural plans)? For instance in September 2018, President Akufo-Addo said that his government may issue a 100-year $50 billion bond for infrastructural and industrial development.



We note that India enacted a Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) law in August 2003. However, the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis disrupted the fiscal consolidation process, leading to a progressive loosening of fiscal targets and eventually an amendment of the FRBM Act in 2012.



We ask these questions and raise these concerns because historically, although the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Act places a limit on advances from the BoG to government, this has been violated by nearly all governments. And, parliament has really never provided effective fiscal oversight of the executive.



Thus while this law is a step in the right direction, we must admit that no law is perfect and laws tend to have technical loopholes. It would appear to us that this law needs a few good men and women for it to work.



However, that is a quality that we cannot guarantee and that is why we wish to raise these questions and concerns, aimed at exploring ways in which the law could be further tightened to prevent future abuse.



Yours in the service of God and Country,



OccupyGhana









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Mr Solomon Sackey, the fifth prosecution in the trial of the alleged murderers of the late Major Maxwell Mahama has said initially he thought he was a suspect when he reported himself to the Police.



Mr Sackey, who spoke through an interpreter in cross-examination told an Accra High Court that he became a prosecution witness after the State ended its committal proceedings and he was discharged together with others.



Mr Patrick Anim-Addo, Counsel for Bismarck Abanga and Kwadwo Anima, asked the witness concerning a video recording, whether he had seen the visuals before writing his first statement at the Bogoso Police station but Mr Sackey answered in the negative.



He said the video was shown to him after he finished writing his statement and even that the police doubted him, when he told them he was in the video.



Were you taken to the Deiso Police station the same day, Mr Anim-Addo asked but the witness answered in the negative, saying it was the following day.



Mr Anim-Addo pointed to the witness that, he gave two different statements at these police stations but Mr Sackey disagreed.



The Defence Counsel emphasized that it was two separate statements the witness gave to the police and that the statement at Bogoso police station was given without mentioning some of the names of accused persons but at the Deiso Police station, he mentioned the names after watching the video but Mr Sackey disagreed.



Mr Augustine Gyamfi, Defence Counsel for Michael Anim and Emmanuel Badu asked the witness, whether he believed the late Major was an armed robber and the witness answered in the affirmative.



Asked, why he believed the late Major was an armed robber, the witness said at that time there were a lot of criminal activities going on and a few days before the incidence happened, there was an armed robbery attack in the area.



It was on this note that Mr Gyamfi ended his cross-examination with the State to present its sixth prosecution witness at the next adjourned date.



The Court presided over by Justice Mariama Owusu, adjourned the matter to Thursday, February 7, for the continuation of the trial.



Fourteen persons are standing trial at an Accra High Court over the killing of Major Mahama, who was an Officer of the 5th Infantry Battalion, at the Burma Camp.



The late Major was on duty at Denkyira-Obuasi when on May 29, 2017 some residents allegedly mistook him for an armed robber and lynched him.



The mob had ignored his persistent plea that he was an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces.



The accused are William Baah, the Assemblyman of Denkyira Obuasi, Bernard Asamoah alias Daddy, Kofi Nyarko aka Abortion, Akwasi Boah, Kwame Tuffour, Joseph Appiah Kubi, Michael Anim and Bismarck Donkor.



Others are John Bosie, Akwasi Baah, Charles Kwaning, Emmanuel Badu, Bismarck Abanga and Kwadwo Anima.

Source: GNA









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The Police in Tumu have arrested three suspected Fulani men in Yigantu community in the Sissala East Municipal area for allegedly gang-raping a 50-year-old woman who was harvesting flower plants (delicacies) to prepare soup.



Three other women managed to escape, narrowly, into Yigantu, which is about 50 kilometres from Tumu, after they were given a hot chase by the assailants.



The perpetrators in the process of the sexual act hit their victims leg repeatedly with a stick, breaking part and fracturing the ankle.



Assistant Ssuperintendent of Police Stephen Abanga Sissila East Municipal Police Commander has told the Ghana News Agency.



HE SAID The 50-year-old woman with four children is currently receiving treatment at Nandom Hospital after she was transferred from Tumu Hospital due to her worsening condition.



ASP Abanga the victim was among four women who had gone into the bush to harvest a specific flower plants for meals and for sale in neighbouring Burkina Faso.



He said the suspects appeared from the opposite direction with one wielding a cutlass and attacked them.



ASP Abanga said three of the women were able to escape, leaving the victim who got raped in turns by the attackers.



ASP Abanga said the three escapees reported the incident in their village and a search party was quickly formed and went to the rescue of the following day.



He said the suspects are Nuhu Dauda, Iddrisu Mumuni and Amadu Bolai.



The Assemblyman of Nabulo Electoral Area who said the women hail from Inusah Nyame told the GNA that, Picking of flower plants is a usual activity among women in the area but the identity of the herdsmen are not known in the area.



What happened appears strange to all of us, he added: The victim is responding to treatment in Nandom, he added.



Meanwhile, the police have confirmed that the case has been transferred to the Upper West Regional Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service in Wa for further investigations.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in partnership with the Crops Research Institute (CRI), has introduced new and improved Vitamin A orange maize varieties to farmers in the Fanteakwa and Atiwa Districts of the Eastern Region.



The move is to enable the farmers to shift from the cultivation of white maize to the new orange and yellow maize to help increase yield for higher income.



The varieties are Honampa, Ahoedzin, Ahoefe and Dzifoo.



Others are Abotem and yellow maize developed by the CSIR and CRI in Kumasi with support from Harvest Plus Project based in International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (Nigeria), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico.



Addressing the farmers and agriculture officers at Saamang in the Fanteakwa South District, Dr Manfred Ewool, Maize breeder at the Crops Research Institute, said samples of the new varieties were given to the Department of Agriculture of the Fanteakwa South and the Atiwa District Assemblies to set up demonstration fields to help educate the farmers in the area on the newly introduced seeds.



He said sensory evaluation was undertaken as part of the programme with the farmers in the preparations of Banku, Ga Kenkey and Tuozafi.



Dr Ewool said the orange maize matures early and also contains Vitamin A, which is very essential for the eyes, skin and even unborn babies.



He said when used as poultry feed, the eggs laid look a bit yellowish and are healthier than those fed with the white maize, hence the need for farmers to adopt these newly improved seeds.



Dr Ewool said that the varieties have already been introduced to farmers in the Central, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Eastern Regions.



He said currently extensive promotion of Vitamin A orange maize varieties is ongoing by CSIR and CRI in 35 communities in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions with support from the World Food Program.



Dr Ewool called on the government to include the orange maize varieties in the School Feeding Programme to improve the nutritional values of food given to the children.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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U.S. Intelligence Chiefs Contradict Trump On North Korea and Iran

01/30/19

Source: Radio Farda

The latest global threat assessment by U.S. intelligence chiefs indicate that Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons. The assessment also concludes that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear stockpile.

A new American intelligence assessment of global threats has concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not, for now, taking steps necessary to make a bomb https://t.co/qvELSUVTQr  The New York Times (@nytimes) January 30, 2019

Instead, U.S. intelligence chiefs told senators on Tuesday that China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades. According to various reports, U.S. intelligence leaders' testimony repeatedly contradicted President Donald Trump's statements on global threats.



Director of national intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran continued supporting terrorism in Europe and the Middle East, including sponsoring Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militants in Iraq. He also said that he believed Iran hard-liners would continue to challenge centrist rivals, reported the New York Times on Tuesday January 29.



"We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device," Mr. Coats said. However, he added that Iranian officials have "publicly threatened to push the boundaries" of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, if it did not see the benefits it expected.



The U.S. withdrew from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed a series of crushing sanctions on Tehran which have paralyzed its ailing economy. While withdrawing from the deal, President Donald Trump said Iran would "be on the cusp of acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons" if the deal stayed in place.



Asked if Iran remained in compliance with the nuclear deal, CIA Director Gina Haspel said it was, but added that Iranian leaders were considering steps that would "lessen their adherence" to the agreement.



"They are making preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision," Ms. Haspel said, adding however, that "At the moment, technically they are in compliance, but we do see them debating among themselves because they haven't seen the economic benefits from the deal."



Iranian officials have recently said the country's nuclear facilities were ready to enrich uranium at 20% level.



Meanwhile, Coats who was accompanied by the directors of the CIA, FBI and other top intelligence officials at the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual hearing on worldwide threats, said "China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways - to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure."



Coats also said some U.S. allies are seeking more independence, responding to their perceptions of Washington's changing policies on security and trade, and "are becoming more open" to new partnerships, Reuters reported.



On North Korea, while Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat, Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons.



The remarks by intelligence chief came only a month before Trump's planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, in a second round of direct negotiations aimed at ridding encouraging Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons stockpile .



Marking yet another contrast between the views of U.S. intelligence chiefs and President Trump, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats challenged Trump's view about the defeat of ISIS, which was used to justify the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria.



According to the annual "Worldwide Threat Assessment" report to Congress , ISIS "still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria," as well as maintaining several branches and a dozen networks around the world.
Three Members of Iran's Writers Association Charged With National Security Crimes for Opposing Censorship

01/30/19

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

Three senior members of the Iranian Writers Association (IWA) have been charged with national security crimes for peacefully protesting state censorship policies, according to a statement posted by the trade union on Facebook on January 22, 2019.

IWA board members Baktash Abtin, Reza Khandan Mahabadi and Keyvan Bajan were charged with "propaganda against the state," "assembly and collusion against national security" and "encouraging women into corruption and prostitution" for allegedly printing declarations and internal publications opposing the censorship of art and literature in Iran, said the statement.

Mahabadi and Abtin were released from Tehran's Evin Prison on January 27 and 28 respectively after being detained on January 22. During their detention, they were denied access to counsel and only released after posting bail set at one billon tomans (approximately $237,000 USD at the time) set by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

Bajan is also expected to post bail "in the next few days," Mahabadi told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) after he was released.

"The detained IWA members asked for time to get a lawyer and exercise their right to defense but Judge Moghiseh said they were capable of defending themselves and effectively rejected their right to have a lawyer," said the IWA statement.

"Then he raised the bail amount for each one of them from 100 million tomans to a billion tomans. Unable to post bail, the IWA members were taken into custody and transferred to Evin Prison," added the statement.

Abtin, Mahabadi and Bajan were initially accused of printing internal documents and publications without a permit in the spring of 2015 and charged with "propaganda against the state" based on a complaint from the Intelligence Ministry, which operates under President Hassan Rouhani.

At the time, Baktash was detained for several days while Mahabadi and Bajan were summoned for questioning before they were all charged.

Three years later, Judge Moghiseh added two more charges to their open cases: "assembly and collusion against national security" and "encouraging women to corruption and prostitution" for allegedly publishing an IWA statement that criticized security forces for arresting citizens who have peacefully protested the state's compulsory hijab law.

"I would like to emphasize that these pressures have been brought on by the security and judicial agencies," Mahabadi told CHRI in June 2018.

"But the imprisonments, beatings and intimidations will not deter me or my colleagues from defending freedom of speech and seeking the truth and punishment of those responsible for the chain murders," he added.

In June 2018, Abtin, a poet and filmmaker, was sentenced to three months of community service to be performed for the State Welfare Organization of Iran and five million tomans ($1,182 USD) for posting a photo of a man injured by police on his Instagram account.

The IWA, an independent group of authors, poets, editors and translators based in Iran was formed in May 1968 to fight against state censorship.

Governments before and after Iran's 1979 revolution have persecuted its members.

In 1998, writer Majid Sharif, opposition politician Dariush Forouhar, his wife Parvaneh Eskandari and writers Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh-all IWA members-were murdered in cold blood.

An investigation by President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government concluded that the murders had been carried out by "rogue elements in the Intelligence Ministry," forcing the minister in charge, Ghorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, to resign.

Top ministry officials Saeed Eslami (Emami), Mostafa Kazemi and Mehrdad Alikhani were also arrested, and information about the murders was leaked to the media.

During a judicial inquiry, the prosecution revealed that the chain murders were part of a systematic policy to physically eliminate political and cultural dissidents inside and outside of Iran-a policy that had begun a decade earlier with the assassination of moderate opposition politician Kazemi Sami on November 23, 1988.
Paxton, IL (60957)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.
Following this week's brutal, homophobic attack in Chicago by MAGA supporters on Empire's Jussie Smollett is an outpouring of love and support from fans and famous friends.

The attack occurred at 2 am as Smollett left a Subway, when he reportedly heard someone ask "Aren't you that f*ggot Empire n*gger?" and was beaten by two white men in ski masks, who, during the attack, "wrapped a rope around the [Smollett's] neck," according to a statement from Chicago police. In Empire, Smollett plays a gay character; he came out publicly as gay on Ellen in 2015.



While Chicago PD investigates the attack, which is reportedly being treated as a "possible hate crime," Smollett has been recovering in a hospital from his injuries. He is said to be "in good condition." The most alarming aspect for many Americans lies in the invocation of MAGA sentiments  "This is MAGA country," the assailants reportedly shouted  in addition to the attack's similarities to lynching. It has now been revealed that a letter may have been posted to Fox Studios in Chicago about a week before with an anonymous threat, indicating that the attack most likely wasn't just an offhand incident.

And thankfully, the incident is spurning a lot of valuable discussion about racism, homophobia, and the ways in which our divisive political climate encourages those things. Many activists and entertainers are using their platforms to draw attention to these issues. See some of the responses below.
Proud to Share Forest Product Industry Story on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC AF&PA Guest Blog by Rodney Rowser, M1 Stock Prep Operator, WestRock Pulp and Paperboad Mill, Demopolis, Alabama; Member, Pulp and Paperworkers' Resource Council Jan. 29, 2019 - In the words of the JCPenney department store founder James Cash Penney, Growth is never by mere chance: it is the result of forces working together. The same teamwork holds true for the Pulp and Paperworkers' Resource Council (PPRC)  the national grassroots labor organization that represents workers in the forest products industry. And, it's why, as a PPRC member, I'm proud to be traveling from Demopolis, Alabama where I have worked for 27 years at the WestRock Company Paper Mill to Capitol Hill for PPRC's annual Fly-In from Feb. 5 - 7. The PPRC's main objective is to serve as an advocate for the nearly one million industry employees in six regions across the United States. During the Fly-In, we look forward to giving labor a voice on matters that could adversely impact the dedicated workforce we represent. It's a pivotal time not only for the council but for the workforce back home who trust us to represent them. We'll be meeting with Members of Congress and key decision makers to educate them about how certain environmental and regulatory decisions could directly impact our communities and families. Considering the fact that we are raising our children in these rural and urban areas, we are dedicated to the conservation of the environment. We also maintain that fair and reasonable regulations can be attained without putting unnecessary stress on our manufacturing workers and surrounding communities. Just as council members did when the PPRC was founded in 1991 in response to the closing of a Pacific Northwest Mill  a move which drastically affected the livelihood of many families and their communities  we will share our current concerns. Many small towns depend on the revenue generated by mills for survival and growth. The impact of a mill closing in a small rural area like Demopolis, Alabama could prove to be detrimental to families, businesses, and schools due to a high number of job losses. We will work together just like James Cash Penney did and advocate for our jobs and families on Capitol Hill. That teamwork will help support our industry's ability to help grow the economy and create American manufacturing jobs. I couldn't be happier to be a player. The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) serves to advance a sustainable U.S. pulp, paper, packaging, tissue and wood products manufacturing industry through fact-based public policy and marketplace advocacy. AF&PA member companies make products essential for everyday life from renewable and recyclable resources and are committed to continuous improvement through the industry's sustainability initiative  Better Practices, Better Planet 2020 . The forest products industry accounts for approximately four percent of the total U.S. manufacturing GDP, manufactures approximately $300 billion in products annually, and employs nearly 950,000 men and women. The industry meets a payroll of approximately $55 billion annually and is among the top 10 manufacturing sector employers in 45 states. Visit AF&PA online at www.afandpa.org or follow us on Twitter @ForestandPaper . SOURCE: AF&PA
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Oswego, NY (13126)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 79F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
The golden-winged warbler has made its home in Richland Deer Creek Marshs open areas with herbaceous vegetation that support insects and spiders and use mature forests in breeding season. Due to an imbalance of mature and young forest, the golden-winged warbler is listed as high priority Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN)
U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-Utica, represents the eastern half of Oswego County and today (Wednesday, Jan. 30) made his first address from the floor of the House of Representatives.
At 180,000 gross-tons and 1,130 feet long, Mardi Gras will be the largest ship in the Carnival fleet. It will be sailing out of Port Canaverals Terminal 3, which is undergoing renovation now. The ship is powered by liquefied natural gas and will be the first such cruise ship to home port in North America.
The snake was safely removed and relocated, and the customer handled the situation like an absolute champ, having a sense of humour about it the entire time. She said her toilet habits have forever changed! Lights will be on, and she will always give the bowl a quick glance before sitting down.
The majority of fatalities from shark bites is due to blood loss, or the shock from blood loss, Huveneers told 9News. If we can reduce that blood loss from minimizing injury, and with rapid emergency responses, we can hopefully increase the survival rate of people being bitten by sharks.
There are studies to support whichever position you prefer. The arguments in favor of cameras are just as persuasive as those against them. And it pains me greatly to say that.
Respondent or his relatives were the recipients of those gifts while respondent simultaneously participated as a voting member on an entity that was approving issues that could benefit or harm the donors. Thus, the respondent either knew or should have known that the gifts were being provided to garner favor because respondent was in an official position to make decisions in matters directly involving Coreys clients, Miller and Sweets, she wrote, referring to another undercover FBI agent who went by the name of Mike Sweets.
In November, Virgin filed a preliminary notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission of its intent to issue common stock. Coming as the first such offering, the company is about to begin construction of rail infrastructure from West Palm Beach to Orlando International Airport.
There is no immediate budget for the project, aside from a reported $85,000 from Florida Blue for some initial administrative expenses. But Bailey said the project will operate much like the homelessness effort, which was able to win increased federal grants and persuade the Florida Legislature to free up funds for housing and social workers. The first steps, though, are to figure out who is already working on the problem locally, what the gaps are and how to fill them. There is also expected to be a public awareness campaign on the drugs' dangers and where to seek help.
More than a few policymakers in Brussels watched the British debate with mouths agape, noting that it appeared to reflect little about the political realities in the rest of the 27 EU countries. Many of the ideas debated in the House of Commons have already been considered by British and EU negotiators over months of discussions, then were discarded because both sides felt they were unworkable.
The surreal reality of being a widow has torn me apart and left me gasping for air. Every day Im reminded in some way of my husbands absence, the social-media post read. Your actions of drunk driving ended my husbands life and created a giant void that our family and friends will never be able to fill. Your careless behavior caused the end of a loving marriage
A woman smashed a beer bottle over another woman's head at a bar in the Florida Keys because she thought the victim had grabbed her boyfriend in the crotch, and the boyfriend got into a fight and was told to leave but forced his way back in by kicking the door off its hinges, deputies said Wednesday.
TAMPA  Prosecutors will not retry a Florida man who served 30 years for a racially charged murder after a judge tossed his conviction and life sentence because of new evidence.



The Tampa Bay Times reports 47-year-old Dean McKee wept Wednesday when prosecutors announced in court they dropped the charges and he was allowed to walk free.



McKee was 16 in 1987 when he and his 18-year-old brother Scott were charged with killing 41-year-old Isaiah Walker, a homeless black man. The brothers were professed neo-Nazis.



Scott McKee got a one-year sentence for testifying it was his brother who stabbed Walker. Dean McKee was convicted of murder and got life.



Judge Lisa Campbell concluded in 2017 that DNA evidence raised serious doubts about Dean McKee's guilt and pointed to Scott McKee. He has not been charged.



___



Information from: Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Fla.), http://www.tampabay.com.



Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
"It's better that 100 guilty people go free than one innocent person goes to jail," he said, according to TC Palm. "Our goal is always justice, and there was more than enough reasonable doubt on our part on all those arrests that we would not have left anyone in jail one more minute."
Authorities say a Florida deputy shot and killed a K-9 that attacked him while he was feeding the dog.

The Ledger reports that the attack and shooting occurred Monday night.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said K-9 Deputy Scott Cronin had been feeding the dog, Recon, for about a week while the dog's normal handler was out of town. The deputy said Recon clamped down on his hand, and the dog wouldn't release him, forcing him to shoot the dog.

Officials say Cronin suffered a serious injury and underwent surgery on his hand.

Carrie Horstman, a spokeswoman for the Polk County Sheriffs Office, told the newspaper that Cronin is extremely upset and added that it is heartbreaking all around.

Recon had been with the department for three years, and officials say they're not sure what prompted the attack. They say it's common for K-9 deputies to take care of each other's dogs when they are away from home.
Ryan Nihart, 26, of Homosassa in Citrus County pleaded no contest to battery and criminal mischief, according to the State Attorneys Office for Floridas 7th Judicial Circuit. He was adjudicated guilty and also will serve a year of probation.
Two sheriffs detectives went to Ridge Community High School in Davenport to investigate a fight between two students, according to the arrest report. When they started to take a female juvenile into custody, a tussle ensued and Franklin intervened and pushed a detective, the report shows.
Flight 198 took off at 6:30 a.m. for LaGuardia Airport in New York, but returned at 7:30 a.m. after fumes reportedly were detected in the cockpit. In a statement, a JetBlue spokesperson said the flight returned to OIA out of an abundance of caution after the crew reported an odor. The aircraft will be inspected before returning to service, and flight 198 will continue on a different aircraft.
The letter detailed problems the family was having, which centered on roughly $200,000 that family members believed Grant Amato had stolen from them to send to a Bulgarian woman he met online. It included the line, I said Id take care of all your problems at the house and I have. No one will bother you again regarding this, just please come home.
In Tuesdays statement, he said he has increased the staff in the departments bureau of educator certification, put a new leader in charge and given Floridas superintendents a single point of contact to report any problems and a request that they submit the names of applications that need to be prioritized so the department can take prompt action.
Whatever Hippocrates meant when he said art is long, life is short, we usually take the saying to illustrate one indisputable medical truth and one more philosophical: everyone dies, but art lives for hundreds, thousands, of yearsand may in some sense be a kind of immortality for the artist. This was probably what Salvador Dali meant when he said, Si muero, no muero por todoIf I die, I wont completely die. But maybe he knew hed return one day in another form as well.

What if artists could go on living forever alongside their work? Or be called up any time we want to have a conversation. Long a staple of science fiction, hologram technology can now bring back famous pop stars, to varying degrees of uncanniness. It has not, until now, summoned a deceased famous artist. But as long as theres an extensive audio-visual record with which to reconstruct the celebrated dead, it can be done, and now it has. You can see the results yourself in the video trailers here.









Among modern artists, only Andy Warhol left a more complete record of his public persona. The hologram Daliaccording to a press release from Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, who will debut him in person, so to speak, this coming Aprilcomes alive through the work of an algorithm that maps information culled from hundreds of interviews, quotes, and existing archival footage onto the body of an actor of similar size and build. Dalis conversation is not spontaneous but constructed from his own writings and reenacted. Its not the stuff of Star Trek yet, but maybe a significant step in that direction.

Greetings, purrs Dali in the trailer at the top, from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I am Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech. And I am back. Visitors to the Dali Museum will see the ersatz Dali in Dali Lives and experience his bigger-than-life personality in an up close and personal way. Will they truly get the unique opportunity to learn more about Salvador Dalis life and work from the person who knew him best: Dali himself? Will they feel like its worth the price of the ticket, at least?

It certainly seems convincing. If you had told me these clips came from actual interview footage, I might have believed you. Except for the part about him returning from the dead after 30 years. If, however, it were possible to really bring Dalis consciousness back online, I doubt hed be particularly surprised. Though he confesses his fear of death in the short video above, he also tells us, I do not believe in my death. Or as he once said elsewhere, I believe in general death but not the death of Dali absolutely not. I believe in my death becoming almost impossible. Or as he might also have put it, art is long, and so am I.

via Boing Boing

Related Content:

Walk Inside a Surrealist Salvador Dali Painting with This 360 Virtual Reality Video

Salvador Dali Figurines Let You Bring the Artists Surreal Paintings Into Your Home

Alfred Hitchcock Recalls Working with Salvador Dali on Spellbound: No, You Cant Pour Live Ants All Over Ingrid Bergman!

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
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Yes. I would be the first in line.

No. I don't trust that a vaccine will be safe.

I plan to, but I want to wait to see effects of first doses.

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Watkinsville, GA (30677)

Today

Light rain this morning. Thunderstorms likely by evening. Rain will be heavy at times in some storms. High 81F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Becoming partly cloudy after some evening light rain. Low 71F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.
Stillwater, OK (74078)

Today

Sunny with gusty winds developing this afternoon. Hot. High 99F. Winds SSW at 20 to 30 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.
The Catholic bishops, the most publicly relentless opponents of victims access to justice, have been running out of arguments against the irrefutable logic of child sex abuse statute of limitations (SOL) reform. At first, they opposed SOL reform, period. Their battle against extending the civil and criminal SOLs did not last long, because it implied that they expected to have ongoing problems in the future. But they continued to ferociously battle the lookback, or window, legislation that revives expired civil SOLs.
Transparency isnt only important for the employees next prospective employers. Employers should also reveal to their own employees that they fired someone because he or she was found to have violated the law prohibiting sexual harassment. Even in the #MeToo movement era, sexual harassment remains prevalent and the surveys continue to show that very few women ever complain to their employers because they fear retaliation and that employers fail to take effective actions upon complaints.
The existing discovery laws are among the most regressive in the nation. The governors proposal would mean that as far as New Yorks discovery rules go, the state would become a national leader overnight. A similar bill introduced on the same day by Sen. Jamaal Bailey of the Bronx and Assemblyman Joe Lentol of Brooklyn would largely have the same effect.
Reality, via Coats: ISIS still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, and it maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks, and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world.
The measures tighten up background checks; bar the arming of teachers; ban bump stocks; initiate a buyback program for illegal guns; and, most contentiously, empower courts to prevent people deemed threats to themselves or others from owning a gun. All will make New York, where firearms are relatively hard to get and gun violence is low, safer still.
We travel to the retreating ice margins, sample newly exposed plants preserved on these ancient landscapes and carbon date the plants to get a sense of when the ice last advanced over that location, Pendleton said in the statement. Because dead plants are efficiently removed from the landscape, the radiocarbon age of rooted plants define the last time summers were as warm, on average, as those of the past century.
The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! the President tweeted. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflictThere (sic) economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!
I love her, I wish she was President, she got three million more votes than Donald Trump did, Podesta said, referencing Clintons popular vote win in 2016. I think she would have been a great President, but thats in the past and she says shes not running.
A real plan hasnt been presented, a plan that will detail exactly what will be done, what it will cost, said Assemblyman Robert Carroll (D-Brooklyn), who actually supports congestion pricing. If you did that, I think you would get a lot more positive responses. Right now people just dont believe you.
She said shes been stuck on a train for more than 30 minutes. Its horrible when you're stuck underground without service so you can't send any text or emails to say youre going to be late, she said.
Donald Trump gave the order to kill me, told the Colombian government, the Colombian mafia to kill me, Maduro told Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti. If something happens to me once, Donald Trump and Colombian President Ivan Duque will be responsible for everything that happens to me.
The panel, which is chaired by House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and consists of bipartisan leaders from both chambers, has been tasked with figuring out how to bankroll the government with full fiscal year spending and overcome Trumps demand for at least $5.7 billion in taxpayer cash for the border wall he used to promise Mexico would pay for.
As Foxconn has discovered, there is no better place to build, hire and grow than right here in the United States," Trump said at the companys groundbreaking last June.. "America is open for business, more than it has ever been open for business.
An Amazon spokesman said over the past several weeks the company has been reaching out, and asserted this project will no doubt help improve the city and state economy now and in the long-term, and we will keep promoting the benefits. We appreciate all of the governors work to make this a reality.
In his rollout, Johnson pledged that he would not accept more than $250 from any single donor  vastly below the legal contribution limits for the 2021 mayoral race. While the promise will require him to raise cash from more individual donors, Johnson will be able to leverage local contributions for city matching funds  at a ratio of 8 to 1.
I knew that I needed to take action to help our environment, he said, noting that hes had to evacuate his home more than once due to major hurricanes sweeping across the Sunshine State. What climate change means to me is the difference between having a home to return to or not.
Shame on you. Shame on you, shame on your corporation for coming to New York City, because both you and I believe the administration have made a distinction somehow that because this is a headquarters, those people working in those buildings dont need representation, dont deserve to be in a union, Van Bramer said. All workers should have the right to be in a union, all workers should have the right.
As part of the process of ensuring that no eligible voters are impacted by any list maintenance activity, we are continuing to provide information to the counties to assist them in verifying eligibility of Texas voters, the secretary of states office said in a statement to the Daily News.
According to Christie, Trumps inner circle viewed the embarrassing clip about an hour before it went public. Christie also recalls advisers Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon being part of the team plotting to spin the October surprise that stood to derail Trumps presidential ambitions. He writes that they kicked around the idea of going with the textbook non-confessional apology if anyone is offended, which dodges taking responsibility for the offense itself.
I work in HR. In our case I can say this is totally not the reason we don't want you to share salary info, she wrote. We 100% don't want you to know that we are paying new hires three times what we're paying our incumbents due to a stingy pay increase structure. Pretty common in corporate.
Louisa Moritz was a brave woman who stood up against a powerful Hollywood icon, Bill Cosby, in an effort to restore her good name and reputation, after he publicly branded her a liar when she made public her allegations of sexual abuse and assault by Mr. Cosby, her lawyer on the defamation case, Joseph Cammarata, said in a statement to The News.
Her quote to me was, I would rather die than go back there. ...I would rather die than go back to New Jersey. She actually put it on Facebook, and I made her take it down because I was up for a job in New York. I said, You cannot put that on Facebook. People wont hire me, because they thought we came as a pair, Blackstone told the cops.
If it werent for our vehicle hitting the right front wheel, he would have burned. It was by the grace of God, really, Cramer told the Ledger-Transcript. If you look at the wreckage, and you look at the video of the Jeep as it was being hit, you just dont see how someone can survive that.
Shortly before 1 a.m., Hendren emptied all the bullets from the firearm, replacing only one of them before closing the chamber, police wrote in a probable cause statement. He spun the cylinder, took aim and pulled the trigger, but it did not go off.
Ella was shot seven times in the attack including in the face, neck and upper chest. One gunshot also severely damaged an artery in her right arm, which had to be replaced. Doctors have informed said the teen may never fully recover the use of her arm.
And the 340-pound dad, currently being held at the Rockcastle County Detention Center, made his kids stand two steps from a wall and lean on it with their heads for between 15 and 30 minutes. Hes being held on a $10,000 bond.
Mexico does not plan to accept the return of any migrants younger than 18 or older than 60, the head of the countrys immigration agency said Monday. Migrants will also only be accepted from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and only at the El Chaparral crossing in Tijuana.
"Don't leave your pets outside unattended in this weather. Period," ChicagoLand Dog Rescue wrote on Twitter. "Make sure your gates are latched and your dog(s) cannot escape your yard. Take precautions and keep them safe. It's going to be crazy cold and there is no margin for error in the care of your pets."
In addition to that third triumph, he was nominated for two other Oscars that night for creating the music for iconic songs Papa, Can You Hear Me? and The Way He Makes Me Feel.
I have said this many times before; I will hold people accountable who violate Missouri law regardless of their profession, public status or station in life, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner said in a statement last week.
On Monday, Smith was sentenced to 20 years incarceration on charges of first-degree burglary and necrophilia. That penalty was reduced Tuesday after the court decided the funeral home Smith broke into was, in fact, a business, not a home, which would have mandated a heavier sentence. Smith pleaded guilty.
Who traveled in an armored car with security guards? she asked in a rapid-fire recitation of El Chapos charmed life. Who has not one but two tunnels (leading) to the United States? Who has a mile-long tunnel built under the shower in his prison cell?
I have to make them nervous, Jacobson tells a co-conspirator in one conversation, referring to an American citizen from Brooklyn who married a Russian-born immigrant. This time, this is where I make both of them nervous. I wanna say, Hey this is a fake marriage, this is what I believe and tell me the truth. You know, stuff like that, thats what I do with everybody.
Convicted or murder and robbery, they each spent more than 20 years behind bars but are now trying to clear the names with the help of a number of witnesses who say they falsely identified Smokes, now 51, and Warren, now 48, under pressure from police and prosecutors.
We had three individuals of one ethnicity attacked, but we have to dig deep and support what happened with all the information and all the interviews, Shea said, explaining why Martunovich wasnt immediately hit with hate crime charges. I think when all is said and done we will have a hate crime in that case charged.
Police investigators are seen here on 225th St at 138th Ave. The silver SUV is believed to have been connected to the shooting of a robbery suspect by a retired correction officer. (Sam Costanza for New York Daily News)
Green and a second man were accused or running the ring from a Crown Heights apartment, with two girls, ages 16 and 17, among their three sex workers. One of the two minors was held at the residence against her will, escaping when one of her captors fell asleep  with the girl then calling her mom. The teen told her mother that Green and his partner were holding her against her will while forcing her to work as a hooker.
Its a precautionary measure, that source said. If the 4-1 is an issue, lets look at the other squads. I see it this way: McCormack, whos pretty new [in that assignment], he doesnt want to be embarrassed. I know hes going to look to put the fear of God in Bronx detectives if anything is going on.
ICE agents are terrorizing immigrants, breaking up families, and undermining our justice system  enough is enough. With ICE in our courthouses, immigrants are intimidated and unwilling to come forward. Witnesses do not want to appear in court and victims of abuse cannot report their abusers, said Viverito, who touted her opposition to ICE when she was Council Speaker.
There is no reason why 100% of the MTA subway system should not be accessible, said Jones, who added that he often relies on police officers, firefighters or even strangers to carry him and his chair up and down staircases when no elevators are available.
There were a couple of times in the fall of 2009 after I changed jobs that Shele and I talked about her divorce and what was going on with Rod, Pennington said, adding shed assured Shele Covlin shed be happy to offer support as a friend but also as somebody who has a background in those kinds of cases.
He posted the news of the stores closing Tuesday on Facebook with notice of his "store-emptying sale. On Wednesday, three shoppers were lined up outside in the January wind for him to open the door.
Rome, GA (30161)

Today

Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 88F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
This week is National School Choice Week and The School District of Lee County (SDLC) is proud to be a school choice school district. With 24 charter schools, we are the second largest charter district in Florida. Our students and their families may choose the K-12 educational option that is best for them from among 96 traditional public schools, the charter schools, online schools, private schools and home schooling.

The school choice movement is about ensuring equity and access for all students to high-quality teaching, curricula, and the resources needed for academic success. In addition to rigorous core academic offerings, it is also about providing a variety of educational opportunities to prepare students for institutions of higher learning and those of employers. Transparency in opportunities, resources, and student outcomes at schools from which families may choose is key to successful operation of a school choice district.

Why is The SDLC a school choice school district? In 2004, after extensive community input, The SDLC adopted The Plan for Student Assignment, an enrollment plan designed to maximize access to diverse educational programs, provide greater opportunities for students to attend schools closer to home, decrease ride time for students and reduce transportation costs. Our student enrollment plan promotes stability for students and encourages a healthy competition among schools striving for academic excellence. It also gives us the flexibility to offer a variety of academic and career academy offerings while controlling the costs of providing a rich learning environment.

How does The School District of Lee Countys student enrollment plan work? Our school district spans almost 900 square miles, so schools are organized into zones-East (Lehigh), South (Fort Myers, Bonita and Estero), and West (Cape Coral). When students are ready to enroll in elementary, middle or high school, parents and students enter a lottery based on the zone in which they live. The lottery provides preference for siblings and school proximity and, unless students move, they are allowed to remain in the school to which they are assigned until they finish the highest grade level. We believe stability in student assignment is one way to promote higher levels of student achievement in the District.

What kind of choices are offered to students and families?

Elementary schools differ in extracurricular offerings, including before and after school activities. Some elementary schools have uniform policies, some do not. In an effort to (1) limit the number of elementary offerings available to each family and (2) reduce bus times for elementary students, an amended elementary school proximity plan is in the works-one that will ensure access to the same extracurricular offerings at each elementary school.

For middle school students, there is diversity in non-core academic offerings, offerings intended to enrich curricular opportunities for students: Cambridge, International Baccalaureate, and Arts. At STEAM schools (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), students may earn professional certifications.

At the high school level, differences in offerings, resources, and opportunities are more pronounced. For students looking for challenging academic programs, there are International Baccalaureate, Cambridge, and Advanced Placement tracks. Each school zone also has an Arts High School, and schools specializing in engineering and technology. Schools also offer Career Academies like construction, aviation, HVAC, veterinary, nursing and teaching, for students who want to enter the workforce upon graduation.

Bottom line, The School District of Lee County offers career programs that correspond with local career opportunities and academic challenges suitable for a broad spectrum of student ability, interests, and achievement levels. That is what the school choice movement, and we, encourage and celebrate.

 Cathleen Morgan represents District 7 on the School Board

of Lee County
The North Fort Myers Recreation Center has many programs designed for seniors, and it has just added two more.

Ageless Grace is a class that focuses on brain health and fitness.

This program uses five strategies to enhance balance, stability and range of motion while sitting in a chair.

The class is offered Thursdays from 9 to 9:45 a.m. The cost is $5 per class.

They use tools to stimulate the five functions of the brain. Strategic planning, memory and recall, analytical thinking, creativity and imagination, and learning, said Tiffany Vance, of the recreation center. Your brain is in control of everything.

Sit and Be Fit is focused on toning and building muscle, while exercising from a chair using arm bands or free weights.

This class is offered Fridays from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. The cost is $3 per class.

Vance said these classes already have eight participants, thanks to word of mouth, and can accommodate up to 30.

There are numerous programs offered for seniors at the rec center.

One of the programs they are really trying to boost is chair volleyball, which happens Wednesday at 12:30 p.m..

We set up a badminton net in the dance room and use a beach ball. Its really fun, but we need participants, Vance said. We get a different person each week coming in and we want them here at the same time.

For those who prefer to stand, Vance encourages people to come to line dancing on Tuesdays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. for beginners and Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon for intermediates.

Both are all ages, but tend to attract a senior crowd.

All participants must have a lifetime membership with Lee County Parks & Recreation.

Individual memberships are $10 and family memberships are $25 for two adults and any children under 18. Memberships can be purchased at the North Fort Myers Recreation Center.

For more information, contact the North Fort Myers Recreation Center at 533-7200.

For more information about Lee County Parks & Recreation, visit www.leeparks.org, call 533-7275 or email leeparks@leegov.com.
Law enforcement and emergency personnel throughout Lee County, as well as those from the District Attorneys Office and high school students, will be teaching Lee County fifth-graders the importance of making good choices, and the tragic consequences that could happen by making the wrong ones.

The annual Drug House Odyssey, sponsored by the United Way of Lee Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee Counties, will return to the Lee Civic Center from Feb. 5 to 7, where fifth-graders will be bused in to witness a play in which teenagers make the wrong decisions and the result of those actions.

Deborah Comella, executive director for the Lee County Coalition for a Drug-Free Southwest Florida, said the event has been going on for 25 years, which is quite an accomplishment.

We want to encourage a discussion in the classroom and at the dinner table about making good decisions and they have to do with underage drinking, Comella said. We want to also encourage a wider ranging discussion on what happens if someone asks you to get in the car when theyve been drinking. We want a community dialogue.

Among the nearly 35 agencies that will participate are the Cape Coral Police Department, the Lee County Sheriffs Office, Florida Highway Patrol, North Fort Myers and Bayshore Fire Departments, Lee County EMS, the District Attorneys Office and students from Mariner, Fort Myers and Evangelical Christian high schools, who will be the actors in this five-scene, walk-through odyssey.

The play has changed over the years, with new elements added to old scenes and new scenes added, including one where one of the main characters dies.

The Florida Highway Patrol annually brings its rollover car and life-sized dummies to teach the importance of wearing a seat belt.

There also will be a family night next Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. that will be open to the public.

Families, church groups, youth groups, scouting troops and concerned citizens are encouraged to attend.

At that event, Tre Boston, defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals who starred in high school at North Fort Myers, is expected to attend and discuss the importance of making the right choices with the students.

Comella said these fifth-graders are exactly who they are targeting, as kids become more drug aware at around 10 or 11 years old.

Science had shown that this is the kind of learning thats most successful and that the age of onset for some children is as early as 10 years old, Comella said. When law enforcement couldnt do its DARE program, this would be a good way to engage fifth-graders.

The Lee County Civic Center is at 11831 Bayshore Road, North Fort Myers.
Who knew that deputies for the Lee County Sheriffs Office carry tourniquets in their cars?

For a North Fort Myers stabbing victim, the practice -?and application  proved to be a lifesaver.

Deputy Kristi Makela was double honored at the North Fort Myers Chamber of Commerces Business Leaders Luncheon this month receiving both Deputy of the Quarter and a life-saver award.

The honors came as a result of her actions on Dec. 8, when deputies were dispatched to a North Fort Myers home for a 911 call. Upon arrival, they found a white male with numerous knife wounds lying in a pool of blood.

One of the wounds appeared to be arterial, with the victim bleeding profusely.

Faced with the life-threatening emergency, Makela sprang into action, according to the commendation.

She went back to her car and retrieved her issued tourniquet and applied it to the victims upper arm to slow the bleeding until medical personnel could arrive.

The man, who had suffered a critical loss of blood, was transported to Lee Memorial Hospitals Trauma Unit.

After emergency surgery, he survived, thanks, in large part, to the actions of Makela, officials said.

Her proactive work is an example to be commended for her actions. They demonstrate their motto Proud to Serve,' said Chamber past president Lenny Cannova, who presented the award.

Makela, who was nominated by her sergeant, said she was surprised by the honor.

I am thankful, and tired. Its nice. Im a little awkward to be put in the spotlight, said Makela, who has been with the LCSO since 2013. I appreciate the recognition.
Two North Fort Myers teachers are among 30 Lee County educators selected as finalists for the 32nd annual Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program.

Katherine Callard, a second-grade teacher at Dr. Carrie D. Robinson Littleton Elementary School, and Kaleigh Stewart, a Language Arts teacher at North Fort Myers High School, have been named finalists this year.

They were surprised in their classrooms last week, surrounded by students, administrators, fellow educators and staff members from the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, which organizes the event.

For Callard, in her 16th year at the school, it is the fourth time she has been named a finalist. As a second-grade teacher, she is teaches a the full gamut of skills, reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as science and social studies.

Its a very exciting time and a little nerve-wracking trying to do your best with them trying to observe, but its such an honor, Callard said, who was nominated by her students. No matter what happens, I always cherish the days of being a finalist.

Callard started her career in New York as a special education teacher and committee member before moving to Florida in 2001.

She is the founder of the Ladies Club, a group for girls from third to fifth grade who deal with academic, social or behavioral challenges.

We meet every other week and do community service and role play and we have community leaders guest speak, Callard said. We try to be a positive part of their life.

Stewart, a ninth-grade language arts teacher was shocked when she learned she had been nominated and became a finalist for the first time.

This is something Ive dreamed about when I started teaching, so Im baffled I have this opportunity and Im really thankful, Stewart said. Actually winning this award is something I cant really get my head around. I thought something like this would be much further off.

Stewart was born and raised near Philadelphia and grew up attending their schools. Once she graduated, she said she wanted an adventure. She sent resumes all over the country and was hired here in Florida.

Stewart taught in Hendry County for four years before coming to North two years ago, where she has tried to build relationships with the students and create a family atmosphere.

I tell them on the first day, you may not know each other yet, but by the end of the year, youll be a family, Stewart said. Going about things that way, if you can get them to buy in, theyre more apt to grasp any content you teach.

The Foundations Golden Apple Selection Committee, made up of community and business leaders, reviewed and ranked applications to select the 30 finalists.

Many teachers get nominated. After that, it is up to the teacher to submit a qualification essay to be considered.

These finalists are dedicated professionals who are representative of all the excellent teachers in the Lee County School District who we entrust with the responsibility of educating our greatest community asset, our students, said Marshall T. Bower, president & CEO of The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools, in a statement.

The 30 finalists will now be visited by all 12 Golden Apple Selection Committee members. The visits will be unannounced.

After these classroom visits, each finalist also will be interviewed over a two-day period at the foundations office.

Meanwhile, The Foundation on Monday released its Teachers of Distinction. These are teachers who ranked high in the selection process for the Golden Apple and they round out the top 101 recognized applicants.

North Fort Myers Teachers of Distinction honorees are Lindsey Maxwell and Kristen Santiago, Bayshore Elementary; Sherri Donnell, Dr. Carrie D. Robinson Elementary; Jessica Comtois, J. Colin English Elementary; Cheryl Nichols, North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts; Taylor Ashby, Sally Kilic, Ashley Monastra, North Fort Myers High School; Vicki Campbell, Tiffany Danielson, Casey Foley, Barbara Matos, Tropic Isles Elementary.

All of these educators, Golden Apple finalists and Teachers of Distinction recipients, will be invited to attend the Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Banquet and the Golden Apple Social where they will be formally recognized with the Golden Apple winners.
The massive crowd that gathered to welcome President Buhari in Imo State was made up of not only supporters of the APC in the state, but also supporters of other parties who are united by their love for the President and their desire to see him re-elected, despite the local candidates they support, Shehu said.
Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, has said that it would not have been po...

Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Timi Frank, has said that it would not have been possible for General Muhammadu Buhari to become the president without the intervention of countries like United Kingdom, United Nations and United States of America (USA) among other countries.





Frank, however, called on the international community to ignore the Nigerian presidency and the leaders of the ruling APC, who have threatened both the US and the UK among others, to do everything possible to encourage and help to sustain democracy in Nigeria.





In a statement signed on Wednesday in Abuja, Frank described a statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari, where he warned the UK, USA and other countries against interference in the affairs of Nigeria as a message from the table of an ingrate.





According to Frank, Buhari wouldnt have become president today if not for the intervention of international community in 2015 who prevailed on the then government of Goodluck Jonathan to allow free and fair elections.

He said it is surprising that Buhari who praised the efforts of UK, US and others prior to his emergence in 2015 is now asking the same international community to keep quiet in the face of his undemocratic and dictatorial tendencies in the country.





Before 2015, Buhari did not tell those countries to back up when he was enjoying their support. When he was sick and badly needed treatment, he didnt threaten them.





When the country needed ammunition to fight Boko Haram, their interventions were important, when Buhari needed the return of Abacha loot, he went about begging but for a selfish reason, he doesnt want a foreign intervention now. Of course, the tyrannical tendency in the former dictator wouldnt allow democratic societies influence.





Frank said it will be difficult for a dictator like president Buhari, who has lost popularity for re-election and unfortunately surrounded himself with so many arrogant APC leaders to allow the of law reign because rigging the coming election is paramount to them.





During Buhari military rule in the 80s, Nigeria became a pariah nation. Nigerian masses suffered unnecessary hardships caused by Buhari and his junta. The Western world imposed bans because of his dictatorship. It took several years of IBB rule and finally 8 years of President Obasanjo civilian administration to reverse Buharis blunders.





Once again, the ground is being set for a repeat of foreign ostracism. History is about to be repeated by this irresponsible APC and Buhari government. APC and Buhari are determined to win at all costs; they careless whether Nigeria is plunged into nationwide crisis or even war.





Unless Nigerians of goodwill (across party lines) act fast, the likelihood of our downward slide into authoritarianism and constitutional crisis is imminent.





Frank also urged the international community not to keep quiet especially as the country prepares for the general elections.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos, says Jimi Agbaje, his Peoples Democratic P...





Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos, says Jimi Agbaje, his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, has nothing to offer the state.





Sanwo-Olu said this when he featured on Morning Digest, a radio programme, hosted by Jimi Disu on Lagos Talks 91.3FM





Sanwo-Olu accused Agbaje of lacking in basic knowledge and practical ideas to drive governance of Lagos.





Agbaje had said he would deliver Lagosians from bondage and bring them freedom.





Commenting on Agbajes campaign theme on freedom for Lagos, Sanwo-Olu wondered why in the 21st century Nigeria, a gubernatorial candidate will build his campaign strategy around freedom.





He asked if Agbage thought the state arrived its status as a mega city by magic, adding that conscious effort was exerted to put the state on its pedestal as the 5th largest economy in Africa.





This fellow (Jimi Agbaje) doesnt just have anything to offer Lagosians so the only thing he could think of putting on the table is freedom. Freedom from what? Are we in bondage in Lagos? Sanwo-Olu asked.





Do you think it is by magic that Lagos state assumed the enviable position as the 5th largest economy in Africa? No. People worked hard to get the state to this level and they continue to work harder for the state to surpass its current feat. What freedom is anyone talking to us about?





Speaking on environment and waste management, Sanwo-Olu said his government would address the issue of waste from homes.





We must start waste sorting from our various kitchens at home. We will be heavy with advocacy on the use of yellow, blue and black bags for organic, plastics, bottles and domestic waste items, he said.





This approach will help with pick-ups. This will automatically help in our drive towards waste to wealth.




Premature conduct of external examination, mingling with smart phones and social media platforms by students have been described as dis...

Premature conduct of external examination, mingling with smart phones and social media platforms by students have been described as distractions in imparting knowledge among children of primary and secondary schools.









One of the proprietors of AlAzhar school, Professor Aisha, made the assertion at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the schools premises along Rijiyar Zaki, Gwarzo road Kano.









Professor Aisha said children tended to lose focus on their studies whenever they were exposed to social media and or when they sat for any external examination prematurely.









She lamented that many schools had made it a tradition to allow their students to take external examination prematurely, noting that even if a child is in JS1 they will allow him to sit for external examination despite the fact that doing so is illegal.









Some parents register their children for external examination in SS1 or SS2. This encourages examination malpractice which is currently destroying our educational system. Once students know that they will be provided with answers in the examination, they will certainly stop reading, she said.









She added that the school had noticed that over the years, phone, social media, make-ups, and excessive watching of television constitute a serious distraction to pupils and students in the school.









She called on parents to, as a matter of urgency, help advance the course of academic and moral excellence in their children by avoiding all those means of distractions to childrens education.








The presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Dr. Yunusa Tanko has said some opposition political parties may boyco...

The presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Dr. Yunusa Tanko has said some opposition political parties may boycott the 2019 general elections because of threats and intimidation by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government.









Dr. Tanko, a former National Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), said that the APC-led government had not given the opposition enough hope and a level playing field to operate.





He said the fundamental human rights of citizens have been.









Dr. Tanko, who is the current National Chairman of the NCP, said the government was not only weakening the opposition parties ahead of the general elections but also instilling fear in opposition leaders.









Not only that the present government is intimidating, it is also instilling fear in the opposition elements that raise any issue against them, he said.









It is possible [that some political parties will boycott the election] if this level of impunity continues unabated and caution is thrown to the winds. We may not have election but imposition.









He said, I am aware that the young man, Deji Adeyanju who has been in a Kano Prison for close to 50 days is one of Nigerias leading civil rights activists and human rights crusader. I am aware that Deji is a critic of the government of the day.









In recent weeks, he has been repeatedly arrested and arraigned in several courts before his latest ordeal in the Kano central prison on the order of a Magistrate court. As an activist myself, I know it is not easy to take the difficult routes of holding government accountable.









But those in power today must remember that they were once critics of power and government, and they were not denied the space to ventilate their opinions.




The Presidential Campaign Organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described Atiku Abubakar, the partys presidential ca...





The Presidential Campaign Organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described Atiku Abubakar, the partys presidential candidate, as a consummate democrat.





Kola Ologbondiyan, director, media and publicity of the organisation, said this in a statement issued on Tuesday.





He was reacting to a statement credited to Bola Tinubu, national leader of the APC.





Tinubu had described Abubakar as an undemocratic element over his criticism President Muhammadu Buharis leadership style.





He said: We invite Nigerians to note that all the accusations of undemocratic actions alluded to by Tinubu against Abubakar did not come under Abubakars purview of decision or his sphere of control while in office as the Vice President of Nigeria.





If anything, Abubakar was in charge of the economy during the period and every Nigerian can testify that, within that time, our economy thrived to be one of the fastest growing in the world.





And the purchasing power of citizens was much higher than what obtains today.





He said it was unfortunate that Tinubu was attacking Abubakar at a time other respected Nigerian leaders were rallying support for him.




Babagana Monguno, national security adviser (NSA), says politicians who are afraid of losing the forthcoming elections are planning to...





Babagana Monguno, national security adviser (NSA), says politicians who are afraid of losing the forthcoming elections are planning to disrupt the polls.





The NSA said this at a meeting with the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) in Abuja on Tuesday.





Monguno said security forces are ready to deal with anybody who attempts to engage in any act that could destabilise the exercise, while he maintained the neutrality of security agencies.





He said there is zero tolerance for political thuggery and illegal bearing of arms.

Reports reaching me have revealed that some individuals that are uncertain of their fate in the elections are plotting to participate in widespread violence aimed at scuttling the polls, Monguno said.





There are indications that these unscrupulous elements are already mobilising merchants of violence, including armed bandits and terrorists to cause problems cross the country.





I will refrain from being specific on some of the plots that have been uncovered, though the security agencies will spare no efforts in dealing appropriately with any act that can destabilise the nation.





In this regard, we owe Nigerians the duty to protect and preserve their lives and property regardless of our individual or group aspirations.





I wish to restate that our doors are always open to collaborate and act proactively to maintain the sanctity of Nigeria.





Monguno said the office of the national security adviser (ONSA) and security agencies were fully prepared for the elections and ready to cooperate and partner with the governors on security.




Musa Kwankwaso, father of Rabiu Kwankwaso, senator representing Kano central, has expressed support for Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of...





Musa Kwankwaso, father of Rabiu Kwankwaso, senator representing Kano central, has expressed support for Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state, who is seeking reelection.





According to Daily Trust, the lawmakers father said this when the governor visited him during his campaign tour.





Kwankwaso, who is the district head of Madobi local government area, reportedly commended Ganduje for the good work he has been doing in the state.





The district head also assured the governor of his commitment to securing the support of all the village heads and community leaders to ensure his victory.





When you came in after your inauguration on 29th May, 2015, we were absolutely sure that you would bring development to all nooks and crannies of the state. And Alhamdulillah, that is what you are doing. So we need more of this development, Kwankwaso said





We are ready to support you and get you closer to the people. We appreciate the good work you are doing for your people. We believe in your leadership style as a people-oriented governor who believes in developing his people in all aspects of life.





In his remarks, Ganduje thanked the leader for his support, saying: We are in our home. Here you are with your children. We came to visit our father and get his blessing.





We are sure you will give us what we are here for. So when you accept to support my gubernatorial race, we are not surprised because this is just a case of a father and his son.





Ganduje was the deputy of Kwankwaso, throughout his eight years as Kano governor but both men fell out in the buildup to the 2015 elections.





Abba Yusuf, Kwankwasos son-in-law, is Gandujes challenger in the governorship race. He is the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Partys (PDP) in the March 2 election.




The Peoples Democratic Partys, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has said he would grant amnesty to corrupt people who loo...





The Peoples Democratic Partys, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has said he would grant amnesty to corrupt people who looted the nations treasury.





Abubakar spoke at an event titled, The Candidate, in Abuja on Wednesday.





The moderator, Kadariah Ahmed, had asked Atiku if corrupt persons would be granted amnesty if he becomes President.





Why not? I give you an example of Turkey. Turkey gave amnesty and all the monies taken abroad were brought back and the government said when you bring the money back, you dont need to pay taxes. Invest in manufacturing, technology and real estate.





And look at Turkey today. It is like any other European country today, he answered.





Abubakar also refused to bear the blame for the poverty level in his home state of Adamawa, saying, as one of the two main employers of labour in Adamawa State, he was not responsible for the perceived high poverty rate in the state.





According to him, anyone might argue that an individual was incapable of ending poverty.





His vice presidential running mate, Peter Obi, said that instead of being condemned, Atiku should be commended for being the only presidential candidate in Nigeria who has not only made a success of his own life, but he is also an employer of labour, apart from the Adamawa State Government.




The Ebonyi council of traditional rulers has endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari for the February 16 presidential poll. Charles Mk...





The Ebonyi council of traditional rulers has endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari for the February 16 presidential poll.





Charles Mkpuma, chairman of council of traditional rulers in the state, who announced this on Wednesday, said the endorsement was born of the robust relationship the president has with David Umahi, governor of the state.





He spoke during an audience with the president at the Ebonyi state government House in Abakaliki, the state capital.





The monarch, who spoke on behalf of 140 traditional rulers in the state, said We appreciate your dogged determination to maintain utmost security of the country especially your effort in eliminating Boko Haram and fight against corruption which has brought respect and integrity to the country among committee of nations.





We believe that your robust relationship with our son the governor and your loved for him and the state will surely earn you and only you, votes in Ebonyi state irrespective of party differences.





Mkpuma said the traditional rulers were happy with the leadership of the governor who has virtually touched every facets of human and infrastructural development of the state.





The monarchs later presented 1,000 yams for Buharis breakfast and lunch respectively.





On his part, Buhari commenced the governor for infrastructural development in the state, promising that the money spent on the completion of federal projects will be refunded.





He said Umahi told him during the short trip to the government house that the state had not received up to 40 percent of the funds spent on federal projects in the state.





He also told the traditional rulers that his administrations plans to invest in agriculture was deliberate, recalling that the First Republic was good in agriculture because the land was abundant and grazing routes developed.





But subsequently we got drunk with oil money and abandoned what kept us intact. But we are going back to that (agriculture), he said.





He assured the monarchs that the south-east will benefit from second Niger Bridge when completed and it will affect you positively in moving goods and services.





The governor said irrespective of some perceptions, the south east has benefited from federal government projects.





He added that the federal governments agricultural programme had benefited the state immensely.





He said the state has comparative advantage in agriculture and solid minerals.





Umahi thanked the president for approving the commencement of Ebonyi salt production.




President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, urged members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), to vote for any candidate of their choice, i...

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, urged members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), to vote for any candidate of their choice, irrespective of intra or inter party affairs.





Buhari spoke amid the lingering crisis rocking the Imo State chapter of the ruling party, over the emergence of its governorship candidate.





It will be recalled that Governor Rochas Okorocha is supporting his former Chief of Staff, Uche Nwosu, while the National Chairman of the party Adams Oshiomhole backs Senator Hope Uzodinma, who emerged the APC candidate under controversial circumstances.





Nwosu, however, picked the governorship ticket of the Action Alliance (AA), with the state chapter of the APC being polarised on who to vote.





President Buhari in his speech at the Dan Anyiam Stadium during his campaign rally, countered the APC National Chairman who has mandated APC members to vote for Uzodinma.





You can vote for whosoever you want, do not allow intra or inter party affairs stop you from voting for the candidate of your choice, he said.





But Oshiomhole had boasted that the APC does not need the support of the AA to deliver President Buhari in the state.





He said: Let me make it clear that the APC is not in alliance with any party, we have the power to deliver the President.




The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, on Tuesday, said President Muhammadu Buhari had become a full-blow...

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, on Tuesday, said President Muhammadu Buhari had become a full-blown dictator and a lawbreaker who continued to violate the nations constitution.









The PDP chairman who spoke on Tuesday in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, at the rally organised by the Presidential Campaign Organisation of the party for its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said Buhari would be rejected at the poll.









Secondus said Buhari lacked the capacity to change, adding that he had come out to be a dictator in spite of the fact that he was a civilian President.









The PDP Chairman said that the party would continue to condemn the brazen violation of the constitution in defiance of the position of the All Progressives Congress that nobody should talk about it.









He said, Atiku is an achiever who has a lot of awards. We are here to talk to you that Nigeria is at a crossroads.









Buhari came to power as a civilian but without due process, he removed the head of another arm of government. I am referring to the removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Onnoghen.









APC said we should not talk about the man who is breaking the law, but you cannot continue to break the constitution that guides everybody.









He accused the Buhari administration of corruption, adding that the Transparency International had said the government was corrupt.









The PDP presidential candidate said the election was about the future of the youth and the country.









He said that the APC had failed Nigerians in all the tripod on which the Buhari administration was elected.









He said that Buhari failed to revive the economy, fight corruption, and insecurity in the land.









The Governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, urged the people to vote Atiku who he described as a Nigerian with the desired understanding to restructure the country.









Dickson said Atiku had a good understanding of the problems of the people and should be trusted with the peoples votes.









Jonathan, in his speech, said all Bayelsans must work for Atiku to emerge as President.








President Muhammadu Buhari says his administration will continue to inaugurate completed projects nationwide irrespective of party dif...





President Muhammadu Buhari says his administration will continue to inaugurate completed projects nationwide irrespective of party differences.





According to a statement by Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, Buhari said this during the inauguration of the Independent Power Plant (IPP) in Ariaria market in Aba, Abia state.





The president, who has been accused of having no original project and only inaugurating and taking glory for the projects initiated by the previous administrations, said electricity has no political colour





Buhari said his administration will continue to execute people-oriented projects around the country irrespective of party differences.

The president expressed delight that 37,000 shops belonging to traders and small business owners in Ariara market will, one after the other, be connected to the dedicated electricity supply.





He said the feat will strengthen the Made-in-Nigeria policy.





I am pleased to be here today at the milestone connection of 4,000 shops that now have dedicated power, Buhari said.









Buhari with Rochas Okorochas, governor of Imo state, Damilola Ogunbiyi, MD, Rural Electrification AgencyOkezie Ikpeazu, governor of Abia state and Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing





Today with policies and programmes such as this IPP we have demonstrated that if the common good is our mutual objective, it can be achieved irrespective party differences and constitutional limitations.





Electricity has no political colour. Being a market that supplies shoes, bags, clothing, trunks and many household accessories to Nigeria, many African countries like Chad, Cameroun, Gambia and Central Africa Republic, reliable power supply is critical for ease of doing business to ensure sustainability and improvement.





Buhari inspecting the plant with Fashola

I am told that before this intervention, traders in the market only got 4 hours a day of electricity and paid exorbitantly for it, which consequently affected the viability of many businesses.





This is the sad legacy we inherited but which we are replacing with an all-day power supply that is cleaner and better for our environment.





Those who turned their backs on these problems still have the courage to campaign about unemployment and poverty. What is happening in Ariaria today by way of clean, independent and reliable power to markets and small businesses is happening in Kano, Lagos, Ondo and Ibadan.




Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has asked the international community to put pressure on...





Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has asked the international community to put pressure on President Muhamamdu Buhari to desist from violating the constitution.





In the letter addressed to ambassadors of France, Germany, United States and the United Kingdom high commissioner, Atiku accused the president of threatening the nations democracy.





He also appealed to Nigerians to vote out Buhari and elect a true democrat in next months election.





I have chosen to write this letter to Your Excellency for the enviable role that your country plays as champion of Democracy and the Rule of Law, the letter read in part.





President Muhammadu Buhari is threatening our democracy by serially breaching the provisions of our constitution and undermining organs and institutions of State in order to advance his personal interest.





As a Presidential Candidate in the forthcoming General Elections that will be conducted and supervised by the Government of President Muhammadu Buhari, I feel the urgent need to share with you some of these key violations of the provisions of our constitution and to demand that you pile pressure on the Federal Government to desist from these violations and ensure a level playing field for the General Elections that are only a couple of weeks away.





The choices facing all of us is either to stand aside and watch Nigerians reelect a President who has been in constant violation of the laws of the land without remorse; or to show him the way out and elect a true democrat.





Below are some of the constitutional infractions highlighted by the PDP presidential candidate.





Suspension of CJN Onnoghen





Abubakar said the action of the president not only breaches the Nigerian constitution, but has also managed to undermine presidential democracy by assaulting one of its hallowed doctrines of separation of powers.





He described the action as the latest in a series of carefully planned onslaught on the nations democracy by an extremely power hungry and anxious president and the cabal that feeds fat around him.





He alleged that the act is geared towards affecting the outcome of the presidential elections.





Illegal purchase of the Tucano Aircrafts





Abubakar said Buhari, in April 2018, approved the purchase of Tucano Aircrafts for the Nigerian military at the sum of $496 million, without seeking prior approval of the national assembly.





section 80 (3) and (4) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) which states how the president can spend monies belonging to the federation. He said Buhari violatedsection 80 (3) and (4) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) which states how the president can spend monies belonging to the federation.





Disregard for Orders of Courts





Abubakar said the Buhari-led administration has serially violated court orders, going against the rule of law especially in three known cases.





He cited the cases of Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, leader of the Members of the Islamic Movement (IMN) as examples of such infractions.





He noted that Dasuki had been granted bail on at least six different occasions while the Buhari-led government persistently refused to comply with the court orders.





He said El-Zakzaky has been in detention without trial for over three years despite calls to release him.





Approval of $1 billion for military expenditure





Abubakar said the federal government, through the National Economic Council (NEC), granted approval for the release of $1 billion from the excess crude account (ECA) for the procurement of military hardware and other equipment to fight insecurity in the country, in contravention of section 80 (3) and (4) of the 1999 constitution.





Executive Order No. 006




Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says a permanent discipline awaits Walter Onnoghen, former chie...





Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says a permanent discipline awaits Walter Onnoghen, former chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), if he is found guilty of the false declaration charges levelled against him.





Tinubu said this while responding to the position of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on the suspension.





In a state of the nation address, Atiku accused President Muhammadu Buhari of clamping down on the judiciary.





But Tinubu said if the charges against Onnoghen turned out to be wrong or unproven, he would be automatically reinstated as the head of the judiciary.





President Buhari conditionally suspended the CJN. By doing so, this allows for the case to move forward without the CCT or others fearing the CJN might use his position to unduly interfere with proceedings. If the CJN is exonerated, then he will return to his position. If not exonerated, then a more permanent discipline awaits him, he said.





Tinubu accused Atiku of misleading the public that Buhari removed Onnoghen from office even though he knew that the president suspended him.





He wondered why Atiku was defending a jurist who has enjoyed the sweet but hidden benefits of several million dollars of mystery money passing through his secret bank accounts even when discovered, these accounts held several hundred thousands of dollars in them.





He said left to Atiku, Onnoghen should not be investigated despite the weighty allegations levelled against him.





Below is the statement:





The PDPs presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku, recently made comments regarding suspension of CJN Onnoghen. Atikus release is entitled State of the nation address. I encourage everyone to read it. In its disregard for the truth and patent misrepresentations, it will go down in political history as a classic of self-incrimination. Atiku thinks the piece exalts him. Instead it evinces his penchant for wilful misstatement that make him unfit for the office he now seeks and has always coveted.





In the statement, he claims to have dedicated all his life to the defense of democracy. Those of you who know him, and even those who dont, know this is not true. If all of his life has been dedicated to support for democracy, then he is far too young to run for president; however, I must congratulate him for having somehow managed to find or begin a second life. This rebirth as a defender of democracy must have taken place only a few short hours ago.





His previous life of over seventy years was one of skirting democracy and of blatant impunity in attempting to enshrine reactionary government and installing an unjust political economy on the backs of the people.





In his address, he claims the nation has entered a difficult moment. To my dear and good friend Atiku, I say the difficulty is not so much with the moment but with your memory.





When you lorded over Nigeria in tandem with President Obasanjo, there were myriad court orders mandating that your government render to Lagos state the funds due it to improve the lives of its millions of inhabitants. Instead, you gladly and without dispute joined Obasanjo in utter disregard for these unambiguous legal verdicts. In so doing, you demeaned the rule of law. You also readily sacrificed the economic development and welfare of millions of innocent people in Lagos just to gain some illicit political advantage that proved to be fleeting and of no avail to you in the end.





You now speak of democracy and the need for executive restraint. But such verbal finery never crossed your lips or traversed your pen when you and Obasanjo improperly removed Senate Presidents more easily than a trendy cad exchanges a pair of shoes or changes the subject of his false affections. Your love for democracy is such that you were recently observed apologising to the PDP for not rigging the Lagos 2003 gubernatorial polls as you did the polls in the other Southwestern states.





Instead of repenting for rigging at least five states too many, your expressed regret was that you had not rigged enough; that you rigged one state less than the complete mauling of democracy your party and your principal had mandated. Regarding such a destructive love as this, I am sure democracy and fair elections would rather do without.





A few weeks ago in a televised broadcast you even revealed to the people that your official policy envisioned the base enrichment of your friends should you achieve the presidency.

I must assume that your lifetime as a defender of democracy began after this long record of unjust deeds and even after your latest statement of intent to mould Nigeria into an oligarchy. If this is not the case and if all these things you have done and said are consistent with your current notion of democracy, then there is but one conclusion. The democracy you now claim to support remains a rather strange breed of democracy, such as to be nigh indistinguishable from the regressive, rentier political economy you designed and foisted on Nigeria as the crafty lieutenant of the bullish Obasanjo.





Strange that you would choose to depict the current situation so inaccurately as to stir emotions unduly. You claim that CJN Onnoghen has been removed. However, this is not so. He has been temporarily suspended. You and your advisors should know and recognize the vast legal difference between suspension and removal. Yet you persist in conflating the two in what you say is a pursuit of justice. While true you may be in pursuit of something. It is not justice.





If justice was your goal, you would acknowledge that the CJN has only been temporarily suspended not permanently removed. Thus, your recourse to saying that the president violated the constitutional provision regarding the removal of a CJN is inaccurate in that Buhari never intended to remove the CJN. What he has done is to have the CJN temporarily get out of his chair so that the serious matters against him can be heard by someone other than himself. Should the charges show themselves to be wrong or unproven, the CJN will be automatically reinstated as the head of the Nigerian judiciary. However, for Atiku to state that the CJN should remain on seat while credible and grave charges swirl around him is to put the entire workings of the Supreme Court under a heavy cloud.





It is ironic that Atiku of all people throw such darts at President Buhari. Buhari actually exercised considerable restraint in this matter. He has reasonably balanced concerns about the integrity of the judiciary with concerns for the individual rights of the accused. Nothing has been taken from the CJN that cannot be restored if the facts warrant such restoration. Thus, President Buhari conditionally suspended the CJN. By doing so, this allows for the case to move forward without the CCT or others fearing the CJN might use his position to unduly interfere with proceedings. If the CJN is exonerated, then he will return to his position. If not exonerated, then a more permanent discipline awaits him.





This is an imminently fair and balanced approach, especially given the fact that the constitution and other laws really do not provide clear and unambiguous guidance in how to proceed in a case whether the CJN is the defendant under this unique fact pattern. While Atiku rails against Buhari because of this act of restraint, we can but imagine the tack Chief Obasanjo and Atiku would have taken if they presided over this situation. By now, they would have put CJN Onnoghen in the stocks or shipped him off to that infamous farm in Ota where he would have begun his new career in plucking poultry.





It is curious that Atiku would take up the marker of a jurist who has enjoyed the sweet but hidden benefits of several million dollars of mystery money passing through his secret bank accounts, Even when discovered, these accounts held several hundred thousands of dollars in them.





Someone in Atikus position would normally be wary of a judge thusly tainted. A politician in Atikus position should more objectively be concerned that the government would have been the source of the hidden funds or that government would use the fact of the clandestine money as leverage against the judge to make sure he did governments bidding for surely this a jurist highly compromised by pecuniary indiscretion. It is almost unnatural that an opposition candidate would champion the soiled cause of such a judge who seems to have sold something in exchange for the money found in his vests secret pockets.





Yet, Atiku now cries the anguished cry of a man who thought he had won the lottery only to find he had misread the last number on his claim ticket. Or perhaps these are the tears of a man who thought he had invested in a sure deal only to see the reason for the investment evaporate before his very eyes. Now, Atiku and his cohort seek to turn their personal disappointment into a burning national issue. They seek to manufacture a constitutional crisis where none exists.





They said they suspended their campaign because of this matter. Here, they are as illogical as illogic can beget. By suspending their campaign, did that mean they were permanently ending it? Of course not! That would be a boycott or the permanent removal of the campaign. No, they have resumed their campaign after temporarily suspending it. If they know the meaning of suspend in this regard, only malign intent allows them to feign ignorance to the meaning of the word suspend when applied to CJN Onnoghen.





There is no need to quake at the solitary incident of the interim suspension of a justice pending the legal resolution of serious criminal claims against him. If this matter is shorn of the political trappings it has acquired, there is no fairer way to handle the matter.





Atiku, I gather, would rather leave the man in seat and allow the charges against him to go unattended. Or Atiku would rather that the CJN preside over his own trial. Such is the logical conclusion of Atikus position. It is an odd bravery that would lead Atiku to stake such a position. If Atiku is as oddly courageous as he now depicts, then let him venture a step further. Pray tell, let Atiku tell us what good and precious thing he and the PDP rendered that they cannot even countenance the temporary and conditional suspension of a single jurist until the charges of illegality against the man have been fully resolved in open proceedings conducted by his judicial peers.





Atiku claims to be a democrat and defender of democracy, but where was he, his voice and action during Abachas suffocating maximum rule? Was he not a member and cheer-leader of one of the five Abacha parties aptly described then as five leprous fingers of Abacha? Did he even have the courage to visit his mentor, late Major General Shehu Musa Yar Adua, in jail for fear of Abacha stopping him from running for the governorship of Adamawa?





Dare Atiku say what is really upsetting him and what he really is hiding in his attempt to cloak his lifetime of undemocratic reckonings in the swaddling of this much too belated democratic second birth he now claims for himself.




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Cameron Montemayor can be reached at cameron.montemayor@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowMontemayor.
Whatever your stance, Brexit has and will continue to raise questions than answers as we move closer to the March 29, 2019, deadline. With the future of Britain and Europe only slightly clearer now than it was two years ago, political leaders are scrambling for position ahead of the forthcoming split.

For his part, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took a tour of the UK and the Netherlands at the start of January to "properly convey Japan's thinking" over the Brexit situation. Despite supporting his British counterpart Theresa May and her deal, he's stressed the desire to maintain seamless access to the European Union (EU) via Japan's existing ties with the UK. Should there be any significant changes to these trade routes, Abe and his government may be forced to reconsider their business relationships.

Abe Analyzing His Options

While the head of Japan's meeting with May was certainly in good faith, his onward movements to the Netherlands are a sign that he's willing to explore other economic opportunities. If he can't maintain a strong link with the EU via the UK, he may consider encouraging Japanese businesses like Nissan and the SoftBank Group's ARM Holdings to relocate. In scouring potential European destinations, Abe will no doubt consider the financial strength of his counterparts and, in turn, their economies. One potential base could be Germany.

According to Frankfurt Main Finance, London could lose A711 billion/$915 billionA worth of assets to Frankfurt following Brexit. With companies such as Goldman Sachs eyeing up Germany as a European base post-Brexit, Abe may follow suit. As an economy, Germany is thriving. As per IG's breakdown of world leaders' pay (shown above), Angela Merkel takes home A287,878/$370,482 in her role as Chancellor. That's the fourth highest pay packet in the world and a testament to the country's economic strength.

However, what Abe may also want to consider is the disparity between the wages of his European counterparts and the national economic output. As you can see above, Merkel's earns A7.97/$10.25A for every A1/$1.28A earned by the average worker in Germany. In contrast, the French Prime Minister Adouard Philippe banks A220,510A per annum. In comparison to the average annual pay in France (A42,992), the Prime Minister earns 5.13 timesA more than the national average.

On a comparative level, those stats show that France is a strong economy based on its average earnings. Indeed, that figure is more than the average salary in the UK (A42,835), Sweden (A42,816) and Japan (A39,113). What the data also suggests is that France has a greater level of economic equality than a country such as Mexico where the President (A166,797) earns 10.89 timesA more than the national average (A15,311). As you can see from the image above, Slovenia's Prime Minister earns a wage most in line with his country's national average. However, the disparity between Mr Philippe and his people isn't so far out of line as to signal potentially damaging economic instabilities.

In essence, dissecting the disparity between what those at the top earn compared to the country's average will also help Abe find a new home in Europe should he need it. If labour is cheaper, the cost of production will be cheaper. In this regards, France may prove to be too expensive. However, the upside is that the economy is strong and that could lead to more sales. Therefore, striking a balance between economic output, wages and cost of operations will also factor into where Japan may invest in the coming years.

Following Financial Swings and Public Sentiment

Naturally, with uncertainty surrounding Britain's relationship with Japan, the currency markets have taken been affected. As well as major institutions bracing themselves for major movements between the GBP/JPY currency pair, individuals who trade forex online are also monitoring the situation. Just as USD/JPY slumped to -0.140 on January 21, so too has GBP/JPY struggled to gain any positive moment in the first few weeks of 2019. Indeed, with Brexit advocates such as Jacob Ress-Mogg hot on the idea of a no deal split, Japanese investors may be spooked. Indeed, between forex movements and political dealings, the strength of the UK's long-standing relationship with Japan is unclear. A

The lesson here is that no one really knows what's going to happen but analyzing all the available facts is crucial. Prime Minister Abe is certainly doing that as he weighs up where his gateway to Europe will be, while investors are looking for every political and emotional nuances impacting the financial markets. In reality, only long after March 29, 2019, will anyone know the true effect of Brexit on Japan, the forex markets and everything else in between.A
To mark the ascension of Japan's new emperor, the government has declared an unprecedented 10-day holiday from late April to early May, worrying investors, who say a market shutdown could cause disruption and unsettle the yen.

Japan usually has a string of public holidays from late April to early May, the so-called the Golden Week.

But this year, with Crown Prince Naruhito's being crowned the new emperor on May 1, the government made the entire period from April 27 to May 6 a market holiday.

It will be the longest break ever for Japanese stocks and bonds.

Major financial centers rarely have such long periods of shutdown. U.S. financial markets closed for six days after the attacks on Sept 11, 2001.

"It's horrifying that we can't trade for six business days. We've got to adjust our positions before the week. Hard to say exactly what I will do then, but I'll probably have to make my position neutral before the holidays," said Yasuo Sakuma, chief investment officer at Libra Investments.

Japan's financial watchdog has told all financial institutions to alert customers about the possibility of turbulence in overseas markets during the shutdown, and to make sure their systems can cope with a flurry of activity before and after, documents obtained by Reuters showed.

The U.S. and UK central banks will hold policy meetings during the Japanese holiday; U.S. payroll data, GDP from the United States and the Eurozone, and corporate earnings around the world will also be released.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees yesterday appealed to nations to help it maintain a $1.2-billion budget in 2019 after it was hit last year by the withdrawal of US funding. The organisation, known as UNRWA, was able to fully fund a budget of the same amount in 2018, despite a dramatic initial shortfall when the administration of US President Donald Trump announced it was withdrawing nearly all support.

The campaign last year was successful, agency chief Pierre Kraehenbuehl told reporters in Geneva. We closed the entirety of the shortfall, which was an almost existential shortfall of $446 million, ... thanks to the remarkable and generous mobilisation of member states and others, he said. The US, which was previously UNRWAs largest contributor, last year cut a full $300 million in funding to UNRWA, and has said it will not repeat the $60 million it did provide.

In the void, the European Union, followed by Germany and Saudi Arabia were the biggest donors, with a total of 40 governments providing funds to the UN agency. Kraehenbuehl told reporters he had come to Geneva to appeal to governments to repeat last years extremely generous contributions and allow the vital core services and life-saving humanitarian aid for some 5.4 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East to continue.

He said he had already received indications from several countries, including France, that they aimed to increase their donations this year. It is essential to preserve the key services carried out by courageous UNRWA staff in some of the most difficult and polarised regions of the Middle East, Kraehenbuehl said.
French President Emmanuel Macron met yesterday with Egypts top clerics and called for inter-religious dialogue at the end of a three-day visit aimed at boosting ties while raising human rights concerns. Macron and Pope Tawadros II stressed the need for dialogue between religions as he met Pope Tawadros II at St. Marks Cathedral, seat of Egypts ancient Coptic Orthodox Church. I decided that a new conference will be held in Paris to see how to act more effectively, he said, without giving details.

A diplomatic source said the French capital would host a forum on religious minorities in the Middle East, but without giving a date. Macron visited the church adjacent to the cathedral that was the site of a December 2016 jihadist attack which killed 29 people. He also met in Cairo with Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the most prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic learning in Egypt. Their talks centred on the training of imams (prayer leaders) in France and the fight against the misguided vision of religion, the French presidency said.

Also yesterday, Macron lunched with civil society members active in the areas of judicial protection of detainees, press freedom, gender equality and childrens defence, the presidency said. On Monday, the human rights situation in Egypt was at the centre of talks between Macron and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Their different visions were on show at a joint news conference where Macron said respect of freedoms was inseparable from stability while Sisi said security was the priority for Egypts 100-million population.

During the visit, Macron and Sisi oversaw the signing of some 30 deals worth nearly a billion euros (dollars) including in transportation, education and health. No arm deals were signed. After Egypt, the French president travelled on to Cyprus for a summit of southern EU countries on migration and security.
Investigators probing the Catholic cathedral bombing that killed 21 people in the Philippines restive south said yesterday a group tied to notorious Islamists Abu Sayyaf is the prime suspect. Two explosions tore through the cathedral on the Muslim-majority island of Jolo, killing worshippers at Sunday mass and security forces in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Authorities said the so-called Ajang-Ajang faction is a small band of several dozen that most likely carried out the bombing, the Philippines worst in years, in an act of revenge. Last year their leader was killed. There have been persistent reports that they will retaliate, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana said. Yes, we saw them in the CCTV. It was the brother of the leader who was killed, he said referring to footage from outside the cathedral.

He was seen with two other members of Ajang-Ajang. Security forces say the group is composed of relatives of Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group members who have been killed in clashes with the government. Abu Sayyaf, which is based on the remote Jolo island, has been blamed for the Philippines deadliest attack, a 2004 ferry bombing in Manila Bay that claimed 116 lives.

Revenge group

There are high-level law enforcement operations against them (Ajang-Ajang), said Rommel Banlaoi, chair of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research. It evolved into a revenge group. While Abu Sayyaf has sworn allegiance to Islamic State, that is not necessarily true for the motley members of AjangAjang. Not all members of AjangAjang group are pro-ISIS, but all of them are Abu Sayyaf group, said Banlaoi using another acronym for IS. Its not IS-affiliated.

The IS claim, in a formal communique, said two suicide bombers had detonated explosive belts, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activities. But a military report said a second bomb that went off at the cathedral was left in the utility box of a motorcycle in the parking area outside. Police said they believe the explosives were likely detonated remotely, but did not elaborate. Despite the contradictions, authorities have not ruled out IS involvement.

Regardless of who staged the bombing, concern was growing Monday over the impact it will have on a decades-long push for peace that culminated last week in voters approving expanded Muslim self-rule in the south. The vote was the result of negotiations started in the 1990s with the nations largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and will give it considerable power over the so-called Bangsamoro region.

This is a big challenge for the Bangsamoro government, said Banlaoi. The former rebels need to show they will be able to pull the region toward peace in order to attract much-needed investment to alleviate poverty and counter extremism, he told AFP. MILF needs to prove it can make a difference... the gravity of the problem faced by MILF is wow, so overwhelming, he added.
The Commercial and Community Initiatives at Bahrain Polytechnic ran a non-monetary donation drive with the support of the Student Council and Volunteer Club. The drive goes to support the dogs and cats sheltered at the Bahrain Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA).

The items collected were from the Shelters wish list which includes dry and wet cat and dog food, cat litter, disinfectants and bleach. These items were donated by students and staff through allocated boxes distributed across the campus.

Head of the Community and Commercial Initiatives, Sh. Fayebint Khalifa Al Khalifa, stressed that Bahrain Polytechnic seeks to support community initiatives in all its forms, pointing out that this is the second donation campaign by Polytechnic for the animal welfare centres.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement warning Bahraini citizens to refrain from travelling to Venezuela.

The statement was made in the interest to ensure the safety of the citizens of Bahrain due to the latest developments in the Republic of Venezuela.
The Assistant Foreign Minister, Abdulla Al Doseri, affirmed that the Kingdom, in the era of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, has made many gains in the field of human rights in various national, regional and international forums. He added that the constitution and the laws of the Kingdom guarantee all rights and freedoms, including the right to litigation and the independence of the judiciary which emphasise the nature of democratic governance and provide all legal guarantees for fair trials that meet international standards.

This came as the Assistant Foreign Minister headed the delegation of the Kingdom participating in the 15th session of the Arab League Human Rights Committee, held on January 28 and 29 this year, at the League of Arab States Headquarters in Cairo. The Assistant Foreign Minister stressed that the comprehensive development in the Kingdom is based on justice, gender equality and indiscrimination, which led Bahraini women to make great achievements in various social, economic, cultural and political fields.
A panel discussion organised by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) at the Four Seasons Bahrain Hotel discussed the VAT journey in Bahrain and its impact on businesses.

Though the VAT transition is happening at a fast pace, many companies have only trained a few staff to carry out the transition, observed VAT experts from Sage, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters, Grant Thornton, Al Tamimi and Company and BIBF at the discussion chaired by Lindsay Degouve de Nuncques, Head of ACCA Middle East.

Speaking at the session, Sage Middle East technical director Mansoor Sarwar said that businesses preparing for the further rollout of VAT in Bahrain must focus on their people and their processes. We all know that there are so many fine details that you need to remember as a business and its not humanly possible to remember all those details all the time.

A simple invoice requires 15 separate details to be compliant with new VAT procedures. Its impractical to expect a human to check that every time. The more manual steps involved in any process, the more the risks of mistakes, if nothing else. In Saudi Arabia, which implemented VAT last year, more than a third of 12,500 companies inspected had failed their audits, whereas Bahrain phased implementation of VAT, beginning with the larger companies, which gave small and medium-sized businesses more time to prepare.
His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has lauded the Representatives Councils approval of the Government Action Plan (GAP) 2019-202, stressing that it is a blessed move towards achieving the joint Executive-Legislature aspirations to continue building the nation and achieving the sound visions of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for the sake of a more prosperous future for Bahrain and its people.

In a statement following the Representatives Councils endorsement of the Government Action Plan for the next four years, HRH Premier stressed that co-operation between the Executive and Legislative branches is the cornerstone of the national action march, and a catalyst for carrying on the development process, building on the previous achievement, enhancing services and increasing the citizens gains.

The Prime Minister stressed that the government-parliament consensus on GAP 2019-2022 embodies the two branches constructive cooperation, and their shared desire to move forward towards more promising horizons that meet the requirements and challenges of the current phase. HRH Premier extended thanks and appreciation to the Speaker of the Council of Representatives, Fawzia Zainal, and MPs for their approval of GAP by a majority of votes, noting that their discussion of GAP reflected their keenness to place the interests of the nation above all priorities.

The Premier lauded the positive spirit that prevailed during the government-parliament consultations on GAP and the meaningful discussions held in the Council of Representatives ahead of its endorsement. HRH Premier commended the tremendous efforts exerted by the Governments team to the joint GAP meetings, and its constructive cooperation with the Council of Representatives, which led to the lawmakers approval of GAP.

The Prime Minister affirmed that the government-parliament cooperation has always been based on mutual trust and respect, a sense of patriotic responsibility and keenness to push the development process forward in order to attain more accomplishments
A Navy couple is under shock after coming to know that they need to bay a bill of nearly $12,000 to ship two beloved German shepherds to Guam, where they got transferred from Norfolk.

The transfer was somewhat unexpected because Kenneth, a petty officer second class and master-at-arms, and his wife had only been at Norfolk Naval Station, for about a year after returning from a stint in Bahrain. Most of the airliners in the US have stopped transporting large dogs.

They set up a GoFundMe account in hopes of defraying the cost of shipping the pair of eight-year-old dogs. By the last week of January, theyd raised almost $1,000.
A bomb attack in a market killed seven Yemeni civilians including a cameraman for a UAE television channel in the government-controlled town of Mokha yesterday.

At least 20 people were wounded in the overnight blast in the Red Sea town, where pro-government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi militants are based. The blast killed Ziad Al Sharabi, a cameraman for Abu Dhabi TV and wounded Faisal Al Thubhani, a correspondent for the same network, the official WAM news agency reported.

Abu Dhabi Media general manager, Dr Ali bin Tamim blamed the Houthi militia for the attack and said they have repeatedly targeted the media. This is not the first time that our frontline crews in Yemen have been exposed to Houthi violations and terrorist acts, he said.

We will not stop exposing their brutal crimes and terror acts in Yemen on all our media platforms. The improvised explosive device was planted on a motorcycle parked in the middle of the market, an official in the pro-government forces said.
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(Newser)  When Nikki Haley resigned as UN ambassador last fall, President Trump said she would "make a lot of money" in the private sector. She's certainly trying: Haley's asking price for a speech is $200,000 and the use of a private jet, CNBC reports, citing seven sources. The price goes up for speeches in other countries. A financial disclosure report based on 2017 figures showed Haley, who earlier had been governor of South Carolina, was more than $1 million in debt; at that rate, a few speaking engagements could put her in the black. In addition, Haley is writing a second book, per the Post and Courier. Details weren't available, but her first memoir, Can't Is Not an Option, brought a $500,000 advance. She made $106,000 per year as governor and $180,000 as ambassador.

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Those speech fees put Haley near the neighborhood occupied by former presidents and first ladies. But she might pay a price, as well: The amounts she makes, plus the content of and audience for her speeches, could haunt Haley if she runs for president, Aaron Blake writes in the Washington Post. Hillary Clinton was criticized during her 2016 presidential campaign for all three, and Joe Biden recently had to answer for a $200,000 speech praising Fred Upton, a Republican lawmaker from Michigan. (Haley recently made a prestigious list.)
(Newser)  US and Chinese negotiators start two days of high-level talks Wednesday aimed at settling a six-month trade war that has weakened both sides, shaken financial markets, and clouded the global economic outlook. Yet the odds seem stacked against any substantive resolution, reports the AP. "We are anticipating no big outcomes this week," said Erin Ennis, senior VP at the US-China Business Council. Earlier negotiations flamed out. And this time President Trump might be inclined to drive an especially hard bargain after being forced to cave in the shutdown dispute. Moreover, a new complication injected itself into US-China relations on Monday when the Justice Department brought criminal charges against Chinese tech giant Huawei, accusing it of stealing technology and violating sanctions against Iran. Beijing shot back by demanding that the White House pull back from an "unreasonable crackdown."

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A deadline looms. On March 2, the Trump administration is to escalate its tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. The American delegation to the talks is led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a longtime critic of Chinese trade practices and US policies that failed to blunt them. But "the idea of just grabbing (technology) however they can is kind of ingrained at this point," says one expert. "You can't just flip a switch." Deepening the challenge is the US view that China has pledged to shape up in the pastthen failed to do so. DOJ's decision to charge Huawei, meanwhile, "has thrown a curveball" into the talks, says a strategist. US officials insist the Huawei case is entirely separate, but one IT think tank chief thinks the indictment was meant to send a signal to the Chinese. "This is about power politics," he said, "to get them to do what they should be doing."

(Read more US-China relations stories.)
(Newser)  Top European Union Brexit officials insisted Wednesday that the EU's divorce agreement with Britain cannot be renegotiated as Prime Minister Theresa May prepares to seek fresh concessions just weeks before her country is set to leave. "The EU institutions remain united, and we stand by the agreement that we have negotiated with the UK," Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said as he left a meeting of the European Parliament's Brexit committee. Britain is to exit the EU on March 29the first country ever to do sobut an agreement governing its departure is held up in the British Parliament, mostly due to a border measure known as the Irish "backstop." The safeguard would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU in order to remove the need for border checks between the UK's Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Britain leaves the bloc, notes the AP.

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Many British lawmakers fear the backstop will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU, and Parliament earlier rejected the Brexit deal May struck with the EU in November. On Tuesday, May won backing from Parliament to reopen negotiations over the withdrawal dealbut EU leaders reiterated Wednesday that the deal cannot be changed. The EU parliament's Brexit point-man, Guy Verhofstadt, underlined that nobody in Europe wants to use the backstop but that it's "needed to be 100% sure that there is no border between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic." Verhofstadt said the only way for May to win concessions would be to back away from her long-held stance that Britain must not remain part of the EU's customs area, except during a two-year transition phase. "If the future relationship is ... a customs union that makes it completely different," Verhofstadt said.

(Read more Brexit stories.)
(Newser)  "One has to feel some sympathy for the accused," a Canadian judge said Tuesday before ordering an unruly WestJet passenger to pay $16,000 in wasted fuel costs as a result of a rerouted flight. David Stephen Young of Britain had been sober for 18 months when the 44-year-old alcoholic, troubled by a family death and failed marriage, consumed six drinks before his London-bound flight out of Calgary on Jan. 4, reports the CBC. Shortly after takeoff, he became belligerent, forcing his way into a locked washroom while the seatbelt signs were turned on.

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Turning back, the pilot had to dump 20,000 pounds of fuel to near the maximum amount for a safe landing. Young, who spent a week in custody, apologized for the "damage and inconvenience" last week while pleading guilty to failing to comply with safety instructions and resisting arrest. Provincial Judge Brian Stevenson said the sentence intended "to send a message to the general public about what will happen if they break the law in a similar fashion," per the Calgary Herald. WestJet's losses are estimated at $200,000, including the cost of passenger compensation. (A man got a nine-year prison sentence for a mid-flight sexual assault.)
(Newser)  Venezuela's Supreme Court barred opposition leader Juan Guaido from leaving the country Tuesday, a move certain to heighten tensions as the man challenging President Nicolas Maduro's claim to the presidency presses forward with establishing a transitional government and the US warns of "serious consequences" if he is harmed. The government-stacked high court announced the order just hours after chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced that he was opening a criminal investigation into Guaido's anti-government activities and requested that restrictions be placed on his movements abroad, the AP reports. The court also approved Saab's request that all of Guaido's financial assets be frozen.

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Guaido is calling for nationwide walkouts Wednesday afternoon and another round of mass protests Saturday. Maduro, who previously rejected calls for negotiations, said in an interview Wednesday with Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency that he was open to talks with the opposition. Maduro said the talks could be held with the mediation of other countries and mentioned Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, the Vatican, and Russia. Maduro also accused President Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia. He said he was aware of Trump's "orders" for the Colombian government and the local mafia to kill him. (John Bolton's notepad suggested the US is planning a military move.)
(Newser)  The nurse practitioner found frozen under a vehicle at a Milwaukee County hospital was brutally murdered by a former valet, authorities say. Kenneth Freeman, who was fired by a parking services provider at Froedtert Hospital in October, has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of 33-year-old Carlie Beaudin, WISN reports. According to court documents, Freeman was hiding behind a pillar in a parking structure when Beaudin stepped out of an elevator around 1am Friday, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Prosecutors say video surveillance shows he said something to Beaudin, then knocked her to the ground from behind as she walked toward her car. Prosecutors say Freeman then stomped on Beaudin's head and neck at least 40 times.

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Video shows that he then dragged her into her car and drove her to a different parking structure, where a snowplow driver found her at 3:43am, still alive but with a weak pulse. She was pronounced dead in the hospital less than 40 minutes later. Police say Freeman, 27, called 911 later Friday and said he was involved in the death. He later told investigators he "deliberately and purely murdered Ms. Willa." Court documents do not mention a motive, or why he referred to Beaudin by that name. The hospital says Freeman passed a background check before he was hired in January last year, Fox 6 reports. He was fired for a "non-violent infraction," the hospital says. (Read more Wisconsin stories.)
(Newser)  A young mother from Connecticut who went to New York City for a shopping trip died in what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority calls an "absolutely heartbreaking incident." Malaysia Goodson, 22, fell down the stairs of the 7th Avenue subway station while carrying her 1-year-old daughter, a stroller, and shopping bags. Police say Goodson was found unresponsive on the platform around 8pm Monday and was pronounced dead in the hospital, the Guardian reports. Her daughter was not seriously injured. NYPD spokesman Lt. Paul Ng says Goodson was carrying her daughter in her arms, though some reports say that the girl was in the stroller, reports the Washington Post.

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While it's not clear whether Goodson was killed by the fall or had a medical issue, the death has put the spotlight on accessibility in the city's subway system, where only a quarter of the 472 stations have elevators, many of which are out of service at any given time, the AP reports. "This is a heartbreaking tragedy that never should have happened," tweeted Mayor Bill de Blasio. "The subway system is not accessible for everyone and thats an environment the MTA should not allow." Andy Byford, who became president of New York City Transit last year, has pledged to make at least 50 more stations accessible, but the "Fast Forward" plan has not been funded, the New York Times reports. (Read more New York City Subway stories.)
(Newser)  A woman was booted from a United Airlines flight after going on a tirade about the two passengers she was seated between. The woman was caught on video by one of those passengers, Norma Rodgerswhom the Washington Post identifies as "an award-winning nurse and advocate against gun violence"as she spoke on the phone to someone, calling Rodgers, who was seated next to the window, and the man in the aisle seat "two big pigs." She complained of them "squishing" her and more, the New York Post reports. The Jan. 2 incident is making headlines after Rodgers posted her video to Facebook, where it received more than 2 million views, CBS New York reports.

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Rodgers finally asked a flight attendant to reseat the woman over her "verbal abuse," but as the flight attendant led the woman out of her seat, other passengers on the flight rebuked her for her comments. "I eat salad, OK?" she replied. She was ultimately removed from the Las Vegas to Newark flight. "United flight attendants care about the safety and well-being of all of our customers which is why they acted quickly to find a different seat for the disruptive customer," an airline spokesperson says. "When it became clear that this passengers behavior was likely to be problematic on this flight, she was provided alternate travel arrangements first thing the next morning." (A woman said a Southwest employee told her she was "too fat to fly.")
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President Emmerson Mnangagwa has set up a 26 member Presidential Advisory Council, appointing members from various sectors of the country  from entrepreneurs, business executives to intellectuals and church leaders.

In a statement to the ZBC News, the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda said the advisory council will advise the President Mnangagwa and the government on a wide range of sectoral issues.

The PAC will serve as the Presidents sounding board on key economic reforms, issues and initiatives in line with the Presidents Zimbabwe is Open for Business and dialogue mantra and also within the policy framework of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme, Dr Sibanda said, adding that the president and his government need well-canvassed ideas, proposals and strategies to realise Vision 2030.

The PAC members are appointed by His Excellency the President based on experience, expertise, leadership, contacts and standing in society. They should be non-partisan and will serve at the pleasure of the President. and voluntarily, added Dr Sibanda.
The Government is closely monitoring the impact of the trade dispute between the Mainland and the US on Hong Kongs industries, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today.

Meeting the media ahead of the Executive Council meeting, Mrs Lam said the Government has stepped up measures to help such industries.

The values of Hong Kongs total exports and imports of goods recorded year-on-year decreases of 5.8% and 7% in December, she said, adding that the situation may worsen early this year.

Mrs Lam also said the Government will continue to communicate with the affected industries and provide assistance to them when necessary.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam has outlined three areas to be reviewed to better support elderly Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the Executive Council meeting today, Mrs Lam noted the Government was very committed to providing for these welfare recipients, saying that raising the eligible age for elderly CSSA is in line with the trend of extending the retirement age to 65 and the improved life expectancy of the Hong Kong population.

"I hope people understand the policy rationale behind this measure. It is not about cutting the expenditure of CSSA. It is not about not helping ageing people. It is quite the opposite. We want to help these able-bodied 60 to 64 to be able to remain in the labour force as long as possible.

But I would confess that in the actual implementation, we could have done better in terms of making sure that all the necessary support measures are in place, the financial assistance would not be too different from what they are receiving if there were under the old age recipient category. So over the last two weeks, we have been introducing these additional measures."

She said if the Government wants to encourage able-bodied retirees to work, then a review of the effectiveness of the existing intensive employment assistance services - which are run by non-governmental organisation teams - will have to be carried out.

Mrs Lam also noted that able-bodied CSSA recipients would need an incentive to work, so it is time to review the maximum ceiling of disregarded earnings as the current ceiling of $2,500 was set around 20 years ago.

The third measure to be reviewed would be the Governments special grants and supplements, to ascertain whether they should be extended to those aged 60 to 64 or even other age groups.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 90F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph.
By PTI

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday warmed up for their long-awaited meeting to discuss the way ahead on the UK's divorce deal with the European Union by clashing in the House of Commons.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Corbyn repeatedly urged May to rule out a no-deal Brexit and to ditch her "red lines" in any upcoming talks with Brussels.

May hit back by saying that Corbyn "has no plan for Brexit".

The two leaders will meet privately later to seek common ground on Brexit, less than two months before the UK's formal divorce from the 28-member trading bloc.

Corbyn agreed to the meeting because MPs voted against the idea of a no-deal Brexit on Tuesday. He had previously ruled out such a meeting unless May ruled out a no-deal Brexit herself.

At the Prime Minister's Questions, he said May may have succeeded in "temporarily uniting her very divided party" in Tuesday's votes on amendments to her plan but she had to make "more important compromises" to "unite the country".

May said Corbyn was a "fine one to talk about coming together", when he had only now agreed to meet her, after MPs took part in a series of votes on possible changes to her Brexit plan.

She said the majority of MPs had identified the Irish backstop as the main sticking point preventing them from backing her deal, whereas Corbyn's Brexit proposals had been rejected.

"He has no plan for Brexit, no good plan for our economy and no plan for our country," she told MPs.

Lawmakers voted 317 to 301 in favour of changing the backstop plan - the section of May's deal with the EU designed to avoid the return of Northern Ireland border checks.

Corbyn asked May whether, if she did not agree a deal with Brussels that MPs would support, she would back Labour's proposals for a "a strong single market, comprehensive customs union and the guaranteeing of rights and protections rather than the alternative she has been threatening - to crash out with no-deal".

Prime Minister May told him: "You cannot just vote to reject no deal, you have to support a deal."

It was a message she repeated to Labour MP Jack Dromey, who together with Tory MP Caroline Spelman, got MPs to back a non-binding amendment rejecting a no-deal Brexit on Tuesday.

May said she will speak to Irish premier Leo Varadkar later on Wednesday.

"It is important for us to work with the Irish government on the arrangements that will be in place in the future," she added.

Both the UK and EU have to meet their commitments to avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, she told MPs.

Currently, the UK is due to leave the European Union on March 29, with or without a deal.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Giving his stamp of approval to the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that negotiations are "proceeding well" with the militant group to end over 17-year old war in Afghanistan.

Trump made the comment after US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad held fourth round of talks with the Taliban in Qatar last week, following which he said significant progress was made.

"Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting...," Trump said in a series of foreign policy tweets Wednesday.

...Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never-ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful? Trump said.

Khalilzad held six days of intense negotiations with the Taliban representatives in Doha last week. After the talks, Khalilzad said that the US and the Taliban have drafted the framework of a deal which could pave the way for peace talks with Kabul.

Since being appointed in September last, Khalilzad has met with all sides in an attempt to end America's longest war in which the US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in more than 17 years.

The Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan and are more powerful than at any time since the 2001 US-led invasion after the 9/11 terror attacks.

A day earlier, CIA Director Gina Haspel said "a very robust monitoring regime would be essential in Afghanistan and the US needed to retain the capability to act in "national interests".

It's very important that we maintain pressure on the terrorist groups that are there and so if there were an eventual peace agreement a very robust monitoring regime would be critical and we would still need to retain the capability to act in our national interests if we needed to, Haspel said in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats, Director of National Intelligence said that his assessment is that neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban will be able to gain a strategic advantage in the Afghan war in the coming year, even if coalitions support remains at current levels.

However, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan has said the US has de-legitimised the Afghan government by negotiating with the Taliban without its involvement. He described as "surrender" the Trump administration's framework of a deal with the terror outfit.
By PTI

LAHORE: Over 90 members of hardline religious parities have been arrested from different parts of Pakistan's Punjab province for holding demonstrations against the Supreme Court's decision to reject a review plea against the acquittal of Christian woman Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case.

Punjab Police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar said that most arrests have been made from Lahore, Gujranwala and Ralwapindi.

"Police have arrested more than 90 activists of different religious parties mostly Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Tuesday and Wednesday for creating law and order situation," Ghazanfar told PTI on Wednesday.

ALSO READ | Blashphemy case: Aasia Bibi wants to leave Pakistan for any Western country

She said three protests were held in Lahore, one each in Gujranwala and Rawalpindi but timely action' by police thwarted them and arrested the participants.

Bibi, 47, is finally a free woman after all the legal impediments in her way came to an end on Tuesday, when the apex court threw out a petition seeking to review its verdict of acquitting the victim of a blasphemy charge.

"On merit, this review petition is dismissed," pronounced Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa after hearing out for almost 90 minutes advocate Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa who represented the petitioner Qari Muhammad Salam, the prayer leader who had lodged the original FIR against Aasia Bibi in 2009.

On October 31, the SC reversed the judgements of the Lahore High Court as well as the trial court, thus setting aside the conviction and the death sentence awarded to Bibi.

The apex court's decision in October last to overturn her conviction sparked nationwide violent protests and death threats from hardline Islamist groups.

The protests subsided when the government allowed the protesters to file a review petition against Bibi's acquittal.

Later, a nationwide crackdown had been carried out against the TLP and all of its central leadership including its chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi had been put behind bars.

Meanwhile, Bibi may leave the country shortly as there are threats to her life.

Her two daughter had already shifted to Canada.

ALSO READ | Blasphemy case: Pakistan SC upholds Christian woman Asia Bibi's acquittal

Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws.

Bibi's case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws.

A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad.

The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s.

A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence.
By PTI

KARACHI: The main facilitator of the terror attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November last year has been arrested from the UAE, Pakistan police has announced here.

On November 23, three heavily armed militants attempted to enter the Chinese consulate in the high security zone' of Karachi's Clifton area but were shot dead in an encounter with law enforcers.

The gun-and-grenade assault also claimed the lives of two police officials and two visa applicants, as well as injuring a private guard of the foreign mission.

A senior official of the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh on Tuesday province said that the suspect named Rashid Baloch was arrested by the UAE's law-enforcement agency in Sharjah a few days ago.

He was marked out as the key man behind the attack on the Chinese consulate, that was foiled by security forces but left at least seven people dead.

"Rashid Baloch alias Abdullah is not only the facilitator of the attack but also a key man of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA)," said DIG CTD Abdullah Sheikh.

ALSO READ | Brave Pakistan lady police officer prevented terrorists from reaching Chinese consulate staff

"After the findings of the initial investigation, we were closely monitoring suspects and finally found his connection with the episode.

The interesting fact, that we gathered through technological support, is that he was very close to the Chinese consulate when it was attacked and personally monitored the assault.

"Rashid received Rs 949,000 to his bank account just days before the attack and he arranged all the finances, logistics and cash support to facilitate the attackers," he said.

Earlier this month, Additional IG Karachi Amir Shaikh claimed that India and its Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) assisted the attack carried out by terrorists belonging to the banned BLA.

The Indian government rejected the allegation, calling it fabricated and a scurrilous attempt.

"We completely reject these fabricated and scurrilous attempts to levy accusations on India," said the Ministry of External Affairs.

"Instead of maliciously pointing fingers at others for such terrorist incidents, Pakistan needs to look inwards and undertake credible action against support to terrorism and terror infrastructure in its territories," it said.

Earlier this month, the Karachi police claimed to have arrested some five facilitators from this city in connection with the attack which they claimed was carried out to "sabotage" the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
By AFP

MANILA: A grenade attack on a mosque in the troubled southern Philippines killed two people early Wednesday, authorities said, just days after a deadly Catholic cathedral bombing and a vote backing Muslim self-rule.

"A grenade was lobbed inside a mosque killing two persons and wounding another four," regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana told AFP of the attack in Zamboanga City.

The victims were sleeping inside the mosque at the time of the attack on the insurgency-plagued island of Mindanao, which is home to the Philippines' Muslim minority.

The blast comes as the country was on high alert after a cathedral bombing that killed 21 people at Sunday mass on the remote, Muslim-majority island of Jolo.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the cathedral blast.

Philippine authorities initially said it was not a suicide attack, but on Tuesday President Rodrigo Duterte contradicted them saying one of the bombers had blown himself up outside the cathedral.

Besana told AFP it was too early to say whether the mosque blast was retaliation for the cathedral attack, adding police were hunting for those responsible.

The attacks have interrupted the joy spurred by voters' decisive approval of giving Muslims in the south more control over their own affairs, which sparked hopes of quelling long-time separatist violence.

Rebels and the government in Manila have expressed hope the new so-called Bangsamoro area will finally draw the investment needed to pull the region from the brutal poverty that makes it a hotspot for radical recruitment.

However, hardline factions aligned with IS were not part of the decades-long peace process with the nation's largest separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that culminated January 21 with the resounding approval of a new Muslim led-region in the south.

Jolo, which is home to hardline Islamist factions, is the only area in the southern Philippines that voted against the Bangsamoro. Its leader came out publicly against the region and even asked the nation's top court to halt the vote.

The grenade attack on Wednesday drew immediate condemnation from authorities.

"There is no redeeming such blasphemous murder. It is the highest form of cowardice and obscenity to attack people who at prayer," said regional leader Mujiv Hataman.

"We call on people of all faiths... to come together to pray for peace."
By PTI

BERLIN: The Brexit deal sealed by British PM Theresa May and the EU is the "best and only solution" for an orderly withdrawal, German foreign minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday, stressing the bloc won't leave Ireland isolated.

"Our position is clear: the withdrawal agreement is the best and only solution for an orderly exit," he told the Funke media group, after British MPs voted for May to renegotiate the deal.

MPs late Tuesday voted through an amendment saying they would only support a divorce deal if its controversial "backstop" clause to keep the Irish border open was removed.

Maas said it remained unclear what the British government wants amended.

"It must now quickly say what it wants because time is short," said Maas.

He stressed however that Germany and the EU stood firmly behind Ireland on the issue.

"We won't allow Ireland to be isolated on this question," he said.

Brexit hardliners from May's Conservative party think the backstop -- created to keep the border open with Ireland -- could see Britain indefinitely tied to EU trade rules.

The winning amendment calls for the backstop to be replaced with "alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border" -- vague wording that did not pin May to any specific approach.
V Nilesh By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Stretching along hundreds of kilometres across northern Telangana, Godavari river basin has a unique landscape, dominated by species of teak, specifically in the forests of the erstwhile districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam.

While the teak forests in these districts form the habitat for a wide variety of wild animals like tiger, hyena, wild dog and gaur, due to the high value that teak commands in the timber market, these forests also attract timber smugglers in large numbers.

Forest officials working in Telangana pointed out that decades-old large teak trees with huge girth were now limited to dense areas of very few teak forests in the State. The forest department has been mapping out such regions with human habitations in their vicinity through satellite imaging, so as to take measures to protect the trees.

Owing to the pressure laid on Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to protect forests from timber smuggling, the forest department has stepped up its vigil to curb the menace. Increasing vigil at forest check posts, along the routes that are usually used by smugglers and cracking down on erring saw mills form an important part of their solution.

The department has booked more than 330 cases, arrested more than 160 persons and seized timber, mostly teak, worth close to `70 lakhs after conducting more than 1,300 raids on saw mills, carpenters and habitual offenders.

READ | 25 new check posts to come up in Telangana's Adilabad

The tree trunks obtained legally by timber depots or saw mills come with hammer marks on both ends, permit documents and measurements of the trunk. However, tree trunks that are smuggled out of forests have none of these. Once illegally extracted tree trunks from forests reach saw mills, they are immediately sliced as planks and are mixed along with planks obtained from legally obtained tree trunks. Hence, it becomes imperative for the forest officials to catch the smugglers before they reach a saw mill.The forest department has decided to add 50 more forest check-posts to the existing list of 38 check-posts in the State.

ALSO READ | Telangana forest cover depleting due to theft of resources

The department has sourced a list of about 450 habitual offenders of various forest and wildlife crimes, including timber smuggling. Telangana forest department, PCCF (Vigilance), P Raghuveer said that the officials were keeping a tab on the offenders and have decided to book anyone who was caught more than twice for timber smuggling under the Preventive Detention Act. They have already initiated action under PD Act in over 20 cases.

Bamboo smuggling, poaching in Mnagar

Nagarkurnool: Forests in the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district, particularly in the areas of Ambrabad Tiger Reserve of Nallamalla forest range have been vulnerable to illegal felling of trees and poaching of wildlife. The Achampet forest range, which include areas of Kalwakurthy, Achampet, Lingala and Kollapur mandals have recorded movement of tigers. Smuggling of bamboo from forests is rampant in the areas of Lingala and Kollapur. The smuggled bamboo is transported using small bullock carts, stocked at secluded places and further transported in trucks. So far, the forest officials have filed 188 cases against smugglers. As many as 10,000 bamboo sticks, 23 bullock carts and a few vehicles were also seized by them.

Local gangs help smugglers in Nizamabad

Nizamabad: Nizamabad district has 105 saw mills out of which 95 are actively functioning and only 5 have been seized. Each saw mill has a turnover of over `1 crore each year. Smuggling gangs reportedly indulge local smugglers by offering a good remuneration for every stock they help score. This was discovered by officials in recent seizures. While senior officials are unable to invite political attention to the issue while the lower-level officials continue to encourage the illegal trade of teak wood between smuggling gangs and saw mills.

Karimnagar finally gets check posts in sensitive areas

Karimnagar: Among the newly formed districts, Karimnagar may be the last to install check posts to curb illegal transport of teakwood. After Rajanna-Sircilla, Peddapalli and Jagtial, the police and forest officials have come together in Karimnagar to erect check posts. In-charge Forest Officer of Rajanna-Sircilla and Karimnagar district, V Srinivas Rao, said two check posts have been erected at Peddamma temple and Marrimadla. He also said that although there is no forest in Karimnagar, teakwood is imported from other states to the district.

No major smuggling reported in medak

Sangareddy: In the united Medak district, forest officials have dug large trenches in forests to curb transport of wood. Barring some minor incidents, no major smuggling was reported from the district.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The nine-day strike by members of Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisations and Government Employees Organisations (JACTTO-GEO), came to an end on Wednesday, after most employees returned to work over the last few days. Meeting reporters on

Wednesday evening, the State coordinators of the association announced that the strike has been called off.

However, members of the association expressed resent, that neither their demands were met by the government, nor did the Chief Minister attempt holding peace-talks with them. "Respecting the sentiments of people and having students' welfare in our hearts, we have decided to end the strike," said Meenakshi Sundaram, one of the State coordinators of the association.

The strike, which started on January 22, kept nearly a third of all government employees away from work during the initial days. Several schools across the State were shut down last week, as the teachers did not show up. Many government offices too were less functional as its employees participated in the strike. Thousands of employees who took part in protests and road-rokos were arrested and released later.

Over 400 employees, on whom an FIR was registered, were suspended from work.

ALSO READ: 97 per cent of striking Tamil Nadu government teachers return to work

The association urged that the Chief Minister met them and discussed their demands. The State however did not relent and devised several strategies to ensure that workers rejoined duty. For starters, the government enticed teachers into coming back, by promising that they will not take disciplinary action if the employees returned within stipulated time.

Last Thursday, the School Education Department went a step further and said that temporary teachers will be appointed at a monthly salary of Rs 10,000 to replace the ones on strike. Over a lakh candidates had applied to just a few hundred vacancies, according to a senior official from the School Education Department. The State, pulling an ace out of its sleeve, also threatened employees that their seats will be

considered as vacant and be opened for transfers if they did not return.

READ | TN government staff strike: Over a lakh apply for temporary teaching posts

Fearing that they may lose their jobs, slowly, but steadily, more and more teachers returned to work. While the State government announced that Republic Day was the deadline to return to work, it pushed the deadline repeatedly until Wednesday morning, by when almost all employees had returned to work.

The association had a nine-point demand list in which they urged the government to repeal the new pension scheme and revert to the old one, settle 21-month pay arrears according to the new pay commissions guidelines, settle pay anomalies for secondary teachers and regularise the jobs of part-time staff and teachers working at Anganwadis. In addition to these, the association has asked the government to not employ elementary school teachers in Anganwadis.

Responding to the demands, on Saturday, D Jayakumar Minister for Fisheries and Personnel and Administrative Reforms, sent out a 11-page rebuttal, claiming that the State was financially disabled to meet the association's demands. However, the statement did not address paying back the 21-month pay-arrears.

ALSO READ | Thousands of TN teachers, employees held for striking; lock broken to open school in Vellore

Demotivated by both dwindling participation, State's stubborn stand and growing public criticism, the association finally relented on Wednesday and called-off the strike. "We are still hopeful that the Chief Minister will meet us and be fair to us," said Sundaram.

Meanwhile, a senior official from the School Education Department said that the government is appointing temporary teachers to fill in for the 422 teachers who were suspended.


By Express News Service

KOCHI: In his 45-minutes-long speech on Tuesday, AICC chief Rahul Gandhi gave a considerable time for heaping praise on Kerala and criticising the LDF Government.

He said Kerala is not just a state, it is an idea. It (Kerala) is a way of looking at the world... It includes compassion, humility and respect. The people of Kerala are a helping guide to the people of India, he said.

Recalling his recent Dubai visit, Rahul said he was proud to see the spirit of Malayalees working there, which reflected in the fantastic buildings and symbolic structures in that country.

The NRI communities brought honour to Kerala and stood with Kerala in the traumatic time of the floods. The government did not give support and vision that Kerala needed during the tough times.

The massive flood was a man-made disaster. But Kerala stood united to overcome the traumatic time. The expectation was on the government to rebuild the state. But they did nothing, he said, criticising the CPM-led LDF government.

Kerala and India will grow only if we are united. We cannot achieve anything if we are divided, he said.

Chinese products everywhere

(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi says India is ahead of China but everywhere you see items made in China. And remember, each time you see this, Chinese youths are benefitting. I am confident if we work together one day, Chinese youngsters will take selfies with phones made in India, Rahul promised.

Cong respects Keralas traditions, culture

Referring to the Sabarimala issue indirectly, Rahul said the Congress respects women of Kerala and at the same time respects its tradition and culture.We do not agree with the violence unleashed by the BJP and the CPM. Kerala and India can only grow if there is love and affection and if the people work together. We will not benefit from violence, he said.

Rahul shares microphone with Satheesan

Kochi: In a rare gesture, AICC chief Rahul Gandhi, the main speaker at the Congress meet in Kochi, shared his microphone with V D Satheesan MLA, who was the translator, when the translation was disrupted following a technical snag.

Satheesan could not translate the speech in Malayalam perfectly as he could not hear the real speech due to technical snags, despite his efforts to change the position many times.

Following this, while delivering his speech Rahul called Satheesan and directed him to share the microphone by standing along with him. Sometimes, Rahul repeated his sentences when he came to know Satheesan had not heard it.

When Rahul completed his address Satheesan informed the matter before him.

Then, Rahul came again and said Satheesan could not hear him properly hence the translation was disrupted. He requested the workers to give him a big hand.

Cong prez holds talks with UDF leaders

Kochi: Prior to the seat-sharing talks with UDF constituents, AICC chief Rahul Gandhi held a meeting with UDF leaders in Kochi, after the party meeting. IUML leaders P K Kunhalikutty, E T Mohammed Basheer, K C (M) leaders K M Mani and P J Joseph and others along with KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, UDF convener Benny Behanan took part in the talks. IUML and Kerala Congress leaders told media persons that they demanded one more seat, after the meeting.

Meanwhile, the UDF convener said the AICC president has not given any assurance to any of the constituents on granting additional seats.

An informal meeting was held and it was not seat-sharing talks, he said. The meeting continued for about an hour.

Besides Congress, the IUML is contesting in two seats while the KC (M) and the RSP are contesting in one seat each. The two constituents IUM and KC (M) raised claims for one more seat. Earlier, Kerala Congress (Jacob) demanded the Idukki seat.
Bansy Kalappa By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: George Fernandes was a Bengaluru boy in the sixties as his parents J J Fernandes and Alice M Fernandes lived here. They had moved to Bengaluru from their hometown Mangaluru. Fernandes was sent to be a Catholic priest, and he went to the St Marys minor seminary on Residency Road, and then went to the major seminary  St Peters Seminary, Malleswaram, to study philosophy for about a year.

After moving away from this training, he left Bengaluru and went to Mumbai in search of greener pastures, but kept visiting the city to meet his family. J J Fernandes, meanwhile, kept shifting residences before moving to Leonard Lane, Richmond Town, where they bought their house, near the present Johnson Market, and moved there in 1973.

Fernandes, a trade union leader, however, did not spend much time with his family, as he was always meeting party workers while in the city.

The imposition of Emergency in 1975 catapulted Fernandes from a fiery trade union leader, mostly restricted to Mumbai, to a national leader, by becoming one of the tallest leaders in the Janata Party. But even after he moved to the national stage, Fernandes was confident of Bengalurus support, which is why he decided to contest the parliamentary elections from Bengaluru north. George was locked in a direct fight with another stalwart, C K Jaffer Sharrief, who recently passed away.

George Fernandes with Congress leader Oscar Fernandes at an event in Udupi; Fernandes with his parents and siblings; the former Defence minister with Siddaganga Mutt seer Shivakumara swamiji ; Fernandes taking a break at a function in Bengaluru | express

Bengaluru North constituency, before the delimitation, consisted of eight assembly segments  Shantinagar, Shivajinagar, Bharatinagar and Jayamahal  which were urban pockets, and four rural pockets, namely Devanahalli, Hoskote, Varthur and Yelahanka.

The constituency was loaded in favour of George because six of the eight legislators were from Janata Party.

But even with things in his favour, Indira Gandhis assassination started a Congress sweep that would help the party and its allies win a record 404 seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections.

Fernandes surprisingly lost that election, and there was talk that he was betrayed by his partymen.

Following this, Fernandes never returned to Karnataka politics as a candidate, but he continued to be close to the then-CM Ramakrishna Hegde and others.

His brothers Lawrence and Michael, who were incarcerated in prison during the Emergency, were influenced by him. Michael, a tw-time MLA, is still a trade union leader.
Avay Shukla By

Julius Caesar had three wives but only Pompeia, the second wife, is remembered by history, and not in flattering terms. A nobleman called Publius was accused of trying to seduce her at a party, was arrested, tried and acquitted of the charge. But Caesar nonetheless divorced Pompeia with the justification: My wife ought not to be even under suspicion. Pompeia then disappeared into history, and Caesars words into exhortations often quoted but rarely followed. But it is worth reminding our arrogant rulers of this little anecdote, for by definition they have to be held to a higher standard.

Modern, democratic India has many wives, all consorts of the government of the day: the judiciary, constitutional and statutory bodies, commissions and tribunals, all well looked after and well fed, enjoined only to be faithful to their duties. And I daresay most of them are. But that is not the public perception, and over the last few years especially, questions are being raised about their objectivity, transparency and accountability.

Whether it is the Raj Bhavan, EC, CBI, RBI or even the Supreme Court after the double sacking of the CBI director, never before have so many doubts been raised or muted questions asked about their elevated occupants. And not without reasonif a governor can sack an elected Assembly instead of allowing a claimant party to prove its majority, if inconvenient RBI directors can be discarded and be replaced with acolytes, if a premier investigative agency can be upended to ensure only the pliable can preside over it, if heads of learning institutes are appointed with the sole purpose of killing the spirit of inquirythen indeed the people are entitled to ask: If there is smoke, but apparently no fire, then where is the smoke coming from? For today the entire country is trying to find its way through this smog.

There have always been whispers about the other wives, but the first wife has always enjoyed a preeminent and unquestioned status: This is, of course, the apex court. But today even she has become the subject of gossip in the market. Ironically, its credibility was questioned by none other than its own judges on January 12 last year in that famous press conference in Delhi. Since then it has been downhill all the way: None of the issues raised then have been addressed in a meaningful way so fartransparency, structural reforms, the assurance of judicial independence and accountability. So it has become the order of the day for parties and even governments to cock a snook at its verdicts, as the Sabarimala, Judge Loya, Cauvery and Padmavat cases show. So-called political and religious leaders have the temerity to issue ultimatums to it on the Ram Janmabhoomi matter! And the lady doth not protest.

Unfortunately, its handling of the Rafale and CBI cases has inevitably added more grist to the anti-Pompeia brigade. The Pompeia baiters have pointed to the obvious lacunaea mild term, surelyin its decision: the undue haste to remove Alok Verma from office when the SC itself dithered for almost two months; the exclusive reliance on the report of the CVC, himself under a cloud; the non-consultation with Justice Patnaik who is now singing a contrary tune, much to the discomfort of the committee and the government, and the denial of the basic principles of natural justice to Verma. All these negatives we have come to accept from the government, but how and why did Justice Sikri condone them, when he was on the committee precisely to ensure the best judicial principles are not given short shrift?

Verma has resigned and the selection committees order is final. As Gopalkrishna Gandhi points out in an article, however, the order lacks conviction, it does not convince but commands, it is perhaps legal but not legitimate, it has authority but no credibility. And whatever iota of credibility it had has been thoroughly demolished by the subsequent revelation that Justice Sikri was actually the beneficiary of government largesse even as he was deciding a matter that was a make or break issue for the government. It would be unfair to infer a quid pro quo in the issue, but then why even allow the thought to cross our mind?

And that precisely is what lies at the heart of this darkness: The governments limitless patronage in handing out pre- and post-retirement assignments and sinecures to high functionaries, especially those from the higher judiciary. For Caesars wives to have any credibility, this absolute and discretionary power has to go. We should move to an American style of appointments where the government nominates but the Senate has to approve them.

A vetting by Parliament would usually still result in the government nominee getting the nod, but the transparent process would enable a closer examination of the nominees credentials, antecedents, loyalties, past performance and connections with the establishment. A person who emerges through this process would command greater credibility and acceptance than the partisan and opaque appointments made today, and would not necessarily be obliged to the government of the day. Incidentally, this process should apply to Supreme Court judges too, for the Collegium system stands discredited: It may suit a Freemason lodge or a Chinese tong but it does not behove a mature democracy like ours.

There is an aurahaze, actuallyover such appointments today and only the sunlight of complete transparency can dispel it and restore confidence in our institutions. Let us not forget our own mythology: Even the wife of a God had to go through a trial by fire to prove her fidelity. So why should Caesars wives be treated any differently?

Avay Shukla

served in the IAS for 35 years and retired as Additional Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh

Email: avayshukla@gmail.com
By PTI

BALLIA: Uttar Pradesh minister and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar Wednesday took a dig at his cabinet colleagues for taking a dip in the Sangam, saying they had gone there to wash off their sins.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his ministerial colleagues took a dip in the Sangam on Tuesday after holding a cabinet meeting in Allahabad.

"The ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government had gone for a holy dip at the Sangam on Tuesday for washing their sins. Going back on promises made to the public is also a sin and the ministers have tried to wash it through a dip in the Sangam," Rajbhar said.

Rajbhar also referred to Union minister Nitin Gadkari's statement on people punishing those failing to fulfil their promises.

Rajbhar, who had stayed away from the cabinet meeting, alleged that corruption in the present government was four times more than what it was during the SP and BSP governments.

To a question on the Centre seeking permission to return the acquired land around the disputed Ram Janambhoomi Babri Masjid site to original owners, Rajbhar said it was aimed at "befooling" the people.
PTI By

Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood was on Wednesday summoned by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale in connection with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's telephonic conversation with Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Mahmood was conveyed that Pakistan Foreign Minister's action was a brazen attempt to subvert Indias unity and to violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the External Affairs Ministry said.

"The High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned by the Foreign Secretary tonight in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference," the MEA said.

It further said the "Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of Indias condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert Indias unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister."
By Online Desk

The Hindu Mahasabha leader Puja Skakun Pandey on Wednesday celebrated the Martyrs' Day, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, by shooting at an effigy of the father of the nation and garlanding a statue of Nathuram Godse, his assassin.

The saffron outfit celebrated the day as 'Shaurya Divas' in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, by firing at Gandhi's effigy with a toy gun, according to the reports from Times Now.

In the video, which has gone viral on social media, Puja Shakun Pandey can be seen holding a gun and taking an aim at Gandhi's effigy. However, as Pandey was about to pull the trigger, she was stopped by one of the persons, who went on to say, "Chalana nahi. Abhi to photo session ho raha hai (Don't shoot just yet. Right now it is the photo session)."

Chalana nahi. Abhi to photo session ho raha hai pic.twitter.com/jqKBxBZuZ5  Ashish (@AshishXL) January 30, 2019

After recreating Gandhi's assassination, Pandey went ahead to garland Godse's statue and distributed sweets. Over the years, the fringe group has been observing Gandhi's death anniversary as 'Shaurya Divas'

Meanwhile, President Ram Nath Kovind and PM Narendra Modi paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 71st death anniversary.

Taking to Twitter, Kovind said, ''On Martyrs' Day, we gratefully remember Mahatma Gandhi and the countless freedom fighters who sacrificed their all for our Independence".

Modi stated that the country remains eternally grateful to all the martyrs for their service and sacrifice.

He said, "Remembering Bapu on his Punya Tithi. We reiterate our commitment to follow the path shown by him and abide by the values he stood for. We salute all the martyrs who laid down their lives for India. The country remains eternally grateful to them for their service and sacrifice".

Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse on 30 January 1948 in New Delhi. Godse was eventually found guilty and was executed on 15 November 1949.
By PTI

AGARTALA: A tribal leader of Tripura, Rajeswar Debbarma, has resigned from the BJP for its "failure" to implement poll promises, made during 2018 Assembly election, for the development of the indigenous people of the state.

Debbarma also demanded scrapping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill-2016 as it posed a threat to the indigenous people of Tripura.

He submitted his resignation to party president of the state unit, Biplab Kumar Deb, on Tuesday.

Deb is also the Chief Minister of Tripura and is currently out of the state.

"I am quite unhappy with the performance of the BJP- led NDA government in the state as it is ignoring the indigenous people of Tripura.

Not a single poll pledge, the party had made before last year's Assembly election, has been implemented," Debbarma said.

Debbarma, a former MLA of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), a regional tribal party, had joined the BJP before the Assembly election in Tripura last year.

"The BJP gave a clear assurance in its vision document before the last election that more power would be granted to tribal council, which would be named as 'Tipraland State Council' but the party did not look into the matter.

"Recently the Union Cabinet announced its decision to upgrade the tribal council into a territorial council, which will not fulfil the aspirations of the indigenous people of the state," he said.

On the Citizenship Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8, Debbarma said "It is anti-tribal and the indigenous people would be marginalised if Hindus from Bangladesh enter the state."

He also voiced his protest against police firing on Citizenship Bill protestors at Madhabbari in West Tripura district on January 8, the day the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha.

The proposed legislation seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim nationals from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India.

A Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel and six members of Twipra Student Federation (TSF), who were protesting against the Bill, were injured when police opened fire and resorted to lathicharge to disperse the gathering on January 8.

The present coalition government of Tripura, led by the BJP, has "totally failed" to deliver good governance in the last ten months and lost its credibility, he said.
By PTI

THANE: An undertrial allegedly hurled a pair of slippers at a magistrate in a court in Thane district of Maharashtra after being convicted in a theft case, a police official said Wednesday.

However, the magistrate ducked in time and escaped getting hit by the slippers, he said.

Ashraf Ansari, 22, was arrested sometime back in a case of theft and house-trespass in Bhiwandi town here, an official at Shanti Nagar police station said.

On Tuesday, during the hearing of the case in a court in Bhiwandi, magistrate J S Pathan pronounced Ansari guilty.

The accused, in a fit of anger, then threw his slippers at the magistrate, but the latter managed to avoid getting hit, the official said.

The policemen immediately overpowered Ansari and escorted him out of the court, he said.

The accused was later arrested and booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 228 (intentional insult or interruption to public servant sitting in judicial proceeding), he added.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The next meeting of the selection committee, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to pick the new CBI director will take place on Friday, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also a member of the panel, said on Wednesday.

The last meeting of the panel took place on January 24 but it remained "inconclusive". It was held at the prime minister's official residence and was attended by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Kharge, who's the Congress's leader in the Lok Sabha.

"The next meeting of the panel on the selection of the CBI chief will take place on February 1 at around 6 PM," Kharge told reporters.

ALSO READ | No decision on CBI chief, PM Modi-led panel to meet again

Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads the three-member panel with Kharge and Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as its members. At the last meeting, Kharge had sought dossiers of all the eligible officers for the post.

The post of the CBI chief has been lying vacant since January 10 after the unceremonious exit of Alok Verma, who was engaged in a bitter fight with Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana over corruption charges.

Both Verma and Asthana have accused each other of impropriety. Verma, after being removed from the post of CBI director, was named as the Director General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards a less significant portfolio.

Verma did not accept the offer and wrote to the government, saying he should be considered as deemed superannuated as he had completed 60 year age of superannuation. He had taken over as the CBI chief on February 1, 2017, for a fixed two-year tenure. M Nageshwara Rao has been working as the interim CBI chief after Verma's ouster.

Verma's resignation letter had led to a political slugfest with the opposition parties, mainly the Congress, accusing the central government of alleged interference in public institutions.

Kharge had recently written to the prime minister terming Rao's appointment as the CBI's interim chief "illegal".

He had asked the government to immediately convene the meeting of the panel to decide on the new CBI chief.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday hit out at the Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, calling her the new G to 2G scam gang.

Punning on the initial G in Priyanka Gandhis surname at a public rally in Kanthi in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal on Tuesday, Shah said, We had witnessed Rs 12 lakh crore 2G scam during UPA rule. Now one more G has been added. Her name is Priyanka Gandhi. So you can imagine the level of corruption if they come to power.

Calling Congress and Trinamool Congress two sides of the same coin, he added, Theres dynasty politics in TMC also. Nephew Abhishek Banerjee is waiting to take over power from Mamata Banerjee.

Shah said that while rest of India will vote in the elections for a second term of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government, West Bengal will vote to bring back its glory days of Golden Bengal.

People of Bengal want a change once again. TMC can't stop this by preventing rath yatra, killing BJP workers and denying permission to land helicopters. People will give the answer in the elections, he said.

Hitting out at the TMC government, he said, Mamatas paintings are sold in crores and chit fund scam accused buy them. Mafia belonging to TMC indulges in cow smuggling while illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are the TMCs vote bank. So, she wont take action against them. If BJP comes to power, we will stop cow smuggling and infiltration but also return chit-fund money.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the citizenship bill, party general secretary in-charge for Assam Harish Rawat said Wednesday.

Talking to reporters after separate meetings with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Rawat said the party is always concerned about Assam and the Northeast and it will continue to do so.

"As per the directive of the Congress president, the party will issue a three-line whip to its members of Rajya Sabha to vote against the bill," he said, adding it will try to rope in like-minded parties for support against the bill.

A Congress delegation comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia and Rawat besides others Wednesday met Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha.

The delegation apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and people's strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Terming the bill as "flawed", the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill.

ALSO READ | BJP allies in Northeast to put up a united fight against Citizenship Bill

Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi government's decision to get Parliament's approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition. India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Ten northeastern political parties, including BJP allies, met here on Tuesday and decided to oppose the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Janata Dal (United) also participated in the meeting.

We held this convention to cohesively oppose Bills passage in Parliament. The convention has unanimously decided that a delegation of all participating political parties from the Northeast along with other parties will meet the President and Prime Minister in the next few days and apprise them of our opposition to the Bill, said Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma after the meeting.

We oppose the Bill, for we believe, if implemented, it will endanger the lives and identity of indigenous communities of Assam and the Northeast, said Mizoram Chief Minister and Mizo National Front chief Zoramthanga.

Earlier, the Asom Gana Parishad had pulled out of the BJP-led government in the state over the issue. However, others are unlikely to quit the alliance.

There is no question of breaking away from the alliance with the BJP, Nagaland CM Neiphiu Rio told TNIE over the phone. Rios National Democratic Progressive Party and BJP are the two main constituents of the Nagaland government.

NPP, NDPP, MNF, JD(U), AGP, United Democratic Party, Peoples Democratic Front, Hill State Peoples Democratic Party and Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement, Naga Peoples Front and Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura attended the meeting in Guwahati.

The Bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to the immigrants belonging to six persecuted communities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who migrated to India till December 31, 2014.
By PTI

GUWAHATI: Opposition Congress MLAs Wednesday wore black badges inside the Assam Assembly protesting against the removal of a child's black jacket allegedly on the instructions of security personnel at a function of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

The Congress legislators staged a walk out after the speaker turned down an adjournment motion to discuss the matter.

On Tuesday, a video of a mother removing a black jacket of her crying three-year-old child allegedly on the instructions of security personnel before entering Sonowal's function in Biswanath district drew sharp criticism from the people, prompting the chief minister to order a police inquiry.

Most of the members of the Congress and the AIUDF also wore black clothes and termed Tuesday's incident as an attack on the freedom of expression.

Noisy scenes were witnessed in the assembly after the matter was raised in the Question Hour, prompting Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami to adjourn the House for 10 minutes.

When it reassembled, Goswami rejected two adjournment notices brought by Congress MLAs Abdul Khaleque and Rupjyoti Kurmi, saying the matter was not of "exceptional nature" and it can be discussed in other devices like the debate on the Governor's speech.

On this, the Congress legislators staged a walk out, saying that the matter is of public importance and urgent in nature.

READ HERE: Citizenship Bill fallout: Assam Police bars people from entering Republic Day events with black cloth

Immediately, opposition All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) also walked out in protest against the "statement" by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, who gave logic against the admissibility of the adjournment motion.

Earlier in support of his notice, Khaleque said: "Nobody can snatch away the right to wear one's one choice of cloth or the colour. It is a Constitutional right. The police violated the freedom of speech and expression."

The Congress MLA, who came wearing a black shirt and coat, also said: "We condemn the action of the government. Will we now change the colour of our hair? To protest this action, we are wearing black today."

Kurmi, who was wearing black clothes and a black sunglasses inside the House, said, "I am sure the Speaker is also hurt by yesterday's incident of the child. It is a shame! That is why, today I am wearing everything black inside and outside," He also said various groups and the general public are protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and ministers are shown black flags where ever they are going.

Responding to the Congress's charges, Patowary said no such direction from the government has been issued to prevent wearing of black clothes and the chief minister has already ordered the DGP to enquire the child's incident.

"A design is going on to malign the government. It is being done to tarnish the image of the CM," he said.

Other opposition legislators who were wearing black clothes include former speaker Pranab Kumar Gogoi, Ilias Ali, Nandita Das, Sukur Ali Ahmed, Mamun Imdadul Haque Chawdhury, Roselina Tirkey, Sherman Ali Ahmed, Jakir Hussain Sikdar, Nurul Huda, Rekibuddin Ahmed, Anwar Hussain Laskar and Aminul Islam.

The Tuesday video has gone viral on social media and has also been aired by local TV news channels.

Many adult male visitors at the chief minister's programme to lay foundation stone for an Eri spun silk mill were also seen in the video removing their black jackets and woollen pullovers.

The video comes close on the heels of security personnel deployed at Republic Day functions in the state frisking people from carrying black clothes to the events that were attended by ministers.

With massive protests going on in the state against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, black flags are being shown to ministers and senior BJP leaders wherever they go during the last few weeks.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8 seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India even if they do not possess any document.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Amid stiff opposition in Assam against the citizenship bill, a Congress delegation from the state on Wednesday met Rahul Gandhi and urged him to ensure that the proposed legislation is not passed in Rajya Sabha, sources said.

The delegation, comprising Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora, leader of Congress legislature party Debabrata Saikia, party in-charge Harish Rawat besides others apprised Rahul about the prevailing situation in Assam and the Northeast and people's strong sentiment against the bill, which seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to give Indian nationality to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

ALSO READ | Rafale, Citizenship Bill, Triple Talaq to rock Modi government's last budget before 2019 Lok Sabha polls

The team requested Rahul to ensure that the Congress does not walk out of the debate on the bill in the Upper House and make sure that it is defeated with the help of like- minded parties, the sources said.

Terming the bill as "flawed", the Congress had walked out of the debate in Lok Sabha, which passed it during the Winter Session on January 8.

The Budget Session of Parliament will begin on Thursday. The Congress president assured the delegation that he would give necessary instructions in this regard, the sources said.

The bill provides for according Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document.

There has been strong opposition in Assam and other Northeastern states against the bill. Political parties, students groups and others have been protesting on the grounds that the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims who have come up to December 31, 2014, thereby, increasing the deadline from 1971 as per the Assam Accord.

Also according to the Assam Accord, all illegal immigrants who have come after 1971, irrespective of religion, have to be deported and this bill violates that.

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has quit its alliance with the BJP in Assam protesting against the Narendra Modi government's decision to get Parliament's approval for the bill.

Modi had announced that the citizenship bill is an "atonement of the wrong that was done during India's Partition. India will safeguard all who had been victims of the Partition".

Meanwhile, a group of people from Manipur staged protests outside Parliament on Wednesday and set on fire copies of the bill.

The slogan shouting protesters were escorted out of the high-security area by police after about 15 minutes of their protests.
By PTI

LUCKNOW: The police on Wednesday registered cases against 13 persons, including a woman leader of Hindu Mahasabha, in Aligarh for firing at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with an air pistol, a senior police official said.

On the occasion of the 71st death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, workers of Hindu Mahasabha fired at the effigy of Mahatma Gandhi on Wednesday.

WATCH | Hindu Mahasabha leader Puja Shakun Pandey 'recreates' Mahatma Gandhis assassination

"The incident took place in a house in Naurangabad locality of the city. Later, the video of the event went viral on social media," Senior Superintendent of Police of Aligarh Akash Kulhary told PTI.

After the video went viral, a case was registered against 13 persons associated with Hindu Mahasabha including Pooja Shakun Pandey, a woman leader, the SSP said, adding no arrests have been made so far.

The police are conducting raids to nab the accused persons.
By Online Desk

Google India took to Twitter to ask Indians the burning question, 'Why ask Google assistant to marry you?'

Following the 'Really Really Really' meme trend that became popular in January 2019, Google took a dig at its Indian users. Google's AI-powered virtual assistant allows a two-way conversation and is available on mobiles and Tablets.

While some users took this opportunity to ask Google about privacy issues, some asked for a male voice for all the woman out there!

With over 6k retweets and 27k likes, Google India's tweet has gone viral!

Check out the hilarious tweets from the Twitterati:

Because when we ask her to call dad she asks this? pic.twitter.com/dR6twjNNm6  Funnygut24 (@funnygut24) January 28, 2019

.@GoogleIndia I just asked my Google Home in a low voice

"Will you marry me?"



And "she" replied, "I am already in a commited relationship as your assistant"



My wife seems to have overheard part of this conversation from another room and I think I am now in big trouble !! pic.twitter.com/KXEbwr74Sq  Tinu Cherian Abraham (@tinucherian) January 29, 2019

We

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want to know why you keep track of all our data without us knowing it! +  Pranjal Wagh (@pranjalwagh) January 29, 2019

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Haven't yet witnessed the peak Indian "tharak" yet..  Prateek Phoenix (@hackertronix) January 29, 2019

I really really really want to ask you, why Youtube stop music when minimised.  Sunderdeep Singh (@SSunderdeep) January 28, 2019

Google Assistant be like: pic.twitter.com/JriA2dKdrL  The Lone Astronaut (@Astro_Neel) January 28, 2019

Because we will get immediate positive response which makes us happy at the moment atleast - 90's kids @Uthistran    (@sat80890) January 28, 2019

Some even explained how hard it is to woo Google's AI!

If u think it's easy to make a girl accept ur proposal..

Then try Google Assistant..

GL is tough..



After many tires Google Assistant accepted my proposal. pic.twitter.com/WS4AhH8cNo  NaaaVeeeN (@SokkiNavee) January 28, 2019

Indians have proposed and been rejected by Siri as well!

This is not the first time that a major brand has used a meme to engage with their social media users.

While Mumbai and Nagpur police spread safety rules, Amazon India asked people to stop sharing their account with 27 others!

WE

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want you to NEVER share your

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really important OTP.  NagpurCityPolice (@NagpurPolice) January 26, 2019

We

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recommend you to follow rules.

Its always better to be fine than pay a fine  Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) January 29, 2019

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need you to stop using the word sapiosexual in your bios  Tinder India (@Tinder_India) January 24, 2019

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want you to not share your amazon prime account with 27 other people  Amazon PrimeVideo IN (@PrimeVideoIN) January 23, 2019

Even One Plus and Netflix joined the bandwagon:

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want you to stop settling. https://t.co/alS5oO1FAC pic.twitter.com/Cvl6dk7UoM  OnePlus (@oneplus) January 24, 2019

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want to know if you're still watching.  Netflix Philippines (@Netflix_PH) January 25, 2019

Have you too asked Google/Siri to marry you? Tell us why in the comments!
Murali Krishna CH By

Express News Service

Bouncing back from the debacle of Savyasaachi, actor Naga Chaitanya has been shooting for his next release, Majili, also starring Samantha Akkineni in the lead. A well-placed source informed CE that Chaitanya is showing interest to team up with director Praveen Sattaru for a new movie. Its not finalised yet, but Praveen has verbally discussed his movie with Naga Chaitanya. The actor has suggested a few changes to the script and will take a call after final narration. There is a possibility that the film might work out since Chaitanya wants to work with Sattaru, who has made several thought-provoking films in the past. As Chaitanya has already committed to work in a couple of films (Majili and Venky Mama), its too early to talk about it. Even if Chaitanya agrees to do the film, the project is over six-seven months away from hitting the floors, says a source. Chandann Reddy, who earlier made Dhada with Naga Chaitanya will shepherd the project under Kamakshi Movies banner.
By IANS

MOSCOW: Actor Karanvir Bohra has been detained in Moscow due to passport damage. He says the Indian embassy in the capital of Russia is helping him to get the matter sorted out.

"So bummed... Waiting at Moscow airport because my passport is a little damaged. They are contemplating to deport me back to India. (Indian embassy in Moscow) I wished you would have told me that prior to issuing me the visa," Karanvir posted on Twitter on Wednesday.

His tweet was noticed by the Indian embassy in Moscow as they replied through their official Twitter handle: "Embassy officials are in touch with Russian authorities regarding the issue."

The actor flew to Moscow on Tuesday afternoon for the MacCoffee Bollywood Film Festival.

According to a source, the damage wasn't caught at the Indian airport.

Indian authorities need to resolve these legal issues before a citizen to leaves India. Other countries are often strict with security protocols. What is one supposed to do after landing in a foreign country? https://t.co/286hzUGKru  Teejay Sidhu (@bombaysunshine) January 30, 2019

"Hence after Karanvir reached Moscow, it was noticed by the Russian immigration officials. While Karanvir has been at the airport for the last four hours, we hear that the Russian embassy, the Indian embassy and a lot of other people are working towards getting the issue sorted and having Karanvir enter the country and attend the festival he was originally there for," said the source.

so bummed... waiting at #moscowairport coz my passport is a little damaged.

They contemplating to deport me back to India. @IndEmbMoscowRus @IndEmbMoscow i wished you would have told me that prior to issuing me the visa.

feeling bad for @IndianFilmsRus  Karanvir Bohra (@KVBohra) January 30, 2019

Karanvir was last seen in the show "Bigg Boss 12". He is now looking forward to the release of his film "Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna", expected to release later this year.
By PTI

LONDON: A new film, which questions the narrative around Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of Nathuram Godse, hit UK screens on Wednesday, marking the 71st death anniversary of the leader of the Indian independence movement.

'The Gandhi Murder', described as a period film based on true events surrounding the killing of the Father of the Nation, will not be released in India at present due to alleged death threats faced by its co-producers.

"It is very sad that some extreme elements, without knowing the content of works of art, decide to attack it. This film does not demonise anyone, it is an attempt to analyse the historical facts," said Pankaj Sehgal, the film's writer and co-director.

ALSO READ | Paintings show how Mahatma Gandhi lived for peace

"Gandhi belongs to the whole world and is being simultaneously released in many countries including the UK, US, Middle East, Canada, Russia, France and even Pakistan. Ultimately, the film will reach Indian audiences as well," he said.

Co-directed by Golden Globe-nominated Algerian-Dutch director Karim Traidia and produced as the maiden venture of Dubai-based Nugen Media, the film explores the wider conspiracy around Gandhi's assassination by Hindu right-wing activist Godse.

It claims that the police and many Indian politicians were aware of the threat to Gandhi's life, and even knew of the key planners.

"The film demonstrates that the assassination was not an act of a single assassin, but a collective plan hatched within the corridors of power of the newly independent India," said Sehgal, who has been conducting research on the subject in historical archives over several years.

"Our intent is to show Gandhi's immense contribution to India post-Independence, which is something that very few people understand. They don't understand that his assassination was bigger than any of his other contributions. India was on the verge of a civil war," added Sehgal, who believes that the murder on January 30, 1948, silenced the communal frenzy that was threatening to further erupt in the aftermath of Partition the previous year.

The film stars Spanish actor Jesus Sands in the role of Gandhi and also marks the last film by Indian actor Om Puri, who passed away in January 2017 soon after completing the shooting on the project.

"Gandhi and his philosophy of passive resistance is well-known in Spain and, of course, we are all familiar with Ben Kingsley's portrayal in Richard Attenborough's 'Gandhi'. It was a massive task to take this on," said Sands, who is also a co-producer on the project.

The narrative follows three senior police officers in different parts of India, who, well aware of the intelligence that Gandhi's life is under threat, must take key decisions.

The film, with an international set of cast and crew from 34 different nationalities, sets out to question who really played a role in the murder and whether some conspiracy theories around the tragedy are indeed credible.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The launch of Kochi Marriots food mascot, Adventures of Jimmy Rocks, was done by actor Tovino Thomas at Kochi Marriot Hotel on Wednesday. After two years of exploring India, Jimmy Rocks is set to commence the journey in search of the best of India and the globe. With a seaplane as its mode of transport, he aims to achieve an adventurous food trail.

The culinary adventures will commence on February 5 at Kochi Kitchen welcoming the Chinese New Year featuring live dumplings, Tangra style, starters, a variety of noodles, Asian greens, crispy fried soft shell crabs, wok fried, tossed delicacies and more. The culinary trail will then progress towards Chandini Chowk to Chowpati. Jimmy Rocks will bring the best delicacies during Ramadan, Delhi, Jaipur, Italy, USA, and Japan that he will be visiting, said the authorities of the Kochi Marriot.

We are happy to re-introduce our travel mascot Jimmy Rocks. The team at Kochi Marriot conceptualised this series and even the seaplane is built by them for this adventurous experience, said Sumeet Suri, general manager of Kochi Marriott.Jimmy Rocks is a fictitious character who travels by various modes of transport around the country in search of authentic and unique flavours.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been certified with the open defecation-free plus plus (ODF++) status following a third party inspection conducted by a central team a few days ago. On paper, this means that the corporation is open urination free and has undertaken scientific treatment of faecal sludge using sewage treatment plants. The city was re-declared ODF last year.

The ODF++ status is conferred to those cities that treat 100 per cent of their faecal matter using sewage treatment apart from being open urination free, with no open drainage.

GHMC Commissioner, M Dana Kishore said that it was just the previous year that the Central government had re-certified the city ODF. GHMC has been making all efforts to maintain cleanliness in the city. We are hoping to perform better in the SS 2019, he added.

As per ODF protocol and norms, the ODF re-certification happens every six months. Accordingly, GHMC has completed its field inspection for ODF++ certification on January 19 and 20. He said that open urination is an area of concern in every city; unless, the public toilets are neat and tidy, people are reluctant to use them.

Swachh points to GHMC

Thanks to the ODF++ certification, GHMC would gain 250 marks in full for the Swachh Sarvekshan 2019, which in turn, would help them in securing better rank in the same.GHMC has constructed several categories of toilets across the city like Built Operate Transfer (BOT), Prefabricated, Sulabh, Engineering and SHE toilets (e-toilets). It has also convinced around 259 fuel stations and 280 restaurants in the city to give access to their toilets for public use.

Meanwhile, for the certification, Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has established 18 faecal sludge and septage plants across the city to tackle the large burden of untreated faecal waste.

The authority has also made these 18 STPs in such a way that it can facilitate co-treatment of septage. This has been achieved by HMWS&SB and GHMC in coordination with ASCI over last two months.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Food Safety officials raided and seized 1,000 kgs of banned plastic items from Hotel Saravana Bhavan at Vadapalani on Wednesday.

The Tamil Nadu government had banned single-use plastics from January 1 and the authorities have been conducting raids in big outlets and seizing if the banned items were found in the premises. Official sources said a team from of food safety officials began a surprise check in the Vadapalani branch of the famed hotel chain at 8 am and found over 1,000 kgs of the banned single-use plastic items in the hotel's storeroom. The officials said they have moved the items to a particular room and locked and sealed it.

According to the officials, the list of seized items are 3,200 numbers of plastic trays (which were meant for mini tiffin), 520 plastic cups, 1,250 plastic covers, 1,650 plastic tumblers, 1,275 plastic coated boxes 55 plastic rolls, 550 plastic insulated and aluminium coated cover, 300 plastic straws, 20 plastic wrapper roll and others. The check was continuing till afternoon.

As per the government notification, all the banned items should have been handed over at the offices of the city corporation since the ban came to force in January 1.

On first week of January, the Tiruchy corporation officials similarly seized a total of two tonnes of banned plastic covers from a leading textile shop in that city.
BENGALURU: More than 4000 women, who arrived in the city on Tuesday evening, after marching for close to 205 kilometers, started proceeding towards the Vidhana Soudha from Malleshwaram on Wednesday morning. They are demanding a ban on liquor and were hopeful of getting to meet Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Wednesday.

However, police blocked their advance near Freedom park and they were stopped from proceeding any further. The resulting confusion led to the complete blocking of Sheshadri road where commuters were stuck in traffic jams.

The women reached the city after a long and gruelling march in which several of them suffered from swollen legs and other ailments. Policemen could be seen asking them to stop their march near Freedom park and around 150 policemen were deputed for security. When Kumaraswamy was CM in 2006, he had banned country liquor and single digit lottery in Karnataka and the women are hopeful that he would listen to their representation this time.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The report of the Justice BN Krishna committee, probing allegations of violation of regulations against ICICI bank Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, has vindicated the CBI's stand in the case, officials said on Wednesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the agency officials were of the view that findings of its preliminary enquiry, on the basis of which it registered an FIR, indicated that Kochhar had colluded with VN Dhoot of Videocon Group in clearing the loans.

After filing of the FIR, the agency had received some harsh comments from former finance minister Arun Jaitley who advised the agency to avoid "adventurism".

"Sitting thousands of kilometres away, when I read the list of potential targets in the ICICI case, the thought that crossed my mind was again the same - instead of focusing primarily on the target, is a journey to nowhere (or everywhere) being undertaken? If we include the entire who's who of the banking industry - with or without evidence - what cause are we serving or actually hurting," Jaitley had tweeted.

The Justice B N Krishna committee report has vindicated the agency's stand, the officials said.

The ICICI bank had sought an independent inquiry by retired Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna which has indicted Kochhar, who had led the bank for nearly a decade, for violating various regulations, following which the lender decided to stop all unpaid retirement benefits and also recover bonuses paid to her since 2009.

After the report, ICICI bank will also treat her resignation as 'Termination for Cause'.

Meanwhile, Kochhar, in a statement, said she is "disappointed, hurt and shocked" by ICICI Bank decision Wednesday evening to treat her resignation as a "termination for cause" after an independent probe indicted her.

Kochhar, the first woman CEO of a bank in the country, also said she served the ICICI group for 34 long years "with all my dedication and hard work".

"I am utterly disappointed, hurt and shocked by the decision," Kochhar, who was on leave from June and finally resigned early October, she said in the statement.

The CBI had alleged that after she took over the reins of the ICICI bank, six loans worth Rs 1,875 crore were sanctioned to Videocon group and companies associated with it which turned non-performing assets and caused a loss of over Rs 1,700 crore to it.

It also alleged that Dhoot allegedly invested Rs 64 crore in the company of Deepak Kochhar, husband of Chanda Kochhar.

The CBI suspected that investments were camouflaged through changes in the ownership of a company founded by Dhoot and were quid pro quo for the loans sanctioned during the tenure of Kochhar.

The agency also wants to probe the role of loan clearance committee members of the bank who were allegedly part of the decision-making process in sanctioning these loans.

Banking doyen and Chairman of New Development Bank K V Kamath, Goldman Sachs India chairman Sonjoy Chatterjee, Standard Chartered Bank CEO Zarin Daruwala, Tata Capital head Rajiv Sabharwal and Tata Capital senior advisor Homi Khusrokhan need to be investigated, according to the FIR.

Their names were included by the agency in the text of the FIR after a year-long preliminary enquiry.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: An independent enquiry panel Wednesday indicted former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar for violating regulations, with the bank deciding to stop all her unpaid retirement benefits and recover bonuses paid since 2009, an embarrassment for the lender which had given the once high-flying banker a clean chit in the Videocon loan case last year.

Hours after the ICICI Bank disclosed the findings of the Justice B N Srikrishna-led panel as well as the move to consider her resignation as "Termination for Cause", Kochhar said she was "disappointed, hurt and shocked" by the decision.

ALSO READ | ICICI Bank case: CBI to call suspects for questioning after scrutiny of documents

Kochhar, also the first woman to head a bank in India when she took over as ICICI Bank CEO in 2009, said she served the ICICI group for 34 long years "with all my dedication and hard work" and the bank's latest decision has caused her "immense hurt and pain".

The latest development comes days after the CBI filed an FIR naming Kochhar and others in the alleged quid pro quo in extending Rs 3,250-crore loan to Videocon Group.

Amid raging controversy over the case, Kochhar -- also a Padma Bhushan awardee -- quit the bank in October 2018 months after the lender had given a clean chit to her over the issue.

An independent enquiry panel led by Srikrishna observed that Kochhar violated bank policies and other rules and regulations.

Based on the findings of the panel, the ICICI Bank board has advised to take "further actions as may be warranted in the matter".

Meanwhile, ICICI Bank CEO Sandeep Bakhshi said in analyst call that the bank has put out a statement about Kochhar, and the lender's role now is limited to cooperating with regulatory agencies.

The board, following the receipt of the enquiry report, on Wednesday decided to treat "the separation of Kochhar from the bank as a 'Termination for Cause' under the bank's internal policies, schemes and the Code of Conduct, with all attendant consequences".

These, the statement said, include revocation of all her existing and future entitlements such as any unpaid amounts, unpaid bonuses or increments, unvested and vested and unexercised stock options, and medical benefits.

The board has also asked the bank to take steps for "clawback of all bonuses paid from April 2009 until March 2018, and to take such further actions as may be warranted in the matter".

Kochhar became the CEO and managing director of the country's leading private sector lender in May 2009 and left the bank in October 2018.

The report found that "Kochhar was in violation of the ICICI Bank Code of Conduct, its framework for dealing with conflict of interest and fiduciary duties, and in terms of applicable Indian laws, rules and regulations".

The committee report concluded that there was lack of diligence with respect to annual disclosures as required by the bank in terms of its internal policies and violation of Code of Conduct and applicable Indian laws.

In March 2018, the board of ICICI Bank had given a clean chit to Kochhar and had said there was no question of favouritism, nepotism or conflict of interest on her part in granting loans to Videocon Industries or any other company.

There were allegations of involvement of Kochhar and her family members in a loan provided to Videocon group on a quid pro quo basis.

It was alleged that Videocon Group pumped money into NuPower Renewables, a firm owned by Deepak Kochhar, husband of Chanda Kochhar.

The allegation of conflict of interest was levelled by whistle blower Arvind Gupta.

Later, in March, another unnamed whistle-blower complained against the bank and its top management, including Kochhar, alleging a deliberate delay in recognising impairment in 31 loan accounts between 2008 and 2016 to save on provisioning costs.

These allegations led to probes by multiple agencies, including the CBI, ED and SFIO, and also questioning of the Kochhar family members.

The country's second largest private sector lender Wednesday reported little over 1 per cent decline in consolidated net income at Rs 1,874 crore for the three months ended December.
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The High Level National Education Commission has recommended that government to transform all private schools into service oriented institutions with the introduction of a new federal education law. Private school operators have protested the recommendation, citing it will weaken the private schools performance instead of improving that of the government schools. Stakeholders are divided over the issue.

In this context, Onlinekhabar has talked to educationist Bidya Nath Koirala, a member of the commission, about the future of private schools.

Excerpts:

The preliminary report states that all private schools need to be service oriented within seven years. However, the final report states that the schools need to be service oriented as soon as the Federal Education Act is implemented. Somewhere you have mentioned 2030 as the deadline for such transformation. What is the conclusion of the commission regarding private schools?

The communist government talked about a philosophy that all schools should be owned by the the government, not by the private sector. The communists believed that the objective of private schools, mostly, was to earn money. However, after listening to the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Education Minister, we came to a conclusion that Nepal doesnt have an environment to close private schools immediately.

We looked at data from 1989 to look at how many students were admitted to private schools. That data told us that with urbanisation, the number to students in private schools grew up. As the income level increased, parents wanted their children to go to better schools. Apart from a few government schools, most could not compete with the private schools. The government schools collapsed and the private schools took over.

It was because the teachers didnt want to teach or that they didnt have a proper environment to teach. Hence, how could not the government let parents put their children in better schools? We cannot close down better schools. What we can do is monitor private schools and make them oriented towards service instead of profit.

The commission formed in 2018 looked at setting guidelines for private schools regarding their fees. We also made a guideline about how to spend the fees, recommending that 50% be spent on teachers and staff, 25 per cent on students and school, and remaining 25 per cent can be profit.

The current commission, however, didnt talk a lot about fees, but about other issues as well.

When you look at the operators of private schools, they work day in day out to improve their schools. If you tell them to take money from schools and spend elsewhere, why will they work hard?

There are three aspects of this issue. The first is that government schools cannot get worse than this. The only way government schools can go is up.

Second, all seven provincial government have to work hard and show progress and we think that they will surely help the government schools in the long run.

Thirdly, teacher unions have also changed their thinking. I think theyve realised what helps the education sector. If they dont get involved in politics, I think the future will be bright. And if we can increase the quality of government schools, who would want to spend more money on private schools?

Also were not saying that every school is same. There are a few, where 10 people have invested money and employ another 100 and take nominal fees. Those type of schools will always remain service oriented. This new scheme will not impact them.

Aoother type of investors are those who have bought shares. They will suffer from the new rule. If you cant take profit as a shareholder, why would you invest? But for them, I think taking organisationsal profit will be better than personal profit. Earlier, they used to take more money and pay less to teachers; now they will have to pay a certain amount to the teachers as recommended by the local government.

According to your report, it will take over 10 years to improve the level of public education. But you also say that the private schools should be service oritented as soon as possible. Wont the transitional period be chaotic?

I dont think that will happen. I feel that if the schools at the local level improve, a competitive environment will develop. If one school does well in a municipality, others also try step up and that will help the quality of public schools rise. And if the children of the teachers study in the same school, the teachers will have to work hard to provide good quality education.

We have asked the government to work with the private schools to improve public education sector. If private, public and religious schools from an area join hands, it will definitely help. And for that to work, I think the local government needs to be a bit active and work for it.

I think we have enough teachers. But we dont have proper management. We have enough primary level teachers; we just need to train them and make use of them.

Another solution can be employing part time teachers at government schools. In a place like Kathmandu, is there any need to have a lab at every school? Cant four schools share one maths and science teacher? In todays technological world, we dont even need a teacher present as we can easily make do with a video lecture. We can use people from the local level for this.

Your vision is okay. But, wont there be a problem if we stop private schools and hope for the public education to be better?

The report doesnt recommend closing all private schools. We have just suggested that schools stop taking out so much money, and provide more services instead.

What happens to the private schools registered as a business company?

We have clearly written that the property of private schools will be protected. We havent mentioned that the company under which the school is run will be dissolved. The private property can be transferred to a private trust, but it cannot be transferred to a public trust.

Similarly, we have also said that we plan to take schools into educational trusts. An educational trust can be both public and private. We want schools to have an environment where children can both learn and play.

The can be turned into service oriented companies as mentioned in the Company Act.

But putting the schools into trusts, are you trying to imply that people should stop expecting profit from schools?

In Pakistan, there are banks; but according to the Quran, no Muslim should take any interest. But without taking interest, the bank will not survive. So what did they name interest? Service!

We havent told private schools to stop taking fees. We have told them to stop taking more than you need and pay teachers accordingly. Have a nominal fee and improve your schools education level.

We sat down with our friends from the private sector and they are in agreement that education sector should be service oriented. However, they have asked us how they can make their private investment public and how it can be taken to a public trust. We are in the process to answer these questions.

Will the private school have a future? Please clarify it in simple words.

They will become service oriented gradually. That is all. We have recommended different models for the transformation.

Who will determine the fees and salary? Is it the local government?

This commission hasnt been able to address these issues.

But, we have made it clear that the investor cannot take 100% profit from the school. Other provisions are recommended in an implicit manner.

Will the fees decrease?

That is up to the market. We dont have any hand in that.

So the expensive schools continue to charge high fees?

They will. They will run the school. Even if our commissions report is followed they will still remain active.
Regional

Manipur students protest against CAB in Delhi

Students from Manipur at the anti-CAB protest in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Correspondent IMPHAL, Jan 30 | Publish Date: 1/30/2019 12:06:11 PM IST

Manipuri students on Wednesday staged a protest against controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 at the national capital.

According to sources, during the protest students were picked up by Mandir Marg police after they burnt effigies of Central government leaders in front of the Parliament House.

Delhi correspondent of local cable network, ISTV, was among the students picked up by the police, the source added.

Before burning the effigies, over 130 students, who recently left Imphal to raise peoples voice against the passage of CAB at the national capital staged a protest at Jantar Mantar.

During the protest, they shouted various slogans like down down BJP government, We oppose CAB, Go back illegal migrants, etc. The protest was staged under the joint aegis of AMSU, MSF, DESAM, KSA, SUK and AIMS, and joined by students from various parts of Northeast States and members of Manipuri Students Association Delhi (MSAD).

Student leaders taking part in the protest said that their campaign against the Bill at the national capital will continue until the Bill is withdrawn by the BJP.

Meanwhile, anti-CAB slogans echoed the sky across Manipur this evening as people carried out torch rallies in their respective localities and villages responding to call given by Manipur People Against Citizenship Amendment Bill (MPACAB), a core committee of CSOs formed to fight against CAB.

Earlier in the day, sit-in-protests were staged at various parts of Imphal under the aegis of MPACAB. In each protest site, leaders of MPACAB created awareness on the possible impact of the CAB once it comes into force as an Act.

Meanwhile, civic society organisations, local youth clubs and political parties have extended their supports to the proposed 24-hour statewide general strike to be commenced from Wednesday midnight (January 30 midnight).

While extending their supports, nine political parties - CPI, CPI(M), Forward Bloc, RSP, JD(S), AAP etc.  called all section of the society to come forward to protest against the Bill.

Leaders of the political parties, talking to reporters here, said that they have decided to take part in all forms of movement initiated by MPACAB until CAB is withdrawn by the Central government.
MERIDEN  Organizers say this years 46th annual St. Patricks Day Parade is in jeopardy due to a lack of funding.

Organizers are scrambling to collect at least $5,000 in donations from the local business community to make up for a $4,000 contribution from the city that was cut in this years budget, according to parade co-chair Jim Finley from the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Irish-American organization that runs the parade.

Our funding goal is to try to get $5,000 from the businesses and individuals, Finley said this week. That will allow us to at least put on a decent parade.

The parade is scheduled to take place downtown on March 23, and Finley said funding would need to be in place about a month in advance for the parade to proceed. The AOH has not named a grand marshal for the parade yet because its not certain the event will happen.

The annual parade was one of several events that lost city funding in this years budget due to a cut the City Council made to the special events line following last summers budget referendum, city officials said. Other events cut include the Easter Egg Hunt at the Meriden Green, Christmas in the Village and the citys Three Kings Day celebration, City Manager Tim Coon said.

In addition to losing city funding, Finley said the local chapter of the AOH, the countrys largest Irish-American organization, has struggled financially over the years because of difficulty recruiting younger members.

Weve got a healthy core of old-timers, but were struggling to keep our club alive financially, Finley said.

The citys St. Patricks Day parade started almost 50 years ago, when then-mayor Abe Grossman approached the local AOH chapter about starting a parade.

Over the years, Finley said the parade became a non-sectarian celebration of not just the citys Irish heritage but of all Meridens ethnic groups. The parade in recent years has had over 200 participant groups.

The diversity that exists in Meriden is one of its greatest strengths and is really the heart and soul of Meriden. Thats what we love about the parade is having people from a variety of ethnicities cheer as we parade down the street, Finley said. Itd be a shame to lose that this year.

Mayor Kevin Scarpati said the St. Patricks Day parade has been something families have looked forward to for decades.

After being approached by Finley, Scarpati has begun helping organize a fundraiser for the event. The fundraiser will be held at the AOH building in late February or early March, Scarpati said.

If I can help in any way to reinstate some money from fundraisers or private donations, then Id love to do that, he said.

David Cooley, director of the Making Meriden Business Center, also recently sent out an email blast to about 90 local businesses asking for donations, Scarpati noted.

There are multiple efforts being made and (the planned fundraiser) is just one of them, Scarpati said.

Scarpati doesnt think funding for the St. Patricks Day parade and other events cut this year will be restored in future budgets. City officials in recent years have discussed establishing a process through which local organizations would come before the City Council to request funding for a particular event, but Scarpati said that idea hasnt been taken up by the council to date.

mzabierek@record-journal.com

203-317-2279

Twitter: @MatthewZabierek
Kudos Research Opens Berlin Office

London-based data collection, analysis and advisory services specialist Kudos Research is expanding into mainland Europe with the opening of a new office in Berlin. This new operation will be led by Divisional Director Volker Balk.



With expertise in the B2B, hard-to-reach, healthcare, biotech and life sciences sectors, Kudos Research and Kudos Health already have clients in the EU and provide data collection services to research agencies globally. The new Berlin office will provide access to a 30-seat telephone centre.



Balk (pictured) transfers to his new role with more than twenty years' experience in healthcare and B2B research, both in Germany and the UK. He joined the business in 2013 as Business Services Manager and more recently served as Head of Kudos Health. Earlier, he spent nearly twelve years at IT, healthcare and B2B MR firm RONIN Corporation, latterly as General Manager, responsible for the operation of the company's global data collection operations.



Commenting on the opening of the new office, Balk said: 'There is a high demand in Germany and the UK for quality data collection and Berlin is a major centre for the research industry .We are basically going where our clients need us to be'.



Web sites: www.kudosresearch.com and www.kudos.health .




Cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province south of Seoul for a second day, forcing veterinary authorities on high alert just ahead of the Lunar New Year.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Tuesday that three out of 97 cattle at a farm in Anseong tested positive for the disease.

The ministry dispatched quarantine officials to the affected farm.
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President Moon Jae-in paid his last respects on Tuesday to Kim Bok-dong, who was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army in World War II and died of cancer on Monday. She was 93.

Kim was a vocal activist calling on Japan to apologize for its wartime atrocities. This is the first time an incumbent Korean president has paid his respects at the funeral of a sex slavery victim.

"If she had survived a little longer, she could have celebrated the 100th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement Day and even visited Pyongyang following the U.S.-North Korea summit," Moon said.

The president added that victims "are dying one by one. It breaks my heart to see them go while the problem remains unresolved."


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This Tudor Revival house on Warden Drive in East Falls likely dates from about 1910. Ken Hinde will discuss homes like this one during the East Falls Historical Societys Feb. 20 program.
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Clockwise from left, leaders of the Universitys Student Bar Association (SBA), Aaron Barker, Tyler Morgan, Summer Carmack, Angie Pancost and Calder Thingvold, discuss the memorandum of understanding (MOU) the SBA and some ASUM executives are trying to pass. The MOU would require law students to pay a different student activity fee than before, and could no longer seek funds from ASUM to make student groups.
When the world shut down just over a year ago, I had no idea what my photo team would work on in the future. I was just over two months into my new job as multimedia editor, and though the future was uncertain, we still had a job to do.
Another source said Han and five other director-level officials had been sent for reeducation to the Komdok mine in South Hamgyong Province. "It seems a proposal for U.S.-North Korea talks he submitted to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was criticized for breaching doctrine," the source added.

A government source said, "We received information from an agency in the second half of last year that there were significant changes in Han Song-ryol's status and reflected the developments."

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol, an old hand in U.S.-North Korean diplomacy, has been sacked and sent to a reeducation camp. Han's name has been scrapped from a list of the top seven Foreign Ministry officials in the "2019 Who's Who in North Korea" published by the Unification Ministry.

Those sent away for reeducation perform hard labor in mines, plantations and poultry farms. One defector who used to be a senior official said, "Being sent to the Komdok mine is the harshest of reeducation sentences and means he just escaped being sent to a concentration camp."

The defector added most who serve there return with serious physical impairments. A government source said, "The sacking of Han Song-ryol is related to his long-term service in the North dealing with the U.S. He was probably labeled a spy due to his years serving as the U.S.' main contact point in the North."

Han was born in 1954 and graduated from Kim Il-sung University before joining the Foreign Ministry in 1980. He served as the deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the UN from 2002 to 2006 and was appointed director-general of the U.S. affairs department at the Foreign Ministry in 2015.

Robert Egan, who has developed relationships with North Korean diplomats, described his friendship with Han in a 2010 book titled "Eating with the Enemy."

According to the book, Egan asked Han who he respects the most, and Han said, "Donald Trump." Han sent his daughter to Columbia University in the late 1990s, and South Koreans living in New York apparently collected money to pay for her tuition.

Some experts view Han's sacking as a typical case of guilt by association. Thae Yong-ho, North Korea's deputy ambassador to the U.K. before defecting to South Korea in 2016, said in an interview with the North Korea Strategy Center in February 2017, "The father of Han Song-ryol's son-in-law was purged because he was close to [former North Korean eminence grise] Jang Song-taek, while Han's son-in-law and grandson were sent to political prison camps." That suggests a purge targeting Jang loyalists continues.

Another source said, "Since Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the Workers Party Central Committee, was promoted to foreign minister, officials who were loyal to former vice premier Kang Sok-ju have been phased out. In the process, factional feuding erupted at the Foreign Ministry and Han Song-ryol, who was loyal to Kang, got caught up in it."

Also gone from this year's Who's Who is Pak Kil-yon (76), who served as permanent representative to the UN from 2001 to 2008 and later vice foreign minister. Pak was also seen as loyal to Kang.

A government source said, "There have been no records of any public activities by Pak Kil-yon for more than five years, so we assume he retired and deleted his name."
About 200 North Korean hacker groups are working overseas to earn hard currency and gather information by selling malware built by a global app developer, a source said Tuesday.

Their main customers are dealers in the West, including the U.S. and Canada. "North Korean hacker groups in China, Russia and Southeast Asia are taking orders from dealers in the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden through a site (www.freelancer.com) to build software and plant malware in it," a source said Tuesday. "This is called 'Operation Trojan Horse.'"

They are believed to hack into foreign companies' systems using the malware to collect information and steal money. "There are currently about 200 North Korean hacker groups overseas, each of which is sending US$400,000 to $1 million to Pyongyang annually," the source said.

Each group consists of about five to 10 hackers working behind front companies camouflaged as trading firms set up by locals in the countries where they operate.

The source said the hackers are employed by the North's General Reconnaissance Bureau, the top spy agency, and at first specialized in cyber warfare like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. But more recently they have focused on earning hard currency by hacking as the regime runs out of cash amid international sanctions.

Ryu Dong-ryeol of the Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy said they earn up to 1 trillion won a year and are also active in South Korea.

Voice of America said on Tuesday said the U.S. Congress is seeking various ways to guard against cyber attacks from North Korea.


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"I'm determining whether or not I should run, and if I do run, it will have to be an unprecedented grass-roots effort, never before seen in American history. I'm proud of what we accomplished last time, in attracting hundreds of thousands of volunteers. But we'd have to do even better this time. And the reason for that is that we will take on the entire establishment. That means, in a very bold way, taking on Wall Street, because the kind of concentration of major banks is extraordinary, and something we don't talk about. It means taking on the fossil fuel industry, because they cannot continue to profit as they release carbon into the atmosphere and continue to destroy the planet. It makes taking on the insurance companies and the drug companies as we fight for Medicare for All. It means taking on, obviously, the Republican establishment, it means taking on the Democratic establishment, and it means taking on the president. That's a lot of people."
You go into the tire store, and the salesman says, The tires are $150 apiece. You mention the sign you saw that says the tires are free. He says, Youve been duped. That sign is just to get you into our store.
The first thing that needs to happen is everyone needs to stop using the term wall, because in this instance its become so toxic that it is now a proxy for a person, and thats the president, Fitzpatrick said in an interview this month. People who dont like the president are going to have nothing to do with anything that is referred to as a wall.
China and Russia are working together to challenge U.S. leadership in the world, undermine democratic governments and gain military and technological superiority over the United States, the nation's top intelligence official told a Senate panel Tuesday during a hearing that also underscored the distance between the U.S. intelligence community and President Donald Trump on several critical fronts.

The two U.S. adversaries "are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s," Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said in his prepared remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee, seemingly invoking the Cold War of the 20th century to warn lawmakers about the strategic risk posed by China and Russia.

The countries have expanded cooperation in the energy sector over the past half decade; influenced international bodies that set rules and standards, particularly around communications technology; and will collaborate on the shared goal of "taking advantage of rising doubts in some places about the liberal democratic model," Coats warned.

CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray and other top officials joined Coats in a discussion that covered a wide array of national security challenges, including cyber attacks that will aim to disrupt the 2020 presidential election and the continued threat posed by the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

Coats, speaking on behalf of the assembled officials, gave a global tour of national security challenges, focused mainly on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

He said that North Korea was "unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities," which the country's leaders consider "critical to the regime's survival."

That assessment threw cold water on the White House's more optimistic view that the United States and North Korea will achieve a lasting peace and that the regime will ultimately give up its nuclear weapons.

It was not the first time that U.S. intelligence has determined North Korea is not on the path to surrendering its weapons. And throughout the hearing, officials found themselves repeating earlier assessments on subjects that also were at odds with the president's public statements.

The statement on North Korea drew extra attention coming ahead of a planned summit meeting next month between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their first summit last year ended with a vague agreement that contained few concrete goals and deadlines.

The distance between the intelligence community and the White House extended to areas that have ignited fierce political debates in Washington.

None of the officials said there is a security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where Trump has considered declaring a national emergency so that he can build a wall.

Coats noted that high crime rates and a weak job market are likely to spur migrants from Central America to cross into the United States. But he also sounded optimistic that Mexico will cooperate with the Trump administration to address violence and the flow of illegal drugs, problems that Trump has said Mexico isn't addressing sufficiently.

Officials also warned that the Islamic State was capable of attacking the United States and painted a picture of a still-formidable organization. Trump has declared the group defeated and has said he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as a result.

Coats noted that the terrorist group has suffered "significant leadership and territorial losses." But it still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, he said, and maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks and attracts thousands of supporters around the world.

The officials assessed that the government of Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon, despite the Trump administration's persistent claims that the country has been violating the terms of an international agreement forged during the Obama administration.

Officials told lawmakers that Iran was in compliance with the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as some officials had previously said privately. But Iranian leaders are discussing reneging on the deal if they fail to reap the economic benefits it was supposed to bring after international sanctions were lifted, Haspel said. The Trump administration has reimposed U.S. sanctions.

Intelligence officials largely sidestepped lawmakers' questions about why certain White House staffers were given security clearances after problems were discovered in their background checks that might ordinarily keep personnel from obtaining access to classified information.

Officials also warned, as they did last year, about Russia's intention to interfere with the U.S. political system via "information warfare" waged largely on social media, which stokes social and political tensions to divide Americans. Other countries are likely to employ those tactics, as well, Coats said.

"We expect our adversaries and strategic competitors to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections," the intelligence director said in his written statement.

Trump continues to equivocate on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, contradicting the unanimous assessment of all the top intelligence officials currently serving.

At last year's threats hearing, leaders focused much of their remarks on Russia, unanimously concluding that the country was trying to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections by sowing discord and confusion via social media, as it had two years earlier in the U.S. presidential race.

Last week, Coats emphasized in a national intelligence strategy document that U.S. spy agencies were turning their main focus away from fighting global terrorist networks toward countering Russia and other state adversaries seen as geopolitical threats to the United States.

The United States will be challenged in coming years, the strategy concluded, by nations that exploit "the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals" and "increasingly isolationist tendencies in the West."

In remarks last September, Haspel said the CIA would spy more aggressively on hostile governments.

The CIA's spies and analysts will "invest more heavily in collection against the hardest issues," Haspel said. She didn't name specific countries, but the agency has set up new centers to collect intelligence on Iran and North Korea and has been focusing its assets on major powers, including Russia and China, according to intelligence officials.
Some 800,000 federal employees, iuncluding more than 12,000 in Pennsylvania, missed two paychecks due to the shutdown, which ended Friday. The workers were expected to receive back wages, since the government closing ended Friday. Lehigh Valley businesses and others helped workers in various ways.
Around 6:45 p.m. July 27, 2017, police were called to Cwikliks home at 145 Nesquehoning St. for a report of an unresponsive child in the bathtub. Police had to force entry into the home and found Cassie lifeless in the living room. Cwiklik was highly intoxicated and was holding the girl in her arms. The child was not breathing and in cardiac arrest.
According to the indictment, Dougherty used union credit cards to buy groceries and household goods and to splurge on restaurants, and let others in his orbit do the same. He allegedly used union funds to pay contractors for work at his South Philadelphia home and bar. And he put friends and family members on the union's payroll, showering them with raises and overtime for hours they didn't work and using them to do personal tasks, prosecutors said.
U.S. and North Korean officials are to start fine-tuning a joint statement as well as discussing security and protocol for a second summit, the National Intelligence Service here told lawmakers Tuesday.

NIS chief Suh Hoon and other officials told the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee that both the U.S. and the North are "very satisfied" with a recent meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's right-hand man, Kim Yong-chol, in Washington. Kim Yong-chol and Trump had in-depth discussions in a "friendly atmosphere," they added.

"North Korea's denuclearization will gain momentum as working-level talks are now at full throttle," said a lawmaker on the committee. But the venue is still undecided.


Drug deaths are rising in Pennsylvania Coal Country and treatment is hard to come by, leaving families looking for answers Kay and Jon Steigerwalt sit in the living room of her Palmerton home, holding a photograph of their daughter Deanna. Deanna died of a heroin overdose in February 2018, leaving behind two children, including 7-year-old grandson Reese. (Rick Kintzel / The Morning Call)

Jonathan Steigerwalt cant bring himself to pick up the paint brushes and redecorate his daughters room.

The walls are stripped and the holes are plastered.

But hes not ready.

Every time I go in there, I just think of her, he said.

Last February, Deanna Steigerwalt died of a heroin overdose. Addiction, recovery and relapse had stitched the pattern of her life. In the year before her death, she was sinking again, with three arrests for drug possession and driving under the influence. Jail seemed inevitable. And she didnt have it in her to try recovery one more time.

Dad, I have no hope no more, she told Steigerwalt one winter day.

Three weeks later, at age 26, Deanna died.

Im sitting here wondering if theres more I could have done, her father said.

He did try. He called one treatment center after another, maybe hundreds, he estimates, to get Deanna help for her meth and heroin addiction. None had an affordable long-term option. So her stints at rehab were short-lived and never intensive.

Im sitting here wondering if theres more I could have done. Jon Steigerwalt on his daughter's overdose death

In Carbon County, where the Steigerwalts live, Deannas options were limited. She didnt want to go hours away from her two small children for rehabilitation. In a twisted but common turn of events, that reluctance cost her life.

Her story is commonplace, especially in rural America. The opioid epidemic is devastating families across the country, killing people in their 20s and 30s and leaving their children orphaned. Pennsylvania is among the hardest hit states. But in Carbon County, the situation is more dire.

It has the highest fatal overdose rate in the region  about 23 deaths per 100,000 people  and ranks in the top fifth among the states 67 counties. As deaths have skyrocketed, treatment options there and in other rural areas have not risen. On the contrary, some facilities have closed because of low reimbursement rates from government payers and a dearth of mental health specialists, who can have more lucrative careers in cities.

The problem has overwhelmed Carbon County, which also has the highest rate of opioid abuse diagnoses in Pennsylvania, and just one outpatient treatment center.

Eugene Tauber and Craig Larimer / The Morning Call

As the epidemic has worsened and local treatment options have thinned out, jail has become a common destination for people struggling with addiction. Carbon County jail is packed with people who drove under the influence of drugs, got caught with drugs, got arrested for drug-related burglaries and thefts, or were found violating the terms of probation for drug crimes.

Steigerwalt knows the struggle. When Deanna was a child, he was hooked on crack and using his roofing business to feed the habit. A three-year jail sentence broke his addiction.

It took me over a year just to get it out of my head that I dont want it anymore, he said.

Watching Deanna deal with drugs was even harder. Unable to save her, he started playing the lottery, thinking it could save others.

Im hoping to hit the lotto just to have the money to set up rehab, he said. And its going to be all free.

That pie-in-the-sky remedy reveals how powerless Steigerwalt feels. Hes drawn strength from a group of kindred spirits in a quixotic battle against drugs. They protest regularly across Carbon County, believing that their presence and their hand-drawn signs ward off drug dealers. They dont have money or powerful friends. They're not practiced activists or skilled lobbyists. Many are parents.

The group  sometimes three, sometimes 30  started as one man, Devin Dunwoodie, who walked up and down the streets of Lehighton with a sign after the death of his close friend Michael Graham. Like Steigerwalt, he was plagued by the question: What could I have done?

The grief for Mike, it was overwhelming. The first day that I went out there, it kind of started lifting it, because I felt like I was doing something, Dunwoodie said.

Soon, he was joined by people who felt similar despair, such as Steigerwalt.

During the weekly protests, Steigerwalt holds a poster with a photo of Deanna, long brown hair, doe eyes and porcelain skin. In multicolor markers, he abbreviates her story.

Deanna. 6.21.91-2.27.18

Drugs killed my daughter.

Addict lives matter!

Dying young

Michael Grahams overdose death had a ripple effect in Carbon County.

Soon after he died, his addiction counselor, Jessica Hansen, left the industry to take a job as a kindergarten teacher.

Shed lost patients before, but the deaths were becoming more common and more personal.

It was emotionally and physically killing me, she said.

Hansen had known Graham for a long time and she dreaded that all-too-familiar call.

After we lost Michael, it really took a toll on me, she said.

A few months after she left in May, Pennsylvania Treatment and Healing closed its Lehighton outpatient clinic, which also offered mental health care, alternative education and other programs.

The clinic was having trouble with staff turnover, and patients scheduled for counseling often didnt show up, said Steve Gaito, regional director of PATH, which has other clinics in the state. Plus, the clinic didnt provide the medication people wanted to help with withdrawal.

A Catholic Social Services clinic in Monroe County that took some Carbon residents closed in 2017 because it wasnt making ends meet, CEO Mary Theresa Malandro said.

The only center left in Carbon County is the Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commissions outpatient facility in Lehighton. The commission also refers patients to other centers, including the bigger Pyramid Healthcare in Monroe County, and pays for their treatment.

Last year, the commission put out a request for treatment centers to take their Carbon patients, said Jamie Drake, its executive director.

We put a public notice and nobody responded. Nobody responded, Drake stressed. So now, were spending a lot of time talking with my board about what were going to do. Do we expand ourselves?

Increased government funding has helped bridge the gap, allowing the commission to send people to rehabilitation programs in other counties. The commission received $3 million in state, federal and local funding last fiscal year, Drake said, much more than in previous years. That money means people in Carbon County now can get long-term treatment covered, she said, something that wasnt available even a few years ago.

Unless patients are paying out of pocket or have good insurance, addiction treatment centers have a hard time balancing their books, those in the industry say, because government assistance and some insurance coverage dont match the costs. Treatment requires medication for physical issues and counseling for mental health. But insurers pay less for mental health treatment than they do for physical health care, creating payment gaps.

Its a disparity that health regulators are trying to change, said Dr. John Gallagher, chairman of the Pennsylvania Medical Society's Opioid Advisory Task Force. Because of the low reimbursement, some facilities limit their medical assistance beds, while others take certain insurance plans, and a few require patients to pay full price.

The mental health profession has suffered as a result, Gallagher said. While other medical specialties such as urology or neurology are seeing more people getting into the profession, the number of psychiatrists is declining.

That business is even harder to make work in rural areas, where more people are on medical assistance or are uninsured, he said.

The opioid epidemic, doctor shortage and lack of transportation are all a part of the same problem, said Julia Lechuga, an assistant professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem. People who cant get to a doctors office because its too far or they dont have a ride may rely on medication to solve their problems, she said. That drives up addiction rates.

Orphaned by addiction

When Deanna Steigerwalt was dealing with her addiction, public funding for treatment was thinner, and she couldnt get more than a months stay. So her parents begged her to go to a free Salvation Army rehabilitation program in Harrisburg, about an hour and a half from her home in Palmerton. But Deanna didnt want to leave her children. Harrisburg was too far, she told her parents.

Her son, now 7 years old, lives with his grandmother, Kay Steigerwalt, in Palmerton, a borough beneath a ridge bald from decades of zinc-smelting. The boy sleeps in Deannas old room, redecorated with a cartoon carpet, a colorful lizard and a poster of the solar system.

Jon Steigerwalt plays with his 7-year-old grandson Reese in the same room that was his daughter's at Kay's Palmerton home. Rick Kintzel / The Morning Call

Hes shy but energetic. When hes not fixated on YouTube, hes jumping from kitchen countertops and stairways. But hes also sensitive, his grandparents say.

When Jonathan Steigerwalt tears up while talking about Deanna, the boy pulls his sleeve over his hand to dab his grandfathers eyes.

Reese is too young to understand why his mom died. But he says he remembers her. His sister probably wont hold on to memories of the mother who died when she was a baby.

But Deannas image is always close by. She smiles at them from pictures that hang on the kitchen cabinets along with Reeses crayon drawings.

In one shot, Deanna is smiling beside her brother and newborn son, a baby bump under her shirt.

Engraved on the frame are the words: Not a day goes by that you are not missed.

Kay Steigerwalt sits with her grandson Reese as he works on his homework. Rick Kintzel / The Morning Call

Treatment. Jail. Death.

Drug addiction inevitably leads people down one of three paths: treatment, jail, death.

Deanna Steigerwalt had gone to treatment and jail multiple times. Neither saved her.

Drugs are the overwhelming reason that people get caught up in the criminal justice system in an otherwise sleepy county, where murders are uncommon.

Its the biggest problem for police, and the reasons are many.

Some people point to lack of stuff to do. Some people point to lack of resources, treatment. Some people point to the mentality of the reporting issues: Im going to keep it quiet that my child has a drug issue, said Richmond Parsons, chief probation officer in Carbon County.

As government funding has increased, the Drug and Alcohol Commission has sent more people into rehabilitation programs. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, the commission sent 57 patients to short-term rehabilitation but none to long-term treatment. In 2017-18, the commission sent 128 people to short-term and 15 people to long-term rehab.

In Carbon County, the jail makes up almost half of all referrals to the commission, which provides counseling to inmates. But there arent enough counselors to meet the need, said Drake, the commissions executive director.

Jails have a complicated link to the opioid epidemic. On one hand, people who commit drug offenses can be connected to treatment either instead of prison time or after serving. But Carbon County jail, which houses more than 200 people including many suffering from addiction and mental health problems, doesnt have enough counselors and resources, county officials said. And addiction is an expensive problem.

While Carbon County pays about $62 a day to house the average inmate, a day of inpatient addiction care costs about $200.

In the long-term, treatment is the less expensive option, Carbon County Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said. Without it, people who are addicted often go in and out of jail, he noted, requiring more social services.

Theres savings in keeping people out of the prison systems and getting them back into a productive life, he said.

The problem is getting worse. Drug crimes are rising in Carbon County at a rate far surpassing the states.

From 2011 to 2017, drug offenses nearly tripled to 435, according to county data. Across the state, they increased by 36 percent. DUIs rose 74 percent in that time in Carbon County, while they decreased statewide.

As the county of about 64,000 people grapples with the escalating popularity of opioids and meth, the criminal justice system has softened its approach. Carbon County this year joined about half the states counties in offering drug court, which diverts some offenders to treatment.

Theyre not being taught what they need to know when they step out of that jail to not go back to drugs. Matthew Mottola, assistant public defender in Carbon County

This coincides with whats happening nationally. For example, district attorneys in Philadelphia and Chicago are looking to keep low-level drug offenders out of jail with plea deals that involve treatment, believing that jail is the less effective option.

Carbon County District Attorney Jean Engler understands the value of treatment, but isnt convinced it is always better than jail.

I believe jail can be effective for some people but not for others, Engler said. Treatment is effective for some but not others. Its not a blanket thing.

Engler is also quick to point out that addiction isnt an excuse for hurting people.

I don't think victims of assault, burglary or DUI are concerned about whether a person who commits a crime has addiction, she said. They do not choose to be involved in a crime. I want to be sympathetic to those with addiction, but they can cause severe damage, injury and heartbreak.

That attitude seems to be more prevalent in rural, conservative Carbon County, where drug use is still viewed as a moral issue more than a health problem, said Matthew Mottola, an assistant public defender, representing many charged with drug crimes in the county for the last five years. He has seen many clients go through the system only to return again and again.

Theyre not being taught what they need to know when they step out of that jail to not go back to drugs, Mottola said. Theyre not taught any coping mechanisms.

Because of limited resources, however, jail may be the only time someone gets care, said Parsons, the chief probation officer.

Cant find my way out

Jail put Deanna Steigerwalt on the path to recovery. During a three-month sentence in 2014, she got medication that blocked her opioid cravings, and she was clean for about two years. But it didnt stick.

As she fell back into addiction, she was charged with DUI three times in late 2017 and early 2018, along with various drug charges.

I need for you to get your life in order, her mother tried to tell her. I cant do it for you. You have to do it for yourself.

Deanna told her that death felt inevitable.

Why? Youre a beautiful girl when youre clean and sober. Youre smart. You care. Youre a good worker. Youre a hard worker. Youre a good mom. But youve got to get away from these drugs, Kay Steigerwalt said.

Mom, I cant explain it to you, Deanna replied. I just cant find my way out of this anymore.

Part 2: Lack of transportation keeps many from needed treatment and services 

This story: Despite high addiction rate, treatment is hard to come by

Support our watchdog journalism Get access to more investigative and watchdog reporting like this from The Morning Call, as well as our local news, business, sports and entertainment coverage. Subscribe now and get 13 weeks for 99 cents.

REPORTER'S NOTE Over the course of reporting the story, I helped out in ways I normally do not: providing a few rides, a few dollars and the occasional use of my phone. I met Travis Litts when he was begging for money for a prescription medication to ward off his heroin addiction, months before I began reporting the series. I gave him $30 at the pharmacy. Another time, I bought a bottle of Tylenol for Alicia Kachmar. And once I gave them $3 for the laundromat. I discussed these actions with my editors. I never traded my help for access to their stories. Binghui Huang

Bhuang@mcall.com

Twitter @Bhuang2012

610-820-6745

Binghui Huang wrote this series as a project of the National Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism. More about the fellowship is at centerforhealthjournalism.org.
This Is the Key to Understanding Chinas Economy

China is facing many challenges. Thats probably not news to you.



But what we often fail to understand is this: China will deal with those challenges in a much different way than what we are used to in the West.



To solve Europes financial woes in 2012, ECB President Mario Draghi promised to do whatever it takes. Yet central bank policy was his only tool.



Xi Jinping has a vastly larger toolbox. It is hard for us in the Western world to understand that.

Xi has every tool a top-down government can have. Not only that, he has experts to wield them. And all of them are 100% aligned with his goals.

Different Game Rules

I spent a few hours with Mark Yusko last week.



Mark is a good friend of mine and the founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management. He spends a lot of time in China so I often turn to him for on-the-ground research on this market.



Every time I hear him talk about the opportunities in China, it makes me want to fly to Shanghai or Guangdong.



The country has enormous investment opportunities as well as a strong entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurs there can create almost anything they envision.



However, you must realize this comes at a cost. The cost is a level of government intrusion unimaginable to us in the West.



In the US, were debating the data collected by corporations like Facebook and Google. Their Chinese equivalents are encouraged to collect such data and share it with the government.



And in every interview that I have heard, most Chinese people simply dont careat least not publicly.

Playing a Decades-Long Game

Xi Jinping wants China once again recognized as a global superpower. At some point, even the leader.



The Chinese leadership are all students of Chinese history. They know where they came from. Now they want to regain what they think belongs to them.



They are playing a long gamea decades-long game.



China is investing at least as much in artificial intelligence, robotics, and Big Data as the West is. The Chinese military controls, directly and indirectly, much of it.



So when US and European military planners get, lets just say, nervous about Chinas technological advance, it is not without reason.



China also wants the yuan to be a global reserve currency. A necessity for that status is willingness to run trade deficits. It is no accident Chinas large trade surpluses are beginning to dwindle.



That is a feature, not a bug. It is by design.



As for intellectual property and patent rights, the Chinese are rapidly creating their own.



China graduated 4.5 million, not counting software developers, mathematicians and other scientists. The vast majority of artificial intelligence patents filed last year were Chinese.



Their interest in protecting that property is replacing the former practice of stealing the IP shirt off your back.

Challenges Ahead

China faces numerous challenges, too.



Simon Hunt, who has been going to China for 25+ years and knows the country better than any non-Chinese person Ive ever met, put it this way.



What should be clearly understood is that Chinas economy is facing multiple changes in its structure. They include:



- Exporting companies relocating overseas because of rising domestic costs and American tactics (which wont reduce the total imports, just the origination of those imports!)



- A shrinking labour force



- A focus on high-tech



- The need to build infrastructure to accommodate the migration of another 150 million from the countryside to the urban community [in addition to the almost 300 million that have already moved in the last 40 years, in the largest single migration in human history]



- The need to focus development on the lower-tiered cities and rural villages



- Whilst continuing the process of deleveraging the economy.



I talk often about how big China is and how fast it is growing. Often I mention it is the worlds second-largest economy after the US. I may have to change that practice soon.



Standard Chartered Bank said this month China will likely become the worlds biggest economy at some point in 2020 (by nominal GDP and purchasing power parity measures).



2020 is next year! This isnt the far future.



Now, this wont be the end of the world. It is simply math. GDP growth is a function of the number of workers and their productivity.



China has four times more workers who are getting more productive. At some point, their large numbers outweigh the higher productivity we have in the US and Europe. This is inevitable.



That rise wont happen without some hiccups. And we have to remember that the US and Chinese economies are co-dependent in ways we cant change quickly. Problems in either country will hurt the otherand both now have problems.

Join hundreds of thousands of other readers of Thoughts from the Frontline

Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a weeks work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to his Thoughts from the Frontline to be informed about whats really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week.

John Mauldin Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Europe Has No Control Over Its Future. Period.

Whenever we talk about the European economy, Germany drives the discussion.



Yes, the UK and France are big, but Germany is the giant. If Germany sneezes, the rest of the continent catches cold.



And it is sneezing hard right now.

Germanys Economic Woes

The latest GDP forecasts peg German growth at 1.5% for 2019. That is way too optimistic.



Germany had a 0.2% contraction in Q3 2018and only 0.5% growth the quarter before. Fundamentals worsened, too.



Industrial orders for exports dropped 3.2% in November. This is the lifeblood of Eurozone. Germanys exports are what keep the European economy alive.



Exports are slowing due to the same cyclical factors that hit US growth. Like the US, Germany had a good run since the last crisis. At some point, it must end.



But some of this is uniquely German, too.



The euro currency gave Germany an upper hand over the zones smaller players who bought German exports with German loans.



We saw how that worked with Greece. Now a similar scenario is unfolding in much-larger Italy.



With all this going on, the European Central Bank wants to end its asset purchases in the coming year. And yet it keeps interest rates negative.



That is a formula for a wildly distorted economy, at best

Growing Political Tensions

Meanwhile, yellow vest protests in France reveal growing working-class unrest.



Imagine what will happen if (when) the EU economy dives into a recession. Unemployment will rise, governments safety nets will vanish. The population wont afford higher taxes.



It could get ugly and not just in France. Remember, many EU countries are parliamentary systems whose governments can fall anytime.



I admit, this is a gloomy outlook. Maybe its wrong.

In a Helpless Position

Gavekal Researchs Nick Andrews recently looked at these same issues and asked what could change Europes trajectory.



With monetary and fiscal policy constrained, and with domestic consumer demand weakening, any such driverfor the economy or equitiesis only likely to be external. There are several possible candidates:



1. A favorable Brexit deal. Since the UKs 2016 referendum, eurozone shipments to the single currency blocs second-biggest export market have stagnated. If the clouds clear in the coming months, with a no-deal Brexit avoided, then risk premiums will diminish, sterling will rally and eurozone exports to the UK are likely to pick up. For now, however, the outlook on this front remains highly uncertain.



2. Improved US-China trade relations. A deal to avert tariff increases would remove one major uncertainty hanging over the global economy. Again, risk premiums would fall.



3. A stabilization or acceleration in Chinese growth, whether as a result of a trade deal or a domestic stimulus program. A pick-up in Chinese domestic consumer demand would benefit European companies exposed to Asia, notably luxury goods stocks. However, there is little probability of a stimulus effort on the scale of 2009s, so the effect on Europes economy and markets of Chinese policy easing is likely to be muted.



In short, there is little prospect of a new domestic driver of European growth emerging, and the external situation remains highly uncertain. In the absence of any clear new growth engine, the composite eurozone PMI released in the first week of January indicates that a slowdown of year-on-year GDP growth to around 1% from the ECBs estimate of 1.9% for 2018 is possible.



Nicks implication is disturbing. Europe is helpless. It will continue circling the drain unless external events go its way.



In other words, Europe has no control over its future. That is not a comfortable position to be in.



If eurozone growth ends at 1% in 2018, its a good bet 2019 will be no better. It could possibly bring a true recession.



What happens to German banks in that scenario? And if they go wobbly, what happens to US, Canadian, and Asian banks?

Something Wicked Is Coming

If Europe goes into recession, it will have a profound impact on the world and the US. For those reasons, paying attention to Europe is critical in 2019.



Something wicked is coming. And we may see far more yellow vests or their equivalent all over the world before this is over.



I see significant potential for global recession that will bleed over into the US market. A few unforced errors from the Fed or US government could speed up the process.



Economics is about to get interesting.

Join hundreds of thousands of other readers of Thoughts from the Frontline

Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a weeks work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to his Thoughts from the Frontline to be informed about whats really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week.

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 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Gold Price Trend Forecast - 45 Days Until A Multi Year Breakout In Precious Metals

Today is the day we want to warn our followers that we expect the precious metals to continue to base with a fairly narrow price range for about 45 to 65 more days before upside pricing pressures start to take hold of the markets. There has been quite a bit of chatter about Gold breaking above $1300 recently. Many people have been expecting it to move much higher fairly quickly. We dont believe that will be the case  but expect it have another significant rally in April, May or June.

Monthly Gold Forecast Chart  Posted October 2018

Back in early October 2018, we shared this chart with all of our followers suggesting that Gold and precious metals would rally to above $1300 near December/January using our Adaptive Dynamic Learning predictive modeling system. Weve been suggesting to our followers for many months that Gold, Silver, and miners would begin a new upside price swing, yet we knew the big breakout moves were still many months away.

Pay very close attention to the DASH lines on the chart and the GREEN and RED arrows we drew to help our followers understand what we expected to see happen in the future.

Todays Updated Monthly Gold Chart

Now, take a look at the current Gold chart below with the same ADL levels displayed on it. Notice how price moved towards the DASHED lines almost perfectly in alignment with our predictive modeling results? Yes, the move in December was a bigger upside swing compared to the previous few months, but that is what happens when a price anomaly sets up with the ADL system. When the price falls out of alignment with the ADL predictions, we call this a price anomaly. This is when the price may quickly rally or sell-off, depending on the direction of the anomaly, to attempt to catch up to the mathematically predicted price levels.

Currently, we expect the price of Gold to stay between $1250 and $1320 for the next few months while it consolidates towards the $1260~1275 range near early April or early May 2019. And that will be all she wrote, folks. Because once price settles near this level near the April/May timeline, this should be the basing formation that will launch massive new momentum to the upside. Our opinion is that it would be best NOT to wait till the last minute to prepare for this move. Even though we expect this move to start near April/May of 2019, it could start to melt-up earlier than we expect  this is why we are warning you today that we have about 45 days left to plan and prepare for this trade. Subscribers entered a long GDXJ position down near the lows at $27.52 a while back slowly preparing for this major market bottom.

Daily SP500 Index Chart

If our analysis is correct, the US markets will settle into a melt-up format where global capital continues to pour into the US stock market in an attempt to avoid risks associated with global market slowdowns and events. This capital shift will continue to play out for the first 2 quarter of 2019 without much interruption. Our ADL predictive modeling system is suggesting that by May/June of 2019, precious metals should start to rally above $1400 and that means something is going to cause fear in the markets. It could be the US Presidential election cycle spinning up or it could be something external  we dont know yet. We do know that the Brexit date, March 29, 2019, is likely to spark some renewed fears in the global markets and we are eagerly watching the news cycles to see what is next.

The current support levels in the ES is between 2525 and 2645. We recently posted a public article sharing our research regarding our opinion that rotation near 2670 was likely and that the GREEN support zone should act as a floor for current price rotation. Our Fibonacci price modeling system is suggesting there is a vast array of support in this zone where the price should base, build power and begin a continued upside melt-up over the next 60~90+ days.

Why is it important to understand that this stock market may continue to rally as Gold and precious metals begin a breakout upside move? It is important to understand how fear rotates through the markets as a result of origin. The origin of the event or crisis that is generating this fear in the markets tends to shift perception as to the extent this fear/event will reach other economies. With the 2008-09 credit market crisis, the origin was the US and global financial institutions  the biggest institutions on the planet. We believe the new crisis event may be regional to Asia/China and Europe. Thus, the origins and reach of these events may be more isolated than last time.

Also, we know that the once leaders of a market (tech) become the dogs, and the unwanted assets become market leaders. Commodity/resource stocks (precious metals) tend to outperform the USA stock market in the final few months before the bull market ends and that could be what is happening right now. Tech stocks are lagging while the precious metals sector is one of the strongest.

We believe 2019 is going to be the year where skilled traders can make a fortune if you know what you are doing and can see these moves in advance. Our team of traders and researchers at www.TheTechnicalTraders.com are dedicated to helping you find and execute better trades. Visit our web site and see how we can help you build for a greater future. I will drop one little hint before the news hits the wires, we are building a new client services portal that will blow your minds in terms of ease of live intraday analysis, trading opportunities from day trading, to swing trades, and even our own long term investment signals). This new client portal will allow you to more actively engage with our team and fellow traders of our service. Get started now as we are only a few weeks away from launching these new member tools.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Mankato, MN (56001)

Today

Mostly cloudy early with scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 74F. SSE winds shifting to W at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 49F. Winds NNW at 20 to 30 mph.
Sultan Batehery : An FIR has been registered against Wayanad DCC member OM George after a complaint of sexual abuse raised against him.

As per the reports, George has been sexually assaulting the girl for more than one and half years. The girl and her parents were the servants at the former's house.

The incident came into light after the victim tried to commit suicide. Since the victim is minor, George has been booked under the protection of Children from Sexual Offenses ( POSCO) act.
Chinese authorities and telecom giant Huawei have reacted swiftly to indictments U.S. federal prosecutors announced against the company and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Meng's lawyer has argued she is being used as a "pawn or hostage" in the relationship between the United States and China, while China's Foreign Ministry says the case is part of a "unreasonable suppression" of Chinese companies.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department charged Meng with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran for doing business through a subsidiary it denied was connected to the company. The indictment alleges Huawei, Meng and other employees engaged in a conspiracy to "deceive numerous financial institutions and the U.S. government regarding Huawei's business activities in Iran."

Separately, the company has been accused of stealing technology from telecommunications carrier T-Mobile U.S.

In a statement, Huawei denied all the charges leveled against the company and said it was "disappointed" with the allegations. The statement also said the company had previously sought to discuss the accusations with the U.S. Justice Department, but that request had been rejected "without explanation."

In comments to Reuters, Meng's lawyer, Reid Weingarten, partner at Steptoe & Johnson, said she "should not be a hostage" or a "pawn" in U.S.China relations. "Ms. Meng is an ethical and honorable businesswoman who has never spent a second of her life plotting to violate any U.S. law, including the Iranian sanctions," he said in a statement to the news agency.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called on the United States to stop what he called its "unreasonable suppression" of Chinese companies including Huawei and treat them fairly and objectively.

"The U.S. has used its state power to discredit and pressure designated Chinese companies, attempting to throttle their ordinary legal operations. Behind all of this there are very strong political intentions and manipulations," Geng said.
Exton, PA (19341)

Today

Scattered clouds with the possibility of an isolated thunderstorm developing this afternoon. High 86F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 72F. Winds light and variable.
Magnolia, AR (71754)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. Hot. High 96F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low around 75F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
US President Donald Trump's "usable" low-yield nuclear weapons could cause misjudgments and put the world at risk of a nuclear war, experts warned Wednesday as the US began production of such nukes.

An unarmed Trident II D5 missile launches from the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Nebraska (SSBN 739) off the coast of California. Photo: IC

Ordered by Trump in the Nuclear Posture Review in 2018, production of the W76-2 warhead has started at the Pantax Plant in Texas, according to a statement from the US National Nuclear Security Agency, US media outlet Defense News reported on Tuesday.

Designed to be smaller than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during the World War II, the low-yield nukes are based on the US Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missile Trident. The first batch is scheduled for delivery by the end of September, the report said.

The Trump administration said the low-yield nukes would give the US a more flexible deterrent, because its enemy might think the US would not use its current nukes as they are "too big to use" and would cause untold civilian casualties, the Guardian reported.

With these more "usable" warheads, the US is loosening nuclear weapons constraints, the Guardian said.

For a long time, nuclear weapons were only meant as strategic deterrence to gain political and diplomatic leverage and maintain peace, but Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday that US low-yield nuclear weapons might result in the actual use of nukes on battlefields.

Unlike high-yield strategic nukes that target large political, economical and military hubs, the low-yield bombs are intended for tactical strikes on targets like smaller military bases, experts said.

However, such a deployment might cause serious misjudgment.

Upon detecting a missile launch, the receiving end does not know whether the missile carries high-yield or low-yield warhead, and is likely to react as if a larger warhead has been launched, Defense News reported, quoting nonproliferation advocates and Democrats in the US Congress.

China's principle is to never use nuclear weapons first, but Song said nuclear powers including China and Russia have a nuclear retaliation mechanism that will launch counterattacks with nukes, but that mechanism probably does not distinguish between a tactical nuclear attack and a strategic one.

While the US might use a low-yield nuke used in a conventional warfare to limit damage, it could escalate into a full-scale nuclear warfare resulting in a worldwide disaster, according to Song.

China is surrounded by nuclear powers, and if a low-yield nuke is used, more countries will want to use it, posing serious challenges to China, Song said.

Five nuclear powers - the US, China, France, Russia and the UK - are holding a conference in Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday. They are responsible for safeguarding global peace, security and stability, Geng Shuang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday. They should recognize the serious challenges facing global security, Geng said.
Today

Partly cloudy early. Thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 87F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening followed by scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low near 75F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Tomorrow

Thunderstorms likely. High near 85F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Quantum Trio (from left): Micha Jan Ciesielski, Kamil Zawislak, Luis Mora Matus

Photo credit: Kasia Kukieka

Quantum Trio from Poland and Chile won the Grand Prix in the Hitch On Jazz Juniors International Exchange 2017 in Krakow. With two well-received albums under their belt and a live album just released, the unconventional band whose music ranges from dynamic compositions through lyrical ballads to rock energy anthems release their third studio album soon. Mary James recently interviewed the band  Micha Jan Ciesielski, tenor/soprano saxophone; Kamil Zawislak, grand piano; Luis Mora Matus, drums  about the nature of their improvisation and what they have been doing since their win.



London Jazz News: An obvious question, but why is the band called Quantum Trio?

Quantum Trio: We met in Rotterdam in 2011 at the Codarts Conservatorium, all studying in the jazz faculty. Michal had studied electronics in Gdansk and took a brief course in particle physics. We all got interested in the idea of quantum physics and its implications, where there is a lot of room for interpretation. The notion of uncertainty and the unknown is artistically very interesting for a musician.

We would play without a bass player and engage in a constant change of grooves, kicks, motifs  basically just reacting to each other. Before almost every Ensemble class the three of us would come a bit earlier and improvise together. We liked it a lot and decided to meet every couple of days for a session of improvised music, a sort of collective instant composition. We would record these sessions and then choose the best ideas and work with them as cues. Then finally we would bring precomposed bits to the rehearsals and see what would happen and where would it lead us with the same open approach. It has always been an exciting journey to create together. Somehow we could guess each others minds while improvising, but we never knew what the final outcome would be. We believe the name came out as a representation of our creative process. Improvisation in music, as in the apparent randomness in quantum mechanics, is a big mystery in the way that it works, and also that represents a big inspiration in our music.

LJN: Please tell us more about that process.

QT: We take chances and go to unknown places. At the time that we are improvising we also act as some sort of duality. On the one hand we are ourselves, the individual instrumentalist, and we are creating music on the spot, spontaneously to what we hear and feel. But, on the other hand, we are more than ourselves. We are a unit, some sort of separate entity from us, and that entity has its own idea of where it wants to go. We, the instrumentalists, dont know where its going, and we shouldnt dare to turn on the light to see where we are going, because it would affect the final result. We are an active/passive element of the whole, and we let the music tell us what it needs and where it wants to go.

LJN: I detected a change in your sound when I heard you recently.

QT: We have all grown as musicians but also as people and friends. Recently we released a video of a session that we did in April 2018 in Warsaw where we played the material from our first and second albums. We had not listened to it until November and we were surprised ourselves. So we have decided to release it as a live album. The songs have changed, matured in a way that it was a new piece of music, the music had crystalized in a surprising way. It marks something in the history of the band.

LJN: So whats happened over the last year?

QT: Well we have recorded our third studio album and we have also matured. All of us have had many changes in our personal lives. We are not looking for an aggressive sound all the time; if the music needs silence, we give it silence. Our attitude to music is more humble, you give the music what it needs, not what you want to show. We have been performing a bit less this year, we needed time to think and not go into dangerous mode of automatic pilot that many bands play in. We didnt want that. What makes us special as a band is the interpretation of the moment. We needed a different way of hearing the music so thats why we sound different now. When we write a composition, there is always a limitation to that song, it serves a purpose emotionally but when you are more mature you take the limitation and you want to serve it better with the tools you have. We would never like this band to fly off the handle. We want to convey emotions by refining them so they are received better and better.

LJN: Your talk of refinement makes it sound like a scientific process.

QT: Well lets call it emotional science. We deal with emotions through music. We are doing a scientific search in a way  we look for uncertainty. We feel comfortable with uncertainty. Music allows you to say what you cannot say in words.

LJN: What have you been doing since you won Hitch On?

QT: Besides the regular shows, we have been preparing for the new album Red Fog mostly. We did a gig in Warsaw in April that we just released as a video and a new live album. We took time, we all have other projects. But as a band, Quantum Trio is a representation of our inner selves. There is a connection of every element of what each of us does, whether pop, jazz or other things, its all music. All our different experiences come together when we play as Quantum Trio, thats why its a band and not just a project.

LJN: Tell us about your new album Red Fog.

QT: We have had a restricted time to prepare for this album. For our first two albums we had no deadlines so the material developed organically. Originally, we had planned to record it in autumn 2018 but the label asked us to do it earlier, in July 2018. So we were forced to compose in a more instinctive way. The title song Red Fog was composed only one week before the recording session. In the last moment we had a lot of unconscious things in our heads and it all poured out.

Afterwards we were producing and mixing it ourselves, and we have created the atmosphere which was also a discovery for us. What we have learned from producing this album was where our music can go in the future. Red Fog will be released in March 2019 on Italian label, Emme Record Label. We are already planning our next albums, both studio and live. We also hope to come to London this year!

LINK: Quantum Trios website

Mary James, who lives in Gloucestershire, is a jazz promoter working with John Law and others. Twitter @maryleamington
Oral storytellings a key feature of many cultures; its said that Homer sang his stories to audiences in ancient Greece. And in his new novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma uses oral storytelling as a device, giving his novel an interesting flavour and makes it resonate past the last page.

His novel follows Chinonso, a poultry farmer who lives in rural Nigeria. Hes a simple, unassuming man: he loves his chickens and guards them like a parent, he has no real family, and when he sees a woman about to jump off a bridge, he stops his car and saves her. From a chance encounter, hes set into a course where he loses everything, gets stranded in a foreign country and struggles to get back. Rather Homeric, that.

But this is where Obiomas interesting narrative device comes in: its Chinonsos chi, a guardian spirit, who retells this story for an invisible audience of gods. He recounts the story as one would expect an immortal spirit: world-weary, slightly jaded, and with the best interests at heart for Chinonso. He retells the story, which starts off hopeful but slowly grows darker, ominous and finally angry, with a detached air: I have seen it many times before, it repeats, over and over. And yet, the chi is helpless to stop this story.

After Chinonso helps this woman, he finds out her name is Ndali; she spends time at his farm, and they fall in love, bonding over raising chickens and defending them from predators. However, as the daughter of a local chief, she comes from a position of power and privilege: her family doesnt just dislike Chinonso, they go out of their way to offend and demean him. He decides to sell everything he owns, pays a friend to get him into a foreign university, sets off for Cyprus and finds hes been duped: there is no money, no job or even a place for him in school. The story grows only more desperate and darker from there.

Admittedly, there are a few reservations about this book. For one, the oral storytelling device works quite well, but its rhythms and style take a little time to get used to. And the first third of the novel dragged a bit, with some scenes that led away from the main arc, but once the plot was set into motion, I hardly put the book down.

What really struck me about this book was Obiomas sense of compassion; both for his characters and for the world he created. Its a place where spirits dwell, both good and bad, and bicker and argues with each other. Its a place where the chickens sing a mourning song when a hawk kills one of their own, and where humans can hear and appreciate it. Its a world where Chinonso can struggle to forgive people whove ruined his life, yet still fight the urge to submit to revenge fantasies; hes far from perfect, but he leaps off the page, a fully formed person.

The same could be said for his chi. Take this scene, where it tries to reassure its host against anxieties, fears and bad spirits, but knows its all in vain:

In the years before I saw her again, I always told him to have faith like the white man of ancient times, Odysseus, in the tale he loved as a kid I would have kept mentioning this story to him, if the man did not eventually reunite with his wife. I could not remind him because his woman had yielded to another man. To remind him now would break his heart. I did not know how, at all, to help him. I knew it was futile to try to discourage him from loving her, and I could only give suggestions. His wil was sealed. (pg 403)

And indeed, his will leads him to disaster; no spoilers here, but as the novel grew on, more elements of darkness peered into frame, darkening a story which started so bright and hopeful: racism, sexual assault, brutal physical violence. Its a compelling story, but admittedly not a pleasant one, and it rings true.

All these add up to make An Orchestra of Minorities a very good read, and shows Obioma as a consummate storyteller, and one who with his second novel, has created a most interesting world  and a world beyond our world, too. Im not sure every reader will stick around long enough to get a feel for this one, but anyone who sticks with it will be rewarded.
To the editor:

As someone who is not a supporter of Donald Trump, I do like some of his ideas. However, Trump is his own worst enemy when it comes to gathering broad-based support for his ideas. His volatile personality alienates even those in his party.

If I were a woman, would I date Trump if he were single? Absolutely not, especially considering his presidential behavior. Sure, he is rich, but he is neither attractive physically, nor in his actions or spirit.

Among the many Christian Fruits Of The Spirit, (Galatians 5:22) he possesses diminutive amounts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Why would I date or vote for him?

Evangelical Christians support Trump. Do the Evangelicals seriously think that Donald Trump emulates the Christian Fruits Of The Spirit? The elder Evangelicals are especially to blame for their support of Trump. They simply cannot accept their world is disappearing. The younger, more progressive Evangelicals, to their credit, are less supportive of Trump.

If you consider yourself a Christian, or are someone who embraces basic Christian values, you should carefully consider whether or not Donald Trump deserves your support.

Paul Kiefner

Cape Coral
Taxpayers who support Lee Countys 20/20 Conservation program  and that, literally, is most of us- may see another 660 acres or so of environmentally fragile land added to the nearly 30,000 purchased thus far for preservation.

The Lee County Board of County Commissioners agreed last Tuesday to pursue the purchase of seven additional parcels, most abutting current preserves.

Four of the proposed sites are primarily mangroves within state preserves known as the Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve and the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, according to a Lee County release issued after the commission action.

The other three are adjacent to the states Yucca Pens Unit of the Fred C. Babcock/Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area, located on the east side of Burnt Store Road north of Cape Coral.

The vote means that county staff will seek appraisals on the parcels, which were recommended for purchase late last year by the Conservation Land Acquisition and Stewardship Advisory Committee.

We thank our county commissioners for moving forward and we re-emphasize our support for the taxpayer-funded program approved not once, but twice, by voters.

Since Lee Countians first agreed to tax themselves in 1996, the county has acquired 131 properties among 47 preserves.

The intention?

To protect drinking water, reduce flood risk, protect native wildlife and plant communities, and provide spaces to enjoy nature-based recreation, according to Lee Countys website.

The preserves, scattered throughout Lee County, include multiple sites in Cape Coral, North Fort Myers, Pine Island, Sanibel and Captiva, Fort Myers Beach, and outside Lehigh Acres.

While some have argued that the Cape does not get enough bang for its collective buck, we do benefit directly through the continued countywide commitment to watershed and environmental protection.

While South Floridas water-quality issues have only now become a political priority at the state and federal level, Lee property owners have put their money where their mouth is for more than two decades, with more than $350 million spent to date to buy land and another $4.97 million earmarked annually for site management efforts.

Nor has the county shied away from ambitious acquisitions.

In December 2017, the program acquired its second-largest site  the 4,000-acre Edison Farms land, an integral part of the Lee Plans designated Density Reduction/Groundwater Resource area  for $42.5 million.

Properties within the DRGR not only mark the regions aquifer recharge area and so protect the sources of Lee Countys drinking water, they also serve to protect the water quality conditions in Estero Bay and the Estero River by providing filtration for stormwater runoff.

A kind of microcosm of the Lake Okeechobee pollution correction plan that also is intended to recharge the Everglades.

Conservation 20/20 is a good program.

Its one voters agree is important.

It continues to move forward, for the most part, as envisioned.

For government initiatives this long in existence thats rare, rarer, and rarer still.

Carry on.

 Citizen editorial
The General Womans Club of Lehigh Acres will host Quarter Auction on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 1 to 3 p.m. It will be held at Faith Lutheran Churchs Sweatlock Hall at 705 E. Leeland Heights Blvd. in Lehigh. The event is open to the public.

The auction is being held to raise money, which will go towards scholarships and to help various organizations. Attendees can purchase paddles for $3 each or two for $5 and their 50/50 tickets. Food and beverages will also be available for purchase. Profits will go to benefit The General Womans Club Scholarship Fund.

This is one of the biggest fundraisers we hold yearly with most the proceeds going towards our scholarships, which aid in helping single parents with kids go back to school, said General Womans Club President Karen Geckler.

This years quarter event will feature 10 local vendors who will bring their products/items to exhibit. Each exhibitor will also present two items that will be put up for auction. Attendees can purchase one or more paddles with numbers on the front. All paddles will have a corresponding poker chip that go into a bowl with that number.

We will show the particular auction item and then each participant can then bid by putting their two quarters in the bowl. We then stir up the bucket and choose a number. So bidders can potentially win a $25 item for just 50 cents. Proceeds from the cost of the paddle, goodie basket, and food and beverages goes towards the charity, Geckler said.

The quarter fundraising proceeds will be split 50-50, with all quarters collected for the gift basket going directly towards the charity. Each vendor will also give out a small door prize to each attendee.

Its a fun event and there will be some great gift baskets and auction items. One year I won a basket that was valued over $75. It cost me only 75 cents. We also offer a meal deal for $5, which includes a beverage, sandwich, chips and a dessert, said Geckler.

According to Geckler, the organization held its first Quarter Auction in October 2018 and profited $750, which went toward the charity.

We had a great turnout in October, but are hoping that February is even bigger, said Geckler.

For more information, please call General Womans Club President Karen Geckler at 239-491-4607, or visit their Facebook page www.facebook.com/generalwomansclub/, or the General Womans Club website at www.gfwc.org.
Last Friday 30 Golden Apple Award finalists were surprised in their classroom, beginning the next stage of the process of selecting the final six winners for 2019.

Its my favorite time of the year, The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools president and CEO Marshall Bower said. I have three favorite times with respect to Golden Apple. First to walk into the classroom, not only to see the teachers, but really to see the students because they are so happy for the teachers. (Second) when we do the actual six recipients I load the bus up with a bunch of business people and bust into the classroom and then (finally) the big banquet when we shine the light on the teachers.

Each teacher picks a student to introduce them. We also honor all of the 30 finalists at the event. They are escorted on the stage by various sponsors and introduce them to the greater audience. We also invite all the 100 Teachers of Distinction to the benefit too.

Bower said they received a new record of applications this year with 350.

Nomination forms are sent out at the beginning of the school year with hard copies given to elementary and middle schools, and some to the high schools due to many of the students preferring to fill it out online.

The foundation received more than 6,000 nominations, which nominated more than 2,100 teachers, some of which were duplicates. The teachers were nominated by students, among other community members.

Bower sends an email to all of the nominees and shares that they have been nominated for the Golden Apple and explain the next steps in the process.

The application is a long process, he said, adding that the questions are changed every year.

Out of the more than 6,000 nominees, 350 took the next step. The applications are then given to the Golden Apple Selection Committee and ranked.

Bower said it definitely sends them a positive message when the number of nominations goes up every year.

The 30 finalists will now be visited by all 12 Golden Apple Selection Committee members. The visits will be unannounced.

After the classroom visits, each finalist will also be interviewed over a two-day period at the foundations office.

All 30 of the finalists and 100 Teachers of Distinction are great representations of what we have here, Bower said of the teachers.

Finalists provided answers to a series of questions for The Lehigh Acres Citizen.

Michelle Start:

Lehigh Acres Middle School

How did you feel when you were surprised in your classroom? Is this your first Golden Apple experience?

I felt proud of the hard work my students have put into this year as none of this would be possible without them. They are creative and innovative and push me to be a better person each day. This is my second time as a finalist  the last time was in 2015.

What do you teach?

I teach eighth grade English language arts and seventh/eighth grade global perspectives.

How long have you been teaching?

Sixteen years.

Where do you find your inspiration to continue to engage your students attention?

My students inspire me. When my lessons are subpar, they let me know it and when they are engaging, you can see it in their actions and how well they learn the material. When they ask me if we can do an activity again, I know it was a successful strategy.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

Every day is a new day, an opportunity to improve my lessons and reach my students.

Michelle Smith:

Lehigh Senior High School

How did you feel when you were surprised in your classroom? Is this your first Golden Apple experience?

Sadly I was not surprised in my classroom as I was off campus on a community-based educational trip to the Six Mile Slough. This is the second time I have made it to this level and missed being surprised the first time as they had confused me with another Michelle Smith in the county.

What do you teach?

I teach students with intellectual disabilities. I help teach a variety of subjects, but most enjoy providing them with career experiences.

How long have you been teaching?

This is my 22nd year teaching with all but three being at Lehigh Senior High School.

Where do you find your inspiration to continue to engage your students attention?

My students are my inspiration and help drive my teaching career. Getting nuggets of their AHA moments makes me want to pull more from them and show them how much they are capable of accomplishing.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

There are so many aspects I enjoy about teaching that its hard to really narrow it down. I love that my students always remind me to go with the flow and yet be ready for anything. Since I have my same students for several years, I really enjoy building relationships with them and their families. Overall, I think the aspect I enjoy most is seeing my students succeed at becoming more independent in their personal lives.

Jennifer Grida:

Tortuga Preserve

Elementary School

How did you feel when you were surprised in your classroom? Is this your first Golden Apple experience?

I was so surprised when they came into my room! I was a Teacher of Distinction last year and a finalist five years ago.

What do you teach?

I teach exceptional education (ESE) grades 3-5 in a self-contained classroom. My students have Autism, speech and language impairments or intellectual disabilities.

How long have you been teaching?

This is my 10th year all here in Lee County and always a Title 1 school with students with disabilities.

Where do you find your inspiration to continue to engage your students attention?

I get a lot of ideas from the other wonderful teachers in our county. Attention spans are very short in my class so I always have to change things up.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

I really enjoy my students. They are so unique and I love the challenge of figuring out how to best reach them each year.

Sara Kizzire:

Harns Marsh Middle School

How did you feel when you were surprised in your classroom? Is this your first Golden Apple experience?

This is the first time I have applied. I was shocked to be selected, as I feel that I always can improve my teaching craft. It is a great honor, and there have been many extraordinary teachers who have been selected before me, so I am trying to fill very big shoes.

What do you teach?

Currently, I teach eighth-grade science.

How long have you been teaching?

I have taught for seven years. Four years in Bonita, and three years here at the Marsh.

Where do you find your inspiration to continue to engage your students attention

Overall, I feel like my students are the ones that inspire me. If they are not actively involved in their own learning, I am missing the mark. I try to stay tuned to what interests them, and keep my teaching culturally relevant by pulling their interests into the lesson.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

Observing the ah-ha moments every day: the excited look, the feeling of pride, and the joy of success that students experience when they finally understand something new. It is my reason for teaching, the one thing I hold on to when testing, behavior, and the day-to day routine bring me down. It is the moment when you know all the hard work is worth it.

Kim Cabrera:

Varsity Lakes Middle School

How did you feel when you were surprised in your classroom? Is this your first Golden Apple experience?

This is my first Golden Apple experience. The visit was the last thing I expected to happen that day- so I was very surprised. When the group first came into my classroom, I thought I was being observed, so I kept teaching until my principal interrupted me. I was really moved by my students excitement! There are so many wonderful teachers investing their heart and soul everyday, it is an honor to be a finalist.

What do you teach?

Sixth grade reading and an Acts of Kindness elective.

How long have you been teaching?

This is my 4th year teaching.

Where do you find your inspiration to continue to engage your students attention?

I was the first to graduate from college in my family, so I draw inspiration from that experience. I wholeheartedly agree with Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful tool we can use to change the world. It is my aim to inspire as many students as I can to dream big, develop their gifts, and encourage them to attend college.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

I enjoy inspiring kids to apply what they have learned, by involving them in authentic service projects that meet a need in the local or global community.


Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

BEIJING -- The Chinese mainland firmly opposes any external intervention on the Taiwan question which concerns the country's core interests, a mainland spokesperson said Wednesday.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the comment at a press conference, in response to the passage of two US military vessels through the Taiwan Straits on Jan 24.

"We have the resolve, confidence and ability to safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Ma said.

When asked to comment on the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) recent behavior of trying to seek foreign intervention and professing that the mainland had "suppressed and dwarfed" Taiwan, Ma said Taiwan's DPP administration had constantly fanned hostility across the Straits, obstructed exchanges and cooperation between people on the two sides, and undermined the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations.

"The DPP has put the rights and interests of people from Taiwan at stake only for its own ends," Ma said.

Proposed ban on mainland sci-tech products in Taiwan to harm both sides: spokesperson

A Chinese mainland spokesperson said Wednesday that the ban proposed by the Taiwan administration on mainland sci-tech products would be harmful to both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

"With the increasingly close cross-Straits economic and trade exchanges, the move will not only harm the interests of mainland enterprises, but also consumers and many manufacturers in the supply chain in Taiwan, thus affecting Taiwan's own economic development," said Ma Xiaoguang with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council at a press conference.

"Such a practice of creating gaps and harming the rights and interests of the people of Taiwan is unpopular."

Ma made the comments when responding to Taiwan administration's intention to publish a list of mainland sci-tech companies that it considers as a possible threat. The administration said it would ban relevant mainland products and update the list constantly.

"We firmly oppose such practices by the Democratic Progressive Party administration that undermine normal cross-Straits economic and trade cooperation, for political purposes," he said, adding that the mainland would pay close attention to the issue.
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Were at war, said Jesus Escajadillo, a medical examiner at Tijuanas morgue. We are living through a civil war.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, increased border security made it harder for cartels to move drugs across the border, so they began paying local gang affiliates in Tijuana in drugs, which ended up on the street. The flood of cheap drugs has created a brutal marketplace, where users are killed for not paying dealers, and dealers are killed for selling on the wrong block.

Mexicans started producing cristal en masse after it became difficult to make in the United States because of increased regulation of the precursor chemicals.

Officials say one drug is to blame: Crystal meth.

While in the past the violence was driven by cartel battles over lucrative drug trafficking routes to the United States, now low-level dealers are dying for control of the city's growing local drug market.

Driving the violence is an entirely different kind of drug war from the one immortalized in films and narcocorridos.

The killings are overwhelming the citys paramedics, law enforcement authorities and workers at the overcrowded morgue, where at times bodies have ended up stacked on the floor.

A record 2,518 people were killed in Tijuana in 2018, making it one of the most violent cities in the world.

Paramedics with Tijuana Red Cross prepare to transport a shooting victim to Tijuana General Hospital.

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Few people know the streets of Tijuana better than Margarito Martinez.

As a crime photographer for Zeta, one of the citys most respected newspapers, he spends his days and nights steering a dusty minivan from one homicide to the next.

When The Times decided to explore an alarming increase in killings in Tijuana last spring, we launched our reporting by embedding with him, sometimes visiting three or four homicide scenes in the span of a few hours.

More than snapshots of grisly crimes, we wanted to understand what was driving the violence. So photographer Gary Coronado, videographer Jessica Chen and I began returning to the crime scenes, seeking out family members of victims who could explain what had happened. In a country where fewer than 1 in 10 homicides is solved, we couldnt rely on the police.

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Meth and murder: A new kind of drug war has made Tijuana one of the deadliest cities on Earth 

What we discovered through dozens of interviews is that Mexicos long-standing drug war narrative  glorified for years in films and narcocorridos  was changing.

Small-time dealers were fighting and dying over the right to sell drugs in a growing local drug market, a dramatic shift from when the root cause of violence was powerful cartels battling for drug trafficking routes to the U.S.

The bloodshed bore more resemblance to gang battles over turf in Baltimore or South Los Angeles than it did to the sort of violence you see on the Netflix show Narcos.

Just after dawn on a cool morning in May, as mist still clung to the citys densely built hillsides, we pulled up with Margarito to a typical homicide scene.

A man, Rafael Noriega Pena, had been killed in his home while his mother was sleeping a few rooms away.

Images from the front lines of Tijuanas deadly drug war 

Rafael was a junkie who had gotten out of rehab a few months earlier. His family wasnt sure exactly why he had been killed, but assumed it had to do with his addiction to crystal meth.

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As night fell, we returned to the house, where Rafaels friends and relatives had gathered and children were playing outside with crime scene tape. We knocked on the door. Im not sure why, but they let us in. We sat down to talk in the kitchen.

Bertha Pena, shown with granddaughter Michel Noriega, weeps for her son Rafael Noriega Pena, a father of five, who was shot five times. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Theres a common saying when authorities talk about violence in Mexico: Es entre ellos.

The phrase, which translates to, Its between them, implies that the countrys bloodshed is playing out only between members of a criminal underworld  and isnt touching everyday Mexicans.

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It was clear, looking around the red-eyed people in that room, that Rafaels killing had indeed touched many everyday Mexicans, and that his death was just as painful as the death of someone who had not used and likely sold drugs.

His relatives were distraught. They were angry.

Why dont the police do anything to stop this? asked Tomas, Rafaels younger brother, whose face was ashen after a day of dealing with police investigators and trying to calm his mother.

Months earlier, he had saved up his meager factory wages so Rafael could go to rehab. Now he was stressing out about how to find the $3,000 his family would need for a funeral.

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A friend of the family arrived at the scene and silently dropped a plastic bag filled with tacos on the table. Tomas and his relatives unwrapped them and ate for the first time all day.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum
Scores of roving government loyalists on motorcycles swung by the hospital just before noon on Wednesday, a stark warning to protesters that their actions were under scrutiny.

Squads of shotgun-toting national police monitored events from beneath the trees across the street.

We are not afraid! chanted the demonstrators, including doctors and nurses in white smocks emerging from the grounds of Dr. Jose Manuel de los Rios Childrens Hospital on the edge of this capitals frayed downtown.

Many demanded an infusion of humanitarian aid for a country where the once-vibrant health sector has been ravaged, leaving hospitals and clinics devoid of drugs, equipment and other necessities.

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We want an end to this situation in which we dont have food, electricity, even water, said Yadira Rosales, 57, a lab technician who was among those on the street outside the hospital. We protest on behalf of the children and the elderly who dont have access to medicines.

A woman takes part in a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, against the government of President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday. Her sign reads Enough with hunger and death for the people, while the the corrupt squander humanitarian aid. No to the violation of human rights. (Adriana Loureiro Fernandez / For The Times)

Thousands of people across Venezuela participated Wednesday in the latest series of anti-government protests, stepping outside of their homes, offices and other workplaces for two hours at midday. Health workers and patients were among many taking part in the diverse mobilization.

It was a low-key, mostly symbolic act in a country that has seen waves of anti-government protests in recent years that have left scores dead and thousands injured.

Venezuela is now perched on a new moment of uncertainty  hopes and fears stirred in a deeply divided population numbed from years of hyperinflation, food shortages and millions fleeing the country. Tension here appears to be increasing by the day, as international pressure is mounting as never before on the embattled government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Yes, of course I am afraid, said Josefina Perez, 50, an accountant who was among a cluster of office workers who left their buildings near downtown to voice their discontent with Maduro. But I also have hope. I want this corrupt government to go.

The already chaotic political and social landscape was upended last week when a little-known legislator named Juan Guaido declared himself the beleaguered countrys interim president, mounting the most direct challenge yet to the Maduro administration.

Self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido, center, participates in an opposition demonstration in Caracas on Wednesday. (Adriana Loureiro Fernandez / For The Times)

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Since then, some two dozen countries, led by the United States, have recognized Guaido as the countrys interim president  while Maduro has declared the move nothing less than a U.S.-orchestrated coup designed to pilfer the energy riches of a country that has the worlds largest known petroleum reserves, along with abundant other natural resources.

Maduro calls his landslide election last year legitimate  disputing opposition and U.S. charges of blatant fraud  and says he has no intention of calling for a new round of balloting before 2025, when the next regular presidential elections are scheduled.

Rumors of a possible U.S. attack or even an invasion have spread as John Bolton, President Trumps hawkish national security advisor, threatened serious consequences on Tuesday should the Venezuelan government attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido.

That seemed an explicit guarantee of U.S. protection for the self-declared president, who is being investigated by Maduro for anti-government activities and could face arrest. Guaido has been banned from leaving the country.

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On Wednesday, Trump telephoned the Venezuelan opposition leader to congratulate him on his historic assumption of the presidency, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who referred to Maduro as the countrys former dictator.

The Trump administration has focused unusual energy on the Venezuela crisis and appears determined to see Maduro unseated. Elliott Abrams, a hawkish veteran of Reagan and Bush administrations who was put in charge of the administrations Venezuela effort, told reporters at the State Department on Wednesday that the long-fractured Venezuelan opposition is more united than in the past.

Thats a big achievement, Abrams said.

Also Wednesday, Maduro charged that a group of Venezuelan army deserters were planning a coup detat from neighboring Colombia.

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Earlier, Maduro appealed to U.S. citizens to reject the meddling of the government of Donald Trump that seeks to transform my country into a Vietnam in Latin America. It will not be permitted!

The opposition has called for a mass mobilization Saturday, echoing its demand for a transitional government and new elections.

What will happen next in this South American nation of 32 million remains a mystery.

Despite the ongoing opposition protests, Maduro still maintains a core of support  including significant numbers of government employees and many who have benefited with housing and other aid from his government and that of his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, whose image adorns billboards, walls and buildings here.

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One police officer monitoring the hospital protests told reporters: We will defend until death the legacy of our Commander Chavez.

Security was tight throughout the capital, though traffic remained heavy in a country where gasoline is practically free  filling a tank costs the equivalent of U.S. pennies.

Army troops huddled behind sand-bagged barriers that shut off vehicle traffic near the Miraflores presidential palace, where Maduro is hunkered down. Nearby, a group of government loyalists  many wearing red shirts denoting fealty to the government  gathered to counter the opposition protests.

We would never accept an invasion, declared Morelia Marquez, 48, a teacher who was among the pro-government activists gathered near the presidential palace. But it could happen, and we are prepared to fight, to defend the country.

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Special correspondent Mogollon reported from Caracas and Times staff writer Wilkinson from Washington. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell also contributed to this report.
Egypt has rounded up at least six activists in the last couple of days in a wave of arrests coinciding with the anniversary of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, a rights lawyer said Wednesday.

Authorities have waged a sweeping crackdown on dissent in recent years, reversing freedoms won in the popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Security in Egypt is especially tight around the anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising and public commemorations of the protests are largely banned.

Negad Borai, the lawyer, said that among those arrested in the past two days is Yehia Hussein Abdel Hady, the former spokesman of the Civil Democratic Movement. The coalition of secular and left-leaning political parties had called for a boycott of Egypts presidential election last year.

The other five activists were arrested on Monday after they attended a ceremony commemorating the uprising, Borai said.

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Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood gather in Cairo on April 24, 2015, to protest the imprisonment of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. (Belal Darder / Associated Press)

The five were members of the Karama, or Dignity, party founded by opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi, the only candidate who ran against President Abdel Fattah Sisi in the 2014 presidential election.

The whereabouts of the six activists are still unknown, Borai said. A spokesman for Egypts Interior Ministry, which oversees police, did not respond to phone calls and messages seeking comment.

It was not clear if the activists are among 54 people who authorities said Tuesday were detained for plotting to incite chaos on the anniversary of the uprising.

The Interior Ministry said those individuals, most of them alleged members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, were arrested over the past weeks in different locations.

Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday also ordered 25 people already in custody to be held for 15 more days pending an investigation.

The Supreme State Security Prosecution said the suspects are accused of membership in an outlawed group, that is, the Muslim Brotherhood. They also face charges of illegal protesting. There was no announcement from prosecutors about the others.

The Muslim Brotherhood won a series of elections after the 2011 uprising. Mohammed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood member, was elected president in 2012 but was overthrown by the military the following year amid mass protests against his rule.

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Authorities have since branded the group a terrorist organization and have arrested thousands of its members, sentencing many of its top leaders, including Morsi, to life sentences or even death.

The latest arrests came just two days after French President Emmanuel Macron urged respect for human rights in a meeting with Sisi during a state visit to Cairo.

Sisi, who led the overthrow of Morsi in 2013, was elected president the following year. He won reelection last year after all serious potential rivals were arrested or pressured into withdrawing from the race.

In recent years, authorities have banned unauthorized protests, blocked hundreds of websites and silenced nearly all independent media. Journalists, bloggers and scholars have been arrested for criticizing the government.

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The government has said such measures are needed to restore stability and combat an insurgency in the northern Sinai Peninsula that has gained strength since 2013.
The British Parliament, seeking to assert control over Brexit, declared its opposition to leaving the European Union without a deal and voting to send Prime Minister Theresa May back to Brussels to reopen talks with European leaders.

But the measures are nonbinding and aspirational. They do not guarantee that Britain will get the deal it wants before the scheduled March 29 departure date. In fact, calamity and chaos are still possible endings.

The vote Tuesday against a no-deal Brexit was a clear defeat for May, whose team had argued that she needed to maintain the threat of leaving the EU without an accord so she could wrest better terms from Brussels.

The no-deal amendment, which passed 318 to 310, was the clearest signal yet that Parliament does not want Britain to leave the trading bloc without a years-long transition period that guarantees smooth trade and an orderly exit while protecting the rights of citizens in both Britain and the rest of Europe.

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The second amendment that sends May to Brussels showed her rebellious Tories coming together to back its prime minister.

After the voting, opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn agreed to meet with May and discuss how to achieve Brexit. Corbyn had resisted earlier because he wanted the no-deal option first removed from the table.

It is now clear there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this house for leaving the EU with a deal, May said in the House of Commons chamber. We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes.

As May prepares to pack her bags for Brussels, she faces deeply skeptical European leaders who have grown weary with her delays and her inability to get parliamentary approval for the deal they negotiated with her. That deal saw a humiliating defeat in Parliament two weeks ago.

A spokesman for European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that the withdrawal agreement was not open for renegotiation.

The deal painstakingly negotiated between the EU and May is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, Tusks spokesman said.

The Europeans seem to be in no mood to grant May what she needs to pass her deal, which is a new way for Britain to guarantee that whatever else Brexit yields, it will not mean a return of a hard border -- with checkpoints, passport controls and customs inspectors -- between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The backstop provision negotiated with the EU  and rejected by Parliament -- locks Britain into a European customs regime unless a free-trade deal obviates the need.

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May said she would seek alternative arrangements to keep the Irish border open and free Britain from a restrictive European customs regimen. But to the frustration of many lawmakers, May and her ministers refused to say what these arrangements might be.

Labor lawmaker Angela Eagle told Parliament that there was still puzzlement after listening to the prime minister for more than an hour. We are still no nearer any detail on what the phrase alternative arrangements mean, except that the prime minister said that they were arrangements that were alternative.

Northern Irish politician Sylvia Herman agreed. The prime minister is trying to encourage this house to vote for an amendment which uses the words alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, she said. Forgive me, prime minister, if I say those words are nebulous.

Even after Tuesdays votes, Parliament remains deadlocked, without a consensus on how to exit the EU after four decades of free trade and shared governing.

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The flamboyant, sharp-tongued speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, upended tradition by allowing a raft of possible amendments to be debated  leading his critics to charge that the speaker is trying to help backbench renegades foil Brexit by taking control away from the government.

The debate on Tuesday afternoon was heated.

Order! The House must behave with decorum! Bercow bellowed.

More than a few policymakers in Brussels watched the British debate with mouths agape, noting that it appeared to reflect little about the political realities in the rest of the 27 EU countries. Many of the ideas debated in the House of Commons have already been considered by British and EU negotiators over months of discussions, then were discarded because both sides felt they were unworkable.

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EU leaders and policymakers have repeatedly drilled that message in conversations with their British counterparts.

The current deal is the best accord possible and is not renegotiable, French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Cyprus as the British debate got underway. We must all prepare ourselves for a chaotic, no-deal Brexit, he said.

Irelands Europe minister, Helen McEntee, said Tuesday: There can be no change to the backstop. It was negotiated over 18 months with the U.K. and by the U.K. A bit of realism is needed at this stage.

Most policymakers in Brussels assume that Britain will soon request to delay the departure deadline, but diplomats say they would need to be convinced that the extra time would go to constructive use before approving it.

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Parliament on Tuesday rejected two amendments that sought to delay Brexit if a withdrawal deal isnt secured by February.

Yvette Cooper, a Labor politician who pushed one of those measures, repeatedly asked whether May would consider asking Europe for an extension.

And May, repeatedly, dodged the question.

May said she hoped to bring a revised deal back to the House of Commons for a meaningful vote as soon as we possibly can. If that hasnt happened by Feb. 13, May said, the government would make a statement and then give lawmakers a chance to reopen the debate on the way forward.

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Other countries have raised concerns about the growing prospect of Britain exiting the EU without a deal -- the default legal position.

Dan Coats, the head of U.S. intelligence, warned Tuesday at a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats about the potential for Britain to exit the bloc in a disorderly way.

This would cause economic disruptions that could substantially weaken the U.K. and Europe, Coats said.
Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa will give guests who stay two nights a chance to ski or snowboard free at nearby Snow Valley Ski Resort in Running Springs.

The deal: Its been a good snow season so far at Southern California ski resorts. Lake Arrowhead Resort wants you to enjoy the slopes with two lift tickets (each good for one day) for a two-night stay. Room prices start at $302 a night.

When: The offer is good through March 31, based on availability.

The lobby of the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa. (Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa)

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Tested: I found availability for lake-side and standard rooms with two queen-sized beds in February. Lift tickets usually cost $69 to $89 each. Room prices for the offer dont include a nightly $20 resort fee (which includes use of the spa, gym, fitness classes, Wi-Fi and parking.

Info: Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spas Let It Snow offer, lat.ms/lakearrowheadresortdeal, (877) 829-2429

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
More students from the Glendale Unified School District are attending Glendale Community College after graduation and are thriving, according to a report released recently by the college.

Michael Ritterbrown, the colleges vice president of instructional services, told the Glendale Unified school board during a joint meeting with the colleges board last week that Glendale Unified students were also testing into higher classes than their peers outside the district.

This past fall, 804 Glendale Unified graduates attended Glendale Community College, which represented a 4.56% increase from 2017, when 769 graduates attended, and topped the previous five-year high of 792 in 2016.

The 804 students also represent 41% of all incoming high school graduates attending the local college last fall.

However, all statistics were not necessarily positive in the report.

While Glendale High led the way in attendance again among local district schools in sending 238 students to Glendale Community College, that number marked a third straight drop from Glendale Highs best of 288 students in 2015.

It concerns me, if Im seeing a downward trend for Glendale [High], college board trustee Tony Tartaglia said.

Thats a large feeder school. Im wondering if were going to look into those numbers and see what they exactly mean, he added.

In comparison, Hoover and Clark Magnet high schools hit five-year peaks, with attendance of 203 and 172 students, respectively, while Daily added 10 students from last year to reach 32, and Crescenta Valley High remained steady with 149 students.

Concurrent education also continues to rise, according to the report.

We define those as students who attend their high school during the day, primarily, and attend classes at Glendale Community College as well, Ritterbrown said.

We also have dual-enrollment students who are defined as students who attend classes at their home high school and college classes at their home high school, he added.

The number of concurrent students was 236 during the 2014-15 school year and hit an all-time high of 451 during the 2017-18 school year.

This past fall semester, 379 Glendale Unified students took a college course, which will likely lead to a record by the end of this school year.

Glendale Unified students are also placing into higher-level math and English classes than the state average.

We measure student preparation primarily by placement into English and math, Ritterbrown said. This is the baseline for our evaluation of college readiness in all general-education courses.

Glendale Unified students entered Glendale Community College ready in math courses 69% of the time and in a college-level English course 81% of the time.

Those numbers beat California averages of 59% and 73% for math and English, respectively.

Glendale Unifieds numbers represent a meteoric rise in recent years  only 35% of district students were ready for college-level math and barely 51% were prepared for college-level English in 2014.

Ritterbrown attributed the jump to the colleges recent adoption of a multiple-measures policy, which bases placement on grades and other factors, rather than just testing.

Clark Magnet High was the districts top-performing math and English school, with just over 80% and 90% of students attending Glendale Community College being prepared in those courses, respectively.

Graduates from Clark and Crescenta Valley highs appear to be the most ambitious, as students from those schools took 12.6 units at the local college their first semester last fall.

Glendale High students enrolled in 11.5 units, while Hoover students were at 11.2 units and Daily students enrolled in 7.8 units.

In terms of student success, 76% of Glendale Unified students passed their fall courses successfully  a C-minus in most classes  which beat the California average of 68%.

The 76% success rate is still a little off the districts best mark of 80% in 2016.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresports
Source: moderndiplomacy.eu

As China continues to embrace its role as a major regional power, its increasing willingness to engage with the Afghan peace process offers an interesting indication to the emerging dynamics of the wider Central Asian region. Having already established considerable influence across large parts of Asia, the Persian Gulf, Africa and even Europe; China with the help of its Belt and Road Initiative has continued to leverage its widespread trade and economic relations for increased diplomatic goodwill, across a diverse range of countries. This has allowed Chinas diplomatic relations with these countries to help shape what many have termed as a New World Order, which is directly in contention with the USs unilateral supremacy. This is perhaps most apparent in Chinas increasingly prominent role in Afghanistan, which serves as perhaps the most challenging yet most indicative example of Chinas stated objectives of enhanced regional integration and shared prosperity.

The key challenge posed by Afghanistan comes to a large extent from the rampant insecurity and instability that has for decades characterized its relations with its neighbors. The impacts of the US led War or Terror (now in its 18th year) has for instance overshadowed many attempts by its neighbors to meaningfully engage in major trade, investment and/or development related activities. Recent statements from the US president regarding the impending withdrawal of US forces have cast even further uncertainty over these issues, specifically due to the lack of a coherent exit strategy from the US.

As a result, Afghanistans relations with its neighbors such as Iran, Pakistan and China are still weighed down heavily by security related issues. These include issues such as cross-border terrorism, the smuggling of illicit goods and services and the ensuing threats to the safety of foreign citizens residing in and travelling to Afghanistan. The need to address these issues has further come to serve as a major pre-condition to the eventual success of the fast developing China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as well as the overarching Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Especially considering how a key priority of the BRI is to socioeconomically develop the Xinjiang Autonomous region in Western China, there is a definite threat of the myriad security challenges plaguing Afghanistan to spill-over across its border into these areas.

Chinas increasing willingness to play a greater role in the Afghan peace process, can thus be understood as emanating to a large extent from its increased stake in the wider region as part of the BRI. Based on this framework, China can be seen leveraging its increasingly close ties with Pakistan, as well as the Central Asian Republics to address the prevailing insecurity within Afghanistan at a more regional level. The recently held meetings between the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan are indicative of this desire, as China continues to promote dialogue between the two neighbors. Furthermore, according to recent statements made by the Chinese ambassador in Pakistan, China is also working to promote ongoing talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban for which the Chinese government has appointed a special envoy to coordinate with the Talibans political office in Doha.

In addition to these diplomatic efforts, China is also reported to have ramped up its military cooperation with Afghanistan, providing millions of dollars in aid to the Afghan military. It has sought closer cooperation and military exchanges particularly with respect to counter-terrorism operations. This has even given rise to rumors that China is mulling over setting up a military base in Afghanistans Badakshan province, close to the Wakhan Corridor which borders the Xinjiang region. While the Chinese government has officially denied such reports; such a base would purportedly be Chinas second overseas military base, further bolstering its capability in projecting power beyond its own borders.

Hence, while Chinas interests in fostering closer cooperation with Afghanistan are self-proclaimed to be promoting peace and regional stability, these measures have continued to irk the United States adding further tension to already fraught US-China relations. These include the long-standing effects of the ongoing US-China trade war, the increasing militarization of the South China Sea, as well as Chinas fast increasing influence across the surrounding region. All of these factors arguably point towards the USs own unsuccessful attempts at containing the rise of China, which exacerbated by Chinas growing role in Afghanistan leads to the growing possibility of China eventually supplanting the US as the dominant power within Central Asia.

However, considering the vast array of challenges still facing Afghanistan, and the USs tenuous hold over the region built over decades of war, the prevailing politico-economic dynamics of the region still remain as complex as ever. Thus, even though Chinas increasing focus on Afghanistan is likely to benefit the region as a whole, its most recent efforts are likely to bear fruit only over the long-run. That is also only if China and its surrounding countries remain committed to the overall vision of regional peace and prosperity that is enshrined within the Belt and Road Initiative.
Most news commentary about the Texas Affordable Care Act ruling gave short shrift to the many problems that could arise if healthcare reform is altered without adequate protections enacted by Congress. As a retired Orange County firefighter who relies on Medicare, Im particularly concerned about the fate of both Medicare and Medicare Advantage, which senior citizens rely upon.

I select a comprehensive, private health plan with affordable rates and the right mix of coverage for me. The network of doctors is excellent, and Ive received quality care without paying a lot out of pocket. Whats more, I appreciate how my plan includes forward-thinking programs, including wellness and preventive care, and digital and tele-health services. Proper funding for Medicare and Medicare Advantage will have a long-term, positive impact on my health, as well as reduce the cost of my care over time.

Whatever changes may come to the Affordable Care Act, our elected leaders need to keep senior citizens in mind and preserve our access to affordable, innovative healthcare, lest America be forced to take a huge step backward on todays healthcare progress.

Jerry Strom

Newport Beach

*

Democrats set a good example in O.C.

Now that the Blue Wave has rolled through our area, it has been time to follow congressional winners and elect Democratic Assembly delegates to keep the progressive fires burning in our changed political landscape. I attended both election meetings for the 74th Assembly District on Saturday and the 72nd Assembly District on Sunday. With many candidates and slates involved, I expected it to be like something out of Game of Thrones.

It was not. Both meetings were convivial, not contentious. It showed what can happen when candidates put community first and when people become involved in the process. It should set an example for the Republicans and all other political parties.

Putting people above politics, and public interest over special interest, is now the path to progress for all constituents in Orange County. In order to achieve a brighter future, we must work for it and vote for it.

Tim Geddes

Huntington Beach

*

How to get published: Email us at dailypilot@latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, hometown and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.
Despite challenged claims that he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, a former superintendents name will remain on a Brea elementary school.

The Brea-Olinda Unified School District board voted 4-1 Monday to change William E. Fanning Elementary School to the Fanning Academy of Science and Technology. Board member Keri Kropke dissented.

A group of activists formed a campaign to rename the school about a year and a half ago. They claim William E. Fanning, a former Brea-Olinda superintendent, had ties to a local KKK chapter in the 1920s.

Opponents of jettisoning his name argued that there is insufficient evidence to tie Fanning to the klan. A local historian and a member of the Fanning family supported this assertion but many in the crowd remained unconvinced over the course of the four-hour meeting.

Some who supported keeping Fanning in the name wore blue shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with his name. Those who wanted the name change held up signs in protest. Board President Gail Lyons asked for civility while others spoke.

Board member Carrie Flanders and Vice President Paul Ruiz agreed that there wasnt enough evidence to disassociate Fannings name with the school.

Flanders said it didnt seem possible to prove the assertion.

We have to sift through truth and find what a reliable source is, Flanders said.

Groups battle over renaming Brea elementary school possibly linked to racist past 

The primary source used to link Fanning with the KKK is a list of names on file at the Anaheim Heritage Center that some believe is made up of former klan members. Fannings name appears on that list.

However, the origins of the list, including who authored it, are unknown.

The board considered five choices to suit its new science and technology focus: Brea Academy of Science and Technology, Falcon Academy of Science and Technology, Heritage Hills Academy of Science and Technology, Fanning Academy of Science and Technology and William E. Fanning Academy of Science and Technology.

Initially, Kropke and board clerk Nicole Colon agreed the district should disassociate itself with Fanning.

They voted for Heritage Hills Academy of Science and Technology.

Nobody is trying to condemn the Fanning family, Kropke said. This isnt a trial. This is about a school we can give new life to and extricate it from controversy.

Lyons said she struggled with the decision, calling the Fanning name a community lighting rod.

When you have a flash point, what do you do to solve that? Lyons said.

In clarifying her last-second switch after the vote, Colon said she changed her decision as a symbolic gesture to show support for the school because she knew the Fanning Academy name would be approved. She said her preference for the school name remains Heritage Hills Academy of Science and Technology.

I wanted to be in support of the school, Colon said. My point was never to condemn Fanning.

William Fanning, grandson of the elder Fanning, was visibly emotional after Mondays decision. He has surveyed family members  none of whom recall an an association with the KKK.

Were pleased with the boards decision, Fanning said. Now the attention should be placed back on the students of the school.

Members of the renaming campaign were frustrated with the outcome.

We are very disappointed obviously, said Mike Rodriguez, an original member of the group supporting the renaming. But we started a conversation about the citys racist legacy. We brought it out in the open.

A major reference for the group was a 2011 OC Weekly article by Gustavo Arellano which details Fannings potentially divisive past. Arellano, who now writes for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a series of articles exposing possible members of the KKK in Orange County using the list at the Anaheim Heritage Center as a reference.

Rodriguez said he wasnt sure what the groups next steps will be.

We will go back to the drawing board, he said.
Police arrested a wanted man who was being sought in Burbank, authorities said Wednesday.

Officials from the Burbank police were assisting the Los Angeles Police Department in the search, which was focused near McCambridge Park, at 1515 N Glenoaks Blvd., according to KTLA.

There was a large police presence in the area, aerial video from Sky5 showed.

It is unclear when the search began or what the man was wanted on suspicion of.

He is described as a black man that is about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds, Burbank police said in a tweet. He has frosted or bleached hair and is wearing a white shirt and dark sweat pants.

Von Quednow is a digital producer at KTLA.
There are some people who casually hike during the weekends, maybe up Stough or La Tuna canyons.

Then there are folks like Burbank resident Gregory Orland, who in December joined an expedition to the South Pole.

The 63-year-old has always been one to enjoy a hike but over the years has pushed himself to go on bigger and more interesting trips.

So far, Orland has hiked the Himalayas five times, climbed Mount Everest twice, nearly reached the summit of Mount Khuiten in Mongolia and has snow-shoed to the North Pole.

I like to go to places where people dont ordinarily go, Orland said.

In 2017, he decided to go on an expedition to the South Pole and started his training, which involved creating an 83-pound rig made with used car tires to simulate his equipment and sled when he would be in Antarctica.

Orland said he would strap the rig behind him and drag the ballast along the Chandler Bike Path or up Stough Canyon for several miles.

Boy, did I trash those tires, and I even wore out a set, he said Theres a lot of friction on those tires when youre dragging sidewalls against concrete.

After training for about a year and a half, Orland flew to Punta Arenas, Chile, in December before flying to Union Glacier in Antarctica, which is about 400 miles inland from the ocean.

Orland said traversing the South Pole was much different from the North Pole.

He said the terrain at the North Pole is covered with pressure ridges, jagged hills of ice several feet tall created by ice sheets crashing into one another.

In contrast, he described the South Pole to be a monotonous, flat land mass covered in snow. On most days, his trip involved walking through white-out conditions, meaning he could only see a few hundred meters in front of him.

There were also strong katabatic winds that howled throughout the day and reached up to 50 mph.

When the conditions did clear, Orland said everything looked the same no matter where he looked, adding that his group had to rely on compass bearings to reach the South Pole.

After several days and traveling 70 miles, he and the group he traveled with reached the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and made it to the South Pole.

The South Pole is much colder than the Arctic, Orland said. And then theres the elevation. The South Pole is at 9,301 feet, but because of the barometric pressure, it feels like youre breathing at 11,000 feet.

Orland safely made his trip back to Union Glacier and wrapped up his trip to Antarctica on Dec. 26.

With all of the miles of hiking and climbing under his belt, Orland said he does not have another trip planned anytime soon.

Its been a lot of fun to go places and do things that very few people have had the opportunity to do, Orland said.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
Two months after voters rejected Burbank Unifieds proposed parcel tax, known as Measure QS, in the Nov. 6 election, consequences stemming from the measures failure were outlined with potential layoffs and cuts.

Burbank Unified Supt. Matt Hill presented the districts first proposal to close a $3.5-million structural deficit, which the parcel tax would have addressed, during a special board meeting at Burbanks Adult School on Thursday in front of a standing-room-only audience.

The plan called for fundraising and leveraging new restricted funding and  should both efforts fall short  reductions in programs and personnel.

More than 30 residents and teachers voiced their concerns to Hill and school board members during a passionate public-comment portion of the meeting.

The frustration, the pain, the anger toward myself and staff, we have all been going through the exact same things since Measure QS failed, said Hill, who added the board may seek a new parcel tax in 2020. Ive said it before and Ill say it again, that was a punch in the gut.

Hill added, We fought so hard for [the parcel tax] because we knew how much Measure QS could do for our community.

Seven employees may be laid off, two positions could be eliminated and some workers may move from full time to part time on the labor side of the proposal.

In term of programs, music, math and English intervention as well as career technical training, childhood development and several other departments may take a hit.

Elementary school music was listed for the chopping block as Hills proposal called for the laying off of three of the districts five music teachers at the elementary level.

That move would save Burbank Unified roughly $275,000 annually and leave the district with one music teacher per five elementary schools.

The majority of the proposed downsizing is set for the district office because the plan calls for laying off two directors  one for elementary schools and the other for wellness  along with their administrative assistants for a savings of about $526,000 a year.

A breakdown of some of the costs the district is proposing to cut given its current deficit. (Steve Greenberg)

The plan also called for the elimination of a vacant assistant principal position at Jefferson Elementary, non-renewal of a teacher on special assignment for the arts and career technical education and the downgrading of the superintendents staff from full time to part time.

As for programs, the proposal calls for slicing $213,000 from the deferred maintenance annual budget, which means projects may be postponed. There would also be cuts to math and English intervention at the elementary and secondary levels and a reduction for social emotional materials.

The total for all cuts, reductions and eliminations would be roughly $1.9 million annually.

On top of the cuts, there were changes listed to restrict funding, including eliminating about $603,000 in General Fund financing for child development, applying for two $400,000 grants and the use of Title II monies to pay for gifted and talented education.

For their part, board members and Hill did not take a 2% raise last year.

I want to be clear on that and get that out there because I think its important, board member Steve Ferguson said. The superintendent went to the board and said, Ill forego and I think thats important leadership.

The wild card for reductions would be philanthropy, which was not factored into the proposal.

Hill challenged the 25,000 residents who voted yes on Measure QS to fulfill their commitment and donate $170, which the parcel tax would have cost the average resident annually, to the Burbank Educational Foundation at befgives.org.

The foundation had received a little more than $50,000 in donations.

One thing I do want to urge everybody is to please harness your passion and your energy around this issue to get educated as to where our school district gets its money, said Ana Connell, the foundations vice president of fundraising. We all need to reach out to our state and federal legislators.

The next significant date will be March 15, when district officials are expected to send out layoff notices. Burbank Unified is also expected to finalize a budget in June with or without the cuts and local officials will have a better idea of funding after Gov. Gavin Newsom announces his revised budget in May.

In the final budget in June, they have to say these are the positions well cut, Hill said. Thats the point of no return. Technically, up until the first day of school, you can rescind it, but thats rare.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresports
Among the hurdles Gov. Gavin Newsom will face in his goal to see 3.5 million new homes built across California over the next seven years is that the state hasnt set aside enough land for that development, a forthcoming report by UCLA concludes.

Cities and counties have zoned land to allow for the construction of 2.8 million homes, according to research from UCLAs Luskin School of Public Affairs. Because not all that land can be developed quickly for home construction, the state would probably have to double or triple the amount of land zoned for housing for the governor to reach his goal, said Paavo Monkkonen, an associate professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA.

The report shows pretty clearly that its going to be a hard slog to actually get 3.5 million housing units built, Monkkonen said.

Villaraigosa and Newsom want to build more houses in California than ever before. Experts see the candidates goal as an empty promise 

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Newsom has said his homebuilding goal  at a rate that would more than quadruple the states current annual production  is the key to addressing the lack of housing supply he believes is the underlying cause of Californias affordability problems.

During his first month in office, the governor has made a number of proposals aimed at boosting the states housing supply. In his budget plan, Newsom allocated more than $1 billion to cities and counties that approve new housing and homelessness services. He authorized a lawsuit against Huntington Beach, accusing the city of defying state residential zoning rules. And hes pledged to revamp the process for how the state requires local governments to set aside land for housing in an effort to increase growth.

Newsom also supports the states climate change goals, which call for building near transit and job centers to reduce carbon emissions associated with driving.

Monkkonens research indicates the difficulties in achieving that goal, too. While the city of Los Angeles has set aside land to accommodate more than 300,000 new homes  the most of any area in the state  unincorporated areas of San Bernardino, Madera and Kern counties are all in the top 10 jurisdictions with the most land zoned for housing.

To meet goals for housing production, climate change and providing access to existing jobs, communities will have to dramatically reorient how they zone land for housing away from rural neighborhoods and toward urban centers, Monkkonen said.

Increasing the production in the true high-opportunity parts of the state is the true challenge, he said.

The UCLA research will be part of a forthcoming report on local zoning in California.

Coverage of California politics 

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liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliam
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell uses a favorite Southernism when he explains why shutting down the federal government is bad politics.

Weve been down this path before, the Kentuckian warned before President Trump launched the 35-day shutdown that ended Friday. Theres no education in the second kick of a mule.

So when Trump  who won exactly nothing in his standoff with Democrats  threatened to shut the government again in coming weeks, he seemed to be hankering for the third kick of the mule.

Forcing 800,000 federal workers and thousands of contractors to go without paychecks in the nations longest shutdown weakened Trump in several ways. The most obvious was his standing in opinion polls, which sagged during the five-week standoff.

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In an average of major surveys this week, only 42% of Americans said they approved of Trumps job performance; 55% disapproved.

Another sign of weakness was more subtle, but perhaps more important: his erosion of influence on Republicans in the Senate, where the GOP still holds a majority (unlike the House, which Democrats won in November).

Trump backed down after McConnell warned the White House that he no longer commanded the votes to support the shutdown. McConnell reportedly reminded Vice President Mike Pence (again) of the diminishing value of mule kicks.

The upshot: Trump has burned so many bridges, reversed so many positions and proved so unreliable a partner that he can no longer be sure of his own allies in the Senate.

Thats a danger sign for a president who still hopes to keep the unfinished promises of his 2016 campaign  a border wall, an infrastructure program, lower drug prices, new trade deals  as he seeks reelection in 2020.

Presidential power is the power to persuade, political scientist Richard E. Neustadt wrote in a classic 1960 study of the presidency.

By persuade, Neustadt meant a president must convince other politicians that their own interests lie in helping him, and that if they stand in his way, theyll regret it. That takes considerable political skill.

Matt Glassman, an expert on Congress at Georgetown University, argues that Trump failed the Neustadt test in the latest shutdown by picking a fight he could not win.

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The president took public positions that he couldnt sustain, Glassman told me. He had to back down, and it made him look weak.

The episode offers several lessons on how Trumps next two years may look.

First, Senate Republicans will continue aligning themselves publicly with the president, who remains popular among GOP voters, and will continue supporting him on issues they likeconfirming conservative federal judges, for example.

But they will be more hesitant to back Trump proposals that arent part of a traditional Republican agenda: a border wall, an expensive infrastructure program, legislation to force drug companies to lower prices.

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Those issues dont unify Republicans, Glassman noted. They divide them. So theres a noticeable lack of support. Republican senators  wont help him very much.

Second, Trump has a much bigger problem than wavering enthusiasm in the Senate. He has hit a wall in the Democratic-led House.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) kept her troops firmly in line during the shutdown despite White House attempts to find centrist Democrats who might bolt. Trumps failure made Pelosi stronger for legislative fights ahead.

He may think [infrastructure spending and other proposals] have bipartisan appeal, but I dont think he perceives how tough it will be to get anything passed, Glassman told me.

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If Trump repeats his campaign promises in the State of the Union speech on Feb. 5, it wont mean much. None are likely to pass.

Finally, the 2020 campaign is already gathering steam and even if Trumps chances of passing legislation are small, hell want to appear presidential.

Glassman argues that Trump could gain ground by forcing Democrats to take risky and unpopular votes. He expects a White House push to make the 2018 tax cuts for high-income earners permanent, for example.

Its an issue that unifies Republicans and causes trouble for centrist Democrats, he said.

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But if Trump wants to appeal to the independent and centrist voters who backed him in 2016 because they wanted an end to gridlock in Washington and liked his populist promises, hes in trouble.

Thats thanks, in part, to his government shutdown and his failure to heed all those warnings about the kicks of a mule.
President Trump lashed out at U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, calling them extremely passive and naive about the dangers of Iran and pushing back on their assessments of Islamic State and North Korea during a congressional hearing.

In tweets, Trump offered what amounted to a rebuttal of testimony on an array of global threats provided to the Senate on Tuesday by a panel of top officials from his administration.

Trump was most pointed in his pushback on the assessment of Iran. During testimony, officials said that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon and was in compliance with an agreement forged during the Obama administration from which Trump subsequently withdrew the United States.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! Trump wrote. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.

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Trump added: Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

In earlier tweets Wednesday, Trump claimed tremendous progress in destroying Islamic State and denuclearizing North Korea, seeking to counter less optimistic assessments by the intelligence officials.

Trump wrote that when he became president, Islamic State was out of control in Syria & running rampant.

Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks, Trump wrote. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.

During the Senate hearing, officials warned that Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was capable of attacking the United States and painted a picture of a still-formidable terrorist organization. Trump previously declared the group defeated and has said he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria as a result.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats noted that the militant group has suffered significant leadership and territorial losses. But it still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, he said, and maintains eight branches, has more than a dozen networks and attracts thousands of supporters around the world.

Coats was joined on the panel by CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and several other administration officials.

In his tweets, Trump also sought to defend progress on North Korea ahead of a planned second summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

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During Tuesdays hearing, Coats said that North Korea was unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, which the countrys leaders consider critical to the regimes survival.

North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S., Trump wrote Wednesday. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization.

Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story, Trump added, noting that he was looking forward to the summit with Kim.

Though exuberant in his claims of progress, Trumps assessment on North Korea was tempered compared with his initial claims after the first summit in June.

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In tweets upon returning from that meeting, Trump declared Americas biggest and most dangerous problem all but resolved. The deal he struck with Kim, he said, meant that there was no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea and that everybody can now feel much safer.

The first summit ended with a vague agreement that contained few concrete goals and deadlines.
President Trump has a long list of imaginary friends.

There was Jim, who no longer visits Paris because immigrants have sullied its allure  a character whose existence White House aides were never able to confirm. There were his White House predecessors who, he claimed, told him they wished they had built a southern border wall  an assertion each former president denied. There have been the many otherwise tough people Trump has described anecdotally in countless speeches, who, hes insisted, cried tears of awe and gratitude in his presence.

And through the record 35-day partial government shutdown, there were the federal workers who, despite missing two paychecks, care so much about border security, Trump said, that they were encouraging him to stand his ground for the border wall.

He ultimately backed down and agreed to reopen government for three weeks, while he and Congress negotiate a border security compromise. Since then Trump has insisted on the existence of new companions: Democrats secretly supportive of money for the wall.

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This time, however, it matters whether such people exist. If they do, Trump might manage to fulfill his signature campaign promise. If they dont, he probably will find himself at the end of three weeks facing the same limited options: humiliating defeat or a legally and politically risky declaration of a national emergency, so he can spend billions on a wall without Congress approval.

So far, the evidence for Trumps claims of secretly supportive Democrats is as scant as for Jim the former Francophile.

I think were all unified as Democrats. I have yet to talk to anyone who is anxious to fulfill the presidents campaign wish of seeing this wall be built, said Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, a first-year lawmaker. Last week she organized a letter signed by 29 other moderate House Democrats suggesting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allow a vote on Trumps request for $5.7 billion if he first ended the shutdown.

Calling for an approach to border security that is smart and multifaceted, Luria was open to a compromise that included funding for a physical barrier along the border. I think its just too simplistic to say wall or no wall, she said.

Another signator, Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, said he could perhaps support a compromise with wall funding now that the shutdown is over. I could see where they could work together to come up with something thats not perfect for anybody but is acceptable, he said.

If any Democrats are willing to accept such a compromise, they are no doubt fewer in number and less enthusiastic than those Trump has conjured.

I see a lot of the Democrats, almost all of them, are breaking and saying, Look, walls are good, walls are good, he said Jan. 24 during a White House meeting. Big difference from what you had two or three weeks ago.

A day later, Senate votes showed the opposite to be true. Several Republicans voted with Democrats on a funding bill without billions for wall construction. Within hours, Trump agreed to the three-week deal to fund and reopen a quarter of the government  an embarrassing retreat  having failed to divide Democrats or secure money for a wall.

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With Democrats having shown their determination to fight, and to resist Trumps efforts to dictate to the legislative branch, they head into the border-security negotiations that begin Wednesday with greater leverage and diminished pressure from immigration advocates and party activists opposed to a wall.

Trump, for his part, is weakened not only by defeat in the monthlong skirmish but also by his two-year record as an unreliable, even untrustworthy negotiating partner, which has frustrated lawmakers in both parties. That record is one reason more Democrats dont come to the table on a wall.

There could be a deal to be had here, but it would be a lot more likely if we believed the president could be an honest broker, said a chief of staff to a Democratic senator. If he wanted to come to our caucus right now and he said, Just give me something you guys call border security and Ill go call it a wall, I think some more people in our caucus would go along  if people trusted him to keep his word.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters that the presidents erratic style has been an impediment to legislative action and he should stay on the sidelines.

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When the president stays out of the negotiations, we almost always succeed. When he mixes in, its a formula for failure, Schumer said. So Id ask President Trump, let Congress deal with it on its own.

On Friday, shortly after Trump announced the short-term agreement, White House aides echoed their boss in telling reporters that some Democrats had privately signaled a willingness to negotiate on the border wall. Trump seemed to throw cold water on that idea during an interview Sunday, yet on Monday Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the same point. She would not, however, name any Democrats.

At least publicly, Democrats have softened their absolute opposition to a wall.

Pelosi has indicated that some House Democrats might be open to a solution that includes wall funding, vaguely acknowledging differences of opinion among them. Diversity is our strength, she said Friday. But our unity is our power.

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Pelosi has called a wall immoral, reflecting a Democratic constituency that is unified by resistance to Trump. But as soon as he agreed to fully reopen the government through Feb. 15, Democratic leaders expressed a willingness to negotiate as promised, even as they remained hostile to his proposed wall.

We have consistently said we do not support a medieval border wall from sea to shining sea, said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. We are willing to support fencing where it makes sense, but it should be done in an evidence-based fashion.

Throughout the shutdown, Trump never fully appreciated the breadth of Democrats opposition. He wrongly assumed that he could chip away at it by offering what he thought were major concessions: changing the barrier from a concrete wall to steel slats, and then offering three years of protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants who came to the country illegally as children, and for refugees from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan living in the U.S. because of violence or disasters in their lands. Trump has attempted to repeal protections for those groups, only to be blocked by courts.

Nadeam Elshami, a former longtime aide to Pelosi, said that his former boss refusal to negotiate over border security until Trump reopened the government was a means of asserting the power of the legislative branch and building additional leverage for eventual talks.

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She will never negotiate in public like Trump, Elshami said. But the private conversations that take place throughout, among the caucus, is just to come up with a unified position. Politics is about leverage, but for Democrats its about what gets you to a strong position that you can negotiate from.

Times staff writers Sarah D. Wire and Molly OToole contributed to this report.

The latest from Washington 
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Tuesday that he will not run for president, declining to take a long-shot gamble that Democrats would pick a little-known local official to challenge President Trump.

After nearly two years of flirting with the idea that he could leap from City Hall to the worlds most powerful job, the mild-mannered mayor reached a decision in keeping with his reputation for avoiding political risk. He also passed up a chance to run for governor last year when the odds seemed stacked against him.

At a City Hall news conference, Garcetti said he decided over the last couple of weeks to stay put as mayor because he realized that this is what I am meant to do and this is where I want to be.

It may be out of vogue today, but I kind of believe that whenever possible, you should finish the job that you set out to do, he said.

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L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti at City Hall on Tuesday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Garcettis announcement came after settlement of a teachers strike that upended the daily life of hundreds of thousands of people for more than a week. The mayor of L.A. has no authority over public education, but Garcetti took a high-profile role in facilitating contract settlement talks at City Hall.

Garcetti said the strike resolution was a kick in the pants that helped convince him stick around.

What we have right here in Los Angeles sets the pace for the nation, he said, drawing a contrast with the partisan combat that blocks action in Washington.

Garcettis decision also followed disclosure of a search warrant seeking email and other records that involve two of his appointees as part of an FBI investigation of possible bribery, extortion and money laundering at City Hall.

Authorities have not charged anyone with a crime, and no one has accused Garcetti of wrongdoing. But the mere existence of the investigation marked a serious setback for a mayor with little name recognition beyond Southern California.

Had he run for president, Garcetti and Sen. Kamala Harris of California would have been competing to raise money from many of the same donors, especially in Hollywood.

Harris has emerged as a top contender for the party nomination, but Garcetti said her well-received campaign rollout had no impact on his decision, which he finalized Tuesday morning.

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Garcetti heaped praise on Harris and two of her Democratic rivals, former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. He called Buttigieg a big sleeper who is going to surprise people.

Whos in and whos on the fence? 

He also expressed confidence that Democrats will choose a strong nominee to challenge President Trump.

When I looked at this, I didnt have a burning desire that I had to be president at all costs, Garcetti said. Thats not been a lifelong dream. This was a moment which I saw somebody who I felt was destroying this country.

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I didnt have a burning desire that I had to be president at all costs. Eric Garcetti

On a personal note, Garcetti said he decided he did not want to spend long stretches of time away from the two things he loved most, his family and his hometown.

Theres some sadness about this moment, but not much, said Garcetti, whose wife, Amy Wakeland, and 7-year-old daughter Maya did not attend the event.

Still, Garcetti, who has been a leader on climate change in the U.S. Conference of Mayors, plans to keep traveling the country to advance urban causes.

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Those of you who know me well know that I love this job, he said. Its tough, tough work.

The mayors options for advancing to higher office are limited.

Under term limits, Garcetti, 47, must step down as mayor at the end of 2022. If newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, runs for a second term, Garcetti could effectively be blocked from seeking that job until 2026.

Another path might open for Garcetti to capture one of Californias two seats in the U.S. Senate, but he faces obstacles.

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If Harris falters in her campaign for president, she will be up for reelection to the Senate in 2022, and it could be tough to unseat her in a primary.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California in Oakland on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another Democrat, was reelected in November, and her term wont expire until 2024. If Feinstein, 85, leaves office early, the governor would name a successor. Other Democrats, such as Secretary of State Alex Padilla, would probably vie for that appointment too.

Historically, L.A. mayors stumble when they seek higher office. Antonio Villaraigosa, Richard Riordan and Tom Bradley each ran for governor and lost.

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Theres just something about being mayor of a megalopolis that dominates a state that is a turn-off to voters elsewhere in the state, said Democratic consultant Garry South of Los Angeles, who described Garcetti as bright, engaging and talented.

It doesnt mean that history is determinative, South said. But I think a mayor of L.A., no matter how good they are, just starts out with one strike against them in running for higher office.

The last mayor of Los Angeles to run for president was Sam Yorty in 1972. He failed to win a single delegate in his quest for the Democratic nomination to run against President Nixon.

The trouble that mayors face in seeking bigger jobs is not unique to Los Angeles. No mayor has ever vaulted straight to the presidency without serving in higher office.

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Theres just no evidence that you can run credibly for president as a sitting mayor, South said.

Garcetti, who served 12 years on the City Council, including six as council president, won a second term as mayor in 2017 with 81% of the vote in a race with token opposition. He campaigned on raising the minimum wage, cutting business taxes and backing ballot measures to expand public transit and house the homeless.

The surge in homelessness on Garcettis watch would have posed a huge challenge in a presidential race. Tent encampments have sprouted across freeway overpasses and underpasses and along sidewalks, alleys, beaches and river banks.

Garcetti won passage of a ballot measure to build new housing for the homeless, but it will take years for it to have any visible impact. He has also launched a program to build shelters in neighborhoods across the city.

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My work is right before me, Garcetti said on Tuesday. Who knows what the future is?

Times reporter Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this story.

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MANILA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua said Tuesday that China will give its "firm support" to the Filipinos and the Philippine government in the fight against violent extremism after twin blasts hit a cathedral in the southern Philippines.

In a speech at the Chinese New Year reception, Zhao said the Chinese government expressed its deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those who were killed and injured in Sunday's blasts in Jolo city of Sulu province.

"Chinese government once again will give its firm support to the Philippine people and Philippine government for fighting against all barbaric violence including terrorism," he said.

Bombings hit a cathedral in Sulu province of the southern Philippines last Sunday, killing 21 people and wounding more than 100 others.
The next two years may mark the peak of Californias power in Congress.

Its not just that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) are both Californians, the first time in U.S. history both posts have been held by leaders from the same state.

A Californian now sits on all 20 of the House committees named so far. They chair four of those panels and lead another 20 subcommittees.

No other state can claim such a reach, including the next three largest delegations, from Texas, New York and Florida.

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Some of the power comes from the sheer size of Californias 53-member House delegation, which makes up 12% of all members. But the Democratic House takeover and Pelosis election as speaker dramatically magnified that influence.

Thats because about 20% of the entire House Democratic caucus hails from California, or 46 of 235 Democratic members. Thanks in part to Pelosi, Californians hold an even larger share of House leadership posts, nearly 30%.

And Californians are at the helm of two of the most influential House coalitions  the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

All told, almost two-thirds of the 46 California Democrats enjoy some position of leadership or influence in the new House.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) leads the powerful House Select Intelligence Committee, which will reopen the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

As new head of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) has vowed to look more closely at Wells Fargos unauthorized-accounts scandal as well as probing Deutsche Banks ties to President Trump.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) will have his eye on access to VA hospitals and the GI Bill as chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

And Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) will oversee federal elections and House management as chairwoman of the House Administration Committee. Californians hold half of the Democratic seats on that panel.

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Having that large number is definitely an advantage, Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-

Yorba Linda) said. Its a powerful bloc. When were together on an issue, it can move the caucus.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a USC professor and expert on California politics, said Texas may be the only other state that has ever amassed so much power in Congress at one time. She pointed to the mid-1950s when Sam Rayburn was speaker and Lyndon B. Johnson was Senate majority leader.

Its an enviable position with lots of opportunity to promote state interests. But its also one that can carry risks of a backlash from other states, particularly for California, she said.

This is kind of a critical mass thats happened, Jeffe said. Dont tell anybody, though, because they will get very upset. Whether its a jealousy or a resentment  California really has been the state that Washington wants to hate.

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The prevalence of Californians comes at a particularly good time nationally as the state battles the Trump administration on several fronts, including environmental policy and immigration.

Are we circling the wagons to deal with the anti-California backlash? I dont know that thats wittingly happening, but I think California certainly is not going to just cower in the face of that, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) said. He is expected to clash with the administration as chairman of the Natural Resources Committees Water, Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee.

Multiple members pointed to how quickly the delegation was able to respond to Trumps recent threat to withhold disaster funding to fire victims over Californias forestry policies. The administration appears to have dropped the idea amid local outcry.

Some long-serving members credit Californias rise to Pelosi and her willingness to reward Californians who stood with her.

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Shes been in the vineyard for a long time and has promoted California -- helped bring so many of these members into Congress, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) said. And shes never satisfied that they just have a seat at the table. She always says they should be seated at the head of the table.

When Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) lost her bid recently to be elected as House Democratic caucus chair, Pelosi created a leadership position for her on the panel that makes committee assignments.

And Pelosi has helped promote several Californians she views as next-generation leaders, including Schiff, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) and newly elected Rep. Katie Hill (D-Agua Dulce), who was one of only two freshman representatives elected to leadership. Hill will also be vice-chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee.

Californians will also lead at least 20 subcommittees focused on a range of issues including military readiness, education, livestock, immigration, water and the environment. That number could rise as more assignments are determined in the coming weeks.

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Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk), who leads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committees Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, said shell consider if California is getting its fair share of the tax dollars it sends to the federal government.

Although we watch out for the whole nation, we have in mind the needs that are prevalent in California, she said. We want to ensure that because California is a donor state [by contributing more in federal taxes than the state receives back] that we get an equitable return.

All seven freshman Californians landed on either a committee they were personally interested in or a committee that has oversight of a major industry in their districts, two things that dont happen for every new member and which could give them accomplishments to point to when they run for reelection in 2020. Three of the states newest members, Reps. Mike Levin (D-

San Juan Capistrano), Harley Rouda (D-Laguna Beach) and T.J. Cox (D-Fresno), even got subcommittee chairmanships right out of the gate, a fairly unusual move.

Beyond the committees, Californians were picked to lead two of the three caucuses specifically focused on diversity, all of which gained a record number of new members in the new Congress. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) leads the Congressional Black Caucus, which now has 55 members. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) leads the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Both Chu and Bass will also lead two subcommittees.

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Californias dominance wont last forever, however, in part because the state appears to have nowhere to go but down. Pelosi agreed to a four-year cap on her speakership in order to solidify the votes she needed to get the job, and there are plenty of non-Californians waiting their turn to pick up the gavel. Even if McCarthy became speaker if Republicans regained control of the House, with just seven California Republicans left, their reach could not match that of California Democrats.

And with slower population growth rates, the state could potentially lose a congressional seat after the 2020 census.

One exception might be if California Democrats and Republicans began to cooperate again. But they are notorious for sticking with their parties, even on California issues such as water, immigration and the environment. They are rarely on the same side and seldom meet together. Both sides blamed ideology or the occasional personality difference.

If we could actually get the delegation to work together in a bipartisan way, then there would be no stopping us, Schiff said.

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The latest from Washington 

More stories from Sarah D. Wire 

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter
Russian officials made a secret proposal to North Korea last fall aimed at resolving deadlocked negotiations with the Trump administration over the Norths nuclear weapons program, said U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

In exchange for North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Moscow offered the country a nuclear power plant.

The Russian offer, which intelligence officials became aware of in late 2018, marks a new attempt by Moscow to intervene in the high-stakes nuclear talks as it reasserts itself into a string of geopolitical flash points from the Middle East to South Asia to Latin America.

Its unclear how President Trump will view Moscows proposal. For months, he has embraced an unorthodox approach to the negotiations, but his aides are likely to strenuously oppose any major Russian role in a final agreement.

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As part of the deal, the Russian government would operate the plant and transfer all byproducts and waste back to Russia, reducing the risk that North Korea would use the power plant to build nuclear weapons while providing the impoverished country a new energy source.

The Russians are very opportunistic when it comes to North Korea, and this is not the first time theyve pursued an energy stake in Korea, said Victor Cha, a former White House staff member who the Trump administration considered nominating last year to serve as U.S. ambassador to South Korea.

Previous administrations have not welcomed these Russian overtures, but with Trump, you never know because he doesnt adhere to traditional thinking, Cha said.

After months of delays and canceled meetings, talks between the United States and North Korea have gained new momentum with the announcement of a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un planned for late February.

Trump has been increasingly upbeat about another round of talks and frustrated by what he views as unfair media coverage of his diplomacy. While he touts North Koreas suspension of missile launches and nuclear tests, critics have noted a lack of steps on the part of Pyongyang to reduce its nuclear capability.

With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue, Trump said this month. Im going to not go any further than that. Im just going to say its very special.

On Tuesday, a new U.S. intelligence assessment of global threats concluded that North Korea is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities. The intelligence community has long had a more pessimistic outlook than the White House and the State Department on the nuclear talks.

The State Department, the White House, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Russian Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the secret proposal. It is unclear whether the offer is still under negotiation or if it has impacted the discussions between Washington and Pyongyang.

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If the Kim regime is interested, Russian officials have asked that Pyongyang provide a realistic timeline for when it could denuclearize, said people familiar with the discussions. The CIA has assessed that the Russian power plant would produce a very limited amount of weaponizable byproduct, said one official, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information.

Experts said the idea borrows from the original blueprint of the failed 1994 accord between North Korea and the Clinton administration known as the Agreed Framework, which sought to accommodate North Koreas energy needs.

It was technically possible for the U.S. to provide light water reactors to North Korea under the Agreed Framework because Pyongyang agreed to remain a party of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and receive safeguards from the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Duyeon Kim, a Korea expert at the Center for a New American Security.

But she noted that the proposal proved controversial as discussions transitioned from the Clinton administration to that of George W. Bush. The Clinton administration was willing to allow them to have a nuclear energy program, but the Bush administration, including John Bolton, was adamantly opposed to light water reactors, she added.

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Bolton, who was undersecretary of State for arms control under Bush, now serves as Trumps national security advisor. But the president has not followed Boltons hard-line approach to the negotiations.

Diplomats and analysts familiar with Russias actions said Moscow has a longtime interest in creating an energy link between Siberia and East Asia, as well as being viewed as a problem-solver for geopolitical crises.

They want to be a player on the peninsula for economic and security reasons, said Ken Gause, director of the adversary analytics program at CNA, a defense think tank. They have aspirations to build a gas pipeline that extends through North Korea all the way down to South Korea, for example. They share a border with North Korea and want a say in how security in Northeast Asia evolves.

Gause added he did not think the North Koreans would relinquish their nuclear program until they normalize relations with the United States and end the decades-long conflict between the two nations. The Russians can do whatever they can to facilitate the situation, but if the United States continues to be adversarial, the North Koreans are going to be very reluctant to take that deal, he said.

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During negotiations with the George W. Bush administration, Russia proposed providing a light water reactor to North Korea in exchange for the dismantling of North Koreas plutonium production facilities, said Cha, who served in the Bush White House. The U.S. was opposed to this, he said, because it wanted Pyongyang to accept an alternative energy solution that did not include nuclear power.

I imagine the Russians want to provide a light water reactor, make money off of it and get a foothold on the energy links in East Asia, said Cha, who had not been briefed on the Russian proposal.

One diplomat who focuses on Russia issues said Moscows involvement could help it argue against sanctions placed on it for interventions in Ukraine. They may be trying to deal themselves back into the global game, the diplomat said.  We helped save the world from North Korean nukes, so why the continued sanctions? 

In the past, U.S. officials have opposed a major role for Russia in the denuclearization process due to a long-standing distrust of Moscow, Cha said. China, a key player in the negotiations, has also opposed a prominent Russian energy role, though that could appeal to Trump.

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If this is part of a final deal, Trump could be OK with it if it pokes China in the eye, said Cha. The Chinese dont want the Russians on the peninsula, so if theyre going to be the primary energy supplier, they wont like it.

Russias offer to North Korea, in late October, came as negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang deadlocked over when North Korea should disclose an inventory of its nuclear program.

But the tempo of the discussions improved earlier this month with a visit to Washington by Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief and North Koreas lead negotiator in the talks. In meetings with Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, Kim told officials North Korea had appointed Kim Hyok Chol as the new counterpart for Americas envoy for the talks, Stephen Biegun, said two people familiar with the discussions.

The personnel change was welcomed by the U.S. side, which has struggled for months to secure meetings between Biegun and his previous counterpart, Choi Sun Hee. Following Pompeos meetings with Kim, Biegun met with Kim Hyok Chol for the first round of working-level talks between the Trump administration and the North Koreans.

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Hudson and Nakashima write for the Washington Post.
To the editor: Navy SEAL veteran Edward R. Gallagher faces war crimes charges for the alleged 2017 murder of a single enemy combatant in Mosul, Iraq.

I find this action ludicrous and sadly laughable when, at the behest of the leaders of our government, and based on misinformation and false pretenses, the U.S. military bombed and invaded a sovereign nation in 2003, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians (according to the medical journal Lancet) while millions more were displaced.

As the architects of the Iraq war, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney comfortably live out their lives, while one soldier will bear the weight of all of their sins.

Blaine Ziolkowski, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: I think everyone agrees that stopping crime is essential. However, the elephant in the room is the absence of results from the Los Angeles Police Department Metropolitan Divisions disproportionately high rate of vehicle stops involving black motorists.

The statistics cited do not answer the question of whether or not the stops have been an effective tool in crime prevention. Civil rights activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson makes the essential point: Theyve got to show an end result.

If the police stops have been successful in finding weapons, seizing drugs or leading to arrests, then they are warranted. If these actions have yielded no results, then the stops are not warranted.

Neil Snow, Manhattan Beach

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To the editor: With regard to the great disparity between the percentage of black drivers being pulled over and their overall population, I have one observation based on your reporting.

You quoted Precious McLaughlin, a resident of one of the areas with the most vehicle stops of black drivers by the Metro officers, and you make the point that in an area of Los Angeles where the population is 41% black, 81% of the stops have involved black drivers.

But within your article you make the observation that in this area where McLaughlin lives and works, a Crips gang claims the north side of West 48th Street, and to the south are the Bloods-affiliated Van Ness Gangsters. Can you tell us what percentage of these two gangs, who undoubtedly contribute much of the violence concentrated in that area, are black?

If the percentage is high, that to me would explain why there is such a statistically overwhelming percentage of black drivers being stopped in that area.

Mike Kilgore, Mar Vista

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To the editor: I dont disagree with USC historian Peter Westwicks assessment that Californias use of long-distance electricity transmission lines has significantly added to our wildfire risk, but it misses the real cause of devastating house fires: the use of wooden two-by-fours in house construction.

Ignition origin is important, but there are other sources: lightning, barbecues, house electrical shorts and more. On average, American homes last a fraction of what is expected in parts of Europe and Asia. I have a place in Paris for which I have not bothered to buy fire insurance.

London banned wood construction after much of the city burned down in 1666, and Moscow significantly reduced the use of wood for building after its 1812 fire.

We would save our housing stock for future generations if we required that homes be built with inert materials. This is especially necessary in California, since brush and forest fires are going to increase as the planet warms.

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Mike Roddy, Alameda, Calif.

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To the editor: My dad was a surveyor for the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light, a predecessor to the Department of Water and Power, in the 1930s. He was part of a crew that surveyed the emergency line from Hoover Dam (then Boulder Dam) to Los Angeles. Those steel towers are still in use.

It is worth saying: If you are a runner, hiker or mountain biker and see a potential problem with a power line, please make it known either to the responsible power company or to city or county officials. I have done this with some questionable lines near Topanga State Park, and the problems were corrected pretty quickly.

Paul Cooley, Culver City

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To the editor: Westwick explains the power grid history and identifies the problem. The future, and the solution, is distributed energy resources.

Our new Clean Power Alliance, as a core goal, will develop clean, renewable electricity generation closer to users, obviating the need for risky long-distance high-voltage transmission lines. Well pay existing rooftop owners more for their excess generation. In new power facilities, were committed to well-paying new local jobs in an environmentally sustainable economy.

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The Clean Power Alliance will reduce power grid fire risks and be a major Southern California agent of a Green New Deal.

Kevin McKeown, Santa Monica

The writer, a Santa Monica city councilman, is a member of the Clean Power Alliance board of directors.

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To the editor: In defending the electoral college, some letter writers argue that the institution protects small states, thus ignoring the actual rationale that some of the framers had in mind: the protection of slave states. Thus, the framers had no idea of the perverse influence that the electoral college would eventually have on election outcomes.

Additionally, the framers wanted to obviate regional candidates being promoted by individual states, a moot concern in modern political times with the power of two political parties.

The electoral college is not only a vestige of a terrible time in our nations history, it also violates the principle of one person, one vote.

Greg Ryan, Woodland Hills

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To the editor: One letter writer made the point that President Trump won 49 states by 1.8 million votes, but lost California by 4.2 million votes and therefore came up short in the national popular vote. He argued that without the electoral college, the largest state would have decided the 2016 election.

Thats true, but he didnt explain why large states should have their votes discounted. One could have made exactly the same point replacing California with African Americans.

According to the Census Bureau, African Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, while California residents account for a little more than 12%. Like Californians, African Americans also vote largely Democratic. So one could just as easily argue that without the electoral college, African Americans would have decided the 2016 election.

But almost everyone would find that a completely ridiculous reason to discount their votes. I say almost only because a small part of the support for the electoral college can be attributed to racism.

John Harduvel, Huntington Beach

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Cannabis is now legal in a number of states, but the money it generates is still seen as tainted.

The reason for this is the clash between state laws legalizing recreational marijuana and federal laws that label it a controlled substance. As a result, some business owners operating legally under state laws have been fingered as potential money launderers, and many have been kicked out of the banking system altogether. Federal regulators need to remedy the situation.

Currently, very few banks and credit unions accept marijuana-related businesses as customers, even though they are legally allowed to, according to the U.S. Treasurys Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Treasury has provided guidance to banks and credit unions advising them that handling such business is legal. But the guidance doesnt effectively address the core reason many banks wont deal with customers in the marijuana trade: expensive and onerous paperwork required from the banks about such customers under anti-money-laundering regulations.

CEOs of cannabis companies have had their personal bank accounts closed, and their storefront employees have as well.

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Federal regulations against money laundering require filing suspicious-activity reports on customers banks suspect are depositing revenue garnered from illegal activities. Filing these reports is expensive and can open up banks to potentially large fines and regulatory sanctions. Once a bank has identified a customer as suspicious, it has to continually file on both deposits and payments. This makes sense if the idea is to follow the money to uncover hidden criminal enterprises. But it makes no sense when applied to state-licensed marijuana businesses, which operate openly and are easily located on Google Maps.

Still, as marijuana has become legal in more places, the number of suspicious-activity reports filed by banks has mushroomed. About 3 million such reports were filed in 2017, more than double the 1.3 million filed in 2010. Theres no way of saying for sure how many of these additional 1.7 million suspicious transactions involve cannabis, since information contained in the filings is secret. But something is driving this spike. Today, one in five Americans live in a state with commercial recreational cannabis.

Banks that want to steer clear of the cannabis industry often adopt internal rules prohibiting accounts for customers they have reason to believe are engaged in the trade. Those rules, along with fear of violating federal regulations, have led to banks closing the accounts of people involved with marijuana, a process known as de-risking. Marijuana-related businesses such as dispensaries are at highest risk of being turned down by a bank or subject to federal reporting, but those in the next ring are also becoming targets.

CEOs of cannabis companies have had their personal bank accounts closed, and their storefront employees have as well. Even those not part of the cannabis industry but doing business with such firms are at risk. Witness the lawyer in California whose account was closed because he represented marijuana companies.

Nor are politicians immune. Last year, Wells Fargo closed the campaign account of a Democratic candidate for Florida agriculture commissioner because she received a campaign contribution from a cannabis firm (she won the election).

Banks will one day have to face the question of whether state and local governments, which receive tax revenue from cannabis, should be subject to reporting or de-banking. This year, for example, Colorado is expected to surpass $1 billion in total government revenue from marijuana since it began legalizing and taxing the industry in 2014.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

If a state or local governments account were deemed suspicious, reporting would entail not only the funds going into the account, but also money going out. Does this mean a bank would need to file suspicious-activity reports on teachers, police officers or municipal debt holders who were being paid by governments that collected taxes from marijuana-related businesses?

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There are simple solutions. The Treasury Department, which has the regulatory pen, could simply exempt banks from reporting on state-licensed marijuana businesses. Another easy move would be to exempt state and local governments from any filing as a result of depositing tax revenue from this industry. Bank regulators who examine institutions for compliance should clarify the process for both serving marijuana firms and for dealing with existing customers who do business with those firms.

Yes, there are political risks to fixing the situation. But failure to act has created an absurd situation. Conservatives who dislike costly regulation and progressives who favor state-legalized cannabis ought to be able to agree and fix it.

Aaron Klein is a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. He served as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury from 2009 to 2012.
The new year is off to a good start for kids and families in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom has hit the ground sprinting, proposing six months of paid parental leave and $1.8 billion in funding for early childhood programs and education.

Thats great news. But any survey of European policies will show that Newsoms proposal is merely a start.

Though it is the most powerful country in the world, the United States ranks 36th in Save the Childrens latest End of Childhood index measuring the best and worst places to be a child. Eight European countries are in the top 10.

Similarly, in UNICEFs latest report card on child well-being, the U.S. ranks 37th out of 41. Nine of the top 10 countries are in Europe.

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The U.S. simply isnt keeping pace with the rest of the developed world when it comes to giving children the best possible chance to succeed.

On a recent trip across Europe, I identified three key reasons why countries there are safer and more nurturing for children.

First, there is a healthy respect for childrens rights underlying all policies concerning children. Second, there are government structures in place to ensure that childrens rights are upheld. Finally, there is a safety net of basic universal benefits to support children and their families.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, passed in 1989, sets standards for education, healthcare, social services and other policies that affect children. Although officials from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations helped write the child rights treaty, the U.S. is the only U.N. member state that hasnt ratified it. Opponents cite the administrative burden of complying with the convention, as well as concerns that it could interfere with the parent-child relationship.

In Europe, by contrast, the convention is regarded not as a burden, but rather a helpful framework for keeping the needs of children front and center in all policy matters. Some countries have gone well beyond the conventions basic requirements. Finland, for instance, has established a State Youth Council, responsible for assessing the impact of any new legislation on children.

Across Europe, there is a host of government structures designed to uphold childrens rights and serve kids. The European Network of Ombudspersons for Children brings together institutions from 35 member countries with this goal.

Frances ombudsperson, Genevieve Avenard, is a longtime defender of childrens rights and current chair of the European network. Her position was created by constitutional amendment, and her office studies specific issues and releases annual reports and recommendations. It also serves as a court of last resort for complaints about child services.

Ireland has gone a step further and created not only an ombudsperson for children, but a separate minister for childrens affairs.

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A number of countries involve children in the legislative process. Britain has the U.K. Youth Parliament, to which 300 kids are elected. Twice a year, the youth parliament invites every British child between the ages of 11 and 18 to give feedback on issues they find important. The five leading topics then get debated, and a report is sent to the adult Parliament.

When it comes to universal benefits for children and families, Europe is significantly ahead of the U.S.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

In Sweden, parents are entitled to a total of 16 months of paid leave, to be divided as they choose. In Germany, every child between the ages of 1 and 3 has the legal right to early childhood support in a day-care center. And in the Netherlands, after a baby is born, a kraamverzorgster, or home maternity nurse, comes to the familys house for eight to 10 days following the birth and spends three to eight hours a day helping the new parents.

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The U.S. simply isnt keeping pace with the rest of the developed world when it comes to giving children the best possible chance to succeed. But the whole of Europe offers promising models from which the U.S. can learn and adapt, and the Newsom administration is now setting an example for other American states to follow.

As the 116th Congress begins to legislate in Washington, lets remember that, no matter what divides us politically, we can all agree to care for our kids.

Dr. David Alexander, a practicing pediatrician and advocate for children for more than three decades, is the founding president of Leading for Kids. He previously served as president and CEO of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Childrens Health.

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For more than a decade the United Nations Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala  known by its Spanish acronym CICIG  has worked with Guatemalan prosecutors to ferret out corruption and criminal conspiracies within government as the country struggled to embrace democracy after years of disastrous civil war. That cooperative effort helped stabilize the countrys legal system and, according to a Congressional Research Service report last year, worked to reduce the countrys rampant criminal impunity by strengthening Guatemalas capacity to investigate and prosecute crime.

More than 310 targets of investigations  including a former vice president  have been convicted on corruption-related charges. In addition, 60 criminal networks have been exposed, more than 1,700 corrupt police officials fired and fundamental laws governing organized crime have been improved.

CICIGs work helped topple the presidency of Otto Perez Molina over corruption at the national taxing agency, and led to the arrest of another former president, Alvaro Colom, and nine members of his cabinet in connection with a $35-million fraud investigation involving a new bus system in Tegucigalpa, the capital. Current President Jimmy Morales, a former comedian who, much like Donald Trump, owed his public profile to television and campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, backed CICIGs efforts until investigators ensnared his brother and son and then accused Morales himself of campaign finance violations. Morales responded by booting CICIG out of the country even though Guatemala had previously agreed to let the body keep working until next year.

If Trump sincerely believes there is a humanitarian crisis at play, then he also needs to recognize that holding up a stop sign on the border wont resolve it.

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We should all be concerned about the conditions under which our neighbors live, of course. But heres a self-interested reason why Americans should care about whats happening in Guatemala: Because the corruption that CICIG worked so hard to uproot is tied to the conditions that have sent so many migrants fleeing north to escape violence and economic squalor. These are the push factors that have created the humanitarian predicament at the U.S.-Mexico border that have become one of President Trumps favorite talking points.

Yet the Trump administrations response to the end of CICIG has been, at best, muted. Critics argue that by failing to make a forceful defense of CICIG, which receives about 40% of its funding from the United States, the Trump administration is sending a tacit signal to Morales that he can continue to undermine anti-corruption efforts and fair elections in a country where they stand on shaky foundations. Thats a dangerous road.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

This signals a significant Trump policy failure in Central America. The president has railed against the so-called migrant caravans of desperate Central Americans traveling through Mexico as an assault on the border that somehow justifies building a bigger, more extensive border wall, even though illegal border crossings are near modern lows. But extending and expanding the current border walls and fences would be ineffective at stopping illegal immigration. The way to reduce illegal immigration is to fight violence, gangs, corruption and hopeless poverty by increasing humanitarian aid and support for building democratic and legal institutions in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where most of the migrants are coming from.

In failing to come to the defense of CICIG, Trump has done the exact opposite. He has once again sided with authoritarianism at the expense of democracy and accountability. Similarly, his proposals to slash by as much as half U.S. aid to Central American countries  moves that Congress has rejected thus far  would only add to the problems. If Trump wants to dissuade migrants from fleeing their homes, he needs to re-embrace federal policies dating to the Obama administration that emphasize prosperity, security and governance, and get over his obsession with confronting migrants after theyve hit the road.

That will take more foreign investment and aid, not less, but also require staunch public support from the White House for CICIG and other entities seeking to root out corruption and increase accountability. If Trump sincerely believes there is a humanitarian crisis at play, then he also needs to recognize that holding up a stop sign on the border wont resolve it.

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Housing subsidies are one of the fastest ways to get a homeless person off the street or to prevent someone from becoming homeless in the first place. Federal subsidies  dispensed through Section 8 vouchers and other forms of aid for renters  use public dollars to make up the difference between what a person can afford to pay for an apartment and what landlords typically charge for one. Theyre an essential tool to help Los Angeles end its homeless crisis.

But there is a problem: A growing number of landlords wont even considering leasing to tenants with vouchers or other forms of government rental assistance.

Roughly half of the people in Los Angeles who held Section 8 vouchers in late 2018 had been unable to find an apartment within six months, as required, so they lost the voucher or had to restart the referral process for assistance. Thats the highest failure rate in city history. And its especially heartbreaking because its so hard to get into the Section 8 program in Los Angeles  roughly 1 in 30 people who apply for the assistance will actually get a voucher because the demand greatly exceeds the supply.

Barring landlords from discriminating against voucher holders will at least allow would-be tenants an opportunity to get their foot in the apartment door.

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The search for a willing landlord is even harder for homeless veterans; just 45% of those with special Department of Veterans Affairs-supported vouchers find a unit, according to the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles.

Yes, Section 8 and other rental subsidy programs come with rules and bureaucracy. But housing advocates argue that landlords too often adopt blanket No Section 8 policies as a way to discriminate against the poor  and by extension, against the minorities and families that would otherwise have been protected by federal fair-housing law.

A Housing and Urban Development Department-funded study released last year showed just how difficult it can be for a voucher holder. Researchers combed through rental ads looking for units that met the requirements for vouchers, and then inquired about those units. But some 76% of the landlords contacted in Los Angeles County refused to accept vouchers. The denial rate was higher in more affluent communities, where 82% of landlords wouldnt take vouchers.

The HUD study found that in Washington, D.C., and Newark, N.J., which have laws that prohibit landlords from discriminating on the basis of income, denial rates were much lower  15% and 31%, respectively.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to draft a law that would prohibit landlords from rejecting would-be tenants solely based on their use of a Section 8 voucher or other subsidy. The Los Angeles City Council is considering a similar law.

L.A. leaders are joining a growing number of jurisdictions trying to ensure that vouchers remain a viable form of housing assistance. A dozen states outside California and numerous cities ban landlords from discriminating against applicants based on the source of their income in an effort to protect tenants with rental subsidies.

These laws dont require that landlords rent to Section 8 tenants; landlords simply have to treat tenants with vouchers the same as any other prospective tenant. Property owners would still be able to screen tenants for rental or credit history, check references and set other common standards.

Landlords argue that the current, high denial rate isnt driven by discrimination, but by the excessive paperwork, inspections and restrictions that come with rental subsidy programs. For example, its hard to raise the rent, even modestly, on voucher tenants.

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Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

Meanwhile, the supposedly market rent the federal government covers is too low for L.A.s overheated rental market. Section 8 vouchers cant be used on units that charge more than the market rent, which the federal government says is $1,384 for a one-bedroom apartment. The market says otherwise: The median rent listed for a one-bedroom apartment in the county is around $2,200, according to Zillow.

Those are legitimate concerns that city and county leaders  as well as the federal government  have to address.

Its clear that for the Section 8 program to be truly successful in Los Angeles County, HUD has to take into account the high cost of housing here and significantly increase funding. The city and county also have to make it as easy and efficient as possible for landlords to participate in the program. That could include offering landlords incentives to accept vouchers, such as giving them holding fees to keep a unit vacant while the voucher rental agreements are being approved.

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Voucher holders will still struggle to find homes as long as Los Angeles remains a highly competitive, low-vacancy rental market. But barring landlords from discriminating against them will at least allow would-be tenants an opportunity to get their foot in the apartment door.

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The white-haired priest stepped from the fog like a ghost, his robes and cowboy hat glowing in the predawn darkness like the sandstone chapel that he returns to again and again.

They call this one-room church rising above the banks of the Rio Grande La Lomita, the hill. Its plank doors were open earlier this month, as usual. As the man in white entered, the darkness deepened. Theres no light, no electricity inside, just steps from the river.

To the north rises a levee feeding orange groves that perfume the air. To the south, a tangle of chaparral lines the roiling, camo-colored river haunted by Border Patrol agents, smugglers and migrants. A priest once went missing in this brush  his horse found wandering  and he was forever known as the Lost Missionary.

The man locals call the cowboy priest is not perturbed by the swirl of shadows in the mist. Its the chapel he worries about, a 153-year-old landmark that could be sealed behind a border fence scheduled to rise atop the levee next month.

Its where Father Roy Snipes was ordained in 1980. He likes to tell stories about how priests once lived here in a bunkhouse with stables and a blacksmith. To Father Roy  a cleanshaven Santa Claus of a character who drinks Lone Star beer and cultivates a menagerie of pets including llamas and peacocks  La Lomita is more than a spiritual home: Its a supernatural presence.

The chapel casts a spell on those who enter, he insists. The river winds by with a sacred, life-giving force. A border fence, he fears, would leave both landmarks entombed and desecrated.

Father Roy Snipes conducts a service by flashlight at the La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) The church is filled with parishioners during a predawn service at the historic La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) Visitors leave notes in a guest book at the entrance to La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) Top, Father Roy Snipes conducts a service by flashlight at the La Lomita church. Right, the church is filled with parishioners during a predawn service at the historic La Lomita church. Left, visitors leave notes in a guest book at the entrance to La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

And so, at age 73, he has led the way as church leaders, lawyers and parishioners have joined in fighting the fence. On Friday mornings, he rings the bell atop the whitewashed chapel by hand to summon opponents of the government plan.

Since late October, when the Border Patrol filed a lawsuit in federal court to condemn land around the chapel and begin surveying for a fence, Father Roy has spoken out. He worries it would block access and scare away the faithful, most of whom are Latino. Its still unclear where the fence would rise, whether it would include a gate, and if it did, how the Border Patrol would control access.

Maybe theyll interrogate us on the way out, let the blue-eyed guys go and the brown-eyed guys get questioned, said the blue-eyed priest.

Border Patrol officials have insisted in court filings that the fence would help secure the border.

In a filing this month, government attorneys insisted that surveying the church's land would not violate laws protecting religious freedom and that if church officials disagree with the fence in principle, they should take the issue up with lawmakers. Its too early, the lawyers told the judge, to allege the barrier will affect La Lomita because, The government has not finalized the nature of any permanent acquisition or how the diocese may be accommodated."

The Catholic Church has so far sided with Father Roy. His bishop has opposed the proposed fence. Attorneys for the local diocese have attempted to stop it in court, arguing it would violate Catholic teachings, the churchs responsibility to protect migrants and the 1st Amendment right to religious freedom. Lawyers from Georgetown University have helped.

The church wanted to take a stand early on, said attorney David Garza.

The next hearing on the governments condemnation request is Feb. 6.

As the legal battle plays out, work on the 25-mile, $1.4-billion fence project  already paid for by Congress  has proceeded. The fence is expected to be built atop the levee just north of the chapel, with a 150-foot enforcement zone to the south, which the priest fears will limit access to property owners and law enforcement.

The Cowboy Priest, Father Roy Snipes conducts a pre-dawn service, while his dog, Charlotte, waits outside. Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Father Roy measured what he calls the militarized zone. He said it would extend on to the church property, across the graves of three of his pets (two donkeys and a llama), right up to the wall of the chapel.

This month, four Democratic senators  Charles E. Schumer of New York, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico  requested Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen disclose how the diocese and other property owners will be affected by the fence.

Some of the priests dozen rescue dogs accompany Father Roy to Mass. On Jan. 18, he brought Charlotte, a black lab, and Bandito, a Rhodesian ridgeback mix. They were joined by about 30 locals, enough to pack the rough-hewn pews.

He says Mass here for weddings, and in times of drought prayers for rain. In autumn, he celebrates a mariachi Mass in honor of the Lost Missionary. In spring, he celebrates Palm Sunday with his two pet donkeys and with confessions under the mesquites until sundown.

By comparison, the Friday Mass was spartan. It was the sixth in a series of nine Masses in opposition to the fence, a rite Catholics call a novena. A deacon held a flashlight on the spare wooden altar so the priest could cue his battery-operated CD player. A cowboy trail song commenced with a lonesome whistle that echoed off the bare rafters.

Move along, blue shadows, move along. Soon the dawn will come and you'll be on your way, sang Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. Until the darkness sheds its veil, there'll be blue shadows on the trail.

Bandito and Charlotte wait outside as Father Roy Snipes sits in the dark hall of La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) The La Lomita church sits a few hundred yards from the banks of the Rio Grande and the border with Mexico. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) Left, Bandito and Charlotte wait outside as Father Roy Snipes sits in the dark hall of La Lomita church. Right, the La Lomita church sits a few hundred yards from the banks of the Rio Grande and the border with Mexico.(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Even the dogs hushed. An 83-year-old Korean War veteran whose parents had sung at Father Roys ordination rose to sing. The priest had forgotten his aspergillum, the holy water sprinkler, and used a backup bottle to bless the assembled.

I always carry a little in my pocket, he said. You never know when the devil might come around. You know, he was here last week.

Father Roy was referring to President Trump, who visited the Rio Grande Valley on Jan. 10 for a roundtable in which he called exclusively on local border wall proponents after having partially shut down the federal government until Congress agrees to fund his border barricade.

Sister Norma was there, but they say she never got to talk, the priest said, referring to Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs the areas largest migrant shelter.

The priest spoke and prayed, as many do here, in a mix of Spanish and English. Thats how he was raised in San Antonio. Its how he endeared himself to a mostly Latino congregation who call him in Spanish our father from baptism to burial.

The priest has also attracted Midwestern retirees, known here as winter Texans. Former coal miners and police officers at the chapel who consider themselves political independents say there is no need for a border fence.

Were honored to gather here, where so many of our ancestors did, Father Roy told the crowd. Watch over refugees and migrants, those separated and searching for a home.

You have to respect your brother, whether he has papers or not, he said. He knows migrants frequent the chapel. Theyre drawn by the bells to the sanctuary. Some leave notes in the guest book, praying to receive their immigration papers or to reunite with their children after being separated by immigration officials.

Bandito stands in front of La Lomita church long after sunset. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Last fall, Bandito, the Rhodesian ridgeback mix, discovered a group of Guatemalan men cowering at the back of the chapel, below a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Father Roy gave them water and fried chicken. But when they asked for a ride into town, he knew better. Border Patrol agents park just down the levee, keeping watch. Theyd be on me like a chicken on a June bug, he figured. Better walk, he told the men. By the time he returned the next day, they were gone.

If the priest was caught with migrants, he worried, he could be charged with smuggling, that agents might lock him up, confiscate his dogs or his battered SUV with its No walls between amigos sticker. So he leaves the chapel doors open for migrants, and when he sees them emerge from the river, hes apt to toss a blessing over the water.

The priest grew up idolizing Rogers, Gene Autry and John Wayne, whose likeness adorns just about everything in the church kitchen where Father Roy started his day with machacado con huevo and campfire-black coffee.

Courage, the Duke reminds him from a photo on the wall, is being scared but saddling up anyway.

Father Roy trained to be a grade-school teacher like his mother. When he graduated from Texas A&M in 1967, a professor urged him to move to the Rio Grande Valley.

He loved the ranch town where he taught. But when he decided to become a priest in 1974, his father  who worked installing heat and air-conditioning systems  warned that he might chafe at the restrictions.

You come from a long line of rugged individualists, he said. And youre joining the biggest bureaucracy in the world.

The young priest found kindred spirits in his order of missionary priests, the Oblate Cavalry of Christ. They had traveled the border on horseback in the 1800s, building missions including La Lomita, from which the nearby city of Mission draws its name.

Father Roy first served at a church to the east in Roma, Texas, then at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mission, which is affiliated with the chapel. As the Catholic Church evolved, Father Roy felt more at home, especially after the ascension of Pope Francis, with his down-home ways.

Sometimes, Father Roy wishes he could return to a simpler time. Hell put on Alan Jackson or Tim McGraw, kick off his boots, maybe watch The Andy Griffith Show. He longs for Mayberry, where even a dopey deputy can become a hero.

I imagine Im John Wayne, he said. But Im really Barney Fife.

The sun sets behind La Lomita church. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Years ago, the parish started leasing riverfront land near La Lomita for a summer camp. Some of the children Father Roy hosted grew up to become Border Patrol agents. He still calls them our boys. And he still holds weenie roasts, bonfires, tugs of war and fishing trips there on a rusty motorboat he calls Ole Blue.

Cruising the foggy river this month, he thought about the people on the Mexican bank, who some Americans demonize and despise. They see the U.S. as a country club to be protected, he said. He sees it as a field hospital for the wounded. Hes as concerned about American hatred as he is about the fence.

Our problems are much more profound, he said.

On Jan. 16, he had received a letter from a woman in Arizona who read about his defense of the chapel. She wrote that she hoped migrants would cross the river and kill him.

And she was a Catholic lady, he said.

He jokes that she was probably drinking when she wrote him. Maybe shed regret it when she sobered up. But he knew better.

Hes considering extending the series of Friday Masses at La Lomita, where he returns to pray each day at sunset.

The evening of Jan. 18, he found a full moon rising above the chapel behind a screen of clouds. Cicadas hummed in the mesquite, stirred by a cool breeze. On the nearby levee, a Border Patrol agent had parked his truck, lights blazing.

Father Roy stepped inside the chapel and sat in one of the empty pews. Peace flooded him. He thought about what La Lomita stands for, of the missionaries who came before him and the challenges they faced. He felt sure they would side with him against the government.

We have survived Nazism, McCarthyism, plagues, floods, hell and high water, he said. Never did we think we needed a wall.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com | @mollyhf

Robert.Gauthier@latimes.com | @rgaut999
In a speech meant to lay out his law enforcement vision, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Wednesday issued a blistering attack on the reforms embraced by the department in the wake of a major corruption scandal, arguing they may have done more harm than good.

Villanueva, whose 2-month-old administration has already become entangled in controversy, dismissed some efforts by the department to reduce force against inmates  the core problem that led to a culture of jail abuse  as a social experiment that backfired and put lives at risk.

Villanuevas comments in his first address on the state of the department repeated familiar themes from his election campaign but offered few new ideas or specifics about how he planned to change policies and move the department forward.

There is a need for transparency and accountability in order to regain the publics trust in this organization, Villanueva said during a news conference. Today is our first step towards this effort.

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Villanueva slammed his predecessor, Jim McDonnell, who took office after a federal investigation into deputy violence against inmates in the county jail system led to the convictions of numerous top department leaders, including longtime Sheriff Lee Baca. McDonnell supported a host of reforms aimed at providing stronger oversight of the jails and more civilian review.

The new sheriff displayed charts and graphs that he said showed that assaults on staff, inmate-on-inmate assaults and use of force in the jails increased after McDonnell took office.

Literally, someone thought it was a good idea to tell their deputies to put their hands in their pockets, and that somehow was going to lead to a better outcome. The exact opposite happened, Villanueva said. We ended up with higher levels of force by the deputies because now theyre responding to greater and greater incidences of inmate assaults on staff.

McDonnell issued a statement defending the reforms and expressing alarm at Villanuevas comments.

We are seeing evidence that the department is losing hard-earned progress on many fronts, he said.

Citing department statistics, The Times has previously reported that significant force by deputies  incidents causing any type of injury  was down last year by 60% from 2009, when it hit its highest point in nearly a decade. A federal court monitor overseeing consent decrees in the jails, as well as watchdogs, agreed that the most severe, bone-breaking injuries that had been happening have nearly vanished.

Assistant Sheriff Bob Olmsted, who spoke out about jail abuse several years ago and was brought back by Villanueva to oversee the custody division, said at the news conference that hes seen some obvious improvements from the reforms since he last worked at the Sheriffs Department as a jail commander.

I can tell you the significant broken bones and that aspect of it seems to me to have curtailed, said Olmsted, who stood at the lectern as a member of Villanuevas command staff.

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In an interview, Richard Drooyan, the federal monitor who oversees changes mandated by consent decrees in the jails, said he watched Villanuevas news conference and noted that many of the statistics about inmate-on-inmate assaults and inmate-on-staff assaults before 2017 may not be fully reliable because of problems with how the department captured data.

The countys Office of Inspector General wrote a report in July 2017 revealing problems with the departments antiquated data systems and helped spur changes in the way the department tracked jail statistics.

Villanueva claimed that under the previous administration, jail employees were directed to stop counting gassings  the throwing of urine, feces or other bodily fluids on staff members  as instances of inmate violence against staff because they were too numerous.

Cathleen Beltz, who helps oversee the jail system as a member of the Office of Inspector General, said the department has continued to track gassings in recent years.

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Former Assistant Sheriff Kelly Harrington, who served under McDonnell, agreed, saying gassings were always considered very serious. Harrington was one of several high-level executives who were removed by Villanueva when he took office.

Villanueva also said that under the prior administration, too many deputies were investigated and relieved of duty, causing the department to spend money on deputies who were not working. He said morale was so low that injured deputies, who might otherwise have come to work, would stay home instead, causing a drain on expenses.

The previous administration treated our employees as if they were disposable liabilities, Villanueva said.

Villanuevas speech came a day after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors took the unusual step of publicly rebuking him for reinstating a deputy who had been fired in connection with allegations of stalking and abuse  calling the sheriffs judgment into question and setting off a political crisis for his fledgling administration.

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The supervisors approved a motion asking Villanueva to reconsider his decision.

Part of Villanuevas address Wednesday was devoted to defending the reinstatement of the deputy, Caren Carl Mandoyan. Chief Steve Gross, who oversees South Patrol, said he helped conduct a factual analysis of Mandoyans case, finding that it did not merit termination. He said some of the allegations against Mandoyan were founded, but some were not.

Contrary to what Villanueva told the supervisors Tuesday, Gross said Mandoyan decided not to waive his rights to the confidentiality of his file after all. It is unclear whether the supervisors will be able to review the file, as they requested.

And following up on a campaign promise, Villanueva said he was issuing a directive that by Feb. 1, all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be prohibited from entering any Sheriffs Department facilities to conduct civil immigration matters.

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maya.lau@latimes.com

Twitter: @mayalau
Even as new rail lines have steadily opened across Los Angeles County, bringing better transit service to the San Gabriel Valley and the traffic-choked Westside, the Sepulveda Pass continues to be a headache.

The congested 405 Freeway has no space or capacity for a reliable transit option, and the rugged hills are too steep to run a rail line over. Those conditions leave two complicated, costly options: tunnel through the mountains, or find a kind of transit that can get over the hills.

Plans made public Tuesday show that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is studying a tunnel or tunnels through the Santa Monica Mountains, as well as a monorail system that would run above ground on some of the terrain. Both approaches would pose significant engineering challenges.

In a region where three in four commuters drive alone to work, the Sepulveda Pass line offers a key opportunity to shift more drivers onto transit. All four options that Metro is studying could whisk riders between the San Fernando Valley and the Westside in less than a half-hour, far faster than driving during rush hour.

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(Los Angeles)

The numbers were showing here are exceptional, said Cory Zelmer, Metros Sepulveda Pass project manager.

The line would serve as a key north-south route in the Southlands growing rail network, and as a connection to other lines. Five stations would serve as transfer points to the Expo Line, the Wilshire subway, the Orange Line, the Metrolink Ventura County line, and a light-rail line planned along Van Nuys Boulevard.

The Sepulveda line would run between the Metrolink station in Van Nuys and a stop on the Expo Line in West L.A. along Bundy Drive or Sepulveda Boulevard.

Without further analysis and engineering, a cost estimate for any of the alternatives would be back-of-the-envelope math, Zelmer said.

A Metro report in 2016 estimated that building two 8.8-mile rail tunnels would cost $7.4 billion to $9.2 billion and would take seven years. Metro typically builds a separate tunnel for each set of tracks, but is also considering one larger tunnel that would accommodate both directions of travel.

Tunneling is difficult and expensive everywhere, but particularly in Southern California, where labor and material costs are high, and densely occupied areas complicate construction.

Metro is already planning to work around two major storm drains in the Valley. Unexpected municipal infrastructure, including utility lines, have been a major cause of delays and cost increases on other Metro projects, including the downtown Regional Connector subway and the 405 Freeway widening.

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The Sepulveda Pass project is slated to receive $2.54 billion through Measure M, the sales tax increase that voters approved in 2016, with an additional $3.13 billion secured through other sources.

The project is scheduled to open in 2033, but it is one of eight projects that Metro hopes to finish before the 2028 Olympic Games. Next month, the agency will consider strategies to raise money for those projects, including charging drivers more to use freeways or enter certain parts of town.

The Purple Line extension along Wilshire Boulevard will add a station at Westwood Boulevard, about 15 minutes from the center of UCLAs campus. But Metro is also considering an additional station on the Sepulveda line that would stop at the heart of the campus.

The route with the highest overall projected ridership is a subway line that would run on aerial tracks through the Valley, then in a tunnel from Ventura Boulevard to the Expo Line. The line would attract 133,000 daily riders, and run from Van Nuys to West L.A. in 18 minutes, Metro says.

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Elevated tracks are cheaper to build and have comparable benefits to subways because they separate trains and automobiles, Zelmer said. But, he said, residents in the Valley have made it clear that they would much prefer something underground.

A monorail system would also run above ground through the Valley, but its biggest cost savings would be in the Santa Monica Mountains, where the track could handle some inclines too steep for rail lines.

That would allow Metro to run elevated tracks between the Getty Center and Ventura Boulevard, avoiding several miles of tunnels and reducing the projects cost.

Metro could realize additional savings by running an automated operating system on the monorail, which would eliminate the need for human drivers, Zelmer said.

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The monorail option performed the worst of Metros four options in early assessments. The line would have the lowest estimated daily ridership  about 105,000 people  and, at 26 minutes, the slowest travel time between Van Nuys and West L.A.

The technology would also introduce a third system for Metro to operate and maintain, with different quirks and needs from light-rail and heavy-rail tracks and vehicles.

Metro will host public meetings on the plans starting Wednesday.

laura.nelson@latimes.com

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For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter.
Charles Cam Miller sees the scar on his chest every day and remembers how, when he was 9, a bullet from Brenda Spencers .22 rifle pierced him from back to front.

He vividly recalls the sight of Principal Burton Wragg and head custodian Michael Suchar lying bleeding in front of Cleveland Elementary School in San Diegos San Carlos neighborhood.

And Miller has never forgotten the horror he felt when he lay in an ambulance next to an inert Suchar and, as the ambulance rounded a curve, the custodian rolled on top of him, face to face.

It was 40 years ago, on Jan. 29, 1979.

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Spencer, then 16, armed with the rifle and scope her father gave her for Christmas, started picking off students heading to the school that was across the street from her Lake Atlin Avenue home. Miller was one of them.

She fired 36 rounds. Eleven hit their mark  eight children and three adults. Wragg and Suchar died; the others, including San Diego police Officer Robert Robb, survived.

Spencer fired at the school for about 20 minutes and famously told a reporter who reached her by phone that she was shooting because I just dont like Mondays. I did this because its a way to cheer up the day.

The flippant phrase inspired a hit single, I Dont Like Mondays, by Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats.

Her former defense attorney said the Patrick Henry High School student suffered from a broken home, an abusive father, drug use, and hostility toward authorities and society in general.

Her standoff with SWAT lasted more than six hours. Officers found about 200 rounds of unspent ammunition in the house.

Spencer, who was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty in 1980 to two counts of murder. She was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. Nine counts of attempted murder were dismissed.

Now 56, she remains in the California Institution for Women in Chino. After being denied parole several times, she is eligible for another hearing in 2021.

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Hers wasnt the first school mass shooting in the nation, but at the time it was among the few in which more than two or three people had been killed or wounded. Two of the worst shootings before Spencers  in 1966 at the University of Texas, where a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 31, and in 1976 at Cal State Fullerton, where seven were killed and two were wounded  involved adult male shooters.

As with any mass shooting, Spencers sniper assault on the elementary school changed the lives of the widows, the wounded, their families and a community. It might have even changed the nation.

She hurt so many people and had so much to do with starting a deadly trend in America, said Richard Sachs, a San Diego County deputy district attorney who has opposed parole for Spencer on several occasions.

Since 1979, the United States has seen a dramatic rise in the frequency of mass shootings and the casualty list.

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A USC professor who has studied school shootings agreed that, while they can no longer considered new, they tend to cast a wider, more significant effect on society, through widespread news reporting and posts on social media sites.

That shooting probably affected every person on that campus, Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social work and education, said of the San Carlos shooting. It has a very strong ripple effect; even if youre not hit by a bullet, that stays with you forever. Its like the ripple in a pond that goes through generations and a community.

The community may eventually have a hard time remembering the 1979 shooting. The school was sold and leveled, and housing was built on the 9-acre site. A sign notes homes available starting at $700,000.

One ripple outward from the shootings sent fear through a third generation in the Wragg family.

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The principals widow, Kathe Wragg, and daughter Penny made sure the parole board heard their opposition to releasing Spencer from prison. Both have since died, and two surviving sons dont like to speak publicly about it, family members said.

But Haley Wragg, who at 26 wasnt alive when Spencer killed her grandfather, learned as a child to fear her release from prison.

I know there was a lot of turmoil in the family every time Brenda was up for parole, she said in a recent interview. I was so young I didnt really understand it. I felt really scared  like shed come after me. I felt like letting this person out of her cage would harm my family members even more.

Her cousin Valerie Stahl, Penny Wraggs daughter, said she grew up not knowing much about Spencer until she reached college and Googled the incident. Stahl said her mother never got the right help dealing with her fathers murder.

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Now I think its better to talk about it, Stahl said.

Haley Wragg said she decided to break the family silence by telling her grandfathers story on a video for Safe Kids Inc., which develops school safety curricula and guides for parents.

My grandfather and the janitor threw themselves at the kids that were being shot at that morning, to save their lives, and in the process, lost their own, she said. I may not have grown up with a grandpa, but many children grew up to have their own families.

One of those children was Miller, who believes Spencer targeted him that morning because he was wearing a down vest in her favorite color: blue. Other children in down coats were targeted, too, and Spencer later was quoted as saying she enjoyed seeing feathers fly as she shot them.

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Miller recalls that his mother had just dropped him off, about 8:30 a.m., and he saw the principal and custodian lying in the parking lot near some bushes. He felt a sharp pain and blacked out for a moment, then a neighbor girl helped him toward the school building. He and other wounded children were hustled to the auditorium to await an ambulance.

I lay in the cafeteria it seemed like forever, with a bullet entry wound in his back and a chest exit wound, Miller said.

Meanwhile, San Diego police raced to the school. Officer Ted Kasinak halted a garbage-truck driver headed into the shooting scene and commandeered the truck. He drove it into the parking lot to serve as a shield while officers and school staff removed the wounded.

Right away a volley of shots started, then it stopped, Kasinak said. He took cover behind the truck as SWAT officers surrounded the Spencer house.

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SWAT Officer Jim McGinley said he took up a position on a neighbors roof, his rifle trained on the Spencer back door. SWAT Officer Marty Duitz aimed his rifle at the front door, from the safety of a school room. They said they had a green light to kill Spencer if they had an opportunity.

But Officer Paul Olson, primary negotiator, talked to Spencer on and off by phone for hours, urging her to throw out the gun and surrender. He promised that a Burger King Whopper would be waiting for her.

Now 72, Olson has kept his report notes from that day. He said Spencer told him things such as having shot a rabbit in the back of its head from 25 yards. She said the school victims looked like a herd of cows as they gathered around the wounded, making them easy pickings.

Spencer came out of her house about 2:30 p.m., laying her .22 rifle and a pellet rifle on the ground, then boxes of ammunition.

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Kasinak and Officer Patty Bernathy drove the teen to the homicide unit for questioning.

Suchar, the custodian who died, had no children and his widow is deceased. Mike Guerrero, now a financial accountant with National School District, worked for Suchar as a part-time janitor while studying at Cal State San Diego.

He said Suchar and the principal didnt get along all that well, but that day when Wragg was felled in the parking lot, Suchar didnt hesitate to run out to try to help.

All I can think was, his military training kicked in. Its your comrade and you assist him, Guerrero said. He noted that Suchar had been in a Navy Seabees construction battalion during World War II.

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Daryl Barnes, who taught fifth and sixth grades at Cleveland Elementary, was having coffee with the principal when they heard gunfire and ran outside. Barnes was narrowly missed by bullets as he dragged children indoors.

Twenty-two years later, his son Dan Barnes, also a teacher, found himself a target of Granite Hills High School shooter Jason Hoffman. Hoffman fired at him but missed. Dan Barnes is now principal at Grossmont High School.

Daryl Barnes retired from teaching in 2001 and died in 2016. His widow, Karen Barnes, said her husband always believed that God had protected him from Spencer during the shooting.

He always remembered that day, Barnes said. He always talked about that bloodstain on the principals shirt.

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Mary Rintoul remembers, too. She was Mary Clark then, just 9 years old, when she was shot through her lower torso and didnt know it. A quick pain subsided as she was rushed into the cafeteria, to safety. Other children lay bleeding on the stage.

I remember that fear; you dont know whats going on. We didnt understand why she was shooting at us, Rintoul said.

Police escorted them to buses to be reunited with parents at Pershing Middle School. Her mother discovered the bullet hole through her jacket zipper and in her side.

Rintoul suffered nightmares and got counseling. Her older brother helped her overcome a fear of guns by taking her out shooting jackrabbits when she was 11. She said she learned the gun wasnt the danger, but the person firing it.

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Whenever I hear of school shootings, Im bothered because I know what those children are facing, Rintoul said. I stopped following Brendas parole hearings 25 years ago. I realized shed never have a realistic answer of why she did it.

Spencers former attorney, Michael McGlinn, who has represented juvenile offenders for decades, believes she didnt know what she was doing and no longer poses a threat to society. He was not hired to represent Spencer at her parole hearings.

She wrote him a letter in 2015, thanking him for his criminal defense work and noting, What I did was horrible so I dont really complain about the amount of time Ive done.

McGlinn believes Spencers accounts that her divorced father, Wallace Spencer, sexually abused her and that under his influence she began dressing as a boy and learned to hunt and shoot with him. Her father married Spencers 17-year-old Juvenile Hall cellmate, but they divorced. He died at age 87 in 2016.

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The morning of the shooting, McGlinn said, Spencer drank alcohol and took her epilepsy medicine, Tegretol. When he saw her days later in Juvenile Hall, She was ashen, zombie-like in appearance, the lawyer said. After she came out of her zombie state [in prison] I didnt perceive her as a danger. And I dont today.

Sachs, the deputy district attorney who supervises the lifer unit to track the parole hearings of major offenders, disagrees. He noted that Spencer shot people 150 feet away with deadly accuracy, not as one under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

At her 2016 parole eligibility hearing, she cried frequently, demonstrating emotional instability, Sachs said.

She claimed she wasnt trying to kill anybody, she was just shooting, he said. What she did was so awful, shooting at children. We feel a life sentence is only fair for someone guilty of all those things.

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Repard writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The first of three back-to-back winter storms will arrive in Southern California Thursday morning, bringing the potential for heavy rain along with a chance of debris flows and flooding in areas recently ravaged by wildfires, the National Weather Service said.

The first storm, arriving by noon Thursday, will be fairly light  dropping a quarter of an inch to an inch of rain in Los Angeles County. Possible thunderstorms, however, could bring heavier rain to some regions, said Lisa Phillips, a meteorologist intern with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

The Southland will have a short break from wet weather during the day Friday before a stronger system moves into the region that night. That storm has the potential to bring gusty southeast winds up to 60 mph and dump 1 to 3 inches of rain through Saturday in Los Angeles County. It may also bring snow to higher elevations.

The impacts were looking at are downed trees, travel delays and possible shallow debris flows, Phillips said. The second storm is the one where you want to stay home.

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A much weaker third storm arriving Sunday will bring scattered showers that could linger through Monday, forecasters said.

No evacuations have been ordered for the burn areas in Los Angeles or Orange counties. But late Wednesday, Riverside County officials issued a voluntary evacuation warning for residents affected by the Holy fire and said those in the burn zone from last years Cranston fire should also prepare to leave in case heavy rain triggers debris flows. The situation is becoming common for those areas where residents have been told to evacuate during past storms.

Forecasters said the storm series also will bring fresh snow  up to 3 feet  in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada.

The continuing wet weather, which often creates headaches for commuters, is welcome news for officials tracking the states water supply. Storms that have swept through California in recent weeks have brought enough rain to put the states reservoirs at or above average levels.

Were a little bit above average for the water year, said Emily Heller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Its turning out to be pretty good with no major flooding or damage from these storms.

A winter storm will significantly impact mountain travel this weekend. Best travel time is Thursday & Friday morning. If you must travel this weekend, be prepared for major travel delays. Bring chains, food, water. & warm clothes. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/92qGHsaSZw  NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) January 30, 2019

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry
In Death Valley, piles of human feces and hunks of what rangers call toilet paper flowers were left scattered around the desert.

At Joshua Tree, officials found about 24 miles of unauthorized new trails carved into the desert landscape by off-road vehicles, along with some of the parks namesake trees toppled.



For the record: An earlier version of this article included a photo which incorrectly identified a Joshua tree as having been cut down by vandals during that time. Although a park ranger initially identified the tree as part of the vandalism, park officials now say the tree was downed as a result of wind damage.

And at Point Reyes along the Marin County coast, a colony of elephant seals made a popular beach their new home and welcomed 40 new pups into the world.

With the partial federal government shutdown over  at least for now  authorities are beginning the tally to damage that occurred to some of Californias national parklands during the weeks in which many park officials were off the job.

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While volunteers tried to keep the peace, officials returned to find humans  and some creatures  had taken advantage of the lack of supervision.

In the end, park officials said the damage to the parks was scattered but not widespread. The cleanups are underway, and that includes removing vandalism and fixing up trashed facilities.

During the shutdown, some reports made it sound like it was the Wild West, said George Land, a Joshua Tree spokesman. While there was a certain segment of the population like that, the majority of visitors love this area and love the park and behaved themselves. This is not a virtual wasteland.

Some of the most concerning losses involved three Joshua trees that were cut down or damaged and two mature juniper trees were cut for firewood along with dozens of cat claw acacia trees, said park superintendent David Smith.

Joshua Tree  which was on track to have more than 3 million visitors in 2018  also missed out on roughly $1.03 million in entrance fees, Land said.

I dont want to put everything in dollars and cents, but sometimes it comes down to that, he said.

Former Joshua Tree Supt. Curt Sauer decried the destruction at the park along with dozens of other people at a rally over the weekend. He estimated it could take centuries for the parks namesake trees and other sensitive vegetation to recover from damage inflicted during the shutdown. Some trees appear to have been chopped down, but Land said rangers dont know how many were harmed or how the destruction was caused.

There appear to be trees that people may have hooked hammocks onto or did some damage to, he said.

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Joshua trees grow slowly, only about an inch to an inch and a half a year, Land said.

In addition to the trees, off-road drivers cut destructive scars in the desert floors delicate biological soil crust. Advocates had warned of such damage during the shutdown and called for the park to be closed entirely.

Joshua Tree staff also discovered evidence of more than 100 campfires outside designated campsites, Land said.

At Death Valley National Park, government workers have counted 40 piles of human feces and more than 1,400 wads of toilet paper, spokeswoman Abby Wines said.

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So much human waste piled up in Yosemite National Park from visitors using the side of the road as a toilet during the shutdown that officials closed two campgrounds and a popular redwood grove, citing public safety concerns. But park officials say it was spared any long lasting damage.

Yosemite National Park employees are faced with other tasks like getting back to work on deferred maintenance, working out the kinks in the payroll system, and hiring seasonal workers before the summer season starts, said park spokesman Scott Gediman.

The park itself looks great, he said.

And not all of the imprints left at the national parks have been from humans.

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North of San Francisco at Point Reyes National Seashore, the lack of people provided an opening for a colony of elephant seals to move onto Drakes Beach, leading officials to close off vehicle, foot and bicycles traffic on the access road leading to the popular shore area.

It was the perfect storm, said park spokesman John DellOsso. We had king tides, a literal storm and nobody walking up and down the beach for a week.

Had park staff been on hand, they would have shooed the large marine mammals away.

At Death Valley, the impact of the government shutdown includes things that didnt happen. At least five school field trips to the park were canceled and nearly 150 educational programs were scrapped, including guided hikes and presentations on native animals and geology that would have served about 6,000 visitors, officials said.

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The park also skipped its popular night-sky program, where rangers set up four telescopes to let visitors look at the Milky Way on moonless evenings.

That is by far our most popular program, Wines said. We help people connect to the stars and how our ancestors used the stars.

She said the park was able to keep five staffers at a visitor center during the shutdown, thanks to $40,000 from the Death Valley Natural History Assn. Those staffers advised visitors on how to properly defecate in the wild once the parks pit toilets got full: Dig a hole 8 inches deep, do your business, then cover it up and put your toilet paper in a sealed plastic bag.

But not everyone heeded the advice.

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It smells bad; it is gross, she said. It can sometimes make animals sick  [and] change the behavior of wildlife.

Park advocates are already bracing for the possibility of another government shutdown since the continuing resolution President Trump signed only reopens the federal government through Feb. 15.

I think there is some relief but there is not much, said David Lamfrom the director of the California desert and national wildlife programs for the National Parks Conservation Assn. The shadow of another looming shutdown is there.

He said steady rain in the desert could lead to a wildflower bloom in the coming weeks  and more headaches if thousands of visitors descend on the parks while the government is closed.

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People really really need to understand how fragile these parks are and the role the park services plays maintaining them and teaching the public about the parks, said Lamfrom.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

@jpanzar
A Long Beach medical center dropped off an 84-year-old woman with the cognitive abilities of a toddler at a locked assisted living facility in the middle of the night, according to the womans daughter.

Savina Genoese Zerbi was living in Regency Palms when she threatened to kill herself with a nail file, the daughter said. She was taken to College Medical Center in Long Beach on Jan. 12, but several hours later she was abandoned outside Regency Palms, her daughter, Costanza Genoese Zerbi, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

The daughter said she received a call from a clinician at College Medical Center, who said transportation for her mother between the hospital and the senior living facility would be coordinated, but she wasnt told when her mother would be discharged. She later learned a taxi dropped her mother off at Regency Palms at 2 a.m.

Surveillance video published online shows the woman approaching the doors of the living facility in flip-flops and a robe with papers in her hand. She pulls at the locked doors and then bangs on the glass with her palm several times before walking away. She is then seen pacing down an alley.

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Costanza Genoese Zerbi filed a complaint with the California Department of Public Health against both College Medical Center and Regency Palms.

My mom has the cognitive abilities of a toddler, she said in an interview with CBS. Its like taking a child and dumping him in the street in the middle of the night in an unsafe neighborhood. Its insane. Its criminal. I just would like to see the hospital behave in a more responsible way.

Senate Bill 1152, passed in 2018, requires medical centers to comply with discharging protocols.

Christine Tomlinson, executive director of Regency Palms, said she could not comment because of patient confidentiality laws. Representatives for College Medical Center did not immediately return calls.

The state Department of Public Health says it is investigating the case.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra
Members of the Los Angeles Police Commission expressed concern Tuesday that the disproportionate number of black drivers stopped by an elite unit is damaging the publics trust in the police department.

The remarks came in response to a Times investigation showing that the LAPDs Metropolitan Division stops black drivers at a rate more than five times their share of the population.

Since Metro doubled in size as part of an effort to combat rising crime, nearly half the drivers stopped by its officers have been black, in a city that is 9% black. That has helped drive up the percentage of African Americans stopped by the LAPD overall from 21% to 28%.

On Monday, Mayor Eric Garcetti, who announced the Metro expansion in his State of the City speech in April 2015, called for an audit of Metro stops.

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The Times analysis is concerning, particularly to communities of color, and tends to undermine their trust, said Eileen Decker, who recently joined the five-member civilian commission that oversees the LAPD.

Decker, a former United States Attorney and deputy mayor, asked Chief Michel Moore how he plans to address the issue.

Moore cited the departments implicit bias training, where officers are taught to recognize and counteract their own biases, as well as a community policing program that is expanding to neighborhoods in the downtown area and Pacoima this year.

One of his priorities, he said, is building trust in each of our communities and understanding how trust is built or deepened and how trust is lost or weakened.

Unlike regular patrol officers, Metro officers often spend their entire shifts on vehicle stops and other proactive policing tactics intended to root out violent criminals.

They typically use a violation such as a broken tail light as a starting point to question the driver and potentially get inside the car  a type of stop known as a pretextual stop, which Moore has acknowledged is more invasive than an ordinary traffic stop.

LAPD command staff use crime data to pinpoint areas that the Metro officers should target on their shifts.

Most of Metros vehicle stops occur in South Los Angeles, which is almost one-third African American. But even there, the percentage of black drivers stopped by Metro is twice their share of the population, the Times analysis found.

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Another commissioner, Shane Murphy Goldsmith, praised the LAPD for its hard work and pointed to crime numbers that improved last year after several years of increases.

But she said of Metros vehicle stops: These strategies do have a negative impact on people. They impact their trust in police and government and their health and well-being.

The database analyzed by The Times, which is available on a city website, does not show why an officer pulled over a driver. Nor can it show whether officers were engaged in racial profiling.

As required by a new state law, the department recently began collecting information about what happens to drivers after they are stopped, including whether they were searched or arrested.

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Such data can illuminate racial disparities and shed light on the effectiveness of the stops. The Times has requested the new data, which officers began collecting July 1.

Moore said he is worried that the Times report will lead residents to jump to conclusions about racial profiling when the issue is more complicated than comparing the demographics of the city with the people stopped.

My concern is that trust is the most important aspect and that we dont lose it, Moore said. Im especially concerned that we dont lose it on an incomplete or imperfect analysis.

Moore told reporters after the meeting that a better analysis would include why people were stopped and whether they were treated fairly.

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Inspector General Mark P. Smith said the Police Commission had previously asked his office to examine proactive policing tactics such as those employed by Metro and he already planned to release a report, along the lines of what Garcetti requested, by the end of the year.

At Tuesdays meeting, some speakers emphasized the human cost of pulling over a disproportionate number of black drivers.

Zachary Hughes, 25, a political-science student at Cal State Los Angeles, called the racial disparities in Metro stops a disappointing display of the direction the city is heading.

People who have a criminal record and are trying to change their lives can experience a setback if they are stopped by police and arrested for a minor violation, he said.

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We need to get rid of the toxic stigma for African Americans, he added.

At a news conference before the meeting, community activists said Garcettis request for an audit of Metro stops was hypocritical given that he endorsed the 2015 expansion of the division.

He rushed to call for an audit, but the mayor is deeply complicit and very much responsible for programs that are leading to increased racial profiling, said Hamid Khan, a leader of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition.

Alex Comisar, a spokesman for Garcetti, said in a statement that while the Metro expansion has helped reduce crime in the city, its impact on the citys residents needs to be scrutinized.

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There is no contradiction between assuring that every community has the necessary resources to keep our neighborhoods safe and making certain that every Angeleno has confidence that those resources are being deployed fairly, effectively, and without discrimination, Comisar said.

Times staff writer Ben Poston contributed to this report.
A 37-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to life in state prison without the possibility of parole for the drive-by shooting death of an 8-year-old boy in Pomona in 2017.

Jurors deliberated for less than two hours in December before they found Sengchan Houl guilty of one count of first-degree murder, one count of shooting from a motor vehicle and two counts each of shooting at an occupied dwelling and negligent discharge of a firearm, according to Los Angeles Superior Court records.

In February 2017, Houl was in a car when he opened fire on a home in the 1100 block of West 11th Street. Jonah Hwang, 8, was fatally struck in the head.

Prosecutors said Houl had shot at the same house once before the shooting that killed the boy and then twice again afterward.

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Jonah was inside the house, which belonged to a family friend that he and his parents and brother were visiting for dinner. Jonahs parents, Jonny and Karen Hwang, adopted the boy three years earlier from an orphanage in Taiwan, they said at the time.

Sandi Hwang Adam, who said Jonahs parents are her cousins, told The Times in 2017 that despite the language barrier, she immediately connected with the boy when his parents brought him home.

Adam said: He was a boy that was just full of joy. When I first met him, newly adopted from Taiwan, he really didnt speak English, but his playful nature prevailed and he somehow convinced me to compete against him in a running race. He won.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry
These are anxious times for Stephanie Klasky-Gamer and the people her organization, LA Family Housing, helps lift out of poverty and homelessness.

Throughout the 35-day government shutdown, the chief executive worried that some 400 families  or about 1,600 people  wouldnt be able to stay in their federally subsidized houses and apartments, and that LA Family Housing wouldnt recoup the $250,000 it had spent to prevent mass evictions from the federal government.

And now that the government has reopened, she is worried that another shutdown will put those same tenants at risk again and that landlords will be less willing to work with the poor and homeless people her organization serves.

The partial government shutdown ended in time to prevent a feared housing catastrophe. On Friday, President Trump and Congress agreed to fund government agencies through Feb. 15  or for three weeks  as negotiations continue over how to secure the nations southern border.

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If they are unable to come to a deal, Trump has threatened another shutdown, again potentially jeopardizing millions of dollars in contracts through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

More than 130,000 households in Los Angeles County receive some form of federal rental assistance and were at risk of not being able to pay their rent if the shutdown had lasted through the end of February.

But the mere threat of thousands of poor people returning to homelessness in L.A.  and the possibility of that threat happening again  has rattled government officials and affordable housing advocates.

In a letter to members of the California congressional delegation, Douglas Guthrie, president of the Los Angeles Housing Authority, explained that landlords who accept vouchers depend on the government to come through with funding and that losing their trust could be a problem going forward.

We have 14,000 landlords participating in the program, most of which are small family-run businesses, Guthrie wrote. Because of the extremely tight rental market in Los Angeles and the escalating rents there are already fewer landlords willing to participate in this program.

Read the full letter Los Angeles Housing Authority President Douglas Guthrie sent to Washington 

HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan declined to say how the government reopening for three weeks will affect the funding of rental subsidy programs going forward.

Were so busy we cant look that far downstream, he said.

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The question now is whether landlords will still trust the federal government to pay its bills on time  especially with the threat of another shutdown looming.

The stigma of leasing to tenants who may have been homeless was a tough sell already. But the chaos in Washington appears to have made it worse. For so long, tenants receiving federal subsides offered a level of dependability and certainty for landlords because, at the end of the day, Uncle Sam was footing the bill.

It really sows this distrust and skepticism of whether these landlords can rely on the government like they have in the past because of this dysfunction, said Elayne Weiss, senior policy analyst at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Keisha Hosea, housing liaison for Union Station Homeless Services, recruits landlords to accept federally subsidized vouchers across a wide swath of L.A. County, from Pasadena to Claremont. In the last couple of weeks, she said, some have expressed concerns about whether their tenants would be able to make rent.

Theres a fear from landlords doing programs like this that the funding will stop and they have all these people in housing who they cant get to pay, she said.

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Before the shutdown ended, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority wrote to the Trump administration that it was concerned that the shutdown could drive more families into homelessness, which will greatly increase public sector costs while subjecting already vulnerable people to trauma.

The countys homeless population was 52,765 in 2018, a 4% decline from the year before. City and county officials believe these lapses in funding will fuel a problem that theyre only beginning to get their arms around.

Joel John Roberts, CEO of People Assisting the Homeless, feels this fear acutely. His multi-service organization is one of the largest providers of affordable housing in California. It also does extensive outreach to help bring homeless people off the streets. Many of those clients were at risk of losing their apartments during the government shutdown.

Roberts said he was committed to not evicting anyone, but at the same time, he didnt want to be disingenuous about how much help he could offer if the federal government had stayed shuttered.

We have been selling this program by saying, Its government funded. You dont have to worry about the government not paying rent, Roberts said. Theyre asking, How do I know the government will pay? Thats a big problem.

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This is a huge question in the hot Southern California real estate market.

At LA Family Housing, Klasky-Gamer said her organization owns and operates 24 buildings and acts as a landlord for about 150 families that use about $167,000 a month in federal subsidies to pay their rent. Klasky-Gamer said she never thought she would have to evict people during the shutdown, but if it had lasted until March, she wasnt sure.

Separately, the government shutdown also affected the organizations broader mission of getting people off the streets and into affordable housing, leaving LA Family Housing without federal funding to subsidize the rents of an additional 250 families.

Normally, $250,000 a month was delivered from an annual HUD contract, which LA Family Housing has had for years but which expired at the end of 2018. Because of the government shutdown, the contract wasnt renewed for 2019, so Klasky-Gamers organization paid its clients January rent out of its own limited coffers, hoping to be paid back.

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We dont have the wherewithal to withstand $250,000 a month and not be reimbursed, she said.

Now that the government is back open, Klasky-Gamer learned Tuesday that HUD has renewed LA Family Housings contract and made it retroactive to Jan. 1, 2019  meaning the organization wont be out of hundreds of thousands of dollars after all.

Ill be relieved once we have the funds, she said.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will hold a news conference at his City Hall office on Tuesday at 5 p.m., his political advisor Yusef Robb said.

Garcetti is weighing a presidential run in 2020, and the abruptly announced news event fueled speculation about whether he would announce his candidacy. But Robb would not elaborate on what the mayor would say.

Any announcement of a White House bid would probably not take place at City Hall, however. The mayor has repeatedly declined to talk about his presidential ambitions when he is in city-owned buildings, saying he doesnt want to use municipal property for anything related to a campaign.

dakota.smith@latimes.com

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Twitter: @dakotacdsmith
A 37-year-old maintenance worker is in custody this week after authorities said he set up a secret drug lab inside a hotel where he worked in Goleta, Calif.

Employees at the Courtyard by Marriott on Storke Road called police shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday when they discovered suspicious chemicals in the hotels boiler room, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Office.

When deputies arrived, they found a clandestine drug lab that was being used to make Dimethyltryptamine, a hallucinogenic drug more widely known as DMT, authorities said.

The manufacturing process requires the extraction of chemicals from root bark through the use of highly toxic and flammable chemicals in an extraction vessel over an open flame, the Sheriffs Office said in a statement.

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Hotel guests who were staying in rooms near the lab were relocated while authorities investigated. Santa Barbara County firefighters and a Los Angeles County drug task force assisted in dismantling the lab.

Authorities identified Aaron Gorzeman of Oxnard, who worked at the hotel, as a suspect during the investigation, but it is not clear how they linked him to the lab. They executed a search warrant on his home and his car, where authorities said they found additional evidence of drug manufacturing late Tuesday.

Gorzeman already had been behind bars for several days by the time the lab was discovered. He was arrested Saturday after deputies said they found him in possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in the parking lot of the hotel. He also had outstanding warrants, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Gorzeman was re-booked at the Santa Barbara County Jail on suspicion of drug manufacturing. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @Hannahnfry
The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested a man who officers say was caught on video punching two women in downtown Los Angeles.

Police identified the man as Arka Sangbarani Oroojian, 30, of Sylmar. He was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and remained in custody with bail set at $90,000.

The Tuesday arrest came just a day after the Police Department released a 13-second video showing the Saturday assault near 6th and Spring streets. In the video, a bearded man is seen swinging his fists at the women, who are knocked to the ground. The large man is then seen running away as a man yells, Get him, get him!

Oroojian is 6 foot 3 and weighs 270 pounds, police said.

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Attention Los Angeles  this guy brutally punched two women at a hotdog stand on Jan. 26 in the area of 6th & Spring. Someone knows him, and we would like to be one of those people. If you have any info contact Detective Gonzalez 213-996-1851 (after hours contact 213-486-6606). pic.twitter.com/DN1Og1lToM  LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) January 29, 2019

LAPD Det. Meghan Aguilar said the man began punching the women after a dispute he had with a hot dog vendor. One of the women told him to grab his food and go, Aguilar said, then he struck her.

A friend of the woman tried to confront the suspect before she was punched.

Aguilar said none of the bystanders notified police about the assault.

At least one man recorded the incident and shared the video with the women, who reported the incident the next day after they were treated at a hospital. Both suffered concussions, and one had a broken finger.

After the video went viral on social media, police said, the man turned himself in about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at LAPDs Central Division.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow @latvives on Twitter.
Wanted: Fresh ideas to speed up the construction and lower the cost of housing for homeless people  without cutting quality.

The Los Angeles City Council made that pitch formal on Tuesday, voting 14-0 to set aside $120 million, a substantial slice of the Proposition HHH homeless housing bond, for a pilot program that will ask developers for strategies to change the way publicly subsidized housing is built.

The vote authorized Mayor Eric Garcetti to seek proposals for 1,000 units of supportive housing as a test of alternatives to the slow and increasingly costly method of building conventional apartments for homeless people using traditional tax-credit financing.

Backyard flats, rehabbed single-room-occupancy units, shared housing, honeycomb pre-fabs. All will be considered, though not all will necessarily be approved.

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Besides being quick and cheap, winning proposals must include space and a plan backed by a homeless agency to provide services for the people who will live there.

And they cant be schlock.

We want a program that can create high-quality projects that can demonstrate long-term financial and physical durability, Ben Winter, the mayors chief housing officer, told members of the Proposition HHH citizen oversight committee when he unveiled the plan in December.

Were not building them for six months of housing, he said. These are long-term neighborhood benefits.

Garcetti has enthusiastically backed the plan, which was created last year after committee members became dissatisfied with the progress and cost of the bond program.

In addition to being an experiment in new housing types, the pilot also is a call for ways to bypass the traditional method of financing affordable and homeless supportive housing, which requires developers to assemble grants and loans from local and state programs as a foundation for highly competitive tax credits.

Only a handful of nonprofits and for-profit developers proficient in the labyrinth of tax-credit financing and capable of providing supportive services have, so far, been able to access the $1.2 billion in bond funds provided under Proposition HHH.

Those groups had been building about 300 units of supportive housing in the city annually when voters, in effect, asked for that rate to nearly triple by approving the 2016 bond measure with a promise of 10,000 units within a decade.

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The citys Housing and Community Investment Department told the City Council on Tuesday that the pace has picked up. Fifty-five projects have received conditional or final commitments for Proposition HHH funding. Collectively, those projects would produce more than 3,712 units, of which 2,810 are reserved for supportive housing. Another 26 projects are under review.

So far, however, only eight of those projects are under construction, and members of the citizen committee appointed to monitor the bond program have chaffed at the delays.

Even more alarming to committee members has been the rising cost. Housing construction that hovered at $400,000 per unit before Proposition HHH is now routinely above $550,000 per unit  a rate that would exhaust Proposition HHH funds well short of the 10,000-unit goal.

Last year, the committee, led by former Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, issued increasingly dire warnings that something needed to be done to save Proposition HHH.

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In the fall, it began asking developers to its meetings to propose newer, cheaper models for developing housing.

The exercise reached a defining point when the head of a company named FlyawayHomes reported that it had built a shipping container project of 33 housing units that was entirely financed by private investment and that it had started construction on a second.

FlyawayHomes founder, Lawry Meister, told the committee that she could build nearly 2,000 units in three years if the city would fund 100% of the cost in short-term loans  a radical shift from the standard practice of issuing loans that that can be deferred indefinitely.

Meister said her company would repay the loans through an exit strategy involving social benefit investments  funds put up by people seeking a modest return for doing good deeds  or through conventional financing.

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In November, the citizen oversight committee adopted an 11-point recommendation plan, including the pilot program discussed Tuesday. The recommendations also called for many city regulations to be relaxed and other incentives such as low-interest loans.

A month later, Winter reported to the committee that the mayor would propose using $120 million  or 10% of the Proposition HHH bond  in an open-ended competition for innovative development projects.

On Tuesday, Winter told the council: The mayor is really excited about carving out a space to really encourage the private sector in looking at alternative ways to construct and/or finance supportive housing. The mayor, he said, planned to release a request for proposals by March that would open the box for developers.

The process will be modeled after the process devised by the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative to vet entries in an innovation competition for $5 million funded through the countywide Measure H homeless sales tax.

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The county issued what Winter described as an open call for the best and brightest ideas in the private sector. Winners have been chosen, but not yet announced.

FlyawayHomes said it was among the winners and has received a $1-million award for its second project. It was unclear, however, whether the companys proposal requiring 100% HHH financing would succeed under the citys much larger pilot program.

The citys request for proposals will not hold housing projects to the current HHH subsidy limits, among them allowing public subsidies of no more than 50% of the total cost of a project. But there is a limit to how much the city can risk on projects requiring 100% funding.

doug.smith@latimes.com

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@LATDoug
In 1998, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block took a fall in his bathtub, suffered a brain hemorrhage and died.

But his supporters so detested his reelection challenger, Lee Baca, they kept Blocks campaign alive after his death.

The candidate with a pulse prevailed, but 703,178 L.A. County residents cast ballots for the entombed candidate.

Im telling you this for the sake of context. If a dead man could get nearly three-quarters of a million votes, perhaps its less shocking that last November, retired sheriffs Lt. Alex Villanueva was elected sheriff of L.A. County.

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Villanueva beat one-term Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who was not perfect, but was more of a reformer than anyone whos worn that uniform in a while. McDonnells predecessor Baca, for those whove forgotten, is free while appealing his conviction for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying related to scandalous levels of corruption and mismanagement on his watch.

Villanueva, now on the job for just a matter of weeks, has wasted no time raising questions about his own competence and desire to move the department out of the shadows. On Tuesday morning I watched as the county Board of Supervisors laid into him for boldly and defiantly reinstating a deputy who had been fired over allegations of domestic abuse.

Ill get to the specifics in a minute, but let me first note that close observers were already flinching during the campaign, when Villanueva criticized reforms instituted by McDonnell.

Rather than sticking up for the people of L.A. County, Villanueva stuck up for deputies he said were being treated unfairly, despite the departments culture of violence against jail inmates. He spoke out against requirements for reporting minor uses of force. He wanted to bring back metal flashlights despite concerns about their misuse. And he smacked McDonnells attempt to give prosecutors the names on a secret list of deputies with histories of discipline for dishonesty and misconduct.

So we cant be entirely surprised that one of Villanuevas first acts as sheriff was the reinstatement of a deputy who played a key role in his campaign after being fired by McDonnell. The deputy, Caren Carl Mandoyan, had been accused by a female deputy of a physical assault in 2015. She said he grabbed her neck, pushed her face into a couch, tried to break into her home and harassed her in text messages.

Prosecutors declined to charge Mandoyan, citing insufficient evidence, but a county appeals board upheld the deputys firing.

It was a bit of a surprise to county officials that Villanueva chose to appear at Tuesdays board meeting, knowing the supervisors were about to vote on a request for him to reconsider the deputys reinstatement. They also intended to ask county lawyers whether Villanueva could legally override the appeals board that upheld the deputys firing.

As I sat in the audience, I wondered if the sheriff was there to announce that after carefully considering the flood of criticism, he had decided hed rather begin his reign on a more positive, less divisive note, and so he was rescinding his reinstatement of the deputy.

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Not a chance. Instead, Villanueva doubled down.

He claimed the L.A. Times misrepresented him in stories but didnt explain what he meant by that. He suggested the civil service system is weighted against deputies but didnt make a convincing argument. And he began his comments with a tortured reference to presumptions of vulnerability and innocence. I couldnt make heads or tails of what he was saying, and, looking around the room, I didnt appear to be alone.

Villanueva also referred to a mysterious sounding in-house truth and reconciliation commission thats going to help him truly reform the department, and pardon me for just a sliver of doubt.

Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Sheila Kuehl were flabbergasted, not just by the reinstatement of a man fired for alleged domestic abuse, but by Villanuevas snubbing of the established disciplinary review process.

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None of us is so independent that we can do anything we damn well please, Kuehl told Villanueva.

Villanueva insisted the supervisors would understand his decision to reinstate the deputy when they heard the details of the case in closed session, and he said the deputy would get back pay dating to his firing in 2016.

Its not clear what details Villanueva was referring to, but even if there are doubts about the deputys conduct, theres no doubt the new sheriff came off like a knuckle-dragging troglodyte last week when he appeared before the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission. Villanueva defended his reinstatement of the fired deputy there, too, arguing that his accuser waited nearly a year to report her claims of abuse and quit the department before she was about to testify.

Those are big warning signs about the credibility of the [complaint], Villanueva said, as reported by my colleague Maya Lau.

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What Im getting is a big warning sign that Villanueva has been hibernating the last few years and woke up without a clue about the #MeToo revelations that taught most of us something about the dynamics of abuse, power, control, intimidation and fear.

Could the countys top cop be any more tone deaf or send a worse message to civilian victims of abuse who fear the risks of coming forward?

Lau also reported that Villanueva said the discipline of deputies accused of domestic violence should not proceed in the absence of criminal charges, and that only abuse connected to employment should be cause for disciplinary action.

So how did a guy like this get elected?

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Because McDonnell didnt run a very good campaign despite raising much more money. Because deputies had Villanuevas back and the union pumped $1.3 million into his campaign. Because Villanueva speaks Spanish in a county with a huge Latino population and said hed boot ICE out of the jails.

And because in California, voters were in a mood to dump Republicans. Even though the office of sheriff is nonpartisan and McDonnell is an independent, Villanuevas backers had a winning strategy.

Where did Democrats in L.A. County have to go to express their displeasure with Trump? asked one Villanueva strategist. All we had to do was make McDonnell a Republican and Villanueva a Democrat.

So why do we and virtually every other county in the country elect sheriffs, but we appoint chiefs of police, not that either system guarantees winners every time?

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Because its always been that way, and it would require a state constitutional amendment if we wanted to appoint sheriffs in California. And thats unlikely to happen, said Bob Stern, a longtime local and state government watchdog.

Voters would say no, they want to elect sheriffs, said Stern. They love to have an opportunity to elect, and then when they go to the polls they complain about all the issues they have to vote on.

Because the sheriff is elected, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has little control over Villanueva, They can jam him on budget matters, but they wouldnt do that at the peril of public safety.

Villanueva does, however, sooner or later, have to answer to all of us.

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Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez
No city quite embodies the allure of Midcentury Modern design quite like Palm Springs. Last year, an estimated 126,000 visitors flocked to the desert for Modernism Week, the annual 11-day festival devoted to Modernist design and historic preservation. There is a downside to its popularity: Many of this years events, running Feb. 14-24, have sold out. If you have tickets to the double-deck architectural bus tours, day trips to Desert X or tours of Frank Sinatras Twin Palms estate, consider yourself lucky.

Here are some worthwhile events with ticket availability at press time. Please note that some events have age restrictions.

The Christopher Kennedy Compound (Modernism Week)

1. The Modernism Week Show House: The Christopher Kennedy Compound

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In what has become an annual event, Palm Springs interior designer Christopher Kennedy invites a group of 14 interior decorators to transform a drab 1962 property in Indian Canyons into a modern show house. Participants include Kerry Green, Joe Lucas, Lori Paranjape, Celerie Kemble, Brian Paquette, Keith Fortner, Jeff Schlarb, Michael Berman, Lisa McDennon, Josh Greene, Michelle Boudreau, Chris Barrett, Gordon Kurtis, and, of course, Kennedy. Feb. 16-24. $40.

The kitchen of the recently remodeled 1958 Palmer-Krisel home, known as Green Gables. (David A. Lee)

2. Green Gables

Kevin Kemper and Howard Hawkes of H3K Design once again transform a rundown Midcentury Modern home with stunning results. This 1958 Palmer-Krisel three-bedroom, two-bathroom home is located in the Twin Palms neighborhood and features a high gable roofline, walls of glass and a restored atrium. Feb. 15-17. $30. In addition, the designers offer tips on renovating midcentury homes at a poolside chat with Atomic Ranch editorial director Jickie Torres on Feb. 16 at 3 p.m. $40. The house will also host the Green Gables Poolside Fashion Show  The Best of MCM Style at 5 p.m. Feb. 21. $125.

Desert Eichler (Courtesy of Modernism Week)

3. Desert Eichler

Tour a newly built, modern version of an original Eichler house designed by Anshen + Allen and developed by KUD Properties. The emphasis will be on indoor-outdoor living as homeowners Brad and Heather Fox of HGTVs Stay or Sell share their familys colorful vacation home. Feb. 17-19. $30.

The Forgotten Frey: The Cree House (J.Paul Getty Trust, Research Institute, Los Angeles)

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4. The Forgotten Frey

The Albert Frey-designed Cree House, which is perched on a hillside overlooking the desert, is open for tours for the first time since it was built in 1955. The home is furnished with period furniture from Nicholas Lawrence Interior Design firm in partnership with Knoll Furniture, as well as vintage accessories. Feb. 14-24. $40.

Axiom Desert House (Turkel Design)

5. Axiom Desert House

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This newly completed midcentury-inspired system-built home, designed by Joel and Meelena Turkel of Turkel Design, is built with contemporary living in mind. The couple plan to use the house as an experimental living lab for their clients and other designers and architects as well as their personal residence. Feb. 22  24. $30.

Stan Sackley home tour. (Modernism Week)

6. Sackley Shadadelic

This three-bedroom, three-bathroom 1979 home by architect Stan Sackley has been completely renovated by Thomboy Properties. Expect classic midcentury horizontal and vertical lines, a sunny yellow fireplace and walls of glass that offer views of the San Jacinto mountains. Feb. 22  24. $30.

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La Vie En Rose (David A. Lee)

7. La Vie en Rose

Interior designer Christopher Kennedy transforms this 1958 home in Vista Las Palmas for the 21st century. Updates include a new kitchen and master suite, remodeled kitchen and bathrooms, a casita and new folding-door systems that maximize indoor-outdoor living. Furnishings and decor by Kennedy and his associates. Feb. 16-18. $30.

The Lautner Compound (Modernism Week)

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8. Lautner Compound

John Lautners 1947 residential fourplex, formerly known as the Hotel Lautner and now a collection of boutique rentals for architecture buffs, opens its doors to the public once a year for Modernism Week. The tour, which is in Desert Hot Springs, includes an open air event space and a 1957 California Bungalow. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the John Lautner Foundation. Feb. 17 and 24. $50.

A contemporary home by architect Jim Jennings. (Joe Fletcher)

9. Signature Home Tour

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A self-driven home tour of several different neighborhoods highlights architectural styles spanning vintage Midcentury Modern to New-Century Modern. Works of featured architects on the tour include Richard Neutra, E. Stewart Williams, Hugh Kaptur (with a contemporary renovation by Jim Schmidt), a contemporary home by Jim Jennings, and a vintage William Cody in Thunderbird North. Feb. 24. $135.

Modernism Week

Where: Palm Springs

When: Feb. 14-24

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Admission: Individual events range from free to $175. Some events are sold out.

Info: modernismweek.com
City tree-planting offers arent unusual, but Long Beach has found a winning twist in its new fruit-tree planting program.

The offer: A city crew will plant one fruit tree  lime, lemon, orange, peach, pomegranate or avocado  in the front yard of interested Long Beach residents, with a priority going to yards in the western, central and northern parts of the community. Renters can apply, but the property owner will need to sign off on the project.

The citys Office of Sustainability sees it as a win-win, with new trees providing shade and food in neighborhoods with the greatest need, and income for the youths hired to assist with planting.

Larry Rich, the citys sustainability coordinator, envisions community building too, with neighbors swapping fruit as their trees begin producing.

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Its one of the angles of sustainability, Rich said. Were always looking for things the natural world provides that can help the city be more environmentally friendly.

But its always a dicey thing with a vision like this, so the city was cautious, getting funding for 400 fruit trees to be planted over 2 years. The rest of the grant, a total of $1.26 million from two state agencies, went to plant 3,600 regular (nonfruit) trees around the city.

Prudent, yes, but as it turns out, the public has been wildly enthusiastic. The offer went out Jan. 22, and six days later, the city already had 500 applications.

Top request: avocado trees, with semi-dwarf lemons coming in second and peach trees third.

Am I surprised? Kind of, but not really, Rich said. We werent sure how it was going to go, but I guess weve demonstrated that fruit trees get people more interested in planting trees.

The trick now is satisfying the demand. The city is still accepting applications, Rich said, because its obligated to plant first in the priority areas identified in the grant. As of Jan. 28, only about 175 of the 500 applications had come from those areas, he added. Plantings are expected to start by late February or early March.

Rich said applications will be rejected if the request is for trees in back yards, parkways (the strip between the sidewalk and street) or pots, as none of those qualifies for the program. The city doesnt allow fruit trees in parkways because it doesnt want fruit dropping on streets or cars. And it wants the fruit trees in front yards to encourage others to do the same, Rich said.

Once some trees have been planted, Rich said officials will seek to adjust the grant amount or request additional funds in 2020. Ultimately, the city wants to satisfy every request for a front-yard fruit tree, but it may take a year or longer to meet the demand.

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If you dont want to wait, Rich said, you can always buy your own. Theyre not super expensive, he added.

Several jurisdictions and nonprofits in Southern California have tree programs, but Long Beach appears to be the only one that offers to plant fruit trees. Call your city hall to see whats available in your community.

jeanette.marantos@latimes.com

@jmarantos
Even the rich and famous can use a hand tidying up.

On Tuesday night, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel invited the esteemed queen of all things organized and clean, Marie Kondo, to help him sort out his life er, his office.

Weve been doing our show for 16 years. Im a pack rat. Im a slob, too, and Ive accumulated a lot of stuff, Kimmel said to his audience.

So he invited Kondo to do with him what shes done for millions across the globe: help him figure out what sparks joy in him and get rid of the rest.

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Upon Kondos arrival to his office, Kimmel prefaced the tidying spree with a confession: I had a nightmare about this the other night I dreamed you came into my office and started destroying my things.

Laughing, Kondo clarified through her translator that hed be doing all the hard work and that she wouldnt force him to throw anything away.

As she does in her widely popular Netflix show, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant commenced the purge by directing Kimmel and his assistants to kneel in his office, silently and with eyes closed, to thank it and its possessions.

Id like [my office] not to look like a rumpus room, Kimmel said of his vision for the office.

Section by section  from his dressing closet with its vast collection of identical black socks, to his office floor, where he stacked a mountain of books, to his desk, where he keeps a yellow Wiffle bat signed by Magic Johnson  Kimmel, with calming guidance by Kondo, decluttered his office.

And in the process, he found more than he expected: a pair of missing black pants and a dead cockroach.

I was worried you were going to come in here like the Cookie Monster just destroying everything, Kimmel repeated.

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But in the end, his emotional stability had improved and his office was well, questionably more organized.
Stephen Kings The Stand is returning to TV, courtesy of the CBS All Access streaming service.

The network confirmed the series order at the Winter Television Critics Assn. presentation in Pasadena, where CBS and its streaming counterpart are previewing some of its upcoming offerings for 2019. The limited series will be written and executive produced by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) and Ben Cavell (SEAL Team) with Boone also set to direct.

Im excited and so very pleased that The Stand is going to have a new life on this exciting new platform, said Stephen King in a statement released by the streaming platform. The people involved are men and women who know exactly what theyre doing; the scripts are dynamite. The result bids to be something memorable and thrilling.

I read The Stand under my bed when I was 12, and my Baptist parents burned it in our fireplace upon discovery, said Boone in the same statement. Incensed, I stole my Dads FedEx account number and mailed King a letter professing my love for his work. Several weeks later, I came home to find a box had arrived from Maine, and inside were several books, each inscribed with a beautiful note from god himself, who encouraged me in my writing and thanked me for being a fan.

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First published by Stephen King in 1978, The Stand is a post-apocalyptic story about a battle between good and evil. It was previously adapted by King himself as a four-part miniseries that aired in 1994 on ABC.

This marks the latest collaboration between King and CBS, which was home to the series adaptation of his book, Under the Dome, which ran three seasons. Mr. Mercedes, based on Kings Bill Hodges trilogy, is headed into its third season on AT&T Audience Network.

The latest adaptation of The Stand joins a CBS All Access lineup that includes The Good Fight, Star Trek: Discovery and the upcoming revival of The Twilight Zone, which will be executive produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out) and is scheduled to debut on the service April 1. A date for The Stand has yet to be announced.

chris.barton@latimes.com

Follow me over here @chrisbarton.
The down side of being at the cutting edge is that a sharper one is just around the corner  something Neil Young discovered almost before he released his technologically advanced 2009 career retrospective box set Neil Young Archive, Vol. 1.

That project, with which the veteran rocker presented all his recordings from the first decade of his career (1963-1972) on MP3, CD, DVD and Blu-ray formats, was outdated soon after it was released, to the extent that he knew that the next installment wouldnt be released in similar fashion.

A decade later, however, hes cut the ribbon on the full roll-out of his 50-plus year musical archive, as a budget-priced streaming service built on a high-quality streaming platform.

NeilYoungArchives.com had a soft launch Dec. 19 as a subscription-driven service that costs $1.99 per month  a bit more than a single song download on iTunes  or $19.99 a year.

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We topped 10,000 subscriptions a while back, Young, 73, said from the road last week by phone the day before he arrived in Milwaukee to start a new solo tour. I thought that was cool. I appreciate every one of them for being there  its been a while. A lot of these people have been part of my musical life for many years.

When he said, Its been a while, he wasnt exaggerating. The archive project has been in the works for decades  many fans thought it was long overdue when the first installment finally saw the light of day in 2009.

Youngs consistent answer to the question of Whats taking so long? was that technological advances in the delivery of music to consumers kept outpacing his ability to put the project together in a way that satisfied him.

Its the same dilemma that ultimately took part in sinking his Pono high-resolution music player and store, which premiered right when consumers began abandoning downloading music in favor of streaming.

Youngs new site carries through the basic design of the physical version released 10 years ago. Visitors to the site, who were able to access it free for several months last year during the introductory period, find a virtual file cabinet containing myriad folders for each of Youngs studio, live and compilation albums, as well as files for each song, most containing lyrics and many with film, video, press clippings or other content within.

A sample virtual file folder contained in the NeilYoungArchives.com website and streaming service (NeilYoungArchives.com)

Those stretch back to his early years as an aspiring teenage rocker in Canada through his membership in celebrated rock bands including Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Solo projects, from Crazy Horse to the Stray Gators to Neil & the Pinks to the International Harvesters through the recent Promise of the Real, are also covered.

Users can play full albums, individual songs or hopscotch across the decades. A meter readout shows the streaming speed, which ranges from 1 kbps through 15,000 kbps, depending on subscribers equipment and bandwidth available from their internet service providers.

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He developed the streaming protocol based on technology developed by OraStream, and the platform allows full-resolution sound files to be streamed not just on audiophile equipment in home sound systems but also over computers, smart speakers and smartphones.

This is the first time the public has been able to hear high-resolution [audio] thats not dummied down music, he said, referencing the popular streaming services most consumers use. So you really hear the difference at the source.

Hes so enthusiastic about the sound quality of his new service that it features a switch that allows users to easily compare the master version against one streaming at 320 kilobytes per second (kbps), which is considered high quality on most streaming platforms.

The real reason I did it is so I can do my own music, he said. Its the last time I want to go to record companies to make deals over high-resolution streaming. Theyre turning high-res music into an elitist thing. It should all be the same price. I feel very strongly about that.

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For those who havent given up on owning a physical version of music they like, Youngs website also includes a button that brings up a ZIP Code-keyed list of independent record retailers near them.

Although the Neil Young Archives is dedicated to the output of a single artist, Young noted that there could be a ripple effect for other musicians interested in the platforms capabilities.

For somebody whos got a lot of songs  Paul McCartney or Bob [Dylan] or Willie [Nelson]  anybody whos got a lot [of recordings] and wants to get their company into this, they could, he said. Its a platform  anyone could use it.

The other advantage is it can  and will, Young promises  be updated regularly with new material.

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Young recently found an early 1970s performance in Tuscaloosa, Ala., that hes pushing to the front of his planned releases, this one with the Stray Gators  steel guitarist Ben Keith, keyboardist Jack Nitzsche, drummer Kenny Buttrey and bassist Tim Drummond. Its the Harvest band playing all those songs, live in Alabama.

I like how rejuvenating it is, said Young, who has no West Coast stops confirmed on his new tour, but who said he expects to be adding some soon. It lets me reflect on some of the things that have happened, to reflect on people who have happened. It excites me.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

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Beatles fans have two cinematic deliveries coming their way.

In the pipeline is a long-awaited restoration of the 1970 film Let It Be, which will follow an entirely new film being assembled by New Zealand director Peter Jackson from rare and never-released images and clips.

Jacksons film has not been titled, and no release date has been unveiled, but it will draw from the same 55 hours of footage of the Beatles in the recording studio shot 50 years ago this month by English director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the film that became Let It Be, which documented the groups creative process in the final months of its professional lives together.

The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensures this movie will be the ultimate fly-on-the-wall experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about, Jackson said in a statement. Its like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.

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The announcement, released on Wednesdays 50th anniversary of the groups famous rooftop concert above their Apple offices in London, stated that a restored version of Lindsay-Hoggs long-out-of-circulation film will be released after Jacksons.

Lindsay-Hogg caught the Beatles as they were working on songs including the title track, Get Back, The Long and Winding Road, I Me Mine and others during sometimes contentious sessions. The troubled soundtrack, the only Beatles studio album not produced by George Martin, was credited to Phil Spector, who was invited by the group to work on the tapes after others were unable to create an album that the Beatles were happy with.

Jackson believes the new film will counter long-held perceptions that the Beatles were at each others throats in the sessions that Lindsay-Hogg and his team documented.

I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth, Jackson said in his statement. After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, its simply an amazing historical treasure-trove.

New Zealand director Peter Jackson says a new film showing the Beatles at work in the studio in 1969 will counter myths that the bands camaraderie had disintegrated while working on the album that would become the quartets final release, Let It Be. (Travis Graalman)

Sure, theres moments of drama  but none of the discord this project has long been associated with, he added. Watching John, Paul, George and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating  its funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate.

The choice of Jackson represents something of a six-degrees-of-separation selection: Beyond their songwriter, recording and live performances, the Beatles were also deeply interested in filmmaking, from their 1964 debut in Richard Lesters cinema verite romp A Hard Days Night and Help! the following year to their experimental film-for-television Magical Mystery Tour in 1967 and the animated 1968 film Yellow Submarine.

At one point the group was exploring the possibility of working with director Stanley Kubrick on a film translation of J.R.R. Tolkiens literary trilogy The Lord of the Rings, a project that never came to fruition. Jackson much later brought the books to the screen in his blockbuster film series.

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Wednesdays announcement said Jackson will work with producer Clare Olssen and editor Jabez Olssen, his collaborators on the World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. New Zealand company Park Road Post will handle restoration of the original film footage.

There was no indication whether an alternate soundtrack album will be created of other songs the band worked on during the Let It Be sessions.

The project is a partnership between the Beatles Apple Corps Ltd. and New Zealands WingNut Films Ltd. and is being made with full cooperation of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr; John Lennons widow, Yoko Ono; and George Harrisons widow, Olivia Harrison.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

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Throughout much of the art-world spoof Velvet Buzzsaw it feels like writer-director Dan Gilroy is taking easy shots at fat targets. Diva artists, ruthless dealers, easily impressed collectors, cruel and capricious critics  . Is there any way to make these kinds of shopworn stereotypes funny?

Somewhat miraculously, Gilroy finds a way  mainly by not obsessing so much about whether Velvet Buzzsaw says anything new about the aesthetes who populate art galleries.

This movies a satire, sure. But thats not really its main selling point. Think of it instead as a wild supernatural thriller  where the sinister killer is art itself.

The films impressive ensemble cast doesnt have a lead per se. The plot really kicks into gear thanks to Zawe Ashtons character, Josephina: an apprentice dealer who discovers more than a thousand grim but beautiful pieces of original art in the burned-out apartment of her dead neighbor, Ventril Dease.

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Immediately, the industrys gears start grinding. Josephinas boss Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) starts manipulating the market to maximize sales with the help of critic Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal), who promises flattering reviews of the Dease collection in exchange for the book rights. Meanwhile, private buyer Gretchen (Toni Collette) overpays for a few of the pieces, then bullies her former gallery employer into exhibiting them to give her client a break on his tax bill.

The only characters who seem to have pure, completely non-mercenary reactions to the Dease cache are two painters  a burned-out drunk (John Malkovich) and a rising graffiti star (Daveed Diggs)  who are inspired to get back to work. Maybe thats why theyre spared when Josephinas found paintings start coming to life and murdering their owners.

Yes, thats right: About a third of the way through, Velvet Buzzsaw becomes about haunted canvasses that reach out and slaughter nasty people, one by one, in appropriately ironic ways. Its a little like an old-fashioned comic mystery  say Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?  except that the identity of the killer is no secret, and the deaths are as gruesome as any Freddy Krueger movie.

This is a bold stroke from Gilroy: to make a violent, over-the-top picture, where the cartoonish parody could very well turn off genre fans, while the bloody surrealism might scare away anyone just looking for a comedy. (The film is very much an acquired taste, and many people, no doubt, will be put off by both extremes. Its probably a good thing its on Netflix, where adventurous subscribers can give it a try.)

Still, while the art world caricatures are hardly fresh, theres a lot about Velvet Buzzsaw thats pretty savvy and even inspired. Gilroy has a handle on a lot of the odd particulars of the modern art biz: like the favor-trading, the hype-building, and the use of a combination of technology and instincts to squeeze the most money from a sale.

Like Gilroys earlier films Nightcrawler and Roman J. Israel, Esq., his latest also expresses a fascination with the hardened sediment of the class structure and the existential crises of the people buried below.

Ultimately, whether people dig Velvet Buzzsaw will probably come down to how much they enjoy seeing a bunch of absurdly pretentious characters get choked, crushed, eviscerated and pulled apart by great works of art. Gilroys central metaphor may not be subtle, but its deeply felt. No matter what the market, the public and the critics all say, great art is destined to have its revenge.

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Velvet Buzzsaw

Rated: R for violence, language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use

Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Playing: Starts Friday, The Landmark, West L.A.; also streaming on Netflix

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When Dr. Ruth Westheimer was first asked if she wanted to be the subject of a documentary, her answer was swift and decisive: Absolutely not. She was too busy, and besides, shed talked plenty about her decades-long career as a renowned sex therapist. She simply wasnt interested. At all.

But then producer Rafael Marmor sent her a link to one of his prior films called No Place on Earth. Instantly, the title resonated with her. During the Holocaust, when she was just 10, shed been separated from her parents in Germany and sent on a Kindertransport to an orphanage in Switzerland. Her familys decision saved her life; they were all killed by the Nazis. But at the end of World War II, when she and the other surviving orphans were transported to Israel, that was how she felt  like there was nowhere in the world where she belonged.

So a few days after sending her my documentary, I got a call from a 212 number that I didnt recognize, Marmor recalls. And it was, like, Hello? Rafi? I am very interested now. Lets talk.

Westheimer enthusiastically agreed to participate in Ask Dr. Ruth, which premiered to glowing reviews at the Sundance Film Festival last week. The film, which will be released in theaters and on Hulu this spring, explores the diminutive doctors contribution to the sexual revolution through her offering of often humorous, always candid advice. (Westheimer received a doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1970.)

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It is also a portrait of resilience, depicting how the 90-year-old  or, as she calls herself, a 90-and-a-half-year-old  immigrant triumphed over tragic circumstances with the aid of a positive attitude.

She gives everything such a positive spin. Well sit down at a restaurant and shell say, This is amazing! Fantastic! Delicious! Ask Dr. Ruth producer Rafael Marmor

At age 90-and-a-half, Westheimer is still active in her career. (Hulu)

At Sundance, Westheimer went on a full-on charm offensive, telling everyone she could that she wanted the documentary to be nominated for an Academy Award next year. Bounding around the mountain town in her Merrells  childs size 4, I wear!  she made friends everywhere she went, holding hands with reporters during interviews and befriending her driver (she got him a ticket to her documentary premiere, plus a Hulu hat).

She gives everything such a positive spin, says Marmor, who would grow so close with Westheimer that she invited herself to his wedding last year and told him shed be speaking at it. Well sit down at a restaurant and shell say, This is amazing! Fantastic! Delicious! Every driver she has is the best driver, and shell tell the driver how fantastic the drive was.

Westheimer traces her upbeat nature to her early childhood socialization. Before the Holocaust, she says her upbringing in an intact family home in Frankfurt was idyllic. Her grandmother was a religious Orthodox Jew who emphasized the importance of trusting in God; her father encouraged her to study hard and pursue education; and even in the toughest of circumstances  when she was saying what would be a final goodbye to her daughter at the railroad station  her mother told her, Well see each other again.

For my masters, I followed those children who came [like] me from Germany with similar backgrounds, with love, and they all made it, Westheimer explains. None of them committed suicide. None of them became a drug addict. None of them fell on the wayside. None of them had psychological problems that stopped them from being productive members of society.

But while she is happy to share her joy with anyone she encounters, Westheimer refuses to let herself publicly express any sadness. In the documentary, her daughter, Miriam, notes that she has only ever seen her mother cry once: At her fathers deathbed.

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She just doesnt allow herself that good, deep cry that you allow yourself when you need to get rid of pain, Miriam, one of Westheimers two children, says in the film.

Westheimer at age 5 in Frankfurt, before the Holocaust. (Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust / CNG)

Its just something thats in her blood, Westheimer theorizes. She never saw her parents cry because German Jews dont show their emotions in public. Privately, she says, she has grappled with anguish. In the 80s, when she wrote her autobiography, she visited a psychologist and opened up about the sadness she felt over leaving her parents.

There was a time that I thought that if I stayed with them as a young child, I could have saved them, she says. Nonsense. If I had stayed, I would not be alive.

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While she allowed director Ryan White to follow her on her annual pilgrimages to Switzerland and Israel, she told the production she had no interest in visiting the concentration camp where her parents were sent. I did not want to go to Auschwitz, because Im not going to stand there and cry in front of other people, she says.

I often heard the line, Im the therapist, youre not the therapist, remembers White, best known for his work on The Case Against 8 and the Netflix docuseries The Keepers. She doesnt touch the trauma and pain she went through. For a sex and relationship therapist, I think shes surprisingly not very emotional.

While she delves into the sex lives of others, Westheimer also has clear boundaries when it comes to discussing her own personal life. She was married three times but calls her last marriage, to fellow German Jew Manfred Westheimer, who passed away in 1997, her real marriage. She still wears the yellow diamond he gave her on her ring finger.

Its beautiful. Everybody admires it, she says, showing it off. You cant have it! You can try it on, but you cant have it.

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Because of the critical relationships she lost at age 10, Westheimer says she always felt a sense of desperation to find love. She loves to point out how cute or attractive men are, but the compliments have a deeper meaning: When I say my old boyfriends were cute  and you dont know half of it, and Im not going to tell you either, there were many others  there is something very serious about that, how we kept supporting each other, because we were all orphans.

She understands why people might assume shes been promiscuous  this is a woman, after all, who advised all of her film producers wedding guests to try a new position and report back! at his rehearsal dinner.

I let them believe that, but Im rather old-fashioned and a square, she admits. If people think that somebody like me who talks about sex from morning till night is sleeping with somebody every night, theyre mistaken. Just going out and having sex might be fun, and if youre protected against an unintended pregnancy or unintended sexual disease, it might be all right. But it is not satisfying.

Its very dangerous, in my way of thinking, of someone saying, I have 300 friends. Nonsense. Dr. Ruth on the social media age

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Westheimer, seen here in in 2017, says she feels strongly about U.S. border separations because of her own history as an immigrant. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

She says shes heartened by the conversation that has emerged from the #MeToo movement, though she stresses the importance of therapy for those who allege they have been sexually abused. She is also unsure how the evolving discussion around consent will affect interpersonal relationships.

Its very difficult for me to say, Come in with a piece of paper and make him or her sign that youre willing to go to bed, she says. I want people to look at each other. I want them to hold hands. I want them to have a glass of wine. I want them to talk about it. But there is no question that we have to teach the younger woman that they have to have a right to say no and that we have to teach men that even though the desire to have sex is very open and strong, that they have to respect the other person.

These days, Westheimers priority is no longer to educate Americans about the female orgasm or premature male ejaculation. Shes mostly concerned about loneliness. Yes, people know more about sex  now, she wants them to learn how to form friendships that can lead to long-term relationships.

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Now, theres a danger here, she advises. I hear you younger people saying how many friends they have on the internet. Thats nonsense. Thats not friends, thats acquaintances. The word friendship has lost its significance. A friendship has to be cultivated. A friendship you have to give time. A friendship has to be on the basis of something you believe in, not in sex. Its very dangerous, in my way of thinking, of someone saying, I have 300 friends. Nonsense.

Friendships are important to Westheimer, who acknowledges she hates being alone. She cherishes the one she shares with the two gay men who live across the hall from her in the Hudson Heights apartment building she has called home for nearly 55 years. They like to cook for her, and in exchange, she treats them to nights on the town.

It is clear that Westheimer is eager not to appear her age. Im not a type of grandmother sitting in a rocking chair, she says. Im a lot in the theater. Im a lot at concerts. Im a lot at friends. I like to go out for dinner. I dont have to be home one night a week if I dont want to.

Westheimer and director Ryan White have grown exceptionally close, with her leaving the the filmmaker multiple voicemails a day. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

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FULL COVERAGE: 2019 Sundance Film Festival 

She tries to maintain her health by sticking to a routine: bed at midnight, wake up at 10 a.m. (Let me tell you, L.A. Times, never call me before 10 oclock New York time! she cautions.) She doesnt eat much, but she makes sure to have three meals a day. She likes steak and Japanese food, particularly sashimi.

Still, her energy surprises those closest to her. At just 4 feet 7, she often speeds past her friends. Ryan! I want you to show that I can walk fast! she says to White at one point in Ask Dr. Ruth.

On the final day of shooting, White brought cameras to Westheimers 90th birthday celebration. After a full day, the filmmaker asked if he could follow her home to shoot her walking into her apartment. After she shut her door, he began to pack up his gear when she suddenly popped her head into the hall.

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She says, OK: Now were friends, White says. She brought me into her apartment at 12:15 a.m., and we stayed until 2:30 in the morning after shed been going all day long for her birthday. She said, The film is over, now I can really get to know you. So she found me a beer that had probably been in the back of her refrigerator for years and she drank tea and we talked.

Since, shes maintained a close relationship with the 37-year-old director. Shes thrilled he has a Jewish boyfriend and calls to check in every day, leaving so many messages that his voicemail gets full. I want to save the messages, but then she gets upset that she cant leave me a new one, he says with a laugh.

While Westheimer legitimately does want an Oscar nomination  shed love to put a trophy right on her mantel next to her honorary doctorates  her hope for the documentary is broader. She sees it as a way of standing up to Holocaust deniers and those who have Holocaust fatigue.

When I see children being separated from their families, that hurts me very badly. ... I can feel what they must feel like, because thats what I felt like. Dr. Ruth

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A still from Ask Dr. Ruth in which she reflects on the Holocaust at a museum. (Hulu)

I have to say, No, we have to stand up and be counted, and look how important it is for today, she says. When I see children being separated from their families [at the border], that hurts me very badly. Thats when I say to myself  even though I dont do any politics  I have to stand up and be counted that this is horrible. I can feel what they must feel like, because thats what I felt like.

But lest the conversation turn too serious, she brings the topic back to the Academy Awards, which she says she religiously watches every year.

Put down in the Los Angeles Times, I do want to have an academy nomination at least, she says. I want the recognition for the filmmaker and the producer for the rest of their lives. Because theyre going to do many more films, so for them to get an academy nomination is very important. For me, its going to be fun. I will walk around and I will say at the age of then 91, I have an academy nomination. I will come to Los Angeles. I promise to talk to you. We have a date! Shake hands.

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Empire star Jussie Smollett is on the mend at home as Chicago police widen their investigation of the assailants who attacked the actor and musician early Tuesday morning.

He is out of the hospital and home recovering, a spokesman for the actor told The Times on Wednesday.

Chicago Police Department detectives expanded their search Tuesday evening for cameras to provide photos of the offenders, who are believed to have carried out a hate crime against the gay black entertainer in an affluent, downtown Chicago area earlier that day.

By Wednesday, detectives located a surveillance camera showing potential persons of interest wanted for questioning, according to a tweet from Chief Communications Officer Anthony Guglielmi.

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A community alert with photos is being constructed and will be disseminated to the public, Guglielmi added. Earlier in the day, Guglielmi said that the department broadened its search but had not yet recovered video of the alleged assailants or a vehicle.

CASE UPDATE: Hours ago #ChicagoPolice detectives located a surveillance camera that shows potential persons of interest wanted for questioning in reference to the assault & battery of Empire actor. A community alert w/ photos is being constructed and will be disseminated shortly. pic.twitter.com/hu3HaPN5h1  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) January 30, 2019

The department continues to investigate the incident, which police described as a possible hate crime that involved two offenders yelling racial and homophobic slurs at the 36-year-old, hitting him in the face, pouring an unknown chemical substance on him and wrapping a rope around his neck.

The outcry has been fast and furious, as many of Smolletts friends, fans and activists condemned the attack, as well as the reports that alleged the assailants hurled a MAGA comment at the actor  a reference to President Trumps Make America Great Again slogan.

According to Sgt. Cindy Guerra, a CPD spokeswoman, the initial police reports had no mention of the MAGA comment that had been widely reported. However, when detectives followed up with Smollett later in the day, he recalled the offenders making MAGA comments and detectives completed a supplemental report, Guerra said. She could not confirm the exact quotes.

The FBI is also investigating the case because a threatening letter targeting Smolletts race and sexual orientation had been mailed to Fox Studios in Chicago before the attack.

Representatives for Smollett and the Chicago FBI did not immediately respond to The Times requests for comment.

Also Wednesday, TMZ reported that security for the cast of the Fox musical series had been increased following receipt of the threatening letter; however, Smollett had declined additional around-the-clock protection before the attack occurred. The actor reportedly has missed shooting on the Chicago-based series, which is now airing its fifth season, as he recovers from his injuries, but is expected to return soon.

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However, Fox temporarily suspended production on the show, as well as that of its mid-season legal drama Proven Innocent, because of the subzero weather in the Windy City on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the show told The Times.

I wish what happened to my baby was just one big bad joke but it wasnt and we all feel his pain right now. @jussiesmollett is pure love to the bone AND THAT IS WHY SO MANY ARE FEELING https://t.co/AIaBaDvx7g  Taraji P. Henson (@TherealTaraji) January 30, 2019

Smolletts Empire costars were among the many showing their support for the actor on social media.

I wish what happened to my baby was just one big bad joke but it wasnt and we all feel his pain right now, actress Taraji P. Henson, who plays Smolletts mother on the show, wrote on Instagram on Wednesday, and promoted Smolletts visceral 2017 song decrying racism and inequality, F.U.W.

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@jussiesmollett is pure love to the bone AND THAT IS WHY SO MANY ARE FEELING HIS PAIN BECAUSE IT IS OUR PAIN!!! Henson wrote. I tell you one thing HATE WILL NOT WIN!!!! My baby is resilient and love still lives in him.

Also on Instagram, former Empire actress Grace Byers wrote that, Its indisputable that one of Jussies purpose-gifts is the ability to unify through love. Its who he is.Its what he does.His blazon of light can never -and will never -be diminished, quelled or subdued.This despicable act only shamefully reveals how deeply the diseases of hatred, inequality, racism and discrimination continue to course through our countrys veins.

Empire creator Lee Daniels also decried the attack and referred to Smollett as his son on Tuesday. The showrunner also briefly posted and deleted a video-chat screengrab of his conversation with Smollett, who had visible injuries in the photo.

Follow me: @NardineSaad
You never forget your first time. Sometimes being nominated for your first Academy Award is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. And sometimes it comes out of nowhere and smacks you upside the head. These first-time nominees shared with The Envelope how it feels for them.

Yalitza Aparicio (through an interpreter), Roma

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Were any of your family skeptical or nervous when they learned you were going to be in a movie?

Perhaps not so much when I accepted the role, but more at the moment I went to the casting call. Because theres no such thing as that in my community. So there was some concern around finding out if it was a legitimate thing and not some kind of trap or some kind of situation that could put me in danger.

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As a new actor, what was stranger for you  playing a woman from your directors youth or promoting the film?

Both things have been quite strange for me. The first because I was going to be representing a woman who was so important in the life of the director. And the red carpets and talking to reporters has also been strange, because its completely out of my realm of experience. It was really when people would come up and share their experiences of the film with me [that I realized its impact]. It was kind of amazing to see, though it was a very personal story for Alfonso [Cuaron], how much people were connecting to it.

What does the nomination mean to you?

On the one hand, its thinking there are all these critics who think I am worthy, and also seeing how happy people are for my nomination. Im referring to people that have written to me, people who, unlike myself, aspire to be actors or to be in these kinds of media positions and theyre happy to see certain stereotypes about what kinds of people can have certain jobs are being broken down and they can actually aspire to be whatever they want to be.

Marina de Tavira, Roma

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Who was the first person you wanted to tell when you heard?

My son. I had woken him up for school, he was getting dressed, and I went back to my room to see the nominations, because I was expecting Roma may get some. I was not expecting at all that I would get one, personally. So when I heard my name, I started screaming and calling his name. I got nominated! The film? The film? No, me! My son started hugging me, and he said, So this means I get to skip school? [laughs] I said, No way, youre going!

Who can you absolutely not forget to thank?

My mother. She was my inspiration for this character. I worked with what I remembered of her going through a divorce in the 1980s, the way she tried to help us to feel less pain.

Youre a veteran of film, television and theater. What was unusual about this movies process for you?

We worked a lot with [writer-director Alfonso Cuaron] on just trusting that I understood in a really personal way how Sofia would react, to make that really natural. He gave us all the elements to make this happen, shooting in chronological order and not giving us the script; he would give us the scenes that day. If Sofia had a lot of words in a scene, hed give it to me the night before, but it wouldnt be complete. The important information that would really make Sofia react to something was left out. If the emotions came out on the surface, he would say, Do it again . I dont want to see it, because the way we carry pain in life, were always hiding it.

Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

What does the nomination mean to you?

Number one, the fact that Im still at it after 50 years  Ive done something right along the way. Ive been very, very fortunate with the stuff thats come my way, crossing paths with the people I have. I try to keep this stuff in perspective. That said, its a recognition of the work youve done. The work has been good to me.

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Who can you absolutely not forget to thank?

Bradley Cooper, clearly. The only reason for A Star Is Born is Bradley Cooper. He brought all the elements together. The fact that it was his first time out as a director  its astounding.

Youve got about 100 credits. When did you become aware this performance was different from your others?

[After I wrapped,] I got a call from Bradley  he asked if I would think about coming back and doing that last scene. It was meant to be with Andrew Dice Clay, which made sense, comforting his daughter after the loss of her man. For whatever reason, Bradley decided it should be [my character] Bobby having that scene with her. I think that was the day I knew the work was  I dont know, not better  personally, working with Stefani [Lady Gaga] was as good as its ever been for me. That particular scene, it spoke to me. That whole thing, A musicians got 12 notes; thats all hes got to give to the world is how he sees those 12 notes, I figure it works the same with actors. Its 12 words; its how the actor sees those 12 words. That spoke to me.

Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

When were you aware the reactions to this performance were different?

The movie had its world premiere at Telluride at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, and it was packed. We watched it with an audience for the first time  the hilarity in the first third of the movie gave way to heartbreak at the end of it. We could feel the temperature change in the audience: It went from hearty laughter to hearing people around us crying. Within two hours, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety reviews came out, and when we read those and people at the festival were coming up to us on the street  over and over, it was the same message: This movie made us feel something and made us care for these characters. We knew then that something had happened.

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What does the nomination mean to you?

Im a virgin to the whole experience. Ive been doing it for 40 years, but Ive not had this stuff happen before. The majority of actors that I know havent. Im not singing the blues about that. Its just that when you get this approbation at my age  especially the SAGs and the academy and the BAFTA voters  knowing youve been voted for by your peer group is the highest accolade you can get. If youve never had [a nomination] before and you get it, its head-spinningly appreciative-inducing.

What do you think was unique about the experience of working on Can You Ever Forgive Me?

I met Melissa McCarthy on a Friday, exactly a year ago, in January, and had a meal with her and the director, and we started shooting on Monday. It felt like  it doesnt happen too many times in your life  a lightning-in-a-bottle connection that Melissa and I had, and that obviously transmitted into our relationship on screen.

Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

When were you aware the reactions to this performance were different?

When I came in to [re-record dialogue], they had already been testing it, and it was [writer-director Barry Jenkins] who shared with me: The audiences are really responding to your character, Ms. King. When people approach me about Beale Street and say, My gosh, you remind me of my mother, or my grandmother, or my aunt, a woman who would do anything for me, its meaningful. We do what we do because we want to make people feel emotion. Thats the ultimate compliment that an actor can get.

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What does the nomination mean to you?

Ive been working for 30-plus years. For me in a lot of ways what Im receiving from people is, Finally, youre receiving your flowers. Im hearing that a lot. For any actor, you just want to keep working. Its great to be nominated for things and receive trophies, but more than anything, you hope it continues this upward trajectory of doing work you love and not doing work just to pay the bills.

Who can you absolutely not forget to thank?

My mother. Because it all starts with her. She always allowed my sister and I to try whatever we desired when it came to the arts. I would not have known it was OK to dream big in anything that I wanted if she hadnt been our mother.

FULL COVERAGE: Get the latest on awards season from The Envelope 

calendar@latimes.com
Executives from Bethesda, Md., defense giant Lockheed Martin sought to reassure investors after a top Defense Department official criticized the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a nearly $90-million jet that is the crown jewel of Lockheeds business, in a news conference Tuesday morning.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, said the F-35 has room for a lot more performance in response to questions about whether he is biased toward his former employer, which competes with Lockheed for Pentagon weapons deals. His comments come amid news reports that the Pentagon is considering buying F-15 fighter jets from Boeing.

I am biased toward performance, Shanahan said. I am biased toward giving the taxpayer their moneys worth. And the F-35, unequivocally, I can say, has a lot of opportunity for more performance.

Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Marillyn Hewson responded by saying she had been assured by Defense Department officials that any purchase of Boeing F-15 jets would not affect how many F-35s it buys.

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If they chose to have an order on F-15 . . . it wont be at the expense of F-35 quantities, Hewson told investors. Im hearing that directly from the leadership in the Pentagon . . . not just our suspicion, but Ive been told that directly. So Im not concerned about that.

Almost since its inception, the F-35 has been criticized by acquisition experts and politicians from both parties for its soaring costs. Longtime chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain called it a poster child for acquisition malpractice as he took the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin to task for delays and cost overruns.

President Trump drew attention to the planes out-of-control costs in a tweet early in his presidency, in which he threatened to price out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet to save money on the F-35 as the Defense Department was negotiating with Lockheed Martin over the price of its 10th shipment of 90 planes. The Defense Department later announced a deal that was roughly in line with what had already been planned, shaving an estimated $728 million in costs.

The F-35 has continued to be a major driver of business for Lockheed Martin. Earlier this year, the company announced that it had added more than 250 aircraft to its order backlog at an estimated value of $19 billion, bringing the companys overall order backlog to over 400 aircraft.

In a Tuesday call with investors, Hewson seemed to push back on criticism of the planes costs, pointing to her companys progress toward getting the planes unit cost down to $80 million. The planes sticker price dropped below $90 million for the first time last year as the company has been producing the planes at a faster rate.

Were going to continue to drive the price down . . . and we wont stop there, Hewson said. We will always be looking at ways that we can take cost down in the program as it continues to mature and grow.
GameStop Corp. plummeted 27%, the most in 16 years, after ending an effort to sell itself. It leaves the worlds largest independent video-game retailer with fewer options to recover in an industry that has moved to digital streaming.

The decision caps months of turmoil during which the companys longtime CEO died and his replacement left after just three months on the job. GameStop started a strategic review in June. But with physical video games out of vogue in the digital age, there werent a lot of strategic merger partners left for the company.

GameStop said Tuesday it couldnt secure financing at terms a buyer would find acceptable, and its continuing to search for a new chief executive officer.

The shares finished down 27%, at $11.28 per share. The stock is worth about a third of its peak value, reached in December 2007.

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As part of its strategic review, the company agreed in November to sell its Spring Mobile business for $700 million. But GameStop is trying to weather a storm without a permanent chief executive. Former CEO Michael Mauler, who had replaced longtime chief Paul Raines after he resigned due to illness in February, stepped down in May. The company said Tuesday that its search for a permanent CEO continues.

The industrywide declines in brick-and-mortar sales of video games left GameStop with few strategic merger partners. The most obvious bidders would have been private equity firms  Apollo and Sycamore Partners had been cited by the Wall Street Journal as potential acquirers.

The shares had already tumbled Monday on news that Apple Inc. plans to launch a subscription video-game service, indicating that competition is only intensifying for the beleaguered retailer.
Foxconn Technology Group is rethinking  but denying it will scrap  plans for a Wisconsin factory intended for the production of cutting-edge liquid-crystal display panels. The factory was part of a promise by the Taiwanese company to create 13,000 jobs in the U.S.

Foxconn, best known for assembling iPhones, is considering what liquid-crystal display technology is best suited to the $10-billion plant, Louis Woo, special assistant to Chairman Terry Gou, said Wednesday.

Given global economic conditions and the trade tensions between China and the U.S., we have to be responsible to our employees and customers, and its impossible that we can always stay committed to our original plan without any change, Woo said. There is no scrapping of our plans. We are upholding our commitment to Wisconsin.

Woos statement contradicted an earlier report that the company might abandon plans for LCD production. Reuters reported that Foxconn instead intended to turn the facility into a base largely for engineers and researchers that also would produce specialized industrial, healthcare and professional products.

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In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S., Reuters quoted Woo as saying. We cant compete.

Such a move could undermine promises to create 13,000 jobs at a project hailed by President Trump for reviving American manufacturing despite the higher cost of operating on U.S. soil.

Foxconn and Trump unveiled the Wisconsin project with much fanfare in 2017 as the company extracted a raft of incentives from the state, although some were forfeited last year after the company fell short of hiring goals. A groundbreaking ceremony in June was attended by the president.

Gous company, based in Taipei, Taiwan, is in a particularly precarious position as the U.S. and China wage an escalating battle over trade. It does most of its manufacturing in mainland China, sells products to Americans and faces pressure from both sides to maintain or create new jobs.

Doubt has been growing about Foxconns ability to meet its hiring commitments. Gordon Hintz, minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly, expressed concerns that Foxconn would fall far short under a deal regarded as the richest tax-credit, exemption and subsidy package in state history.

In a letter to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., Foxconn confirmed it missed job-creation targets for 2018.

Foxconn, Apple Inc.s main manufacturing partner, is also dealing with a slowdown in demand for iPhones. Its main listed business, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., gets about half its revenue from Apple, which is struggling to stanch declines in revenue, particularly in the pivotal Chinese market. In November, Bloomberg News reported Foxconn was planning a steep reduction in its 2019 expenses.

Foxconn assembles a range of products including iPhones, laptop computers and Sony Corp. PlayStations at factories in China and around the world. Beyond the slowing smartphone market, its grappling with an uncertain economic climate as U.S.-Chinese trade tensions escalate. Hon Hai in November posted earnings about 12% below expectations.
An Apple Inc. hardware engineer was charged by the U.S. with stealing driverless car secrets for a Chinese company, the second such case since July.

The company discovered that Jizhong Chen, who was hired in 2018, had taken photographs inside a secret workspace and had downloaded 2,000 files, including manuals and schematics for the robot car project, according to a complaint in federal court in San Francisco. Prosecutors said Apple considered disclosure of the data to be enormously damaging.

When questioned, Chen didnt tell Apple he had applied for a job with a China-based autonomous vehicle company, according to the complaint. He informed Apple this month that he intended to travel to China to visit his ill father.

In July, another Apple employee was accused of stealing information about the iPhone makers robot car project to be provided to a China-based competitor.

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Apple has been working on an autonomous vehicle project for several years. It began around 2015 with the goal of developing a fully self-driving electric car to compete with Tesla. In 2016, Apple scaled back the project to focus almost exclusively on developing the underlying software and hardware that could eventually power a self-driving car, whether that is one designed by Apple or a partner.

This year, under new leadership hired from Tesla Inc., the company yet again scaled back the project, shifting a couple hundred of its employees from the autonomous software team to its other artificial intelligence teams inside the company. According to the latest theft case, Apple has approximately 1,200 employees working on the autonomous vehicle project, which is known internally as Project Titan.

An Apple spokesman didnt immediately reply to a request for comment on Chens case. Chens attorney didnt immediately respond to phone and email requests for comment.
Rail operator CSX Transportation has reached a financial settlement with the family of Sarah Jones, the camera assistant who was killed in 2014 on the Georgia set of Midnight Rider when a train struck crew members who were shooting a scene on a rail track.

The settlement was filed on Friday in Chatham County State Court in Savannah, Ga., according to Harris Lowry Manton, which represents the Jones family. The terms of the settlement werent disclosed.

This has been a long journey, and were deeply grateful for the support weve received from family, friends and members of the film community, said Richard Jones, father of Sarah Jones, in a statement. Were relieved that the lawsuit has concluded.

A jury awarded family members $11.2 million in 2017 in their wrongful death lawsuit. As one of the defendants in the case, CSX was held to be 35% liable for the damages. CSX operated the train that was involved in the accident, but the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company disputed its liability and appealed the verdict, which led to negotiations.

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We hope that no other family will endure the loss of a loved one due to unsafe conditions filming on location or on set, said Jeff Harris, the lead trial attorney for the plaintiffs, in a statement on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the plaintiffs attorneys didnt respond to requests for comment.

A representative of CSX could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sarah Jones was 27 when she was killed while working on the Randall Miller-directed biopic of musician Gregg Allman. Eight other crew members were also injured in the accident. Production was halted and the movie was ultimately abandoned.

Miller eventually served a jail sentence after pleading guilty to charges including involuntary manslaughter. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also imposed fines on the movies production company.

The accident prompted multiple state and federal investigations and galvanized the film industry, prompting calls for greater attention to safety on sets worldwide.

david.ng@latimes.com

Twitter: @DavidNgLAT
Desperate people suffering from intractable diseases are the easiest marks in the world for unscrupulous promoters. Thats why scarcely a week passes without someone claiming to have found a cure for some terrible malady or other  and some credulous journalists parroting the claim as the real thing.

This week its an Israeli company called Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies, and the Jerusalem Post. On Monday, the newspaper published an article quoting the companys chairman, Dan Aridor, as saying: We believe we will offer in a years time a complete cure for cancer.  Our cancer cure will be effective from day one, will last a duration of a few weeks and will have no or minimal side effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market.

The Post, to give it a teeny bit of credit, remarked, It sounds fantastical. But the truth is that the claim is so fantastical that it should never have made it into print, let alone on a news outlets Health & Science page.

The cure for all cancers is an inherently implausible claim. ... Cancer is not one disease, but a category including many related diseases. Steven Novella, Yale medical school

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Aridors bold assertion provoked furious reactions by real cancer scientists that have appeared in print and online in such profusion that they cant be missed by anyone, no matter how innocent, looking into the assertion.

But it also has generated counter-counterclaims online by conspiracy mongers on the theme of: See, cancer can be cured but the medical establishment and drug companies will never let this one see the light of day.

The whole affair is another test of the adage that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. To put it another way, once you let an extreme claim like this out in the open, it can be difficult to get it back in its cage.

Weve seen that in the exploitation of the magic of the term stem cell to relieve desperate patients of thousands of dollars at a time for treatments with no known scientific validity.

Bold, ambitious claims that cures for serious diseases lurk just around the corner arent only the province of charlatans. Political leaders often fall prey to the same impulse  witness President Nixons War on Cancer and President Obamas Cancer Moonshot, both predicated on the notion that a serious funding surge would, in Nixons words, conquer this dread disease. Californias own $6-billion stem cell program was sold to voters in 2004 with the promise of cures, for spinal cord injuries, Parkinsons, diabetes, and much more, that havent emerged with the sureness or speed that Californians were led to expect.

Its true that the money made available through these programs has funded important, legitimate research; indeed, cancers once thought incurable have yielded to treatments that have extended patients lives by years or decades. But these programs all were based on a misconception of how quickly science can progress and the nature of the disease targets themselves.

That may be especially true in cancers case. The cure for all cancers is an inherently implausible claim, observes the veteran quack-hunter Steven Novella of Yale medical school, responding to the AEBi claim. Cancer is not one disease, but a category including many related diseases. Different cancers involve different tissues, different mutations, and different behaviors and features. While some treatments are effective against a variety of cancers, there is no one treatment effective against all cancers (let alone a cure for all cancers).

Please stop boosting the Israeli biotech claiming a cancer cure within a year. I can find very little published data, and the in vitro data on their website is underwhelming at best.

Theyre selling unicorns.  Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) January 29, 2019

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With that in mind, lets take a closer look at Aridors statement. To begin with, hes not a scientist, but an investment marketer. He has a degree in economics and business management from Israels Bar-Ilan University and some time spent in an MBA program at Columbia. (Its unclear if he ever got a degree from Columbia; his CV states only that he was an MBA student there.)

AEBi does bring some science to the table in the person of its founder and CEO, Ilan Morad, who claims to have scientific training from Tel Aviv University and Harvard.

Morad has been a bit more circumspect than Aridor about his work, but not by much. We are working on a complete cure for cancer, he told The Times of Israel this week. We still have a long way to go, but in the end we believe we will have a cure for all kinds of cancer patients and with very few side effects.

But its credibility doesnt go much further. Aridors statements bootstrap some established scientific facts to an extreme promise. According to the Jerusalem Post, the companys achievements involve the use of several cancer-targeting peptides targeting every cancer cell at the same time, combined with a strong peptide toxin that would kill cancer cells specifically.

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The newspaper, presumably taking its lead from Aridor, points out that the ostensible cure is based on a lab technique that won the Nobel Prize last year. The peptide theory, by the way, isnt new but has been under study in the field for nearly 20 years.

The company acknowledges that it has not tried its treatment on humans, only mice and human cells in the lab. Morad said it hadnt published any results in medical journals because it cant afford to do so, but said the results it had had were very good. The results posted on its website, one cancer expert says, are underwhelming at best.  Theyre selling unicorns.

Even taking Morad and Aridor at their own level of self-esteem, its obvious that their approach would require years of further study, including through rigorous human clinical trials, before being judged ready for patients.

So any claim that would require not just one step, but multiple steps, happening largely in secret in one lab over a relatively short period of time stretches credulity.

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Without them, asks Novella, How does Aridor know that his alleged treatment will have the features he boasts?  In other words  he is just largely making up all those claims. He may suspect that his treatment will be as effective as he says, but he really has no idea.

The only remotely encouraging aspects of the publicity surrounding the AEBi claim is how quickly it was debunked by legitimate scientists, and the rapid education that credulous journalists and readers received in the realities of trying to cure cancer. Theres hope that the public may someday learn that the more extreme the claim, the greater the doubt it deserves.

Beware Holy Grail perfect products that just seem too good to be true, Novella writes. You will never go wrong being skeptical of hyped claims.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

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Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
The William H. Hannon Library is a landmark of LMU, and it is in many ways a thank you to LMU from a man who once could not afford to pay his tution.
The term race has long been dismissed by biology, and is contrary to the findings of both cultural and physical anthropology.

Differences between people are well documented. Language, dress, behavior, outward physical appearance  including skin color  social organization, religious practices, stature and myriad other superficial markers, which only describe examples of cultural diversity.

This concept is collectively referred to as human variation. And does not constitute a catalogue of separate races.

James Watson and Francis Cricks investigations revealed the double helix, and gave us the genetic answer to the question of What does it means to be human?

In the process, the sciences have once and for all made it absolutely clear that there is one and only one species of human being, and that is Homo sapiens.

The only way that a pre-scientific notion like race might be accepted is if it could prove there is another species besides us. But it cant, because there is none.
Even with divided government now in place in Washington, D.C., our government has shut down recently because Mitch McConnells party loyalty would not allow the Senate to vote on bills provided by the newly elected House of Representatives. Divided government could provide a solution for these repeated shutdowns through passage of a Continuing Budget Amendment which when an agreement on funding levels cannot be reached, the existing funding levels renew for a set period of time (three, six or nine months). This requires our elected representatives to prioritize people over party  a value many no longer hold.

Wisconsin has returned to divided government, with top state officials being of the Democratic Party. Legislation that is rushed, secret or not in the interest of the common good can be vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers. To override a veto, two-thirds of the legislature must support the legislation, which gives the public more of a voice in its government.

Divided government offers the best chance of preventing lawmakers from serving political self interest while ignoring the will of the voters they were elected to serve. Term limits should be a consideration, if we are to prevent our state and nation from being governed by professional politicians beholden to special interests rather than peoples needs.
Democrats, with typical disregard of our Constitution, ran in 2018 with little on their agenda except destroying President Trump. They will focus on efforts to remove him from office, as would be done by a parliament.

In the lewd words of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich), Were gonna go in there, and were gonna impeach the ----.

While the impeachment drama unfolds, we are in a three-week pause in the government shutdown, the longest of the modern era. We had a partial shutdown; seven of the 12 bills that fund the government were passed in September.

The dispute centers over the presidents request for $5.7 billion for the long-promised border barrier or wall. No progress was made during initial meetings, and subsequently Democrats have refused to negotiate unless the shutdown ends.

President Trump offered a compromise that extended protections for three years for people living here under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program, i.e. the Dreamers, and for those fleeing disaster zones in return for the border wall funding. Hearing of the plan, Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to accept it before the president was even able to formally announce it. The Dreamers still have no legal clarity re: remaining in this country.
Lake Geneva's new congressman has announced plans for a listening session Monday at Lake Geneva City Hall.

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, is scheduled to meet with the public between 10:45 a.m. and 11:35 a.m. Monday in the city council chambers at 626 Geneva St.

It is one of six sessions that Steil has scheduled Friday and Monday throughout his new district, which extends from Janesville to Kenosha. The others are in New Berlin, Franklin, Mount Pleasant, Janesville and Bristol.

Steil was elected in November over Democrat Randy Bryce in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District to succeed then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had represented the district for 20 years.

Residents are invited to Monday's listening session to discuss issues, offer suggestions or request assistance dealing with any federal agency.

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Man fractures leg in scooter accident

A 27-year-old male was injured while riding a motorized scooter at 10:46 p.m. Jan. 27 around 3900 block Ocean Front Walk in Mission Beach. Police report the rider put his foot down to stop and fell off the scooter, fracturing his lower left leg. He was transported to a local hospital by medics. Traffic Division responded to the scene and is investigating the incident.

Missing person last seen in Bird Rock

Friends of Polish math teacher Micha Krowczynski are seeking information about his whereabouts from those in the La Jolla area, given he was last seen in Bird Rock. A friend reached out to La Jolla Light to report he was in San Diego on Jan. 17 and that the next day he had a return flight to Phoenix, Arizona that he never made.

According to police, Krowczynski is described as a white male, approximately 509, 180 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes.

The last thing he posted on Instagram app was a picture from the beach near the Big Rock area. Then the contact with him was broken, she writes. Micha loves the sea. It was his second time in San Diego and, like he did previously, he must have gone to say goodbye to the sea before leaving California. Unfortunately, this time he did not return to Poland.

She is worried about his condition, and that he may have been injured.

We would like to ask all people of good will to look and search specifically any cracks on the beach where he could be trapped. Maybe someone will find abandoned things such as a cell phone, documents or a backpack. Every detail counts, she said. Those with information are encouraged to contact the San Diego Police Department: (619) 531-2277 or email: jlamar40@gmail.com

Police Blotter

Jan. 3

Assault: Willful discharge of firearm in a grossly negligent manner (an unknown subject or subjects fired either a pellet gun or BB gun at a residence, but the homeowner was not able to locate any damage to their residence.), 600 Gravilla Place, 9:55 p.m.

Jan. 7

Vehicle break-in/theft, 800 block Turquoise St., 7:40 p.m.

Jan. 10

Petty theft, 300 block Bonair, 8:15 a.m.

Jan. 18

Petty theft, 7600 block Girard 11 p.m.

Assault, a man struck his father in the face with his fist and the victim sustained a laceration. The assailant was arrested for battery, 7400 block La Jolla Blvd., 12:30 p.m.

Jan. 21

Petty theft, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 5:20 p.m.

Use of the controlled substance, 3400 block Via Alicante, 7:39 p.m.

Jan. 22

Vehicle theft, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 11 a.m.

Jan. 23

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8300 block Via Sonoma, 2:15 a.m.

Residential burglary, 5500 block Waverly Ave., 8 p.m.

Jan. 25

Vehicle break-in/theft, 1200 block Coast Blvd., 8:30 a.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8300 block Via Sonoma, 6:30 p.m.

Jan. 26

Fraud, 8600 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 1:35 p.m.

 Compiled by Ashley Mackin-Solomon
La Jolla confidential

Five old friends gathered on Girard Avenue on Saturday, Jan. 26, to mark the fourth anniversary of the passing of former Chula Vista homicide detective Tom Basinski.

In 2006, Basinski  who later served as an investigator for the San Diego County District Attorneys Office  published No Good Deed, a true-crime book about cracking the murder case of David Stevens, whose charred remains were found  with two bullet holes in the head  in his incinerated car on Dec. 23, 1998 in La Jolla.

Former homicide detectives Tony Johnson and Bob Conrad, along with former Newsweek editor Tom Matthews, former County probation officer Bill Swank and former San Bernardino County deputy sheriff Jim Hendrix hung photos of Basinski, who died of cancer, on the outside of D.G. Wills Books window as they shared their favorite memories.

He was a character, said Conrad, who met Basinski on the Chula Vista force in 1970. He liked to speak in front of groups, at retirements and such, and he would always say something funny  but sometimes offensive to some people. Eventually, he was banned from speaking at any retirements.

La Jolla represented at Shakespeare competition

On Sunday, Feb. 3, La Jolla high-schoolers Olivia Wiese of The Bishops School and Nina Khosia of La Jolla Country Day School will be among the 16 finalists competing to represent San Diego in the English Speaking Union (ESU)s 36th annual National Shakespeare Competition.

Each student will perform a Shakespearean monologue and recite a sonnet from a curated selection. Competitors will be judged on their understanding of the texts and on their ability to communicate that understanding to an audience.

In April, the winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to New York City to represent San Diego in the national competition at Lincoln Center, where the first place award is a full scholarship to attend the British American Drama Academy in England. (The runner-up gets a scholarship to the American Shakespeare Centers summer Theater Camp in Staunton, Virginia.)

The San Diego finals, free and open to the public, will be held 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 3 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach. For more info, visit esuus.org/esu/programs/shakespeare_competition

A bridge too far out

The bridge at the New Childrens Museum in downtown San Diego has been decorated with a 48-foot-long mural by Tijuana-based artist PANCA. Titled Smile, the installation creates the impression of deconstructed faces using playful eyes and upside-down hearts for noses. It is one of several new artistic touches installed by the museum in time for the new year.

I have always remembered the time I visited the museum as a child and got to paint the iconic truck, Panca said. It was the first time I got to paint something on a large scale. Its so cool to be here now exhibiting at the Museum as a commissioned artist.

Sunset salutations

A complimentary new monthly meditation group has launched at Windansea Beach. Its conducted by Alisha Hawrylyszyn Frank, proprietor of Fiercely Optimistic wellness center.

With the roar of the ocean backdropping her inaugural gathering on Monday, Jan. 28, Frank guided 32 practitioners on an hour-long journey inward.

Its just to help the community understand the stillness of meditation, said Frank, who also recently served as the La Jolla Village Merchants Association president. I like to give to the community. This is a different platform than Im used to, but its still giving in a way that I understand.

Frank said she will conduct the class just to the north of The Shack on the final Monday of every month, 10 minutes before sunset, which fixes the next one at 5:33 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25.

$2 million in college scholarships available

Hundreds of scholarships, worth more than $2 million, are available for San Diego students pursuing higher education during the 2019-2020 school year from the San Diego Foundation. Applications are available online through Feb. 5.

Investing in our students is one of the most important ways to build a strong local talent pipeline for our region, said Danielle Valenciano, director of community scholarships for the San Diego Foundation. Todays students will be the leaders of tomorrow. By supporting them with scholarships, we are creating a more inclusive economy and workforce, and building a lifelong connection between San Diego students and the region.

The awards  generally ranging from $1,000 to $5,000  are granted to attendees of four-year universities, two-year colleges, graduate or trade/vocational schools. To apply, visit sdfoundation.org/scholarshipapplication

Toy soldiers

The tally from last Christmas Wacky Wonky Wonderland  the third annual holiday toy drive benefiting San Diego Center for Children  was recently announced by organizers as $50,000 in cash donations and $5,000 worth of toys, games and gift cards. The Center delivered these to the 8,000 children and families it serves annually.

San Diego Center for Children is beyond grateful for the outpouring of support from our community, said Kristi Worley, the centers director of philanthropy. Due to the generosity of our community, youth and families in our care had a joyful holiday.

More than 60 businesses and organizations served as donation stations, including La Jollas La Valencia Hotel.
Now heres something La Jollans dont see every day: 9-ton gas tanks dangling 25 feet above the ground.

From 10:30 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Jan. 24, two 12,000-gallon and one 10,000-gallon tanks were hoisted by crane out of a pit dug beneath the shuttered 76 Unocal gas station at 801 Pearl St. (The bigger tanks formerly held unleaded and premium, the smaller tank diesel.)

Owner Mark Conger  who purchased the now-55-year-old gas station in 1999 and closed it in September  told the Light that the Canadian buyer he lined up for the property fell through. In 2015, the property was permitted by the Citys Development Services Department for a 23,340-square-foot mixed-use building with 12 condos, four retail spaces and an underground garage.

They dropped out, so its still my property, Conger said, but I wanted to move forward with this, so I could get these tanks out and get things rolling. So its on me right now.

Workers break up the pavement at La Jolla's former Unocal gas station at 801 Pearl St. COREY LEVITAN

The tank-removal process  which cost $40,000 and took three days  included breaking up the pavement above the emptied tanks, digging around them, scrubbing them three times and then packing each with 200 pounds of dry ice. (In case any traces of gas are left inside, this protocol prevents a spark from igniting them during transportation.) A crane from Bobs Crane Service in Lakeside hoisted the tanks from beneath the ground to a waiting flatbed truck bound for National City.

Workers lower the first of three gas tanks onto a waiting flatbed truck. COREY LEVITAN

The job was performed under the close watch of two workers from the County of San Diego Hazardous Materials Division, who tested soil samples at a mobile lab they brought on site.



Conger, who still owns three other gas stations in San Diego, previously told the Light that he wants to sell the land for $5 million. (The project will cost between $17-$20 million to complete.)



I think redevelopment is good for the community, Conger said. Not everybody agrees with me, but I think its going to be a much, much better use of this property for everybody  as opposed to an old gas station.

This 2013 rendering of Conger's proposed project was modified before being redone by another architect and approved in 2015. LIGHT FILE

La Jollans frequently complained about the 76 stations gas prices, which sometimes were a dollar more per gallon than the nearby Chevron Station at 7475 La Jolla Blvd.It was just a strategy, just a choice, Conger said. I sold less but at a higher price and better margin.



If he cant find a new taker, Conger said, he might decide to develop the property himself.

Maybe, I dont know, he said. I will if I have to, but I really dont want to. Im not a developer. Thats not what I do.

Conger said hes also taking bids on that iconic red 76 ball.
Story: Antoine, a black merchant in Reconstruction-era Washington, DC, wants to help his friend Bassanio marry the smart and beautiful Portia, who lives in Massachusetts. Portia has been disguising herself as a man in order to study at Harvard Law School, where women are forbidden.

Bassanio also holds a secret. Although hes black, hes fair-skinned enough to pass as a white man and therefore could marry Portia despite being a different race. Portias handmaiden Nessa, daughter of a black woman whose freedom was bought by Portias father, knows Bassanios identity, as well as Portias reluctance to get involved with a black man.

To help Bassanio, Antoine borrows money from Jewish businessman Shylock, an immigrant whose family escaped persecution in Ukraine, with the odd, agreed-upon penalty of a pound of flesh if Antoine doesnt make good on the debt. The widowed Shylock is also fiercely protective of his grown daughter Jessica, who enlists the willing aid of Shylocks servant Lancelot when she conspires to run away with a handsome Irish vegetable seller named Finn.

Enraged by Jessicas abrupt departure and her theft of his savings in the process, Shylock demands justice when Antoine reveals he cannot pay back the loan on time. Shylock takes Antoine to court, where the latter is defended by a brilliant attorney from Massachusetts: Portia in disguise.

Highlights: New Jewish Theatres powerful presentation of this 2016 play smartly combines stellar acting with superior technical work under the expert guidance of director Jacqueline Thompson. Together they showcase Aaron Posners ingenious version of Shakespeares long controversial play, The Merchant of Venice.
1. Comedian Amanda Seales (of HBOs Insecure) is about to take you to school. Sick of the stereotypes about African Americans in media and the overall lack of knowledge of black history, Seales mixes humor and her doctorate in African American studies with her love of games and music to cr




Venezuela's National Assembly head and self-proclaimed "acting president" Juan Guaido, talks to journalists upon arrival at the National Assembly in Caracas on January 29, 2019. AFP
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on worldwide threats on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on January 29, 2019. UPI-Yonhap



Directly contradicting President Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies told Congress on Tuesday that North Korea is unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, that the Islamic State group remains a threat and that the Iran nuclear deal is working. The chiefs made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border for which Trump has considered declaring a national emergency.



Their analysis stands in sharp contrast to Trump's almost singular focus on security gaps at the border as the biggest threat facing the United States.



Top security officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats presented an update to the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday on their annual assessment of global threats. They warned of an increasingly diverse range of security dangers around the globe, from North Korean nuclear weapons to Chinese cyberespionage to Russian campaigns to undermine Western democracies.



Coats said intelligence information does not support the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will eliminate his nuclear weapons and the capacity for building more  a notion that is the basis of the U.S. negotiating strategy.





(L-R) FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel; and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Worldwide Threats" January 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. AFP-Yonhap



"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Coats told the committee.



Coats did note that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed support for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and over the past year has not test-fired a nuclear-capable missile or conducted a nuclear test.



The "Worldwide Threat Assessment" report on which Coats based his testimony said U.S. intelligence continues to "observe activity inconsistent with" full nuclear disarmament by the North. "In addition, North Korea has for years underscored its commitment to nuclear arms, including through an order in 2018 to mass-produce weapons and an earlier law  and constitutional change  affirming the country's nuclear status," it said.



The report said Kim's support at his June 2018 Singapore summit with Trump for "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" is a formulation linked to an end to American military deployments and exercises involving nuclear weapons.











FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Gen. Robert Ashley, National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 29, 2019. REUTERS-Yonhap



Trump asserted after the Singapore summit that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat. However, Coats and other intelligence officials made clear they see it differently.



"The capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there," said Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.



Plans for a follow-up Trump-Kim summit are in the works, but no agenda, venue or date has been announced.



More broadly, the intelligence report on which Coats and the heads of other intelligence agencies based their testimony predicted that security threats to the United States and its allies this year will expand and diversify, driven in part by China and Russia. It says Moscow and Beijing are more aligned than at any other point since the mid-1950s and their global influence is rising even as U.S. relations with traditional allies are in flux.



"Some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perception of changing U.S. policies on security and trade," the report said, without providing examples or further explanation.





In this June 12, 2018, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump reaches to shake hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. AP-Yonhap



The report also said the Islamic State group "remains a terrorist and insurgent threat" inside Iraq, where the government faces "an increasingly disenchanted public."



The intelligence assessment, which is provided annually to Congress, made no mention of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which Trump has asserted as the basis for his demand that Congress finance a border wall. The report predicted additional U.S.-bound migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with migrants preferring to travel in caravans in hopes of a safer journey.



In Syria, where Trump has ordered a full withdrawal of U.S. troops, the government of Bashar Assad is likely to consolidate control, with Russia and Iran attempting to further entrench themselves in Syria, the report said. Asked for her assessment, Haspel said of the IS group: "They're still dangerous." She added that they still command "thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria."



The intelligence agencies said Iran continues to work with other parties to the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other Western nations. In doing so, they said, it has at least temporarily lessened the nuclear threat. In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from that accord, which he called a terrible deal that would not stop Iran from going nuclear.





An undated file photo released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea, shows an 'underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile' conducted at an undisclosed location in North Korea (reissued 06 March 2017). Yonhap
In this Dec. 11, 2018, file photo, a woman browses her smartphone as she walks by a Huawei store at a shopping mall in Beijing. AP-Yonhap



By Li Tao, Sarah Dai





Like many urban Chinese consumers, Shenzhen civil servant Gao Jian has had a long-held belief that the quality of domestic smartphone brands paled in comparison with foreign brands, especially Apple.



But in December, Gao joined the growing number of mainland consumers who have made the switch from Apple's iPhone to a premium Android smartphone from a major Chinese brand. He bought a Mate 20 Pro, the flagship model from the country's largest smartphone supplier Huawei Technologies.



"Its design and cameras are better than what I expected," Gao said. "Also, iPhones have become increasingly unaffordable."



His experience reflects the broader success of the Chinese mobile phone industry in smashing people's perception that domestic suppliers are only good for inexpensive, low-quality products.



That stereotype has beset many Chinese brands in the home appliances, consumer electronics, personal computer, car and mobile phone markets, where products from more established brands in the US, Japan or Europe were preferred by mainland consumers for many years.



But brands like Haier Group Corp, Lenovo Group and, more recently, Huawei, have expanded their operations, increased research and development, and made advanced products to change that impression around the world.



China is now home to some of the most successful smartphone brands, which rival the likes of Samsung Electronics, Apple and LG Electronics.





A Chinese man experiences Huawei's mobile phone product in a Huawei store in a shopping mall in Beijing, China, 29 January 2019. EPA-Yonhap



Shenzhen-based Huawei, the top global supplier of telecommunications network equipment, was ranked the world's second biggest smartphone vendor  behind Samsung and ahead of Apple  for the second consecutive quarter in the three months ended September 30, according to research firm IDC. Xiaomi Corp and Oppo took the No 4 and 5 spots in the same quarter.



"Clearly, not all [Chinese smartphone brands] have been equally successful," said Kiranjeet Kaur, a senior research manager at IDC Asia-Pacific. "But most of those that are doing well in the domestic market have had good fortune in the global market, too."



Kaur said other major Chinese smartphone players include Vivo, OnePlus, Alcatel brand licence-holder TCL Corp, ZTE Corp and Lenovo Group, which bought Motorola Mobility in 2014 and now sells a line of handsets under the Moto brand.



Demand for Chinese-brand mobile phones doubled each year between 2010 and 2012 during the period when 3G mobile services were being rolled out across the country, but gradually slowed down from 2013 ahead of the deployment of faster 4G services by the mainland's three mobile network operators.



The emergence of Chinese smartphone brands on the global stage has mirrored the rising competitiveness of the country's telecoms network equipment suppliers, which have won market share with value-for-money offerings as well as on heavy investments in research and development.



The gains have also sparked increasing pushback by the US, which is persuading its allies to boycott Chinese telecoms gear suppliers such as Huawei on grounds of national security.





Xiaomi founder, Chairman and CEO Lei Jun hits the gong during the listing of the company at the Hong Kong Exchanges in Hong Kong, China July 9, 2018. REUTERS-Yonhap



With the world's biggest internet population and smartphone market, China had as many as 300 domestic mobile phone companies about three years ago. Cutthroat competition reduced that number to about 200 last year, as Chinese consumers bought fewer smartphones and the economy grew at a slower pace.



The larger, deep-pocketed Chinese smartphone suppliers have won a big chunk of the domestic market through aggressive promotions, advanced designs and features, and offering a wide array of models in a range of prices to entice both younger and affluent buyers. It also represents their standard operating procedure overseas, particularly in India and countries in Southeast Asia.



Unlike the smaller smartphone brands in China, Kaur said none of the major players competed in the very low-end of the market because they focused on building their brands and offered sophisticated features at affordable prices  a strategy that worked well against global brands like Apple and Samsung.



Xiaomi blazed a successful trail in China by exclusively selling online low-cost Android smartphones with design and technical specifications comparable to high-end models.



The Beijing-based company also expanded its product line to include mobile phone accessories, tablets, earphones, smart television sets and laptop computers.



Huawei, with operations in about 170 countries and territories, achieved broad distribution on the back of its role as a telecoms gear supplier to many mobile network operators around the world.





A young man looks at Apple's iPhone 8 Plus at the Apple Store of Omotesando shopping district in Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 22, 2017. EPA-Yonhap



In 2016, Huawei collaborated with Germany's Leica Camera to help it address the premium smartphone segment and further differentiate the firm from other Android device makers.



For privately held BBK Electronics Corp, headquartered in the southern coastal city of Dongguan in Guangdong province, a multiple brand strategy has allowed it to cover nearly all smartphone segments in China and overseas. The company is behind Oppo and Vivo as well as newer brands OnePlus and Realme.



OnePlus is already a global top five supplier of high-end Android handsets, according to Counterpoint Research. Realme, which started as an India-focused vendor of affordable smartphones, now plans to expand its operations across Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.



Samsung has been hit hard by that competition. In December, the South Korean tech giant said it was shutting down its smartphone manufacturing plant in the northern city of Tianjin amid slumping sales in the country and rising labour costs. Samsung was No 1 in China with 20 per cent of the market in 2013, but fell to less than 1 per cent last year.



Huawei, Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi were the top-selling smartphone brands in China in the quarter ended September 30, according to Counterpoint. Apple ranked fifth in the same period.



Earlier this month, Apple chief executive Tim Cook blamed a weak Chinese economy for a downgrade in the company's revenue guidance for the quarter ended December 31.



Market experts, however, said Cook may have glossed over strategic missteps made by Apple on the mainland, where its latest iPhones are the most expensive and compete against vastly improved Chinese handsets that cost less.



"The new iPhones are certainly not as popular as four years ago," said Wang Dan, who runs a mobile phone store in the Huaqiangbei electronics marketplace in Shenzhen. "A lot of Chinese customers cannot afford them, and there are now more choices available."





DJ Koh, Samsung's Mobile Communications Division President and CEO, holds up the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 during a product launch event in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., August 8, 2018. REUTERS-Yonhap
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (L) walk during the opening ceremony for the new Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, China, 23 October 2018. EPA-Yonhap



By Gary Cheung





China's central government has rejected a plan by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to tighten the city's anti-corruption laws and ensure that all gifts and benefits offered to the chief executive are graft-free.



Beijing found the idea of amending the existing law for this reason unacceptable, a source familiar with the central government's thinking on the matter told the Post.



"Beijing's position is that the chief executive is appointed by the central government," the source said. "It can't accept the move to enact local legislation to establish a committee to grant approval for the acceptance of advantages by the chief executive."



Beijing was also worried that the city's top official could become susceptible to politically motivated accusations of flouting the anti-graft law, the source added.





A video screen shows Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam delivering her policy speech at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018. AP-Yonhap



Lam promised Hongkongers before being elected in 2017 that she would strengthen corruption laws to combat possible graft by a chief executive.



In her election platform and again during her maiden policy address, she vowed to revise Sections 3 and 8 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, which govern the conduct of ministers and civil servants but exempt the chief executive.



The Post understands that a few months after taking office in July 2017, she shared her plan with central government officials overseeing Hong Kong. She was subsequently informed that Beijing was against the idea.



Calls to plug the gap in the city's anti-corruption laws first emerged in 2012, when then chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen was accused of accepting bribes from a businessman.





Protesters mock Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam as they demonstrate against a large-scale land reclamation to build artificial islands in Hong Kong, China October 14, 2018. REUTERS-Yonhap



A special committee chaired by former chief justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang later recommended amending the law to make it a criminal offence for the chief executive to solicit or accept any advantage without the approval of a statutory independent committee.



Li told the Post in May 2017 that the current situation, under which the chief executive was not subject to anti-bribery laws, was "unsatisfactory and unacceptable".



His panel suggested that the three-member independent committee be appointed jointly by the chief justice and the president of the Legislative Council.



The source who revealed that Beijing had rejected the idea said: "Contrary to the perception among some people that the government has been stalling over a proper rule change, Lam has been determined to tighten the anti-bribery laws concerning the city's top post and did try to get the plan through."





Former Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang and his wife Selina arrive at the High Court for his appeals court judgment on a misconduct charge in Hong Kong, China, July 20, 2018. REUTERS-Yonhap



Asked about the matter, a spokesman for Lam's office said on Tuesday: "We are not in a position to disclose the chief executive's communication with the central government."



Officially, however, her plan to amend the law is not dead yet.



A spokesman for the administration wing of the Hong Kong government, which coordinates the government's dealings with the legislature and the judiciary, said the proposal was being studied closely.



Amending the two sections of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance to cover the chief executive would have implications for the political structure of the Hong Kong special administrative region and the chief executive's constitutional status under the Basic Law, the city's mini-constitution, the spokesman said.



"As the study is still in progress, the government does not have a specific date for introducing the amendment bill to Legco," the spokesman said.





Former chief justice Andrew Li has described the current situation as 'unsatisfactory and unacceptable.' Photo from the South China Morning Post
Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) CEO Kim Jong-kap, left, listens to Khalid bin Saleh Al-Sultan, president of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, during their meeting at the latter's office on Jan. 22. / Courtesy of KEPCO



By Nam Hyun-woo



Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) is close to winning a nuclear reactor deal from Saudi Arabia as the Middle Eastern country has a good impression of Korea's proposal to localize the project, according to the head of the state-run power firm.



"We will submit files related to localizing the nuclear power plants, including hiring of local staff and forming ties with local companies, to the Saudi Arabian authority within this month," KEPCO CEO Kim Jong-kap said during a meeting with reporters Tuesday.



"We had many meetings with Saudi Arabian companies during a roadshow there in October, and I can say there has been a lot of progress in working-level discussions for winning the order."



Saudi Arabia plans to build two 1.4 gigawatt nuclear reactors by 2030. For the $12 billion project, the country has selected companies from five countries  Korea, the U.S., China, France and Russia  as preliminary bidders. Kim said he expects Saudi Arabia will shortlist two or three companies in March and select the builder in December.



"We have a rich experience of working with Saudi Arabia and we believe KEPCO has made a good impression," Kim said.



Kim's remarks came after his visit to the Middle Eastern country last week. During the visit, Kim met leaders of King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, which is making the order, and stressed that "KEPCO is the only company which has experience building a nuclear power plant in environmental and geographical condition similar to Saudi Arabia."



KEPCO is building Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a plan to complete four 1.4 gigawatt reactors by 2020.



Over the Barakah nuclear plant project, Kim said its commercial operation is being delayed by roughly two years due to environmental factors, but added that the delay is reasonable compared to other global nuclear projects.



Over the suspended nuclear project in the U.K., Kim said KEPCO is still paying attention to nuclear projects in Britain, although there is no progress at this stage.



The project was led by Toshiba's NuGen unit, which planned to build a nuclear plant at Moorside, and KEPCO had been the preferred bidder for NuGen. Toshiba, however, stripped KEPCO of the status in last summer, citing "alternative options."



Later last year, KEPCO considered acquiring NuGen before Toshiba to liquidate the unit and pull out from the project, but did not complete the purchase due to uncertainties.



"The U.K. is now tapping into a new method of financing known as the regulated asset base, and until it becomes finalized we cannot predict what will happen to the project," Kim said.



Currently, KEPCO is carrying out 42 projects in 27 countries, which led to 2.7 trillion won ($2.4 billion) in overseas sales last year.



"The figure once peaked at 5 trillion won," Kim said. "Though our overseas business is still expanding, we have to enhance our efforts to improve our presence in the global market."




The seventh-generation BMW 3 Series / Courtesy of BMW Korea



By Nam Hyun-woo



BMW will launch its 3 Series compact luxury sedans here in March to attract drivers with its improved performance.



According to the German automaker, the new 3 Series is the seventh generation of the iconic sedan, which have been sold more than 15 million times worldwide.



First unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in October, the fully-changed model has a slightly bigger and longer body than its predecessor. Its wheelbase is also 4.1 centimeters longer in order to improve balance and agility.



Despite its bigger size, the new model is up to 55 kilograms lighter than the previous model, thanks to the new chassis and body structure.



The 3 Series comes with five engines which all meets Euro 6 standards for emissions of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, the carmaker said. It has two gasoline models  320i yielding 184 horsepower and the 330i with 258 horsepower  and three diesel models  the 318d with 150 horsepower, the 320d with 190 horsepower and the 330d with 265 horsepower.



"The new body structure and chassis were designed to prioritize the 3 Series' agile and precise steering," a BMW Korea official said.





Interior of the seventh-generation BMW 3 Series / Courtesy of BMW Korea



The 3 Series features new advanced driver assist technologies, which include front collision warning, active cruise control and lane keep assistance.



Highlighting the new technologies is its debuting Intelligent Personal Assistant, which was first introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The technology allows the driver to communicate with the car through voice command and get assistance in driving from the artificial intelligence.



The 3 Series sedan will be available worldwide in March and begin sales in Korea soon after its global release. BMW Korea did not unveil the prices yet.



Meanwhile, BMW Korea said it started receiving pre-orders for the X7 flagship SUV. It will unveil the luxury SUV at its BMW Driving Center on Yeongjong Island in Incheon, with a plan to launch it in the second quarter of this year. The price starts from 124.8 million won to 162.4 million won depending on trim.





The new BMW X7 SUV / Courtesy of BMW Korea
Japan should make sincere apology before it's too late



An iconic wartime sex slave of the Japanese military, known as a "comfort woman," died Monday at the age of 93 after contributing her latter years to taking the lead in a tearful crusade to help the world's people better know about Japan's atrocities against Korean women before and during World War II.



The death of Kim Bok-dong made the people sad and gave them mixed emotions, not least because she was gone without ever receiving a sincere apology from Tokyo. She is a symbolic figure in the women's human rights movement who made the comfort woman tragedy a global issue along with the late Kim Hak-sun, who disclosed Japan's brutal behavior to the world.



It is not at all surprising that President Moon Jae-in was one of so many citizens who visited the funeral hall and bowed before her picture to pay their final respects. The presidential condolence is definitely regarded as a call for Japan's genuine apology for the country's brutal acts.



On the same day Kim passed away, another victim of Japan's sex slavery met her fate, thus bringing the number of known survivors down to just 23. The survivors are also very old, most are more than 90. Time is running out for them to receive Japan's apology from the bottom of heart.



What Japan did to women during WWII was a crime against humanity. But the Japanese government, especially the incumbent Shinzo Abe regime, has been stubbornly and cowardly refusing to admit its wrongdoings by disregarding the truth.



South Korea and Japan, as close neighbors, have to establish a future-oriented relationship beyond their shared shameful history. Needless to say, Tokyo holds the key. In order for the two countries to get along as friends, it needs to first of all have a correct understanding of history and make a sincere apology.



Japan should listen to the last words of the late Kim: "Please fight this out until the comfort women issue is resolved. Continue the support on my behalf for young ethnic Koreans in Japan." Japan should put itself in the shoes of the sex slavery victims, if only once, on the occasion of Kim's death.










By Andrew Hammond





Donald Trump's decision to back down Friday and reopen the U.S. government could be a pivotal point in his presidency. At the half way point of his term, with much uncertainty over his prospects in the next two years, it may be Richard Nixon who provides historical guideposts to what happens next.



Nixon assumed the presidency 50 years ago this month coming to office, like Trump, during significant domestic social and political upheaval. While some have compared the potential scandals surrounding Trump to Watergate, there may be other potentially powerful parallels between the two presidents.



One of these could be the intense focus Nixon had on foreign affairs in his second two years in office from 1971 to 1973. Coinciding with the controversies of his Vietnam policy during this period, he scored a string of achievement including his landmark meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in China, and the signing of two nuclear agreements with Moscow to limit nuclear weapons.



While the international context of Trump's presidency is significantly different from that of the early 1970s, it is quite possible he will increasingly turn his attention to foreign policy in 2019 and 2020.



Firstly, with Democrats now controlling the House of Representatives, and high political polarization in Washington as shown by the recent government shutdown, Trump will find it difficult to acquire momentum behind significant new domestic legislative measures.



Secondly, Trump will want to establish a stronger presidential legacy in the event that he fails to be re-elected, decides not to seek a second term, or voluntarily leaves or is forced from office before his term expires in January 2021. Previous incumbents have often seen foreign policy initiatives as a key part of the legacy they wish to build, and Trump appears no different.



Straight after November's midterm elections, Trump undertook significant foreign travel, including his attendance at centenary events in France for the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. Plus also the G20 summit in Argentina later that same month where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping for a trade summit.



And already this year, he is planning a second meeting next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un; seeking to ratify the "new" North American Free Trade Agreement deal with Mexico and Canada; not to mention secure a successful outcome to the ongoing trade spat with China. And this along with day-to-day foreign policy gambits such as his controversial intervention last week in the power struggle in Venezuela by recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate head of state rather than sitting President Nicolas Maduro.



Yet, even if Trump does now "double down" on foreign policy, a major uncertainty is whether he will secure any genuine, positive breakthroughs. Take the example of North Korea where the Trump team has sought to draw a parallel with Nixon's China policy.



While Trump could yet secure a breakthrough with Pyongyang, what is striking about his decision to engage with Kim Jong-un's regime is how spur-of-the-moment the original decision was last year with little detailed preparation. By contrast, Nixon's visit to see Mao in 1972 came after years of contact building and diplomacy by the then president's aides with a goal of normalizing relations.



Even now, more than a half year after the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim, it is unclear that the president has spent any significant amount of time getting to grips with the complexity of the North Korean nuclear challenge. He appears instead to have focused on the media relations and building up the perceived prestige of a second summit.



To this end, it is still not clear that Trump had a comprehensive, clear or coherent strategy toward Pyongyang. And this has not been helped by the change period that his foreign policy team has been going through with the recent departure of Jim Mattis from the Pentagon.



With uncertain progress since the Singapore summit, next month's meeting with Kim contains much complexity for Trump, around U.S. alliances, the nonproliferation regime, and what exactly would constitute "denuclearization" on the peninsula. It is here that some of the most recent complications between Washington and Pyongyang sprung up around the latter's purported "commitment to denuclearization" which always had potential for different meanings between the two nations.



To Trump it seems to mean unilateral disarmament. For Kim it appears to be much more about lengthy negotiations in which North Korea should be treated as an equal to the United States, giving him further propaganda victories.



It was always very likely that Kim would be wary about making concrete commitments, at least initially, and want to win economic and political concessions from Trump before any reduction in nuclear capabilities, let alone committing to "full denuclearization." And in this context, much risk as well as opportunity hangs over the outcome of next month's Trump-Kim meeting.



Nevertheless, following the Democrats' win in November, Trump may now increasingly turn to Korea and the wider world stage in advance of 2020. This will be especially likely if he perceives significant potential opportunities on the horizon, including the elusive possibility of de-escalating tensions in the world's last Cold War-era frontier through the prize of verifiable and comprehensive denuclearization of North Korea.





Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.




By Park Yoon-bae





One of the most important tasks the government should carry out is to mediate different types of conflicts in our society. Any failure to do so will lead inevitably to social polarization, disintegration and disharmony.



A recent survey conducted by Hankook Research showed that 52.4 percent of South Koreans believe social conflicts increased last year under the rule of liberal President Moon Jae-in. The figure more than doubled from 22.9 percent in 2017.



Only 12.3 percent said social conflicts decreased, compared with 29.9 percent in 2017. And 90 percent think conflicts among different groups in Korean society are serious.



The poll also found that 52.9 percent believe the Moon government has made efforts to resolve social conflicts, while 47.1 percent think otherwise. This implies that a large portion of respondents are dissatisfied with the liberal administration's ability to mediate different types of conflicts, despite the majority's positive assessment.



The survey results have significant ramifications not only for the Moon government, but also for the entire nation.



It can be inferred that the people have seen social conflicts escalating because various groups of our society were increasingly pitted against each other in 2018.



Experts pointed out that more conflicts came into being from across all walks of life after they were suppressed in Moon's first year in office in 2017 when his government focused on rooting out "accumulated evils" following the ouster of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, who stood trial on charges of corruption and abuse of power.



In other words, the people have begun to express their dissatisfaction with Moon's leadership in his second year in office. The reason is because they found it hard for the new government to meet their high expectations for better lives.



Labor disputes



One of the most conspicuous social conflicts is still a series of rising disputes between labor and management. These disputes have been on the rise amid a steep hike in the minimum wage and the shorter workweek  two key elements of Moon's "income-led growth" policy.



Employers, particularly small business operators and the self-employed, have conflicts of interests with employees because they want to hire fewer workers to reduce soaring labor costs while workers seek to get paid more.



Moon's policy is designed to generate more jobs and bring higher wages to workers, thereby boosting economic growth. However, the policy has so far gone nowhere, inviting criticism from both businesses and workers for Moon's job creation failure, let alone his inability to speed up economic recovery.



Income disparity



Another source of social conflict is the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.



According to Statistics Korea, the average monthly income of families in the bottom 20 percent bracket fell 7 percent to 1,318,000 won ($1,179) in the third quarter of last year from a year before. Their income also shrank by 7.6 percent in the second quarter and 8 percent in the first quarter.



On the contrary, the average monthly income of those in the top 20 percent bracket rose 8.8 percent in the third quarter, marking an 11th quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2016.



Thus, the top 20 percent's disposal income was 5.52 times as much as that of the bottom 20 percent. This income disparity marked the widest in 11 years. In a nutshell, Korea has become an ever more polarized society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer.



Without addressing this polarization, the nation cannot cement social cohesion and harmony. It will only fan the flames of social conflict.



Gender conflict



Last year, Korean society witnessed a milestone in the #MeToo movement. Women in various sectors of society bravely waged the campaign to hold perpetrators accountable for their sexual violence. This has brought a significant change to the male-dominant society.



But it is also true that the nation has suffered ever-mounting conflicts between sexes. Especially in online communities, many internet users do not hesitate to express misogyny or misandry, ramping up tension between men and women.



Besides that, the nation has continued to suffer regional antagonism, ideological conflict between conservatives and progressives, and generational conflict between the young and old.



It is inevitable to see social conflicts rise further as our society becomes more diversified and complicated. But the problem is that the nation lacks a functioning system for conflict mitigation. So it is urgent to establish a social dialogue channel and legal framework to better reflect different opinions and mediate conflicting interests of the members of our society.



Most of all, the nation should make a strenuous effort to turn conflicts into a driving force for social transformation and democratic development.





The writer is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. Contact him at byb@koreatimes.co.kr.


U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris exits the defense ministry building in Seoul after meeting with Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, Monday. Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun



The U.S. is apparently mediating a military dispute between South Korea and Japan that is straining bilateral ties.



Washington's role comes amid concerns over a possible crack in the security alliance in Northeast Asia among the three countries, a scenario which may be welcomed by regional powers China and Russia.



Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris visited the defense and foreign ministries for meetings with Ministers Jeong Kyeong-doo and Kang Kyung-wha, in what appeared to be an attempt to discuss the radar issue at the heart of the matter.



The defense ministry also mentioned the possibility of U.S. mediation.



Meanwhile, a foreign ministry official in charge of North American affairs is in Japan on a two-day visit arranged by the United Nations Command (UNC), which is led by the U.S.



The UNC is known to have invited Kim Tae-jin, director general of the ministry's North American affairs bureau, to Japan after the radar row developed in late December.



The trip includes visits to the U.N.-flagged Yokota air and Yokosuka naval bases. The official is also set to meet with his Japanese counterpart. Trilateral talks including the U.S. could also take place. Foreign ministry officials declined to disclose the schedule of the meeting.



Speculations are that the officials could discuss the radar issue. Japan claims a South Korean warship targeted one of its patrol aircraft with a fire control radar, Dec. 20. Seoul denies the allegation, stating that it was conducting a humanitarian operation to rescue a North Korean vessel, and that the issue at hand is the threateningly low-level flyby by the Japanese patrol plane at the time. The low-altitude buzzing of navy ships by Japan continued in the following weeks, escalating the dispute. The situation is affecting military exchanges between the countries.



Seoul and Tokyo have stopped bilateral talks on the matter through military channels.



Relations between South Korea and Japan are further deteriorating amid conflict over historical issues. Tokyo has denounced Seoul over rulings by its top court last year that ordered Japanese companies to compensate Korean victims of forced labor under Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule. It has requested "diplomatic discussions" based on a 1965 bilateral treaty. The foreign ministry's stance is that it is reviewing the matter.



In his annual policy address, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe omitted a passage on ties with South Korea, unlike in his previous speeches. The Asahi Shimbun, citing sources close to Abe, reported this was because of the perception that "Korea is not future-oriented" when it comes to bilateral relations.



The remark is seen to reflect the current situation, where the governments are at odds over historical issues. The two countries had sought "future-oriented" relations, while dealing with issues of the past.


Hong Joon-pyo, right, the former main opposition Liberty Korea Party leader, waves before holding a publication event to promote his new book at The-K Twin Towers in Seoul, Wednesday. He declared his candidacy for the party leadership to hold the Moon Jae-in administration in check. / Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



Hong Joon-pyo, former chairman of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), officially declared his bid to lead the LKP yet again, Wednesday, vowing to fight the Moon Jae-in administration and make a strong conservative party to win the general election in 2020 and presidential election in 2022.



"If we cannot hold the Moon Jae-in government in check, it will be hard to win next year's general election. A large victory in the elections would provide a stepping stone for a victory in the presidential election."



Criticizing his strongest contender Hwang Kyo-ahn, a former prime minister who announced his bid for the leadership Tuesday, Hong said he will seek innovation to combat factional divides inside the party by forming a reform committee.



Hong, a former governor of South Gyeongsang Province, decided to join the leadership race to prevent loyalists of former President Park Geun-hye taking over the party, saying "When I struggled to revive the party with its members, people who ignored that came back to ruin the party again."



Hwang, who was a key aide to the ousted President Park, is allegedly backed by Park's loyalist and support base. The LKP's national convention is scheduled to be held Feb. 27 to elect a new leader and other members of its decision-making Supreme Council. The LKP leadership post has been vacant since Hong stepped down to take responsibility for the party's defeat in the June 2018 local election.



Hwang emerged as the most favored LKP presidential hopeful in a recent survey despite criticism over his connection with Park. He is also embroiled in a controversy over his eligibility to run for leadership of the party.



Hwang and former Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, another contender, are expanding their political activities at the party's regional branches to attract more support ahead of the upcoming election.



The former prime minister visited Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province to look at the wreckage of the South Korean warship Cheonan at the Navy's 2nd Fleet Command, implying he would be strong against the North. The ship was split in two by a North Korean torpedo attack near the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea in March 2010. The attack killed 46 of its 104 crew.



Oh, who is expected to announce his entry into the election battle in the near future, visited Wonju in Gangwon Province to meet LKP members there.



Oh stressed his role in attracting more centrist voters to regain power in the general election and presidential election. "There is no change in people's attitude in the capital region," he said. "The party would lose the general election if it were held now."



Media reports suggest Oh can expand the party's presence and win more votes from moderates.




Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha heads to the memorial altar of former sex slave Kim Bok-dong at Yonsei University Severance Hospital in western Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun



Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha visited the memorial altar of former sex slave Kim Bok-dong, Wednesday, one day after President Moon Jae-in went there to pay his respects.



"Remain long in our hearts and history," she wrote in a commemorative note, at Yonsei University Severance Hospital in western Seoul.



Kim died of cancer at the age of 93, Monday. She played a leading role in raising awareness of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of women for its military during its 1910-45 occupation of Korea. She was a symbolic figure in a diplomatic row between Seoul and Tokyo over the latter's refusal to acknowledge its sex slavery.



Kang did not respond to reporters' questions about what the South Korean government will do with the 1 billion won fund it has drawn up.










By Lee Min-hyung







Army Captain Choi Chang-hwa is drawing praise for his decades of donating blood and unwavering plans to continue to do so. Choi started donating blood in 1999 when he was a high school student.







He has since made it a habit to donate blood, feeling a sense of responsibility and gratitude that he can help save someone's life through his good deed.







Choi has donated blood 265 times, for a combined volume reaching about 115 liters.







He believes blood donation is the world's most warmhearted way to help those in need. With that mindset, he has made an average of more than 10 blood donations each year for the past two decades.







His good deeds are not limited to blood donation; Choi has regularly donated money to a military fund whose goal is to help financially unstable soldiers, according to the Army.







"As a soldier, the best service I can do for the people is donate blood, not to mention protecting the nation," Choi said. "As long as I am healthy enough to donate, I will continue giving my blood to those in need."







Choi, 35, is serving as a military officer in the Army's 53rd Division in the nation's southeastern port city of Busan.






Seen above is the KC-330 refueling tanker. / Courtesy of Ministry of National Defense



By Lee Min-hyung



The Air Force put its first KC-330 in-flight refueling aircraft into operation Wednesday amid expectations for improved aerial readiness.



South Korea acquired the multi-role refueling tanker in November last year from Airbus and plans to introduce three more refueling tankers by the end of this year, according to the Air Force.



"The refueling aircraft, which began its aerial mission as of Wednesday, will further tighten the military's capabilities, allowing us to remain agile against possible threats amid the rapidly changing security environment," Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said in an event to celebrate the launch of the aircraft at an air base in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province.



Aside from reinforcing internal security readiness, the Air Force should make all-out efforts for regional stability and peace with the tanker, Jeong said.



In particular, the refueling aircraft is expected to widen the scope of the Air Force's operational capability into broader areas with a longer loiter time.



Without the aircraft, an F-15K fighter jet can carry out its mission for up to 30 minutes. But when it is refueled by the KC-330, the tactical flight time for the jet increases by one more hour, according to the Air Force.



The KC-330 tanker can refuel up to 10 F-15K jets or 20 KF-16 fighters in the air.



"The operation of the refueling aircraft is expected to allow the Air Force to deal more effectively with any possible accidental threats from aircrafts of other countries," an official from the Air Force said.



A defense procurement committee from the Ministry of National Defense decided to introduce four tankers in June 2015, and about a month later, the committee signed a contract with Airbus.



In September last year, the Air Force established the 261st Air Tanker squadron to speed up the deployment of the aircraft in a more systemic way.



The second tanker will arrive here in this April, with the remaining two set to be introduced this August and December. Starting from July 2020, the Air Force plans to carry out full-fledged aerial missions with the four tanks.



"On top of that, the tankers are expected to make a huge contribution when the Air Force performs overseas humanitarian missions, such as relief operations and international disaster support," the official said.



Air Force Chief of Staff Lee Wang-keun said during the tanker's fielding ceremony that the introduction of the tanker is a "major turning point" in strengthening the Air Force's strategic air defense operations.


South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo is taken into custody at Seoul Central District Court, southern Seoul, Wednesday, after receiving a two-year jail term for conspiring with a blogger to manipulate online public opinion ahead of the 2017 snap presidential election. Yonhap



By Lee Suh-yoon



South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo was sentenced to two years in jail Wednesday, in a court ruling that found President Moon Jae-in's longtime political ally guilty of online opinion-rigging operations ahead of the 2017 presidential election.



Kim was taken into custody immediately after the verdict was read, as a shouting match erupted between conservative group members and the governor's supporters, many of whom broke down in tears.



If the court verdict is confirmed by a high court and eventually the Supreme Court, he will be stripped of the governorship.



The guilty verdict is also likely to tarnish the Moon administration which has called for the rooting out of corruption.



"Maintaining his relationship with blogger Kim Dong-won for 18 months, Kim Kyoung-soo took part in manipulating the order of online comments under 80,000 different news articles," presiding Judge Sung Chang-ho said at the Seoul Central District Court. "This is not a simple obstruction of business for online news portal sites; it damaged the proper generation of public opinion in the online sphere."



The ruling came five months after special counsel Huh Ik-bum indicted Kim and a team of bloggers led by Kim Dong-won, better known by his online nickname Druking.



Kim Kyoung-soo, also a former ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lawmaker who aided Moon during his 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns, was accused of conspiring with the blogger to manipulate online public opinion by using automated software that could increase "likes" and "dislikes" of online comments to Moon's advantage in the months leading up to his presidential victory in May 2017. The software was used to produce over 99.7 million "likes" and "dislikes."



Citing the testimony of the blogger team, mobile messages and computer log files, the court said the governor was briefed regularly on the online comment manipulation of news articles, even sending Druking's team some article links himself if he wanted the same job done on them. Kim was also aware of the software, the court said.



Kim was also given an additional suspended sentence of 10 months on top of his two-year jail term for violating the Election Law. The court found Kim guilty of trying to continue the illicit dealings with the blogger team for the 2018 local elections, offering a consul general post in Japan to an associate of Druking.





Kim Dong-won, better known by his online alias Druking, is called in for questioning by the special counsel at the prosecutors' office in Seoul, in this August file photo. Korea Times file




By Park Si-soo







A Chinese construction manager was arrested for alleged exploitation of foreign workers under his supervision, police said Wednesday.







Police caught the man, surnamed Yoo, 35, at his friend's home in Siheung, Sunday, where he had holed up for days.







Yoo is suspected of pocketing 36.2 million won ($32,380) that should have gone to the 14 workers from Yemen, Nigeria and other underdeveloped countries.







His C-3-8 visa was found to have expired. He had avoided police by frequently changing where he lived.







"The victims were mostly undocumented," an investigator said. "He knew this and committed the crime believing they (the victims) wouldn't call police."






South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo, right, who was charged with involving himself in an online opinion rigging ahead of the 2017 presidential election, is taken to a custory after being sentenced to two years in prison in a trail at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Wednesday.



South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for his involvement in a massive rigging of Internet news comments related to President Moon Jae-in and the ruling Democratic Party.



The Seoul Central District Court handed down the verdict to the 51-year-old liberal politician, finding him guilty of all charges brought by Special Counsel Huh Ik-bum.



Gov. Kim was immediately taken into custody following the court ruling. If convicted by the Supreme Court, Kim will lose his governorship.



The court also sentenced Kim to a 10-month jail term, suspended for two years, for violating the law regarding political funds.



The court ruling comes hours after the guilty verdict meted out by the same bench to Kim Dong-won, a power blogger who was charged for colluding with the governor to carry out the illicit cyber operation.





South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyoung-soo arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Wednesday, as he is charged as a co-conspirator with Kim Dong-won. Yonhap



The blogger, known by his nickname Druking, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison. On the charge of the violation of the political funds law, Kim was sentenced to six months, suspended for one year.



They were indicted for running a computer program to artificially jack up the number of likes for Internet political comments to boost positive public sentiment for the then main opposition DP and its presidential candidate Moon ahead of the 2017 presidential election.



Moon won the snap election in May, which came after his predecessor Park Geun-hye's ouster from office by the Constitutional Court over an influence-peddling scandal.



The court ruled that Gov. Kim, who's affiliated with the DP, was deeply involved in the rigging project, from devising ways to do it to actually carrying it out. It found that the governor had watched a demonstration by the blogger's crew of a prototype designed to artificially jack up the number of comments.



Kim was regularly briefed by Druking on its progress and gave his team the final go-ahead for the operation, an indication that the governor had thorough understanding of the entire scheme and its potential consequences, the court ruled.





Kim Dong-won heads to the courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Wednesday, for his trial on charges of carrying out an illicit cyberoperation to influence public opinion ahead of the 2017 presidential election. Yonhap
Protesters call for Japan's sincere apology and due compensation to women pressed to serve in Japanese military brothels during World War II, in the 1,372nd weekly "Wednesday rally" in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Jan. 30. It was the first rally after the death of Kim Bok-dong, a longtime icon at the protests who first raised the issue of "comfort women" in 1992. Kim, coerced into sexual slavery when she was 14, died on Monday aged 93. Her last words to caregivers were: "We have to fight till the end." Her death left the number of surviving victims of sex slavery at 23. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Participants in the anti-sex slavery Wednesday Rally hold posters commemorating Kim Bok-dong, a former victim, during the demonstration in front of the former Japanese Embassy, Wednesday, two days after her death. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Kim Jae-heun



More than 500 citizens and activists participated in the regular Wednesday Rally held in front of the former Japanese Embassy building in central Seoul to protest Japan's wartime sexual slavery of Korean women, two days after one of its victims, Kim Bok-dong, passed away.



The number of participants was almost double the usual figure as many came to commemorate Kim's death. The rally began with a silent tribute to the former human rights activist.



Students made up most of the increase, coming to speak out against the Japanese government and to urge it to make a sincere apology.



"This is my first time participating in the Wednesday Rally," said 17-year-old high school student surnamed Han. "I've always wanted to join the demonstration but never had the chance to do so. Now I am on vacation and so decided to come when I heard Kim passed away yesterday.










By Jung Min-ho







The body of a Korean man who died in Mexico has been returned to his family  without his brain, stomach and heart.





Mexican authorities claim that the man, 35, surnamed Kim, died of natural causes despite a scuffle with other people just before his death. His widow fears that someone is trying to cover up the truth.





After her online petition came into the spotlight, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday it asked Mexican authorities to return the missing organs, which are believed to be at the Servicio Medico Forense (Forensic Medical Service).





This came after the National Forensic Service (NFS) here failed to determine the cause of his death because of the missing body parts. Through an autopsy performed on Jan. 21, the NFS was only able to find that much of his body was bruised.





According to the widow, Kim and other men were engaged in a fight at a Monterrey karaoke on Jan. 3, which was filmed by surveillance cameras there. In a few minutes, Kim passed out and was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.





"More than a week later, I received the autopsy result that says 'no external injuries.' I was dumbfounded," she wrote on the Cheong Wa Dae website.





"That night, I was told by my lawyer that it is possible to change the result of an autopsy or an investigation (in Mexico)  So I asked for another autopsy at the NFS. A forensic scientist told me that there were signs of external injuries, including many bruises, but shockingly no brain and no stomach."





She said Mexican police are not investigating the case because Kim died  on paper  of natural causes.





"My husband was a citizen of Korea. His three-year-old son and 11-month-old daughter have lost their father," she wrote. "Please help me and help my husband."





Since Jan. 22, the petition has garnered more than 17,500 signatures.





In a similar case last month, the body of a British tourist was returned to her home country with vital organs, including her eyes, brain and heart, missing, after she died at the Hospital de Cos in Mexico City, according to

.





Hospital officials claimed they handed the body of the 41-year-old woman to local police in a sealed bag  with all her organs intact. But her family members think organ traffickers might be to blame.





Mexican authorities later said her cause of death was "visceral congestion," but pathologists in the U.K. found that explanation baffling.


South Korean cars transport 400,000 doses of Tamiflu and Relenza Rotadisk for about 100,000 people to North Korea near Dorasan Inter-Korea Transit Office in Paju, Gyeonggi Province in Dec. 18, 2009. Korea Times file



South Korea is in talks with the United Nations Command to discuss details on its long-delayed cross-border delivery of antiviral medication to North Korea, the unification ministry said Wednesday, raising expectations that the assistance could be handed over to the North soon.



"There have been delays with regard to the influenza treatment medication delivery to the North due to technical and practical preparatory issues, but now those things have almost been completed," Baik Tae-hyun, the ministry's spokesman, said at a regular press briefing.



"We are now in discussions with the UNC (on the medication provision)," he added. "We are also in talks with North Korea to fix a date for the delivery."



The UNC monitors the cease-fire on the Korean Peninsula and oversees such cross-border deliveries. The UNC should be informed 48 hours in advance of any plans to transport materials across the inter-Korean border.





Cho Myoung-gyon, right, South Korean Unification Minister, and Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for rail and road connection across border between South Korea and North Korea at Panmun Station in the North's border town of Gaeseong on Dec. 26, 2018. Xinhua-Yonhap
By Jhoo Dong-chan



Metlife Korea has launched collab 5.0, an open innovation platform program inviting entrepreneurs and insurance tech firms to scale their business with MetLife while solving some of the insurer's biggest innovation challenges in Korea.



The U.S.-headquartered insurer said that participants will compete for a $100,000 contract to develop solutions across insurance value chains in areas such as customer engagement, sales and operations, and to pilot these solutions with MetLife in Korea.



Created by LumenLab, MetLife's Asia innovation center, collab 5.0 follows four previous collab programs, including one in Singapore, one in MetLife's European, Middle Eastern and African regions, and two in Japan.



"External collaboration is critical to driving greater innovation in the insurance industry. Collab is helping us build partnerships and connect to new ideas and creative thinking to innovate ahead of tomorrow's challenges. Together, we can have an ever-greater impact on our customers," said Zia Zaman, chief executive officer of LumenLab and chief innovation officer of MetLife Asia.



Since its introduction in 2016, collab has attracted 538 applications from more than 60 countries, and MetLife has awarded around $900,000 worth of contracts to develop value-generating solutions for MetLife's business and customers.



"I'm very pleased that MetLife Korea is hosting collab 5.0 where innovative ideas of insuretech experts from around the globe will compete on an open platform," said Song Young-rok, MetLife Korea senior vice president and general manager.



"Collab 5.0 is an opportunity for the insurance industry to move to the next level amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to explore and develop cutting-edge solutions that generate greater value for customers."



The Korean arm of the global insurer added it will determine six finalists and pair them with employee champions who will mentor the finalists to hone their ideas for use in MetLife Korea.



The finalists will be invited to attend the collab Summit on June 12, and present their ideas at collab "Demo Day" on June 13 in Seoul where the ultimate winner will be announced.


By Park Hyong-ki



Goldman Sachs in Seoul is facing an exodus as an increasing number of its investment bankers are leaving the company for private equity firms, according to industry sources.



It is common to see investment bankers switching sides within the industry.



But almost all, especially those who had worked trying to sell assets to potential buyers, want to go "where the action is"  the buy-side where they can be the buyer, the investor and the go-getter, they said.



"It is normal to see investment bankers and M&A advisers wanting and moving to private equities to call the shots," said a private equity source.



Investment banking is about trying to source deals, pitching and selling assets to potential suitors, and obviously, private equity funds are about bidding for those assets on behalf of their investors.





gettyimagesbank



There are also an increasing number of cases of investment bankers and even private equity investors leaving their firms to start their own buyout funds, industry sources said.



Notably, Lim Suk-jung, a former JP Morgan investment banker, launched SJL Partners, one source noted.



Lim's most recent deals included the acquisition of U.S.-based Momentive Performance Materials by a consortium led by KCC, a local construction materials maker, which sealed the deal last year. Lim's SJL was part of the consortium.





Goldman Sachs logo / Korea Times file
Kim Hyun-chong from the South Korean ministry of industry, trade and energy, right, and the United States Chair of the Senate Finance Committee Chuck Grassley discuss in Washington D.C, Jan. 29. Yonhap



South Korea's trade ministry said Wednesday it will thoroughly prepare for the anticipated departure of Britain from the European Union (EU) to minimize potential negative impacts on local exporters.



The Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Energy hosted a seminar on the outlook of the European market to discuss ways to better prepare for Europe-related risks throughout 2019.



The ministry said such preparations are needed as Britain plans to leave the EU, with looming protectionism and the planned implementation of the economic partnership agreement between Japan and the union also being cited as potential uncertainties for South Korean exporters.





Britain's Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox arrives in Downing Street in London, Britain January 29, 2019. REUTERS-Yonhap
KEB Hana Bank CEO Ham Young-joo, right, poses with chief executives from Hana Card and the Bank of Jilin during a ceremony to celebrate the launch of a Union Pay check card at Hana Financial Group's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Cardholders can use the check card freely whenever they are in Korea or China. The two lenders forged strategic ties in 2010. Courtesy of KEB Hana Bank
Kokomo, IN (46901)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. A few storms may be severe. High around 90F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

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Partly cloudy skies. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Sunny skies this morning. Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing during the afternoon. High 89F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

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Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Kentucky New Era promoted one of its own to digital editor Monday.

Jon Russelburg, 30, will focus on the digital presence and strategy of the newspaper while continuing to provide daily coverage of education and politics.

Russelburg is excited to assume the role, as it combines skills he picked up as web editor at "Popular Woodworking Magazine" and freelance digital editor for outdoor magazines "Kayak Angler Magazine" and "Paddling Magazine."

"After spending years cutting my teeth at international magazines, I felt the need to put my skills to use on a local level," Russelburg said. "I'm passionate about public education policy, so when the education reporter job opened up at the New Era, I jumped on the opportunity."

Russelburg, a native of Owensboro, moved to Hopkinsville in June.

Jon is a rare talent, said Brandon Cox, publisher of the New Era. Hes not only an accomplished wordsmith, but tech savvy and can write code as well as he can an opinion column. Were excited to see what he brings to this role.

Cox described Russelburgs new role as being the digital face of the newspaper to the community. He will analyze and experiment with existing and potential digital tools to help the New Eras content better serve its current audience and reach new audiences.

Along with covering Christian County Public Schools, Russelburg has focused on state education policy and how that translates on the local level.

"It's been the highlight of my career so far to report local news to a great community," he said. "I look forward to this next step in making the New Era the best news source for Hopkinsville and Christian County."

New Era Editor Zirconia Alleyne said Russelburg was the natural choice for digital editor.

"Jon is always willing to help with our web presence, and his knack for technology is an asset to the newsroom and our readers," she said. "I look forward to the digital ideas we are able to bring to fruition with his expertise.

Russelburg can be reached by email to jrusselburg@kentuckynewera.com. Follow him on Twitter at @NewEraJon.
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Shopko Stores is closing another 38 stores and moving 20 of its optical departments into freestanding locations.

It will not impact the Kenosha location, however.

Michelle Hansen, a company spokeswoman, said the Kenosha store at 5300 52nd St. and its optical department will continue to operate and service its customers as usual in that location.

Earlier this month, however, Shopko closed its pharmacy department in that store.

The former Kenosha Shopko pharmacy is now being operated by the Pick n Save store at 5710 75th St.

The regional department store chain, headquartered in Ashwaubenon just outside of Green Bay, has filed for protection from creditors under a Chapter 11 reorganization with the hopes of operating as a smaller company.

The company said it filed the bankruptcy petition in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska and is looking to restructure as a result of excess debt and ongoing competitive pressures.

During the restructuring process, Shopko will continue to operate and serve its customers, vendors, partners and employees, the company said.
The Somers accountant alleged to have killed an Illinois State Trooper in a crash on Interstate 294 had cannabis in his system and was attempting to pass an accident scene on the left shoulder during a snowstorm when he struck the trooper, according to prosecutors.

Scott A. Larsen, 61, was charged Monday with one count of reckless homicide of a police officer and two additional counts of reckless homicide involving Scotts Law, which requires drivers to slow down and change lanes for emergency vehicles.

Trooper Christopher Lambert was killed at about 4:45 p.m. Jan. 12 when he stopped at a three-car crash on I-294 near Willow Road.

Lamberts squad car was parked in the left northbound lane of traffic with its emergency lights on, and Lambert was outside the squad car investigating the earlier crash when he was struck and killed by a Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Larsen, according to the Illinois State Police.

According to the Chicago Tribune, prosecutors at Larsens bond hearing Monday said Larsen attempted to pass the accident scene on the left shoulder and struck Lambert while he was standing between the median and the left driving lane.

Lambert was thrown into the air by the impact of the crash and died of blunt force trauma.

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Kemper Center Inc. does not appear to the public to be an arm of county government, nor does the county wield any significant degree over Kemper Center Inc.s operations, the court found.

Disappointed in ruling

Flynn said she was disappointed with the decision and is considering whether to petition for a review by the state Supreme Court.

This decision could be viewed as a road map for shielding many kinds of expenditures of tax money from public scrutiny, Flynn said in an email. But the real public interest here should be directed at the fact that county officials basically gave the Kemper Center carte blanche to use considerable tax monies for public purposes without insisting on the countys rights to monitor those activities and expenditures and therefore without having the records necessary for the public to be able to find out what was going on.

Chilling effect

Attorney John OConnor, who handled the case in circuit court for Kemper Center Inc., was pleased with the decision, saying that the circuit court ruling, had it remained in effect, would have had a chilling effect on charitable and not-for-profit organizations that receive government funds as part of their budgets.
A cyclist decked out in cold weather gear rides past the city skyline and a frozen Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis. A blast of polar air enveloped much of the Midwest on Wednesday, closing schools and businesses and straining infrastructure across the Rust Belt with some of the lowest temperatures in a generation. (Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP)
This was a gifted unpaid press trip with SALT resorts, but of course all thoughts are my own. My first time in Mauritius A trip away in January feels a little too indulgent after time off over Christmas, but let me start by saying a few days in the heat absolutely saved me this winter! That dose of sun, sea and sand transformed me, and Id do just about anything to be back on those white sandy beaches Earlier this month I was invited to Mauritius for the very first time by SALT resorts, a unique hotel concept that promises more than just a stay at a resort. I had a snoop at their social media before I accepted and I was instantly smitten with the coral-washed walls and vibrant features, not to mention the proximity to the incredible turquoise sea! Ahh, it was unreal. Fans of the wonderful Camille Walala will definitely recognise her signature style, she helped to design the space and theres evidence of her beautiful designs throughout the entire hotel! From the bold feature walls to the clashing colours, it was a photo backdrop dream you guys. I dont usually stay at resorts because I think the sense of community and culture can get lost  sometimes it feels like you could be anywhere. With Salt, theyve worked with the locals to create something with heart; theyve reached out to the local people to help contribute everything from the toiletries in the room to the food served at the restaurant.

They believe in sustainability too, supporting local communities while also ensuring theyre mindful of the environment. Theres no plastic at Salt at all, even the room keys are done through an App on your phone!

What We Did We were kept busy everyday in Mauritius  a typical beach holiday for me involves equal parts relaxing and activities, so there was time for lazy fun in the sun as well as exploring.

Theres always something happening at the hotel so we were able to pick and choose which activities we wanted to take part in, so the trip was tailored to each of us. One day we cycled around Belle Mare with the hotels personal trainer, Jonathan, sampling coconut water and stopping for lunch at a local restaurant. The next we visited some of the Salt Shakers, the local people who contribute to the hotel! We went to visit Reotee who weaves baskets for the hotel (theres one in each room to use as a beach bag!), she was the most adorable little lady and as Im a basket bag obsessive, I loved the experience of seeing how theyre made. Another evening we were hosted for dinner and dancing at one of the locals homes, which was so much fun as a group! We were served homemade flavoured rum (so, so good!), fed a home cooked dinner and then got involved in some Sega dancing and live music well in to the evening. Im still laughing thinking about the experience, we really got involved We were also able to do a lot of water activities like snorkelling and, my personal favourite, paddleboarding in the shallow waters around the hotel.

The wonderful staff organised everything so it was easy peasy, and I never minded leaving my spot on the beach to have some fun!

I love that Salt encourages exploring the island, you can hire bikes or a car to see more and the staff are all locals so you can expect to really get a feel for the Mauritian way of life from their recommendations. On the final day we took a Mauritian cooking class at the hotel  I try to do a cooking class every time I go somewhere new because I find them so much fun, plus you get to eat the goods at the end so win, win.

The kitchen at Salt is very impressive (we got a little tour) and we cooked up a delicious vegetable curry and a side of roti using local ingredients. I can honestly say that curry was one of the best things Ive ever eaten, it was so tasty! We also found time to do cocktail class on the rooftop bar overlooking the Indian Ocean. I think Im already a bit of a mixologist but I actually ended up making a cucumber gin infusion that I had never tried before, so there you have it. If you dont mind an early start, definitely find a day to get up early for the beach sunrise walk and meditation  this was such an amazing experience and definitely a highlight of the whole trip for me. I felt so balanced and carefree afterwards, it was wonderful  I also got some BEAUT pics on the beach in the golden light, and some of the local dogs came along with us. A perfect start to the day!

basket bag // blue mini wrap dress // straw hat // red swimming costume (similar) // denim shorts // white shirt (similar) // blue floral midi dress // Ray-Ban sunglasses What We Ate Ahh the food! Unsurprisingly, the Mauritian food was delicious and so varied, having taken inspiration from so many other cultures. The fresh fruit and veg served at Salt are grown hydroponically, which means they are grown without soil. Its a more sustainable way of farming, which is what Salt is all about! I dont eat a lot of animal products so I was keen to see what I could eat on the menu  the answer was A LOT! Im always so pleased when a restaurant offers a range of veggie and vegan meals, especially in foreign countries  it can be tricky when travelling but I was pleasantly surprised. There was a good mix of dishes on the menu, and believe me when I say we sampled the lot! The breakfast acai bowls, the daily bread and pastries each morning, and the amazing vegan noodle salad were highlights for me. So much good food!
Columnist Brianna Wessling argues that the ill-motivated inclusion of a citizenship question on the next census could have severe adverse effects on state funding and political representation in the coming years.
Pak Army 25 Army Aviation Squadron Dhamial Camp Job 2019

Latest Pakistan Army Army jobs Posts Rawalpindi 2021 Pakistan Army 25 Army Aviation Squadron Dhamial Camp required the service of experienced and responsible person for the post of Mess Waiter BPS-1 in Rawalpindi.

How to Apply on Pakistan Army Job Advertisement

Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted.
Nurses Jobs 2019 For Medical Company in Saudi Arabia

Latest Bio Force Employment Medical Posts Saudi Arabia 2021 A well known and reputed medical company requires the services of medical, health and technical female candidates for the posts of Nurses in Saudi Arabia 2019.

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Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted.
Education Department Jobs 2019 in Toba Tek Singh

Latest Education Department Posts Toba Tek Singh 2021 Experienced, strong and energetic persons for the posts of Naib Qasid, Chowkidar & Mali required for a well known and reputed Education Department in District Toba Tek Singh 2019.

How to Apply on Education Department Job Advertisement

Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted.




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President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisis statements during his joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday reflected his confidence in the Egyptian people and clear understanding of their priorities amid very difficult domestic and regional circumstances.

Since he took office nearly five years ago, Al-Sisi has been commanding a country at war on several fronts, overcoming one challenge after the other and steering the country towards stability and economic development.

However, the key point that made many Egyptians proud was his understanding that his legitimacy is derived from his own people, reiterating that I stand today here through Egyptian will, and if such will were no longer there, I would not stay for one day.

After the army supported the popular demand to remove former president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood group he belongs to declared war against Egypt as a state in alliance with terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group in northern Sinai and the mainland.

The Muslim Brotherhood, supported by regional powers that wanted Egypt to sink into chaos like neighbouring Arab nations, spared no effort to claim to the world that Egypt was not stable, both politically and economically.

Nevertheless, through dialogue and objective presentation of realities on the ground, President Al-Sisi gradually restored Egypts ties with nearly all world countries that were not certain about the countrys future after Morsis removal.

Domestically, Egypts army and security forces offered precious sacrifices, including the martyrdom of hundreds, to protect their country from the evil of terrorism, protecting Egyptians and the rest of the world.

No objective observer can deny that terrorism in Egypt has largely been defeated, including in northern Sinai where the local population has joined the countrys army in confronting terrorist groups, namely IS and Al-Qaeda.

Indeed, the brave people of Sinai and the security forces paid a very heavy price, but they both recognised that there will be no future without a firm stand against terror groups that have spread all over the volatile region, with safe havens in several countries, including along Egypts borders.

On the economic front, Al-Sisi lacked no less courage or determination, taking several unprecedented steps that were delayed for decades to reform Egypts economy, encourage the growth of the private sector, provide working opportunities and meet the basic needs of the majority of its people.

Right now, international monetary organisations, as well as several key world investors, recognise the real growth Egypts economy managed to achieve and that this is the right country to invest and expand business in.

While fighting terrorism and working hard to rebuild the countrys economy and infrastructure, the president strongly repeated his commitment to the countrys constitution and the rule of law, which is a key tenant for development and stability.

Unlike claims made by international human rights groups that are not necessarily objective or aware of facts on the ground, the Egyptian president never sought to suppress freedom of expression or political freedoms.

While certain parties might differ with some of the measures taken, what cannot be questioned is that the rule of law prevails in Egypt, and is protected by an independent judiciary that Egyptians are proud of.

Meanwhile, as Al-Sisi rightly stated, Egypt is not like Europe or the US, and it has its own special circumstances and context.

Its easy to criticise the human rights record in Egypt while living thousands of miles away from the troubled region in which Egypt is located.

Had Al-Sisis effort to confront terrorism failed to achieve its goals, we would have seen another failed religious state in Egypt, suppressing all those who differ with their narrow minded and sectarian ideology.

Again, as Al-Sisi stated, there is a huge difference indeed between freedom of expression and efforts to destroy the basic tenants of the modern Egyptian state.

Therefore, when local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and several friendly nations pointed to shortcomings in the law approved by parliament to organise NGO activities, Al-Sisi swiftly asked the respected minister of social solidarity to launch a wide-ranging dialogue with thousands of NGOs all over the country on the most urgent amendments needed.

Besides, it is not fair or correct to claim that NGOs face severe restrictions in Egypt. The reality is that more than 45,000 NGOs are operating in the country, while those complaining about alleged restrictions are hardly a dozen groups that do not want to abide by existing laws.

Considering the tough economic reforms Egypt had to go through, Al-Sisi and the government was fully aware of the negative effects these would have on many poor Egyptians.

In respect of their basic human rights, the government worked hard on several social projects to allow the poor to cope with rising living costs. Moreover, the key national, mega-projects Al-Sisi launched, such as the New Administrative Capital, provided thousands of working opportunities.

To disprove claims that the economic reforms he has been carrying have not benefitted the majority of Egyptians, Al-Sisi reminded his audience at the news conference of his efforts to provide proper housing for 250,000 people living in slums, despite the countrys dire economic situation and its ongoing fight against terrorism.

Major improvements also took place in the health and education sectors, also confirming the presidents view that providing the peoples basic needs is an integral part of his vision on human rights.
Sherry Smith/iStock(SAN DIEGO) -- The U.S. has turned back its first asylum seeker from the southern border, as part of the Trump administration's new policy requiring people to wait in Mexico for their cases to work their way through immigration courts, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.



Agency spokeswoman Katie Waldman said the person seeking asylum was turned back to Tijuana at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego.



The move was a break with longstanding U.S. policy that allows migrants to wait inside the U.S. as their case winds through the immigration courts, a process that can take months or years.



Immigration advocates have vowed to challenge the policy in court.



"We can't pretend to send people into danger and pretend we don't have any responsibility," said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the immigrants' rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union, adding that the group was trying to track down the migrant who was returned to Mexico.



Another complication is Mexico's willingness to accept the migrants. Most of the migrants seeking to cross the U.S. border are from Central American countries and not Mexican citizens.



Dualina Chavez, a spokeswoman for the Mexico embassy in Washington, told ABC News in an email on Tuesday that "Mexico won't extend the policy beyond a single border crossing, the El Chaparral crossing in Tijuana."



Waldman disputed this assertion, which was reported earlier by The Associated Press, insisting that the U.S. has the legal authority to roll out the policy along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.



"DHS has said all along it intends to expand (the new policy) across the border in an orderly, phased approach based on capacity and in coordination with our Mexican counterparts," she said.



Waldman declined to say how fast DHS plans to implement the policy outside San Ysidro, adding that U.S. officials first wanted to ensure it had the proper guidance and training in place before the changes implemented.



"We are trying to get it right the first time," she said.



The development came on the same day Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visited the San Diego border crossing. Nielsen announced the new approach in a congressional hearing on Dec. 20.

Copyright  2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author (Good Tea), and they do not reflect in any way those of iRealHousewives.com.





The only airtime Scheana Marie Shay has been given all season was for her cringeworthy Bachelor date and having a competing fake orgasm on TV, so it came as a surprise when the producers made the decision to make this a very Scheana heavy hour of television. The main topics covered were the long commute to Marina Del Rey, Lala eating Ariana's pussy in a moving vehicle and Billie Lee continuing to look for her moment that's literally never going to come.

You would think the gang were travelling to Germany from the way they acted about getting on the freeway to head over to Scheana's sad new apartment. Marina Del Rey sounds like good place to live. I don't know and I don't really care because anything is better than the bootleg Kardashian's sad man cave of an apartment she used to call home. Her new place looks like a college dorm room and gives me hives but I guess it's just another space for Scheana to litter with vain self-portraits and Diff Eyewear.





Nobody on this show gives a fuck about Scheana let alone her West Side apartment, so the only people in attendance were the sad background extras at Sur who try to speak loud enough for the boom to pick them up because they aren't important enough to have their own mics. You know who I'm talking about. Billie Lee, the hot barback Scheana is trying to fuck, the Gayasian, Raquel and a few unmemorable faces. Scheana's apartment is reminiscent of her life. Empty and sad while disgusing itself as put together when we all know there is only cheap IKEA furniture and a thirst for fame holding that place up.





Speaking of a thirst for fame, the only reason they showed us Scheana's housewarming party was because of Billie Lee trying (again) to get camera time. Billie Lee and her doe eyes heard Lala utter her name once and RAN into the room to try and seize her moment to claw her way out of the Sur dumpster. They got into it over Billie Lee pulling her trans card and although they started theatrically yelling at each other in front of the "crowd" let's cut through the bullshit. No background girls at Sur were included in the night, trans or not, so Billie Lee wasn't sad she was "left out" she was sad she didn't get tagged in a post to build her clout. She's a forgettable background cast member who probably is getting paid in iTunes vouchers, why would she be tagged?





The only thing Billie Lee wants is attention and if she wasn't going to get it from being tagged in an Instagram post, she was going to get it from labelling the cast as transphobic. She can say all day long that she didn't call them transphobic, but let's use our brains and not our vaginas here. Billie Lee knows exactly what she was doing and if she wants to play the typical reality TV game of being clueless, then let her have it. I'm so fucking over talking about Billie Lee because she's so thirsty it makes my teeth hurt. Can she go? Please? All we know about this girl is that she's transgender, bought her vagina from Thailand and is on a quest to become the token trans girl on Bravo. We don't know her personality and after her recent displays of thirst these last few weeks, I'm not interested in whatever redemption storyline or apology tour she intends to go on to stay on the show.





Apart from Scheana's house warming, we also had to hear her babble on about becoming an actress. Is this her storyline? Really Scheana? I know she's desperate for material but couldn't she think of something more substantial than this? The only thing Scheana would be able to get a role in is a Fatal Attraction remake and even then she'd probably need to tone down the crazy. Along with "relaunching" her "acting career," Scheana is also keeping up her art of awkwardly sexually harassing male suitors while they have to smile in front of the cameras. She's "dating" Adam, the barback, who's using her to get on TV and finally threw her a bone to keep her around and by a bone, I mean his dick.





They fucked. Scheana told all of WeHo about it then acted to be surprised when everyone found out and judging from her performance, I don't see an Oscar in her future. Or even a People's Choice and they practically just give those out. As usual, Scheana decided to rewrite history by saying she liked Adam when she was dating Rob, a technique she also used when she claimed to have liked Rob when dating Shay. Scheana always feels the need to discount her other other relationships like they were nothing and it's like a rat drowning in spoiled milk. Gross and upsetting. Oh, and I get a gay vibe from Mr Barback or should I say bareback? If he isn't fucking his "best friend and roommate" who Scheana's also dating then I have to idea how she managed to pursue two men for months without sex and have them not like to suck dick.





Along with being done with Billie Lee and her predictable wig, I'm also over the "Jax has changed" storyline. A cunt is a cunt, a leopard doesn't change its spots and Jax is still the same asshole he was a year ago but realised life is short and wanted to have kids with the woman next to him which just so happens was Brittany. It could have been his mom and he still would've procreated, that's how desperate he was. Hey, maybe that's why their relationship is strained and why is Jax is Jax. Brittany is a grown girl who knows EXACTLY what she wants by marrying the lead on a reality show. She's made her bed and now she has to fucking lie in it, so I don't wanna hear any bitches questioning the relationship because a girl who's been with Jax for four years has to be just as fucked as he is.





Following the Toms finally seeing TomTom, which looks like the inside of a gay clock, they went out with "the boys" to smoke cigars and degrade women. The boys all spoke about wanting children who I suppose they are going to raise in their sad, dirty apartments (?) and questioned Ariana's desire not to have a human being emerge from her vagina. If a woman doesn't want to have kids, she doesn't fucking need to. You don't need to be married to be in love and it's just a bullshit piece of paper which binds you together through taxes. This far into the relationship if Tom wants kids and Ariana doesn't then why are they still together? They both want what they want and are never going to be able to have an agreement.





It's not like Tom is just going to change her mind because the only thing he could convince someone to do is for Schwartz to suck his dick. Suddenly the conversation about something coming out of Ariana's vagina switched to things going in to her vagina. The boys all started throwing out things about their partner's bicurious pasts when Sandoval decided to tell a tale of when a drunk Lala asked a drunk Ariana to get in the back of a car so she could eat her pussy and then proceeded to "go to town" on said pussy. Was this shitty of Tom to bring up on international TV? 100%. Was it done in a gross smutty way to somehow impress his friends? Without a doubt. Am I eternally grateful I now know this information? FUCK YES. How has one cast member gone down on another while she had a boyfriend and we just don't know about it, this time? This is WILD news and the visual alone is amazing TV.





airs Monday nights at 9pm/8c on Bravo! For International TV Listings,Please follow Sam's shady and fun celeb blog Good Tea and follow his blog on social media via Twitter ! You can also listen to Good Tea's Podcast onandPhoto Credit: Bravo
During a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, NeNe Leakes revealed that she's open to start over with former Real Housewives of Atlanta co-stars Phaedra Parks and Kenya Moore.

Listen  Im not sure where Kenya and I went left, said NeNe when a called asked her if she'd ever reunite with Moore during Sunday night's episode. Really, all I can tell you is it was all a strategic move on her behalf because if you link your name with mine, you get a little press. That is the issue there.









Leakes then said that shes willing to move on. The door is open for Kenya and Phaedra in my world.Next, Michael Rapaport, who was also a guest on January 27 episode revealed that he would like to see Leakes battle on with Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel."To do what?" Leakes asked. Andy replied, "Go head to head," as Rapaport said, "Hang out.""Oh, hang out, yeah. Go head to head, no,"While NeNe shut down that idea, she did in fact revealed that she would "like to go head to head with some other Housewife."When Andy pressed the Georgia peach to share who it was, she admitted she wanted to go head to head with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna."Really?!" said a surprised Andy. "Think you could take her?""Uh, hellerrr?" NeNe said. "Hellerrr? Hellerrr?"When Andy asked Rapaport if he thought Leakes could take on Rinna, he said, "Easy. She wouldn't even have to take her wig off!"Photo Credit: Bravo
Speaker Cody Woodruff addresses his fellow Student Government members during their first meeting of the spring semester Jan. 16 in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union. During the meeting they elected Jacob Schrader, current IRHA senator, to be chair of the Civic Engagement Committee and confirmed Emily Rizvic as the new election commissioner.
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DAC6 was designed to insulate the common reporting standard (CRS) against new avoidance schemes designed to get around its requirements. The rollout of mandatory disclosure rules (MDRs) across the EU member states means financial institutions will have to compile a two-year backlog of transactional data in time for the first reports on July 1 2020.

One tax director at a UK-based multinational bank stressed the onus this places on the financial sector. Its very diplomatic to say retrospective reporting is potentially challenging, the tax director said. Its absurd.

You need to have a list of transactions now that youll be ready to report in a year, they said at a banking taxation seminar held by Hansuke Consulting. DAC6 was drafted without any clarity at the national level and were going to see 28 countries go ahead with this.

Tax advisors, accountants and lawyers must disclose potentially aggressive schemes to the tax authorities under the rules. These intermediaries, as well as financial institutions, have to make the disclosure within 30 days of providing, directly or by means of other persons, aid, assistance or advice.

Your conduct could get you into trouble if you dont understand these rules, the director warned. Your clients might be trying to get around this stuff, even while youre trying to comply.

EU member states will then be required to exchange the information they receive through a centralised database every three months. Every EU government has to transpose the rules into national law by December 31 2019, but documents dated as far back as June 25 2018 have to be reported. Those affected are trying to ensure they have the required information for the past six months prepared and have a structure in place to collate data from now on.

Fortunately, the impact on banks classed as intermediaries will be much less significant than advisory firms because tax advice is just one area of financial services. Banks will only have to supply governments with transactional information that falls within scope.

Open to interpretation

The problem is that the rules are supposed to restrict aggressive tax planning, yet the rules dont apply a strict definition and instead rely on very broad hallmarks, such as an effective tax rate of zero or near 0%. This leaves a lot open to interpretation.

One accountant at a European bank suggested DAC6 repeats old mistakes. People outside the tax world conflate tax avoidance with tax evasion and aggressive tax planning, they said.

Separating everyday tax reliefs from more questionable practices may be crucial for developing a serious anti-avoidance framework. A lack of clarity over these distinctions creates problems for tax authorities, as well as taxpayers.

Sometimes politicians do it deliberately because they want to make out that its all on the same spectrum. But its just not, the accountant said.

We have zero tolerance for tax evasion, they stressed. That means we want zero risk from clients on our books and zero risk from our people helping them.

Governments have done themselves no favours by making tax regimes so complex, the tax director said. Simplicity should be the cornerstone of any tax regime.

The hallmarks make it an almost catch-all approach to tax planning and cross-border transactions. The subjectivity of what counts as aggressive tax planning means a lot of ordinary arrangements may come under scrutiny. This could drive a series of changes to how businesses operate.

Its not that we dont want to cooperate and its not that we dont understand this agenda, the accountant said. But it conflates a huge amount of issues and puts a huge onus on us.

Theres this idea that banks know everything, they said. EU politicians make this claim all the time and Im not so optimistic we wont see more problems across Europe.

The fine details of DAC6 are just one part of a shift going back several years. Tax professionals are facing more questions about the future of tax policy. The only certainty left is that there is more change to come.

The changing face of accounting

There are no signs of the pressure easing up any time in the near future. A part of this is due to the public perception of corporate tax avoidance and the role of banks in the 2008 economic crash. As a result, its much easier for politicians to raise the pressure on bankers and tax advisors.

One head of tax at a US bank described uncertainty as the biggest challenge for financial services and singled out DAC6 as a major factor driving uncertainty. Many US banks have operations across the EU and may have to grapple with these changes too.

We continue to see countries implementing new legislation on cross-border investments, as well as new legislation against tax avoidance and evasion, the head of tax said.

On the other hand, the pressure is partly because of shifts in tax advice and financial planning, as well as the rise of new technologies. Financial services are the most technologically advanced areas of the global economy, second only to the high-tech sector itself.

This may mean the two sectors will increasingly challenge the dominance of traditional accounting and law firms on tax advice. Some policy experts are predicting a sea change in the way businesses approach tax .

I would predict that within the next 10 years we will see banks taking the place of many chartered accountants, alongside software houses, one UK tax policy specialist said. Banks are where all the money flows and where a lot of the business of tax and tax education can come from.

Banks have always given HMRC [the UK tax authority] interest details, the details on interest payments from individual accounts, they added. Were going to see a much more direct relationship between banks and HMRC on tax accounts.

As much as it may aggravate bankers and tax professionals, DAC6 will be a part of the new normal as the financial industry becomes more important in tax planning. An interconnected world means more transparency, and with it, more risk exposure.

The material on this site is for financial institutions, professional investors and their professional advisers. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws.  2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQ.

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) has filed fraud charges against the immediate-past Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF),Babachir Lawal despite being a major campaigner for President Muhammadu Buharis second term campaign since his exit.

He was charged with five people along with Mr Ayodele Oke, the former head of Nigeria Intelligence Agency who was at the helms of affair when several millions of dollars belonging to the agency was found in an apartment around Lekki, Lagos.

Nigerians are however unimpressed with the move by the EFCC simply because they feel the prosecution is only a ploy to distract them from the illegal removal of the chief justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.

Their reactions:

EFCC files corruption charges against Babachir Lawal Lol after he many years  Son of Christopher (@manniosem) January 30, 2019

https://twitter.com/ogechime1/status/1090692698510639106


The vast majority of Venezuelans oppose military intervention and US sanctions to try to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power, according to polling by the local firm Hinterlaces.



By Ben Norton

January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - More than eight out of ten Venezuelans oppose international intervention, both military and non-military, in their country, as well as the crippling sanctions imposed by the United States to force leftist President Nicolas Maduro out of power.

According to a study conducted in early January 2019 by the local polling firm Hinterlaces, 86 percent of Venezuelans would disagree with international military intervention. And 81 percent oppose the US sanctions that have gravely hurt the South American nations economy.

This poll was conducted before the Donald Trump administration launched a political coup in Venezuela on January 23, attempting to replace its government with a right-wing opposition that has made it clear that it seeks to impose neoliberal capitalist economic policies.

Hinterlaces is led by the independent pollster Oscar Schemel, who has experience studying numerous elections in Venezuela and has a pro-business perspective. Most polling firms in the country, such as the competitor Datanalisis, tend to be pro-opposition. Hinterlaces is more neutral, and often leans toward the government, although Schemel has criticized some of Maduros economic policies.

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English-language media outlets frequently ignore local polls done inside Venezuela, and if they do report on them, they tend to publish the results of polling firms run by pro-opposition figures.

The Grayzone has translated the findings of a Hinterlaces study conducted between January 7 and 20. The following data is based on direct interviews with 1,580 Venezuelans from all across the country, and was reported on the program Jose Vicente HOY on January 27.

Do you agree or disagree with the US economic and financial sanctions that are currently applied against Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?

81% disagree

17% agree

2% not sure

Would you agree or disagree if there were international intervention in Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?

78% disagree

20% agree

2% not sure

Would you agree or disagree if there were international military intervention in Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power?

86% disagree

12% agree

2% not sure

In general do you agree or disagree with a dialogue being held between the national government and the opposition to resolve the current economic problems in the country?

84% agree

15% disagree

1% not sure

Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

This article was originally published by " Gray Zone " -

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January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The way personnel spin through Washingtons infamous revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is nothing new. That door, however, is moving ever faster with the appointment of Patrick Shanahan, who spent 30 years at Boeing, the Pentagons second largest contractor, as the Trump administrations acting secretary of defense.

Shanahan had previously been deputy secretary of defense, a typical position in recent years for someone with a significant arms industry background. William Lynn, President Obamas first deputy secretary of defense, had been a Raytheon lobbyist. Ashton Carter, his successor, was a consultant for the same company. One of President George W. Bushs deputies, Gordon England, had been president of the General Dynamics Fort Worth Aircraft Company (later sold to Lockheed Martin).

But Shanahan is unique. No secretary of defense in recent memory has had such a long career in the arms industry and so little experience in government or the military. For most of that career, in fact, his main focus was winning defense contracts for Boeing, not crafting effective defense policies. While the Pentagon should be focused on protecting the country, the arms industry operates in the pursuit of profit, even when that means selling weapons systems to countries working against American national security interests.

The closest analogues to Shanahan were Charlie Wilson, head of General Motors, whom President Dwight Eisenhower appointed to lead the Department of Defense (DoD) more than 60 years ago and John F. Kennedys first defense secretary, Robert McNamara, who ran the Ford Motor Company before joining the administration. Eisenhowers choice of Wilson, whose firm manufactured military vehicles, raised concerns at the time about conflicts of interest -- but not in Wilsons mind. He famously claimed that, for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.

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Shanahans new role raises questions about whether what is in the best interest of Boeing -- bigger defense budgets and giant contracts for unaffordable and ineffective weaponry or aircraft -- is whats in the best interest of the public.

Rampant Conflicts of Interest

Unlike Wilson, Shanahan has at least implicitly acknowledged the potential for conflicts of interest in his new role by agreeing to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer. But were he truly to adhere to such a position, he would have to avoid many of the Pentagons most significant management and financial decisions. Last year, after all, Boeing received nearly $30 billion in DoD contracts for working on everything from combat, refueling, training, and radar planes to bombs, drones, missile-defense systems, ballistic missiles, and military satellites. If Shanahan were to step back from deliberations related to all of these, he would, at best, be a part-time steward of the Pentagon, unable even to oversee whether Boeing and related companies delivered what our military asked for.

There is already evidence, however, that he will do anything but refrain from overseeing, and so promoting, his old firm. Take Boeings F-15X, for example. Against the wishes of the Air Force, the Pentagon decided to invest at least $1.2 billion in that fighter aircraft, an upgraded version of the Boeing F-15C/D, which had been supplanted by Lockheed Martins questionable new F-35. There have been reports that Shanahan has already trashed Lockheed, Boeings top competitor, in discussions inside the Pentagon. According to Bloomberg News, the decision to invest in the F-15X was due, in part at least, to prodding from him, when he was still deputy secretary of defense.

And thats just one of a slew of major contracts scooped up by Boeing in the past year. Others include a $9.2 billion program for a new training aircraft for the Air Force, an $805 million contract for an aerial refueling drone for the Navy, two new presidential Air Force One planes at a price tag of at least $3.9 billion, and significant new funding for the KC-46 refueling tanker, a troubled plane the Air Force has cleared for full production despite major defects still to be addressed. While there is as yet no evidence that Shanahan himself sought to tip the scales in Boeings favor on any of these systems, it doesnt look good. As defense secretary, hes bound to be called on to referee major problems that will arise with one or more of these programs, at which point the question of bias towards Boeing will come directly into play.

Defenders of Shanahans appointment to run what is by far the largest department in the federal government suggest that key Boeing decisions wont even reach his desk. That, however, is a deeply flawed argument for a number of reasons. To start, when making such decisions, lower-level managers will be aware of their bosss lifetime connection to Boeing -- especially since Shanahan has reportedly sung the praises of his former firm at the Pentagon. He has insisted, for example, that the massive F-35 program would have had none of the serious problems now plaguing it had it been run by Boeing.

In addition, Shanahan will be developing policies and programs sure to directly affect that companys bottom line. Among them, hell be setting the DoDs priorities when it comes to addressing perceived threats. His initial message on his first day as acting secretary, for instance, was summarized as China, China, China. Will he then prime the pump for expensive weapon systems like Boeings P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft designed specifically to monitor Chinese military activities?

He has similarly been the Pentagons staunchest advocate when it comes to the development of a new Space Force, something that likely thrills President Trump. Hes advocated, for example, giving the Space Development Agency, the body that will be charged with developing military space assets, authority on steroids to shove ever more contracts out the door. As a producer of military satellites, Boeing is a major potential beneficiary of just such a development.

Then theres missile defense, another new presidential favorite. Shanahan presided over Boeings missile defense division at a time when one of the systems being developed was the Airborne Laser, meant to zap launched nuclear missiles with lasers installed on Boeing 747 aircraft. The project, a dismal failure, was cancelled after more than $5 billion in taxpayer funds had been sunk into it. The Pentagons latest Star Wars-style anti-missile technology, whose development was just announced by President Trump, calls for a major investment in an equally impractical set of technologies at a price that Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund suggests could reach $1 trillion in the decades to come.

Among Boeings current missile-defense programs is the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, an array of land-based interceptor missiles that has already failed the majority of its tests. Its unlikely that it will ever function effectively in a situation in which incoming warheads would be accompanied by large numbers of decoys. The Congressional Budget Office has identified the cancellation of the program as one obvious decision that could save significant sums. But what chance is there that Shanahan would support such a decision, given all those years in which he advocated for that missile-defense system at Boeing?

Or take nuclear policy. His former company is one of two finalists to build a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Critics of such weapons systems like Clinton administration Secretary of Defense William Perry point out that ICBMs are the most dangerous and unnecessary leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, since in a potential war they might need to be launched on only minutes' notice, lest they be lost to incoming enemy nukes. Even some of their supporters have questioned the need for a brand-new ICBM when older ones could be upgraded. Nuclear hawks might eventually be persuaded to adopt such a position, too, since the cost of the Pentagons across-the-board $1.5 trillion modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (including the production of new nuclear bombers, missiles, and warheads) will otherwise begin to impinge on department priorities elsewhere. But how likely is Shanahan to seriously entertain even such modest critiques when they threaten to eliminate a huge potential payday for Boeing?

Finally, there is the issue of U.S. support for the brutal war launched by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Yemen nearly four years ago. Boeings combat planes, bombs, and attack helicopters have played a central role in that conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, while a Saudi blockade of the country has put millions more at risk of famine. In addition, Boeing continues to benefit from a $480 million contract to service the F-15s it has supplied to the Royal Saudi Air Force.

Here, President Trump is firmly in that companys corner. Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon... I dont wanna hurt jobs, he told 60 Minutes. I dont wanna lose an order like that [from the Saudi government]. Before his resignation, Secretary of Defense James Mattis was regularly called upon to comment on the Saudi war and help craft U.S. policy towards both that country and the UAE. Where will Shanahan stand on a war significantly fueled by the products of his former company?

There is, in fact, a grim precedent for Shanahans present situation. The Intercept and the Wall Street Journal have both reported that State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Charles Faulkner, a former lobbyist for Raytheon, advocated giving Saudi Arabia a clean bill of health on its efforts to avoid hitting civilians in its air strikes in Yemen, lest Raytheon lose a lucrative bomb deal. So much for draining the swamp.

The Revolving Door Spins Both Ways

Shanahan and Faulkner are far from the only former defense executives or lobbyists to populate the Trump administration. Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson is a former lobbyist for Lockheed Martin. Ellen Lord, who heads procurement at the Pentagon, worked at Textron, a producer of bombs and military helicopters. Secretary of the Army Mark Esper -- rumored as a possible replacement for Shanahan as secretary of defense -- was once a top lobbyist at Raytheon. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood was a senior vice president at Lockheed Martin. And the latest addition to the club is Charles Kupperman, who has been tapped as deputy national security advisor. His career includes stints at both Boeing and Lockheed Martin. (His claim to fame: asserting that the United States could win a nuclear war.)

All of the above, including Patrick Shanahan, spun through that famed revolving door into government posts, but so many former DoD officials and top-level military officers have long spun in the opposite direction. In 1969, for example, Wisconsin Democratic Senator William Proxmire, a legendary Pentagon watchdog, was already describing the problem this way:

"The easy movement of high-ranking military officers into jobs with major defense contractors and the reverse movement of top executives in major defense contractors into high Pentagon jobs is solid evidence of the military-industrial complex in operation. It is a real threat to the public interest because it increases the chances of abuse... How hard a bargain will officers involved in procurement planning or specifications drive when they are one or two years from retirement and have the example to look at of over 2,000 fellow officers doing well on the outside after retirement?"

Or, as a 1983 internal Air Force memo, put it, "If a colonel or a general stands up and makes a fuss about high cost and poor quality, no nice man will come to see him when he retires."

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump appeared to recognize the obvious problem of the revolving door and proposed a five-point ethics reform plan to slow it down, if not shut it down entirely. Unfortunately, the ethics executive order he put in place once in office fell wildly short of his campaign ambitions, leaving that revolving door spinning madly. A new report from the Project On Government Oversight has documented 645 cases in 2018 alone in which former government officials held jobs at the top 20 Pentagon contractors. The leader among them? You probably wont be surprised to learn that its Boeing, with 84 such hires.

Retired Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, who led the Pentagons arms sales office, is a case in point. In that role, he helped promote sales of U.S. weaponry globally. Perhaps as a result, he earned himself a position as president for global services and support at Boeing less than a year after he retired. Hes far from alone. Retired Rear Admiral Donald Gaddis, a program officer for Navy air systems, also joined the company, as did retired Air Force Major General Jack Catton, Jr., who served as the director of requirements for the Air Combat Command before moving to Boeing. Retired Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek, the former head of the Defense Logistics Agency, charged with managing $35 billion in goods and services across the DoD annually, similarly became a vice president at Boeing.

Slowing the Revolving Door

Candidate Donald Trump saw the revolving door between government and industry as a problem. I think anybody that gives out these big contracts should never ever, during their lifetime, be allowed to work for a defense company, for a company that makes that product, he said. As the continuing flow of officials through it suggests, however, as president, hes done anything but drain that swamp.

In order to do so, he would, as a start, have to focus his administration on closing the many loopholes in current federal ethics laws, which, however imperfectly, seek to limit conflicts of interest on the part of government officials who move to jobs in industry. Under current law, lobbying restrictions on such former officials can be circumvented if they label themselves consultants or business development executives. Similarly, former Pentagon officials can go to work for an arms maker they once awarded a contract to as long as theyre hired by a different division of that company. In addition, while Congress requires that the Pentagon track whoevers moving through that revolving door, the database that does so is both incomplete and not available for public viewing.

Candidate Trump was onto something. However, rather than curbing the blatant conflicts inherent in the revolving door -- the ultimate symbol of the military-industrial complex in action -- President Trump is actually accelerating them. America is indeed great again, if you happen to be one of those lucky enough to be moving back and forth between plum jobs in the Pentagon and the weapons industry.

Mandy Smithberger is the director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

William D. Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffers new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.

Copyright 2019 Mandy Smithberger and William D. Hartung

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By Shamus Cooke

January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - When Trump announced his support for the unfolding coup in Venezuela, Bernie Sanders remained silent for 24 hours. This matters because coups are made or broken in the first moments or hours; a day during a coup can feel like a month or more.

With each hour Bernies silence roared louder. So much was hanging in the balance with Trump at home and abroad, to the point where a finger could tip the scales yet Bernie refused to lift his.

Among the many Democratic Party candidates running for President, only Tulsi Gabbard made an unequivocal statement condemning the coup, while leftist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez limited her criticism to a retweet.

While U.S. politics grappled furiously over the government shutdown, Trumps coup gifted the Democrats a dagger and an exposed flank, yet they refused to strike, returning the weapon so that it could be used against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela.

Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats went further and cheerleaded their Commander and Chief by using their platform to attack President Maduro. Trumps position was consequently strengthened. Instead of being condemned for breaking international law he was made to look like a responsible statesman, leading a coalition of countries facing off against an authoritarian dictator. The virulently anti-Trump section of the U.S. media closed ranks in his favor since it was difficult to find a dissenting opinion.

In this context Trump was put into an excellent position to win the war over the government shutdown, that is until the bold actions of airport workers swiftly ended the drama. But Trump certainly learned a valuable lesson: the Democratic Party resistance crumbles in critical moments when a foreign conflict erupts, which helps promote more such moments in the future.

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Bernie Finally Tweets!

After an excruciating day of silence Bernie finally found his voice by sending three tweets. But the content was revealing, reinforcing the weakness that kept him silent during the first critical day.

Tweet #1 was essentially a point-by-point plagiarism of Trumps lies used to justify the coup. Bernie Tweeted:

The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating.

Instead of targeting Trumps coup actions Bernie targets the victim. Bernies allegation of a fraudulent election is simply slander, since Venezuelas elections are widely regarded as among the best in the world.

Every time the opposition in Venezuela believes theyll lose an election they boycott it, though the opposition was fractured during the last election, to the point where some boycotted while others supported two separate anti-Maduro candidates. Thus, every semi-objective observer knew Maduro would easily and fairly cruise to victory. For Bernie to give Trump this ammo the key rationale being used to justify the coup simply makes the Senator an accomplice in a crime.

Furthermore, Bernie claiming that Maduro dissolved the National Assembly is also untrue. Although what happened is complicated, the Venezuelan Supreme Court (not Maduro) dissolved the National Assembly in 2017, in reaction to flagrant violations of law that made the pro-opposition Assembly a non-functioning institution that only passed laws which unconstitutionally attacked Maduros government.

Venezuela has been functioning in a state of dual power since 2017, when a unitary government was torn into two by the pressures of the class struggle and the non-stop shenanigans of a U.S. supported opposition hellbent on overthrowing the government.

Regarding Bernies mention of the economy being a disaster, he surely knows that U.S. economic sanctions, pro-opposition immigration policies and political threats have much to do with the situation, choosing to ignore these critical factors because doing so bolsters anti-Maduro sentiment.

Bernies 2nd Tweet was a reinforcement of the first, further buttressing Trumps actions:

The United States should support the rule of law, fair elections and self-determination for the Venezuelan people. We must condemn the use of violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of dissent.

The unarmed protestors that Bernie is referring to here are the shock troops of the wealthy opposition trying to overthrow the government, who in 2017 lead deadly, violent protests that resulted in over a 100 dead, which included the opposition burning alive at least four pro-Maduro supporters. Bernie certainly knows that the opposition in Venezuela is neither peaceful nor democratic.

The 3rd and final tweet is where Bernie finally expresses his half-hearted opposition to Trumps coup:

But we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coupsas we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil & the DR. The US has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American nations; we must not go down that road again.

Bernie says we must not go down that road again, while failing to condemn the fact that Trump is a 1,000 miles down the coup road already. Much planning and organization has gone into the coup, to the point where every pro-U.S. country in South America and key European allies have agreed to recognize a new President, Juan Guaido, who has zero actual legitimacy.

Also, critically, in his Tweets Bernie puts no demands on Trump, offering no solutions to the mushrooming crisis he doesnt insist that Trump withdraw his recognition of the coup leader as President, nor does he suggest any specific actions that would act to reverse the current course, allowing it to continue unbothered.

Such a passive position that buttresses many of the key lies that Trump used to make his case amounts to, at best, a neutral position, and as Desmond Tutu said neutrality aids the oppressor. In reality Bernies position is a signal to Trump that no organized opposition to the coup will occur, while Democrats will limit their reaction to the ensuing bloodshed by criticizing Maduro.

Why Imperialism Matters

The question of imperialism isnt abstract, affecting only people in under-developed, exotic countries like Venezuela. In reality U.S. foreign intervention government directly impacts U.S. residents every day, ruining their living standards while ensuring that their children have an even less opportune future.

Money spent abroad and the politics it creates always affects whats possible domestically, since tax dollars that go to destroy other governments cannot be used for the kind of proposals that Bernie makes, such as Medicare For All, free college education, a Green New Deal, etc. A key reason that Western European countries have amazing social programs is the small size of their armies.

War spending acts as an endless, guaranteed veto to social programs that people in the U.S. desperately want but are always denied a true example of how oppression abroad limits your freedoms at home.

In the article Does Bernie Sanders Imperialism Matter, this writer argued:

Imperialism is a bogeyman that haunts social progress, re-appearing in countless forms to keep resources flowing endlessly into wars abroad that stunt domestic spending and distract from working class demands. A new military crisis will always strive to take priority over domestic considerations.

Will the Coup Fail?

Some analysts have already dismissed Trumps coup as a failure, since the Venezuelan military appears unified in their support for Maduro. But the coup machinery is marching forward. U.S. allies in Europe (France, Germany, and Spain) have given Maduro 8 days to hold new elections, or they will recognize Juan Guaido as President. Of course elections cannot be held in 8 days in any country; the demand simply acts as a pretense to give the coup momentum.

For European powers to follow Trump into the abyss over Venezuela means that Trump has spent much political capital cajoling them into action. This coup is a serious investment that will demand returns. The nations following Trump dont typically break with international norms so spectacularly, since doing so is risky; thus the Europeans must be convinced that the U.S. will actually complete the coup, ensuring that Maduro falls, otherwise Germany will be recognizing as President a man ingloriously hiding underground to avoid arrest like a common criminal.

If Trump fails to complete the coup the U.S. loses vital credibility, and next time finding allies on such adventures will be harder. If the U.S. recognizes a President that never becomes President there are political-economic consequences. For example the U.S. cannot afford to look weak internationally while its actively threatening China and Russia and still involved in the multi-nation Syrian War. The major powers are furiously competing for allies and a failed coup makes one less competitive.

A country that uses its military as its main political lever cannot afford a sickly image, which is a key reason why so many establishment figures were furious at Trump for not finishing the job in Syria, leaving Assad in power (Trump has since hesitated on his decision).

Trump is thus committed to this new undertaking, which will deepen in the coming days and weeks. Many are expecting that Trump will use the Syrian option  formerly referred to as the Salvador option  which begins with the arming and training of anti-Maduro militias, and ends with attacks on the government and/or pro-Maduro forces that create the need for U.S. intervention to impose law and order. The rehearsal for this strategy already occured in 2017, when the above-mentioned violent protests occurred but didnt quite provoke a large enough crisis to justify U.S. military intervention.

Such conspiracy theories were immediately given credence when Trump announced, mid-coup, that he had a new Special Envoy to Venezuela, the notorious Elliot Abrams, made famous for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, where he was in the inner circle breaking laws while publicly advocating for the death squads (or Contras) that terrorized Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, which is where the term Salvador Option was birthed. Abrams was convicted for his role in Iran-Contra but predictably pardoned by George H.W. Bush (who used his office as VP to Reagan to promote Iran-Contra).

In his new position Abrams will focus on accelerating and finalizing the coup by holding talks with Venezuelan military and opposition figures, cobbling together groups willing to take the coup to the next level, and no doubt conspiring with hostile neighbors Columbia and Brazil, who can easily be lured in to the conflict with the smallest of concessions (Columbia has been involved for a number of years). Promises will be made to Venezuelan military figures who, after defecting, will have their profiles raised as the new leaders of the newly-created Venezuelan military.

If Maduro Falls

Abrams approach will quickly lead Venezuela into an especially bloody civil war, since much of the military came into maturity under Chavez, the majority of which still retain a strong devotion to the revolution and its principles.

Chavismo is further buttressed by the still-expanding National Bolivian Militia, where hundreds of thousands of working-class people received military training that focused, in part, to prepare the country for exactly the kind of coup being unleashed today. The Venezuelan working class will not quietly accept a right-wing dictatorship, and they have the means and organization to resist and win.

But if Maduros government falls the far-right opposition will seek to bulldoze the progress made under the Chavez-Maduro governments: a mass privatization frenzy will ensue while the currency crisis will be resolved over the backs of the working class.

The size of the political and economic correction will require enormous amounts of blood be spilled, as the organizations of the working class resist the attacks on their living standards, democracy, and dignity. The would-be President Juan Guaido has already discussed plans to ramp up the privatization of Venezuelas oil, as well as going to the austiery-hungry IMF, who will demand nothing less than their typical restructuring economic packages that target the social programs created by Chavez-Maduro. Ironically, it was IMF austerity that sparked the Venezuelan revolution nearly 30 years ago with the Caracazo Uprising.

When democracy is easily trashed abroad it empowers anti-democratic forces at home. As the U.S. military-industrial complex is emboldened, so too are the far-right political actors in the U.S. that are the most hardened supporters of militarism and Trumpism. As coups give birth to fascist-minded governments abroad, new allies for Trumpism are created from what could have been allies for the left. These are the hidden yet real consequences of Bernies inaction, which serves to minimize the importance of imperialism at a historic moment for the western hemisphere.

Shamus Cooke is a member of the Portland branch of Democratic Socialists of America. He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

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==See Also==

Venezuela Attorney General Begins Probe into Juan Guaido, Looks to Ban Travel

U.S. Oil Sanctions on Venezuela Look Like Iran 2.0: Trumps new restrictions leave little scope for a buyer of Venezuelan crude to appear from anywhere. Flows could trickle to nearly a halt.

New Zealand refuses to back Guaido as interim president :

China reaffirms support for Maduro as Venezuelan President

Trudeau Pushes Trumps Regime Change in Venezuela

Ron Paul: Bolton: We're Taking Venezuela's Oil

US defense of democracy is a pretext for seizing control of resources

US Threatens to Funnel Venezuelan Oil Revenues to Guaido

Juan Guaido says he is taking control of Venezuelas foreign assets

Former UN rapporteur: US sanctions against Venezuela causing economic and humanitarian crisis : Former United Nations rapporteur criticised the US for engaging in economic warfare against Venezuela which he claimed was the real reason for the economic and humanitarian crisis facing the country.

Elliott Abrams: An Unequivocal Sign Trump Is Preparing a Baptism in Venezuelan Blood

In case you missed it; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions

Guatemalan Boy Who Died in US Border Custody Buried

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Digital tourism giants Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor are profiting from "war crimes" by offering services in Israeli settlements, rights group Amnesty International said in a report published Wednesday.

The London-based organisation's "Destination: Occupation" report called on the companies to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories, including east Jerusalem.

"They are doing so despite knowing that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal," said the report.

"In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law."

Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan threatened to bar Amnesty from access to Israel over its charge.

"The hypocritical Amnesty International speaks in the name of human rights and in practice promotes boycotts against Israeli citizens as part of the anti-Semitic boycott and delegitimisation campaign," Erdan said in a statement released Tuesday night.

"I instructed the ministry of strategic affairs to examine the possibility of preventing Amnesty personnel from entering, or residing in, Israel, said Erdan who is also strategic affairs minister, charged with opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

He said that he had started to act well before the publication of Amnesty's study.

"A few weeks ago I asked the finance minister to end the tax benefits granted to the organisation," he said without giving details.

Israel sees the BDS movement as a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism -- a claim activists deny, saying they want only to see an end to Israel's occupation.

- 'Illegal exploitation' -

Amnesty International accused the online firms of "normalising" settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"To boost bookings, many listings in settlements boast of their proximity to areas of natural beauty in the occupied territories, such as the Dead Sea, nature reserves and the desert," it said.

"By listing and promoting these natural features and nature-based activities and attractions the digital companies are increasing the attractiveness of the listings, securing greater numbers of tourists and ultimately benefiting financially from the illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources."

Amnesty launched a campaign in 2017 calling on governments to prevent businesses based in their countries from operating in settlements.

"Governments worldwide must take action to regulate companies or activities over which they have control," said the report.

In November, Airbnb announced it was removing from its rental listings settlement homes in the occupied West Bank.

But it never said when the decision would go into force.

Israel passed legislation in March 2017 banning entry to foreigners who support boycotting the country or its settlements.

In November of that year Erdan's office denied entry to a US employee of Amnesty, with an interior ministry spokeswoman giving the grounds as "BDS", without elaborating.

About 450,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements often in confrontation with the territory's 2.5 million Palestinians, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in occupied east Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and major roadblocks to peace, as they are built on land Palestinians see as part of their future state.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - When German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron signed a new Franco-German Treaty last week in the historic city of Aachen it had pomp and gravitas as background setting.

But in the foreground, figuratively speaking, the two leaders are beset by jarring political problems in both their respective countries, as well as across the entire European Union and on the international level.

If the location of the 9th century Charlesmagne empire centered on German border city of Aachen was meant to inspire unity, it could equally also inspire doom. All empires are destined to fall. Why should the supranational EU not also succumb to demise?

The Franco-German accord signed by Macron and Merkel appeared to be more a PR gesture than a substantive development.

For a start, there already exists an accord between the two countries. The Elysee Treaty signed in 1963 was signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer and is viewed as an historic postwar reconciliation between the two major European powers which helped paved the way for the modern European Union.

Some observers questioned the need for Macron and Merkel to sign a new treaty. It was like an old couple renewing their marriage vows, commented historian Marion Gaillard to France 24.

The treaty last week aims to bring closer cooperation between Germany and France in the fields of foreign policy, defense, security, economic policy, and to reinforce the wider EU project. Importantly, another aim is to strengthen the ability of Europe to act independently.

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The day after signing, Angela Merkel addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she said the new Franco-German pact was a real step towards the creation of a European army.

Striving to give Europe independence in foreign policy and defense is obviously a response to the growing tensions between the United States and the EU, tensions that have rudely emerged since Donald Trump became president.

Trumps berating of European governments, in particular Germanys, over trade, foreign policy and NATO military spending has inevitably pushed the two main EU powers  Berlin and Paris  to close ranks and perhaps to try to salvage some respect for their images as not being mere vassals of Washington.

However, the outlook is not auspicious. European governments continue to slavishly follow the line from Washington on adopting hostile sanctions against Russia. Also last week, it was shameful how the EU meekly went along with Washingtons blatant coup attempt in Venezuela. So much for being independent!

Merkel and Macron also had their eyes on mounting pressures from within the European bloc.

The two leaders lamented the rise of populism and nationalism as negative forces undermining and fracturing the 28-member EU project. Thus by signing the accord last week, the German and French leaders were aiming to inspire unity and cohesion.

Again, their effort seems more pomp and PR than anything of substantive progress.

While Macron poured tea for Merkel and shared niceties in Aachen, both their countries are reeling from social unrest over economic grievances and uncontrolled immigration. Both leaders have seriously lost political authority. They are weakened figures in the eyes of their respective public, unlike the 1963 signatories De Gaulle and Adenauer who at the time were revered as statesmen.

Frances Macron is particularly despised by growing numbers of his citizens. The Yellow Vest protests, which have been gripping France for nearly three months, are demanding his resignation, mocking Macron as president of the very rich.

Merkel is also a shadow of the former Iron Chancellor she once was seen as. In her final term of office, she is due to step down with her reputation sullied by growing economic grievances among Germans and the rise of the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic party, Alternative for Germany. Merkels former open door policy on immigration has rebounded to damage the electoral strength of her center-right Christian Democrat party.

The signing of the Franco-German accord last week is seen as a hollow attempt by both leaders to give themselves an aura of gravitas in the face of growing criticism and rancor among voters. If anything, the exercise in Aachen will further incite popular contempt.

As for Macron and Merkel inspiring unity for the rest of Europe: their pomp and ceremony collides with the reality of visceral anger across the EU over what many citizens see as an aloof, unresponsive European establishment whose neoliberal capitalist policies relentlessly rack up social misery.

Macron deprecates so-called populism as a nasty scourge on a presumed pristine Europe. He has even referred to populist politics as a form of leprosy corroding the body politic of the EU. His snide comments were seen as an attack on the governing parties of Italy and Hungary.

Italys deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has become a thorn in Macrons side. Salvini lambasted the French leader for all talk and no action, adding that he hoped French voters will soon get rid of terrible Macron.

Italys second deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio also gave a verbal kicking to French pretensions last week. He slammed France for exploiting Africa through its economic policies towards former colonies, and in that way, claimed Di Maio, French governments are fueling migration to Europe.

Considering that Italy is one of the founding members of the EU  along with France and Germany  the increasingly bitter rhetoric demonstrates just how fractured the bloc has become.

It must be deeply alarming to Europhiles like Macron and Merkel that so many parties across the EU have endorsed Britains decision for Brexit, despite the mess that the Brits have made of that departure.

What Macron and Merkel, and other pro-EU establishment politicians, dont seem to understand is that populism is simply a democratic revolt against the orthodoxy of running economies to satisfy big banks and big business, while ordinary people are expected to endure poverty, low wages, unemployment, rising living costs, unaffordable housing, and deteriorating public services.

In other words, the likes of Macron and Merkel have created their own challenges, opposition, and failures from pursuing bankrupt capitalist policies.

At the Davos conference of business elites last week, Italian premier Giuseppe Conte castigated EU economic policies for sowing despair and discontent across Europe. He added: We are radical because we want to bring the power back to the people.

The Franco-German Treaty signed last week is a useless sticking plaster for covering up a fracturing Europe. What is required is to rebuild Europe with an economic, political system that is genuinely democratic in addressing the needs of ordinary people. And to create a Europe that is truly independent from Washingtons warmongering and Cold War obsession towards Russia.

This article was originally published by " Strategic Culture Foundation " -

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January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - WASHINGTON -

Leading Palestinian- and Muslim-American rights campaigners have decried a proposed US House of Representatives resolution accusing Muslim congresswomen of anti-Semitism due to their criticism of Israeli policies, saying the measure amounts to anti-Muslim bigotry.

Robert McCaw, director of the government affairs department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), denounced the "Islamophobic" resolution for specifically targeting two Muslim members of Congress for their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants from Michigan, and Omar, a former Somali-American state legislator in Minnesota who came to the United States as a refugee, were sworn in as the first Muslim women in Congress earlier this month.

They are part of a wave of progressive women of colour who won Democratic seats in November's mid-term elections.

Both women have voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, breaking with a longstanding bi-partisan support for Israel among lawmakers while limiting debate in Washington around Israeli violations against Palestinians.

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Last week, three Republicans introduced a symbolic resolution to condemn the "anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate infiltrating American politics and the halls of Congress", calling out Omar and Tlaib by name.

However, CAIR's McCaw said the congresswomen's diverse backgrounds allows them to bring fresh viewpoints to enrich the debate on foreign policy in Congress.

"They're going to bring a new perspective in which we can now have legitimate conversations about human rights abuses in Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories and the stifling of democracies by autocratic regimes, like the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," McCaw said of Tlaib and Omar.

The resolution

The Muslim lawmakers' outspoken stance against the Israeli occupation and violence against Palestinians appears to have prompted the resolution against them - less than a month into their first term in Congress.

The measure refers to Omar and Tlaib's support for BDS, a non-violent boycott movement that seeks to pressure Israel politically and economically to stop its abuses against Palestinians.

It then references a photo that Tlaib took with a Palestinian-American activist whom the resolution also accuses of anti-Semitism.

The measure also quotes a Twitter post by Tlaib in which she said US senators trying to impose penalties on companies that boycott Israel "forgot what country they represent".

The congresswoman later clarified that her statement intended to criticise American lawmakers for ignoring US laws that protect free speech, including boycotts.

The measure also cites a 2012 tweet by Omar during an Israeli military operation in Gaza, in which she said she hoped the world opens its eyes to the "evil doings of Israel".

Asked about the proposed resolution, Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said accusing Omar and Tlaib of anti-Semitism amounts to anti-Muslim bigotry.

"This resolution is an Islamophobic attack against two outspoken women of colour who are shaking things up by boldly standing for crucial issues," Munayyer told MEE in an email.

He said advocacy for Palestinian rights is part of "progressive politics of justice for all", dismissing the effort to conflate criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism.

"It is no coincidence that both of these targeted lawmakers are Muslim women of colour," Munayyer said. "It is the people who exist at the intersections of multiple vulnerable identities in our society that are usually seen as easy targets by adversaries looking to piggy-back on the prevalence of bigotry in society to achieve their political ends."

Munayyer likened the attacks against the congresswomen to Israeli politicians' efforts to suppress the voices of Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

That includes Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who has faced suspension, investigations and attempts to disqualify her from running for re-election because of her criticism of the Israeli government.

References to Pittsburgh, Charlottesville

In an attempt to highlight the rise of anti-Semitism in the US, the proposed resolution also cites violent incidents and deadly hate crimes - alongside the section on Omar and Tlaib.

It refers to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting carried out by a white supremacist, which killed 11 Jewish congregates late last year and the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that ended in the killing of an anti-racist, counter-protester.

US President Donald Trump drew criticism after the Charlottesville incident for saying there were "very fine people on both sides" and suggesting that both the neo-Nazi demonstrators and the people protesting against their hateful rally shared the blame for the violence.

Congressman Lee Zeldin, the lead sponsor of the resolution targeting Tlaib and Omar, defended Trump at the time.

"It is not right to suggest that President Trump is wrong for acknowledging the fact that criminals on both sides showed up for the purpose of being violent," Zeldin said in a statement in August 2017. "That particular observation is completely true."

Omar and Tlaib have both repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism and other forms of racial hatred.

"With the rise of Anti-Semitic and Neo-Nazi ideology, it's more important than ever we learn from the atrocities of the past & commit to fighting intolerance," Omar wrote on Twitter on Monday, in observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.

- Sheren Khalel contributed to the reporting.

This article was originally published by

"

MEE

" -

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==See Also==

Ray McGovern: The Inside Scoop on the Middle East & Israel

Ray explains you cannot understand the situation in the Middle East without understanding the relationship between the US and Israel.

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In Case You Missed it - Reposted From December 2006

Why We're at War? Confessions of a USA Economic Hit Man, Meet John Perkins

By Sam Elfassy

John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", blows the lid of US imperiliasm and provides the reasons as to why it is at war in the Middle East.

January 29, 2019 "

Information Clearing House

"

- Reposted from December 2006 -

Since his book was published, and his famous interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now TV , where he also describes more of the US ugly deeds against the innocent Iranian people, John Perkins has worked to get the truth out in every possible way.

Perkins describes himself as a former economic hit man - a highly paid professional who cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars - in US government service.

In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he writes how he helped the US cheat poor countries around the world by blackmailing them to borrow more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.

Pulitzer prize-winning author and Harvard Professor, John E. Mack, writes about the book: "One of the most important stories of our time a work of great insight, moral courage and transformational deptha page turner about the ruthlessness with which the United States uses economic manipulation and political coercion to extend our power and control over other nations".

Perkins writes: "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits - Jaime Roldos, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldos and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in".

Here is a three part speech given to the Veterans For Peace National Convention, Seattle, WA, in late 2006.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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Russia's Lavrov says U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela oil Company Illegal

By Reuters

January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuelas state oil company are illegal and Russia will take all necessary steps to support the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Lavrov said the sanctions amounted to an attempt by the United States to confiscate Venezuelan state assets, Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.

This article was originally published by " Reuters " -

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

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==See Also==

Trudeau Pushes Trumps Regime Change in Venezuela
By Eli Rosenberg and Dan Lamothe

January 29, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - National security adviser John Bolton appeared to disclose confidential notes written on a yellow pad Monday that included a plan to send U.S. troops to Colombia amid escalating tensions with Venezuela.

During a briefing at the White House to announce sanctions against Venezuelas oil industry, Bolton held the notepad against his jacket with its pages facing outward.

Scrawled in tight print at the top of the cover page were two items: Afghanistan -> Welcome the Talks, an apparent reference to ongoing peace negotiations with the Taliban, and 5,000 troops to Colombia.

Pentagon officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the Defense Department hadnt received any orders to this effect.

Asked about the handwritten notes that were visible to cameras, the White House pointed to statements made by Bolton and his boss, President Trump, in recent days that all options are on the table regarding Venezuela.

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The plan raised more questions about the potential for military action in Venezuela. If enacted, the troop movement would mark a major escalation of U.S. involvement in South America, though it is unclear what exactly the service members roles would be.

The hospital ship USNS Comfort deployed to the Colombian port of Riohacha to treat Venezuelan migrants in the fall, but it has since returned home. The U.S. military has collaborated with its Colombian counterpart for years, providing training on everything from counterinsurgency to securing aircraft crash scenes.

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela  a constant for more than a dozen years  have surged to crisis levels in the past week, after the United States recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys president. Guaido, the head of the countrys National Assembly, had invoked the constitution to declare himself Venezuelas president last week.

The diplomatic crisis has continued as the United States defied an order by President Nicolas Maduro to evacuate its embassy staff from the country.
Israeli police say officers shot and killed a female Palestinian teenager who allegedly attempted to stab security personnel at a West Bank checkpoint near Jerusalem.

Police say the 16-year-old girl drew a knife on the officers, who then opened fire. No Israelis were wounded.

A police security video of Wednesday's incident appears to show the girl lunge at one of the officers at the checkpoint before she was shot. It is unclear how close the knife got to the officer, who jumped away while a second officer shoots her.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld called the incident a "deadly situation."

Israel is often accused with using excessive force against Palestinians.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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PART-TIME POSITION available in our packaging area.

Job responsibilities include putting inserts into the newspaper. Must have a positive attitude and be a team player. Applicants must be able to: lift up to 20-lbs; stand for long periods of time; be available to work Sunday thru Friday, late evening to early morning hours; pass drug screen.
Christopher Martin Owens, left, is slated to undergo a third trial for the killing of Richard Lynn "Rick" Tyler in East Wenatchee in 2008.
Local salon owners some of dozens who testified against controversial proposed bill at state Capitol
A Turkish court ruled on Wednesday that a U.S. consulate employee in the southern city of Adana be released after it convicted him of membership and support for an armed terrorist organisation, state media said.

Hamza Ulucay, a translator at the U.S. consulate in Adana, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail but released by the court due to time served, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

Ulucay was detained along with two other local U.S. consulate employees and a former Turkish-American NASA scientist in 2017 over terrorism charges. Washington wants all of them released.

During his trial on Wednesday Ulucay sought acquittal, but his request was denied and he was released with a travel ban after being sentenced, Anadolu said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara declined to comment.

Last year, relations between Ankara and Washington neared breaking point over the two-year detention and trial of U.S. evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson on terrorism charges. Brunson, who denied the charges, was freed on Oct. 12.

While tensions eased between the NATO allies after Brunson's release, Ankara still repeatedly demands that the United States extradite U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it accuses of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016. Gulen denies any involvement.

Since the abortive putsch, Turkey has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants over suspected links to the coup attempt, according to the U.N. human rights office.

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CARACAS: Venezuela`s government struck back at self-declared interim president Juan Guaido on Tuesday, with the Supreme Court imposing a travel ban and freeze on his bank accounts despite a warning from Washington of "serious consequences" if it did so.

The court also said prosecutors could investigate Guaido, in apparent retaliation for sweeping U.S. sanctions on oil firm PDVSA, announced on Monday.

The sanctions mean the state-run company may not be able to fulfill contracts with North American buyers, the government of President Nicolas Maduro said.

Aimed at driving Maduro from power, the sanctions were the strongest measures yet against the 56-year-old former union leader, who has overseen economic collapse and an exodus of millions of Venezuelans in recent years.

The measures triggered higher global oil prices, angry responses from China and Russia and the first serious moves against Guaido since he challenged Maduro`s claim on the presidency last week.

The Supreme Court approved a request from Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek Saab to open a preliminary investigation into Guaido based on accusations he helped foreign countries to interfere in internal matters. The court also imposed a travel ban on the 35-year-old leader and froze his bank accounts.

As a lawmaker who heads the National Assembly, Guaido has immunity from prosecution unless ordered by a top court. But the 32-member Supreme Court is loyal to Maduro and moved quickly to open the investigation.

In response to news earlier of the attorney general`s plan, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton warned of "serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido," in a tweet that described Saab as the "illegitimate former Venezuelan Attorney General."

The United States and several other countries have recognized Guaido as Venezuela`s legitimate head of state and denounced Maduro as a usurper. Maduro, sworn in on Jan. 10 for a second term after disputed elections last year, accuses Guaido of staging a U.S.-directed coup against him. Maduro is backed by a number of countries, including Russia.

Maduro`s inauguration sparked protests throughout Venezuela. Over 40 people are believed to have been killed in political violence last week, including 26 shot by pro-government forces, five killed in house raids and 11 during looting, U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on Tuesday.

He said more than 850 people were detained between Jan. 21 and Jan. 26, including 77 children, some as young as 12.

Guaido said on Tuesday he did not underestimate the threat of imprisonment but did not believe it was "anything new." Many opposition leaders have been imprisoned in the South American nation.

"We are here. We will keep acting and working to confront the humanitarian crisis," Guaido told a news conference.

Most experts believe the sanctions and other measures against Maduro will encourage him to step down only if he loses the support of the powerful military, which until now has been mostly loyal to the leftist ruling party founded by late President Hugo Chavez.

Maduro appeared on a television broadcast from a military base on Tuesday, praising the soldiers` loyalty.

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had certified Guaido`s authority to control certain assets held by U.S.-insured banks, including government and central bank accounts.
Washington: The United States, on Tuesday, slammed China over the four-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed to detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, calling for his immediate release. The nation also condemned the "deteriorating situation for the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms" in China through a statement issued by the US State Department`s Deputy Spokesperson, Robert Palladino.

"The United States is deeply concerned by the sentencing of human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang in Tianjin, China on January 28 to four-and-a-half years in prison on charges of `subverting state power`, Palladino put forth.

"We are troubled that China has subjected Mr Wang to a three-and-a-half-year period of pre-trial detention, and has been held incommunicado, has been deprived of legal counsel of his choosing, and that his chosen lawyer has been subjected to reprisals," he said.

"We remain concerned by the deteriorating situation for the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms in China, and continue to urge China to uphold its international human rights commitments and to respect the rule of law," the US outlined.

Wang was one of the scores of individuals arrested by China as part of a national crackdown in 2015 on political and religious dissent.

The prominent human rights lawyer had already been in detention for over three-and-a-half years when he was handed over the sentence on Monday in Tianjin.Apart from his prison sentence, Wang has been "deprived of his political rights" for the next five years, which means that he cannot vote, has no freedom of protest, speech or publication, and cannot hold any government-related jobs.
WASHINGTON: China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades, U.S. intelligence leaders told senators on Tuesday, in testimony that repeatedly contradicted President Donald Trump`s statements on global threats.

While Beijing and Moscow seek to expand their global reach, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. policies on security and trade.

"China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways - to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure," Coats said. He testified with the directors of the CIA, FBI and other top intelligence officials at the Senate Intelligence Committee`s annual hearing on worldwide threats.

"Moscow`s relationship with Beijing is closer than it`s been in many decades," Coats told the panel.

The intelligence chiefs` assessments broke with some past assertions by their boss, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections and democratic institutions and North Korea`s determination to denuclearize.

Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat.

The intelligence officials also said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, even though Tehran has threatened to reverse some commitments after Trump pulled out of the deal.

Senators expressed deep concern about current threats.

"Increased cooperation between Russia and China - for a generation that hasn`t been the case - that could be a very big deal on the horizon in terms of the United States," said Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

ALLIES PULL AWAY

Coats also said some U.S. allies are seeking more independence, responding to their perceptions of Washington`s changing policies on security and trade, and "are becoming more open" to new partnerships.

"The post-World War Two international system is coming under increasing strain amid continuing cyber and WMD proliferation threats, competition in space and regional conflicts," Coats said, using the acronym for weapons of mass destruction.

The officials painted a multifaceted picture of the threat posed by China, as they were questioned repeatedly by senators about the No. 2 world economy`s business practices as well as its growing international influence.

"The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
London: British MPs on Tuesday voted to reject a chaotic 'no-deal' Brexit by 318 to 310 votes but backed British Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to change the withdrawal agreement already struck with the European Union (EU).

Conservative Party MP Caroline Spelman and Labour MP Jack Dromey had tabled an amendment to try to prevent a crash-out exit of the UK from the EU, which won the support of MPs by eight votes, undermining the government's argument that Britain would be willing to crash out of the EU without an agreement.

However, the vote is not legally binding - meaning it showed the view of the House of Commons but does nothing to change the Brexit date of March 29.

Soon after, MPs also voted in favour of an amendment backed by the government to seek "alternative arrangements" to the controversial Irish backstop, which seeks to avert a hard border between Britain and Ireland after Brexit.

May had said she was backing the amendment to re-open negotiations in Brussels with an "emphatic message" of what British MPs want.

The amendment tabled by Tory MP Graham Brady passed by 317 votes to 301 - a majority of 16, which effectively calls on May to renegotiate her Brexit deal with the EU and find an alternative to the controversial Irish backstop.

"We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the House's views,? May said in a statement after the vote.

Earlier, the Commons had voted against a proposal to delay Brexit in order to prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

The amendment had been put forward by Labour Party MP Yvette Cooper, but was rejected by 23 votes.

If passed, the amendment would have secured time for MPs to vote on a draft bill that sought to hand Parliament the power to request an extension of the Brexit negotiations if Theresa May failed to secure backing of her Brexit plans by February 26.

The votes came as part of changes sought to the British PM's current proposals before she seeks a re-negotiation of an agreement with the EU, which she will hope is more acceptable to a deeply divided UK Parliament.

The House of Commons on Tuesday also rejected a bid by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to force a debate on Labour's Brexit plans.

Corbyn's call for more time to be given for MPs to consider alternatives to the Brexit deal was the first in a series of amendments being put to the vote on Tuesday evening.

Britain is set to exit the EU on March 29 and there is a scramble to secure a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to all sides before that deadline to avoid a chaotic no-deal crashout of the UK from the economic bloc.

Different Brexit factions have tabled amendments to Theresa May's exit plan, which she was forced to bring back to the Commons on Tuesday after MPs had overwhelmingly rejected her Brexit deal earlier this month.
WASHINGTON: Islamic State is expected to lose its final bits of territory in Syria to U.S.-backed forces within a couple of weeks, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said on Tuesday, even as U.S. intelligence assessed that the militant group would still pose a threat to the United States.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have been backed by 2,000 U.S. troops and air support, are preparing for a final showdown with Islamic State in eastern Syria after helping drive the fighters from the towns and cities that once formed the group`s self-proclaimed caliphate.

Islamic State fighters in eastern Syria are pinned down in a tiny pocket with their wives and children, forcing a U.S.-backed militia to slow its advance to protect civilians, the militia said on Tuesday.

"I`d say 99.5 percent plus of the ISIS-controlled territory has been returned to the Syrians. Within a couple of weeks, it`ll be 100 percent," Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that Islamic State had been defeated and announced the abrupt withdrawal of American troops in Syria, over the objections of top advisers, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who quit in protest.

Critics say a U.S. withdrawal could allow Islamic State to regroup and also unleash a threatened offensive by Turkey against Kurdish elements within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Ankara believes is an extension of the PKK militant group waging an insurgency on Turkish soil.

The annual Worldwide Threat Assessment from the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), released on Tuesday, contradicted assertions by Trump and other top administration officials that Islamic State had been defeated in Syria and Iraq, saying the group still commanded thousands of fighters and posed a long-term threat to both countries.

`CONTINUED TERRORISM THREAT`

During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Islamic State and other militant groups would remain active for years around the world.

"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States," he said. "This terrorism threat is going to continue for some time."

The SDF has vowed to escalate its operations against Islamic State this month after a bomb attack killed several people, including two U.S. soldiers in northern Syria. SDF officials have warned of an Islamic State revival if Washington withdraws.

"ISIS is no longer able to govern in Syria, ISIS no longer has freedom to mass forces, Syria is no longer a safe haven," Shanahan said.

He said the withdrawal was in its early stages. While the Pentagon has declined to set a timeline for the withdrawal, officials have estimated it could be complete by the end of March.

Earlier this month, the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State added to confusion surrounding the American withdrawal from Syria by saying it had started the pullout process, but officials later clarified that only equipment - not troops - was being withdrawn.

The State Department said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be holding a day of meetings next week in Washington with foreign ministers from the coalition fighting Islamic State.

"Ministers will discuss the next phase of the campaign in Iraq and Syria, which will focus on protecting against a resurgence of ISIS through stabilization and security assistance," a statement said. It added that they would also discuss the next steps in degrading Islamic State`s global networks outside of Iraq and Syria.
WASHINGTON: The FBI has said it is investigating Chinese economic espionage in nearly all of its 56 field offices in America, highlighting the depth of the threat to the US.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told this to members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threat assessment.

"I think China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face. We have economic espionage investigations, for example--that's just one piece of it--in virtually every one of our 56 field offices," Wray said.

"The number of those has probably doubled over the last three or four years. And almost all of them, not all of them but almost of them, lead back to China,? Wray said in response to a question from Senator Ben Sass who wanted to know about the threats that US faces from China and different Chinese actions inside the United States.

"I would certainly agree with you that as I look at the landscape today and over the course of my career--I still think of myself as a little bit young--that the Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of," said the FBI Director.
VENEZUELA: The unusual arrival of a Russian passenger plane in Caracas has set social media abuzz with rumors about its mission after the Kremlin pledged to support its ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against a United States-backed effort to drive him from office.

The Boeing 777, with space for some 400 passengers and belonging to Russia`s Nordwind Airlines, was parked by a private corner of the airport after flying direct from Moscow, according to flight tracking data and Reuters photos.

It was the first time it had made the route, the data showed. Neither Nordwind nor the Venezuelan government immediately responded to a request to comment on why the jet had flown to Caracas.

Venezuelan social media was alive with theories - that it had brought mercenaries, was there to escort Maduro into exile, or was loading up with gold. None of those theories was based on solid evidence, but the feverish speculation was a testament to the atmosphere of uncertainty in the country as Maduro comes under unprecedented international pressure to step down.

Reuters reported last week that private military contractors who carry out secret missions for Russia had flown into Venezuela to beef up Maduro`s security in the face of mass opposition protests last week, according to people close to them.

The plane normally flies between Russia and Southeast Asia and is not recorded to have flown to Caracas before, according to publicly-available flight data. Neither Nordwind nor other commercial airlines offer direct Moscow-Caracas flights.

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported the plane flew with two crews and no passengers. Maduro claims he is facing a Washington-backed coup attempt led by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who last week proclaimed himself president and was recognized by the United States as the legitimate head-of-state.

Russia has accused US President Donald Trump`s administration of trying to usurp power in Venezuela and warned against any military intervention. The Kremlin on Tuesday condemned new US sanctions against Venezuela`s vital oil sector as illegal interference in the OPEC member`s affairs.


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US President Donald Trump and his conversations around global warming are back (alas!), again. At a time when the US is dealing with record-breaking winter conditions, Trump is calling back 'global waming' for rescue.

He tweeted: "In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People cant last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!"

In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People cant last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2019

Twitterati (with a sigh) then began with the exercise to teach him a thing or two about global warming. First the spelling!

GLOBAL WAMING!!!  Joely Fisher (@MsJoelyFisher) January 30, 2019

Mr. President, I noticed youre using an iPhone and thought this might help. pic.twitter.com/3tUI70Ax0g  Olivia Munn (@oliviamunn) January 29, 2019

the president of the united states asking for global warming. pretty cool stuff here guys  chris melberger (@chrismelberger) January 30, 2019

You tweet so much dumb shit that it's hard for us to keep track. Can you slow down a little?  Andy Cohen (@Andy) January 30, 2019

Some even tried to give Science lessons to the President.

Read a science book.  Robert Berry (@retrocrush) January 29, 2019

Will someone PLEASE explain extreme-weather science to this man? Stay safe, Midwesterners!  Clinton Kelly (@clinton_kelly) January 30, 2019

Climate and weather are different things... there are literally grade school aged children that understand this.  Chris Allington (@chrisallphoto) January 30, 2019

Due to a blast of arctic-chilled air from the polar vortex, a record-setting cold has covered the eastern United States. Cities in the Midwest opened warming shelters as temperatures plummeted well below zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17.8 degrees Celsius). Hundreds of schools have been closed and over 1000 flights have been cancelled in view of the cold.

The Midwest is the hardest-hit area, with a life-threatening wind chill bringing temperatures down as low as minus 50F (minus 46C) in the Chicago area and northern Illinois by Tuesday evening.

As NASA explains, the difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time. When we talk about climate change, we talk about changes in long-term averages of daily weather.

In such a scenario, shouldn't people be just blown away with what the US President thinks of global warming?

God help America...  Leo Rautins (@LeoRautins) January 29, 2019

'God help America'. Well, we agree with this.
New Delhi: Popular television actress Shilpa Shinde is ready to entertain us on small screens yet again! Before you get too excited, it is to be noted that the actress will next be seen in a cameo role in a Marathi show.

The show is titled as 'Chhatriwali' and will have Shinde giving a special performance. As per a TellyChakkar report, the Shilpa will be seen performing on the engagement ceremony of the show's lead pair. The report further stated that Shilpa has recently shot for the show and will be seen wearing a pink saree and a signature Maharashtrian nose pin.

The talented actress has an ocean of fans who have been excited to watch her on-screen after she won Bigg Boss season 11.

Shilpa first won hearts when she played the role of Angoori Bhabhi in &TV's 'Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain'. The actress's portrayal of the character was much-loved by the audience and Shilpa's name soon became synonyms with the show.

Then, the actress emerged winner of the popular and controversial reality show 'Bigg Boss'. Actress Hina Khan was the first runner up.

Ever since Bigg Boss, fans had been eagerly waiting to watch Shilpa on television and looks like their wait has finally come to an end.
A major fire broke out at the Nampally exhibition grounds in Hyderabad, Telangana on Wednesday night, as reported by news agency ANI.

At least two persons were admitted to hospital due to suffocation, ANI reported quoting officials.

The fire broke out in a stall at the All India Industrial Exhibition. Fire tenders were rushed to the spot to put out the fire even as disaster response force of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation was pressed into service, they said.

Around 35,000 people visited the stalls on Wednesday.

The fire started at around 8.30 pm and based on preliminary information, it was revealed that the blaze might have started due to short-circuit at a private bank's stall which spread to nearby areas, triggering panic among visitors.

Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali said there was no loss of life and around 130 stalls were gutted in the incident. A thorough inquiry would be conducted into the matter, he said.

Twelve fire tenders and as many water tankers were rushed to the spot to put out the fire and teams of disaster response force of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation were also pressed into service, the officials said.

The fire was brought under control by 11 pm, they said.

GHMC Commissioner Dana Kishore said the visitors were safely evacuated in a coordinated manner and the situation is under control now.

Mahmood Ali, GHMC Mayor B Rammohan, Kishore along with senior officials from police and other departments were present at the spot and monitored rescue operations.

Eye-witnesses, many of them businessmen, said they suffered heavy loss of property due to the fire and claimed they had taken loans to set up the stalls. They demanded the government to extend financial assistance.

The 45-day All-India industrial exhibition popularly called 'Numaish' started on January 1.

Organising Committee of the Exhibition Society had earlier said around 2,500 stalls of various products will be set up at the Nampally exhibition grounds.

with PTI inputs
JAIPUR: Rajasthan Assembly has 46 legislators with declared criminal cases, out of which 14 won with a with a vote share of 50% and above, says a recent report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Rajasthan Election Watch (REW).

Thirty-seven out of 46 winners with declared criminal cases have won against runners up with a clean background. Among these, four winners have won with more than 20 % margin of victory with BJP's Kailash Chandra Meghwal winning Shahpura constituency with a margin of 44 %.

Among 199 winners, 23 are women. None of the women winners has won with less than 30 % of vote share, shares the report. Among the women winners, Zahida Khan (INC) from Kaman Constituency has won with the highest vote share of 58%.

The house also has 158 crorepati winners. Thirty out of 158 crorepati winners have won against non-crorepati runners up. Among these, just three winners won with vote margin of more than 20%.

There are 26 non-crorepati winners who have won against crorepati runners up. Only one of them has won with more than 20% margin of victory, states the report

In the Rajasthan Assembly Elections 2018, 86 political parties and independents were in the fray. These included, six national political parties, seven state political parties and 73 registered unrecognized parties. In comparison, during the 2013 Rajasthan State Assembly elections, 56 political parties were in the fray. These included, 6 national political parties, 10 state political parties and 40 registered unrecognized parties.

This reflects that there has been 54% increase in the number of political parties that contested in 2018 from 2013, states the report.

On December 11, the Congress emerged as the single largest party by winning 99 out of 199 seats in Rajasthan.

Ashok Gehlot was appointed as the Chief Minister and Sachin Pilot as Deputy CM.
Ajmer: Free education will be provided to girls in state-run institutions in Rajasthan from July, Higher Education Minister Bhanwar Singh Bhati said on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference, he said: "Girls studying in government colleges will be provided free education from the next academic session which starts in July. Also, the female students in colleges will be given sanitary napkins free of cost."

Bhati also said that there will be investigation into the recruitments made by the former BJP government in Rajasthan.

"The BJP government started colleges with poor infrastructure. We will ensure that adequate arrangements are made in these colleges," he added.
New Delhi: Celebrity-photographer Dabboo Ratnani hosted a calender launch party in Mumbai on Monday night and it was attended by stars like Tiger Shroff, Vidya Balan, Twinkle Khanna, Kriti Sanon, Kiara Advani, Kartik Aaryan, Sunny Leone, Ankita Lokhande among others.

Bollywood's timeless beauty and actress Rekha was also at the event. The actress had ditched her usual kanjeevaram saree and gajra for the event and turned up in a stylish all-black outfit with cateye shades. However, what she didn't know that she wasn't prepared for a goofy moment that was captured by the photographers.

Rekha was caught on camera, posing for the paparaazi. However, when she realised that she was accidentally standing in front of actor Amitabh Bachchan's picture, she swiftly ran away from it, leaving the viewers in splits.

The video has been shared on the social media with many reacting to it. Check out her hilarious expressions below:

Loll.. see how #Rekha ji reacted when she found herself posing next @SrBachchan __#AmitabhBachchan sir shouldn't miss this post _ Source: instagram pic.twitter.com/YwJzW7XGzc  #GullyBoy (@Ranveerianworld) January 29, 2019

While Rekha didn't feature on Dabboo Ratnani's calender, she attended the launch event and posed against the picture backdrops. Amitabh, on the other hand, shot for the calender. His son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have too apeared on the calender.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday lashed out at the former UPA government and accused them of not taking any action against the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai.

However, after the Uri attack, the ruling NDA government replied with the surgical strike, the Prime Minister said, adding that a change has been initiated by the ruling government..

"Terrorists attacked Mumbai, what happened after it? In our government, Uri happened, what happened after it? This is the change. The fire that was in the hearts of our jawans, it was in the heart of the PM too, Surgical Strike was the result," PM Modi said while addressing an event in Surat.

"There used to be rapes in this country earlier too, it is a shame that we still hear about such cases. Now, culprits are hanged within 3 days, 7 days, 11 days and a month. Steps are being taken continuously to get daughters justice and results are evident," he added.
Kanpur: Taking a dig at the proposed 'gathbandhan', BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday said if the grand alliance comes to power then there will a new prime minister everyday of the week.

"The opposition should spell out who its prime ministerial candidate is...If the '(maha) gathbandhan' takes shape, Mayawati will be the prime minister on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday, Mamata (Banerjee) on Wednesday, Sharad Pawar on Thursday, Deve Gowda on Friday and (M K) Stalin on Saturday and Sundays will be holidays," Shah said while addressing a meeting in Kanpur.

"They are out to bring a change and do not have a leader," he added. The BJP chief was addressing party's booth-level workers ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

"The BJP has four Bs - 'badhta Bharat' and 'banta Bharat'. Those who are forming an alliance have four Bs - 'bua' (aunt), 'bhatija' (nephew), 'bhai' (brother) and 'behen' (sister)," Shah said, accusing the opposition parties of dynastic politics.

"..Their government cannot take the country ahead. We want that a strong government is formed under Modiji, while they want a 'majboor' (helpless) government..Only Modiji can provide a 'mazboot' (strong) government," he asserted.

Shah exhorted the workers to ensure a formidable victory for the party in the parliamentary polls.

"It is also important for the country that BJP wins these elections..The win should be such that it shakes the opposition parties," he said.

Lashing out at the Congress, Shah said that none of the party's leaders had the right to raise the Ram Janmabhoomi issue.

"I have come to tell the people of Uttar Pradesh that BJP is committed to ensure that a grand temple is made at the Ram Janmabhoomi," Shah said.

"The Congress government had acquired 42 acres of land of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas...Nyas has asked that it be returned...We hope that the issue is resolved at the earliest and Lord Ram is installed in all his grandeur," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)
A day after vehicles of BJP supporters, who were attending a meeting of party president Amit Shah in East Midnapore district of West Bengal, were vandalised, police on Wednesday made several arrests.

So far we have arrested as many as 14 persons in connection with the attacks. Our investigation is on and we are trying to identify more persons who had attacked the vehicles by getting in touch with the eye-witnesses. We have registered the case and a probe is on, said a senior official of West Bengal Police.

On Tuesday, vehicles, belonging to BJP supporters, parked near Shah's rally venue at Kanthi in the district were vandalised and motorbikes were torched. Attacking the ruling Trinamool Congress government in the state, BJP leader Rahul Sinha had alleged that it is the ruling party who is behind the attack.

According to the sources in the West Bengal police, three cases were filed. One each from the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the third suo motu FIR was filed by the police to investigate the clashes.

BJP claimed that it was a handiwork of the TMC, however, on the other hand, the ruling party in the state ruled out such allegations. The TMC levelled allegations against the BJP for vandalising two of their party offices.

The issue took a political turn after the Union Home Minister took to Twitter to condemn the incident. Home Minister spoke to West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee and expressed serious concern over reports of large scale violence and arson against people who attended BJPs political rally in East Midnapore district. He told the chief minister that those who indulged in violence should be brought to book.

The TMC was quick to react to the Home Ministers remarks. Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern to the Union Home Minister about the 'organised vandalism' unleashed in Bengal by BJP supporters. Are they political elements or hired goons from outside? They ransacked the area after the meeting. Unacceptable, said party national spokesperson Derek OBrien.
NEW DELHI: Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar on Wednesday assumed charge as the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff. Vice Admiral P Ajit Kumar handed over the baton to his successor in a formal ceremony held at the Naval Headquarters in South Block in Delhi. Vice Admiral P Ajit Kumar will be heading to Mumbai later on Wednesday afternoon to take over as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command on Thursday.

Vice Admiral Kumar is an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, Pune. He was commissioned into the Executive Branch of the Indian Navy on 01 July 1982.

A highly decorated officer, Vice Admiral Kumar has steered various challenging Staff and Command assignments during his Naval career spanning over three decades.

VAdm P Ajit Kumar handing over the baton to VAdm G Ashok Kumar, his successor at Naval Headquarters South Block New Delhi pic.twitter.com/d4vJuHXJQt  SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) January 30, 2019

After having completed his specialisation in Navigation and Direction at Kochi in 1989, he served as the Navigating Officer of Indian Naval Ships Beas, Nilgiri, Ranvir and Vikrant. His other sea tenures include Commanding Officer of INS Kulish and Ranvir, and Executive Officer onboard INS Brahmaputra.

Among his shore tenures, the important ones include Staff officer at Indian Naval Work-up team, Head of Training Team (Navy) at Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and as Defence Advisor at the High Commission of India in Singapore. He has also been the Chief Staff Officer (Operations) of the Western Naval Command.

On promotion to Flag rank, he has held the important assignments of Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST), Chief of Staff (COS) of Southern Naval Command and Flag Officer Maharashtra and Gujarat (FOMAG).

Some pics of the handing/taking over charge ceremony pic.twitter.com/7RLNVIUxLl  SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) January 30, 2019

In the rank of Vice Admiral he has been the Commandant of the National Defence Academy, Pune.
Mumbai: Social activist Anna Hazare is all set to go on a hunger strike on Wednesday demanding the formation of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states.

The anti-corruption crusader will sit on a fast at his village Ralegan Siddhi at 10 am. I will begin my hunger strike from my village Ralegan Siddhi. However, I will not be fasting against a party or a person. I will be protesting for the betterment of the nation, said Hazare.

Speaking on Centre's "non-fulfilment" of assurances to put together a Lokpal, Hazare added, It has been five years now, but Prime Minister Modi led government at the Centre is making excuses. If they wanted, they could have done the needful by now.

Maharashtra Minister Girish Mahajan, who has been acting as an emissary between the government and the activist, urged Hazare to cancel the agitation, claiming that almost all the demands made by the activist have been fulfilled. Hazare, however, said he would not call off the agitation till the Lokayukta Act becomes a reality.

The 81-year-old social activists has also been demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations and some electoral reforms.

Earlier Hazare had said that if the Lokpal would have been appointed, then cases like Rafale would not have occurred. It is a revolutionary bill under which every officer will be investigated if citizens complaint against them, he said.

In Delhi, an eight-member search panel formed to select members of anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal Tuesday held its first meeting, nearly four months after it was set up by the Modi government. The committee, headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, is understood to have discussed modalities related to the appointments of the chief and members of Lokpal.

With agency inputs
NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation on Wednesday issued a clarification after the resignation of two National Statistical Commission members saying that the those who quit never expressed their concerns in any of the meetings in the last few months. It a statement, the Ministry said that it not only places high regard for the Commission but also values its advice and on which appropriate action is taken.

Two independent members of the NSC -- PC Mohanan and JV Meenakshi -- had on Tuesday tendered their resignation from the prestigious institute over 'disagreement' with the government on some important issues. The NSC has only four members and with Mohanan and Meenakshi quitting, it is now left with only two members -- Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

"I have resigned from NSC. We thought that the commission is not very effective nowadays and we also thought that we are not able to discharge the commission's responsibility," Mohanan had earlier told PTI. The tenure of Mohanan and Meenakshi - who had joined as NSC members in June 2017 - was scheduled to end in June 2020.

In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of the UPA years. NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.

Issuing a clarification, the ministry said that the National Statistical Commission had itself urged the Ministry to finalise and release the Back Series of the GDP. "The official estimates of the Back Series of GDP were accordingly computed using the methodology adopted in the 2011-12 Base Year series and this was approved by the experts in the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, which is the appropriate body. This was later discussed in the National Statistical Commission. Moreover, the methodology adopted by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation for the Back Series is available in the public domain," the ministry said.

The Ministry added that the NSC provides valuable guidance and strategic direction to the statistical activities in the central and state governments. "This Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation is in regular dialogue with the other Ministries and State Governments to improve the availability and coverage of data which needs to be understood in the context in which it is captured," the statement read.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi of using his courtesy visit to him for petty political gains. On Tuesday, Rahul met Parrikar and inquired about his health. Hours after the meeting, the Congress chief said that Parrikar stated he had nothing to do with the 'new (Rafale) deal' that was "orchestrated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani".

READ: Full text of Manohar Parrikar's letter to Rahul Gandhi on Rafale remark

In a letter to the Congress chief, Parrikar asserted that in the 'five-minute meeting with Rahul Gandhi', there was no mention of the Rafale deal. Slamming Rahul, the Goa CM wrote, "Reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress. It is reported in the media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it."

"I feel let down that you have your petty political gains. In the 5 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me," he added.

The ailing Goa CM further reiterated that the Inter Government Agreement (IGA) and the procurement of Rafale have been done as per the Defence Procurement Procedure. "I have said this before and wish to reiterate it again in today's context too. The fighter aircraft are procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority."

In a jibe at Rahul, Parrikar further wrote, "Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself."

"Here am I fighting a life-threatening illness. Due to my training and ideological strength, I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds. I thought your visit would give me your good wishes in that cause of serving our people. Little did I know that you had other intentions. With deep disappointment, I write to you hoping that you would put out the truth. Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism," Parrikar added.

Parrikar, 63, has not been keeping good health since 2018 due to a pancreatic ailment. He couldn't attend his office due to frequent hospitalisations.

Rahul has been relentlessly targetting PM Narendra Modi over the deal to purchase Rafale fighter jets from France. The Congress had released an unverified audio tape in 2018 in which Goa Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane purportedly told an unidentified person that Parrikar was holding the government to ransom because he was in possession of the Rafale deal files. Both Parrikar and Rane had dismissed the tapes as fabricated.
MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the financial assistance of Rs 4,714 crore provided by the Centre for drought-affected areas of Maharashtra.

He said that the package approved by the Modi government is indeed a historic package that would help the farmers in the long run.

I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Agricultural Minister Radha Mohan Singh for giving this historic package for the drought-affected areas of the state. Such a huge amount is possibly never given at one go to any state or to Maharashtra. Now we would be able to help the farmers in the drought-affected areas of the state, Fadnavis told ANI.

It is to be noted that drought has been declared by Maharashtra government in 151 talukas, 268 revenue circles and 1000 villages. The state government had urged the Centre to provide assistance under the national disaster relief fund (NDRF). Fadnavis' government had sought Rs 7962 crore as drought assistance from the Centre, out of which Rs 4714 crore was approved by the Central government.

(With agency inputs)
New Delhi: India on Wednesday summoned the High Commissioner of Pakistan in connection with a telephone conversation between the neighbouring country's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and senior Kashmiri separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. Pakistan envoy Sohail Mahmood was summoned by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale.

Delhi: Pakistan High Commissioner to India Sohail Mahmood leaves from Ministry of External Affairs. He was summoned by Foreign Secy Vijay Gokhale in connection with telephone conversation initiated by Pak Foreign Min with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from All Parties Hurriyat Conference. pic.twitter.com/I2tIP1f64O  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

Mahmood was conveyed that Pakistan Foreign Minister's phone call to Farooq amounted to "direct interference" in India's internal affairs. The Ministry of External Affairs said that Qureshi's action was a brazen attempt to subvert India's unity and to violate its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"The High Commissioner of Pakistan was summoned by the Foreign Secretary tonight in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference," the MEA said.

The Ministry further said the "Foreign Secretary conveyed the Government of India's condemnation in the strongest terms of this latest brazen attempt by Pakistan to subvert India's unity and to violate our sovereignty and territorial integrity, by none other than the Pakistan Foreign Minister."

#WATCH: Pakistan High Commissioner to India Sohail Mahmood was summoned by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale in connection with the telephone conversation initiated by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. pic.twitter.com/aFUG3OeLe8  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi had telephoned Farooq on Tuesday to brief him about Islamabad's efforts to highlight the human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. This is the first time that any minister of the Imran Khan-led Pakistan government has reached out directly to the Kashmiri separatist leadership.

(With inputs from agencies)
India and Russia on Wednesday signed a contract for construction of two ships with advanced stealth features for the Indian Navy. The two ships are scheduled to be delivered in June 2026 and December 2026.

Advanced features of stealth include a special hull design, to limit radar cross-section, low electromagnetic, infrared and underwater noise signatures. The ships would carry highly sophisticated and state-of-art weapon systems and sensors. To support these ships through their life cycle, the Indian Navy has put in place requisite infrastructures for training and maintenance.

The development of the ships is in line with the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) signed between the two countries in 2016 for the construction of additional Project 1135.6 Follow-on ships in India, customised to meet the Indian Navy's requirements. The frigates are potent platforms with a mission span covering the entire spectrum of Naval warfare; Air, Surface and Sub-surface. The ships would be equipped to operate in littoral and blue waters; both as a single unit and as consorts of a naval task force.

In line with Narendra Modi government's 'Make in India' initiative, these ships being constructed at M/s GSL, Goa under Russian assistance. These ships will be the largest in its class in the Navy with indigenous equipment such as sonar system, Brahmos missile system, Combat Management System etc.
NEW DELHI: Hitting out at Congress leader Shashi Tharoor for his comment on Kumbh, Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Smriti Irani called it an attack on Hindu beliefs.

She also lashed out at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for allowing Tharoor to make such a remark. "Shashi Tharoor's statement tantamounts to a religious slur. Question needs to be asked from Rahul Gandhi, who strategically wears a Jenau only when there are polls, as to why he has allowed this attack on beliefs of millions of Hindus across the world," she said.

Other BJP leaders also lashed out at Tharoor for making such an 'unfortunate' comment. "This is very unfortunate. An extremely educated and respected person like Tharoor always comes up with such kind of comments related to practices of the Hindu religion," BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said.

UP Minister Siddharth Nath Singh, in turn, advised Tharoor to take a holy dip to repent for his own sins. "How will he understand the importance of Kumbh? The atmosphere that he is in, the culture that he has been brought up in, he wont understand this. You people have committed a lot of misdeeds, take a holy dip in Kumbh and you might be able to repent for your sins," Singh said.

Tharoor had on Tuesday tweeted a photo of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Cabinet taking the holy dip in Kumbh with a caption stating the irony that Ganga needs to be clean and sins need to be washed away there too.

Tharoor's comment comes at a time when there are reports that Rahul along with his sister and newly-appointed party's General Secretary of Uttar Pradesh East Priyanka will also be visiting Kumbh. It is likely that she will take charge of the post after taking the holy dip in river Ganga.
GURUGRAM: Gurugram police on Tuesday said that they have rescued a two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, who was kidnapped by a woman in Om Nagar area of the city.

Talking to PTI, a police official said that Priyanshu was kidnapped at 7 am when he was playing with his 11-year-old sister Priya.

"The accused, Kanta, first observed the movement of the toddler and his sister from a distance. Later, she told Priya that someone was calling her inside the house," Gurgaon Police PRO Subhash Bokan was quoted as saying by PTI.

He added that the accused kidnapped the toddler when Priya went inside the house. Police started the hunt for the kidnapped toddler after Priyanshu's mother approached the police and filed a missing complaint.

Bokan told PTI that the police scanned the CCTV cameras installed in the area from where the toddler was abducted and managed to loated the accused in the footage captured by one of the cameras in the neighbourhood.

He said the accused took Priyanshu to her house but the toddler was continuously crying. The neighbours of the accused heard the cries of the toddler and suspected some foul play. One of them then informed the police.

"The police personal of PCR van immediately raided Kanta's house and arrested her," Bokan said. The woman was nabbed by the police after five hours of search operation.

(with agency inputs)
Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of using his courtesy visit to him for "petty political gains", asserting that there was no mention of the Rafale issue in their five-minute meeting.

READ: Manohar Parrikar calls out Rahul Gandhi, says no talk on Rafale during the meeting

In a letter to Gandhi, Parrikar asked the Congress chief to put out the truth and not to use his visit to an ailing person to "feed political opportunism". His letter came a day after Gandhi targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, claiming that Parrikar, who is a former defence minister, had clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the 'new deal'.

Here is the full text of Manohar Parrikar's letter to Rahul Gandhi:

Yesterday i.e. on 29th January 2019, without any prior information, you called on me and enquired me about my health condition. We have a healthy political tradition in India to rise above bipartisan considerations and with even opponents a quick recovery from any ailments. I received your visit in that spirit fighting as I am with good medical care, a severe ailment. I appreciate your kind gesture.

However, reading media reports covering your visit to my office has caused me distress. It is reported in the media today that you have said quoting me that I was nowhere in the process of procuring Rafale nor did I have any information then about it. I feel let down that you have your petty political gains. In the 05 minutes you spent with me, neither did you mention anything about Rafale, nor did we discuss anything about/related to it. Nothing whatsoever about Rafale was even mentioned in your meeting with me.

The Inter Government Agreement (IGA) and the procurement of Rafale are as per Defence Procurement Procedure. I have said this before and wish to reiterate it again in today's context too. The fighter aircraft are procured following all stated procedures keeping national security as top priority.

Paying a courtesy visit and then stooping so low as to make a false statement for petty political gain has raised, in my mind, questions about the sincerity and purpose of your visit itself.

Here am I fighting a life-threatening illness. Due to my training and ideological strength, I wish to serve Goa and its people against any/all odds.

I thought your visit would give me your good wishes in that cause of serving our people. Little did I know that you had other intentions.

With deep disappointment, I write to you hoping that you would put out the truth. Kindly do not use your visit to an ailing person to feed political opportunism.

I remain in the service of the people of Goa and India.
PANAJI: Goa Minister Mauvin Godinho on Wednesday said that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi should refrain from doing politics on someone's health as the latter made claims on Rafale deal after meeting CM Manohar Parrikar.

"When you come to inquire about someone's health then it should be limited to that, no politics should be played. If big leaders start doing this then it's wrong," Mauvin said.

Mauvin Godinho,Goa Minister on Rahul Gandhi's remark 'Goa CM said he has nothing to do with new deal orchestrated by PM':When you come to inquire about someone's health then it should be limited to that, no politics should be played, if big leaders start doing this then its wrong pic.twitter.com/mSzQ1MWndY  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

OSD to Goa Chief Minister Prasanna Karthik also slammed Rahul for his statements. "This guy is a compulsive liar. He came saying he wants to convey his and his mothers wishes for a speedy recovery. CM met him out of decency. Now he shamelessly lies about him - a person who is fighting cancer without compromising on his commitments to his people. Disgusting," Karthik tweeted.

Rahul held a 'personal' meeting with Parrikar on Tuesday at the Goa Assembly where he enquired about the latter's health. After his meeting, Rahul at a rally in Kochi later in the day said that Parrikar "clearly denied" any involvement in the new Rafale fighter jet deal "orchestrated" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "benefit" Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani.

"Friends, the ex-Defence minister clearly stated that he has nothing to do with the new deal that was orchestrated by Mr Narendra Modi to benefit Anil Ambani," Rahul said.

Interestingly, senior Goa Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar who had accompanied Rahul for his meeting with the CM had said that it lasted just five minutes and the issue of 'Rafale audio tapes' was not discussed.

Rahul had on Monday reiterated his demand for action against Parrikar for allegedly being in possession of files related to the Rafale fighter deal. "30 days since the Goa Audio Tapes on RAFALE were released. No FIR or enquiry ordered. No action against the Minister either! It`s obvious that the tapes are authentic & that Goa CM, Parrikar, is in possession of explosive RAFALE secrets, that give him power over the PM," Gandhi had tweeted on Monday.

Parrikar is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York since February 2018.
New Delhi: Criticising judges in the media by lawyers has become very common and attributing "political colours" to judgments amounted to "sheer contempt", the Supreme Court has said. It said however that power of contempt with the court is a weapon like "Bhramastra", to be used sparingly.

The apex court also said that cases cannot be decided by "media trial" and the bar and bench have their own in-built machinery to deal with grievance and no outside interference can be allowed.

Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to the press or the media to ventilate their point of view, it added. It said lawyers are not supposed to be "money guzzlers" and should not involve in influencing fair decision-making process.

While referring to various attacks made on the judicial system from time to time, the court said a lot of sacrifices are made to serve the judiciary which is not less than call of military service.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran said that whenever any political matter is decided by the court either way, "political insinuations" are attributed by "unscrupulous persons/advocates".

The bench made these comments in its 78-page judgement dated January 28, while striking down certain amended Rules of the Madras High Court including the one to debar a lawyer from practising. "It has become very common to the members of the Bar to go to the press/media to criticize the judges in person and to commit sheer contempt by attributing political colours to the judgments. It is nothing less than an act of contempt of gravest form," the bench said.

Dealing with the power of contempt, the bench said, "The court has the power of contempt and that lethal power too accompanies with greater responsibility. Contempt is a weapon like 'Brahmastra' to be used sparingly to remain effective. At the same time, a judge has to guard the dignity of the court and take action in contempt and in case of necessity to impose appropriate exemplary punishment too."

It said that act of attributing political insinuations on judges in cases of political importance "are nothing, but an act of denigrating the judiciary itself and destroys the faith of the common man which he reposes in the judicial system".

"In case of genuine grievance against any judge, the appropriate process is to lodge a complaint to the concerned higher authorities who can take care of the situation and it is impermissible to malign the system itself by attributing political motives and by making false allegations against the judicial system and its functionaries. Judges who are attacked are not supposed to go to press or media to ventilate their point of view," the top court said.

While making it clear that corruption is intolerable in the judiciary, the bench said lawyers cannot go to streets or go on strike except when democracy itself is in danger and the entire judicial system is at stake.

"The judgment rendered by a judge is based upon the dint of hard work and quality of the arguments that are advanced before him by the lawyers. There is no room for arrogance either for a lawyer or for a judge," it said.

It said that for the protection of democratic values and to ensure that rule of law prevails in the country, no one can be permitted to destroy the independence of judicial system from within or from outside.

"A lot of sacrifices are made to serve the judiciary for which one cannot regret as it is with a purpose and to serve judiciary is not less than call of military service," it said.

The bench observed that if the bar fails to perform the duty independently and becomes a "sycophant", it ultimately results in denigrating of the judicial system and judiciary itself.

"Role of Bar in the legal system is significant. The bar is supposed to be the spokesperson for the judiciary as Judges do not speak," the bench said, adding, "It is the duty of the Bar to protect honest judges and not to ruin their reputation and at the same time to ensure that corrupt judges are not spared".

The top court said lawyers are not supposed to be "money guzzlers or ambulance chasers" and they should neither expect any favour from a judge nor involve in influencing the fair decision-?making process.
MUMBAI: Social activist Anna Hazare began his indefinite hunger strike at his village Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district on Wednesday morning. The 81-year-old anti-corruption crusader has been demanding the formation of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states.

#Maharashtra: Anna Hazare begins his fast for the formation of Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states, at Ralegan Siddhi. pic.twitter.com/mICrZoq9xt  ANI (@ANI) January 30, 2019

Hazare stated that he doesn't want any political leaders joining the strike this time. "We don`t want political leaders with us on stage. To restrict Lokpal, they passed another law within three days, got President`s signature also on it. But to appoint Lokpal, they have taken five years and nothing has been done. We don`t want political leaders with us on stage," said the veteran activist.

"Through Lokpal, even the Prime Minister can be investigated if people will give any evidence against him... Similarly, in Lokayukta a Chief Minister and all ministers and MLAs under him can be investigated if somebody gives any evidence against them. That`s why they don`t want it. No party wants it. Lokpal was passed in the Parliament in 2013, but the government is yet to appoint it," Hazare said.

Earlier, speaking to the media, Hazare has said, I will begin my hunger strike from my village Ralegan Siddhi. However, I will not be fasting against a party or a person. I will be protesting for the betterment of the nation.

Speaking on Centre's "non-fulfilment" of assurances to put together a Lokpal, Hazare added, It has been five years now, but Prime Minister Modi led government at the Centre is making excuses. If they wanted, they could have done the needful by now.

Maharashtra Minister Girish Mahajan, who has been acting as an emissary between the government and the activist, urged Hazare to cancel the agitation, claiming that almost all the demands made by the activist have been fulfilled. Hazare, however, said he would not call off the agitation till the Lokayukta Act becomes a reality.

With agency inputs
New Delhi: Ahead of the looming February 1 deadline for switchover to the new broadcasting regime, telecom regulator Trai has asked DTH operators to honour pre-paid commitment on ongoing long-duration packs, if customer wishes to continue.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman R S Sharma told PTI that there is no change in February 1 deadline for migration to the new tariff regime for broadcasting and cable services.

Sharma asserted he remains "confident" of a smooth switchover on the stipulated day without any inconvenience to customers.

Sharma also made it clear that if a DTH customer with existing long-duration pack wishes to exercise his channel choice mid-way (opt for specific channels under the new regime), then the balance money in customer wallet should be adjusted by the operator accordingly.

Trai has unveiled the new tariff order and regulatory regime for the broadcast and cable sector, which would pave the way for consumers to opt for channels they wish to view, and pay only for them. It had said every channel should be offered a la carte, with a transparent display of rates on electronic programme guide.
New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government is likely to present a full-fledged Budget instead of a vote-on-account, sources told Zee Media.

Finance ministry sources told Zee Media, It is going to be a vote on account for 4 months. Earlier it used to be accounted for 2 months. The term may be used for convenience. Call it a General Budget-2019-20 or Interim budget-2019-20, a name does not change anything. Once a new government comes after election, they will present the new Budget in July 2019.

However, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal in a press conference in the National Capital later clarified that this Budget will be called Interim Budget 2019-20.

Generally the tradition in an election year is to present an interim budget or vote on account. The full budget is presented by the new government after the elections. As per practice, a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in an election year and a full-fledged budget is presented by the new government.

Meanwhile, Piyush Goyal is likely to present the Budget on February 1 as he was last week given the additional charge of finance ministry as Arun Jaitley is in the US for medical treatment. Jaitley has undergone surgery at a hospital in New York earlier this month and has been advised rest by the doctors. Jaitley, had travelled to the US on January 13.

Ministers of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishnan and Shiv Pratap Shukla had last Monday held the annual pre-budget ritual, Halwa Ceremony, to mark the beginning of printing of Budget documents in the North Block, the seat of Ministry of Finance.

The Narendra Modi-led government had in 2017 scrapped the colonial-era tradition of presenting the budget at the end of February. With the preponement of Budget, ministries are now allocated their budgeted funds from the start of the financial year beginning April.

This gives government departments more leeway to spend as well as allow companies time to adapt to business and taxation plans.

Previously, when the budget was presented at the end of February, the three-stage Parliament approval process used to get completed sometime in mid-May, weeks ahead of the onset of monsoon rains. This meant government departments would start spending on projects only from August-end or September after the monsoon season ended.
New Delhi: Two days after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia campaigned for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at a school event for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) wrote to the Delhi government calling it a bad influence on children.

The child rights body alleged that unannounced visits by ministers and party workers to Delhi government schools for election campaign interrupts student's studies. It further added that the visits should be arranged in a planned manner keeping in mind the safety and security of school children.

It has been requested that identity and purpose of the visit are to be verified thoroughly from any visitor in the school and proper entry registers are to be maintained at the main gate, the NCPCR said in its letter, as reported by ANI.

While laying the foundation stone for 11,000 new classrooms across 250 schools at the Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya on Monday, Kejriwal and Sisodia sought votes for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Addressing children and parents at the Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in New Friends Colony, the duo asked the parents to choose whom they love more: Prime Minister Narendra Modi or their children.

"If you love your children, vote for those who are working for your children and if you don`t love your children then go and vote for Modiji. Modiji has not built even a single classroom or a school. You have to choose between love for nation or love for Modi," Kejriwal added.

His deputy Sisodia also asked the students to thank their parents as they voted for AAP. "If the parents had not voted for AAP (in 2015), how could the party had worked for you and Delhi?"

He also thanked the parents for voting AAP.

"Outside the schools, there is an atmosphere in the country where people are doing politics of temple and mosque. But the Delhi government is doing politics of building schools and education.

"I asked someone who he will vote for. He said he will vote for Modi. On being asked why he said he likes and love Modiji. I said if you really love your children, vote for those who are building schools for them," said Sisodia, also the Education Minister.

Addressing the students, he added: "Go home and ask your parents if they love you or not. If they say they love you, ask them to vote for those who are building schools."

The Delhi government started the construction of these 11,000 new classrooms in the national capital from Monday and is aiming to complete the work by the year-end.

With agency inputs
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, to appear before Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 5, 6, 7 and 12 for interrogation in Aircel Maxis and INX cases, warning him not to play around with law.

The apex court has also directed Karti to deposit Rs 10 crore with registry as one of the conditions for allowing him to go abroad. Karti had filed the plea in November, seeking apex court's nod to travel to France on February 21-28.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, You can go wherever you want to, you can do whatever you want, but don't play around law. If there is an iota of non-cooperation, we will come down heavily.

Karti is facing prosecution in INX Media money laundering case lodged by the ED and is also an accused in INX Media corruption case lodged by the CBI.

ED had opposed the plea of Karti seeking permission to travel abroad and has said that he has been evasive, non-cooperative and caused delay in completing the investigations. Karti was abroad for 51 days in last 6 months, the probe agency has said.

The ED had said that Karti, who is also facing proceedings in cases like Aircel-Maxis and money laundering matters, has been "blatantly misusing" the liberty granted by court in allowing him to travel abroad and has been using the same to protract the investigation in the case.

With Agency Inputs
New Delhi: A day after reports came that ongoing demolition work at absconding jeweller Nirav Modi's bungalow in Alibaug has been stopped, Zee Media sources said that engineers from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) are being consulted for carrying out controlled blast of the posh bungalow.

Sources also said that the district authorities will also have to seek permission from the Bombay High court before carrying out the controlled blast of the bungalow.

Demolition work at Modi's bungalow has been halted since January 27, two days after the razing process started, as authorities wanted to remove the valuable fittings inside safely to ensure that they recover the maximum cost from the property.

Authorities are also mulling to auction the exotic fittings, valuable fixtures, window grills and furnitures before the second round of demolition.

The 12,000 sq ft bungalow with five bedrooms, a large swimming pool, a movie theatre and a library, PTI had earlier reported.

Modi, a key accused in the USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank fraud case, fled the country last January.
New Delhi: Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif is one of the most-loved jodis of Bollywood. The duo, who has appeared in films like 'Ek Tha Tiger' and 'Tiger Zinda Hai' are teaming up again for Ali Abbas Zafar's 'Bharat'.

'Bharat' is a multi-starrer project and will release on Eid this year. The teaser of the film was dropped only recently and it left everyone in awe.

In the meantime, Mumbai Mirror quoted a source saying that the film will feature six songs which will reflect the festive mood.

The report stated that out of the six, three songs revolve around Holi, Diwali and a wedding while the remaining three will be either a romantic or a tragedy number. As per the report, unlike the current trend, the film won't have any recreated version of old song.

During the Malta schedule of the film last year, Salman and Katrina shot for a romantic number, which is believed to be a Diwali song. A still of the duo was widely circulated on the social media.

Directed Ali Abbas Zafar has helmed this project and it has come out well. He previously collaborated with the superstar in blockbuster hits such as 'Sultan' and 'Tiger Zinda Hai'. Therefore, expectations are sky high from this one. The film is co-produced by Salman's brother-in-law and actor Atul Agnihotri.

Katrina Kaif plays the leading lady in 'Bharat' and that brings the superhit trio of actor-actress-director back as their last release 'Tiger Zinda Hai' did wonders at the ticket counters. 'Bharat' has a starry ensemble star cast with the likes of Tabu, Disha Patani, Aasif Sheikh, Jackie Shroff and Sunil Grover in pivotal parts.

The film will hit the screens on Eid, June 5, 2019.
New Delhi: Karan Johar's 2008 release 'Dostana' starring Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham continues to remain a favourite of many. And ever since the filmmaker gave a signal to the sequel of the rom-com, the fans have been eagerly waiting to know the fresh casting.

Earlier in the day, rumours mills had gone into overdrive about KJo's favourite Alia Bhatt being finalised as the female lead for the sequel. Reports claimed that Alia loved the idea and will close all the formalities soon while casting for the other two male stars is presently underway.

Reports further claimed that the makers will make an official announcement once the casting is completed.

However, Karan rubbished all the rumours of approaching his 'student' Alia for the film and said nothing has been finalised yet.

The filmmaker took to Twitter and wrote, "For the record.....NO ONE has been officially approached for DOSTANA 2!!!! Some thoughts and ideas are underway but nothing official has moved......"

The original was directed by Tarun Mansukhani and produced by Karan Johar and Hiroo Yash Johar. The film also starred Bobby Deol, Kirron Kher, Sushmita Mukherjee and Boman Irani in supporting roles. Actress Shilpa Shetty featured as a cameo in the song 'Shut Up & Bounce' which turned out to be one of the most loved numbers of the year.

'Dostana' told the story of two men who pretend to be gay to share an apartment with a girl and eventually, both fall in love with her. It was the first mainstream Indian film to explore homosexuality

On the work front, Alia has a busy year ahead. She has films like 'Gully Boy', 'Kalank', 'Takht' and 'Brahmastra' in her kitty. 'Gully Boy' releases on February 14, 2019.
New Delhi: The makers of Dinesh Lal Yadav aka Nirahua starrer 'Sher-E-Hindustan' have dropped the first teaser of the film and it has gone viral on the internet. The 1.09-minute-long clip has been watched by over 4.4 lakh viewers in just days of it being shared.

The teaser shows Nirahua in an angry young man avatar who performs some death-defying stunts in the film. He is also seen taking on his enemies while riding a white horse. The trailer also gave a glimpse of the usage of bow and arrow in the film.

And part from the action-sequence, it is the majestic background in the trailer, which will catch your attention.

Watch the teaser below:

The poster of the film, released by the makers in August last year, had earlier ignited a feeling of patriotism in them. Take a look:

Earlier, during an exclusive interview with Zee News, the Bhojpuri superstar spoke about his upcoming film and said that like his previous film 'Border', 'Sher-E-Hindustan' is too based on patriotic subject and interwoven with a love story.

The film will revolve around a man who destroys all attempts of terrorists who plan to attack India. It will also narrate the tale of an Indian man falling in love with a girl from Nepal. The major portion of the film has been shot in Nepal. Nepali actress Neeta Dhungana will be seen sharing the screen space with Nirahua in the film.

'Sher-E-Hindustan' has been directed by Manoj Narayan and produced by Ratnakar Kumar under the banner of Worldwide Channel & Jitendra Gulati Presents. The film also features Ayush Rijal, Neeta Dhungana, Sunil Thapa, Santosh Pahalwan and Amrit Kumar in pivotal roles. Madhukar Anand has given his voice to the song while the story has been penned down by Manoj Narayan.
Statistics Finland on Tuesday reported that the total fertility rate decreased last year to 1.40  its lowest level in recorded history  as the number of births decreased by over 3,000 from the previous year to roughly 47,300.

THE BIRTH RATE in Finland has fallen even more sharply than anticipated at the end of last year.

The number of deaths contrastively crept up by almost 600 to over 54,000 in 2018.

The Finnish population grew by 8,600 year-on-year in spite of the record-low fertility rate, as the number of people immigrating to the country (31,700) exceeded that of people emigrating from the country (16,100) by approximately 15,500. The rate of population growth, however, slowed down from the previous year, when the population grew by almost 11,500.

Statistics Finland in November predicted that a total of 48,800 children would be born in Finland in 2018.

Statistics Finlands official population forecast became outdated immediately. Twelve per cent fewer children than anticipated were born in the last quarter of the year, commented Juhana Brotherus, the chief economist at the Mortgage Society of Finland (Hypo).

He added that the sharp decline in the number of births has also contributed to the slowdown of the housing market, as people are not forced to buy larger homes to welcome new family members.

Olli Karkkainen, an economist at Nordea, estimated that the statistics cast further shadows on population development in Finland. If you thought that the population forecast published towards the end of last year was bleak, you were wrong, he noted on Twitter.

Concerns about the sliding birth rate have recently been a regular feature in the statements of politicians and government officials. A low birth rate reduces the growth potential and deteriorates the sustainability of public finances in Finland, thus creating more pressure to generate savings and cut public spending.

Minister of Finance Petteri Orpo (NCP) in November stated that the latest population forecast is very disconcerting, arguing that revamping the family leave system is the most important means to tackle the undesirable development.

Well improve the position of families, introduce more flexibilities, improve the labour market position of women [and] create equality  those are the first things well have to do, he said.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi Suomi
Spain's King Felipe VI on Wednesday visited special forces helping Iraq fight Islamist extremists, during the first trip by a Spanish monarch to the war-ravaged country in four decades, a diplomat said.

The king, whose country is a member of an international coalition battling the Islamic State group, also later met President Barham Saleh.

Iraq in 2017 declared victory over the IS group following a bruising months-long campaign backed by the coalition, which continues to carry out operations against the group.

Spain, which took part in the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, went on to support Iraqi troops as they battled to roll back the IS group, which seized a third of the country including second city Mosul in 2014.

Hundreds of Spanish military instructors remain in the country.

King Felipe is one of a series of leaders to visit Baghdad since the start of the year, including US President Donald Trump, who drew criticism for failing to meet a single Iraqi official.

Baghdad has also hosted the chief diplomats of its two main allies, Washington and Tehran -- themselves bitter enemies.

Iraq's precarious position has been complicated by Trump's shock decision last month to pull troops from neighbouring Syria.

That has prompted pro-Iran factions to intensify their calls for an accelerated withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online

Short link:


A former general secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), Rev Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, has challenged the activities of some churches and pastors who sell bottled water and sobolo at outrageous prices in the name of miracles.

The Christian leader, whose sentiments were first reported by Classfmonline.com, said that the practice has become rather profitable for those attracting gullible Christians.

The former general secretary advocates that the only way to control these sort of phenomenon is to allow the government to regulate religious culture in Ghana.

He is quoted as saying: As the Ghana Bar Association is able to do it, as GJA is able to do it, GPRTU and other various professional bodies are able to do it, we must do same.

Rev. Dr. Opuni-Frimpong added that he feared the worst if government and Christian stakeholders do not help to find a solution.

READ ALSO: NPP, NDC MPs in an open fight in parliament

There have been increasing calls for some sort of regulation of churches and their activities in Ghana.

Source: Original

He said of the modern day Ghanaian church: Now you get pastors who are selling water. You buy somebodys water, Bel-Aqua, Voltic and [tell church members to] now come and buy it at GHC 1,000.

You buy this from the company for how much? And now you get pastors who are selling sobolo [for] GHC 2,000. [This is] corruption in the church, in the name of God."

We can have self-regulatory arrangements backed by law. At the moment, what the Christian Council and other bodies are doing are voluntary but we can have an arrangement that has some level of legal backing to self-regulate."

READ ALSO: Photos and video of John Paintsil's beautiful mansion and powerful cars

Meanwhile, the Pentecost Church of Ghana, which happens to be one of the churches with the largest number of worshippers, has thought it wise to ban the practice of amorous pre-wedding photo shoots.

Speaking at the Global Ministers Conference at Pentecost Convention Center (PCC)  Gomoa Fetteh near Kasoa in the Central Region on Saturday, January 26, 2019, the General Secretary of the Church, Apostle Nana Yaw Kumi, stated the ban was to discourage the practice.

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I believe resignation is the right choice in these circumstances, Aarnio-Isohanni stated on Tuesday.

MARJA Aarnio-Isohanni has resigned as the managing director of Esperi Care, the privately owned social and health care provider that has received a wave of bad publicity after one of its nursing homes was shut down by the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira).

I have focused mainly on growth and profitability in my work, while paying less attention to issues related to human resources. The entire company and its employees have suffered as a result. I am very sorry and I will accept my responsibility for the mistake, she added.

Valvira on Friday temporarily suspended the operations of a nursing home operated by the private social and health care provider in Kristiinankaupunki, Western Finland. The decision was made on grounds that understaffing had had a severe impact on the quality of basic care and nursing at the facility, reportedly resulting in the death of one patient.

The staff of the nursing home had also issued a strike warning in protest of the circumstances.

Aarnio-Isohanni said Esperi Care has looked thoroughly into the alleged death at the nursing home but discovered no report or request for report related to such an incident. I wanted to say this as I leave the company, she added.

Harri-Pekka Kaukonen, the board chairperson at Esperi Care, stated that he regrets that the protests of personnel at the nursing home had not been taken seriously. He also underscored that the social and health care provider has introduced a number of measures to address the situation and will carefully investigate the allegations made in public.

Esperi Care announced last weekend it will hire more employees and examine the quality of care and nursing at all of its units across Finland.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi Suomi
Research by realestate.com.au showed that searches for property in Queensland climbed by nearly a third in December compared to the same period in the previous year. This was driven largely by British people who are flocking to one of the most populous states in the country, according to a report by news.com.au.

The study found that property searches originating from the UK increased 31%, with the Sunshine Coast suburbs of Noosa Heads, Buderim and Mooloolaba as popular picks among potential buyers.

New Farm, Redcliffe and North Lakes, meanwhile, topped the list of the most in-demand suburbs in Brisbane.

Nerida Conisbee, Realestate.com.au chief economist, said Queensland, specifically its beachside properties, held the top spot in terms of total search activity among UK property seekers.

The Hemsworth impact seems to be impacting the view of Byron Bay with this the most searched by UK property seekers in December 2018  the number tripling from December 2017, she said.

Universal Buyers Agents Director Darren Piper said that the chaos surrounding Brexit in Britain was enticing overseas buyers to explore the Australian property market.

House prices in London have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row. Its natural for investors to look for safe havens in times of uncertainty, he said.

Australias property market has consistently grown over the past decade, with homes in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne reaching record prices.

Its the perfect time for people to get their foot in the door and its a great time as a homeowner to explore your options, maybe make a move or stay the course, said Piper.
By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

HURLEY  Iron Countys sheriff department no longer has an undersheriff.

Instead, a chief deputy will be the departments second highest-ranking employee after the Iron County Board of Supervisors approved the creation of the post Tuesday.

The board also appointed Jason Geach, who has been with the department for 14 years, to fill the position.

The move is designed to increase efficiency and ensures theres stability and continuity when a new sheriff takes over.

This employee will stay with the county, regardless of whether there is...
IRONWOOD  The search for the next president of Gogebic Community College is in its final stages and the field has been narrowed to four candidates.

Last week the Presidential Search Committee, comprised of board members, faculty, staff, foundation officials, a student and the public, interviewed 10 candidates.

Among the finalists are Gerald Jay Edgren, president of Frontier Community College in Fairfield, Ill .; George McNulty, vice president of student affairs at Colby Community College in Colby, Kan .; Richard Sax, provost and vice president for academic affairs at University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College in Rio Grande, Ohio; and Stacy Young, dean of the School of Business and School of Advanced Technology at Southwestern Michigan College in downstate Dowagiac.

The finalists will interview with the full Board of Trustees in early February along with participating in open forums.

The college welcomes the general public, faculty, staff, administration and students to attend any of the open forums, said Kim Zeckovich, director of admissions, marketing and community relations.

The forums will include a question and answer session with the candidates. Feedback forms will be provided to all attendees and given to the board for review.

The college plans to announce the next President by the end of February, said Zeckovich.

Four days of public open forums will be held Feb. 5-8  one finalist per day meeting with three separate forums each day  10:30-11:30 a.m., 1:15-2:15 p.m. (for students specifically) and 2:30  3:30 p.m. All forums will be held in the upper level of the Lindquist Student and Conference Center on the main campus in Ironwood or room 200 at the Copper Country Center in Houghton.

The finalists will be on campus on the following days: Tuesday, Feb. 5, McNulty; Wednesday, Feb. 6, Sax; Thursday, Feb. 7, Stacy Young; and Friday, Feb. 8, Edgren.

Edgren previously served as director of education at Sanford Brown College in Seattle. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in leadership studies from Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wis .; a Master of Science in mathematics from Marquette University in Milwaukee; and Bachelor of Science in secondary education from Northland International University in Dunbar, Wis.

McNulty served as interim director of financial assistance at Western Nevada College. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in educational leadership and a Master of Arts in counseling and educational psychology from the University of Nevada-Reno; a Bachelor of Arts in physical education from California State University-Chico; and Associate of Science and Associate of Arts from Feather River College in Quincy, Calif.

Sax previously served as campus dean and chief academic officer at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus, in Los Lunas, N.M. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts in English language and literature from the University of Michigan; and a Bachelor of Arts in English with a concentration in American studies from Haverford College in Haverford, Pa.

Young previously served as dean of the Niles Campus at Southwestern Michigan College in Dowagiac. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in leadership at Andrews University in Berrien Springs; a Master of Arts in business administration from Bethel College in Mishawaka, Ind .; and a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Manchester University in North Manchester, Ind.

GCC was assisted with the presidential search process by the Association of Community College Trustees. ACCTs assistance included recruiting highly competitive candidates, working with the Search Committee, and supporting the Board of Trustees, according to Ashley Paquette, GCC director of human resources. The appointment of GCCs next president will shape GCCs future for years to come and the board is fully committed to conducting an equitable, inclusive, and transparent national search.

ACCT has conducted more than 500 such searches for community colleges and brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the process, said Paquette.

Our recruitment efforts have involved an open, comprehensive, and national search, seeking qualified candidates from all regions of the state and country. We are pleased to have received a strong pool of candidates for the next President of Gogebic Community College from across the country, said Board Chairman John Lupino.

For more information, visit gogebic.edu/HR/President-Progress.
NORFOLK - Northeast Community College in Norfolk has released the Presidents Honor List and Deans Honor List for both full and part-time students for the Fall 2018 Semester.

To be named to the Presidents Honor List, students must earn a perfect grade point average of 4.0 and be enrolled for at least 12 credit hours. Some 210 students made the Presidents Full-time Honor List this fall semester. Students named to the Deans Honor List must have earned a grade point average of 3.75 or above and be enrolled for at least 12 credit hours. Two hundred fifty-nine students were named to the Deans Honor List.

Another 237 students named to the Presidents Part-Time list attained a 4.0 grade point average while taking at least six credit hours, and 86 students named to the Deans Part-Time list earned a grade point average of 3.75 or above while taking at least six credit hours.

Northeast serves residents in 20 counties in Northeast Nebraska.

York area students named to the Presidents List include: Christopher Stutzman of McCool Junction; Kelsey Bigelow of Milligan; Vanessa Velasco of Shelby.

York area students named to the Deans List include: Trenton Kluck of Aurora; Chelsea Fessler of Grafton; Delaney Belt of Shelby; Preston Plock of Stromsburg.
The girl said she had sex with other men because Billy told her to and she feared him. On some occasions, she said, William Quinn would stay and video the sexual encounter.
As Tel Aviv gears up to host the Eurovision Song Contest, pro-Palestinian activists are urging performers to pull out of this year's competition - while the 2018 Israeli winner said she didn't believe in boycotts.

The call by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is part of a broader campaign to pressure governments, companies, performers and academics to disengage from Israel.

The movement sees Eurovision "as artwashing - whitewashing through arts" of what it calls Israel's decades-old regime of "military occupation and colonialism," its co-founder Omar Barghouti told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
It began at Ezrieli Junction, continued onto the Ayalon Highway and ended at Rabin square where thousands of Ethiopians gathered to protest against police brutality in Tel Aviv Wednesday afternoon and evening. After blocking the Ezrieli Junction, protesters proceeded to descend to the Ayalon Highway bringing traffic on Tel Aviv's main artery to a standstill. Many other Tel Aviv streets were blocked as well causing huge backups and delays all over the city and the wider Gush Dan area.

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The protest was sparked by the killing of Yehuda Biadga, 24, by police in Bat Yam two weeks ago as he was waving a knife. Witnesses say the youth posed no direct danger to the lives of the officers. The incident is still being investigated.

(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Biadga's family accused police of excessive force, and protest organizers called the incident "the straw that broke the camel's back" after years of perceived discrimination by Israeli authorities.

Parents of Yehuda Biadga hold a photo of their son (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The protesters carried Israeli flags and signs saying: Police are killing Beta Israel and Police state. They chanted against trigger happy police and called for the incarceration of police who react with undue violence instead of defusing a situation.

"Police are killers" (Photo: motti Kimchi)

Ezrieli mall was closed once the protest began, in an unprecedented step, apparently on orders from the police fearing disturbances. Following the protest, participants marched to Rabin Square where speeches were delivered by the religious elders of the Ethiopian community, candles were lit and the names of those killed by police were read aloud.

Protest dais at Rabin Sq (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

As the crowd gathered in the square, a small group of protesters broke away and became violent, throwing chairs and overturning tables at an ice cream parlor along Even Gvirol St., which was blocked to traffic.

Atlai Biadga, Yehudas father, spoke at the gathering in Amharic: They took my son; I am both sad and happy to see you all here, to see how loved my son is. He added that he hopes the officer who shot his son is put on trial.

The family of Yosef Salamsa, who committed suicide in 2014 following abuse by police using a taser gun, also spoke at the event expressing outrage at the conduct of the police.

Dasli Takala, one of the organizers, told reporters: We are dealing with the Israel police which is a criminal organization From violence they have moved on to murder; they have already killed 10 (unarmed Ethiopians). We are a community of activists. The government of Israel interprets our politeness as fear, but that is our strength.

Police violence victims (Photo: Motti kimchi)

Another organizer, Shahar Mulla said: We are no different from other citizens of Israel. The police portray us as violent criminals but we will not allow them to harm our children. We are fighting against this violence that is harming our children. We dont need any more crying mothers or bereaved families. We are not seeking blood in exchange for blood. This is a fight for our very existence.

Another protester said: We are black, but we refuse to be the black sheep of the state.







(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

We didnt want to come and block the Ayalon Highway but the police have left us no choice, with their guns and tasers, said one protester.

Reality has blown up in our faces again; after the protest of 2015 we thought that four years would have brought us closer to Israeli society but apparently not; we are still outcasts, lamented another participant.

Ayalon blocked





(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Elias Inbram, one of the organizers, told Ynet that no national leaders condemned the killing of Yehuda Biadga, apparently it is of no interest to them, but maybe when the roads are blocked and Rabin Square is packed they will pay attention.

Inbram addressed the polices warning against a violent protest saying: What would we say when confronted abroad with accusations that Israel kills Palestinian children and calls for the de-legitimization of Israel? Enough of the reverse psychology; we are always portrayed as a quiet and gentle community and suddenly we are the aggressors  what happened?
After a long period of silence, Israel Resilience Party leader and former IDF chief Benny Gantz passed his first political test with flying colors. The event during which he delivered his first campaign speech at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds on Tuesday evening was well-planned and Gantz managed to convey his message to potential voters.

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Some 700 people filled the hall, while those who did not pre-register were left outside to watch the even on video screens. Tall and grey-haired Gantz sought contacthe hugged, kissed and posed for selfies with everyone who waved their phone at him, he was even compared to former US president Bill Clinton in his prime. He suddenly had charisma.

Israel Resilience Party leader and former IDF chief Benny Gantz

During his speech Gantz walked a tightrope, as is expected of someone who chose to run as a centrist candidate. He lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from his ruling Likud party, making a series of grave accusations against them, however, he avoided mentioning them by their names and preferred to refer to them as the government, the regime, the leadership.

The government is the one creating the rift and divides the Jewish nation; the leadership is obsessed with itself, those in power are leading a monarchy like in the days of France's Louis XIV; the government is exploiting Israel's security for rating and allows the Qatari cash infusion into Gaza as protection racket to Hamas, in addition to using bereaved families for political needs and the list goes on according to Gantz.

Israel Resilience Party's leader mentioned Netanyahu by name only once and the context was only seemingly positive. Gantz complimented the prime minister for the Wye River Memorandum signed in 1998 between Israel and then-Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, and Netanyahu's 2009 Bar Ilan speech in which he endorsed for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel. Netanyahu would have been happy to forgo both compliments.

PM Netanyahu, Gantz (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Mark Israel Salem)

Stating he would not sit in a government whose prime minister is facing an indictment was the only issue influencing the day after the April elections that Gantz addressed. He won't be able to back down from this promise, but keeping it won't be easy.

On some levels, Gantz comes as a surprise. When he first retired from the IDF in 2010, and before then-Major-General Yoav Galant's appointment as the army's 20th chief of staff was cancelled amid the land affair, Gantz had no political ambitions. Gantz was appointed as IDF chief of staff instead of Galant In 2011, and officially concluded his tenure in 2015. Only then he began thinking about politics. However, his ambitions were relatively humble, including thoughts of becoming the defense minister, or the foreign affairs minister or even maybe education minister. Gantz had no thoughts of running for prime minister, especially not right away. After all, he is not Ehud Barak.

With some exaggeration, like King Saul, Gantz went looking for donkeys and found a kingdom, or unfortunately, the ambition to become a king.

This is not the first time that senior IDF officers decide to enter politics. When the high-ranking generals get acquainted with politicians during General Staff meetings, they feel contempt. Sometimes they pledge to never go into politics, and then, on second thought, they go into politics after they understand the political arena is where the big decisions are made and that only there will they be able to make a difference.

Those who worked under Netanyahu have issued a lot of criticism regarding the prime minister's decision-making process. They go into politics because they are convinced that as far as Israel's security is concerned, their performance would be as good as Netanyahu's and maybe even more sober, pragmatic and practical.

Gantz and Ya'alon (Photo: AFP)

The less people know Netanyahu, the more they admire him. The retired generals are convinced that if they enter politics, they will make some sort of correction. They were trained to think in stately (patriotic) terms. The country is genuinely important to them and they are truly concerned about what has happened to it during the Netanyahu era.

There are countries that live in fear that a military junta will rule after taking power by force. I don't think this is the case in Israel. I mistakenly thought Gantz did not have the sparkor if you will, the hunger, the ambition, the passionthat pushes people to run for prime minister.

Perhaps I misjudged him. Maybe while compiling his party's list a spark was lit in him. There was something very moving in seeing former chief of staff Moshe Boggi Ya'alon, who was once Gantz's commander and now agreed to be his number 2 man on the list, joining him on the stage.

This reminds me of Charles, the Prince of Wales, who will probably not get to be the king of Britain, standing next to his son William the Duke of Cambridge, who he is expected to abdicate in favor of to inherit the throne.

Netanyahu or not Netanyahuthis is the main dilemma of this election campaign. The question of how to resolve this dilemma at the ballot box remains unsolved, and much is yet to be said about it.

For the meantime, Gantz's debut speech ended with singing the national anthem and with blue and white patriotic confetti. But this was the easy part, now begins the hard part.
An impressionist painting from an American museum on loan in Germany has become the focus of attention because of allegations it may have been looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art collector.

The Barberini Museum in Potsdam, near Berlin, said Wednesday the heirs of the Jewish collector are claiming ownership of Henri-Edmond Cross' "Regatta in Venice" from 1903/04, which is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.
Some 100 Ethiopian demonstrators blocked off to traffic the South Ayalon Highway on Wednesday in protest over police brutality aimed against the Ethiopian community.

The protest comes in light of the deadly shooting of a mentally ill Ethiopian man last week.
If the Trump Administration provided assurances that the commercial interests of each country, which are not the same with respect to what they have received and what they want would be guaranteed, they each might support the removal of President Maduro and his exile to the Republic of Cuba.

The short: The Trump Administration wants the Maduro Administration to leave. H.E. Nicolas Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela wants to stay. The governments of the Russian Federation and Peoples Republic of China believe that the repayments of what could be approaching US$100 billion might be best served by President Maduro remaining in office. The Republic of Cuba wants the Chavez Administration (1999-2013) to return.

European Union (EU)-member countries and some in The Americas are advocating an eight-day deadline for new elections to be scheduled in Venezuela. The Trump Administration suggests that new elections are a condition; however, it does not want only new elections- it wants President Maduro gone and whether in a vertical or horizontal position is of little consequence. This is ugly and will get uglier.

Terrified & The C Word

The Republic of Cuba, Russian Federation, and Peoples Republic of China are terrified by the statement of The Honorable Mike Pompeo, United States Secretary of State, at the United Nations on 26 January 2019: We hope that every nation will join us in recognizing interim president Juan Guaido. We hope too that each of those nations will ensure that they disconnect their financial systems from the Maduro regime and allow the assets that belong to the Venezuelan people to go to the rightful governors of that state. The United States could use the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to subjugate Venezuelan assets in the United States, thus preventing asset transfers. The Trump Administration would need tread carefully as the Russian Federation and Peoples Republic of China could implement retaliatory actions in their territories against the private sector assets of United States companies.

Think 1964 in Brazil, 1973 in Chile, and multiple times from 1930 to 1976 in Argentina. In the case of Venezuela in 2019, there may be conflict between military personnel loyal to the Maduro Administration, those loyal of the sovereignty of Venezuela, and those influenced by the Republic of Cuba, Russian Federation and Peoples Republic of China. Factions seeking leverage, and thus the capitulation of other factions. The Trump Administration will do everything- above and below the fold, to avoid culpability for what media and governments would define as a coup.

The question that may be unknown now is what each faction would want once they secure control of the population of Venezuela- and would they immediately close borders with Brazil and Colombia as a means to stabilize the country and stabilize their neighbors whose assistance any new government in Venezuela will require to survive and to prosper.

Few Options For Cuba

The Republic of Cuba would have few options but to support a transition from the Maduro Administration to the Guaido Administration if their commercial interests were assured to continue or, at minimum, decrease on a timetable that would be least disruptive to the Republic of Cuba. The promising scenario for the Republic of Cuba is the commercial and economic relationship with Venezuela has been declining at an ever-increasing rate during the last five years, so the prospective pain, and there would be pain, could be manageable if the Republic of Cuba continued to establish a commercial, economic and political infrastructure, albeit one that it does not want and one that it does not desperately wants to avoid.

The Trump Administration, with the support of Members of the United States Congress, would prefer that a Guaido Administration sever immediately commercial and economic support provided to the Republic of Cuba and Nicaragua. And, to make public, in the same way that the Bolsonaro Administration has in Brazil, the inter-workings of twenty years of transactions- beginning with the Chavez Administration in 1999. Quite likely document-shredding has well-progressed in Caracas and in Havana.

The New 70-Year-Old

The Honorable Rex Tillerson, United States Secretary of State from 1 February 2017 to 31 March 2018, reportedly wanted The Honorable Elliott Abrams to be Deputy Secretary of State; reportedly, the Trump Administration opposed the selection due to comments by Mr. Abrams deemed critical of The Honorable Donald Trump, President of the United States.

Secretary Pompeo, United States Secretary of State since 26 April 2018, requested and received authorization from the Trump Administration for Mr. Abrams to manage issues relating to Venezuela- and seek the removal of President Maduro.

Mr. Abrams will be joining a National Security Council staff whose focus towards Venezuela, the Republic of Cuba and Nicaragua will be perhaps the most visceral and probing and unilateral and multilateral thus far in the twenty-first century.

Members of the United States Congress, while warning that the Trump Administration must avoid a perception (or reality) of blame for the demise of the Maduro Administration, particularly if there are widespread retributions in the form of murder and execution, will generally support the Trump Administration- and if there are forced changes to the commercial, economic and political infrastructures in the Republic of Cuba and in Nicaragua, that will be perceived as a bonus worth celebrating.

The global political pendulum continues to swing- and the Trump Administration, while vilified abroad for unilateral actions, is finding support amongst those who were critical.

If changes in Venezuela are swift and clean, then the Trump Administration will have and will aggressively use any political currency to seek changes to the Republic of Cuba and to Nicaragua.

Cuba Has A Moment

The Republic of Cuba is in a strengthened position to agree to a public-private mediation proposal [LINK] currently under review by the Trump Administration to resolve the 5,913 certified claims (valued at US$1.9 billion) by United States nationals against the Republic of Cuba. Two of the certified claimants represent approximately 24% of the total owed; thirty represent approximately 56% of the total. Thats a group that can fit on one aircraft, in one meeting room and participate in one conference call. The certified claimants want a deal; the Trump Administration wants a deal; members of the United States Congress want a deal. And, EU-members, Japan, Canada, and others want the Republic of Cuba to rid itself of the issue so that the Republic of Cuba marketplace becomes overtly and substantially attractive rather than potentially menacing. The issue of the certified claims is not going to vanish; its lasted sixty years. The Diaz-Canel Administration, as a uniquely transitional portal from one century to another, can and should agree to mediation.

The Trump Administration is planning to authorize some lawsuits to be filed in United States Federal Courts against companies and perhaps governments (think locations of embassies and consulates and residences for diplomats) who are using assets in the Republic of Cuba that were expropriated without compensation from their owners. Unknown is whether the authorization will permit only those who are certified claimants, those who are not certified claimants, or a combination of each class. Title III of the Libertad Act of 1996 will be implemented in March 2019; the only question is to what extent- and whether the predictions of court-filing calamity will be realized and EU and World Trade Organization (WTO) retribution will materialize. All actors will be determining whether the Republic of Cuba worth the effort.

Final Thought

Although the Trump Administration is advocating for free and fair elections, which President Maduro could presumably win, the goal is, in the words of Secretary Pompeo, to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country. The Trump Administration wants to avoid Gaza Strip of January 2006 (Bush Administration) and Egypt of June 2012 (Obama Administration) where there was recognition that elections were generally clean of issues- but in each instance, the preferred candidates of the United States were defeated.

There is a problem.

John S. Kavulich
Six people have been murdered in the Arab sector since the beginning of 2019, but the police have only made one arrest so far.

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The first murder this month took place on January 13 in Umm al-Fahm. Saher Khaled Mahmud, 20, was riding his motorcycle on his way home and was shot dead in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity.

"He didn't do anything and was murdered in cold blood," said a relative. "We're all in danger."

Umm al-Fahm residents protest against murders in Arab sector

Following the murder, hundreds of Umm al-Fahm residents blocked route 65 to protest the violence and rampant crime.

The second case was two days latera double homicide in the city of Tira in central Israel. Uday Abdelhai, 28, and Ashraf Fadili, 42, were shot to death.

"Our son was shot because he was in the wrong place," said a relative of Abdelhai. "We're not looking for revenge, just for the police to do their job."

Uday Abdelhai and Ashraf Fadili who were murdered in Tira

Last week, Bedouin man Nassir Aluledi, 50, was found dead near route 40 in the Negev. Police arrested his brother, who is suspected of running over Nassir with his car. The brother denies the allegations against him.

"The deceased was a good man. I hope (the police) reach the truth and the murderer is punished," said a resident of the area.

The latest two murders happened on Monday night, within an hour of each other. Ramzi Hamad, 23, was shot dead at close range near his home in Jaffa. The perpetrator, who was waiting for Hamad to come out, was able to flee the scene.

Ramzi is the eighth member of his extended family to be murdered as part of an ongoing dispute between clans in Jaffa, which police are aware of.

"He wasn't looking for trouble and had good ties with everyone," said a relative. "Unfortunately there are people who want to murder and destroy families."

Meanwhile, Nazareth resident Hassib Mussa, 60, was shot dead in Kiryat Tivon in northern Israel. The motive for the murder is believed to be criminal.

Ramzi Hamad and Hassib Mussa

"Arab citizens' sense of personal security is radically decreasing, to the point that many residents fear to leave their homes in the evening hours, afraid they will be hit by errant or intentional fire," said Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen. "It feels like we are on the verge of a civil war."

"According to data from the Public Security Ministry, out of 520 shootings in Umm al-Fahm over the past three years, only six indictments have been filedan outrageous rate of one percent," Jabareen said.

"Most of the shootings and crimes don't get solved. This shows law enforcement authorities' helplessness," he said. "These grave numbers only serve to bolster criminals' working assumption that they can continue acting as they see fit, terrorizing and denying residents of their basic rights for security and property, without worrying about law enforcement."

"As long as the police don't prove otherwise, I hold them responsible for not acting to eradicate the violence, due to outrageous reasons of 'divide and conquer,'" the MK said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan inaugurated a new police station in Kafr Qasim, where he was met with protesters. "They may be loud and make a lot of noise, but they're only a loud minority, who is unfortunately also to blame for the fact security in Arab municipalities is insufficient," Erdan said.

Acting Police Commissioner Moti Cohen and Minister Gilad Erdan at the inauguration of the police station in Kafr Qasim (Photo: Shaul Golan)

He also noted that "the policies of Israeli governments throughout history also bear responsibility."

Erdan is a member of the Likud Party, which has been in power since 2009. He has been the public security minister since 2015.

"The Israeli government has said 'enough' to a situation in which normative Arab citizenswho are the majorityare getting hurt. They too deserve the same level of security. We started building police stations inside the municipalities... only this will bring more law and order. Kfar Saba and Kafr Qasim must have the same police presence," he said.

The new police stations being opened in Arab municipalities "are part of an extensive, well-budgeted plan meant to close the gaps created when Israel was first establisheda lack of vital police services for the Arab public."
US security aid for the Palestinian Authority was set to dry up on Thursday after it declined the money over concerns it could increase its exposure to US anti-terrorism lawsuits.

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The loss of the some $60 million in annual funding would marks another tear in ties between the Trump administration and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and potentially undermines his security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank.

Diplomatic sources said Palestinian, US and Israeli officials were seeking a way to keep the money flowing despite Abbas's decision to turn it down as of a January 31 deadline set by Congress' Anti-Terrorism Clarifcation Act (ATCA) of 2018.

Mahmoud Abbas

The ATCA empowers Americans to sue foreign aid recipients in US courts over alleged complicity in "acts of war".

Abbas's administration, long accused by Israel of stoking Palestinian militant attacks, worries about such legal exposure. It denies encouraging any such acts.

"We do not want to receive financial aid, including aid provided to the security forces, so as not to be subject to the anti-terrorism law approved by Congress," one Palestinian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"The US administration was surprised by the Palestinian decision, and said it wanted to find a solution in order to continue aid to the Palestinian security services."

Such a solution may include finding alternative funds within the CIA budget or amending US legislation, he said.

The US Embassy in Israel had no immediate comment. Israeli officials declined to confirm or deny there were workaround talks, but sought to offer reassurance that Israel could manage security in the West Bank, even without Palestinian help.

Trump and Abbas at the UN General Assembly, September 2017 (Photo: AP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may also be disinclined to signal worries about the West Bank ahead of his bid to stay in office in an election in April as the Palestinians' goal of an independent state is rejected by many of his fellow Israeli rightists.

"Israel cannot save the failing leadership of the Palestinian Authority," Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Reshet Channel 13 TV when asked about the cut in US funding.

"The most we can do is say to them, 'since this is our land, if you cannot govern, then we can."

The Palestinian Authority is an interim self-government body set up following the 1993 Oslo peace accords. The peace process, aimed at finding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been stalled for several years.

The Palestinians have also been boycotting the United States since it recognised disputed Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017.

The Trump administration has cut hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian organizations and UN agencies which aid the Palestinians as it seeks to pressure Abbas to come back to the negotiating table.
German police arrested three Iraqis suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated attack, the federal prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.

Two of the three suspects, identified as Shahin F., Hersh F. and Rauf S., decided in late 2018 to plan an attack in Germany, the prosecutor's office said.

"The findings to date show the suspects had not yet selected a specific target for their attack," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement. The suspects were arrested in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Politicians from the right wing, particularly from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, slammed Israel Resilience Party leader and former IDF chief Benny Gantz on Wednesday after his campaign launch speech and the announcement he had partnered up with former defense minister and Telem Party leader Moshe Ya'alon.

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Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) said the speech was "a collection of cliches," which included "a lot of hubris" and was mostly made up of "left wing slogans."

"Managing matters of state is not a game of empty slogans. There's a difference between being the IDF chief and running a state," Levin said. "Gantz didn't spend a day in the Knesset, didn't sit a day in the government, didn't deal with economic matters or foreign policyand he claims to understand everything. This isn't serious, there's a great deal of disrespect towards the Israeli public."

Israel Resilience Party head Benny Gantz (Photo: EPA)

"They want to establish a left wing government, and instead of presenting things as they are, they prefer to dim the message and hope people are blinded by it. The Israeli public is not stupid and cannot be fooled," Levin said.

Even before Gantz's speech, the Likud Party released a video slamming Gantz for allegedly abandoning Druze Border Policeman Madhat Yousef, who was shot by a Palestinian sniper at Joseph's Tomb at the beginning of the second intifada and died of blood loss after not receiving medical treatment on time. Gantz was the Judea and Samaria Division commander at the time.

The video features the voice of Mahdi Yousef, Madhat's brother, speaking over a photo of Gantz and saying "Whoever abandons a wounded soldier can also abandon a state. 13 soldiers were abandoned. This is Gantz. He's unworthy of being prime minister."

The video later shows a clip of Gantz saying he "personally endangered the Golani Brigade" during Operation Protective Edge and that he was proud to be "on the right side, morally."

Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Amit Shabi)

Following the speech, Netanyahu rejected it as "another speech by (Yesh Atid leader) Lapid. Whoever says he's neither right nor left, is left."

The Likud Party released a statement Tuesday night echoing the prime minister's comments. "All of this 'language laundering' can't conceal the fact that he (Gantz) is a leftist. Immediately after the elections, Gantz will join forces with Lapid and the rest of the left wing parties and establish a left wing government. The overused trick by the left to put a general at the head of a party in an effort to bring down a right wing government will not work on the national camp this time," the party said.

Culture Minister Miri Regev toed the party line, saying "Gantz is the new left. He apparently can't tell the difference between monarchy and democracy. He is the one who abandoned Golani soldiers in favor of the Palestinians, he is the one who didn't understand the tunnel threat, and most gravely, he is the one who didn't present his positions on important diplomatic issues and remained ambiguous. All he wishes is to bring down the right and Netanyahu."

David Amsalem and Miri Regev

Coalition head David Amsalem (Likud) slammed Gantz over his criticism of Netanyahu. "I saw how Gantz preaches to us about integrity and decency. I'd love to get his response on that party he held for himself when he retired from his job as IDF chief, which cost some NIS 600,000 of tax payer money," he wrote on Twitter.

"I wonder what the hypocritical group of cheerleaders from the left would have said if Netanyahu held a party for himself costing even 10 percent of this sum," Amsalem said.

After the speech on Tuesday evening, the New Right Party leader Education Minister Naftali Bennett called both Gantz and Ya'alon "the architects of the tie" and said that "it would be a risk to once again give Gantz security responsibility over the State of Israel. He is very weak when it comes to actions. He hesitated and stuttered throughout all of the tests he faced: abandoning the South Lebanon Army when the IDF left Lebanon, abandoning Madhat Yousef, the release of 1,000 terrorists, the failure of Operation Protective Edge."

Bennett launched a fresh attack on Wednesday morning, criticizing Gantz and Ya'alon's defense positions. "Gantz and Bogie are leading a left-wing policy of weakness and hesitancy," Bennett said, using Ya'alon's nickname.

Israel Resilience Party head Benny Gantz, right, with head of Telem Party Moshe Ya'alon (Photo: AFP)

"Bogie shaped the policy of 'let Hezbollah's missiles rust,' which gave us the disaster of the Second Lebanon War and 150,000 rockets Hezbollah (now has)," Bennett said. "Gantz shaped the policy of 'let Hamas's tunnels fall apart' which gave us 30 terror tunnels from Gaza to Israel. The cooperation between them and the policy of restraint they are leading might endanger Israel, and they must not be at the helm of Israeli security."

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu Party said in a statement after the speech that "We waited in expectation, and then we got 20,000 arrogant, condescending and detached words; zero plans, zero ideas, zero solutions."

Shas leader Interior Minister Aryeh Deri took issue with Gantz's positions on matters of religion and state. "Civil marriages and a Reform Western Wall? Public transportation on the Shabbat? That isn't the way to unify the people, but to divide them," he said.
A knife-wielding Palestinian woman ran towards the az-Za'ayyem checkpoint between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem and tried to stab a soldier was shot and neutralized on Wednesday morning.

There were no reports of injuries on the Israeli side.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to launch a "diplomatic blitz" before the April 9 elections, during which he is set to visit India, the United States and perhaps even Morocco and Bahrain. Netanyahu will also host Brazil's newly-elected President Jair Bolsonaro in Israel.

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Political sources confirmed Tuesday that talks are underway to secure Netanyahu's visit to New Delhi following National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat's visit to India earlier this month.

In 2018, Air Indiaa major Indian airlinebegan operating direct flights to and from Israel that include a route over Saudi Arabia as part of the warming diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and New Delhi, a move led by Netanyahu during his six-day trip to India last year.

PM Netanyahu, and US President Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2018 (Photo: Reuters)

Two weeks before Israel goes to the polls, Netanyahu will fly to Washington to attend the annual AIPAC Conference, and is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump.

Furthermore, the heads of states that comprise the Visegrad Group (V4)Hungary's Victor Orban, Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki , the Czech Republic's Andrej Babis, and Slovakia's Peter Pellegriniare expected to visit the Jewish state in February to hold the first V4 summit in Israel.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Netanyahu during his visit to India in 2018

Netanyahu will take advantage of the opportunity to try to convince the Eastern European leaders to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Czech President Milos Zeman backed the transfer of his country's embassy to Jerusalem, however, Prime Minister Babis opposed the move, fearing it would lead to a clash with the European Union. Instead, Zeman inaugurated in 2018 the "Czech House," a cultural center in Jerusalem promoting the Czech Republic's cultural, economic, tourism and scientific activities in Israel.

Hungary's Victor Orban with Netanyahu (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, called on Netanyahu to cancel the summit, saying Hungary's prime minister has "published anti-Semitic content" while Poland's prime minister had "passed a law desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims," referring to the Holocaust law banning people from accusing Poland of Holocaust atrocities committed by the Nazis.

"This constitutes a complete loss of national pride and will harm Israel in the international arena. Netanyahu should overcome his desire for photo ops before the elections and cancel the summit," Lapid said.

Another controversial ally of Netanyahu, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, is expected to pay a reciprocal visit to Israel after the prime minister attended the newly-elected president's inauguration in December.

Brazil's newly elected president Jair Bolsonaro

In the past, Bolsonaro announced he would move his country's embassy to Jerusalem, however, he too has been dragging his feet on the matter, fearing an Arab boycott against Brazil.

Meanwhile, Morocco has recently announced it will host Netanyahu before the elections, and Jerusalem is said to be holding talks regarding a possible visit by the prime minister to the Gulf state of Bahrain.
Iran's president said on Wednesday the country was facing its toughest economic situation in 40 years, and the United States, not the government, was to blame.

US President Donald Trump last year pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions.

Workers, including truck drivers, farmers and merchants, have since launched sporadic protests against economic hardships, which have occasionally led to confrontations with security forces.
Three vehicles were vandalized overnight Tuesday at the Palestinian village of Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, between Ramallah and Nablus in the West Bank.

The vehicles were sprayed with Hebrew graffiti and Stars of David and their tires were slashed.

Village residents said they spotted the perpetrators and started pursuing them, but they were able to flee.

The Judea and Samaria District Police launched an investigation into the incident.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warm welcome to Lithuania's prime minister marks his latest embrace of an eastern European leader who has offered strong political support while promoting a distorted image of the Holocaust.

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Lithuania is among a slew of former communist nations swept up in a wave of World War II-era revisionism that seeks to diminish their culpability in the Holocaust while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews. In Israel, established in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, many say Netanyahu is cynically betraying the victims' memory.

Lithuania, for instance, has been a leading force behind creating a joint memorial day for all victims of totalitarianism, blurring the distinction between the crimes of the Nazis and the communists who fought them.

Lithuania's Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis puts on a kippa as he enters the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Tuesday January 29, 2019

It also has pushed for legislation to prohibit the sale of books that "distort Lithuanian history" by citing the rampant, documented collaboration of the local population with Nazis. Most recently it has resisted calls to remove the various plaques commemorating anti-Soviet fighter Jonas Noreika, despite recent revelations by his own granddaughter, Silvia Foti, that he was a fierce anti-Semite who had a role in the murder of thousands of Jews.

Nearly all of Lithuania's 200,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

When Netanyahu, who has Lithuanian roots, visited Vilnius last year, he praised Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis for taking "great steps to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust" and for fighting modern-day anti-Semitism.

"It's unforgivable. Netanyahu is giving them a green light," said Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "It's like praising the Ku Klux Klan for improving racial relations in the South."

"We have to say the truth. We owe it to the victims," he added.

In a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday, Skvernelis said "Lithuania has been learning the lessons of the past" and was "improving the life of the Jewish community and restoring historical sites."

At Tuesday's meeting, Netanyahu treaded cautiously. He referred to the "tragedies of the past" but steered clear of any criticism of modern Lithuania, praising the "spirit of friendship" and "a bridge from the past to a future."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Mark Israel Salem)

Skvernelis' visit comes a week after Netanyahu similarly rolled out the red carpet for President Petro Porochenko of Ukraine, whose parliament just designated the birthday of Ukrainian wartime collaborator Stepan Bandera a national holiday. A regional legislature declared 2019 "the year of Stepan Bandera."

Bandera's forces fought alongside the Nazis and were implicated in the murder of thousands of Jews. As Porochenko was visiting Israel, another memorial was being erected in Kiev for Symon Petliura, whose troops are linked to pogroms that killed as many as 50,000 Jews after World War I.

Netanyahu's outreach in eastern Europe is part of his larger strategy of forging alliances to counter the criticism Israel faces in the United Nations and other international forums over its treatment of the Palestinians.

Critics consider it a deal with the devil. They say Netanyahuwho often invokes the Holocaust when inveighing against archrival Iranturns a blind eye when it comes to like-minded allies.

"It's a specific maneuver that legitimizes anti-Semitism and borders on Holocaust denial," said Tamar Zandberg, leader of the Meretz party.

The prime minister's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Under communist rule, the Holocaust was not seriously dealt with and, upon independence, the newfound eastern and central European nations sought to canonize nationalist icons who resisted the Soviets, while largely ignoring their crimes alongside the Nazis. Domestic academics who have challenged the false narrative have been shamed, and external criticism has often been met with new anti-Semitic outbursts.

For countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, the warm embrace of the Israeli leader provides a strong defense against accusation of anti-Semitism while also strengthening ties with a close US ally.

Netanyahu has also formed a close alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has lavished praise on Miklos Horthy, Hungary's World War II-era ruler, who introduced anti-Semitic laws and collaborated with the Nazis. Orban has also employed anti-Semitic tropes against the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros and backed a state-funded museum that experts say plays down the role of Hungarian collaborators.

Netanyahu also struck a deal with Polish leaders over their country's controversial Holocaust speech law, which would have criminalized blaming the Polish nation for crimes committed against Jews during World War II.

Holocaust historians in Israel slammed the agreement, which seemed to accept a Polish narrative that they were only victims of the Nazis. Scholars say anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in pre-war Poland and Poles might have either killed or helped Germans kill up to 200,000 Jews.

Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz on International Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 2019 (Photo: AP)

Still, Netanyahu has invited Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz who last year equated Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust to supposed "Jewish perpetrators"to Israel in February for a summit with the leaders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, the son of a Holocaust survivor, called on Netanyahu to cancel the meeting, saying one prime minister has "published anti-Semitic content" and another "passed a law desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims."

In an annual report Sunday, Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said 2018 saw a record number of worldwide anti-Semitic attacks, with most carried out by neo-Nazis in Europe and white supremacists.

But at his Cabinet meeting later in the day, Netanyahu singled out "Islamic anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the extreme left, which includes anti-Zionism."

Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which hosts all visiting foreign dignitaries, has been thrust into the controversy.

While it says it will never disqualify anyone wishing to visit, Yad Vashem insists it will "forcefully" address any denial or distortion. Yad Vashem said the Lithuanian leader received a comprehensive explanation of the Holocaust, including details about "the murder of Jews of Lithuania by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warm welcome to Lithuania's prime minister marks his latest embrace of an eastern European leader who has offered strong political support while promoting a distorted image of the Holocaust.

Lithuania is among a slew of former communist nations swept up in a wave of World War II-era revisionism that seeks to diminish their culpability in the Holocaust while making heroes out of anti-Soviet nationalists involved in the mass killing of Jews. In Israel, established in the wake of the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, many say Netanyahu is cynically betraying the victims' memory.
This story is about some of the most horrifying videos shared on WhatsApp. We apologize in advance, but there's no other way of getting the message across and ending this phenomena without sharing some very disturbing and hard to read information. Merely watching a few seconds of one of these videos scars your soul for good, and the evil is incomprehensible. Young children, some only four or five, are seen being brutally raped by adults, in videos posted in open WhatsApp groups, within anyone's reach. It's horribly easy to share and watch this content, and it has to end.

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Research carried out in recent weeks revealed dozens of openly accessible WhatsApp groups, in which people freely share videos documenting child abuse and pedophilia. Children are usually about five years old, and their faces are openly revealed, as are some of the faces of their rapists. These videos garnered excited responses in groups with explicit names like "child sex," "child rape" and just "child pornography" (the latter is an Israeli group). Group members encourage one another and ask for more and more videos.

Illustrative images (Photo: Shutterstock)

In one of the groups we found, named "So nice", a member responded to one of these horrific video with a thumbs up emoji, while another replied with an emoji of a cat with heart eyes. A third member discovered that another person in the group (which was actually this reporter) appeared to be a young girl, and tried to call her repeatedly, and then sent begging messages asking that she answer his calls.Then, when I still didn't answer, he started sending me private messages containing appalling videos of child rape.

In the course of this investigation, we followed openly accessible Whatsapp groups, both Israeli and international, that freely share brutal child pornography. It's a world that operates fearlessly, and shows just how out in the open child sexual abuse actually is. There are hundreds of people using the app to relish in the torture and suffering of innocent children.

Many videos we saw were home made, and some details are too gruesome to share. In one of them, a girl who looked about eight years old and who was wearing a tiara was raped by an adult man. Another girl with blonde hair hid her naked body behind a large black teddy bear, when a man's hand reached out and asked for the toy. The girl gave it to him reluctantly, clearly terrified.

How does this happen?

Right under our noses, WhatsApp has become the biggest platform for sharing videos of violence towards and the rape of young children and even babies. It made headlines when two Israeli organizations, Netivei Reshet" (Online Paths) and "Lokhim Ahrayut" (Taking Responsibility) uncovered dozens of groups and filed a complaint with the Israel Police, attaching 1,300 screenshots and 800 videos. The complaint was widely reported both in Israel and abroad, and WhatsApp announced it had closed 130,000 accounts worldwide in response. But new groups are created regularly and the phenomenon continues unhindered.

We downloaded an app that takes you to international WhatsApp groups and looked under the adult section, where the first options were those for groups about child pornography. We felt relieved when some of the older groups were blocked and the link to join them was cancelled, but discovered many new groups that we could easily join, with profile pictures and cover photos clearly showing child rape and nudity. We saw people leaving and joining constantly.

The videos were indescribable. One of them showed a girl no older than four, wearing a floral dress  and we simply can't bring ourselves to detail what happened to her. We could clearly see that some of the phone numbers in this group start with Israel's dialling code, 972.

Protecting our children

"It all started when a teenaged boy called our hotline asked us how to stop his pornography addiction, which started when he was exposed to videos on WhatsApp," says Yona Pressburger, who established the Netivei Reshet organization. "When we saw how bad things were in Israeli groups, we checked the international ones We realized we're facing a global criminal affair, and that we can't be bystanders to this." The organization then joined forces with Lokhim Ahrayut and filed a joint complaint.

"Some of the most hideous content is of very young children being physically and emotionally abused by family members, it's hard to watch such evil In some videos it's like seeing murder taking place right in front of your eyes," says Pressburger, who admits he can hardly get over the things he's seen. "Some videos clearly show the gang rape of young girls."

"WhatsApp hasn't rooted out this phenomenon, unfortunately," Pressburger says. "This is a phenomenon of our time. Children are contacted by an adult who asks them to film themselves, and they send him a video. It can be really young children. It's important to raise the parents' awareness."

"We've also been exposed to sexual videos of Israeli girls who uploaded the content themselves. Children want to appear older, make an impression and look experienced even if they are completely innocent," he says.

The two organizations blame the way in which social media companies handle data. "Encryption allows anyone to post whatever they want, including pedophilia," says Nechemia Cohen of Lokhim Ahrayut.

Cohen believes the answer is for WhatsApp to cancel encryption in open groups. "They have to take care of our children," he says. "On Facebook there's zero tolerance for pornography, and we won't find any of that there, and we certainly won't find pedophilia."

"Parental supervision is never going to be enough," he says. "Google has done a good job. They erased hundreds of apps with links to pornography from their app store  WhatsApp made a one-off sweep, but they didn't root it out."

Cohen raised many issues that law enforcement and WhatsApp need to address, regarding the people in these horrific videos. We asked WhatsApp, its owner Facebook and the Israel Police the following questions: Is anyone trying to locate and rescue these children? Are law enforcement bodies trying to identify the men in the videos, or the ones distributing this content and running these groups? Does WhatsApp provide Interpol with information about these users?

WhatsApp says is using its "most advanced technology, including AI, in order to scan profile photos and block users and accounts suspected of sharing offensive content. We answer worldwide law enforcement queries. Unfortunately, some people use our platform to share harmful content and it is our duty to put a stop to this."

The police said in response: "We do not comment on ongoing investigations, especially in sensitive matters that have to do with the virtual sphere. Pedophilia is a serious phenomenon and the Israel Police handles it firmly, through every possible legal path."
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ELLENSBURG, Wash.  Inside a normally busy hall at Central Washington University, a few dozen people stood in silence Tuesday, stopping for a moment to remember the countless Native women and girls who are missing or murdered in an epidemic of violence that has endured for decades in the United States and beyond.

Those attending the memorial service at the Museum of Culture & Environment could not have known how many Native women and girls have gone missing and have been murdered because there are no government databases. No one has tracked the exact number of the mothers and daughters, grandmothers and sisters and aunties and cousins who have disappeared from the Yakama Nation, other reservations and the cities between them.

But that is changing. And for all those touched by the violence  individuals and families and entire communities  its about time.

The Vanished: Central Washington's missing and murdered indigenous women No one knows exactly how many Native American women have disappeared in our region. Sometimes, they turn up safe. Sometimes, they're never s

We are at a pivot point in our history regarding the safety of our Native women, said Emily Washines, a scholar of the Yakama Nation and one of four speakers during morning lectures in the Student Union and Recreation Center on the issue of murdered and missing indigenous women.

Paul Knepper, professor and chairman of Centrals Department of Law and Justice, led the two-hour discussion. The subject is especially important for Central Washington, its lands home to a Native population that has lived here since time immemorial.

Its particularly important for our region. We share geography with the Yakama Nation, Knepper said of the morning gathering, which drew more than 300 people. I also want to thank the families here.

As a Yakama Nation scholar with a deep interest in the Yakama War of 1855-58, Washines researches and speaks on the historical aspects of missing and murdered Native women on the Yakama reservation.

In 1855 there was a woman, her daughter and baby in a cradleboard. They were out on the land, likely digging roots, she said. Miners on their way up north, to gold mine in Colville ... raped and killed them.

That may seem like a long time ago, Washines noted, but for some elders, their grandparents could have lived in that time period. Only one book, Kamiakin Country by Jo N. Miles, acknowledges that violence against Yakama women and children set in motion events that started the war, Washines said. Almost everyone else outside the tribe  including the state government  has been silent on the issue of the wars real cause, that men were defending their families.

Can you imagine if your grandmother was raped and murdered and for 164 years you only heard silence from the outside community? she asked the crowd.

Washines and the other three speakers provided different ways of understanding the issue. Lottie A. Sam is a member of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council and its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Committee. Yakima County Sheriff Robert Udell, who has been with the agency for 29 years, has long been aware of cases involving missing and murdered Native women and girls in the Yakima Valley.

State Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, spoke by video conference because the Legislature is in session. She sponsored legislation that requires the Washington State Patrol to study the issue of missing Native women in the state and provide recommendations.

In recalling her journey to sponsoring that legislation, she mentioned that many people told her it is a sovereign issue. Some told her its an issue for Congress and thats true, Mosbrucker said.

But Congress wasnt taking care of it. The FBI wasnt taking care of it, she added.

Mosbrucker is sponsoring a new bill this year that speeds up some goals of the legislation she sponsored last year, some action items to make sure were not losing the momentum, she said.

A big issue is protocol on taking missing persons reports. Sam noted that relatives of missing women  and men  have faced frustration when trying to make those reports to law enforcement.

Some of the families were disappointed in trying to file reports, Sam said, adding that many think theres a waiting period to report a missing person. They can file a report immediately if something is out of the norm.

Recently, Sam and others worked with Yakama Nation Police Department investigators and its commissioner, James Shike, on establishing report language. There is now a new form that they will use when families report a missing loved one.

Udell has worked closely with Yakama Nation police and has a good working relationship with them, he stressed.

Our relationship with the tribe right now is excellent. And were going to use that relationship to find missing people, Udell said. In our county we have dozens of missing people and at least 40 unsolved homicide cases.

Udell is creating a cold case task force, something the tribe did a few years ago, he noted.

Its going to be a big deal and its going to be a lot of work, he said. I have high hopes that were going to bring closure. Well do everything we can to find people who are missing.

Several who attended the memorial service expressed appreciation for the attention on the issue.

Bessie Wilson, director of the Yakama Nation Iniitnut Cold Weather Shelter, performs and sing with a group called Iksiks Washanala, The Little Swans.

A few years back we began wearing red to honor the Native women and girls who went missing and were murdered in Canada, and there was so much negative backlash, she said. People didnt want them bringing it up or highlighting it, she said.

To have an event like this, to have a large meeting in our Legends Casino events center (on Jan. 14), this is giant progress, Wilson said.

In looking back just 10 years, change is obvious in how the issue of missing and murdered Native women and girls is being addressed, some said. Those who love and miss them are demanding justice, and others are listening.

We will stop crying. We will speak loud on behalf of our sisters  our big sisters and our little sisters, Sam said.

We all matter.
Paris (AFP) - A rights group and a major trade union went to France's top administrative court Wednesday seeking a ban on riot police using rubber bullets, blamed for injuring dozens of "yellow vest" protesters.

Activists have denounced the police for their use of the projectiles during two months of anti-government protests, which have repeatedly ended in rioting.

A government spokesman told the court that police had opened 111 investigations into incidents surrounding their use at the protests.

In the National Assembly meanwhile, MPs approved measures to ban habitual troublemakers from the demonstrations.

Dozens of people have been seriously injured in clashes with police, including several who have been blinded. Protesters, rights groups and some sections of the French media have blamed some of the more serious injuries on the 40-mm (1.6-inch) rubber projectiles.

The Human Rights League (LDH) and the left-wing CGT union lodged a case at the Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, after a lower administrative court rejected their petition last week.

Rubber bullets are prohibited for use in riot control in most western European countries.

The Desarmons-Les (Disarm Them) collective, which campaigns against police violence, claims 20 protesters have lost an eye.

- 111 police investigations -

The government has defended the police use of both rubber bullets and stun grenades as necessary to guard against violent elements among the yellow vests activists who have repeatedly attacked security forces.

An interior ministry spokesman told the Council of State Wednesday the weapon had been used 9,228 times during the yellow jacket protests.

And out of those cases, the General Inspectorate of the National Police had opened 111 investigations, Pascale Leglise told the court.

The debate flared up again at the weekend after a yellow-vest leader was badly injured in one eye while filming a protest in Paris.

Story continues

Jerome Rodrigues, who was treated in hospital for his injuries, claimed he was hit by a rubber bullet during clashes at the Bastille square.

Junior interior minister Laurent Nunez said there was "no indication" that his injuries had been caused by such a projectile.

Two investigations are underway into the incident, which occurred as police for the first time wore body cameras to record their use of the "defence ball launchers" (LBDs) -- the rifles that shoot rubber rounds.

Many police officers argue the weapons are necessary.

"We're being attacked with glass bottles, cinder blocks, acid and bolts. An LBD is the weapon that scares people. If they took them away from us, no officer will want to work during the protests," a police source told AFP earlier this month.

- Ban on troublemakers -

The "yellow vest" movement, which erupted in mid-November over fuel taxes, quickly snowballed into a widespread revolt over President Emmanuel Macron's pro-business economic policies and his aloof governing style, seen as out of touch with rural and small-town France.

Tens of thousands of people wearing luminous yellow road safety vests have taken part in nationwide protests on 11 consecutive Saturdays.

But their numbers have dipped in recent weeks after Macron announced a series of measures to assist pensioners and the working poor, and launched two months of countrywide debates to allow people to suggest what reforms they favour.

On Wednesday, MPs in the National Assembly voted to give regional prefects the power to ban people identified as violent from taking part in demonstrations.

It forms part of a controversial bill being debated designed to crack down on the sort of violence that has marred the movement.

Some MPs also want more severe penalties for organisers of unauthorised demonstrations as well as people who cover their faces during violent protests.

Left-wing parties have opposed the bill, which they see as a threat to civil liberties.
Washington (AFP) - The United States on Tuesday urged its citizens to avoid all travel to crisis-torn Venezuela, citing risks of crime and arrest and the US embassy's limited ability to assist.

"Do not travel to Venezuela due to crime, civil unrest, poor health infrastructure and arbitrary arrest and detention of US citizens," the State Department said in an updated travel advisory.

"There are shortages of food, electricity, water, medicine and medical supplies throughout much of Venezuela," it said.

Venezuela becomes the only country in the Western Hemisphere to be slapped with the State Department's "Level 4" warning against all travel, joining war zones such as Syria and Yemen. Americans, however, are not legally forbidden from going.

The State Department had earlier listed Venezuela as Level 3, meaning that Americans should reconsider visits.

While the new travel advisory concerns security of US citizens, it comes as the United States is pressing leftist President Nicolas Maduro to step down faced with Venezuela's economic collapse and mounting street protests.

The United States has recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president.

Washington has refused Maduro's orders to close down the embassy but has pulled out non-emergency staff and families due to security risks.

The travel advisory said that the United States "has limited ability to provide emergency services" in Venezuela.
US intelligence chiefs contradicted some of President Donald Trump's most fundamental foreign policy claims Tuesday, underscoring a persistent division in his view of the world and theirs.

In a hearing on global threats at the Senate Intelligence Committee, the country's top spies took issue with Trump's assertion that the Islamic State group has been defeated, and that North Korea can be convinced to forego its nuclear weapons.

They also challenged Trump's claim that Tehran is actively seeking nuclear weapons, the justification Trump gave for withdrawing last year from a multilateral treaty on Iran.

And they underscored again that Russia meddled deeply on Trump's behalf in the 2016 presidential election -- which he has repeatedly denied -- and can be expected to do the same in 2020.

The hearing took place weeks after Trump cited a victory over Islamic State to justify his sudden announcement of an immediate pullout from Syria -- a move that alarmed the US defense establishment and allies in the Middle East.

And it came just weeks before Trump plans a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to negotiate a hoped-for denuclearization of the hermit state.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the committee that the US intelligence community believes it is unlikely that Pyongyang will agree to completely denuclearize.

"We continue to assess that North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, even as it seeks to negotiate partial denuclearization steps to obtain key US and international concessions," Coats said in the annual "Worldwide Threat Assessment" report.

"North Korea's leaders see having a nuclear weapons capability as "critical to regime survival."

- IS eyeing comeback -

The report also warned that Islamic State is hardly vanquished and could easily rise again in a vacuum left by departing US forces, resuming global attacks and restarting its propaganda machine.

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"ISIS still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, and it maintains eight branches, more than a dozen networks, and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses," Coats said.

- Iran complying with deal -

The Coats report highlighted the broad and increasing threat to the United States from China, a point of agreement across the board in the Trump administration.

It characterized the US-China struggle as an ideological battle between the Western model of a democratically-based economy and China's authoritarian capitalism.

"Chinese leaders will increasingly seek to assert China's model of authoritarian capitalism as an alternative -- and implicitly superior -- development path abroad, exacerbating great-power competition that could threaten international support for democracy, human rights and the rule of law," the report said.

It also warned of a growing alignment between China and Russia, saying their relationship "is likely to strengthen in the coming year as some of their interests and threat perceptions converge, particularly regarding perceived US unilateralism and interventionism and Western promotion of democratic values and human rights."

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the panel that the FBI is investigating Chinese economic espionage in nearly all of its 56 field offices around the country.

"China writ large is the most significant counterintelligence threat we face," Wray said.

- Iran adhering to nuclear deal -

But the intelligence community showed a distinct divergence on other thrusts of Trump policy.

On Iran, Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel told the hearing that the country is still abiding by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, despite Trump's decision to withdraw last year, claiming Tehran had broken it.

"At the moment technically they are in compliance" with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Haspel told lawmakers.

"I think the most recent information is the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to JCPOA as they seek to pressure the European to come through with the investment and trade benefits that Iran hoped to gain from the deal."

There was no comment from the White House on the Coats report. But analysts said it showed a glaring divide that has existed since the beginning of Trump's term in 2017.

"A normal human being listening to the intel chiefs today on Iran and North Korea would conclude that Trump was dead wrong to withdraw from the JCPOA and dead right to negotiate with KJU even though zero nukes was magical thinking," said Aaron David Miller, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - US aid to the Palestinian security services will end this week at the Palestinians' request, an official in the West Bank said Wednesday, to preempt lawsuits over alleged support for terrorism.

The Palestinian Authority has demanded the funding stop at the end of January for fear it could expose the PA to costly lawsuits under the US Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), which comes into force on February 1.

"The money will be cut off," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told AFP in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"We don't want to receive any money if this will take us to court."

The ATCA legislation passed by Congress last year provides for any government that receives funding to be subject to US counterterrorism laws.

The PA faces potential lawsuits from families of American victims of past Palestinian attacks.

The aid of around $35 million a year was in support of Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank, which cooperate closely with their Israeli counterparts against Hamas and other radical groups.

Media reports had said Israeli officials expressed concern to the US about the impact of the security cut and encouraged them to find a workaround.

Erekat, however, denied the PA was seeking a way by which the funding could continue without exposing the government to the ATCA.

"We are not seeking anything. The Americans have made a decision," he said. "But we are going to continue being part of fighting terror in the region."

He pointed out that hundreds of millions of dollars had already been cut by the Americans in aid to the Palestinian people in the past year.

Israeli and US officials regularly accuse the PA of encouraging violence by providing funds to the families of prisoners held by Israel or of militants while carrying out attacks against Israelis.

The PA says the payments are a form of welfare to the families who have lost their main breadwinner and denies it seeks to encourage violence.
By Shannon Stapleton and Lizbeth Diaz TIJUANA/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The United States sent the first Central American asylum seeker back to Mexico through a crossing at the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday as part of a hardened immigration policy, an official at Mexico's national migration institute said. The return of a Honduran man was carried out under a U.S. policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) by which the United States will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts. The United States is not expected to send any other Central American migrants to Mexico on Tuesday, said the Mexican immigration official, who asked not to be identified. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman confirmed earlier in the day that the United States would begin sending migrants back to Mexico on Tuesday. Mexican officials had initially expected the transfers to begin on Friday. Asylum seekers have traditionally been granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases were decided by an immigration judge, but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years. U.S. authorities are expected to send as many as 20 people per day through the Mexican border city of Tijuana and gradually start sending people back through the other legal ports of entry, Mexico's foreign ministry said on Friday. The U.S. policy is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America to request asylum who say they fear returning home because of threats of violence there. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump says many of the claims are not valid. Mexico has said it will accept the return of certain people who have a date to appear in a U.S. court, but will reject those who have health problems, are unaccompanied minors or would be in danger in Mexican territory. Immigration advocates fear Mexico is not safe for migrants, who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers. They have also raised concerns that applicants sent back to Mexico will not have access to proper legal counsel in U.S. courts. (Reporting by Julia Love in Tijuana, Yeganeh Torbati in New York and Lizbeth Diaz and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Writing by Delphine Schrank and Anthony Esposito; editing by Grant McCool)
Yesterday saw some success for Theresa May in the Commons for a change  but a Brexit end point is far from guaranteed.

In a dramatic night of votes in the Commons, MPs supported a proposal endorsed by the Prime Minister to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and replace the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

Despite this victory the Prime Minister is still facing an uphill battle with the EU.

Almost immediately after securing a House of Commons majority, the EU immediately slammed the door shut on any prospect of Mrs May reopening the Brexit talks around the backstop.

It was a good night for Theresa May as MPs came to a consensus on Brexit (PA)

The Brady amendment won support from Leave and Remain supporting Tories (PA)

And if there are two statements that sum up the current chasm between the UK and the EU, it is these:

A hopeful Mrs May told the Commons: We will now take this mandate forward and seek to obtain legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with concerns on the backstop while guaranteeing no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. My colleagues and I will talk to the EU about how we address the Houses views.

As I said this afternoon, there is limited appetite for such a change in the EU and negotiating it will not be easy. But in contrast to a fortnight ago, this House has made it clear what it needs to approve a Withdrawal Agreement.

Less than 10 minutes later, European Council president Donald Tusks spokesman said: We welcome and share the UK Parliaments ambition to avoid a no-deal scenario.

We continue to urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible.

The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.

COUNTDOWN TO BREXIT  ANALYSIS FROM YAHOO UK

Where do Theresa Mays ministers stand on Brexit?

Post-Brexit trip to Europe? Try these non-EU alternatives

Bank of England governor confident about UK banks Brexit readiness

Dont be fooled  the biggest battle over Brexit starts now

Hard Brexit could cripple UK science warn Nobel Prize winners

Story continues

The EU has signalled that they will not negotiate any further (Getty)

What does this mean for the PM?

Despite winning support from both Tory Leavers and Remainers, the EU has all but put a stop to any positive movement in the Brexit deadlock.

By signalling it is not prepared to renegotiate, Mrs May is essentially in the same position she was in before the amendment votes.

Meanwhile, the European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said there was no majority to re-open or dilute the agreement.

The Prime Minister is hoping to talk the EU round (PA)

French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau stressed the Withdrawal Agreement would not be reopened.

She said: The Withdrawal Agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar further reiterated that the backstop could not be renegotiated, and was back up by German foreign minister Heiko Maas.

However the vote has put pressure on EU leaders as they will now be seen as refusing to budge even though Parliament has finally come to a majority on an arrangement.

This potentially changes the narrative to one of a rigid and dismissive EU who refuse to make concessions so that a no deal Brexit can be avoided.

Boris Johnson said: It takes two to tango. There is a negotiation going on, you would expect him to say that.

MPs voted on a series of amendments on Tuesday night (PA)

Tuesdays votes were triggered by the overwhelming defeat of Mrs Mays Brexit Plan A by 230 votes earlier this month.

Labour backbencher Yvette Coopers attempt at delaying Brexit became far less likely after MP rejected her proposal to extend Article 50 if Mrs May was unable to secure an acceptable agreement by February 26.

With the EU having to significantly change their stance on reopening the Withdrawal Agreement the chances of a no deal Brexit are looking as likely as ever.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
By Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday called U.S. intelligence chiefs "extremely passive and naive" on Iran and dismissed their assessments of the threat posed by North Korea a day after they contradicted his views during congressional testimony.

His comments drew criticism from some of his fellow Republicans in Congress, some of whom have introduced legislation that would counter Trump's policies on national security in an unusual break from their party's leader.

Leaders of the U.S. intelligence community told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the nuclear threat from North Korea persisted and Iran was not taking steps towards making a nuclear bomb, conclusions that contrasted starkly with Trump's assessments of those countries.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump, who criticized U.S. intelligence agencies even before he took office, said in a Twitter post.

Trump cited Iranian rocket launches and said Tehran was "coming very close to the edge."

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!" he said.

Trump last year pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, saying Tehran was "not living up to the spirit" of the agreement, and reimposed sanctions. Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

The intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the agreement.

Their assessments also broke with other assertions by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections, the threat the Islamic State militant group poses in Syria, where he plans to withdraw U.S. troops, and North Korea's commitment to denuclearize.

"The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality," Senator Mark Warner, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, wrote on Twitter. "People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter."

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Republican U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher, who served as a Marine Corps intelligence officer during the Iraq war, defended the intelligence agencies, saying: "They are doing a very difficult job and they are actually trying to advance the president's priorities."

BILL TO REBUKE TRUMP?

Gallagher was one of a group of Republican and Democratic House of Representatives members who announced bills on Wednesday to set strict conditions before the United States could withdraw troops from Syria or the Korean Peninsula. The Democratic-led House overwhelming passed legislation last week reaffirming U.S. support for the NATO military alliance, another target of Trump criticism.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced legislation on Tuesday urging U.S. troops to remain in Syria and Afghanistan.

A few Republicans also joined Democrats on Wednesday to reintroduce a war powers resolution, which passed the Senate but not the House in December in the face of Trump's opposition, seeking to end any U.S. involvement in Yemen's civil war.

John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said Trump should have trusted the intelligence leaders' judgment. "I don't know how many times you can say this but I prefer the president would stay off Twitter - particularly with regard to those important national security issues," Thune told CNN.

Trump has challenged U.S. intelligence agencies in the past, including casting doubt on their conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help him win the presidency.

The CIA and the Director of National Intelligence office did not comment on Trump's remarks.

Trump has invested heavily in improving relations with North Korea in hopes of getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions. He broke with decades of U.S. policy when he agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June and plans another summit in February.

"North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization," Trump said on Twitter.

"I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!"

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel told senators that North Korea viewed its nuclear program as vital to its survival and was unlikely to give it up.

Trump also defended his decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria on grounds that Islamic State no longer poses a threat, saying: "We've beaten them."

"Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago," Trump said on Twitter.

The U.S. intelligence chiefs said Islamic State would continue to pursue attacks from Syria and Iraq against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle, Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald branded his own intelligence services "naive" on Iran and in need of schooling in a deepening and unusually public row Wednesday.

The Twitter broadside was a riposte to the more sober but equally emphatic rejection by the intelligence community Tuesday of many of Trump's foreign policy claims.

Insisting that Iran's nuclear program remains dangerous, Trump said his intelligence advisors -- who believe Tehran is largely abiding by an international commitment to shelve nuclear weapons ambitions -- should be more realistic.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!" Trump tweeted. "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

Trump also touted what he said were his successes in Syria, where he has alarmed allies by abruptly announcing a withdrawal of US troops, and in North Korea, where he believes he can persuade reclusive leader Kim Jong Un to give up nuclear weapons.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, the nation's top intelligence chiefs challenged all those positions.

This was far from the first time Trump has publicly doubted his national security experts. But the vehemence of his response Wednesday showed the depth of that split.

Reaction from Democratic opponents was swift.

Adam Schiff, who heads the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives, said Trump's dismissal of his officials' advice was "deeply dangerous."

"The president has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality," Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the upper house's intelligence committee, tweeted.

- Clashing assessments -

Trump's administration has been consistently hawkish on Iran. He pulled the United States from a complex international deal meant to secure Iran's abandonment of nuclear weapon ambitions, arguing that Tehran was cheating.

Story continues

However, US intelligence agencies in an annual joint report published Tuesday said they "assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device."

There was also pushback from the intelligence officials on North Korea.

Trump has put great store by his personal relationship with Kim, whom he plans to meet in the near future for a second summit. On Wednesday he insisted again that there is a "decent chance" of North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons.

But in the intelligence report, the view on North Korea was that its leaders continue to "view nuclear arms as critical to regime survival."

Likewise, Trump boasted that the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed caliphate, which once covered vast areas of Iraq and Syria, will "soon be destroyed," something "unthinkable two years ago."

But in testimony to the Senate on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats offered a less optimistic view, noting that "ISIS still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria... and thousands of dispersed supporters around the world, despite significant leadership and territorial losses."

Closer to home, Trump has described illegal immigration by poor Central Americans as a national security crisis that he likens to an invasion and can only be stopped by building border walls.

The issue dominates his domestic agenda and has pushed him into a debilitating row with Congress, which so far has refused to provide wall funding.

Tellingly, the intelligence agencies' group assessment on Tuesday referred to migration and cross-border crime, but did not mention any need for a wall.

Touching on one of the most explosive subjects in Washington, the agencies also underscored that they believe Russia meddled deeply on Trump's behalf in the 2016 presidential election -- which he has repeatedly denied -- and can be expected to do the same in 2020.
President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at his own intelligence chiefs a day after they gave a Senate committee assessments of foreign threats that radically differed from his own.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran, Trump tweeted. They are wrong!

On Tuesday, the directors of the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and national intelligence testified publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee that China and Russia currently pose the biggest risks to the United States.

Their views on relations with North Korea, Iran and Syria were conspicuously at odds with what Trump has said about those countries.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told members of the committee that ISIS continues to pose a threat in Syria. (Trump, in announcing plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, said, We have defeated ISIS in Syria.) Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. (Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat, and that he solved the crisis with the rogue nuclear nation.) And Coats said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement. Trump, who pulled out of the deal, insisted Wednesday that Tehran remains a source of potential danger and conflict.

From left: FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats arrive to testify Tuesday before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge, the president wrote on Twitter. There [sic] economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

Its not the first time Trump has clashed with his own intelligence officials. Late last year, the president refused to accept the CIAs assessment that there was strong evidence that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and declined to sanction the Saudis for the killing.

Trump has repeatedly resisted the conclusion of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of boosting his election chances. The president has instead appeared to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he believed Putins denials over the assessment of the American intelligence community.

Story continues

Trumps decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, against the advice of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, led Mattis to resign in protest.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held, Mattis wrote in his resignation letter. Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.

___

Read more from Yahoo News:
Photo illustration: Yahoo News: photos: AP, Shutterstock

President Trump signaled his support on Monday for state bills that would allow public schools to teach courses in the Bible, which he once proclaimed was his favorite book.

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Trumps tweet came minutes after Fox & Friends aired a segment Monday morning on pending legislation in six states  Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia  that would allow Bible literacy courses to become a part of a public school education.

Nothing beats the Bible, Trump famously said on the campaign trail in 2015  not even The Art of the Deal.

The Christian activists who crafted the template for inserting the Bible into public school curricula celebrated the presidents endorsement of the idea.

We were excited to see it happen, Steven Fitschen, president of the National Legal Foundation, told Yahoo News. The model bill that we were involved with is for the state level, but we were excited to see him use his bully pulpit, so to speak.

Fitschen said the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation  a nonprofit group formed by former Virginia Republican Congressman J. Randy Forbes to promote restoring Judeo-Christian principles  hired him to help draft the text of legislation that could withstand First Amendment challenges to teaching the Bible in schools.

We looked at what was already in existence and tried to craft a model bill so we could eliminate any constitutional problems, so there could be a course that taught about Islam or Buddhism or any other religion. Many other schools already have comparative religion courses, Fitschen said. The reason we centered in on the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the history of the country, how much of our idiom and our political framework, all these things that were biblically derived because of the historical situation with many of the early colonists.

The American Civil Liberties Union blasted both the attempt to infuse Bible literacy courses in public schools and Trumps support of it. Its concern is that, notwithstanding Fitschens self-proclaimed commitment to religious neutrality, in practice the courses could, at least in some states, amount to a form of Christian evangelism.

Story continues

Yet again, President Trump is exploiting religious divisions to score political points. Public school Bible courses are rarely taught neutrally and objectively as required by the Constitution, Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, told Yahoo News in an email. Instead, these courses usually resemble Sunday school classes that blatantly violate students and parents First Amendment rights. Religious education is best left to families and faith communities, not public school officials.

Just as the pro-business American Legislative Exchange Council crafts model bills that can be adapted and introduced in states across the country, the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundations blueprint for inserting the Bible into public schools follows a similar starter-kit approach.

We dont get involved with the legislative battles, Fitschen said. Instead what we do is we put together model bills that we think would work in any of the 50 states, and its up on the foundation website.

While bills following the foundations template failed to pass in Alabama, Iowa and West Virginia last year, Kentucky passed its version, House Bill 128, in 2017, over objections from the ACLU, and it was signed into law by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.

Supporters of Bible literacy classes say the text is being taught as a historical and cultural document, but the ACLU contends that including it in the curriculum is a way to promote religion.

In several of these classes, teachers are using the Bible to impart religious life lessons and actively inculcate Christianity, the ACLU of Kentucky wrote in a letter last year to schools seeking clarity on how the text would be presented to students.

Bills written by pro-religious groups that seek to influence the public school curriculum are not uncommon in the U.S. A new Florida measure authored by the Florida Citizens Alliance and sponsored in the states Legislature by Republican Rep. Dennis Baxley seeks to require public schools to teach alternatives to climate change and evolution.

A September poll from the Public Religion Research Institute found Trumps approval rating from white evangelicals holding firm at 71 percent, and Mondays tweet probably wont change that.

A course in Biblical literacy might have helped Trump, who once mistakenly referred to one of the New Testament books as Two Corinthians instead of Second Corinthians  embarrassingly, at a speech at the evangelical Liberty University.

On its website, the National Legal Foundation says its mission is to prayerfully create and implement innovative strategies that, through decisive action, will cause Americas public policy and legal system to support and facilitate Gods purpose for her.

Both the NLF and the CPCF view their goal of seeing Bible literacy taught in schools in all 50 states as a longterm project.

I expect in some the states where it has failed theyll try again, Fitschen said.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Damascus (AFP) - Syria and Iran signed 11 agreements and memoranda of understanding late Monday, including a "long-term strategic economic cooperation" deal aimed at strengthening cooperation between Damascus and one of its key allies in the civil war that has torn the country apart.

The agreements covered a range of fields including economy, culture, education, infrastructure, investment and housing, the official Sana news agency reported.

They were signed during a visit to Damascus by Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri.

Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis said it was "a message to the world on the reality of Syrian-Iranian cooperation", citing "legal and administrative facilities" to benefit Iranian companies wishing to invest in Syria and contribute "effectively to reconstruction".

The agreements included two memos of understanding between the railway authorities of the two countries as well as between their respective investment promotion authorities.

In relation to infrastructure, there was also rehabilitation of the ports of Tartus and Latakia as well as construction of a 540 megawatt energy plant, according to Khamis.

In addition there were "dozens of projects in the oil sector and agriculture", he added.

The civil war has taken an enormous toll on the Syrian economy and infrastructure, with the cost of war-related destruction estimated by the UN at about $400 billion.

Iran will stand "alongside Syria during the next phase that will be marked by reconstruction", Jahangiri promised.

Iran and Syria had already signed a military cooperation agreement in August while Tehran has supported Damascus economically during the conflict through oil deliveries and several lines of credit.

The new agreements come against the backdrop of fresh US sanctions against Iran, while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and several Syrian businesspeople and companies are already on US and European blacklists.

They also come as Israel has repeatedly pledged to keep arch-foe Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where the war has already claimed more than 360,000 lives and displaced several million people.
Yesterday afternoon brought some surprise news. American and Taliban negotiators have apparently agreed in principle to a framework of a deal with the Taliban, a deal that could ultimately lead to an American withdrawal after more than 17 years of war.

Could we be seeing an end to the forever war? Is peace (possibly) at hand? Or would a deal represent nothing more than a dangerous retreat by a dispirited nation in the face of emboldened and energized enemies?

To answer the question, lets look at the details of the potential agreement. Theyre admittedly sketchy, and a final deal could look better, but if were seeing the outlines of the Trump administrations plan, were seeing the outlines of a desperate, gullible deal  one that will make America far less secure.

According to the New York Times summary of the deal, the Taliban guarantee Afghan territory is never used by terrorists, and then a complete U.S. pullout could commence in return for larger concessions, including an agreement for a cease-fire and for insurgents to commence direct talks with the Afghan government.

Do the Taliban have the same understanding about the deal? Perhaps not. The Times reached a senior Taliban official with direct knowledge of the talks, and while he confirmed the draft agreement on the issue of foreign troop withdrawal and the Taliban pledge that Afghan soil would not be used against others, there was obvious trouble ahead:

[I]n a sign that the conditions the Americans have demanded may be difficult to reach, the Taliban official said he did not see the agreement as being dependent on a cease-fire or direct talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The official declined to specify the Talibans position on these issues.

Yet even if the Americans reach the agreement outlined by their own negotiator, we would be entering into a fools bargain with a ruthless enemy. How would it be problematic? Let us count the ways.

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First, theres implementation. Would the Taliban turn on international militants that are currently often intermingled with their own fighters? Would the Taliban rout ISIS from Afghanistan? Absent American military support, is there a local force that even has the power to rout ISIS? Is there even a Taliban negotiator who speaks with the authority to truly bind all Taliban factions?

Moreover, the threat isnt merely theoretical. Heres the Times again:

Jim Mattis, who resigned as defense secretary last month, pointed to the estimate that some 20 terrorist groups, many of them offshoots of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, would quickly use the freedom afforded by an American troop pullout to try to launch operations against Western targets.

Second, theres enforcement. It is difficult enough to prevent terrorist safe havens from emerging when theres an American military presence in the country, including a presence sufficient to provide the kind of on-the-ground intelligence to identify emerging threats. In the event of a total pullout, the American ability to identify and smash safe havens that emerge in violation of the agreement would be limited, and the American appetite to reenter the struggle would be non-existent.

In other words, the Taliban would know that when were gone, were almost certainly truly gone.

Third, there are profound religious and strategic consequences. If American forces leave in the face only of an empty pledge not to permit safe havens, a temporary cease-fire, and an agreement that the Taliban merely speak to the Afghan government, then the Trump administration will enhance jihadist prestige immeasurably. Insurgents will be able to make a plausible claim to have chased the Americans out of Afghanistan. Theyll have a plausible claim that jihadists have defeated a second superpower  first the Soviets and now the Americans.

If the planned Trump withdrawal from Syria has echoes of Americas disastrous withdrawal from Iraq, its potential withdrawal from Afghanistan has echoes of Americas retreat from Vietnam. Wed leave an allied government with diminished resources to face an emboldened enemy. But unlike our Vietnamese foes, this emboldened jihadist enemy has already demonstrated that it can and will host terrorists who can and did inflict grievous harm on the United States of America.

As our successful incursion into Syria demonstrates  and as our contemporary engagement in Afghanistan shows  so long as there are sufficient allied forces on the ground, America does not have to deploy troops at scale to destroy terrorist safe havens and to keep jihadist armies at bay. American casualties in Afghanistan peaked in 2010 and 2011 and have declined precipitously since. In 2011, 499 Americans died in Afghanistan. In 2018, 17 Americans perished.

As for Syria, thanks in large part to the remarkable courage and sacrifice of our Kurdish allies, American troops have routed ISIS from its physical caliphate while losing fewer than ten men and women in combat.

Its vital to understand that peace does not necessarily require withdrawal. In fact, American troops have often been indispensable to keeping the peace after our worst wars. And as costly as those forward deployments are, they are far, far less costly than renewed combat. Keeping an American military force in Iraq in 2011 would have been far less costly than the city-destroying urban battles weve seen since America was forced to reengage in 2014. Keeping an American military force in South Korea has been far less costly than the likely catastrophe of a second Korean War.

No deal with the Taliban should depend on trusting the Taliban to defeat the terrorists who seek to strike us here at home. No deal with the Taliban should leave our allies at the mercy of the Taliban. If that means no deal with the Taliban, then so be it. If they want to commit to perpetual warfare, then they should understand that our nation has the will for perpetual self-defense.

More from National Review
Rome (AFP) - Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday that 47 rescued migrants aboard the Sea Watch NGO vessel could finally disembark after Italy and six other countries agreed to take them in.

"Luxembourg has joined the list of friendly countries that responded to our invitation (to take the migrants), now we are seven countries," Conte told journalists. "Disembarking will begin in the coming hours."

The other countries that have agreed to take in the migrants and asylum seekers, who have been stuck on the Sea Watch 3 vessel for nearly two weeks, are France, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Romania.

Their fate has been at the centre of a standoff between Italy's far-right anti-migrant Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and the German NGO Sea Watch.

The aid group on Friday filed an urgent case at the European Human Rights Court against Italy for refusing to allow its ship to dock.

Sea Watch took the step because of Rome's hardline attitude against the mainly sub-Saharan migrants that its ship pulled out of the Mediterranean on January 19.

Sea Watch 3 is sailing under a Dutch flag and has been sheltering from bad weather off Sicily.

It picked up the migrants and asylum-seekers -- including eight minors -- off the coast of Libya as they made the treacherous crossing.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday urged the Italian government to "take all necessary measures, as quickly as possible", to provide migrants on board the Sea Watch 3 with medical care, water and food.

Migrants rescued at sea have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer.

Sea Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told AFP, "We are happy that this European hostage-taking is ending.

"At the same time, it's a bad day for Europe because human rights have once more been made secondary to negotiations within the EU... Another bitter day," he said.

Story continues

Europe has been wrestling with divisions over how to handle the problem since the migration crisis of 2015 when more than one million people arrived on its shores, many of them fleeing conflict in the Middle East.

Salvini, who has warned that he was considering legal action against Sea Watch crew, said Tuesday that the 47 migrants can disembark if they agree to leave for Germany or the Netherlands.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for the need for "humane solutions" for migrant rescue operations and urged that migrants be allowed to disembark at the nearest port, in this case "in Italy".

He said sharing of the care of migrants came after, and that France was committed to that principal.

In a similar case earlier this month, the EU struck a deal to share out between eight European countries nearly 50 migrants stranded aboard two ships, one of which was Sea Watch 3.

The Netherlands on Monday rebuffed Italy's call to take in the 47 migrants, arguing that Dutch-flagged ship had acted "on its own initiative".

Some 113,482 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year, according to the UN refugee agency, which said 2,262 people lost their lives or went missing making the perilous journey.
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian and European officials expressed concern and regret Wednesday over Israel's decision not to renew the mandate of an international monitoring group in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was established after a massacre of Palestinians in 1994.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday he would not extend its mandate, accusing it of bias.

The Palestinians labelled the move a "green light" for Israeli settlers in the city to carry out abuses.

"I think nations should stand tall against this," PLO secretary general Saeb Erekat said.

He said Israeli settlers and soldiers had committed "40,000 attacks and violations against the Palestinian people in Hebron" since the TIPH was formed, without giving a source for the figure.

"Imagine what will they do without the presence of this force."

European countries which staff the mission also opposed the Israeli decision.

"We have learned of this decision with regret but we continue our efforts," Italy's Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi told Italian news agencies.

"Sweden and the other countries of the mission deeply regret the Israeli statements," a Swedish foreign ministry spokesman said.

"We believe that the mission is important and should continue."

The Norway-led team is comprised of 64 observers tasked with promoting security for Palestinians in Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank.

Its mission was created after 29 Palestinian worshippers in a mosque were gunned down by an American-born Israeli settler.

Observers carry out daily patrols and document rights abuses they witness, although they are not allowed to intervene.

The mission reports its findings to its member countries -- Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey -- as well as the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.

Story continues

Hebron is holy to both Muslims and Jews and has been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 600 Jewish settlers live under heavy military guard in the city, which is home to around 200,000 Palestinians.

Israeli settlements are seen as illegal under international law and a major obstacle to peace, as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.
Khartoum (AFP) - Security agents briefly detained a senior leader of Sudan's main opposition party on Wednesday, her family said, as authorities pressed on with a crackdown on anti-government protests that have rocked the country.

Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi, deputy chief of the Umma party, had been taken away from her home in Khartoum by officers of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), her sister Rabah Sadiq al-Mahdi told AFP.

"I now confirm that my sister has been released. She had been taken to the headquarters of NISS for questioning," Rabah said.

As Umma's deputy head, Mariam has regularly campaigned against President Omar al-Bashir's government.

Her father, former premier Sadiq al-Mahdi, has backed the ongoing protest movement calling for an end to Bashir's three-decade rule.

Bashir swept to power in 1989 in an Islamist-backed coup that toppled a democratically-elected government led by Mahdi.

"This regime has to go immediately," Mahdi told hundreds of worshippers at a mosque in Omdurman at weekly prayers last Friday.

After nearly a year in exile, Mahdi returned to Sudan on December 19, the same day as the wave of protests erupted against the government.

On Tuesday, NISS head Salah Ghosh had ordered the release of all detainees held during anti-government rallies.

It was still unclear how many detainees had been released.

Rights groups say more than 1,000 protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists have been arrested in an NISS-led crackdown to quell the protests.

Deadly protests have rocked Sudan for weeks, with officials confirming the deaths of 30 people in clashes with security forces during the demonstrations.

Rights groups have put the death toll at more than 40.

The protests that initially erupted against the rise of bread prices have mushroomed into nationwide rallies calling for an end to Bashir's rule.
By Paul Carsten ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian opposition presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar said on Wednesday he would consider an amnesty for corruption suspects in order to help recover billions of dollars stashed abroad by the country's politicians and government officials. Abubakar is the main challenger to President Muhammadu Buhari in the Feb. 16 election, where corruption, security and the economy have been key issues. Buhari is hoping his anti-corruption agenda can win him a second term. Nigerian state coffers have in past years been ransacked by government officials and their associates, and corruption is prevalent throughout society. Buhari was elected in 2015 in part on a promise to rid the country of graft. The West African nation launched a whistleblower scheme two years ago entitling those who help find stolen assets to up to 5 percent of the recovered sums, part of a drive by Buhari to root out endemic corruption. Abubakar said the amnesty program would encourage looters to voluntarily return some of the stolen funds badly needed to fund infrastructure investment and recommended sanctions for election rigging. "Why can we not have an election fraud commission?" Abubakar said during a televised town hall meeting to woo voters. "So that we bring to book any individual, whether a member of a political party, INEC (electoral commission), or security services who infringes." Abubakar and his vice presidential candidate Peter Obi were repeatedly challenged on their track records regarding corruption, and about investing government funds in private businesses, some of which they owned shares in, while in public office. Both candidates denied any allegations of graft. He also said he would be more than willing to investigate allegations of corruption in senior ranks of the military, as the military faces shortages of weapons and other resources in its war against Islamist insurgencies. Critics have often accused the Nigerian military's senior officers of corruption, alleging that the graft drains resources and weapons from the northeast, where they are needed to fight advancing Islamist insurgencies. Earlier on Wednesday Abubakar said in a speech he would create a $25 billion fund to support private sector investment in infrastructure if elected next month, as part of plans to revive the economy. Nigeria's oil-dependent economy, which vies with South Africa's to be the largest in Africa, has performed below par since 2016, when it suffered its first recession in 25 years. (Reporting by Paul Carsten; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Phil Berlowitz)
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday held talks with two Russian officials on reinforcing their military coordination in Syria in order to avoid any "friction" there, his office said.

The talks focussed on "Iran and the situation in Syria, and strengthening the security coordination mechanism between the militaries in order to prevent friction," said a statement from his office.

At the meeting, the Kremlin's Syria envoy Alexander Lavrentiev and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin "reiterated Russia's commitment to the maintenance of Israel's national security," it added.

On January 17, officials from both countries held talks in Israel to improve coordination between their armed forces to avoid "friction" in Israel's operations against Iran in Syria.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria in the past few years against Iranian and Hezbollah targets, and the Jewish state and Russia have set up a "de-confliction" hotline aimed at avoiding accidental clashes.

That mechanism was stretched when a Russian military aircraft was mistakenly shot down by Syrian air defences after an Israeli raid in September.

Fifteen Russian soldiers were killed and the Russian army accused Israeli pilots of using Moscow's plane as cover to evade Syrian gunfire.

As part of its response, Russia announced new security measures to protect its military in Syria, including supplying Syria with an S-300 air defence system and jamming the radars of nearby warplanes.

Netanyahu has told Russian President Putin that Israel is determined to prevent Iran from entrenching militarily in Syria, according to his office.

Both Russia and the Islamic republic, Israel's arch-enemy, are allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and have helped his forces inflict numerous defeats on rebels and jihadists.
Tel Aviv (AFP) - A former Israeli military chief vowed Tuesday to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while taking care not to alienate right-wing voters ahead of an April election.

Benny Gantz promised a conservative diplomatic and security policy, pledging to keep the strategic Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank under Israeli rule, along with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and east Jerusalem.

He also promised to keep up a tough stance on Iran and its military presence in Syria, which borders Israel.

"In the harsh and violent Middle East surrounding us, only the strong win," he told several hundred supporters in Tel Aviv.

He answered critics who have said that he was likely to take a job in Netanyahu's next government if he could not beat him at the polling booth.

"Four years after completing my service as commander in chief, I am asking for your confidence so that I may lead Israel," he said.

His new party, Israel Resilience, could emerge as the second largest in parliament in the April 9 general election, according to polls taken since its launch in December.

On Tuesday, Gantz announced an alliance with another former chief of staff and ex-defence minister, Moshe Yaalon, bringing him on to the podium at the end of his speech.

Neither revealed details of the new partnership.

Yaalon served as Netanyahu's defence minister from 2013 to 2016, but has since become a critic of the premier. He has also unveiled his own party, Telem.

- 'Zero tolerance' of graft -

Generals are revered in Israel, though many who cross into political life after their military service discover that their army experience does not prepare them for the challenges of civilian decision-making.

Gantz, widely respected as army chief, has kept his cards close to his chest and made few public comments since December.

Opinion polls predict Netanyahu's Likud party will win the April election, but the veteran premier faces potential corruption charges that could cost Likud valuable seats.

Story continues

Gantz made several references to the cases against Netanyahu in his speech, pledging "zero tolerance for corruption" if he wins the election.

"I thank the prime minister for his 10 years of service," Gantz said. "We shall carry on from here."

Commentators had been predicting that in the event of a Netanyahu victory, the centrist Gantz might join a coalition led by the man who has been premier since 2009 -- including from 2011-2015, when Gantz was chief of staff.

A poll last week said Gantz's Israel Resilience could win 15 seats out of the Knesset's 120, with Netanyahu's Likud remaining the largest faction with its 31 lawmakers.

- 'No more right or left' -

Gantz has committed to amending a contentious law defining Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, in order to accommodate its Druze minority.

That prompted Netanyahu to call him a "leftist".

Gantz has also been the target of a campaign from the harder right of the Israeli political spectrum.

Naftali Bennett of the newly founded Hayamin Hehadash used a recording from 2015 in which Gantz said he "risked Israeli soldiers" to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians, in a bid to dub the general as part of the "weak left".

Apart from messages on social media promising "something different" for Israel and a song pledging "no more right or left", Gantz had hitherto revealed little beyond his military credentials.

He has boasted in videos of the number of Palestinian militants killed and targets destroyed under his command in the 2014 war with Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers.

In another video, Gantz stressed the need to strive for Arab-Israeli peace.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)  The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local):

7:50 p.m.

Vice President Mike Pence is going to Miami on Friday to meet with people who have fled Venezuela, as the Trump administration continues to challenge Nicolas Maduro's claim to the presidency.

A White House official says Pence will be talking with community leaders, political prisoners and former elected officials who have fled the South American country due to political persecution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the visit ahead of its formal announcement.

The Trump administration has recognized Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress, as Venezuela's rightful president.

Trump spoke with Guaido on Wednesday. The president tweeted that he congratulated Guaido "on his historic assumption of the presidency and reinforced strong United States support for Venezuela's fight to regain its democracy."

 Jill Colvin in Washington

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6:30 p.m.

The governments of Mexico and Uruguay are calling for an international conference of neutral countries to jump start a dialogue between Venezuelans.

The conference is to be held Feb. 7 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, and Mexico said Wednesday that it expects at least 10 countries and international organizations to participate.

Mexico and Uruguay have refused to withdraw recognition from the embattled Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro. The U.S., Canada and many Latin American nations have recognized opposition leader Juan Guiado, who declared himself Venezuela's interim president last week.

A statement from Uruguay and Mexico says that "the purpose of the conference will be to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country."

___

5:50 p.m.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators says they will urge European countries to recognize Venezuelan congress leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of the South American country.

Story continues

Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee and he told reporters Wednesday that the Venezuelan opposition's new envoy in Washington "asked us to urge our European allies, which we have done and will continue to do."

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland was the only Democrat in the group of five senators who met with opposition envoy Carlos Vecchio to express bipartisan support for Guaido, who has declared himself Venezuela's interim president in a challenge to Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The European Union's foreign policy chief has said that if Maduro doesn't announce a new presidential election in the next days, the 28-nation bloc "will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership."

___

4:35 p.m.

Colombia is barring over 200 people identified as having close ties to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from entering the neighboring Andean nation.

Migration director Christian Kruger said Wednesday the measure is part of a larger response by the regional bloc known as the Lima Group.

Representatives from a dozen nations in the Americas that comprise the Lima Group are recognizing Juan Guaido as interim president, with the exception of Mexico.

Kruger said those on the no-entry list are being barred because of their "close relationship and support for the regime of Nicolas Maduro."

Venezuelan Ronald Ramirez became the first person denied entry Wednesday after landing in the Colombian city of Barranquilla on a charter plane.

Kruger said that Ramirez was recently named by Maduro to lead a Venezuelan manufacturing business that operates in Colombia.

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4 p.m.

The Trump administration's special envoy for Venezuela says there are deep splits in the country's military that should make embattled President Nicolas Maduro and his supporters very nervous.

Elliott Abrams says the vast majority of Venezuelan soldiers are unhappy with Maduro and the state of the country. Abrams says Maduro may have the backing of the top brass but the rank-and-file are restive.

Abrams told reporters at the State Department on Wednesday that the administration would continue to ramp up pressure to push Maduro to step down and would expand its support for opposition leader Juan Guaido.

The administration last week recognized Guiado as the country's legitimate leader and has since hit Venezuela with severe sanctions. It has also turned over control of government bank accounts in the U.S. to Guaido.

___

3:10 p.m.

Opposition protesters in Venezuela have wrapped up a walkout urging President Nicolas Maduro to step down by singing their country's national anthem.

The two-hour walkout in cities around Venezuela drew thousands to the streets.

Protester Maria Kley said she was demonstrating because, "We want a free Venezuela."

Others like Dr. Hugo Rosillo said they wanted to see an end to the medical shortages that prevent physicians like him from treating curable illnesses.

He said the children's hospital where he works has turned into "a storeroom for cadavers."

Like last week's demonstration, the walkout drew a cross section of Venezuelan society, from nurses and businessmen to students and construction workers.

___

2:45 p.m.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido says Venezuelans took to the streets in more than 5,000 spots across the country to demand their freedom from President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido made a surprise appearance Wednesday before a cheering crowd at the Central University of Venezuela in the capital of Caracas.

He had called for people to stage a peaceful demonstration by stepping out of their homes and workplaces for two hours.

A week earlier he asserted that the constitution gave him presidential powers because Maduro's re-election was a sham.

Guaido says he's not losing any sleep over a Supreme Court order banning him from leaving the country.

He also says his goal is for masses fleeing Venezuela's crisis to return home and reclaim their nation.

Opposition leaders are calling for another protest on Saturday.

___

12:45 p.m.

Venezuelans are exiting their homes and workplaces in a walkout organized by the opposition to demand that President Nicolas Maduro leave power.

People began gathering on streets in the capital city of Caracas around noon, waving flags and chanting phrases like, "Free elections!"

Drivers are honking their horns in support of the protesters.

The demonstration comes one week after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president before thousands of supporters, contending that he is the nation's rightful leader because Maduro's reelection was a sham.

Guaido is the 35-year-old president of the National Assembly, the only branch of Venezuela's government controlled by the opposition.

Maduro is refusing to step down and accusing the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and imposing punishing oil sanctions.

___

11:45 a.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump has stressed to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido his "strong support" for the nation's fight to regain its democracy.

Trump and Guaido spoke on Wednesday. The White House says Guaido thanked Trump for committing the U.S. to freedom and prosperity in Venezuela and the region. The leaders also agreed to regular communication in support of Venezuela's path back to stability and to rebuild strained relations between both countries.

Large protests are planned across Venezuela on Wednesday to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to step down.

Guaido declared himself Venezuela's rightful leader last week and said the nation "is set on change."

___

10:50 a.m.

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has turned to the power of prayer as opposition leaders backed by the United States amp up pressure for his ouster.

Maduro on Wednesday participated in a Christian prayer session with dozens of evangelical supporters.

In the session aired on state TV, Maduro lowered his eyes and raised his right hand in prayer.

He asked "all powerful God" to bless Venezuela and lead it to a peaceful future.

A minister leading the service says millions of evangelicals are praying around the clock for the South American nation.

The socialist president has been challenged by opposition leader Juan Guaido, who claims that he's Venezuela's rightful leader.

___

9:45 a.m.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro is huddling with his military ahead of planned anti-government protests.

In scenes broadcast on state TV, Maduro could be seen walking around the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas early Wednesday with top commanders and dozens of troops.

"Do you love you homeland? Will you defend the constitution? Will you defend your commander in

chief?" Maduro asked the troops, who responded with loud shouts of "Yes, commander in chief!"

Since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president last week with the support of the U.S. and other nations, Maduro has appeared almost daily on state TV with his military, projecting an image of invincibility even as international pressure against him builds.

Supporters of Guaido are planning a nationwide walkout Wednesday to ratchet up pressure on Maduro.

___

9:35 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is pressing his case directly to the American people, asking for their help preventing a "Vietnam in Latin America."

In a 45-second video shot late Tuesday from the presidential palace and addressed to "the American people" Maduro said that the Trump administration is behind an attempt to overthrow him in a coup.

He said the U.S. is looking to get its hands on Venezuela's abundant oil reserves, replicating U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Libya.

But he said he's confident that he's on the "right side of history" and pleaded with regular Americans to keep U.S. troops out of the country.

___

8:15 a.m.

The wife of a rebel military officer who President Nicolas Maduro has accused of plotting his overthrow says he has been arrested after sneaking back into Venezuela amid the country's upheaval.

Sorbay Pailla said she last heard from her husband, retired National Guard Col. Oswaldo Garcia Palomo, on Sunday after he entered the country clandestinely from Colombia. She said contacts within the DGCIM military intelligence unit told her that he was arrested in the western state of Barinas.

The Associated Press was unable to confirm the arrest and the government has yet to comment. But Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, condemned late Tuesday what he called the "kidnapping" of Garcia Palomo.

Garcia Palomo has been an outspoken critic of Maduro who has been open for months about his intent to amass a military force in exile to remove Maduro.

___

This version corrects the spelling of the officer's name to Garcia Palomo.

___

7:40 a.m.

U.S. President Donald Trump is telling Americans to not go to Venezuela, where there's major political turmoil.

Trump tweeted Wednesday there's a "Massive protest expected today." He says, "Americans should not travel to Venezuela until further notice."

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts. Guaido declared himself Venezuela's rightful leader a week ago and says the nation "is set on change."

Maduro's embattled socialist administration has barred Guaido from leaving the country while he's investigated for anti-government activities.

The U.S. and many other nations back Guaido. Trump has imposed sanctions that could starve Venezuela of billions of dollars in oil revenue.

Trump tweets: "Maduro willing to negotiate with opposition in Venezuela following U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenues. Guaido is being targeted by Venezuelan Supreme Court."

___

3 a.m.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he is willing to negotiate with the country's opposition.

Maduro's remarks in an interview with Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday came amid a dire political crisis in Venezuela. Opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president last week and has urged citizens to challenge Maduro with walkouts on Wednesday.

Maduro told RIA Novosti that he is "willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future." Maduro said the talks could be held with mediation of other countries.

Russia is one of the staunchest supporters of Maduro and has offered to mediate.

___

2 a.m.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido is looking to ratchet up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro with nationwide walkouts Wednesday, just a day after the embattled socialist administration barred Guaido from leaving the country while he is investigated.

The man challenging Maduro's claim to the presidency is urging Venezuelans to step outside their homes and workplaces for two hours beginning at noon in the first mass mobilization since he declared himself the nation's rightful leader a week ago during another round of big protests.

The surge in political maneuvering has seen two dozen nations, including the United States and several big Latin American countries, backed Guaido, and the Trump administration has imposed sanctions that could starve the already distressed nation of billions in oil revenue.

But Maduro is holding firm.
By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles school board voted on Tuesday to ask state lawmakers for a moratorium on new charter schools in the area, as demanded by a union for more than 30,000 teachers in a six-day strike that ended last week.

The 5-1 vote by the school board represented a dramatic shift for a panel on which at least half the members had previously supported charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

Charter schools operate in most of the United States with teachers who often are not represented by a union.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the union for teachers in the district, argued during a strike that won widespread support from parents and prominent Democratic politicians that charter schools are a vehicle for "privatization" of education and divert resources from traditional classrooms.

School district officials agreed to allow a vote on a request for a moratorium on charter schools, as part of the labor agreement it reached a week ago with UTLA to end the teachers strike.

The panel's approval of the motion, which also asks state officials to consider potential changes to California's legislation on charter schools, ensures the battle over the future of new charter schools in the nation's second-largest school district will move to the state capital of Sacramento.

PAUSE AND STUDY

Austin Beutner, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said in a statement he supported the resolution.

"The charter law is decades old, and it makes sense to me to pause while experts  not advocates  study all of the issues and propose what adjustments, if any, might be appropriate to the law to provide a path for the next 20 years," Beutner said.

Los Angeles Unified has about 150,000 students in charter schools, more than any other school district in the nation. The resolution will not affect the continued operation of the district's 275 charter schools.

Story continues

The district has about 500,000 other students in regular public schools.

Representatives for California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and the state Department of Education could not be reached for comment.

Charter school students and other supporters of those institutions protested on Tuesday at LAUSD headquarters ahead of the school board vote.

"This resolution to ban charter schools is a solution in search of a problem," Myrna Castrejon, president and CEO of the California Charter School Association, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Bill Tarrant and Lisa Shumaker)
Baghdad (AFP) - Spain's King Felipe VI on Wednesday visited special forces helping Iraq fight jihadists, during the first trip by a Spanish monarch to the war-ravaged country in four decades, a diplomat said.

The king, whose country is a member of an international coalition battling the Islamic State group, also later met President Barham Saleh.

Iraq in 2017 declared victory over IS following a bruising months-long campaign backed by the coalition, which continues to carry out operations against the jihadists.

Spain, which took part in the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, went on to support Iraqi troops as they battled to roll back IS, which seized a third of the country including second city Mosul in 2014.

Hundreds of Spanish military instructors remain in the country.

King Felipe is one of a series of leaders to visit Baghdad since the start of the year, including US President Donald Trump, who drew criticism for failing to meet a single Iraqi official.

Baghdad has also hosted the chief diplomats of its two main allies, Washington and Tehran -- themselves bitter enemies.

Iraq's precarious position has been complicated by Trump's shock decision last month to pull troops from neighbouring Syria.

That has prompted pro-Iran factions to intensify their calls for an accelerated withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel has threatened to bar Amnesty International from access to the Jewish state over its charge Wednesday that digital tourism companies are profiting from "war crimes" in the occupied West Bank.

The London-based rights group called on online giants Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor to stop listing tourist accommodation, activities and attractions in settlements in occupied territories, including east Jerusalem.

"The hypocritical Amnesty International speaks in the name of human rights and in practice promotes boycotts against Israeli citizens as part of the anti-Semitic boycott and delegitimisation campaign," Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan said in a Hebrew-language statement released Tuesday night.

"I instructed the ministry of strategic affairs to examine the possibility of preventing Amnesty personnel from entering, or residing in, Israel," said Erdan who is also strategic affairs minister, charged with opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

He said he had started to act well before the official publication of Amnesty's "Destination: Occupation" study.

"A few weeks ago I asked the finance minister to end the tax benefits granted to the organisation," he said without giving details.

In its report, Amnesty said Israel's occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem was governed by international humanitarian law under which settlements were deemed illegal.

"In doing business with settlements, all four companies are contributing to, and profiting from, the maintenance, development and expansion of illegal settlements, which amount to war crimes under international criminal law."

In November, Airbnb announced it was removing from its rental listings settlement homes in the occupied West Bank.

But it never said when the decision would go into force.

Israel passed legislation in March 2017 banning entry to foreigners who support boycotting the country or its settlements.

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In November of that year Erdan's office denied entry to a US employee of Amnesty, with an interior ministry spokeswoman giving the grounds as "BDS", without elaborating.

Israel sees the boycott movement as a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism -- a claim activists deny, saying they want only to see an end to Israel's occupation.

About 450,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements often in confrontation with the territory's 2.5 million Palestinians, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in occupied east Jerusalem.

Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and major roadblocks to peace, as they are built on land Palestinians see as part of their future state.
Washington (AFP) - Iran is still abiding by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal despite the US pullout from the multinational agreement, Central Intelligence chief Gina Haspel said Tuesday.

"At the moment technically they are in compliance" with they Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Haspel told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"I think the most recent information is the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to JCPOA as they seek to pressure the European to come through with the investment and trade benefits that Iran hoped to gain from the deal," she said.

"They are making some preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back if they make that decision," she noted.

"But we do see them debating amongst themselves as they failed to realize the economic benefits that they hoped for from the deal."

The United States withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018, after President Donald Trump concluded it was not in US interests. The administration argued that the windfall from trade would go to finance Iran's regional military activities, and there was no guarantee it would not resume nuclear weapons development after the deal expired.

Washington has since restored tough sanctions that were in place before the deal was reached.

The remaining five signatories to the JCPOA -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have distanced themselves from Trump's move and have supported continued commercial engagement with Tehran.

But, as a number of European companies have pulled out under pressure from US sanctions, those countries have backed an EU effort to set up a special payment system in an attempt to continue trade and business ties with Iran.
By Diane Bartz, Sarah N. Lynch and Sijia Jiang

WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Huawei's CFO "should not be a hostage" in Sino-U.S. relations, her lawyer said on Tuesday, after the United States announced criminal charges against herself and the Chinese firm just days before crunch trade talks with Beijing.

The Justice Department charged Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and its chief financial officer with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by doing business through a subsidiary it tried to hide and that was reported on by Reuters in 2012 https://reut.rs/2sRL7Ve and 2013 https://reut.rs/2sUq8RT.

In a separate case, the Justice Department charged the telecommunications equipment maker with stealing robotic technology from T-Mobile US Inc. Huawei has said the companies settled their dispute in 2017.

CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1, a move which was followed by China arresting two Canadians on national security grounds. She is scheduled in court on Tuesday to discuss her bail terms, and is subject to a U.S. extradition request.

Her lawyer Reid Weingarten, partner at Steptoe & Johnson, pointed to "complex" Sino-U.S. relations.

"Our client, Sabrina Meng, should not be a pawn or a hostage in this relationship. Ms. Meng is an ethical and honorable businesswoman who has never spent a second of her life plotting to violate any U.S. law, including the Iranian sanctions."

Huawei said it had sought to discuss the charges with U.S. authorities "but the request was rejected without explanation".

It said it "denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations" and "is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng."

China's foreign ministry urged the United States drop the arrest warrant and end "unreasonable suppression" of Chinese companies. Spokesman Geng Shuang also said China had issued stern representations to both Canada and the United States after the U.S. formally issued its extradition request for Meng.

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Canada's Justice Minister has 30 days from receipt of the request to decide whether to grant authority to proceed. If granted, Meng's case would be sent to the British Columbia Supreme Court for a hearing, which could take weeks or months.

The development is likely to upset talks between Beijing and Washington this week as part of negotiations intended to walk back trade tensions between the globe's two largest economies.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in December he could intervene in Meng's case if it would serve national security interests or help close a trade deal with China.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the charges are "wholly separate" from the trade negotiations.

MARKET RESTRICTION

Huawei makes equipment including base stations, switches and routers, as well as consumer products such as smartphones, and derives nearly half of its total revenue outside China.

Its global reach has come under attack from the United States, which is trying to prevent U.S. companies from buying Huawei equipment and is pressing allies to do the same. U.S. security experts are concerned the gear could be used by China's government for espionage - a concern Huawei calls unfounded.

Australia and New Zealand followed the U.S. lead in restricting market access over the past year. On Tuesday, TPG Telecom Ltd canceled the Huawei-based mobile phone network it was building, in the first commercial casualty of Australia's move.

Huawei nevertheless said it is the world's leading provider of 5G technology, winning 30 contracts globally - more than any of its competitors - including 18 in Europe.

It is unclear how the U.S. charges would impact its business. Last year, Chinese peer ZTE Corp was prevented from buying essential components from U.S. firms after pleading guilty to similar charges, crippling its operations.

ZTE resumed normal business after paying up to $1.4 billion in fines and replacing its entire board, on top of a near $900 million penalty paid in 2017.

BANKING RELATIONS

U.S. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said the alleged criminal activity at Huawei "goes back at least 10 years and goes all the way to the top of the company." The charges against Meng and Huawei cite the Reuters stories that said Huawei's Skycom unit sought to sell goods to Iran.

The indictment noted that denials from Huawei in the stories were relied upon by financial institutions "in determining whether to continue their banking relationships with Huawei and its subsidiaries."

The indictment featured a meeting in August 2013 between Meng and an executive from an unidentified bank. Sources told Reuters the bank is HSBC Holdings PLC, which paid $1.92 billion in 2012 for violating U.S. anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws.

During the meeting, Meng misrepresented Huawei operations in Iran and ownership and control of Skycom, the indictment showed.

The Justice Department has confirmed that HSBC is not under investigation in this case, HSBC said in a statement last month.

Also according to the indictment, in July 2007, the FBI interviewed Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and U.S. authorities said he falsely told them Huawei did not violate U.S. export laws.

The indictment concerning trade secret theft alleged that Huawei had a formal policy instituting a bonus program to reward employees who stole confidential information from competitors.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said the Huawei cases, filed in New York and Washington state, "expose Huawei's brazen and persistent actions to exploit American companies and financial institutions, and to threaten the free and fair global marketplace."

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, Sarah N. Lynch in WASHINGTON and Sijia Jiang in HONG KONG; Additional reporting by David Shepardson, Karen Freifeld, Chris Bing, Joseph Menn and Andy Sullivan, and Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Christopher Cushing)
Washington (AFP) - An envoy from Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido on Tuesday doubted the staying power of Nicolas Maduro's regime, saying no one would defend him to the death.

Gustavo Tarre -- Venezuela's new representative to the Organization of American States after the United States, Canada and a number of Latin American powers last week recognized the opposition leader as president -- said that Guaido "is not asking for a coup d'etat."

"He is only asking that the military personnel who are kidnapped by an ineffective, servile corrupt high command comply with the oath they made... to respect the constitution," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

The United States is seeking the ouster of Maduro as the leftist firebrand presides over an economy in disarray with mounting protests and shortages of food and basic supplies.

Tarre voiced confidence that the street protests, combined with outside pressure including targeted sanctions, would force out Maduro.

"I don't think there is anybody in Venezuela who is willing to die for Maduro," Tarre said.

"In civil wars, normally there are people with strong beliefs," he said.

"In Venezuela, there are corrupt people, there are people who have sympathy to Maduro, but people who want to fight and die for Maduro, I think there is nobody -- not even Cilia, his wife."

The National Assembly, led by the opposition, tasked Tarre with a mission to coordinate with the Organization of American States for the "re-establishment of the democratic, constitutional order" in Venezuela.

The Washington-based body declared Maduro to be illegitimate earlier this month on the day he was sworn in for a second term following elections that were criticized abroad as fraudulent.
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"It was upsetting to me to know that someone would go to that extreme not having cream cheese on his bagel," Police Chief Noel-Pratt said, the AP reported.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain must spell out quickly what changes it envisages to the Irish "backstop", an arrangement to avoid a hard border between EU member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland after Brexit, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday. Britain's parliament late on Tuesday instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to seek changes from the European Union in the negotiated divorce deal, which includes the backstop. The EU has repeatedly said the deal cannot be reopened. The House of Commons, the lower chamber, also voted late on Tuesday in favor of an amendment ruling out a no-deal Brexit, though that measure is not legally binding. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. "It is important that the British lower house spoke out yesterday against a disorderly Brexit as no one can have an interest in that," Maas said. "But the British government has not yet said what changes to the Northern Ireland backstop it envisages. It must now say quickly what it wants because time is running out," Maas added. "We are ready to talk. Our position is clear: the Withdrawal Agreement is the best and only solution for an orderly exit." The comments from Maas, a leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, suggest Germany could be open to fresh talks on the backstop, the main obstacle to concluding the Brexit divorce deal. Many British lawmakers, especially in May's governing Conservative Party, fear the backstop will trap the UK in a permanent customs union with the EU after Brexit. Ireland and the rest of the EU say there is no credible alternative to the backstop, which would prevent customs and other checks having to be conducted after Brexit on the border between the Irish Republic and British-ruled Northern Ireland. "On the backstop, Germany and the whole (European) Union stand firmly at Ireland's side. We will not allow Ireland to be isolated on this issue," Maas said. (Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Michelle Martin and Gareth Jones)
Libreville (AFP) - Gabon's presidency announced changes Wednesday to the government sworn in two weeks ago, with President Ali Bongo still abroad recovering from a stroke and rival clans jockeying for power.

The main change was the replacement of Etienne Massard Kabinda Makaga as defence minister with the mayor of Libreville, Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda.

Makaga, who had held the post since 2016, is a member of the Bongo clan.

Biendi Maganga Moussavou, son of Vice President Pierre-Claver Maganga Moussavou, recovered the agriculture ministry portfolio he lost in the reshuffle two weeks earlier to Ali Akbar Onanga Y'Obeghe.

Norbert Emmanuel Tony Ondo Mba became energy minister, replacing Christian Magnagna.

"This is a 'reorganisation' of the government, not a reshuffle," said the president's office.

Ali Bongo returned to Gabon for just 24 hours earlier this month for the swearing in of the previous ministers before returning to Morocco where he has been recovering from his illness.

Just a week before that visit, a small group of soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by security forces, who arrested the leader and killed two others.

The newly appointed ministers will not take their oaths in front of President Bongo, said a source in the president's office.

The oil-rich West African state has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, suffered the stroke in late October during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

After initial treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, Bongo was transferred to Morocco, officials said.

Bongo has not been seen in public since being taken to hospital on October 24, though video of the swearing-in ceremony earlier this month offered a few brief shots of him, seated in a wheelchair and squinting slightly.

That appearance has failed to quell speculation about his health.

The Bongo family has governed Gabon for five decades, and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France.

Ali Bongo was elected head of state after his father's death in 2009. He was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud.
By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian prosecutors on Wednesday charged the former president of the Somali Region and 46 others with instigating ethnic violence there last year, as the new prime minister cracks down on the security services and senior members of past administrations. The arrest last August of Abdi Mohammed Omer, who spent more than a decade in charge of the vast gas-rich region that shares a border with Somalia, came amid sweeping reforms since the appointment in April of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister. The 42-year old Ahmed has promised to rein in the powerful security services and made peace with separatist groups including ONLF rebels whom Abdi had spent years trying to crush. Rights groups regularly accused Abdi's administration of abuses including torture during and after the fight with the insurgents. Last year, 58 people died and more than 250 were injured when violence broke out in Jijiga, capital of Somali Region. According to the five-month federal investigation that resulted in Abdi and 46 other officials being charged, organized mobs were ordered to "kill, loot and destroy" non-ethnic Somali residents and their properties. Abdi and the other officials were charged with "direct or indirect involvement" in instigating ethnic Somalis to take up arms against non-Somalis. The defendants "organized a youth group and disseminated messages to kill all other non-Somalis, as well as to seize and destroy their properties, loot banks and insurance firms, and burn down churches and petrol stations", according to the charge sheet seen by Reuters. Abdi, who appeared in court alongside five other political and security officials from his administration, was separately charged with attempting to "overthrow the constitutional order". All of those charged are due to appear in court on Feb. 6 to enter pleas. Most of the officials were heads of departments in the regional government or in other senior political and security roles. Details of the investigation disclosed last week by the Federal Attorney General's office described how the regional government presided over a litany of horrific crimes, including beheadings, torture of opponents, and mass rape. It said police had uncovered a grave containing at least 200 bodies along the border with Oromiya Region, as well as another one with more than 50 corpses. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Maggie Fick and Hugh Lawson)
By Gram Slattery BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil's government weighed pushing for a management overhaul at iron ore miner Vale SA on Monday as grief over the hundreds feared killed by a dam burst turned into anger, with prosecutors, politicians and victims' families calling for punishment. By Monday night, firefighters in the state of Minas Gerais had confirmed that 65 people were killed by Friday's disaster, when a burst tailings dam sent a torrent of sludge into the miner's offices and the town of Brumadinho. There were still 279 people unaccounted for, and officials said it was unlikely that any would be found alive. Brazil's acting president, Hamilton Mourao, told reporters a government task force on the disaster response is looking at whether it could or should change Vale's top management. Public-sector pension funds hold several seats on the board of the mining company, and the government holds a "golden share" giving it power over strategic decisions. "The question of Vale's management is being studied by the crisis group," said Mourao, who is serving as acting president for some 48 hours while President Jair Bolsonaro recovers from surgery. "I'm not sure if the group could make that recommendation." Shares of Vale, the world's largest iron ore and nickel producer, plummeted 24.5 percent on Monday in Sao Paulo, erasing nearly $19 billion in market capitalization. A U.S. law firm filed a shareholder class action lawsuit against the company in New York, seeking to recover investment losses. Igor Lima, a fund manager at Galt Capital in Rio, said the severe threats from the government and prosecutors drove the shares even lower than many analysts had estimated. "This reaction has brought quite a lot of uncertainty about the size of the financial punishment Vale will have to handle", he said. Senator Renan Calheiros, who is in the thick of a Senate leadership race, on Twitter called for Vale's top management to be removed urgently "out of respect for the victims ... and to avoid any destruction of evidence." One of Vale's lawyers, Sergio Bermudes, told newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that management should not leave the company and said that Calheiros was trying to profit politically from the tragedy. Vale's senior executives have apologized for the disaster but have not accepted responsibility, saying the installations met the highest industry standards. Brazil's top prosecutor, Raquel Dodge, said the company should be held strongly responsible and criminally prosecuted. Executives could also be personally held responsible, she said. REPEATED FAILURES The disaster at the Corrego do Feijao mine occurred less than four years after a dam collapsed at a nearby mine run by Samarco Mineracao SA, a joint venture by Vale and BHP Billiton, killing 19 and dumping toxic sludge in a major river. While the 2015 Samarco disaster unleashed about five times more mining waste, Friday's dam break was far deadlier as the wall of mud hit Vale's local offices, including a crowded cafeteria, and tore through a populated area downhill. "The cafeteria was in a risky area," Renato Simao de Oliveiras, 32, said while searching for his twin brother, a Vale employee, at an emergency response station. "Just to save money, even if it meant losing the little guy. ... These businessmen, they only think about themselves." As search efforts continued on Monday, firefighters laid down wood planks to cross a sea of sludge that is hundreds of meters wide in places, to reach a bus in search of bodies inside. Villagers discovered the bus as they tried to rescue a nearby cow stuck in the mud. Longtime resident Ademir Rogerio cried as he surveyed the mud where Vale's facilities once stood on the edge of town. "The world is over for us," he said. "Vale is the top mining company in the world. If this could happen here, imagine what would happen if it were a smaller miner." Nestor Jose de Mury said he lost his nephew and coworkers in the mud. "I've never seen anything like it, it killed everyone," he said. Vale Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani told journalists on Monday evening that, despite interrupting operations in Brumadinho, the company would continue royalty payments to the municipality. He said Vale royalties made up about 60 percent of the town's 140 million reais in revenue last year. Siani said a donation of 100,000 reais will be made to each family that lost a relative in the disaster and said Vale would step up investments in dam safety. SAFETY DEBATE The board of Vale, which has raised its dividends over the last year, suspended all shareholder payouts and executive bonuses late on Sunday, as the disaster put its corporate strategy under scrutiny. Since the disaster, courts have order a freeze on 11.8 billion reais of Vale's assets to cover damages. State and federal authorities have slapped it with 349 million reais of administrative fines. German insurer Allianz SE may have to cover some of the costs of the dam collapse, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. "I'm not a mining technician. I followed the technicians' advice and you see what happened. It didn't work," Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said in a TV interview. "We are 100 percent within all the standards, and that didn't do it." Many wondered if the state of Minas Gerais, named for the mining industry that has shaped its landscape for centuries, should have higher standards. "There are safe ways of mining," said Joao Vitor Xavier, head of the mining and energy commission in the state assembly. "It's just that it diminishes profit margins, so they prefer to do things the cheaper way  and put lives at risk." Reaction to the disaster could threaten the plans of Brazil's newly inaugurated president to relax restrictions on the mining industry, including proposals to open up indigenous reservations and large swaths of the Amazon jungle for mining. Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said in a TV interview on Monday that Brazil should create new regulation for mining dams, replacing wet tailings dams with dry mining methods. Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque proposed in a Sunday newspaper interview that the law be changed to assign responsibility in cases such as Brumadinho to the people responsible for certifying the safety of mining dams. "Current law does not prevent disasters like the one we saw on Brumadinho," he said. "The model for verifying the state of mining dams will have to be reconsidered. The model isn't good." (Additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer, Maria Carolina Marcello, Ricardo Brito and Marcelo Teixeira; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)
By Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States, and are more aligned than they have been in decades as they target the 2020 presidential election and American institutions to expand their global reach, U.S. intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday.

The spy chiefs broke with President Donald Trump in their assessments of the threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Syria. But they outlined a clear and imminent danger from China, whose practices in trade and technology anger the U.S. president.

While China and Russia strengthen their alliance, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. policies on security and trade.

The directors of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies flanked Coats at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. They described an array of economic, military and intelligence threats, from highly organised efforts by China to scattered disruptions by terrorists, hacktivists and transnational criminals.

"China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways - to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure," Coats said.

"Moscow's relationship with Beijing is closer than it's been in many decades," he told the panel.

The intelligence officials said they had protected the 2018 U.S. congressional elections from outside interference, but expected renewed and likely more sophisticated attacks on the 2020 presidential contest.

U.S. adversaries will "use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine alliances and partnerships, and shape policy outcomes," Coats said.

The intelligence chiefs' assessments broke with some past assertions by Trump, including on the threat posed by Russia to U.S. elections and democratic institutions, the threat Islamic State poses in Syria, and North Korea's commitment to denuclearize.

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Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat.

Coats also said Islamic State would continue to pursue attacks from Syria, as well as Iraq, against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States. Trump, who plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, has said the militant group is defeated.

The intelligence officials also said Iran was not developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 2015 nuclear agreement, even though Tehran has threatened to reverse some commitments after Trump pulled out of the deal.

Senators expressed deep concern about current threats.

"Increased cooperation between Russia and China - for a generation that hasn't been the case - that could be a very big deal on the horizon in terms of the United States," said Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

CHINA BIGGEST COUNTERINTELLIGENCE THREAT

The officials painted a multifaceted picture of the threat posed by China, as they were questioned repeatedly by senators about the No. 2 world economy's business practices as well as its growing international influence.

"The Chinese counterintelligence threat is more deep, more diverse, more vexing, more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counterintelligence threat I can think of," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

He said almost all the economic espionage cases in the FBI's 56 field offices "lead back to China."

Coats said intelligence officials have been travelling around the United States and meeting with corporate executives to discuss espionage threats from China.

He said China has had a meteoric rise in the past decade, adding, "A lot of that was achieved by stealing information from our companies."

Tuesday's testimony came just a day after the United States announced criminal charges against China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, escalating a fight with the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker and coming days before trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Coats also said Russia's social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities and criticizing politicians perceived to be anti-Russia.

Senator Mark Warner, the panel's top Democrat, said he was particularly concerned about Russia's use of social media "to amplify divisions in our society and to influence our democratic processes" and the threat from China in the technology arena.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of several congressional panels, along with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, investigating whether there were any connections between Trump's 2016 and Russian efforts to influence the election.

Russia denies attempting to influence U.S. elections, while Trump has denied his campaign cooperated with Moscow.

Coats declined to respond when Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked whether Trump's not releasing records of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin put U.S. intelligence agencies at a disadvantage.

"To me from an intelligence perspective, it's just Intel 101 that it would help our country to know what Vladimir Putin discussed with Donald Trump," Wyden said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu; editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will set up a special panel to warn voters of any attempts by foreign actors to interfere with a federal election set for October, senior government officials said on Wednesday. Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said Ottawa expects social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to help safeguard the vote by promoting transparency, authenticity, and integrity on their platforms. The announcement comes amid an investigation by U.S. officials into connections between President Donald Trump's 2016 election win and Russian efforts to influence the vote. Canada's response was also influenced by the fact that Britain, France and Germany had also experienced foreign interference in recent elections, Gould said. An impartial group of senior bureaucrats would monitor possible interference during the Canadian campaign and sound the alarm if they felt the vote could be compromised, Gould said. "This is not about refereeing the election. This is about alerting Canadians of an incident that jeopardizes their rights to a free and fair election," she told a news conference. "Our hope is that such a public announcement never happens." Polls show the ruling Liberals have a slender lead over the official opposition Conservatives ahead of Canada's vote. The group will work alongside the newly created Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections task force, made up of officials from the police, spy agencies and foreign ministry. Gould said she had started talks with social media companies "to secure action on their part to increase the transparency of political advertising, and to combat the manipulation of their platforms for anti-democratic purpose." Last year Canada announced other measures to combat attacks on the democratic system, including a clampdown on advertisements and funding. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada is slashing staff at its Cuba embassy after another diplomat was diagnosed with a mysterious brain injury that has affected several dozen North American envoys to the island, the government announced Wednesday.

The new case brings to 14 the number of Canadians -- alongside 25 Americans -- who have reported unexplained symptoms from dizziness, fatigue, headaches, hearing and vision complications, to loss of balance, nausea and an inability to concentrate.

"Tests confirm that an additional employee has symptoms consistent with those of previously affected employees," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that no cause had been identified.

Security at the mission in Havana has been beefed up, it added, while staffing levels have been reduced by "up to half."

Canadian public broadcaster CBC said just eight officials would be left at the embassy.

Canadian and US authorities initially suspected an attack using some sort of acoustic weapon, which led to heightened diplomatic tensions between Washington and the Caribbean island nation.

But Ottawa later concluded that to be "unlikely."

American doctors and officials have pointed to "a new type of a possible acquired brain injury" outlined in a February 2018 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association by health experts at the University of Pennsylvania, who treated 21 US diplomats.
Theresa May is going back to the Commons in the hope of gaining a show of support for her Plan B deal. (PA)

Its D-Day once again for Theresa May and her Brexit deal.

On Tuesday night MPs will once more take part in a have their say on the Prime Ministers Brexit plan, with votes expected that could force the Government to delay Brexit rather than leaving without a deal and another that demands an alternative to the contentious Irish backstop.

Now at the eleventh hour a third option  Plan C or the so-called Malthouse compromise  has emerged.

Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. Sir Grahams amendment has the support of Mrs May. (PA)

What is the Brexit Plan C?

In a remarkable move Remainers and hard Brexiteers have teamed up to thrash out a new approach to the Brexit deadlock.

The plan, dubbed The Malthouse Compromise after MP Kit Malthouse, involves replacing the current Irish backstop  which is loathed by Brexiteers who claim it could trap the UK into being subject to EU rules forever.

It also involved paying the 39 billion divorce bill and extending the transition period as far as December 2021.

This extra time is intended to agree a free-trade deal and finding a technological solution to the hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

If no free trade agreement could be reached, the extra time could be used to prepare for trade on WTO terms, according to the plans masterminds.

Kit Malthouse, pictured here with Boris Johnson during Johnsons stint as London Mayor. Malthouse has come up with a Plan C, or the Malthouse Compromise, surrounding the Brexit Deal. (PA)

Who is behind it?

The plan has been drawn up by Kit Malthouse, the Brexiteer housing minister, who has acted as convenor between arch-Eurosceptic Rees-Mogg and his European Research Group deputy Steve Baker, and Remainers including Nicky Morgan and Stephen Hammond.

Would it work?

According to the EU, no.

European officials quickly said the plan offered no certainty over avoiding a border on the island of Ireland and that it was not workable.

The EUs deputy chief negotiator, Sabine Weyand, has previously said that the technology to avoid a border doesnt exist.

Brussels has stated numerous times that the Irish backstop, which is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, cannot be renegotiated.

It has surfaced too late to go to a Commons vote today so it is unclear when, if at all, MPs could vote on it.

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Yvette Cooper, who has tabled an amendment with cross-party support which could potentially give Parliament Control over the Brexit process if there is no deal by February 26. (PA)

Are there alternatives?

A number of amendment bills will be put to MPs in the Commons later.

Dame Caroline Spelmans amendment, possibly the most palatable to Government, has cross-party support and would see a no-deal blocked.

Less popular, a move from former Labour minister Yvette Cooper, supported by Tories such as Nick Boles, calls for a vote on a Bill that would give Parliament control over the Brexit process if Theresa May fails to secure a deal by February 26.

MPs would get a vote on extending Article 50 to the end of the year and preventing a no-deal exit under the terms of the Bill. The Labour frontbench has been publicly flirting with throwing its weight behind the amendment.

Dominic Grieve has backed a cross-party bid in a bid to prevent a no-deal Brexit, which would effectively wrest control of Commons business from the Government for six individual days in the run-up to the UKs scheduled withdrawal date of March 29 with the intention of getting MPs to reach a consensus on how to handle it.
BRUMADINHO, Brazil (AP)  Authorities arrested five people Tuesday in connection with the collapse of a Brazilian mine dam, while the death toll rose to at least 84 and the carcasses of fish floated along the banks of a river downstream that an indigenous community depends on for food and water.

The dam that held back iron ore waste, owned and operated by big mining company Vale SA, collapsed Friday, burying a company cafeteria and other Vale buildings and inundating part of the small southeastern city of Brumadinho.

Grieving relatives buried some of the victims in Brumadinho and rescue teams continued a delicate search through swaths of muck for more victims or survivors.

Lt. Flavio Godinho of the Minas Gerais state civil defense agency said Tuesday evening that the number of confirmed dead had risen to 84 from 65. He said the number of missing stood at 276.

The dead fish and trash were seen by a reporting team for The Associated Press about 18 kilometers (11 miles) downstream from the dam along the banks of the Paraopeba River.

The Pataxo Indians living alongside the river who use it to fish, bathe and gather water for the plants they cultivate as food were told by Brazilian environmental officials that they should no longer do so, said Hayo, the village chief who goes by one name.

"We used the river to take baths, to fish, to water our plants and now we can't do any of that," said Hayo, wearing a large feathered headdress and a red and black-beaded necklace. "We can't even water our plants because they say it damages the soil."

Two agents with the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the country's environmental enforcement agency, took water samples and talked with tribe members but said they were not authorized to speak about their findings.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Tuesday, the agency said it asked Vale to "remove the dead fish, which are having an impact on the indigenous population."

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The statement gave no details about the water tests and did not say whether tribal members had been told the water was unhealthy.

The signs of possible ecological consequences came as the arrests of company workers with links to the dam were made in Sao Paulo and in the state of Minas Gerais.

Three of the arrested worked for Vale, the company said, adding that it was cooperating with investigating authorities.

A German company that has inspected the dam said two of its employees were arrested. The Munich-based TUEV Sued company declined to specify whether the arrested staff were from its German headquarters or its Brazilian branch.

In ordering the arrests, Minas Gerais state judge Perla Saliba Brito wrote that the disaster could have been avoided.

It's not believable that "dams of such magnitude, run by one of the largest mining companies in the world, would break suddenly without any indication of vulnerability," the judge wrote in the decision, according to news portal UOL.

Authorities said the five will be detained for 30 days while officials investigate possible criminal responsibility.

At a cemetery in Brumadinho, 15 freshly dug graves awaited the remains of some of those killed.

Wailing in grief at the cemetery was the wife of Edgar Carvalho Santos, one of the mining company's workers whose body has been found.

"He did not deserve this, he did not deserve it!" she sobbed.

Friends and family members prevented reporters from approaching the woman.

One woman told Santos' wife that "this was not a tragedy, it's a crime." It was a sign of the growing anger directed at Vale over the disaster.

Vale is the world's largest producer of iron ore, which is the raw ingredient for steel.

The company is one of Brazil's largest businesses and a key employer in Brumadinho, but many residents have complained that a siren which should have gone off to warn people to evacuate never sounded Friday.

Military police Col. Evandro Borges told reporters that most of the people missing were Vale employees.

Many employees were eating lunch when the dam collapsed, burying a cafeteria and other company buildings.

The company's American depository shares on the New York Stock Exchange were up 3 percent Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, to $11.54 each, after falling nearly 18 percent on Monday.

___

Associated Press writer Marcelo Silva da Sousa reported this story in Brumadinho and AP writer Peter Prengaman reported from Rio de Janeiro. Video journalist Renato Domingues and AP photographer Leo Correa in Brumadinho contributed to this report.
The dramatic drug-trafficking trial of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman had all the hallmarks of a television soap opera.

Revealing text messages painted the 61-year-old notorious kingpin as a prolific philanderer. Stunning testimonies exposed the widespread government corruption in Mexico, implicating some of the countrys top ex-leaders. And in time for the last few witnesses to be called, there was even a surprise celebrity guest appearance by Alejandro Edda, who portrays Guzman in Netflixs Narcos: Mexico.

A jury found Guzman guilty on all charges Tuesday following 34 hours of deliberation. He now faces a possibility of life in federal prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 25.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn put more than 55 witnesses on the stand since the trial began in mid-November. Guzman is accused of trafficking $14 billion worth of drugs into the U.S. as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. His defense team says Guzman is being framed by the cooperating witnessesa cast of admitted drug traffickers who have struck deals with the federal government. The jury is expected to begin deliberating as early as Friday.

Guzman is perhaps most famous for bolting from two top-security Mexican prisons. By the time he escaped for the second timeusing a mile-long tunnel in 2015he had already become one of the most lucrative and dangerous drug kingpins in the world. In 2016, Guzman was recaptured in Mexico. He was extradited to stand trial in the U.S. the next year.

As one of the biggest narcotics cases in U.S. criminal history comes to a close, here are the seven biggest revelations that have emerged.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Liskamm questions Damaso Lopez Nunez on the witness stand in this courtroom sketch during the Brooklyn federal court trial of accused Mexican durg lord Joaquin

El Chapos multibillion-dollar empire was undone by an IT guy

In one of the most shocking testimonies of the trial, Christian Rodriguez, a 32-year-old I.T. specialist from Colombia, revealed to the jury how he built a secret communication network for Guzmanbut then gave U.S. authorities key access to it in a betrayal that led to the fugitives capture and downfall.

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Rodriguez said Guzman tapped the computer guru in 2008 to create a one-of-a-kind encrypted network that would enable him to run his enterprise and communicate with his inner circle in secret, the Associated Press reported. Rodriguez delivered. He also installed, by request, spy software on dozens of devices belonging to Guzmans wife and mistresses. He called me all the time to ask me things regarding spy software, Rodriguez said in court, according to the AP.

But in 2012, when confronted by the FBI, Rodriguez reportedly turned on the crime boss. From the U.S., where he was moved for safety and paid for his cooperation, Rodriguez helped authorities crack the complex encrypted system he had built and managed, the AP reported. Prosecutors are now using the intercepted messages from the system as evidence of Guzmans alleged drug trafficking activities.

For Rodriguez, flipping on one of the most dangerous and feared crime bosses in the world was not an easy featand not one without consequences. Since becoming an FBI informant, Rodriguez said he has suffered at least two serious mental breakdowns from stress and even needed to undergo electro-convulsive therapy, court documents show.

Cyber security experts, who were not part of Guzmans trial, told TIME the revelation exposed a serious vulnerability in encryption systems, which major criminal organizations across the globe heavily rely on. Sometimes they add such a complexity to their enterprise that it winds up being the nail in their coffin, said Adam Wandt, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice assistant professor who specializes in cyber security.

In the act of trying to secure yourself, you actually wind up destroying yourself, Wandt said. And thats what happened here.

The case also highlights the lengths federal investigators had to go to in their pursuit of a tech-savvy criminal mastermind. Its sort of the modern day equivalent of how you bring down Capone, said Michael Daniel, president and CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance, in reference to the famous Chicago crime boss. (Daniel previously led President Barack Obamas national and international cybersecurity team.)

He bragged about a $100 million bribe for an ex-Mexican president

The cartels corruption seeped through the highest levels of the Mexican government and its police force, multiple witnesses have testified. One of the most damning allegations to emerge from the trial is the claim that Guzman paid former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto $100 million to stop looking for him while he was on the lam. The revelation came from Alexander Cifuentes, a former cartel member who used to be Guzmans most trusted secretary. (On his last day at the witness stand, Cifuentes described his role as Guzmans left and right hand man.)

Cifuentes said Pena Nieto first wanted $250 million from Guzman if he agreed to stop hunting the most wanted man in the country, the New York Times reported. Guzman offered $100 million instead, which Cifuentes said Pena Nieto took, according to the Times.

In response to Cifuentes testimony, Pena Nietos former chief of staff, Francisco Guzman, tweeted that the claims were false, defamatory and absurd. He said capturing and extraditing the kingpin had always been a priority for Pena Nietos administration. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who served before Pena Nieto, also wrote on Twitter that he did not take any payments from Guzman or his Sinaloa cartel.

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Jurors were later painted a bigger picture of how widespread corruption among the ranks may have hindered previous efforts to capture Guzman and other cartel leaders. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Agent Victor Vazquez, who was part of a small task force that recaptured Guzman, said that for the operation to succeed, it was crucial to leave Mexican police in the dark. Past operations to bag the Sinaloa cartels three bosses failed when they involved the Mexican police, Vazquez said. Simply, the corruption levelusing them again was not going to work, he told jurors.

Instead, on Feb. 22, 2014, a tiny team of about 100 trusted Mexican marines set out to capture Guzman at a beach resort in Mazatlan, Mexico. They were successful. But Guzman would eventually make his famous tunnel prison escape the next year.

His wife played a key role in his tunnel escape

Emma Coronel Aispuro, center, leaves Brooklyn federal court, in New York, after attending the trial of her husband Joaquin

Guzmans wife Emma Coronel Aispuro helped coordinate her husbands second prison breakout in 2015 when he escaped from Mexicos Altiplano prison through a long tunnel, according to testimony by Damaso Lopez Nunez, a former cartel lieutenant. Nunez said Aispuro, an American-born former pageant queen, passed along messages between Guzman and those who were in on the escape plans, according to the AP. She also participated in meetings about the breakout. The messages she shuttled back and forth contained orders on how to proceed initiating the tunnel plan, according to the Times. Guzmans wife has been present at her husbands trial almost every day. She declined to comment after the revelations were made in court, the Times reported.

Guzman broke free from the prison in the summer of 2015. On Monday, James Bradley, an analyst with the Department of Defense, walked jurors through the intricacies of the mile-long tunnel escape route, which began with a gaping access hole in Guzmans shower area. Bradley said conspirators used a generator to pump air into the tunnel and disguised the exhaust fumes by placing a barbecue pit over them.

There was also a metal track running down the middle of the tunnel to transport tools. It would have taken at least eight months to build the tunnel, Bradley said. In a report he wrote in 2015 after examining the tunnel, Bradley concluded at the time that the brazen escape cemented Guzmans reputation.

His sons killed Mexican journalist Javier Valdez

Mexican journalist Javier Valdez speaking during the presentation of his book

Nunez, the ex-lieutenant who implicated Guzmans wife, also testified that Guzmans sons were responsible for the 2017 killing of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez. According to Reuters, the witness said Valdez was killed for his ongoing reporting on the cartel that cast the group in a negative light. Nunez did not say which of Guzmans sons were involved. Guzman is reported to have about a dozen children.

Valdez, 50, was gunned down near his office in Culiacan, Mexico on May 15, 2017. He was an award-winning reporter who spent his career investigating Mexican drug cartels. The BBC said Valdez was one of at least 11 journalists slain in Mexico that year.

In a previous interview with TIME about female Mexican cartel leaders, Valdez said: This is a world where men behave like animals.

He had many mistresses

This Eastern District of New York (EDNY) undated evidence handout photo, submitted as evidence, and obtained Jan. 17, 2019 shows Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, 29, a Mexican former lover of Joaquin Chapo Guzman, who took the stand on the trial of the Mexican druglord as a government witness on Jan. 17, 2019.

On the side, Guzman had many lovers, including a former Mexican lawmaker who sobbed in courtin front of Guzmans wifeas she detailed her failed romance with the married kingpin, which ended her political career. In her testimony, the woman, Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, recalled how she and Guzman were naked in bed together, while hiding in Culiacan in 2014, when the Mexican military came barreling through, according to the Times.

They escaped through a secret passageway under the bathtub, the newspaper said. Text messages between the two also showed how Lopez called the cartel boss daddy, while he called her love, the Times reported. The two met in 2010 when she was a 21-year-old local elected official in Sinaloa. She was impeached in 2016 after suspicions of their relationship arose. She was later arrested while trying to enter the U.S.

He longed to direct a movie about his life

Egged on by his wife, Guzman dreamed of making a movie or a book about his life and took concrete steps to realize those dreams. Cifuentes, the witness who called himself Guzmans right hand man, told jurors he learned of his bosss silver screen ambitions while he was living with Guzman in hiding in 2007 and 2008 in the mountains of Culiacan, Mexico. Cifuentes testified that Guzman hired a Colombian producer to jumpstart the movie, and there was even a draft of a book tie-in to the film, according to Reuters. He loved the idea, Cifuentes said, according to the AP.

Cifuentes also testified that Guzman often lied about his wealth and influence. When Guzman told Cifuentes he had a fleet of planes, the secretary doubted that. In reality, Cifuentes said, Guzman had gone $20 million into debt in 2008 after drug losses and a prolonged war with his rivals. Cifuentes said the kingpin lived in primitive conditions while hiding out in the mountains. All of his chairs were folding plastic chairs. His simple wood-framed bed lay next to a night table made out of planks of wood. Guzman didnt even know what a plasma television was, according to Cifuentes.

The witness said during an interview with a movie producer in 2012 in Culiacan, Guzman relayed a detailed story of how the Mexican military once smashed his hands with the butts of their firearms before tying his feet to a helicopter and hanging him upside down. Cifuentes said Guzman showed his hands to the movie producer, but its unclear if there were any marks from the injuries. When asked on the stand whether he saw any scars from the apparent confrontation, Cifuentes said he didnt look.

He was tickled by a visit from an actor who portrays him

Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, 34, who played Joaquin

On one of the last days of witness testimonies, a surprise appearance by actor Alejandro Edda, who portrays Guzman in Netflixs Narcos: Mexico, sent waves of excitement throughout the courthouse. While waiting on the long security line to enter the courtroom, Edda laughed and threw his hands in the air as journalists and other spectators who were also in line with him realized who he was.

In the courtroom, Guzman smiled and waved at the actor, who was sitting in the bench as a spectator. Edda said he came to court early Monday mostly out of curiosity. He later told reporters it was a very surreal moment to see Guzman in person and that he believes Guzman to be guilty. Theres many, many horrendous things that he did, Edda said.

Still, there was no denying Guzman was the real star of the trial. Later that day, immediately after prosecutors rested their case, the infamous defendant had courtroom spectators at the edge of their seats when he stood up and spoke. Following weeks of speculation about whether Guzman would testify in his own criminal trial, the defendant told U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan he would not.

Me and my attorneys have spoken about this, and I will reserve, he said through an interpreter. I will not testify.
Sydney (AFP) - Australia failed to make basic checks before stripping a suspected Islamic State fighter of his citizenship, a senior official said Wednesday, an admission likely to call into question the legality of the move.

The country last month striped Neil Prakash of citizenship after claiming he was Fijian -- prompting strenuous denials from the authorities in Suva and an embarrassing diplomatic rift.

Prakash is accused of being a member of the IS jihadist group, and identified as the 12th Australian dual-national to lose their passport over terrorism links.

He is currently in Turkey facing charges of joining the organisation.

A parliamentary intelligence committee on Wednesday grilled Home Affairs officials on the issue, asking whether they verified his status with Fiji or consulted experts in Fijian law before revoking Prakash's citizenship.

"No, we did not" admitted senior department official Linda Geddes.

If Prakash is neither Fijian nor Australian he would now be stateless in contravention of decades old UN accords and Australian law.

A Special Counsel advising the government told the parliamentary committee he offered "strong advice" on the case, but would not go into detail.

The move against Prakash was touted at the time by hardline Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton as the ruling Liberal Party eyed its base supporters and May elections.

But it created an awkward backdrop for a recent landmark Pacific visit by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
CAIRO (AP)  A prominent atheist video blogger says he has given up hope on life in Egypt and has launched a crowdfunding page called "Help Me Escape Egypt" to aid him in purchasing another nationality so he can override an exit ban imposed by the secret police.

The video appeal posted by Sherif Gaber had collected over $12,000 in pledges by Wednesday, a day after it opened. Gaber says he needs $100,000 to obtain nationality from a place such as the Caribbean island nation of Dominica. Obtaining a second nationality and renouncing the Egyptian one has been a tactic used successfully in the past by defendants seeking to leave the country.

Gaber, who addresses atheism and science to his 212,000 followers on YouTube, says that although he has no criminal record, Egyptian security agents have prevented him from leaving the country despite several attempts over the years, confiscating his passport without giving a reason on his last attempt in October.

"Some asked me to try and legally remove my name from the 'Banned from leaving list,'" he wrote on his page, adding that that was impossible because he has not been added to the no-fly list legally. "National Security is the one which banned me ... not the court. And the court has no authority over National Security."

Gaber has been repeatedly detained by authorities accusing him of blasphemy, which is sometimes prosecuted in Egypt under laws against "insulting religion." His videos, in Arabic with English subtitles, sometimes use comic formats.

Gaber could not be immediately reached for comment, and Egypt's national security agency does not respond to such requests.

Egypt has undergone an unprecedented suppression of free speech under general-turned-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who came to power after overthrowing an elected but polemical Islamist president in 2013.

Since then, authorities have jailed thousands of people, mainly Islamists but also prominent secular activists, including many of those behind Egypt's Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Egypt has also been accused of arbitrary detention, disappearances and torture, and has silenced most independent media.

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The crackdown has extended to those who contravene cultural norms, with edgy comedy shows being shut down and people seen as supporting LGBT rights arrested or heavily sanctioned.

Gaber faces multiple blasphemy charges, and says his impassioned plea is something he knows brings the risk of facing further charges for "intentionally defaming Egypt, like anyone who tries to express what he feels about this country."

But it's a risk he's willing to take as a last resort.

"I've blamed myself for every moment I spent in this country, I blamed myself for every second I had the chance to leave this place but chose not to ... for having chosen this county over my freedom and sense of security," he said.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP)  Argentina says it has struck a deal with the European Union to export biodiesel again to the EU.

The foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the agreement was reached after the government and the Argentine biofuels chamber offered a "commitment on prices and volumes to allow the relaunching of exports."

The ministry said the deal was approved Wednesday by an EU commission that oversees trade in the 28-member EU. It also said the commission had recommended imposing anti-subsidy duties on Argentine biodiesel imports of between 25 and 33.4 percent.

Members of the Argentine biofuels industry celebrated the announcement and said that in exchange the EU will also impose reduced tariffs on local biodiesel because it still considers the fuel to be subsidized.
Photo credit: Lockheed Martin

From Popular Mechanics

The U.S. Air Force may not buy a stealthy tanker after all, dashing hopes of a radar-invisible refueling plane that could fly close to the aerial front line. Meanwhile, the service also announced its new OA-X light attack aircraft program is on indefinite hold. It would seem the Air Force is cutting back programs to reflect changing the changing global landscape and the fact that USAF has a number of other, higher priorities in the form of new aircraft and missiles.

Air Force Chief of Staff Dave Goldfein, in remarks to Aviation Week & Space Technology , said regarding a stealth tanker, The days of buying individual platforms that we then described as game changers-those days are behind us. There actually are no silver bullets on the horizon.

Tanks a Lot

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Skyler Combs

As we reported earlier this week, the Air Force has finally received the first of its KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueling tankers, which are intended to finally replace the decades-old KC-135 Stratotankers. The Pentagon planned to supplement the KC-46 with an entirely new aircraft, the KC-Z.

Unlike the KC-46A, KC-Z would have been a stealthy tanker capable of flying closer to the aerial front line to support warplanes such as the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and B-21 Raider bomber. It's important because America's tankers would become a target in any future war. The Chinese military would plan to target not only fighters and bombers but also the support assets they rely upon, including tankers and AWACs-style command and control planes.

But building the KC-Z would have been a very expensive endeavor. For one thing, other than the B-2 Spirit there are no large, stealthy airframes ready to convert into tanker. This would have necessitated a long and expensive development period for what would essentially be a flying gas tank. (Of course, one possibility is that KC-Z would be based on the forthcoming B-21 Raider, with bombs replaced with internal fuel storage.)

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And the USAF budget it getting crowded. Over the next 15 years, the Air Force must also build the B-21 Raider bomber, stock up on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, purchase the T-X jet trainer, develop the Penetrating Counter Air sixth-generation fighter, and develop and field the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. Each of these programs would cost in the tens of billions of dollars.

How the Air Force will pay for all of those, much less the development of a stealthy tanker, is a very good question. If the Air Force replaces all its existing KC-135 and KC-10 tankers with new ones, it would need 455 new tankers. The Air Force originally planned to buy 179 KC-46As. As problem-ridden as that plane has been, it seems quite possible that the Air Force might purchase hundreds more KC-46As to fully modernize the fleet.

Photo credit: Department of Defense

Then again, money might be less of a consideration than we think. In his interview with AvWeek, Goldfein remarked that his next generation tanker could operate at low-Earth orbit and that while it might sound a little bit odd for him to discuss a future tanker with Air Force Space Command, it makes perfect sense. What he means is anyones guess, but heres a stab at something that could operate along those lines: a tanker that could stay in orbit for months or even years at a time, much like the X-37B spaceplane, and then descend down into airspace to deliver fuel to friendly aircraft before accelerating back up into the relative safety of orbit again. Whatever the case, it sounds exciting...and expensive.

Getting Lean

Another program the Air Force appears close to shedding is the Light Attack Aircraft, or OA-X. OA-X was a program to develop a light attack and observation aircraft for the Air Force for low intensity conflicts and brushfire wars-places where troops need precision firepower but do not face the modern, advanced air defenses that a near-peer like Russia or China could field.

The aircraft program, which had the backing of the late U.S. Senator John S. McCain, was set to be funded to the tune of approximately $1.2 billion and could have swelled to a fleet of 300 planes. The Air Force held a competition in 2018 to whittle OA-X down to two planes, the AT-6B Wolverine and A-29 Super Tucano, but a June crash that killed one pilot put the brakes on testing. In December 2018, the Air Force announced the program itself was indefinitely on hold.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force Photo by Ethan D. Wagner

The test crash wasn't the only factor that may have killed the program. The OA-X planes were originally meant for wars such as the campaign against ISIS and the Taliban in Afghanistan. ISIS, although not totally beaten, has been cornered into a fairly small area and operations against the terrorist group are proceeding at a much slower pace. The recognition that the war in Afghanistan is 17 years old is driving new calls to finally end the conflict, and peace negotiations with the Taliban may well result in a U.S. withdraw. The Air Force, busy spooling up to fight major wars against big power enemies, may worry that buying OA-X could be spending money on the wars of the past-not the wars to come.

Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology



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The US and the Taliban have drafted the framework of a deal which could pave the way for peace talks with Kabul, Washington's main negotiator was quoted as saying Monday, but major hurdles including a ceasefire and a withdrawal of foreign forces remain.

The comments by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to the New York Times are the clearest signal yet from a US official that talks between Washington and the militants are progressing, igniting hopes of a breakthrough in the grinding 17-year conflict.

Khalilzad has been leading a months-long diplomatic push to convince the Taliban to negotiate with the Afghan government, but the militants have steadfastly refused, dismissing authorities in Kabul as "puppets".

The flurry of activity culminated in an unprecedented six straight days of talks in Qatar last week, with both the US and the Taliban citing progress over the weekend.

"We have a draft of the framework that has to be fleshed out before it becomes an agreement," Khalilzad, who arrived in Kabul Sunday to update Afghan authorities on the talks, was quoted as saying by the Times.

He told Afghan media that Washington and the insurgents had "agreed to agreements in principle on a couple of very important issues", and said Afghans must "seize the opportunity", according to comments released by the US embassy in Kabul.

Experts quickly hailed the development as a milestone, noting it indicated willingness on both sides to find a way out of the conflict.

Acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan described the talks as "encouraging".

However there is still no accord on a timetable for a US withdrawal or a ceasefire -- major issues on which previous attempts at negotiations have foundered.

On Saturday Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that without a withdrawal timetable, progress on other issues is "impossible".

- 'Good faith' -

Khalilzad confirmed the Taliban had acceded on one major issue for the US: safe havens.

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"The Taliban have committed, to our satisfaction, to do what is necessary that would prevent Afghanistan from ever becoming a platform for international terrorist groups or individuals," he told the Times.

He gave no further details, but the statement gave weight to reports last week that the Taliban had agreed to oppose Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

The US invasion of 2001 was driven by the Taliban's harbouring of Al Qaeda, but more than 17 years later the jihadist group appears diminished in the region.

Islamic State, however, is a growing and potent presence in Afghanistan, where it is fighting a fierce turf war with the Taliban in some areas.

Analyst Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington, DC said such a move had long been a major ask of the US -- but noted it was more of a "conciliatory gesture" than a concession.

"The Taliban has never been a friend of ISIS, and Al-Qaeda has become a shadow of its former self," he told AFP.

Even so "it signals, at least at this point, that the insurgents are willing to negotiate in good faith and agree to a key US demand".

- 'Clear, hard assurances' -

Afghan authorities have warned that any deal between the US and the Taliban would require Kabul's endorsement.

"I call on the Taliban to... show their Afghan will, and accept Afghans' demand for peace, and enter serious talks with the Afghan government," President Ashraf Ghani said in a televised address Monday.

US President Donald Trump's clear eagerness to end America's longest war has also weighed heavy on the discussions, and Ghani warned against rushing into a deal, citing violence following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

"We want peace, we want it fast but we want it with a plan," he said.

"No Afghan wants foreign troops to remain in their country indefinitely. No Afghan wants to face suicide attacks in hospitals, schools, the mosques, and parks."

Civilians continue to pay a terrible price for the Taliban insurgency, with some estimates showing the Afghan conflict overtook Syria to become the world's deadliest last year.

Ghani's office said Khalilzad had reassured the government that the negotiations in Qatar remain focused on bringing the insurgents to the table for talks with Kabul.

The palace said Khalilzad confirmed no agreement had been made on a withdrawal or a ceasefire.

NATO combat troops left Afghanistan in 2014, but thousands remain in training, support and counter-terrorism roles. Trump has said he wants to pull out half the remaining 14,000 American troops, according to US officials.

Kugelman said the process could yet collapse over a withdrawal.

"Who's to say the Taliban won't decide to seize on the resulting battlefield advantage and take up the fight anew?" he said.

Afghan security forces are already taking staggering losses, with 45,000 killed since late 2014, and morale is low.

"There will need to be clear, hard assurances that any troop withdrawals take place only after the Taliban has begun talks with the Afghan government," Kugelman continued.

Underlining the parlous backdrop to the talks, the Taliban Monday claimed to have killed or wounded 33 US and Afghan forces in two recent incidents, according to the SITE monitoring group. The Taliban routinely exaggerates its attacks, and NATO denied the claims.

The Taliban and US officials have agreed to continue negotiations, though no date has been publicly announced.
Reuters

Salvatore Babones

Security, Europe

Britains politicians have just voted to hamstring their own Brexit team by telling them to accept any deal the EU offersor give up on Brexit. But a tough negotiator like Donald Trump would still get the deal and have the Europeans begging for mercy.

10 Cards That Trump Would Play to Get a Brexit Deal

The British Parliament recently voted on seven separate Brexit amendments. Two were approved: one preventing the UK from leaving the EU without a deal, and one changing the arrangements for the Irish border. Hard core Remainers will be dancing in the aisle: Parliament has in effect told Prime Minister Theresa May to go back to Brussels to beg for a better deal, but if the EU refuses, then Brexit will be cancelled. Thats no way to get what you want. Theyve as much as conceded the negotiations in advance.

Britains ruling class has been intent on defeating Brexit since the British people opted to leave the European Union in June 2016. Theresa Mays opening gambit was to give away the grant of UK permanent residence to more than three million EU citizens then living in the country (and to the several hundred thousand more who have since raced in). She then made an early commitment to pay an enormous divorce bill to the EU before the Brexit negotiations had even begun, and licensed Irish intransigence with an up-front pledge to impose no hard border on the island no matter what.

Dealt the same cards as Theresa May, Donald Trump would have built a wall, then offered to take it downfor a fee.

Mays three key concessions were generous-minded and eminently reasonable. But while May has been playing a good-faith game of lets all get along, the Jean-Claude Juncker and the European Union have been playing beggar-thy-neighbor politics. No one in the UK seems to have noticed that Juncker made no up-front concessions, only up-front demands. Unsurprisingly, the final withdrawal agreement represented little more than British acquiescence to the EUs negotiating position. Having conceded all of Junckers needs up-front, May had no leverage to play for anything better.

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Now her hand is even worse. Luckily for the British people, the UK still holds at least ten face cards it can play to force a better Brexit. Heres how Trump would play them.

39 Billion

The UK would be crazy to pay the previously agreed upon 39 billion divorce bill if the EU refuses to renegotiate Brexit. Let them sue. The EU desperately needs this money now, because rich EU countries like the Netherlands have insisted that they will make no further contributions to the EU budget, while poor EU countries like Poland have insisted that they will accept no reduction in subsidies. The EU doesnt have the time to wait for the outcome of an arbitration ruling that may take years to decide. When you owe 39, the bank owns you. When you owe 39 billion, you own the bank.

Millions of Hostages

There are 3.7 million EU citizens living in the UK, up from 3.4 million in 2016. The Europeans want in, not out. The UK may have a moral obligation to let them stay, but it doesnt have to make it easy on them. Look how theyve squealed over having to fill out a form and pay 65 plus 32.50 per child. Non-European permanent residents in the UK have to fill out lots of forms and pay 610 plus 610 per child. Theres no reason why EU citizens should get a better deal than the rest of usunless the EU gives up something in exchange. As for UK citizens living in the EU, there are only around a million of them, and most of them are on vacationor retired.

Tariffs

Britain exports 274 billion a year to the EUand falling. The EU sends 341 billion a year to the UKand rising. Simple arithmetic suggests that the EU has more to lose from a no-deal reduction in trade. Even worse for the EU, due to the quirks of WTO rules, the no-deal average UK tariff on EU goods would be 3.8 percent, while the average EU tariff on UK goods would be just 2.6 percent. On top of that, the UK has a much more flexible currency than the nineteen-member Eurozone; a minor depreciation in the Pound would keep British exports at par, while hitting the EUs exports even harder. When it comes to trade, the balance of pain clearly favors the UK.

French Farmers

Because Britain imports half of its food, scary headlines have highlighted the possibility of big price increases at the supermarket check-out. Imagine the uproar among French farmers if the UK stopped buying French cheese. French farmers are already on the rampage in response to minor cuts in government subsidies. Throw in the fishermen being denied access to UK fishing grounds, and last years scallop war will look like a minor skirmish. As the Yellow Vest uprising enters its fourth month, Emmanuel Macron cant afford to have it inflamed by a no deal agricultural revolution.

German Automakersand Their Unions

The auto industry is the lifeblood of the German economy, and Germany exports more cars to the UK than to any other country. Angela Merkel has already announced her retirement, and the wolves are circling on her beleaguered coalition government. With the German economy sliding toward recession, the last thing Merkel needs is a collapse in auto exports. With the far right and the far left both on the rise, the mainstream German parties need all the peace and quiet they can get.

Heathrow

Hard Brexit melodramatists like to raise the possibility that British airlines would lose the right to fly or through the EU in the event of an absolutely no deal Brexit. Of course, EU airlines would also lose the right to fly to the UK. Try telling that to Ryanair. Or to all the EU airlines that have landing slots at Heathrow, each worth upwards of 50 million (the most expensive in the world).

The Internet

Most of Europes Internet connectivity to the United States crosses the UK and is managed by UK servers. A super-hard Brexit would effectively cut Europe off from the world. Of course, Britain is not about to pull the plugbut it could. In the very unlikely event that the EU pulled the plug on Heathrow, the UK could pull the plug on the European Internet. Thats not a threat that should be made; its a fact that should be mentioned whenever the EU says no new talks.

Access to Financing

Analyses of the financial costs of Brexit inevitably focus on UKs outsized banking sector, but when it comes to money, getting it is more important than giving it. When the EU threatens not to passport UK-based banks, that is the accounting equivalent of the EU threatening to exclude itself from the London-based global financial system. To see things from the other side of the Channel, imagine if the UK threatened to ban its banks from dealing with EU institutions. Financial dominance is one of Britains major negotiating strengths, not a strategic vulnerability.

The Irish Border

If you think the Irish border is a problem for Britain, then think again. Nearly all of Irelands exports to the rest of the EU are routed through the UK. A hard border in Dundalk and Derry means a hard border in Holyhead and Liverpool, where Irish goods bound for the continent roll off the short ferries from Dublin. The claim that a hard border would bring back The Troubles is nothing less than a demand that the UK should cave into the threat of international terrorism. The Irish may be very sensitive about being pressured on the border, but thats the EUs problem, not the UKs.

Two More Years

The EU says that Mays Brexit deal is nonnegotiable and the March 29 deadline cannot be pushed back. But the European Court of Justice has ruled that the UK can revoke its Article 50 notice of withdrawal from the EU at any time. That means the UK can revoke Article 50 on March 28, then invoke it again on March 30. That would annoy the hell out of Jean-Claude Juncker and the European Commission, but what could they do? In short: the UK has all the time in the world to negotiate the Brexit deal it wants. That's the law. The EU says so.

With cards like these, a brawler like Trump could make mincemeat of the EU negotiating position on Brexit. Trump understands that you dont even have to play a card to make it matter; just look at the long-awaited tariffs on China that never seem to come, or Trumps implicit threats to pull out of NATO. Both have extracted substantial concessions from friend and foe alike.

Like Americas trump cards, Britains ten Brexit cards should never actually have be played. A confident negotiator who just threatened to play them could milk them for all theyre worth. And theyre worth a lot more than most of Britains political class seems to think. Unfortunately, Britains politicians have now given the EU a trump card of its own: the promise of no Brexit without a deal. May can cancel that card by canceling Article 50 and playing two more years. Thats the Brexit red button. Trump would threaten to push itand he would get the deal.

Salvatore Babones is the author of The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts.

Image: Reuters

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Israeli company that claims cure for cancer would face years of testing ahead for US market  even if it works

Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies (AEBi) claims to use peptides, a chain of amino acids, to target and kill cancer cells.

The company told the Jerusalem Post it will develop a cancer cure "within a year's time"  but the company has only tested the treatment in mice so far.

An AEBi spokesman acknowledged in an email to CNBC that "complete cure for cancer meaning that we will have the complete solution ready for first tryout in humans."

An Israeli biotech company said preliminary research on mice gives it hope of developing a cancer cure "within a year's time"  but it still has years of testing ahead of it before it could get U.S. approval  even if it works for humans.

Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies (AEBi) told the Jerusalem Post it used peptides, which are a chain of amino acids, to target and kill cancer cells in mice.

"We believe we will offer in a year's time a complete cure for cancer," the company's chairman of the board of directors, Dan Aridor, told the Jerusalem Post in an article published Monday.

The company, however, has only tested the treatment in mice so far and it can take six to seven years to bring cancer drugs from "mouse to market," even when drugmakers receive special permissions from U.S. regulators to speed drug development, Les Funtleyder, health-care portfolio manager at E Squared Capital Management, told CNBC.

"I mean, I'd love there to be a cure for cancer, but I do not believe them in the absence of good human evidence," he said.

The company has not yet published any clinical evidence showing this treatment works in humans. CEO Ilan Morad told the Jerusalem Post that AEBi has only finished its first exploratory mice experiment, which he claims inhibited cancer cell growth.

The Food and Drug Administration, which declined to comment on the company's treatment, has an extensive review process for drug approval in the United States: "Before a drug can be tested in people, the drug company or sponsor performs laboratory and animal tests to discover how the drug works and whether it's likely to be safe and work well in humans. Next, a series of tests in people is begun to determine whether the drug is safe when used to treat a disease and whether it provides a real health benefit," FDA says on its site .

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The company acknowledged in an email to CNBC that "complete cure for cancer meaning that we will have the complete solution ready for first tryout in humans. A solution that is supposed to finish the problem without it coming back. Even in the unlikely event that it comes back it can be re-administered\re-adjusted."

Aridor said the company's first target is lung cancer and that it's working on others.

Read the full Jerusalem Post story here.





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Its been a rough month for anyone still pretending that President Trumps relationship with Russia is on the level.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that when Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin during the G-20 summit in November, no U.S. official was on hand to take notes. The only other two people present for the conversation, which lasted roughly 15 minutes, were First Lady Melania Trump and Putins translator. The group was reportedly among the last to leave their table. Though the White House had acknowledged that the two spoke informally while in Argentina, the conversation was longer and more substantive than had been implied previously. The White House also failed to note that no official was present as the two leaders spoke.

The news comes just weeks after the Washington Post reported that Trump went out of his way to hide details of his conversation with Putin at the 2017 G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Though a U.S. translator was present at that meeting, Trump confiscated her notes and told her not to discuss what was said with any other administration officials (then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was also present). During a dinner that night, Trump sought out Putin for a second, informal meeting that lasted close to an hour. He didnt tell advisers about this second meeting, and the White House didnt confirm it took place until after it was reported on days later. While flying home to Washington, D.C., the next day, Trump dictated a false statement about Russian adoptions for Donald Trump, Jr. to give to the New York Times, which was seeking an explanation for why Trumps eldest met with a delegation led by a Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower the previous summer. It was later revealed that Trump, Jr., was attempting to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton from Veselnitskaya.

The off-the-record conversation in Argentina last fall wasnt the first time Trump and Putin met in in 2018. While in Brussels, Belgium, for the NATO summit in July, the two world leaders spoke privately for nearly two hours. The only other American in the room was a State Department translator named Marina Gross. What was discussed is a mystery, but there is little Trump could do that would please Putin more than withdrawing the United States from NATO, the alliance of Western nations formed primarily to prevent Russia from over-extending its military influence. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Trump repeatedly discussed pull the U.S. out of NATO.

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Democrats responded to the news of Trumps efforts to conceal the nature of his meetings with Putin by renewing calls for Gross to be subpoenaed.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) didnt take well to the suggestion. Absolutely not, he told reporters when asked about the prospect. That will be the last time you ever have a foreign leader meet with the president of the United States. I can tell you that there may be times when we need to do that. I cant imagine how that would affect future presidents and their ability to talk to foreign leaders.

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There may be a world in which Graham has a point, one that doesnt contain an abundance of evidence that something may be inappropriate about Trumps relationship with Russia, an adversarial nation that is actively trying to subvert American democracy. Its probably a better idea than not to do everything possible to try to figure out whether this is the case. The FBI agreed in May 2017 when it opened a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether Trump was operating on Putins behalf. That investigations existence was revealed earlier this month, as well. So was the tidbit that the Trump Organizations negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow persisted throughout Trumps presidential campaign.

Again, its been a long month for anyone trying to defend Trumps relationship with Russia.
Sir Peter, meet Sir Paul, and Mother Mary. Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has come aboard a project that Paul McCartney had previously hinted was in the works: a new Beatles documentary using the 55 hours of in-studio footage that were shot in early 1969 for the 1970 feature film Let It Be.

The announcement is being made today  on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles rooftop concert atop the Apple Records offices in London  by Apple Corps Ltd. and WingNut Films Ltd., Jacksons production company.

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No release date or plan has been set, but sources say theres every reason to suspect that the still-untitled film will come out in 2020 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Let It Be album and movie.

The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensure this movie will be the ultimate fly on the wall experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about, Jackson said in a statement. Its like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.

The original Let It Be film has long been out of circulation, released only on VHS and laserdisc. The film was restored for a planned DVD issue in the early 2000s, but that was scuttled amid reports that McCartney and Ringo Starr with the movies emphasis on tension in the recording studio as they recorded a little more than a year before their breakup.

Fans who were aware of McCartneys interest in releasing a more upbeat look at the 69 sessions have wondered if the new film would take the place of Let It Be, with the original movie forever consigned to the Apple dustbin. Happily, any fears about that film getting buried forever have turned out not to be true: A restored version of director Michael Lindsay-Hoggs theatrical release is set to finally get its belated digital release, following the release of this new film, according to Apples announcement.

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The original Let It Be film was shot in 16mm and not exactly known for its pristine cinematography. So one point of considerable interest with the new film is that Jackson plans to spruce up the footage using some of the same techniques used for his highly acclaimed World War I documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old. As on that doc, which recently had sold-out single-day engagements in U.S. theaters, Jackson, his producer Clare Olssen and editor Jabez Olssen will be relying on the restorative powers of Park Road Post in New Zealand to make those 50-year-old reels look less dated.

Jackson, in his statement, concurred with McCartneys assessment that the 1970 film undersold just how much fun the Beatles had in the studio when they were making the album that ended up being titled Let It Be.

I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth, Jackson said. After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, its simply an amazing historical treasure trove. Sure, theres moments of drama, but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating. its funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate.  Im thrilled and honored to have been entrusted with this remarkable footage. Making the movie will be a sheer joy.

The announcement makes no mention of any audio boxed set to go along with the film, though its widely speculated that a Let It Be super deluxe edition would be a natural for 2020, and that this would naturally would be preceded in 2019 by a 50th anniversary edition of Abbey Road, which was actually recorded after Let It Be (for the most part) but released first. But in an interview with Variety last September, Giles Martin, who was instrumental in the Sgt. Pepper and White Album deluxe reissues, disavowed any knowledge of what was next in the boxed set lineup.

The dozens of hours of outtakes from Let It Be have remained a source of fascination for Beatles fans for 50 years  with many of the audio discards, if not the filmic ones, circulating on bootlegs. The album being documented was originally to be titled Get Back, with an initial concept that called for the Beatles to pull a back-to-roots move and resurrect some of their favorite oldies on record as well as debuting new tracks in their first live performance in years. That concept fell away, but fans will soon get a chance to officially hear and see the Beatles jamming on cover tunes, not to mention some original compositions that ended up not on the Let It Be album but Abbey Road or their post-breakup solo records.

As the lack of video bonuses on the Sgt. Pepper and White Album packages has made even clearer, the Beatles were rarely filmed at work in the recording studio for even a minute, much less the 55 hours committed to celluloid for this project.

Jacksons involvement comes as a surprise. But McCartney teased the nature of the project in an interview with Canadas Radio X last fall, when asked the inevitable question about the status of Let It Be. I think there may be a new version of it, he said at the time. The original movie came out and it was really sort of about the break-up of the Beatles. And so for me, it was a little sad, the movie. But I know people are looking at the  56 hours of footage. And someone was talking the other day to me and said (that) the overall feeling is very joyous and very uplifting. Its like a bunch of guys making music and enjoying it, you know.

Executive producers named for the new film are Ken Kamins for WingNut Films and Jeff Jones and Jonathan Clyde for Apple Corps.

When it rains, it pours, for patient 60s and 70s rock fans whove longed to see superior outtakes from arguably iffy music movies. In a similar example of a master modern filmmaker taking up vintage footage, Netflix confirmed to Variety earlier this month that Martin Scorsese is making a film about Bob Dylans Rolling Thunder Revue of 1975-76, presumably using a lot of footage shot and and never used for the Renaldo and Clara movie.

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Just as the final world tour from rock legends KISS gets ready to kick off, founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons have nudged the door open for some former members of the group while shutting it completely on another.

In a new interview with Guitar World (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), both men said that theyre willing to entertain the idea of being joined on stage briefly by guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss, the two ex-KISS founding members who were part of the bands world dominating 70s heyday, but, as Simmons put it, theyre never going to be in KISS again.

Ace and Peter have gotten three chances, he continued. They were in and out of the band  fired  three times. For drugs, alcohol, bad behavior, being unprofessional So the short answer is wed love to have Ace and Peter join us here and there. And if they dont, its not going to be because of us.

He added, Would we welcome Ace or Peter to jump up onstage for a song or two? Of course. Could we depend on either Ace of Peter to do a full set night after night? Not on your fing life.

(Buy: Tickets to KISS End of the Road Tour)

Depending on who you ask, Criss either quit or was fired from the band officially in 1980 but rejoined the fold in 1996 for their much-celebrated Alive/Worldwide Tour, which also included Frehley. Criss left the band again in 2000 but was hired back for a spell  from 2002 to 2004  before being dismissed for the last time. Frehley, on the other had, rejoined the band in 1996 but left for good in 2001.

As for other ex-KISS members, Stanley and Simmons had some strong words for Vinnie Vincent, the guitarist who was brought in to replace Frehley in 1982. When asked whether they would consider inviting him to join them onstage during this last tour, Stanley said, I would say thats not someone who I want to celebrate.

Simmons agreed with his longtime friend and bandmate, saying, Its worth stating that Vinnie has sued the band and lost 14 times. Im not here to cast any aspersions. Hes a talented guy. Thats why he was in the band. But would I depend on him to get up onstage and do anything? Never. Can he come to the shows? Of course! Anybody can. But onstage? Never.

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Vincent clearly feels differently about the experience with his former bandmates as he told BackstageAxxess last year, If they ask me, Ill be there. Theyre still my buds, my friends, and [theres] a lot of love left. A lot of magic left.

As for Bruce Kulick, another former guitarist in the KISS history books, Stanley and Simmons heaped praise upon him.

Bruce is somebody who shouldnt be overlooked or underestimated as far as his role in the band, Stanley said, with Simmons adding We love Bruce. He was always professional and showed up on time.  So I can never say anything bad about Bruce.

KISS End of the Road tour kicks off Thursday night (January 31st) in Vancouver, Canada. Get your tickets here.

UPDATE: Ace Frehley has responded to the interview, demanding an offer for his KISS job back and accusing Simmons of groping his wife. Details here.

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California authorities are looking for a suspect in the hit-and-run death of a college student struck while walking on the street hours before she was scheduled to return to school from winter break.

On Saturday evening, 21-year-old Angelina Pinedo, a San Francisco State University student, was crossing the street in Redondo Beach with her sister when she was struck by a vehicle. Pinedo was dragged several hundred feet before the driver got out of his car, then got back in and drove away, leaving Pinedo to die, witnesses alleged to KTLA.

Police said Pinedo was walking on a crosswalk when the vehicle struck her.

Prior to the crash, Pinedo had spent winter break at her familys home in Rosemead, her family told KTVU. She planned to return to school Sunday and start classes Monday.

Her life was tragically taken in a way that Angelina did not deserve, her sister Martha Torres told the station.

Pinedo was the youngest of six siblings, KTVU reports. Her older sister administered CPR to her after the accident. She died at the scene.

Witnesses told KCAL9 passersby rushed to Pinedos side to help her after she was struck.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

I heard a thump, said Joey Coyazo, who ran from his job at a nearby liquor store to help. It sounded like a crash. But without any screeching of tires so I knew someone had just hit something without braking.

He said the driver stopped for a moment before fleeing.

I was shocked. I screamed out No!,' Coyazo told the station. Dont leave! And obviously to no avail.

Police said the suspect was driving a black Audi Q5 SUV with a partial license plate 7 MB, reports KTVU, KTLA and KCAL9. The vehicle had damage on the front windshield and hood.

Weve asked anyone and everyone who was in the area, if they have any information to bring Angelina and the family the justice she deserves, Torres told KTVU. Please contact the Redondo Beach Police Department.

Pinedos family has started a GoFundMe page. No amount is too small! Hearts are broken, the page reads.

Anyone with information is urged to call investigator Clint Daniel at 310-379-2477, ext. 2721 or the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.
It was another day at the office, Ken Mansfield says, recalling the Beatles impromptu rooftop concert in January 1969. Theres not even a hint of sarcasm in his voice. The group staged the gig atop Apple Records London office at 3 Savile Row, 50 years ago today, with the intention of shooting the ending for what would become their Let It Be film. It was an item on a checklist. Mansfield, who was born in Idaho, was the labels U.S. manager at the time. Some of the people in the Apple office didnt even try to come up, because it was just another day.

Mansfield was invited to watch the historic performance, the Beatles last live gig, at the urging of the bands roadie, Mal Evans. I think Mal just liked to take care of me, so he made sure I was up there, he says. When he found out about the afternoon gig, Mansfield ran out and bought a white raincoat, since it was in the low 40s outside, and huddled on a bench with Yoko Ono, Ringos then-wife Maureen Starkey and Apple staffer Chris ODell to watch the quartet perform nine songs, including multiple retakes of Get Back. George had me light some cigarettes for him for a few minutes just so he could hold the tips of his fingers up against the coals so he could feel his strings, Mansfield recalls. And I know John was really complaining about it, about the cold and how he couldnt feel his hands.

Late last year, Mansfield released a book about the experience, The Roof, which chronicles how a job at Capitol Records Los Angeles office led him across the pond to Apple and up onto the roof. Along the way, he also explains how he got to know the band members and offers a glimpse of what life was like working for the most famous group in the world. The Roof contains his personal memories along with contributions from Beatles scholars and information he found from researching this monumental day.

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I just happened to be working in the offices that week, he says. And Mal just happened to say, Hey, come on, Ken, were going up in 15 minutes. I said, What do you mean? He said, Were going on the roof, and so come on.' The rest, he says, is history.

What comes to mind first when you look back on the rooftop concert?



There was a lot of dissension with the Beatles at the time. I went up to the dressing room  the offices they were using just before the concert  and it looked like they were nervous, like a young band getting ready for an audition. I thought maybe it was because they havent played in a while and theres a lot of tension. I found out later on that when I walked in, they werent nervous; there was just a lot of tension amongst them. They were deciding if they should even go up. Somebody told me later that even when they got to the door to go on the roof, they were still deciding and that John said, Oh, come on. Lets do it. We need the footage.

So they came out and started playing. Im four to six feet away from the band, so Im virtually looking in their faces. When they started playing, at some point  and this is something Ill never forget  there was this moment where Paul looked over at John or John looked at Paul and there was this look of recognition. Its like they were saying, You know what? No matter whats going down, this is us. This is who we are. This is what weve always been. Stuffs going down right now, but we are what we are, and thats a good rock & roll band. I wrote in my book that I think they went up on the roof without a soundcheck but left with a soul check.

You said you were four to six feet from them. How many people were as close as you?



There were only four of us up there that were what you would call an audience: Yoko and I, Maureen and Chris. Otherwise, it was the four Beatles and Billy [Preston], and then there was Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director, and a couple of soundmen and film guys. The area was rather small. Theyd built planks in what I call the sweet spot, and that was like 12 feet wide and 15 feet long. So there were maybe 11 or 12 of us right there and then around the edges, there were maybe eight more people, so there were probably close to 20 people on the roof at the time.

You say it was just a day at the office. When Mal asked you up on the roof, did it seem like a significant event?



Well, it did from the standpoint of the fact that it was going to be the first time they played together again. But it was done for a purpose, the film. So maybe just because of that, I didnt really think too much about it. But when they were playing, I started getting this feeling like, Wait a minute, somethings going on here. I couldnt put my finger on it. It was the strangest feeling. It wasnt like, Oh, gee, this is the last time the Beatles are going to play together and Oh, gosh, theyre going to break up after this and Apples going to change. It was just feeling something. The next day, I got on a plane and went back to L.A. and Chris and I didnt talk about it for maybe 20 years. But when we did, yeah, it was something.

What was the vibe on the roof like? With all the crew there, I imagine it was very professional, but you can hear a little clapping here and there.



Well, the sound guys and film guys were totally, 100-percent professional. They were getting their job done. They didnt have time to fool around.

From your perspective, how did Billy Preston fit in with the band?



Billy was really special to the band at that time. I think George was very wise for bringing him in, because Billy was a calming effect. They were all really big fans of Billy and loved Billy. He was really important to the whole thing. When they were in the studio, they would play something and Billy would look over at me with his eyes just as big as saucers and go, Wow, did you hear that? And theyd turn to Billy and say, Hey, why dont you do this here? and Billy would go, Wow, thats great.

Lets talk about the songs. The concert was about three months after the White Album came out. Had you heard the tunes before? What did you think of them?



I only know what Id heard in the studio, and I cant remember which ones, because they were just working on things. But no, they were all new to me.

Do you remember your impressions of hearing these songs live for the first time?



Yeah, I had ones I actually liked, which were Dont Let Me Down and Get Back. I was a little disoriented because the White Album didnt feel like the other albums did to me. I felt like it didnt have a concept and later on I realized, Wait, that was their concept, to do something different. Let It Be was a little bit of a continuation of that. Then they turn around and do Abbey Road, which was really what the Beatles were like, for me, more than the previous recordings.

The one thing Ill say is, when I heard what Phil Spector did to Let It Be, I went, ugh. Then when they did Let It Be  Naked, I almost got chills again because it was like, Thats what Id heard. I think Paul wanted the Let It Be  Naked thing from the beginning. He always wanted people to see the band like that.

The other songs they did on the rooftop were Ive Got a Feeling, One after 909 and Dig a Pony.



I liked Ive Got a Feeling. I dont know. You like some songs better than you like others. Its almost blasphemy not to like individual Beatles songs, so youre not gonna trap me there. I like them all.

When did you realize a crowd had gathered downstairs?



I was totally unaware. We couldnt see anything down below, unless you went right over on the edge and looked down. Of course, the street couldnt see us up there either. What I did notice was how people started gathering on the buildings, and they were virtually hanging out of windows and on ledges. So that was pretty interesting.

One of the guys who worked at Apple said he didnt know there was going to be a concert on the roof that day, and he showed up around that time. He said he turned onto Savile Row and it was like a wall of sound coming down the street. He saw all these people and the traffic was stopping. Some people were mesmerized and some people were mad. The businessmen were really ticked off because they were a bunch of bankers and upscale tailors and didnt really dig that. It was just a bunch of mixed emotions.

A bobby came up and tried to stop the concert. What do you remember about that?



That was way overblown. Mal had locked the door before they started and, of course, after a while there were so many complaints that Mal let them in. He talked to them down there and if you look at photos of it now, youll notice there were only a couple of guys up there and you can see Mal and the policeman just standing side by side watching the show. I think Mal just schmoozed them. I dont remember any drama up there of any kind. When it was over, everybody went on their way.

Ive read that Mal unplugged Johns guitar but John plugged it in before Get Back.



Yeah. Maybe that was because the police had told Mal to unplug it, but it wasnt very dramatic. Thats for sure.

Well, on the last take of Get Back, Paul jokes about how Youve been playing on the roofs again, and you know your mama doesnt like it. Shes gonna have you arrested.



Yeah, that just shows how casual and how much fun they were having.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg has said he thought the Beatles wanted to be arrested for playing loudly. Did you have that impression?



There was something about that, like a five-and-a-halfsecond meeting with Peter Brown and Mal or Michael. Like, Wouldnt it make more news if we had them arrested now? Would that make it more dramatic? I remember something being bantered about, about that.

What happened when the concert was done and the cameras stopped filming?



Everyone went downstairs. It was like pulling the plug on the bathtub and the water goes away.

What did you think of the Let It Be film when you finally saw it?



For me, it felt a little dark. Im just one of these people that likes things to be happy. It wasnt all that bad all the time. There were really a lot of great things going on and a lot of happiness. So I would like to see another edit of that.

Did you keep up with the Beatles after they broke up and Apple dissolved?



Yeah. George finished up the Bangladesh album in L.A., and I was with him during that time in the studio. His wife and my wife were friends, so we would go shopping for jeans together and stuff like that. But then Paul, I only saw him once later, at the Grammys. And I was at Ringos house one time when John came over. So I saw everybody over the years. I represented Ringo in the Nineties for his Time Takes Time album. So our relationship went on and on.

It must be different for you to see them performing live solo, after seeing them together in the Sixties a few times.



Whats fun are Ringos concerts, because hes smart enough to bring in all these guys from great bands so everybody gets featured. Its just so exciting and it takes the pressure off him. He once told me, The first time I became a solo act, I walked out on the stage and I was stunned at the feeling. Thats because I was always behind the guys and the kit. But he said, When I was out in the very front, I didnt have any of that filter between me and the audience, and he said it was so overwhelming. He said, I felt like I could fall forward and the vibes coming back would just hold me up and keep me from falling into the audience. It really took him back for a second.
On the fifth day of the wage strike of the workers at the Audi motor works in Gyor, a business website remarks that Audi workers are among the best paid in Hungary, while a pro-government columnist praises the Audi Trade Union for its resolute stance in defence of workers interests.

Most of Audis 17 thousand employees have been on strike for the fifth consecutive day, demanding an 18 per cent wage increase, instead of the average 8 per cent offered by the management.



The number of workers on strike has increased day by day, although they are not being paid for the strike period (they get some compensation from the trade unions reserves). The strike is scheduled to continue until Thursday.



Meanwhile, assembly lines at Audis home production site at Ingolstadt in Germany have been halted until Wednesday because the engines supplied from Audi Hungary are indispensable to continue the assembly of several types of Audi cars.

Portfolios Istvan Madar thinks the strike must be proving a headache to the Hungarian government, because Audi produces from 1 to 1.5 per cent of Hungarys GDP. He warns that Hungary must gradually change its economic model, which attracts foreign investment with relatively low wages, since the increasing shortage of qualified manpower calls for a model based on productivity and innovation instead.



The business analyst thinks the increasing pressure by the unions and the labour shortage itself may prompt Audi to rethink its strategy in Hungary. He is certain that the Hungarian government must be seriously worried about that prospect.

In Magyar Hirlap, Sandor Faggyas welcomes the strike and argues that the employees at the Gyor Audi factory are not only paid a fraction of what their German colleagues get for the same job, but they make even less money than their Slovak colleagues.



He calls their initiative a real strike and contrasts it to what he calls the politically motivated demonstrations organised by leftist trade unions and opposition parties over the past weeks against the increase of the overtime cap from 250 to 400 hours yearly. He advises those trade unions to return to the defence of real workers interests.



MTI Photo: Krizsan Csaba
A left-wing analyst and a liberal weekly comment on the the anti-Soros campaign and accuse the government of cynical fear-mongering and using anti-Semitic tropes.

In an early January interview with the Swiss weekly Das Magazin, George Birnbaum claimed that it was his and his late business partner Arthur Finkelsteins idea that the Orban government should attack George Soros in their campaign.



Finkelstein and Birnbaum worked for the Szazadveg think tank. Birnbaum described George Soros as the ideal personification of both liberalism and global capitalism, thus by targeting the Hungarian-American businessman, Fidesz could do much to boost its popularity.



Birnbaum denied accusations that their campaign was anti-Semitic or that it could stir anti-Semitic sentiments. Government spokesman Balazs Hidvegi said Birnbaum has never been a Fidesz advisor and Mr Soros didnt have to be invented as a scapegoat, for he was actually active in politics, as shown by the Financial Times decision to choose him as Person of the Year 2018.

In its weekly editorial, Magyar Narancs sees the interview as proof that the government wanted to foment hatred and fear by using George Soros as a bogeyman.



The liberal weekly likens the governments campaign against George Soros to the propaganda of the 1930s by the far-right and of the Communist in the 1950s.



The authors simply do not believe Birnbaums comments that he and Finkelstein were unaware of the campaigns anti-Semitic undertones. The main purpose of the stunt was to divert attention away from corruption, Magyar Narancs contends.



The liberal weekly accuses the whole Hungarian public administration of having participated in the anti-Soros campaign.

In 168 Ora, Zoltan Lakner also contends that the governments campaign against Mr Soros was conscious of its own anti-Semitic overtones.



The left-wing political scientist accuses the government of the kind of cynical and amoral politics common in non-democratic systems, although both Birnbaum and Finkelstein have only worked in democracies, including the United States and Israel.



Lakner suspects that their campaign has made the Hungarian public more prone to believing all kinds of conspiracy theories.



MTI Photo
Hungary is committed to GMO-free feed and crops, Istvan Nagy, the farm minister, said in Brussels at a meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council.

Nagy said the European Union should reduce its reliance on soya imports for feed and replace it with non-GMO high-protein crops. EU ministers discussed the Protein Plan proposed by the European Commission at its meeting.



Research and innovation schemes for developing high-protein crops may play a key role. Encouraging the development of new types of feed formulas, tapping into industrial byproducts and high-protein grains would be steps forward.



In addition, the new Common Agricultural Policy should also support the cultivation of protein crops.



Accordingly, Hungary sees funding payments directly linked to production as an appropriate and well-established mechanism which should be retained after 2021, he said.



Nagy told the meeting that demand for GMO-free products around the world is growing and consumers should have guarantees they can choose the products they prefer.



They have the right to know what the product they buy contains, and Hungary therefore urges the clear labelling of meat products that are produced using GMO-free feed, he said.



Meanwhile, Nagy said Hungary opposes the European Commissions proposal to authorise wine production using grape varieties that have been banned for decades, and a further 12 EU member states back Hungarys initiative to maintain the ban.



EU agriculture ministers discussed the proposals in connection with CAP and the wine sector at the meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on Monday, the ministry noted.



The 12 member states that support Hungarys standpoint account for more than 90% of EU grape production for wines.
People in Hungary may fall victim to an international phone scam conducted by criminal gangs, the communications director of the National Crime Prevention Council told public media.

A call is placed from a phone number with a three-digit international area code and disconnects after one ring, Laszlo Garamvolgyi said.



Users are then charged an exorbitant fee if they call the number back.



The scammers usually use a number with a 200 international dialling code, Garamvolgyi said, noting that up to 12,000 such calls are made per day.
West Monroe, LA (71291)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. Hot. High near 95F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
One of the six pro-Hezbollah Sunni members of parliament whose inclusion in the cabinet has been a big block in efforts to form a new Lebanese national unity government said there was a positive atmosphere in the latest efforts to clinch a deal.

I believe this time there is positivity, Abdul Rahim Mrad said during an interview with al-Jadeed TV.

Asked how the latest efforts differed from previous failed attempts to form the government, he said: The difference is there is a serious atmosphere.

He noted that Gebran Bassil - another politician at the heart of the talks - had intensified his activities in the last 24 or 48 hours.

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Clarksburg, WV (26301)

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Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

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Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Winnsboro, LA (71295)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. Hot. High 94F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

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Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
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UNION COUNTY, Miss. (WTVA) - Union County deputies are still seeking the whereabouts of a man who fled from law enforcement earlier this week.

The man is identified as Gary Locke.



Crews spent Wednesday searching for Gary Locke. Crews spent Wednesday searching for Gary Locke.

A wrecker pulls the van from a creek off Highway 30. A wrecker pulls the van from a creek off Highway 30.

Sheriff Jimmy Edwards said an off-duty officer saw Locke driving a van erratically Tuesday evening on Highway 30 and tried to make a traffic stop.

Officers learned the van was reported stolen in Alabama.

Locke fled and later crashed the van into a creek off the highway, then disappeared into a wooded area. He may have suffered an injury from the wreck.

Search and rescue crews spent the night and Wednesday searching for him in the Keownville community.

Thursday morning, the sheriff said a warrant was being filed for Locke's arrest. The warrant is for felony fleeing and possession of stolen property.

Friday morning, Edwards provided a new photo of Locke. Investigators are still looking for him.
WEST BADEN SPRINGS, Ind. (AP)  A southern Indiana coroner says a 3-year-old boy whose death led to charges against his parents died from a drug overdose.

Orange Countys coroner says Colton Brantley Harris died in December from an overdose of methadone, a narcotic thats used to treat opioid addiction.

Police were called to the familys West Baden Springs home on Dec. 3 to investigate a reported unresponsive child.

Colton was later pronounced dead at a Paoli (pay-OH-lee) hospital.

The (Bedford) Times-Mail reports that his parents, Brittany A. Harris and Tyler W. Harris, both 22, both face one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death.

They remained jailed Tuesday on $500,000 bonds, and both are scheduled for Feb. 11 pre-trial hearings.

Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday with their attorneys.

___

Information from: The Times-Mail, http://www.tmnews.com
The indictment of right-wing political operative Roger Stone by special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller presented no evidence of collusion by WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange with either the Trump campaign or Russian intelligence, after more than 17 months of investigation.

The indictment of Stone, dated January 24, 2019, is at the same time a damning indictment of all those in the political establishment and the mediaparticularly the Guardian and Washington Postwho have taken part in the slanderous attempt to tarnish WikiLeaks and Assange as agents of Russia and Trump.

The Stone indictment revealed nothing that was not already known regarding WikiLeaks, which it called Organization 1. It has simply underscored that WikiLeaks is a media organization which exercised the legally protected rights of the press under the First Amendment and the Supreme Court decision in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case. A media organization is entitled to publish information in the public interest, even if the source obtained it illegally.

Sometime in 2016, unknown sources provided WikiLeaks with emails that had been taken from the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and from the personal email account of John Podesta, the chairperson of Hillary Clintons campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Muellers indictment stated: By in or around June or July 2016, STONE informed senior Trump Campaign officials that he had information indicating Organization 1 had documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.

To obtain this information, all Stone and the Trump campaign needed to do was read the news. On June 12, 2016, Julian Assange stated, in an interview with British ITVs Peston on Sunday, that WikiLeaks had emails linked to Hillary Clinton and would be publishing them.

By this point, the DNC and Podesta had publicly claimed that their servers had been hacked, so it was not a mystery as to what emails Assange indicated WikiLeaks had in its possession.

On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks published the DNC emails. The publication took place on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, where the decision was going to be taken as whether to nominate Clinton or her main rival, self-styled democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

The emails exposed, for the benefit of Democratic voters and the American population, that the Democratic primaries had been tainted by sordid intrigues by the ostensibly neutral DNC to undermine Sanders campaign in the interests of Clinton. The US and international media recognized the newsworthiness of the revelations and widely published and commented on them.

The leadership of the DNC issued groveling apologies and resigned in disgrace. Clinton, who had been rejected by some 13 million Democratic voters in the primaries because of her right-wing, militarist and pro-big business history and policies, was nevertheless nominated as the presidential candidate, with the complicit endorsement of Sanders.

Following the publication of the DNC leak, Muellers investigation discovered the hardly earth-shattering fact that the Trump campaign and Roger Stone wanted to know what else WikiLeaks would be publishing. Every government, intelligence agency and media publication in the world, along with every American political party, wanted to know.

Stone, who while not formally working for the Trump campaign was actively supporting it, made attempts to find out.

Muellers indictment documents how Stone made contact with Person 1 and Person 2. Person 1 is effectively identified as former Infowars.com head Jerome Corsi, while Person 2 is effectively identified as radio host Randy Credico. Both Corsi and Credico have been interviewed by the investigation.

Person 1 (Corsi) replied to an inquiry from Stone in early August: Word is friend in embassy [Assange] plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after Im back. 2nd in October.

Corsi never met with Assange. He had no direct contact with WikiLeaks. He has claimed he formed this conclusion by deduction. It is also possible he may have been repeating rumors he had heard third-hand. Whichever is the case, his information was wrong. WikiLeaks made only one further dump relating to the US electionthe publication of the Podesta emails on October 7, 2016.

These files included transcripts of speeches made by Clinton to corporate audiences, during which she gave reassurances she would look after the interests of the major banks and corporations and boasted of her role in the US-led war against Libya, which destroyed the country and has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

Stone, a well-known self-promoter, made boasts in August that he was in personal contact with Assange and later even claimed he had had dinner with him. Both claims were false. He attempted to establish relations with WikiLeaks through Corsi and Randy Credico, with whom he had a previous association.

On September 18, Stone asked Credico to contact Assange and ask him to supply emails sent by Clinton from August 10 to August 30, 2011during which time Stone and others have alleged she sabotaged peace talks to end the US-led war against Libya.

Credico, according to the indictment, forwarded the request to a lawyer who allegedly had contact with Assange. It is unclear if Assange ever saw Stones request. If he did, he rejected it. WikiLeaks did not send leaked emails it had been provided to Roger Stone or anyone else.

The indictment indicates that Credico engaged in little more than speculation in his exchanges with Stone, while Stone engaged in total speculation in his contact with Trump campaign officials. He actually knew nothing about WikiLeaks publication schedule.

On October 3, 2016, Credico texted Stone: I think its on for tomorrowan apparent reference to the release of the Podesta emails.

In fact, on October 4, Julian Assange only gave a press conference. He stated that WikiLeaks would be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks, including information on the US election, and that publication would begin this week.

In this context, the Mueller indictment of Stone contains two highly significant omissions.

Firstly, Mueller made no accusation, because he clearly had no evidence, that the release of the Podesta emails on October 7, 2016 was timed, in collusion with the Trump campaign, to undermine the impact of the video showing Trump boasting to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush in 2005 that he would grab a woman by her private parts.

Instead, the opposite is likely the case. The Access Hollywood video was leaked to the Washington Post on October 7 and rapidly published to undermine the impact of the Podesta emails. NBC, which had the video, was not intending to publish it that day.

As Julian Assange later tweeted on October 16, 2017: On Clintons timing conspiracy theory. That we had a pending publication about to launch on the election was everywhere in the media for days. We were meant to launch that morning. It is the Trump tape that was moved forward from Monday [October 10, 2016] to Friday [October 7, 2016].

Nevertheless, in a shameless article published yesterday, the Washington Post relying solely on an unverified statement by Jerome Corsi who has made a deal with Mueller to testify against Stoneonce again implied that Assange colluded with Stone in the release of the Podesta emails.

Secondly, Mueller left out of the indictment the only contact that WikiLeaks did have with Roger Stone during the electionan exchange of private tweets on October 13, 2016.

Stone messaged WikiLeaks to complain that it had publicly stated it had no relations with him. The right-wing operative asserted that he was defending WikiLeaks, so it should therefore stop attacking him.

WikiLeaks replied: We appreciate that [the defence]. However, the false claims of association are being used by the democrats to undermine the impact of our publications. Dont go there if you dont want us to correct you.

Stone replied two days later: Ha, the more you correct me the more people think you are lying. Your operation leaks like a sieve. [emphasis added]

Mueller, in other words, omitted a categorical statement from WikiLeaks that the claims of association were false. Stones reference to leaking like a sieve also points to how he and others may have obtained the information they put into the public domain: via gossip and partial details, of varying accuracy, that were related to them by indiscrete people within and around WikiLeaks.

The organizations, publications and individuals attacking WikiLeaks and Assange for publishing the DNC and Podesta leaks should at least be honest about their motives.

They represent that faction of the American ruling class that want the presidency to be controlled by the war-mongers, big business agents and enemies of democracy and the working class in the Democratic Party, instead of the war-mongers, big business agents and enemies of democracy and the working class in the Republican Party and around Trump.

They want Assange railroaded into prison or worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, because they have helped the American population understand the reality of the two-party system in the United States. The choice between the Democrats and the Republicans is, as Assange put it, a choice between gonorrhea and syphilis.

The aim of the vendetta against Assange has always been to intimidate and silence all independent and critical journalists and would-be whistleblowers.

The WSWS and ICFI defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as a matter of political principle. If he is charged for publishing the truth, it will have the most sweeping implications for freedom of speech.

We call on all defenders of democratic rights to demand the immediate and unconditional right of Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with guaranteed protection from any charges or extradition to the United States.

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Rally to demand the Australian government acts to free Julian Assange! Sydney Martin Place Amphitheatre, March 3! Melbourne State Library, March 10!

Long-time Trump adviser Roger Stone arrested in Mueller probe

[26 January 2019]
The governments of Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain and the Netherlands, as well as European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini, gave the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, an ultimatum on Saturday: either he calls free, transparent and democratic elections within eight days, or Juan Guaido, who appointed himself head of state last week with Washingtons backing, will be recognized as the new president.

Maduro rejected this demand at once, while Guaido welcomed the tough EU response. It was very positive, very productive for Venezuela, he said. The line of pressure taken by Europe was correct, he told his followers in Caracas, and appealed again to the military to abandon Maduro and back him.

The threat against Maduro exposes the lie that Berlin and Brussels, unlike Washington, pursue a foreign policy committed to multilateralism, democracy and peace. Not only the governing Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, but also the Greens and the Left Party support the return of Germany to great power politics and militarism.

It is the second time in five years that Berlin and Brussels have supported a right-wing coup that bears the Made in the USA trademark. In 2014, they actively participated in the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was replaced by the pro-Western oligarch Petro Poroshenko.

The then-foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now federal president, travelled personally to Kiev to negotiate the transfer of power and met with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the far-right Svoboda party, which stands in the tradition of Nazi collaborators from the Second World War. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged that Washington had spent $5 billion to finance the regime-change operation in Kiev. The German media talked about a democratic revolution even when it became clear that the armed militia leading the Maidan protests in Kiev was recruited from neo-Nazis.

The consequences of this coup were devastating. As was foreseeable, the seizure of power by an ultranationalist regime in Kiev triggered a violent reaction among Russian-speaking inhabitants concentrated in eastern Ukraine, estimated at between 30 to 50 percent of the population. Russia was unwilling to accept the establishment of a pro-NATO regime on its immediate border and the loss of its naval base in Crimea, and supported anti-Kiev forces. For NATO, the coup served as an excuse to station troops in Poland and the Baltic states. The danger of Europe becoming a nuclear battlefield in a Third World War was immensely heightened.

Support for the coup in Caracas is no less reactionary and its consequences will be no less catastrophic. The talk from Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of the Venezuelan people being allowed to decide freely about their future is a transparent fraud.

Juan Guaido is a puppet of the US, and neither Washington nor Guaido bother to hide it. Even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung admits this fact in a rare display of openness.

The precipitous events in the Venezuelan capital did not surprise foreign policy experts in Washington, it reported on Monday. Vice-President Mike Pence publicly supported the protests against Maduro in a video message. Pence had called Guaido the night before he proclaimed himself president and promised US supportwhich the Trump administration, with the full backing of the Democrats, proceeded to declare. Washington has imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime and the state-owned oil company and is threatening military intervention.

For weeks, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, citing the Wall Street Journal, there have been confidential talks with the opposition in Caracas, with allies in the region and with foreign policy leaders in Congress. The idea of recognizing Guaido as Venezuelan president was pushed with particular force by Donald Trumps national security adviser John Bolton, who is among the fiercest anti-Iran warmongers in the foreign policy establishment.

The Associated Press also reported that the anti-Maduro coalition had been created in weeks of covert talks. Guaido had secretly travelled to Washington and had visited the ultra-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. There were many long meetings with encrypted text messages. When the decision for the coup was taken, the plotters chose Guaido to head it up. More moderate representatives were left in the dark.

The Venezuelan population can expect neither freedom nor democracy from such a far-right conspirator. Guaido stands in the tradition of those Latin American elites that have repeatedly defended their wealth and power with the help of US-backed dictatorships and have not shied away from massacring tens of thousands.

It is significant that the Trump administration has tasked Elliott Abrams with overseeing the transition to democracy in Venezuela. Abrams was one of the most prominent supporters of the Central American death squads in the 1980s, responsible for devastating entire countries. In the course of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which concerned the secret financing by the White House of death squads in Nicaragua, Abrams was convicted of perjury.

Berlin and Brussels are backing the Venezuelan coup because they are pursuing their own imperialist interests in Latin America, no less criminally and ruthlessly than Washington. Again, the Frankfurter Allgemeine is remarkably open. Under the headline, Venezuelas wealth, it writes, Of course, its about oil in Venezuela. The country has the largest proven reserves in the world. China, Russia, the United States and the entire oil industry are eagerly looking to Venezuela.

The article then seeks to relativize this statement, citing the countrys catastrophic economic and social situation, which had triggered mass protests against Maduro. In Guaido, the Venezuelans had found a new hope, the paper said.

In reality, Guaido is the new hopeas the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung puts itof the entire oil industry, including the European, which wants to exploit the riches of the country unhindered. Germany and the EU are concerned about their own sales markets, their investments and their raw material sources in Latin America, with its 500 million inhabitants. Since the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago, Washington has considered Latin America as its backyard, but more recently Russia and especially China have emerged as major competitors.

The Venezuelan coup is part of a global offensive against the working class, in which the ruling class is with increasing openness using authoritarian and dictatorial means to defend its wealth. It is also part of a global struggle between the major powers for markets, resources and strategic interests, which will inevitably lead to a world war if the working class does not stop the warmongers in time.
Ongoing indefinite strike action by hundreds of thousands of Tamil Nadu teachers and government employees has reached a political crossroads. The strikers, who confront a massive state crackdown by the right-wing All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-led state government, are being isolated by the unions.

On January 29, the government stepped up its attacks, dismissing 700 striking teachers and over 1,200 state government employees. Their positions have been declared vacant and will be filled by strike-breaking temporary staff, which the government began recruiting last Friday for a monthly salary of 10,000 rupees ($US140).

Teachers and other state government employees walked out on January 22 over nine demands, including abolition of a Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and reestablishment of the previous government-funded pension system, as well as higher wages and improved working conditions.

These long-outstanding demands have been rejected from the outset by the AIADMK government, which has unleashed a range of repressive measures, including mass suspensions and dismissals, police arrest of strikers and protesters, and the recruitment of temporary teachers as strike breakers.

Tamil Nadu teachers and other government employees have made clear in protests across the south Indian state their determination to fight, but the Joint Action Council of Teachers Organisations-Government Employees Organisations (JACTTO-GEO), having been forced to under pressure from its members to call the strike, opposes any expansion of the industrial action.

By isolating the industrial action, the JACTTO-GEO, which covers hundreds of thousands of members, has opened the way for the state government to intensify its anti-democratic attacks.

On Monday the state government told the Madras High Court that it would not meet with the union. A lawyer for the JACTTO-GEO assured the court that the union federation was ready to end the strike immediately if the government agreed to talks.

The court called on teachers to return to work on Tuesday, declaring that the strikers, not the government, were threatening the future of their students who are due to sit annual examinations. Later that day, 3,000 teachers were detained and their protests broken up by police. They were held in various halls for several hours and then released.

Tamil Nadus chief educational officer, Thiruvarur Selvi, told the media that 99.9 percent of government schools in Chennai, the state capital, had returned to normal because most teachers had returned to work. Others have reportedly resumed teaching in some other districts, including Villupuram and Krishnagiri.

According to other media reports, over 96,000 teachers, or 63 percent of teachers in Directorate of Elementary Education schools, have rejected government directives and are continuing demonstrations and sit-down protests.

Other state government workers also remain on strike. On Tuesday, more than 15,000 government employees were arrested and detained in the states southern districts after they attempted sit-down road protests. Over 11,000 JACTTO-GEO members were also detained when they staged a road blockade in the Tiruchi region. All those arrested on Tuesday were released later that day.

Students and parents have also participated in teachers protests or staged their own solidarity demonstrations. In Udhagamandalam, police detained arts college students for establishing a road blockade to back the strikers. On January 29, students from government schools and colleges in Dindivanam and Pudukottai demonstrated to support their striking teachers.

The JACTTO-GEO, which fears that the strike could escalate out of its control and encourage other sections of the Indian working class to take action, vehemently opposes any widening of the industrial action or appeals to teachers facing the same attacks elsewhere in India. It continues to insist that the isolated industrial action will force the government to capitulate to strikers demands.

Just a few weeks ago, up to 180 million workers in India joined a two-day general strikeon January 8 and 9against the pro-big business policies and austerity measures by the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP)-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The JACTTO-GEO, however, did not call on its members to join the general strike, whose demands included abolition of the new CPS and opposition to the privatisation and outsourcing of government sectorsthe same issues that have forced Tamil Nadu teachers and government workers to walk out.

Having done everything to isolate teachers and government employees, the JACTTO-GEO claimed that it would continue the strike until the government invites them to talks. They are desperately appealing to the government for a face-saving deal to end the strike.

Indias main Stalinist parliamentary partiesthe Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI)are playing a key role in isolating the Tamil Nadu strikers. The Center of Indian Trade Unions and the All India Trade Union Congress, the CPM and CPI union federations respectively, are partners of the JACTTO-GEO.

These organisations, which have millions of captive members, have issued various perfunctory statements criticising the AIADMK government and condemning police arrests and dismissal of striking teachers.

Yesterday, the so-called Left Front and five associated unions, including the Tamil Nadu Secretariat Officers Association, called for a token one-day strike today in support of the teachers. Similar demands, including abolition of the CPS scheme, were issued. The strike has only one purposeto let off steam and attempt to dissipate growing working-class demands for a genuine fight against the government attacks.

Striking Tamil Nadu teachers and workers, whose actions are part of a growing resurgence of international class strugglesin North America, Mexico, Europe, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and elsewheremust break from the unions. Tamil Nadu strikers must develop their unity with workers throughout India, South Asia and internationally and reach out to teachers in the US and elsewhere fighting to defend and improve their wages, working conditions and basic rights.

In order to take forward their struggle, Tamil Nadu teachers and government workers should follow the example of striking Mexican auto workers and Sri Lankan plantation workers and form their own action committees, independent of the unions. In these committees, workers can democratically discuss and decide on their own demands and industrial action, and adopt the anti-capitalist and international political program on which their fight must be based.

Central to this struggle is rejecting the nationalist political agenda of the CPM and CPI. These Stalinist organisations have no fundamental differences with the Hindu communalist BJP and the AIADMK. Their aim is to replace these parties with alternative capitalist governments, led by the Congress Party or alliances of various right-wing regional parties, to make India attractive for big business by deepening the social attacks on the working class.

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The political significance of Indias two-day general strike

[12 January 2019]
President Emmanuel Macrons trip to Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egypts bloodstained military dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was a barely veiled threat, tacitly endorsed by governments around the world, against the working class.

For eleven weeks, hundreds of thousands of yellow vest protesters in France have marched every weekend to demand higher living standards, tax increases for the wealthy, and an end to repression and militarism. But the financial aristocracy will make no concessions to workers social and political demands. Rather, it is preparing a drastic intensification of repression of social protest amid a universal turn of the capitalist class around the world towards authoritarian forms of rule.

The meaning of Macrons visit to Sisi is unmistakable. Sisi is infamous for his resort to mass murder to drown in blood revolutionary struggles of the working class that erupted in Egypt in 2011. During the 2013 coup against Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, his troops shot thousands in broad daylight on the streets of Egypts cities. Since then, more than 60,000 people have been jailed, as the Sisi junta carries out mass show trials of its opponents and resorts to systematic torture, documented by human rights groups, of thousands of political prisoners.

Macrons claim Sunday night that he is visiting the hangman of Cairo so that he can speak more openly about human rights is ludicrous. Sisi banned the sale of yellow vests in Egypt last year for fear that mass protests would spread from France to Egypt. Macrons meeting with Sisi doubtless concentrated on a feverish discussion of repression.

Faced with a parasitic financial oligarchy that cannot and will not make concessions, the working class faces a political struggle that can have one of only two outcomes: revolution or counterrevolution.

In Cairo, Macron made clear France would continue arming Sisi to the teeth against the Egyptian workers. French sales of Rafale fighters and other military hardware to Sisi are to continue despite Macrons mealymouthed comments on human rights. I would differentiate between the two subjects, he said. They are not linked for us and they never were.

Asked about Amnesty Internationals report that French armored vehicles were used in the 2013 repression in Egypt, Macron said France foresaw they would be used for military purposes. He claimed that there is no possible ambiguity in French weapons sales, that they are intended for the defense of Egyptian territory against external enemies, not against the Egyptian people.

Who does Macron think he is kidding? French armored vehicles serve to repress the workers not only in Egypt, but also in Francesince Macron took the hitherto unprecedented step of deploying armored vehicles against the yellow vests. As Macron escalates repression in France and showers Cairo with weaponry, Sisi can take Macrons toothless remarks as a green light to use French arms for further crackdowns in Egypt.

The authoritarian regimes and police-state policies of the capitalist class are now facing a challenge from the working class. After over a quarter century of imperialist war in the Middle East since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a decade of European Union (EU) austerity after the 2008 crash, the mechanisms used to suppress the class struggle are collapsing. A global upsurge of the class struggle, of which the 2011 uprising in Egypt was a forerunner, is underway.

The beginning of 2019 has seen a wildcat rebellion by 70,000 autoworkers in Matamoros, Mexico, the largest strike on the North American continent in 20 years, as well as strikes and anti-austerity protests across Europe, and continued mass yellow vest demonstrations in France.

On January 14, after nationwide demonstrations in December, a general strike of 700,000 public sector workers in Tunisia brought the country to a standstill, as tens of thousands in Tunis chanted, The people want the fall of the regime. Last week, Sisi met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, whose government has arrested hundreds and killed dozens since protests began last month over the rising cost of bread and other basic commodities.

As masses of workers and youth internationally enter into struggle, it is critical to draw the lessons of Macrons trip to Cairo. Macrons hailing last year of French fascist dictator Philippe Petain, or German Interior Minister Horst Seehofers endorsement of neo-Nazi riots in German cities, are not isolated accidents. Faced with a challenge from below, the ruling class will seek to use the most ruthless methods.

The French ruling elites response to the yellow vest protests has been to launch mass arrests and repression on a scale unseen in metropolitan France since the Nazi Occupation. Over 5,000 protesters have been arrested, including more than 1,700 on a single day on December 8. At least four protesters have had their hands blown off by police stun grenades, another 20 have lost eyes from police bean-bag bullets, and one person has been permanently deafened.

Photos have emerged showing riot police in Paris carrying Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles loaded with live ammunition, and a furious debate is ongoing in the French ruling class about attempting to implement the repressive policies pioneered by Sisi in Egypt against the yellow vests.

On January 7, Luc Ferry, a former education minister and self-proclaimed philosopher, lashed out on radio against the yellow vests, demanding that the military fire live ammunition at them: We have the fourth largest army in the world, and it is able to put an end to these cts, he said. These kinds of thugs  from the extreme right, the extreme left and from the housing estates that come to hit the policeenough!

This statement sums up the sentiments prevailing not just in the ruling classes of France, but of the whole world, who see the turn to dictatorship and repression as the only means to prop up the increasingly hated capitalist system.

The most basic needs of the working class today, including the defense of the most fundamental democratic rights, cannot be met outside of a frontal assault on the fortunes and prerogatives of the capitalist classa struggle of the international working class for the expropriation of the ruling class and the building of socialism.
Icon, the construction firm which built Opal Tower in Sydney Olympic Park, has cut off hotel fee payments for 20 percent of residents in the apartment block who were evacuated last month despite not providing residents evidence the building was safe, nor responding to residents concerns.

On Monday Icon said Cardno, the engineers for body corporate, had completed a report confirming the 74 apartments could be reoccupied, but this report has not been made public and apartment owners and residents state they have not received it. This also coincides with growing signs of anger among residents.

The builder had previously announced two weeks ago that it would end accommodation payments to a number of residents but was forced to extend payments after Cardno had said the building was not safe.

Despite ongoing uncertainty over the safety of the building, some residents have already been compelled to return.

A photo posted on the Opal Tower Sydney Residents Facebook group last Monday showed seventeen apartments on one side of the building with internal lights on, indicating that they are occupied. As of last week only about sixty residents, out of approximately 600, had reoccupied the building.

The 36-floor, 397 apartment building was temporarily evacuated on December 24 last year. It was fully cleared on December 27 after cracks were found in the wall panels of recessed atriums on level 10.

A subsequent investigation has identified problems on five levels, including cracking in concrete floor slabs, concrete wall panels and the hob beams they rest on.

Residents only began moving into the newly-completed building during 2018. Some 120 of the apartments cannot be reoccupied while repairs are completed. Some may lose a square meter, or approximately one percent, of their floor space to allow for repairs.

On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph reported that residents had written a letter calling for Prime Minister Scott Morrison and New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berajiklian to intervene and address their plight. The letter stated: All residents have already experienced enough serious mental and financial stress during this crisis.

The letter denounced moves to force residents to reoccupy the building, stating: We should not be further subjected to the noise and dust, heavy machinery, loose construction materials, and the large amount of workers moving in and out of our building while Icon fixes problems that should have never been there in the first place Our residents do not want to move back until all rectification works are completed.

Residents have also expressed concern on social media. A student nurse sent a letter to Icon, which she shared on Facebook last Sunday. It stated: I demand to receive an official safety certificate for my apartment, instead of just mere confirmation from Cardno or any other engineers that the apartment is ready to be occupied. The letter concluded that she would not reoccupy her apartment until the entire building is fixed and delivered as new.

Lee Hoe Gui, another resident, wrote on Facebook on Monday: No one can guarantee the safety of lives at this stage. She asked: Why do we have to take the risk? She noted that construction workers engaged in repairs were using lifts alongside residents who have reoccupied the building, commenting: What if the steel plate drops on a kids feet? Dangerous!

On January 11, Cardno objected to the recommendation of Icons engineers, WSP and Rincovitch Partners that the building was safe to reoccupy except for apartments adjacent to areas requiring repairs. Cardno asked for further information.

The government report released on January 14 also found that reoccupation was unsafe and asked for the repair plan to be independently checked. It stated that the building was not at risk of falling, but identified issues with the design and major damage to the structure.

The crisis as Opal Tower is a sharp expression of a decline in building quality across Australia, particularly in New South Wales.

Developers, builders and sub-contractors have all sought to minimise costs and construction times during the boom in residential property over the past 20 years. A 2012 survey by UNSW of 1,500 owner corporations showed that 85 percent of dwellings constructed since 2000 have defects, compared to 70 percent overall.

State authorities have sought to scapegoat cowboy certifiers, when poor building practices have come to light. In reality, successive state and federal governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have gutted building regulations and enforcement measures. This has allowed property developers and construction firms to make record profits, at the expense of the safety of ordinary people.

Earlier this month, Michael Lambert, a former secretary of the NSW Treasury who wrote a 2015 report into the building industry, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the defects at Opal Tower are likely just the top of the iceberg.

Lambert noted the government had ignored most of the 150 recommendations he had made, except those relating to fire safety. His report found that the incidence of building defects is significant and the incidence appears higher in NSW than elsewhere.

The corporate and financial elite is deeply fearful that public exposures of widespread building defects and safety issues will accelerate the slowdown of the inflated property market, which has played the key role in fuelling the growth of the construction industry.

Martin North from Digital Finance Analytics told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday that some people who are contracted to buy off the plan may well walk away, as a result of the events at Opal Tower. Forward demand was already shrinking, and there is no doubt we will see considerable slides in prices, he said.

Owners of apartments in Opal Tower face major financial difficulties, for which there is no indication they will receive any compensation. Prices of apartments have already been marked down by around 14 percent, with warnings that final falls in value may be up to 50 percent. Mercenary investors have reportedly sought to capitalise on the crisis, by offering owners marginal sums for their property.

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State Republicans in Oklahoma are preparing to introduce a series of bills on February 4 that would punish teachers for striking, participating in political activities and exercising their freedom of speech. The bills are designed to intimidate teachers who are once again considering strike action to win significant improvements in pay and school funding.

Tens of thousands of Oklahoma teachers waged a powerful 10-day statewide walkout in April 2018, but state and national unions shut the struggle down and cut a deal with the states Republican governor and state legislature that ignored the educators most critical demands.

The proposed bills from both the state Senate and House of Representatives are in anticipation of another strike as early as 2020. House Bill 2214, authored by state Representative Todd Russ (R-Cordell), includes language to make any walkout or sickout by teachers punishable by arrests, fines and rescinding teaching certifications.

The bill would make it illegal for board of education or school district employees to strike or threaten to strike or otherwise close schools or interfere with school operations as a means of resolving differences with the board of education, the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, the Legislature or any other public official or public body. Anyone engaging in such a strike shall be denied the full amount of his or her wages during the period of such violation, and the bill states if the person is certified by the State Board of Education, such certificate shall be permanently revoked.

Strikes by teachers and public employees were made illegal in the 1990s. Last April, teachers defied the anti-strike laws, but local school administrators did not try to keep schools open. State Republicans chose not to employ the laws, relying instead on the unions to smother and end the strike.

Russ is chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee. He also serves on several other key committees: Appropriations and Budget, Insurance, Administrative Rules, and the Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget.

State Senator Mark Allen (R-Spiro) introduced Senate Bill 574. It requires the 500 school boards in Oklahoma to implement a code of ethics for teachers that would prohibit any political activity, for example, running for office or campaigning on behalf of candidates. It would also prohibit discussing political issues during the school day, or any other time the teacher is considered employed. This is so broad that it could conceivably encompass almost all the time teachers are consumed with school work, which is routinely 16 hours or more.

Senate Bill 574 also introduces McCarthyite language forbidding teachers from discussing anything deemed controversial that is not germane to the subject being taught. This includes forbidding teachers from opposing military recruiters, police or other law enforcement in classrooms and schools.

Senate Bill 592, also introduced by Allen, would require $50,000 bond for any gathering of 100 or more people in the state capitol. This proposal is reminiscent of the anti-bunching laws employed by the industrial barons more than a century ago, which made gatherings of four or more coal miners or steelworkers illegal.

State legislators are reacting to last Aprils powerful strike by nearly 40,000 Oklahoma educators that followed West Virginias teacher walkout. Both statewide walkouts defied union leaders and anti-strike laws and led to further strikes in Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, Colorado and Washington state. The Oklahoma Education Association and national teacher unions, however, shut down the strike and signed a sellout deal with Governor Mary Fallin and the legislature.

The unions promoted state Democrats who have defended the interests of the powerful oil and gas industry and financial sector just as ruthlessly as the state Republicans. The states new governor, Kevin Stitt, a Republican, is the former CEO of Gateway Mortgage Group.

The threats against Oklahoma teachers coincide with growing state repression against educators worldwide. In southern India, more than 2,000 striking teachers have been arrested and 400 suspended for taking part in a powerful strike by hundreds of thousands of teachers and public employees. Last month, police attacked striking teachers in Athens.

Emboldened by the Obama administrations attack on public education with the Race to the Top (RttT) law that provided states with financial incentives to promote school privatization across the nation, Oklahoma has been a testing ground for the portfolio model of education promoted by billionaire school privatizer Eli Broad.

During last years strike, educators demanded the restoration of cuts to public education that have been greater than in any other state in the US. Oklahoma slashed 30 percent of its general education funding while giving massive tax cuts to the states oil producers. Income taxes were cut first in the mid 2000s by the Democrats and then Republicans.

The Oklahoma Education Association pushed through a deal that included an average $6,100 raise, not the $10,000 demanded, and only $50 million in extra funding for schools. Teachers demanded the restoration of the more than $350 million lost through years of cuts enriching the top 5 percent.

The deal is being paid for by a series of regressive taxes: a six cent tax increase on diesel fuel and a three cent increase on gasoline, a $1 tax on cigarettes, expanding types of gambling allowed in tribal casinos, and sales taxes on online purchases. Additionally, a small increase on oil drillings gross production taxes was enacted but which keeps the states taxation rate at the bottom nationally.

While right-wing Republicans are seeking to use these ruthless laws to strip teachers of any rights, the Democrats in Oklahoma and other statesmost recently during the six-day strike in Los Angelesrely on the teachers unions to suppress social opposition to austerity and social inequality. This underscores the need to build new organizations of struggle, rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, to reach out to teachers and every section of the working class to prepare a counter-offensive against both corporate-controlled parties.
Around 3,300 junior doctors from New Zealands public hospitals walked off the job on Tuesday in their second 48-hour strike in a fortnight to oppose attacks on their working conditions. Pickets were held outside hospitals in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland and Hawkes Bay, each involving about 50 doctors and supporters.

The union, the Resident Doctors Association (RDA), last week confirmed that members have also voted for a third two-day strike beginning on February 12, after negotiations with the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) for a new collective agreement broke down.

The DHBs want to extend the number of consecutive days that doctors can be rostered to work from 10 to 12. The employers also want the power to force doctors to work shifts longer than 16 hours and to relocate them anywhere in the country.

Doctors already work under notoriously trying conditions. Long hours, including 30-hour working weekends, leave them exhausted, putting patients and their own safety at risk.

The doctors fight is not solely an industrial dispute with the DHBs. It is, above all, a political struggle against the Labour-NZ-First-Green Party coalition government, which is imposing the deepening austerity measures demanded by big business. Its right-wing fiscal responsibility program is aimed at suppressing public spending while returning billions in budget surpluses.

In December, Labours health minister, David Clark, wrote to DHB heads demanding rigorous action to improve financial and non-financial performance i.e., further spending cuts. Already, thousands of people are unable to access medical care, with hospitals severely understaffed and overflowing with patients.

As with other workers who have taken strike action in New Zealand and internationally over the past year, doctors enjoy widespread public sympathy. They are confronted, however, with thoroughly corporatised trade unions, which are working to isolate the strike and ensure that the doctors are defeated.

The Public Service Association, New Zealands largest union, has actively sought to undermine doctors conditions by helping to establish the Specialty Trainees of New Zealand (STONZ), a rival union to the RDA, which claims about 500 members. Last November STONZ agreed to the DHBs clawbacks.

The umbrella NZ Council of Trade Unions has remained virtually silent throughout the dispute and organised no support whatsoever. The doctors strike pickets, which the RDA limited to just an hour-and-a-half, have been held with no mass involvement by other unions and only a token appearance by NZ Nurses Organisation (NZNO) officials. This is despite another looming series of rolling stoppages by hospital midwives and plans for nationwide walkouts by teachers.

The RDA has called on the DHBs to withdraw their clawbacks but is not fighting for any improvements, only maintenance of the status quo. The unions salary claim is for a similar pay increase to that imposed in a sellout deal struck last year by the NZNO, which gave 30,000 nurses 3 percent per annum over three years. When measured against the rising cost of living, this amounts to a wage freeze.

If the doctors employment contract is not settled next month, they will be forced onto individual agreements. In a bid to reach a deal, the RDA offered to change a safer hours provision to allow more flexible rostering. The union has also invited the DHBs and the senior doctors union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), to discuss ways to address unintended consequences of changes which were designed to make rosters safer following strikes in 2016 and 2017.

The moves towards a sellout deal underscores the need for a rebellion against the unions and the establishment of new organisations of struggle, including independent rank-and-file committees. These would be tasked with breaking the isolation imposed by the unions, and coordinating joint industrial and political action by workers throughout the health sector and more broadly.

The role of the Ardern-led government in the protracted gutting of public services makes plain that workers require a new political perspective, in opposition to Labour and the entire political establishment. This means the fight for a workers government that would place the banks and corporations under public ownership and democratic workers control, and allocate billions of dollars to education, healthcare and other vital social services.

The WSWS spoke with some of those who picketed outside Wellington Hospital yesterday.

Cathal, from Ireland, has been working in New Zealand for five years. He explained: We are struggling to reach a settlement with the DHBs who are calling for a lot of retractions which would mean stepping back to less rates than we have already. One of the main issues was the attempt by the DHBs to remove union protections, such as limitations on working unreasonable hours, from the contract. The DHBs want the ability to unilaterally make changes to hours, which is a big difference, he said.

Theres a lot of difficulty between the unions at the moment, Cathal added, saying the sellout agreement reached by STONZ, abetted by the PSA, was being used as a lever against our contract negotiations. The DHBs are just waiting for our contract to expire, he concluded. Asked about the Labour government, Cathal laughed and said he remained hopeful it could improve things.

Brian said, If the February deadline passes, we will continue to be dissatisfied with conditions that are less than we had previously. We are not looking for massive gains here, but for the right to be represented and continue with a contract with conditions that have previously been agreed on.

Brian said it would be nice to be fighting for an improvement in conditions, but weve previously made some significant gains in terms of safe working hours. Traditionally we havent struck for large increases in pay but for fundamental issues. Unfortunately, we are increasingly getting bogged down in even getting the most basic things. This is the second strike that can be seen as a failure on the part of the DHBs. We want to be in there doing our jobs on the contract that was previously negotiated.

Rohit, one of four RDA delegates at Wellington Hospital, said: The main reason we are striking is to maintain our current contract. We fought for 10-hour shifts, which we gained three years ago, but they are now trying to take that back.

Asked by the WSWS why the RDA is not fighting for real improvements in pay and conditions, Rohit said claims were initially put forward by the union in negotiations but were quickly withdrawn. The DHBs just wouldnt come to the table and declared they would only give us the bare minimum, he said.

The RDA had decided to do what it can to get a settlement, and just get on with it. They [the DHBs] are still not coming to the table, but are saying they are negotiating in good faith. I think the [DHBs] are slowly starting to realise that [what theyve offered] isnt going to be enough to just keep waiting, because were just not going to stand for it, he said.

Evan, a manufacturing worker from Hamilton, joined the picket while visiting a relative in the hospital, who had recently undergone a 12-hour operation. Evan said: I think the doctors strike is great because I know in the hospital in Hamilton they work such long hours. You often have family members in there who are unwell, and having enough doctors onsite is what we need. You dont want them to be overworked and overstressed. Their conditions are terrible. They need all the support they can get.

Asked about the Labour government, Evan said he wanted to see more being done for low-paid workers, like himself and his family, who are finding it quite hard.
Almost 40,000 Irish nurses, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), are to hold a 24-hour strike today over pay and conditions. A series of five further 24-hour stoppages is planned for the first two weeks of February. Over 95 percent of nurses voted for strike action, demanding a 12 percent pay increase.

Six thousand psychiatric nurses, members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PSN), will also ban overtime and mount a series of strikes in February. Meanwhile, the National Association of GPs is to hold a protest at Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) on February 6 citing the collapsing of family doctor services in parts of the country.

Following public attacks on the nurses by Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar, the 12 percent wage demand by nurses was rejected by the eight members of the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC), all of whom were appointed by Paschal Donohoe, the current minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

The degeneration of the Irish health service proceeds from the financial crash of 2008, in which the European Union, at the behest of the Irish government, bailed out the wealthy elite and the bankers to the tune of 62.7 billion. Savage cuts were made to public services. The Irish government cut public spending by a figure approaching 20 percent of GDP. The health service and the pay and conditions of nurses and other health workers were targeted.

Between 2008 and 2014, successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments introduced a massive 2.7 billion of health service cuts, amounting to 20 percent of the health budget. These resulted in cuts to discretionary medical cards, home help supports, the introduction of prescription and hospital charges and chronic delays to infrastructure projects.

Both parties have presided over the introduction of a two-class health system. The wealthy use the booming private health sector, while the working class must make do with bed shortages, cancelled operations, and long hours waiting in Accident and Emergency Departments. The dysfunctional public system is operated by under-paid, under-resourced and over-worked nurses, doctors and ancillary workers.

Health workers have seen their wages decrease and staff levels plummet. The number of staff nurses fell by 1,754 between 2008 and 2018.

Since the strike was called at the beginning of the year, the INMO has held talks on three occasions with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) seeking a pretext to prevent a strike. The WRC, formerly the Labour Relations Commission, has been instrumental over the past decade in drastically impacting the lives of 300,000 public service workers. Its purpose is to enforce the dictates of the ruling elite against working people.

The WRC set down a new marker in imposing the costs of recession and the financial crisis on the working class. It acts on behalf of the government and in conjunction with the trade union bureaucracy to confuse and strangle the anger and resentment which nurses and other health workers feel about their pay and conditions.

The unions are currently part of the Public Service Stability Agreement which runs until December 2020. This agreement, which was facilitated by the WRC, is the latest of a series between the unions and the government to target public sector workers for pay cuts, longer working hours, and the elimination of jobs.

The most notorious of these was the Croke Park deal of 2010, in which the public service unions agreed a four-year strike ban in return for a series of worthless promises on limiting future job cuts. Three brutal cuts budgets followed between 2010 and 2016. The unions therefore bear direct responsibility for the degeneration of the Irish health service over the past decade.

The INMO, despite its initial pose of opposing these agreements, accepted 1 billion in cuts without organising any protest action. They did nothing to resist the establishment of emergency powers during the financial crisis by the government, which allowed the pay and working conditions of public service workers to be altered unilaterally. The unions work consistently to facilitate cuts, while maintaining a pose of opposition in order to head off the mass struggles they fear will emerge.

In 2016, the INMO called off limited strike action as nurses frustration and anger at understaffing and increased work levels came to the fore. Over 90 percent voted for strike action. But the INMO concocted a plan with management which Liam Doran, then INMO General Secretary, described as leading to a deeper level of trust between hospital management and nursing staff.

The resolution to the threat of limited strike action worked out between the unions and the Health Service Executive (HSE) involved nothing more than weekly meetings between INMO representatives and HSE management to monitor overcrowding and the continuing crisis in the system.

The stitch up included minimising emergency department overcrowding and trolley waiting times. However, figures for September 2017 showed almost 8,000 patients sleeping on trolleys waiting for beds. It was the worst overcrowding in a decade.

This time, as before, the INMO is seeking an accommodation with the HSE and government which will do little or nothing to further the interests of nurses and health workers. The series of 24-hour strikes are deliberately limited in scope and designed for show and to let off steam while a new deal struck within the confines of the government-brokered public service agreement is patched together.

When the series of one day strikes was announced some weeks ago, INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha was apologetic, saying Going on strike was the last thing a nurse or midwife wants to do.

The union has made no appeal for support to other sections of the working class or even an appeal to the 7,000 health workers in the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) who are working normally. This is under conditions where similar attacks are falling on every economic sector.

Ni Sheaghdha has been at pains to confirm to the government that a deal could be worked out within the guidelines of the current public service deal, which would rule out other public service workers making claims. Prior to taking the INMO general secretary position, Ni Sheaghdha worked for nearly a decade as its director of industrial relations.

The demands of nurses and other health workers cannot be constrained by what the Fine Gael government, the corporate media, and the trade union officials deem affordable. The working class needs to combine its independent strength and demand the right of all people to high-quality, free health care which is provided by the necessary number of doctors, nurses, and other well-paid medical professionals.

Forging workers unity and confidence cannot be done within trade union organisations that have become an industrial police force on behalf of the state and ruling establishment. The union bureaucracy is part of a privileged upper middle-class layer, which has a material interest in the defence of the status quo and opposes any struggle for social change.

The Socialist Equality Group (SEG) calls on health workers to organise independently of the union bureaucracy by forming rank and file committees to prepare for a nationwide strike and to forge alliances with health workers internationally.
Washington Department of Health officials have declared a state of emergency as they scramble to contain a measles outbreak in two counties in the state. There were 36 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases of the potentially deadly virus as the number continues to rise in a region of the United States with a lower-than-normal vaccination rate.

In Clark County, Washington, which borders Portland, Oregon, Mondays 36 confirmed measles cases were up significantly from the 26 on Friday, when Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency. Most of the measles cases involved children between 1 and 10 years old who had not been vaccinated. Health officials anticipate that the outbreak will rapidly expand.

In a statement Friday, Inslee said: The measles virus is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children and that the number of confirmed cases creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.

The outbreak of measles in Washington state is taking place nearly two decades after the virus was eliminated in 2000. By that time, enough people were immunized that outbreaks were uncommon and deaths from measles were virtually unheard of. A rise in the percentage of unvaccinated children has directly led to a rise in the number of cases of the potentially fatal disease.

Washington and Oregon are some of the more permissive states in the US in allowing parents to opt out of vaccines, including for measles. In Clark County, 7.9 percent of children were given exemptions from vaccines for entry to kindergarten in the 2017-18 school year, according to the Washington Post. This is much higher than the national average of children unvaccinated for nonmedical reasons, which is estimated at 2 percent nationally.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in the US in 1963, there were 4 million measles cases with 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths in the US every year. Measles was also a leading cause of death for children globally. Intense pockets of transmission still exist around the world today, especially in low-income countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

In addition to the US, there has also been an uptick of people contracting measles in Canada and across Europe due to people forgoing the vaccine. Europe saw more than 41,000 measles cases in the first half of 2018, a record high in the post-vaccine era. The tragedy is that the deadly disease and its consequences are almost 100 percent preventable if the population is vaccinated.

Measles strikes after an incubation period of 10 to 12 days in the form of fever, cough, stuffy nose, and bloodshot and watery eyes. Sufferers, overwhelmingly children, can be hit with loss of appetite, malaise and confusion. Several days after these initial symptoms, an uncomfortable rash spreads from the face and neck downward through the rest of the body.

In uncomplicated cases, sufferers usually begin to recover as soon as the rash appears and feel better in about two to three weeks. However, up to 40 percent of patients have complications, usually occurring in children under five, adults over 20, and anyone who is undernourished or immunocompromised.

Children under age 5 have the highest probability of death from measles. Pneumonia is the most common complication, accounting for most measles-related deaths. Less common complications include blindness, croup, mouth ulcers, ear infections, and severe diarrhea. Some children develop swelling of the brain, or encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, loss of hearing and mental retardation.

A measles outbreak in the US usually begins when a traveler picks up the virus in another country where measles is still common. If that person brings the virus back to a community with a high rate of unvaccinated individuals, it can spread rapidly.

The measles virus is airborne, and is transmitted by respiratory droplets from the nose, mouth, or throat of an infected person, usually through coughing or sneezing. Small-particle aerosols from an infected person can remain suspended in air for long periods of time after a person has left a location, and the virus can live on surfaces for up to two hours. The virus can spread in a person four days before the onset of the rash associated with measles, so people carrying the virus can spread it to others before even knowing they have the disease.

In Washington state, people with the measles virus reportedly visited public places such as healthcare facilities, schools and churches, as well as stores such as Dollar Tree and Ikea, potentially spreading the disease.

The measles vaccine is given as part of the combination MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) injection. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children receive two doses: one at 12 through 15 months of age, the second at 4 through 6 years of age.

As the MMR vaccine cannot be administered until age 1 this leaves these young infants at particular risk of contracting the measles if they come into contact with the virus.

According to the CDC, fevers after the MMR vaccine occur in one in six people, mild rashes in one in 20. More severe problems are virtually nonexistent, with serious allergic reactions happen in fewer than one in a million cases.

Overall, MMR vaccine refusal by parents is not that common, with about 91 percent of young children receiving the shot in 2016, according to the CDC. This is nearly enough for herd immunity, in which a certain percentage of the population needs to be immunized.

Herd immunity means that a disease cannot spread very easily, even among those who cant be vaccinated, like newborns and those with vaccine allergies. However, despite the national rate of vaccination, there are geographical clusters of unvaccinated people. These include vaccine-averse Amish in Ohio, Orthodox Jews in New York, as well as parents who choose not to put unnatural substances in their bodies or who choose to delay immunizing their children.

According to a 2018 analysis published in PLOS Medicine, dozens of counties across the country had nonmedical exemption rates exceeding the national average. In 2016-17, Camas County, Idaho, led the nation with a 27 percent opt-out rate.

A movement of parents in the US claims that vaccines, including MMR, cause autism, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other developmental problems in children. These theories have been promoted by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who met with then president-elect Donald Trump during the transition period in January 2017 to discuss plans to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump spoke with a group of donors at a Florida fundraiser who are prominent proponents of the discredited link between vaccines and autism, including disbarred British physician Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield was the senior author of a now retracted 1998 Lancet study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. The study involved only 12 children, including 8 whose parents were already convinced of the MMR-autism connection.

Trump in 2016, playing to the anti-vaccine community, stated without substantiation: You take this little beautiful baby and you pumpI mean, it looks like just its meant for a horse and not a childWe had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2 years old a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.

It seems the Trump administrations plans to launch an anti-vaccine commission have for the time being been stalled, much to the dismay of Kennedy and the other vaccine opponents. However, the fractured state of the public health system in the US allows millions of parents to be granted exemptions by states and localities from their children receiving the MMR vaccine.

The current state of emergency in Washington state points to the dangeron the basis of unsubstantiated and antiscientific theoriesof measles and other diseases, long thought to be eradicated in North America and Europe, to reemerge.
Greeces parliament voted Friday to ratify an agreement that changes the name of its northern neighbour Macedonia, which has been officially known since the early 1990s as FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).

In July, the two countries prime ministers, Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev, agreed on the new name, the Republic of North Macedonia, at a meeting near the border at Lake Prespa, which has shores in Greece, Macedonia and Albania. The agreement brought to an end a decades-long dispute over Macedonias name.

The Prespa agreement, which has been enthusiastically welcomed by the media and politicians in Europe and the US as a historic peace deal, in reality pursues reactionary goals. It is aimed at paving the way for the rapid integration of the small Balkan country into NATO and the European Union (EU).

Athens blocked that process for years with the nationalist argument that northern areas of the country might be up for grabs if its neighbour used the name Macedonia, which is also the historical name for a province in that region of Greece.

Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), the governing party, was dependent on the votes of other parties to pass the agreement. A slim majority of 153 out of the 300 deputies voted for the deal. Together with Syriza (145 votes), other backers of the deal included deputies from the liberal Potami, deputy Katerina Papakosta, who was a member of the conservative New Democracy (ND) until 2017 and joined Tsipras' cabinet last year, one representative of the social-democratic Dimar and two deputies of Syrizas far-right coalition partner, the Independent Greeks (Anel). Voting against were the opposition parties ND, the Movement for Change (Kinal, which also includes the former social democratic PASOK), the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the conservative-liberal Enosi Kentron, deputies from Anel, and the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn). There was one abstention.

The parliamentary debate, which extended over several days, was accompanied by demonstrations of right-wing extremist and nationalist forces opposed to the change of name. Over 100,000 people gathered in front of the Greek parliament on Sunday prior to the vote and clashed violently with the police. Right-wing thugs sought to force their way into the parliament building. The police responded with a violent crackdown and fired tear gas. On Thursday, when the vote was originally scheduled, further protests took place. The neo-Nazis from Golden Dawn chanted right-wing extremist slogans in parliament and accused the government of betrayal.

The Stalinist KKE and LAE (Popular Unity), which emerged out of a split from Syriza, held their own protests outside the US embassy in Athens.

The KKE also opposed the Prespa deal on nationalist grounds. In the parliamentary debate, KKE general secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas explained his partys vote in opposition to the deal by saying that the fundamental source of irredentism [territorial claims on the part of Macedonia] still exists. References to a Macedonian people, and a Macedonian nationality and language could lead to future challenges on Macedonias part. At the demonstration, he described the KKEs position as patriotic.

Zoe Konstantopoulou, former parliamentary speaker for Syriza and now leader of the pseudo-left Course of Freedom (Plevsi Eleftherias), called in the newspaper Ta Nea for a referendum on the deal.

Negotiations to resolve the name dispute began a year ago, when the Greek and Macedonian prime ministers met at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In February, right-wing demonstrations dominated by the Greek Orthodox Church, sections of the military and Golden Dawn took place against the talks.

One of the most vehement proponents of this ultra-nationalist opposition is Panos Kammenos, leader of Anel and until recently defence minister in Tsipras government. A few days after the Macedonian parliament voted on January 11 to accept the agreement, Kammenos resigned from his post, telling members of his party in parliament to reject the deal and end their support for the coalition government.

Tsipras then tabled a vote of confidence in his government in parliament, and was able to secure victory thanks to a handful of rebel Anel deputies. This removed speculation about an immediate end to the Syriza government for the time being. However, it remains uncertain whether the government can remain in office until elections scheduled for the autumn.

By forming a coalition with Anel in 2015, Tsipras nourished and strengthened the ultra-right forces who are now outraged at the Macedonia agreement. He relied on them to drown the anger of the working class toward his austerity policies in nationalist reaction. Although Kammenos resignation called the governments continued existence into question, he and Tsipras praised each other and exchanged words of thanks for close and trustworthy collaboration.

With Kammenos blessing, Tsipras used the resignation of the defence minister to strengthen the far-right and militarist tendencies in the state. He appointed the supreme commander of the Greek armed forces, Evangelos Apostolakis, as defence minister.

The online publication militaire.gr, which speaks for the Greek armed forces, was delighted, writing, The left-wing Tsipras, who they all said would dissolve the armed forces, appoints a member of the armed forces in Evangelos Apostolakis as defence minister. This is the first time since the fall of the junta that something like this has happened, and its a positive step.

Tsipras gave Apostolakis full freedom to select the leadership team that he thinks will get the most done. Apostolakis demands are well known, operational readiness, a rapid reorganisation of the armed forces, and the concentration of the existing weapons arsenal, noted militaire.gr .

The Prespa agreement is fully endorsed by the EU, NATO, and the US. This is due to concrete political considerations. They are pressing ahead urgently with North Macedonias integration into NATO and the EU to push back Russia and China, who are also trying to secure their interests in the region.

The struggle for spheres of influence in the Balkans has a long and bloody history. Due to its location on the fault lines of Europe, Asia and North Africa, the area was transformed prior to and during the First World War into a battlefield for the European great powers.

The Greek-Macedonian conflict, like other smoldering flashpoints in the region, is the direct product of Western imperialist intervention in the Balkans during the 1990s. Confronted with mounting working class resistance to the devastating consequences of capitalist restoration, the ruling elites in the former Yugoslav republics deliberately incited national, ethnic and religious tensions to divide the workers and break their resistance.

They were supported in this strategy by the Western powers, above all Germany and the US, who had an interest in dividing up the Balkans, to better exert their dominance over it. This resulted in ethnic cleansing and horrific wars. NATO ultimately intervened in 1999 to destroy what remained of Yugoslavia. The result was the breakup of Yugoslavia, a country with 23 million inhabitants, into no fewer than seven individual states.

The wars have left behind numerous bitter conflicts that can be incited at any time and exploited for political interests. The Balkan region threatens to become a powder keg once again.

The shadow of Great Power conflicts also hung over the West Balkan conference in London last July, which concluded without any concrete outcomes. Although the EU plans to invest up to 150 million [$US196 million] in the region during 2019 and 2020, it has ruled out accepting any new members prior to 2025. At the same time, fears are growing that rivals could gain a foothold in the Balkans. The Financial Times warned ominously of a vacuum which other powersChina and Russiawant to fill.

China intends to involve the states in southeastern Europe into its plans for a new Silk Road, and has invested substantially in the regions infrastructure. Last July, Greek parliament speaker and Syriza politician Nikos Voutsis promised in an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the Prespa agreement would also benefit Beijing. It would help to open the New Silk Road initiative to trade. The assurances to China underscore that the deal to resolve the naming dispute will not bring peace and stability to the Balkans, but in fact will further incite conflicts.

The German bourgeoisie in particular hopes that it can expand its field of economic exploitation further into the Balkans through North Macedonia and combine it with its economic crushing of Greece. Germany played a leading role in the austerity dictates of Greeces international lenders, pushing for cuts and privatisations from which German companies now hope to profit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed to Athens prior to the vote on Macedonia to support her Greek counterpart. International media outlets praised Tsipras to the skies as they sought to defend him against resistance to the deal within Greece. The German daily Die Welt published a tribute to Tsipras, who had, at a time of a leadership crisis in the West, proved he possessed rare statesmanlike qualities ... farsightedness, energy, and bravery. The Financial Times took a similar line in a piece entitled How Greeces Alexis Tsipras went from firebrand to statesman.

High-ranking representatives of the EU and NATO celebrated the result of the parliamentary vote. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described the deal as a historic decision, which overcomes a hurdle for the countrys Euro-Atlantic integration. He praised the leadership and bravery from Prime Minister Tsipras, and also from Prime Minister Zaev, and vowed to press ahead quickly with North Macedonias acceptance as a NATO member. The New York Times stressed the significance of the deal for the US and Europe, and described it as a win for the West.

EU Council President Donald Tusk tweeted triumphantly, Zoran, Alexiswell done! Mission Impossible fulfilled. In a joint statement, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, and EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn added that Skopje and Athens had written a new chapter in our common EU future. European Parliament deputies Udo Bullmann (SPD), Ska Keller (Greens), and Gabi Zimmer (Left Party) reportedly went so far as to urge Tsiprass and Zaevs nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

For his part, Tsipras described the parliamentary vote as a historic day, and wrote in an article at the weekend for the Greek Economist that 2019 would be a historic year where everyone can be optimistic once again. With cynical self-praise that will be recognised as an affront by every Greek worker and refugee, Tsipras wrote that in Greece a progressive government has managed to get Greece out of the memorandums, secured financial stability, achieved justice for the majority, and conquered the refugee crisis with humanity and solidarity. The Prespa agreement was yet another success, he added.

Knowing full well that many cuts agreed on in the last year of Greeces bailout programme still have to take effect in 2019 and will further worsen the already terrible social situation, Tsipras resorted to an even more blatant lie. A structural element of our strategy is redistribution, he wrote. He referred to planned wage increases, which amount to a drop in the bucket.

At home, Tsipras is using the dispute over Macedonias name and the nationalist hysteria being whipped up by the opposition to divert attention away from the austerity measures and suppress the class struggle. The reality is that Syriza has organised one of the greatest transfers of wealth in Greek history, from the bottom to the top of society. The social consequences are horrendous. As the Prespa agreement was being debated in parliament, a review of Greeces reform progress by its international lenders took place, the second such review since the formal end of the bailout programme. Officials from the lenders pushed yet again for more privatisations and cuts.

Working class resistance to austerity policies and militarism must be directed against both factions of the ruling elite, the right-wing extremists just as much as the Syriza government, which has proven to be a loyal appendage of the US and European bourgeoisies. Only the unification of Greek workers with workers in the Balkans and throughout Europe in the fight to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist Europe can put an end to the ruthless exploitation of the working class and the dangerous national rivalries.
A recent report by the Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) provides data on the dramatic increase in courthouse arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in New York state. According to the IDP report, courthouse arrests have increased by 1,700 percent since 2016, before President Donald Trump took office.

The IDP, an immigrants rights organization, notes that the ICE courthouse operations in New York increased from 11 in 2016 to 202 in 2018, representing 178 confirmed arrests and 24 sightings without an associated confirmed arrest. In 2017 ICE conducted 172 courthouse operations (159 arrests and 13 sightings), meaning 2018 saw a 17 percent increase over 2017.

Because these represent only incidents confirmed by the IDP, and because some ICE courthouse operations only come to light months later, when someone appears before an immigration judge, these figures are likely underestimates.

The report illustrates the brutal tactics used by ICE, which operates as an American Gestapo. Immigration agents routinely stalk the halls of courthouses, following people into bathrooms or out onto the street. ICE personnel brandish their weapons at immigrants leaving courthouses and slam family members against walls if they object.

The arrests often resemble kidnappingswhich is essentially what they are, under color of lawwith ICE agents routinely refusing to identify themselves or even denying that they are immigration enforcement officers. They then bundle the arrested person away in an unmarked and unlicensed car. In one case bystanders were so convinced it was a criminal kidnapping they called the police.

The systematic targeting of immigrants at courthouses is one particularly cruel facet of the Trump administrations war on immigrants, and resembles nothing so much as the abductions by slave-catchers under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

New York City, due to its status as a sanctuary cityas proclaimed by Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio early in the Trump administrationis targeted by ICE agents for courthouse arrests based on the pretext that they are often necessitated by the unwillingness of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the transfer of custody of aliens from their prisons and jails, in the words of a January 2018 directive authorizing courthouse arrests.

Of course, the very fact that New York City courthouses are dangerous places to be an immigrant demonstrates how little de Blasios promises of being a sanctuary city are worth.

While New York City is particularly targetedwith 35 arrests in Brooklyn alonecounties outside the five boroughs have seen an increase since 2017. Westchester saw the largest increase, while for the first time ICE arrested people at courthouses in Orange, Rensselaer and Fulton counties further upstate. Suffolk County, on Long Island, saw 6 ICE arrests.

There were also more arrests at courthouses in smaller towns and villages, as opposed to those in larger cities. One 23-year-old immigrant, who is an LGBT activist and DREAMer formerly protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, was arrested at the New Paltz Town Court in Ulster County.

Lawyers and immigrants rights organizations have repeatedly denounced courthouse arrests. In December 2017, defense attorneys from the Legal Aid Society staged a walkout at the Brooklyn criminal court to protest the arrest of Genaro Rojas-Hernandez by ICE.

Attorneys note that arresting immigrants at courthouses makes it difficult for the arrested person to obtain his or her due process rights during any ongoing criminal proceeding. One aspect of this is that immigrants arrested while in the middle of a criminal case suddenly loses access to programs that would allow them to plead to a noncriminal violation.

Joshua Epstein, an immigration attorney with the Queens Law Association, told the Intercept in November 2018, When youre in detention, you cant access those programs, so your plea offers get much worse.

Moreover, having an open criminal case makes it more likely that ICE will deport the arrested immigrant. In other words, being arrested by ICE during criminal proceedings magnifies the potential consequences in both criminal and immigration court.

Additionally, arresting immigrants at courthouses has a chilling effect for any seeking to defend themselves against allegations or appear as a witness in criminal cases.

The IDP report notes that in 2018, ICE routinely ignored its own regulations, which require that they answer basic questions about their identity and provide information justifying arrests. Instead, ICE agents dress in plainclothes, refuse to answer questions, and refuse to provide an administrative warrant justifying the arrest, even when requested to by lawyers.

ICE supposedly directs its agents not to arrest people at non-criminal courts, such as family courts or community justice courts. However, the IDP report cites ICE arresting a father in a Westchester family court, a young man attempting to participate in a parole reentry program in Manhattan and a woman leaving a Manhattan community court.

ICEs claims that courthouse arrests are necessary due to noncooperation by local law enforcement notwithstanding, the report notes that state and local police aid ICE in arresting immigrants at courthouses. Moreover, ICE reportedly impersonates New York City Police Department officers. A recent New York appellate court ruling held that it is unlawful for New York state and local officers to detain people for civil immigration violations because New York law does not authorize them to enforce civil immigration law, according to the IDP.

The IDP report also claims that ICE is also arresting victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. One woman, a survivor of domestic violence, was re-arrested by a local law enforcement officer after appearing at a hearing in Yonkers City Court that resulted in all charges being dismissed. She was held until that evening, when ICE agents took her into custody.

Despite ostensibly avoiding collateral arrests of immigrants friends and family members, the IDP report says that the organization has received several reports of ICE agents questioning friends and family members who accompany their love[d] ones to court. In a handful of cases, this has led ICE agents to arrest family members.

The report cites the case of a young man accompanying his brother to a court in Queens, only for both to be arrested by ICE agents after they were asked for identification and supplied Mexican IDs.

The Gestapo tactics of ICE are aimed at terrorizing immigrants and building up a police-state apparatus that can be used against the entire US working class, native-born and immigrant alike.

Then-Acting Director of ICE Thomas Homan testified before Congress in June 2017, saying: If youre in this country illegally and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.

While the Trump administrations xenophobic measures are an escalation of the attacks on immigrants, the Obama administration deported more immigrants than any previous administration, and Democratic politicians, from Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer to Democratic Socialists of America member Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have repeatedly endorsed border security.
The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published a report this month, China Military Power, detailing the strength of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of China. The report, which goes into great detail about the location, size, and sophistication of Chinas weapon-systems, garrisons, command centers, air force, navy, and other tools of war, aims to stoke fear of Chinese aggression among the American public, while also signaling to Beijing the extent of US preparations for war.

The report was released only a few days after Patrick Shanahan, the acting US defense secretary following the resignation of James Mattis, used his first full-day to emphasize Great Power competition with China. Remember: China, China, China, he was reported to have told Pentagon staff.

DIA director, Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, emphasized that China Military Power 2019 showed Chinas evolution from a domestically oriented force to a global one. He told reporters the PLA was changing from a defensive, inflexible ground-based force charged with domestic and peripheral security responsibilities to a joint, highly agile, expeditionary, and power-projecting arm of Chinese foreign policy that engages in military diplomacy and operations across the globe.

The report details a myriad of ways the PLA is increasing, in the jargon of the Pentagon, its ability to project powerthat is, to have influence beyond its domestic borders. This includes the development of bombers, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, hospital ships, submarine port calls in foreign harbors, and more. In particular, the report drew attention to the PLAs technical and organizational developments, including in hypersonic missiles, where China is allegedly ahead of the US in precision-guided ammunition, defense systems, and 5G technology.

Echoing the changing policy of the US military away from the war on terror and towards China and Russia, the report bemoaned that China had taken advantage of a period of strategic opportunity early this century, during US entanglements abroad, wherein [China] presumably would not be involved in a major military conflict before 2020, allowing time for economic and military development.

A senior defense official, speaking anonymously to Reuters said: As a lot of these technologies mature, as [Chinas] reorganization of their military comes into effect, as they become more proficient with these capabilities, the concern is well reach a point where internally in their decision-making they will decide that using military force for regional conflict is something that is more imminent.

With specific reference to Taiwan, the defense official continued that the biggest concern is that they are getting to a point where the PLA leadership may actually tell [President Xi Jinping] they are confident in their capabilities. We know in the past they have considered themselves a developing, weaker power. Only weeks ago, the Trump administration approved a significant arms deal to the Asia-Pacific region and Taiwan in particular.

While the report seeks to drum up the threat of China, it is also forced to admit that the country lags behind the US when it comes to its capacity for foreign involvement militarily. The report notes: Todays PLA is still far from being able to deploy large numbers of conventional forces globally. It describes Chinas defense-industrial complex as one to two generations behind its main competitors in the global arms industry.

However, the PLAs technical relationship to the United States and other imperialist powers is complex. The report notes that although the total dollar value of Chinas defense budget remains significantly below that of the United States, China has benefited from latecomer advantage China has been able to focus on expediting its military modernization at a small fraction of the original cost.

For example, the report notes that China is the top ship-producing nation in the world, is capable of producing ground weapon systems [tanks, armored vehicles] at or near world-class standards, and has cruise missile systems that are comparable to those of other international top-tier producers. However, when it comes to the most advanced parts, such as high-performance jet engines, it observes that China remains reliant on foreign-sourced components.

In multiple parts of the report, the authors note that Chinas military is disadvantaged by not having been engaged in active conflict for several decadesunlike the United States, whose forces dominate the world. Furthermore, it notes that the organizational structure of the PLA has had to go through significant changes in the past two decades as it shifts from a more hierarchical organization, rife with corruption, to a segmented professional army with technical specialization and C2 capabilities (command and control capacity to monitor and act on things in real-time through coordinated data collection and information services). China has yet to test this new organizational structure in a time of war.

The report makes the point that elements of Chinas nuclear force are decades old and requires routine observation, maintenance, or refurbishment to maintain effectiveness. It comments that while Chinas forces officially follow a no first use policy, some PLA officers have written publicly of the need to spell out conditions under which China might need to use nuclear weapons first; for example, if an enemys conventional attack threatened the survival of Chinas nuclear forces or of the regime itself.

Such statements underscore the reckless character of the USs military and economic encirclement of China. Both China and the United States have enough nuclear firepower to destroy the majority of each others population and virtually end life on the planet. While other reports on China seek to downplay the threat of a nuclear catastrophe, the confrontational US policies necessarily threaten the survival of the regime itself.

China Military Power is different from other military reports in that it does not have a classified component and was created for public consumption. In this vein, the Pentagon released the report with a grotesque video aimed at generating a certain kind-of action-movie or video-game-like enthusiasm for war preparations against China.

The report is the continuation of a series of reports titled Soviet Military Power which were the first unclassified reports on the Soviet military, launched under Regan in 1981. The Pentagon relaunched the series in 2016, as part of the Pentagons larger refocusing towards preparing for war with both China and Russia.
Directed by Felix Van Groeningen; screenplay by Luke Davies and Van Groeningen, based on the memoirs of David and Nic Sheff

Directed by Belgian-born Felix Van Groeningen, Beautiful Boy is based on the memoirs of David Sheff and his son, Nic Sheff. The movie deals with the subject of drug addictiona national public health emergency in the US, and a source of immense suffering.

In contrast to the vicious law-and-order campaign organized by both the Democrats and Republicans, which has destroyed countless lives and resulted in the jailing of untold numbers of people, Beautiful Boy opts for a humane approach to the problem. It is the story of a drug-addicted teenage boy who makes numerous efforts at sobriety, but his repeated relapses place enormous strains on his supportive family and put his own life at risk.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, in upscale Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, Nic Sheff (Timothee Chalamet) enjoys a close relationship with his father David (Steve Carell), a New York Times journalist. Flashbacks confirm the intense bond between them.

Nics parents are divorced, but his mother Vicki (Amy Ryan) and stepmother Karen (Maura Tierney) are decent, caring people determined to help him through his calamities. In fact, family and surroundings could not be more ideal and Nic could not be more beautiful and talented. But his drug problem seems intractable.

In a moment of raw truthfulness, Nic explains to his father that he uses anythingpot, alcohol, Exstasy, cocaine, LSD. Apparently under the influence of the works of poet and short story writer Charles Bukowski (This man saved my life multiple times), Nic fools himself into believing that when I started using drugs, my world went from black-and-white to Technicolor.

In reality, the young man, who at one point has to revive his girlfriend from an overdose, is living in a state of what David calls psychological terror. A psychiatrist (Timothy Hutton) explains something about the cycle of addiction to David: So, crystal meth gives the user a feeling of instant euphoria ... at least, when he takes it. You know, but when it wears off, with a depletion of as much as 60 percent of the dopamine, the user has to up the doses. He has to double it, triple it just to feel something, causing even more nerve damage, which increases the compulsion to use.

The movies post-script states that drugs are the leading cause of death in the US for people under 50 years old.

Beautiful Boy is vividly filmed by cinematographer Ruben Impens. John Lennons song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) serves as the inspiration for the movies title. And Chalamet as Nic is indeed gorgeous and endearing. Carell, however, strains in his role and that seems to have something to do with dramatic material that only narrowly and superficially tackles the issue of drug addiction. He is trying to make too much out of too little.

Revealing the pain of such situations, and their all too often tragic results, is valuable and necessary. In any case, the dimensions of the epidemic make its artistic representation inevitable.

Between 1999 and 2017, more than 700,000 people in the US died from a drug overdose. In 2018, some 70,000 deaths were caused by such overdoses.

Multiplying each individual victim by the number of family members, partners and friends who surrounded him or her, it seems safe to argue that overdoses have damaged or ruined millions, if not tens of millions, of lives in the past two decades.

Americans are more likely to die from accidental opioid overdoses today than from car crashes, the National Safety Council reported in a recent study. On average, 130 Americans die each day after overdosing on opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The immensity of the dilemma cannot be the product of lifestyle choices or individual human failingsunless one believes in the Fall of Man and Original Sin. Everything points to a socially produced crisis.

The link between the devastating loss of jobs and fall in living standards in both former industrial cities and semi-rural areas, on the one hand, and the drug scourge, on the other, is obvious and direct. A staggering one in ten people in Baltimore, Maryland (60,000 out of a population of 645,000)a city that lost 75 percent of its industrial employment between 1950 and 1995is addicted to heroin, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In March 2018, a Centers for Disease Control study revealed that opioid overdoses in the major metropolitan areas of 16 states, a portion of the country that includes Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, increased from July 2016 through September 2017 alone by 54 percent.

In largely rural Montana (population 1.05 million), a recent report observes, the substance abuse problem is well past epidemic proportions. According to Jennifer Owen, Executive Director of the Billings Head Start program, Substance abuse is reaching catastrophic levels in Billings [the largest city in Montana]. Many of the three- and four-year-olds we serve in Billings deal with substance abuse in their daily lives.

In the case of upper middle class young people like Nic, the correlation between the general social and political situation and drug use is somewhat more complex.

One would have to be blind, however, not to see there is a strain of hopelessness among a section of the more affluent, vulnerable young that speaks, in another fashion, to the dead end of American capitalist society: it is a confused and despairing response to the malignant social inequality and the thieving of the very wealthy, to the endless wars and universal spying in the spurious name of national security, to the official brutality and a degraded cultural environment.

Meanwhile, a vile, corrupt political system headed by a Trump, a Pelosi and a Schumer only fills wide layers of the population with revulsion. A portion of young people in particular, even those with economic means, clearly feel there is not a great deal to live for. The momentary euphoria of narcotics and the dulling of ones psychic pain, tragically, seem a preferable alternative.

Unfortunately, Beautiful Boy avoids all of this.

In the films production notes, director Groeningen asserts: Their family [the Sheffs] believes in unconditional love, and yet they had to come to terms with the fact that there are no easy answers and dealing with addiction is impossibly irrational. But it is not impossible to understand, if one has a social and historical compass.

Overall, there is a good deal of personal sensitivity in Beautiful Boy, perhaps even an overabundance, but there is very little social sensitivity. And because it does not extend itself very far into the world, the film tends to fall back on itself, generating a somewhat precious, self-absorbed tone.
Support is growing for the February 9 demonstration at the General Motors headquarters in Detroit to fight the companys plans to shut five factories in the United States and Canada and eliminate nearly 15,000 production and salary workers jobs. The demonstration has been called by the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Rank-and-File Committees and the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter .

The call for the demonstration has been greeted by workers at the factory gates, young people in the communities, and on social media. Campaign teams distributed thousands of fliers for the demonstration at auto factories, including GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler plants in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, and at the North American International Auto Show in downtown Detroit. Workers and students are also posting notifications of the demonstration on social media.

I will be there on February 9, a Ford worker at the Dearborn Assembly Plant said. We are going to bring a contingent of workers to the protest. We cant rely on the UAW because they are scamming us. We couldnt find anyone at my plant who voted for the contract the union said was passed. He added, Workers have to unite in every country of the world. The companies are united around the world against us, so we have to unite too.

Despite the freezing weather, a campaign team on Monday handed out 250 copies of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter to GM workers leaving work at the Oshawa Assembly plant, near Toronto, Ontario. Workers at the plant have conducted strikes and protests against GMs plan to close the giant complex, which once employed over 20,000 workers.

The newsletter contained information about the wildcat strikes by Mexican auto parts workers in the border town of Matamoros, which has led to a slowdown in production at several Ford and GM factories in North America. The February 9 demonstration is calling for the unity of US, Canadian and Mexican workers to fight for the right to a secure and good-paying jobs for all workers. This is in opposition to the anti-Mexican campaign by the Unifor union in Canada and the UAW in the US.

Several Oshawa workers indicated that they regularly read and appreciated the Autoworker Newsletter. They said they did not agree with the call by Unifor to boycott cars assembled in Mexico and believed workers should unite across North America.

An email to the newsletter from a Lear Seating parts worker in Ajax, Ontario, said, I am with you to the end in your fight with GM and the other auto giants. In a message to the striking Matamoros workers, he said, I want to let you know everyone at this factory is all behind you. The worker concluded by expressing his solidarity those planning to attend the coming demonstration, saying Good luck in Detroit.

The strike in Matamoros and opposition by autoworkers in the US and Canada to the threatened shutdowns is part of a growing international movement against the restructuring of the global industry. Shortly after GM made its November 26 plant closings announcement, financial analysts said Ford would cut up to 25,000 jobs mostly in Europe. The company, which made $3.7 billion in profits last year, is threatening to close or sharply reduce employment at plants in Germany, France, England and Russia, while it looks to integrate its operations with Volkswagen, the worlds largest automaker.

Fearing opposition from workers, Joe Hinrichs, the executive vice president and president of the Americas for Ford Motor Company, said Friday that the company has not revealed the details of its $11 billion restructuring plan because it first wants to communicate its strategy with key stakeholders, including the unions.

Ford workers at the Taubate plant in Brazil walked out January 22 after the company tried to lay off 12 workers in preparation of far larger job cuts. In opposition to the union, workers called a mass assembly and voted to shut down production at the engine and transmission plant, which is 80 miles northeast of Sao Paulo and employs 1,300 workers.

The company rescinded the layoffs two days later.

Workers fighting layoffs have also occupied a steel plant in Argentina owned by Ternium, which supplies steel for auto and other industries in Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, and has plants in North America, including one in Louisiana.

More than 13,000 Audi workers in Hungary have also struck to demand higher wages and time off on the weekend, in the latest walkout in the Eastern Europe, which has long been considered Germanys Mexico where VW, Mercedes Benz and other companies can exploit workers with low wages and sweatshop conditions.

Frightened by the prospect that US workers would also rebel against the unions and unite with workers south of the border against the auto companies, the UAW, like Unifor, has helped enforce the news blackout on the Matamoros strike. After a campaign team distributed newsletters to workers at Fiat Chryslers Jeep Assembly Plant in Toledo, Ohio informing them about the struggle in Mexico, a Jeep worker wrote a letter to the Toledo Blade complaining about the silence of the media.

So, I'm curious why when there is a major labor strike in Matamoros, Mexico that is shutting down U.S. auto plants due to parts shortages that virtually nobody is covering this story, he wrote. There may be as many as 70,000 people on strike there, but not a blip on the news about it.

A part-time temporary worker at the Jeep plant wrote in to the Autoworker Newsletter saying, Please tell our brothers and sisters in Mexico, how very proud [we are] of them. They are true heroes! I wish I could have met them at the border to join their demonstration. We are with them in spirit and hope they remain strong! Gracias!

Another Jeep worker emailed the Autoworker Newletter to express support for the February 9 demonstration. It's time for workers to unite against companies such as GM which have grown too big to treat its labor force with dignity, and too concerned with the shareholder profits to provide stability to its workforce. If you want to make a difference, the rally being held on February 9th is a good place to start.

The part-time worker added, Collective bargaining is supposed to ensure dignity as well as fair compensation. Unfortunately, our unions have sold us out and are merely talking heads for the companies.

Not only has this effected the unionized laborers, who have lost wages and benefits routinely over the last few contracts, but it has, of course, trickled down to those who are not unionized. We have not had an increase in the minimum wage in over a decade in the US. The average American lives paycheck to paycheck, and many workers have multiple jobs just to stay afloat. This includes most temporary workers in the auto industry.

Laborers are currently fighting this global issue in countries like Mexico, France and Hungary. It is time for the American worker to stand up and join them in solidarity. We have rested on our laurels for far too long, failing ourselves and the rest of the world.

We are being called to action by our brothers and sisters around the world to join this fight. I would encourage anyone who cares about these issues to join the February 9th demonstration in Detroit. Its a good first step in restoring the means of production back to the laborer. It has to start somewhere, and it starts with you.
NASHVILLE (WSMV) - Harsh words against Republican lawmakers Monday evening from the group that pushed and succeeded at getting an oversight bo
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Kara is an Emmy Award-winning digital producer. She is a Cincinnati native and an alumna of the University of South Carolina. She previously worked at WRDW-TV in Augusta, Ga., before moving to Nashville five years ago to work at WSMV-TV.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were famous American military explorers who led an expedition to explore the land west of the Mississippi, Louisiana Territory, which had just been purchased from the French colony in 1803, and the Pacific Northwest. The Lewis and Clark expedition commenced their expedition in St. Louis, Missouri on May 14, 1804, and returned to St. Louis on September 23, 1806. The expedition marked the first American expedition to explore the western side of the United States.

Commissioning and Role

The commissioning of the Lewis and Clark expedition, known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was officiated by President Thomas Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase. The role of the expedition was to survey and map the newly purchased territory, to establish practical pass ways through the western half of the continent through to the Pacific Ocean, and to establish an American presence in this territory before the arrival of Britain and other European powers. Secondary objectives of the expedition included establishing diplomatic ties with the Indians and expanding the American fur trade. Upon return, they handed the maps, sketches, and journals detailing their findings to President Jefferson. Upon departure from Camp Dubois in May 1804, they arrived the Pacific Ocean in November and began seeking waterways through the ocean before commencing their return journey in March 1806.

Discoveries and Accomplishments

From the commencement of the expedition on May 14, 1804, to its completion on September 23, 1806, the team covered a total of 8,000 miles (20 miles per day). They discovered 178 plant species including the bitterroot commonly used as a herb and the Douglas fir, which is among the native plants of Mesoamerica. They also identified 122 animal species such as prairie dog, grizzly bear, and pronghorn antelope, which are native animal species in the region.

The Corps of Discovery Expedition met their key objectives such as reaching the Pacific, mapping the territory, and establishing a legal claim on the land prior to the British arrival. They established diplomatic ties with the Indians and strengthened their trade ties with the native tribes in the region. They mapped the regions topography designating the rivers and mountains as well as learned the customs of the native tribes. Although they did not establish a continuous waterway through to the Pacific, they located an Indian trail that ran from the upper end of the Missouri River through to the Columbia River leading to the Pacific Ocean.

The team encountered various tropical diseases including dysentery, tick bites, boils, venereal disease, and only one of the team members succumbed.

Legacy

Since the expedition, Lewis and Clark have been honored and commemorated on various currencies and commemorative postage stamps in the United States. Various monuments, parks have been approved and named after the expedition to mark the largest voyage in US history. However, some claim that their legacy is insignificant since they were not the first non-Indians to explore the region. Moreover, they failed to establish an all-water route across the continent to the Pacific and failed to publish their journals in time.
Rhode Island is a US state located in the country's New England region, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. In terms of size, it is the smallest state by area, and ranks as the 7th least populous. Rhode Island was the first state to renounce its loyalty to the British Crown, and the fourth state to ratify the Articles of Confederation in 1778. Rhode Island was not involved in the drafting of the US Constitution but ratified it on May 29, 1790. Approximately 14% of Rhode Islands total area is water, due to its large number of bays and islets. Additionally, the state has some of the shortest rivers in the country because of its close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. However, the longest rivers in Rhode Island are highlighted below.

The Four Longest Rivers in Rhode Island

Blackstone River

The Blackstone River flows for 48 miles, from the confluence of Mill Brook and the Middle River in Worcester, Massachusetts, to the Seekonk River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and drains a watershed about 540 sq miles. The main tributaries of the river are the Mumford, West, North Smithfield, and Branch Rivers. The Blackstone River flows through various industrial areas, which have left it heavily polluted. In fact, in 1990 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared it the most polluted river in the country in terms of toxic sediments.

Pawcatuck River

The Pawcatuck River flows for 34 miles, from South Kingstown, Rhode Island to Little Narragansett Bay, which is located in Long Island Sound. According to its 1663 charter, the river served as the western boundary line of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which was one of the Thirteen British Colonies. There are eight major dams along the course of the river, and in 2010 the river flooded, forcing the authorities to evacuate low-lying areas. In 2006, a dolphin from the Atlantic Ocean swam several miles upstream but later died from injuries.

Wood River

The Wood River is a major tributary of the Pawcatuck River. It originates from the swamps of Porter Pond, Connecticut, and flows for 25 miles to merge with the Pawcatuck River in Alton, Rhode Island. The Flat River is its major tributary. The entire length of the Wood River is protected by the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association (WPWA), and is therefore less polluted compared to other rivers. For example, the WPWA prohibits non-electric-powered boats from navigating the river. This is significant, as the river provides water to more than 100,000 households.

Moosup River

The Moosup River begins in Clark Pond, Rhode Island, and flows for 23.7 miles until reaching its mouth at the Quinebaug River. After conservationists recommended the removal of dams along the river, the Moosup Dam #1, located in Connecticut, was removed in 2014. A year later, the Griswold Rubber dam was also removed.

Conservation of Water Catchment Areas

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management is responsible for the conservation of natural resources within the state. The department strives to promote sustainable use of water by educating the public on the importance of water catchment areas. Additionally, state laws prohibit the dumping of industrial waste in rivers and streams.
Whether Sweden was neutral or not during World War II is debatable. However, its actions such as providing Finland with soldiers and rescuing Jews from Nazi Germany caused the world to question its loyalties during the war. Prior to the World Wars, Sweden formulated a new foreign policy called The Policy of 1812 which declared the country non-belligerent. Consequently, Sweden took a neutral position during the World War II which meant it would support neither the Axis Powers nor the Allied Powers. However, many historians argue that Sweden was not as neutral as it claimed due to various factors outlined here.

Swedens History With Finland

Historically, Sweden ruled over Finland until the end of the Finnish War in 1809 when the country became semi-independent and under the leadership of a Russian. In spite of this, Sweden remained a pillar in its affairs and supported them from time to time depending on their need. During World War II, Finland supported Germany. In support of Finlands cause, Sweden released over 8,000 Swede soldiers to fight in Finland when the Germans pleaded for help to fight against the Soviet Union. Helping Finland meant that they indirectly supported Nazi Germany and its allies. Such action by the Swedish government cast aspersions to the countrys neutrality policy.

Trade Ties Between Germany and Sweden

Long before World War II, Sweden was part of a trade circle which also included Germany and the United Kingdom. However, Swedish consignments were attacked at sea leading to a decrease in trade with Britain by 70%. Subsequently, Swedish exports to Germany increased to 37%. One of the objects of trade was iron ore which Germany used in its weapon production. World War II meant there would be a need for more weapons and as such Germany increased the annual export of iron ore to ten million tons. Due to its neutrality policy, Sweden did not stop trading with Germany. Meanwhile, the Allies realized the significance of the iron ore trade to Germany and devised a plan to stop the shipment of goods. Taking advantage of the Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939, the Allies asked Sweden and Norway for permission to send expeditionary forces to help Finland. They hoped that given permission they would take control of the northern cities, thus blocking Germany and paralyzing the trade. Unfortunately, the two governments did not grant their request. Since the Allies believed that Swedens trade ties with Germany supported World War II, Sweden was not seen as neutral.

Humanitarian Work

The neutral position taken by Sweden during World War II enabled it to provide a safe haven for many victims of the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany. It played a critical role in rescuing thousands of Jews from the concentration camps set up by Nazi Germany to annihilate the Jews. Refugees from neighboring nations such as Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Hungary also resorted to make Sweden their home.

Sweden: Neutral or Not Neutral During World War II?

Sweden had a neutrality policy in place prior to World War II. Thus, its actions were not driven by any selfish motives. It only sought to protect its interests by supporting Finland. Sweden did not stop its trade with Germany because its economy depended on it, after a failed attempt to trade with the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Swedes used their neutrality to intervene and rescue many Jews from annihilation by Nazi Germany.
Woodward, OK (73801)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening followed by mostly cloudy skies and a few showers after midnight. Low 64F. SSE winds shifting to NE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening followed by mostly cloudy skies and a few showers after midnight. Low 64F. SSE winds shifting to NE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
The State of Michigan will re-open to full capacity on June 22 as more than 9 million vaccines have been administered, and COVID-19 cases fall to a one-year low.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (Purdue/WLFI) Purdue University officials announced that all classes for Wednesday (Jan. 30) have been canceled at the West Lafayette campus. According to a released statement, they made the call due to the expected wind chill temperatures that will be dangerous for students walking to and from classes. Purdue said though classes are canceled, all university employees should report for normal campus duty at their regular time.

Related: Complete list of closings and delays

Purdue stated, "Any employees who determine that their individual situation makes travel to work unsafe are reminded they can use paid or unpaid leave if they are unable to report for campus duty, however, they should contact their supervisors as soon as possible."

Classes are expected to resume Thursday.

Due to the cancellation of Purdue University classes, the campus loop service for CityBus has changed. The schedules are in effect for Wednesday, Jan. 30 and can be found here.
Several gun safety bills were brought before the Senate Tuesday in Albany. Those bills ranging from banning bump-stocks, extending the wait time for background checks, and the Red Flag Law. Oneida County Sheriff Rob Maciol questions how fast this legislation was pushed through. He says while gun safety is important, there needs to be a balance.

Were making some significant changes," Maciol said. "And I dont think there's anyone who doesnt want our communities to be safer.

One of the laws passed is the Red Flag Law which allows police to temporarily take away someones guns if they have been determined by a court to be a threat to themselves or others.

"That exists already," Maciol said. "A report is made to law enforcement regarding a student and something they may have said or done, we're just concerned because that report immediately goes around the law enforcement investigative mode. It basically goes directly to the issuance of the order and then if we seize weapons from someone, the only way we are going to return those weapons to someone is through a court order."

Also passed is extending time for background checks up to 30 days.

"We certainly support background checks on people but New York already has the strictest and thorough background checks in the country," Maciol said. So our concern is when youre extending these wait times to 30 days, when a name may hit on an issue, unfortunately its going to hit on common names," Maciol continued. "We see consistently that folks who are trying to purchase a weapon who are good people, but they have a common name, its hitting as an associate to someone with that same name who may not be a good person."

Sheriff Maciol also touched on having access to out of state mental health records.

"If someones got a mental health history and theyre from another state and trying to buy a weapon in New York, Im not opposed to us having access to their our of state records," Maciol said.

Also on the list, is the bump-stock ban. Sheriff Maciol says a bump-stock give a weapon the ability to rapid fire.

"We've seen the negative affects of bump-stocks and what they can do, and the mass casualties they can cause," Maciol said.

Limiting guns in schools was another law passed, which only allows school resource officers to carry a firearm.

"We firmly believe the teachers job is to teach, law enforcement's job is to protect but we felt the superintendent of that school district should have the authority to grant permission in special cases," Maciol said.

Sheriff Maciol says while it is his job is to enforce the laws, not make them, he is also concerned that these laws only affect law abiding citizens.

"I guess what it comes down to is, we want to ensure that there is a thorough process for the people who obviously have the constitutional right to possess these firearms," Maciol said. "We are concerned because we continue to impose additional laws on the legal, law abiding, stable citizens. Those aren't the ones I'm worried about, I'm worried about the bad guys with guns."
(NBC News) Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone pleaded not guilty Tuesday to seven counts including lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.

Stone was indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

In the indictment, prosecutors say a high-ranking Trump campaign official directed Stone to seek out emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, emails they believe Russia hacked. Wikileaks later made those emails made public, and Stone received a text from another Trump official saying "well done."

Stone made no comments as he departed from the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., but has repeatedly denied collusion with Russia or any collaboration with Wikileaks.

He is the sixth Trump associate charged in special counsel Mueller's Russia investigation.
UTICA, N.Y. -- The Mohawk Valley is getting help from Long Island during this snow event.

A total of 5 large plow trucks, 10 operators, and 2 supervisors made the trip north to help.

The crews from downstate will work in conjunction with local crews.

Plan A is to have them work Route 12 north of Utica all the way up to Alder Creek.

Whether they're from Long Island or Utica, the same safety rules apply.

If you see a plow truck, give them room. Theyre bigger pieces of equipment. Theyre loaded, they're heavy. We always say the best place to be is behind the plow truck but just give them some room to operate and make the road safer for all of us, said Nick Choubah, the NYSDOT regional director.

The Long Island team arrived Monday and no date is set for when they depart.
Governor Cuomo on Monday discussed the Child Victims Act in Albany, surrounded by triumphant victims from around the state, rejoicing in the state legislature's passing of the bill that would soon have the governor's signature. In an Oneida County living room, on Tuesday, there was far less fanfare, but just as much gratitude and relief.

"She does get more anxiety attacks now and panic attacks," said "Marie", whose 15-year-old daughter was raped by a 25-year-old man. "He's being sentenced in February. He took the deal. The most he couldn've gotten was four years. He took the deal. He's getting three years and 15 years parole and lifetime on the list and lifetime order of protection for my daughter."

The Child Victims Act extends the statute of limitations for child sex crimes, allowing criminal cases to be commenced until the victim's 28th birthday, for felonies; 23rd birthday, for misdemeanors. Marie's daughter didn't tell her she was raped; she was too traumatized and afraid. If someone else who knew about it hadn't told Marie, her family might have found itself in need of the extended statute, years down the road.

"I think for people that may have been too scared to come forward for whatever reason...I believe in justice.....I think others...this law...it'll help for them," said Marie.

Oneida County Undersheriff, Joseph Lisi, says the new law will help victims right here, in our community.

"We've had people come to us that are over 23 that are revealing that they've been the victim of sex abuse and we can't do anything criminally," says Lisi. "Some go into their 20s and they go to counseling and they reveal to the counselor that this has happened and by the time this happens in their lives, they're older than 23."

The governor is expected to sign the Child Victims Act into law in the coming days.
WASHINGTON -- Anthony Brindisi continues his push to hold Spectrum Cable accountable, now as a congressman.

Brindisi has invited the chairman of the FCC to visit the 22nd Congressional District to better understand the challenges and needs of rural customers.

The congressman is asking the FCC to outline a plan to hold the cable company accountable, and the steps it will take to provide access to affordable broadband.
Teledyne Technologies Incorporated provides instrumentation, digital imaging, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company's Instrumentation segment offers monitoring and control instruments for marine, environmental, industrial, and other applications, as well as electronic test and measurement equipment; and power and communications connectivity devices for distributed instrumentation systems and sensor networks deployed in mission critical and harsh environments. Its Digital Imaging segment provides image sensors and digital cameras for use in industrial, scientific, academic research, and medical applications; and hardware and software for image processing and automatic data collection in industrial, academic research, and medical applications, as well as manufacturing services for micro electro-mechanical systems. This segment also offers light detection and ranging systems; focal plane arrays, sensors, and subsystems; and geospatial software products. The company's Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment provides electronic components and subsystems, as well as communications products, such as defense electronics; environment interconnects; data acquisition and communications equipment for aircraft; components and subsystems for wireless and satellite communications; and general aviation batteries. Its Engineered Systems segment offers systems engineering and integration, technology development, and manufacturing solutions for defense, space, environmental, and energy applications; and designs and manufactures electrochemical energy systems and electronics for military applications. The company markets and sells its products and services through sales forces, third-party distributors, and commissioned sales representatives. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California.

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Veolia Environnement S.A. designs and provides water, waste, and energy management solutions worldwide. The company is involved in the resource management, production, and delivery of drinking water and industrial process water; collection, treatment, and recycling of wastewater; and design and construction of treatment and network infrastructure. It also provides waste collection, waste material recovery, waste-to-energy, organic waste material recovery, hazardous waste treatment, dismantling and remediation, urban cleaning, and industrial maintenance and cleaning services. In addition, the company engages in the operation and maintenance of heating and cooling networks; development of energy services to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of buildings; optimization of industrial utilities; and energy use related to processes and industrial buildings, as well as produces electricity from biomass. It offers drinking water to 100 million people; wastewater services to 61.3 million people; waste collection services to 39.6 million people; and heating and cooling services to 8.1 million people. The company was formerly known as Vivendi Environnement and changed its name to Veolia Environnement S.A. in 2003. Veolia Environnement S.A. was founded in 1853 and is based in Aubervilliers, France.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

Altria Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells cigarettes, oral tobacco products, and wine in the United States. It offers cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; cigars principally under the Black & Mild brand; and moist smokeless tobacco products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands, as well as provides on! oral nicotine pouches. The company also produces and sells varietal and blended table wines, and sparkling wines under the Chateau Ste. Michelle and 14 Hands names; and imports and markets Antinori, Torres, and Villa Maria Estate wines, as well as Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte in the United States. In addition, it provides finance leasing services primarily in transportation, power generation, real estate, and manufacturing equipment industries. The company sells its tobacco products primarily to wholesalers, including distributors; and large retail organizations, such as chain stores. Altria Group, Inc. was founded in 1822 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

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Throughout 2018 the desk of Alan Leveritt, publisher of the US weekly newspaper the Arkansas Times, was piling up with letters from the state of Arkansas with an unusual demand: either sign a pledge not to boycott Israel or forfeit all state advertising.

It was the outcome of a state law (act 710 of 2017) passed in 2017 by Arkansass Republican-dominated legislature that requires government contractors to pledge in writing not to boycott Israel or see their fees reduced by at least 20 per cent. 

The paper and its state agency clients simply ignored the letters. But when one of their clients, the University of Arkansas, informed the Arkansas Times that it had to sign the anti-boycott pledge in order to continue running its advertisements, things got more difficult as there was a price to pay.

Either succumb to compulsion by the state of Arkansas to take a political position or endure financial losses by refusing to do so and reduce advertisement rates by 20 per cent. The paper opted for the latter option, and with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also sued the state of Arkansas in December 2018 in a bid to overturn the law on free-speech grounds.

Two federal courts had already blocked similar laws in Arizona and Kansas citing First Amendment violations under the US Constitution and free-speech rights. The US Supreme Court has long held that political boycotts are protected by the First Amendment.

The decision on 23 January by US district judge Brian Miller to throw out the lawsuit was thus unexpected. In his 17-page opinion, Miller wrote that the paper has not demonstrated that a boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is protected by the First Amendment. 

Leveritt told the Weekly in an email that his paper was going to appeal with the hope of getting the decision overturned. The courts decision puts a lot of pressure on our publication because if we do not sign, it could have a devastating effect on our financial situation, he explained.

We are a small, local publication in a relatively poor state and government advertising, mostly related to higher education and health, has always been a significant category.

The Arkansas Times, a local publication focused on Arkansas affairs, has never engaged in the boycott of Israel and says it does not intend to do so.

Our position is that under the First Amendment, no government can compel us to take a political position one way or another, Leveritt told the Weekly. If the law had required his paper to promise not to boycott Palestinian products and businesses, he would still have fought it, he said.

PEN America, the prestigious 92-year-old organisation that defends free expression in the US, described the Arkansas law as deeply troubling.

The ruling from the Arkansas district court failed to consider other important federal court rulings around the country that have protected this kind of speech as a core First Amendment right, said Nora Benavidez, director of US Free Expression Programmes at PEN America. 

Constitutional protections cannot be applied selectively based on ones viewpoint, and this decision sets an alarming precedent for Americans right to freely exercise their political beliefs in ways clearly protected by the First Amendment, she added.

The federal court decision is a blow to the ACLU and the boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel (BDS) movement. Already, 26 states have enacted similar anti-BDS laws or executive orders. While the state of South Carolina was the first to pass such a law in June 2015, the trend picked up following the election of president Donald Trump who took office in 2017.

The BDS movement is inspired by and modeled on the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

Efforts to pass a federal anti-BDS bill failed in the previous Congress, but this is now changing. Attempts to pass a modified version of the bill in the newly elected Congress since early January were obstructed because of the partial federal government shutdown that ended last week.

On Monday, the Senate overwhelmingly voted by 74 to 19 to advance the anti-BDS bill, called the Strengthening Americas Security in the Middle East Act of 2019. 

The bill, which includes wording that encourages US states to adopt anti-BDS laws, is expected to pass. Currently, 13 states are considering similar anti-Israel boycott laws.

It could make court battles against Americas pro-Israel laws more challenging. 

If this law stands, then the government has the power to threaten the press with all kinds of financial pressures to make us toe a party line, said Leveritt of the Arkansas Times. We don't do that in America, at least not so far.

We expect this kind of religious, right-wing, poorly thought out legislation from our local legislators, he added. I am shocked that is even being given a serious hearing in Congress.

*This story was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly

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The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Advisors S.r.l., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe (Services) Limited, AIG Europe Holdings S.a.rl., AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Insurance Company (Switzerland) Ltd, AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG Shared Services Corporation, AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. 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Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American Home Assurance Company Escritorio de Representacao no Brasil Ltda., American International Group Inc., American International Group UK Limited, American International Overseas Association, American International Overseas Limited, American International Realty Corp., American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A., American Security Life Insurance Company Limited, Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Avondhu Limited, Blackboard Customer Care Insurance Services LLC, Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Services LLC, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., Chartis Takaful Enaya B.S.C. (c), Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Fortitude Group Holdings LLC, Fortitude Life & Annuity Solutions Inc., Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd., Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Group Risk Services Limited, Group Risk Technologies Limited, Illinois National Insurance Co., Jefferson Eola Venture LLC, Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, MG Reinsurance Limited, Mt. Mansfield Company Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Private Joint-Stock Company AIG Ukraine Insurance Company, Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SA Affordable Housing LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Affordable Housing Partners Inc., SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., Thai CIT Holding Company Limited, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., Western World Insurance Company, and Western World Insurance Group Inc..
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., a bank holding company, provides financial services in Japan, the United States, and Asia/Oceania. The company's Retail & Commercial Banking Business Group segment offers commercial banking, trust banking, and securities products and services to retail, and small and medium-sized enterprise customers. Its Japanese Corporate & Investment Banking Business Group segment provides transaction banking, investment banking, trust banking, and securities services, as well as advanced financial solutions for large corporations. The company's Global Corporate & Investment Banking Business Group segment offers corporate, investment, and transaction banking services for large corporate and financial institutions. Its Global Commercial Banking Business Group segment provides retail and commercial banking services, including loans, deposits, fund transfers, investments, and asset management services for local retail, small and medium-sized enterprise, and corporate customers. The company's Asset Management & Investor Services Business Group segment offers asset management and administration services for corporations and pension funds, such as pension fund management and administration, advice on pension structures, and payments to beneficiaries, as well as investment trusts for retail customers. Its Global Markets Business Group segment sells and trades in fixed income instruments, currencies, equities, and other investment products; originates and distributes of financial products; and provides treasury services comprising asset and liability management. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

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Some people binge watch Netflix Huluor HBO shows. And some people turn their downtime into cash. James made $2,275 in just 19 minutesall thanks to something called The 15 Minute Workday. The average trade makes 12% in just 5 days (factoring winners and losers) which is out of this world.

Insperity, Inc. provides human resources (HR) and business solutions to improve business performance for small and medium-sized businesses. The company offers its HR services through its Workforce Optimization and Workforce Synchronization solutions, which include a range of human resources functions, such as payroll and employment administration, employee benefits, workers' compensation, government compliance, performance management, and training and development services. It also provides Insperity Premier, a cloud-based human capital management platform that offers professional employer organization HR outsourcing solutions to its clients; various personnel management services; and employer liability management services, as well as solutions for middle market. In addition, the company offers MarketPlace, an e-commerce portal that offers a range of products and services; and Workforce Acceleration, a human capital management and payroll services solution; time and attendance; performance management; organizational planning; recruiting; employment screening; retirement; and insurance services. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated through 70 offices in the United States. The company was formerly known as Administaff, Inc. and changed its name to Insperity, Inc. in March 2011. Insperity, Inc. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Kingwood, Texas.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

QIAGEN N.V. provides sample to insight solutions that transform biological materials into molecular insights worldwide. The company offers primary sample technology consumables, such as nucleic stabilization and purification kits designed for primary sample materials, manual and automated processing for genotyping, gene expression, and viral and bacterial analysis, as well as silica membranes and magnetic bead technologies; secondary sample technology consumables, including kits and components for purification of nucleic acids from secondary sample materials; and instruments for nucleic acid purification and accessories. It also provides interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) for TB testing, and assays for post-transplant testing and viral load monitoring; assays for analysis of genomic variants, such as mutations, insertions, deletions, and fusions; and assays for prenatal testing and detection of sexually transmitted diseases and HPV; and sample to insight instruments, including one-step molecular analysis of hard-to-diagnose syndromes, and integrated PCR testing. The company offers PCR consumables, such as quantitative PCR, reverse transcription and combinations kits for analysis of gene expression, genotyping and gene regulation instruments and technologies; human ID and forensics assay consumables, including STR assays for human ID, and assays for food contamination; PCR instruments consist of digital PCR solutions; and developed and configured OEM consumables. It offers predefined and custom NGS gene panels, library prep kits and components, whole genome amplification, etc.; bioinformatics solutions; and custom laboratory and genomic services. It serves molecular diagnostics, academia, pharmaceutical, and applied testing customers. The company has collaboration agreements with Amgen Inc.; CLIA-certified laboratories; NuProbe Global; and Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. The company was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Venlo, the Netherlands.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

Brown & Brown, Inc. markets and sells insurance products and services in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It operates through four segments: Retail, National Programs, Wholesale Brokerage, and Services. The company offers builders risk, group medical and pharmaceutical, property, commercial auto, homeowners, reinsurance, crop and hail, inland marine, retirement benefit, cyber, disability, risk mitigating warranty products, directors and officers, management liability, errors and omissions, medical stop loss, term life, excess liability, personal auto, umbrella, general liability, prescription drug, workers compensation, and group dental insurance products. It also provides professional liability and related package insurance products for dentistry, legal, eyecare, insurance, financial, physicians, and real estate title professionals, as well as supplementary insurance-related products for weddings, events, medical facilities, and cyber liability; homeowners and personal property policies, residential earthquake, and private passenger automobile and motorcycle coverage; commercial and public entity-related programs; and flood insurance, commercial difference-in-conditions, all-risk commercial property, coastal property programs, lender-placed solutions, sovereign Indian nations, and parcel insurance. In addition, it provides markets and sells excess and surplus commercial insurance products, such as personal lines, homeowners, yachts, jewelry, commercial property and casualty, commercial automobile, garage, restaurant, builder's risk, and inland marine lines; and third-party claims administration and medical utilization management services in the workers' compensation and all-lines liability arenas, as well as Medicare Set-aside, Social Security disability, Medicare benefits advocacy, and claims adjusting services. The company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida.

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Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s.

Juniper Networks, Inc. designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; and NorthStar controllers. It also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation, and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine, and top-of-rack data center switches; and juniper access points, which provide wireless access and performance. In addition, the company offers security products comprising SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated firewall and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP. Further, it offers Junos OS, a network operating system; Contrail networking and cloud platform, which provides an open-source and standards-based platform for SDN and NFV; Contrail Insights, an optimization and management software platform for public, private, and hybrid clouds; Mist AI-driven Wired, Wireless, and WAN assurance solutions to set and measure key metrics; Mist AI-driven Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, which identifies the root cause of issues; and Netrounds, a software-based active test and service assurance platform. Additionally, the company provides software-as-a-service, technical support, maintenance, and professional services, as well as education and training programs. It sells its products through direct sales, distributors, value-added resellers, and original equipment manufacturers to end-users in the cloud, service provider, and enterprise markets. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
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Wall Street analysts have given Invesco BulletShares 2019 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Invesco BulletShares 2019 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc.,      ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics.
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. engages in the exploration, development, and production of mineral properties. It primarily explores for copper, nickel, pyrite, gold, silver, and zinc ores, as well as produces acid. The company holds 100% interests in the Ravensthorpe nickel and cobalt mine in Australia; the Sentinel copper project in North Western Province of Zambia; the Las Cruces copper mine in Spain; the Guelb Moghrein copper-gold mine in Mauritania; the PyhAsalmi copper, pyrite, zinc mine in Finland; and the Aayeli copper-zinc mine in Turkey. It also holds an 80% interest in the Kansanshi copper-gold mine and copper smelter in Zambia; and a 90% interest in the Cobre Panama project located in Panama. In addition, the company has interests in copper, gold, and molybdenum projects at various stages of development located in Argentina, Peru, and Zambia. The company was formerly known as First Quantum Ventures Ltd. and changed its name to First Quantum Minerals Ltd. in July 1996. First Quantum Minerals Ltd. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

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Morgan Stanley, a financial holding company, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company operates through Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. The Institutional Securities segment offers capital raising and financial advisory services, including services related to the underwriting of debt, equity, and other securities, as well as advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, real estate, and project finance. This segment also provides sales and trading services, such as sales, financing, prime brokerage, and market-making services in equity and fixed income products consisting of foreign exchange and commodities; corporate and commercial real estate loans, which provides secured lending facilities and financing for sales and trading customers, as well as asset-backed and mortgage lending; and wealth management services, investment, and research services. The Wealth Management segment offers various financial services and solutions covering brokerage and investment advisory services; financial and wealth planning services; stock plan administration services; annuity and insurance products; securities-based lending, residential real estate loans, and other lending products; and banking and retirement plan services to individual investors and small to medium-sized businesses and institutions. The Investment Management segment provides various investment strategies and products comprising equity, fixed income, liquidity, and alternative/other products to benefit/defined contribution plans, foundations, endowments, government entities, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and third-party fund sponsors and corporations through institutional and intermediary channels. The company was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

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The following companies are subsidiares of ENI: Adriaplin Podjetje za distribucijo, Agenzia Giornalistica Italia SpA, Agip Caspian Sea BV, Agip Energy and Natural, Agip Karachaganak BV, Agip Petroli, Aldro Energy, Banque Eni SA, Burren Energy (Bermuda) Ltd(1), Burren Energy (Egypt) Ltd, Burren Energy Congo Ltd, Burren Energy India Ltd, Burren Energy Plc, Burren Shakti Ltd, D-Service Media Srl, D-Share SpA, D-Share USA Corp., Dunastyr Polisztirolgyarto Zartkoruen, Ecofuel SpA, Eni AEP Ltd, Eni Abu Dhabi BV, Eni Abu Dhabi Refining & Trading BV, Eni Abu Dhabi Refining & Trading Services BV, Eni Albania BV, Eni Algeria Exploration BV, Eni Algeria Ltd Sarl, Eni Algeria Production BV, Eni Ambalat Ltd, Eni America Ltd, Eni Angola Exploration BV, Eni Angola Production BV, Eni Angola SpA, Eni Argentina Exploracion, Eni Arguni I Ltd, Eni Australia BV, Eni Australia Ltd, Eni Austria GmbH, Eni BB Petroleum Inc, Eni BTC Ltd, Eni Bahrain BV, Eni Benelux BV, Eni Bukat Ltd, Eni CBM Ltd, Eni Canada Holding Ltd, Eni China BV, Eni Congo SA, Eni Corporate University SpA, Eni Cyprus Ltd, Eni Cote dIvoire Ltd, Eni Denmark BV, Eni Deutschland GmbH, Eni East Ganal Ltd, Eni East Sepinggan Ltd, Eni Ecuador SA, Eni Elgin/Franklin Ltd, Eni Energy Russia BV, Eni Exploration & Production Holding BV, Eni Finance International SA, Eni Finance USA Inc, Eni France Sarl, Eni Fuel SpA, Eni G&P Trading BV, Eni Gabon SA, Eni Ganal Ltd, Eni Gas & Power France SA, Eni Gas & Power LNG Australia BV, Eni Gas Transport Services Srl, Eni Ghana Exploration and Production Ltd, Eni Hewett Ltd, Eni Hydrocarbons Venezuela Ltd, Eni Iberia SLU, Eni India Ltd, Eni Indonesia Ltd, Eni Indonesia Ots 1 Ltd, Eni Insurance DAC, Eni International BV, Eni International NA NV Sarl, Eni International Resources Ltd, Eni Investments Plc, Eni Iran BV, Eni Iraq BV, Eni Ireland BV, Eni Isatay BV, Eni JPDA 03-13 Ltd, Eni JPDA 06-105 Pty Ltd, Eni JPDA 11-106 BV, Eni Kenya BV, Eni Krueng Mane Ltd, Eni LNS Ltd, Eni Lasmo Plc, Eni Lebanon BV, Eni Liberia BV, Eni Liverpool Bay Operating Co Ltd, Eni Lubricants Trading (Shangai) Co Ltd, Eni Marketing Austria GmbH, Eni Marketing Inc, Eni Maroc BV, Eni Mediterranea Idrocarburi SpA, Eni Middle East Ltd, Eni Mineralolhandel GmbH, Eni Montenegro BV, Eni Mozambico SpA, Eni Mozambique Engineering Ltd, Eni Mozambique LNG Holding BV, Eni Muara Bakau BV, Eni Myanmar BV, Eni Mexico S. de RL de CV, Eni Next Llc, Eni North Africa BV, Eni North Ganal Ltd, Eni Oil & Gas Inc, Eni Oil Algeria Ltd, Eni Oil Holdings BV, Eni Oman BV, Eni Pakistan (M) Ltd Sarl, Eni Pakistan Ltd, Eni Petroleum Co Inc, Eni Petroleum US Llc, Eni Portugal BV, Eni RAK BV, Eni RD Congo SA, Eni Rapak Ltd, Eni Rovuma Basin BV, Eni Schmiertechnik GmbH, Eni Sharjah BV, Eni South Africa BV, Eni South China Sea Ltd Sarl, Eni Suisse SA, Eni TNS Ltd, Eni Timor Leste SpA, Eni Trading & Shipping Inc, Eni Trading & Shipping SpA, Eni Transporte y Suministro Mexico , Eni Tunisia BV, Eni Turkmenistan Ltd, Eni UHL Ltd, Eni UK Holding Plc, Eni UK Ltd, Eni UKCS Ltd, Eni ULT Ltd, Eni ULX Ltd, Eni US Operating Co Inc, Eni USA Gas Marketing Llc, Eni USA Inc, Eni USA R&M Co Inc, Eni Ukraine Holdings BV, Eni Ukraine Llc, Eni Ukraine Shallow Waters BV, Eni Venezuela BV, Eni Venezuela E&P Holding SA, Eni Vietnam BV, Eni West Africa SpA, Eni West Ganal Ltd, Eni West Timor Ltd, Eni Yemen Ltd, Eni do Brasil Investimentos em Exploracao e Producao de Petroleo Ltda, Eni gas e luce SpA, EniPower Mantova SpA, EniProgetti Egypt Ltd, EniProgetti SpA, EniServizi SpA, Esacontrol SA, Esain SA, Eurl Eni Algerie, FRI-EL Group, First Calgary Petroleums LP, First Calgary Petroleums Partner Co ULC, First Calgary Petroliums, Floaters SpA, Gas Supply Company Thessaloniki - Thessalia SA, Gazoduc Transtunisien SA - Scogat SA, Ieoc Exploration BV, Ieoc Production BV, Ieoc SpA, LNG Shipping SpA, Lasmo Sanga Sanga Ltd, Liverpool Bay Ltd, Mizamtec Operating Company, Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Nigerian Agip CPFA Ltd, Nigerian Agip Exploration Ltd, Nigerian Agip Oil Co Ltd, OOO Eni Energhia, OOO Eni-Nefto, Oleoduc du Rhone SA, Petroven Srl, Raffineria di Gela SpA, Resources (Nigeria) Ltd, S. de RL de CV, SEA SpA, SeaPad SpA, Serfactoring SpA, Servizi Aerei SpA, Servizi Fondo Bombole Metano SpA, Societa Petrolifera Italiana SpA, Societe de Service du Gazoduc, Societe pour la Construction du, Tecnoesa SA, Trans Tunisian Pipeline Co SpA, Transtunisien SA - Sergaz SA, Versalis Americas Inc, Versalis Congo Sarlu, Versalis Deutschland GmbH, Versalis France SAS, Versalis International SA, Versalis Kimya Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Versalis Mexico S. de R.L. de CV, Versalis Pacific (India) Private Ltd, Versalis Pacific Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd, Versalis Singapore Pte Ltd, Versalis SpA, Versalis UK Ltd, Zetah Congo Ltd, Zetah Kouilou Ltd, and zemeljskega plina doo Ljubljana.
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20 hours ago

| June 19th | 2021 10:00 PM

The 3 secrets you need to know to cope with work stress

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The following companies are subsidiares of TotalEnergies: ALVEA, AS 24, AS24 Belgie N.V., AS24 Espanola S.A., AS24 Fuel Cards Limited, AS24 Lithuanie, AS24 Polska SP ZO.O., AS24 Tankservice GmbH, Adani Green Energy, Aerowatt Energies, Aerowatt Energies 2, Aerowatt Energies Nogara, Aerowatt Energies Nogara 2, Air Total (Suisse) S.A., Air Total International S.A., Albatros, Alcad AB, Altinergie, Angola Block 14 B.V., Antilles Gaz, Argedis, Aristea, Atlantic Trading and Marketing Financial Inc., Atlantic Trading and Marketing Inc., BOU Verwaltungs GmbH, Balzatex S.A.S., Barry Controls Aerospace S.N.C., Bassin Du Capiscol, Bay Junction Inc., Biogaz Breuil, Biogaz Chatillon, Biogaz Corcelles, Biogaz Epinay, Biogaz Libron, Biogaz Milhac, Biogaz Soignolles, Biogaz Torcy, Biogaz Vert Le Grand, Biogaz Viriat, Borrachas Portalegre Ltda, Brass Holdings S.A.R.L., CPE Energies, CSSA - Chartering and Shipping Services S.A., Caldeo, Catelsa-Caceres S.A.U., Centrale Eolienne De Couloumi, Centrale Eolienne De Coume, Centrale Eolienne De Dainville, Centrale Eolienne De Goulien, Centrale Eolienne De L'Olivier, Centrale Eolienne De La Vallee Gentillesse, Centrale Eolienne Des Malandaux, Centrale Eolienne Du Plan Du Pal, Centrale Eolienne La Cote Du Moulin A Vent, Centrale Eolienne La Croix De Cuitot, Centrale Eolienne Les Champs Parents, Centrale Eolienne Varades, Centrale Hydrolique Alas, Centrale Hydrolique Ardon, Centrale Hydrolique Arvan, Centrale Hydrolique Barbaira, Centrale Hydrolique Bonnant, Centrale Hydrolique La Buissiere, Centrale Hydrolique Previnquieres, Centrale Photovoltaique De La Croix, Centrale Photovoltaique Du Seneguier, Centrale Photovoltaique Le Barou, Centrale Solaire 2, Centrale Solaire Autoprod, Centrale Solaire Base 112, Centrale Solaire Betheniville, Centrale Solaire Briffaut, Centrale Solaire Centre Ouest 2, Centrale Solaire Cet De Hesse, Centrale Solaire Chemin De Melette, Centrale Solaire Couloumine, Centrale Solaire De Cazedarnes, Centrale Solaire Dom, Centrale Solaire Du Centre Ouest, Centrale Solaire Du Lavoir, Centrale Solaire Du Pla De La Roque, Centrale Solaire Felix, Centrale Solaire Ficon, Centrale Solaire Forum Laudun, Centrale Solaire Fremy, Centrale Solaire Gardanne, Centrale Solaire Gigognan, Centrale Solaire Guinots, Centrale Solaire Heliovale, Centrale Solaire La Metairie, Centrale Solaire La Potence, Centrale Solaire La Sauteirane, Centrale Solaire La Tastere, Centrale Solaire Le Castellet, Centrale Solaire Le Cres, Centrale Solaire Les Ancizes, Centrale Solaire Les Aspres, Centrale Solaire Les Canebieres, Centrale Solaire Les Cordeliers, Centrale Solaire Les Cordeliers 2, Centrale Solaire Les Galliennes, Centrale Solaire Les Melettes, Centrale Solaire Lodes, Centrale Solaire Lyreco, Centrale Solaire Manosque Ombriere, Centrale Solaire Mazeran Lr, Centrale Solaire Mazeran Paca, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres Cap Agathois, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres De Blyes, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres De Boujan, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres P5, Centrale Solaire Pezenas, Centrale Solaire Piennes, Centrale Solaire Plateau De Pouls, Centrale Solaire Pont Sur Sambre, Centrale Solaire Quadrao, Centrale Solaire SPW2, Centrale Solaire Sableyes, Centrale Solaire Supdevenergie, Centrale Solaire Toiture Josse, Centrale Solaire Valorbi, Centrale Solaire Viguier, Centrale Solaire Zabo, Centrale Solaire Zabo 2, Centrale Solaire de la Med, Charvet La Mure Bianco, Cie Tunisienne du Caoutchouc S.A.R.L., Compagnie Petroliere de l'Ouest - CPO, Composite Industrie Maroc S.A.R.L., Composite Industrie S.A., Cosden LLC, Cray Valley (Guangzhou) Chemical Company Limited, Cray Valley Czech, Cray Valley HSC Asia Limited, Cray Valley Italia S.R.L., Cray Valley S.A., Cristal Marketing Egypt, DAJA 148, DAJA 154, DAJA 160, DCA-MORY-SHIPP, Deer Creek Pipelines Limited, Digital Energy Solutions, Direct Energie, E.F. Oil And Gas Limited, Egedis, Electricite Solaire De Molleges, Elf Aquitaine Fertilisants, Elf Aquitaine Inc., Elf E&P, Elf Exploration UK Limited, Elf Forest Products LLC, Elf Oil UK Aviation Limited, Elf Oil UK Properties Limited, Elf Petroleum Iran, Elf Petroleum UK Limited, Eole Balaze 2, Eole Balaze S.A.R.L., Eole Boin, Eole Broceliande, Eole Champagne Conlinoise, Eole Cote Du Moulin, Eole Desirade 4, Eole Du Bocage, Eole Fonds Caraibes, Eole Grand Maison, Eole La Montagne, Eole La Motelle, Eole La Perriere S.A.R.L., Eole Les Buissons, Eole Les Patoures, Eole Maxent, Eole Morne Carriere, Eole Morne Constant, Eole Moulin Tizon, Eole Petit Fougeray, Eole Petite Place, Eole Pierrefitte Es Bois, Eole Saint-Jean Lachalm, Eole Sorbon II, Eole Sorbon S.A.R.L., Eole Yate, Eoliennes Arques 1, Eoliennes Arques 2, Eoliennes Arques 3, Eoliennes De L'Ourcq Et Du Clignon, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 1, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 2, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 3, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 4, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 5, Eoliennes Du Champ Chardon, Espa S.A.R.L., Ethylene Est, Etmofina, FINA Technology Inc., Fast Jung KB, Feluy Immobati, Fina Pipeline Co, Finansol 1, Finansol 2, Finansol 3, Fioulmarket.fr, Fonroche Biogaz, Frieman & Wolf Batterietechnick GmbH, G2MOBILITY, Gapco Kenya Limited, Gapco Tanzania Limited, Gapco Uganda Limited, Gasket (Suzhou) Valve Components Company Limited, Gasket International S.R.L., Glaciere De Palisse, Global Energy Armateur SNC, Global LNG Armateur S.A.S., Global LNG Downstream S.A.S., Global LNG North America Corporation, Global LNG S.A.S., Global LNG Supply S.A., Global LNG UK Limited, Grande Paroisse S.A., Greenflex, Greenflex Actirent Group S.L., Greenflex S.A.S., Guangzhou Elf Lubricants Company Limited, Gulf Africa Petroleum Corporation, HBA Hutchinson Brasil Automotive Ltda, HETTY, Helio 100 Kw, Helio 21, Helio 974 Toitures, Helio Bakia, Helio Beziers, Helio Boulouparis, Helio Boulouparis 2, Helio Florensac, Helio Fonds Caraibes, Helio Koumac, Helio L'R, Helio La Perriere, Helio Logistique, Helio Moindah, Helio Orange, Helio Piin Patch, Helio Popidery, Helio Reunion, Helio Tamoa, Helio Temala, Holding Eole 2018, Holding Otev, Holding Pdr, Hutchinson (UK) Limited, Hutchinson (Wuhan) Automotive Rubber Products Company Limited, Hutchinson Aeronautique & Industrie Limited, Hutchinson Aeroservices S.A.S., Hutchinson Aerospace & Industry Inc., Hutchinson Aerospace GmbH, Hutchinson Aftermarket USA Inc., Hutchinson Antivibration Systems Inc., Hutchinson Automotive Systems Company Limited, Hutchinson Autopartes Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hutchinson Borrachas de Portugal Ltda, Hutchinson Corporation, Hutchinson Do Brasil S.A., Hutchinson Fluid Management Systems Inc., Hutchinson GmbH, Hutchinson Holding GmbH, Hutchinson Holdings UK Limited, Hutchinson Iberia S.A., Hutchinson Industrial Rubber Products (Suzhou) Company Limited, Hutchinson Industrias Del Caucho SAU, Hutchinson Industries Inc., Hutchinson Japan Company Limited, Hutchinson Korea Limited, Hutchinson Maroc S.A.R.L. AU, Hutchinson Poland SP ZO.O., Hutchinson Polymers S.N.C., Hutchinson Porto, Hutchinson Precision Sealing Systems Inc., Hutchinson Research & Innovation Singapore PTE. Limited, Hutchinson Rubber Products Private Limited Inde, Hutchinson S.A., Hutchinson S.N.C., Hutchinson S.R.L. (Italie), Hutchinson S.R.L. (Roumanie), Hutchinson SRO, Hutchinson Sales Corporation, Hutchinson Seal De Mexico S.A. de CV., Hutchinson Sealing Systems Inc., Hutchinson Stop - Choc GmbH & CO. KG, Hutchinson Suisse S.A., Hutchinson Transferencia de Fluidos S.A. de C.V., Hutchinson Tunisie S.A.R.L., Hutchinson Vietnam Company Limited, Hutchinson d.o.o Ruma, Hydro-M Ingenierie Des Energies Renouvelables, Hydromons, Industrias Tecnicas De La Espuma SL, Industrielle Desmarquoy S.N.C., Jehier S.A.S., Jmb Hydro S.A.R.L., Jmb Solar, Jmb Solar Nogara, Jmcp, Joint Precision Rubber, KTN Kunststofftechnik Nobitz GmbH, La Compagnie Electrique de Bretagne, La Seauve, Lampiris S.A., Le Joint Francais S.N.C., Legacy Site Services Funding Inc., Legacy Site Services LLC, Les Eoliennes De Conquereuil, Les Moulins A Vent De Kermadeen, Les Stratifies S.A.S., Les Vents De Nivillac, Les Vents De Ranes, Libcom, Libwatt, Lone Wolf Land Company, Lubricants Vietnam Holding Limited, Machen Land Limited, Maersk Oil, Marathon Oil Libya Limited, Margeriaz Energie, Messigaz SNC, Methanergy, Mide Technology Corporation, Miyagi Osato Solar Park G.K., Nouvelle Entreprise D'Energie Solaire, Novogy Inc., Olutex Oberlausitzer Luftfahrttextilien GmbH, Ombrieres Te Vendres, Omnium Reinsurance Company S.A., PFW Aerospace GmbH, PFW Havacilik Sanayi ve Dis Ticaret Limited Sirtketi, PFW Uk Machining Ltd., Pamargan (Malta) Products Limited, Pamargan Products Limited, Pan Insurance Limited, Parc Des Hauts Vents, Parc Eolien De Nesle La Reposte, Parc Solaire De Servian, Parc Solaire De Servian 2, Paulstra S.N.C., Paulstra Silentbloc S.A., Pitpoint B.V., Pitpoint Cng B.V., Polyblend GmbH, Pos Production Ii, Pos Production Iii, Pos Production Iv, Pos Production V, Produits Petroliers Stela, Quadran Caraibes, Quadran Holding Nc, Quadran Nogara, Quadran Pacific, Quadrelio, Quadrica, Quimica Vasca S.A.U., Resilium, Retia, Retia USA LLC, Roquefort Solar, Saft (Zhuhai FTZ) Batteries Company Limited, Saft (Zhuhai) Energy Storage Co, Saft AB, Saft AS, Saft Acquisition S.A.S., Saft America Inc., Saft Australia PTY Limited, Saft Batterias SL, Saft Batterie Italia S.R.L., Saft Batterien GmbH, Saft Batteries PTY Limited, Saft Batteries Pte Limited, Saft Batterijen B.V., Saft Do Brasil Ltda, Saft Ferak AS, Saft Finance S.A.R.L., Saft Groupe S.A., Saft Hong Kong Limited, Saft India Private Limited, Saft Japan KK, Saft LLC, Saft Limited, Saft Nife ME Limited, Saft S.A.S., Saudi Total Petroleum Products, Savanna Energy Services Corp., Septentrion Participations, Servauto Nederland B.V., SigmaKalon Group B.V., Smalt Energie, Socap S.A.S., Societe Bearnaise De Gestion Industrielle, Societe Civile Immobiliere CB2, Societe Urbaine des Petroles, Societe d'exploitation de l'usine de Rouen, Societe mahoraise de stockage de produits petroliers, Sofax Banque, Solaire Grand Sud, Solaire Libron, Solaire Villon, Solar Energies, Solar Mimizan, Stillman Seal Corporation, Stogg Eagle Funding B.V., Stop-Choc (UK) Limited, SunPower, Synova, TOTAL E&P NORGE AS, TOTAL MAROC, TOTSA Total Oil Trading S.A., Tadiran Batteries GmbH, Tadiran Batteries Limited, Techlam S.A.S., Tenesol SPV 1, Tepkri Sarsang A/S, Termokarstovoye S.A.S., Terneftegaz JSC(a), Thermal Control Systems Automotive Sasu, Thezan Solar, Toitures Capiscol, Total (Africa) Limited, Total (BTC) B.V., Total (Fiji) Limited, Total Abu Al Bu Khoosh, Total Activites Maritimes, Total Additifs et Carburants Speciaux, Total Africa S.A., Total American Services Inc., Total Atlantic Trading Mexico SA De CV, Total Austral, Total Aviation & Export Limited, Total Belgium, Total Bitumen Deutschland GmbH, Total Bitumen UK Limited, Total Botswana (PTY) Limited, Total Brasil Diesel Comercio e Transportes Ltda, Total Brasil Distribuidora Ltda, Total Brazil Services B.V., Total Burkina, Total Cambodge, Total Cameroun, Total Capital, Total Capital Canada Limited, Total Capital International, Total Caraibes, Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures Europe, Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures International, Total Ceska Republika S.R.O., Total China Investment Company Limited, Total Congo, Total Consulting, Total Corporate Management (Beijing) Company Limited, Total Corse, Total Cote D'Ivoire, Total Country Services Belgium, Total Danmark Pipelines A/S, Total Delaware Inc., Total Denmark A/S, Total Denmark ASW Inc., Total Denmark ASW Pipeline ApS, Total Deutschland GmbH(e), Total Developpement Regional S.A.S., Total Direct Energie Belgium, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique Bayet, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique Marchienne au Pont, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique de Toul, Total Direct Energie Concessions, Total Direct Energie Generation, Total Direct Energie Hambregie, Total Direct Energie S.A., Total Direct Energie Services, Total Direct Energie Yfregie, Total Direct Energies Centrale Electrique de Pont Sur Sambres, Total Dolphin Midstream, Total Downstream UK PLC, Total E&P Absheron B.V., Total E&P Al Shaheen A/S, Total E&P Algerie, Total E&P Algerie Berkine A/S, Total E&P Americas LLC, Total E&P Anchor LLC, Total E&P Angola, Total E&P Angola Block 15/06 Limited, Total E&P Angola Block 16 A/S, Total E&P Angola Block 16 Holding A/S, Total E&P Angola Block 17.06, Total E&P Angola Block 25, Total E&P Angola Block 32, Total E&P Angola Block 33, Total E&P Angola Block 39, Total E&P Angola Block 40, Total E&P Angola Block 48 B.V., Total E&P Angola Chissonga Holdings Limited, Total E&P Aruba B.V., Total E&P Asia Pacific Pte. Limited, Total E&P Australia, Total E&P Australia Exploration PTY Limited, Total E&P Australia II, Total E&P Australia III, Total E&P Azerbaijan B.V., Total E&P Barnett Usa (75), Total E&P Bolivie, Total E&P Borneo B.V., Total E&P Bulgaria B.V., Total E&P Cambodge, Total E&P Canada Limited, Total E&P Chine, Total E&P Chissonga Limited, Total E&P Colombie, Total E&P Congo, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 514, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 515, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 516, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI-605 B.V., Total E&P Cyprus B.V., Total E&P Danmark A/S - CPH, Total E&P Danmark A/S -EBJ, Total E&P Deep Offshore Borneo B.V., Total E&P Do Brasil Ltda, Total E&P Dolphin Upstream, Total E&P Dunga GmbH, Total E&P East El Burullus Offshore B.V., Total E&P Egypt Block 2 B.V., Total E&P Egypte, Total E&P Europe and Central Asia Limited, Total E&P France, Total E&P Golfe Limited, Total E&P Gom Moh. LLC, Total E&P Greece B.V., Total E&P Guyana B.V., Total E&P Guyane Francaise, Total E&P Holding Ichthys, Total E&P Holdings Australia PTY Limited, Total E&P Holdings Russia, Total E&P Holdings UAE B.V., Total E&P Ichthys B.V., Total E&P Indonesia Mentawai B.V., Total E&P Indonesie, Total E&P International K1 Limited, Total E&P International K2 Limited, Total E&P International K3 Limited, Total E&P International Limited, Total E&P Iraq, Total E&P Ireland B.V., Total E&P Italia, Total E&P Jack LLC, Total E&P Jutland Denmark B.V., Total E&P Kazakhstan, Total E&P Kenya B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Harir) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Safen) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Taza) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq B.V., Total E&P Liban S.A.L., Total E&P Libye, Total E&P Lower Zakum B.V., Total E&P Malaysia, Total E&P Mauritania Block C18 B.V., Total E&P Mauritania Block C9 B.V., Total E&P Mauritania Blocks DW B.V., Total E&P Mauritanie, Total E&P Mauritius Holding Limited, Total E&P Mexico S.A. de C.V., Total E&P Mozambique Area 1 Limitada, Total E&P Mozambique B.V., Total E&P Myanmar, Total E&P Namibia B.V., Total E&P Nederland B.V., Total E&P New Ventures Inc., Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater A Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater B Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater C Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater D Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater E Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater F Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater G Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater H Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Limited, Total E&P Nigeria S.A.S., Total E&P North Sea UK Limited, Total E&P Oman, Total E&P Oman Dev. B.V, Total E&P PNG 2 B.V., Total E&P PNG 5 B.V., Total E&P PNG Limited, Total E&P Participations Petrolieres Congo, Total E&P Philippines B.V., Total E&P Qatar, Total E&P RDC, Total E&P Research & Technology USA LLC, Total E&P Russie, Total E&P Salmanov, Total E&P Sebuku, Total E&P Senegal, Total E&P Services China Company Limited, Total E&P South Africa B.V., Total E&P South Pars, Total E&P South Sudan, Total E&P Syrie, Total E&P Tajikistan B.V., Total E&P Thailand, Total E&P Three Pl B.V., Total E&P Timan-Pechora LLC, Total E&P UAE Unconventional Gas B.V., Total E&P UK Limited, Total E&P US Well Containment LLC, Total E&P USA Inc., Total E&P USA Oil Shale LLC, Total E&P Uganda B.V., Total E&P Umm Shaif Nasr B.V., Total E&P Uruguay B.V., Total E&P Uruguay Onshore B.V., Total E&P Well Response, Total E&P Yamal, Total E&P Yemen, Total E&P Yemen Block 3 B.V., Total East Africa Midstream B.V., Total Egypt, Total Energie Gas GmbH, Total Energy (Meuk) Limited, Total Energy Investments Tianjin, Total Energy Marketing A/S, Total Energy Services, Total Energy Ventures Emerging Markets, Total Espana S.A., Total Especialidades Argentina, Total Ethiopia, Total European Trading, Total Exploration M'Bridge, Total Facilities Management B.V., Total Facilities Management Services (TFMS), Total Finance, Total Finance Corporate Services Limited, Total Finance Global Services (TOFIG), Total Finance Nederland B.V., Total Finance USA Inc., Total Finance international B.V., Total Fluides, Total Freeport Corporation, Total Fuels Wuhan Company Limited, Total Funding Nederland B.V., Total Funding Nederland International B.V., Total GLNG Australia, Total GLNG Australia Holdings, Total Gabon, Total Gas & Power Actifs Industriels, Total Gas & Power Asia Private Limited, Total Gas & Power Brazil, Total Gas & Power Chartering Limited, Total Gas & Power Limited, Total Gas & Power North America Inc., Total Gas & Power Services Limited, Total Gas & Power Thailand, Total Gas Pipeline USA Inc., Total Gas Y Electricidad Argentina S.A., Total Gas and Power Limited London Meyrin - Geneva Branch, Total Gasandes, Total Gass Handel Norge AS, Total Gastransport Nederland B.V., Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France, Total Gestion Filiales, Total Gestion USA, Total Glass Lubricants Europe GmbH, Total Global Financial Services, Total Global Human Ressources Services, Total Global IT Services (TGITS), Total Global Information Technology Services Belgium, Total Global Procurement (TGP), Total Global Procurement Belgium S.A. (TGPB), Total Global Services Bucharest, Total Global Services Philippines, Total Guadeloupe, Total Guinea Ecuatorial, Total Guinee, Total Holding Allemagne, Total Holding Asie, Total Holding Dolphin Amont, Total Holding India, Total Holdings Europe, Total Holdings International B.V., Total Holdings Nederland B.V., Total Holdings Nederland International B.V., Total Holdings S.A.S., Total Holdings UK Limited, Total Holdings USA Inc., Total International NV, Total Investment Management Tianjin, Total Investments, Total Iran B.V., Total Italia, Total Jamaica Limited, Total Jordan PSC, Total Kenya, Total LNG Angola, Total LNG Supply Services USA Inc., Total Laffan Refinery, Total Laffan Refinery II B.V., Total Learning Solutions (TLS), Total Liban, Total Liberia Inc., Total Lindsey Oil Refinery Limited, Total Lubricants (China) Company Limited, Total Lubricants Taiwan Limited, Total Lubrifiants, Total Lubrifiants Algerie, Total Lubrifiants Service Automobile, Total Luxembourg S.A., Total Madagasikara S.A., Total Malawi Limited, Total Mali, Total Marine Fuels, Total Marketing Egypt, Total Marketing France, Total Marketing Gabon, Total Marketing Middle East Free Zone, Total Marketing Services, Total Marketing Tchad, Total Marketing Uganda, Total Mauritius, Total Mayotte, Total Mexico S.A. de C.V., Total Midstream Holdings UK Limited, Total Mineraloel und Chemie GmbH, Total Mineralol GmbH, Total Mozambique, Total Namibia (PTY) Limited, Total Nederland NV, Total New Energies Limited, Total New Energies USA Inc., Total New Energies Ventures USA Inc., Total Niger S.A., Total Nigeria Plc, Total Oil Asia-Pacific Pte Limited, Total Oil Gb Limited, Total Oil India Private Limited, Total Oil UK Limited, Total Oil and Gas South America, Total Oil and Gas Venezuela B.V., Total Olefins Antwerp, Total Operations Canada Limited, Total Opslag En Pijpleiding Nederland NV, Total Outre-Mer, Total Overseas Holding (PTY) Limited, Total P&G do Brasil Ltda, Total PAR LLC, Total Pacifique, Total Paiement Services, Total Pars LNG, Total Participations, Total Petrochemicals & Refining S.A./NV(e), Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA Inc.(e), Total Petrochemicals (Hong Kong) Limited, Total Petrochemicals (Shangai) Limited, Total Petrochemicals Development Feluy, Total Petrochemicals Ecaussinnes, Total Petrochemicals Feluy, Total Petrochemicals France, Total Petrochemicals Iberica, Total Petrochemicals Pipeline USA Inc., Total Petrochemicals Security USA Inc., Total Petrochemicals UK Limited, Total Petroleum (Shanghai) Company Limited, Total Petroleum Angola, Total Petroleum Ghana, Total Petroleum Puerto Rico Corp., Total Philippines Corporation, Total Polska, Total Polymers Antwerp, Total Polynesie, Total Profils Petroliers, Total Qatar, Total Quadran, Total RDC, Total Raffinaderij Antwerpen N.V., Total Raffinage Chimie S.A.S., Total Raffinage France, Total Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland GmbH, Total Refining & Chemicals Saudi Arabia S.A.S., Total Renewables, Total Research & Technology Feluy, Total Resources (Canada) Limited, Total Reunion, Total Romania S.A., Total Senegal, Total Singapore Shared Services Pte Limited, Total Solar Intl, Total Solar Latin America SPA, Total South Africa (PTY) Limited, Total South Pars, Total Specialties USA Inc., Total Splitter USA Inc, Total Supply MS S.A., Total Swaziland (PTY) Limited, Total Tanzania Limited, Total Tengah, Total Tianjin Manufacturing Company Limited, Total Togo, Total Trading Asia Pte Limited, Total Trading Canada Limited, Total Trading Products S.A., Total Trading and Marketing Canada LP, Total Treasury, Total Tunisie, Total Turkey Pazarlama, Total UK Finance Limited, Total UK Limited, Total USA International LLC, Total Uganda Limited, Total Ukraine LLC, Total Upstream Danmark A/S, Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, Total Upstream UK Limited, Total Venezuela, Total Vietnam Limited, Total Vostok, Total Yemen LNG Company Limited, Total Zambia, Total Zimbabwe, Totalgaz Vietnam LLC, Trans-Ethylene, Transalpes S.N.C., Tssa Total Storage & Services S.A., Uintah Colorado Resources LLC, Unitah Colorado Resources II LLC, Upbeatprops 100 PTY Limited, V Energy S.A., Valorene, Vent De Thierache 01, Vent De Thierache 02, Vent De Thierache 03, Vents D'Oc Centrale D'Energie Renouvelable 18, Vents D'Oc Energies Renouvelables, Vibrachoc S.A.U., Watt Prox, WayKonect, Winergy, Zeeland Refinery NV, and Zeeland Solar B.V..
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Oasis Petroleum Inc., an independent exploration and production company, focuses on the acquisition and development of onshore unconventional oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through Exploration and Production(E&P), and Midstream segments. The E&P segment engages in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties. The Midstream segment offers midstream services, such as natural gas gathering, compression, processing and, gas lift supply; crude oil gathering, terminaling, and transportation; produced and flowback water gathering, and disposal; and water distribution. As of December 31, 2020, the company had 401,766 net leasehold acres in the Williston Basin; and 24,396 net leasehold acres in the Permian Basin, as well as approximately 152.2 million barrels of oil equivalent of estimated net proved reserves. The company sells its crude oil and natural gas to refiners, marketers, and other purchasers that have access to pipeline and rail facilities. Oasis Petroleum Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..
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Five years ago, state Rep. Melissa Sargent rejected the backward thinking of those who seek to maintain a failed drug war and announced: The facts clearly show that legalization is right for Wisconsin and that the most dangerous thing about marijuana is that its illegal.

Since then, the Madison Democrat has led the legislative fight to legalize marijuana for recreational and medical use. She has done so for all the right reasons.

Adults choosing to use marijuana in the safety of their own home is a matter of personal liberty and freedom, said Sargent, who argued legalization would save time and money for law enforcement.

She noted responsible regulation and taxation of marijuana sales would raise needed revenues for the state. And, she said, legalization would address the stark racial disparities when it comes to marijuana-related arrests in Madison and across Wisconsin.

With limited resources, and an overextended prison system, it is not sustainable to continue imprisoning people for these offenses, the fourth-term state representative explained. It is a travesty that we are putting millions of taxpayer dollars into victimless crimes when we should be doing the exact opposite: creating revenue and letting our police officers focus on keeping peace in our neighborhoods.
For my family, Im trying to carry on her legacy because she was such a big piece of their hearts.

Professional musician Beth Kille of Madison recorded, mixed, mastered and produced the album, which is available for purchase at facebook.com/GraceGmusic.

Kille has known Gladem for several years as the director of Girls Rock Camp Madison, where Gladem also met Jenna Joanis, a Madison-based musician who has played in a number of local bands.

On Grace, Joanis plays percussion, bass and guitar. Gladem plays guitar, piano and sings on the album.

Grace just has this ethereal, captivating voice where you can see people in the room sort of freeze when she starts singing, Kille said. You see that look of, Wow, whats going on?

There might be a busy crowd wherever shes playing, but as soon as she steps up to microphone, magic happens.

Gladems album features three original songs and two covers. Gladems personal favorite is called Something More, which she said already has been played on Madison radio stations.
An audit in December found WEDC had intended to award tax credits for employees who did not perform work in Wisconsin. A WEDC spokesman earlier this month said the agency had not planned to change that policy.

Evers on the campaign trail had been critical of both the Foxconn project and WEDC, which he had vowed to dissolve. He backtracked on that promise, saying he would not include any changes to the agency in his upcoming budget request.

Republican lawmakers have continued to champion WEDC, and in their December lame-duck session passed legislation barring Evers from appointing the agencys CEO for nine months.

Evers has said he hopes for transparency and success for the project. Reuters reported Gou plans to meet with Evers later this year. An Evers spokeswoman has not confirmed the meeting.

Republicans blame Evers

Foxconn is eligible for nearly $1.5 billion in job creation credits through the year 2032. That doesnt include capital investment tax credits, which Foxconn will be eligible for at the end of 2019. The company could receive up to $1.35 billion in such credits by the end of 2025 under the contract. In total, state tax incentives for capital investment and job creation amount to about $2.85 billion.
Sauk Prairie Police Lt. Travis Hilliard said the department was getting requests to check on home bound residents and others as early as Tuessday morning.

We had two already this morning, Hilliard said Jan. 29. We go out and make sure they are fine and if they need anything we connect them to those resources.

Prairie du Sac Fire Department President Bob Koch said there are things residents can do in their homes to minimize risk of fire during extreme cold such as not using ovens or stoves as a source of heat. Koch said doing so could increase the risk of exposure to carbon monoxide. He said to use space heaters with caution  and always follow the manufacturers recommendations for use.

We recommend not using space heaters unless it is absolutely necessary, Koch said. If you have to make sure to keep them away from anything combustible including carpeting.

Koch also reminded residents to work with their neighbors to clear snow around fire hydrants.

If there is a fire that could cost us critical time, Koch said.
A Superior woman faces criminal charges after police say she was found in possession of 245 grams of marijuana.

Diesha Woodfork, 39 is charged with possession with intent to deliver THC, possession with intent to deliver schedule V drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia. She faces up to six years imprisonment for the first charge.

According to the criminal complaint:

A Wisconsin State Trooper operating in an unmarked cruiser near mile marker 64 on I-90/94 Jan. 10 observed a vehicle traveling visibly in excess of the posted 70 mph speed limit.

The trooper activated the vehicles emergency lights and pursued the vehicle to initiate a traffic stop. The speeding vehicle was a 2017 Kia with Minnesota registration.

Upon making contact with the driver through the passenger side window, the trooper asked for license and proof of insurance.

The driver stated he did not have a drivers license but my papers are in the trunk.

The driver retrieved his birth certificate from the trunk and told the trooper he never got a drivers license. He stated he was coming from Kankakee to Duluth.
News

DoH-Abu Dhabi warns against use of slimming nutritional supplement 'Al 3on Honey'

It also indicated that the product is not allowed for sale in the UAE, pointing out that the product may enter the country with those coming from abroad, or it may be purchased via the Internet and social networking websites.
REEDSBURG  A leader of the Sauk County Board has been found guilty of shoplifting and is now banned from two Reedsburg stores.

Supervisor Wally Czuprynko of Lake Delton pleaded no contest to two retail theft citations that police filed against him earlier this month and was found guilty during a court proceeding Friday.

Reedsburg Municipal Court Clerk Darleen Wohling said Czuprynko already paid $456 in fines and restitution to two businesses.

Documents show he also has been ordered not to return to Martens Reedsburg True Value and the Viking Village Foods grocery store. The businesses told police he shoplifted less than $10 worth of items Jan. 4, including a Yeti tumbler drinking glass lid and a cup of soup.

Czuprynko said Tuesday he had not yet evaluated whether he will resign from the county board or the village of Lake Delton Plan Commission, but had no immediate plans to do so. He said he has apologized, wants to move on, and believes he has been unfairly targeted by the Baraboo News Republic.

Youre making more of this than it really is, Czuprynko said. There are people who are currently serving on the board who have done far worse things and I dont see stories about them. I honestly feel like youre just paying me back.
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+2 Despite 'life-threatening' temps, some Winonans brave the cold, head to work With wind chills forecast to plummet to 60 degrees below zero in much of southeast Minnesota

Across the Mississippi, another bed and breakfast is doing the same. Turning Waters Bed, Breakfast and Adventure in Wabasha opened its doors for free this week after owner Brenda Pearson said she walked outside one night and thought, Oh my gosh, I cant imagine living homeless in this.

Turning Waters, built in 1902, has five rooms with a few extra air mattresses for children. Though she hasnt had any guests take her up on the offer yet, Pearson said she called the local school district to help make families aware of the option and also hopes that people who are in contact with others without a true home will share the opportunity with them.

Im very blessed to have a warm house and food on my table and a roof over my head, Pearson said. People shouldnt have to live out in the elements ... I just think (providing shelter) is something we should do.

Like Goodman, Pearson is no stranger to providing a helping hand. On Wednesday morning, she ventured out to deliver coffee for a neighbor and help an elderly man jump-start his car. And at Turning Waters, which also offers a brewery for guests to enjoy, she hung thick drapes over the bay windows to keep it warm inside.
BRUSSELS - European Union leaders offered a united chorus of "No" on Wednesday to Britain's belated bid to negotiate changes to the Brexit divorce deal, with one official calling on British lawmakers to stop bickering and work out a cross-party approach.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt arrives for a Brexit Steering Group meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday Jan. 30, 2019. British Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday won a few weeks to salvage a Brexit deal but headed toward a clash with the European Union by promising to overhaul the divorce agreement she spent a year and a half negotiating with the bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

BRUSSELS - European Union leaders offered a united chorus of "No" on Wednesday to Britain's belated bid to negotiate changes to the Brexit divorce deal, with one official calling on British lawmakers to stop bickering and work out a cross-party approach.

In London, Prime Minister Theresa May acknowledged that her government hasn't decided exactly how it will try to change the deal to address British lawmakers' concerns about the Irish border.

All this while Britain is headed for the EU exit in less than two months, on March 29.

"We are, quite simply, running out of road," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.

Buoyed by winning a vote in Parliament, May has vowed to secure "legally binding changes" to the withdrawal agreement. British lawmakers voted Tuesday to send May back to Brussels seeking to replace an Irish border provision in the deal with "alternative arrangements," ignoring EU warnings that the agreement can't be altered.

But EU leaders saw the House of Commons session in a very different light.

Jean-Claude Juncker, chief of EU executive arm the European Commission, said Tuesday's vote "has increased the risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom" from the EU.

In this grab taken from video, Britain's Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn listens, during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, London, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. (PA via AP)

"The withdrawal agreement will not be renegotiated," he said.

Other EU governments backed that stance, leaving little room for May to realistically secure any changes to the Brexit deal.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that "we've been down that track before and I don't believe that such alternative arrangements exist." German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said "opening up the withdrawal agreement is not on the agenda."

Britain and the EU struck a divorce deal in November after a year and a half of tense negotiations. But the agreement has run aground in Britain's Parliament, which overwhelmingly rejected it on Jan. 15.

Much of the opposition centres on a border measure known as the "backstop," a safeguard mechanism would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU to remove the need for checks along the border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.

The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible border underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland's peace process.

Many pro-Brexit British lawmakers fear the backstop will trap Britain in regulatory lockstep with the EU, and say they won't vote for May's deal unless it is removed.

May was speaking to Ireland's Varadkar and European Council President Donald Tusk on Wednesday, and met opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to find elusive cross-party unity on Brexit.

EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker addresses members of European Parliament on Brexit during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday Jan. 30, 2019. Leaders across the European Union offered a united chorus of "No" on Wednesday to Britain's belated bid to negotiate changes to the Brexit divorce deal so Prime Minister Theresa May can win the backing of her Parliament. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

May conceded that her government hadn't settled on a way to replace the backstop, telling lawmakers that "there are a number of proposals for how that could be done." May said measures under consideration included a unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop for Britain, a time limit to the backstop and "mutual recognition and trusted trader schemes."

The EU says the backstop is an insurance policy and as such can't have a time limit or a get-out clause.

Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said that "frankly, no one from either side is able to say precisely, in a clear way, what the nature of these alternative arrangements would be, whether they would be workable and effectively fulfil the aims of the backstop."

The EU parliament's point-man on Brexit, Guy Verhofstadt, underlined that nobody in Europe wanted to use the backstop, but that it's "needed to be 100 per cent sure that there is no border between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic."

Verhofstadt said the only way for May to win concessions would be to back away from her long-held stance that Britain would not remain part of the EU's customs union after Brexit.

"If the future relationship is, for example, a customs union, that makes it completely different," Verhofstadt told reporters.

Corbyn, who heads Britain's left-wing main opposition party, said he "set out the Labour case for a comprehensive customs union with the European Union" during talks with May.

He called the talks "serious" but accused the government of "running down the clock" to force lawmakers to choose between May's deal and a "no-deal" Brexit in March 29.

Verhofstadt called for a cross-party approach in Britain, saying he hoped the meeting between the Conservative and Labour leaders will yield something more than "only eating biscuits and drinking tea."

If they start working together, he said, "it could be the solution to this problem."

Many businesses fear economic chaos will ensue if the U.K. isn't covered by existing EU trade agreements or a new agreement, leading to tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the U.K. and the EU.

British lawmakers approved a motion Tuesday ruling out a "no-deal" Brexit but without saying how they expect that goal to be achieved. The vote was not legally binding, but has political force as an expression of the will of Parliament.

Juncker called on British lawmakers to make clear what they want.

"We know from yesterday's debate that the House of Commons is against many things," Juncker said. "It is against a no-deal Brexit, it is against a backstop.

"But we still don't know what exactly the House of Commons is for."

Jill Lawless reported from London. Lorne Cook contributed from Brussels.

Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit
Les and Xing Redelinghuys are very much hands-on when it comes to their new business.

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Les and Xing Redelinghuys are very much hands-on when it comes to their new business.



The couple owns and operates the new Africa Art & Home Decor SA Protea shop, which is located at 6-741 St. Marys Rd. It officially opened its doors on Jan. 18.

SIMON FULLER Xing (left) and Les Redelinghuys are pictured on the eve of opening their new store at 6-741 St. Mary's Rd. In the foreground are proteas, which feature in the name of the store. (SIMON FULLER/CANSTAR NEWS/THE LANCE)



"Were hands-on owners, and well be here to talk to people and give advice about what our pieces mean and how theyre made," Les said, noting the couple immigrated to Canada in December 2017.



Whether its a voodoo mask from Ghana, a hand-woven basket from Zimbabwe, a hand-crafted deer head from Burma, a wooden beetle from South Africa, a water buffalo from Chad, or one of numerous ancient fertility symbols  to name but a few items  there should be an imported piece to suit many tastes at the new southeast Winnipeg store.



"Ive always liked art, and we have lots of cool stuff," said Les, who is a native of South Africa. "We appreciate things that are well made, and we appreciate the feel of things. Part of the beauty of the items that we sell is that theyre all original pieces, and not off the production line. Lots of our items were probably made using only a chisel and a hammer."

SIMON FULLER The new Africa Art & Home Decor SA Protea shop is located at 6-741 St. Marys Rd. in St. Vital. (SIMON FULLER/CANSTAR NEWS/THE LANCE)



Xing, who hails from China, is inviting community members to come and check out the new store to get a sense of the environment the St. Norbert-based couple is creating.



"Were hoping Winnipeggers will enjoy this and come along and appreciate the experience, even if they dont buy anything. Were inviting them to come and have a look and see whats its all about We think some of our items are museum collection standard," Xing said.



The shop is based in the former space where Into the Blue was located. The saltwater ecosystem supplier has moved to a new location at 156 St. Annes Rd. "We like this location. The parking is good, and its a high-visibility street," Les said.



For the first two or three months, Africa Art & Home Decor SA Protea shop will be open on Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.



Les said the protea is the national flower of South Africa, which represents change and hope in local tradition.



Email lesred@yahoo.com or call 431-998-8588 for more information.
Many of the close to 90 per cent of Canadians who subscribe to home internet plans will begin to see their monthly bills go up next month by, it appears, $2 to $9 a month.

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This article was published 30/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Many of the close to 90 per cent of Canadians who subscribe to home internet plans will begin to see their monthly bills go up next month by, it appears, $2 to $9 a month.

It could be more, and if youre on a locked-in plan, you might not feel the impact right away. But you will feel it eventually.

Some of it will be just because costs the companies incur  wages, employment premiums, carbon taxes, etc.  have to be passed along to subscribers if companies are going to maintain or attain the profit levels they require.

Another factor, not insignificant, is that companies continue to pour billions of dollars into expanding and upgrading their networks to meet Canadians voracious demand for high-speed, high-quality internet.

According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), average monthly high-speed data use increased 30 per cent from 2016 to 2017.

Bell, according to a recent CBC report, is dealing with a 500 per cent increase in internet usage by its subscribers over the past five years. Internet, according to the CRTC report, is by far the fastest-growing communications vehicle in Canada  as it has been for many years.

So, in a way, it all makes sense: if you use more of something, youll wind up paying more for it, right?

Well, maybe not. Some people, like yours truly, consume data as if it was among the necessities of life. Others watch a couple of Netflix shows a month and send a few emails. There are plans designed for all levels of usage, but it is and always has been the high-volume users who drive the growth in the industry.

These increases will lead to another round of demands for governments and the CRTC  which appears to have reinvented itself as some form of consumer affairs bureau  to "do something" about these increases. Appeals will be made on behalf of those on fixed incomes and on the downside of lifes advantages for mandated low-cost plans. It will be pointed out that school children now require internet access to do basic homework and the cost of those subscriptions should be covered by provincial welfare agencies.

Companies will seek to address these issues.

The CRTC will proceed with its heavily boycotted plan to introduce a code of conduct for internet providers. It will probably appear very snazzy, but will have no ability to punish violators in a meaningful way. It also risks creating a number of new obligations that will just result in  you guessed it  higher costs for the providers that they will pass along to consumers.

But what no one is likely to address is the fact that one of the major reasons Canadians pay high rates for their telecommunications services is that it maintains a big, beautiful wall designed to keep what I can only assume people believe to be untrustworthy foreigners out of the country.

The reasons for this are historic, and likely made sense at the time. But the fact remains that while Canadians may view themselves as cultural globalists who embrace diversity as a strength, when it comes to broadcasting and telecommunications and the desire to keep closed borders, were not all that different from how so many of us view U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has noted for years that Canada is among the worlds leaders when it comes to restrictive foreign ownership rules.

We have rules "in telecoms and broadcasting... intended to support Canadian cultural objectives but which also reduce competitive pressures," the OECD said in its 2016 report. It also pointed out that greater competition could increase the quality of networks and reduce costs to consumers.

There are plenty of other domestic barriers to competition that could  and hopefully will be  addressed by the government or the CRTC if Canadians dont want their wall breached.

But at the end of the day, the answer to your high telecom and internet bills will only be addressed through more competition and not by a heavier hand from the regulator.

Peter Menzies is a former newspaper publisher who also served as vice-chairman of the CRTC.

 Troy Media
Canadian Premium Sand, a publicly traded Canadian company, is proposing to operate a frac sand mine and processing facility adjacent to the community of Hollow Water First Nation, about 200 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

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This article was published 30/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Canadian Premium Sand, a publicly traded Canadian company, is proposing to operate a frac sand mine and processing facility adjacent to the community of Hollow Water First Nation, about 200 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

When fully operational, it will be the largest open-pit frac sand mine in Canada, providing cheap and highly sought after silica sand used in the fracking process by the oil and gas industry.

Before it can begin operating, the company must first receive an environmental licence from the government of Manitoba.

The first step in the environmental licence approval process is the submission of an Environmental Act Proposal (EAP) by the company to the province. The company has now submitted its EAP, which is available for review. As part of the EAP, the company must provide details of its operations.

What has been learned from Canadian Premium Sands EAP submission should be cause for real concern for those who enjoy the summer months at their cottages, or for those who simply hop in the car and make the hour-and-a-half drive from Winnipeg to enjoy the numerous beaches the east side of Lake Winnipeg has to offer, such as Grand Beach.

In addition, it will be a concern for those living, recreating or commuting to Pine Falls, Little Black River, Hollow Water, Seymourville and Manigotagan, and for cottagers whose properties are located in this region of Manitoba and who travel on Highway 304.

As for those who own cottages in communities such as Patricia Beach, Beaconia, Grand Beach, Lester Beach, Belair, Hillside Beach, Albert Beach, Traverse Bay and Victoria Beach, who number in the tens of thousands, they know very well that travelling back and forth to the cottage, especially on weekends, is a daunting task, as Highway 59 is a steady stream of traffic heading to and from the east beaches.

That drive will get a lot worse, and certainly more hazardous. Why, you ask? Well, in order for the company to get its frac sand to market, it needs to transport it by trucks to Winnipeg, where it will be loaded onto trains to be transported to North American markets.

The route these frac sand trucks will take to Winnipeg will be Highway 304 south from the mine location, a two-lane, undivided road, until it meets Highway 59, south of Grand Beach. These trucks will then continue south on Highway 59, which is also undivided until south of the South Beach Casino, located in Brokenhead, at which point, Highway 59 turns into a divided four-lane highway to Winnipeg.

From the information contained in the EAP submission, we now know approximately 120 truckloads will be moved daily, 365 days a year, to meet the companys initial target of delivering one million tonnes of frac sand to market.

In year 3, however, the company wants to ramp up its yearly production target to two million tonnes a year, as revealed in the Preliminary Economic Assessment report, which is not part of the companys EAP submission.

This would mean that, at minimum, the company would need 240 truckloads a day, year-round, to meets its yearly production target. These numbers reflect only one-way trips, not round-trip figures.

In fact, it could be even more truckloads per day if the government does not lift road weight restrictions in order to allow the company to use trucks with dual trailers to transport the frac sand to Winnipeg.

What we dont know is what this is going to cost taxpayers, as all of this additional truck traffic, 24-7 every week of the year, is most certainly going to put additional financial strains on the community  on first responders, who will have to deal with additional accidents, and also on our health-care system. It will also place additional pressures on our public auto insurance system, and will most certainly increase highway and road infrastructure costs.

These costs will be borne by the taxpayers, not by the company. So far, the province of Manitoba has been silent, and perhaps has not yet even calculated these costs.

So buckle up, folks  were in for the ride of our lives.

Don Sullivan is a landscape photographer, former director of the Boreal Forest Network and served as special adviser to the government of Manitoba on the Pimachiowin Aki UNESCO World Heritage site portfolio. He is a research affiliate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba and a Queen Golden Jubilee medal recipient.
A senior official with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says it's not management's "intention"' to shuffle home care workers and health-care aides around willy-nilly once bargaining units are rationalized.

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A senior official with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says it's not management's "intention"' to shuffle home care workers and health-care aides around willy-nilly once bargaining units are rationalized.

Lori Lamont, WRHA chief operating officer, said staff could find it easier to change roles under the new system, but the changes are not being carried out to force employees to take on roles with which they are uncomfortable.

Last week, the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union sounded the alarm that creating one large bargaining unit for all city health-care aides and home care workers could lead to workers being moved to facility from facility and to home care from institutions and vice versa.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen denied the assertion, and a rival union accused the MGEU of fearmongering.

The Pallister government has passed legislation to allow for the forced reduction of health-care bargaining units in Manitoba to about 40 from 180. Within the WRHA, the number will fall to seven from 85. That will necessitate a number of run-off votes between various unions who now represent workers in the same categories.

On Tuesday, the WRHA called a news conference to express support for the rationalization effort, saying it will improve administrative efficiency and make it easier for management to speak with bargaining representatives about issues.

Lamont also tried to lay to rest concerns, raised by the MGEU, that placing all health-care aides and home care workers in the same bargaining unit would lead to a constant shift of workers in and out of roles or workplaces.

"It's not our intention to arbitrarily move staff between workplaces and work environments," she said.

"We would never ask an employee to move into an unfamiliar place to provide care in any circumstance. And if the system were changing and people needed to move, we would be doing that with training and orientation."

However, Lamont noted home care workers and health-care aides undergo similar training and have similar skills. And she said, in existing agreements, management reserves the right to shift personnel around to deal with staff shortages in an emergency.

The MGEU was dissatisfied with the explanation.

"Today, the WRHA failed to provide any meaningful reassurance to health-care workers" that employer flexibility wasn't the government's true goal in rationalizing health bargaining units, said Sheila Gordon, MGEU director of negotiations.

Instead, it simply said "health-care workers should just trust them," she said.

Gordon said management has less ability to move workers around now because bargaining units are relatively small and site-specific.

When the MGEU raised its initial concerns last week, one of its biggest competitors for members in the upcoming representational votes -- the Canadian Union of Public Employees -- accused it of lying and needlessly frightening health-care workers.

On Tuesday, CUPE said it appears the WRHA is also concerned employees are becoming fearful because of its rival's actions.

"It sounds like the employer has been hearing the same concerns and the same fears that CUPE has. And so it's good that the employer has also been able to clarify and reassure people," CUPE national representative Liz Carlyle said.

Carlyle said should CUPE win the representation vote in the community support workers sector (covering home care workers, health-care aides and others) it would ensure in contract negotiations employees are protected from being forced to relocate.

"People need certainty that the job they apply for is the job they have," she said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
If it talks like a lawyer, writes legal briefs like a lawyer, and acts like a lawyer, it probably is a lawyer, according to a judicial justice of the peace and the Crown.

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This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it talks like a lawyer, writes legal briefs like a lawyer, and acts like a lawyer, it probably is a lawyer, according to a judicial justice of the peace and the Crown.

However, a driver advocacy organization believes that's not true -- and anyone can be enlisted to help fight a photo radar speeding ticket.

In traffic court Tuesday, Judicial Justice of the Peace Nettie Cuthbert-Buchanan agreed with the Crown's motion to not allow Christian Sweryda, a second-year law student at the University of Manitoba, to act for a company charged under the Highway Traffic Act for two of its vehicles speeding through photo radar zones.

"I am barring Mr. Sweryda from acting as a representative in this matter," Cuthbert-Buchanan said.

"He is acting as a lawyer... (the) standards are put in place to protect the public... Mr. Sweryda's actions are the practice of law."

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Todd Dube, founder of Wise Up Winnipeg (left) and Keith MacCharles, who is fighting two radar tickets, in front of the traffic courts in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

Cuthbert-Buchanan said she was using a section in the provincial offences act which states a justice "may bar a person from appearing as a representative if the justice finds that the person is not able to properly represent or advise the person for whom they appear."

The stance was challenged by Todd Dube, founder of Wise Up Winnipeg.

On the back of a traffic ticket, under the heading Authorization to Appear or Act, it states a person charged with the offence can "act personally or by representative in any proceeding. To authorize another person to appear or act on your behalf, you must provide him/her with your written authorization to present to the court."

"The legal process abuses, that we've seen in traffic court over the years by the Crown and the judicial justice of the peaces, has been alarming," Dube said after court.

"What we saw here (Tuesday) was the preference of both those parties to keep informed people out of their courtroom. The legal errors we saw (Tuesday) will easily be overturned on appeal," he said. "Traffic court in Manitoba requires an independent inquiry."

The traffic ticket court case itself involves two speeding tickets handed out after company vehicles passed photo radar vehicles last year. The matter has been put over until March.

Keith MacCharles, owner of Airmaster Signs, said he is fighting the tickets and wanted Sweryda, a friend of his family, to help him.

"The legal process abuses, that we've seen in traffic court over the years by the Crown and the judicial justice of the peaces, has been alarming"  Todd Dube

"I'm fighting it because they seem to be more concerned about me getting a ticket than with getting me to slow down," MacCharles said after court. "They could easily put signs up or traffic calming devices, but they don't because they want to give out tickets."

Earlier, the court was told that, for months, Sweryda has appeared for numerous people charged with photo radar violations and has written legal briefs used in the matters.

Crown attorney Amanda Cheys said prosecutors became increasingly concerned, as while the back of the ticket states people charged can get others to help in court, it does not allow people who are not lawyers "free rein as a lawyer without the protections put in place for lawyers."

The court was told the province addressed the matter several years ago, when it allowed businesses such as POINTTS and Traffic Ticket Experts to represent people, as long as they registered and bonded.

Cheys said it is the Crown's view allowing someone to represent a person in traffic court was intended for a relative or friend to come if there were language difficulties or if they needed emotional support.

Sweryda disagreed and said the Crown didn't have any problems with him representing people until he won a charter motion last year.

"(Since) then, they have fought to have me removed," he said. "To put it bluntly, it is opponent shopping."

Sweryda said he represents people he knows, and doesn't get paid to for his time in traffic court

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
The Tory government and physicians responsible for delivering critical air ambulance services are locked in a bitter battle over the provinces proposal to privatize Lifeflight, jeopardizing the service for Manitobans in rural and northern areas.

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The Tory government and physicians responsible for delivering critical air ambulance services are locked in a bitter battle over the provinces proposal to privatize Lifeflight, jeopardizing the service for Manitobans in rural and northern areas.

Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler seemed poised for another round Friday, when he penned a 647-word column about "building a better, safer air ambulance service for northern Manitoba," and sent it to local print media outlets for publication.

In the op-ed, Schuler defended the provinces decision to issue a request for proposal last year, seeking out bids to privatize government air services, including Lifeflight.

"In short, were attempting to build a better, safer service for patients that delivers more for taxpayers hard-earned money. If the private sector cant provide an option that improves upon the current model, we wont move forward," he wrote.

A government press secretary declined multiple requests to interview the minister about the column, noting "the op-ed speaks for itself."

'Physicians do not wish to play partisan games. They care about saving lives'  Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Shannon Prud'homme

Schuler also wrote Lifeflight air ambulances leadership "continues to issue new conditions and threatens to withhold services."

"We have met with these physicians a number of times and weve addressed their key issues, hiring two new pilots and accelerating scheduled maintenance of one of the provinces jets as a demonstration of our intent to keep the program strong while the RFP process continues into the spring," he said.

The PC caucus published Schulers letter on its website Tuesday, the same day as the Winnipeg Sun.

The Free Press did not use the column. As a general rule, the newspaper does not publish opinion pieces from elected officials, though occasional exceptions are made, perspectives editor Brad Oswald said.

In a three-page letter addressed Tuesday to Schuler, Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Shannon Prudhomme, who represents the 16 Lifeflight physicians, addressed the ministers comments. She said two new Lifeflight pilots have not been hired yet, nor has the aircraft in question been sent for repairs.

"I wish to make it clear that no physician has withheld service or taken job action," Prudhomme wrote in her letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Free Press.

"The reality is that the Lifeflight program lacks critical resources regardless of physician availability. For example, we understand almost 30 shifts in February do not have a pilot. Trying to fill a schedule in such an uncertain environment beyond a few days when it is riddled with gaps in pilot and plane availability is concerning."

Prudhomme outlined multiple safety concerns reported by the air ambulance crew, and criticized both Schuler and Health Minister Cameron Friesen, who has also handled the Lifeflight file.

"The lack of pilots to fly the Citation jet, the unsafe and ill-equipped backup, basic carrier, the uncertainty surrounding the Lifeflights future and now two government ministers impugning physicians, have all combined to place a measurable chill on the ability to retain and recruit physicians and other professionals to Lifeflight," she wrote.

"Physicians do not wish to play partisan games. They care about saving lives."

In his column, Schuler also alleged the provincial NDP, "the same party who oversaw the initial rise in Lifeflights use of private carriers in the first place," was "fearmongering about safety issues, with help from their public-sector unions."

Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew fired back Tuesday.

"This poorly written letter is just a messaging exercise because the government is not listening to the experts, who are doctors, in this case. They know whats best and theyre telling this government pretty clearly what needs to happen," he said in an interview.

"Wed take it a step further and just say that the government should back off entirely from the RFP process. Government shouldnt privatize air ambulances."

On Monday, Friesen fielded questions about why the RFP for Lifeflight has been dragging on since March.

In December, the government made a decision about its wildfire-suppression services, which were part of the same RFP. It privatized the provincial water bombers through a contract with Babcock Canada.

"This is complex work and that means that even after we have received all bids that are coming in, that adjudication process is very considerable because these are some big numbers and we have to make sure we get the numbers right," Friesen said.

"But when that process is finished, then we will have updates from Manitobans about where we go from here."

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbu
Roasted 898 squash. Photo: Scott Heins

Yesterday afternoon in Red Hook, Christian Puglisi, who runs Relae in Copenhagen, was vigorously stirring elderflower vinegar and beet juice into oversized bowls of gently cooked egg yolks. He was in a makeshift kitchen that had been set up within Pioneer Works, and he was just one member of a full brigade of renowned culinary talent. Daniela Soto-Innes, of Cosme and Atla, chatted with Alex Stupak and Austrias Heinz Reitbauer while finishing a dish of nixtamalized barley. Bostons Ana Sortun and Jean-Georges Vongerichten examined the final prep for their dishes (red-lentil kofte and beets in the style of steak tartare, respectively) at neighboring stations. Meanwhile, Dan Kluger carefully arranged a plate of roasted carrots coated with oats. The chefs various sous-chefs and cooks filled out this platoon of hardcore cooking pros, who would spend the night cooking for several hundred guests.

The occasion was a dinner, hosted by Dan Barber, to celebrate Row 7, the seed company that he and several partners launched last year, which aims to connect farmers, chefs, and breeders to create a collection of vegetables that appeal specifically to chefs: miniature squashes with super-packed flavor, vibrant purple snow peas, habanero peppers with all of the flavor and none of the heat.

To browse Row 7s sales site is to see fruits and vegetables elevated to the level of lust-worthy tech products: The Centercut squash is a new chapter for the heirloom tromboncino, created when Row 7s Michael Mazourek set off to upgrade its flavor. The 7082 cucumber is an experimental green slicer that explores the bold and complex flavors long forgotten in cucumbers. The entire company is grounded in the notion that deliciousness might just change the world.

We use the iPhone analogy pretty often, says Charlotte Douglas, Row 7s chief operating officer. What if you could create excitement around the evolution of vegetables the same way you can around the iPhone?

Upstate Abundance Potatoes in beeswax, prepared by chef Heinz Reitbauer; Daniel Humms Koginut squash with morcilla, quinoa, and apples; Habanada peppers contain all of the flavor, and none of the heat, of habaneros. Scott Heins. Upstate Abundance Potatoes in beeswax, prepared by chef Heinz Reitbauer; Daniel Humms Koginut squash with morcilla, quinoa, and apples; Habanada pepp... more Upstate Abundance Potatoes in beeswax, prepared by chef Heinz Reitbauer; Daniel Humms Koginut squash with morcilla, quinoa, and apples; Habanada peppers contain all of the flavor, and none of the heat, of habaneros. Scott Heins.

If there is a single product that has come to symbolize Row 7s business, it is the Honeynut squash, a miniature butternut that Barber and Mazourek designed to taste better and  lets be honest  look cuter. In the last few years, it has made waves and, for the kinds of people who get excited about squash, it is, admittedly, a very cool squash. Its also a very delicate squash, and the people who grow it have discovered that it doesnt store as well as traditional varieties. If you cant store, Barber says, forget it.

So Row 7 designed an upgrade: the 898, a longer-storing, even-more-mini butternut packed with flavor and nutrition. Its the squash equivalent of an iPhone made with extra-durable glass: Its the same product, but sturdier. And it will keep evolving: We continue to update, Barber explains. We arent carrying it like an heirloom variety to the next generation  were trying to iterate.

For chefs, the idea of essentially customizing plants can be revelatory. For one thing, it offers the promise of something like a perfect ingredient. If its done for the sake of flavor and nutrition, were doing everyone a favor, says Sortun, who runs a collection of restaurants around Boston. She says she first saw the promise of bespoke breeding when Mazourek was able to create a version of her favorite pumpkin  the Long Island cheese pumpkin  that was easier to work with. Its the most delicious pumpkin, she says, but its also huge, and, you cant carry a big pumpkin from the farmers market. What she proposed was a new pumpkin that would taste the same, on a smaller scale. So Mazourek grew them. Literally nine months later, Sortun says, he sends me miniature Long Island cheese pumpkins in the mail.

On-demand vegetable varieties also give chefs a chance to approach ingredients they might have used tens of thousands of times before, and reimagine the attributes they can highlight in a given dish. Take, for example, the so-called Badger Flame beets, which, according to Row 7, contain all the vegetal sweetness of the beet, without the polarizing earthiness. Suddenly, a chef can amplify a beets rawness, the very quality they usually want to mask. Chef Puglisis solution at the Row 7 dinner was spiralized raw-beet noodles (like zoodles, but beets) finished with that elderflower-spiked egg-yolk sauce. The effect of the elderflower vinegar was undeniable, drawing out bright floral notes in the beet that would have been severely diminished by cooking.

Badger-flame beet noodles with elderflower and egg yolk. Photo: Scott Heins

Of course, getting chefs excited to cook with cutting-edge ingredients is just a first step toward the real goal of this seed start-up, which is to make farmers excited to grow these cutting-edge ingredients. We want to show these growers theres going to be an end-user and demand, Douglas says. Otherwise there will be no incentive to change their practices.

Farmers, as you might guess, agree. I wouldnt just believe someone to say, This is really popular in New York, so we should grow it, says Malaika Spencer, the owner of Roots to River Farm in the Delaware Valley. Because everything is perishable, I need to know theres a place for it in what we do. She says the most likely scenario for adding a new crop to her farm is that a chef would get in touch to see about growing a specific ingredient, and she would plant a small trial to see (a) if the chefs  and other customers  actually bought it, and (b) if her farm could grow it well. Things like the Honeynut are great, but you dont know how its going to grow, she says. Sometimes things sound really good, but it might not taste good if its grown on your farm. Any new product also, of course, has to move. Im not going to go through the process of adding an entirely new crop, Spencer notes, if a chef is only going to buy five bunches a week. As an organic farmer, Spencer says the killer features she looks for arent just vivid color or super-concentrated flavor, but also qualities like yield and disease resistance.

Which is what Barber wants to offer, too. When Row 7 develops new varieties, they first look for those qualities in their field trials, then test and select among that population for flavor. All told, it can take eight years to successfully develop, say, a new squash variety, but Barber notes that technology allows breeders to move much more quickly than they would have even a generation ago. Its still a long conversation, Barber says, but comparatively, its a nanosecond.

And so, the back-and-forth between Row 7s target markets simply goes on. Ultimately, Barber says, were hoping that the chefs will drive this conversation with the breeders themselves, based on where they are, and their interest in a particular color or flavor. [] Then you get not just the whim of the chef, but also the cultural imprint from a particular region that a chef represents and can add into her cooking.

Last year, Barber adds, we were just trying to explain what the hell this company is. Now, the goal has shifted a bit: Were trying to deepen the context for the seeds, and this conversation between breeders and the chefs.
BRANDON  It took nearly eight decades, but a Canadian soldiers family has reconnected with the abandoned infant he found in an English field 77 years ago.

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This article was published 30/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Royal Canadian Artillery members Ernest (Ernie) Curtis, Bob Griffin and A.J. Bracket pictured with baby Mary Crabb. (Submitted)

BRANDON  It took nearly eight decades, but a Canadian soldiers family has reconnected with the abandoned infant he found in an English field 77 years ago.

Mary Crabb, from Hertfordshire, England, only learned of the "miraculous" intervention of the soldiers who saved her less than a month ago. However, the story is a thing of legend in the Brandon family of Ernest (Ernie) Curtis.

Growing up with the story of a newborn baby girl her grandfather found in a field in England during the Second World War, Jodi Douglas said she and her family often wondered what became of the infant.

Friday, they finally had the opportunity to talk.

"Its incredible," Crabb said by phone Tuesday. "I still cant believe it. I have to pinch myself sometimes."

Royal Canadian Artillery Sgt. Ernie Curtis, along with gunners Bob Griffin and A.J. Brackett, both from Regina, discovered the baby abandoned in a field on a cold September morning in 1941.

"They heard this squawking and they thought it was an animal, and when they went there, it was a baby," Curtiss wife, Winelda, said.

Doctors estimated she could not have been more than two hours old. She was found hidden in some bushes in Horsell Common, an open park about 45 kilometres west of London.

"(Curtis) was the first one to hold me when I was born," Crabb said. "That really does put a chill down my spine."

The infant was still covered in afterbirth, with the placenta attached. Thinking quickly, Curtis cut the umbilical cord, leaving it long in case of infection so it could be recut if needed. (Doctors would later ask him how he knew how to do so, and he credited his experience as a farm boy from Alexander, 25 km west of Brandon.)

Wrapping her in clean underwear he was carrying in his pack, Curtis and the two gunners transported the baby in an army truck to the nearest hospital. Doctors were unsure if the tiny infant would live, as she was so cold she was turning blue.

Offering further support, the three soldiers and their regiment donated one days pay to the baby, Winelda said.

Crabbs biological mother was later found, discovered after she passed out that same day milking cows. The father was reportedly married, with three other children.

Crabb never met her biological parents and was instead placed with her grandmother, who assured the soldiers she would be treated well. However, about five months later, the baby was put up for adoption.

"As far as (Curtis) knew, he thought the grandmother was looking after her," Winelda said.

Curtis came home after the war and never returned to England, but he never forgot. Inquires in the 1960s went nowhere, due to confidentiality issues.

"Ernie just wanted to know that she was all right and what had happened to her," Winelda said.

Curtis died Sept. 7, 1995, at 85.

The family has a scrapbook that contains journal entries, newspaper clippings and a photo of the three soldiers and the baby. Crabb said she only recently learned the names of the soldiers who saved her.

The hunt for her rescuers was launched when her nephew found a photo on the internet from a 1941 newspaper announcing Crabbs birth and the names of the soldiers involved.

Crabbs family (she has a daughter in New Zealand and a son in the U.S.) went to work, reading through obituaries from Canada, searching to find a connection to Brandon. They discovered an obituary for Curtiss son Ken, which named his daughter from Brandon, Alissa Reid.

Via email, Reid pointed Crabb to the Curtis family. At the same time, the photo went viral online. Douglas came across a post on Facebook seeking to identify the three Canadians. She recognized her grandfather immediately.

"It was pretty cool when I saw the picture," Douglas said.

Winelda Curtis spoke with Crabb for the first time Friday  an emotional meeting nearly eight decades in the making. (Crabb also spoke with Curtiss son Harry, who lives in Ontario.)

"She is so happy to finally connect," Winelda said.

 Brandon Sun
City hall is asking Winnipeggers to help it develop a policy to deal with the monuments and place names established for historical figures once considered founding fathers but now seen through a modern lens as racists, scoundrels, con men and murderers.

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This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City hall is asking Winnipeggers to help it develop a policy to deal with the monuments and place names established for historical figures once considered founding fathers but now seen through a modern lens as racists, scoundrels, con men and murderers.

Mayor Brian Bowman held a news conference at city hall Tuesday to announce Welcoming Winnipeg, a local initiative to reconsider such markers in their proper historical context and in relation to how those historical figures dealt with the local Indigenous people.

Mayor Brian Bowman announces a new initiative towards reconciliation as Kimberley Puhach of the Mayors Indigenous Advisory Circle listens. (Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press)

"I dont think (for) the majority of Winnipeggers out there right now, this is their No. 1 priority, but for those whose families have been affected by some of the harms that Canada has caused to its Indigenous people, it matters a lot," Bowman, who identifies as Metis, said during a noon-hour news conference.

The efforts by communities to deal with historical figures has become a hot topic issue across both Canada and the United States. Several southern U.S. communities have been bitterly divided over efforts to remove statues honouring those seen by some as Confederate heroes.

Historical re-evaluations Several historical individuals were singled out Tuesday by Mayor Brian Bowman, who said their place in Winnipegs history needs to be re-evaluated. These historical figures were complicated men. I can understand why their reputations and actions are viewed so differently by people engaged in this discussion." click to read more Several historical individuals were singled out Tuesday by Mayor Brian Bowman, who said their place in Winnipegs history needs to be re-evaluated. These historical figures were complicated men. I can understand why their reputations and actions are viewed so differently by people engaged in this discussion  Garnet Joseph Wolseley, commander of the Red River Expeditionary Force in 1870 to establish Canadian sovereignty in Manitoba and what was then the Northwest Territories. Commemorated in Winnipeg with Wolseley Avenue, Wolseley School and the Wolseley neighbourhood.  Vital-Justin Grandin, a Roman Catholic bishop on the Prairies, who was canonized in 1966. Supporter of Metis rights, but also played leading role in the federal governments construction of residential schools. Commemorated with Bishop Grandin Boulevard, and St. Vital and St. Vital Shopping Centre.  Edgar Dewdney, Indian commissioner and lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Territories. His policies included withholding food rations from Indigenous people to force them to settle on reserves. Commemorated in Winnipeg with a street name in Point Douglas.  Donald Alexander Smith, first Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal. A British Empire businessman and philanthropist, co-founded the CPR, a governor of the Hudsons Bay Company. Bowman said Smith was frequently criticized for corruption. Commemorated in Winnipeg with Donald Street, Smith Street, and Strathcona Street. Welcoming Winnipeg What is it?  A two-month, public engagement initiative asking Winnipeggers what should be done with the historical monuments and place names which honour individuals whose actions in the past are often at odds with views of contemporary, progressive society; and, how to resolve the absence of Indigenous perspectives, experiences, and contributions to the community. Where to get information on the effort?  Visit winnipeg.ca/welcomingwinnipeg. How to share your opinion?  Complete an online survey at welcomingwinnnipeg.metroquest.ca. Close

The Wolseley neighbourhood, a street and school are named after Garnet Joseph Wolseley, commander of the Red River Expeditionary Force that suppressed the 1885 Riel uprising. (Ken Gigliotti / Winnipeg Free Press files)

In Canada, the City of Victoria removed the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, the country's first prime minister, from its city hall front steps in August 2018. Later that month, a statue of Macdonald was vandalized in Regina, with its hands painted red. In Montreal, a Macdonald statue was painted totally red in 2017.

Bowman said he doesnt know how Winnipeg should deal with these monuments and place names, but doesnt want the city to take any action without first consulting the community, adding the initiative is part of reconciliation efforts.

"What we're trying to do here is learn from what we've seen in other communities, where municipal governments have reacted to debates about single monuments or place names," he said.

Bowman referenced the monument on Main Street, across from city hall and tucked in between the concert hall the Manitoba Museum, that honours the 90th Rifles Battalion, later known as the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, for the role it played in defeating Louis Riel and putting down the 1885 Metis rebellion. It is believed to be the first war monument erected in Winnipeg.

The mayor described it as one "that honours the Dominion of Canadas premeditated, calculated, and deliberate suppression of its own people  the Metis, a group of people who today are recognized in our countrys constitution."

Bowman also cited the names of several historical figures such as Donald Alexander Smith, Garnet Joseph Wolseley, Vital-Justin Grandin and Edgar Dewdney, whom many of the citys streets and neighbourhoods are named after.

"For some, the names and monuments disproportionately represents aspects of our shared history that make many in our community feel marginalized and forgotten," the mayor said. "For others, the names and monuments celebrate progress, the development of a nation and a history they know, understand and are familiar with."

Rhonda Forgues, the manager of city halls Indigenous relations division, said the public engagement process will involve an online survey and a panel event and discussion March 13 at the University of Winnipeg.

Forgues said the public engagement will end March 18. A report will be prepared for councils consideration at its June meeting.

Bowman said the two-month initiative will "reconcile the absence of Indigenous perspectives, experiences and contributions in the stories remembered and commemorated across our city. Its an engagement effort that will challenge Winnipeggers to examine our history and where it has led our city."

"It will challenge everyone to hear, to learn and to respect the views of all of our residents as we decide where our city is headed in the future," he said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
OTTAWA  A female Mountie has been appointed Manitoba's top cop, the Free Press has learned.

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This article was published 29/1/2019 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  A female Mountie has been appointed Manitoba's top cop, the Free Press has learned.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has named Chief Supt. Jane MacLatchy as commanding officer for D Division, which serves the province, as well as assistant commissioner.

MELINA BOUCHARD / TWITTER Chief Supt. Jane MacLatchy has been named commanding officer for D Division in Manitoba.

She is the first woman appointed to this role in the province. An archive search shows men leading Manitobas Mounties for at least the past two decades. The Mounties did not allow female officers until 1974.

MacLatchy will start the job Feb. 11, based out of Winnipeg.

She comes with three decades of RCMP experience that have ranged from high-level management to sensitive operations.

MacLatchy has been part of everything from ceremonial Mountie events to executive-diplomat protection teams and security for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Assitant Commissioner Scott Kolody served as commanding officer of the RCMP in Manitoba from June 2016 until his retirement Monday.

At one point, she was part of the RCMP branch that probes immigration, passport and war crimes. At another, she was the regional ethics officer, helping with training and enforcing the code of conduct.

Her latest assignment started in May 2017, when she headed security on Parliament Hill during the country's 150th birthday.

The Parliamentary Protective Service was only launched June 2015 to replace a patchwork of security forces on the Hill, after a gunman stormed Parliament in October 2014.

The fledgling police force had growing pains, with a years-long labour disputes, tensions between younger and older officers, and criticism over hours-long lines at Canada Day events.

MacLatchy will go from overseeing a team of roughly 600 employees on the Hill to one that includes almost 1,100 officers across 87 different detachments.

The RCMP looks after almost all policing outside of Winnipeg and Brandon, though some towns have their own forces. In addition to rural policing, Winnipeg-based officers are part of the national teams that probe terrorism, financial crimes and gang networks.

MacLatchys appointment comes at a time when the RCMP is still trying to stamp out harassment and bullying of women in the force.

In March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Brenda Lucki as the RCMP's first female commissioner.

A national survey the RCMP conducted last year found just 43 per cent of respondents thought the RCMP treat women fairly, while 41 per cent said the RCMP "is helping build a better future for Indigenous people"

Mounties are often paid less than police in major cities, and theyre often addressing a higher crime rate.

Last fall, MPs started hearings on why crime is becoming both more common and severe outside Canadas major cities. That discrepancy is worst in Manitoba, where the crime rate outside of the Winnipeg area is 42 per cent higher than in the city itself, according to Statistics Canada data released last spring.

On Tuesday, the speakers of both chambers of Parliament wrote that "MacLatchy has been instrumental in strengthening the physical security" around the Hill, and they thanked her for "exemplary service" in the job.

The RCMP said it could not immediately arrange an interview Tuesday.

Assitant Commissioner Scott Kolody served as commanding officer of the RCMP in Manitoba from June 2016 until his retirement Monday.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
LEWES, Del. - The Delaware artist who created the "Fearless Girl" statue is being sued by a group that says she failed to make a 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze replica of Alexander Hamilton.

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This article was published 29/1/2019 (873 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this March 27, 2017 file photo "Fearless Girl" statue creator Kristen Visbal, center, speaks after being recognized by U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, far right, during a news conference at City Hall in New York. Visbal is being sued by a group that says she failed to make a 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze replica of Alexander Hamilton. U.S. Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association's lawsuit says Kristen Visbal breached a $28,000 contract to create the statue. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

LEWES, Del. - The Delaware artist who created the "Fearless Girl" statue is being sued by a group that says she failed to make a 9-foot (2.7-meter) bronze replica of Alexander Hamilton.

The News Journal reports the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association's lawsuit says Kristen Visbal breached a $28,000 contract to create the statue.

The lawsuit says Visbal agreed in February 2017 to create a preliminary model of the Hamilton statue. That was around one month before "Fearless Girl" appeared a few blocks from the New York Stock Exchange, commissioned by an asset management firm to support greater female representation on corporate boards.

The lawsuit says Visbal never delivered. The association terminated its agreement last June, demanding a refund.

The suit seeks that refund and other fees.

Visbal didn't immediately respond to the newspaper's request for comment.

This story has been corrected to show location of "Fearless Girl" statue is a few blocks from the New York Stock Exchange.

Information from: The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., http://www.delawareonline.com


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Here are the details of how our tool worked and what Facebook has done:













A number of organizations, including ProPublica, have developed tools to let the public see exactly how Facebook users are being targeted by advertisers.Now, Facebook has quietly made changes to its site that stop those efforts.ProPublica, Mozilla and Who Targets Me have all noticed their tools stopped working this month after Facebook inserted code in its website that blocks them.This is very concerning, said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who has co-sponsored the Honest Ads Act , which would require transparency on Facebook ads. Investigative groups like ProPublica need access to this information in order to track and report on the opaque and frequently deceptive world of online advertising.For the past year and a half, ProPublica has been building a searchable database of political ads and the segments of the population advertisers are paying to reach. We did this by enlisting thousands of volunteers who installed a web browser extension. The tool shared the ads users see as well as Facebooks details on why the users were targeted.In a statement to ProPublica, Facebook said the change was meant to simply enforce its terms of service. (The Guardian also published a story Sunday flagging the change.)We regularly improve the ways we prevent unauthorized access by third parties like web browser plugins to keep peoples information safe, Facebook spokesperson Beth Gautier said. This was a routine update and applied to ad blocking and ad scraping plugins, which can expose peoples information to bad actors in ways they did not expect.Facebook has made minor tweaks before that broke our tool. But this time, Facebook blocked the ability to automatically pull ad targeting information.The latest move comes a few months after Facebook executives urged ProPublica to shut down its ad transparency project. In August, Facebook ads product management director Rob Leathern acknowledged ProPublicas project serves an important purpose. But he said, Were going to start enforcing on the existing terms of service that we have. He said Facebook would soon transition ProPublica away from its tool.Facebook has launched an archive of American political ads, which the company says is an alternative to ProPublicas tool. However, Facebooks ad archive is only available in three countries, fails to disclose important targeting data and doesnt even include all political ads run in the U.S.Our tool regularly caught political ads that arent reflected in Facebooks archive. Just this month, we noticed four groups running ads that havent been in Facebooks archive:After we contacted Facebook, the company canceled the ads and said it is investigating why these particular ads werent classified as political so we can learn and update our protocols.Journalists in other countries  including those with impending elections like Canada, Ukraine, Guatemala and Israel  currently have no way to track political ads or targeting information. Facebook announced Monday that it plans to expand its archive to those countries this year and will debut a global tool by the end of June.Facebooks archive doesnt disclose the targeting advertisers do by racial, ethnic, religious, partisan and other sensitive attributes. Some of those microtargeting categories have been used to affect the political process: For instance, Russian agents targeted many African-Americans during the 2016 election.In an email, Facebook said it doesnt plan to disclose sensitive targeting categories in its archive because doing so could expose peoples information. It didnt elaborate on how that might happen.The proposed Honest Ads Act, which is expected to be re-introduced in Congress this year, would require Facebook to publish a description of the audience targeted by the advertisement.Facebook has also developed another tool that it says will allow researchers to analyze political ads more easily. That tool, called an API, is in beta and restricted to a few participants, including ProPublica, who had to sign a nondisclosure agreement about the data it provided.One researcher with access said the API is not sufficient. It only allows searching by keyword, said Laura Edelson, a researcher at New York University who studies online political advertising. You can only find ads about things that you already know youre looking for, Edelson said. So any kind of emerging activity is potentially undiscoverable.What it all adds up to, said Knight First Amendment Institute senior attorney Alex Abdo, is we cannot trust Facebook to be the gatekeeper to the information the public needs about Facebook.All Facebook users can find details about how theyre being targeted by clicking through a series of options on the site. Our tool, the Political Ad Collector, automated the process. Every time one of our over 16,000 participants in crowdsourcing project scrolled past an ad like this one ...... our extension automatically captured the text and related picture. It also opened the ellipses on the top right of the ad, which leads to this menu:From there, it read the information contained in Why Am I Seeing This and copied that to the database as well:We have collected more than 100,000 political ads in this way. But Facebooks latest update blocks tools like ours from clicking on the Why Am I Seeing This menu.The company added code that prevents clicks generated by computers  including browser extensions  on just that one button. Web browsers make a distinction between a click generated by the computer and one generated by your mouse. Clicks from your mouse are marked  isTrusted  and those generated by computer code are not.Facebook pointed out that other options, besides seeing the explanation for an ads targeting, exist behind that menu, like the ability to hide an ad or report it.Facebooks site does not make such a distinction between user or computer-generated clicks on other behaviors that have been abused by bad actors. For example, it is still possible to automatically like a page, watch a video or click through on an ad  loopholes exploited by bots and misinformation campaigns attempting to gain credibility or turn a profit.When we asked Facebook why it does not use a similar filtering mechanism on other parts of the platform, it said it prevents bot-like behavior in other ways, including a collaboration with an effort to help take down an ad fraud ring.This is not the first time Facebook has changed its code in a way that has broken our tool. For example, all ads are supposed to contain the word sponsored as part of a mandatory disclosure, so users can distinguish between ads and their friends posts. Our tool recognized ads by searching for that word. Last year, Facebook added invisible letters to the HTML code of the site. So, to a computer, the word registered as  SpSonSsoSredS . Later, it also added an invisible Sponsored disclosure to posts from your friends. Many of the participants in our project noticed the effects of this change because it caused some menus to pop open unexpectedly or the page to scroll to the top repeatedly. Nowadays, the disclosure says SpSpSononSsosoSredredSSS. Some of these changes were likely also intended to thwart ad blockers.Here's what the change looks like in the JavaScript code The same new section of code that blocks our tool also sends a log event to Facebook, noting when an ad transparency tool is detected. Facebook says the change is meant to document what percent of the traffic was from plugins that identify content without our permission versus Facebook users checking [Why am I seeing this] manually."
More than 28 million Egyptians have been screened for hepatitis C and a number of chronic diseases as part of the states '100 Million Lives' campaign launched in October, the health minister said on Wednesday.

In press statements, Minister of Health Hala Zayed said a total of 15,423,00 citizens have been screened for the virus as of Wednesday as part of the campaigns second phase, which was launched on 30 November.

The second phase, which was launched on 30 November, covers and the governorates of Cairo, Beni Suef, Sohag, Menoufiya and Kafr El-Sheikh.

The number of those screened during both the first and the second phases totals 28.5 million citizens out of the country's 104 million population, making it the country's largest ever anti-hepatitis C campaign.

Meanwhile, Health Ministry Spokesman Khaled Megahed said that around 600,045 high school students have been screened in nine governorates as part if the campaign's first stage.

According to Megahed, over 1,900 people have been screened on the grounds of the Cairo International Book Fair at four screening units.

As of 2015, some 22 percent of Egypt's population had hepatitis C.

Over the past three years, Egypt has been using a variety of new medications to combat the virus, with a high success rate.

In 2016, the health ministry announced it had achieved a 96 percent cure rate of the disease nationwide.

The health ministry has vowed to completely eliminate the disease from Egypt by 2022.

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(TNS)  The Chicago elections board cant guarantee the integrity of voting results in the event of a natural disaster or cyberattack, the citys watchdog warned Tuesday in a highly critical report of the agencys operations.The wide-ranging audit by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson also concluded that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners does not post many job openings and has not conducted employee performance reviews in a at least 10 years. Ferguson said the board was warned a decade ago about many of the financial problems hes uncovered and failed to correct them.Its the technological vulnerabilities, however, that the inspector generals office found that could attract the most public attention. Governments have become increasingly concerned about computer hacks and the possibility of meddling in elections.In the 2016 presidential race, Russians hacked into the Illinois State Board of Elections voter registration database , and compromised the names, addresses, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers of about 76,000 voters, federal authorities and election officials have said.In Chicago, Ferguson found that the elections board does not have an emergency plan in place, has not inventoried its computer hardware and software, and has not conducted any audits or risk assessments during the past dozen years, leaving the outcome of city elections vulnerable to a computer hack or other catastrophe. He said the lack of a list of computer items could impede the election boards ability to recover from disruptions.Public faith in elections is essential to a healthy democracy, wrote Ferguson, who recommended that the agency create a detailed contingency plan and keep track of its computer hardware and software. Taxpayers in Chicago deserve assurance that the resources they devote to the election process are spent in a transparent and accountable way.In a written response to Fergusons findings, the elections board asserted it already has contingency plans in place for various emergency scenarios, including matters consulted with and agreed upon with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The board agreed to put those confidential plans in writing.The board also said it has begun an inventory of computer hardware and recently hired an elections information security officer that it shares with the county.Elections board spokesman Jim Allen accused Ferguson of engaging in scare tactics by releasing his report weeks before city voters go to the polls Feb. 26.The claim that the Chicago Election Board is not positioned to survive an attack is not only unfounded but highly alarmist,  Allen said.Allen said every precinct can function with paper ballots and paper poll books so that in the event of a disruption, voting could continue. Further, he said, voting equipment is designed and programmed to operate separately of computer systems running inside the boards main office.In other words, if the computer systems at the board were to go down on election day, it would not impact the ability of voters to cast ballots. Nor would it interfere with the ability of the election agency or the campaigns to verify the results later.The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which was created in the 1880s, conducts elections in the city, handles voter registrations and oversees political candidates for city office. The Cook County clerks office handles suburban election duties.The watchdogs report could renew talks about merging the county and city election boards into a single agency. In 2011, a committee looking into combining city and county government services estimated that merging the separate election boards could save up to $10 million a year. Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, revived the merger idea last summer when she called for merging the boards, which serve similar functions during election cycles.In 2016, the city elections board initially resisted Fergusons attempts to investigate it, even though the board receives the bulk of its money from the city, and its 118 full-time employees are on the citys payroll and receive the same benefits as city workers. That led to Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans  who appoints the three election board commissioners  to tap Ferguson to audit the boards operations in 2017.According to the report, Ferguson found that many of the problems were first uncovered by an outside firm in 2009, yet the board allegedly failed to take action and make changes.Fergusons office said it found a host of problems that included sloppy record-keeping, poor budgeting and questionable hiring practices.The boards hiring and promotion practices are not transparent, which likely could cause employees to view the process as unfair, Ferguson wrote. Job postings for managerial positions are almost exclusively internal, while hourly vacancies are not advertised and filled solely through word of mouth, he wrote.Ferguson also found that the board does not have a standardized form for job reviews and has not conducted performance evaluations in over a decade. The most recent evaluation took place in 2008; prior to that, the last occurred in 2003, he wrote.In addition, the inspector general found the board has spent taxpayer money on unnecessary business expenses, overpaid three contractors by nearly $325,000 in 2015 and 2016, and regularly overspent money in its personnel budgets.Ferguson said the unnecessary expenses, which would not have been allowed under city policy, included $7,975 for tickets to events, table sponsorships, and advertisements at galas and other events. He said $847 was spent on breakfast and lunch meetings in the Chicago area, and $246 was spent to upgrade seating on airlines.Most of the expenses, Ferguson said, were incurred by the election agencys longtime executive director, Lance Gough.Ferguson found other financial problems. The watchdog office said it uncovered 27 instances totaling $5.7 million in 2016 where the board violated its own policies by either not seeking competitive bids for contracts, by not providing justifications for modifying existing contracts and by not obtaining required economic disclosure statements from contractors.The inspector general recommended the board undergo regular independent, external audits; develop and publish financial policies; develop accurate budgets; ensure that its purchasing department is included in all procurement activities; and correct outstanding financial inaccuracies.For its part, the board agreed with some of Fergusons findings, disagreed with others and asked for an extension until late May  after the municipal elections  to give fuller responses.Marisel Hernandez, the boards chair, wrote to Ferguson on Jan. 16 and said commissioners will continue working with the city and county governments to ensure money is appropriated and budgeted properly.The board completely agrees with the need for audits, transparency and certain recommendations for corrective measures, your deadline imposed on the board to respond  does not afford the board an adequate amount of time to assess your conclusions and propose a workable solution, if necessary, Hernandez wrote in response to a number of Fergusons findings.
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Time Capsule Offers Glimpse Back to 1930s Wyoming County

By Paige Cline Ever since it was revealed that there was a
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(TNS) The U.S. Army said Tuesday it has awarded SRC Inc. of Cicero a $108 million contract to help it defeat enemy drones on the battlefield, marking one of the companys single largest orders for the technology.SRC and Pentagon officials said the contract is for mobile systems that counter small, slow and low-flying drones that are an emerging threat to U.S. forces around the world.SRC, with about 1,300 employees nationwide, including 900 at its Central New York headquarters, has quickly emerged as a leader in the counter-drone industry.The Army initially ordered 15 sets of the counter-drone systems as part of a $65 million contract in 2017. The Air Force followed with a $57 million contract for the systems in April 2018.The Pentagon said SRC was the lone bidder for the new Army contract for additional systems that use radar and other electronic sensors to detect, track, identify and defeat hostile drones.Low-flying small drones, including off-the-shelf quadcopters, are the hardest to detect and can evade radar. An unclassified Army report on small drones noted the increasing threat posed by such unmanned aerial systems (UAS), with more than 600 types in use in more than 80 countries. Small drones have been used by the Islamic State in battles in Iraq and Syria.SRC officials said the new contract will help sustain a growing workforce in Central New York. The company plans to hire 300 new employees this year. About 200 of the openings are in the Syracuse area for offices in Cicero, North Syracuse and East Syracuse.The not-for-profit research and development firm announced plans in 2017 to double its workforce by hiring about 1,000 new employees over five years.
New not-for-profit industry group the Vehicle Wrapping Association of Australia (VWAA) is gathering momentum as wrappers respond to its unique no-fee business model and its aim to separate industry professionals from the amateurs.

(l-r) VWAA founder Mark Murray of Wrap Works with Justin Pate of The Wrap Institute

The newly-formed VWAA, the brainchild of industry veteran Mark Murray, owner of WAs Wrap Works, was rolled out in a low-key launch in December 2018 and has already signed up leading vehicle wrapping businesses from across Australia.

Companies that have passed the VWAA audit process to become fully accredited members alongside Wrap Works include Impact Signs WA, Pure Image (VIC), Signrite (TAS), Grafico  Auto (VIC), Dizzi Decalz (SA), Apex Signage (NSW) and Zooma Signs (QLD).

Murray told Wide Format Online that as the vehicle wrapping industry has expanded in recent years, hes become alarmed at the proliferation of crap jobs and disgusting workmanship.

Wrap Works is based at Wangara in Perth's northern suburbs

Im 53, Ive been in and out of the industry my whole life," he says. "I have a wrapping business in Perth with my wife and son where we primarily wrap high-end vehicles. Recently, I started to notice that as the industry was growing, pricing was changing significantly and standards were dropping.

Customers have been getting some absolutely disgusting workmanship and theyre not finding out about it until later when the film comes off and they see all their paintwork has been cut through. And by then the wrap installer is long gone.

Just as the industry was starting to move forward, it was getting a bad name. There was a pattern emerging and more people were starting to say: This wrap is crap and its ruined my car. It was starting to affect my business and a lot of people in the industry were talking about it.

Im not just talking about backyarders and mobile operators that might be working off Gumtree and those sort of places. Some of these are actual sign shops. It started to seem like anyone in signage had now decided they could also wrap vehicles.

Theres a certain art to wrapping a car and doing it right, things like being able to cut on paintwork. The typical test for that is you put a bit of film on a balloon and you need to be able to cut through the film and not pop the balloon. I did a Justin Pate course and I was one of only a few guys that could do that.

There are shops out there trading now that have no accreditation, no insurance to cover the vehicle, it just goes on and on. I thought, You know what, someones got to start this, why cant it be us? So thats where the idea came from to say, Hey, lets try to create a criteria that shows a business does have experience, does have insurance in place, does have some accreditation and is registered for GST.

Murray says he looked around at other industry associations and was not impressed.

Its something that has always gotten under my skin, these organisations and associations where you automatically become a member if you give them money. For us, its the other way around. The members will never pay.

Murray provided the initial funding himself and has his eye on a long-game business model that he hopes will provide better pricing for members

Ive got some other business interests and Im doing alright so we figured, lets kick this off ourselves. As it grows, maybe we can get some sponsors involved and as we build this network of professionals then together we can start to see some better supplier pricing for us. It's the whole idea of building unity, power in numbers."

Membership to the VWAA is free and purely voluntary, Murray says. If a wrap business doesnt display a member logo (pictured above), that in no way means youre not dealing with a professional entity, but you can be assured that those that do have met specific requirements to ensure they have what's required to provide a professional customer experience, from start to finish.

All VWAA members are audited to ensure they meet professional, legal and ethical requirements of the association.

Its been a slow start and people are still trying to get their head around it. The initial membership inquiries have been good. There have been only two companies so far that didnt meet our criteria. The thing is, if they dont meet it, they dont meet it. There are not a lot of hoops to jump through but we do feel a responsibility to the public.

"All were asking is that the business is a legitimate, ethical trading business with the right legal platform, proper supplies of material and installers that are experienced and accredited. Thats all were asking, and if they cant do that, then theyre in the wrong business. You know, if someone whos going to operate on you says theyre a doctor, they should be a doctor.

Murray says hes happy to build the organisation slowly and is more interested in quality rather than quantity when it comes to membership.

Theres a lot of amazing companies out there who will probably laugh at what were doing and say they dont need us, and so be it. But it would be great to have those companies onboard as part of this team because I believe that, together, not only can we better publicise our businesses but theres the prospect of getting better pricing for members. If the day eventuates where we have 200 or 300 members across Australia then I think suppliers like Avery will probably need to treat us pretty seriously. I want to have some incentive that we can pass on to our members.

We may be small and insignificant now but every entity, every organisation started off that way. Who knows where well go, but Im committed to the process.

I was literally forced into this and I remember the job well. This car came in and it had just been butchered. It was a brand new vehicle that a dealer had gotten wrapped on behalf of a customer and theyd obviously sent it somewhere where someone made a lot of money and did a crap job. I just looked at it and thought: This has got to stop, because its making me look bad, even though I didnt do the job, and it's making us all look bad. Weve got to get rid of these guys or, at least, if theyre out there, separate us from them. You know, were a different team.

For more information, visit the VWAA website or Facebook page or call 1 800 931 965.
(TNS)  Californias Department of Finance is delaying a request for $40.4 million to reduce wait times and process Real IDs at the Department of Motor Vehicles.The department asked for the money early this month, when Gov. Jerry Brown was still in office. But now that a new governor has stepped in  and announced aggressive reforms to the beleaguered DMV  finance officials decided it would be prudent to hold off.Well take it up in the spring when we have more information at hand, said department spokesman H.D. Palmer.When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office he created a DMV Reinvention Strike Team to do a top-to-bottom overhaul of the agency, which has struggled with long lines, botched voter registrations and problems with its Real ID rollout.By any metric, California DMV has been chronically mismanaged and failed in its fundamental mission to the state customers it serves and the state workers it employs, Newsom said when he announced the new team. He tapped Government Operations Agency Secretary Marybel Batjer to lead it for six months, and legislators who keep tabs on the DMV are anxiously awaiting the results.At the same time, the Department of Finance is conducting an audit that Brown ordered in September to evaluate the DMVs operations and efforts to upgrade its aging technology systems. Browns request followed reports that glitches in the DMVs software had led to errors in 23,000 voter registration records filed with the secretary of state between April 23 and Aug. 5.Finance officials expect to release a preliminary report in February.With those efforts under way and a new executive branch, we felt it appropriate to say were not going to seek immediate additional funding, Palmer said.The state will now wait until at least the end of April to increase the DMVs budget. Palmer said the department has enough money to sustain its normal operations.A DMV spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
If Ontario is to play its part in meeting Canadas target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions then a construction industry skills gap must be addressed.

The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) says that in Ontario alone, the impact of the skills gap is estimated at $24.3 billion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in foregone company revenues, with an additional $3.7 billion lost in foregone taxation.

Training the labour force with the skills necessary for designing, constructing and operating high-performing, low carbon buildings is critical in supporting a clean growth economy and meeting Canada's greenhouse gas emissions targets," says Thomas Mueller, President and Chief Executive Officer of CaGBC. "To date, not enough attention has been paid to building the skilled labour market that's urgently needed to meet increasing activity in Canada's growing green building industry and meet future demand that is imminent."

The council is recommending new types of training, incentives and construction processes that will help the trades workforce support the construction and mass retrofit of buildings that lower greenhouse gas emissions.

"Technical skills are immensely important, but even technically proficient trades cannot do it alone," says Aubrey LeBlanc, Chief Administrative Officer of the Ontario Building Officials Association. "The whole construction ecosystem needs to be trained to achieve a higher level of green literacy if zero carbon buildings are to become the industry standard. Education for building officials would improve communication and collaboration with the trades on construction sites."

Construction workforce is changing

The call of action to address the skills gap comes as Canadas construction workforce is in transition.

More than 87,000 retirements  almost 20% of the workforce - and up to 80,000 new jobs are forecast in the trades workforce over the coming decade.

"Well-informed, integrated teams are essential for delivering projects that perform well and meet goals in line with Canada`s zero carbon design aspirations. Including tradespeople from a very early stage will ensure that good intentions transform into actual results, said Adrian Conrad, Chief Operating Officer at Cora Group Inc.

The full report Trading Up is available on the cabgc.org website.
Truck driver in standoff 'came at' deputies with machete, police say
Christopher Wayne Cleary, 27, has been charged with terrorism threats after he allegedly wrote on Facebook that he planned to kill "as many girls as I see" as payback for his virginity.
(TNS)  Hiep Nguyen's new job title  smart city manager  reflects his mission of transforming Winter Haven, Fla., to a smart city."What a smart city is is less about technology than connecting residents to technology," Nguyen told about 150 people Friday at a State of the City presentation hosted by the Greater Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce. "It's about creating an ecosystem."The backbone of Winter Haven's smart city infrastructure is fiber optic cable, which has the ability to transmit data at high speed, said Nguyen, the smart-city manager. His title until recently was chief information officer.Until the end of 2015, the city had installed about five miles of underground cable over 17 years, he said. The city installed the cable whenever the opportunity presented itself with new civic improvement construction projects.By the end of this year, the city will have 50 miles of underground fiber optic cable, including 30 miles that was recently installed on U.S. 27, the corridor expected to contain the most future growth, Nguyen said.It will also include seven miles of cable that will connect the city with the Polk County Sheriff's Office at 1891 Jim Keene Blvd., he added. That will put Winter Haven's fiber-optic system close to the city of Lakeland's with the prospect of a future connection.The city already leases cable access to private companies, generating an annual income of $130,000, Nguyen said. And the new connections will create opportunities for future connections.But the aim of the expanding network is to connect Winter Haven with all the major public-service providers in Polk, including the county and other local municipal governments and the public schools and colleges, he said.The existing network already connects all city departments, which greatly enhances the sharing of data, making public services faster and more efficient, Nguyen said.Once Winter Haven is connected with other public entities, it will enhance the city's ability to coordinate services, he added. That would become particularly important during hurricanes and other public emergencies, he added."It has the potential to transform how we provide public services, public safety and educational services," Nguyen told. "It also will enable free enterprise."Winter Haven took another step along the smart-city path with the recent introduction of a new mobile app for the Winter Haven Police Department.The app, available on all platforms, gives mobile users access to the Winter Haven police website, said Chief Charlie Bird, who spoke at the chamber event.That allows users to submit a crime tip, do a sex offender search, including an interactive map, and receive push notifications for live law enforcement activities in their neighborhoods, Bird said.Bird also discussed the city's new Drone Response Unit, which enables it to conduct quicker aerial searches, he said. Previously, officers had to wait for another agency, such as the Polk Sheriff's Office, to dispatch a helicopter or other aerial vehicle.The drones also improve searches in confined or covered area, such as woods and under a canopy or roof, Bird said.Growth Management Director Merle Bishop also discussed the city's past and future growth.The city's population has risen from 33,874 people in 2010 to an estimated 42,828 residents currently, Bishop said. It's expected to hit 52,000 residents in 2025 and 60,000 people in 2030.Building permit activity has grown commensurately, he said.The city issued 781 construction permits last year, an 11 percent increase from 2017 and more than quadruple the 180 permits issued in 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession, Bishop said.The value of the 2018 permits reached a record $320.5 million, a 78.6 percent increase compared with $179.5 million in 2017, he added.Hotel growth has been particularly vigorous because of the success of the Legoland Florida theme park, Bishop said."We're seeing this area really take off," he said.Bishop said he expects residential development to continue apace highlighted by a surge in downtown residential development."Soon we're going to hear about more residential developments coming downtown," he said.Public Works Director M.J. Carnevale discussed improvements to the municipal roads, utilities and other infrastructure.His department has already done extensive digital mapping across the city, including projections of how rainfalls of 2 to 10 inches would affect standing water on Winter Haven streets as a means of planning for stormwater drainage improvements. It is also doing a traffic master plan study."As the data gets better, we can increase the complexity of questions we ask of it," Carnevale said. "We can make more informed decisions."
At stop lights or freeway on and off ramps, youve probably seen people holding signs and asking for money. It can be tempting to hand over your spare change, but next time you may want to think twice.
3 1 of 3 Piper Ferguson / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Piper Ferguson / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3





If youve seen Wynton Marsalis and his jazz associates in concert, you know the level of musicianship is off the charts.

So fans of jazz should head to the Bushnell in Hartford Thursday, Feb. 7, when Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis plays a concert led by its artistic director.
Its official: Kansas is the first state to add tax assistance via artificial intelligence. Agent Kay, our chatbot is available to help you 24/7 when you file with WebFile. Start chatting  https://t.co/BJkBvENg29 #nottaxingafterall pic.twitter.com/PJlO02tNZV  Kansas.gov (@ksgovernment) January 17, 2019

With tax season now upon us, Kansas has gotten some help for its residents, adding a chatbot named Agent Kay to its online tax portal.Agent Kay is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and able to answer hundreds of resident questions about WebFile, the states online tax filing portal. Agent Kay is, of course, available to help residents with their taxes at any time on any day of the week. Kansas announced the creation of the chatbot Tuesday via Twitter, noting it was the first state to offer tax assistance via AI. Kansas WebFile portal is a joint effort between the Kansas Department of Revenue and the technologists behind Kansas.gov. The site has existed in some form for the past 18 years, undergoing a recent redesigned aimed at making it easier to navigate. In addition to Agent Kay, other new features include mobile responsiveness, better cybersecurity measures and faster refunds.While Kansas may be the first state to launch a chatbot aimed at helping with taxes, it is far from the first to create a governmental chatbot. In fact, chatbots powered by AI have become increasing common among state and local governments in recent years, performing a wide array of different duties for a variety of disparate agencies. Los Angeles is using a chatbot to help with police recruitment , New York to help its public employees document traffic issues , and North Carolina to answer resident inquiries.
HARTFORD  Chairmen from the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Tribal Nations told the legislatures Public Safety and Security Committee that the Connecticut legislature could approve construction of the Tribal Winds Casino before the federal government.

Two years ago, the Connecticut General Assembly approved legislation that would allow the tribes to build a casino off tribal land after getting approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is inside the U.S. Interior Department.

For two years we were told repeatedly our compact amendments would be approved by the Department of Interior, Mohegan Tribal Chairman Kevin Brown told the committee.

The East Windsor casino was being built to compete with MGMs Springfield casino, a few miles north of the Connecticut border.

Then, two days before the federal approvals were ready to be inked, they were edited and the process was scuttled.

In a Sept. 15, 2017 letter, Acting Assistant Secretary Michael Black wrote that approval was neither approved or denied. He wrote that the amendment was premature and likely unnecessary.

Interiors inspector general, according to Politico, is investigating the departments handling of the application after Connecticut lawmakers asked the internal watchdog to look into the matter.

Brown said he believes that MGMs lobbying efforts are what caused the reversal in opinion. He said it was also telling that Blacks Sept. 15 letter was copied to two Nevada senators and not two Connecticut senators.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has since approved the amendment to the Mohegan Tribal Nations compact with the state, and both chairmen remained confident they would do the same with the Mashantucket Pequots revenue-sharing agreement.

Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, said hes concerned about Connecticuts ability to continue to collect the states 25 percent share of slot revenue from Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun Casino if the federal government doesnt approve the amendments to the gaming agreements.

Regardless of what side you come down on the issue, whats consistent with everyone I speak to about this is they dont want to jeopardize that revenue, Verrengia said.

Verrengia pointed to former Attorney General George Jepsens warnings about what could happen if Connecticut doesnt get approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

We continue to believe that passing such legislation absent amendments to the Compacts and MOUs poses serious risks to the States agreements with the Tribes, Jepsen wrote in this 2017 letter to former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Brown and Butler insisted the state would continue to receive its share of the revenue.

Verrengia said hes asked House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz to request a new legal opinion from Attorney General William Tong. Aresimowicz has not made a decision on whether to move forward with that request.

Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said the state of Connecticut should move forward with a bill that allows the tribes to start building the Tribal Winds Casino in East Windsor.

Butler said they can start pouring the foundation as soon as the weather permits.

They estimate the new casino will bring in $70 million a year in new revenue to the state.

MGM Springfield told the Massachusetts Gaming Commission it planned to bring in $418 million in annual gross gaming revenue in its first year, or $34.8 million per month. Instead, it has grossed less than $23 million in the three months since its grand opening, when it did slightly better.

Connecticut expects, according to revenue estimates released Jan. 15, to receive $248.6 million in Indian gaming revenue from the two casinos in the current fiscal year ending June 30.

Brown said he doesnt expect the same amount of underperformance at the Tribal Winds Casino as MGM Springfield has experienced.

He said they see some cannibalization in the casino market, but they also see market growth and still expect to hit the $70 million revenue target in East Windsor.

While the tribes have been lobbying for a casino in East Windsor to compete with MGM Springfield, MGM has been lobbying for Connecticut to open its gaming to commercial entities so it can open a casino in Bridgeport.

In a statement Tuesday, MGM insisted that its time to move beyond the continued back-and-forth of the past few years and open the competitive bidding process.

The vast majority of Connecticut residents support that approach, MGM said in a statement. That is the most effective way for policy makers to determine what is in the states best interest  for jobs, economic development and revenue to the state and local communities. Whats best for Connecticut should be driving the decision-making.
BRIDGEPORT  Police Chief Armando Perez on Tuesday fended off criticism over the lack of a police presence at the Golden Hill Street courthouse Monday before a melee broke out.

Meanwhile, the head of the state Judicial Branch said the incident illustrates why he has been campaigning for money to hire more court security officers, and the president of the judicial marshals union again called for marshals to be allowed to carry guns.

The courthouse is the purview of the State Police, and if they need us, they call us and we respond immediately, as we did, Perez said.

More than two dozen people brawled in the lobby of the courthouse prior to the arraignment of 39-year-old Jayvell Washington, who is charged with the fatal shooting on Saturday morning of 50-year-old Eugene Rogers, whom Washington is also accused of previously wounding.

Amid the mayhem, Rogers mother was repeatedly assaulted, according, to police and was treated at the hospital. Three people, Jermaine Felton, 38, Shamar Swinton, 37, and Antiqua Washington, 29, were later charged.

Perez said that as soon as they received a call of a problem at the courthouse, they dispatched officers to assist state police.

We are now attempting to protect the (Rogers) family as much as we can, he continued. Ive increased patrols in their neighborhood and we know who the problem people are, and we are keeping an eye on them.

History of trouble

This was not the first incident of violence at a Bridgeport courthouse.

On June 16, 2016, dozens of people clashed outside the Fairfield County Courthouse, beating each other with bats and wrenches following the sentencing in a fatal gang shooting. Six people were arrested.

On Jan. 31, 2014, more than a dozen rival gang members slugged it out in the middle of Main Street outside the Fairfield County Courthouse following a guilty plea in a slaying. And, in December 2012, three people were arrested following a brawl at the Golden Hill Street courthouse following a murder arraignment.

The violence is not just at the Bridgeport courts, either.

On Jan. 10, judicial marshals had to break up a brawl between family members outside Stamfords Hoyt Street courthouse, and on Dec. 14, a Meriden City Council member was charged with assaulting two judicial marshals during a protest at the courthouse there.

Judicial marshals, who work for the state Judicial Branch, are in charge of courthouse security, and they monitor the metal detectors at the front doors. But the marshals are not allowed to carry guns.

Armed state troopers had been used on an overtime basis at courthouses when there was a security concern. But in 2016, the judicial marshals union filed a labor complaint against the Judicial Branch about the use of troopers following the layoff of 100 marshals under a cost-cutting plan by then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The union agreed to drop the complaint after the Judicial Branch agreed not to use troopers anymore.

Call for arms

Judge Patrick Carroll III, chief court administrator for the Judicial Branch, met with the judicial marshals who quelled Mondays melee to personally thank them.

Ive testified year in and year out before the General Assembly about the shortage of judicial marshals, Carroll said. We need to have an adequate number of security personnel in place.

Carroll said the system need 850 marshals to provide security and handle prisoner transportation for the states courthouses, but at this point there are 639.

Yesterday at the Golden Hill Street courthouse, the marshals acquitted themselves very well and did exactly what they are trained to do including screening exceptionally well so that no weapons were brought into the courthouse, Carroll said. But I dont want to see them continually placed in danger; we need more marshals. This incident should be a compelling reason that we have an adequate security force.

Joe Gaetano, president of the judicial marshals union, agreed that more marshals are needed, but he added that marshals also need the proper tools to do their job - firearms.

(Firearms) are needed to properly secure the buildings; we shouldnt need to call in outside forces, he said. We should be able to handle these incidents ourselves as they happen. Judicial needs to get serious about securing our courthouses.
They Treat HQ With Nothing but Distrust

Not the First Choice

They Failed In Any Way to Back Up Those Spillage Claims

No Benefit to Remaining Quiet

(TNS)  As Maine regulators are deciding whether to approve the construction of a $1 billion transmission line across much of western Maine, the Canadian hydroelectric utility poised to make billions of dollars from the project has been absent from the process.This has left both opponents and supporters of the line arguing about how much available energy the utility has to send through a completed line, and whether that energy will help fulfill the mission of the project: fighting climate change.And while the utility has avoided making its case before regulators, which requires submitting to cross-examination and discovery, it has engaged in a public relations campaign to try and win support from the regions newspapers.Government-owned Hydro-Quebec controls dams and reservoirs generating hydroelectricity throughout its namesake province. It recently signed agreements to sell electricity across the proposed line, named the New England Clean Energy Connect, to Massachusetts as part of the states effort to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, including natural gas.At the Maine Public Utilities Commission, attorneys for Central Maine Power Co., which would build and maintain the line, have been sparring with the opposition over the lines potential impact on Maine and its electricity consumers. Leading the opposition is a coalition of natural gas electricity generators that stand to lose business should the line be built, as well as the Natural Resources Council of Maine, an environmental group.That unusual alliance of environmental and business groups wants Hydro-Quebec to answer questions about its hydroelectric system, which they argue cant deliver the amount of electricity promised to Massachusetts without diverting energy from other regions.In that scenario, critics say the line would not produce the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that CMP and Hydro-Quebec have made a central part of their pitch for the project. Instead, other markets currently buying energy from Hydro-Quebec, such as New York, Ontario and New Brunswick, would see hydroelectricity imports decrease and have to rely on other sources of energy, including coal or oil, to make up the difference. If that happened, the total amount of clean energy in the world would remain the same.Opponents call this possibility greenwashing. Massachusetts regulators have described these circumstances as resource shuffling.But CMP spokesperson John Carroll said that if hydropower was diverted from nearby markets to power Massachusetts, those markets would not turn to fossil fuels. Rather they would seek to develop other forms of renewable energy leading to further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the region.Hydro-Quebec said it has plenty of capacity to increase its electricity exports to Massachusetts without diverting energy from other places.However, Hydro-Quebec is not required to participate  and has not voluntarily participated  in regulatory hearings where it would be subject to cross examinations and have to testify under oath. Some participants wish it would.At a January hearing at the Maine Public Utilities Commission, hearing examiner Mitchell Tannenbaum had to warn experts giving testimony to refrain from commentary regarding whether Hydro-Quebec is here or not after they complained about its absence when trying to predict potential ramifications of the line.I would have hoped they would have been visible and available to answer legitimate questions in all of these states through which their power is going to be flowing, said Dot Kelly, a member of the executive committee at the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club who has participated in the lines regulatory proceedings as an individual. If youre going to have a full and fair process, they have to be there.While Hydro-Quebec has not presented data on its system directly to Maine regulators, it has brought its case to the press. Central to that case is the fact that its spilling water from its reservoirs because it is limited by how much electricity it can export. It said that it could send more water through its turbines and lower reservoir levels, eliminating spillage and creating more energy, if only it had a way to get that energy to market. Hydro-Quebec said the line would make that possible, and, in doing so, help lower emissions and fight climate change.We have that excess potential that we need to use. Essentially, its a good problem to have so long as you can find an export market, Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Serge Abergel told the Bangor Daily News.Hydro-Quebec made its spillage case to the editorial boards ofand the, winning qualified endorsements from theand. (Thehas not taken a position on the project.)Opponents have questioned why Hydro-Quebec is willing to present their case to the press but not regulators.We need a better answer than just trust us, Natural Resources Council of Maine attorney Sue Ely said. Whats clear is that CMP and HQ are engaging in a full-court publicity tour peddling false transparency in an attempt to sell their claims of greenhouse gas benefits.Energy generators arent typically parties to public utility commission proceedings involving the building of transmission lines, but Maine regulators dont typically evaluate projects that will help customers in another state buy energy generated in a foreign country.Its a unique case, said Maine Public Advocate and former Democratic Senate Minority Leader Barry Hobbins, who has neither endorsed nor opposed the project. Hobbins noted the project was not proposed to improve reliability for Maine electricity customers, which is typically the point of new transmission line proposals evaluated by the commission. Instead, the project is a straight shot to Massachusetts, Hobbins said.Maine Public Utilities Commission spokesperson Harry Lanphear agreed. The Commission has never considered this type of project before, he said in an email.In order to proceed with the project, CMP must convince the Maine Public Utilities Commission that the proposed line would fill a public need and benefit Mainers. Among other benefits, CMP said it will help lower electricity costs and create jobs in Maine. A decision is expected in the spring.Given the uniqueness of the case, even the commission seems unsure about how to apply the vague public need standard. On Jan. 14, commission staff asked case participants to weigh in on how it should apply Maine law when evaluating the project, including whether the hydroelectricity that would travel over the line should be considered renewable and whether Maines own carbon reduction goals are relevant to the case.James Speyer, an energy consultant whose firm was hired by natural gas company and project opponent Calpine to analyze the market impacts of the line, said he has testified before roughly 20 state public utility commissions and has never seen a proceeding like this one.Ive never been in a case where one of the major beneficiaries of the PUC decision is not in the case, never has filed a report, has never had to provide any data to support its assertions, and never has been subject to cross examination, Speyer said. Hydro-Quebec is like a black box.Hydro-Quebec would gladly appear before the Maine Public Utilities Commission, but it has not been invited, said spokesperson Abergel.The PUC is doing its own process, Abergel said. If the PUC were to invite us, wed gladly intervene. Were very willing to collaborate in that sense.But thats not how the commission process works. Individuals and organizations can intervene in cases, but the commission does not invite them to the proceedings, commission spokesperson Lanphear said.CMP spokesperson Carroll dismissed concerns over emissions, noting that Hydro-Quebec is near the end of completing a more than 15-year effort to develop its clean energy resources. They will have capacity to satisfy the contract with Massachusetts in their reservoirs, Carroll said.While Maine regulators are evaluating the transmission line, Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities is deciding whether to approve 20-year contracts between Hydro-Quebec and that states electric utilities. Those contracts, which Hydro-Quebec has estimated could be worth close to $8 billion , govern how the utility sells electricity over the line.Dean Murphy, a consultant hired by the Massachusetts Attorney Generals office to review the contracts, testified before Massachusetts regulators that the agreements do not require a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Murphy also warned the contracts dont actually require Hydro-Quebec to increase the total amount of energy it sends to New England, as energy could be shuffled from established lines to the proposed CMP line to satisfy the contracts.Parties in the Massachusetts proceeding are also trying to get more information from Hydro-Quebec. Energy giant NextEra is currently trying to convince Massachusetts regulators to issue a subpoena to force Hydro-Quebec to answer questions about how its exports might change with the construction of the transmission line. Hydro-Quebec and CMP have opposed the motion.Hydro-Quebec has a reputation for guarding its privacy, according to Hobbins.It would have been easier to not have to play Sherlock Holmes and try to guess or try to calculate without having a direct yes or no response from the entity itself, Hobbins said.Ultimately, the burden of proving that Maine needs the line falls on CMP, which is also responsible for making sure regulators have all the information they need to make a decision on the project, said former Maine Public Utilities Commission Chairman Kurt Adams.Central Maine Power should provide the PUC with all the info that it needs, Adams said. If CMP cant, then one might argue that they havent met their burden.If completed, the line would bring 9.45 terawatt-hours of electricity from Quebec to Massachusetts annually, or about a sixth of the total amount of electricity Massachusetts currently uses every year (and roughly 80 percent of Maines annual load). CMPs parent company Avangrid would make an estimated $60 million a year from the line, according to financial analysts. As part of its legally mandated efforts to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change, Massachusetts would pay the $950 million cost of constructing the line. The state currently relies on natural gas, a fossil fuel, for nearly 70 percent of its electricity, a figure that helps explain natural gas companies opposition to the project.A panel of experts recently warned that humanity has 12 years to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius and prevent the worst effects of climate change, which include floods, droughts and extreme heat.The line could lower New Englands annual carbon emissions by as much as 3 million metric tons, an amount roughly equal to Washington D.C.s annual emissions. Opponents worry that reduction could be mostly offset by increases in other markets.But while both sides have claimed they are fighting for the environment, much of the debate features giant corporations with headquarters outside of New England fighting over the future of the regions electricity market. Hydro-Quebec is owned by the people of Quebec, and CMP is owned by Avangrid, which is in turn owned by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola. Leading the charge against the line are several energy companies in the Fortune 500, including Houston-based Calpine and Florida-based NextEra Energy.However, only one side of the debate counts environmental groups as part of its coalition, and, curiously enough, thats the side with fossil fuel companies.Some environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Environment Maine, have come out against the line, while others, including the Acadia Center and the Conservation Law Foundation, are still deciding whether to support or oppose the project. So far, none have endorsed the line.It is discouraging that some of the environmental groups are so opposed, but it seems the best is the enemy of the good, said CMPs Carroll in an email. They seem to have no sense of urgency; and they treat HQ with nothing but distrust.Much of the environmentally-minded opposition to the project focuses on the impact the line would have on local wildlife and tourism. Sandi Howard administers the Say NO To NECEC Facebook page and lives in Caratunk, Maine, one of the communities along the proposed path of the line. She said opposition to the line might change if it was proven to reduce emissions.If it were going to truly reduce global CO2 emissions, I think it would be be a different conversation, Howard said.Before Maine, New Hampshire had its own debate over whether it should serve as a conduit between Quebec and Massachusetts. The proposed Northern Pass transmission line would have run the length of the state. It was Massachusetts first choice to bring Quebec hydropower to its residents.But New Hampshires Site Evaluation Committee unanimously voted to reject the Northern Pass project in February 2018 on the grounds that the projects sponsor, Eversource, had failed to prove the project would not interfere with local business and tourism. Though it was the source of the electricity that would have traveled over the line, Hydro-Quebec was not a party to the proceedings.In its decision , the committee noted the project would not reduce emissions if it was not coupled with a new source of hydropower and the power delivered across the line was diverted from Ontario and New York. The committee added that it was unclear if the power would be new or diverted. The next month , Massachusetts replaced Northern Pass by selecting CMPs proposed line. As the project came before Maine regulators, questions about Hydro-Quebec and emissions persisted. Two different analyses of CMPs proposed line, including one by the Maine Public Utility Commissions independent consultant, found the line would greatly reduce New Englands emissions.But neither of those studies took into account the lines impact on emissions outside of New England. A study by Calpines consultant, Energyzt, found New Englands emissions reduction could be mostly offset by increased emissions in other areas, including New Brunswick and New York, that would see hydroelectricity imports shrink as energy was redirected to fulfill the contract with Massachusetts.Hydro-Quebec seemed content to let CMP fight for the project alone before regulators for much of 2018. But at the end of the year, the utility took a more proactive approach, meeting with editorial boards and providing a two-page letter detailing its spillage issues to CMP, which entered it into the record at the Maine Public Utilities Commission.The letter provided figures on the amount of water the utility spilled that could have been converted into sellable energy, if only Hydro-Quebec had a way to get it to market. Instead, by spilling the water, the company essentially wasted it.Instead of sending water through turbines or storing it in reservoirs, hydroelectric operators sometimes discharge water held behind dams down spillways . This can be done for environmental reasons. Other times it is done because the operator has so much water it cannot convert it into electricity or store it, which is usually a seasonal issue: Reservoirs often contain the most water in the spring as temperatures warm and ice melts.Hydro-Quebec said that, in 2017, it spilled water that could have produced 4.5 terawatt hours of electricity, or slightly more than half the energy needed to fulfill the Massachusetts contracts. In 2018, the letter continued, Hydro-Quebec spilled water that could have been converted into 10.4 terawatts worth of energy. The company said it didnt spill at all due to transmission constraints prior to 2017.The contracts Hydro-Quebec signed with the Massachusetts utilities are for 9.45 terawatt hours annually for 20 years. In its letter, the utility essentially showed it had only one year of data to show it could cover the terms of the contract with spilled energy.Reservoir levels have been increasing in the last 15 years. Having reached their maximum levels, spillage maneuvers became necessary in 2017 and 2018, said Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Lynn St. Laurent.By providing the letter through CMP, Hydro-Quebec did not have to subject its spillage figures to cross examination.Dr. Shaleen Jain, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Maine, said that, while spilled water could be converted into power generation in some circumstances, spills happen for many different reasons. Knowing whether spillage can be translated into energy requires a great deal of analysis.Not all of it can be repurposed or used for hydropower, Jain said.In December, one of the Maine Public Utility Commissions independent consultants, Gabrielle Roumy, told the commission that theres no way to predict how much water would be spilled each and every year. Roumy, who previously worked for Hydro-Quebec, added that even after seeing the utilitys spillage figures, he believed it would need to divert energy from other markets to fulfill its commitment to Massachusetts.I think at this point were still comfortable with our assumptions that, you know, energy would generally be redirected from other markets to NECEC if it were built, Roumy said.In January, Tanya Bodell, the founder and executive director of consultant Energyzt, testified before the commission on behalf of Calpine that it was impossible to know why Hydro-Quebec was spilling without more data.Theres a lot of details youd have to look at in order to properly assess what the reason for the spillage is, Bodell said. And you have to go into an hourly level because the flows vary across the year, within the month, the week, the days. And, frankly, it would have been nice if Hydro-Quebec was here and brought their model and allowed us to see how this could help them to sell more.Even though CMP and Hydro-Quebecs path to securing approval of the project does not go through the Legislature, lawmakers have taken notice of Hydro-Quebecs absence. Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, the House chairman of the Joint Committee On Energy Utilities and Technology and a frequent critic of CMP, said he would like to see Hydro-Quebec show up and subject their proposal to examination and full analysis and public examination by the regulators and the people of Maine.Theyre trying to sell an incredibly lucrative proposal, and they failed in any way to back up those spillage claims with defensible numbers and defensible analysis, Berry said.Berry was part of a bipartisan group of Maine lawmakers that wrote a letter to Massachusetts regulators last year expressing concerns about the project, which included doubts about whether the line would actually reduce global gas emissions. On Monday, he announced legislation that would direct the state to create an independent entity to buy out CMP from its foreign investors.Hydro-Quebec would like to provide answers, but there is always a commercially sensitive information concern when we do these things, said spokesperson Abergel.There might be stuff we can do, having an independent study that looks at all of this. Im not worried about the conclusion, Abergel said. Im worried about how long it takes.Instead of asking Hydro-Quebec questions directly, participants in both Maine and Massachusetts regulatory proceedings have had to direct questions for Hydro-Quebec to CMP. That arrangement may be part of Hydro-Quebecs strategy to control its information, said former Maine Public Utilities Commissioner David Littell.From a tactical point of view, it may be more beneficial for the evidence to be put through Avangrid and CMP, which actually doesnt have that back-up info, so cant provide it, Littell said.Getting information about the line from CMP, and its parent company Avangrid, has at times been difficult, opponents say.In August 2018, the commissions staff warned CMP in a legal filing that it was concerned about what appears to be a lack of completeness and timeliness by CMP/Avangrid in responding to data requests in this proceeding.The trouble in getting information from Hydro-Quebec and CMP only creates more questions for Hydro-Quebec, said Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, which opposes the line in favor of Maine-based renewables.Theres a few questions that should have relatively simple answers. But not answering a couple of those questions creates more questions, Payne said. Why didnt you intervene in the docket? Why are you not a party to the case? Why wont you respond to these concerns? Why wouldnt you open yourself up to discovery?I dont understand why they wont put it to bed, Payne said. If youve got the proof to back it up, then theres no benefit to remaining quiet.
(WGGB/WSHM) -- School officials with the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools confirm that an eighth grader has died. A GoFundMe page for the students funeral expenses explained the child was found unresponsive after participating in the blackout challenge on social media.
(TNS)  Camp Fire survivors Lisa Butcher and Randy Viehmeyer remember waking up one night to the screams of a nearby shelter resident reliving the nightmare of watching her dog burn alive.Having bounced from one chaotic and sometimes dangerous shelter to another, the couple said theyve experience a kind of volatile hell since their Paradise home burned down last November during the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.And with the final remaining evacuation shelter for victims set to close Thursday in Chico, their fate is once again up in the air.At the first shelter where they stayed, the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley, Butcher contracted norovirus, along with dozens of others.The first few nights in the Camp Fire shelter were a terrifying new experience: Viehmeyer recalled being suspicious of a woman who arrived at the Gridley shelter with a filled shopping cart. Im pretty sure she didnt push that shopping cart down from Paradise, he remarked.He said she replied, Anybody who even looks at my shopping cart, Ive got something sharp for them.They got rid of her right away, Butcher said.But other crime and dangerous activity continued, they said. Locals who were homeless before the fire, some with mental health or drug abuse issues and looking to get access to donated goods, repeatedly stole cellphones and other valuables, according to several displaced residents.We had to take turns when we went to the bathroom, Viehmeyer said, worried about the few personal possessions they still owned. Medication and medical equipment, he said, were frequently stolen items, given the large number of elderly and disabled residents displaced by the fire.Its bad enough Camp Fire victims lost everything, but now theyre getting preyed upon by transients and criminals, Viehmeyer said.They eventually moved to the Red Cross shelter at the Silver Dollar Fair Ground in Chico, the last official Camp Fire recovery shelter, but sanitary and safety concerns persisted  hypodermic needles on the ground, feces in the showers, the two said. When they were able to borrow an RV from a friend and move out of the dormitory-style shelter and into the parking lot, it felt like a small blessing.Still, only a few safety concerns have been reported to the California Highway Patrol, which has jurisdiction over the state property. According to spokesman Officer Logan Callahan, there have been six physical-related arrests at the Chico shelter, most for public drunkenness, and one citation for possession of a controlled substance.Three complaints have also been submitted to the District Attorneys Office for cases of domestic violence, petty theft and battery. Callahan added that the private security company hired by the fairgrounds may also be resolving issues without involving law enforcement.Red Cross spokeswoman Cindy Huge declined to comment on sanitary or safety issues, and urged residents to submit complaints to the relief organizations officials to review and address.I feel like I am at a homeless shelter, Viehmeyer said on a recent Thursday. We wouldnt have come here if we didnt have any other place to go. Theres nothing to rent. Theres no motels, no rooms, no garage. We had no other choice.Butcher and Viehmeyers experience reflects that of many displaced residents from the Paradise area who lost their homes and struggle to return to normalcy after being thrown into a vortex of poverty, homelessness and bureaucracy.More than 50,000 people were evacuated by the Camp Fire, Butte County officials previously estimated, with thousands forced into various Red Cross shelters throughout the county.Nearly three months later, at Chicos Silver Dollar Fair Ground, about 100 people still live indoors at the shelter, and about 470 people live in cars and trailers in the parking lot, according to Red Cross spokesman Steve Walsh.Officials dont have an estimate of how many people receiving services at the fairgrounds are former residents of Paradise, Magalia and Concow who lost their home in the fire, said Butte County spokeswoman Casey Hatcher.Although the state granted a lease extension through mid-March, the fairgrounds will close to the vast majority of inhabitants on Thursday, Hatcher said. Once everyone has been cleared out, those with newer RVs or trailers may stay on the property, for $40 a night.We recognize from the homeless crisis that a sheer number of displaced people puts pressure on already existing resources, Hatcher said. We know that living in a shelter long-term in a congregated setting isnt ideal, which is why were trying to help people find their next step.Case managers with the Red Cross are assisting remaining shelter inhabitants with recovery plans  helping them remove the barriers to leaving the shelter, such as new tires for their car, gas money, cash to make a deposit on rent or securing FEMA assistance.In advance of Thursdays planned closure, 61 people were issued notices last weekend to leave the fairgrounds within 48 hours, after Red Cross officials deemed them sufficiently ready to enact their recovery plan with a case manager  or having failed to show up to case manager meetings. Of those who received notices, 39 remained Monday anyway, Walsh said.Theres no kicking people out, Walsh said. (Were) making sure they do have a place to go ultimately after providing options, and Im sure sometimes its not what they want, or not local, but these are challenging, very tough times.We cannot house them forever. Were a disaster recovery shelter, not a homeless shelter.But FEMA assistance, rent money or insurance payouts can be of little use to victims if there are no housing units available, either for sale or for rent, in the region. And for those still searching for pets, as Butcher and Viehmeyer are, or planning to rebuild, moving far away isnt an option.Were not done yet, Viehmeyer said.Even before the Camp Fire, the regions housing market was tight, with a low vacancy rate that made it difficult for low-income residents to find housing, according to Sarah Thomas, a program manager at Chico Housing Action Team, or CHAT, a local nonprofit that works to house the homeless.If youre on Social Security and make $900 a month, you simply cannot rent anything on your own, and if you have credit problems or cant put down a deposit, you cant get into anything, she said.Thomas warned of the fires ripple effects, making an already understocked market even more impenetrable: One landlord whose home was in the CHAT program had a family member displaced by the fire, Thomas said.Shes a lovely landlord, (but) she asked us to find another place for the residents so her family could live in the rental, and then we ended up with four displaced people, Thomas said.Prices in the area have already soared, as have rents  so much so that the Chico City Council passed an urgency ordinance banning landlords from increasing rents more than 10 percent over the next six months after an emergency is declared.Torres Community Shelter, Chicos largest homeless shelter, had 30 to 40 beds available as of Monday, according to Torres shelter monitor Cheryl Benge.The shelter had been expecting an influx of Silver Dollar occupants. We thought we were going to get them all this week (but) we wont have to see them any time soon because of the mid-March extension, Benge said.Red Cross and Butte County officials have confirmed, however, that the extension is only a contingency plan, and that most occupants will no longer be in the shelter come Thursday.Butte Countys most recent point-in-time survey identified at least 1,900 homeless individuals. After years of decreases, Sonoma County officials pointed to the devastating October 2018 wildfires as a cause for a 6 percent bump in homelessness in the county within one year.Thomas expects CHAT may soon have to expand into Oroville to keep up with the demand. Walmart recently earmarked a $1 million donation to local organizations Jesus Center and Safe Space Winter Shelter to secure more beds, though Thomas said they have yet to find an appropriate space.We can get into this thing of the good homeless and the bad homeless and thats not useful, Thomas said. Whether those in need were unsheltered before the Camp Fire, or are experiencing homelessness for the first time, it comes down to the same number of resources for more people.We all are anticipating itll be a pretty rough transition, she said.Larry and Christine Smith have agreed that at this point, its best to play it by ear and stay on their toes. The divorced pair have been sharing a newly purchased RV for the last month at the Silver Dollar Fair Ground after the fire torched both their homes.Having been treated like transients, Larry Smith said, they take the information and resources they can get with a grain of salt. We talked to the case manager and stuff, but they dont know half the time the answer, he said.They are among the few who plan to stay at the fairgrounds in their RV after Thursday, paying the daily fee. Thats what we have to do because we dont have anywhere else to go, Christine Smith said.Months later, the trauma still hurts. She said she has nightmares every night.Ive been poor all my life, and I finally built a life for myself, and now all my stuff is gone, she said, choking up.Christine Smith has lived in Paradise since she was 6 years old. In the mud that makes up the remains of her house, she hopes to find her mothers wedding ring. Shes also looking for her cats.Once they get the all-clear, the pair plan to move their motor home to one of their properties, and then rebuild.Last week, Butcher and Viehmeyer drove their borrowed RV back up to Gridley, having secured a coveted trailer spot at the fairgrounds. Like Christine Smith, Butcher is haunted by the things shell never get back.Its the first thing I think about when I wake up, is my big pink baby book, she said. All thats left of her beloved family photo albums are the twisted metal spines, which she keeps in a plastic bag under the trailer.She and Viehmeyer make a point of visiting their former home frequently, just off Pentz Road. Their house was one of the few that did not survive the fire along the quiet lane. Theyre still looking for Butchers familys cat, sifting through the property, and feeding the nearby wildlife.Ive been here at night. It just feels very, very eerie. It just feels like a dead planet, Viehmeyer said.But here in the daylight, a family of squirrels happily munches on the handful of peanuts hes tossed them, and a Stellers jay begins to sing.Before the fire, Butcher and Viehmeyer had planned to travel the country in their now scorched-out trailer. They dont know if their family will rebuild. But they do know they need to stay near Paradise a little longer  the animals need someone to look after them.2019 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)Visit The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) at www.sacbee.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Bedford, Ky. man accused of pouring kerosene on woman and setting her on fire
Description

GIS  30 January, 2019: The President of the Republic of Mozambique, Mr Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, has arrived in Mauritius this afternoon in the context of a State Visit from 30 January 2019 to 02 February 2019. The Mozambican President is accompanied by his spouse, Dr Isaura Goncalo Ferrao Nyusi, and an official delegation comprising 25 members. Mr Nyusi is the Chief Guest of the Government of Mauritius on the occasion of the Commemoration of the 184th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in Mauritius.

During the visit, Mr Nyusi will pay a courtesy call on the Acting President of the Republic of Mauritius, Mr Paramasivum Pillay Vyapoory, on 31 January 2019. He will then have a tete-a-tete and a working session with the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth.

The working session, which will be held at the Receptorium of the National Assembly, will be followed by the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Mozambique and the Government of the Republic of Mauritius in the field of tourism. In the evening, the President of the Republic of Mozambique will attend a Banquet offered in his honour by the Prime Minister at Swami Vivekananda Convention Centre.

On 01 February, Mr Nyusi will attend the official ceremony for the Commemoration of the 184th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery at Le Morne Village, followed by a lunch hosted by the Acting President of the Republic of Mauritius at the State House, Le Reduit. The Mozambican President will also visit the Omnicane Factory Area in lEscalier and the Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth.

The following day, President Nyusi will attend a Business Forum and Networking event hosted by the Economic Development Board at the Hilton Resort and Spa Hotel, in Flic-en-Flac. In the afternoon, he will proceed to the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport for departure scheduled at 14 00 hrs.
Description

GIS  30 January, 2019: The participation of Mauritius at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and the Republic Day in Mumbai is a privilege and affirms the longstanding and special ties that Mauritius and India share. As regards the negotiations pertaining to the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Partnership Agreement (CECPA) the state of these negotiations are being reviewed and the signing of the document is on the right track.

These were the highlights of the press conference held by the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, yesterday at the New Treasury Building in Port-Louis. During the press conference, he spoke about his eight-day visit to India from 20 to 28 January 2019 in the context of the 15th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi, alongside the Kumbh Mela held at Triveni Sangam in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Prime Minister Jugnauth underscored the honour and privilege of Mauritius, with him as representative, to be the Chief Guest of the Government of India at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and at the Republic day in Mumbai, which he emphasised testifies the strong relationship and deep cultural bond between the two countries. Mauritius, he pointed out, was the second largest participating delegation with the official delegation consisting of 18 persons, among whom three Cabinet Ministers, Senior Officials as well as representatives of Ministries, and 400 other Mauritian delegates.

The Prime Minister also expressed gratitude to the Government of India for the warm welcome extended which he said, reflects the people-to-people bonding that exists beyond bilateral relations.

Speaking about the CECPA, the Prime Minister indicated that over the course of meetings he had with the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Suresh Prabhu, both countries demonstrated their intent to further boost economic activities and bring a new dimension to bilateral cooperation in the context of the Africa Strategy through the signing of the Agreement. He expressed confidence that the CECPA will be shortly finalised, adding that discussions regarding the matter were reinitiated in 2007. So far both parties have agreed on discussions pertaining to economic cooperation and trade in services, while talks with regards to trade in goods are still ongoing.

Mauritius-India bilateral meetings

The Mauritian Prime Minister had several bilateral meetings with various Ministers of the Indian Government during his stay. His visit to India was marked with a bilateral meeting and a tete-a-tete with the Indian Prime Minister , Mr Narendra Modi on 22 January 2019, with whom he discussed new avenues of cooperation to further enhance the strong ties between the two countries. Mr Jugnauth stressed on the need to further collaborate to face future challenges and brought forth key developmental projects being undertaken with the financial assistance of India, including the Metro Express, New Supreme Court, ENT hospital and infrastructural works being carried out in Agalega. A meeting and tete-a-tete session were also held with the Indian President, Mr Ram Nath Kovind, during the closing session of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

In addition, the Prime Minister had a meeting with the Minister of External Affairs, Mrs Sushma Swaraj earlier on 21 January 2019, during which discussions focused on the excellent Indo-Mauritian bilateral ties, the numerous projects being undertaken in Mauritius and international affairs. On the same day, the official delegation was also convened to a dinner hosted by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Yogi Adityanath.

Moreover, during a meeting with the Chief minister of Maharashtra, Mr Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis, discussions centered on avenues of cooperation between the State of Maharashtra and Mauritius in various sectors including creative industry, education, health and IT.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister Jugnauth underlined that the Kumbh Mela was an opportune time to take stock of the state-of-the-art Integrated Command and Control Centre deployed to monitor and ensure the security of pilgrims, which is in line with the modern security system and use of technology with regards to the safe-city project. He also proceeded with the inauguration of the State Bank of Mauritius, (India), the first foreign bank to receive a license from RBI to set up universal banking business in India through Wholly Owned Subsidiary mode.

On 25 January 2019, Mr Jugnauth participated in a business forum held in Mumbai, which was an important platform to encourage Indian entrepreneurs to harness business opportunities in Mauritius in line with Mauritius Africa Strategy.

The Prime Minister was also present at the bell-ringing ceremony at the Bombay Stock Exchange as well as the launching of the Afrinex Stock Exchange. The Prime Minister indicated that he took stock of the various activities available to provide assistance to start-ups.
Description

GIS - 30 January, 2019: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at reinforcing bilateral cooperation in research and education was signed yesterday between the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research and La Trobe University, Australia at the Mauritius Institute of Training and Development, Phoenix. The Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, was present on this occasion. Signatories were the Senior Chief Executive of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mr Ram Prakash Ramlugun, and the Pro-Vice Chancellor International of La Trobe University, Mr Kelly Smith.

In her address, Minister Dookun-Luchoomun underscored that the objective of the MoU is to bring the long-lasting relations between Mauritius and Australia to new heights and develop greater scope for collaboration in research and tertiary education. Cooperation with La Trobe University, she said, will open up new study possibilities in the field of hospitality, cybersecurity, health sector as well as nursing and will enable students to continue with their higher studies.

Government, she emphasised, is seeking the assistance of international institutions so as to create necessary conditions for Mauritius to thrive as an Education Hub for the region. She highlighted that Mauritius is aiming to increasing the enrolment of international students in the years to come and is working together with La Trobe University in order to create an international students desk with the objective of extending support to them.

With regard to talent management and employability skills, Minister Dookun-Luchoomun underlined the need to promote an education system which seeks to facilitate access of the youth to gainful employment in the future. The Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd, she pointed out, is set to become a major player in creating pathways for students to continue their studies and complete their Degree, under the guidance of international institutions.

For his part, the Pro-Vice Chancellor Smith highlighted that the signing of MoU is the outcome of several years of discussion and collaboration between Mauritius and Australia. The MoU, he said, will open up more avenues in the education sector and will bring mutual benefits for both countries.

Discussions, he added, are ongoing between La Trobe University and Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd so that students undertaking Diploma Courses at Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd are able to top up their studies with a Bachelors Degree.
prosecutor-general accusing f

our Egyptian human rights advocates who met French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Egypt of "defaming the Egyptian state and spreading false news."

An Egyptian lawyer has filed a complaint with the

The complaint was filed against Mohamed Zaree, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Mohamed Lotfy, the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, and Gasser Abdel-Razek, the executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

Tarek Mahmoud, the lawyer who filed the complaint, said in the complaint that the four men "provided French officials with false information on the political conditions in Egypt" and accused the government of being "responsible for forced disappearances and carrying out torture in Egyptian prisons."

Mahmoud claimed that the four men "meant to agitate international opinion against the country and defame state institutions."

The lawyer also accused the four men of "insulting the Egyptian state and undermining the countrys national security, and colllaborating with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group to achieve its goals of bringing down the Egyptian state."

On Tuesday, the CIHRSs Zaree provided details about the meeting with Macron, which came a few hours after the French president addressed Egypts human rights conditions in a press conference with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo.

The Egyptian president defended the country's human rights record, saying that "Egypt is not like Europe or the US," and that it has its own special circumstances.

El-Sisi asked people not to forget "that the country is located in a troubled region," adding that Egypt had successfully defeated plan to establish a religious state.

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York, Pa., grew up making things. The brick smokestacks that break up the skyline are inescapable reminders of its industrial past. Buildings that once housed factories employing hundreds of workers have now been converted into warehouses that employ only a handful of people, at wages that dont come close to rivaling those of their industrial predecessors.Mayor Michael Helfrich grew up in York. He remembers when middle-class jobs were only a short walk away from the homes of the men and women who produced everything from Pullman cars to Pfaltzgraff dinner plates to York Peppermint Patties. Those companies are gone. Pullman succumbed to competition from Detroit automakers. Hersheys bought the York candy factory and moved production to its own plants, which eventually landed in Mexico in 2009. Pfaltzgraff was purchased in 2005 and its operations moved to China.But most of the jobs havent left because of competition or consolidation as much as theyve left to escape Yorks taxes, which are almost three times the rate in surrounding York County. The taxes have led to a vicious cycle -- innovation, development and flight -- that has persisted for decades. We used to build wealth in the city of York, Helfrich says. In almost 50 years, we have not seen that. Our growth has been, Can you come here and give us some jobs? Meanwhile, the wealth was going somewhere else. It wasnt building in York.Along with the commercial exodus came an exodus of residents. Yorks population declined by almost a third from 1950 to 2000. It has since inched back up as families pushed out by rising rents in New York and Philadelphia, or those fleeing crime in Baltimore, have landed in the city. But with unemployment approaching 9 percent, York is now a place with epidemic levels of poverty. More than one-third of the citys residents live in poverty, a higher rate than in Baltimore or Philadelphia and twice the poverty rate in New York City.Nonetheless, Helfrich has high hopes that a new federal incentive package might bring business back to York. So-called opportunity zones, an incentive with bipartisan support, were included in the 2017 federal tax law to lure capital from Wall Street to struggling cities and towns across the country. The Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a D.C. think tank launched by Sean Parker, the founder of Napster and former president of Facebook, worked for four years on the incentive, which is meant to fix a problem that has been evident to economists and mayors for years but has eluded a solution.That problem worsened when the recession officially ended in mid-2009. The ensuing recovery was uneven. The economic expansion was led by a handful of urban hubs, the rock stars of the recovery. Austin, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and their surrounding metro areas were far outpacing most of the country in job growth. From 2010 to 2017, nearly half of the job growth occurred in the nations largest 20 metro areas. About half of the net increase in business establishments across the country from 2007 to 2016 took place in either D.C. or New York City. A generation ago, the opposite was the case. Job growth in the 1990s was led by rural and suburban counties, not urban centers. What the post-recession economy has favored -- an educated workforce, density and an established startup culture -- has left places like York far behind. The rising tide, says John Lettieri, president and CEO of EIG, isnt lifting all the boats.Lettieri, Parker and their colleagues created a blueprint they hoped would help even out jobs and wealth creation across the country. Investors had gotten fat on Wall Street bets. Much of their newfound money was sitting idle. If those funds could be shielded from capital gains, EIG theorized, they could be moved off Wall Street and invested in new ventures in other places.Their idea was to allow investors to reduce their capital gains exposure in exchange for investment in certain low-income Census tracts to be designated as opportunity zones. For a place to qualify as an opportunity zone, at least 20 percent of its residents have to live in poverty, or the earnings of the residents have to be below 80 percent of the areas median income. In return for their money, investors would be able to reduce the capital gains tax liability on their investment by 10 percent if they left their money in the zone for five years. If they didnt move the money for seven years, they would receive a 15 percent reduction in capital gains taxes. If they kept it there 10 years, they would receive a 15 percent reduction in capital gains taxes and escape any liability on gains that came from investment in the zone. Congress bought into the idea. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin estimated that $100 billion in capital would move off Wall Street as a result of the program.Governors were allowed to mark 25 percent of the qualifying Census tracts in their states as opportunity zones. In June, the Treasury Department certified more than 8,700 zones across the United States and Puerto Rico. The exact rules are still being set, but investors needed to have their money in the opportunity zone funds by Dec. 31 to take full advantage of the benefit.Helfrich pounced on the chance to leverage the tax incentives in opportunity zones, hoping they would be enough to overcome the high taxes in the city. He worked closely with Gov. Tom Wolf, himself a York native, to designate five city Census tracts as opportunity zones. As the deadline approached in December, only a handful of investors showed interest in Yorks opportunity zones, and most of those werent large private equity firms from outside the city, but local investors.Yorks problem attracting outside investment to its opportunity zones has been even more frustrating considering where capital was moving. An opportunity zone fund targeting Chicago raised $105 million in 17 hours in November. When Amazon announced it had picked Long Island City, in the New York borough of Queens, as one of two sites to host the companys second headquarters, investment sprinted to the opportunity zone that would be adjacent to the tech giant. Goldman Sachs, for example, announced it was putting $83 million into a real estate deal nearby. (Now that Amazon has announced it will no longer locate to New York, it's not yet clear what the impact on investments will be.)Like York, Long Island City was once an industrial hub. The red neon Pepsi-Cola sign on the banks of the East River lit up the front of a bottling plant that churned out thousands of sodas each day. In the 1920s, the boom from industry lured the Bank of Manhattan to build a tower in Long Island City at the foot of the newly constructed Queensboro Bridge. When the bank opened in 1927, it was the tallest building in the borough, a title it would hold for 63 years. The surrounding square near the foot of the cantilever bridge was dubbed the Times Square of Queens.Long Island Citys fortunes turned, just as they did in York. The bottling plant closed in 1999. The Bank of Manhattan branch was abandoned. The hands on the tower clock stopped ticking. And the slow and steady economic decline took its toll on the residents. As the factories emptied out, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood shifted. The neighboring housing project went from a mix of white and black working-class people to largely poor residents, according to New York Citys own estimates, and almost exclusively black and Latino.But unlike York, Long Island City has recovered in the last decade. With Manhattan and Brooklyn rents choking the wallets of the citys young professionals, it has become one of the hottest places in the city for renters, especially affluent white renters. From 2010 to 2015, Long Island City was tied for first place among neighborhoods in New York in its influx of white residents. Median home prices went up 51 percent in the last six years. And rents in the neighborhood are the highest in Queens, according to the real estate firm Zillow.Stil, poverty persists in Long Island City, especially in the housing projects, and the area was certified as an opportunity zone in June. The designation allowed Goldman Sachs to cash in on its real estate deal. If you look at the behavior of the real estate industry, says Timothy Weaver, an urban policy assistant professor at the University at Albany, it is amassing vast amounts of money and directing money to take advantage of the policy. To critics, opportunity zones are threatening to bestow huge grants on communities that dont really need them.Opportunity zones are the latest in a long series of efforts by the federal government to direct investment to impoverished areas. Since the New Deal, the government has been trying to jumpstart economic growth in portions of the country where the economy was faltering. In the 1970s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development launched Community Development Block Grants and Urban Development Action Grants to revive struggling cities. Those programs were popular with the progressive administrations and congresses that dominated federal politics during that period.Also in the 1970s, Republicans, led by U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, began proposing market-driven solutions to the same problems, referring to them most often as enterprise zones. Nearly all of these solutions were based on tax incentives or the loosening of economic regulations. Slightly different versions, under different names, were created and enacted by Democrats in the Clinton and Obama years. But the percentage of Americans living in poverty remained nearly unmoved through all the decades. Equally troubling was the increase in those living in extreme poverty. The number of Americans whose earnings equal less than 50 percent of the federal poverty line has more than doubled in the last 40 years, according to the Census.Opportunity zones borrows a bit from the playbooks of the previous plans. But there are some significant changes. The market-driven solutions of the last 40 years have been in line with conservative supply-side economic policies. Investment, goes the theory, drives the economy. Cut taxes and investors will use their capital to make more money and, in turn, create jobs. Democrats in the 1980s and 1990s were largely skeptical of supply-side economics. The party insisted that market-driven programs include local hiring and local contracting provisions to make sure jobs were created in the community and the gains made by investors were shared with local businesses. For example, the empowerment zones that were established under the Clinton administration gave businesses a tax credit for hiring employees who lived in the zones. No such provisions exist in the opportunity zone program, despite backing from some prominent Democrats. Urban policy analysts see the program as an unbridled supply-side program. Its almost a purer version of the original vision, Weaver says. What happened with the empowerment zones and the enterprise zones is that Congress made compromises that watered them down.While companies arent required to hire a certain number of local employees, firms must have 70 percent of their tangible assets (property, materials and goods for sale) within the zone, a regulation designed to keep large retailers such as Amazon and Walmart from cashing in on the tax break. Even so, critics still characterize the program as too wide and unrestricted, noting that hot markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York have already shown the most visible successes. Even their poorer neighborhoods are seen as better bets. Thats why Long Island City, not York, Pa., is attracting so much investment. And what critics fear is that the feverish investment in hot markets will lead to displacement of low-income residents. If these investments are going to be luxury hotels and real estate investments its not going to help low-income people, says Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute. Its more likely to displace them.When EIG designed opportunity zones, the drafters expected that real estate would be -- and in their estimate, should be -- the first place for investors in the zones to put their money. Businesses would need offices, and workers would need housing. Gentrification was a concern, so the program included a condition that a developer buying a piece of real estate must make an equal investment in improving the property. If developers paid $1 million for a property in a city, they were required to make $1 million in improvements.However, in the rules released by the IRS in October, the value of the land was taken out of the calculation for necessary improvements on a property. So only the structure, if there is one, will be factored into the amount of improvement necessary to qualify under the program. In York, Helfrich is worried that investors might see his city as a place to buy up real estate and not invest in businesses. Developers have long been buying factories in the city and converting them to condominiums and loft apartments. We are very aware of the potential pitfalls of this program, Helfrich says. Our city wants to attract job-providing businesses and discourage those who want to gentrify the neighborhoods in our city.Despite the market-driven underpinnings behind opportunity zones, libertarian-leaning conservatives are critical of the plan. For one thing, they insist, allowing governors to pick the areas of investment politicizes the program. The original zone map proposed for York included residential neighborhoods. But a lobbying effort by elected officials convinced the governor to move the zones to commercial areas where city leaders wanted the investment to go.Another concern is that by lumping cities like Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., with places such as Akron, Ohio; Clarksdale, Miss.; and York, the program is only encouraging more investment in superstar cities. If you look in Los Angeles and New York City, many of the places that are labeled opportunity zones are places where investment is already happening, says Weaver, the urban policy professor. And investors are going to get tax breaks on investments that were going to happen anyway.Not only are the zones in the less attractive markets forced to compete with places such as Long Island City for investment, but the smaller markets are also competing with each other. There are more than 8,000 Census tracts with the same tax advantage, says Brett Theodos of the Urban Institute. Itll be hard for these eager supplicants to distinguish themselves from one another. It would be simpler, he says, to play it safe and invest in Chicago, New York or Seattle.Then theres the issue of the Treasury Department rules. One of them states that 50 percent of the gross income generated by a business in a qualified opportunity zone must result from sales made within the zone. That would essentially disqualify all but retail and real estate investment. Lettieri of EIG has been critical of the 50 percent gross revenue rule, saying that if it remains in effect, opportunity zones will fail to spur the kind of economic activity that can revive the areas the program was designed to serve. The No. 1 outcome we should be driving for here is to support new businesses, Lettieri says. The gross income rule is damaging to businesses unless you are a laundromat or hardware store who doesnt sell anything online.The public comment period for the Treasury rules closed Dec. 14. EIG submitted comments in opposition to the 50 percent rule, but as of publication, it was still in the tax code.The combined result of all this is that Helfrich is fielding only a handful of calls from outside investors. Still, there is some interest. John McElligott is the founder and CEO of York Exponential, a robotics firm that programs, designs and constructs its robots in York. On the dayvisited the robotics plants, McElligott was set to meet with angel investors about the companys expansion. McElligott wants to construct a $136 million robotics campus on a parcel of land called the Northwest Triangle. Gov. Wolf gave the company $6 million toward the project, but York Exponential is looking to investors for the rest of the capital to create what the CEO believes will transform York into a tech hub for hardware and manufacturing. We are not going to be a research and development community, McElligott says. York is going to be less Facebook and more Ford.The campus, McElligott hopes, will be the tipping point in Yorks renaissance. Once the new facility is operating, he believes other firms will come to York to compete either in building robots or building the materials to support his businesses growth. As the opportunity zone program was being developed, McElligott traveled to Washington, D.C., at least once a month to lobby on behalf of Yorks interest.The proposed York Exponential campus wont die if the 50 percent gross revenue rule remains in place. McElligott is confident his investors will stick with his vision whether or not they reap the benefits of a tax break. But that might not be the case for the tech firms Helfrich and McElligott would like to see orbiting the campus when it is complete. The program under the 50 percent rule encourages you to create a pizza shop, McElligott says. We are trying to create jobs. McElligott and Helfrich want what they describe as middle-income jobs, not retail or restaurant employment. In 2017, retail paid an average of $14 an hour, or roughly $30,000 a year, if the employee worked 40 hours a week and received paid leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Even if the Treasury Department removes the 50 percent rule, investors will need some handholding if they are to see places such as York as genuinely appealing targets. None will want to lose the gains made on Wall Street in a risky business proposition. Naturally the capital in this program is going to flow to real estate, says Steve Waters, founder and CEO of SMB Intelligence, a firm that provides local government with data and information on how to grow their small business sectors. Its only going to flow to businesses if its directed.Many potential investors are looking to the Treasury right now to finalize the rules governing the program. Investors are champing at the bit to invest in opportunity zones, says Rebecca Mitich, a partner with Husch Blackwell, a law firm that specializes in using tax credits to develop real estate. There are huge New York private equity funds and giant fund managers who are ready to go but still want additional guidance to proceed.Lettieri believes the rules for the program are not set in stone. He and others expect more rules, perhaps a revision of the 50 percent gross revenue rule, to come in the spring. And even as the real estate activity around opportunity zones has been red hot, at what appears to be the expense of commercial business applicants, Lettieri and other backers of the opportunity zone idea believe business capital will begin to come off the sideline in 2019 as the program is better defined. If that doesnt happen and the zones remain largely a benefit for real estate development, their creators believe they wont reinvigorate communities like York. Real estate is the floor, not the ceiling, Lettieri says. If the road ends with real estate, that is a big shortcoming.
A $206 million deal between the Western Australian government and controversial Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei could fall apart after the United States charged the company and its chief financial officer with fraud and violating trade sanctions against Iran.

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said she sought assurances from Huawei it could deliver on the contract to build a mobile data system for the state's public rail network.

Premier Mark McGowan and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti say they are still confident there are no security concerns over a $206 million state government contract with Huawei, but have asked the company for assurances it can deliver a public rail communications system. Credit:Nathan Hondros

However, she remained adamant there were no security implications over Huawei's involvement in the project, which was to include capability to control passenger trains automatically.

Ms Saffioiti said Huawei may have difficulty importing and exporting components from the US and could face a trade embargo, which would impact its ability to construct the communications system.
Retirees unhappy with Labor's plan to remove cash payments for excess franking credits are free to vote for another party, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has declared, as the opposition doubles down on the policy in the face of criticism from the government.

With no formal witnesses scheduled for any of the 12 special economics committee hearings to be held across the country before May, Coalition MPs appear set to continue to use the meetings to rally against the Labor policy. At one recent hearing an MP went so far as to hand out Liberal Party membership forms to the audience.

The taxpayer-funded committee hearings in Dee Why in Sydney and Townsville and Alexandra Headland in Queensland proved flash points for retirees venting their anger at the $5 billion-a-year policy.

A hearing of the Franking Credit Inquiry in Dee Why, Sydney, in November.

The committee has heard evidence from hundreds of people eager to share their concerns about what a change in policy could mean for their retirement incomes.
Attorney General Josh Kaul has declined to represent Gov. Tony Evers in a suit over lame-duck laws limiting their powers, prompting Evers to spend up to $50,000 of taxpayer money on private attorneys.The move comes soon after Republican lawmakers approved billing taxpayers for their own private attorneys in the legal fight. They have not said what firm they plan to use.The Democratic governor selected the Madison firm Pines Bach to represent him last week after Kaul told Evers he couldn't represent him because of a conflict of interest.Pines Bach senior partner Lester Pines often represented the state when Democrat Jim Doyle was governor, and in recent years has led legal challenges to laws approved by Republicans.Pines and his colleagues will be paid $275 an hour, according to a copy of the contract released Monday under the state's open records law. The cost is capped at $50,000.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the economy probably shrank in the fourth quarter, plunging Italy into a recession that would put pressure on the populist government's spending plans.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte . Credit:AP

At an event in Milan, Conte said: "I expect a further contraction of gross domestic product." The comment raised eyebrows as it appeared to let slip a major economic announcement a day early and opened him to criticism that he'd seen the numbers in advance. The national statistics office publishes preliminary GDP data for the fourth quarter at 11 am on Thursday in Rome.

Conte went on to couch his words by saying "analysts tell us we'll likely still suffer a bit at the start of this year but all the elements are there to recover in the second half." His take jives with that of economists, who forecast a second 0.1 per cent contraction in the three months.
But the economic fallout from a serious credit squeeze is nothing that whoever is in government in six months' time will want in their laps.

The countdown to the release of one of the most anticipated reports in recent history is on. But Kenneth Haynes final findings about the conduct of Australias large financial institutions present the federal government and the opposition with a significant dilemma.

For Treasurer Josh Frydenberg its a balancing act. On the one hand, he is out there encouraging banks to keep lending. But on the other, he may be on the cusp of promoting a Hayne-recommended push for stricter rules that will curb the ability of banks to lend.

Frydenberg certainly wants to have total control of the narrative of the governments response to the report. The government will receive the royal commission's report on Friday, then release it and respond to it on Monday in Canberra.

The political response to his moves will come straight on Monday afternoon. The ramifications for the financial sector will be the second wave, and bank shares will react on Tuesday.

The electorate has been equally mesmerised and appalled by the behaviour of the banks, wealth managers and insurance companies uncovered during a year of royal commission hearings. They want them to be punished.

They also want to see regulations and laws established to ensure such behaviour wont happen again, and that from here on ethics and people will trump bank profits.
Managing Editor

Delphine Luneau is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience. She was the editor of Suburban Life Media when its flagship was named best weekly in Illinois, and she has worked at papers in South Carolina, Indiana, Idaho and New York.
Debris from the aftermath of Hurricane Michael is seen Oct. 26, 2018, in Mexico Beach, Fla.
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Tou Xiong describes running for office as almost a natural stage of life. We got done with college and law school, he says, and now were in that prime time to run for office.Xiong was part of a group of four legislators of Hmong descent elected to the Minnesota House last November, tripling the overall number to six. The House grew more diverse in general, with record numbers of Hispanic, Asian and black legislators, including representatives from Minnesotas Somali community.Its a time-honored tradition that immigrant groups, once they form a big enough population in a city or state, come to flex their political muscles, from the Irish and Italians of the Northeast to Hispanics in the Southwest. For the Hmong people, who came to Minnesota from Southeast Asia as refugees in the 1970s and 1980s, the clout to form a legislative caucus is something they could barely dream about 15 or 20 years ago. This reflects the maturing of political consciousness in the Hmong population, says David Schultz, a political scientist at Hamline University in St. Paul. Theyve gone from being civically involved to now being politically involved. Theyve developed some economic wherewithal, a sufficient stake in the community and a nucleus of voters.Older generations of Hmong had to attend to survival needs, serving community members almost on a one-to-one basis, says KaYing Yang, program director of the Coalition of Asian American Leaders in St. Paul. Beyond social services, the rising generation of Hmong adults recognizes the need to make policy change as well, she says. They understand the political system better than the first generation.There are more than 60,000 Hmong residents in Minnesota, nearly all of them in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. But candidates including Xiong sought to appeal to broader groups of voters by campaigning on health care and education. These candidates did not run as single-issue candidates on a Hmong platform, says Schultz. Still, Hmong legislators are expected to seek ways of addressing the educational and economic disparities that hold back many members of their community. The portrayal of Asians as the model minority has kept some lawmakers from recognizing the struggles among the Hmong.But theres no doubt that the arrival of so many Hmong legislators at the Capitol last month offered a moment of pride -- even a sense of validation, Xiong says, that their parents and grandparents had done the right thing in uprooting their lives and coming to this country.
In his first month on the job, Shanahan has been working on many of the same issues that occupied him while deputy secretary. He rolled out the Pentagons new missile defense strategy, which he had worked on previously, and will soon unveil the departments budget request for the 2020 fiscal year, which he has described as a masterpiece and evidence of the militarys move away from counterinsurgency toward great-power competition. Shanahan also served as the point person for Trumps Space Force in his previous job and signaled Tuesday that he would continue that focus.
On a Tuesday night in mid-November, a week after the midterm elections, several of Americas most recognizable progressives joined a national strategy call to talk about Medicare for All, the vision of single-payer health care gaining traction in the Democratic Party. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was on the line, along with former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, who heads Sanders political group, Our Revolution, and is a regular commentator on CNN.But the first speaker on the call -- the woman who declared it was time to give this movement some serious muscle -- was neither a well-known elected official nor a prominent media personality. She was Bonnie Castillo, the registered nurse who early in 2018 became the executive director of the 150,000-member National Nurses United (NNU), the largest nurses union in the country.Castillo didnt pull any punches. She vowed that NNU would escalate its fight against the very vicious profit-driven health-care system, standing up for those denied care in so many manipulative and deceptive ways so that the billionaires and the corporate few can add to their fortunes. She said the fight would require them to do more than simply rely on the electoral process. It would require organizing all over the country.NNU isnt new to this fight. Breaking up the for-profit health-care system has been a defining mission of the union since its founding a decade ago. But now the group faces a new challenge. NNU is embarking on a revamped Medicare for All campaign not only at the federal level -- where the prospects of success are bleak, at least in the short term -- but in states across the country, especially those with Democratic governors, most notably California, Minnesota and New York.The effort flies in the face of history -- no state has ever enacted single-payer by itself. Vermont tried and failed in 2014, when Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin concluded that state taxpayers couldnt absorb the required revenue increases. In 2017, Anthony Rendon, the Democratic Assembly Speaker of California -- generally considered the nations most thoroughly liberal state -- shelved a single-payer proposal. But Castillo remains undeterred. Where there are state-based efforts and we have the ability to engage, we are going to engage, she says.Success would require the building of broad coalitions that have proven elusive for the union in the past. It would require exceptional leadership from Castillo following the tenure of longtime Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro, a transformative but polarizing leader whose hardline approach alienated some other unions and Democratic power players. But should NNU succeed in one or more states, or even take some well-publicized steps toward success, it will likely cement its reputation as a model for organizing, and as a remarkably strong union in an anti-union age.NNU, which has members in all 50 states, was founded in 2009 when three longstanding state-based unions -- the California Nurses Association (CNA), the Maryland-based United American Nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Association -- effectively merged. The California and Massachusetts branches continue to operate as NNU affiliates with 100,000 and 23,000 members, respectively. Through it all, the 116-year-old California group has been the powerhouse; DeMoro led CNA for 17 years before NNUs founding, and she continued to lead the affiliate and the national umbrella group until Castillo took charge of both last year.NNUs most indisputable success is its remarkable growth. In 2014,dubbed the group The Little Union That Could -- one of the smallest, but most powerful unions in the country -- and noted that NNU was growing at the same time that other unions across the country were coming close to atrophy. CNA claims to have grown from 17,000 members in 1993 to about 100,000 in 2018. NNU organized 8,000 nurses after it gained national visibility for its early endorsement of Sanders presidential campaign in 2016. Jane Sanders, the senators wife, has called NNU arguably the strongest union in the country.The California affiliate attracted national attention in 2004, when it took on a fight against Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The union had backed a law requiring minimum nurse-to-patient ratios at hospitals; Schwarzenegger sought to roll back the measure. CNA fought hard, waging a massive statewide campaign with more than 100 public demonstrations against Schwarzenegger at the peak of his popularity. The nurses won.In 2010, CNA helped defeat Schwarzeneggers would-be Republican successor, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The union deployed an elaborate parody campaign that cast Whitman as the rich and entitled aspiring monarch Queen Meg. The campaign was meant to be funny, one union official said, but whats not funny is the idea that an ex-Goldman Sachs CEO billionaire can stroll into our state and buy the governorship. Whitman was defeated easily by Democrat Jerry Brown.Castillo believes her group is uniquely positioned to capture the energy of the present moment, when women are exerting new political power in Washington and at the state level. This is a predominantly female workforce, Castillo says of NNU, which I believe has been inspired by the movement of women, whether in #MeToo or the teachers standing up. We are finding that even nurses who are not organized are contacting us and wanting to organize.Through all these battles, CNA has acquired a reputation for headline-grabbing theatrics, protesting and picketing against Republicans and Democrats alike. At times, the group has taken this strategy to what many consider an extreme: After Rendon tabled the single-payer bill in California, for instance, DeMoro tweeted a graphic of a California grizzly bear with a knife in its back. Rendons name was clearly visible on the surface of the blade.DeMoro believed in conflict as a strategy. She saw herself as fighting a class war. A San Francisco columnist once called her Mother Teresa with brass knuckles. She was happy with that. I dont know about the Mother Teresa stuff, she told, but I like the part about the brass knuckles.Dr. Paul Song, who sits on the board of Physicians for a National Health Program and favors Medicare for All, expects a slightly less militant style of leadership from Castillo, who previously directed NNUs nursing practice, its health and safety programs and its disaster relief initiative. DeMoro was not afraid to offend or piss people off, he says. That was just her style. I think Bonnie is also a force to be reckoned with, but her style is different. Shes far less confrontational, but you dont become the head of this massive, powerful union unless youre tough.One longtime ally of NNU who sounds wary of its new leadership is Ralph Nader, the well-known consumer protection advocate who earned CNAs endorsement for his Green Party presidential campaign in 2000. Nader took a bus tour with DeMoro pushing for single-payer in California decades ago, and he says she and her union set the standard for unionism in America. Nader understands Castillo to be less committed to the expansive vision of social unionism that has been an NNU hallmark. Theres something lost, he says, because the new leader wants to focus on the nurses more -- the staffing issue, the pay issue, the benefits issue, the safety issue.NNU does have a history of pushing for causes one might not typically associate with nurses, from consumer protection -- which caught Naders eye -- to fighting climate change. But CNA spokesman Charles Idelson flatly rejects the notion that the union is altering its approach. The amount of social union activism under Bonnies leadership is unparalleled, certainly among labor unions, he says. Its the lifeblood of this organization. He notes that NNU has been heavily involved in recovery from Californias recent fires, part of the unions ongoing work on climate change as a public health crisis.Even if she does bring a new tone to NNU, Castillo is planning continuity on a key issue that sets the group apart from other unions. What has distinguished us in the past and still distinguishes us is that we do not engage in labor-management partnerships, she says. Thats not something that we do or will ever do, because the fundamental alliance with our patients is sacred.Not everyone is impressed with NNUs approach -- or with its results. Steve Maviglio, a prominent Democratic consultant in California, says the nurses are the makers of their own misfortune when it comes to issues like single-payer. He calls them masters of the political publicity stunt who are ultimately ineffective advocates because theyre so radical. Its sort of all or nothing, and [the result has been] nothing, because what they advocate never gets enacted. They put on a good show, but when it comes to results, theyre just not there. No one takes them seriously in Sacramento other than if youre afraid of having people demonstrating.Idelson says the consultants criticisms are word for word what the insurance industry would say about us, and what Wall Street would say about us. Trump and Maviglio are in line on this. Thats who hes parroting.But even some of NNUs allies in the fight for single-payer acknowledge a downside to the unions approach. On the 2017 single-payer fight in California, says Song, there are some critics I know who didnt feel CNA had a really good inside game, meaning there was a great building of the grassroots but there was nobody inside the halls of Sacramento who really had an ear. They have lobbyists. They have political directors in there. But not to the point where they were able to build a real coalition of elected officials inside. I think theres some truth to those criticisms.A new test of the unions influence in California appears to be on the horizon. NNU endorsed new Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who pledged his support for the concept of single-payer. Some question Newsoms commitment, but Castillo promises her group will hold him accountable for his pledge. The leadership of this union is not going to sit it out, she says. Were counting on him being a firm ally on health care as a human right. He cant be chicken on this one.If her rhetoric on this issue is any indication, Castillo wont be shrinking from the unions traditional goals, or the hardball tactics they have used in pursuing them. She refuses to believe single-payer at the state level is doomed by definition -- that only the federal government can achieve it. She says the primary problem is political will, and shes steeling herself for more fights with politicians she considers lacking it. At the end of the day, Castillo says, they have to fear us. If they dont do the right thing, we need someone else in their place.
Francis has become more vulnerable to opposition, and even dissent, as his papacy has been hobbled by a series of sexual-abuse-related crises. The faiths leaders are divided over his handling of those crises, as well as his somewhat more permissive stance on social issues and his use of power. In August, a former Vatican ambassador  in the most visible form of friction of Franciss papacy  accused the pope of knowing about and failing to act on the alleged abuse of seminarians by then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The ambassador said Francis should resign.
Many single women over the age of 25 dread the idea of returning home for the holiday and being hectored about being single and enduring relentless matchmaking efforts. Some 85 percent of 26- to 30-year-old singletons say their parents have urged them to hurry up and get married, according to a survey last year by Zhenai.com, a popular dating site.
It actually would be a step backward, said Scott Kennedy, director of the project on Chinese business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The draft is so full of vague statements and holes that passing the law would make absolutely no difference to the experience of foreign companies in China and actually could leave them worse off than they are today.
There has been discussion among some lawmakers of trying to widen the border negotiations to encompass more issues, such as a solution for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children and whose Obama-era protections are being challenged in court by the Trump administration. But Lowey said the conference committee, which she is chairing, will focus on the narrower issues within the parameters of the Homeland Security spending bill.
The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! Trump wrote on Twitter. . . . They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There [sic] economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to make mental health care accessible to everyone. The law mandated parity -- that insurance companies must cover mental health services, including substance abuse treatment, on par with medical and surgical care. But the goal hasnt been realized. Loopholes in the ACA and other federal laws allowed some plans to limit or exclude mental and behavioral health coverage. Oversight and enforcement of the mandates have been inconsistent. And, of course, millions of Americans remain without health coverage.So some state and local governments have begun taking matters into their own hands, enacting tax increases to fund mental health services. Seattle, Larimer County, Colo., and California are among jurisdictions that have taken that route; a 2018 report from the RAND Corp. found that the California tax had expanded services to 130,000 young people in Los Angeles County alone.Among the latest jurisdictions to move in this direction is Denver, where in November voters approved Caring 4 Denver, a ballot measure that implements a small sales tax increase, .25 percent, to fund mental health services. It won 68 percent of the vote, and Denver is believed to be the first major city to get a tax increase for mental health services approved through a ballot initiative. It was quickly followed by Baton Rouge, La., whose voters approved a new property tax in December that will fund a psychiatric crisis center.State Rep. Leslie Herod of Denver spearheaded that citys campaign. She initially envisioned a proposal that would focus narrowly on stopping the citys jails from being a de facto public mental health provider. But after talking to more people and traveling around the state, she realized that the city needed a more robust response. The Denver school district has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, Herod says. We dont have enough funding for therapists in our schools, and our kids are suffering. So while I was thinking this would be mostly about criminal justice reform, once I started listening to the community, I realized it was much bigger than that.Herod says she wanted to keep the proposal limited to the city level, rather than pushing for a statewide ballot measure, in part because she believes an initiative like this should start small and local. People tend to care more about helping friends and family at the local level, she says.The tax is expected to raise $45 million in the first year. That is an absolute game-changer, says Carl Clark, president and CEO of the Mental Health Center of Denver. Forty-five million dollars is a significant amount of money to create more programs and build more capacity for our existing programs that are working well.Aside from the impact on current programs, both Herod and Clark have larger aspirations for putting the revenues from the tax to use. Herod imagines something like a campus housing not only mental health providers but also facilities for detox and treatment for substance abuse -- a place where law enforcement can take people other than a jail. And Clark imagines revamping a statewide crisis line so it can refer Denver residents to a local provider, since many people experiencing a mental health crisis end up in the emergency room.Regardless of what the city does with the new revenue, its voters have given mental health advocates hope that they can change the status quo of care, absent any developments from Washington. I didnt even allow myself to think about what could be different about our system until Election Night, Clark says.
Trump told the Daily Caller that he was speaking for a lot of people that were very disappointed to see that go down that way. To see it happen where it was on camera, on top of it. That was a very, very disappointing scene.
While many may argue that lynching has been relegated to history, you only need to look at the events in Charlottesville last year to be reminded that the racist and hateful sentiments that spurred these abhorrent crimes are still prevalent in todays American society, he said at the time.
A power grab to let people vote? Shaub said in a tweet. He also says its just a holiday for bureaucrats, almost  of whom are veterans. How about McConnell compromises by moving Veterans Day to the 1st Tuesday in November? What better way to honor veterans than by making it easier for them to vote?
Without a formal campaign, Schultz has built out an extensive operation to support his bid. He has been working on ballot access plans with Kellen Arno and Kahlil Byrd, two former strategists for Americans Elect, which mounted a similar effort in the 2012 presidential election cycle. Schultz has also been having policy conversations to develop his platform, including a meeting with venture capitalist Bob Kocher, a veteran of the Obama White House and an expert on reducing government health-care costs.
The method of payout also will vary. The IRS has told its employees that they will receive one deposit covering both pay periods; the Coast Guard has told its civilian workers that they will receive one payment, although deductions will be taken out as if there were two payments. NASA and HUD said their employees will receive two payments.
No person or family should ever feel abandoned by their country when taken prisoner or hostage by hostile entities, Richardson said in a statement to The Post. Ive got a lucky blue blazer for years Ive worn into situations I didnt know if I will make it out of. Doing this type of work is a challenge I love and will continue to do as long as I am able and as long as my blazer holds up.
Republicans tried repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act but could never agree on how to replace it, resulting in a politically embarrassing failure. Before that, President Barack Obama pledged when selling the ACA that if you like your health-care plan, youll be able to keep your health-care plan, a comment later widely criticized as misleading.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and its parent company followed through early Tuesday on their plans to seek bankruptcy protection because of the mounting toll they face from the past two seasons of devastating Northern California wildfires.In legal filings, PG&E said the business wants to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code because of the "actual and potential liabilities" of the company. Shares of parent company PG&E Corp. closed at $13.99, up 16.5 percent.The court papers made official what PG&E told employees earlier this month due to a new California wildfire law that requires 15 days advance notice to workers before a change of control in the company, which the law defines to include filing for bankruptcy protection."The power and gas will stay on," PG&E wrote in a statement posted on its website. "We will continue to provide you with reliable electric and natural gas service, and that will not change as a result of this process. To be very clear, we are not 'going out of business,' and there will be no disruption in the services you expect from us."PG&E Corp.'s filing listed $71.4 billion in assets and $51.7 billion in debt. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. accounted for almost all of those amounts, with its petition listing $71.2 billion in assets and $51.4 billion in debt.Experts agreed the bankruptcy filing by California's largest utility won't affect its customers' ability to keep their lights on. But the process has potential to spur fundamental changes, such as a possible sale of the gas side of the business, as the company reorganizes. It could also eventually affect customer rates and delay or reduce the payments received by thousands of wildfire victims who have sued PG&E.Gov. Gavin Newsom said PG&E's filing was the company's decision and does not deter his focus on "protecting the best interests of the people of California.""My administration will continue working to ensure that Californians have access to safe, reliable and affordable service, that victims and employees are treated fairly, and that California continues to make forward progress on our climate change goals," Newsom said in a statement.In the short term, the filing will place restrictions on PG&E's operations by putting the company under supervision of a bankruptcy court and limiting its ability to make any major decisions without the court's approval.PG&E's interim CEO John Simon, the company's general counsel who stepped into the top role earlier this month following the resignation of Geisha Williams, told employees in an email Tuesday that the company expects the bankruptcy process to last about two years.He stressed in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, that the 16 million people served by PG&E will continue receiving electricity and gas, and the company's workforce of approximately 24,000 will still be paid and receive health care benefits. He also said "there are bound to be surprises" as PG&E goes under supervision of the bankruptcy court."Throughout this process, our call to action is to further improve our operations and business practices so that we emerge from reorganization as a company that is positioned to serve our communities safely and reliably for many years to come," Simon wrote.The bankuptcy proceedings opened Tuesday afternoon with a 75-minute hearing before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali of San Francisco, who also presided over PG&E's 2001 bankruptcy. With every seat taken in his court and an overflow courtroom next door, Montali scheduled hearings for four days a month through April on PG&E's plans to reorganize and pay its debts and any competing plans submitted by wildfire victims and others with claims against the utility.PG&E is planning a "smooth transition" into bankruptcy, with a filing that contains "nothing unusual except the numbers," attorney Tobias Keller told Montali.The judge also scheduled a hearing Thursday to hear the utility's opening statement and short-term financing measures and any objections voiced by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee's office, an arm of the Justice Department.The bankruptcy filing provoked a strong reaction from PG&E's largest union, IBEW Local 1245, which represents about 12,000 company employees. The union does not know what shape the company will take when it emerges from bankruptcy but indicated it opposed some of the major changes the process could produce, Tom Dalzell, the union's business manager, said in a statement."Parceling out the utility into smaller, weaker segments would unquestionably have a negative impact on the safety and stability of both gas and electric service, it would increase costs, and it would decelerate progress toward California's ambitious clean energy goals," Dalzell said in the statement. "Furthermore, selling or municipalizing some or all of PG&E's gas or electric transmission or distribution systems would not solve the overarching issue of climate change and the strict liability policies that have put PG&E and all other California utilities on an unsustainable trajectory."PG&E has said its liability from 2017 and 2018 wildfires could exceed $30 billion, but that was before state investigators cleared the company of being responsible for one of the worst blazes, the Tubbs Fire, which devastated parts of Santa Rosa in 2017.The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, issued a finding last week that said the wildfire was caused by privately controlled electrical equipment, not PG&E power lines.Attorneys for fire victims said they can still argue PG&E was responsible for the Tubbs Fire and vowed to continue with their efforts. Cal Fire has said PG&E was responsible for a series of other fires that burned in Northern California in October 2017.The most decisive wildfire problem for PG&E, however, has proved to be last year's Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and burned more than 18,800 buildings in Butte County, making it both the deadliest and most destructive fire in state history. PG&E has detailed two sources of malfunctioning equipment: a transmission tower near one suspected origin point for the fire and another distribution line in the area, fueling widespread speculation that the inferno will be blamed on the utility.Shares of PG&E Corp. plummeted after the Camp Fire and took a nosedive after the company announced its plan to seek bankruptcy protection earlier this month.The bankruptcy filing comes about 18 years after PG&E's utility subsidiary sought bankruptcy protection because of the early 2000s energy crisis. That case is still open, PG&E noted in its new filing. But the circumstances differ: PG&E's current financial problems stem from the future wildfire liability it's staring down, whereas the 2001 Chapter 11 filing was motivated by a more immediate cash flow problem caused by high electricity costs."It was quite a different situation, and it had nothing to do with liability," said Paul Patterson, an analyst with Glenrock Associates.PG&E's dire financial straits today also involve more claims that the utility might be shown to be directly responsible for, allegedly by maintaining its equipment poorly, Patterson said.Another significant difference is that the parent company is joining the utility in bankruptcy. In 2001, PG&E sought to keep its unregulated energy businesses separate from the regulated utility, but now, its utility is its primary business.The need for PG&E's current bankruptcy filing had been questioned by some, including activists and some shareholders."We think that PG&E is being very irresponsible by filing for bankruptcy when it is financially solvent," said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network. "We really see the bankruptcy as a way for PG&E to try to duck its responsibilities and accountability for its criminal behavior."PG&E has consistently said that the company viewed a Chapter 11 filing as the only viable path for the business.Steve Malnight, the utility's senior vice president of energy supply and policy, said in an interview that the company faces a "massive potential liability" because of thousands of claims against it stemming from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires, with thousands more likely coming related to the Camp Fire.That liability prompted multiple credit downgrades that limited PG&E's ability to access funding it needs to safely operate its system, Malnight said."That is something that we could not put at risk," he said.The bankruptcy filing isn't the only wildfire-fueled obstacle in PG&E's path. The federal judge overseeing its probation from the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion has also proposed a sweeping fire prevention plan that PG&E has said is infeasible. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in San Francisco.
In Kenya, tribal lineage is mostly patriarchal, so women are presumed to take the ethnic identity of their fathers  and later their husbands. They have always been able to marry out of their original ethnic identity (say, Kamba, Maasai or Maragoli) and adopt another one through the new union. If half the population in a tribal country such as mine is tribally fluid in this way, it hardly makes sense to assume that tribalism is synonymous with rigidity. And this situation is by no means limited to Kenya. The Tswana people, of Botswana and South Africa, have a saying: Women have no tribe. Across Africa, appeals to ethnicity often do not appeal to many women practically or emotionally, writes historian Jan Bender Shetler.
Yes, it is a sign  that Stone has created another circus. He was caricatured by Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. Others go silent when indicted; Stone went on CNN, ABC and Fox News (both Hannity and Tucker Carlson) to tout his website and his next book (Woodward and Bernstein: The Godfathers of Fake News) and to raise $2 million for his legal defense (so what if his lawyers arent certified to practice in Washington?).
So is the fact that Buttigieg wont be the only Democratic candidate in the race who supports marriage equality, or who will be trying to break barriers. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), each of whom would be the first female president, have long backed equal rights for married same-sex couples. As San Antonio mayor, Julian Castro, who would be the first Latino president, backed efforts to expand recognition of same-sex couples. I am content to have them and other strong like-minded candidates, including Buttigieg, go out and make their case to the American people and would eagerly vote for any of them over what we have today.
These findings reaffirm what I already know: that we have always been, and remain, a hopeful nation. My experiences over the past four years have blessed me with optimism, not burdened me with dread. And I know from personal experiences that hope  not fear  is the most powerful emotion, and the author of humanitys greatest achievements. I come from the get-things-done school of politics, and Ill work with anyone who wants to do the peoples business. Our leaders in Washington need to do the same.
It does not have to go like this. The United States could announce that talks wont proceed beyond the framework, to matters of substance, without the full inclusion of the Afghan government. Right now, the inclusion of the Afghans is only theoretical. We could also note that unless some other solution is found, U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan as long as the current government wants them, protecting the United States national security interests and defending core values, such as womens rights, that we have fostered there since 2001.
The office of the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury audits state and local government entities and is involved in the general financial and administrative oversight of state government. It has some 550 employees. I worked there about 30 years ago and have good memories, but I was still surprised to learn that it had repeatedly won recognition as one of the states best places to work -- not just among public agencies but compared to businesses as well. In a survey conducted under the auspices of the Nashville newspaper, the comptrollers office has ranked in the top 10 in the large company category for the last three years.Workplace rankings are essentially ratings of employee engagement, based on worker surveys. I was surprised by the comptrollers ranking not just because it seemed hard to imagine that a bunch of auditors, accountants and finance types would be so happy about their jobs, but also because government agencies generally score considerably worse than businesses on these surveys. Last year, for example, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that produces an annual ranking of best places to work in the federal government, reported that only 13 federal agencies scored above the average for the private sector.The growing interest in public-sector employee engagement in recent years is encouraging, given the increasing difficulty governments are having attracting and retaining dedicated workers. Engaged employees are better employees. As management consultant and author Tony Schwartz wrote in the, more than a hundred studies have found that the most engaged employees -- those who report theyre fully invested in their jobs and committed to their employers -- are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged.s rankings are based on employee surveys by Energage, a company that runs about 50 such programs across the country, usually through media partners. One common finding, according to Bob Helbig, Energages media partnerships director, is that pay and benefits arent the main factors driving employee engagement. Instead, belief in the leadership of the organization and in its direction are huge, he says, and appreciation of employees and meaningfulness matter.This has real implications for government managers, who generally have less flexibility than businesses to reward employees with raises and bonuses. Thats a message that Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson understands. When I asked him how his office scored so high on the workplace rankings, he said it was primarily a matter of communication -- praising employees when they do a good job and constantly emphasizing the mission of the office, which is a simple one: to make government work better. And he recognizes that communication needs to be a two-way street. Our employees have a lot to say, Wilson says, and if we listen to them we might learn something.While engaging employees can be harder for public organizations than for private companies, I would argue that it is more important. When organizational improvement occurs in the public sector, writes Robert J. Lavigna, a former Wisconsin state personnel executive who now directs the Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement, customers and stakeholders will be more satisfied with the services they receive. This improved satisfaction leads to more trust in government. And public servants will feel more engaged when they see that their work is trusted. In other words, Lavigna writes, a virtuous cycle. Government cant have too many of those.
Exhibit No. 1 for GOP extremism is the man in the White House. And just compare the House intakes from the Republican landslide in 2010 and the Democratic landslide last fall. The 2010 Republicans were swept in by the tea party. The Democrats Class of 2018 is chock-full of very moderate progressives elected from very moderate districts. And if the Democrats are equally extreme, why are moderate Republican state legislators switching to the Democrats in states as different as California, Kansas, Hawaii and New Jersey?
Schultz hasnt declared his candidacy yet, but it would be a mistake to drive him away on the precedents of Perot and Nader, who, lets face it, never had a chance and, thus, indeed, were spoilers. Schultz is also no Michael R. Bloomberg, the other billionaire independent who has flirted with the presidency. Consider: As New York mayor, Bloomberg wanted to control soda consumption; Schultz, though no longer chief executive of Starbucks, wanted to feed the world high-calorie scones and venti salted caramel mocha lattes  with two pumps of vanilla.
In fighting these insurgents, the United States needs to eschew its big-war mind-set. Yes, there will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri. But even victory in World War II would have been squandered as readily as victory in World War I if the United States hadnt kept troops in Europe and Asia for 73 years and counting. The longer U.S. troops stay anywhere, the greater their chances of achieving our objectives. When U.S. troops pull out, the consequences are usually costly, whether its the communist takeover of Cambodia, Laos and South Vietnam in 1975, or the rise of the Islamic State after 2011. And, while the Viet Cong werent trying to attack the American homeland, the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are. The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence has warned that a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would lead to an attack on the United States within two years.
The emerging U.S.-Taliban agreement can open the door to the next stage of the process: negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the countrys political future, with public participation and including women and youths. The United States may have acceded to the Talibans demand to negotiate a troop withdrawal first, but as U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has said, Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire. This linkage makes this a peace agreement rather than an excuse for withdrawal. Any signals that the United States is willing to withdraw without these commitments will undermine the process.
Body counts can be misleading, since they dont measure the underlying will to keep fighting, but they suggest the awful human cost. President Ashraf Ghani said last week that more than 45,000 Afghan security personnel have been killed since he took office in 2014. U.S. commanders say Taliban losses are even higher. Over the past 17 years, about 1,800 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action and more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan.
In one case described in the indictment unveiled Monday by the Justice Department, Huawei headquarters in China instructed its employees in the United States to steal the design of a mobile-phone-testing robot developed by T-Mobile. This was a valuable piece of intellectual property that Huawei wanted for its own robot. Huawei engineers were repeatedly encouraged to carry out theft, and, the indictment says, on May 29, 2013, a Huawei engineer visiting T-Mobile slipped a robot arm into his bag and walked out of the laboratory. Overnight, he photographed the device and took critical measurements before returning it the next day, apologizing that it was taken by mistake. Later, Huawei responded to T-Mobile about the incident with gross deception, saying the thefts were a moment of indiscretion and did not reflect company policy when, in fact, the data had been sent to headquarters. Huawei even created a bonus program for workers who stole information from competitors.
Afghan applicants must demonstrate that they provided faithful and valuable service to the United States, worked for at least two years in a qualifying capacity, and face serious and ongoing threats because of their work. They must pass extensive security checks. For those who qualify, the program is a worthwhile reward for interpreters, translators and support workers who have stood with U.S. forces during the long war. For obvious and understandable reasons, they now fear they may be left behind. They not only took the risks of being in combat but also face danger when they go home and are often targeted by the Taliban. The war could not have been fought without them. Will it end with them stranded?
Its troubling that Warren is reviving a dusty old policy idea that has failed almost everywhere it has been tried. But its much more troubling that she has decided to focus her agenda on a proposal that almost certainly cannot be implemented without getting three-quarters of the states to vote for a constitutional amendment  or a Supreme Court that skews to the left. Offering policies that cant possibly be implemented as described, even if all the political winds line up just right, was supposed to be a Trumpian trait. More and more, its becoming business as usual.
Indians in Brazil are warned about effects of dam break: Possible ecological damage from a Brazilian mine dam that burst last week, killing at least 65 people, is being seen in an indigenous community about 11 miles downstream, observers said. The normally greenish Paraopeba River has turned dark brown since mud flowed out of the dam on Friday. Pataxco Indians living in the area say they have been told by Brazilian environmental workers not to fish or take baths in the river or to draw from it to water the plants they cultivate for food.
Smollett, 35, was walking in the 300 block of East North Lower Water Street about 2 a.m. Tuesday when two unknown offenders approached him and gained his attention by yelling out racial and homophobic slurs towards him, the Chicago Police Department said in a statement to The Washington Post. The offenders began to batter the victim with their hands about the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim.
In 1998, before Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela, PDVSA produced 3.3 million barrels per day, three times current levels. That decline in Venezuela, one of the founders of OPEC, has helped prop up global prices and prevented the rest of OPEC from having to make deep output cuts. The question is whether Saudi Arabia wants to help Trump and keep gasoline prices low in the United States or use this opportunity to drain global inventories.
The day after volunteers from No More Deaths were found guilty, an official from the Bureau of Land Management, which monitors public lands, warned Border Angels volunteers that leaving gallons of water in the desert could be considered littering, said Tanya Benitez, the main volunteer leading this group. She said the official told them that Border Angels would need to call the bureau before future hikes to report the exact coordinates where they were leaving supplies, something they said they had never been asked to do before.
The procedures, Northam said in the WTOP interview, are done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus thats not viable. So in this particular example, if a mothers in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if thats what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
We provided a considerable amount of time before we actually implemented the new ordinance so we could work with short-term-rental providers, so we can make sure that it was easy for them to come into compliance and that they had all the time they needed, Bulova said. This bill is just so unfair.
The Washington Post reported this month that the contractor, a consortium of companies called Purple Line Transit Partners, projected a February 2023 opening and sought $215 million in additional costs. However, that figure, from November, included costs only for delays for which the contractor said the Maryland Transit Administration is responsible, such as those stemming from a federal lawsuit against the project.
Egypts Armed Forces is testing the proficiency of conscripts in the fields of information technology and telecommunications with the aim of training them to develop their skills in the field, a statement by the Armed Forces said on Wednesday.

The programme has tested 750 conscripts from the various branches and departments of the Armed Forces to discover and develop their skills.

The programme aims to increase their job opportunities by helping them meet the demands of the job market after they complete their military service.

The programme, which being implemented in cooperation with the information technology and telecommunications ministry, will offer modern training programmes for conscripts that pass the aptitude tests.

The programme involves intensified training over the course of three months with the aim of producing graduates with communication and presentation skills and the highest degree of professionalism.

The Armed Forces' effort is part of a strategic plan for sustainable development and keeping up with the latest technological advancements, help all government sectors complete digitalizing their operations, and compile comprehensive databases to build smart communities.

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That reasoning is part of a familiar pattern, Demczuk said. It was used to justify the beating of Rodney King by four officers in Los Angeles in 1992. It was used by New York City police officers in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in 2014. And it was used to explain the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., also in 2014, just to name a few, Demczuk said.
Other Latinos and members of other ethnic groups did the same thing. They consciously allowed parts of their heritage, whether it be traditions, language or the pronunciations of their names, to fall away in the hopes that it would help their children be considered more American than they were. It didnt matter whether, like my parents, they had also been born in this country, worked hard every day and paid their taxes on time. Americanism, society had let them know, was about more than citizenship and contribution.
Paul Stoneham, a onetime head of Keys upper school who worked there from 1969 to 2015, participated in and was aware of abuse but did nothing despite his leadership position, the report said. A woman identified as Witness 3 said Stoneham exposed himself to her while serving as head of the upper school and forcibly tried to kiss her while giving her a ride home when she was 16.
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Whoever follows Manger will face the job of policing a county of 1.1 million people, with agricultural regions in the north, growing suburbs, and more densely populated urbanized areas such as downtown Silver Spring. The majority-minority county has a per-capita income among the highest in the state, but also areas of poverty. A third of its residents are foreign-born, with its school district teaching students from more than 157 countries, making the county one of varied policing challenges and opportunities.
I try to do my best, Arabia Camara said through tears, telling the judge that she was raising her son, Ousmane Camara, and his two sisters by herself after their fathers death. Even at work, I call them at home: Are you guys getting ready to go to school? 
In 1945, he married Helen Levitov Gurewitz. Five years later, as the FBI was closing in on the Rosenbergs in New York, the couple fled to Mexico City with their young son, Mark, and Helens daughter, Sydney, by a previous marriage. Using several aliases  Marvin Salt and Morris Sand among them  Mr. Sobell sought passage to Europe, without luck.
Early in his career as a prosecutor, he was a central figure in attempts to wring justice from three of the countrys most notorious episodes of racial violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, prosecuting men for hate-motivated killings in the Howard Beach section of Queens and the Bensonhurst and Crown Heights sections of Brooklyn.
He largely steered away from culturally divisive social issues such as abortion. He sided with Democrats on several gun-control measures, including bills to ban bump stocks, keep guns away from domestic abusers, and allow a court to remove firearms from those who pose an immediate and present danger to themselves or others. And he has pushed for free community college in Maryland and to ban fracking in the state.
The university said in an email that the virus is most contagious from the onset of symptoms to a couple of days after recovering from the virus. The email noted that the virus can continue to be spread for two weeks or more after those infected with norovirus are feeling better.
Peacock Cir., 39000 block, 3:30 p.m. Jan. 17. A man entered a trailer by force and took a firearm and fired on the property. Deputies responded to a shooting report, and exchanged gunfire, wounding the man. A 29-year-old Reston man was arrested and charged. He was treated for a non-life threatening injury.
Both the public and Mr. Assange have the right to know if charges have been brought against him and the nature of the charges, Barry J. Pollack, one of Assanges attorneys, said in a statement Thursday. The courts decision allows the government to keep this information secret because the government has refused to confirm that it has charged Mr. Assange, a fact that it previously disclosed in an unrelated case. The governments intransigence in refusing to confirm what it has previously admitted should be a reason to demand more transparency, not less.
Maple Ave. W., 400 block, 3:30-4:38 a.m. Jan. 20. A man knocked a female pedestrian to the ground, kicked her in the face, and robbed her of a purse and cellphone.
The next day, a male student went to campus police and said he was the person who entered the room but did so by accident, police said. He said he was drunk and staying with friends, police said, when he went to the bathroom, returned to the wrong room and brushed the sleeping womans arm.
Paint and supply companies Clare and Backdrop both launched in 2018 with splashy e-commerce sites, social media feeds and similar price points to their bricks-and-mortar competitors. Rather than thousands of colors, they both offer a tightly curated lineup of about 50 low-to-no-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints. And perhaps most notably, in lieu of flimsy paint cards, the companies sell generously sized, self-adhesive color swatches for less than the cost of a sample can. The fan decks, they are a changin.
In The Painted Wall, the Provincial Graduate Zhu visits a Zen monastery where he lingers before a mural, mesmerized by the image of a smiling maiden with unbound hair. The next moment Zhu has been transported bodily into the painting itself  and his adventures have just begun. In Talking Pupils, a notorious libertine is blinded for making unwanted advances, only to discover that tiny beings live inside his eyes. When the protagonist of The Painted Skin initiates a passionate affair with a young woman of ethereal beauty, she makes him promise never to mention her existence to anyone. One night, he secretly peeps through a window and sees the most hideous sight, a green-faced monster, a ghoul with great jagged teeth like a saw, leaning over a human pelt, the skin of an entire human body, spread on the bed. . . The monster had a paintbrush in its hand and was in the process of touching up the skin in lifelike colour.
Even as U.S. and Chinese diplomats are scheduled to resume trade talks Wednesday amid mounting hopes for a deal, this little-known manufacturer illustrates how the fight for global technology dominance could escalate. Administration officials are preparing to continue the battle by pushing for new measures against Chinese companies like Hytera, according to several people familiar with the discussion.
Two outdoor summer concerts by Kraftwerk at ancient Roman theatre.

. Kraftwerk fans in Rome can look forward to two concerts by the pioneering German electronic musicians this summer.

The innovative German group will perform two nights in a row - 27 and 28 June - for Rock in Roma in the ancient setting of the Teatro Romano at the archaeological park of Ostia Antica.

Rock in Roma returns to Teatro Romano in Ostia Antica in 2019

Since forming in Dusseldorf in 1970, Kraftwerk has had a profound influence on a new generation of musicians, particularly those working in electronic music.

The band's signature sound combines repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies and simplified lyrics.

For tickets see TicketOne website.
Rome's luxury shops on Via dei Condotti pay tribute to Chinese tourism.

The celebration of Chinese new year in Rome will be centred in the boutiques of the capital's luxury shopping street Via dei Condotti from 2-10 February.

The choice of venue is a reflection on the fact that the Chinese make up 34 per cent of customers in Italy's luxury shopping sector, with organisers describing the event as an "expression of gratitude" to China.

The Year of the Pig will be celebrated in around 20 luxury boutiques on Via dei Condotti as well as in surrounding Via Borgognona, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Via Bocca di Leone and Via del Corso.

Central to the celebrations will be the display of 30 works by Liu Bolin, the Chinese artist known as the "invisible man" who is known internationally for camouflaging himself with paint to appear as a living sculpture.

Window displays on Via dei Condotti will also be decorated in red, a colour associated with Chinese New Year.
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Each of the street improvement projects were separate from one another. But, Fisher said the city will now need to step back and take a look at the timeframe for Mansfield Street work. Construction of both projects had originally been proposed at the same time.

She said the city will need to do some re-calculations and talk with the engineers.

The council also gave the nod last week to moving forward with plans to improve the city pool.

The city will seek requests for proposals (RFPs) for the Waverly Pool-Aquatic Center Project.

After completing a community survey last year, and with the help of the Greater Waverly Area Foundation Fund, the city is eying a possible a project that would put a new pool in town.

The RFP will be for companies who want to offer help in developing a conceptual design for the pool, estimate a price tag and assist with funding options.

Fisher said the city is also in the final stages of a grant application to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. The money from the DEDs Civic and Community Center Financing Fund would be used to pay for the planning phase for a new community pool.

The grant application has to be submitted by Feb. 15.
That was my contract I made with myself to see everyone, Cooper said.

The pair of dentists continued to practice in Omaha over the years, but Cooper began phasing out his trips there over time. They later opened a clinic in Gretna with another former dental school classmate. At that time Cooper quit teaching at Creighton.

In recent years, Cooper stopped working in Gretna and focused solely on Ashland.

Fahey retired few years ago, and Cooper felt it is now his time to do the same.

You want to go out on top of your game, he said.

However, it wont be easy to retire.

It makes it harder to quit when you love what you do, he said.

Cooper said he will miss the people, and he will definitely miss Kobs, who has worked with Cooper for 27 years.

Kayla has gone above and beyond helping me, he said.

Kobs said she will also have a hard time leaving the clinic.

Its going to be weird, she said.
Many of the permits for single-family homes in 2018 were located in the Sabre Heights subdivision, which is nearly sold out according to one of original the developers.

Dave Lutton said there will only be two available lots in the neighborhood as of Feb. 1 in the subdivision located on Ashlands western edge just on the other side of city limits.

I would assume it will be fully sold out in 2019, he added.

The third and final phase of Sabre Heights opened three years ago with 34 lots that sold rapidly, Lutton said.

Building is also picking up at another development just outside of city limits.

Were really starting to see it take off out there, said Mark Boyer of Boyer Young Development Company, the developers for Iron Horse located just outside of Ashland along Highway 6.

Iron Horse began in 2001 and grew quickly at first. But things hit a lull after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The recession and housing market collapse in 2008 and 2009 also slowed interest.

Boyer said the subdivision also hit a low point about five years ago, but Iron Horse has since bounced back.

Were doing five to 10 houses a year, he said.
Everyone in our country is negatively affected by the growing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Too many rich people use their wealth to gain more political power and influence elections, then use their political power to gain yet more wealth. As a result, public policy is skewed in their favor, and not in the interest of the country as a whole. We cannot wait for the ultra-wealthy to give up their riches, nor should we allow infrequent philanthropy to excuse their wealth hoarding. Right now, 40 percent of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency and, as we saw this month, hundreds of thousands of federal workers cannot go two weeks without pay before struggling for food. At the same time, the top 0.1 percent of households have almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.
Dori was born in Houston, Texas, to Richard and Sharon Perry Weems. She was a graduate of James Taylor High School in Katy, Texas. She received her Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University in 1987. In the summer of 1985, Dori and Brian Mattson went on their first date to Dallas. They married on February 28, 1987, at First Baptist Church of Bellmead, where Dori served as the church pianist while at Baylor. Through their 31 years of marriage, they remained faithful and grew in commitment to God and each other.

Throughout the years, Dori was quite the adventurer and entrepreneur. She served as a teacher, interior decorator, human resource manager, church pianist, custom wreath-maker, and most importantly, a stay-at-home mom. For a woman who was creative and multi-talented, her faith said everything about her. Some of her greatest joys in life were teaching youth Sunday School and serving as a sponsor on numerous trips with First Woodway Baptist Church's youth ministry, including La Grulla (mission trip to the Rio Grande Valley), Mission Arlington, Sondays Camp, and Pine Cove Junior High Retreat. She also loved playing the piano for more than two decades at First Baptist Bellmead, First Woodway, and Shiloh Baptist Churches. In recent years, she made four trips to South America to love and minister to the children at the Baptist Girls Home in Chile. Her true calling was loving people, which she did quite well. She loved God, her family, her numerous best friends, and everybody else fiercely- that was her true calling in life. Throughout her battle with cancer, she fought the good fight and allowed her disease to draw her closer to the Lord. She truly lived - faithfully, joyfully, and fully.
A 21-year-old man was arrested Tuesday morning on sexual assault of a child charges after a child pornography investigation uncovered allegations he had sexually abused a 15-year-old girl in June, arrest affidavits state.

Texas Attorney General investigators requested help from Waco police to execute a search warrant based on information that child pornography was being uploaded from Jeremiah Dean Saldana's Waco home. At the home, Saldana told officers he had oral sex with a 15-year-old girl within the past year, the affidavit states.

Police confirmed the account with the girl, according to the affidavit.

Waco police got an arrest warrant for Saldana and arrested him at his home Tuesday morning on two second-degree felony charges of sexual assault of a child.

Saldana remained in McLennan County Jail on Wednesday with bond listed at $30,000.

Officials did not comment on the status of the child pornography investigation.

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Fitzjarrell said if homeless people find themselves with an animal it can help raise their spirits by giving them a pet to care for. They sometimes even feed the animals instead of themselves, she said.

Because animals are not allowed on public transit, the clinic offers transportation to those who do not have their own, Fitzjarrell said. The nonprofit clinic only provides preventive services, such as spaying and neutering, microchipping and vaccinations.

Those without pets, such as Mark Rhodes, looked for clothes and hygiene products to fill their sacks.

Being homeless is a learning process, Rhodes said. Im learning more, learning to make new friends and find new ways to take care of myself.

Meanwhile, 26 McLennan Community College cosmetology students provided haircuts. Clumps of hair fell to the floor as the students cut hair or trimmed beards side by side.

Its good for them to do something outside of a salon, said Gala Row, the cosmetology instructor, of her students. Its a different experience, and the people are so nice.
A McLennan County Sheriffs Office deputy who fired a shot at another driver in a Christmas Eve incident in which the man showed a weapon was cleared of criminal wrongdoing Wednesday.

A McLennan County grand jury declined to indict Deputy Josh West, who was off-duty and driving in his personal vehicle with his wife at the time.

Texas Ranger Jake Burson, who investigated the incident at the request of Sheriff Parnell McNamara, presented his report of the incident Wednesday to the grand jury, which cleared West.

West has been on administrative duties pending action by the grand jury. He will return to his patrol duties, Chief Deputy David Kilcrease said.

According to Kilcrease, West was driving home near the Speegleville area when a car drove up behind him on Antler Road at a high rate of speed.
A Hill County man suspected of stealing cattle and other agriculture-related crimes remains under investigation as his bail continues to increase.

William Rittenbaugh, 47, of Mount Calm, remains in the Hill County Jail on bonds totaling more than $4.25 million after his arrest on five felony counts, including theft of livestock and misapplication of fiduciary property.

Marvin Wills, a special ranger with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, and Hill County sheriffs deputies started investigating Rittenbaugh in May, when a Hill County rancher alleged Rittenbaugh stole 11 head of cattle from him.

The missing cattle were found in Rittenbaughs possession and returned to the owner, Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesperson for the cattle association said in a press release. Rittenbaugh was charged with theft of livestock, a third-degree felony.
The National Weather Service will offer a Skywarn storm spotter class from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the McLennan Community College Emergency Services Education Center, 7601 Steinbeck Bend Road in Waco, in partnership with Waco-McLennan County Emergency Management.

The class is for organized storm spotters, those with an interest in severe weather, or anyone who wants to learn more about local severe weather threats and how to be prepared.

The class is free, and no preregistration is necessary.

Father-daughter dance

Carleen Bright Arboretum, 9001 Bosque Blvd. in Woodway, will host a Sweet Memories Dance for fathers and daughters from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday. The event includes dinner, dancing and desserts.

Tickets are $25. To make reservations or for more details, call 399-9204.

HOT Fair & Rodeo Sweethearts

The Heart O Texas Fair & Rodeo is looking to fill its 2019 Sweetheart roster with young women from around the area with a heart to serve the community. Applications are available and due by noon Friday.
Investigators have determined a fire at Jackson County Court Referral and Community Corrections in Scottsboro on July 31 was the result of arson.

The fire was intentionally set on the morning of July 31, causing extensive damage to the building, said Jennifer Bowen, Alabama Department of Insurance  State Fire Marshals Office spokesperson

No one was hurt in the blaze.

The Alabama Fire Marshals Office asks anyone with information regarding the case to call the Alabama Arson Hotline at 1-800-654-0775.
WASHINGTON (AP) -

4:05 p.m.

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser and confidant of President Donald Trump, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges in the Russia investigation after a publicity-filled few days spent slamming the probe as politically motivated.

The political operative and self-described dirty trickster faces charges that he lied to lawmakers, engaged in witness tampering and obstructed a congressional investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

He was uncharacteristically quiet during Tuesday's brief court appearance, rising to his feet to say, "Yes, Your Honor," as U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson asked if he would agree to the conditions of his release, including restricted travel.

Stone made no public statements as he arrived and departed the courthouse amid dueling chants of "Lock Him Up" and "We Love Roger."

__

11:45 a.m.

Donald Trump's longtime friend and confidant Roger Stone has made an uncharacteristically silent exit from his court hearing.

Stone left the federal courthouse in Washington on Tuesday without speaking publicly after entering a not guilty plea to charges filed in the special counsel's Russia investigation. Stone raised his hands to make victory signs and smiled as he hopped into a black SUV amid a swarm of protesters and supporters.

The political operative was arrested last week in Florida and spent the weekend publicly blasting special counsel Robert Mueller's case against him as politically motivated. He's charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Prosecutors say Stone lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton released during the 2016 campaign.

___

11:05 a.m.

Donald Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone has pleaded not guilty to charges in the special counsel's Russia investigation.

Stone appeared Tuesday for his arraignment at the federal courthouse in Washington after spending the weekend blasting special counsel Robert Mueller's case against him as politically motivated.

The self-proclaimed dirty trickster was arrested last week during a pre-dawn raid at his Florida home. He is charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering. Prosecutors say he lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton that the anti-secrecy group released during the 2016 campaign.

Stone is also accused of corruptly influencing the testimony of another witness.

___

10:25 a.m.

Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone has arrived at the federal courthouse in Washington as he faces charges in the Russia investigation.

Stone arrived Tuesday in a black SUV wearing an all-blue suit and tie. He waved to a small crowd of supporters and protesters, including some yelling, "Lock him up."

The longtime political operative is appearing for his arraignment after spending the weekend blasting special counsel Robert Mueller's case against him as politically motivated.

Stone was arrested in Florida last week and is charged in a seven-count indictment with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Prosecutors say Stone lied about the contents of his discussions with the Trump campaign involving WikiLeaks and hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton that the anti-secrecy group released during the 2016 campaign.

___

12:15 a.m.

After a weekend of publicity and television news appearances, Roger Stone will come before a federal judge who may look to silence the Donald Trump confidant.

Stone faces a Tuesday morning arraignment in Washington, where he is expected to plead not guilty to charges that he lied to Congress and engaged in witness tampering.

Stone is a self-described dirty trickster and longtime confidant of the president. He has asserted his innocence in a series of TV interviews since his pre-dawn arrest Friday in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Being outspoken is an unusual strategy given that most defendants tend to stay quiet as their case proceeds.

It's unclear whether Mueller's prosecutors will look to have Stone locked up, and whether Magistrate Deborah Robinson might impose a gag order.
When it comes to a new highway improvement plan, many people in Huntsville said the roads need help, and they are willing to pay more for improved safety on highways.

"They're not going to increase the tax? Well, it makes me feel a lot better, because not everybody can pay some big tax. Not everybody has that money to do that with," said Huntsville resident, Angela King.

Thats Kings reaction to Jim Zeiglers 'Plan Z.' On Tuesday, he told WAAY 31 the state wastes millions of dollars every year that can be invested into bonds. The bond company would immediately give $900 million to improve highways and the state would pay back the money over a 20-year period.

"If they're going to improve the highways, I'm all for it, because there is always room for improvement out in the world," said Huntsville resident, Xavier Allen.

Right now, state lawmakers are talking about raising the gas tax to generate enough money for road improvements.

"Whatever makes the city better," said Huntsville resident, Ashley Nasce.

"I just want the world to become a better place to be honest, because honestly, the world is going in the wrong direction and we don't need that. Honestly, I feel a little good about that," said Allen.

After WAAY 31 spoke with Zeigler on Tuesday, we learned that a bond company has not been selected yet. The plan needs to be approved by the legislature first.
It's not the snow, but instead the blast of cold that's impacting North Alabama Tuesday night, and particularly the people who have to work in it.

A United States Postal Service mail carrier, Misty Bolding, spent her day Tuesday on her regular route. She travels almost every road in Union Grove.

"We were so excited, because we were afraid we were going to have ice, and we were afraid we were going to have slushiness," Bolding said.

The Marshall County Emergency Management Agency said officials spent the morning making random checks and found roads to be in good shape. They did, however, warn we aren't in the clear just yet.

Thomas Shamblee is a pastor at the Church Of The Living God in Guntersville. He said that on Monday night, they had one new addition to their shelter because of the cold. With temperatures dropping Tuesday, they could see more.

"We see people walking the streets all the time. We try to help them out and keep them warm," Shamblee said. "It's supposed to get real cold tonight."

Shamblee told WAAY 31 the shelter will remain open to those in need throughout the cold weather.
Lincoln County Schools in Tennessee are closed Wednesday, January 30 due to absentees and illnesses, the district told WAAY 31 Tuesday afternoon.

The district's Superintendent Bill Heath said they started to see a spike in absences on Monday due to the flu and other illnesses, so they cancelled classes Tuesday because of this and the winter weather. Now, they've decided to do the same Wednesday strictly because of the illnesses.

Other districts in the Tennessee Valley have also been closed recently for illnesses. Albertville City Schools closed on Friday, January 25 and Monday, January 28 due to the flu epidemic. Marshall County Schools reported 532 absences and 77 checkouts in just one day.

Giles County Schools will be closed for the rest of the week because of widespread flu and strep.

WAAY 31 will continue to stay up to date with local school closures.
Noon Wednesday update: Tennessee Highway Patrol has identified the victim of the fatal hit and run as Elbrus, Bokiev, a 67-year-old man from Mulberry, Tenn.

9:43 a.m. Wednesday update:

From the Tennessee Highway Patrol:

The Tennessee Highway Patrol is currently seeking information on a fatal hit and run crash involving a pedestrian on Lynchburg Highway near Louse Creek Road in Lincoln County. The victim was last seen near the area of the crash about 2:30 am Tuesday.

The victim was discovered by police about 3 p.m. Tuesday

The suspect vehicle is a silver or gray 1998-2002 Lincoln Town Car. The vehicle should have damage to the front passenger side and possibly the windshield.

If you have any information, please contact the Tennessee Highway Patrol at 615-741-2060 attention to Trooper Jacob Edwards and Trooper Jamison Benefield.

From earlier:

UPDATE: (8:51 p.m.) According to Tennessee Highway Patrol, the body has been ruled a pedestrian who was struck by a vehicle that fled the scene.

The investigation is ongoing.

---

According to Christopher Dye with Tennessee Highway Patrol, around 1:53 p.m. Tuesday, a deputy with the Moore County, Tennessee Sheriff's Office found a white male deceased on the side of Highway 50. The highway is also known as Lynchburg Highway near Louse Creek Road, which is in Moore County near the Lincoln County line.

Tennessee Highway Patrol was called to the scene and is processing it as a crime scene. Lincoln County Sheriff Murray Blackwelder previously told WAAY 31 the body was found in Lincoln County, Tennessee.
(CNN) -- A Tennessee sheriff's office is asking for the public's help in finding a 14-year-old girl who has been missing for more than two weeks.

Savannah Leigh Pruitt was last seen January 13 at her home in Madisonville, according to a news release. "We are asking for public assistance in finding Savannah Leigh Pruitt," Monroe County Sheriff Tommy Jones said.



Monroe County Sheriff's Office Monroe County Sheriff's Office

Authorities said Savannah may have traveled to the Corbin, Kentucky, area.

Her cell phone was last known to put out a signal near a Kentucky welcome center along Interstate 75 in Whitley County, near the Tennessee state line.

Savannah is 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 110 pounds. Authorities said there is no known clothing description.

"She was very loving, very bubbly," the girl's mom, Christina Pruitt, told CNN affiliate WATE in Knoxville, Tennessee. "A ray of sunshine."

The family moved to Madisonville from Lawrenceville, Georgia, in late December, WATE reported.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are involved in the search, including the FBI and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Authorities ask anyone with information to call 423-442-3911.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama education officials are seeking funding for school safety projects.

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey told lawmakers Tuesday that the Department of Education is seeking an additional $22 million for school safety projects. Mackey outlined the request in budget hearings before state lawmakers.

The state superintendent said the money could be used for locks, cameras and other options.

He said school systems could also use money to provide school offices for mental health counselors employed by the Department of Mental Health. He said that partnership would allow students to access care more easily.

Mackey said the department is also seeking money for additional school nurses and to expand the state reading initiative.

The 2019 legislative session begins March 5.
As of Monday, there are 36 confirmed cases of measles in the state of Washington -- an outbreak that has already prompted Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency.

"Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children," Inslee said in his proclamation on Friday, adding that these cases create "an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties."

There were 35 cases of the measles in Clark County, which sits on the state's southern border, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Officials said 31 of the cases involved people who have not had a measles immunization; the other four are not verified. Of the 35 cases, 25 are children between age 1 and 10. There are also 11 suspected cases in Clark County.

There is also one case in King County, which includes Seattle. While the King County website says the patient, a man in his 50s, is a "suspected case," the governor said in a news release it is a confirmed case of measles.

In a health alert from King County, it was said the man had recently traveled to Clark County.

Inslee's proclamation allows agencies and departments to use state resources and "do everything reasonably possible to assist affected areas."

Meanwhile, the state legislature has introduced a bill that would ban personal exemptions for the measles vaccine. The proposed legislation was sent to the House Health Care & Wellness Committee.

A news release on the governor's website says the Washington State Department of Health, or DOH, has implemented an infectious disease incident management structure so it can manage the public health aspects of the outbreak through investigations and lab testing.

The Washington Military Department, the release says, is organizing resources to assist the DOH and local officials in easing the effects on people, property and infrastructure.

Last week, a person infected with measles attended a Portland Trail Blazers home game in Oregon amid the outbreak. Contagious people also went to Portland International Airport, as well as to hospitals, schools, stores, churches and restaurants across Washington's Clark County and the two-state region, county officials said.

Most patients with symptoms should call first

Measles is a contagious virus that spreads through the air through coughing and sneezing. Symptoms such as high fever, rash all over the body, stuffy nose and red eyes typically disappear without treatment within two or three weeks. One or two of every 1,000 children who get measles will die from complications, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 1978, the CDC set a goal to eliminate measles from the United States by 1982. Measles was declared eliminated -- defined by absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months -- from the United States in 2000.

But there has been a recent rise in unvaccinated children. The proportion of children receiving no vaccine doses by 2 years old rose from 0.9% among those born in 2011 to 1.3% among those born in 2015, the CDC reported in October.

In Clark County, Washington, where the current outbreak is occurring, 7.9% of children entering kindergarten had vaccine exemptions during the 2017-18 school year, according to the Washington State Department of Health. During the same school year, 7.5% of children in all grades in the county had vaccine exemptions.

"That's a high number," CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Monday. "Once you start to dip below 95% vaccination you start to lose the herd immunity. I have immunity because I got the vaccine but I'm also protecting people around me due to the herd. Once you start to drop down as low as you see there (in Clark County), you lose that herd immunity and that's also part of the concern," he explained.

The CDC recommends people get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to protect against those viruses. The typical recommendations are that children should get two doses of MMR vaccine, the first between 12 to 15 months of age and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
The Critic. Photo: Fox

Its been 25 years since The Critic premiered in late January 1994, and almost 24 years since its cancellation  first by ABC, after six episodes, and then by Fox after a full but fraught season. But with its stellar pedigree and cult cachet, The Critic regularly turns up on lists of the most underrated animated series of all time or the animated series most in need of a reboot. We cant quit Jay Sherman.

Voiced by (and created for) Jon Lovitz, Sherman, on paper, looked like a winner. He was a nationally renowned, Pulitzer Prizewinning film critic who pulled down an over $200,000 salary and lived in a Manhattan penthouse apartment. But his was hardly the glamorous life. Divorced, he was the quintessential sad sack. Im 36 years old, Im lonely, my hair comes out of a spray can, he kvetches in the pilot episode. At another point, when the fates turn against him, he cries, My shrink was right: God does hate me.

On paper, too, The Critic looked like a sure thing. Its creators, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, were showrunners on The Simpsons during its classic third and fourth seasons. Emmy and Oscarwinner James L. Brooks, whose TV credits include The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and The Simpsons, served as executive producer. Brad Bird (The Incredibles) was an executive consultant. The character design team included David Silverman (The Simpsons), future Oscar-winner Rich Moore (Zootopia), David Cutler (The Nightmare Before Christmas), and Everett Peck (Duckman). Writers included Judd Apatow, Steven Levitan, and Nell Scovell. Trying to reassemble our writing staff [today] I think would cost $100 million, jokes Al Jean in a phone interview.

Lovitz was the only choice to embody Sherman. Brooks had pitched Jean and Reiss on developing a live-action series about the backstage life of a Todaystyle morning show. One of the characters with comic potential would be a Gene Shalitlike movie critic. Brooks had seen Lovitz in A League of Their Own and suggested him for that character. Jean realized that Lovitzs burgeoning movie career would make it impossible for him to do a live-action series. He suggested they create an animated series, which would open up a world of creative possibilities, including what would become the series trademark movie parodies. Youd think we would have thought of that first, Jean says, but it was the last aspect of the creation. Mike and I wrote the pilot and then we had a script that could only be done by Jon Lovitz. It put him in a pretty strong bargaining position.

In addition to Lovitz, the voice cast included Christine Cavanaugh as Marty, Shermans loving son; Judith Ivey as his blue-blooded adoptive mother; Gerrit Graham as Shermans addled father (he didnt really have a stroke, the family just says that to explain his personality); Charles Napier as Duke Phillips, the Ted Turneresque network owner; and Maurice LaMarche as a bevy of incidental characters and parodied celebrities, most notably Orson Welles. He performed 24 different voices in the episode Dr. Jay alone.

My time on The Critic was one of the happiest work experiences of my career, LaMarche said in an email. Getting to work alongside such brilliant actors, and performing the scripts of such amazing and hilarious writers, I felt like pinching myself every week. Id been hearing Jim Brookss laugh on the soundtrack of Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show for years, and to hear that same distinctive laugh when I delivered lines in his show was a dream come true.

In less than a year, the dream was over. The Critic initially received good reviews (even one by Roger Ebert himself), but it was an ill fit at ABC. It was scheduled after the more family-friendly Home Improvement, whose viewers did not appreciate its edgy, risque humor and arcane references to the likes of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Jean and Reiss received actual hate mail from outraged parents who said they would not let their children watch the show. It was a different style of humor [from Home Improvement], Jean says. Bob Iger [then the president of ABC] asked us, Where would you put it on the schedule?, and we didnt have a good answer. I didnt blame him for canceling the series.

Over at Fox, The Critic was a natural fit with The Simpsons, but it was killed by a network president who hated the show and refused to promote it, according to Reisss recent memoir, Springfield Confidential.

Twenty-five years later, television has caught up with The Critics ribaldry and penchant for cutaway gags, later a signature device on Family Guy and 30 Rock. To mark its anniversary, we asked Jean to select five episodes that best embody the series comedic universe.

Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice (Season 2, Episode 2)

Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice. Photo: Fox

The Critic hails from a time when film critics bestrode this narrow world like Colossi. The most prominent among them were Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who, as the hosts of the syndicated movie review series Siskel & Ebert, became Americas most influential movie critics. As far as I know, they are the first people who became household words who did nothing but review movies, director Sydney Pollack told the Los Angeles Times in 1995 on Siskel & Eberts 20th anniversary. Theyve popularized movie reviewing so that it is brought into everybodys home.

They were really iconic, Jean says. I dont think there would have been a show without Roger and Gene. This episode, in which Siskel and Ebert break up and each recruits Jay to be his partner, is everybodys favorite, Jean says. I had the privilege of flying to Chicago from L.A. to record [them]. Roger was hands-off; Gene called me with a couple of notes. After just about every take, Siskel would ask which was one them was best. Like somebodys grandmother, Id go, Oh, youre both great. I can say now that theyve both sadly passed, I think Roger was a little better actor. When Gene died, my cousin was in his class, and clips of that episode were shown in tribute. That was a wonderful thing to hear.

Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1)

Pilot. Photo: Fox

Meet Jay Sherman, host of the movie-review show Coming Attractions. Siskel and Ebert had thumbs up or down; Jay Sherman had it stinks. Jays most regular viewers are drunken frat boys who like to make fun of me. But when a beautiful actress professes to be his biggest fan and says she loves him, his family suspects she is using him so hell give her new film a good review. Spoiler alert: Theyre right, but Jays integrity  one of his few saving graces  compels him to give her awful performance a pan. Its impossible not to like this guy, Ebert wrote at the time; he was in the minority.

You always want a sympathetic lead character, Jean reflects. The problem in the first year was that Jay was written as a loser and people kept calling him a loser. I never realized at that point that Homer Simpson may not be a winner, but he doesnt think of himself as a loser. He enjoys his life and Marge loves him. We tested the show after it had aired and found that Jay was considered too unlikable. Jim [Brooks] faced the same situation on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Rhoda was considered too unlikable, so they had Bess, Phylliss daughter, say, I like Rhoda, and that made the whole thing work. In our second season, we created a girlfriend for Jay [voiced by Park Overall] and we softened Jays character design with a more rounded head and bigger pupils. The testing went up. We were canceled for other reasons.

A Little Deb Will Do Ya (Season 1, Episode 5)

A Little Deb Will Do Ya. Photo: Fox

In this episode, Jays sister Margo is forced by her domineering mother to attend a debutante ball, while Jay is challenged in the ratings by Humphrey the Hippo. The episode is credited to Scovell and was directed by Lauren MacMullan (who would go on to win an Oscar for the 2013 Mickey Mouse cartoon Get a Horse!). It was perhaps the first time a prime-time animated series boasted a woman writer and director. Lauren is a brilliant animation director, one of the best I ever worked with, Jean says. This was a good episode about Jays family. Nancy Cartwright voiced Margo. We had passed on Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Margaret Cho for that character. We just didnt think they had the right voice.

Just how snakebit was The Critic? Jean calls this episode one of his favorites. It was going to be our test episode; if the ratings were good, we might get picked up [for another season]. But it aired on the night the world tuned in to the Winter Olympics to watch Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. We got killed.

Miserable (Season 1, Episode 4)

Miserable. Photo: Fox

This one gets way dark as lovelorn Jay is held captive by a mad projectionist voiced by Pamela Reed. It was the funniest episode of the first season, Jean says. It was supposed to air second, but we had already had sexual content in the pilot, and this was a strange relationship that Jay had with this woman; he dates her after she gets out of prison. [The network] pushed it to fourth. During a chase scene at the end of the episode, the music is fast-paced until the car is seen going over a bridge and we played the theme from Taxi, which is sweet and mellow. I love doing that kind of joke that arises from the situation. Its one of my favorite things we ever did.

Sherman of Arabia (Season 2, Episode 2)

Sherman of Arabia. Photo: Fox

Another thing Jean concedes might have put off viewers was that The Critic could get surreal. At that time, The Simpsons was getting weirder after being more realistic, but by that time people had bought into the characters, he says. Speaking of weirdness, one of his favorite recurring characters, whom Jays son Marty refers to as that funny-looking kid from Easter Island (a statue come to life), makes an appearance in this episode. I love Lawrence of Arabia, and redoing it with these characters and satirizing the Gulf War was really wonderful. I loved Jays morale-boosting rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. This is my second-favorite episode of the second year.

Twenty-five years on, what can we learn from The Critic? Just that your hero can be an antihero like Tony Soprano, but you have to be rooting for that person even if theyre not doing great things, Jean said. We had funny stuff in the first season, but we didnt have that reliability. Also, never give up; do something you believe in, hire the best people, and you will have made something that will have an afterlife.

The Critics afterlife included reruns on Comedy Central and newly-produced webisodes (the last hope for fading stars) in 20002001. But Jean still hasnt given up hope for a Jay Shermanaissance. I just had lunch with Jon the other day, he said. I cant work on it while Im at The Simpsons, but I was thinking what Jay would be doing now; I have a theory.

And if that theory doesnt pan out, it stinks.
(Alexandria, MN) With temperatures expected to dip in the -30's and windchills as low as the -60s authorities are asking people to limit any time outdoors. Alexandria Police Chief Rick Wyffels is challenging business owners in the Lakes Area to seriously consider not asking employees to come into work if at all possible.

Weatherology says that Historic cold is expected Tuesday through Thursday morning:

Wind chill warning remains in effect until noon CST Thursday...

Winter weather advisory remains in effect until 6 pm CST this evening...

Precautionary/preparedness actions

A wind chill warning means the combination of very cold air and the wind will create dangerously low wind chill values. Frostbite can occur quickly and even hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken. A winter weather advisory for blowing snow means that visibility will be limited due to strong winds blowing snow around. Use caution when traveling, especially in open areas. The latest road conditions for Minnesota can be found at 511mn.org and for Wisconsin at 511wi.gov, or by calling 5 1 1 in either state.

What

Dangerously cold wind chills and blowing snow. Wind chills as low as 65 below zero. Winds gusting as high as 35 mph.

Where

Portions of central and west central Minnesota.

When

For the wind chill warning, until noon CST Thursday. For the winter weather advisory, until 6 pm CST this evening.

Additional details

Plan on slippery road conditions. Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute. The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 5 minutes.
Zimbabwes lawyers Tuesday took to the streets and petitioned the government complaining over what they called deteriorating rule of law, as the High Court delivered a bail ruling on pastor-cum-activist Evan Mawarire.

Lawyers presented a petition to the countrys chief justice Luke Malabas office. One of the lawyers is Fadzayi Mahere.

The lawyers are marching in support of human rights and restoration of constitutional freedoms. And we do not want the military on the streets or in civilian life. Or in the courts. It is a march in support of fair trial, said Mahere.

Among the lawyers' complaints is the courts refusal to grant bail to more than 1,000 civilians arrested during this months protests over a fuel hike. They say courts are fast tracking trials of the protesters before they get all materials they want to defend themselves.

A few protesters, like pastor Evan Mawarire, face subversion charges, he was granted $2,000 bail Tuesday at the High Court.

Rights groups have complained that security forces have been brutal in handling the protesters, with cases of rape and assaults flooding the media.

But Tuesday, Zimbabwe police spokesperson Charity Charamba denied charges of widespread abuse.

The law is clear, for each and every offense there should be redress or a penalty, hence our passionate appeal to members of the public to report. Reports in some sections of the media that those who have reported are being bullied and labeled are not correct," said Charamba. "Only one case of alleged sexual abuse was recorded. Investigations are already in progress. It is not in the culture of the Zimbabwe Republic Police to sweep cases under the carpet ... 

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa said President Emmerson Mnangagwas administration had not taken reports of human rights abuses by the security forces seriously.

So apart from raising this issue with SADC (Southern African Development Community,) we want this issue to be addressed in the context of the international community helping us. These are clear cases of unleashing our military on unarmed civilians. Citizens are defenseless obviously what we want is the intervention of the international community to help us in any manner possible to protect citizens so that there is a restoration of civilian authority in the country, he said.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have asked Mnangagwa to order soldiers to go back to barracks. They have been assisting police maintain law and order since the protests turned violent two weeks ago.
RIO DE JANEIRO - A torrent of mining waste unleashed by a dam breach that killed at least 84 people in southeastern Brazil is now heading down a small river with high concentrations of iron oxide, threatening to contaminate a much larger river that provides drinking water to communities in five of the country's 26 states.

The release of the muddy waste has already turned the normally greenish water of the Paraopeba River brown about 11 miles (18 kilometers) downstream from the southeastern city of Brumadhinho, where the broken dam is.

The chief of an indigenous community said Tuesday that Brazilian environmental agents warned his community to stop fishing in the river, bathing in it and using its water for the plants they cultivate as food.

The Paraopeba flows into the much larger Sao Francisco River, which provides drinking and irrigation water to hundreds of municipalities and larger cities such as Petrolina, in the state of Pernambuco, 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Brumadhino, which is in Minas Gerais State.

Hayo, chief of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous com Hayo, chief of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous community, stands over the Paraopeba River on a rail bridge near his village in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 29, 2019. Hayo, chief of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous community, stands over the Paraopeba River on a rail bridge near his village in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 29, 2019.

As grieving relatives of the dead bury family members and searchers continue looking for 276 people who are missing, Brazilian authorities and companies involved with river water management are trying to figure out how to prevent the contamination.

Their main focus is the Retiro Baixo hydroelectric dam and plant complex about 186 miles (300 kilometers) from Brumadinho. Officials and environmentalists hope the dam's reservoirs can be used to isolate the muck so it can be cleaned before that water is released to head farther downstream to the Sao Francisco River.

"A lot of communities and cities in different states depend on that river to live," said Carlos Rittl, a director at Brazil's Climate Observatory environmental nonprofit group.

The "wave" of muddy water and waste is expected to reach the dam between Feb. 5 and Feb. 10, according to the Geological Survey of Brazil, which is monitoring the velocity of the mine waste on a daily basis.

Technicians for Furnas, the company that operates the Retiro Baixo dam, are also monitoring the sludge moving toward the plant. They have concluded it poses no structural risk to the dam, the company said in a statement.

The reddish-brown mud is currently moving at about 0.6 mph (1 kph) and is destroying vegetation and aquatic life, according to the Geological Survey of Brazil.

It was unleashed Friday when the dam storing iron ore waste for big Brazilian mining company Vale SA breached. Officials warned Tuesday that the death toll was expected to rise significantly, with no one rescued alive since Saturday.

Fish swim past mud that was released by the collap Fish swim past mud that was released by the collapse of a mining company's dam, in a tributary that leads to Paraopeba River near a community of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous people, in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 29, 2019. Fish swim past mud that was released by the collapse of a mining company's dam, in a tributary that leads to Paraopeba River near a community of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae indigenous people, in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 29, 2019.

In the Pataxco Indian village near the Paraopeba River, dead fish and refuse like plastic sandals were visible along its banks.

"We used the river to take baths, to fish, to water our plants and now we can't do any of that," said village chief Hayo, who uses only one name and wore a large feathered headdress and a red and black-beaded necklace. "We can't even water our plants because they say it damages the soil."

Vale said in a statement it planned to install a fabric barrier to retain residues where the river reaches the city of Para de Minas, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Brumadinho. The company may also build levees near the Brumadinho mine in an effort to prevent the sediment from moving.

Among those hired to try to keep the waste in place were experts who helped the company when a dam at another iron ore mine ruptured in 2015, killing 19 people.

Rivers contaminated by mining tailings, which contain high levels of fine particles of iron ore or other heavy metals, can end up contaminated for years or decades, said Joao Paulo Machado Torres, a professor who heads the Environmental Biophysics program at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

He sampled water from the river contaminated by Vale's 2015 dam failure, which left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish.

Efforts are still under way to clean up the environmental damage from that dam failure, and Torres said repairing ecological damage from Friday's dam breach will take "a huge effort to bring any sort of life back."
Brazilian miner Vale SA identified concerns around its tailings dams in 2009 and studied but did not implement several steps that could have prevented or lessened the damage from last week's deadly disaster, according to a corporate presentation seen by Reuters.



A tailings dam, used to store the muddy detritus of the mining process, collapsed on Friday, killing at least 65 in one of Brazil's largest industrial accidents on record.

The Brumadinho disaster, coming just over three years after a similar incident at another mine partially controlled by Vale, has fueled calls for a management overhaul and erased more than 70 billion reais ($18.61 billion) in Vale's market value.

But a decade ago, the world's largest iron ore miner was considering ways to use fewer tailings dams, including alternative uses for the waste rock, according to the 73-page presentation.

The presentation pointed to the rising volume of tailings produced at the company's mines, with some locations producing hundreds of thousands of tons of tailings daily.



The report suggested Vale make building materials from tailings, including bricks, a step that would give the company another revenue source and lessen the volume needing to be stored using dams.



The 2009 Vale report had recommended the company undertake a project to be called "Zero Dams" that would have involved drying out tailings, among other steps. It was not known whether the report reached the top levels of Vale management nor why it was not implemented.



Vale declined to comment. The report's author, Paulo Ricardo Behrens da Franca, left Vale a year after submitting it and now works as an industry consultant. Reached by Reuters, he did not comment.



'Inherently Dangerous Structures'

Vale's Brumadinho facility was built using the cheapest and least-stable type of tailings dam design, a commonly used structure in mining known as "upstream construction."



Chile, Peru and other earthquake-prone countries ban the design, in which tailings are used to progressively construct dam walls the more a mine is excavated. Brazil is not as earthquake-prone as its western neighbors, but even small seismic activity has been shown to affect tailings dams.

Because these types of tailings dams are waterlogged, they are easily susceptible to cracks and other damage that can cause bursts like the one that occurred last week near Brumadinho.

What Are Dangers of Mining Waste in Brazil? As rescuers in Brazil search for survivors of a dam collapse, questions abound about the health and environmental risks of the thick, brown, metal-laden mine waste that flowed over buildings. As rescuers in Brazil search for survivors of a dam collapse, questions abound about the health and environmental risks of the thick, brown, metal-laden mine waste that flowed over buildings.

"A tailings dam may look safe, but it's still retaining a lot of moisture behind it," said Dermot Ross-Brown, a mining industry engineer who teaches at the Colorado School of Mines. "They're inherently dangerous structures."



Tailings dams tend to be shorter in height than conventional water dams, but often are far wider in span.



The disaster's cause remains unknown. Vale said the dam had not received tailings for about two and a half years and was in the process of decommissioning, a step that should have lessened risk, engineers said.



"It's really puzzling to me this happened as the (dam) was closing," said Cameron Scott of SRK Consulting, a mining engineering firm. "This disaster will make future mine permitting harder."



The dam had passed a September 2018 inspection by the German firm TUEV SUED AG and Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan.

10.

The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brum The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brumadinho, Brazil, is pictured before its Jan. 25, 2019 collapse in this June 2, 2018 handout satellite photo. The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brumadinho, Brazil, is pictured before its Jan. 25, 2019 collapse in this June 2, 2018 handout satellite photo.

The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brum The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brumadinho, Brazil, is pictured after it's Jan. 25, 2019 collapse in this Jan. 26, 2019 handout satellite photo. The dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine near Brumadinho, Brazil, is pictured after it's Jan. 25, 2019 collapse in this Jan. 26, 2019 handout satellite photo.

On Tuesday, Brazilian state prosecutors arrested three Vale employees and two TUEV SUED employees.



Risk

Brazil has nearly 4,000 dams that are classified as having "high damage potential" or being at high risk, with 205 of those dams containing mineral waste, the country's Regional Development Minister Gustavo Canuto said.

Brazil Eyes Management Overhaul for Vale After Dam Disaster Brazil eyes management overhaul for Vale after dam disasterBrazil's government weighed pushing for a management overhaul at iron ore miner Vale SA on Monday as grief over the hundreds feared killed by a dam burst turned into anger, with prosecutors, politicians and victims' families calling for punishment.By Monday night, firefighters in the state of Minas Gerais had confirmed that 65 people were killed by Friday's disaster, when a burst tailings dam sent a torrent of sludge into the miner's offices Brazil eyes management overhaul for Vale after dam disasterBrazil's government weighed pushing for a management overhaul at iron ore miner Vale SA on Monday as grief over the hundreds feared killed by a dam burst turned into anger, with prosecutors, politicians and victims' families calling for punishment.By Monday night, firefighters in the state of Minas Gerais had confirmed that 65 people were killed by Friday's disaster, when a burst tailings dam sent a torrent of sludge into the miner's offices

Analysts and engineers said that the Brumadinho disaster will hopefully push the industry to stop storing wet tailings and instead move toward the more-expensive-but-safer process of storing dry tailings.

That process requires drying the tailings and storing them on-site, abrogating the risk of a dam burst. The approach is becoming more popular in Canada and other countries with stricter mining regulations.

"The industry doesn't yet fully realize the risk its taking on with those type of wet tailings dams," said Matt Fuller of Tierra Group International Ltd, a tailings engineering consulting firm.



Officials in Brazil's Minas Gerais state, where the disaster occurred, say they are now going to push for legislation requiring dry mining and forcing miners to tear down tailings dams when they are located above communities.

Rescue workers in a helicopter search a flooded ar Rescue workers in a helicopter search a flooded area after a dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. Rescue workers in a helicopter search a flooded area after a dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019.

A similar proposal failed last summer, with its defeat attributed by the bill's sponsor to lobbying pressure from mining companies.



Brazil is still reeling from the 2015 collapse of a larger dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP, that killed 19 people.



After Samarco, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) issued updated guidelines for its members to try to safeguard tailings dams used to store waste left over from mining operations.



The ICCM said on Saturday that the mining industry still has "lessons to learn" from Samarco and similar events.

Mining companies typically hire engineering firms that specialize in tailings dams to build the structures, not necessarily dam contractors themselves, a step that some industry observers hope changes soon.

"The mining companies are not placing dam safety at the forefront of their preoccupations," said Emmanuel Grenier, a spokesman for the International Coalition of Large Dams (ICOLD), a non-governmental organization focused on dam engineering.

The group "is recommending that dams, especially large dams, be built by dam professionals, but it is too rarely the case for tailing dams," Grenier said.

($1 = 3.7614 reais)
Recent public conflict at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., has left many wondering about the state of political discourse in the United States.

A video from Jan. 18 that went viral showed boys from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School, a Native American activist and a cluster of Black Hebrew Israelites facing off at the Lincoln Memorial on the day of the Right to Life March.

The confrontation ignited national debate about civility in politics, a seeming lack of tolerance for those of differing political beliefs, and how both influenced the nation's youth.

That debate sounded all-too-familiar to Ohio social studies teacher Judi Galasso, who has taught a class on political radicalism for three decades.

"If someone's yelling things at you, if you're presented with groups that you disagree with, my hope is that we train our kids well enough that they're not going to react,'' Galasso said.

Galasso and co-teacher Jonathan Duffy invite members of America's most extreme political groups  including the National Socialist Movement, the Weather Underground, and the Revolutionary Communists  into their classroom each semester. They teach students to engage respectfully with those of differing beliefs, and to ask questions.

The Covington Catholic incident has seemed to further divide the nation. Parents, alumni and others have rallied to the white teenagers' defense. In a tweet, President Donald Trump called the students "symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be.'' Others largely supported the Native American activist, describing him as a victim of racism and white entitlement.

'Priceless' dialogue

In Galasso and Duffy's class, no one shies away from such political discomfort.

"In 2019, our teachers generally are like, 'You know what? Let's redirect to a different topic, because that one sounds like it's loaded with land mines,'" said Pete Scully, principal of Thomas Worthington High School, where Galasso teaches. "The idea of poli-rad is, 'You know what? Let's explore all those land mines and talk about them.'''

U.S. Political Thought and Radicalism, "poli-rad'' for short, has been offered as a social studies credit by the suburban Columbus district since the 1970s. Over the decades, its unconventional speaker series has generated excitement, sparked protests and left classrooms emboldened, shaken or inspired.

"In 2019, no school board in America would approve a class like this. But in Worthington, there's no way you could get rid of it,'' Galasso said.

Speakers over the years have included former revolutionary Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground, Harry Hughes of the National Socialist Movement, Ramona Africa from the black liberation group MOVE, white supremacist Richard Spencer and Turner Diaries author William Pierce.

About half the district's seniors take the class each year, which has created a legion of alumni ready to defend it when a new crop of parents in the affluent, largely white district raises concerns about the potential dangers of the class.

Jen Miller, 26, a Nashville-based music producer and 2010 Thomas Worthington graduate, said poli-rad was one of the most valuable classes she took in high school.

"It opened meaningful dialogue and that, to me, is priceless,'' she said. "Sure, it might make some parents uncomfortable, but the class isn't radicalizing students. It's teaching students about radicalization, which is pretty important. I mean, look at the context that we're living in today.''

Origins of class

Worthington school board member Julie Keegan said she wishes more districts would offer such a course. She took poli-rad in 1984. Her husband and all four of her children are also alums.

"In 1984, Worthington was much more homogenous than it is right now,'' Keegan said. "So, part of that class was just sort of pointing out, 'Hey, guess what? Not everybody thinks like you, looks like you, talks like you.'"

Retired teacher Tom Molnar said he created the course in 1975 with input from students. He had been given the course topic, but no guidance. When students said they wanted to learn about radical groups operating in America at the time, he had to tell them there was no source material to work from. One student suggested inviting the groups in.

"I told him it was completely nuts, but they encouraged me to take that message to the principal, and the principal said, 'It's brilliant,''' he said.

Poli-rad students study each speaker ahead of time, gathering background and preparing questions. Afterward, teachers help them think critically about how factors such as deceptive language or personal charisma were used.

Ground rules

The teachers attribute the course's success to a few key ground rules: Presenters must come from across the political spectrum, they can't be censored, students must remain respectful and instructors can't share their personal political beliefs.

Another key takeaway: Don't rush to judgment.

"One thing we teach kids when speakers come in is to truly listen to what they're saying,'' Duffy said, "and just because they think they know what this individual believes, you still have to listen and accurately reflect.''

In the early 1990s, Ku Klux Klan members arrived in the classroom in full robes and hoods. Their silhouettes could be seen from the main road in front of the high school, spreading community alarm. To ease concerns, teachers agreed to a compromise: They would cease inviting active Klansmen as long as the district placed no further restrictions on their speakers.

Senior Tori Banks, 18, who took the course last semester, said it helped her expand her views and learn tolerance.

"If I weren't in the class and I saw some of these speakers or people of certain stances walking around, I may feel uncomfortable,'' she said. "But I think the way we do it in poli-rad is a very safe environment.''
The United States sent the first Central American asylum seeker back to Mexico through a crossing at the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday as part of a hardened immigration policy, an official at Mexico's national migration institute said.

The return of a Honduran man was carried out under a U.S. policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) by which the United States will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts.

The United States is not expected to send any other Central American migrants to Mexico on Tuesday, said the Mexican immigration official, who asked not to be identified.

First transfer takes place

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman confirmed earlier in the day that the United States would begin sending migrants back to Mexico on Tuesday.

Mexican officials had initially expected the transfers to begin on Friday.

Asylum seekers have traditionally been granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases were decided by an immigration judge, but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years.

U.S. authorities are expected to send as many as 20 people per day through the Mexican border city of Tijuana and gradually start sending people back through the other legal ports of entry, Mexico's foreign ministry said on Friday.

Threats of violence disputed

The U.S. policy is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America to request asylum who say they fear returning home because of threats of violence there. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump says many of the claims are not valid.

Mexico has said it will accept the return of certain people who have a date to appear in a U.S. court, but will reject those who have health problems, are unaccompanied minors or would be in danger in Mexican territory.

Immigration advocates fear Mexico is not safe for migrants, who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers.

They have also raised concerns that applicants sent back to Mexico will not have access to proper legal counsel in U.S. courts.
Senior U.S. officials and experts say the United States needs to rally allies to pressure China to prevent it from stealing advanced technology through cyber espionage. At the same time, key American lawmakers are questioning the readiness and capacity of the U.S. to counter such threats.

The renewed push comes after U.S. federal prosecutors pressed criminal charges against the world's largest telecommunications company  China's Huawei Technologies  its chief financial officer and several subsidiaries for alleged financial fraud and theft of U.S. intellectual property.

US Intel Chief: Russia, China Biggest Espionage, Cyber Threats Russia and China pose the biggest espionage and cyber attack threats to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades, the leader of the U.S. intelligence community told U.S. senators on Tuesday. While the two countries seek to expand their global reach, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. Russia and China pose the biggest espionage and cyber attack threats to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades, the leader of the U.S. intelligence community told U.S. senators on Tuesday. While the two countries seek to expand their global reach, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S.

Huawei denies the charges. Beijing denies its government and military engage in cyber-espionage, saying the U.S. allegations are fabricated.

"The Huawei incident seems like an action against an individual corporation, but it is actually bigger than this," said Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based scholar. "This is about one state's technology war against another state, about which one will occupy the technology high ground in the future."

The Trump administration, however, said Washington is deeply concerned about the potential of Beijing using Chinese technology firms to spy on the U.S. and its allies.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testif Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2019. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2019.

"China's pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and the U.S. person data remains a significant threat to the United States government and the private sector," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Tuesday.

Other officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-proliferation Christopher Ford, advocate for a global coalition against Chinese technology-transfer threats.

At another hearing, experts said threats that Huawei poses to supply chains and critical infrastructure are "absolutely real."

"We need defensive measures and we need to invest in our own technologies as well, and we need to be cooperating with allies and partners," said Ely Ratner, who was deputy national security advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden.

"We know that the Huawei leadership has members of the Communist Party within it, and the company has a long and deep relationship with both PLA and the Ministry of State Security in China. And of course is subject to Chinese law and their new National Intelligence law which gives the government the right to use the networks and data as they wish," added Ratner at a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby warned that China may gain "economic, informational, and blackmail" leverage over other countries through data collected by companies such as Huawei.

"This dissolves or corrodes the resolve in these countries potentially to stand up to Chinese potential coercion," Colby told senators.

"We need to be able to form a network that is sufficient and cohesive to stand up to these Chinese threats," he added.

Bipartisan senators have been pushing for the creation of a White House office to fight China's state-sponsored technology theft and defend critical supply chains.

Senator Marco Rubio questions witnesses before the Senator Marco Rubio questions witnesses before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019. Senator Marco Rubio questions witnesses before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

"China and other nations are currently attempting to achieve technological and economic superiority over the United States through the aggressive use of state-directed or state-supported technology transfers," said Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) who introduced a bill to fight China's technology threats earlier this month.

"A national response to combat these threats and ensure our national security has, to date, been hampered by insufficient coordination at the federal level," added Warner and Rubio in a statement.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark W Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., speaks during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., speaks during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

Under the bill, the Office of Critical Technologies & Security would coordinate with federal and state regulators, the private sector, experts and U.S. allies to ensure that every available tool is being utilized to safeguard the supply chain and protect emerging dual-use technologies.

The case has provoked strong reactions in China, including calls on social media for boycotts of American technology companies such as Apple.

Lew Mon-hung, a Hong Kong-based businessman and analyst, says China should fight back in U.S. courts.

Lew, a former member of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference (China's political advisory legislative body), says that China should trust the U.S.'s rule of law and resort to legal measures to clear Huawei's name.

"When the US government filed these charges, China's government, Huawei, or the Chinese public, should use legal means to solve legal problems," he said. "Since Huawei has abundant financial resources, and since the Chinese government has the largest foreign currency reserve in the world, why don't they just hire the best American lawyers? They can build a strong team of lawyers against this case and fight a legal battle."
WASHINGTON - Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers will try again to pass a resolution ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, with a greater chance of success than when a similar measure passed the Senate last month.

Republican Senator Mike Lee, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, as well as Democratic Representatives Ro Khanna and Mark Pocan, planned a news conference for Wednesday to introduce the legislation.

The Senate passed a Yemen-related war powers resolution by a 56-41 vote in December, as seven Republicans joined Democrats to vote for what was considered a rebuke of Republican President Donald Trump amid anger with Saudi Arabia not just over civilian deaths in Yemen, but also the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Trump had promised a veto.

It was the first time either chamber of Congress had backed a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from a military engagement under the War Powers Act. That law, passed in 1973, limits the president's ability to commit U.S. forces to potential hostilities without congressional approval.

However, that measure never went further because the Republicans who then controlled the House of Representatives did not allow a vote in that chamber before the end of the year.

Democrats now have a House majority, but Trump's fellow Republicans have increased their edge in the Senate by two seats to hold a 53-47 margin. It would take a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to overcome a Trump veto.

Opponents of the resolution are reluctant to take any action to disrupt the strategic U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, seen as an essential counterweight in the Middle East to Iran, arch-enemy of close U.S. ally Israel.
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence chiefs are sounding alarms about an ever more perilous future for the United States, one in which the country is in danger of seeing its influence wane, its allies waiver and key adversaries team up to erode norms that once kept the country safe and the world more stable.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, along with the leaders of five other top intelligence agencies, delivered the grim assessment Tuesday, unveiling their annual worldwide threats report for lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Coats described the challenges facing the U.S. as a "toxic mix," combing the exploits of the "big four"  Russia, China, North Korea and Iran  and of non-state actors such as terrorists and criminal networks, and factors such as rapidly advancing technology, climate change and migration.

WATCH: Worldwide threats

?"It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance," Coats said, sharing testimony that often and repeatedly contradicted past assertions by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"We face significant changes in the domestic and global environment that has resulted in an increasingly complex and uncertain world and we must be ready. We must be ready," he added.

Driving many of the concerns, according to intelligence officials, is a growing alliance between Russia and China competing against the U.S. not just for military and technological superiority, but for global influence.

China Russia FILE - Russian, left, and Chinese flags sit on a table before a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, June 8, 2018. FILE - Russian, left, and Chinese flags sit on a table before a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, June 8, 2018.

?Russia-China nexus

"China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s," the report warns.

That relationship is only likely to strengthen as both Moscow and Beijing attempt to take advantage of what they see as a growing U.S. unilateralism, it added.

Officials say that is already playing out in Europe where both countries find openings, as traditional U.S. allies question Washington's role and consider new partnerships.

The threat assessment, while not mentioning the Trump administration's focus on "America First" policies or its repeated criticism of alliances like NATO, cautions that many of these U.S. allies are already "seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing U.S. policies on security and trade."

At the same time, China and Russia appear to be benefiting from different approaches.

Beijing is trying to win influence by selling would-be partners "a distinctly Chinese fusion of strongman autocracy and a form of Western-style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values and institutions," Coats said.

In contrast, Coats warned Russia is using weapons sales, private security firms and energy deals with some success across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa FILE - Korean People's Army (KPA) tanks take part in a military parade on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, Sept. 9, 2018. FILE - Korean People's Army (KPA) tanks take part in a military parade on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, Sept. 9, 2018.

?North Korea

The intelligence chiefs also broke with Trump over North Korea less than a month after the president touted what he called an "incredible" meeting with North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Yong Chol.

"We have made a lot of progress, as far as denuclearization is concerned," Trump said at the time.

But Coats is skeptical that Pyongyang will ever give up its entire nuclear arsenal, pointing to "activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization."

CIA Director Gina Haspel also said that despite indications North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "is trying to navigate a path toward some kind of better future," his calculations on the need for nuclear weapons do not seem to have changed.

"The regime is committed to developing a long-range nuclear armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States," she told lawmakers.

And while North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test in more than a year, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Robert Ashley likewise warned there is no reason to relax.

"They showed a capability to have an ICBM function," Ashley said, pointing to older missile tests. "The capabilities and threat that existed a year ago are still there."

Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a FILE - Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a shuttered restaurant that was the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces in Manbij, Syria, the previous day, on Jan. 17, 2019. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. FILE - Syrian boys look at the destroyed grills outside a shuttered restaurant that was the site of a suicide attack targeting U.S.-led coalition forces in Manbij, Syria, the previous day, on Jan. 17, 2019. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

?Islamic State

The U.S. intelligence community also expressed caution about the president's willingness to declare the demise of the Islamic State terror group.

The IS caliphate, Coats said, has been defeated, reduced to just a "couple of little villages" in Syria. But he said underestimating the group's resolve would be a mistake.

"ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria," Coats said, using an acronym for the group.

"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States, and we're going to have to continue  to keep our eyes on that and our interest in the realization that this terrorism threat is going to continue for some time."

Senate Intelligence Committee U.S. intelligence c FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats arrive with other U.S. intelligence community officials to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill, Jan. 29, 2019. FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats arrive with other U.S. intelligence community officials to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill, Jan. 29, 2019.

?Iran nuclear deal

U.S. intelligence analysts also appear to split with Trump over Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"At the moment, technically, they are in compliance," Haspel said of the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers meant to prevent Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. withdrew from the agreement last May, after Trump decried it as "defective to its core," arguing that it would allow Iran to get economic relief and still have a path to nuclear weapons.

But for now, U.S. intelligence officials say Tehran is at least a year away from being able to produce a nuclear warhead, though they caution that with new U.S. and European sanctions, their willingness to stick with the agreement may be waning.

"We do see them debating amongst themselves as they've failed to realize the economic benefits they hoped for from the deal," Haspel added.

At the same time, Coats said intelligence analysts expect Iran to put greater pressure on the U.S. in the Middle East, with Iranian-backed Shia militias likely to pose a growing threat to U.S. troops in Iraq.

FILE - Kelly Monroe, investigator with the Georgia FILE - Kelly Monroe, investigator with the Georgia Secretary of State office, takes a look at a new voting machine that produces a paper record being tested at a polling site in Conyers, Ga., Oct. 19, 2017. FILE - Kelly Monroe, investigator with the Georgia Secretary of State office, takes a look at a new voting machine that produces a paper record being tested at a polling site in Conyers, Ga., Oct. 19, 2017.

?Cyber

Coats and the other intelligence chiefs warned lawmakers that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran would continue to pressure the U.S. in cyberspace.

"We expect these actors and others to rely more and more on cyber capabilities when seeking to gain political, economic and military advantages over the United States and its allies and partners," he told lawmakers Tuesday.

Coats said despite successful efforts to protect "the integrity of the 2018 midterm elections," the intelligence agencies expected Russia, China, Iran and others to target the 2020 U.S. presidential elections.

"We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts in previous elections," he said.

Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run co FILE - Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 23, 2019. FILE - Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 23, 2019.

?Venezuela

Coats called the situation in Venezuela, where the U.S. has officially recognized Venezuelan legislative leader Juan Guaido as the country president, "tenuous."

In an effort to support Guaido and constrain Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. on Monday slapped sanctions on the country's state-run oil company.

But Coats said he expects Cuba, Russia and China "to prop up the Maduro regime's security or financing," and that the deciding factor could be the country's military.

"The influence of the military on that decision  probably is key to what direction we might go in," he said.

FILE - A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols Sunland FILE - A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols Sunland Park along the U.S.-Mexico border next to Ciudad Juarez, Jan. 4, 2016. FILE - A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrols Sunland Park along the U.S.-Mexico border next to Ciudad Juarez, Jan. 4, 2016.

?U.S. border

Despite the heavy focus from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security on the need for a border wall, the intelligence chiefs made no direct mention of threats along the southern U.S. border with Mexico.

Coats said he expected Mexico would "pursue cooperation with the United States as it tries to reduce violence and address socioeconomic issues, but authorities still do not have the capability to fully address the reduction, the flow and trafficking of the drug cartels."

Coats also warned that high crime rates and economic problems "will continue to spur U.S.-bound migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."

The Worldwide Threat Assessment report also warned of increased migration pressures worldwide due to a combination of a slowing global economy and climate change.
Negotiators from China and the United States are meeting in Washington Wednesday for a second round of negotiations aimed at resolving the ongoing trade war between the economic superpowers.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will lead their respective delegations in two days of discussions over Washington's long-standing complaints that Beijing forces U.S. companies to transfer their technology advances to Chinese firms and that it limits access to China's vast market.

But Monday's indictment by U.S. prosecutors of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, threatens to overshadow the new round of talks.

Following Huawei Indictment, China Accuses US of Suppressing Chinese Companies Chinese authorities and telecom giant Huawei have reacted swiftly to indictments U.S. federal prosecutors announced against the company and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. Mengs lawyer has argued she is being used as a pawn or hostage in the relationship between the United States and China, while Chinas Foreign Ministry says the case is part of a unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies. On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department charged Meng with conspiring to violate U.S. Chinese authorities and telecom giant Huawei have reacted swiftly to indictments U.S. federal prosecutors announced against the company and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. Mengs lawyer has argued she is being used as a pawn or hostage in the relationship between the United States and China, while Chinas Foreign Ministry says the case is part of a unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies. On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department charged Meng with conspiring to violate U.S.

The indictment alleges Meng, Huawei and the company's affiliates conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and deceived financial institutions and the U.S. government of their activities. China is angered over Meng's arrest in Vancouver by Canadian authorities on December 1

for extradition to the United States.

The trade talks are the result of an agreement last month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop the tit-for-tat tariff conflict between the two countries for 90 days starting on New Year's Day.



The Trump administration has imposed punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to compel Beijing to changes its trading practices, prompting Beijing to retaliate with its own tariff increases on $110 billion of U.S. exports.

If a deal is not reached by March 2, U.S tariffs will rise from 10 percent to 25 percent.
A new element has joined the flood of migrants clamoring to get into the United States  Nicaraguans fleeing their homeland's political unrest and violence.

In recent years, Nicaraguans had been only a small drop in the wave of Central Americans trying to migrate to the U.S., mostly from the poor and crime-wracked nations of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Now physicians, taxi drivers and other Nicaraguans are streaming in and applying for asylum or at least temporary protection, saying they fear they will be persecuted if forced to return home.

"I left Nicaragua because of the repression, the harassment, the intimidation I was under," said Luis Rodolfo Ibarra Zeledon, a family doctor who says he was targeted for helping injured protesters. "If I had stayed, it is likely that they would have made me disappear somewhere."

Nicaragua erupted in turmoil last April after the government announced a plan to cut social security benefits. Widespread protests caused the government to back down on reducing pensions, but the demonstrations grew and evolved into a movement demanding Ortega step down after 11 years in power.

FILE - Nicaraguan doctor Luis Rodolfo Ibarra Zeled FILE - Nicaraguan doctor Luis Rodolfo Ibarra Zeledon is pictured in Esteli, Nicaragua, Aug. 18, 2018. FILE - Nicaraguan doctor Luis Rodolfo Ibarra Zeledon is pictured in Esteli, Nicaragua, Aug. 18, 2018.

Ortega called it a U.S.-supported coup attempt, and his government and allies cracked down on protests, resulting in more than 300 people being killed, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Some non-governmental groups estimate more than 500 died.

While clashes have subsided, the country of 6 million people is tangled in its worst political crisis since civil war in the 1980s. Tens of thousands of people have left. According to the U.N., a large majority  at least 29,000  fled to Costa Rica.

Some have made their way to the U.S. by plane with existing tourist visas, staying for weeks or months to see if conditions improve at home. Others cross the border from Mexico illegally, then surrender to U.S. officials and ask for asylum.

The newcomers join 444,500 Nicaraguan nationals already living in the United States, primarily in Florida and California. Most of those fled the 1977-1990 civil war or the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

"Since April there has been a tremendous increase" of Nicaraguans, said Alfonso Oviedo Reyes, an immigration lawyer who has been offering asylum advice at public libraries in south Florida during weekends.

U.S. policies

They are reaching the U.S. at a difficult time for migrants.

President Donald Trump's administration recently said it was ending a program that allowed earlier Nicaraguan migrants to live in the U.S. temporarily, putting more than 5,000 at risk of deportation.

It has also imposed tough new rules on asylum-seekers in general, though at the same time, it has strongly accused Ortega's government of human rights abuses and imposed financial sanctions on high-level Nicaraguan officials.

Ibarra, the family physician, was at a detention center in Arizona for almost three months after entering illegally from Mexico at the end of September and immediately requesting asylum. He was released in December, when two American friends put up $28,500 in bail and offered to let him live in their house in central Florida.

Ibarra said by telephone that he decided to flee after receiving death threats. One was a 24-second video sent via WhatsApp showing armed men in military camouflage along with images of Ibarra, his wife, their baby daughter and his mother. A male voice says they are awaiting orders to "settle scores."

Ibarra said he was targeted because he assisted injured protesters at his home in the northern Nicaragua city of Esteli. At one point, masked men pulled him out of an ambulance, beat him and dumped him in a field, he said.

"I had a life, a good salary, a good job, a house, food," Ibarra said. "I never thought I would come to the U.S. I enjoyed living in my country."

He said he hopes his wife and 1-year-old daughter can join him in the U.S.

Nicaraguan numbers

Though there are few hard statistics yet for the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security has seen a jump in detentions of Nicaraguans trying to enter the U.S. illegally from Mexico.

FILE - Migrant children from Nicaragua, part of a FILE - Migrant children from Nicaragua, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America tying to reach the United States, play at a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 18, 2019. FILE - Migrant children from Nicaragua, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America tying to reach the United States, play at a temporary shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 18, 2019.

About 1,000 Nicaraguans were detained along the U.S. border with Mexico in the full 12 months from October 2016 through September 2017  a fairly typical number for recent years. But at just one point recently, the department was holding 1,300 Nicaraguans newly caught at the southern border a figure that doesn't include those released on bond or deported.

New asylum applications filed by Nicaraguans in immigration courts rose from 351 in fiscal year 2016 to 599 the following year and 654 in the latest fiscal year.

"Previously we nearly never saw Nicaraguan asylum-seekers," said Alan Dicker of the Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee in El Paso, Texas, which helps detained migrants pay bail. "We have received numerous requests to post bonds for Nicaraguans."

That increased flow is going to continue, predicts Charles Ripley, a political science professor at Arizona State University who lived in Nicaragua for eight years and visited the country in June.

"The economy has been decimated. These are people who are fearful of the government, but most importantly, there is an economic refugee problem. People are losing jobs left and right in Nicaragua," Ripley said.

'They will kill us'

Asylum is what Luis Antonio Campos Manzanares, a taxi driver, has in mind. He says that after he joined protests in the central Nicaraguan town of Boaco, he was pursued and threatened by police and government supporters.

"I did not know what to do," he said while showing a picture of an uncle whose bloodied face he said was inflicted by pro-government activists. "We came here looking for some help. We can't go back because they will kill us."

In July, he crossed the border and surrendered to Border Patrol officers. He was released from detention in October after paying a $12,000 bond with money his family put together. Wearing an electronic ankle monitor, he lives in Miami with his mother, Reina Manzanares, a housewife who fled their homeland three years ago and has requested political asylum.

FILE - Darling Perez shows a copy of a Nicaraguan FILE - Darling Perez shows a copy of a Nicaraguan government wanted poster in which she is listed, during an interview in Miami, Oct. 15, 2018. FILE - Darling Perez shows a copy of a Nicaraguan government wanted poster in which she is listed, during an interview in Miami, Oct. 15, 2018.

Also seeking asylum are Darling Perez, her husband and 12-month-old baby, all of whom arrived in the U.S. on tourist visas.

Perez was a pediatrician at a public hospital in the central province of Chontales and was told not to treat protesters when the disturbances broke out. She said she was fired by the hospital after she began helping wounded students at private clinics and also openly criticizing the government on social media.

She said she popped up on a "Wanted" poster showing people involved in the protests. Two of the 30 people on the poster have been detained, while others are in hiding or have fled Nicaragua, she said.

"I am in posters like if I were a terrorist," Perez said. "I can't go back in there."
JUBA - The United Nations children's agency is appealing for $180 million to meet the humanitarian needs of more than 800,000 women and children in South Sudan.

A top UNICEF official in South Sudan said the signing of a revitalized peace deal in September 2018 laid the groundwork for improved conditions in the country, but that more than 4.4 million children alone still need assistance.

Andrea Suley, acting UNICEF representative in South Sudan, said most of the money will be used to provide food aid.

"The nutrition sector is the sector that requires the most funding in 2019, literally over $50 million. That speaks to the insecurity around food for the population of South Sudan," Suley told VOA's South Sudan in Focus program. Suley said she doesn't anticipate the situation greatly improving this year.

FILE - An internally displaced girl prepares to co FILE - An internally displaced girl prepares to collect water in a plastic can in the Sudd Swamp near the town of Nyal, in South Sudan, Aug. 19, 2018. FILE - An internally displaced girl prepares to collect water in a plastic can in the Sudd Swamp near the town of Nyal, in South Sudan, Aug. 19, 2018.

UNICEF plans to spend $45 million to fund water, sanitation and hygiene projects in 2019.

"In South Sudan, only 50 percent of the population have access to safe drinking water. This is the number that puts children and women and all the population at risk with regard to disease and health in general," Suley told VOA.

Peace deals aimed at a half-decade of fighting in South Sudan have repeatedly fallen apart due to violations by both government and rebel forces.

Suley said while she hopes all sides adhere to the latest agreement this time, many South Sudanese are still suffering.

She said now that the country is in the dry season, the main constraint is insecurity.

"And that is why Equatoria [state] still remains the challenge for us. Bagari [state] has been an entrenched challenge for access for quite some time. However, there have been a lot of positive signs for the past month that the access for humanitarian aid is going into Bagari."

UNICEF's appeal comes one month after the agency said the world is failing to protect children living in conflict zones around the world, with catastrophic consequences.
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. humanitarian chief urged Syria's warring parties on Wednesday to ensure the delivery of desperately needed aid to Syrians stranded near the border with Jordan and warned again that a major military operation in extremist-controlled Idlib would be a humanitarian catastrophe.

Mark Lowcock said the U.N. wants an aid convoy, with more than 100 trucks accompanied by some 250 U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent personnel, to leave for the isolated Rukban camp on the Syria-Jordan border by Feb. 5. Its 42,000 people remain stranded in deteriorating conditions since the last convoy to the area in early November, which was the first since January 2018, he said.

Lowcock also appealed for money to buy basics from blankets to baby milk and bandages for millions of Syrians living under tents or tarpaulins or in unheated buildings in severe winter conditions that have seen freezing temperatures, snowfalls and flooding that has forced tens of thousands of people to move.

Syrian refugees gather for water at the Rukban cam FILE - Syrian refugees gather for water at the Rukban camp for displaced Syrians, on the Jordan and Syria borders, June 23, 2016. FILE - Syrian refugees gather for water at the Rukban camp for displaced Syrians, on the Jordan and Syria borders, June 23, 2016.

His address to the U.N. Security Council came amid rising concern over the plight of some three million people in Idlib, which was the last major stronghold of the Syrian opposition. Earlier this month, al-Qaida-linked militants seized more than two dozen towns and villages in northern Syria from rival insurgents in the most serious blow to a September cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey that averted a major government offensive in Idlib province.

Lowcock said that January saw an increase in fighting between armed groups in Idlib, placing civilians at risk and resulting in injury and death.

Today I reiterate the importance of sustaining the Russia-Turkey agreement and remind you that a large-scale military operation in Idlib would have catastrophic humanitarian implications, he told council members.

The envoys from the United States, Britain, France and other council nations echoed Lowcock and stressed that all efforts must be made to sustain the Idlib cease-fire.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council that Moscow shares concerns about the situation in Idlib and the increase in cease-fire violations, saying about a thousand cases have been reported as a result of which 65 people have died and more than 200 have been injured.

Syrian civilians cross from rebel-held areas in Id Syrian civilians cross from rebel-held areas in Idlib province into regime-held territories on December 27, 2018, through the Abu Duhur crossing. Syrian civilians cross from rebel-held areas in Idlib province into regime-held territories on December 27, 2018, through the Abu Duhur crossing.

He said the Idlib de-escalation zone has come under the control of al-Qaida-linked militants allied with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. And he recalled Russia's warning right from the start ... that freezing the situation where there are terrorists is something that is not sustainable in the long-term.

Nebenzia said after talks Sunday in Moscow between the Russian and Turkish leaders, work was stepped up to develop effective, feasible and agreed upon measures regarding the Idlib de-escalation zone.

He gave no details but reiterated that Russia continues to believe that the the best solution for stabilizing the situation in the northwest or the northeast of Syria is to transfer the areas' control to the Syrian government.

As for the aid convoy to the Rukban camp, Jordan closed the border over security concerns and the Syrian government and its ally Russia have blamed U.S. troops stationed nearby for failing to provide security for aid shipments  allegations denied by the Americans.

Lowcock, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the U.N. received verbal approval on Jan. 27 for the convoy to proceed as well as security guarantees from Russia and international coalition forces.

Planning is now under way for loading of the trucks to begin before the end of this week, and for them to set off by Feb. 5, Lowcock said. We call on all parties to ensure that this goes ahead without any further delay.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen said the convoy is vital, but sustained humanitarian access is crucial.
At least 15 mass graves have been found in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo in the wake of three days of ethnic bloodshed in December, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s MONUSCO mission in Congo said Tuesday.

Earlier in January, the United Nations estimated that at least 890 people were killed as a result of the violence, some of the worst in the area for years which highlighted the precarious state of inter-ethnic relations even in the Central African country's more peaceful regions.

A MONUSCO special mission looking into the circumstances of the fighting found at least 11 mass graves and 43 individual graves around the town of Yumbi and at least four communal graves containing at least 170 bodies in nearby Bongende, spokeswoman Florence Marchal said.

DRC

"While the conclusions of this mission are still being finalized, we are able to confirm that several hundred people including women and many children were killed in unbearable circumstances," she said.

"The speed, the modus operandi and the high death toll of this violence suggest that these events were planned and premeditated," she said.

A dispute linked to a tribal chief's burial is seen as a catalyst for the fighting between the Banunu and Batende communities. It led the government to cancel voting in the area for last month's presidential election.

While the bloodshed was not directly related to the Dec. 30 vote, a local activist told Reuters at the time that tensions between the two ethnic groups had festered because Batende leaders were supporting the ruling coalition while Banunu leaders backed opposition candidates.

Marchal said the area was now relatively calm, but warned: "Tensions between the two communities are still very evident and are at risk of worsening."

Safeguarding Congo's fragile security situation will be one of the key tasks for President Felix Tshisekedi, who was sworn in Jan. 24 in Congo's first transfer of power via an election in 59 years of independence.

The country remains deeply unstable years after the official end of the 1998-2003 regional war in the eastern borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi that led to millions of deaths, mostly from hunger and disease. Dozens of militia continue to ravage those areas.
GENEVA - The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, is appealing for $1.2 billion to provide humanitarian aid throughout the coming year for 5.4 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.

In the wake of a decision last year by the Trump administration to cut the United States' $300 million contribution to UNRWA, the agency found relief from the 2018 shortfall through additional donations from other countries and institutions.

The UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl said he hopes donors will maintain those same levels of contributions this year, as Palestinian refugees scattered in encampments in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria face a range of daunting obstacles.

FILE - UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuh FILE - UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl attends a news conference in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 10, 2018. FILE - UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl attends a news conference in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 10, 2018.

"Central to those challenges and pressures is the ongoing occupation in the Palestinian territory, the blockade of Gaza and the levels of violence that we have experienced there with incursions, but also lack of freedom of movement," Krahenbuhl said. "We have seen very limited employment opportunities, increased food insecurity and, in particular ... the alarming deterioration of psycho-social conditions in these contexts."

One of the greatest concerns for Palestinian refugees is the lack of a political future, Krahenbuhl told VOA, adding that young people in Gaza have little hope for what lies ahead.

In addition, he said, Israeli and Palestinian communities rarely interact with each other.

"If you grow up in Gaza, you do not meet Israelis. And frankly speaking, young Israelis very rarely meet Palestinians today. How this can be a contribution to future stability in the region is something that I just cannot see."

Krahenbuhl warned that the situation in the region remains extremely volatile. Preserving the key services in the difficult and polarized regions of the Middle East will require sustained and generous funding from donors, he said.
GENEVA - The U.N. refugee agency says there was an alarming increase in the number of refugees and migrants who lost their lives last year while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Last year, the U.N. refugee agency says, six people died on average every day while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

It estimates 2,275 people died or disappeared crossing the Mediterranean in 2018, despite a big drop in the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe. Last year, 139,300 people arrived, the lowest number in five years.

Italy PM Says 5 Nations Offer Help to End Migrant Boat Stand-off Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday five countries had come forward with offers to help end the stand-off over a rescue boat moored off Sicily with 47 migrants on board.The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago but Italy, which has closed its ports to charity ships, has refused to allow them ashore to request asylum."I want to thank the friendly countries that have in the last few hours said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday five countries had come forward with offers to help end the stand-off over a rescue boat moored off Sicily with 47 migrants on board.The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago but Italy, which has closed its ports to charity ships, has refused to allow them ashore to request asylum."I want to thank the friendly countries that have in the last few hours said

In 2017, on routes from Libya to Europe, the UNHCR found one person died for every 38 people who went to sea. That number rose sharply last year to one death for every 14 who arrived in Europe.

UNHCR spokeswoman Liz Throssell tells VOA the spike in refugee and migrant deaths is largely due to major cuts in search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

That really has resulted in the Mediterranean being the worlds deadliest sea crossing," said Throssell. "Non-governmental organizations have been carrying out sea rescues, but during the course of 2018, their ability to operate has been curtailed. So, what we are seeing is there is a lack of search and rescue. People setting off desperately and the result is people are drowning at sea.

Some of the 17 people rescued in the Mediterranean Some of the 17 people rescued in the Mediterranean Sea wait aboard the German rescue ship Sea-Eye afloat off Malta, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019. Some of the 17 people rescued in the Mediterranean Sea wait aboard the German rescue ship Sea-Eye afloat off Malta, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019.

Throssell says preventing search and rescue operations will not deter people who are fleeing persecution or extreme poverty from risking their lives on the perilous sea journey.

Italy Accuses France of 'Impoverishing Africa' A diplomatic spat between Italy and France over migration to Europe is a likely forerunner of coming political battles in the run-up to European Parliament elections, according to analysts.Paris summoned the Italian ambassador this week after Italys Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused France of "impoverishing African countries."If today we still have people leaving Africa, it is due to several European countries, first of all France, that didn't finish colonizing Africa, Di Maio told A diplomatic spat between Italy and France over migration to Europe is a likely forerunner of coming political battles in the run-up to European Parliament elections, according to analysts.Paris summoned the Italian ambassador this week after Italys Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused France of "impoverishing African countries."If today we still have people leaving Africa, it is due to several European countries, first of all France, that didn't finish colonizing Africa, Di Maio told

The UNHCR is calling for a strong regional and collaborative approach to protect refugees and help save lives at sea. It says that European countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece, should not be solely responsible for caring for the refugees and migrants that come ashore.

The agency says this is a burden that should be shared among all European countries.
President Donald Trump is dismissing  and potentially bolstering sales  of a new tell-all book by a former White House aide, calling it "made-up stories and fiction."

The book by Cliff Sims, called Team of Vipers, is the latest in a series of insider accounts by journalists and former Trump staffers that paint an unflattering picture of life in the West Wing. In it, Sims engages in score-settling with former internal rivals, fingers other administration officials as "leakers," and casts the president as disloyal to his staff.

Trump, in a Tuesday morning tweet, dismissed Sims as a "low level staffer" who had written "yet another boring book."

"He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer," said Trump, who claimed Sims had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Indeed, Michael Glassner, chief operating officer of Trump's re-election campaign, tweeted that the campaign was preparing to file suit against Sims for violating the agreement. Trump and his associates have a habit of announcing legal action and not following through.

Sims was read Trump's tweet during an appearance on CNN and said he knew a mean tweet was a possibility.

Sims' book was officially released Tuesday, the same day as another behind-the-scenes account of Trump's team by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an informal Trump adviser and longtime friend. The book, titled Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics, paints a sympathetic picture of a president who has been ill-served by what he describes as a "revolving door of deeply flawed individuals  amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons  who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia."

Christie, who challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 but endorsed Trump after dropping out, oversaw Trump's transition team until he was fired shortly after the November election, allegedly at the urging of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser. Christie, during his tenure as a federal prosecutor, sent Kushner's father  businessman Charles Kushner  to prison after winning his conviction on tax evasion and other crimes.

In his account, Christie paints unflattering portraits of a number of former Trump aides, including former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, whom he describes as "a fraud, a nobody, and a liar." He also rails against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, panning him as a "walking car crash" and "train wreck from beginning to end."

Sims began rolling out his book Monday with a media blitz that included an appearance on ABC's Good Morning America and a sit-down with late-night TV host Stephen Colbert of CBS.

Christie was due to visit with Colbert on Tuesday.
Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity said it is relocating 82 families from Cairo informal area of Manshiyet Nasser to Asmarat City district after a Monday rockslide destroyed some homes in the area.

According to Minister Ghada Wali, the families whose homes were affected by the rockslide will be relocated to residential units built by Nasser Social Bank in Asmarat City south of Mokattam.

Manshiat Nasser is a densely-populated informal housing area built adjacent to Mokattam hill in south Cairo.

Egypt has been pushing with efforts to eliminate informal housing through the provision of adequate alternatives to residents, including the newly constructed Asmarat City near Mokattam.

There were no reported injuries or fatalities as a result of the rockslide.

In press statements, the head of Manshiyet Nasser neighborhood, Mohamed Abdel-Galil, explained that the area affected by the fall of mountainous crusts was uninhabited at the time of the incident because it was already evacuated of residents by the authorities in accordance with the recommendations of the countrys Geological Scientific Committee.

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Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images(LONDON) -- Six large animals were electrocuted to death at South Africa's biggest national park in what officials described as "a freak accident."



A heavy storm toppled a power line in the Skukuza section of Kruger National Park last Friday, exposing a live cable that killed a giraffe and a white rhino, according to park spokesman Isaac Phaahla.



Two lions and two hyenas were also electrocuted while trying to feed on the carcasses.



"I think they also touched the live wire," Phaahla told ABC News via telephone Wednesday. "It is a freak accident."



Park rangers discovered the dead animals the following day. The rhino's horns were removed for safekeeping, according to Phaahla.



The world-renowned Kruger National Park is one of Africa's largest game reserves. It spans more than 7,523 square miles, roughly the size of Israel.



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Hong Kong: Govt reviews CSSA measures

The Government will complete its review of measures under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme within this year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today.

Speaking during the Chief Executive's Question Time at the Legislative Council, Mrs Lam noted the review will cover the effectiveness of the Integrated Employment Assistance Programme for Self-reliance (IEAPS).

It will also review the disregarded earnings arrangement and some special grants and supplements under the CSSA scheme.

Mrs Lam said the exercise would help the Government decide on whether the grants should be extended to other age groups.

She added the Government has implemented measures to help CSSA recipients aged 60 to 64, which include setting up a new $1,060 Employment Support Supplement and extending the existing services under the IEAPS.

This story has been published on: 2019-01-30. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.